Leanne Morgan

28 Sep 2026 · 2 h 20 min · 56 chapters

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In short

Leanne Morgan’s rise from small-town Tennessee to Netflix stand-up and acting, plus personal history behind her comedy—menopause humor, marriage dynamics, and surviving an abusive first marriage. The conversation also touches on her family’s gradual realization of her fame, her early performance influences (Grand Ole Opry and comedy clubs), and how she built her career step-by-step while raising children.

Guests (hosts)

Dan Shepard (host). Lily Padman (co-host). Sharon Beasley (co-host).

Guest background

Leanne Morgan is a comedian, actor, and author. She has Netflix stand-up specials including Leanne Morgan: You’re Cordially Invited and Every Woman, and a Netflix show titled Leanne. She also performs stand-up and has acting work on a sitcom.

Key claims

  1. Menopause is now widely discussed, and she’s enjoyed it, but touring can make her feel drained and “stare at the wall” between laughs.
  2. Her first marriage (starting at 21) was abusive and isolating; she left after a defining Christmas Eve incident where her husband left her stranded.
  3. Her second husband, Chuck Morgan, is steady and practical—“come home” energy—showing love through acts of service rather than talk.
  4. She credits her upbringing and performance exposure (Grand Ole Opry, childhood access to country legends) for shaping her stage comfort.

Notable examples

  • Grand Ole Opry: she grew up seeing performers like Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, and others; she describes the experience as comforting and intimidating.
  • Brad Pitt: she mentions meeting him at an event and describes his kindness and humor.
  • “Grady’s” restaurant: she worked there as a waitress and met Chuck during his MBA training.
  • Orthodontia/retainers: she discusses teeth shifting and perimenopause/menopause affecting dental movement.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Leanne's Early Career and Family

0:33 to 2:03

Leanne Morgan shares her experiences in comedy and balancing family life.

“The stuff in my closet, I actually wear.”

Leanne's Early Career and Family

2:23 to 3:35

Leanne Morgan shares her experiences in comedy and balancing family life.

“Founday-o should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines.”

Leanne's Early Career and Family

3:40 to 6:40

Leanne Morgan shares her experiences in comedy and balancing family life.

“Now it's perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundeo.”

Menopause and Health Conversations

6:40 to 9:40

Discussion on menopause, health, and how societal perceptions are changing.

“Because we were all, and it was money going out, and I would go with them and get mine tightened while they got theirs tightened.”

Personal Stories and Reflections

9:40 to 14:00

Leanne and the hosts share personal anecdotes and insights about fame and family dynamics.

“And when you think about who's been in that circle.”

Family Perspectives on Success

14:00 to 18:40

Exploration of family dynamics and perceptions of success as a comedian.

“I mean, she always cheered me on and was like, yeah, you're going to Hollywood.”

Early Career Struggles and Aspirations

18:40 to 27:40

Discussion of early career challenges, aspirations, and personal growth.

“And I'm sure the excitement, the disappointment, the new excitement.”

Breaking Free from an Abusive Relationship

27:40 to 28:00

Personal account of overcoming an abusive relationship and finding independence.

“They probably were a little nervous about the wedding to begin with.”

Returning to School

28:00 to 29:43

Leanne shares her journey back to education and the challenges she faced.

“And I think they thought that's her decision.”

Meeting Chuck at Grady's

32:50 to 33:42

Leanne recounts how she met her husband Chuck while working as a waitress.

“Okay, so summer's officially over, sad, and I'm trying to get back into a real routine.”
Show all 56 chapters

Meeting Chuck at Grady's

33:50 to 36:20

Leanne recounts how she met her husband Chuck while working as a waitress.

“That's helixsleep.com slash armchair for 27 % off site-wide.”

Chuck's Persistence in Love

36:20 to 39:28

Leanne describes Chuck's determination to win her heart despite her hesitations.

“No, you have a new set every time someone sits down.”

Understanding Relationships

39:28 to 42:00

Exploring the dynamics of communication and relationships over time.

“Especially when somebody told you you couldn't have children and all that.”

Family Dynamics and Conflict Resolution

42:00 to 43:14

Explore how Leanne navigates family dynamics and conflict with her children.

“And then now one's like, we always eat there.”

The Journey to Stand-Up Comedy

43:14 to 44:33

Leanne shares her beginnings in comedy and the challenges she faced.

“And my boy would have still been nursing.”

Fascination with Dark History

44:33 to 46:38

Discussion about the allure of dark historical events and figures.

“You walk into this house, they're all strangers, you got to win them over.”

Inspiration from Comedy Clubs

46:38 to 47:53

Leanne recounts her first experiences at comedy clubs and their impact on her.

“but it involves his children and there's like generations of people that are fucked up from that guy.”

First Stand-Up Experience

47:53 to 49:55

Leanne details her debut stand-up performance and the nerves that came with it.

“But you go there and you're like, oh, you see a guy with a piece of paper.”

Building a Comedy Career

49:55 to 51:19

Leanne discusses the early days of her comedy career and the gigs she took.

“like just words of stories I knew I could tell that I had been telling.”

Navigating Parenthood and Comedy

51:19 to 53:01

Her struggles balancing parenthood with a growing career in comedy.

“Then Chuck Morgan sold that business and went to work for a large mobile home company, Berkshire Hathaway company, Warren Buffett, and then moved us to San Antonio.”

Setbacks and the Writer's Strike

53:01 to 54:16

Leanne reflects on the impact of the writer's strike on her career aspirations.

“But I was a young mom talking about somebody doo-dooing on the T-ball field, You should have.”

The Financial Struggles of Comedy

54:16 to 56:00

A candid look at the financial realities faced by comedians over the years.

“Like I really went through, I think, a clinical depression over it because it was so big.”

The Struggles of Comedy and Aging

56:00 to 1:01:56

Leanne shares her experience of struggles in comedy and the impact of age on her career.

“You're staying on a motel on the side of the road where you could be raped and murdered.”

The Struggles of Comedy and Aging

1:04:07 to 1:04:54

Leanne shares her experience of struggles in comedy and the impact of age on her career.

“No more juggling five apps or losing track of your money, because money that's just sitting there isn't getting you anywhere.”

Reflections on Fame and Aging

1:05:45 to 1:10:00

Leanne discusses her experiences with fame, aging, and the realities of show business.

“I got to be around him a bit through sobriety.”

Leanne Morgan's Rise in Comedy

1:10:00 to 1:12:06

Learn about Leanne Morgan's journey to success in comedy and acting.

“Okay, so in rapid succession, you have a Netflix special.”

Table Reads and Acting Challenges

1:12:06 to 1:14:48

Discover the challenges Leanne faced during her acting career and table reads.

“And he was saying that he'd have to go in and switch out swear words for things he thought were comparable.”

Collaborating with Chuck Lorre

1:14:48 to 1:17:08

Explore Leanne's collaboration with renowned showrunner Chuck Lorre.

“One of the moments of like, oh, she really doesn't need me.”

Balancing Work and Family Life

1:17:08 to 1:21:12

Discuss how Leanne balanced her career with raising her children.

“But I bet all those guys that I'm in there with are like, who is that?”

Cultural Perspectives on the South

1:21:12 to 1:24:00

Insights on the misconceptions about Southern culture and lifestyle.

“Like, Len, he goes, don't memorize that script.”

Southern Stereotypes and Happiness

1:24:00 to 1:26:38

Exploration of misconceptions about Southern life and women's happiness.

“They think that we're close-minded and that we're down on our luck.”

Community and Neighborly Bonds

1:26:38 to 1:28:45

Discussion on the importance of community and neighborly support in the South.

“And they're all the couples are doing that.”

Nostalgia for Michigan and Family

1:28:45 to 1:31:47

Nostalgic reflections on Michigan's beauty and family connections.

“and all of a sudden it was like Gucci and I thought, what's going on here?”

Nervousness Before Performances

1:31:47 to 1:34:01

Personal anecdotes about facing fear during performances in familiar settings.

“She said, I may have to have that played at my wedding.”

Awkward Encounters in LA

1:34:01 to 1:38:01

A humorous recount of an awkward social interaction in Los Angeles.

“Okay, I'm like, I feel like I'm going to get a lot of stories out of you.”

Meeting Friends and Confusing Introductions

1:38:01 to 1:39:21

Discover the humorous dynamics of meeting friends and miscommunication in social settings.

“Lee is a very very prominent comedy writer.”

The Glam of Social Interactions

1:39:21 to 1:41:32

Explore the challenges of social appearances and interactions, including a humorous take on drinking during interviews.

“Now I, and then I text, voice memoed Emily in a real furious state, you know?”

The Struggles of New Technology

1:41:32 to 1:43:17

Learn about the frustrations and funny situations surrounding getting a new phone and technology mishaps.

“You know, you're walking down the street.”

Unexpected Encounters in the Neighborhood

1:43:17 to 1:45:40

Hear an amusing recount of serendipitous encounters with neighbors and friends in the neighborhood.

“And I was like, ooh, it's probably just saying eight hours.”

The Humor in Everyday Life

1:45:40 to 1:47:45

Experience the humor found in everyday interactions and the amusing stories shared with friends.

“don't think they like when I go out the front gate opening and closing and exposing it if it doesn't have to be open and closed.”

Reflections on Phones and Technology

1:47:45 to 1:52:00

Discuss the relevance of technology in daily life and humorous reflections on upgrades and features.

“She said it was a sim moment because she wasn't into podcasts.”

Tech Talk: Phone Sentiments

1:52:00 to 1:54:22

The hosts discuss their indifference towards new phone features and upgrades.

“I've been holding out for the new phone for a while because I was like, hell no.”

Tech Talk: Phone Sentiments

1:54:28 to 1:55:29

The hosts discuss their indifference towards new phone features and upgrades.

“And it actually works differently than what you're probably used to.”

Weekend Recap and Family Time

1:55:29 to 1:57:48

Hosts share anecdotes about their weekends, including a Dodgers game and family dynamics.

“If I had to guess, I'd say I enjoyed it.”

Cooking and Relationships

1:57:48 to 2:00:07

A candid conversation about cooking, expectations in relationships, and personal boundaries.

“You wouldn't believe how much pot roast I had.”

Giving vs. Asking: Emotional Dynamics

2:00:07 to 2:06:00

Exploration of the complexities of giving, asking for help, and the emotional toll involved.

“So then I had to apologize and I said, I don't even know what I was talking about.”

The Nature of Generosity and Reciprocation

2:06:00 to 2:06:36

Discussing the complexities of giving and feeling taken for granted in relationships.

“Like it's unfair to the people I've given to because I've done that out of generosity.”

Cooking Dinner and Imperfect Meals

2:06:36 to 2:08:34

A conversation about the pressures and joys of cooking for others and the expectations that come with it.

“And so I say that to myself all the time now if I'm making like those decisions.”

Childhood Food Memories and Challenges

2:08:34 to 2:11:18

Sharing humorous and challenging experiences related to childhood meals and food preferences.

“And we, of course, and then the person's doing exactly what Aaron's like.”

Forced Eating and Family Dynamics

2:11:18 to 2:16:36

Exploring the pressures of eating unwanted foods and the dynamics within family meals.

“I had a neighbor in Row Lake that I was.”

Fish Preferences and Cultural Norms

2:16:36 to 2:19:34

Discussing personal preferences for fish and the cultural implications of food choices.

“I'm afraid I would have talked him out of it.”

The Rise of Orthodontics

2:20:05 to 2:22:59

Discover how orthodontic treatment has evolved over the decades.

“from beginning to end just joke after joke um and i was fucking i bought into it like i loved it so funny yeah yeah okay so i looked up at what point in time did more people have braces than not have braces?”

Personal Braces Experiences

2:23:00 to 2:25:35

Hear personal stories about the impact of braces on childhood and self-image.

“But like if you don't have the money, you don't have the money.”

Hormonal Changes and Teeth

2:25:36 to 2:26:21

Learn how hormonal changes affect dental health during menopause.

“Okay, so I looked up why teeth move around perimenopause and menopause.”

Cultural References and Anecdotes

2:26:22 to 2:29:22

Engage with humorous anecdotes and cultural references surrounding social experiences.

“It says, if you're noticing that your teeth are suddenly shifting, especially your bottom front teeth, you're not imagining it.”

Leanne Morgan's Success

2:29:23 to 2:30:46

Explore Leanne Morgan's rising fame and success in comedy.

“So just go to the pool hall, bring some alcohol in your truck.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. And Sharon Beasley. Hello. Today we have an incredibly funny and wonderful woman, Leanne Morgan. She is a comedian, an actor, and an author. And she has the most funny show on Netflix called Leanne, appropriately. And also you're cordially invited in Leanne Morgan. I'm every woman. These are standup specials. She's a hilarious standup and a hysterical actor now on a sitcom. I love her. Enjoy Leanne Morgan. We get support from Quince. You know what I think about a lot? The stuff in my closet, I actually wear.

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1:14And I also got to add that right before I left Nashville, I was assigned the task of putting all the bedding back on my children's bed. And I got to You fold first the quince sheets and comforter, then unfold them and put them. And the entire time I was spreading it all out, I was like, by God, they really are so soft. It's crazy. They are. I also have a pair of sheets from quince that are really, really good. And honestly, what sets quince apart is that everything feels intentional. These are timeless, versatile pieces designed to be the dependable stuff you reach for day after day. You're not buying something just for right now.

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2:30Founday-o is a once-daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Founday-o should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Founday-o is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Founday-o if you're allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain.

3:05Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills, and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Taking Foundeo with an insulin or sulfonylurea may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Once Daily Foundeo is available by prescription only in 0.8mg, 2.5mg, 5.5mg, 9mg, 14.5mg, and 17.2mg tablets. Learn more at foundeo.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now it's perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundeo.

3:55It's me.

4:00Look at your arms and legs. Let's look at them together. Thank y 'all so much for having me. Oh, come on. Little Monica. Hi. My little baby is a huge arm cherry, and she cannot even believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm here. I didn't email him my notes. I'll be right back. Okay, my darling. Get all the drinks and stuff. I need to work out. No. I got that. hard. It's just too hard to do. But we have to bone density. Bone density. And I saw Mary Claire on it, y 'all. Yes. I did a thing with Mary Claire on Oprah. Of course. On ABC about menopause. And what were the big takeaways? I had a podcast years ago that would be huge now.

4:46Yeah. But I stopped because I got to touring so heavy. Yeah. But it was called Sweaty and Pissed, Menopause and More. and it was a brilliant nurse practitioner with me who helped me with my hormones and but we made it funny yeah and they asked us to go on tour and i just got too busy yeah and i think now if we definitely it's all the rage everybody's now talking about i know no one like cared about menopause until recently i have got to live and i enjoy it i really do enjoy it but then i get to hotel room on tour and I just think, I've got to go stare at the wall so I can be funny. Yeah. How many days are you on tour here?

5:28I'm all the time right now. You look like one of those Iron Man men that are running and doing that Iron Man that are swimming and biking and doing in Arizona. No, thank you. In Tempe. How about these like ultra marathon guys that are running and women that are running through Death Valley on like mile 97. I'm like, ow, I really can't conceptualize that. I know, and I know a couple of people who do that. My orthodontist is tiny and fit and looks cute in his pants. And he'll say, I'll give myself a little treat once a week. And I go, what is it? And he goes, I'll drink one of those little dentist cups of Diet Pepsi.

6:06And I'm like, oh my God. That is not a fun life. No, he's angry at himself or something. Oh no, but I'm sitting here eating pork sauce. Yum. Wait, you have an orthodontist? I have an Invisalign. When I was 40-something, all of a sudden I started looking like Joan Rivers. I loved her. God rest her soul. Yes. But I had a side bite, and all three of my children were in braces and me at the same time. Oh, wow. And I said to that little orthodontist, because we have a chemistry, I said, what am I buying you, like a pool or a fountain? Yeah. What is this? Literally. Because we were all, and it was money going out, and I would go with them and get mine tightened while they got theirs tightened.

6:49And then I kind of let them go. I didn't wear my retainer. So then I had to do Invisalign again. Well, your teeth look beautiful. Thank you. I must say. Thank you. Well, who knew I was going to blow up and be a movie star? Who knew? I'm kidding. But I had to have good teeth and not have a sound bite. That's true. Did you have orthodontia as a child? No. And my mama begged my little dentist. But back then, you know, they didn't let everybody have it. Or maybe in the country. But they were okay back then. And they didn't get twisted up until I was in my 40s. I had them from probably starting at like seven years old until 11th grade.

7:23It was a full all hands on deck operation to get my teeth to look like this. And you don't wear a retainer. I should have. One went rogue. When my wisdom teeth came in, this one was like, not enough room. I'm going to hang back here. And now I have that. And currently, our oldest daughter has the same matching fucked up tooth. And I really love it. And of course, she's going to fix it. But I kind of want her to keep it so we have something in common. When you have something different, I think that's cute. I think when everybody gets the teeth, the Hollywood teeth, and they're pretty. But I think there's something about your own personality.

7:57And I think it's pretty. I think there's something to it. My orthodontist said, we don't want Landy to just be odd looking and everything be almost purple. They're so white. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. When you were not in here, we were talking about menopause. And teeth move around in perimenopause and menopause. Like everything gets loose, they say. So I'm waiting on this. What's the evolutionary benefit for women's teeth getting loose? I don't think it's just like stay at home. Exactly. Ready to die. Ready for them to all fall out. To just stay at home and tend to grandbabies.

8:29That's right. You don't need teeth for that. Yep. No talking. What do you need teeth for? You're sitting at home with the grandbabies. Exactly. Do you remember meaning? Honey, at the Emmys, when I walked behind you and little Kristen and her little fanny and lower back was so beautiful in that dress. And we were right. I was right behind you when we did that, where you get in front of a camera and it goes around you. Make sure it gets every terrible. Because you're like, for me, before I go to those things, I'm looking and I'm like, OK, there's a two degree angle where I look fine. Just right here.

9:02I have not anticipated 360 up and down. How could you? But, thanks. You're cute. But, Leanne, we met before that. We met before that at the Opry. Opryland. Yes. That's what means the most to me because you meet one million people at the Emmys. But we did get to see you at the Opryland. At the Opry, and I got to see your babies. They were there. Yeah. And that was our first time ever going to the Opry. What a joy. It's special. Isn't it special? It's truly special. I did probably an hour on it on this show over time. But there's so many things that are wonderful about it. It's just like the most comforting, wholesome, pleasant experience.

9:42And when you think about who's been in that circle. Yes, yes, yes. Patsy Cline. Do you feel it when you're up there? Yeah. You do, yeah. It's very special. And the first time, I mean, very intimidating. And I'm thinking, what am I even doing here? Was that your first? That wasn't your first time. That was not my first time performing there. But I grew up going and seeing the Opry because my little mom and daddy had a meat processing plant, and we would do the meat for country music stars and the people that ran the Opry, the president of the Opry, so we got free tickets every year. So I saw Dolly Parton, Porter Wagner, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl when I was a child growing up.

10:21But I also saw them out at the grocery store and stuff, too, because I was raised right outside of Nashville. Yeah, Adams, right? Right. 624. Current pop. I always say 500, but there's 624 people now. And those 124 you've left out probably feel a little bit offended. And they're wondering, who have you edited out to get to 500? Oh, no. So first question I have for you, and I want to know a lot about the meat processing. That literally is one of my questions. And you already brought it up. But are you sick of telling your story at this point? No. You're not. Can I first say, though, Brad Pitt was sitting here where I'm sitting.

10:53He sure was. He sure was. Yeah. Do you feel, again, as like the Opry, do you feel his energy? Yeah. Yeah. Legends of the fall. I said to Monica when he left, I would encourage you and I would not tell anyone if you wanted to smell the seat. Okay. Yeah. You know he let us drink out of his cup. With his straw, right? I think we shared a straw. We all shared a straw. Was he beautiful in person? Of course. Oh, he's so beautiful. And you're like, I just can't decide. Is he cuter now or was he cuter in Legends of the Fall or was he cuter? Does he have a sweet spirit? Yes. Yes. Incredibly. Well, you'd like him because he's a Missouri boy.

11:31Like he's a bit country more than you might think. Oh, Lord. Yeah. Cute. He's so nice. I know. I know. Cute. Good sense of humor. He didn't have us edit anything out. That's really good for someone of his stature. Yeah. Very competent motorcyclist. we've gone to the track together and he's very, very talented on a motorcycle. So he can really do it all. Oh, Lord. He's got style. It's a lot. He is cute. Okay. Okay, great. So you're not, because I'm wondering, you know, you have such a unique story and then you're kind of obligated to tell us the story nonstop. And I was just wondering as you're coming in here, like, is she sick of telling the story?

12:10No, y 'all. I'd love to talk about all that because I do think this is so crazy that this happened to me. Uh-huh. Yeah. Every day, I'm just like, what in the world? That's amazing. Yeah, especially from where I came from. Yeah. The first curiosity I had is it's very exciting for us, but literally, Monica, close your eyes and imagine next year, Nirmala has a show on Netflix. That's my mom. I can't. It's impossible, right? Like, can you even? Listen, I love my mom, but what's the show going to be about? Debriefs on her YouTube. Oh, she could have a show on that. No, she could have a show about all the trials that are going on, and she could report on that.

12:49She loves a trial. She does. She loved that Amber Heard. There's a big trial right now. There's a big trial going on. Which one's going on right now? Really sad one about. Okay, let's. No, we're not talking about it. Oh, you're going to hear it. The woman who murdered her children. Oh, okay, I'm vaguely aware of that. And the woman of all was following all that. Oh, to a T. She's watching the trial real time. Riveted. She's riveted. Yeah. She really loved the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial. Even though I told her, I was like, that's unethical. Like, you're not allowed to like that. And then she was like, ugh.

13:19And then she just had like one earbud in. She was just like always listening to it. Just one earbud pretending like she wasn't. I was like, I see you. Does she love Nancy Grace too? I'll ask. Yeah. Because Nancy Grace, you know, she's on it. Yeah, she is on it. She's on it. She got the bone in her teeth. She's like the dog. I think my mom might think she's a little crazy. Okay. Oh, yeah. But I'm going to check. But for real, can you imagine, I mean, anyone listening, imagining next year your mother's incredibly famous. It's so abstract. You had a mother. Imagine at one point she got wildly famous at 60.

13:56I know, y 'all. I know. Even though my mama could have Lucille. She's very funny. She's 83 now. I mean, she always cheered me on and was like, yeah, you're going to Hollywood. But always been very funny. Has got friends that are 20 years old all the way up to 80. Everybody loves her. How are your kids computing that? I do think they finally caught up with what's going on. I had somebody say to me that's another comedian doing really well, that his therapist said, your family's the last one to catch up with what's happening. Yeah. Because they're not out there seeing it. And see, Chuck Morgan, like I would say, I mean, this is a pretty big Chuck.

14:33And he'd be like, you could stop tomorrow. You don't know. Like, let's not spend any money. Okay. My baby child is my makeup artist. like went to school for makeup for television and film and is in the union, which is a godsend because she's with me helping me all the time. So she saw it and would see fans and would see the crowds at a theater or whatever. So she got it. But my other kids and my husband, it took them and my parents and my sister. Like it's taken everybody a while to figure out, oh, this is big. And I told them, I go, if this is too much and y 'all don't want this, tell me now because I can stop this train.

15:11But once it starts going, I can't stop it. And everybody's like, and then nobody knew how big this would get. Yeah. You would think on the outside, people would be like, oh, they must be so proud. But I would argue, knowing my children, like maybe embarrassed, like some bit of embarrassment, like, oh, my God, my mom's everywhere. You know what I'm saying? I mean, your kids are old enough now. They're older now. Okay. 30, 33, and 28. So they're like, this is crazy, Mom. I mean, they're tickled. I mean, they love it. But I've been a stand-up for 27 years. So when they were little bitty, I was on Nick at Night's Funniest Mom in America.

15:47And their school wanted me to, they wanted to show it at PE and that kind of stuff. So they've seen, but my career wasn't going. I mean, it was fun. I was just grinding. And they didn't understand. I mean, they were like, oh, she's a comedian. I might as well have been working at Target. I'm not kidding. You know, because there wasn't that much big stuff going on. The Nick at Night thing was pretty fun. They came and filmed us at our house. They were elementary age. That is so fun. Yeah. Okay. And now how about Chuck though? Because I would imagine again, you'd be so proud, so happy, but also I would be a little bit like, do I have a role in this life?

16:21This is now a big chunk of your life. I know he traveled nonstop for work or maybe still does, but that could be scary as a partner of, you guys been married, what, 30 years? 34 years. 34 years. And he's been the provider and a very overachiever executive for a company. He's worked for the same company and is prided. I mean, that's been his role. And that's been very important for him. His identity. When this started blowing up, he said, you don't need me anymore. And I go, yeah, I do. Because I came from a mom and daddy that had a business together. We're a team. He came from a family where the dad took care of everything.

17:00and do we have life insurance or something? He goes, I got to take care of it. Don't worry about it. That's what he came from. So that's been a little hard for us to, yeah. But then now he's still working. People ask all the time, is he going to retire? I mean, he's running a division of a company. He probably doesn't want to retire. He doesn't want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he, you know, needs purpose. He doesn't need to be out here fooling around, you know, with this. Sitting in a director's chair on the side of a set, getting bored out of his mind, going, what happened to our life? Yeah. Yeah, I just think it'd be scary.

17:30Not to say that it won't all be great, but it's just a real shakeup for something that was humming along pretty consistently for 30 plus years. Like, it's just a big event. I know, y 'all. And I was, for 20 years of it, I was making the same amount of money, which was pitiful, for a corporate gig or, you know, breast cancer fundraiser. I was working some clubs. Chamber of Commerce lunch. And Chambers Commerce Luncheon at Dubuque, Iowa. Yeah. Couldn't book the dinner slot. No, they didn't want me for the nighttime thing. But all that happened for years. So, yeah, there was no imbalance or anything.

18:08It was like, well, Lynn's making the money to get uniforms, haircuts. That's what I did. I got two headshots made in 20-something years, which was stupid. I didn't even think to invest in myself. My friend did my website. But I was having television deals. Hollywood was coming after me that whole time. I had like five deals for sitcoms over the years from the time they were little until now and one made it. Okay. So, yeah. Now, let's go through it chronologically because I do want to hear all the little steps of the deals and stuff. And I'm sure the excitement, the disappointment, the new excitement.

18:44It's like, oh, my God, this ride. But, yeah, back in Adams, Tennessee, which I guess is almost to the border of Kentucky, is it? It's on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It is. It is. But only 35 minutes from Nashville. 35 minutes north of Nashville. Okay. And as we said, 600 folks. The school, this is very new to me. I didn't even know they had these. Your school was straight K through 12. K through 12, 650 students. So I ate lunch with the kindergartners. Oh. Doesn't that seem wild to have like 18-year-olds and 5-year-olds all shit? I guess so. I mean, it sounds fun, but also crazy. Yeah, it does.

19:18I know it was really sweet. I went to church with all my teachers. Like everybody knew everybody. It's a big farming community. All farming, really. So my high school was Future Farmers of America and Home Ec. I took Home Ec. Not a lot of college prep, but people went on to college. But a lot of people got out and farmed with their families. And what was your role in this school? Were you Klaus Clowney? I was Klaus Clowney and Pretty Camp. Yeah, that reads. I got Miss Joe Burns and Best Looking. The superlative I got was Best Looking, y 'all. Really? That's a good dream. I really think I peaked in high school, really.

19:57But yeah, but I was always telling jokes. And then the teachers would say, can you do the announcements for this? Can you emcee this event? And I was like, yeah. And then we had speech and drama. And I loved, and we did improv in it. My heart almost burst. But I had a boy in my class out of 42 people He went to Juilliard. Oh, wow. No way. And his daddy was a Methodist minister and a dairy farmer. And he's been in movies and television and on Broadway. Amazing. And then there were four boys, and he was included in that, that started a little country music band that I think maybe got some kind of record deal, cut an album.

20:35But then they all decided to stop, and they all went to college and, you know, became engineers and attorneys or whatever. Yeah. But I had a lot of talented people. Yeah, kind of overachievers for this. And, you know, kind of fun people. My choir director, they were all darling. What about dating? That's a very tiny pool of folks. You date a couple people, you're halfway through all the options. I always had some cooking. She was Miss Jo Burns. I don't know if you heard that. I don't doubt she was able to get boys' attention, but there's just so few. There's so few, and you go to church with them, and you go to school with them, and all that, and they end up kind of like your brothers, really.

21:13Right, right, right. I've stayed close to all of them, but yeah, I flirted. I messed with a lot of people's heads. I did. I thought I was like Erica Kane in this little town. You were too big for that little town. I felt like that. Yeah. Would you go to the mall in another town to like Pete Boys? Yes, Dax. We would all drive to Springfield and ride around the McDonald's and then park in the Kroger parking lot and flirt and do. And that's where I met my high school boyfriend that I think in the country, a lot of people, like you just latch on to somebody and you think, well, I'm going to marry them.

21:43and I'm going to raise tobacco and I'm going to can my own food. And I thought that with my high school boyfriend. And then he was two years older than me, and I followed him at the University of Tennessee, who then quickly broke up with me because I was a big nag because he was drinking and singing Super Freak at a fraternity house. You know, Rick James, and I was coming off a Methodist Youth Fellowship. So I really ruined his time at the University of Tennessee. So then he broke up with me, but, you know, chased me after. Okay, sure. As they do. As they do. And you met a boy at 21, or probably before, but you met a boy and got married when you were 21.

22:19I got married at 21, y 'all. And I think, honest to goodness, you could have been a therapist. I think I could have been too. We could maybe therapize each other. Some people have that thing, and I can tell you've got that thing. And you probably do too, baby. Thank you. I was at the University of Tennessee, that high school boyfriend. He was kind of my, like, I don't know if I'm even going to graduate. I'm probably going to marry him. I don't need all this. But always in the back of my mind thinking, I'm going to Hollywood. Yeah. But isn't that crazy? I didn't know how. It didn't even dawn on me stand up.

22:50I love stand up. But anyway, I think that I was flailing so bad at the University of Tennessee. And away from home. I was away from home. Knoxville's a minute from there, yeah? Yeah, it was like, you know, three and a half hours. And I shouldn't have gone to a big university like that. I just chased my high school boyfriend. I should have gone somewhere smaller. But anyway, I went to that. I was flailing. And yeah, this guy who was 27, beautiful, smart, charismatic, built like a wide receiver in the NFL. Is he single now? Well, I don't think you want him. He is no longer with us. Oh, okay. But it was not a good relationship.

23:30It was abusive. And he was mentally ill. You know, in back then, nobody talked about it. And you didn't know. You just thought it was mean. But he had a lot of problems and he couldn't help it. Now I look back and I think, but yeah, he swept me off my feet. Love bomb. Uh-huh. And then would say terrible things to me. Here's my guess. He's older. You're younger. He's now living this crazy fear that you're going to be too shiny. So he's got a shit on you so you don't feel confident enough to leave him. Was that the cycle? Yeah. Yeah. Like I got to reduce you so you don't get any funny ideas about trying to do better than me.

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24:05Yeah. It's a common pattern. And he would say things like, and I believed everything he said except this one thing. He said, your accent, people think you're stupid, and you need diction lessons because everybody's making fun of you. And I remember thinking, no, they're not. I mean, this is who I am. And I'm so thankful that I held on to that part of myself because I believed everything else he said. Well, he's six years older. Did he have a good job and stuff? Yeah. And he ended up, after we divorced, very, very successful and in a beautiful family and beautiful children and all that. It seemed like he had it all figured out.

24:43Yeah. It's clearly when you're 21, I'm sure. And I was a ding dong, you know. I was a ding dong. And I was just young. Yeah, when they're telling you all these beautiful things about you, especially if you were a big fish and then you go into this big university and you probably feel small. And then he's like, no, you're the best. Of course, you're going to be like, oh, yeah, I feel special. I love it. And then the day you're married, you're like, so anyways, actually, you're a piece of shit. You should never think about looking at another guy because they won't like you. It isolated me from my friends and family, that kind of thing.

25:16How did you muster the courage to get out of it? Because I imagine there's a lot of embarrassment over having to get divorced, especially where you're from. Oh, I had so much shame. But, y 'all, I was walking on eggshells. every day I wanted babies. He would say, there's no way. I mean, if you get pregnant, I'll do, you know. Oh my God. So all these things happened. And then I was sitting in a restaurant with him. It was Christmas and he was just angry for no reason. It made no sense whatsoever. And we had ordered a Diet Coke or tea or something. And then he got mad at me and left me there. And this was before people had cell phones.

25:56Yeah. On Christmas Eve, did you say? It was right before Christmas. He was probably mad about Christmas, I guess. I don't even know. Sure, how could he not be? That's understandable. Christmas is very maddening. Everyone's pissed off at Christmas. And I promise y 'all, God sent this waitress. I'm not kidding. It was a moment, a defining moment for me. He left me. I had no money, nothing. I guess I could have called somebody from the restaurant. I guess that's what I did. I can't remember that part. And I said, I don't have any money. And he's gone. And she said something like, I understand, honey.

26:27Don't worry about it. and in her face, I could tell she's been through this. She knows exactly. She looked like she'd had a hard life. And I swear, I feel like God sent her to say, it's enough. This is enough. You don't have to do this anymore. And I feel like God shut that door. And I was out. I left in the middle of the night when he was gone. And I went to an address at a friend's house where he wouldn't find me, even though I look back now and I don't think he would have come and done anything to me. I was just scared at the time. because he was volatile. And then I never looked back. I mean, I never looked back.

27:03Did he try to win you back over? Because my imagination is, you know, this guy got a younger girl. He's going to be able to control everything. And now he loses complete control. That has to be infuriating. Yeah, he cried and begged me to come back and all that. And, oh, y 'all, I've never been more sure of anything in my life. Thank God. I felt horrible for him and all that. But I thought, this isn't my burden to carry. I can't. I got to get out of this. Because I wanted children and I wanted a good love. I mean, I couldn't live in that. Even though, you know, I was raised in a Christian home and all that, you don't want to get divorced.

27:39I just thought, no, God doesn't want me in this. I just knew he didn't. And my parents were behind me. Nobody made me feel bad. They probably were a little nervous about the wedding to begin with. Oh, they were. And I've often thought with my children, if I ever felt like they're making a mistake, I'm going to say something. Because I think my little mom and daddy, that generation, you know, I was riding bicycles for 20 miles. Nobody knew where I was. You know, they just didn't helicopter. And I think they thought that's her decision. But anybody around me, if they had said, you don't have to do this.

28:11Maybe even if you were still in your hometown with your close-knit group of friends, some of those girlfriends were like, uh-uh. But you probably, I don't know how many people you knew at University of Tennessee. I knew a lot of people, but once I was with him and living with him, we were isolated. Yeah. So you found your way back to university, though, yeah? I decided to go back to school because, y 'all, I was working behind the clinic counter in the department store and thought of myself as a makeup artist. Oh, sure. And they said, we want you to run a counter. My heart was beating out of my body.

28:44She was giving me the note where my salary was going to be, plus commission. And it was so low. I thought, this is poverty level. And I thought, I need to go back to school. And I called my precious daddy, who's 86 now. And I said, daddy, if I go back to school, I'll be, now this is how young and stupid I was. I go, I'll be 26 when I graduate. He said, you're going to be 26 anyway. You might as well get an education. So my parents helped me and I paid for my apartment. And I mean, I had nothing. I walked out of that with nothing. And we were young, didn't have anything. What did you major in there?

29:23I ended up going back and majoring in child and family studies, crisis intervention, counseling. Oh, really? Because I wanted to be a therapist if I didn't make it in Hollywood. But at that point, I wanted to get that degree. And Hollywood was in the back of my mind. You know, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just trying to survive then. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We get support from YouTube Premium. Okay, I got to tell you something. I just got YouTube Premium this year, and it's completely enhanced how I use YouTube. I already liked YouTube for obvious reasons.

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31:47I'm watching all my car stuff on there. Everything. Everything's on there. And thought, how could YouTube get any better? Well, Premium has awesome features like offline downloads, just use it on a plane ride, so I can download my favorite automotive shows and videos to watch when I'm on the go. And that means I don't have to wait when I don't have Wi-Fi, which is especially great when I'm traveling and don't have guaranteed Wi-Fi on airplanes. Speaking of not waiting, and this is my favorite part, YouTube Premium is ad-free so I can watch uninterrupted whenever, wherever. Background play also comes in clutch because I can lock my screen and keep the audio going.

32:22This comes in handy when I go out for a walk or when I'm in the middle of a great podcast. Plus, it has a ton of other features I didn't even know about. Like, did you know? Premium automatically downloads videos from channels you subscribe to. So even when I forget, my content is still right there for me. So if you're like me and you already like YouTube, you're going to love YouTube Premium. Try it now for two months free. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. This episode is supported by Helix. Okay, so summer's officially over, sad, and I'm trying to get back into a real routine.

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34:04And you were working at Gladys? Grady's. Grady's. Grady's. As a waitress? Uh-huh. And then this is where you met your husband? That's where Chuck Morgan came in. Okay, so tell me about that day. Was he a regular or was he blowing through? He had come back to go to school to get an MBA. So I was a little bit older than him finishing that undergraduate. You know, it took me like nine years on and off to get that thing. Anyway, he came through to work, to train, and he was in the training group at Grady's. And Grady's was kind of the snotty place to work. Like, everybody wanted to work there because you could make a lot of money.

34:37On ball game Saturdays, University of Tennessee, they stayed on the weight all day. You made a lot of money. So everybody wanted to work there, and he was in a training group. He's six foot four. I just looked at him and I said, boy, you're tall as a tree. And he said, sorry. And I thought, who's that butthole coming to work at Greene's? But honest to goodness, I didn't want to date. I'd gone through that. I was in therapy. I was messed up from all that. I cut my hair off. You were not a ding-dong. Therapy at that time, that's like big. Thank you. I've always loved therapy. The best. So Chuck Morgan, I think, fell in love with me that minute that he was, you know, oh, sorry.

35:17I think he fell in love with me. I didn't know it. He doesn't talk. So then for weeks, I mean, he'd just be lurking around staring at me. So then he started wooing me, and I was like, thank you, but I've gone through a divorce. I was the only one there, you know, 23 years old, divorced. I'm sure people whispered behind my back, she's a divorce. You know, divorcee, she's 23. All the boys tried to date me because I think they thought, she's divorced. You know, and I was like. She knows it all. And I was bitter and angry. But I loved everybody I worked with. It was a great place to work. It was like its own fraternity and sorority.

35:55Like everywhere I go now when I'm touring, people go, I worked at Grady's. I'm like, what? Everybody came through there. Do you ever eat at Grady's? Is it still around? No. They got bought by a big chain and then it kind of got ruined because it was fabulous before that. It was a fern kind of restaurant, bar kind of thing. But really good food, really good customer service. Yeah. And I feel like a wonderful training ground to even do what I'm doing now to be with people is waiting tables. No, you have a new set every time someone sits down. Well, and my managers would be going, because you're supposed to put a tea down, get their order, go and put their drink order down within 45 seconds.

36:33And see, I'd be sitting there going, I'm from Adams, 500 people, home of the Bell Witch. You ever heard of the Bell Witch? Andrew Jackson went. It's part of Tennessee history. And they'd be going, hey. I said, but I made good tips, less tables. Chuck Morgan waited on more tables, made less tips because he would say, my name is Chuck. It's salmon, black bean soup. Oh, no. I would go, where are y 'all from? Oh, you are so pretty. Why did Chuck think the customer service industry was the right fit for him? He just knew the tips were there. He wanted the money. Yeah, he wanted to make money. But, y 'all, he would get waiter of the year every time.

37:08Oh, because he did all the side work and everything. Oh, yeah. I want the roll-ups. Yeah. What a kiss-ass. He did anything. Chuck Morgan's the kind of person. He's a good student. Everywhere he goes, he gets promoted because they're like, oh, he takes care of stuff. Chuck Morgan takes care of stuff. Yeah, we love that. That's his slogan. He might not talk, but he does take care of stuff. But he's a problem solver and a worker, and he's going to take care of things. Okay, so how long did it take him to woo you? I mean, you have the best joke in your first Netflix stand-up special, which is like, he bought you flowers.

37:41He did every, what's all the things he did? Tell my. Oh, Lord, y 'all. He did all my side work. Oh, that's enough. He would clean my ketchup bottles and tops. He would clean the women's bathroom, which you know looks like Vietnam. And he would go and clean up before I ever said a word like I didn't ask him to. And there was many a time where I would say, you're so sweet and this is so sweet, but I'm damaged. And I got to heal. I'm not ready for something. And he just, honey, he's a mobile home salesman. He doesn't take no for an answer. Yeah. And he just wouldn't take no for an answer. He would come to my apartment, knock on the door, bring me stuff.

38:22Were you a little nervous, though? Because this sounds a tiny, tiny bit love-bomb-y as well. I disagree. Well, it's not. But if you had just gotten out of a relationship where it started like that, I could imagine being like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You would think. But that first one was more of like words of affirmation, which is my love language. Bullshit. Car salesman. But not like doing for me. Yeah. Acts of service. Acts of service. That's right. It's not love-bombing to me because he doesn't have the toolkit to be a love-bomber. He's not like wildly charismatic. He can't fuck you up with his charm.

38:56Yeah. It's not love-bombing. He was steady-eddy. Yeah. He wooed me, but it's not a, you know. Yeah. Chuck is more of like, I'll take care of you and you can have as many babies as you want to and nobody's ever going to hurt you and all that kind of thing. Safety. And see, I didn't have that. And I changed your oil. You didn't know, but it was 3 ,000 miles and I changed it. Yes. And your gas tank's full and I rotated your tires. This is a dream. Yeah. If you're big enough to accept that, because I got to say a lot of people need something flashier in their whole life. They can't figure out why they don't have a good, you know.

39:25I think it takes your own kind of resolve too to be like, okay, yeah, I'm not going flashy. I'm going substantive, like real. Especially when you're young. Yeah. Especially when somebody told you you couldn't have children and all that. That's all I ever wanted besides Hollywood. I mean, Hollywood was always this up here, but I wanted to be a mom more than anything. But you're joking the special is what now after 30 years? He would not pull me out of a burning thing.

39:54Yeah, this is what happens. I'm watching your special and I'm like, wow, man. Yeah, I'm at an age and I've been with someone for almost 20 years. This stuff makes so much sense to me. You know, if I were young, I just imagine my 21 year old self watching me like I don't relate to it. And I'm watching. Oh, I'm so in this demo. This is all the truth. This is all so funny. Oh, well, thank you for saying that, my darling. But why it's so good is there's like so much truth baked into it that is kind of universal shit. Like if you're with somebody for decades, there's just some very predictable stuff we're all experiencing.

40:26Yes. And Chuck Morgan's MO is come home. It's talked all day at work. Doesn't want to talk. I have no idea what's happened and I like to know and then I'll say what do you want to drink with your supper and he doesn't even answer me and then we get in the bed and then he grabs my breast and then I'm like I'm sorry who are you I don't know you you have not spoken to me so yeah that's our MO is that it's hard for him to open up and to know that I need to be Sure. Spoken to. Spoken to. Acknowledged. Which is great material. Yeah. Because when I say this on stage, like I say, Chuck loves me and wants to be with me, just don't want to speak to me.

41:13Men lose their mind in the audience. Because they all, I guess that's what, you know, men get older and don't want to talk. Yeah. And so you get your girlfriends and you talk to your friends. Well, I'll tell you why. I mean, I can answer this riddle. It's like you learn more and more. every time you speak, there's issues and you go, oh, I got the solution. I'm just going to shut the fuck up for the rest of my life. Especially like I live in a house with three women, you know, and I'll just say something innocuous. And then like, I don't know who's on their period, who's not. And then all of a sudden there's a thing going.

41:42And then I just go like, you know, it'd be better. I'll just answer when spoken to. I don't think what you're saying is innocuous. You think it's innocuous. The thing I'm saying. Wait, wait, back up. I mean, I don't understand. You say something innocuous. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sparks. Oh, no. Yeah. It's not innocuous to say like, does anyone want to go up to Cafe 101? And then now one's like, we always eat there. No, she gets her way, then blah, blah, blah. Then it's a fucking tornado. And I go, great. Tomorrow I'm not going to suggest going to Cafe 101. I'll wait till everyone tells me where they want to go.

42:13I'll drive everyone there. You know, you kind of slowly learn it's a path of least resistance. My oldest child is a boy who's from heaven. And I've got two girls who are also from heaven. But when everybody started fighting, and there was a lot of fighting, and everybody's starfishing somebody in the back, you know, all that, he would just slowly walk out the door and go get a BB gun and shoot at a tree or something. Or do woodworking or start with it. Your son, right? Yeah, because he doesn't like conflict. Yeah, and he said, these girls, you know, when Chuck Morgan said something, they're daddy.

42:51And he'd go, let it go. Let it roll off your back. But he would just take out the door. He's a hunter and a fisherman, outdoorsman. So he would just go outside and just avoid the whole thing. Once Chuck woos you, you get married, you have your degree, you kind of settle into a domestic life. Yes. I'm breastfeeding. You're breastfeeding. Thank you. Precious and sweet. My girls wean themselves. And my boy would have still been nursing. Sure, sure. Until he met his wife. Yeah. And Chuck Morgan was working. After he graduated from MBA school, bought a used mobile home business that refurbished mobile homes.

43:28Never walked in a mobile home in his life. He bought that because this was the first George, the big bush, not George, but the daily bush. First Iraq thing. So like jobs when he was interviewing. He was 91. Yeah. You know, there weren't great jobs out there. So he bought this business, moved us to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Bean Station, Tennessee. Okay. Wow. And then I got pregnant with Maggie close at, you know, they're like two years apart, all of them. But I wanted a little money. My mom has always had a business. I feel like I'm an entrepreneurial person. I wanted to be home with those babies and nurse, but I also want to get my hair highlighted, buy the baby an outfit, do, have my own thing.

44:09I started selling jewelry at home parties. I don't even care about jewelry. But one of my friends said, I'm doing this and you can work at night, have a good time, eat some dip in a brownie, shoot the, you know, crap and then make a little money. So I started doing that. Yeah, door-to-door jewelry sales. Yeah. So I'd have a party and I would go and lay out all this jewelry, but I was doing stand-up. You were figuring that out. I was figuring that out. Some of my first material. It's another set, right? You walk into this house, they're all strangers, you got to win them over. It's just like doing 15 somewhere, right?

44:45Yes. I'd never been to a comedy club until Chuck Morgan took me to go see my sister. She was living out in Huntington Beach. She was working for an office furniture company and young in her 20s. And so we came out here and I said, I would like to go on the hearse tour. Were you riding the hearse and see who's been murdered in Hollywood? Got in love. I like old Hollywood. I like old Hollywood facts. Well, like Fatty Arbuncle. Do you know how close we are to the Black Dahlia house? Do you know we're like 15 houses down? Yeah. Yeah, it's right there. The Hodel house. Oh, my Lord. Yeah. And it delivers.

45:23Frank Lloyd Wright's son made it. So it's like this crazy-looking Mayan pressed concrete construction house. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love all of that kind of stuff. We'll knock on the door. Can we take a peek at those bodies? And you got any of them around still? I mean, that's a fascinating one. It's the darkest story I've ever consumed in my life. I don't know if you listen to that podcast about it. No. The Black Dahlia murder was the least of that man's activities. Hodel, do you know the story of him? No. He was a doctor and he was basically the only doctor that was doing a venereal disease work in I guess the 20s or 30s here in LA.

46:01And because of that position, he knew everyone in power. Like anyone that had a hush-hush venereal situation came to Hodel. and he was hanging out with Alistair Crawley and all those weirdos in that scene and he was super into surrealists and he was obsessed with surrealist artists and he wanted to be a surrealist but he wasn't. In the Black Dahlia murder, he repositioned this woman he killed and it's right out of a painting of a surrealist he was obsessed with. He was trying to impress the other surrealists but he was hosting orgies at his house and the other part, I don't even want to get into but it involves his children and there's like generations of people that are fucked up from that guy.

46:42I'm just a monster all happening 14 doors down here 80 years ago. And Surrealish, you mean like Salvador Dali? Well, I've got to know all about this, y 'all. Yeah, yeah. There's a really horrific podcast. It's the darkest we've ever listened to, but it is phenomenal. It's really good. Yeah, yeah. I'll find the name of it and give it to you. Boy, that was a tangent. Oh, so you come to Huntington Beach. So I come to that and I go, I want to go on the Hearst tour. And of course, Chuck said, this is twisted. And then he took me. I said, I want to go to the comedy store. Yes. And I went to the comedy store, and that's the first time I saw Stand Up Live, and it set me on fire.

47:18My heart beat out of my body, and I thought, I can do it. I know I can do this. Then we got married. Then go to Bean Station. We go in the middle of nowhere at Bean Station, Tennessee. Then I start selling jewelry, but the whole time thinking. By then, I had the idea I can do Stand Up. I don't know when. I don't know how. I don't know where, but I'm going to do it. Can I guess the trip to the comedy store, the moment was up till then you had only seen polished performance. You'd seen probably Richard Pryor live on Sunset. Richard Lewis, all these people on Johnny Cash. One hour, complete, well-refined, fully finished products.

47:54But you go there and you're like, oh, you see a guy with a piece of paper. He's trying out a new joke. You go, oh, I don't have to start at Richard Pryor level. There's intermediate steps between that thing I've seen and this. Dom Herrera. There was all these unbelievable people I got to see that night. And I did. I thought, okay, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I know I can do it. So once you get back and you're selling the jewelry and you're kind of working out some bits and you're maybe going to have some material, when's the first time you go on a stage and do like an open mic night, I guess?

48:23No, because I'm in Morristown, Tennessee. We then moved to Morristown where Chuck was raised. It was right up near Bean Station. Bean Station is very rural. And then Morristown has, you know, got hospitals and a country club. Oh, right. So we are in church. We've got this really nice Sunday school class. It's all of our friends and everybody's social. It's got their little babies together. Everybody goes to everybody's birthday parties. Well, a guy in that Sunday school class said, I'm in the Kiwanis Club. We need somebody to emcee the Kiwanis Capers land, like a local thing. So I did that, thought this is my debut.

48:56And you were probably the best thing they'd ever seen. Did you kill that? I don't know about that yet. I bet you crushed it. I felt pretty good. Yeah. Then there was a man in the audience who came up to me and said, I own a sandwich shop. It has a stage. I have bands. Would you want to do stand-up? And I went, yeah. And he goes, okay, here's an hour. An hour? The first time I ever did it, I did an hour. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And it was crazy. And I got so scared that I went to an ENT that day thinking that I had a tumor. Yeah. I could not move my neck. I'm not kidding. I said, something's wrong with me.

49:33and he goes, I don't see anything wrong with you. And I go, well, I'm doing this tonight. And he goes, I think you're just scared. So then I had a, to prepare for it, I had, you know, when your baby goes to kindergarten. Did you memorize this? No. I had a kindergarten tablet where my boy, you know, was in preschool and, you know, would do his letters. So I got that pad and wrote down points, like just words of stories I knew I could tell that I had been telling. Yeah. You know, with girlfriends before exercise or whatever. And so what I knew I thought would work. And then I had a, it was like a sheet music thing on this stage.

50:13And Chuck had the babies. By then there were three babies all under the age of five probably. And he was in our minivan and people said they could see him because it was a big glass thing behind me driving back and forth with these babies to make sure I was okay. And there was about 50 people. and it sold out just because there's nothing else to do there. A man did film it that night, and I wake up at 3 o 'clock in the morning thinking, where's that film? Yeah. Because I'm sure it sucked. It's no telling what I said, y 'all. It's no telling what I said. Yeah, you had an hour to film. For people who don't know, like people work on an hour-long act for six months they're trying out new jokes.

50:49Right. And Lord, back then, 10 years took you to get 45 minutes. Exactly. So then do anything. But yeah, so then he said, well, this has worked out great. You want to do this every month or every two weeks or whatever? So I started doing that at this little sandwich shop. Always an hour. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And throwing stuff in, throwing it out. I don't even know what I said, y 'all. People around town would say, can you do a program at the Rotary? We'll pay you$50. I'd drop the baby off at preschool and go do that. So I did all those kind of things anybody would let me do. Then Chuck Morgan sold that business and went to work for a large mobile home company, Berkshire Hathaway company, Warren Buffett, and then moved us to San Antonio.

51:30And that's where I had a club for the first time. I did open mic one time, thought I was going to vomit. Isn't that funny? Because you'd already been doing this hour long show. And I was like, oh no, because to me, comedy club was the real deal. It's the power of framing in your head. It's like, that thing's that, so I don't care. This thing is terrifying. Now it cares. And you're doing the exact same thing at both places. But I always forget this. When the baby was 18 months old, I did call Zaney's in Nashville, a cold call, and said, can I come and do, I didn't even know what an opener was, before San Antonio.

52:01I called and said, can I just come? And he goes, yeah. And it's Brian Dorpman, who's now my concert promoter, who's my dear friend. And I didn't even know you do drink specials and stuff. I did whatever they told me. Billy Gardell was the headliner for Mike and Molly. Oh. And was precious. and then Brian Norman got me in the office and said, I think you've got something, Lynn. I really do. But he said, you've got three babies. There's no way you can do this. You can't do comedy clubs and raise those children. He said, Roseanne would have them in a station wagon in the parking lot. You know, he said, it's just too hard.

52:37And then to build the career, you've got to be out on the road. Yeah. I was mad that he said it, but he was right. But anyway, he encouraged me. Then I go to San Antonio, and that's where I've got Austin. I drive to Austin. They've got one of the best comedy clubs, Cap City Comedy Club. Rich Miller owns it, who's Dennis Miller's brother and Jimmy Miller's brother. Then I felt like I was in the game. I was in the game. But Comedy Central was coming through there, and Montreal, Aspen, I never got anything. They never wanted me. But I was a young mom talking about somebody doo-dooing on the T-ball field, You should have.

53:12Had on the kitten heel. It's all young people. Everybody was edgy. Yeah. You know, Sarah Silverman was big. They didn't want me. Yeah. Well, it turned out okay. Yeah. So the pilot deals, when did those come along? What ages were you when like networks? Charlie was, my boy was in sixth grade when I got the first one. That was with ABC and Warner Brothers. Tom Warner. Tom Warner, love him. Loved him. Yeah, what a sweetheart. And I thought, oh, this is it. He'd done Roseanne. He did Third Rock. All that. I mean, crazy. And I loved everybody on the whole thing. My writer, everything. Writer's Strike hit.

53:52Now, I don't know if it would have made it. I always act like, oh, I think it would have made it. But you know how those things are. But I got money for that deal. I never had that before. The deals after that, I never got another dime. But I thought, this is my big thing. And then the Writer's Strike hit. It was over in a second. And then reality television, you know, was big. But I remember being so depressed. Like I really went through, I think, a clinical depression over it because it was so big. And then it was over in seconds. But I was always doing those Dubuque, Iowa things and all these little corporate things and clubs.

54:30So many clubs, like five clubs would book me two times a year. If I can be super nosy, like what are you cobbling together at the end of the year from all these gigs? What do you think you're making over these years? Oh, Lord, y 'all. Nothing. Like 30 grand a year? Yeah, maybe. Maybe 30 to 50 or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For 20 years, I would get$2 ,500 plus travel. Sometimes pay your travel out of it. But I was your$2 ,500 girl. And I would think if I could just get to$5 ,000, this would change my life. And I got it a couple of times and thought, whoo! And all my friends around me and comics around me were getting, you know,$7 ,000,$7 ,500,$10 ,000.

55:07And they were working a lot of clubs. Yeah. But I work clubs for like$1 ,500 for the week. Take your travel out of it. But they would provide a hotel. But anyway, then I did a dry bar comedy special. And at the time, the manager I had at the time said, I don't know what this is, Liam, but you might as well do it. You don't have anything else going on, basically. And it was like a clean, the premise of dry bar. Clean comedy. It's a clean comedy. On the internet. I was like dry bar the hair thing. I do love a dry bar. Yeah, sure. But no, this was the comedy. And they were very successful. and did all these little like 30-minute specials.

55:41I think mine was 45. And I had not worked enough. I was not on my game. I didn't feel like I did a bunch of old material because I didn't know. I just didn't even know. They filmed it. We didn't think anybody's ever going to see it. There's one clip that got 55 million views. Wow. But I could not sell tickets. I was getting gigs, but they weren't good gigs. They weren't what I wanted. And I was working like a mule. And it was like$2 ,500. We won't pay your travel out of it. You're staying on a motel on the side of the road where you could be raped and murdered. And then your Uber driver's home, marijuana.

56:14You know, it was all that. And I thought, I'm 50, 51. I cannot be doing this. Neil Brennan told me all those rooms were painted, kill yourself brown. Somehow all the hotels on the road tour were all painted, kill yourself brown. Uh-huh. I love my Neil Brennan. Okay. And then that's when I went to dinner with Chuck Morgan. I started crying. And that's the first time in 20-something years I thought, I don't think anything's going to happen because I had had so much hope. Even when I was raising these precious children in Knoxville, Tennessee, I never felt like one of the cool kids where I was in the game.

56:50Comedy Central didn't want me, all that. But I'd get a television deal again. I'd get with TV Land, Nick at Night, and then Sony, and then all that. So it would give me enough to keep going. But I just thought, nothing is happening. This is bad. Well, I'd be right to guess you're running out of people to look to. Like, I was just talking to someone about this the other day. For so many years, the thing you are told is like, well, Ray Kroc didn't invent McDonald's until he was 52. And then, you know, maybe this actor didn't pop. Rodney Dangerfield, there's a handful that didn't pop. But then when you start getting to be that age or beyond it, and you're like, well, I no longer have an example of someone older than me that's still hit.

57:30I just thought, I don't want to be in my 50s in some pitiful hotel, feeling like I'm not safe, looking like a loser. I thought, I just can't keep doing this. And I knew that Charlie got married right out of college. They waited five years to have my first grandbaby. But I thought, I know I'm going to be a grandmama. And I'm from the country. Grandmamas tend to their grandbabies and all that. I thought, maybe that's what God's wanting me to do. And then I said to Chuck, nothing's happening. and maybe I should open up. I always thought it would be nice to have a hardware store because I thought I can sell canning goods and I can dazzle.

58:06Talk to customers. Yeah, I can dazzle. Or pop popcorn at the NASCAR track or at Ace Hardware. And he said, that's crazy, Lee, you know. And then this is one thing that I'll pat myself on the back for because I never invested in myself and I really wasn't a good business person when it came to this whole comedy business. I mean, I could build relationships. I'm easy to be around. I don't suck the life out of a room. I know that kind of stuff, but two headshots, I wasn't doing like I should have. So then I thought, what's Jim Gavkin doing? Nate Bargassi was just starting to pop, and I thought, what is he doing?

58:40Because I'm about a year and a half behind him. And I thought, he's selling out clubs. He's starting to go into small theaters, and I want to be in small theaters. And I thought, they've got social media people. That's the difference. And I knew that television, nobody was watching local news. I knew nobody was looking at a newspaper. Everybody's quitting. Yeah. And I thought, does anybody know how to find anybody if I don't have a Comedy Central half hour, if I don't have all that? And so I thought, I'm going to hire social media people. And I think that I was one of the first. They had social media people, but I think I got on that train early, early enough before social media really took off and before COVID.

59:19And I hired these young guys. It was a fluke that we found them and they knew my voice. They got a mom that's just like me. Where were they out of? Knoxville? Plano, Texas. Plano, Texas. Wow. I didn't have an agent. I had a manager. But this person said, these guys kind of know what they're doing. Yeah. They'd had one comedian. They were doing marketing for like local mom and pop stores. And so I was the second comedian they took. They put out one video. I think it's one video. It might have been the second one. I wish I journaled all this. You're talking about Def Leppard taking Chuck Morgan to Def Leppard?

59:51To Def Leppard and Journey. And everybody looks sick and had plantar fasciitis. No. and nobody could stand up and everybody looked sick in the band and people must have resonated yes because you know you go to these concerts now you see Foghat I don't even want to say his name because he's a beloved legend especially in the south but my best friend Aaron who's in town he just the other night went and saw a concert in Detroit and he said I was on a chair and he was asleep for a good chunk of the show and many times I was like oh my lord are we seeing the passing of said legend? It can get a little sad, you know.

1:00:31Yeah, and y 'all, I was on a plane with a darling guy that was sound asleep, wadded up in his seat, tatted up with long hair, looked like a rocker. We were landing, and the attendant said something to me. He woke up and goes, are you that comedian that talks about death, liberty, and journey? And I went, yeah. And he had little legs and rocker, And he goes, oh, my gosh, that is so funny. And that's so accurate. He goes, get a load of what I do. He travels with ACDC, Aerosmith. Oh, who all did it? Rolling Stones. And he looks like he can play every instrument. His job is to fill in. Nobody knows who he is.

1:01:09But he fills in. All the gaps. For all that. And he said, I was just with ACDC last night. I thought somebody was having a stroke. He said, he looked blank. And then started playing again. And he goes, it scared me to death. but he goes, that is so true. But look at them out there doing that at their age. God love them. But anyway, that resonated with people. And people started then saying, well, what else does she have? They saw that and liked that. And it was like somebody turned a light on in a dark room. I'm not kidding. I could not sell tickets. Nobody cared. And within weeks, selling out all over the United States.

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1:05:44I'm sorry. I'm still giggling thinking about these musicians simply because in rest in peace, I loved him. I got to be around him a bit through sobriety. Ozzy Osbourne, right? And he was playing this benefit to raise money for this treatment center. It's great. Great cause. And I was the one hosting him. and then I kind of hung on the stage and there was a monitor in front of the microphone. It was karaoke, you know, it was the lyrics. And I certainly expected he didn't know some of them, but, you know, it was Iron Man and I noticed he was dialed into the monitor at the I am Iron Man part. Yeah, age will get all of us, you know, if we're lucky.

1:06:18Well, and, you know, the many things he consumed in a day. Well, that's the other thing. We did have someone on recently who... Careful. I know, I'm going to be careful, But they're just like, whoa, yeah. You lived a very hard life. The bill comes due. And yeah. Yeah. That's true. It shows. Eventually, it shows. Well, and I've eaten a lot of white flour, y 'all. I've eaten a lot of white flour and sugar. Because I went out this Hollywood thing. Which is also freeing because like little Kristen's body, when I saw her at the end, I thought, no wonder she's a star. Look at her little fanny. And then, you know, but I made it later where I can still eat pork sausage.

1:06:58Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have that. I feel like in my mind I'm 19 and I'm like an it girl. No, I'm not. You are. So that's okay. But you know. You're an angel from heaven. No, you are. It's all perspective though, right? You could feel completely liberated. Like how rad that the angle I came in at doesn't require me to do all that shit. And I can still eat porks often. Yeah, that's lucky. If I'd have made it when I thought I was going to make it, y 'all, one, I think it's no telling what would have happened to me. You wouldn't have had an egg McMuffin in decades. I wouldn't have had a muffin.

1:07:27I wonder, because now that I've been out here and the pressure you feel like when you're on a television set, which I've got a wonderful crew, but I feel like sometimes they're looking at me like, you're a star. And then the next minute looking at like, you suck. And I think if I'd been 20 and I felt that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's a tough place to be. It's the ultimate make yourself conscious career. And city. I mean, this city is just full of people trying to do the same thing. So it's a constant comparison. It's tough out here. Yeah, and I'm kind of in a lane by myself. And so I can still eat.

1:08:02Yeah, yeah. As you should. Pork sausage and a biscuit. And you should. Exactly right. But then I think, am I going to get dementia because I've eaten too much white flour? Well, that's, you know. But I'm trying to take fish oil. Okay, I know. I love your supplements. Yeah, you love your magnesium. I do love a magnesium. Thanks. You know a lot about me. I try to. How precious you dog. I try to. You angel. And I'm loving your hairline. Aren't you thankful? Because all these boys out here have to go to Turkey. Man, if you know. By the way, I have said many times, I think I'm going to book one of those flights just to observe it.

1:08:38Have you seen the flights? Yes. Where 70 % of the guys have tons of bandages on their head. They're all bleeding. They're taking their meds. Yeah. I know. When I see somebody with a head of hair, I think you need to thank the Lord for that. I'm fucking drops three times a day. hey, it fucks up my hair. It's great. Like I am adding so many drops to my hair to keep it. To keep it. Yeah, because we were on vacation like three summers ago. My daughters took a picture of me and we're looking at it and they go, Dad, what's happened to your hair? And all of a sudden I saw it for the first time. Oh my goodness.

1:09:07I think I've lost like 40 % of it the last four months. Chuck took Propecia for a while and I was like, you didn't even tell me that. I could have touched that. What if I got pregnant? Because I can get pregnant so easy. Not now because I'm 60, but I could have back then. I could look at him and get pregnant. But I'm like, you didn't tell me that was Propecia. Because it would be on the table and I'd be like, I could have touched that, Chuck. He doesn't tell me anything. Yeah, well, we've established he doesn't know how to talk. He does not tell me anything. But he grew one little thing of hair in my first Netflix special.

1:09:40I talk about, we went snorkeling in Maui and that one thing of hair was in that video. I need to find that VHS tape. Oh, my God. And then I think he just finally said to his hairdresser, just cut, just cut. Let's stop. And then he had the whole Justin Bieber thing. I mean, yeah, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, that. Okay. And now he doesn't care. Oh, yeah. Okay, so in rapid succession, you have a Netflix special. That's enormous. That's in the top 10 of all their comedy specials. And then is the movie with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon next? I think that was next. Did you have any fear about acting?

1:10:17Scared out of my mind. Yeah. Yeah. And little Reese Witherspoon had done that for me. I met her in Nashville right after my mom had had a stroke. And we were at an after-CMA's party, which nobody knew who I was. The video had come out, but nobody knew. And somebody snuck me in. And I was like staring at Reeva Angatire. And she said to me, who are you? And she was darling, but she was like, who are you? And I go, nobody. And so little Reese Witherspoon, I just looked at her and I go, my mom had a stroke. And she held my hand. And anyway, she had started following me. I had gotten my first tour, COVID hit, ruined, I mean, didn't ruin that tour, but moved it.

1:10:55I thought, I'm finally going to make it. And then now this, but it all turned out okay. Went on that tour. I was selling out. So I got that Netflix special. She's why we saw you at the Opry. We took her tickets. She was like, hey guys, I know you're in Nashville. I have these tickets. I can't go. Do you want to go? And that's how we went. Oh my darling. Yeah. That angel. And she really does want to see people do well. I mean, she really does. But she got me that part, and they said, you've got a table read. And I was on tour, and y 'all, I didn't even know what a table read was. I called my little friend that his daddy was the dairy farmer and Methodist preacher that went to Juilliard.

1:11:31And I go, what's a table read? He goes, well, they want you, Lynn. They must want you, so be you. There was a lot of language in that movie, and they had a lot of language in the script. And I spell cussed it because I'm from the South, and I just couldn't. I'm a mama and a grandmama. And it got laughs in the room. And then Nick Stoller said to me, you do what you do. Because I said, a little mama in the South with four kids standing with her, because my character had four kids, at a wedding would not say this, Nick. And he goes, you know better than I do, Leanne, do you? So I did that. And I think, you know, it all turned out good.

1:12:06And they were all darling to me. But I was scared to dance. We interviewed Nate. Yeah. And he was saying that he'd have to go in and switch out swear words for things he thought were comparable. He was racist like I was. Probably more strict than I was. I was raised kind of Methodist, kumbaya. But yeah, I got this language thing, y 'all. It was my great-grandmother. You still have it. You still don't swear? I still have it. Do you ever swear, like, with your girlfriend? You do with your girlfriends? No. You don't swear, period. And maybe under my breath when I'm alone. S-H-I-T. Okay. So you do that movie.

1:12:40It's fun, though? Is it fun? So fun. I wish I could go back and do it again because I was so scared. Yeah. And now that I look at it, and they kept saying to me the whole time, you'll never have it this good again. Everybody's so fun, so sweet. And I go, what are they doing to y 'all in Hollywood? Are people screaming at y 'all? They go, yeah. Also, Will's such a beautiful, benevolent man. Reese is taking care of you. Like, that is the ideal scenario. It was darling. And Nick Stoller, precious. He wrote the first movie I ever did. I adore Nick. Yeah, he's incredible. Precious. And then Rory Scoville played my brother.

1:13:12Celia Weston played my mother. Who I love more than anything. She was on this show, Bless This Mess I Did, and I got to tell her how much I loved her in Flirting with Disaster. I found her to be the most lovely. I wanted to bring her up when I was watching your show. I love her. What a blessing she is. What a blessing she is. Yeah, yeah. Brilliant and funny. From an interesting background, too. Uh-huh. Hoot-de-do people. Yeah, yeah. What was that? Real well-to-do. Old money. Old money. Debutante. Her mother didn't want her to work because you don't do that. Yeah. But honey, she had a dream, and she was like, I'm doing it.

1:13:45And everybody was like, okay. But precious. And I love her on my lover. She plays your mom. She plays my mom. And I'm so thankful she loves to work and wants to still do it. And Blake Clark plays my dad. Yes. Yes. So funny. Everyone's so funny. Okay. So how do you and Chuck Lorre end up crossing paths? My manager sent him my special and said, just look at her and see what you think. And he said, I want to do a sitcom with her. And flew to Knoxville. Warner Brothers flew him because he said, I don't want her to come out here to Hollywood and think that I'm blowing smoke up her butt because I'd had those five deals that didn't make it.

1:14:22You know, and I was pretty wary after that. So he came and we had lunch for him and he sat and held my grandbaby and said, Lan, I can tell you put in 10 ,000 hours. I can tell you're the real deal. Will you do a television show with me? P.S. I'm the most successful comedic showrunner of all time. Would you like to do a show with me? And Chuck Morgan watches Big Bang Theory every day. Sure. And has always got that running behind everything. Yeah. That must have been a moment for him. One of the moments of like, oh, she really doesn't need me. Chuck Lorre's here asking her. New Chuck. And Chuck Morgan was very starstruck about him.

1:15:01Yeah. And Chuck's an intimidating man. Because he's quiet. You're not getting a comedian with Chuck. He's kind of reserved and serious. But brilliantly funny. And he and Chuck Morgan connected. because Chuck Morgan's quite intimidating. Yeah, yeah. And so he loves Chuck, my Chuck, and always ask about him. And honey, when he says we're going to do a television show, there's no red tape. There's no pilot. There's a show. Everything just boom, and we went, y 'all. And I didn't know the lingo. I didn't know anything, but I had to learn it quick. Y 'all, I thought I had some kind of gastrointestinal disease for six weeks, And I told my baby because my baby child was living with me where we rent a house here.

1:15:45And I said, pick up your stuff and let's go. This is too much. And I don't need this. I can do stand up. I mean, I was so intimidated and freaked out. And I don't know if it was my age or if it's, you know, I just have never. It was a big learning curve for me, but it felt right to me. Yeah. I was freaked out, scared to death, but I thought it feels right to me. It's your voice. They got your voice. Luckily, they did it. They did the job. They knew how to encapsulate you. So, you know, Hollywood's been back here this whole time, and now it's here. How do you feel? I know that people say to me, Lynn, you can't just go into every interview and go, and I don't know how this happened.

1:16:26Oh, shucks. Oh, shucks. But I feel... Sometimes all shucks is warranted. Yeah. My book is called What in the World, because every day I just go, what in the world? So many wonderful things happen. but I felt this as a child. I feel like this was in my imagination. I knew this was going to happen. I only had one in my 50s where I got scared and thought it's not going to happen. Thank God for Chuck Morgan. Thank God for Chuck Morgan saying, no, that's crazy, Lynn. You can do it. But I never knew it was going to be this big and this wonderful. Can you feel it? Yes. Okay, good. And then doing an arena tour.

1:17:02Yeah, what? When I could not get arrested for 20 years and that I'm in there And when they give me the numbers from Netflix, and I don't see them often, but I think, I'm in there with Dave Chappelle. And I know Dave Chappelle. I've met him now a couple of times. I hope he remembered me. But I bet all those guys that I'm in there with are like, who is that? Who is that woman? You know, Jerry Seinfeld, I'm close to him. He gives me wonderful advice all the time. I meet David Letterman. David Letterman said to me, how did you do this, Lynn? It's hard enough to get where you are, but with three babies, how did you do that?

1:17:37And that means a lot to me. Yes. So I hadn't seen the show, full honesty. And then I started watching this show yesterday before I started all my research. Right. So I don't even know anything about the show. I just have it in my screener's box. And I start watching with my childhood best friend who's in town right now. We're laughing up a storm. My 13 year old's watching. She's laughing up a storm. Kristen passes through. She's like, I got to go to bed. And she sits down. And then now she's hooked. And she's like, oh, my God, this is so good. I swear to God, I said out loud, I go, it's like Chuck Lorre good.

1:18:09I'm like every single joke, one of the jokes in the new seasons. So the first episode of the second season, your father's gone missing. He's stuck at a dollar store. He can't figure out a self-checkout, which I couldn't agree with him more. I'll stay in a line with a hundred people at Kroger and in Mount Juliet before I'll go to that fucking self-checkout. I'm like, I'm paying money. Give me a human. Anyways, your mom says maybe he was kidnapped. You're all looking for him. And then your sister goes, for what? Paint cans? And I'm like, that's such a specific old man joke. Like every old man accumulates several thousand cans of paint.

1:18:45Why? Why are they? Why are there so many paint cans? We can't get rid of it. We might need to do a touch-up. We might need to do a touch-up, but we can never figure out what color goes to what can because there's so many cans and then they get rust. I mean, everything is like, it's the fourth version of the joke, right? It's not the first joke. And it's like so fleshed out and each one is fucking a silver bullet. I'm so glad you thanked that. Oh, we loved it. That means the world to me. My ultimate compliment would be like, it feels like a Chuck Lorre show. And then lo and behold, I look and it is a Chuck Lorre show.

1:19:12And you're phenomenal on it. The people you're with have just done hundreds and hundreds of hours of sitcoms. And we don't know that. Are you an alien? Okay, alien. Watch this show. Who's new to this? No fucking way they can point you out. Oh, thank you, my darling. Well, that's a relief to hear from you. I feel like the second season, I was, you know, more confident. And that first season, through the middle, I thought, okay, maybe I can do this. But I had Tim Daly. I mean, when you've got people like Kristen Johnston in there, it really helps somebody that doesn't know what they're doing. I mean, it really did help me.

1:19:47But I do think that's why stand-ups are good at sitcoms. Well, you have the audience, and you learn real quick. They tell you how to do it really quick. Now that we've learned all this about you, how are you policing yourself? Because if I mean, I've waited 60 years to get here and then I come to you and I go, OK, so we can do 25 arena shows. And let me show you what the walkout of those shows is. OK, and then you can do this sitcom. And that's let me show you the walkout of that. How are you policing yourself to not just do everything? Because it's such a windfall. Like, is that something you struggle with or have tension around?

1:20:24A little bit, my darling. Now, because this is probably 150 shows. I just started about a month and a half ago, and that'll go through 2027, and I'll owe Netflix another special. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book. That was a couple years ago. And then I've got a few little movie things that people have offered me. I mean, I did a Judd Apatow movie with Glenn Powell. I had a small part in. Oh, I auditioned for that. What part? The dean in the college. Oh. Yeah, I'm the old dean. That flirts. I think I'm getting typecast now and be the flirty old woman. Oh, you love that. But I like it. And I'm a flirt.

1:21:03I do love men. I've loved them all my life. And Glenn Powell was darling and yummy and precious and like being with your best friend you went to high school with. And then Judd Apatow. Yeah. It was like Nick Stoller. Like, Len, he goes, don't memorize that script. Let's have fun. And it's so fun. And then he's got the voice of God and we're all laughing and having a ball. It was a ball. I hope I get to do more things like that. For all the not good luck you had, you got it all now. I mean, the fact that you're working, the people you're working with is preposterous, kind of. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:21:36That's why I go, what in the world, y 'all? And you have to raise your children. You really did get to do both things, which is almost impossible. I did. And Reese Witherspoon said that to me every day, Lynn, you got to raise your own children. And I just look back, y 'all, and hell, if I'd have had that television deal at 40, Would they be the children they are today? I don't think so. You'd have to move them all out here. And then Chuck Morgan, what's he going to do now? He has a career he's been working his ass off for. And so what's he supposed to do? Come visit you guys? Right. And Matt Williams had my second deal that created Roseanne and Home Improvement.

1:22:11And he said, Lynn, don't let your family move out here. Don't let Chuck quit his job because it'll get canceled. It's not going to even make it probably, which we didn't even shoot a pilot for that one. And but I thought, can you imagine if I had to move away from my children so they could stay in their school? And I know Ray Romano did that for a while. But I was the mama. Yeah. You know, I couldn't have done that. OK, so I have had the pleasure of spending the last two summers. You know, we built the house in Nashville. Yes. And we've been on the lake the last two summers. And I have loved it for numerous reasons.

1:22:45And I've talked about them on here a lot. But culturally, it's much, much different. I would say like I'm from Detroit I lived in LA for 30 years and then now I've been in Nashville for a couple summers and tons of time throughout the year and certainly like I'd put Detroit in the middle of that spectrum right like I'd put Nashville on you know let's say the far right that's convenient and then California way the fuck out here in Detroit somewhere in the middle so I'm enjoying a lot of the things I remember about growing up in Michigan like for instance when I I probably met 100 people since I lived there.

1:23:18I'm friends with my neighbors. When I meet people, I've never been told what someone does for a living. I hear about how many kids they have, whether they're in college or not, whether they took them for spring break, took my kids out, you know, one's a golfer, all this stuff. It's just kids, kids, kids, and that's our life. So I love that part. Go to the Opry. Go like, oh, man, I get this. It's so different, and yet I completely get it. I see the value of this. And you've now spent a chunk of time in L.A. between doing the shows and stuff. What is it do you think that people don't understand about the South?

1:23:49I don't think people understand that we are educated people. I've had people say to me that people wear shoes, and I'm like, you know? They think that we're close-minded and that we're down on our luck. And I mean, people are down on their luck everywhere, sadly. but I don't think they realize how really truly hip and fun and eccentric that Southern people are. And we're storytellers. And I mean, we have Elvis, you know, we have all these unbelievable artists. I mean, it's just an eclectic place that is fascinating. I think people are fascinated by us, but we get a lot of stereotyping. But I think we're fascinating.

1:24:32I do. And we are very family oriented. Yes. And do you think that people think the women are oppressed? Yes. People from here have said things to me that are bizarre. And I think you can't help it, but you don't know. That's not what we are. Yeah. What I observed a lot was like, Chris and I both, we were like, we come to it with, we've been given these same stereotypes. They're on TV. They're on everything else. And I go, you know, you can say whatever anyone wants to say, but people are pretty fucking happy here. And the women are fucking pretty happy here. So of all the judgment or whatever the thing is, like what I'm observing is hard to make peace with with this other thing I'm hearing.

1:25:14Like they're happy as fuck. Yeah. I'm from Georgia, so I get it. But I also just don't think that's it's not like they're happy. They're people. There are people who are happy and sad and working like women are working there. I think that's a stereotype maybe that none of the women work, which isn't true at all. All of my friends work. Who are there. Right. All the women. So is that what you mean, maybe? No, I think there is a sect. I'm not putting you in this thing, but I think there's a sect of liberals that think, oh, they're stay at home. The husband still goes to work. They raise the kids.

1:25:49They think they're oppressed by a traditional. Like the 50s. Yes, a traditional American structure is still very much alive there. And I think a lot of liberals think that that's oppression. And I'm there and I'm saying, well, this is the face of oppression. Then sign me up for oppression. That's what I'm saying. That's what I've observed. We're getting to do everything. I mean, we're doing everything and we're tickled and we put on a sundress to do it. I feel like I've never been oppressed. The other thing I love is there's this great and it's all through your stand up. And I'm like, oh, yeah, this isn't unique to you.

1:26:24This is South. So two of our best friends live there, Huey and Hayes. And we get together with them and all they do is make fun of each other and bitch about each other. They're like, well, he wouldn't fucking know anything about these kids because he's out and blah, blah, blah. And she's like, yeah, well, it must, you know, it's a routine. And it's like the culture. And it's so amusing and funny to me. I love it. And they're all the couples are doing that. And I don't know. That's that's one unique thing I've observed. And I'm like, oh, this is so funny. And it's true. And your stand up is really reflective of that thing that I observe all the time when I'm down there.

1:26:54And that's true. I've made fun of Chuck Morgan and I raised these children by myself, but he was making a living. But I wanted it that way. I was doing stand-up. I mean, I've had a good life. These children got to go to a nice school. You know, I took some tennis lessons. I mean, you know, I had a good time. They were choices. You made choices. And I do find out here a lot of women go, we don't need men. I'm like, I need a man. I love men. I love men. And I've got a son and I've got grandsons. And, you know, I just couldn't make a blanket statement that men are bad. I love men. A lot of my friends are men.

1:27:32I've had a ball with men. I get that out here a lot. Like, we don't need men. And a lot of men on my crew have never married. And they go, I wanted to get married. And they're cute. And I go, move to Tennessee. They're going to line up to breed with you. You'll be married in six months. You'll be married with a bunch of kids before you know it. I noticed this. I have a neighbor who was precious that had a hernia surgery. So we made him a meal and took it over to him. And he had tears in his eyes. He said, nobody's ever made me a meal here. So I know that everybody's precious here in California, but maybe you don't know your neighbors.

1:28:04In the South, we know our neighbors and we do for each other. By the way, I snapped right in. I was like, my neighbor, I bet he must have borrowed 25 things from me in six weeks I was there. He's like, I need your trailer again. I'm sorry. Mine's still style. Great. He's like, I need to mow the grass of the house. I'm selling my mowers. I'm like, yeah, come grab it. And then he's like, you want me to go down to the dock? The dude's going to be here. I know you're going to be. It's like, oh, fuck. I love this. This is so awesome. and I'm built for that. I've enjoyed it so much. Oh, my darling. Yeah, yeah, I really, really do.

1:28:33I'm so glad. Yeah, I really. It is sweet. It is. And of course, now Nashville's so nifty and a lot of LA people have moved there and New York. So you've got that, the Nordstrom. I remember when the Nordstrom had like orthopedic shoes and all of a sudden it was like Gucci and I thought, what's going on here? All the Californians are here. All the California hooptie-doo girls moved out there. Well, we had, it's almost fun. And we had to prove immediately we weren't those Californians. Because there's also any time a big influx of any people move into any place. You name it. People are like, oh, what's going on?

1:29:05And things are changing. And so we're like, don't worry, we're not that. I'll be out mowing my grass. Like, we're not those folks. And they now get that. And, yeah, it's dreamy. Well, I got to tell you, I love the state of Michigan, honey. I think Michigan's one of the prettiest states. Oh, hard to beat. You go up in the lakes up north. It's like, are you kidding me? It looks like the Caribbean, the water, and it's fresh. Crazy, Traverse City? Yeah, Traverse City. I did the National Cherry Festival. I won this cherry seed spitting contest when I was 12 years old at that festival. Oh, my darling.

1:29:37I spit one, three picnic tables. Big claim to fame. I had a ball at that Cherry Festival. I put in my suitcase enough cherry jam to kill a horse. That sounds yummy. I thought, and it is, it's so pretty. Now there's an L.A. flight because people figured out about Traverse City and the lakes and all up in there. Oh, yeah. Lelanau Peninsula. And then Mackinac Island and all that. But I'm going to be in Detroit at the Fox Theater. That's a beautiful theater. We did a show there. We did. Did this show there. And I'll say it's the only live show that I was, like, terrified to do. Because, you know, maybe you would know, you wouldn't know, like, you kind of adopt this.

1:30:17Because you're riddled with fear. I create some kind of persona and that persona is who can go on a stage in front of 3 ,000 people and not be afraid. But I left my hometown and created that persona and I'm very confident on stage. And we went there and I was like, oh, no, there's so many people that know me before I had the persona. And are they going to be like, what the fuck is this? It was kind of terrifying. Yeah. It was still fun as hell, but it's the only show I was like quite scared to do. Well, I'm doing Thompson Bowling Arena where I went to the University of Tennessee and the Bridgestone in Nashville.

1:30:52And that will freak me out. Yeah, right. Okay, you can relate. Yeah. Because I'm like, the Bridgestone, can I do this? Fox Theater when a kid, you go once in Christmas to see a thing. It was like the big event of the year to get to go to the Fox Theater. Right. It's so beautiful. The Ryman. When I did the Ryman the first time, anytime I did the Ryman, that's another one that's like the Grand Ole Opry. You feel the spirit. Isn't that where it originally was? Yeah. And everybody wants to play the Ryman. and backstage are pictures of Elvis and Patsy Cline and all that. So cool. It's crazy. You've yet to bring up Waylon.

1:31:21You've said a lot of people. I love Waylon, honey. And my boy, my son, is an old soul and loved Americana, Johnny Cash. He had the Highwaymen album up on his thing. Yeah, Charlie loved all that. And we would be in the minivan listening to Johnny Cash or Selena, the soundtrack from Selena. Because we were in San Antonio and Maggie loved the Hispanic culture and Jennifer Lopez. Dreaming of You is an incredible song. She said, I may have to have that played at my wedding. Leanne, I love you. I love you. You're so fantastic. I'm so happy for you. Season two of Leanne. When does it come out on Netflix?

1:32:00Thursday, honey, August the 27th. Y 'all can come stay at my house. Go to the University of Tennessee ball game. You're talking about crazy, honey. Okay, be careful. Monica's very strict about who I can like. Okay, honey, come to a ball game when we play Georgia. Actually, I was at the Tennessee game at Georgia a couple years ago. It was so fun. I was in a box. That was one of those moments that I had that I was like, I'm here in a box. I've gotten to be in a box one time. It's so exciting. That's so exciting. It really is. But if I go, you need to understand I'm going to be in red. And that's okay, my darling.

1:32:38Okay. I like to talk about the SEC. I'm a big fan of the SEC football. So I like to talk about on the stage wherever I am. And we all have a common thing about Lane Kiffin. But he's cute. Yeah, sure. All right, Leah, come back. Come back. This is so great. And I hope I bump into you in Tennessee. I hope so too, Dan. All right. All right, you don't. Thank you. All right. I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. We're glam today. You are. I am. From what? Doing something very cool. Is it top secret?

1:33:19No. Well, maybe, but I'll spill the beans. Oh, wow. With Rezzy. I'm going to different neighborhoods in LA and going to some of my favorite restaurants. Oh, fun. It's my dream. Oh, my God. I know. And, like, talking to the owners and having my foodies. And it's really fun. Do they feed you on these trips? Yep. Okay. Sorry, misophonia. Oh, same. We're about to trigger some misophonia. Yeah, misophonia is part of life. We got a game plan for tomorrow's mom's car. And you're going to eat? We're going to eat the shit out of some stuff. Okay. That's fine. You know. Listen. Once in a while, the misophonia people are a guy.

1:33:58I guess we're going to have to miss one. Yeah, we're just like, if they have the right expectation going in, then it should be fine. Something bad did happen, though. Was it involved with your phone? Oh, well, that's separate. Okay, I'm like, I feel like I'm going to get a lot of stories out of you. You are. Yeah. You are. Something bad just happened. Oh, my gosh. Like 10 minutes ago. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so I'm at these restaurants. I also did have wine at 9 a.m. Yum. Oh, wow. Okay, great. Another benefit to this. Yeah. Yeah, fun. Exactly. Fun. Not a lot, but, you know. Enough. Some. Okay. And so, okay.

1:34:42So we're at these restaurants, super fun. We're in a really cool neighborhood in LA. I won't spoil it. And then I'm walking back to my car and there's two people sitting outside eating and I see one of them and I know him. Okay. But I don't exactly know how. One of those question marks where you're like. You can't place it exactly. Yeah, but I know I know him. But I know I like, but then it's one of those, or are they on TV? Yeah. You never know in LA. Yeah. And then, but then he makes eye contact with me and he smiles. And so I'm like, we do know each, we know each other, but what? And so I was like, hi, but I'm still walking.

1:35:25And he was like, hi. Oh no. Oh boy. And then. Were you just going to try to keep it moving and just, okay. Yeah. Just like, hey. Good to see you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You look great. Yeah, hey. He's been disfigured since you last saw him, but you don't know that. New eye patch, it looks great. Oh, I love your new patch. Yeah, no, so then, so he, I can tell is like kind of trying to say hi a little, but like also probably understands. It's the me and Schwarzenegger situation. Yes, exactly. But then this gets way worse, okay? So we're having this little interaction. It's happening fast, but I'm like moving, moving, moving.

1:36:07And then the person he's with turns around and it's Aziz. Oh, wow. OK. And so then I said, hey, Aziz. Oh, so now you have time. Now you got all the time in the world. Sit right there. And then he was like, this is kind of a David Chang situation again that I find myself in. OK, where I'm like, does anyone know each other here? Are we supposed to? We're kind of like Aziz and I have met. Okay. Where and when? I auditioned for him in person, one-on-one with him. For Master of None? No, for a movie after that. Okay. So within the last eight years. Yeah. Okay. And I think he knows who I am. Sure. Prominent Indian woman.

1:36:55Yeah. I do think that buys me a little something. But mainly it's the interaction we had. We had a real one-on-one interaction. Yes. At the audition. yeah but it was just me and him and he was like going through it with me i didn't book it um so uh so then he's like hey oh gee so now he's you with the other guys now we got a three-way no one wants to anyone else but now do i bring around the rosie of people who don't know each other but is it enough context clues where you're like okay so i kind of know the one guy who do i know that with no Aziz this must be a UCB connection all this was happening but not yet because the maybe the wine I don't know I was like because he said hey and I was like and then I just walked oh you just bounced yeah just went to my car oh my god okay this was not resolved well it did get resolved because then I'm in at my car and I'm like what the what was all that and then I realized who the original person is.

1:37:57Okay. Shout out Lee Eisenberg. Okay. Lee is a very very prominent comedy writer. Okay great. He's incredible. Yeah. He created Jury Duty. Oh wonderful. It wrote on The Office and like Yeah. How did you know him? Exactly. He is married to one of my new friends. Okay. Yes. Yes. All right. Who lives in this neighborhood. This is who you played Mahjong with? Yes. I have new friends and they live in the neighborhood. Oh, that's this is very rough. I know. But let me tell you something. I've never met Lee in person. Oh, easy. OK. I thought you spent an evening playing Mahjong with him. No, no, no, no.

1:38:39That's why the cat was away. You might were playing. No, no, no. Only Emily, his beautiful, lovely wife, I play Mahjong with. But of course, like we've all been trying to hang out. It's a whole thing. We're all on a text. Oh, boy. Okay. And I know what he looks like because I follow Emily on Instagram. So I see pictures and stuff. Yeah. So that's what happened. Okay, that's not bad. It could be worse. You've never met him in person. I know. But then I'm like, hi, Aziz. You're clean as a cucumber in a bathtub. I think the Aziz part really ruined it, though, because I bet Lee was like, what? She's going to say hi to Aziz?

1:39:18Yeah, that part. She doesn't know him. Not ideal. But I have met Aziz more times than I've met Lee. Yeah, 100 % more times. And then I immediately. Well, now actually 50 % more times. Right. Yeah. Now I, and then I text, voice memoed Emily in a real furious state, you know? Sure. And I was like. This is what I did to you when I had met the husband of one of your friends at a park. Oh, right. Like a little damage control. Yeah. A little panic. Exactly. You're Sally's husband. Correct. This is every day of my life. Dave. It's bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. And I was like, I'm so sorry this happened.

1:39:52Please relay to Lee that I'm... Humiliated. I didn't know who he was because out of context... Never met him. And I've never actually met him one-on-one, which is bad. And I look crazy. I'm all made up. Well, I don't know about that part. Drinking. Yeah, with my wine. No, thank God I had already put that down. You don't look absurdly made up. Okay. But just like it's like a regular day. I wouldn't have thought. No, no. Okay. You look normal. I'm in full glam. Okay. Okay. What time did that start? Seven? Yeah. Fuck. I know. I'm tired. I bet. A little tipsy. No, I wish I could have had more. You know, this is what started.

1:40:36It's like I had a little. And then at the next place, I had a little more. And now I'm like, oh, I want. Now I like really want more. Do we still have vodka in the studio? What did we have, Tanqueray? We did. We had a vodka for a guest that didn't drink it. Yeah, we thought Jen Aniston might want to pound some nice cocktails. And she's like, what are you talking about? Why would I want to drink in this interview? I'm like, I don't know, because I would want to if I drank. I want everyone to drink in these interviews. And we learned what her favorite drink was and got it. Got the stuff. Without being so thoughtful.

1:41:09The fixings. I think it came across as more offensive. You know I can get through an interview without drinking my favorite cocktail, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. God, being a person's hard, as we know. As we find out hourly. Okay, now what happened to your phone? Oh, I got a new phone. So I got to tell you something. So I spent a good chunk of my Sunday editing. Great. So I'm like editing, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch this little mouse in a bright yellow, maybe shirt. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Walking down the street. Oh. Yeah. You know, you're walking down the street. Uh-huh. And I'm like, oh, my God, just a glimpse.

1:41:45I'm like, oh, she's probably walking to Kara. And then I see Aaron later. He's like, oh, yeah, I saw Monica. And I'm like, oh, he was arriving from the airport, right? Yes. And I'm like, oh, wow, it timed out perfectly where you were pulling up to the gate. Monica was exiting the gate. He's like, no, she was in the property. Both are true. Okay. So this was very sim timing, all of it. Yeah. So I got a new phone two days ago. I didn't want to get a new phone I want to make that clear but my phone was dying a lot like you weren't getting the battery life you like that's what happens with these phones I'm not going to call out what type of phone it is but it's obvious these phones start dying like on purpose do you ever do these hacks I read these Instagram posts like here's what's eating your battery and I do I go do the I turn off all that stuff I don't think my phone works very well anymore but the battery lasts see exactly I turn off Bluetooth because I do know that eats it.

1:42:43Okay. All right. But anyway, I've had it for two years. It's two phones old. Or not two years, but it's two phones old. Can I have it? The old one? Yeah. And I'll put it. I'll get it. I think you can put a new battery in them. You can? I think so. Are you sure? I think so. You can take it to like an iPhone fix place and they'll do that. I even think maybe the genius bar will do it for you. I don't have Apple care. I don't either. But they'll still do it for maybe a few hundred dollars. Okay. sure you can have it I don't want it get it out of here everything must go so I then got the new one that was a whole thing because you had to order it and then we had to wait in line for it well I gotta say that so simultaneous to me seeing you out the window you seeing Aaron somewhere I'm also getting a text from from Wobby Wob saying because I've now sent a text to everyone hey can we do fact check tomorrow I know that hasn't happened yet in the timeline it hasn't so this is what happened but it happened between when I saw Aaron okay okay So I am not there yet.

1:43:41I have a few steps. Okay, great. Okay, so I got my phone. I have to do the transfer. I start doing it. It says eight hours. Okay. And I was like, ooh, it's probably just saying eight hours. I doubt it's really going to be eight hours. It does try to give you an estimate that it can over-deliver. It tries to under-promise and over-deliver. It does. But then three hours later, it said seven hours. And I was like, oh, boy. And then I was trying to move at locations in the house. I didn't know if that had anything. Because you don't have proper internet. I don't have good Wi-Fi. It's bad. You don't have Wi-Fi.

1:44:15You've got interlocked, whatever, the fucking satellite thing is. Oh, net gear or whatever. What's wrong? No, Starlink. Yeah, Starlink. What the hell is going on over here? She doesn't have full power. She doesn't have internet. No electricity. No internet. I know. So anyway, that's happening. It's saying seven hours. And I was like, ugh, okay, whatever. I guess I'll leave it here. And in the but in the meantime, I saw a text come through and it was on the group work group chain, you, Rob and Emma. And so then I was like, oh, fuck, I can't look at it. All right. I was able to look at it. I just saw that it came through.

1:44:51So I was like, oh, no. And this might be a timely thing. I don't know. So I left both phones to do their thing. And I went to your house. I went into your like in the side gate. Okay. I look around. I don't see anyone. Right. I'm shouting, Dex, Kristen. No one's there. Okay. I knock on the front door. Oh, jeez. Kristen's car isn't there. So, like, oh, they must just be out. Yeah. I was upstairs in the attic. You didn't see me even roaming around your yard. No, because the window I have while editing is to my right just looking at our shared street. That's true. I can't see our yard. Okay, yeah.

1:45:30Yeah. So then, and I was going to your house to tell you, hey, I don't have a phone. I need to know what was on that text in case it's timely, but you weren't there. So then I go back and I thought about going out the front gate, but I was like, no, I don't think they like when I go out the front gate opening and closing and exposing it if it doesn't have to be open and closed. So I went back out. That's not a thing. If there's anything, the gate was breaking nonstop. Right. It breaks. And I did get, during that little phase, it was in my mind when it was opening and closing a lot. I'm like, it's just one more.

1:46:06It's just going to break. But now it's just functioning again. Okay. Well, I went out the side gate. I turned left to go to the white gates to leave, to go to Kara. Yeah. So what I definitely saw you is when you walked and you went in the side gate. Into your house. Because I lose sight of you before you would have turned left. Okay. And I presumed you were going, well, correctly, I presumed you were going to go to Kara. but you had a pit stop, which was the house. Yes. Okay. So then I am going out the gates of the neighborhood and I see that there's a car parked outside your gate. And I was like, who is that?

1:46:40And then I see the back of a person and I was like. Cute little person. Yeah, it was a cute person, but I didn't know who it was. Yeah, yeah. And then when the gate opened, it was Aaron. Yeah. Look at that timing. Serendipitous. And I was putting in the wrong code. Oh, wow. As many times as I put it in, I'm like trying the Nashville, you know, I'm just. Yeah. But he actually did have the right code. He just pressed star. Oh, yeah. I was pressing the star. It's very confusing. The many trials have been too spoiled. Behind the gate. Yeah. I know. So I saw Aaron. I gave him a squeeze. I helped him get in the house.

1:47:19I said, I'm going to Kara. I don't have a phone. You guys should come. I don't think anyone's home, though. And then I went on my way to Kara. You guys did not come. They bring it up. Thank you. But then we had something else going on. You had plans. But you really missed out. There was a really, really kind arm cherry there who was a day one listener. She said it was a sim moment because she wasn't into podcasts. And her friend or somebody was like, you should get into podcasts. and it was February 14th, 2018. Holy smokes. And she saw it and she was like, I might like this. And she's been a listener ever since.

1:48:02Oh, wow. And guess what she was wearing? Cookie Boy shirt. No, it's specific to you guys. A Ted Seeger shirt. Yes. Oh. Jesus. And I said, I said, oh, I told Aaron, I said, Aaron's in town and I told them to come here. Yeah. And so she's mad at you guys. And I just told Monica that, Oh, I just sent Kara a bunch of Ted Segers recently. I thought it would be so exciting for her to meet you two together. She's wearing a Ted Segers shirt. Can we redo it? We blew it. We were having our own experience over at our favorite hard shell taco restaurant. Oh, sure. Because we're at the counter waiting. And look over at this table and there are six young women, mid to late 20s, I think.

1:48:52we're so old we don't know. Okay. So that feels right. Okay. Mid-20s. Sure. Yeah, mid-20s, especially what they were doing. They were dressed up in the craziest outfits. One was a clown cowboy, so her whole face was painted like a rodeo clown. Whoa, okay. And she had a cowboy hat on. Okay. Another one looked like Stevie Nicks. Another one had like a piratey outfit. They had all these crazy outfits on. They're practicing for Halloween. Well, of course, I need to know what's going on. Of course. Yes, and I say, I say, Gail's what's what's happening with all the outfits did you just do a performance and they said oh no we're do you know Bob McNerney's Mirionette Museum everyone knows it's a real thing we're getting the last name of Bob wrong yeah you are Bob Barker it's a different Bob Barker I didn't even hear that come out of her mouth I don't even remember Bob Barker Bob Baker.

1:49:49Bob Baker. That's much more believable. Oh, I do think it was Bob Barker this whole time. The Price is Right on these marionettes. Bob Baker. Bob Barker's Price is Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Falcon's Crows. Yeah. But this is a whole thing here. Bob Baker's marionette theater. Yeah, apparently. Yeah. And so I presumed that they were performers. Right. But they weren't. There was some kind of festival and everyone got all, so it was so fun. Huge. And we're chatting with them. And then, you know, the clown, Trinity, who I thought she, I heard Trigger, which would be the greatest name for a cowboy clown.

1:50:27Right? Like Trigger, the horse of Lone Ranger, I think. What's your name? She said, Trigger. But it was Trinity. But it wasn't. Okay. We both heard Trigger. That was nice. And then she says, I didn't get your name. And I go, oh, I'm Dax. And she said, okay. And then one of the gals says, my brother met you once at Zanku Chicken. And I go, I guarantee that's true because I love Zanku Chicken. Yeah, we used to get it a lot. And I said, did he say I was, how did the interaction go? And she said, oh, he said you were really nice. And he was telling you about some movies he liked. And he said, you were real down to earth and talked to him for a while.

1:51:08And I go, that's great. That's great. And she said, now, I don't know if this part's true. but he claims you that I he told you my sister loves you and you said is she hot and I go oh for sure I definitely said that and I said because there's nothing that brother wants to talk about less than if his sister's hot or not so anyways that was fun I can't think of a more you interaction yeah that was all like uh Zancou for sure was your sister hot I was like Oh, this has definitely happened. Wow, that's fun. In the court of law. Yeah. Yeah, we got 26 tacos and then got on our way. Wow. Wowie wow. Okay, so there was, I was expecting perhaps a whole story related to the new phone that would have involved an underwater debacle, a theft as it happened in the past in England.

1:52:04Yes. But it was just a battery issue. It was just, I had been waiting though. I've been holding out for the new phone for a while because I was like, hell no. Am I going to get the 17 just as this is about to come out? But can I ask you, does this stuff matter to you? Because to me, it doesn't. Right. I can't relate to the people like 19 is coming. It's like I haven't noticed a new feature from the last three iterations. Like they take pictures and I send texts. I don't know. It doesn't matter to me. but practicality to me, it doesn't make sense to get a phone that's going to be updated in two months.

1:52:41Absolutely. Yeah. You get, yeah. I've been holding out. I relate to that. This is 18. 18. Okay. How long more do we have on that one? This just, oh, this just happened two days ago. Two days ago. Yeah. That's why I'm so. And that's a pretty blue. Thank you. I got a new case. and I do have a weird thing with phones. I really resent, Jess was asking me this. He was like, you have a weird thing. Like you hate paying for them and I do. I really don't like paying for like laptops or phones or tech for some reason. That is so strange to me. Yeah, it's strange to everyone apparently. Because it's like, if anything in my opinion like deserves its price tag.

1:53:26There's so much tech and shit inside. I think because I'm like versus like the there'd be a candle holder that you'd be like oh yeah that's definitely worth twice as much as an iPhone. It is. And I'm like what does it do? It holds a candle? It's because all of it's practical. It's like utility. It's not cute. It doesn't move you emotionally. That's why. Exactly. And it's there to do work and I just wanted to do work. I don't need it to do anything special. And so I'd rather not replace them ever. Okay. But I have to. Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Arm & Hammer Toothpaste, Monica.

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1:55:36How was your weekend? Can't remember. Who knows? No, I think it was really nice. It was low. I think I enjoyed it. I think it was a great weekend. If I had to guess, I'd say I enjoyed it. It was a nice weekend. I don't. Nothing stands out. So what about you guys? Well, I don't really know how to mount some of this stuff. I'm increasingly thinking I'm going to have to tell less and less stories about. Your family. My family life. Because my kids are getting older. Yeah. And so this would be one where I'm really not sure. I'm kind of on the fence. I'll just say that we went to the Dodgers game, which I was very excited about.

1:56:15And I got some really ideal seats. Great. You know, you get to do the buffet beforehand. The four of you went. Well, that's the dream. Well, you can have a buffet there and then you go and sit in the seats. Yeah. No, I'm saying the four of you. Your family. Yes, my wife and my two children. Okay, great. And, of course, we can't leave. You know, I got it mapped out. We'll be able to eat. We'll finish eating, and then the game will start. That, of course, is off the table. But we, there's, yeah, I can't tell you. What I just want to hit you with the punchline is we basically were able to watch the game from the second inning to the sixth inning.

1:56:49Okay, okay. And that's, you know what? That's four more innings of baseball than I was going to see otherwise. Right. And did you get to eat your food and stuff? We did eat our food. Okay, okay. Yes. We had delicious. That's good. I love a buffet more than anything. I know that's not your thing. It used to be, but germs got in the way. Oh, it's germ driven? Now, yeah. You think you're going to get a parasite or something? Well, I got one. Oh. It wasn't from a buffet. So then why are you? I don't know. Now just the idea of it got in my head, but I like a buffet in theory. They're so fun. And this one has some ice cream.

1:57:30I had like a soft sort of ice cream with squirtable toppings. That sounds yummy. Yeah. And I tried to always, my commitment is to eat between four and six Dodger dogs. That's always what I minimally want to eat. If I go with Nate, Nate and I always like, that's kind of our commitment. But I had had so much pot roast. Right. Pot roast. Yeah. You wouldn't believe how much pot roast I had. I do believe it. Like how often, you never see a pot roast. It's fucking great. It's so good. Pot roast, I used to put ketchup all over it. And there's potatoes. It's almost like a... Yeah, it was fucking amazing.

1:58:07Isn't that funny? You guys are both almost cute, but just beef. You put ketchup on a hamburger. I've just never heard of ketchup on a pot roast. My mom used to make pot roast a lot. She did. Yeah. Maybe she could make it cute. Yeah. Would she be upset if I put ketchup on it? I think. Well, ask her. I'll ask her. I made a delicious pot roast last week. You did? Yeah. I think I should make one while we're here. Yes, I have a slow cooker. Yeah, yeah. How do you make it? Well, I've been doing, I've been finding Instagram recipes. Nice. So everything, I haven't struck out yet. I mean, I'm doing like chicken bop pies.

1:58:47Yum. These aren't, Aaron, these are like big recipes. Aaron's a good cook. You are? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. I got a little crazy as I tend to do. Like, I do this and I. And OK, we're all together there, some friends and Ruthie brings up that. Oh, yeah. Aaron loves the cook. And I don't know what came over me. And I go, yeah, I don't. And oh, but you were lying. Well, I don't know. I was like being difficult. I'm so difficult sometimes. And I was like, yeah, that's not true. We already know what it is. OK, say. it's if it's your idea it's if it's someone else's idea it's not a very good idea I know it's why we got along so well it doesn't tell me to neither of you are putting ideas in each other we're so careful about the way we interact with each other that we don't ever trigger that thing that we know we're so isn't that so stupid we know it's ridiculous I know but I'm just saying like if you said to me you like shopping and I was like no yeah it would be insane it'd be insane yeah which is what it is when yeah okay but i also think there's a second thing happening deeper tell me oh go ahead well it's still it's still no you say your thing sorry i did end up a it turned into a whole thing oh yeah of course because she was probably like what do you mean yeah well i was like it turned into she's like now we're at home and she's like, I guess I'll order something.

2:00:27And I do cook often. And you like it. Yeah. Oh my God. It's your favorite thing to do. So now all we do is order out? No. Because you're stuck. So then I had to apologize and I said, I don't even know what I was talking about. And I don't know why you weren't allowed to say that to your friends. Right, right. I'm not sure. Yeah, it's so insane. Well, it's interesting because sometimes, sometimes we love to be known. Like that's a version, right? It's like someone knows me so well, they say, they know I like shopping or cooking or whatever. They're explaining it to other people. And I think that's, I often like that.

2:01:13I'm like, that person knows me. Yeah, that's lovely. If it's something neutral, like cooking. Sure. But did you think what was coming next is like she was basically offering your services to cook for everyone? Because I think that's maybe what's... Because to me, I think he has a bit of my haircut thing. Oh. Which is he really would love to make a meal for you and blow your mind, but then the second he feels like he has to make you meals, then now he's out. Is that... Yeah, it is. It is. You know my haircut. But you want to be in control of it. But you know what? I did... And here's where it especially doesn't make sense, is like two weeks before that conversation, Ruthie has been having a mahjong Yeah Girls Over And I made Okay now Ruthie did ask Something simple like can you make Smash burgers would you mind And I started to resent it Oh And because she Asked And then I had to put that aside and I said You know what I'm going to even fucking do you one better.

2:02:23And I'm going to make this crazy meal. Oh, yeah. That's so nice. Contrary action. We like that. So I made it for all the girls. Yeah. And I invited a friend over. Anyway. That sounds lovely. And, yeah, then two weeks later, I, yeah. You were used to enjoying it. Maybe you felt like, oh, no, now this is a pattern. Right. Well, I have this disgusting quality as well, which is like, I love to give people stuff and I hate to be asked for. You like you like to give people on your terms. That's right. And and even then, sometimes you have some resentments. I think sometimes sometimes I think it can happen.

2:03:13Oh, I don't identify with that. I don't identify with resenting people I've given things to. Okay. In fact, I've given a lot of things to people, especially recently where it's gone completely sideways and it doesn't bother me at all. Yeah. It probably depends on the situation in person. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could get specific, but yeah, there's things I could really complain about and I really don't. Now I give and I don't care what happens afterwards. Yes. That's a good quality. But if, if you ask me for stuff, I have a real hard time with it. Now, I am getting better. Someone asked me for money the other day.

2:03:51Not in my circle. And then I was just like, I'm going to give them the max tax-free thing. That's nice. That's very nice, yeah. So I went, oh, like that was contrary action. I just, but Aaron and I had this. I think you wouldn't be uncomfortable, would you? No, no, no, no. Like we had to have this moment where it was like, I help Aaron. I help him very predictably. Yeah. And then one time he wanted, he needed money for something. Yes. And I said, this is going to ruin our friendship if you ask us for money. Because I now, when I pick up the phone and I see your name, I don't want to have anxiety about it.

2:04:23Like I'd way rather just be able to say like, here's how I'm going to help you. Yes. And then beyond that, I don't really, I don't want to have anxiety when I pick up the phone. Yeah, that's fine. That's fair and fine. And I was like, oh my God, that's what he feels. Right. Yeah. So I was like, that makes perfect sense. So you're probably happy he told you that. Yeah, totally. And a lot of it's just my dad's fault, right? Because by, you know, the last six years of our relationship, I don't know, 60 % of the calls were kind of, they were fake calls. They were like, we do some baloney talk. But it was really just, and then every time I'd be talking, I'm just like, what's coming at the end of this?

2:04:59I hate this feeling. Yeah. And I was like, just tell me right away what you want. And then maybe if you still want to chat with me socially, I'd like to do that. But I feel this doesn't feel clean. Well, yeah, you don't want to feel like that's the reason they're talking to you or reaching out. Yeah, it gets complicated. And I know what position they're in because sometimes I got to ask people for stuff and I feel like, well, I should, you know, do a few nice things before. So it's very complicated. Well, it also depends. It's very specific to the person. Like there is someone in my life who has asked me for things and I'm like, no.

2:05:32Then you're like, oh, is by me being generous, fueling this thing where they feel like it's an open-ended question. And then I don't like the way that feels. I feel used. Like it is very tricky. But my therapist taught me something. Oh, what was that? Because, yeah, sometimes I get in this exact situation where I've been like giving and giving. And then I'm like, then I can feel a resentment go off. Uh-huh. And it's really unfair to everyone. Like it's unfair to the people I've given to because I've done that out of generosity. Also, really quickly, can I just add this in case anyone's throwing up?

2:06:09I know it sounds, this happens without money. This is also your time. Like I think a lot of people would relate to like, yeah, I helped this person move and then I helped them fix their lawnmower. I showed up for them here. Yes. And then it just feels like, well, I'm, what am I, your assistant? Yes. This is about reciprocation in general. But this applies to all of that. This applies to your time as well-ish. she said you have to give for fun and for free. Mm-hmm. I agree. And so I say that to myself all the time now if I'm making like those decisions. It's like this isn't, I'm not going to get anything back for this.

2:06:44Yeah. Emotionally or financially or anything. It's just for me to do. That's right. Yeah. So it's good to remember that. Yeah. But it's hard. So the dinner maybe you felt like. I don't think it's justified. I love my feelings. At least you know that. That's a big part of it for real. For real. But I now want you to make me dinner. Sure. Yeah, let's have dinner. You love cooking. Yeah, you love it so much. I remember you saying that we talked about pot roast a long time ago, and you were like, can't fucking make, like it doesn't turn out like it's supposed to, and it should be so easy. You put it in the slow cooker.

2:07:32Yeah. And you fucking forget about it, right? That's how it should be. Yeah. Yeah, there was a couple things I picked up along the way and I was like, see, but now I'll fucking say it out loud and it's going to be shit. No, it won't. No, it won't. Maybe, yeah, it does sound like you guys have some things about like deliver, like an eating to be perfect or something.

2:07:58I don't know if you have that but that sounds like wait like you're like worried that it won't be as good as people want it to be or something yeah how stupid is that no it's normal yeah but when you're on the other end and someone's has whipped you up some dinner everything's amazing you fucking don't care everything tastes so good does it gotta be perfect no it's great exactly totally I'll take whatever and I hate when and I don't want to be the guy to go oh it would have been better if I gave it to just go on and on about how it should have been better. I forgot to salt it. I wish I had sweat.

2:08:32It would have been better if I had. One of the greatest laughs we ever had, Aaron and I, was someone made us some steaks once. Oh, my God. And they fucking torched them. Like, they really, really torched them. They were gone. That happens. It was like a shoe sole. And we, of course, and then the person's doing exactly what Aaron's like. Oh, maybe I should have pulled these off a couple minutes sooner. and we're like, no way, these are fucking delicious, right? And then there's like a whole performance and this went on for a while and we did a good job. We ate those steaks, which was almost impossible.

2:09:04Like we finished our steaks and we had already eaten so much that day, but on the ride home, we really started laughing so hard. We were saying that if we had been in that situation and we looked at the grill and saw what we had done in the steaks, we would have walked through the backyard and disappeared for three days and then said we were abducted and that's why I couldn't have pulled him off in time because we were abducted. I would have never served those things. The amount of pride on the line for a man about cooking a steak is fucking hysterical. Yeah, that's crazy. Anytime a guy's like, I'll cook the steaks, he's like, okay, you're taking on a lot of risk right now.

2:09:42Oh my God. Yeah, this is like seven years ago. Meanwhile, moms are making dinner every night and the kids, like people are just like, Ew, I don't like green beans. You know, it's like. We were so mean to my mom. Yeah, we were. She wanted to make a couple dishes she liked. Yeah. You know, a month. Exactly. Fucking, I tell you, chicken cacciatore. We'd be like, oh, man, you're making fuck the. Fucking hate you. Like, she hated us. We were like, you hate us. Yeah. No one wants to eat this. My poor mom would just want one meal that tastes good for herself. And it sounds good. It's probably really good.

2:10:19Chicken cacciatore. It was terrible, Monica. No, chicken ketchup tors. That's how I thought about jambalaya. I hate jambalaya because my mom, oh, she was trying to force feed me jambalaya. Was it jambalaya or jambalaya? Jambalaya. To me, it's jambalaya. I think in the South, it's jambalaya. Okay. It sounds more fun and festive. Yeah, but it's not. It is a beat down trying to eat that. Yeah, her other one was fucking Spanish rice. Stuffed peppers. Oh, I love stuffed. anything if you try to get some vegetables because that chicken cacciatore I feel like she started with seven or nine onions that sounds so good fuck so many onions and very little chicken yeah what is that poor Laura Italian dish prepared with meat onions so many onions 17 onions usually tomatoes often peppers and sometimes wine oh wow peppers and onions when you're nine Peppers and onions.

2:11:19It's like the most fancy. It sounds really good, actually. Oh, and some rice, I think. I had a neighbor in Row Lake that I was. How do I put this? I guess I was. They were babysitting me. And it was two girls, one girl our age and a younger one. and the mom. She made liver. Have you ever even tried it? I have tried it. Pate. Patty. Yeah, so this was, maybe this was the one, I've never tried it again. Yeah. And liver. So... Is this the butcher give it away for free? Is it like we got all the... Right, some fucking organs. Some organs. Ew, don't call it organs. So it stunk so bad. Not only is it an organ, it's the one that filters your blood.

2:12:19And I think she was, I don't know if she made it out to be just, no, it stunk so bad. Oh, fuck, dude. Was it chicken livers? It was a beef liver, like a big fucking humongous fucking organ. The size of a porterhouse. Oh. So she was forcing me, I was telling Ruthie about this recently, this came up, about kids not eat and all right and i was like i would fucking eat damn near anything um back then to just whatever i ate shit every day and um but this stunk so bad and um and she she said she plopped a big bottle of ketchup down and she was like it was her fucking job to make me eat this liver. Oh, my God.

2:13:13And so now she put ketchup, and I hated ketchup. Oh, you do? Oh, no wonder the Paulist thing. And I'm like, fucking ketchup on this, and I was like, no. And she fucking drug me by the hair into the bathroom and shoved the bar of soap in my mouth. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And when it was all over, I would have fucking ate 10 of those bars of soap before I was fucking eating that liver. Oh, man. I had a similar, my stepdad, Rick, my second stepdad, he made a big, big batch of fish. I swear in my mind, everyone had a fish on their plate with like the fucking bones and shit. Oh, man. And the rest of my family, there was a lot of us at that point.

2:14:07There was five kids and my mom and him. And so there's seven of us and six folks. Well, I'm definitely not Carly, but everyone ate this fish. Yeah, I love fish. And I was just like staring at it and smelling. I was looking at those sharp bones. And I was like, I can't. Sharp bones? I can't eat the fish. And he said, you're not getting up from this table until you eat that fish. Yeah. And I sat there for several hours. Yeah, that's how I feel about the jambalaya. And he just sat and stared at me. Yeah. I was not to get up. And then finally, I'm like, fuck, I gotta get this fish down. And I took one fork full and threw up violently all over the plate.

2:14:46Oh, no. And then I looked at him and he's like, you can go to bed. That was the end of that. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck. I just can't even have a cat that you can pull up. You can get a skeleton. I just don't understand the obsession with making a kid eat something. I think that's over. I think so, too. Probably. But that definitely was a time. Well, they thought like you'd die if you didn't eat dinner or something. There were these other elements going on. There's like you're entitled, right? It's like this is a good piece of fish. Look at the bones. People are killed to have that. Yeah.

2:15:30Ethiopia was big then with the commercials. So it was like, you know. Starving kids in other countries. That was always a thing. And like, you're an entitled brat if you don't like fish. Right. Or liver. Yeah, to your point, I would have eaten fucking cardboard box. Sure. Oh, gross. I was in highfalutin. You never learned to like fish. Yeah, with those starters, you know, it's hard to overcome, I think. It is. That really is true. Oh, God. Were you ever forced to eat anything? Jambalaya. Jambalaya. To the point where you weren't allowed to leave the table. Okay, my memory of that is that, yes, I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I had some of it.

2:16:09Or like ate some bites. Was there shrimp and sausage in it? I just remember the sausage. Scallops. I love scallops now. Muscles. I like muscles too. I like all that stuff now. I probably love jambalaya now. But I hate it. Fishbone broth. stock. Do you like fish? It's been a whole thing with fish, too. Oh. I did. I'm afraid I would have talked him out of it. Yeah, I realized that one day I was like, it was to the point where Dax used to go, when we were younger too, and he's like, you would just eat a piece of fish from anywhere. You don't even care. I would just be like, I'll have the fish. Yeah, like I'm talking, we'd be at the fucking Country Boy, right?

2:17:02Which is like a step below Denny's. It was much cheaper than Denny's. You could get a full breakfast for like$1.90. And he'd have the lake trout or the perch. I mean, so. So after I got sober, I was sitting here thinking about it. And I was like, did I ever like it? And did it get to where I was just trying to prove a point that I would eat the fish everywhere. Weird. And that became like a thing. Internally my thing. Yeah. But I've never enjoyed it. Interesting. And then I was like, I don't even like it. I don't like fish. So I stopped eating fish. Wow. Like seven years ago almost. Yeah. I love fish.

2:17:44Seven years fish sobriety. Yeah. Of course. I love fish. Fish is great for you. Well, yeah. Ruth eats it all the time and I fucking, I get pretty grossed out by it on her plate. like when we're out to eat. I'm like. Yeah, she probably gets a lot of salmon. You know who loves their fish extra stinky is the Italians. We just heard another story because I think you know the story when we were with the Richardsons in Italy and Molly got the brazzino or whatever. The brazzino. No, I, and brazzino, but I think she got a cod, which I also remember I made fish in my apartment. And fucked it up. I did.

2:18:19Yeah, yeah. And it was cod. Yeah, they tell you cod doesn't stink. They do tell you that though. And then you get a stinky one. Yeah, it was really stinky. This was so bad that like, and I was seated next to Molly because we were playing spades before dinner. And I had to move. I mean, it was such a stinky putrid fish and then she couldn't get through it. And then friends of theirs just went to Italy as well. And I've got a real stanker and they sent it back and they told, no, no, no. This is how we like it. The chef said this is ideal. Interesting. So that's an interesting cultural thing. Yeah, it is.

2:18:53You could love a real stinker. the better. I wonder what it is that's making it have that smell. I think rot. No, it's probably not. Isn't that the rot? I don't think it's that. The more rotten, the more expensive it is. Yeah. A 78 dry aged dry aged bass. It's just aged on the sidewalk. Dry aged bass. I had fish today. You did with your wine? Yep. Oh, wow. What kind of fish? Well, I had a tuna melt. Oh, that's virtually hamburger meat. It's still fish. I could eat a tuna fish. I would eat that too. It was so good. Woo. Okay, let's do a little fackies. Yeah. This is for Leanne Morgan. You know, that incredible comedian.

2:19:35Oh, my God. Yeah. She's so funny. Yeah, she's great. I've talked about her a lot to quite a few people. I mean, I love telling Ruthie that I go, yeah, I told her you were from Elbeckirche, Birmingham. him and um and she said yeah i'm pretty big down there yeah you were here when we interviewed her i was and i watched two episodes of the show with you and we pretty much laughed the entire time from beginning to end just joke after joke um and i was fucking i bought into it like i loved it so funny yeah yeah okay so i looked up at what point in time did more people have braces than not have braces?

2:20:20Okay. That's an interesting question. I'm having a hard time. Because we talked about - Do you think there was a point where more than 50 % of the population had braces? Yeah. Like, well, I don't think I asked it right. It was a little confused. I'm just wondering, at this point, have most people had braces in their life? Oh, okay. What percentage of Americans have had braces? Should I do that? Yeah. Okay. What percentage of Americans have had - But it's hard because it's like at what age Well, just in their life, I think. Right. But if it's like, okay, it says an estimated 50 % to 70 % of American children are expected to wear braces or undergo orthodontic treatment before reaching adulthood.

2:21:00But at what point, I was asking at what year did that start happening? The orthodontia revolution? Yes. Yeah. I have a guess. Okay. When? I think it's 84. That's a great guess. I would have guessed 86. But yeah. Okay, great. What year did orthodontia get popular? I guess. It's just it's not as specific. Because I think when my mom, my mom wanted them. They were available to her as a kid in the 60s. But they were like, it was crazy expensive. But then we were broke and I had it. Right. So I think. Okay, yeah. So I'm going to read two things. So it says, races became dramatically more common over the second half of the 20th century.

2:21:47For example, Americans born around 1942, only about 4.6 % received orthodontic treatment before adulthood. I can't believe they had it at all. Yeah. Among those born around 1972, it had risen to about 29.7%. I'm in that class. Okay. This says even today, the number of people currently in orthodontic treatment is nowhere close to 50%. Oh, okay. All three of my kids had braces. All three. All three. Yeah. Yeah. My kids have had Invisalign, which is different, but still the same. It said a nine. Yeah, we count that. And a 1988 to 91 national survey found that nearly 20 % of adults, 18 to 50, and 18 % of children had already received orthodontic treatment.

2:22:32So that was in the late 80s. Yeah, late 80s. It really took off. I had them. Everyone I knew had them. I mean, you had them. The reason I wanted to know this is because you had them and you didn't have a lot of money. So I was wondering, like, wow, I'm kind of surprised your mom was able to do that. It was a huge priority to her because she had wanted them so bad. It was like me and wanting my kids to have a dirt bike because I didn't have one. Of course. That was her thing. But like if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. So it must have been at least. I think she went into debt to give us braces.

2:23:11Right. Yeah. David and I both. Wow. Yeah. It turned out pretty fucking well, too. Yeah. It was worth it. Yeah. A lot of return on the investment. Well, I wonder how much she spent over it. If you would have seen my teeth, there's no way I could have been in show business. Truly a non-starter with the size of my overbite and how fucking cranked each tooth was. Yeah. Very few were like flush. You know, they were all angled. Right. Yeah. Do you remember him like that? Or was that before? No, he had me with braces. He had braces when we met. Wow. I had them forever. I had braces for a decade. Remind me, how old were you guys?

2:23:4911. 11, yeah. Okay. Okay, well, that does solve it because you said you had it starting at seven, and I was like, but then that's. So I had years of retainers before I had braces because first we had to get the fucking overbite handle. Yeah. So that was years of the bionator and spreading my jaw apart, and then Aaron will remember. I had to have fucking four teeth removed in seventh grade to accommodate all this shit that was going on. I mean, they went to war on my mouth. Yeah. I also had, I had a crossbite. Oh, fun. That's a. Wait, a crossbite? What do you call it? It was called a crossbite.

2:24:28It was limited-ish. It was limited-ish. They cross in the back. Like they're not, and it's pretty much back to that. Okay. It showed up in Ian, it crossed. Oh, wow. I thought a cross would be like this. No. Like your natural smile would be like this. No. Crisscross. But yeah, I had braces for three years. Oh. That was pretty long back then. What grades? Sixth through eighth. Okay, nice. When did you get yours off? Eleventh grade. That's so late. I know I got punched by that 24-year-old dude when I still had braces. and my brace went through my lip. That's like the most, I didn't have braces, but that was what you had to watch out for.

2:25:16I can't imagine having the braces. And getting punched. Yeah, but also when you fight every week, you're like, fuck, I gotta fight him. He's got braces. You're gonna cut your hand. Oh, yeah. It was bad for both parties. Yeah, he's getting belted in the mouth with good braces. It was fucking rough. Oof. Oof, oof, oof. Okay, so I looked up why teeth move around perimenopause and menopause. Estrogen. It says your teeth aren't actually fused to your jawbone. Each tooth is suspended in a tiny structure called the periodontal ligament, surrounded by the bone of the jaw. That bone is constantly being broken down and rebuilt.

2:26:02Estrogen helps regulate that bone remodeling. As estrogen fluctuates during perimenopause and then drops substantially after menopause, bone turnover changes, including in the bone surrounding the teeth. The jawbone can lose some density. The periodontal tissues can become more susceptible to inflammation. Gums may recede. Okay. I just, being a woman is so, it is. This is horrible. God. God. It says, if you're noticing that your teeth are suddenly shifting, especially your bottom front teeth, you're not imagining it. Great. Does my mom like Nancy Grace? Not so much. Okay. You asked her. Uh-huh.

2:26:44She says, I don't really watch her. I never liked the way she treated her guests. Okay. Sure. Okay. Who did. I never liked the way she treated her guests. Who did Grady's restaurant get bought by in Tennessee? The one she worked for him. Brinker International bought the Grady's restaurant chain in 1989. I remember Grady's. You do? No, why do I? Well, why do I think I knew it? But when she described it, I'm like, there's no way I could have gone there. I guess I'm just thinking it's Perkins or something. Right. I know Perkins. Gladys or Gladys. Great. Brinker is behind Chili's and Maggiano's. Reputable.

2:27:33Very. Trustworthy. Very. Yeah. Very. You know exactly what you're going to get. Okay. So the podcast about Black Dahlia is called Root of Evil. Oh, for the listener, I did take her after the episode. I joined her and we took a car ride and we stood in front of it like two weirdos and just stared at it for a while. Scary stuff. Yeah. Scary. George Hodel. That's like a block, right? From here? Yeah. Yeah, it's really close. Beautiful house. She said dry bar. Like she performed at a dry bar. And I thought she was talking about the hair place. But she was talking about a dry bar. No alcohol. Yeah.

2:28:14I've never heard of that. Why isn't. Well, you're from Georgia where there's a ton of dry counties. There are, but then there aren't bars there. Well, there's places you can play pool. What was the place when you lived in White County? Yeah. We would go play pool, right? And they didn't serve alcohol. They did not. But then wouldn't that just be called a pool hall? Or a dry bar. I guess so. Well, dry bars, was this recent she performed at one? No, it was a while ago, I think. No? So it was the Southern thing for sure. I was going to say, now they're popping up because of the NA trend. Oh, well, that makes sense.

2:28:49But I doubt that's what she was talking about. Yeah, no. This was before that. Yeah. Yeah. This dry bar in White County, Georgia was full of... It was... You could get into a fight there. Yeah, it was for people who still wanted to fight even. They still needed a place to fight. Yeah, but I think you also showed up with a good buzz. You just couldn't get served there. Yeah, the guys were going onto their truck a lot. It was a bar. Then why not just go to a bar? The county was dry. That's right. That's right. Okay. And you didn't want to drive 13 miles. Yeah. That's probably wise. So just go to the pool hall, bring some alcohol in your truck.

2:29:32Yeah. Interesting. Go and have a fight. Well, I just thought that was a weird oxymoron. It is for sure. So then I looked up some common everyday oxymorons. Oh, great. Okay. We know the classics. Jumbo shrimp. Number one. Jumbo shrimp. Yeah. Deafening silence. Oh, that's. I like that. I've experienced it too. It's real. Yeah, it's real. Bittersweet. We know that one. Oh. Pretty ugly. Oh, yeah. I have not. I haven't thought about that. Yeah. He's pretty ugly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Act naturally. Oh, yeah. That's great. That's a good one. Yeah. Original copy. Oh, okay. Okay. small crowd oh love these me too they're playful open secret this is a good one virtual reality okay sure and living dead okay that's it oh okay well I love Leanne yeah me too yeah I love meeting her watch that show it's so funny I mean they don't need our help I noticed it was even recently it's like number three on Netflix which is fantastic yes I saw that too yeah big success exciting All right.

2:30:46Love you. Love you. Love you.

From the publisher

Leanne Morgan (Leanne, You’re Cordially Invited, I’m Every Woman) is a comedian, actor, and author. Leanne joins Armchair Expert to discuss growing up in a 600-person Tennessee town, leaving her first marriage, and raising three kids while chasing Hollywood. Leanne and Dax talk about developing stand-up while selling jewelry at house parties, spending 20 years as the “$2,500 girl” on the corporate comedy circuit, and finally breaking through with a viral stand-up clip in her 50s. Leanne explains why she never lost faith that Hollywood would happen, how success has reshaped her marriage and family, and why staying true to herself became her greatest asset.

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