Celebrity Hometowns with Margaret Cho

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] And welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] The Celebrity Hometown Edition.

[3] That's right.

[4] Three episodes in one week for you.

[5] This is an extra special one.

[6] We can't stop podcasting.

[7] Would you like to join us?

[8] That's right.

[9] The struggle is real.

[10] Just not put up an episode every day.

[11] But here we go.

[12] We're going to do it.

[13] And we're very excited about our guests today.

[14] You know her from kind of everything from television.

[15] You've seen her in movies.

[16] Yeah.

[17] You've seen her on Comedy Central doing stand -up.

[18] You've seen her on late -night television.

[19] You've seen her live in concert.

[20] You've seen her perform at clubs and colleges all over the country.

[21] I can't not say that.

[22] I know.

[23] You're saying about everyone.

[24] I can't help it.

[25] It's funny, and it's what the MC is supposed to do on a show.

[26] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome friend of the family, Margaret Cho.

[27] Thank you.

[28] Hi, friend.

[29] I'm a huge friend of, and a murderer.

[30] And been wanting to be on your show since Karen Anderson left you a voicemail.

[31] All the way back in the day.

[32] That's great.

[33] I think that was 2016, 2015, something like that.

[34] Oh, wow.

[35] That was the beginning.

[36] Yeah.

[37] So I'm a huge fan.

[38] And this is great.

[39] This is, it's a dream of mine.

[40] Also, I'm on many shows on your amazing exactly right network.

[41] Oh, yeah.

[42] We love you here.

[43] I love it.

[44] You've guessed it on almost every show.

[45] I love it.

[46] It's my favorite.

[47] And all my love to George, I just saw George.

[48] I know, I know.

[49] Sweet George.

[50] Sorry about you.

[51] Thank you.

[52] I mean, it's very nice how, you know, it's very nice that it's such a shared thing when you lose a pet, but people know, I've never had that experience before.

[53] And it really actually makes a difference.

[54] But at the same time, she was 15.

[55] She was truly, like, looking me in the eye, like, please let me leave.

[56] I need to go.

[57] She had an incredible life.

[58] And I think I felt the same sort of sorrow with Elvis.

[59] Oh, my God.

[60] Elvis was like really.

[61] I mean, and I would always try to visualize what kind of cookie it was that he was getting.

[62] I was like, is that like a Temptations cookie or is it like a Greenie's cookie?

[63] It's, and Temptations was the, if you could shake it and he could hear it, it would that's all that matter, like a bag of treats.

[64] Like a pound.

[65] He would eat anything.

[66] He once knocked a sandwich out of a friend's hand who was eating it here, so he would eat anything.

[67] What if every time it was a freshly baked hot Toll House cookie that Georgia was handing him straight out of the oven?

[68] Oh, didn't you know?

[69] A famous Amos.

[70] It's so cute.

[71] But I love his little, like, cry.

[72] And I have a cat who, her name is Sakrika, and she's deaf.

[73] and she has a little bit of an Elvis kind of...

[74] It's amazing.

[75] Cry as well.

[76] Well, she's a hairless cat, right?

[77] She's a hairless cat.

[78] And today she's Zumi's all day because she got her cone off.

[79] Oh.

[80] She's had a cone of shame on since she's been licking her booboo leg for a while.

[81] And finally, I just thought, what if I just, like, let her just out of the cone and just see what happens because the boob was almost healed?

[82] and she's been, like, on the honor system, she hasn't licked it today.

[83] Oh, good girl.

[84] So she's zoomies all day.

[85] And if I could prompt her with, do you want a cookie?

[86] But if she could hear me, she would make the same sound.

[87] Well, now our puppy's name is cookie, so I can't use it anymore.

[88] Or it'd be really confusing to him, or to her.

[89] Wow.

[90] Misgendering my own animal.

[91] That's, I love that.

[92] And you've been on the purcast talking about the cat too.

[93] So I love, I love it.

[94] that.

[95] I love, and I love that they got to come over, and they actually probably are due for another because I have a new baby, Uju, who has come, and so does three cats and one dog.

[96] Do you, is it weird to have both dogs and cats?

[97] I think it's new for me. I've never done it.

[98] I hadn't either, but it feels like I'm just constantly in a YouTube video.

[99] It's like the most entertaining part of my life to have both.

[100] It's a level of chaos.

[101] I wasn't prepared for, but I do love it.

[102] Right.

[103] I love it.

[104] Well, thank you so much for coming on.

[105] We are so stoked and I know our listeners will be too.

[106] Yes.

[107] I just have a couple questions because you are on one of our favorite TV shows.

[108] We've talked about it on our podcast before, but you're on the second season of the flight attendant.

[109] Yes, coming up.

[110] I'm going to go and film pretty soon.

[111] So I'm going to start up with that, which is really exciting.

[112] Yes.

[113] And I love the show.

[114] It's such a good show.

[115] Oh, my God.

[116] It's incredible.

[117] It's a great show, and it makes me scared.

[118] Like, I watch the show, and I'm really scared the whole time for all of the characters.

[119] So it's really exciting to be able to jump into that.

[120] And so I know I'm going to be scared.

[121] It's going to be like a, I think, like a 72 -hour fart hold.

[122] Like a scared.

[123] You know, when you go on set and you're just scared?

[124] I'm like still, I never got over being scared on sets.

[125] I think that's good, though, because that's part, it's like partly excitement.

[126] It has to matter.

[127] So you need that, you need the stage fright, focus, energy to come in with you, right?

[128] Right.

[129] And that show is such a high level of anxiety of everything that's happening that I think it's going to fit, my fear will fit right in to everything going on.

[130] So, yes, I'll be doing, uh, an arc. I guess they call it an arc. Yeah.

[131] I'm doing a few different things.

[132] So I'm really looking forward to it.

[133] It's very exciting.

[134] So that's pretty much the rest of my winter is going to be wrapped up.

[135] We're going to Reykjavik, which I've never been.

[136] Oh, my God.

[137] To film.

[138] So, yeah, it's very exciting.

[139] It's beautiful there, right?

[140] Yeah, I don't know.

[141] I guess.

[142] I bring a jacket.

[143] And how long do you get to stay in Iceland?

[144] I don't know.

[145] I guess it's, they just gave me like a lot of time.

[146] to clear out, so I'm just going.

[147] So we'll see.

[148] So you get it right.

[149] So we get it.

[150] And yeah, it should be really cool.

[151] And I've never been there.

[152] I only remember that Karen does a really great Bjork impression.

[153] Oh, yeah.

[154] Like the best.

[155] Truly the best.

[156] That's right.

[157] She's not going to do it.

[158] She's not going to do it.

[159] No prompting.

[160] No, it's like, it's very hard to do because it's kind of like animal.

[161] It's kind of, I can't even.

[162] and like, it's not what you think.

[163] It's like an accent, but it's also like a place in the mouth where it occurs.

[164] Yeah, it is.

[165] The thing is, I have to listen to her first.

[166] Yeah.

[167] Like, if I was going to do that, I mean, that's from so long ago in my act, but you know, the way I started doing that impression is I went with my boyfriend at the time to see dancer in the dark at that movie theater that's on La Brea by the Indian restaurant.

[168] I did not like the movie.

[169] It bothered me. But I love her and I love watching her and I love listening to her.

[170] But the plot of it was oppressive to me. Yeah.

[171] And the guy that I was with, this is one of the funniest things of all time.

[172] I was just sitting there kind of stewing where I was like, I have enough problems.

[173] I can't take this on.

[174] Everything happens to this woman.

[175] It's so awful.

[176] Yeah.

[177] It's stressing out.

[178] I look over at one point to say, do you want to leave?

[179] I don't want to watch this movie.

[180] anymore.

[181] And my boyfriend was doing a crossword puzzle in the dark.

[182] Like purely as a joke, basically so that he do at some point I was going to look at him and be mad so he was pretending to do a crossword puzzle.

[183] That's charming.

[184] That's charming.

[185] He was hilarious.

[186] We left the movie theater and I could immediately, I was in a rage about the movie doing an impression of her.

[187] And that's how I was able to do that.

[188] You know, what I love about the movie, though.

[189] I love her boyfriend Jeff.

[190] It's Peter Stormair.

[191] Because he was so, he's so cute because he keeps showing up at the factory.

[192] And then she just, like, pushes him away and pushing him away.

[193] And then he's the only one there.

[194] There's no spoilers if you're going to watch the movie.

[195] But he's too late.

[196] He's the only one there at the end.

[197] I know, it's too late.

[198] He's the only one there at the end, and he's so sweet.

[199] And I actually did a, his TV show called Swedish Dix, and I did an episode, and I got to talk to his ear off about how much I love that character.

[200] and he was really, he was very moved that.

[201] But he also puts, I think he puts somebody's foot in the wood chipper in Fargo.

[202] That's right.

[203] Oh, okay.

[204] Yeah.

[205] He's the guy that kills Steve Buscemi.

[206] Right.

[207] Right.

[208] Yeah.

[209] Which is based on a real true crime story, although it's not as, oh, yeah, yeah.

[210] The wood chipper thing.

[211] It's a lot more depressing than a Steve Buschemy type, but.

[212] Is that the one where the, it was a guy, it was the flight attendant, bringing it back to the flight attendant, but it is actually a flight attendant, a pilot wife.

[213] Yes.

[214] Yeah.

[215] If I remember correctly, yeah.

[216] He was like a pilot.

[217] He was having an affair with another flight attendant.

[218] And then she found out.

[219] And then he went and rented, which he didn't even buy it, he rented it.

[220] Yeah.

[221] And put her through it.

[222] And they found like a little piece of her fingernail with the polish.

[223] Yes, in the bushes or something.

[224] Yes.

[225] You should use this as inspiration when you're on the flight attendant.

[226] I mean, think about the flight attendant.

[227] Well, it's, you know, I think, like, probably if you're like a comic, you kind of do know what it is like to be a flight attendant because I think the comics fly about as much.

[228] When I first met you in San Francisco, Margaret, you were doing colleges and all, it was just always me and Scott Silverman picking you up from the airport.

[229] Yeah.

[230] Like, that's, it was like, Margaret's coming in and then you were going out.

[231] It was constant.

[232] It was constant.

[233] And then you would see flight attendants again, which is really weird, you know?

[234] Because when you're like flying that much, you end up seeing people and then you're like, oh, you actually, I know you because I've been on this flight performance.

[235] So it's a very, you shouldn't see flight attendants again.

[236] Right.

[237] That's quite a strange experience.

[238] It's a lot of travel.

[239] I remember when I first started doing colleges myself, the first couple of flights, I would get nervous.

[240] I would think, oh, do I have, fear of flying or whatever and then I would remember how can you have fear of flying when you know for a fact Margaret flew like 70 times this year and nothing happened to her like that you were kind of that the guidepost of like oh yeah that's just a made up thing when you never fly but actually you know the people that commute fly and they're fine so you're fine we're fine right that era of comedy it was a struggle era but it was also there there were some good times the best thing was coming back and having like you and Scott pick me up at the airport and then we would just like go off and have a good time in San Francisco which was the greatest time of like my youth, you know?

[241] So it made me appreciate coming home and like the idea of like being a touring artist was tough but you always get to come home which made it so worth it.

[242] Yeah.

[243] You really appreciated like having friends and having a group of people that like you could go eat with because you just spent a week having every meal alone and only being in your head and hating yourself.

[244] So you would come back on a Sunday like we would get back on a Sunday usually then we'd do like the punchline Sunday night and then the improv Monday night and after the improv we would go to Square which was a piano bar that was up above the improv and we'd drink drink and hang out or we'd go see Laura Milligan and Jerry Finnelli play at the wine bar which was they would do covers.

[245] And we were all in our early, early 20s.

[246] And just having the best time in San Francisco, which was really special.

[247] Living up and able to afford rent in San Francisco.

[248] Imagine.

[249] Yes.

[250] And being young and smoking cigarettes and, you know, you would basically be able to party until like Thursday night where we would start up again.

[251] But we would do like shows every night.

[252] And this is even before we moved to L .A. So this is like the San Francisco comedy schedule, which is really precious.

[253] Wow.

[254] Love that.

[255] Which is where our hometowns are, my hometown stories are two of them.

[256] I have two hometowns, but they're based in this world.

[257] Oh.

[258] There's a segue.

[259] She's in her own segue.

[260] That's a professional.

[261] That's right.

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[263] Absolutely.

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[283] Goodbye.

[284] The first hometown is actually not my story, but this happened in 1976 on October 1st by Lake Merset, which was Lake Merset was a lake that was catty cornered to my first high school, which was Lowell High School.

[285] And so we had the high school track, and then across the street from the track was a lake.

[286] And that's where you would go for a kegger.

[287] I don't understand how, like, teenagers are getting kids.

[288] pegs of beer.

[289] How do they do that?

[290] I don't think they do anymore unless there's like a, quote, cool parent or cool older brother, sister, right?

[291] I would think.

[292] I think it's like back then because this was like the 80s, right?

[293] Like there was always one older guy that could grow a mustache.

[294] I think there was like, or a creep at the liquor store that would buy up for you.

[295] Yeah.

[296] That's amazing.

[297] Fake IDs were easier to make to probably, right?

[298] Right.

[299] Right.

[300] Right, but the idea of like giving somebody money to buy you alcohol at a liquor store.

[301] Like, as an adult now, I could not imagine doing that for children or even being like a cool mom.

[302] That to me is scary.

[303] Like women who would give their kids access to alcohol, it to me is like, I mean, I'm no prude, but that's just beyond any kind of scope of reason to me. Like, that's so crazy.

[304] Well, because these days, the way we know about moms, the cool moms who, like, hosted parties as they're in the newspaper because some horrible thing happened and they're getting sued by everybody else.

[305] Like, you just can't afford to take that risk anymore.

[306] Right.

[307] Yes.

[308] So Lake Merced is where, instead of going to the cool moms, you'd go to Lake Merced.

[309] Right.

[310] Got it.

[311] So they had this sort of like this lake there.

[312] There were some kind of paddle boats, but not really, I mean, it's not really like a nice lake.

[313] It's not picturesque or nice or anything, but there's just like some wildlife.

[314] It's kind of a gross lake, just so stoners can go, and you could have a kegger there and get fingered by some boy when you go over there.

[315] So he's just getting weird and fingered by some boy at the kegger at the lake.

[316] But in 1976, there was a boy who was looking for turtle eggs, and he had found a nest of turtle eggs.

[317] And so he's digging down, and he found a hand.

[318] And so this is October 1st, 1976.

[319] He finds a hand and he gets the police and the police come and they unearth the body.

[320] It was a young woman who was not identified for 43 years or something.

[321] She was a Jane Doe 40.

[322] They called her Jane Doe 40 until 2017 a guy named William Shin who finally realized like, oh, when I was young, I had a sister.

[323] And they never told me where she went.

[324] And I think I should try to find her.

[325] So he finally filed a missing person's report.

[326] And he posts this all on WebSloose.

[327] And I feel like a lot of the things like Murder Squad and all of this idea that you could actually have some sense of closure.

[328] Like there's a lot of consciousness around there with like WebSloose and people really looking to podcasting and, you know, like Jensen in holes and all these ideas of like we can solve these murders that have been unsolved for so long or solve these missing cases for so long so he was like I have a sister and I'm going to actually file a missing person's report I haven't seen her for some 40 something years I'm sure that she's out there somewhere I got to know and so he filed a report so he had lived with his family and his his sister in a park Merset which is adjacent to Lake Merset and it's kind of like a what do you think it's like it's like a group of apartments you know that's my parents first apartment when they started their family they lived in park merced okay with when my sister was baby um it's the same apartment uh set up as those apartments that are across the street from the grove um what are those ones called like park lebraya it's exactly park lebraya but it's up in san francisco like a little condo town almost condo community yeah apartments and condos yeah yeah And I think Leona Hemsley is the person who, they're her buildings.

[329] Oh, wow.

[330] She owns all of them.

[331] Don't quote me on that, though.

[332] That's alleged.

[333] That's alleged.

[334] That's interesting.

[335] I mean, it makes sense.

[336] Like somebody like that would have those kinds of housing developments all over the country.

[337] My grandparents live there, too.

[338] So I lived there in the 70s around the time where this young woman was living there and disappeared.

[339] Her name is Judy Gifford.

[340] And she lived there with her brother.

[341] and another sister and the brother is much younger and she just disappeared one day from Park Merset and Park Merset is like it's a little bit larger than say an apartment complex because there's parks in there there's quite a few buildings there's duplexes so my grandparents lived in a duplex there and it's the kind of place where you would be in an apartment and some other girls would come over to your apartment and you would braid ribbon into barrettes I got it It's specific, but I totally get it.

[342] Yeah.

[343] You know, like, it was like a, like when I think about the time, I think it just smells like genete.

[344] Oh.

[345] Mm -hmm.

[346] You know, the after bass flash, that's like the yellow kind of liquid.

[347] Definitely.

[348] Burns so bad.

[349] It burns so bad.

[350] It's like, why don't I just throw this like muriatic acid onto my body that smells a little bit like lemons, but also like urine.

[351] Yeah.

[352] And I still remember the jingle somehow.

[353] Gina Taye It was fast It was jocky Sort of like you're a fast woman And you're going to splash You can't do anything After a bathroom Splash this liquid onto your body I have a giant bottle of it In my bathroom Just out of sheer nostalgia I love it I don't want to smell it ever But I just always thought If I'm an adult woman I'm going to have a giant adult -sized bottle Of Genentee It's like a two -liter Oh I love it like a display bottle.

[354] It's like a display like from the May company or what, or blooming whatever, Jay Bullock.

[355] But so this was like, this all kind of happened near Stone's Town too, which is the mall that I grew up next to.

[356] Did you go to Stonestown with?

[357] I lived in the sunset actually.

[358] Okay.

[359] I totally, I used to also go.

[360] I mean, this is in the early 2000s, but that whole area is really familiar to me. Yeah.

[361] Well, this is also the same.

[362] area where the Pans in 1984 were attacked by Richard Ramirez when the Knight Stalker came to San Francisco.

[363] Yeah.

[364] So, and he had murdered a Peter Pan, the older Thai man, and then, the entire Chinese man, and then injured the wife.

[365] And so this whole thing happened in 1976.

[366] So through this sort of idea of like murder squad and this idea that we can solve these crimes, you know, this guy William Shin filed a missing report.

[367] 2017 and they took the DNA from his aunt who's probably the closest match and they also looked at photographs of her and she had been found with a owl pendant in her pocket and in one of the photos of her that she was wearing the owl pendant so they made a match and so in 2017 she was actually identified as Judy Gifford so she no longer a dope and now they're trying to figure out what happened to unearth the murderer.

[368] She had apparently been strangled and left there in this very shallow grave by Lake Merced.

[369] And, you know, it's one of those things where we have this technology now where we can figure out so much of these things.

[370] And it's as simple as, like, looking into DNA.

[371] But it's really the consciousness.

[372] And I really think that Billy and Paul and all the stuff they do on the murder squad and the idea that we can have some closure with, our own ability to look to what's happened to ask questions and to find out.

[373] I agree.

[374] I think it's a people always want to talk about the kind of downside of like citizen detectives where it's like, oh, people can mislead or or lead people to the wrong person, which is absolutely true.

[375] And people have to be very careful about that of like who they're accusing or whose name they're bringing up.

[376] But the thing that they should absolutely be talking about and focusing on is what a beautiful thing it is that they're all the these people who have the focus and the interest and the ability to do like digital searches to get into like libraries or say they're stuck at home or that's where they already work and they want to do this and they're just basically going to, you know, in their free time, help people get some closure or solve some cases.

[377] I think it's, I think it's amazing.

[378] Yeah.

[379] And it works.

[380] I mean, there's people that do it.

[381] Yeah.

[382] And even just bringing like what Billy and Paul do and what you're doing right now is bringing the attention of the public back to these cases that are solvable, that aren't getting enough attention, you know, that people don't know about.

[383] And that alone, you know, will maybe give, like the Golden State Killer case will give some more traction to the attempt to solve that case.

[384] Right.

[385] I mean, I think that the Golden State Killer, I mean, Joseph D 'Angelo would not have been found without people like what Michelle was doing with what, um, Paul, of course, was doing, and, you know, there's so much that we can have, even if we're not law enforcement, we can still have a say in how these cases are treated, how they're looked at, how we can revisit them with the technology that we have now, with what we know now, it's possible.

[386] So this is my hometown that I want to talk about in the comedy world.

[387] So this was probably 1985.

[388] And I had just gotten that, I don't know, know if you ever drove in that giant car, the Buick, the big Buick LaSaber that I had.

[389] So I just learned to drive.

[390] And I was going to the Holy City Zoo.

[391] And this was like when I first started comedy.

[392] And I was still like living at home and I was still in high school kind of, but I was driving this giant boat of a car.

[393] And I was really scared to drive it.

[394] But I was like, oh, well, I'm a comedian.

[395] So I can, I'm going to drive.

[396] And I was driving home on like, it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday night.

[397] It was like one of those Lankan Earl like comedy nights.

[398] I was probably like 16 or 17 years old.

[399] And I remember I was wearing, this is so weird, but I was wearing an off -the -shoulder thing with like an elastic in the neckline.

[400] I would never.

[401] Karen knows I would never wear anything like that.

[402] But for some reason, like a St. Paulie girl, like a bodice sort of St. Pauli girl.

[403] It's just, I would never.

[404] I mean, Karen knows I would never, but I did that night for some reason.

[405] And I was driving.

[406] And I drove home and it was like one in the morning.

[407] on like a weekday night and there was a tow truck following me and I parked and the tow truck pulled up next to my car and he was like rolled down the wind or rolled down the winter and I was like what and I rolled down the winter and it goes hey you hit a woman back there and you really messed up her car and she's really upset and I think she's going to call the police So I have to go back there You're going to have to come back with me And make a report And I was like, I don't know And he's like, get out of your car And so I got out of the car And I'm standing on the street and talking to him And he goes, yeah, you know And he was this huge man Like I think like I'm probably blowing it up in my imagination But he was like this giant mountain of a man He was bald But he had kind of a dark sort of beard growth and he had just, I can't even describe it, but he was like, that kind of very tall, very large person, he just looked so menacing and scary, but he was talking really quietly to me, like, look, I understand, I know it's scary, but you're going to have to get back to this accident scene.

[408] And, you know, you probably just started driving, and it was true, like I had just started driving.

[409] I wouldn't have known if I hit somebody.

[410] Yeah.

[411] because I was just, it's a huge giant car that got six miles to the gallon.

[412] And I was driving at night by myself, which was like, and it was one of those cars that had an eight -track player converter.

[413] So it was, it came with an eight -track player, but I had put in one of those things that converted so I could play regular cassettes on it.

[414] Yeah.

[415] And so I was just scared.

[416] And I almost got in, the car with him and I looked in his eyes and then his eyes just flickered like it looked like he looked to the door and then looked back at me and in that I knew he's lying so I just started running and he floored it and he was out of there so fast and I always think about that like oh my god i wonder who that was and i wonder what that was like what because i would have i almost got in the car with them yeah and i yeah i was so scared because any car with lights on top is an authority figure to me like in a tow truck even though it's not a police car there's still something about like oh they're here in case of an accident they're here for that so i need to believe this person right and he's somehow like almost he's an ex a quote unquote expert because he's a tow truck driver like i know accidents i know what happened i am i'm i was called like that's actually what a scam what a story because he's saying the other lady called me i'm here like almost on behalf of her you have to do the right thing and get into i mean that is like if you were 17 oh wait you said you were 70 yeah like that's yeah that's you're you're He was, I think, praying on that idea that you weren't old enough to go, hey, go fuck yourself.

[417] Right.

[418] Hey, weirdo.

[419] Go fuck yourself.

[420] It was like, you're basically right in that thing of you can't get in trouble.

[421] What if your dad's insurance goes up?

[422] Like all those things you think of that are not priorities when you're older.

[423] But when you're a teenager, you're like, oh, my God, I'm quote unquote, in trouble.

[424] I have to now go, quote, unquote, do the right thing.

[425] Right.

[426] Yeah.

[427] And he's like, I'm going to help you.

[428] Yeah.

[429] I'm here for you, which is so manipulative, especially.

[430] So scary.

[431] I'm just, I'm in awe that you turned and ran, which is such a, it goes against, I think, as a 17 -year -old the thing of like, be polite to authority figures that you had the wherewithal to do that is so impressive to me. Yeah.

[432] It's really, I mean, I'm surprised at that because I, I'm like, I can't believe that I knew that that meant untrue.

[433] That if you, like, are looking at me and then you, like, kind of just avert your eyes for a second and look back.

[434] Like, it looked like he was like, oh, she bought it, she bought it.

[435] Yeah.

[436] That sort of like, oh, she believes me. That kind of thing of, like, not believing that I got away with it.

[437] I'm getting away with it.

[438] That thing.

[439] So it's, like, really about listening to intuition.

[440] And it's also, like, I really get that from your book, the whole fuck politeness thing of, you know, kind of being in that situation of like it just feels weird, just go with your feelings as opposed to being worried about their feelings.

[441] It's incredible.

[442] You know you can trust your intuition.

[443] And it was more than that I think for you.

[444] It was like that told you something so deep in everything you've learned up until that point that you just fucking knew.

[445] And I'm just like, I mean, who knows what happens?

[446] that's yeah it's so lucky it's so lucky and it's so important to you know really fuck politeness don't let anybody kind of like make you feel like you have to do something because you have to be polite or any of that like we're socialized so much to squelch our own emotions and feelings and intuition and to push that down but really it serves us so much better if we listen to it also I think that idea of somebody saying this just happened you know for a fact, it didn't happen.

[447] Suddenly he's saying it did happen.

[448] And I think whether women have this habit or whether it's just people, it's a psychology thing with all humans.

[449] But it's that thing of, wait, did it happen?

[450] Like, when you know for a fact, like you hit a car, you would have known.

[451] Yeah.

[452] Like, I understand it's a big car or whatever.

[453] But it's like, but then he, his ability, his tow truck, all those things.

[454] It's like, the argument suddenly is like you have no one to sit there going, what?

[455] No, no, you didn't hit a car.

[456] Like, tell this guy to fuck off.

[457] There's no one on your side.

[458] So you had to be on your side.

[459] Right.

[460] And it's that kind of thing where, like, you were waiting and waiting.

[461] And then you took, like, it's almost like the mask dropped for him.

[462] And his whole act of I'm the kindly man that's going to help you do the right thing.

[463] Then it's just like, like you were smart enough to see it, interpret it, and then it actually move.

[464] Yeah.

[465] It's really, it's really crazy.

[466] I mean, but I think about that moment.

[467] and I think about how scary that was.

[468] And I wonder, like, wonder who that guy wasn't.

[469] I wonder if he did.

[470] I mean, I'm sure that he's done it again.

[471] And I'm sure if he ended up doing more and doing whatever he did.

[472] But there's so many things that we don't know about people, that we don't know who's doing what and what happened.

[473] And so there's scary people out there.

[474] There is.

[475] And also that thing of he's asking you to trust him, just kind of sight unseen.

[476] the answer's no. It's just like the answer's no. Unless the lady comes around the corner, unless you can show me a picture, like unless you're a cop, unless even then, like the answer's no. Right.

[477] That is absolutely a boundary you can hold for yourself.

[478] No matter who, if you're by yourself, like you get to say no until they, you know, all of the sheriffs come and take you out of your house or something.

[479] But it's like, but get in trouble.

[480] get in trouble instead of getting into a car for sure for sure but that that's um yeah that was the world of the scary coming home from the holy city zoo um doing comedy in the 80s I can't believe you started comedy so young that's incredible too I mean yeah yeah we did well Karen was still she was doing comedy you were doing comedy really like what do you think your first sets were mine were like in 84, 85.

[481] Mine was...

[482] Yeah.

[483] I was 90.

[484] I was 20 and I was in Sacramento.

[485] Mm -hmm.

[486] It was on the younger side.

[487] Like I had to go to a club that let me get in even though I didn't have ID.

[488] Mm -hmm.

[489] But yeah.

[490] But by the time I got to San Francisco, I had turned 21 and I was like, let's go to the piano bar.

[491] I'm in the drink.

[492] Oh, we're going to go to square.

[493] It was called square, wasn't it?

[494] Yeah.

[495] The square was above the improv.

[496] and then the piano bar was across the street.

[497] Right.

[498] So the wine, the wine bar was the piano bar was across the street.

[499] And, but we, yeah, we'd go up there and drink and then we would just laugh and make fun of people.

[500] And, and Dave Messmer was there.

[501] And then we just, like, we had so much energy.

[502] There was so much going on all day, too.

[503] We go to Nordstrom during the day and get our eyebrows plucked by, oh, God, what was her name?

[504] She really fucked up my eyebrows forever.

[505] Who was it?

[506] She plucked your eyebrows, too.

[507] It was, um, Christy?

[508] No, Christy, uh, Christy did our makeup as well, but it was Greg's girlfriend.

[509] Oh, the blonde?

[510] Yeah, what was her name?

[511] I can't remember.

[512] But she, she plugged her eyebrows.

[513] She really fucked up our, I mean, I'm still paying.

[514] I know.

[515] I'm still.

[516] They don't come back.

[517] They really don't come back.

[518] I watched a TikTok where somebody actually did a 90s.

[519] 90s like did like the one where um drew barrymore was in playboy and in a guest model and she did her eyebrows was sort of like almost like a half brow yep yes and she did it like for real she shaved off half her eyebrow to do it and I was like oh god no it's the one where you have one eyebrow yeah just one hair going across dude oh it's basically like Clara beau like right it was it was absolutely connected to being on white drugs for sure because it was like that's the thing that kept me in that mirror like I gotta pluck some more it's just like somehow it only looked good on Drew Barrymore like it didn't look good on any anyone else and yet we all tried we did it had I mean but yeah it was like I think I went to Nordstrom and somebody really went to town on the brows it wasn't even my doing it was somebody else I just remember going to Nordstrom and I wonder if you came with us because my mom had a Nordstrom charge card that we didn't have the cards themselves but our names were on the count so and she was always like if you need a nice skirt like that's how she wanted us to use it but what we do is go up to the Nordstrom restaurant and just drink beer and eat like disco fries and then my mom would be like I saw that you were drinking beer at Northstrom's again because she would get the bill and be like sorry Northstrom had beer I love that because it was the fancy new one on Market Street down you know downtown Union Square right yeah It was like in that new mall.

[520] Yes.

[521] Kind of across from, like across the street from Union Square.

[522] And so they had, the Nordstrom was insane.

[523] It was like beautiful, fancy.

[524] And then at the very top floor, there was like a, it was like the first gastro pub kind of thing.

[525] So it was like, right.

[526] Sierra Nevada on top.

[527] Is this, this is boring.

[528] Are we being boring?

[529] I fascinated by this.

[530] It's fascinating.

[531] Do you remember, Abby worked at the, the, I think it was like the Italian coffee bar at the Nordstrom on the bottom at the Men's store.

[532] Oh, yeah.

[533] Like in the kiosk?

[534] Yeah.

[535] Mm -hmm.

[536] Yeah.

[537] We were all over.

[538] We were all over that U .U .S. Oh.

[539] You want to do some plugs for the end?

[540] Yes.

[541] Because you're going to be it.

[542] Remember the D .C. improv?

[543] Oh, we have so much fun.

[544] I know.

[545] We played there with Mike Barbiglia.

[546] Back in the late.

[547] In the mid -90s.

[548] He's so great.

[549] He's so great.

[550] But yeah, we did.

[551] We did such great shows there.

[552] And, yeah, so many fun things.

[553] But, yeah, I'll be back there, I think, in January, sometimes.

[554] I'm doing a bunch of shows all over the place.

[555] January 7th and 8th, you'll be at the DCF.

[556] Yes, yes, so come on, come on.

[557] Go to margaret show .com slash tour.

[558] Thank you, yes.

[559] Please go.

[560] On the road.

[561] Yes.

[562] No better live show than Margaret show.

[563] Amazing.

[564] Yay, thank you so much.

[565] That was great.

[566] Thank you so much, Margaret.

[567] Thank you.

[568] Well, I'm an avid listener.

[569] And so I don't know why I haven't come to a live show yet, but I still need to.

[570] So I'm looking forward to that.

[571] Yay.

[572] Thank you so much.

[573] Thank you.

[574] Thank you.

[575] Thank you.

[576] Goodbye.

[577] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[578] This has been an exactly right production.

[579] Our producer is Hannah Kyle Kreit.

[580] Our associate producer is Alejandra Keck.

[581] Engineered and mixed by Andrew Eepin.

[582] Send us your hometowns at my favorite murder at gmail .com.

[583] Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.

[584] For more information about the podcast, live shows, merch, Or to join the fan cult, go to my favoritemerder .com.

[585] And please rate, review, and subscribe.

[586] Goodbye.

[587] Goodbye.