Just B with Bethenny FrankelBethenny and Tim talk spirituality, parenting, growing up, and why New York is better than LA or DC, definitively! PLUS: That time Bethenny did stand up.
All right, So this is Tim Dillon. It's always unintentionally like a cold open because I just want to talk to you. So I don't know, do you think my audience? What percentage of my audience, which is mostly women, presumably know.
Who you are? You no clue? Love of small tinies? Do you think maybe more? Well?
When I've posted about your feel like, have you been surprised that some people have been like, wow, I love him?
Yeah? Some of the yes, some of them do. I'm very bad with knowing percentages of any all literal data.
But what do you think like.
Women?
Do women listen to a lot of women listen to your show more now?
But we have more men than women. Were on YouTube and were on everywhere, but YouTube is primarily a male audience. I come from the Joe Rogan universe that appeals to men. So it's a lot of dudes, comedy fans, a lot of guys.
But why am I like always friends with and attracted to comedians like my whole entire life even used to go to the comedy cellar Alan haviy I.
Think we're all damaged people, and I think we're we're united in that, and we've overcome that to a degree, and I think you like that. I think that's part of your attract You're also very funny. You've used humor in your own life too, I think kind of heal some of the trauma. Yes, I think you recognize that with maybe comedians.
That's again it's like a kindred spirit because also like I was shocked I told you I did stand up on time? Or no, did I ever tell you that?
No?
Okay, well tell me how on f well? I actually if I were to, like if there were like a teacher giving me a grade on how I did, and first of all, I want you to then tell me the circumstances I was in and if I deserve a better grade. But if, like all things being equal, the stand up that I did, I think I got like an eighty two percent, Like that is a regular like like no, it's like Jerry Seinfelt getting an A plus than me being like maybe a seventy five eighty like eighty I did find like I did not make it a fool of myself.
People laughed. It was great, I was was it? It was at New York Comedy Club.
Have you ever been there?
Of course?
Okay, is it a good one? Is it okay? So what happened was I wanted to do this because someone I wanted to do like an NFT, something that like no one could get anywhere else. And I had never done stand up and I always wanted to. So I gave myself ten days. That was they said that they had an opening in ten days. The club was opening for the first time during the pandemic. I didn't think about any of this. So the first time this club was opening during the pandemic was this date. So I go in there and I didn't think about this either. The audience was wearing masks six feet apart. Crazy, So that's the next So what kind of a curve do I get to be graded on that? That was the case because I didn't even think of it. I just got on a stage I could barely see. I stood up and I didn't even think of like that that would be the audience. Is that much less funny? You were doing stand up in the pandemic? Does that make it less funny when people were wearing masks?
It's not ideal. When people are wearing masks, you cannot see their facial expressions. You can't the laughter is muffled. It's the worst.
And for them too, they're probably not as free, right because you're not drinking as much.
You'reing a mask. They're living through a horror movie.
Okay, so I get, I get a couple of I get five.
More points, I think, so I think that's fair to sun It.
Okay, So first of all, I just want to say.
That what I did is you're funny all the time. You could be funny on your phone, You could be funny.
Right, So it did not well, I want to before I answered that, I want to tell you that I was shocked by the comedians that responded to me asking for advice. Now, what I thought was, I look like this loser, like the person who gets on the mountain the first day and is wearing like white furry pants and has the whole altphab, doesn't have to fucking ski, and you like, get her the fuck out of here. I felt like by texting and I'm name dropping now into generous Chris Rock, Kevin Neil, and I don't know, have you heard of any of these people? You know, Whitney Cummings, maybe Amy Schumer, I don't remember Kathy Griffin. Like I just Michael Rapper. I blanketed the story.
I didn't know you.
I blanketed the surface, and I was like, let me just lob, do you have any advice I'm doing this, which I find annoying to begin with, like who does this fucking want to think she's just gonna walk in? And like okay, every single person responded responded with like actual real advice. Chris Rocks was the longest, Like it was like it was like a couple of paragraphs. I was so I was so moved by that alone, just that like people would take the time to be supportive and open and it's a fucked up, crazy group of people. Comedians like really fucked you know, yeah, but.
I think most comedians would definitely help somebody who wanted help or want Comedians also like to hear themselves talk and text, but.
These are major comedians who wasn't Like I asked people just anyway. So I was just had such a respect for the craft, if you're gonna call it the genre whatever, the art for that alone, like that was like I like these people, Like I just was like I get you know, so that let's just put that to the side. And I am a crowdsource sort of information, like you we talk about this, So I listened to every person's advice and made my own recipe, like I did not know until uh, Kevin Neilan told me, like, there's each person has their own style. Obviously we know that scene, but I didn't think about it to myself, like what is my style? Then Kim Whitley was like, no, you like to be fucking aggravated and rant about shit. I was like, oh, okay, because Kevin's like I do more long drawn out stories other people from the Borsch Belt, you know, but I'm bump. But I never thought about that. So I thought that was really interesting. And because I'm such like an organized person, the way I approached it was as Chris Rock said, they have a good beginning and an ending. The middle is just a flow. So I thought, okay, So I had some bullet points, and I don't like ever reading anything. It's just not my personality anywhere. So I just flowed. And I liked it because I felt safe in that if there's some organization to it, you could do Okay, you're not going to bomb if there's some For me, it felt like that, like how bad could it be? Like I'm terrible, I know, but I have had experienced that on the first day, because.
Well, I think you have a personality you you didn't freeze up. You've been on TV a bunch people. There are people that I think have a reaction to being up there. Oh really, Oh yeah, just like public speaking. People are more afraid of it than death.
But you think any celebrity that's used to being on talk shows, et cetera is going to be fine up there.
Not any celebrity. But there are people who possess a I mean sociopathic to a degree level of confidence, and those people usually do okay when they're in front of a bunch of people. Now, because I think that a lot of it is like if the audience smells fear.
Desperation or like being I don't like even in a school play for kids, like wait, let me start up, Like don't they don't need to be part of have the sausage is getting made in your own head, just commit to it. Fuck, I don't like that stuff.
I'd walk out of a school play if they started.
Over right, I'd be discussed or even even to.
Actually the money you paid to send these kids, just like I would go.
Not so when you are well, so to answer your question, I want to when you fuck up to answer your question. I didn't get fed by being laughed at. In that space, I kind of wanted to know anything that I've ever thought about doing that I haven't tried. I don't like that. I feel like you're such a fucking pussy. So I wanted to, Like everyone thinks they can do it. Everyone's like when I said I was going to do it, so many people, oh, I'd be great at that. Really, even get your fucking ass up there. Yeah, so I got my fucking ass up there. I did it, but I didn't get fed by it, meaning like, oh they laughed, Oh my god, I told and I didn't bomb, so I need to do it again, Like I I don't know why. I just I checked the box and get things. And also I feel fraudulent. I'm not staying in the shitty HO tells and I just don't think it's something I don't have to do that.
But I fuck up sometimes when I think when I don't lay out a premise appropriately and think that everyone's on board already, you're in your head.
Yeah, Well give me an example. That's insane like look, or something about politics, or you think everyone knows like so intimately.
Yes, if I do a joke about the Ukraine and I think people are well versed in a topic and I'm trying to make a joke about something, or if I you know, if I get on stage and I say it's really important we support Ditty right now, which I think is just so funny. But a lot of people don't have a sense of humor, so even in a comedy club, they don't have it, so they don't understand. Like a woman said the other day, she went no, and I want, oh, like, but that's how people that's.
Kind of have a baseline. You don't know where you are.
You don't know where you are. So I'm like, how bad is it? Because if my fans are there, we're all on board. They love it. If I go we got to support Diddy, they get it's a comedy show. So when I go, we got a support Diddy right now? I said it was easy to be a Diddy fan a few months ago, but now it's difficult. Now is when we will And then a woman in the crowd shows no, and I go, oh, So we're as bad as we can be like, if we're on a date, this is as bad as you say that.
Do you have that monologue you have that say that out loud?
Yes, we're I immediately have to kind of regroup, and then because then I realized, I'm like, Okay, for whatever reason, maybe it's my fault. I can't blame them. Yes, maybe it is their fault sometimes, but I have they can't fix it, so it does nothing to blame them. So if the set's not going well, I have to turn around and I have to fix it by being funnier about the thing that isn't working, committed to it, and find the part of it that's the most has the most broad appeal where everyone will go, oh, we get it. Because I think, like, context is the problem. Okay, that's the problem. On the internet. People try to be funny online and sometimes it's ripped from context in a comedy club. This whole PC thing or the woke thing, it never happened in a comedy club because there's context and we're human.
No, just like it doesn't happen if you're watching a movie somebody lets to smoke a cigarette to do cocaine.
It's only when everything's ripped from context, and it's on the Internet and somebody reads something and goes, is this funny? Are they being serious? Are they being a troll? Are they aggravating me? And they're unable to process intent. So intention becomes important, and I think in a comedy club, I have to lay bare my intentions that this is a joke. We're not supporting giddy. Don't worry a woman in the third row. It's funny, but the reason it's funny is because it's ridiculous, and because it's silly. And then we're going to try to explore a part of it, like an angle of it. That's fine. I always try to find the funny angle. Like on my podcast, I go I don't go to what the right angle is or what the wrong angle is. I go what the funny angle is. So there was a guy who killed himself in because.
Who was Someone said, humor is its own excuse, like that's it.
Humor wins always was a guy who killed himself in the Hampton very sad because he was in some scam okay, and then so.
Husband or whatever.
Half the people commenting were saying, how terrible, what a tragedy, understandable, not a comedian's take, but totally get it. The other people that were commenting were mad at him for being a dishonest financial criminal it. I was mad at him for quitting on the scam. You keep going, you don't stop. This is not what the Hampton stopping. Keep going. There's people that were with Epstein. There's still dancing against the Central pay right now because they keep going. But what do you mean in the Black Book, I didn't even know I needed a plane. You keep going. The comedians take to me isn't the right take. It's not always a compassionate take. It's the funny take. So the funny take to me was I am mad at you not for what you did, not for how you lived, but for giving up. That's the funny take for me. And that's what makes my podcast fun for me is to try to find those takes. Everyone goes. Should Trump have been at McDonald's, Caamala's, Guy, Doug Emma. These are, and I speak from experience, poison factories that are killing America. Politicians should be trying to shut them down. They should not be at them. They should not be a waterburger, they should not be anyway. They should be trying to stop the poison sludge in waterburger from going into human beings instead.
That's so good.
So that's my angle on it is like not should they have done it? Or are they LARPing? It's poor people or whatever. It's like, this is going to the Marlborough factory lighting up. This is going to a crackhouse smoking crack. So that to me is the funny angle because I'm.
Like, different angle. You love a different angle, too different, You like a different angleferent All right, So how like you know, you watch Chappelle and you watch him like and you're like on a roller coaster. Sometimes you're like, holy fucking shit, he just said it. And he's going with and he's leaning all the way and he's massaging and he's needing the dell. So do you ever get caught in the impact zone and you're like, how the fuck am I getting at it? Like I'm in the impact zone? Do I keep flying? Do I keep swimming to Florida? Or I go back to Cuba?
Yeah? I think all the time you say to yourself, where am i and where is it going? It's Cuba and Florida?
Where am I? Am I almost there? Or I gotta go back.
And there are times when I'll be on stage and I'll go, okay, just move on, because I don't have the answer to your a vertigo. In the moment, you don't know which way you're For the most part, I have thankfully developed enough skills to navigate around it and get to Cuba.
Do you love doing the stand up itself?
I love it?
Tell me why.
It's visceral, it's in your face, it's anything can happen. There is no script. I mean, obviously you have jokes, but every audience is different. Every single situation you're in is different. You could play the same comedy club a hundred times, you'll never get to say. It's like never. So it's why people like flying, probably because it's just you're up there and you're like, there's weather patterns, but they're different, they're similar, but there you always got to pay attention. You can't. You can never when you're flying and playing gup.
Oh, you're never more alive in present.
Right, You're alive, You're present, you cannot be You're not checked out.
Fascinating that I've never really thought about that, But to me, that's the interesting thing. Are things that people are obsessed with because they're never more like, you cannot really you can't really be on a snowboard or on a surfboard and not be totally present, and in this day and age, it's impossible. But doing stand up you cannot.
You're not on your phone. You can even be in your brain here or you can't be in your head. You have to be plugged into what you're doing. Yeah, and there's very few things that my podcast is like acts. I don't have gas, so I just do an hour and I don't look at my phone, and I just look at articles and I talk. But as you get older, you realize because of the world we live, and it's harder and harder to clear your mind, and stand up doesn't in that case.
That's why I do love That's why I probably would love stand up. But there is a structure to it that I am a very unstructured person. My life is very structured. But so let's say I go. You could tell me right now again on stage for two hours to do a speaking engagement, and I could do it for two hours and it would be funny. But I might be but I make peop laugh the whole time. But I would be talking about I might be talking about real estate. I might be talking about pilanthropy, I could be talking about food, I could be talking about anything. But having an act would be where I feel trapped, having like something to refer back to, and a journey would be where I feel trapped. I ultimately have to be completely free. And it sounds weird they're talking about business could be free, but it kind of comes.
That's why I think you do so well on social media, because you have that freedom.
I the interesting.
I think that's why you do so well. I think everybody does well. I like the long form hour. I like the podcast. I do it twice a week.
I like but you know where it's going to go. You have some plan or no, it's like this, like I sat down here today, zero I do it.
I sit down, I'll have I'll have read about stuff the whole week. I'll have a show sheet of articles. But I sit down and my producer will bring up articles and then in the moment my first reaction to things. And sometimes the funniest parts of the show are when I have to reverse in the middle of an article because I literally have not read the third paragraph. Where now it's completely well I'm defending someone. I go yeah with this, and then you get to the third paragraphical, Okay, well this they are clearly wrong.
How did your podcast explode like this? You were on Rogan pandemic but like what he was promoted like you were on him and then what you just watched them all?
So I did a bunch of podcasts, you know, lot of you know, we all do each other's podcast.
It really helps the promotion, like it really really yeah.
Because people are out there and they're looking for things, and you know, I've done everything from Logan Paul to Joe Rogan to Theovonne to you know, you just do a bunch of different podcasts.
And who is the fun Who do you think is the funniest? Who do you laugh the hardest at?
People? You will never you don't know who they are?
Do people know who they are?
Like? Yeah, Like I think some of the funniest comedians in the world are people that aren't huge, but they're super funny. Whether there's somebody like Eddie Pepatone makes me laugh incredibly hard. Who's a guy from LA who's an older guy, you know, I mean some more, who's a black comedian? Makes me laugh. I mean, she's done stuff that's hilarious, like, but I mean she's she's a very established comedian's done a lot. But I mean it's like, and then my friends are all very funny. And the people that are, you know, in my orbit and the people that I know, whether it's Shane Gillis with Levonne or Andrew Schultz or whatever, we all respect each other and stuff. And I think they're all obviously hilarious. But then there's people that, I mean literally they make me laughing. They're just you know, for whatever, they're not as known as they should be.
How competitive, like because it's it's just a different type of thing where actors are doing.
Different I don't think it's a competitive.
Okay, because I was gonna say actors are doing different types of roles.
It's competitive, but I don't know.
They're seeing each other in their own habitat in and out, and like, how cringe is it when you see someone that you really know and you can.
Take my fans, I haven't done a good job. What do you mean? Meaning like, if me and you go up for the same role, you can get that role. But it's not like there's a finite amount of fans.
You're saying you as long as you get your A, you don't give a fuck if everybody gets an A.
Yeah, it's like it's not a zero sum game, meaning that if you do something good consistently, somebody is gonna like it. It might be Madison Square Garden, it might be Carnegie Hall, it might be Gotham Comedy Club. Who can, Like, did you ever.
Want to be on SNL for example as a cast member?
Did you try me as a kid?
You never tried? This wasn't something as an adult you tried? Or no, I never got an audition, but I never try to get an audition.
I don't know. My manager might have tried. I wasn't pushing it.
You didn't care enough, And that's not Is that not your genre? Like improv?
Anyway?
I never did improv, right, and you have to have done that to be there? No, Oh, interesting.
I just I'm I'm very like, I don't have a plan on the high five. Yeah, I don't like, I'm you want to do course? The thing I started podcasting, I didn't know what it was. I became really good at it and people like it, Like I have friends at SNL that are great at what they do. I did sketches on the tette that did very well for me and got me fans like. I like that. I don't dislike it. It just I don't. I don't have like an overarching idea of what it has to be.
I'm the exact same I do. I go with it where I like, just go sure, I do. It moves me and some meant.
To be kind of where it's not meant to be. I think for several of my friends that are on that show that they that was their dream or they fit perfectly into it, or they loved it. And you know, so what how fucked up?
On a zero to ten?
Was your childhood? Like, I don't know, because it's there's always.
No, you're not cigarettes, weren't putting out of a.
Saying an aa. Every bottom has a basement. So like every time I think it's bad, and it wasn't great, schizophrenic mom, the parents were not around. I was doing coked thirteen like me.
So based on what you know about my life, less someone the same same or more or less.
Act similar okay similar, maybe you have a little more crazy, but maybe not. I don't know.
Okay, but I'm saying, like you had food on the table. Yeah, so that's and you were and lit cigarettes weren't being put.
Out right, And I was not physically abused and I was not.
Did you witness a lot of physical or sexual abuse or nothing like that.
I did not witness any sexual abuse, physical abuse, not. There was a lot of slamming of doors and screaming and stuff. Okay, but it was not like people's heads weren't going through the wall. That's mine.
But yeah, okay, you know, but it was they were just not you know, you weren't parented.
They were I was raised kind of it was the wild West. But again, now I hear other people to go I was not, but I was abused, God forbid sexual Like that wasn't my story. Okay, but my story was like I'm running around doing blow when I'm thirteen because you know, my mother there is like not present and my father is not present. Rules are guardians in a band, and my mother is like, you know, they're not. They weren't bad people, they were just not good parents.
It sounds like I describe your childhood's free range parenting.
Free range parents. And by the way, it wasn't that unusual totally for the era. Totally. It wasn't like total, like my friend's parents might have been a little more regimented, but it was still you had a wide berth as a kid back then. Go out. No, it's never where are you going? Can I have the parents' number? Can I call them? Are the parents going to be there? It was we're going out, We're going to the park, We're going to hang out, We're going for pizza. We'll see you in five hours minimum.
No. No, the door was open. The mother was smoking, drinking wine while pregnant.
Barbagoulahan was sick. She's on a who we loved, and she passed away. But she would sit on the thing and she'd smoke her bot and she'd say the thing that I think is one of the greatest things I've ever heard. She goes, now buzz, she used to talk like this. She goes buys. If you get any trouble tonight, don't call here, she goes. I know a lot of people say if their kids get in trouble, we want to be the first call. She goes. If you get arrested, if you get in a car and drink, if you do anything, do not call here. I take the phone off the hook at eleven thirty. Do not call here. She'd smoke a cigarette. You go, so have fun, have fun, but don't call here. Basically like, go do what you want, but if you fuck up, this will be on it.
It was a generation of latchkey parenting. Yet this is not like I was going into the city on the train. First of all, at thirteen, I was at the Rafters in Saratoga partying all night, right. But at fourteen, I was going on the Long Island Railroad into the city, going to the Palladium, walking up to Howard as my mother taught me to do with my my my fake ID and I. She was like, you act like you belong to get in right, And I would act like I belong and I would end up in the Michael Todd room at the Palladium, and it was the greatest exhilaration. But this is gonna sound crazy. Yes, I drink more now, like I get more wild. I was responsible. I was a responsible person that yes did happen to do cocaine and the Michael Todd room. And like I was like an adult as a child, it just was like you, I grow up quick, I just was.
I think when you realize too, and I realized my mother was kind of off, and even though she was a really good person, a passionate person, a smart person, shed issues. And I think when you realize your parents aren't parents, you have to grow up.
Yeah, yeah, you are an adult. Yeah they're not parent, but they're also sort of peers. I think back then, parenting wasn't like your parenting as a verb. You were just a parent. We were a parent, but you weren't parenting.
No. I mean the great example of this is when you know another you know family, I won't mention their names, but you know, back then you were also very close with your friend's families.
Like they you could be there for three weeks, eating dinner at the house every night.
They imprinted on you. Yes, right, and you know, like this.
If it cost any money, because you weren't going vacation. You're living there eating.
And you know, one day my friend's mother said, and we're all sitting there and we were like, maybe, you know, I don't know, sixteen and she said, you know, at eighteen years old, she goes, it's really time for you guys to start your own life. Like she was basically saying like, we've had fun, we've enjoyed this time that we've all spent together, but me and your father really want to get a condo in Naples. And you know, this is this is now your life, This is not my life. She goes, so our lives are going to part. And she would say this to all of us as we were sitting there, and she'd be talking to her son, but in a way to all of us where she'd go that, you know, this has been great, but now it's time. So now it's so different. People are so much more. You have the location on the phone, Well why are you there? And somebody will answer and go, Hi, I'm at the Apple store. Because what are you doing at the Apple store? My friend will call her son, why are you with the Apples? I need a headphone? Why don't you have your headphone? Like it's a whole thing. Well here's if you need to live somewhere till you're thirty, now you can do it. Oh my god. Where when we they would literally go, we want to rent out these rooms. They would say stuff like that. They'd be like, we don't, you're gonna pay rent? Like it was it was an economic. The house was an economic thing.
Well, I find a couple things now in meeting different men, I want to tell you a couple of dynamics you'll find interesting. First of all, I'm meeting different men. A lot of the big things they want to say is I'm very involved. It makes me want to punch them in the face. I can't explain it, just like a very involved parent.
Shut the fuck.
I don't know why it bothers me. It's just like you want a cookie. I can't explain it annoys me the way it annoys room and men like I eat clean. I'm like, ew, just not something you need to say. I don't know why it's annoying. Yeah, but I find that not just that people are letting the kids run the program. Like as much as my daughter listened, she's full in first class to Emirates, she's been to Paris Fashion Week. No one's crying for her. But I am. I do not negotiate with terrorists like they'll be this little thing. There's like this little sort of like threshold where they think like they're voting members of the community. They really and I don't will like listen out crowdsource what she wants to do, I wanna go this weekend, or we're gonna go here, whatever, But like if it pushes towards what I know is right in the universe, Like let's say I'm dating someone. Let's say I'm dating someone seriously, but she's not like ready for that. And they're not short, bald, old, they check all, they're not gold diggers, they're all the things we discuss good energy matchic she wanted, and she'll like, I don't know, it might be like a little too soon, or might be whatever. And I literally will have said this to my daughter. I've said, I'm fifty three, it's not that fucking cute. Okay, at fifty eight dating, it's not gonna be cute. So if you want me to be the old lady with the cats saying why aren't you spending time with me, that's fine. But I'm telling you that, like mom has still got some game and I've got some good interests. So I'm going to be dating, like and there's going to be someone, and I'm going to keep you in mind as do they like kids? And do we not have little two year olds? Because none of us want that. And I'll talk to you as a partner in this household. But like, ultimately I'm a great mom. You're safe. I'm living my life too.
Bro.
Like I will say that to my kid and she will get it because it's like, I'm not living your life.
Yeah you are. Say with the friends, how are you with the friend? Because what's interesting.
About what do you think of that? Do you think that's right or wrong?
When I said I think it's right. But to me, what's interesting is how are you with the friends? Her friends? Yeah, okay, so she'll have I Do you look at one of them?
Yes, troublemaker. Talk to the other parents, find out that that's the one. Find out that other parents have a problem, blah blah blah, and make it be known and find that because that's where the slippery slope really happens.
That's one.
It's that you take the rotten apple next to the right apple, and that right now.
So I was hanging out when I was thirteen years old, Me and my other thirteen year old friends were hanging out with nineteen year old cocaine dealers. That's the problem.
Diamond Bob for Lauderdale, Florida. My daughter may never listen to this posdeige.
So this is what I mean, Like when we're hanging out with twenty year olds and we're fourteen and they're driving us around the world getting high and it's not like we advertise this to our parents, but they weren't present and they had no idea it. It is a huge thing. Like as I grow up, like when I was my nineties, ethos of everyone's an individual and it doesn't matter what who your friends are, You're your own thing. As I get older, I do understand community more and influences more. So I look at kids and I go, Obviously, I'm thirty nine, I'm not a parent, but I go, I almost think more important than the school they go to or their extra is their friends.
But word, and I'm and I'm yeah, I'm on the case. I got threw down with a mom. I'm on the case. I don't know what I would do if it went sideways and it has a.
Little grew a mom Like I just full on.
Went in about something I got done in a couple.
Yeah, I don't. I don't give a ship. I just I don't remember.
Yeah, I just like kind of laid into her and let her know where the weaby pad was and wasn't and and but did it in a strategic way so I don't blow the whole thing up my daughter in school and whatever. But like I would have been if I weren't a public person, I'd be that mother like showed up and rollers and a cigarette down at that fucking school, screaming at everybody. Like and I would have been that crazy mother. That's me.
That's a fun woman.
That's that's who I am in my body. Like, let's put it this way, this actually happened. Okay, let's pretend one of her schools she got to different schools. I had seen her playing a sport at one school, and then we were at another school, and she said that, like the coach was letting them go early, and like I watched them all and it's a better school, more expensive, more elite school, and I watched them all look like the bad news bearers, and it was like, not really for good reason, and there was not really being a lot of coaching. I can't believe that I was the person that found out. There was a father next to me, the man, and he was like, oh my god, this is horrendous, and he's complaining, give me all the reasons because I'm not very involved, right, So I go to my assistant, just get me the guy who's in charge of all the athletics at this particular school, and I got him on the phone. I was super nice. I was like, listen, I don't know much. I don't know a lot.
I go.
I don't know much. But I was at this other school and they're not supposed.
To be way.
Better than this. I watched this. You're better than this. I know they leave early. Sometimes you gotta pull this together. I'm just telling I'm not gonna call a bunch of times. I'm not the squeaky wheel. I'm just telling you I watched it myself. This is not great. And I asked my daughter if I could she minded me doing it because she felt like a loser too, being on the loser teange right, And it did. I sort of got a course corrected. It's just that they're not going to the Olympics. But I just am saying like it just kind of jacked it up a little. So I will be a little bit of a Karen when it comes to like lodging a complaint.
Good. I think that's an important thing to do, right.
Yeah, but so I I'm I'm the not fucking around program. Mom, I'm we could go and well we could buy something, not even buy experiences.
But you can tell when the kids come over, can you tell? You can look at one of them and go, this is going to be an issue one hundred percent.
And with me, I know the ones who are super into me and want to bond with me on do your lip gloss and like kiss my ass, and they are the thirsty for the fame and that stuff, and so that I hate. Also, that's a different dynamic. They want to like be around all the time and they you know, they want to be in a TikTok of mine or something. So I don't that I don't like for my daughter because I feel like, are they then using her? That's a different brand. But that's right, there's that too. So anyway, Yeah, so would you take the free range parenting or this over coddling parenting if you had to?
You gotta split the differ right down the middle. You gotta split the difference. I think part of the what made I'm writing a book about this now and finishing it. Yeah, it's called it's called Death by Boomers, and it's about the way we all grew up part of that generation. And what made them very funny is that they were deeply, deeply selfish, and they were told that that they were. It was about them, and their kids were not. Their kids were part of it, but they were not the whole thing.
This is the Dennis Leary program. He had nine kids, and they took care of each other. And that's why they had nine kids, so they could be like they're doing a commune and the parents what they wanted to parents.
And I grew up with parents, and they, you know, and my friend's parents, they were all very similar. It was about them where they wanted to live. We worked hard our whole lives. You kids have no idea how tough it's been. For it's actually was the easiest person the easiest run of any generation ever. They had for the most part, outside of Vietnam, no war, it was peaceful, They had low interest rates, they had a pretty good economy. Like they've created this narrative of victimhood that's completely unrre true, and they would always sit us down, or you have no idea difficult now. Conversely, their parents went through World War two, the Great Depression, plagues. It's like, you know, actual problems, and the Boomer generation kind of creates this narrative that they've been the most put upon generation ever, which isn't true, and that is their reason why they have to.
Be the Only problem I have with the whole thing you're saying is that, like, so you and I are a fairly new friendship, but like we like being together, like talking to each other, like hanging out, like we're having a relationship. I like having a relationship with my daughter because she's a very interesting, cool person, So I enjoy not because like I have to be her mommy all the time and do the costumes and perform. I actually she's another human being, and I, like you, I laughed at her, like experiencing with her. I like, you know, it's not just an unmolding her. So that's the flaw with the only flaw with that program I think. I think Actually the program I discussed where parents are like letting their kids run the story, that's also not realistic because the kids are inmates running the asylum. That's also not a relationship. And then also just being an adult that has like these tenants in your house.
The boomers looked at their kids as like impediments to their happiness, right, tenants. Tenants, You're like, you're in my way. I want to do this, you're here.
And then why did they have them?
Well, they just felt like I think that's all they get exposed to the live woodsell like Woodstock was. This whole idea was like all these people are like into like really like transformational vibrational energy. You know, they were drug addicts. It was selfish drug addicts and want to have sex in a field exactly.
That's right.
So this whole idea of like, no, they were challenging power structures with the psychedelics, and it's like, no, they weren't. They were getting high exactly. So then you understand them and they're fun, and you understand them in a much different way than you would have understood them. How have you taken all this at face value? When you kind of get under the mythos of Woodstock and the hippies and how that was kind of bullshit, And then you get under the mythos of like that they were like this the other that they had it so hard and stuff, but they were very and the part of the point of my book is no generation was funnier. They were because they were the most unique. They didn't care and to be funny, you're.
Talking about the now, but what about the generation of like you that's born from them and like me, we're we're funny too.
But nobody was funnier or had less awareness than the generation of our patent. Nobody cared less. My father the other day.
Oh we are we won down from Archie Bunker, like uh kind of.
But my father the other day, my step sister was going on and on about climate change or whatever. My dad would just look through and he goes, you know when you really start paying attention to the weather when you get a boat, because him and his wife just got a boat, and he started talking about how hard it was for them to both. They are so not on earth, these people. It makes them the funniest group of people to me because they are completely out of it in a way that's like unreal. They're not on earth anymore, and they're just kind of like there and it's about them, and they're a lot of fun as long as you don't have to depend on them to become a person.
They're so fucking selfish and hilarious.
Yeah, real, how selfish and funny. They are my dad's a yeah when you get a boat, because that's when you start to pay attention.
And they're not flexible whatsoever. They're great on like a lot.
Walk into my father's house. They have something on the thing. It says, I just want to drink wine and pet my dogs. And that's their quote. And he has three dogs, and that's what they want. They don't care. They don't care if any If you bring up the Middle East or China, they look at you like you have ten heads and they start talking about their dog. Immediately, I think that.
You and I have a little here's the thing. So there's this guy break there's like life coach. I hate that word, but I've known him for years and he actually gives. He's very good and he doesn't believe in obligation, and I actually like it. But either of my parents, No, I don't really. I don't really either, meaning I believe in doing what you. I do a lot of things I don't know I wouldn't necessarily choose to do, but it's like because I kind of want to do them. It doesn't feel like an obligation. Like when I take my daughter to school, and if I'm tired. It's not an obligation. It's just something like I do or want to do. There's like a fine line. But I don't like doing things that I don't want to do if they're like, how do I explain it? Like I don't give someone a gift unless I just want to give them a gift, a gift for a goal. Because I'm supposed to do the things. I'm just not very big on that. I do things really because I want to do them. But I think that's the most genuine way to be.
You were talking about spirituality last night. It came up. Yes, this is interesting. You were surprised when you said where you with religion? Which is a hilarious By the way, it's a hilarious thing to say to dinner. I love that, right, Well, just no one says it, but it's so funny. No one says it.
No one says where you with religion?
No one is ever sat in the middle of a dinner with a bunch of people who've never met each other. Where are you with religion? I thought it was funny. I just told it. Nobody passes a bag clamic. And by the way, what's the meaning of life, and I'm like eating my currella stick. But I'm like, really, but I said, I said, I was hardwired. You know, the Catholic thing in me is hardwired. And it's like like I could never be an a full honey. I have friends that are full on eighth I believe in nothing and that's our whole thing. And I go, I just could never do it because but.
You're not mad at them.
I'm mad at them, right, Okay, I'm mad at them at all. I'm also proselytizing to them at all. I just I think you're hardwired a certain way when you're young, and I was hardwired the way that I'm hardwired, and it was you know, with churches and you know, prayers and.
Culture though that's your culture. That's Jewish people, you know, with with what they're eating and where they're going and the guilt and and it's not necessarily about God or religion per se. I mean, sure, culture to it.
But I think it's like right, But then there's some people's culture where they're like they were hardwired to just have a gift totally. Like there's friends I have that cannot even go near the idea of the spiritual or the religious. Okay, so I'm a mutt of it.
And here's why I My mother was born Catholic in a very abusive household. Her brother had a shotgun I think at nine or eleven to his father's head for how he's beaten the shit of the out of their mother. And so I broke the chain of like the crazy abusive generational trauma. But they grew up in a fucked up, crazy Catholic house. She marries my real father, who's Jewish, and no one could have kids on that side, so she goes through an Orthodox conversion so I could be born Jewish. She then marries another horse trainer, John Paracella, who's devout Catholic, who sends me to Saint Agnes School and Old Westbury School. The child puts me through a communion, a confirmation the wafer. I loved reading the Old Testament, went to all these schools, learned all about it, and came out like what, Okay, right I am? Ever, I can be anything you want me to beg Yeah, you want me to be? What do you want me to be? You want to do? Rahmaed on down? Yeah you know what I'm saying, Like I. And that's why when people say questions to me, that's why I ask that question because someone if someone says to me, how's your relationship with your parents? Thank God they're both dead, because then I get to say they're both dead. But before that, it was like or like what religion are you? It's like under the table, I can't answer basic where'd you grow up? Thirteen schools? I can't answer basic questions. I grew up at Hot Skates and Limbrook, right where I grew up.
I know, I've driven by it many times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well it's interesting. I think that, Like, but that is in and of itself, even though it's some you know, the way you're calling it a munth, It's like, I gotta be honest, it's kind of a deeply faithful way to grow up really different faith traditions and being enmeshed in them.
Yeah, and I've experienced both deeply. I've experienced.
I don't think. I think that makes you more spiritual and more aware of that stuff than anybody and.
Could be not spiritual, like just a cardboard cutout?
Who could?
But what do they think goes on? Like nothing goes on? You're just like are you just a cardboard cut, it's not made and you can speak.
Like I got things. There are people that for whatever reason just don't have an interest in that dimension of life. They don't think about how they treat people, or they don't think about uh, you know, any type of nora. Let's just say they don't think about the soul at all. They think primarily only about the here and now, and they don't think about any other stuff. Do you go to confession? I just started going to church again, and not super regularly, so I haven't been to confession, but I used to when I was a Kids.
Say, why do you have to go to confession when going right? Is there a rule of going right? No?
No, well I mean church, isn't confession right? Confession thing you have to go to do a thing? No? I haven't yet.
Wait but no, But ken could have person just only go to confession and never go to church.
Absolutely?
Could I walk in and just go to confession?
Absolutely?
Someone's there right now, someone always there?
Hours?
Oh, there actually are hours.
There's hours. Interesting, But you can go and you could say here's I you know, I've done X, Y and C.
I haven't been in years. But do they really do like the three hail marriage or do they talk to you it's a little bit of therapy? Is there a little bit of therapy to it? I think there is, really, Like I think there is a say I want to sleep with my best friends partner?
Yeah, what would the priests say? What do you think film it? No? I don't know. I mean old priests are not created equal clearly, Okay, priests are humans and have lots of problems. Many documentaries, I couldn't predict that. I would imagine coveting thy neighbor's wife, husband or whatever. Is is no going, that's on the big ten. Okay, that's the big ten, and.
I would just say no go they would, right, you mean because oh yeah commandment? Right?
Wait?
No? Is that the command and seven deadly sins?
So if you came in and said, I'm thinking of killing I'm thinking of coveting the wife. I'm really jealous my neighbor has so much money. And I don't you go.
That you and I should rank the commandments and the sins, like in order of importance the sins, like, because I feel like the sins are supposed to be equal. Like I find it's funny because my mother, who was brilliant, beautiful, like show stopping beautiful, but brilliant, smarter than I am, funny, et cetera. The reason she went into and alcohol vanity and it's not people talk about the time I'm vain, I'm not va. I am not vain, And maybe that's why I never thought about it, like Freud would have a field day. But I am not a vain person by and large. I mean, I don't want to go out and look like a wreck, but overall, it wouldn't be something that even defines me. I think that's a really really debilitating bad one.
There are tons of There are tons of bad, negative things that you can develop. I guess vanity obviously is one of them. Vanity is a tough one because it's rewarded in our society. That's why degree that I think makes it very hard for people to recognize it right, and it can lead them into a just like greed, by the way, gluttony, all that stuff. Greed is rewarded. Greed is good, you know, But then if greed leads you down a road where let's say you are you know, dishonest, and you are criminal in your behavior, or and you I mean, look at Bernie Madoff. Look at this craziness. Right, son kills himself or die? Right, Bernie Madoff dies like the wife is whatever, cast aside, whatever hurts all of these people, does all these terrible things, and could have been just a really rich guy, like but it wasn't enough an R a normal rich person. I call NRP. Yes. And here's the other thing that nobody really wants to hear. It's not that different. Like what he was driven to do was an innate It's not like he wanted the boat. It's coming from somewhere else that.
Is seated insecurity, need for approval, need to do all of that. You're obsessed with everything. I live for you for that, Like do you read everything?
I don't read everything. No one can read.
You read a lot, though, Don't you read stuff? You have to be reading.
Somebody that reads more.
Read significantly less than you. But you just know a lot.
Because it's interesting. It's interesting because you love.
The human condition.
You like, like, I'm curious about people. I'm curious, right, that's not young, you know.
I think it's young to be I think it's do you have kids who know? I don't think you don't think so Okay, I don't think the forty year old parent, new parent, this is your move.
No, A lot of people I think it's you know, I think certain people are really great at it, but I think they know it like you know, you're really good mom. I think that. For me, it's like I think it would be such a shift in lifestyle. Maybe it would be good, but I don't know.
I think you'd be good at it. I think, and it happened to you, you would rise.
I wouldn't be love it.
No, you wouldn't be terrible. You'd be like me at your comedy club getting an eighty and maybe a five extra.
Eighties good the way I grew up.
Eighties get a five extra credit. Okay, So let's talk about two more things. One is you and I our relationships. So we met through in Whitney. For those of you who don't know, Tim's amazing, and you guys already know that after this conversation, we met through Whitney Cummings via text, and then we taxt about lime disease, and then we were in the Ham and then we went on our first date on a boat and we had which is by the way, that's a that's a trapping.
Yeah.
We had a great time, beautiful and then we just became with like an instant, like well, I.
Think we had a similar upbringing and you know, I think also from Long Island, like even the things you mentioned when you talk about hot like, I know I went to birthday you know what I'm talking a birthday party. There was tan and like fell down I was I.
Was the Queen of hot skating. You also, we're both good dates to things. We've found out you need to sometimes bring someone to something.
That's not to bring somebody who can hang in his fun and gets it and appreciates it.
And elevates the game and can be by themselves off the side and bring an ad. So we've been to like we went to crazy ship like the US Open and the Mets and and Raos and whatever. Right, so finally the.
Next day we keep one upping each other. The next day, I bring you to the Middle East when they make peace.
Yes, Mets party.
Yeah, So for me, it will be flying into the Middle East when there was a piece in the Middle East. We're going to Dubai, Yeah, I mean yeah, to be big, I'll have to be big.
It doesn't. I actually enjoyed have.
US Open my party that had a carvel trock. Yeah, cheeseburger delivered by a chef. No, that was.
Epic, So that I'm gonna say I did. I did a video that went viral where this is. That's bigger than going That's bigger than going to the Mets. That's big in the US Open. That's a lot of fun for me. We're in the Hampton's and I was out with this guy and Tim and I were coming from the fifty fifty cent and it was great. And then he was like, let's go to my friend's place. And it's the sag Harbor Tavern. It's part of the Red Hook Tavern. But I was a little buzz so I wasn't connecting the dots to the fact that they have the best cheeseburger. Also, I thought we're just going to the restaurant. I didn't think, let's go into the restaurant. Okay, we're going to a restaurant. So I show up and he's with all these comedians like Andrew Schultz and the other guy at the Ponytail. I forgot a bunch of Markety people there, like like like like I'm already ready. You had me at Hello, you have Andrew a comedian there, and you're there and then this like amazing chef comes and he presents as if I'm Queen Elizabeth the Sag Harbor tavern favorite cheeseburger. He wouldn't let me take a bite of Tim's cheeseburger because I just like give me a bite and he was like no, like heaven forbid, and then like he brought it out and I tasted it, and I it was like, that was an incredible night. We closed the summer. That was like a chef's kiss literal.
It is always the best week of the summer's the final week it was. I don't know why, and that was the final night, the final night. It's always the best week that week.
Yeah, but I like because it's urgency, famous comedians, a chef who's going to bring me the best burger?
Like so much fun.
Yeah, that's my wheelhouse, That's that's my Matt Gallan.
So that was sick.
So anyway, we go to REO's and you've seen me out on let's just say dates. So the guy that we were out with last night or that night, what do you I want to hear what you think of me and dating, the habitat, the whole thing, honestly.
And a date or you in your date? Oh, you and the data grade, I mean you and the data grade.
You think it's a good match. What what would be a good match for me?
Well, he's very centered and calm and knows who he is and is successful and fun and funny. And you know, you think it's good. I think it's very good. Okay, thumbs up, thumbs up.
Give me a grade out of one hundred for him for me in the nies nineties? Yeah, wow, okay, And I feel like you're a tough critic somewhat.
No, he's good. I think he's solid. I also like that he's from a different part of the country. You do, I do? Okay? Why? I think journeys are important and I think you.
Mean like having your own space and.
Going going not only that, but is it if it's too easy? I think it rots you need a little rub you rob.
I think it's interesting. You need a little not not like conflict, but a little texture otherwise.
Like what do we do with dinnernet in? Like No, Yeah, it's like you need a little bit of like let's make this time.
Yes, yeah, I think, Tim, I think of the fucking best I live for you. I really do like deeper and deeper this is.
I think we did a great job and I've done the biggest podcast in the world, and I think this was a great episode. I grade this very highly. Tell me what you greeted on in the nineties, same.
As your guy, and you didn't carry the way, but you didn't definitely some of the you wouldn't have thought it was going to be like you would have thought.
I know, I knew it was going to be good, but it was actually surprising how good it was. Wow. Yeah, oh my god.
Yeah.
Okay, because it's different things. I don't talk about parenting ever, and no one does. Oh that's what's.
Interesting, really, Yeah, okay.
Because it's different things interesting a lot of dudes talking to dudes.
Also, we're very similar creatures in the sense that look, I mean, for you, you have a big, major fucking I don't feel like there are any steaks. I feel like I'm in a garage band, Like doing a lemonade stand doesn't well, thank you, but you know what I mean, I just like, I just have a natch curiosity about you, and so I was just like, let's you're gonna be my house you wanted to see.
You know, I'm gonna equal out this game. Wait until I launch my Barbecue Sauce and then we'll see what's what? All right?
Definitely awes and thanks
