Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson - Adriana Trigiani

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

This week on JOY, Craig’s dear friend Adriana Trigiani. Adriana is The New York Times best selling author of 20 books in fiction and nonfiction, award-winning filmmaker, and host of the blockbuster Facebook Live show, “Adriana Ink”. She now hosts the “You Are What You Read” podcast, deep, surprising, and humorous conversations with the great cultural figures of our time about the books that built their souls. EnJOY. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling, as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said, like, in my head for, like, 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez.

And on my podcast, I like to talk to everyone from Hall of Fame athletes to iconic musicians about getting real on some of the complications and challenges of real life. I had the best dad. And I had the best dad and I had the best memories and the greatest experience. And that's all I want for my kids as long as they can have that. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter ATL. And on Butternomics, we go deep with today's most influential entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to peel back the layers on how they use culture as a driving force in their business.

Butternomics will give you what you need to take your game to the next level. Listen to Butternomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Craig Ferguson's Fancy Rascal Tour continues in November 2023. For the full list of dates, please go to thecraigfergusonshow.com slash tour website. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. tour website. My name is Craig Ferguson.

The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings them happiness. Meet Adriana Trigiani. Adriana is my friend. She's a writer, she's a director, and she's a great cook. But you'll have to take my word for the last part, unless you know her.

In which case, why are you listening to this? Just call her. I'm sensing a little chemistry between you and Jake now. I like him. Yeah, I'm happy. He looks like a young Al Pacino to me. That's not a bad look. That's a good look. That's a look you hold on to, but I want you to look at his recent birthday party pictures and plan ahead, okay?

Yeah, yeah. You really have to plan ahead. What, about getting older? Yes. There has to be a plan. If there's no plan, you're flailing. What's your plan on getting older? And if you're flailing, you're...

What is your plan for getting older? Well, I do have one. Well, I heard you say to your daughter, I'll be a burden. I remember you saying that. Okay, so every night from the time she was born in the crib, the last thing I'd say to her, I'd say, I love you, Lucia. And then I'd say, I will be a burden. Good night.

And I said it every night, and it's a family joke now. Will you do that? Will you have Lucia look after you? No, I won't, no. You should. I mean, come on. She wants to look after me. Last night we watched My Man Called Otto.

Have you seen that movie? No. With Tom Hanks? I know, not your fave. I don't say that. Well, I heard you say it once, and I'm just defending your position. No, that's not true. Okay, well, I hope he comes on this podcast.

He's the greatest actor I've ever seen. Now, let me tell you something. What? We're as great as the material. Always. So people don't even want to hear that because they think it looks like it was made up on the spot when it's good. When it's a good actor, sure. And when it's a good material.

Yeah. A great actor can triumph over bad material, though. I've seen it many times. Yeah. But not for the sustaining whole narrative. There'll be a scene where you go, material, though. I've seen it many times. Yeah. But not for the sustaining whole narrative. There'll be a scene where you go, ooh, okay. Yeah, I think you may be right. You see that.

But over the whole narrative, to hold the logic of it together takes the writer. Hold on a second, though. A great actor, maybe, but a great movie star? Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like Sean Connery, even in Zardoz. Oh, you just want him to walk in the room.

Yeah, right. To stand there with his hands on his hips and he could destroy the world with his gaze. Yeah, just like, so I'm wearing a mankini and it doesn't matter.

It's just that. So listen, I want to, we're going to go on a journey because the name of the podcast is Joy. Oh. You bring me joy. Okay. And you bring me. Oh. You bring me joy.

Okay. And you bring me joy. Your friendship brings me joy. That makes me very happy. But I want everyone here to get to know you a little bit. Okay. So we're going to start with little baby Adri. Oh.

But it's not going to be long. I mean, you're not going to be a baby for a long part of the conversation. We're going to start with little baby Adri, right? Yeah. So close your eyes. You're in the crib. Now baby for a long part of the conversation. We're going to start with little baby Avery, right? Yeah. So close your eyes. You're in the crib. Now, where is the crib? Okay.

We're in Banker, Pennsylvania. Banker. Near Rosetta, Pennsylvania. Right. That doesn't help anyone. It does. It does because this is the town in the United States that they sent doctors and medical whole groups, teams of people to study these Italian-Americans that didn't die of heart attacks. If you stepped one step outside of Rosetta, this is where my father was born,

my grandfather was born and raised, and he was the mayor of the town. And in the 60s, they came in and studied everybody, the babies, the old people. Because if you stepped over the line of the town into what was called Bangor, which is where the Welsh were, the Johnny Bowles, because they came and owned the slate quarries and the Italians worked for them. The Welsh, and see, the Welsh drink. They do. Well, there's a lot of drinking.

But the Italians, with all the bad health habits that they could discern, making blood pudding, eating sugar, the stress of being in a quarry, all of that, the dangers. This little community didn't suffer from any anxiety. There wasn't cancer. There wasn't heart attack. They couldn't figure it out. So this team of doctors came in. They wrote books about it. I'll give them to you. And Dean Ornish put it in his study. Malcolm Gladwell put it in a book of his. I made a little documentary about it. What we found out when they completed the study in like 1965, the doctors concluded that the people didn't die of heart attacks because they felt emotionally safe. Really? And women worked in the blouse factories. My

grandmother owned a blouse factory with my grandfather. A blouse factory? Yeah, sartorial stuff. You know, you made clothes. They made clothes. And they came up, my grandparents, my grandfather was a machinist, and my grandmother was a forelady at 14. So I come from real workers.

Yeah, you do. Well, you're a worker. I don't rest. But on the other side of the family, same thing. My grandfather, Carlo, I wrote a book about, you know, fictionalized it, Shoemaker's Wife, where they went to Minnesota and he was in the iron ore mines. And he brought my grandmother there from Hoboken, New Jersey, Italian immigrants, but he got his citizenship in World War I by fighting for America in World War I and denounced

his citizenship. And then they became Americans and he started the Progressive Shoe Shop. He was cool. You would have loved him. What's the Progressive Shoe Shop? I want to know about you, but just before we go back to you. This is what you do. I know you though. This is what you do. I'm going to get to me because when I'm there, because it's really fascinating what happens. I mean, my mother and father, my mother was a librarian, but she was also brilliant. So she started the architecture library at the University of Notre Dame when she was 21 years old. Good Lord. She graduated from St. Catharines in Minnesota. You have to understand something.

My grandfather died when he was 39, Carlo Bonicelli. Wait, I thought nobody died. Different side of the family. He got gassed in World War I and got cancer. They all did in his platoon. All of them came home and died. They said, you won't see your 40th birthday. And my mother told me this story.

She remembered when he came back from the Mayo Clinic and he dropped his bag and he said to his wife, Lucia, I'm going to be dead in a year. Oh, God. He just had a backache. Yeah? Yeah. So he was so cool. And I found out lots and lots about him anyway. So he was in the iron ore mines and when he couldn't breathe because of the gas, but he was also a shoemaker, but he would have been a shoe designer. That was his goal was to

design shoes as much as make them. But when you work in a mining town, you're adjusting people's foot infirmities, basically, and you're fixing their shoes and boots and all that stuff. So that's what he did. But he was very ambitious, my mom told me, very ambitious. And he called to shop the Progressive Shoe Shop. What does that mean, Progressive Shoe Shop? You know what it meant to him, I think? Yeah, that's what I mean.

I'm an American, and you're getting Italian artistry. Yeah. You know, kiss my Italian-American ass think? Yeah, that's what I mean. I'm an American, and you're getting Italian artistry. Yeah. You know, kiss my Italian-American ass. I think that's what he was saying. All right, so little baby Adri is growing up in... In the Catholic baby boom. All right. Okay?

Yeah. My parents were married in the late 50s. My mother had seven children. Many siblings? So you have six... Five girls, two boys. Right. Okay?

I'm in the middle. Right. And I found a letter recently that my grandmother wrote to one of her children about my birth, my auspicious birth. And this is the two words that were in the letter. Another girl. Oh, wow. I just found that. I think that's a great title. Yeah, it's good. I just found that. I think that's a great title.

Yeah, it is. It's good. You do want to do it. But anyway, so, but I never felt that. From the time I was little, I saw the dramatic possibilities of everything. I thought it was a movie I was watching, having never watched a movie. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do.

I was in it. I was in it. was in it there was a train moving and i jumped on it and wow and i was fascinated by my father and mother i mean every picture of me as a kid because there was a sea of children but looking up at my mother i would look at my mother like i was looking at the blessed mother i mean like and i was bernadette and lords i just was looking at her like i was going to to ask you about the Catholicism because the imagery. I was always jealous of the Catholic kids when I was in school. Come on over.

No, I'm not that jealous. But I was jealous of the Catholic because we were Protestants. So we just like, we had like. Well, you do the stripped down version. Right. It's just, it's a white wall and, you know. They read from the Bible. And listen, I'm a Protestant lover, but it's like, there's no zhuzh.

In the Catholic Church, you go in, they put on a different robe in every season. We decorate the statues. It's Tuesday night, my aunt is crowning the Blessed Mother for May Queen. I mean, my aunt, I don't think she can get up on the stepstool, my aunt. I love her dearly, but she's like not in her best of. But, you know, she's going to crown her. We do these things say the rosary we do these rituals and this is the secret right don't peek under the curtain of that church don't peek under the curtain of any institutions when you do you'll be disappointed and you will be a part of nothing well see that's why you're at

heart probably a protestant because you know it's there. That was what the whole argument was in the Reformation. Yes, I have a problem probably with all of it on some level. I have a friend, let me tell you, my friend Phil. My friend Phil from Philly, who's an Italian Catholic. And I said, hey, Phil. He said, yeah, because I was interested in the Catholic thing. I said, hey, Phil, do you believe in transubstantiation? He said, what's that?

He said, it's when the biscuit turns into the body of Jesus during the Eucharist. And he's like, I never heard of that. It's the whole basis of the Catholic faith. He's like, no, I don't know what you're talking about. People don't know about that. And they always conflate and confuse the Blessed Mother and the Assumption and the Ascension. Are you still religious? Oh, I pray like, you know.

Do you go to Mass? Do you take the Eucharist? Yes, yes. Do you take communion? I just went Sunday and got enraged. Do you confess and all that? Well, my guide died. The priest that, you know, we were talking about Alan Alda earlier,

he looked just like Alan Alda. And in the 70s, I would just, they stopped the box confession. And you have to understand, I grew up in Appalachia, where the Catholic church was less than 1% of the population. So it was like the island of misfit toys. There was the former this and the this, and the families were from the coal region. So, you had, you know, Czechs and Polish people who still had their accents, and we were the Italians, but the Italians that were in Appalachia prior to us changed their names. So, we'd have to dig around to find them. But you'll find enclaves. Wherever there's mining, you're going to find immigrant people here. You're always going to find that. But yeah, so the Catholicism I grew up with was very open and very welcoming.

And the priests we got and the nuns that we got, in fact, when I was like 10 years old, the nuns quit. They just said, we're not wearing these habits anymore. We're scaring the kids. And they became their own force. Formed their own order? It wasn't really an order. It had nothing to do with the Catholic Church. It was just about doing good works. And there was a woman down there.

She's still alive. I think she's in her 90s now. A woman named Catherine Rumschlag, Sister Catherine, that was the mother superior. And that don't, you know, she cut you. She was all business. She now lives in community with a group of the ex-nuns and some of the families. There was a nun, a beautiful nun who left the order. I mean, she was gorgeous and got married. And not that it has anything to do with anything. I'm just having you picture her, but just this beautiful woman.

And she had children and now she lives in that community. She's retired. And she lives with the ex-nuns. All right. So you come from a very warm, Catholic, immigrant, safe, emotionally environment. And yet you live. Now, you're a New Yorker, and you've got a long journey from Appalachia to your sophisticated life that you have now. Sophisticated? Yeah, you're pretty sophisticated. Oh, come on. You write books. Well, I write books, but to me, writing books is what my grandmother did called piecework in a factory.

Yeah, but you didn't start writing books, right? You were a writer in television, right? That's right, right. I was but you didn't start writing books. Right? You were a writer in television, right? That's right, right. I was a TV writer, a comedy writer. Right, so how did you get from Appalachia

to writing comedy? Oh, okay. So, you know, there were key moments where I made decisions. And the big one was, I'll never forget this, I was in the principal's office

and, you know, for whatever, delivering something for my teacher, like the absentee list or whatever. And this man comes in named Mark Holyfield, and he's talking to the school secretary who was smoking. Everybody smoked then, like smoking away. Patsy Arnold, who I loved because you could give her the dish and then you'd get a little something back. You know what I mean? Loved her. Yeah. Anyway, so. That's why you're going so well with Meg and my wife.

Oh, I love Meg. Yeah, yeah. We got the job done in five minutes and now we're besties. Okay. So this man comes in and he says, look, I'm looking for, I need a reporter for my radio show. And I'm paying per thing. I'm listening to this. Now, I'm making money. I am the town babysitter.

I am the, I don't like to use this word, but I would say like, it was almost like a ring I was running because they'd call my house and I'd go, yeah. And I have four sisters and I'd book them. I didn't get a kickback, but I would take the best job. So you're running a babysitting syndicate. I'm running a syndicate. I'm very entrepreneurial. I'm sorry to tell you. So anyway, and you know, people loved when the Italians came because we also cleaned. We put the kids to bed and we cleaned the house. And these women like getting two for one, 50 cents an hour.

Okay. So I would like to say not that any of them needed their houses cleaned. No, they needed it. Anyway, you got a bunch of kids you need. So anyway, so I hear this guy and and he says, I need a reporter. Now, I'm 14 years old, and I'm thinking, here's the thing about me, and I think you know this. I think I could do anything. You can.

If I walk past a television set and somebody's ice skating, when we went to the ice show when I was little in Knoxville, Tennessee, I wanted to be that. I wanted to be that girl with the big headdress who skated over to the side and did this. Did you ever do it? I've never had on a pair of ice skates in my life, but my kid has. That was the time. No. Now? I'll break my back.

So anyway, so I was enamored of ice skating. And my mother ice skated her whole life, and my father ice skated, but we didn't because there were no ice rinks or anything like that, right? So when I found out that to qualify for the Olympics, you've got to do a three-minute routine for like three years, I'm like, I've got to make up funny stuff every day, you see. All right, so the guy's looking for a reporter. You're 14. You think maybe ice skating is not for you.

So do you approach this guy and say, I want to be a reporter? I said, Mr. Holyfield, I said, I'm a writer, and I would like to have that job. And he went, okay. He said, can you drive? No, but I'll get somebody to drive me. Okay. What kind of things do you write? I said, well, I'm on the school paper.

You were on the school paper. Now, what he didn't know is that I was in trouble at the school newspaper because I would write what they called the gossip column with blind items, okay? And I got called in. And, you know, I'm somebody, you know I have a good heart, right? Yes, you do. But I wrote a joke that's haunted me. I'm going to tell you the joke.

Only one? Because I've got like a bucket load of that stuff. Well, you know, at that time you had a homeroom teacher to make sure you were in school, and then you were formed out to your first period class. There was a teacher named Bobby Jean Cooper, and I saw her first thing every day. And she was an interesting-looking woman, kind of like an animated character, sort of like— Olive oil, are we talking?

No, the other extreme. Gotcha. Okay? Kind of like if you put the Liberty Bell on a skirt. I understand. You know what I'm talking about. Okay, so, and she wore really red lipstick, which I thought was kind of cool.

Well, I started keeping track of her outfits just from my column, you know, so that I could say. And so this was the joke and I got called in and I was so ashamed of this joke, but it worked on paper. Which homeroom teacher with the initials BJC has worn the same blue wool skirt six school days in a row, which means she went to Monday to Friday and then a thing. Now I would do that now. Sure. I would think nothing of it.

Of course. I got called in. It was bad. It's like the insensitivity of this comment, and they made me go apologize to her, which was so humiliating. You'd have got canceled on Twitter for it. And I said, you know, I'm so sorry. I said, I just, you know, I have to come up with this material,

and I thought it would work, and I didn't mean to, you know. How'd she take it? She said, did I use my initials? She said, I hope you've learned your lesson. We don't make a lot of money as teachers. We're here because we love teaching, not before what we're wearing. I was like, oh, God. Oh, my God.

Is that the worst story you've ever heard? Yeah, yeah, I feel awful now. Okay, so now everyone hates me within the sound of my voice. No, no, no, no. I just like, oh God. Oh my God. Is that the worst story you've ever heard? Yeah, I feel awful now. Okay, so now everyone hates me within the sound of my voice. No, no, no, no. I just feel awful. I just feel awful for everybody. Now here's the other part

of this though. This was the slow crawl to journalism wasn't for me till the big story. When I was, okay, I was getting five bucks a story. And I was pretty good.

Right. And they ran me at the top of every hour. It's a radio show. It's a radio show. It's a radio show. Okay. And I'd tape them the night before. The engineer would, like, in a break, would tape my stories.

And I went to the town meetings. I did a really good series about a coal mining strike. But I went to meet with the women. And I got a real sense of that. You know, it wasn't, listen listen the jokes I was writing wasn't because I was rich and I was sitting on a throne it was because you know I was trying to like be funny yeah I get it so and also you're a kid what are you 15 years old yeah I'm 14 15 yeah but that never mattered in my family you do the wrong thing you you put on the rack but anyway so I

decided doing this they kept calling me in my boss kept calling me in. My boss kept calling me in. His name was Mr. Stallard. He was Holyfield's boss. And I remember being in his office, and he was smoking so much you could hardly see the guy, right? He said, I'm going to tell you the future of this business. It's going to be a black woman, and it's going to be television. He predicted Oprah, like before Oprah. Right.

Okay? So I'm just throwing that out there. So anyway, so he knew what he was talking about. I respected him. But he said to me, he said, nobody cares about what you think. You just tell us what happened. We don't care about what you think. You are not the thing.

The story's the thing. Because I would. That's been completely forgotten in journalism. In life. If I did that now. Yeah. See, I have a hard time when I watch the news. I don't want your opinion.

I don't care what you think. There is no news. It's all opinion. Tell me what happened. Yeah. And interestingly enough, in my family, my great-uncle priest journalist ran the Lecco de Bergamo for 40 years,

and I've had his stuff translated, and it's so simple. And it works in drama, too, or comedy. It's the simple narrative. What happened? How did it happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen?

Oh, out. Johnny Carson, you still would say, tell them what you're going to do. Do it. Tell them what you're doing, and then tell them what you did. Bruce Getz, who trained me as a playwright, if they don't know within two minutes why they're in that chair, you've lost them. They got to know. That's exactly what Johnny Carson's saying. I, Craig Ferguson, will be on the road once again this fall, bringing the Fancy Rascal Tour to

your region. For tickets and full list of tour dates, go to my website, thecraigfergusonshow.com slash tour. Come and see me live or don't. I'm not your father. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is. I think he was like, oh yeah, things come and go. But with me, it never came and went.

Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee? Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast, Miss Spelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa.

I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez. Check out my podcast where I talk to some of the biggest athletes, musicians, actors in the world. We go beyond the headlines and the sound bites to have real conversations about real life, death, love, and everything in between. This life right here, just finding myself, just relaxation, just not feeling stressed,

just not feeling pressed. This is what I'm most proud of. I'm proud of Mary because I've been through hell and some horrible things. That feeling that I had of inadequacy is gone. You're going to die being you. So you got to constantly work on who you are to make sure that the stars align correctly. Life ain't easy and it's getting harder and harder. So if you have a story to tell, if you come through some trials, you need to share it because you're going to inspire someone.

You're going to you're going to give somebody the motivation to not give up, to not quit. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Guess what, Mango? What's that, Will? So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius. I know. That's why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion. It's about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it's called Earthquake House. Mango, I'm going to cut you off right there. Why don't we just tell people about our show instead? Yeah, that's a better idea. So every week on Part-Time Genius,

we feed our curiosity by answering the world's most important questions. Things like, when did America start dialing 911? Is William Shatner's best acting work in Esperanto? Also, what happened in Esperanto? Also, what happened to Esperanto? Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food, how do dollar stores stay in business, and of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese? There

absolutely is, and we are risking our lives by talking about it. But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history, and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius. Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. So, you're doing the reporter for the local radio, right? With the sense I want to just, I got to get out of here.

Right. Well, that's a small town mentality. Look, if you have an artist's brain, an artist's heart, an artist's soul, which you do, which I do, and you grew up in a small town, which I did, you're like, I got to get out of here. I had decided that I was going to change my name to Al Shapiro and live in New York. I was 10 years old, and I wanted to be, apparently, an Italian taxi driver and live in New York. I wanted to be Al Shapiro and live in New York, and I was going to wear leather wristbands for some reason.

That was another thing I was going to do. And you know what? I might still do it. But the point is, you want to get out of town, right? Oh, and then other things started happening that were really bad. What? The girls I ran with, two of them got pregnant. Ah, I see.

The sex starts coming along. Well, they had the eighth graders with the twelfth graders in the same school. That doesn't sound like a good idea. Uh-uh. All right. So, you... So, that was another motivator. So you leave because you don't want to get pregnant?

No, don't. Let's not act like I'm some talented... You are talented. ...star that left town. No, no, no, no, no. You did, though. I did a radio show down there, and the man said, you're the confirmation of the power of the C grade.

Because I wasn't distinctive. I was funny, but I wasn't distinctive. Well, funny is distinctive. I wouldn't have you dismiss funny as not being distinctive. It is distinctive. No, we know that now. It's a talent. It's a gift.

It's all that stuff. But back then, that didn't... You have to understand, in Appalachia, people are hilarious. And they're characters. Right. So, it's the birthplace to me of all art because it's, and around me were people that were funnier, smarter, better. I agree.

I had that too. But they didn't have this. They didn't have the Al Shapiro escape velocity desire. They didn't have Al Shapiro and they didn't have the, I got to get out of here. Right. So how did you get out? Okay.

I have two sisters ahead of me that are smart. And the one that's directly ahead of me is very smart. And my father and mother met at Notre Dame where my mother's brother, remember the immigrants from Minnesota? He was a basketball star at Notre Dame, complete free ride. I know that's hard to believe. I have a big athlete in my family, but he was incredible. Orlando Bonicelli. So he was in college and his sisters were graduating.

My mother's a twin. They call her Ida, Ida, and Irma. And they went to St. Catharines together, both librarian science, library science, went all the way through, you know, like now it's considered a master's by the way. And they needed jobs. They weren't going to go back to Chisholm, and their mother didn't want them to come home. She wanted them to fly, her kids. And my mother was the second twin, the shy one. They didn't even know she was in there. Right. Okay.

So Orlando goes to the head librarian at Notre Dame. Orlando is your basketball playing uncle, right? So he goes to the head librarian at Notre Dame. You know that touchdown Jesus they call it? Mm-hmm. My mother was on the committee that designed that. Wow. Okay?

Yeah, that's exciting. It's very exciting. So had you met her, now she's in heaven, but if you had met her, she would have loved you. I doubt I'm going to marry her, though, because I'm Scottish Protestant, and you're an Italian Catholic. It's a whole different afterlife. I'm going to a very cold swamp. The great Bernadette Kenney said, there's no labels on the other side.

Don't forget that. That's all bull. Anyway, so. Origin of Alexandria said, everyone is forgiven. Of course. What would be the. What's the point otherwise? You put us in the sewer and now you're not going to forgive us?

Yeah. What's the basis of that? Anyway. They excommunicated him for that. Exactly. Everybody's welcome. Gates down. All right.

So she got a job there, and that's where she met my father. And my father, we don't have time for him in this podcast, but he was an interesting cat. Very, very, very. I wrote a joke about him. I mean, he was a fascist with us. I mean, no, he never went back on something, even when he was wrong. Right.

I'm a tough parent, but I'm not that parent. Right. You didn't want to tell the guy the truth because you'd pay. Right. So I became a fantasist, I would say, based on that. I just was like, I'd make something up to get around something. But big things they ignored. They didn't notice at all when I planned a wedding when I was 14.

Adrienne, how are we getting you out of Appalachia? Well, my two smart sisters got into St. Mary's, which is the women's college in South Bend, Indiana, across the street from Notre Dame. But it's a powerhouse place, incredible place. And so my sisters got in, and they weren't going to take me. And I wrote that nun a letter, and I just said, you have to take me. And I wrote that nun a letter. And I just said, you have to take me. I have to get out of here. Like I had dreams, like when I look at catalogs of going to Columbia, but I did not have the grades and also not the interest in getting the grades.

And there were so many. What did you want to study? What did you want to study? Journalism. You wanted to study journalism. And did you get accepted for journalism in this place? No, you just are an undergrad. But the first thing I did when I walked in,

and keep in mind I've been a reporter for a couple years, right? Yeah. I'm really young. I go to the head of the theater department, Dr. Reg Bain, and I said I want to be a theater major, and I'm a playwright. Everybody in your story has the name of a character, Reg Bain. It's just like, my name is Dr. Reg Bain. He's married to a woman named Georgia, and he had really black hair that he'd have to

flip back all the time. So you go to Reg Bain, and what do you say to Reg Bain? And I said to Reg Bain, I'm a freshman, and I walk in there, freshman, with glasses this thick. I just held up the water bottle. I'm like, and I go in, and I go, Dr. Bain, I just want you to understand something. Right up front, I am going to be a theater major. And he looked up at me and he said, nobody ever comes in here when they're a freshman

and says they're a theater major. He said, it doesn't work like that. He said, you're going to change your mind. I said, no, no, no. You don't understand. I want to take every class you offer in the theater, every single one. And he said, but we have three concentrations, acting, directing, and writing. And I said, but I want to start now.

And he said, all right, I'll put you in intro to theater and put you in history of theater, put you in two. He said, if you don't do well, we're not having this conversation again. And I was like, okay. So you had to study. He made you study. He made me study.

You had to learn about the history of the theater. But I was so unsophisticated, Craig. I mean, it's like other kids had read books and I was an avid reader, but there's books you need to read sometimes. So then I became that person. I was a Hoover reader. I read everything, but I didn't then drill into my area. So I drilled into the area and I started my concentrations. And I would— Did you write plays? I wrote plays, like, right away. And I had written plays in high school that I was very proud of.

And I worked on crew for the town musical, which is your whole education. You put me back in Appalachia. I'm going to get you out of Appalachia. Yeah, you're going to meet Indiana. I got more storyteller. Why did you have me out of Appalachia? No, no, no. You're a great storyteller.

So then I go to South Bend, Indiana, which compared to Big Stone Gap is a big city. Loved it. Right. So, but my sisters were there in case I needed them. But they were studying in Rome. They would go study in Italy for a year. So I was kind of, and then my, the sister under me came there too. So there were four of us there.

What did you girls study? The oldest one, government. The second one was pre-law. I think she was in England. I don't even know what her age was. And the one under me was business. This is a fascinating story of these women from Appalachia who are all these heavy hitters. It's amazing when you think about it.

Yeah, yeah. You look at that picture of these women coming out of there. That's extraordinary. Yeah, and then there's the baby who went there too, but she wasn't there when we were there. We were gone by the time she got there. What does she do? She runs my sister's law office. And she has four kids.

Right. And a nice husband. So you have a nice husband. I met your husband. He's a dog. Oh, yeah. I mean, he'd not go anywhere. No.

That we know of. You know, tomorrow if you tape this, it could be sitting here crying. No, no. I think it's going to be okay. I think you guys will be okay. I think you and this, it could be sitting here crying. No, no. I think it's going to be okay. I think you guys will be okay. I think you and Tim are going to be all right. I don't know.

I'm not a betting man, but we'll see. Anyway, look, you're there. Let's graduate you. You're graduated. No, I'm graduated. I want you out of South Bend now. I come straight to New York. It's tonight.

You're straight to New York? Oh, oh, oh. I had no place to live. I knew no one except this. My senior year at St. Mary's, that Bredge Bain, I was called in because I demanded, because I'd taken every course study. I begged, demanded, put it out there. I want to write and direct on the main stage of your theater. Now, that was reserved for revivals and professionals that came in,

like Frank Canino from Canada had come, David Hare, we did his play. Okay. Okay, so major people had come through, but I said, give me the slot. Did you get it? I got it. For a play you'd written? For a play I'd written. Did you direct the play?

I pitched the play. I didn't tell, I wasn't finished, and I said, this was my senior year, the fall of my senior year. Right. So get in there. And just keep in mind, it's the 80s. Everybody picture the 80s. I remember them. So they were good.

Cars of them, anyway. So I had this idea for a play. Okay. But I want it to be an extravaganza and I want to be bigger than big. It surprised me. It's called Notes from the Nile and it's the rewritten story of Cleopatra. Except that Cleopatra was so beautiful, no one could look at her. Okay.

I brought Julius Caesar back from the dead, because he had an affair with her. I know. And then you know the whole story of Cleopatra. I know the story of Cleopatra, yeah. But then what I did is I infused it with what has happened since Cleopatra's reign. So I had Debbie the fish wife in tap. She did tap routines. I had Eddie the fisherman, who she's having an affair with, in the palace,

who was Eddie Fisher. Elizabeth Taylor had an affair. You see, I conflated everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the handmaidens were just like docile. I made them the handmaidens that eventually Margaret Atwood wrote about. They were dopes. And the handmen... So this is magical realism sort of

musical... There's a war in Egypt for Cleopatra. And she says, okay, you can have your war, but you're going to fight it with Hershey Kisses and Cotton Balls. So weapons were made and intermission.

It was all environmental and crazy. Did you put this play on? Mm-hmm. I wrote and directed it. That's great. And that's the play that you bring to New York? That's the play I'm hoping to bring to New York and, like, get to New York.

I get to New York, and now we're, like, in the mid-'80s, and you realized, if you were in theater and you came from St. Mary's, ain't happening for you, honey. I was doing staged readings with major actors. I mean, I could get any actor to read a play. How come?

Because actors, I love actors. Proper actors want to work. They want to act. That's true. They also are always looking in material for what's the pith? What are we doing here? And then as a writer, once I heard their voices, I could write for them, which is how I got into television.

But I could hear them. I could hear them. But I was doing the club circuit with my comedy troupe. I had a comedy troupe of girls. What were you called? The Outcasts. Oh, yeah? What did you do? Sometimes we were good. Oh, yeah? What did you do?

Sometimes we were good. Sometimes it was sketchy. Yeah. Everybody started. That's the same. I was the P.T. Barnum of it. I wrote and directed it, and I was in it. And the only reason I was in it,

because one night at the Horn of Plenty, you remember that club? I don't know the Horn of Plenty. It's on Bleecker and Charles. Right. And it was run by this man who just tried to get in our dressing room, which was his office between costume changes. Okay, he was perv.

You surprised me. There was a perv in New York in the 1980s? And I just, I would like hold the door, you know. I said, don't worry, girls, it's all fine. And then one night I had to send him out into the bar to fill the room. He started to get on to it. Like, I don't just need your act in here. I want to send him out into the bar to fill the room. He started to get onto it. Like, I don't just need your act in here. I want to make money.

So there was a two-drink minimum, which was the standard of the day. But I had to get them drunk men from that room into this room. So one night, this is how, I'm just telling you, this is why I never became a performer per se, except I am performing now. I got up to do our act and open the show, and a guy stood up, and he flung a Swedish meatball from the free snack bar at my head, and the thing went down the back. And something, I'm not this type of person, but it made me angry. No.

And I said, hey, mister, and the room went dead. You know what? I don't appreciate that. I said, we work in offices all day. We're exhausted. We're coming in here trying to entertain you, and you're throwing food at us. And he got up. He's drunk.

He's gripping the table, and he said, he's dead silent. He goes, you stink. And I thought, well, maybe he's right. No. Maybe he's right. All right, so the outcasts are outcasts. That leads me to TV, though. Now, how do you get to TV from there, then?

Two girlfriends. Okay. I'm going to name them. Ruth Pomerantz and Suzanne Gluck. See, I always say this to my kid, and I'm sure you say it to yours. You graduate with your class, so the comedians you came up with will become Lou Black or whoever you were hanging with. Sure, yeah. They become your, that's your team.

Yep. Now, to the public, it looks They become your, that's your team. Yep. Now, to the public, it looks like we're all competing. We're not competing. No. We're trying to all just come on, everybody, pull that wagon. Yeah. You know, pull that wagon. Keep dancing.

Just keep moving. Keep dancing. Get up there, you know. So, I had this posse, and they'd come and see the show, and they'd go, you need an agent. I said, what's an agent? That's how, when you, I was unsophisticated. Of course I knew there were agents. I read books.

I knew about agents. Right. But you didn't know how to get one. I understand that. Didn't know how to get one. Who's your agent? Who did you get? I have the same agent.

Is it still? Nancy Josephson. The legendary Nancy Josephson. She was at ICM. Yeah, her dad founded ICM. Yes, I'm glad you're telling that to the listeners because I just saw her in LA. She's amazing. She's a good one for you too.

But this is the thing about her. She knew she was dealing with something weird with me. Dad, I'll give her. So she said, I'm going to put this guy, this guy, move you around and do all that. But she was always my person. How do we get her, though, is the key thing. These two girls, Ruth Pomerantz and Suzanne Glock. Ruth was in the mailroom at William Morris, and Suzanne was like a junior assistant at ICM.

They grew up in New York together, which already makes them, to me, goddesses because they grew up in New York. Right. They're sophisticated. They're sophisticated. They know Randy Al Shapiro. They're educated. They know the lay of the land. They're like, we're going to get you meetings. Here's a list of meetings. You're going to meet all these people. I went to the first meeting at ICM set up by Suzanne. The next one was set up by Ruth, and so it went. Right. I meet this guy named Wiley Halsem, young agent, and he looked at my stuff and he said, okay, if we're going to craft a theater career, we're going to do this. He said, if we do television, we're going to do this. And I said, what do you mean TV? And he said, well,

you know, like write for sitcoms. I said, how do you do that? You have to write a spec script. What's a spec script? Can you give me one? I mean well i don't know if we have any laying around let me try to find you one he said but i have this tape and i can give you to listen to said okay so i didn't i couldn't tell him i didn't have a television set or a vcr right i didn't have one because that was that was the thing was tapes i remember it was all tapes yeah and by the way how many tapes of comedians would come over the transom for me to write it once i got into the racket but anyway but i loved watching those but anyway so i call a friend and i go i need to borrow your thing and watch this thing because because what happened in the meeting was the first meeting i have he said i'll be your agent i said well where do i sign and when i signed he said okay i'm. He said, we're going to craft this.

I said, no, I don't have any money. I need a job right now. Right. Then he said, then you got to write a spec script. And he said, you know, some people take a few months to do that. I said, by Monday morning, I had a spec script. Who'd you write it for? Roseanne.

Did you get the job? Not only did I get the job, I didn't go to Roseanne, the show. But I met Matt Williams, who I'm still friends with. Right. Who went on to create Home Improve and all that. He gave me a deal in the 90s, but he was like my guide. I couldn't see the picture, Craig,

of the thing. I had to listen to it, and I got every character right except Becky, because she'd go, Becky. And I thought she said Betty. So in my script, it says Betty. I wrote this crazy script. I knew that family.

A spec script for Rosanna. They never made the script, though, right? No. But Carsey Werner hired me, and I went on A Different World as a story editor. Nice. So now you're on A Different World. Now, not only am I on A Different World, I'm doing pilots all over town. Nancy would always say, don't tell people how many pilots you've written.

I've written at least seven. Because I banked it. Yeah. You know, we're in the middle of a've written. I've written like 70, because I banked it. Yeah. You know, we're in the middle of a strike now. I saw the lay of the land there. Hey, there's going to be some times when you need working. You better bank it. And that's what I did.

So you write these pilots, and you end up in a different world. Were you on that for a long time? One year. Then I came back to New York, because I wanted to be in New York, because my grandmother was alive and all that stuff. I wanted to be near Pennsylvania. So I came back here. I also am just more in tuned here. Yes. I love it out there. I loved when I was there, but I loved Los Angeles. There's a lot to recommend it, but you know, ultimately it wasn't going to be a place. It's not a good fit

for you. It wasn't a fit for me. And even now worse because you have to drive everywhere and it takes hours. So, and I just don't want to spend time in a car. I don't like cars. So then I get back here, and so in succession I got jobs. So I would get pilots, and then I would get, I got, Bill Persky hired me on a show called Working It Out with Jane Curtin. Okay. He's like my mentor mentor, like family mentor. He's like, love Bill Persky, still with us. He's 92.

family mentor. He's like, love Bill Persky, still with us, he's 92. Then there's Alan Zweibel hired me to replace Monica Johnson, the only female writer on Good Sports starring Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neill. I'm not familiar with that show, but I wish I had seen it.

It happened during the Gulf War and I don't know, it just disappeared, but it was a good concept and I loved those two and we could could talk off-camera about them. Then both of them, Farrah and Ryan. Then I did City Kids, which I was a showrunner for, which was shot in New York, which is very avant-garde. You could still watch it and go. It was with the Jim Henson Company.

Oh, okay. And they had a thing then called TGIF. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through

the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

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I used to live above Veneer's Bakery in the 80s. I love that bakery. It was a great bakery. And every night about 2 a.m., I used to hear this woman walking by and she would sing beautiful operatic arias and it was amazing I mean she was she could really sing love it and I was like I look out the window and

she was a young woman and she would walk by singing these arias and on her and I eventually I met her and she was a waitress and her shift finished at 1 a.m. And she said, you walk down the street singing operatic arias, nobody comes near you. That's so funny. We all had our own gigs. Yeah, so that was her pillow that she would sing. Everybody thought she was crazy. Did you run into any of that?

Because you're a young woman working. Were you aware of that? You're a very forceful personality. I don't know that that makes a difference or not. Were you aware of that? You're a very forceful personality. I don't know that that makes a difference or not. Were you aware of that kind of behavior? Okay, I'm a funny person. I'm always aware of my safety, wherever I am. When I moved here, I was very aware, you got to be careful. And I did things that, I got in trouble at my boarding house. I lived in a boarding house and I took a throw pillow and just pretended I was pregnant on the subway late at night coming home

from a gig. So I figured nobody's going to hit a pregnant woman or kill a pregnant woman. But I got in trouble for stealing the pillow. But I said, no, I brought it back. I'm bringing the pillow back. I gave birth to a pillow. But I was that kind of person. Right. And I'd say to the girls, take those glasses, you know, we'd use in sketches. I said, wear them on the subway. You'll be all right. Nobody's going to come at you if you're, you know. I get out of things joking, too. I get out of sticky situations by being funny. And just, you know, the only way to get a man who's intent to bed you off of it is to entertain him and get him off the subject.

It works. But, frankly, it was like working a third shift, and who needs that? But, you know, the girls in my group, we talk about this too. Many of them fell in love, got married, left the group, left show business and stuff. And there wasn't anything that was going to keep me from show business. I was just a different person. I just was like, how could he possibly be that interesting to you? How could he ever be this other thing?

So then you meet Tim? What happened? Because you meet Tim, and Tim is a great love. Yeah, he's my, he's, well, listen. I'm giving you the story here, like, as truthfully as I can. Because, you know, anybody that I was ever interested in, I kept them at a distance. I wasn't getting involved. Him, different. I don't, I wasn't getting involved. Him,

different. I don't know. I just liked him. I just thought, and I also saw this too. When you work in Hollywood, you see those beautiful executives and they don't have a man.

And if you had any interest in a man, which I did, you say, the window's closing and my friends would still laugh about me going, the window's closing, girls. You got to get on this. Let me tell you something. 10 years for a woman, it's 100 years of bad road. And if you don't, this is now or never. It's now or never. And they never, I mean, at the time, there were just women who said, but I said, no,

if you want that. So when they complained to me now, I said, I told you. I said, it's a window. You can have somebody now, but it's going to be a different thing. And I just, you know. So what happened with Tim then? How come he was different? Did you make a decision that, all right, this is the one for me, this is it? I was doing plays in Pennsylvania.

This is before television because I met him before A Different World. Right. And he wasn't ever going to live in New York. He didn't want anything to do with this. That's so funny. I think of that now. Good for you. And he's still every once in a while giving me a gig.

I say, you can dig all you want, but you're here. You might as well make it work. I think he's doing okay. He's doing okay. He's doing fine. But, no, he came here okay he's doing okay he's doing fine but no he came here and he hit the ground running i mean as a lighting designer he just he's really he was trained by emero fiorentino who did the kennedy nixon debates i mean he really learned on the job and now he's you know he does great and won an emmy i don't have an emmy you don't have an emmy

i have no i got a couple. You can have one of mine. Okay, good. All right. I need one for the other side of the mantle. I said to my husband, can you win another one? I need some synergy here. You know, I called my mom. I said, I want an Emmy.

She went, uh-uh, daytime Emmy. Oh, man. Oh, man. You can't win. Only your mother can put you in a jab. Daytime, Amy. Bless her. So tell me this.

You go to Italy now a lot, huh? A lot. Why is that? Well, I find, you know, I had an experience there. I think I told you about this where I was on the mountaintop in the Alps where my grandparents on the Bonicelli side are from. And it's a piece I've never known. So that's probably where I'm going to end up.

Going back to the old country? Yeah, but I loved working with you in Scotland. That was really fun. So I'd like to write and direct over there, and I'm working on stuff in order to do that. I think Scotland and Italy are very similar countries. Yeah, we really have to talk about that because I knew you liked Italians immediately, even though you were very stone cold to me on the phone the first time I talked to you.

I was just guarding myself. I was in Italy when you called me. I know you were. I'm in Italy. And I was like, mm-hmm. Mr. Ferguson. And then I just, and you said, okay, call me in 48 hours. Nobody ever said that to me in my life, not even a credit card company. So I was like, what is this? Okay, so I hung up the phone and I called Kathy Lee and I said, okay, call me in 48 hours. Nobody ever said that to me in my life, not even a credit card company.

So I was like, what is this? Okay, so I hung up the phone, and I called Kathy Lee, and I said, I don't know. I mean, I got to work this guy over a little more here. And she, if you look up determination in the dictionary, her little head's there like a postage stamp. Oh, my God. She's a force of nature. I know she's a force of nature.

I like her. But anyway, so when I called you, I thought, and it wasn't like there were edges of warmth there either, where I could kind of wheedle in. I said, okay, well, we'll talk about this. And all right, I'll give you 48 hours. And so then I think I called back and begged you to do it, didn't I? Yeah, you did.

And then you said, okay, tell me about this script. Yeah, you did. And so I told you about the script. And then you went, all right, you did. And then you said, okay, tell me about this script. Yeah, you did. And so I told you about the script. And then you went, all right, all right. You weren't happy about it, but I said, I don't care. He doesn't have to be happy. He just has to be good. And then I was stunned at how brilliant you were.

Yeah, we don't need to talk about that, though. What we need to talk about is this. Well, I'm only here because of that. We have to talk about how Scotland and Italy here because of that we have to talk about how scotland and italy i think yeah let's get them together okay so you know my last novel was about the internment of the scots and the destruction of scots during world war ii italian scots italian scots yeah yeah and the make it italians and right yeah you know that the glaswegian italians even now because there's like a huge Italian community in Glasgow

but they have Glasgow accents but they kind of talk Italian yeah so they go hey what's the coming you're coming over here and you come to my house

and maybe we watch the football and then it's this weird accent and it's fantastic and then you start scratching around

and you'll find an Anna Maria and you go uh huh I'm Italian and you'll find like a Piet and you go, uh-huh, I'm Italian. And then you'll find like a Pietro and you go, oh, a Daniello. Okay, where? It's huge in Glasgow.

I mean, in Glasgow in particular, there's huge Italian community. And people are like, why don't we know this? Why don't we know this? Because of this. Get out. That's how the immigrant feels every day. They don't talk about their experiences. Even when people blow up in a boat, they're not going to talk about it.

They're not going to talk about it. They're not going to talk about it. 70 years had to pass before it was even mentioned, or there was a shrine built at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow. Yeah, but in the Orkneys, do you know that one? I know all about it in the paper church. Yeah, the Orkneys, the Italian prisoners of war, they built a church. It's still there. Your wonderful film in Scotland, you have a great film commission, and they came to New York to ask me to direct a movie about that.

Why didn't you do it? Well, because there's things, I had deadlines and stuff, but we can still do it. Yeah, you do it. I'll do a kind of, the Italians came over, and I'll do Bill Patterson's voice. Unless you get Bill Patterson, then it'll be fine. Oh, for goodness sake, Fleabag,

what are you up to now? That's so funny. That would be great. No, I read the book and I was enchanted by it and then, yeah, all the islands. What happened was Churchill made a really big mistake, but I had a ball touring 60 cities with this novel to say this to everybody that I

come in contact with, which is basically, they till the soil with propaganda, 13 years of it in the British newspapers, anti-Italian sentiment. Now, people look at a room with a view and Ian Forster and all that stuff and they go, oh, the Brits or the Scots love the Italians. They do, and they were intermarried. But when Mussolini declared war, get out, that was the only thing. Churchill panicked because he didn't even know, because there wasn't sonar yet, how much activity was going on under the sea there. This guy, Gunther Pryan, had U-boats everywhere. It was like snakes. I describe it as such in

the novel. It's like snakes at the bed of the ocean. They were going to take England. They were close. This wasn't even a joke. So he didn't know. Churchill didn't know what to do. Now, I want you to keep in mind, what was the propaganda? It's the same tropes you hear because the immigrant faces the same fight always.

You can't come in. Now that you're here, here's the jobs. All service jobs because most of your battalions are your your glass weegee and italians were doing service jobs waitering maitre d they're good looking they have an accent that worked at clarages and the big hotels and and the women did the cleaning they they did the laundry and the pressing and the tailoring and the sartorial stuff okay great so you had that that but at the same time though because just my family are scottish my people were doing those jobs too

you know working class people were doing those jobs too and on but this was what the working class people were against they felt the italian immigrants were bringing their people over and taking their jobs and they want to keep and they want to keep in shipbuilding all of this the great stuff that goes on in glasgow but what i found out was that you know without that propaganda churchill wouldn't made that decision i had to pay thousands of dollars and i get it to this day for this article written by a man named gunther not the famous gun Gunther historian, another guy, or Boswell, not the theater guy, John Boswell, in the mirror, I believe. And it was so reprehensible,

I said, I can't recreate that, I'm going to pay to put that in there. But then, it was one of thousands and thousands of articles against Italians in Britain. During the 1930s, 40s? You know, I said, I talked about them making the fish and chips and the gelato and stuff.

And there were times they got very rich making the gelato. They put the factories up outside of Glasgow. But most of them were peddlers and working class people. They were not elevated in that way. However, and I would say this to people, people go, fish and chips, that's British, that's Scottish, that's... No, it's Italian. Calamari.

Yeah, it's Italian. Itamari. Yeah, it's Italian. It's calamari. The Italians... You know, it was funny when I grew up, because I was working class and Scottish and grew up in Glasgow. Doesn't make you hungry for it right now. It does. We can't even say fish and chips.

But here's the other thing. By the time I was... And this is the weird thing about being a Glaswegian growing up in Scotland. By the time I was four years old, I knew exactly what a cappuccino was and I wanted one. Because Italians ran the cafes. The Nardini family. years old, I knew exactly what a cappuccino was and I wanted one. Because Italians ran the cafes. The Nardini family, the Marchetti.

Did you get your thing done? You've got to be partially Italian. Everybody in my family thinks there is some kind of Italian. It has to be. I'm very comfortable when I go to Italy. When I go to Italy, I think Italy is like Scotland with much better weather and much better food and slightly friendlier Italy. Yeah. When I go to Italy, I think Italy is like Scotland with much better weather

and much better food and slightly friendlier people, sometimes. They sound friendlier because my Italian's so bad. I know, and you're trying and they're trying.

Everybody's trying. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's affinity. When I get there, I get good, but I'm not like, this morning I'm terrible.

I'll go, che bella. You know, that's it. Parlo italiano ma lentamente pur gli italiani. Poco, very little. But the thing is, I think there is an affinity between these folks, between Scotland and Italy.

I really do. There's a, and I think some of it like is particularly for part of my family that's from the mountains. I'm also Venetian and farmers from outside of Venice. And then people that live in mountains or people that live in rough terrain or rough weather, they're built a certain way. Yeah, like goats.

They're strong. Yeah. And they don't expect everything to go their way because they're not in control. Do you agree with that? Yeah. Because it's just... I'm amazed when stuff goes my way. I'm amazed when stuff goes my way.

I'm amazed when stuff goes my way. See, George always goes, wow, that was really good. Unbelievable. I cannot believe that worked. In the same way, I think there's just no way this is going to work out. And then when it does, it's like, oh, okay, well, that was luck. I never think it's like coming my way. Do you know what's great is that we've been talking for either the best part of an hour,

and now we've got to stop talking because there is a moment. We do have to stop talking. You and I have to stop recording talking. I hope it was good. It's awesome. It's joyful. It's fantastic. I'm delighted to be your friend.

I'm so happy you're in my life, Craig Ferguson. You are a joy. But we also get, I get Megan. You get Megan. I get Milo. I get Liam. Yep. All your crazy ancillaries that I love so much, your friends.

You get Linda. You get everybody. Oh, I got them all. You get everybody. I have them all, you know. Yeah, but I get Tim and I get Lucci. That's right. And I get your sisters at the casino gigs.

And I meet everybody. It's all good. It's all good. And what we should do is that... Another movie. No, we should go to Italy. We should just... All right, when do you want to go?

Let's talk and we'll go. Okay, we'll go to Italy. Because the Alps are my thing. And then Venice, I'm pretty good at that. You know my favorite town in Italy right now? Treviso. Yes! How did you know that?

Did I tell you that? Because I'm psychic. No, my people are from... that's where all our paperwork is. Oh, really? Because the farm is right outside of there. Oh, that's crazy. I think Treviso is a hidden gem and we shouldn't have told everybody about it. All right.

Because it's fantastic. We've got to go. Okay, all right. meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious tori spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild.

Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez. And on my podcast, I like to talk to everyone from Hall of Fame athletes to iconic musicians about getting real on some of the complications and challenges of real life. I had the best dad, and I had the best memories and the greatest experience. And that's all I want for my kids as long as they can have that. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Guess what, Will? What's that, Mango? I've been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we've done over 250 episodes, we don't really talk about murders or cults. I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy. We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money. And then, of course, can you game a dog show? So what you're saying is everyone should be listening. Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.