May 20, 2025 • 49 mins
Maggie Baird - Actress/writer/ & mother of superstars Billie Eilish & Finneas gives Jay the recipe for not messing up your kids and letting them flourish. She also talks about living small, rewarding effort and experience over awards, & the value of an artist’s mindset and working for love vs. money. And she talks about trying to change the world with her Support + Feed charity she formed to help fight food insecurity. She also talked about the value of publicists, good people in the music industry, and letting your kids yell at you when they need to.
Bio: Maggie Baird is a climate activist committed to building equitable solutions that move all of us to action. Mother of Grammy-Award-winning Artists Billie Eilish and Finneas, she ispassionate about helping the music industry implement comprehensive sustainabilitystrategies. A lifelong vegetarian turned vegan, she engages audiences through her popularweekly Instagram Live streams on the climate impacts of our global food system, and she isa frequent speaker and panelist on food and sustainability within the music, catering, andenvironmental spaces. Baird’s passion for the health of our planet, her plant-based cookingtips, and conversations with youth activists, have inspired thousands to change their lives.In 2020, Baird founded Support+Feed, a US nonprofit focused on developing innovative,intersectional strategies to ensure underserved communities have access to nourishingplant-based food while driving systemic change toward a more planet friendly global foodsystem. Under Baird’s leadership, S+F has reached 41 cities globally, has a consistentpresence in 11 anchor cities in the US, and is now expanding through partnerships in theEU, UK, and Australia. Since launch, S+F has provided 1.5 million plant-based meals andpantry items and related education in underserved communities through partnerships with190+ community organizations, 100+ local and minority-owned restaurants, and 350Volunteers.
Baird is a co-producer of Overheated, a climate summit hosted by Billie Eilish and S+F thatfeatures youth activists from around the world, and in 2024, she was featured in Forbes’ 50Over 50 list and was honored as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year. She also makes aregular appearance on climate scientist Chris Turney’s podcast “Unf*cking the Future”which is dedicated to addressing the climate crisis and exploring potential solutions withleaders in the entertainment, academic, and environmental spaces.
Bio: Maggie Baird is a climate activist committed to building equitable solutions that move all of us to action. Mother of Grammy-Award-winning Artists Billie Eilish and Finneas, she ispassionate about helping the music industry implement comprehensive sustainabilitystrategies. A lifelong vegetarian turned vegan, she engages audiences through her popularweekly Instagram Live streams on the climate impacts of our global food system, and she isa frequent speaker and panelist on food and sustainability within the music, catering, andenvironmental spaces. Baird’s passion for the health of our planet, her plant-based cookingtips, and conversations with youth activists, have inspired thousands to change their lives.In 2020, Baird founded Support+Feed, a US nonprofit focused on developing innovative,intersectional strategies to ensure underserved communities have access to nourishingplant-based food while driving systemic change toward a more planet friendly global foodsystem. Under Baird’s leadership, S+F has reached 41 cities globally, has a consistentpresence in 11 anchor cities in the US, and is now expanding through partnerships in theEU, UK, and Australia. Since launch, S+F has provided 1.5 million plant-based meals andpantry items and related education in underserved communities through partnerships with190+ community organizations, 100+ local and minority-owned restaurants, and 350Volunteers.
Baird is a co-producer of Overheated, a climate summit hosted by Billie Eilish and S+F thatfeatures youth activists from around the world, and in 2024, she was featured in Forbes’ 50Over 50 list and was honored as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year. She also makes aregular appearance on climate scientist Chris Turney’s podcast “Unf*cking the Future”which is dedicated to addressing the climate crisis and exploring potential solutions withleaders in the entertainment, academic, and environmental spaces.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I am here with the fabulous Jake Hogan on Don't
be Alone with Jake Hogan.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I guess no one warned.
Speaker 4 (00:10):
Me don't be alone with j J Cogan.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
Hi, welcome to Don't be Alone with Jake Hogan. We
have a great, great show for you today. Maggie Barrett
is here. Maggie is an actor and a songwriter and
a philanthropist and for good or for bad, she's most
famous for being the mother of Billie, Eilish and Phineas.
She has a very special relationship with her kids. They
like her, they're musicians, they're big deals, and they still
(00:41):
like her and they like their dad. And I think
that's not always the case for people who become big
in show business and who whose parents were involved in
their career. And of course I have a musician son,
incredibly talented musician's son, Charlie Cogan, and so I want
to find out as much as I can about the
(01:01):
mistakes that you can make with trying to do too
much for your kid, and the mistakes you can make
for doing too little, and how you can best advise
and how you can best leave them alone. These are
all questions I'll be asking Maggie. But before we get
to Maggie, I just want to encourage you all to
subscribe to this show. If you like it, subscribe, go
(01:23):
to YouTube and say I am a subscriber. What does
it cost you nothing? It's free. And also you can
like it and Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon. You
can like it everywhere. Audible like it, like it, subscribe
there too, subscribe everywhere. But the YouTube is apparently the
one where people are really judging me, and I feel
very ashamed. You can help me out by subscribing to
(01:47):
the show and sending it to a friend. If you
like it, send it to a friend. We'll get more
subscribers that way too. Please write to me at Dbawjka
at gmail dot com with all your questions, especially the
viewer questions. I'm going to start giving out prizes to
people who send me the questions, a special thing that
you can then sell an eBay for a gazillion dollars.
(02:08):
All right, well, thank you for being here. I'm excited
about the show and I'm excited that you're here. So
without any further ado, let's get to the great and
wondrous and wise Maggie Bird.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Don't Be Alone with.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Maggie Baird is here, and I've known you through the
groundlings for many years I'm going to say decades maybe,
I think. And I knew he was a really funny
performer and actress doing interesting things and writing things and
all that kind of stuff. Then a few years ago
you had these two kids who became phenomenons in their
(02:51):
own right. Like literally, Phineas and Billie Eilish are your children,
and they're both separately and together superstars, I know, very weird.
So that wasn't the identity I knew you by, is
being the sort of you know, having a superstar farm
somewhere somewhere in Los Felix Highland Park area. Okay, so
(03:16):
the show Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan is all
about me solving my problems because I'm a very selfish person,
as you know. The question that you're here to answer,
amongst many other things, is to what extent it wasn't
just one kid, it's too To what extent is that
a function of being raised the way they were, And
(03:37):
to what extent is it just dumb luck? And to
what extent is it just you know who they are? Like? Where? Where?
Does that? How do you do the math on that?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I think it's some of each. Did you ever read
the book Outliers? No, it's worth reading.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
But when I read the book Outliers, and actually I
read it with Phineas at a book club, I used
to lead these.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Homes and I used to we homeschooled our kids and
for lots of reasons, but I used to lead book
clubs for the kids and you know, and for different
ages and what and we did teen book club we
read Outliers.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Of Phineas was probably like twelve, I guess. And when
I read the book, I just thought, oh, gosh, am
I screwing up as a parent, because there's lots of things.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
In the books away, Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, you're screwing of the time for sure, And I
knew it was, so it just validated it. So in
the book talks about like all the contributing factors why
outliers are outliers? Right? People who are different in whatever right?
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I mean, in addition to the ten thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Hours well tend out.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well that's important because so what I got out of
the book was, oh, my gosh, what decisions have we
already made about our lives that are going to affect
our children, right, And you know, I grew up in Colorado.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I love to ski.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
We didn't have much money, but we bought a season
pass every year.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
It was cheap then, and.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know, but I can never afford to take my
kids skiing. I think we scrounged out two trips to
you know, Big Bear. Yeah, And I was like, my
kids probably would have been really good skiers, but I
didn't have that opportunity for them, like and so I
felt like, you know, I didn't live here.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I didn't we'd have money, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Do this, we didn't do that. So it's kind of
focused on all the things we didn't have. Phineas read
the book and all he got out of the book
was ten thousand hours and he wrote it over his
door and he said, about to get it. And the
amazing thing is my kids, really they're really outliers, right,
because there's so many things you can point to about
what happened with them. They grew up at a time
(05:45):
when you could make music in your room right at
the beginning of it too, so it wasn't saturated, there
wasn't so much of it. They were homeschooled, which meant
they had a lot of time, and they the way
we homeschooled, they could devote a lot of their attention
to the things they liked doing. Yeah, they didn't grow
up near a ski mountain, but they grew up in
(06:05):
Los Angeles, right with a world class symphony in a
world class you know. They got to be in the
Los Angeles Children's Chorus with a scholarship, you know, And
it sounds like it was an outliers moment. You know,
even the way their song got found on SoundCloud. It
was like a moment in time when SoundCloud was relatively new, right,
(06:29):
you know, they put it on SoundCloud for a dance teacher, right, literally,
just like here's the link. You know, that would be
hard to have happen now, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
They also had this natural talent.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I mean that's the part you can't deny, right, they had.
They didn't have piano lessons, they didn't have they didn't
have any of those lessons, but they could learn, you know,
So that that's it was their natural talent that happened
to be at a place in time.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
But fostering natural talent is a thing that parents do,
and you and your husband.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Must have done that I think we didn't screw it up. Okay,
I think you can also screw that up, you know,
And I think we didn't screw it up. We you know,
we addressed their interests, but we didn't overburden their interests,
if you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Like, so, if somebody said I want to play tea ball,
I want to play baseball, then you'd let them play baseball,
but you wouldn't coach like it, what's the difference.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
No, it probably would coach if they needed a coach.
It would be like do they need a coach? You know,
do they need this? I would do that. I would
haul the gear.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
But what I wouldn't do is like here's a five
hundred dollars mint, and here's like the finest cleats. You're
going immediately to a camp where you're going to stay
for eight weeks. You know, I wouldn't do that right
right and.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Wait to see there's passion there, and then once the
passion is there, you'd sort of support it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And there was also kind of funny thing with Phineas
where he was little, he was obsessed with music. At
age three, Billy wasn't born yet, he wanted for Christmas
all he wanted was like a high hat symbol for
his drum kid and conducting baton.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Right, that's what he wants.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Like, you know, we'll double that for a Harry Potter
wand you could do both right, Well.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
He got yeah, but we also were in the parenting philosophy.
I don't know about your age parenting. I think similarly, gosh,
this could get deep in the parents.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Ok, well here this is my thing. My issue is
that I need. My personal need is how do I
support my son who's also a musician without fucking him up,
without really putting too much pressure on, without getting too involved,
without sapping his passion, but supporting him, trying to make
(08:46):
bolstering him when he needs it, but staying away when
you don't like this is you're the You're in a
very unique position, which is why I've been trying to
get you here for a while. Of doing all that
and seemingly keeping a very good relationship with your kids
and them having leaned on you for a certain amount
of stuff, but also you letting them fly. Yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Really Charlie is a grown up, so it was a
little different than little kids. But I was going to
say when they were little kids.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
There was a parenting.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Philosophy from a guy named Alfie Kne and it was
kind of like not using the phrase good job or
good this good job, and we subscribed to that, so
we weren't good jobbing all the time, right, So it
was a kind of a It was a kind of
like if they climbed the they climbed the ladder to
the high slide and stuff like good job, it would
(09:35):
be like you climbed the ladder, how do you feel
up there? Right?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So it was much more about like.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Your experience, not my experience.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
So we weren't like.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Good job you use the toilet, good job you pick.
We just got the phrase out of our brains.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
But what would happen was.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So when he was drumming like crazy, I have actually
an amazing story which if we can cut out of
a stula, No, Phineas I went to a karate He
went to a birthday party and there was karate and
he loved it. So he wanted to sign up for
the karate class. So we went to the karate class
and gosh, he loved it. I could see he was
just and he was like a good student, but he
(10:14):
was just like doing everything. The teacher says, Sense said,
he just was so he loved it.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
They get to the end of the class, and the
sense or whatever he was called at the time, says, ah,
ladies and gentlemen, you know, great class. We have we
have something we do in this class. Every week we
give a student of the week and the student of
the week gets to take home the headband. And my
heart sunk because I knew it was going to be Phineas. Right,
(10:41):
No way, it wasn't a brand new student, right, he
killed it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
She's amazing.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I was like, oh, no, they're gonna make Phineas student
of the week. I knew this was wrong for him
because yeah, of course he got the student of the week.
What did he talk about all week?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was student of the week. I was student of
the week.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Not the karate class and how much he loved it,
but the fact that he was a student of the week.
And so what happened the next week when we went back,
Was he going to be a student of the week again?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
No way, right, because they have.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
To do the new kid, and they have to spread
it around. But he worked just as hard, and he
tried just as hard, and afterward, he was like, why
wasn't I student of the week? And I could explain
all the reasons.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
But just how it felt.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And I was like, why, of all places karate, which
has its own rewards system of bells, would you add
a random student of the week with a headband. I
watched him. He lost the interest in a few weeks,
And that's an example of like what we tried not
to do, like not to make it about external rewards.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
But about the world around us. Wants to do wat
honor external rewards. We did Brown, and I tried as
much as we can to honor his work, like say, like,
you work really hard, not like you get an A,
but you work really hard. Wow, I really that's that's
great that you work that hard and really just talk
(12:04):
about the effort and that because if we read that,
if you talk about the grades or the reward, then
kids are going to start feeling afraid of not getting
the grades in a reward and not try try to
fail exactly. And so I don't think we succeeded, because
I think that there's natural inclination. Nobody wants to fail nobody,
(12:24):
But that was our attempt at doing that. But you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
How good we did, but there's a lot of external
because even when Phineish was like three years old and
he was drumming, people would come over and then they
would be like, oh, you're so good, Oh you're this,
and I was like, Oh, don't say anything, just let
him do it, you know.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
So here's what. Here's something that you can't learn really fast,
that your kids have somehow learned and that you have
either helped or whatever. I don't know how it is,
but they've survived a viper pit of show business. Really truly,
it's one thing to want to my son is in
the position where he wants to make it in the
(13:03):
music industry. He's not there, he's trying, he's doing stuff.
But once you've reached a certain amount of success, there's
so many pitfalls. That's really the scariest place. And both
your children are there, and both your children are negotiating it.
I'm sure they're problems and difficulties, but overall it seems
(13:24):
like they're coming through that in a really good way.
How do you prepare them for that?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I don't come I don't think that's preparing.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think the really lucky part of this was that
they were of an age Billy, especially because the first
thing the song came out that sort of you know,
got people knocking on the right. She was thirteen years old,
that's oceanized. Yeah, she was thirteen. She was about to
be fourteen. So she was so young that we parent
(13:54):
parents had to be involved, right, And Phineas was only seventeen, right,
And so that was actually really lucky because and I've
said this in I've said this many times, I don't
really know how anybody starts out in this industry and
has a without a parent, because you need an advocate,
(14:15):
You need a person who is listen.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Everybody, no matter how great everybody is.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Around you and your team, everyone has an agenda.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
They do.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
And that's not a.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Bad thing in life, but it is. And so who
is the person whose agenda is you and your mental
health and your physical health, and your legacy, who you
are as a human, who you'll be in the future.
That's your parent.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
And so I mean, if you're lucky, you meet somebody
in the business who also you think might have your
back a little bit, but you're right for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I think, and I think those people exist, they really do.
But then you got to find that in addition to
everything else. So I think it's lucky, if you I
think it was lucky that she was of an age
that people were welcome and that doesn't always happen, you know,
especially with moms, to be honest, there's like a prejudice
against moms, you know, mamager momager, which I was not
(15:08):
a manager, but you're looking out for your child, you.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Know, as somebody who's you know, produced shows with kid actors.
One of the things you judge when you hire a
kid actors are the parents crazy?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Are they going to make trouble? And are they going
to be difficult? And do they you know what is
the kid want to work or is it being forced
to work because the parents are making Like all those
things go into the mix, and so I can understand
people sort of being a little bit suspicious or wary
until they know, like what is the position of this
(15:44):
mom to this child.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, Well, in the music industry is a little wild West,
like you, there's no reunions, there's no work our rules,
there's no you know what I mean, there's like there's
crazy conflict of interest. Like some of the stuff that
blew my mind. The beginning was like, oh, that person
is a manager and they're also a music supervisor and
they're on DJ, and then you know what, like you're like, wait,
(16:07):
is this not a conflict of interest? You know, but
there's no rules about that in the industry. Sure, it's
really kind of it is wild West like and so
in the acting one, it's a little more cut and
dried and you have these kind of guidelines and you
have these social workers, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Don't be alone on the JJ.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Yeah, no, I feel very lost when I about We've
had conversations you and I personally about like the music
industry and where it is, and Charlie's had good advice
from people including you. Thank you by the way.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Charlie's really talented, So grateful.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
That you took time out to talk to him, and
other people have taken time out to talk to him
and help him and been encouraging of his music. And
it means so much when it's not his parents saying
you're really good, like yes, of course we're shills, Like well,
you know, but that's.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
What people always say to me, like did you see
this coming? Did you ever think? Did you you know know?
I was absolutely not because I'm an actor, and as
an actor, we know that talent does not always.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Equate with success, not at all, of course.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And we're like, so we have no illusions about like it's.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
A straight shot. You just work hard.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And you just get it's not it's just not right.
So I was as shocked as anybody.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Well, but interestingly enough, you and your husband are artists, right,
and so there's a mindset of artists. Yes, that kind
of doesn't matter whether success exists or not. What matters
is the art and are we going to make art?
And are we going to make art? Is that gonna
be are living or is that just what we do?
Is that, like all that stuff, it comes from an
(17:59):
artistic household that may not come from a household where
the parents are doctors and lawyers or other things. So
they're lucky to have that as the mindset.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, we lived in a two bedroom house with three pianos,
one piano that we got from craigslist because my husband
always wanted a grand piano. He turned fifty, was like,
I can't believe I've never been able to afford a
grand piano. We found a free one on Craigslist. Terrible piano,
like an albatross.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
We had a terrible grand piano. We do because it
was my mother's, my wife's grandmother's piano. Yeah, it's a
family heirloom and it's hard, horrible.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, Patrick had to learn to tune it because the
professional tuners wouldn't do it right. But then we also
had my childhood piano in Phineas's bedroom, and then we
had an electric piano in.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Our little living room.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So they grew up with three pianos and two parents
who were professional actors, which you know, working class actors.
But we're also amateur musicians who loved music. Wrote I
wrote songs, you know, as an amateur songwriter. And yeah,
I mean Phineas, I said somebody to somebody who asked
me a question recently, I said, I think people need
(19:09):
to dream smaller. I think you need to make your
dreams like a little smaller so they are you're happier.
Phineas once said recently, which I loved hearing, and I
know it's true for him. He said his big dream,
his big dream was to be in a band that
opened for a band at the Fonda, right, right, And honestly,
I remember when one of our favorite bands was like
(19:31):
opening for a big band and it wasn't even that
big a venue, but I was like, oh, can you
imagine how incredible that is?
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Sure, and I think that's.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Important if your dreams are like a little bit more,
you know, like if you want to make art, make art,
if you want to perform, if you want to write
songs and perform, there's a lot of opportunity for that.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
The problem that dreams, amongst many things is like I
think in the music industry is like, I don't think
I would know to dream. I wouldn't know what i'd want?
What's the goal? Like everything changes so much, everything moves
around success. I don't even know what it looks like exactly.
I mean, I know for a rarefied air of a
(20:14):
few people what it looks like, but for most everybody else,
like being able to make a living at it would
be would be amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, Charlie's a really good songwriter, yes, and I think
that making and living as a song right, you.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Would love to do that would because I think you'd
prefer to do that rather than even sing.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Well, that I think is a somewhat you know, doable goal.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
You know, one of.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
The things that is difficult is like, okay, well, how
do you then promote the songs you've written without singing
them and then getting them on social media? Someone has
to pick up the gauntlet, who has a connection to
the people who might be buying or singing those songs
to say here it is, and publishers can do that.
(20:57):
But publishers are only interested in people who have made
a certain amount of moth so far. And also they
don't you don't shouldn't give away you're publishing.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
It's a catch twenty two, isn't it. I do think,
and again like I don't want to be here as
an expert, but I do think either being a writer
and a producer, or working with a producer so that
you're a team.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I think that is the key. Because artists do work
with producers right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Now in Billy in Phineas case, the two of them
right right, and that's perfect and ideal. But most artists,
even if they write their own songs, they are.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Going to work with a producer.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So if that producer produces and also happens to be
a songwriter, now you've got a great combo. You know.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Oh you coming with my ideas?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
So I think that is working for people more than
just being a songwriter.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
In quotes, Yeah, I mean, Charlie is produced for people
and has been produced by people, So it's like been
both both areas I mean, and I'm encouraging him. One
of my biggest things is collaborate. Collaborate, is collaborate. The
more you collaborate, the best or you'll be. It's like
an actor or improv like the more we play with
other people, the more we get, the more we give.
(22:06):
All that stuff helps and a bigger community.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
A meeting people is so important.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's so important meeting people.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Here's another compliment you didn't ask for that has nothing
to do with you, has more to do with your kids.
What was I Made For? Is an amazing song. And
the second I heard it, I knew it was an
amazing song. And the second I heard it and thought
they wrote this for a movie was also mind blowing
because the assignment of we need a song for this
(22:34):
that fits in with our movie but also fits in
with some emotional zeitgeist that you're tapping into, and it
also has to sound really good and it also has
to be catchy in some ways is impossible.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It is amazing, and they did it.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
Like, holy crap, they did it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
But you know what they will say this that they've
been kind of training in this way because when they
first started out, I'm I don't want this to sound
like me taking credit, because it's just I taught a
songwriting class when Phineas was twelve. But I taught it
because I thought I wanted him to learn it, right,
And I'm an amateur.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right, but I wrote a lot of music at the groundings, right.
But watching Phineas was like watching a light bulb right,
just like that.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
It was literally like showed the song structure of well,
I want to hold your hand and he went.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Okay, I get it. And then every week was like that.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
But some of the assignments were like watch a TV
show and listen to a phrase or something. But then
they started doing this on their own, like you know,
and they've talked about it a lot. They'd be like,
let's write a Bond song, right, like let's write of this.
They found that fun, you know, like they did it
as like little experiments in assignments.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
But sometimes need something, you need a little box. Oh
it helps a lot creative. Yeah, and you sort of say,
what's today's box? What is it we're going to do?
And I'm always encouraging Charlie to write outside of his
box a little bit and go like that, what's the
soul song that you would write that you would never
you know, what's what's what if you had to write
if you were writing a motown song today, what would
(24:08):
that sound like? Or what would And you know, sometimes
he likes it since it's it's exciting for him, and
sometimes he just rolls up that I'm that's not for me.
And he's always out of my laying dad. Yeah, and
he's right always, but it's it's fascinating. Well, let's let's
talk about your journey. So you came from Colorado. What
(24:28):
made you decide, Okay, I'm going to be an actor
and I'm going to come to LA and I'm going
to take the big risk to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I actually moved to New York. I lived in New
York for ten years. Okay, So I always wanted to
be an actor.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
And as a little kid, did you.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Move to New York because you thought Broadway is my place?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I was a theater actor.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I moved to New York and I you know, like
laugh in you know Edith and that was all my favorite,
you know, Lily Tomlin.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But I moved to New York.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I went to college in Utah, right to be an actor,
and everybody.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Does, all the great actors go to Utah.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
I didn't know how to go. I don't know how
to become an actor, right, I really didn't know. But
I was also a dancer.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I knew where to go to be a dancer because
they had a great dance department.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
So I went there.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
There was an amazing acting teacher there. I took the
class as a non major. I got taken into the
acting department. Changed my life, you know, That's what I
wanted to do. But then I quit college, moved to
New York, and I did regional theater, you know, which
means you live in New York, but you auditioned for
Cincinnati Playhouse or you know. And I met my husband
in Alaska rep doing a play. So yeah, we just
(25:35):
did regional theater off Broadway plays Broadway plays.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
And did you survive doing mostly that or did you
have to have other jobs?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Or I did?
Speaker 5 (25:43):
I was lucky.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I did a soap opera for I did one soap
opera for a little while, and I didn't you know
New York soap operas are kind of the actor's day job.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They were, yeah, they were.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I did a couple of soap operas that kind
of got me through.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
We're always been working class actors.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
You know, like early, you know, below the poverty level technically,
you know, harder to do.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Now.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
All my active friends are all complaining because you used
to be able to make a living by doing one
or two or a couple parts a year, and the
commercial and individuals and other kind of stuff and all
that stuff is going away.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, and we were never well off.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
But again, like what you said earlier, I think if
you're if your goal is to make art and you
don't have a goal of being you know, you're happy making.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
I mean your goal is hopefully your art, you make
a right spot and people love it, but you're.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Still going to create, creativity, control, those are your big goals, right.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So we you know, lived in New York and did
and I did. My mom died suddenly and I was
very low and depressed, and I did a national tour
of the Heidi Chronicles and came to LA and I
was like, I'm gonna move to La, so move to
La and.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
You know, we both did.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
And I honestly went to see a friend McNally skull
at the Growlings and I was like, this looks like
the most fun thing. This looks like what I wanted
to do my whole life and didn't know it, you know,
because back to the Lily Tomlin. You know, so she
just took a class of the Growndings for fun.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
So who was your group? Who was your the people
that you came up with at the Groundlings.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Will and I went through kind of the exact same
trajectory of time getting into the company.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Okay, that's Will Ferrell, not Will Forte.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Will Ferrell, but I knew Will Forte too, but he
was He's like one group by Chris Catan, Amy Smallman
in the Sunday Company.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Amy Smallan was in the Sunday Company with Matt.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I don't think it was in their company with Matt though,
but just my eyes.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Oh my god, that's a lot of work. That's a
lot of work.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
That's the funniest person.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
He is, very funny. I played I'm playing a poker
game with him tonight.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
I know he told me, Yeah, that was my group,
you know, Coolidge and yeah, very funny, Mary, Joe Smith,
Roy Jenkins, Yeah, very funny people.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I wrote with Roy and Will all the time.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Man, that's so funny.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
The Growlings was the most fun and also it made
me a much better actor. When people would say, like,
what do you recommend as an actor, I say, go
to the Growndings because I remember I did an episode
of The X Files and at the audition I had
to speak in tongues and have a seizure, right because
I was a psychic and it was X Files.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Sure, you know, being an.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Actor going into a four x six room with a
bunch of producers speaking in tongues and having a seizure.
I don't think I could have done that before the Groundlings,
you know what I mean, Like the audition and maybe
I could have, but the Liberation I.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Would have gone through a whole bunch of very difficult
exercises to get there as a serious actor. As a Growlings,
I think they'll do it, go for it. It's a
whole different thing. But I say that the Groundings has
hurt people's acting. Like if people start at the Groundlings
learn character and comedy and all things, but they don't
learn that the seriousness, the moment of like ignoring the
(29:13):
camera be real in this moment right now, which is
that's a different skill.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
It is a different skill for me. It was a
perfect order, right, And maybe that's true.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
And they're certainly you know some forms of sketch comedy
where they kind of reward the the smirk, do you
know what I mean, they reward the we're joking here,
But that wasn't me.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
People have to learn the other kind of acting once
they get into movies, all these all these groundings and
saturn live actors have to learn, oh, the thing we
were doing is not the thing that we're still doing now.
And they all, many of them who were really good
and become really good serious actors.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
I think the best do do both match, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
You said, do do do do do do do do
do do both?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I wasn't do do or do to do?
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Which is I'm not sure either way you should be
ashamed for it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
But you know, there is the magic ones some I mean,
we could sit here and name some of the greatest
serious actors who are also the funniest people on ours
to start there, She's so funny. Yeah, And then on
the other hand, like Jim Carrey, you know the other side,
you know, coming from you know, a great serious actor,
Bill Murray.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
You know, don't be alone with.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
What's the biggest mistake that your kids have avoided that
that that you maybe either help them with or just
dumblouck hmm gosh.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
I don't know that I have an answer for that.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
All right, this interview is over. Fuck this. I asked
I didn't I ask her. I asked your question. She
didn't have an answer.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I don't know that they've avoided I guess like being
too influenced by other people.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
You know, Well, what do you worry about for them?
Right now? Every parent worries, Well, we always.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Worry about their safety, and you know, the lack of
privacy you have, the things you give up for this,
but happiness. I worry that they you know, find you
know that they you know, it's a it's an intense
world to be in front of.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
How do you preserve the part of you that you
want to keep for yourself? How do you preserve how
do you find relationships that aren't tainted by Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Think you just don't don't don't you just don't buy
into the to the physical trappings for one thing, you
know what I mean, Like the minute you start over
spending over high, living outside of your means or living
very high in your means. Now you have to keep
something up, and you have to keep an image up,
(32:08):
and you have to keep a you have to take
jobs you might not want to take. That is a
huge pitfall. And I think what we have as a
family is we all live here. We live in our
same small house. You know, we have family dinners all
the time.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
You have painted it with actual gold, so just plastered
with gold. But still it's a beautiful house. But the
gold and diamonds are different.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Now yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so funny and so not true,
but funny.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
Staying grounded is great, but I think it's really hard,
Like I don't know that if you it's so easy
to you know, perform at the forum for five nights
and have you know, thirty thousand people cheering for you
every night, and then go back home and like order
chicken vegan so yeah, or pick up pick up you know,
(32:58):
something fried vegetable or something like that and just take
it home and just sit in front of the TV
with Like it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Is weird, but it's more like a dopamine weird thing,
you know, like a it's hard for your dopamine and
your brain to be like high high high and then
maybe not have anything right technically on the schedule, you.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Said you're vegan. This is true. Let's talk a little
bit about support and feed. Let's do So you have
this group that you support, but I think it's your
group found it. You founded your group. It's getting people.
A nonprofit vegan, yes, right, vegan, but it's feeding people
who need to be fat.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
We are a nonprofit that is addressing food equity and
the climate crisis, and the way we do that is
we provide nourishing, delicious, plant based meals because we know
that those are better for the climate and better for
health to community organizations where people are affected by food
(33:57):
insecurity and food equity, meaning that many organizations or communities
are in areas where they lack access to nourishing food.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
So we do this to address that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
We also provide education, information, cooking classes, produce recipes, all
kinds of things to support that.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
So what made you found this group? Obviously there's need
everywhere you like, you see the need, but I see
the need and I didn't find it. I didn't make
a group, so what encouraged you to do it?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Well? All the other One of the things I've done
my whole life is I cook.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I love to cook.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I love to feed people, and I really care about
the environment. And I'm really the same person I've always been. Like.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
People are like, oh wow.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Like I've been saying the same things, but nobody ever
listened to me really into my kids got famous, which
was amazing. They kind of gave me a platform to
talk about the things I really care about. Yeah, And
so I've been working with my daughter Billy and Phineas
and their teams to try to make the music industry
more sustainable. And then when the pandemic hit, we came
(35:01):
home from a tour and you know, I thought, oh
my god, people are going to need food.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
We need to feed people.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
But of course we'll make the food plant based food.
We'll support the local businesses that are going under. And
then we stepped into the world of food insecurity, and
our eyes were blown open, you know, And I'm shamefully
with shamefully unaware of the depth of food insecurity and
the depth of food inequity in our society. And so
we realized that nobody was really doing it, because you know,
(35:28):
forming a nonprofit is really hard, but and generally you
shouldn't do it, you should volunteer for another nonprofit.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
But nobody was really doing.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
What we were doing, which was saying, why are we
siloing these Why are we siloing feeding people, climate change,
economy health? When we're feeding so many organizations are feeding
tremendous amounts of food, why don't we make that food
plant based, delicious, from a local business, healthier, provide information.
(35:55):
So that's why we became a nonprofit, and we we
were in for cities and then that first year we're
in eleven cities.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
In the US.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Now we work with organizations in Europe and Australia.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
And where does Support and Feed mostly get their funding.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
From donations, just donations from private, private donations, small donations.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
So if somebody would want to give to Support and Feed,
now make it very clear, I would never give to
the cerization. But if somebody else, our listeners would want
to give to Support and Feed, how would they do it?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Supportingfeed dot org and can just you know, make a donation?
And you know, I mean, right now we're feeding so
many people from the LA fires, we've increased four hundred
and fifty percent what we feed in LA. We have
two pop ups every week in L to d n
F feeding make in this case we're actually feeding directly.
Usually we're feeding through and we're taking our food to friends,
indeed to Boys and Girls Club, two sisters of wats.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
These are the LA ones.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
But they're all over the country, right, But in this
case we're feeding directly to the people impacted by the fires.
Speaker 5 (36:53):
You know, do you ever, I mean, there's more need,
more than food that you have, So how do you
how do you sort of figure out, Yeah, here's how
we're going to dole it out.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's it's complicated, you know, because we don't come and go.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
We stay.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
So we we work with organizations figure out what do
you need?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
What do you want for your community?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
What are you lacking?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
What food do you want?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Would you like education? Also, we really don't come in
and tell people what to do.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
We say what do you need? And you know, then
we make and we.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Want to have the ability to commit to that so
that we're not just like here's some food, we go,
but like we're here every week. We're here now we're
adding this for you, and so that takes a real budget.
And really, in all our different cities.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
What do you do when you're serving people Brussels sprouts?
I mean they hate it. Everybody hates it.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
No, everybody loves brest spuds.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Now they like him.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Russels Sprout's got changed.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Brussels sprous, Yeah, you're behind.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
They've been thet I've had Brussels spreads at fancy la
restaurants and they fry it up and they put it
all kinds of crispy thing, but they make it exactly
like not Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Well, Brussels sprout's got changed. You know. Somebody bred Brussels
sprouts to only.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Have the good parts and not the bad parts.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
So Brussels sprouts actually taste much better.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Okay, thank god.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Cabbage is the new king.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Like cabbage is now getting its day. Really yeah, I'm
so into cabbage, But lately I've been like, oh, people
are catching up to cabbage.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
The Irish heritage speaking scott Scott, well they have cabbage too.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I'm Scottish and Irish.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah all right, I have a question about I don't
think we answered your question about what you should do
to support Charlie.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Yeah, Okay, what should I do this? This? What should
what should Charlie do for his career? And what should
I do for Charlie? Like honestly, like like I mean,
some people say, well, leave him the fuck alone and
let him just do what he's gotta do and he'll
find his way, which is fine and good, and I
think that's really valuable. A lot of my what I
(38:53):
do is leave Malone, Leave Malone. But if there's anything
I could do to sort of encourage him him or
you know, let him fly, great, I'll try to do it.
And if that's doing nothing, I can do that too.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Ah gosh, that's a good one because in general it's
like general parenting, but also music industry, right in general parenting, Yeah,
you just let them do what they do and you're
there and you're you still do that sort of uh.
I think that, you know, the potted plant thing where
I'm just gonna be around. Can I just come over
and hang out while you do blank? Right, you know,
so that I'm here so if the conversation comes up.
(39:29):
I also think the memory keeper thing is important, where
you're like the memory keeper of the like, well, I
remember the person who did this amazing thing, and like,
in other words, you can do it because I've seen
you do it. The kind of pointing out like the
successes and the how they overcame, right, I think that
is valuable to them to kind of go like.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
I see this about you.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Phineas always said, like the most important thing to him
was just like time and attention, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
So I think you're doing all that. And I think
as far as.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
The music, I also think, like music wise, there are
so many different things to research and avenue a thing,
like I don't think one person can do it. He's
doing what he needs to do. He's doing the social
media thing, he's doing the writing songwriting. He's still you know,
catering to the art, but now sort of being willing
(40:21):
to sort of acknowledge it is a business that he
also has to play that game.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, somebody said this to me when Phineas was really
young and he had a band, and it was actually
before the billy thing happened. So I was kind of
doing what you were doing, like, well, how do I
help and how do I stay out of the way,
And he was saying for Phineas, he said, first of all,
tell him to just really practice his skills because when
things take off sometimes you don't have time right right.
(40:48):
And then for me it was kind of like, you know,
learn a little bit about the industry so that if
suddenly you're faced with blank which I did not do,
by the way, right, I mean, you know, I just
ain't have time at that age to kind of whatever.
But I think in your case, you know, kind of
learning about it so that if he finds himself, like
you know, being offered something here or there, you have
(41:09):
some sense of like, you know, what would be a
standard here or someone to call.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I mean, you have people to call, which is.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Lucky, it is lucky. But I mean, my the wheelhouse
is not music. My wheelhouse is you know, movies and TV.
And I have some people to call in there. But
but you know, and I've dealt with music people in general.
But it's like, you know, I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Know, but I've heard Charlie's music now for a while.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's you know what I mean, like it's.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
You're talking to you really good, You're appreciating the fire.
I am aware that his stuff is great, and I
will always love his stuff. Again, in my opinion, doesn't
count because I'm the dad. But yes, but I and
I who did I tell you?
Speaker 3 (41:48):
He reminded me of?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
He gets Burt Bacharach, he gets Billy Joel, he gets
James Taylor, he gets.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
With Bishop Stephen Bishop and Bishop do you remind me
of Stephen Bishop?
Speaker 5 (41:57):
Interestingly enough, Stephen Bishop's wife was on our show now
long ago. She's a mood manager named Liz. And yes,
and I got to talk to Stephen Bishop a little bit.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Oh yeah, he reminded me of Stephen Bishop.
Speaker 5 (42:06):
I love Stephen Bishop's on is a great song. It's
a beautiful song. All right. Well, now it's time for
viewer male.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Now it's time for listener man.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
This is from Angela, and Angela says, I live in
such a busy world. How do I make time for me?
And is it important for me to make time for me?
And where do you draw the line where you say
enough is enough? Hmm?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I I like to be doing things I enjoy, and
sometimes even that can be too much, right and I
start to feel just overwhelmed in my brain and then
I have to make time for me.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
But I don't. I'm not like on the Pampoy world,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Like I'm not like, you don't you don't want to
go to a SPA day.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
No, I don't want to.
Speaker 5 (43:05):
So what's what's your day of relaxation?
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Then?
Speaker 5 (43:07):
What do you try to? Have?
Speaker 2 (43:08):
No scheduled meetings, no scheduled calls.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
And you'll literally like, watch I watched White Lotus last night.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
That's great, you know, like have a watch a movie,
turn my phone off, rest, sleep.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Sleep more.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Really so soap, flippant, basic, you know what I mean,
I'm so basic, But yeah, get in nature, of course
would be amazing.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
But I guess Angela is saying, like, like the world
demands your time. Yeah, when do you say I have
I need to Even though this this is still waiting,
supporting feed is still waiting, still calling. There's real need
out there. Yeah, but you without taking care of yourself,
you can't take care of them. So where do you
(43:53):
draw that one?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
I push it a little too far.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I push it until I'm like, oh my god, I'm
really tired.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
I really don't have another.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Choice, Okay, and then you know, I find And this
happened to me this weekend because I had such a
busy last two weeks that I was like, I'm just
going to take a little nap. And then I took
that little nap and it was like I was like.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Oh my god, I'm so tired.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Like I hadn't even let myself realize that the minute
you tell your body we're going to rest for a second,
it's like finally, you know.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
So I think it is.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I think it is a good quality for people to
work in special rest periods or whatever rejuvenate I do.
I'm just not great at it.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
I do. I let my body collapse. Like sometimes I'll
just really just get sick and then I'll be forced
to stop.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, that's a famous thing.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Have happened. And like always on if you're working on
a show, you're on hiatus, you immediately get sick.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So for sure or in school you gotta say I
do have the famous or ring. Okay, and I I
it just reminds me about my sleep because I'm like
someone's someone's watching my.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Numbers, you know, like I'm like, oh, shoot, it was.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
A bit watch and it also attracks my sleep. Yeah,
but what attracts is horrible sleep. It's like the night
after night of horrible sleep.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Well, I work harder at it because of it. I'm
like it just reminds me.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I'm like, oh wow, I thought I got more sleep
than that last night.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
All right, well, now it's time for a moment of joy.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
A moment of joy.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
This is where you tell us something that gives you
joy that's not about your family and not about your work,
but just something that just resonates with you that maybe
we can all share, we can all do.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I thought about this, because, of course I did immediately
go to family in my little picture frame in my kitchen,
that's pictures of them as little kids.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Mine are so so small.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I my macha every day.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
I have maucha every day.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
One general, it's pretty big, it lasts for a long time.
And make it with almond and soy milk and make
it myself usually, And I do kind of have a
feeling each day like, oh I finished my macha, what's left?
Speaker 3 (46:03):
What's left of life?
Speaker 4 (46:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
I know people feel that way about coffee, but I
feel that way about macha.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I also like, I love to swim. I love organizing
a drawer.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
It is one of the really yeah, I'm not a
neat crazy person, but there's nothing.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Like My wife does the same thing. She loves to
organize and reorg. How often you reorganize the drawer you organize?
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Not very often.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
No, I'm like, it's it's once in a very long time.
But you know when you organize something and then that
feeling like you just keep going in to look at
it all night, You like pull the drawer and you're like,
oh my god.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
That looks so good.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, and it's like organizing your brain and where you
can see. I think that is you know nothing. I
used to say this when I was in the Groundlings
and you had to write something, I would always go
play the guitar, Like nothing made me play the guitar
more than I was supposed to be writing, right, And
nothing makes me want to organize a drawer more than
I'm supposed to be doing some right.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
So it's it's a procrastination tool, but it feels really it.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
Does because it's a it's a task that you can finish,
So it's good to finish something. I'm an errand guy Brown.
My wife will say, like I always ask her, do
you need me to do anything? Because I will go
on any errand anything has to say it's a it's
a task and I can finish it. And feel good
about that thing, whereas every other thing I do, scripts
(47:26):
thing takes months and years and whatever. It takes forever
to do. So I'm I like little tasks.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
I think my husband is the same, and I've never
I'm gonna talk to him about this, but he's fairly
generous of like, I've got a prescription at CBS to go,
I'll go get it. And I'm always like, it's kind
of funny that he'll do that because he doesn't want
to do other things. Maybe he feels good.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
It feels good, he feels I'm out service. I feel
like I'm doing something for somebody in my family or
somebody I love, and I can get out see something
to finish it and come back say I did that.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Volunteer for support and feed you can go pick up
some food, take it to a nice community.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Or happy to, happy to. I would love to put
me down. I'm happy to. I've written checks, but that's
nothing being a person, being a person who actually does
stuff that's that's helpful. I would love that.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, yes, rewarding.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Okay, So Maggie, thank you for being here. You're great
and uh and I really loved spending time with you.
And I really appreciate you were so kind and welcoming,
not just to come on the show, but also to
field my many panicky phone calls that I've had over
the years about having a musician child and what the
(48:39):
hell to do with them, And you've been very helpful
and helpful to talk to. Charlie too, has been really amazing,
and so I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
I wish him luck.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I wish I wish anyone listening who's a musician luck,
because I feel you'll love to make music too, and
admire you.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Just keep doing it.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
We're gonna need luck, you're gonna need but you don't
need luck to just make the music.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
You find time and just doing it and that's rewarding.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
So that was great. Thank you for that, and thank
you for listening to our show, and thank you for
subscribing to Don't be along with Jake Cogan, and thank
you for writing into DBAWJK at gmail dot com with
all your questions. And don't be alone. Go have fun
with somebody, Go see a friend, talk to somebody. Don't
be lonely. This lonely business is stupid. Spend some time
(49:26):
with a friend, either today or tomorrow. And I will
see you next time.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Don't be alone with Jan
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I am here with the fabulous Jake Hogan on Don't
be Alone with Jake Hogan.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I guess no one warned.
Speaker 4 (00:10):
Me don't be alone with j J Cogan.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
Hi, welcome to Don't be Alone with Jake Hogan. We
have a great, great show for you today. Maggie Barrett
is here. Maggie is an actor and a songwriter and
a philanthropist and for good or for bad, she's most
famous for being the mother of Billie, Eilish and Phineas.
She has a very special relationship with her kids. They
like her, they're musicians, they're big deals, and they still
(00:41):
like her and they like their dad. And I think
that's not always the case for people who become big
in show business and who whose parents were involved in
their career. And of course I have a musician son,
incredibly talented musician's son, Charlie Cogan, and so I want
to find out as much as I can about the
(01:01):
mistakes that you can make with trying to do too
much for your kid, and the mistakes you can make
for doing too little, and how you can best advise
and how you can best leave them alone. These are
all questions I'll be asking Maggie. But before we get
to Maggie, I just want to encourage you all to
subscribe to this show. If you like it, subscribe, go
(01:23):
to YouTube and say I am a subscriber. What does
it cost you nothing? It's free. And also you can
like it and Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon. You
can like it everywhere. Audible like it, like it, subscribe
there too, subscribe everywhere. But the YouTube is apparently the
one where people are really judging me, and I feel
very ashamed. You can help me out by subscribing to
(01:47):
the show and sending it to a friend. If you
like it, send it to a friend. We'll get more
subscribers that way too. Please write to me at Dbawjka
at gmail dot com with all your questions, especially the
viewer questions. I'm going to start giving out prizes to
people who send me the questions, a special thing that
you can then sell an eBay for a gazillion dollars.
(02:08):
All right, well, thank you for being here. I'm excited
about the show and I'm excited that you're here. So
without any further ado, let's get to the great and
wondrous and wise Maggie Bird.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Don't Be Alone with.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Maggie Baird is here, and I've known you through the
groundlings for many years I'm going to say decades maybe,
I think. And I knew he was a really funny
performer and actress doing interesting things and writing things and
all that kind of stuff. Then a few years ago
you had these two kids who became phenomenons in their
(02:51):
own right. Like literally, Phineas and Billie Eilish are your children,
and they're both separately and together superstars, I know, very weird.
So that wasn't the identity I knew you by, is
being the sort of you know, having a superstar farm
somewhere somewhere in Los Felix Highland Park area. Okay, so
(03:16):
the show Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan is all
about me solving my problems because I'm a very selfish person,
as you know. The question that you're here to answer,
amongst many other things, is to what extent it wasn't
just one kid, it's too To what extent is that
a function of being raised the way they were, And
(03:37):
to what extent is it just dumb luck? And to
what extent is it just you know who they are? Like? Where? Where?
Does that? How do you do the math on that?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I think it's some of each. Did you ever read
the book Outliers? No, it's worth reading.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
But when I read the book Outliers, and actually I
read it with Phineas at a book club, I used
to lead these.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Homes and I used to we homeschooled our kids and
for lots of reasons, but I used to lead book
clubs for the kids and you know, and for different
ages and what and we did teen book club we
read Outliers.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Of Phineas was probably like twelve, I guess. And when
I read the book, I just thought, oh, gosh, am
I screwing up as a parent, because there's lots of things.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
In the books away, Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, you're screwing of the time for sure, And I
knew it was, so it just validated it. So in
the book talks about like all the contributing factors why
outliers are outliers? Right? People who are different in whatever right?
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I mean, in addition to the ten thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Hours well tend out.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well that's important because so what I got out of
the book was, oh, my gosh, what decisions have we
already made about our lives that are going to affect
our children, right, And you know, I grew up in Colorado.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I love to ski.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
We didn't have much money, but we bought a season
pass every year.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
It was cheap then, and.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know, but I can never afford to take my
kids skiing. I think we scrounged out two trips to
you know, Big Bear. Yeah, And I was like, my
kids probably would have been really good skiers, but I
didn't have that opportunity for them, like and so I
felt like, you know, I didn't live here.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I didn't we'd have money, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Do this, we didn't do that. So it's kind of
focused on all the things we didn't have. Phineas read
the book and all he got out of the book
was ten thousand hours and he wrote it over his
door and he said, about to get it. And the
amazing thing is my kids, really they're really outliers, right,
because there's so many things you can point to about
what happened with them. They grew up at a time
(05:45):
when you could make music in your room right at
the beginning of it too, so it wasn't saturated, there
wasn't so much of it. They were homeschooled, which meant
they had a lot of time, and they the way
we homeschooled, they could devote a lot of their attention
to the things they liked doing. Yeah, they didn't grow
up near a ski mountain, but they grew up in
(06:05):
Los Angeles, right with a world class symphony in a
world class you know. They got to be in the
Los Angeles Children's Chorus with a scholarship, you know, And
it sounds like it was an outliers moment. You know,
even the way their song got found on SoundCloud. It
was like a moment in time when SoundCloud was relatively new, right,
(06:29):
you know, they put it on SoundCloud for a dance teacher, right, literally,
just like here's the link. You know, that would be
hard to have happen now, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
They also had this natural talent.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I mean that's the part you can't deny, right, they had.
They didn't have piano lessons, they didn't have they didn't
have any of those lessons, but they could learn, you know,
So that that's it was their natural talent that happened
to be at a place in time.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
But fostering natural talent is a thing that parents do,
and you and your husband.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Must have done that I think we didn't screw it up. Okay,
I think you can also screw that up, you know,
And I think we didn't screw it up. We you know,
we addressed their interests, but we didn't overburden their interests,
if you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Like, so, if somebody said I want to play tea ball,
I want to play baseball, then you'd let them play baseball,
but you wouldn't coach like it, what's the difference.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
No, it probably would coach if they needed a coach.
It would be like do they need a coach? You know,
do they need this? I would do that. I would
haul the gear.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
But what I wouldn't do is like here's a five
hundred dollars mint, and here's like the finest cleats. You're
going immediately to a camp where you're going to stay
for eight weeks. You know, I wouldn't do that right
right and.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Wait to see there's passion there, and then once the
passion is there, you'd sort of support it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And there was also kind of funny thing with Phineas
where he was little, he was obsessed with music. At
age three, Billy wasn't born yet, he wanted for Christmas
all he wanted was like a high hat symbol for
his drum kid and conducting baton.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Right, that's what he wants.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Like, you know, we'll double that for a Harry Potter
wand you could do both right, Well.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
He got yeah, but we also were in the parenting philosophy.
I don't know about your age parenting. I think similarly, gosh,
this could get deep in the parents.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Ok, well here this is my thing. My issue is
that I need. My personal need is how do I
support my son who's also a musician without fucking him up,
without really putting too much pressure on, without getting too involved,
without sapping his passion, but supporting him, trying to make
(08:46):
bolstering him when he needs it, but staying away when
you don't like this is you're the You're in a
very unique position, which is why I've been trying to
get you here for a while. Of doing all that
and seemingly keeping a very good relationship with your kids
and them having leaned on you for a certain amount
of stuff, but also you letting them fly. Yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Really Charlie is a grown up, so it was a
little different than little kids. But I was going to
say when they were little kids.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
There was a parenting.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Philosophy from a guy named Alfie Kne and it was
kind of like not using the phrase good job or
good this good job, and we subscribed to that, so
we weren't good jobbing all the time, right, So it
was a kind of a It was a kind of
like if they climbed the they climbed the ladder to
the high slide and stuff like good job, it would
(09:35):
be like you climbed the ladder, how do you feel
up there? Right?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So it was much more about like.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Your experience, not my experience.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
So we weren't like.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Good job you use the toilet, good job you pick.
We just got the phrase out of our brains.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
But what would happen was.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So when he was drumming like crazy, I have actually
an amazing story which if we can cut out of
a stula, No, Phineas I went to a karate He
went to a birthday party and there was karate and
he loved it. So he wanted to sign up for
the karate class. So we went to the karate class
and gosh, he loved it. I could see he was
just and he was like a good student, but he
(10:14):
was just like doing everything. The teacher says, Sense said,
he just was so he loved it.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
They get to the end of the class, and the
sense or whatever he was called at the time, says, ah,
ladies and gentlemen, you know, great class. We have we
have something we do in this class. Every week we
give a student of the week and the student of
the week gets to take home the headband. And my
heart sunk because I knew it was going to be Phineas. Right,
(10:41):
No way, it wasn't a brand new student, right, he
killed it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
She's amazing.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I was like, oh, no, they're gonna make Phineas student
of the week. I knew this was wrong for him
because yeah, of course he got the student of the week.
What did he talk about all week?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was student of the week. I was student of
the week.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Not the karate class and how much he loved it,
but the fact that he was a student of the week.
And so what happened the next week when we went back,
Was he going to be a student of the week again?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
No way, right, because they have.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
To do the new kid, and they have to spread
it around. But he worked just as hard, and he
tried just as hard, and afterward, he was like, why
wasn't I student of the week? And I could explain
all the reasons.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
But just how it felt.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And I was like, why, of all places karate, which
has its own rewards system of bells, would you add
a random student of the week with a headband. I
watched him. He lost the interest in a few weeks,
And that's an example of like what we tried not
to do, like not to make it about external rewards.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
But about the world around us. Wants to do wat
honor external rewards. We did Brown, and I tried as
much as we can to honor his work, like say, like,
you work really hard, not like you get an A,
but you work really hard. Wow, I really that's that's
great that you work that hard and really just talk
(12:04):
about the effort and that because if we read that,
if you talk about the grades or the reward, then
kids are going to start feeling afraid of not getting
the grades in a reward and not try try to
fail exactly. And so I don't think we succeeded, because
I think that there's natural inclination. Nobody wants to fail nobody,
(12:24):
But that was our attempt at doing that. But you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
How good we did, but there's a lot of external
because even when Phineish was like three years old and
he was drumming, people would come over and then they
would be like, oh, you're so good, Oh you're this,
and I was like, Oh, don't say anything, just let
him do it, you know.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
So here's what. Here's something that you can't learn really fast,
that your kids have somehow learned and that you have
either helped or whatever. I don't know how it is,
but they've survived a viper pit of show business. Really truly,
it's one thing to want to my son is in
the position where he wants to make it in the
(13:03):
music industry. He's not there, he's trying, he's doing stuff.
But once you've reached a certain amount of success, there's
so many pitfalls. That's really the scariest place. And both
your children are there, and both your children are negotiating it.
I'm sure they're problems and difficulties, but overall it seems
(13:24):
like they're coming through that in a really good way.
How do you prepare them for that?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I don't come I don't think that's preparing.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think the really lucky part of this was that
they were of an age Billy, especially because the first
thing the song came out that sort of you know,
got people knocking on the right. She was thirteen years old,
that's oceanized. Yeah, she was thirteen. She was about to
be fourteen. So she was so young that we parent
(13:54):
parents had to be involved, right, And Phineas was only seventeen, right,
And so that was actually really lucky because and I've
said this in I've said this many times, I don't
really know how anybody starts out in this industry and
has a without a parent, because you need an advocate,
(14:15):
You need a person who is listen.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Everybody, no matter how great everybody is.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Around you and your team, everyone has an agenda.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
They do.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
And that's not a.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Bad thing in life, but it is. And so who
is the person whose agenda is you and your mental
health and your physical health, and your legacy, who you
are as a human, who you'll be in the future.
That's your parent.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
And so I mean, if you're lucky, you meet somebody
in the business who also you think might have your
back a little bit, but you're right for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I think, and I think those people exist, they really do.
But then you got to find that in addition to
everything else. So I think it's lucky, if you I
think it was lucky that she was of an age
that people were welcome and that doesn't always happen, you know,
especially with moms, to be honest, there's like a prejudice
against moms, you know, mamager momager, which I was not
(15:08):
a manager, but you're looking out for your child, you.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Know, as somebody who's you know, produced shows with kid actors.
One of the things you judge when you hire a
kid actors are the parents crazy?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Are they going to make trouble? And are they going
to be difficult? And do they you know what is
the kid want to work or is it being forced
to work because the parents are making Like all those
things go into the mix, and so I can understand
people sort of being a little bit suspicious or wary
until they know, like what is the position of this
(15:44):
mom to this child.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, Well, in the music industry is a little wild West,
like you, there's no reunions, there's no work our rules,
there's no you know what I mean, there's like there's
crazy conflict of interest. Like some of the stuff that
blew my mind. The beginning was like, oh, that person
is a manager and they're also a music supervisor and
they're on DJ, and then you know what, like you're like, wait,
(16:07):
is this not a conflict of interest? You know, but
there's no rules about that in the industry. Sure, it's
really kind of it is wild West like and so
in the acting one, it's a little more cut and
dried and you have these kind of guidelines and you
have these social workers, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Don't be alone on the JJ.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Yeah, no, I feel very lost when I about We've
had conversations you and I personally about like the music
industry and where it is, and Charlie's had good advice
from people including you. Thank you by the way.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Charlie's really talented, So grateful.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
That you took time out to talk to him, and
other people have taken time out to talk to him
and help him and been encouraging of his music. And
it means so much when it's not his parents saying
you're really good, like yes, of course we're shills, Like well,
you know, but that's.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
What people always say to me, like did you see
this coming? Did you ever think? Did you you know know?
I was absolutely not because I'm an actor, and as
an actor, we know that talent does not always.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Equate with success, not at all, of course.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And we're like, so we have no illusions about like it's.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
A straight shot. You just work hard.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And you just get it's not it's just not right.
So I was as shocked as anybody.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Well, but interestingly enough, you and your husband are artists, right,
and so there's a mindset of artists. Yes, that kind
of doesn't matter whether success exists or not. What matters
is the art and are we going to make art?
And are we going to make art? Is that gonna
be are living or is that just what we do?
Is that, like all that stuff, it comes from an
(17:59):
artistic household that may not come from a household where
the parents are doctors and lawyers or other things. So
they're lucky to have that as the mindset.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, we lived in a two bedroom house with three pianos,
one piano that we got from craigslist because my husband
always wanted a grand piano. He turned fifty, was like,
I can't believe I've never been able to afford a
grand piano. We found a free one on Craigslist. Terrible piano,
like an albatross.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
We had a terrible grand piano. We do because it
was my mother's, my wife's grandmother's piano. Yeah, it's a
family heirloom and it's hard, horrible.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, Patrick had to learn to tune it because the
professional tuners wouldn't do it right. But then we also
had my childhood piano in Phineas's bedroom, and then we
had an electric piano in.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Our little living room.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So they grew up with three pianos and two parents
who were professional actors, which you know, working class actors.
But we're also amateur musicians who loved music. Wrote I
wrote songs, you know, as an amateur songwriter. And yeah,
I mean Phineas, I said somebody to somebody who asked
me a question recently, I said, I think people need
(19:09):
to dream smaller. I think you need to make your
dreams like a little smaller so they are you're happier.
Phineas once said recently, which I loved hearing, and I
know it's true for him. He said his big dream,
his big dream was to be in a band that
opened for a band at the Fonda, right, right, And honestly,
I remember when one of our favorite bands was like
(19:31):
opening for a big band and it wasn't even that
big a venue, but I was like, oh, can you
imagine how incredible that is?
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Sure, and I think that's.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Important if your dreams are like a little bit more,
you know, like if you want to make art, make art,
if you want to perform, if you want to write
songs and perform, there's a lot of opportunity for that.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
The problem that dreams, amongst many things is like I
think in the music industry is like, I don't think
I would know to dream. I wouldn't know what i'd want?
What's the goal? Like everything changes so much, everything moves
around success. I don't even know what it looks like exactly.
I mean, I know for a rarefied air of a
(20:14):
few people what it looks like, but for most everybody else,
like being able to make a living at it would
be would be amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, Charlie's a really good songwriter, yes, and I think
that making and living as a song right, you.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Would love to do that would because I think you'd
prefer to do that rather than even sing.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Well, that I think is a somewhat you know, doable goal.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
You know, one of.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
The things that is difficult is like, okay, well, how
do you then promote the songs you've written without singing
them and then getting them on social media? Someone has
to pick up the gauntlet, who has a connection to
the people who might be buying or singing those songs
to say here it is, and publishers can do that.
(20:57):
But publishers are only interested in people who have made
a certain amount of moth so far. And also they
don't you don't shouldn't give away you're publishing.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
It's a catch twenty two, isn't it. I do think,
and again like I don't want to be here as
an expert, but I do think either being a writer
and a producer, or working with a producer so that
you're a team.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I think that is the key. Because artists do work
with producers right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Now in Billy in Phineas case, the two of them
right right, and that's perfect and ideal. But most artists,
even if they write their own songs, they are.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Going to work with a producer.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So if that producer produces and also happens to be
a songwriter, now you've got a great combo. You know.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Oh you coming with my ideas?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
So I think that is working for people more than
just being a songwriter.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
In quotes, Yeah, I mean, Charlie is produced for people
and has been produced by people, So it's like been
both both areas I mean, and I'm encouraging him. One
of my biggest things is collaborate. Collaborate, is collaborate. The
more you collaborate, the best or you'll be. It's like
an actor or improv like the more we play with
other people, the more we get, the more we give.
(22:06):
All that stuff helps and a bigger community.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
A meeting people is so important.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's so important meeting people.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Here's another compliment you didn't ask for that has nothing
to do with you, has more to do with your kids.
What was I Made For? Is an amazing song. And
the second I heard it, I knew it was an
amazing song. And the second I heard it and thought
they wrote this for a movie was also mind blowing
because the assignment of we need a song for this
(22:34):
that fits in with our movie but also fits in
with some emotional zeitgeist that you're tapping into, and it
also has to sound really good and it also has
to be catchy in some ways is impossible.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It is amazing, and they did it.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
Like, holy crap, they did it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
But you know what they will say this that they've
been kind of training in this way because when they
first started out, I'm I don't want this to sound
like me taking credit, because it's just I taught a
songwriting class when Phineas was twelve. But I taught it
because I thought I wanted him to learn it, right,
And I'm an amateur.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right, but I wrote a lot of music at the groundings, right.
But watching Phineas was like watching a light bulb right,
just like that.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
It was literally like showed the song structure of well,
I want to hold your hand and he went.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Okay, I get it. And then every week was like that.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
But some of the assignments were like watch a TV
show and listen to a phrase or something. But then
they started doing this on their own, like you know,
and they've talked about it a lot. They'd be like,
let's write a Bond song, right, like let's write of this.
They found that fun, you know, like they did it
as like little experiments in assignments.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
But sometimes need something, you need a little box. Oh
it helps a lot creative. Yeah, and you sort of say,
what's today's box? What is it we're going to do?
And I'm always encouraging Charlie to write outside of his
box a little bit and go like that, what's the
soul song that you would write that you would never
you know, what's what's what if you had to write
if you were writing a motown song today, what would
(24:08):
that sound like? Or what would And you know, sometimes
he likes it since it's it's exciting for him, and
sometimes he just rolls up that I'm that's not for me.
And he's always out of my laying dad. Yeah, and
he's right always, but it's it's fascinating. Well, let's let's
talk about your journey. So you came from Colorado. What
(24:28):
made you decide, Okay, I'm going to be an actor
and I'm going to come to LA and I'm going
to take the big risk to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I actually moved to New York. I lived in New
York for ten years. Okay, So I always wanted to
be an actor.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
And as a little kid, did you.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Move to New York because you thought Broadway is my place?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I was a theater actor.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I moved to New York and I you know, like
laugh in you know Edith and that was all my favorite,
you know, Lily Tomlin.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But I moved to New York.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I went to college in Utah, right to be an actor,
and everybody.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Does, all the great actors go to Utah.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
I didn't know how to go. I don't know how
to become an actor, right, I really didn't know. But
I was also a dancer.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I knew where to go to be a dancer because
they had a great dance department.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
So I went there.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
There was an amazing acting teacher there. I took the
class as a non major. I got taken into the
acting department. Changed my life, you know, That's what I
wanted to do. But then I quit college, moved to
New York, and I did regional theater, you know, which
means you live in New York, but you auditioned for
Cincinnati Playhouse or you know. And I met my husband
in Alaska rep doing a play. So yeah, we just
(25:35):
did regional theater off Broadway plays Broadway plays.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
And did you survive doing mostly that or did you
have to have other jobs?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Or I did?
Speaker 5 (25:43):
I was lucky.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I did a soap opera for I did one soap
opera for a little while, and I didn't you know
New York soap operas are kind of the actor's day job.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They were, yeah, they were.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I did a couple of soap operas that kind
of got me through.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
We're always been working class actors.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
You know, like early, you know, below the poverty level technically,
you know, harder to do.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Now.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
All my active friends are all complaining because you used
to be able to make a living by doing one
or two or a couple parts a year, and the
commercial and individuals and other kind of stuff and all
that stuff is going away.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, and we were never well off.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
But again, like what you said earlier, I think if
you're if your goal is to make art and you
don't have a goal of being you know, you're happy making.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
I mean your goal is hopefully your art, you make
a right spot and people love it, but you're.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Still going to create, creativity, control, those are your big goals, right.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So we you know, lived in New York and did
and I did. My mom died suddenly and I was
very low and depressed, and I did a national tour
of the Heidi Chronicles and came to LA and I
was like, I'm gonna move to La, so move to
La and.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
You know, we both did.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
And I honestly went to see a friend McNally skull
at the Growlings and I was like, this looks like
the most fun thing. This looks like what I wanted
to do my whole life and didn't know it, you know,
because back to the Lily Tomlin. You know, so she
just took a class of the Growndings for fun.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
So who was your group? Who was your the people
that you came up with at the Groundlings.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Will and I went through kind of the exact same
trajectory of time getting into the company.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Okay, that's Will Ferrell, not Will Forte.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Will Ferrell, but I knew Will Forte too, but he
was He's like one group by Chris Catan, Amy Smallman
in the Sunday Company.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Amy Smallan was in the Sunday Company with Matt.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I don't think it was in their company with Matt though,
but just my eyes.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Oh my god, that's a lot of work. That's a
lot of work.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
That's the funniest person.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
He is, very funny. I played I'm playing a poker
game with him tonight.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
I know he told me, Yeah, that was my group,
you know, Coolidge and yeah, very funny, Mary, Joe Smith,
Roy Jenkins, Yeah, very funny people.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I wrote with Roy and Will all the time.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Man, that's so funny.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
The Growlings was the most fun and also it made
me a much better actor. When people would say, like,
what do you recommend as an actor, I say, go
to the Growndings because I remember I did an episode
of The X Files and at the audition I had
to speak in tongues and have a seizure, right because
I was a psychic and it was X Files.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Sure, you know, being an.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Actor going into a four x six room with a
bunch of producers speaking in tongues and having a seizure.
I don't think I could have done that before the Groundlings,
you know what I mean, Like the audition and maybe
I could have, but the Liberation I.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Would have gone through a whole bunch of very difficult
exercises to get there as a serious actor. As a Growlings,
I think they'll do it, go for it. It's a
whole different thing. But I say that the Groundings has
hurt people's acting. Like if people start at the Groundlings
learn character and comedy and all things, but they don't
learn that the seriousness, the moment of like ignoring the
(29:13):
camera be real in this moment right now, which is
that's a different skill.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
It is a different skill for me. It was a
perfect order, right, And maybe that's true.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
And they're certainly you know some forms of sketch comedy
where they kind of reward the the smirk, do you
know what I mean, they reward the we're joking here,
But that wasn't me.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
People have to learn the other kind of acting once
they get into movies, all these all these groundings and
saturn live actors have to learn, oh, the thing we
were doing is not the thing that we're still doing now.
And they all, many of them who were really good
and become really good serious actors.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
I think the best do do both match, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
You said, do do do do do do do do
do do both?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I wasn't do do or do to do?
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Which is I'm not sure either way you should be
ashamed for it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
But you know, there is the magic ones some I mean,
we could sit here and name some of the greatest
serious actors who are also the funniest people on ours
to start there, She's so funny. Yeah, And then on
the other hand, like Jim Carrey, you know the other side,
you know, coming from you know, a great serious actor,
Bill Murray.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
You know, don't be alone with.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
What's the biggest mistake that your kids have avoided that
that that you maybe either help them with or just
dumblouck hmm gosh.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
I don't know that I have an answer for that.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
All right, this interview is over. Fuck this. I asked
I didn't I ask her. I asked your question. She
didn't have an answer.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I don't know that they've avoided I guess like being
too influenced by other people.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
You know, Well, what do you worry about for them?
Right now? Every parent worries, Well, we always.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Worry about their safety, and you know, the lack of
privacy you have, the things you give up for this,
but happiness. I worry that they you know, find you
know that they you know, it's a it's an intense
world to be in front of.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
How do you preserve the part of you that you
want to keep for yourself? How do you preserve how
do you find relationships that aren't tainted by Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Think you just don't don't don't you just don't buy
into the to the physical trappings for one thing, you
know what I mean, Like the minute you start over
spending over high, living outside of your means or living
very high in your means. Now you have to keep
something up, and you have to keep an image up,
(32:08):
and you have to keep a you have to take
jobs you might not want to take. That is a
huge pitfall. And I think what we have as a
family is we all live here. We live in our
same small house. You know, we have family dinners all
the time.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
You have painted it with actual gold, so just plastered
with gold. But still it's a beautiful house. But the
gold and diamonds are different.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Now yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so funny and so not true,
but funny.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
Staying grounded is great, but I think it's really hard,
Like I don't know that if you it's so easy
to you know, perform at the forum for five nights
and have you know, thirty thousand people cheering for you
every night, and then go back home and like order
chicken vegan so yeah, or pick up pick up you know,
(32:58):
something fried vegetable or something like that and just take
it home and just sit in front of the TV
with Like it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Is weird, but it's more like a dopamine weird thing,
you know, like a it's hard for your dopamine and
your brain to be like high high high and then
maybe not have anything right technically on the schedule, you.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Said you're vegan. This is true. Let's talk a little
bit about support and feed. Let's do So you have
this group that you support, but I think it's your
group found it. You founded your group. It's getting people.
A nonprofit vegan, yes, right, vegan, but it's feeding people
who need to be fat.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
We are a nonprofit that is addressing food equity and
the climate crisis, and the way we do that is
we provide nourishing, delicious, plant based meals because we know
that those are better for the climate and better for
health to community organizations where people are affected by food
(33:57):
insecurity and food equity, meaning that many organizations or communities
are in areas where they lack access to nourishing food.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
So we do this to address that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
We also provide education, information, cooking classes, produce recipes, all
kinds of things to support that.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
So what made you found this group? Obviously there's need
everywhere you like, you see the need, but I see
the need and I didn't find it. I didn't make
a group, so what encouraged you to do it?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Well? All the other One of the things I've done
my whole life is I cook.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I love to cook.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I love to feed people, and I really care about
the environment. And I'm really the same person I've always been. Like.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
People are like, oh wow.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Like I've been saying the same things, but nobody ever
listened to me really into my kids got famous, which
was amazing. They kind of gave me a platform to
talk about the things I really care about. Yeah, And
so I've been working with my daughter Billy and Phineas
and their teams to try to make the music industry
more sustainable. And then when the pandemic hit, we came
(35:01):
home from a tour and you know, I thought, oh
my god, people are going to need food.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
We need to feed people.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
But of course we'll make the food plant based food.
We'll support the local businesses that are going under. And
then we stepped into the world of food insecurity, and
our eyes were blown open, you know, And I'm shamefully
with shamefully unaware of the depth of food insecurity and
the depth of food inequity in our society. And so
we realized that nobody was really doing it, because you know,
(35:28):
forming a nonprofit is really hard, but and generally you
shouldn't do it, you should volunteer for another nonprofit.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
But nobody was really doing.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
What we were doing, which was saying, why are we
siloing these Why are we siloing feeding people, climate change,
economy health? When we're feeding so many organizations are feeding
tremendous amounts of food, why don't we make that food
plant based, delicious, from a local business, healthier, provide information.
(35:55):
So that's why we became a nonprofit, and we we
were in for cities and then that first year we're
in eleven cities.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
In the US.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Now we work with organizations in Europe and Australia.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
And where does Support and Feed mostly get their funding.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
From donations, just donations from private, private donations, small donations.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
So if somebody would want to give to Support and Feed,
now make it very clear, I would never give to
the cerization. But if somebody else, our listeners would want
to give to Support and Feed, how would they do it?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Supportingfeed dot org and can just you know, make a donation?
And you know, I mean, right now we're feeding so
many people from the LA fires, we've increased four hundred
and fifty percent what we feed in LA. We have
two pop ups every week in L to d n
F feeding make in this case we're actually feeding directly.
Usually we're feeding through and we're taking our food to friends,
indeed to Boys and Girls Club, two sisters of wats.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
These are the LA ones.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
But they're all over the country, right, But in this
case we're feeding directly to the people impacted by the fires.
Speaker 5 (36:53):
You know, do you ever, I mean, there's more need,
more than food that you have, So how do you
how do you sort of figure out, Yeah, here's how
we're going to dole it out.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's it's complicated, you know, because we don't come and go.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
We stay.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
So we we work with organizations figure out what do
you need?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
What do you want for your community?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
What are you lacking?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
What food do you want?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Would you like education? Also, we really don't come in
and tell people what to do.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
We say what do you need? And you know, then
we make and we.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Want to have the ability to commit to that so
that we're not just like here's some food, we go,
but like we're here every week. We're here now we're
adding this for you, and so that takes a real budget.
And really, in all our different cities.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
What do you do when you're serving people Brussels sprouts?
I mean they hate it. Everybody hates it.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
No, everybody loves brest spuds.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Now they like him.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Russels Sprout's got changed.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Brussels sprous, Yeah, you're behind.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
They've been thet I've had Brussels spreads at fancy la
restaurants and they fry it up and they put it
all kinds of crispy thing, but they make it exactly
like not Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Well, Brussels sprout's got changed. You know. Somebody bred Brussels
sprouts to only.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Have the good parts and not the bad parts.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
So Brussels sprouts actually taste much better.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Okay, thank god.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Cabbage is the new king.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Like cabbage is now getting its day. Really yeah, I'm
so into cabbage, But lately I've been like, oh, people
are catching up to cabbage.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
The Irish heritage speaking scott Scott, well they have cabbage too.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I'm Scottish and Irish.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah all right, I have a question about I don't
think we answered your question about what you should do
to support Charlie.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Yeah, Okay, what should I do this? This? What should
what should Charlie do for his career? And what should
I do for Charlie? Like honestly, like like I mean,
some people say, well, leave him the fuck alone and
let him just do what he's gotta do and he'll
find his way, which is fine and good, and I
think that's really valuable. A lot of my what I
(38:53):
do is leave Malone, Leave Malone. But if there's anything
I could do to sort of encourage him him or
you know, let him fly, great, I'll try to do it.
And if that's doing nothing, I can do that too.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Ah gosh, that's a good one because in general it's
like general parenting, but also music industry, right in general parenting, Yeah,
you just let them do what they do and you're
there and you're you still do that sort of uh.
I think that, you know, the potted plant thing where
I'm just gonna be around. Can I just come over
and hang out while you do blank? Right, you know,
so that I'm here so if the conversation comes up.
(39:29):
I also think the memory keeper thing is important, where
you're like the memory keeper of the like, well, I
remember the person who did this amazing thing, and like,
in other words, you can do it because I've seen
you do it. The kind of pointing out like the
successes and the how they overcame, right, I think that
is valuable to them to kind of go like.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
I see this about you.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Phineas always said, like the most important thing to him
was just like time and attention, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
So I think you're doing all that. And I think
as far as.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
The music, I also think, like music wise, there are
so many different things to research and avenue a thing,
like I don't think one person can do it. He's
doing what he needs to do. He's doing the social
media thing, he's doing the writing songwriting. He's still you know,
catering to the art, but now sort of being willing
(40:21):
to sort of acknowledge it is a business that he
also has to play that game.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, somebody said this to me when Phineas was really
young and he had a band, and it was actually
before the billy thing happened. So I was kind of
doing what you were doing, like, well, how do I
help and how do I stay out of the way,
And he was saying for Phineas, he said, first of all,
tell him to just really practice his skills because when
things take off sometimes you don't have time right right.
(40:48):
And then for me it was kind of like, you know,
learn a little bit about the industry so that if
suddenly you're faced with blank which I did not do,
by the way, right, I mean, you know, I just
ain't have time at that age to kind of whatever.
But I think in your case, you know, kind of
learning about it so that if he finds himself, like
you know, being offered something here or there, you have
(41:09):
some sense of like, you know, what would be a
standard here or someone to call.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I mean, you have people to call, which is.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Lucky, it is lucky. But I mean, my the wheelhouse
is not music. My wheelhouse is you know, movies and TV.
And I have some people to call in there. But
but you know, and I've dealt with music people in general.
But it's like, you know, I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Know, but I've heard Charlie's music now for a while.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's you know what I mean, like it's.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
You're talking to you really good, You're appreciating the fire.
I am aware that his stuff is great, and I
will always love his stuff. Again, in my opinion, doesn't
count because I'm the dad. But yes, but I and
I who did I tell you?
Speaker 3 (41:48):
He reminded me of?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
He gets Burt Bacharach, he gets Billy Joel, he gets
James Taylor, he gets.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
With Bishop Stephen Bishop and Bishop do you remind me
of Stephen Bishop?
Speaker 5 (41:57):
Interestingly enough, Stephen Bishop's wife was on our show now
long ago. She's a mood manager named Liz. And yes,
and I got to talk to Stephen Bishop a little bit.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Oh yeah, he reminded me of Stephen Bishop.
Speaker 5 (42:06):
I love Stephen Bishop's on is a great song. It's
a beautiful song. All right. Well, now it's time for
viewer male.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Now it's time for listener man.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
This is from Angela, and Angela says, I live in
such a busy world. How do I make time for me?
And is it important for me to make time for me?
And where do you draw the line where you say
enough is enough? Hmm?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I I like to be doing things I enjoy, and
sometimes even that can be too much, right and I
start to feel just overwhelmed in my brain and then
I have to make time for me.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
But I don't. I'm not like on the Pampoy world,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Like I'm not like, you don't you don't want to
go to a SPA day.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
No, I don't want to.
Speaker 5 (43:05):
So what's what's your day of relaxation?
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Then?
Speaker 5 (43:07):
What do you try to? Have?
Speaker 2 (43:08):
No scheduled meetings, no scheduled calls.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
And you'll literally like, watch I watched White Lotus last night.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
That's great, you know, like have a watch a movie,
turn my phone off, rest, sleep.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Sleep more.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Really so soap, flippant, basic, you know what I mean,
I'm so basic, But yeah, get in nature, of course
would be amazing.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
But I guess Angela is saying, like, like the world
demands your time. Yeah, when do you say I have
I need to Even though this this is still waiting,
supporting feed is still waiting, still calling. There's real need
out there. Yeah, but you without taking care of yourself,
you can't take care of them. So where do you
(43:53):
draw that one?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
I push it a little too far.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I push it until I'm like, oh my god, I'm
really tired.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
I really don't have another.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Choice, Okay, and then you know, I find And this
happened to me this weekend because I had such a
busy last two weeks that I was like, I'm just
going to take a little nap. And then I took
that little nap and it was like I was like.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Oh my god, I'm so tired.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Like I hadn't even let myself realize that the minute
you tell your body we're going to rest for a second,
it's like finally, you know.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
So I think it is.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I think it is a good quality for people to
work in special rest periods or whatever rejuvenate I do.
I'm just not great at it.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
I do. I let my body collapse. Like sometimes I'll
just really just get sick and then I'll be forced
to stop.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, that's a famous thing.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Have happened. And like always on if you're working on
a show, you're on hiatus, you immediately get sick.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So for sure or in school you gotta say I
do have the famous or ring. Okay, and I I
it just reminds me about my sleep because I'm like
someone's someone's watching my.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Numbers, you know, like I'm like, oh, shoot, it was.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
A bit watch and it also attracks my sleep. Yeah,
but what attracts is horrible sleep. It's like the night
after night of horrible sleep.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Well, I work harder at it because of it. I'm
like it just reminds me.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I'm like, oh wow, I thought I got more sleep
than that last night.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
All right, well, now it's time for a moment of joy.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
A moment of joy.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
This is where you tell us something that gives you
joy that's not about your family and not about your work,
but just something that just resonates with you that maybe
we can all share, we can all do.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I thought about this, because, of course I did immediately
go to family in my little picture frame in my kitchen,
that's pictures of them as little kids.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Mine are so so small.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I my macha every day.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
I have maucha every day.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
One general, it's pretty big, it lasts for a long time.
And make it with almond and soy milk and make
it myself usually, And I do kind of have a
feeling each day like, oh I finished my macha, what's left?
Speaker 3 (46:03):
What's left of life?
Speaker 4 (46:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
I know people feel that way about coffee, but I
feel that way about macha.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I also like, I love to swim. I love organizing
a drawer.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
It is one of the really yeah, I'm not a
neat crazy person, but there's nothing.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Like My wife does the same thing. She loves to
organize and reorg. How often you reorganize the drawer you organize?
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Not very often.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
No, I'm like, it's it's once in a very long time.
But you know when you organize something and then that
feeling like you just keep going in to look at
it all night, You like pull the drawer and you're like,
oh my god.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
That looks so good.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, and it's like organizing your brain and where you
can see. I think that is you know nothing. I
used to say this when I was in the Groundlings
and you had to write something, I would always go
play the guitar, Like nothing made me play the guitar
more than I was supposed to be writing, right, And
nothing makes me want to organize a drawer more than
I'm supposed to be doing some right.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
So it's it's a procrastination tool, but it feels really it.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
Does because it's a it's a task that you can finish,
So it's good to finish something. I'm an errand guy Brown.
My wife will say, like I always ask her, do
you need me to do anything? Because I will go
on any errand anything has to say it's a it's
a task and I can finish it. And feel good
about that thing, whereas every other thing I do, scripts
(47:26):
thing takes months and years and whatever. It takes forever
to do. So I'm I like little tasks.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
I think my husband is the same, and I've never
I'm gonna talk to him about this, but he's fairly
generous of like, I've got a prescription at CBS to go,
I'll go get it. And I'm always like, it's kind
of funny that he'll do that because he doesn't want
to do other things. Maybe he feels good.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
It feels good, he feels I'm out service. I feel
like I'm doing something for somebody in my family or
somebody I love, and I can get out see something
to finish it and come back say I did that.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Volunteer for support and feed you can go pick up
some food, take it to a nice community.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Or happy to, happy to. I would love to put
me down. I'm happy to. I've written checks, but that's
nothing being a person, being a person who actually does
stuff that's that's helpful. I would love that.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, yes, rewarding.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Okay, So Maggie, thank you for being here. You're great
and uh and I really loved spending time with you.
And I really appreciate you were so kind and welcoming,
not just to come on the show, but also to
field my many panicky phone calls that I've had over
the years about having a musician child and what the
(48:39):
hell to do with them, And you've been very helpful
and helpful to talk to. Charlie too, has been really amazing,
and so I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
I wish him luck.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I wish I wish anyone listening who's a musician luck,
because I feel you'll love to make music too, and
admire you.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Just keep doing it.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
We're gonna need luck, you're gonna need but you don't
need luck to just make the music.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
You find time and just doing it and that's rewarding.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
So that was great. Thank you for that, and thank
you for listening to our show, and thank you for
subscribing to Don't be along with Jake Cogan, and thank
you for writing into DBAWJK at gmail dot com with
all your questions. And don't be alone. Go have fun
with somebody, Go see a friend, talk to somebody. Don't
be lonely. This lonely business is stupid. Spend some time
(49:26):
with a friend, either today or tomorrow. And I will
see you next time.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Don't be alone with Jan
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