Fortune Feimster: Oktoberfest with Arnold

0:00I'd like to be in a hot tub with you guys. That sounds like a good time. It's a good time. We hang.

0:19Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. Fortune Feimster is here. By the way, it's the greatest name currently working in show business today. Fortune Feimster. Super funny. Her new Netflix special is out now. She's promoting her new tour, Taking Care of Biscuits. And the special is called Crushing It. That's on Netflix. Super, super funny gal. Let's get her going.

0:49Fortune, how are you? I'm good, Rob. How are you? Are we twinning right now? I was about to say, we've got our like similar jackets on. We're twinning, man. This is great. Look at that. I'm twins. And we're both gorgeous. I mean, you know, we're doing our thing. We both got good hair. We do. You have, I mean, your hair is. I'm going. Here, I'll take off the headphones. I'm going, like, I'm going back to the future. I'm going. I haven't had my hair this long since, like, 2005. And then previous to that, the 80s. So, my wife likes it. There's got to be a lot of men very jealous of that head of hair.

1:29That's a good head of hair. Listen, you cut me and I bleed Propecia. I have it on an IV. Yeah. Like Michael Jackson had his nighttime milk that he had to go to bed with. Yeah. Mine is Propecia. Ah, gotcha. Yeah. All right. Little secrets. Listen, I started at 30. I was like, I did a photo shoot and I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What is? What? What's that? What's that going on possibly? It wasn't even like a real thing, but just the notion that it might happen. It works. I'm a hedgehog. Yeah. It's amazing. Good for you. Yeah, I mean, what the hell? And you'd think that like, you know, Big Pharma would call and go, you know, you know who talks a lot openly about Propecia?

2:23Rob Lowe. Yeah. But no. You should be doing commercials I mean, come on, man's got to hustle That's right I mean, I'd be down, I'd be down to clown Where are you? Are you in North Carolina? I'm from North Carolina, but I live in LA So I'm in Los Angeles Been here about 21 years, but the accent is still very strong North Carolina accent's having its moment right now I know, on White Lotus, Tim T.M. You started it. You were doing T.M. I was doing T.M. for a long time. I know. I think they kind of, you know, took my T.M. But I do like how Parker Posey just extends everything. That is a sign of a true Southern woman.

3:12Isn't it? Yeah. Tsunami. Tsunami. All right. So the real question, Tar Heel or Blue Devil? Tar Heel, baby. I know Duke is a formidable team, obviously, and been killing it. But yeah, I was a Tar Heel gal. I have a picture of me as a kid in a little cheerleading outfit from UNC. Amazing. I look like Shirley Temple. You'd be a great Shirley Temple. I know. And Shirley Temple, who, you know, grows up and realizes she's a lesbian. Yeah, I like that iteration of Shirley Temple. The lifetime story. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we're Duke. My family's big time Duke people. My son went there. I fake went there on the West Wing.

4:09That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah, and I fake went. Yeah. Law school, not even undergrad. Undergrad was Princeton. The people I play are way smarter than me. I just play way smarter. That's how it should be when you have Aaron Sorkin writing for you. Yeah, right? Those are the academic background. Yeah, you just kind of say the words and get out of the way. For sure. All right, I got to know about working with my guy Arnold on FUBAR. You've got to have good Arnold stories. Oh, man, that's a treat. I mean, first off, I never thought a silly comedian as such as myself would be asked to do any sort of action.

4:52How did that happen? How did that come into your life? It was really weird. I was back home visiting my family in North Carolina, and I got an audition for it. And, you know, in a normal circumstance, I would be like, yeah, let's do it. But we were dealing with some family stuff, and I just couldn't. I said, I just don't have time. I can't get to this. and uh and then two days later they're like oh no they've actually sent you an offer to do it and I was like oh so by like just inadvertently saying no just out of I just couldn't do it at that time I got the offer and I was like oh so I'll probably be like you know because it's about the CIA I was like I assume I'll be in like a van with a slushy like doing the coordinates of everyone.

5:44100%. That's my lane. That's the lane. 100%. Yeah. And they're like, no, you're going to be a CIA agent in the field, shooting guns, running from explosions. And I was like, oh, okay. And I said yes, you know, because I thought, when am I going to get to do that kind of stuff with Arnold Schwarzenegger, like the action guy. So we were, I remember our first big action sequence together. We were in this cabin and he and I were on the floor and there was explosions going everywhere and they have debris falling on us and we have to like army crawl across this cabin side by side. And, you know, I'm like, but I don't want to like, I don't want to look out of shape because he was like the presidential fitness ambassador when I was a kid.

6:42And they yell cut and Arnold turns to me and he goes, now you know what I've been doing for the last 40 years. I was like, this is crazy. Right? But it's so cool. I mean, we're going to have our second season coming out this summer. And what a treat to get to have this kind of twist in my career. It's so great. It's, FUBAR reminds me a little bit of my favorite Arnold movie, True Lies. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. They did it like, they're pretty good about like taking his classic movies and giving you like little snippets of it or jokes from it. And this one has that daughter, instead of the wife not knowing he's in the CIA.

7:30Right. It was his daughter, but she also is in the CIA. So a little fun twist there. But we'll get him to say his sayings all the time on the show. Do you? Yeah, I'm always like, get to the chopper. Let's go. Come on. So amazing. I mean, there's something about his... Have you ever had an opportunity to be in public with him? Because it's like being with... It's like trying to take a giraffe out in public. Yeah, probably the same with you. I mean, yeah, it's like such a wild thing. because there are only so many of you guys that have been so famous on such a high level. It's so fragmented now.

8:16We would go bike riding with him in Toronto. He just bikes through Toronto and he has this guy with him. But people on the street are like, wait, what? They can't believe that Arnold is riding by them. It's like a giraffe. Yeah, it'd be like, dude, was that a giraffe peddling down Bloor Street? And there's no one that doesn't recognize him. Everyone recognizes him. We filmed in Europe for a week. I mean, it was like, his fame here is big, but over there, he could not walk two feet without 100 people descending upon him. And we went to Oktoberfest with him. Oh, no, you did Oktoberfest with him?

8:55Yeah, we went to Munich with him. Okay, give me the, like, oh, this is so sick. So what's the protocol? What's the program? we're going to be up at four and then we're going to the tent and then I'm going to be going here. Like what? Yeah, well, he doesn't have a phone. So he, you know, if you want to try to communicate with him, you either have to like email him or FaceTime him on his iPad. Oh, yeah. And he's pretty bad about like being in the lobby in 30 minutes. And you're like, oh, so you don't really know what's happening. But he he took us to a store. It felt like Pretty Woman, where he's like taking us to a store to shop for Lederhosen's.

9:36And, you know, they like shut the store down for us. And he's like, that one looks really good. You know, look at this vest. And like, we're trying on Lederhosen's for Arnold. And people are just like, oh, my God, this is so trippy. So, yeah, we went shopping with him and then went to lunch and just seeing everyone turning their heads. He's like, you know, a god in that area. And at the actual Oktoberfest, you know, it's crazy. It's just like thousands of people in these tents. And we're like squished into a table drinking the big steins of beer with him. And he gets up on stage and conducts the band.

10:18So we went up there with him because we were like, when are we going to get on stage at Oktoberfest? Cobra Fest. And they have this song that they sing that they've been singing for years. It's just Arnold goes to Hollywood. Arnold goes to Hollywood. No way. This whole tent is singing this song with this band and he's conducting the crowd. Like, yep. It's like the whole country is celebrating that Arnold has gone to Hollywood. He has his own folk song. Yep. It's how famous he is. I had no idea Oh god it was so fun I mean I was like I remember before we got to the tent we wanted to take a picture as a group at the Glockenspiel and it's the plaza no one's allowed to drive on to it because there's like thousands of tourists taking pictures of this place and he's like we're gonna go take a picture of the Glockenspiel and so these guys are just like bringing this van up into where like a thousand tourists are.

11:22And like we're all having fun in this kind of like sprinter van. And then all of a sudden it gets very serious. He's like, all right, everyone, you're going to have to follow me. Listen to what I say, single file line. We're going to take a picture and then we can get back in the van. And he knows that like it's about to be chaos. So we get out of the sprinter van and every like, you know, a thousand people at one time go Arnold. And we were like quickly taking this picture, like, come on, take it, take it, take it. And then he's like, all right, let's go. And then like, I mean, a thousand people are trailing us trying to get his picture as we get back into the Sprinter, man.

12:00It's wild. Isn't it insane? There's just, there's nothing like it. There's nothing like hanging with Arnold. They're really, you know, over the years, we all get to see a lot of stuff. Yeah. A lot of stuff. You guys ever smoked? I imagine you had quite a few cigars together. Oh, and jacuzzis and ski slopes and the state capitol. Yes. I smoked cigars with Arnold when he was listening to the death row pardons. Oh, wow. When he was governor. I'd like to be in a hot tub with you guys. That sounds like a good time. It's a good time. We hang. Are you ever going to be in Santa Barbara? Yeah. We'll hang it out, man.

12:42All right. I love it. It's beautiful up there. You've done it right being up in that area. Yeah, I've been up here 30 years now. Oh, it's so pretty. Early adapter. My favorite hotel is the San Ysidro Ranch up that way. Isn't that amazing, that place? It's super special. I was going to propose to my wife there, but I had it all planned out. Everything was ready to go, and then it was right when the mudslides happened. It got destroyed. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It got absolutely destroyed. Yeah. They built it back better than ever. Oh, I love that. Did you have an elaborate proposal, like, going on in your head?

13:24Yeah, I thought. First, I'm going to have the ring here, and then I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to say that, and then it all goes to hell? Because that's what happened with me. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

13:46I, you know, you watch shows like The Bachelor, and you forget that like 20 producers are setting that up, you know? Yeah, exactly. I'm not known for romance. I'm not a romantic person, but I feel like this is the time. If ever there's going to be. Right? There's no better or bigger time. But I had this expensive ring. I never spent this much money on anything. and I hated the responsibility of it. I just wanted her to have it. Like, I don't want this anymore. Where did you keep it? I kept it in like a lockbox in my closet. Okay. But I was so bad at like having it. I just was jittery the whole time.

14:30And we ended up pivoting and going up to Big Sur and everything was just a hair off. It was really weird. Like, I splurged to upgrade to this ocean view cabin, like significantly a huge jump in price. And when we got there, it was so foggy for two days. The whole time we were there, you could not see your hand in front of your face. You would have no idea that the ocean was right there. So we did not need to be in this room. I could have been saved like two grand a night. And then I had told, I had asked the hotel, can I pay to like have roses, you know, rose petals put around the room and, you know, candles.

15:22Like again, like what they do in The Bachelor? Let's just do that. And I was like, I'll take her to their restaurant and then go to the room and it'll be romance. and I told the waiter what was happening and he was so sweet. I talked about it in my special Good Fortune but he was so enthusiastic that he kept going behind my now wife and like, you know, doing thumbs up. Oh my God. Kept asking her if she wanted dessert and I'm like, she doesn't want dessert because I had asked for chocolate covered strawberries but she kind of knows that something's happening and she's like, wait, should I order dessert?

15:59Is there like a ring in the dessert? Oh my God. And so the whole dinner is kind of awkward. And then we go to the room and like the rose petals that they had were like white and dead. And they were just strewn about the room in like the most chaotic way. Like a person got a leaf blower and was like, rose petals. They put the chocolate covered strawberries in front of the fireplace and the chocolate was dripping down to the floor. Have they not seen The Bachelor? What's wrong with these people? I don't think so. Bachelor's not big up in Big Sur. Well, you know, they didn't have electricity in Big Sur.

16:37Literally no electricity until 1937. So, yeah, they're behind the times. They tried, but it was definitely like the most awkward proposal where I was just like, well, we're here. I should have just like, in hindsight, I should have just been like, all right, let's do it another time. Like everything's off. You had the fatal mistake of not knowing what venue you were playing in. That's true, yeah. I mean, it's like when you go up there, the last time I was up there, I looked at the list of like spa treatments in Big Sur. And I chose a session with the shaman. And the shaman came. Yeah. And I had to pick a rock and he told me what the rock was.

17:25and then we channeled my ancestors. All right. I visited, I had some past lives come up and like they can do that. Gotcha. But if you think they're going to do sort of traditional American petal ceremonies with a single stemmed rose, that's not. That ain't their bag. That's not their bag. It's not what their bag is. You said yours was awkward. Were you not great at the proposal? I was scared of the ring. Oh, yeah. Scared of the ring. It was too much responsibility. It's a lot. I don't, yeah, I don't like that much money on a finger. For me, it was more that my wife is a bloodhound for any trinket, surprise, gift, plan.

18:16Gotcha. She's trying to get to the bottom of it. She should have been in the Warren Commission. we would know who we would know who killed JFK so it's hard to it's hard to surprise her impossible and so I was like where can I hide this ring that she won't some air quotes somehow find it and I I came across the idea of putting it in a dirty sock oh in my car yeah and that's where it was for like a week. And then I was like, where do I want to propose? I want it to be somewhere memorable. And I was like, I know we'll go up to Mulholland by the twinkly lights. And she was like, I just want to go home.

19:02We had dinner. I'm just, I've got to pee. We went to Mulholland? What? Why? And then you're just like, trust me, we want to go to Mulholland. It's pretty up there. It's pretty up there. It's just like, when you try to recreate what we've seen in movies and TV. You realize, no, no, those were the group of people that came in a room. And how about this? Oh, I know, I got a better one. Each more incredible than the next idea. And the best idea wins. It goes into the movies. It gets repeated. And normal people can never do it. We can't do that. I know. And you've been part of that. You've added to that romance on film.

19:41I should know better. There's no prop department. Yeah. Like, you know, they keep the ring. That's right. They keep the ring and they give you the ring. They give you the ring at the last minute after they've spent, you know, $250 ,000 transforming a room into, like, the most romantic setting in the world. And the co-star, you know, you know, Demi Moore is not a bloodhound looking for the ring, going, am I getting proposed to? It's been six months. When's this happening? She's like, you know, you know, just showing up. So it's a whole different. playing romantic is very different as it turns out than being romantic.

20:15It is true, Rob. It is true. That's why we're going to just keep watching you be romantic on screen. Okay, I saw in I did a little deep diving on you and I'm obsessed with this. As a good Southern belle, you were in did you make a debut? I did. I came out to society twice. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's so great. My mom was a debutante and my grandmother was. She was determined for me to be one. Okay, walk me through. What is it? Okay, it starts at what? You're like 10 or 11. You're like, I want to come out to society. It starts with something called Cotillion. All right, walk me through this.

21:08So cotillion is like when you're 12. This is a Southern old, like so stupid. I love it. And yeah, when you're like 12, they have something called, or maybe ages 10 as well. I don't know. It lasts a couple of months a year on like every, like once a month on a Saturday. You and your friends like dress up in like Sunday clothes and they teach you manners and how to like waltz. And they see so much waltzing going on. I mean, you have no idea how much waltzing happens. Isn't it amazing? Like, I can't tell you the amount of times where I've been somewhere and the waltzing starts and I don't know how to do it.

21:54It's fucking mortal. I'm so missed out when you were 12. Can you imagine in these times, 12 year olds waltzing and box stepping? It's crazy. Which would which do you think is more creepy? be that or taking 11 years and saying, here's how you do the gritty. Trying. Which should be worse. It's so crazy. It seems so, I mean, it was antiquated then, but like even now, like so wild. And, you know, these boys were having to learn how to like open doors for ladies and pull a chair out. And the girls are, I don't know, just trying to be feminine. So the boys are at Cotillion as well at the same time? Yeah, it's co-ed.

22:31And I remember we got in a circle and you change partners. Like they play music and you do the box step or waltz or whatever. And then like every minute, all right, next partner. I don't know what we're doing here. But yeah, so it starts then. And then nothing for a couple of years. And then when I was 17, I was going into my senior year of high school. My mom's like, you've been invited to be a debutante. And I'm like, no, thank you. Not for me. And my family, I talked about this in my Sweet and Salty special. My family back in the day had a lot of money. My grandfather was a very prominent contractor and architect.

23:21He designed all these beautiful homes and schools and libraries all over North Carolina. But then he died unexpectedly at the age of 50. And over the course of time, my grandmother lost all this money. So my mom grew up with a lot of money. By the time I came around, there was nothing. We were broke. My dad grew up in a trailer park. So I had these two worlds that I was divided between. Like, I knew this, like, fancier world and manners and cotillion. And then I knew, like, NASCAR and eating chicken wings and, you know, whatever. So I was kind of stuck between these two worlds, but there was no money.

24:04We had no money. So to do this debutante thing, you have to pay up for all these parties. And I'm like, we don't have the money. Like, why? Who is this for? And she's like, you're doing it. Because, you know, she wanted to, like, relive the glory days. And, you know, I'd show up, come home and our couch would be missing. And she's like, you're going to the party. I'm like, I'd rather have a couch. This is crazy. So, yeah, when I was 18, you're presented to society as a young woman. You have to wear basically a white wedding dress, which is the only time in my life I will have ever been in one, even as a married woman.

24:54And my brothers escorted me down. You know, you're basically like, you walk down in front of all these people. It's just like a big dance. And the pictures now look like I was getting married to my brother. That's amazing. That's so crazy. They still do it. I saw Apple Martin, Gwyneth's daughter, debuted in Paris. Yeah, Paris is, I think, maybe where it originated, it's a big to-do over there. So it's some old tradition that I don't know where it stems from. I don't want to look it up. You're worried. I can see you're worried. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be a part of it. My mom made me.

25:45And I, yeah, it could not be further from like what I want to do or spend my time. No, that's what makes me laugh about it. It's so amazing. Like you are like maybe the least debutante. But North Carolina, you are such a magnolia. You are magnolia. But yeah, it was for my mom. She got to have, thankfully, as I got older, I learned how to say no. But I didn't have that ability at 17. But now aren't you, think of the material. Think of the material you got. I know. When people saw that picture, when I talked about it in that special, I put pictures up and people were like, oh my God, that's really true.

26:34It is the kind of thing you go, that can't be true. Yeah. Did that really happen to me? Yeah, I guess it did. But as a comedian, you know, all of my stand-up is all of my life. I tell stories about growing up or about who I am, about my family, my wife. So all that stuff just adds to these fun specials that I get to put out and talk about my silly life. The new one's out now. It's out now on Netflix. When did it come out? It came out a couple months ago. It's called Crushing It. It's my third hour on Netflix. And every special follows like where I'm at in life. Sweet and Salty was about me growing up and realizing who I am and coming out.

27:22Good Fortune was about meeting my wife and sort of entering adulthood. And Crushing It is being firmly in this relationship, married, my parents getting older and balancing the like responsibilities between being a daughter and being a wife and how those can conflict sometimes. And just those everyday things you deal with as more of an adult person. Do you have like sort of instant recall if you're living your life and you go, oh, that this is something. This is a bit. This is going to be great. Do you write it down immediately or do you remember it? Like what's your process for putting together the writing like?

28:03Well, sometimes things are so crazy that you're like, oh, this is going to be something. And like, I'm on, I'm starting a whole new tour with a whole new hour, actually in like a week. And there was like, my wife and I went to Greece and there was something that happened that I was like, this is like a standup bit. And you know, right off the bat. And there are other things from childhood where like, I remember I was, I'll do like Q &A sometimes at the end of shows in a club and someone, I was back in Charlotte where I'm near where I'm from and someone just yelled, remember when you were on the swim team when you were a kid?

28:41And I was like, oh yeah, I sucked. Like I could not swim. I used to run across the pool pretending to do the butterfly and they laughed and I never thought about that as a stand-up story. And hearing them laugh, the visual of me as a kid running across the pool pretending to do the butterfly, I was like, oh, maybe there's something here. And so I just kind of recounted what happened, just the facts. Here's what happened. And from there, I just keep building it like, oh, this is a funny, you know, like how do I build that world out and how do I describe it in a way that's more interesting than the reality?