The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Baron Vaughn

Episode Date: October 1, 2019

Comedian and actor Baron Vaughn talks to Andy Richter about his “scandalous” birth, finding his performative self in Las Vegas, trying not to pass down bad habits, and the timeline of his showbiz trajectory. Plus, Baron discusses finding permanence in fatherhood and creating the artistic space he wishes he’d had with his show “The New Negroes.”This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp (www.betterhelp.com/threequestions code: THREEQUESTIONS) and The Hilarious World of Depression.

Hello everyone, Andy Richter here. You are listening to Andy Richter and the three questions, or the three Q if you're in a hurry. Those questions for those who don't know are, where do you come from? Where are you going, and what have you learned? And we are going to ask those questions. Not we. I guess I am. I mean, you're going to listen. Today we're going to ask those questions of the very talented, very funny comedian actor Baron Vaughn.

Yes. Hello. I'm ready to answer the three Qs. All right. You knew that that was coming, right? Yes. Okay. I call them three-ks That's even better

Like the Q is a three-ks That's even like more time-saving Yeah, exactly In LA, you gotta save time Time is money You gotta save time Well, thank you so much for coming I'm glad somebody told you

Because sometimes people come in here They don't have any idea what they're in for You know, it's just podcast They're like, okay Well, I studied improv And isn't that what life is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, come on, that's a little corny.

Because a lot of times, a lot of times life is not yes and, it's no but. Oh, yes, that's true. I mean, and if life is not no but, you are, you know, you're in for trouble. Well, don't people, haven't there been a couple famous books of people who say yes to everything for a full year? There was that. Oh, I don't know that. Like the Year of Yes, I feel like that was a very famous book where some woman like said

yes to everything that anyone asked her to do. Then Jim Carrey made that movie. Oh, right, right, right, right. Which is the same thing as that book. Yes, yes, yes. Now, but that seems very dangerous. Of course it is. Oh, my God.

And especially when people find out. You know? You can't tell anybody you're saying yes to everything. Yeah, exactly. Because then you'll, you know, you'll be metaphorically changing a lot of diapers. So, Barron. Yes. You are a child of the Southwest.

I am, yes. Yeah. You are a child of the Southwest. I am, yes. Yeah. New Mexico? I was born in a small town in New Mexico, yes. Yeah. Yes. And what town is that? It's called Portales, New Mexico.

It is the home of Eastern New Mexico University, which is where my mother and father met. They were both students there at ENMU. So there wasn't like a family history of New Mexico. Well, no, there was a family history. I was born in a small town called Portales. But then after I was born, I moved to a smaller town called Tucumcari, where my great grandparents already lived. Oh, wow. So I was actually raised by my great grandparents.

Great grandparents. Great grandparents. My mother's grandparents. Wow. Until the age of, I want to say I was like six or seven. Was your mom young? She was young. She was like 19. Oh, wow.

So she was in college at NMU. I don't think anyone calls it that, but I'll call it that. That's nice. I like it. They should if they don't. Good old NMU. NMU. She was enrolled at NMU.

NMU sounds like an Australian lizard or something. Yes, exactly. Watch out, there's NMUs out here. There's NMUs out here. That's my, that's my. Okay, that's pretty good. and uh Enmu sounds like an Australian lizard or something yes exactly watch out there's Enmu's out here there's Enmu's out here that's my that's my that's pretty good

no maybe a little bit more Kiwi but we'll get to that later I think as time has gone on my Australian's gotten better than my English accent oh really I don't

I'm not going to prove it because I'll fuck it up but you know but just trust me technically you could say that an Australian accent is a bad English accent it is true

it's a prison style English accent the one the one that I's a prison-style English accent. The one that I can, and I actually can hear the difference now because I worked in New Zealand for three months. The New Zealand accent is like a gross Australian accent all through the nose. And there wasn't. I love that you have to scrunch your face to do it.

Yeah, because it's like that. You know, it's like they say fish and chops. It's not chips, it's like fish and chops. And I actually, there was a radio ad when I was in Auckland that was like, it was for a mattress store. And they said, are you sleeping on a bed bed? Like a bed bed? Wait, what is that? A bed bed what wait what is that a bed bed uh oh man yeah yeah that's great i love the person that goes into the like yeah my bed's made can i get a bit of it my baby's bed my baby's bed

i'm sleeping bed because my bed is bad um anyway that's a nice side track so um perfect side track and moo and moo yes your mom continued in And Moo. Yeah, because she was young when she had me. There's a lot of controversy around my birth, Andy. In what way? Well, these are things that I'm still learning about little by little. If we can get real for five seconds. Of course we can.

That's the whole point. Right off the fucking bat, let's get real. No, but. Yeah. Yeah, so basically, I mean, my mom was 19, right? And my father, I think he was like 21, something like that, just a little older than her. They weren't together in my father's mind. Wow.

But they were in my mother's mind. Oh, dear. So what happened was. Had they been together for a long time before she got pregnant? It's unclear. They were like, I mean, she was 19, so, you know. Unclear in that your mom never told you. Yes, yes.

I mean, I assume that maybe, you know, she was 19, then maybe she was a sophomore, you know, or a freshman in college. So she probably wasn't even there that long. Yeah. He was from the city, Albuquerque. Oh, wow. The Kirk, I like to call it. Captain Kirky. Albs.

Albs, that's right. ABQ. And so she became pregnant with me, and then my grandmother was very upset because she was young, and she was like, you are in college, and you need to finish college. My mother was poised to be the first person in my family to finish college. Oh, wow. And so this pregnancy kind of came out of nowhere as far as the rest of the family was concerned. My grandmother was like getting abortion.

And my great grandparents, the one who raised me, were like, you had sex outside of wedlock. We disown you. Super cool. Super cool. What kind of religion is that? Southern Baptist. Southern Baptist. Southern Baptist.

And I'm still trying to trace that because, look, this is the thing, Andy. Like a lot of this stuff from the past doesn't get talked about in my house. Oh, wow. So, we didn't talk about the past so much. I didn't even know we weren't talking about the past. Wow. And it's because I have now learned as an adult, having talked to my mother and having met my biological father, who I did not grow up with. Yeah.

Left before I was born. Now, I'm kind of putting all these, I'm piecing it together. I'm putting all the different, you know, slots in the right slat. That's probably not a good. It works. You know, slots. We know what you mean. You got a slot slat.

So it's kind of like, you know, my great grandparents came two weeks after I was born. My mother was alone when I was born. Literally nobody was there. She stood in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Two weeks after I was born, my mother was alone when I was born. Literally nobody was there. She stood in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. She had me. A friend of hers happened to be a nurse at the hospital. Her roommate came and brought some food and stuff.

And then my great grandparents came maybe two weeks later, left the casserole and said peace. Didn't talk to her for another two years after that. Which after that, I'm not exactly sure what happened. I don't know if it was the community that they were in. I don't know who said, you know, I don't know about this disowning thing. I don't know if that's the right move. So, they came back into her life. Or maybe, hopefully, just like a modicum of humanity, you know, eked in. That's what I would assume.

Either they had some internal shift or somebody around them pushed them towards it. Right. Or Jesus told them. Or Jesus. That's also a possibility. They were eating some chips and then one chip was like, hey, this is wrong. What? You're being a dick.

Oh, my God. Saltine Jesus just told me. Salt and vinegar Jesus just gave me a message. He said, we're being too vinegary. All right. So, they took me and then they raised me until I was probably about six. So, my mother was able to finish university, get her life back together, I guess. Her grades and studies had suffered. Yeah, yeah, I bet. Because of the circumstances of Mr. Me over here. How far was Tucumcari from school?

You know, it's unclear to me. I was there a couple years ago. I made a little documentary called Fatherless. I know. Out there in the airwaves, if anybody wants to watch it. But we went to Portales, and I hadn't been there forever. Yeah. And then we drove to Tucumcari, but New Mexico is so flat and empty.

And it was a sense of time. You definitely are like, was this 30 minutes or three hours? I can't tell. There was just tumbleweeds the entire way. I grew up in the country in Illinois, and we used to, the conception of time in the car there, because the nice restaurants were three towns away, but three towns away was 45 minutes to an hour. So we used to drive an hour to dinner, but because, like you said, there's flat and there's nothing and, you know, it was no big deal. Whereas an hour of L.A. traffic time makes you want to murder.

It's five miles. You can travel barely five miles in an hour of L.A. time. Nearly five miles in an hour of LA time. Did you have- My point was that- Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you close enough that your mom would see you frequently, like come to you on the weekends and stuff?

You know, it's gotten spotty those years. Yeah. So I feel like, I mean, I remember going to her graduation for college. I remember- And you were what? Three or four then? I was probably six, actually. Oh, okay. It took her extra time. I remember... And you were what, three or four then? I was probably six, actually. Oh, okay.

It took her extra time. I see, I see. She was working multiple jobs. I got it. She was working a job in Port Talis, working a job in Roswell. Wow. She was doing college at the same time. Yeah, yeah.

So it was a lot of things happening. She came and got me. Because I feel like I remember being in my great-grandparents' house and her car pulling up and her getting out of the car and walking towards the house. And I was in the front looking out the window at her. And I feel like I remember going, hey, that's my mom. Oh, wow. Oh, I know her. That's my mom. Wow.

In some sort of way. So I recognized her. I felt the connection. Yeah. But in a way, I didn't really know her that well at that point. connection. But in a way, I didn't really know her that well at that point. So then she got me, and we lived in Tucumcari for maybe another year, year and a half before we moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, which is where I spent the majority of my life before I went to college and all that stuff. What took her to Las Vegas? Well, she had kind of mostly grew up in Las Vegas,

which I didn't know as well until I was an adult. My grandmother was there already. My mother went to like high school in Vegas. She would go to high school in Vegas and spend her summers in New Mexico with the great grandparents. Yeah. And so she was always kind of, you know, going back and forth those different deserts, you know, being in New Mexico and being like, this desert's not hot enough. They're going to Vegas like this one's too hot. They're going to Vegas, like, this one's too hot. They're going back to New Mexico, this one's not hot enough. Never found what was just right, you know, in the Goldilocks of desert living.

So my grandmother was already there. We moved there. And, you know, at the time, and I think it was like 88, 89 maybe, Vegas was, for a very long time, the fastest growing city in the United States, had a crazy low unemployment rate, had a very low cost of living. If you were, I don't know, a single mom fresh out of college and you needed a job and a place to live, you could go to Vegas and find something that wasn't going to hurt you that much. Right. And then my grandmother was there as a support as well. So she lived with us for a long time as well. I see.

So it was me, my mom, and my grandma. And what did your mom do? My mom – What job did she get? Well, she at first worked in retail at a couple different clothing stores and stuff like that. She was very interested in fashion. She also had a business degree, so she had an associate's in business or something like that. And then the Mirage Hotel Casino opened.

And that's one of the reasons there's a low unemployment rate in Vegas. When a hotel opens. Thousands of jobs. Like 3,000, 5,000 jobs like that. So that hotel opened. She got a job working there in the, I think, in the first fleet of hiring. She worked in the retail warehouse, which is where literally everything that was sold at the Mirage Hotel had to come in there first.

Be inventoried, blah, blah, blah, yakety schmackety. And then we moved from one side of Vegas. We were in North Las Vegas at that time. And it was a very long drive to get to the strip from my mom. So we moved closer to the strip. That's what's ridiculous about Vegas. What's that? Just how big it is.

It's kind of big, yeah. Like one end of the other is like over an hour. Yes, exactly. And it's bigger than it's ever. Like every time I go back to Vegas, stuff that was just black desert has crap in it. It has hotels with rides. Just from when I first went there 20 years ago to when I go now, it's unbelievably crowded. Yes.

Unbelievable. Everywhere you go is unbelievably crowded. And are you talking about tourists or locals or a combination? I mean tourists. I mean tourists. Because, I mean, I've only been like into the, you know, the real living part of Las Vegas a few times when I was there working on different things. living part of Las Vegas a few times when I was there working on different things.

Or going to that really good Thai restaurant, Rosa's Siam. You ever been there? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That place is fantastic. That's off the strip.

That's kind of off the beaten path. It's in like a really weird strip mall. Oh, yeah. Like a gigantic strip mall. Everything's in a strip mall in Vegas. I know, in a weird strip mall

in Vegas. I mean, I'll tell you this. I hate it growing up there. I bet. I bet. It's mall in Vegas. I know, in a weird strip mall in Vegas. I mean, I'll tell you this. I hate it growing up there. I bet. I bet. It's only now that I realize it. It's a bizarre place. It's not a, like, you know, and now I have children.

Well, I have one child and another one on the way. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. I mean, just about the first one. The second one. The second one. Let's see what happens. When he pays his first bill.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take a congrats. We're trying to figure out, like, do we want to stay in Los Angeles? Do we want to live somewhere else? And in that conversation comes the philosophizing about what might be important to us in terms of where we live. And that's what made me realize that, oh, I did not like growing up in Las Vegas. It's too hot, first of all.

Yes. Too hot. Not enough. Gross. It's gross hot. Yeah, because it shouldn't be there. Yeah. It's ridiculous.

It's 120 degrees in the summer. The only place that's hotter is Phoenix. And when I would see that on the news, like it's 123 in Vegas today, 125 in Phoenix. I'm like, why? Why are we here? Is what I would yell by myself at the television as a middle schooler. Why are we doing this? Oh, hi, mom.

But it's very hard to be outside, which as a child you need and want. Because you want to play basketball or football with your friends like I wanted to or whatever the heck. And just be outside. That's why I became a really good bowler. Because it's a sport, but there's air conditioning. Yeah, yeah, it sure is. And you can get a slice of pizza in the middle of frames. Right.

And you don't put any wear on your own shoes. Exactly. True story. I used to want to be a professional bowler. Oh, did you really? Yeah, but I also used to think Xena Warrior Princess was well-written. So you grow up, Andy. I understand. You grow up. True story. I used to want to be a professional bowler. Oh, did you really? Yeah, but I also used to think Xena Warrior Princess was well-written. So you grow up, Andy. I understand.

You grow up. I understand. My grandmother was a big bowler. My family had like a bowl. We were all bowlers. Wow. And like in middle school, I got into it. And like it was a point where I had like a 200 average. Wow. I was like, I'm good at this. And Vegas has a ton of bowling alleys.

Yes, yes. Really nice, gigantic bowling alleys. Exactly. If bowling was in the Olympics, then it would be St. Lane's in the town. Exactly. So that was really the only, bowling and video games because they were indoors. Yeah. That's what I kind of gravitated towards. Right.

But like sometimes I go to Vegas, when I go to Vegas, my parents live in a different place now. I'll go to the old neighborhood that we grew up in. And I'll just drive around and be like, wow, this is really run down now. And then I go like, wait a minute. It was always run down. Yeah. I just was a kid. So I didn't know.

I was walking these streets. Everything's just concrete and apartments. Yeah. And so finding parks, stuff like that, nature, these are things that I'm now learning are important to me. Especially with a kid. Yes, I want him to be able to run around, climb stuff. Right. You know, unlike me, when I climbed things, it was stairs to another concrete apartment.

Yeah. Apartment unit. And children, too. When they're little, you just got to run them like a dog. Basically. You know, you got to take them somewhere where they can just run around. Yes. Otherwise, they will not go to sleep. Yeah.

Or they just make you nuts. Yes. Yes, exactly. And they end up being a little nuts themselves. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. My son is slapping himself in the face these days to keep himself awake at night. That's insane.

Wow. How old is he? He's 19 months old. Wow. He's barely two. And he's just like slapping his face like, whoa, fired up. Just like he's about to fight, you know he's just like slapping his face like whoa fired up just like like he's about to fight you know clubber lang in the rank yeah he's gotta get do is

get into the zone or something have you been showing him professional wrestling yeah it might be a oh that's how we get him to go down to sleep i show him old clips of the first wrestlemania and it just that's what the problem be yeah oh thank you for the tip sure no wrestling before bedtime um back when it was the wwf right um what the heck were we talking about we were talking about uh you figuring out where to raise a kid because you hated vegas yeah and that's what i'm realizing is that like like i mean what do you think what what are you thinking oh man we i mean like that's the other thing is my wife and I, we can't agree. What we think is important.

Does your, is your wife working? Right now? No. Yeah. She just got out of grad school. So she was in grad school when we, when we had our first child. Studying. Studying playwriting and screenwriting.

Got it. You can do that anywhere. Because we so artsy. Fartsy. Yeah, yeah, anywhere. Because we're so artsy. Fartsy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're artsy. That's the theme song to art, or creativity, where I catch a football and look at the camera and just kind of shrug.

Well, but if you're so artsy, you would probably miss the football. Exactly. I'd be like, what? You'd drop it like, hey, I'm too artsy. Whoops. And then I paint me dropping it. That's better, am I right? Sorry.

In this painting, I always catch. Yeah, so we have different ideas like, you know, what kind of climate we want, what kind of, you know, town or, you know, how the big, the size of the population, stuff like that, where we're like, what do we want to do? And, you know, we'll probably not leave Los Angeles. It's just so expensive here, as you might know. Yeah, but it's hard. I always find, too, you know, expensive here, as you might know. Yeah, but it's hard. Iowa's fine, too.

I mean, my life is real weird right now because I'm going through a divorce, so we're kind of stuck here for a while. But I mean, I wouldn't... A friend of mine once said about living in Los Angeles, he's like, I'm a coal miner. There's coal here. You know, like. Yeah. I mean, what are you going to do?

Because there's, you know, the notion of like, well, I mean, for me, I work on a daily show. So I get, you know, I work in Burbank. I live in Burbank. And oh, my God, it's fantastic. I bet. As you get older and you get crabbier. That 10-minute drive. The proximity of the points in your life, the closer they are, the happier of an old fart you are.

Hey, they've done a study about that. They said that that's a big source of happiness is being not that far away from where you work. When I do outside gigs and do stuff like have to drive to Santa Monica and be there at 9 a.m. Which takes three hours. It's fucking ridiculous. And I just realized like, oh, if I got a job over here, I'd move. You'd have to move. I'd have to fucking move.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I just couldn't do this because of the, you know, the cortisol levels are raised so frequently that you're just shaving time off your life. are raised so frequently that you're just shaving time off your life every moment you're sitting there with Waze telling you, you know, make a left turn across this six-lane highway. Well, Andy, they did an update

and now you can say no left turns, no difficult intersections. No, that's the biggest thing about Waze that frustrates me. It's kind of like, all right, now I got to cross Venice. What? I know.

A left. I've always said Waze is like having a navigator that's high on cocaine. Turn here, turn here. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. But I'm in the wrong lane, you know. And you know what? To throw some more shade at Waze, like I was an early adapter to Waze.

I drove across the country twice with Waze. Yeah. Up and down to Vancouver, Canada from here twice with Waze. Huge, long trips. I had racked up the points, Andy. Yes. I was a Waze royal. A Waze pioneer.

Waze royalty. The highest echelon of Wazing. Is there like echelons? There's echelons, Andy. Wow. However, sometimes they just delete. It just deletes itself. And then you've got to start over. And I'm like, all those years of earning literally nothing,

but just the idea that I had been driving too much, and now it's gone. I gave up on Waze when it had me. I had a doctor's appointment in Beverly Hills or something, and it was shitty traffic. And it had me go up into the hills and back to Ventura three times. Just go up into the hills and then like kept switching. And you know, this is so boring for people that don't live in the hills. No, no, no. Everybody's dealing with GPS. Hashtag GPS problems.

If you hit Andy up on Twitter, let him know you're having GPS problems. We're all in it together. Hashtag GPS. No, it just, it took me up the hill and down the hill back to Ventura three times. And I was just like, hello, Google Maps. Did you have no lefts engaged? No, I didn't. I didn't.

It just, it just, well. I'm just grasping for straws. engaged? No, I didn't. I didn't. It just, well, for people that don't live here, up in the hills, the roads are very weird, and they just sort of creep up, and they're not like distinct lefts or rights, and when you're following the GPS, you can end up

very, very wrong. And then there are people who just drive way too fast up there. Yes, that's true. Like, you can fall. Well, wait, your car can fall off of this road. No kidding. And Waze has made it, too. Like, I know people who lived up there and loved never having any cars on their street. All of a sudden, now they live on a major thoroughfare.

Oh, yeah. Because Waze is, you know, driving around. And a lot of those people are trying to sue Waze. I know, I know. Or they sign up for Waze and then put that there's traffic in their area so people won't come in. Well, that's not a bad way to do it. That's what people are doing. Right, right, right.

You got to fight the internet. There's werewolves. Don't come in this neighborhood. There's werewolves. Werewolves ahead. What? Well, all right. Yeah, I forget what we were talking about.

No, we're talking about you. We're having so much fun. It's always about you. Yes. So, Wendy, you moved to Vegas when you were what age? I was seven or eight. Seven or eight. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And what kind of kid were you? I mean, you know, you went to public school. Yes. Went to public school. Yeah, it was me, my mom, and my grandmother. And, you know, I was in third grade.

So, however old you are in third grade, because I did a month of third grade in New Mexico before we moved. Right. So we moved in the beginning of the school year. School was already started, which was jarring. Yeah. But going to Vegas and then went to Ira J. Earl. Anybody out there in Vegas?

Anyway, that's the- Who's Ira J. Earl? That was the name of the school I went to. Who is it? I don't know. Oh, you kind of know who he is. I went to Ira J. Earl Elementary, and then I went to Pat Diskin. Because we moved from one side to the other when my mom got that job.

Then I went to Kit Carson Sixth Grade Center. I know who Kit Carson is. Yes, one of the greatest guns of the Old West. Yeah, an explorer, like crazy, you know. Ira J. Earle was probably just a popular councilman. And then Pat Diskin's probably the same thing. But they both killed many bears. Probably, yes, exactly.

You know, big men with hair to get those positions. Because it's Vegas, right? Mafia? Sure. Okay. So, yeah, and then we were, I was just kind of, I was a smart kid, you could say. I was always interested in learning. I've always been interested in learning. That doesn't mean I was necessarily good at school. Right. Because I did not like homework.

Yeah, me neither. I didn't like having to prove to the teacher that I heard what they said. Do you have attention thing issues? A little bit. Yeah. You know, especially then, I was the only child, you know, so it was me, my mom, and my grandma, like I said. We had two cats. And I was a little weirdo at school, especially when I was younger. When I was younger, I was a bully even.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah, because I had a lot of displaced anger. Yeah, yeah. Didn't know where to put it. and kids treated me like i was weird already so i just kind of fell into it yeah until i went too far and someone's uh dad called the cops on me oh wow and then i was like all right i am literally done with this yeah yeah i gotta never because because you know and i think about i think about the people i bullied a lot too as an adult i go like oh man oh man, I was a mean kid.

But I was confused and afraid. And then at some point I went, you know, this doesn't do anything. I'm just hurting someone. It also does not seem like you too. I mean, you know, it just doesn't seem in character. And of course you say displaced anger. That's the explanation right there.

I would assume I wanted to feel powerful. New place. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to feel powerful and in control in some sort of way. So having, you know, an effect on another child was like,

it made me feel like I was important or I was somebody, which I think is the heart of all bullying. Yeah. If somebody just wants to feel like they matter in some kind of way. And I guess I, once the cops were called on me, I was like, this is not, this is not the way to get whatever feeling, even as a third grader, I'm like, there's got to be a better way.

Yeah. And so. Well, thank God you had the realization at that age. Yes, exactly. Jesus. Because I wasn't bullied. That's the irony. I was never, I wasn't that physical with kids.

Yeah. Because I was not, I was a slight child. Yes. So I wasn't physically intimidating. It seems like your brain is your muscle. Yes. Yes. I was, I psychologically terrorized other kids with my existential dilemmas and riddles that I would throw at them.

And then we moved, thank the Lord. I was able to reinvent myself. That's great. at them. And then we moved, thank the Lord, I was able to reinvent myself. That's great. Yeah, when my mom remarried in between second and third grade, my stepfather adopted me and my brother so that, because my mom wanted to have more kids, she wanted all the kids to have the same last name. And she also wanted the financial stability that my stepfather – well, I mean, I'll call him my stepfather, although he was my legal guardian. How old were you again?

I was – well, it was – I was eight, I guess. Oh, okay. You know? Yeah, because it was between – like I say, between second and third grade. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Between, like I say, between second and third grade. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was Andy Richter. And then when I got adopted, in between second and third grade, going to a new school, I became Andy Swanson because that was my stepfather's last name. And in such a transparent, in retrospect, such a transparent attempt at like attempting some sort of control.

I decided Andy Swanson didn't sound that great. And my full name is Paul Andrew Richter. And my mother has always called me by my middle name. Her logic was, I named you after my uncle Paul, but I don't really like my uncle Paul. So she called me Andy. Great. So I've been Andy, which is- I've embedded something I dislike in your name. I know, I know. So I've been Andy my whole life, and it was very handy when I had problems with bill collectors, because anytime anybody called asking for Paul, I wasn't there. Or he wasn't there.

It was his roommate, Glenn. I just made up. It was his roommate, Glenn. And I even got relationships with some of the bill collectors as Glenn. I gave him the message. I'm sorry. I'm trying to help you out, man. But anyway, so I decided Andy Swanson didn't sound good.

So I became Paul Swanson. So for third and fourth grade, I was Paul Swanson after having been Andy Richter. And then my grandfather died. My grandmother couldn't maintain this big house, the big family house that my great grandfather had built. Yes. So my mom and my stepdad move us all back in there. By that time, I had a younger brother and sister who were twins. Moves us back in.

I go back to the same school for fifth grade. And I hey this is the new kid paul swanson and it's all these kids are like you're not paul you're andy and i'm like oh fuck it all right i'm andy so then i became and i mean i was always andy at home but i mean and i'm fine with it but it was just like it's an opportunity to me it just was but like it was so much like there was so much change being thrown at me yeah yeah i gotta do something i'm gonna change my first name i mean i think those are those are very jarring ages maybe it's very strange it's very it's you know it those kind of changes on a little kid are i think are very formative you know i think it's i think definitely you know and i think like like just you know the that, you know, when you said that's my mom, you know, coming up to walk and that like, that's, that's gotta be a heavy thing that has that, you know.

Well, now it is. Yeah. No, but I mean, but I mean, that's, it, it's got, you gotta like, it's gotta have had an effect of some kind. Definitely. Just that sort of dissociation with. Yeah. You know with this primary relationship. And then also this kind of idea of, I guess I want to say like temporality or something where it's just kind of like we're always moving. You know, we're always, I'm always with somebody else or something like that.

I mean, you know, when my mom and I moved to Vegas, you know, like I said, it was my mom and myself and my grandmother for a really long time. And then I had a stepfather coming to the picture. Probably seventh or eighth grade. In my brain, it's getting fuzzy. But he came into the picture. And then my little sisters were born when I was heading into high school. And was that a happy change for you?

You got along with him okay? We never really got along, no. We, I kind of like, we tolerated each other, you know, to this day, I think. Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like, and then my little sisters are 13 years younger than I am. Yeah, my brother, mine are nine, twins nine years younger. Yeah, so it's like we're very different places in our lives. Yeah.

You know, like I was going to college when they were starting to make full sentences and have a full conversation where I'm like, oh, you're a human being now. Like I used to change your diapers and now you're like, here's what I think. And I'm like, oh, wow. But I was in the East Coast by that point, you know. So those transitions are always kind of tricky, I guess you could say, especially when my grandmother moved out for a little bit, and then she moved back in.

So it was like me and my grandmother got a bunk bed, which was super cool. Really popular child. I hope you made her sleep on the top. Get up there! No, she claimed it. She was like, my nerd. No, she had, it was a futon. The bottom was a futon.

So it was kind of like it turned into a couch where we could watch TV. Nice. We had TV in every room and cable because we didn't want to talk to each other. And luckily I got to watch all these movies. Yeah, I guess I was talking about the whole bully thing. Yeah. Because I transitioned out of that and then became a kid that became bullied like when i moved to the other neighborhood then i was like

the weird slight nerdy awkward kid with the chipped tooth um that but then also by that time i was really into comedy yeah so i didn't think that any bully was like when kids made fun of me i was like that's not really that like i was like i was like a youtube commenter i'm just kind of like lame that's not that's not really that funny performatively funny i mean did you use your your your humor as a as a defense you know like so many people you know deflect bullying by being funny absolutely absolutely yeah yes and it was like i could make people laugh, which means that was the way that I then had the power. Instead of terrorizing children, I could entertain them, make them laugh, and that was positive. So it was sort of like, and then if I make them laugh, then maybe I'll be well-liked.

Then maybe when somebody wants to beat me up, somebody else will be like, leave him alone. Right, right, right. He's hilarious. You know how that always works. Sure, sure. Absolutely. Now, because of all that constant change, I mean, you've chosen a career that is not exactly stable. Do you think that that was because it's what you've grown used to?

Because I think that that kind of constant change when you're young can you can either react you can go one way or the other with it you obviously kind of maybe got used to it you know yeah I mean you that's a really it's astute observation I think um that's what I'm here for yeah welcome back to astute observations I'm just going to keep renaming this podcast right um yeah I mean and that's something I'm actually, as an adult, you know, especially as a person who has a career and trying to maintain it, that question that you're talking about is at the heart of everything I need to change as far as I'm concerned. Oh, really? Because I've been living in sort of, I don't want to say a manic kind of way, but it's always like

this chaos in which I'm juggling things and I'm always trying to catch up to it. And so, if you will, the stress of the survival that I had in middle school is still embedded in how I do things. It's how you work. It's how I work. Yeah. So it's sort of like I'm trying to let those things go because they just don't serve me anymore. And if anything, they're in the way more than anything else. Where it's just sort of like, do I need to just fully hate myself for three months to get a new 10 minutes?

Is that really that useful? Yeah, yeah. So those things are like still, I guess you could say, I'm still kind of morphing them or trying to sculpt them how much did becoming a dad affect that like impact that I think a lot

yeah I think a lot because the moment my son was born just the thought of it's just not all about me anymore it was

my sister-in-law said now you know who the real baby is that's a great way of looking at it yeah it's definitely like okay well i'm officially a grown-up yeah so it's like it's now my job to address a lot of things that you know i'm still stuck on so that way i don't just pass it to him yeah you know like i can

hopefully i don't give him all my bad habits, you know, and all my all the ideas, especially about how I feel about myself, that he you know, he's already pretty confident as far as I concerned. Yeah. And I'm just like, I just got to maintain that, maintain that. Yeah, because I was kind of an inside kid, you know, how hot it was in Vegas, just kind of socially awkward. I was more interested in TV and movies and stuff like that. And then that was also where I was like refilling the creative well to be able to take material to school to entertain everyone that could have bullied me with. So it's kind of like now I'm like,

Oh, there's still this stress of being judged or, or being what's the word I'm looking for kicked out, which showbiz does. Yeah, rejection. Yes, showbiz makes you feel like there's 100 people behind you, and if you don't do what we say, we will just pick somebody else that looks exactly like you and will do what we ask.

But that's stressful. Yeah, one of the craziest things. It doesn't help you create. One of the craziest things. It doesn't help you create. One of the craziest things about show business, I mean, because there's a lot, I mean, there's a tremendously fucked up psychology to most people in show business. And one thing that I have always noticed is that so many people in show business are so much more affected by, susceptible to being hurt by, ruled by rejection. They are, it defines, like their inability to handle rejection defines so many people, so many talented people, professionals that I know. And they go into the fucking rejection business.

They go into the business that's just rejection after rejection after rejection. And not only that, the thing that's always struck me, like the one that blows my mind is awards shows. You got a room full of rejection junkies. That's incredible.

Who have now made it. Give me that trophy. Give me that trophy. They got to the top of the fucking mountain. They're all wildly successful beyond what they're probably their wildest dreams were. Yes.

They still have to get to a point where out of 10 people, nine of them feel like shit. Nine of them get to be rejected again. It's like a tooth that they get to push on again. Yeah, yeah. It's so weird and so crazy that we just can't, you know. Yeah. It's probably a good thing because if people started, if people in show business started really loving themselves,

everything would suck. Well, you know, I kind of think that, you know, a lot of us are drawn to this because of dealing with rejection or, you know, wanting that validation, you know, that something happened to us in some sort of way where we need this validation and can't deal with rejection or, you know, wanting that validation, you know, that something happened to us in some sort of way where we need this validation and can't deal with rejection. And then we get into a business that is built around all that kind of stuff. So it seems to me that the people who usually do the best are the people who realize these

things cannot be. Is this now an, this is now untenable, you know, to be a rejection junkie and then to be in this business. So it's kind of almost like we choose a profession that feeds off of those bad feelings. It kind of is like a monster that feeds it and feeds off of it. But then there's the other way where you can do some kind of work on yourself to figure out how to deal with that rejection or to not let it get to you. And usually the people that approach that work rise, continue to rise. It's almost like this profession is the test for you now.

All that stuff that you built when you were young, time to let it go if you were going to survive. Yeah, and if you're going to be good at this. And if also, you know, I mean, it's not just a neurotic attachment to some kind of fucked up dynamic that you started when you were young. It's also really fucking fun. And it's really a great rewarding thing to do. Absolutely.

There is gravy to it. But if you get into it and you don't start, like, learning, you know, just from, like like a practical standpoint, hating myself is not good job insurance. You know, like I got to walk into every situation being like, you should hire me. And if you don't, it's your loss, you know? And I mean, and that, that can, that's a fake it till you make it kind of attitude, but it's, it's absolutely necessary. Yeah.

And I think that's advice that works across all professions. Absolutely. As well. Absolutely. Just in case we're getting too inside. Yeah, yeah. Listeners. Well, no, absolutely.

No, it's just, I mean, it's relationships. Yes. It's work. It's, you know, it's everything. It's with your family. Anything where you have to put yourself out there. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be a dick.

You don't want to be like an egomaniac. That's the hope. Some people think that nothing but confidence is the key. Yeah, yeah. They have nothing to bring to the table. No, I know, I know. Just a nonstop stream of confidence. Yeah, you got it.

That's also the dirty secret of show business is, well, you also kind of have to be able to do it. Yes. You know, and when you start out and you're doing, you know, for me, it was improv. And it was like, there were some people that were just so hungry. And you just kind of had this feeling of like, oh, sweetie. You should work on this getting better. Yeah.

It's just, okay. Yeah. But I don't, you know Yeah It was the same as stand up With me in Boston Like it was kind of like There was a lot of comedians That were hustling Hustling

Hustling all the time Hustling To get on shows And then I would see them And be like You never worked on your jokes Yep You spent all this time

Trying to get booked That you never wrote a joke And worrying about Who was in the audience And who could cast you and shit Yeah yeah yeah Exactly Yeah who could cast you and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Now, you went to the East Coast for college. Yes, I did. For fine art, correct? I did, for fine art. Now, have you been an artist throughout your whole childhood? Well, you know, I'm watching the TV and being funny at school and all that stuff. You know, it all comes down to my grandmother taught me to write cursive when I was in kindergarten. Oh, wow.

So I always could read very well. I had a reading level above most other students in my class, right? Like I remember being in fifth grade and I had like, my vocab words were like 11th grader vocab words or whatever the crap. So it meant that I could read off a page very easily. Yeah. In middle school, I would read off a page very easily. In middle school, I would read off the page in some classes and I'd start making voices if it was a character talking

and people were like, hey, you should go to this, you know, this performing arts high school here, you should go, you're so funny, you should go to that high school. And I had never heard of it. I was like, all right. Luckily, the librarian at my middle school was the wife of the principal at the performing arts high school, Mrs. Gary. I went to her and talked to her about it. She kind of gave me a book of monologues. I had no idea what that was. I auditioned for this performing arts high school

in Vegas called the Las Vegas Academy, which I ended up going to. Very unique high school experience because it was a performing arts high school. Also in Las Vegas. Let us be clear about that. They had a showgirl major. We had a showgirl major.

We also had blackjack. You had to be 21 for that or bust. No, I'm joking. There was dance. There was dance, dance theater, music, you know, whether it be playing an instrument or singing. This is like a charter school. It's like a charter school it's not a private school

it's a magnet school magnet school yes meaning that it was open to anyone but you just had to apply in apply in audition

and all that stuff and I watched Hercules Legendary Journeys Xena's brother show I know sure then I watched bowling and then I went to audition for this high school

it was literally a Saturday I'm like alright bowling's over time to go audition for this high school. It was literally a Saturday. I'm like, alright, bowling's over. Time to go audition for this high school. That's the kind of kid I was. Ended up going to that high school and started getting serious about it because I always wanted to do stand-up, Andy. That's what

I now know. I wanted to do stand-up. I wanted to do comedy in that kind of vein. I just as a kid did not know that that was something I was supposed to. Like, oh, you go to an open mic or you take an improv class. Nobody, did not know that that was something I was supposed to. Sure. Like, oh, you go to an open mic or you take an improv class. Like, nobody was there to tell me that.

Yeah, yeah. So I was like, theater, people on stage saying things. It's the same. Yep. So I started pursuing that, theater in high school, acting in high school, and probably about my junior year, I started getting serious about like, oh, acting is something that you can actually train at. Yes. To become good. Does it mean you'll be famous? No. But does it mean actually train at. Yes. To become good.

Does it mean you'll be famous? No. But does it mean you'll work? Yes. And so I started applying to all these different theater schools in high school, got into Boston University, and that's where I ended up going. I wanted to go to DePaul, which is in Chicago. Yes.

DePaul, SMU, where else did I apply? Roosevelt, also in Chicago. SUNY Purchase. Why apply? Roosevelt, also in Chicago. SUNY purchased NYU. Why Chicago? Well, Chicago. DePaul was, Chicago was an interesting city to me, just like Boston was. Yeah. I knew I didn't want to go to New York.

They're both comedy centrals. And they're both comedy centers too. That's right. One's Ha, and one's the Comedy Channel. No, I was, but you know, I mean, that's like in the early days of the Conan show. It was Boston and Chicago. Yes. With the writers.

It was, you know. Yeah, that's right. It was very, because Boston had that standup boom, which, you know, you were part of, sort of. Maybe a little after. A way after. Way after. All right.

Slightly younger than Stephen Wright. I know I don't look it. I know I don't look it. Yeah, but I mean, well, how old are you? 88. No, come on. 38. 30. Okay. But see, you know, you're not, I guess that is true. Because I'm 52, so that's 14 years

different. So yeah, yeah. I mean, that stand-up boom was sort of with my contemporaries. Yeah, I mean, Boston is a historic comedy town, as is Chicago. Yeah. And maybe there was a part of me that had a sense about that. I knew that Second City was in Chicago. Yeah.

And so I was like, ooh, if I go to theater school. And I also knew about the Goodman and the Steppenwolf and all these very interesting, amazing theaters where some of the best actors that are out there. You know, Second City is an equity stage. A lot of people don't know this. But it's like an equity stage. A lot of people don't know this, but it's like an equity theater. So it's like, I was like, hmm, I could maybe go there and I could study theater and then I could study improv and I could get into Second City. And I had all these fantasies about Chicago. It's also more approachable than New York or these other towns. It's a little more comfortable.

Chicago is bigger than Boston, but I just knew I didn't want to go to New York. At least not right out of high school. Too much too soon? Yeah. And it just seemed like it was overwhelming. Actually, when I was in college in Boston, I did go to visit a friend in New York one summer. And I was like, it was the first time I went

to New York City. And I was like, this is ridiculous. I was like, this is a huge place. And I was like so happy. It. Like, I was like, this is a huge place. Yeah. And I was like, so happy that I was like, I couldn't have done this like right away. Yeah. I lived in New York for almost a decade. And, but now when I go back, I'm like, I don't understand how I did.

Like, I still am like, this is overwhelming. This is a little much. So yeah, I went to Boston University. Well, you're a child of the desert. I was a child of the desert. I watched, you know, every movie takes place in New York, though. So I was like, maybe. Went to Boston University, majored in theater and acting.

And, you know, all these influences as well, like, they kind of fold into my comedy and my stand-up. Sure. So I got, like, influences out of the theater that most, that the average stand-up comedian does not know about. Yeah. Or has not incorporated. Yeah, sure. Into their jokes. Yeah, if you will. Now, was there a moment where you, I mean, you sort of spoke more generally about realizing

that stand-up was what you wanted to do. Was there a moment that it happened? Yeah. I mean, a friend of mine, shout out to Leo Goodman, went to this place called the Williamstown Theater Festival. It's in western Massachusetts. Louis Black, who a lot of people don't know, has a master's in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. Oh, wow.

I didn't know that. Used to go to the Williamstown Theater Festival and teach a stand-up comedy course. Wow. Because he said that he believes in giving the knowledge to the next generation in front of them. You can read my book, but I could also tell it to you. And so my friend Leo Goodman took his seminar and he gave him some knowledge about how to start stand up that when Leo came and told me, it just suddenly, because it was the first time that anyone had given me any practical advice of what to do when it came to stand

up. It just suddenly demystified it to me. Yeah. And then I was like, oh, I got to find an open mic. And then I found an open mic in Boston and started going. And this was probably about my, actually, it was a summer between my sophomore and junior years. It was the summer of 2001.

Yeah. That I started doing stand up. And that's when I realized that like, oh, like I just loved it. Yeah, this is it. It's so immediate.'s it's me and you and I had all this theater training so being on stage was easy was easy yeah stage fright wasn't a problem yeah I was just concerned about what am I saying you know am I saying anything that's interesting yeah up there um or am I an idiot and that's always been my concern before that first

open mic did you did you work a long time on the material? I always ask this about stand-ups because I'm always annoyed when somebody says, a stand-up says, friends told me, go on up there. It's an open mic. And I went up and winged it. I just feel like that's not true. I mean, I had people tell me that. But I knew that winging it wasn't going to work. I mean, when I was young, I used to think that everybody was winging it because nobody, I didn't know any better.

And I was like, wow, you got to get so funny that you could just go up there and talk and everybody will respond in these rhythmic ways. And then I figured out like, oh no, you write it. You figure out what you want to say. And that was what my friend Leo got from Louis Black. It was like, just come up, funny stories, tell a story. And I immediately thought of a funny story to tell, which is when I accidentally, in high school, you know, I had little sisters.

They were babies when I was in high school. And one day I came home and ate a bowl of cereal, and the milk was in a water bottle in a not regular way for milk to be in the fridge. And I was like, oh, it must have been like an empty two liter. Poured it into this water bottle to take up space, poured it in my cereal, ate it, went about my married business. That was in the morning, right? Came home from school. The whole family is literally laughing as I walked in.

I'm like, what's going on? Like, you drank my breast milk. That's what, you drank my breast milk is what's going on. Couldn't you taste the difference? And I was like, no, it was Cocoa Puffs. So changed it to chocolate breast milk is what's going on. Couldn't you taste the difference? And I was like, no, it was Cocoa Puffs. So changed it to chocolate breast milk, like the kind you get from brown cows. This was one of my first stand-up jokes.

So I just went to an open mic, and I had a couple ideas, loose ideas of what kinds of things I wanted to talk about. I had that story. I had some other observations. But I didn't know what it was going to be like to be up there. Yeah. I don't even remember it, honestly. Yeah.

I was like in a trance. I went up there. I was talking. People were laughing. I came off stage and people were like, hey, that was really fun. I'm like, I don't know what happened. It's weird how that happens.

Like I always say, the first time that I was on Letterman, I didn't see anything but his nose and mouth. I have no visual recollection of being on there, but his nose and his mouth. Wow. Because I just, and I would look at the audience just out of like, you know, training to relate to the audience, but it was as if my eyes didn't work and all I could see in a tunnel vision was that.

Yeah. It's weird how nerves do that to you. Yeah. There was a mirror right next to me and I just kept looking in the mirror right i just remember seeing myself in the mirror damn i look good apparently at some point i looked in the mirror went that's me yeah and then people laughed that's me i don't remember saying it oh wow um yeah what a terrible idea to have a fucking mirror on stage where you're doing stand-up. The most self-involved people in the world put a fucking mirror next to him. Having to look at themselves.

Yeah, yeah. So, and then how soon, I mean, how long did it take to become that, become a profession for you? Well, I mean, I was, I went into my junior and senior year of college. And then I moved to New York a little after that. Fortunately, because I did the Williamstown Theater Festival after graduating, I got cast in a Broadway play. Oh, nice. So the first job I had in New York was a Broadway play called Drowning Crow that had to start Alfre Woodard and Anthony Mackie, Anjanue Ellis, Tracy Toms.

Wow. Some really great actors. That's heady stuff to have happen so quick right away and I was not prepared I look back and I was like wet behind the ears like dripping wet behind the ears didn't really

and after that I worked at a law firm I was doing stand up then this play happened and it ended after three months and I was like oh what's next I was doing standup, then this play happened and it ended after three months and I didn't, I was like, Oh, what's next? I guess I go do another Broadway play. Is that how it works? Hey, let me into your play.

Like knocking on the door, stage doors. Can I get it? Can I be in this? I was in a play. I need another play. I was in one. I can be in this one. Started doing standup and then started booking commercial, like doing commercial auditions,

booked a commercial, was able to quit my job. And I was still youngish. Yeah. So this is about 25, 26. Yeah. That I suddenly had enough money where I was a professional. Quit my day job, was doing commercials, doing stand-up around the city. Then did commercials for another two, three years before I started doing colleges.

Yeah. So then I was touring around doing colleges. Yeah. And I'm talking like, this is like, I'd be 2006 to 2009-ish was my brother, my brother, my bread and butter was performing in colleges all around the country. And those are pretty good gigs. I mean, I did some college tour, you know, speaking gigs. And I think they're certainly better than stand-up clubs. A lot of the time, especially when I was younger.

But then when I started getting a little older and wanted to talk about my actual life now. Yeah. Then it became these 20-year-olds, you know, haven't paid a bill. You know, like they haven't dated outside of the context of it being a university, you know? So then it started to, I started to relate to them less and they started to relate to me less. I understand.

And then the clubs in New York where it was more of the alt comedy scene, if you will, became sort of where I started to kind of come up there. And then luckily not too long after I stopped doing colleges, I started booking shows, like TV shows here and there, like acting work. And you were still in New York at this time? I was still in New York. I booked a pilot. I tested for a pilot that I did not get. Then the next year, I booked a pilot that did not get picked up.

And then the year after that, I booked a pilot that did get picked up. And then I ended up having to move to Canada for a couple of years. Oh, really? Yeah. What was that? It was called Fairly Legal. It was a USA show at the time. Characters were welcome.

Yeah. And so they were like, you got to go to Vancouver, though. And that's when I found out I was depressed. I was working, but I was very isolated in a city and a country where I knew no one. Yeah, yeah. And so it was kind of like, oh, why do I feel this? What is this feeling? It was like, not sadness.

It's deeper than that. Right, right. I wish I knew. I wish I had words for this. Yeah. Until a friend of mine, Liz Winstead, actually said, I think you're depressed. And I was like, what? It blew my head open, where I was like, oh, this is, oh, this is, oh.

What they all talk about, yeah. I get hit. And it kind of, you know, changed my life in a lot of ways because I started trying to address it. Yeah. Instead of just be possessed by it. And you think it was something that was in your life throughout. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I recognized the feeling and then I recognized immediately that this is something I had been feeling. Yeah. Here. Yeah. When I, I recognized the feeling and then I recognized immediately that this is something I had been feeling for here and there for a long time, which I did not know, didn't recognize.

It's also like, there's a racial component to it too, because I was like, black people don't get depressed. Right. It's not an experience that we have,

depression or anxiety. And then at some point, black people don't have time for depression. But we're very, but black people are depressed. Of course. Or anxious, like anybody else like anybody else of course and so but a lot of it you know it's it's it's it's folded into the experience of race as well that's the thing like you can

have anxiety but then you can also be killed by a cop for real yeah so it's kind of like oh you know that's something that gives me a lot of anxiety. Yeah, yeah. So, therapy, medication? Been going to therapy for a couple of years. Yeah, I try to do all these different things to kind of, you know, help with it. But then also it's kind of like, I haven't gone on medications. You know, I haven't had a doctor, you know, or a psychiatrist or whatever, You know, I haven't had a doctor or psychiatrist or whatever diagnose me with any sort of mood disorder or, you know, thing like that. So I've never taken a medication.

It's mostly been like therapy and just trying to put routines and habits into my life that are helpful. You know, and as far as I know, everything's been working. That's good. Yeah. No, no i mean they'll tell you honestly they'll i mean i've been on medication for decades and they you know you you walk in and they're like okay yeah i mean that was my experience the first time yeah yeah yeah i mean because yeah i i when i was in Chicago doing improv, broke, I answered a classified ad for a clinical trial where they were using higher doses of an anti-anxiety medication to see how it treated depression. And I went through that. And initially, it was fantastic. It was almost euphoric, the sort of relief that i got

from this fucking miserable cloud that followed me around everywhere and then it sort of didn't sort of stop working and when the clinical trial was done it was done and and i was back to being probably even more miserable from some sort of slingshot effect. And I went to see a therapist with a sliding scale and described that process of this clinical trial. And she said, that's malpractice. She said, just looking at you and talking to you, she said, they should have known. You shouldn't have had some sort of like experimental thing. They should have just told you, you should get on some fucking medication.

Wow. Yeah. So, and I, you know, and just within the last few years, I was on a medication that just kind of stopped being effective. It just like, like seepage just, and it was, it was slow enough that I just kind of didn't even realize it. And then got a new shrink and went in. And he was like, oh, yeah. He's like, I can just. And then when I started a new medication, he's just like, oh, yeah, yeah.

This is night and day difference. He goes, you walked in here. And I was like, oh, yeah. Get that guy on as much Wellbutrin as we can shove down his throat. Oh, interesting. So, yeah, I mean, you know, it's evident when it's necessary. Yes. And for me, and I don't have any, you know, I'll be on it the rest of my life. I don't care.

You know, it's like if I had cholesterol issues, I'd be on fucking Lipitor. It's just like there's no weakness in it or anything. No, absolutely not. To each their own, I say. And when you started therapy, were you open to it? Did you like it?

I did. I did. I had gone to some therapy sessions when I was in college, but they were very limited because it was in a college structure.

I think that, you know. And they're learning how to do therapy with people that you work with. Well, it was a real therapist that this, yeah, it was like the, the mental health center or whatever the crap it was called. And I went to it and they kind of had this thing where they,

they, they wean you off of therapy. Like you basically can get five free sessions. Yeah. To go to therapy in college. At least when I was at BU, this was the, this was the policy.

You get five free sessions. And then if they see that you are not a danger to yourself or other students, then they be like, okay, well, we need this time for the kids who are. The kids who are a danger. Like, okay, you got some issues, but you're not going to hurt anyone or yourself. So peace. Peace be unto you. And then I didn't go back for a really long time.

But, you know, I also kind of was doing that, like, my art is my therapy, bro. Like, put everything on stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of stuff like that. But that is and isn't effective. I have a lot of heady conceptual theories about all that stuff that we don't have another eight hours, do we? Well, okay. Well, you know, let's get to the second question. Where are you going? I mean, do you have, I mean, you obviously, if you've talked, I mean, you've got another kid

on the way. That's a big thing, you know? I mean, where I'm going, Andy, you know, Paul is, it's kind of, I mean, you know, even talking about what we're talking about and kind of all this different, you know, like even the mental health stuff and just like how I grew up and stuff like that. I guess the theme that arches over all of it is wanting a place that I belong, right? Wanting a community that I belong. Wanting to be in a city that I like, you know, or a family that wasn't dysfunctional or a school where I wasn't getting beat up or, you know, or a school where I wasn't tested on my knowledge of musical theater at all times, which is what, that's bullying in performance, in performing arts high school. Who wrote Sweeney

Todd? Tell me five, four, three, two, you suck. And then they walk away like Sondheim. Oh, damn. I missed it. So where I'm going is, is I guess you could say giving myself my own feeling of belonging. Yeah. So even creating a show like the new Negroes is an attempt to, which is create my own community. Describe that for what the new Negroes is for people. Which is? Create my own community.

Describe that for what The New Negroes is for people. The New Negroes is my new stand-up comedy showcase variety show, many slashes and hyphens, on Comedy Central, co-hosted by Open Mike Eagle, in which we host it. We kind of unpack a little bit of a social theme. Then we have three comics and an original song by mike and a guest every single um episode that also you know is a music video so it's kind of just a way to sound the horn i guess in a kind of way go and see who responds create a community you know it kind of started in a context for

yourself in a context for myself yeah because when i I was thinking about, I guess it was a couple years ago, I was at a low, low. And it was before Grace and Frankie happened, where I... Which you're fantastic in, by the way. Thank you very much, Andy. You're welcome. I appreciate that. Thank you for watching. Before I did that, I didn't work for like two and a half years.

Ouch. And I was going broke. And I found out that I had a business manager that was stealing money. Hashtag embezzlement. I always have Michael McDonald come in when I start talking about stuff that's a little uncomfortable. Because I'm stealing your money. What little you have. All right, calm down, Michael.

Okay. So I was like strapped, you know, like for cash. And I, the one day I was like, you know what? I can turn this around. I walked down to like a coffee bean down by my place, turned around, came back home. And then there was a letter on my door, on my front door, which was a summons from Boston University because I was being sued for an outstanding student loan. And I was like, what? I don't have any money and they sued me. Can they do this? And then I had to pay them $8,000 that I didn't have. And I literally fell

to the floor. I was like, this is not going to, I'm not going to this. That was, I went to like a low, low, right? So then I kind of started thinking about the idea of branding. Now I hate this idea. When I first heard it, when I first heard it, I was like, it's a gross name for something very important. It can be useful. Yes. Now to go back to this Lewis Black lesson, what he said to my friend, one of the things that he taught in this seminar is that your comedy character, the person you play on stage, is you, but it isn't you. Yeah. If you think of all the aspects of your personality as slices of a pie, your comedy character is two or three of those slices exaggerated.

And I started thinking about that and like, well, which parts of myself is it that I wish to share with an audience? And so I started thinking of branding as a conduit for that. Yeah. As kind of like, well, you know, I'm a intellectual, you know, nerdy, you know, depressive black dude. Yeah. You know, where's the space for me? Right. So I kind of, that's what New Negroes was born out of, is kind of thinking of ways to, I guess, create the spaces that

I wish existed, you know, for me beforehand. Yeah. Because I think even, especially within comedy, blackness can be its own kind of monolith, you know? Yes, exactly. Well, you know, that's what's ironic about it sometimes is that, like, black comedy becomes its own section. Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's over there with black literature. Or own section yeah you know black it's over there with black literature or women's comedy and black movies right next to the women's comedy and next to the gay comedy um as opposed to it's all comedy yeah yeah you know some people are black some people are gay some people are women some people are all of them yeah you know at once so it's kind of like comp and i guess i i just kind of look at a look at it for the sense of, I didn't want to adhere, if you will, to any predetermined box that I'm supposed to fit into, which is another thing that showbiz can do. It's like, we got some boxes, which one do you fit into?

Yeah, yeah. None of those. Ooh, well, come back when it's a different six boxes. Yeah. So I wanted to create a place where I can be myself. Every comic can be myself. I'm not telling them this is the kind of style of comedy. This is the kind of voice or the kind of things you are supposed to talk about when you come up here.

Everyone is themselves. And I just wanted a place where everyone can be themselves, including me. That's great. And that's what the whole point of the show is. The title is borrowed from a book from the Harlem Renaissance, which was a collection of authors, writers, thinkers of the time, creating a place for them all to be exactly who they are. So I kind of am taking that very intellectual idea and saying,

but what about some dick jokes? Oh, he's got to have dick jokes. Got to get those dick jokes in there. Am I right? But not some dick jokes uh and that's oh he's got a dick got gotta get those dick jokes in there am i right um but not not literal dick jokes yeah just the concept conceptual dick jokes which is just random silliness yeah uh pin 15 but um so yeah that's that's kind of what the whole point of that is is just me thinking of way things i want to make for myself yeah that i like yeah and that's where i'm going yeah is finally coming into my own yeah in a place of self-comfort self-confidence self-awareness self-acceptance um you know having to to realize and to recognize

that what i do has worse and that, you know, as long as I am, you know, it's whatever I'm creating is true to who I am at that time. Yeah. I can't fail. Right. You know, even if someone doesn't want to make it. Yep.

I made it. Yeah. You know, that's, that's kind of where I'm going. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah. Cause it's, you know, the important thing ultimately,

especially now that there's not that much money in show business, is to be satisfied. Absolutely. You know, it's a short life. You might as well get the most of it. Well, if you're not doing stuff that you like. Yeah. What's the point? What is the point? What's the point?

Now, fatherhood is always an interesting topic to me. Now, fatherhood is always an interesting topic to me. And I wonder how this notion of finding a sense of permanence and a sense of place, like how becoming a father fits into that. Did it inform it or does this looking for permanence inform your job as a father, who you are as a father, you know, who you are as a father. Well, yes, absolutely. You know, because the thing is that being a father kind of has made me, whether I like it or not, see the things that I did not receive. Yeah. Having no father myself. Yeah.

And so. You're self-invented, I would imagine. Yeah. And I guess it's kind of like, like, we even want to talk about, like, we want to move to a place where there's a yard, you know, yard. These are things that I want for my son. You know what I mean? Everybody is like, oh, everybody wants their kids to have more than they had. But you want it for little Baron, too.

In a sort of a way. Yeah, why not? So I kind of look at it like I get to re-experience in a sort of a way my youth through him. See the world through a child's eyes, as they say, which helps me kind of see what just regular old, plain old, unfiltered, unadulterated joy and happiness looks like. Yeah, yeah. And what it feels like. And I go like, oh, wait, that's in me.

Yeah. That's what I was originally. Yeah. Before all this other bullshit happened. Yeah, yeah. This is the pure. And you want to make more of that for your kid. That's a me. Yeah. That's what I was originally. Yeah. Before all this other bullshit happened. Yeah, yeah. This is the pure. And you want to make more of that for your kid. That's a thing too.

Absolutely. For me, it was always like, there was so much, you know, I mean, I grew up with a lot of sadness and loss. Yes. And I don't, you know, when you see happy kids without a care, you think yeah that's well let's keep that up let's get let's let's keep the bullshit at bay until they have to actually go out and deal with it absolutely and um you know i mentioned alfrey woodard a little earlier she gave me a tip on parenting a long time ago before i even knew i wanted to be a parent where that i'm going to incorporate which is just about like,

because I want my child to have joy, of course, but at the same time, I don't want them to be sheltered. Yeah. You know what I mean? I don't want to coddle him, hold his hand through everything. Yeah. Some things are the things that he has to figure out on his own. And so I had asked her because, you know,

there is that want to kind of, I keep saying shelter, but you want to kind of put up some sort of barrier between your child and any negative. Protection, yeah. You want to protect them. And so I asked her, like, how does she do that? How does she get around that? How does she do that with her kids? And she said that, you know, I never lie to my children. She's like, I will tell them a version of the truth that they can understand at that age.

to my children. She's like, I will tell them a version of the truth that they can understand at that age. You know, but the thing is that like, she's like, I tell them if they asked me this at five, then I will tell them what I think they can understand at five because they'll come back at 10 and then I can just build on what I already said. And they'll come back at 15 and I'll build on what I said. And I was like, oh, that's great. You know? So it's kind of like, I don't have to tell them everything, but I can be like, well, it's this and this and this. What does that mean? I'll let you know when you're older. Yeah.

So it's kind of like, oh, it's not. And also, I'm not going to do everything perfectly. That's the other thing. Yeah. Trying to like give myself permission to mess up. Yeah, yeah. Because it's going to happen. Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, your kid's young, but one of the things, because I kind i'm i said it before in this show like i didn't really have a model for a father i mean my folks divorced when i was very young and my dad wasn't around a lot so i didn't i didn't have a father model so i think i just basically was a mother like i just basically i just i do uh you know i'm i i mother my children i mean, you know, I'm, I mother my children. I mean, you know, not as much as their mother does because I'm not a mother, but I do think that like, I sure do a lot more cooking and cleaning than a lot of, than a lot of, than a lot of men I know. And, and, you know, and well. Well, you know, I grew up with my grandmother and my mother. Yeah.

So I saw two women do literally everything. Yeah, that's all the time. Same thing. I grew up in a house full of women. There just weren't that many men around, you know. Yeah. So. My fathers were comedians.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That I looked up to and I'm like, well, hmm, do I want to be prior to my son? Don't think so. No, no, no. prior to my son? Don't think so. No, no, no. Being a father, it's,

in terms of making mistakes, you got it. One thing that I found very powerful, and I, because I just started doing it out of a sense of it being the right thing to do,

and it was something that I, I don't have much recollection whatsoever of it happening, but when you fuck up, apologize to your children. Oh, yeah. Tell them, I'm sorry. I made a mistake.

And I'll try not to do that again. And the other thing that I think about parenting that's a huge thing is you have to have respect for your children as individuals. You can't just – you have to have, I see so many people parenting their kids without any respect, like treating them like they're some kind of animal that they're training. When, I mean, from the very earliest age, they're autonomous creatures that you got to give a little room to, you know, and let them have their dignity, you know? Yeah, yeah.

He's very, and my son is very independent in that sort of sense. Like, you know, we have this babysitter has has children herself and she's very impressed oh that's good how do you get him that he's brushing his teeth yeah he's like yeah yeah he's brushing that's wonderful how did you do that and we're like i have no idea some of them just are like that yeah he saw us doing it and he's like me too yeah no i my kid there are so many ways that my two kids are completely different. And one is responsible in one way, and one is confident in one way that the other one isn't. It just sort of happens.

Yeah, that's what I'm curious about. Yeah. I'm curious to see what the second kid's going to be like. To see what's going to be like. To see what's going to be like. To see what's going to be like. To see what's going to be like. To see what's going to be like. To see what's going to be like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're getting to the end here. All right. You know, we've done a lot. We've really, I mean, we talked about certainly where you come from and where you're going. We explicitly talked about that. I think we talked about

what I learned even. Yeah, we certainly did. But I mean, but is there, I mean, do you have kind of, whether you call it a mantra

or kind of, you know, words to live by that you kind of, is there some sort of idea? I know it's simplistic, but I mean, it's a fucking podcast.

What do you want from me? Yeah, okay. So that play, Drowning Crow, that I did when I got out of college. It's an adaptation of a play called The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. It's a man named Peter Francis James. Shout out to Peter Francis James. I think he's on Broadway right now. He's got to be listening.

He probably might be. We actually just did a play with him in Connecticut last year. But he played this role, Trigorin, Trigger, I guess in our version, but it's like he's this old writer. And then the woman, Nina, who's 19, is fascinated

by him. He's a famous writer. She asks him, what is it like being a writer? And he is trying to outline to her that it's torture. And so when I hear this line, it's Peter Francis James saying it, he's like, I see a cloud. It looks like an old man's beard. I have to take a note.

I see a tree. It reminds me of a childhood memory. I have to take a note. Everything becomes something else. I'm a cannibal consuming my own life. And I was like, what? Like as an adult, I got, because us as creators,

comedians, writers, we are constantly taking our lives and putting them through the filter of what bit can I get out of this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the thing that I have learned is to live my life. If I am always thinking about how to turn my life into material,

then I'm not living my life. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. I'm always putting this haze, like a friend of mine recently was like, oh, she was saying, my mom's turning 60. I'm taking her to Hawaii. I'm going to get like 10 minutes out of it. I'm like, no, just be with your mom in Hawaii. Just enjoy Hawaii. Because the more that you live your life, when you make the time later to turn it into something, since you lived in it fully, you'll have more to report. Right. You'll have more to draw from.

So it's kind of like at all times you can't be making things. Yeah. You have to turn off the faucet. Yeah. Every now and then. Yeah. Live your damn life as well as you can, as honestly and as bravely as you can and then when it's time to turn it into jokes turn it into a script turn it into a painting then you turn the faucet on

and because you've lived your life because you have put water in the well yeah then you'll be able to get something out of it and even if you don't fully master that. Master which thing? Master it in terms of like where you perfectly separate your living from your creation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if it's still kind of messy, just making the effort. Yes. Just making the effort is key because you're never going to get it perfect. No, of course not you're always going to be like you know when you're doing like for me it's like something will happen and i'll be like

oh that's a fucking tweet uh you know and i'll have a moment like oh come on give it a rest but it's like i'm sorry it's there yeah it's going to be a tweet eventually you know absolutely so but it's you know that's why I like drafts. Yeah. But you're always, I mean, you're always going to create, but you have to remember to live too. Absolutely. And that's absolutely key. You have to have something to report. Yeah.

You have to have something, you have to have life that you want to turn into the art. And also too, ultimately, when you reach the finish line, what's going to matter more? A joke that you said for three months, you know, 30 years ago, or the vacation that you took with your kids, or that, you know, how you felt when somebody you love got married. You know, I mean, you know, you got to remember what is actually nourishment and what is just junk food. This morning, was it this morning? My goodness, it was this morning. I don't know. This morning before I came here, you know, my wife is very pregnant.

She's going to have a baby in a couple of weeks. And our son was, she was laying down and he was pointing at her stomach, going, baby, baby. And he felt her stomach and the baby kicked. And he was like, ah. And I was like, oh, wait. In that moment, I was like, oh, this is one of the happiest moments of my life right now. Just him, that joy, and him being like, oh. He was happy that someone's coming.

Instead of like, who's this motherfucker? This was my shit, and now this kid is here no that's my bottle give me that i'll crawl sort of thing still might happen yeah but in that moment i was like oh this is pretty amazing that's beautiful this is mine forever sort of a thing that's the at the end i'm gonna be happy that happened yeah well baron we are we have you've done a wonderful service to me by filling up this time

so wonderfully. Thank you so much. This is really great. And it was a real pleasure to get to know you better. Hey. Back at you, Andy. It was a nice talk.

All right. Well, thank you people for listening to the three questions with Andy Richter and my thanks to Baron Vaughn and we will see you. Well, I mean, we won't see you.

We will talk to you next time. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco and Earwolf production. It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, associate produced by Jen Samples and Galit Sahayek, and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.