The Tim Ferriss Show - #563: Sarah Silverman — The Joy of Being Alone, Becoming Your Own Best Friend, Insights from Therapy, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 I am, I said. That's a little Neil Diamond impression. To no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair. Oh, you can hear me now. Optimal minimum. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

Starting point is 00:00:25 Now would have seemed the perfect time? What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. This episode is brought to you by Helium 10. Helium 10, one zero, is an all-in-one software suite designed to help entrepreneurs launch, manage, and scale profitable e-commerce businesses on Amazon, as well as on walmart.com. So whether you're an entrepreneur who wants to start a business on your own terms, or you want to scale your existing e-commerce operations, Helium 10 can help. They process more than 2 billion data points daily. That's a lot of data. Have a robust 450 plus million ASIN database and provide at-a-glance analytics like seasonal trends for products, profit estimates,

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Starting point is 00:02:54 This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement. I've been asked this for years. The answer is invariably AG1 by Athletic Greens. I view it as all-in-one nutritional insurance, so you can cover your bases. If you're traveling, if you're just busy, if you're not sure if your meals are where they should be, it covers your bases. I've recommended it since the 4-Hour Body, which was gone eons ago, 2010, and I did not get paid to do so. With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients, you'll be hard pressed to find a more nutrient dense formula on the market. It has a multivitamin, multimineral greens complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health and immunity formula, digestive enzymes and adaptogens.

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Starting point is 00:04:21 and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase. Many of us are deficient in vitamin D. I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support. Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting athleticgreens.com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Tim. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is your host, Tim Ferriss. My guest today is Sarah Silverman. You can find her on Twitter, at Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, K Silverman.

Starting point is 00:05:13 Sarah is a two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and producer. She currently hosts the Sarah Silverman Podcast and stars in the HBO Max animated series Santa Inc., opposite Seth Rogen. She will next be seen opposite Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in the feature film Marry Me. Other upcoming projects include TBS's Stupid Pet Tricks, an expansion of the famous David Letterman late night segment, and the indie psychological thriller Viral, starring alongside Blair Underwood. Her memoir called The Bedwetter, Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller, is currently being adapted into a musical with the Atlantic Theater Company to premiere in April 2022. Silverman served as

Starting point is 00:05:54 creator, executive producer, and host of the Emmy-nominated series I Love You America, which streamed weekly on Hulu and saw her connecting with people through honesty and humor. On stage, she continues to be recognized as a force in stand-up comedy. Her latest stand-up special, A Speck of Dust, debuted on Netflix in May 2017 and culminated in two Emmy Award nominations and a Grammy Award nomination. Her additional film and television work includes Battle of the Sexes, I Smile Back, Wreck-It Ralph, Wreck-It Ralph 2, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Masters of Sex, and Bob's Burgers. You can find her on social, as mentioned earlier, on Twitter at Sarah K.

Starting point is 00:06:31 Silverman and on Instagram at Sarah Kate Silverman. Sarah, welcome to the show. It's nice to finally see you. Likewise. And I thought we would start with an unfinished story from my perspective, which came about when I had COVID and I was isolating and I was watching multiple episodes of comedians in cars getting coffee. And I watched your episode where you had coffee with Jerry and you were beginning to tell this heartfelt story. You said, I went through a terrible depression. I remember my stepfather says, what does it feel like? And then Jerry jumps in to say, excuse me, to the waitstaff,

Starting point is 00:07:08 can I get some half and half? And you're like, really? Was it that much of an emergency? And then the edit cut to a different segment of the conversation. So, I was wondering if it's possible for you to finish the cliffhanger, because I was actually interested to hear the rest of that. I went through a terrible depression. I was 13. Like, I always say it's like as, as fast as getting the flu, you ever get the flu and from one moment to the next, you just go, you feel fine. And then you go, Oh, Oh my God, I have the flu. It was like that fast. It just like a cloud covering the sun. And all of a sudden it's dark you know it lasted for a few years and it was the 80s and i was put on xanax that's a crazy story and ultimately was just given more and more and more until i was 13 and taking 16 xanax a day four four Xanax, four times a day. Good Lord. Wow.

Starting point is 00:08:25 It just doesn't even seem possible. It can't be legal to be giving a child that much drugs. My mom and my dad were kind of trying to come up with solutions and fix things. And my stepdad was the only one who just asked me what it felt like. And it was the first time I had to think about what it felt like. And I really came up with the perfect description, which is it felt just like I was homesick, but I was home. So there was no way to satiate it.

Starting point is 00:08:57 You know, there was nothing to hope for. There was no home to go to. I was home. Yeah. And that was where, if we place you in time, where were you at the time? 206 County Road, Bedford, New Hampshire, 03-110. Can you think of or identify anything that led to that wave crashing over you at that time? Is there anything that you can point to that acted as a trigger?

Starting point is 00:09:23 I remember the moment it happened, what was happening. I was a chronic bedwetter and we had the eighth grade camping trip, which was a four-day camping trip up Mount Cardigan. And I was the student leader and I cried the whole time. And I had diapers hidden in my sleeping bag. And I just felt humiliated and homesick. Nobody caught me with the, I slipped diapers in my sleeping bag so that I wouldn't pee in my sleeping bag. I was 12, 13, but I just was painfully homesick and I never enjoyed a moment of it. It was terrible. And I probably would have loved it anyway. It was humiliating. And we come home and I just want to go home and go into bed. And I've got my giant backpack with all my stuff and everyone's getting

Starting point is 00:10:20 off the bus. And my mom picks me up. She was a photographer and she just was taking pictures of me like a paparazzi and I was begging her to stop. And it was just this very odd combination of being photographed and ignored at the same time. That's when it happened. And there's a picture of it. I have a picture of the moment depression took hold of me. It's kind of incredible that you have that locked in the amber in a way. You have that moment captured. And part of the reason I'm asking is I do not have a clear vision of when the depressive episodes that I've experienced started. I know that it seems to be congenital. My dad has had extended depressions for as long as I can remember. I don't know when my experience

Starting point is 00:11:11 of that started, right? And in retrospect, it kind of seems like it was ever present. But what I'd love to do is actually flash forward to something I read in a piece from a few years ago in The Guardian, because I'm curious about how this has kind of lent itself to your life. I read that your mom always said to be your own best friend. This was at the very end of a Guardian interview, I suppose. And the paragraph reads, as we say our goodbyes, Mary the dog trots off down the corridor to pay some visits and Silverman asks if we can hug. I mentioned that she seems happy, glowing, in fact. Why? This is going to sound obnoxious, but mom always said, be your own best friend. And I really, really mastered that. And it goes on. Could you just elaborate on that? Because I think

Starting point is 00:11:59 this is one of my lifelong quests is to get to that point. I would love to hear you just speak more to that and maybe just describe how your mom instilled it and also how you practiced it, if that was something that you explicitly practiced. I kind of went from, I was a serial monogamist. I wouldn't go out on a date with a guy without at least putting two years in. Like I just, maybe out of politeness or, you know, I like, there was one relationship I just completely lost myself. My partner fell in love with this independent woman and I became a completely dependent, codependent. You know, I got out of that relationship so emotionally atrophied. I forgot who I was.

Starting point is 00:12:45 I forgot. I remember I just kept saying, like, I don't know how to be. And that was really scary for me. And I think from then on, I really got, it became really important to me to be alone and enjoy that. And I became, I loved it. I would come home and go, what do you want to do tonight me I love hanging out with myself but I also love television I said recently on my podcast I had to kind of admit I always say how much I love being alone and I do but I'm constantly being kept company

Starting point is 00:13:20 got the tv on I'm listening to hordester and I got, I guess when I listen to music, I think that's, it takes me to a new place that isn't just company. But it is a comp. I'm trying to use that word. It's mind comp. Rebrand. Rebrand. I did actually practice. I lived in this apartment building for 14 years. I just moved into

Starting point is 00:13:47 my first house since growing up in New Hampshire. But I would walk in from the apartment building and there were mirrors by the elevator and I'd make myself look in the mirror and give myself a thumbs up. And even though it's silly, because it's silly, I guess, it always made me laugh. It just makes me laugh. So it's nice to have kind of inside jokes with yourself. I also became very comfortable talking out loud when I'm alone. When you first try it as an experiment, you really have to break through a wall. It feels so odd and now i'm so comfortable doing it that oftentimes are you talking to yourself or other people the world in general what what do you i just talk out loud i think i think just creatively just as a human i'll be saying my

Starting point is 00:14:38 half of a conversation i'm imagining or or just be in conversation with myself. You know, I mean, I think when someone has a dog, they feel comfortable doing that. But essentially, that isn't talking to yourself. You're talking to another living thing, but remove the dog. And there isn't a big difference in that conversation. In the conversation. Yeah. And so I got really comfortable talking to my wife, so much so that I've had boyfriends that are like, what? No, nothing.

Starting point is 00:15:08 I wasn't talking to you. Talking to myself. But I feel like I get a lot out of that, just talking. Because we always have this kind of inner monologue going on. Do we? I don't know. I think we do. We're always thinking something.

Starting point is 00:15:26 Yeah, I think so. Meditation is trying to clear that out. So we must be able to have something in our heads. Was that something that you always had, that feeling of enjoyment or being at ease with yourself and you just had to resurrect it after getting lost in that relationship? Or was it something that you were kind of building from the ground up afterwards? My friends always made fun of me because I have the opposite of FOMO. One of my best friends, John, he loves telling this story. I was living in West Hollywood and all my friends lived on the east side.

Starting point is 00:16:04 And I just never saw them because I couldn't even imagine getting in my car and going to a bar to hang out. I don't know what I just, I just, I like staying home. I love watching TV. It's not very intellectual, close friends, not even a block away. And I didn't make it. And he was just like, you're unbelievable. But when I do go out, I am social and I love talking to people and meeting new people. And I am a people person, but I just really love, I love being alone. And I've had friends, especially now, really annoyed with me that I'm not connecting with them. And I feel busy because when I have free time, I want to take a nap or watch TV or snuggle with my dog. And I love my friends and I do drop the ball a lot.

Starting point is 00:17:03 I have a lot of friends that say, why is it always me calling you? And I feel terrible because I love them and I think of them and I, I keep track of them, you know, on a social media, whatever this is, this is, this is asshole excuses.

Starting point is 00:17:18 I'm really not good at, um, staying connective. Well, it's, uh, it makes me think of a friend, Jason Freed, talking about

Starting point is 00:17:27 the opposite of FOMO is JOMO, the joy of missing out. That's great. That's his take. There's nothing better than someone canceling plans for me. Surprise gift. You mentioned watching TV.

Starting point is 00:17:46 Are there series that you have re-watched multiple times or watched multiple times or if you had to is there anything that jumps to mind is something that you would absolutely replay law and order is my safe space i just something about this soft core murder you know the kind of like commedia version of things ripped from the headlines. Like, not true crime, but that. Homicidal, but approachable. Yeah. You know, you don't really see blood, you know, but it's all Broadway actors, you know, playing cops and lawyers. And I love watching the same actors playing different roles, you know, and just, I think it comes from this, which is when you're on the road, it's a constant. Wherever you are,

Starting point is 00:18:32 you can find a law and order. And it's like my, what do they call it in the, my totem? You know, the movie. Yeah, it's totally. Yeah, yeah. It's like a totem. It's a constant, you know, it's something I can always, you know, I used. Yeah, it's totally. Yeah, yeah. It's like a totem of some kind. It's a constant. You know, it's something I can always. You know, I used to bring the same like plaid blanket that I'd shove into my bag just so I could put it over the hotel blanket and just have something just consistent. Something that feels like home. So I think Law & Order has just always been that.

Starting point is 00:19:03 And now it's so funny like i'm discovering i'm loving colombo which you know like from the 70s and 80s it's a classic it's so good and just bizarre and but um and i i tend to not watch comedies even though i really should and when i do i'm glad i did but i think as a comedian, it feels stressful. I don't go like, oh, this would be relaxing. You know, either it's, I don't like it, or I like it. And I'm, I go, oh, God, I wish I wrote that, you know, but, but I do end up liking it. And one show that's on that I watched the whole first three seasons twice through is, and i'm waiting for the fourth season and it's a comedy is what we do in the shadows what we do oh my gosh what is it about

Starting point is 00:19:53 or what's it's on fx it is it looks like a reality show there's a very it's because it's one of those like mockumentary style but it's about these three vampires living together in a house in staten island and it's very like kind of show about nothing like just about everyday life getting along but then they have unbelievable effects so to see that in a format that's like reality tv the contrast is so fascinating and it's just brilliant. That's amazing. I didn't realize that I knew that name sounded familiar and I didn't realize that it was made into a TV show because it started as the New Zealand

Starting point is 00:20:36 mockumentary. I knew that I recognized the name. Tycho Atiti and Jemaine Clement. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That was outstanding. I had no idea that it had been made into a television series.

Starting point is 00:20:48 The movie is so great, but I have to say I love the series even more. The actors are unbelievable. It brings me a lot of joy. It doesn't give me that comedy stress for some reason. I think I'm growing out of it. When you say comedy stress, what does

Starting point is 00:21:04 that mean? You're analyzing it as it plays out in front of you because it's your craft? What do you mean by comedy stress? Yeah, I think so. And I think I've shed that a lot. But I think comedians kind of go one of two ways. Judd Apatow watches everything comedy that comes out. Podcast, movie, TV. He just loves consuming he loves comedy you know it's like it's like when you watch like a scorsese film or a tarantino film where you go like oh these

Starting point is 00:21:34 movies are made by someone who loves movies like i think jet is like of that school then there are other comedians and i i'm not proud that I fall into this, that just, it's not relaxing to watch comedy. It's relaxing to watch a murder mystery or, you know, like for me, I like thrillers or murdery stuff, Peaky Blinders, you know, stuff that's just not in my world, something that I can just get lost in. When you wrote your memoir, The Bedwetter, Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, was there any part that you found particularly or very cathartic to put down on paper? I mean, you've lived so publicly, shared so many stories. Was there anything that just felt different or

Starting point is 00:22:25 freeing or cathartic when you put it in the book? Or the opposite, extremely difficult to put down? The first couple months of stuff I wrote, I had to throw away because it was, I was writing the way I thought a writer should write instead of just the pros of how I talk. Me, however that is. Using your voice. You know, it's like the first time I did Fresh Air with Terry Gross, I remember I was like, well, Terry, you know, and then I was just like, who is this? I felt like I had to, I grew up with NPR.

Starting point is 00:23:02 I wanted to have that voice. I felt like I needed to. So these moments where I found myself trying to do or be what I've seen before, what is normal. And then I had to just throw it out. I was writing with such furrowed brow. You could see it then just kind of almost being an investigative reporter in my life interviewing my parents and seeing how those stories their perspective on things were the same and where they were different and kind of be a detective in my own life to tell to be able to

Starting point is 00:23:41 tell a story and realizing stuff i had never realized you know having to deconstruct i always thought oh god well you know deconstructing comedy just ruins it but it kind of doesn't it's interesting and to me it's fascinating it's my it's what i love and writing that book made me realize really see the trajectory of how I became a comedian because I had a dad who thought it was hilarious to teach his three-year-old swears. And then I would yell those swears at the market. And I just, I remember the feeling of yelling it out and all these grownups giving me this wild approval despite themselves. And that feeling, I just became addicted. I remember my arms itched with glee.

Starting point is 00:24:34 And of course, I chased that. Shock became my currency at three and four and five. And it just made so much sense looking at how I depended on that. And then after my first special, which was a stand-up movie, actually, I didn't get a special with anyone, but the guy from Interscope was like, I'll make a movie. And Jesus's Magic was my first special. It came out like a movie. After that, I had to start over. That was my first special. So it was the best of everything I had ever done you know kind of assembled now I had nothing I had done it as a one like a one woman

Starting point is 00:25:13 show for a few years and then it came out in like 2004 2005 so I had been working with that material for so long. And then I just kept doing it a little bit. And then I was like, after it came out, I just didn't know what to do because I had a real identity crisis. And it was, it was a great moment of growth in a way because I, people didn't want to see the same material. I had to write new material. But in order to do that, I had to disappoint audiences. I had to start over. And now people came to see me. I wasn't just comedian number seven at the improv lineup. People were coming to see me. But I had to start over. What they expected was to be shocked and surprised. And I wanted to give them that. And I didn't know how to do that because they had an expectation of it now. What I had to realize

Starting point is 00:26:14 was comedy dies in the second guessing of what your audience wants to see. It was never how I had started. And now I found myself in this place where I was like, well, if they're expecting to be surprised, they need to surprise them. But then I'm giving them what they're expecting. And I just had to stop. And I got very inspired by watching Chris Rock, who does a special.

Starting point is 00:26:41 I mean, he's such a pro. He goes out on the road. He runs it, runs it, runs it, tweaks it, all those things. And then he starts at zero and he goes to the comedy seller or wherever he goes and they bring him up and the audience goes bananas. And he doesn't take on that pressure of wanting to give them what they want to see you just what do i got he brings it down to zero he he bombs and maybe one or two or three things there's something there it's work and you have to be brave enough to eat a bowl of shit and try try new stuff and see where it goes

Starting point is 00:27:23 and then some stuff that bombs you cut and some stuff that bombs, you still believe in. There's something here. I like this. It could be just missing a beat or an end or a, an article of a word, or I'm setting it up too much rooms or I'm not setting it up enough. But the point is you have to be brave enough to bomb again and start over.

Starting point is 00:27:48 Even if you're famous, even if people come to see you and you know they're going to be disappointed. Because that process is, you can't avoid it. You can't write a monologue at home and memorize it. It's just not how comedy works. The audience is half of it. And there's a, I would have to imagine a toughness that you develop through repetitions of that attempting to rise from the ashes like a phoenix with zero, just eating shit sandwiches

Starting point is 00:28:18 over and over again. I have read, and I actually don't know the details on this kind of deliberately because if I knew all the answers to the questions I was going to ask, that would be very boring for me. I would love to hear a bit about your Saturday Night Live experience, because I've read that that helped you to become tougher. And I don't know if that's true. And I also don't know the details of what happened. But could you perhaps just describe what your experience was? I think what I meant was it really was like a boot camp. And I remember going in thinking, oh my gosh, I have this job where I can dream things up and then they're on television. It didn't necessarily go that way, but it was a great experience and I learned so much.

Starting point is 00:29:06 And it was still very much a boys club to use that old. There were not many women around and it was just a very different time. It was about to really change, but it hadn't yet. I did like it and I got along with everyone and i really shined on thursday nights for punch-up that was like where i could really i felt like i what is punch-up oh uh so thursday night you take the writer's room you sit around a big table and this is how it was in 94 and um yeah you go through all of the scripts that are now chosen to be on the show and we you punch them up you you know oh there could be a joke here let's think

Starting point is 00:29:52 there maybe there's something better for this you know just go through it and see try to make it better as a group yep and boy i mean it was were computers then, but we still wrote on legal pads and gave it to a room of typists. I remember my first day, I was put with these three guys who were hired right out of Harvard. And we were all 22. But I didn't go to college. I was a stand-up. And they kind of put us together because we were the kids and the newbies or whatever and um I spent the whole day with these guys and at the end of it they I mean they thought I was a type they just assumed I was a typist

Starting point is 00:30:34 at the end of the day you know we're hanging out we're getting to know each other and they go so are you a typist or and I was like what I? I'm a writer like you. And it was just, I always think of how it was for me to be a woman in comedy as how it was for me to be a woman in basketball. Because I played basketball growing up, but not at school. I played at the Y. And so I always played with almost all men and i still although i haven't played since um march 2020 play pickup games with almost all men sometimes a woman will play and it's great and i always demand that we're on the same team because i hate how they always go well you will each take a girl you know like i've played my whole life i play you know But that feeling of going to pick up games and you can feel guys rolling their eyes or a burden they feel that they have a girl on their team or this.

Starting point is 00:31:33 And having to prove yourself so much. And I like using this analogy with other women in comedy or other women that I play basketball with. Every shot as a woman that you shoot and miss is like missing a hundred baskets because you feel the weight of the guy go, oh, and maybe I'm putting that on them. Maybe it's true. And maybe I'm putting it on them. And either way, it shouldn't be in my head, but it is. And you carry this weight and it doesn't help you. And I always say sometimes, especially in New York, I love just watching the pickup games and stuff. And there's always, maybe there's a

Starting point is 00:32:10 woman playing and I go, watch how many times these guys shoot and miss and shake it off and shoot again and shoot again and shoot again. That's how you get better. You cannot take on this oh i'm a woman in a guy's game and i that feeling that if i shoot and miss i better not shoot for a while i better just work on setting picks and it really taught me something suddenly taking the focus off of myself which is really a self-centeredness and watching the guys and watching them fail, shake it off, shoot again, shoot again and go, oh yeah, yeah, I can keep shooting. If I have a shot, I should shoot. Does that make sense at all as an analogy? It does.

Starting point is 00:32:59 Yeah, no, it does make sense. It does make sense. And did it take you, so my understanding with the SNL- Oh God, I completely forgot we were talking about SNL. No, no, that's okay. No, it's okay because I think it ties to the basketball in the sense that is it true that you got fired by fax or let go by fax? I got a call, a three-way call from my agent, my manager, and it never occurred to me that I wasn't coming back.

Starting point is 00:33:27 I was already writing sketches. I was like, and this year is going to be better. It's going to be great. And I go, oh, they're both calling me. Hello. What wonderful news must this be? And, of course, I was fired, and they said that they had gotten a fax. I mean, it's fine that they got a fax.

Starting point is 00:33:46 That's the business. That's how it was. They let go of a lot of people that were, had their first year. But I remember starting out comedy and guy comics giving me advice and they go, the best woman comic is Paula Poundstone. And that was probably true.

Starting point is 00:34:02 I love her, but they go, and the reason is because a guy could do the same material and it would work. And I bought it. I bought that. I mean, looking back, I'm just like, that's so absurd that a woman comic couldn't talk about the experience of being a woman. The conceit was, yes, the audience is half men and half women, but the women are in dates and they only laugh if the man laughs. So your audience is the men. I never thought about that. Well, it's absurd and stupid. Yeah. That was what it was.

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Starting point is 00:36:29 Well, see, you mentioned not taking on this burden of, for lack of a better term, kind of hiding, say, as a woman taking a shot in a basketball game if you happen to miss. In the case of SNL, because part of what's impressed me, does impress me still about you, is just your longevity in the craft. I mean, it's really remarkable. It's really remarkable and it's not altogether common at all. And I'm curious, after the SNL, were you able to dust yourself off and just get right back to work quickly? No. Did it take a while to recover from? Yes.

Starting point is 00:37:09 All right. I remember. Please tell me more. I have a Polaroid picture I took of myself, and I saw it when I was moving. I had cut my bangs maybe an inch, just insane-looking bangs. And it just says, no confidence on it, I wrote. And I just, I remember thinking like, am I in show business? I didn't know where I fit in. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how to just, and eventually I just put my head down

Starting point is 00:37:41 and kept doing standup and it led me wherever it led me. I've really never made a plan in show business. I've never thought, like, I want to do this. I know this is maybe not advice at all, but I've never set goals for myself. I just always kind of, I don't know. I love the stuff I do I think of myself as I do odd jobs and like when I couldn't do stand up

Starting point is 00:38:10 I said well I was I have to do a podcast what am I going to do with all of this but I do think part of the longevity is just being open to be changed what I learned after that first special that I talked about,

Starting point is 00:38:25 that really changed my life along with therapy. But to be brave enough to bomb, to change and no longer have the same fans, to disappoint people and just go on the trajectory I go on. There's a line in a song in a musical, Sunday in the Park with George. It's a song called Move On. And she says, the choice may be mistaken. The choosing is not. You've got to move on. And it does free you. I feel like you can, thinking of that, it's the whole play is quite brilliant. It's about art and life. But that it doesn't matter the choice. It doesn't make a difference. You're

Starting point is 00:39:06 going to wind up where you're going to wind up, but make one because it can be so paralyzing, I think. Not wanting to make a mistake. And I think what I learned from that basketball analogy as well, along with a brilliant quote by Charlie Kaufman, and it's being talked about a lot just in general, is how essential failure is and what you do with it, which is not a new concept anymore. Is this it? I just pulled it up. Failure is a badge of honor. It means you've risked failure. If you don't risk failure, you're never going to do anything that's different than what you've already done or what someone else has done. Oh, wow. I never heard the whole thing. All I knew is don't fear failure. Failure should be a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. Look at all these, you know, the concept of

Starting point is 00:39:54 cancel culture, and I can argue either side of it passionately. But another thing is if you think of yourself as a risk taker in comedy, for instance, the thing that makes it a risk is that there's something to lose is that there's consequences. You can't just say I'm risky and then be angry. If there are any consequences, you know,

Starting point is 00:40:18 you got to take it and be changed by it or disagree with it. Maybe, but wonder about it. It's like when you get notes from a network and i know there must be a i know this sounds very specific to you know show business but of course any job where you have a boss when you get notes from a network and you go this is stupid this is not even there's always something that they're onto. Some germ of something, the spirit of that note that you need to figure out because they're onto something, but they maybe don't know how to articulate it.

Starting point is 00:40:52 The first sentence in that quote by Charlie Kaufman that I don't have any context for was do not simplify. And then it goes on to do not fear failure. And I wonder what that refers to. We need to find the whole thing. Oh, inspirational writing advice from charlie kaufman it's on youtube we're gonna have to watch it it's i heard it oh my god and completely attach myself to it and of course i never just googled the whole thing

Starting point is 00:41:18 now i'm very excited to watch yeah it's it's 41 minutes. We'll link to that. And there's, Charlie Kaufman's got all sorts of good quotes. Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won't be born for 500 years, your writing will be a record of your time. It can't help but be that. But more importantly, if you're honest about who you are, you'll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognize him or herself in you and that

Starting point is 00:41:48 will give them hope. All right. Charlie Kaufman. I'm sold. Charlie Kaufman, who was, as I understand it, one of modern cinema's most celebrated writers with work including surreal fantasy being John Malkovich, cerebral sci-fi, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, comedy drama Adaptation, and Extraordinary Animation. Anomalisa?

Starting point is 00:42:09 Oh, yeah. I don't know that one. Wow. All right. Well, we will put that video. Inspirational writing advice from Charlie Kaufman, 41 minutes. I have spent way too much time on the internet with this kind of accidental audience or unexpected audience after my first book in 2007. And I've seen in the last, say, four or five years, some really disconcerting patterns emerge just watching this large, for me, large-ish following.

Starting point is 00:42:40 Massive. following. And I imagine, I've seen a lot of well-intentioned, in some cases, well-educated, doesn't really matter. But thoughtful people get pushed to the polar ends into these extremes, or pushed themselves, or just been led by algorithms. Who knows? It makes me think of, and I could also be getting the facts wrong on this, but it was either Fahrenheit 451 or 1984, one of those lovely dystopian novels, that makes me think of book burning in one of them, probably Fahrenheit 451. And there's this kind of monolithic state and the firemen and so on. But the book burning started with the people. The people themselves were burning the books. And the kind of righteousness, porn, and reputational assassination that I've seen, even among people who you would think to be at the same kind of tribe, let's just

Starting point is 00:43:40 say listeners of this podcast, is really disconcerting to me. And I'm curious to know where you think this goes. Does it burn itself out in some fashion? Does it get increasingly bad with higher and higher consequences? Because you're watching a lot of these events unfold, and you're noticing them. If you had to hazard a guess, where do you think this goes, right? Three years from now, two or three years or four or five years from now, what do you think it looks like? I'm going to have to say a very solid, I don't know. But I couldn't begin to guess what the future holds for us in terms of, I think the sooner people realize we're all totally connected and you're fighting with yourself, basically, the better. But I do think there's, we're at really like the pendulum has frozen in both.

Starting point is 00:44:42 Yeah. Yeah. And they're almost a mirror image of each other in a real fucked up way as much as neither side would want to see that yeah what is your answer to that i mean listen you when you leave social media for a while you realize it's not the whole world it's not even most of the world or half of the world. It's a very small part of the world. But it's given us this thing where we, in real time, can see how, like, almost everyone, you know, it's what seems like everyone feels. And it's, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:45:16 I don't know where it's going to go from here. Listen, unless Facebook and YouTube radicalize people by algorithm. It's not like they're set out to do it, but greed has made them do it because inciting rage is, they found, very lucrative. Yeah, Twitter too. And so you see a headline, and the headline is designed,

Starting point is 00:45:43 even reputable places now, their headline is clickbait. It's so one small piece of a story that is the most salacious. And maybe if you click on it and read it, it proves to not be true at all or is wildly minimal. But who clicks on it and reads it very few people they're reacting

Starting point is 00:46:07 to so it's just these these little beams of light coming out at your face to upset you and make you angry and whoever you are it's designed just for you. Guest on the podcast, very bright guy who has the most endurance of any guest I've ever had, Balaji Srinivasan. He talks about the media you consume having root access to your brain in the same way that you can have root access to a computer and therefore control the computer, right? So if coding is scripting the behavior, let's just call it behavior of computers, then media is basically the code that gets installed into humans. And so when you have algorithms on Twitter or anywhere else for that matter, YouTube, right, that are kind of self-perpetuating by reinforcing to greater and greater extremes because they're more effective for producing clicks. Of course, I'm not a Nostradamus. I don't know where that leads, but I do see more and more examples of the hatred and vitriol online resulting in people getting doxxed. So having their physical

Starting point is 00:47:27 addresses and personal information posted in the hopes that there will be some type of violent consequence. And I really do, and I think it's also just my nature. I come from a long line of worriers. So I think that I have to be aware of my predisposition to go to worst case scenarios. I don't know. There's some part of me that maybe perversely just gets something out of imagining this. I think for a lot of people, and I think myself included, and I really see it in my stepmom and so many of us that worry is, even though we don't want to be in worry we don't want to be worried it's our comfort zone because it's familiar do you experience that yourself or do you see that more so and yeah i do i do i mean all these things i know and talk about is purely aspirational for

Starting point is 00:48:21 me you know well i can hear myself talking. I mean, my mouth. Well, I mean, in a sense, they're aspirational, but I'm still impressed by this sort of success story around the be your own best friend. I think that's very rare. I think that at least in my kind of concentric circle of friends, I think that particularly if people are driven,

Starting point is 00:48:47 and I think even though you may not have a five or 10 year or 20 year plan, I mean, I think most people would consider you very successful at what you do. A lot of that drive seems to translate to people being very dissatisfied with themselves or hypercritical of themselves, or at least they seem to correlate. So what advice would you give somebody who's maybe prone to self-flagellating? Would you have any advice to them if they're not yet at a place where maybe they don't even particularly like themselves, but they use work as a way to occupy their minds so that they're distracted from that. I think in terms of the self-flagellation, I see it. And, and I, I don't mean this to add to pile on someone who is constantly putting

Starting point is 00:49:34 themselves down in their head or out loud, but it is not modesty. It is self-obsession. Unless those thoughts turn into change that make you into the person you would be very happy to be, then it's very masturbatory. You're not seeing, there's no room to observe and watch and be delighted and amused by others. It's just all self. I have friends that are comics that cannot be alone. They are out until four in the morning and only go home when they can drop to sleep.

Starting point is 00:50:10 And it worries me. Why do you think they do that? Because being alone is terrifying for them. Being still, being alone, being alone with their thoughts is terrifying. And listen, I admit to you, I love being alone, but alone with my thoughts is a whole other thing. I am often, but I still entertain myself with television and radio and radio. I just think when you accept yourself the way you accept any schmuck on the street, there's, you just have a lot more room for other stuff. I had a therapist who said, look in the mirror less. And I found it to be incredibly profound because, you know, instead of like, just know that any one of us looking in the mirror does not see what other people see.

Starting point is 00:51:12 Not that what other people see is what's important, but we cognitively distort what we see in the mirror so much. I mean, look at the whole thing with selfies. And I see it the same as people who heckle. And I know that sounds really weird connection but hecklers to me whether they're saying something yelling something out lovely or mean or whatever it is it's interrupting you know like a show and the same with people who are constantly taking selfies

Starting point is 00:51:37 I feel like the subtext is the same for both which is I exist right and you know that's ultimately what it is. Life is this existential crisis of what is it to exist? We need it to mean something. I completely agree with you on the, and I say this as someone who I think is pretty self-absorbed as evidenced by my depressive episodes in the past. Same, same. No, because it is the sort of the me, me, me, I, I, I song. When you're either suffering from

Starting point is 00:52:16 depression or anxiety, you're kind of trapped in a self-referential loop, right? So I think- Yeah, it's not conceited. It's awful, but it's consumed, to be consumed. Yeah. And I think that what's been hard for me is realizing that but not being able to extricate myself from that loop. This might be a good time to just ask in what ways therapy has been most helpful to you. Because there's good, the bad, and the ugly among therapists, right? So I'm wondering, how has therapy most helped you? Why has it been helpful? Besides that, it's another perspective on your life and how you see things and how you

Starting point is 00:52:59 relate to people. Listen, there are plenty of terrible therapists out there, but it's always bizarre to me that people will drive 10 different cars to see which one they like best. And if you're lucky enough to be able to afford therapy and it's becoming at once less and less accessible and more and more accessible because there's a lot of stuff online and there's a lot of stuff. I mean, the best therapist I ever had charged a hundred dollars a session. This is recently, you know, I mean, up until very recently, but I mean, that's not nothing, but it's therapy. It's pretty good, but it's become more and more accessible. And I just think if you have the luxury to be able to find the right one for you, do that. I found the right one for me. And he just changed my perspective in a lot of ways.

Starting point is 00:53:49 And you want some greatest hits? Yeah. Yeah. Is it like he said? Yeah, definitely. It sounds like you have a couple locked and loaded. So let's do it. At one, he said, have you ever predicted anything that's happened in your life?

Starting point is 00:54:03 I go, well, yeah, I guess not. He goes, we're looking through a pinhole. You don't know what's coming up next. We have a fear of the unknown. That's why we tend to, and I'm very ritualistic, and it's hard to get me to try new things, actually. And I try to break out of that. But we have a fear of the unknown.

Starting point is 00:54:29 We have a fear of change. But like the truth is, you should be just on the edge of your seat. What's gonna be next? You know, I don't know. So I thought that we're looking through a pinhole. We don't know what's coming next. I like that.

Starting point is 00:54:43 He changed my perspective in a lot of ways. And listen, I see this when I think about when I went into depression so fast. And I think about it in beautiful, wonderful ways as well. But I mean, you change your perspective by one degree. And the whole room looks different. The whole world looks different. And that's neat to me. How often do you, when you've been in the sweet spot, whatever that means from a therapy

Starting point is 00:55:12 perspective, how often are you doing sessions? Is it once a week, twice a week, once every two weeks? What is your cadence? I'm very erratic with it. I'll go once a week if I'm working through something. And then I'll just, sometimes I'll go like months or a month or something and be like, you know what, I need to talk this out. Or I've gone for many years regularly. And I kind of go, I'm starting actually with a new therapist. And I have my second session on Wednesday. So why are you starting with a new therapist. I have my second session on Wednesday. So why,

Starting point is 00:55:46 why are you starting with the new therapist? If you had a great therapist, he's so wonderful. Well, I could just say he's retiring, but I actually left a little before he retired and I love him so much, but I'm not giving him a path to redemption or whatever, but I,

Starting point is 00:56:04 he doesn't need to be redeemed. I just, we had a session after I lost my friend to COVID that I was my writing partner on, on this musical, the music part. And I had my first session with him since spending three months in New York during the first three months of the pandemic. And I told him the whole story of losing Adam.

Starting point is 00:56:29 And it was also, he texted me, oh my God, I think I have this thing. And I'm like, oh my, I'm still sick. I can't get a test anywhere. This is crazy. I have like a really high fever. And then not getting any more texts. And he was in the hospital. Then I get a text, I'm in the with covid you know and then the text stopped and then his girlfriend was reaching out

Starting point is 00:56:49 to us and then he was gone because it was so early they put on a ventilator and he was anyway um i tell him the whole story and i guess i don't have to not say this because it's my therapy it's you know i mean i feel like but um he was like uh well what did it say on his death certificate because they're calling everything covet now you know because they pay hospitals thirty thousand dollars to call something and like he's like a covet denier and i don't care what he is but he didn't need to bring it there. And I was pretty positive. The thing to say was, are you okay? Gee, I'm so sorry. And now I feel like someone online who he didn't say exactly what I needed him to say. And now I'm angry at him. I'm not angry at him. I love him. And I'm

Starting point is 00:57:40 so grateful for him, but I just needed to detach with love. And I have a very close friend who also knows him and said, just talk to him about it or whatever. And for some reason, I don't feel angry about it. I just want to kind of move on. I had such wonderful years with him and I don't need him to say, well, listen, he's on his own thing and I'm so grateful for what he taught me, but I just kind of moved on. You can get a lot from someone and a lot of value and they can do something you really disagree with. And the latter does not necessarily negate the former, right? Which is hard to sometimes see out there on social media. Boy, yeah. It's odd that we seem to be living in a world where people just expect you to,

Starting point is 00:58:30 if you say something that wasn't what in their mind, what you should say, they're just so disappointed. And I, you know, I've always maintained personally, I go, hey, I'm not everyone's cup of tea. And it's okay if you don't like what I say. And it's okay if you're not no longer a fan. Yeah. I also think I had the author and I'm incredible, right? I mean, she's just an incredible historian and historical thinker, Doris Kearns Goodwin on the podcast. And I asked her if she thought leaders like say an Abraham Lincoln or an FDR or a Churchill could exist, could actually be elected in today's day and age? And she said, no, because the veneer of perfection has to be, the facade has to be presented in such a way that if any of the foibles and flaws of many of these leaders had been transparent or were transparent in today's day and age. There's no way they would get elected, even though in other respects are

Starting point is 00:59:31 really effective. So it's definitely, I don't know why today is the day I've decided to showcase all my dystopian concerns about the next five to 10 years. I bring it out in people. But the Sarah Silverman podcast, I think you alluded to at least one of the reasons perhaps that you began the podcast, but why did you decide to start the podcast? The pandemic happened and I couldn't do stand-up and I just felt like, where do I put all this? And it just made sense to do a podcast. I've been resisting doing a podcast for so long. Why'd you been resisting it?

Starting point is 01:00:10 Because, like, everyone was doing it. I wasn't an OG like you, you know. And I really liked the idea of being able to talk to to hear from people all over and i i'm shocked by the people who call from so many other countries i didn't even it occurred to me that this is just so uh so american you know it didn't occur to me that this would go to other countries you know i just didn't cross my mind so that's been really neat but just that people from all over are really calling in and it was, I was hoping that would happen and that I get to, it's voicemails. Every once in a while I go, I need to talk to this person more and we'll call, but it's mostly voicemails and

Starting point is 01:01:00 people will call in and follow up. And I've become kind of connected to this kind of community. But it's always changing. And it's so different from my stand-up. First of all, sometimes I listen back to the podcast and go, there's no evidence of a comedian. Who do I think I am? But then I try to remember joy before I go on. I go, stop taking yourself seriously. Once I take a little puff at night, and then if I listen to some podcasts, I go, who the fuck do you think you are?

Starting point is 01:01:33 It's embarrassing to me. But then I go back and do it again, and people call in with questions, and I really feel like I can help or at least say what I'm thinking. It's morphed into this thing that I didn't expect, and I didn't really know what it would be, but I knew I just wanted to talk and hear people's thoughts and opinions and then let that be the trajectory of the episode. How do you choose which to speak to? Because you use, I was looking at your Twitter feed, you have an enormous New York City plus size Twitter following, like 12 point something million, and you use SpeakPipe. But with that sized audience, you must get an absolute avalanche of different voice messages. How do you choose what to respond to? Well, I've got two producers on the show, Raj and Diana, and they go through all of them and they bring me about 20.

Starting point is 01:02:28 And, you know, I, I just, you know, they know I want different, you know, it becomes very,

Starting point is 01:02:34 we all think alike kind of. So I'm always looking for another perspective or, you know, anything. And they, they kind of know what I would look, look for. And we listened to them the night before like tonight because I record on Tuesdays and it comes out on Thursday and I just

Starting point is 01:02:53 go oh yeah that's good you know I kind of talk through like what I might say and I just yeah yeah let's do that one and I pick I probably pick like 18 of the 20, you know, and then that night or the next morning, I'll kind of think about it more and make like an outline and just to have thoughts in my head. And then we record and sometimes I respond the way I planned and sometimes I don't at all. I go a different direction, but I always record way more than we need need and so we either throw stuff away or if it's evergreen you know could be used another week it's not about like the news of the this week or something we might save it because then I'm I when I work on the play in March March May, I'll probably be able to do some episodes in New York, but I like to stockpile some that are brand new, but could be a month from now. So maybe you didn't want

Starting point is 01:03:55 those exact details, but that's basically how it goes. Are you kidding? I love exact details. Yeah, I stockpile exact details, so you're in good shape. So yeah, it's interesting because with my stand-up, I'm a very slow honer. I'll work on a joke for months, months, months, months, maybe even a year, a year. And I hone it so slowly, even though it may sound kind of in the moment. I know, I'm, I'm working on it inch by inch and on the podcast, it's very immediate. It's messy. I'm loving now being able to, now that I can do standup more and more, less and less and more and more depending.

Starting point is 01:04:37 They're very different. I like doing odd jobs. I like doing different stuff. And when they converge, it's kind of neat where if I say something, I go, oh, that could maybe be a joke. Has anything from the podcast popped in an unusual way for you where one topic or one episode unexpectedly got particular traction? Has anything been really surprising for you overall? Yeah, I'm always surprised. Well, you know, at first I was, I usually pick like three little clips to post on social media. And do we go with what works best or do we go with what, you know, it's because it's a quandary because then you become... Well, you run into the same problem with second guessing the audience on stage right so this is

Starting point is 01:05:28 yeah i want to i want to dig into this because this is an important choice right like do you use what you think is going to get kind of the cheap applause so to speak or like the easy layup or do you use something else so how do you make that but the irony is and i don't know if this is irony but that i would post those clips that i thought were funny and and for like and then like i post something i go like oh this is like you know that's that's opinionated thinky hippie dippy granola you know stuff that is also me but and um people really responded to the more serious stuff there's some a couple communities that have become like motivational speakers and they find it incredibly obnoxious and then i'm like how am i different am i doing that you know but, and I think maybe that's why, because people

Starting point is 01:06:25 always go, why do you always say you're talking out of your ass or whatever? I go, cause I am, I'm, this is me in process trying to make sense of life. And so my answers there, there's no authority in my answers other than my own life experience and, and having not died. I've lived a long while. I hope to keep living a while, and I have learned a bunch of stuff. It's a fine line, and I would be horrified if I saw that I had become that, and I think that's why I – and I really spot when people qualify things a lot, and now I'm doing it right now and i do it on my show sometimes where i go oh i don't know i'm talking out of my ass what do i do but i i feel like it

Starting point is 01:07:10 needs that qualifier just to prevent me feeling like i think i i know best yeah but my mother was like that she and i've become my mother you know she she couldn't help but i mean there were not enough comments cards in the world for my mother. She had so many, she felt she could correct so many things just in the strangers around her. Or like, I mean, it was almost like a horror movie. Like, you could pick up a book. There was a book she had that was like a guide to Santa Barbara. And it had like in pen corrections all throughout it, like grammar, any, you know, she,

Starting point is 01:07:48 but now I've found that I've become that person that I'm like, I'm helping. Like she would always go, I'm helping, you know, and I would go, oh, but you know, I was at like 7-Eleven and a kid, you know, 19 year old kid or something was buying like orange soda and Doritos, and I just couldn't control myself. And I was like, really? Almonds are the same price. This is what you're feeding your body. I'm just like, oh my God, Sarah. I'm helping. I would love to ask you, there are a few questions. I'll tell you what, I'll give you a twofer and you can pick which one you want to answer first. Okay. So, so the first is how you chose to become involved with I smile back. And the other is what you learned or any kind of lessons taken away from Gary

Starting point is 01:08:37 Shandling. Oh, I'll just do both of them in order. Yeah. I smile back. It was a book written by Amy Koppelman, and she had sent it to my agent at the time, who's a real character. If you ever want to interview an agent, I don't know why you would want to, but he's fascinating, named Michael Kivas. And he sent it to me, and he said, she wants you to play this part.

Starting point is 01:09:06 And I was like, she does? And I read it and it was really interesting. And then she and her friend Paige Dillon wrote the screenplay. And then they were very, I said I'd do it and they were really collaborative and we worked on a lot of it together. And it was very hard.

Starting point is 01:09:29 I mean, you know, I remember thinking, yeah, this is a really heavy movie, but it doesn't mean it's not going to be fun. Yeah, I'll act that it's the reality of the moment. And then they'll say cut and we'll have, you know, be fun. And it was like, it was a good experience, but it was so,

Starting point is 01:09:49 I didn't know that, you know, you have to have your 10,000, a hundred thousand hours. And Tom Hanks seems like he can just, I always heard he jokes around and he's, you know, well,

Starting point is 01:10:02 he's like the bell of the, you know, he's like funny and all this. And then they say action and he's captain Phillips. So I just thought, you know, he's like the bell of the, you know, he's like funny and all this. And then they say action and he's Captain Phillips. So I just thought, oh yeah, I don't have the experience to, to be able to access everything. Like once I access those kinds of things, they're just on my lap, you know? So it was, I remember a friend would call and say, how's it going? And I go, it's, I don't, this is really a bummer. You know, like I just just I wasn't able to

Starting point is 01:10:26 just separate so it was just a lot but I'm so glad I did it and it was an incredible experience and that movie's really relentless though you know even what's the movie Gabourey Sidibe won the Oscar for

Starting point is 01:10:42 Precious even Precious had moments of relief you know this movie's just like too much but but i it was really fun to do and and and amy koppelman just directed her next book that was made into a movie which is really cool anyway so that was that i want to say two things real quick so the first first is, I thought you did an outstanding job. I think a lot of folks have exposure to your comedy, of course, and you as comic and so on, but less exposure to you in a dramatic capacity. And I thought you did a really outstanding job and a really nuanced job. So I wanted to say that. And I've had dinner with Amy before. She is a very smart, very

Starting point is 01:11:29 observant, fascinating woman. So I wanted to also encourage people to check out her work. Gary Shandling. What did I learn from him? I can't say enough about him. And really, for anyone who's listening, please watch Judd Apatow's two-part documentary on him. What is it? Is it the Zen Diaries of Gary Shandler?

Starting point is 01:11:54 Oh, it's so good. But Gary was so generous. We played basketball at his house every sunday and there were star you know big celebrities that played there were you know writers assistants pas that played you know it didn't matter he assembled this ragtag group and they were all his friends equally. I said there are NCIS

Starting point is 01:12:26 scripts that a writer would show to Gary and he'd give. He put so much into helping writers, helping actors. Everything he learned the hard way, he really offered up to us on a silver

Starting point is 01:12:42 platter. And some things you've got to learn the hard way but so many things he he really i learned about silence about taking you know that in stand-up even just the the moments in between the words and the currency and that you know currency sounds like a you know or the the specialness or that you're saying something in those moments just as well. And to not be afraid of them, to not feel like you need to fill that empty space. And it's interesting learning that for standup, but then in life, you know, I hear my dad when we talk on the phone, now we FaceTime and it's

Starting point is 01:13:22 different. But when we talk on the phone and there would be like a dip in conversation he'd go um uh uh um um um uh that fear of silence or you know is is so real in people for you know and i i learned that from him it's very interesting and you know he was very he was a studied buddhism he was a buddhist he was he but it wasn't because he was naturally that way it's because he was riddled and he needed it and that's all of us and trying to just be honest and get to the core of you know he kept a kept a journal, which, you know, I think your comedy notebook is half journal. And he would say, just be Gary Shandling, whatever that is on stage, you know, or like all these things. And Judd helped clean out his house and stuff and would post pictures of a lot of his journal pages that are, I don't think he would be upset about it,

Starting point is 01:14:25 are so revealing and so helpful. He wasn't perfect, but he was in search of, and just even learning that or watching that in him was so fortifying and helpful. Here's a question that is sometimes directly leading to a dead end, but that's on me, so I'll try it. Just be Gary Shandling made me think of this. So if you could put a message, any message, could be a quote, could be an image, could be anything really, on a billboard, metaphorically speaking, just to get it out to hundreds of millions, billions of people, what might you put on that billboard?

Starting point is 01:15:08 Two things come to mind. One is the story about Fred Phelps, who started the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, they sort of- I don't know this story. Oh, oh. So he started the Westboro Baptist Church. You've got to interview Megan Phelps Roper. All right. She grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church, and her story is amazing. She's amazing.

Starting point is 01:15:38 Her change and the ways in which she didn't change, that she was always this beautiful person. But to grow up in something and believe it with your whole heart. And anyway, her story's incredible. Fred Phelps, her grandfather started the Westboro Baptist Church. And of course, these are the people that show up to funerals with signs that say, God hates fags. And they're those people people and people showed up at his funeral with signs that said sorry for your loss

Starting point is 01:16:12 and I just thought that was the most beautiful act of protest I've ever heard and for some reason I feel like that on a billboard would be useful for everyone in some way. talk about? Is there anything else that you would like to comment on? Any suggestions you'd like to make? Anything you'd like to point people's attention to that comes to mind? I'll say what

Starting point is 01:16:53 my auntie Martha told me, grab joy where you can get it. Grab joy where you find it. I was single and I was in DC and I was supposed to go to LA for home to LA for a friend's memorial service. Comedians kill themselves a lot. And I kind of wanted to go back to New York to see this guy I was dating. And I go, I feel guilty. She goes, go to New York, grab joy where you can get it. Your friend is gone. You can honor him in your mind. You know, whatever. Otherwise, although comedian memorials are really fun. Okay. I can't let that sit. So tell me more. What makes them fun? Well, because I find funerals to be pretty fun usually. You know, even if you're sobbing, you're with a group of people

Starting point is 01:17:48 that loved this person talking about the greatest hits of who they were and how they impacted everyone. And with comedians, I mean, Gary, Gary Shanley's memorial was amazing. You're laughing and crying. Kevin Nealon, for lack of a better word, closed the show, the memorial. And he was sobbing and he was killing. I mean, and it was just all real and true.

Starting point is 01:18:19 But afterwards, when everyone goes their separate ways and lives life is when you grief punches you in the face you know and you're at line at ralph's you know two weeks later but but you're just hearing the funniest stories and the greatest things they wrote and said and and it's a it is a celebration i think that's a you know uh sarah k Silverman. Where's the Kate from? I don't know. I think I was supposed to be named Kate Sarah Silverman. And my Nana said, no, I know someone named Kate and I don't like her or something. So they go, all right, well, we'll say Sarah Kate. And that's the amazing story of my life.

Starting point is 01:19:02 If I was a boy, I know I was going to be John Robert after the Kennedys. Wow. John Robert. I think Sarah Kate works. I like it. Yeah. Sarah Kate Silverman, at Sarah K. Silverman on Twitter. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Starting point is 01:19:20 People should absolutely check out the Sarah Silverman podcast, where each week you can find joy where you can get it one bite-sized audio morsel at a time and uh your book uh your first book memoir is the bedwetter stories of courage redemption and p it is from 2010 the musical is called the bedwetter. And it's, the musical is called The Bedwetter. And it comes out, previews start in April at the Atlantic Theater in New York. And that is based on the book, but it's just the year I was 10. And I'm not in it.

Starting point is 01:19:59 There's a little, little pint size of incredible me. I mean, the actress is incredible. Well, congratulations. I know that's been a long time in the making. I know that your dad has been counting down the days as best I can tell. Yes, he has. He's like, how much longer do I need to stay alive? And it's here. It's here in just a few months, fingers crossed. And thank you so much for taking the time, Sarah. I really enjoyed the conversation and getting to know you, not just through doing the homework and research for the conversation, but having the conversation itself. And I hope

Starting point is 01:20:41 that we get to have another conversation sometime and appreciate it. Me too. And for everybody listening, we will put links to everything in the show notes and you can find that at Tim.blog slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Bye.

Starting point is 01:20:56 Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is five bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun for the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 01:21:14 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on. It gets sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog

Starting point is 01:21:56 slash Friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement. I've been asked this for years. The answer is invariably AG1 by Athletic Greens. I view it as all-in-one nutritional insurance. So you can cover your bases. Traveling, if you're just busy, you're not sure if your meals really should be, it covers your bases. I've recommended it since the 4-Hour Body, which was gone eons ago, 2010, and I did not get paid to do so. With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient-dense

Starting point is 01:22:42 formula on the market. It has a multivitamin, multimineral greens complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health, an immunity formula, digestive enzymes, and adaptogens. You get the idea. It is very, very comprehensive. And I do my best, of course, to focus on nutrient-dense proper meals. But sometimes you're busy. Sometimes you're traveling. Sometimes you just want to make sure that you're busy. Sometimes you're traveling. Sometimes you

Starting point is 01:23:05 just want to make sure that you're getting what you need. AG1 makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when whole foods aren't readily available. It's also NSF certified for sport, making it safe for competitive athletes as well as on the label is in the powder. It's the ultimate all-in-one nutritional supplement bundle in one easy scoop. Right now, Athletic Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all-in-one formula, which is a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase. Many of us are deficient in vitamin D. I've found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin

Starting point is 01:23:45 D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support. Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting athleticgreens.com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash tip. This episode is brought to you by Helium 10. Helium 10, one zero, is an all-in-one software suite designed to help entrepreneurs launch, manage, and scale profitable e-commerce businesses on Amazon, as well as on walmart.com. So whether you're an entrepreneur who wants to start a business on your own terms, or you want to scale your existing e-commerce operations, Helium 10 can help. They process more than 2 billion data points daily. That's a lot of data.

Starting point is 01:24:32 Have a robust 450 plus million ASIN database and provide at-a-glance analytics like seasonal trends for products, profit estimates, and more. ASIN, just so you know, that's kind of Amazon's U code source, somewhat like an ISBN. So they can really provide the Telium 10 intelligence across many, many different products and product categories so you can make the best decisions possible. They also have educational resources, award-winning training courses, free webinars, podcasts, and community support.

Starting point is 01:25:05 I did a bunch of vetting on these guys with help from all of you actually, looking for recommendations, how much you would recommend them. And I've been very impressed with the feedback I've seen on social media from their community of 1 million plus users. So they cleared the hurdle and here they are. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, Helium 10 will teach you how to build a thriving e-commerce business from A to Z. You'll be able to tap into Amazon's existing customer base, product demand, and shipping infrastructure to launch your business. And just as a reminder, Amazon will handle all shipping and returns for you. And if you want to take your business to the next level, Helium 10's

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #563: Sarah Silverman — The Joy of Being Alone, Becoming Your Own Best Friend, Insights from Therapy, and More

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #563: Sarah Silverman — The Joy of Being Alone, Becoming Your Own Best Friend, Insights from Therapy, and More

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