Larry King Will Be at Both of Our Funerals with Natasha Lyonne

get down with this kind of schedule. You're really into the Midwest towns, lad I do, because they're so grateful. They keep thanking you for coming. They just say thank you so much for coming that you even did, like you went through the art, you did some touristy stuff while I was humid, though I had to come back from that walk and change land wear. You can only be outside. You got thirty minutes St. Louis, and I know because that's where I'm from. It was, Oh that's right, Brandon.

You know what. I never even put two and two together. That's how self absorbed I am. I forgot that you're from St. Louis. I always think of you as a North Dakodin self. Dad doesn't really matter. That's it called a double whoopsie doodle. What does matter is this episode with Natasha Leone. Yes, I was very excited, very sad that I didn't get to go, but excited to hear it. Well. Natasha and I did two shows in New York on the same night, so enjoy. We'll be back after the break.

Before I get started and bring out my friend. This is um a pretty serious chapter. It's called Marijuana keeps families together. Some people are not built for drugs and alcohol. I believe that I am. I believe that I am built for the apocalypse. I reconnected with marijuana in my late thirties. As I previously shared, I'm open to most drugs as long as they don't leave you with a hole in your arm or staring through a keyhole of

an apartment door looking out for drunes. At this stage of my life, I find it prudent to avoid apartments altogether. I love pot. When I first discovered it in high school, or pretended I did because it made me look I thought it made me look cool. But after a few years of recreational abuse, it just ended up leaving me paranoid and self conscious, and in one instance, getting up to leave the theater when a movie ended, only to

realize I was on an airplane. Then one year, my family and I were on our annual Christmas ski trip to Whistler, Canada, and our chef made and that's relatable, right, Our chef made us special adult cookies. Every night. My brothers and sisters would line up in the kitchen on our way to dinner, and I would doll out at half a cookie to each of them, And if any of my nieces and nephew stole any without me seeing, it was none of my business. Our family thrived that year.

Our family doesn't really fight because we're all so exhausted from our childhoods, but it definitely marked the new beginning of a new era for the Handler family. The legalization of marijuana and caliph orna raised standards at dispensaries. The educative component that was lacking for so many years was now available on all store bought weed. The labeling of strains, along with the labying of th HC versus CBD ratios, was all right there in black and white. With the

advent of a medicinal grade controlled micro dosing. There aren't a lot of people I wouldn't recommend cannabis too. I've turned straight arrow people into people I can actually spend time with. I've gotten friends who have never done any drugs, friends who have had terrible experiences with edibles, my Mormon sister who's here tonight, People's parents, people's parents, Muslims, and one nun to imbibe about the people I've introduced to marijuana are now frequent users. I take a lot of

pride in that. I take a lot of pride in being an enabler or a charm. I'd like to coin a pharmacological intuitive, one who instinctually knows the exact to write dosage for each consumer. After Trump was elected, I came the closest I'd ever been too depressed. My anger rose to the surface rather than simmering just beneath it. I had something identifiable to be angry about, so instead of masking it, I treated it. That's when the news started to get fun. Kelly Anne Conway Stone is a

good time. It's right up there with Eddie Murphy, raw Sam for Sarah's Suckaby Sanders. One day, Sarah Suckaby Sanders came out for her breastpriefing with emerald green eyes shadow shrouding one eye and zero eyeshadow on the other eye.

I was like, this is a whole new world. I'd find myself laughing when Chris Matthews would interrupt his guests while spitting all over them, and I started to see the news for what it really was, a twenty four hours spin cycle filled with conjecture and speculation about whatever idiotic or racist comment Trump had tweeted that day. I realized that I had allowed this administration to rob me of one year of my life, and I wasn't going

to give them another. I needed a channel change. The thing that non cannabis users failed to recognize is the way cannabis bends your frame of mind. It allows access to a recess part of your brain that I particularly was deeply uh needing to engage. How to be less reactive, how to stand down the edges. Those were things I had been working on with my psychiatrist Dan. As a result, things became slightly more poetic less final end of an empire. My sleep got better, my moods got better, even my

dreams got better. I stopped watching the news on a loop, and I even started waking up laughing some mornings pot politics and Dan summed up tooth I was in eighteen for me, the year I had to fall apart in order to come back together. I was sitting in Dan's office one Monday morning telling him how passionate I have become about this new marijuana renaissance. My opinions have always felt fully formed, I told Dan with Pott, it feels like they are finally like unfurling. Every canvas is blank.

Everyone is so much less annoying, and everything is a little more tolerable when I'm a little bit stoned, and I said, I also don't feel compelled to talk as much, and with my voice. That's a fucking bonus. In what way is everyone's so annoying? It was always funny to hear Dan repeat phrases I used, or use the word annoying in a sentence. Annoying seemed like a word that

expires after adolescence, like conceded. I'd like that I was finally rubbing off on Dan the thing I'm realizing Dan, I told him, leaning on one elbum but missing the arm of the chair and falling into my own lap. Is that I'm the one that's annoying. I'm just now finding out that this whole time, I've been the annoying one. Dan stared straight at me, and it was hard to

discern his take on my new hobby. I went on, I used to think that something was wrong with every person in this world, and now I know I'm the one with the problem. Everyone seems so much more interesting. I explained to him. I don't think you should judge yourself so harshly, Dan said. This is a phrase Dan repeated to me frequently, and one I've never quite gotten

on board with. I do, I told him, I feel like that's what's been missing this whole time, circling around other people and in order to avoid myself, I deserve to be on the receiving end of my own judgment. It's my come uppance. And it's like this little porthole into a whole new world has opened up. When I'm stoned, I can find joy and shaving my legs. This was what I realized. I was stoned. I had popped a chocolate covered Kiva blueberry on my way out the door

that morning. I don't usually take them in the morning, but I had therapy and thought, fuck it. That's my favorite thing about edibles. Forgetting you've taken any and then you feel this little psychological twinkle and suddenly things get just a wee bit more dynamic. We'd lit up my curiosity and things I hadn't been interested in for years. That's what I was missing, getting lost in life a

little bit more. Dan told me that if I could access that state of mind when I was high, it was already part of my psyche, which meant that I could access it without anything at all or through meditation. I'm not there yet, I told him, I'm gonna stick with the weed right now. I'd been trying to for months to meditate, and it was going nowhere fast. I could only do forced meditation when I was with Dan.

He made me short recordings and meditations and long recordings and meditations, and I tried to do it for a few days at home, and then I'd forget, or I'd remember and then forget. Not only is it easier for me to be around other people, I told him, it's definitely easier for people to be around me. I'm able to have conversations with people. I never had the patience to listen to before. I'm so much less judge. Everything becomes a little bit softer, a little bit less apocalyptic.

No black and white, more middle, more pleasant. Well that's great, he said, I don't have a problem with you taking edibles. And I said, the other good news is it's cutting my drinking in half. This was a sentence I thought would never come out of my mouth. So I want to be very very clear this. I have no intention now or in any future of giving up alcohol. Thank you for your support. Okay, this is not a book

where I get sober at the end. However, cutting my drinking in a half was an unexpected perk, and that is when I started to get serious about cannabis. I've been approached by various weed companies to start my own line of cannabis products, but I didn't want to jump on the bandwagon until I had done due diligence and fully investigated what was available on the market. This meant that it had became my job to know everything about every available oil, weed, candy, bath, salt, herb, and food

item that contained cannabis. I was sitting around my house in Los Angeles one weekend with my brother's Glen and my sister Shawna, who are in the audience tonight doling out the new edibles that I wanted them to try. Chelsea, Glenn asked me, dripping in sarcasm, would you consider yourself a medical practitioner. No, I think of myself as more of a pharmacological intuitive, I said, testing out the term

in everyday usage. I have a history of helping people, Glenn, yourself included, So why don't you shut the funk up and take this edible? Glenn and I both suffer from psoriasis on our skin, but only one of us had clear skin until I shared with Glenn the prescription that had knocked it out of my system to ducksy cycling twice a day, ten days, never on an empty stomach. I gave the very same prescription to my hairstylist when she had a terrible bout of acne, twice a day,

ten days, never on an empty stomach. Glenn no longer has ariasis, and my hair stylist no longer has acne. And there are several African villagers who now have the cure to malaria. My sister Simona is required to give formal presentations at work, which makes her nervous. Her anxiety causes dry mouth, so I gave her a bottle of propanalol, which is a beta blocker that cuts off the signal from your neurotransmitters that tells your brain it's anxious. Thank

god we have a doctor in the family. Simone set after a second promotion. My area of expertise isn't only limited to cannabis and pharmaceuticals. I have had a hundred percent success rate helping many women friends who prior to my intervention hadn't gone number two in years become regular. Women in particular struggle with regularity, so it is important

to have bowel movement advocates out there. There are over the counter calcium magnesium pills called mag O seven from Aerobic Life, and if you start with four each night, typically by day three, you will start to have regular bowel movements. They do not pay me. This is a public service announcement. At that point, once you start going regularly, I usually advise patients to reduce their intake to three pills in order to avoid morning diarrhea, breast inflammation before

your period. Rose hips once a day for a month. My cousin Molly told me that one hangovers to etcetern and the headache will be gone in less than ten minutes. Caffeine is the antidote to headaches caused by alcohol, and Excedrin contains caffeine. I would like them to pay me to promote them, because that's something I would do. If you've been drinking milk thistle helps if you take it before you go to bed, but it's hard to remember

to take something when your ship face. All in all, my point is I've had an incredible track record with curing people, and the only mistakes I make are usually with myself, Like the time I swallowed a yeast infection pill that was supposed to be administered vaginally after speaking with my doctor on the phone. I waited expectantly in the forty eight hours that followed for a loaf of

bread to pop out of my mouth. I know if people have the personality for zan X or if they will do better on a lighter sleeping pill like Sonata generic brand is a leplan. I also know that zan X isn't a sleeping pill, but that's what I used it for. Adderall is good for some people, but too much for certain personality types. High energy people like me do not need adderall, no matter how tired you are, unless you want to wake up in the middle of

the night cracking your fucking goals. But if you do like adderall, what's even better is Provigil or new Vigil. That's what people in the government, in the military use when they travel through different time zones. Provigil is the best thing I've ever taken for jet lag or if I really need to focus on something. But again, if you have a knuckle cracking problem, which everyone in my

family has, just start with a half. There's nothing I love more than hopping on an international flight, popping a Xanex and sleeping for twelve hours straight. But I've become so disgusted with the pharmaceutical industry in this country that I have redirected that passion and dedication into the healthier alternative cannabis. Chelsea Glenn said, putting his fork down. You should be a late stage companion. That's something you could do your fun, something activity based, so you can, you know,

be moving somewhere by the mountains or a pool. Older men seem to be drawn to you. You'd get hired all the time. Who's in the late stage? I asked him, me or the companion. The companion, shann Has said, always the companion. You have a lot in common with older people. He's got a good idea. Then my brother said, this can be the perfect foil for your identity crisis, Chelsea. Since you can no longer date older guys, this is the way you can still hang out with them all

the time. The reason I can't date older guys is because now they're too fucking old and forty four. So I got to lower the margin and get in my own age group, which is tough. Glenn wiped his mouth and took a sip of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which he had brought to my house. Glenn and I are a lot of like we find something we like and then we abuse it for two months, and then we're onto the next thing. Glenn was having a Mike's Hard Lemonade renaissance,

and although I was repulsed, I understood it, Chelsea. Glenn said, and you're in your professional opinion. What procedure do you think Donald Trump is getting to make his face look like it does? What do you mean, I asked, I don't think he's actually getting work done to look that bad. I mean, what he should be doing is resurfacing the texture of his skin, at the very least, getting the fat sucked out from underneath his eyes, and maybe light bo But he obviously can't even see clearly. If he

thinks that's what he's presenting, is even presentable. I mean, obviously we're not going to get through to this guy. His asses the size of my dog Berts, So I think that should be on the first thing on his to do list. You don't think he's doing stuff to his mouth, Glenn asked, He was being serious, so I looked up. Yeah, Like, what is there some sort of surgical procedure or face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an anis? I had to think about that

when my brother asked me that question. I don't know anything about a procedure to make your mouth smaller or face treatment that makes your mouth look more like an anis or anus. Like, I'm not sure what the vernacular is here. He may think it looks good, Chelsea, Glenn reminded me, it's as if his mouth keeps getting tighter and tighter and smaller and smaller. I liked the idea of Donald Trump sewing his mouth closed, one surgical procedure at a time. This country has had a rough year,

Glenn's side. Men have had a rough year, Shauna said, and you fucking deserve it. It sounds like I said, you only have yourselves to blame. It's a wrap on old white men. Well, not all old white men, just a bunch of them, Yeah, Shauna said, walking back to the table with a frozen ham in her hands. She wanted to know if I was saving the ham for a special occasion. Occasion she was definitely stoned if she wanted to cook a ham. So I redirected my attention back to the only male in the room. Let me

tell you a little story about men, Glenn. Okay, every week I go to the nail salon where I get a massage on my forearms after my manicure, and that is the closest I have ever in my life come to understand what it feels like to get a hand shop. I want a climax in that salon. I want to let loose and just let them rubby and just let it rip. I want that, but I don't do it because I'm not a fucking pig. That's the difference between

men and women. We are more prone to controlling ourselves. Yes, Glenna Green, most women are, but I would place you in the category of people who have trouble controlling themselves. It's a very good thing you weren't born with male genitaliat I can guarantee that if I were, you would still never find me jerking off into a fucking plant. Who did that? He asked, I don't know. One of these guys, Louis c. K or Harvey Weinstein, one of them jerked off into a plant. I mean, seriously, when

does it come to that. I'm stone high, drunken stone, Shanna said, with a frozen ham tucked into her armpit. You're not drunk, I reassured her, and guided her upstairs to my bathroom. I placed the frozen ham on the floor of the infrared sonora and told Sean it would be ready first thing in the morning. Is that thing even on? She asked, yes, I told her, as I guided her to my bed. How do you feel, I said, as we climbed into bed, super warm and fuzzy, she

told me. I got out my medical journal journal and I made a note of her condition. Are you hungry? I asked her. I had been working tirelessly on isolating the right strain of marijuana that doesn't give you the munch sheets. I'm not hungry, she said. The ham just reminded me of something Mom would have made us a Christmas. I said, Oh, do you feel sad? I took out my medical notebook again. No, just warm and fuzzy. We lay in my bed, holding hands, looking out of the backyard,

lit by the lanterns hanging into my trees. I felt grateful in that moment that I was lying next to my sister, and for all the gifts that life had given me, and for all the girls life had given me. I just want everything to go on forever, I told Shannah, and then I stuck my finger in her butt. When are we gonna be too old to act like this? She asked me, giggling. Will never be too old to act like this? I told her. Then she yawned and said, just because I get colon X doesn't mean you can

treat me like ship. And then she rolled over and fell asleep. Thank you. M hm. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back. MH. I'm very grateful to my friend. That's who I've known for many years, and she's always been somebody that I've watched because you could watch her for hours. And she just had a very very successful run with her new show, Russian Dal, which I know everybody knows about. So please welcome Natasha Leone. I'm in business business attire. Thank you

for dressing so professionally. You know. The tables have tuned, Chelsea, and so this is gonna be my big Larry King come out party, is how I see it. And I want to watch you individually peel each one of these oranges, and we're gonna be here for seven hours. The book is great. I've read the book. Thank you for reading

the book, and I've come prepared. I'm gonna put these on even though I'm actually nearsighted, but I'm looking forward to becoming far sighted because then you can do this move, which I think always makes people seem smart and old, and then they can kind of do this. But I just want to remind you I can see perfectly at this distance. It's up there. I would need it for So I've prepared some flash cards and I've told you about the Rotunda, which is a game we're gonna be

playing later. Okay, so Chelsea, I'm saying it right. Yeah, No, it's it's Tracy. It's oh, it's what's tracy but spelled with a Yes. That's interesting. Why an apostrophe at the end. Yeah, I'm not surprised because I've heard a lot about your childhood. This is it's a it's hard having a childhood, isn't it. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard at spending your adulthood getting over your childhood for sure. Now this is my sort of big beef with therapy. This is not on

the flash cards. Um, but I'm like, Jesus, what do you want for me? Like my entire life is going to be unpacking this fucking yeah ten year event? What a bummer? Why is this my problem? I didn't do it? Yeah? Do you know what I mean? I know what I mean. Are talking about the ten years being your childhood? Oh so well you had a short childhood. Yeah, so it's even easier to get over I guess. I guess like that. Yeah,

by eleven, you know what I mean? The workforce and Fax machines, that's where they have you know, Fax machines and up very quick where you were on TV and stuff, yes, but also running an office and office supply chain store, which I it's you know, more common. People talk about, oh, you're a child acting. Nobody talks about my time at Staples as a kid. Yeah. No, I didn't know about Staples, thank you. It's not as glamorous, but it was important to me and that's where I first fell in love

with paper clips. I'm gonna remove this one in honor. Okay, let me have a separate h Now, do you really have two hundred and fifty grands set aside for a funeral? And that's big money. I set two hundred and fifty thousand dollars aside for my funeral a long time ago, just because I wanted to have a great funeral and I wanted to make sure it was done well, and

I wanted it to be a celebration. And I took it seriously because so many people don't think about that, and I thought if I could, if I died tragically, which is a possibility, I want to be prepared and I don't want to stress out my family, and I want, you know, I want to invite all the people that loved me and all the people who didn't. I want everyone to go to this party. I want little people. I want mushrooms. I want little people on mushrooms. I

just want a big blowout. But now that I've become a little bit more awakened or I don't know that word sounds still, I have a trouble without word a little bit. Even though that's kind of how I feel. I feel like that money should probably go to the Double A CP or something instead of having another blowout party. Just a thought or both, is that they have my party at the Double A C P tie. I'm allowing and uh, you know you opposed to dwelling some of

that cash my way? Maybe a joint funeral. We could have a joint funeral. That would be fun. I mean we'd have Yeah, I don't see why that okay, now, so how does that work? We have to coordinate our deaths, That's what I'm thinking now, or with a kind gesture therapeutically speaking, the empathetic gesture. Whoever dies first, the other person waits and holds the funeral however long. Yeah, you know, fifteen years or one minutes right right? That seems fair. Yeah, okay,

ideas ideas you know who else did? If I die? First you plan my funeral? And then do you get where's the money with your money? So what's the most important here is the money? And I think we shouldn't lose sight of that. You know who else did that? The late great Nora Ephron did she Uh well, I don't know how much she spent, how much money she put aside, but she had a file going her whole life and it was like, it's got a great name. It's sort of like the Final something Yeah, final movie finale.

It was pretty better than that, right, the last movie, which is actually maybe a Dennis Happer sort of a terry Southern movie, but we won't get into that. Well, this we've covered. It's a series of additional funeral questions. DJ's destination funerals and so on. Do you have a DJ you'd like to use at your wedding? I mean funeral? I actually am planning a wedding funeral, so it's not even uh, you know, a Freudian slips. So that's when I'm getting married, is uh on my deathbed. It's going

to be very romantic and there will be a DJ. Yes, um, it's important to know. Is there anyone you know besides Donald Trump who I don't care to insult clearly that you don't want a funeral your funeral? Yes, Like, if you would like to name names of some other people that are on your list, but you don't have to, and I won't murder them, is I would not? I'm not. I'm not actually like a soprano. I just talk tough,

and it's an important distinction. But if there's anybody that you don't want your funeral, you know what I'm saying. You just let me know and I'll make sure then that it's your funeral. Okay, are aren't you pissed that you weren't on the Sopranos. I'm at all times pissed that I'm like, where's my mafia picture? Because I'm so so ready. I don't know. I don't hate anybody that much. I don't care about hating people as much as I used to. So it's a I'm trying out a new

philosophy where even if someone doesn't like me, I like them. Yeah, And that's a that's a fun game to play, that is truly enlightened. It's like, oh, that's truly. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying it out and I like it. Do you think you're gonna die young? Sort of left field? Hut, it's just slipping it in. It's just the tip. We're okay, you can't get pregnant from just the tip. We all know that. Tell your kids. That's right, Yeah, that's correct, everybody. Do you think so? No, you don't know you can

get pregnant from the tip? Yeah, well you really. You were pregnant at sixteen. I was pregnant a couple of times at sixteen, Yeah, more than once, more than once. Yeah, same guy, different Yeah. I had a black boyfriend in high school. His name was ty Sewan. He's actually my new documentary that's coming out about white privilege, um my

own specifically. And I always thought, like I always thought white privilege meant, you know, you were from like a family, like you had trust funds, and you were from the Rockefeller family and you went to Harvard like I identified white privilege like that. And it wasn't until after the election that I really just started to think about my own privilege in a way that I hadn't noted, like, hadn't understood before. And I was embarrassed because of all

the success I've had and how easily it came to me. Yeah, I worked hard, and we all worked hard, but it was I got rewarded for a lot of bad behavior, and that wouldn't have happened to somebody who didn't look like me. So so I went and revisited Tayshawn for this documentary because we got arrested three or times while we were together. For what. I didn't get arrested. He got arrested for a dime bag of pot he got.

Every time he got caught. I was not every time who knows how many other times, but three times I was with him. Each time the police officer said, okay, miss you get out of this neighborhood and go home, and and then he was arrested. So he had a full scholarship to u n l V University to play basketball, and he was not able to go because of those three infractions, which were stupid, but I mean, a white

person gets away with that. I got away with it, and it then spent fourteen years incarcerated, and his whole life was ruined. And so I saw him in the documentary. I really like re visit his family and get his story and hear about it, because I just walked out of his world and was like, Okay, I'm done with this phase in my life. I'm done. I'm done with my black face. I'm gonna go back to my family, you know. And I just left and I could. And I never thought about that until the election. I didn't

think about a lot of things until the election. You know. I thought, oh, we elected Barack Obama, Great racism is over. And I thought we were gonna let Hillary Clinton. And I thought, great feminism is That's a fight we don't have to do much of anymore. So when those two things backfired, I woke up and I started to look around and all asked the questions. And it was embarrassed that it took me this long to get here. But I'm happy to be late to the party than to

never show up at all. And and I think that we all have to wake up. The world's only getting browner and gayer, so you better fucking hop on board before you missed the bus. Indeed, mm hmm, yeah, I think about that. I think about a lot, you know, especially because um the prison show. I'm on. Uh, I'm not making it about me. But you know it's early

on I think I would really identify. I was like, oh yeah, I know how to be on this show because I've like spent time and various holding cells and you know what I mean, Like you know, I mean, did you got to rest a lot in your real life? You know, more than once, less than the more times, the ten less less um? Yeah, expunged um. So uh that cut to the end of the story. Uh without details. You know, I too spend a great deal of time,

you know, thinking. You know, it's it's like you know, people say, and we went on this documentary, went to the South and you know all the places where you find races and um and which are everywhere in every city, and you know, it ended up being in my own backyard. L A is the most segregated city in the world. I live in bel Air. Like, who am I? What am I thinking that I'm diverse? I live in the

whitest place in the country. I mean, I don't know if there's a whiter place, maybe Winter parlto something very Jewish what bell Air? Oh well, I'm not hanging out with the Jews. But yeah, it's very Jewish and very white. But you know, you don't look around, you don't think

about that. When I was doing this documentary and people were asking me about that, I was like, oh, yeah, I went to Santa Monica from New Jersey where I had one black kid in my school, and then I moved to Santa Monica and then Brentwood, and then I moved to bell Air. So you know, you think you know what privileges, or you know what you're who you're surrounding yourself with, or I'm not guilty of that. I

not guilty of that. We're all a little bit guilty of not being better allies and advocates to people of color. We're all a little bit we can all do better. And so that's a big you know, that's a good thing to know when you're moving forward in something in your life and my work especially, that needs to be you know, front and center because I'm there because I've been spoiled and I realized, well, yeah, you know, uh strong a great Chelsea Strong agree, um, but but genuinely

and and uh yeah, I hate it all. I hate um. I hate tokenism. I hate the more subtle forms of white supremacy that we see. I hate seeing it in movies I I fucking hated that's a well done. Okay, well this sounds like a good time to take a break. What is the most interesting place that you have traveled to? Africa? I mean, Africa really feels like you're on another planet. You get there and you're like, holy shit. Iceland too,

I've been, Yeah, is what? Well? It feels very much like another planet in a very Spaceland feels more like Game of Thrones. They have shark on the menu and whale. I'm like, I don't think so, buddy. Yeah, yeah, food is bad in Iceland. Where in Africa? Have you been? Been on Safari? Like three times? And I've been um to Botswana, South Africa, I think both times. Yeah, I went back to South Africa and then the last time. I think that was one of those trips where you

just can't you can't believe what you're looking at. You're just like, oh my god, and you just go on. I mean, you could watch a lion for ten hours straight. I'm not I love my dogs, but I'm not like this animal activist, you know what I mean? Like, I don't I'm not gonna hurt an animal, but like I'm not going nuts about it. Would you define yourself as a hunter? J k um So, I just got back. I was in Nigeria, I was in Ghana. Fucking great. Really,

how was Ghana? What what went down there? So it's so first of all, aesthetically speaking, Uh, the filmmaker's eye, which is what I have, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, It's is so fucking good looking because it's just like sort of it's very like sixties sort of low buildings. It almost has a kind of a Cuba vibe. It's very very gorgeous. It's like a European city. Uh. And we went to the quam A Museum, which is so good looking. Uh and uh then in across we went to the

slave castles. And this is a very very heavy journey to go down. Um and I really understand in ways you're talking about, you know, the weight of the world that we're actually living in. You know, they have this museum there and you kind of see all these all the heavyweights to there. It's Marcus Garvey and uh, you know, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and and you see the way in which America, the world at large, time and time again just fucking shut it down and Uh,

it's harrowing. And to understand that, you know, it's almost uh feels like there's the idea of the ongoing crime that is our current prison system. UM is is very tough to take. Who did you take that trip with? Um? I went with Uzoa Duba from Oranges and New Black and UM, I know you were with Laura prepon last night and then you said Taylor last week, I've been having a renaissance Oranges the New Yeah, and uh as if I constantly. But it's less of renaissance, it's more

of in existence. Let's say, Uh, you're also on the show and um and so we went and you know, and Usos Nigerian, so we went a Legos. So it's great. There's so much great art happening. There's a thriving filmmaking scene out there. And we also did some Global Citizens

stuff that she's involved in. And um, but yeah, like but this Ghana and the slave castles and and coming back to UH America, landing at JFK and going like, you know, getting your this sort of Hamilton's bills out of the fucking a t M machine, You're like, what is this fucking scumbag? Um it's very uh, you know, crystallizing and also just gorgeous, but then also like, oh, that's right. That's why they called it the Ivory Coast of the Gold Coast. It's it's very it's a heavy,

it's an important sounds like it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think when you are open up to all these things, you know, and part of like the last couple of years, for me, it's like once you're awake to everything that's going on around you, first of all, it's an opportunity to be more grounded and to be more still and to actually pay attention instead of filling up. For me, my issue is filling everything up with noise. You know, if anything is too serious, I'll make the joke. If

somebody stops talking, I'll start, you know. And that kind of cycle, and that perpetual motion, which is kinetic motion, which really never allows you to look around. There's too many, you know, there's too many important trips and and moments like that that you have to really not only just be there for and be aware of in the moment, but after the fact to reflect upon what you've learned and to see what you can do as a human being to make a contribution that's going to be valuable.

So I am all for taking those trips multiple times, you know well. And I love that early in the book you reference one of my favorite books of all time, the only book I walked into the Russian Dale Writer's Room with, which is Victor Frankel A Man's Search for Meaning. Um, but I mean, what a great what a great book,

and what a great sice material for writing comedy. There was there was There was a line in the book that I referenced in my book and in Victor Frankel's book called demand Search for Meeting that when I read it, it made me like look up at the sky and think, WHOA what the funk am I doing with my life? And it was stop asking what you expect out of life and start asking what life expects out of you.

And I was like, oh, I had to read that to think it, you know, I was like, how lost am I if I've never even thought about what anyone's expecting out of me? I was thinking about what I'm going to get, you know, like take take, which I think is fair and normal and kind of like happens for each of us in its right time, right like the truth is is you know, there's even an underlying sort of lucky stroke to having the opportunity to kind of investigate itself. You know, I think that that's privileged

a psychio tes for years. But you know, when it is um a hand to mouth in mouth existence, I think it's harder to really take this time. But you know, but but if for Victor Frankelfort, for context, of course, he's a I think an Alshwitz survivor to the Holocaust, and uh, he then sort of got out of there alive and started had to rethink his life in terms of what how do I sort of string a life back together after what I just saw and want human

beings are capable of? And he came up with a system called logo therapy that was this idea of trying to sort of you know, that man is doomed to a sort of existential morass of endless horror internally unless they can kind of pinpoint this thing, um, which is great and important. Now you cent your dogs, um Bert and Bernice, Um oh my two big fat fox. Yeah, I have a dog now that it's so fat it's like if you could turn him chewy into a dog

that's what I would have turned him into. They so his body has all these different pockets of meat, Like just when you think there's no more fat left, there's something under his thigh, you know. And he's one of those dogs. I had to shave when I got him because I had to see what I was dealing with. I was like, let's get down to business with this body. And I was very excited about what I found. Yeah, that's what I felt when I met divine. Um, you

know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I do. I don't have a child, but I imagine that if I didn't, there was a nanny. Uh, I would I would resent the nanny and I would say, I'm your mother. I I want you to because I think it's very important for women, all women. Now that women are thinking about having children instead of just having them, that's good. It's good to say to people about why you don't want to have because I'll tell you why. I'll tell you. I'll give you a whole list. Yeah no, I me.

I actually think that children should be the great anomaly. It should be this kind of like shocking round, like, holy fuck, did you hear that Ben had a kid? What the fuck this guy. Oh my god, yes, with the Ben and Tina they made up good for them. What a bunch of freaks like they, I mean, they really must want to do this thing instead. I think we have this bizarre epidemic happening where uh everybody's like hell bent on Oh congratulations, you know you're over twenty five?

Where's uh so, where's this partner? Oh good, you found this partner. Now when's the marriage? Oh good? Now you got to where's the baby? It's like what when? And then you see the statistics, It's like where's the divorce? You know what I mean? And where's the children that are like, you know, out there being like can somebody

look out for me? Because I'm a fucking person and you have all the sort of unqualified I I just think for the sake of the children, and nobody loves children more th sake of the children, don't have them, is what you're saying. I you know, I think that some people should totally Like I have some friends and I'm like, holy shit, your fucking destiny was to be a mother. You should clearly be procreating, do you know

what I mean? Like it was so much a fabric of their lifeblood, and then I see, you know, sometimes other people who are just sort of like lost or more relevant to the moment that we're in, which is this nightmare of kind of uh you know, um men dictating when or when not women should be allowed to have their own sort of personal freedoms and existence in

this life, so that I find wildly problematic. Of course, um you know, I think it should be a very a choice with great intent and a series of like accidents in an effort to be like maybe we should break up or have a kid. Like I think that that's fucking weird, and I think, uh, people do that all the time, or people get pregnant. Like my girlfriend was like, oh, she was forty, and she's like, I'm pregnant. I guess I have to have it now. And I'm like why and she's like, because I'm forty. How can

I get an abortion at forty? I'm like, it's better than being a bad parent, So you forget one. What do you mean, like, if you don't want the baby, don't have a baby. If you don't want desperately to have a baby. I mean that's a thing. It's like I want them to have kids when they really fucking want it, but like it's a big It's not a pair of shoes, you know what I'm saying. It's not like change my mind and I can't walk in them.

It's like, the funk are you doing? And Delia, I remember one centime I was like, yeah, you know, I got this boyfriend, I'm on the show and no no, and I think I want to start a production coming. I want to be a director. I think I'm gonna like write stuff and and I was like, but fuck, Delia, do you think I should like make embryos or what should I do? Because like I got to figure that out, and she was like whoa, you know, she was like,

not everybody has to do everything. You know, um that there's this kind of hang up around for women that there's almost like this additional burden of okay, I've got x y Z kind of dream and also I'm gonna take on this other full time job, which is to do this thing. And just the idea of like I don't know, maybe someday I will sort of decide to have a kid in some variation adoptic. I don't know what the future holds, but this idea that it was this burden on my thirties of decision that had to

be made. When meantime, you know, I had a boyfriend in his forties who was not stressing about it at all. Felt like a very unfair albatross to be carrying around. So I think in general, I just sort of let go of it and sort of felt like, this is something that will sort of be a mora, will be revealed and it can kind of you know, let that child find me, good luck find me. You can adopt kids in different countries now saying there's a lot you can be involved, like I like to do that. It's

better that I'm not present with the kid. It's better that I'm just paying for things. You know, I know what my strengths and weaknesses are. But you feel concretely like you like, no babies for this baby. No, No, I don't want I'm not interested in that at all. It's never been interest to me. I come from a big family, and I thought I was gonna have one kid. I'd want six, just like I grew up with. And um no, I just know it's not a good use

of my time. I'm better better without that. I have come to grips with the fact that it's okay to say I want to be in a relationship like that's my mature, that's my thing. Like, oh, I worked so hard for so long trying to be so independent and so fierce and so tough. And I didn't know that that was a direct had a direct correlation to my childhood, to the fact that my brother died when I was nine years old and looked me in the eye and said, I'll be back, don't worry, I'll never leave you with

these people, and and died. So my feeling about relying on another person from a very young age, I didn't give it enough credit because I was nine. I didn't know anything. It may seem obvious discussing it or looking at someone else's story and going, obviously, that's why she's pooked up, But it's when you're in it, you don't know it. And I let it rip in a way that I had never been able to do in my entire life. I was never able to tell somebody that I was in pain. I couldn't be in pain because

I was too strong to be in pain. And for someone like me, you know, when you get you know, you don't think you have a right to complain. You have access to anything you need. You're successful. I have a TV show in my name, I have books in my name. I didn't think I had a right to be in pain, and I didn't think I had a right to complain. And what I learned by going and and stopping my work and doing everything I can to get myself into a healthy place that you are of

no use to anyone until you're fucking healthy. And that's when you're like, oh, oh, I can be a good friend now, I can look out for empathy. Now, I can get my ship together now, and all the patterns of behavior that are from that period and time period of time in your life, you know, the scorching earth. If somebody pisces me off, I'm like, they're out, They're out. Like I had this pattern of ruining friendships or ending

friendships on a dime. And when I told Dan about that, I said, you know, I don't know why I do this. I can't forgive anybody. And he said, because this is your blueprint of how a relationship ends. Your brother told you he was coming back, and he left, So he was alive one day and he was gone tomorrow. That's what you think, that's how you think relationships end. And I was like, holy sh it, that is what I'm doing. That is what I'm doing. I'm just that's my blueprint.

That's how I think. So Dan was able to show me a blueprint, like about patients, about going into an airport and paying for things in a normal way, not shoplifting and giving them the money under the table or whatever, about making eye contact with every stranger that talk to me or you know that I see, and not rushing through life and and not taking a shortcut through your grief because the only way through it is sucking through it, and there's no hop scotching around it and there's no

way to get around it. So for me, it was so so strengthening to have a man sit across from me that I could cry in front of a and you know, and then I got really good at crying. I was like, I was just crying all the time, and I was writing this book, and I was in airports crying just in public, and people would come over and be like, are you okay. I'm like my brother and I'm writing a book. Fuck, leave me alone. Yes,

I'm gonna be okay. And because tharcist that came along with it was just I had to share it because I'm a different person and I feel and I was my friends like, this is like an apology tour. I'm like, no, no, but I feel like, you know, so vibrant in a way that I had it for so long and taking that a talk about an albatross around your neck, taking something that you've had, didn't injury for that they've had for so long, and being able to release it and not be mad at my brother for dying. He goes,

You're mad. You're you were rejected because you felt rejected, And I said, yeah, but he died. It wasn't an accident, he goes, But not to your nine year old brain. You're nine year old brain interprets that as somebody being bored with you, or leaving you, or choosing another family because they have a sister, a little sister that's cuter or more fun to be around. So it was a big lesson and it was a big um. You know.

It was a big moment for me to write. Since I've made a career of oversharing so many things, I thought, why not over share something positive and good? So uh to circle back, so the baby component of it. At the end of it, I was like, because everything comes back to my brother Chet, you know, in therapy, whenever we talk, I'd be like, like, this guy's shoes, I can't date him the fucking shoes to And I said about the baby. I go, am, I is this all? What about the baby thing? And he's like, no, I

genuinely think you don't like children. So so once I got his step of approval, I was like, all right, I'm on my way out. That seemed like such a relief to get. Like if I have to get pregnant now too, I'm gonna be so bummed and pregnant. We have to wrap up, but I'm gonna read a little thing. These bracelets they're selling out front or I decide bracelets and they sell T shirts too, because there's something I want to read from the book, uh that this organization

one of these. A guy that read this book wrote me and and said that this meant a lot to him because he had somebody in his family that died, And so we made these T shirts and his honor and and all the proceeds go to l g B t q I A and all the proceeds from the bracelets. But I'm gonna get up to read this. Sorry if I have camel toe. I didn't know then that my brother's death was defining me. I didn't know that I had the ability to say no to being defined by death.

Now I was with a person Dan, who could help me process what happened and turn the parts of me that acted like a nine year old into a self actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of what it means to dig deep and admit that you are in pain, thereby beginning the process of relinquishing that pain. I was in a place where my brother dying no

longer had to define my existence. It is part of who I am, perhaps the biggest part, and it may have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it is not all of me. I defined me. No event or person does this. I define me. I decide who I am, and I decide how I'm going to behave, and I choose to do better, to look more carefully, to trudge deeper, to think about other people's pasts, and not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than

I would. To understand my limitations and my shortcomings. That is my growth. I decide to be better. We all can be better. Thank you guys, Thank you New York City for coming out, and thank you to Natasha Leon for your very professional Did you enjoy that episode, Brandon, You're not gonna like all the complience, but I like that. The tour has been a mix of like social issues

and comedy. Yeah, and while listeners are listening, I mean, you know, we're trying to have as little repetition as possible, which is hard because we're covering the same topics, but we're managing to do it. So thank you for bearing with us on that front. If you hear like a theme or topic more than once, you know, stuck on it. Speaking of social issues, there are a couple of things that you might want people to check in on, like

you're countable. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I have Accountable page, which kind of puts up articles of things that are happening and ways to kind of help or get involved with causes that you care about. Um, and I've joined I'm still partners with Emily's List, so I if you follow me on Twitter, if you're looking for candid, it's

always promoting Emily's list. You should follow Emily's list too, because they always are looking for progressive women to run all across the country and they keep you a prize of all the exciting women that come into the field and people who run for the very first time. You know to two people have rand before anyway, So Emily's

list is good. I have accountable page and and I'm coming to Nashville, New Orleans, New Nashville Friday night and New Orleans Saturday night and you can get your tickets at live nation dot com. And then I'm coming to Australian in October and New Zealand. I'm coming to Auckland, New Zealand October nine, and I will be adding more dates. Canadian dates are coming. I just I'm trying to get my schedule. And uh yeah, thank you guys for listening. And Brandon, thank you for being so um o god.

What is the word? Okay? Thank you. Tune in next week when we find out the word to describe Brandon life will be the Death of Me. As a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.