People at the Core
From The Greenpoint Palace bar in Brooklyn, New York writers and bartenders, Rita and Marisa, have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar.
People at the Core
Comedian, Storyteller and Hot Blonde: Carly Ann Filbin on Writing, Relationships and Golden Retrievers
Writer, comedian, and storyteller Carly Ann Philbin takes us on a journey through her creative process, revealing how she navigates the complex terrain between performance and writing. With refreshing candor, she shares her experiences self-publishing her memoir "Tears of a Blonde" after realizing traditional publishing timelines wouldn't align with her life circumstances.
"I have dreams of fame and glory, but I don't need it," Carly confesses, perfectly capturing the spirit of creative independence that drives many artists. Her illuminating Play-Doh analogy brilliantly explains how we all contain multitudes but must focus certain aspects of ourselves for storytelling: "We're all juxtapositions... a persona is like a machine. All the contents you want to talk about, you put through this machine... and it comes out with a strong voice." This framework offers listeners valuable insight into developing an authentic voice while crafting compelling narratives.
The conversation takes unexpected turns as we explore the challenges of dating in New York ("I wonder if we say it's hard to date in New York, but really it's hard to date men"), the limitations of therapy and meditation for creative people, and the profound lessons we learn from our pets. Carly's vulnerability when discussing how her dog Saturday has become both her child and a vehicle for reparenting herself creates a deeply moving moment of connection.
Discover Carly's "Written in Brooklyn" storytelling workshop, where she helps others transform life experiences into narratives for both page and stage. Whether you're a writer, performer, or simply someone navigating life's complexities, this episode offers wisdom on finding your voice and sharing your unique story with the world. Follow Carly's journey and find your own creative independence beyond the gatekeepers.
Written in Brooklyn writing workshop
Pour Me Out Substack
Tears of a Blonde: Almost Completely True Stores of Love and Heartbreak by Carly Ann Filbin
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core.
Speaker 2:And it looks like we're recording hi, rita, I love how you every time we start the sweaty the piece.
Speaker 3:No, you start off very quiet and timid.
Speaker 2:It's kind of cute well, I, I, I do think it. It harkens back to snl and like sweaty hi hi you know the girls in the NPR with you know Alec Baldwin and sweaty balls yeah, yeah, how are you doing good? Yeah, how are?
Speaker 3:you and.
Speaker 2:I like magically imagine myself wearing like a vest with like fruit sewn onto it or something like kind of kindergarten teacher anyway. So, anyways, anywho, hi, hi, how's it going? Pretty good, sweet, pretty good. Um, we have a guest, we do. I am going to read her bio. That was actually provided by her and, because I love it, I'm going to read it All right.
Speaker 2:Our guest today is Carly Ann Philbin, who is an incredibly beautiful writer, celebrated comedian and renowned storyteller. Her solo shows this Doesn't Mean I'm your Boyfriend, coke Ass and Let Me Break you Up, an anti-dating game show have garnered acclaim at the Upright Citizens Brigade and theaters across the world. She is the author of Tears of a Blonde almost completely true stories of love and heartbreak from the world's hottest comedian. Carly is also the founder of Written in Brooklyn, a community for all things personal storytelling. Actually, I started following your Instagram I think that's how we've connected and I don't know if it was suggested, I clicked on or whatever. So I'd been kind of Instagram stalking you before we actually met and you read with us for our Palace Reading series a few months ago. But yeah, I've been following your Insta and just liked your vibe, so I'm really excited that you're here and I can ask you all the things that I've been wanting to ask.
Speaker 4:Can I talk now, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's humbling hearing.
Speaker 4:you know, your what you wrote about yourself back to yourself, like you never think you're going to hear it, you know you just send it off in an email. I just want to clarify one thing when I say like incredibly beautiful writer, I don't mean the writing is beautiful, I mean the faces. And I know you guys can't see it, but the face is incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 3:I wish that you guys could see it, because you are incredibly beautiful. It's incredible.
Speaker 4:You guys would die.
Speaker 3:I will say after seeing you read, it's also incredible writing. Thank you.
Speaker 1:But it's an incredibly beautiful writing. Yeah, beautiful writing, sorry.
Speaker 3:I was dying. I mean oh yeah, you guys, I, I you know me, I don't push a lot, but I definitely push your buck. I mean, everyone should check it out yes, I can. I ask you guys a question, yeah sorry, I know this is like you interviewing me, but do you guys?
Speaker 4:are you guys, um, like how do I say this Like extra generous with people when they're on stage, like, do you clap when you think you should clap and laugh when you think you should, or are you kind of just like? I can't take it.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's a really great question and I will say this that so we used to have this right. So I was in touring bands for probably 20 years of my life.
Speaker 1:Like rock, rock bands, yeah, yeah like rock and punk band.
Speaker 3:So we toured all over and we always had this running joke with like my friends and other bands. As if you saw a band play and they weren't good, you would just say, oh my god. It looks like you're having such a good time up there, like oh my god. So that would be like.
Speaker 2:And people would crack up. People would crack up when you say that to them.
Speaker 3:But yeah, you're so passionate, so I kind of still stand by that, yeah, but and try and hide my faces, got it?
Speaker 2:I gonna speak for Rita. She's very awesome. I try and take from her like if she has a positive thought, she shares it like with strangers on the street, and that's something I try and embody with you. You're like you're killing it in that dress, girl, your hair is amazing and like I'll think those things. But she actually says it like boom and just like walks away.
Speaker 3:She like compliment, bombs people all the time I want to be that person. Oh, because they like, they're like. We need to get to be that person?
Speaker 4:Oh, because they're like we need to get to our 7 pm reservation. I know exactly, but I'm like.
Speaker 3:I'll literally have my headphones on and just be like, oh my God, you look amazing, and then put my headphones on and keep walking.
Speaker 4:I want to be that I want to be that.
Speaker 2:So I've tried to pay attention to if about myself or others and like get away from that and focus on if I have a good thing. If I have a good, yeah, why keep that to myself? Share the positive, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So she's very genuine with that, to the point of just like a kick reflex yeah, it is um, and then with yeah, with performances, obviously we we try and create a safe space and we want people to work through things, and we often present things that are not fully fleshed out ourselves to get it out, to get a response, or to just get it out and see how it works or how it sounds for us, right, and you're like, oh, I read that, that doesn't feel right, that feels awkward. Now I'm gonna work on this, um, so we give that grace to everyone.
Speaker 3:And then there's shit that we honestly just fucking love and like we can't hide it that you can't not show joy like your piece, for instance.
Speaker 1:I mean it was awesome.
Speaker 3:I mean, it really was. Thank you so.
Speaker 2:I want to kind of jump a little ahead because I have a question for you, because you are a proclaimed writer, performer, actor beautiful writer, incredibly beautiful writer, incredibly beautiful writer, yes, and self-proclaimed. So my question for you is a couple parts, so you wrote this based on true stories book. You are a performer that in your book you mentioned about it's a persona that you put on, but it is based on you but still different from acting, where you're playing a completely different person. Do you distinguish between performer and actor?
Speaker 2:I would call comedian as performer, where it's part self an amplified version of aspects of you versus actor, where you're taking someone, a different character, on completely. That may or may not be connected to you, and then, with the writing, are you writing the book as the comedian I mean, it's very funny or are you writing it as carly Carly, carly, oh deep, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Well okay, let me try to answer. Sometimes I get lost in my own words, but I would say, unless somebody wants to hire me, I'm not an actor. I'm not a good actor. I studied acting, I wanted to be an actor. I have a decade worth of auditions under my belt and I don't. I realized in the pandemic I wasn't an actor because I don't have the passion to dissect a character. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:My love for performance is storytelling, is comedic timing, connecting to the audience. It's, it's humor, um, so, so, so that's what I think of acting in terms of like persona, like either on stage or as like written in my book. I think that's like a part of me that I'm heightening, that I want people to see. First, um, I teach in my class like one, I teach storytelling, and one lesson I teach is yourself as character. Like we really I believe we really are like we're one, we're like there's like two things about each of us that make us different, like we're all kind of basically the same and so you can't write a story with all of you in it. Like I, um, you know I clean my apartment almost every day, but like I'm super messy, uh, like I am a very confident person, but I in the past tended to crumble when it came to like romantic situations. We're all juxtapositions. We're all Gemini's.
Speaker 4:Uh so you kind of have to like lead with one thing heighten it. And a persona is just like a way it's like it's a persona is like, it's like a like a Play-Doh machine. So, like here, like all the contents you want to talk about, you put it through this machine of like, oh, I am looking for love everywhere, or I'm'm cynical, or I see everything from a dad's perspective, and it, and you know, like it. So the there's all this content you want to write about it. You put it in the persona machine and then it comes out with a strong voice does that make sense?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, like it's still your dough, yeah, and you can throw it back in the machine and make a different.
Speaker 4:I love that you're continuing.
Speaker 2:Yeah it, it can come out star shaped.
Speaker 1:It can come out as like spaghetti, exactly, but it's focused.
Speaker 3:But it's focused and it's all made. It's all coming from the same source. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that too.
Speaker 4:I'm a very beautiful writer.
Speaker 4:In terms of who wrote the book like Carly the person or Carly the persona? I. I think there's both like and like. I don't know when we talk about the creative process and when I listen to people talk about their creative processes, I feel like they're they're streamlining it a lot, when really it's just like, I don't know, it's messy, my like. I write in present and past tense, I'm emotional and I'm like flipping. I think it's more me and it's 100% my tone and voice, but like who has the heart at the moment. Sometimes it's the person and sometimes it's the persona.
Speaker 3:Yeah so.
Speaker 2:I know that's not a clear answer no, no, no.
Speaker 3:I think that makes total sense to me. It does and it's complex, but we are complex, you know, and as creatives it there are so many levels.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely there's sitting alone writing and then there's reading what you wrote out and the performative aspect sometimes changes right Like reading your work, Rita, and then hearing you perform.
Speaker 1:Two totally different things.
Speaker 2:Totally different, and you have one also, congrats. You have really mastered the performative aspect. I think you've really, over the last couple of years of doing the readings you've really like honed in on Rita as performer of the written work.
Speaker 3:Right, but it's still completely different than what's on the page, I mean if you see my book. It's crossed out and moved around and you know there's the performance piece and then. So I totally understand that?
Speaker 4:Do you think if somebody like were to see you read on stage and then read your book, do you think they are like would?
Speaker 2:hear it the same, think it would change I think it would change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think they would. That's a really tough question, but yeah, yes, I think they.
Speaker 2:They would hear the similar voice, but it's definitely more heightened do you know and I think same with you, like after seeing you read, but then also reading your pieces you know, I think you you hear we hit certain um what's what hit certain um we highlight certain aspects in in public, right same in our personal, in our personal lives, right we, we highlight certain things, but it's still there, yeah, and that's that's something else I wanted to ask you about having written the book, versus being a performer and a comedian, where you have that reflexive relationship with an audience, this call and response, that there's an expectation of consumption and and emotion from the audience, and like writing the book versus that space, like, do you enjoy one process more than the other or does that something that registers with you? Um?
Speaker 4:um, I I love both parts of it. I love writing. It feel as like someone who's done comedy and improv for the majority of my life. It feels there's no better feeling than to have, like, hold your own words that are done, with all the mistakes in their glory in your hands. That is a feeling for me. Sometimes I'll just hold my book.
Speaker 1:Like not, it's not even a pride thing.
Speaker 4:It's like, ah, this is work, because, like in my class or I'm getting off on a tangent, but like by the second class, they have to title their stories. Because it's like, if it's if you have a title, it's a working piece of art. If not, it, if you have a title, it's a working piece of art, if not, it's like sentences in your phone app that you're not taking seriously your journal, your scribbles, your notes.
Speaker 4:I know that's not what you asked, but I will say that I love them both for completely different reasons. I don't want to live not being on stage. I love, and that's another reason why I quote unquote I don't want to be an actor because, I need the, the audience, I need the back and forth. I don't want to pretend like they're not there.
Speaker 4:Um but you know, again, coming from this like world where, like when I was auditioning, I had no power, um, doing improv, it's done. The second you get off stage like having some like working on something trying to make it the best it can be, uh, finding the joke is so like the writing process is. It is hard a lot of the times and lonely, but so enjoyable for me just even as like a creative act.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I know that they're intertwined for me, but I see them differently. It's like baseball. It's like, um, like, actually like pitching a baseball and um, like, let's say, hitting a baseball that's the thing to do in baseball. They're two different skills, but they're in the same game.
Speaker 4:You know what I mean, so I see them so differently, but I will say you know, I'm reading some stuff from my book at shows and I've noticed that I'm like rewriting a little bit, because it sounds a little too overwritten than how I would say it on stage. And though, like when I'm reading from my book, it's, it's, it's a comedic story, but it's formal because I'm reading it. Um, but yeah, I'm like, oh, there's three jokes right here. If I was, if if I wasn't reading from a book, I'd make one joke like uh, things like that, I I try to uh but you can, you can edit yeah, all the time.
Speaker 3:That's what I learned, you know right?
Speaker 2:chapters yeah, for performance they're condensed. And then I'm like, well, fuck, this is tighter, it's more bookended, I'm gonna send it out and hopefully somebody will publish it. Yeah, exactly it's just a different. The performing of the work is a different mindset and we both have like, really, yeah, hacked through our stuff oh yeah, I mean trial and error all the way.
Speaker 3:But you know, mine was just as simplest, as simplistic as reading to my dog and just being like that didn't fly she redacts shit literally in her book.
Speaker 2:It's like full of like I'm just crossing out everything like where I reconstruct things and I put it into a bookended little piece, or I try to, if it for this, for this series, that's honestly very validating to hear yeah I'm thank god I'm not going through like my chapters and stories and being like what the fuck like?
Speaker 4:I'm usually like oh wow, I wrote that that's cool, but yeah, it's even though my tone.
Speaker 2:I was so careful to construct it how I speak yeah, how I speak really comes across like you did a great job with it, where it feels authentic and it doesn't feel um too forced or mundane, I got yeah. Like it's a dead character and you're like just hitting the joke. No, I think you really come off.
Speaker 3:Thank you, as as you like, your genuine self.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's a really hard thing to do.
Speaker 1:I mean, we see a lot of people really try and struggle with that.
Speaker 3:So you should really be proud of yourself and I'm not just saying that like I really appreciate that. Such a lovely job and you know, I highly suggest to all our listeners to like go see you because, it is, it is a delight. And you know, we're just, we're not even, we're just in the beginning.
Speaker 4:But I gotta.
Speaker 3:I gotta to your heart.
Speaker 4:Thank you. I I listen.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate that um, so let's backtrack a little bit. Um, I did read your book, so I do know some of the answers of this. You are originally from the midwest, like Rita and myself but I don't identify as midwestern.
Speaker 3:I don't okay, that's interesting, I don't as well, and so a I don't Okay, that's interesting, I don't as well.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of people try to relate to me.
Speaker 4:They're like you know, because everyone's so nice. I'm like my mom was in the military, like we didn't you know, it was just very different, okay.
Speaker 2:Tell me more. As a Midwestern I'm cutting you off. Talks about Minnesota and like having a deep relationship. Plus, she has so many people from Minnesota who live here with her, so she gets to like have that connectivity in her built life here in her choice life.
Speaker 3:I'm jealous, um yeah, I don't want this to be about me.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I'm just, I'm a narcissist I love it Similar kind of like starting point and the different trajectories that we've taken but have all ended up here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but for different reasons and how we view the past. So I'm very interested in how you say you know, so you're born there military family like tell us more like how do you, why do you feel that you're not Midwestern and is it because you just had such a different upbringing?
Speaker 4:or well, I, first of all, I'm from cleveland and I think that I know people sometimes use the the like phrase great lakes region, but that's really what it is like. I don't think we share the same like family ideals as oklahoma you know like people use Midwest. That's they were. That's referencing most of the country really.
Speaker 4:And it's just different, um, uh, yeah, so people and I only say that I mean who knows what everyone's Midwestern experiences, but I say that because sometimes people want they'll talk about their family and like people pleasing or niceties and I have no reference for that Like that's not how I was raised and I didn't even know what a people pleaser was until like five years ago.
Speaker 1:Like it was never.
Speaker 4:I never knew honestly for better or for worse, knew that people didn't just say what they were thinking. And also I grew up like doing theater and stuff, so I didn't live like a picket fence type of life.
Speaker 2:I grew up Mexican in Michigan.
Speaker 1:So we didn't have any.
Speaker 2:Bay City, right in the crack of the thumb. Unfortunately, Michigan's gorgeous Michigan is gorgeous, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to choose my words as well, because I, just like I, have a lot of respect for people who are living the lives they choose. Absolutely Not that anything's easier or harder, but, like sometimes, I fantasize about living in a small town For sure.
Speaker 4:Or in the backyard, but I think I'll always be a little disappointed that I didn't come from a place I felt really connected to. That's like it doesn't influence the only, the only thing, ohio. The only way it influences me at all is because I wanted to get out of it so bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Like and so from a very young age I was like clawing, like I was like I got. I had an anger issue so mad that I was there. I didn't like the people I was surrounded by. Yeah, I wish I was connected to it a little bit more.
Speaker 3:I mean I totally understand that I've lived in so many places. I mean I just, I get like a seven to 10 year itch and I just run you know what I? Mean. So it's like what? Missouri, minnesota, nashville, paris, portland?
Speaker 1:New.
Speaker 3:York. You know I run, I run, so I kind of understand that feeling of like Are we coming up on year seven?
Speaker 2:Fuck, Please stay no.
Speaker 3:I'm on 11 now.
Speaker 4:Oh, are you staying here in New York?
Speaker 3:In New York. I'm on 11 in New.
Speaker 4:York. I'm on 14?. I'm on 19. On 19?.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm on 19. On 19?.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not a runner. Well, I ran to New York.
Speaker 3:So how old were you when you moved here? Not to interrupt you. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4:No, that's okay, I just turned 21. Wow. So I wish it was like right after high school, 18. But I took a little time with college, which, by the way going to college at all is my biggest regret. Um I finished up college here at 21 um is it?
Speaker 2:you lived at the Y yeah, the YMCA she's. She's our second guest who lived at are you serious, sean?
Speaker 3:oh, yeah, wait.
Speaker 2:Sean who. Sean.
Speaker 4:Welsh did, did they go to Marymount Manhattan College?
Speaker 2:no, he moved. He's a little bit older and he moved here a little bit younger than you. This was in the 90s.
Speaker 4:Oh, so he was like, cool, like my college rented out three floors at the YMCA as dorm rooms.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I was kind of confused in this.
Speaker 4:I know I didn't want to make it sound like that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, 21 though I can't imagine I would be dead. I lived in New York. Why? Or would punkness party Party? Yeah, no.
Speaker 4:I've always been so young, so like I've always felt so young. So when I was 21, I was like 12. Like there's no way I was partying, do? You know what I mean. I was like reading and like braiding my hair, you were 40 year olds at, yeah, yeah, exactly, I was the opposite.
Speaker 1:I'm so jealous. I'm such a troubled child. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:So I was just looking for something to distract me.
Speaker 4:I wish I was a troubled child. No no you're perfect. These are not by choice.
Speaker 2:Thank you um dark years. We're all beautiful, so you've been here since you're 21 I mean that's wild. I just turned 40. Wow, I was gonna say like all five years now um.
Speaker 4:No, I turned 40 um a month ago.
Speaker 2:Welcome, welcome to the club. Thank you, great to be here.
Speaker 4:New box to check yeah, yeah, 40 is great actually, yeah, I'm really looking forward to it to tell you yeah, it's, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:The only thing that's not cool. I'm sorry this is gonna bum you guys out, but you're both very beautiful women, but I have noticed that like people literally look through you I I kind of sometimes enjoy the invisibility.
Speaker 2:You know I was sexualized young.
Speaker 3:I had yeah double.
Speaker 2:I had c breasts at 12 years old. I started my period at 10. So I was in this body that got attention that I didn't know what to do with. And yeah, I still get hit on and like cool. But I also like get totally ignored by like the 30 something year old Chads. And it's kind of sweet and in some ways, like I can just move, I get frustrated and I get angry. I'm like did you?
Speaker 4:you just walked on me yeah, right um, but anyway here's why I'm upset about getting 40, because by I guess I thought by now I wouldn't be breaking out. Like why am I breaking out?
Speaker 3:I'm 40 yep, what the?
Speaker 4:hell.
Speaker 3:I thought that was like the one, like the cool thing to look forward to when you're like oh, no more pimples, no no, it get it like turns again and it's awful oh, it's so.
Speaker 2:Your period gets awful. Your skin gets awful, hurting your neck while sleeping yeah, oh, I know bending over to pick something up and I have they stretch every morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's smart, that's smart I have to do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not even a choice.
Speaker 3:Oh, chin hairs, oh, I've had those my entire life has been with me. Nancy and jen have been with me since I was 19 yeah and a boy found him I was like laying in his lap and he's like what's this?
Speaker 2:and tried to move it and it was stuck. It was my chin here, it will disappear. I check every morning and then by mid-afternoon bitch pops out like one inch long, yes, like within an afternoon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know it's crazy, it's crazy, it is, it's super fun, but it's a new activity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It is new self-care yeah, exactly self-care I mean 40, it's beautiful yeah, there are a lot of there, like you said, with everything pros and cons yeah, yeah, yeah you know, the zero fucks yeah, zero fucks is great, you're in the club you're embraced and people are like, yeah, whatever, she's 40, she can just like not give a fuck.
Speaker 3:Cool great okay, yeah, love it okay, love it and you look great, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4:What is it Beautiful? I don't know, I can't remember I'm writing. Wait.
Speaker 2:Incredibly beautiful writer.
Speaker 3:Incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 4:Put that on my tombstone.
Speaker 3:Just incredibly beautiful. And writer, yeah, and performer, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about self-publishing, okay, because I also chose that route. Do you sell your book here? Do I sell it here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the bar she needs to. Oh, I should, as her supporter, agent and cheerleader.
Speaker 3:I want her to put it out more places what made you decide to self-publish?
Speaker 4:Well, I guess like two major things. The first thing is I just don't think. Well, memoirs are hard to sell and I am, since the like, definitely. Oh god, all my answers are so long. Let me start with the shorter answer. I was at a writing like long answer. Okay, okay, I'm gonna forget to tell this answer. I was at a writing and I I wrote answers, Okay okay, but I'm going to forget to tell this answer. I was at a writing and I wrote like a 55-page Proposal.
Speaker 2:Yes, like.
Speaker 4:I did all of that and I was at this writing. It was a residency, it was three weeks long and it was like my goal is to finish a proposal like whatever and query. I had some chapters and I queried like 10, 15 agents and this one agent got back to me and was like great, we would love to read the entire book. And I guess I didn't know that I needed the entire book written.
Speaker 4:I was like, really focused on some of these chapters and also the proposal I had just gotten dumped my famous breakup and I was at this the graphic designer no, not him. No, no, I think he's maybe married now. Good for him. He lives in Greenpoint. They all all max is living in Greenpoint. Uh, it's been tough for me to come here traditionally do you ever see?
Speaker 1:okay, okay and so I, because I got I got broken up with that.
Speaker 4:I we lived together. I had nowhere to live. Thank God I got this writer's residency but like right after the writer's residency, I was going to go to Europe for three months solo travel and so I was leaving for Europe in a month and like a week at that point and I'm like I don't have this book. So it kind of was like, like I was, it wasn't smart of me to query these agents and then leave.
Speaker 2:Not have, yeah, not have what I guess I've heard.
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't as much as I have tried to research all of this I don't know as much about like traditional publishing and if you needed it, so you need to have your memoir written before, or no.
Speaker 2:Yes and no, yes and no, and it depends on the agency, depends on the publishing, and yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:So I get, and maybe I didn't have enough faith in myself thinking that anyone would. I don't know. I was really out of my mind at that time in my life so, but, that being said, it was always in the back of my mind that I could do this by myself. I have been a creative person for a while, like my livelihood has been my shows like uh, I make my money off of my own effort and creations and it's fucking sick and I really want to understand that below.
Speaker 4:I'm sure, like I, you people would be astonished. They knew how. I mean I lived the entire the first year of the pandemic without internet. Okay, so I it's not like I'm not glorifying this at all- but I do it so I always knew that and I got like I have gotten really close to getting my own tv show twice. I was at Upright Citizens Brigade for a while. There was one point where I had two of my own shows, two shows Carly and Philbin at both theaters and nothing came of it.
Speaker 4:So I was like I was very prepared to like be gatekeeper free my entire life, just do it myself. So, yeah, it was really bad timing. But also I just have to wonder I think I'm a, I think I'm very funny and I'm a good writer. I think I'm a, I think I'm very funny and I'm a good writer. I don't know if I necessarily have the most uh, life-changing, moving, interesting story. I just know how to write jokes, so I didn't know if it would sell. Like I'm like a white, blonde woman from Ohio, you know, like I have divorced parents and that's like the struggle I have you know.
Speaker 1:So I just didn't know.
Speaker 4:I'm not saying like I don't deserve to be published, but like I don't. I just didn't know if I could sell it. And with this, you know, with this show, this TV show, I almost had. It was a show I had been doing live for years and I got this network came, they saw me, they put me in touch with the production company and for over a year and they were everyone involved was so sweet and smart and talented and creative. But for over a year I was getting notes on this show that I I had been doing for years and I didn't understand the notes. I didn't. I didn't want to change I was. So I'm not getting paid for this part of the process.
Speaker 4:So I was like, wow, that ruined the show. You know what I mean, and it felt so weird to go back and do it on stage in the form. It was a year ago, so I was totally fine. Um, self-publishing, um, I have dreams of fame and glory, but I don't need it. I don't need it.
Speaker 2:And I used to think I needed it and I don't have you been able to sell.
Speaker 4:I have been able to sell, but I teach and I have a monthly show, so that's been good.
Speaker 1:I have a network.
Speaker 4:All my students buy my book and people can buy it at my show once they hear it. If I didn't have that, I think it would be a struggle. But I also there has been for a while a lot of opportunities to like buy a piece of me, like, you can come to my show, you can take my class. So if somebody's looking to self-publish, who doesn't have a monthly show, who's not constantly asking people to come out and listen to their words.
Speaker 4:I think everybody in their life would buy their book and they could do okay, yeah, right, right, definitely.
Speaker 3:I. You know, and I think a little bit too, at least for me, it was walking away, a little bit Like I'd been working on this project for so long that there was a moment that I just needed to see the finished outcome.
Speaker 1:Exactly Because it was driving me fucking crazy. Yeah, you know, just to be like okay, I did that.
Speaker 3:This is something that I did and I can physically provide it to you if you want it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know I think about this as, like indie artists, so like, I think, professional artists, at least from looking from the outside at them, they seem to have like a very clear cut timeline, like oh, they, they're, oh, in in three months, their, their album comes out and then they start promoting their tour and then their tour is from January to November.
Speaker 4:And then they might go away for a little bit and then their next project they start promoting and it's a completely different uh you know persona or colors or vibe. And for indie artists it's like well, when do you kind of you try to get this published, you try to get this in print, you try to make this a tv show, when do you kind of like put that project on the shelf and start something new? It's so difficult to like kind of know your own timeline it is and and to be setting your own timeline.
Speaker 3:You know, instead, we just had um someone on the podcast last week, and, and, and he was talking about the importance of timelines, deadlines, I'm sorry, setting up yourself, especially we don't have a boss or a business that is holding you accountable, something that you are the one that you can say oh I'm tired, or this is too much, or blah, blah blah.
Speaker 2:And to create your own calendar, and and and.
Speaker 3:To set your own deadlines, yeah, but that's hard and, and because we're talking about projects, right we were talking about a piece of your life. You know and like you're writing like same with relationships. Right, when do we say this relationship is going to continue, it's going to?
Speaker 2:end, I gave it enough, or like I, you know, I think this, this has had its tenure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, that's a healthy way for you guys to look at relationships. I'm like, please don't leave me, please, please, please, oh my god are you kidding me? Same as a single woman with a dog I was gonna ask are you in a relationship?
Speaker 3:oh, no, no, no, I mean I, I don't think I've been in a relationship in years now yeah, me too which is really hard. It's hard to deal. You know, my last relationship was fantastic and lovely and still a friend of mine lives in the neighborhood. Great human being love his girlfriend emergency contact love his girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Emergency contact, too right. Love his girlfriend.
Speaker 3:But it's just so hard to. It's hard to date in. New York is a big one.
Speaker 4:I really think that I know, but don't you think it's harder to date in like a small town, the smallest town in Indiana?
Speaker 3:I don't know because, I don't know, I haven't done it. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, you know, I guess, I guess, like it's one of those, the grass is always greener. In my mind.
Speaker 4:I think I'm I could move back to minnesota and these men would like flock and throw themselves at my feet because I am a new yorker that came in and yeah business owner, but that's probably not true either you know I I'm gonna choose my words carefully because I'm manifesting love for myself, but I don't know, I I I think it is of course, hard to date in New York, but I wonder if we say that it's hard to date in New York but really it's hard to date men.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you're 100% correct, because listen like and we're so happy for you, Marissa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel so weird because I feel like I am you, you know 25 and it's crazy to have been with my partner for 18 years and I've had a whole world of relationships and love and stories and things, before you were 25.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, I told you I'm like, so I feel so young.
Speaker 2:So at 25 I was like you, I'm like so, I feel so young. So at 25 I was like I can't do math um.
Speaker 4:I got married at 33. That is the time we've been together.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we've been married for 11 years and we've been in a relationship for 18, but yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I, I, yeah, I've, I've had a hard and fast, yeah, yeah, yeah In the early years really hard and fast.
Speaker 2:The first boy I lived with I was 19. I was engaged to be married to someone else at 22. And then, you know, there were the slut years in between and it was a lot of processing of a lot of shit and trauma.
Speaker 4:You say slut years. Yeah See, I don't think I ever had that.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 4:I think that's a lot of reasons why I wrote this book is because when I was sorry to totally transition, but when I was um doing like comedy a lot like every night I I just wanted people to think I was getting laid.
Speaker 2:I wanted people to think I like had that quote-unquote power and so because you were hot, smart and funny, funny like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I thought it did something to my self-worth because and also like media makes you think everybody is dating and everybody's having casual sex and like and a lot of people are like a lot of people are like having these crash and burn relationships and I think maybe I was traumatized. I was not.
Speaker 2:I was not like a hot fucking sexy thing People who don't like have those experiences, romanticize them yeah, and I think I was really doing that and so upset that I wasn't.
Speaker 3:I was in young in new york and I wasn't um, you know it wasn't, you weren't living the girl's life exactly like, and that's what we were watching at the time right, yeah, we're watching sex in the city. We're watching girls. We're watching broad city. We're watching these women go out and experience these things, but are we actually experiencing them or are we living by curiously?
Speaker 4:Or is it just fun to write about it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, I mean, I agree with you completely. You know, I look at you, know I've been engaged three times. I had a 10-year a 5-year.
Speaker 4:A 5-year. See like I get so jealous of this and you're probably like no, but I'm the opposite.
Speaker 3:I get jealous of that. I get jealous of the 20 year relationship where it's like I exactly. But in my mind I know I, I've tried and I can't do it. It's just not in my personality, but yeah.
Speaker 4:But what I romanticize?
Speaker 3:is the white picket fence and the kids and me I used to been in that you know, yeah, know, yeah, you should do ayahuasca, I have oh really we should talk about this, because I have as well yeah, I've only done it once, but me too but I'm finally ready?
Speaker 2:I haven't been ready and I'm in a place where I can do this yeah, I would love this.
Speaker 2:Um, my, my is opposite. I was in my like, late teens, early 20s, and I was living in mexico and I watched felicity and I romanticized about the normal, quote-unquote american experience of being 20 years old and going to nyu and having these normal experiences as this you know, bright eyed, bushy tails, you know college kid and that, to me, was the most fantastical opposite of my life and that is what I coveted, like I was doing all this crazy shit and I wanted to be fucking Felicity, wow.
Speaker 3:You were Felicity in Mexico it was a little darker.
Speaker 2:Felicity did not cross that level, but yeah, I mean later on I'm in my like late 30s and I do go to NYU or my early 30s and I do go to NYU, and it's a very different experience, however, but like that was the symbolism of what American, like 20 year olds, were doing, was Felicity and it felt so far and foreign from me and Felicity, I was watching skins like these kids are fucking crazy.
Speaker 3:I gotta go to England. You ever seen skins?
Speaker 2:no, I've never heard of it.
Speaker 3:oh, oh, my God have you no, oh my God, everyone watch Skins.
Speaker 4:Okay, it's incredible. I have internet now, so I will stream it. Oh, you do? Yeah, no, I do, thank you.
Speaker 3:Well, it's traumatizing. It's just like English children, english teenagers, running around being psychopaths and they tried to remake it for America MTV did. It lasted like half a season. They're like we can't watch this. I mean, it was getting like boycotted and parents are going crazy. I mean it's just like oh my god, yeah, it's nuts, wow.
Speaker 2:Anyways, I feel like, okay, I want to make sure and plug your workshop thing and I I would. I would like to understand a little bit more about the genesis. It's called written in Brooklyn, and you call it a, a storytelling workshop, not a writing workshop. But a storytelling, so there's writing and is there a performance aspect, that is, it's a class or is it a one-off? Yeah, what is it right, I was?
Speaker 4:just talking about it the other day, I'm like I should like I don't know. To me it's so simple.
Speaker 1:I'm like how do I sell this?
Speaker 4:I've been doing this for years and I still am like how do I sell this? So okay, Can I give you the longer version?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Maybe you guys can tell me?
Speaker 4:what my log line is. But yeah, written in Brooklyn is like it is classes. Okay, the core curriculum. It's there each seven week classes.
Speaker 4:There's one-off workshops. I just started doing like a journaling workshop in person. It's so much fun but it's so. There are different classes, different levels. I teach a memoir class, I teach a storytelling show sorry, a solo show class but it's all like based upon your life, so like the source material is your life. So if you came in and you're like I want to write like a fantasy novel, it's not for you.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 4:Uh, so the, the first class and most of the classes, um, they center around short stories that can be on the page or on the stage.
Speaker 2:Um, we don't really yeah, so lucky that that rhymes.
Speaker 4:you know um we I don't focus for it on the stage, but I started this because I was this, because I had these solo shows, and people were like, can you teach me how to do that? So I'm like, okay, yeah. And then now there's readings, and maybe there were always shows and readings and I just didn't know, but there was at the time kind of only the moth.
Speaker 3:I love the moth. So inspiring when moth and uh yeah, so inspiring when I was young, like when, as a first thing, I have mixed feelings about everything, not just the moth uh, but I come from a comedic background.
Speaker 4:So and I learn I made so many and I toured with, uh, like a comedic storytelling show called awkward sex in the city that I write about, and I did these solo shows and I um, just really made a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 4:So I'm like what I just so I created a structure that, like each class we talk about it like a different pillar of storytelling, and so there's a word count, so they're short, they're shorter stories, um yeah, and so a lot of people do want to go on to perform it, but they don't have to ever want to perform it to take the class. Okay, to perform it, but they don't have to ever want to perform it to take the class. And then my monthly show is themed and I almost always have my students do it because, again, I created such a specific structure and I've been doing storytelling forever and you guys have a lot of trust in your people and you get good people. But when I was doing, I had a storytelling show before the pandemic and you, I mean, at my show you read, you, uh, at the pre pandemic show you did not, you didn't read from like a paper.
Speaker 4:You, you memorized it and it was we were going so long and then you were like it was like where?
Speaker 1:are you you?
Speaker 4:know, and I just kind of realized, like not everybody has a performance background and for me myself I do have a performance background but it just feels better to spend more time writing, like making the material better or writing more material as opposed to memorizing. That's where my nerves come from, or like the stress is the memorization. So yeah, okay, so back to Written in Brooklyn. So yeah, it's like if you want to write about your life in first person.
Speaker 3:that's what the class is for Cool and where is it? And about how many students do you usually have?
Speaker 4:It's so since the pandemic. It's all on Zoom Okay, it sells out at 10 people per class. Okay, the solo show and memoir classes are tend to be like less than 10 people. And then my in person workshop, which is called Journal Club, which is like it's for if you want to generate more material or if you're just like I, kind of want to be creative and I don't know like where to do that you offer structure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, theme, theme prompts, and then a lot of like group chats and stuff, and that's in person at farm one in prospect heights where my monthly show is.
Speaker 3:Okay, cool, cool. That's so cool. I'm so inspired by all of that. Yeah, we'll put links to everything. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So do we want to talk about ayahuasca? Do we want to talk about ayahuasca? Do we want to talk about sankara, or do we want to do random questions?
Speaker 4:What's sankara?
Speaker 2:You wrote about it in your book no cut this.
Speaker 4:Sankara, oh, from the meditation retreat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pizza in the closet, yes, no, I don't want to write about that. Okay, but okay.
Speaker 4:I will just say for people listening, I went on this Vipassana 10 day silent meditation retreat and the technique is I don't want to dig into it just because it's a sacred technique and I wrote about it to my best interpretation and I'm not no expert on it.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 4:I thought your metaphor was. Thank you, because I changed the metaphor in the book, like several times, so we have to talk about it now.
Speaker 2:So it was a concept called Sankara and you explained it like coping with something. Like you had a pizza and you put it in your closet and you left it there, ie an issue or something or a hurdle or a blockage. You have it in your closet and then it's there and you kind of know it's there, but then you like throw on some clothes and throw on some shit and you forget about the pizza. But the pizza's fucking there and then it's rotting and it's like molding and getting growth shit underneath your pile of clothes and all your stuff because you didn't deal with.
Speaker 4:Wow, this is the fucking fresh pizza word yeah, and then the pizza starts smelling, and then you, you don't, you're like what the fuck is that smell? And then there are rats like going into your closet and you're like, oh, my god, that fucking thing. So it got so much worse because you didn't deal with it when you could have. And so, um, basically this and just please know I'm extremely simplifying this and again, it's from my interpretation this is not maybe how an expert vipassana meditation I I thought it was a really good metaphor.
Speaker 4:Okay, thank you Well so basically this meditation is so it really connects the. Do you guys meditate like for a long time? I pretend to.
Speaker 2:Proper meditation no.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't either.
Speaker 4:And I think a lot of people I don't know. You know, meditation is one of those words that's vague and broad, but to me it does mean something specific, and everything else is mindfulness, but this type of meditation is just. It's very uh, like you're sitting still for sometimes, like I mean there are breaks in between, but like 10 hours a day oh my god, like you are on fire, like you're. Everything hurts, but it's all connected to an emotional pain of sankara so like, as you're like learning to sit still and sit with this pain.
Speaker 4:You're like breathing in and out, and oh, that's intense, it's really, really intense, but I got a chapter of my book out of it yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. I don't know if I would recommend it, but I like doing things that challenge me in like a ridiculous way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like ayahuasca, yeah, definitely yeah well, the pizza example just reminded me such a it's just the unbearable lightness of being right, milan kundera's yeah, essentially right that concept right, that your weight is heavier than your light.
Speaker 2:Exactly, right, exactly, that's that's why it was like your. Your example of that was really something that I was like oh, this is a very relatable, very tangible concept to to understand and no, I don't. I go through bouts of like sitting, but I'm more of a moving meditation, like lifting weights and things is like I can't really think about anything else because I could hurt myself yeah so that is when I'm most present and not in my head.
Speaker 2:Right that for me is the closest I get to what people have in stillness of sitting is I require movement which makes me focus to not hurt myself, and I'm physically straining and then I'm focused on my breathing, so I'm very connected to just my body and then my mind can go blank.
Speaker 4:I feel that way with running, I, I I'm very uh, yeah, my mind, I have a very strong mind and body connection. But yeah, somebody like uh, I don't know like a expert meditation practitioner uh, that can't be the right word. I don't think that they would call that meditation yeah, like meditation is like when your mind is blank, yeah right, but like of course, it never can be and then it goes off and comes back.
Speaker 4:So I I don't even know what you would call that, because you're definitely clearing your mind for ideas and things, thoughts to come in, I don't know yeah, it's the closest I can come to maintenance, totally, I don't know. Like, I don't know, like, like meditation and, um, I might say something really controversial right now, which is this idea that like, oh, we should be meditating, and this idea of, like, everybody needs to go to therapy, and I'm like that sounds like something we said in like 2016.
Speaker 4:Like not that therapy is like. Therapy is great for a lot of people and there are a lot of people that could really benefit from it. But I don't know, I like stopped. I was like I can't go to therapy anymore. I don't want to be sad at 10 pm you, you know what I mean. On a Tuesday night again, um, because we like, we're New Yorkers, we're creative people. I'm not saying that therapy wouldn't benefit, like traditional talk therapy wouldn't benefit.
Speaker 4:But like lifting who says lifting weights isn't doing like letting you process it in? A different way, like I feel that way about running like I didn't want to, just like, and also, by the way, I already wrote about this in my morning pages. I put this on stage, stage last night.
Speaker 1:Like I don't need to like now tell you.
Speaker 4:So I feel like this person is like constantly updated about my life you know Right, for a hundred dollars an hour yeah. So this idea that's like meditation and therapy are the two best things you can do for yourself. I'm like, maybe, if you're like, a 19 year old Midwestern male.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably, but not from our, you know, beautiful, beautiful, creative, incredibly talented, gorgeous selves.
Speaker 3:yeah um, all right, let's do a question. Let's do a question, are you?
Speaker 2:ready. So I'm ready. We we were talking about this prepping you beforehand, so I have a box of random ass questions and I won't say where they're from, because we don't get paid by them Spencer's gift.
Speaker 4:Oh, my God, it's a penis key chain.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so we don't know what the question is. They are about life, love, money, all kinds of weird shit. So we just pull one out and nobody knows and it's stuck in the middle.
Speaker 3:These are big cards.
Speaker 2:They're big cards. That's what she said. All right, okay, okay, I think this is very easy and innocuous.
Speaker 3:Describe a simple pleasure, uh, hanging out with my dog, my dog. Wait, I love watching movies with my dog and just being on the couch and just him, like he doesn't even have to be cuddled with me. Just near me, it's so nice.
Speaker 4:Well, it's just annoying, because that's my answer oh shit. What is your dog's name?
Speaker 3:wilbur wilbur the cutest little slobbery bulldog ever yeah, how about your dog?
Speaker 4:your dog's saturday yeah, her name is saturday, saturday um, and she's.
Speaker 2:And she's a pandemic baby. Huh Post post-pandemic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I got her. 2022, actually, okay, I don't know, are we post-pandemic? I don't know. I feel like that's a cuss, I don't know what to say. Yeah, I mean, I just got it it 2020 no, I, I so, and you know, just cut this if I already told you guys this.
Speaker 2:But I, with my breakup, I was living with him in Greenpoint and he had a golden retriever and we were talking about maybe getting another golden retriever so I had this like and Saturday was, you had your platodian idea puppy.
Speaker 4:Oh my god yes, and we both like that. We together were calling Saturday this idea. So, yeah, I wrote about it, but it was kind of like he got the couch in the apartment and I got the idea of a golden retriever named Saturday and I found out you won. Oh, I, 100 times over, have won. But I found out that I did shop. Yeah, and I can talk about that all day because it's actually know I did, I did shop.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I can talk about that all day, because it's actually okay to shop and I don't know why people I did Okay, good, I have an English bulldog that I wanted a specific dog that was good for the city. Exactly, you know I wanted a really lazy, chunky, adorable, fucking awesome dog, and I got it in Minnesota. So listen, I'm right there with you. Okay, good.
Speaker 4:And I hope to adopt one day. But it had to be a golden retriever puppy. I had one with my ex. I wanted it and I was so jealous of the bond that they had, and I'm not going to have human children whatever, but my dog happens to be my old dog's niece.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, so they're it's like cosmic.
Speaker 4:So my simple joy is like I mean she, my old dog, wasn't because of my like really took after my ex but like wasn't allowed on the furniture. The dog wasn't cuddly and I like cuddled Saturday since I got her and she is. I mean she doesn't understand the definition of personal space. She is so cuddly and I feel so lucky that.
Speaker 4:I have this cuddly dog and like, when I think about like, oh, why do I want a lot of money? It's I want this like house upstate. So then, like I can just cuddle with my dog and on days I'm just like, I'm like I have it now.
Speaker 3:I have it today.
Speaker 4:I'm just going to go home and cuddle with her, and she is a gorgeous writer as well. I cannot wait to see a picture by the way, oh my gosh, I'm surprised I don't have her.
Speaker 2:She's the best thing that's ever happened to me, so she's showing her tattoo of Wilbur, who is back facing looking over his shoulder with his balls.
Speaker 4:So why didn't you get him spayed?
Speaker 3:Well, actually he got really sick his first year and they said he wouldn't survive. So it was still to this day. I ask them like can I get him fixed? Because they said you can get your dog neutered or spayed at any time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Every time they're like it'll be $25,000 or just let him have his balls.
Speaker 2:So we chose to just let him have his balls, because there's the danger of putting him under.
Speaker 1:Oh my God.
Speaker 3:This dog cost me $43,987.
Speaker 4:Don't even say that, yes, sir, because I don't have, I don't have insurance Uh. I don't either. I'm about to lose mine. Okay, we can't get it. We can't yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I got. I got my insurance um because of her older brother who uh passed away a few years ago. Did you have a dog. I have a rescue who happened to be fostered.
Speaker 2:I spent months looking on pet finder and I saw this video of this like underbite, little goofy thing and I was like I gotta know you. He ended up being fostered six blocks away from me by a woman who taught for the blind. Okay, um, so he was a year and a half and I got him, loved him. We moved here to green point and we had talked about getting another dog, just so that when we were gone that he'd have somebody around. I'm at work, my husband calls. He's like there's an adoption fair at ps9. I was like I'm not getting a.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I'm not getting a boutique store dog. He he's like no, they're hosting an adoption fair for dogs rescued from Korean meat farms. And then he shows me a video of everyone. I was like I'll be there in fucking 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so I go in and this girl is holding my now dog, zelda, and she's probably about four months old and she's looking at her like inspecting a purse she might buy and she's like I don old. And she's looking at her like inspecting a purse she might buy and she's like I don't know, I don't know. And I'm like looking at her and secreting. I was like put her fucking down, put her fucking down. And she's like I don't know. And she goes to put her back in the pen and I was like I'll try her out. And I picked her up like bigger than a little bigger than my hand and I asked if we could foster to make sure that the two of them got along yeah, did you bring your dog other dog to the?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah and you know he was excited just about new things.
Speaker 2:I was like it's different when you're at home and like she's actually still there and brought her back and people are like she's your fucking dog you're not fostering and yeah, so they got along the two dogs yeah, in the beginning it was more like oh, excited, playful, and then they ignored each other and then they were just like true siblings, like if she was nervous or upset he would be immediately in front, like taking care of her. Um, she got him anyway yeah, um cute so yeah, she just turned nine last month.
Speaker 4:Um yeah, Is that your simple joy? You don't have to that's her.
Speaker 2:I mean anything.
Speaker 4:Wait, so everything revolves around her so, that's, we all have the same answer.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say that I think that's a great way to end it.
Speaker 1:Tales that we all listen at the end of the day, man, we all our fucking dogs and and they're lifesavers, I mean honestly mine literally was like it's mine literally was as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know like when, whenever I'm like having the stuff, ken's like just go home and hold zelda, just snuggle zelda. Yeah, I'm like, okay, I'm like I'm having a bad, I'm having a bad mental, he's like just go hug, just go hug zelda we should and it always works our dogs on.
Speaker 3:Oh, we should absolutely our dogs to this podcast, absolutely all right babes you can adopt or shop. Just get a fucking dog yeah, just get a dog man. It is a game changer, it really is, it's my first time as an adult having, like I, had dogs as a kid you know, but I never had one that was just mine, that I didn't share with a partner, yeah or didn't share with my parents, or so this is my very first like my dog, like just mine same no one can fucking take it away exactly and it has been a game changer.
Speaker 4:I know and just the, the joy and people she's brought and like people. People are like I know you guys. I sense that you're trying to wrap this up and I'm gonna say something about my dog.
Speaker 4:No, you're like dogs are like such hard work and they are and they are, and especially like having a dog by yourself. And I have a she's almost three golden retriever. She let me tell you like she is the energizer bunny on espresso. Like she has so much energy, she jumps. She's crazy. But, um, like I tell people, or at least I think it to myself, I'm like but but you can put like a price on joy like, yeah, like if you okay.
Speaker 4:So let's say, you bought her whatever the adoption fee and then like their, whatever the, the price of their food, the price of their shots, but then then that's it and you have unlimited joy.
Speaker 2:Joy like that, people they go their whole life seeking you know, I think actually it was Ricky Gervais who said the love of a pet, of an animal, is the most pure thing there is.
Speaker 4:It's unconditional. There's no fucking ego.
Speaker 1:There's no ego.
Speaker 2:It's literally. You can even abuse and there is still love.
Speaker 3:I know, I know we're never gonna go there and john wick and all that shit um never saw it, barely know it.
Speaker 2:um, basically the whole franchise started because terrible people killed his dog and you 100 understand murder, slaughter and vengeance for four fucking films because people killed this dog. Anyway, anyhow. But, yeah, like the love of our babies, our fur babies is the purest thing.
Speaker 4:There's nothing they could do to make me angry. What my dog makes me angry every single day, but I mean like really like there's no, there's no ulterior motive or, oh my God, my dog manipulates the shit out of me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know what I mean. Like it's different.
Speaker 2:We have different experiences.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I see you too. I'm like wait a minute, I don't know, my dog is naughty. I mean Jake would piss me. I get where you're going.
Speaker 4:Yeah, of course, of course, what I was going to say is this might be convoluted, but I didn't expect that. Having a dog, I am now in a I don't know position of authority. Sometimes I say mom, but my sister calls me her captain. I don't feel like there's a special relationship between a human and a dog. I don't think I'm her mother. It's hard to explain, but for this, what I'm about to say is I didn't realize. Oh, I am now the mother of a child, but I'm also reparenting. She's also me and I'm reparenting myself.
Speaker 4:It is so bonkers. Like to also is this making sense Like?
Speaker 3:sometimes, like when I scream at her, I'm like remember when you were screamed at when you were our kid and what that did to you. Yeah, exactly, it's such a mind fuck. Yeah, you're reevaluating everything that went through. You know you're like living through them. Yes, you know, I feel like I said the most basic thing and I was acting like it was profound but, I just didn't expect that.
Speaker 4:I thought I would have like a little dog to like be on my couch or whatever. But like what I have learned and I you know I have lots of opportunities to learn about myself. Like I'm single, I live by myself, I'm a writer, but I, the lessons I've learned from her I could have never imagined yeah, oh no, I agree completely.
Speaker 3:Like the the, I mean the amount of like unconditional love that I have is I always tell that to my dog like I've never loved anything more and I've been in really crazy dramatic love infused relationships. But I honestly don't think I've loved something as pure as I've loved this dog.
Speaker 4:And if I ever get another dog, I think it would have to be like a male, because I don't think I could ever have another female dog at like after her. She's the best of the best, yeah, and I think like having a male dog is like just starting over it's like the same as getting a cat or whatever but like having another female dog is just like well, whole life you're going to be living in the shadow of the most perfect thing that's ever happened yeah, oh, I know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I kind of feel the same only with my boy dog and his giant balls. I mean, I'm just like I've never loved anything more you did motion that you were cupping.
Speaker 4:She did not, she did not fondle she was just
Speaker 3:supporting letting you know that I paid for the balls.
Speaker 2:Well, on that note well on that note um thank you hug your kids, hug your wives hug your dogs yeah, leave their balls alone.
Speaker 3:I guess watch john wick maybe I am gonna watch john wick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just you just need the first one okay, you know.
Speaker 3:You know what did I plug this last time? The peewee doc did I plug it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I plug this last time, the peewee dock.
Speaker 2:Did I plug it? Yeah, you plugged it.
Speaker 3:I think I plug it every time it's so good you plug peewee, I just keep plugging it. All right, which has nothing to do with balls or dogs, yeah, but it is very good, I know.
Speaker 2:But I just thought about it, right on.
Speaker 4:It does have a little bit to do with balls.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
