00:05:46.380Remember, like when it comes down to it, the fact that you're not achieving what you wanted
00:05:51.980to achieve or things are hard or this is stressful.
00:05:53.900it's not society it's not the lack of uh social structures it's you it's you because you're not
00:06:00.500manifesting hard enough okay you're not thankful enough and i hate that so part of this is pushing
00:06:07.180against all of that and be and think and i'm just tired of the commodified commodification i don't
00:06:13.100even know if that's a word i made it a word it is no it's a word that's a word you got it you said
00:06:17.380a word of kindness or being nice totally i i like i said i could not agree with you more and i i
00:06:25.460mean i asked you that question because your new comedy special uh which i love is i used to be
00:06:30.260nicer yeah which i think could maybe be off-putting to some people who don't understand how much
00:06:35.880better it is on our side of the fence oh yeah i mean but also if it's off-putting to someone
00:06:41.460i mean i guess that's the people that have live love laugh on their wall and they take it at
00:06:46.580those people i know you exist i'm so happy you exist i'm so happy that you're living you're
00:06:52.740you're loving and you're laughing uh but um and you probably aren't gonna enjoy me you're not
00:06:58.060gonna enjoy me no you're not and i by the way and as it turns out i'm still very nice which
00:07:03.740you really are i enjoy it hurts me i like you so much yeah it's true it's true so yes and so
00:07:10.840when i looked at what i was working on stand-up wise in the last few years you know to kind of
00:07:15.240put this special together, I thought, uh, what, what is it? What is the general theme here? And
00:07:19.800I realized that I'm, I'm smiling a lot while saying a lot of biting things. And I was like,
00:07:24.740wow, there's, that's interesting. I guess I used to be a little bit nicer in my comedy. And you
00:07:30.940know what? I think comedy is better when you're less nice because it also means you're more
00:07:35.680truthful. Because you're, because you're more truthful because you're mining reality. And
00:07:41.420you're so good at that. I mean, I love shooting the shit with you about what it's actually like0.99
00:07:45.960to be a mom, what it's actually like to parent through this dumpster fire of life. Remind me1.00
00:07:49.920how old your kids are now. So my kid, I just have the one, but it also it always sounds like I have
00:07:55.140many. I talk about just the one. And I know I'm like, I thought you had a soccer team because
00:08:01.720you really you really you really make make them seem seem like so many you multiply them is what
00:08:06.660you do it's like you cubed your child i know i mean some of us have one child that you're like
00:08:11.520this is the the work of five children i'm pretty sure five children 100 but he he's 10 he's 10
00:08:17.340and in the world of new york that means school-wise this is the last year of elementary
00:08:23.040school next year is middle school uh at 10 you know he's got he's got opinions he wants independence
00:08:29.700he also occasionally smells oh yeah totally they start some i mean i've got an almost nine-year-old
00:08:36.180like he's gonna be nine and i smelled him yesterday and i'm like you smell you smell0.53
00:08:40.420and you smell kind of like a dog like a wet dog and yes you're just stinky and i forced him into
00:08:46.520the shower and like i was like but you and then i had to immediately grab my baby who is three0.97
00:08:50.560and smell her because she still smells good but he doesn't smell good nope no my friend said she
00:08:56.260said oh wait till he smells full-time like a goat i was like oh because right now it is a little bit
00:09:01.960just like wet animal, some sort of wet animal smell. It's indistinct wet animal, but I think
00:09:07.720goat is where it's going. It's going towards goat. Totally going farm animal. And so, and I do think
00:09:14.480that, yeah, modern parenting, whatever we want to call this, will wear you down. Talk about a place
00:09:20.680that I really had to learn not to be so nice or accommodating. And I don't mean that so much to
00:09:27.300my child. I mean, there's a whole world of that and the endless negotiation and how you deal with
00:09:32.320that. But just the other parents, because people are so exhausted, but they're also so competitive
00:09:38.180because they're so afraid and they're so full of shame about everything. And especially as moms
00:09:45.740who work all the time. And I know I'm in awe of you all the time, Joe, with just how prolific you
00:09:52.600are and how much you put out there and i know that means at times there are sacrifices being0.98
00:09:57.640made and you get so judged and i'm so sick of that i'm so sick of doing it's so dumb it's so dumb0.94
00:10:05.120yeah yeah i'm so sick of doing a comedy show at night and still people asking me who's looking0.99
00:10:11.360after my kid totally totally and i you know first off i think competition among parents is is dumb0.98
00:10:18.200Okay. And number two, I will tell you, it's actually it's not always men asking me who's taking care of my kids. I get it. I get asked that by women all the time, too, which is even more annoying. So I'm like, you should know better. You should know better. Or people say to me, you are married to a real gem because he's he's he's taking care care of the kid while you're teaching a writing workshop in Croatia. And I'm like, no, he's just being a parent. And that's what they do.
00:10:45.200do uh when but i get i'm sharper with men i'm kinder i am nicer when women ask me the question
00:10:51.320and i just usually like explain how i've managed to do this because also not everyone can map out
00:10:56.060all of these things in the same way i've been no very that's very privileged to be able to have the
00:11:00.980have have the many many ways to figure this out right but for to men they're like oh what who's0.97
00:11:08.060watching your kids and i just look them right in the eye and i'm like i'm also the class fucking0.95
00:11:11.460mom for kindergarten you class parent you ever been a class parent bro like i'm sorry like as0.99
00:11:18.060women we take on too much i probably should stop being the class parent but also how dare any man
00:11:23.580i should stop you i'm not right now i wanted to stop being the class parent so bad no you can't
00:11:30.820you can't my my my child has to release me because i was the class parent for the first one like we
00:11:36.260do. Right. And my middle is so competitive that she's like, you are the class parent for Charlie.
00:11:42.960What? Why? Why wouldn't you be the class parent for me? And then I'm like, damn it. But the baby,
00:11:47.440thankfully, like she's a little she's just far enough back that I don't think she'll ever know.
00:11:51.560And she's not getting any of it. None of it. No, no. You bury that information. OK, that information.
00:11:57.420Yeah. Yep. Yep. I bribed the other ones. I'm like, you never tell them what I did for you
00:12:02.700because she's not getting it okay that is just such a thankless job i mean i think it's pretty
00:12:07.140cute in kindergarten as it also all the moms it's always moms there's never a class dad nick and i
00:12:12.640do pretty much do it together and that's what i say i'm like we're the class parents okay and so
00:12:16.940like he does some of the stuff and i do some of the stuff but and he's amazing at it he helped
00:12:21.540organize the school auction this year too oh yeah i'm always the only dad except for matt like we've
00:12:27.240got another dad who also does all the stuff he also does matt also does all the girl scout cookie
00:12:30.960stuff. He's a saint, but there's never dads there. And so the fact that any man would judge me and my
00:12:37.060time management, I'm like, no, you shut up, bro. Oh, I mean, it is so crazy. So at one point,0.95
00:12:43.200because I travel so much for standup, you know, we had to make an adjustment just on the,
00:12:49.540let's say my son goes to the nurse's office for whatever reason at school, who do they call first?
00:12:54.360So of course, just without even asking, I'm, I'm the first point of contact,
00:12:58.340but sometimes i'm in different time zones i'm traveling for work like my husband has a much
00:13:03.300more new york-based job so i had to ask them like can we reverse that call him first because it's
00:13:09.420much more likely that he will be somewhere local and if you can't reach him call me and i'll figure
00:13:14.860it out and they gave me the i've never seen a stink eye that like lasted like hung in the air
00:13:23.160for a good 25 seconds it was like what what three but that just that just plays and i always just
00:13:31.560go this how do i really didn't think we lived in the 50s but i guess we just live no we 100% do
00:13:38.140we yeah we live in the 50s okay we just yeah and except for the fact that we're there's so many of0.90
00:13:43.740us now who are so vocal about trying to change this shit and you know when people tell me that0.91
00:13:47.940they're they're feeling hopeless in the world and there's lots of reasons to feel hopeless0.89
00:13:51.120I truly believe that we are raging against and dismantling the patriarchy in more ways than has ever been done before. And like, we're still doing it every day. I mean, and it's that's, you know, someone I was talking to, we were just talking about comedy and just saying things on stage. And they were like, but is your act political? And I said, isn't it sort of interesting right now that anytime a woman is just freely opening up her mouth and saying things with a point of view, that's now considered political.
00:14:20.220like just the act of actually expressing a point of view and speaking is a political act
00:14:28.360and i think you know for better or worse truly but i was like yeah my act is political because
00:14:34.320i talk about dealing with this world and being a woman in this world and they're like oh that's
00:14:39.740interesting okay i guess so because being a woman in this world is a political act that's right
00:14:46.360yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah but it's fine it's fine it's fine we're doing great and this is
00:14:53.700my favorite my favorite is we're fine that's my favorite i mean i say it all the time we're fine
00:15:01.320we're fine fine and then i'm like i think we're all microdosing shrooms we're fine
00:15:07.440i'd love to try microdosing shrooms i'm very in the in the it's a thing i've never done and i
00:15:12.620think I'd really, really like it. On that note, let's take a quick break and then talk more about
00:15:17.160microdosing shrooms. I want to date with Roars, Carty says. Roars? Rucker asks. This is the love
00:15:29.760story of real hinge couple Carty and Rucker. Written and read by me, Nicola Dinan. Listen to
00:30:33.020I don't think so. I mean, it's incredible that I just didn't. I just didn't. I just didn't. I just took it in. It was in there. And then there it goes. There it goes. There it goes. Oh, all right. Let's take one more break. And when we're back, I'm going to tell you my two favorite smoking cigarette stories.
00:30:50.440you want to impress them on a first date but also play it cool so what do you do
00:31:00.280i'm rufy thorpe and i wrote and read a real love story about a hinged couple that navigated
00:31:05.600exactly that listen to the free audiobook now
00:31:08.860okay we are back um so i because my perimenoprospirine i'm like i know that i had
00:31:17.760two in my head, but I don't know where the other one went. But my first one is that, I mean,
00:31:22.460obviously when I was, you know, in my swinging twenties and going to clubs all the time for
00:31:28.600work, I would come home and always want to bum a cigarette before I went to bed. And Philip Seymour
00:31:34.700Hoffman lived above me in my building and he was always smoking in his boxers on our stoop because
00:31:40.000his girlfriend, the mother of his child, didn't let him smoke in the apartment. And so I'm
00:31:44.360constantly bumming marlboro reds off philip sumer hoffman uh he smoked marlboro reds yeah of course
00:31:50.920he did right like this all makes this all tracks and then i was telling him about my terrible love
00:31:56.840life and how some guy broke up with me over google chat and he's like what's google chat i'm like it's
00:32:01.840like the equivalent of a digital post-it i still remember this conversation and he's like that's0.80
00:32:06.360the worst i'm like i know psh it's the fucking worst um so but i'm like had we not smoked cigarettes0.65
00:32:11.700I never would have had this heartwarming dating advice conversation with Philip Seymour Hoffman.0.94
00:32:19.720Yeah, I just, I just, you know, let me think about that.
00:32:22.740I just remember who, did I smoke cigarettes with anyone of note?
00:32:26.400I just remember that I would, I was in Detroit, of all places, at the Fillmore.
00:32:31.640It was one, the Fillmore Beautiful Theater.
00:32:33.740It was one of the first times I had ever performed at a big theater with The Moth, which is a storytelling organization.
00:32:41.120Yes. And so that was a really big deal for me. And I was hosting and the Fillmore was the first time they were having, I think, the Moth Air. And most of their crew was kind of like they were used to dealing with heavy metal bands. Honestly, like Gwar, I think, was the night before, the night after. So they just kept asking how many towels we needed. And we were like, no towels, no towels.
00:33:02.580and they all looked kind of scary all the crew looked scary there was bouncers that didn't need
00:33:08.380to be there so it was a very different feel than that's like the storytelling show so at the end
00:33:13.580of the show i went out the backstage door the best place in the world to have a cigarette everybody
00:33:19.520the best the best the best you feel so accomplished when you can step out a artist's stage door and
00:33:26.880have a cigarette anyhow i'm smoking and the lead guy from the crew comes outside and he goes uh he
00:33:33.360bumps a cigarette off me and he goes so let me get this straight you guys need one microphone
00:33:38.300i can let my guys go home early there's no one puking in my bathroom and everyone bought the
00:33:43.600expensive wine what is this show called again i was like oh yeah you've never had little public
00:33:52.140radio storytelling yeah you're like welcome welcome sir yes yes yep so there you go there
00:34:00.780you go that's that's my fond memory well you've been doing this for a while and how and you've0.91
00:34:06.260been doing this as a person with a vagina how has this how how has the comedy world changed uh as a0.96
00:34:14.100person with a vagina since you started out i mean it's changed so much i started out in canada so0.98
00:34:20.000that's its own kind of world that's a different different I was gonna say that's a different0.99
00:34:24.160country and I'm like yes it is it's a different planet it's a different planet and so I'll just
00:34:27.400leave that out of the conversation because it would get go on too long but I will say when I
00:34:31.800moved to New York you know I was struggling and I was trying to fit in and I was trying to make my
00:34:34.960way in it but I did not notice I did not notice um how I did notice the backlash against female
00:34:44.680comedy, are women funny? Like that whole conversation, I did not notice until I would
00:34:50.800say, you know, eight years ago, maybe I felt like it was, it was so much better. And I don't think
00:34:59.240that's naive. I've talked to other people and they're like, oh yeah, no, it was better. It was
00:35:02.980better. And then it took a huge step backwards. So where we are right now is not terrible, but
00:35:09.180it's not great because all of your audiences are very polarized. People will hook on to
00:35:15.440words and premises without listening to the rest of the material and start getting angry or making
00:35:22.700assumptions. Kind of like how everyone is going to think that I'm going to be a cocaine mom now.
00:35:28.540Exactly. Exactly. And I'm not, guys. I'm not. No, no one. No one can afford it. Been there.
00:35:34.740done that no one can afford well also the fentanyl to be honest right no it's like it's
00:35:41.640all that's just that time has passed for everyone it should have passed because fentanyl's bad
00:35:47.620oh my god see ruins everything everything has to get ruined everything yeah we don't we're not
00:35:54.300allowed anything nice and we're not even nice things pure pure grade cocaine okay we're not1.00
00:35:58.920it's done so but i would say there's more and more women that are doing great stuff
00:36:04.040And there's more and more female voices and more and more diverse voices, period.
00:36:09.560I just feel like we still have to work on integrating all these people onto the same show.
00:36:15.200So we feel like it's all the umbrella of comedy is embracing them.
00:36:19.540It's not like on a show to show basis that you're going to see a diverse lineup.
00:36:25.100I mean, it is often that I'm still on lineups.
00:36:28.320And I just mean these club kind of feelings where you're on a lineup with a bunch of other people that are all great.
00:36:33.000but they will it will I said I'm the only woman it seems wild that that's possible that still
00:36:39.580seems insane to me yeah like it just seems again progress we're making so much progress and yet
00:36:47.020yeah so it's slow going and uh but I will say thank goodness there's just so much I do think0.94
00:36:57.080even 10 years ago, I think the barrier of entry just to do stand up as a woman was higher. It0.99
00:37:04.000just seemed impossible. And I think that's been better because the more women that do it,1.00
00:37:09.780they welcome more women. There's more spaces for women, but not enough, not enough. It still feels1.00
00:37:15.960scarce. It still feels like if, um, if you do bad on a show, you might be representing all women0.95
00:37:23.080that will ever get booked again you know and i think yeah or all yeah i mean i think about all
00:37:29.160women all mothers all all of us why do meanwhile one man can just be awful and he'll get invited
00:37:35.320back and then nine of his bros are going to get invited back too he's fine he's fine yeah no so
00:37:39.560that's true and i do think you know if you don't know let's just say you're walking by a club and
00:37:43.820there's a poster up for a headliner that weekend and it's some dude that you don't know uh but you
00:37:49.460there's a couple of quotes amazing hilarious you know blah blah blah from the late show or the
00:37:54.480tonight show you might go yeah let's take a chance i don't know what are you doing saturday night
00:37:58.020nothing but if it's a picture of a woman and you know she's not it's not wacky she's not like
00:38:03.080holding a mixing bowl or i don't know like looking like dressed up in some sort of wacky way like
00:38:09.280just a woman just a woman and still same thing hilarious amazing from the tonight show you would
00:38:14.820probably go what's that about like there's still this thing where people don't want to take the
00:38:20.640a chance on a random female stand-up comic but they will take a chance on a random guy
00:38:27.440and that speaks to authority structures you know so many so many yeah yeah exactly exactly well i
00:38:34.420want everyone to take a chance on you oh thanks thank you yes thank you i appreciate that yeah
00:38:39.340me too me too and some people have and they have been happy i would just
00:38:43.260you're like they were happy they took the risk there were some people that took the risk they
00:38:49.280took a gamble and they were okay with the gamble yeah well are you are you on the road right now
00:38:54.120i am on the road right now i'm in las vegas baby
00:38:57.720there's a great bookstore in las vegas there is oh my goodness i know i'm gonna go to that
00:39:04.540bookstore bookstore it's it's a magical place it's um i'm gonna look it up uh and so that we
00:39:12.780like pages yes it is like pages we're gonna find it but i will tell you it is like a bookstore it's
00:39:18.700i've got a coffee shop right uh but yeah it's like walking into a fairy tale like it is just
00:39:23.560it's beautifully decorated it immerses you so yes it's one of those bookstores that you go in
00:39:30.800and you start thinking like maybe i should start reading philosophy like you get inspired to start
00:39:36.540new genres of reading and it is it is so beautifully decorated you are correct they're so cool it's
00:39:42.000the writers nailed it writers writers they nailed it yeah you know don't you think that's pretty
00:39:47.040interesting that i related that to pages i was like yes it's just like pages i'm like yeah it
00:39:51.360is absolutely absolutely that's what it is yeah so i mean if you're in vegas we did vegas for one
00:39:56.500day en route to the national parks to zion embrace when we were doing them first with the kids yeah
00:40:02.940we did did one magical day in vegas where we did a scavenger hunt and so nick printed out he's like
00:40:08.540find the Statue of Liberty, find the Sphinx, find this.