Are you leave then? I you wanta way back home? Either way, we want to be there.
Doesn't matter how much baggage you.
Claim and give us time and a termino and gay.
We want to send you off in stive.
We wanna welcome you back home.
Tell us all about it. We scared her?
Was it fine?
Melborn?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride?
Do your need you ride? Ride you with Karen and Chris? Welcome to Do you need a ride? This is Chris.
Fairbanks and this is Karen Kilgaraff. Hello, Karen, Hi Chris. How's it going.
I'm great, I'm back. I'm back in town.
I've been I've been gone for a month and a half and I'm back in my hot apartment and it feels weird.
Welcome to.
Straight up one hundred and ten degree la. Yeah, free some This is not our usual summer usually gets hot in October, but we're not doing that anymore. The polar ice caps are melting, water levels are coming up because the bodies are ice is melting, and bodies are being discovered in the.
Alps, tundras are being disturbed you're.
Not supposed to are being released.
A lot of algae is no longer. Many breeds of wolf have become extinct or are.
Being hunted like they're on Yellowstone.
Because they kill deer, and deer.
They deserve it. One also, deer are for humans to shoot. That's what The governor of Montana, a guy that got elected because he punched a reporter. I think it happed him when he punched a guy, and everyone's like, I love that guy.
I like this guy's jib, and he made it.
He wants people to be able to kill wolves.
I think the first thing I mentioned.
Because I'm referencing this the same article, maybe that encompassed this story that they changed the law and made it legal to hunt wolves in Yellowstone Park because they were becoming a problem. And apparently that you said the governor of Montana, he.
Was one of the people killing them.
My thing, Oh sure, sure.
He seems like a Safari guy, someone that has a ivory belt buckle.
Maybe maybe a elephant foot as a stool. I've seen those.
You just hit it on the umbrella, umbrella hold her elephant foot?
Yeah, yeah, the biggest, most beautiful mammal to dies tell you can store your umbrellas in style.
Look, guys, audience, we need to let you know we've listed off so many negative things just right at the top, only because we know that our guest today is going to counter all those negative vibes with these incredibly positive.
And normally we inform our guests before we record that we will bring them into the conversation. Claire's a professional, and she's waiting patiently in the wings, even though we didn't say, hey, we're going to chat for a couple of months.
Yes, No, she gets contact clues. She understands the back and forth normal conversation because she's a professional.
In the business. She's someone I very much enjoy watching do stand up.
She plays clubs and colleges, so many colleges.
Currently a writer on Saturday Night, Live from New York, Live from New York, Everyone, Lenda here, now, won't you to our guest today, Claire?
Okay, Claire, I'm clear, came from Live from New York.
It's Comma, It's Saturday Night. That's the they still that's the name of the show, right.
Yeah, since I think the eighties.
Yeah yeah, and you are you still working on that show?
Yeah? I just got picked up for another hot season.
That's great relations Thank you, that's great news.
You're doing it.
I'm doing it.
Was that what you were trying to celebrate when you remember that you want to do this podcast?
And seven people left your apartment?
So you know the perils of having a friend visit from out of town, and you're just much kind of like, because you're such a good friend, you're so focused on there having a good time. Yeah, And this friend, in particular, Megan Keiser, hates New York decided that she hates it, and so I'm always like, she has to have a good time.
Yeah, yeah, I think she's having fun. She bought a fun dress. Everyone was getting ready in the background for this Broadway show or something, and Claire can't go.
She has to sit in her hot apartment.
Just to stay and make bullshit conversation with us.
Honestly, don't tell them, but I'd rather do that than anything else.
He thanks time.
Wait, Claire, can you just tell give us a New York update? Is it also boiling hot in New York? And what's it like?
Uh?
If we left your apartment and went out onto the street in New York, Right, it's a little.
Bit of a New York Minute with Claire Okaine and Okay.
We're walking out of the door of my uh three story building, not a brown stone, but there are bricks in it. And you walk out and then you just kind of what hits you first is the stench of summer trash, because not only is it, you know with the my phone says it's ninety degrees, but it feels like one hundred and ten. Yeah, that kind of vibe rats abound. There's a guy over there going, hey, don't fuck.
It, and uh, you know, he just maybe he was in it.
He was in a car and it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, don't let her paint the picture.
This is really.
I'm walking down the street. I immediately start sweating from the below my boobs. It's dripping down. It's kind of collecting, creating sort of like a nice a line of kind of wet.
This is turning into a sultry a romance novel.
Well, well just wait because just then my band aid falls off from the humidity and I have to replace it with the band aid that I had to just did my little bag.
Is it crazy? Human?
Yeah, it's pretty bad right now. Just today is the first day where it's bearable to be outside for longer than an hour.
But and are you from? Where are you from?
Originally, I'm from San Jose, California.
Skate city, that's right Bay Area. So this humidity and this kind of that kind of heat humidity combos not anything you're used to.
No, No, I'm used to dry heat, dry valley heat. I think San Jose is like it feels almost identical to La geographically. Yeah, that's thet.
Isn't it called skate city? Didn't you skate for when you were younger?
I still skate every once in a while, and my knees don't click.
But you and I skated in Denver together, and both of us hadn't done it for a long time.
We did, We were good at it.
We just started watching. Well, I've been trying to stick with it. I've made like an effort lately the last few years. But at that time you and I both were like, I don't remember how to even stand on this thing.
Yeah, but it was fun. It was fun.
It was fun.
So you skated at Caesar Chavez Park? Yeah?
Is that a famous spot?
I've just skated in San Jose before? Yeah, Jose Rojo, the Old the tilt Mode Army. I'm a real The way people talk about football, I can bore you to tears with with skateboarding.
Yeah I can as well, a lot of useless knowledge about shoes and whose shoes is whose? But Karen, do you skate?
Don't worry about me. You guys can talk about it, you know.
Karen does reveal over the years she has revealed an interest in skating, and each time it makes me very excited.
But she doesn't overdo it well.
Because first of all, in the eighties that was being a poser is the worst thing you could possibly be, so like you could not even approach if you weren't doing it. You couldn't like talk about it as if you did that. That's so for these days, Like kids these days are like you read one article on the Internet and suddenly you're the expert about writing you know, dramatic short short limited series for Netflix or whatever. Yeah. Yeah,
so I'm from a different time. But then also it was a little bit of just spying on boys who skated, and yes, that very specific vibe of skating which was very alluring, which was that skater boys were nice and they were chill, and they were basically stoners. But that kind of translated in my teen years, which was, you know,
literally the mid eighties very a very violent time. They almost seemed like zen masters, where you like a security guard would come and be like, get the fuck out of here, and they'd be like, be cool man, and then I'd be like, oh my god, yeiled back, how did you do that?
You know what I mean?
They just seemed like amazing, other worldly dudes. And they had long hair before anyone had it. Yeah, you know, it was a fascinating world.
A lot of people don't give skateboarding a credit for being at the forefront of many fashions, including hip hop fashions, which I could talk about for hours.
But snooze fast, am I right? What a snooze festival? That goodness I was.
I was definitely surprised at how sensitive, specifically sensitive, I guess it's the word wall use. Escape boys were. They really felt it all. They felt it deeply, and they had to hurt themselves in order to kind of feel alive. Ye, And I'm down with.
That, yeah entirely.
That's like you might as well be a poet, you might as well be there with a quill and just be like, let's do this thing. Because what something I learned when I was older was, yeah, a lot of those kids, skateboarding was the thing that you could.
Do like right outside your house.
You didn't need to ride anywhere, you didn't have to depend on anybody.
To get you there or pick you up.
That the whole thing was a very kind of latchkey independent child culture and or I have to get out of this fucking house because my stepdad is a monster culture or whatever.
Like very much.
It was almost like formed by those kids that are like, can I just go down to the ravine for a while and get escape?
Yeah? I always wonder and assume.
I'm pretty sure I would have got into bad things if it wasn't for skateboarding with all my idle time, and my parents weren't ever asking me where I was going. You know, I had all this freedom, but I just was skateboard meeting in parking lots with supportive friends. Thank god I was doing that instead of you know, catching this reefer madness or going to church or something else that would have sucked me into dangerous idding.
The only two things.
Yeah that's it in my town.
But the one thing I do, Like when Isaac Kid and we'd get these Eastern exposure videos, like skating in New York and Philadelphia, and you'd say that it was so rough and so like cobblestony potholes and.
Like you said, piles of garbage.
Apparently every time I've been to New York, the garbage people are on strike and there's just stinky piles of heathcliff fish and it's so rough.
Where do you go when you roll around? Now? Where do you go to skateboard?
I kind I'm kind of just literally rolling around these days on my little Zip singer.
And oh yeah, yeah, I just go.
I'm riding in the bike lanes. They're relatively smooth. Everyone's all go to a park called Betsy Head.
Betsy Head, Yeah, but.
It's got nice transition, it's got pools, and that's all I can really do is kind of pump my way around these yeah, around these pools.
That's the funnest thing you can do.
Yeah, And then school gets out and I get really scared of all the teens. I guess I'm self conscious. And then one of the mass for a cigarette and I gotta go.
Yeah, thirteen year old's too cool for me.
I have to hit the bricks scary.
I'm trying. I'm trying to get back into it. That's otherwise I'm sedentary.
Yeah, me too.
I gotta do it just because it's the only thing that makes me sweat. I'm glad to hear that you've been gating again, Claire.
Do you think that New York and Los Angeles are different? And if you do, how WHOA.
I've never thought about it that way. I would say New York is there's a lot to do. It's good. New York is good for a busy mind. It's a good place to quiet a busy mind, which I have. La is bad for a busy mind. Wide open spaces is why is wide open bad brains? I don't know why. I'm trying to sound smart' it's working, but yeah, I don't know. Just generally, I mean different versions of the same people everywhere, all around the country, always all around
the world. Big cities, every big city is kind of the same at this point. Everybody's got an M and M store.
You got.
You got a Nike where I don't know, I don't really know what I'm talking about, but you know what I mean, yes you do. New York, London, San Francisco. We're all going to the Eminem store.
We're buying them in bulk. We love them. We hardly ever get them.
You need to get.
Them this way. It's so important.
Yeah, every time I leave New York, just inexplicably buy a Swatch watch.
Yeah it's a Swatch store.
Yeah it has a big, tall front and a character hanging off or anything.
Yeah, how can you not be a part of that?
I got.
I walk right towards candy colors no matter what it is, be it watch or candy.
You know what it makes me think of is does LA have an Eminem store? I don't think it has a featured and publicly accessible.
Maybe, but it's probably a universal and you have to pay twenty five dollars to go.
Yeah, might as well be a private.
Definitely a city walk situation, I think, yeah, Like, because you know, New York and London have like the square, that one square where everybody goes Times New York It's.
Time, it's translated as Times, and yeah.
London, London is the other one. I guess LA doesn't really have the walkability of that big kind of a city feeling but no, so they're therefore no m ms readily available. Something to think about.
You there, like what five years ago?
Yes, I moved to the day that Trump was inaugurated, and that's like the only date I can really remember.
So you were pretty excited. Then when you way you want to congratulate.
Him trying to get his closest around in front of his towers.
Good job, mister, I loved you and home alone too.
Let me shake your answer.
Why are you squeezing it so hard? Sir?
I feel like he doesn't really shake. He probably pinches a claw.
I watched the mashup.
He grabs it and yanks the person towards him, and it looks painful, and that person always makes a weird face. And I hope you got that opportunity.
One day, one of these days.
One day, one day.
Have I ever told on this podcast told my Trump story?
Boy, I'll stop you interrupt you of course I'll do that anyway.
Tell me if it's this is a repeat, okay.
But I think it's fun because it was so pre It was in the early two thousands, and we went to record a bit in the Trump Tower in his offices for The Ellen Show and it was. It was basically an apprentice. It was supposed to be a cold open for one of her New York shows, So it was an.
Apprentice like spoof.
Okay, And this was before Trump threatened us with his politics, and was mostly just a good time, rich symbol guy in New York City and who had a TV show And we walked in so it was like me, another writer, and then the crew and we get off the elevator. It literally is like nineteen eighty one, and he walks up with cutout clippings in his hand of his ratings and immediately starts telling the first man that he meets of like last night we did one point nine million or whatever the number.
People to just say elevator attendant. But he was a man, so he had to address him first.
Literally it was like a cardboard cutout of a person. Yes, he had to address the man first. And also it was this very strange, like not even a high how are you nothing, normal person like he just came toward trying to find the like important person he needed to talk to and bragging about his ratings. It was so strange, and it just continued to be equally strange all day long. But I mean we were only there for a couple hours.
You've been in I haven't heard that at all. Yeah, you haven't told a lot of these Ellen stories.
I wanted to save up well that that one really is a Trump story, but then it just makes me go, like, yes,
so many people included him as a joke. He became a part of the lexicon of this, just this, oh this, you know, he's a rich guy and he's funny or he's fun or something, when in fact, he had you know, since he began, like since the eighties, he'd never paid any workers like he like basically made it his job to rip off like contractors and workers in New York City, Like he's should have gone to jail time and time again, just like one of the most evil people before he even got into politics.
Yeah, but you got to write his golden Wonka Vader?
So crazy?
Have you?
Have you been enjoying the Snel job? Is it fun? Is exciting as it's scary?
Is it it's all all of the above.
Yeah.
I when I first started working there, it was maybe the most terrified I've ever been sure, and I immediately yeah, I immediately reverted to like how I felt like first day of not even high school, first day of like middle school, sure, where I'm like, no one's talking to me, Why is no one talking to me? Why is everyone talking to this person? Why are they talking to me?
Like immediately freaking out and feeling self conscious and inadequate, and I kind of figured out a way to explain to people how it feels where this is how I see working at SNL, Like your first week at SNL. It's like, you know, when you you're taking a shit and you get really hot and you have to take off all your clothes.
While you're walking around New York City.
No no, no, no, no, no no.
This is just when you're maybe I don't know, it's just me, but when you're like you're you're on the on the toilet, you're taking the ship, and you're like, oh my god, I just have to take off all my clothes. You take off all your clothes and then you go, oh wait, I forgot to lock the door, but the toilet's too far away from the door, and then you go, oh no. Also, Lord Michaels is coming to this part. You're at a party and then you
remember the party. So it's basically like taking a ship with all with all your clothes off, with the door unlocked out a Lord Michael's party, and you're just like waiting for someone to walk in and see you totally.
Because you feel so vulnerable at all times.
Extremely Some people don't, I'm sure, but I definitely did.
How could they not?
Though?
I think anyone that says they don't is a total fucking liar because that's that show has been around since the seventies and like that. Yeah, it's a complete legacy in and of itself. So I think they're fronting if they're in any way trying to say I got this on day one, Like no.
No, because it's unlike anything else. There's no other writer's room like it. There's no other like it's it's insane, there's nothing else like it.
Well, and people watch it and pay so much attention to it. Yeah, but it adds this element of pressure that like, you know, any staff writing job you've had before since has never Yeah, you're writing that show naked and shitting at the party.
Yeah, it's so funny.
And I one time I just auditioned for it in front of a green screen thing and I remember thinking I was I was very scared I would accidentally get it.
I didn't want I didn't want to get it.
I think that it was when Bill Hayter was the comic that got.
It that year, and I was like relieved.
It's like, oh, also he does impressions and everything. But I remember him being after years of being on and he was always on screen, he was like in everything.
I remember him conversationally saying.
That he was scared every day, like it's just a high pressure, Like every week all that were I think about it all the time, having no connection to it, but every week having to put together all that for a live play basically would be so overwhelming.
Yeah, and you're every day you're kind of failing in big or small ways, from the beginning of the week to when you're trying to start, when you're trying to write with someone else, maybe they say sorry, I can't write with you, and you okay, And then maybe later in the week your your sketch doesn't get picked to go to read through you okay, or maybe maybe it does and it doesn't do very well and maybe eats a little bitish and nobody looks you in the eye for a little bit.
You know, Sure, it sounds like after this, you'll be able to do anything.
That's I kind of feel that way now, even in my short the short amount of time I've been there, I'm like, oh, okay, nothing could be harder than yes.
Well, And also, I think there's part of what you're saying is you have to reinterpret what failure means, yeah, because that it actually doesn't work like that. And I think a lot of people go through life with this thing of like, I can't fail, you can't. I don't want to hear notes because I can't be wrong. Where it's like, no, even though it's difficult, No one's saying it's not difficult.
No one's saying it's not humiliating.
But if you can actually like figure out what you didn't do right to fix it for the next time.
Because what I love about this is you've already told us, you already got picked up.
So all those little failings and those things that you felt clearly didn't add up to them being like you don't get how to work here, you fucking figured it out. So you stayed in the moment of all those times. And yeah, there's going to be like just as much social bullshit as there is political bullshit or anything else, because that's how people like keep their power or give give a little away or whatever. So it's just like you basically surfed the big wave. I think that's really awesome.
I Yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself, knowing myself and how I mean, how how hard it's just been to kind of get by in general, just like through my specific wonky little brain and the fact that I kind of got through it without fully breaking down. I'm pretty pretty stoked about. So now that I know how to accept this specific, these specific kinds of failures, it really makes it much easier.
Because they're not they're not really failure.
They're really not.
Yeah, there's a version of that that would stand up.
Like I'm pretty hard myself with every show, but it's me telling myself. If someone else came up and said, hey, that joke doesn't work, don't tell it anymore, I would get so defensive. That's why I don't think I would ever thrive in an office. I've never really had a boss. Yeah yeah, and if I did, I just ignore them and do what I wanted. So yeah, I can't it really what the job you have, really, it would be very exciting, I'm sure, but it would scare me as well.
Also, there's those people that want to heart you know, there's all the Harvard Lampoon people, where there's some people who've been trained in this kind of like interactive politics and the kind of like the politics of the workplace and interpersonal stuff where they you know, I always think about that when I meet people who I can tell are really good at like keeping even keeping fair keeping, non reactive where it's like, was your father a fucking
ambassador or something. I just had a hot headed fireman dad who yells to solve all problems, and it's like and that doesn't work fifty to ninety percent of the time, so then what do you do? And there are people who really came with like one thousand beautifully crafted tools for them to get through bullshit or use them against other people. And I'm always like ugh, ugh, yeah, people who are like high level in that regard.
I didn't know when I moved to LA I didn't know there was such a thing as like comedy college, like you're Emerson sort of the Lampoon thing, and people that have those tools and confidence and it's like, oh, I thought you just did open mics like me, but you got straight a's in comedy.
Yeah, of course, you.
Majored. And Eugene Nerman. Yeah, yeah, it's funny to say that. It's funny to say that, Karen, because rosebud Baker, who is it, also writer and a great stand up She started the same time I did, and she's really good at talking to authority figures and like people in charge. And I'm like, wow, you're so good at that. And she's like, my family's in the government, Like I know
how to talk to politicians essentially. Like so I'm like, oh, yeah, totally, totally, totally, because whenever I see someone like in a suit, I'm like, fuck you, pig or whatever. So yeah, but I'm trying to have compassion for rich people and it's it's it's working out just fine.
Can I just tell you, not that you need advice from me, but can I just tell you in my exact same thing where I had a friend tell me my front page who was like, we were working on a show that was super fucked up and like there was a lot of problems, and I was just constantly furious because my like the writing department couldn't get any other shit done because there was all these crazy things happening, and I went to her office six just use the EP
to complain or whatever, and then she was like, God, you're so easy to manipulate. All you have to do is make you mad and then you're just like and then you're just gone for the day. And I was like, ooh, thank good, point, thank you, because it's that thing where it's like I'm making myself available to be manipulated if I am going to be that reactive, So like figuring out that way, And it's real hard because a lot
of this is personality shit. But if you can figure out how to be step back and like be witness shit instead of actually being right there, like it's me and my whether or not I'm valued, you get to decide in this moment because we're in this hallway or whatever, and it's like, fuck that shit.
You already got that.
Job, Like, yeah, you have respect for your bosses or whatever, but you also don't have to like you don't have to keep getting the job.
Yeah. I always just stayed out of the hallways, those common areas.
Yeah, just stay out of the stay at.
My station, try not to make eye contact.
Yeah, it's all high school.
It is, isn't it.
Just stare at your locker, don't look around.
But I didn't know everyone thought I was cool in high school until like twenty years later.
So I need to remember that. And then they're like, yeah, and I remembered.
You know, I've already mentioned to Karen, But yeah, okay, junior year, I was home homecoming prince. It's not a big deep but I thought everyone hated me even after that. I know, I always bring that up, Karen. Yeah, I didn't know that came with things you had to do, like show up at a football game.
Or a dance.
I just thought you did it and you got to stay home. So I got in trouble. But anyway, I thought high school was horrifying. And then in retrospect, I'm like, why why did I?
I think it's just my brain.
Apparently it was supposed to be fun, and maybe jobs are supposed to be fun.
I just need an attitude adjustment.
Yeah. I like my bosses, and I like my job, and I like my I have my own office. It's just like a weird, just a life. I never really thought i'd be living.
That's so cool. And then do you all meet and rift together. Is it fun to like.
For the rift train secon? I mean, you know, and everyone's got their own style. It's just it's it's crazy because you, especially in like read throughs on Wednesdays, hear some of the funniest things ever written. And then a lot of those things don't get to the show, of course, but you're just like, wow, these really are like these people are really good at what they do. Yeah, and that's extremely validating to just be around those people.
Yeah, as someone that I know doesn't force your personality on people.
Which is why I like you do.
You have to learn to like yell out your ideas, like, because I I think I'm too quiet. I had in those situations and I kept telling myself, just say if it's good, say it. But it's hard to know what's good, and so a lot of times I get shy.
Yeah. Luckily I had been in writer's rooms before this job. I think if I hadn't, this would be a whole different story and I probably wouldn't have been picked up again. But I did have some writing experience before, and I wrote on Shrill for two seasons with eighty Bryant, and that's how I kind of, I guess I got the job.
And before that I wrote on SpongeBob and yeah. So from those experiences, which were both very different shows obviously, like I don't know, I learned how to when to talk when I knew when my ideas were fully formed enough to say them yeah, and to like, you know, like it's all about. It helps to do stand up.
Having done stand up too, to be in a writer's room because you know that you're timing, you know the beats of when to interject, and so I don't have a problem doing that luckily, and it's it's one of my more favorite it's one of my favorite things to do, I think in.
The job, using your comedic ability like timing to deliver jokes in front of just a different version of an audience basically totally.
And if I eat shit the rest of the week, I know that I've you know, at least made some people laugh or I you know, got some jokes in other people's sketches from punching them up.
So yeah, that part sounds really fun. Actually, Okay, I'm no longer scared of your job.
Okay, good, that's all that mattered.
Yes, yes, I needed this therapeutically. Thank you both of you.
What's your favorite part when you're not working, Like, what's your favorite thing to do? Or is there any place you've discovered in New York City that you didn't know about before, like that.
Called Leicester Square, Trifolgar Square with the eminem stores. When I'm not working, I am mostly watching movies. My husband is an AMC stubs member, and he's daily saying, Hey, you want to go see Bullet Train or whatever?
Yeah?
Sure, So kind of every day I'm eating a huge bucket of popcorn watching Bullet Train, and I don't know, I mean mostly just like walking around the city. And I for a while I had a podcast of my own, not to brag, but where I would when I first moved to New York. I'd go to different parks and just sit at like on a park bench and talk to myself and to my phone and talk about what I was seeing and all that. So I've gone to many parks in the city. I think my favorite is Tompkins Square Park.
So pretty.
It's so pretty. Every once in a while you see like Patti Smith kind of lugging a bag around or whatever.
She lives right there. She just that's how she works out.
Yeah, just a bunch of books she needs to read or whatever. And you know, that's it's kind of what I do. Just sit on a bench and with my I don't know, iced green tea and look around. Take it all.
Now, Can I ask a quick New York question because I feel like I remember Tompkins Square Park?
Do you need a key?
Like there was a thing and I think my friend lived in that neighborhood where it's like only certain people have keys to the parks, only certain people can be actually inside. Am I think you have a different park? And also, oh, do they still do that?
That's probably a different park, although maybe at some point it was like that because it's in a almost I guess almost Alphabet City or Lower East I just I don't remember the name of it. I don't know, but uh, actually never been there. Yeah no, but I've seen parks like that, but they're they're much smaller and almost like co co opy vibe where like everyone you can plant your own things in there and oh cool, right, Yeah.
They almost feel like they're left over from the Gilded Age where they were probably like all the horse carriages had to go around one direction, and that was just what was in the middle. They're that small, so it's like, I think that's what I'm thinking of, which, yeah.
Yeah, having your own key that I was always offended by.
In Santa Monica.
You couldn't do it at a dog park in Santa Monica, you couldn't bring your Venice dog. You had to like paperwork. And I had some chaperone there that was like, where do you live?
Are you? Is that Santa Monica dog? Like they seriously.
Enforced it was like, get me out of here, check her tags. Yeah, I'm going back to Venice yet up And he snobbed.
That's why.
I said, that's how you you walk that dog.
Let that dog take a ship, Put that ship in a bag, walk back over, huck it over the fence over.
The woman said, there you go. Hook is what you get?
Hook it?
Did you actually see bullet train?
No?
I didn't.
I just couldn't get it because he asked me to go the other day and I said.
No, he's absolutely not.
I normally am. I'm all upit it.
Yeah, have you seen ambulance amb.
Lance?
I don't know anything about it, but I met the gut the jake jillen Hole hosted snl OH working and he was really nice, nice long story short.
Did you get to chat with him or do just like a hallway high five?
Or I got to chat with him? You know, he come sits in my office and I go, what do you want to do? And he goes, I don't know, okay, But I asked him. He was talking about, you know, he was on this worldwide ambulance tour or whatever having to talk about this movie. And I was just like, how do you not fall asleep at any moment? Like how are you? How do you have energy? Especially going
from like Japan to wherever to wherever? And his advice was like, don't start anything, don't start your day until like eleven am wherever you are, eleven am is a good hour to start doing stuff or like for your first engagement.
With the world.
And I was like, all right, m hm. Then I asked if be he takes any vitamins or anything like that. He's like, no, so does I take nol atone? In all right? They're just just like us.
Yeah, And then he's like, okay, final, I'll be honest. Tons and tons of very high grade cocaine on private planes.
That's how everybody knew it.
I think Jill, I think he's great. When after the end of the week they did you guys hug.
I'd like to hug him? You did Hu?
Yeah, yeah, I'd hugged Joan all.
I'll tell him. I'll tell him. I said that.
No, No, I just it's just something I blurted out.
Hey, James signed an email.
Yeah, I'll email this guy I know who I talked to about skateboarding once a year, says that he would.
Like to hug you as a friend.
Tell him as a friend, a friend, just a normal hugged. I hugged my friends, and I think that he and I be friends. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.
You know, the thing that I do, the thing that I do love, But this has kind of remind me of it, because I feel like your this job is like kind of opening you up to like celebrities as real people or as regular kind of regular people or people whoever's.
In the hallway.
But I always found New York City anytime I visited there. One of my favorite things is just walking around and just like seeing what's going on. I always would spot celebrities that no one was paid looking at or paying attention to. And it's one of my favorite things about that city. It's so packed and people are so busy with their own shit that they just focus on what they need to get doing. They don't care that that person is standing right there. I love it so much.
It's like, yeah, that city is just so fucking cool.
And I've I've always felt like just walking around watching people rush to wherever they're going. I was confronted by how lazy I am here in La I'm like, oh, these everyone is getting shit done here. Maybe I should move here for a little while, just so it lights a fire under my ASSA. Yeah, a work ethic of some kind.
That's how I feel. It definitely propels you forward no matter what, and I let like, I think the New York streets and like the subway system are kind of the great equalizer where everyone has to walk on the same New York street, everyone has to take the same trains unless they're you know, uber rich and can take
helicopters or whatever to Manhasset. But I don't know, like it's really interesting to me, and it's it's nice that you can't you can't ignore each other at all when right everyone's like, you know, in their own lane and kind of doing their own thing, but you can't ignore like the humanity around you.
Right Yeah, and pretty much everyone takes the subway right like it's not Yeah, I think so. For some reason, I felt like it was complicated and I didn't know. I was asking to make questions before I went down there. I'm like, I don't even and the turnstiles should I be with? How did they work? It just took me a while to figure it out. But after a few days I was like, I totally live here, and yeah, everyone does it. Everyone's on it. They rely doesn't have something like that.
It can be public, super yeah, it can be super intimidating also because the people that are on it and using it, like use it every day.
It's their commute. I saw a girl get stuck in.
The inside turnstyle, so the one that's like full body top to bottom cage. She had she had her bags with her, and she clearly was from not from New York City, and so she had like three shopping bags that she had tried to shove in to the little cage with her and it stopped turning and people were just pressing from the other side, and she was just standing.
At it, going stop it. Everybody's sad.
And it's literally like five o'clock commute traffic. I like, I didn't even have time to really oggle her enough to be like, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen, because I had to keep going. But it was like that poor girl, and that could have been me like three months ago. It really does like if you have to know, you can't be you can't be messing around in a thing like that and fuck it up and be the one that stopped.
It's in the cage where it's like all those bar like a cheese slicer.
Yes, yes, oh yeah, with the paint.
In my memory it was painted green, but that could that could be wrong.
That could be wrong.
But it's so intense, like she fucked up, and then all of commuting New York City foot traffic was like, we're going to smash you in this thing, like they just wanted to keep pushing forward.
That's why I get nervous.
Before I went down to the subway, I thought I was going to fuck up, and there all the New York people would be like, ha, ha, he doesn't live here.
I mean I still feel that way when I'm like ordering a sandwich at a deli, where I'm like I have to know exactly what I want and I have to say it fast or else. Yeah, they're just gonna be like yeah, whatever.
Yeah, everything there. What's the protocol here? Can I pet your bodega cat?
Yeah?
I'm new here?
Is this cool?
Or I went into a corner store one morning. That's one of my favorite New York memories because I only lived there for like a year for a similar as like an SNL job. It was the second season of the Mariadraf anyway, So I left my apartment one morning and went down to the padega and there's a very solid chance I was baked out of my mind. And when I walked in, there was a little old lady and she was kind of talking to the guy behind the counter, and I was like, just don't even pay attention.
You're going to be upset, because then I.
Was like, Oh, this ninety old year old lady lives in New York City, like in Hell's kitchen, Like what is she doing?
How come she's by herself? Does she need help?
I can't get involved, like all these kind of city fear ideas going through my head. I pick up like three things, I go to buy them, and then she turns to look at They're just having a conversation like they know each other, her and the guy ringing her up. And then I'm just standing there like wondering if I'm going to have to help this lady.
And she turns and goes, are you okay, honey? It's like I'm good.
She's like, oh, you can go ahead, and like that's something I guess they did every Sunday morning or something.
And I was like I was interpreting the.
Entire thing, like the big city's going to eat this old lady. And it's like that lady's probably live there for fucking seventy years, and I'm the one.
I'm just projecting all my own shit.
Onder her, can I help you with your bags?
And then she pushes you out of the way from an oncoming bus environment carries you across the street, gently leaving you in a bush.
I do wonder what it'd be like to live here as an old, old person, And it must be really hard unless you're like, you know, it's all you know. And then it's it's fine, but yeah, it's hard on the body.
Hard on the body. It's like a lot of vitamins, not.
A lot of retirement speed. There no no even at my age. Now, that's why I brought up the pigeons. I think I would be that guy on the bench, That's.
What because truly it's like walking down the street. You got to keep that pace and that's not leisurely paced just if you're just walking up the street normally, and then you are also touching like probably three people on average, shoulder to shoulder, Like the crowdedness, the pace, and then just the kind of speed of everything is so it's so different, and it's so like, yeah, I have to literally remember like take a multi vitamin. You're gonna be
touching parts of the subway. There's things you can't control, like you have to brace yourself for it in a way. That just that's why it makes sense that everybody thinks California people are like laid back, and it's like no, we just we don't walk as fast as humanly possible up the street and you don't have to either.
Yeah, there's like all those scenes like in twitsy or something where they just are shooting and no one even knows they're on camera.
And people are walking.
They're literally touching shoulders on each side with strangers just accidentally shoulder groping everyone.
I could not. I did get it's electrifying, it's fun, but I'm.
Just not used to it. Yeah, I gotta do it. I gotta I gotta move there. That's why I said, sorry, I keep making this about me.
I would love it. I'm jealous that you get to live there so you can.
Only you can check it out.
You know, maybe yeh'll visit things.
Things are bad all over, you know, you might as well just try and sizes.
Yeah, I'd love to just rate on scales of badness every city.
Do you have you been doing stand up there? Do you find you don't have as much time late lately?
Not as much. But I'll try to do it when I can. I do when people ask me to do it.
I found that audience is there.
Like the jokes that I was most precious about or proud about that maybe didn't always work here. Nothing against Los Angeles, but I found the audiences there were listening a little more. Do you find that to be the case.
I could see that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think because going out is a little more of a thing here too, because it takes you know, you have to go out, take the train, blah blah blah. Everything's very intentional, So I think people kind of do listen a little better here.
Yeah, I'm at comedy on purpose.
It wasn't y yeah shoved into my face because I yeah, there's a lot of people. You can't surprise people with comedy. I think that happens much here York. It seems like, oh, this audience is here because they knew that there was comedy that's crashing.
Not like the Bigfoot Lodge where literally there's like streaming matches between the comedy crowd and the bar or shishing and countershishing were Like I stood in the back of that room one time, and I was like, the tension in here is palpable just for people to do shitty eight minutes sets like what is happening?
Counter that is a very crazy it was.
And also it's like there's no it was not a separate room. It's just like just that one corner. Yeah.
Yeah, people just because there's a little raised area in a corner doesn't mean people are gonna automatically pay attention to that corner, but.
Especially if they're drinking there, if they're drinking fancy drinks, then it's just like the volume is off.
Yeah, I feel for audience, or I feel for people who get the ambush I do. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do someone want that to happen to me.
I don't have a lot of rules, but I do want whenever I'm doing a show, I don't want it to be in a surprise to the people in attendance.
Now, that's my main goal in life, not to surprise people.
Any kind of live performance. Yeah, when it's within like five or ten feet of you, has it has an intensity because then you if you're like me, for example, like if somebody suddenly just walked up and like plugged in an acoustic guitar and started doing covers, then I would have to look away, which is a choice you're making too kind of not Like as a person that's done surprise comedy shows before, I know when there's you can tell when people are loving it and try to
be supportive with their like face or when people are like this for some reason, I feel vulnerable and humiliated now, so I have to look away and there, and then it's so uncomfortable when you're a held hostage to art.
It's just it's no, look at my paintings. They're just hanging them around you. No, no, here's free wine. What do you think of my paintings?
I'm eating pizza.
Yeah, it's interesting to think about because the worst version is where you're someone and then someone's just starts singing.
Dennis Joplin, Oh no, that's karaoke night.
But I enjoyed karaoke if I'm prepared for it, if I know it's happening, I like to sing it.
I like to watch, which means which means if you're drunk.
No, I promise I've been going.
Not you personally, just one.
Yeah yeah.
To enjoy enjoying karaoke is being shipped.
Oh yeah yeah yeah. And what else are you going to do when you wait for your song? I guess it is a it's an occupial occupational hazard. Would be in a karaoke junkie like me. That's why I love the model so much.
I'm actually singing with a band in three weeks.
We're doing a bunch of punk rock songs and I have to learn them and rehearse.
It's at a skate park.
Yeah, it's just songs that were famous from skate videos. Oh shit, so I know a lot of them. But you know, Karen, I'm not a singer, but I can sing like that. I can mimic a voice, I think for but I am. I'm already very nervous for it. And maybe it'll be a situation where people don't know there's going to be a band. I don't know. I think it's outdoors. It's not a big deal, but I'm very excited and nervous.
Part of an event, or it is.
Part of an event, Okay, and the three guys I'm doing with it, yeah, they will know. Yeah, and the guys that I'm doing it with are all musicians. But I've never sung in a band. I'm just getting it's taking it off. But I'm already nervous for it. To get drunk, I might have to, Karen, I think I will, yeah, because or take some sort of an add pill.
I think that, well, but if you're just slightly but sorry, not get drunk, but get a little buzz so that the thing most things don't matter.
Yeah, in that moment before.
I just start tearing into a very fast descendent song. I probably should have a little alcohol, just ease it up. Yeah, doctor's orders. I like your bit, uh, Claire about going to planned parenthood to seem smart because you because I I do that. I go whenever I'm at the doctor, I want to. I don't know why I do it. I try and impress them with my terminology, using the right terms, and it never works, and they always look
at me like they're offended. But your version, in your version, they're just like, wow, did you go to medical school?
I really like that bit.
Well, I've started, uh. I've found myself also in therapy, like talking about things I've read in a book about psych collogy and I'm like, yes, I heard that about attachment theory or whatever, and the therapist is like, okay, whatever.
Yeah, I've gotten more of the eye roll version, even when I've been right, like I was explaining I had strep throat and now my joint's hurt, and he's like, well, that doesn't let me look in this book.
Oh yeah, a book that had the doctor's name on it.
Well, he's like, oh yeah, I guess there is a streptococcle react of arthritis.
So that must be what you have.
And I'm like a little bit of credit here for the saying that I didn't get any credit.
I just got the arthritis.
But Claire, is there anything else you'd like to like talk about her? Plug before we wrap it up?
Ooh baby, when does this come out?
I think it's like a month?
Yeah, okay, well, yeah, I guess I got nothing to plug. I'll watch a Saturday Night Live on Saturdays, hopefully, hopefully I'll get.
To hear my words from New York. It's from New York Live from Saturday Night. It's New York.
Dg I. It's living, It's living.
It's very long titled.
I'm trying to think, if there's anything you know, just be good to one another.
Your name your comedy album, Let it Be. That's really one of my favorite comedy album titles I've heard in a long time. Do you want to Claire's stand up? Look up her comedy album let it Be?
But just basically stealing the Replacements joke of them naming their album let it Be.
So I they yeah, oh that makes it even better.
I told someone that recently and they went, oh cute in a condescending way, and I was like, okay, so I've got this album, let it be and uh, you know, I'm kind of just farting around doing doing my thing, as they say, and I'm happy to be here. It's nice to see you guys. Yeah, looking spry.
It's been so long.
And so now I go to New York.
I'll bring aboard with larger, softer wheels to deal with the rough stones, stone like roads, and we will roll around. You can show me the the mean streets. I'm seven, but that, yeah, that's one of the things that excite me the most about about that city.
So take me skateboarding in New York, please.
I will. Oh you know, do you know, uh remember Kenny Hughes. Sure, New York of course my husband. Recently we worked as a mover and he's like this guy I work with. He used to be a pro skater. Didn't skate anymore though, Like what's his name is Kenny Hughes and like New York legend. Yeah, moving people's furniture. It's rough.
That he did a demo in Missoula that uh so I saw him skating. He's a big skate most skaters are five nine. That's why I did it. Little feet you're five nine, you should skateboard. He's like a big, big, strong muscle kid. It's like, oh, you're two feet taller than everyone else here, so I'm not surprised he's moving ship. Yeah, it's a strong, strong boy, that Kenny.
Anyway, Sorry to kind of go on the track of the ending, but I had to bring that's really I wrap.
It up with one very special thought. Is strong enough to be a mover, and we are all strong enough to be movers and work for moving.
That's the That's what's up.
Yeah, find your inner strength. Thank you for that closing message.
Really nice there.
Yeah, so good to see you.
Yeah, very good to see you too.
You've been listening to Do You Need a Ride? T y n Are. This has been an exactly Right.
Production produced by Analise Nelson.
Mixed by John Bradley.
Our talent booker is Patrick Cotner.
Theme song by Karen Kogeric.
Artwork by Chris Fairbanks.
Follow the show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at dinar podcast That's d y n Ar Podcast.
For more information, go to exactly Rightmedia dot com.
Thank you, Oh you're welcome.
I made you yell and I just said it