WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1246 - Sovereign Syre

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Sovereign Syre and Marc have been friends for several years, sharing career paths in comedy, podcasting and writing. Now, as she ventures for the first time into the fraught process of pitching and selling a television pilot, Sovereign and Marc talk about her life leading up to this moment: Her painfully shy early years, her turbulent home life, her academic exceptionalism, her years lost to drug addiction, her entry into the world of adult entertainment, and the leap of faith she took to exit that world. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuck topians what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it what's happening what is happening? Are we okay? How's it going? What time is it? You guys got to go? You're going to hang out for a minute?

How much time you got? You got a little bit? I got my friend Sovereign Sire is on the show today. I've known her for years. She's open for me many times. She's funny. She's sharp. She's a writer. She's, I don't know't know how to like it's an interesting conversation to have because of the way people see porn

like how do you see porn you know it's a job it's a job and it's uh it's a specific type of entertainer that's what i'd like to think of it as it's a it's a very specific type of entertainer. That's what I'd like to think of it as. It's a very specific type of entertainer. You got to be all in, you know, to do that type of entertaining. But for the last year or so, she's been primarily only fansing it, but she's been working on this pilot and working on this show idea with my old buddy Pete Berg, who's been on this show, and they've been fleshing it out and she opened for me a couple weeks ago at Dynasty Typewriter so yeah so this is it I don't know how you feel about porn I don't know where you're you know whether you how do you frame it man

I personally I was brought up on old school porn so I you know I saw it too young i judged myself against it i've talked about this before many times i don't necessarily think porn is great to see when you're 15 uh because then you're sort of like you know it's it you've got a a barometer by which to judge yourself and your sexual uh sort of of activity against. And, you know, I don't know if I've ever made the mark. But I don't know if that's important. Maybe I have. I don't know if it's.

I guess what I'm saying is you should probably wait until you're a little older to take it in. Man, I do love telling that story, though. It was. I think it was traumatizing. but I put myself through it. And it was, it was, it was that we used to go to the naked eye. Was that what it's called? Or the pyramid? It was the pyramid theater.

I think this is in one of my books. But I don't know. Maybe I feel like revisiting it. For you, me and my buddies, it's not really, it's not a group of guy activity porn is a solo endeavor really unless you're watching it with your partner uh to get things started or or you know whatever hey man again no judges but we used to have nothing to do we had our fake ids and i just remember we get time, it must have been one time, maybe twice, because I remember it specifically. We went to this place. It was right off of Central near maybe Girard.

It was the Pyramid Theater, old school. It was late 70s, back when you didn't have the Betamaxes, and people still had to go out into the world to do the porn thing. They had to go out to sit out in public in a theater to jerk off to porn. And that was what you did there, I guess. But we were just a bunch of drunk high school kids and we got in. I just remember you went around back

and there was a beaded curtain and in the front of this place, before you got into the theater, there was something called the, you know, body painting, live body painting. I don't know what was going on. I just know we were drunk and we go into this fucking gross theater.

And those theaters never really, especially the ones that weren't originally theaters, you know, the seats were in kind of weird places. The rows were bolted to the floor, kind of off. It didn't have a feeling like a movie theater. And I just remember like, you know know it was me and bob david i don't remember i think there was one other dude but i just remember the time we went there there was like an old couple like you know grandparents old sitting in front of us and bob you know whispers to me my grandparents are here

and i remember i remember laughing and drunken laughing. So then the movie starts. And this is like, I had seen, you know, photographic depictions of sex in porn. So I knew where everything went. But I hadn't seen much of the sort of live action stuff. And I've tracked this movie down. Again, I feel like I've told this story before,

but it's okay because this is one of the first times I experienced seeing sex live action sex and all I remember is a guy on a bus gets off a bus in a town meets a girl a woman she takes him home and they're having sex and tattooed on her stomach over her vagina is the face of the devil and her vagina is sort of the beard and mouth of the devil and he's having sex with her and she's saying fuck me fuck the devil fuck me fuck the devil and i was like wow so that's a lot to take in. And is this how it's going to be all the time? Or no, this is unique, right?

This situation. And then, like, I just remember it ends with it was a cult. There's a platform. And there's a bunch of people wearing, hooded outfits like druids around this platform. And on the platform, there's a woman on all fours with a candle sticking out of her ass that's lit. And all the people around the table were chanting, all hail Uranus, all hail Uranus. And I was like, all right, so this is what sex is. Fuck me, fuck the devil all hail uranus okay good i'm good i got it it's in my memory boy is it burned in there burned into my

fucking memory but i feel bad talking all the porn talk is off is getting out man she's getting out and i hope she does and i I'm 100% behind her. She's funny. She's smart. She's writing. I did a read-through of this script that she's working on, trying to sell, and it's great. And I just, look, man, I'm not saying that porn is bad, but, you know, it's should uh you should get out when you can i think even if it's your choice it doesn't seem like you know it seems like uh you do it for a while

you know what i'm saying i haven't done it maybe i should look into it should i get into porn i think it's too late isn't it too late for me to get into porn is there such thing as a uh a dilf there must be right am i come on stop it stop it this is not about that all right job is a job right i mean on some level who doesn't get fucked at work? Am I right? Let's just, this is me talking to my friend Sovereign Sire about her comedy, her writing, her attitudes about the adult sex work biz and her life. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance? Think again. Business insurance from Zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you.

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Actually, I was going to say, I actually knew that we met in July. I don't know why I remembered that. Really? I have a memory like an elephant for shit. But for some reason I remembered that we met in July and... July 2014. 2014. And I looked it up. It's like to the day almost.

Of today? Of today. Come on. That we met. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, we were online friends for about like six months or so. Right i can't i like i and then you're like do you want to have coffee and then that was in and i like look i saw it in my twitter dms and i was like that we had been having these long conversations for a long time about comedy yeah i think so just like whatever just kind of just talking and then um yeah yeah and that was like so that was like around july so it's like

2014 2014 and then i came over and we had coffee but you i didn't i'd never listened to the podcast i'd never listened to a podcast yeah i hadn't listened to your podcast i didn't realize that your podcast was like important to people or whatever and so you were you were showing me around your house yeah and i always remember you were showing me around your house. Yeah. And I'll always remember it because you took me into your podcast studio. Into the garage. And you're like a little kid that's just like really proud of this shit. You're like, and here's where the magic happens.

And I'm just sitting there like. Okay. That's really cool, Mark. You have all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was completely. But I was trying to remember why.

I mean, like I was trying to remember the beginning of it because I didn't know your work. But I knew some for some reason you were connected to comedians or you wanted to do comedy. I don't remember. Like I wasn't like, oh, my God, it's the porn lady who's who's stuff I watch. It wasn't like that. I've had that happen before. I've seen porn people. Like I knew years ago, I knew this.

I used to tell that story on stage. Like there was a couple of porn actresses I knew when I was a younger person from watching them, and I saw one at the airport, and I did not know what to do. Because I really wanted to say, you know, I really enjoy your work. But what is that? It's just like. I mean, it's awkward. Like, I don't think of myself as a public person per se and certainly not famous.

But at the same time, you know, if I go look up the stats on stuff like Pornhub. Yeah. Like 11 million plus people have watched my work. You can look up your stats on stuff like Pornhub, like 11 million plus people have watched my work. You can look up your stats on Pornhub? I mean, a lot of those places will just tell you like how many views a performer has on the site. And they'll tell anybody that? Yeah. Oh, okay.

And if I go and look around different tube sites and start doing the math, I'm like, that's a lot of eyeballs. Yeah. and start doing the math. I'm like, that's a lot of eyeballs. So you don't think of yourself as a public person, but you know a lot of people have seen you do stuff. Yeah, and it's a different kind of celebrity because people don't come up to you because if they come up to you and say hi,

what they're also saying is, I've jacked off to you. And now we're talking about you jacking off and your jacking off habits, which is, you know, really inappropriate. I'm trying to I'm trying to arc the conversation because, you know, where we're at now. I mean, after you've been telling me you're going to get out of porn for at least six of the years I've known you. Yeah. That there is there. This seems to be really happening. So I think it's sort of interesting to you know kind of go back so the public person talking about jerking

off but the idea that it's a job I think is what people have a hard time with yeah they do you know that like you know and I we've sort of talked about it privately before that on some level, because you're this fantasy object and you do that as a job that you don't get. It's like you don't get respect from any quarter of the culture. Well, I mean, it really is because, you know, someone will say, well, you're not a real actress. And I was like, well, you're watching the wrong performances. Yeah. And then that same person asked, like, how many of the orgasms in porn are real? And I said, zero percent.

Zero percent are real. Wait, really? But it's like the same person was like, you're an amazing, you're like not a real actress. And then turned around and asked how many of the orgasms in porn are real and was shocked to find out zero. And I was like, so I guess we actually are very good actresses because here we are. Because that question is eternal. Well, and it's not to say that what's going on on camera doesn't feel good. But, I mean, the circumstances, if you've ever been with a woman, which I know you have, making a woman come is a lot of work.

And she still has to kind of want to do it. She has to really want to do it for it to happen. And so in a scenario on a set where you're partnered with someone that you were booked with, that you didn't pick out yourself, that you're probably not attracted to, you're surrounded by people people you're doing a scenario that may or may not turn you on like because you're there doing a job so maybe you're doing a scene where you're playing a student or a teacher and that's something that is not a fantasy for you or maybe it's a real turnoff for you but you've got to stay in character because you were hired today to do that fantasy whether or not that turns you on in between takes isn't it like just some dude just standing there like jerking off,

trying to keep his heart on kind of deal? I mean, it depends. You know, I mean, some performers try to generate chemistry and they try to keep it going and they try to keep it as authentic as it can be given the circumstances. But the circumstances make it hard. I can't believe I've never like been to. Well, yeah, I can. What am I saying? Like, why haven't like been to well yeah i can't what am i saying like why haven't i been to a porn set you know what i mean like how come that's not my life

i mean i knew uh yeah it was never that was not a thing there's no field trips yeah and we've become increasingly cloistered as the relationship community yeah i mean the relationship between porn and mainstream has become just increasingly fraught in terms of I think it used to be that that the adult side of things really courted the validation of mainstream. And so whenever a mainstream project wanted to do a documentary about porn or wanted to come on set because they're making a movie about porn. Porn people would be really receptive to that because we crave that kind of validation or acknowledgement that we are sort of a legitimate site of labor and that our stories are important. Right. You know, and they are. Yeah. But I think we've reached sort of a nadir of understanding that all of these projects are inevitably geared towards having a very specific narrative about our labor. Which is what?

That it's inevitably horrible, exploitative. And you're all broken. All broken. No one can come out of it happy. All broken. All broken. No one can come out of it happy. Or if someone comes out of it, they have to do so with the complete disavowal of the industry as a whole.

And contrition of some kind. Yeah. I'm a different person. I was lost. It was PTSD. I was being held hostage. Yeah. I mean, it's very much goes back to sort of this American cultural attitude that's very puritanical, which you see it in cancel culture, too, which is there must be a confession of guilt. Then there must be like an auto defay, like a sort of, you know, the walk of shame.

Yeah. Scarlet A. Yeah. I mean, so we're still very much. Well, what's that culture? Yeah, that's true. But I felt like there was a minute there where porn was like, it seemingly was like integrating,

you know, kind of a lot into mainstream culture. Like there was a point with internet porn where it was so common that it was a conversation everywhere. And that like, it became so, what's the word I want? It's widespread that it wasn't, there was no mystique to it anymore.

Well, I think that was social media. And so I would point that at around 2009. A lot of people would attribute it to Sasha Gray. My theory around it, and it's a theory because I'm not a scholar, but it has to do with the rise of social media and the streaming of porn. So it's omnipresence and it's ubiquity um coupled with

social media getting everyone online you know because people forget that before social media it was mainly forums and websites and so if you were really into something you had to go to a forum or a bulletin board you still had to get the dvds yeah but like not even just for porn i mean for anything yeah it's like there was no social media. People have been with it so long, they've forgotten that there was a time when, in order to find people that shared specific interests and to share content like bootleg recordings

from Fleetwood Mac concerts or whatever your thing was that you were trying to do, you had to go find these message boards. Zeppelin Live 73. Yeah, there wasn't a hub like Twitter where- You could just put it out there. But I think the main thing that happened is there was, and I think this happened across all industries, is that when the tech for creating art, whether it was like Adobe Audition

or podcasts or Ableton Live or cell phone, like camera phones, right? That this technology suddenly emerged that could allow any creator to upload their content, create their content on par with what before had been these super professionals. Yeah. And then being able to upload it to places like YouTube, where there was suddenly a sort of social media hub. Yeah. So you had, there was this moment where anyone could kind of make the content and everyone could network with each other and have a social media presence and everyone was sharing this

stuff. And so you had, before that, especially in porn, it was very corporate, which is there were contract girls and then there were gonzo girls. And the contract girls had these very curated images. You know, they were put through media training. Contract girls with a company. Yeah. One of the three or four.

Yeah. Like Digital Playground or Wicked or Vivid. Yeah. And so those girls might get some kind of media training. They would be very heavily branded. Yeah. I remember the boxes. Yeah.

And those boxes, I had a director tell me that they would spend like 20, 30 grand on a box cover shoot. Like that's how important they were. And part of that meant that, you know, there wasn't just direct access to the girls. And especially with music or acting or anything else. Right. There was just no direct access. Period. Yeah. The age of boundaryless kind of insanity. Yeah.

It's the worst. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, they will and they can. If they're persistent, they'll find you. They'll track you down somehow. Yeah. And everyone's so insecure and needy and kind of like egotistical that like they say that if the weird thing about being and I'm sure you deal with it because it's actually part of your job. But you don't want to deal with that stuff. But if they catch you on the right day, you're going to respond to an email, even though you're not.

You shouldn't. Oh, yeah. But you just sort of one day like, no. Well, like also it's removed the part of you that even thinks about it. I have like across social media. I have maybe a million, two million followers. Right. And I'll go on and be posting pictures of my dog or my breakfast or my my latest thoughts on abortion or whatever, without really considering how wide of an audience I'm sending that message to. to or who or where they're going to send it yeah um but so the thing is i think for porn girls the thing that it really helped in terms of the rights of sex workers and the humanization and destigmatization of porn yeah was that girls suddenly could run their own brands right they were building their own brands and they were going on twitter and tumblr in these places and they

were building up their own following of people. As the corporate production houses were kind of falling, right? Yeah. And so it was the first time that consumers were getting to view the performers as human beings. They were not these carefully curated. Well, you were being human. Yeah. Yeah.

And that really did a lot to kind of mainstream porn. And then also during the Tumblr era and there was the emergence of Sasha Gray, who was a new kind of porn star because she had opinions and ideas and vocalized them. What happened to her? She's still around. I mean, she retired in, I think, like 2010 or 2011. But she's now a very wholesome Twitch streamer. She does a lot of cooking and gaming on Twitch and still has a really rabid following. No filth? No more? No. She seems to have landed on her feet and is doing well for herself. Well, let's go back.

How long have you been in California? I moved here in 2011, 2012. Where'd you grow up? So I grew up in Fresno, California, Central Valley. Fresno. And your mom's still there? No, she's in Riverside. Who's in Fresno? My adoptive father. I have two dads.

Two dads. Real dad in like... Well, the real dad is the adoptive dad. Oh, really? and like well the real dad is the adoptive dad and then oh really i have a biological father who was always he him and my mom divorced before i was born and i've always known who he is and he's i think total in life we've maybe spent three months together i mean i would it was a place i would go visit for like a week or two every summer to right whatever identify and your father i mean biological i mean he definitely was the reason i started doing stand-up he was he had a really he had a passion for stand-up comp he loved it so he would watch lenny bruce and and bill hicks and and uh richardryor and all like those albums.

Yeah, were there. Like we're always playing. He was always doing bits. So I think I immediately kind of got interested in comedy because it was a way that we could connect and it was a way to feel connected to him. When you were a kid? Yeah, when I was really little.

So I would like memorize the jokes too and I would watch all this stuff. He's like, is he out in the desert or something? He lives in Arizona now. Right. But for the most part I grew up... He was in Ashland, Oregon and then in Seattle. Was he like

an off the grid guy? No. He's just old and retired. I think of Oregon and Arizona and it seems like a type of person. I mean it is. Was he like a hippie dude or well Him and my mom were both heroin addicts. That's how they met. It was a love story Where was this? Where did they where did they have that courtship?

This is actually one of my favorite stories. It's very romantic. That's great. My mom was 17 and Dropped acid she was living in New York And she dropped acid and she had this vision that Jesus Christ was in San Quentin Penitentiary under the name Charles something. And so she decided she was going to go talk to God. She had some questions. She was going to San Quentin and visit Jesus. So she hitchhiked from New York to... Didn't she come down at some point and realize, like, what the fuck am I doing?

You know, my mom is committed, if anything. You know, like, she gots to see it through. Yeah, sure, sure. So she hitchhiked across the country and she made it as far as Nevada. And then she got picked up by a trucker. And they ended up going down this dark lane and the trucker tried to make a pass at her and she was not having it. And so he kicked her out at the side of the road in the middle of the night, pitch black, no freeway lights, nothing. And she

just kind of stood in the dark for a really long time waiting to see what was going to happen to her next. And then she describes it as this pair of headlights emerged and like was coming toward her and they hit a sign behind her that lit up the reflective sign and it said hallelujah junction yeah and she was like we're on our way yeah so it was two couples that were on honeymoon that were like on their way to lake tahoe i guess uh-huh they picked her up felt really bad for her yeah and she uh the sad hippie girl. Yeah. And so they pulled their money together and gave her money to get a bus ticket.

And the nearest place she could get to was Reno, Nevada. And so she took the bus, the Greyhound to Reno, Nevada, got off the bus and was told she should go work at one of the casinos, apply for work there. So she walked in. So she had to have been older. Now I'm thinking like she had to have been older than 17. Yeah. She would have to been old enough to work in the casino. She was young.

Yeah. She did get a job there. She was there as a blackjack dealer. Yeah. So she got a job as a blackjack dealer there. Yeah. And then one day my dad came in. Yeah.

And she was like, so my mom tells me she she would constantly go on these attempts to get clean off of drugs but she's not on dope yet no she was oh she was like oh really oh yeah so she's a blackjack dealer with a habit oh yeah but she's like i would she would tell me that she would constantly do these things where she would put herself in scenarios in which getting drugs was very difficult as oh to try as an attempt to quit and so what are So are we in the 80s here or where are we? This is the 70s, late 70s. And so my dad walked in and was asked for a job application. And she was like, and, you know, I just saw him

and I just could immediately tell that he knew where to get heroin. That was love at first sight. And so she didn't see him for a while around the casino. And she said there was a break room. Yeah. And one day she was in the break room taking a nap and she woke up. And my dad was in there watching her. Apparently he had gotten a job as a short order cook at the casino.

And she said like they started hanging out and doing drugs together. And like two weeks later, he asked if he could move in with her. And she said, I can't live with anyone I'm not married to. I'm an old fashioned girl. And so he went to Will Rose and brought like two brass rings and they went and got married at the courthouse. And they stayed married for like seven or eight years. Really? Yeah.

They ended up moving up together to Oregon. Is that when your brother's older? Yeah. So they had him first? They had him. Yeah. And then by the time they had me, they were already kind of done with each other.

Were they sober? She got sober for me. She had tried to get sober several times. At the time that they divorced, my dad had been put in a recovery, kind of a halfway house type situation because he had he was like strong-arming and doing like robberies and stuff and like the this is all it's getting mixed up but there was something around like he was like doing a robbery or burglary and like

dropped a pill bottle that had his name and address on it and like the one like the one pill bottle he had that was actually a legit prescription yeah and then got busted for it and then it was like he had tried to escape jail one time and like by trying to jump out the window and then he was like in the hospital in a coma and um his the the only way that she found out was because these not it was a catholic hospital that he ended up at and these nuns that used to go to like they were at this faith healers compound in the mountains in oregon and your folks were yeah and these nuns would like come out there all the time trying to like proselytize or whatever why were they at a faith healers compound cheap rent that's what she said oh they weren't part of it in the house yeah like

so so they were kind of in a cult yeah kind of i think yeah i don't i haven't i don't know there's no clarity how is this not the story you're telling where is this book where's this fucking movie i mean it's her story but anyway so she didn't know my dad had kind of gone missing and she didn't know like what or no she knew he was in jail right but these nuns that like would go to this compound and kind of try to get people out recognized they were at the hospital yeah and like recognized that this was her husband was and that they that they had a young child and uh so the the nuns basically went and told her like he's in a coma and she's like you know your dad was such a good con man she's like that i

walked into that hospital room and she's like you know he looked like wax like waxy like he looked out and she's like and i walked up to him and i was just like johnny johnny like are you faking it like if you're faking it just like just like blink twice like she like she was convinced that like it wasn't real like she was like she's like he was that he was that charming and he was that good wow yeah what would have been the end of what was that what was the goal of that griff though just to lay down for a while get the drugs be on an iv but he like my dad has always been this very charming kind of womanizer type guy there was he he ended up getting into like what they

call now i guess what they would call it as a diversion program where um was able to negotiate down time in exchange for going into rehab yeah and but that rehab was like a lockdown kind of place and it was run by this woman and the way my mom tells the story and i feel like nowadays i have to caveat everything with like here's what i was told right sure of course um the way my mom tells the story. And I feel like nowadays I have to caveat everything with like, here's what I was told. Right, sure, of course. The way my mom tells the story is that the woman that directed this program decided that the only way that they could get,

that my dad could get sober is if he divorced my mom. And so was trying to make it like this condition of him getting into the diversion program that he had to agree to divorce my mom. Why would they do this? And my mom said that it was like the public defender was the one that actually like went to bat and was like you can't you can't make that a condition of somebody's whatever and my mom was convinced it was because like my dad was fucking the lady all right like she was like she's like it's just not because they're trying to

separate two drug addicts yeah no it's just like it's well her thing was just like it's the kind of thing he would do and get away with like so he would be the kind of guy that would convince like a lady in that position to get him out of the marriage in a way that would not cop to him being fucking her. Or like or that he could talk that lady into fucking him. You know, that she would be like, I could lose my job and everything else. But why not? Yeah, sure. This guy's charming. And so, I mean, I kind of believe her, to be honest.

Yeah, that he was that charming. charming. I mean, I kind of believe her, to be honest. Yeah, he was. He's that charming. Sure. I mean, it's possible. So this guy, and then after that, he kind of went his own way, and your mom married somebody else. My mom never remarried. My dad ended up marrying the girl, the woman that he was cheating on my mom with when I

was born. Wow. That's a complicated story. Yeah. My dad's been married five times twice the same woman and all but two of his wives have passed away so like one woman twice but you don't you didn't you don't consider him an active part of your childhood other than visits not yeah not really so it's just you and your mom yeah and then when i was and then when

i was three or four of my adoptive father came in and he was, he is and has been consistently. But he's not married to your mom? No. They're just together? They were together for a long time. They broke up when I was 12, but I have, and like, it's kind of cute. Decent guy? Amazing person. Oh, that's good. amazing person amazing person um to this day she's still uh we're still up in fresno um

and she still goes and stays with him periodically just to make sure he's healthy he's in his his early 80s now wow so um like they haven't been together for a very very long time but they still yeah you know are there for each other and kind of still. And what were you doing in high school and stuff? I mean, because I only know parts of your story from talking to you, and I know about the graduate program and all this stuff, and I know about the drugs, but I don't know how it all fits together. So your adoptive stepfather leaves at your 12

and it's you and your mom. Well, he doesn't leave. My mom moved out and he still would pick me up every day and drive me to school and have breakfast with me. And your mom was clean? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like AA clean? NA.

NA, oh yeah? I've never seen my parents loaded. Really? Which is actually kind of worse in some ways because they're clean, but they're completely emotionally immature and unavailable. Well, that's, yeah. And so it's that thing where they may be clean, but, you know, your recovery is not necessarily something that is commensurate with time sober. Right. You might never get better emotionally you you could spend decades still being a fucking addict and behaving in an addict way and

theoretically if you work these steps it's supposed to uh get give you a handle on that well i'd say that my mom and dad i mean mean, my dad is my biological father went into psychology and was in rehab stuff, like helping people recover. And it's a big time and a person. Drug counselor. And then my mom's a neonatal intensive care unit nurse and has been since I can remember, specifically because she wanted to help drug addicted babies because my brother was born addicted to drugs. And when I was born or she told me a story that when my brother was born and she was holding him in the hospital, she had said she had told herself that if she could ever manage to get clean, she wanted to be like these nurses that were helping her and showing her all of this compassion even though she was a fucking addict yeah so um they both i would say are amazing human beings i mean the recovery rate i mean they locked into service the recovery rate from heroin addiction is like two percent terrible it's so they're superheroes already for just sure getting and staying clean off of heroin and they have been of incredible service to other people.

And I know they sponsor lots of people and they speak around the world and they have a lot of fucking clean time. Yeah. All of this stuff. But it's that same thing of like, you know, the hardest thing to do is like yourself and those inner family dynamics. Because you're locked into a pattern that becomes, it's easier to deal with people. Yeah. Yeah. So when do you start using drugs?

I was, I started using drugs when I was 14. What was your, like when you were in high school, outside of doing comedy bits with your father and like, did you have things you wanted to do? Well, I had been a writer since I was about four. to do well i had been a writer since i was about four and it was just because i um always had i it's funny to me now that i did porn or that i do stand up or anything like that because i was painfully painfully shy for a very long time i mean like full-blown panic attacks like sweating like i like just i my what situations when you any situation i just uh i my home life was really turbulent and the way that i responded to the trauma was to become like a very avoidant fawn how How was it turbulent? Um, a lot of just emotional instability, you know, emotionally. And like my, my adoptive father was a very stabilizing

influence. He's never done drugs in his life. He's never been high. He's never smoked a cigarette. Right. You know, just like, was a coach and a teacher and a Midwest guy, like taught me how to fix cars, taught me, you know, like just such an antidote to my mother. So where was the insanity, your mother? But my mom was fucking nuts. Drama? Just like vibrating with her own anxiety and distress and unresolved trauma.

And then I think for her her having because she had endured a lot of sexual abuse and things like that when she was young and i think for her like having a daughter yeah like really kind of triggered in her a lot of anxiety that made her you know one it was she was constantly i think being triggered, being triggered about her own shit. Yeah. Because of your existence. Yeah. All I had to do was be there.

And then I was a pretty little girl. And I remember one of my most vivid memories from childhood is my physical appearance being treated like a crisis. Like the number of talks that I would have, like the number of times. About what? You're pretty, you got to be careful? Yep. Yeah. Like, which was really um traumatizing yeah because it made me feel like I was wrong no matter what right it made me feel like my very existence was wrong and I remember my mom's father

who was a Frenchman that would come visit like every couple years and the Frenchman yeah like what because that was the thing he felt like it was this foreign guy that she was really obsessed with this is your grandfather. Yeah. That didn't make sense to me. From France or Canada? From France. And I remember him just sitting me down one day and saying, listen, you're a very beautiful girl, but one day someone's going to want to talk to you and you better have something to say.

And I remember that. That's his advice? Yeah. His whole thing was don't rely on it don't you know that it's the one thing that's going to go away everyone's going to love you for that and then it's going to go away and no one will love you anymore so that was an inspiration in a way it was but like it was the same thing with even my adoptive father when he would be taking me around to hardware stores and shit like that when i was a little girl and when guys would be like oh she's

so pretty yeah and he would say don't say that i don't want her to think it's important. Yeah, give her a wrench. Yeah, he was really like, he was like, but I remember overhearing him say that one day where he's like, I don't want her to think it's important. Like, don't say that to her. I don't like it. It seems like these men were trying to help in their weird way.

Yeah, but I mean, the overall thing was this ambient stressor of like, you're in danger and also you're not good enough. And also the only reason people like you is because of the also you're not good enough and also the only reason people like you is because of the way you look yeah but that's bad right so it was just this weird kind of hornet's nest of shit and you were writing that triggered this just intense anxiety i just didn't want to interact with people because it felt like every interaction was wrong yeah and unsafe did that last or when did it it went it lasted a really long time. So I was always a writer and my form of escapism was I would

write little stories and do little things where I would... And when my mom gave me a bunch, a box of all of the... She'd saved all of it. And so there's my first poem I wrote when I was four. Yeah. Yes. How was it? It's cute. But when I read through the stuff, the theme that I see is just this one of escapism where I'm trying to imagine myself into places where it's always like going to some kingdom where there's like a benevolent queen and king that are reliable. Yeah. And that it's a place there's not like this suffering and like they're not really these extravagant fantasies.

Right. Like what I see is someone that's just longing for some kind of sense of stability and security. And also like maybe magic. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And so I was always writing and I would try and excel academically because also I really started to cling to teachers as the stabilizing influence because everything at home just felt really chaotic. As awesome as my adoptive dad was, he's also very taciturn. So he didn't, we never talked about feelings or emotions. So he was always there. I always knew that financially and if I needed stuff, that dad was there. Yeah. But he was not someone that I would ever talk to about feelings. And he never talked about feelings, like ever.

It's interesting that search for like, you know, parents when your parents are whatever, however, they're detached or emotionally negligent or abusive. The yeah, the constant sort of gaping need thing that you walk around the world with is the worst. I mean, I did it too, is always sort of like, well, will you be my dad? You know? Yeah. I mean, it was big time and it felt kind of weird because I did have present parents. Yeah. But I felt like I didn't and it felt kind of weird because I did have present parents. Yeah. But I felt like I didn't. Well, the emotional support was

they were too wrapped up in their own shit. Yeah. So then you just sort of get abandoned to kind of, you know, manufacture some inner parent that's never good

and then like walk around looking at adults to do it. Yeah. And so I really, I really leaned into school, you know, and I saw I was always teacher's pet because like there was one thing I figured out really quickly, which is that I was really smart.

Yeah. And I was really good at pleasing people. I was really good at just tamping down whatever my emotional state was to smooth things over. How could you not with that mother? How could you not be just sort of a born codependent? Yeah. mother how could you not be just sort of a born codependent yeah so um so that the real reason that i excelled academically wasn't even about like i'm a genius and i'm smarter than other people it was just like that was where i knew what i had to input to get the output i input the work

the output is praise and acceptance yeah right and it's like that was very comforting to me because i didn't have to guess do the the assignment, get an A, get love. Easy. And I think I walked through most of my life, even now as an adult, longing for that kind of clarity around how to do it and how to get it. Yeah. So when you graduated high school, you were like a star student kind of deal? Well, I graduated early. So I started doing drugs in high school.

I was still performing academically really well. What drugs? I went straight from nothing to crank and methamphetamine. Crank. Old school crank. Truck stop speed. Yeah. So I went.

That was Fresno. And the reason that that happened was because I could do it and allowed me to perform academically like up here. For me, drug use was always about being Wonder Woman. It was never about getting high. It was always about being able to perform like to outperform anybody else because I felt like that's all I had. That was my only, that was my USP.

Were you snorting it, shooting it? Snorting it. Yeah. I wasn't, no, I was not shooting it at 15. I wasn't that cool i wasn't that awesome yeah but um so i ended up getting sent to rehab two different rehabs at 15 yeah and so that disrupted my schooling when i came back um and while i was in rehab i got outed as being queer um even though i went to a performing arts high school where like everyone

was gay but i was a girl and gay so it was different it was like there was an acceptance that the males in the ballet department were queer and it was accepted that the guys in the art department might be queer and that some of the theater guys were queer but for like when I was outed as being queer

I had a girlfriend it hit different and so I was like get me out of here so I what happened? I took summer school. How did you get outed? I don't know. So people started making fun of you? It just became...

A joke? Well, it became tense. So I went to Performing Arts High School, but it was attached to a traditional high school in a super Mexican mexican catholic traditional air like the population of that high school was it had these very conservative values around shit like that and that was scary to people like it was and so it wasn't just people making fun of me and it was like a genuine hostility that was kind of so what'd you do

it was and so i just went in was like i want to get out early so i took some ap courses some honors courses i went to summer school for two semesters and i graduated early so sober yeah so after you graduate the high school and your mom you know encourages you to do the creative thing is that what drove you i mean did you move into that then yeah well so then i i got into the program and i'd been writing poems and stuff like that because i'd i'd in high school i'd gotten enmeshed in these this really how i'd met the girlfriend was um there was this kind of arts cafe district in town where all of these people of various ages that were playwrights and

poets and independent musicians all these people yeah like would all congregate. And I started congregating there. Hanging out. Hanging out and getting kind of taken under wing by a lot of these people. So that's when I first got the idea that I wanted to be, like I always wanted to be a performer. I went to a performing arts high school. Like obviously like I was in-

You didn't know what kind of performing. Well, I was in theater and ballet and playwriting, but i was so painfully shy i couldn't perform so i'd picked i'd leaned on dance because it didn't require talking and then of course writing because it didn't require being on stage right and puberty really kind of just doubled up like it was like it was like a shot in the arm to any kind of anxiety that was already there it just made it crippling um which is really why i leaned into writing and in college but so i knew those people in that time in high school had been where i first got the idea that i knew i wanted to be involved in entertainment or the arts or that i was going to be like an artist it's good to me it's like you know it's good to uh have those people Like I used to hang around the university when I was in high school.

And it was just like just to be around it and to know that like people do this. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. So I still didn't. It was still a small town and I didn't see a direct path to say what I'm doing now, which is probably why we didn't have like a stand up comedy scene there. Yeah.

No one knows how to do that. Well, I mean, mean yeah pretty much i mean when i started there was like you know you just got to figure out where and how to do it i mean like when you started at least it was there was a lot of places yeah yeah and but and also the same with like what you're doing now which is you know trying to sell a tv show you know that that's something you just have to learn on the fucking job. Yeah. But so when did you go, where did you go after high school? When did you start college? When was that?

So I was 16 when I started college. Really? Yeah. Where was that? At Davis? No, no. That was the graduate thing? No, no.

I was always at, I don't want to say, I was at Fresno State. It's just like, there's so many things that, I was thinking about this a lot before I came here because there's so many things and there's so many stories around what got me here that involve people that have moved on with their lives and like just the thing I've become really aware of in the last year or two especially is like that like wanting people shouldn't have to necessarily suffer consequences later on down the line for shit they did when they were kids and so i kept going like what am i going to be able to talk about because there's so many there's so many kind of defining moments that like that involves sort of like they kind of open up a hell mouth into...

What? I mean, without naming names, what are you considering a defining moment? Being sexually assaulted by my mentor professor in graduate school, which completely destroyed my life. But that is like... I don't want to be defined by that,

but that defined everything that came after it. Yeah. And so that is always my hesitation with doing this stuff. Yeah. Because it's like, I don't want that person to have air. Yeah. And I also don't want anyone to question me. Right.

And that's inevitably what happens. Yeah. And it becomes so easy to take these moments and go like, well, because that happened, then that's why she made this choice over here. And I feel like that experience is like incredibly common. And those people don't end up doing porn but they do end up being as broken as i was for many many years you know um i don't think and that's always my fear with everything or with having these conversations is there's an internal pressure around like not

wanting to disappoint the people that are still there yeah that like my experience is not everyone's experience and there are a lot of broken people that don't do this job and there are a lot of really healthy people that do this job and for them it's yeah and for them it's and for them it's okay for them it's really liberating Like when you say healthy people doing it as a job or now that they have the ability to do OnlyFans or whatever, because there's, like, I've seen some of that stuff. I don't know about that whole world,

but it seems like people who just have an idea to do it, they could be housewives or whatever. They can do it now. Yeah. And it can be empowering and it can be exciting. It can be extra income. It doesn't have to be some indicator that this is a fucked up person. I just feel like there's a desire to reinforce this sort of misogyny and patriarchal kind of structure of society

by having these narratives around anything that economically empowers women or that acknowledges that women's sexual labor is valuable yeah like all of patriarchy is kind of predicated on the idea that women are worthless so yeah like right like anytime we do anything that reinforces the idea that what women do with sex is labor yeah it is it's a treat for you right it's usually labor on her end and it's labeled as immoral yeah it's like so there's this there's a really quick desire this knee-jerk desire to kind of reinforce any kind of narrative that's like sweat yeah this is horrible yeah yeah like she may be economically empowered but she's miserable you know or she's broken and she's you know garbage yeah but all right so but leading up to that so you did your undergraduate so i did my

undergrad and i at that time was it for writing you got into the right yeah i was i was doing english lit and i had been a poet and all this stuff but you know i suffered from anxiety right and all of that and i actually was double majoring in sociology because I still was like, but I'm going to like do the other thing. Right. So it's like I. That was the backup plan. Yeah. I was like, I was like, this is cute. But like, I'll let me be a therapist or something. Yeah, I was like, well, at least let me get like a sociology degree as well.

And then that way, you know, I'll like the English lit. That'll make me really good at writing grants right and i'll have an ology yeah and then the sociology part like i knew that that as as a degree was kind of one of the most flexible in terms of going into say social work or doing and any kind of like public sector stuff and so i just felt like it was still kind of like it would give me that flexibility. Yeah. And then because when I got assaulted by the professor, I mean, that just kind of.

And how many years? So you went to graduate school to write? Yeah. So basically, basically the same same institution. So I was doing English lit and sociology. And I was actually way more excited about doing the sociology stuff because I still didn't see a practical way to be a writer. Right. It just didn't seem practical to me.

I had done some workshops and a professor pulled me aside and was like, you're a really talented poet. Like you're really good at this. Yeah. And I think you should do the graduate program here and we can get you grants and scholarships. We can pay for it. And that poetry program, the last two Poet Laureates of the United States came out of that program.

Wow. Phil Levine and Juan Felipe Pereira. No kidding. I mean, it was like a, there was some bona fides to that program. Sure, sure. And I had never, up until that point, like I had, I mean, I'd always performed well academically and all of that stuff, but I, I just had never had someone. The confidence in the creativity. Say like, someone say like, like, you're so good at this.

We want to give it money. Right. Right. Like I had not had that. Right. And, and I was writing about a lot of the stuff I was going through emotionally. I moved out of my mom's house the day I turned 18, but I was still feeling a lot of the stuff I was going through emotionally. I moved out of my mom's house the day I turned 18, but I was still feeling a lot of turmoil. And like, when I look back on it now, a lot of the

turmoil was around how to disconnect from that relationship with my mom. And I was also, you know, kind of wrestling with men paying attention to me. I, you know, I was still a virgin at that point and like was trying to navigate being a grown-up in terms of academically and intellectually but being completely socially immature yeah um because i had i had never tried to have social skills and i had this crippling anxiety and it made me very vulnerable and and so i just didn't because of all that upbringing i had that was like you're always in danger in the presence of a man you cannot trust men and all that kind of stuff which kind of made what happened when I was assaulted by the professor at my senior year in college was what made it so devastating like you knew it was the one it was

the first person that I had ever trusted yeah outside of my family yeah and it was heartbreaking and then that person like basically stalked me for like a year afterwards like while this was going through like while the police reports were being filed and because i i i felt i i called the cops like i didn't like i and the thing is like it's very different today than it was then when When I called the police, the first question I was asked is if I was dating him. Yeah. And then as it got referred to the DA's sexual assault team, and they called me and said that they thought that they shouldn't press charges

because I was going to have to testify against them, and that was going to be really hard for me. And they just didn't think that there was going to be enough evidence, even though there was. I mean, like by today's standards, what they were saying was like fucking ridiculous. But then I got off the phone with them and someone else called from their office confidentially and said, their office confidentially and said, I looked into it for you. And if you go through the schools like sexual harassment policy through civil court, you actually have X, Y, Z. And I've looked up all the things and all of the title violations that have gone on here. And like, this is something that you could do. And that would probably get this person removed from their tenure and everything else and so i

went through that route which sucked because it never feels good to not go through the criminal justice route right because as soon as you do that it immediately makes it like oh harassment which i felt what happened was not harassment it was assault and it was horrible. And like it devastated me and it sent me on a path for years afterwards. And what happened ultimately? Did you get it? Did you resolve? Did he get,

did you get, he ended up, you know, stalking people and there was an investigation and went through this and that. Still teaching though. Yep. And then all these these he eventually was when it came down to the fact that he was gonna have to go to court he resigned and i was told to be happy with that result and then found out that a semester

later he was hired at another university in the system as if nothing had happened like the priest yeah i mean essentially that's what happened and like but that the whole i mean i'll never regret that i i'll never regret that i stood up for myself and that i went through with it and that i testified and that i put myself through one of the most humiliating processes you can go through which is being questioned and and being opened up being interrogated around like everything about your life um and i mean one of the ironies was that the thing that in the end they were sold on they were like well normally when people are making this up they're doing it for attention but she's a straight-a student and she's considered kind of like a star academic and she's really well liked by all of her peers so that doesn't make sense and uh she's queer so that also doesn't

make sense she's a lesbian because at that point like i'd never you know what i mean i'd never even like how like had a boyfriend i'd never i never done you know what i mean like i had and so which was like this weird irony because i was like that shouldn't be the reason that he's guilty like it's that those things should both be irrelevant what should be relevant is that there were like witnesses to just before and immediately after that were convinced that something really horrible had happened on the in-between and they all came forward and they all testified on my behalf and they all said they believed me and they all said he had even all testified on my behalf and they all said they believe me.

And they all said he had even partially confessed to someone else that he thought was going to be sympathetic to him. And that person came forward and they were very disturbed by what he had told them. So it's like. I'll never regret having done it. Yeah, it felt really empowering to do that. But at the same time, I mean, it was just devastating to, it just stripped mine to my self-esteem. Yeah, and so what were the immediate repercussions of that? Did you leave the school?

Well, I had just gotten accepted to the graduate school at the same place. And so I was constantly afraid and worried that people thought that I got into the program as like a peace offering, even though I'd already been admitted and accepted and all that stuff way before any of this had happened. But also like I was in distress, you know, while I was preparing testimony and being stalked, like with no help. No, like I would complain endlessly no help you know this guy would show up at my door like banging on my apartment stuff like that to get you to shut up yep yeah and uh it was like i had no help no recourse so i'm doing all of that while trying to go to school which was horrible and like trying to focus on grad school, like while that's happening.

I mean, it was just like, it was just, and not feel like I could talk to anybody about it. Cause I felt like I had to be tough and there was no counseling available or you didn't trust anybody. I mean, I was like,

I felt so I, like I was already so anxious and suspicious of people. And the first time I'd been vulnerable, like looked at someone as a mentor, that is how I was repaid. And like one of the other things is it launched me into my first relationship with a man that ended up being

an incredibly abusive situation. And it was because I felt so unsafe. How'd you meet that guy? I was working at a pool hall. Wait, so you leave school? No, I'm going pool hall wait so you leave school no i'm going to school and i'm working i'm like going to school i'm working as an esl tutor yeah i'm uh i wasn't accepted as english the second language okay at the college and then taking a full load as a graduate student and working a job yeah so i'm doing all of that while also going through like this harrowing fucking process

of whatever and um so i met this guy and it was like he was really into me he kind of he kind of took control where'd you meet him at the pool hall and i got invited to this party at his house after after hours and he's he was like all the other waitresses there thought this guy was really cool he was very attractive very charismatic very and he just liked me right away he was he i mean we were in our 20 like i was barely 21 he was a little older but like he was like already a manager at us at like a like a retail store and all like he was already like a boss right like and at the time in this way that seemed very

impressive yeah um and he just knew what he wanted and was really into me and um like when we met it's like there was this couple fighting in the parking lot and i was in his car to go to his house and he started following the couple and he's like i'm worried about that girl and then he like stopped his car and like got out and walked over to the couple and was like is everything okay here and i remember feeling like really like impressed by that safe safe and that was gonna be me in another year sure i was gonna be the girl in the parking lot with the him being the fucking horrible guy oh really yeah like like physically bad too i don't want to get into all of it but it was it was bad it was toxic it was like me leaving in the middle of the night not telling anyone where

i was going and feeling like i couldn't i went and found another apartment i found a landlord that would you had moved in with him oh yeah like we were in it we were gonna get married how long was that for that was a two-year relationship and it just it ended in horror yeah chaos it was it was bad it was really bad. But like what got me into that relationship was feeling like when I had made my own decisions because I had just gotten free from my mom and gotten into my own place. And then immediately this fucking guy, this professor had done what he had done. And I felt scared and really vulnerable. And this guy came in and it just seemed like he was really controlling and all that stuff. But just some part of me felt like he knows what he wants. He knows the answers. He always has the answers.

And all I want is the answers. Stability. You want that stability. And so I just leaned into it. Yeah, I just leaned into it because I was like, I don't feel safe on my own. Does your mom know about all this stuff that's going on? She didn't know. I didn't tell anybody.

And that's not uncommon, I guess. I found out later that- But she knew about the professor, yeah? Yeah. Right, but not the new guy. Yeah. So you leave in the middle of the night, you find another apartment, then what happens?

So that was when I started doing drugs again. That was like, because I was just kind of, I was't, I was like, I couldn't hold it together anymore. The crank? More crank? It was meth at that point. Meth? Yeah. The next, the evolution of crank. I mean, I was, I was, I had just left an incredibly abusive.

Were you smoking it? Yep. I was freebasing it. I left an incredibly abusive relationship for, I'd been with this person for two years that had really ground me down to nothing after having been through the whole sexual assault thing. So then you're going to do meth to finish the job? Well, and I'm still going to graduate school.

I'm still doing the maximum amount of units allowed. At this point, I'm now working as a TA, so I'm teaching English 1, working'm now working as a ta so i'm teaching english one working as an english second language tutor and working a full-time job as a waitress and bartender so that i can survive i'm doing all of that on top of being just emotionally devastated like i i didn't the meth was like it literally allowed me to not die from exhaustion yeah yeah oh right it was just. It was just keeping me alive. It was just animating. Sure.

So where did that end go? How long does that go on for? That is pretty devastating pretty quickly. You know, I still have all my teeth and I'm still cute. No, I get it, but mentally, you know? I ended up moving back into my adoptive father's house and kind of just kind of fell apart. And I think it was probably the first time in my life that I'd ever let everything just like fall apart because I'd always been like a mascot. Right.

4.0 grade point average, always on top of everything. And it was like the first time that I allowed myself to just fail that it couldn't hold anymore and i wanted to fail i think i just was like you know what i'm tired i'm fucking tired yeah um and i did and i i was like i'm just gonna i'm just gonna ride this and see what happens um and that's i kind of i think the other thing about being a writer a creative person is it's like you can kind of tell what you're about because there's certain stuff that you'll never stop doing like if in the like in the depths of addiction you're still doing stand-up it's like somehow you find a way sure it's like and you also you kind of uh what right you you you know what's

Right. You know what you deeply want to continue doing because you can't stop it other than the drugs. Yeah. Yeah, right? I mean, well, it's definitely one thing, which it refined all of my problems down to one. Where do I cop shit? Every day. One, like all of life's, all of the stuff around, like, what is the meaning of life? What is my purpose?

What am I going to do when I grow up? All of that's gone and all that's all that's there well how long did that last a long time a long time probably actually i feel like it lasted i did that for about two years it just it felt like i don't know like in tarot there's like the tower card yeah it just felt like this period in my life that was like a tower moment it was just like literally anything that could fuck up or any way that i could be disillusioned or disappointed or defeated well where do you get saved by whatever where's the knight um or the princess or whoever how do you where do you. How do you get the fuck out of Fresno? So it kind of culminated in this trip I took to Hawaii with my brother and my mom. Because I'd had this moment where I was like, if I keep doing this, I'm a lifer.

I'd had one of those moments where I was like, if I stop right now, this is a story. I know that one. If I keep going right now. You won't know the difference. Like, yeah, I'm a lifer and I don't want to be a lifer. So some part of me in the middle of all of that despair, like had some will to live or transcend all of it. And I ended up taking this trip with my mom and my older brother to Hawaii. And it's like every four or five years my mom would find

money to take like a family trip in this attempt to kind of pull us all together and so we ended up in kawaii i love kawaii yeah on this island at this resort yeah and i didn't it's like looking back now i should i should have been able to just be like mom like i'm a drug addict and I'm scared. But like I couldn't. But my older brother, like we were out. We'd gone out early one morning and we were in the ocean together, just me and him. Yeah. And I remember just turning to him in the water and crying and saying like, I'm stuck. Like something really bad is happening and he was like

what's going on and i was like like i like i'm a drug addict like i'm in trouble and um and he was like okay like here's what we're gonna do you know and he's like you're gonna i'm you're gonna move in with me in seattle and like we're gonna take care of it and it was kind of like this weird like it's like we had this secret right and it's like I think it's like that weird kind of bond that you get with a sibling sometimes where it's like I think he just knew I was in real trouble

like because I was always the person in the family that's like like you know like Jasmine's okay Jasmine's fine like you know like jasmine's okay yeah jasmine's fine yeah like i was that was my job in the family unit was to like bring up the rear and make everybody look good you know so i was always a straight a student i was really beautiful mom and different people had eating disorders i was like how to you know what i mean it's like no matter what it was it's like I was athletic like everyone thought you had your shit together yes right and um and I've been that guy yeah and

so I had that and so I moved to Seattle with my brother um and was there for six months and it was long enough to get clean yeah um and it was like the secret you know it was long enough to get clean. Yeah. And it was like the secret, you know, it was like, no one's going to know, you know, like it's our little secret. Yeah. And he supported me and you know what I mean? Like I didn't pay runner. It's like, he was just like, he's got to come up and like, we'll just handle it.

Like we'll just, we'll just handle it. Yeah. And so then I went back to Fresno um because i missed my friends and i kind of like i was like okay i'm gonna have to go back and kind of see what i can reconstruct of what i kind of let burn to the ground um and i immediately relapsed oh man yeah i mean it is what it is yeah you know what i mean like i immediately i mean how are you going to stay sober if you can you don't have any sort of support system or yeah but somewhere in that i relapsed but not for as long it's like i relapsed yeah and i had a

friend that i would use with this girl really beautiful yeah and I remember one day we were just high as fuck and I looked over and she was like playing with her nails and I realized that she had taken a paper clip and pulled off her thumbnail yeah and it was like this moment where I was like and I was like I don't want to say her name but I was like I was like Darby yeah and she's like huh like and i was like baby like what are you you're bleeding and she's like looking and i it was this moment where i was like i that like as weird as it is that was like my weird rock where i was like i i was like oh man like the bad part of this is fucking can't do this and so i kind of sat in my shit for a while and i got

clean on i i, cold Turkey just like stopped everything. Yeah. And I'd been working off and on, on this novel because when I'd gotten really high and was like being methed out, I started reading Michel Foucault and, um, he had this book discipline and punish and I found it very soothing. Yeah. Um, I'd never read philosophy before.

Like I'd never, um, I have a hard time with it. I'd never read philosophy before. Like I'd never. I have a hard time with it. I used to too. But for some reason, when I was in the depths of addiction, that book really changed my life. That's good. There was something about the way

he was looking at the world in this like structured and ordered way that calmed me the fuck down. Yeah. And it helped me to see that there was a way rational yeah right and like i had just grown up in fucking chaos yeah you know where every action was a reaction to fear or trauma or distress cause or anger or despair yeah so that's like a billiard ball world where you just yeah but like it's just like i'd

never seen someone kind of map it out like they're that yeah that like it's not just you that you're part of a structure that has contributed and like so it wasn't that it was helping me with addiction but i was having a quarter-life crisis is what i was having yeah how old were you at this time i was like 25 26 yeah so i was having. Yeah. How old were you? At this time, I was like 25, 26. Yeah. So I was having a quarter life crisis, but I didn't have a word for it.

You know what I mean? But that's what was happening is I was doing drugs and all this shit because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Or the thing is, I knew what I wanted to do,

but I could not overcome my fear of doing it. Okay. So I knew I wanted to leave home. I knew I wanted to be an artist. I knew I wanted to be a performer. I knew I i wanted to do all that but that meant moving away from home yeah it meant going into like all kinds of uncertainty and as someone that had been raised to be predictable stable always right never fuck up perfect and correct at all times that was like

an existential crisis right but you were all you were pushing your mental limits on speed. Yeah. But I didn't know it. I didn't know that. You know, I didn't realize that. And so. So what did you end up? So I, um, I, there was, we were, I was on MySpace and Tumblr and there was this site

God's Girls that was sort of a competitor to Suicide Girls. And it was like two hundred dollars per photo shoot and we'll fly you out for two thousand dollars like send in your photos yeah and i it was this thing where it was like i i just it wasn't like i needed the money per se it was like because of everything i talked about in the way i was raised around appearance and like yeah don't be pretty and don't do this and all of that kind of stuff yeah it was like i just it just seemed like a risk i wanted to take right and i was like let me do this and if they accept me i'll take that as like a sign and then i can take that money and maybe i can backpack around europe

because i've been writing this novel about the the catholic genocide and the von d which is like a footnote of a footnote in Discipline and Punish. That's where the Michelle Foucault connection comes in. And you finished that book. You finished writing it. I mean, there's so many drafts of it. It's my leaves of grass. I'm still working on it.

But there are many drafts of it. Okay, good. There's none I would show anybody. But so I submitted and got accepted Okay, good. And it felt like it took a really long time. But when I look back at the emails, we were emailing for maybe a month or two. Yeah. And then he said he wanted to fly me out to New York City where he lived. Right. And like we would do all these photographs together.

Like he would photograph me for the site. Yeah. He's like, because typically the site you would be sent to a photographer that was in like the nearest city and they had people in LA and New York. And what were the pictures? Like it was like, it was an alt porn site. It was like soft core like nudes. It wasn't- Just you.

Yeah. Yeah. And so he paid for my plane ticket out there. My dad gave me $200 and I went to New York with like a suitcase and $200 and I stayed for three years. I never went home. And you stayed with that guy? Yep.

And you did photographs we did photographs and then like fell in love and kind of became really enmeshed with each other and got kind of swept up in this moment in this sort of like uh kind of renaissance of porn movement that happened it kind of coincided with the sasha gray tumblr so it kind of brings us back into like that yeah put us up into like that, put us up to like 2012. We're doing all this art stuff and there's this vision that we're going to be part of this sort of bohemian artistic porn slash whatever.

Like it's hard to explain to people what it felt like in 2009 to 2012, what it felt like to be in porn where the means of production had been made accessible to everyone there were these streaming platforms where you could go everyone and it felt like like it kind of we felt like we were doing radical activism just by living our lives and also self-ownership yeah and was that was he the guy that you sort of credit for getting you over the anxiety hump? Or was, I mean, you know, how did you, was this just, I'm going to throw myself into this?

I still was. Did the fear went away or no? I still was okay with everything because it was photos. But like you lost your inhibitions. You weren't, you didn't have the anxiety. I mean, I just, I never had anxiety around my naked body because I never felt like my body was mine in the first place. So like I was always a workhorse for my family and for everything. I've had a job since I was 12 years old. owned my body or had a right to it or i just never had an opinion about it it was like having an opinion about the engine in your car like who cares how it looks it doesn't matter you know it's like i just didn't feel so i never felt feelings like shame or this or that because it

was just kind of like i understand when people look at my tits they feel something i don't know what that is and i don't really care and it kind of doesn't really matter just give me money you know it was like i just didn't have that kind And it kind of doesn't really matter. Just give me money. You know, it was like, I just didn't have that kind of relationship to my body. I just did. I never felt, I never felt anxious about whether or not people thought it was hot or cute or,

you know what I mean? Like I just, you know, it just felt like something that didn't belong to me, if that makes sense. Yeah. It's kind of disassociative. Yeah,

pretty much. That's not great is it not i feel like most women spend most of their lives being disassociative like being dissociative because of the because of the attention because of the way that that we're groomed to exist right so you're projected upon and objectified. So why not be disassociated? Yeah. I mean, that's how most women are coping. I think most women are walking around dissociative states. So you do the bohemian art thing and that turns in, it felt like you were part of a movement. And then what? So, um, around 2011, I got scouted by a feminist porn filmmaker in L.A. And that was a big decision.

Yeah, a woman. I don't want to give her air either because she turned out to be interesting. It's a diplomatic word. Okay. I mean, interesting. Yeah. It's neutral. Neutral.

And my feelings about her are neutral. Okay. So you get, she scouts you out. She scouts me. And like, that is a big decisive moment. My dad had, my adoptive father had cancer at the time. And I was flying to Fresno a lot to take care of him. And we didn't know how we were going to deal with bills.

She made the offer. And it was just like, come do this and I'll try to make you a contract girl and I'll pay you $1,000 per scene. And at the time I'd been living off of my modeling work in New York and I was like $1,000 per scene to me. It was like a lot of fucking money. Now what makes a feminist? Was it all girl?

That's up for debate in our industry. I think it just means that the woman's holding the camera. Okay. Okay. But so I started doing Girl Girl and my thought at the time was like, I'll do a few movies and I'll take the money

and I'll go to bum around Europe and do that. Like this, my whole life has been like trying to get to the same weird place. Where you can just walk around Europe. Walk around Europe. Yeah.

So I signed on to do it. And like I just kind of became popular. You know, I was a really popular girl, girl performer. I only worked with women. And it was this time when we were making really artsy stuff. And we were making a lot of features. And it turned out I was a good actress. Yeah.

And a lot of the movies at the time were features. They had scripts and stories. And there was this feeling that we were making art it was just kind of radical and that this is about to be this new kind of era of cinema where there was going to be this sort of synergy because you have to think that's the same time that gaspar noé was coming out with stuff sasha gray was doing mainstream movies there was a feeling that there was this moment where maybe like these porn was going to break legit well yeah or if these worlds might collide and live harmoniously together. Yeah.

And in some ways that's come true. I mean, being a porn star has now become its own unique kind of celebrity in a way that it wasn't before. You know, it used to be like, well, she used to do porn and now she's this. Now porn stars in and of themselves are legitimate celebrities. I mean, they're now like rappers and musicians where for them it's a brag to say that their girlfriend is a porn star i get that but like you know you're still up against you know like how like we don't have to go through the whole porn experience but i mean now that you

you want to get out of it because what was this point where you thought it was going to break legit then like by the time i met you, you were like, I'm just doing girl and girl. I want out. Yeah. I mean, let me clarify. I never gave a fuck.

I was trying to survive, but the photographer had a vision. I never cared about any of that stuff. Okay. But what I'm saying is that it became your job. It became a job. Yeah. And there, that once you were able to, you know, at post-pandemic and sort of before the pandemic when you were kind of doing, started doing the stand-up, that, you know, you still were up against the fact that celebrity or not, being a porn person was sort of a liability in the legit world to a degree the honestly people

have always asked like oh do your parents know what you do or what did your parents think and that one that question is always funny to me because i never even think of my parents as like thinking of me like at all you know what i mean so it's like i was like why would i tell them they wouldn't care like why would they care what i was doing? Like, I don't like it. Like, it doesn't even enter my head space that like they think of me. You know what I mean? The only people I asked was I asked all my friends that were writers that were working in publishing. I was like, if I do this, is it going to impact my career?

And? And they said, oh, no, it's going to help it. They're like, it's it's like that. It's like that Anton Robert Anton Wilson thing, which is like my advice to a young writer is involve yourself in some scandal. Yeah. Like if you want to get published.

Well, does that turn out to be true though, ultimately? I mean, it has. Because when I look back at everything that I have, if I hadn't been in porn, I wouldn't have gotten anyone's attention. Because you were writing for that magazine. What is it? I write for Mel Magazine. But I mean, mean even before that when i was doing stand-up or when i like

when i had the podcast my the podcast i had yeah um i knew that the reason i was able to get guests was because they wanted to come hang out with a porn star for an hour and then they got in the door and they were like oh it's actually just a podcast but that's how i kind of got into stand-up though was because those people, a lot of the, because then some of them were like that. And then a lot of those people became friends and were like, Oh,

like, Oh, the comics. Yeah. And they were like, give it a whirl. Yeah. A lot like I kind of was what made it awesome because by the time I started

doing standup, no one gave me a hard time because everyone thought it was their idea. Like everyone thought they were the one that had told me I should do it. So I was able to kind of circumvent a lot of the like, oh, a porn star that thinks she can do standup. I was able to circumvent a lot of that because all of the comics that I was around were like, yeah, I told her she should do it. You know, they all thought they were the one.

Yeah. You know. Well, it's just like, you you know you wrote a script that's getting some attention um and you're you're actively engaged in in the process of of maybe bringing it to life in you know in mainstream show business yeah in a big way so where were you when you wrote that script because like like i said like since i've known you you've been sort of like one foot in the business but like and i also knew that it was a means of survival and that after a certain point the reality is it becomes difficult for you to like get any sort of like you know non-celebrity

job without being investigated somehow and judged right and that that's an obstacle whether you think it's a moral issue or whether it bothers you or not right you've had to deal with that yeah yeah i mean it's it's everything it's it's i can get kicked out of my apartment i've had bank accounts closed i've i like i mean it i cannot date i can't i mean it makes literally everything a challenge and there's no aspect of life that is not profoundly impacted by doing this job and that's the thing that I as much as we're talking about. Here's my I'll do this one rant for 30 seconds. My gripe about this normalization of sex workers rights is like the thing about sex workers rights was about drawing attention to the fact that our job is a site of labor. It has never meant to glamorize what it is.

And that has become conflated. never meant to glamorize what it is and that has become conflated like when we're talking about having rights it's like we want people to recognize that what we do is labor and we deserve rights and protections just like everybody else um we deserve to not be discriminated against we deserve to be protected from public health diseases and things like that we deserve to be safe from police harassment and job discrimination right like these are just basic protections that should be in place because we are a legitimate site of labor. That's different from like whether or not this is a fun or good job or that something that's good for everybody or. Or even your personal feelings about you. Yeah.

In relation to it. Exactly. This has nothing to do with whether or not porn addiction is real. Sex addiction is real. Whether or not human trafficking exists. Like all of that is separate it's a job it's like at the end of the day the majority of women engaged and men engaged in sex work are there willingly and have a clientele that has sought them out we do not create the demand we fulfill it yeah right so even though i'd been through graduate school and life and i thought

i comprehended how the stigma would impact yeah the rest of my life i had no fucking idea i couldn't have comprehended how how profoundly like it impacts everything and i think it's been devastating in my personal life um especially because of the kind of the attitudes that people come into it with you know it's like having dating or really everything is impossible so um i so i started an adult in july of 2011 uh and the first year was really fun because it was just so different so i was meeting all these crazy people i went to my first avn show i was sort of like a contract i wasn't an official contract girl but i was sort of you know sort of the brand ambassador if you will of a of a company um i was getting scripts wrote around me it was all very thoughtful i was acting i was know, like all of the things. It was very exciting and fun. And then by 2012, 2013, it was like just starting to that relationship had finally dissipated. kind of just a free agent without response, emotional responsibility to anybody.

And I was already starting to see the limitations of the job. It's like, it's not the most intellectually stimulating work you can do. So the novelty of it had compensated for that at first. And then once the novelty of the job wore off, I was like, okay, but like, what am I really going to do? Right? Like, like this is fun, but what am I really going to do?

And this is around the time you started standup? Almost. So that was like 2013, 2014. I, uh, I had met this photographer, Richard Avery, that was like, well, you're really, you're, you're blisteringly smart for branding. You should have a podcast because you being on Twitter, these different places, because he had seen my Twitter and my pictures and he was like, you're really funny and all that stuff.

He's like, you need a podcast. Like that's going to be the best branding for you. You need a format where you can sit and talk and people can hear how intelligent you are because that's your brand. And that was like kind of the first time I'd been around someone that was like, I'm going to tell you what you are. Right. Right. He was like, here's what you are. You're a really fucking smart bohemian girl that does your brand. And that was kind of the first time I'd been around someone that was like, I'm going to tell you what you are. Right. Right. It was like, here's what you are.

You're a really fucking smart bohemian girl that does sexy times sometimes, but like, that's just because she's a bohemian. That's your brand. That's who you are. Right. And I took it and ran with it. I was like, okay.

Yeah. And so with the podcast, I was like, I'd always loved comedy, had been fascinated by standup, but didn't know how to do it. And so with the podcast, I was like, why don't I just interview comedians? That'll make it two birds with one stone. I'll kind of figure out how they got to do it.

Sure, that's why I interview actors. You're going to figure it out. Get the free lessons. Also, I just was like, I didn't want the podcast to be boring. I was like, I'll just have the comedians on and then yeah and and so i went and like looked up a list of like like top up and coming comedians and i messaged them all on twitter and they all agreed to come on the fucking show sure so it's like i was it's funny i had like willie hunter and drew michael and like there's been like kyle canane and like i had like all these people like came on there's been a relationship between comedy and

porn for a long time. Well, because you, like, we invented you guys. That's why. Okay. Well, no, because of vaudeville. Vaudeville burlesque. In the vaudeville days, the host would bring on the burlesque girls. Right.

And then eventually that became stand-up comedy. Yeah. So it's been a lifelong. Sure. Like, we both exist kind of together. Yeah. But so I was doing that and that's and then so my comic friends were like you know you should try it i started doing stand-up

around 2015 and you and i had just become friends and I also met a girl that became a girlfriend yeah and she was a fan she had started as a fan I'd never done that before but she had been buying skype shows for me and she was so stunningly fucking beautiful I couldn't believe it and um and she was so smart um what I recognized out now is that she was also traumatized in very much the same way that I was as a child by a mom that was kind of emotionally incestuous. Just kind of like just too much. Just too much all the time, unpredictable, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, of course we got along swimmingly at first, but that also is the same thing that ended up becoming, you like two magnets that have the same charge it's like yeah i triggered her anxious attachment she triggered my avoidant attachment like like you know it just kind of but that went on for a while

it went on for three years yeah um but she kind of uh saw that i was tired and she came in and very she worked in tech and she her work paid really well yeah and after we'd been together for a little while i think what triggered it was i couldn't fit into a pair of pants and i had a photo shoot and i i had like a meltdown where i was like like a full-on i'm going insane meltdown yeah and she was like um you need to take a break like this job is killing you yeah this like um and she she basically was like why don't i cover the bills and just focus on stand-up and you've been wanting to write this novel like and you finish the novel let's have a deal like let me just let me just get your back

for a little while because like i think you're gonna lose your mind i think you're going insane and i think you need a break and so I ended up taking about a year off. I did finish a draft of the French Revolution novel and I did a lot of standup. I ended up doing a cross country tour with Aaliyah Janine. And by the time I got back from that, me and the girlfriend, the relationship had just reached a point of like,

it just, she was, it was like an open relationship, but there was a lot of just emotional infidelity going on i was doing it too like i got wrapped up in this guy that was like a professor and she was wrapped up in this girl that was the you know what i mean like there was like it just kind of hung out to this point where it was like our like we're roommates right now like we're not there's nothing is connecting us yeah um and i think too was just like both of us realizing that we were that we were just trauma bonded and just we were just triggering each other like over and over and over again it's so hard the trauma bonded thing oh yeah so we broke up and i was kind of didn't know if i

wanted to stand up i this relationship had failed i didn't want to be in porn anymore like there was a lot going on and one night i got and i think you and i had had a discussion around this time where i was kind of like i don't know what i'm doing and you had said something to me around like you need to be more strategic like you don't have any strategy around kind of what you're doing and it had never occurred to me that a career path might have strategy yeah yeah well people always think i'm really smart. So they assume that it's hard. So they assume that I understand a lot of stuff that for them is very

basic. Yeah. And it's like, they don't understand that I'm autistic. It's like, it's a very, well, I wasn't either.

I didn't, I mean, I learned it just from like, you know, chaos. Well, anyway, you gave me that hot tip.

Good. And, um, I don't, I don't remember if it was you or someone else, but someone had said something like, well, you need to get on TV. And if you want to get on TV, whether do your five minutes for late night or you write a TV sitcom and you make a vehicle for yourself. But those are the ways you do it. And you get on TV.

And then once you're on TV, then you can go on tour and do the thing. Sure. The standard comic Bible. Yes. And so I went home one night, got really drunk because I was upset about everything. Yeah. And I wrote this pilot in about four hours that is what I'm the one that you did the table read for.

And then I put it in a drawer and forgot about it because I didn't have anyone to give it to. And I got done with it and I was like, this is neither a sitcom nor good. And like, nor is it nor is it fun. It just seemed like you need to get it out. Yeah. But and that was just that thing where I was like, OK, well, now I have my TV pilot. So if anyone ever asks, I have it. Yeah.

And I like went back into like I started getting writing gigs and went back into doing adults. But with this mind towards to keep accruing the writing gigs. And also the adult at this point is like, you know, you have almost complete control over it. Yeah, because it's like OnlyFans and stuff like that. So I'm back an adult and I'm accruing writing gigs and working on stuff with this idea that I'll finally be able to transition out by kind of just waiting till the writing gigs

just start accruing more money than the adult. And I ended up writing. And then we went under into a pandemic. We had a little Pamplemousse. Yeah. Little Panda Express, little Panera. And my OnlyFans started doing really, really well, well enough that for the first time I could completely just stay home and not work. And I started writing

extra hard. And I became a columnist for Mel magazine, and I was doing other subsidiary stuff and just really focused on by the time the pandemic was over, I wanted to just be completely done with adults. Like basically for that whole year, I didn't do any adult shoots at all, but I like officially retired. But I did the thing where I called the agent and I just was like, you know, 10 years is a long time and I think I'm done. And he was like, it's like, okay, well, it was, you know, I was, I was honored to be able to help and be part of what you're doing. And I know you're going to really do amazing things. And it was kind of cool. My friend I was with, like unbeknownst to me had gathered all of these people that i'd worked with for 10 years and made me a video that was like whatever like it was like it was like i was sobbing it was

so beautiful and i kind of did this like i don't believe okay look i don't believe in affirmations or manifesting or astrology or tarot cards but but I do find that shit soothing as fuck. Okay. Okay. So it's, I just find it calming. Yeah. But I really started doing like affirmations and manifesting and kind of focusing

and reading a lot of self-help stuff and like really just going hard and taking this leap of faith that like if I got rid of the safety net that other shit would happen. And then in March of this year Peter Berg slid into my DMs and was like I read an article you wrote and do you want to talk yeah and everything since then has been kind of insane but the moral of the story is it's a good thing i had that pilot yeah because i met him and we were talking and then i was like well i did write a tv pilot and he was like well let

me see it and a week later you know i pulled it i like refurbished it a little bit um and a week later he had it in his hands and i think that that the fact that i was on deck like that probably had more of a positive impact on that relationship than anything else it's like because it just demonstrated out the gate that like you can do the work or just that like no one has ever been more prepared for an opportunity than me yeah i swear to god and now we're gonna be at this weird place where it's like we're gonna all be be waiting to see what happens. Yeah. I feel that it cannot fail. Good. I don't know how confident I feel in what we've done here today.

I just think it's a great sort of story to tell personally from your experience and also like paying your dues in these different areas in life, with hardship, with trauma you know and and doing the work that you did and understandably getting tired of it after a certain point but not necessarily being ashamed of it and yeah i'm never i'm not ashamed of anything i've done there you go like ever you know and i don't and i think that that's if i like if anything i think that if we're talking about harm reduction like we have to stop stigmatizing the people that do this work like that is the biggest area of harm reduction it's not the swedish model it's not arresting johns it's not banning porn it's not any of that

it is getting rid of the stigma that sex workers have to face. It makes it impossible for them to leave. It creates so many problems that create these scenarios in which people have to make really desperate decisions or have to do desperate things to cope. And it's like the stigma. The suicides have happened a lot in the last few years i mean it's it's it's just so much of it is around like all these civilians like i would never do porn like people will treat you like shit it's like who are the people like the calls coming from inside the house like you're the one doing the harm like that's you

yeah you know you could stop at any time by simply withdrawing your participation in that process. So I think the stigma is the most harmful thing. And I'm absolutely not ashamed of anything that I've done at all. But, you know, it's just time to move on. And yeah, you seem grounded in that. Yeah. Ready. I mean, I finally gave up OnlyFans. And yeah, you seem grounded in that. Yeah. Ready. I mean, I finally gave up OnlyFans.

That was like the last little. Yeah. That was like the last. It was like the vestigial tale. See you later. Bye. Thank you. So it's like now it's a full.

We'll see what happens. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Good talking to you. Oh, should I say something? No. There you go. Again, you can see all things Sovereign related at SovereignSire.net. Also, don't forget, I have tour dates and some have been added.

And I know I told you about these. I'm going to do these occasionally so people who want to come see me can come see me. Comedy Works in Denver, August 5th, 6th, and 7th. Stand Up Live in Phoenix, August 12th. And added a show on August 13th. Wise Guys in Salt Lake City, August 19th, 20th, and 21st. Helium in St. Louis, Missouri, September 16, 17, and 18. The Comedy Attic in Bloomington, September 30, October 1, and October 2. Okay, that's where we're at right now.

I'm looking into adding more shows at Dynasty Typewriter here in Los Angeles. And there might be some things added as I move through and continue to work on this. And I might tell you, I might tell you, I will tell you, it's been exciting. It's been exciting riffing out this hour because my process of discovery is being witnessed by these audiences at Dynasty. And they're seeing shows they will never see again. They may never happen like they did the night they saw them again, as I try to hone in on this stuff. But that feeling of sort of like, what just happened?

Where did that come from? Is happening, and it will continue happening. So if I'm going to be near you, come see me. You can go to WTFpod.com slash tour for tickets uh links to tickets okay good now moving on Thank you. Boomer lives! Bunky and LaFonda. Cat angels everywhere. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means.

I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.