Out of the Blue-ness with Wendy Liebman (Part 1)

Wendy Liebman returns to help kick off season two of Out Of The Blue, and the conversation moves from punchlines to lifelines – how care, coincidence, and commitment can rewire a creative life.

Wendy opens up about a sudden loss that pulled a community closer, reflecting on how grief rearranges our priorities and reconnects us to people who speak our language. We also wander through Boston comedy roots, the odd alchemy of stage presence making you “taller,” and the perspective that comes from seeing peers skyrocket while choosing to love where you’re standing.

From there, we explore minimalism as intention rather than austerity – "love people, use things" – and how mortality sharpens focus on what truly matters. Creativity threads it all together: Stephen King’s fossil metaphor and Michelangelo’s chisel remind us that art is often about uncovering what’s already there.

Transcript

Season Two Begins With Wendy

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome to Out of the Blue the podcast, where we celebrate the moments in life that come out of nowhere, the moments that change everything. I'm your host, Vernon West, and today truly feels like a full circle moment. This is the premier episode of season two, and it's especially meaningful because our guest today holds a unique and honored place in the story of this podcast. Wendy Lehman was the very first guest of our incredible season one. The guest who helped set the tone, the heart, and the spirit of Out of the Blue from the very beginning. And today she is honoring us by returning as the guest who opened season two. Before we begin, I also want to acknowledge my son Vernon III, who is the creative force behind the Out of the Blue logo design and our theme song. His vision and talent are woven into the DNA of this podcast, and I'm deeply grateful for his contribution. Wendy grew up on Long Island, New York, where her mother knew early on that she was funny. After all, her lemonade stand had a two-drink minimum. She studied psychology at Wellesley College, originally planning to become a therapist until one class, How to Be a Stand-up Comedian, changed the course of her life forever. Since then, Wendy has appeared on the Tonight Show with Carson, Letterman, Leno, Fallon, Kimmel, Ferguson, Hollywood Squares, and more. She's performed in comedy clubs, colleges, theaters, and events across North America and England. And in 1997 was named Best Female Stand-up Comedian by the American Comedy Awards. She starred in specials for HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central, was a semifinalist on America's Got Talent, and was Howard Stern's wildcard pick. She's opened for an extraordinary range of artists from Bill Meyer and David Spade to Ray Charles, Julio Inglacis, Ann Margaret, and Frankie Valley, a testament to her brilliance, range, and timeless appeal. Wendy's our special Wendy Liebman Taller on TV is available on Amazon. But today we're going beyond the laughs into the moments, choices, and out-of-the-blue turns that shaped her journey. Wendy, thank you so much for helping us launch out Out of the Blue Season 1 and for honoring us by opening season two. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I sound back.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I sound accomplished.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

You sound taller in real life. You sound tall.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

I'm five feet and shrinking, but I'm still the tallest woman in my family. So wow. Um thank you so much for that beautiful introduction.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

You are taller on TV. I've never I would never have imagined. You see, you know what I mean? You are actually taller. Your personas makes you seem taller.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

I met this writer the other day, this woman, and she had only seen my face on Facebook and me on TV. And she said, I thought you were six feet tall. I think because I um well, I'm standing on a stage.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

That's true. That makes you seem tall anyway. Right? I used to think of that when I played stages. You know, you got another four feet at least, even the smallest joints, you know. But uh yeah, it's incredible how that works. So you but you know, you are towering over so tall as I know with since our last time we spoke, which was when you had healed at the speed of love. I never forgot that phrase. And I've been telling Vernon to maybe somehow we're gonna have to credit you. I'm thinking maybe a picture of your face with the words healed at the speed of love on a t-shirt might be really nice out of the blue. It might be a cool idea for out of the blue.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Maybe not my face, but maybe that quote and a like a little tiny credit.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Oh, that's fine. Yeah, I'm I'm thinking I'm I was thinking more of like a uh a boss relief kind of thing, you know, not an actual picture, like sort of silhouette or something like that. Silhouette kind of thing.

Healing At The Speed Of Love

SPEAKER_02 4:38

No, I mean I I I I agree with you. We'll we'll do something, we'll do something cool and we'll we'll shoot it by you.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

But I do love that idea. And I I mean I love I loved when I thought that. And that was, I mean, I told you this a year ago. That was when I was recovering from having been hit by a car, and I truly felt the power of um prayer or thoughts, like I really got the wave of all my friends thinking about me, and I was overwhelmed, and uh I felt like I was healing at the speed of love.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

It was it was it was an impressive moment in my journey too, because it was the first episode of Out of the Blue, and I was, you know, I was you know, they say uh contrary action, you know, like I was scared, and but I knew I had to get through it. I had to do this because I started it. You know, when you it's funny when you're an artist, you like it happens to me with songs too. You write a song, you're all into it, you get, oh, I love it, love it. But then you finish, you go, shit, I'm a I don't know if I want to play this with people because it's so personal. You know, it's like I'm gonna bear myself, and if they don't like it, oh I'm gonna oh I'm gonna crawl up and burn away and go into the hockey in the corner somewhere. But you realize that you you have to do it. You know, you've committed the the beginning. I'm at that point, I've always think I think that's one of the one of my positive traits. If I say I'm gonna if I say I'm gonna do something, I generally do it. And I I mean that I think is important. One of our guests later on in the season, that was one of his uh biggest things he said was the three rules that he got from his higher power. One of them was always finish what you start. So that's a that's a that's a good one, it really is. And I've and I think that I did when I did this podcast with you, it was amazing when you said that because I felt like I got a speed, I got my own healing at the speed of light just by hearing that.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So right, well, it's following through.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, it was a follow-through kind of thing, and what more I can, you know what, right after we did the podcast, and I'll never forget this, and I've told this to numerous people that the next day you would were emailing me all these other out of the blue things that came to your mind, you know, and I and I and I thought that was so wonderful. And um, you know, not every guest does that after they they've been on the show. A few have done that, a few have a few have said, oh, now I'm realizing there's a lot more out of the blue in my life. But you were the first one, you kind of did set the tone, you raised you put a pretty high bar for the guests to become so happy.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Well, you're so easy to talk to, Vernon, and you, you know, I've only known you for a couple of hours, right? Other than you know, like only I've only talked to you for a couple of hours, but you you seem to bring out really good parts of me. So I have a feeling you bring out good parts of people in general. I've I've been trying to think prior to this recording that how can I top that? Like healing at the speed of love. And what I was thinking today, and maybe I said this last time, but out of the blue has another meaning, and that is out of sadness, and like you're coming out of being blue. Oh, definitely. And I I don't know if I said that last time, but um pretended I didn't. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

This is seasons two.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Uh yeah, out of out of the blueness, a little snippet, and it could become a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Out of the blues.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Hey, I'm all for merch.

Following Through And Creative Vulnerability

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Out of the blues with when do you leave me? Yeah, that would be cool. Um, yeah, I just great, great. So, what other out of the show me some more coincidences, parallels, things that we call, you know, out of the blue kind of moments. You must have, I know you typed a few last time, so you gotta have had a few.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Right. Those were my coincidences. Um I'm trying to think if I haven't had like a major one in a while, but I had lunch with a friend this week, and I hadn't seen him in a couple of years, and we realized that it's so easy to pick up with a friend because we speak the same language. Like, why am I still friends with him and not still friends with her? Like, what makes it about that other person that you reconnect over time? Um, I meet so many people. So, why is this friend somebody that I am drawn back to over and over again, even if it's a couple of years um that I haven't seen him before? And I think it's because we make each other laugh so hard. Like we get each other. I've always said that if somebody laughs at your joke, you've spoken their language, they understand you. Now, if they don't laugh, that doesn't mean they don't understand you. That means they don't think you're funny or or they just aren't a laugher. But if they laugh, you can assume that that person speaks your language, and um uh so he and I, well, my sister and I have done this for years. Every time we get together, which is not often, but when we do get together afterwards, we write our takeaways, and they might be um as broad as it feels good to go shopping in your closet, things that we have talked about at lunch or whatever. Um and so my friend who I had lunch with and I, we we did some too.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

That's a really lovely concept, though, like leaving a hang and then reflecting on it with right.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

And he wrote back because I I wrote them first, and I said, My sister and I do this, and this is these are my takeaways from this lunch. Things like um you might just something that we talked about. You might fly more than 40 times in a year, and then the next year only get on 10 flights, you know, little things like that. Um I said it took a professional, he's a professional uh makeup and uh makeup artist, said it takes a professional to tell you not to dye your hair blonde, like he told me not to dye my hair blonde. So, like little things. And what he wrote back, he said, I'm crying because you remembered our whole conversation and synthesized it. And then he wrote some of his, and it was just beautiful, and it's like a little memento, yeah. Uh that you have from your gathering.

Friendship, Laughter, And Shared Language

SPEAKER_01 12:07

I find this very inspirational. I have um I've written a song called Love Was Is Came and Went Again. Okay, and in that song, there's this nothing like an long-lost friend, and uh and then they come from uh, you know, and then says something about you reminisce and they and you and you make amends, and then all you talk about all the shit they gave each other, and then but there's nothing like an all a long a long-lost friend, an old friend getting together. And then there's the the next verse was about the nothing like a brand new friend, because you you find all the parallels, and there's all these things that are in sync in your lives. You didn't even know each other, but things were in sync. Like I'm hearing the stuff about the this what you're talking about, Tim. That that's so wonderful. I see that's parallels. I think those are indicative of something to do with the out of the blue, too. You know, there's something in the ether, I think. You know, I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

And what inspired me to reach out to him again, I mean, we see each other on on Facebook and Instagram and like each other's posts all these years, but what made me reach out and say, we really have to get together again was probably inspired because, okay, so let me back up. I had a friend who I don't know how I met him. He said that he came to see a show once. This is 30 years ago, and we've been, I would say good, not great friends, but acquainted, acquainted for 30 years. Um, he's a huge like he loves entertainment and music and comedy. He worked at Disney. He um I had lunch with him and two friends of his who are songwriters. And my friend got up to go to the restroom and I said to these two songwriters, How do you know Gil? And they were like, We have no idea. Like he just sort of wends his way into people's lives. And he was really good friends with Diane Warren, the songwriter. Like we were his two girls, and he would send me um text text messages four times a week saying things like, Did you see Lady Gaga on SNL or send me happy Thanksgiving and always a meme or something funny? And then one day he just died out of the blue, died like he was in his 40s or early 50s at the latest, and I was sucker punched, like I was stunned when I heard, and in a weird way, and I felt this before, you guys, that death brings people together in a different way. Like, I don't I don't know if it's completely agree with that, right? And so Gil's absence, I think, inspired me to reach out to my friend, my makeup friend, and um then you had lunch, then we had lunch, and we had a great time.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

And I was gonna say groovy, I don't know why you had a groovy time, and you're still on that frequency, you can chat right into each other, and um la he gets you, you know, you get him, you laugh at the same things, it's just it's a wavelength of some kind, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:50

And this is still sorry, Gilly's still making connections, even though physically not present.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Exactly, and um yeah, I've now connected with four of his friends, and we'll go to the memorial just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

They gave me a chill, really.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, and I've met people through him because he's brought a lot of people to my shows over the years.

Takeaways Ritual And Being Seen

SPEAKER_01 16:19

I uh it's funny you say that I I knew I know a guy recently, a guy named Bob, his last initial first initial of his last name is B, and I told him I was gonna have you on that podcast, excuse me. And he said, Oh, Wendy, he went to a show with his brother 30 years ago, and he fell in love with you, and he was hitting on you after the show. I'm so embarrassed, he said. Well, you know, I had to pull him away.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

It is number. No, I'm kidding. I'm uh no, but I'm just interested to know who it was.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Bob Barker, I think.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Um, but I'll find out. Well, I was gonna say Bobby Keane, who's he's a comedian from Boston. No, I don't think that's his last name, but um wait, are you from Boston? I'm from Long Island, but I started my career in Boston.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

That's where I that's how I know um your friend Billy.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

That's where you know Billy. Cool, yeah, yeah. And um, there was a good crowd of group comedians in Boston during that era. Oh, yeah. A lot of wonderful guys. Dave Fitzgerald was one of my buddies.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, so many comedians that I love and look up to are from Boston, and a lot of you know, not great ones that have incredible influence. Uh Joe Rogan.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Well, Lenny Lenny Clark went out and did a did a sitcom.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Tony V is one of my favorites still. He's still in Boston.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah, and um Steve, Steve Sweeney, Steve Sweeney, Don Gavin, Jimmy Tingle.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Jimmy Tingle. Um, my favorite comedian is Brian Kylie. He started in Boston and now then he wrote for Conan O'Brien for years, but he's continued to do stand-up this whole time. But you said Joe Rogan, he once opened for me in Rhode Island, and that thought just blows my mind. Well, other people who have opened for me, Ray Romano once opened for me, Jim Gaffigan once opened for me, and I'm like, what happened to me? And then I go, you know what? I'm not I'm not bitter at all, I'm not envious. I feel like I'm exactly where I well, I'm exactly where I am, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

That's right. So I think they say the ultimate and and being at peace with what life is to have what you love what you have have and have what you love, you know. Uh why have what you want, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Like love what you have.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah, love what you have, and you'll be happy. You know, it's it's it's really a question of um, I think there's well, first of all, there's no such thing as happiness unless you have gratitude. That that is absolutely the prerequisite.

Grief, Connection, And Gil’s Legacy

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Um, okay, so I have two stepsons, and I don't have it with me, but um my one of my stepsons lives in Brooklyn and he works on AI, and he's he works at Google, and he is doing another project with animatronics and AI on the side. And he came home for the holidays, and then I have another stepson, Alex, who lives in LA with and lives near us, and he's um a beautiful musician. And um anyway, so they were both with me for the holidays and my husband, but I was invited to a I guess a lecture, a symposium by these guys called the minimalists. And if you're unfamiliar with them, it started as two guys maybe 10 years ago. They worked for corporate America in Dayton, Ohio, and they both had had enough. They were told if you have the car and the house and the girl, and the, you know, they were given the whole prescription for a beautiful, happy life, and they just felt so unhappy, even though they were striving for that. And I think one of them was asked to sell an iPhone to a 10-year-old, and he was like, Fuck this, like I can't do this anymore. Am I allowed to swear? Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. And so they started this movement called the minimalist. I think I I've heard of it. Go ahead, tell me about it. Movement. And basically, it's not living aesthetically, it's not living like with nothing, right? But it's living with intention with what you have and not needing more. Now, if I tell you I love the minimalist and then you actually saw my office without my background, you would laugh in my face because I have so much colorful clutter around me, but I find it makes me creative. So it's not about not being not having things, it's about being intentional with your things. And they wrote a book. Um, oh, so I brought my stepsons to this uh symposium, and they I think they both really enjoyed it. The first half is like a sound bath where this woman comes and she plays all sorts of like weird instruments and sings and chants, and it's just very ethereal, and you just it's almost like going to church or to some kind of spiritual event. And then the second half is. Is those two guys, and then now a third guy, and just talking about basically what their book says. Their book, they have a couple of books, but the one that they gave out this time is called uh Love People Use Things. Which is exactly what uh the Dalai Lama said, right, and some musicians said it too wrote a song about it, but they stole it for their book. Yeah, well, of course.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

And I think they've I think they pre repurposed it, and that's fine, right? Love people use things, yeah. That's the the the issue that Dalai Lama was saying the trouble with the world is people love things and use people, you know what I mean? Right, and that's that's the trouble with the world. That's pretty true, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

And I've been um we've experienced so much uh death lately. It's not just Gil, it's other friends of ours who are sick and in our 60s and 70s, and that feels young to us to be so our mortality is like staring us in the face right now, and um I I think a lot about there were a lot of Boston comedians who have passed away over the years, and uh Steve Lazarus, uh Jennifer Hogue, um Kevin Knox.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Oh, Kevin died! I did not even know that.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Oh, from cancer years ago.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I did love Kevin. I loved him.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Um yeah, so many. Um it just makes me think, okay, then why what do I need to do right now? What do I need to do before that happens to me?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

And I'm listening to a book by Stephen King, the novelist, and uh it's about writing. And he was talking. I I think we were talking about this before we started recording about you writing a song and just kind of feeling like it came to you based on your third cousin's teachings, and I don't know if you're not gonna be a very good thing. Henry Mancini, okay, um, and just incorporating what what's in your DNA from that musical genius, and then just having an experience that you just needed to record, and what Stephen King is saying that a story is like a fossil that the artist or the writer needs to uncover, and it's like discovering the story, it's already there. Exactly, exactly true.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Yeah, it reminds me of what didn't Mikelana, one of those guys, those great sculptors that made statues, he said he looked at the marble and just removed the shit away to expose Oh, I got chills. He was just he didn't really create it, he was just removing the shit that was in there.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Can somebody remove the belly fat that I wait?

Boston Comedy Roots And Perspective

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Where are they when you need them? Chip the real Vernon, you know, there's too much of the non-Vernon. So yeah, or Vernon, non-vern. I had, you know, that I have my alter ego. That's like there's there's a there's someone talking about someone the other day that was saying in the researching of quarks, uh, the these guys, these physicists that you know, they speak another language, and they're saying that there's another duplicate of everything happening. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying, oh I'll go out. I don't want to meet the other Vernon. That that would be non-rev, I guess. I don't know. Yidnu would be wendy.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah, but I do I I get that because there I do have a sense of myself. Like if things had gone differently for me, I can see myself living in New York City, kicking off my heels, having a glass of wine. Meanwhile, I don't drink, I can't wear high heels, and I don't like living in New York City, but I do like I have a vision of her. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yeah, I mean, this those are the things that are so weird about this existence, you know, that we have these sort of parallels or parallel ideas, and they they they come, I think it's part of that out of the blue thing, this out of the blue phenomenon, which is basically trying to understand everything outside of us, because we are here in our in our body, and inside us is sort of where we live, obviously, but there's something outside of us that we're we're finding out, but we don't, you know, I've learned more the more I learn about it, the less I know. It's like it's so out of and so powerless over it. You know, if I if the out of the blue has taught me anything, is it's how powerless I am over things happening out of the blue, and they just happen, man.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

I might have said this last time, I'm not sure, but I think about like how shitty things can be, like how there's war and destructive stuff. There could also be the miracle of good things, too. Like, could things converge together to make something amazing? And um, I'm not sure I'm completely explaining myself, no, but makes that resonates with me this guy.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I resonate with that thought completely. What about Vernon the Third? Yeah, Vernon, how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah, I mean, it is it is like strange and almost counterintuitive now to like think about that because we're so like everything that is you know negative that's happening, especially like in the United States, is in like it's in the front of all the news. So we focus on it, but it's like that same that same like concept of like all these bad things coming together to create like a a a sort of negativity is the same for good things, right? So it is like yeah, it really depends on where we put our focus, but also you know, it's confusing because you gotta acknowledge the things that are negative in order to pave the way for good things to happen. So it's but yeah, it's good to acknowledge.

Gratitude And Loving What You Have

SPEAKER_00 29:03

I thought of another coincidence actually while you were talking, um, and that is I was performing in Mexico earlier this year, not in like Spa, Cancun, Resort Town, Mexico. I was like in Mexico with cobblestone streets and horses walking around, things like that. And I'm at a rally, it was when there was the No Kings rally in the States, and they couldn't call it that in Mexico, they had to call it something else, but anyway, there was like a group in the square, and it was mostly Americans, expats who came together to um talk, you know, about their the fears for fascism. And um I ran into a stand-up comedian that I know from Los Angeles, and this is like the most out-of-the-way Mexico place, and it I don't know why that struck me as so it was so bizarre seeing my friend, yeah, like one of the comedians that I love, and he was down there celebrating somebody's birthday, um, not performing, but it was a coincidence. That's out of the blue thing. Yeah, it's an out of the blue thing. It was so bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Out of the blue, the podcast, hosted by me, Vernon West. Co-hosted by Vernon West III, edited by Joe Gallow. Music and logo by Vernon West III. Have an out of the blue story of your own you'd like to share? Reach us at info at out of the blue-thepodcast.org. Subscribe to Out of the Blue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And on our website, out of the blue hyphen the podcast.org. You can also check us out on Patreon for exclusive content.