Natalie Cuomo

The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.

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You come or don't come, but you should at least know what's happening, and it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or at your local outlet in your region. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is joy. I talk to interest

But she is. He's very interesting and funny. Natalie Cuomo.

Weird as weird maggot infection and his ass and her ass, and it's like, oh my god. And I the bet said, no, it's quite serious. So you have to like, let's get him out now and then bring around them.

Like to do it yourself.

Apparently you know. Now I'm a millionaire, I have apparently.

Yeah, it was quite a rare thing, but I was pulling these little maggots out of my dog's ass.

It's one of the most disgusting things I've ever done in my life. And I've done some prey disgusting.

Thing now me too, And I can say I've never pulled maggots out of a.

I'd say yeah, you say yeah, behind yeah, Like if you brush your dog's teeth. I'm guessing you love your dog, right, I love him? Yeah, all right, so you love your dog? Yeah, And then suddenly you get the diagnosed, I'm afraid your dog has maggot ass.

I'm in there.

It's good to talk about.

Get the maggot ass conversation out first, because I am interested in like quite a lot on this podcast.

We get young comedians on.

I'm not I hope it's not patronizing to call you a young comedian, but you are, and you are a comedian, and I'm fascinated by it because the route that you guys take, the rount that you guys take, seems very different to what I did back in the day, because I don't know if you know this without me, I am an old comedian and it's a very different thing. Like correct me from wrong. Yeah, but you like start out wanting to be a comedian.

Yeah, of course.

See, I didn't want to do that.

I just I just like, what do I want to do?

I just I don't know, stay out of jail.

It's like like, to me, being a comedian is like being a realtor or something.

Yeah, to be fair, I did want to be an actor for most of my life.

Okay, kind of failed at that.

Right, So you've failed as something that's good, So you're you're now you're on your way beating yeah.

Yeah.

And then I was like, all right, now it's time to do comedy.

But wait, how can you fail at being an actor? You're are you even thirty yet?

I'm nine?

Okay, so that's not that's not failing yet, you know.

I mean that's that's like you didn't you weren't up for it, Like did you do additions and stuff?

I think what I mean by failing is I gave up on myself.

Oh that's good.

See now the darkness begins to emerge. Yeah, yeah, the specter begins to emerge from the fall because I my feeling is the most well adjusted, nice.

People I've men show is that's that everybody?

Are the people that make dark shit like Quinn Tarantino, Stephen King so nice, so upbeat, so kind of yeah, hey, how you doing, No, don't worry, I'll get it. The darkest, nastiest people. Actually, the nastiest people are the ones who make romantic comedies.

They're like the worst.

Yeah.

Like if anybody says I write I want to write and direct romantic comedies, run red flag.

Yeah it's a red flag to me. I'm afraid.

But do you want to do that romantic comedies?

Yeah?

No, No, What did you want to.

Do when you were an actress then? Or when you were when you were acting?

I just wanted to be like in like a drama being just like the emotional teenage girl.

That I was.

That's our So what were you watching?

But he wasn't Like, let's see, if you're twenty nine, I guess what were the things you'd be watching as a kid.

Like, if I'm being completely honest, like I grew up this is an unexpected twist.

I grew up a hardcore musical theater kid.

Oh okay, yeah, so I don't think that. I don't think the dust is I don't think the game is over with musical theater.

Yeah, the game's over with musical theater.

I don't know.

I don't know at what point is the game over with musical theater. Like if somebody comes to you and go, okay, look, we're recasting Hamillton. We're doing Hambledon against an all female cast, and we want you to be George Washington.

No, actually, do you know what This is a great idea me George Washington.

I don't female Hamilton. I think that's awesome.

Yeah, I do think that's cool. I just think that. I don't know.

I feel like I didn't find my voice until I started doing comedy because the confidence I gained from failing so much in comedy is what made me the person that I am.

It's a failure based thing. And yeah, that's interesting. When did you first Did you do it like an open mic or something?

Yes, I it's so funny.

The first open mic I went to, it was canceled, like, so I walked to another one that day I was canceled, so I had to go to the third one that day.

That's good joke, yes, right, okay.

And I went to that one. I talked so fast it was horrible. But then I went every day since.

And did the audience react poorly? Where they or were they just quiet?

I kind of black the first one, I kind of blacked out, like I just talked.

Really fast, got off station, was like I did it.

Yeah.

But that's the thing I think that that is about that about being a real comedian is that when you fail, like a normal person would say, well that was so horrible, I never want to do that again. But when you die as a comedian, you're like, all right, well that wasn't what I planned, but I'll do it again. And your immediate thing is to go back and do it again. What's your background? Like, man, what you grew up in Queens?

Yeah?

All right, so your musical theater kid. So you're like you're you're like doing Annie and stuff in high school that kind of thing.

So up until like middle school, high school, I was pretty much bullied out of liking musical theaters.

I can't imagine you're being bullied. You seem like you're on your game.

Well it happened, all right, Okay, I believe it.

And then I just got really into like the environment. I thought I was going to be a farmer. I went to college for Queens. Yeah, I did. Like this thing. It's called like gorilla gardening, where you find kind of abandoned.

All right, yeah, it's not let you go.

That gorilla helped me and my I'll put a hat on that gorilla and a bit of an overalls and it will help me.

And it will be my boyfriend.

Okay, that's all right. Dude, do you have a you married?

I am married?

All right? So how long you been married?

Two weeks?

Shut up?

Congratulations lovely. Shouldn't you be on your honeymoon or something?

We went away for like a week?

Okay? Yeah? Is your husband in show business? Yes? Does he do comedy? Yeah?

Okay? How's that? You guys write together and stuff we do.

I think the only struggle is like I'll tell him a joke idea that I think is really good, and he'll be like, no, that's not good. And I'll be like, no, it is good. Yeah, I'll be like I can't let you do that.

Did you meet him in the comedy world, Like did you see him as a stand up before you before you like you started going out?

Yeah, we actually met. Like I was taping my special and the host canceled on me last minute, like that day, right, and he was my friend and I was like, I'm so mad at this girl she canceled on hosting. He's like, is there anything I could do? I'm like, you could host the show? And then we got together that night.

Oh nice.

Yeah, so you you have a I don't understand how that works.

Like, you have a host for your special?

What does that mean because I've done I've never had a host on any specially Yeah.

No one does time up top.

No fuck no, no, I don't do that. Like I used to have.

You do the whole and that you don't you warm them up, you do the whole thing.

Yeah, okay, well you're more of a badass. I don't know what to say.

No, no, I'm cheap. It's what it is.

Like I'll go out and say to the audience, I know you were probably expecting to warm up, but what I thought i'd do is just suck for the first ten minutes and charge myself a thousand dollars. And but I kind of like, I didn't used to do it. I used to have but I see what you mean now, right, But I didn't used.

To do that. I used to do the other way. So he kind of opened for you.

Yeah, that's that's kind of an interesting power dynamic going on. You're like, okay, you open for me, and then you're like, hey, you want to go out, And.

Then now you're married and he's telling you your jokes suck.

No, it's great. We tour together, which is fun.

So that's great, you know what.

That's the way to save you know, or or keep your keep the love alive, because.

You know, if you're a comic, you're going to be on the road.

Yes, we so we both like we tour together and then at the end we'll like go on stage together, which is fun.

Oh nice.

So can you do things like a joke from your perspective something happened, and then he can do it and his say a joke from his persection the same thing happened, and then you can like argue about it in the end.

Yeah, well argue.

Yeah, that's great. I think I think this sounds like a great show. Yeah, and so are you doing clubs or are you? I guess younger comedians. Now everything's about social media, right, like that's the way up. Now, do you do you have all that the Instakart and instacart for sure?

Yeah?

Rights, yeahbrates you gotta have that Instagram? Yes, and tickety talk. You got the tickety talk and do you make them?

Yes?

You make original content for tickety Talk with your husbands.

Well, it's more.

Like I will just post my stand up clips on there and then I'll also make some content. But we don't really post content together.

Okay, because somebody's gonna come at you and say, do you guys want to do a sitcom? That's how we'd go and know they're like, you guys are married in real life and your stand ups.

This is a sitcom that would be nice.

It is the nineteen eighty six.

Yeah, you have to be you'd have to be like stand ups and detectives.

Are you You could maybe do that?

I think so, like you could be detectives and stand ups together, yeah, and then like soft crimes and then at the end you do jokes about it.

Okay, I like that.

Yeah, you know it's working for me. I think it's good.

So anyway you come up in Queen's what your family are? Your family in show business?

No?

No, no, no, So what you would your family do?

My dad was an English teacher and my mom was a landscape architect and now she's a dog trainer.

Dog trainer m hmm, like for a circus or just like regular for.

Fun, like not like kind of like her retirement project.

Okay, Yeah, And I think if your dad's an English teacher, that's kind of being a show That's kind of like I always think teachers is.

Kind of like being a stand up.

So you go to go in front of hostile audience every day try to get them to listen to you. It's it's like the early day is a stand up I think.

I definitely think he likes performing.

Yeah do you do? You like it?

You enjoy of course you enjoy it, But when did you know that you enjoyed it performing?

In general?

I really truly feel like since I was a kid, well, when I was a kid, I was afraid of everything, right, I was afraid of the auditorium in school. Okay, my mom signed me up for an acting class to get me over my fear of the auditor.

You were just frightened of the actual room.

Of like so many people being in there at once, just going in for every day.

Where did that come from?

Do you think I'm just over overly sensitive?

Are you?

Are you a very anxious person? Yes, it's interesting, you know so many stand ups are anxious.

Yes.

And then the weird thing is you choose such a crazy, high pressure career.

Yeah.

Why do you think that is? Why do we seek comfort in something that most normal people would find very frightening?

In my opinion, it's because being on stage is the only moment where I'm forced to be present. It's the only time where I can't be in my head overthinking every single situation because I have to be present.

Okay, have you ever done a show where you like, how long you been doing this?

Like seven years?

Right?

So I've always had this idea that stand up is a ten year apprenticeship. Yeah, yeah, and that I have done shows now when i'm can have it, like, especially if I've done the routine a lot, like I'm you know, I go out a halfway to a shoe, I'm thinking, you know, I should probably get the car fixed.

That oil life is now like fifteen percent, and I'm.

Doing material, yeah that it's working, and I'm thinking about other stuff. You're an autopilot kind of a little bit, and I try not to do that because I think you're probably not doing a good show. So I break my I bust myself on it. But I've done it before, but I totally understand it. Do you ever do that thing where you write on stage?

Yeah?

Yeah, that's great, isn't it. You get that zone you're kind of like, where did that come from? I don't know where that came from?

And you get off stage, like what was you? Just like listen and write it down.

Do you tape every show? Yes, yeah, you got it.

That's one of the things that I think is so great about the technology now. The bad thing is you guys are giving away material all the time, Like young people are like Don Rickles, who is, like, I guess, forty years older than me. Rickles he'd had one routine his entire career. I know, is that crazy?

The thing that really bothers me is that people think that people really think that every time they see a stand up comedian it's going to be different every night. They're doing something different, even though classically people should be working on the same jokes for years because that's how you develop the jokes, developed the confidence, and the jokes find new tags.

Yep.

But that is also sort of the nature of the game of selling tickets and putting things out online. And also if you're posting crowd work, I feel like people are like, oh, so you're just posting crowd work.

You don't write.

Now the crowd work thing is in session for those who don't know what crowd.

Work is, and I imagine this's probably.

Some crowd work is when you come out to a club everyone's there and you go, Hi, where are you from. The guy says I'm from Queen's and you go, ah, yeah, I can tell cause you're hat or wherever, and then you start busting the guy for having a hat from Queens or or somebody's from Brazil, and you start asking about coffee or wherever you do you kind of riff on whatever information that person gives you.

Yeah, and a lot of comedians do it, right. Yeah.

I think it's tricky that stuff because I don't like it because when I started, there was a lot of hecklers, and I feel like if you start talking to the audience, they might start talking to you.

Yeah, you know, are you okay with cred work? Do you do a lot of it?

I do CrowdWork.

I think sometimes doing CrowdWork grounds me in the moment, Like if I start to find myself being on autopilot, I'll do a little bit of CrowdWork just to like ground myself back in the room and in the people.

Right now, once you're on stage and once you've established your position, I think that's right. That's when I would do it, like i'd refine with the audience. But I have to establish in the first five minutes. Yes I'm fucking driving. Yeah, Daddy's talking into the big make your voice loud machine.

And then when.

When I say, you know, you get to come at the table, but not until then. And I think that I've seen guys in clubs who just open with CrowdWork, and I think you're asking for trouble. Now you're basically letting the audience uh, too close, too soon, do you.

Know what I mean? It's like, you don't you don't want to do that.

Who are the comedians you looked up to who are the people that you were like, I want to be like her or him or them.

Well, Sarah Silvermantel.

Was a genius.

I love a Tell.

I love a Tell.

Yeah, He's like, oh my god, have you heard Skanks for the Memory?

Yeah?

I had to the first time I heard that album, I had to pull. I was listening to it like I had to pull off the road.

I was like, I definitely missed an exit.

Oh my god.

When he talks about his little friend, I was like, did you ever see when David Tell and Jeff Ross were doing that bumping mic? I always thought that was like going to see like the Velvet Underground or something, do you know what I mean.

It's like they were kind of like not a lot of people knew about it.

But the ones that knew about it were like, oh my god, this is changing the game totally. Yeah, So where did you first see those guys? They're because they're like Sarah is very well. Actually they used to go out together, David Tall and Sarah, so really yeah, they were they dated for years.

But you know, I guess I didn't know that.

Yeah, well you were probably in school when they were doing that. But yeah, they've been out for a long time, I think. But they're very they're both quite kind of edgy, underground vibe, particularly Dave, like they're kind of like you've got to kind of be on the inside a little bit.

You've gotta be kind of cool to that's me just kidding.

Well, you kind of are a little bit.

I mean you kind of come off like that, like you know, you're wearing black clothing, you've got a lot of ink, which.

Is I approve of that, thank you.

But I'm also wearing dark clothing but light pants because I'm over sixty years old now and you have to wear light pants. You have to wear light pants. You have to wear light pants so that people can find you if you wander off on your own.

Or Grandpa, go.

Light pants, wear my pants.

But I wasn't cool when I I I mean, I'm cool now, but oh you're very cool, very cool now. But I wasn't cool when I was young. But you seem quite cool. And I have met comedians who are cool like Dave. Actually, David Tail's kind of cool. Yeah, he's certainly cool now.

He's really cool.

And Sarah was always cool.

Yeah, she was always like very kind of shockingly beautiful and cool and yet very funny, which is kind of like a heady mix.

Do you ever see John Rivers?

Yeah?

I always loved Joan Rivers, but I guess that's kind of a little in the before times.

Maybe.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just feel like there's definitely a certain era of stand up comedians whose albums I would just like listen to on Spotify, and I don't know, I just like got really into listening to it all the time. I feel like, even though it is a visual format, I really prefer listening to it than watching it if it's not live.

Yeah, I would agree with you. I don't know that. I don't know if it is that visual a forma.

I guess it is like with specials nowadays and stuff.

Yeah, I don't know about that though. I mean there's a lot of people doing specials. I'm like, oh care about this guy. I mean, some specials are great, some of them are great, and some of the young comedians are very exciting and very different. But there's a little bit of hating on people broke type comedians.

I'm like, you know that. I feel like.

We've covered this. I'm not against that as a style of comedy. I just think it's kind of oversubscribed, and there's some very good people doing it. But you know, do what I'm saying, Yeah, that might communicating of course. Yeah, so is do you have rules for yourself about you

It's weird because I don't feel inclined to talk about those things just because they're not my experience, Like, those are not the things that are coming up for me that I'm like, I really want to write a joke about race, because that's just not I'm not at that point in my career where I want to really be writing about that. I want to be writing about my experiences.

What are your experiences? Then?

I don't know. I've definitely I try a lot.

I write a lot about like trying to make mental health funny in a way I'm really trying. Sometimes I feel like I'm pushing it a little too much, Like people don't really come to a comedy show to hear about me talk about that therapy.

But I think that's fair. Look, people talk about therapy all the time. Are you in therapy?

Oh?

Yeah, what are you talking about in the therapy?

Imagine I'm your therapist. Do you want me to put on a German accent?

I feel like it helps sometimes, so listen, tell me, says Natalie. You are coming here today, and I feel that you are feeling sensitive and a little guarded. Yeah, why are you a little guarded? Do you feel under threatned anyway?

No? No, I don't feel that way.

All right? Are you just shy?

I'm shy? Yeah.

Most comedians I know are quite shy.

You know. It's funny because you know, when I was a kid and I couldn't sleep, I would go into my dad's room and watch your show.

Shut up?

Really, that was like we would watch either your show or Celebrity Poker.

Celebrity Poker is the way to go. Well, see that. Now here's the thing that's weird.

And when I was doing the late night show, I would meet people that were I'd seen on TV a lot, and it would kind of freak me out a.

Little, Yeah, are you there right now? A little? I understand that.

I get it, Like when I first when you first start meeting famous people, did you get.

Your heart would be a little faster. Stuff I would get like that.

I feel like a little adrenaline, like, oh my god, it's you know, it's like oh.

But then after time you get Jada's are you jaded yet? You probably?

I don't know. I honestly, it's funny.

I almost didn't get into acting school because I told them I don't like movies. I'm very particular with the things that I actually have seen, so I feel like I'll meet famous people and I'm like, I haven't seen your stuff, so I really don't care.

But when I've seeing their stuff, then I'm like, WHOA.

Yes, I understand that as well, because that if you haven't seen sometuff, then they're not famous to you. The only thing is I Why I noticed sometimes is when you get famous, is that people will come up to you and say, I don't know who you are, and I'm like.

Why the fuck are you coming to talk to me?

Then I don't walk up to people I don't know and tell them I don't.

Know who they are. That's most people.

I'd be there all day and anyway, if you didn't know who I was, then.

Why the fuck are you coming up and talking to me?

Yeah, but I think it's a it's kind of a power thing. It's like reclaiming the equilibrium, you know, to say to a famous person, I don't know who you are, so that you're not better than me, we're not starting off there. And I think what helped me with that is that I met so many famous people that I admired and stuff when I was doing Late Night that I kind of forgot. I forgot about them being famous, and it was just like what I did do. One says, do you ever watch Game of Thrones?

All Right?

So in Game of Thrones there was a guy who played Jamie Lanister, super handsome actor and like really good actor, and at Comic Con I was introduced in the Game of Thrones people. It was a big thing and all that, and we were backstage. I had never met this guy in my life, but I had forgotten. I hugged him and I was like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Anyway, he went, it's Harry. Actually happens more than you people.

Just because they feel like they know that.

Yeah.

I also, he's so handsome, you want to h Oh my god, he was too handsome. I was like, I gotta hug it. You're so handsome, but I don't. I don't hug everybody who's handsome. But it just it only happened once, and he was nice about it.

I've bugged a few handsome people.

Well, I fugged a few handsome pieces of myself too, but usually it's not the first thing I did. Yes, So do you get intimidated by? Who would you get intimidated by? If you were like working in a club and there was a drop in a comedian coming in? Who who would be like you'd be like, oh my god, I don't want to go on after that.

That'd be too much.

It's weird. I don't know. Let me think. I feel like Nicki.

Glazer is that I really really She's actually the first comedian I saw live.

I know Nicky very well.

Yeah, yeah, she's she's really great. Yeah that's good. I'm I'm glad to hear you say that. I used to worry about Nikki when she was younger in her career because she would be so brutally honest about things.

I'd be like, Ni, you don't tell me that.

I love that though. That's like, course, that's what I believe in. It is always just like, that's what I feel like.

If you can just be like completely fearless and like not give a truly not give a fuck, that's when you can really be yourself and accept that people might actually love.

You for you.

They might but they might not.

But if they don't, then welcome.

Well it is.

True you're not going to make everyone happy, but that I remember that with nick Do you remember to Mass when NICKI used to come in the and we would always say, like, Nikki, you're saying you're saying things people are knowing too much about me, and she's like, I don't give So I'm very excited to hear you say that because I've always really liked her and she's doing really well now as well.

Yes, I had this moment one time where like, so I messaged her in twenty seventeen being like I love you, and then I just remember when she talked about me on her podcast briefly something about tattoos, like a year ago, and I.

Was like, this is a full circle moment.

Yeah, that's great. You've got a lot of tattoos. When did you start getting inked?

I actually used to tattoo myself when I was like in high school, with like a little needle and pencil and okay stuff, and then I got a real one when I was eighteen.

Uh wait, you tattooed yourself? Yeah? What did your parents make of this?

Well, my parents didn't know this.

So where did you tattoo yourself?

Like my feet?

Okay, I guess they're still there.

They are unfortunate.

What are they? What did you tattoo yourself with? Left and right?

So no, it would be helpful.

Yeah.

No, I My best friend and I we tattooed each other's initials to each other. Okay, we don't talk anymore really unfortunately.

Yeah, but you know what, I love that about tattoos.

I always loved it.

You know, Johnny Depp tattooed when he had Winona forever and they broke up and he's just got whit know forever.

Yeah, it changed. I was like, yeah, let's go. I guess.

But I think part of the deal with having tattoos you were fascinated by.

Young then yeah, yeah, I love it.

Why everyone's a little different with tattoos, So I'm kind of intrigued.

I don't know, it's so weird. There's a few elements of it. I just feel like it. It just like made me feel like me like I really liked that form of self expression. And I mean I think when I was younger, it made me feel it like a rebel kind of doing it myself.

It has got a little bit of that about it.

Especially like being in my room secretly doing it.

And I think as I got older, I think it it felt like a form of self expression. I really always felt like I never fit in and I just felt like tattoos were like my external expression of that.

I think it's a way of Billy Connolly, who's my Nicky Glazer, told a great story when he turned fifty, which is a long time ago. When he turned fifty, he got his nipples pears, right. Yeah, I mean he's got a couple of tattoos as well. He is Nepple spears in a tattoo parlor and when the guy did it, at first when he said it was excrutionally painful, but when he got it, the guy said, the guy who did it said, well, that's one less of them, one more of us.

I was like, that's kind of what it feels like. Do you know what I mean? It's like you kind of move into a different area.

It's not like I feel inn affinity with everyone who had tattoos. I don't, you know, but it does feel more like I know what you mean when you say more like me, Like when I see still see parts of my body that don't have tattoos on them, and I'm like, that doesn't look right.

I think.

One thing that I told my therapist, and we're going to go back to this link to tattoos is so like, you know, being online, you get a million negative comments, right, And one comment that I get consistently is like how much people hate my tattoos. But that's never one's face me. It's never once maybe'd be like, oh do these suck? And I feel like I want I said this to my therapist recently, I was like, I want to feel

This is interesting to me because the comments.

Thing is I think of the internet this is generational, I'm sure, but I think of the Internet as kind of like the audience, Like, so, why would I pay attention to one fucking heckler? I'm busy, fucking busy, and I'm not talking to you, so get out. Yeah, And looking at the comments, I feel as like, you know, we're talking earlier about inviting crowd work, I'm like, why

I'm like the masochistic tendency.

I think it is a little bit. It's like narcissism and reverse. It's like, at least we are talking about me, Yeah, you know, like, well, let's maybe not talk about you. Yeah.

Do you pour over the comments a little bit? Or do you.

Try and protect yourself from them because you said, like people say negative stuff about your tattoo.

I definitely will pour over a lot. Like there's certain I feel like it depends on the app. Like certain apps I just won't even look at the comments, but certain apps like I use more, I'll like look at the comments a little bit, but I definitely watch. I feel like Instagram, it's more like sometimes people will like comics communicate on there, like I'll book people on my show through that.

Sometimes a little more collegiate.

It feels more like I'm talking to my peers sometimes, So sometimes I will look at the comments my peers will comment on things versus like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok.

I don't really look at the comments.

Right.

It's funny because I think maybe it's a vestige because I think I was like maybe one of the last people who really worked in broadcast television before it all kind of collapsed and became something else. And people used to write letters before it was like or they would

I loved it because nobody does that.

You know, say, let me call the TV station because I really like that guy.

You know, they watch it, they buy the product advertised.

That's all I asked.

But when people would call up and I would get concerned about it, and I would talk to the particularly the producer I had who who was a genius and was kind of a legend in late night television, and.

He would say, fuck them, why would you care? Why would you why would you care?

Yeah?

And I kind of that seeped in to me, and now I'm like, people like you suck and I'm like, Okay, I don't fucking care what you think.

Why would I care what you think?

But it But I think the social aspect of social media, it's kind of the crowd work. Thank you, you're inviting the man that's true. Has there ever been a point where you think it's affected.

Your work, Yes, I definitely. I definitely used to do like a little bit more crowd work. I felt like I got in my head about doing CrowdWork because I do feel like I'm I'm good at it when I'm like present, and then I kind of got in my head about it and I was like, I need to be so I wanted to be so strict.

On just having material because of that.

Then I went on the road and I was like, oh my god, I'm just doing material, and I feel like some people actually do want to see my crowd work, right, And so then I went into just trying to like do like nice fair mix of both. But I feel like that got into my head a little bit.

At a point I think that that that's understandable. There is a you know, the actress it's a lamper. It's a lamper is like a stage ledge. Great actress in the musical theory world actually worry about it. And Uta Lemper said something about performance, which I think is so perfect for stand up that I always kind of quote it, which is your job is to create the illusion of spontaneity.

Yeah.

Good.

You go and you ask for a little bit of suspension of disbelief from the audience and you perform. And I think sometimes particularly rookies or people who shouldn't really be stand ups, but it's kind of like a job now, they go out and they think that it's not performance. It's just like being cool and saying things and going, no, motherfucker, it's performing.

It's as legit as everything else.

It's like being an actor or being a sportsman even or women or being h you know, any kind of performance are. It's an odd one though, because the whole idea is if they can see how you're doing it, you're not doing it right.

See that's I heard this once. It's an invisible art. Like if you're doing a good job, it looks easy.

Yeah.

And not only does it look easy, it shouldn't look like you're doing anything. Yeah, it should look like he just came on and started talking.

To us exactly.

That's like I could do that.

It's like no, that's because it's if someone's bombing, then you're like.

Oh it looks bad.

Yeah, that's right, but you only notice it when it's shit. Yeah, which is fucking terrifying because I say, oh, I saw you do that show.

You looked a little nervous. I'm like, ah, God, what's the suck? What do you say?

Because I think with comedians that, like you're married to a comedian, Comedians kind of are a little more friendly with each other than were when I was starting. When I was starting out, there was kind of like lone wolf situation, like, yeah, nobody was.

Really or maybe it's just me, it's like that.

I don't know, But now it seems like people are a little friendlier with each other.

Yeah, is that? Have you ever know? Is that not true?

I hate people, especially I mean I don't mean to be rude here, but it is rudes.

You like, medians are terrible people.

Are but you're married to one.

That's the thing is I just feel like he's a particular he's.

A good I do feel like he's a good person. But I really like one thing I talk about a lot is I just don't feel like I have any friends. I don't have, and it's a form of like protecting myself. Sometimes I joke about it so much on stage. Audience members will come up to me and be.

Like, do you need a friend? You need a friend?

Like you definitely don't need anyone to your friend who says do you.

Need a friend?

But I definitely keep It's something I've learned to keep an arm's length from most comedians.

Okay, why competitiveness.

No, I mean, I'm like friendly with them, they'll be like my acquaintances, but I just I don't. I just feel like everyone's out for themselves and I don't know. I don't know why. I just don't trust people.

Yeah, that's good, it's going to work for you in show business, I think. No, I'm fucking one percent serious. I'm very careful about Like when I was doing that late night show every fucking night, Yeah, every fucking night for ten years. We shot the show between five and six o'clock. By six thirty, every fucking night, I was home Bathe mckead's putting them to bed, having dinner. Yeah,

Like, I don't want to go a fucking premier.

I don't.

I don't want to hang like, that's not what I'm for. I'm also like, I'm not here to impress other comedians. I'm here to build a connection with the audience and the people in the room. I'm not here because I want this random comic to like me, because the way they feel about me has nothing to do with me.

It has everything to do with them.

But what if you really admire the comic and you will you want like you don't want NICKI glazy.

I go to be fair.

All the comics I admire I've never met and don't know, and that's probably why I admire them.

Yeah, I think that there's something in that you never met a tell I.

Mean, I've met him, but I've never had like he wanted to see.

He's nice, It's like he's pretty.

I feel pretty jaded about like comedians and their narcissism.

Well, it's it has a kind of an element of that. I guess it's a kind of part of it. But by the very nature of being one yourself, you kind of yeah, I mean I suck too well, you know, I mean, it's just kind of you don't need to beat yourself up for being what you are.

It's just you're a little bit different.

Like if you say, you know, I never felt like I fit that was you weren't wrong. You fucking didn't. Yeah, you know you didn't fit in. Yeah, but now you kind of do a little more because you find well, look, you at least find one person you fit in with, right, and you fit in in a world where you know, somebody comes to me and says, we like this this girl. Look at her stand up, and I look at it. Go, that's an interesting comic. Let me talk to her. That's

But it's weird but it's not like that. It's like, you know, actors go on like trips together and stuff, and you.

Know, because that's like a collaborative process. I feel like there's this misconception that like your peer succeeding is going to take away from you succeeding, and that's not the case. Would stand up, but I do feel like people act that way.

Well.

I think it feels like that, you know, gor Vidal said, it's not enough that I succeed, it's also that my friends have to fail.

But gore Vidal was awesome. Actually I did.

Meet my man once, but it was he was very, very old at the end, at the end of his life. Most if you're lucky, you are old at the end of your life. But I think that the idea of being friendly with groups of people I don't really get. I have a small group of people. I tour to mas and I tour and that's it. We have a truck and the merch from the trucks in the back, and we hire people to sell the merch when we get to the gig, and that's it.

It's just big gigs. But I'm like, and then when we turn up the they're like what this is? Fucking it? I'm like, ah, this is it means.

To mass Yeah, and if I could persuade him to do it ten minutes, but he won't do that.

He's a tour manager. He's not interesting.

I feel like I was just a little too cynical about comedians in the SAYSM.

I think is an essential component of a comedic mind, though, isn't it? You have to It's almost like being a scientist. Like if someone presents what they see as an obvious truth, your job is someone who watched in humor it is to.

Go, is that an obvious truth?

Let me come at that from a different angle and see if it is, or or fuck around with it a little bit. I have this thing right now. I started this about three or four years ago. When I'm doing stand up, I never talk about politics.

Never do you do that? No, No, you don't do politics, So you do.

I don't do politics.

That's interesting.

I wonder if that's if more and more people are doing that, because it feels like it feels like it separates you from the audience a little bit. Maybe because the country is separated a little divided right now. People are a little Maine you'se always been that way. I think it always has. So what did you study when you were at university? Did you go to university?

Yeah, I studied environmental science with a focus on agriculture.

Right, okay, Because you wanted to be get a gorilla to help you.

Start farm, I just wanted to start.

Is your husband fairy hairy?

No, he's not.

Okay, I just wondered if he was.

Doesn't look like doesn't look like a gorilla? Okay, I just wondered. I just wondered if it was a gorilla was a theme.

But he does love animals and that was important to me.

Yeah. Well, who doesn't like a lot of people? Oh? Stopo? Everybody? People? Bad people? Yeah, but most people like like their dog. Do you have animals? You have a dog?

Yeah?

Okay? Is your dog fairy hair? Just look like a gorilla?

He doesn't look like what does he look like?

He's a little black dog, little black dog with is he a terrier?

He looks like a bigger version of a menpen but not a Doverman.

What's an like?

Is a mini Doberman?

Right?

But he looks like a mini Doberman?

All right? So is he a little person? Though, you know he like I guess, so do you dress him up a little some fun do?

Oh my god, I was joking and then I saw your fad with you dress up lev Fision, You fucking do dress.

The world like my dog my everything.

What do you make your dog wear?

Just occasionally wear a whole like a little bow tie, little T shirt, a little something.

All right, that's fighting.

There's a dog. Have any feelings about this?

I mean, he's he doesn't care because me and him, it's me and him against the world.

He doesn't care.

So if he's wearing a little pair of spangly pants, he's.

Like, this is fine.

As long as I'm with Natalie, I'm good, he said. As long as I get some peanut butter. I don't give a fuck.

Wait, you give your dog peanut butter? Yeah, but that's that's that makes them go do that licky.

Thing. Yeah? Oh you like that.

He's an occupied Yeah, I guess you can.

Get a ball and throw it for him or something to give him peanut bar and the teacher him to use an iPad. So are you, like, are you like an animal person that you like? You know, you're like an animal activist.

I'm not an animal activist. I eat them, although I feel.

Bad about it.

Would you eat your dog if, oh my god, no, it's your starvist. I would It was like the zombie apocalypse and it was just you and your dog.

I would come to terms with my deep existential crisis and I would let my dog eat my finger.

What you could have cut off two fingers and you won each and then you could eat them together. I saw an interview with Stephen King once and he said, I don't know if he ever wrote this story, but it was so awesome. He said his next door neighbor was a doctor and he kept asking weird questions, but he was kind of used to because he wants he wants to.

Write a story. He said.

I wanted to ask him how much it was possible of a human being to eat of their own body before they died. He had an idea for a story that someone was washed up in a desert island and there was fresh running water but no food, and eventually they had to chop off and eat bits of their own body.

And how far a person could go doing that? Wow?

Yeah, how far do you think that would be? It'll be done at one arm. I guess wouldn't it?

Uh? I guess?

I mean I feel like that, like maybe if you're like drunk or something that sounds like I really.

Can get drunk though there's there's only running water.

There's only running water and a sharp knife, maybe a.

Microwave ove it?

Could you perment your own blood?

Wow, it's really important for you to get drunk. Care I guess.

I know it's not important for me to get drunk.

I just having consciousness while trying to eat my own body is kind of tough.

Right, But if like if you saw it to eater or something, or you know, diced it into some kind of freak as.

Say, it might work. Maybe do you eat meat? Right?

I do?

Right?

I go in and out of eating meat.

Yeah, I didn't eat meat for like four and a half five years? Was it?

Why did you stop eating meat?

I saw a fucking documentary on Netflix forks over Night.

Yeah it's a good one.

Oh it's a great one. And I was like, oh my god, what am I doing?

It's we have to suspend so much disbelief to eat meat. The only thing that's making me feel okay about eating meat is like my dog eats meat. So you know, yeah, that is part of the circle of life. Yeah, but I still feel really guilty about eating meat.

Well have you tried nought eating meat? Yeah?

I go through faces.

Yeah I do too, I kind of.

I was vegan for a long time and then during the lockdown, I was in Scotland. My wife and kids are not They weren't interested in vegetarianism in any way. And I my wife made a roast beam. It smelled so good. I said, what would happen if I ate some of that? She went, just have a little bit.

I was like, all right. We were all sitting around the table and the kids have watched me and stuff.

I just took a little bit and I was like, oh my god, I went crazy. They said the color came back in at me.

You know that stuff chicken is delicious.

It is.

It is gross to look at though. Yeah.

I have chickens, like live chickens. Oh, I don't have them with me. They live at my house. Live chickens don't eat them, but I eat their eggs, eggs, eat their eggs. The eggs are okay because they won't have a rooster, so like the eggs would just like drop out.

And like nothing. But happen.

There's an amazing book called Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffron Foyer, and it's basically every single argument for being a vegetarian, and it does make you feel bad even about eating the eggs.

Well, why is like, I get the health implications about eating eggs that is bad for particularly man, I think it's bad to eat eggs. It's bad for your prostate and stuff.

But I eat a lot of eggs. But it's essentially, you have a prostate.

You can let the dream, you can ome let your way into fucking glory. You could have scrambled eggs every day in your prostate would never be bothered because you don't have a prostate.

That's true. Yeah, I've had cholesterol.

Though, Oh well, then you better lay off the fucking eggs because is that what it says in the in the thing.

No, basically says like the hormones that well, a lot of times the factory farming, they're injected with more hormones that makes them produce eggs more often. So they're just like constantly producing eggs, which is really for that.

Let me, I know you don't do that.

I don't eat that shit. Yeah, I don't eat that shit.

Ever, I don't eat stuff that's factory and farming are two words that shouldn't be together.

Like, I don't fucking touch that.

If I eat an egg, I know where it came from, Like I saw where it dropped out.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, And I don't feed my chickens hormones.

I do wrestle with this though. Sometimes the leftovers, I'm like, can we put egg in the leftovers? Well, the chickens eat the egg, It's like they will eat it.

Yeah, but it feels like it feels wrong.

It feels a little weird.

I know sometimes I feel weird when I'm eating chicken and egg because I'm eating the mother baby.

You can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that. That's like it's it's some kind of reach around. I think it's just like, you can't do that.

That's what the Paul Simon song The Mother and Child Reunion is about.

No, yeah, apparently.

Yeah, it just kind of gross and ruins that song.

Yeah.

All right, Well we were at time.

So to conclude, Okay, you're seven years in. Okay, you're an interesting comic. I had a lot of tattoos. All right, you're weird. You feel like you don't fit in. You're gonna be fine, all right? I think I think you're gonna be fine. Do you have a motorcycle?

No? Good?

I feel like you look like you might have had one or be thinking about getting one.

I used to be a bit embedded in the motorcycle world, but I've I'm no longer.

Yeah. Did you have an accident?

No?

No, see I had mostly on that really. Yeah. No, I don't want to do this again. Yeah.

It is scary, it's horrible. It's horrible. I still feel it every day. It was twenty years ago.

That's horrible.

It is. But what are you gonna do it? Okay? I'm not okay.

I'm a long fucking way from okay, but I'm functioning. Yeah, And I think it's okay to.

Not be okay.

That's true.

Yeah, that's maybe good for mental health. And I say, you know what, it's okay to not be okay.

Yeah, I'm just gonna leave here being like, Wow, he told me it's paid enough be okay.

You must have really think I'm not okay?

No, no, no, I'm I was committed. I wasn't talking about you at all. I was just talking about me all right, get out of here.