May 15, 2024 • 40 mins
Minnie questions Samantha Bee, comedian, political commentator, and author. Samantha talks about her childhood news program, her Friday Night Lights fandom, and shares her most recent Google search.
Listen to Samantha's podcast, Choice Words with Samantha Bee
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I could get into it maybe if there were, but well,
more Taylor swifts really football and a financial.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Incentive for us. I definitely cared about a lot of
sports for a lot of bad boyfriends in my past.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
By the way, I've stood in the rain with more
men in Asuran like this, with the wind and the rain.
It's going. I love this. I swear to.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
God please like me. Like me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm a cool girl who likes sports for money. Hello,
I'm mini driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was
originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask
each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other
player's true nature. In asking different people the same set
(00:49):
of questions, you can make observations about which truths appear
to be universal. And it made me wonder, what if
these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater
depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as
conversation starters. So I adapted Pru's questionnaire and I wrote
my own seven questions that I personally think are pertinent
to a person's story. They are when and where were
(01:12):
you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself.
What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What
question would you most like answered, What person, place, or
experience has shaped you the most? What would be your
last meal? And can you tell me something in your
life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've
(01:33):
gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I
am honored and humbled to have had the chance to
engage with. You may not hear their answers to all
seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which
questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
(01:56):
today is comedian, political commentator and author Meant the Beat,
the longest running correspondent on The Daily Show. Has made
me and probably you scream with laughter on that show
and on her own series Full Frontal, which ran for
seven seasons. I was thrilled to hear that she began
her broadcasting career in the attic of her house when
she was nine, with a self tape show called News
(02:20):
for Goofs. We talked about everything from googling crop tops
for fifty year old terrible idea and wondering if our
digital imprint, i e. Our search history goes with us
when we die and etherically counts against us. SAM is
a treasure and a pleasure I hope you.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Enjoy once we're through talking that I'm going to the train.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's your full for having more than one child. I mean,
that's really sounds like a new problem because me problem,
that's a lot of schedules to schedule.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And I'm in service to them. By the way, in
service to.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
You're essentially a nun mom. Yeah, that it is like
giving your life over to an institution.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I don't even think about it anymore. I just disassociate.
I just put on an audio book and then I
just drive. It's just like pick this one up here,
that one's going there, this friend is coming over, do
the what's for dinner? What do we But it's it's
all good. It's all everybody's in a good state. And
apparently everybody upstairs decided to move furniture because I hear
(03:23):
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh that's good. I enjoy that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Let's drag some chairs.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
A podcast. Let's do it. Well. Let me ask you
my first question, which is where and when were you happiest.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Oh, oh my god, they are literally dragging.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
First, they really are dragging, But it's fine as long
as we acknowledge it.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Actually, I think they might be vacuuming, so I don't
want to stop it when we're happiest.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
When I realized my kids were cleaning the fucking house.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
When they impromptu started vacuuming.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Someone's coming over, someone's coming out, that I wouldn't just
be doing that.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
That's what's nita to get the house clean. I actually
can't pinpoint a single day, but I am my most
happy when I am with my family and when we
are doing something all together with enthusiasm, like a vacation
or a big dinner. It's such a cliche, but I
really feel like I know where everybody is. I feel
(04:26):
very safe. We're all being nourished, and we all get
along and we're laughing. It's those moments.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think, did you have that when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
No, I'm an only child. Ah, I'm an only child,
and I certainly was loved, but each corner of my
family's very small, so I never had noise or chaos, Like,
I never learned how to argue. I never learned how
to fight constructively because I was like a miniature adult
(04:56):
at a really early age. So I love chaos.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And how many children do you have three? And are
they at odds with each other often or not?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Really? Not really, they don't legitimately fight very often. They
make fun of one another nearly constantly, like ninety nine
percent of the time they are making fun of one another.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So will you like Rupert Pupkin in the King of Comedy,
like in the Basement by yourself, like bomb shut up,
like just doing your stand up when you were a kid.
Is that how you came to be so weirdly funny?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, I'm definitely weird.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
That's you know what I mean. I mean right, it
is articulate and surprising and specific. And now I'm loving
the idea of you like in the Basement. Now I
want you to be Rupert Pupkin.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I don't know that it turned out really well for him.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I don't know. He wrote a book, he got out
of jail eventually.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, great, this is funny. I don't often talk about it,
and I do still have it. I used to do
fake news broadcasts when I was like six or seven,
and I have a cassette tape still because I had
a little tape recorder with a microphone, so I would
either surreptitiously record my family and then transcribe their very
(06:20):
very mundane conversations about dinner. But I also would do
fake news broadcasts of like fake weather reports, and I
called it news for Goofs and I have it. I
have a news for Goofs cassette. I don't know where
it is right now.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I can't find you need to find it? I do
you need to find it? Immediate news for goos. Was
it for a specific audience or was it just for
your own solitary delectation? Would you just like play it back?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, yes, I just played it. I wasn't for anyone
or anything, And I don't believe that anyone ever listened
to it, nor should they. It was like a precocious
but I was like quiet, just like kind of a
quiet little that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It was like a news report. You weren't like, hey,
this is Sam. You know you weren't doing hot girl
stuff you're doing You're doing the news report.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
No. No, it was like thunder showers are rolling in
for the next thirty six hours, so make sure you
take your umbrella, Like really not I just I.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Love that story so much. I knew that you came
from the basement.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, actually I did have more, more of an attic.
We had well you know, the same tomato from the
hub of the house.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, I mean attic exactly. It was away and it
was private behavior. Behavior that you did that I secretly
must have known made you partly who you are.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
We lived with my mom and it was a for
sure haunted house. It was all divided up into little apartments.
It had been a hospital during the war.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
That's creepy. That's very creepy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And my mother gave me the top floor apartment to
just do my own only child things.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It was the way they put the people. They just
didn't want to hear screaming. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
They were like, we should put her in the belfry,
should we?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Just?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so I had a little apartment where I could
see all the other children getting fresh air and like
playing in the streets. But I had my ABBA records
and your recording, fully entertaining myself and totally fine with it,
not like yearning to be on the street playing ballock.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
No wonder you love chaos because you were basically just
sort of like flowers in the attic with the tape.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Recorder, totally, totally, just expressing myself to myself with love, and.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I love that. That's why you like that the happiness.
Of course, you grew up in a haunted, spooky ex hospital,
sequested by yourself with the tape recorder. Of course you
like family life and the noise. And you probably have
a sweet dog.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
We have two cats. Is busy and I do yearn
for it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
What quality do you like least about yourself?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I think it varies. I will say this, it varies.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
From it, but it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I like that it's not consistent. I don't actually spend
too much time beating myself up. It's too chaotic to
worry about. I wish I was less of a people pleaser.
I'm better at it now. But I have been such
a pushover and so unable to love you.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I find that so hard to believe, given like the
way in which you have engaged with sort of the
culture and with issues and yourself, Like, that's really interesting.
So you're never afraid to take things on. It has
seemed to me that's.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
The side of myself that I have to turn on.
It's like isn't that so weird? I don't think about
it that much, but I'm definitely I wouldn't go out
in the world and just speak extemporaneously about something that
I feel passionately about. It's all very thoughtful, it's all
very curated, it's all very intentional, and I definitely have
(10:10):
to divorce the shy side of myself, you know what.
That's it. I wish I was more of a joiner.
I wish I was less shy.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Gosh, that's really interesting. I wish I was more of
a joiner.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yes, I do.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Did you not feel like when you're on your show
and everything that you had joined with all these millions
and millions and millions of people who are watching and
who listen to you and engaged with you, did that
not fit you? Did that?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And did that to me was like a beautiful communion.
That was like almost that was a very shared experience.
I always thought about the audience, and especially when doing
live shows and things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I love that you just said it was like a communion.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
It was especially having a live audience. It felt like
sharing something with the people in the room, and I
think we all really got into it. It was like
there was a back and forth I was taking from
the audience they were taking from me, and there was
a fluidity there. I wish I was more just like
physically a joiner, Like I would get really stressed out
(11:18):
if everybody's gone for a hike and then everyone's like,
let's jump off this cliff into the water. I'm like,
oh no, we jumping off a cliff. What am I
gonna do? And then I really like really worries me
and I get like almost become a different person where
I just get so interior and I'm like, I'm gonna
(11:42):
I'm gonna jump off the clip, I'm gonna fall, and
my head's gonna smash open on the rocks.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Do you think that stems from being having been, you know,
a solitary child, like an only child who then who's
an introvert, but then finds their way into a deeply
extrovert job and life. So was that really conscious? Like
did you go i'm a shy person, I'm going to fall.
Most shy people will go I'm a shy person, I'm
(12:09):
going to go to the library.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was really accidental. Don't you think this is pretty
common with performers you like have a very shy side,
and where you can really find your back in a
space is in front of people. You can let it
all go. You're very free, and then you kind of
go back to yourself and it's I don't know, it's
(12:32):
an exercise in a different kind of It's just like
flexing different muscles. It's a different type of freedom. And
I love it, but I don't live like that. My
close friends can all see it because before an event
or something like that, if you know, if I'm speaking
at something or doing a performance, I'm so mellow, you
(12:52):
would not imagine that a switch would get flipped at
any point. People would observe me and think something is
terribly wrong, like just how quiet and calm I am,
And then the switch turns and I'm completely in show
mode and it's like one second. It takes one second.
Maybe it's just practice or muscle memory. And I like
(13:14):
it and I feel free and I feel great.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. No, I think it's I
think you're right. I think a lot of performance have that.
And then I think it's very difficult when you want
to switch it off. But when you're in the supermarket,
people don't want it to be switched off. They want
it to be switched.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
On, and they want you to be right.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I think there's quite a lot of discord that comes
from that. It's probably why you don't see, you know,
the Kardashians, Dan and Gelson's much.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I feel like they're there. They're just standing the headies.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I mean, they're just.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
They just put like an old bag on and then
go to the supermarket. I mean, you have to want
to do your own supermarket shopping, right.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I think some people just don't. I think it's like
I couldn't possibly go to the supermarket. I did see
Angelina Jolee once in the parking lot of the market
near my house in Malibu, and there was a throng
of people. She had a kid on her hip and
a security guy who was holding the shopping. She was
trying to get the kid in the car and he
was trying to get the shopping in the back. And
there's a tree, like a throng of people standing just
(14:19):
watching her struggle with her toilet paper and her kid.
And unfortunately, I suppose, as I'm remembering this, I must
be like them.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Does she's one of those I.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Was part of the throng, and I knew it was wrong,
and I knew it was awful. I knew, but I
do remember thinking, God, that is just not what you want.
You want there to be rules around it. Switched on.
We've all agreed it's on right now, and now I'm
going to switch it off, and like, please, let me
live my life with it switched off with It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Work like that. It doesn't work like that. If you're
Angeline famous, that's next level. When people would pay money
for photographs of you handling your toilet paper.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
That's it's a different level of engagement. And yeah, then
you probably just stop. I never saw her again.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
That's when you move to France. Then you're like, I
gotta go where people also care, but they won't.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I've got to go and make rose.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I've got I've got to go and make my lambruscos I.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Just can't do the shopping anymore. I've got to go
and make rose. Should I feel like that most days
I can't go to the shops anymore. I just need
to get back to my vineyard. I have to.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I just have to check on the grapes. Come, please
just check on them.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Hello, my babies, Hello.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
My Yes, Oh I want to. I want to check
on the garden that way in the future, like, hello, girls,
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Hi down Finians, Good morning. Oh it's just mom. She's
just talking to the tomatoes again. So what relationship, real
(16:08):
or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
This is an easy one for me. It's Coach and
Jammy Taylor in Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I don't think I've ever seen a couple like a
happy couple rendered better in TV or film. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Did you love that they were hot and that they
just like the way they loved each other? Or was
it the small town America of it, the fact that
it felt real? Like what part of it did you love?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It felt real to me? Well, that they are I
mean that's not we're not they're hot, they're smoking hot,
but absolutely beautiful, just like the aspirational beauty aside, Okay,
I actually felt that I was seeing a couple. It
felt powerfully realistically rendered. Maybe like an idealized version, I
(17:08):
guess a little bit, but I could relate to the
way they talk to each other. There was an intimacy,
they didn't always agree on things. It just felt like
the normal functioning of it. You just so seldom see
in television, in film, in art, just kind of a
healthy couple doing healthy couple stuff, talking about things relating
(17:30):
to each other.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's quite hard for it to be interesting, and yet
that show was. It was really engaging, and it was
really interesting. You're right, it's very difficult just to show
a nice, normal relationship because now a days, somebody has
to be a spy, and that pants have to be
on fire, has to be so all.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Has to be extra. There has to be like a
terrible couple secret that they're both holding onto or something
devastating that happened to them that colors every interaction forever.
And it sometimes is just like I'm married to my
(18:09):
friend and we've been together a really long time and
we like it being around each other most.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I think that was a reflection. I don't know what
year of Friday Night Lights began, but I wonder if
that when I think back on it now we are
not in two thousand and six, what was the friendly
face of a Republican government, you know, before Barack Obama,
(18:39):
Like it feels like it was a far more kind
of Bucolic America. I guess I mean, all the subprime
mortgages hadn't destroyed working class people in America.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That was a right life.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's just a bear. It was right. But it's interesting,
like when I think that, I would have thought it
was longer ago than two thousand and six, but I don't.
I think you see stuff like that on television now
because genuinely, I feel like the sort of nuts level
of television right now reflects what's everywhere. Right, there's this
amped up feeling like even the relationship shows that are genius,
(19:14):
like Mister and Missus Smith are still oh, tightened, tight
and tightened.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Everything is operatic, and there's blood and there's fury.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, blood, rage and disparity.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
We also weren't like incentivized to be so angry on
social media, like that was all that wasn't really banging
yet it was it wasn't really I'm trying to think.
I feel like I got my first iPhone in two
thousand and seven, two thousand and six, I.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Got It's so funny. I still had a BlackBerry when
Henry was born, and he was born in two thousand
and eight. I was blackberrying hard. I wasn't doing anything.
There wasn't I think maybe that actually is exactly what
it is. We didn't have this pub onslaught, so that
in a way, television was a bit more focused and
(20:06):
we haven't been ruined by I don't know. It feels
like a very different time, although.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I mean it was the Iraq Warren we were mad
as you're.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Right, I'm just stuffing that under the carpet. You're right,
But we didn't have the internet in the way that
we have now to amplify it's horror of what was
going on. So I was still reading the newspaper and
you would read it in the same way that one
metabolized news. Differently when I'd read it in the newspaper
and it was quite literally this object in front of
(20:37):
me in paper. Now, when I turn on my phone
on my computer and it is videos and TikTok of
people who are there and it is happening in this moment,
is a very different response to the news we are.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You really are metabolizing the most horrifying images and realities time,
which really it's devastating.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean on every part of everybody's life.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I think yes, and I do think, like thinking back
to that time and at that time, I worked on
The Daily Show, and we would do pieces about the
Iraq War, like we would do pieces about George Bush
and how bad of a president he was, and you know,
it was revelatory to our audience. They were like, oh,
I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
But that show was also like the Revolutionary Like it
was suddenly comedy. Is politics politics as comedy, but suddenly
we were. It was a way in which every single
person who watched The Daily Show could understand and somehow
that it was articulating something that I don't think we'd
ever had to articulate before, because we'd never know. That
was certainly the first war that I lived through consciously
(21:43):
as it were.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yes, and we were learning about it all with the
same toolbox, and now we are just seeing it like
if you pick up your phone alerts you they're like, great,
But do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Because I know that perhaps it is specious to say
that it was like the friendly of us, because you're right,
the Iraq War was an abomination. However, in terms of
how it was engaged and justified, I still would say
that given Trump, George Bush seems like a far friendlier
(22:15):
face of Republicans and something that somehow there could be
some reaching across the aisle, and that the extraordinary gulf
between that and where the Republican Party is now sort
of feels like a rubicon has been crossed.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We've crossed so many I am no, George Bush, I'm
not gonna I can't. Ten thousand red lines have been crossed,
Like I don't know what. I can't believe the things
that have been said and done.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, we don't, and we don't have to talk about it.
We're not going to give any oxygen to that nonsense
because I just want to think about you reporting on
the news in your attic. Actually, oh my god, how
did I not make the connection between that young woman
and then you on the Daily She's crazy. Essentially, you
(23:08):
got to get the news for goofs. You got to
get it, and it maybe needs to get back on
the Daily Show.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
In a way, I invented the Daily Show and in
my belfry in nineteen seventy seven. I'm just not getting
any credit for it at all.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Sweet Listen, I was the first. John Stewart should.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Think it was the first.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Whatever what question would you most like answered?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Oh? What happens to us when we die?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
What do you think happens?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I am a person of faith, and I can't really articulate,
but I definitely think that this is really everybody's like
she's going back to her belfrey and after I say
these words, I'm going back come climbing. Those are rickety stairs,
and I'll be there until I'll be there. If theories
(24:06):
putting them all up on a chukboard, I'm hoping this
is my hope. I don't know what I believe anymore.
My hope is that we sort of we exit our
earthly bodies and shoin some wonderful energy field where we
just kind of exist in an astral plane. I favor them.
(24:30):
Just the concept of a multiverse or like our energy
doesn't just dissipate, that it goes somewhere else, that it
goes where it's needed is kind of my hope.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Do you think that it is reused or do you
think that there is like an energy stream that exists
that is where our energy is uploaded into some sort
of etheric cloud.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I like that it sounds so technological when you say uploaded.
I know I want to upload myself to the cloud.
That's I feel like, you know, I write as well,
I'm going to take my browsing history with me. Actually,
just as I turned my computer on before joining for
this wonderful conversation that I'm thoroughly enjoying, I was like,
(25:15):
I have to tell many what my last Google search
was before I joined this, because I haven't used this
computer in maybe a week or two. It was crap
tops for women over fifty, Thank you for coming to
my ted talk. It was one sentence, did you well?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Very important rejoinder to that is did you find something?
And what does it look like? Okay, are you wearing it?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I will never wear it, but I did buy one?
Did you? It's never going on my body and I'm
not wearing it. It's awful.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Did you buy it to wear with like high waisted
jeans or are you? I did? And I like that idea.
I do. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think that what's going to happen? And it's so
up there. It's sitting in my glass set upstairs. Yeah,
it's mocking me. I look at it. It's floral. It's
going to make me look like just that I'm about
three feet tall. That's my theory. Like, I'm going to
feel really good about myself. I'm going to put it
(26:18):
all together. I'm going to walk out the door going
I'm doing it, and then I'm going to see my
reflection somewhere unexpected, and I'm going to go, this is
a fun house mirror, right like, this is a weirdly
positioned piece of glass. And then I'll catch it again
and at the next doorfront and go, oh no, no,
I am a three foot tall woman, So maybe I'll
(26:42):
sell it.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Are your kids boys or girls?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Two girls? One boy?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Would they wear it?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
No? Do they even know you bought it?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
They don't know I bought it. They're going to be ashamed.
And actually, my eldest daughter is going into fashion. She's
going to college for fashion design, and so she very
picky and intelligent about style, and so it's helpless.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Maybe could one of your animals wear it?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It will fit my cat perfectly. It will be like
a full sized ramper on her, but she's going to
pull it off.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I just like the idea of recycle. I like recycled energy,
recycled crop tops. And I do think our browser history
should go with us when we die, that all of
our digital everything, our digital imprint, should go with us
into the etherical.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Cloud, but you have to carry it with you.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, but then I think you can also, Like when
you get there, I'm sure it'll just be like, let
us just take all that from you.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Give us, don't worry.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Give us your crop tops, give us your inappropriately googled
blokes in the middle of the night, give us everything.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Come on, that's a heavy load you're carrying me.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
By the way, I bet you that's why angels can flies,
because they've given away all of the awful secrets to God.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
They took off that heavy backpack and then they unfurled
their ways exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
They didn't have to carry the browsing history. They could
spread the wings.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Finally, they had wings the whole time, but they were
underneath your backpack.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
They were underneath your backpack of spiritually unanswered questions and
questionable human questions.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yep, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Can you have questionable questions? That sounds like a double negative.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, crap tops for women over fifty?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
What would be your last meal?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Okay, I love to eat. My last meal would be
so big, it would be immense, like it just would
have so many different things in it.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I hope that's it is. A buffet?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Is completely feast. First of all, I have to have
a topo Chico because I love drinking topochico. It's my
favorite all time beverage. I always have Topochico in the house.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Is it just soda water or are they different flavors?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I only like the plane just without flavor, such an
effervescent seltzer that it burns my throat and slakes my
thirst every time, unbeatable.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Great, So that's you want to begin with the burning.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I want to begin with that. I'm going to have
some freshly squeezed orange juice because that I also love
as a beverage, and some very fine champagne. So there's
my beverages. It is not going to be coherent with
the meal.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It doesn't matter it's your last meal, because coherence is
you're about to give your backpack to the angels.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's fine, I'm taking it off, so let's go out
in style.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Let's fill it up, take it off.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I'm not going to be able to fly. I'm going
to be really full with liquid and solids. I need
a tiny break before I take off to digest.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Guys, guys, guys, hold on, hold on, I just need
to digest. I'm not gonna be able to fully ascend because.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I need just eaten. I need to lay down on
a hot rock for eight hours. Then I'm going to
a sound I'll join you all. I'd be there wait.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
As opposed to a food coma, you're going to be
in food limbo before you die. This is special. Carry on.
I'm loving that visuals.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
This is a little holding station the people.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Who holding rock. Okay, so what are you eating?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
So I'm gonna need some great cheese and some fine cracker.
I love cheese and crackers love. I love fine breads,
cold salted butter. We're gonna have some freshly baked breads,
crackers like a spread. I wouldn't mind having a shrimp cocktail,
a classic one, because I love a shrimp cocktail me
too delicious. I would love like a really good hummus,
(31:00):
some chickpea like I love Thomas and chickpeas. I love that.
I'd love a kale salad. I love kale. A great
steak would be nice. I love a steak.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
You can have all of it.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
My husband makes the best steak rub, so it has
to have that. It is so delicious that every time
we eat it, we don't eat it very much. We
don't eat that much meat, but when we do, it's
very special. I'm going to make my own rice pee laugh,
because we all love it in this family. I make
great rice. I just do, and every one of my
(31:34):
family is like, the meal is whatever, but this rice,
everybody gets excited about it. Someone have that. Some veggies,
you know, surprise me. I love vegetables. Surprise me with
the vegetables. Let's get nuts. There's things that can't be
on the table, such as eggplant, which is just not good.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
If you have to jazz it too much to make
it nice, it probably wasn't intended for consumption.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
It's a night shade. It's out. I almost feel that
way about tomatoes, which are a fellow night shade. But
carry on. This is your male, not mine.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
We're gonna have some roasted mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I
love caramelized onions. We should have some of that.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Probably a roast chicken too, Okay, I love a roast chicken,
like a proper French style, salted, crispy skin roast chicken.
It would be nice. And then we're gonna go have
some dessert. I love cake. It doesn't really matter what
flavor it is. I just love cake. I love cake.
It's so good, it's delicious. Also, we have to have dates.
(32:38):
I love dates dates and cake. Sticky chassy pudding would
be nice, like a nice date cake with some caramel,
maybe a little sour cherry pie. And I think I'm good,
and then I gotta lay it down on my hot rock. Eight.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
You are literally you're in food limbo. Yeah, and the
angels will be looking at their watches and your backpack
will be filled, but you'll be on your hot rock digesting.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah. I warned everyone. They were like, what's your last meal?
And I was like, this is going to take some time, Like,
don't pressure me. I love people who are like just
a hamburger and fries like ebbs. No, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
It's quite interesting how people do censure themselves around food
and go, well, it can only be one thing. Well,
I better just pick one vegetable and one protein. And
it's like, oh, is it fries or is it mash?
And I'm like, is it both?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Could it be both?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Could it be all potatoes?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Could it be?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I mean, I think it's interesting that you leaned hard
into the glufftad. I'm happy that you did. I did
because for a last meal, I don't see the point
of if I have the option, Can you tell me
about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Oh, one has grown out of a personal disaster. I
think my relationship to my husband came out of a
lot of like bad relationships. When we got together, I
remember we went out for dinner. I liked him, but
(34:19):
I didn't think that we were on a date. I
actually really didn't because I considered myself to be never
having a relationship again, like unironically and not as a joke.
When I was with my boyfriend before him, I was like,
I'm never going to do this again. I think I'm
done with relationships, Like it's never happening again. I was like,
(34:44):
that part of me is just gone. I'll just have
friendships in a nice life and cultivate friendships and family
relationships and that'll be that. And so we went out
for dinner, and he thought we were on a date,
as I know now, and he told me as story
about how he had this female friend who was really
into him and he just thought of her as a friend,
(35:07):
and I thought he was talking about me, and I
was like, that's great, because I'm never being in a
relationship again in my whole entire life. So delicious dinner,
Thank you so much. We'll see each other again because
we're friends. And I think that out of the ashes
of many bad relationships that were so out of balance,
(35:31):
and things were done to me and I did terrible
things to others, Like it wasn't like I was a
pristine ingredient who was kind to people. People were awful
to me, I was awful to them. And we started dating,
and I was shocked to learn that you could just
(35:51):
be happy with someone like there was no gamesmanship. It
was very balanced. We each would to sometimes wind sometimes lose,
like I mean the battle of like where are we
going for dinner? You know, we both contributed equally to
the decision making. And it was actually shocking to me.
(36:12):
I didn't know that it didn't have to be as
grindingly difficult as it had been to that point.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
But how amazing took a sec you were so young
to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I was in my late twenties, you know, amaz.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
To forty eight. I mean, I literally was with just
an absolute bounder as we'd say in England who did terrible,
terrible things to me, to his kids and just awful. Oh,
and out of that said absolutely the same thing. I
am ruined and I will never love anyone ever again
to the person that I am still with, who I
(36:52):
love more than anything in the world apart from my son.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Isn't that so funny?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I think that maybe it is like you just did
it when you were much of just a relinquishing of
I am done. This is scorched earth, so you know
we're good.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Just a ruined person.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, it's very freeing, being completely ruined.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It was freeing.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Maybe the angels come and take backpacks at certain times
in our life.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Well, isn't that a nice way to see it? Right?
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Maybe we just give stuff up and go, you know what,
I'm ruined. It's fine. I'm just going to carry on
and out of that rubble stuff can actually grow.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Stuff can grow. It feels there was such a gift
to just meet someone for whom it's very natural to
just be steady, like just an even keeled person who
just wants to be happy, just like.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
It's nice a and also that it is actually beautifully binary. Yes,
just yeah, simple, a simple equation, not a big complicated
conversation about Yeah, this is my damage, this is my trauma.
You know, we've all got damage and trauma. Let's just
get out and have a nice time despite it.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Very simple, not a lot of conversation, and we still
all these years later, like almost thirty years later, just good,
continue amazing, having the same amazing conversations. We don't talk
about it very much. I only talk about my relationship
with him with other people.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Well, that's great, we'll get him to listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
He'll like it.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, he's gonna be like, Wow, was that crap about
the backpack? That was that stupid bit?
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Talk that way. People are gonna thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
People think you're crazy. Just talk about my rub.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I don't want anyone to know that my steak rub
is delicious.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Now everyone will want it exactly what are you doing
to us?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
He could go into business. He could, by the way,
it's great.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I'm not gonna lie. I feel like, if you feel
his rub could rub people the right way, get it
out there in the world.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
It would be great on a mushroom. I'm just saying,
if you don't like than that now.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Sounds very delicious. Rubbed roasted mushrooms, also sort of filthy. Yeah.
I can't thank you enough. You're the most wonderful delight
to talk to and it is so nice to see you.
And I'm so glad that you're so well.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
So nice to see you, so nice to talk to you.
This was a lovely conversation. I feel very energized to
go pop my crop top on and check myself out
in a full length mirror.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
By the way, I want you to do one final recording,
okay of news for coops, news for goofs in your
crop top before you give the crop top to your cat.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I'm gonna put it on my cat and send you
a piccher.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Please do that.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I'm going to do that that later.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Oh my god, love me, Thank you, thank you, thank
you a million times. Mini Questions is hosted and written
by Me Mini Driver, Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman,
with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
The theme music is also by Me and additional music
(40:24):
by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day,
Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, Anick Oppenheim, a Nick Muller and
Annette Wolfe, a w kPr, Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan
Levoy and mangesh Had Tiggadore
I could get into it maybe if there were, but well,
more Taylor swifts really football and a financial.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Incentive for us. I definitely cared about a lot of
sports for a lot of bad boyfriends in my past.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
By the way, I've stood in the rain with more
men in Asuran like this, with the wind and the rain.
It's going. I love this. I swear to.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
God please like me. Like me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm a cool girl who likes sports for money. Hello,
I'm mini driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was
originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask
each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other
player's true nature. In asking different people the same set
(00:49):
of questions, you can make observations about which truths appear
to be universal. And it made me wonder, what if
these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater
depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as
conversation starters. So I adapted Pru's questionnaire and I wrote
my own seven questions that I personally think are pertinent
to a person's story. They are when and where were
(01:12):
you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself.
What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What
question would you most like answered, What person, place, or
experience has shaped you the most? What would be your
last meal? And can you tell me something in your
life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've
(01:33):
gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I
am honored and humbled to have had the chance to
engage with. You may not hear their answers to all
seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which
questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
(01:56):
today is comedian, political commentator and author Meant the Beat,
the longest running correspondent on The Daily Show. Has made
me and probably you scream with laughter on that show
and on her own series Full Frontal, which ran for
seven seasons. I was thrilled to hear that she began
her broadcasting career in the attic of her house when
she was nine, with a self tape show called News
(02:20):
for Goofs. We talked about everything from googling crop tops
for fifty year old terrible idea and wondering if our
digital imprint, i e. Our search history goes with us
when we die and etherically counts against us. SAM is
a treasure and a pleasure I hope you.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Enjoy once we're through talking that I'm going to the train.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's your full for having more than one child. I mean,
that's really sounds like a new problem because me problem,
that's a lot of schedules to schedule.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And I'm in service to them. By the way, in
service to.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
You're essentially a nun mom. Yeah, that it is like
giving your life over to an institution.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I don't even think about it anymore. I just disassociate.
I just put on an audio book and then I
just drive. It's just like pick this one up here,
that one's going there, this friend is coming over, do
the what's for dinner? What do we But it's it's
all good. It's all everybody's in a good state. And
apparently everybody upstairs decided to move furniture because I hear
(03:23):
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh that's good. I enjoy that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Let's drag some chairs.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
A podcast. Let's do it. Well. Let me ask you
my first question, which is where and when were you happiest.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Oh, oh my god, they are literally dragging.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
First, they really are dragging, But it's fine as long
as we acknowledge it.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Actually, I think they might be vacuuming, so I don't
want to stop it when we're happiest.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
When I realized my kids were cleaning the fucking house.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
When they impromptu started vacuuming.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Someone's coming over, someone's coming out, that I wouldn't just
be doing that.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
That's what's nita to get the house clean. I actually
can't pinpoint a single day, but I am my most
happy when I am with my family and when we
are doing something all together with enthusiasm, like a vacation
or a big dinner. It's such a cliche, but I
really feel like I know where everybody is. I feel
(04:26):
very safe. We're all being nourished, and we all get
along and we're laughing. It's those moments.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I think, did you have that when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
No, I'm an only child. Ah, I'm an only child,
and I certainly was loved, but each corner of my
family's very small, so I never had noise or chaos, Like,
I never learned how to argue. I never learned how
to fight constructively because I was like a miniature adult
(04:56):
at a really early age. So I love chaos.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And how many children do you have three? And are
they at odds with each other often or not?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Really? Not really, they don't legitimately fight very often. They
make fun of one another nearly constantly, like ninety nine
percent of the time they are making fun of one another.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So will you like Rupert Pupkin in the King of Comedy,
like in the Basement by yourself, like bomb shut up,
like just doing your stand up when you were a kid.
Is that how you came to be so weirdly funny?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, I'm definitely weird.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
That's you know what I mean. I mean right, it
is articulate and surprising and specific. And now I'm loving
the idea of you like in the Basement. Now I
want you to be Rupert Pupkin.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I don't know that it turned out really well for him.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I don't know. He wrote a book, he got out
of jail eventually.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, great, this is funny. I don't often talk about it,
and I do still have it. I used to do
fake news broadcasts when I was like six or seven,
and I have a cassette tape still because I had
a little tape recorder with a microphone, so I would
either surreptitiously record my family and then transcribe their very
(06:20):
very mundane conversations about dinner. But I also would do
fake news broadcasts of like fake weather reports, and I
called it news for Goofs and I have it. I
have a news for Goofs cassette. I don't know where
it is right now.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I can't find you need to find it? I do
you need to find it? Immediate news for goos. Was
it for a specific audience or was it just for
your own solitary delectation? Would you just like play it back?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, yes, I just played it. I wasn't for anyone
or anything, And I don't believe that anyone ever listened
to it, nor should they. It was like a precocious
but I was like quiet, just like kind of a
quiet little that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It was like a news report. You weren't like, hey,
this is Sam. You know you weren't doing hot girl
stuff you're doing You're doing the news report.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
No. No, it was like thunder showers are rolling in
for the next thirty six hours, so make sure you
take your umbrella, Like really not I just I.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Love that story so much. I knew that you came
from the basement.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, actually I did have more, more of an attic.
We had well you know, the same tomato from the
hub of the house.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, I mean attic exactly. It was away and it
was private behavior. Behavior that you did that I secretly
must have known made you partly who you are.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
We lived with my mom and it was a for
sure haunted house. It was all divided up into little apartments.
It had been a hospital during the war.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
That's creepy. That's very creepy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And my mother gave me the top floor apartment to
just do my own only child things.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It was the way they put the people. They just
didn't want to hear screaming. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
They were like, we should put her in the belfry,
should we?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Just?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so I had a little apartment where I could
see all the other children getting fresh air and like
playing in the streets. But I had my ABBA records
and your recording, fully entertaining myself and totally fine with it,
not like yearning to be on the street playing ballock.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
No wonder you love chaos because you were basically just
sort of like flowers in the attic with the tape.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Recorder, totally, totally, just expressing myself to myself with love, and.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I love that. That's why you like that the happiness.
Of course, you grew up in a haunted, spooky ex hospital,
sequested by yourself with the tape recorder. Of course you
like family life and the noise. And you probably have
a sweet dog.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
We have two cats. Is busy and I do yearn
for it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
What quality do you like least about yourself?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I think it varies. I will say this, it varies.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
From it, but it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I like that it's not consistent. I don't actually spend
too much time beating myself up. It's too chaotic to
worry about. I wish I was less of a people pleaser.
I'm better at it now. But I have been such
a pushover and so unable to love you.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I find that so hard to believe, given like the
way in which you have engaged with sort of the
culture and with issues and yourself, Like, that's really interesting.
So you're never afraid to take things on. It has
seemed to me that's.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
The side of myself that I have to turn on.
It's like isn't that so weird? I don't think about
it that much, but I'm definitely I wouldn't go out
in the world and just speak extemporaneously about something that
I feel passionately about. It's all very thoughtful, it's all
very curated, it's all very intentional, and I definitely have
(10:10):
to divorce the shy side of myself, you know what.
That's it. I wish I was more of a joiner.
I wish I was less shy.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Gosh, that's really interesting. I wish I was more of
a joiner.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yes, I do.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Did you not feel like when you're on your show
and everything that you had joined with all these millions
and millions and millions of people who are watching and
who listen to you and engaged with you, did that
not fit you? Did that?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And did that to me was like a beautiful communion.
That was like almost that was a very shared experience.
I always thought about the audience, and especially when doing
live shows and things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I love that you just said it was like a communion.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
It was especially having a live audience. It felt like
sharing something with the people in the room, and I
think we all really got into it. It was like
there was a back and forth I was taking from
the audience they were taking from me, and there was
a fluidity there. I wish I was more just like
physically a joiner, Like I would get really stressed out
(11:18):
if everybody's gone for a hike and then everyone's like,
let's jump off this cliff into the water. I'm like,
oh no, we jumping off a cliff. What am I
gonna do? And then I really like really worries me
and I get like almost become a different person where
I just get so interior and I'm like, I'm gonna
(11:42):
I'm gonna jump off the clip, I'm gonna fall, and
my head's gonna smash open on the rocks.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Do you think that stems from being having been, you know,
a solitary child, like an only child who then who's
an introvert, but then finds their way into a deeply
extrovert job and life. So was that really conscious? Like
did you go i'm a shy person, I'm going to fall.
Most shy people will go I'm a shy person, I'm
(12:09):
going to go to the library.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was really accidental. Don't you think this is pretty
common with performers you like have a very shy side,
and where you can really find your back in a
space is in front of people. You can let it
all go. You're very free, and then you kind of
go back to yourself and it's I don't know, it's
(12:32):
an exercise in a different kind of It's just like
flexing different muscles. It's a different type of freedom. And
I love it, but I don't live like that. My
close friends can all see it because before an event
or something like that, if you know, if I'm speaking
at something or doing a performance, I'm so mellow, you
(12:52):
would not imagine that a switch would get flipped at
any point. People would observe me and think something is
terribly wrong, like just how quiet and calm I am,
And then the switch turns and I'm completely in show
mode and it's like one second. It takes one second.
Maybe it's just practice or muscle memory. And I like
(13:14):
it and I feel free and I feel great.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. No, I think it's I
think you're right. I think a lot of performance have that.
And then I think it's very difficult when you want
to switch it off. But when you're in the supermarket,
people don't want it to be switched off. They want
it to be switched.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
On, and they want you to be right.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I think there's quite a lot of discord that comes
from that. It's probably why you don't see, you know,
the Kardashians, Dan and Gelson's much.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I feel like they're there. They're just standing the headies.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I mean, they're just.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
They just put like an old bag on and then
go to the supermarket. I mean, you have to want
to do your own supermarket shopping, right.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I think some people just don't. I think it's like
I couldn't possibly go to the supermarket. I did see
Angelina Jolee once in the parking lot of the market
near my house in Malibu, and there was a throng
of people. She had a kid on her hip and
a security guy who was holding the shopping. She was
trying to get the kid in the car and he
was trying to get the shopping in the back. And
there's a tree, like a throng of people standing just
(14:19):
watching her struggle with her toilet paper and her kid.
And unfortunately, I suppose, as I'm remembering this, I must
be like them.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Does she's one of those I.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Was part of the throng, and I knew it was wrong,
and I knew it was awful. I knew, but I
do remember thinking, God, that is just not what you want.
You want there to be rules around it. Switched on.
We've all agreed it's on right now, and now I'm
going to switch it off, and like, please, let me
live my life with it switched off with It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Work like that. It doesn't work like that. If you're
Angeline famous, that's next level. When people would pay money
for photographs of you handling your toilet paper.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
That's it's a different level of engagement. And yeah, then
you probably just stop. I never saw her again.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
That's when you move to France. Then you're like, I
gotta go where people also care, but they won't.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I've got to go and make rose.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I've got I've got to go and make my lambruscos I.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Just can't do the shopping anymore. I've got to go
and make rose. Should I feel like that most days
I can't go to the shops anymore. I just need
to get back to my vineyard. I have to.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I just have to check on the grapes. Come, please
just check on them.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Hello, my babies, Hello.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
My Yes, Oh I want to. I want to check
on the garden that way in the future, like, hello, girls,
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Hi down Finians, Good morning. Oh it's just mom. She's
just talking to the tomatoes again. So what relationship, real
(16:08):
or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
This is an easy one for me. It's Coach and
Jammy Taylor in Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I don't think I've ever seen a couple like a
happy couple rendered better in TV or film. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Did you love that they were hot and that they
just like the way they loved each other? Or was
it the small town America of it, the fact that
it felt real? Like what part of it did you love?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It felt real to me? Well, that they are I
mean that's not we're not they're hot, they're smoking hot,
but absolutely beautiful, just like the aspirational beauty aside, Okay,
I actually felt that I was seeing a couple. It
felt powerfully realistically rendered. Maybe like an idealized version, I
(17:08):
guess a little bit, but I could relate to the
way they talk to each other. There was an intimacy,
they didn't always agree on things. It just felt like
the normal functioning of it. You just so seldom see
in television, in film, in art, just kind of a
healthy couple doing healthy couple stuff, talking about things relating
(17:30):
to each other.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's quite hard for it to be interesting, and yet
that show was. It was really engaging, and it was
really interesting. You're right, it's very difficult just to show
a nice, normal relationship because now a days, somebody has
to be a spy, and that pants have to be
on fire, has to be so all.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Has to be extra. There has to be like a
terrible couple secret that they're both holding onto or something
devastating that happened to them that colors every interaction forever.
And it sometimes is just like I'm married to my
(18:09):
friend and we've been together a really long time and
we like it being around each other most.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I think that was a reflection. I don't know what
year of Friday Night Lights began, but I wonder if
that when I think back on it now we are
not in two thousand and six, what was the friendly
face of a Republican government, you know, before Barack Obama,
(18:39):
Like it feels like it was a far more kind
of Bucolic America. I guess I mean, all the subprime
mortgages hadn't destroyed working class people in America.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That was a right life.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's just a bear. It was right. But it's interesting,
like when I think that, I would have thought it
was longer ago than two thousand and six, but I don't.
I think you see stuff like that on television now
because genuinely, I feel like the sort of nuts level
of television right now reflects what's everywhere. Right, there's this
amped up feeling like even the relationship shows that are genius,
(19:14):
like Mister and Missus Smith are still oh, tightened, tight
and tightened.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Everything is operatic, and there's blood and there's fury.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, blood, rage and disparity.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
We also weren't like incentivized to be so angry on
social media, like that was all that wasn't really banging
yet it was it wasn't really I'm trying to think.
I feel like I got my first iPhone in two
thousand and seven, two thousand and six, I.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Got It's so funny. I still had a BlackBerry when
Henry was born, and he was born in two thousand
and eight. I was blackberrying hard. I wasn't doing anything.
There wasn't I think maybe that actually is exactly what
it is. We didn't have this pub onslaught, so that
in a way, television was a bit more focused and
(20:06):
we haven't been ruined by I don't know. It feels
like a very different time, although.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I mean it was the Iraq Warren we were mad
as you're.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Right, I'm just stuffing that under the carpet. You're right,
But we didn't have the internet in the way that
we have now to amplify it's horror of what was
going on. So I was still reading the newspaper and
you would read it in the same way that one
metabolized news. Differently when I'd read it in the newspaper
and it was quite literally this object in front of
(20:37):
me in paper. Now, when I turn on my phone
on my computer and it is videos and TikTok of
people who are there and it is happening in this moment,
is a very different response to the news we are.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You really are metabolizing the most horrifying images and realities time,
which really it's devastating.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean on every part of everybody's life.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I think yes, and I do think, like thinking back
to that time and at that time, I worked on
The Daily Show, and we would do pieces about the
Iraq War, like we would do pieces about George Bush
and how bad of a president he was, and you know,
it was revelatory to our audience. They were like, oh,
I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
But that show was also like the Revolutionary Like it
was suddenly comedy. Is politics politics as comedy, but suddenly
we were. It was a way in which every single
person who watched The Daily Show could understand and somehow
that it was articulating something that I don't think we'd
ever had to articulate before, because we'd never know. That
was certainly the first war that I lived through consciously
(21:43):
as it were.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yes, and we were learning about it all with the
same toolbox, and now we are just seeing it like
if you pick up your phone alerts you they're like, great,
But do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Because I know that perhaps it is specious to say
that it was like the friendly of us, because you're right,
the Iraq War was an abomination. However, in terms of
how it was engaged and justified, I still would say
that given Trump, George Bush seems like a far friendlier
(22:15):
face of Republicans and something that somehow there could be
some reaching across the aisle, and that the extraordinary gulf
between that and where the Republican Party is now sort
of feels like a rubicon has been crossed.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We've crossed so many I am no, George Bush, I'm
not gonna I can't. Ten thousand red lines have been crossed,
Like I don't know what. I can't believe the things
that have been said and done.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, we don't, and we don't have to talk about it.
We're not going to give any oxygen to that nonsense
because I just want to think about you reporting on
the news in your attic. Actually, oh my god, how
did I not make the connection between that young woman
and then you on the Daily She's crazy. Essentially, you
(23:08):
got to get the news for goofs. You got to
get it, and it maybe needs to get back on
the Daily Show.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
In a way, I invented the Daily Show and in
my belfry in nineteen seventy seven. I'm just not getting
any credit for it at all.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Sweet Listen, I was the first. John Stewart should.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Think it was the first.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Whatever what question would you most like answered?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Oh? What happens to us when we die?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
What do you think happens?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I am a person of faith, and I can't really articulate,
but I definitely think that this is really everybody's like
she's going back to her belfrey and after I say
these words, I'm going back come climbing. Those are rickety stairs,
and I'll be there until I'll be there. If theories
(24:06):
putting them all up on a chukboard, I'm hoping this
is my hope. I don't know what I believe anymore.
My hope is that we sort of we exit our
earthly bodies and shoin some wonderful energy field where we
just kind of exist in an astral plane. I favor them.
(24:30):
Just the concept of a multiverse or like our energy
doesn't just dissipate, that it goes somewhere else, that it
goes where it's needed is kind of my hope.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Do you think that it is reused or do you
think that there is like an energy stream that exists
that is where our energy is uploaded into some sort
of etheric cloud.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I like that it sounds so technological when you say uploaded.
I know I want to upload myself to the cloud.
That's I feel like, you know, I write as well,
I'm going to take my browsing history with me. Actually,
just as I turned my computer on before joining for
this wonderful conversation that I'm thoroughly enjoying, I was like,
(25:15):
I have to tell many what my last Google search
was before I joined this, because I haven't used this
computer in maybe a week or two. It was crap
tops for women over fifty, Thank you for coming to
my ted talk. It was one sentence, did you well?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Very important rejoinder to that is did you find something?
And what does it look like? Okay, are you wearing it?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I will never wear it, but I did buy one?
Did you? It's never going on my body and I'm
not wearing it. It's awful.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Did you buy it to wear with like high waisted
jeans or are you? I did? And I like that idea.
I do. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think that what's going to happen? And it's so
up there. It's sitting in my glass set upstairs. Yeah,
it's mocking me. I look at it. It's floral. It's
going to make me look like just that I'm about
three feet tall. That's my theory. Like, I'm going to
feel really good about myself. I'm going to put it
(26:18):
all together. I'm going to walk out the door going
I'm doing it, and then I'm going to see my
reflection somewhere unexpected, and I'm going to go, this is
a fun house mirror, right like, this is a weirdly
positioned piece of glass. And then I'll catch it again
and at the next doorfront and go, oh no, no,
I am a three foot tall woman, So maybe I'll
(26:42):
sell it.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Are your kids boys or girls?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Two girls? One boy?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Would they wear it?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
No? Do they even know you bought it?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
They don't know I bought it. They're going to be ashamed.
And actually, my eldest daughter is going into fashion. She's
going to college for fashion design, and so she very
picky and intelligent about style, and so it's helpless.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Maybe could one of your animals wear it?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It will fit my cat perfectly. It will be like
a full sized ramper on her, but she's going to
pull it off.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I just like the idea of recycle. I like recycled energy,
recycled crop tops. And I do think our browser history
should go with us when we die, that all of
our digital everything, our digital imprint, should go with us
into the etherical.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Cloud, but you have to carry it with you.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, but then I think you can also, Like when
you get there, I'm sure it'll just be like, let
us just take all that from you.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Give us, don't worry.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Give us your crop tops, give us your inappropriately googled
blokes in the middle of the night, give us everything.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Come on, that's a heavy load you're carrying me.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
By the way, I bet you that's why angels can flies,
because they've given away all of the awful secrets to God.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
They took off that heavy backpack and then they unfurled
their ways exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
They didn't have to carry the browsing history. They could
spread the wings.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Finally, they had wings the whole time, but they were
underneath your backpack.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
They were underneath your backpack of spiritually unanswered questions and
questionable human questions.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yep, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Can you have questionable questions? That sounds like a double negative.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, crap tops for women over fifty?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
What would be your last meal?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Okay, I love to eat. My last meal would be
so big, it would be immense, like it just would
have so many different things in it.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I hope that's it is. A buffet?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Is completely feast. First of all, I have to have
a topo Chico because I love drinking topochico. It's my
favorite all time beverage. I always have Topochico in the house.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Is it just soda water or are they different flavors?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I only like the plane just without flavor, such an
effervescent seltzer that it burns my throat and slakes my
thirst every time, unbeatable.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Great, So that's you want to begin with the burning.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I want to begin with that. I'm going to have
some freshly squeezed orange juice because that I also love
as a beverage, and some very fine champagne. So there's
my beverages. It is not going to be coherent with
the meal.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It doesn't matter it's your last meal, because coherence is
you're about to give your backpack to the angels.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's fine, I'm taking it off, so let's go out
in style.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Let's fill it up, take it off.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I'm not going to be able to fly. I'm going
to be really full with liquid and solids. I need
a tiny break before I take off to digest.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Guys, guys, guys, hold on, hold on, I just need
to digest. I'm not gonna be able to fully ascend because.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I need just eaten. I need to lay down on
a hot rock for eight hours. Then I'm going to
a sound I'll join you all. I'd be there wait.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
As opposed to a food coma, you're going to be
in food limbo before you die. This is special. Carry on.
I'm loving that visuals.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
This is a little holding station the people.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Who holding rock. Okay, so what are you eating?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
So I'm gonna need some great cheese and some fine cracker.
I love cheese and crackers love. I love fine breads,
cold salted butter. We're gonna have some freshly baked breads,
crackers like a spread. I wouldn't mind having a shrimp cocktail,
a classic one, because I love a shrimp cocktail me
too delicious. I would love like a really good hummus,
(31:00):
some chickpea like I love Thomas and chickpeas. I love that.
I'd love a kale salad. I love kale. A great
steak would be nice. I love a steak.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
You can have all of it.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
My husband makes the best steak rub, so it has
to have that. It is so delicious that every time
we eat it, we don't eat it very much. We
don't eat that much meat, but when we do, it's
very special. I'm going to make my own rice pee laugh,
because we all love it in this family. I make
great rice. I just do, and every one of my
(31:34):
family is like, the meal is whatever, but this rice,
everybody gets excited about it. Someone have that. Some veggies,
you know, surprise me. I love vegetables. Surprise me with
the vegetables. Let's get nuts. There's things that can't be
on the table, such as eggplant, which is just not good.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
If you have to jazz it too much to make
it nice, it probably wasn't intended for consumption.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
It's a night shade. It's out. I almost feel that
way about tomatoes, which are a fellow night shade. But
carry on. This is your male, not mine.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
We're gonna have some roasted mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I
love caramelized onions. We should have some of that.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Probably a roast chicken too, Okay, I love a roast chicken,
like a proper French style, salted, crispy skin roast chicken.
It would be nice. And then we're gonna go have
some dessert. I love cake. It doesn't really matter what
flavor it is. I just love cake. I love cake.
It's so good, it's delicious. Also, we have to have dates.
(32:38):
I love dates dates and cake. Sticky chassy pudding would
be nice, like a nice date cake with some caramel,
maybe a little sour cherry pie. And I think I'm good,
and then I gotta lay it down on my hot rock. Eight.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
You are literally you're in food limbo. Yeah, and the
angels will be looking at their watches and your backpack
will be filled, but you'll be on your hot rock digesting.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah. I warned everyone. They were like, what's your last meal?
And I was like, this is going to take some time, Like,
don't pressure me. I love people who are like just
a hamburger and fries like ebbs. No, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
It's quite interesting how people do censure themselves around food
and go, well, it can only be one thing. Well,
I better just pick one vegetable and one protein. And
it's like, oh, is it fries or is it mash?
And I'm like, is it both?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Could it be both?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Could it be all potatoes?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Could it be?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I mean, I think it's interesting that you leaned hard
into the glufftad. I'm happy that you did. I did
because for a last meal, I don't see the point
of if I have the option, Can you tell me
about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Oh, one has grown out of a personal disaster. I
think my relationship to my husband came out of a
lot of like bad relationships. When we got together, I
remember we went out for dinner. I liked him, but
(34:19):
I didn't think that we were on a date. I
actually really didn't because I considered myself to be never
having a relationship again, like unironically and not as a joke.
When I was with my boyfriend before him, I was like,
I'm never going to do this again. I think I'm
done with relationships, Like it's never happening again. I was like,
(34:44):
that part of me is just gone. I'll just have
friendships in a nice life and cultivate friendships and family
relationships and that'll be that. And so we went out
for dinner, and he thought we were on a date,
as I know now, and he told me as story
about how he had this female friend who was really
into him and he just thought of her as a friend,
(35:07):
and I thought he was talking about me, and I
was like, that's great, because I'm never being in a
relationship again in my whole entire life. So delicious dinner,
Thank you so much. We'll see each other again because
we're friends. And I think that out of the ashes
of many bad relationships that were so out of balance,
(35:31):
and things were done to me and I did terrible
things to others, Like it wasn't like I was a
pristine ingredient who was kind to people. People were awful
to me, I was awful to them. And we started dating,
and I was shocked to learn that you could just
(35:51):
be happy with someone like there was no gamesmanship. It
was very balanced. We each would to sometimes wind sometimes lose,
like I mean the battle of like where are we
going for dinner? You know, we both contributed equally to
the decision making. And it was actually shocking to me.
(36:12):
I didn't know that it didn't have to be as
grindingly difficult as it had been to that point.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
But how amazing took a sec you were so young
to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I was in my late twenties, you know, amaz.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
To forty eight. I mean, I literally was with just
an absolute bounder as we'd say in England who did terrible,
terrible things to me, to his kids and just awful. Oh,
and out of that said absolutely the same thing. I
am ruined and I will never love anyone ever again
to the person that I am still with, who I
(36:52):
love more than anything in the world apart from my son.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Isn't that so funny?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I think that maybe it is like you just did
it when you were much of just a relinquishing of
I am done. This is scorched earth, so you know
we're good.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Just a ruined person.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, it's very freeing, being completely ruined.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It was freeing.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Maybe the angels come and take backpacks at certain times
in our life.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Well, isn't that a nice way to see it? Right?
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Maybe we just give stuff up and go, you know what,
I'm ruined. It's fine. I'm just going to carry on
and out of that rubble stuff can actually grow.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Stuff can grow. It feels there was such a gift
to just meet someone for whom it's very natural to
just be steady, like just an even keeled person who
just wants to be happy, just like.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
It's nice a and also that it is actually beautifully binary. Yes,
just yeah, simple, a simple equation, not a big complicated
conversation about Yeah, this is my damage, this is my trauma.
You know, we've all got damage and trauma. Let's just
get out and have a nice time despite it.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Very simple, not a lot of conversation, and we still
all these years later, like almost thirty years later, just good,
continue amazing, having the same amazing conversations. We don't talk
about it very much. I only talk about my relationship
with him with other people.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Well, that's great, we'll get him to listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
He'll like it.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, he's gonna be like, Wow, was that crap about
the backpack? That was that stupid bit?
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Talk that way. People are gonna thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
People think you're crazy. Just talk about my rub.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I don't want anyone to know that my steak rub
is delicious.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Now everyone will want it exactly what are you doing
to us?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
He could go into business. He could, by the way,
it's great.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I'm not gonna lie. I feel like, if you feel
his rub could rub people the right way, get it
out there in the world.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
It would be great on a mushroom. I'm just saying,
if you don't like than that now.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Sounds very delicious. Rubbed roasted mushrooms, also sort of filthy. Yeah.
I can't thank you enough. You're the most wonderful delight
to talk to and it is so nice to see you.
And I'm so glad that you're so well.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
So nice to see you, so nice to talk to you.
This was a lovely conversation. I feel very energized to
go pop my crop top on and check myself out
in a full length mirror.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
By the way, I want you to do one final recording,
okay of news for coops, news for goofs in your
crop top before you give the crop top to your cat.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I'm gonna put it on my cat and send you
a piccher.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Please do that.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I'm going to do that that later.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Oh my god, love me, Thank you, thank you, thank
you a million times. Mini Questions is hosted and written
by Me Mini Driver, Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman,
with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
The theme music is also by Me and additional music
(40:24):
by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day,
Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, Anick Oppenheim, a Nick Muller and
Annette Wolfe, a w kPr, Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan
Levoy and mangesh Had Tiggadore
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The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.