WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 729 - Roseanne Barr

Episode Date: August 1, 2016

Long before Roseanne Barr ran for President, even before she had the number one sitcom in America, she was a giant in the comedy world. Marc and Roseanne talk about her tumultuous early life, her first days doing stand-up, and her memories of The Comedy Store. She also explains how her life in show business prepared her to be a political player in the Green Party. 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.

You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required.

T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckeristas? What the fucktuckians? Had a couple of what the fucktuckians at my tuckians had a couple of what what the fuck

tuckians at my shows in bloomington over the weekend as you can probably tell by the slight difference in sound quality i am broadcasting from a hotel room i am still in bloomington indiana i've been here many times before i enjoy it i walk the blocks. I eat the food. I take it in. I operate at the pace of Indiana. And also, the shows were fucking great. The Comedy Attic here in Bloomington is a great comedy room. And I know that's been said before, but it's interesting to work, to find a room. This place seats about 160.

It's tight. And everybody's right on top of each other in a way. It's snug right there in front of you as a comic. It's a great one-mind room. I'm working out the new hour and a half and it was beautiful. It was beautiful. All the shows were just exciting. All the shows were a little bit different. The audiences were great. It's just a real treat to do real club work in a real comedy club. People traveled from Ohio, from Chicago, from Kentucky, from where did I meet people from? Yeah, from Dayton, from Louisville, from Cincinnati, from Chicago, and Indianapolis, of course, Dakota, South Dakota, I think people came in from. And it's very humbling for me. And I appreciate you traveling to see me

if I might not be coming to your immediate market or nearby. But I'll tell you, man, it's worth the trip. It's still, I think, as a person who knows me pretty well, I think it's a good investment of time to come see me in a little place, because I have a better time. I had complete freedom of mind over the weekend, and I was definitely very present. But anyways, I had some good food here in Bloomington. I ate some biscuits and gravy, and I had some good coffee, and I I worked with Mo Mitchell who's a young comedian

and she was great. It was nice. Roseanne Barr is on the show today. I'd like to preface that by saying that this was recorded before either convention. She probably would have been a little more worked up had it been done say today But I really didn't want to focus on that with Roseanne. Roseanne's one of the great comics, and she's one of the great comic performers, and she's had an amazing career as a comedian. She's important. She's an important comic, and I wanted to talk about that.

So that was my agenda. That was my agenda. So you're dying to hear some hotel room observations. Observation number one, the chair at a hotel room desk has been through a lot. When you see a hotel room chair, just know that some stuff has gone down and that chair has cradled a lot of dubious behavior, questionable moral activity that happens between a man and his computer and his dick. That is the triangle of sadness right there. The mind, the computer, the dick. So just know that when you sit down in a hotel room desk chair that you are in the the the masturbatory throne of god knows how many people unfortunately

i had that realization uh while sitting on it naked i don't know what i was thinking i wasn't doing that but i was just checking my email but i was naked and there was no towel between my ass and the seat and then i thought you know they probably don't clean these seats that well what the fuck am i doing what am i doing i mean what I don't know if anything's gonna crawl up my ass but I I still it was just a an uncomfortable moment it was an awkward moment because I respected the journey of the chair and and and now I was part of it and I didn't want to be part of it so I'm okay I showered the other observation I made that I thought was sort of um interesting and interesting and positive in a way, and it gave me a respect for, a new respect for some working people, is that there's a maid staff

at every hotel. There's a cleaning staff. I see the women in the hallway. Well, this to me was sort of beautiful and required some wisdom and some sensitivity and some experience of, you know, a somewhat dark sort. I, well, I eat my nicotine lozenges and these nicotine lozenges, they break apart sometimes. And they, like, if I break one, it'll crumble a little bit. And I had some nicotine lozage crumble on the bedside table be right by where I slept and and I looked at I woke up in the morning and I looked at the nicotine lossage crumble the powder the white powder the little chunks and I'm like holy shit that looks like blow I've had my time with blow I know what cocaine looks like and I'm like that does look

like blow kind of funny kind of nostalgic I didn't I didn't get to get jonesy but I'm like, that does look like, whoa, kind of funny, kind of nostalgic. I didn't get Jonesy, but I was like, I remember, you know. But so I went about my day and I came back and the room had been cleaned. But the little pile of white powder and little crumbles of rocks of white remained. Now, I'm going to give the maid the benefit of the doubt and say that she made a choice there. That wasn't an oversight. She said, oh, I don't want to don't want to wipe that up. That guy's probably looking forward to that.

He's probably looking forward to that bump when he gets back and he gets ready to take the throne. So I appreciate your sensitivity, hotel cleaning staff of America that even though it was not what you thought it was it's very polite of you to leave a little freeze on the bedroom table or on the desk don't wipe away that little bump that that guy or that gal is looking forward to

later in the afternoon or for breakfast the next day thank you for doing that and that's coming from a guy that doesn't do that shit anymore. Did I mention Roseanne Barr is on the show today? She is. And it was a, it was a pleasure spending time with her. She's very intense.

She can go way out there if, if she wants. But I felt, I felt nice, felt nice to interact with her, to be engaged with the great Roseanne Barr. Great comedian. Now look, it's been hard for me to stay out of it.

It's been hard for me to stay out of the cultural conversation, the political conversation. And I'm not great at it because I'm reactive and I get angry. And like anybody else, I transfer my own personal problems onto the struggle at hand. Some ideological problems, but some just personal righteous anger. And I get worked up. I get worked up. You know, what can I tell you? It's just the way I am.

And I connect with the insanity. I had a weird moment just moments ago where I was just walking down the street to this place called Hopscotch Coffee, which is a little ways away. Nice walk. Brought my running shoes. They didn't do any running, but we did some walking.

It's very hot. It's a little humid. It's a little pressure cookery out here in the great America. And I walked by a woman over by the Kroger market uh must have been in her 40s or 50s just screaming into a phone just just screaming into the phone and it was it was you know you feel the intensity man you know there's she was just yelling you know i don't

want any of it i don't want you shooting me up with anything. It was an odd fragment to pick up. It was a heartbreaking fragment, but it was intense. It was loud. It was too loud. And whatever it was revealing was dark. And I went to get my coffee, and I got my cup of coffee, and I came out, and I heard that woman screaming.

I heard her voice still screaming. And then I realized that she was holding a phone. I don't know what kind of phone or how old that phone was, but she wasn't on the phone. She was just screaming. And the phone was a prop for her anger, for whatever intensity that was inside of her, for whatever broke this person. The phone was an outlet that enabled her to yell freely in public with the not very effective illusion that she was on a phone and when when I got out and I saw her across the way and I was watching her I couldn't keep my eyes off her today she was yelling what you have can't be medicated you need

to go to prison dude you push me out of my house you shoot people up and then cut their hair dude and she kept walking and it it took everything i had i my desire was to continue to follow her and listen i wanted to hear more of the crazy dark stuff from the from the lady who had problems but was venting was venting freely in in in her world, in her mental illness. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I gravitate towards that type of intensity, towards that type of insanity. And then I started thinking about where we're at, you know, politically, because there's some times, there's some moments where I don't understand, I don't understand. I understand how people feel that there's a lesser of two evils

that neither choice is good or whatever. But sometimes I don't understand what compels people to gravitate towards somebody. You know, I can mention names. I can mention Donald Trump's name. I don't understand the intelligence of it, the rationale. I understand if you don't like the other candidate, no candidates are perfect. I get all that. I understand if you don't like the system. I understand that maybe you think America has caused your problems, that maybe America is to blame. I got a couple of questions about that. I mean, have you really gone deep? How much of your problems can you really blame on America? What's going on at home? What's going on inside? What's going on with your luck or your personal problems?

Now, I'm not rationalizing anything, and I'm not trivializing anyone's issues, but sometimes I don't understand. I have done some reading. I know that there's an epidemic of addiction, painkiller addiction, oxycodone addiction in this country, that it's striking primarily white lower class people who are angry and desperate and have given up hope that the country is shifting that group of people, white males specifically, in terms of ODing, liver disease, and drug-related tragedy is very high. From what I understand,

it's almost at wartime levels, the mortality rate, because of painkiller addiction. It's a tragedy that that's happening. It's a tragedy that that spirit has been so crushed in that there was so much desperation and so much giving up. And I empathize with that. I understand the nature of addiction and I understand the current of that horrible anger and sadness and desperation and just lack of hope. And I understand why somebody would shoot up. I understand why somebody would relieve themselves on an involuntary, almost choiceless basis to relieve that,

to just feel the release of floating into the freedom of a medication, of a drug that alleviates that desperation, that anger, that hopelessness, and you just float. But what is the opposite of that? How does that get relieved? How do you relieve that in the world of being present? How do you relieve that desperation, that anger, that hopelessness? And what is that relief? Is that relief rational or is it not unlike drug addiction? Is it a rational, thoughtful, reflective relief? Henry Rollins once called track marks hateful little holes in one of his books of poetry. Hateful little holes.

And I remembered that because that's what it is. When you do that, when you jack yourself, when you stick a when you jack yourself when you stick a needle in your arm or you take a pill there is that there's two things happening that's like I'm gonna feel better and I'm I fucking hate me I hate me I hate me and then you take it and you float so when I think about the appeal of Donald Trump, I think about the opposite of that. You know, how do you relieve that, those feelings in the real world among people? How do you relieve it? Because I can't understand intellectually what the decision is to vote for a man like that.

Look, if you don't want to vote, fine. I suggest you vote. If you don't want to, if you don't like Hillary, fine. Whatever you vote if you don't want to if you don't like hillary fine whatever you got to do i'm just dealing with this one thing what is it why vote for trump what is the defense the defense here's why people vote for trump fuck it fuck it all that's the that's got to be the rationale it's a fuck it all vote and when you say why you voting for trump the answer is fuck you so it's fuck it all vote. And when you say, why are you voting for Trump? The answer is, fuck you. So it's fuck it all, fuck you. That should be the campaign slogan in a way

because it is the counterpart. It is the perfect counterpart to an opioid high. What's compelling about engaging with his vision is it's a rush. It's a rush of shameless hate. It's a hit of arrogant ignorance. It's the satisfaction in moments of empty victory. It is just the nihilistic intensity of potential chaotic upheaval and destruction.

I mean, there's no other way to look at it. There's no foresight. There's no vision of the future. There isn't. It is just it's the possible annihilation of all progress with no real plan. It's the elation from the fantasy of complete moral bankruptcy. It's the possibility. And I believe this. And I know some of you people who are my fans and who listen to the show are conservatives, you're Republicans, and you know in your heart this isn't the guy. You know it. You may not like her and that might be driving you.

And I get that. But what it is, what is really at the heart of people that are passionate about Trump winning is it is the possibility of evil winning. And I'm not talking about winning an election, but I'm talking about the eternal struggle. And maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but I don't think Trump is Hitler at all. I think he's fucking Satan.

And I know you rational conservatives and you rational Republicans, I know you know. And I know that you are banking on the idea that he will be schooled, he will be harnessed, he will be held hostage in the Oval Office, and it will be okay. I know it. And I know a lot of people, a lot of intelligent people, men specifically, I know, I know, I know. It's hard, man. You just want to see that woman lose.

It's hard for a lot of men who are secretly infantile, who feel gypped, who have issues with their mommies or their daddies. It's, you know, when you watch a woman with authority, speak with authority, deliver a strong leadership vibe, a grounded person. For a dude, sometimes there's only one way to take that in, and that is, I hate this teacher. Oh, she's so mean, this teacher.

I wish a substitute was here. Remember that guy? Grow up. That's all the righteousness that may come out of me for this cycle. We'll see. Don't get alienated. Just let me have my feelings. Okay. Can you do that? Can you? So Roseanne Barr has a documentary out about her run for president in 2012. And it's great. It's really a great, a great little doc. It was fun to watch.

It's called Roseanne for president. It's now in select theaters and available on most on-demand platforms. And as I said before, I was nervous because I respect Roseanne Barr and we had a nice conversation, primarily about... You can get anything you need with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive.

FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Amity. I'm trying to build a new hour myself and I had a... It's hard. Right?

I had a fucking dream last night that I bombed outdoors in Ireland. I don't know why it was Ireland. You were thinking of that Scotland festival, I bet. You're probably right. I bombed there for a month. Did you do that Edinburgh? Yeah. And you bombed?

Well, yeah. I didn't know what it was. I was there for a month. A month? Yeah. You go for a month and no one was coming. And there was like nine people. It was like doing the original room at 1.30.

Oh, Christ. For a month? Yeah. I bet you wrote some material, though, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You get angry and you write the material.

Yeah. Well, I watched a movie last night. And I got to tell you, I was surprisingly moved and my movie yeah thanks yeah it's good isn't it it is good thank you what what i found interesting about it was that when somebody wants to do what they have every right to do yeah you know but is is really sort of out of the mainstream to run for office or get a platform or make a difference it's a very human looking do you know i mean you're going to rooms full of people that are angry and sort of you know different types of people but it doesn't look it looks like people trying to do something

yeah they are that's why it says at the end of the movie if you if you really want to build a third party then get in there and help them build it they have no infrastructure and that's the only reason that they don't win yeah but it was it was it was and there was a lot of stuff i didn't know about you uh that that i because i my my knowledge i the last time i talked to you were in winnebago you were yeah you came to my studio and uh now you're a star and i have to go to your fucking studio i just it's just easier here it's a nice house like it's cozy in here this is i guess it's a studio house. Like, it's cozy in here. It is. And thanks for the cantaloupe.

I'm starving. Isn't that nice? You're nice. It's a good one. It's the time. Does it remind you of childhood? My grandmother used to make melon balls. Yeah, my grandmother used to, too.

Really? The melon ball? They were so good, yeah. It's like a Jew thing, I think. It is a Jew thing. With sherbet on top. Yeah. Orange sherbet. Yeah.

Remember? Yeah, I do remember. That and brisket. I remember. But I knew you kind of because I was a doorman at the comedy store, but it was after you. But I know you started there. Once you're part of that weird mythology of the comedy store, you just assume. I didn't start there.

I started in Colorado. Right. But you ended up there. Yeah, show business. I started at the comedy store for sure. Have you gone to see Mitzi since she's been sick? No. No?

I haven't, and I feel horrible. I got to do it. Well, she's barely there. I mean, I've been told that she can still kind of recognize, but she's not communicative. She's gone. It's kind of this last time i saw her screaming at her you know you were yeah but what you have a disease oh and she didn't accept it oh you knew she had the parkinson's and she goes no i'm just

nervous i go no you have a degenerate disease and that's why you're shaking you're not fucking shaking because you're fucking nervous yeah and she just wouldn't accept it gonna go yeah well i think paulie goes over there a lot and you know certain people go over there a lot argus i think visits and that's sweet he that's sweet that he would do that well yeah you know i've talked to some of the old timers in here to like jimmy walker and you know and people yeah about like mike binder i had in here because i sort of like i get sort of uh obsessed with the comedy store yeah i do too you do right oh yeah because i was there for some real amazing shit i know right the most amazing shit in the world happened there it's crazy i wonder if it still does i went, I have to say it did because I went in there

on this one night and they got like African American. Yeah. In the main room, they do a black show. Yeah. What's it called? It's Tuesday.

Yeah, I used to, I don't know what they call it. Shit, I don't remember. It's all right, but they still do a black show sometimes in there. Yeah. That shit is unreal.

It's like 14 times next level. It's amazing. It's just amazing. People had to go down there and look, and they were kind enough to allow me to smoke a lot of pot with them, and they had some good shit. And then they let me come up on stage and dance, which I love. Did you do any stand-up?

No. I was like, I wanted to do to stand-up but they're like no don't push it because people don't want to hear any white women out there tonight. You had your time, shut up. But they let me dance and that was really fun. Were people happy to see you? They're fucking putting music and rap and shit in their act.

It's unreal. They have a DJ on stage. It's un-fucking-real. It's the best thing I've seen in 20 years. I felt the same way. It was just last week I was in the or and it was just like a regular or show and then down the main room was a black show and it was like going to a different city it was like it was excited it was interactive you know people yeah i it was just a whole different experience and it was right down it was the old comedy store that's what i thought really remember oh you weren't there then i was there in 87 88 that's when i was there i just missed you i was a doorman it was when sam got big i remember that weren't you and him out in the parking lot with fucking

snort and blow with guns and shit no that the guns came later oh yeah i just missed the guns them guys got guns out there i lost my mind and this is like zeros again yeah it was a little weird i missed all that zeros ghosted or there that that's why the comic store was so exciting yeah because it's got a little zeros it's got a haunted thing it is totally haunted it was like especially the main room right yeah but like now it's weird it's all electric again it's packed out again like it's like popular again it went through where it wasn't now it's like huge it's comedy's gonna get so fucking big that's why i want trump to win because it's gonna fucking rock comedy but you don't really want him to win it'll fucking make comedy bigger than anything

well yeah we'll have something to make fun of but you know i mean i need a fucking job come on trump's good for the economy for your economy hillary's the fucking president nobody's gonna be able to tell any goddamn jokes everybody will be like i am offended by that it's fuck that but but don't you think that there's more power in being offensive when it's actually a little more uh thought of as bad yeah because i was up in um oh christ i don't remember the name was it seattle or portland yeah portland yeah and it's right after the hollywood reporter thanks a lot hollywood reporter i did a great interview with them so they always have to do that headline for clickbait yeah and it goes bar says we'd be lucky to have trump yeah right right and i

was so fucking irate and uh you know so they tried to boycott my portland show because all they do is fucking read a headline for you know it destroys people this headline then click on it and see why i said what i said it was out of context and everything else that's what they do i said clinton owns the media she She's going to win. Don't fucking worry about it. She already has a fucking receipt. Don't worry about Trump. It's all theater.

She's going to win. My opening act, which I can't remember her name. She's a great comic, but she's like, people were pressuring her not to open for me. Oh, I'm based on a headline. Because they thought I came out for Trump. That's unbelievable. I said, I'm falling for my fucking self. I've only said it 10 million times.

I'm writing myself in until I fucking win. Because I know I'm not full of shit and a liar. And I know I care. And I know I can't be bought. So I don't know that about them too or any of them. Well, I think that's another thing. When I was watching the documentary that you start to realize about your history is that, you know, you know how to push back. You fought for everything you had.

And that like, you know, some people, it's like, well, Trump's a clown. And certainly he's got experience in being a slippery, slightly immoral businessman. Well, I'll do. A functioning racist. Don't fucking just get one guy to come on. That's the Republican Party. I get that. Yeah. And they always work that racist angle since what's his name in those fucking commercials with the Willie Horton.

It's not just Trump. Trump is the most liberal person who's ever run a GOP. I know. He's more progressive than Hillary on so many things. It's just how they're fucking with our minds. Well, he shouldn't inflate such a moronic hatred. And I've never seen it inflated like he's doing it. moronic hatred and i've never seen it inflated like he's doing it i've never seen somebody retweet a star of david from a nazi website that was not a fucking star of david listen i

accidentally retweeted trade uh zimmerman's address and got sued for it i got sued and i had to go to court thank god i won yeah because I was like, are retweeting anything that Spike Lee put out there. And look at me going to fucking court because I retweeted. That cost me a lot of money. Oh. So, yeah, don't retweet shit. But that was not a Star of David. The Star of David, sir, you should know this.

Are you a Jew? Yeah. With that face, I thought so. Yeah. It's two interlocking blue triangles i know that i know so you know i i just it's just theater but you come from holocaust survivors of course like i mean like you're right but i didn't i didn't grow up with it in that way that your your grandmother was actually got out yeah and that she and her two sisters got out yeah and what and

what happened to the rest of what's the story she had worked she was 16 she worked and send money home yeah she had 10 brothers and sisters and two parents and uh four grandparents yeah and uh the money came back this how my mom tells the money. The letter came back, no such people known to exist. That whole, and my mom, they called the Red Cross, and the Red Cross says, oh, that city, that town doesn't exist anymore. It was called Oborniki, Lithuania. And they said, oh, that town doesn't even exist anymore. There's nothing left of that town.

And they had had a big farm and they were farmers and they were they raised uh horses and that's how they made their money they they sold work horses yeah yeah and it was all that's another story the whole thing's gone and they had been marched 14 miles from their home and put in a pit and shot and buried alive, most of them. And it's like, okay. And that affected my grandmother. And she had been a performer before that. Oh, yeah.

And at that point, she never did it again. What kind of performer? She sang. She played the mandolin and sang Rudy Valley songs at bar mitzvahs and stuff she had a lovely soprano voice though yeah and that was a story you grew up hearing or did you hear that later like the story about her family and everything i didn't hear it till later but i grew up uh i grew up in an apartment house there in Salt Lake City, Utah with my grandparents had sponsored a bunch of people, survivors over from concentration camps, Germany or Poland and stuff. And so this big apartment building, which my mother still owns, it was full of survivors and people with numbers on their arms and stuff.

And that's where I grew up. So hence my humor. How did they end up in Salt Lake? My grandparents sponsored them. But how did your family end up in Salt Lake of all places? My grandfather was, there was a small Jewish community there of 50 families, merchants, lived with Greek people. Right, right.

Yeah, sure. They had, they sold, they had they sold they had restaurants import exports and stuff yeah and my family had always done that and so they always lived with greeks and um chinese people you know so that's what it was and um so were they there before the mormons came they went there in i think the mid 1800s so probably i don't know when that history lines up, but it's probably around the same time. So they were there a long time. Yeah, they were there a long time. I think they came in the 1880s.

They came in, you know how there was first the 1880s, a whole bunch of people came from Europe. I think they were in that group. And that's, I think a lot of Jews ended up in the Midwest too, like in Minneapolis. Yeah, first they went to Kansas City. Right. That was like, you know, that big Jewish population. And then from Kansas City, they, you know. Yeah, first they went to Kansas City. Right. That was like, you know, that big Jewish population. And then from Kansas City, they, you know. Yeah.

They, if you ever read like Western history of Utah. Yeah. A lot of the cowboys and stuff, they were Jewish and they were black too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a big Jewish presence in Utah for, you know, way, way back. And you had to balance it with the mormon presence well i was just going to say my grandfather was a kosher butcher and he was

that's why he was in salt lake was to serve that community right right yeah and what about how did you get along with the mormon contingent um well they were our neighbors and stuff yeah and uh you know as long as you were just like them it was was great. So you had to act a little Mormon? Well, you know, you had to get along with them. They thought I was a, honestly, they really thought I was a freak. They knew I was Jewish because I always, you know, everybody knew that. But they didn't really know what it meant. Like every Christmas, they'd always bring us Christmas presents.

They felt sorry for us because we didn't have christmas you know they were sweet and i asked my dad too how come santa doesn't come to our house yeah just the neighbors right with presents how does he know here's what my dad said he was so fucking funny he goes because santa is an anti-semite and they were your dad your grandpa your grandmother was socialist or were they like old jewish socialists my one grandmother my mother's mother is completely like a nixon republican right uh-huh for the you know for the business she had a thick lithuanian which i can't do but it was like for the business woman oh Oh, right. The business, what they had, but the business woman. My favorite thing she ever said, she used to kosher.

They were butchers. So she used to kosher her own chickens. Yeah. And her son had- Yeah. She'd do it and kosher them. Yeah. The reverend would come over.

Yeah, yeah. She'd be cutting their throat in the backyard, and I'd watch the body run with no head on it, and the reverend was- The rabbi? Yeah. Yeah. It was called the reverend there in Salt Lake. Oh, really? Because there was a, the cantor also was the reverend.

No kidding. Because there was like a lot of army people there. They have a reverend. They don't call it a rabbi. Okay, okay. So, yeah, he'd be squeezing the blood out of the head, and she's whatever. Praying? Yeah.

Doing the prayer? But then she explained it like this. You cock the yoggler, Wayne. You must cock the yoggler, Wayne. It was all freaky. It was like a farm. I kind of had a farm-ish. A lot of farmers have that background.

And you have a farm. Do you still have it? I've always farmed. Yeah, I have my farm. Yeah, yeah, I love my farm. What happened? It seems to like, what I didn't know, what made me curious was that this car accident, when you got hit by a car.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you were already a kind of opinionated, full-on personality kid. No. No? No. Really? I was a shining example of everything oh really good girl yes i was a real good girl uh-huh up until the accident yeah then i changed so you got hit by a car

how the how the fuck did that happen i was crossing the street and uh this woman hit me the street to our school was at the top of the hill so the sun just blinded her you know yeah and she didn't see me and she ran over me and the hood ornament went in my head oh my god she dragged me they said 30 feet my legs were like hamburger meat so you broke i think i would know if i hit somebody and i'd step on the brake, but she kept on going for 30 feet more. Yards. And she stopped. 30 yards. She stopped. I think somebody said, hey, hon, you've got somebody stuck on your hood.

Their head is kind of. It was a Jewish kid under the car. I don't know if she ever saw it until. Oh, my God. Somebody pulled her over. So you broke your legs and your head? I didn't break my legs, but my skin was gone. So I'd have skin grafts and stuff.

And I had a head injury like football players get. Yeah, yeah. What did they call that? Traumatic head injury. I had a brain concussion and a skull fracture. Oh, my gosh. Something like that. And when did you realize that you were different?

Did someone have to tell you or did you know? No, I always knew I was different. You mean that I had changed? Yeah. I was a me that was inside before. Oh, it got unleashed? Yeah. Came out.

Your real self manifested? One of them. One of them. It was like a kind of a 12 year old uh-huh yeah it was you know so and it was a boy oh yeah so you know it confused people right and and what what led to the institutionalization telling people that I was a boy. Really? Yeah, and other things.

Committing to it? Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. And then designing my own clothing that people found distasteful. Those were the symptoms? Mm-hmm. Failing school. Yeah. Just dropping out totally.

Yeah. Is that when you had the first kid oh no i didn't have my kid till after the mental institution oh i also didn't have any kids till i had hitchhiked cross country back and forth by myself then i had kids do you look back on all the stuff that like you know happened immediately after the accident after the institution as being because of your your brain injury or or you were did you find did you feel like you were fucked up i knew there were i knew i had parts yeah i don't know if you call it fucked up but i knew there were different parts of me inside. And I tried to, mostly I tried not to manifest them. Hold them in. I tried to pass.

That's what we say in the language of people who have dissociative identity disorder. Oh, really? We try to pass as singletons. Right. So it's like anybody else that's kind of closeted you just uh not kind of closet but closet you just try to get along to get along to go along and right you like notice people so you can copy what they do so they won't know that you're fucking out there because then as soon as they find that out you do get thrown in the mental

institution they do experiments on you and they they take parts of your brains out and they fucking do all that shit and they shock you. Right. And they, you know. Yeah. You know, they throw you, whatever they want to do and I've seen it all. Yeah. I saw every bit of it. When you were in the hospital?

What happens to mental patients, yeah, in this country. It's horrible. It is horrible. So after. I had to live there almost for a year what people that sometimes run get a pair of scissors and run after you oh my god you try to stab you in the neck that was the doctors no the doctors just drug you because they're getting paid to

give drugs to people you know i remember the worst time in the mental institution was when my teacher this was the height of freakish. Well, this is just one of them. I don't even know why I should say this. I remember I was elected class president and the teacher came in and said, so-and-so shit in the sink. He went to the bathroom in the sink and you're class president, so you have to clean it.

What? That's what the class president, I said, why did you shit in that sink? To the teacher? No, to the kid who shit in the sink. Yeah. And they said, you don't talk abusive to him. It was like the height of crazy like.

Right. I go, it's not abusive to tell somebody, ask somebody why they shit in the sink. I go, I want to know why you shit in the sink. You tell me. Yeah. And he goes, so you'd have to clean it. I go, you dirty motherfucker and then they put you in uh detention isolation yeah and i got put in isolation with a serial

killer i didn't know it like this was an interesting this was at the hospital yeah this big fat marge i thought you're talking about school and I'm like, what happened? Well, that is where I went to school. At the hospital? Yeah. Okay. So I went in there, Marge, she's a big fat lady. Yeah. And she kept on luring me, I guess grooming me. Yeah. And I was a people pleaser, nice, you know, I want to be a nice help people girl.

Yeah. She's like, you know, I'm going to tell you a secret. And she, like it went over days. Yeah. And she, like, it went over days. Yeah. And she, like, captured my mind. So I did what she said was, I said I didn't want to go to dinner, and I stayed on the ward,

and I snuck in the office and got the key and unlocked her cage. And I went in there with her, and, you know, just sitting and talking to her. And about four minutes into it, I realized why I was in the cage with her and i had to fucking fat mouth my way out of that one for about 20 minutes and it was terrifying but i did it yeah so i was like jesus you know that's where i got my gift of gab that was the first show

the first stand-up show yeah but i don't know when you got out that's when you left home and kind of went out on your own right well i yeah i got out then i moved to up in the mountains in georgetown colorado just at it like what what compelled you i got pregnant in the mental institution in the institution uh-huh and uh was it a consensual situation right when i got out some parts of me were consensual uh-huh but others weren't yeah so i don't know what you do about that you know right i had a baby i gave her up for adoption and i met a girl there and went to live with her on a commune in Colorado. This is like 1970, so that was like a thing. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And how was that? How was what? Living on a commune. Fucking awesome. Yeah. We had a rock and roll band upstairs. Oh, yeah?

We worked in the kitchen and washed dishes and stuff. And I had a boyfriend. I got to go live with him half the time. It was all hippie heaven. Yeah, yeah. It was cool. Did your family know where you were or you just checked out? No, they came and visited us.

Yeah. They were really cool. I remember my dad talking to all my freak friends and asking why they hated the government and shit. Right, right. They were cool. And how did you make your way down into, where'd you end up, like in Denver? Yeah, first I got married to some guy. No, I'm kidding.

And we had three kids, and we moved down to the city. What'd he do? He worked for the post office. Was he an all right guy? He's an awesome guy. That's good. He's a great dad, awesome grandpa. Great person. That's

great. Yeah. So and then when you started. Still a good, good friend. Yeah? And you get on with all the kids? Who? Your kids. You. Do you get along? Well we have three kids together. Yeah. And you have a good relationship with everybody? With all my kids? Yeah. Oh hells yeah. That's great.

Yeah. I got yeah so got six grandkids oh my god yeah and they do they all come down to hawaii well hang out some of them live in hawaii oh that's great yeah i have a farm there i know yeah i made a conscious decision quite a while ago to want a farm yeah because i just love it yeah and so it's in your jeans, it's totally in my genes. It totally is. I feel it like that soil. Woo. I can feel that going way, way back.

Yeah. You know? It's beautiful down there too. Mm-hmm. Get a little peace of mind. I can write there. Yeah. Because they're quiet.

Yeah. It's quiet, you know? Yeah. And the man you're with seems like a sweet guy. He's pretty sweet, yeah. He's an old grump. Yeah. He just turned 67. Christ, he's really grumpy. Is he still playing sax? Oh, he plays six instruments. So I have so much beautiful music in my life. That's sweet. You know? Yeah. He's a great musician. So when did you start doing the standup in Denver? What,

what compelled you? Did you see somebody do it? Were you a fan? I was a cocktail waitress. Yeah. And I always wanted to do it because my dad, he wanted to be a comic. Oh, yeah. So my dad was always, he'd always tell me about all the comics, you know, he'd be like this guy, this, this. Do you remember who? Oh, yeah.

Everybody. Oh, yeah. He just loved comedy. Jackie Leonard. Well, here's what he's doing. Jackie Leonard. And he had, he's like, look how ingenious this guy is with just the click. You don't even see the-

Oh, Jackie Vernon. Jackie Vernon, yeah. I love Jackie Vernon. And there was Jackie Sheldon, too. Yeah. And everybody was Jackie. Jackie Leonard, right. Everyone took the name because someone got successful with it.

I was going to say about the comedy store in the big room we were talking about being special nights. I saw the greatest comic I've ever seen uh jackie diamond did you ever see jack michael rosenberg yeah yeah yeah sure sure yeah yeah yeah i went bowling with sammy davis jr he patted him on the back his glass eye popped out of his head rolled down the alley picked up the spare i remember that kid i did a special with him when he was from newton massachusetts and he did that character and we both auditioned for something then he came out he i think he became orthodox jew he did yeah he moved to israel he married a they had kids and they went to south america

yeah but he wrote he was just beyond a genius and he used to do the jerry he used to do a fake jerry lewis telethon on stage in the big room. Right. You loved it. It was amazing comedy. Oh, that's great. It was beyond anything. Like right now, if he was on it that black night, it'd be like, that'd be...

Yeah, it'd be that exciting. Yeah, it'd be that level of comedy. But at that point, people were like not getting it. It's like, when did he smash the watermelon? But I saw Sam Kinison, I saw Harry Basil and Sam Kinison and Jackie Diamond fucking go off on each other on stage in the big room. Yeah.

And I was like, this is never, this is so legendary. It used to get crazy there all the fucking time. It was just crazy there. Do you think they were really doing them devil worship things over there, Sam Kinison and them? No. Worshiping the devil in the back? I lived in, well, I lived in Crest Hill, you know, for a year. Were they doing devil worship out there?

No, it was a lot of coke. Oh. I think that, you know, the mythology of the store and the weirdness and the hauntedness, I don't think it's beyond Sam to, not unlike some, you know, hippie shit to try something, but I don't think he was like i think he really believed in jesus and i think that like his he definitely did yeah his plan was i'm gonna be the worst motherfucker i can be and at the last minute i'll apologize and i'll get in yeah i really pushing the limits like comics do right that's right i think so that we're made different ain't we yeah thank god or whoever i

mean like the beautiful thing that i realized as i get older is that you know we can just go me and you can just hang out here and have we know we know what the deal is yeah and you know i can go to the comedy store and just like right away you're talking to brilliant people funny people people who think about shit people are on your same wavelength and then you and you live a different life yeah you do the fact that we we we have to like the funniest thing about comedy is that like we have to entertain not because you did one of the greatest sort of like you know socially aware you know radical shows for years for for regular people and we live completely fucking weirdo lives yeah it's sort of but you

know you did your time i mean sort of but you know you did your time i mean it sounds like you know you definitely had the responsibilities of somebody that you know struggled you had kids you had a husband you had you know you lived that life you saw what it looked like i don't think i ever lived that life really i've been a comic since i was 20 i live like a fucking gypsy well you don't have any kids right i didn't i managed to get out without kids that's why i yeah i used to be sad about it i'm not so sad about it anymore right that's why i tell my kids yeah i said whatever you do when you grow up don't have any children of your own it'll just ruin your life trust me but but you have those grandkids right i sure do but i got uh how many kids do i

got i got two sons and um yeah both my sons they don't have any kids but all three of my daughters they have kids when you started doing comedy what was it like because I know you know there's I hope my sons don't get anybody pregnant because I don't want them being with any bitch I know that's like I just I do think that's a feminist issue and they won't let me say shit like that what that I don't want my sons getting with any hoes or any bitches. That ruin them. That hurt them. Yeah.

That take advantage of them. Yeah, because they're going to come against me. And so that is a feminist issue when I have to bust some bitch down. Yeah. See what I'm saying? I do see what you're saying. Because you know both sides of it. I sure do.

You know righteous feminism and you know how women can be horrible. I know the scam they're working trying to get with my sons. I found one though. I'm not going to say. I can't jinx it. I'm looking for these nice girls to force my sons to marry.

I've always been doing it, but you got to work it right. See? They got to have that ass. Yeah, the ass is important. That's all that matters. And so you've got to get a smart one that'll do what you say, and they've got to have an ass. That's a lot of things to find together in one package.

Well, maybe the outreach will work here on the show. I hope so. It would be a woman who would have respect for me and want to help me grow my family, not her bitch-ass family and we would help her family of course yeah but she's not going to come in there and start fucking treating my son like shit i won't have it yeah no no there there there's some hurtful people out there women are every bit as horrible and abusive as men are. Nobody says that, but they do. Yeah.

And mental abuse and shit that men have to go. I know why men hate us. Yeah. I do. Because of that? Because we're just terrible fucking people sometimes. We are. Men are too, but Jesus.

Thank God we won't have to be here much longer to fucking work on this shit, right? Really? You think it's over? Well, you know, I'm coming on 64. Yeah. I mean, sooner or later. Plus, I don't think the world's going to last that long. Seriously. I think the world will be fine. I don't know if people will last that long. The world will be like, oh, thank God. Yeah. Now we can breathe. Now we can grow. Exactly. Because I want to know about a bit about the uh the sort of the what comedy looked like when you started like where'd you go up first i was kind of doing comedy in this woman's collective that i was part of uh-huh it was during an interesting political time in denver there yeah yeah and I was also a cocktail waitress at that

same time I had like all these different lives and I was a housewife yeah and a mom you know so I had a lot of things and you were and you were still holding back uh as many of the different years as you could yeah trying to trying to just stay straight you know because like did you feel that like like with me when I started doing stand-up, it was like, you know, it was something that you could truly call your own. You could say whatever the fuck you wanted. It was your fucking space and you knew exactly what needed to be done up there. Yeah, exactly.

Right? Yeah, exactly. And you could like, I got into it. I'm like, that's how I want to find myself. I don't know if I want to be an entertainer, but I want to find some space. Absolutely. You want to find myself. I don't know if I want to be an entertainer, but I want to find some space. Absolutely. You want to find a voice. Right.

Right. Exactly. It's voice for sure. It must have felt great when he first started doing it. My first night on stage and I had written my five minutes. It took a year. And first time on stage, oh, I just killed got i got hooked you know yeah yeah first one's free kid yeah right exactly so then i was talking to the other comics backstage and they were like

hey you ought to do this and do that see i should have knew right then yeah so i start going yeah okay and the second time i came back i did what they, which was, you know, you got to sell that line harder. You know, it was all the wrong shit. And I got booed. Oh. And then I just tried to chase that first one for- And you got it back. 30 years.

Yeah. And you got it. You nailed it pretty good. I did have a wonderful man. You know, because I've done four HBO specials. Yeah. But this writing new stuff at this age that took a long time you know you get a little bit of a well that you're locked well you're but also you've evolved as a person so yeah you know what you know how are you gonna make that funny exactly right it's hard yeah when you're in a different

place and you feel good about some things and worse about others, that you have a voice, you have opinions that you want to try to figure out, but everyone knows you as whatever you were. And God forbid you feel good about yourself. Yeah. How the fuck are you going to do comedy? Yeah, exactly. It is that, definitely.

Right? Yeah. it is that definitely right yeah i did do one act uh that uh i took to uh new york to have people see you know if they were going to put me on broadway with the shit oh right like a one-person show kind of thing yeah and they were like you gotta do it in a church because i did talk about god a lot and stuff and where'd you come out on that they didn't find it humorous oh really yeah what was it what was the arc of it just you know my my prayers and what i ask you know going for because i did try to repent you know one time because i don't want to burn in hell fire for all of eternity yeah but why would you you're jew i don't know all right they'll figure out a fucking way. Motherfuckers, anti-Semite.

But anyway, I think the devil's an anti-Semite. Or a Jew. No, no fucking way. All right. No. Okay. So I'm talking to God and I'm just going, I got to reboot, you know?

So I go to my rabbi, and this is true too. I go, should I just i i think maybe i should start a foundation i started talking that hollywood shit yeah i give you know set up a scholar blah blah here's my rabbi he was the greatest person i ever met he goes that's all but I think maybe instead you should learn to be nice. And I talk about how that was a walk through hell. I thought it was going to be easy, but it was actually like a walk through fucking hell fire where I had to give up, you know, my soul was on fire.

You had to fucking hold back what I really want to say. You know you're a comic i know i know you're out there fucking being nice i mean i couldn't even do comedy but i was doing it in that form you know yeah but like being nice off stage like like you know i've i you know i was very defensive and very insecure and very angry for a long time and preemptively hostile you know because you think automatically think someone's fucking with you. Well, they are. See, this is what I realized after my walk

through the dark night of the soul there. Hey, I'm not a nice fucking person. That's when I got enlightened. I go, hey, wait a minute. I'm not a nice fucking person. And you're okay with that. I'm a comic. Yeah.

Yeah. but not like because i can feel a certain thing right now i think that the people that know you and they they see you in a real way you know you're nice too yeah i try to be nice i try to leave a small negative carbon footprint with people right but on the bigger level you gotta protect yourself well no i don't even get around i don don't. No, it's not even that. I want to stay around my family. I can't take it. Oh, yeah.

But in comedy, you know, you got to, somebody's got to be getting smacked or it ain't funny. That's true. Right? Yeah. And usually it's better if it's you. Yeah, it is better if it's you. Yeah. But if it's you, it's everybody, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's so specific that it's universal specific that's the balance that's the balance because well yeah i think that was what was amazing about the sort of anger of your original manifestation of that character you know was that you know it was something everybody felt you had your own insecurities but you know you were empowered and you know in how you saw the fucking world i wanted to just go let's wait a minute now yeah but you were an underdog as well yeah naturally in the way of the you know in the of your situation in life that you were depicting well i was always the under we were always the underdog my family yeah and uh you know

going in being a woman you're always the underdog yeah who were you working with when you started that you liked comic wise any of those Denver guys when I went before Denver guys yeah oh everybody all the Denver guys were friggin great I mean we all grew together over three or four years worked with Sinbad too and Sinbad was a blast to work with it's great guy I had him in here great great guy he he can go on forever I know it's funny um yeah just off the top in here. Great, great guy. He can go on forever. I know. It's funny. Yeah. Just off the top of his head. Yeah. He was a guy, he was from Denver?

No, he came to Denver. We would bring in comics from, you know, we'd all watch them and learn from them. Yeah, yeah. Louie Anderson, of course. Yeah. He was one of the first headliners we ever saw. He blew our mind when he came to Denver. He was just in here.

He's beautiful, beautiful. Isn't he? Great comic. Christ, he's great on that basket show as's beautiful. Beautiful. Isn't he? Great comic. Christ, he's great on that basket show as a mom. Yeah. I think, I hope he wins an Emmy for it. It'd be sweet, right? He's just great as that

character. You toured with him like in the late 80s, didn't you? I remember because I... I toured with Sinbad too before that. I was in Albuquerque after I lost my mind on drugs. I went back home. Why'd you lose your mind on drugs? That's what I heard about you. Yeah yeah i was hanging out with the yeah i wrote about it and yeah i talked about it before i was hanging out with sam is up at crest hill and they would come up there and party for days and days and i was doing a lot of blow and i was like i got psychosis like i

started to think i was living in uh some sort of evil conspiracy which i might have been and that i was sort of waiting for instructions from voices that I was hearing. It got pretty, it was good. I went out there and I, and I had to leave. You know, I finally, like a voice said, you got to get the fuck out of here. And, and Sam and I had had some falling out. He was a little bit of a bully and, uh, that's an understatement. So I just, I freaked out. I left, I was just a unpaid regular, belly room comic, door guy. And I went back home, and I got clean. And I was at home in Albuquerque, just lost, trying to get the fucking psychosis out. And you and Louie were playing.

And I remember, because I knew Louie. I didn't know you, but I knew him from the store. And I went over there to see you guys. I remember where you were staying or whatever, but I went to the hotel. And I said hi, but I didn't go to the show but it was weird i don't remember what surrounded it but i just wanted to you know feel like i'd done something at the store do you know what i mean like do you remember me like i'm still i'm alive so how long have you been sober now almost 17 years what do you What do you think? Better or worse? I'm good. You know,

I drink a lot of coffee. I have my nicotine lozenges. You know, I, you know, I, I'm okay. I'm better.

A lot better. I got myself back. That's good. You know, because like a lot of that stuff, you're just avoiding your shit. Yeah. You can't avoid it.

It gets you. It'll do something. It's either going to be malignant or it's going to be positive. That's right. Absolutely. So, what was you, when you got hollywood how'd that work with mitzi you just auditioned for mitzi yeah uh yeah what made you come to hollywood it was sam sam's the one that kennison yeah he saw you in denver yeah we worked together in colorado springs and he's like you gotta come out there mitzi he was like the fifth guy who said it, too.

Louis said it all the time. Alan Steven said it all the time. Alan. My friends. Yeah, I love Alan. Yeah, he was in here. He's something. I just love him.

He's a tough guy. Yeah, he's the Mr. New Jersey. But that was before Sam was the star, though. He was just working, right? He was the star in the clubs. Right. Right. Yeah, he didn't do the Rodney movie or the Rodney show yet. Right, it hadn't happened yet.

Because Young Comedians is where we all went to the next level, right? Right, right, right. Then he was in the movie. Did you love him when you saw him first, Sam? Oh, fuck yeah. There was nothing that good ever. I never saw Bill Hicks, though. Yeah.

Until later. Right. I think if I I never saw Bill Hicks though. Yeah. Till later. Right. I think if I would have seen Bill Hicks. First. I mean, there they were working together in Texas. Bill was a kid. Kennison and Hicks. Yeah, Bill was a kid. I wish I would have seen that because I have to say they're both great.

But man, Hicks has five more levels. Highbrow. Elevated, yeah. But Sam was great and one of the first times there in Colorado Springs, he was approaching Lenny Bruce material.

He was, it was phenomenal. Like a different time zone. You're like, what's happening? And me and him hooked into a friendship then, you know,

and he insisted to, when he came up on stage after I opened for him, you know, he said, that's the real queen of comedy. Fuck Joan Rivers, which, I mean, that was something to hear. Sure. Yeah, beautiful. Me and my sister. And he told you to come out?

And everybody was like, Jesus, that guy. Yeah, yeah yeah it's like a fucking tornado hit the place yeah so all my friends and my comedian friends they come out and audition for for mitzi and so i did i i came out and um i did five minutes in the uh low room yeah what do you call that downstairs nostairs? No, downstairs. Oh, original room. Original room. And she came up after I came off stage. She goes, go to 20 in the big room.

And all the waitresses said that never had happened before. Just go from five minutes there to 20 there. And she walked down there to watch you? Yeah. And George Slaughter was there and he was doing this show Funny and it was featuring funny women of the comedy store. Yeah.

And he was there in the main room. And so after I came off, this is one night, came off the stage, he approached me and said, you come back and film Funny. And so I said, okay. And it was so phenomenal. And I thank Mitzi and George. And then I went home to get my kids together and came back out three weeks later. And during the rehearsal for Funny, when, you know, in the main room, Macaulay was there.

Jim Macaulay. And he came up and he gave me his card and he goes, Roseanne, I love you. And, you know. So I go, move. Thanks, move. Because, you know, I thought it was just a guy. And then he handed me this card and it's fucking Jim McCauley. And I

looked for my sister. She was there too. And I go, get over here. And we just were running in the street and sunset, screaming. He goes, I'm going to put you on Friday night. Holy shit. That was like all within a month. They never said anything like it.

I went on the Tonight Show and they had Julio on the show. Yeah. And he hired me to open for his, for him in 18 cities. And there it was. All in a month. Yeah.

That's unbelievable. Yeah. That was exciting as shit exciting as shit and you had the yeah you had the goods how much time did you have did you have like an hour 15 minutes you have 15 that's all i had to do to warm him up for julio and then like that's all the that's all you could hold their attention let's put it that way sure when you're opening because they wanted to right they don't want to see me what were you doing on the road were you middling or at that time or were you i just was with julio oh really i didn't really ever go on the road too much to do stand-up till now now i'm going on a road trip for two weeks um in september all through canada and come in st louis and some other i don't know where did you work at the store regularly after that? Mitzi had a room, the Dunes in Las Vegas.

So yeah, she did let me, she let me have two nights in the big room, you know, and then she let me go to Vegas once a month because then I could afford to bring my kids out and rent a house. So, you know, I owe everything to Mitzi Shore, like you do and like everyone does. Did you like her? I love her. Yeah. Yeah, love her.

She's a genius 100 years ahead of her time. And all those dudes that you started with, those are hard dudes. Those are like, you know, real deal. Who? Like, you know, Sam and Alan. They're comics. Yeah, real comics, man. They're real comics.

Alan knows where all the bodies are buried. I know. I'm going to interview him and make him tell the stories. Are you? Oh, my God. Have you heard his stories? Oh, my God. And I was there for a lot of them, too.

Did you get along with Sam all the way through? He turns on you after a while. Right. He was kind of bipolar. Yeah. If he liked you one day, then he didn't like you. Yeah. But all comics are like that. Yep you one day then he didn't like you yeah but all comics are like that yep yep then i didn't like him when he was ready to be nice to me i was like oh fuck you and then when i was ready to be nice he was like fuck off and stuff that's how it is it is that's why if you could have any friendships over the years you're real

lucky because we're so all fucking bipolar it's true yeah yeah but even if you don't see people for a while if you're a comic it's all right yeah you're starting right where you were yeah it's like yeah guy named jokes about trump that's what right you didn't see somebody for 30 years exactly it's fun so when did we all live in our heads a lot though huh a lot a lot but i'm, I'm okay with that. Me too. Like sometimes where people, I say like, you know, I think I'm done. Like I just want to go hang out somewhere.

They're like, you go crazy. I'm like, I'm ready for that kind of crazy. I don't mind being alone. I can do nothing all day and like I'm occupied thinking. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Making some food. Yeah, absolutely.

That's enough. It is. Absolutely. I don't like the pressure, especially now with so many eyes on you and everybody willing to tear you, ready to tear you apart for anything you say. It's like, it's fucking exhausting, man. It was hard before all this shit. You know?

Well, also in that old act, I said, I realize that people who tell the truth, nobody fucking likes them yeah yeah when you realize that yeah and the only time they like somebody who tells the truth is 500 years after they're dead and only if they are tortured horribly before they died that's true you're not invited to the party it's like no she's just gonna ruin the party yeah well we are a bummer i know i i that's why i just try to you to not go to too many parties and be nice. I've gotten nicer. I don't know if it's going to help my comedy, but I feel like I've gotten nicer.

I liked when it all came together in my head, and that was during the making of this movie, where I could put everybody on the same bus, all the parts of me. Yeah. And we'd be like, oh, we're pulling for good. In the documentary. Yeah, in the documentary. And I'd be like, you know, the greatest feeling in the world is when you know you've helped a whole bunch of people i mean seriously after you really focus in on what's important that's such a great feeling and

uh i did it for narcissistic reasons because you know it made me feel so great to be able to see people hear me tell the truth and get it. Yeah, and be passionate about it. And really, yeah, it did show as many as I could. I thought it was a ballsy movie. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't even know if I was going to watch it because I got a screener. I don't know how much time. But I'm like, I got to put his hands coming over.

Yeah, you had to do it. What's your favorite part? There's a couple of weird parts. Like, I like moments that, you know, there's... Yeah, your favorite moment. Well, there's a couple. Like, right off the top of my head, when you said, will you help me fold the sheets?

And he said, not right now. And he went off, just walked away, he's playing horn. And you're like, okay. It was just just it really defines your relationship like yeah well just that you're like i want to fold the sheets now and he's like not now but he didn't really have anything else to do but play his sax and i thought that was sweet and you just walked back in and waited for him but you can't disrespect a musician when they're practicing i mean you know of course i have but i've learned the other parts were like you know i i like practicing i mean you know of course i have but i've learned the other parts were like you know i i like that you were you know really showed the personal sort

of challenge of dealing with jill stein and you know you're the sort of uh the the uh the party that's sort of like do i want to be a team player player and honor that? Or do I want to just find her annoying and not like her? Right. That's a real struggle. It was. It was. I know. I could see it.

Because you're like, if you really mean it, shouldn't you just be like, well, whatever the party needs? But you're like, fuck her. Right? Yeah. No, I know. I get it. But I thought that was great. I also thought it was interesting when you switched parties and you found more support with the freakier people that weren't.

Because there is a level of organization in the Green Party that is not that different than mainstream politics, only it doesn't matter as much. Yeah, they talk that same corporate shit. Right. But, you know, when you got into the peace and freedom, you're like, oh, these people are really my people in a way. Yeah, they were. Yeah. But, you know, they all got people at the top that, you know, they're the gatekeepers. Sure.

They're not going to let the voice of the people come out, no matter what. That's how they're getting their money. But the weird thing about the voice of the people is that, like, it can come out, but now it's how it's framed. I mean, I think that, you know, we've never lived in a better time to say shit. You're right. But it's like, what are they going to do with it? How are they going to neuter it? How are they going to take it out of context and make it, you know, make me look bad?

By putting the headline, we'd be lucky if Trump won. Yeah. I agreed to run as vice president. If Kent Mesplay, who's Jill Stein's major contender there in the Green Party, and they have their convention in August, and if Kent Mesplay gets the nomination over Jill Stein, I've agreed to run as his vice president. So I never really left. I'm always leveraging. I'm never going to give up on trying to build a third party for people. So you're actually, in a way, learning how to be a politician from the ground up. Yeah. Well, I want to affect their platform because they got a couple offensive things in their platform that'll keep them from winning. And then they have a lot of really great things in their platform that should actually be in the democrat platform so i'm going to keep pushing it until things get better i i'm one of

a few people who knows how to do it and i'm going to continue to do it it's a growth process education process and you know like i saw that in the movie that you were sort of getting better at you know showing up doing the speeches you're working hard well actually the whole time during the making this movie we didn't put any of this in there but you know i live in hawaii and i'm a farmer you know blah blah and there's a lot of interesting farming stuff going on there in hawaii and uh we had a we we forced them to have citizens panels and community meetings which they're trying to get rid of everywhere and we kicked monsanto's ass off of the big island of hawaii and um you know i i wrote a lot of those speeches that helped kick monsanto's ass out of there and they knew that they couldn't

come back from it so i was um working my narrative and that is like as a comic you know this the narrative and the words and the power of words, there's nothing else. Sure. And I was really working it over there in Hawaii during the making of this movie. But, yeah, we did kick Monsanto. They're banned off the big island of Hawaii because we want to grow decent food. And food grows like, you know. Overnight there.

Cows live in a pasture of food and so should people. Food grows real easy. You don't have to have factory farm and all that shit. You don't have to do it. In fact, that's the opposite of it. And then Monsanto went and sued the state of Hawaii because what's really at stake is they're trying to get rid of small government. And small farms. Small government.

Yeah. They don't want that um they don't want the people having to say and what they grow right right right and it's all about that so i mean all these things still interest me and people say oh you should run for something in hawaii and then i'm like yeah i don't know but you also want to do show business. I like, yeah, and I got, yeah, I got a lot. I got a lot of options, and that's why I can't. Right. Well, you look back at, like, the Roseanne show, like, and the fights that you fought for that,

and what that made, you know, how that changed show business. Do you have mostly pride about that? I have total pride about it. Yeah. Because I worked really hard on it. Yeah. And to make the argument once again, this is why I like politics,

because of the Roseanne show, to make the argument that it was me and I convinced an entire gaggle of Republican and conservative television executives that introducing gay characters during the family hour was actually a smart thing and a good thing to do. And that was very hard and that took a toll on my nervous system, you know. But I did it and I see it everywhere now, you know, and a lot a lot of things, too, on women characters and such. So, yeah, I feel like I had a lot of victories. Sure.

Did you meet Sandra at the comedy store? Yeah, Sandra Bernhardt. And how did Laurie Metcalf get the job in your show? Laurie and John were in great Broadway plays, and Carsey Warner wanted both of them, and so they brought them in and we read together. And that's how they got the jobs. They were great.

Laurie's amazing. She's scary great. She did like the third, I think it's the third episode of Horace and Pete, you know, Louis show is all Laurie Metcalf. It's like 25 minutes of her doing this monologue. I never saw that. Oh, my God. I got to see that. Oh, my God. It's like it's one of the best. I never saw that. Oh my God. I got to see that. Oh my God.

It's like, it's one of the best things I've ever seen. Louis C.K.? Yes. Oh. He did a 10 episode thing that you can get online called Horace and Pete. It's like a, it's almost like a play. I'll have to see it. And she did this thing.

He wrote her this piece. And it's literally all her talking about, like, this struggle she's having with, you know, her sexual desire. I heard that. Yeah, I heard that with her father-in-law. Yeah, it was fucking amazing. It's crazy, man. I'm getting chills. I was like, this is kind of an odd subject.

But, Chris, she can make anything great. Oh, yeah. So can John. I mean, all the actors on she can make anything great. Oh, yeah. So can John. I mean, all the actors on that show were just great. Yeah, he's amazing. He's scary great, too. Me and him used to watch her and go, oh, look at that. And then me and her used to watch him and go, look at that.

Well, that scene you showed in just that little piece in in the documentary because like working with him gave you so much room to be yourself yeah he he really was like the two of you when you're doing that just that bit about you know getting the money how do we save money you know what are you gonna do that was from the pilot oh my god yeah i think it was so raw way deeper than that over the years oh yeah of course i mean we really do you say we really became dan and rosanna on some level we were all really our characters on some level when we'd work and john had this thing he'd always make up these circus games for us and uh it was like you can't go out of the if you walked off the set that was the forbidden zone and then we'd get in too much trouble yeah we had these other

games we played for ourselves and it's like she's going she's going into the forbidden zone and then we'd get in too much trouble yeah we had these other games we played for ourselves it's like she's going she's going into the forbidden zone the lawyers are going to get her get her back here and stuff like that but uh also we pretended that we were in a circus sideshow we had so much fun yeah do you keep in touch with him? I say hi to everybody. Do you feel like over the years that you have any enemies that never really balanced out? Do you feel like there's people that you pissed off forever? Sure. Oh, yeah.

Shit loads of them. Yeah. That's just the way it is, right? That's just how it goes, yeah. Shit loads of them. Yeah. Yeah. But. It's just the way it is, right? That's just how it goes, yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, if you're going to have an opinion and, you know. Fight for what you want. You want to own your own work. Yeah.

People are not going to, they don't like you for that. That alone makes them hate your guts. Yeah. It's like, you're supposed to take 10% of your work. Yeah. We get the other. Yeah. It's fucked up, show business sometimes so what

what would you like to be doing a lot of great comics dying broke every fucking day it's the fucking worst we have to do something about it yeah i don't know what to do i don't know either like some of them that like they didn't plan you know it's like you know like we got lucky i got lucky i was about to be one of them before i started this fucking thing in here like you at least they got to get on health care jesus it's awful and they're all old and shit i don't know what can you what can we do i don't know i gotta think about it okay what in show business wise you're gonna tour and what else do you got tv ideas you really want to do i have like a hundred ideas and my problem is i got too many options and no focus that's my problem yeah i know yeah

i have that and then i'm like do i want to go to england and so i got like would i want to do something in england a show yeah why not shit yeah i would yeah but then i'm like oh now what you know i gotta be in england you can buy a castle about 200 over there now so i might go get your castle well i i love talking to you it's great to see you love talking to you great to see you thank you I love her

almost unconditionally I hope you enjoyed that you can always go to WTFpod.com go to WTFpod.com slash tour I got dates coming up Phoenix coming up

August 20th. That's one night, two shows. I'm going to be in Albuquerque on September 3rd at the Albuquerque Journal Theater. I'm going to be in Rochester in September. I'm going to be at the Wilbur September 24th. That's in Boston. College Street Music Hall in New Haven, Connecticut the 25th of September. I'll be at the Ridgefield Playhouse October 13th.

That's in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Troy, New York. October 14th, the Carolina Theater. November 17th, in Durham, the Knight Theater in Charlotte. November 18th, I'll be at the James K. Polk Theater. November 19th, in Nashville, the Vic Theater. December 3rd, that's in Chicago.

Great place, two shows, and more dates forthcoming. No guitar today, I'm in a hotel room. Boomer lives! and more dates forthcoming. No guitar today, I'm in a hotel room. Boomer lives! Calgary is an opportunity-rich city, home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA.

A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. 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

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