July 20, 2019 • 56 mins
Chelsea is joined live in New York by Natasha Lyonne where they discuss their funerals, not wanting children and growing up fast.
Credits:
Host: Chelsea Handler
Guest: Jake Tapper
Executive Producer: Conal Byrne
Producers: Sophie Lichterman, Jack O’Brien
Writers: Jamie Loftus, Anna Hossnieh & Sophie Lichterman
Consulting Producers: Nick Stumpf, Miles Gray, & Anna Hossnieh
Engineer: Billy Klein
This episode was Mixed & Edited by: Danl Goodman
Music by: Kingsbury
Order: "Life Will Be the Death of Me"
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
back in Studio, Chelsea. Oh well, thank you, Brandon, thank
you for having me back in studio. You're very welcome.
It's just nice when I get to see you, because
if you're out on tour so much. I like the
story schedule. It's great. Like I did St. Louis on Friday,
which was so much fun, and then Saturday was Minneapolis
two nights a week. Like on the weekends, I could
(00:22):
get down with this kind of schedule. You're really into
the Midwest towns, lad I do, because they're so grateful.
They keep thanking you for coming. They just say thank
you so much for coming that you even did, like
you went through the art, you did some touristy stuff
while I was humid, though I had to come back
from that walk and change land wear. You can only
be outside. You got thirty minutes St. Louis, and I
know because that's where I'm from. It was, Oh that's right, Brandon.
(00:42):
You know what. I never even put two and two together.
That's how self absorbed I am. I forgot that you're
from St. Louis. I always think of you as a
North Dakodin self. Dad doesn't really matter. That's it called
a double whoopsie doodle. What does matter is this episode
with Natasha Leone. Yes, I was very excited, very sad
that I didn't get to go, but excited to hear it. Well.
(01:02):
Natasha and I did two shows in New York on
the same night, so enjoy. We'll be back after the break.
Before I get started and bring out my friend. This
is um a pretty serious chapter. It's called Marijuana keeps
families together. Some people are not built for drugs and alcohol.
(01:25):
I believe that I am. I believe that I am
built for the apocalypse. I reconnected with marijuana in my
late thirties. As I previously shared, I'm open to most
drugs as long as they don't leave you with a
hole in your arm or staring through a keyhole of
an apartment door looking out for drunes. At this stage
of my life, I find it prudent to avoid apartments altogether.
(01:48):
I love pot. When I first discovered it in high school,
or pretended I did because it made me look I
thought it made me look cool. But after a few
years of recreational abuse, it just ended up leaving me
paranoid and self conscious, and in one instance, getting up
to leave the theater when a movie ended, only to
realize I was on an airplane. Then one year, my
(02:17):
family and I were on our annual Christmas ski trip
to Whistler, Canada, and our chef made and that's relatable, right,
Our chef made us special adult cookies. Every night. My
brothers and sisters would line up in the kitchen on
our way to dinner, and I would doll out at
half a cookie to each of them, And if any
of my nieces and nephew stole any without me seeing,
(02:39):
it was none of my business. Our family thrived that year.
Our family doesn't really fight because we're all so exhausted
from our childhoods, but it definitely marked the new beginning
of a new era for the Handler family. The legalization
of marijuana and caliph orna raised standards at dispensaries. The
(03:02):
educative component that was lacking for so many years was
now available on all store bought weed. The labeling of strains,
along with the labying of th HC versus CBD ratios,
was all right there in black and white. With the
advent of a medicinal grade controlled micro dosing. There aren't
a lot of people I wouldn't recommend cannabis too. I've
turned straight arrow people into people I can actually spend
(03:24):
time with. I've gotten friends who have never done any drugs,
friends who have had terrible experiences with edibles, my Mormon
sister who's here tonight, People's parents, people's parents, Muslims, and
one nun to imbibe about the people I've introduced to
(03:44):
marijuana are now frequent users. I take a lot of
pride in that. I take a lot of pride in
being an enabler or a charm. I'd like to coin
a pharmacological intuitive, one who instinctually knows the exact to
write dosage for each consumer. After Trump was elected, I
(04:06):
came the closest I'd ever been too depressed. My anger
rose to the surface rather than simmering just beneath it.
I had something identifiable to be angry about, so instead
of masking it, I treated it. That's when the news
started to get fun. Kelly Anne Conway Stone is a
good time. It's right up there with Eddie Murphy, raw
(04:28):
Sam for Sarah's Suckaby Sanders. One day, Sarah Suckaby Sanders
came out for her breastpriefing with emerald green eyes shadow
shrouding one eye and zero eyeshadow on the other eye.
I was like, this is a whole new world. I'd
(04:52):
find myself laughing when Chris Matthews would interrupt his guests
while spitting all over them, and I started to see
the news for what it really was, a twenty four
hours spin cycle filled with conjecture and speculation about whatever
idiotic or racist comment Trump had tweeted that day. I
realized that I had allowed this administration to rob me
of one year of my life, and I wasn't going
(05:12):
to give them another. I needed a channel change. The
thing that non cannabis users failed to recognize is the
way cannabis bends your frame of mind. It allows access
to a recess part of your brain that I particularly
was deeply uh needing to engage. How to be less reactive,
(05:36):
how to stand down the edges. Those were things I
had been working on with my psychiatrist Dan. As a result,
things became slightly more poetic less final end of an empire.
My sleep got better, my moods got better, even my
dreams got better. I stopped watching the news on a loop,
and I even started waking up laughing some mornings pot
(05:57):
politics and Dan summed up tooth I was in eighteen
for me, the year I had to fall apart in
order to come back together. I was sitting in Dan's
office one Monday morning telling him how passionate I have
become about this new marijuana renaissance. My opinions have always
(06:18):
felt fully formed, I told Dan with Pott, it feels
like they are finally like unfurling. Every canvas is blank.
Everyone is so much less annoying, and everything is a
little more tolerable when I'm a little bit stoned, and
I said, I also don't feel compelled to talk as much,
and with my voice. That's a fucking bonus. In what
(06:41):
way is everyone's so annoying? It was always funny to
hear Dan repeat phrases I used, or use the word
annoying in a sentence. Annoying seemed like a word that
expires after adolescence, like conceded. I'd like that I was
finally rubbing off on Dan the thing I'm realizing Dan,
I told him, leaning on one elbum but missing the
arm of the chair and falling into my own lap.
(07:04):
Is that I'm the one that's annoying. I'm just now
finding out that this whole time, I've been the annoying one.
Dan stared straight at me, and it was hard to
discern his take on my new hobby. I went on,
I used to think that something was wrong with every
person in this world, and now I know I'm the
one with the problem. Everyone seems so much more interesting.
(07:24):
I explained to him. I don't think you should judge
yourself so harshly, Dan said. This is a phrase Dan
repeated to me frequently, and one I've never quite gotten
on board with. I do, I told him, I feel
like that's what's been missing this whole time, circling around
other people and in order to avoid myself, I deserve
to be on the receiving end of my own judgment.
It's my come uppance. And it's like this little porthole
(07:48):
into a whole new world has opened up. When I'm stoned,
I can find joy and shaving my legs. This was
what I realized. I was stoned. I had popped a
chocolate covered Kiva blueberry on my way out the door
that morning. I don't usually take them in the morning,
but I had therapy and thought, fuck it. That's my
favorite thing about edibles. Forgetting you've taken any and then
(08:12):
you feel this little psychological twinkle and suddenly things get
just a wee bit more dynamic. We'd lit up my
curiosity and things I hadn't been interested in for years.
That's what I was missing, getting lost in life a
little bit more. Dan told me that if I could
access that state of mind when I was high, it
was already part of my psyche, which meant that I
(08:32):
could access it without anything at all or through meditation.
I'm not there yet, I told him, I'm gonna stick
with the weed right now. I'd been trying to for
months to meditate, and it was going nowhere fast. I
could only do forced meditation when I was with Dan.
He made me short recordings and meditations and long recordings
(08:52):
and meditations, and I tried to do it for a
few days at home, and then I'd forget, or I'd
remember and then forget. Not only is it easier for
me to be around other people, I told him, it's
definitely easier for people to be around me. I'm able
to have conversations with people. I never had the patience
to listen to before. I'm so much less judge. Everything
becomes a little bit softer, a little bit less apocalyptic.
(09:15):
No black and white, more middle, more pleasant. Well that's great,
he said, I don't have a problem with you taking edibles.
And I said, the other good news is it's cutting
my drinking in half. This was a sentence I thought
would never come out of my mouth. So I want
to be very very clear this. I have no intention
now or in any future of giving up alcohol. Thank
(09:42):
you for your support. Okay, this is not a book
where I get sober at the end. However, cutting my
drinking in a half was an unexpected perk, and that
is when I started to get serious about cannabis. I've
been approached by various weed companies to start my own
(10:04):
line of cannabis products, but I didn't want to jump
on the bandwagon until I had done due diligence and
fully investigated what was available on the market. This meant
that it had became my job to know everything about
every available oil, weed, candy, bath, salt, herb, and food
item that contained cannabis. I was sitting around my house
in Los Angeles one weekend with my brother's Glen and
(10:24):
my sister Shawna, who are in the audience tonight doling
out the new edibles that I wanted them to try. Chelsea,
Glenn asked me, dripping in sarcasm, would you consider yourself
a medical practitioner. No, I think of myself as more
of a pharmacological intuitive, I said, testing out the term
(10:46):
in everyday usage. I have a history of helping people, Glenn,
yourself included, So why don't you shut the funk up
and take this edible? Glenn and I both suffer from
psoriasis on our skin, but only one of us had
clear skin until I shared with Glenn the prescription that
had knocked it out of my system to ducksy cycling
twice a day, ten days, never on an empty stomach.
(11:09):
I gave the very same prescription to my hairstylist when
she had a terrible bout of acne, twice a day,
ten days, never on an empty stomach. Glenn no longer
has ariasis, and my hair stylist no longer has acne.
And there are several African villagers who now have the
cure to malaria. My sister Simona is required to give
formal presentations at work, which makes her nervous. Her anxiety
(11:32):
causes dry mouth, so I gave her a bottle of propanalol,
which is a beta blocker that cuts off the signal
from your neurotransmitters that tells your brain it's anxious. Thank
god we have a doctor in the family. Simone set
after a second promotion. My area of expertise isn't only
limited to cannabis and pharmaceuticals. I have had a hundred
(11:53):
percent success rate helping many women friends who prior to
my intervention hadn't gone number two in years become regular.
Women in particular struggle with regularity, so it is important
to have bowel movement advocates out there. There are over
the counter calcium magnesium pills called mag O seven from
(12:14):
Aerobic Life, and if you start with four each night,
typically by day three, you will start to have regular
bowel movements. They do not pay me. This is a
public service announcement. At that point, once you start going regularly,
I usually advise patients to reduce their intake to three
pills in order to avoid morning diarrhea, breast inflammation before
(12:37):
your period. Rose hips once a day for a month.
My cousin Molly told me that one hangovers to etcetern
and the headache will be gone in less than ten minutes.
Caffeine is the antidote to headaches caused by alcohol, and
Excedrin contains caffeine. I would like them to pay me
to promote them, because that's something I would do. If
you've been drinking milk thistle helps if you take it
before you go to bed, but it's hard to remember
(12:58):
to take something when your ship face. All in all,
my point is I've had an incredible track record with
curing people, and the only mistakes I make are usually
with myself, Like the time I swallowed a yeast infection
pill that was supposed to be administered vaginally after speaking
(13:22):
with my doctor on the phone. I waited expectantly in
the forty eight hours that followed for a loaf of
bread to pop out of my mouth. I know if
people have the personality for zan X or if they
will do better on a lighter sleeping pill like Sonata
(13:43):
generic brand is a leplan. I also know that zan
X isn't a sleeping pill, but that's what I used
it for. Adderall is good for some people, but too
much for certain personality types. High energy people like me
do not need adderall, no matter how tired you are,
unless you want to wake up in the middle of
the night cracking your fucking goals. But if you do
like adderall, what's even better is Provigil or new Vigil.
(14:07):
That's what people in the government, in the military use
when they travel through different time zones. Provigil is the
best thing I've ever taken for jet lag or if
I really need to focus on something. But again, if
you have a knuckle cracking problem, which everyone in my
family has, just start with a half. There's nothing I
love more than hopping on an international flight, popping a
(14:30):
Xanex and sleeping for twelve hours straight. But I've become
so disgusted with the pharmaceutical industry in this country that
I have redirected that passion and dedication into the healthier
alternative cannabis. Chelsea Glenn said, putting his fork down. You
should be a late stage companion. That's something you could
do your fun, something activity based, so you can, you know,
(14:58):
be moving somewhere by the mountains or a pool. Older
men seem to be drawn to you. You'd get hired
all the time. Who's in the late stage? I asked him,
me or the companion. The companion, shann Has said, always
the companion. You have a lot in common with older people.
He's got a good idea. Then my brother said, this
(15:21):
can be the perfect foil for your identity crisis, Chelsea.
Since you can no longer date older guys, this is
the way you can still hang out with them all
the time. The reason I can't date older guys is
because now they're too fucking old and forty four. So
I got to lower the margin and get in my
own age group, which is tough. Glenn wiped his mouth
and took a sip of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which he
had brought to my house. Glenn and I are a
(15:54):
lot of like we find something we like and then
we abuse it for two months, and then we're onto
the next thing. Glenn was having a Mike's Hard Lemonade renaissance,
and although I was repulsed, I understood it, Chelsea. Glenn said,
and you're in your professional opinion. What procedure do you
think Donald Trump is getting to make his face look
like it does? What do you mean, I asked, I
(16:19):
don't think he's actually getting work done to look that bad.
I mean, what he should be doing is resurfacing the
texture of his skin, at the very least, getting the
fat sucked out from underneath his eyes, and maybe light
bo But he obviously can't even see clearly. If he
thinks that's what he's presenting, is even presentable. I mean,
obviously we're not going to get through to this guy.
His asses the size of my dog Berts, So I
(16:41):
think that should be on the first thing on his
to do list. You don't think he's doing stuff to
his mouth, Glenn asked, He was being serious, so I
looked up. Yeah, Like, what is there some sort of
(17:05):
surgical procedure or face treatment that makes your mouth look
more like an anis? I had to think about that
when my brother asked me that question. I don't know
anything about a procedure to make your mouth smaller or
(17:29):
face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an
anis or anus. Like, I'm not sure what the vernacular
is here. He may think it looks good, Chelsea, Glenn
reminded me, it's as if his mouth keeps getting tighter
and tighter and smaller and smaller. I liked the idea
of Donald Trump sewing his mouth closed, one surgical procedure
(17:49):
at a time. This country has had a rough year,
Glenn's side. Men have had a rough year, Shauna said,
and you fucking deserve it. It sounds like I said,
you only have yourselves to blame. It's a wrap on
(18:10):
old white men. Well, not all old white men, just
a bunch of them, Yeah, Shauna said, walking back to
the table with a frozen ham in her hands. She
wanted to know if I was saving the ham for
a special occasion. Occasion she was definitely stoned if she
wanted to cook a ham. So I redirected my attention
back to the only male in the room. Let me
(18:32):
tell you a little story about men, Glenn. Okay, every
week I go to the nail salon where I get
a massage on my forearms after my manicure, and that
is the closest I have ever in my life come
to understand what it feels like to get a hand shop.
I want a climax in that salon. I want to
let loose and just let them rubby and just let
(18:54):
it rip. I want that, but I don't do it
because I'm not a fucking pig. That's the difference between
men and women. We are more prone to controlling ourselves. Yes,
Glenna Green, most women are, but I would place you
(19:14):
in the category of people who have trouble controlling themselves.
It's a very good thing you weren't born with male
genitaliat I can guarantee that if I were, you would
still never find me jerking off into a fucking plant.
Who did that? He asked, I don't know. One of
these guys, Louis c. K or Harvey Weinstein, one of
them jerked off into a plant. I mean, seriously, when
(19:36):
does it come to that. I'm stone high, drunken stone,
Shanna said, with a frozen ham tucked into her armpit.
You're not drunk, I reassured her, and guided her upstairs
to my bathroom. I placed the frozen ham on the
floor of the infrared sonora and told Sean it would
be ready first thing in the morning. Is that thing
(20:04):
even on? She asked, yes, I told her, as I
guided her to my bed. How do you feel, I said,
as we climbed into bed, super warm and fuzzy, she
told me. I got out my medical journal journal and
I made a note of her condition. Are you hungry?
I asked her. I had been working tirelessly on isolating
the right strain of marijuana that doesn't give you the
(20:25):
munch sheets. I'm not hungry, she said. The ham just
reminded me of something Mom would have made us a Christmas.
I said, Oh, do you feel sad? I took out
my medical notebook again. No, just warm and fuzzy. We
lay in my bed, holding hands, looking out of the backyard,
(20:46):
lit by the lanterns hanging into my trees. I felt
grateful in that moment that I was lying next to
my sister, and for all the gifts that life had
given me, and for all the girls life had given me.
I just want everything to go on forever, I told Shannah,
and then I stuck my finger in her butt. When
(21:11):
are we gonna be too old to act like this?
She asked me, giggling. Will never be too old to
act like this? I told her. Then she yawned and said,
just because I get colon X doesn't mean you can
treat me like ship. And then she rolled over and
fell asleep. Thank you. M hm. Okay, we're gonna take
(21:39):
a quick break and we'll be right back. MH. I'm
very grateful to my friend. That's who I've known for
many years, and she's always been somebody that I've watched
because you could watch her for hours. And she just
had a very very successful run with her new show,
Russian Dal, which I know everybody knows about. So please
(22:01):
welcome Natasha Leone. I'm in business business attire. Thank you
for dressing so professionally. You know. The tables have tuned, Chelsea,
and so this is gonna be my big Larry King
come out party, is how I see it. And I
(22:24):
want to watch you individually peel each one of these oranges,
and we're gonna be here for seven hours. The book
is great. I've read the book. Thank you for reading
the book, and I've come prepared. I'm gonna put these
on even though I'm actually nearsighted, but I'm looking forward
(22:44):
to becoming far sighted because then you can do this move,
which I think always makes people seem smart and old,
and then they can kind of do this. But I
just want to remind you I can see perfectly at
this distance. It's up there. I would need it for
So I've prepared some flash cards and I've told you
about the Rotunda, which is a game we're gonna be
(23:05):
playing later. Okay, so Chelsea, I'm saying it right. Yeah, No,
it's it's Tracy. It's oh, it's what's tracy but spelled
with a Yes. That's interesting. Why an apostrophe at the end. Yeah,
I'm not surprised because I've heard a lot about your childhood.
This is it's a it's hard having a childhood, isn't it.
(23:28):
It's hard. It's hard. It's hard at spending your adulthood
getting over your childhood for sure. Now this is my
sort of big beef with therapy. This is not on
the flash cards. Um, but I'm like, Jesus, what do
you want for me? Like my entire life is going
to be unpacking this fucking yeah ten year event? What
(23:52):
a bummer? Why is this my problem? I didn't do it? Yeah?
Do you know what I mean? I know what I mean.
Are talking about the ten years being your childhood? Oh
so well you had a short childhood. Yeah, so it's
even easier to get over I guess. I guess like that. Yeah,
by eleven, you know what I mean? The workforce and
(24:15):
Fax machines, that's where they have you know, Fax machines
and up very quick where you were on TV and stuff, yes,
but also running an office and office supply chain store,
which I it's you know, more common. People talk about, oh,
you're a child acting. Nobody talks about my time at
Staples as a kid. Yeah. No, I didn't know about Staples,
(24:38):
thank you. It's not as glamorous, but it was important
to me and that's where I first fell in love
with paper clips. I'm gonna remove this one in honor. Okay,
let me have a separate h Now, do you really
have two hundred and fifty grands set aside for a funeral?
(24:59):
And that's big money. I set two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars aside for my funeral a long time ago,
just because I wanted to have a great funeral and
I wanted to make sure it was done well, and
I wanted it to be a celebration. And I took
it seriously because so many people don't think about that,
and I thought if I could, if I died tragically,
which is a possibility, I want to be prepared and
(25:20):
I don't want to stress out my family, and I want,
you know, I want to invite all the people that
loved me and all the people who didn't. I want
everyone to go to this party. I want little people.
I want mushrooms. I want little people on mushrooms. I
just want a big blowout. But now that I've become
a little bit more awakened or I don't know that
word sounds still, I have a trouble without word a
(25:42):
little bit. Even though that's kind of how I feel.
I feel like that money should probably go to the
Double A CP or something instead of having another blowout party.
Just a thought or both, is that they have my
party at the Double A C P tie. I'm allowing
and uh, you know you opposed to dwelling some of
(26:06):
that cash my way? Maybe a joint funeral. We could
have a joint funeral. That would be fun. I mean
we'd have Yeah, I don't see why that okay, now,
so how does that work? We have to coordinate our deaths,
That's what I'm thinking now, or with a kind gesture
therapeutically speaking, the empathetic gesture. Whoever dies first, the other
(26:28):
person waits and holds the funeral however long. Yeah, you know,
fifteen years or one minutes right right? That seems fair. Yeah, okay,
ideas ideas you know who else did? If I die?
First you plan my funeral? And then do you get
where's the money with your money? So what's the most
important here is the money? And I think we shouldn't
lose sight of that. You know who else did that?
(26:50):
The late great Nora Ephron did she Uh well, I
don't know how much she spent, how much money she
put aside, but she had a file going her whole
life and it was like, it's got a great name.
It's sort of like the Final something Yeah, final movie finale.
It was pretty better than that, right, the last movie,
(27:12):
which is actually maybe a Dennis Happer sort of a
terry Southern movie, but we won't get into that. Well,
this we've covered. It's a series of additional funeral questions.
DJ's destination funerals and so on. Do you have a
DJ you'd like to use at your wedding? I mean funeral?
I actually am planning a wedding funeral, so it's not
(27:34):
even uh, you know, a Freudian slips. So that's when
I'm getting married, is uh on my deathbed. It's going
to be very romantic and there will be a DJ. Yes, um,
it's important to know. Is there anyone you know besides
Donald Trump who I don't care to insult clearly that
(27:55):
you don't want a funeral your funeral? Yes, Like, if
you would like to name names of some other people
that are on your list, but you don't have to,
and I won't murder them, is I would not? I'm not.
I'm not actually like a soprano. I just talk tough,
and it's an important distinction. But if there's anybody that
(28:18):
you don't want your funeral, you know what I'm saying.
You just let me know and I'll make sure then
that it's your funeral. Okay, are aren't you pissed that
you weren't on the Sopranos. I'm at all times pissed
that I'm like, where's my mafia picture? Because I'm so
so ready. I don't know. I don't hate anybody that much.
(28:39):
I don't care about hating people as much as I
used to. So it's a I'm trying out a new
philosophy where even if someone doesn't like me, I like them. Yeah,
And that's a that's a fun game to play, that
is truly enlightened. It's like, oh, that's truly. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm trying it out and I like it. Do you
think you're gonna die young? Sort of left field? Hut,
(29:00):
it's just slipping it in. It's just the tip. We're okay,
you can't get pregnant from just the tip. We all
know that. Tell your kids. That's right, Yeah, that's correct, everybody.
Do you think so? No, you don't know you can
get pregnant from the tip? Yeah, well you really. You
(29:23):
were pregnant at sixteen. I was pregnant a couple of
times at sixteen, Yeah, more than once, more than once. Yeah,
same guy, different Yeah. I had a black boyfriend in
high school. His name was ty Sewan. He's actually my
new documentary that's coming out about white privilege, um my
own specifically. And I always thought, like I always thought
(29:43):
white privilege meant, you know, you were from like a family,
like you had trust funds, and you were from the
Rockefeller family and you went to Harvard like I identified
white privilege like that. And it wasn't until after the
election that I really just started to think about my
own privilege in a way that I hadn't noted, like,
hadn't understood before. And I was embarrassed because of all
(30:04):
the success I've had and how easily it came to me. Yeah,
I worked hard, and we all worked hard, but it
was I got rewarded for a lot of bad behavior,
and that wouldn't have happened to somebody who didn't look
like me. So so I went and revisited Tayshawn for
this documentary because we got arrested three or times while
(30:25):
we were together. For what. I didn't get arrested. He
got arrested for a dime bag of pot he got.
Every time he got caught. I was not every time
who knows how many other times, but three times I
was with him. Each time the police officer said, okay,
miss you get out of this neighborhood and go home,
and and then he was arrested. So he had a
full scholarship to u n l V University to play basketball,
(30:47):
and he was not able to go because of those
three infractions, which were stupid, but I mean, a white
person gets away with that. I got away with it,
and it then spent fourteen years incarcerated, and his whole
life was ruined. And so I saw him in the documentary.
I really like re visit his family and get his
story and hear about it, because I just walked out
(31:08):
of his world and was like, Okay, I'm done with
this phase in my life. I'm done. I'm done with
my black face. I'm gonna go back to my family,
you know. And I just left and I could. And
I never thought about that until the election. I didn't
think about a lot of things until the election. You know.
I thought, oh, we elected Barack Obama, Great racism is over.
And I thought we were gonna let Hillary Clinton. And
(31:30):
I thought, great feminism is That's a fight we don't
have to do much of anymore. So when those two
things backfired, I woke up and I started to look
around and all asked the questions. And it was embarrassed
that it took me this long to get here. But
I'm happy to be late to the party than to
never show up at all. And and I think that
(31:56):
we all have to wake up. The world's only getting
browner and gayer, so you better fucking hop on board
before you missed the bus. Indeed, mm hmm, yeah, I
think about that. I think about a lot, you know,
(32:18):
especially because um the prison show. I'm on. Uh, I'm
not making it about me. But you know it's early
on I think I would really identify. I was like,
oh yeah, I know how to be on this show
because I've like spent time and various holding cells and
(32:40):
you know what I mean, Like you know, I mean,
did you got to rest a lot in your real life?
You know, more than once, less than the more times,
the ten less less um? Yeah, expunged um. So uh
that cut to the end of the story. Uh without details.
(33:01):
You know, I too spend a great deal of time,
you know, thinking. You know, it's it's like you know,
people say, and we went on this documentary, went to
the South and you know all the places where you
find races and um and which are everywhere in every city,
and you know, it ended up being in my own backyard.
L A is the most segregated city in the world.
I live in bel Air. Like, who am I? What
am I thinking that I'm diverse? I live in the
(33:22):
whitest place in the country. I mean, I don't know
if there's a whiter place, maybe Winter parlto something very
Jewish what bell Air? Oh well, I'm not hanging out
with the Jews. But yeah, it's very Jewish and very white.
But you know, you don't look around, you don't think
about that. When I was doing this documentary and people
were asking me about that, I was like, oh, yeah,
I went to Santa Monica from New Jersey where I
(33:44):
had one black kid in my school, and then I
moved to Santa Monica and then Brentwood, and then I
moved to bell Air. So you know, you think you
know what privileges, or you know what you're who you're
surrounding yourself with, or I'm not guilty of that. I
not guilty of that. We're all a little bit guilty
of not being better allies and advocates to people of color.
(34:05):
We're all a little bit we can all do better.
And so that's a big you know, that's a good
thing to know when you're moving forward in something in
your life and my work especially, that needs to be
you know, front and center because I'm there because I've
been spoiled and I realized, well, yeah, you know, uh
(34:26):
strong a great Chelsea Strong agree, um, but but genuinely
and and uh yeah, I hate it all. I hate um.
I hate tokenism. I hate the more subtle forms of
white supremacy that we see. I hate seeing it in
movies I I fucking hated that's a well done. Okay,
(34:49):
well this sounds like a good time to take a break.
What is the most interesting place that you have traveled to? Africa?
I mean, Africa really feels like you're on another planet.
You get there and you're like, holy shit. Iceland too,
I've been, Yeah, is what? Well? It feels very much
(35:12):
like another planet in a very Spaceland feels more like
Game of Thrones. They have shark on the menu and whale.
I'm like, I don't think so, buddy. Yeah, yeah, food
is bad in Iceland. Where in Africa? Have you been?
Been on Safari? Like three times? And I've been um
to Botswana, South Africa, I think both times. Yeah, I
(35:36):
went back to South Africa and then the last time.
I think that was one of those trips where you
just can't you can't believe what you're looking at. You're
just like, oh my god, and you just go on.
I mean, you could watch a lion for ten hours straight.
I'm not I love my dogs, but I'm not like
this animal activist, you know what I mean? Like, I
don't I'm not gonna hurt an animal, but like I'm
not going nuts about it. Would you define yourself as
a hunter? J k um So, I just got back.
(36:06):
I was in Nigeria, I was in Ghana. Fucking great. Really,
how was Ghana? What what went down there? So it's
so first of all, aesthetically speaking, Uh, the filmmaker's eye,
which is what I have, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, It's
(36:26):
is so fucking good looking because it's just like sort
of it's very like sixties sort of low buildings. It
almost has a kind of a Cuba vibe. It's very
very gorgeous. It's like a European city. Uh. And we
went to the quam A Museum, which is so good looking.
(36:47):
Uh and uh then in across we went to the
slave castles. And this is a very very heavy journey
to go down. Um and I really understand in ways
you're talking about, you know, the weight of the world
(37:09):
that we're actually living in. You know, they have this
museum there and you kind of see all these all
the heavyweights to there. It's Marcus Garvey and uh, you know,
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and and you see
the way in which America, the world at large, time
and time again just fucking shut it down and Uh,
(37:31):
it's harrowing. And to understand that, you know, it's almost
uh feels like there's the idea of the ongoing crime
that is our current prison system. UM is is very
tough to take. Who did you take that trip with? Um?
I went with Uzoa Duba from Oranges and New Black
and UM, I know you were with Laura prepon last
(37:55):
night and then you said Taylor last week, I've been
having a renaissance Oranges the New Yeah, and uh as
if I constantly. But it's less of renaissance, it's more
of in existence. Let's say, Uh, you're also on the
show and um and so we went and you know,
and Usos Nigerian, so we went a Legos. So it's great.
There's so much great art happening. There's a thriving filmmaking
(38:18):
scene out there. And we also did some Global Citizens
stuff that she's involved in. And um, but yeah, like
but this Ghana and the slave castles and and coming
back to UH America, landing at JFK and going like,
you know, getting your this sort of Hamilton's bills out
of the fucking a t M machine, You're like, what
is this fucking scumbag? Um it's very uh, you know,
(38:44):
crystallizing and also just gorgeous, but then also like, oh,
that's right. That's why they called it the Ivory Coast
of the Gold Coast. It's it's very it's a heavy,
it's an important sounds like it. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I think when you are open up to all these things,
(39:05):
you know, and part of like the last couple of years,
for me, it's like once you're awake to everything that's
going on around you, first of all, it's an opportunity
to be more grounded and to be more still and
to actually pay attention instead of filling up. For me,
my issue is filling everything up with noise. You know,
if anything is too serious, I'll make the joke. If
somebody stops talking, I'll start, you know. And that kind
of cycle, and that perpetual motion, which is kinetic motion,
(39:28):
which really never allows you to look around. There's too many,
you know, there's too many important trips and and moments
like that that you have to really not only just
be there for and be aware of in the moment,
but after the fact to reflect upon what you've learned
and to see what you can do as a human
being to make a contribution that's going to be valuable.
So I am all for taking those trips multiple times,
(39:50):
you know well. And I love that early in the
book you reference one of my favorite books of all time,
the only book I walked into the Russian Dale Writer's
Room with, which is Victor Frankel A Man's Search for Meaning. Um,
but I mean, what a great what a great book,
and what a great sice material for writing comedy. There
(40:10):
was there was There was a line in the book
that I referenced in my book and in Victor Frankel's
book called demand Search for Meeting that when I read it,
it made me like look up at the sky and think,
WHOA what the funk am I doing with my life?
And it was stop asking what you expect out of
life and start asking what life expects out of you.
And I was like, oh, I had to read that
(40:34):
to think it, you know, I was like, how lost
am I if I've never even thought about what anyone's
expecting out of me? I was thinking about what I'm
going to get, you know, like take take, which I
think is fair and normal and kind of like happens
for each of us in its right time, right like
the truth is is you know, there's even an underlying
sort of lucky stroke to having the opportunity to kind
(40:56):
of investigate itself. You know, I think that that's privileged
a psychio tes for years. But you know, when it
is um a hand to mouth in mouth existence, I
think it's harder to really take this time. But you know,
but but if for Victor Frankelfort, for context, of course,
he's a I think an Alshwitz survivor to the Holocaust,
and uh, he then sort of got out of there
(41:19):
alive and started had to rethink his life in terms
of what how do I sort of string a life
back together after what I just saw and want human
beings are capable of? And he came up with a
system called logo therapy that was this idea of trying
to sort of you know, that man is doomed to
a sort of existential morass of endless horror internally unless
(41:43):
they can kind of pinpoint this thing, um, which is
great and important. Now you cent your dogs, um Bert
and Bernice, Um oh my two big fat fox. Yeah,
I have a dog now that it's so fat it's
like if you could turn him chewy into a dog
that's what I would have turned him into. They so
(42:05):
his body has all these different pockets of meat, Like
just when you think there's no more fat left, there's
something under his thigh, you know. And he's one of
those dogs. I had to shave when I got him
because I had to see what I was dealing with.
I was like, let's get down to business with this body.
And I was very excited about what I found. Yeah,
that's what I felt when I met divine. Um, you
know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I do. I don't
(42:26):
have a child, but I imagine that if I didn't,
there was a nanny. Uh, I would I would resent
the nanny and I would say, I'm your mother. I
I want you to because I think it's very important
for women, all women. Now that women are thinking about
having children instead of just having them, that's good. It's
(42:48):
good to say to people about why you don't want
to have because I'll tell you why. I'll tell you.
I'll give you a whole list. Yeah no, I me.
I actually think that children should be the great anomaly.
It should be this kind of like shocking round, like,
holy fuck, did you hear that Ben had a kid?
(43:11):
What the fuck this guy. Oh my god, yes, with
the Ben and Tina they made up good for them.
What a bunch of freaks like they, I mean, they
really must want to do this thing instead. I think
we have this bizarre epidemic happening where uh everybody's like
hell bent on Oh congratulations, you know you're over twenty five?
(43:36):
Where's uh so, where's this partner? Oh good, you found
this partner. Now when's the marriage? Oh good? Now you
got to where's the baby? It's like what when? And
then you see the statistics, It's like where's the divorce?
You know what I mean? And where's the children that
are like, you know, out there being like can somebody
look out for me? Because I'm a fucking person and
(43:59):
you have all the sort of unqualified I I just
think for the sake of the children, and nobody loves
children more th sake of the children, don't have them,
is what you're saying. I you know, I think that
some people should totally Like I have some friends and
I'm like, holy shit, your fucking destiny was to be
a mother. You should clearly be procreating, do you know
(44:22):
what I mean? Like it was so much a fabric
of their lifeblood, and then I see, you know, sometimes
other people who are just sort of like lost or
more relevant to the moment that we're in, which is
this nightmare of kind of uh you know, um men
dictating when or when not women should be allowed to
(44:44):
have their own sort of personal freedoms and existence in
this life, so that I find wildly problematic. Of course,
um you know, I think it should be a very
a choice with great intent and a series of like
accidents in an effort to be like maybe we should
break up or have a kid. Like I think that
(45:06):
that's fucking weird, and I think, uh, people do that
all the time, or people get pregnant. Like my girlfriend
was like, oh, she was forty, and she's like, I'm pregnant.
I guess I have to have it now. And I'm
like why and she's like, because I'm forty. How can
I get an abortion at forty? I'm like, it's better
than being a bad parent, So you forget one. What
do you mean, like, if you don't want the baby,
don't have a baby. If you don't want desperately to
(45:29):
have a baby. I mean that's a thing. It's like
I want them to have kids when they really fucking
want it, but like it's a big It's not a
pair of shoes, you know what I'm saying. It's not
like change my mind and I can't walk in them.
It's like, the funk are you doing? And Delia, I
remember one centime I was like, yeah, you know, I
got this boyfriend, I'm on the show and no no,
(45:49):
and I think I want to start a production coming.
I want to be a director. I think I'm gonna
like write stuff and and I was like, but fuck, Delia,
do you think I should like make embryos or what
should I do? Because like I got to figure that out,
and she was like whoa, you know, she was like,
not everybody has to do everything. You know, um that
there's this kind of hang up around for women that
(46:09):
there's almost like this additional burden of okay, I've got
x y Z kind of dream and also I'm gonna
take on this other full time job, which is to
do this thing. And just the idea of like I
don't know, maybe someday I will sort of decide to
have a kid in some variation adoptic. I don't know
what the future holds, but this idea that it was
(46:30):
this burden on my thirties of decision that had to
be made. When meantime, you know, I had a boyfriend
in his forties who was not stressing about it at all.
Felt like a very unfair albatross to be carrying around.
So I think in general, I just sort of let
go of it and sort of felt like, this is
something that will sort of be a mora, will be
(46:51):
revealed and it can kind of you know, let that
child find me, good luck find me. You can adopt
kids in different countries now saying there's a lot you
can be involved, like I like to do that. It's
better that I'm not present with the kid. It's better
that I'm just paying for things. You know, I know
what my strengths and weaknesses are. But you feel concretely
(47:11):
like you like, no babies for this baby. No, No,
I don't want I'm not interested in that at all.
It's never been interest to me. I come from a
big family, and I thought I was gonna have one kid.
I'd want six, just like I grew up with. And
um no, I just know it's not a good use
of my time. I'm better better without that. I have
come to grips with the fact that it's okay to
(47:32):
say I want to be in a relationship like that's
my mature, that's my thing. Like, oh, I worked so
hard for so long trying to be so independent and
so fierce and so tough. And I didn't know that
that was a direct had a direct correlation to my childhood,
to the fact that my brother died when I was
nine years old and looked me in the eye and said,
I'll be back, don't worry, I'll never leave you with
these people, and and died. So my feeling about relying
(47:57):
on another person from a very young age, I didn't
give it enough credit because I was nine. I didn't
know anything. It may seem obvious discussing it or looking
at someone else's story and going, obviously, that's why she's
pooked up, But it's when you're in it, you don't
know it. And I let it rip in a way
that I had never been able to do in my
(48:18):
entire life. I was never able to tell somebody that
I was in pain. I couldn't be in pain because
I was too strong to be in pain. And for
someone like me, you know, when you get you know,
you don't think you have a right to complain. You
have access to anything you need. You're successful. I have
a TV show in my name, I have books in
my name. I didn't think I had a right to
be in pain, and I didn't think I had a
(48:39):
right to complain. And what I learned by going and
and stopping my work and doing everything I can to
get myself into a healthy place that you are of
no use to anyone until you're fucking healthy. And that's
when you're like, oh, oh, I can be a good
friend now, I can look out for empathy. Now, I
(49:00):
can get my ship together now, and all the patterns
of behavior that are from that period and time period
of time in your life, you know, the scorching earth.
If somebody pisces me off, I'm like, they're out, They're out.
Like I had this pattern of ruining friendships or ending
friendships on a dime. And when I told Dan about that,
I said, you know, I don't know why I do this.
(49:22):
I can't forgive anybody. And he said, because this is
your blueprint of how a relationship ends. Your brother told
you he was coming back, and he left, So he
was alive one day and he was gone tomorrow. That's
what you think, that's how you think relationships end. And
I was like, holy sh it, that is what I'm doing.
That is what I'm doing. I'm just that's my blueprint.
(49:42):
That's how I think. So Dan was able to show
me a blueprint, like about patients, about going into an
airport and paying for things in a normal way, not
shoplifting and giving them the money under the table or whatever,
about making eye contact with every stranger that talk to
me or you know that I see, and not rushing
(50:02):
through life and and not taking a shortcut through your
grief because the only way through it is sucking through it,
and there's no hop scotching around it and there's no
way to get around it. So for me, it was
so so strengthening to have a man sit across from
me that I could cry in front of a and
you know, and then I got really good at crying.
I was like, I was just crying all the time,
(50:24):
and I was writing this book, and I was in
airports crying just in public, and people would come over
and be like, are you okay. I'm like my brother
and I'm writing a book. Fuck, leave me alone. Yes,
I'm gonna be okay. And because tharcist that came along
with it was just I had to share it because
I'm a different person and I feel and I was
(50:46):
my friends like, this is like an apology tour. I'm like, no, no,
but I feel like, you know, so vibrant in a
way that I had it for so long and taking
that a talk about an albatross around your neck, taking
something that you've had, didn't injury for that they've had
for so long, and being able to release it and
not be mad at my brother for dying. He goes,
(51:07):
You're mad. You're you were rejected because you felt rejected,
And I said, yeah, but he died. It wasn't an accident,
he goes, But not to your nine year old brain.
You're nine year old brain interprets that as somebody being
bored with you, or leaving you, or choosing another family
because they have a sister, a little sister that's cuter
or more fun to be around. So it was a
big lesson and it was a big um. You know.
(51:29):
It was a big moment for me to write. Since
I've made a career of oversharing so many things, I thought,
why not over share something positive and good? So uh
to circle back, so the baby component of it. At
the end of it, I was like, because everything comes
back to my brother Chet, you know, in therapy, whenever
we talk, I'd be like, like, this guy's shoes, I
(51:51):
can't date him the fucking shoes to And I said
about the baby. I go, am, I is this all?
What about the baby thing? And he's like, no, I
genuinely think you don't like children. So so once I
got his step of approval, I was like, all right,
I'm on my way out. That seemed like such a
relief to get. Like if I have to get pregnant
now too, I'm gonna be so bummed and pregnant. We
(52:15):
have to wrap up, but I'm gonna read a little thing.
These bracelets they're selling out front or I decide bracelets
and they sell T shirts too, because there's something I
want to read from the book, uh that this organization
one of these. A guy that read this book wrote
me and and said that this meant a lot to
him because he had somebody in his family that died,
(52:36):
And so we made these T shirts and his honor
and and all the proceeds go to l g B
t q I A and all the proceeds from the bracelets.
But I'm gonna get up to read this. Sorry if
I have camel toe. I didn't know then that my
(52:58):
brother's death was defining me. I didn't know that I
had the ability to say no to being defined by death.
Now I was with a person Dan, who could help
me process what happened and turn the parts of me
that acted like a nine year old into a self
actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of
what it means to dig deep and admit that you
are in pain, thereby beginning the process of relinquishing that pain.
(53:21):
I was in a place where my brother dying no
longer had to define my existence. It is part of
who I am, perhaps the biggest part, and it may
have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it
is not all of me. I defined me. No event
or person does this. I define me. I decide who
I am, and I decide how I'm going to behave,
(53:43):
and I choose to do better, to look more carefully,
to trudge deeper, to think about other people's pasts, and
not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than
I would. To understand my limitations and my shortcomings. That
is my growth. I decide to be better. We all
can be better. Thank you guys, Thank you New York
(54:05):
City for coming out, and thank you to Natasha Leon
for your very professional Did you enjoy that episode, Brandon,
You're not gonna like all the complience, but I like that.
The tour has been a mix of like social issues
and comedy. Yeah, and while listeners are listening, I mean,
(54:25):
you know, we're trying to have as little repetition as possible,
which is hard because we're covering the same topics, but
we're managing to do it. So thank you for bearing
with us on that front. If you hear like a
theme or topic more than once, you know, stuck on it.
Speaking of social issues, there are a couple of things
that you might want people to check in on, like
you're countable. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I have Accountable page,
which kind of puts up articles of things that are
(54:47):
happening and ways to kind of help or get involved
with causes that you care about. Um, and I've joined
I'm still partners with Emily's List, so I if you
follow me on Twitter, if you're looking for candid, it's
always promoting Emily's list. You should follow Emily's list too,
because they always are looking for progressive women to run
(55:08):
all across the country and they keep you a prize
of all the exciting women that come into the field
and people who run for the very first time. You
know to two people have rand before anyway, So Emily's
list is good. I have accountable page and and I'm
coming to Nashville, New Orleans, New Nashville Friday night and
New Orleans Saturday night and you can get your tickets
(55:28):
at live nation dot com. And then I'm coming to
Australian in October and New Zealand. I'm coming to Auckland,
New Zealand October nine, and I will be adding more dates.
Canadian dates are coming. I just I'm trying to get
my schedule. And uh yeah, thank you guys for listening.
And Brandon, thank you for being so um o god.
(55:48):
What is the word? Okay? Thank you. Tune in next
week when we find out the word to describe Brandon
life will be the Death of Me. As a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
back in Studio, Chelsea. Oh well, thank you, Brandon, thank
you for having me back in studio. You're very welcome.
It's just nice when I get to see you, because
if you're out on tour so much. I like the
story schedule. It's great. Like I did St. Louis on Friday,
which was so much fun, and then Saturday was Minneapolis
two nights a week. Like on the weekends, I could
(00:22):
get down with this kind of schedule. You're really into
the Midwest towns, lad I do, because they're so grateful.
They keep thanking you for coming. They just say thank
you so much for coming that you even did, like
you went through the art, you did some touristy stuff
while I was humid, though I had to come back
from that walk and change land wear. You can only
be outside. You got thirty minutes St. Louis, and I
know because that's where I'm from. It was, Oh that's right, Brandon.
(00:42):
You know what. I never even put two and two together.
That's how self absorbed I am. I forgot that you're
from St. Louis. I always think of you as a
North Dakodin self. Dad doesn't really matter. That's it called
a double whoopsie doodle. What does matter is this episode
with Natasha Leone. Yes, I was very excited, very sad
that I didn't get to go, but excited to hear it. Well.
(01:02):
Natasha and I did two shows in New York on
the same night, so enjoy. We'll be back after the break.
Before I get started and bring out my friend. This
is um a pretty serious chapter. It's called Marijuana keeps
families together. Some people are not built for drugs and alcohol.
(01:25):
I believe that I am. I believe that I am
built for the apocalypse. I reconnected with marijuana in my
late thirties. As I previously shared, I'm open to most
drugs as long as they don't leave you with a
hole in your arm or staring through a keyhole of
an apartment door looking out for drunes. At this stage
of my life, I find it prudent to avoid apartments altogether.
(01:48):
I love pot. When I first discovered it in high school,
or pretended I did because it made me look I
thought it made me look cool. But after a few
years of recreational abuse, it just ended up leaving me
paranoid and self conscious, and in one instance, getting up
to leave the theater when a movie ended, only to
realize I was on an airplane. Then one year, my
(02:17):
family and I were on our annual Christmas ski trip
to Whistler, Canada, and our chef made and that's relatable, right,
Our chef made us special adult cookies. Every night. My
brothers and sisters would line up in the kitchen on
our way to dinner, and I would doll out at
half a cookie to each of them, And if any
of my nieces and nephew stole any without me seeing,
(02:39):
it was none of my business. Our family thrived that year.
Our family doesn't really fight because we're all so exhausted
from our childhoods, but it definitely marked the new beginning
of a new era for the Handler family. The legalization
of marijuana and caliph orna raised standards at dispensaries. The
(03:02):
educative component that was lacking for so many years was
now available on all store bought weed. The labeling of strains,
along with the labying of th HC versus CBD ratios,
was all right there in black and white. With the
advent of a medicinal grade controlled micro dosing. There aren't
a lot of people I wouldn't recommend cannabis too. I've
turned straight arrow people into people I can actually spend
(03:24):
time with. I've gotten friends who have never done any drugs,
friends who have had terrible experiences with edibles, my Mormon
sister who's here tonight, People's parents, people's parents, Muslims, and
one nun to imbibe about the people I've introduced to
(03:44):
marijuana are now frequent users. I take a lot of
pride in that. I take a lot of pride in
being an enabler or a charm. I'd like to coin
a pharmacological intuitive, one who instinctually knows the exact to
write dosage for each consumer. After Trump was elected, I
(04:06):
came the closest I'd ever been too depressed. My anger
rose to the surface rather than simmering just beneath it.
I had something identifiable to be angry about, so instead
of masking it, I treated it. That's when the news
started to get fun. Kelly Anne Conway Stone is a
good time. It's right up there with Eddie Murphy, raw
(04:28):
Sam for Sarah's Suckaby Sanders. One day, Sarah Suckaby Sanders
came out for her breastpriefing with emerald green eyes shadow
shrouding one eye and zero eyeshadow on the other eye.
I was like, this is a whole new world. I'd
(04:52):
find myself laughing when Chris Matthews would interrupt his guests
while spitting all over them, and I started to see
the news for what it really was, a twenty four
hours spin cycle filled with conjecture and speculation about whatever
idiotic or racist comment Trump had tweeted that day. I
realized that I had allowed this administration to rob me
of one year of my life, and I wasn't going
(05:12):
to give them another. I needed a channel change. The
thing that non cannabis users failed to recognize is the
way cannabis bends your frame of mind. It allows access
to a recess part of your brain that I particularly
was deeply uh needing to engage. How to be less reactive,
(05:36):
how to stand down the edges. Those were things I
had been working on with my psychiatrist Dan. As a result,
things became slightly more poetic less final end of an empire.
My sleep got better, my moods got better, even my
dreams got better. I stopped watching the news on a loop,
and I even started waking up laughing some mornings pot
(05:57):
politics and Dan summed up tooth I was in eighteen
for me, the year I had to fall apart in
order to come back together. I was sitting in Dan's
office one Monday morning telling him how passionate I have
become about this new marijuana renaissance. My opinions have always
(06:18):
felt fully formed, I told Dan with Pott, it feels
like they are finally like unfurling. Every canvas is blank.
Everyone is so much less annoying, and everything is a
little more tolerable when I'm a little bit stoned, and
I said, I also don't feel compelled to talk as much,
and with my voice. That's a fucking bonus. In what
(06:41):
way is everyone's so annoying? It was always funny to
hear Dan repeat phrases I used, or use the word
annoying in a sentence. Annoying seemed like a word that
expires after adolescence, like conceded. I'd like that I was
finally rubbing off on Dan the thing I'm realizing Dan,
I told him, leaning on one elbum but missing the
arm of the chair and falling into my own lap.
(07:04):
Is that I'm the one that's annoying. I'm just now
finding out that this whole time, I've been the annoying one.
Dan stared straight at me, and it was hard to
discern his take on my new hobby. I went on,
I used to think that something was wrong with every
person in this world, and now I know I'm the
one with the problem. Everyone seems so much more interesting.
(07:24):
I explained to him. I don't think you should judge
yourself so harshly, Dan said. This is a phrase Dan
repeated to me frequently, and one I've never quite gotten
on board with. I do, I told him, I feel
like that's what's been missing this whole time, circling around
other people and in order to avoid myself, I deserve
to be on the receiving end of my own judgment.
It's my come uppance. And it's like this little porthole
(07:48):
into a whole new world has opened up. When I'm stoned,
I can find joy and shaving my legs. This was
what I realized. I was stoned. I had popped a
chocolate covered Kiva blueberry on my way out the door
that morning. I don't usually take them in the morning,
but I had therapy and thought, fuck it. That's my
favorite thing about edibles. Forgetting you've taken any and then
(08:12):
you feel this little psychological twinkle and suddenly things get
just a wee bit more dynamic. We'd lit up my
curiosity and things I hadn't been interested in for years.
That's what I was missing, getting lost in life a
little bit more. Dan told me that if I could
access that state of mind when I was high, it
was already part of my psyche, which meant that I
(08:32):
could access it without anything at all or through meditation.
I'm not there yet, I told him, I'm gonna stick
with the weed right now. I'd been trying to for
months to meditate, and it was going nowhere fast. I
could only do forced meditation when I was with Dan.
He made me short recordings and meditations and long recordings
(08:52):
and meditations, and I tried to do it for a
few days at home, and then I'd forget, or I'd
remember and then forget. Not only is it easier for
me to be around other people, I told him, it's
definitely easier for people to be around me. I'm able
to have conversations with people. I never had the patience
to listen to before. I'm so much less judge. Everything
becomes a little bit softer, a little bit less apocalyptic.
(09:15):
No black and white, more middle, more pleasant. Well that's great,
he said, I don't have a problem with you taking edibles.
And I said, the other good news is it's cutting
my drinking in half. This was a sentence I thought
would never come out of my mouth. So I want
to be very very clear this. I have no intention
now or in any future of giving up alcohol. Thank
(09:42):
you for your support. Okay, this is not a book
where I get sober at the end. However, cutting my
drinking in a half was an unexpected perk, and that
is when I started to get serious about cannabis. I've
been approached by various weed companies to start my own
(10:04):
line of cannabis products, but I didn't want to jump
on the bandwagon until I had done due diligence and
fully investigated what was available on the market. This meant
that it had became my job to know everything about
every available oil, weed, candy, bath, salt, herb, and food
item that contained cannabis. I was sitting around my house
in Los Angeles one weekend with my brother's Glen and
(10:24):
my sister Shawna, who are in the audience tonight doling
out the new edibles that I wanted them to try. Chelsea,
Glenn asked me, dripping in sarcasm, would you consider yourself
a medical practitioner. No, I think of myself as more
of a pharmacological intuitive, I said, testing out the term
(10:46):
in everyday usage. I have a history of helping people, Glenn,
yourself included, So why don't you shut the funk up
and take this edible? Glenn and I both suffer from
psoriasis on our skin, but only one of us had
clear skin until I shared with Glenn the prescription that
had knocked it out of my system to ducksy cycling
twice a day, ten days, never on an empty stomach.
(11:09):
I gave the very same prescription to my hairstylist when
she had a terrible bout of acne, twice a day,
ten days, never on an empty stomach. Glenn no longer
has ariasis, and my hair stylist no longer has acne.
And there are several African villagers who now have the
cure to malaria. My sister Simona is required to give
formal presentations at work, which makes her nervous. Her anxiety
(11:32):
causes dry mouth, so I gave her a bottle of propanalol,
which is a beta blocker that cuts off the signal
from your neurotransmitters that tells your brain it's anxious. Thank
god we have a doctor in the family. Simone set
after a second promotion. My area of expertise isn't only
limited to cannabis and pharmaceuticals. I have had a hundred
(11:53):
percent success rate helping many women friends who prior to
my intervention hadn't gone number two in years become regular.
Women in particular struggle with regularity, so it is important
to have bowel movement advocates out there. There are over
the counter calcium magnesium pills called mag O seven from
(12:14):
Aerobic Life, and if you start with four each night,
typically by day three, you will start to have regular
bowel movements. They do not pay me. This is a
public service announcement. At that point, once you start going regularly,
I usually advise patients to reduce their intake to three
pills in order to avoid morning diarrhea, breast inflammation before
(12:37):
your period. Rose hips once a day for a month.
My cousin Molly told me that one hangovers to etcetern
and the headache will be gone in less than ten minutes.
Caffeine is the antidote to headaches caused by alcohol, and
Excedrin contains caffeine. I would like them to pay me
to promote them, because that's something I would do. If
you've been drinking milk thistle helps if you take it
before you go to bed, but it's hard to remember
(12:58):
to take something when your ship face. All in all,
my point is I've had an incredible track record with
curing people, and the only mistakes I make are usually
with myself, Like the time I swallowed a yeast infection
pill that was supposed to be administered vaginally after speaking
(13:22):
with my doctor on the phone. I waited expectantly in
the forty eight hours that followed for a loaf of
bread to pop out of my mouth. I know if
people have the personality for zan X or if they
will do better on a lighter sleeping pill like Sonata
(13:43):
generic brand is a leplan. I also know that zan
X isn't a sleeping pill, but that's what I used
it for. Adderall is good for some people, but too
much for certain personality types. High energy people like me
do not need adderall, no matter how tired you are,
unless you want to wake up in the middle of
the night cracking your fucking goals. But if you do
like adderall, what's even better is Provigil or new Vigil.
(14:07):
That's what people in the government, in the military use
when they travel through different time zones. Provigil is the
best thing I've ever taken for jet lag or if
I really need to focus on something. But again, if
you have a knuckle cracking problem, which everyone in my
family has, just start with a half. There's nothing I
love more than hopping on an international flight, popping a
(14:30):
Xanex and sleeping for twelve hours straight. But I've become
so disgusted with the pharmaceutical industry in this country that
I have redirected that passion and dedication into the healthier
alternative cannabis. Chelsea Glenn said, putting his fork down. You
should be a late stage companion. That's something you could
do your fun, something activity based, so you can, you know,
(14:58):
be moving somewhere by the mountains or a pool. Older
men seem to be drawn to you. You'd get hired
all the time. Who's in the late stage? I asked him,
me or the companion. The companion, shann Has said, always
the companion. You have a lot in common with older people.
He's got a good idea. Then my brother said, this
(15:21):
can be the perfect foil for your identity crisis, Chelsea.
Since you can no longer date older guys, this is
the way you can still hang out with them all
the time. The reason I can't date older guys is
because now they're too fucking old and forty four. So
I got to lower the margin and get in my
own age group, which is tough. Glenn wiped his mouth
and took a sip of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which he
had brought to my house. Glenn and I are a
(15:54):
lot of like we find something we like and then
we abuse it for two months, and then we're onto
the next thing. Glenn was having a Mike's Hard Lemonade renaissance,
and although I was repulsed, I understood it, Chelsea. Glenn said,
and you're in your professional opinion. What procedure do you
think Donald Trump is getting to make his face look
like it does? What do you mean, I asked, I
(16:19):
don't think he's actually getting work done to look that bad.
I mean, what he should be doing is resurfacing the
texture of his skin, at the very least, getting the
fat sucked out from underneath his eyes, and maybe light
bo But he obviously can't even see clearly. If he
thinks that's what he's presenting, is even presentable. I mean,
obviously we're not going to get through to this guy.
His asses the size of my dog Berts, So I
(16:41):
think that should be on the first thing on his
to do list. You don't think he's doing stuff to
his mouth, Glenn asked, He was being serious, so I
looked up. Yeah, Like, what is there some sort of
(17:05):
surgical procedure or face treatment that makes your mouth look
more like an anis? I had to think about that
when my brother asked me that question. I don't know
anything about a procedure to make your mouth smaller or
(17:29):
face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an
anis or anus. Like, I'm not sure what the vernacular
is here. He may think it looks good, Chelsea, Glenn
reminded me, it's as if his mouth keeps getting tighter
and tighter and smaller and smaller. I liked the idea
of Donald Trump sewing his mouth closed, one surgical procedure
(17:49):
at a time. This country has had a rough year,
Glenn's side. Men have had a rough year, Shauna said,
and you fucking deserve it. It sounds like I said,
you only have yourselves to blame. It's a wrap on
(18:10):
old white men. Well, not all old white men, just
a bunch of them, Yeah, Shauna said, walking back to
the table with a frozen ham in her hands. She
wanted to know if I was saving the ham for
a special occasion. Occasion she was definitely stoned if she
wanted to cook a ham. So I redirected my attention
back to the only male in the room. Let me
(18:32):
tell you a little story about men, Glenn. Okay, every
week I go to the nail salon where I get
a massage on my forearms after my manicure, and that
is the closest I have ever in my life come
to understand what it feels like to get a hand shop.
I want a climax in that salon. I want to
let loose and just let them rubby and just let
(18:54):
it rip. I want that, but I don't do it
because I'm not a fucking pig. That's the difference between
men and women. We are more prone to controlling ourselves. Yes,
Glenna Green, most women are, but I would place you
(19:14):
in the category of people who have trouble controlling themselves.
It's a very good thing you weren't born with male
genitaliat I can guarantee that if I were, you would
still never find me jerking off into a fucking plant.
Who did that? He asked, I don't know. One of
these guys, Louis c. K or Harvey Weinstein, one of
them jerked off into a plant. I mean, seriously, when
(19:36):
does it come to that. I'm stone high, drunken stone,
Shanna said, with a frozen ham tucked into her armpit.
You're not drunk, I reassured her, and guided her upstairs
to my bathroom. I placed the frozen ham on the
floor of the infrared sonora and told Sean it would
be ready first thing in the morning. Is that thing
(20:04):
even on? She asked, yes, I told her, as I
guided her to my bed. How do you feel, I said,
as we climbed into bed, super warm and fuzzy, she
told me. I got out my medical journal journal and
I made a note of her condition. Are you hungry?
I asked her. I had been working tirelessly on isolating
the right strain of marijuana that doesn't give you the
(20:25):
munch sheets. I'm not hungry, she said. The ham just
reminded me of something Mom would have made us a Christmas.
I said, Oh, do you feel sad? I took out
my medical notebook again. No, just warm and fuzzy. We
lay in my bed, holding hands, looking out of the backyard,
(20:46):
lit by the lanterns hanging into my trees. I felt
grateful in that moment that I was lying next to
my sister, and for all the gifts that life had
given me, and for all the girls life had given me.
I just want everything to go on forever, I told Shannah,
and then I stuck my finger in her butt. When
(21:11):
are we gonna be too old to act like this?
She asked me, giggling. Will never be too old to
act like this? I told her. Then she yawned and said,
just because I get colon X doesn't mean you can
treat me like ship. And then she rolled over and
fell asleep. Thank you. M hm. Okay, we're gonna take
(21:39):
a quick break and we'll be right back. MH. I'm
very grateful to my friend. That's who I've known for
many years, and she's always been somebody that I've watched
because you could watch her for hours. And she just
had a very very successful run with her new show,
Russian Dal, which I know everybody knows about. So please
(22:01):
welcome Natasha Leone. I'm in business business attire. Thank you
for dressing so professionally. You know. The tables have tuned, Chelsea,
and so this is gonna be my big Larry King
come out party, is how I see it. And I
(22:24):
want to watch you individually peel each one of these oranges,
and we're gonna be here for seven hours. The book
is great. I've read the book. Thank you for reading
the book, and I've come prepared. I'm gonna put these
on even though I'm actually nearsighted, but I'm looking forward
(22:44):
to becoming far sighted because then you can do this move,
which I think always makes people seem smart and old,
and then they can kind of do this. But I
just want to remind you I can see perfectly at
this distance. It's up there. I would need it for
So I've prepared some flash cards and I've told you
about the Rotunda, which is a game we're gonna be
(23:05):
playing later. Okay, so Chelsea, I'm saying it right. Yeah, No,
it's it's Tracy. It's oh, it's what's tracy but spelled
with a Yes. That's interesting. Why an apostrophe at the end. Yeah,
I'm not surprised because I've heard a lot about your childhood.
This is it's a it's hard having a childhood, isn't it.
(23:28):
It's hard. It's hard. It's hard at spending your adulthood
getting over your childhood for sure. Now this is my
sort of big beef with therapy. This is not on
the flash cards. Um, but I'm like, Jesus, what do
you want for me? Like my entire life is going
to be unpacking this fucking yeah ten year event? What
(23:52):
a bummer? Why is this my problem? I didn't do it? Yeah?
Do you know what I mean? I know what I mean.
Are talking about the ten years being your childhood? Oh
so well you had a short childhood. Yeah, so it's
even easier to get over I guess. I guess like that. Yeah,
by eleven, you know what I mean? The workforce and
(24:15):
Fax machines, that's where they have you know, Fax machines
and up very quick where you were on TV and stuff, yes,
but also running an office and office supply chain store,
which I it's you know, more common. People talk about, oh,
you're a child acting. Nobody talks about my time at
Staples as a kid. Yeah. No, I didn't know about Staples,
(24:38):
thank you. It's not as glamorous, but it was important
to me and that's where I first fell in love
with paper clips. I'm gonna remove this one in honor. Okay,
let me have a separate h Now, do you really
have two hundred and fifty grands set aside for a funeral?
(24:59):
And that's big money. I set two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars aside for my funeral a long time ago,
just because I wanted to have a great funeral and
I wanted to make sure it was done well, and
I wanted it to be a celebration. And I took
it seriously because so many people don't think about that,
and I thought if I could, if I died tragically,
which is a possibility, I want to be prepared and
(25:20):
I don't want to stress out my family, and I want,
you know, I want to invite all the people that
loved me and all the people who didn't. I want
everyone to go to this party. I want little people.
I want mushrooms. I want little people on mushrooms. I
just want a big blowout. But now that I've become
a little bit more awakened or I don't know that
word sounds still, I have a trouble without word a
(25:42):
little bit. Even though that's kind of how I feel.
I feel like that money should probably go to the
Double A CP or something instead of having another blowout party.
Just a thought or both, is that they have my
party at the Double A C P tie. I'm allowing
and uh, you know you opposed to dwelling some of
(26:06):
that cash my way? Maybe a joint funeral. We could
have a joint funeral. That would be fun. I mean
we'd have Yeah, I don't see why that okay, now,
so how does that work? We have to coordinate our deaths,
That's what I'm thinking now, or with a kind gesture
therapeutically speaking, the empathetic gesture. Whoever dies first, the other
(26:28):
person waits and holds the funeral however long. Yeah, you know,
fifteen years or one minutes right right? That seems fair. Yeah, okay,
ideas ideas you know who else did? If I die?
First you plan my funeral? And then do you get
where's the money with your money? So what's the most
important here is the money? And I think we shouldn't
lose sight of that. You know who else did that?
(26:50):
The late great Nora Ephron did she Uh well, I
don't know how much she spent, how much money she
put aside, but she had a file going her whole
life and it was like, it's got a great name.
It's sort of like the Final something Yeah, final movie finale.
It was pretty better than that, right, the last movie,
(27:12):
which is actually maybe a Dennis Happer sort of a
terry Southern movie, but we won't get into that. Well,
this we've covered. It's a series of additional funeral questions.
DJ's destination funerals and so on. Do you have a
DJ you'd like to use at your wedding? I mean funeral?
I actually am planning a wedding funeral, so it's not
(27:34):
even uh, you know, a Freudian slips. So that's when
I'm getting married, is uh on my deathbed. It's going
to be very romantic and there will be a DJ. Yes, um,
it's important to know. Is there anyone you know besides
Donald Trump who I don't care to insult clearly that
(27:55):
you don't want a funeral your funeral? Yes, Like, if
you would like to name names of some other people
that are on your list, but you don't have to,
and I won't murder them, is I would not? I'm not.
I'm not actually like a soprano. I just talk tough,
and it's an important distinction. But if there's anybody that
(28:18):
you don't want your funeral, you know what I'm saying.
You just let me know and I'll make sure then
that it's your funeral. Okay, are aren't you pissed that
you weren't on the Sopranos. I'm at all times pissed
that I'm like, where's my mafia picture? Because I'm so
so ready. I don't know. I don't hate anybody that much.
(28:39):
I don't care about hating people as much as I
used to. So it's a I'm trying out a new
philosophy where even if someone doesn't like me, I like them. Yeah,
And that's a that's a fun game to play, that
is truly enlightened. It's like, oh, that's truly. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm trying it out and I like it. Do you
think you're gonna die young? Sort of left field? Hut,
(29:00):
it's just slipping it in. It's just the tip. We're okay,
you can't get pregnant from just the tip. We all
know that. Tell your kids. That's right, Yeah, that's correct, everybody.
Do you think so? No, you don't know you can
get pregnant from the tip? Yeah, well you really. You
(29:23):
were pregnant at sixteen. I was pregnant a couple of
times at sixteen, Yeah, more than once, more than once. Yeah,
same guy, different Yeah. I had a black boyfriend in
high school. His name was ty Sewan. He's actually my
new documentary that's coming out about white privilege, um my
own specifically. And I always thought, like I always thought
(29:43):
white privilege meant, you know, you were from like a family,
like you had trust funds, and you were from the
Rockefeller family and you went to Harvard like I identified
white privilege like that. And it wasn't until after the
election that I really just started to think about my
own privilege in a way that I hadn't noted, like,
hadn't understood before. And I was embarrassed because of all
(30:04):
the success I've had and how easily it came to me. Yeah,
I worked hard, and we all worked hard, but it
was I got rewarded for a lot of bad behavior,
and that wouldn't have happened to somebody who didn't look
like me. So so I went and revisited Tayshawn for
this documentary because we got arrested three or times while
(30:25):
we were together. For what. I didn't get arrested. He
got arrested for a dime bag of pot he got.
Every time he got caught. I was not every time
who knows how many other times, but three times I
was with him. Each time the police officer said, okay,
miss you get out of this neighborhood and go home,
and and then he was arrested. So he had a
full scholarship to u n l V University to play basketball,
(30:47):
and he was not able to go because of those
three infractions, which were stupid, but I mean, a white
person gets away with that. I got away with it,
and it then spent fourteen years incarcerated, and his whole
life was ruined. And so I saw him in the documentary.
I really like re visit his family and get his
story and hear about it, because I just walked out
(31:08):
of his world and was like, Okay, I'm done with
this phase in my life. I'm done. I'm done with
my black face. I'm gonna go back to my family,
you know. And I just left and I could. And
I never thought about that until the election. I didn't
think about a lot of things until the election. You know.
I thought, oh, we elected Barack Obama, Great racism is over.
And I thought we were gonna let Hillary Clinton. And
(31:30):
I thought, great feminism is That's a fight we don't
have to do much of anymore. So when those two
things backfired, I woke up and I started to look
around and all asked the questions. And it was embarrassed
that it took me this long to get here. But
I'm happy to be late to the party than to
never show up at all. And and I think that
(31:56):
we all have to wake up. The world's only getting
browner and gayer, so you better fucking hop on board
before you missed the bus. Indeed, mm hmm, yeah, I
think about that. I think about a lot, you know,
(32:18):
especially because um the prison show. I'm on. Uh, I'm
not making it about me. But you know it's early
on I think I would really identify. I was like,
oh yeah, I know how to be on this show
because I've like spent time and various holding cells and
(32:40):
you know what I mean, Like you know, I mean,
did you got to rest a lot in your real life?
You know, more than once, less than the more times,
the ten less less um? Yeah, expunged um. So uh
that cut to the end of the story. Uh without details.
(33:01):
You know, I too spend a great deal of time,
you know, thinking. You know, it's it's like you know,
people say, and we went on this documentary, went to
the South and you know all the places where you
find races and um and which are everywhere in every city,
and you know, it ended up being in my own backyard.
L A is the most segregated city in the world.
I live in bel Air. Like, who am I? What
am I thinking that I'm diverse? I live in the
(33:22):
whitest place in the country. I mean, I don't know
if there's a whiter place, maybe Winter parlto something very
Jewish what bell Air? Oh well, I'm not hanging out
with the Jews. But yeah, it's very Jewish and very white.
But you know, you don't look around, you don't think
about that. When I was doing this documentary and people
were asking me about that, I was like, oh, yeah,
I went to Santa Monica from New Jersey where I
(33:44):
had one black kid in my school, and then I
moved to Santa Monica and then Brentwood, and then I
moved to bell Air. So you know, you think you
know what privileges, or you know what you're who you're
surrounding yourself with, or I'm not guilty of that. I
not guilty of that. We're all a little bit guilty
of not being better allies and advocates to people of color.
(34:05):
We're all a little bit we can all do better.
And so that's a big you know, that's a good
thing to know when you're moving forward in something in
your life and my work especially, that needs to be
you know, front and center because I'm there because I've
been spoiled and I realized, well, yeah, you know, uh
(34:26):
strong a great Chelsea Strong agree, um, but but genuinely
and and uh yeah, I hate it all. I hate um.
I hate tokenism. I hate the more subtle forms of
white supremacy that we see. I hate seeing it in
movies I I fucking hated that's a well done. Okay,
(34:49):
well this sounds like a good time to take a break.
What is the most interesting place that you have traveled to? Africa?
I mean, Africa really feels like you're on another planet.
You get there and you're like, holy shit. Iceland too,
I've been, Yeah, is what? Well? It feels very much
(35:12):
like another planet in a very Spaceland feels more like
Game of Thrones. They have shark on the menu and whale.
I'm like, I don't think so, buddy. Yeah, yeah, food
is bad in Iceland. Where in Africa? Have you been?
Been on Safari? Like three times? And I've been um
to Botswana, South Africa, I think both times. Yeah, I
(35:36):
went back to South Africa and then the last time.
I think that was one of those trips where you
just can't you can't believe what you're looking at. You're
just like, oh my god, and you just go on.
I mean, you could watch a lion for ten hours straight.
I'm not I love my dogs, but I'm not like
this animal activist, you know what I mean? Like, I
don't I'm not gonna hurt an animal, but like I'm
not going nuts about it. Would you define yourself as
a hunter? J k um So, I just got back.
(36:06):
I was in Nigeria, I was in Ghana. Fucking great. Really,
how was Ghana? What what went down there? So it's
so first of all, aesthetically speaking, Uh, the filmmaker's eye,
which is what I have, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, It's
(36:26):
is so fucking good looking because it's just like sort
of it's very like sixties sort of low buildings. It
almost has a kind of a Cuba vibe. It's very
very gorgeous. It's like a European city. Uh. And we
went to the quam A Museum, which is so good looking.
(36:47):
Uh and uh then in across we went to the
slave castles. And this is a very very heavy journey
to go down. Um and I really understand in ways
you're talking about, you know, the weight of the world
(37:09):
that we're actually living in. You know, they have this
museum there and you kind of see all these all
the heavyweights to there. It's Marcus Garvey and uh, you know,
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and and you see
the way in which America, the world at large, time
and time again just fucking shut it down and Uh,
(37:31):
it's harrowing. And to understand that, you know, it's almost
uh feels like there's the idea of the ongoing crime
that is our current prison system. UM is is very
tough to take. Who did you take that trip with? Um?
I went with Uzoa Duba from Oranges and New Black
and UM, I know you were with Laura prepon last
(37:55):
night and then you said Taylor last week, I've been
having a renaissance Oranges the New Yeah, and uh as
if I constantly. But it's less of renaissance, it's more
of in existence. Let's say, Uh, you're also on the
show and um and so we went and you know,
and Usos Nigerian, so we went a Legos. So it's great.
There's so much great art happening. There's a thriving filmmaking
(38:18):
scene out there. And we also did some Global Citizens
stuff that she's involved in. And um, but yeah, like
but this Ghana and the slave castles and and coming
back to UH America, landing at JFK and going like,
you know, getting your this sort of Hamilton's bills out
of the fucking a t M machine, You're like, what
is this fucking scumbag? Um it's very uh, you know,
(38:44):
crystallizing and also just gorgeous, but then also like, oh,
that's right. That's why they called it the Ivory Coast
of the Gold Coast. It's it's very it's a heavy,
it's an important sounds like it. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I think when you are open up to all these things,
(39:05):
you know, and part of like the last couple of years,
for me, it's like once you're awake to everything that's
going on around you, first of all, it's an opportunity
to be more grounded and to be more still and
to actually pay attention instead of filling up. For me,
my issue is filling everything up with noise. You know,
if anything is too serious, I'll make the joke. If
somebody stops talking, I'll start, you know. And that kind
of cycle, and that perpetual motion, which is kinetic motion,
(39:28):
which really never allows you to look around. There's too many,
you know, there's too many important trips and and moments
like that that you have to really not only just
be there for and be aware of in the moment,
but after the fact to reflect upon what you've learned
and to see what you can do as a human
being to make a contribution that's going to be valuable.
So I am all for taking those trips multiple times,
(39:50):
you know well. And I love that early in the
book you reference one of my favorite books of all time,
the only book I walked into the Russian Dale Writer's
Room with, which is Victor Frankel A Man's Search for Meaning. Um,
but I mean, what a great what a great book,
and what a great sice material for writing comedy. There
(40:10):
was there was There was a line in the book
that I referenced in my book and in Victor Frankel's
book called demand Search for Meeting that when I read it,
it made me like look up at the sky and think,
WHOA what the funk am I doing with my life?
And it was stop asking what you expect out of
life and start asking what life expects out of you.
And I was like, oh, I had to read that
(40:34):
to think it, you know, I was like, how lost
am I if I've never even thought about what anyone's
expecting out of me? I was thinking about what I'm
going to get, you know, like take take, which I
think is fair and normal and kind of like happens
for each of us in its right time, right like
the truth is is you know, there's even an underlying
sort of lucky stroke to having the opportunity to kind
(40:56):
of investigate itself. You know, I think that that's privileged
a psychio tes for years. But you know, when it
is um a hand to mouth in mouth existence, I
think it's harder to really take this time. But you know,
but but if for Victor Frankelfort, for context, of course,
he's a I think an Alshwitz survivor to the Holocaust,
and uh, he then sort of got out of there
(41:19):
alive and started had to rethink his life in terms
of what how do I sort of string a life
back together after what I just saw and want human
beings are capable of? And he came up with a
system called logo therapy that was this idea of trying
to sort of you know, that man is doomed to
a sort of existential morass of endless horror internally unless
(41:43):
they can kind of pinpoint this thing, um, which is
great and important. Now you cent your dogs, um Bert
and Bernice, Um oh my two big fat fox. Yeah,
I have a dog now that it's so fat it's
like if you could turn him chewy into a dog
that's what I would have turned him into. They so
(42:05):
his body has all these different pockets of meat, Like
just when you think there's no more fat left, there's
something under his thigh, you know. And he's one of
those dogs. I had to shave when I got him
because I had to see what I was dealing with.
I was like, let's get down to business with this body.
And I was very excited about what I found. Yeah,
that's what I felt when I met divine. Um, you
know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I do. I don't
(42:26):
have a child, but I imagine that if I didn't,
there was a nanny. Uh, I would I would resent
the nanny and I would say, I'm your mother. I
I want you to because I think it's very important
for women, all women. Now that women are thinking about
having children instead of just having them, that's good. It's
(42:48):
good to say to people about why you don't want
to have because I'll tell you why. I'll tell you.
I'll give you a whole list. Yeah no, I me.
I actually think that children should be the great anomaly.
It should be this kind of like shocking round, like,
holy fuck, did you hear that Ben had a kid?
(43:11):
What the fuck this guy. Oh my god, yes, with
the Ben and Tina they made up good for them.
What a bunch of freaks like they, I mean, they
really must want to do this thing instead. I think
we have this bizarre epidemic happening where uh everybody's like
hell bent on Oh congratulations, you know you're over twenty five?
(43:36):
Where's uh so, where's this partner? Oh good, you found
this partner. Now when's the marriage? Oh good? Now you
got to where's the baby? It's like what when? And
then you see the statistics, It's like where's the divorce?
You know what I mean? And where's the children that
are like, you know, out there being like can somebody
look out for me? Because I'm a fucking person and
(43:59):
you have all the sort of unqualified I I just
think for the sake of the children, and nobody loves
children more th sake of the children, don't have them,
is what you're saying. I you know, I think that
some people should totally Like I have some friends and
I'm like, holy shit, your fucking destiny was to be
a mother. You should clearly be procreating, do you know
(44:22):
what I mean? Like it was so much a fabric
of their lifeblood, and then I see, you know, sometimes
other people who are just sort of like lost or
more relevant to the moment that we're in, which is
this nightmare of kind of uh you know, um men
dictating when or when not women should be allowed to
(44:44):
have their own sort of personal freedoms and existence in
this life, so that I find wildly problematic. Of course,
um you know, I think it should be a very
a choice with great intent and a series of like
accidents in an effort to be like maybe we should
break up or have a kid. Like I think that
(45:06):
that's fucking weird, and I think, uh, people do that
all the time, or people get pregnant. Like my girlfriend
was like, oh, she was forty, and she's like, I'm pregnant.
I guess I have to have it now. And I'm
like why and she's like, because I'm forty. How can
I get an abortion at forty? I'm like, it's better
than being a bad parent, So you forget one. What
do you mean, like, if you don't want the baby,
don't have a baby. If you don't want desperately to
(45:29):
have a baby. I mean that's a thing. It's like
I want them to have kids when they really fucking
want it, but like it's a big It's not a
pair of shoes, you know what I'm saying. It's not
like change my mind and I can't walk in them.
It's like, the funk are you doing? And Delia, I
remember one centime I was like, yeah, you know, I
got this boyfriend, I'm on the show and no no,
(45:49):
and I think I want to start a production coming.
I want to be a director. I think I'm gonna
like write stuff and and I was like, but fuck, Delia,
do you think I should like make embryos or what
should I do? Because like I got to figure that out,
and she was like whoa, you know, she was like,
not everybody has to do everything. You know, um that
there's this kind of hang up around for women that
(46:09):
there's almost like this additional burden of okay, I've got
x y Z kind of dream and also I'm gonna
take on this other full time job, which is to
do this thing. And just the idea of like I
don't know, maybe someday I will sort of decide to
have a kid in some variation adoptic. I don't know
what the future holds, but this idea that it was
(46:30):
this burden on my thirties of decision that had to
be made. When meantime, you know, I had a boyfriend
in his forties who was not stressing about it at all.
Felt like a very unfair albatross to be carrying around.
So I think in general, I just sort of let
go of it and sort of felt like, this is
something that will sort of be a mora, will be
(46:51):
revealed and it can kind of you know, let that
child find me, good luck find me. You can adopt
kids in different countries now saying there's a lot you
can be involved, like I like to do that. It's
better that I'm not present with the kid. It's better
that I'm just paying for things. You know, I know
what my strengths and weaknesses are. But you feel concretely
(47:11):
like you like, no babies for this baby. No, No,
I don't want I'm not interested in that at all.
It's never been interest to me. I come from a
big family, and I thought I was gonna have one kid.
I'd want six, just like I grew up with. And
um no, I just know it's not a good use
of my time. I'm better better without that. I have
come to grips with the fact that it's okay to
(47:32):
say I want to be in a relationship like that's
my mature, that's my thing. Like, oh, I worked so
hard for so long trying to be so independent and
so fierce and so tough. And I didn't know that
that was a direct had a direct correlation to my childhood,
to the fact that my brother died when I was
nine years old and looked me in the eye and said,
I'll be back, don't worry, I'll never leave you with
these people, and and died. So my feeling about relying
(47:57):
on another person from a very young age, I didn't
give it enough credit because I was nine. I didn't
know anything. It may seem obvious discussing it or looking
at someone else's story and going, obviously, that's why she's
pooked up, But it's when you're in it, you don't
know it. And I let it rip in a way
that I had never been able to do in my
(48:18):
entire life. I was never able to tell somebody that
I was in pain. I couldn't be in pain because
I was too strong to be in pain. And for
someone like me, you know, when you get you know,
you don't think you have a right to complain. You
have access to anything you need. You're successful. I have
a TV show in my name, I have books in
my name. I didn't think I had a right to
be in pain, and I didn't think I had a
(48:39):
right to complain. And what I learned by going and
and stopping my work and doing everything I can to
get myself into a healthy place that you are of
no use to anyone until you're fucking healthy. And that's
when you're like, oh, oh, I can be a good
friend now, I can look out for empathy. Now, I
(49:00):
can get my ship together now, and all the patterns
of behavior that are from that period and time period
of time in your life, you know, the scorching earth.
If somebody pisces me off, I'm like, they're out, They're out.
Like I had this pattern of ruining friendships or ending
friendships on a dime. And when I told Dan about that,
I said, you know, I don't know why I do this.
(49:22):
I can't forgive anybody. And he said, because this is
your blueprint of how a relationship ends. Your brother told
you he was coming back, and he left, So he
was alive one day and he was gone tomorrow. That's
what you think, that's how you think relationships end. And
I was like, holy sh it, that is what I'm doing.
That is what I'm doing. I'm just that's my blueprint.
(49:42):
That's how I think. So Dan was able to show
me a blueprint, like about patients, about going into an
airport and paying for things in a normal way, not
shoplifting and giving them the money under the table or whatever,
about making eye contact with every stranger that talk to
me or you know that I see, and not rushing
(50:02):
through life and and not taking a shortcut through your
grief because the only way through it is sucking through it,
and there's no hop scotching around it and there's no
way to get around it. So for me, it was
so so strengthening to have a man sit across from
me that I could cry in front of a and
you know, and then I got really good at crying.
I was like, I was just crying all the time,
(50:24):
and I was writing this book, and I was in
airports crying just in public, and people would come over
and be like, are you okay. I'm like my brother
and I'm writing a book. Fuck, leave me alone. Yes,
I'm gonna be okay. And because tharcist that came along
with it was just I had to share it because
I'm a different person and I feel and I was
(50:46):
my friends like, this is like an apology tour. I'm like, no, no,
but I feel like, you know, so vibrant in a
way that I had it for so long and taking
that a talk about an albatross around your neck, taking
something that you've had, didn't injury for that they've had
for so long, and being able to release it and
not be mad at my brother for dying. He goes,
(51:07):
You're mad. You're you were rejected because you felt rejected,
And I said, yeah, but he died. It wasn't an accident,
he goes, But not to your nine year old brain.
You're nine year old brain interprets that as somebody being
bored with you, or leaving you, or choosing another family
because they have a sister, a little sister that's cuter
or more fun to be around. So it was a
big lesson and it was a big um. You know.
(51:29):
It was a big moment for me to write. Since
I've made a career of oversharing so many things, I thought,
why not over share something positive and good? So uh
to circle back, so the baby component of it. At
the end of it, I was like, because everything comes
back to my brother Chet, you know, in therapy, whenever
we talk, I'd be like, like, this guy's shoes, I
(51:51):
can't date him the fucking shoes to And I said
about the baby. I go, am, I is this all?
What about the baby thing? And he's like, no, I
genuinely think you don't like children. So so once I
got his step of approval, I was like, all right,
I'm on my way out. That seemed like such a
relief to get. Like if I have to get pregnant
now too, I'm gonna be so bummed and pregnant. We
(52:15):
have to wrap up, but I'm gonna read a little thing.
These bracelets they're selling out front or I decide bracelets
and they sell T shirts too, because there's something I
want to read from the book, uh that this organization
one of these. A guy that read this book wrote
me and and said that this meant a lot to
him because he had somebody in his family that died,
(52:36):
And so we made these T shirts and his honor
and and all the proceeds go to l g B
t q I A and all the proceeds from the bracelets.
But I'm gonna get up to read this. Sorry if
I have camel toe. I didn't know then that my
(52:58):
brother's death was defining me. I didn't know that I
had the ability to say no to being defined by death.
Now I was with a person Dan, who could help
me process what happened and turn the parts of me
that acted like a nine year old into a self
actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of
what it means to dig deep and admit that you
are in pain, thereby beginning the process of relinquishing that pain.
(53:21):
I was in a place where my brother dying no
longer had to define my existence. It is part of
who I am, perhaps the biggest part, and it may
have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it
is not all of me. I defined me. No event
or person does this. I define me. I decide who
I am, and I decide how I'm going to behave,
(53:43):
and I choose to do better, to look more carefully,
to trudge deeper, to think about other people's pasts, and
not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than
I would. To understand my limitations and my shortcomings. That
is my growth. I decide to be better. We all
can be better. Thank you guys, Thank you New York
(54:05):
City for coming out, and thank you to Natasha Leon
for your very professional Did you enjoy that episode, Brandon,
You're not gonna like all the complience, but I like that.
The tour has been a mix of like social issues
and comedy. Yeah, and while listeners are listening, I mean,
(54:25):
you know, we're trying to have as little repetition as possible,
which is hard because we're covering the same topics, but
we're managing to do it. So thank you for bearing
with us on that front. If you hear like a
theme or topic more than once, you know, stuck on it.
Speaking of social issues, there are a couple of things
that you might want people to check in on, like
you're countable. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I have Accountable page,
which kind of puts up articles of things that are
(54:47):
happening and ways to kind of help or get involved
with causes that you care about. Um, and I've joined
I'm still partners with Emily's List, so I if you
follow me on Twitter, if you're looking for candid, it's
always promoting Emily's list. You should follow Emily's list too,
because they always are looking for progressive women to run
(55:08):
all across the country and they keep you a prize
of all the exciting women that come into the field
and people who run for the very first time. You
know to two people have rand before anyway, So Emily's
list is good. I have accountable page and and I'm
coming to Nashville, New Orleans, New Nashville Friday night and
New Orleans Saturday night and you can get your tickets
(55:28):
at live nation dot com. And then I'm coming to
Australian in October and New Zealand. I'm coming to Auckland,
New Zealand October nine, and I will be adding more dates.
Canadian dates are coming. I just I'm trying to get
my schedule. And uh yeah, thank you guys for listening.
And Brandon, thank you for being so um o god.
(55:48):
What is the word? Okay? Thank you. Tune in next
week when we find out the word to describe Brandon
life will be the Death of Me. As a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
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