0:00

Hi, I'm Mark Chavez. I'm one of

0:02

the hosts of Let's Make A, a comedy

0:04

docuseries podcast about the creative process. Each

0:07

season, my co-hosts, Ryan Beale, Maddie Kelly

0:09

and I, take on an artistic challenge

0:11

and you follow our journey. And

0:14

Let's Make a Sci-Fi, we wrote a science fiction TV

0:16

pilot. In Let's Make a Rom-Com,

0:18

we wrote a romantic comedy film and on

0:20

our latest season, Let's Make a Horror, we

0:22

produced a horror short film. And when we

0:24

run into trouble, we interview Hollywood experts. People

0:27

who have worked on big things like The

0:29

Blair Witch Project, The Office, Star Wars,

0:31

Mamma Mia and more. All

0:33

three seasons of Let's Make A are available

0:35

now, wherever you get your podcasts. A

0:57

lot of which we'll be bringing to you

0:59

on future episodes of Laugh Out Loud. But

1:01

I thought it would be fitting to start our

1:04

show today with a pass set from that very

1:06

festival. This performer is originally from

1:08

Newfoundland. She was part of the New Faces

1:10

show at the Just For Last Festival in

1:12

Montreal. And she made her first

1:14

appearance at the Winnipeg Comedy Festival in 2022. Here

1:18

is Brie Parsons. Hello,

1:23

Winnipeg! As

1:30

Deanne said, my name is Brie. I'm from

1:32

Newfoundland. I

1:36

love it there too, but it's so nice

1:38

to get away, you guys. It's nice to

1:40

be surrounded by something other than just water

1:43

and cousins. Misguidance

1:48

systems, finally a gala made

1:50

just for me. By

1:54

the end of this, you will want to

1:56

retroactively call social services on my family. But

2:02

it's too late and it only gets worse. I

2:06

am, however, going to therapy

2:08

now. Thank you.

2:13

Not exactly like the movies though, is it?

2:16

Right? It's a lot less lying on a couch

2:18

and a lot more lying about how many drinks

2:20

I have a week. I

2:27

recently tied the knot in

2:34

my uterus. Your

2:44

accomplishments aren't as celebrated when they're

2:46

not conventional, are they? If

2:49

you live your life by the book, you get

2:51

married, you have kids, you get a house, you

2:53

get all kinds of parties, right? Party

2:56

showers, wedding showers, housewarmings, honeymoons.

3:00

No parties from his totally tubulous over

3:02

here. I

3:08

am married and I propose to him.

3:12

Thank you. I

3:17

propose to him because I'm a woman who knows

3:19

what she wants, right? Alimony.

3:23

I'm

3:28

just kidding. I make more money than he does. Not

3:33

at this, of course. I

3:38

recently had a birthday and I'm

3:40

starting to feel my age a

3:42

little, you know, my memories and

3:45

what it used to be. I can't

3:47

remember anything anymore and listen, some of that I

3:49

will contribute to weed and head boards, but... But

4:01

some of it's gotta be age, you know? I'm

4:05

not fitting into the same places as I used to, you

4:07

know? Now when I go back to

4:09

those bars, I look around and everyone is

4:11

so young, right? And

4:14

they're not just young, they're gorgeous. And

4:17

don't that just make you mad, you know? When

4:20

I was a teenager, I looked like

4:23

a teenager, right? I wore long braided

4:25

hair with multicolor beads at the end

4:27

and blue lipstick. I

4:30

did my time. Now

4:35

they come out of the womb already contoured,

4:37

ready for their assistant manager job at Sephora.

4:46

Another thing I'm still not used to, right, about

4:48

going out is I can now buy my weed

4:50

in stores. That's

4:53

strange for me, that makes me feel guilty.

4:56

I feel like I want to stay loyal

4:58

to my local drug dealer. They

5:03

were there for me. They supported me.

5:06

What am I gonna do, stop calling my mother just

5:08

because it's legal? I

5:19

got the kind of mom the Aquarium channel was

5:21

made for. And

5:27

when I was a kid, everyone used to be like,

5:29

Oh, brilliant, must be so cool to have a stoner

5:31

mom. And

5:33

sure, now that I'm an adult, it's fantastic.

5:35

We're best friends. But sometimes

5:37

when you're a kid, you need a parent.

5:43

I'd call my mom and be

5:45

like, Mom, I miss the bus. I'm stuck

5:47

at school. She'd

5:49

be like, That

5:53

sucks. I'm

5:56

stuck at school. Can

6:01

you pick up some pipsie on your way home?

6:09

I remember being like too young

6:11

and asking my mom why all the tips

6:13

of our butter knives were burnt. Some

6:18

of you know. She

6:22

was quick. She didn't skip a beat, right? She's

6:24

like, that's for cutting through the butter quicker.

6:27

Genius, right? My

6:29

mom don't waste no time cutting butter. Because

6:35

time is money. That money

6:38

is more weed. You

6:44

got a lot of your kids, right? Of course you got a lot of your kids. But

6:46

I think at some point you got to sit them

6:48

down and tell them every lie you've ever told them.

6:50

Everything from Santa Claus to Hot Knives. Or

6:56

you'll end up with someone like me. A

6:59

30 year old woman asking to wait or said Denny's

7:01

to heat up her butter knife. I

7:13

grew up, I wasn't very well off, but my

7:15

mom never made me feel that way, right? I

7:17

didn't actually even know I was poor until I

7:19

started going to my friends' houses. And

7:21

their houses had decorative furniture. Furniture

7:26

you weren't allowed to sit on just

7:28

for looking. You're the queen. The

7:31

only thing decorative in my house was the

7:33

beware of dog sign my mom put on the

7:35

front door to ward off burglars. I

7:39

grew up the kind of poor that like I didn't

7:41

try to cash you until I was 11. I

7:46

don't know if you know that's a rich person nut. And

7:53

even when I did try to cash you was at my buddy

7:55

Charlie's house. Right? That was the

7:57

same day I learned what a sauna was.

7:59

Charlie's house. had a sauna. I

8:02

went home and asked my mom why Charlie's

8:04

house had a hot closet. She proceeded

8:10

to tell me what a hot box was. I

8:18

was the kind of boy that in seventh

8:20

grade they sent me on the French immersion

8:22

trip to St. Pierre. I was not in

8:24

French immersion, it was more of a make

8:26

a wish situation. If you

8:30

don't know what St. Pierre is, it's just

8:32

off of Newfoundland, it's a tiny island that's

8:34

actually a part of France. It's discount France.

8:39

So we're on our way over, we've got to take

8:41

a boat and on the boat ride the teacher gives

8:43

us two rules. One, no drinking

8:45

even though we were all of legal drinking

8:47

agents in St. Pierre. Two,

8:50

don't talk to the boy on

8:53

the mopets. Pretty

8:56

specific instruction. But

9:01

it was day two, I had a little free

9:04

time and one of these forbidden fruits rolls on

9:06

up. And

9:09

he's like, do you want me to take you for a

9:11

ride? And I said no, but he's like, do you want

9:14

to take it for a ride? Okay.

9:18

So I flip on the helmet and

9:20

I'm driving around St. Pierre. Again, if

9:22

you don't know, St. Pierre is like

9:24

eight blocks total, the whole

9:27

thing. So I start slowing down

9:29

by my buddies whipping up the visor, giving

9:31

them a wink. And

9:34

somebody told the teacher on

9:36

me. And the teacher thought it

9:38

would be a good idea, a good punishment

9:41

to call my mother on speaker phone in front

9:43

of all the other students and teachers.

9:48

Mistake number one. Mistake

9:52

number two was calling my mother during

9:54

her Friday night poker game. Miss

9:58

Persons, your daughter wrote on a moped

10:00

today. That's

10:03

nice. No,

10:07

she wasn't allowed. That sounds serious.

10:10

Was she hurt? No. Did she

10:12

give it back? Yes. Round

10:23

of applause. Who here also grew up poor?

10:27

Well, a couple of people.

10:30

Perhaps for the rest of

10:32

you, you also grew up poor. And

10:34

your parents didn't share with you the

10:36

obvious financial burden you were on their

10:39

lives. I

10:46

got a way you could figure it out. You

10:48

could figure out just how poor you were

10:50

by how much furniture was on your street.

10:56

If you're a kid and you're out

10:59

playing tag and home base is a

11:01

curbside deep freeze, you're a

11:03

poor. Well,

11:08

listen, for the rest of you, you could figure out just how rich

11:10

you were. You could figure out how rich you were

11:12

by how many after school programs

11:14

you were in. It's like,

11:16

okay, Catherine, I get it. You got a

11:19

purple belt and you know how to swim.

11:25

I'm sorry that all they taught me at the buttmaster

11:27

circle boys and girls club was how to play quarters

11:29

and talk. But here we are. That

11:39

was Brie Parsons. You can find more

11:41

of her on Instagram at Brie Parsons

11:43

Comedy. I

11:47

do have an announcement for those of you

11:49

in the Perry Sound area of Ontario. Laugh

11:51

Out Loud will be doing a live recording

11:54

on June 8th at the Stockie Center as

11:56

part of the Big Sound Comedy Festival. We've

11:58

got a very funny for

12:00

you featuring Faraz Niafata, Al

12:03

Val, Keisha Brownie, Dave Hempstead

12:05

and more. Tickets are

12:08

shelving fast. You want to

12:10

get yours quickly, head to

12:12

our website cbc.ca/laugh out loud.

12:16

Hello, I'm Jess Milton. For 15 years

12:19

I produced the vinyl cafe with the late

12:21

great Stuart McLean. Every week more

12:23

than 2 million people tuned in to hear

12:25

funny, fictional, feel-good stories about Dave and his

12:27

family. We're excited to welcome you back to

12:30

the warm and welcoming world of the vinyl

12:32

cafe with our new podcast, Backstage at the

12:34

Vinyl Cafe. Each week we'll

12:36

share two hilarious stories by Stuart, and for the

12:38

first time ever I'll tell you what it was

12:40

like behind the scenes. Subscribe for

12:43

free wherever you get your podcasts. Alright,

12:46

let's get back to our show. This

12:49

next performer joined us as a last-minute fill-in at

12:51

the Big Sound Comedy Festival back in May 2022.

12:55

But on just a few days notice, as

12:57

you're about to hear, he turned the heck out of

12:59

the crowd in Perry Sound. Here is... Andrew Barr. Hello,

13:06

I'm Andrew. Nice

13:08

to see you guys. Good to be here. Look

13:11

at you guys. Out of the live

13:14

event. Hey, that feels good,

13:16

doesn't it? If

13:19

you didn't have these for a minute, it's nice

13:21

to have this back. I'm happy to see you

13:23

guys out. You know, I hope that you all

13:25

got through the last couple years relatively safe and

13:27

happy and healthy. I

13:29

hope that when the world went to hell you had someone

13:31

to have sex with. I

13:35

think that was the important part of

13:37

the pandemic. I don't know

13:39

about you guys. I was a single man.

13:42

I was a single man when everything went

13:44

dark. And

13:48

my friends in relationships would complain to me.

13:50

I'd be getting texts and they'd be like,

13:52

Dude, you don't get it. I'm like trapped

13:55

in this one-bedroom apartment with the woman that

13:57

I love. Okay,

14:01

well, some of us are

14:04

alone, so maybe take

14:06

it easy over there. Like yeah,

14:08

I don't know about you guys. My pandemic experience

14:10

was basically like I just woke up one morning

14:13

and then Justin Trudeau told me that

14:15

it was illegal for me to have sex now.

14:21

Right? I

14:23

just got out of bed and he was on the TV. I

14:26

didn't turn the TV on. He was on the TV.

14:30

The TV had moved itself closer to

14:32

my bed and he

14:35

was just standing there and he was

14:37

like, Hey, hey you, you

14:39

can only have sex with the

14:42

people that live in your house.

14:50

I was like, okay. No,

14:54

I don't live with any women. I

14:59

live with four other grown men and

15:04

they are all bigger than me. Oh

15:09

yeah, I don't know how I

15:11

feel about your new plan there. JT.

15:16

Credit to JT, that's when he sweetened the pot,

15:18

right? And he was like, okay, but I'll give

15:20

you two grand a month. And I

15:23

was like, what? And

15:27

he was like, oh yeah, yeah, two grand a month, but

15:29

you have to stay

15:31

home there with your increasingly horny

15:33

roommates. And

15:41

I was like, you know what? I think I can do

15:43

that for my country. What

15:48

an exciting new form of patriotism.

15:54

Other generations had to go to war.

15:58

I received... in

16:00

e-transfer. I

16:06

think my generation did okay during the pandemic.

16:08

I think a lot of older people were

16:10

like, two grand a month? How the hell

16:12

am I gonna live on two grand a

16:14

month? I was like, two grand a month?

16:16

I need to see what avocados are all

16:19

about. Hope

16:27

you guys are having an okay week. I'm doing

16:29

okay. My phone bill was

16:31

messed up. You ever have

16:34

that happen? It

16:36

was just more. It

16:39

was just more money for like a reason that I

16:41

couldn't discern. I was trying to figure it out and

16:43

I was like, surely this

16:45

has nothing to do with the

16:47

Ukraine. Like, it's not a gas-powered

16:49

phone going

16:52

on here, you know? So I had to call them,

16:54

right, to figure it out. I had to get on

16:56

the phone with the phone there, which is an annoying

16:58

thing to have to do. You

17:00

know, I'm on hold forever. Finally, they pick up and

17:02

I was like, hey, what's going on? My bill is

17:04

more money than usual. We do that to

17:07

everyone. Sometimes people pay it. I

17:12

was like, what?

17:14

And they were

17:16

like, yeah, we

17:18

like arbitrarily make

17:20

your bill more money. Lots of people don't notice and then

17:22

they give us that money and we do like that. And

17:24

I was like,

17:28

well, could you take it off? And they were

17:30

like, oh, yeah, we're sorry. It's just that we're

17:35

bad people. Fair

17:38

enough. Anyone that I pay bills to, I usually assume

17:40

is kind of evil. But still,

17:43

I got it sorted out, but still I had

17:45

to be on hold for like an hour out

17:47

of my day. And you guys know what that's

17:49

like. It's amazing how they know what your least

17:51

favorite song is. I

17:54

don't know how they know what every individual's least favorite song

17:56

is, but that's what they play for an hour. They

17:58

try to break you. But

18:01

I held. I got some on the phone. I don't

18:04

like that they play music when you're on hold with

18:06

a company. I think that instead of

18:08

playing music, they should just connect you

18:10

to another customer who is also on hold. And

18:19

then you could just vent. It's

18:22

gonna be great. They're like,

18:24

oh sorry, all of our customer service

18:26

representatives are currently occupied. But we do

18:28

have Dave. Dave

18:33

hates us. Yeah

18:35

man, give me Dave. It's

18:40

nice to be back to work. It's good to see you

18:42

guys. I didn't mind having a little bit of time off

18:44

of work. I like doing this, but I

18:46

hate every other job that I've ever had. I

18:49

worked with Tim Hortons for a long time. Has anybody done

18:51

that? I

18:57

like that the option was there to not say anything, but

18:59

one person went no. You

19:03

could just abstain, but one person wanted to make it

19:05

clear, no, I'm better than that. No,

19:09

my parents had money for college. I've

19:13

only ever driven by a Tim Hortons in a

19:15

car I didn't pay for. Does

19:19

Tim Hortons poor people speak for Starbucks? I

19:25

worked in a Tim's for a while, and it's

19:27

a hard job. People think it's easy to work

19:29

in a Tim Hortons, and it's not. Here's

19:32

the thing about working in a Tim Hortons that

19:34

people underestimate, is that it is not a difficult

19:36

job technically, just like

19:39

emotionally. Working

19:42

in a Tim Hortons, I figured out pretty quick,

19:45

there are a lot of people that don't need coffee

19:47

in the morning. They just need to be

19:50

mean to a boy. That's

19:56

their caffeine. Nobody cares what the coffee

19:58

is. It's just a bunch

20:01

of adults with pent up rage. And

20:03

they need a place to put it, you know? You

20:07

could always see the angry people coming in line too, right?

20:10

You know, like you'd just be trying to punch

20:12

in somebody's order. And then you look out in

20:15

the line and there's always some guy five feet

20:17

just dead-eyed. This

20:22

man hates you. Already?

20:26

And you're like, behind the counter, like, oh no,

20:28

what did I do to the man? But that's

20:30

the thing, right? You didn't do

20:32

anything? It's not about you. That's the

20:34

kind of guy, you can always tell,

20:38

he got in a fight with his wife the night before. He

20:41

got into a bit of a spat with the Mrs. And

20:44

he was at the end of his rope, and he almost

20:46

said some words to her that I am not allowed to

20:48

say on the CBC. But

20:51

he didn't. He held it in, right? He

20:53

was like, hold! Save

21:04

it for Ethan! You

21:13

know the people that you meet that are

21:15

like, you don't want to talk to me unless I've had

21:17

my coffee in the morning. My

21:20

job was to talk to those people before they had their

21:22

coffee. I

21:28

worked at a Tim Hortons in Toronto, that's where I live now.

21:31

And you know, Toronto obviously is a very

21:33

multicultural city. As a city, Toronto kind of

21:35

looks like an assorted box of Timbits, you

21:38

know? As

21:40

opposed to like, just old-fashioned

21:42

plain. And

21:46

not that there's anything wrong with an old-fashioned plain Timbit,

21:49

but sometimes it's nice to mess around with a little

21:51

chocolate. Bit

21:56

of talk, the glaze won't hurt ya, you know.

22:02

Obviously, working at a Tim's in Toronto, for

22:04

a good amount of my co-workers, English was

22:06

not their first language, right? And I got

22:09

to see a lot of customers get pretty

22:11

upset at them about that, which I

22:13

think is rude. I don't think you should be

22:15

mean to someone when they're learning a new language. It's hard. I've

22:18

never seen so many people get mad at

22:20

someone for not speaking a language when

22:23

they themselves only speak one

22:25

language. You know,

22:27

anytime people got mad, I wanted to be like, yes, you're

22:29

right, their English is a little choppy. Would

22:31

you like to give it a shot in Mandarin? Hey,

22:37

I'll meet you halfway. Why don't we try

22:40

this conversation in French? French

22:46

would be education system, spent ten years trying to

22:48

make you learn math. The

22:53

only thing you walked away with was finetra. And

22:58

they were like, finetra's a fun word, I'll hold on to that.

23:01

Everything else, damn it. I

23:07

don't think you should be mean to someone when they're learning a new language.

23:09

I do think that sometimes when people are

23:11

learning, they make little mistakes, and

23:13

it's funny. It's okay

23:16

to laugh when it happens. I'll give you

23:18

an example. I was at a convenience store

23:20

recently, and bless this man. On

23:23

my way out, he said, have

23:25

a good day right now. I

23:34

was like, you're close. But

23:39

what you said is strange. Have

23:43

a good day right now. That's

23:47

a lot of pressure to put on me. Just

23:51

a man standing in a store, I don't know what

23:53

fun you want me to do immediately. How?

23:58

My dealer isn't usually around at... and 30

24:00

in the morning, but... I

24:04

can make a phone call. We

24:08

don't need our dealers as much now. We got the

24:10

legal weed, that's everywhere. Are we a weed-smoking crowd? There

24:14

you go, that's about as much noise as you guys can usually

24:16

make. It's

24:18

a bit of a subdued group. It's

24:20

always out there like, yeah man, we're here. Keep

24:23

living your tiny dream up there, buddy. I'm

24:30

not a huge pothead, but I do like to smoke a

24:32

bit of weed here and there. As long as you have

24:34

to mix and match your activities with weed, it

24:36

doesn't fit with everything, you know. Me and

24:38

my buddies, we're kind of lame. We like

24:41

to play board games. We're board

24:43

game guys, you know. See, the other

24:45

day I had the boys over, we got nice and

24:47

ripped. We were in the mood for a throwback, and

24:49

we decided to play a game of Monopoly. And,

24:56

what a thorough bummer that was. Right,

25:00

like, when you're high, you

25:02

don't want to charge people for things?

25:08

I had two hotels on

25:10

boardwalk, and my buddy

25:12

landed on it, and I was just like, oh

25:15

no. Just

25:20

sleep in your car, man. Or

25:28

your symbol, whatever you have. Anyway,

25:34

man, you guys are such a fun group. My name is Andrew

25:36

Barr. Enjoy the rest of your night. See you next

25:38

week. That

25:40

was Andrew Barr and his album, The

25:43

Pursuit of Happlessness, is out now. I

25:45

also encourage you to check him out

25:48

on Instagram, at Andrew Barr Comedy, where

25:50

you'll find his comedy, but you'll also

25:52

hear him talk about recovery from

25:54

drug and alcohol addiction very openly.

25:58

I'm going to leave you today with a

26:00

clip from Dave Hennigan. Instead, we'll be headlining

26:02

our gala night at the Big Sound Comedy

26:04

Festival in Perry Sound on June 8th. But

26:07

first, my thanks to

26:09

the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, The

26:11

Big Sound Comedy Fest, Chris

26:13

Pettinger, CBC TV, Tracy Rideout,

26:15

and Sound Engineers Brian Harder,

26:17

Kyle Kutisiewicz, Doug Doctor and

26:20

Juliana Romanak. And a special

26:22

thanks to my producer Lee Pitts. I'm Ali

26:24

Hassan. Thank you for listening to Laugh

26:26

Out Loud, and I'll see you back here real soon.

26:29

Thanks very much, thank you.

26:31

Thanks very much. I was a

26:33

jock in high school. I was the big man

26:36

on campus, hero of the hallways, which

26:38

means I was very popular and not very

26:40

liked, which was fine because

26:42

I was a winner. Winners

26:48

don't care what losers think. My

26:53

goal was to be athlete of the year, and I did

26:55

it. It took six years. A

27:01

lot easier when you're almost 20. Guys

27:06

and I were pretty close, though. They were always saying

27:08

things like, nice shop, Mr. Hempstead.

27:14

I'm open, sir. You

27:17

crazy kids. Thing

27:21

was, high school to me was free membership to a

27:23

sports club. You know what I mean? All

27:26

you had to do was sit through these classes,

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and you got to play basketball and volleyball and

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hockey, golf, cross country,

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badminton, anything. Awesome. I

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would play any sport to get out of class. Like I

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said, I went to cross country. I ran

27:39

cross country. The way I heard

27:41

it was not, do you want to join the cross country

27:43

team? What I heard was, would you like to sit in

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class today or go running through the woods? Turns

27:52

out I had ADD. Yeah,

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that's why I was good at the reaction sports. Not so

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good at the sports. You had time to think. So,

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regarding cross country, it's not appropriate to let

28:03

a kid with ADD go running through the

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woods. Winner

28:10

ran the race in 23 minutes that day.

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It took me 4 hours and 32. They

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were not impressed. Thing is, they had to

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wait because the teacher is not allowed to come back from

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a field trip without all the kids they took. So,

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unimpressed when I showed up drinking a Slurpee.