The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Jamie Loftus

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

TV writer, stand-up and podcaster Jamie Loftus talks with Andy about her teenage years wearing a back brace, the perils of butt-chugging too much milk while on tour, and her new podcast about the legacy of Nabokov’s Lolita.

Hey guys, the podcast has started. Welcome to the three questions. Today, I get to talk to a very funny and very unique and very challenging comedic artist. Like you really do kind of get out there and mix it up. I'm talking about Jamie Loftus. Hi. Hi. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. The recent thing that you're doing right now is a Lolita podcast, which we will talk about more because I don't want to jump the gun on that. But you've been sort of, like I say, a lot of your work is very sort of like, I don't know if confrontational, but it definitely mixes it up in a way

where it has a perspective that a lot of other comedy doesn't. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know. Which I think is really brave. And to me, I watch some of the things you do and it just makes my skin crawl because i'm so nervous i hate i just i mean i've done that kind of work for the conan show like going out and doing remotes and making comedy out in the world

and it's just it's the fact that i well i got hired for that job and then it was like oh yeah by the way you're gonna learn how to do this Like I never wanted to be like on comedy 60 minutes, you know. But I ended up like, oh, I guess I got to do this. And the whole time that I've ever done remotes, I still it's like the most like anxiety I've ever had. You know, it's like every time I I grew up watching you do that and I always like was so I don't know I I love when people blend field work and comedy stuff but every time it's like every time I'm actually doing it it just feels like oh this is the last time like never again this feels so bad but I like it but it feels it doesn't feel good when you're doing like it always feels

like i like i need to stop because it's it's too uncomfortable and it's like hurting too much i always to me i always felt like going into a situation where it would be like going to the miss america pageant and it wasn't that i didn't want to make waves or anything but i just was like you know i obviously want to point out the ludicrousness of the miss america pageant. And it wasn't that I didn't want to make waves or anything, but I just was like, you know, I obviously want to point out the ludicrousness of the Miss America pageant. And I tried to do that as much as I could without being completely didactic and performative about it. Like where it's just explicitly like, get a load of this archaic old wheezing beast, you know, this, this thing. I always think that's so like it's so because you have always been able to do it really well and not a lot of people can where it feels like sometimes with fieldwork, especially people show up and they're like, OK, all my job is to like witness how I don't like this and then just say that in as many ways as I can think of to say it, which can be funny. But then ultimately it's like you're punching

in a lot of weird directions when you do that. And it's a very closed, like the attitude that you set is like the soil that you're planting in. And if you're going into this thing with a, I hate this, fuck this attitude, there's no room for growth. Like you can't, unless something magical happens and the whole thing wins you over. Like all of a sudden I'm like, I'm a Miss America pageant acolyte. You know, it's, it doesn't, it's. Like I think I'll be a judge.

Yeah. You know what, this is right. I think I will learn to sing the song uh there she is um but yeah but i always going into it the feeling of dread like riding in a passenger van to like the second woodstock which i think in like 95 or something just feeling like i'm gonna gonna puke like because i just have to go out in the middle of all these people that's such a looming sense of doom, too. It's like, well, there's no way this is going to go the way that I want it to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what? I want to start at the beginning.

Just like, because you're from the East Coast, yeah? Yeah, I'm from Brockton, Massachusetts. From Brockton, Massachusetts. And where is Brockton? I don't know Massachusetts that well. I've chosen not to. I've chosen to ignore that whole part of the country. That's honestly, I mean, it's a popular choice.

Most people do. Brockton is like the south shore of Massachusetts, kind of close to Rhode Island. Oh, nice. And it's great there. My whole family is still there. It's beachy then. No, it's like not south shore enough to be beachy. It's very, I don't even know like

brockton's just i love it it's a low-income city it's kind of la rivery there's a large puddle that is technically a bottle of water right right right yeah the cement ditch that is exactly yeah well now uh what did your folks do What brought the cash in for the household? When I was really little, my dad was a hockey writer at a local newspaper in Quincy. Yeah, he did it my entire life and just retired like two weeks ago. He did it forever and ever. So he was a local sports journalist. And then my mom was a stay- stay at home mom for a while.

She like ran this illegal daycare at our house where it was like, I feel like it's like it happens. And it's not legal, but it happens. It's everyone knows somebody that did that. If you grew up in a, you know, like in a fairly, you know, like smaller sized town or, you know, everybody. I'm sure in big cities they do too. But I just, oh yeah, I think I knew two different people that did that. Yeah. Like, and my mom was just like, she was the one in our neighborhood who did it. So she ran a daycare that was like me, my brother and like eight of my cousins.

And then she eventually went back to school and she became a teacher. Oh, cool. Yeah. Cool. It's funny because like your dad being a hockey writer, like a regional hockey writer, is like the kind of job that people have on sitcoms. Like you don't expect someone to have it in real life.

Like it's like he's a small town hockey writer. Like, no, he isn't. No one's a small town. writer like no he isn't no one's not possible and and he hates his job and it's like that it no longer exists the job no longer exists but it did for for a bit oh does it really no longer exist well it was i he kind of jumped out a little earlier than he wanted to but it was just like local papers are just they there's just kind of nothing there so he he made the jump into uh oblivion oh really yeah uh he's doing great everyone's doing great yeah good good is he retired or has he just moved on to something else i don't know kind of tbd he's he's not not quite old. He's 62, so he's not that old. Oh, yeah. That's not – yeah, that's not –

So he wasn't quite ready to retire. Unless you're a fireman or a bus driver or a cop. You can't retire that early. Right, like someone who's going to be taken care of and stuff. So he's figuring shit out. Fortunately, he never took a day off for my entire life, so he's got a lot of vacation time to uh to figure it out wow that's nice that they let it stock up you know yeah i guess yeah yeah now are do you have siblings i think i think i know you have a brother right i mean because i know i know your online life so i i have voyeuristically learned things about you over time i have a very online family yeah i have a little brother yeah as the older sister did you were you in charge do you think kind of i mean there was a yes and like i my brother and i have always been pretty close but because my mom ran this daycare it was like it

was the two of us but it was also like we existed within 10 of us. Yes. So it was, there were all sorts of like cousins dominating my little brother. I wasn't like, it wasn't a solo job. I see. He was like the second, like one of the youngest. So he was, you know, there were a ton of people bullying that kid. Yeah. And also probably taking care of him at different points. And nurturing as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But nobody wants to hear about the nurture. No. They just want to hear about the cruelty of nature. And what kind of kid were you? I mean, were you a funny kid? I was a pretty shy kid. I liked writing a lot. I had like, it was weird because when I like had a lot of OCD tendencies,

but I didn't know I didn't get like diagnosed with OCD till I was like in my 20s. So I just did a lot of like, I was a very habitual kid where my parents were like, oh, like she wants to be a writer. But it was because I had this habit where I would like, I would like write down what everyone at school was wearing in a notebook every day, which is so scary for a child to do. But like, I had all these like, I liked to write things down. Was there a reason? But I didn't know why. Oh, you didn't know why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I just was like, I need to, I need to document everything very carefully or I'll die.

Wow. And so that was like, what I did. Like at what age? I remember getting in trouble for it for the first time in second grade. So it was like, it was pretty early where I just like had a notebook and would just, I just, I don't know, it was like what people were wearing. I would write down what was on TV every day on like a bunch of channels on every channel that interested me I'd just copy out the TV guide. And so I just, yeah, I like paid very careful attention to like stupid things.

That was scary because then when my teacher was like, why are you writing down, you know, what everyone's wearing every day? Like, you know, that, I don't know. I guess that I don't know what the proper punishment for that is, but I don't think, well, I mean, nowadays there wouldn't be a punishment.

I don't think, you know, I hope not. Yeah. I mean, cause it is to be punished for, it's a weird thing to be punished for. And it's also,

it's just like, I put myself in the shoes of that teacher going, Hey, Jamie, why did you do this? And you go, I don't know. And I, you know, like, and, why did you do this? And you go, I don't know. And I, you know, like, and if I, I would try and question you more, but, you know, you end up

learning when you deal with kids that when they say, I don't know, frequently, it really does mean that they have no idea. Like, yeah, like there's nothing to hide there. It was just like, this is just what I do. I don't know. And, and I. And it's just also too, it's like one of my pet peeves growing up, and it's something I tried to do consciously as a parent, is that there's no respect for children's privacy. And I understand sometimes people have to kind of keep an eye on their kid's online life. Totally understand that. of keep an eye on their kids online life totally understand that but like just the notion that you can't like why is it anyone's business that you're writing down what everyone's yeah it's not hurting anybody and it's not i don't know yeah i remember like that specifically it was just confusing because they're just like well i guess that what that that is is wrong, but like I don't, no one can really explain to me why it's wrong.

And so, but I mean, my parents were always very like nice and supportive about it, even when they didn't, you know, know what to do with it. They were just like, oh, you like writing. And they're like, do you like clothes? And I was like, no, I don't care about it. No. I just write down what everyone's wearing, and that's what I do.

And I did it in this, like, freaky shorthand. So it did look kind of scary. Right. But they were like, okay, she likes to write. And so I just did stuff like that. And I, like, went to dance classes and school band and just, like, dork shit. I wore a back brace in middle school, like, stuff like that. Oh, really?

How come? Yeah. I had really bad scoliosis. Oh, wow. No one noticed until like the 11th hour. It was like, they found out when I was like 11 that I had really bad scoliosis. And so I wore a back brace for four years.

Oh, my God. Yeah, almost 16. So it wasn't great. Set certain parts of my life back oh well a what the fuck pediatrician i mean i know for christ's sake i know my i and my mom was my mom really i had a very charismatic pediatrician so my mom was like doing these mental gymnastics to be like, Kenny just didn't understand a child's spine. That's his job. I saw him until I was 21 years old, though.

He never, there was no comeuppance. He's still operating in Raynham to this day. Is he really? Yeah. What if I said his last name and shut him down? No, he like personally apologized to me. It was weird. Oh, wow? Yeah. What if I said his last name and shut him down? No, he like personally apologized to me. It was weird. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And a brace like that is such a formative thing. I mean, it's like a shitty comedy cliche. Yeah. Like the back brace girl, you know? It really sucked. I was lucky that like I got a brace. This would have, like when I was in middle school,

it would have been like the mid 2000s. And so it wasn't like a neck thing anymore. It's just a plastic thing that you wear under your clothes. But I was like a really like gangly kid with like a gigantic torso. So it like looked fucking ridiculous. And um so yeah i mean it was i i am still kind of grateful that i didn't take more shit for it in in junior high in high school i you know it it definitely sucked but i i feel like it could have been a lot worse. But it was like kind of as bad as it got was there was like a rumor going on about me that if someone shot me, I wouldn't die. Because I was wearing like a bulletproof vest and my clothes.

Just like kind of cool. Like it was framed to not make me look like a loser. So I appreciate that. cool like it was framed to not make me look like a loser so yeah yeah well were you able to do like you know gym class and sports and stuff yeah I did dancing all through high school and growing up and stuff so that ended up I kind of doubled down on that once I started wearing a back brace because the only time you were really allowed to be out of it was if you were doing a physical activity. So I started just doing as much as we could afford to do pretty much, especially when I was wearing like a daytime bag brace, you have an hour of every day that like you as a 14 year

old can choose to spend however you want. And the 23 other hours you have to wear it and then you have like one hour where you can do whatever. So I really like tried to find ways to extend that hour as much as I could. Right, right. I was like, well, if I sign up for a three-hour class, I can't just put it back on. Right, exactly.

During your extensive hula lesson. Yeah, exactly. It's got to be hip related, whatever this activity is. It's going to help. It's corrective. Like it's just bullshit. But yeah. Does it hurt to have to wear a brace like that? Yeah, it was very uncomfortable. I tried to learn about like how much worse it used to be to make myself like feel a little better because it is whatever. If you're like a 12-year-old who gets a back brace, every aunt or person in your life gives you a copy of Deanie by Judy Blume.

That's like a book about a girl that gets a back brace. But it's from the 70s. So it like sucked way worse for her. So I was like, fuck you. It's not that bad. from the 70s so it like sucked way worse for her so i was like yeah it's not that bad but the thing that's the worst is you smell weird all the time which is the worst feeling in the world because from sweating yeah you have to wear these special t-shirts but then you're sweating into the t-shirt into the back brace into your normal clothes and it's just like beyond BO. It's different. Yeah. And so it was just like you're kind of stinky and you're kind of uncomfortable.

And also you're like I felt lucky that you couldn't really tell I was wearing it unless I was standing up. So I was always like really conscious of like how if I could like hold myself a specific way to look like I wasn't wearing a body cast. I don't know. It really sucked. growing now because so much of your work has a very and i would say self-identifying feminist aspect to it um and i always wonder like are your parents explicitly talking to you about feminist things and issues what do you think that they gave you that sort of made you interested in bothering to stick out your neck for feminism? Because you know what I mean?

Like, it is taking on a task that you don't necessarily have to take on in life. It's the same with being political in any way. You are taking on, you know, like, well, I guess I'm going to open myself up for this. well, I guess I'm going to open myself up for this. And especially like to work, you know, in a feminist vein, I think especially can be hard in that way. And I wonder how that came about. I don't, my parents were not like very political,

like in any way really growing up. But I just, I think I was lucky that I grew up around a lot of like I had like my mom and my aunts and my cousins where it was like girls in our family weren't discouraged from doing anything um and it was always very like I feel lucky that I grew up in a house where it was like we didn't have a ton but my parents both really like cared about what they were doing and they wanted me to find something that i cared about doing um and so yeah i think uh it's weird i think it's just like growing up with like people that were like passionate about what they liked and were understanding even though it was like whatever you know my dad's like a hockey writer it's not close to comedy at all but like when i found something that i i really cared about he was like oh yeah i've been making you know jack

shit doing what i care about my whole life you know try it go for it yeah yeah they're always like super supportive of it it's definitely been like a journey with them because i didn't grow up in like an explicitly feminist family i think i just like grew up around women who were doing most of the stuff yeah yeah yeah uh college what happens what do you do uh i didn't like it very much i so i went to emerson college in boston i don't know i just had this kind of rude awakening when i went to college where i didn't really realize that our family had like just enough money to be okay until i left brockton and was like at a school where I had to like I had to work full time in order to not have to drop out um and then all of a sudden I was like surrounded by these

like really privileged people who were my age and like didn't I don't know it just like took a while for it to even compute or make sense to me so I like I struggled in college where it was I was just like working all the time and and just a bajillion whatever different jobs to be able to stay in college and then when I was actually there it was like kind of hard to connect with other people and so it was but but I I did start you know in getting interested in comedy in that time so by the time I got out I was like okay I like had gotten interested in comedy and I'd gotten interested in radio and like local music and that was kind of what I left with but it wasn't like it wasn't a great experience where did you did you say where you went to college I

did I miss it oh yeah I went to Emerson in Boston Emerson did you did you say where you went to college? Did I miss it? Oh, yeah. I went to Emerson in Boston. Emerson. OK, Emerson. I don't I didn't know if I missed it. And please, you may hear a dog now because I had to I had to have her in the house today. I'm recording from home.

Mine's right behind. I'm just like he could activate at any moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just like, he could activate at any moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, somebody's walking by the house, so she's growling and doing what someone online describes so well as foffing or fuffing. Ooh. Fuff, fuff, fuff. You know that thing when someone walks?

Fuff, fuff, fuff. I've met like the threat of a bark. Yes, it's what she's doing. It's her letting know that she's, well, now she's going to go out the back. It's her letting everybody know, if you're walking by our house, you better not fuck with us. Not that they can hear anything, but it's always on her mind. Sending that vibe out. Right, right.

I'm sure, you know, someone feels it somewhere. A vague threat. somewhere and a vague threat last night i was uh out in the driveway or in the garage putting away some christmas decorations and she was just kind of milling around the driveway and a fedex truck pulled up and she chased the driver back to the truck and i had god yeah she's never done that before and she's yeah she's like a year and a half years old, a year and a half old, but she's never done that before. She's, and she's generally friendly, but she is, you know, protective of home. Yeah.

But I was just mortified and I was like, oh fuck, now I can't just let her wander around. Cause if, you know. No one wants to be the person with the dog that fucked up once yeah yeah with the dog that bit a guy yeah yeah yeah yeah we've had like little encounters where it was like oh shit but you know i don't know our dog i'm just like my i don't need my dog to ever learn a thing except to like not hurt people right right exactly i don't need him to know how to do literally anything except that whenever anybody's like you should do classes and stuff it's always weird to me when somebody has like so managed a dog that it becomes like a machine

that is just based on input and output and that you like erase any kind of sense of like dogness about them you know yeah it feels like they're like an overly trained dog's like personality kind of goes away right like hidden makes me sad yeah no i mean and because it's you invite an animal into your house and is the fun of that that you have invited an animal like and so that you get to enjoy the animalness or is the point to control the animalness which is like no the point is i want the chaos you know right like that's why i've invited you here is to like mix shit up is to be an animal now how long have you had sunny is your dog right how old how long have you had him? We've had him two years now. And he's like kind of cocker spaniel-y something? Something like that, yeah.

My boyfriend was living in Boyle Heights, and there were some dog breeders in his neighborhood, and so every once in a while there would be a stray. And so we just found Sonny wandering around, and no one was looking for him. And so now we just have him for two years have, we've had him for two years and he's, he's amazing. He's great. Was he grown when you got him or was he little?

He was little. He was like, he was little. And he had like a few small health issues, which I'm guessing is why he all of a sudden wasn't a good breeding dog anymore. But he's, yeah, like we've, we got, we got him fixed and he's just like the, I don't know. I wasn't a big dog person growing up and it like did, I did a total 180 when we got him because he's just the best. Yeah, they are pretty.

I mean, I, if I hadn't had a dog through the pandemic, I would be like 60 percent more miserable than i am totally miserable but still having done there are just days when it's like oh my god thank god i had this living thing that i have to feed and that i can hug yeah like the life-affirming aspect sometimes it's like my dot like sunny's the only part like thing that makes me laugh all day like when he does something stupid like yeah it's yeah it it makes such a difference i always i'm like well you know sunny had an amazing 2020 because he doesn't know what's going on and he was never alone so yeah he had an amazing year. Yeah. So you're in college.

You start to think, I'm going to do comedy. Was there a particular kind of comedy you wanted? And are you thinking, like, this is what I'm going to do with my life? Or is it just kind of, eh, let's see what happens? It was a little bit of both. I did some comedy stuff at school. But then I started working at a comedy theater towards like the end of college. That was a lot. I originally wanted to do like sketch comedy. And that was like where I was focused and really loved. And I worked like the back counter at the theater to get classes and did that whole thing. or at the theater to get classes and did that whole thing um and then started doing stand-up um as as well so I was just kind of like figuring out my voice and like what I liked to do at that

theater and then in some of the it was it was like kind of I guess I don't know it was like an interesting time in Boston comedy I guess where it was like there were there were women doing stand-up but it was like a couple and there were there was some underground stuff going on but not that much and like it was an interesting in-betweeny time to be trying to figure figure stuff out um but yeah it was mostly at I worked at Improv Boston for like two years between college and then a little bit afterwards um and they would let me you know put up like short plays I'd written or like try out a one-person concept show and were just like really support like kind of too supportive of like a 21 year old um just doing a bunch of stupid stuff. So that was where I was like, oh, I really like doing this

and found a space where I could like try things out. So once I found there, I kind of worried about college a little bit less and just focused on finishing so I could work more on that. Well, that's like such a blessing, and that's better than college. I mean, you're going to learn yeah you learn by doing you know i mean whether for me because i went to film school then i did improv afterwards and i went to film school for two years and then interned and did film production learned more in my first two weeks of working on an actual set, which was like, you know, a bread commercial, you know, or, or Wheaties commercials. It wasn't like I was making, you know, art films or was working on art films,

but still, I mean, a film set is a film set, whether in many, many ways, you know, because it's all the same things. Especially when it's all like streamlined and as efficient as a commercial too yes that's so regimented and yeah that's or as or inefficient as a commercial you know because one of the big realizations that i had as a grown-up and especially growing up with uh my mom is a small business owner and she you know designs kitchens and installs them and she basically you know and there's a couple like full houses that she subcontracted so she's in the building trades and um she ran her business by what i would refer to as the putting out fires method which is yeah you know oh we got that order coming and oh shit i forgot that thing and then

it's all red alert. And so you're either kind of sitting there in a reactive state or reacting and going, oh, shit. And I thought, oh, no, but when I get out in the world, it's not going to be as like rinky dink as this. It's like it's going to be smooth and sophisticated and there's going to be all kinds of capable people. That's just my parent. Yeah, yeah. Nope. Nope. Nope.

The whole fucking world is putting out fires. I mean, some people have it together more than others, but you would not believe, like, at the network television level kind of shit, like, where you're just like, oh, my God, no one's in charge, really. No one's, like, saying anything. So, you know, it can be easily

exploited, but, um, but yeah, but in, I've learned more working in, than in films and film school. And the same thing with improv, I took a bunch of classes, but you don't learn anything until you get on stage and you're in front of like a bunch of strangers and you've got to deal with it. You gotta like, you know, like, Oh shit. You know, do i care if they like this or not like yeah i think i do and then it's like oh wait yeah yeah yeah it's all that matters to me in the world right right right so um i mean are you uh do you have like people that you're looking at as sort of models for the kind of work that you want to do? Yeah. Early on, I was really into I found out about Maria Bamford while I was still in high school.

And I was just like a fan of hers generally. And then when I started figuring out that I wanted to try comedy, she kind of who I was um looking to and um then like later on I found Chelsea Peretti and I was obsessed with Chelsea Peretti um all throughout college and then like other people I don't know I was always like I I did like people who mixed stuff a little bit and like um I'm trying to think oh i i really liked the series of unfortunate events books uh-huh that was like something that that it doesn't i don't know it doesn't sound like a comedy influence but it was for me where it was just like fine it was a whatever like this huge narrative puzzle full of references that was funny and like did all this

different stuff that i didn't know that you could do inside of a single medium right that i really loved and so i i tried to like it did not work uh but i tried to like build shows that would kind of be puzzly and that was like kind of what i was trying to do and then i also did stuff that was just like fully gross and just like disgusting and so those are the two things that I was like oh I want to try to do really like complex stuff or just like the nastiest thing I could think of and kind of those are the two things that I yeah yeah um where I did a bit for ever where it was just like I was just eating dog food. But I was like, oh, but the joke makes sense. So I can just eat dog.

I just was eating dog food on stage for years and years while I was living in Boston. And that was just what I was doing. Yeah, why? I mean, is it just to get a rise out of people? Yeah, I think it was like, especially, I don't know. I was in such a tiny little fishbowl where it felt like, oh, I'm like, no one else is eating dog food. Which is like, yeah, obviously no one else is eating dog food. That's a stupid thing to do.

Yeah, no one else is setting their face on fire either. I mean, at's not on purpose right so it like took me a while to like i was doing like a lot of i really liked body horror stuff yeah um and it's good it's i love i mean everyone can relate and either they're either they're into it or they are like no thank you but they can relate you know right away and like i so i really liked especially like when i was first starting to do solo stuff i just would try almost any body horror concept i could think of and then if it didn't work it would just feel horrible and then

but if it did work i would just you know do it and do it and do it and do it so i i was like really fixated on finding that stuff especially because in boston it was it's mostly just kind of like you know guys in their 30s and so it you know if someone comes up and they're like i'll butt chug anything then it's like well here it is this is what i can bring to the table i'm 22 and i'll butt chug anything right like disgusting that was you would you would butt chug things yeah i was butt chugging things up until like three years ago i got really good at it um and so i would just like fill all these concepts around butt chugging things or like um just any i don't know i really

i i still enjoy it but like yeah any any body horror concept that i could i could ground enough to justify doing it um i would try and especially in boston where there was like no consequence for something not working um i would just you, try kind of whatever, whatever me and my friends could think of, we would, we would try at that theater. Did you ever ask yourself, like, why am I doing this? Like, you know, why am I like, especially, and you're really, you know, in many ways exposing yourself. Yeah.

From going, I mean, is this where the, the girl in the back brace kind of, you know, Yeah. college especially i was like very i always felt like i was just there because they needed a girl to be there and so i i felt like i don't know i just had like a lot of um insecurities and like imposter syndrome of like they i'm only here because i they need a girl to be here or someone's going to call them assholes. Yeah. And that, you know, I don't know how anyone actually felt about it. But once I was there, I wasn't really given anything to do. And so I really was just kind of standing there and feeling like I was hanging out when I did want to be performing and I did want to be contributing.

And there were just all these limiting factors and so once I found a way like around that and I was like oh I don't need to like listen to what whatever like 10 people at my school that is like you know just full of these random rich kids like have to do. And like, there's another place I can go. And so I just had, yeah, just like a lot of frustration and like a creative energy and like a bajillion things I had wanted to try over time that I had been told like, no, we're going to do this. No, we're going to do this. So once I found kind of like an area and like a creative outlet where I could try stuff, it was, I don't know. Yeah. I felt like almost like I had so much energy that I would try anything just because I wanted to like do something and I

wanted to figure it out in a way that I felt like when I was at school, it just wasn't really possible to do. You had a job at the Boston Globe. Was that like your first kind of career-y job out of college? Kind of, yeah. I worked as a substitute teacher for a while, and then I worked at this horrible copywriting place. But yeah, I was working between between that comedy theater and then I had a job at the Boston Globe where it was like some it was like an online vertical of the Boston Globe where they just hired a bunch of like 21 year olds for as like, you know, as cheap as they possibly could. Yes, of course. and then they would just you know it was it was weird because some stuff i was writing was just full-on clickbait was about nothing and i would just comb through the same five websites and rewrite what they had written but then they would also kind of let you go off and do local stories that were a little bit offbeat because they were just they just wanted engagement and they didn't

really care how you did it. So it was fun to be there for part of it because I could get paid to try some different concepts out, and I tried to do durational ideas that were – it just had to be local. And other than that, there wasn't a ton of oversight. Well, it's nice that you got a chance you know that you're doing creative pretty creative stuff yeah you know I mean right off the bat it's not you know it's it it's not your dream come true but you're still you're starting to kind of find yourself in different mediums which I imagine is it was cool yeah and and and like working in a, that was like my first and I guess kind of like only experience working in like a real newsroom where like most of the people around me were doing actual news.

like college students kind of sequestered or like recent graduates kind of sequestered and they're like yeah you know jamie's gonna go see the same local production of shrek five times and we're gonna see how many times people will click on it and it was like that was like what i was doing and then there was like actual journalists in the room who probably you know hated us right right right yeah and didn't and tell how you lost the job because. And tell how you lost the job because I read how you lost the job. I lost the job because of my tweets. It's the only job I've lost because of tweets. Yeah, I was doing all this like body horror gross stuff while I was working there, kind of assuming that no one was checking. And then I got fired for tweeting about coming blood at an open mic.

And I like, I'm killing so bad that I'm, I comes blood or something like that. Yes, that is what it was. Fantastic. Not even the grip, but it was like, yeah. So, so I got like taken aside by an editor who was like exhausted and was just like, you need to take it down. And I was like 22 and already had like recently just saved up enough money to move. So I was like, this is my moment.

I'm going to double down. And I was like, no, I'm not deleting the blood cum joke. And they're like all right and then they like sent me 15 other tweets that were like similarly gross and they were just like you have you have to go and so i did and then i moved here oh you came out here that's what you just did you have a something to come to or did you just nice no that was kind of i i was working um two full-time jobs at once for a while with the plan of eventually moving here when i could afford to um and then that whole kind of disaster timed out with me like having just enough money to be able to leave so i was like okay i guess um i'll go and i had like i had uh i guess the idea of a manager maybe and so then i just moved here and then um started

working at a bookstore um why la as opposed to new york i don't really know i mean it was the only i knew more people here i guess because yeah the like emerson uh college has like a campus out here so i knew a couple of people who had moved here and so it was just kind of and i also i i've had this whole thing where I'm like, I can't, I've never left Massachusetts. So I need to get as physically far away as I can, which is stupid. But that was where I kind of was at with it. So I moved here. Yeah. And then I just kind of started looking for a job and worked at a bookstore.

And then I worked at Playboy magazine for almost a year and that was yeah that's what i did when i moved here and you were kind of writing like comedic pieces for playboy right that and then they let me do that but i was technically there to be a research editor so i was mostly just working with yeah, working with actual journalists to get their stories done, which was really awesome. Like that was an experience I wasn't expecting to be good. Yeah, yeah. But it was really cool to be able to like work with actual writers reporting on actual stories and being invested in it. And then you started doing

some video stuff right online didn't yeah what was it called super super deluxe yeah super deluxe yeah yeah yeah yeah there was so much good weird content from that that was so yeah that was like that was sad that that ended that place was that place was like very very very fun and that was i mean in some ways that was like when they were like oh you've done body horror stuff which is kind of how i like um got to work there was like someone saw me eating dog food on like the east side and they're like this girl eats dog food we should have a general with her and which is great and so then I started doing stuff for them and that was really I mean that was when it was like okay we're like gonna there was you're like and again it's like they're not really paying you much to do it but it was the biggest audience

I'd ever had access to before um and so it was those videos were like truly it was just you would just pitch them the nastiest thing you could think of. And then they would just say, like, yes, here's seventy five dollars to go and do it, which was exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, you're learning. You're learning. And among like what are some of the things just to kind of give people an idea of like. things just to kind of run and give people an idea of like um one show i worked on was a like a parody of a beauty show uh where we would just go and kind of get they would pay for us to get like gross treatments that uh celebrities would get so i had um i had like they would put like bull semen in my hair and then i would just have to sit there with bull semen in my hair. There was I did one of those and you would have to just do it on camera. So it'd be like yoni eggs.

I did a leeches one, which was like really that was like almost a legal issue because my there's like leeches. I don't think are technically legal to be doing. But there was like this lady in Brentwood who would do it. And her leeches, they sucked too hard and I didn't like my body didn't clot for like over a day. No shit, really? Did you have to go to the hospital or something? No, because that was the other thing. Did you have to go to the hospital or something?

No, because that was the other thing. They're like, don't go to the hospital unless you're really, really sick or the company is going to get in trouble. Because I'm not insured. I'm like a freelancer technically. So at the end of the leech thing, they taped a diaper to the front of my body. And they're like, this is going to help you clot. And then I had to work for them again the next day doing like a butt chugging live stream. And so it was like,

I still had this like diaper taped to me. And then also you have like a funnel in your butt and there's someone like pouring milk into it. And it was just, it was like, it was really, really fun, but it was like,

there were days where it was just like physically taxing. Oh, I can imagine. Well, I like too that you used the second person when you said, and then you have a funnel in your butt and someone is pouring milk in it. Like, no, I don't. You do. Yeah, yeah. That's the privilege of having some corporate funding is you can afford a second person to hold your feet together and pour milk into the funnel, and they're paid to be there. And then you can find out if you're lactose intolerant that way rather than the other way.

Yeah. Yeah, and then you get that really good milk rush. It's truly like – I can't describe what it feels like, but it's just any time after a stream like that that it was like you just need a day to lay down afterwards god you're like steve-o you know yes yeah yeah very much the jackass portion now have you just out of butt chug just because i've never really talked to anyone who's butt chug uh did you ever butt chug alcohol and does it like really make you drunk or anything or have you just butt chugged innocuous substances i've heard that it does um i've only butt chugged um dairy which is probably which might even be worse because it's like there's no fun part of that um it's like you're never drunk you never have fun like it's just come on you get to shit milk that's not fun that's not fun days and days

sometimes while you're on tour like um oh no i'm on stage shitting last night's milk how embarrassing and now i can't where is this night's milk gonna go um i don't i wasn't i don't know i didn't want to get fucked up through that stuff i i tried to in my head i'm like in my head i was like this is this is art well like it was which it uh it wasn't but i needed to tell myself that and so i was like was like, I don't butt chug to get fucked up. Butt chug for my craft. For the art, yeah. I'm saying something about society.

Yeah, I'm trying to make you think here. This isn't so stupid. I love it. No, I just think it's, you know, so much of it is just like if you're having fun, that's what. Yeah. It's better than talking about yourself. Yeah, yeah. Gotta say.

Can't you tell my loves are growing? Now, you kind of stumbled into, and this is something that you're, I mean, a lot of people know you for this. You stumbled into a daring expose of Mensa. Yeah. That bloated carcass was waiting to be popped and you did it. Such an active carcass too. Yes. Tell me how that came about for people that don't know.

And if you don't know, I mean, you should, people should just listen to the podcast. And also, you're a wonderful writer. I mean, the written pieces that you have around that. I just, you have your own voice and I and I there's a direction to what you do, but there's also lots of self analysis within your writing. That's very but you always, you know, it makes it makes your points even more valid because you get to, you know, you're doing your own sort of devil's advocate work internally in a very funny and enjoyable way um so but uh tell me how does that happen and why oh my god why i'm no closer to knowing why but i it felt like that i i was i don't know i've been like working kind of like, not journalism, but like adjacent for a bit where it was like I would do stuff for Playboy where I was like, it was field work, but it wasn't like actually

investigating anything. It was just showing up. But yeah, for Mensa, it was supposed to be the same thing where I was just supposed to show up and take the test and write about, okay, I took the test. This is what it's like. secret Facebook group that's like a pretty large portion of the American Mensa society that's like formally endorsed by the organization. And it's just like an online hate group. And there's all this controversy around it. And they found this stupid thing I wrote about like, oh, look at me, I'm taking the Mensa test. I'm so funny. And then they were like, let's kill her, you know? And so, um, yeah, once that

presented itself, I was like, okay, um, I can continue to fuck with them, which, you know, would have played out one way or another, or, or it was like, okay, or I can actually try to apply, um, research skills I have and try to figure out what's actually what it actually is and and try to um figure it out because i didn't want to i mean yeah kind of going back to like what we were talking about at at the beginning of like i didn't i i felt myself approaching it at the beginning of like pointing and laughing and being like oh look how i think this is dumb let me talk about how dumb it is um and that's such like a short, you know, that's never going to last in any meaningful way.

So, yeah, I tried to kind of reevaluate how I was looking at it and be like, okay, well, what is actually going on? And like, you know, am I, you know, to what degree am I fucked up for having even like poked this carcass in the first place? And, and what is it? So, so it kind of escalated from there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's an interesting shift to see it, especially if you read the, the sectioned pieces that were in, uh, what magazine online? As in paste.

That were in what magazine online? It was in Paste. In Paste. If you look at those articles too. In the first one. The first one is very funny. But it is like. And you even say in a later one.

That you were sort of in persona. Like you are kind of like a little swaggery. And like this came up as a lark. And let's do this. Which you know you can. As a reader you're like yay. But then as you go into it. It's like oh yeah. But this is which, you know, you can, as a reader, you're like, yay. But then as you go into it, it's like, oh yeah, but this is, this is real, you know, which I, I think is always nice to remember, especially when you're making comedy or entertainment involving real people.

You know, it's like, if you don't remind people, these are real people and that they're just like punchlines for you. And there's so much of that out there that it's just, it's, it's, it's cheap and shitty. And as much as it's a harrowing and really, truly harrowing thing, it's, it ends up being fascinating and you end up feeling like exhausted for you, you know, and has there been any sort of like larger thing that happened because of that? Or did it just kind of end up the way you describe it on the podcast? There have been things that have happened kind of down the line where I didn't get as much negative blowback as I was expecting. I was kind of like,

oh, it's going to be another kind of huge wave of stuff the way it was kind of at the beginning. But that didn't really happen because I knew going into it that I was not the only person that had experienced it and had probably experienced it on a lesser degree than other people in the group because there was such a history of like racism and transphobia inside of that group as well. So I ended up talking to a lot of people who had had similar experiences. And then the most recent update I'm aware of is that they delegitimized, the group still exists, but it's not like an official Mensa group the way it used to be.

It ended up, I think that's my legacy. They no longer have a little check mark next to their name. They're just a regular old hate group now. So I think, I guess, but that was fun because there were, this was, I think over the summer, there was some publicly Zoom Mensa meetings that were going on that someone sent to me me like sent me the link to um because it was like people who were in charge of that group uh arguing why the group

should remain an official part and they were they were they were trying to delegitimize the the podcast and the the stuff i'd written and it's always the same thing when someone wants to delegitimize something i said they're like this woman butt chugs things on a stage and you're supposed to take her word for this? It's just ridiculous. And so that was fun to watch play out in an official Mensa meeting was butt chugging got a shout out. The first appearance of butt chugging in Mensa minutes. Exactly. Yeah.

So that's my, that's my big victory. Well, that's good. You can, yeah. The people always will have that over you. It's good that they have that. Yeah. Chugging. Now your latest podcast is a very extensive, I haven't listened to it.

I plan on it, but it's a very extensive look into Lolita, the book, the movies, the effect on culture. And tell me the inspiration for that. with lolita as an like just for a long time and it was like i'm never gonna have more time to focus on a single topic than right now so i was like okay i guess you know if if it works out like i would like to do it um it it ties in partially to like i read lolita way too young i read it when i was 12 oh boy and i read it at the suggestion of lemony snicket like he recommended it in a kids magazine so i know all these kids who read lolita in the mid-2000s because like edgelord lemony snicket was like hey kids read lolita oh my god yeah jesus christ i felt like i had like there have been multiple points where I'm like I must have made that up. There's no way.

But I've like received emails from a ton of people that are like he really did do that, didn't he? Wow. Like in Nickelodeon magazine or something. And hiding behind a pseudonym when he does it too. Unbelievable. Lemony. So, yeah, it came from there. Well, when you read it, what was your reaction to reading it when you were 12?

I mean, I was confused by it, but I very much kind of took it at face value where like the cover of the book said it was a love story. And so I was like, okay, it's a love story. And even though there were parts of the book that was like, oh, that's gross. And like, I wouldn't want that to happen to me, even though like, whatever, if you're a 12 year old girl, you have crushes on older people, but the girl in the book is miserable, but you're like, but it's a love story because they said so. And then I watched one of the movies because was that the 1997 movie was always free on youtube like even now for some reason it's always up for free on youtube so i watched it and that movie was very like a love

story and so i'm like well i guess i guess this is what it is and so I was like very fixated on it because I didn't get it but I really wanted to um and yeah so that was just like I had been thinking and I found myself like saying it was my favorite book because it's like one of those books that people say is their favorite book yeah um and then after a while I'm like I think i'm full of shit like what am i actually saying here yeah um and so yeah i just wanted to go back into it and find out you know what was the book actually saying and um why is the takeaway so so romantic when that's not even really what the book is about no that's not the point either. Yeah. I mean, I always felt, I mean, and I haven't read the,

I only think I read it once because that sounds like me to only read something once because I would then I'm like, why would I do that again? Yeah. But I, when I, I was probably in my twenties when I read it. And I just remember thinking, you know, it's an anti-hero. You're supposed to be, like, attracted, repulsed, like, you know, to this character. And this horrible thing is being written about in such a beautifully crafted way. And you're seeing it through the fucked up perspective of this fucked up guy

but to take away from it that like it's sexy and fun i think is sort of like that's you you are 180 degrees away from from what you're yeah from like what's being yeah said where it's like i mean reading the book back now it's like oh it's absolutely indisputably about abuse and like abusing a child and that like the the like trick that the book pulls off of trying to make you empathize with an abuser is like really ambitious and the writing is beautiful but yeah it was like i guess one of the things that surprised me when i was kind of getting ready to to write this show out was like how quickly that switch happened i assumed it sort of happened over time of like people misremembering it but

it's almost right away where um critics are like and and you know they just kind of take the abuser's word at face value, starting from go. And so it's kind of studying the legacy of it, where it's like even Vladimir Nabokov over and over and over is like, I don't know what you guys are talking about. Yeah, yeah. This is about a really terrible, sick person. about a really terrible sick person um but just like watching how people of different eras have misinterpreted it in a way that is like really of their time um yeah it's like it it is like a maddening thing to like think about all day but but it's been really interesting i mean there's like there's broadway musicals it. Like it's just so, it goes so much further than I thought that it would.

Is that the main thing that surprised you and doing research on it and thinking about it? Yeah. I mean, it's, I guess, yeah, it's how often and how quickly it was misinterpreted. And then just everyone ran with it. And it's just kind of i feel like it's just almost um in a nutshell just like how quickly people will jump to blame a victim and to the point where it will become like this cultural shorthand for like someone who is to blame for the abuse they're receiving where i'm working right now on like writing an episode where the Long Island Lolita and like Amy Fisher is referenced a little bit, where, you know, by the 90s, when you said Lolita, you're kind of just referencing a young person who is being framed as like to blame for what's happening to them. And like any abuse they're receiving must be because they are somehow, you know, devious or evil. Or seductress.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And kind of tracing how that has affected people, including like people that, I mean, it's like affected me in a way I didn't even realize because it became so kind of cooked um like pop culture shorthand where it's like it's just everywhere and yeah and like what is sexy and it's like yeah like you know like i always think those heart-shaped sunglasses i always think like oh that puts you in mind of that book where that 40 year old man you man had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old. Like Melissa, 12-year-old. 12-year-old girl.

For years. That's what those sexy glasses make me think of. Right, right. And yeah, I mean, it's been like consuming my head for months and months. But yeah, I mean mean even those heart-shaped sunglasses are like they're not in the book and they're not even in the movie they're just on the movie poster yeah but people see the poster and it's i that's kind of like where i feel like people keep getting stuck and it's not their fault you know it's like not like everyone has a ton of time

to do a deep read of lolita like that's yeah that's a ridiculous expectation but just the fact that it's it's so marketing driven and like all of the misinterpretations are kind of made in order to make the story profitable and um because you know story about child sex abuse is not necessarily a money maker um so yeah i don't know i've just been in in in that headspace and we're a little more than halfway through it oh wow um so then what's the that called uh it's called lolita podcast i didn't think of a better name for it that's pretty good you know i mean yeah no thinking of cute name usually is like yeah just call it the lolita podcast yeah i'm like that's what people

will search if they want to listen to it anyways yeah um well uh have you got anything else going on that you that you're doing right now i mean have you what it what's your what's your master plan uh yes i like i don't know i don't even know really how to just like i i just i want to be able to take research that i've done in any area and kind of use it to build a narrative show that's like what i would really really love to do is um because i i that's kind of what i do with my one person shows is like do a lot of deep research and then build a character out of that research and kind of build a world from there and so that's that's like what I would really like to do down the line is is find something I find interesting learn everything I possibly can about it and then just kind of build it from there so that's great um well the third

question of the three and when thank you so much for spending this time with me the third question is is what have you learned i mean do you have i imagine there's people that come to you for advice or you know yeah i mean for christ's sake there's a pandemic you've got a foot been thinking about what this all means at some point asking sunny sunny what does it mean just like holding sunny's tiny little dog skull in my hands demanding answers tell me he's been really you know he's been he's really he's really killed at this time he's slept slept in so many different positions in the space of this recording. Yeah, I think I guess the main takeaway of like, especially with like the more recent work I've been excited about doing is like, I used to get a lot of advice to like, kind of stay in one lane or like kind of choose a lane of like do you want to be a tv writer like do you want to work writing for like a place like um where you can do comedy

writing that's also kind of journalism me and i just it wasn't like a super conscious decision but i just kind of i just decided to ignore that uh advice and just um do things that i thought was interesting and that like i've i felt strongly about and you and then just kind of like find people who who could help me build that out so um yeah i guess i just learned to like ignore people who told me to stay in one lane because it's never that advice has never helped me so yeah yeah yeah has doing the shows that you've been doing and you know and sort of like really trying to like like doing probably a higher level of sort of you know like of having a point of view than a lot of people's shows do because you know i mean a lot of comedy is just kind of I thought of some funny stuff about stuff that happened. But I mean, yours is fairly pointed, difficult, thorny issues, you know, that you end up making fun and entertaining, which maybe you shouldn't.

Is there something that you learned about yourself in this process that surprised you? I mean, is there some aspect of the work that you've done where you're like happy with the formation, you know, is something that has happened or less than happy, you know, from something that's come through it? more um fulfillment and feeling closer to like making work that i'm really happier with when it's something that is based in trying to understand other people like trying to i i definitely when i started doing comedy i was not like thinking like, well, how can I approach something with empathy that is still something that makes me laugh, where now that's like one of the most important things to me when I'm going into something new, especially with something like Lolita podcast, or even like kind of what I learned throughout the Mensa process was like, I am not gonna, not only am I not gonna take much away from it, but like, anyone who encounters this isn't going to take anything away from it if I don't make like a concerted effort to fully understand something. And usually, like, almost every time, the more fully I understand

something, the funnier I feel like the end product is, because it's like, you know, you can make fun of the surface level of something all day, but kind of, you know, anyone can do that. But I've found a lot of fulfillment and like really trying to fully understand something before I, you know, tear it to shreds because then it's, I don't know, done a little more with love and not just out of anger or not understanding. I think that's a natural human mechanism of the object of a joke or if you want to call them the brunt of a joke, we identify with them, probably more so than the joker. Like, probably more so than the Joker. So, like, you are kind of, you know, it's good that you're sort of thinking about.

Because you sort of then earn the right to make fun of them. You know what I mean? Because you kind of. I hope so. Well, you know what I mean? I mean, it's because you kind of, you're like, you took the time. You're not just coming and going, look at these nerds with their brains, brains you know i've spent time with these nerds and they're really fucked up and i also like i don't know i studied really hard for that ridiculous test like did my time uh well you've but you know you can do it you've always got that that. I could be in Mensa.

She screamed out into the night. If I wanted to. Just being willing to wake up to drive to Pasadena at 6 a.m. to try. Take a test. Take a test. Voluntarily take a test. Pay someone else to take a test. It's not okay.

Well, Jamie, thank you so much for coming on and entertaining us. And good luck. I hope you get to just keep exploring and growing because you do great work. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This means the world. Oh, great. I'm glad. All right, much. Thank you so much for having me. This like means the world. Oh, great. I'm glad. All right, everybody. That's it. Go away. The podcast is over. We'll see you next week on the three questions. God willing.

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 Zahayek, and engineered by Will Beckton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts.

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.