July 4, 2019 • 51 mins
Chelsea is joined by Sean Hayes live in Chicago for a second show where they discuss having a complicated family, trust issues and a hysterical story about chocolate cake.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
Death of Me a production of I Heart Radio. There
are many things dogs can do to make you feel
like a better human being, like run toward you. For
the record, I'm not one of those people who cares
more about animals than I do about humans, but I
am someone who knows that loving a dog makes you
(00:23):
a kinder and fuller person. I don't have such luck
with babies, and the feeling is fucking mutual. Fucking fuck babies.
So when I realized dogs were receptive to me, I
returned the favor. My obsession with chow chow mixes came
(00:46):
alive only when I rescued Chunk and was told he
was a chow mix. After six years, I decided it
was time for Chunk to have a sibling. And if
Chunk was my first born, and then Tammy was the
step daughter that I loved almost more than my own blood.
Tammy was a tramp, and that's what I respected about
her the most. First of all, she had was a
(01:09):
child mix, and she had the purple tongue to prove it. Second,
everything about her Squeam Guadalajara. She looked like she had
survived more than one street fight, and possibly one with
an animal that wasn't even a dog. She had one
dead ear alopecia on her ass, a very scantily clad tail,
and a gate that hinted she had withstood hip replacement surgery.
(01:32):
Tammy was essentially a builder bear, and I knew that
was some maternal attention from my cleaning ladies and some
serious nutrition also from the cleaning ladies. I could turn
that gate into a fucking swagger. She was exactly the
type of dog who could pull off an ear piercing
(01:53):
We rescued Tammy from a facility in Long Beach, where,
for the record, my cousin Molly said the following, you
can't get that dog. She's the ugliest one here. I
didn't think she was ugly. I thought she gave new
meaning to the term underdog. There was nothing ugly about her. Scrappy, maybe,
like she could have been carrying a pocket knife. But
(02:15):
she needed me, and whatever her name would turn out
to be, Tammy, I needed her right back. Even though Molly,
my cousin, is twelve years younger than I am, she's
smarter and more capable than I'll ever be. But in
this particular instance, I knew I had the ability to
see what would be overlooked by most everybody else. That's
the great thing about Molly. She knows I'm right about
(02:36):
the things that get me in the gut. If I
want to give a stranger ten thous dollars and she
thinks they're going to spend it on crack, just because
I met that person in a correcton, I will defer
to Molly. She'll say something along the lines of let's
sleep on that, and if you still feel that way
in the morning, then we'll do it and you'll have
my full support. That means no, But in this instance,
(03:00):
Molly knew I meant business. I was rescuing Tammy and
was going to give her what she needed, some real
life pampering, someone to show her she was special. After all.
When I get dogs, they aren't just rescued by me.
They're getting the love and attention of my cleaning ladies,
my assistance, my dog walker, and everyone else who either
works at my house or meanders through it on a
regular basis. Older dogs are special because they have had
(03:24):
more rejection, their hope is gone, and even though no
one seems to know exactly how old. Any fucking rescue
dog is. When you would adopt an older dog, you
were cramming their last years with love and giving them
the security that comes with knowing that they have a home.
I've always believed you can erase bad memories with twice
(03:44):
as many good ones. Maybe a racism the right word.
Maybe dim is a better word. After the people at
the rescue center cleaned up Tammy, the two women handling
her adoption told me that she could be a really
beat up four year old, or she could be twelve yea,
(04:07):
and then I should ask my vet for clarification when
she had her first check up. When the rescue presented
Tammy dusk, they had placed a little pink bow in
each ear, the full bodied ear and the limp one.
She looked like a harlot. Once we got her in
the car on her way home, we removed those embarrassing
gender labels from her ears and got down to business.
(04:31):
I looked at Molly, I said, I feel like we
have two names to choose from, Bernice or Tammy. I'm
always like or Destiny. Destiny is totally underused. The first
night I had Tammy home, I had some people over
for dinner. I picked her up and I put her
in my lap facing me, leaving both of her curiously
stiff front paws positioned around each of my hips like Shakira.
(04:57):
My best friend Mary craned her head over the at
her table, amazed and said, is she hugging you right now?
I've never seen her dog do that? Chelsea's making her
Molly told Mary, I wasn't making Tammy do anything. I
was showing her the seating options available to her, and
one option was on my lap, face forward. Chunk, my
(05:19):
older dog would never sit on my lap. Hey, he
was just too big and be he valued his personal space.
I had finally found a dog who did it. Dammy's
teeth looked like she was from London, so when Tanner,
(05:43):
an assistant of mine, took her to her first bet
appointment for a once over, the nurse called and told
me she may need to have all of her teeth removed.
I said, why would that be necessary? All of her
teeth you have to take out and she goes well
because they could all be infected. I said, isn't there
a way to tell which one to are infected and
which ones aren't before you fucking take them all how
(06:04):
will she eat with no teeth? And then she said, well,
we won't take out any of the teeth that aren't infected.
I was like, am I talking to a real life
animal on the phone? What are you saying? Fucking vets?
I mean, I know you mean well, but I need
a straight fucking answer. I was confused by this exchange.
(06:25):
I said, I don't want any teeth that aren't infected
to be removed. Are we clear? Otherwise I'll just take
her to my own dentist on Monday. Poor Tammy. I
wasn't about to let her move into bell Air with
no teeth. Before the dog nurse hung up, I asked
if they had been able to decipher Tammy's age from
her teeth state of affairs. She could be anywhere from
(06:50):
five to twelve. It's hard to say, I said, it
is hard to say. I guess. Is it written somewhere
in the Journal of sin for Dogs to just say
that all rescue dogs are between the ages of four
and twelve? How can it be that a swab of
saliva can determine a dog's genetic heritage? Yet there isn't
(07:11):
a more precise way to determine the age of a
dog at this juncture in modern society, it's a real question.
Tammy would allow me to do almost anything to her body,
and I needed to her to know that she was
going to get so tackled with love that her past
would become a distant memory, replaced by dogging, massages, acupuncture,
(07:32):
and baton twirling. She would let out a low rumble growl,
and I would go in closer, waiting for her to
bite my face off. But she never once bit me.
She bit my sister Shoshanna, and she deserved it. Tammy
knew I was her captor, and that was in her
best interest to just lean in and accept my devotion.
Once I was done showering her with my Harvey Weinstein
(07:55):
affection that's not in the book, that is not in
the book, I added that your guys are sick. You're sick,
ohs all of you. I'm not sucking my dog. Okay.
Once I was done showering her with affection, she'd give
(08:16):
me a final look to confirm that I was done
molesting her, and then scurry off the bed and down
her doggy steps intoto, the doggy bed that she'd usurped
from Chunk one. It's comfortably inside her new bed. She
let out a groan that implied, thank God, that's over her.
I couldn't keep my hands off Tammy. I'd put her
in a seat belt in my lap on the way
(08:36):
to work when I knew she'd be much happier sitting
in the backseat like a normal dog, with her limbs
free and one of her dead ear out the window.
I can be an effusive lover, and after our initial
trial period together, she just learned to deal with my advances.
She was just big enough for it to be imprudent
(08:56):
to pick her up, but that didn't stop me either.
She would immediately stiffen up with her eggs outstretched as
if she were standing, making her look like a stuffed dog.
She was like a taxidermist dream chunk was slim, But
I'm not sure how to describe Tammy's body. It seemed
possible that some of her organs had shifted during one
of her bar fights and then solidified. Her bald spots
(09:23):
filled out within weeks, and her rat like tail became
full bodied. Within her first month at home. She looked
like an ad for nutrition. She even started following me
on stage during the interview segment of my Netflix show,
and would sometimes pop herself up on the little table
between the guests and me. She didn't give a shit
about what anybody thought about her. She just wanted to
make sure we were in the same room, nothing more,
(09:44):
nothing less. She would have been fine if I never
pampered or even pet her, But like most rescue dogs,
if I walked out of the room, she'd follow me.
If I walked into a bathroom, she would open the
door with her nose and stare at me until I
was done. Chuck did the same thing, but it was
much more needy. He'd open the bathroom door. If we
were at work, he'd slide head first under the bathroom
(10:05):
stall and then avoid eye contact with me. I'm like,
oh my god, so embarrassing for both of us. Where
Chunk was refined, Tammy was street. She sits out in
front of the toilet, face to face, as if to say, bitch,
you need me more than I need you. I'm just
keeping an eye on things. Tammy was more like a
(10:28):
security guard. She wasn't quite a spry as Chunk, so
I didn't bring her on trips with me because she
couldn't hop on and off planes. And helicopters, but she
was mentally fit, so there was backlash. That's what led
me to get a third dog. I thought another dog
would help distract Tammy from the fact that Chunk and
I were traveling around the world globetrotting. I didn't want
her to feel excluded, since she was smart enough to
(10:49):
hold a grudge. My friend Kate, who loves animals more
than people. You know the person I'm talking about. Everyone
has one in their life. That's her. She texted me
a picture of a dog that was at a rescue
in Westwood with a message that read, this guy needs
a home and he's part chow chow. This is what
people do when they want me to rescue a dog.
They lie to me and say he's part chow chow.
(11:12):
I went down to the rescue in Westwood and I
picked up our new dog. The girls working there told
me he could be anywhere between four and twelve. I
brought our new family member home and decided his name
would be John. He was sweet and goofy and was
(11:33):
definitely a big puppy. I figured he's probably too. That night,
in an effort to not overthink assimilating my new brood,
I put all three dogs in my bedroom and popped
an edible marijuana keeps families together. I was awakened by
(11:53):
a low rumble that rose to a roar, and then
to something that sounded like there was a werewolf nearby.
When I flipped lights on, Tammy's midsize, corpulent body had
somehow wrapped itself around John's like a contortionist. Thank God
for instinct, because I'm scared to think what I would
have done had I given it any thought. I screamed no,
and then ripped Tammy off of him. Her eyes were
red and she looked like she was wearing red lipstick
(12:15):
to I tossed her tour in my closet. John was
a bigger dog and stronger than I thought, and I
couldn't hold him back from barreling toward her. So I
dove right in the middle of them, grabbed Tammy, pushed
her head first into my closet, and shut the door.
Then I scurried at my feet in my staples sleep
where a bra and a thong, and I fended off John.
It was growling with his nose to the closet. Once
(12:35):
I got him outside my room and closed the door,
I sat down on my bed and thought I was
going into cardiac arrest. I was gasping for bread as
I tried to open my eyes and figure out what
to do next. I was scared of both dogs at
that point. I didn't know what they were capable of.
After seeing Tammy basically shape shift herself into an anaconda.
(12:56):
When I moved my hand in my chest to try
to sell soothe, I realized my bra had been torn
open and one of my breasts had been set loose
and was bleeding. I was so confused and so high.
I was like what. I looked over at Chunk and
he had wrapped himself up in the drapes. I don't
(13:20):
want to call Chunk a pussy, and I don't want
to call Tammy a cunt, but I'm just throwing those
two words out there. I toll. I called Molly and
I told her I was living with a real life Kujo.
And even though I knew it was Tammy's fault, I
was scared to open the door and check on John.
John was an odd man outcome. Get John. It was
(13:43):
twelve thirty am, and while I waited for the coast
to be clear, I texted my assistant Brandon to scan
the security cameras in the morning and save whatever footage
had just been captured for the next time. My friends
and I did mushrooms. John never made the cut because
Tammy took him to task. Chunk knew better than to
(14:03):
fight over territory he'd conquered long ago. He knew he
belonged with me, but he understood there would be random
dogs coming in and out of our lives, just the
way people did. Tammy was with me for three years
and died shortly after the inauguration. She felt the same
way I did about Donald Trump. Molly and I were
(14:24):
in South Africa at the time, and I got the
call while Molly was out getting gifts for her brothers
and sisters. She came back to the hotel room where
I was sitting in a chair and feeling guilty about
traveling so much and not spending more time at home
with the dogs. I rescued. You gave her a good life, Chelse,
Molly said, hugging me. No one else would have ever
adopted that dog. And do you know how much shorter
her life would have been if you'd been home more.
(14:52):
After Tammy died, I had some friends over for a
small memorial service at my house, where we watched the
video footage from my security cameras the night of the attack.
It was the first time I had seen the crime scene,
and Brandon had scored it to the theme song of Rocky.
(15:14):
In it, you can see Tammy actually airborne after I
got her off of John. The four teeth that I
had campaigned to keep ended up biting me right in
the tip. That's called getting titty fucked. Okay. If I
(15:37):
hadn't busted my nut with my topless photo rampage years before,
this video would have been released on all of my
social media platforms on a loop. Watching the video of
Tamy alone pacing in my closet like a large brown
bear reminded me what a force of nature she was.
She was an underdog and a badass. She was a fighter,
and even though I don't spend much time looking in
(15:58):
the rear view mirror, my biggest regret is not ever
getting her ears pierced. Thank you. Okay, We're gonna take
a quick break and we'll be right back. Okay, I'm
gonna bring out a friend of mine who's a very
good friend of mine. Actually, I only discovered that minutes ago.
(16:23):
He's a Chicago native and he you may recognize him
for a show he's been on for seventy four years.
It's called Friends. I'm just kidding. It's called Will and Grace.
Please welcome Sean. Hey, Hey, guys, how are you? Um?
(17:05):
I'm so happy to wait wait wait, you brought this
up a couple of times, so I just want to
make sure we're all on the same page. Here, would
you is? What is the amount of money that you
would agree to have sex with another person for? Okay,
because I feel like you have a price. Yes, Well,
everybody has a number. Everybody hasn't know that I do.
I don't. I'm not in a like no, no, everybody
has a number. But I really believe someone said, hey,
here's fifty million dollars. I'm from Saudi Arabia. Can you
(17:28):
blow me? I'd be like, I can't. No, you could, Yeah,
is the answer. Anybody could. Yeah. So there's this thing
called Yeah, there's this thing called bait bus dot com.
Anybody Okay, what do you mean bait? Like the A
I T B A I T bait bus dot com
(17:49):
and on it. Um, it's like this, I don't know
if it's still up and running. Becau this gay bullshit website,
and but when on it, it's this bus that drives
around and this girl sticks her tits out and they
find us drake guy on the street and they're like hey.
She's like, hey, you want to blow a job? And
he's like yeah. So he gets on the bus and
he sits there and she's blowing him, and then she's like,
can I blindfold you? And he's like yeah, So they
(18:10):
blindfold him, and this gay guy comes around and takes
her place, right, takes her place and she started and
he starts blowing him, and eventually he picks the thing up,
and every guy has the same the rat reaction right there,
like get the fook off with me? What the is
going on? And then after he calmed down and everybody's
calmed down, they go, okay, would you would you do
it for two bucks? He's like no, I'm not gonna
let you blow me for you know, blow me for
(18:31):
two bucks? And they're like what about He's like okay, right,
so everybody has a fucking price. I like the I
like the part of that story. Everybody calms down, everybody
calls down and then they have an organized conversation. We're
giving a blowjob, you blow job from a man. Would
you like to move forward with that? Yeah? Yeah, it's
(18:55):
the negotiations like a game show. We should do a
game show. It's called bait bu um. That's not that
doesn't like it's hard to understand what you're saying when
you say bait bus because I thought you said date bus,
and then I thought you said rape bus. Okay, but
here's this. But here's the thing. You're looking at me
and I'm saying bait. So why is it so hard
to understand? You know what I'm saying? All right, let's
(19:18):
ask questions. You know what we should do? Maybe after
unless you hate this, I just thought of this. We
can take questions from the audience, like Carol Burnett, we
don't have it. I would love to, but we don't.
I don't know if we haven't set up you guys,
Can we set up it out and we'll repeat it? Okay? Yeah,
we can probably do that when we have ten minutes left.
All we'll do questions and somebody has them. You can
get up and fashion not right now, great way to
(19:41):
start the show. Show on your fucking asshole. I wanted
to have any questions before we get started. Wait, hold
on a second, what are your questions so we can
direct the way we're gonna behave I mean or like
a bone or killer? No, I just for everybody. Let's
(20:04):
take a moment of silence, everyone out in a journal,
and then we'll read them from the stage at the end. Cheers, God,
cheers again. This is wait wait, wait, this is this
is what we do at work. Say that again. Well, wait,
if we're going to do something, let them take their
phones out and do a boomerang or a fun picture. Okay, okay, right, wait,
(20:29):
let everybody get their phones and then put them away
and keep them out for keeping killer. No, I want
to listen. Just shut the funk up and follow my lead. Okay, ready, one, two, three? Cheers. Okay.
Now we'll put our phones away so we can all
enjoy ourselves. Okay, So let's talk about the book for
(20:50):
a second, and it'll take us off into worlds we
never knew existed. Okay, okay, ready, So, because what if
we find out by the end of this interview that
I'm gay and you're straight. That would be exciting for
so many ladies. What do you mean by the end
of the interview? Um, no, we're gonna is it? Okay?
If I burp? Yes, wait, there we go. I know
(21:15):
I'm burping, particula. It's really hard to have a hot
dog and then come back. You never had las until
in between shows. Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, I don't
know how that could be bad. A hot dog with
a bunch of ship on it, you know what I mean.
But it's it's a it's a dog, it's everything. And
let me And then I had two pieces of chocolate
(21:35):
cake because that daddy's not fat enough. Do you want
some chocolate cake? I love some? Okay, So here we go.
Did I ever tell you my chocolate cake story? Oh?
My god? Here okay. So I had a boyfriend who
was annoying me and he had diarrhea. We were on
vacation for a weekend. Ted Harbert you know him right,
(21:58):
you're saying his name, by the way, who used to
be my boss? Yeah? Yeah, he used to be my
boss too, I bet so imagine doing this to your boss.
That's what makes a story even better. I never thought
about it from that aspect. So he like he was
a very needy boyfriend. He I dated him when I
was like when I started like, uh my show, I
(22:19):
was twenty seven, I started dating him like and I
stayed with him until I was thirty two. He was like,
you know, he was twenty years older than me, and
I was taken. He was like the boss of the company.
And every time he'd come down the show, I was like, oh,
I want to be with him, and then I was yeah,
I was cute. And then I was with him and
I was like, I gotta get out of here. So
but not until I deal at e is up. I
(22:45):
was like, dad at that sign a cheers, Oh my god,
Will and Grace and Grace. So we're in Laguna Beach
or one of those white places you go for a
weekend when you already live in l A and you're
on a vacation all the time. Where should I go
to him? Beach? You're a beach and so he was like, hey,
(23:08):
we were at the pool. We're lying out by the
pool and he's like, hey, do I have diarrhea? Let's
go upstairs. You're like romantic. I was like, why do
I have to go with you for that diarrhea? I
don't want to go upstairs. I'm at the pool. You're
the one who has diarrhea. Don't include me in this,
that's your situation. Why are we were not a couple
in everything? And he's like, just come up with me,
(23:31):
and I was too tired to argue, and I finally
I went up there. So he goes and like fulminates
in the bathroom. It's like, you know, and I'm I'm
sitting in the bed thinking about how ridiculous it is
that a man expects us to just sit around while
they shipped themselves in the next room. I was like,
this is so disrespectful, Like I might now with no
(23:51):
value that I have to listen to this squirt ship
over there. So we had it was it was his
birthday the night before, and so we had over chocolate
cake and he was in the bathroom for so long,
and you know, I was getting so annoyed and that
my imagination got the best of me, and so I
took the chocolate cake and I was like, let me
just spread some on the sheets and see if he
(24:15):
comes out, like if he's confused about you know, because
we've gotten up first thing in the morning, we're hungover
and went down to the pool. Never you know, came
back to the room. I'm like, it's gonna spread this
along the sheets and just see. And then I put
a little bit on the headboard and a little bit
on the wall, like like you guys were having like
crazy monkey sex. It's and I was like, and he
(24:36):
comes out of the bathroom and I'm just like lying there,
I'm like, are you feeling better? And then I just
rolled over casual. I was like, I was like, ted,
you should have been and his look like he didn't
even think about whether he did or not. He assumed
that yes he did. And he's looking at this chocolate
(24:58):
cake that I've run in the no look away look
away right now, and I was like, oh, no, you didn't.
You did this. And then I looked up at the
wall like liver, and he's rolling up the sheets and
he's like, we gotta go, we gotta check out. We're
gonna just take the sheets and put him in the draw.
(25:18):
And so at some point during this evil charade, I
was laughing. I was trying to pretend I was crying
because I was laughing so hard. When he started when
he believed me, I didn't think there was a chance
that he would believe he shot the bed and it
looked like chocolate frostering. I mean, what an idiot, and
you're you're saying it didn't work out, and so he
(25:41):
looks and at one point I was laughing so hard
I had to turn away, you know, and I just protesting.
I'm so sad this happened to you. And he's like
what And then he saw me kind of laugh He's like, who, wha, wha,
what are you doing. I'm like, nothing, nothing. You didn't
you didn't ship the bed. It's not chocolate you should
(26:02):
have eaten. At first, you're like, oh my god, you
ship Wait a minute, you shipped the beds? Because that's
what's what do you do when you don't know the
difference between ship or chocolate taste? Very caddyshack. I saw
that twice, and I saw Porkies, so don't even get
me started. That is the best movie on the planet,
(26:23):
Porkies and then Porky's Revenge, So um, let's see. Okay,
So in the book, we we figured I was just no,
I was just talking to another person. I was going
to keep going. I was gonna keep going because of
the pressure you put on me to fly out. Here
and sit here and ask you questions. So, uh so
(26:45):
in the book, you know, Chelsea and I have Well,
I discovered after reading the book how fantastic it was
that we have many many, many things in common. Were
extremely similar in many many ways. We're both the youngest
of five kids. We both you know, dysfunctional families. We
both suffer from the same Why was your family dysunctional? Like?
What was the what was the bane of your just? Well,
(27:07):
my father was an alcoholic. He left when I was
five years old. My mom raised five kids by herself,
and so we kind of parented ourselves and uh we
although your dad was wasn't an alcoholic, No he should.
That would have helped. Yeah, it's like Trump, It's like,
I have a fucking drink please, right right, You're like,
I took that one over for you. Yeah, my dad.
(27:28):
I had this like love hate hate relationship with my
dad through adolescence and once I came back around to
my parents, once I had moved to California and I
was able to come back and enjoy them for like actually,
like you know, adulthood, I hated them so much growing up.
I was like, you guys are the worst. Look how
you dress your fucking cars? Like they had no organization,
They didn't know where I went to school. I was like,
(27:48):
what I mean? I registered myself for school when I
was in sixth grade. And then I was like, what
I do that? I totally did that. By the way,
I shipped myself in school. Yeah, I keep going, I said,
I read just stirred myself from school for school. So
that's a different story. Okay, Well to me, it's the same.
(28:09):
Keep going. It's fascinating. But I like that. You heard
I ship myself. By the way, when you talk, that's
all I hear. Okay, keep going. I don't know what
I was even saying. You registered your dad was you know, yeah,
I know what I was talking about. So I'll go
back to my so my mom. Okay, so my mom
(28:30):
raised five kids by herself, and when she was two
years old, she had cancer, thank you, and she um.
So when she was two years old, they had to
remove my mom's eye, right, and as she grew up
and she you know, she grows, she had to have
multiple surgeries on her eye. Anyway, So then when she
got older and she had five kids, and we never
ever talked about it because of her Irish Catholic. Right,
you don't talk about any problems, y'all like cover it
(28:51):
with laughter, and we're happy. And we can't even pay
our rents, right and so, and the heats turned off
in the winter in Chicago, and we're like, this is
so and so. So she had an extra eye because
she had a glass eye, like Sandy Duncan. She had
an extra sent right, she had an extra eye up
in her drawer, up in her back in her bedroom. Right,
(29:12):
So we would have friends come over, right, we would
holding out a glass eyes like calling out the science hoologist. Yeah. Absolutely,
I should have put it on a ring, like on
a necklace and just worn it around. But anyway, so
she we had she had an extra eye. And we
went upstairs when she wasn't around when she was out bowling.
Good luck mom bowling and one I like every every
(29:33):
bowl was a spare um. But anyway, so um so
she so friends would come over and we'd take the
eye from upstairs and they knock on the door and
there would be a chain on the door and we
open it up, and you go, who's there with the eye?
(30:00):
I have to freak the fuck hit. I would freak
couple of kids out and they just ran home. So
did she have one eye or multiple eyes? She had
one eye and I'm not even kidding she would she
had one ever since I was born. She would sleep
like this, I'm not even kidding. She would sleep like
this like that and be like mom, mom, Mom, mom,
(30:22):
m mom. Like I didn't know if she was sleeping
or awake or what. And then she'd be and then
she'd wake up. She'd like this, she'd be like this,
and she'd wake up roun and I go, I'm thirsty,
and she's like she'd be like really, and then go
(30:42):
back to sleep. I like that. You wake your mom
with one eye up because you're thirsty, Go get your
own vodka. Right. But my, that was my mom. She
was She was fantastic and she then she um. So
your mom was like a president. I mean, even though
she was away all the time and she worked all
the time, she was president when she was home. Yeah. Yeah,
I felt the love. I felt very cared for. She
(31:03):
was the best mom in the whole wide world. She
started a food bank for the poor and the homeless
when she was, you know, very young, and and she
did she could. She had an option to get a
job as like a high paying secretary or start a
food bank with a nun. And I was like, take
the fucking high paying job. But she no, I'm kidding.
But she was like a saint. And she did this
(31:23):
thing and she it's called the Northern Illinois Food Bank.
It's part of the Second Harvest. Yeah. So she she
doesn't get a lot of credits. She started that whole thing,
and so um she uh. Then she died last year
from Alzheimer's. Thank you, thank you. Yes, I say that
for the same reason your dad. When your dad passed away,
(31:44):
it's like you but I was you were so then
you were relieved a bit. Yes, absolutely, so was she.
I'm sure. And so now you have to joke about it,
because if you don't laugh about it, you crying. I
was in therapy for a year or two years about
oh my god, am I being a good enough son
for my mom who has Alzheimer's trying to take care
of her? I don't know. And you cry every day
and you're like, oh my god, there you know, you're
(32:04):
more in the death of your mom's spirit before her body,
so you cry about that. There's two deaths with Alzheimer's.
There's the death of the person and the death of
the actual body. And so I was mourning my mom
dying all the time. And then once you get over that,
you realize you're caring for this person who you still
love but isn't necessarily still the same person you knew.
(32:25):
You start to find the humor and you start to laugh.
So I would go into her room and she would
there would be a giant turd in the toilet, and
I'd be like, Mom, what do you have to She
she goes, I don't know who did that. That is
somebody comes in. I'm I'm him to God, somebody came
in here and pooped in my toilet. It is They
(32:46):
are turred. It is not my turd. And I was like, okay,
well let's go come with me. We're gonna flush the
other person's turn down the toilet. So it's all hilarious.
It is funny, I mean, in those moments are funny,
like they are so heartbreaking. My mom was in hospice
for six or seven days, and my brothers and sisters
were all sleeping on those like little cots that they
pull in, and my mom was not conscious or with
(33:09):
it at all. She was just there to die and
they would just give her more fine and stop feeding her.
And you're so like, you know, you're just sitting there
like watching someone die. And we're lying on a cot
one night, and it was the night before my mom died,
and my brother Glenn, who's really sarcastic and perverted, was
lying next to me, and my sister Shoshana and my
brother Roy were on the cots across the room. And
(33:30):
he went and put his hand on mine. I go, stop,
what are you doing? And he goes, how long do
you think Roy and Shoshana I've been sleeping together? That's
really funny. And my sister summoned at a chair like
Clinty just so disgusting. But it's like in those moments
that's all you have to hold onto because if you're
(33:51):
not laughing, you're dying too. You know. You just want
to be some relief from the pain and from the exhaustion.
Because I think a lot of people, and I think
what you're saying is true. I think a lot of
people when they go through or they lose somebody, they're
so feel guilty for being it's no fun to see
someone die that's not how they want us to see
them either or remember them. It's worse for us. So
(34:13):
it is a relief when somebody who's suffering dies. It's
much different if somebody snatch out of your life. You know,
that sometimes can be unrecoverable. But I think when somebody
dies slowly, you know, when they finally go, you're like,
thank you. I mean, it's just selfish to be anything else.
I think people think be saying that is bad. It's like, no,
it's compassionate. Yeah, I think they'll too. My mom another
(34:36):
really fast one was I took her out for pizza
one night or her favorite pizza place, and I parked
the car and I we were waiting to cross the
busy street to get to the pizza place and start
of standing there waiting for the cars to clear before
we crossed, and I hit the lock button on the
car and it goes, and my mom thought it was
a car patch. She goes up yours, up yours? Like
(35:00):
who says up yours? Right? Who does? Say? Nobody? Yeah?
And one time there was the gas station was being uh,
you know, robbed up the street from us, and she goes,
did you hear there's a stick up at the gas station,
A stick up from the night from night, what are
you from? Spider Man? In my I was going to
(35:23):
tell you the story about my dad and vodka. So
my parents didn't drink, and so and my brothers and sisters.
I'm youngest of six, so when I grew up, my
brothers and sisters drink a little, but not like I
drank or drink and um. And so my father we
would fight, and you know, we hated each other. Fight
with my dad. I lived with my brother for a
year because I hated my dad so much. I just
(35:44):
thought he was like the devil. And he was a
used car dealer, so he was kind of a shyster
and a liar and you know, and so I just
was like, I hate you. And then finally I went
to move to California. I came back. I flew home
to New Jersey, and I drove to Martha's vineyard, the
five hour drive that we would go to the summer
house every year. That makes us sound like we were rich.
We weren't rich. I don't know how my dug at
that fucking house. So I come home one summer and
(36:07):
I he picked me up from the airport and we
stopped at one of those. We had to drive up
to Martha's Vinior to the ferry boat, and we stopped
at one of those, uh you know, McDonald's rest stops,
and he was him and my mom in this like
dirty gross caravan that they drove, this dodge gold caravan
with like McDonald's breakfast sandwich is stuck there from I
mean it was. My parents were just like not, I'm
(36:28):
up and up, you know, and I wanted to. I wanted.
I was like, I'm going to grow up and get
cleaning ladies, like this is mayhem, you know, so life
the first time I had any success, I'm like, I
need a landscaper and a cleaning lady. I don't want
any trouble and a nanny. I don't know for who
but me. Um and he we stopped. We stopped at McDonald's,
(36:50):
and I was grossed out that they were, you know,
because I moved to l A. I'm like, I don't
do that anymore. And my dad's like, oh, sweetie, really
you're not gonna have McDonald's because you've been living in
l A for two months. And we sat and I
was so annoyed and irritated. I was like grossed out
by them. You know, I was in that phase. I
was twenty two, maybe twenty one, and had been away
from them long enough to miss them, but not long
(37:12):
enough to still be annoyed by them. And I remember
we sat down to McDonald's and he took my egg
out of my McMuffin and separated the carbs from the protein,
and I look, I mean, that's the way of the
world's sister, And I was like I always been paying attention.
And then he took out like a cheap bottle of
vodka in a paper bag and put it on the
(37:33):
table and go, sweetie, if we know this whole time,
if we knew this whole time, all you needed was
a little vodka, we would have given it to you
when you were six, because like, this is your mood stabilizer.
We understand you now, right, So now you go, I'll
have the number three with vodka. Yeah, I finally. I
mean in that moment, obviously I wasn't gonna drink that
vodka because I didn't understand the brand. But I in
(37:57):
that moment, I was like, oh, I have parents. In
that ridiculous moment, I'm like they finally hear me and
see me and pay attention to me. So you talk
about in the book a lot of a lot of
the times it's hard to relate to your mom because
she was so sweet. She was she didn't have the
vim and vigor that you had and you wish she had,
And so was it hard to relate to her growing up? Yeah,
(38:18):
it was really My mom was really she was German,
but not like you know, archetypal or yeah, she wasn't
archetypal German. She was like, uh, sweet and like the
opposite of what I'm doing, you know, like shy and
demurror and later what Germans are known for rights sweet, unassuming,
(38:42):
um she and she was really quiet, and I was
so strong and fierce and like I thought that was
my thing, Like that was my personality, that was who
I was. I didn't think it was because of an
incident in my life. I didn't think because my brother
died when I was nine years old that I became
this person. I thought I was up born this way.
I'm a fighter, you know, I'm an independent woman. I
(39:04):
don't need a man, I don't need a baby, I
don't need anything. I'm gonna do this my way, and
I'm never going to rely on a human being in
my life again. Because my brother when I was nine
years old, said he would come back. He was going
on vacation and he'd come back to Martha's vineyard in
a week. And he never came back. He died. So you,
immediately at nine years old have trust issues. Yeah, immediately,
that is the blueprint for you as an adult, Like
(39:26):
you stopped growing at that age when you were that small,
I have the exact same thing. Yeah, I mean I
didn't have any family. Remember my dad leaving when I
was five? How did did he say goodbye? I remember
my dad coming. I remember him slamming uh the oven
door because he made something, just came home to eat
something to eat and didn't speak to anybody. And then
(39:47):
he was leaving the family, and my mom said, I
remember it so vividly. She said, aren't you even going
to say goodbye to your kids? And he literally went
and he turned to around and gave me like the
most idiotic club and then he left and I watched
him drive away, and I was like, I didn't know
(40:07):
what to do with that. I was five years old,
and but I remember it still vividly, and then it
sticks with you forever, and then you don't trust people,
and then, like we talked about before, you have trust
issues about like you test people. You test people for
the rest of your life, Like I'm going to test
you to see if you'll stick around and I can
trust you. Yeah, and if you and if I can
trust you, I'll find a reason not to trust you,
(40:29):
and then you'll be out anyway. That's right. And it's
a stupid, stupid cycle until you become aware of it.
And I am, which is in your book, Well, yeah,
identify it. Identify that your reaction to somebody is like, oh,
like my psychiatrist was like, I am, he has acronyms
for everything. I'm like, I'm going to shove an acronym
up your ass by the end of this. So it's
(40:50):
identification awareness modification. Because I have a problem with patients,
like I think people are stupid and I can't deal
with them, and everyone annoys me, and I'm in a
constant state of agitation. And I told him this, and
I said, I don't know everyone annoys me. I just
want everyone to shut the funk up. Okay, Well, this
(41:10):
sounds like a good time to take a break. Did
your experience with your parents growing up affect you not
wanting to have kids. Yeah, I mean I'm like, they
have six kids and they don't know what the funk
they're doing. So, like I, first of all growing up
in a big family. I don't know if you feel
this way. I think you do, but I would only
(41:34):
have six kids, like I would want a full house
because my brothers and sisters are the ones who kind
of raised me. And I think you feel that your
brothers and sisters, everybody was on their own, right, Yeah,
we kind of parented ourselves. Yeah, so I was parented
by my brothers and sisters, so I needed them. And
so I always like, if I'm gonna have one kid,
i'm gonna have six, and I don't want any. So
let's just get a dog, get a bunch of fake
(41:56):
chow chouse whose age I'll never know. I'm like, I
don't wonder where my dog died when he was four,
because he was seventeen. And you know, I wrote and
I go off on vets in this book, and in
like a jocular way, I'm not seriously like attacking them.
I think it's ethical and nice and moral that those
aren't the right words. But like they have a nice job.
(42:17):
That's good that they're a vet. But I really you
cannot get a straight answer from a veterinarian. There's never
any black or white. It's always like, well, you could
operate or you could not. And you're like, which one
do you suggest? It's really up to you. It's like,
we could give you a real medication or you could
take CBD. I'm like, do you have a preference. He's like, again,
(42:40):
your decision. I'm like, hey, buddy, I'm not a fucking vet.
You are. Me and Scotty, my husband, Scotty, we had
a couple of Austrian shepherds and one of them, his
name is Buzzy, and he started having camp. Well, he
started bleeding out of his nose, so like, oh my god,
we gotta rushian. I like the phrase started having cancer, right,
he started cancer starts totally. Really, I started having cancer
(43:01):
and then my life went to ship. I can't imagine why.
And so he started bleeding out of his nose and
we took him the same thing. The guys like, m M,
I don't know, he's probably maybe just got maybe got
a cut from the fence or something, It's like okay,
and then like three months later, a little part of
his nose was gone, and I was like, I don't.
(43:22):
I don't. I've seen pictures of dogs and I don't
think that's normal. So she, uh, what was they saying? Oh?
So then the cancer just completely started eating his nose away.
And then the doctor's like, well, you could do chemo
or you could not do chemo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
very vague, and like I don't like vague. I like, like,
you know, like I like data. I want science. I
don't want like obscure ship. I like, like, that's why
(43:45):
my therapist was so good, because he was talking about
brains and like in a scientific way, and he's like, oh,
the migdala hippocampus. I was like, yeah, yeah, I can
get on board with that, pretending like I wasn't. I
was there to learn when all I was there there
to test him out, to see if he was a
decent enough therapist that I could actually talk to, Like,
let's talk about your childhood. I was like, no, my
brother died, my mother died, my father will hopefully be
(44:06):
dead by the time this year is over. Because I
just kept living and living and living. It's yeah, yeah, relief.
I mean my dad I was. I mean, it's so
mean that we keep people alive like that, horribly, so disgraceful.
They don't feel dignified. Listen to this. I called some
place in Illinois. I was when I was in l A.
I called some place in Illinois and to find out
(44:28):
the laws about the right to die. You know those
to die right. You can do it in Oregon, you
can um California. Like, if you were diagnosed with a
determinal terminal disease, don't you want to be put down? Yes? Absolutely,
I do too, And I want to be put down
even if I'm diagnosed with like a mediocre disease like
I do. I'm fucking wiped out, you know what I mean, bronchitis,
(44:51):
I am out. Yeah, just put me down. And my
sister is like, we're gonna if you get cancer, God forbid,
we're gonna fight it. I'm like, what do you mean,
we so tros fuck you any anything. I don't want
to fight it. I just want to go. It's fair.
Most you said that you have patience problems too, Yeah,
(45:14):
like sitting through that story, my patience of that part
of that is in the book I Love No Wait,
but patients problems like and these are privileged problems. And
I'm aware of my privilege. Believe me. I just had
a documentary about it. I'm so embarrassed that I might
have to move and leave the country because of my privilege.
And what we don't realize that. Yeah, it's coming out
(45:37):
in the fall and it's called hello privilege. It's me
Chelsea um. But a lot of us don't really understand
the privilege we have when we're you know, white. You
don't get it because you don't see it. Like I
just thought. I thought for everything, and I worked really
hard in my life and I deserved it, like I did.
Never think, oh, wait, what would a girl of color
have done in my situation? Talking about drinking, being rewarded
(45:58):
for drug use and sleeping around like that just doesn't
That wouldn't have been the same thing. And so thinking
about that is important for all of us because it
is a different to be white in this country, in
the world. It's a completely different experience, and we don't
think about it enough. And the thing I learned from
therapy the most is to really understand other people's situations
(46:19):
and not think that your experience is the norm. Right,
do you feel like it's getting better, like the the
the handling of the balance of it, or do you
feel it's getting worse or where do you think it's at?
Because in Hollywood they're doing I think, a really really
great job about hiring women, women of color, um and
(46:40):
different minorities and what they called diverse. I'm just like,
can't they just be called human beings? Why does everybody
that's not white have to be diverse? Why they're just
as equal as anybody else. So I don't know. I mean,
it's a depressing conversation, but it's a necessary one. But
how do you think we're doing I think Hollywood is
ponying up because they have to, And fine, whatever the
(47:01):
reason is. However you get to the party, that's fine.
I think I don't care about people's motives as much
as I care about the action, which I think is important.
But I think it's more of a responsibility for the
people who will have privilege to wake the funk up
and understand that you have a responsibility to people who
don't have privilege and stick your neck out. Don't say
you're not getting involved, get involved. You have to get involved,
(47:23):
you know, like people fought for years and years for
us to have rights, for women to have rights, and
to not act out on behalf of another community that's
been marginalized, or your own community is disrespectful to every
single person before you. Yes, absolutely, Um, I think people
are willing and ready enable, Like people are galvanized now,
Like we were a little bit sleepy and people got comfortable,
(47:44):
myself included. I thought, oh, Barack Obama was the president,
racism is over. Hillary Clinton is going to be the
next president, so feminism is cool too, Like how I
can really party Before we get off, I want to
read a little passage. So these bracelets I'm wearing are
called they say they're not called anything that say I decide,
and their T shirts that say I decide. All the
proceeds go to l g B t Q I A sure,
(48:06):
which I believe should just be que It's too exhausting.
It is a lot of letters, but you know we're
just trying to respect it. You know me too, But
I am one and I just be cue. On the
(48:27):
subject of um, death and loss and grief, I think
everybody in this room has probably been affected by somebody
dying or well, yeah, you have been. And I didn't
take that issue seriously for a long time in my
life because I was successful. I had a great career,
I had everything. I had lots of success, and if
(48:47):
you define that by materialism, I had at all. And
I didn't ever think I had the right to be
upset about anything. And I didn't want to go to
therapy because I thought that was a narcissistic And so
when I finally was when I had to go to
their therapy because I was so angry about the election,
and my therapist explained to me why I was really angry. Um,
(49:07):
I kind of unlocked my brain for the first time
as an adult, and UM, I realized that I was
allowing my brother's death to define my entire existence. Karen,
do you know what page this is on that I'm
looking for? I have Sean's book. I forgot mine, and
it's where the wild things are. Okay, yeah, here it is.
(49:28):
You're gonna get up so you can look at my
ask Shawn, hold on, let me get my camel toe out.
I keep it's like my vagina is getting bigger. Hold on.
I didn't know then that my 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, my psychiatrist, who could help me process what
(49:50):
happened and turned 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 your pain. I was
in a place where my brother dying no longer how
to define my existence. It's part of who I am,
(50:11):
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 how
I'm going to behave and I choose to be better
to look at myself more carefully, to trudge deeper, to
think about other people's pasts, and not judge someone for
(50:34):
doing or handling something differently than I would, To understand
my limitations, my shortcomings. That is my growth edge. I
decide who I am. Thank you guys for coming to
the Late Show in Chicago, and thank you to my boyfriend. Okay,
We have added dates to my stand up tour. They
(50:54):
are available on Chelsea Handler dot com or live nation
dot com and the book is Life Will Be the
Death of Me. Thank you for listening. Brand Did you
have anything you'd like to add about I don't know
the LGBT. Oh, we should add that all of our
proceeds for the l g B t Q I a
true colors. We donated all of our T shirt and
bracelet proceeds from the first half of Life will Be
(51:15):
the Death of Me tour. What I do have something
to say? I finally made it out to a live
show and it was incredible. So anyone who has knock
gotten their tickets yet for any of the upcoming stand
up dates, good night, Thank you. Life will Be the
Death of Me as a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart 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. There
are many things dogs can do to make you feel
like a better human being, like run toward you. For
the record, I'm not one of those people who cares
more about animals than I do about humans, but I
am someone who knows that loving a dog makes you
(00:23):
a kinder and fuller person. I don't have such luck
with babies, and the feeling is fucking mutual. Fucking fuck babies.
So when I realized dogs were receptive to me, I
returned the favor. My obsession with chow chow mixes came
(00:46):
alive only when I rescued Chunk and was told he
was a chow mix. After six years, I decided it
was time for Chunk to have a sibling. And if
Chunk was my first born, and then Tammy was the
step daughter that I loved almost more than my own blood.
Tammy was a tramp, and that's what I respected about
her the most. First of all, she had was a
(01:09):
child mix, and she had the purple tongue to prove it. Second,
everything about her Squeam Guadalajara. She looked like she had
survived more than one street fight, and possibly one with
an animal that wasn't even a dog. She had one
dead ear alopecia on her ass, a very scantily clad tail,
and a gate that hinted she had withstood hip replacement surgery.
(01:32):
Tammy was essentially a builder bear, and I knew that
was some maternal attention from my cleaning ladies and some
serious nutrition also from the cleaning ladies. I could turn
that gate into a fucking swagger. She was exactly the
type of dog who could pull off an ear piercing
(01:53):
We rescued Tammy from a facility in Long Beach, where,
for the record, my cousin Molly said the following, you
can't get that dog. She's the ugliest one here. I
didn't think she was ugly. I thought she gave new
meaning to the term underdog. There was nothing ugly about her. Scrappy, maybe,
like she could have been carrying a pocket knife. But
(02:15):
she needed me, and whatever her name would turn out
to be, Tammy, I needed her right back. Even though Molly,
my cousin, is twelve years younger than I am, she's
smarter and more capable than I'll ever be. But in
this particular instance, I knew I had the ability to
see what would be overlooked by most everybody else. That's
the great thing about Molly. She knows I'm right about
(02:36):
the things that get me in the gut. If I
want to give a stranger ten thous dollars and she
thinks they're going to spend it on crack, just because
I met that person in a correcton, I will defer
to Molly. She'll say something along the lines of let's
sleep on that, and if you still feel that way
in the morning, then we'll do it and you'll have
my full support. That means no, But in this instance,
(03:00):
Molly knew I meant business. I was rescuing Tammy and
was going to give her what she needed, some real
life pampering, someone to show her she was special. After all.
When I get dogs, they aren't just rescued by me.
They're getting the love and attention of my cleaning ladies,
my assistance, my dog walker, and everyone else who either
works at my house or meanders through it on a
regular basis. Older dogs are special because they have had
(03:24):
more rejection, their hope is gone, and even though no
one seems to know exactly how old. Any fucking rescue
dog is. When you would adopt an older dog, you
were cramming their last years with love and giving them
the security that comes with knowing that they have a home.
I've always believed you can erase bad memories with twice
(03:44):
as many good ones. Maybe a racism the right word.
Maybe dim is a better word. After the people at
the rescue center cleaned up Tammy, the two women handling
her adoption told me that she could be a really
beat up four year old, or she could be twelve yea,
(04:07):
and then I should ask my vet for clarification when
she had her first check up. When the rescue presented
Tammy dusk, they had placed a little pink bow in
each ear, the full bodied ear and the limp one.
She looked like a harlot. Once we got her in
the car on her way home, we removed those embarrassing
gender labels from her ears and got down to business.
(04:31):
I looked at Molly, I said, I feel like we
have two names to choose from, Bernice or Tammy. I'm
always like or Destiny. Destiny is totally underused. The first
night I had Tammy home, I had some people over
for dinner. I picked her up and I put her
in my lap facing me, leaving both of her curiously
stiff front paws positioned around each of my hips like Shakira.
(04:57):
My best friend Mary craned her head over the at
her table, amazed and said, is she hugging you right now?
I've never seen her dog do that? Chelsea's making her
Molly told Mary, I wasn't making Tammy do anything. I
was showing her the seating options available to her, and
one option was on my lap, face forward. Chunk, my
(05:19):
older dog would never sit on my lap. Hey, he
was just too big and be he valued his personal space.
I had finally found a dog who did it. Dammy's
teeth looked like she was from London, so when Tanner,
(05:43):
an assistant of mine, took her to her first bet
appointment for a once over, the nurse called and told
me she may need to have all of her teeth removed.
I said, why would that be necessary? All of her
teeth you have to take out and she goes well
because they could all be infected. I said, isn't there
a way to tell which one to are infected and
which ones aren't before you fucking take them all how
(06:04):
will she eat with no teeth? And then she said, well,
we won't take out any of the teeth that aren't infected.
I was like, am I talking to a real life
animal on the phone? What are you saying? Fucking vets?
I mean, I know you mean well, but I need
a straight fucking answer. I was confused by this exchange.
(06:25):
I said, I don't want any teeth that aren't infected
to be removed. Are we clear? Otherwise I'll just take
her to my own dentist on Monday. Poor Tammy. I
wasn't about to let her move into bell Air with
no teeth. Before the dog nurse hung up, I asked
if they had been able to decipher Tammy's age from
her teeth state of affairs. She could be anywhere from
(06:50):
five to twelve. It's hard to say, I said, it
is hard to say. I guess. Is it written somewhere
in the Journal of sin for Dogs to just say
that all rescue dogs are between the ages of four
and twelve? How can it be that a swab of
saliva can determine a dog's genetic heritage? Yet there isn't
(07:11):
a more precise way to determine the age of a
dog at this juncture in modern society, it's a real question.
Tammy would allow me to do almost anything to her body,
and I needed to her to know that she was
going to get so tackled with love that her past
would become a distant memory, replaced by dogging, massages, acupuncture,
(07:32):
and baton twirling. She would let out a low rumble growl,
and I would go in closer, waiting for her to
bite my face off. But she never once bit me.
She bit my sister Shoshanna, and she deserved it. Tammy
knew I was her captor, and that was in her
best interest to just lean in and accept my devotion.
Once I was done showering her with my Harvey Weinstein
(07:55):
affection that's not in the book, that is not in
the book, I added that your guys are sick. You're sick,
ohs all of you. I'm not sucking my dog. Okay.
Once I was done showering her with affection, she'd give
(08:16):
me a final look to confirm that I was done
molesting her, and then scurry off the bed and down
her doggy steps intoto, the doggy bed that she'd usurped
from Chunk one. It's comfortably inside her new bed. She
let out a groan that implied, thank God, that's over her.
I couldn't keep my hands off Tammy. I'd put her
in a seat belt in my lap on the way
(08:36):
to work when I knew she'd be much happier sitting
in the backseat like a normal dog, with her limbs
free and one of her dead ear out the window.
I can be an effusive lover, and after our initial
trial period together, she just learned to deal with my advances.
She was just big enough for it to be imprudent
(08:56):
to pick her up, but that didn't stop me either.
She would immediately stiffen up with her eggs outstretched as
if she were standing, making her look like a stuffed dog.
She was like a taxidermist dream chunk was slim, But
I'm not sure how to describe Tammy's body. It seemed
possible that some of her organs had shifted during one
of her bar fights and then solidified. Her bald spots
(09:23):
filled out within weeks, and her rat like tail became
full bodied. Within her first month at home. She looked
like an ad for nutrition. She even started following me
on stage during the interview segment of my Netflix show,
and would sometimes pop herself up on the little table
between the guests and me. She didn't give a shit
about what anybody thought about her. She just wanted to
make sure we were in the same room, nothing more,
(09:44):
nothing less. She would have been fine if I never
pampered or even pet her, But like most rescue dogs,
if I walked out of the room, she'd follow me.
If I walked into a bathroom, she would open the
door with her nose and stare at me until I
was done. Chuck did the same thing, but it was
much more needy. He'd open the bathroom door. If we
were at work, he'd slide head first under the bathroom
(10:05):
stall and then avoid eye contact with me. I'm like,
oh my god, so embarrassing for both of us. Where
Chunk was refined, Tammy was street. She sits out in
front of the toilet, face to face, as if to say, bitch,
you need me more than I need you. I'm just
keeping an eye on things. Tammy was more like a
(10:28):
security guard. She wasn't quite a spry as Chunk, so
I didn't bring her on trips with me because she
couldn't hop on and off planes. And helicopters, but she
was mentally fit, so there was backlash. That's what led
me to get a third dog. I thought another dog
would help distract Tammy from the fact that Chunk and
I were traveling around the world globetrotting. I didn't want
her to feel excluded, since she was smart enough to
(10:49):
hold a grudge. My friend Kate, who loves animals more
than people. You know the person I'm talking about. Everyone
has one in their life. That's her. She texted me
a picture of a dog that was at a rescue
in Westwood with a message that read, this guy needs
a home and he's part chow chow. This is what
people do when they want me to rescue a dog.
They lie to me and say he's part chow chow.
(11:12):
I went down to the rescue in Westwood and I
picked up our new dog. The girls working there told
me he could be anywhere between four and twelve. I
brought our new family member home and decided his name
would be John. He was sweet and goofy and was
(11:33):
definitely a big puppy. I figured he's probably too. That night,
in an effort to not overthink assimilating my new brood,
I put all three dogs in my bedroom and popped
an edible marijuana keeps families together. I was awakened by
(11:53):
a low rumble that rose to a roar, and then
to something that sounded like there was a werewolf nearby.
When I flipped lights on, Tammy's midsize, corpulent body had
somehow wrapped itself around John's like a contortionist. Thank God
for instinct, because I'm scared to think what I would
have done had I given it any thought. I screamed no,
and then ripped Tammy off of him. Her eyes were
red and she looked like she was wearing red lipstick
(12:15):
to I tossed her tour in my closet. John was
a bigger dog and stronger than I thought, and I
couldn't hold him back from barreling toward her. So I
dove right in the middle of them, grabbed Tammy, pushed
her head first into my closet, and shut the door.
Then I scurried at my feet in my staples sleep
where a bra and a thong, and I fended off John.
It was growling with his nose to the closet. Once
(12:35):
I got him outside my room and closed the door,
I sat down on my bed and thought I was
going into cardiac arrest. I was gasping for bread as
I tried to open my eyes and figure out what
to do next. I was scared of both dogs at
that point. I didn't know what they were capable of.
After seeing Tammy basically shape shift herself into an anaconda.
(12:56):
When I moved my hand in my chest to try
to sell soothe, I realized my bra had been torn
open and one of my breasts had been set loose
and was bleeding. I was so confused and so high.
I was like what. I looked over at Chunk and
he had wrapped himself up in the drapes. I don't
(13:20):
want to call Chunk a pussy, and I don't want
to call Tammy a cunt, but I'm just throwing those
two words out there. I toll. I called Molly and
I told her I was living with a real life Kujo.
And even though I knew it was Tammy's fault, I
was scared to open the door and check on John.
John was an odd man outcome. Get John. It was
(13:43):
twelve thirty am, and while I waited for the coast
to be clear, I texted my assistant Brandon to scan
the security cameras in the morning and save whatever footage
had just been captured for the next time. My friends
and I did mushrooms. John never made the cut because
Tammy took him to task. Chunk knew better than to
(14:03):
fight over territory he'd conquered long ago. He knew he
belonged with me, but he understood there would be random
dogs coming in and out of our lives, just the
way people did. Tammy was with me for three years
and died shortly after the inauguration. She felt the same
way I did about Donald Trump. Molly and I were
(14:24):
in South Africa at the time, and I got the
call while Molly was out getting gifts for her brothers
and sisters. She came back to the hotel room where
I was sitting in a chair and feeling guilty about
traveling so much and not spending more time at home
with the dogs. I rescued. You gave her a good life, Chelse,
Molly said, hugging me. No one else would have ever
adopted that dog. And do you know how much shorter
her life would have been if you'd been home more.
(14:52):
After Tammy died, I had some friends over for a
small memorial service at my house, where we watched the
video footage from my security cameras the night of the attack.
It was the first time I had seen the crime scene,
and Brandon had scored it to the theme song of Rocky.
(15:14):
In it, you can see Tammy actually airborne after I
got her off of John. The four teeth that I
had campaigned to keep ended up biting me right in
the tip. That's called getting titty fucked. Okay. If I
(15:37):
hadn't busted my nut with my topless photo rampage years before,
this video would have been released on all of my
social media platforms on a loop. Watching the video of
Tamy alone pacing in my closet like a large brown
bear reminded me what a force of nature she was.
She was an underdog and a badass. She was a fighter,
and even though I don't spend much time looking in
(15:58):
the rear view mirror, my biggest regret is not ever
getting her ears pierced. Thank you. Okay, We're gonna take
a quick break and we'll be right back. Okay, I'm
gonna bring out a friend of mine who's a very
good friend of mine. Actually, I only discovered that minutes ago.
(16:23):
He's a Chicago native and he you may recognize him
for a show he's been on for seventy four years.
It's called Friends. I'm just kidding. It's called Will and Grace.
Please welcome Sean. Hey, Hey, guys, how are you? Um?
(17:05):
I'm so happy to wait wait wait, you brought this
up a couple of times, so I just want to
make sure we're all on the same page. Here, would
you is? What is the amount of money that you
would agree to have sex with another person for? Okay,
because I feel like you have a price. Yes, Well,
everybody has a number. Everybody hasn't know that I do.
I don't. I'm not in a like no, no, everybody
has a number. But I really believe someone said, hey,
here's fifty million dollars. I'm from Saudi Arabia. Can you
(17:28):
blow me? I'd be like, I can't. No, you could, Yeah,
is the answer. Anybody could. Yeah. So there's this thing
called Yeah, there's this thing called bait bus dot com.
Anybody Okay, what do you mean bait? Like the A
I T B A I T bait bus dot com
(17:49):
and on it. Um, it's like this, I don't know
if it's still up and running. Becau this gay bullshit website,
and but when on it, it's this bus that drives
around and this girl sticks her tits out and they
find us drake guy on the street and they're like hey.
She's like, hey, you want to blow a job? And
he's like yeah. So he gets on the bus and
he sits there and she's blowing him, and then she's like,
can I blindfold you? And he's like yeah, So they
(18:10):
blindfold him, and this gay guy comes around and takes
her place, right, takes her place and she started and
he starts blowing him, and eventually he picks the thing up,
and every guy has the same the rat reaction right there,
like get the fook off with me? What the is
going on? And then after he calmed down and everybody's
calmed down, they go, okay, would you would you do
it for two bucks? He's like no, I'm not gonna
let you blow me for you know, blow me for
(18:31):
two bucks? And they're like what about He's like okay, right,
so everybody has a fucking price. I like the I
like the part of that story. Everybody calms down, everybody
calls down and then they have an organized conversation. We're
giving a blowjob, you blow job from a man. Would
you like to move forward with that? Yeah? Yeah, it's
(18:55):
the negotiations like a game show. We should do a
game show. It's called bait bu um. That's not that
doesn't like it's hard to understand what you're saying when
you say bait bus because I thought you said date bus,
and then I thought you said rape bus. Okay, but
here's this. But here's the thing. You're looking at me
and I'm saying bait. So why is it so hard
to understand? You know what I'm saying? All right, let's
(19:18):
ask questions. You know what we should do? Maybe after
unless you hate this, I just thought of this. We
can take questions from the audience, like Carol Burnett, we
don't have it. I would love to, but we don't.
I don't know if we haven't set up you guys,
Can we set up it out and we'll repeat it? Okay? Yeah,
we can probably do that when we have ten minutes left.
All we'll do questions and somebody has them. You can
get up and fashion not right now, great way to
(19:41):
start the show. Show on your fucking asshole. I wanted
to have any questions before we get started. Wait, hold
on a second, what are your questions so we can
direct the way we're gonna behave I mean or like
a bone or killer? No, I just for everybody. Let's
(20:04):
take a moment of silence, everyone out in a journal,
and then we'll read them from the stage at the end. Cheers, God,
cheers again. This is wait wait, wait, this is this
is what we do at work. Say that again. Well, wait,
if we're going to do something, let them take their
phones out and do a boomerang or a fun picture. Okay, okay, right, wait,
(20:29):
let everybody get their phones and then put them away
and keep them out for keeping killer. No, I want
to listen. Just shut the funk up and follow my lead. Okay, ready, one, two, three? Cheers. Okay.
Now we'll put our phones away so we can all
enjoy ourselves. Okay, So let's talk about the book for
(20:50):
a second, and it'll take us off into worlds we
never knew existed. Okay, okay, ready, So, because what if
we find out by the end of this interview that
I'm gay and you're straight. That would be exciting for
so many ladies. What do you mean by the end
of the interview? Um, no, we're gonna is it? Okay?
If I burp? Yes, wait, there we go. I know
(21:15):
I'm burping, particula. It's really hard to have a hot
dog and then come back. You never had las until
in between shows. Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, I don't
know how that could be bad. A hot dog with
a bunch of ship on it, you know what I mean.
But it's it's a it's a dog, it's everything. And
let me And then I had two pieces of chocolate
(21:35):
cake because that daddy's not fat enough. Do you want
some chocolate cake? I love some? Okay, So here we go.
Did I ever tell you my chocolate cake story? Oh?
My god? Here okay. So I had a boyfriend who
was annoying me and he had diarrhea. We were on
vacation for a weekend. Ted Harbert you know him right,
(21:58):
you're saying his name, by the way, who used to
be my boss? Yeah? Yeah, he used to be my
boss too, I bet so imagine doing this to your boss.
That's what makes a story even better. I never thought
about it from that aspect. So he like he was
a very needy boyfriend. He I dated him when I
was like when I started like, uh my show, I
(22:19):
was twenty seven, I started dating him like and I
stayed with him until I was thirty two. He was like,
you know, he was twenty years older than me, and
I was taken. He was like the boss of the company.
And every time he'd come down the show, I was like, oh,
I want to be with him, and then I was yeah,
I was cute. And then I was with him and
I was like, I gotta get out of here. So
but not until I deal at e is up. I
(22:45):
was like, dad at that sign a cheers, Oh my god,
Will and Grace and Grace. So we're in Laguna Beach
or one of those white places you go for a
weekend when you already live in l A and you're
on a vacation all the time. Where should I go
to him? Beach? You're a beach and so he was like, hey,
(23:08):
we were at the pool. We're lying out by the
pool and he's like, hey, do I have diarrhea? Let's
go upstairs. You're like romantic. I was like, why do
I have to go with you for that diarrhea? I
don't want to go upstairs. I'm at the pool. You're
the one who has diarrhea. Don't include me in this,
that's your situation. Why are we were not a couple
in everything? And he's like, just come up with me,
(23:31):
and I was too tired to argue, and I finally
I went up there. So he goes and like fulminates
in the bathroom. It's like, you know, and I'm I'm
sitting in the bed thinking about how ridiculous it is
that a man expects us to just sit around while
they shipped themselves in the next room. I was like,
this is so disrespectful, Like I might now with no
(23:51):
value that I have to listen to this squirt ship
over there. So we had it was it was his
birthday the night before, and so we had over chocolate
cake and he was in the bathroom for so long,
and you know, I was getting so annoyed and that
my imagination got the best of me, and so I
took the chocolate cake and I was like, let me
just spread some on the sheets and see if he
(24:15):
comes out, like if he's confused about you know, because
we've gotten up first thing in the morning, we're hungover
and went down to the pool. Never you know, came
back to the room. I'm like, it's gonna spread this
along the sheets and just see. And then I put
a little bit on the headboard and a little bit
on the wall, like like you guys were having like
crazy monkey sex. It's and I was like, and he
(24:36):
comes out of the bathroom and I'm just like lying there,
I'm like, are you feeling better? And then I just
rolled over casual. I was like, I was like, ted,
you should have been and his look like he didn't
even think about whether he did or not. He assumed
that yes he did. And he's looking at this chocolate
(24:58):
cake that I've run in the no look away look
away right now, and I was like, oh, no, you didn't.
You did this. And then I looked up at the
wall like liver, and he's rolling up the sheets and
he's like, we gotta go, we gotta check out. We're
gonna just take the sheets and put him in the draw.
(25:18):
And so at some point during this evil charade, I
was laughing. I was trying to pretend I was crying
because I was laughing so hard. When he started when
he believed me, I didn't think there was a chance
that he would believe he shot the bed and it
looked like chocolate frostering. I mean, what an idiot, and
you're you're saying it didn't work out, and so he
(25:41):
looks and at one point I was laughing so hard
I had to turn away, you know, and I just protesting.
I'm so sad this happened to you. And he's like
what And then he saw me kind of laugh He's like, who, wha, wha,
what are you doing. I'm like, nothing, nothing. You didn't
you didn't ship the bed. It's not chocolate you should
(26:02):
have eaten. At first, you're like, oh my god, you
ship Wait a minute, you shipped the beds? Because that's
what's what do you do when you don't know the
difference between ship or chocolate taste? Very caddyshack. I saw
that twice, and I saw Porkies, so don't even get
me started. That is the best movie on the planet,
(26:23):
Porkies and then Porky's Revenge, So um, let's see. Okay,
So in the book, we we figured I was just no,
I was just talking to another person. I was going
to keep going. I was gonna keep going because of
the pressure you put on me to fly out. Here
and sit here and ask you questions. So, uh so
(26:45):
in the book, you know, Chelsea and I have Well,
I discovered after reading the book how fantastic it was
that we have many many, many things in common. Were
extremely similar in many many ways. We're both the youngest
of five kids. We both you know, dysfunctional families. We
both suffer from the same Why was your family dysunctional? Like?
What was the what was the bane of your just? Well,
(27:07):
my father was an alcoholic. He left when I was
five years old. My mom raised five kids by herself,
and so we kind of parented ourselves and uh we
although your dad was wasn't an alcoholic, No he should.
That would have helped. Yeah, it's like Trump, It's like,
I have a fucking drink please, right right, You're like,
I took that one over for you. Yeah, my dad.
(27:28):
I had this like love hate hate relationship with my
dad through adolescence and once I came back around to
my parents, once I had moved to California and I
was able to come back and enjoy them for like actually,
like you know, adulthood, I hated them so much growing up.
I was like, you guys are the worst. Look how
you dress your fucking cars? Like they had no organization,
They didn't know where I went to school. I was like,
(27:48):
what I mean? I registered myself for school when I
was in sixth grade. And then I was like, what
I do that? I totally did that. By the way,
I shipped myself in school. Yeah, I keep going, I said,
I read just stirred myself from school for school. So
that's a different story. Okay, Well to me, it's the same.
(28:09):
Keep going. It's fascinating. But I like that. You heard
I ship myself. By the way, when you talk, that's
all I hear. Okay, keep going. I don't know what
I was even saying. You registered your dad was you know, yeah,
I know what I was talking about. So I'll go
back to my so my mom. Okay, so my mom
(28:30):
raised five kids by herself, and when she was two
years old, she had cancer, thank you, and she um.
So when she was two years old, they had to
remove my mom's eye, right, and as she grew up
and she you know, she grows, she had to have
multiple surgeries on her eye. Anyway, So then when she
got older and she had five kids, and we never
ever talked about it because of her Irish Catholic. Right,
you don't talk about any problems, y'all like cover it
(28:51):
with laughter, and we're happy. And we can't even pay
our rents, right and so, and the heats turned off
in the winter in Chicago, and we're like, this is
so and so. So she had an extra eye because
she had a glass eye, like Sandy Duncan. She had
an extra sent right, she had an extra eye up
in her drawer, up in her back in her bedroom. Right,
(29:12):
So we would have friends come over, right, we would
holding out a glass eyes like calling out the science hoologist. Yeah. Absolutely,
I should have put it on a ring, like on
a necklace and just worn it around. But anyway, so
she we had she had an extra eye. And we
went upstairs when she wasn't around when she was out bowling.
Good luck mom bowling and one I like every every
(29:33):
bowl was a spare um. But anyway, so um so
she so friends would come over and we'd take the
eye from upstairs and they knock on the door and
there would be a chain on the door and we
open it up, and you go, who's there with the eye?
(30:00):
I have to freak the fuck hit. I would freak
couple of kids out and they just ran home. So
did she have one eye or multiple eyes? She had
one eye and I'm not even kidding she would she
had one ever since I was born. She would sleep
like this, I'm not even kidding. She would sleep like
this like that and be like mom, mom, Mom, mom,
(30:22):
m mom. Like I didn't know if she was sleeping
or awake or what. And then she'd be and then
she'd wake up. She'd like this, she'd be like this,
and she'd wake up roun and I go, I'm thirsty,
and she's like she'd be like really, and then go
(30:42):
back to sleep. I like that. You wake your mom
with one eye up because you're thirsty, Go get your
own vodka. Right. But my, that was my mom. She
was She was fantastic and she then she um. So
your mom was like a president. I mean, even though
she was away all the time and she worked all
the time, she was president when she was home. Yeah. Yeah,
I felt the love. I felt very cared for. She
(31:03):
was the best mom in the whole wide world. She
started a food bank for the poor and the homeless
when she was, you know, very young, and and she
did she could. She had an option to get a
job as like a high paying secretary or start a
food bank with a nun. And I was like, take
the fucking high paying job. But she no, I'm kidding.
But she was like a saint. And she did this
(31:23):
thing and she it's called the Northern Illinois Food Bank.
It's part of the Second Harvest. Yeah. So she she
doesn't get a lot of credits. She started that whole thing,
and so um she uh. Then she died last year
from Alzheimer's. Thank you, thank you. Yes, I say that
for the same reason your dad. When your dad passed away,
(31:44):
it's like you but I was you were so then
you were relieved a bit. Yes, absolutely, so was she.
I'm sure. And so now you have to joke about it,
because if you don't laugh about it, you crying. I
was in therapy for a year or two years about
oh my god, am I being a good enough son
for my mom who has Alzheimer's trying to take care
of her? I don't know. And you cry every day
and you're like, oh my god, there you know, you're
(32:04):
more in the death of your mom's spirit before her body,
so you cry about that. There's two deaths with Alzheimer's.
There's the death of the person and the death of
the actual body. And so I was mourning my mom
dying all the time. And then once you get over that,
you realize you're caring for this person who you still
love but isn't necessarily still the same person you knew.
(32:25):
You start to find the humor and you start to laugh.
So I would go into her room and she would
there would be a giant turd in the toilet, and
I'd be like, Mom, what do you have to She
she goes, I don't know who did that. That is
somebody comes in. I'm I'm him to God, somebody came
in here and pooped in my toilet. It is They
(32:46):
are turred. It is not my turd. And I was like, okay,
well let's go come with me. We're gonna flush the
other person's turn down the toilet. So it's all hilarious.
It is funny, I mean, in those moments are funny,
like they are so heartbreaking. My mom was in hospice
for six or seven days, and my brothers and sisters
were all sleeping on those like little cots that they
pull in, and my mom was not conscious or with
(33:09):
it at all. She was just there to die and
they would just give her more fine and stop feeding her.
And you're so like, you know, you're just sitting there
like watching someone die. And we're lying on a cot
one night, and it was the night before my mom died,
and my brother Glenn, who's really sarcastic and perverted, was
lying next to me, and my sister Shoshana and my
brother Roy were on the cots across the room. And
(33:30):
he went and put his hand on mine. I go, stop,
what are you doing? And he goes, how long do
you think Roy and Shoshana I've been sleeping together? That's
really funny. And my sister summoned at a chair like
Clinty just so disgusting. But it's like in those moments
that's all you have to hold onto because if you're
(33:51):
not laughing, you're dying too. You know. You just want
to be some relief from the pain and from the exhaustion.
Because I think a lot of people, and I think
what you're saying is true. I think a lot of
people when they go through or they lose somebody, they're
so feel guilty for being it's no fun to see
someone die that's not how they want us to see
them either or remember them. It's worse for us. So
(34:13):
it is a relief when somebody who's suffering dies. It's
much different if somebody snatch out of your life. You know,
that sometimes can be unrecoverable. But I think when somebody
dies slowly, you know, when they finally go, you're like,
thank you. I mean, it's just selfish to be anything else.
I think people think be saying that is bad. It's like, no,
it's compassionate. Yeah, I think they'll too. My mom another
(34:36):
really fast one was I took her out for pizza
one night or her favorite pizza place, and I parked
the car and I we were waiting to cross the
busy street to get to the pizza place and start
of standing there waiting for the cars to clear before
we crossed, and I hit the lock button on the
car and it goes, and my mom thought it was
a car patch. She goes up yours, up yours? Like
(35:00):
who says up yours? Right? Who does? Say? Nobody? Yeah?
And one time there was the gas station was being uh,
you know, robbed up the street from us, and she goes,
did you hear there's a stick up at the gas station,
A stick up from the night from night, what are
you from? Spider Man? In my I was going to
(35:23):
tell you the story about my dad and vodka. So
my parents didn't drink, and so and my brothers and sisters.
I'm youngest of six, so when I grew up, my
brothers and sisters drink a little, but not like I
drank or drink and um. And so my father we
would fight, and you know, we hated each other. Fight
with my dad. I lived with my brother for a
year because I hated my dad so much. I just
(35:44):
thought he was like the devil. And he was a
used car dealer, so he was kind of a shyster
and a liar and you know, and so I just
was like, I hate you. And then finally I went
to move to California. I came back. I flew home
to New Jersey, and I drove to Martha's vineyard, the
five hour drive that we would go to the summer
house every year. That makes us sound like we were rich.
We weren't rich. I don't know how my dug at
that fucking house. So I come home one summer and
(36:07):
I he picked me up from the airport and we
stopped at one of those. We had to drive up
to Martha's Vinior to the ferry boat, and we stopped
at one of those, uh you know, McDonald's rest stops,
and he was him and my mom in this like
dirty gross caravan that they drove, this dodge gold caravan
with like McDonald's breakfast sandwich is stuck there from I
mean it was. My parents were just like not, I'm
(36:28):
up and up, you know, and I wanted to. I wanted.
I was like, I'm going to grow up and get
cleaning ladies, like this is mayhem, you know, so life
the first time I had any success, I'm like, I
need a landscaper and a cleaning lady. I don't want
any trouble and a nanny. I don't know for who
but me. Um and he we stopped. We stopped at McDonald's,
(36:50):
and I was grossed out that they were, you know,
because I moved to l A. I'm like, I don't
do that anymore. And my dad's like, oh, sweetie, really
you're not gonna have McDonald's because you've been living in
l A for two months. And we sat and I
was so annoyed and irritated. I was like grossed out
by them. You know, I was in that phase. I
was twenty two, maybe twenty one, and had been away
from them long enough to miss them, but not long
(37:12):
enough to still be annoyed by them. And I remember
we sat down to McDonald's and he took my egg
out of my McMuffin and separated the carbs from the protein,
and I look, I mean, that's the way of the
world's sister, And I was like I always been paying attention.
And then he took out like a cheap bottle of
vodka in a paper bag and put it on the
(37:33):
table and go, sweetie, if we know this whole time,
if we knew this whole time, all you needed was
a little vodka, we would have given it to you
when you were six, because like, this is your mood stabilizer.
We understand you now, right, So now you go, I'll
have the number three with vodka. Yeah, I finally. I
mean in that moment, obviously I wasn't gonna drink that
vodka because I didn't understand the brand. But I in
(37:57):
that moment, I was like, oh, I have parents. In
that ridiculous moment, I'm like they finally hear me and
see me and pay attention to me. So you talk
about in the book a lot of a lot of
the times it's hard to relate to your mom because
she was so sweet. She was she didn't have the
vim and vigor that you had and you wish she had,
And so was it hard to relate to her growing up? Yeah,
(38:18):
it was really My mom was really she was German,
but not like you know, archetypal or yeah, she wasn't
archetypal German. She was like, uh, sweet and like the
opposite of what I'm doing, you know, like shy and
demurror and later what Germans are known for rights sweet, unassuming,
(38:42):
um she and she was really quiet, and I was
so strong and fierce and like I thought that was
my thing, Like that was my personality, that was who
I was. I didn't think it was because of an
incident in my life. I didn't think because my brother
died when I was nine years old that I became
this person. I thought I was up born this way.
I'm a fighter, you know, I'm an independent woman. I
(39:04):
don't need a man, I don't need a baby, I
don't need anything. I'm gonna do this my way, and
I'm never going to rely on a human being in
my life again. Because my brother when I was nine
years old, said he would come back. He was going
on vacation and he'd come back to Martha's vineyard in
a week. And he never came back. He died. So you,
immediately at nine years old have trust issues. Yeah, immediately,
that is the blueprint for you as an adult, Like
(39:26):
you stopped growing at that age when you were that small,
I have the exact same thing. Yeah, I mean I
didn't have any family. Remember my dad leaving when I
was five? How did did he say goodbye? I remember
my dad coming. I remember him slamming uh the oven
door because he made something, just came home to eat
something to eat and didn't speak to anybody. And then
(39:47):
he was leaving the family, and my mom said, I
remember it so vividly. She said, aren't you even going
to say goodbye to your kids? And he literally went
and he turned to around and gave me like the
most idiotic club and then he left and I watched
him drive away, and I was like, I didn't know
(40:07):
what to do with that. I was five years old,
and but I remember it still vividly, and then it
sticks with you forever, and then you don't trust people,
and then, like we talked about before, you have trust
issues about like you test people. You test people for
the rest of your life, Like I'm going to test
you to see if you'll stick around and I can
trust you. Yeah, and if you and if I can
trust you, I'll find a reason not to trust you,
(40:29):
and then you'll be out anyway. That's right. And it's
a stupid, stupid cycle until you become aware of it.
And I am, which is in your book, Well, yeah,
identify it. Identify that your reaction to somebody is like, oh,
like my psychiatrist was like, I am, he has acronyms
for everything. I'm like, I'm going to shove an acronym
up your ass by the end of this. So it's
(40:50):
identification awareness modification. Because I have a problem with patients,
like I think people are stupid and I can't deal
with them, and everyone annoys me, and I'm in a
constant state of agitation. And I told him this, and
I said, I don't know everyone annoys me. I just
want everyone to shut the funk up. Okay, Well, this
(41:10):
sounds like a good time to take a break. Did
your experience with your parents growing up affect you not
wanting to have kids. Yeah, I mean I'm like, they
have six kids and they don't know what the funk
they're doing. So, like I, first of all growing up
in a big family. I don't know if you feel
this way. I think you do, but I would only
(41:34):
have six kids, like I would want a full house
because my brothers and sisters are the ones who kind
of raised me. And I think you feel that your
brothers and sisters, everybody was on their own, right, Yeah,
we kind of parented ourselves. Yeah, so I was parented
by my brothers and sisters, so I needed them. And
so I always like, if I'm gonna have one kid,
i'm gonna have six, and I don't want any. So
let's just get a dog, get a bunch of fake
(41:56):
chow chouse whose age I'll never know. I'm like, I
don't wonder where my dog died when he was four,
because he was seventeen. And you know, I wrote and
I go off on vets in this book, and in
like a jocular way, I'm not seriously like attacking them.
I think it's ethical and nice and moral that those
aren't the right words. But like they have a nice job.
(42:17):
That's good that they're a vet. But I really you
cannot get a straight answer from a veterinarian. There's never
any black or white. It's always like, well, you could
operate or you could not. And you're like, which one
do you suggest? It's really up to you. It's like,
we could give you a real medication or you could
take CBD. I'm like, do you have a preference. He's like, again,
(42:40):
your decision. I'm like, hey, buddy, I'm not a fucking vet.
You are. Me and Scotty, my husband, Scotty, we had
a couple of Austrian shepherds and one of them, his
name is Buzzy, and he started having camp. Well, he
started bleeding out of his nose, so like, oh my god,
we gotta rushian. I like the phrase started having cancer, right,
he started cancer starts totally. Really, I started having cancer
(43:01):
and then my life went to ship. I can't imagine why.
And so he started bleeding out of his nose and
we took him the same thing. The guys like, m M,
I don't know, he's probably maybe just got maybe got
a cut from the fence or something, It's like okay,
and then like three months later, a little part of
his nose was gone, and I was like, I don't.
(43:22):
I don't. I've seen pictures of dogs and I don't
think that's normal. So she, uh, what was they saying? Oh?
So then the cancer just completely started eating his nose away.
And then the doctor's like, well, you could do chemo
or you could not do chemo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
very vague, and like I don't like vague. I like, like,
you know, like I like data. I want science. I
don't want like obscure ship. I like, like, that's why
(43:45):
my therapist was so good, because he was talking about
brains and like in a scientific way, and he's like, oh,
the migdala hippocampus. I was like, yeah, yeah, I can
get on board with that, pretending like I wasn't. I
was there to learn when all I was there there
to test him out, to see if he was a
decent enough therapist that I could actually talk to, Like,
let's talk about your childhood. I was like, no, my
brother died, my mother died, my father will hopefully be
(44:06):
dead by the time this year is over. Because I
just kept living and living and living. It's yeah, yeah, relief.
I mean my dad I was. I mean, it's so
mean that we keep people alive like that, horribly, so disgraceful.
They don't feel dignified. Listen to this. I called some
place in Illinois. I was when I was in l A.
I called some place in Illinois and to find out
(44:28):
the laws about the right to die. You know those
to die right. You can do it in Oregon, you
can um California. Like, if you were diagnosed with a
determinal terminal disease, don't you want to be put down? Yes? Absolutely,
I do too, And I want to be put down
even if I'm diagnosed with like a mediocre disease like
I do. I'm fucking wiped out, you know what I mean, bronchitis,
(44:51):
I am out. Yeah, just put me down. And my
sister is like, we're gonna if you get cancer, God forbid,
we're gonna fight it. I'm like, what do you mean,
we so tros fuck you any anything. I don't want
to fight it. I just want to go. It's fair.
Most you said that you have patience problems too, Yeah,
(45:14):
like sitting through that story, my patience of that part
of that is in the book I Love No Wait,
but patients problems like and these are privileged problems. And
I'm aware of my privilege. Believe me. I just had
a documentary about it. I'm so embarrassed that I might
have to move and leave the country because of my privilege.
And what we don't realize that. Yeah, it's coming out
(45:37):
in the fall and it's called hello privilege. It's me
Chelsea um. But a lot of us don't really understand
the privilege we have when we're you know, white. You
don't get it because you don't see it. Like I
just thought. I thought for everything, and I worked really
hard in my life and I deserved it, like I did.
Never think, oh, wait, what would a girl of color
have done in my situation? Talking about drinking, being rewarded
(45:58):
for drug use and sleeping around like that just doesn't
That wouldn't have been the same thing. And so thinking
about that is important for all of us because it
is a different to be white in this country, in
the world. It's a completely different experience, and we don't
think about it enough. And the thing I learned from
therapy the most is to really understand other people's situations
(46:19):
and not think that your experience is the norm. Right,
do you feel like it's getting better, like the the
the handling of the balance of it, or do you
feel it's getting worse or where do you think it's at?
Because in Hollywood they're doing I think, a really really
great job about hiring women, women of color, um and
(46:40):
different minorities and what they called diverse. I'm just like,
can't they just be called human beings? Why does everybody
that's not white have to be diverse? Why they're just
as equal as anybody else. So I don't know. I mean,
it's a depressing conversation, but it's a necessary one. But
how do you think we're doing I think Hollywood is
ponying up because they have to, And fine, whatever the
(47:01):
reason is. However you get to the party, that's fine.
I think I don't care about people's motives as much
as I care about the action, which I think is important.
But I think it's more of a responsibility for the
people who will have privilege to wake the funk up
and understand that you have a responsibility to people who
don't have privilege and stick your neck out. Don't say
you're not getting involved, get involved. You have to get involved,
(47:23):
you know, like people fought for years and years for
us to have rights, for women to have rights, and
to not act out on behalf of another community that's
been marginalized, or your own community is disrespectful to every
single person before you. Yes, absolutely, Um, I think people
are willing and ready enable, Like people are galvanized now,
Like we were a little bit sleepy and people got comfortable,
(47:44):
myself included. I thought, oh, Barack Obama was the president,
racism is over. Hillary Clinton is going to be the
next president, so feminism is cool too, Like how I
can really party Before we get off, I want to
read a little passage. So these bracelets I'm wearing are
called they say they're not called anything that say I decide,
and their T shirts that say I decide. All the
proceeds go to l g B t Q I A sure,
(48:06):
which I believe should just be que It's too exhausting.
It is a lot of letters, but you know we're
just trying to respect it. You know me too, But
I am one and I just be cue. On the
(48:27):
subject of um, death and loss and grief, I think
everybody in this room has probably been affected by somebody
dying or well, yeah, you have been. And I didn't
take that issue seriously for a long time in my
life because I was successful. I had a great career,
I had everything. I had lots of success, and if
(48:47):
you define that by materialism, I had at all. And
I didn't ever think I had the right to be
upset about anything. And I didn't want to go to
therapy because I thought that was a narcissistic And so
when I finally was when I had to go to
their therapy because I was so angry about the election,
and my therapist explained to me why I was really angry. Um,
(49:07):
I kind of unlocked my brain for the first time
as an adult, and UM, I realized that I was
allowing my brother's death to define my entire existence. Karen,
do you know what page this is on that I'm
looking for? I have Sean's book. I forgot mine, and
it's where the wild things are. Okay, yeah, here it is.
(49:28):
You're gonna get up so you can look at my
ask Shawn, hold on, let me get my camel toe out.
I keep it's like my vagina is getting bigger. Hold on.
I didn't know then that my 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, my psychiatrist, who could help me process what
(49:50):
happened and turned 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 your pain. I was
in a place where my brother dying no longer how
to define my existence. It's part of who I am,
(50:11):
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 how
I'm going to behave and I choose to be better
to look at myself more carefully, to trudge deeper, to
think about other people's pasts, and not judge someone for
(50:34):
doing or handling something differently than I would, To understand
my limitations, my shortcomings. That is my growth edge. I
decide who I am. Thank you guys for coming to
the Late Show in Chicago, and thank you to my boyfriend. Okay,
We have added dates to my stand up tour. They
(50:54):
are available on Chelsea Handler dot com or live nation
dot com and the book is Life Will Be the
Death of Me. Thank you for listening. Brand Did you
have anything you'd like to add about I don't know
the LGBT. Oh, we should add that all of our
proceeds for the l g B t Q I a
true colors. We donated all of our T shirt and
bracelet proceeds from the first half of Life will Be
(51:15):
the Death of Me tour. What I do have something
to say? I finally made it out to a live
show and it was incredible. So anyone who has knock
gotten their tickets yet for any of the upcoming stand
up dates, good night, Thank you. Life will Be the
Death of Me as a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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