LIVE FROM CHICAGO: Gillian Flynn

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[3] I like it.

[4] Today is the greatest day I've ever known.

[5] It's much too long.

[6] He's an old.

[7] I don't know much about history.

[8] Don't know much biology.

[9] Don't know much about a science book Don't know much about the French I took But I do know that I love you And I know that if you love me too What a wonderful world, what a wonderful work The lands are from Chicago, I swear to you We Wikipedia to This night of September Love was changing the minds of pretender Or change in the high leave I can touch the sky I think about it every I ain't seeing she's a gold, But she ain't dealing with no bro, bro.

[10] I ain't saying she's a gold digger, but she ain't dealing with no bro, bro.

[11] Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me. At the distance, now I'm back.

[12] Just a man to survive so many times it happens to fast.

[13] You trade your passion for glory.

[14] Lose your grip on the dreams of the past You must fight just to keep love alive Okay, I just got to say We've never ever done this show for so many people So we're just so blown away It's really, really mind -blowing that this many of you Got babysitters, drove in your car, Walk through shitty weather, We're online like, load, motherfucker!

[15] It's quite overre And we're so, so grateful.

[16] We love Chicago.

[17] I wore Air Jordans.

[18] We watched Home Alone.

[19] They lit this place on fire, because Monica didn't come out quick enough.

[20] Listen, we all know Monica is the brains behind the operation.

[21] And she...

[22] But I do just want to give my love and my open acknowledgment of how we could not do this show without Wobby Wob.

[23] Wobby Wob just come out.

[24] So much cuter than you'd expect.

[25] right?

[26] Yes, Wobby Wob.

[27] Thank you, Wob.

[28] Okay, so, yes, I got to my hotel room last night, and I opened up my carry -on luggage, which is very, very small.

[29] It's only this big, so it fits in the overhead.

[30] And by God, if there wasn't a fucking woodland creature inside there, she's like an Intel chip.

[31] She's very tiny, but very, very powerful.

[32] Please put your hands together for Monica Padman.

[33] Hold on.

[34] Someone fell off the balcony.

[35] Oh, boy.

[36] Oh, boy.

[37] Is it my professor?

[38] Covington?

[39] Me, Covey's.

[40] Oh, yeah.

[41] Well, can I tell this secret?

[42] Yes, you can, you can, you can.

[43] It's probably defamatory or something.

[44] Illegal.

[45] Although it sounds positive.

[46] We received an email just yesterday from an arm cherry, who it turns out had marital relations with Monica's dream professor.

[47] And the email is imploring Monica to get a hold of her so she can explain how fulfilling the experience was.

[48] Fantasy lived up, she said.

[49] She said you were right.

[50] He delivered.

[51] If he's here, you know, it's not too late for us.

[52] Mr. Covington?

[53] Okay.

[54] So, we have a very, very exciting guest tonight.

[55] She is a feather in the cap of all Chicagoans.

[56] Chicagoans?

[57] Sure.

[58] She wrote Gone Girl.

[59] She wrote Sharp objects.

[60] Many other things I have written down in my pocket.

[61] She's an incredibly fun and hyper -talented human being.

[62] Please welcome Gillian Flynn.

[63] Gillian, first and foremost, it's probably hard enough to just to decide to be interviewed on this show because it gets really personal and whatnot.

[64] Uh -oh, I didn't know that part.

[65] Yeah, yeah.

[66] And then yet you're brave enough to do it in front of 3 ,500 people.

[67] So I just want to publicly thank you because that's balls.

[68] It's my adopted hometown, please.

[69] So, Gileon, you are not from here.

[70] Although you love it here and you reside here, you're from Kansas City, Missouri.

[71] Casey Moe.

[72] Missouri's Strong.

[73] Missouri's strong.

[74] Oh, by the way, Gillian solves a bit of an issue we've had on the podcast.

[75] I recommend that people call it Missouri.

[76] Yeah.

[77] And there was a lot of blowback, and people were angry about that, but you called at Missouri tonight, and I got visibly aroused.

[78] You probably couldn't see it through my overalls, but things were happening.

[79] It was an awkward moment.

[80] It was a difference.

[81] Yeah.

[82] And we said she was allowed to say it because she's from there, and Dax is not allowed to say it because he's not allowed to say anything.

[83] It's not the N -word.

[84] I don't know what you're actually saying here.

[85] I mean, I don't think you have to live there.

[86] Slippery slope.

[87] By the way, let's just acknowledge how artfully bobbed out with the N -word.

[88] I was very nervous.

[89] I got so nervous.

[90] Was anyone else nervous?

[91] I was like, I know what lyrics next.

[92] What's Bob going to do here?

[93] He did the radio edit and it was perfect.

[94] Well, well played.

[95] But you're from Missouri, and you had parents that were professionals, right?

[96] They're professional.

[97] They were professional professors.

[98] And dad taught film.

[99] Yeah?

[100] I was kind of a lucky kid because what I got to do was when he was working, go to his classroom where he showed movies.

[101] And when he wasn't working, he was usually too cheap to get a babysitter.

[102] So he would just take me along to wildly inappropriate films for like a seven -year -old.

[103] Like, it'd be like, hey, and he would, but he would make excuses for it about why I should see it.

[104] So it would be like, well, Gilly, alien.

[105] is an allegory has an allegory has an important feminist approach something called a heroin have you heard that before and it's by an important director named Ridley Scott and I'd be like yeah you and I are roughly the same age and my grandfather who just was desperate for a buddy to go to the movies with him took me at I think six to see Scarface and if you haven't seen Scarface spoiler alert they cut someone up with a chainsaw in a bathroom.

[106] And at six years old, I was like, humans do this to other humans?

[107] I think it changed the trajectory of my life.

[108] Is this what grown -ups do?

[109] Is this what happens when we grow up?

[110] It was a crash course.

[111] He took me to Porkies.

[112] Good Lord.

[113] That's how you learn about sex.

[114] That's right.

[115] There's a pivotal scene in Porky's where a young gentleman puts his penis through a hole in the bathroom, and then a large woman grabs it and puts her feet on and pulls.

[116] as hard as she can.

[117] Oh, wow.

[118] And I just immediately was like, well, mine wouldn't go through that wall and then afford room for someone to put two hands on, so I got insecure.

[119] Sure, sure.

[120] A lot of things were going through my mind.

[121] It's dark.

[122] But he showed you some...

[123] That's very dark, you know.

[124] I regret bringing it up.

[125] We saw...

[126] I remember seeing an elephant man when I was very young, and that was very, you know, I just remember, I never saw the end of it.

[127] But again, you know, so my dad was very like, well, you know, David Lynch is very important.

[128] So I must stay till the end.

[129] So you can go cry in the lobby.

[130] Yeah.

[131] Very safe thing for, you know, an eight -year -old to do.

[132] Like, just with the lobby, like, they took his toiletry kit.

[133] Why would they do that?

[134] He was a beautiful human being.

[135] So I still, to this day, I've never seen the end of the elephant man. Great Santini.

[136] I was also cried my eyes out.

[137] Oh, you know, they cured the elephant man. Oh, the end of the movie.

[138] He's okay.

[139] He takes a pill and he's fine.

[140] Oh.

[141] You should have stuck around.

[142] And the puppies and kittens come in.

[143] Yes, it's very popular in his town.

[144] The big musical number.

[145] Yes.

[146] And then mom, she did reading comprehension.

[147] So, so rarely do you see the ingredients of the parents like so perfectly come together as it did in you.

[148] Absolutely.

[149] I mean, I was very lucky because in my family, story was truly valued.

[150] I mean, it was not considered a frivolous thing.

[151] It was truly considered a valuable thing.

[152] And I tease about my dad, but my dad really never let me off the hook.

[153] We would go see these films together as a father -to -daughter date.

[154] And afterward, he would say, you know, what did you think about it?

[155] And it was never allowed to, you know, just say, oh, I liked it.

[156] You know, was it was a good or bad why, you know, a very early age.

[157] I was already kind of thinking about what made things work and not work and why characters worked.

[158] And my mom was always putting a book in my hand.

[159] And I was always thinking about, you know, a story is.

[160] a way that we related to each other.

[161] Absolutely.

[162] I do that with my five -year -old and I'm wondering if she hates me for it.

[163] We'll be like reading a storybook, in addition to pointing out that it's weird that the prince kisses a corpse, sleeping beauty, which people were mad.

[164] We pointed that out, but that's a side note.

[165] I mean, he kisses a stranger and the stranger's dead.

[166] But again, just, it's a very romantic story.

[167] We reinvent, like all the story tales get reinvented in my household.

[168] The dwarves.

[169] I don't even know we can say that anymore.

[170] The seven little people, they decide.

[171] Smaller of statured.

[172] Then she, they're keeping, they're keeping her, what were they doing with her, for a long, long period of time, and then the prince falls in love with the dead, beautiful person.

[173] That's right.

[174] And decides to lay one on her.

[175] Yeah.

[176] And she's dead.

[177] I'm going to kiss her.

[178] I would like her, yeah.

[179] Yeah.

[180] So we pointed out that that was a little weird, and then the right threatened to burn down our house.

[181] but regardless, as they should, as they should.

[182] But I will say to her, like, oh, do you notice now there's a problem?

[183] Like, do you notice the story was going along fine, and now there's a problem?

[184] Like, I'm trying to explain to her inciting incident, but, you know, like, simply.

[185] And I worry that she'll come to resent me because of it, but maybe she'll be you.

[186] So I find you encouraging in that way.

[187] Now, you have an older brother.

[188] Uh -huh.

[189] We have a big age difference.

[190] How much older?

[191] He's seven years older than I am.

[192] Oh, okay.

[193] Yes.

[194] And we're extremely different humans.

[195] He can make, he...

[196] Well, he's some railroad machinist?

[197] That's very different.

[198] Yeah.

[199] So he can actually do things and make things work.

[200] And anytime there's anything in my books where I'm like, things have to work or...

[201] Someone has to make toast.

[202] Yeah, exactly.

[203] Yeah, exactly.

[204] Hey, John, someone's got to open a door or a car door?

[205] You don't walk me through that?

[206] Set an alarm clock.

[207] Help me. Now, you were shy as a kid?

[208] Oh, God.

[209] I was cripplingly shy.

[210] You were?

[211] As a kid, yes.

[212] I mean, to the point where my mom would do exercises with me, like, at McDonald's, like, oh, I don't have a straw.

[213] We'll go up and ask for a straw.

[214] I mean, I remember that being a big deal.

[215] Like, what?

[216] And as you walk towards the Hitchcock shot.

[217] It's getting further and further away to register.

[218] Ronald McDonald pops out, what do you need?

[219] The hamburgle.

[220] Don't even start me about the hamburger.

[221] It's a fucking scary group of characters they created.

[222] It's actually horrific group of stuff.

[223] I can't imagine they research tested that.

[224] And wasn't there like a duck with braids who came, who was a pilot or something?

[225] Yeah, a cancerous dove.

[226] Some of the characters had grown up close to Chernobyl.

[227] Cancer dove, they should have tested that one a little bit more.

[228] Yeah.

[229] But you were painfully shy, and do you attribute that to just like who you were genetically?

[230] I think I came out shy.

[231] I'm introverted by nature still, I would say.

[232] I'm kind of a...

[233] This is great, then, for you, yeah.

[234] Yeah.

[235] I will retreat to my underground there for weeks after this thinking.

[236] But can you...

[237] You probably can't remember back so specifically at that age, but did you have fear of people, or did you have fear of what your presenting self was, if that makes sense?

[238] Was it like an internal fear or an external fear?

[239] It wasn't necessarily that I feared anyone was going to harm or anything like that.

[240] It really was, you know, it felt almost chemical to me. It was almost, it was a very, I was a very internalized kid, and it was very just hard for me to present myself.

[241] That's exactly a good way of putting it.

[242] It's hard for me to talk definitely in front of people I did not know.

[243] So your refuge, as I understand, was reading.

[244] Did you, you just loved reading?

[245] I loved just being in that world, being in books.

[246] And, you know, for the, for the most part, I lived, a life of almost not really an only child, but my brother was so much older that he was doing kind of his own thing.

[247] And, you know, I did spend a lot of time just kind of by myself and in the world of books.

[248] Books really saved me. I had characters like Meg Murray and Rinkle and Time and Tabitha Ruth Wexler in the Westing game, which is my, thank you.

[249] There's always, there's always one.

[250] I always recommend that as to me as the great understead.

[251] song, you know, Alice in Wonderland and these...

[252] So you like kind of fantasy?

[253] What about like Judy Blume?

[254] No, not for you.

[255] Oh, you did?

[256] Oh, God.

[257] Yeah.

[258] Oh, absolutely.

[259] Good.

[260] You weren't discerned.

[261] Please, yeah.

[262] No, are you kidding me?

[263] Judy Bloom is for everyone.

[264] Uh -huh.

[265] I guess what I'm getting at is you write such a specific type of book, and I'm curious if you liked similar books when you were younger.

[266] You know, I love scary books, too, for absolutely.

[267] I love mysteries.

[268] I got into Agatha Christie really early.

[269] I remembered a librarian finding me kind of wandering around trying to figure out what to do.

[270] And, you know, she said, what kind of, you know, what kind of books do you like?

[271] You know, I like scary books.

[272] And she kind of walked me over to the mystery section in the grown -up part of the library.

[273] That was the first time I was allowed over and, like, you know, the grown -up part of the library.

[274] And being a completest, I started with the very first Agatha Christie and worked my way through that summer all the way through and read all hers.

[275] you just described I can relate to in that video stories used to have a curtain and the pornos were on one side and I thought like my mom was really preoccupied reading a cover of like I don't know firstborn or something would like pop in there for a second and all the men would be like nothing makes them feel more exposed than like an eight year old like what's happening in here why is her curtain up yeah that's the same yeah is that your experience Yeah, yeah.

[276] You never, have you even been to a video store?

[277] Yes, blockbuster video, duh.

[278] Wow, what a difference.

[279] Blockbuster video.

[280] I think the last one just closed.

[281] They finally closed the very last one, right?

[282] John Oliver tried to save it.

[283] The one in Alaska did go down.

[284] We lost it.

[285] I think he just covered.

[286] Yeah, I think John Oliver just covered the last one went.

[287] Yeah, it's passed.

[288] But apparently there's still one in Bend, Oregon, maybe, and one in Eugene.

[289] Yeah, Ben's in the house?

[290] All right.

[291] Rent some movies from there, okay?

[292] Because they need you.

[293] They need you.

[294] A lot is riding on you.

[295] I bet there's people who just rent stuff and they don't even have a DVD player.

[296] They're like, let's just pick up a few movies.

[297] And what kind of movies did you like when you're in your teenage years?

[298] Did you like John Hughes movies?

[299] Chicago.

[300] I did indeed.

[301] Absolutely, yeah.

[302] My husband grew up not far from one of the John Hughes movie houses.

[303] Oh, really?

[304] Which one?

[305] He's in the audience.

[306] I think it was, I think it was the Home Alone House.

[307] Home Alone House.

[308] My favorite.

[309] Monica's having a real hard time with the fact that Home Alone's not available on Netflix.

[310] Isn't that so stupid?

[311] Hulu.

[312] It's on Hulu?

[313] What if she got up and ran out of here?

[314] I got to go.

[315] Bye.

[316] Stood up and sprinted.

[317] I actually said maybe it's on Hulu and you said, I don't think so.

[318] Listen, you're really throwing me under the bus tonight.

[319] Sorry.

[320] I have a surprise for you later than I'm even thinking about not giving you I want it You're getting real sassy Usually you're in your red jumpsuit When you act like this, but So you end up going to University of Kansas You know what's great about this many people Is inevitably someone's going to cheer Yeah Like my first car was a Ford Vega Pinto in the house I got Selmanila poisoning in Bucharest.

[321] Me too!

[322] This guy's the limit here.

[323] So obviously we have a lot of graduates from University of Kansas.

[324] I mean, really, a considerable amount.

[325] Is that the theme?

[326] Your school's song sounds like a seance.

[327] That's what I was saying.

[328] I saw like a spirit.

[329] Ghosts are going to appear.

[330] What are the words?

[331] It's kind of it.

[332] Rock, Tart J. You have to take out to get yours.

[333] But you majored in English and journalism there.

[334] I did.

[335] And did you come out of your shell in college at all?

[336] You know, a little bit.

[337] I feel like, you know, as I got older, each step of the way, a little bit more.

[338] Uh -huh.

[339] You had boyfriends and stuff.

[340] I had boyfriends and a sorority.

[341] Oh, you were in a sorority?

[342] That's kind of counterintuitive for a shy person.

[343] I know, it was.

[344] Yeah.

[345] You had to, like, rush, do you rush a sorority?

[346] I had to rush, yeah.

[347] I tricked them all into thinking I was normal.

[348] Uh -huh.

[349] And did they do?

[350] So you wouldn't know this about Monica, but Monica was a state championship cheerleader.

[351] There's probably 20 or 30 of them in here.

[352] And they wanted to haze her, and she would not do it.

[353] No. She said no to peer pressure.

[354] I will not succumb to peer pressure, ever.

[355] Sometimes to a fault, let's be honest.

[356] Yeah, she sensed realized that it was probably fun what they were trying to ask her to do.

[357] I'm just missing out on fun stuff.

[358] She finally hit that age where she was like something she was really proud of and then she was like, I wonder if they were doing something fun in that room, yeah.

[359] But you went to a hazing process?

[360] What did they make you do?

[361] Sing that song a lot?

[362] No, by then it was like that was so anti -hazing, you know, it was very, I think we dressed as a baby one time or something.

[363] Okay.

[364] It was the early 90s.

[365] Sure, sure.

[366] There was a lot of like giant tanks of booze full of booze.

[367] Yes.

[368] So you have boyfriends there and everything And you're getting a little more social I was getting more social yeah But it was I would say like I like looking back I probably would have done better Like a little liberal art school I mean that was a massive school And I was constantly trying to find my place I did really well finding my place And like the little creative writing program That I was in there And I kind of found you know found my group there more so, you know.

[369] Yeah.

[370] And you had the aim at that time, or did you have it this early, that you wanted to be a police reporter?

[371] What I knew then was I wanted to write for a living.

[372] But being from a very pragmatic background, I would never have declared that I wanted to be a novelist, which was kind of in the back of my head, but I would never have dreamed of saying that out loud because it would have been like, yeah, it would have been like, wow, those bridges are looking like, a little small on you, girl.

[373] Yeah.

[374] So it was kind of like, the idea was I'll get an English degree and learn about, you know, book writing.

[375] And I'll get the journalism degree because that's useful because back then there were these things called magazines and newspapers.

[376] Uh -huh.

[377] And they were at Blockbusters.

[378] Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[379] And that was the theories I could somehow write for a living.

[380] And it was a little counterintuitive because I was not particularly keeping up with the news at that point, I was not necessarily on top of current events.

[381] Right.

[382] So it was truly kind of a means to an end of how, how do I get to this?

[383] And also in the mix was, you know, do I become a lawyer?

[384] Because I was watching LA Lala, and they looked great in those like little miniskirt business suits.

[385] Yeah, very hot group of attorneys.

[386] I was definitely all over the place.

[387] Sexy legal beagles, yeah.

[388] Exactly.

[389] And after graduate, I moved to California.

[390] And then you started working for a, like, trade magazine for professionals in human resources.

[391] It's very, speaking of sexy.

[392] That's a perfect pairing with that theme song from your university.

[393] I mean, that's a snooze fest, right?

[394] Yeah.

[395] What do people who aren't no human resources read about?

[396] Like some dude not flushing the toilet.

[397] Yes, yes.

[398] A family medical leave act, very hot.

[399] And while you're doing, are you, were you a people -pleaser?

[400] Did you want your parents to be proud of you?

[401] Did you feel like you needed to do the right thing?

[402] Oh, yeah.

[403] Yeah, I was definitely very much.

[404] So I'm going to hit you with an overarching theory I have about your whole creative life.

[405] But I'm just planting little tiny seeds right now.

[406] Okay.

[407] I need an overarching theory of my life.

[408] I'm going to have a fucking breakthrough tonight.

[409] I'm open for business on that.

[410] I'm going to carry you out of here in a heap.

[411] Oh, wow.

[412] Yeah.

[413] I hope that sounds fun.

[414] like a crime heap or a devastated heap or just all emotions at once yeah all right as stan warned so um you're doing that job and are you thinking um i just i can't do this i can't do this or were you let go um because i hadn't that hadn't occurred to me in just this moment i assume like oh you got to a point we're like this blows what am i doing but you could have got canned no i am that comes later okay that comes later Because people do get fired.

[415] People do get fired.

[416] No, I was a rising star at Personal Journal.

[417] I'm a very contented person.

[418] And so I was sort of like, I got my first job.

[419] I'm writing for a living.

[420] You're checking off the things you're supposed to do.

[421] Yeah, exactly.

[422] I lived near a planet Hollywood, which is cool.

[423] Yeah.

[424] I mean, you know, this is really the first.

[425] You ever see Slice Stallone there?

[426] Assuming I might.

[427] Sure.

[428] I mean, that's how naive I was.

[429] I was taking a screenwriting class, and I was also someone who was very unprone to asking anyone how to do things.

[430] I was not good at being a finding mentor asking how to do things.

[431] So I still wanted to write somehow creatively for a living, but I didn't know how to do that.

[432] Let's just look at that for one second, because I, too, am that way, to a fall.

[433] I could be so good at so many things.

[434] I've been playing the guitar for 15 years, and I'm about as good as like an eight -year -old on week two of a...

[435] Because I just said figuring it out.

[436] I can't humble myself enough to accept guidance from somebody.

[437] Like for me to admit I don't know how to do something would be such a failing.

[438] And I think my, you know, my mom really was so supportive and loving to me, but also kind of, you know, thought I was like the second coming at times.

[439] And I did not want to shatter that illusion.

[440] And surely the second coming can just learn to play guitar.

[441] But there's, yeah, there's like, I don't, I don't want to be seen as bad at anything, maybe, so I'd be admitting I'm bad at something to allow someone to instruct me. I don't know, it's just a terrible quality of mine.

[442] I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit, because when you really needed help with something, you did get help.

[443] Oh, with the drugs and alcohol.

[444] Thanks for bringing that up.

[445] Yeah, yeah.

[446] Yeah, addendum, when it's life or death, I'll ask for help.

[447] but literally has to be life or death.

[448] I'm often said if I was drowning and someone pulled up with a life reserve, I'm like, I look so weak accepting this thing.

[449] I'll swim alongside it.

[450] Yeah, I'm actually good.

[451] Thank you.

[452] Stay tuned for more live show after this exciting commercial break.

[453] What's up, guys?

[454] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

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[456] and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

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[462] We've all been there.

[463] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[464] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[465] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[466] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[467] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[468] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[469] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[470] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music.

[471] Yeah, so do you think your kind of unwillingness to seek out a mentor or ask for guidance is rooted in some kind of like, you know, you have an exterior presenting image, which is I've got this figured out.

[472] Yes, I hate to ask for help.

[473] absolutely in anything in any sort of like I am the queen of I got this I got this I got this I got this yeah yeah yeah um we don't always have it no no and that's what I'm learning now that I'm 47 and it took me a long and humbling experiences like people want to help you and people and that's great to help people and that's how you get friends and friendships are established and your friends want to help you and there are people you know in any profession and that's how you get mentors and that's how and people who are older than you and better at you than things that's what they're there for is they like to help people yeah and i'll go beyond that what people are most attracted to and other people is vulnerability it's not their you know accomplishments i got this i got this they are yeah that's not actually the thing you like about somebody it's a really terrible yeah i think for me some of it comes from my shyness and my shell yes and and and And so how did you leave the safe path and decide to go to Northwestern?

[474] Well, I expect this place to turn upside down when we say Northwestern.

[475] I know.

[476] I'm surprised it wasn't.

[477] There I go.

[478] I liked journalism.

[479] I realized I liked doing that for a living.

[480] And I started thinking that, you know, that had to be the next step, whether it was doing what I thought was going to be crime coverage or that sort of thing or some sort of next step that I need a master's degree or I need something else.

[481] Right.

[482] and I wanted that extra education.

[483] Yeah, so I applied to Northwestern.

[484] You know, it's weird.

[485] I don't really, I don't, like, kind of fetishize schools too often.

[486] Like, I could care less about Harvard and stuff.

[487] I kind of have a thing for Northwestern.

[488] North Western's pretty cool.

[489] Yeah, it's kind of got this weird, great balance, right, of being very esteemed and academic, yet kind of cool and chill, right?

[490] Yeah, not overly, yeah.

[491] Yeah, it's got the cool, it does have that, like, very cool, artistic vein to it.

[492] It's kind of, um, it's kind of synonymous with the vibe of Chicago in general, and I'm not playing to the audience, but it does, that's kind of like, yeah, it's very, it's a good emblem of Chicago.

[493] That's where I really found my group of, of good pals.

[494] Like, my, one of my best friends, um, to this day, introduced me to my husband who I met there.

[495] By the way, I met her husband backstage for the first time, a bona fide 10, almost as good looking as Charlie Curtis.

[496] I mean, this guy is he's a slacks he's yeah he's not a piece of meat have some respect um uh he is a dream boat isn't he oh my god he's like he takes your breath away a little bit now see now i'm gonna have to tamp him down back at home no yeah yeah i've really got him feeling himself he's something sit up a little bit when i started hitting him the jaw lines off the charts you can hit it with a baseball bat that bat would shatter between the two of us we got some serious Your kids probably were just pulled right out by the mandible.

[497] Your kids look like Jay Leno?

[498] Do they resemble Jay Leno?

[499] That Leno -esque jaw?

[500] We can only hope.

[501] Fingers crossed.

[502] Every mother's dream.

[503] Their daughter looks like Jay Leno.

[504] So you found your tribe at Northwestern?

[505] Yeah, I really did.

[506] I really did.

[507] And, like, I mean, I'm still so tight with that group.

[508] Like, I just became a minister online yesterday.

[509] because I'm going to go marry one of my best friends.

[510] I'm the Reverend Ducalion Fun.

[511] Oh, you did an online thing?

[512] Online, uh -huh.

[513] Yeah, what is it, $5 .10 to become a reverend?

[514] I even have a kid's.

[515] Yeah, I paid extra per kits.

[516] Oh, great.

[517] So much pressure as a writer.

[518] Oh, yeah.

[519] They're going to be expecting a lot.

[520] They're expecting a lot.

[521] Oh, I know.

[522] They're going to expect, like, a big plot twist at the end of the end of the...

[523] Yeah, exactly.

[524] Exactly.

[525] I'm going to write part of it is a diary form.

[526] Here's the thing.

[527] Like an Amy situation.

[528] And the way through, I'd be like, I'm not really married you after all.

[529] You really should do something like that.

[530] Yeah, that'd be fun right?

[531] I think they love that.

[532] Yes.

[533] I find that most people getting married want the officiator to make themselves the star of the thing.

[534] Yeah, yeah.

[535] I find that.

[536] To steal thunder.

[537] Yeah, their day.

[538] To make a mockery of it sort of, right?

[539] Yeah.

[540] So when you get out of Northwestern, you do find employment as a police reporter.

[541] During it, just as a stringer, it's like a kind of working program, I'm kind of like an intern.

[542] So I did it very poorly.

[543] I did like some action stuff.

[544] And I just realized to be a good crime reporter.

[545] And I really thought that's what I was going to do because I knew I wanted to be a writer and I was always interested in the dark side of human nature and why I was interested in true crime and why that bad things happen, basically.

[546] But to be a very good true crime reporter, and I have a huge respect for people who do it well, but you have to have a huge dose of humanity equaled with serious steel.

[547] and I did not have that steal.

[548] Because you have to be so assertive in asking people horrific questions, basically, right?

[549] Yeah, and to be able to do it regularly and to be able to do it right and I just knew very quickly that was not going to be me and so I got a job of entertainment weekly.

[550] Right.

[551] And did you feel like it was, did you feel like you had failed that you had to make that jog to the right or not?

[552] I didn't.

[553] I actually felt really lucky that I figured it out.

[554] But I figured, yeah, I felt kind of like I missed a bullet because I saw people in action who were unhappy with the paths that they had chosen.

[555] And I didn't want to be that person.

[556] And it's a pretty dark world to inhabit daily, I would imagine.

[557] Yeah.

[558] I mean, based on what I've seen on the wire, it seemed like those guys had dark, the reporters.

[559] Exactly.

[560] I think that's probably accurate.

[561] There you go.

[562] That's all you need to know.

[563] So you start working at Entertainment Weekly, and now you start reviewing television primarily, right?

[564] So for a long time, I was just covering films.

[565] So I was, you know, doing a lot of sit visits.

[566] I was back when magazines had money.

[567] So I was, you know, in my 20s and going to New Zealand for Lord of the Rings and, you know, jackass the movie and all these kind of like great fun things.

[568] And I had a blast.

[569] Well, now here's the point where I want you to forget Brett's here, her husband.

[570] Because I've been interviewed a lot.

[571] and I think I have always had this fantasy that the female journalists and I are going to fall in love during the interview like there's something about it that just seems kind of enticing I don't know why but I've kind of had this and I guess I'm curious did you ever have some fire with any of these people you were interviewing?

[572] No who didn't you have fire with?

[573] Yeah.

[574] I actually This is true I did not First of all I was such a Puritan I was such a like Very like I went to journalism school And church and state And it's just sacred And so for me You know I was always like I am a professional I would never do such a thing So you know You always And looking back Do you feel like Monica That maybe you should have succumb To the peer pressure Yes Right Yeah I do And if you and Johnny Knoxville You know taking a long lunch on the set of jackass Now you're married and happy with kids That wouldn't hurt Looked back had a good story Yes I wish I had been a little Friskier Friskier, exactly So did you ever put your foot in your mouth horrendously while interviewing one of these people?

[575] I was not a smooth interviewer In fact I remember Being happy that I was a good writer Because I could make up for it For my shitty interviewing techniques I got you.

[576] I was very bad at asking any question.

[577] Like, if, you know, if anyone had just had a breakup and, like, you know, or if anyone had just had something, you know, bad on the set or whatever, I'd be like, you know, like going into that, you know, just him and ha, and, you know, so my editor wanted me to ask you this question, you know, I'm going to ask you this.

[578] I was not a smooth, cool interviewer.

[579] So my friends and I always say that, you know, that was back in the day of the little mini cartridge, too, the mini cassette thing.

[580] Yeah, minicassette, yeah.

[581] That we should all do a strange, sort of awful performance art piece where we get together and just play our, the best of, worst of, interviewers, where it's just us going, blah.

[582] Well, I was not an interviewer, but I can tell you this quick story.

[583] Kristen and I did this movie.

[584] Went in Rome.

[585] Dan, yeah.

[586] But Danny DeVito was in this.

[587] movie.

[588] We, we've loved, yes.

[589] And I love Danny DeVito.

[590] He's a wonderful person.

[591] And we were, we were on set doing that movie and we got to work one morning.

[592] And I say to DeVito, I go, hey, DeVito, what did you do last night?

[593] And he goes, oh, I went back to my hotel room and I ordered room service and I watched Death to Smoochie.

[594] And I go, uh, that's nuts.

[595] We did the exact same thing.

[596] Went to our hotel room, got some room service, and we watched Death to Smoochie.

[597] And he goes, uh, what did you think of the film?

[598] And I go, oh, it's fucking terrible.

[599] I don't know how this thing is a cult classic.

[600] I couldn't stand it.

[601] And as I'm saying that I'm watching some people that are with us starting to look down and then walk away.

[602] And I go, oh, I just shit the bed.

[603] He wasn't in it.

[604] I go, ooh, but he is a producer.

[605] I go, uh, did you produce that movie and he goes no I directed it that's bad that's really bad and then I think oh shit I gotta dig myself out of this I go you know what it wasn't the movie that I didn't like and now I'm just improvving I don't even know what to say I go you know what I think it's that I didn't love seeing Edward Norton tried to be a comedian and he goes he's one of my closest friends now everyone's gone Kristen left it's just me and him I'm surprised she didn't leave you well this is about one of 150 times I put my foot in my mouth with her it's amazing she's with me and then I'm just staring at him and I go well if it makes you feel better you'll probably forget about this in a couple weeks and I'll be thinking about this for the rest of my life which I am I'm still thinking about it but I will say this part of me feels like that was a trap that was a trap like I watched my own movie what'd you think of the film that'd be like if I met someone I was like hey do you see that movie couples retreat?

[606] do you want to fuck that blonde?

[607] Oh boy sorry I just I just wanted you to know what you could have done in that job is what I've done feel free to leave Just, yeah Now, did you ever We kind of talked about it But when I knew When I found out that you had written For Entertainment Weekly for 10 years 98 to 2008?

[608] I thought Oh, I bet she reviewed something I was in and eviscerated me And then I went searching And I was unable to find it That would have been good fun That would have been good But you probably have, right?

[609] I probably thought it Thought it, thought it, thought it.

[610] Didn't act on it.

[611] You were a big Veronica Mars fan, right?

[612] Big.

[613] What I realized as I read a bunch of your reviews, we have almost the same taste, I think, because you love the wire.

[614] Love the wire.

[615] You were ready to burn this fucker to the ground because Friday Night Lights never got nominated, right?

[616] Speaking of which, your husband is on par with Riggins.

[617] If Riggins got his shit.

[618] shit together.

[619] Yes.

[620] If Riggins was like a lawyer.

[621] Yeah.

[622] Yeah.

[623] Hot and smart.

[624] He said he, I was talking to him when you were doing something, and he said he pieced together that perhaps you named your daughter after it.

[625] That you said, what was your sentence?

[626] When I met Chris and I told her, we have a daughter named Veronica.

[627] And I was like, I didn't necessarily name her after Veronica Mars, but I didn't necessarily not name her after.

[628] Because, yeah, I love that show.

[629] Yes, yes, it's so good.

[630] I think I've sent on here once before, but when we first started dating, I had never seen the show.

[631] And then I was like, oh, my God, I got to get through this show about a teenage gum shoe.

[632] Watch this.

[633] High school sleuth.

[634] I was so...

[635] The line doesn't sound great.

[636] Yeah, you hear it and you're like, yeah, I remember being like, yeah, as a critic at the time, and being like, oh, go, boy.

[637] Yeah.

[638] I was like, I'll throw this.

[639] on I'll have my tuna sandwich at lunch So I started watching the show right And like by the third episode She came into the bedroom I was watching it And she was like hey do you want to order If I was like shut the fuck up Watching my favorite show I couldn't believe how good it was So good Yeah But then also You also were a champion of Tim and Eric Of Tim and Eric I mean that's the funny a show that's ever been on, your quote about them was so good.

[640] It was comedy equivalent of swallowing a hair.

[641] It was pretty brilliant.

[642] That's exactly how you feel.

[643] You're like, I want to throw up, and this is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

[644] I feel funny.

[645] Yeah.

[646] How did you feel about parenthood?

[647] I love parenthood.

[648] You did, but you kind of, you, I'm going to say quit, you can correct me, but you quit right around the time parenthood started kind of getting going.

[649] Oh, I was like, I didn't review parenthood, because, yeah, Yeah, yeah.

[650] I was laid off, not quit, but hence we get to that.

[651] I would have said that.

[652] I would have said you threw your name tag on someone's desk.

[653] I was given the boots.

[654] Well, they downsized, right?

[655] They downsized me. You weren't given the boot per se.

[656] I was downsized.

[657] But, um, no, I love, and yeah, like speaking of Friday at night, lights.

[658] Well, same creator showrunner.

[659] Exactly.

[660] Same beautiful humanity.

[661] Same like humor.

[662] Ah, I loved parenthood.

[663] My husband and I were the beautiful husband.

[664] Here he comes again.

[665] And yet you didn't name your son.

[666] I was like, we should have.

[667] That is an error in our part.

[668] I was telling him, because he hasn't seen it.

[669] We were talking tonight while we were driving down here.

[670] I was like, if you'd like to watch it from the beginning, I shall watch it with you.

[671] We could start tonight.

[672] It sounds like you're going to murder him while you watch it.

[673] I'd be a little nervous about it, too.

[674] But in your last two years at Entertainment Weekly, you start writing and you write sharp objects.

[675] Is that accurate?

[676] I wrote both sharp objects and dark places.

[677] as well, I was at EW, and I got laid off just before dark places came out, which shows you the state of, buy books, people.

[678] It shows you the state that I had to keep my day job while I was writing those.

[679] But I was at EW by day and writing these incredibly dark, fucked up.

[680] In a basement, right?

[681] Novels at night, yeah.

[682] Yeah, and you said, and I think this is really great advice for people who are aspiring writers or writers to hear, which is what you learned in.

[683] journalism carried over to writing novels, which is there's no fucking muse.

[684] No one's going to knock at your window and beckon you.

[685] The story's not going to fall out of you, right?

[686] You just got to sit down and work.

[687] Yeah.

[688] So, yeah, what was your process that you carried over from journalism?

[689] Yeah, I mean, it's, you just have to write and you have to carve out that time to write, even if it's a page a day.

[690] I mean, if you think about it, and that's what I always tell aspiring writers, you know, stop buying the books about writing.

[691] I say this from a place.

[692] of love as someone who's spent years buying books about writing and preparing to write and, you know, trying to find the right place to write and the right time to write and everything.

[693] Stop.

[694] Don't do that.

[695] You know, just even if you write a page a day at the end of a year, you will have a novel.

[696] Yeah.

[697] Or at least a first, I mean, it's not going to be a good novel.

[698] It's going to be a shitty novel.

[699] That's my advice to everyone is like.

[700] It's going to be a crappy first draft of a novel.

[701] But, you know, it's like, to me it's like, get the crappy first draft out because all first drafts.

[702] suck.

[703] I mean...

[704] And in general, most of your first things you write are terrible.

[705] They should be.

[706] They should be.

[707] You only learn how to write through painting yourself into a corner a million times and trying to fix it and then next time go, ooh, I'd learn not to make that mistake, right?

[708] Yeah, and you rewrite.

[709] I mean, and my favorite parts rewriting, and I rewrite my stuff, I mean, I write 12 versions of every novel that I write.

[710] You're still working on a draft of Gone Girl, I heard.

[711] Yeah.

[712] I mean, I have four versions of Gone Girl.

[713] I mean, that go in different directions where it's just like, I don't quite like and that's just how I write I just don't write by I'm not an outliner I just learn that I'm not I just veer and for me that's where the the fun of it is I just wouldn't like I don't I learned I don't like to write towards a goal I don't like to write exactly like and stick to it because to me the fun of it or the magic of it is when the characters and it sounds very authory but it's when the characters start kind of taking over and when you start thinking oh well what if I do this and you start you know all of a sudden you're going down a completely different path and for me it just wouldn't be fun to write a novel any other way so do you know how they end though while you're writing no never you don't know all they end no no no never never you are so brave no i'm foolhardy yeah and um so a trick i do for myself is i grant myself permission to write something terrible yes often i find that's what writer's block is at least for me it's like why am i having writers block because you're scared and you're trying to write around what you know you need to write.

[714] And you're trying to write every other way except for writing what you know because you're scared to write that thing because you're scared to write that crapiness.

[715] Yeah, and you need it to be perfect and all these things.

[716] Yeah.

[717] And there's a theme kind of in your books, or at least a couple of things that I seem come up.

[718] One that's in Gone Girl is the fact that Ben Affleck's character, Nick.

[719] Oh.

[720] So Nick at the press conference becomes very self -conscious because we've all seen how these are supposed to go.

[721] So you end up starting to play a role.

[722] And this is a big pet peeve of mine.

[723] I watch every episode of Dateline.

[724] And they always talk to the cops.

[725] And the cops always say, well, he didn't act like someone who just found his wife dead.

[726] As if there's a predictable way someone's going to act.

[727] Exactly.

[728] When they find that, you know, as if that's such a common occurrence, we should know what to expect.

[729] Yeah.

[730] And there's this, like, there seems to be a theme of, like, what's expected or, or, or, or, or people might, you know, imprison you or alter your life or change the course of your life because you're not doing it the way other people are doing it or are supposed to do it.

[731] And is that something like for you that's a personal kind of fear or a, I always think if, if I find Kristen dead and they get there, I most certainly won't be doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing.

[732] I'm positive of it.

[733] Like, I already have the speech plan, which is like, I know, you think I did it.

[734] 90 % of the times I would have done it.

[735] Let's just go through all the things.

[736] Let's do the lie detector test.

[737] Let's do it.

[738] Because I'm not going to give you the thing you want.

[739] So let's just go.

[740] Let's get on it.

[741] Yes.

[742] And since I already know that I'm not going to be acting the way I'm supposed to, then I'm doubly not going to be acting the way I'm supposed to.

[743] And now I'm really fucked.

[744] Yeah.

[745] Now I'm really going to go.

[746] Yeah.

[747] Yeah, I'm fascinated with that idea of what we put on ourselves about how we are supposed to act in particular different situations and, you know, the grieving parent or the grieving spouse or the different, you know, the concerned, you know, whatever and what that does to us and what that does to people who don't play those roles.

[748] I also think they're all informed by television.

[749] They're all informed by television.

[750] That cop saw Merrill Street react to a death.

[751] And that's what he thinks.

[752] the husband should be doing.

[753] Right, right, exactly.

[754] Well, he didn't tear his blouse.

[755] And what, yeah.

[756] He should have torn his blouse.

[757] His eyeliner should have been running.

[758] Right.

[759] And what is that starting to do to us societally when now it's generation upon generation of those roles we're becoming this giant echo chamber of us playing literally 30 years of how do I do this thing that is done, and all we're doing is playing 30 years of how it's done, whatever it is, whether it's a parent talking to a kid who's gotten a bad grade card.

[760] I mean, I catch myself doing it.

[761] Well, I even think I've seen documentaries where they say the mafia started acting like Godfather.

[762] Right.

[763] Like, John Gotti's doing an impersonation of Marlon Brando in real life.

[764] Right.

[765] Which is so bonkers.

[766] Yeah.

[767] Well, and they talked about that with the wire, too.

[768] that you know certain you know certain um quotes were picked up from the wire oh really yeah i mean yeah it's definitely and as someone who you know going back to what like as a shy kid i felt like i spent a lot of time studying other people for how things are done you know how how what should i say just because i've always felt so incredibly awkward and so not comfortable in my own skin that I was constantly like, oh, this is how kids say this thing.

[769] Oh, this is what, I mean, I still have my diary from, like, fifth grade, and I would write down, like, I would be like, my teacher is spaced out.

[770] And I would deliberately have it in quotes so that I would remember that that's what you're supposed to say for, you know, and that kind of thing.

[771] So I would, you know, keep these notes of like, this is what kids say.

[772] Yeah.

[773] Kids.

[774] Not me. Right.

[775] But the kid.

[776] Well, I was wondering if it did come from that background of, like, observing that everyone else seems to be knowing how to play this role perfectly, yet I have no connection to that role.

[777] Yeah, which is not, you know, I'm sure, you know, a lot of kids absolutely feel that way, but I felt that tremendously.

[778] And, you know, you feel that way, like, am I going to be caught playing that?

[779] Stay tuned for more live show after this exciting commercial break.

[780] So Gone Girl comes out, and that's a huge hit, obviously, right?

[781] It sells 2 million copies in the first year or something.

[782] It was out of nowhere, yeah.

[783] It was really crazy.

[784] Were you able to, like, experience it, to be present for it, to recognize what was happening?

[785] It did it feel surreal?

[786] Did you feel like, oh, of course this happened?

[787] Or did you feel like, how did this happen?

[788] Or what was your...

[789] It was, I mean, it was kind of like being strapped.

[790] to a rocket because it was my publisher, it wasn't like we had this kind of advanced warning of pre -orders or this is going to be huge.

[791] It really did kind of like helping to build a base of readers but it sort of just went cabooey and our son was not even two and you know all of a sudden it was like this book tour that never any book tour you know it was also our life it was completely you know in a good way but in a way that I wasn't necessarily, I wasn't a person who dreamed of being a number one bestseller.

[792] I really was, and I was someone who just wanted to make a living writing.

[793] I mean, I get modest expectations, but I really, I was hoping to at some point reach a point.

[794] I was out of a job at that point.

[795] I didn't know my EW job.

[796] So that was great.

[797] That it was like, I was like, okay, great.

[798] Like, I couldn't definitely make a living at this now.

[799] So that's cool.

[800] Yeah.

[801] But otherwise, it was like, what the fuck is happening?

[802] It was really, like, it was, yeah, there wasn't much time to process it, and, you know, the, the movies sale happened very quickly and in a very un -Hollywood -like way it all worked out.

[803] They let you write the screenplay, which is kind of shocking, and not just they, David Fincher, okay, you writing the screenplay.

[804] Now, what I know about David Fincher as a director, if you're an actor, is that you might do 90 takes of something.

[805] Like, he's a very technical, visually person, his shots involve a lot of different movement.

[806] and everything's got to be in focus, so you might end up doing 90 takes.

[807] So I was curious, is he that way when he's involved with the script?

[808] Did you find it?

[809] Let me put it this way.

[810] If I were you and I got this great opportunity to write this script, I would be very fearful I was going to fail.

[811] And if I was working with someone like him who's a perfectionist, it might really set off all that for me. So I'd written the script the first draft before he even came into the picture.

[812] Oh, okay.

[813] So the fact that he was like, cool I want to meet with her was like, I at least had that.

[814] He was like, yeah, he was like, great.

[815] I remember just trying to be like really cool.

[816] It was like, because Fincher's like my idol and like I love his films.

[817] And I was like, yeah, I'm going to pretend like I know what I'm doing.

[818] But I didn't even understand like what they're like, you're meeting with Fincher.

[819] And I was like, I don't know what that means.

[820] Like what am I doing about like a PowerPoint or what like?

[821] Do I make a pie chart, a pie chart of like, what do I do?

[822] Read it out loud to him while he sits there.

[823] Yeah, I was like, I don't know.

[824] And then they're like, okay, so order your lunch.

[825] And I checked the wrong box.

[826] And I checked, instead of a sushi, I checked an entire sushi platter.

[827] Oh, really?

[828] That's kind of a boss move.

[829] Like, hey, Pinch, you're going to watch me eat for the next two and a half hours.

[830] A ton of uncooked fish.

[831] So I'm also going to get sick midway through And you're going to watch Just a tradition I have Yeah sure It's what you're doing meetings, right?

[832] It's a power move Yeah so he has like a bowl of soup or something Because it's just like three people are carrying it in Like funk But yeah so we got along really well We just like clicked Clicked very easily Now here's where I'm going to get in my theorizing about you Oh okay Okay So I would say at least 80%.

[833] I have, you know, yellow binders where I write down movie ideas.

[834] And 80 % of those ideas are ways I've thought about that would be clever to steal money.

[835] Oh, okay.

[836] Or to move, like, mass amounts of drugs and get away with it.

[837] And I'm being sincere.

[838] All my ideas are this.

[839] Okay.

[840] I thought of one on the way here.

[841] I was like, what if there's a cab, and New York City and they always got the same fare and then the fair drove all the way out to Long Island but there's drugs in the back.

[842] No cop would pull over a cab.

[843] You know, I just started thinking of all the ways to get away with stealing money.

[844] Cups never pull over cabs, right?

[845] They never do.

[846] So I know clearly, I always think of those ideas because I'm obsessed with money.

[847] I was very fearful I wouldn't have any.

[848] And at a certain point I just thought, well, I'm going to take some.

[849] So I'm not leaving Planet Earth without it.

[850] I'm not just going to watch everyone else have a good time with this shit.

[851] I'll eventually steal it.

[852] I didn't have to, thank God.

[853] I was heading that way.

[854] So weirdly, my creativity is very driven by my fears.

[855] I do wonder, do you feel such a pressure to be the perfect girl that your fantasy of being able to just go, fuck all this?

[856] I'm going to burn this place down.

[857] I'm going to kill the husband.

[858] I'm going to outsmart you all.

[859] Like, is there something about the fantasy of just, saying, I don't give a shit if I'm a good girl.

[860] Is that in the mix for you?

[861] Yeah.

[862] I mean, I think, oh, yeah.

[863] The short answer is, fuck out.

[864] Yeah.

[865] I mean, to the point where right now in the back of my head, I remember saying that my dad was cheap earlier in this interview, and I'm already like, can we change that to thrifty?

[866] By the way, I don't even think you said that.

[867] No, you didn't.

[868] No. No. I think you thought that.

[869] Oh, no. Oh, my God.

[870] You're in bad shape.

[871] You're in very bad shape.

[872] You thought that, and then you stopped yourself and didn't even say it, and you still feel guilty.

[873] Oh, great.

[874] Oh, God.

[875] You sat it.

[876] Oh.

[877] She said it.

[878] That's a real -time fact check.

[879] Because they will be listening to this.

[880] I love you, Dad.

[881] Okay, I guess you did say it.

[882] Yes, I am not someone who ever says, Fuck it.

[883] Like, and that idea of saying, fuck it, I'm going to do whatever I want to do.

[884] Is euphoric.

[885] So, yeah.

[886] So there are two reasons I write that.

[887] One is that, that idea of women who kind of do whatever they want to do and don't worry about the consequences, don't worry about what happens, you know, the results of that.

[888] Yeah.

[889] I think it's very free.

[890] And the other reason is I do think the world, I do think it's important to have.

[891] female characters out there who aren't always the hero or who aren't always good or who aren't always the helpmate.

[892] Yes.

[893] Well, I was going to bring that up because you were accused by some critics of somehow being misogynist in these roles you've created.

[894] And you responded with something I love, which is the one thing that really frustrates me is this idea that women are innately good, innately nurturing.

[895] In literature, they can be dismissively bad, trampy, vampy, bitchy types.

[896] But there's still a big pushback against the idea that women can be just pragmatically evil, bad, and selfish.

[897] And I think as I'm raising daughters, I get overly aware of, yes, how much pressure it is to be like a good girl and be nice and be kind and be loving.

[898] And we just indoctrinate little girls with this untenable idea that they're going to be, good and loving and empathetic and nurturing at all times.

[899] At all times, right.

[900] And then they snap and they hook up with, like, you know, the jander at their work and they get pregnant in their lives to go down the tooth.

[901] I don't know.

[902] But I think, and this is what's so weird to me, because I think what you did is innately feminist, yet I can't imagine that the people that accused you of this were men.

[903] Were these men saying this that you were being misogynistic?

[904] It is, it's across the board.

[905] Oh, it was.

[906] Yeah, it is.

[907] A nice cross -section of everyone?

[908] I will tell you that, yeah, that is one part of my life where I'm like, go fuck yourselves.

[909] Oh, good.

[910] Good for you.

[911] That one, you know, that I don't feel like I need to be polite about that one because I feel like it's so patently ridiculous that accusation.

[912] I really think that it's important that women are seen as, guess what, human.

[913] and that that includes every kind of woman and that this insane thing particularly with Gone Girl that because Amy does bad things and she does really do horrible things that that makes me a misogynist or anti -feminist I think is crazy because she's a villain well also came out in 2012 and at that time you have Don Draper this is like the zenith of the male anti -her You have Don Draper, you're Tony Soprano, Walter White, Frank Underwood from House of Cards.

[914] It's like almost every hit show is an antsy hero that's a man, and we love that.

[915] Yeah.

[916] Like, that's totally fine with us, right?

[917] And their creators are not being asked whether that is bad for the man. What is that word?

[918] Now, I want to ask you a fun question about, because you cover all this material, do you ever obsess about your Google search history?

[919] And I'll tell you why, because as a writer, I have searched scrotal tear.

[920] Right, right.

[921] You don't want to know the real...

[922] You've got to get in there.

[923] You should know how it really works.

[924] Yeah.

[925] How does one join ISIS?

[926] I've Googled that.

[927] Like, that was a plot point.

[928] How to get away with killing your neighbor.

[929] Like, my history is...

[930] I'm certainly on a list.

[931] Right.

[932] Yours must be horrendous.

[933] Oh, it's awful.

[934] It's awful.

[935] You know, do you get a little incognito?

[936] Well, you've got a whole thing.

[937] Yeah, yeah.

[938] But, I mean, that's the greatest reason for being a writer is that you can just do anything you want to.

[939] And it's always like, what, I'm researching it.

[940] All this pornography, I'm researching it.

[941] My next character's a pornographer.

[942] I had to.

[943] But, yeah, yeah, the research history is, weird it's rife with weird stuff right yeah and do you think people have like kind of I think they brought it up in other interviews with you there there's some like cognitive dissonance to see what you've written and then to meet you as a very normal happy fulfilled person right you assume that the person who wrote gone girl you know is in like a bolt gag and a leather face mat Like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction.

[944] Like, you imagine that's who typed out that movie.

[945] Do people get a kick out of that that you're, like, when they meet you at a party and they're like, oh, that's, yeah, that's Gillian.

[946] She's a gone girl.

[947] She's a freak.

[948] What happens in real life?

[949] Watch your husband.

[950] Keep him close.

[951] All my, like, my cousins, I have a group of cousins, like, we're all super tight.

[952] We're about the same age, kind of raised in a pack in Kansas City.

[953] And they love telling me stories about, like, either overhearing, like, that con -girl woman must be so fucked up.

[954] And they'll be like, you know, she's my cousin or, you know, just.

[955] Like, your Clark can't, but instead of turning into superhero, you turn into, like, a monster.

[956] Like, your alter ego is, like, a monster.

[957] But she doesn't even know it when she starts because she doesn't know the ending.

[958] So are you, like, writing, writing, oh, whoa.

[959] My brain's nuts.

[960] She's doing what?

[961] Yeah.

[962] That's crazy.

[963] I have a ritual where I kind of method right, I get like really intense and into it.

[964] And so if I'm having a, if I've had a really intense day, you know, at the end of the day to make sure I don't carry that darkness upstairs with me, I have a little plaque on my desk that says, leave the crazy downstairs.

[965] My office is downstairs.

[966] It's like parked right before I go upstairs.

[967] and I'll just put on just something that makes me happy.

[968] Often as Donald...

[969] It's like Donald O 'Connor and Gene Kelly doing Moses' supposes from singing in the rain.

[970] Just something that's just pure, happy.

[971] Just like 15 minutes of that so I can kind of just shake that off, breathe, and be a normal human again.

[972] It's really important.

[973] Do you ever, though, get into like a zone into a rhythm where it's just like flying out of you and you know you've got to go upstairs and it's bedtime and you've got to put them down and then while you're there you're not super present because you're like I got to get back down there while the iron's hot.

[974] Yeah, sometimes definitely like your brain is, you know, your brain is elsewhere.

[975] Your body is like singing the good night song, but your brain is killing.

[976] Yes.

[977] Your brain is massacring cows in dark places, which just happened.

[978] that's that's on my search history literally like massacring cows and I befriended a farmer who is a friend of my cousins and I had to ask him a lot of animal husbandry questions and by the end it was like and if you had to like if you were just repeatedly stabbing a cow and killing and killing a cow and stabbing it and whatever and by the end of the final questions he was like I just really don't know how to answer that question you just stop Well, it's been real nice getting to know you.

[979] He just stopped.

[980] He just kind of stopped.

[981] He was like, I will stop.

[982] Tell your brother I said hi.

[983] I'm going to cut off this further.

[984] This number's not going to work tomorrow anymore.

[985] So you're about to start a show and you're going to show run the show.

[986] And I think for people who heard like Rob McElheny's episode or.

[987] Or Mike Sher.

[988] Mike Sher.

[989] It is the job.

[990] In show business that I say is by far the hardest undertaking there is.

[991] I mean, it is all hands on deck at all times.

[992] What are your feelings about taking that on?

[993] Are you having buyers remorse?

[994] Are you excited?

[995] Is it all things?

[996] It's all things.

[997] It's all things.

[998] So I wrote every single episode myself.

[999] Those are done.

[1000] I'm really proud of it.

[1001] I'm excited.

[1002] But I'm also...

[1003] What's it called?

[1004] It's called Utopia.

[1005] Utopia.

[1006] So it's loosely based on a British series of the same name.

[1007] It'll start shooting here in Chicago.

[1008] All right.

[1009] In April.

[1010] And, yeah, it's definitely intimidating.

[1011] It's definitely intimidating.

[1012] But also at the same time, it's kind of exciting.

[1013] In a way, it feels like going back to novels where I have more control.

[1014] You know, I have sort of the say, you know, but obviously that comes with its own.

[1015] the price tag.

[1016] It definitely helps that we're shooting here in Chicago so we don't have to move the family.

[1017] Are you able to shoot my stuff in L .A.?

[1018] We'll definitely we will relocate if you will be willing to be in it.

[1019] Okay.

[1020] We will be strange that it's Chicago with palm trees, but we're willing to make that happen.

[1021] We'll make that happen.

[1022] And Lila Gary will be in it.

[1023] Lila and Veronica.

[1024] Oh my God, that's the dream.

[1025] Believe me, it was not lost.

[1026] on me when I would be at work kissing Lila Garrity and then I would go home to Veronica Mars and I was like, I don't know who I saved in my last lifetime, but I do not deserve this.

[1027] Lucky man. And I'm cheating on Joy Bryant.

[1028] Yeah, exactly.

[1029] And what world is that all happening?

[1030] So what is it about Chicago that has you captivated and wanting to live here and raise kids here?

[1031] It's the weather.

[1032] And the traffic, and the traffic.

[1033] That's also nice.

[1034] You know, I love, I love so much about Chicago.

[1035] I just feel Chicago, since I was a kid, I remember first driving from Kansas City to Chicago.

[1036] And it was my first big city and seeing its bloom out over and the skyline.

[1037] And it's a great city of shadows.

[1038] It's so atmospheric to me. It's got so much that I loved about living in New York.

[1039] It has the great, you know, the great neighborhoods and food and culture and a great walking city.

[1040] But at the same time, it's a city where people would rather like you than dislike you.

[1041] I love, you know, I love that people don't start conversations like that.

[1042] They, you know, they're...

[1043] Yeah, nice folks.

[1044] I'm from Detroit.

[1045] I think of us as being kind of similar.

[1046] I'll tell you when I really thought they were similar, I was making this movie here.

[1047] Let's go to prison in Bolingbrook, which is really an exciting town.

[1048] There's a lot going on in Bollingbrook.

[1049] They were chilies, TGI Fridays.

[1050] This is how exciting Bowlingbrook is.

[1051] Will Arnett and I would go out to eat every single night at TGI Friday.

[1052] We would get the fried chicken salad every single night.

[1053] And then after dinner, I would do donuts in the parking lot in my car.

[1054] And he would just watch.

[1055] And then after a few weeks, I noticed like the barback was.

[1056] watching and the bartender and then one night the bartender was like hey i brought my brother -in -law's car i think i'm going to do some donuts too and i'm like great more the merrier and the dudes the bartender of fridays and i did donuts and arnett like clapped and it was like lalapalooza had come to bollingbrook i think that he's such a good audience member that's great yeah yeah he's very supportive actor very supportive But we would come into Chicago on the weekends, as fun as Bolingbrook was, we would decide to come into the town.

[1057] And what I noticed was almost identical rates of people throwing up on the sidewalk at about 2 a .m. And that's my measure of a good city.

[1058] Well, like, one in eight people you're passing is having a hard time keeping everything down.

[1059] You're home.

[1060] You're home.

[1061] You know what I'm saying?

[1062] You've made it.

[1063] And do you think this will always be home?

[1064] I love the Midwest, and it's close to Kansas City.

[1065] We hop on a Southwest flight pretty regularly.

[1066] We're home in an hour, and my folks get up very regularly.

[1067] And I do, you know, we're joking about the weather, but I really like the seasons.

[1068] I've lived out in L .A. now twice at two different times, and I get very existential in L .A. I remember we moved out the family for Sharp Objects so that we could be in the, I could be in the writer's room.

[1069] And I remember one, it was just blue sky and blue sky and blue sky.

[1070] And I remember one morning we had the, you know, the shades down and everything.

[1071] And I had heard this rattle, rattle, right outside.

[1072] And I was like, oh, a thunderstorm.

[1073] And I flew up on the curtains.

[1074] And it was someone getting the trash delivery.

[1075] And it almost broke me. It was more blue sky.

[1076] It just, I, it was, there's nothing for me to hang on to there, you know, for me. It makes me feel very weightless.

[1077] I've been there for 23 years.

[1078] There's been two thunderstorms, and one of them happened last year, and I got my daughters in our bedroom, and I had the blinds open.

[1079] I was like, everyone in here!

[1080] Hurry, hurry!

[1081] We're like staring out the window, and the kids were like, what was happening?

[1082] Yeah, and it was like the northern lights had appeared or something.

[1083] It's fucking rain and a little bit of static electricity, and we were riding high.

[1084] the other thing I kind of miss about the seasons is like this is a great area of the country of your bipolar because you get right to the point and wanting to kill yourself around March like March you just don't care you're like I won the lottery like we said a North American world record when I was in high school in Michigan the sun did not come through for 200 days.

[1085] Wow.

[1086] But boy, that last day in April, it hits like 51 and it's sunny.

[1087] And you are like, the high you hit.

[1088] Put on my shorts.

[1089] That's what I was chasing with drugs the rest of my life.

[1090] Is that first spring day with the windows open, your fucking shirt off.

[1091] Like half the guys in Detroit's shirt.

[1092] off, like driving to work, businessmen, tie in the backseat, just sucking that warm air in.

[1093] It's almost worth the suicidal thoughts.

[1094] That's right.

[1095] There it is.

[1096] Roll tide, is that the same?

[1097] No. No, no, no. How dare you?

[1098] Oh, sorry.

[1099] Big Georgia game.

[1100] Well, Gillian, I am so, so grateful and happy that you were willing to join us.

[1101] There's a couple little things I want to do now before we go this evening.

[1102] One of which is speaking of Roll Tide.

[1103] Alabama is playing Georgia today.

[1104] They're playing Georgia and of course Monica is a dog, right?

[1105] Yeah.

[1106] Uh -oh, what's happening?

[1107] And what Monica doesn't know about tonight is that I flew two people from Georgia here.

[1108] No, you did not.

[1109] Thank you.

[1110] No, you did not.

[1111] Mom and dad are here in the audience.

[1112] I wanted them to hear how special everyone thinks you are.

[1113] I would have been on better behavior if I knew that.

[1114] I mean, they might have left.

[1115] It was just an okay.

[1116] When I started getting into my Danny DeVito story, they were like, oh.

[1117] The show wasn't that good, yeah.

[1118] I wish she wouldn't pass.

[1119] But they're here and they're going to stay with us at our hotel.

[1120] Oh, my goodness.

[1121] And we're going to watch Home Alone on Hulu.

[1122] Yes.

[1123] Wow.

[1124] Thank you.

[1125] So anyways, Nirmala, Shilk, love you.

[1126] I'm so glad you came.

[1127] Assuming they made it, maybe they didn't even make it.

[1128] Maybe they looked at the weather and were like, the hell with this.

[1129] Oh, they're right.

[1130] Thank you, Monica.

[1131] Thank you, Gellan.

[1132] Thank you guys so much, Chicago.

[1133] We love you so much.

[1134] We love you, lovely, you love you.

[1135] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1136] Check the facts.

[1137] Oh, check my facts.

[1138] You like doing that one.

[1139] Well, I'm stuck on it.

[1140] I know.

[1141] Don't you ever get a song stuck in your head?

[1142] Of course.

[1143] The girls' boy, they cannot get that Mamma Mia out of their head.

[1144] Oh, my God.

[1145] All they do all day long and sing Mama Mia.

[1146] Here I go again.

[1147] My, my.

[1148] I'm pretty impressed.

[1149] They know, I mean, Lincoln is really good at knowing words.

[1150] But Delta, I didn't think was, but she is.

[1151] She's showing some signs that she can memorize the words.

[1152] words yeah but i'm equally shocked when i'm like waiting for a bunch of garble yeah gubbly gook well that's what i do no words are retained me neither no i'm i'm definitely making up words that are have the same consonants yeah you know yeah exactly and that's about it it makes me self -conscious when i'm in the car with them and i'm singing a song and then i i click into the consonants gibberish just to get to the next one i do now right sure i think i'm setting a terrible example what Why?

[1153] I don't know.

[1154] It feels unethical to act like you're singing a song that you don't really know the words too.

[1155] I think the opposite.

[1156] I think it's just like, fake it till you make it.

[1157] Ooh, yeah, that's good.

[1158] That's words to live by.

[1159] That was literally my father's motto.

[1160] Fake it till you make it.

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] I think that's kind of my motto.

[1164] It is fake it to you make.

[1165] I mean, I think I do that.

[1166] Do I?

[1167] I don't know.

[1168] I don't know.

[1169] I don't really know what fake it.

[1170] to you make a means.

[1171] You don't know me. Fool, you disown me?

[1172] Cool.

[1173] I don't need your assistant, social persistence.

[1174] Any problem.

[1175] I just put my fist in.

[1176] Now, that's a song.

[1177] You knew all the words.

[1178] Because I learned him when I was in seventh grade.

[1179] For colors, the iced tea song.

[1180] Do you want to hear the whole thing?

[1181] Okay.

[1182] I am a nightmare walking.

[1183] Cycle past stalking.

[1184] King of my jungle, just a gangster stalking.

[1185] Living life like a firecracker, quickest my fuse.

[1186] Then dead is the death, death.

[1187] The colors I choose.

[1188] Red or blue, because a black.

[1189] blood.

[1190] It just don't matter.

[1191] Sucker die for your life from a shotgun scatter.

[1192] We come L .A. We never die.

[1193] Just multiply colors.

[1194] I don't need your assistant.

[1195] Social persistence.

[1196] Any problem I got.

[1197] I just put my foot in.

[1198] My gang is family.

[1199] Family is life.

[1200] Peace is a dream reality is a knife.

[1201] My color.

[1202] My honor.

[1203] My honor.

[1204] My honor's my honor.

[1205] My honor.

[1206] My honor.

[1207] My honor's honor.

[1208] My honor.

[1209] My honor's life.

[1210] My honor.

[1211] We're punk claiming they understanding me. Give me a break.

[1212] What world do you live in?

[1213] Death is my set.

[1214] Guess my religion.

[1215] Wow.

[1216] Good job.

[1217] I haven't heard that song since eighth grade.

[1218] Yeah, you did it.

[1219] That was exciting.

[1220] Was it exciting?

[1221] Well, you love rap music.

[1222] I do.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] I do like it.

[1225] Do you ever feel, I feel weird calling it rap music.

[1226] I prefer to call it hip hop.

[1227] Oh, interesting.

[1228] I feel like when I call it rap that I'm like a 60 -year -old white woman in a church group trying to get it outlawed.

[1229] Really?

[1230] Rap music.

[1231] Okay, well, it's maybe because you're calling it rap music.

[1232] Why don't you just call it rap?

[1233] I think I prefer to call it hip -hop.

[1234] I've never heard that old white lady in church group say, like, we have got to outlaw hip -hop music.

[1235] It always says rap.

[1236] This is a generational thing, I think, because I think hip -hop sounds old.

[1237] Oh, really?

[1238] Yeah, like we all call it rap.

[1239] Oh, we?

[1240] Yeah, we do.

[1241] We in the music community?

[1242] Yeah.

[1243] We in biology?

[1244] Yeah.

[1245] We in the suburbs of Atlanta.

[1246] Well, they got a rich, textured history of hip -hop music.

[1247] Close proximity to rap music.

[1248] But I think hip -hop primarily is a New York term.

[1249] And it encompasses the whole lifestyle, which I like.

[1250] There's dress, there's dance, there's just an attitude.

[1251] It's like punk rock.

[1252] It's not just the music.

[1253] Hip -hop's a lifestyle.

[1254] Sure.

[1255] Rap's not a lifestyle.

[1256] Rap is the type of music.

[1257] In hip -hop.

[1258] Because they're rapping.

[1259] Uh -huh.

[1260] They sure are.

[1261] So you better believe there.

[1262] But you know what?

[1263] When you grew up, the kind of rap panic was over.

[1264] But when I was a kid, there were people burning in front of churches, Sir Mixalot CDs and stuff.

[1265] Oh, my God.

[1266] You know?

[1267] Those church ladies did not, they're anaconda.

[1268] Did not want some.

[1269] Did want some.

[1270] No, wait, my anaconda don't want none.

[1271] Okay.

[1272] So they're on a, they're anacone.

[1273] Donna did want some.

[1274] Yeah, they were up in arms about it.

[1275] I'm really glad I was a young lad when rap exploded.

[1276] My brother and I embraced that immediately.

[1277] A couple of honkies in suburban Detroit, just wanting to touch that exotic world.

[1278] You still feel like that.

[1279] I sure do.

[1280] Never went away.

[1281] And has yet to go away.

[1282] Before you get into the facts on Gillian, I got to set one thing.

[1283] I blew it on my whole grand rome.

[1284] Rapids, Michigan thing.

[1285] What do you mean?

[1286] Grand Rapids isn't nearly as big as Detroit.

[1287] I looked it all up after I said that I thought it was now larger.

[1288] Right.

[1289] I'm trying to think where, so it's, I was drastically wrong.

[1290] Grand Rapids is in like the 2 to 300 ,000 range.

[1291] And Detroit's in the 900 ,000.

[1292] Oh, wow.

[1293] Wow, wow.

[1294] Not even close.

[1295] Yeah, it's not even close.

[1296] And I was tracking my brain.

[1297] Like, how could I have come to such a spurious conclusion, an erroneous thought?

[1298] And I believe my only hypothesis is that I must have read in the 90s when the population of Detroit was falling like a lead balloon.

[1299] I think maybe I read something that predicted that at this rate and Grand Rapids was growing that it was going to overtake it in a certain amount of time.

[1300] That's my only, I don't know, but boy, was I off and I apologize to all the listeners.

[1301] Also, I want to point out, I don't want to accept this one.

[1302] Someone, someone linked a Wikipedia page about Novi, Michigan, suggesting that that's urban legend that it was stop number six.

[1303] Lore.

[1304] I'm not ready to concede on that.

[1305] If it's not that, what the fuck does Novi mean?

[1306] That's not even a word.

[1307] Novi.

[1308] But this is one of those things where it feels better to believe it.

[1309] What if?

[1310] Oh my God.

[1311] What?

[1312] I just came up with a new one.

[1313] Okay.

[1314] What if Novi is North Six?

[1315] And there was a south six, like no -ho and so -ho.

[1316] North of Houston, south of South of -Houston.

[1317] Oh, 6th Street.

[1318] Sure.

[1319] Oh.

[1320] Or mile.

[1321] Oh, my gosh.

[1322] North of the 6th mile.

[1323] Although it's kind of, whatever, let's not get bogged down.

[1324] But you could see where no -vai could be like no -ho.

[1325] Yeah, it could just be a word.

[1326] That's some A -hole made up.

[1327] Yeah.

[1328] Sometimes there's random words.

[1329] Clinko, Michigan.

[1330] Yeah, exactly.

[1331] You know, mine is Duluth.

[1332] That's a random word.

[1333] That sounds like someone's name.

[1334] No. Like someone in a carriage, a horse -drawn carriage.

[1335] Duluth Johnson.

[1336] Or Peter Duluth.

[1337] Oh, last name.

[1338] Okay.

[1339] Well, anyways, I do apologize, guys.

[1340] That was a big, big blunder.

[1341] And it's not Monica's fault because I said it in the fact check.

[1342] That's right.

[1343] is a hazard I run.

[1344] Do you think that moving forward in life when you are emphatic about things that you'll second guess?

[1345] I can't say that it will because, you know, I don't know.

[1346] Yeah.

[1347] I don't know.

[1348] No, I would say I'm enthusiastic.

[1349] Yeah, I don't, emphatic's not a bad thing.

[1350] Well, we were watching.

[1351] Did you watch church returned last night?

[1352] We don't watch it.

[1353] It was great.

[1354] Church is.

[1355] folks is last week with John Oliver and it was showing two local newscasters debate whether there was a president named Chester B. Arthur and the male anchor said I think that was a president the woman goes 100 % not a president and she said it in such a manner where I was like oh yeah that is crazy there's no name Chester Arthur I never heard that president and then he kind of backed out because man was it convinced she goes 100 % that's not.

[1356] not a president and then they showed he was the 21st president yeah this is how you speak and me i think i do the same thing do you think everyone does no i don't i think a i think a healthy person knows when they don't know when they really don't know for sure right just always remembering they're that they're a human so they're fallible they're fallible and they could say i'm pretty sure he's not a president chester the molester are Arthur?

[1357] Come on.

[1358] We wouldn't let a guy like that through.

[1359] So let's kick into Gillian.

[1360] Okay.

[1361] Gillian Flynn.

[1362] The elephant man does not get cured at the end of elephant man. You said that he did.

[1363] I did.

[1364] No, as a joke.

[1365] Okay.

[1366] I'm going to say, I know he definitely died.

[1367] But I don't, but I want to tell people just in case they were like, oh, that's what happens.

[1368] I'll now look into it to not because that's not what happens.

[1369] it's a sad story.

[1370] Side note.

[1371] Stern loves doing his elephant man impersonation.

[1372] Oh, really?

[1373] And when he had Bradley on, because Bradley was him.

[1374] He wanted Bradley to talk like him so bad.

[1375] And Bradley didn't.

[1376] Rightly so, like Bradley has a lot of respect and love for that character.

[1377] And a very sad and tragic story.

[1378] But the whole time, Stern's like, doesn't he talk like this?

[1379] Oh, God.

[1380] Oh, my God.

[1381] And Cooper just had to kind of say.

[1382] suffer through it oh my god it's horrible no it was so funny it was really funny well because everyone he does plays the elephant and they have to talk like it's not like it's i know yeah it's not like it's just a general mean but he was a real person he was a real person and he really spoke a certain way and everyone who plays him has to speak that way and sterns is not terrible but the the humor of it was just how one person obviously revered it another person was just enjoying talking like that and that made fertile ground for comedy i've been thinking a lot about comedy and jokes and just ending it yeah jokes at other people's expense uh -huh even if the person's dead the elephant man this is a segue i'm not really speaking about the elephant man situation but well can i add one have you seen the clip of um cooper and jimmy phallon yeah they can't Stop laughing.

[1383] And he's there to talk about the elephant man. And that's what's making him laugh so hard is that they're wearing these ridiculous hats and glasses and stuff.

[1384] And then I'm saying, he's like, oh, my God, this is so disrespectful.

[1385] Right.

[1386] And at one point, Cooper said, like, my man couldn't walk straight or something.

[1387] Something.

[1388] He said, I forgot.

[1389] And it's one of the funnier things I've ever seen.

[1390] It's very funny.

[1391] They cannot stop laughing.

[1392] I don't think they ever did stop laughing, right?

[1393] Yeah.

[1394] Man, laughter is.

[1395] so contagious when it's real it's so fun it's like when you were saying millions dollar for sperm and we just lost it my favorite moment we've had it's really fun but back to comedy um so so i'm listening to this audio book i listened one day i don't know if i'll keep listening because i'm just realistic about my life yeah i'm listening to this audio book this memoir of a Korean -American girl.

[1396] She was adopted into a white family in Oregon.

[1397] And she talks about just her life being a Korean -American and not only feeling other in like school but in her home.

[1398] So that was, it's very, very interesting and very good.

[1399] The book is called All You Can Ever Know.

[1400] She ends up going to find her biological parents, I believe.

[1401] But anyhow, No, she was talking about when she was little and there were all these kids on the playground doing like the slanty eyes and asking her if she had a sideways vagina.

[1402] This came up the other day.

[1403] I had never heard that before.

[1404] Yeah, you were unaware of that.

[1405] I had never heard that.

[1406] That was a rumor.

[1407] Definitely it floated around my playground.

[1408] Yes.

[1409] I mean, no one bought it, but or maybe some dumb dumbs did.

[1410] I don't know.

[1411] And kids, kids don't know things.

[1412] they hear things and they just but they don't know yeah anyway so you know this would happen to her and and of course people would laugh and she said it really eloquently she was like when it's something about the way you look right are there's no escaping it like there's no like altering your behavior to avoid altering your behavior or like if someone makes funny you for being poor or something that could motivate you to be like, when I grow up, I am not going to be poor.

[1413] I am going to do this and this and this.

[1414] And when it's just your face or the color of your skin, you're stuck with that for the rest of your life.

[1415] And so it's a real identity hit.

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] Well, look, I think comedy serves a bunch of really great purposes.

[1418] Of course.

[1419] In society.

[1420] Yeah.

[1421] It helps curb obnoxious behavior.

[1422] being made fun of publicly by the group and when the whole group laughs that's kind of consensus you're acting like a turd I think that's healthy but you're right if you're making fun of something that the person can't change then there's really no point to it it's just cruel I am a proponent though of ridiculing unsavory behavior in a group I think that's a good aspect of comedy I also think I also like Brett Weinstein was saying saying comedy is a really useful tool in tackling really risque topics that are really hard.

[1423] It kind of provides some cover fire for people to air these thoughts they have.

[1424] It's this great tool of like tackling really hard topics with some levity.

[1425] Right.

[1426] And I think what he was really saying about comedy is it exposes how people feel about a topic.

[1427] So if somebody says something and everyone laughs, it at least says like, oh, this is something people think or.

[1428] Didn't you say something like the sound of laughter is the sound of consent, or not consent, consensus?

[1429] Right.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] Like the sound of laughter is the sound of consensus.

[1432] Right.

[1433] Something like that.

[1434] Something like that.

[1435] Anyway, yes.

[1436] So at the very least, it exposes the way people feel about a topic or something.

[1437] And it's at least knowledge about, okay, so people think this.

[1438] Mm -hmm.

[1439] They wouldn't have laughed if there wasn't some kind of consensus about that.

[1440] Yeah.

[1441] Anyway, so.

[1442] Yeah, but don't make fun of how people look.

[1443] Also, don't make fun of the minority in the group.

[1444] Remember when we were watching the David Blaine special on Netflix.

[1445] Oh, okay.

[1446] Oh, yes, inside.

[1447] Yes, this was really funny.

[1448] It was objectively funny.

[1449] It's not, it's not objectively funny.

[1450] It was not.

[1451] It was funny to you.

[1452] It was funny to Kristen.

[1453] It was funny to someone else was watching.

[1454] with us my mom what's really funny is so many people in the the documentary are having to remember what card they picked out of the deck so they're always going five of diamonds um six of spades king of hearts and he asked side's what his cards was and he goes spade eight yeah and it was backwards from what you're expecting comedy is in essence when there's a different outcome than the expected outcome that is the very simplest explanation of comedy so that nothing could bolzai the definition better than having heard something the same way 40 times and then some guy reverses it that's funny i think you thought i was laughing at the fact that he's i mean i know what you're saying but that did not make me laugh and it didn't make me like feel like oh my god i don't want to laugh but i shouldn't laugh it truly did nothing for me but i think you thought i'm laughing at the fact that he's korean but i'm laughing at his sentence construction which is the opposite of what I've heard 30 times.

[1455] I know.

[1456] Just like when Bickram uses millions, plural, and dollar singular, that's really funny because I know how that sentence is supposed to sound.

[1457] I know.

[1458] I just, you can make all these divisions and say, I'm laughing at this tiny part, not this other part, but it's all one big thing.

[1459] The reason he's saying, the reason he can't say it is because he has an accent and he doesn't know English as well as you do.

[1460] So for me, when I hear that, I don't hear the change in expectation.

[1461] I hear, oh, that's someone who can't speak English well.

[1462] Yeah, but.

[1463] And I don't find that funny.

[1464] I think if there was a white German that said it and I had laughed just as hard, it would have never crossed your mind.

[1465] Maybe.

[1466] But if a white German said it, I still wouldn't have thought it was funny.

[1467] Right.

[1468] I don't, like, people talk.

[1469] talking funny is not funny to me. And that's also, I grew up around accents.

[1470] So I...

[1471] But don't you think that's why it's not funny to you?

[1472] It's for you, it immediately takes you to...

[1473] They're different.

[1474] This is different.

[1475] I want to fit in.

[1476] Like, it's linked to so much emotion.

[1477] Mine isn't.

[1478] Mine just, oh, it's normally said this way and then someone reversed it.

[1479] That sounds funny to me. Yes, it is.

[1480] It is linked to a lot of emotion, but it's linked to the emotion of, oh, somebody's laughing at my dad.

[1481] Right.

[1482] Yeah.

[1483] That's so sad for me. Right.

[1484] But there's a lot to this because you're this way and so is Kristen, but I'm not this way and my family isn't.

[1485] I think there's a lot of differentiation between families where like in my family, when someone hurts themselves, we laugh really hard.

[1486] Or when they do something embarrassing, we laugh really hard.

[1487] Yeah.

[1488] But that I get, see, that to me is the difference in the thing we were just talking about with the lady, the memoir.

[1489] like the falling down and the this and the that it's not their identity it's not who they are as a person or things they can't change i agree with all of that but but if my dad had an accent growing up and he said stuff wrong we would all laugh at him maybe my dad mispronounced ever you think i mispronounce words you should have heard my dad it was like one and three and we laughed hysterically at it and we laughed at him about his errors and I'm certain if he was from another country we still would have done it but to us that's loving each other and that's just a difference in family view like Kristen hates it when I laugh at her if she does something wrong when my sister laughs at me I find it loving you know I have a different association with it than Kristen does but neither of our fault they're not laughing at you for something that is so deeply personal or part of your identity that you can't you have no control over they're not pointing and laughing and that's what it feels like when it's about some the way someone talks from another country or the way someone looks or stereotypes all of that stuff it feels like i'm calling you out for being different and i think it's funny because i'm not different so i i a million percent to your point and i see how it's hurtful okay but i have dyslexia the dyslexia the dyslexia is at the base of why I mispronounce all these words.

[1490] And that my father had it even worse than me, which is at the base of why he couldn't say anything right.

[1491] So I am not at fault.

[1492] I can't aspire to have perfect diction.

[1493] It's just part of it.

[1494] Yeah.

[1495] My family's laughing at basically a handicap of mine.

[1496] But I just feel love from them.

[1497] I feel connection.

[1498] Oh, I made them laugh.

[1499] I'm kind of happy I made them laugh.

[1500] They seem joyful at this silly thing.

[1501] I'm flawed and imperfect and that doesn't bother me. Like, that's just my association with it.

[1502] Yeah.

[1503] You know?

[1504] Yeah.

[1505] If sigh was there, would you have laughed?

[1506] Yeah.

[1507] But I would have.

[1508] But I would have also been nice to sigh for three hours.

[1509] And I would be nice to him after.

[1510] And I'd be happy to explain why that was funny because here we say it the other way.

[1511] So I was expecting it the other way.

[1512] That's okay.

[1513] That's not like I'm laughing at his skin color, his shape of his eyes, his height, none of that.

[1514] He did something funny.

[1515] In America.

[1516] Yes.

[1517] And if I went to Korea and I was saying stuff backwards and they're laughing, I can be the butt of that joke.

[1518] That's fine.

[1519] I messed up.

[1520] And it's funny.

[1521] I mean, I know there's this hierarchical thing that I'm white and that if I go to Korea and they're laughing at me, it's different than a Korean coming here and being laughed at.

[1522] I concede to all that.

[1523] I just, I can only tell you from my point of view, if I go somewhere and I'm trying to speak their language and people laugh at me occasionally as I fuck it up, that's, Great.

[1524] That's, I don't feel less than because of that.

[1525] Like, oh, I can't, I don't have a handle on this.

[1526] And it's amusing to them.

[1527] And that's fun that they're enjoying it.

[1528] I don't.

[1529] It's really just in your mind whether you decide that you're being laughed at or laughed with.

[1530] And I just mostly choose to believe I'm being laughed with.

[1531] Well, yeah.

[1532] That's.

[1533] Again, I wasn't the only brown person in Duluth, Georgia.

[1534] And so I have either was that if I'm being fair.

[1535] But yeah.

[1536] But, you know, yeah, I have a much different background.

[1537] Anyway, oh, can we say dwarves?

[1538] Mm -hmm.

[1539] The term dwarf, little person, LP, and person of short stature are now generally considered acceptable by most people affected by these disorders.

[1540] Okay.

[1541] So, yes, I guess you can.

[1542] Oh, that's nice.

[1543] Oh, okay.

[1544] So we talk about the McDonald's characters.

[1545] Mm -hmm.

[1546] And she mentions a duck with braids, and that is Birdie.

[1547] Oh.

[1548] Birdie the early bird is the first identifiable female character used in McDonald's McDonald's commercials introduced in 1980 to promote the company's new breakfast items.

[1549] She is a yellow bird wearing a pink jumpsuit, flight cap, and scarf.

[1550] Oh, so she loves to take flight.

[1551] Yeah, she's pretty cute.

[1552] We were talking about how gross all those characters looked.

[1553] Right.

[1554] Grimmis and hamburger.

[1555] They look crazy.

[1556] A lot of outlaws.

[1557] That's true.

[1558] Not one of them wear like...

[1559] Yeah, a real motley crew.

[1560] Doesn't one of them wear a striped prison outfit?

[1561] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1562] I mean, he's a convict, maybe even escaped.

[1563] Because usually when once you're out of prison, you don't have to wear that anymore.

[1564] No, unless you just find it comforting.

[1565] Okay, are there any more Blockbusters?

[1566] We've talked about this so much, but I went on to the website today, Blockbuster Video website.

[1567] And if you go to, like, find store, there's like a list of stores.

[1568] So I was intrigued.

[1569] Yeah, because a lot of people are saying there's only one in Oregon now and that the one that I thought was the last one in Alaska.

[1570] Apparently that one shut down.

[1571] Right.

[1572] So I, but there's like a lot on there.

[1573] So then I called every single one.

[1574] You did?

[1575] Funky for calling Blockbuster's video.

[1576] Wow, what a difference.

[1577] Okay.

[1578] The store at 211 Northeast Revere Avenue, Bend, Oregon is the only one still up and running.

[1579] Okay, so people are claiming Bend Oregon are right.

[1580] They are.

[1581] Good job, Bend, Oregon.

[1582] Right.

[1583] And I felt so bad.

[1584] So that was like at the bottom of the list I was going through.

[1585] They were all like dead or one of them just kept ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing.

[1586] What if one was an outgoing message that was just someone sobbing uncontrolled way?

[1587] Beep.

[1588] But so then I called and so someone answered.

[1589] of course and and I was like oh hi um I'm just just just we're just calling to see if you're still in business yep oh they must get that call yes I was like oh no I'm the billionth person and I was like and just are you the only one still um operating and he was like yep I was like okay bye sorry I felt really bad but you know what what else are they doing there's not many people coming through there well people should make that as a um a destination a vacation destination Oh, they should.

[1590] Yeah, we should treat it like, you know, an old...

[1591] Like the Biltmore House.

[1592] Yes, known by the Vanderbiltz in Nashville, North Carolina.

[1593] Yeah, they could do tours.

[1594] Yes.

[1595] This is where someone spilled their drink.

[1596] Or like an old steam -powered mill where you get to go watch them turn grain.

[1597] Yeah.

[1598] Go to Blockbuster and like dress up in 80s clothes.

[1599] That's our dream vacation because you would just be renting movies and watching them going back to Blockbuster.

[1600] It would be fast.

[1601] Should we do this?

[1602] Let's do it.

[1603] I'd love to do that.

[1604] Ooh.

[1605] Let's do it.

[1606] Also, on their website, they have a joke on there.

[1607] Oh.

[1608] On their store list, one of them is 320 North Santa Claus Lane, North Pole, unless it's real.

[1609] Unless, like, North Pole, Alaska, 99705.

[1610] I mean, I think it's a joke, but there could be that.

[1611] Yeah.

[1612] I'm chilly.

[1613] just thinking about it.

[1614] It could be a place in Alaska.

[1615] It should be a thriving one because in Alaska, especially at the North Pole, you're looking at, you know, five months of blackness.

[1616] Yeah, totally.

[1617] What else are you going to do other than watch Fletch?

[1618] Hitch.

[1619] Oh, you'd watch Hitch.

[1620] Someone brought that movie up the other day.

[1621] That's the Kevin James Will Smith.

[1622] William Smith.

[1623] Mm -hmm.

[1624] Yeah, sure is.

[1625] By the way, William Smith, what a great Instagram account you have.

[1626] I'm a new fan of Will Smith.

[1627] Oh, I don't follow him.

[1628] You must.

[1629] It's the most positive.

[1630] I really feel like we're spreading very similar messages.

[1631] And I just beg, if anyone knows William Smith out there in the listening audience, just whisper in his ear.

[1632] We really want to get him in the attic.

[1633] Oh, I love it.

[1634] Yeah.

[1635] He's a very handsome man. Oh, he's gorgeous.

[1636] And what a personality.

[1637] It seems to have a real zest and zeal for life.

[1638] Get on here.

[1639] Okay, you said you don't fetishize schools, but you kind of have a thing for Northwestern.

[1640] some cool people who went there Stephen Colbert Julia Louis Dreyfus David Schwimmer Warren Beatty You're doppelganger Zach Braff Zach Braffy Cindy Crawford But she dropped out after one semester That's a good choice Because she her life went well Well yeah she made her living with her great looks And none of that education was going to bolster those Well, yeah, but she was going to go into, I think, chemical engineering.

[1641] Okay.

[1642] Which is cool.

[1643] That's a pet peeve of mine, side note.

[1644] What?

[1645] When actors say that they were majoring and say chemical engineering, and then you find out they left after the first year.

[1646] I'm like, no, no, no, you were just taking core classes.

[1647] Yes.

[1648] You were just taking, like, basic English 101.

[1649] I was pre -med.

[1650] I left after my first year.

[1651] Oh, you're right.

[1652] So you did fucking history of Western civilization and statistics.

[1653] That's true.

[1654] Oh, no. Wow.

[1655] I just got hot under the collar.

[1656] You got really cynical.

[1657] Yeah, I did.

[1658] I really reacted.

[1659] Yeah, you did.

[1660] Okay, did she say her dad was cheap.

[1661] Oh.

[1662] Yeah, she did.

[1663] She did.

[1664] I went back and I listened and she did.

[1665] But she said it in a sweet way.

[1666] She said she was talking about her dad taking her to all these movies and she said he was too cheap to get a babysitter.

[1667] So that's why he did it.

[1668] And she doesn't need to feel bad about that.

[1669] No. Her dad's mad about that.

[1670] You know, he needs to, he needs another layer of skin, yeah.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] Remember when that was the insult, take a hike?

[1673] Yeah, makes me think hiking was a much different thing because I love hikes.

[1674] That's like, eh, take a bath.

[1675] Ooh, I love that.

[1676] Yeah, take a massage, you fucking asshole.

[1677] It's so pleasurable to take a hike.

[1678] Well, it just means leave.

[1679] Oh, fuck you.

[1680] Go take an orgasm.

[1681] You fucking jerk.

[1682] And go fucking take a hit the lottery, you fucking jerk.

[1683] A fuckie, I want you fucking go get a blowjob, you fucking jerk.

[1684] Oh, boy.

[1685] Yeah, take a ride in the Mercedes, you fucking potsey.

[1686] You got any more?

[1687] I'm sure I could go on.

[1688] Yeah, fucking go look at a fucking Monet, you fucking jerk.

[1689] Do ten minutes in a fucking hot tub, you asshole.

[1690] 20 minutes of this.

[1691] Yeah, I want you fucking 69, Cindy Crawford, you fucking douchebag.

[1692] All right, I'll stop.

[1693] It's gotten so out of hand.

[1694] I'll stop myself.

[1695] I lost my mind there for a second.

[1696] We're back.

[1697] Okay, so we bring up L .A. seasons.

[1698] Because she said she, you know, she likes Chicago because she likes all the seasons and stuff.

[1699] And one time Tosh, Daniel Tosh.

[1700] Oh, sure.

[1701] I sworn enemy.

[1702] Go ahead.

[1703] Oh, he is.

[1704] Well, he apparently made fun of me on that show quite a bit.

[1705] Oh, he did?

[1706] I would hear through the Great Vine, yeah.

[1707] Oh, I don't like that.

[1708] Anyways, tell your great Tosh story.

[1709] He does have a good quote about the seasons.

[1710] Now I don't worry it.

[1711] No, tell me what is it?

[1712] He said, people always say I couldn't live in California because they love the seasons too much.

[1713] Yeah, I do too.

[1714] That's why I live in a place that skips the shitty one.

[1715] Oh, good saying, Tosh 2 .0.

[1716] And don't make fun of my friend.

[1717] It's okay.

[1718] I can handle it.

[1719] Well, I can't.

[1720] Oh, thank you.

[1721] Yeah, that's not okay.

[1722] Okay.

[1723] Spade 8.

[1724] Actually, go ahead and make fun of him all you want.

[1725] Go right ahead.

[1726] Okay, so you said you've been in L .A. 23 years and there's been two thunderstorms.

[1727] Uh -oh.

[1728] Oh, not counting this year.

[1729] This year we've had like three already.

[1730] I'm not counting this year, still.

[1731] So I found some chart.

[1732] 1981 to 2010 average, 3 .6.

[1733] A year?

[1734] Uh -huh.

[1735] For all of California or Los Angeles?

[1736] No, Los Angeles.

[1737] Oh, wow.

[1738] 2011 had two.

[1739] 2012 had three.

[1740] 2013 had one.

[1741] And then that's where my research drops off.

[1742] Okay.

[1743] Yeah, but still more than two already.

[1744] 23, probably 75, I guess, have happened.

[1745] Boy, where was I at when these were happening?

[1746] Maybe a lot of them happened at nighttime in our slumber.

[1747] Maybe.

[1748] Or what you've been at, you used to go out of town a lot.

[1749] I used to travel for films, back when I did films.

[1750] For films and when you were a driver.

[1751] Yeah, I went when I was a driver, too.

[1752] A lot of travel.

[1753] That's it.

[1754] Oh, no, that's not it.

[1755] Because this is the episode where you brought my parents.

[1756] Oh, yeah.

[1757] Yeah.

[1758] That was so nice.

[1759] That was a fun trip, Chicago.

[1760] So fun.

[1761] Because it was Christmas time.

[1762] Yeah.

[1763] But it's a perfect time to be in cold weather.

[1764] The big windy.

[1765] Mm -hmm.

[1766] And we had yummy foods, Wabi Wob and you and Bob and I. What was the place we ate at Bobby Wob?

[1767] Mindy's Hot Chocolate.

[1768] Mindy's Hot Chocolate was great.

[1769] I went to O'Shea Vall by myself the night we got in.

[1770] And that was one of our.

[1771] Mug buyers, she recommended that.

[1772] Oh, right.

[1773] Yeah.

[1774] But, yeah, now, back to your mom and dad.

[1775] Oh, yes.

[1776] I had to get their number from your brother over Instagram.

[1777] Shout out to Neil.

[1778] Neil Padman.

[1779] He was very...

[1780] He was quick.

[1781] Responded really quickly because I was on the airplane when I got this idea.

[1782] I know.

[1783] I said, my little buddy, when they clap for my little buddy, I cry.

[1784] I can't imagine what her parents would do.

[1785] So I got Neil on the Instagram.

[1786] I got your focus.

[1787] number I got a hold of Nirmala and I said would you please come to Chicago and I'm so grateful she said yes because I could I was expecting her to go this is weird no I don't want really a little bit right I could have like been prideful like no I don't want you to do this you know what I'm saying oh like not accept your yes that's true that's true yeah I was half expecting that adding the cultural barriers I don't know what to expect I don't know what my mom grew up here I know.

[1788] Your mom is definitely, hold on a second.

[1789] Hold on a second.

[1790] On the very eastern edge of Georgia where all the logs float down the river.

[1791] They've got a nice bridge right through town.

[1792] It's, what's the first letter?

[1793] Yes.

[1794] As fuck, that doesn't help.

[1795] And I've been there.

[1796] It's where you got to drive through there.

[1797] It's also the name of a, like a desert area, like an area.

[1798] Oh, sure, sure, sure.

[1799] In Africa.

[1800] Ooh, Safari, Serengetti, Sherba.

[1801] No, it's like a patch of land that animals, Savannah.

[1802] Oh, did I already said it?

[1803] No, you said Sierra.

[1804] Sierra, Savari, Savannah.

[1805] Savannah, Georgia.

[1806] Your mother is very much from Savannah, Georgia.

[1807] Your father's not from Savannah, Georgia.

[1808] No, he's not.

[1809] He's spent a good deal of time in India.

[1810] Yeah, so when we chat with him, he says stuff wrong.

[1811] I've not noticed that too much, but if and when he says, King of Ace, King of, no, Diamond King, I will laugh.

[1812] And I'll smile at him, and I bet he'll smile too.

[1813] Okay.

[1814] Well, if you do that, just know I'm sitting there as his daughter and I'm not going to like it.

[1815] Okay.

[1816] Well, anyways, we had the show.

[1817] They came.

[1818] And then we spent a good deal of time in their hotel room.

[1819] room afterwards, lounging about the bed.

[1820] Sure.

[1821] And your father gave a masterclass on politics that I guarantee surpasses any pundit on television.

[1822] He certainly knows more than Rachel Maddow or any one of these people.

[1823] He knew the outcomes of the midterm elections in every single region by how many points each candidate want.

[1824] It was a staggering amount of knowledge he had.

[1825] And I thought, this motherfucker needs his own sure.

[1826] show.

[1827] Oh, boy.

[1828] Don't plant any seeds, okay?

[1829] That's going to be my next phone call to him.

[1830] Yes, but we had a great time in Chicago.

[1831] We did.

[1832] And it was a coming home party for Wabiwaw.

[1833] And it was just delightful.

[1834] Well, and I just wanted to thank you for doing that.

[1835] It was so special and sweet and nice.

[1836] You know, I really debated whether to tell you before the show or after.

[1837] I think that made the right choice.

[1838] Definitely.

[1839] Yeah.

[1840] I it was the exact right choice but I did I was weighing the potential outcome that you would have been mad I didn't warn you like listen you you got to tell me of my parents in the audience because like I could have said something that would have hurt their feelings like I was prepared for you it's not like that outcome no I'm really glad you did it might have affected what I said or how I acted and I would not have wanted that and I think I would have had a lot of anxiety what if you would have stormed off the stage to your bedroom.

[1841] And you were just looking backstage for your bedroom everywhere.

[1842] Yeah, and then we kept seeing.

[1843] But if I just peeked up the curtain.

[1844] What are they saying about me?

[1845] Are they talking about me?

[1846] Oh, yeah, no. Well, anyway, thank you.

[1847] Well, my pleasure.

[1848] You're a good friend.

[1849] Made me happy to see them there.

[1850] All right, I love you.

[1851] Love you.

[1852] And thanks to everyone who came out to that show.

[1853] Thank you.

[1854] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts.

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