THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.143 - RACHEL BLOOM

Episode Date: December 6, 2020

Adam talks with American actor, writer, singer, songwriter and producer, Rachel Bloom about growing up a theatre nerd in California, why the fourth series of The Crown triggered me, whether Americans are better at doing British accents than British people are at doing American accents and how Rachel navigated 2020 with her particular challenges including the birth of her first child and the death of her friend and musical collaborator Adam Schlesinger.Recorded remotely on 20th November, 2020Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and to Matt Lamont for additional editing. Podcast artwork by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/RACHEL LINKSI WANT TO BE WHERE THE NORMAL PEOPLE ARE by RACHEL BLOOM (2020, AUDIOBOOK ON AUDIBLE)(AUDIBLE BLURB) In a collection of laugh-out-loud funny essays, all told in the unique voice (sometimes singing voice) that made her a star, Rachel writes about everything from her love of Disney, OCD and depression, weirdness and female friendships to the story of how she didn't poop in the toilet until she was four years old. It's a hilarious, smart and infinitely relatable collection (except for the pooping thing).THE MUSICAL CHAPTER FROM RACHEL'S BOOK (ON RACHEL'S WEBSITE)RACHEL BLOOM YOUTUBE CHANNELRACHEL BLOOM - FUCK ME RAY BRADBURY (2010, YOUTUBE)HEAVY BOOBS (feat. RACHEL BLOOM) (2016, YOUTUBE)RACHEL BLOOM - PICTURES OF YOUR DICK (2012, YOUTUBE)RACHEL BLOOM - YOU CAN TOUCH MY BOOBIES (2012, YOUTUBE)RACHEL BLOOM - THE DARKNESS/YOU STUPID BITCH (LIVE) (2019, YOUTUBE)RACHEL BLOOM ON SOUL SISTERS PODCAST (2016, YOUTUBE)ADAM LINKSADAM ON MESOTHELIOMA PODCAST (2020, YOUTUBE)MESOTHELIOMA UK CHARITY WEBSITEADAM BUXTON'S RAMBLE BOOK (HARDBACK) (WATERSTONES)ADAM BUXTON'S RAMBLE BOOK (AUDIOBOOK) (2020, AUDIBLE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here, reporting to you from a field in the east of England,

in the first week of December 2020. And it's a beautiful evening. Myself and Rosie are out for a walk. It's cold. Over in the trees just next to me you can probably hear the rooks. They are not social distancing and they're just hanging out in a very irresponsible way. What is the collective noun for rooks? I know that it's a murder of crows. A yob of rooks. What do you think, Rose?

A wanker of rooks, maybe. Rosie's looking at me. Google it. Google it. Google it. Google it Google it Google it Google it Alright, calm down Collective nouns for rooks include Building Parliament

Clamor And storytelling What? Is that just made up? Apparently not A storytelling of rooks. What the F? A parliament of rooks. Yes, I think I've heard that before. Because it is like parliament. Anyway, look, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 143, which features a rambling conversation with American actor, writer, singer, songwriter

and producer Rachel Bloom. Blow em' facts. Rachel, currently aged 33, is the co-creator, co-writer, co-executive producer and star of the American sitcom Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which ran on the CW network in the United States for four seasons. That's what they call them, their seasons, from 2015 to 2019. And the show can now be seen on Netflix, if you're not already familiar with it.

In Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rachel plays Rebecca Bunch, a successful young lawyer who impulsively gives up her life in New York and moves to suburban California in the hopes of winning back a boy she fell in love with as a teenager at summer camp. The story of Rebecca starting a new life in California and gradually coming to terms with the mental health challenges and personality quirks that informed her relocation, is told with the help of occasional musical numbers in a wide

variety of styles, all filmed with top-notch music video production values and choreography. It was these kinds of highly accomplished, clever and funny music videos, often playing with ideas of femininity, female sexuality and gender roles, that first brought Rachel to the attention of TV producers when she started posting them on YouTube at the beginning of the 2010s. There's a few links in the description of the podcast to some of those, including... There's going to be some bad language here, so watch out. Ready? Fuck me, Ray Bradbury. You can touch my boobies and pictures of your dick.

Rachel has written a book called I Want To Be Where The Normal People Are. It's a collection of personal essays, poems, and even amusement park maps, in the physical version at least, on the subjects of insecurity, fame, anxiety, and much more. There's even a whole chapter about Rachel's relationship with musicals, brilliantly performed by Rachel in the form of a 15-minute musical, with music by friend and collaborator Jerome Kurtenbach.

You can listen to it on Rachel's website. I spoke with Rachel via the Zoom a few weeks ago, in the middle of November of this year, 2020, and we talked, amongst other things, about what it was like growing up a theatre nerd in California, why the current series of The Crown triggered me, whether Americans are better at doing British accents than British people are at doing American accents,

that is a particularly humiliating section of the conversation for Buckles. And actually, speaking of which, there's a couple of slightly humiliating bits in this. There's a bit where I got confused about whether Northern Ireland was part of the UK. It's one of those things that is just not wired right in my head. I have quite a few of them. I still struggle with left and right. The thing that short circuits with me and Northern Ireland and the UK is that Britain is just England, Scotland and Wales, currently. But then the UK is with Northern Ireland,

and they get swapped around in my head. So, I'm sorry. Anyway, what else did we talk about? Oh, yeah, well, we talked about some of the challenges this year has thrown up, which for Rachel included the birth of her first child and the death of a friend and musical collaborator adam schlesinger of fountains of wayne who collaborated with rachel on songs throughout the production of crazy ex-girlfriend anyway we talked about that back at the end for another small waffle slice but right now here we go

here we go I love your studio, by the way. Oh, thanks very much. This is my voice booth in the barn next to the house where I live in the Norfolk countryside. I'm in East Anglia. How familiar are you with the UK, Rachel? Not super familiar, unfortunately. You've toured here, though, haven't you? I have.

I was watching from watching i say watching because i've just been watching the crown but i only went to london so i know london kind of well yeah but the rest of it i wish i knew better right okay i mean london uh i was going to say something offensively london-centric there and then i thought better of it london's the only thing worth noting in the uk yeah i was going to say that i mean i don't believe I just thought it would be a funny thing to say. But then I thought, no, it's not that funny. I know Londoners believe that. Where did you grow up, Rachel? I grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, which is like a nice beach town. Was it always nice Manhattan Beach? Yeah, it was middle class, upper middle class. And I kind of lived there in the midpoint of its development where you still had that vibe.

But there were more and more rich people moving there because it's the beach. And now it is truly for like multimillionaires and billionaires. Oh, really? It's not like a sort of groovy artsy part. Well, the weird thing is because it's a lot of, I think now Manhattan Beach kids whose parents are in the industry. I think they, it's like growing up in Santa Monica or the Pacific Palisades, if you know like those areas that there's an artsy-ness or an artsy-ness adjacent, but no working artists are moving there because it's affordable. Okay. And was it fun? Did you enjoy it there? I mean, affordable okay and was it fun did you enjoy it there i mean you write in your book about the frustrations you had at the hands of kind of slightly air-headed surfery types who weren't

especially keen on engaging with anything complicated that's how i felt yeah i felt like that was the vibe especially if you were popular that was like what everyone kind of aspired to is the like cool beach vibe. It's the type of thing where you spend a thousand dollars on like a poncho. It's that like kind of unselfaware laid backness that I couldn't identify with. Who did you hang out with then? Were you going to beach parties or what was your scene? No, I didn't go to the beach a ton, even though I grew up a mile away from it. And my mom was like, you're not a strong swimmer.

You'll drown in the ocean, which I never did, to my credit. Right. OK, well done. I didn't drown in the ocean. I hung out with fellow, I think, oddballs. In high school, it got a little better, but definitely elementary and middle school. I wasn't hanging out with the type of people who were going to the beach at all. I was hanging out with very inland-y people. Whenever I think of beaches and Americans,

I just think of Point Break. And I think of Patrick Swayze sitting around with all those surf dudes and Keanu thinking about robbing banks. So like, that's not inaccurate, especially the bank robbing part. It's not inaccurate. I would also say that's like aspirational. That's what everyone's kind of going for. I feel like there is an element of living in a beach town where you know the type of lifestyle you should be having living in a beach town. So you're kind of acting like that, but also it is, it's the environment. It's how can you be stressed out or too introspective or have an existential crisis when like, it's beautiful and you see the ocean and there is something very mentally healthy about that. But I would have fit in more if I'd grown

up on the East coast of the U S where it's darker, it's wintery, or there's a reason that a lot of our great writers come from the east coast it's there's also like a value of intellect over there like intellect just for intellect's sake that i felt was lacking more where i grew up there were still very smart people and i'm making gross generalizations i think you're making sexy generalizations yeah they're not gross at all um you mentioned that you were watching the crown have you been watching the crown today i know because we already finished it uh two days ago you finished it this is the latest series we're talking about is it season four yes okay how did you get on it was

great it was depressing it made me realize that the idea of an inherited leader is so stupid. And it's been the cause of so many terrible things throughout human history. The idea that you, God has designated this person to lead a people who has no expertise, who might be crazy. It's not even like an election within a family because in every family there's like the good person and there's the bad person yeah even if there was like an election within a family i could be more okay with that but the fact that it's like one person and you're reliant like let's hope that person's not batshit insane that's nuts who do you think the maddest one is out of all the characters in The Crown? Oh, God. I mean, I should say at this point that there's quite a lot of articles at the moment in

the UK about the extent to which that series is or is not in any way historically accurate. So I was looking that up myself because I was wondering, because I don't know a ton about the UK royalty. I mean, I remember where I was when Princess Diana died. And that's why I remember that she was so famous, the fact that it affected my life. But I don't know a ton. So what's like one of the main things they think is inaccurate? Well, I mean, they play around with the chronology quite a lot. They talk about the fact that Thatcher actually was quite a monarchist. She and the Queen got on quite well.

Thatcher liked the Queen and was eager to please her, which kind of makes sense given the kind of person that Thatcher was and what she believed in. So that idea that the Queen was just always... I'm only two episodes in. So I've just seen the one where they go to Balmoral. That's a great episode. That was good. It was funny the scene where they go to Balmoral. Oh, that's a great episode. That was good. It was funny, the scene where they're playing parlor games with the burnt cork, Ibble Dibble.

It made me cringe because I went to a few of those kinds of houses. I didn't go to Balmoral, but I did go to one or two weekends at houses a bit like that with a lot of posh people playing very similar parlor games even maybe ibble dibble i think and i did suddenly find myself sympathizing with margaret thatcher and thinking yeah i remember that exact feeling of just thinking fuck this this is not a good game they're acting like it's the best and if you can't play ibble dibble then you're a fucking idiot and i just thought i don't want to play ibble dibble this is bad so it was it's full of good little observations about the rituals of humiliation that can take place unconsciously a lot of the time in those environments but i don't know i suspect that that kind of thing did

not happen and that margaret thatcher was not routinely humiliated by the royal family in that way. But I don't know. I know very little about the royal family. So wait, let's go back to Ibbledibble for just a second, because I was surprised. I was like, oh, they all have like silly burn marks on their faces. Yeah, they're a little more laid back than i thought i guess but i guess parlor games they're silly nonsense it reminded me of an improv game because correct me if i'm wrong it has something to do with i've never heard of this game you go one ibble dibble dibble you have to call out number seven and they have to do the number of circles on their face that you call

something like it's a super complicated system of you're assigned a number, you have to call to someone else, you have to remember their number and you have to incorporate with the silly, a-bull-dibble phrase, the number of blemishes they have on their face and the number of marks you have on your... I mean, it's one of those things

that presumably could be great if you really like everyone that you're playing with. But if you feel uncomfortable anyway and you're a bit of an outsider, and everyone is much better at it than you, thinks it's hilarious, knows exactly how it works, thinks you're a bit of a dick because you're not properly joining in, then it becomes a total nightmare. You know what I mean? I mean, you are describing a college improv group yeah it's the same rules there's this improv game called big booty where you go big booty big

booty big booty oh yeah big booty number three number three big booty that's literally a dibble dibble it's insular if you don't get the rules you're laughed at so i think what you're saying is a college improv group is very similar to being the queen of England. I suspect that's probably true. I mean, I would find an improv group absolutely mortifying. I was never able to feel comfortable in those environments. And you write very well in your book about being in your first big writer's room after you started getting some success and the experience of feeling out of place. I mean, it didn't help that you were the only woman in this writer's room. And I could very much relate to that feeling of just squirming. I can't relate to that feeling

of being a woman in an all-male environment. I was a man with other men trying to think of funny ideas. it didn't happen very often because i learned very quickly that that was not an environment where i was going to thrive but sitting around and trying to think of the funny as soon as i apologize if this is an expression that you favor but i've never used that okay but when people started sitting around and talking about the funny now where's the where's the funny here okay guys come on let's uh let's try and locate the funny and i just thought i don't want to fucking locate the funny i want to club it to death with with something well that's a lot of pressure to call it the funny yeah i'm grateful that i haven't really used that phrase because

to say find the funny oh god uh that's just like be funny right now yeah i have a question when you were going back and doing that impression of the person saying find the funny were you doing a different dialect i'm so interested in um dialects especially uk because i i took an accents and dialects class were you going into like a different dialect or was that just you doing a different voice i couldn couldn't tell. No, that was me just doing, in my mind, that's my shed man voice. It's like a bloke, and when he goes to his shed, he suddenly turns into a bit of a boring bastard. Oh, I see.

Yeah, and he starts sort of pontificating in a very learned and assured way about all manner of things. So it's your equivalent of like, yeah, hi, my name's devon and i have a question um for this q a like it's like that sort of thing like your equivalent okay got it i love uk dialects yeah i was gonna ask you because you do a few accents in the book and i really like it when americans do english accents I also wasn't trying. I mean, look, I could have tried harder on those.

I'm not setting you up to humiliate you at all. I genuinely like it. Will you just speak to me in an English accent for a while and you can request the accent that I speak to you in? Oh, sure. OK. Well. Maybe it's a bit better if I do, like, a Cockney accent. Well. Maybe it's better if I do like a Cockney accent because I was in Oliver

where I played the part of Nancy. Yeah. And so I took a little dialects class when I did that role. Yeah. I don't know if this comes up much in the book. Can you do Australian? Oh, mate, yes. I can definitely, I can do the absolute shit out of Australian.

No problem, mate. I don't know what region. No, I'm joking. Yeah, any Australian. That sounded really good, mate. I learned a thing. If you want to hook into the Australian dialect, Vela Lavelle, who was on Crazy Ex, taught me this.

You say, rise up lights uh-huh and if you say that fast it's razor blades ah okay rise up lights rise up lights rise up lights rise up lights yeah that's yeah it's pretty great um we had a game we had our own ibble dibble on crazy x where we'd all try to do the, an Irish dialect. I don't know who started this, but someone learned that you could really hook into the Irish dialect with the phrase, you best not be courting my sister. I put a lot of it on Instagram, actually. And most of it was just humiliating. Absolutely humiliating. But some of the more like classically trained theater people, you best not be courting my sister.

That's quite good. Oh, thank you. That sounds good. No offense, but it sounds a little bit better than your Cockney. No offense taken. Haven't worked on the Cockney in, I haven't worked on the Cockney in a while. And when I was recording the audio book, I was like, oh oh i should have prepped my english accent for some of this because this is bad no it's but i was like well too late it's good and you throw yourself into it which is the main thing look if i did a role i would obviously get better i'm trying to think of who the best

british accent from an american actor is that I can think of. I mean, for a long time, Gwyneth Paltrow cornered the market, but hers was always quite nasally and queen-like, actually, speaking of the queen. You know, it was just, it was a little bit kind of, it was just a bit sort of royal and, yeah, it was just sort of nasally and full of huffing and puffing. And I don't know, it was it was good. It was very good, but it was something a bit creepy about it. I'm not sure. I like it when accents are not even trying to be very accurate and they're just fucking stupid.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's like, I mean, this isn't a UK accent, but when Kevin Spacey was on House of Cards and he was just basically foghorn leghorn half the time. Yeah. With his southern accent, it was it was delightful. And then in dramatic speeches, he would just drop it. You just drop the accent. I've seen a few shows on the West End where there's like a straight American dialect. It's fine.

But anything regional, it starts to get embarrassing. Yeah. It's a shame because it really pulls the rug from under the audience, I think, when they hear a dodgy accent. There's not much you can do to really... Maybe it's just me. I'm a bit unimaginative in that way. No, you can't really get over it.

But I can't really think... I'm just so impressed by English actors. I mean, also think about Matthew Rhys, who just only seems to play mostly American roles. And he has this like beautiful Welsh dialect in real life. Like he's so talented. He's in The Americans, isn't he? The Americans.

He was in that movie, the Tom Hanks, Mr. Rogers movie. Oh, that's right. And he's just so convincingly American. I mean, was in a movie, the Tom Hanks, Mr. Rogers movie. Oh, that's right. And he's just so convincingly American. I mean, was in a show called The Americans. And in real life, and the Welsh accent, I can't even do an impression of the Welsh accent. Oh, the Welsh accent, it's very easy. You just talk like that and then you're Welsh. Oh, the Welsh accent, it's very. Nope. Nope. Not at all.

Wait, what the heck? Can I hear you're American? Okay. Now I'm on the spot. Well, okay. So if I was going on tape and I was genuinely trying to be American. I can give you a sentence or a paragraph or something. Okay.

Well, look, I'll read from Animal Farm by George Orwell. Oh. The pigs were in ecstasies. That's bad already. The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's. already. The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's. Oh, this is bad. No, it's not. It's so weird how being nervous.

I thought that was fine. All right, hang on. Let me try again. Chapter 1. Mr. Jones of Manor Farm had locked the hen houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the potholes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, I thought that was good. The thing that always happens with a lot of shit British accents is you overemphasize the R's.

Like it all starts getting kind of, you know, R-y and it's bad. Look, it's not wrong. I thought that was pretty good. Wait, let me try to read. Maybe I'll be better at a British accent if I read. Okay, I'll try to do a neutral British accent because your American was very good, I thought. That's nice of you, Rachel.

Okay. This is called Finding Los Angeles by Foot. The legacies of architect Richard Neutra and Silver Lake are intertwined. The lake and the downsloping lots provided a perfect canvas for the mass. No, that was good. I think in the same way that I'm tripping up on the R's, you're tripping up on the O's. And I think Gwyneth Paltrow used to do the same thing of giving it too much. Oh, oh home so

there's home and then there's home it's too it goes too posh i think you overemphasize the o if you're a posh character lots lots and lots lots lots because that's different you overemphasize the differences because we say lots lots lots and lots there you. That's pretty good. Thanks. Yeah. Now let's practice the short O. And again, I'll give you words and sentences. I'll say them standard American first, followed up with the British dialect. Now some sentences. The loft smelled like strong coffee. The loft smelled like strong coffee. The loft smelled like strong coffee.

Ron opted to ignore Dot. Ron opted to ignore Dot. Lost coffee is not to be fought over. Lost coffee is not to be fought over. The dog was lost in the fog. The dog was lost in the fog. Rachel, I've really enjoyed reading your book over the last few days. Thank you.

I'm coming to you as a relative newcomer. I want to be transparent about the fact that I've not watched the whole of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That's okay. Most people in the world have not. I've only watched a few episodes, but I had seen a few of your YouTube videos before. I was in awe of those as someone who at a certain point was posting a few silly videos on YouTube myself and always wanted to do kind of musical parodies and musical bits and pieces. I've done a few songs, but they're different in that you've always embraced that musical theatre vibe. Yeah.

Even when you're doing kind of Britney parodies or whatever, there's a theatricality about it that is very accomplished. And obviously you've got an extremely good voice, so I never had that. I was doing much more sort of deliberately rubbish things but how did you get started with the YouTube stuff tell me how that all blew up I started out doing sketch comedy and then at a certain point I wanted to combine what I'd learned from sketch comedy and what I'd learned about musical theater and it was just as YouTube had really blown up. And I originally started doing it just because I wanted it to be kind of a comedy calling card, more to impress my fellow

comedians and get more clout in like the New York comedy community to be able to be like, I have something online and I do live stuff, you know? So I didn't anticipate my first video going viral the way it did. And then I kept doing them because it's what I like to do. And it's what I felt I was good at. And a thing that I felt I was doing that was different than what other people were doing. Which was the first video that you posted? It was the Fuck Me Ray Bradbury one.

Yeah. So that was 10 years ago, a whole decade ago. Yeah. It's amazingly well produced. And how did the uh song come about fuck me ray bradbury is about the writer the sci-fi legend who you were a fan of and what was it about ray bradbury that excited you to such a degree well it was very personal i just gone through a breakup with a guy who was quite stoic and kind of clinical, very smart, but saw the entire world

as like a math problem, not great emotional EQ. And I was at home for like a summer break and I was rereading the Martian Chronicles, which still is my favorite book. And I was like, oh, I love the way that Ray Bradbury takes these smart premises that are about the future, there's sci-fi, but he uses those premises to explore emotion and humanity. Even when it's about an alien, there's humanity in the aliens. And I thought, oh God, this is the guy I need. I need Ray Bradbury. And then I was like, oh, that's kind of funny. What if there was like a sexy song about Ray Bradbury? And then I just kind of wrote a little bit and then I put it in the back of my head being like, oh, it's just a stupid, silly idea.

And then I was like, oh, but if it was like a blown out music video and like really done, that might be really cool. And the visual reference is Baby One More Time by Britney Spears. It is. And I have to say that was the idea of my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, and Jack Dolgen, the producer of the song, who's my writing partner, who's still my writing partner. I think originally it was going to be more like indie, down the street looking nerdy. And they were like, what if it was just something a little more that had a music

video reference to it? And they were a thousand percent right yeah but it also you write in the book about how actually it came out quite sexy you look good in it and it is you're like choreographed very well and it's almost too good as you can see from some of the comments beneath from i'm presuming i'm generalizing that it's young men admiring you and the way you look but you talk about the fact that in the book you were mindful of that and took certain precautions yes with that video and then ever since that video because i do a lot of pastiches of music videos, of pop videos, and pop videos, especially when they're with women, are very gratuitously sexy, and I'm making a comment on that, I want to make sure that in every video there's a, what I call a boner killer moment. That if you were trying to unironically jerk off to this video, you'd lose your boner, because that's not why I'm being sexy. I'm not being sexy for you to unironically get horny from the video.

I'm being sexy to like make a point. What was the boner killer moment in fuck me, Ray Bradbury? You know, I feel like when I lick his signature, that's pretty like, like a lot. But not if you, I mean, if you really liked Ray Bradbury and you, then it would just be extra sexy yeah there isn't really i hadn't perfected the boner killer moment in fuck me ray bradbury oh when i'm in the retainer or i'm playing like a 12 year old girl and i'm in a retainer and then you see me reach down and kind of like comically masturbate but in a really like intense like my

smile is really like intense i feel like that's pretty i would consider it pretty boner killer although that just sounds like i'm describing a porno so yeah a retainer is braces we call them braces over here in the uk we also call them braces oh do you yeah so we have braces on our teeth that's what's glued and then a retainer is just the wire that can either be glued or come out. Right, okay. I think we just call everything that goes in your mouth braces. That's fair.

I'm not sure. I can't remember anyone using the expression retainer, although it's gradually merging. I have a 12-year-old daughter, and she uses mainly Americanisms, and I'm reaching the point gradually where I'm finally easing off, and I'm not being quite such a dick anymore. Because I did go through quite a long time of just wanting to hold on to a little bit of verbiage that sounded quintessentially British. Like what? What irked you?

Well, it's not. It's difficult this because this kind of thing annoys people and they do just go well look none of that is important it's just a way of kind of putting people down or humiliating people just because of the way they speak as long as you're understood that's the main thing yes of course i agree with all that but i also have i like the differences between the way people express themselves and i like sort of quirks of different nationalities or regions i agree so i think it's nice to hold on to some of those if possible. Anyway, so when my daughter says, oh, he got really mad instead of he got really angry, I do pick her up on that. I didn't realize that one of those was American and the other was British.

I would say I associate saying... Oh, because mad, because you're mad is like you're crazy. would say i associate saying oh because mad because you're mad is like you're crazy yeah i mean crazy and mad both get used to describe someone who is unbalanced as a piece of slang in the uk but i would say that it's mainly americans that say mad when they mean angry so is she getting that from like tiktok from watching tv and stuff. Exactly. She's on her iPad a great deal. And it's weird, like they barely watch TV at all. I think any of my children, everything is from the internet, which is totally international. Yeah. And when I say international, it's mainly American, really, as far as the stuff they're interested in goes. Absolutely. Okay, what English phrases

would you like me as someone who makes television yeah what can i start to incept i've been watching i'm watching the first season of drag race uk right now okay and i feel like slag is something we could use more slag you dirty slag now that's got to be used right and you've got to be careful with it obviously right because i might be wrong about this but this is my impression, is that it's one of those words that has been traditionally used about women who might be considered of loose morals. That's most of the slang I'm learning from Drag Race UK,

is like, I'm-a-right troll-up. Because that's them introducing all of their personas. Like, I'm-a-right troll-up, all you need to give me is a pound and I'll suck. Like, I'm a right trollop. All you need to give me is a pound and I'll suck you off. That's a really, really, that's a very bad one. That's my worst one. Are they saying trollop? I know that that's bad. They said trollop.

That's old fashioned. That's sort of appropriated from Dickensian slang, I would say. Well, one of them's like, I'm a right trollop. Yeah. It's delightful. Trollop is nice. So what's a good, so trollop is fun. You trollop.

You trollop. Or, so what's a good... So Trollope is fun. You Trollope. You Trollope. Or, I mean, Slag... I don't need just Slame for calling women Slag. No, sure. But I was going to say that Slag gets used in the gangster world, East End gangsters. You Slag. About other male gangsters. You know, you dirty Slag.

You Slag! I think. I'm trying to remember because, obviously, that was my background. I grew up as a East End gangster. Yeah. I was raised as a gangster. You slag. I think. I'm trying to remember because obviously that was my background. I grew up as a Houston gangster and I was raised as a gangster. But I haven't talked that way for such a long time. Let's see. What's a good phrase? I mean, do Americans ever say twat? No, but that's a good one. It is quite a good word.

I feel like we pronounce it twat, but I like twat. You twat. But I like twat. You twat. Yeah. You see, when Americans say twat, I do think like, OK, well, you're just talking about the female anatomy. Yeah. Whereas you can call someone a twat in the UK and it just means they're a bit of an idiot. Right.

Twat. That's a good one. But it regionally, it varies in strength. So the further south you go, again, I might be wrong. This is how it appears to me. The further south you go, the milder it is to call someone a twat. But the further north you go, the harsher it is and the more it becomes like the C word. So I was on the radio back in the early 2000s and we used to say twat quite a lot. And I used to just think, oh, it's not bad. It's

just like calling someone a dick or a wally or I don't know. But then we got a memo and said, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's very harsh for people listening in the north. That's like calling someone a C word. Like in the north of the UK or like Northern Ireland? In the north of the UK, I think. Which is the UK? Northern Ireland is the UK. Northern Ireland is separate from the UK. wasn't that the whole thing wasn't that why everyone's fighting because

Northern Ireland was like no we want to be part of the UK because we're Protestant um it always used to confuse me as a youngster wasn't that what the troubles were with the troubles oh man let's not get into the troubles again i just watched the crown so i'm pretty much an expert yeah i'm gonna cut this out because it makes me look offensively thick northern ireland is yeah it's a country province i'm looking at google now it's part of the united kingdom wait i was right you were right yeah i'm an expert on the trouble i watched an episode of the crown and now i'm an expert unacceptable incompetent and amateurish buckles why are you still in your post pool pants pants. I say to you, pool pants, pool pants. I say again, pool pants.

Buckles tried to clarify that the language was a requirement, though he didn't sound sure. Pool pants. It's got to be pool pants. Pool pants. I don't know, maybe not. Let's return to the wonderful world of YouTube. Do you spend much time on YouTube these days?

No, I should be watching. I honestly feel like I'm more out of touch than not because I don't keep Instagram or Twitter on my phone. So I am not as updated on things as my husband is. I usually find out things like a day later than they happened. Were you ever a person that read the comments? Did you read the comments for your own videos?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I used to read a lot of comments. I still do. I try not to. I have a keychain that says don't read the comments. I really like the phrase, what other people say about you is none of your business. I think that's wonderful.

And especially now having a book out, you want to look at reviews. You want to look at what people are saying. I've perused Goodreads, but I try to have a little bit of self control because the book's out, what am I going to do? Exactly. And in the book, there is an essay, which is a sort of, it's about reading a tweet from someone who says, you have no talent. Yes. And then you go into a fantasy about trying to change their mind and the minds of everyone in the world who doesn't like you. Yeah, I'm very proud of this essay in the book. It's called the quest to make everyone in the world like me. Yeah, it's an emotional because everything else in the book is either like, there's a true essay. And then there's

a comedic piece. This is the one thing that kind of bridges that gap. And it's at the very end because it starts out emotionally true. There was a tweet that said you had no talent. And then everything else is a fantasy of, OK, if I really wanted to rectify the situation, if I really wanted to make everyone in the world like me, what would I have to do? And it was very fun to write. world like me? What would I have to do? And it was very fun to write. And then in the book, you talk about the fact that really, it was quite a whirlwind process from becoming a YouTube star, having one of your videos go viral, and then putting out a few videos that all did very well. And then you put out an album, right in 2013. Yeah. And YouTube star is a very gracious term. Because when you look at actual YouTube stars, actual YouTube stars are people who are getting millions and millions of millions of views.

Right, they're churning it out. least a cult I have cult followings but I'm not like these big big big YouTube stars you know that make a significant amount of money especially from doing the YouTube thing but yeah I self-released an album and I was just continuing doing the YouTube thing and then Crazy Ex-Girlfriend kind of not came out of nowhere because I was developing it with Aline Brosh McKenna but it was this whirlwind process where we she came out of nowhere we created a show together we pitched it then I thought it was going to go to series and then it didn't go to series and it was just very very these um high highs and low lows in the creation of the show yeah and she Aline Brosh McKenna had seen one of your videos or a few of your videos on YouTube she's a screenwriter already quite

well established in Hollywood. What was it about those videos that she responded to then? Why did she think you were the person to create a sitcom with? Well, she was procrastinating online one day and I had done a thing called Historically Accurate Disney Princess Song. And she'd come across it was like, oh, this is really well really well written and oh it's really well sung and then realized it was the same person and then she just looked up all my videos and devoured all of them and aline just has a really good quality where if she becomes a fan of someone's work she's like i want to work with you and so she reached out to me and was like let's think of like she specifically said like a musical television show yeah to work on together and when we started brainstorming she suddenly went you

know i've always had an idea for a movie called crazy ex-girlfriend and i had this music video called pictures of your dick which is this kind of adele parody about a woman who posts pictures of her ex's dick all around town and And Aline liked that my songs were funny, but also very emotional and emotionally vulnerable, and that there was always a moment of true introspectiveness and darkness to them. And so the idea of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as a movie for this show that we were creating was just perfect. At that point, what were the other tv shows that had done well that were somewhat

similar i mean the only one i can think of is what was that weird hill street blues spin-off that was a musical do you remember that one oh well there's cop rock which i've actually never seen yeah which was a huge flop at the time i think we said it was ally mcbeal meets flight of the concords okay there you go flight of the Concords is a better comparison. In that they had original, it was a story going into original songs. Yeah, okay. And the Ally McBeal element in that it's a sort of idiosyncratic female lead. Lawyer too. Lawyer. There you go. Yeah. I suppose one of the reasons that there aren't more musical TV shows is that it is prohibitively difficult to do that, to generate enough music. Like the Concords would generally just do one or maybe two, but generally one song, I think, per episode, wouldn't they? I'm not sure. No, I think it was two, but they only had two

seasons. Right. Okay. And some of your shows have three songs in don't they some of them have four four right and the standard is very high like immediately they're really good and the big show stopping production number in the first episode when you move to los angeles and suddenly you're on a cherry picker with a giant pretzel and it looks like a spike jones video it looks like the spike jones video for bjork for it's oh so quiet actually the choreographer of that song choreographed oh so quiet oh really there you go but it looks like a million dollars was it though was it did you have a big budget for those shows so the pilot because we were with showtime that was a 4.5 million dollar

pilot right okay and then when we went to the cw each episode was about like4.5 million pilot. Right, okay. And then when we went to the CW, each episode was about like $2.2 million, which is still a chunk of change. Big numbers. I love big numbers. Yes, big, big numbers. In every conceivable sense. But I think musicals are hard also to justify

because when they're on stage, you don't need an excuse of why it's a musical. Is it going to be a musical? I know. But if it's on TV or in film now, because musicals are not part of our general entertainment or at least not as much you need an excuse especially on television you need a reason that it's a musical and it's hard to find those reasons to make a whole serialized show and what were your worries about doing that or did you have any at all?

Maybe you didn't. I think generating material. And that's why when we got ordered to series, we brought on Adam Schlesinger, who was the third writing partner, but more so than that. I mean, he took many songs and just wrote them himself

in addition to being the main music producer of the series. So definitely generating material was a concern and then just not redoing stuff we'd already done with the songs yeah writing two original songs for an episode for we did i think 62 episodes that's hard and it by the time season four came around i was like every time we were writing songs for episodes i was like i don't know what we're gonna do this is really hard yeah extraordinary how many songs did you say in total throughout the four seasons 157 amazing I mean I haven't

seen all of them but the ones I have seen have all been very good I mean really really good I'm very very proud but that was also three songwriters basically all coming together even when someone took a song when Adam Jacker, I say like full on, just wrote the song. We still then had notes and punch ups and changes from the other, from us. And then plus a lean would have thoughts too. So really it was like four heads.

And then the audio book is great because the musical chapter just works so well. How long did that take to put together? Well, I wrote the musical chapter. I mean, it took me a couple months to really perfect the lyrics of it. And then one of my longtime collaborators, Jerome, I kind of sang him through, here's what I'm kind of thinking this should sound like when we actually made the musical. And I went, but feel free to take liberties.

He musicalized everything. And then when I recorded it, it was produced by Jack. But you can hear it on the audio book. But also, I wanted to make sure that anyone reading the chapter, if they didn't want to just read lyrics, could also listen along. So if you go to my website and you click a link, you can hear the musical chapter. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's great. It was fantastic. So you were already friends with Jack Dolgen, who you wrote with, right? Yeah. Did you already know Adam Schlesinger?

No, I'd met him through Aline. Aline's husband was roommates with Adam when they were in their early 20s. And so I met Adam through Aline. And so for people listening who don't know, Adam was in the band Fountains of Wayne, who had a big hit with Stacey's mom at the beginning of the 2000s.

That's a great album. Welcome Interstate Managers. It's a fantastic album. And Stacey's mom is almost kind of the 2000s. That's a great album. Welcome Interstate Managers. It's a fantastic album. And Stacey's Mom is almost kind of like an outlier on it. Yeah. There's a song called Super Collider on there that I love. And this year, of course, has been hard for so many people for so many reasons. But I'm so sorry that it's been especially hard for you.

You lost Adam. He died of COVID in April. Just a few weeks after your daughter was born. A week exactly, basically. Right. Yeah, it was incredibly rough. And there's an afterword in the book all about it. But some of my happiest memories with him were less than a year before that. We had been to London.

We performed at the Palladium. And it was, I think, the most special shows I ever London. We performed at the Palladium. And it was, I think, the most special shows I ever did performing at the Palladium. It was just, it was me, Adam, Jack was on his honeymoon, so we couldn't, but it was me, Adam, and then a couple of actors from the show also came. And it was just so fun. And I had so much fun being in London with Adam. So I have really good, really lovely, like associations with London now but I'm so sorry that that happened thank you he was clearly very well loved you know I saw a lot of tributes to him I'm just so talented I mean really he was a singular talent truly yeah and the loss is still um it's so big for obviously everyone who knew him, but it's so big for everyone.

Because I fully believe he was not even yet halfway through his career. Yeah, yeah. And halfway through all the things he was going to do. He was in his early 50s, but he had the energy of a 22-year-old person. He was not slowing down at all. And then you had your baby as well. So I can't imagine what the grieving process must have been like. Just very surreal, I suppose, when you have a newborn baby to look after as well. very scary. That was the hardest two, three weeks of my life because also my daughter was born and she was in the NICU because she had fluid in her lungs and it was during COVID. It was just as

COVID was starting. This is late March when no one knows what's happening. We don't know how it spreads. So we get home from the hospital. She's still in the hospital. My husband can't go back into the hospital period to see her because of COVID. And we're just scrubbing down everything that was in the hospital with us because we don't know what has COVID on it and how COVID spreads. We knew nothing. That was really, it was really hard. Yeah. I mean, that must have felt like apocalyptic. Yes, it did. Parts of this year have felt apocalyptic for many of us, you know, especially at the beginning of the whole thing where it was it was all so unknown, where the prospect of a vaccine was absolutely distant.

Oh, my God. Yeah. It was really frightening. And then to to be in that position, to have a young child, your first child. Right. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, that's an overwhelming thing anyway. child right yeah i mean that's an overwhelming thing anyway yeah i'm still processing it to be honest it's i mean talking about it a lot in interviews is probably helping me process it yeah i hope you don't mind me asking about it no not at all not at all it does help me process it in a way like it was so hard but it i also felt so connected to the past because as i was like on my hands and knees my friend was in at that point in the hospital my daughter was in the NICU the NICU is the it's the neonatal intensive care unit yeah so it's the ICU for babies and I was on my hands and knees outside scrubbing down my wallet with a Clorox wipe

while I was still actively bleeding from childbirth I felt like I was like it was like 1805 and I was still actively bleeding from childbirth, I felt like I was like, it was like 1805. And I was like in a small village in the Ukraine. Like, yes, this is most of human history. It's like you give birth and then you get on your knees and you scrub because death is all around you. Yes, exactly. Only recently have I been aware of people starting to talk about death a lot more in all sorts of ways and to actually begin to try and bring it more into the mainstream of culture and discussion and to have it be something that we are all wise to start thinking about and preparing ourselves for one way or another. Not all the time, because then you forget to enjoy life. No life no i agree i didn't think about death much at all i'd only experienced really the deaths of my grandparents yeah i mean i i was only really really conscious for the deaths

of two of the four and they were old and they'd both been in decline. And I was in college. So I hadn't been seeing them as much. I didn't think about death in that way. This was the first time I've unexpectedly lost someone. And then that converging with bringing new life into the world. But having that new life be so tenuous. Because she was in, I mean, you walk into this NICU and, you know, my baby's, she has an IV in her. She has a nasal calendula thing. Although she was so strong and stubborn, she kept ripping out her nasal calendula.

She was like, no, I'm dead. There are other babies in there who have like jaundice. They're born, you know, with like kind of yellow skin. So they're under like a tanning lamp. So they have these huge goggles on and then they're under a sun lamp. It's, yeah, it was very intense. I hope she's okay now. She's great now.

She is fat, happy, strong. She's so, so, so strong. Do you have kids? I do. Yeah, three. Oh, oh my God. Oh, great. That's a load of kids.

Yeah, just give me a shout. She's doing the thing. She's crawling. I will. Yeah. Three. Oh, oh my God. Oh, that's a load of kids. She's doing the thing. She's crawling. I will. She's great. She's fine. She had a thing called TTN, which is transient something. It's, it's a thing that's very common. And in fact, I read a statistic that something like 15% of all babies born end up in the neonatal intensive care unit, because if your baby has any problem they go there there's like the NICU and then there's not the NICU there's no middle step so if your baby has any problem that's where they go and so because it was it transient was in the name that was one of the things I clung to yeah and now that she is okay what are the things that

you're thinking about doing with her what are your what's your fantasy list of things you're going to do with your daughter when she's a bit older like you talk about going to disneyland for example and your love of theme parks when you were growing up i share that enthusiasm because we were lucky enough as a family to go to america quite a bit when we were growing up my dad was a a travel writer. And he took us to Disneyland a few times in Florida and California, Disney World and Disneyland. And for me, it was completely magical. And me and my sister were obsessed with it. And it was funny reading your thing about amusement parks and adult amusement parks as well, your ideas as well in the book. Well, any sort of expectation that I had for what's she going to be like and what are we going to do when she's older has been completely superseded by I'm just so excited to go to a mommy and me class and have her meet other babies.

to a mommy and me class and have her meet other babies. I'm excited to walk her down the street and say hello to strangers and not be terrified that they're going to kill us. You know, I have very, very low expectations for what I want to do with her because there have been so many things about this year that aren't normal. She hasn't been held by any of her grandparents yet. So, like, I haven't really thought about stuff we're going to do in the future because I'm just focused on the near future of, okay, I'm excited for when we get vaccinated,

whenever that is. And when the people we know who are vaccinated, because I don't know who is going to get vaccinated. I don't know. So I don't know how long it'll be before I can go on a plane again. I don't know how, you know, when I'll trust being in public again.

But okay, when I can actually be around people I love who I know are also vaccinated and we can, like, touch and hug and they can hold her and she can be around other kids, that's my goal. That's what I'm excited about. So you're not thinking about the Jungle Cruise just yet? Well, I'm always thinking about the Jungle Cruise in some way. It's always in the back of my mind. Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace.

Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash buxton for a free trial.

And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. The dog was lost in the fog. Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Rachel Bloom talking to me there.

Very grateful to Rachel for making the time. And if you're new to her stuff and intrigued to know more, then there are lots of links in the description of this podcast that you may enjoy. Also in the links today are a couple of links related to the Mesothelioma UK charity. And that is related to my dad. I wrote about the fact that my dad was diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer of the lining of the lung and I was contacted by someone in the mesothelioma UK charity who asked if I would talk to one of their members about my dad and about caring for him as part of a series of sort of video podcasts they've been doing. Talking to people about the condition which is quite rare and is related to asbestos

inhalation and so they are keen on raising awareness about the dangers of asbestos. I told them that I don't know very much about the condition, despite my dad having had it. Because he wasn't really being treated, there wasn't a lot of discussion about it. Anyway, they said, don't worry. So if you'd like to see my conversation about looking after my dad, you'll find a link in the description of the podcast. Thanks very much if you were one of the people who turned out for the idler drinks online last Thursday. That was good fun. I debuted a new song on there, did some live Zoom singing. I really want to try and get better at Zoom and do a few live streaming appearances that are a bit more ambitious than the ones I've done so far.

Although I'm a little bit sad because my favourite live stream hat, a green sort of peaked cap, has now disintegrated. I put it in the wash because it was getting a bit gnarly. And when it came out, it was in different sections and it is beyond repair. It's quite old. I found it when I was on holiday in France a couple of years back. And it served me very well. We had some great times together for the last couple of years. As my cowardly hair has begun to recede, it's been nice to be able to pop the old cap on.

And it's not just because of that, because you shouldn't be ashamed of your cowardly hair. I wouldn't encourage that. Nothing wrong with it. But I just like, I've always been a hat wearer. Anyway, so, feeling a bit sad about the end of green cap. But who knows? Maybe the universe will gift me another bit of great headwear. It's just the cold. I'm not going to start crying. Don't worry.

Okay. Rosie. Rosie. Come on. Let's head back. It's cold. Come on, dog. Come on, Rosie. Oh, yeah. Now she's cruising. It's going dog. Come on, Rosie. Oh, yeah. Now she's cruising. It's going to be a flypast. A leisurely flypast from the Hairy Bullet. Thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his support in the production department. Thanks to Matt Lamont for conversation editing on this episode. Much appreciated both.

Thanks to ACAST for their continued support. Thanks very much indeed to you, Podcats, for sticking with the podcast, being nice about it. I really appreciate it. Quick virtual hug? Come on then. Yeah!

Christmas is coming. Weird socially distanced Christmas. Anyway, me and Cornballs will be hanging out with you on the big day. And next week, I think on the 11th of December, a guest that you will all know. December, a guest that you will all know. Someone that it was quite nerve-wracking and exciting to talk to. Yeah, yeah, you think you know who it is, don't you? Well, maybe you do. But maybe you don't. So keep a lookout. Until then, take care. I hope you're doing all right.

And, you know, for what it's worth, I do love you. Bye! Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a big smile and a thumbs up. Nice, take a pint with me, thumbs up. Give me a big smile and a thumbs up. Nice, take a pint with me, thumbs up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

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Please like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. សូវាប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់� Thank you. you