Comedian, tv writer, actor, author and activist Judy Gold catches up with Rosie for an impassioned conversation packed with laughs, love and rage at the current climate of hate and intolerance. Good friends for so many moons, Judy and Rosie share their longing for the time when their kids actually wanted to hang out with them, when theater geeks and freaks ruled the air waves thru Rosie's talk show, and women had the right to their own choices and health care decisions.
Share your voice memo with onwardrosie@gmail.comHello, everybody, It is me Rosi O'donald. How are you? Today is Monday, even though we're dropping this on Tuesday. Let's talk about today, Monday, October two. Donald Trump is on trial in New York for his fraud cases, and it's already been decided that he can't do business in New York anymore. And he's in big trouble. He's like cornered. He's cornered like a rat, you know. And I just hope that finally this will be enough to convince people of his true essence. And it's been too long that this has been going on. It really has enough, is what I have to say. Enough. And speaking of enough, that's the Cassidy Hutchinson book, and it's fantastic. It's so well written, it's so honest, and it is so brave. I've seen her on her interviews. She was amazing with Rachel Maddow. She was wonderful on every show that she did. And I encourage you to buy that book Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson. And you know that's what I feel about Donald. We've had enough of you, Okay, We've had enough of you. I started it on the plane. I was in New York for the weekend and got to see two of my kiddos. I was in New York helping my future daughter in law choose her wedding dress and also taking Blake to get his tuxedo. But I have to tell you, the place we went to in New Jersey was so gorgeous. It was like the set of Say Yes to the Dress. But it was just so fun. The whole thing was so fun. And I'm getting so excited about the wedding. And so my buddy Judy Gold is here, and I love an adorer. She is a writer and an actress and a mom and a wife and playwright, and she's amazing. She's amazing, she really is, and I know you're going to love her. She's a big proponent, as am I of ending the Screen Actors Skilled after strike of the AMPTP, coming up with a fair deal so that we all can get back to work. Negotiations begin right now today for settling the strike. So I'm wishing luck to our side, of course, the Screen Actors Guilled and AFTRA and hope that we get a deal just like the Writers Guild did. So onward onward. Good for that, Judy Gold here she comes. Hello, Judy Gold, Rosie, thank you for having me. Don't be silly, it's been too long. I haven't seen you in like, you know, six months, eight mind now long?
How you do You're in the Los Angeles area, but you seem to really enjoy.
You know, Judy, I can tell you this the seasonal affect depression, which I definitely have in New York from November until March. Yeah, it's a struggle to survive for me. And I used to always fly down to Florida because I had a place there for so long yeap, and without that option, you know, New York is a very tough thing on my mental health. I hear you.
One hundred and fifty percent. I've as I've gotten older. You know, I need some light. Yes, I need to go for a walk. I don't need to be cooped up because it's freezing and it you know, it gets dark at five o'clock in the afternoon.
It seems like a lot of times New York wins, you know, like I'm spending my day battling, you know, in New York more often than when I'm here. Do I ever feel like, okay today the city won? You know sometimes when I lived in Malibu and the PCH traffic was was really backed up, I thought to myself, this is hell on earth, you know. But then you walked in your house. In your backyard is the Pacific Ocean? It was right? It was a dreamy rental for one year. Okay, we all don't have that the Pacific Ocean in our backyard. Believe me, honey, I know, but if I did, I would take advantage of it, just like you do. Yeah. Yeah, how are the kids? So the kids are good? Bad? At senior senior year in college at Trinity, he's the captain of the basketball team and they're recruiting him to play professional in Israel. Can you believe this? No? Is he excited beyond words? Is he? First of all, he's the tallest Jewish person I've ever seen. Yeah, he's gigantic. He works so hard.
He reminds me of when I started doing stand up and I was so like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be yes, focus, focus, focus, And he's exactly like that. He goes to the gym three times a day. It's all he thinks about. He stares at himself in the mirror all the time.
Now Judy. For those of you who don't know, uh Is is the mother of two boys, two very wonderful, yes, wonderful boys that I've known since they were born, and it's very wild to see them now as grown adult humans. I don't know if you feel that way when you see my kids. I mean, yeah, oh my, long has it been since you've seen Parker?
Well, one of my It's been a while, but I will never forget when you had Parker. He was a teeny little baby week old. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I came over, I was he was the cutest, Yeah, he was like and you know, you don't realize how young you are, I mean, caress such little babies with babies.
I know when you look at the pictures and and you know I was thirty three when I adopted him, right, that's you know, that's a pretty good age for mothering to start. That's why I agree I should be in the thirties. You should be in the thirties. Never in the twenties, I would say. But I know people who had kids in the twenties and they're very happy now that their children are completely settled and there's grand babies and they're still young enough to so there's there's something to be said for that as well. But I have found at least this go round because you know, Dakota, I have a ten year old and I'm sixty two almost, and I am a different parent to her than I was to them because I was working. I was so busy, right, you know, and because she has autism also, there's there's more guidance and hands on communication needed. You know, it's a communication disorder. So the goal to do twenty four to seven is communicate, get into their world. But you know, that's what you do for a living, is communicate. So well, you're you know, I guess yeah, you thought, well, I'm here to tell you, and yeah, it's so I know, my ex Sharon now has two year old twins.
Are you kidding me now? And she's like, oh, it's a whole different experience.
I'm like, I don't want two year old twins now, see I would, Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's weird. You know, my cousin just had a baby. She happens to live here and she's from England and so you know, she's like my second cousin, and I went over there and for one Sunday, I had like four hours of holding a two week old and I was the happiest watch it.
It was the happiest hours of my whole last year.
Like driving home, I had this you know it must be dopamine drop sarahto like it hits every single lotto number in my brain and heart to hold an infant. But then you have you know what's ahead, well, like you're true in the midst of this stuff with schools and all this stuff, you know that there's it's a lot of responsibility. Well I never really thought, because you know, we were parented maybe till my mom died, you know, I guess twenty three. So I never watched a kid push away from their parents for independence. So the fact that I never saw that when my kids did it. You remember, Judy, I was crying. Yeah, I was crying that Parker didn't want to go to the movies with me anymore. I was. I took them to therapy and he told the doctor, can you adjust her medication? No way? He totally did, And then I realized he's probably right, this is inappropriate behavior from me. I shouldn't, you know, want to you know, I mean, listen it was the biggest love affair of my life. Of course, having a child, and I think it is for every mom and dad. It changes your whole exist everything, and it's everything's not about you. I remember.
So I always took the kids to the projects to play basketball because I wanted them to learn street ball, because I thought it was like the best education in everything and negotiating.
Now, is this because you knew they were going to be tall and because you're tall and everyone alongside. Oh. I was always like active and athletic, but not skilled. But I love playing. I love to play outside, even if like I played tennis every day, Like I think playing is so important to be no matter what age you are. So I used to take them to the basketball courts.
We would go to Central Park with our mits and our and our and our bat and our softball and just gather kids, you know. And I remember one day we're walking over to the basketball court's me, Henry and Ben, and on the way there, Henry must have been like eleven or something, and he's like, uh, FYI you're not playing with us anymore.
And I'm like, what are you talking about. I'm just mommy.
You can watch, but you're not playing with us, it's inappropriate. So I was like, oh my god, I can't. So we got to the projects and all the kids were like, why are you letting your brother play? So it was it was great, but yes, but it come up and yeah, but it was the same thing. He's like, okay, now no, you know, and you're like, it's not like you don't get it right, It's like you get it, but it's like, do you have.
To be so mean? I know they get mean, but they have to to separate. It's like, you know, I mean, now it's four kids, I've gone through it and now I have one more to go, so you know, we'll see how that goes. I think that you mellow out as a parent as you get older. That's what I had older parents, But I wouldn't say my mother was mellow. No, I miss your mother. I have to tell oh my god, I miss you doing the impressions of her. I missed the stories of her in the home she was and yesterday was her birthday.
Oh wow, she would have been one hundred and one. It's yeah, it's really I mean, you lost your mom so young, right, and then you know, I felt I always felt lucky that I had my mother until I you know, twenty fifteen, so I was I don't even right, right, But.
But you still I still go to call her. I want to tell her stuff.
Like you it doesn't ever, and my father dropped dead when I was twenty seven. I still every day, there's not a day that goes by. Do you still think about your mother every day?
Every day? Right? Well, when I look and I see someone in the mall who could be around the age that she would be, and they have an irish face, and you know, I have a moment of because like as a kid, I think I used to dream, you know, that that she was kidnapped, because Patty Hurst was kidnapped the side, right, So I used to think she was going to come back. Or when I was a kid playing basketball in high school, I think she's going to come to this game and she's going to be dressed in disguise, and I look around, you know, I was sitting on the bench to try to find her. I think we're still searching for our moms, you know, after they they go, after they're gone. You know, did you what happened when you reached the age she was when she died. Was that like a profound That was year I retired from my show. Wow. Yeah, my mom died at thirty nine and I had just turned forty, and I said, it's time to live the years that she didn't get to live as a mom. She didn't get to do you know, birthday cupcakes for the fifth grade, she didn't get to do all of the coaching of a team or you know, showing up at your kids' sports events. So I really I loved the years that I did that full time. And you know, I mean with help of course, and an ex wife. So it's not like I was, you know, alone doing it. I was very fortunate and very privileged. And I get that. I love that. I love that. Yeah, now you were still on the show when we went off, right, you were still no I was. I was the first two seasons. Oh first, can I tell you I used to think, I remember, first of all, some of the happiest years of my life. Yes, and I remember thinking if these people because you really really changed television, and you also elevated Broadway to a level that you know, you really were responsible for Broadway coming back. And but I remember thinking, especially in the morning when we'd go rehearse or set something up for something. If these people in America, who are that shit crazy over this show, if they knew that the whole staff is a bunch of gay or nerdy or just theater kids, theater geeks all around the whole staff, and if they had known, you know, I wonder what I mean, the fact that when you came out that people were like, oh, I had no It's like, how are you living under a rock? I know, I thought, how do they have no idea? I don't know how they have? First of all, I'm like a mask presenting lesbian. You know, I'm like a tough I'm like a tomboy lesbian. I'm a standard issue played all the sports in high school lesbian, you know. And when we get older, we cut our hair short, and you know, we live our true selves. But sometimes I look back, or somebody will die and they'll put up you know, Bob Barker, you know, on the show, and I think to myself, God, look at how young I was, right, look at how young I was, Like, I couldn't imagine that I was doing all that, having an adopting children, taking in Forster kids, doing a Broadway show too. It was like a year of mania.
You know.
Yeah, it's incredible. And you don't think you're young when you're doing.
It right at all, especially having kids, right we think, you know, oh sure, let's try it, you know, thirty three. Like I remember, I just wanted enough money that I could have help, right, because I didn't. I adopted him on my own, and you know, I didn't want to have to be away from him. I wanted to wait until I had enough money to take care of And.
People should know that when Henry was born, you said to me, you're not you don't want to go on the road, Send me some jokes and we'll get you a writer writing job. And that that was in that I mean I got to be with him, Yes, because of you.
Yes, well I was. I knew what was important and I knew what my you know life. I mean, I've been lucky when you when you suffer a loss like a mother at ten, you know, you get kind of a different perspective on what's important, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. And and Hope Edelman, who I'm going to have lunch with later this week, because I met a woman Meredith, who also was really helped by her books. She's the one who talks about mother laws, right and yeah, and you know she helped me so much get through a lot of this stuff. Now I don't remember what the original question was. How bad is that? Oh my god, that Rosie. That's every fucking minute of my life.
I know.
It's so hard, isn't it.
It's sometimes I'm talking to people and I'm like, wait, what's your name again?
Like it is so awful. We'll be right back with Judy Gold. So Judy, tell everybody the story about when your partner, Sharon and you decided to have a baby and you were roommates, and that I knew that. You know, I can't, I can't. I have to have you do it. It's my favorite of yours.
So you know, my mother didn't want her friends to know, so she would tell people Judith's roommate had a baby, and then.
Judith adopted it.
And I was like, yeah, Ma, we were splitting the rent and I was like, oh, I should probably pay for half of that kid.
Judith's roommate, she was walking down the street. There was some hypoderma needle flying around and happened to have sperm in it, landed in a Vagina. She had a baby, and then Judith adopt adopted that baby. But you know when so many people found out because she didn't tell her friends, was when Henry was Madonna's baby yes on the show, and you said, okay, that's not your baby. And then I came up and took Henry back, and everyone was like calling me mother, going I didn't know Judith has a baby. God, I blew it. I didn't know that. I was so glad because I was like, Ma, what the fuck you have friends whose kids are gay? Well, if they don't bring it up, I'm not gonna bring it up. I'm gonna bring it up. I loved her. What a character to grow up with by now right, and she always stuck up for herself or any underling, you know, like she would always write letters.
She never you know, Imber. My sister told me that Angela Lansbury tried to cut in front of her at saxoponth Avenue and she said something to her like no, but that is so my mother. But then on the other hand, I lived five houses down from our elementary school, literally five houses, and anytime there was some weather emergency, you know, a huge snowstorm, or a tornado warning whatever, I'd be sitting in class. First over the loudspeaker, Judith Gold, please come to the office.
I'm like, I can see my house, yes, and my mother is he and not like there were kids that lived far away? Whatever? Funny? Did she bring you boots to put on? Did she like Judith's gold? Please come to the office too? Funny? Uh huh too funny? How was How was it now that it's been got almost ten years since she's been gone, How did it affect you? Did you go into funk right after?
Wow?
You know, here's the thing.
I my parents were older, as I said, and I always I always had this fear because my brother said to me when I was younger, you know, they're old and you're not going to have them as long, so you can't fight within them and whatever. But I had always been emotionally preparing for it and thinking about it. So you know, at the very end she was really had no quality of life. So every time the phone rang, I thought, oh no, oh no, And there was this there was a sort of like I she was a huge part of my act. She was depressed. She was a very depressed person, and I was always trying to make her feel better.
And so.
After she died, there was this lift off my shop and I was like, I can focus on me, like I had never just focused on myself before, right, And so it was a free it was. I felt freer, and so it wasn't it was. And you know, of course I miss her and I want to talk to her, but she wasn't living. She didn't have you know, it wasn't living by the end.
And I feel like, like white think of you like I had her for a long time.
She was such a huge part of me and my act. And when she died, so many people wrote to me like I felt like I knew your mother through your act exactly. She was the funny and so I feel like, you know, I kept her alive that way. And I'll still do jokes about her. I still write jokes and I'll put her in if you know, it's funnier.
And you know, it's part of life. It's part of life exactly. Yeah. And you know, all of our friends, all of my friends, you know, you they all had to deal with the saying goodbye to the parent, right, you know, And but a lot of them told me, especially with dementia and all of that kind of stuff that you lose them piece by piece. So right, it wasn't like you know, they're just suddenly gone. You you watch them kind of flow away.
It's like, it's so interesting because even when you expect it, when it happens, you're still like what. And I remember Joan Rivers. I'm in Provincetown and she was performing at town Hall in Provincetown. This is a year before my mother died, and I went. She's like, come hang out with me, And I went and hung out with her in between shows. I went to see her and then we hung out in between shows. She had another show and she's like, how are you? And I was like, Oh, my mother's really sick. And she's and and she's probably gonna die soon. Even though Joan died before my mother, which was awful. And she said to me, it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how old she is, it doesn't matter if you you expect it or not. It's it's the worst. It's gonna take it out. It'll take you out. So what do you think about the strike, Judy Gold, I'm in total solidarity with the strike. Me too, And I feel like, you know, you make billions and billions and billions of dollars, yes, over stuff that we thought of and we created, And yet I have to check to make sure I'm eligible for health insurance and like I'm getting residual checks for one penny. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Well, it's like they changed the whole equation by which we get business without telling us and when we went, well, so you're just not going to go to network TV with residuals and all of those things that we live on in order to be a working actor in the you know, the country, a working writer. And they changed the equation and cut us out, And how do they expect us to feel valued or a participatory part of it. It used to be you get a job on a show and you were set for the year or the season or whatever. We should be entitled we as as actors and writers, to a percentage of each subscription on Netflix. I don't know if it's ten sites. Give us ten cents on every prescript, give us a quarter on every prescription A subscript, prescriptions on every xanax, No on every Yeah, you know what I mean? I do that all the time. And then with the money, we could shore up the health insurance, We could shure up the help for seniors, the you know, mental health issues that people have, right can you?
I mean, how many times do you see, like on social media, some comic or writer who had an incredible career and then some medical issue happened to them and they have nothing.
And everyone is one phone call away from that reality, right, And shouldn't be like that, Like it's like the whole thing with Mitch McConnell. Okay, he's having these are logical things, but he doesn't have to worry about health insurance.
You know.
Well, correct, there are definitely two societies and right in which we are in one or the other, you know. And and most of the people who get into the upper echelon of earning in the entertainment business are few and far between. Like that's what people don't understand. Ninety somethings percent of the actors in the union don't make enough money to get insurance, right, And the background actors they're gonna make like, uh, they're gonna take a screenshot likeness, yeah, exactly, and then stick them in every single background scene. It's like they pay them and not pay them. How could we really alienate the artists in this equation? And that's what they did. Yeah, yeah, that's and I thought Fran was amazing. I thought she was, uh you know.
You know that.
And they came to me first and said, would you do it? I'm like, are you kidding me? When I argue, I get mean when I'm upset and emotional, like, yeah, to your mind, you don't want me negotiating for you? Trust me? I said, but you know, I think would be fantastic Fran dresser And they're like genoa. I'm like, very well. And I went over and I talked to her and I said, you only got two days to decide. Here's the people. But I think with all of her cancer, smancer and lobbying Washington, how are particulate how smart she is? And she's so smart. Yeah, and she knows it from you know, inside her souls. You know, she's really something else. And we had dinner last night and I said to her, are you aware of her? Yeah? I go, are you aware of how many billions of people viewed your speech? She goes, it's very she said, my whole life has changed from that, you know, really, yes, yes, wow, her whole life is sort of you know, they're not arguing. The union had argued for years there were two different factions like the Democrats and the Republicans. Rather the two can meet. Now they're all unified behind her, and all the people that couldn't find a way to everybody get along, they're all getting along and they all credit her. You know. Now, of course some of the executives are not thrilled with her. Maybe we're forcing them to look but you know what to look in a member for the first time. Yes, exactly, that's just staying true, you know. And they probably went to you because comedian, Like, there's no it's not a coincidence that any time there is like a panel show that they have a comedian on, because comedians tell the truth. They speak truth to power.
They have this weapon called humor where they can make their point and disarm other people.
And you know her, she she was theer. I mean, she was really speaking for everyone, yes, and not just either everyone who's involved in a job where she said this is yes, this is for big every union. Yeah, right, bigger than us. It's bigger than us, and you know, for us to stay motivated as a union and connected and unified and you know, I know it's really hard, but but it's now or never. The business is then completely owned and operated by a corporate entity and we have no negotiating power because basically they've said we're valueless, we can be replaced by a machine. And how you're going to get human pathos? What what it means to be alive? In a script from something that isn't.
It's it's it's it really, it's it really, like is a punch in the gut when you're a writer and a performer that you think, you know, you go in, you pitch to these people and you put you know, you put everything into it, you know, every you know, like they don't realize the amount of work people do just to go in and pitch a fucking show and they treat you like.
Pleisa, I want some mool like Oliver, right, and you're the one coming to them with the gifts with the right right right. Yeah, it's very it's been very Uh you know, I Montreal for the Just for Last festival this year, and I noticed that.
The people in Canada are in a much better mood than we are. Yes, like, and I'm like.
Oh my god. They don't have to worry about health insurance. No one's like walking down the street like I was in the middle, you know, just for laughs, like they take takes over all of Montreal. There's tense up. There's people everywhere, thousands of people, Like I hosted Montclair Pride this year in New Jersey, and I was like, what if someone comes with a gun, Like I'm all, listens, you should be. We're being hunted and persecuted, and it's and it's sanctioned by the government by morons like DeSantis and our former president and Lackeys. I mean, what do you think is going to happen with that, Judy? What do you think ninety one indictments? What do you think?
I mean, first of all, you know this because I've texted you a thousand times, Like I'm like, Okay, this is it.
This is it.
Like I said, I've been there one hundred times already, and I.
I gotta believe that. I just I what I can't believe is that these people still don't even if you're a Republican, which you know, when I was a kid, Republicans and Democrats they weren't that different. I mean, it was.
It wasn't like this person is a horrible person because they're Republican. It was a whole different ideology. But these people are evil, horrible people.
And it is the fact that these that we're I mean, they've dumped us down in this country.
Fox News is entertainment news. It is not real news, right, No one reads local papers where most of the great reporting comes from.
They're dying a slow and well a fast death.
Now it's it's really it's so sad.
And and I talk about this Mayak.
Now, when you go overseas and you say you're from the United States, they speak to you like you are currently in an abusive relationship.
Correct, you know, that's a great analogy, like are you okay, how are you staying? What's you know? And it's used to be like people were like, oh, I want to come to America now no, and what kenda? They have a warning, a travel warning for LGBTQ people coming to the United States, of course, as they should. What's happening here in this and to trans people especially, but all of the LGBTQ community. They've put targets on everyone's back. And you know, this wonderful woman who was an allied mother. Oh god, I can't nine kids, Yes, and owned a store and a friend of Carolyn Strauss, good friend of Michael Patrick King shot dead because she had a gay flag outside of her her shop. Not gay, It is an ally. It is not dead. Who cares? Who fucking cares?
Who?
You fall in love? Like what I never understood? Like I have a partner and kids, and we live in our apartment and they go to school. But how does my life have anything to do with your life down the street, Like what I'm doing with my kid, Like, how does that have any effect on you and how you're bringing your kids up? Well, it'll allows people to feel superior to and some people feel so powerless that they look for people to be superior of, you know, right, I don't know. It's it's so horrifying. It's hate. It's hate. It's hate.
It's just the oldest hate and the and the racism and the anti Semitism and the xenophobia. It's like, we're just a hate They're just hateful.
Yeah, you wrote a wonderful Yeah, well you wrote a wonderful book about when they Come for the Comedians. Yeah, and yeah, that was really well received.
People loved that book. Yeah, people loved it and it became a show. And now I'm hopefully touring the show and I'm going to come to that.
That's great. When when are you doing that? I don't know.
The spring it's so hard to the theaters are not doing well, Rosie.
I know it's hard times. You know.
Here's the thing about the book I wrote is that what I couldn't understand is like a comedian tells a joke, you don't like, they should never be able to get on stage again. But politicians who literally incite violence, disparage people, spread conspiracy theories. They their First Amendment rights are protected because they're powerful.
And yet you're going after the comedians who tell the truth. And it's really it's terrible. I mean, comedy, stand up comedy is the is a direct extension of our First Amendment rights here. I mean, what other country sends comedians to their embedded military to make them feel better? Right, you're so right, Like it's a part of our culture. Yeah, and you're attacking us and the Gaze and all the people who make your life better. Yeah, it's so true too. It's so weird to be this age and fighting again. For abortion rights. It's so weird, going what is this? It's like shoots and ladders. We hit the shoot and went all the way down to the bottom. Again, how did this happen? Where are the women's you know, screaming in the streets and stopping working? And you know, I don't know, we've been lulled into complacency and all of this hard fought rights that we won are just being pissed away.
I mean, that's the one thing I don't think my mother would even be able to deal with is the abortion situation right right. Her sister's alive and she can't fucking believe like it's you know, they fought for that, yes they died. Misogyny is but they hate women in this country.
Yeah, I agree, I agree. This is a really positive judy. Well, you know we can always you know, put a laugh track on for you, would you like that? Yeah, this good thing's happening. We just got to get, you know, through this crisis of right and we got to get rid of these assholes. And we need like strong women. We need strong women, and we need younger people. We need term limits, yes we do. We need age limits as well. If you ask and how is George Santos still there? Is that exactly? Why is he not, you know, ostracized?
And because he's a vote for them, he's a vote and they don't want to get rid of it.
They're just all, yeah, I can't listen. Judy Gold, I love you. I love you so much.
You are one of the you know, there's been three women I think who've really helped me through my career, and you were the first. Uh it was Margaret Chow and you and Pamela Ablon and without without the support of you know, these women, I you know, I don't know where i'd be and I have Well, you know what, honey, you support women, and you do so much for gay people and for marginalized people.
And you got a heart of gold. Judy Gold, Oh thanks, got a heart of gold. Uh So we'll we'll say goodbye. But where can they find you? On the tiki talk on low? You know, I'm at Judy Gold j E W D y g O l D T jud and or Judygold dot com is j U D y g O l D dot com and that has all my dates and everything. All right, great, so go find her there if you haven't seen her live. Please do it please really funny. All right, well listen, I love you, say hi you Okay, Well same to you, bye bye. Okay. We're gonna take a little break and come back with voice memos left by you, the listeners that I will hear for the first time and respond to. So thank you so much everybody who's been sending those in. Okay, Well, here we are that part of the show where we get to hear from you the listener, And I'm very grateful for all the messages, most of them so unbearably sweet. It's really touching, I have to tell you. But any comments, questions you have hit me with them, and we got one right now.
Hi, Rosie. My name is Jill and I live in Melburn and Washington, just north of Seattle, and I wanted to say to you that I so appreciate how you talk about Dakota and hearing parents talk about the incredible gifts and the joy that their child brings to them who has a disability or who has autism just is amazing because I have a child with autism, and when he was diagnosed, I was devastated and had no picture of what the future could look like and was just in uncharted waters and had no idea about the incredible person he was going to grow up to be. And he's twenty one now, and he works and he rides his bike in a bus and he is charming and sweet and wonderful and so smart. And I wish I could have seen when he was diagnosed at age five what he is now, because it would have reassured me so much. And you talking about Dakota the way you do and lifting them up and appreciating all of the wonderful things that they are means so much to your parents like me who may not know all the joys in the wonder that can be a part of having a child with autism. And then I wanted to ask you. I've heard you refer to Dakota as being autistic, and I always prefer to use the terminology my child has autism, just because I don't know. It just kind of bugs me. So I wanted to just point that out and see what you think, and thank you again for sharing your experience with your child, because there's so many of us who don't have someone to talk to or any reference for it, and to hear the love and appreciation you have for your child is really inspiring to me. Thank you so much.
Bye weow. Thank you, Jill. What a beautiful, beautiful message. I remember the panic and the terror I felt when I was told that Dakota had autism at about two and a half and I knew something was up. I totally agree with you that I sometimes do say my kid is autistic as opposed to my kid has autism because they are not autistic only. You don't want to be identified by the thing that is maybe different in you than other people. And I think that's a very good note and I am. I'm so grateful for the autism community of autism mothers that I've become friends with and really feel that I'm surrounded by people who get what I'm going through and it's so lovely just to pop in and listen on their lives and respond to their beautiful videos where they too are seeing the beauty in the uniqueness of people with autism. Love to you and drop in on my TikTok. Thank you, Thank you very much. We got another question coming in right now.
Hi, Rosie. My name is Andrew. I'm forty three years old and live in New York City. When I was eleven years old. My mother took me in nineteen ninety one to the baseball field in Evansville, Indiana, in my hometown, and I was just told it would be a special day. It turns out it was a casting call to be extras in a league of their own. Next thing I know, we're in a trailer putting on clothing from the nineteen forties, and they usher us up into the baseball stands and we had a lot of instructions on how to behave and how to act that day, and we were not supposed to ask for autographs. But during a break, I did go down. I was a young kid, so me and a few other kids made it down to the dugout and we were trying to get people's attention, and you were there along with We could see Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna. We were trying to get autographs and you were so kind. You were the one that came over to us and spoke to us and got to know us, and we're just really nice to us. I have vivid memories of that interaction. And you took my popcorn bag and you helped me get my autographs. It's funny. Thirty years later. I don't care about the autographs, but I'm so glad that I had that interaction with you because it's funny.
You know.
The other three actors were probably super exciting to me at the time, but little did I know it would be you that would have the positive impact on my life growing up as a gay kid in the nineties and trying to find my footing in life and being able to watch your show and listen to you be truthful and honest about your life and as a comedian. So I'm very appreciative of you, and I feel like I've known you all these thirty years, So thank you for everything. My question is about filming that movie and what it was like. I have a lot of memories that day of you know, from Penny Marshall to the cast, and are there any stories or anecdotes you can share about working with Penny Marshall or filming Baseball.
That would be great.
Thanks, Rosie.
Oh you got me all choked up. That was so beautiful. I had such a great time on that movie. It was my first really big movie. I did a little film before that, Car fifty four, Where Are You, which wasn't ever released until way after Leag of their Own, But Leag of their Own will be always my favorite movie that I did because of the friendships I made and the people I met. And I miss Penny Marshall. Almost every day. I think of her, and you know, really breaks my heart that she's gone. Here's a story that I don't know if I've told yet, although I'm old now, honey, so I might have told the story. But this is a good Penny Marshall story. First of all, every day at about three o'clock, she'd scream with her shorts and her muscletop Bonney got me bacon. She got a plate of bacon every day at three o'clock, crispy, well done, and she would just sit there and eat the bacon every day for like an hour. And one day we were filming the scene where the little boy still Well gets hit by a baseball mit and then he has to fall down. Now, by this point, I was kind of the Stillwell wrangler because he and I formed a friendship and we liked each other. And he would always look for me because he was only like five years old, you know, so he would look for me, and I would like put my hand to my mouth like I was eating the candy and he'd look at me and he'd do what I was doing. And they hit him with the mitt and he kept flinching, and they hit him again and he flinched more, and they hit him one more time, and Penny said.
What are we gonna do? We can't like the kit is like blowing the gams. He can't know he's gonna get go. He's five, he doesn't know. I said, let me go talk to him. So I did this that I feel guilty to this day. I walked over and talked to him and said, how you doing, buddy. He's like it wasn't too bad. I'm like, great, you know, here's the thing. We don't have to throw them in anymore. We're just gonna do the lines.
Can you do that? He yeah, for sure. So I go, just do the lines and don't throw the mit. So we did that and he was so happy. He was like, didn't I do great? I'm like, yeah, I go. We're gonna do it one more time, just like that, and he says okay. So Tom throws the mit. It hits the kid. He has a total look of being shocked because he did not expect to be hit by the mit and then he looked at me and I fell down like he was supposed to, and then he fell down. So what you see in the movie is this cute little boy mimicking what I was doing. But the thing that broke my heart was after it was over, I ran over and he hugged me and he said, can you believe they didn't tell us they were gonna throw the mit? Oh? It killed me. I broke his trust, you know. But I love Penny. I loved little stillwell, you know, Madonna, Geina, Davis, tom All still friends of mine. All still people I see and love. And it's a great life and a great career I've had. And to hear from people like you about how I've changed their lives and it's very overwhelming and it's unbelievably touching. So thank you, Annie, thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. Next week, Amy Nelson who is Amy Nelson. She's the mother of four little girls. She's married, and Amazon is suing her husband and has been for many years for a violation of his work contract, which the judge already said he never violated. So it's a fascinating story, and she makes it easy to understand, but you still will be shocked and appalled at the lengths Amazon has gone to try to get this family to admit guilt when they had none. Amy Nelson next week, right here. Thank you, everybody, appreciate it. TikTok, you don't stop. Oh onward here we go. Bye,