Kathy Kinney

My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.

Here's Kathy Kenney.

She played Mimi Terror and Blue Eyeshadow on The Drew Carey Show and Joy. All right, Kathy, you're on this podcast because you are a joy in my life.

Why.

There's nothing I like better than the hearing the sound of you sucking on.

A lozenge, clicking it against your teeth. Kathy, you are a joy.

Now.

I wanted to talk to you about joy because you are good at it.

I've thought about joy a lot.

It's because you're from the Midwest and you're chronically depressed in reality.

I think that it is.

I don't know, you know, I think that I've always been one of these people who who's very Pollyanna, which can be a four letter word, you know, Pollyanna. Don't you know. I'm not chooting my own horn, but I but I feel like I need to explain the joy thing.

You know.

I wrote a book with my best friend Cindy Rats laugh.

I remember Cindy Rat's laugh.

Yeah, that's her real name.

Yeah, Because she I would sometimes say she's all women, But then you would say, no, no, no, it's Peggy Ricey.

It's all women.

I like to keep your memory in line. But yeah, they're both all women. Really, yeah, I suppose that is true. Yeah, I know when you think about it. Yeah, But Cindy and I wrote a book called Ready, Queen of your Own Life, The grown Up Woman's Guide to Claiming happiness and getting the life you deserve.

That's great. Is anything left for the book once you finish the title?

No, And that's what having an editor does for you. By the way, because I just I might have called it the book, but you know, she Chaffy's book, the book with a friend, Peggy, Cindy and ath.

See. Now I've got Peggy Risky in my mind because she's all woman.

She's all woman.

Yeah.

The reason why I said that is because I met her with you and I said that Peggy Risky, she's all woman.

Is that what I said? Yes, you did. And it's funny because I just told somebody the other day. Sometimes Craig thinks it's Cindy and he goes, Cindy, rats last, she's all woman, And then I go, no, that's Peggy Risky, that's all woman. Oh right, right, you go. And then we've had this conversation we.

Have and here's the thing. They're both all women, Yes they are. Yeah, I know, I just and from the Midwest, right, indeed are you? So I could say, Kathleen Kenny, she's all women from the Midwest, now, but you're from them?

I see.

I think the Midwest is misrepresented in American popular culture, and I will tell you why, because I think the Midwest is quite scary.

Serial killers.

Yeah, beer, cheese, what's scary? Well, I'm beer scary to me. Cheese can sell. I know cheese can be scary to you because you can be a bit lack toast Tootsie.

More than a bit.

Yeah, And serial killers are just nobody's idea of fun except people who do podcasts. Apparently, people who do podcast there's a lot of podcasts about serial killers.

That's true. Yeah, you know, I grew up not in the same era, contrary to popular belief about my age, but I grew up about twenty five miles from where ed Gean slaughtered people and offered Hitchcock based psycho on ed Gar ed.

Gean really to ddress up as his mom and stuff. You spit out your loss.

And I am because I'm getting ready to talk about joy, so I don't want to get the los Andes stuck on the microphone.

See when you were playing Mimi. I remember when you were playing Mimi on the Drew Carey Show.

I realized, now, it's rare that I've seen you not drinking with a straw, because you always have to have a straw.

When you had that makeup on I remember that, do you remember?

Yes, Obviously you'd be like, you'd be talking, talking, and then you'd go.

And your little straw.

Anyway, so you grew up next to Edgen. The siou Kella that was based on ed.

Gen, but surprisingly with a positive attitude, which eventually now you tell me, here's why we wrote that book. Because I would go places after I you know, when I was on the Drew Carrey Show and after and people would say, you're on TV, I'd love to see your hosts.

Well, like people that we're in your neighborhood and stuff. Well, it's just everywhere everywhere. People who didn't and people would say things like are you that movie star? And I'm like, no, I'm a TV whore, completely different.

It's not really, it's kind of the same.

It is the same. But I wrote that book with Cindy because I really believe that we are all more alike than different. You know, I empty the litter box one turd at a time, just like everybody else.

Now here's the thing. I never empty the letter box.

I don't even have a cat.

Oh well, see that, you win. But if I had a cat, do you know if a cat thought you did have a cat?

Oh? You know there's some thing about pets is they all die?

Yeah, I know it's terrifying.

But here's the thing. Joy, I've thought about it a lot, right, Okay, because I had joy when I came and saw you at the Brea Improv because I hadn't seen you in maybe four or five years or five years, and there you were in your full comic glory, and you were so funny and you it reminded me of all the good times that we had on the Carry Show.

We did have good time, we did, you and I. Yeah, no, I mean it wasn't. It wasn't a good time there.

All the time.

No, but you and I always said a good time riding around in the cart going yeah, yeah, that's right, making noises.

We would make noises because we had these little golf carts and we would ride around the Warner Brothers law and go to Western Town.

Yes at the back.

Why did we go with the We used to get frozen yogurt and go for a run in the car.

I think we were bored. I think we were bored too.

I think I was bored because all I did on the Drew k Show every now and again is I'd run on and go gettio fired and then maybe that's enough. Not that pen, yeah you need the the wrong pen, but that they would do occasionally things like that, and you would do a lot more work than me.

But you were nicest to me on that show.

Yeah, I think that. I My heritage is Scottish, Yeah, for sure. Well Kenny Kenny, Kenny's Irish. I think I think pro Irish. Actually, you know, one of my cousins traced it all the way back through Ethel the Acrobat, who evidently married into our family. Wasn't one of my personal relatives.

But this was her name, the acrobat.

Ethel the Acrobat was how she was builled.

Right, and and she she was in vaudeville.

Evidently there was a picture of her sitting on her husband's shoulder with her hand in the air right. And then there was a third guy in the act. I don't know if he swallowed swords or fire.

Right, So it was some weird manajatoire with Ethel her husband and the sword swaller.

She was an acrobats. Anyway, my cousin, one of my cousins, traced it all the way back. We're sort of from that hinterland of Scotland and Ireland. Oh yeah, it was McKinney and it was. But my family could never stand anyone place, so they they all migrated towards the potatoes and to Ireland and then and then to New York and then and Canada, which is why I gave everybody. My aunt wanted to know how much Native American we

You're one, are you one percent?

No?

I was zero.

Just it ended with her. But so she was angry. And she also found out that we're mostly we're French and Irish. But she found out when after spitting in the test tube that she was twenty one percent English and only sixteen percent Irish, and it made her very angry because you know how the Irish feel about the English.

Yeah, that would you'd be conflicted to find out you're somebody that you're not that fond of.

Yeah. I got that in my own life when I was drinking. I found out I.

Was somebody It's not that bond though, and that's why I had to get sober. You're a person who I think of is you're not an alcoholic or anything, but you're someone who I think of as being weirdly. And I hope you don't take this the wrong way, because I mean it's a compliment. Sober you seem to me someone who has gone through difficulties personally, emotionally maybe and kind of come out the other side into joy. Well, certainly it's a clarity.

You see how I'm I keep trying to bring a back.

Yeah, no, it's good you're keeping it on message, but I tend not to do that.

Yeah, that's okay. I agree with Do I think that, you know, surviving the Midwest and yeah.

Many people are very happy and comfortable.

Yeah, and you know, if I went back there, I wouldn't I mean one time, a couple of years ago, I was on your doing your radio thing, and you asked me if I had any interest in moving back to where I was from, and I said no. But also, you know, they have snow up beyond your hairline there, and I just I can't do that anymore. But I think that everybody gets a chance to survive their childhood.

And was your childhood difficulty you think I.

Think it was. You know, I had a good time. I don't mean to fling the word joy out so often, but you know, I was an only child and I still am.

And you know, you think there's any chance that you guessing anything.

I don't know. You know, my mother was adopted, so that was why we did all the spin like that. Yeah, that didn't help anyway. There were no other children. I already knew that. But my father was ill, and he was when you were a kid, when I was a kid, from the time I was five until I was fifteen when he died. And you know, I come from that weird Irish family that everyone neglected to tell me that he was dying. And then one day I came home and he was dead, and I was like, oh, it

No, I think that's also you're probably in a law of grief because you know, it's difficult, particularly if you come from the kind of background that we kind of both come from. Then grief is it's like I it's very bad, and then you stop, and that's and I don't. It's never been my experience. I mean, I was still grieving about my parents dying, and it's years and years and years ago. It never goes away, it just becomes different. Yeah, it's funny.

I think that this country is just not very good with grief, and I know that my family in particular wasn't because my father died and then we didn't mention him again. Yeah for twenty twenty five years.

That's kind of like the mafia.

Yeah, that's well, that's like the healthy Yeah, as though I mean he's like, you have the wake and then it's done, and then you move on.

Then you move on. Yeah, And I think you know, one time I had a massage, one of these deep tissue massages after I moved to New York.

I was going to say, you didn't get that, No.

Not in the Midwest, and you probably could now though you could would involve beer and geez. I imagine.

I don't know.

I had a few serial killers, but I had this, and I didn't realize how armored I was until I had that deep tissue massage. It's like so painful and the release of I think I was just clenched since my father died.

Yeah, because were you close to your dad?

I was. My mother was an unusual woman, and I think that my father and I were always like, oh, she's kind of different. Okay, in what way was she unusually? She was adopted, right, but I mean a lot of people are on her birth certificate when she was born. She was born one year after they stopped putting the word Bastard on birth certificates.

I'd written after my name.

I thought that was your middle name, Craig Bastard ferguson stuff. I like podcasts because you can say things like bastard.

You can't say bastard. Yeah. Yeah.

So my mother never believed that she was loved ah, and that's something that she hung onto all her life. You know, you tell yourself these stories to get by in life. And I think that any clarity that you see in me is because I told myself lots of stories, like, you know, you're not attractive, you're not smart, you're not funny, you're not you know, all the not just fill in the blank. And then because I sort of got that from my mother. And then, you know, one day in

You're fabulously wealthy.

Yeah, yeah, you're flous fabulous. Yeah I'm not. One time I said I want to be Drew Carrey wealthy and he said, well, you're Kathy Kidney wealthy, and I go, I am, but it's not the same, trust me. But I made the decision that I was pretty good. And you know, there's a grace that comes from letting go of the pain of your childhood and moving forward.

Word, was there any formal kind of ceremony or program or system that you went through to move from the pain in your childhood? Was kind of like it because there wasn't a rehab or anything like that, right, No, I.

Mean there was alcohol, drugs.

Did you you did all that then, Candy?

Oh god, yeah, I mean I was in a lot of pain. Like I said, they neglected to tell me that my father was going to die, so it was very shocking. And then the thing, I'd always wanted to travel, and so I just slowly jocking myself in the position so that I could travel.

And that's what you became an actress. And that was an accident though that wasn't because I don't really believe in accidents like that.

You tell me, well, that's that's the point, and here's here's the point. But as we slide slide in towards joy, you know, the only skills I had when I was in Wisconsin was I was a bartender, right, and dirt bag bar that used to be called Cora Nimchek's Long Branch. It wreaked a vomit from lumberjacks who had puked there back in eighteen thirty nine, and it just soaked in. So I was eighteen and I was, you know, the

Wow, I don't know, I've never seen you.

Oh I'm good at carpentry. Okay, I'm good with power tools. So when I was in college, these are my two skills bartending. And I'm not talking about can you make me a Manhattan? I'm talking about, you know, whiskey beer and a shot of Schnops's.

Content is Everything else is just conversation.

Like I was the head bartender for weddings at Bernard's Supper Club and they'd say, what do you got? And I go, I got beer, I got brandy, I got squirked, and I got brandy and squirked and they go, Oliver brandy and.

Can you have a square on his own? I'm asking for a friend.

It's a grapefruit. Oh okay, it's a very prominent grapefruit. So I thought it was so when I left there and I got a free ride out to Manhattan with the self esteem below sea level and these two skills of the carpenter I wanted in the scene show.

How did you get a free How did you get? From Steven's point?

I was friends with the woman who was a dance teacher at the university, and she got a job teaching at Amherst College. So she needed somebody to drive her twenty six foot U haul from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. And I had been driving this library show waggon around with these vivid pictures on it, driving around to the smaller towns, putting on plays because I was in the technical I was a tech director.

Oh right, so you have no yeah.

No intention of acting whatsoever. So I drive her truck out and we get out to New York and there's a blackout immediately.

A black in New York.

I think I remember that that was in the eighties, yo, back in the ages. A few black in New York in the age, but I think I think there might have been a city wide one.

It went, this was city wide. And you know, I'm that person who's had so many because again, my self esteem was so low. I didn't think I could get a job as a bartender in Manhattan. I didn't think I was attractive enough. And besides, I know how to make anything other than baron schnapps. You know, So I had jobs that really, there's the book. You know, I was living for a crippled X Vogue model.

Well, you like that sounds like a Bay Davis movie.

It was. It was awful, and I worked for art carved diamond and class rings.

Let's go back to the Betty Davis movie.

Okay, I'm not sure, you really don't want any more details on And then I'm you know, that was it? Live in for a crippled X Vogue bedridden x Vogue model? To you, No, she was bed ridden, I mean to her. No, No, I thought about taking her life. It's the closest I hope I ever come to taking anyone's life. Why because I didn't think I deserved a better job.

Why did you take the job killing her?

Oh?

Because she had ten pillows behind her head and she go every night I go, okay, good night, I go to bed. Three o'clock in the morning, she go catty, catty, Cathy Okay, can you flatten the yellow pillow? Can you roll the pink pillow? Can you plump the blue pillow? Every night? Every night? And after about a month and a half, you know, I stood there with that yellow pillow, just shaking like because the part I'm leaving out all this stuff. I mean, I'm not always prone to murder.

But no, I've never discussed murder with you at all.

No. She she had a thirteen year old daughter whose bed butted into the side of her hospital bed. She believed her daughter was the reincarnation of Judy Garland, and she would torture the daughter. You know, I have to go to the bathroom. I have to go to the bathroom. That's all. I'm going to leave it until I had to get up and handle it. The woman's bed ridden. Wait, the daughter didn't help her go to the bathroom. She did,

What happened to the daughter, is she? Okay, you don't know. Maybe you do know? This is getting too bad? Is again litigious?

Yes, litigious. They did run ent her on the street one time after I left there, you know, and her mother had finally passed away. She would medicate herself with dramamine, which eventually will kill you.

Yeah, but you won't feel nauseous.

You know, you know you don't, or you won't be busy.

Yeah.

The Craig ferguson Fancy Rascals stand up to her continues this fall. For tickets, go to the Craig Bergson Show dot com slash tour see you on the road.

This was my first job when I moved to New York.

Yeah, that's a dark Sorry, we took a little dark gitur, but you did when you were there, and then so you were working as the then this Betty Davis movie, and then you get a job as about ten.

No.

No, I never I never bartended, no because I didn't think I was attractive enough. I was the receptionist for art carved diamond and class rings and I was hungover. I had one outfit. It was pink. I didn't have a lot of clothes, and I sat behind bulletproof glass and there was a button underneath my desk that if someone came to rob it, because the vault was there every day, I'd fall asleep, jerk set that thing off and then wait and nobody ever came. That was the

Okay what it was a.

New York County district brand, and I was the assistant membership director and it went something like this. It was just my friend Cindy Rats, laughing about she's all woman, along with Peggy Resky. We're in a tiny little room in the middle of Manhattan. And the phone would ring and I would say American Psychiatric Association, which I did in my sleep for years after that, and someone would go, I need to talk to a psychiatrist. They have to be on the Upper east Side, they have to have

And it was your turn?

And I go, it was your turn?

It was your And would you would do you would kinsle people on the on the phone.

We referred people to psychiatrists, which is why I've never seen one. I have therapist.

What's the difference. Let's finally put this to rest.

Can give you drugs, right, And.

I've certainly then in that case, I've talked to a lot. I just they weren't in offices.

They were in and they're heavily, heavily trained. They go to school for years. A therapist you can pretty much right away under the internet and a degree.

My therapist for a long time. I think, you know, we've discussed. I think I can't remember. I don't go to therapy anymore. But when I did, she was a psychiatrist. She could give drugs. She just didn't give me any which is one of the reasons why I don't see her anymore. Think, No, I don't. She never thought it was necessary. Did you ever take psychotropics or any of these things? Try to get yourself right?

But somebody tried to put me on lithium or something like that one. Yes, it was ridiculous. Yeah, it didn't nothing. You know, I self medicated. And when I think about all the things that I did and took to not feel my grief, you know, to not feel about your dad, about my dad, you know about my belief from my mother that I was unlovable or you know, that that low self esteem thing. You know, It's just it's fascinating the things that we do did not feel our feelings.

Yeah, it is remarkable.

That's kind of why I wanted to do a podcast, fully enough, called Joy, because I think that there has been a tendency amongst in popular culture or people like us who talk about things to talk only about the negative emotions, which are which is valid, but that they're not the only ones that exist. And one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you so early on was because you're someone that very much lives in

Was on the Drew Carry Show and I.

Was like, I can't go and see fucking Carry or fired one more times.

Drive me up the fucking.

Wall, and you would always make me laugh and you would cheer me up, which I've always been very grateful for but also impressed by because you do it to yourself too, don't.

You I do you know I never talked about that book. I mean, we wrote that book a long time ago. But I love to travel. And Cindy had lost her job and was sitting at home on the couch and I would call and she would say, welcome to Walmart. How may I help you? She was practicing and the rest of the time she was eating potato chips. And I dragged her on this trip to Prague, which we'd plan. It was early December and we got there.

The producer of the show is from very near Prague.

Really, I love the Prague.

Tomas's he's from the Czech Republic.

Yeah, I loved it. I had a fantastic, fabulous stories about it later.

No, no, no, tell us now what happened in Prague?

We haven't in Prague was well, we were sitting in this gorgeous hotel looking out over the Charles River, looking at the castle.

That was the name I was going to use if I became a mophe star. What Charles River?

Really? My stripper name is public Storage.

Do you know?

Do you know when I was a kid, I've never told anyone that except Megan this before. When I was a kid, when I was about ten years old. I wanted to be called Al Shapiro. I wanted to be an American and I wanted my name to be Al Shapiro. And I wanted to have leather wristbands and a leather vest.

And long hair. Yeah, I met friends.

About Shapiro and I never want to be on Now. I don't know why. That's stranger You get in your head, isn't it.

Yeah? Anyway, So you're in Charles Ver.

Yeah, I'm looking out the castle. It's all lit, you know. And before I left, I was like, my foot would get hot at night and I was like quiet, and I've kicked out the covers and I look, so what's just one foot? So I'm like, what's this all about? So I look it up and it says now that you're a crone, you want to take yourself away from your family so you don't harm them.

And I was like, what's this?

Yeah online, and I go and you have to get away from your family, yeah.

And this is yeah, I guess it was supposed to me it was all about menopause, so I I guess, you know, I mean, I don't know. But so I get to Prague and I say to Cindy, you know, I don't want to be the crone in the corner. You know, men are the king of their their house. I go, why can't we be the queen? Why can't we be queens and wear crowns? And through that entire trip through Prague, we every night, I always have this New Year's Eve party, yes, and we say what do

You always have goose and chapel.

I love goose mit champagne. And it was Prague, you know, and sometimes we just have you know, beer and bread, right, And we would do this every night. And Cindy said, I wish that I was the girl that i'd been when I was eighteen and I had that courage and I sold my bike and I took that money and

Bands, wrists and long long hair.

Yeah, and that's what. So we had this ceremony every night when we were in Prague where we would say what do you want to let go? And what I always want to let go is my low self esteem. I believe that I'm not enough. And what I always wanted to keep that's always always working for me is my sense of humor.

Yes, which you always had.

I mean, I've seen you go from and it's quite a remarkable thing. I've seen you like in frustration and anger and to be in tears, and it's one of the most satisfying things that I've been able to do in my life is that they will always be able to make you laugh and being able to remember when you were a cat that.

Was Yes, I too, it was.

It was bad and I was.

Talking about it because it was so sad and it was I.

Was still talking about that cat.

My favorite when we don't sit in the makeup room and you would come in and go can we talk about me now? And go no, no, absolutely not. But you were you just you know you this the other day I just you're brilliantly funny and timeless, and that's what is so appealing about you. And that's why, even after not seeing you for five years, we could just sit down at a lunch club and just like you know.

I think that's what happens when you're when you're actually friends with someone, but it's not show business friends, but when you're actually friends. It's kind of because I can't think of the last time we actually talked about work, like you know.

But that being said, you're in Prague, Cindy.

Ratz last, Yes, who's old woman as much as Peggy Risky is as much?

And why did.

You go with the Prague No no, wait, I always wanted to go no, no, no, hold on, you're not in Prague. I want to go back chronologically to get you through to the Drew Carey Show because that's where I met you. Right, So, you're in New York. You're working for this woman who you didn't kill statute limitations, and.

And then I had psychiatricause, I had psychiatric associated so many jobs.

And then so how come the acting then? Because does that when you did the rach Andephobia when you were in New York.

Here's the point.

That was a great movie.

By the way, I loved that. I bought a Honda Civic with that money from that. And also I learned that spiders do not like lemon pledge. So if you want to keep the spiders away from you, just spray lemon pledge, like on the windowsill or something.

Why don't they like lemon pledge?

They just don't. But they wanted that big spider to walk a straight line, so they just sprayed pledge on either.

Side of it, and the spider was like, oh, nowhere to go forward.

Here's how my story escalates and brings me forward. Cindy Rat's laugh hated to work by herself, which is why I was at the American Psychiatric Association. It. She ended up going to WCBSTV, the broadcast center in Manhattan, and she hired me. I was the publicist for the Muppets for a while, and then they moved me into her I was a statistical typist, which was only funny because

Oh I see where We're going now?

And Cindy took her tax money and she said, we're going to quit our jobs and start teaching improvisation because one of the many things that someone told her she needed to do improvisation to be a good actor, but she hated to do it. She wouldn't do it by herself. So yeah, she made me go with her. And she tells a story that within ten minutes, everybody knew I was funny except for me.

Yeah, and that was true.

I think being funny is an interesting thing because there's a lot of people who think they're funny who are not funny at all. And there's a lot of people who are funny who don't think funny thoughts.

Do you know what I mean?

They don't think in that kind of here's something that's funny, and like I don't think like that.

Do you think you don't think like no, you know, it's like, here's just just just funny.

Yeah, it's just that I can't well if I am for you see, there are people who will say, well, he's not funny.

And you go, well, not to you.

You know that there was somebody who used to work with that couldn't understand you or else she was gary. No, maybe this was a woman that I think she was just flirting with you, because we'd got to lunch and she'd be there and then you'd say something and she'd go, what do you say? And I go, he said, he wants say some frozen yogurt, like I've never heard. I can't hear your accent, right, you just I just hear you.

Yeah.

I think that that there was a time there in the nineties where I probably sounded more schoetician than I do. Not no, or it was fashionable to make fun of people's accents. But then Shrek came along and Scottish people became very attractive.

Yeah, I guess that Shrek and all. So I ended up working with this guy, Bill Sherwood, who wrote this movie Parting Glances, Would You right, Yeah, which he put me in with my friend Steve bussemi right.

He's also had a bit of a career. Let's be honest.

I thought you were gonna say he's also all woman.

He's not much of a woman.

I love him. He's one of those people. He's a great guy who That's why I'm so happy to see you. There's just a couple of people in my life who I lost touch with that I cared about that. You were one and Steve Bussemi is the other one.

So we were actually in Prague the whole time together. That's the weird thing. Steve and I were in Prague, you were and every night we would have different things on little grounds, a.

Little gula, a little pillsner, whatever. So Steve, if you hear this, call me. I have the same phone number. And so I did that movie and an old friend from high school was a manager out here in LA and I came out and I started to get these jobs, but I didn't know how to act. I was baffled by the whole.

They were really good acting. I think you do know how I think you were acting. I think you probably a lot of the acting because it's ten. I was a bartender as well. Yeah, I think certain ways of approach and bartending there's a certain personality that it works for a performer.

Because I got my work.

I started by being a bartender and somebody saw me the bar and said you should do this.

Oh, well, see you remember for a nim Check's long branch, right, Quirky Cluck bought it, so it was the Cluck Stop. And I'm eighteen, and what I would get was old men would come in there. One time, an old man, to Carrie loved this story, offered me three dollars an hour to come to his house, his apartment, three dollars an hour.

But is this just for sex?

Oh yeah, but I had to wear a dress and pretend that I was there cleaning the apartment because the other women were so nosy, and so finally I just say, okay, what day, four o'clock, All right, I'll be there because I couldn't get rid of him.

Right.

You didn't go, though, No, No, but some.

Reason three dollars and some reason Drew Carrey just thought that was the funniest story story.

I think it's it's shocking and awful and funny at the same time.

So that's the Midwest. So no, I never had any kind of So you.

Didn't work as a three dollars an hour house cleaning prostitute, which is kind of the whole thrust of what I was trying to get to the bottom of.

People thought my mother sent my cousin after I did move to Manhattan. My mother sent my cousin because she thought that I was living there as a prostitute or something. Is there anyone ever, even to this day that looks or acts less like a prostitute than me?

You know this may shock you, but I'm no expert in this world. I don't know. I don't think. You don't seem to come across prostitutey to me.

I'm not saying that. You know that a string of unusual men did not hit on me. And I'm unusual, like Hasidic older Hasidic men and Greek deli workers. There's like it's like somebody put a sign on my back or something like that.

You know.

But yeah, no I survived.

If all these unusual men are hit on you, yeah, didn't that at least in some way help yourself.

Esteem a little bit?

Oh god, no, I mean really, Oh no, you know how like they go, you know how in Tutsi and doesn't hoffen He says, so I have a little bit of a mustache problem. And she said, well, some men like that, and he he says, well, I don't like men that like that. That's like I don't you know, seventy five year old hasidic man. No, that's not my thing. No, it didn't, none of it. Also, when you when you make that firm decision that you are not good enough

I'm the pillow. Yes, yes, I'm ye.

So I was on this TV show, a guest star on a TV show, Okay with Seinfeldt, And I was on that show and I felt very kind of abused on that show. And when I left there, as I was driving home, this was before Drew Carrey, you know, I thought, oh my god, you're so you're not funny and everybody knows it, and you're stupid and you're ugly. And I said to myself, i'm driving, can you leave me alone for ten minutes till I get home, you know.

Is that what it was? They were mean to you?

You know, there were the top of the heap at that time. You know, I was nothing. I was the woman at the handicapped spot. You know that I was the blood that you know, I just talked, it's a handicap with that. So, but that was a defining moment for me, and since that moment, I've just I have such acceptance of myself and ninety nine percent of the people around me, which is why we're back to joy

Okay, and apathia. They used to call it what they called apatheia sense of serenity, maybe serenity.

I like contentment. And have you ever heard I know you've heard this. You know there's that saying God never closes one door without opening another. And then somebody added, but it's really a bitch waiting in the hallway, And I have added, but if you can figure out how to do it with grace and humor, you will have accomplished something. Because we spend most of our time waiting in the hallway. Yeah, and that's where the contentment comes in.

Your business for you zipper bags.

Oh yeah, because I'm broke, and yeah no, I just I collect fabric and every once in a while because you feel like you have to do something with it. So I'm sewing making these zipper bags, and I feel I'm happy when I finally after watching fifteen YouTube videos, yeah, I make one.

And Megan's thing right now is crocheting hats. See yeah, I see. It's like we have no kidding you. There's everybody. You'll be getting a hat, good crocheted hat.

I did crouche in knit. But it's southern California. Yeah, there's no reason.

That doesn't matter that one coming your way. There's tons of them coming.

But that's happy to me. An accomplishment, accomplishing something I'm trying, or.

I think that's creativity there, being creative.

And living a creative lifestyle, whether I'm acting or writing. The next great American novel just you know this, Oh, this bottle of water looks nicer on the shelf. Oh there you go, right, you know, And that it's the contentment and the contentment And here's the key is gratitude based.

Yes, I think that's right. I think that gratitude is the silver bullet. If you can somehow get to a position of gratitude, then you're gonna be all right. But it's hard, you know, it's I mean some people. I mean, I think I wrestle with it. I don't wrestle with gratitude so much because I've got a lot to be grateful for. But I can imagine, you know, there are some people. I hear the stories and I go, how how do you find gratitude there? The story is so awful.

I guess not. You know, I think that if I'd have known that we did some big show in Vegas and it.

Was you, Drew and Colin and well Ryan.

Plan was off and on the road, but Ryan, Greg Proops, Greg, Jeff Davis right and assorted other people that would fill in. But you know, we had some big, fabulous show in Las Vegas and then that was sort of sort of it.

You know, I didn't Yeah, who's lane?

Is that?

Anybody? Is that what they were calling that?

Well, no, no, we couldn't call it that be cause that was litigious. We've done that. So it was Drew whose line was that it was Drew Carrey and provo stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, and so you.

Know that was great.

In fact, I was watching the news this morning twenty years ago, this month or something, Shock and Awe, the war in Iraq, and when yeah, you know.

I was.

I didn't find out TI later I was the first woman entertainer in Iraq after Shock and Awe, and I didn't, you know, I went, I love the USO. I just yeah, they're amazing, so important. And then I went some other place. I went to Saudi Arabia, did much and then you and I went to the Persian Gulf.

Yeah, Bahrain. Remember that night with the sailors.

Oh my god, that was one of the worst and weirdest shows in my life.

We had.

We did a show. We got to Bahrain, we were jet lagged. We're doing a show for the us SO and they said, actually, there's been a change of plans. All the American servicemen are not being this all leave his cancels. All we've got is an Australian mind sweeper with three hundred drunken Australian sailors who have no fucking idea who you are.

They've been out to see for six months. All they wanted to do is drink drink and sing, drink and sing.

Unbelievable. I've never bowed so badly. You like you made me you.

I got up. I mean, I'm not even gonna stand up. I get up and then go take off your blouse.

Take off your blouse.

And I go, no, you, and he did, and I got to be fair.

He did take off his blouse. I do remember.

I didn't want to see you naked. But then then you had that that guy with you from your show. He had a guitar and he was saying, my sister is a lesbian, and everybody now my sister. Oh, they're sick. But this is my favorite part. You come up to me and you go, don't even say anything about me, just get up there. Because I was the MC. Just say, you know, ladies, Craig Ferguson, I'm gonna burn their hair off.

I think for like thirty seconds.

I was like oh and I ran back up, but then every single one of them got in line for an autograph.

Yeah, I know, it was the weirdest thing. I mean, but they were really dr I mean, god bless them, they were. Yeah, they'd been at sea for three months. And somebody told them. I think, actually they're commanding off. Just said, now you blacks have going to go out to this thing. The Americans have put it on an act great though, they'll be free bear.

Actually think it was that guy who introduced us that sad it was, Yeah, I remember that. I think that was it. So no, you know, I had that children's character for a while. That was missus p profoundly fun because I was improving for children. This was so tender and sweet and clean. Now it's really fun. But I wanted to take that to a bigger audience, and so I go pitch it at Netflix. Can you say that on? And they come back and they go, we love her.

That's very good.

But also about gratitude, I've discovered you have to start really simple, Like in the morning, you wake up and you go, I'm awake, I'm alive. That's good. And then I have gratitude for my teeth. I'm always happy to have teeth.

Yeah, I mean the noise they make when I los and bump against them.

I'm going to get lodgs and jout again. And then I'm grateful that I have toothpaste and a toothbrush, hair and a brush. You know, I just start really simple because I think that I think it's so easy for us to say, oh my god, I'm so not enough. I'm not Craig Ferguson, I'm not Kathy Kinney, I'm not this. And the truth is, you know that we're more than enough, and that that we just have to take a look at it. It's so easy to say negative things and tell a negative story.

But that's why everyone doesn't.

That's why everybody does it. But that's why it just takes a little more work to be positive. And then once you got it, you got to share it.

I think it's interesting you say that because I think people are negative, because negative it makes you sound smart, like if you if you're negative, it makes you sound like you're a detective or something like, yeah, well I've noticed things and things.

Aren't so good because I've noticed them, and you know.

And I think if you, if you're happy, you kind of sound a little dumber.

Like did you see my sweater? It's got a picture of a dog on it. But I think that's a lie.

Yeah, because if you think, if you get really smart people they're not negative.

I think it's you know, I think people. I think victims are glorified on TV a.

Lot better a fatish right now.

It's totally Midwest. I remember one time going home and visit my mom and we went to see some friend of hers. She said, oh, my grandma sat down on the toilet on Friday night and she couldn't get up and she sat there for two days.

Or no trutal thing.

It hurt. Yeah, And I was like, really, you know, so I mean do people want to you know, it sees stories. You see serial killers and you know, stuff the stories like that, but you don't see as many stories about I woke up, I had teeth, he's grateful.

It's true.

It's hard to make like a Netflix documentary about you know, somebody who was nice to everybody. It's like, you know the tender swindler, and you go, well, yeah, but most people are in tender aren't swindlers. So it doesn't mean that it's everybody's bad. It's just like, here's the bad one and that's the story. And it's kind of I understand it. Everybody's got to do a thing. But for like, see you killers, we see what killers. Silence of the Lambs is a great movie, and they should have just

I had the news on and it was about the anniversary of this chow chilla kidnapping. Twenty six little kids on a bush and they were kidnapped and they were like four or five years old, and one of them was fourteen, you know, school bus and they kidnapped them, these three men from wealthy families, three young men, kidnapped them and buried them in a semi trailer under the ground. And then we're going to ask for like I don't know how much, millions of money or whatever. And then

You know.

The one of the kids was fourteen, and they lifted him up and he got them all out of there, and those streets all yeah, and they were fine, you know, I mean physically find subscripes and bruises and things like that. But it's one of those things that you don't get over easily because it shakes your trust. Yeah, But don't you think that that same thing true for childhood shakes your trust a little bit?

Yeah, because I think that, you.

Know, part of the loss of innocence is realizing that everyone is flawed. I mean, my sister lenn, who you know, I think has a very nice take on this. She said, you get to blame your parents till you're thirty, and then after thirty.

It's you and you go shit.

But I think that's kind of it kind of has to be that at what point you're going to shake it, no matter how bad. It it's been I mean, and it has been bad, and some people.

Just can't shake it. And I understand.

I'm not saying you have to or laying down a manifesto for anyone, but I know for myself that and also when you have kids, you realize that bad you're fucking up.

Yeah, oh no, God, this is going to leave a mark. I'm going to hear it.

But that's in therapy, you know, it's for the most part. I think people try their best for the most part. Yeah, some people just.

I think I think everybody does ninety nine zero point nine percent. But you know, I was at some having like a physical, you know, healer thing, and she said, I want you to think back three lifetimes ago.

Oh.

I was like, I mean, does she mean when I was Cleopatra or you know, somebody else, or does she mean I mean I could so clearly see my parents, their parents, the parents, you know, the things that they had suffered and what had been brought to me. Yeah, And I thought, oh my god, we just were so And again this brings me to that either you are lucky enough to have the grace to step away and get over your childhood or not.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I think what I've noticed now there's a contemporary desire to inflict shame on people. I think that there's a you know, if you don't think like me, if you don't agree with me, if you don't share my veltan shaum.

It's a German word for a worldview.

Yeah, but the idea is to make someone I suppose for one.

Of a better word.

You call it canceled culture. But I don't think that's a real thing. I think what it is is shame. It's like to try and take the joy from somebody else, Do you know what I mean? It's like so if you are and people do it to themselves too, don't you think I do? You know that the idea of you know, I'm ashamed of what not succeeding, that's like, that's like being ashamed of every time you swing for a pitch and miss it. That's crazy. That's crazy to

Now I've got both, you know what I mean?

I do I also think you made me what popped into my head when you were saying that, which is why my face was scrunching up. I was raised United Methodist, Okay, you know, but I have so many friends. Actually, I just think of all of Ireland basically, yep. And I think that sometimes religion and religious beliefs can make getting over yourself hard.

Gets in the way, for sure.

And yet if you go to particularly if you're talking about Ireland or our background is mostly Christian based, and at the core of that was about forgiveness, wasn't it.

Yeah, I thought the whole.

Well, but you know, yeah, yeah, I think that the people are you know, it's again, they're individual people's within each ideology they're gonna it's such a personal journey. I've always liked the idea of I never really the whatever religion I was in, nobody talked that much about God or a higher power or any kind of divine being, and which is fascinating. So I think that at some point I finally thought, you know, I've got to make

You know.

I just love to read and travel, read and travel, and I think it's so important to just widen your horizons. But as you grow older, being a lifelong learner and hanging on to your curiosity are the things that will keep you young. That's what my goal in life is one and trying to lead a European lifestyle. I see, because I'm sort of you know, I'm kind of driven. Got to accomplish this encomplishment. So I just want to How do I relax, stay in the moment and.

Little coffees, clissants, maybe black turtlenecks and the occasional cigarette.

What you do I wish? Yeah, I quit smoking. I allergic to all lactose and dairy and gluten intolerance. So my world has gotten really small. It's like, why even go to Paris. It's just gonna sit at an outdoor cafe and drink a glass of water and watch everybody walk by.

But yeah, but you do get to set in Paris, and why does everybody walk by?

Which is why I'm going. I told you I'm going to go on a cruise of the Netherlands where I will watch my frien Data eat and drink her away through the chocolate and beer factories of the Netherlands.

Cheese and culips as well. And Heroin. I believe if you're announced with that Heroin, No, no way, not heroin Hashi.

Yeah, because I would say the last. I haven't been in Amsterdam since I was teen and I bought a finger of hash that turned out to be shoe polish and I smoked it anyway, I was hard up.

Kathy, you are of joy. That's why you were here, you too, you remain so. I wish we had longer talk. We do, but but not here. Good day, Good day,