The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Rob Delaney
Episode Date: September 8, 2020Comedian Rob Delaney talks with Andy Richter about growing up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, recovering from alcohol addiction, shaping the comedy landscape on Twitter, and moving to the UK for his tel...evision show Catastrophe.
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Starting podcast now. That's how I started every time, Rob. Hello, everyone. You have
tuned in to the three questions, which is my podcast. I'm Andy Richter. It's no one else's. It's mine,
mine, mine. However, I share it each week with a guest of my choosing. I don't let people get
shoved onto me, you know, forced onto me. They're all people I enjoy whose company I like to keep. And one of my favorite people is on today.
It's Rob Delaney.
It's,
it's America's sweetheart,
Rob Delaney,
America's sweetheart who ran away and went to a different country.
I did.
I'm speaking to you from,
you're in London,
correct?
I sure am.
Yeah.
You seem classier.
You seem so classy, you know? Oh,
God, no. I mean, super classy. I mean, yeah, there's classy aspects. I mean, I'm not classy.
I mean, I know the video element is not, you know, part of your podcast, but I know you can see me
and you've already, you know, while we're doing the preliminary stuff, you commented on my back
sweat, which is true. Yeah. And that's that's that's me all over. If I see back sweat, which is true. That's me all over.
If I see back sweat, I got to point it out.
He shouts it out.
It's why my showbiz career is shutting right to the middle.
Because of my candor, my tackiness.
Your astute perspiration observation.
That's right.
So it's dinner time there there five o'clock right
uh yeah dinner time approaches yeah we yeah we don't uh eat too much after five o'clock i guess
because i have little children you know yeah yeah i have one little child and then two medium-sized
children who are seven and nine uh and what's the how old is the little one? He just turned two Oh wow
Yeah that's a house full of
All kinds of different noise
Yeah a lot of boys noise
Yeah
And it's fun
I mean we did it on purpose
It hasn't taken us by surprise
We knew what would happen
Yeah yeah
And they are um i find children
to be beneficial to your life i have two i've been to mine i'm yeah yeah i'm one of those people i
don't proselytize like if people like should i have kids i'm like i don't know i mean if you
want to then yes not don't i mean right right god knows there are plenty of people without kids who
are leading fulfilling lives i i like mine glad i had them you know if you want to have some be my guest if you don't i made a road rise to meet you
so how how long have you lived in the uk now almost six years i think wow yeah just about
yeah let's say six years yeah do you think this is a a permanent move i don't know i yeah you know we moved here for the tv show
catastrophe and we figured it would go fucking fantastic tv show catastrophe thank you thank
you very really funny and complex and and wonderful yeah thank you and uh you know like
any tv show we thought it would get canceled pretty pretty quick and I'd get sent back to the U.S.
And like my wife took a leave of absence from her job teaching in L.A., thinking we'd come back.
And then, you know, the show kept going.
We got a second season. And then, as you know, my son Henry was born here.
And then a little after he turned one he was diagnosed
brain cancer and we were gonna move back we were gonna do the third season and then move back
uh but then he got sick and was sick for almost two years before he died and then we couldn't do anything you know uh like his death was not up to us but uprooting
our kids for a further traumatic experience since they don't even remember la was not uh
possible you know or advisable and my wife was pregnant again um with a fourth child. So life just happened in a, you know, pretty dramatic and brutal fashion.
And so now that we've been here, you know, like our nine and seven-year-old,
they came here when they were three and one.
And they like it.
We like it. We miss LA. I mean,
we didn't flee LA. God knows there's plenty of wonderful stuff about it. But it's also great
here. And, and I was surprised to find out how viable a career in film and TV and comedy is here.
So I didn't, I wasn't struggling to find work.
Any, you know, it was the same sort of appetite
for whatever it is I provide over here
as there was in LA.
So, so here we are, you know?
And so I don't know.
I mean, I don't know what's going to happen.
So the, the, the staying there wasn't so much predicated on on henry's care but on just not
uprooting the other kids yeah yeah once henry died we uh knew that moving anytime soon after
that would be very stupid um yeah but at the same time by not not doing that, more time, of course, passed.
And so, and here we are six years later, which remains shocking to my wife and I.
Yeah.
You're from New England originally, right?
Yeah, I grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
I'd love to be there right now, uh, which I often would be, uh, in August.
Um, but you know, because of, of travel restrictions because of coronavirus, uh, we are
not there. And are your, your folks, uh, a lot of people still there? A lot of family still there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's there.
My mom,
my dad,
my sister.
And so,
yeah,
I mean,
love to love to go back.
I mean,
my God, I'm like feeling lightheaded thinking about what it would be like to be back
there right now.
Now that I can't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What kind of town is it? i'm not i don't know new
england very well uh marblehead is uh it's like 30 minutes north of boston um and it's on the water
and it's a population of around 20 000 so it's a small town um comprised of uh really a peninsula
and then like a little causeway to another kind of attached Island. And so it's small, beautiful.
There's like a ridiculous,
I think if the town is like four square miles,
there is somehow 115 miles of coast just in the town itself.
And so yeah, yeah.
Picture postcard picture town and very beautiful.
Yeah, my first jobs as a kid, well, my first job was delivering the Boston Globe.
But then after that was teaching sailing on little 12-foot sailboats as a teenager.
So pretty idyllic, wonderful, wonderful place.
Yeah, wow. It sounds like it. And so you have one other sibling, correct?
Yeah, I have a sister who's five years younger.
Yeah. And what did your folks do? What was what was they?
When I was younger, they both co-owned and operated an independent insurance agency.
So, yeah, if you needed fire insurance or car insurance, you would go to them and they would give it to you.
And so, yeah, a little office that they ran until my parents got divorced when I was 14.
And then my mom did all that.
And then my dad, a few years later,
wound up at the North Bennett Street School,
being the director of admissions there.
And that's a funny school in Boston
where you can learn how to build a violin the director of admissions there. And that's a funny school in Boston where,
uh,
you can like learn how to build a violin or a shed with,
with no nails,
you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And really cool stuff.
Um,
but we lived with my mom after my parents got divorced and,
um,
yeah.
And she continued slinging insurance,
uh,
which,
you know, helped, uh helped put us through college.
And just recently retired.
Why did she keep the business and your dad moved on to other things?
Well, I guess since they were – it was because of the divorce.
Yeah.
And so they didn't want to work together after a divorce.
Well, no, I mean, I know that, but why didn't, you know,
why didn't your dad,
didn't he not want to open a competing insurance agency or something?
To do insurance war with her?
I am now remembering.
I mean, that sounds like an 80s Bette Midler movie.
I am now remembering that, in fact, he did do insurance for a few years after that somewhere else in Massachusetts and then branched out into other stuff.
So they did do that, but they didn't compete as far as I know.
Yeah.
And this school, is it for children?
Or is it just sort of...
Oh, no, it's for...
I think you have to be 18 to go there.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
And it's just purely for project-based learning?
Yeah.
It's not a college?
It's just sort of...
Oh, no, it is.
I mean, you do get a degree,
Oh, no, it is. I mean, you do get a degree and you totally graduate with a skill, you know, that is, you know, oh, my dad, I'm sorry, my dad went there before he started working there. So he did, in fact, build stuff without nails.
And so he went there for carpentry and restoration of old things that already don't have nails.
You know, a young upstart builder.
Such prejudice against nails.
Yeah, he hates that.
Well, look, it's another generation, you know, and I've tried to, you know, he knows that
I will occasionally use nails.
We don't really talk about it.
He might have some Christ complex,
which would lead one to be anti-nail.
That's the likeliest factor, I think.
Is your family from New England going back and back and back?
I'm always fascinated by people that live in such beautiful places. um now is your family from new england going back and back and back because i was yeah i was
fascinated by people that live in such beautiful places like how do you end up you know well how
does the biological lottery end you up in like a beautiful picturesque town where you can
teach yeah right so uh so my parents picked marblehead just because it was beautiful, I think.
My mom grew up a couple towns over in Beverly, Massachusetts, and my dad grew up in Jamaica Plain, which is a neighborhood in Boston.
And, you know, they moved around a little bit, you know.
But then when I was around three, yeah, they just picked Marblehead.
God, am I glad they did.
yeah they just picked Marblehead and I'm glad they did
but then yeah like even
all my grandparents
for example were born in the United States
I think once you get to great grandparents
you've got people who were
from Ireland
and then go further back
than that you might have a little England and Germany
but at least all my
grandparents were born here
which is to say my parents could have Germany. At least all my grandparents were born here.
Which is to say my parents could have run for president
if they wanted to. If they chose not to.
Oh, now talk about
that's a blown opportunity.
I know, right?
You could have been a real spoiled brat.
Yeah, not a day goes by that I
don't chastise them for that.
Was it a happy house?
I mean, going up, leading up to their divorce, was it a fairly happy home?
Yeah, it really was.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel very fortunate.
Because they did all the stuff that, you know, that you should do with young kids. And what you should do with young kids and we should do with young kids i'm
learning is you should be in the same room with them often they should be on your lap often you
should be reading to them tousling their hair having fights in front of them with your spouse
and then apologizing and making up and having them see that you know but just there's it's proximity kindness if there's a mistake acknowledge it and fix it you know
so they were both great parents truly um in the formative years
um what kind of what kind of kid were you were Were you a funny kid then?
I wanted to be.
I was, I loved to read.
I loved to take standardized tests.
I know that's indicative of something wrong with me,
but I truly did.
Anything, fill out a bubble for a test.
I loved it.
did anything fill it out a bubble for a test i loved it um i uh was like yeah i like to draw little cartoons and make up little stories and do art and stuff like that and uh so that's as a
young kid wasn't very athletic uh you know yeah last picked for the sport, you know, and notice I called it the sport, just any sport.
Sure, sure.
Like I repeated a year of Little League baseball. I was the only kid I know who did that.
I didn't even know that was possible.
Yeah, they had, in my town, there were three levels. There was farm, minors, and majors.
And I progressed from farm to minors. But levels. There was farm, minors and majors. And I,
I progressed from farm to minors. But then when everybody else went from minors to majors,
they were like,
Rob,
you're,
why don't you stick around?
And,
um,
and so,
uh,
not very,
too much pressure in the majors.
Stick around.
It's so laid back here.
Um,
now what you're,
you're a,
you are a large person did you yeah but were you
sort of like because i know from my small town upbringing any large person was it was harangued
into doing some sort of sporting event you know like yeah so at age 12, I played basketball for a year in Catholic school that I went to for just one year. And I was valuable among 12 year olds because I was so tall that I got every rebound. And then also I could shoot. It didn't matter how many times I missed,
I would always get the rebound and like then finally get it in. So yeah, height helps at that
age. But then as you get older, like at the high school, even if you're tall, if you still suck,
then you're of no use. So that so yeah, I had there's a little promise there. But then people were like, oh, wait a minute.
He's not good.
He's just big.
Yeah.
So that was that.
And then I found theater when I was, you know, 13.
And that was it.
After that, that was all I wanted to do.
Oh, really?
And this was at school doing plays at school?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so does that mean does that like I'm going to be an be an actor mom and dad is there a pronouncement of that or i really think that i did uh uh yeah i mean by the time i
was you know 16 17 i was like yeah that's definitely what i want to do um and yeah they were cool with it you know because I
did
you know I worked hard in the plays and that
was my favorite thing to do plays
and musicals and
and
so yeah they were pretty
supportive of that
and
and then
I don't know and then what? I don't know then then and then what i don't know then yeah then that's what i
went to college for um you know what i was literally doing i was sitting there obediently
waiting for you to like give me permission to move from high school to college within this
conversation that i just want you to know if you if you're a stand-up you can just you know do your
act and i'll sit here okay um
would it be possible to turn your microphone off except when you laugh
um uh but yeah i did so i then i wound up going to nyu i went for musical theater i went to tish
school of the arts uh musical theater program and that was crazy because I was a pretty good singer and a reasonably okay actor uh and but a
terrible dancer but they made you uh dance you know you had to do uh three hours of dance three
days a week jazz tap and ballet and uh so I'm dancing up a storm and really bad. I mean, really, really bad.
And the lowest level classes, the teachers are like, Christ, you know,
because they're all, you know, Broadway choreographers and stuff.
But I guess I, you know, hung on by, you know,
qualifying or whatever with singing and acting.
qualifying or whatever with singing and acting um and but then my senior year uh at NYU I went to uh the Upright Citizens Rehab Theater this would have been 1998 and uh I would have seen the the
UCB folks uh do do an ass cat show and I said oh that's that's what I want to do. So that, that made me turn a hard left into comedy.
Oh,
wow.
Yeah.
So you,
so you didn't,
did you,
you didn't get on to any kind of postgraduate.
I'm going to try out for Broadway shows.
I did.
Okay.
So that,
so I guess I should say that made me want to do comedy,
but I was still on this musical track.
So I did do a couple musicals after college.
Before I graduated, I got the role of Sir Lancelot
in a national tour of Camelot.
And so I did that, and that was amazing.
I mean, played, I think, like 47 or 48 states.
And that was so great. Um, and then I did the sound of music, uh, at the Westchester
Broadway theater, uh, not on Broadway, but it's in New York state. And, um, and then I moved to LA,
uh, after that in 2001. Do you think you would have been happy doing musicals?
Like if you'd been able to make a living at that,
or do you think that like,
if you know,
if you had,
you know,
you'd felt that urge from a UCB show,
but then if you had been like,
nah,
I don't,
I don't think I can pull that off.
Do you think you'd be,
have been okay?
No,
I really don't.
And it wouldn't necessarily have had to have been comedy.
But once I got into making my own stuff, and performing stuff that I either, you know,
thought up myself or written myself, that's where, you know, performing, entertainment,
anything artistic began to become, you you know vastly more both important to
me but then also like healthy feeling you know um because i felt that i was you know making something
or synthesizing something out of you know the things i've seen and read. And so, yeah, getting into a realm
where I was making up my own stuff,
I think was pretty critical
and I really wouldn't want to do it any other way.
Yeah.
And that was a late onset urge, correct?
I mean, when you were, you were thought, okay,
I'm just going to be Sir Lancelot and Henry Hill and, you know.
Yeah.
And it wasn't until, wow.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess not, that's not too late.
I mean, I would have been, you know, 22 years old.
So, yeah, sure, some people start
younger than that. You know, God knows
I didn't make any money at any
of it until I was quite a bit older,
but that's perfectly fine,
you know, and par for the course.
So,
but I mean, is it scary to you
to jump from one to the other?
Not like
doing touring musicals is exactly a surefire fallback.
Right. I mean, I guess it wasn't like now, of course, it would be because I, you know, have a family and pay rent in North London, you know, but like back then, you know, and also a good
thing that happened to me was when I finally pulled the trigger and was like, I'm going to
do this for a career, you know, like I'm gonna just remove all the safety nets. It was more that they were also being removed from me by the
global financial crisis. You know, 2007, 2008, things went so down the toilet, and so many
people's lives were thrown into turmoil and jobs were destroyed, that I think a lot of people realized, oh, even getting a job as a lawyer at the big firm or, you know, going to dental school or whatever, anything what i thought it was then but now i don't
think that at all i mean now i know that life is a fucking shredder that can't wait to kill
you and the people you love and piss hot acidic piss on in your throat that you should absolutely do whatever you want um
because it's a miracle if you even survive let alone have fun so yeah i i don't think it's
ridiculous at all to to go into the arts or to go into hot air balloon design,
whatever insane thing you want to do,
it's no more insane
than wanting to be a teller at a bank.
It's all so uncertain.
You've been very frank um about your addiction issues i mean you know it's been a big part of your stand-up and a big part of your story and i'm wondering uh
how how that's factoring into this point in your life into into that point of your life you know oh back then yeah so at that point i'm drinking uh a lot
um and it's creating more and more problems uh so you know i would say teens and then i got sober at 25 so as i'm finishing college
and starting to work and then moving to la yeah at that point um my drinking is getting worse
the consequences are getting worse um and it is affecting my ability to, you know, hold onto relationships,
be a good friend, um, capitalize on opportunities that come my way and stuff like that. Uh, so,
so I, yeah, I'm afraid of alcohol at that point. Uh point uh quite quite afraid of it and want to drink it
more than I want to do anything uh at the same time so it's it was that was a tough period for
that uh yeah and then at age 25 uh I was in a car accident which was was my fault. And, um, and after that I got sober because I thought,
you know, I, I didn't care if I died, which is pathetic, but I didn't want to kill anybody else
or hurt anybody else. Um, and so when I learned that my drinking unchecked would for sure kill someone
hopefully it would be me but it really might not be when you're driving drunk
and that made me want to quit and yeah I haven't drank since then and that's been 18 years. Um, but yeah, alcohol definitely created a detour for me. Um,
which also is, you know,
is very sort of important and formative because at 25 I,
I get drunk. I've been a blackout. I go to sleep for the night.
I wake up, you know, what I, what in quotes,
wake up with no memory of this during a blackout
and go for a drive, drive into a building, wind up in jail with broken limbs. And at that point,
I need to have surgeries and stuff. And I had health insurance at that point. But this was pre
insurance at that point. But this was pre Obamacare, because this was during the presidency of George W. Bush. So it's before Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. So your health insurance
company could just drop you. And, and they did when I was started to generate bills that were
big, and but yet, I still needed more care. So I had to find a way to get health insurance.
So I actually had a big detour from like 2002 that I could get on a group plan from an employer.
And so for a few years, you know, in early sobriety, working these jobs just so I can
get health insurance, I'm like, oh, I guess I'm going to be a business guy, you know?
a business guy, you know, and I'm kind of like, you know, it wasn't a nightmare, period. Yes, I hated those jobs, and sucked at them. But at that time, you know, I'm getting sort of established
in sobriety. And I met my wife, you know, with whom I've had four children. So I
wouldn't change anything about all that. But I it is, you know, that has informed my political
beliefs and actions. The fact that I had to, you know, put a dream on a shelf because i needed to get
health insurance which uh you know i don't think people should have to do um right so
that was uh you know that's a sort of important experience that i had in in
i mean you're in at this point in your life, you're in recovery,
but you're in recovery. You know, you're in two different kinds of recovery. Do you end up, like,
is part of your process of the recovery from addiction, is it forgiving yourself? And are
you able to forgive yourself for this situation or are there times
when you think like if i hadn't been an alcoholic i wouldn't be in this boat
uh yeah i don't know about um like forgiveness of self i i've never really thought about that
i'm a very like blue collar garden variety alcoholic.
And that's also kind of how I approach recovery.
Like I'm like,
yeah,
don't drink,
put one foot in front of the other,
help another.
Uh,
yeah.
So I don't know,
you know,
uh,
I mean,
I,
and I don't mean,
I don't mean,
I don't mean to imply that I,
that it's your fault.
I'm just,
I'm projecting my own, like what I I think, given the same situation, what I would have done.
Is to think, like, way to go, asshole.
Now here you are doing internet advertising.
Sure, sure.
Yeah, I mean, at the time, I was like, I don't know.
I was pretty surprised to be alive, to be honest. So I am glad that, you know, the shock of being alive got me, you know, gave me some mileage.
mental health wise, I think for me and a lot of people who have drug and alcohol problems,
um, there, I may have been doing some self-medicating, uh, perhaps with my drinking, because once I took away the alcohol after I'd been sober for about a year, um, despite,
you know, like going to talk therapy and, uh, you know, uh, not drinking and trying to make healthy lifestyle choices and stuff.
Uh, I did, um, go into a depression that was very, very bad, uh, with, you know, complete with
suicidal ideation and, and real physical pain. I mean, a lot of physical symptoms from depression and like a total inability to sleep, you know, diarrhea constantly.
Having any pee in my bladder at all was like unbearable.
If I had like a drop of pee, I was like, I can't have pee in me.
That's a depression characteristic i've never heard before
you found a new one i mean so i was i was a mess so that's why like i am uh you know when i hear
people talk about depression and stuff or if i hear people chastising others for taking medication
for depression i'm like all right let's uh let's all approach this calmly you know depression when i say depression i mean like
you know high grade unipolar yeah where doctors are like yeah whoa we gotta do something with
this guy um yeah yeah and also you know uh that it's interesting that so with alcohol and drinking
like alcoholism is not that interesting a lot of people have it you know we all know about it uh but i think we might not quite be there yet with
depression because even still you know like i take um antidepressants and um i do still feel like
uh deficient sometimes you know i feel like oh i wish i didn't have to take these or you know
are we about to discover in 5 10 years or 30 or whatever that in fact you didn't need to take
this medication what you needed to do was you know climb this special tree in austria and say this or do these breathing exercises so
take meat extract pills
exactly and so
but I recognize that
I have been sober long enough
I have been
around other people in recovery enough
and I've met
other people who've suffered from depression and I know
the fact is you know and this is
something I've heard said many times, but like, if you had a problem, would you begrudge,
you know, a diabetic person, their insulin, or, you know, somebody with a liver disease,
medicine that they need, you wouldn't. So if it's the brain, it's so funny how the brain will,
you know, act to defeat us. And, you, and we know exactly where to find our fears and exploit them, even unconsciously.
So it is funny to me and interesting that years later I'm like, do I need this medicine?
and uh you know i think the uh most people most doctors most people you know would would tend to agree objectively yes uh yeah yeah no i i i relate 100 because i've been on antidepressants
for decades and and i and and when i started taking them this is back in chicago ages and ages ago i
you know i just say to anybody tuning in if you're not familiar with chicago it's
universally known to be very compassionate to men who have any kind of mental or emotional issues
so i think i know where this is going yeah yeah it's a real yeah it's it's known
as uh pussy town because uh there's so so much sensitivity oh no but i i uh back in chicago
and i was it was when i i had gotten out of college and i was working in film production
and i you know then trying to start improv do doing improv. And I was just a mess. I
was just, and, and in fact, I went into a, I saw an ad in, in the paper with a, you know,
are you depressed? The University of Illinois, Chicago has a program. And what they did is they
gave, it was a program testing elevated levels of a anti-anxiety drug called buspar
and seeing if it if it was helpful for depression and uh when i first started it it i felt like
you know like i had been a deflated balloon and somebody inflated me to my correct weight and i
felt like i was floating and like,
oh,
you know,
and it's just,
it's what normalcy was,
you know what I mean?
It was,
it,
the normalcy felt like elation.
And then,
and then their program ended and I,
and they were like,
just like,
you know,
kicked me out on the street without my happy pills.
And I went,
I found a,
I found a shrink that went to a you know that had
a sliding scale and it's like you said i went in and within about three minutes the doctor's like
you need to be on meds like you know like it's like somebody that stinks needs to take a shower
like oh jesus and said it was actually fairly like almost kind of a malpractice that they allowed me
to be in this.
Like, I didn't need a, I didn't need a, maybe this will work.
I needed a, this is going to work.
And right, right when I started taking them, I had friends that would be like, you know, they'd hear about it.
And they would say, and these are like, not like happy-go-lucky people.
These are people with their own issues saying things like, oh, really?
Oh, you think a pill's going fix everything you know and i love that i for that i absolutely know some of these
people yeah or or the uh well are you are you gonna have to be on it forever like uh i don't
know it's like you said if i was on diet if i was a diabetic would you you be like, well, I guess you're going to lean on that insulin, huh?
Like, yes, fucker. But I, but I still have it within me that I think sometimes like,
what would my quality of life be like if I wasn't on these drugs? And, and maybe I could go off them now and things would be okay, which I, you know, that I know that that's not true,
would be okay, which I, you know, that I know that that's not true, but I do sometimes I, you know,
it leaves me wondering what it's like to be normal, you know, what it's like to have a,
you know, have like a fairly normal kind of even keeled disposition, which actually I should say,
I'm going to do a little plug here for Trintolix. It's an antidepressant that I started on at the beginning of this year.
Works better than anything I've ever been on.
So ask your doctor about Trintolix.
But that's, I mean, the last, I mean, COVID aside, this last year, 2020 for me, just in terms of, it's been a shit year, obviously, in the world. normalcy of emotional normalcy and not you know not feel like uh you know i'm at in a constant
kind of like you know have my finger in some sort of emotional dike that it could burst at any minute
like like no i can like yeah co this this pandemic uh you know being stuck at home it sucks but i'm
okay whereas if it had happened last year,
I think I'd be a big fucking mess about it. So, yeah. Do you think your addiction stuff,
I mean, you said it was self-medicating. Do you think it was that right from the beginning,
or do you think it was just, it was just such a chemical thing with you that like, you know,
cause I've, I've had friends, friends who are now sober who say like when they were in high school and they,
that first drink,
it was like just accelerator to the floor for them in terms of, of drinking.
Yeah. For me, absolutely. It was chemical.
I had a sip of alcohol and I thought this is it, you know, I, yeah,
it was like a chemical equation
being completed here I am um it felt good and correct and um just so vastly better to not have
alcohol in me so um yeah I mean just immediate lightning bolt magic. Were your parents aware of this?
Do you think?
Yeah, they were.
They, you know, I try to keep it secret.
So maybe that works, you know, a little bit.
They might not have known the whole picture.
But I don't know.
It's like there was a lot of alcoholism on both sides of my family.
So, you know, they had probably seen or rather they had seen other people try to manage problem drinking.
And, you know, I don't know what they did. They, you know, triangulated and figured out, you know, where mine fit and tried to game out how bad it could be.
They weren't like, you've got a car accident in your future.
I would estimate it happened within five to seven years.
Injury level orange.
You know, I mean, like, so, yeah, I think the injuries were pretty crazy.
The injuries in that accident were
yeah i mean you know they were they were well what was the the fun part was that both my arms
were in casts so i i was quite uh temporarily disabled by the accident um and you know could
only use one arm at a time as they operated on them because they had to put some metal into the right arm, which was very badly broken.
And then they had to do a surgery on the left wrist, which was broken.
So I looked funny.
And yes, I was.
Oh, I think also that was helpful for comedy development as well, because I did live, uh,
I was sentenced to a month in rehab and then three and a half months in a sober living halfway house.
So I'm in, uh, in a, in a house that you wouldn't notice if you drove by it in West LA,
but it's a big house with a bunch of bedrooms, with a bunch of bunk beds,
and a bunch of guys who just got out of prison,
and me.
And so we've got big guys, scary guys, violent guys,
and I can't physically defend myself in any way, shape, or form.
So I remember actively trying to like make guys laugh
so that they would like me really trying to ingratiate myself in ways that were like
you know the right level of like charming but not pathetic so that they didn't see yeah yeah
target like i really tried to like surgically
assert myself and be a part of the thing in a way that was like not offensive but not like i wanted
everybody to so extremely like me so that they wouldn't beat the shit out of me or whatever you
know yeah um so that was i think helpful and a good thing for somebody like me because i'm like
a gigantic person you know so yeah yeah it was very funny to funny i say that with years distance
at the time i was terrified but it was useful to me i think as a performer to have to develop skills that I wouldn't have otherwise,
you know,
but I absolutely know,
but I mean,
are you're in,
is there no pity in this place?
I mean,
you're obviously,
you've got both arms fucked up and,
and it,
was it just your arms?
Was there anything below there that was,
yeah,
pretty much like nothing.
Yeah.
Nothing else was broken.
Like I had scars and my legs were cut badly,
but once they were sewn up, it didn't matter.
So yeah, just the arms.
Now, how does one with both arms compromised
and living in a halfway house,
how does one upkeep one's hygiene?
It's challenging. Um, I had to, uh, put like a, so I didn't shower that often. Uh, and when I did,
I would have to like put a trash bag over whichever arm was in like a post-surgical cast. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, put a trash bag over it
and then like using my teeth and the other hand,
like wrap tape around my upper arm
and then shower with the one hand
that wasn't taped up in a cast.
And so, yeah, it was really hard.
It was hard to wipe my butt.
I mean, it totally sucked.
Did you have to have people wipe your
butt for you at some point? No, you know, and I remember being grateful that that was the case,
that I would never want anybody to wipe my butt. But a couple of years later, the way I met my wife
was volunteering at a camp for kids and adults with
disabilities.
And so I wiped a lot of adults,
but soon after my arms were healed and it's after you wipe a couple of
butts,
it's no big deal.
So now I would totally let somebody wipe my ass.
And yeah,
I mean,
no shame at all.
Yeah.
and uh yeah i mean no shame at all uh yeah that sounds to me like a uh a post-covid fan sweepstakes you know oh after the show i mean come on backstage and wipe rob cameo or yeah definitely
part of a meet and greet yeah uh three lucky fans get to get one wipe each yep yep i'm eating a lot
of prunes yeah yeah to make a anyway you get the picture're sort of Twitter fame started and notoriety started to happen. Yeah, so it was 2009
that I joined Twitter, and at this point
I'm
doing stand-up
all over
LA, I'll fly.
I'm getting paid to do stand-up
in the sense that
I get paid
say $600
to do a few shows in Minneapolis,
but it costs me $601 to get there and get a hotel room.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's that type of stuff.
But at the same time, I'm submitting joke packets
to every late-night show.
Conan, Kimmel, Chelsea Handler, and others, and,
and trying to get hired that way. So I'm writing short jokes all the time, when when Twitter showed
up. So I think that helped me, because, you know, comedians in 2009, were like, Hey, can we wait a
minute, can we be funny on this?
And so jokes were one of the first things
that made Twitter worth it.
And so that helped me use Twitter.
And then the follower number would grow,
and then that made it easier to sell tickets
in Cleveland and wherever.
And so it was very, very helpful, uh,
Twitter to, for, for all aspects of disseminating, uh, my disease.
Well, now your, your, your disease is, uh, a pretty hilarious disease, but it is, I mean,
you know, I think you, you made a splash by just by just kind of, I don't even know thematically how you would, you know, it's kind of playing sort of like this persona, the grossest person in the world, sort of, I at times was is is what you assume um and was this i mean
you know uh you know your wife and her karate teacher and and you know and also like a very
particular a very particular libido that's focused on you you know, body hair and sweat and things like that, you know,
is this, when you start doing that, are you worried, like, oh, this is not going to help my
career? A little bit sometimes, but I kind of thought, like, this is, like, when Twitter
started and, you know, people started, like like among the first people people would follow in 2009 would be like CNN.
You know, people be like, oh, you know, you can like curate like a feed of things you find interesting, you know, so you could follow your football team and whatnot.
And I thought like, you know what?
There's enough crap in the world and apps and doodads.
I was like, if,
and it bugged the hell out of me to see like businesses trying to use it.
And, and so I was just like, you know what people,
if you have had the audacity to download this foolish app and try to be
informed by it,
then I want you when you're scrolling through your feed of where the taco
truck, you know, what, you know,
tornado is sweeping through your state.
I also want you to have to see something bizarre and insane and maybe
upsetting. And so, and so myself and others at that time, you know,
recognized like it was good for developing like the quick hit
incredibly absurd or silly thing
when people weren't expecting it necessarily.
You know, they're going through,
they want to see how the Titans did.
And then they're going to have to hear about
me watching a woman
change out of her wetsuit
through a hole in a barn. You know what I mean?
Why is
she in her wetsuit in the barn? That's what
I want to know. I can't get into that.
That's for Twitter Plus.
I mean, but
you know,
like
so I just thought, this is so stupid.
And I always hate new technologies when I come out and get angry at them.
So I was like, how dare Twitter exist?
And how dare people use it?
So I just wanted to just put stuff out there that made people be like you know or yeah yeah you know but just any
make them feel anything you know yeah i uh yeah you i feel like you really you were one of the
people that sort of like showed me what it could be you know like like getting on there and you
know you just seeing you retweet it because i got a i got on there in the crassest
just most just asshole show busy way which is was that and i think it would have been 2010
and i think that the tbs or no it might have even been when we were on the tonight show i don't even
know if it was when we started the tonight show or whether it was the TBS show or whether it was the weird in-between time.
But I was invited to play in the baseball all-star weekend was in Anaheim.
Oh, my God.
And I was invited to play in the – and I did it twice.
There's an old-timers and celebrity softball game.
That's like part of the shenanigans that happened.
And so I was invited to go down there.
And the production – one of the production managers from conan said to me they
got in touch with us and said uh they said like twitter got in touch with us and said they knew
that i was doing this and twitter asked if i would join twitter and tweet about it that there's a
possibility i'll make it a new iphone and whatever that you know iphone 2 or whatever was that
happened to be at that time and i was just like all right fine and i signed on and whatever that, you know, iPhone 2 or whatever that happened to be at that time.
And I was just like, all right, fine.
And I signed on in whatever phone, you know, my Palm Pilot or whatever the fuck I was using at that time,
and signed up for Twitter just to see if I could get a new cell phone.
And, yeah, because at the time I had, like, there was Facebook,
and I was kind of on facebook
but what i didn't like about facebook was just what i find out now is the ability to write such
long texts and and your accessibility people and that you're sort of i felt like i was always
trapped in a conversation sort of and then once i got into twitter i was like oh my god this is like so
suited to people with with minute attention spans which is me yeah and and i and i also really loved
the challenge of writing a tweet like writing a good tweet and seeing that it's its own form.
And if you,
and I loved like,
if I can get three jokes into one joke into less than 140 characters,
it's an incredibly satisfying,
it's like a haiku or something.
It's a very formulaic thing.
And it's like,
if you can sort of like,
you know,
and just, it is, it's like, it's like crack you can sort of like you know and and just it's it is it's like it's like crack of jokes you know it's just distilled down to its its its its purest strongest fast hit and
run thing um and i so i you know and and also Frank, it's like I've a lot of my friends that in my life now I know I know you because of Twitter.
I mean, we're talking now because, yeah, I mean, there was Twitter and then I think you invited me to do some stuff.
I think you were doing a pilot that maybe that was the first time that we.
That was massive. I know that would be fun if I could ever get that shown somewhere.
But yeah, I made a Comedy Central pilot
and you were my guest on it and we had big fun
and you were so gracious and so wonderful of you to do that.
Well, I was happy.
I mean, I don't, the graciousness, it's like,
you know, one of the reasons that I even do this
is to be around funny people. Like I don't even, you know, one of the reasons that I even do this is to be around funny people.
Like, I don't even, you know, I like making a living.
And, you know, at a certain point, you know, there was time that went by where I was kind of charged up and thinking like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to take the world by storm.
But always running through and especially now, the most important thing is to have fun and be around
funny people and yeah life is so short so uh i think you know people bitch about it and it can
be it can feel like a cesspool at times but you know twitter's definitely improved my life you
know i mean it's given me lots of yeah yeah, lots of fun and lots of good times.
Yeah.
And also, you know, and also at times made me feel like, like, you know.
Yeah.
Like spending so much time arguing with gun nuts in my life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then realizing, and then realizing like, I am not, this is, I'm not, there are still guns.
It's not working.
Whatever I'm doing, it's taking more from me.
Getting upset at anything, and I do mean anything that takes place on Twitter,
is the same thing as seeing a big shit on the ground
and going over and be like,
Oh my God,
look at that shit.
And then like picking it up and rubbing it on your shirt.
And then your hair.
Oh,
I hate this shit.
Like,
just turn it off,
man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I,
I,
uh,
it's actually a tweet,
but I mean,
it's like,
I felt I, it's like, tweet, but I mean, it's like I felt, it's like the simile that I found is that it's like trying to drown a vampire in your own blood.
Like you just end up.
Okay, good point.
In attempting to, yeah, in attempting to kill this beast, you're just, you're just subtracting from yourself.
You're just,
you're yeah.
The energy that you are giving,
that's taking away from you.
They're living for it.
They're feeding on it.
So,
you know,
but then there are times it's nice to tell someone to fuck off.
That's always,
that's not bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I met is when you like to say that was that,
was that talk show is a comedy central, right? It was. Yeah.
Was that,
was that your first kind of television thing of your own project?
Yeah. Of my own. Yeah, certainly. And that was a lot of fun.
They didn't pick it up and i think i was upset
for like 20 minutes and then i just booked a stand-up tour and uh yeah and did shows all
over the country which was tremendous fun uh uh is at the at that point i mean
are you kind of just kind of what do you think you're doing with your your career at that point
like what do you are you going to be a stand-up are you going to you know you write a book so it's
are you going to be a book writer are you going to be a talk writer? Are you going to be a talk show host? Because I think that that was kind of what that show was.
Oh,
sure.
Or are you just kind of trying it all and seeing what happens?
I mean,
I wanted to be fun.
So,
you know,
stand up is great to have at the core of it,
which is so weird.
It feels so weird to say that having not done stand up now in several months, um, which I really hate. Um, you know, yeah, for stand up to be like at the heart of it is a, is a maybe, I mean, I guess if you could describe my career in one word, uh, I hope comedian at this point would be, would be sort of the catch all.
I would,
yeah,
I would say.
Yeah.
So,
but yeah,
anytime,
as long as people are laughing,
you know,
I mean,
I love to write stuff by myself and I love to do standup by myself,
but I also love to collaborate.
Like there's nothing more rewarding than writing a script and then giving
it to a director who is not me and um and then you know involving you know loads of other people
to help make it uh come to fruition so uh yeah and that's a good thing that's a wonderful thing
about um about this career is that you can do stuff like in isolation and then
you know foisted on the world at a later date uh or you can work together with others um which is
really nice because you can kind of feed the uh you know the introvert and the extrovert and um
it's uh so it's yeah it's a pretty i'm quite grateful to be able to work in it in a few different capacities.
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, I think that, well, I mean, aside from stand-up, stand-up is, I mean, you need managers to help you and, you know, it's good to have a community but it is it is a fairly
solitary uh pursuit and i think it's like there are lots of other pursuits in show business uh
where i don't think people realize how collaborative it is like every every really Every really funny actor that you've seen has probably had somebody helping him shape ideas.
And even when they get a movie, which is the sort of secret wonderful part, I think, of the more collaborative nature of doing this kind of stuff.
Okay.
nature of of doing this kind of stuff uh okay and speaking of which when when you and was catastrophe something that you and sharon horgan worked on immediately together did you conceive got a script deal with the BBC and I just,
they said,
write a script about whatever.
And so then I said to Sharon,
I said,
Hey,
do you want to write something together?
And we had the vague idea that it would be about a married couple and the
challenges that life threw at them and so yeah we'd known each other
for a couple years two three years before we decided to work on that together but there was
like i just wanted to say like how does how does that that uh uk connection begin? Like, you know, how do you go from being an LA comic
that's touring here to even having a contract with the BBC?
Okay, the way that that worked is
I didn't realize it at the time
when I signed with my manager, you know, a long time ago. But in fact, my management company,
which was not that big at the time in the United States was the American satellite of a big British
management company. So when I expressed interest in going to the UK, they were like, it was so easy to do.
Um,
so I came over and started just doing standup here.
And,
um,
and then because Twitter allowed you to become known in a foreign country
without even having ever been there,
you know,
or worked there,
um,
that made it easier to sell tickets when i came
over here so i yeah so i was doing stand-up over here and that's when the bbc was like hey do you
want to write a script for us and um i said yes on the condition that you let me do it with my
very funny friend sharon um okay and so uh so we did that that and that's what became catastrophe.
So we were very, very lucky to have that, you know, work out on our first endeavor together.
Your kids were quite small then, weren't they?
Yeah, when I moved to the UK, the older two were three and one.
Was that a daunting prospect?
older two were three and one was that a daunting prospect you know did that ever make you feel like you know like is this the right thing oh definitely yeah i mean it was brutal for my
wife i mean it was really like damaging to her and to our relationship um because we lived in you know we had like a big backyard in sunny
santa monica and she had a job that she loved and so we moved over here with her pregnant with our
third she doesn't know anybody loses her job uh not loses her job but you know gives it up um
yeah thinking it's going to be temporary and then it turns out not to be
um so it was very very difficult so so the like you know the my domestic situation in moving to
the uk was real upheaval uh the brunt of it born by my wife and i had to like really change my work habits because
when i first came over here you know this is my first show i'm like i have to do everything
i can't delegate anything uh it which is you know can be a fatal error for people. Um, certainly for their real life relationships,
you know, um, and their sanity and all that. And so, uh, it was very tumultuous and difficult
moving over here. And, uh, then at a certain point, my wife was like, uh, Sue, uh, you, uh,
we are going to make some changes.
And when I say we, I mean you, and they're going to be dramatic.
And she helped me understand how serious the issues were.
And so I did.
And so for like this third and fourth season of Catastrophe,
I learned how to delegate, you know know worked smarter rather than harder and um
and so that was very educational for me and it really helped me adjust the uh work-life balance
in a way that was more sustainable because i definitely uh fucked it up uh in the beginning
and i'm so happy that you, we were able to course correct.
Yeah. When, when were you just like spending too much time at work?
Kind of, was that sort of the basic or.
Yeah. And, and not acknowledging that, you know,
I had moved my dynamic, fun, funny,
popular wife with friends and a job into a basement flat in a country where
she knew no one. And I was like, good luck. And, uh, she's, you know, pregnant with another one of
my kids and, uh, and responsible for a three and one year old. And, um, you know know the weather's a little different here in santa monica and uh it's just
it was just just vicious uh for her and so now it's vastly you know a world of difference but uh
yeah yeah yeah that was i i had that same learning process you know 20 years ago in my marriage from going from the Conan show to coming out here with a little baby.
And also, too, I didn't know how to use Los Angeles. So we moved to a house in the Palisades, which was, whereas all our, what friends we did have here were all on the east side in Los Angeles and Silver Lake and downtown.
And, you know, and we'd been here about four or five.
And also, too, and then I was shooting a single camera show uh which is 16 hour days and so there would be three and four three and four days would go by
when i wouldn't see my son awake because i'd leave before he'd wake up and i'd come home when
he was still asleep and you know when i thought i was being sensitive, but I, you know, I needed to be, it was the same thing. I needed to be made aware. And, you know, and I, she didn't say it like this, but it's like, I did realize like about three or four months in, like, oh, I kind of ruined my wife's life.
This is bad.
Yeah.
And I also think, too, and this is just whatever partner, and it's usually, you know, in a heterosexual couple, it's usually the wife that's mostly in charge of the child care.
And so the other person is going out and living this life and coming home tired from work.
And this other person has just been here with this, you know,
crying ball of flesh all day.
And, and I, you know, there was times I'd come home,
I didn't have anything left and it was just,
it was really tough and really unfair and it's hard to navigate that. And yeah.
And good for you guys for, you know, figuring it out uh uh well i'll be honest
uh the i don't i credit my wife tremendously i don't take a lot of credit uh i mean it's like
a little but primary credit would go to the fact that our son got so sick and we had to really make sure that our family
was the highest priority for every member of it so that we could survive it in, you know,
in the best way possible, you know. So, you know, it was one of those things where, I mean,
So, you know, it was one of those things where, a lot of beautiful stuff happened, you know,
as we navigated all that and as difficult as it was,
and it remains very difficult.
There was a lot of, I don't know,
I don't know. Uh,
just grace and warmth and kindness and,
and stuff that just helped us all through it all.
And it certainly helped guide me in my decision-making process in being
kinder and more present.
Um,
so, you know, yeah, I mean, that was the biggest factor, I think, for all of us.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you have always exhibited poise, you know, I mean, even, you know, hearing.
Honestly, I really really i mean that i mean you know in
in like the way that you recovered from your addiction issues and from the accident and
and you know making lemonade out of lemons so many times it's really no it's it's it's
it's enviable and it's admirable and it I mean, what you went through with your son, a lot of times I was thinking about before talking to you here, I was thinking when something so gutting happens, people often say like, you know, like I, I can't even imagine. And I was thinking like, I can't imagine, I can't imagine I'm a father and I, I can't imagine just, I don't, you know, the ability to move on from something that can just seem so absolutely apocalyptic in a person, in a personal sense, it's, you know, it's been, it's been,
it's been valuable to watch, not just for me, I think for lots of people.
So, well, you're welcome.
Well, now what, now what, what are you, you're still over there.
You're what are you working on these days? And, and, and, and sort of just in a greater sort of, you know, philosophical sense.
What next?
So, short answer, I don't know.
I have no idea.
Okay.
To expand upon that.
All right.
Well, nice talking to you.
To expand upon that, I, you know, I just gave us, just submitted a script to a network that I wrote over here.
And we'll see what they think of it, if they'd like to make a series out of it.
And that was a lot of fun to write.
It's the first thing that I've, you know, put a lot of work and care into, uh, since Henry's death. Uh, and I'm glad I waited a
couple of years, uh, because I think it can be, you know, I wanted to not write about
it directly, his death, but I knew it needed to, you know, course through me
and become a part of me. And, you know, I had to sort of grapple with the new person that I was,
because I mean, I really feel like a different person. Having, you know know with the things that change in you after having a child
die and um so this yeah so i've written uh something that uh has a lot of jokes per page
but is uh quite dark um and uh yeah hopefully I hope we get to make that.
I won't say anything else about it now because, you know, it's still in the oven.
Um, right.
But, uh, and also I, I'm a terrible thief.
I will steal it.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you give me even, even an ounce of an idea of what it's about, I'm, yeah, I'm, I know,
you know, I'll be seeing it on Starz
before Christmas.
Right. I'm zooming with
Cinemax in 10 minutes
from now.
So that's
professionally...
Can you stay in the UK
as long as you'd like? I mean, is there a certain
point where... No, we have a
finite visa.
We have a very good, long visa,
but it's finite.
Hopefully, they'll want to renew it.
But, yeah, we're not citizens,
but we are here on a visa
where you don't have to leave every six months
and get fingerprinted in New York
and then fly back.
Yeah.
So, yeah. So,
so yeah,
I guess we'll live here,
uh,
for the foreseeable.
Um,
I,
uh,
I mean,
I love being an employee.
I love acting in other people's,
uh,
movies.
Uh,
so have a few movies that'll come out in the,
in the coming months,
um,
that are other people's, uh,
creations and that were really fun to work on. And I hope God,
I hope we can get back to stand up soon. Um, the other day,
somebody was like, how come you're not doing standup? And I was like, well,
I'm going to let the 22 year olds figure out how standup works in the,
I don't have enough time. Like I don't have time.
And I'm also taking advantage of this time to just be with my kids.
So once it gets figured out and we figured out the sort of plasticine,
you know,
costume that we wear and we're suspended from a helicopter or whatever,
once that's figured out,
I will absolutely be back doing standup.
Um,
and,
uh,
otherwise,
you know,
uh,
figuring out how to be a good dad and husband. Um, and, uh, otherwise, you know, uh, figuring out how to be a good dad and husband. Um, and, uh, yeah, how to engage politically, you know, I mean, we don't have to talk about this too much, but, you know, it's, uh, it is gratifying that people are now learning, uh, myself included, you know, how important the daily actions that we take are,
and the magnificence and the beauty and glory of the Black Lives Matter protesters around the US
and the world. You know, I think people are now getting hip to the fact that with income inequality
where it is at this point, and it's very bad, and where things are headed with the environment,
and again, very bad, that voting every four years, or every two years, if you're a real
star, is just not enough.
So that's great.
So yeah, I want to try to help figure out how to get more involved, you know, with the day-to-day, you know, local,
much smaller elections, you know, city councils, mayors, DAs, and then unions and work with them
just so people can be more engaged. Because, you know, look, hey, it'd be great if we could just
go on autopilot and not have to really worry about it. But, you know, we uh you know my political conscience has switched on during
really what is historically a blip when you know things were seemed to be coasting and seemed to
be okay for you know uh a small percentage of people but now it's even growing smaller so
you know i just am so grateful for everybody who's in the streets and doing the real work.
And I just want to make sure to do that and help people do that the best that I can.
Yeah.
You all have a very positive political engagement, which I think is rare.
I mean, often it's got, I mean, like I said, I, you know, I'm somewhat political in public, and often I let sort of anger and self-righteousness bleed into it too much.
And I think you do a great job of kind of remaining positive and persuasive.
I mean, because I think persuasion is absent from a lot of discussion. And that is the bottom line is if you have a if you have a firm belief that this is the way that things will be better. Calling someone an asshole for thinking is probably not the best. I mean, it's so enticing. I mean, I have to, to, to, you know,
put the brakes on myself too, to stop myself from doing that. Cause you want to do it. I mean, it's good fun. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's a solid dopamine hit calling somebody an asshole.
But at the same time, I think it's more for me,
I've been more successful when it's been, you know,
attraction rather than promotion and telling about my experiences with you know uh socialized medicine
over here national health care uh yes it just seems to be far more effective than saying uh
this is how it should be and if you don't think so you're an idiot you know
yeah yeah i would rather demonstrate that it's so good to have this stuff that you
bypass that you can kind of bypass the name calling where you're like oh hey that looks
interesting you know and yeah well it's uh now yeah you you use the phrase figuring out figure
out figured out this and that i i i wonder when you say
figure out if you could distill like what you've figured out into kind of like a short punchy
statement that a podcast asshole like me will love to put a button on this thing okay what do you
think you figured out what about what things i that I believe?
So for me, a big example of how to persevere in this world is the cockroach.
I really try to emulate the cockroach because, you know, so many incredibly good things have happened to me and for me that are really beyond belief.
Then also I have had some really terrible things happen to me that have been enormously difficult and that I've barely been able to survive.
Those things are,
I try to like,
I know it sounds crazy and like Chekhovian and all that,
but like,
I really try to endure, you know?
And I try not to hate the bad things that have happened to me.
And this is like a very messy and tortured metaphor,
but it is the central one for my life.
At the end of Back to the Future,
Doc Brown shows up and instead of having to get struck by lightning,
he now attached to the flux capacitor
has the thing that says Mr. Fusion on it.
And you'd no longer need to be struck by lightning
because of what he's learned in the future. You can just put anything in and it will feel yeah appeal good hat like anything will
fuel it so for me i try to think that i you know like have a mr fusion inlet in my head or my heart or both.
And so I try to take the good and the bad and understand that they can fuel me
forward.
And the,
that has really served me well,
the sort of Mr. Fusion belief,
um,
and attitude,
uh,
because things are going to get thrown at you.
They're incredibly painful and
incredibly difficult to absorb and make peace with. And that and it's going to happen. It is
going to happen. So if it's going to happen, then I try not to hate it. I try to, you know,
weave it into my life, my experience, like with Henry's death, sometimes I'll be crying,
my life and my experience like with henry's death sometimes i'll be crying and i'll be sad and i'll tell myself and this might sound crazy i'll tell myself it's okay you'll be sad forever
and then i kind of feel better because i'm like oh yeah i don't have to i don't have to heal in
this moment i don't have to come up with answers. I get to carry his memory in my heart. And forever,
I get to feel however I want, whenever I want. And if that's, you know, sadness,
well, that would make sense, you know, and it's okay. So, yeah, that's those are a couple things
that I know. I mean, I know that's messy but i do believe
all that quite deeply it's uh well it's quite beautiful i mean i you know i don't think of
back to the future is beautiful uh but you know it's fun but uh but no that's a that's a beautiful
way to think of it and it occurs to me as you're saying it, it's a kind of victory.
It's a, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of when, you know, the ability to, you know, it really kind of like if bad things are bad, it's a way to conquer bad.
It's a way, you know, it's a way to sort of, it's a beautiful thing.
I shouldn't even say anything after it because it was, you put it so well.
So, and thank you so much for doing this.
I really appreciate it.
I know it's dinner time over there.
And I miss you and I hope to see you soon.
I miss you too, pal.
Yeah.
And thank you.
This was really fun.
I'm glad. And good luck on the new script. Anything else?
Is there anything you want to plug? Is there any, you know, uh,
is there anything to plug?
So, you know, I mean, if people haven't seen, uh,
I had a standup special come out earlier this year on Amazon crime. Uh,
so you can watch that.
Very funny. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah.
No grooming products, no line of house well i you know there's a shampoo that smells like lest oil over here that i really like a lot
um it's called faith in nature tea tree oil and it smells like the less wow i would use to clean
my kitchen floor as a child and so yeah yeah, I don't want to smell like that,
but I do.
Cause I love to smell it in the shower every day.
So yeah.
Faith in nature,
tea tree oil shampoo.
It smells fucking exactly like less oil floor cleaner.
All right,
Rob,
thank you so much.
And,
and thank all of you out there for listening.
And we will see you next time on The Three Questions.
I've got a big, big love for you.
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.