Molly Kearney

Published Aug 20, 2024, 10:00 AM

Meet Molly Kearney, an American stand-up comedian and actor best known for her work on NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. Molly and Craig discuss growing up in religious environment, being an outsider and reasons why one might become a comedian. EnJOY! 

The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage, telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but you should at least know what's happening, and it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or at your local outlet in your region. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. My guest today is from Cleveland, Ohio, which is a city I am very.

Fond of and I like the people of Cleveland, Ohio.

And I suspect I will like Molly Carney very much. I know I do, and I think you will too. That was my note to you first, Molly, don't fuck up, but I mean that in life because you're a youngster. To me, you're a youngster. Way t you like twenty.

That's well you're now you're being cute.

I'm thirty four, four thirty four really?

Yeah, you know.

I was thirty four when I started on The Drew Carey Show.

And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because you're from Cleveland. I have a great deal of affection for the city of Cleveland because of being on the Drew Carey Show. Now, when Drew grew up in Cleveland, he said, it was pretty it was pretty tough at times. Is that your experience too, or were you from posh Cleveland?

I was from West side of Cleveland, like in a suburb, but like ten minute.

Drive to downtown.

It's the suburb.

Well, I grew up in North mp said, went to school in Rocky River. Family resides in Lakewood.

Now Lakewood's posh, isn't it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a little fancy.

Yeah, getting a lot of more. It's becoming more young crowd.

I don't know if I like that.

Yeah, well, I see, I'm sixty two years old, so I don't really like young people. You know, you have to pretend you do. And I'm reasonable with my kids, and you seem like you seem like a decent human being. But I know they seem very literal to me. The young people, I don't know.

Yeah, I think they're just buying up the old houses and stuff, Yeah, fixing them.

Are you doing that? Are you gentrifying your neighborhood? Where'd you live?

I lived in Cleveland. I haven't lived in Cleveland since I was eighteen.

You go straight to New York to get in Saturday Night Live? Was that the thing I did?

I went to college in Ohio.

Would you study?

I studied whatever could get me out of there to the fastest.

Yeah.

So I did theater.

Uh huh.

Never been in a play in my life.

It's okay, that's good practice for when you're an actor.

Yeah, yea yeah, yeah, I'm like all right, no.

But my thesis was like I was the only person with my They let me like really be specific with my major. So I was able to do a one one person show for my thesis.

What was the one person show?

It was just an hour of comedy.

I would do stand up and then I would run off the sidelines and change and outfits while I had a video playing so that I could keep so I would do characters and then like five minutes to stand up and then a character and then a video and then a character.

That's better than well, I do not.

It was probably the most the best thing I've ever created. And I don't have any footage of it.

Really, I think I have, Like what was it autobiographical?

Was it because like if you're a kid, you're eighteen years old, Like, let's see who are the great comics who started early? Eddie Murphy was eighteen nineteen when he made Raw, I think. I mean it was like nuts.

Yeah, it must have been twenty twenty or twenty one.

And I came back from I did a semester and so of going abroad like the rich kids, I did a semester at Second City in.

Chinaga, Chicago. That's abroad to Cleveland.

Yeah exactly.

I mean that's like.

There's like five hour drivers something.

Yeah exactly. Yeah.

So I did a semester through Columbia College, the Art school that it's like anybody can get in there, right, But guys, they connected with Second City. So you did a semester, so you did like twenty credits or no, like fifteen credits of comedy writing.

You comedy history, so you just study like Vaudeville and all that.

That's really interesting to me because you come at it as an academic, then it's an academic approach to comedy. It's a completely completely different experience than my own, which was I went into comedy because it was like it was like being a real tar. You know, it's like, it's not really a job anybody wants, but you get it and you go, yeah, well it's not that bad, and.

You know, you get chunks of changing in there and you're like, oh.

Yeah, woah, wow, I made a sale.

You know, it's it's kind of exciting, and then you get your if you you know, if you do reasonably well, you get your photograph at bus stops and stuff like that. It's kind of exactly like being a realtor.

You're like, if you can hustle as much as you want to get to the next level kind of thing.

But it interests me because a lot of the comics.

In fact, the reason one of the reasons why I like to talk to comics is not because I would wish trauma on anyone. But it seems to me that for a lot of comedians that I connect to and I like doing, comedy is the result of an early trauma or an ongoing trauma even Yeah, and they kind of they kind of filter it through some kind of rage or despair into comedic goal.

That's kind of what I've always thought about it.

Would that be a fair description of you, oh one, oh so tough early child today, addiction problems maybe something like that.

Just being gay in a Catholic Irish Catholic, Well that'll do it. And then like you know, and then nineties and early two thousands, I was gay, but I was like ten, fifteen, twenty.

So when you're you're kind of like pre pubescent but still like you know who you are already.

Yeah, I mean I remember watching Beauty in the Beast and I was like, wow, Belle is a smoke show right now, And I was, but.

It's hard to it's kind of hard when you were a kid.

Because I remember saying when I was like, I know, I guess I had to be about twenty years old.

I gave for a bit tried it really.

Oh yeah, well look the way I always got it, the way I always is lest if you say, look, I don't like chicken fingers, and you go, well, look pop one in your mouth.

If you don't like it, then you know, get it out.

Yeah, you just go I don't like chicken fingers. As it turned out, I don't like chicken fingers, but I thought i'd kive them.

I try.

I felt like I was, you know, i'd have an open mind about the situation.

But it turned out I love that.

Well that makes me like you more and I liked you want to walk down.

I don't have any judgment to make on that. Yeah, I don't have it, and I kind of try. And it's not a kind of easy position to have because it kind of like it doesn't allow people to get angry at you.

Yeah, it was just kind of like it was my secret, and I was like, oh, nobody's gonna accept me if I tell anybody. So I remember, like in high school, you know, I went to an all girls Catholic high school, and as my dad says, it was worth every penny, which it was because I loved it. But that's right, looking back, like when I came out, and I remember like lying to my friends not that I couldn't drink alcohol because I was afraid that I said I had a stomach problem, but I just was afraid to get drunk because I was afraid I was going to.

Tell you get gay.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know what you mean.

So and then in college, like like I.

Did the opsite, I got drunk, told everyone was gay. I wasn't.

I was like, I was like blowing guys, going this is not for me. I just like being friend, Like I just want to be around people.

Everybody. Love everybody.

Yeah, well, love all the people.

But that what's kind of interesting is that if you are dealing with a like at that level of discomfort, right like I don't know how to be who.

I am in the world in which I inhabit.

Is the is the standing on a stage of smoke screen, then is like don't look at that, look at us.

You know, I think it more so I remember starting stand up. I was in still in the closet, right did stand up for like three years in college, and then it was like came out when I was at Second City, told my mom.

Over the phone.

Everything was ended up fine, but then I started doing stand up about being like my life, and like I thought, I was like ninety percent myself until I came out to my family, right, I was like, now I'm one hundred percent myself, and so now I can write everything. I can write about everything in my life, which is the funny part, which is me being in the closet.

Well, I think that that's part of being free. Like that's what makes me more worry a little bit about it seems kind of outdated to call it cancel culture or but it makes me worry a little bit about the the pressure, particularly young comedians. Old comedians who have made their money. Fuck those guys, they were any major money. You're a professional. You know how to deal with it. Don't be ridiculous. But young people who are starting out thinking I better not talk about that, I think, well, yeah, yeah, you probably the things you think you better not talk about are probably things you.

Really want to talk about, you know what I mean. That's what I think. Anyway.

It's like I always thought the stuff that I ended up talking about, it was like I don't really want to do this bit, but I'll do it.

Yeah.

I feel like coming from like you can talk about stuff that might be touchy if you have a good point of view on it, it's actually funny.

The way, right, gotta be funny.

And you know, there's a lot of comics that try to do it and it's not funny. Then they just look like an asshole.

Well, but that's not you.

There's been and shit comics like I gotta watch this because I well, it's I think it's a lot of it as well. Is the This reminds me a little bit. In the nineteen eighties it was a huge comedy boom and everywhere.

You went it was a chucklehart or a laugh and or you know yeah, or you know looney bins. Can you call a club looney Bins? Now there's still cold looney bins. I feel like that's shaming to people.

I don't think so.

But what I mean is it's like you call it something like you're a looney?

Is that I don't know. Maybe I'm just taking it.

It's like you're a cuckoo.

You're, yeah, cuckoo. But I think in Britain it might be different. It's one of those fanny words, like you know, fanny in Britain is vagina and Fanny in America.

It's just like there's a butt. Yeah, it's just your butt, like saying but yeah.

But like when I heard people saying, oh, you gave him a pattern of Fanny, I'm like, well, now I'm confused.

I don't know who anybody and I'm not sure who hit.

But I mean, look, everybody looks great in those paths, but I don't know who anybody is here.

It's a I'll turned around. It's like looking like a lego down there.

But I think that I want to get back to the idea of doing comedy to deal with trauma because I think a lot of people this is what interests me about you is that you come in it in an academic shape, but it's clearly the engine and the fuel of what you do is to my mind, and this is probably a closed mind approach, but to my mind is a legit approach to comedy, which is you do it because you can't know do it. This is why when anybody says to me, you know, I want to be a comedian, I would say to them, can you be anything else? I?

Yeah, Sometimes I'm like, why do I need to keep doing that?

Yeah?

You know, because it is it's so up and down. The feeling of it is you're always like chasing a healthy drug or something.

It has go addictive qualities. I think.

I think that it has that kind of that feeling of why am I doing this again?

Yeah?

Why am I doing I remember like living in Chicago when I was like in my mid twenties, and you know, I just got into the laugh Factory and like I was doing the Annoyance and the Comedy Bar, and there was so many independent shows and it was awesome.

It was like you could do two shows a night, three shows a night every night.

It was amazing, right, And I remember I would go to lave Factory and I was a never I would never do very well at clubs back then, Like I was more of like a independent, like cool, like like a there would be more queer people at those independent shows than there would be at the regular clubs, right, And I would just bomb at the lat Factory and I remember just walking home crying every single time, and I'd be like, why am.

I doing this?

I think that, but that that's a real comedian. I mean, look, if you talk to a real any legitimate comedian, and my my perception of it and look, mine is, but it's my only view. It is the every comedian bombs, and that's why I think it has an addictive quality because you bomb and you go like a normal person doesn't go back, you know, if you go up there and you have the ritual, like serious public humiliation. But people are literally in my case, certainly in the earlier throwing things at me. And I'm thinking, yeah, but you gotta get up there.

Yeah, You're like, like, but you just keep trying because maybe they'll taste different.

Yeah, it's the chicken fingers thing, but this is even the chicken fingers.

I was like, no, I get it. It's just I don't need to go.

Back to the healthy boundary.

You know, I have had.

Said I've talked to gay friends since gay Man says, you said, look, it was just the wrong penis, and I'm going.

No, it wasn't. It wasn't the wrong penis.

It's it's like, I know they vary, but they don't vary that much.

You know more than me.

I'm telling you are you? Are you platinum?

Just a gold star?

Good for you?

But I'm.

Not all right.

I do have friends that are like, do you know have done dabbled in most of my friends, but I'm like, absolutely not. No.

I look, if you know what you like, and you know you know what you like, it's fine.

I mean, there's plenty of people that know right away you don't need to bow to society pressure. But inside the like if you're saying, well, I'm doing shows in front of predominantly queer audiences and I'm doing grey but in front of the kind of more like Saturday night crows, it's it's a difficult thing.

Why did you keep going back to the Saturday night crowds?

Because I knew I could get them.

I just needed to learn to tweak jokes and maybe write well. Actually it was a great learning lesson because then I was like, Okay, you know, now that I've been doing for so long, I don't catered audiences, but sometimes you do because you're like, oh, I'll do a lot of my queer jokes for the Queer Strip show or whatever. And then it kind of forced me to write about like more. I went in depth, like my family members and uh, childhood stories of like me as a kid, and that was more like universal.

Yeah.

Yeah, when I actually wrote a lot of great material that I'm proud of from having to challenge myself to go to those more clubby spaces.

Do you come from a big family.

I do.

I come from a very big family, and we're all really tight, like I'm Reds, like my cousins are like my We feel like immediate family. We share a house and uh on the lake and we use it all year around, like when I go show that.

On Saturday Night Live, when you did that all that kind of stuff. You guys take a turkey around town and.

Yeah, Thanksgiving is a big, big time of year for us. Yeah, but we like whenever I go home. That's how That's how it is. It's like that many people.

It seems very healthy.

It seems very kind of well that that's kind of interesting to me because it seems supportive and comfortable.

Yeah, so why, on asked, did.

You do comedy?

Then?

If things are supportive and comfortable, just a reaction to being closeted, do you think.

That's what it do?

I think it was like I just was traumatized by my I made myself think these crazy things and I was I'm an anxious kid, like I went to I saw therapists in kindergarten because I had school phobia.

I always thought my.

Parents were gonna die when I when they left me, like when they went out on a date night. Yeah, and like my mom's sibling, one of my aunts or uncles to stay with us. I was like, when my parents walk out that door, they're going to die.

That's that's an interesting reaction to it. I wonder where that's from.

I don't know. I still have like obviously, I've been in therapy for a long time and I'm me too.

I'm a big Fanily Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that's great.

I'm like, whoa, let's good.

It's got to be a good therapist. Do you get the wrong therapist. It's like the wrong chicken fingers, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fortunate. I'm in a good spot right now. But yeah, I think it was just I'm I'm very anxious person. I was an anxious kid.

That's a shame. Mm hmm Are you are you anxious?

Not?

I'm always anxious.

Do you have a fear of flying?

Oh, fly the god damn plane if you need me, I said, I'm not afraid of I think it's like I overthink, like I'm worried right now about him if I'm moving around too much, that's just I'm like, you don't care times a thousands.

Yeah, really, yeah it.

Garrison Kila said, people in the Midwest are like people in elevators are all yeah all the time. It's like, I wonder if that's if that's trying to fit in or I.

Don't know, I think it does.

My therapis says, it's me when I was a kid trying to fit into the social norms of like that.

You weren't built for square pegging around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's kind of How did you Did your family have any other gay family members?

Or I have a no gay family members that we know of, not.

In like my parents' era, and then I have some gay cousins that are like in my But do.

You think that.

Look, I'm not trying to make it anything hereditary here, but I just try to think the precedent of something like, well, your uncle George was always a confirmed bachelor?

Was there always that kind of thing?

Nothing like that?

So that probably, you know, because.

In my family, I don't think there was. Was there? Yeah? I think my uncle Jack, your uncle Jack never married.

I wonder why he died with just this friend like okay.

But I don't know, I didn't have any of that.

It was it was more I came out and then my other cousin came out and lispan groovy was it?

Are you a religious family? You're an Irish Catholic family, right, Catholic?

But we are.

And I don't want to speak to for every one of my family members, but I was raised Catholic. I'm you know, be a good person and do right by you and your family, like, you know, just be a good human being. And I'm very grateful that I went to Catholic school because I feel like it really did teach me like kindness and hard work and stuff like that. And yeah, but yeah, the whole like you know, the priests thing is kind of weird.

Like my mom, I remember when I came out.

My Mom's like, okay, Molly doesn't have to eat meat anymore. Molly can eat meat on Fridays because they won't even let.

The gays in the church.

Right now, in my stand up, I'm starting to write more jokes about my identity gender identity because I like when the audience, like at the comedy Seller, the audience is mostly you know, clubby people like they're usually like tourists and stuff, right, And I love to talk about it because it kind of was like they're like, oh, is this person going to be preachy?

But really I'm more just kind of making fun of myself.

I was thinking that comedy Seller.

Look, I'm talking completely a turn here because I've never played the comedy Seller.

But I was thinking, no, I've never done that. I just don't do that kind of thing. You should go down and do so fun. That's what people say last I'm in bad by ten o'clock, you know, yeahs.

I need like you know, people used to say, you know what you missed doing the late night show late at night?

Like we were finished at six o'clock.

Yeah, that's it is like difficult sometimes, like now that I've been doing I'm like a little over ten years, but getting up, having a full day off and then at ten o'clock at night, I gotta get on the train and I gotta go to a show.

Once I get there, I'm like, WHOA sure, But that like hour.

Before you're get the first line and you're fine, But.

What am I doing? I'm gonna I gotta put jeans on right, now it's funny.

Yeah. Do you get O c D about performance?

Do you like is it your little rituals or or like things you have to wear or any of that stuff.

I like sometimes I have jokes about my appearance all like plany my outfit, but I usually just wear the same goddamn thing everything.

Well, I what I do is if my casual, well do you seem informal? But I'm not dressed for the opera myself. But I get if I do a show and it's a good show, I wear that every night for ages. Really Yeah, like I was like, okay, I gotta wear these underpants then, because that's clearly that's wow.

I have a complete lack of trust.

And do you like go like nah, I don't like, I don't do I don't do any of that stuff. But I I I kind of tend to stretch a little bit before I go on. I try and get my breathing slower. Yeah, before I go on, because when I was younger, not even that, like even ten years ago, I look at performances I did then I.

Go, what the fuck are you running all over the stage? Four? What's what's wrong with you?

And now like if I move more than a foot when I'm performing. It's a particularly animated night.

I do you so, like I do this thing where sometimes we have an acting coach. I'll tap myself to like get your your engine running. Yeah, yeah, I like, don't drink before.

Really, I try to stop my engine run before I go.

On, and it works for me.

I'm like riving a motora.

No, no, I'm the other way around.

I'm like, because your mind's racing.

Yeah.

Also, I mean this is not when I was thirty two.

I was like doing push ups backstage like shit, like walking up and down and like you know, it was just like burpies and shit.

Oh yeah, I mean it was nuts.

But now it's like, m slow down and maybe I'll meditate a little bit, Like I'll sit in a chair and just slow my breathing down for twenty minutes before I go on. And then I got this thing now where I start the show where I say, you know, I tell the audience how long I've been doing it and how successful I've been at it. So if the show sucks, it's not my fault. It's mathematically they're the one. Like I've got Grammy nominations, I've got Emmy Awards, and I want to fucking pea buddy. I know that I can do this. So if if you think I can't do it, you're wrong.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a good out too, because then it pumps you up and you're like, I can do that.

Yeah, it makes it.

You need to feel that.

I think I feel like it took me twenty five plus years of doing stand up to know that, like before I go on and go, I'm exactly where I should be.

This is what I do, and.

I'm good at it, and They've come here to see me, and and now I'm going to do the very best I can for them, and that feels good.

Yeah, that makes me more relaxed when I like have confidence before. Sometimes I get in my head and it's like once in a while, I'll get in my head and I'm like, this is gonna be.

A bad show.

Mm hmmm, because it's.

Just something's off. I don't know what it is, and is it.

I say maybe one out of five times. If I have that mindset, yeah it will be a memoir.

But you know what I think, Jesus is me being a therapist a bad one. But that's I think what you're craving. Is the feeling of confidence if you saying you're an anxious person, and that feeling of confidence like I can do this and I'm I'm you know, I'm fine, and this is going to be a good show.

That's a good feeling.

That's that's heroine that I'm advocating the use of heroin, but feeling.

But the feeling you.

Can get it probably from a great show.

Yeah, it's fine.

And I like that feeling. I seek that feeling now, even at this point, it's like, no, I I kind of I'm doing what I need to I'm where I need to be. I think some people get get it from fishing, some people get it from but I get it from everything's humming in the universe. My place in the universe is correct right now, this is where I should be. What about in a metaphysical term, for you, do you have a belief system? Do you have a philosophy or a religion that you I mean, I know you say be a nice person and stuff.

Yeah, like to make my goal And I don't know if I always just make whoever I'm in the room with feel they're welcome and they're heard, and or else I can be hon it. Like if I see somebody in the group who's new to the group, I'll make sure that they feel okay.

Yeah, that's kind of the great.

That's being a nice person, right, But but what which is okay? I mean, in fact, that's essential. I think to be a nice person as you have to be nice to people.

But I wonder if there's a like for you?

Is there is there religious is there is there a is there a godlike figure? Is there a universe personality? Is there a deeper spiritual heartbeat to it?

I think I I pray all the time, but not so much like in the Catholic way that they taught us in school, but more in the way they come My parents taught me to like, like growing up, we would always pray before bed, but it would be like pray to I.

Hope I don't die and if it take my soul, yeah no, But.

Like I pray to whoever, Like I pray to my friends who have passed away, and be like, can you.

Please on me?

I have a good children like or you know, I.

Usually pray to them rather than like a god, if they will, I pray to like people are past that.

So the people that are pasted, people who have died.

I'm guessing relatives and friends, friends, you've had friends passed from what suicide?

And like tragic accidents, These.

Are hugely traumatic events. People committing suicide is hugely traumatic. I mean, obviously it is the single most traumatic event.

Is that? What? What are the circumstances do you mean talking about that? Just?

Uh?

I think just depression And like it was around the time of college, and it's like, I don't know, you just.

It's such a fucking scratch of depression, isn't it. I mean it's like, how the fuck do you unpick that ship?

I don't know. It's so misunderstood, I think. Is the thing.

I used to do this whole bit in the act about it's about Tom Cruise. I was having to go him and he was he was saying that, you know, you know that something about depression. I think have something ideology about depression. I was saying, look, you don't understand the symptoms of depression is depression. That's that's what it is. You can't just fucking shake it off. But I'm not a doctor, and I think people mistake sadness and clinical depression is two separate things. It's as wide apart as you know, a Saturday night drunk and an alcoholic. I'm a fucking alcoholic. I've got friends who can drink on Saturday night and on Sunday they get home with their lives. Yeah, maybe a little slower in the morning, but they get home in their lives. I couldn't do that. I go out on Saturday night. I'll see you in February. Really, oh fuck? Yeah, Okay, it's a different thing for me. And these are misunderstood things about you know. It's like I've talked to Mike, one of my kids today. Actually, you said I won't be an alcoholic. I know too much because of you Like knowing shit doesn't protect you. It's like you got to put it in action. Yeah.

Did you ever fall fellow that?

Because it's a heavy party scene in Chicago with the comedian young comedians, isn't it.

Yeah?

I mean, you know, we get We always had these jokes about getting paid.

You get drink tickets, right, you do?

Yeah? I used to call them beer tokens.

Yeah.

Yeah, you do three shows in a night and you're like, okay, what I get? Okay?

I took an uber or I had to take three trains, so I'm out. I'm out twenty five dollars. But I had three drink criickets and I would have bought beer, So I ever actually.

Kind of came up on top. Yeah, it's like, but yeah, the party scene in Chicago.

You know, you get down those and you hang out with people who are like, oh hey, drink every night. Man, I could drink with them tonight. Then it's like, Okay, I don't want people to think that I'm drinking.

Every time you see me. Yeah, but yeah, of course I was in my twentylve drinking.

Sure for a lot people.

It's look, I look, nobody knew I was an alcohol at least of all me and my Yeah, I guess maybe something in my twenties.

But as you get older, it starts to show a little more.

Yeah, I think I definitely cooled off, like in like maybe like past five years, I've cooled that.

People grow up.

Also, you know, you you find yourself in a situation now which you are in the corporate flagship.

You know you are. It's kind of interesting.

So you're this, you're a queer kid who's doing this edgy comedy. The queer raw and is now you're on fucking Saturday Night Live, you're fucking Coca cola. I mean, that's that's kind of interesting. That's like, how do you how do you exist and survive in that environment? And I look, I'm not putting you on the fucking spot here because I did ten fucking years at CBS.

Yeah, and look, I'm not.

I don't think I'm queer, but I'm certainly off the beaten pots somewhere, you know.

What I mean.

Yeah, you know I've tried a chicken finger two.

I actually hooked to Branch about this.

I'm like, when does the statue of limitations on blow jobs run out?

Because if, if, if.

It doesn't run out, I think I get to fly my rainbow flag. I don't know.

I support your you, whoever you want to identify it with.

I stand by your.

God bless you. Great, that's good.

You have one chicken finger every ten years, God bless you.

No. No, I think my chicken finger days are behind me.

But unless I can get my own chicken fingers, you couldn't lean the yoga.

I think that's a bit.

They already taken fingers.

I don't know. It's good to have a dream. Good to have a goal.

But but I think that you know, if we're looking at you existing in this this heavily because I I remember this from I was lucky because I had David Lariman protected me all the time.

It's just fantastic. And he didn't he didn't have to do anything.

He just had to be David Larraman, right, but because he owned the time slow that I was then, But had I had these corporate people crawling all over me, I don't know how how it exists.

Are you protected from it? Yeah?

I mean I think it's kind of like head down and you're just trying to survive and play the game of trying to get your sketch on.

Like it's just it's a big cast.

Yeah, I've heard other members say that.

But it's also like just so fun to I love table Read when we read all the sketches. I just think it because you're playing and you're doing all and I don't know. If I walk away from table Read with like a oh I had a good time and I actually genuinely felt a release of something from performing at the table, then I feel good.

For a love performance American performers, I guess and maybe that's kind of the many ones I know. Saturday Night Live is a real childhood goal. It's a real kind of it. Was it that way for you?

Oh yeah?

I watched it so much.

I think I kind of let it, to be honest, and like I think in like like five or six years ago, I was like, I'm just going to do stand up and act. There's no way, like I do stand up. How they want stand up comics to be on snl over character actors. Yeah, And then my year they picked up. They took on four stand ups. So it was Michael Longfellow, Devin Walker, Marcello Hernandez, myself and we all.

Came from stand up.

So did you all know each other?

No, but we sure do now.

Yeah.

I love them. They're the best. They're so talented.

It seems to have a collegiate thing Saturday. I remember talking to Bill hand about when he was on it. He's still very close with the people that were in his Oh yeah group.

It has like almost like a college vibe.

It is that right, and you go in and you're scared, and you're you don't know what's what's gonna happen, what the hell's you're just like I remember the first year.

I was so in like a shock mode. I was like, this is awesome. Yeah, also like I I'm only I'm not sleeping well.

And I was like, I remember when I first got us and I was like literally pooping blood.

And I had to call my mom nervous.

Pooping blood because you if you call it, if you're blood, you call a doctor.

You don't call your mom.

Well, she's a nurse.

And look at I assumed your mom wasn't the doctor there right there and right.

There, And it was just anxiety.

Could you put blood with anxiety?

I don't know everybody. No, I won't let of her secrets out.

No, no, no, look I'm not judging you for poop blood.

We've all pooped. It was just a little and I was like, yeah, I'm blood.

I was like exploding because we couldn't tell, like in my mind, not in my butt, but we were we couldn't tell. We couldn't tell the news. We couldn't like the announcement wasn't out. And I was just sitting in this hotel room with like just yellow lighting, and I was like, oh my god, I couldn't eat. I was just so overwhelmed and anxious, and I couldn't.

I would be I would be all of those things just for poop and blood. So I like, like, you wouldn't have to give me a job on Saturday, Nay live it just I pooped blood, I'd be like, Oh, by god, what the hell is going on? I actually did once I did well, as it turned out. What I did was this is like I there was a little bit of blood and I was on tour. I was on tour. So I called my doctor and I went, I think I have ass cancer and.

He went, oh my god.

Really, I went yeah, and he said, it's something on my my ass.

He went, send me a photograph.

No, yeah, yeah, I did so, so I took a photograph of I mean, look, it's really close up. It looks like a grateful Dead T shirt or something, you know what I mean. It's like a like died, but you can't tell you would You wouldn't go, oh, I should go I don't really like ty die, that's what you'd say.

But I sent it my daughter. He went, what you got there is a hemorrhoid.

Oh guys get those a lot.

Ladies get them too.

I mean I think I think hemorrhoids are non gender specific.

You can get and one with that asshole and get and I think we can agree we all have assholes.

I find that like I thinks I think I'm going to keep secret. Yeah, see this is I think a little bit like you coming out, Like the thing you think you're going to keep secret becomes the thing that you talk about.

And that feels good. You're like, that is so bad. That actually felt great that I told that.

Well, I used to have that. This thing about like when I was drunk.

I got sober mass twenty nine, so I've been sober thirty two and a half years.

Hell yeah, yeah.

When I when I was drunk, I'd pee myself, I'd pee the bed. I'm so ashamed. I was like, oh, because I was a bed wear as a kid. And then so I stopped went in the bed when I was about twelve. And then I started drinking was about fourteen, and it kicked.

Back and we only gave it to your brain.

It was only dry for a couple of years.

And then I was so ashamed about it. And then I remember when I got sober, I have never got to talk about this is just the worst thing.

And then, but three years later cut to be on stage going.

So I'm paying the bed.

You know, you once you conquer it and you cleared your sister and you're not drinking anymore, and you're in a better mindset because you're not a drunk anymore.

Yeah. I think it's about shame though, I think.

And hey, a lot of people be the bed.

Okay, yeah, you don't have to talk to me like, I don't do it anymore.

Some people do, yeah, not me. Some people like you be the bed.

Oh pee, buddy.

I remember one of the things I was shamed about it. We went on a school trip once and there was a bunch of us in sleeping bags and I paid sleeping bag. I blamed it on a kid next to me. I would have done the same, yeah, fortunately, but they that the kid next to me is like, no way you did it.

And it was always a bone of contention between the two of us. But I admit to it. Now, did you tell?

Are you friends with that kid?

Or no?

Are you?

Is no idea even what his name is now, but.

He knows yours. I tell you that, but he's probably like.

Now, but it never took I was just said it was him, but everyone, you know, they didn't.

Believe yours was the damn sleep sleep back.

He just rolling it up.

It was ringing out the.

Pitt right, it was.

It was like I had the map of Africa and he just had a little bit of the Norwegian Fiords.

So it was clearly who the guilty party was.

That's traumatizing, though, that that is I find childhood very traumatized.

It was terrified, first of embarrassments.

I hated it. I hated it. I hated every not every bit of it.

And I mean, I have happy memories of it, but I could you know, I can give you about twenty five of them, and then the rest of it. It's a bit of a bit of a blank actually a lot of it as well, which apparently isn't a good sign.

Yeah, but that's might as well be. If it's bad, you don't need to remember.

Oh yeah, no, I mean, I'm sure therapy is probably coming up here and there.

Well, I haven't been doing therapy for a while. My thing arapist who was wonderful from Chicago, actually I went from Chicago.

She died a few years oh, oh my gosh.

Yeah, And it was like losing It's like a super important family member, like something.

She was really good.

How long were you a patient of hers?

I guess about ten years?

Oh my god, that's I'm so sorry. That is really that is yeah, it was.

It was a deep loss, that's yeah, it's.

It's a loss because she used to do this thing when I was talking to her. I would always be like that. When I was talking to her and she was saying, what is that?

I know I do it too.

What is that when you touch your chest? What is that? I'm like, I don't know. Is that where the pain is? Honey? I'm like, no, it'll be.

Silly, but but but but I guess. I mean I would always go like that, Yeah, so I don't know. I mean maybe maybe that is where the pain is. That is to be the funny, the body kind of does things like that. Yeah, like you you get have you ever done illnesses in your life?

You had advanced and you were like.

Well, you put blood because you were because you were anxious. I guess that's a real sight of it.

When I was a kid, I was going to that therapist. I was in like kindergarten, third to like third grade or something like. I don't know how long I went to her, but I would get these stomach pains. It would always happen around right after dinner time. Yeah, and then I would start and then it would go away and I'd fall asleep. I'd wake up in the middle night with the same pain in my stomach. It like in grade school. I would be puking NonStop, puking, puking, puking for hours and hours and hours, and my parents would have to take me that.

I would go to the hospital.

Then they would like put me on like ivs and stuff, and they'd be like, we can't figure it out. It happened like maybe ten times, and then they did like a scope to like see what's in my stomach, and it was literally my stomach getting so tight and anxious that my stomach was having like a migraine.

Wow, like from anxiety.

That's a super high level of anxiety.

Yeah, I don't even think it's been my whole life. I'm like, oh, am I really that anxious. I'm like, holy shit, I've been I'm packing in therapy and I'm like I'm a bubble of nerves.

Wow, are you anxious? Now? Do you get anxious?

I mean, I'm not anxious now because I feel comfortable.

Yeah, yeah, you're fine with me.

But the idea, because this is very it's fascinating to me because I do the same thing.

I'm quite an anxious kind of like, oh my god, is everything going to be okay? Person?

And we both choose the most the number one thing that most people are afraid of, which is public.

Humiliation, you know, is like speaking in public.

Yeah, It's like, why would you choose that if you're anxious? It's so crazy, right.

I don't I think about all the time. I'm like, what the hell am I doing here? Like what am I doing? Yeah?

Yeah, well, I don't think that will go away. I don't know.

Look, I'm a little older than you, but that doesn't mean I know anymore and find in a lot of a lot of ways that it probably knows less than I knew thirty years ago, or I'm less sure of things to worry by agent too.

I'm definitely worry about like I need to get healthier, like take care of my body a little more.

Yeah, what does that look like for you?

I've been working out this summer, so I've been just I'm going to go to the gym. My mom's in town. We're gonna go to the gym together.

Yeah, how do you do? You eat bad food? That's a Midwest problem sometimes.

Of course, especially if I'm like, oh, I'm not gonna like I'll be like, oh, I'm not going to drink for a couple of weeks or take a break, and then I'm like, well, I really.

Could use a slice of pizza.

Yeah, yeah, who couldn't.

But the thing is, if I could have a slice of pizza, the problem is, no, a slice of pizza.

Yeah, pizza, Yeah, exactly, you know.

I mean, I think it's truly that is me too, me too. I totally get it. I fight with it the whole time. Like when I was I was Tubby little kid, I was fat kid in fight.

That was my nickname when I was in grade school. Tubby. Yeah. Used to people who come to Tubby coming out tip a way. No, oh, we'll have Tubby for the team. Yeah. Yeah, I know, sad. Feel sorry for me, don't don't hurt me. Damn, that was my name.

I hated it.

I fucking hated it. I hated it.

Oh I'm still.

Angry those not No angry them, most of them are dead.

But it's I did confront a bully when I was home this month. It was the craziest.

WHOA someone that bullied you when you were a kid.

Oh yeah, let me tell you.

I went home to Cleveland throw out the first pitch for the Guardians game for the Price.

Oh I remember them. Yeah, they were called something else when I saw him playing.

YEA, yeah.

Yeah. It's a whole match.

My whole family.

I got like thirty forty fifty of us in this loge and it was awesome.

We go out on the town.

I'm with my brothers and my cousins and we're at this bar and this girl's sitting there and I'm like and she was a neighborhood friend. She didn't go to my school. She was a neighborhood friend. And my brother's knew, and my brother Sean's like, I think that's the girls. Yeah, And I'm like, oh my god. And I went up to her and I.

Was like, whoa, what's up? How are you? She's like, oh my god, how are you?

Like you're you're so funny like and I was like, I was pretty drunk, but I was like, you were so mean to me.

I was like, you bullied a crap out of me, and I was going in on her.

Yeah, and it felt good because she's like, I'm so sorry. I really was really mean to you. Oh, And I was like, I remember you guys making fun of me for being fat, the neighborhood kids and would make me go up and get the scale from my parents' bathroom, and I went. I went up and I got it and I broke it, and then I brought it downstairs and I was like, sorry, guys.

Scales, the scales broken.

And my mom was like, how the hell did the scale get brock Okay, that's weird, and I was like, I told her, like, you know, ten years later, I was like, oh, I broke the scale.

My fist totally understand, which is wild.

I felt still so bad for my little self.

No, I totally get that because I was There was a school project when I guess when I was about eight or nine years old, and they were weighing all the kids in the class and me, well.

It was just science.

It was just like they were measuring everyone and waiting. Ever then you drew your picture and everyone put their way in their picture. Of course I'm fat and all the other kids all right, And I was really upset, and then a couple of weeks later and it's up in the wall.

It's looking at me.

Every day, yourself, fortune, beer, your weight, and your height next day, and I'm like Jesus, And then I don't know, I've done something that got me out of trouble. And the punishment, which was unusual because usually the punishment when I was a kid was physical, like they would belt you. But the punishment was cleaning out the teacher's locker. So I had to clean out the teacher's locker. And there was a little teacher's report book and it was like all the kids, and I was like, you're looking at I looked at it. Yeah, and I got to mine. Obviously you look up yourself. Office is good and it said like the usual things easily distracted, like but of an asshole, good at this, bad at that. And it said he has a weight complex and I was like, oh my god, away complex.

And I think I still do. Uh, I don't know what what it is.

That is wild And that was in the book. And she still got your weight on the wall.

She's got up there in the wall.

That's kind of yeah.

But and then you know, I go to meetings and I, you know, amongst people that kind of live like me, and I say the traumatic thing from my childhood, and then somebody lays down some real trauma from their childhood and forget.

I'm sorry, I.

Said, I have a way complex, like, yeah, I was raised under the Soviet jack and you know in eastern suburbs of Moscow, Like, yeah, sorry, but other people's trauma don't take it.

Doesn't take your trauma.

Away, right, It doesn't compare that you can't.

Apples and speedboats. But it does maybe give you a perspective on your own trauma.

I don't know, it lightens it up, maybe maybe a.

Little shines a little light on it, or it gives you a little bit of I don't know, breathing space.

Yeah, but whatever.

It is, Molly, we're kind of out of time now because we talk really for too long.

Yeah, we've been we've been cruising.

We fucking did it, We fucking did it. We got it fucking done. And now we're best friends, absolutely my best friends. And I think, after this, do you have any tattoos on my finger fingers? It's time to go and get something fucking major.

Let's go right now.

You live in Brooklyn. I like a tattoo parlor in Brooklyn. You do, I do, So let's go out to Let's go out there. I think it's time and I don't. I was just talking to my wife today about this. I don't have any skulls. I have all these tattoos, but.

Wow, there's that one, but that that one.

This is kind of odd. You don't have any skull.

I feel like I should have amount of tattoos you have.

I should have a skull on fire.

You have the sun, though I do have the sun, and I you know this one, I really know that is Saturn. Indeed, Saturn in mythology is the bringer of old age and what well, he also sat and ate his own children. But that's just a metaphor for old age and time passing. So normally I wear my watch there, but I take it off because I don't want to clinking against the microphone and all that kind of stuff. But even if I look at my rest when my watch is on, my watch is not on. Saturn's there like still timing fucking going, It's still fucking taking.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, what's your newest one?

You?

I don't know that. Oh, I think this Hawthorne Bush here, I got it done in Chicago.

Actually, that's nice. Yeah, I was gonna say that this was that one looks new.

Yeah, that's that's fairly new, but crispy.

The new ones look good. Yeah, I like it's a hunker.

Look at that.

You know what I like? I like Dad like that makes me feel good.

That's what I think we'll get.

So that's what we'll get for you.

We'll get a big snake up and a big chicken finger of him.

Absolutely yes, mister fragg com in you later, Thank you so much,

Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson

Storied late-night talk host Craig Ferguson brings his interview talents and singular world view to  
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