You're listening to a Mama Maya podcast. Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
But I really truly believe this. Men don't bother to comment unless they want to you. And yeah, there are hateful things like, you know, making fun of your body or calling you fat or old, or all the beautiful misogyny that comes along with posting on the internet. But in general, when a guy posts theming like oh, I don't know about those pants, they're distracting. You're like, you think I'm hot and you don't know how to express it properly or just say nothing, so you're saying something weird.
For Mamma Maya. You're listening to No Filter. And I'm kateline Brook. I love funny people. I think funny people are an ornament to the world. And Eliza Schlesinger is a very funny woman. She's so funny that she's made a very successful career out of being funny. But the thing about Eliza that you'll hear in this conversation is that behind the funny is a deep intelligence, a boundless curiosity, and a lot of love for the cohort that inspire
the lines share of her material us women. You know that thing about how you can make fun of your sister but nobody else can. Well, Eliza is a bit like that, because she makes fun of us. Oh boy, does she make fun of us. But she does it from such a place of loving observation, and she's one of us that not only can she get away with it, but somehow we feel seen and understood through the lens of her comedy something Else. Eliza is hard working, ridiculously
hard working. At forty two, she's the mother of two young children. She's an actress, she's a podcaster and author, a wife to an ambitious and talented husband, and who makes a fun cameo in this conversation that may also leave you a bit hungry. And she's also about to release her seventh comedy special A Different Animal, and a tour which will be bringing her here.
To our shores.
In April, Eliza joined us from her home office in La after a big flight and wanted me to know that she didn't think she was firing on all cylinders. We started our conversation with her explaining that she was feeling a bit like half a person. I'm very happy with the half.
I'll give you the half. You know, sometimes as women, your half is more than most others. Hales. I just flew in from Miami this morning and I was like, yeah, I can do a podcast, and then it just like minutes ago, hit me.
Yeah.
Because also, your work ethic is phenomenal.
Thank you, I know, and I do. I consider that a compliment.
Particularly you know, I've spent a lot of my working life with male comedians, and.
A lot of them quite honest. Sorry, yeah, exactly.
Because also a lot of them are very honest about the fact that they got into comedy because they're lazy, so they wanted to have that the sleepings and the late nights and the adulation and the la la that is not you.
No, But I really love the work and I didn't get into it for to sleep with girls. And I didn't get into it because of you know, latent, weird insecurities or anything. I genuinely enjoy the work. So it is exhausting, and I've gotten better at giving myself breaks and doing things to make it easier. Like even last night, I did a corporate gig and I walked in and it was basically like performing in front of an oil painting of people and I told my first joke and
they flew me there for this. I told my first joke and it went flat, and I was like, Okay, we're going to have to do a full hour of work. You're right, what's your name? And I don't think I've worked that hard enough.
Very yeah, well that's like corporates can be, notoriously just foul. Like afterwards, you feel like you need one of those care and silkwood showers.
You know, we should just get it off.
And they were all so nice and like we had fun and it was whatever. But it was very clear to me within the first three minutes, like, oh, you can't do your material. You're going to have to go down the line and really work and so but I did feel invigorated after it, but it's still you got to love the work otherwise you'll be miserable. And I think that's for anything any career.
Well, you know, it's interesting because also you then become I don't want to say victims, not the right word, but but you become enmeshed in your own success. So the snowball that you're rolling down the hill becomes bigger, and it picks up more people along the way because you need more people to run things. Where are you at now in your life and now you've got two kids and you've got a husband just bloated.
No, if you're a comic and if you're a multi hyphen it performer or business person at all these things, the more you make, the more people you need to sustain that. And it's not in a way that like I can't sustain it. But if you want things done well, you need someone to do your social media, you need someone to film you, publicists to make sure and so you do need these things if you want to get
the quality results that you see your peers getting. I think it's very rare that it's like it was just luck and everyone was just obsessed and you didn't need anybody and so but it all begets the next thing. So it's a it's just maintaining a consistency and while always trying to level up.
You do level up all the time.
And I've just watched a different animal which is your new Yeah, it's just so I have to like a part of it. Your knowledge of women is forensic, like your understanding of us is so deep but also loving, even as you are fully across all of our divots. Ye, our pivots are like self deceptions. It's really beautiful. But also, and I know I don't want I don't want to sound distracted by the frivolous, but mate, you are as.
Hot as haydies.
Oh my god. Well that's a lot coming from an Australian because you guys, your bar set pretty high as you're ten year round. Thank you.
That outfit is insane, Oh thank you? When did you get the idea? Like, do you have an idea? This is how I kind of want to look. I'm going to wear some mesh and some over the knee boots and I'm going to strut around.
Like basically, you know, I am not a dressy person. I think you can dress up for a late night set, not that those are really a thing as much anymore. But I'm very casual on stage because I'm a pretty casual off stage. But I think your special is your moment to wear the thing and not have to work for it with your audience in the way that you did coming up within the clubs and you're just trying
to you know, And I came up. You know, I've been doing comedy for twenty years, so I definitely came up at a time where it was still a little weird to see a woman doing comedy. Not that we hadn't been out there, and not that women hadn't come before me, but I never dressed up on stage because I felt audiences just like weren't. I didn't have that additional ninety seconds to get you used to the fact
that I had a nice body. I wanted you to hear my jokes right off the bat, and so I was always very casual in stage, and I wanted to be comfortable. But in the specials, it's your chance to kind of like know that you're surrounded by fans. This is something that you earned. And so for elder millennial and for unfailed and for hot forever, I just tried to do outfits that I was comfortable in. I saw these pants right before I got pregnant with my son, So I had these pants basically a year, like so
hard to do that math. I saw them online. I like listened to a lot of like electronic dance music, and I saw some It was an ad. I don't know if they're like a Spanish site. I don't know where they're from. And I saw these pants and I was like, those are the pants. I just felt it. I ordered them. I had to get them delivered to England to get them sent to me, like I had.
So you couldn't. They wouldn't cheap directly to you. It was something like we just circumvented.
I got them. I tried them on, and I was like a couple weeks pregnant with Ethan, and I was like, I'm gonna tuck these away had the baby. And then every we would do pilates and my instructor would even be like as I would lift my legs, she'd be like, okay, belly in pants. Pants. And I just like them, and I know that some people don't and they're wrong because they're hot fire. Oh my god. I was like, they're just so rock and roll but also ravy, and like
who cares if people are bothered by them? Like what does it matter people bothered by them?
It's interesting?
What I mean it is when you were talking about when you were first coming on stage and you would kind of go under rather than go over because you didn't want to be You didn't want your physicality to be a distraction from the jokes. But it's always such a thing for women because the way that we look is so stratified, and we read it in each other instantly, and there's so much more to read in a woman than there is in a man. So a man's basically like wou chinos and a shirt, right, Yeah.
Well it also doesn't matter because the truth is it's not the dapples and oranges. We judgment and women on very different things, and so I don't know if there's if there's less. You know, we look at a man's haircut in a way that we don't really look at a woman's haircut. We look at if a man is wearing pants, like, but are they naise pants? Like I can tell.
You if a man's not.
If a man's not wearing pants, we're definitely judging him wearing pants.
He is a male car an agree room. But like I could wear out of date sneakers and nobody would ever care, other than like some gen z person that like wants to make me feel bad for being a millennial. But if you're a guy and like Kenneth Cole reaction like work shoes, like I will know that, and then I'll know, like, oh, you don't know what's going on. And so there is that thing where you're being judged by women, you're being judged by men. But I really
truly believe this. Men don't bother to comment unless they want to you.
Yeah.
Yeah, there are hateful things like, you know, making fun of your body or calling you fat or old or all the beautiful misogyny that comes along with posting on the internet. But in general, when a guy posts theming like oh, I don't know about those paints, they're distracting. You're like, h you think I'm hot and you know how to express it properly or just say nothing, So you're saying something weird.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
Yeah, and in the fact you're here at school.
Yeah, and in fact, in a different animal days up the whole beat that you do about that, about how if we knew how simple men were in their desires, it would save us a lot of time.
A lot. It spends so much less money on Sephora, and spend so much less money on therapy. And the truth is, especially as women, as we get older, we do know that. But what then becomes clear to us as women is that it isn't about them, because it was when you were younger, because you didn't have to do as much, and it was about attracting them and
putting everything out there. And now as you get older, my husband doesn't care, but I'm like I still do because I would like other people to look at me to validate how attractive I am.
You know, well, you also do a bit in that that was that seems kind of counterintuity because you talk about and it's very funny about when a woman feels loved and nurtured and understood and appreciated or whatever.
Basically, it's our cute to let ourselves go.
It's everything is so you can get ugly, Like all you want to do is get in that relationship. And this is obviously not the true objective, but it is that thing where you know, we want to scroll up into his heart and grow a mustache, like and we all and you see it online and stuff like people
you're in sweatpants whatever. I think it's it's exacerbated when people make fun of it online because the truth is, like, if you're the kind of girl that would wear sweatpants and like a ratty shirt around your boyfriend, you're that girl anyway, like you don't just become like a hideous bog troll. But I think it's also like when do we get a break as women? Like when can I be relaxed or do I have to always be uncomfortable to show that I'm fuckible?
Ye?
You know, And so I think that there's something beautiful in a woman just being like, yeah, like I've had two kids. I think I'm allowed to like set it down for a night and pick it back up whenever I'm ready.
Sure, well you have picked it back up. Oh, thank you, you sure have.
But I wanted to ask you, like how your day looks, because really, and I've been familiar with you for a long time, and a lot of lovers of comedy have been, but I went on a deep dive with you when I knew that I was speaking to you, and like I said, your output is phenomenal, And now you've got the podcast ask Als or anything, which is great. And I've got a problem for you actually that I think.
You can write you with.
Oh you give actually astoundingly good advice.
Well, thank you. Yeah, we try to cut through the bullshit. I just remember I appreciate that there's a show in the States and I don't know if it's global called love Line. It's not on anymore, and had doctor Drew Pinsky, who kind of became like a celebrity sex doctor. But I remember I would drive home from like like one in the morning from like the Irvine improv, which means nothing to the folks listening in Australia, but it's like an hour and a half away and you're on this
big freeway and so you're just driving right. A lot of my LA comedy life was just driving at night back from gigs and I would listen to love Line where people would call in and they would be like, oh, and they give their like weird sexual question and doctor Drew was so adept at being like giving super incisive advice.
Someone would say like, so, my girl and I don't really haveing sexy's like she has herpes, Like she is so good at kind of when I was like, I love that, like just having enough knowledge about people or medicine to the second someone starts being like, actually, that's bullshit. Here's what it is, like you have a genital disorder. And so I try to bring that to my podcast when like someone's talking. I'm just like, no, you actually hate your best friend? You hear, That's what it is.
So I've been there.
Yeah, okay, are you very therapist?
No?
Oh, because once again it's it's you. You really have kind of a broad, a broad and deep understanding of the psyche of people.
I do, and I my education comes from hours and hours and hours of scrolling through Instagram. Really, and it's no, it's I think there's empathy involved, and I have a burning need to know why things are the way that they are. And a big part of Different Animal and my comedy in general is not just accepting men and
women are different. Like I really need to know in the science behind why we do the things that we do, because I need to know more about what I'm doing on this planet, and I need to know the facts, not the feelings, which I know the Internet doesn't love, but like I deeply need the scientific reasons and the sociological reasons. So that drives me, and I can't find them in comedy, so I do it myself because I would know that I would have liked those answers from someone, right.
So, at what point did you realize, and particularly with the stuff about women, and you know the many characters that all there's a door opening behind you.
Oh was that a husband?
Oh no, oh.
No, noah.
Oh she's saying, okay, well, I don't want to eat.
He's a coke. He's a chef.
He's a chef and he's and he's doing the cook or the photo shoot.
I know you can't hear it. Come down, Hello, hold on, com here? Hellos eating the rice ball? Hello, they're doing there's like eight people in our house. They're doing the photo shoot for his cookbook.
For a second, Oh, what's the coke?
Yeah, it's a it's a grilling, it's a family grilling cook. It's a ha habat chi sort of yeah, but not specifically about this sounds like a very non American podcast.
The bag, Yeah, that's your my my accent is a dad give away.
You'll indeed give away, all right?
What a trace though.
It's so cute. The cook comes out next summer because he comes because they're cooking all day, so we'll come in and just hand me something. And you'ven seeing his heartbreak when I'm like, I don't want a portobella mushroom right now.
No tiring because when people look cooking for I've got a girlfriend who's done several cookbooks, and it involves in cooking foods that are very strange at strange times of the day.
Oh my god, Like it's ten am. He's like, we're having steak tartar or whatever. I guess you wouldn't grow that. But it's just like a Porterhouse steak cut up. And so it's just us. We let our friends know. Hey, they're doing, you know, fourteen days of cooking. We've got food stylists, photographers, like everyone's here, the houses upside down, and we just have people coming over, like with containers to take home, like a bunch of carnea soada, because we can't eat all that.
But you want to snack now, I would have loved to tried what he was cooking.
Anyway, you can grab a quick one because after this shortbreak, we'll hear all about how Eliza made her chef hobby noah, because you both got these like big live. How did you mate?
We met on a dating app?
Oh? Really, that's it? It would baby, it worked? And what did he say? And what did you say?
I don't remember. And we often talk about how we wish we could have like we could go back and see those conversations. But I do remember on the app him just being really easy to talk to. There was no attitude, he wasn't too cool, and he really was funny, which is very hard to do. It's not even so much about me being a comedian, but like over text and like his heart came through, like he was just funny and he is very funny. And I was just like, this seems great. And from the second I met him,
it was just it felt easy and comfortable. People always talk about when you meet someone you get like butterflies, and I was like I had the opposite. I was like, oh my god, I feel like I've known you my whole life. You seem like someone I grew up with. Like it was just like it was weird that we didn't know each other's whole stories because it felt like we have known each other for years and so that was it.
And what did you make in La because you were originally from taking Weirder?
Oh, I know, I thought that was impossible.
Well it people do it. And you know he always says people always say people from LA are the worst or they're weird. He's like, no, because he's from La. He's like, you guys are the weird ones, the ones who move here.
Yeah, they choose it. They choose it.
But just to take away from the wholesomeness, basically, we went out. He had a broken hand, I think from like playing basketball, and I was like, oh, you have a cast on your arm. Did they give you pain killers for that? He was like yeah, I feel like Australians like can't relate to this. And he was like yeah, why And I was like, can.
We go get can we have them?
And so we took them and like got a bunch of drinks and it was great.
Oh, I love it. Yeah, and now you've got two kids.
Yeah, now, and now we have two kids. From painkillers to there's nothing else with a p to diaper pails, I guess, And it's great. My son just turned one a couple of days ago, and my daughter's three, and I'm having the best time.
And I love that because so much of your comedy has been about you know, dating, travails and basically a woman navigating life. Yeah. Yeah, and there is a sense that men obviously don't have the same time imperative, biological imperative, that you just really got everything that you deserved, which is nice to say.
I appreciate that, you know, I don't know. I feel like obviously women have less time to do the things quote unquote expected or required. But I also think life is about priorities and what you prioritize, and like I prioritized my career and having a family, and while other people may have prioritized other parts of their careers or making, you know, networking or traveling, you know, and part of
my job is traveling. But it's it's hard to talk about any of these things because to assert who you are and what you have for a lot of women feels like a condemnation of these choices they did or didn't make, yes, And I think that that's a huge stumbling block because it all stems from insecurity. And if you want to know why it looks like I have everything,
it's because I have full time help. Like, do not get it twisted, like we have a Jamaican nanny living with us and another nanny that helps with my daughter. The answer is other women, that's how you have it all? Yay.
So, of course, of course, which is and that is I think I mean would that everyone we're in a position to do that, sure, but.
Even to say you have it, then people are like, oh, well, isn't that nice? And it's like, we'll make no mistake about it. Like the money that I make is what I spent, Like I spend it on these nannies. There's no inheritance, there's no additional like, it's all me, and so that money is spent on that instead of driving whatever. A Bugatti. Yeah right, I took that car. And again it's all about priorities. But I knew before we had children.
I was like, I am not giving up doing stand up and pursuing all the other dreams I have because of this. So I'm going to make both work. And it's going to be exhausting and it's going to be heartbreaking, but this is this is the way that I've chosen to do it.
But how was it after, particularly after your daughter, because she was the first? Yeah, how was it when you went back to work after that? Because you know stuff that is, you know brain fog and la la, And I know when I went back to work, I was doing radio and it felt like there should have been a band playing a victory march.
Yeah.
The first time I got out of the house.
Oh right, So I can tell you not that I remember most of it, but I can tell you that I went back too soon. And I only know that because my manager reminded me when I gave birth to my son. She was like, you went back too soon, and you said you were so unhappy. Oh, And I don't remember that, but I remember just thinking about her and missing her. And so you're pumping and you're storing the milk, and you're bringing the cooler and then you're bringing it home, you know, because I wasn't going to
bring her and disrupt her little routine. And so when I had Ethan, I took a little bit of extra time. But and I know that nobody really wants to talk about this, you know, outside of a news show. But in the wake of what happened on October seventh, I found myself defending my presence on this planet as a Jewish person and having to feel a lot of anti Semitism because I chose to speak out against violence against Jews as a pregnant woman and as a postpartum woman
who also had severe postpartum depression. Oh it was yeah, and I didn't know it. I just felt really bad and breastfeeding felt really bad, compounded by being told you don't deserve to live, your family doesn't deserve to live, like on a daily basis. Because I was choosing to
speak out. It took a therapist, so I haven't done a toime therapy, but I did seek out like a postpartum therapist, and it took another woman saying to me, like, that's a lot to engage with, like you might want to just set that down because you're just like an open wound and you're taking in a lot of really negative energy. And it was pretty awful. And the brain fog Israel and I do talk about that in this special just why you have mom brain and you can want to specially for it, and how it is a
scientific thing. You're not some selfish woman who only cares about her kid. And I carry it with me even now this is a year later, and like the things I forget, mid sentence, I was like, I guess I'll just I guess I'll just float away in the sea because I'm not a functioning person who can count to ten.
Well, I've got four kids and I oh my.
God, yeah, yeah, I've become the person that says the name of every single person in the house. That's right before I lie on the person that I'm referring to. Even sometimes I do it to the dog.
Oh, and that's in the special, and it was funny. It's only in becoming a mom that you realize all the things that you need to be forgiven for. For making fun of your mom and all the times you call your mom you're so dumb, like this woman. All she wants is for you to be happy and healthy, and you're just like, Oh, you said my brother's name, not my.
Name, idiot. It's funny speaking of dogs. Blanche reap rip Blanche.
You all over this office. And here's Tianfoo.
She's actually right here, Oh, tian fos.
It's great for all the people listening for the podcast.
Oh no, it's beautiful.
We want to see all aspects we've seen you hate Darlin, hate Darlan. So I saw a lot of you and Blanche as a lot of enjoys of you did. But it was before I had a dog myself. Oh, I've only had a dog for a year and a half. That I got through my eldest son and his girlfriend right. Strangely, but your lovingness towards your dog was always a very was like a gateway into you. And the fact that you opened yourself up in an era when I don't
want to say celebrity, because you're not really that celebrity. No, no, but do you know what I mean? That tendency to close yourself down and to close your world off and
to protect parts of yourself, which is understandable. You seem to do this thing where you cleave yourself open, where you're like, come look at this this special that I saw, which was one of the best specials I've ever seen, which is actually about you making your special and you did the military show and it was all about you putting the show in the documentary.
Yes, great, You're the only person who's ever mentioned it to me thinks.
It's actually extraordinary if people are interested in comedy, I heartily recommend it.
Thank you.
But when you were doing that, I was struck by a couple of things. One that you make up your material in front of a live audience.
Yeah, that's incredible.
Yeah, I thank you. I'm like blown away that somebody said that, thank you. I just do the writing on stage. You find it on stage.
Yeah, So what does that mean mean?
If you've got a period like when you've had when you're having your kids or you're pregnant or your postpart or whatever, and you're not doing the spots.
Where's the material coming from?
I don't know. It is something that I don't ever sure myself to come up with anything, because you're allowed to have sort of latent periods where you don't generate anything, Like I'll take a six week trip and be like, I wrote zero jokes about that, right, It's okay to just take like to be in an intake period and because you're processing it subconsciously whether you realize it or not.
So I'll have a thought and I'll kind of like jot it down and then I compile them all and I will find a very small show and I'll just kind of read like keywords and I'll just kind of come across it and express myself in that way. And so perhaps that's that's just the way that I work, is that it has to come out of me, like I find the words on stage, and I base it off of everyone else's energy. And as far as the love for the dogs goes for my dogs, I mean,
everybody loves their dogs, and I got Blanche. At a time when I was alone on the road, I just started touring and I was like, well, I'm want to have a dog with me, no one else. I'm going to get eat alive for this. But nobody else had their dog. Now subsequently, everybody brings their dog. But I was the first one lying to the airlines of those like just I smuggled her on. This is before everyone had like an emotional animal support paperwork that no one
has anymore. But I just loved her so much because she was my everything. She was my boyfriend, she was my best friend. She was with me, And I think that's really great for girls or anyone really, especially when you're single, to have this thing to take care of, because it's something else besides you, a reason to go home or reason to to do a lot of things
because you're taking care of this animal. And I really just believe you have to find things in the world that you love so much, and the more that you're open about how much you love those things, the more it like lights of fire and other people, and it inspires other people. I didn't do it. I didn't want her to. I didn't care if she was famous. We think it any brand deals. I just think I love my things so much, and I love to share the
things that I love simply because I love them. Iced coffee included, yes, geez.
Because Blanche loved the stage so much that you would be playing these amazing, these huge, huge like auditoriums and theaters and she would trot out on at the end of your set kind of to say thanks guys.
Okay, So the dirty secret was there was a piece of turkey being held at the other side, and she was so ravenous. She would just like see it and she would make a beeline. But she was okay with it, and she was used to it. She just knew she was going to get that chicken at the end of it.
Well, I thought, how extraordinary does she realize the relationship that you have with your fans, because a big thing that I know, much like in like having a dog companion, you were kind of it was foundational in your relationship with your fans that they started making you like gifts, Yeah, bringing you toys and little lego figurines of yourself.
And I mean this is just one that was near somebody painted this. Who they're all all behind me. I mean, you're absolutely right. There was something about and she was a beautiful dog, but like how consumed I was with loving her, she became part of the lure of whatever the fantasy world I created, whether it's a party goblin or a she dragon. And I think people like to be invited in to the world that I create, and I need them because who wants to create a world
and be in it by yourself? And so it was like this sort of ongoing living piece of art that I'm still in with my fans, where I create the comedy, then they digest it and give back to me drawings, letters, paintings, whatever. And to me, it's such an expression of love to be like I saw what you loved, and I made you something that I thought you would love because I loved it.
It is.
Exactly And I you know, I think we live in a world of consumption endless, like just buying, rebuying, Sheenhaul's clicking, wiking, moving on, scrolling. So when people actually stop not only buy a ticket to come and see me, but make and by the by no means, is this a requisite?
You can just show you don't need to bring a gift.
Yeah, I'm like, where am I mitten. But it's just truly never lost on me that people take their time and their money to make me a drawing or write me a card, or make me a gift bag, and it will have all these inside jokes in it. And it's this like little world that has been created by my fans that actually I get to live in, and it's it's a very special thing.
So, you know, because you are involved in this, a lot of women in particular, I think we'll identify with this output of energy regardless of what happens on stage, but in life, out output of energy. You're looking after other people, you're loving people, You're trying to look after yourself, You're trying to be the best you can be.
How do you replenish your energy stores?
I probably couldn't have answered this like a year ago, because I think I was always pretty bad at it.
But I.
Try to spend time with my children, and I know for a lot of women that takes away your energy. But if I'm ever in a place where I'm really angry about something, whether it's frustrated with work or the world, just having this beaming little child in the other room, it's kind of like a neurological reset. I always make time to work out, and then I found pilates after Sierra was born, and it's something that I enjoy doing.
I love the results, So I carve out that time and I've been trying to when I can, because Lord knows, I have enough mornings that are crazy. Have a slow morning, and sometimes you don't work out, but just like really like drink the coffee and just kind of be. I think we don't ever get enough time to, like sit in your living room that you paid for with the creativity and love that you have for comedy, but I have and just kind of sit and sometimes you scroll
on your phone, sometimes you don't. But just being in the house that you paid for, surrounded by the things you paid for, without an obligation to go anywhere for a morning is a very calmon thing. And I know that sounds small, and it's not, you know, rock climbing and painting and all the things that I'm supposed to do and have like a real hobby. But for me,
it really is the little things. I very much look forward to, mundane mom things like taking my daughter to gymnastics or stuff, just because I cannot believe that she's here on this planet. I tried to like get so this is. I tried to get like spiritual with her. This morning, she was taking a dump on the toilet and I laid down on the carpet in her room and I looked and I was like, Seerah, can I ask you a question? She was like uh huh, and she's like grunting out a poop and I was like,
do you remember Heaven? And like, I think there's that part as a mom where you're hoping she'll be like I do, There's a beautiful place where there's no pain, and she was just like she just goes like ah no, And I was like, okay, we don't get spiritual.
Well, it is funny because there is that period, particularly with I don't know if you breastfit or not, but when in the night when I would be breastfeeding one of the children, you know, they do those really weird things when they're babies where they look like they're looking at someone in the room who's over your shoulder, and you know there's that school of thought that they because they've come so freshly from wherever they've come, they're still
connected to it. So if you had said to me that she said yes, and I saw you know gran.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I was hoping for, not really hooping a little bit more.
Maybe, but maybe maybe we're victim blaming here. Maybe asking him while she's pooping is not is not the ideal time.
Well, it was no time I get her sit still. Yeah, I was like, do you remember heaven?
Yeah?
I mean I think that all these things are possibilities, and of course the time when they would remember that is the time that they can't talk. But I think, you know, for someone like me that travels as much as I do and works, and it's not to say other people don't this, still, I've come to appreciate the stillness of the nothingness for a little bit, whether it's just rearranging your bathroom or putting your clothes away nicely.
Because I was on the road for and am, but was on the road for so much of my life. Like I remember in my twenties and thirties, I was just traveling Union and you're sick and you're doing shows, and I would just do shows like fifty weeks a year or something because it's not like nowhere else to go, Like, it's not like you're going home to your wife and kids.
I would buy magazines like homemaking magazines around the holidays and just fantasize about like, well, when I have a real home with time to be in it, I'll decorate
it this way. And I would just look at them and make Pinterest boards, just wanting like some of that warmth and blanche was there, which was great, but like, yeah, sometimes I've just stop and be like, oh my god, all the things that you thought about you have It wasn't about fantasizing about a family, but like the feeling of yeah, I just love doing mom stuff.
But you know what, my when I think about that when I hear you say that, is that I think you created a vision board for yourself and you carried that around with you.
Yeah, I think.
There could be some merit to that. I also think in the back of your mind. As women, I think there's just certain things that you know, Like I just knew one day I would have kids, and it wasn't I wasn't obsessed with it. I'd never talk about it. My mother never pressured me into having kids, and I knew I would get married a little bit later because my mom did and I knew i'd have kids a
little bit later because my mom did. Like to me, it just seemed like it's something that's going to happen, and it just will and indeed I and it just did. And I don't know. Again, that's one of those things that's so fraught because then you have women who are like, I want a baby, I'm turning thirty eight. What you know, it's tough and it sucks, and it doesn't happen for everyone.
But I do think now it's very difficult. And you touched on this earlier. It's difficult to talk about your own experience, Yeah, which you have to be able to do for your work. You have to be able to do that. It doesn't necessarily have any ramifications, implications, insinuations for the people that are listening about their life.
Their choice is their situation.
Well, I think that we're past that the way that we consume understanding in social media because and it really is, especially as a woman, and I almost want to say only for women, Like I said, my life choices, my affirmations are not an indicatetment on your choices. I think people get very sensitive, you know, if I'm like and I love doing pilates, and it's like, well, I'm some of us are overweight and can't. It's like, okay, well
I didn't say you couldn't. Sometimes when women are strong or are just simply living their lives, people get insecure about that. I mean, we all do it. We all want to look at someone. If I look at a celebrity who's like, yeah, and I just drink lemon water and that's why I have glowing skin, and you're like, okay, it's also genetics and like a nine thousand dollars laser.
Like sure it isn't.
I do think we weaponize women's ability to simply state what works for them, and then what happens is women we get bogged down by having to qualify everything with oh, and by the way, like if this doesn't work for you, then that's that.
And men don't have to do that.
If I say I love being a mom, I shouldn't have to qualify it with Also, I have help that I pay for, Like yeah, we have all these stutter steps to lead up to the thing that is simply just as saying here's what I do, here's how I got here, here's how I live.
Oh, my goodness. Okay, I that is so true.
Yeah, men don't do that. Men don't go oh, I love my kids. Sorry, if you haven't been able to have kids, I'm checking my privilege.
I know that men never do that. That's a woman's racket.
Yeah. And you know, we as women, when we qualify things, it is all out of a fear of being called a bitch. It's all out of a fear of being called out of touch or this or that. But the truth is people are going to have those critiques and those criticisms no matter what you do. Like I am simply saying, like I work really hard, and I work a lot, and I like being with my kids, and I can just see I know that the types of
response is that that can elicit. And then the other side of that argument is, well, don't worry about what people say, and it's like, I don't. What I'm worried about is people who think that they have the right to even come at me. Yeah, we're simply existing. That's the exhausting part.
Yeah, Because also you're trying to anticipate way the breach will be, and then you're trying to fortify the breach before it happens. So you're living in a state of perpetual anticipation of something that hasn't happened, but you know will and it's.
Designed that way. These things are designed that way so that you do make yourself smaller. Oh, I know that if I do this thing, I'm going to get called these names. So I won't put out this video, I won't go on that show. And so it is a constant practice to remind yourself like, no, I'm going to just keep showing up. And I guess the answer at the end of the day is don't read the comment section, which I definitely stop doing.
I know, but sometimes it just sneaks up on you.
It sneaks up on you. But yeah, I mean, I guess I'm endlessly floored by the simplest things and how it just really upsets people. And the answer is, it was never about what you did. It's about the fact that you did it right. It was never about you having kids. It was about the fact. It was never about what you said about your daughter. It's about the fact that you have a daughter. It was never about fact. It was never about the pants that I wore in
a different animal. It's about the fact that I dared to as over forty where anything that might challenge your expectation of what a woman should be doing.
But the people who love you enjoy that celebratory aspect of it, And so how do you find a way to lean into that and block it.
I just have a.
Sense of humor about it. I'm like, the pants are great. If you don't like him, that's like, I don't even talk about it if you don't like him. Yeah. Yeah, The fact is I did it, and it's done, and you can watch it. You cannot. I hope if you hate the pants you watch it anyway, It'll be aview.
Someone said to me once I heard this story once about and I think it was like a NASCAR driver or whatever, and for some reason, the crowd booed him, the crowd hated him. He was one of those villains. And his son, he had a teenage son who got really.
Upset by it. And his dad said.
To him, son, fifty of the crowd with you and fifty percent of the crowd against you.
You've got one hundred percent of the crowd.
Oh truer words.
Yeah, And so I remember that all the time. Yeah, I mean, it's not always comforting, but it just is your pants have got one hundred percent.
Of the crowd we got. That clip has over thirteen million views on Instagram. It's like the most view clip on the Amazon Prime account. And it's funny you say that sad about one hundred percent of the audience. As a comic, the way we see it is if you have two thousand people in the audience and one isn't laughing, then you've lost. Yeah, yeah, and you're a piece of shit.
Yeah yeah, it's easy.
It's it's just that is so easy to focus on the exception. The rest of my conversation with the incredible Eliza Schlessinger after this short break, stay with us. Who are the people in your life that you draw from that you can fight in. That are you're like, aside from obviously your husband and the kids, but that are your like safe harbor, your shelter, the place where you go to refuel and restock.
You know.
I have different friends for different things, Like my best friend not even positive what Michelle does but does not in Hollywood. I'm not positive.
Forever.
It was like this girl went to like the London School of Economics. She worked for the government, like it's it's that, it's that it's stuff I couldn't do. And so when I really want to complain about something, maybe about my family or like a personal thing that has nothing to do with work, I will call her like it is like we're both walking our dogs and I'm like, oh my god, and listen, and my brother did this,
and like she understands that. So that to like purge myself with that and talk about things that are like just like best friends, like bullshit, who cares and just or she'll call about one of her relatives, like the deliciousness of unpacking and analyzing and like throwing around the word narcissist as if he had.
I don't even know what that would means. Now, by the way, well I'll tell you what.
Most people are incorrectly diagnosed as such. But everybody has access to therapy podcasts, and so everybody we've like pathologized, anyone that might anyone in anything that might bump for you is now show slighting or whatever. Yeah, and that's a really sad part of It's a really sad side of women.
I said gas lighting to my husband the other day, and he got really angry.
He went, I never want to hear that wood. That's a wood that well.
Sometimes men don't like being told, being called out on the thing that they're doing.
I don't think he has exception. He takes exception to the fact that he does it. He just doesn't like that term. It's not you saying the beat in your show about patriarchy, Like there's some words a lot.
He's like, just I'm trying to work with you. That's what it is, not guess fighting you. There's no full guests. I have different bucket people for different things, and I actually keep a small circle and everyone's allowed in it. I'm not like a social butterfly, but I'm a very loyal friend and I'm very I like to let people in. But if you annoy me, like it's over. And so I have a lot of special women in my life that I know I convent to about certain things, and
I only keep people in my life. Is what I mean to say that make me feel good. I don't do the like I have a friend and she's always saying rude things like the amount that women suffer interfriend wise, like with their friend group, to me is a very foreign thing. Like if if I feel like it's not
like a reciprocal relationship, like end it. And I give that advice on my podcast all the time, like this life is too short to have friends that make you anxious or make you feel bad about yourself, or like make you feel like you're not the main character your own story. And so I think anyone that's in my life is someone that I could turn to with any problem, male or female.
Okay, I want to ask Eliza anything.
Okay, I'm ready, Just so people know listening. People write into my podcast with all questions about anything from my parents don't like that, my girlfriend is gay, I got a weird boyfriend. I've got a weird bridesmaid. My boss is half a monkey. So we get advice everything.
All right.
So I've got a girlfriend, and this is reminiscent of like one of my favorite things that you do, the party goblin. But I've got a girlfriend who is I'm going to call her a party bully.
Oh yeah.
And what I mean is she's great. I love her.
She's so fun and she's so you know, she throws parties and she's always like planning things. But because she's separated and so she half the time she doesn't have her kids, so she has a very different looking week than I have. And she's always like, now she's started doing this thing where like you meet her someone, she's like, you're better of Ubered, You're better of Ubered.
You better not have driven.
And I'm like, I've got to get up, but I've got to get up at quarter past five and take two boys to basketball practice.
Anyway, She's like, so a few.
Of us realize that we're all having the same experience with her. Yeah, I don't know, dear Aaliza, I don't know what to do.
Do you what do you want to do? You want to do? Like in terms of you know, she's going to be like that, your friend is having a renaissance. Your friend is separated, Yeah, and she is using her friends to replace the partner that she had, So you are filling that gap for all the things she would have done with her husband. Right, So she has this free time, and she has free time without the kids, and she wants to party, and this is normal when women get a divorce. It's like, all right, well I'm
back on the market, let's go. But you're not in that place, so it's not fun for you, and you wouldn't even mind if she was like that. You don't like, like you said, the bullying. Yeah, And what it does is it makes you anxious because now you're like, okay, well, are you gonna like give me shit about this? If the whole time we're together, I'm supposed to be getting drunk.
You need to tell her that. You need to tell her that the amount that women don't just like say the thing, and I can't say I'm always great at it. You need to be like, what's her.
Name, Oh yeah, Jasmine, you.
Just sit down with her. I know you don't do it. You don't want it.
We're all scared because oh she had a party recently and three of us caught each other's sneaking out of the house.
I mean, you.
Gotta get good if the Irish goodbye, and a lot of people do it from social anxiety of not wanting to be like, okay, by we're too old to give each other shit for leaving, Like we're just too old for that, Like that's what you do in your twenties when you need your girl there because you want to talk to a guy. You don't allow it. You just leave and if she gives you shit, be like, what are you giving me shit for? Like make her say it. If she's like, where are you going, you'd be like,
I can't. I have to take my sons to basketball. What do you want me to do? And like let her say to you like how I was hoping you'd get blasted with me on a Wednesday?
Yes, exactly exactly. Her party goblin is strong?
Is she is it like that when she's drunk or when she's sober, because she's.
Not when she's sober, and when she's drunk it gets even more so.
She's insecure and she's sad.
Mm.
She's a little set one hundred percent.
And that's why we're not going to speak the truth to her, because this is not the time at which she can handle the truth.
You don't have to speak the truth insofar as you don't have to say like we're feeling the filling in the space where your loving husband used to be and you're trying to reclaim your twenties, your truth can be I just want you to know, like, I love seeing you hang out with you, but it puts it makes me feel anxious because you always want me to party more, and I want you to like I'm giving you all that I have. Yeah, you could say that it doesn't have to you don't have to do the psychology of like,
here's what we're replacing in your life. But you can be like it makes it unfun for me because it makes it feel like it wasn't enough that I came to this party, and I promise you, like I'm saying, as late as I can, but I can't always stay, or you do what I actually would do. I would let her spin those wheels and then I would just leave whenever I want and not answer the phone. What's she gonna do? Not be friends with you?
She needs you, her husband's gone, I know, say, I know, say she can't remember.
That's on your side, her alcoholism that you could do that. She's never gonna call you tomorrow and be like why did you leave? It's in the moment. She wants people around her, and this breaks my heart because she's lonely and she wants to create a party. And I get that, but you need to just be okay with like, I'm just leaving and it is what it is like knowing you can just accept how she is and then just
move on from there because you're not. I'm not going to be able to change it unless you do want to have that talk. I've given you three options.
Very just you're an option factory. I feel bad for her, Yes so do I.
And actually she's divine and I really respect the party throws because you know, after a certain age, people start.
Going, I'm going to have a milestone birthday. They don't have parties.
Remember in your twenties, you'd like have a party because you had got a new couch or yeah, you know.
And I love her, I love her further some sort of social celebration.
Then I think it's just the good with the bad. I do feel like as women were always trying to like tweak our friends, like she'd be great if she just did this, like we're all whole people and for all of those great things, Like this is like the weird, desperate kind of party goblin side of her. So let her say it, let her be mad about the ubering, and you can just be like I didn't. Can I still stay like you can just meet it with honesty,
be like I did my best. She's like, I'm just kidding, I'm just pulling your lady, and then leave, let her go fall into a punch bowl.
Just leave.
What's she gonna do? Not be friends with you? No I needs you?
Was that an Australian partty goblin?
It was? It was? I have to like think about it. I lived for New Ze. I lived in New Zealand for a month, and I got really good at their accent. But you can only have one in your head.
Yeah, that's it's slightly different.
The New Zealand excent is slightly different.
It's smaller, it's really small, and it's squished down. And but a Sydney accent is it almost sounds like a southern head an Australian accent, like the Sydney is like a twangy accent.
Yeah, go on, you got it.
Maybe Melbourne's more in the front.
Oh come on, I look at you. It's like Eliza too Little.
I got my name from that from my fair lady. Actually, did you? I did? Now I can't stop doing it. I have watched my fair share of katherin Kim.
Oh.
They'll be very thrilled by that, as we all will.
And also I saw, you know the thing about your fans giving you gifts. I saw they give you tim tams, And I'm like what does he's done that? Oh?
Yeah, well, so one of our best friends is named uh Was and he's Australian, and so he introduced me to those years ago, and then I would go to Australia, load up and now I'm good. But it is always it's always a delight to go down there, yes, and be there with the people.
Was that your mate?
Well, Eliza Schlessinger, your tim Tams and your world of weights. When you join us, I think in April you're going to be all ouse.
I will be there April twentieth, twenty second and twenty fourth. I'm coming down for a proper flat white.
And when you're in Melbourne, you've got to order a magic.
Oh I have a huge coffee person. It's a magic.
A magic is like a double restretto and it's got like less milk.
It's stunning.
Is that it's an espresso though? Yeah? Yeah, let me let me tell you the secret.
Okay, Oh hang on, this is big talk, little.
It's not a secret. It's an admission. As an American, I travel a lot. I want to go to your country. I want to do the customs, want to ether thing. There are ways that I crave a cup of drip coffee, and the whole world is like, oh, you mean espresso and you want shitty cups of shrip coffee.
You want to know less cup.
It's so hard, and they'll be like, oh, an Americano, And I'm like, it's the one thing. It is hard because I don't like espresso, so it's hard for me.
You're going to be wandering around with the best cafes in the world looking for a Starbucks never never never.
But and I get it. I get that it's an American thing. Ris coffee is different and so but I just can't give myself over to espresso. I'm just not there yet.
You'll get there, We'll get there. Yeah, you'll get.
There, Eliza, because you've got first world experience with the brain fog and the subsequent kind of inertia and immobilizing that comes with it.
If people are listening.
And they feel that, what is what do you suggest for them.
In terms of regaining creativity and momentum feeling better. I think people really overlook the importance of actually just doing something. Like when I was pregnant, like I still worked out, I still walk, like I still moved through the motions. So if you're a writer, still right, it doesn't have to be inspiring prophetic. You can just sit down and just for ten minutes for stand up. I get up there and even if I'm doing old jokes, you find little bits in there. So much of it truly is
showing up. I really, you know, put on your sports brad, just get yourself into the gym. Even if you only did half, that's more than many could even do, which is kind of a theme that we started with at the beginning of this and giving yourself a break. You don't have to force it. And so that's my answer is a big part of my life. I think it was George Carlin that said, what is it eighty percent but ninety.
Percent yew Business show?
But what he means by that is like just putting yourself in the place and just doing a little bit, and that always begets more. And so I'm a big believer in at least going through the motions.
Sometimes you've got to stop wanting or waiting to feel the impetus to do it, or like for working outs, don't wait to enjoy it.
Just stop doing it.
Just start doing it. To start moving your body, just start writing something down do something creative adjacent. I hate that I'm the person that's like take a walk, but like the word opens up or get into it and feel that misery and write it down. I have documents on my computer about times I felt really horrible. It sounds like I'm crying. I'm not power or something. It's all valid art, and so you don't have to You
can just look at things with different lenses. But part of the practice of this art is knowing when to capture it and not dismissing thoughts as frivolous because they're coming through your head for a reason. Even if they're bad thoughts.
Well, that's just life, isn't it, even beyond whatever your field of specialty is.
Just show up, get in the car, put on the wig, the lipstick, just go. Nobody thinks you're as awful as you do.
Where are we going? With the wig and the lipstick? Where are we going?
It's very sexual, It's not a properb I don't always said where.
Thank you for sharing yourself with us when you're spent thank you? How great is Eliza? I mean, I've known a lot of comedians in my life and career, and what I find most remarkable about her is her ability to respond to the moment, to really be alive in it and improvise, almost like you can feel the wheels of her brain turning her half a person brain looking for the funny this whole time.
And remember that's.
The version of her that she considers half a person, the whole person in all her glory. Will be in Australia live in April, and we'll be popping all the links you need to get tickers in our show notes. And her new comedy special A Different Animal, which stars Eliza and her Pants, is coming out on Amazon this week. I got an early copy and trust me, you are going to love it. Oh.
By the way, that documentary I mentioned is called Over and Over.
I don't know why more people don't ask Eliza about it because it is actually brilliant and a real behind the scenes peep at how a comedian puts a show together.
I highly recommend you check it out.
The executive producer of No Filter is Nama Brown, Senior producer is Grace Rufrey. Sound design is by Jacob Brown, and I'm your host, kateline Brook. Back with you next week.