WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 910 - Mandy Stadtmiller

Episode Date: April 25, 2018

Writer Mandy Stadtmiller's career as a dating columnist was taking off as her post-divorce social life was filled with late-night excitement and famous hookups. But she also couldn't get off the hamster wheel of trauma and feel better about herself. Mandy talks with Marc about how she came to terms with the compromises she made writing for a tabloid newspaper and the trouble she encountered when putting her experiences into memoir form. 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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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! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters oh my god what's happening it's me mark maron this is my show, WTF. I'm still abroad. And today on the show, I talked to Mandy Stettmiller about her new book, Unwifable. It's available wherever you get your books now. This was an interview that actually took place in the new garage. We're sort of into the new interviews. We've had a few. It's happening. I just got to Dublin and it was a whirlwind of food. I've been here

10 minutes, it seems. I got here, Sarah and I got here a little early. We were swept into the restaurant by the guy in charge of the hotel where we're staying. He's the guest services guy. He said he'll take care of our lunch. All I know is within the last, I don't know, I'd like to say 17 minutes, I believe, I believe I ate a soft shell crab, a Mediterranean salad, a piece of soda bread, a piece of Guinness bread with butter, slathered with butter. And then we had some tea. And then there was like a three minute break. And then we got to the room and there were scones in the room. So I had scones, clotted cream, jam, and some other tea biscuit type of things that were sort of questionable because I didn't know what the fuck they were. But I didn't stop me from eating them.

One of them was some sort of rice ball, like a deep fried ball of rice pudding that you injected jam into. When have you ever heard that? So now I'm all jacked up on sugar and tea and shame. What I missed on the menu was something called duck fat roasties. I don't know what that is to you, but are you like me in that? If you saw that on a menu, duck fat roasties, you'd probably order it even if you didn't fucking ask what it was. I was very close to it, but I said, are they fries? And he said, no, they're potatoes roasted in duck fat.

I'm like, okay, yes, I'll have some of those. And I think I ate probably the equivalent of six potatoes. Maybe I'm exaggerating. Yeah, I'm probably exaggerating, but you get the drift. I don't need to make this entire intro about food. This has just been my last hour since I've got to Dublin and I'm incapacitated because I'm full of food. We're here for four days. I'm excited about it. There's things I want to do. There's more things

I want to eat. I have a show tonight. There's still a few tickets available at Vicar Street. Not many tickets. So if you in dublin and you're hearing this i believe you can still get tickets oh my god i ate too much i uh amsterdam i wanted to tell you about it because it was a it was you know it's i love the city it's a beautiful city it's an old city but it feels a little a little uh little seedy which is not bad the show was great i i had a great time with the people that came out. I chose, I chose not to do sad Jew things. I did not go to Anne Frank's house. I did not go to the, the, the Jew museum, uh, the Jewish museum. I did, I, you know, it was either,

do I want to be, do I want to do the sad Jew stuff or do I want to go on a boat? So feeling guilty, I thought there was probably the possibility that if I didn't do the sad Jew stuff, that I would feel guilty. Then I'd be a sad Jew on a boat, a pensive Jew, maybe looking upward, just floating around Amsterdam's canals, sad Jew on a boat, which I discussed in my Amsterdam show. There was a lot of improvising. The guy who opened for me, this guy Adam Fields, did a lovely job. And he hooked me up with a guy

who's actually a comic, but also owns a boat company business. This guy, Neil Robinson, and his partner, Jesse Cohen, they have a boat business. Those damn boat guys. That's the name of their boat business. D-A-M. Get it? Like Amsterdam. boat business those damn boat guys that's the name of their boat business dam get it like amsterdam any nice guys they offered to take us out on the canals just me and sarah and they drove us around

and it was fortunate that the pickup spot was right across from the m frank's house so i did see the house from the outside but I did not I maybe is it am I a bad Jew for not doing the sad Jew stuff I I'm not gonna forget I'm not gonna forget never forget I'm not forgetting I'm not I'm not trivializing I just I just didn't do it we chose to walk around take a boat ride it was proactive all right I see now like now i feel i don't know mandy stepmiller is uh is on the show today she is a writer she's written for many things she's written for new york magazine uh xo jane um oh she's also known for her dating column in the new york post called about last night now she's written a book, Unwifable.

And she talks about me a little bit in it, and we talk about that. So that's compelling, isn't it? So this is me and Mandy Stettmiller talking back in the garage. I'm in Dublin. This is happening in the past across the ocean. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. happening in the past across the year. Tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. 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. Ocean. Yeah, this is the half-done garage. Not even half-done.

It's like I'm just trying to make it sound right. But you're among the first few guests in the new space. That's really, really cool. Is it? Yeah. I mean, the old one, you know, legend. Right. But this is great because you're closer to...

It's good to put your life above your legend. Yeah, is it? Yeah, don't you think? Well, I'm having a weird time. I'm not, I love this place, but it is a big change and it's weird. It's been fine. Yeah. But yeah, and I thought, yeah, it is good.

That's a good way to put it. Life above your legend. Life above your legend. Like, what am I going to stay in that garage for the rest of my life just because it's the place that the thing happened first? Right. Yeah. You build the next part of the story in a place that is better for you personally.

That seems like a theme. Yeah. Don't you think? Yeah. That's what you wrote your book about. Pretty much. Yeah. Like, I read parts of it, but I didn't want to, like, I'd rather talk about the story than, because I'm trying to remember, you know, obviously no one likes to get an email saying, here's a passage from a book about me where I fucked you.

Right. And I just want to make sure you're okay with it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I said that I would, I took certain people out because I didn't want to, I just don't want to be that person. Right. And I just. So you took them out without even asking.

You're just sort of like, I'm not going to do that to that person. No, no, no. If they said I don't feel comfortable, then I, there was one, when I talked to Jonathan Ames, he, he. He got prickly? Yeah. He weirded out? Yeah.

And I mean, my feeling was that when you are, I didn't, I didn't put him in a, in a light where he did anything wrong. Right. I think the whole book was laughing at myself and making myself the asshole. Tricky with memoir though, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I did that and I threw some people under the bus in a way.

Oh, you did? But I didn't think I did. It was my dad. But I thought, well, this is my side of the story and I have a right to it. But boy, he was mad at me for years. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. My sister, she disputed to the death certain things. And I. Oh, really? I took those things out. And I mean, it wasn't. Strange, right? Critical to the story.

Right. It's weird how memories, you know, don't like, you know, someone else's perception of the same event is just like not the same. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's why I tried to show everyone. The only person I didn't show was my ex-husband just because I I just felt like. Why? You don't want to engage with him, probably. Yeah, pretty much. And he much and he's yeah he's a he's a totally fine person right there I mean there's a reason you marry someone sure in the first place but yeah I just I didn't want to get into all of that because some people have the

ability and I mean and he probably still will where you can write an email to someone and it just eviscerates you to at your cellular level right yeah it's weird like i well i mean my point was like i'm not you know i i when you sent me that and i read it and you said there's an option where you know i don't mention your name but then i read it i'm like now you know like if that that that's not bad then I read it I'm like now you know like if that that's not bad that's what happened why am I going to be a dick about it yeah I I mean that's very that's very that's very cool of you and I and I it makes me respect people who tend to open up about their own lives when they aren't just super intensely control freaky about always controlling the narrative no matter what i was just trying to put it together i mean like i know this is an awkward start it's not really

awkward but it it was on my mind but i know that this book is about you know sort of your journey from divorce through this fucking booze festival that you had of self-hate and fun yeah and then onward into recovery and into a good relationship yeah kind of kind of um feral whore yeah stops being feral whore i was trying to remember how it all happened like did did you interview me and then ask me to be in your in the pilot thing right i don't remember what happened i know did you write it in the book i read it i read it no i didn't include all the things. I had to cut thousands and thousands of words. I knew you knew my friends I had.

I didn't know you, but I don't know how. Well, I mean, I can tell you exactly because I think it's an interesting example of how people can meet people that they admire, which is, I'll just go through it really quickly. That's all right. We have time. I'm in Chicago and I'm in a PR job. And during the day, all I do is watch comedy online while I'm writing. This is before you moved to New York. online while I'm writing.

This is before you moved to New York. Before I moved to New York. And one of the, you and Taylor Negron are the only two people who, when I saw them, I then looked them up immediately. And I think I was watching something of you on Conan. And so I joined the email list. My email list? the email list my email list your email list and then you know cut to years later when I'm at the New York Post and I get your email saying you're doing some something

with Janine Garofalo right and I'm you know huge Janine Garofalo fan and so I asked the post if i could shoot some video of you guys yeah and i went and i did that and they put up a little new york post video and then i was working on a story about stalking x's of x's yeah and in terms of you know seeing who who they're fucking. Exactly. And then so I quoted you for that piece. And then I was out in LA and I had a good meeting with HBO and we talked about doing some kind of show inspired by my life. And so I just was like, I've got to shoot something. Right. And yeah, I reached out to you to play the role of my boyfriend

who I ended the relationship by fucking two Italian pilots that I met on the street. That's a true story? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not very good at dealing with emotions i just i just suddenly everything comes up and then i do something like that and i'm trying to be better

about that yeah so you emailed me i think i called you and you were like yeah okay right because you know i mean i i think i think you were like this girl might be be, I don't know, whatever. What can it hurt? Well, I remember I checked you out because you knew comics. You somehow were integrated in the community. I know in the book now how you met everybody. So we go to your house. We shoot the thing where it gets a little crazy in the shooting.

Yeah. Because we got a make out. Right. Yeah. Because you're playing my boyfriend and the little student who was shooting it. She's like, now slap her ass. Now, you know, yeah. Give her the shocker.

I mean, she didn't say that, but like it was just. It got real, no boundaries real quickly. Yeah, yeah. And it was. Do you still have that tape? I do, yeah. I do have the tape. I do have the tape.

How does it look? I mean, it's funny i i my body definitely looks tighter um i think you look the exact same you know it's a yeah so but uh yeah so that okay so then we do that we make out fake and then we decide well that felt good let's make out real right and then you you you then you came out to Queens. Yeah. I remember that was quite a trip. And you were a little drunk, right? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, not, you know, I mean, just fun drunk. Right. And then we had sex. And you told me to, this is a funny beat in the book, actually. Thanks. And I wish I remembered it better. But you told me to slap you. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. So I did. Right. And then we had sex one more time right and you were sober yeah and then i slapped you again and you're like what the fuck are you doing and i'm like what are you talking about i thought yeah i i just i i i uh yeah boy is that ever uh an illumination into drunk sex versus sober sex you know yeah yeah because i'm not i'm

not in i'm not a slapper really no and i'm not an ask me to i i think i just i think i wanted to like show that like look how interesting i am oh yeah yeah you know and well that i that's that seems to be sort of through the a through line of the book that you know the two you know what you know kind of unmasking yourself right yeah very much so so like what what is the whole journey of it because i before we get into the the journey are you sober now you got sober yeah yeah i'm seven years yeah seven years yeah yeah 2010 congratulations oh thank you that's pretty amazing yeah it's a big life difference it's everything and you know i have to say and i have asked to be you know uh slapped in sex sober since then well i mean but that's fine yeah no no but i was gonna say it makes it uh exciting it makes it i guess i just want to

give a little like psa advertisement for sobriety that you know the sex oh yeah you can be very dirty and sobriety yeah because you're so aware it's almost like you are on a drug yeah but that's that that can become a problem oh okay sure yeah yeah oh right with the if you replace it thing and yeah yeah which is kind of what i did after initially. So when'd you get sober? Like right after I saw you, like 2001? Yeah. June, 2010.

Wow. Yeah. So like you, that, so I got you right pre bottom. Yeah. Oh, great.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I remember, at least you weren't my bottom. No, no,

no. I wasn't, it couldn't have, not with two times. I'm sure, I'm sure that I am someone's bottom, you know? Oh, yeah, probably.

That's always just such an interesting question. What did I do? Yeah. Well, you could probably, if it really was that, eventually they'll reach out to make an amends of some kind. Yeah. Yeah, I did those during the book

because I had never done my fourth step and I was just so consumed with resentment and just toxic anger and got when you got over pity well I mean sure when I got sober but also during the course of I wrote this book over you know the past year yeah and there was a time when I just was I was having to go through all these historical documents of emails and voice recordings and you kept everything clearly yeah text yeah yeah I've always kind of had that uh mindset yeah and so I what mindset's that I'm gonna need this I'm gonna need this shit well I think the mindset that the one thing people have always responded uh to me

in terms of my writing yeah is when I write about my life. And so... Evidence of your life needs to be kept. Yeah, which is so narcissistic. I don't know, it's natural. I mean, like a lot of times you want that stuff and you don't know where to find it. You know, it's weird how much you do have saved

even if you don't know you have saved. You know what I mean? Like there's texts where you thought you threw them away and you're like, oh no, I got all this shit yeah from a decade ago well and now sometimes if someone texts me something that pisses me off i just i delete the whole thread because it's like a living thing yeah in my phone right but then it's still there yeah that's true like if you text them like it all comes right back yeah right yeah you can never get rid of anything it's kind of scary but i guess it's good but it's weird yeah all that shit is out there yeah you could unabomber

yourself and go off the grid people are doing it but so what you were filled with resentment while you were writing it uh yeah because i just felt like i just felt like, oh, I never, this person doesn't understand the context of this. Oh, when you were reaching out to people, you mean? No, no. Even before, just when I was, so like, and I would give this advice to anyone who works in a corporate job. You can export your mailboxes, just find a tech person. Because a lot of times you lose. Oh, right. When you you lose. Oh, right.

When you change jobs. Yeah, exactly. And so that's how I had a lot of my post stuff is I had done that. And so if I was looking through just emails from someone who maybe had cultivated me to be their best friend because they thought I could help them in their career by a post placement or whatever. And then, you know, change their attitude, whatever it was that caused resentment or, you know, just guys, whatever. I, I just my mood because, you know, so I got married to Pat Dixon, who's a comic, and he, he was the one who suggested it when I was writing because it was interfering with our lives I was just you know sitting there crying or taking out my anger on

him and going through this stuff yeah yeah yeah and when I did it I just like in an hour, I wrote out 300 different resentments. I was like, Jesus Christ. Gotta unload that. Yeah, it's weird how much you carry inside yourself. Oh yeah, it's just like it just eats at you. It makes you all tight and fucked up in the head. And you take it out on other people. That's what I do.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, because you can only take take it out on other people that's what i do i mean yes yeah yeah because you can't take you can only take so much out on yourself before before it drip you know just kind of flows over yeah give yourself a break ruin someone else's life yeah it's like you want to it's it's like you want to infect people yeah with what you what you feel you become a toxic human being right because you're not letting it go or you're not being honest with yourself

or you're not processing it. Well, I remember, the one thing I do remember, and I wasn't even drunk, but I remember your small apartment. I remember hanging out with you. But I do remember you were like hostily sexy. Like you were hostile. Like, you know, there was like,

it's not, I'm not, it's like. Oh, no, no. I mean, it's a very, very cool turn of phrase, you know? But you know what I mean? Like, I remember you being like, you know, like I knew you were angry. I don't know at what, but I like, I felt like, you know, I think we had fun,

but there were moments where I'm like, is this enough? I mean, what else can I do? Do I need to get right? Yeah. Like you're sort of using me to beat you up somehow. Sexually. Oh, very much so. Yeah. Yeah. No. And I tried to I mean, because I tried to make that clear in when I wrote about sexual encounters that were kind of sketchy or abusive, that it was a joint effort because, I mean, there are times when,

I mean, I wrote about losing my virginity in the book, and that was, you know, I wouldn't say I had a whole lot of culpability for that because I was, you know, I was 15 and I was what I was. I had never really drank. I got blackout drunk. But as an adult, I had been in the world and I wasn't being manipulated. I wasn't being taken advantage of a lot of times. It was, yeah, I wanted someone to debase me

because that's what my Pavlovian association was with sex. Right. And, you know. And you track that in the book. I mean, you grew up here? I grew up in San Diego, yeah. And what's the story down there?

Are both your folks still down there? Yeah, they're both down there. And I have kind of a weird dysfunctional family. My dad is a blind Vietnam vet. Did he lose his eyes there? Yeah. Yeah. He lost his eyesight in Vietnam when he was 21 in 1968 and has kind of like a rageaholic frontal lobe injury that leads to a lot of unpredictable behavior.

And then my mom is severely depressed and has obsessive compulsive disorder. So has a thing where she has to wash her hands. Well, I guess the fact that he's blind and a rager is a little bit comforting in the sense that, you know. That's hilarious. You can sort of get out of the way if you need to. I just, I always wanted my dad to just like me and approve of me. And I, yeah, I mean, I think I definitely was just one of those, you know, I think Wayne Fetterman has some joke about having benefited a lot from women's daddy issues and wanting to go back and, you know, thank the fathers.

Sure. And yeah, I mean, that's obviously. I used to do a joke about that, about my business, a business card resolving daddy issues since 1989. Exactly. Yeah. But they don't get resolved. You know, that's not going to do it. Exactly.

Yeah. But they don't get resolved. That's not going to do it. Well, I think that I have experiences in my family that are somewhat similar to yours. And I feel like Pat has experiences too. I think this must be a commonality for a lot of people in entertainment is you don't ever get the great job kid yeah really really impressed right um if anything it starts to become a weird kind of sadistic mind fuck right sort of like yeah okay you know like there's a tone to it like or or they pretend like they don't know what there's a tone to it yeah or or they pretend like

they don't know what you did yeah or like it's not that important yeah or or um uh yeah my sister's reaction was um to my book advance well you're gonna have to pay taxes on that and I was just like you know bravo hats off I I had a I had a interview with Artie Lang that I was proud of recently yeah and my dad has told me to always call him and tell him when I have something in the Daily Beast so that he can then listen to it on his blind person reader or whatever. And so I did that as he asked me to. And after that, his reaction was, that took me a long time to read. And I tweeted that back at the New Yorker TV writer. And she said, you know, bravo, excellent neg. Emily?

Yeah, exactly. Emily. Yeah. Which I, there's something about just other people acknowledging that that is a dynamic and that you're not just a crazy person. Right. That can be helpful. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because when you have that, when you grow up with that, you assume even good things that people say are somehow loaded. Like I can't take a compliment without thinking like, what? What do you? You know, like, so it is hard to tell, but those are pretty clear. Yeah. But with somebody who I have a relationship with,

or I've decided doesn't like me or I decided is judging me, even if they earnestly say, hey, that was great. I'm like, uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. But not as much anymore. I just have different levels for people and I restrict how I take in whatever they're saying so that I can kind of protect my heart and head. how I take in whatever they're saying so that I can kind of protect my heart and head.

So it's like, I have certain people who are in the sadistic frenemy, but yet they're wildly intelligent categories. Right. Keep them around. But I know that they're always going to be a little bit poisonous. Right. And then you have the people who,

you know, don't have some agenda and aren't playing games. And then I guess you have Al-Anon meetings for the rest. Right. Yeah. Can you who you know don't have some agenda and aren't playing games right and then you have alan on meetings for the rest right yeah you know keeping boundaries when you grow up with rage and weirdness is like that's and no boundaries it's horrendous it's horrendous like i there are some people like i'm pretty good with like hot like angry people with the boundaries like i know when somebody's like now fuck i don't need to deal with that at all but needy people that's a whole other different thing yeah you know they can crawl right under my fucking skin well how so i mean it's just like you know some people are very kind of like i can feel when somebody's sad and needy and and like i can't

when if someone's just an asshole or a douchebag or some, you know, over, you know, compensating alpha dude, but like I see him and we're around and they're friends kind of, I have, you know, I can hold that boundary. But if someone's just exuding like sad neediness, lostness, like I feel it. Like I feel it like, oh God, like I almost get mad at them. But does that, do you tend to go for women like that? I mean, do you have? No. Okay, that's what I was wondering is like what your experience are. Intimate experiences?

Well, yeah. I mean, when you say it gets into your skin, is it because that person then? It's my dad. Oh, okay. I see. Yeah, he was just always sort of like, you know, sad. Yeah, I always say that my dad gets kind of like a misery boner, you know, like just cannot wait to say. And I mean, he's had the heart.

Like, I always feel like I have to do a long qualification. Sure. People listen and they're just like, what an asshole to be talking about in anything but hero worshiping tour terms. Yeah. This guy. But I mean, you don't know until you know right um but but yeah just he he i mean when i told him that i was getting married and i'm 39 and every conversation as a woman when you're in your 30s yeah is well are you seeing it what's gonna is there any possibility and so you

kind of think this is a slam dunk thing this is slam dunk news yeah and yeah my dad said i just don't want to see you get hurt and i got by anybody but me and And I got very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. And I got really upset. And then he just started screaming and saying, well, why don't you give me a script? I'm sick of being the family's asshole. And he got off the phone. And then my mom said, oh, you know, dad. Yeah.

Oh, good codependent. Yeah. Yeah. She very much is. I mean, she, you know, dad. Yeah. Oh, good codependent. Yeah. Yeah, she very much is. I mean, she is a fascinating woman. She is. She is hilarious. She is one of the just driest, funniest people I've ever met. And she had me one time type up her essay for one of her continuing credits to be a teacher.

essay for one of her continuing credits to be a teacher right and she was having to study i think like microcosm and macrocasmic microcosm and macrochasm in um school teaching areas education in education yeah and so the line in there that was really revealing, she was writing about choices in her life. She started out by saying, I married a blind man so I would never have to be alone. She literally just wrote that. And I mean, you know, part of you kind of respects that self-awareness. And then part of you is just. And she would always be needed. Yeah, she would always be needed.

And the other interesting thing about my parents is. She married him after he got back. Yeah, people love. Yeah, that is everyone is super interested in that. Yeah. Yeah, she actually cut off a engagement to a man who was super normal with both eyeballs and just an upstanding guy in Washington State. And she cut it off when she met my dad because— She got a winner, this guy. Well, I mean, he is very charismatic. And I will say there is something about that alpha war energy and the fact that he, I mean, he just, he really shouldn't have survived.

It was 13 hours of surgery to get him. Did he get shot in the head? Yeah, he got shot twice in the face. Oh, my God. And, yeah, so there's something, there's that kind of, you know, X factor, I think about people like that. Yeah. Um, was he a drinker too?

Well, so he didn't drink for a long time because he has a metal plate in his head. And so the classic metal plate Vietnam vet in the head guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, everyone in my family, I feel like above else worships comedy and funny. Right. So that is the one thing I love about them. Yeah.

Above, you know, because like everything we're saying they would enjoy. Good. You know? Yeah. And it just, to me, that's a very special thing. Yeah, you know, because like- It works for them. Everything we're saying, they would enjoy. Good. You know, yeah. And it just, to me, that's a very special thing. Yeah, definitely. So- It's a pleasant way to avoid feelings. Actually, that is, yeah, that's something Pat has taught me, which is weird because

I just, I thought he was going to be just another dick comic. Right. The fact that he had all these years of therapy and sobriety and didn't like little stupid jokes being made when you're in the middle of a real moment sure it was like what right what are you talking no that's what we do to get past it yeah um just bury it more with funniness yeah but so my my dad um was uh adopted and he uh was given up for adoption because his birth mother was an alcoholic cocktail waitress who had an affair with a married man. And then his adoptive parents were both alcoholics also. And a triple winner. Yeah, yeah. And then so and then Vietnam. So he

got another doctor. I don't know when it was, like 10 years ago or something. And he said, no, you can drink, just not liquor. And so, yeah, my parents share. Like beer? Like wine. They share wine every night. So no hard liquor because he knew that would escalate quickly. Yeah, I don't know what kind.

I don't know how the whiskey plus metal plate oh it was something like that i mean that was that but so yeah so he he now very much enjoys wine and and that was another i mean that was another fight we had was when i when i went home to live with my parents in san diego uh when i was 36 and when was that? So I'm 42 now, but that was 2012. And I had come out here, I had met Scott Einzinger, who used to be like EP at Howard Stern, and he was a TV guy. And I had done my charming song and dance. And he said well i'll fund you to leave the post and come out to la and you know we can do a business together and then i just we had a fight and he kind of yelled at me and i just said well fuck this shit i'm gonna go uh live with my parents when i'm 36 and have $300 in the bank. Oh, so that's a big life turn.

Yeah, yeah. And you were sober. And I was sober, yeah. And so, but in those, it was like my second year of sobriety. And so I'm living with my parents, which I'm sure they were thrilled about whenever your 36-year-old comes home and has quit the New York Post

and is just like, this is what I'm doing now, guys. Yeah, staying here in San Diego yeah and they um but my dad I felt like just again that I mean he would he's really into his wine so he would ask me to like pick out the bottle for the night yeah and I would try to explain that I'm not one of those people who is just like you can't drink around me in fact like i you know right but i just yeah but to me i felt like the lack of sensitivity of even wondering that right yeah yeah and then um doing a toast to me and my sobriety and i just like it just sometimes it just feels like. No, he's a devil.

Sadistic. Yeah. No doubt that like, you know, that that's his connection. That's how he engages with you emotionally. But, but, but I love him.

You know, it's like, I hate talking shit about him. He's funny and I love him and he's great. It's just, he's a very unique human being. Being very diplomatic, which is a nice word for, you word for codependent and protective.

But yeah. I just, I can't, I can't. The idea of. No, you don't want to throw your dad under the bus. Well, and also, I wouldn't be a writer if it wasn't for my dad. Well, that's what I was going to say is that eventually you get to a point with these people where you realize their shortcomings. with these people where you realize their shortcomings and you're, you know,

you know enough about yourself to detach from the shitty ones and actually be able to say, all right, I'm not going to change that guy. Right. Yeah. And that's just the way he is. Well, and that was something that I,

like, I never went to Al-Anon because I didn't think, you know, my, so like my dad, when he drinks, he actually, I like it.

Like, he's like, you know, a tiger under sedation, you know, it's like, great. Do that. You know, my so like my dad, when he drinks, he actually I like it. Like he's like, you know, a tiger under sedation. You know, it's like, great. Do that. You know, and but when I called him, I think the first time I was trying to work on my four step and to talk to him about resentments, he said, do I want to hear what a shitty parent I was? No.

And I just I was such a wreck when I went to my therapist and that was when she really forced me to go to Al-Anon. And that's when I started kind of implementing the boundary of detaching with love, but also, you know, go where it's warm, don't go to the hardware store for milk and not trying to continuously close that loop um getting that closure and that healing because all you're doing is just continuously rewounding yourself and yeah being like a hamster on a trauma wheel yeah and you do that in all your relationships right yeah well i mean you got to figure the guy's got to have a pretty good chip on his shoulder for pretty good reasons sure you know yeah yeah so when did you leave home when did you how many siblings you have?

I have one older sister. That's it. What does she do? She works in she's been very successful in retail. Oh, yeah. Is she down there? Yeah, she's she's right around the San Diego area. Yeah. And so I was I was going to write my my book about the post or whatever. And then I got a call from XO Jane. And then I went back to New York. So that's how I got out of San Diego. How long did you actually stay home? Two months.

Oh, that's not bad. So it wasn't like you weren't like, well, you didn't dig in. No, I didn't. You're like, let me get my old stuff out. Can I sweep in my old room kind of shit? No, no. It was really interesting, though, too. I feel like everyone who has a dysfunctional childhood should go back as an adult when they're sober and re-experience it and see all the things that you went through when you were a kid and how that must have affected you.

I know it still very much affected me as an adult. It comes right back. Yeah. I see it's still very much affected me as an adult comes right back yeah I yeah I mean I see I see it all all the time and it's like it's disturbing really because it still affects you I mean no matter how fucking sober you are like I don't I have very little patience for for the emotional dynamic I have with my parents for more than a couple days and it's not even that destructive it's just sort of like yeah i i just i just want to like focus on like an interesting thing is is that they adore pat you know and and so i feel like if i can always have pat there and he can just be pulling up johnny carson and jack benny and they can be talking about comedy and my dad can be giving his philosophies on why you know richard pryor

and robin williams and you know then that is and that's that's all i want to do like i don't want to but my dad is really funny like he said at the end of the trip when pat and i went out there he said um well this has been incredibly emotionally exhausting yeah pat said that is so cool i can't imagine my family saying that yeah and you know those are the parts of my family that i love is that extreme honesty yeah so yeah well it's good to have someone you love to go there and kind of step in front of the bullets for you. Yeah, you kind of need a cushion.

Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, even if you're not in a relationship, you should just audition someone for the role of familial cushion. Visit my, you pay, so it's a service. I did that with uh women for years just like i i when i go to florida to uh thanksgiving or whatever even if i wasn't with them for that long right come on this will be fun yeah yeah you can help meeting your family and i'm like don't just it's just i just need somebody there to step in between when she comes at me. It's like a distraction, like in war.

Yeah. But when did you leave home initially to go to New York? What was the big idea? Well, so I went to Northwestern for journalism school. In Chicago. 93 to 97. And so that was when I left. Yeah, that's Evanston, a little north of Chicago.

Yeah, I know where that is. Yeah. There's a gig there. Yeah. In Rogers Park. Yeah. There's a gig there in Rogers Park. There used to be a main stage theater. It's nice there. Yeah, very much so, yeah. And then I kind of traveled all over working in different newspapers and then-

Doing straight journalism stuff? Oh, yeah. Like what different papers? Like hometown shit? No, so part of Northwestern's program is something that they call either teaching newspaper or teaching magazine and so depending on what you want to go into or teaching tv they place you actually at a newspaper and so for one quarter you work

at that newspaper so when the oj trial happened and when the Northwestern Wildcats won the Rose Bowl and it was all historic in 95 I was down at the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and I was doing cops and all of those things did you like that yeah yeah it's fun yeah it's it's it's I mean the thing about uh newspaper people is that they're just like comedy people they have incredibly dark senses of humor beat up yeah it's just there's a certain there's a certain seen it all understand the big picture honesty you know and i kind of wrote about the post being that way is just the very dark you know well i pitched that story and I felt another egg die, you know, and, you know, don't worry, when I come back, you'll be spared, you know, I mean, just, it's,

that for me is the entire comfort of life, because it's filled with so much tragedy. the entire comfort of life because it's filled with so much tragedy and i i just i think that is the most healing thing there is is really dark humor to uh be able to like instead of just be like a victim to it to be able to i don't know get some kind of like life force juice from yeah well you know you grew up with it i mean right yeah i from the, well, you know, you grew up with it. I mean, right. I mean, I mean,

being like, you know, from you to be, spend your whole life with a guy who, you know, went through what your dad did and then have to deal with the, you know, the balance of,

of him having his own sort of issues and then how it's manifesting in the family. I mean, how are you? And then the humor part of it, how you were like designed for dark humor. Yeah, and I think the other thing about, you know, my dad was seeing how just completely phony

and full of shit people are because, you know, you would see someone who might be giving a speech about giving back to veterans and then just not want to get anywhere near my dad because they didn't want to have to deal with fucking that, you know? The angry blind guy. know just people uh staring at him and seeing people's reactions i think really informed a lot of my appreciation for authentic people uh versus just you know users and and status climbers yeah so well i mean you talk about that a lot like just even in this conversation like i i mean i don't i have a hard time identifying but you know users and status climbers a lot of times because I've never been in a position to where like I could be used I guess but I mean you're kidding right not really I mean even even now I mean you

have now well sure I know when people want to do the podcast but but you know I know also like no you're not gonna do it you know what I mean but so there's I can't be duped by it oh okay but it but like I I'm sort of a sucker sometimes I don't always know when someone's being earnest or they're just ambitious right until like until after you know I it takes time yeah I don't always know it right away you gotta have sex with them first oh is that how you it not just but uh but like how'd you get the gig at the post and why the post i mean did you like the post i um so i i got it because the uh he's now the editor-in-chief of the post stephen lynch he had always liked my writing when i was a student at northwestern and had kind of followed

my career. And so I- What were you doing? How did he see your writing? Well, so I had, the places I had worked up until the point where I left newspapers, I had interned at the Village Voice and I had gotten a very-

When it was still a paper? a very yeah yeah I worked for Leslie Saban and I I got a very competitive internship right when I graduated working for the style section of the Washington Post which was like oh she's got some buzz on her in journalism and feature writing and then after that I went to kind of like what's known as like a kind of stepping stone paper, like I worked with Jeff Zeleny, who then went on to become the Obama correspondent. Now he's on TV all the time. And at the Des Moines Register in Iowa. So I worked there for a year. And I all that time, I dated for like five years my college uh sweetheart and I just was really unhappy at the newspaper I left it I got married yeah in Iowa and I took a job

working in uh PR I was I was writing for Northwestern Medical School's alumni magazine oh my god and you were married You didn't marry a college sweetheart. I did. Yeah. Yeah. So I was with him 10 years total, five years married. Right.

From when I was like 20 to 30. And then, so I started at a certain point, I was on a track to become a, working at Northwestern, you get, you know, huge college discounts.

And so I was like, how can I use this? So I did everything i needed to do and i got into the master's program in education at northwestern and i was gonna have like a safe nice little life as an english teacher married to this guy who didn't really like me very much and then the first course that i took was was storytelling because I needed a public speaking requirement. Yeah. And I had this great teacher, Reeves Collins, and it was right when 9-11 happened.

And what I did was I wrote the story of my dad that I had tried to write for Gene Weingarten, who's kind of like a big deal editor at The Post. He discovered Dave Barry. And he had been open of like a big deal editor at The Post. She discovered Dave Barry. And he had been open to me writing about my dad for The Post. And I just, I couldn't do it when I was that age, when it was 1997. And I was an intern and I'm interviewing my dad's trauma surgeon and asking him about where the bullets went in. And the surgeon is disgusted by me saying,

well, your daughter's developed a very ghoulish interest in your injury, Jerry. And I'm just trying to fucking put it together and make it work and get the clip. And I just didn't do it. And I finally wrote that story for this storytelling class. And it was the first time I had really written for myself and in a way that was more myself in quite a while.

And everyone was, you know, very just, oh, my God, you're an amazing writer. And getting that kind of feedback and feeling how that felt, I suddenly just reevaluated that maybe my, because I thought my life was over at 27. I thought I had, you know know had my shot and I was way too old and I couldn't ever do anything different and it made me just think what did I ever want to do I had always said that I was going to write for a Saturday Night Live and Vanity Fair and you know but I never took any steps in that direction I just didn't think you could take take that right and so yeah then I just started taking screenwriting courses and I just started taking classes at Second City and I started doing stand up and open mics and develop friendships with, you know, comics on the Chicka Ha Ha Go boards or whatever.

And emailing with Kyle Kinane and like, you know, the Chicago guys. Yeah. Yeah. And all because of a storytelling class. Yeah. And then did you have to read the story yeah I did yeah and I and from that I decided well I'm gonna just I'm gonna start writing again so I'm gonna create a blog but I was so embarrassed because I just thought that I had had all these legit credits and to be doing like a blog spot blog just what a confession of failure yeah you know I mean I'm sure like when you initially did the podcast I mean oh yeah like we didn't know anything exactly and so so I did that and so uh yes Steve um basically saw the writing I had done on my on my blog and so talked to to me about potentially, you know, working at the

Post. And it was very much a long shot. I mean, he had to really do a lot of convincing because I hadn't worked in newspapers in years, but they, they then hired me. And it was like, I turned 30, I got divorced, I got the job at the Post. And also something I started to say earlier, but I didn't finish, was that my parents divorced each other for five years. So when I was married, they were divorced that entire time. And my dad had two different fiancés. Right when I announced that I was getting divorced, they remarried each other. So it was a lot of changes and chaos.

Did you finish the master's? No, I never took a single education course. Not a single one. All I did was take- You took storytelling, that did it. That was enough. That did it. That really did it.

And also I think it just, it happening, I had to write the story of my life on September 11th to turn in the next day and there's it was just a a very intense uh time for kind of you know questioning yeah I mean I just remember asking myself what did I ever want to do with my life and I and I had known uh people at Northwestern who had gone on and been successful as comedy writers and I thought why couldn't I do that and that was something I had never even just considered it was like do any comedy writing did you do sketch and stuff when you were there well I mean I just I mostly took um I mostly took a ton of classes I took you know I uh Sharna Halpern at IO and uh Second City classes I took acting classes which taught me so much

about writing and I I did do some you know I I worked with a lot of kind of people who didn't actually have any pull in the industry, but because I didn't know anything, I thought they did. So I just did tons of free work on, you know. Well, that's what you do. Yeah. Until you kind of learn the way the world works. I think it works better. I mean, free work's not terrible if you do the work. You know what I mean?

It's not amounting to nothing. No, no, it's not. It's not, but I just, in my book, I try to give every single secret that I learned. I mean, I wish that I could have given even more because something that I've noticed is that people are very protective sometimes about crucial bits of information.

Yeah. You know, like the fact that, I mean, it took years until an entertainment lawyer, Jamie Roberts, he's the lawyer for Carolines, and that's how I met him. You know, I was just droning on and on to him about, I don't know, that I had met one of the real housewives and what was that going to do for my career. And I think I had an item coming up in page six and all these exciting things were happening. And, you know, someone mentioned they were interested in me for reality TV. And he was like, Mandy, when people want to do a deal with you, you know.

people want to do a deal with you you know and you know it's very like embarrassing to just be sitting there you know naked like an asshole just having had everything pulled out but it's such a gift yeah it's such a gift because everything changes after that and you're able to realize that if someone isn't able to you know give you a deal memo fairly initially sure that you know they're just full of shit yeah they're just talking and there's no harm in that but it's yeah not gonna lead anywhere so you know did you do you did you see it yourself at different times in your career as one of these people that was just painfully opportunistic? Oh, yeah. Of course.

You copped to that? Yeah. quality for anyone who is successful in media because the entire nature of it is to seize opportunities and that by nature a lot of times can lead to opportunism but I do think that in my defense that I'm not like entirely, you know, just opportunistic worm. Sure. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, I can write. But also, I think that I really developed a sense of putting the person before the story and working at the post and seeing, you know, what happened to me in stories that I did for them like you know just writing a story turning it in and the headline initially had been confronting the ghosts of my past and then it comes out in the newspaper and the headline is how I went from chill to psycho you know and just knowing what can happen at a tabloid or at any media when you agree to do it, I started then telling people, just so you know, this could happen. have that kind of on my conscience that I was um throwing sacrificing someone else's

dignity for just you know some dumb clip yeah so well yeah I mean uh right because you didn't have control over it and then you know you never do you never do I think that's something unique to what journalism I guess or tabloid writing or whatever that the cutthroat nature of clickbait and presenting the story. And then I imagine the concessions you have to make with your own principles has got to be a pressure that's persistent always. always yeah i mean you i mean i was told by more than than one person when i would agonize about things related to feeling like i was you know hurting other people uh you just you just gotta you know not think about it uh you just gotta not uh just you know just just put it away somewhere. And when did that bite you in the ass? Well, I think that it, I mean, I don't know that it ever really, I didn't ever really have anyone who, well, I mean, yeah, I had various people who were, you know, furious at me. who were furious at me.

And then a lot of times what would happen would be whatever had given cause to their fury some outrageous headline, they would then call me later and say, oh my God, I got all these TV bookers and producers calling me. Yeah, yeah. But just in terms of like how it felt uh you know for me starting to just feel gross um you know the the story that i wrote about in in the book is um when i was i was asked to do a takedown piece on betany Frankel, who I had encountered. And she's some one of those real housewives.

And she'd always been, you know, nice to me. And I certainly didn't have anything against her. And I just felt like there surely has to be someone else who can write this story. And I was told that, you you know I had to do it and I will say though that um she is someone who has a lot of enemies in the business because whenever you are assigned to write like a takedown type piece yeah and the word gets out yeah and you get this this uh influx of calls um you start to see how many enemies uh someone someone has and when you stop being nice to people when you're on the way when you're on the way up yeah yeah so you saw

that in action yeah i did yeah and then i had uh i had uh told that story to aaron sorkin and that became the genesis for like an episode of the newsroom and evil gossip character who they had called bad Mandy in the writer's room. was just uh you know just oozing easy sexuality and saying to um the lead uh olbermann-esque type character jeff daniels jeff daniels yeah uh you just passed up a sure thing you know and just watching that and just knowing you know that i was exactly like that. I mean, I don't think I would say you just passed up a sure thing, but. Right, right. But that's Sorkin's kind of weird 1930s rhythmic writing. Right, right, right. Which I like.

But so you got, but at that time, how was that triangle? How did that sort of unfold? You, Sorkin, Olbermann? Yeah, so that was just like, I kind of became, you sorkin olbermann yeah so um that was just like i kind of became uh i i kind of used sobriety like a like drug in a way where it was like i was so aware and so you know instead of like doing the steps and like being this more authentic person i just yeah i kind of the whole you know star fucking opportunism you know social climbing thing uh played out i i would i would read these i would read 48 laws of power and the art of

seduction by robert green as opposed to the the big book and yeah as opposed to the big book i didn't drink so i mean i guess that's good yeah sure but i just i you know i wanted i wanted something that was like like thrilling and exciting yeah and uh yeah so i just i i i met uh sorkin and olbermann and uh lloyd grove who's at the daily beast and i would just kind of like email them about oh and Olbermann's taking me out and uh you know and it was just really because that's one of the bits of advice is try to create love triangles and uh and it was just I mean and the only one I really dated seriously I dated Lloyd seriously for about a year.

Olbermann, I just went on a couple of dates with. And then Sorkin, you know, it was just like hookups and dates over, you know, a matter of years. But it was something that was, in my mind, not in... It's not like any of those guys were sweating each you know but that was uh right that was to me the center of my exciting universe these are big big guys sure yeah because i mean i couldn't i couldn't be interesting on my own but if i could attach myself to a man yeah who was then i could derive some sort of self-worth sure because you you the way that you get self-worth is you fuck it into yourself. That's what I hear.

Is this part of the advice? That's what you learn in therapy. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Yeah, just the proximity. But there is a power to it, too, though. I mean, on some side, I could see it, you know, the self-esteem, you know, acting out and all that.

But to have power over those dudes on some level. Yeah, yeah. You're not going to win. No, of course not. No. But you can make them do things. Yeah. And you, I mean, the other thing is, is that I was never hot most of my life.

And when I got divorced, I went from like a size 14 to a size six. And I started dyeing my hair and wearing makeup and doing my. So I kind of when I came to New York, I kind of had the first experiences of being like a little bit of a piece of ass, you know, like, like, like a seven, maybe, you know, and like, so that was trying to use that specific kind of power and thinking that that was something that was really important to capitalize on, because I had a limited lifespan, you know? Now now did you did any of the anyone else other than Jonathan Ames give you pushback about the names being in the book um yeah another person did just because um and I won't you know say his name because I didn't

include it in the book but um just because it was about drugs and he said, you know, his mom really, you know, follows his his stuff. So I and then and then, yeah, another another pretty famous comic I just took out entirely because I just don't. It's just not important. You know, I mean, if I would have had to take everyone out, that would have been that would have been OK. would have had to take everyone out that would have been that would have been okay but i just felt like you don't do podcasts with people anonymizing them yeah you don't you know i mean it's uh and also a really big theme in my life has just been being, you know, the girl in high school who you invite over to help you with your homework and stay up all night laughing with. And then at the party with the popular kids, you just don't see her. Yeah. And so I think I know it is so sad. It's very heartbreaking. And

it's like that that right there is like high school, You know, I mean, and it is for like a lot of women who just don't have that socialization training of like a kind person to say, oh, you don't have to worry about that. They're all just going to be, you know. Yeah. No one's going to turn out well. Trophy.

Yeah. Yeah. And one's going to turn out well. Trophy. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. What I learned about the memoir thing, or even about talking frankly or candidly here, you know, without, not in conversation, was a woman brought, this was a thing of advice that I got. Okay. Was that, you know, when you do write your side of something.

Yeah. The other person doesn't have a voice in it right you know in that like that was one of those things that stopped me from getting too personal about relationships i'm in here right because like you start talking or you write stuff and they they may want a rebuttal but what are they gonna do right yeah right yeah and and i i mean when i when i sent the portion to olbermann yeah you know he had um notes he did have notes yeah yeah and um you know and i was happy to and incorporate um i mean and it wasn't like it wasn't like he told me to write something not at all but it was just a clarification of like you know just something like a you know a detail that I had you know not reported correctly because I because we just went on a couple

of dates how do I know and you know I would much prefer to nicest of him to remember well i mean i i don't know if you've ever read uh david carr's night of the gun i haven't um so he's like one of the most famous no yeah okay you know who he is and so he in his memoir he kind of sought out to do the anti um james fray where he used all of his source material and he interviewed people. And so I tried to kind of keep that in mind. I had to read it. Reaching out to people. Yeah.

Yeah. So all the places that you worked that we would know, like the Post and then you did what, XO Jane? Is that what that was? Right. Yeah. So I did. So Jane Pratt hired me and I worked there for 2012 to 2015.

Kat Murnell had just quit. And you were doing a dating column? Yeah, I mean, I was writing about my life, who I was hooking up with. Yeah, yeah. Who I was, you know. Good gig though. Yeah, it was fun.

I mean, it was just whenever you are mining your life for... Content. That was cool because it sounded like cunt-tent. See, you still got a hearing problem, kind of. Yeah, yeah, cunt-tent. There was no cunt. No, I know. Okay, okay, okay.

content um yeah so no i know okay okay okay so i i wrote about uh things that were happening but because it was such a commenter heavy environment yeah you were told kind of constantly you know not only like hey i, does she have a lazy eye? Or, you know, she's had so much Botox that, you know, I mean, just things about your appearance, which is one thing. But then also just long, like 500 word ruminations on why you would never find happiness because you're this type of person and you're saying these were the comments yeah and some of them were i mean you know really lovely but it it is um it that's a difficult thing to have coming in and have be have part of your job be that you're supposed to interact because how do you interact with that? Yeah. And so I would say I do not recommend that model for anyone doing.

That type of writing? No, no, I think that type of writing is okay to a certain extent. But, I mean, I wrote a piece for New York Magazine that was commissioned where they wanted me to reflect on the first person industrial complex, meaning- That's interesting. Yeah, meaning that, because Jane Pratt is a genius. She changed the game. You now see big newspapers with headlines that are,

quote, I slept with Donald Trump or whatever. It would never have been that headline years ago. It's that first person writing that has changed it because people respond to it. Yeah. And so this piece that I wrote. Unclear whether it's a good or bad thing, really. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that sometimes it can be a good thing.

I think that sometimes it's I mean, i just i honestly all of the sexual life of politicians that's something that has never really been my jam you know what's amazing is how many of them are utterly unfuckable yeah i mean it's like when i look at like some of these dudes yeah who is fucking that guy right and why like that's got to be part of their problem i remember when i was when i was dating the guy that i wrote about in the new york post dating column i did for two years and i called him super preppy yeah and i remember one time i saw his bank account statement and i gave him a blow job and i think it was like, you know, the best blowjob I had given in my life up until that point, because I was just so I had never been around people who had that much money. Yeah.

And so, I mean, which is, you know, disgusting on my part to say, I'm not saying I'm proud of it, but I'm clearly not a gold digger because I didn't, you know, go that. Yeah. No, it's not that I didn't. It's not that I didn't succeed. I mean, I've dated plenty of other wealthy guys where all I had to do was just pretend that they were remotely interesting and I could have locked that shit down. Yeah. But I mean, that's I think that's a soul death. But was the blowjob, were you actually turned on by the amount?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. That's it. Yeah. That's good. And I mean, the reason that I kind of stopped being that way is because it just makes you feel morally bankrupt. Getting turned on by like a bank statement is the same thing as getting turned on by ecstasy because you're just rolling on drugs. I mean, it's a similar kind of disconnect from like your true self. Yeah.

So after like what? Tell me about the sort of the catharsis, the denouement, the change, the bottom. What happened? Well, I got sober because I just had one bad experience too many. There was no topper? Well, I met a guy who I had had eight days of sobriety and I went to a going away party for someone who was leaving page six. Yeah. And and I, you know, I think I had that sobriety glow and a cute young man approached me and was talking me up and I thought oh this is so cool I'm even

meeting like cool guys in sobriety eight days and then he said yeah exactly exactly and he whole new world he said um you know I can tell you're you're different like you are you're cool i i've um i i've heard that there are these sex club parties and i've never met a girl who was uh cool enough to go to one and i just kind of realized it was like the switch that it was just all because he immediately laser vision pointed me out uh or saw me as you know the girl that you could uh take to a sex club party and um and then it kind of you know dropped again uh and he said you know there's actually one tonight and i said you know all right you little shit but you know get me a drink so I'm not gonna go to a fucking orgy sober and uh and then I emailed everyone who I talked to about sobriety initially um saying I think it's great that people do it but I just I just have these legendary nights

that are just these epic experiences and so I just you know i don't think that's for for me because this is i mean who has this happened to them right i know this moment yeah yeah and then um i also thought that guy genuinely liked me which is so you know demented demented demented right and i didn't hear from him for a while and then did you go to the club oh yeah yeah yeah i ended up um yeah i mean i was i was i was the best you know i mean i was like um a small crowd you know uh gathered because I just immediately started you know games for every you know hey why don't you um go down on that girl and then you know you were the the the counselor the camp counselor the the uh the The master of ceremonies? Conciliary. I was, I've always been like, I mean, I think I say this, that I said this drunkenly to the cab driver on the way to meet Jonathan Ames.

I've always been like ultimate slumber party girl where it's just like, let's play truth or dare. Let's play I never. Let's do, let's make the make the you know most of this moment yeah and i uh yeah so i started that game of uh dare or dare i guess it was yeah um then i was dared to go down on uh the girl and did it in just the right way where you are, you know, like sticking your ass up in the air so that it looks as much like a porn scene as possible, you know.

And then I got dared to, you know. Anyway, so there's like a Coke dealer who's watching the whole thing and he's like, you know, complimenting the guy who brought me saying, you got the best girl right there, you know. And no one was paying any coke. And he said, I'm going to give you a line because I just want to have it burned in my brain of you doing coke off that girl's big ass titties. So did that and went back to the guy's place uh fell in his

bathtub got a huge bruise on my knee and um then when he was fucking me he was like you are a whore aren't you and you know that dirty talk is fun when it's done where there isn't a sense of... It being an honest question? Sinister, yeah, yeah. Where it isn't like you are just a worthless, disposable fucking set of holes. Yeah. And he had been so kind of like, you know, just charming and how funny I was and all these things.

And so I hooked up with another guy and it was doing, you know, coke and getting fucked up. And I was like about to have sex with him and i just was like i don't i don't want to you know i'm just doing this to blot out the fact that i feel so dumb that that other guy hasn't called me and the sex party guy the sex party guy yeah that winner i know in my mind because he was like he was like yeah we can go on like a sexual heart of darkness journey together and I was just like yeah totally yeah and um so I reached out to again the same people who were a little less indulgent this time because I had given them now my big speech about why sobriety wasn't for me.

And one of them said, you know, Mandy, you can keep calling me up every three weeks or you can change your life. And I, for some reason, that just really landed. And I realized that I had always thought that it was you go out and then depending upon the signs from the universe you act accordingly so if a guy is cute enough if he's funny enough if he is offering you um a very unique opportunity like a a sex club that you don't normally you know, that that, okay, all signs point to. This is it.

That you have to do this. My path. And so instead, yeah, I just, I went to meetings on my own. And then at like 22 days of sobriety, I heard from that dude again. And he asked me to go to another party. And I went with him. And I, right when I arrived, I was brought an alcoholic drink that I didn't order. And then on the way into the club, they were squirting vodka into people's mouths. And I declined inside the club. They were also doing that.

I declined. He brought me a drink. I declined. And then the fifth time was after the party and of course nothing happened this time at the party i just was like interviewing people and being like and what do you do to the you know woman getting like fucked in the ass by another guy and she's like i'm a corporate lawyer and uh we're just decompressing after and And I ordered a Pellegrino and I was brought a champagne. I just suddenly my, you know, mental lies started kicking in that this was a sign. And I remembered, like I felt in my purse the little 24-hour coin yeah um you know that people had

passed around and they had touched and that like all these people actually really cared about me and that this guy I was with like didn't care if I lived or died you know and I that for me was a very critical moment and I didn't have the drink like I, you know, I decided I didn't have to just be, you know, a passive participant where life was happening to me. I could actually make choices that I was going to decide that. Yeah, that's a big moment. that uh yeah that that's a big moment it's a really big moment and it's and it's a weird thing that you know it took me until 36 to to have because i i've always been someone who i mean i got a i got a paper route when i was like 12 years old and this guy showed up at the house and just said yeah your daughter applied for a job. And my parents were like, what?

You know, like I've always had it in certain respects, but I think that when it came to something like drugs and alcohol, because I was told so often, I mean, I remember one time talking about sobriety to a guy who worked in newspapers and he said, there's nothing so unattractive as a woman who can't hold her liquor. And I just things like that I took as being like absolutes that this was off the table that I couldn't be that unfun drag. Yeah.

That couldn't hang. Yeah. But you're an alcoholic. Yeah. You know, I hang. Yeah. But you're an alcoholic. Yeah. You know, I mean. Yeah. And, you know, learning that, whether you're a drug addict or alcoholic,

I mean, I was, I think, 35, 40, 50. I was 40, 35, 36. I mean, you know, what are you going to do? You know, you're just lucky that you had that moment. Yeah. It's not an age thing. It's got, you know, and you know that. It's got no bearing.

No matter what you do with the rest of your life or however you know you define yourself yeah that fucking thing you know and then it opened up the whole door to all this other shit yeah my life started getting so much better immediately yeah just all of these, everything started coming together, even though I was, you know, still fairly like rotten on the inside because I didn't do any of the work. And I just then tried to, you know, create new like addictions and dramas and so forth. But I, yeah, it's like you have to, know change doesn't happen overnight you have to sometimes be okay with that incremental yeah epiphany type yeah and also like it's just weird that a lot of stuff sort of falls away you know you're it's easier to be on to yourself when you're sober like you know when you're acting out or you're doing other shit. Whatever it is, and either you can accept it or you can't,

as long as you're not drinking. That's the tricky thing about that. That when you have that sort of type of disposition, it's looking for other shit to jack you up. Like when I got sober, I left my wife and went with the chick that got me sober. I ended up marrying her. It was a fucking disaster.

It was just a fucking disaster. Because I didn't, it just, I put it all on her. It just, the shit that's happened sober is crazy. Yeah, you have to be, I think, okay with whoever you're, if you get a partner, I think that you're not going to be a good partner if you're not okay on your own. Yeah, that's true.

And if you are used, and I think that's how I used to look for partners, was like, oh, this person will save me. This person will give me an identity. This person will. Consciously or just you look back on it? Oh, yeah, I look back. I mean, I never realized that that was what was going on. will consciously or just you look back on it and you think oh yeah i i look back i mean i never

yeah i never i never i never realized that that was what was going on i know when people tell me we're like if i talk about a relationship people say this is what you were doing there's still part of me it's like no no no i don't think that's what i will say that listening to the uh audio that i recorded sometimes accidentally and sometimes not of me drinking and hearing how fucking combative I get when I drink was so rough to listen to, but it was also so eyeopening. There was, there was a tape from college where my roommate was asking me,

um, are you okay, Mandy? Um, and, uh, I just said said i'm fucking great yeah yeah and it just it's so it's so awkward and i now when i hang out with drunk people i just i it's like i never tell them the things that they you know did or said but i want to just be like record yourself sometime because that's a gift you can give to yourself i'm not saying you're anything but just yeah it's uh it's unsustainable yeah it's it's fairly unsustainable i would say but i i also you know a thing that i like to say

is that uh you know drugs are really fun. And that those nights can also be, that I think sometimes when you try to just paint it as just being the worst, it's like you can't, if you don't look at just, you know. So it was great. Exactly. It's like the recovery recovery thing you can accept

past and not close the door and it's like right i you know i don't have i don't i don't really feel like i have too many regrets yeah that's good i mean i did some shit but i don't like it was i don't know i've never been that fucking out there i think there are the regrets that I have are when I have acted out of anger and I have just been a nasty, just castrating fucking bitch to people because I just, it really makes me sad that knowing like that, that I do to myself, like that I put that out on other people because you can't ever really take that, you know, back except by being honest about it.

Yeah, but you can definitely fuck some, yeah, you can hurt people and they can never, you know, forgive you sometimes. Oh yeah, you can definitely fuck some yeah you can hurt people and they can never you know forgive you sometimes oh yeah yeah definitely yeah i've reached out to people to make amends and they're like no uh-uh you don't get it yeah yeah and it's like that's great i respect that have a good life only that tone no no god yeah you just do it again i just yeah that's that's it yeah right wouldn't that be great if i just was just like and by the way you have the worst breath and you fucking are a no talent yeah right no i just but but i mean i have to like i have to take out my anger somewhere. What do you do with it?

I mean, I think just trying to be funny and just like talking to friends and talking shit, being vicious. But doesn't writing help? writing help yeah and and actually like the reason when i mentioned before that you know i went from being you know just like a chubby wife to then being kind of like a hot piece of craigslist ass like when i got the reason that i got divorced and the reason that I started the blog also, besides doing that class, the other thing was, and I'm sure many people have said this thing to you, but I started doing the fucking morning pages. I started doing those in 2004 and that I lost 60 pounds. I realized that my marriage was toxic. And I started writing for myself again. And I haven't because I've been so busy writing the book and everything.

I haven't done them in a while, but I did them recently. And I had such a better day because of it. Because, yeah, I was able to just say exactly my side of the story and why I was completely right. You know, and that was a funny thing in writing the book was my editor. I would turn in the occasional section that would just be kind of like, you know, should have been called like Mandy settle some scores, you know. And it was just like really. She was like, yeah, you some scores, you know? And it was just like, really? She was like, yeah, you don't really need this. You can just, you can let that go.

This is not essential to the story. You're the only one who cares about this. Yeah. Yeah. And you and the husband are getting along good? Yeah, very much so. Nice talking to you. Great talking to you.

Thanks for having me. Okay, Mandy. Oh, and can I tell people where to get the book? Is that okay course i'll do it too at the top oh okay yeah so um if you go to unwifablebook.com it takes you right to the amazon page unwifablebook.com but now you're a wife i know isn't that ironic no it's i think that's the whole book, right? Exactly. Wow, that was intense and exciting. Mandy Stettmiller's book, Unwifable, her memoir, is now available wherever you get books. I will be home soon.

I think I got one more coming at you from out here on the road. And then after that, I'll be there for a while. And I'm going to be on the road again for a couple more weeks. You know, we'll get to my schedule later. Okay, I have to purge. Boomer lives! Boomer lives! We'll be right back. almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. 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

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