The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Liza Powel O'Brien

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Liza Powel O’Brien joins Andy Richter to talk about meeting Conan, writing plays and her podcast Significant Others.

Hi, everyone. Andy Richter here, podcasting yet again. I'm actually in the Conan O'Brien Memorial Studio. Oh, no. What happened? Where did he go? I don't know. He's just not here today. So it's memorial. We have to think about him in the past tense. And I want to tell you, this one today is not going to pass the Bechdel test because we are talking about Conan all the time. Okay.

No, we aren't. I'm kidding. No, I'm kidding because we're not really going to. But, you know, I mean. He might be more boring to the two of us than to anyone else. I know. That's the thing. Except maybe his family. No, absolutely.

That's the thing. And I do feel like, by the way, I'm talking to Liza Powell O'Brien, who's here today to promote both her new podcast and her play. Oh. Isn't it? Well, that's over, but we can talk about it. Oh, play. Oh. Isn't it? Well, that's over, but we can talk about it. Oh, but I mean, isn't it going to play? You're not going to run anywhere else? Listen, if anyone out there would like to produce it, please contact me.

Well, I would, but I'm broke because somebody's show ended. Oh, is that what happened? Yeah, that's what happened. Oh, no wonder. No, but that what happened? Yeah, that's what happened. Oh, no wonder. No, but where were we? I was going to say something about, what were we talking about? Conan. Oh, about Conan.

Right, right, right. No, because I, I mean, I, you know, there is, it is tempting to, oh, you said, oh, about him being boring. Right. Yeah, to other people. It is tempting to, oh, you said, oh, about him being boring. Right. Yeah, to other people. Yeah, it is.

I do feel in many ways like I'm his TV wife. You're his real life wife and I'm his TV wife. definitely gave me, like, it made me very sympathetic towards the things that my ex-wife would go through at parties or out in the world of just kind of all this attention being on me and then kind of like, oh, hi, you know, to her and then me, me, me, me, me. Right. And that would happen. It was astounding. I mean, first of all, he's me. Right. And that would happen. It was astounding. I mean, first of all, he's a parade float.

He can't be incognito. You know that one time, I think he's talked about this, but we were in Seattle in the winter where it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. And he would take these obsessively long bike rides in the dark and the rain, maybe to escape my family. Who can say? Maybe to porno shops.

Definitely. And he was once on the bike with the helmet and, like, you know, glasses so that the rain didn't get in his eyes. And it was dark, and he was maybe 50 yards away from a car. And he thought, well, now I'll be, you know, anonymous. Hey, Conan. Like, people driving by. Just he is instantly recognizable. Yeah, I don't know. In a Like people driving by. Just he is instantly recognizable.

Yeah, I don't know. In a ski helmet, you can tell who he is. Yeah, and especially without a hat on. Then he's really. Well, forget that. But there were so many people that used to say, come up. Like if he and I are out in the world, come up and say, I love the show. I watch it all the time.

Can I get a picture with you? And then, okay. And then just like hand the camera to me and you are and I'd be like in some ways I understand it because I just I can understand like the weird

having experienced people meeting me and saying you're Andy Dick and being like what? How do you get? I mean, and then realize it's just something with the name. But then sometimes they really do think like, you're Andy Dick.

You were on the Ben Stiller show. And you're wrong if you try and controvert that, right? You're like, actually, no. No, no, you weren't. Well, sometimes, yeah, sometimes they're weird that way. But other times it's just the synapses get all screwed up because they get excited. So I never took offense to it. And also, I'm fine with not a lot of attention.

So, I mean, and is that something you, I mean, are you fine with not a lot of attention? I don't know what to do. The first time that I went to the Emmys with him in 2000, I was so nervous about being scrutinized because I'd never been in any kind of public view at all. And I got out of the car. Was this when you're just dating? Yeah, we were just dating. Are you engaged or just? No, no, just dating.

We've been dating like four months. Yeah. Or something. I don't know, six months, something like that. And, you know, you get out of the car and there's that gauntlet

of all the stands of the people screaming. And, I mean, I haven't been in a long time. I don't know if it's changed, but, you know. Yeah, they're on bleachers. They're on bleachers.

In the hot sun. And they're making a lot of noise. Yeah. And the photographers making a lot of noise. And the photographers and all the handlers. And I instantly realized, oh, I could burst into flame. And not only would nobody notice. Yeah, yeah. They certainly would not put me out.

Right. I am so beside the point here. And it was actually a great relief because when people say, like, what superpower would you love to have? I always wanted to be invisible. Yeah. That would have made me feel so comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. And I was tall early, so I was not usually invisible. And so, so in some ways, he's my invisibility cloak, which I love. Yeah. So I feel much less self-conscious. Right. Right. Around him. Now you're from Seattle. I am. The Seattle area or Seattle proper. Around him. Now, you're from Seattle. I am. The Seattle area or Seattle proper? Seattle proper.

And kind of a fair, you have a number of siblings, don't you? Just the one. Oh, just one. Yeah. Okay. And older, younger? Younger. Younger.

So, and what do your folks do? I know this is all like, you know, COVID's been a long time. Yes. My mother was a therapist. She's retired now. My mother was a therapist. She's retired now. My father also retired. He was an insurance broker, but he's also a jazz musician.

Oh, wow. That's a fun combo. It is. Yeah. So he, and I asked him once why he didn't, because he's quite good. And I said, why did you not, you know, try to do that for a living? Because in our era, you know, everyone's got a dream. Everyone's got passion. Everyone's got a creative outlet.

And he said, you know, the day you have to get up and do the thing you love, you kind of stop loving it a little bit. And which may have just been a justification of I'm, you know, need the security of an IRA. Right, right, yeah. But. What does he play? He mostly plays guitar and banjo, but he can kind of play anything. Oh, my God. Do they get into jam sessions and stuff?

Well, it's Dixieland jazz. Oh, okay. It's a free form. Right, right, right. But he does have friends who he plays with where they'll have musical conversations a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And nobody else is involved. Right, right.

We don't speak that. Right. Well, and yeah, because Dixieland is... A little more structured than... It's structured, but it is like, it's a jam. You know, it is very jammy. It's as jammy as a lot of rock and roll, as a lot of blues,

but kind of like almost more difficult than most of those things. There's almost like a classical. That might be true. Lots of notes. A lot of notes. Yeah. And charts.

Uh-huh. But there's something kind of courtly about it, too, that they all take their turns. Yes, yes, yes. You know, with their solos. Yes. And I think that's such a cool tradition amongst all musicians and probably every, you know. Yeah. Every genre. Yeah, yeah. when there's any kind of improvisation but um but yeah jazz sometimes when i think jazz i think of bebop and you know charlie parker and or free music yeah yeah yeah whole other thing and and

this is a little bit more like you have to know the class the standards and you have to know the standards and you have to know who came before you and what the famous versions of it are and all that stuff. Right. And you like play someone else's solo. Right. And you stick to the notes that whomever thought of it. I don't know about that actually. Oh, you don't know that? I mean, I think they do.

I mean, I don't know. Yeah. No, I think they do. I'm acting like I know things. Yeah, I think they improv. It's served me well. We could get them on the phone and solve this all just really, really fast. You know what? Dixieland doesn serve me well. We can get him on the phone and solve this all just really, really fast. You know what?

Dixieland doesn't test well. Eduardo has worked with my father before because he – Oh, really? Yeah, because in one of the episodes – Eduardo's a producer, sound engineer here. Whatever, you know. Say you're a producer. I'll tell you what you are.

No, he – we were working on the Nabokov episode, and Dan Bukatynski, who voices Nabokov, wanted to do the accent, which is incredibly challenging because Nabokov had a really bizarre accent. But then he also – there was a poem that we were reading the translation of, and I wanted to underlay the original Russian of it. And Dan doesn't speak Russian. So my father, who majored in Russian. Oh, wow. Well, he got a master's degree in Slavic languages. And so we got him on a Zoom so he could coach Dan

on the sort of phonetic pronunciation of this Russian poem. That's great. But the best part was I texted my dad and I said, would you be available for this? It was like 9, 15 in the morning. He said, I'm about to start

eating breakfast. How about noon? I was like, first of all, why are you eating breakfast for two hours and 45 minutes? Also, I'm on the Zoom with the actor who's doing this job for us.

No, I'm not going to say, could you come back in two hours? So he ate quickly, I guess, and was able to join us before we wrapped up. He wolfed it down in an hour. That's right. That's exactly right. Did you know my dad taught Russian? I didn't know that. Yeah, my dad, he's retired now.

But yeah, he taught Russian at Indiana University. Oh, wow. For 30 plus years. Did he ever live there? Yeah. Oh, he would go every year. Oh, wow. From even, you know, pre-breakup of the Soviet Union days, he started and he would go every summer with a group of students and they

would study for a while and then they would travel the rest of the time. So he's done lots of traveling. He has a lot of friends there. And his specific focus was phonetics. And he said that when he was in, I mean, I'm taking his word for it, but when he was in Russia, that he said only his clothes would give him away as a non-native speaker. Wow. And that lots of people wouldn't believe that he was a non-native speaker. So where, was he born in America? Yeah. He's from Springfield, Illinois.

And he went. The great Slavic outpost. Exactly. And he's you know German and French his dad's German

his mom's French and I mean not you know American they're all you know from coal miners

because central Illinois had a bunch of strip mines for many years and he went he started school and he was in, he was doing choral music. And so he was a music major at DePaul University in Greencastle, Indiana, and told me that he got there and hated music majors, like didn't want to be around music majors, found them to be pretentious boars.

So he dropped out, was going, I think, to community college back in Springfield, and decided that he better join the Army before he was drafted. So he tested. What year is this? This is in the 50s. Uh-huh. He took the aptitude, the language aptitude. It was just past the Korean War because he didn't have to go to war.

Okay. aptitude, the language aptitude. It was just past the Korean War because he didn't have to go to war. And he took an aptitude test and scored incredibly high in language. And so they sent him to Monterey, to the language school that is a big military language school. And he said it was the most beautiful place that he'd been, that he was like, which language, which studying which language will keep me here the longest. And they said, Russian or Chinese. And he said, okay, Russian, like Chinese seemed too daunting. And that, and it gave him his vocation.

That is fascinating. And kind of his avocation too, because he, he's a published author of like definitive phonetic texts of Russian songs for English singers. Like Rachmaninoff songs. Oh, incredible niche. I have them all at home in my shelf. And it's like, but apparently they're indispensable. And he owns that.

He's the guy. If you're an English-speaking opera singer and you need to sing some Tchaikovsky songs, which who knew they were Tchaikovsky songs, you got to get his book. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah. So he taught Russian for many, many years. Is that the only language that he learned besides English? He understands a number of them. Like most of the Slavic languages, he can understand. He's sort of basically conversant in.

And he can hear German and understand it. And French, too. There was a great piece in the – I feel like it was in the Washington Post about this guy who's a super linguist because they're studying his brain. And he's a – I think he's like a vacuum repairman or something. Yeah. He has this incredible facility and he speaks 11 languages just for fun. He just picks them up. Yeah, yeah.

And he's studying more. That seems so exhausting. I know, but also like talk about a superpower. Yeah, no kidding. It's cool. I know, I know. I just, you know, I wasted all mine on like French and German. Like why didn't I do Spanish?

Listen, I am mortified that I don't speak Spanish living in Southern California. I know. It would make life so much easier and fun and enriching. And, you know, I mean, I guess I could do it now, but, you know. It's harder now. Well, there's 30 other fucking things on that list that I don't do. On a daily basis, I'm like, yeah, I'll get to that later. You know, when I grow up.

My high school didn't even offer Spanish as a language. No shit. What was it? Is it a public school? No, it was a private school, and I think it was a class thing. They had Latin and Japanese and German and French, and I don't know if they had anything

else, but no Spanish. Of course. Yeah, no. And why would they? I wonder if they've changed that. Probably. Yeah, who knows? Put that on your list.

Go find out. What kind of kid were you when you were younger? I mean, you said you grew tall early. Yeah, I was tall early. And that is, like, it's incredible how some of those things can be so formative on your personality, you know? And there are people who are desperate for attention, and those are usually not the ones who are born tall early. You know, I was self-conscious. Warren Paul early. You know, I was self-conscious.

I mean, it's funny because my mom, being a therapist, would talk about people's psychology a lot. And I think because she would never talk about my psychology to me, because that would be weird. So I just didn't think it applied to me in this way. And I remember thinking when I was like six, I wonder, she was talking about someone's personality. And I was like, I wish I had a personality. I just thought I was like six. I wonder, she was talking about someone's personality. And I was like, I wish I had a personality. I just thought I was so boring. And maybe I was boring. I don't know. But I was a kid who really loved to act as grown up as possible.

Not in like fast ways. But when I was, I remember being three and sitting next to my preschool teacher at the like playground and everyone else is playing on the playground. And I'm sitting next to her trying to like copy the way that she's crossed one leg over the other and like looking at what she's wearing and like, I'd like a blouse like that, you know? And I remember asking her how old she was and I think she was 33 or something. I was like, yes, that is the perfect age. I mean, what a weirdo. Who, when they're three, wants to be a fully grown adult? Yeah, yeah. Like, enough of this business on the playground. I'd like some keys and I'd like a bank account.

I kind of get that, though. Like, responsibility. I couldn't get out of childhood fast enough. Really? childhood fast enough. Really? Because I was just so, I think so aware of the powerlessness of it all. And the lack of respect that you're afforded as a child.

Right. You know, like what you want, who fucking cares? Do as you're told, you know? And I just couldn't wait to get out of that age. And also just, you're such a slave to like this tempest of emotions and hormones and madness. Everything seems so crazy. I know. I try to remember that when I was in my 20s, actually when I met Conan, I had been taking cello lessons. I played the piano, but I had always loved the cello. And I was stuck with the piano because that's what we had. Right. So I couldn't,

I couldn't play the cello. So I took it up when I could in my twenties and, and then moved to New York city from Seattle and did not have a cello to bring with me. And it was actually the first gift Conan ever gave me. It was a cello. But anyway, I started taking lessons in New York City. And so I'd work all day. And then I would come home and I would schlep my giant cello around the Upper West Side to the apartment of this guy who had been like first chair in the symphony or something. Yeah, yeah. And spend an hour with him trying to learn this instrument that I had never played. And I got home and I was like, no wonder you're exhausted as a kid.

This is what you're doing on every front. You're learning everything all the time. And I realized, oh, I can't do that and have a job and be a grown-up person. And I don't remember why I started talking about that. Well, no, just processing the information of music is, yeah. It's a lot. It's exhausting. Well, and I was going to say, because what we were saying was about kind of the tempest of youth.

Yes. And you brought it up again, and I wanted to get back to it. Having a therapist mom sounds like it could be beneficial or a freaking nightmare. Well, I'll just say that the strangest person I've ever met had two psychiatrists for parents who were divorced and remarried to psychiatrists. So he had four psychiatrists as parents. Oh, my goodness.

So that's the joke, of course. But, you know, I think in a lot of ways it's very lucky because, you know, she was also particularly interested in child psychology. So she was very focused on making sure that kids, you know, kind of you can buffer some of what you're talking about in terms of everything being out of your control and overwhelming and, you know, stuff happening in your body that you don't understand. And, and she was very sympathetic to all of that. And then, and then there comes a point where you can't, you can navel gaze too much, you know, and you can sort of wonder about the you of it all too much.

And I think I might have fallen into that trap a little bit. Not that it wasn't her fault, but I did come with this sort of assumption that psychology is at the root of everything and that just fixing that or thinking about that or talking about that is the way to make everything better and, you know, has its limits. Right. Of course it does. Yeah, I relate so much having been to, you know, a gazillion hours of therapy, you know, between that and private school, I'd have a freaking beach house and a boat if I hadn't

spent money on all of those things. But instead you have a pristine inner psyche. Yeah, I'm totally perfectly put together. Yes. I mean, it's obvious. Just spent three minutes with me. I mean, that guy's got it going on. You know, I mean, he can't put down the fork, but besides that, everything's great.

No, because it is like, like my mom was really open to therapy and encouraged our, you know, we went to like family counseling, which just got me in the process of being comfortable with the talking cure, as they call it. But it's like the same thing that you say, like somebody that had two psychiatrist parents. To me, I think when psychiatry, like, because I've known some pretty cuckoo kids of shrinks, and a couple, you know, like couple three. and a couple, you know, like couple three. And to me, it struck me as like the way sometimes, and I think it's probably more romantic fictional notion,

but how kind of like cops can easily go to the other side to crime. Like they're attracted to crime. Right. And they decide to be on this side of the business, but they could easily break through to the other side to where you're committing the crimes. And I feel like with craziness, that's with shrinks. They're like attracted to craziness. And it's because like, well, yeah, because. They have it.

Yeah. You also have, you're a mental criminal. That's right. You inflict it on your children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you inflict it on your children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, there's probably a lot to be broken down to between which type of mental health professional you choose to become.

And a psychoanalytic social worker, which is what she was to me. And again, I might be a little biased, but seems sort of like, I want to be well informed and helpful, but I don't necessarily want to, you know, mess with your brain chemistry or, you know, the psychiatrists that I've known, and that she's known some of them are amazing, brilliant people, and some of them should be in jail, you know. And I mean, I guess that's true probably of any profession, but I bet you there's a higher percentage of psychiatrists who are reprehensible. Yeah. I mean. Let's find out.

Add it to your list. It's got to be a, I mean, there has to be a bit of a God complex to it. Right. You know, because you are really getting in there and stirring around in in people's brains and you know and scraping the sides of the bowl and but and then also you have but you also have like the gravitas of a medical degree and that makes means you know everything and you know right you're not just like you know like a psychologist is more just kind of like a sensitive person that read a lot of books. You know, I mean, I guess a shrink is the same thing, but it's, you know, it does.

It just has more. And I think there's a lot of, there are a lot of hierarchies within that genre of medicine too. genre of medicine too. And actually my mom, I think, wanted to become a psychologist and went to- You mean a psychiatrist or- No, I think she's, because she has an MSW, so she's not a psychologist. And I think she was going to apply and she went and was either pregnant or had me with her or something. And the person who ran the school of psychology was like, no, no, no.

This is not for, like, the breeder. This is not for a young woman. You belong over in social work. And she kicks herself for having listened to that person. But at the same time, you know, I think she did all right. Well, yeah. And I mean, helping people is helping people. It just, you know, I mean, you're still, because my aunt had an MSW and was a counselor, you know, you're still kind of doing the same thing.

Absolutely. You know, I mean, I wouldn't even really be able to know, you know, in terms of like functional differences, I wouldn't even know what it would be, you know. Right. It's like, you know. Right. Well, yeah. I think the billing is where you see the difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you take a kind of, and I don't want to jump fully ahead to motherhood, but did you take a psychological approach to motherhood? To a debilitating degree. Did you really? Yeah. to motherhood? To a debilitating degree. Did you really?

Yeah. I was far too concerned with, I realized at one point, maybe three months in, and we had, our first kid did not sleep. She woke up every 45 minutes. Real asshole. Such a dick.

It was not pretty. Yeah. I remember it at the time. I remember it at the time. I remember it at the time. No, I mean, poor Conan was, he didn't know. Because his mother had six specialist and the you know the like you can hire specialists to help them learn how to grip the pencil when they're in preschool so they get into the better kindergarten whatever so yeah so the antithesis of that is the is the

you know irish catholic mother of six right and the infant to the nine-year-old and say, oh, sweetie, whenever anything was at all unpleasant for me or my sister or my father, just like, oh, I stubbed my, oh, sweetie, you know, I didn't, I didn't, I got the wrong kind of milk by mistake at the grocery store. Oh, sweet. You know, it's just maybe a little overdone empathy. Like patronizing to a certain point. No, no. She truly was.

Yeah. Oh, I'm so sorry that happened. You know, and I sort of thought like, oh, well, that's, I love my mom. She's a great mom. So that's how you're a good mom. And so when you have a squalling infant, you're like trying to empathize and make it better. That doesn't work so well. And there's a healthy degree of self-preservation that has to come into the mix.

And that was very hard for me to find. degree of self-preservation that has to come into the mix. And that was very hard for me to find. I had to have that sort of beaten into me. And I had to have my husband say like, this is not working the way that you're doing it. And- Nobody's benefiting from this dynamic. Yeah. This idea of like, every time she cried, I thought I was supposed to make it better. And I was supposed to, you know, I finally realized like, I'm acting like her host here on earth. Like, I am your host. I will show you an excellent time always. Like, that's not, that is not sustainable. So, I had a lot to learn.

There's also a big difference between the first and the second because we, my ex-wife and I used to, you know, with our first kid, he was, he had, he was colicky for a while and, you know, was up and it was rough. And I mean, you know, it's not, you're not in a gulag or anything, but it's, you know, it's a basic form of torture, sleep deprivation. So, yeah, that's, you're being tortured. That's right. But, and we were very macho about we're going to do this ourselves. We're not going to just throw money at a problem and hire somebody. And by the time and we we waited five years to have another kid.

And when when she came around, we're like, get a fucking nurse in here. We're sleeping, you a fucking nurse in here. We're sleeping, you know. Yeah. And, you know, she's. It's all fine. Yeah. She's arguably better put together than the first one. Because she wasn't absorbing the angst and resentment.

Well, I mean, I'm kidding. You know, they're different. You know, it's apples and oranges with every kid pretty much. Well, that's the other thing. Yeah. The chemistry between the parent and the kid is different each time. Yeah. And they come out three quarters of the way baked.

Right. You know, like I thinking about looking at my children while they're still wet from being inside their mother and realizing like from the look on their face. The same person. They're the same goddamn person. You know, they're the same goddamn person, you know? That's right. They have the same attitude, the same sort of, like, you know. Energy. Yeah, energy that they interface with the universe with, you know?

Mm-hmm. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Well, when you're in school, what did you, I mean, did you start, what were you sort of hoping to be? I thought I was going to be a therapist or psychologist. Yeah, yeah. I was really interested in that. And then. Was that to please your mother, do you think? Because I was interested in the brain and I liked what she did and respected it and thought I would be good

at it. And I probably wouldn't have been terrible at it. But in my sophomore year, I was reading a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book in this beautiful reading room in the library. And I was like, this is all I want to do. Oh, wait, that's called, that's what you want to major in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I chose English as my major. And then, and then when I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to write and I had to get paid for it, which narrowed things down considerably. And so I, I picked advertising because I thought I could never get into, you know, TV writing or film writing. I just completely wrote that off as inaccessible.

What about journalism? I'm terrible at research, which is why it's so ironic that I now have created a podcast that is so research heavy. But the internet has changed that. I have to say, if I had to do all my research in the field, going to

libraries or talking to other humans, it would not happen. But the internet makes it a lot easier. So, yeah, journalism was out. No, I'm not in. I'd rather – I can't get the facts right, so I have to make them up. I also – because I started out – I went to University of Illinois, and I was heading towards the college of communications,

which starts in your junior year. So I just had two years there of liberal arts and sciences. And then I had a meeting with a dean there who I told her what I wanted to do. And she's like, you should go to film school. You shouldn't be here. She said, because we'll teach you how to be a reporter. And I was like, yeah, because I don't care about other stories. I only care about fake stories that either I or somebody else makes up.

I don't want, you know. And I also kind of like was looking forward as being Midwestern and practical, looking about like what are the first steps of that? It'd be like reporting on, you know, I don't know, the price of corn or something, you know, and like, no, thanks. I don't want to do that. So wait, did you go to film school? I did. I transferred. I finished out my junior year there.

And I had no intention. I was going to go to U of I for four years, but they didn't really have a film program. You could kind of patch together. You could film the corn. Well, you could patch together something in like the College of Fine Arts. But A, that wasn't the kind of film that I was interested in anyway. And I looked around and there was, you know, I thought, yeah, film school. And so I started to look and I ended up going to Columbia College in Chicago, which is a private arts college.

Now, like a big going concern at the time, it was sort of like an elevated trade school. Well, yeah. I mean, that's what it is. Yeah, exactly. And and its competition in town was the Art Institute. Its competition in town was the Art Institute. But, you know, I mean, they were kids doing, you know, hour and a half movies of leaves falling kind of stuff. And that, again, I was.

The Chicago new wave. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and I was Chicago practical. I was like, how am I going to get a job? And there was a lot of film production. There still is a lot of film production. And again,

but again, it was advertising. That was, Oh, interesting. Almost everything I worked in was advertising. Yeah. And I think if I, if, you know,

show business hadn't worked out or if I'd been too scared to say yes to certain things, I'd probably be writing ad copy and producing television commercials today. And you'd have

a lot more money. I probably, I very well may, you know, but I mean, no, I can't. A lot more therapists. I've had, well, but I've also, I mean, it would be doing the same thing, but I had a lot less constraints on me. Right. You know, I got to be way silly just for silliness sake, as opposed to like be silly to sell you know dash or whatever so what

did i'm this is not the way this is supposed to go but i'm curious i don't care good so we just got to fill an hour however we do it is up to us great yeah um it's my favorite kind of expectation none um so you go to film school you in advertising, and then how do you get into proper comedy? Well, I finished film school and I had had an internship at a production company that did commercials. Then I started working freelancing commercials. Did a little bit of everything. Started out as a PA. Ended up pretty much primarily in props, which I enjoyed immensely.

Sorry about Bill. Yeah, Bill Tall, the show's prop master, just passed away yesterday. This morning, I thought. Yes, yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday. So props right now is a sad subject. But I, and you know, and I also, I had an affinity. I mean, Bill was a wonderful guy and his partner, John Rau.

I used to spend tons of time back in the prop room, back at Rockefeller Center, because it was in the bowels of the building. And only partially because at the time I smoked. And once the building, you couldn't smoke in the building. Because when I started there, you could smoke anywhere in that building so crazy that to think that within my lifetime there was a time when people would walk down the halls of an office building yeah smoking cigarettes everywhere planes to yeah planes when when sarah and i went on our honeymoon in 1994 we were on a plane where people were still smoking cigarettes in the back, which is bananas. Because you get all smelling like smoke no matter what, you know. I mean, I've noticed lately there was somebody, I was at my kid's school and I was at the

far end of the gym and I could see out the open back door. Somebody had lit up a cigarette 20 feet past the door and I was seeing them put the lighter away and I could smell it. Like, it's just so crazy. But so I used to hang out with them all the time, but also because I knew props. Like I was like I had ended up in that in that line of work. And it's it's the most fun job on the set. You get you get, you know, you have like a crazy hoarder's closet full of weird junk.

Yeah. And and in production production sense they'd send you out to just buy stuff so you get this kind of like vicarious consumption thrill of they put three grand in your pocket and say you know you're propping out a dentist's office well especially on a show like late night where it's silly props. Absolutely. You can't get silly enough. You've got to be right. And I'm wondering about the sort of molding of my children's minds when we used to go visit their father at work and we'd walk down the hall.

And invariably there would be the craziest shit in the hallway. And they're just with the saucer eyes taking it all in. Yeah, yeah. Like, what is that going to do? It's probably good. Yeah. It's like stretching their understanding of just they can accept all sorts of weird stuff. Yeah. Because they've seen it forever.

Well, and it makes the world seem magical, too. Yeah, absolutely. You know, like there is like, yeah, I always love the idea. I mean, you know, it's kind of in like Pee Wee's Big Adventure. You know, there's like somebody dressed as a Roman guard and somebody dressed as a spaceman and somebody, you know, is dressed as Marie Antoinette. It's no big thing. And it's no big thing. And that's, you know, that's the lunchroom.

And that was always the picture you had. And what I loved about our show was that at Warner Brothers, if a cowboy or a robot went to the commissary, it was probably from our show. That's right. You know, like it was like if there was somebody, you know, dressed up like the Pope, they were working for us, you know. Or a bear. Yeah, yeah. I remember, I feel like there was a camel in the hallway one time when we came by.

Probably. Probably. Yeah. Probably. But yeah, then I worked in props and in props, but I started taking improv classes in Chicago, and then that just kind of organically grew to a show that we started, went on the road and went to New York and went to L.A. And do you feel when you're doing improv, do you feel sort of calmed in a way that nothing else does for you? Do you have that experience? No, I don't.

Well, first of all, I'm very, very rusty from improv. You know, I mean, not from improv. I'm rusty in my improv skills. And I'm not a true believer like many people are in terms of that they want to still. I don't. I can take or leave improv. But you do it, like, I'm just, I mean, the way that Conan talked about working with you was sort of like, you put him at ease instantly the first time that you guys had a conversation

and started, I think you were playing already, just having a radio conversation. Robert Smigel, the first time he did an on-camera test, which was just to basically look at him, like there was nothing even planned. It was just, it was on Bob Costas' later set. And Robert said, hey, go sit by him, keep him company. And I didn't know if he, I'm sure he was at that, it was a, throughout that entire process, I had no idea like that it was an audition.

And like, I mean mean i just was like they said go do this and i just kind of there's a simple right mess to me of like okay and it makes sense yeah go talk to him keep in company because oh that son of a bitch needs to keep in company and leave him to his own devices uh yeah but uh but he. But he, you know, like Jeff Ross at one point, after we'd been doing test shows, said to me, well, you got the job. And I was like, I thought I already had the job. Oh, shit. You know, good thing I didn't know. I mean, not that it would have made a big difference, but I just, I mean, I just kind of, I always just take people at their, at the face value. And I, I mean, that's improv. I don't know. I mean, not to over ascribe to it,

but I do think that there's a, just because I get so anxious about, I think that's anyway, how my social anxiety presents is like, what if something happens and I don't know how to respond, but that in improv is that you just don't worry about that. Like you can't. It's a practice. I mean, you have a facility for it to begin with, but then you over practice, you get kind of used to it. Because, I mean, I was just talking about this the other day.

I, you know, I was on a TV show for a million years that would go out on TV and never sweated it. I mean, beyond the initial sort of getting used to it period, which I don't even remember how long that was, whether it was months or years. But doing that show was like going, if somebody said, come down to my office and I want to chat with you,

it was the same sort of like, okay, yeah, here we go. Not heavy lift. Music, here we go. I yeah music here we go let's you know i'm gonna exist in this moment and yeah and be myself and have fun and uh but you know later in life and i mean going and saying like somebody says come do this improv thing in front of 40 people in a little black box on Franklin Avenue. And I am nervous. And I don't, you know, I kind of, I have a lot of friends who are still into improv. And I just, I was like, I don't, my thing, and I've said, I just said this the other

day on this podcast that I would just felt like, why would I leave the house to go get nervous somewhere? You know, like if I'm going to leave the house, it's going to be for something fun that I really enjoy. And like the last time that I did a full long form improv show, it was thrown at me at the last second. So I didn't have a lot of time to think about it. I did fine.

I did well. I did not. I did not feel like, oh, shit, I really sucked and people have an expectation from TV guy being good. I did very fine. But after it was done, I was like, oh, I'm not doing that for a long time. I mean, part of that, obviously, is just as we get older, it gets harder to imagine leaving the house. Yes. And you're more aware. Your brain isn't as supple. No, your brain isn't as supple no your brain isn't as supple but i wonder if it also has something to do with this era of heightened attention you know like everybody's under scrutiny and the fear that may have not been present in a different era

of accidentally saying something that could maybe go the wrong way that doesn't enter into my thing. My thing is just the embarrassment of not being good on stage in front of people who have come to see a show. And it's weird, too, because why those stakes should be higher than on TV. And that, I think, is just a question of comfort. Right. I have, you know, I'm attached to rooms in terms of my comfort. Like going in our studio, I could do that. At Largo, I could do that. There's different places where I'm very comfortable and just kind of.

But in a new setting, it can be kind of nerve wracking. Yeah, it can be nerve wracking. And even then, I don't even know when it's going to hit me. I don't even know when I'm going to be like, oh, shit. But it also, too, it's a brainwashing that you do on yourself of compartmentalizing your focus onto just doing this thing and not worrying about what's happening as you get older yeah yeah it's you know it's it's again it's a it's a it's a thing you process you get to so so advertising um yes how was that for you um a lot and what took you did you start in seattle and advertising and moved to new york Yep. And Seattle was actually, it's actually a great, I don't know if it still is, but it was a great town to do advertising in. Oh, really?

Yeah. San Francisco, Austin, Boston, and Seattle at that time were all similar in that they had a relatively creative kind of predisposition almost. There's a lot of creativity in those places. And then – Smaller agencies probably. Smaller businesses. Yeah. Yeah, so you were more often dealing with the person who was empowered to make the decision.

Oh, I see. And so when I moved to New York, just because I wanted to live in New York and I didn't want to go there for advertising, but I did want to go there. That's the way. That's the way. And it was so much more bureaucratic and so many big accounts that you would just pitch and pitch and pitch and pitch and pitch and never – my partner and I called ourselves the Queens of Cardboard. We just kept pitching ideas. And even if they liked them, be like, yeah, okay, we've got to get 17 other people to sign off on this. And you're like, well, no, that's never going to happen.

So I got very frustrated with that part of it. But when I was first doing it in Seattle, I did a lot of radio spots in the beginning, which is great. They had Nordstrom as a client, my agency, and they ran radio spots all the time. And so it was just the new people got put on that. And TV were the big plum assignments. So people cared less about radio. But I loved it because there were little, you know, minute-long radio theater dramas. So I got to – I learned a lot about writing dialogue.

I learned about ideas and how to present an idea and creative economy, I imagine, too. Definitely that and, and joke writing, not that I'm good at joke writing, but like, something can seem really funny in a small room, and then you take it to a bigger room and other people are involved. And suddenly, it's not funny. And you have to, you know, I don't know how to explain any of that. But you get a crash course in it when you're doing those things. Yeah, yeah. So that was, and then I got, so I did it for I think like eight years.

And it was a good job. It was a really good job. But then I was getting really frustrated and I really wanted to write fiction. And so I applied to graduate school. Where at? I applied to – I wasn't really sure if I wanted to stay in New York. I decided to kind of try my luck with New York. Because it's hard to live in New York, period.

But if you're living in New York while you're in graduate school and not earning anything, you've got to have money. That's not going to help. So I was a little bit torn, happened to meet my husband right at the right time. So that was lucky. So I was able to make that change. But I applied to the New School. I applied to Sarah Lawrence.

I applied to Columbia. I don't think I applied to Iowa, because that's the big one, but I didn't want to move to Iowa. So I got into all of those programs, and I chose Columbia and loved it. I mean, going to graduate school after you've been in the working world for almost a decade is beyond exciting. And people are skipping classes. And some people come right from college and they're still in that mode. They're skipping. You're like, what are you talking?

Why would you ever not want to come be here? It's so amazing. I'm only talking about stuff I'm interested in. I don't have to go to meetings. I don't have to keep a time card. I don't have to go to meetings I don't have to keep a time card I don't have to talk to clients like all that shit so I really really loved it

and I did a little bit of teaching as part of it which I loved too and then had our kids and was still finishing my thesis and then finally when I was done with that we had little kids and we were moving here. And so writing got shelved for a little while.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you've written a number of plays, yeah? Yeah, so then when I started writing again- When did, yeah, why plays from fiction? I moved out of New York City and started writing plays because that's the way you're supposed to do it, right? Yeah, I- Get out of the mecca of theater

and start trying to work in theater. You should go back to writing ad copy just for fun. Right, exactly. So, yeah, when our younger kid started all day school, I finally had, which was in 2000, we moved here in 2009. So, I think it was 2011. And I finally had time. And I was like oh my god i have to write something and i wanted to write something of some kind of length because i had written short stories mostly and i was like that's so insubstantial and i'm not really sure i ever

write a good one anyway and a novel is still kind of beyond my reach i don't know how people can conceptualize and then um complete a. That's a lot. I was like, a play's like 75 pages. I feel like that's doable somehow. Yeah. And there's a lot of blank space on the page when you're putting dialogue down. It's a lot of dialogue. And I'd taken a playwriting course at Columbia as an elective with Ellen McLaughlin, who was the, she was, she's one of Tony Kushner's muses. She was the original angel in Angels America. Oh, wow. And she's this phenomenal theater artist and teacher.

And it was my favorite class that I took the whole time I was in grad school. So I was like, I think I – and plays start from conflict and argument. So I was struggling with something in my head. And I was like, I can't get over this thing. I keep kind of having this argument in my head. Maybe I should write a play about it. So that was what I did. And it was really bad, that play. But I wrote it. I wrote the whole thing. And that was the beginning of writing plays. So I've been doing, you know, workshops and festivals. And I've said to people, I would love to go back to grad school and get an MFA in theater, but that's not happening. So I'm trying to cobble together my own MFA.

Why do you think it's not happening? Well, I mean, when I was trying to do it, I had younger kids. Yeah, they're kind of bigger. Now they're older. Yeah, yeah. Well, now I might be able to, maybe. I don't know. It also, I think at a certain point you get enough practical experience that it takes the place of what grad school would offer.

But at that time when I knew nothing, not that I know much now, but I knew a little bit more than nothing. And I, you know, it's like running away to join the circus. And I had kids who were under eight. So that was not happening. Also, I, you know, my, that job that you guys had was a real organizer. Like that job was so inflexible, the schedule, and it dictated so much where you live, how often you can leave where you live, when you get to be home, how much you need to sleep before you go back to the place where you do the job. Like

we kind of organized our whole life around the demands of that job. And that changed really recently. So we're still kind of, I think, sorting through what is possible now. Yeah. You don't have to be at the studio five days a week. Right, right. And you get more than, you know, two weeks off at a time. Oh, yeah.

When we got married, it was one of those, that was back in the NBC days. And so that was one of those winter breaks. Like, NBC days and so that was um one of those winter breaks like you guys never got more than two weeks off at a time and we and not and only in the summertime only like in August yes and which is like when my I took my family to Japan once right which was a fantastic trip but going to Japan in August is like going to Tampa in August it was you know but that's when you have the time to make that turnaround. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. So we did it in January and it was a week-long break. And so he had to get – we did it in Seattle. So he had to get to Seattle for the rehearsal dinner, the rehearsal, the wedding, the whatever. And then we had our honeymoon. It was like, okay, now you got to go do that and then check that box before you get back to New York to be back on the set. So I remember the first time that we had three weeks off in August. I mean, Conan used to say like, I wonder what it's like to have three weeks off.

I wonder what it's like, which is, by the way, like join the rest of the population. Like nobody, who gets three weeks off? Well, and also, I mean, my feeling – You had a lot of weeks during the year. Yeah, my feeling with him sometimes is like, I bet you could swing it if you pushed it, considering your name's in the goddamn title. Well, for many years, I think that was not the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It probably did turn into that.

But, yeah, that was – anyway, so we were still living under those constraints, but then also like little kids and all that stuff. So I was sort of like trying to cobble together my own homegrown MFA in theater, which probably maybe I'll learn more doing that way. I don't know, because I really had to be active about it. So yeah, that's what I've been doing. But, you know, the theater, it's, I don't know if it's how it compares to TV or film in terms of how long it takes a person average to emerge. Yeah. of a decade for someone who's working constantly. Sometimes there are exceptions to that, obviously, like, you know, and certainly historically there have been a bunch of exceptions to that. But it really takes a long time for someone to gain any kind of traction. And break through.

Yeah. Even just in that industry, forget like the public. So I've been an emerging playwright now for quite some time. And whether or not I'll actually emerge, I don't know. But it's been fun trying. Yeah. See, that would be – I just don't have the – Patience.

The patience and the attention span. It's like – I don't know what I do either. When I've written pilots and then get notes and back, by the time it's time to really then – Work on. For the pilot to be passed on and sold to somebody, I'm done with it. Yeah, right. I'm no longer even interested in it because they've just kind of needled you to death on it. And I just, you know, and then I end up getting to be like, you know, if there's too many notes, I'm like, fine, screw it.

Never mind. Yeah, whatever. I don't even care anymore. I'll show you. Right. Yeah, way to go, Andy. You really showed them by not caring about your own project. I had a friend who used to say, I'll show me.

Yeah. One of those. But so that daily product really does have its upsides of what you guys did. Oh, absolutely. Like, Conan, you say we're making pictures in the sand. Yes. And that to me is terrifying because it takes me so long to figure out what I'm doing and to get it to the place where I'm happy with it that I need it to be a little bit more indelible. I need it to feel like maybe someone will perform this more than one time, that this will have a life in a different age maybe. Don't know if any of it will, but I'll try. Yeah, you get, I mean, again, I don't know if any of it will but yeah i try you get i mean again i i don't know i

mean i guess it's kind of suited to my personality like when i started working freelance i liked the different faces different places aspect of it um and so that's why you know like being on one show for all of those years was not something I would have chosen. Well, yeah, probably chosen, but also just like I wouldn't have pictured that for myself. And like the metaphor I always use is we're laying tracks for a train that you can hear coming. Like it's like just over that hill. We better get these tracks laid. You can't overthink it.

Yeah, which is kind of a blessing in that sense. And coming back to work on The Tonight Show with Conan was, you know, I had, you know, I left in 2000 and I had a very kind of like, I got to go out into the world and see what I can do on my own. Because, you know, I mean, one of the remarkable things about the two of us working together is that it's very difficult for people with similar skill sets to sit next to each other and do the thing that they do. Differently.

Yeah, differently. And, you know, especially in concert, especially like, you know, it's like having two lead singers, you know, especially in concert, especially like, you know, it's like having two lead singers. Yeah. You know, it's just it's. Anne and Nancy Wilson, although one of them does play the guitar. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he plays guitar, but he's also like the lead singer.

So, but, you know, I mean, it's remarkable that we got through that. But that's also true. Like, I think I needed to go away and do some other stuff. It's also, too, like I think I needed to go away and do some other stuff. And the main thing when I came back, it was like I can think of something in the morning and it'll be on TV that night. That's pretty incredible. It's crazy. Yeah.

Nobody gets that. I mean, such a small percentage of people get that. And, you know, and it might not matter to you. Like if you're. I'm an overthinker. Yeah. So for me, it's like terrifying. Right. And I'm thinking, too, of like now anyone listening to this who's, you know, dealing in YouTube at all is like, why wait till tonight?

Yes. It's just now. Right. It's just happening as it's happening. Absolutely. Which terrifies me. I can't even tell you how much. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that I'm just, that I i don't i'm just too old to i still am living an analog kind of that just the structural nature of television and entertainment to me is is just antiquated right um because i you know somebody somebody that's like far more successful than me is on YouTube and I'll hear, oh, they're on YouTube. Like, oh, oh gosh, a small time. But it's like, no dummy there. That's the mainstream. That's what's happening.

That's the big time. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's. Or TikTok really. Right. I know. I can't even keep track.

I know. Or TikTok, really. Right. I know. I can't even keep track. I know. And there's so many things that I'm just like, how do you make money at that? Where does the money come from? I mean, podcasts, for that matter.

It's very terrifying. Like, you know, and people sell podcasts for gazillions of dollars. I mean, how does that happen? Does anyone check to make sure it's profitable? Is it really? Like, is there really that much money? Let's go back to advertising. Yeah, yeah.

Again, but I mean, but it's like, are they selling that many socks? You know, I don't know. Okay. Okay. I trust. I trust that it's something there. Yeah. Well, tell me about the new podcast.

The new podcast is called Significant Others. And it's historical, which is right on brand for Team Coco. It is not comedic. Well, but they need to branch out, too. Sure, why not? You know, stretch the brand a little. I'm feeling badly, though, for the people who just like, just followed because it was a Team Coco property. And then we're like, when is it going to get funny?

But anyway. Yeah. So it is telling stories of people who have been sort of overlooked historically. Like, especially people who were closely related to someone who was of significance. was of significance. So, um, Verna Bokoff,

for example, who, um, saved the manuscript of Lolita from the trash from the, her husband was going to burn it twice.

And she was like, no, no, no, we're keeping that. And she was massively important in his life overall. Um, and they have a

fascinating story. So, or Mary Lincoln, I think is out, uh, next. And, um,

that was actually Conan's suggestion because, um, and I was like, I mean, everybody knows Mary Lincoln, I think, is out next. And that was actually Conan's suggestion because, and I was like, I mean, everybody knows Mary Lincoln. Yeah, she's cuckoo. Right. And he was like, no, but she was actually really formative for him in the early years. They were quite a, like, he may not have been president if he hadn't been married to her, which I hadn't known. Yeah.

And she had a lot of connections to the South, which helped him. So it's just eight episodes this season. They're all along those lines. Not all spouses, not all stories of the woman behind the man. I didn't want it to fall into that trope or just like, oh, we're revealing that this person's actually secretly been an asshole all this time. Like there's some elements of that. Sure. You can't avoid it.

But that's not the point of it. And because it's fun. Right. Well, it can be very fun. So, yeah, that's it. And we have great people who are voicing the subjects for us, like Nick and Megan did the Tolstoy. Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally.

Mullally, yeah. did the Tolstoy's. Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. Mullally, yeah. And Dan Bukatynski did Vladimir Nabokov and Darcy Carden does Vera Nabokov.

Oh, wow. And Lisa Kudrow does Elia Kazan's wife. So, and there's some other fun, Jack McBrayer's in there a little bit. You know, really great people. We were very lucky

to have so many lovely friends. I'm taking all the friends that Conan has needed and then gained over all this time and just using them. Yes. That's essentially what I'm doing. That's the world. Welcome to podcasting.

Listen, I love leaving the house these days. We can do it over Zoom. Do it at home. Can we do it here? We can also do it here. Let me get out of the house. Well, that's great. And is it, I mean, how long does each episode take you to write?

And are they half hours? Are they hours? Are they? The episodes are between 30, 40 minutes. Yeah. And then the follow-up. That's the sweet spot. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the follow-up episode is usually 25, 20, 25. And I don't even know how long they take me to write because they take me so long to write. It is, I thought when I first talked to Adam Sachs about doing this, I thought, you know, six months to do them all, maybe nine, if I'm really going to be persnickety. That was a year and a half ago. It has been a bit of a hair shirt, but all of my own making. So, it takes, they're very labor intensive. Yeah. That's why I like this podcast is just chatting because I can't, I just,

homework? Like, why would I sign on for homework? I literally was like, I have assigned myself eight essays, long-form essays for no class, no degree. Nobody's ever going to care. And why am I doing this? I don't know. You've got to do something. You do got to do something. It is true.

You've got to do something. Yeah. Well, anything else on the horizon for you besides getting the kids out of the house? Get rid of those two. Get them out of there. You're an empty nester halfway. Pretty close. Yeah.

My daughter's 16, you know, and she's but, you know, she doesn't live with me full time because of the divorce. But but yeah, but but it's, you know, Will's. He went and he came back. Yeah, he's in it. He's back here, but he lives in an apartment. And I mean, you know, he's 20 minutes away, but I might not see him for two weeks. I mean, we'll text and so forth. I feel like that in the house sometimes.

Sometimes. Because our daughter sleeps so much. Yeah. But there is, I definitely am starting to kind of feel like, well, okay, you're just going to. Do your own thing? You're just going to do your own thing. You're just going to be a big old grown up adult person and go have a life. And then I try to remind myself, how much did you want to talk to your mom and dad when you were 21?

Right. How much time did you really want to hang out with them? Right. No, they got to push off the wall. They got to get away. But then they come back is what I'm told. I'm hoping. Yeah, they got to push off the wall. They got to get away. But then they come back is what I'm told. I'm hoping. Yeah, I'm hoping.

So my girlfriend has a two and a half year old. Oh. So I have a two and a half year old in my back pocket just to keep me young. Which is, there's a lot of like, oh, yeah, this. Oh, yeah, right. I remember this. But it's also like. It's kind of great. It's fantastic. I mean, I, this. Oh, yeah, right. I remember this. Yeah. But it's also like. It's kind of great.

It's fantastic. I mean, I love her. She's the sweetest. She's smart. But she also, too, there is something to these. Like, there's been no hammer. Right. And I'm now becoming the hammer.

Oh, interesting. I'm the one that's like, and I'll, you know, she had a big freak out the other day because I wanted her to hold my hand as she's crossing the street and a car is coming and she's, no, she wants to do it.

Or no, she wants to walk on her own and then has a freak out. And, you know, I'm saying to her, and this is something my ex-wife used to say to me when they were little, because I always would like reason with, you know, I'd say like, you can't do this because of that. Right. And she'd be like, why are you even bothering? I'm like, it's for me.

Right. More for me than for them. But I'm like, there's some day where it's gonna break through. And I still kind of believe that. But like, you know, I'm telling her, I'm like, you're not in charge. Right. It's not good for you to be in charge. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm sitting there saying this to a crying two and a half year old.

I mean, I'm not yelling at her or anything, but, but, you know, she has not had. She's not. She like the limit has been always a little bit fungible, like a little bit, like it can be pushed and pushed and pushed. Whereas I'm like, you know, and. Hard line. Yeah. And my girlfriend, you know, she's had her single, you know, she's raised her on her own. And the first time I ever kind of interceded in anything, my girlfriend, after it was over, said was that okay do you mind that she's like

i don't know what the fuck i'm doing she's like that was sexy when when you when you said you know enough you're going to bed it's a very different energy yeah yeah no and you need yeah i mean you need both and uh i can't do the the stuff that my kid's father can do. Yeah. Yeah. And I— That isn't to say that it's irreplaceable. True.

No, people get through— Two women can't or two men can't. Well, yeah. I mean, I think that there are different energies involved in all those different relationships. It doesn't have to be on gender lines, but we happen to have a fairly traditional setup. Yeah, yeah. And it took me a while to appreciate the difference rather than just trying to stiff arm him and do it all myself. Yeah, yeah.

And now I'm almost too reliant on it, I think. Go talk to your father. Yeah, go talk to the warden. I'm just the occupational therapist. I just make all the food you love best. That's all. That's all I do just the occupational therapist. I just make all the food you love best. That's all. That's all I do. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, the third of these three questions are that's what you've learned. You know, the advice, the epithet. No, not epithet. Epitaph. Epitaph. That's what I meant. You know, the thing on your tombstone oh my god you know you they're you're gonna have money for lots of letters so you can make it long too can it be like motion picture can i have like a absolutely a little run a gif it's i would not i

bet you that's already happening i bet you there's like you're right. No, I actually, I don't believe in, I mean, more power to anyone who wants to do whatever they're doing. But for me, I sort of am into that like scattering and the disposing of the physical form. And I read this book about Skyberry. Well, it wasn't a whole book about it, but I was reading some book. I think it was about witches, which was for like a TV pitch that went nowhere. The stuff you cram in your mind to try and make something happen, you know, for no good reason. But they were talking about, I think it's called Sky Burial. Have you heard of this?

Where they put the body under some sort of mesh so that birds can come and pluck out the parts and distribute them. And it's sort of like a natural decomposition process that's open to nature, but not so open that it's problematic because I think there's some. It causes a health risk or something. I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It gets spread to the wrong places. Right, right.

Chunks. I don't know, whatever. But I was like, in a very unsentimental way, that sounded very interesting to me. I, you know, I just, my feelings about what to do with my body after I'm dead is like, don't waste any real estate. Right, right. Absolutely. And I, you know, although I've always told anybody who might have occasion to be in charge of it, you can do it. I mean, I'm telling you what I want, but you can do whatever the fuck you want.

I won't be here. I won't be here. And I won't care if you want to feed me to polar bears. That actually, like the notion of becoming protein for another living thing, I'm like, okay, that makes sense. That's good. Yeah. Organ donor, great. Yeah. Mine right now is just, you know, burn me up makes sense. That's good. Yeah. But yeah. Organ donor, great. Yeah.

Mine right now is just, you know, burn me up and dump me into water somewhere. That's fine. And then you can go to the water and look and say, yeah, there he is. He's in there somewhere. But anyway, I mean, aside from not wasting real estate with your remains. That's my highest ambition. What's your motto? Oh, God.

I'm very bad at this kind of thing. You don't have to be good at it. Let's see. I mean, one of the things that I really like about the podcast, and I hope people appreciate about it, that feels a little bit like an antidote to all of the crazier shit that we're all living through, is that just, this is the biggest oversimplification in the world, but, like, everything's complicated.

People are complicated, and it's become, I think the human brain tries to look for shortcuts, right? And so we're always trying to find, you know, this person is good or bad. This, you know, this person is good or bad. This, you know, political party is right or wrong. This candidate is good or bad. You know, all that stuff. You just want to be done with that decision making and move on to the next thing.

And so you try and boil things down and everything gets oversimplified. And then we all get into trouble. And everything gets oversimplified, and then we all get into trouble. So I think to just – I always try to stay very open to the complexity of everything and, you know, appreciating the fact that even though these great characters that I'm focusing on in history had difficult relationships with people who they took advantage of, you know, that doesn't mean that it was all awful, right? And that they were products of their time and that we're products of our time. And I guess that would be it lately. I've been for some reason thinking, I think, because I'm starting to have those like generational tension moments with my kids where they have a different perspective on a lot of things than I

do just because of what they're growing up inside of. And I think we're all indoctrinated by our time. And I think that there's often a sense that, I didn't have a sense of that until I got to be older. I just thought people are the same all the time, just keep making new ones and we're all living in the same world or whatever. But it really. And there's some truth to that. Yeah. But, you know, but we're still humans.

We make the same mistakes. But Mike, you know, I learned perspectives from my 16 year old daughter that I would not know on my own and that I am ultimately happy to learn. It has sometimes been difficult. I would not know on my own and that I am ultimately happy to learn. It has sometimes been. Difficult. Yeah. A real crabby process where I just, you know, and I, I mean, just social media for me was a lot of that. Like when people learning that things I did or jokes I made or words I used that I had,

that's not cool anymore. Right. or jokes I made or words I used that I had, that's not cool anymore. Right. And at first being like, how dare you, which feels so like Margaret Dumont-ish, you know. And like when my daughter, we're having, you know, we have had numerous discussions about gender and the complexity of the way that we address gender and sex now. of the way that we address gender and sex now. And I, you know, there was a lot of like, who the, who are you to question? You know, I'm in, you know, when I calmed down from that and I'm like, no, okay, let's sort it out.

And, and yeah, there's a lot. And also it's like, it's not always just like right or wrong. It's like, well, no, that's what is now. That's what, that's what exists now that's what yeah that's what exists the world we're all grappling with yeah yeah yeah i i just i think what i get nervous about is when with the great new perspective can sometimes come because when i was young this is how i felt i think a lot of young people feel this way that like you've cracked the code you're the first one to figure this problem out and there's sort of a, for some reason right now, the newer perspectives can tend to get

much more moral authority. And sometimes that's warranted. And sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's just new language, you know, and sometimes it's language that's crowding out an older truth, you know, and it's, you can be adding to the truth of it, but you don't have to negate the old truth. Anyway, I'm getting very esoteric now. But, but I think that I'm really excited about all of the new conversations that are being had on, on, you know, on a big, big scale right now, but I get very nervous when they are oversimplified. Yeah. Well, Liza, thank you so much for spending this time with me.

And everybody, check out the new podcast, Significant Others. I will. I haven't yet. Whether you like it or not. No, I will. I will. I haven't yet. But, I mean, I'm excited to do so.

I feel like you're going to like it. I think you might find it very interesting. No, I know where to find it, so I might as well. And I think it's probably the right amount between here and driving home. Like, that was the goal, is, like, slotting into a drive home or a grocery shop or taking dinners. Yeah. A drive home or a grocery shop or taking dinners. Andy Daly told me that 35 minutes is the average commute. So that's like a good spot for the average podcast.

I think we're in there, right? No, no, no. Yeah. Not this one. Not this one. No, this one. This is off the rails. This is a meander.

Well, I used to, when I first started this thing, it could be like an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes. And I always told myself, no, so many podcasts are too long and too meandering. And I try and keep it tight to an hour and an hour, which we haven't done. But, you know, we got on some tangents. You know what? We can trim some fat. I have some ideas.

Maybe. Or maybe just, you know, listen to this in two goes, people. Well, again, thank you, Liza. My pleasure. And thank all of you out there oh i'm happy to have you and all of you i'm happy to have you listen so uh come back next week and listen to some more i've got a big big love for you the three questions with andy richter is a team coco and your wolf production it is produced by lane gerbig engineered by marina pice and talent

produced by galitza Hayek. The associate producer is Jen Samples, supervising producer Aaron Blair, and executive producers Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Make sure to rate and review the three questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts.