0:01

Hey folks, I know there are lots of business

0:03

owners who listen to this show. Maybe some of

0:05

you never planned on running a business, but now

0:07

here you are. One thing you've

0:09

always got to keep in mind is how much

0:11

you're spending on your operating costs. That's

0:14

one of the first things we had to keep

0:16

in mind with WTF. And with things costing more

0:18

today than they did when we started, you want

0:20

to keep your expenses down. To

0:22

reduce costs and headaches, be

0:24

smart and use NetSuite by

0:26

Oracle, bringing accounting, financial management,

0:28

inventory, and HR into one

0:31

platform and one source of truth. Reduce

0:34

IT costs, cut the costs

0:36

of maintaining multiple systems, improve

0:38

efficiency by bringing all your

0:40

major business processes into one

0:42

platform, slashing manual tasks and

0:44

errors. By popular demand,

0:47

NetSuite has extended its one-of-a-kind

0:49

flexible financing program for a

0:51

few more weeks. Head to

0:53

netsuite.com/WTF for more. That's Netsuite,

0:56

netsuite.com/WTF.

1:13

All right, let's do this. How are you, what

1:15

the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the

1:17

fuck nicks, what's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This

1:20

is my podcast. Welcome

1:22

to it. We've been

1:24

going strong since 2009. That

1:28

is crazy and very

1:30

consistent, I might add. I

1:34

don't know, man. I guess it's just

1:36

because this is my social life. What

1:38

you're witnessing here is

1:40

most of my social life. I meet people

1:42

I usually don't know that well

1:44

or don't know at all. I

1:46

talk to them a few times a

1:48

week and it

1:51

gives me what I need in

1:53

terms of human interaction. It's

1:55

important now. It is important

1:57

now to have human

1:59

interaction. that is engaged

2:03

and I would

2:06

say emotionally, spiritually, psychologically

2:08

nourishing as opposed to

2:11

just letting yourself get jerked around

2:13

emotionally by your primary partner, your

2:16

phone. I am

2:18

sort of amazed and a

2:21

little upset by

2:24

the compulsive scrolling that

2:27

happens to me and probably

2:29

to most of you. If you

2:32

really think about how much attention it

2:34

sucks out of your life and your

2:36

brain, you ever been lost in

2:38

your phone and then all of a sudden

2:40

you look up and you realize you've been completely

2:42

detached from the reality

2:45

around you for anywhere from

2:47

five minutes to two

2:49

hours just scrolling

2:51

along whatever your

2:54

algorithm delivers to you. For me,

2:56

it's a lot of animal rescue.

2:58

It's just me going like, oh, the cats,

3:01

oh, look at they got, they fixed

3:03

a dog up. Oh my God, what

3:05

are they cooking? How much does that

3:07

feed? Oh, Grateful Dead one. Oh, look

3:09

at that, a 12 year old playing

3:11

guitar better than I could ever imagine.

3:14

Ah, another cat. Oh,

3:16

that guy saved a eagle.

3:19

Yeah, that could go on for hours to

3:23

the complete diminishment

3:26

of your human relationship. So I don't

3:28

know, just be aware and I'm

3:30

saying this to myself out loud to

3:33

you. So today, few

3:36

things happening. Today on the show,

3:38

I have Tammy face starlight. Now,

3:42

I'm sure many of you don't know her.

3:44

She's a singer and performance artist. Her name

3:46

is Tammy Lang, but Tammy

3:48

face starlight is her most well known

3:50

character. She's a, I've known her

3:52

for years really. I haven't, I haven't seen her

3:54

or talked to her in a long time, but

3:57

back in the day, Back in

3:59

the, Early alternative comedy

4:01

days. In. The Nineties and New

4:03

York City. ah she was someone was

4:06

performing around the Lower East side when

4:08

I was there as you it was

4:10

a long time ago rosa the mid

4:12

nineties and she was at Luna Lounge

4:14

with me sometimes and we talk about

4:16

a lot of other alternatives and use

4:18

and. I'd. Mention things in

4:20

passing. hear about that era? And.

4:24

I think you could call it that.

4:26

It was an era when alternative comedy

4:28

sort of began to happen. For me,

4:30

it was just a place to work

4:32

out. I never saw myself as a

4:34

quote unquote alternative tarmac at that time.

4:37

I was working clubs, but I used

4:39

to go to learn, allowed to kind

4:41

of blow off steam and improvise, and

4:43

yeah, really figured out how I could

4:45

write for myself and be funny in

4:47

the moment and and sometimes not be

4:50

funny. That. Happens, but I

4:52

don't think we've ever talked about

4:54

it in depth. As much as

4:56

we do on this episode or with Tammy.

4:58

As. She's. She does

5:01

the time he say starlight character, which

5:03

is sort of a country music character.

5:05

But she's also done shows as Marianne

5:07

Faithfull and as Nico. Ah, and she's

5:09

bringing that show back to New York

5:12

next month. But. This was a

5:14

real blast from the past because.

5:16

As. I get older. It starts

5:18

to feel like. Man. I've

5:21

lived. Several. Lives.

5:23

And. She was around for

5:25

for one of them. And. It was

5:27

good to kind of a try to remember that

5:30

stuff. Because it's a it

5:32

was a whole world on the

5:34

lower East side and a lot

5:36

of stuff gets lost somehow. A

5:38

I think most things do. Everything

5:40

becomes Canada Clips. Or. Content to

5:42

be go find it with no real context.

5:44

but it it does seem like it's a

5:46

lot of stuff that happens. If

5:48

it wasn't recorded is just gone forever

5:51

and there was a whole oh community

5:53

down there at that time and the

5:55

in we get into it was kind

5:57

of a tiny interesting to go back.

6:00

Would all be in Montclair, New

6:02

Jersey on Thursday, May. Second: that

6:04

the Well Months Center Glenside Pennsylvania

6:06

near Philly on Friday May third

6:08

of the Keswick Theater Washington D

6:10

C on Saturday May fourth of

6:12

the Warner Theater Month Hall Pennsylvania

6:14

outside Pittsburgh on May ninth at

6:16

the Carnegie Library Musicals: Cleveland, Ohio

6:18

on May tenth of the Play

6:20

How Square, Detroit, Michigan on May

6:23

eleventh at the Royal Oak Music

6:25

Theater in got a Wtf pod.com/two

6:27

or for all of my dates

6:29

and links. To Tickets You. I'm starting

6:31

to wrap my brain around the fact that

6:33

I'm going to be acting on a tv

6:35

show with Owen Wilson. I've had some my

6:38

conversations with own on the phone and I

6:40

I've never met the guy. Was.

6:42

Very interesting when you know a guy from

6:44

a who he is on screen and then

6:46

he talked to him you like oh my

6:48

god it's that guy I know for one

6:51

screen. I mean that have been

6:53

here in the air is in those in

6:55

the garage a lot but as but not

6:57

on on the phone too often and now

6:59

with some on as imagine somebody or I'll

7:02

be working with them. We started to talk

7:04

about you know characters in our relationship and

7:06

and doing needs a new solar sort of

7:08

getting to know each other thing and what

7:10

we think about the ya, the characters and

7:13

the scripts and the story and your how

7:15

we're gonna. Figure. Out how to he

7:17

out seem like we've known each other long time

7:19

and this is part of a process And he

7:21

definitely has a process in place and I could.

7:24

I can. Hear. His wheels kind of.

7:26

Turning. And thinking. And he brought up a lot of

7:28

good stuff. So. I'm

7:30

getting into the zone with it. I'm.

7:33

Trying to get into the zone with it. I'm

7:36

trying to push back whatever insecurities

7:38

I may have. You.

7:40

Know it's it's a lot man. Anxiety.

7:43

Is this is a fuck and day?

7:45

He can't He had put all that

7:47

stuff aside and lock in. I can't

7:49

sit here and think about who might

7:51

have been a better choice than me.

7:54

That's one of my favorite hobbies. But.

7:57

but it was encouraging and it was it was good and

8:00

I'm starting to look forward to it as long

8:02

as I can feel like everything back home back

8:04

here will be kind of a Taking

8:06

care of I think that's my

8:08

main anxiety is just like separating my brain from

8:11

The life in order to do

8:14

this job that requires a kind of

8:16

focus and being away from home But

8:18

that's the way it goes that

8:20

show business We'll

8:22

see what happens folks. Oh At

8:27

the end of this episode I'm

8:31

gonna play a song that's

8:33

been recorded. It was recorded

8:35

for a record That

8:38

I did a duet with With

8:41

Paige Stark and Luke Paquin

8:44

who played bass. We just went into

8:46

a studio The the album is called

8:48

love LA all the proceeds

8:50

will be going to benefit the Fernando

8:53

poem community arts center providing

8:55

performing arts instruction to youth in South

8:58

Central LA the artists on it

9:00

are Robin Hitchcock

9:02

Emma Swift Jim James and

9:05

Leslie Stevens me and page star

9:07

gold star and Joanna Samuels to

9:11

Shaki Miyaki and Poppy Jean

9:13

Crawford Sonny war and

9:15

Particle Kid cherry glazer and

9:18

Jeffertiti Joel Jerome Paloma parfait

9:21

it's kind of a great record, you know, I did

9:23

a cover with a page of The

9:26

idea was to do LA bands

9:28

and I and I knew Arthur Lee in love and

9:30

I knew a lot of their songs are pretty Complicated

9:32

but I thought that might be an interesting place to

9:34

start and I found a fairly simple song, which is

9:36

what I need To

9:38

play effectively and we did a

9:41

cover of this slow tune about

9:43

a junkie called signed DC And

9:46

we're gonna put it up in full at the end of this Broadcast

9:50

but you can get the record, you know anywhere

9:52

you get record store day records, you can get

9:54

it on vinyl You can get it RSD MRKT

9:58

comm I'm pretty

10:00

proud of it. I never know how

10:02

I'm gonna sound or how it's gonna

10:05

go. And we recorded it pretty quickly

10:07

in this kind of sweet space that's

10:09

going to be no longer. Paige played

10:11

drums and Luke played bass. And I

10:14

had my gold top, so I

10:16

played guitar and I sang with

10:18

Paige and I played some harmonica at the

10:20

end, which I didn't even know was

10:23

gonna happen. Sometimes it's

10:25

nice to be surprised, folks. And our sponsor,

10:27

Rocket Money, surprised me by helping me fix

10:29

a problem I didn't even know I had.

10:32

You know all those subscriptions you sign up

10:34

for over the years? Sometimes you stop using

10:36

them and then they just sit on your

10:39

credit card, costing you money every month. Rocket

10:41

Money is a personal finance app that finds

10:43

and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending,

10:45

and helps lower your bills so you can

10:48

grow your savings. Think about all the things

10:50

you signed up for are no longer used.

10:52

If you're like me, that stuff never crosses

10:55

your mind. So it was a real

10:57

surprise to open up the Rocket Money app and

10:59

see all my paid subscriptions in one place. It

11:02

also made it easy to cancel them. Rocket Money

11:04

has over five million users and has saved a

11:06

total of $500 million in

11:08

canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740

11:10

a year when

11:13

using all the app's features.

11:16

Stop wasting money on things

11:18

you don't use. Cancel your

11:20

unwanted subscriptions by going to

11:23

rocketmoney.com/WTF. That's rocketmoney.com slash

11:25

WTF. Stop wasting cash.

11:28

Stop it. So

11:30

look, what's happened since

11:32

I last talked to you? We've been banking these

11:35

things a bit so Brendan can

11:37

go enjoy some time with his family.

11:40

And the last time I talked to you, I don't think I

11:42

had gone to Austin yet. And I

11:44

went to Austin. And

11:46

I didn't know how I would feel about Austin

11:49

because I haven't been to Austin

11:51

since the giant meathead comedy takeover.

11:53

And for some reason in my

11:55

mind, I thought like it would

11:57

just be some sort of sprawling.

12:00

And, you know, anti-woke

12:03

hackfest would have just

12:05

consumed the entire city

12:07

and comedy would be

12:09

kind of minimized to that. But it

12:11

didn't turn out to be true. The

12:15

festival was great. Because I guess I forget,

12:17

and I forget this in the big picture

12:19

as well, that, you know, all

12:22

the people that were there before, whatever

12:24

happened to the place, whether it's Tesla or

12:26

whatever, you know, there's

12:28

a comedy club on every fucking corner

12:30

now, that it would somehow

12:33

diminish what Austin used to be. And

12:35

it hasn't. The audiences came out,

12:37

I had a great show at the Paramount Theater, sold

12:40

it out. Sophie Buttle opened

12:42

for me, and she's kind of great. And

12:46

I was just happily surprised.

12:50

Because you forget, you know, you look at the news,

12:53

you think about the future, you look at the

12:56

divisiveness in the country, and you think it

12:58

all trickles down, there's nobody in

13:00

the middle or nobody who is

13:03

like-minded and tolerant and

13:05

progressive left, or they've

13:08

somehow been scared into their homes.

13:10

But it just isn't true. Everybody

13:13

who has come to

13:15

see me before in Austin came to

13:18

see me again. The crowds were great.

13:20

The entire festival, the Moon Tower Festival

13:22

was great. I even got on stage

13:24

for the comedy jam, the comedy, you

13:26

know, that thing that Josh Adam

13:28

Myers does. I wasn't supposed to

13:30

be on it, but I was like, I'll just go on do

13:32

Hey Joe, you got a guitar for me?

13:35

And that was fun. The whole thing was fun. It was just

13:37

a few days. I got to see my buddy Todd Berry, who

13:39

I haven't seen in a long time. And all

13:41

the guys from the state were there and women. And

13:45

I hadn't seen them in a long time. And

13:47

it was just very interesting to all of a

13:49

sudden be approaching or at 60 with people you've

13:51

known since you were in your twenties with to

13:54

see how that's coming along.

13:56

How's everybody's aging coming along?

13:59

There's no stopping it. But the

14:01

other thing I did when I was in. In.

14:03

Austin was. At. Digging

14:06

back into that passed into. You.

14:08

Know people that. That. Time or

14:10

peep other, the young people in

14:12

comics have forgotten or or don't

14:14

know. I always knew that a

14:17

Whitney Brown. Was.

14:19

Somewhere in Austin A Wouldn't Brown was a guy

14:21

you might remember from Saturday Night Live in the

14:23

yeah, I guess it was the. Late.

14:26

Eighties and early nineties. And

14:28

he was. He had a segment

14:31

on Update. Called. The Big Picture

14:33

Use a very brilliant com It's a very

14:35

kind of as socially. Engaged Tarmac

14:37

and he always was sort of

14:40

a Mrs. Guy like

14:42

the I'd always heard stories about

14:44

i'm just Wild stories that he

14:46

started as a busker in San

14:48

Francisco and somehow ended up this

14:50

a very astute. Political. Observer

14:52

and and but he was one of the

14:54

guys your that I don't have what you

14:57

do in your life by it's I'm sure

14:59

it happens every buddy your name your I

15:01

guess that guy still alive. What is that

15:03

guy doing. So.

15:05

I tracked him down, I texted him and I went

15:07

to his house out there in South Austin and and

15:09

days been out of the game for a while. but

15:12

he's he's up to other things. Married

15:14

to her and amazing blues guitar

15:16

player Carolyn. Wonderland and I went

15:18

to their house. A. Had some

15:20

beans and rice. Saw. Of

15:22

Whitney's Garden. Listen. To

15:25

some of the mixes for actor oh and the

15:27

record and did or did an interview in that

15:29

war that will happen at some point the future

15:31

but it was kind of an amazing. Conversation.

15:34

Unlike any we've had here. Was good to see.

15:36

Whitney is good that he still alive and what

15:38

a fucking life. but the it's just the kind

15:41

of pull away. From. Comedy and

15:43

In and go to somebody home in

15:45

Austin and hang out. In. The

15:47

Austin way out there is a specific

15:50

Austin way and you know he just

15:52

like, almost like an old hippie. And.

15:55

The it was kind of a beautiful. Kind.

15:57

of amazing said something to look for

15:59

or two coming down the pike. Also,

16:03

oh my God, had some

16:05

kind of life-changing event watching

16:08

this show on Netflix, and

16:10

this is not a paid promo. I

16:12

guess some people were talking about it. I had no idea

16:14

what it was, but my buddy Jerry Stahl hit me to

16:17

it. This

16:19

series, this limited series called Baby

16:22

Reindeer. Holy

16:25

shit, it fucking turned

16:27

me inside out. I've

16:29

never seen a series

16:31

as honest and raw

16:33

and emotionally wrought as

16:36

this series. And

16:39

the guy who plays the lead in it wrote

16:42

the thing. It's based on a one-man show he

16:44

did in Edinburgh. Richard Gad

16:47

is his name. And

16:49

there was just something about the story.

16:51

You just know that it's

16:54

disturbing and it's true, and

16:56

it revolves around his trauma. It

16:59

revolves around him being stalked by a

17:02

relentless serial stalker.

17:05

It revolves around his sexuality and

17:08

the impact of trauma and how

17:10

that opens you up. I

17:13

don't know, I can't even explain how

17:16

impactful this thing is in

17:19

my own life in terms

17:21

of me dealing with my own

17:23

personal trauma and what that does

17:25

to your personality. Also, sort of

17:27

the struggles of trying to

17:30

figure out who you are and identifying why

17:32

you hate yourself or

17:34

what you go through and why you are like you

17:36

are. But

17:39

it's very specific, but even if you're not

17:42

as emotionally

17:44

or mentally damaged, the story

17:46

is very compelling and

17:49

kind of, not kind of, but

17:51

very disturbing. But I guess the fact that he

17:53

was a comic who was

17:56

struggling to make headway

17:58

in the business. and these

18:00

things happen to him, it's menacing.

18:03

But it's menacing in a way that

18:06

is emotionally grounded in what is clearly

18:08

a true story, and the courage and

18:10

boldness of the thing is

18:12

just kind of mind-blowing. You

18:15

know, I related to it, and there's

18:17

still things that I'm working through, but

18:19

it definitely gave me a window into

18:21

some similar sort of

18:24

feelings and emotional responses and

18:26

the sort of liabilities of

18:28

being kind of mentally ill

18:30

in a very specific way, and how that

18:33

kind of defines your life without

18:35

you really kind of knowing it until some

18:38

kind of catharsis happens. But again,

18:40

it's rough riding, and it's heavy,

18:42

and it could be very triggering

18:44

for people, but I gotta

18:46

be honest with you, it's the rawest,

18:48

most kind of

18:51

courageous series I've seen in a

18:53

long time. If you can handle it, I would watch

18:55

it, and

18:57

be confronted

19:00

with some real disturbing humanity. How's

19:04

that for a review? Holy shit.

19:08

On the other side of that, I'm gonna go out

19:10

and see my dad in New

19:12

Mexico and see if we still

19:14

connect, if he still

19:17

knows who I am, gonna try to get out

19:19

there for a couple of days, and happy Passover

19:22

if it's not too late. Maybe I just missed

19:24

it, because I forgot to talk about it the

19:26

last show. I

19:28

hope your satyrs and things went

19:30

well. All right, I

19:33

think that's good, don't you? Tammy

19:37

Faye Starlight. What a wild

19:39

thing this was, because I really hadn't seen

19:41

her in a long time. Her

19:43

new show, well her live show, I don't know

19:45

if it's new, but it's gonna be a Joe's

19:47

Pub in New York, the

19:49

live Enneco show, every Wednesday

19:52

in May, beginning next week,

19:55

May 1st, you can go to joespub.com

19:57

for tickets. And this is the

19:59

end of the show. This is me catching up with

20:02

Tammy Faye Starlight or Tammy

20:04

Lang. Why don't I just say her real

20:06

name? Tammy Lang. I

20:21

think I was on your

20:23

Air America. Oh really?

20:25

Yeah. I must have done

20:27

it as Tammy Faye Starlight or I

20:30

might have been in character which is

20:32

really annoying. Everything

20:34

happened at such an unreasonable hour

20:36

at Air America.

20:40

Our show was from 6 to 9 but

20:42

then I had to get there like 3. In

20:45

the morning? Yeah. So that entire period

20:47

of my life is like some sort of half

20:49

dream. Oh my God. So the

20:51

memories are fragmented. They're

20:54

the same for me and my husband remembers

20:56

because he was there too. I feel

21:00

bad because I have zero memory of almost

21:02

everything. Except

21:06

I remember I have

21:09

memories of jokes of yours that I

21:11

remember from hearing at Luna. Wow.

21:14

Like that I still use and

21:16

obviously credit you of course. I

21:19

can't. They made

21:21

it into the stage show? Into

21:24

my stage show? Yeah. I couldn't

21:26

do that because I would then have to credit you and

21:28

I. It would be weird. What joke so? I kind of

21:30

wonder if I remember them. I have a memory

21:32

of you saying, talking about

21:34

tourists and having them say we went

21:37

to the New York Applebee's. Yeah.

21:39

Oh yeah. I remember that. Those

21:43

are times square bit. I remember that. Yeah.

21:46

It's better than our Applebee's in New York Applebee's. Yeah. I

21:48

remember that joke. It was hilarious. Yeah.

21:51

It was kind of a good joke. It was a really good joke.

21:53

You had a lot. And you

21:55

know I have like their discrete memory.

21:57

Like I have a memory of you.

21:59

your joke from your last special, with being

22:02

a cat person about the best case scenario

22:06

is that you have to kill your friends. Yeah,

22:09

these things just stick with me. Yeah,

22:11

I think that's a good one for certain people. I'm

22:14

trying to remember, I'm trying to put it together,

22:17

because I just talked to Thurston Moore. I

22:20

saw that. Yeah, I'll give you, if you want,

22:22

I got a galley of his book if you want

22:24

it. Oh, thank you, yeah, I would. Because

22:27

we started to talk, I started to talk

22:29

about being in New York, New

22:32

York City in the late 80s, and then starting to

22:34

really kind of do Luna Lounge,

22:37

which was alt comedy, quote unquote.

22:40

But at that time, there

22:43

was still, you talk to people

22:45

like Thurston, and really the vitality of

22:47

New York City performance art as it

22:49

was, as we saw it,

22:51

like this mythic time with

22:54

Karen Finley and Begozian

22:56

and Spalding, people doing

22:58

kind of crazy, Gigi Allen somewhere on the

23:01

outskirts. Oh, yeah, and also the Charles

23:04

Bush, like Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, that

23:06

kind of stuff. The theater that was

23:08

going on that kind of spurred all

23:10

this, so

23:12

much seems to have come from just

23:15

that time. Yeah,

23:18

and also, but not performance already, but then

23:20

there was the Richard Forman play. Oh,

23:22

yeah, which I saw several

23:24

of. And I remember because, God

23:27

forgive me, I just couldn't bear them, and

23:31

there was always a clock on the

23:33

wall of the stage set, and I

23:35

would just stare at that clock because

23:37

I knew it was 60 minutes or

23:39

so. Yeah, there was a lot going on.

23:41

I don't remember them ever sort of resonating

23:43

in a way, but it was always sort

23:45

of a lot going on. But

23:47

he was sort of a thing, right? Oh,

23:49

he was a big thing at

23:51

the ontological hysteric at St. Mark's

23:54

Church. Yeah, and then there was, Brother

23:57

Theodore was still doing his show. Yeah, I'm 13.

24:00

Street right yeah rap and Yeah,

24:04

so much. I'm trying to even like again.

24:06

It's what was that what was that

24:08

performance space that was like in a loft It was

24:10

some woman's house almost do

24:12

you remember the kitchen was called the kitchen I

24:15

thought no maybe that was sort of

24:17

a big open space maybe like

24:19

hmm Somewhere in the this was definitely a

24:22

woman ran this performance space upstairs in a loft

24:24

And it looked like she might you know was

24:26

nice, but it looked like it was she might

24:28

have lived there I remember her name. Yeah, I

24:31

remember seeing Ethel Eichelberger Huh

24:33

do all of Racine's Phaedra

24:35

like the whole every single

24:37

part in a loft right

24:40

Yeah, that might have it was around probably

24:42

the like 86

24:46

yeah because like that because the first time I It

24:49

was just the evolution of it that I

24:51

made the assumption with Thurston that you

24:53

know many of our Generation were already

24:55

two generations removed from what was you

24:58

know that mid 70s early to mid

25:00

70s performance art

25:02

scene or 80s and But

25:05

like the the sort of idea that it

25:07

was still a thing to do Yeah,

25:10

was was very real and it

25:12

was a thing to aspire to that's right

25:14

And you know I was talking about my

25:16

friend Esther Ballant and her father started the

25:18

squat theater You

25:20

know he came from Hungary. I think in 77 She

25:24

has a show about it It's

25:26

a kind of show about her life. Yeah, I

25:29

know about it Also cuz I'm growing up in that environment

25:31

up in that environment. She Nico lived there

25:33

at the squat Really

25:36

yeah, and what years was this

25:38

and I think around 8082

25:42

like so she was sort of over it. Yeah,

25:45

she was late Nico late late

25:47

Nico But pre like all

25:49

her European tours right still

25:51

very heroin Nico. I mean

25:54

Esther who was a teenager at the time? Was

25:57

friends with her and then was? horrifyingly

26:00

disappointed because I think Nico

26:04

borrowed money from her without her, you

26:06

know. Right, without her knowing it. Sure.

26:10

She would always say like, do you have money for heroin? You know,

26:12

like that kind of like. At least she was honest. She was

26:14

honest. So. In

26:16

that, in the early 80s, that was when that heroin

26:18

was real good. I mean, like I. Yeah,

26:21

I don't know. Well, it was like there was a shift in

26:23

the dope. Like in that, when

26:25

I was there, I guess it was, well, I

26:28

was later, I guess, in the 80s, mid

26:31

to late 80s, they realized that they

26:33

could get new buyers by

26:35

making the heroin more pure so it

26:38

was snortable and wouldn't scare away the

26:40

college kids. Oh, well, that's

26:42

kind and convenient. And I

26:44

was just, I'm rereading

26:47

books that I've read

26:49

700 times about Nico just because it, you

26:51

know. Well, that's the show you're doing, right?

26:54

Yeah. Nico Underground. Nico Underground.

26:56

I'm doing it. Well, I did it first

26:59

in 2010 at Joe's Pub and then it evolved.

27:01

It had a different title and then I

27:03

had an unfortunate moment where I

27:05

changed the show completely. And then it was Penny

27:08

Arcade who said, you have to change it back.

27:10

She's another one. It's like from that era. Yeah, I

27:12

mean, and she's still working and she's brilliant.

27:15

Yeah. Yeah, and she's a dear

27:17

friend. And. What

27:20

was this change you had to make? Well, I

27:22

wanted, because, you know, because

27:25

I'm a crass, I

27:28

wanted to get into, you know, I wanted to get into a certain

27:30

festival in New York City.

27:33

And the head of that festival saw the Nico

27:35

show that I did, the same one that I'm

27:37

doing in May. And he said, well, it's

27:40

good, but you need a new director and you

27:42

need to change it. So I. That

27:45

vague? That vague. And he

27:48

said, I want you to work with this particular

27:50

director. And I had to tell the director who

27:52

is still with me, thank God, but I loved

27:54

him. I loved Michael Schiraly. I said, I have

27:57

to work with this other director. Yeah. And

27:59

the other. actor who's in the show because

28:01

the show is based on a interview that Nico

28:03

did on Melbourne in 1986. When did she die?

28:06

88. Yeah. 88. What about that interview? That interview

28:12

was, I was listening to

28:14

it and I thought I really want to

28:16

do this as a play because everything she

28:18

says is kind of a non

28:20

sequitur and yet they talk about all the

28:23

songs that would be that would be good

28:25

in a show because it's her

28:27

songs are wonderful and brilliant

28:29

and profound and

28:32

very dolc but you

28:34

know to do kind of a show that

28:36

people would want to see you might want

28:38

to have a few Lou Reed and a

28:41

few Jackson Brown song and David Bowie

28:43

and so they would and the interviewer

28:45

is kind of desperately trying to keep

28:47

her on track and she's she

28:50

seems to be like there are different interviews of

28:52

Nico and you can tell if her

28:54

mood is kind of light like this

28:56

and then she's like this and

28:58

she doesn't answer like there's a point

29:00

in the in the interview where she

29:03

he he asks her about like doing

29:05

David Bowie's Heroes and about you

29:08

know the divided Berlin and there's it's

29:11

like it feels like five minutes of

29:13

silence yeah but it's probably just 30

29:15

seconds but in the show

29:17

we extend it yeah because that's funny

29:19

or when it's but you know

29:22

it's so that interview is just so and

29:24

so I adapted the interview I

29:26

have some of the exact dialogue and I have some

29:28

that I made up and this is

29:30

for the show you're doing for the show that I'm doing in

29:32

May and that I did prior to that the

29:34

Penny Arcade song loved and then when I changed

29:36

it and the new director

29:39

took out the interviewer and had me just

29:41

talking to the air and to him

29:43

who was the voice of anyway it was a freaking

29:46

mess and it was horrible and we

29:49

did it at Joe's Pub and afterwards my

29:51

husband who's in the band he was kind of like we

29:53

were all driving back me in the band and I was

29:55

like so depressed and the rest of them I was like

29:57

no it was good and and my husband That

30:00

sucked. That sucked. And it was

30:02

all because he took that director's advice. Yeah. And

30:05

then I went to Penny Arcade. I hadn't been

30:07

friends with her, but I knew of her and

30:10

I really respected her career because

30:13

she had just at, you know, she wouldn't

30:15

mind. She gives her age at age 62 at this point.

30:18

She had gotten this, you know, big profile in

30:20

the Times and I thought, well, she can do

30:22

it like... Was she

30:24

like, was she a late Warhol person? She

30:26

was a late Warhol person in like the 70s. Okay.

30:30

I believe the film that she did was Women

30:32

in Revolt. Okay. Yeah.

30:35

So what did Penny tell you? Penny told me, she

30:37

said, I saw the show when you originally did

30:39

it and she said, and I hope

30:42

this doesn't sound too solipsistic or whatever, but

30:44

she said, I was jealous. And

30:46

then she said, and I saw what you just did

30:48

and it was shit. And she goes,

30:51

you have to get back your original director,

30:53

your original actor. I will get you a

30:55

run at Theater for the New City and

30:58

you will do it. And that

31:00

actually happened. We

31:02

got a run months later. You went back to the

31:04

other guy? I went back with

31:06

my head in my hands to my

31:08

director, Michael Shirelli, to the

31:11

actor Jeff Ward, who was also part

31:13

of the surf reality crowd. Sure. Yeah,

31:16

we can talk about that. Yeah. He

31:18

was part of... He had this comedy troupe called

31:20

Euphobia. Okay. And

31:22

he's brilliant and he played the Australian director.

31:24

I was like, please, can you do it

31:26

again? And we did and we got this

31:29

lovely review in the Times. Was

31:31

that the Cabaret review? That was the

31:33

Nico Underground review of this actual

31:36

show. And it's framed, it's

31:38

looked at as Cabaret? It's looked at

31:40

as Cabaret. That's interesting. I just had it

31:44

sounding like, you know, again, it's

31:46

like my freaking Norma Desperation. I just had an article

31:48

at times. Yeah. And

31:50

it's about being part of the alt Cabaret scene,

31:52

which... Well, let's talk about that in

31:54

this sense of like, well, first of all, Nico,

31:57

for me, like, you know, I was always kind

31:59

of interested in it. but then a few years

32:01

ago I went and got all the records because

32:03

I talked to John Kale. So I got, you

32:06

know, John Kale. Yeah. And I've gotten all those

32:08

records he produced of her, the

32:10

desert one. What's that one? Desert Shore. Yeah.

32:12

Yeah, which is beautiful. Yeah, it's really something.

32:14

And, you know, because I had had no

32:16

real sense of Nico other than I don't

32:18

think I took to her voice early on

32:20

with the Velvet's. I liked it, but it

32:23

always seemed a little bit

32:26

off to me, but it's unique. Yeah.

32:29

As Kale said, you know, she sang out

32:31

of tune, but we played out of tune.

32:33

So. Yeah, but it was interesting because

32:35

her phrasing is, what's that woman's name, Astrid?

32:38

She's a jazz singer. There's

32:42

something there that's similar.

32:44

Yes. It's, I

32:46

wouldn't say it, she's South American, so I wouldn't

32:48

say European, but it's certainly not American.

32:50

Right. And there's something about the phrasing too.

32:52

Yeah. I mean, but. And

32:55

the breathiness of that. Yeah.

32:57

Her, sorry to interrupt, but

32:59

of those songs she used her kind

33:01

of breathier voice. Yeah. But Nico was

33:03

like, I remember reading Please Kill Me. And

33:05

there was a bit in there when she

33:08

had gone to like Ann Arbor and fucked

33:10

all the Stooges. Yes. And gave them all

33:12

VD and then left. Yeah. And

33:14

she had a kind of, you

33:16

know, sustained affair with Iggy. Yeah.

33:19

And he says something in this book by

33:21

Richard Wits, which is a biography that came

33:24

out around 1995 or so,

33:26

where he said he, you know, he

33:32

loved her and she helped him because she

33:34

said to him, like, you have to be

33:36

more poisoned. You're not poisoned yet. You know,

33:38

like, and that she also taught him

33:41

how to go down. Oh, good.

33:48

Well, that's good. Yeah. She said, Jim, this

33:50

something you can do for me. Like

33:53

that, you know, and he

33:55

also has, he says, like, he

33:58

loved her, but she wasn't the type of person where

34:00

you'd see her coming and you'd say, oh,

34:02

Nico's coming, everything's gonna be all right. No,

34:04

yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm one of those people. No

34:07

one's inviting you to the party necessarily. No,

34:09

you're a joy. You

34:12

are. I

34:14

just think I'm a weighty presence sometimes. You are not

34:16

a weighty presence. Oh, thank God. Well,

34:19

live wire anyways. Which is great. Yeah,

34:21

but like, okay, so if we go

34:24

back, like Nico, now how

34:26

many, like, when you do the show, because

34:30

I'm getting older and I'm seeing where culture is

34:32

going, I really wonder, you know, who gives a

34:34

shit about things. Yeah, I know. And,

34:36

you know, these things, because, you know, you're probably a

34:39

little younger than me, but, and even us mythologizing

34:42

and admiring these people,

34:44

they're still decades before

34:46

us. Yeah. So I really wonder,

34:48

you know, what's the, who's

34:50

interested? Well, people

34:52

older than us. Right.

34:55

And people who. Theater crowd. Theater

34:58

crowd and people, even people

35:00

who don't know Nico, per se, or,

35:02

you know, have heard of. Are interested about

35:04

the show. Or, you know, they, hopefully

35:07

they're interested because she's such a

35:09

weird character. Yeah. And,

35:11

you know, you try and contextualize it so that you

35:13

don't have to have any kind of, you

35:16

know, foreknowledge of Nico. Sure. And.

35:20

Well, music too, when you have music, it stands on its

35:22

own above and beyond whatever the

35:24

context is. Yeah. Yeah.

35:27

It mitigates any kind of sense of, oh, I have to

35:29

go see a play. Right. You know, and.

35:31

But where did you grow up? Because I'm trying to

35:34

put together, when I see people

35:36

like you, especially after so long, and

35:39

you were someone I saw around a lot back in,

35:42

it would probably be the mid 90s. Yeah. You

35:45

know, I don't, like, I don't know where you came from

35:47

or what the, you know, the trajectory is. I know you've

35:49

been at it. I've been at it,

35:51

yeah. Where'd you grow up? I grew

35:53

up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Really?

35:56

So you're a New York kid. That's a rare thing. It's

35:59

a rare thing. And we were

36:01

a rare little upper

36:03

west side liberal democrat Jews.

36:07

And then I... Didn't used to be rare. Didn't

36:09

used to...no. But,

36:12

you know, I went to...we weren't religious, but

36:14

I went to an elementary

36:18

school that was Jewish, so I always had a

36:20

double curriculum of English and Hebrew, but it was

36:22

sort of like a...you know, it was like a

36:25

post-Hippie school, like, so that, you know, there were

36:27

very few kids. And what, were your parents were

36:29

New Yorkers? No, well, my father

36:31

was from Brooklyn and my mother

36:33

actually converted to Judaism. She was

36:36

from an Italian Polish Catholic from

36:38

Rochester, New York. So she had

36:40

come down to...she was studying

36:43

at Columbia School of Social

36:45

Work and met my father

36:47

and... Converted. Converted.

36:50

So actually more Jewish than most people. More Jewish.

36:53

And her name was Judy. She really

36:55

took to becoming a kind of upper

36:57

west side Jewish lady in the state

36:59

John Knits. And

37:02

she was part of Community Free Democrats. What

37:04

did she do? She was a

37:06

psychiatric social worker and then she

37:08

kind of ascended the ranks in

37:10

UJA Federation. And

37:13

my father was a judge. A judge? Yeah,

37:15

he was a judge. Prior to

37:17

that, he

37:20

worked...he was the, I guess, the

37:22

drug czar for Rockefeller. For Nelson

37:24

Rockefeller. He wrote the Rockefeller drug

37:27

laws. Oh. And so

37:29

what kind of judge? What was his bench? He

37:31

was an acting Supreme Court judge.

37:34

In New York. In New York. Uh-huh.

37:37

His biggest case, I guess, was the Jack Henry Abbott

37:40

case, which was the... The

37:42

killer who... The killer. ...mailer got

37:45

out of prison? Yeah. He was

37:47

going to prison for manslaughter. But mailer... Got

37:49

him out and then he killed someone else. He got him...yeah, he

37:51

killed someone else. And then mailer testified on his

37:53

behalf. The Belly of the Beast. Belly of the

37:56

Beast. Was the book. Was the book

37:58

and the play. And... But didn't he... get

38:00

out of jail and then immediately kill a waiter? I

38:02

think that was the case my father did when

38:04

he killed the waiter. And then

38:06

Norman Mailer also testified and it

38:09

didn't help him. What's a waiter when this guy's a

38:11

genius? Yeah, I know. That was

38:13

probably his argument. I don't know.

38:15

I'm speculating. I think that was

38:17

it. He's a writer. He should have immunity. Yeah.

38:21

I mean, as you know, like, I mean,

38:23

Jean Genet went to prison, but

38:25

I mean... That changed his whole point of view,

38:27

I think, didn't it? I think so. Again,

38:30

this is my dilettante. Yeah, sure. We

38:32

know the names, maybe not the work. I know. I

38:35

read The Maids a hundred years ago. So

38:37

you're growing up in New York and

38:39

are you like... Well, how old are

38:41

you? Do you say... Oh, yeah, I'm 57. Right.

38:45

So you're a close measure. I'm 60. So

38:47

are you like going downtown when you're a teenager?

38:49

No. I was like...

38:51

I mean, eventually I did, but

38:54

I was not a rebellious person.

38:56

I was a theater person

38:58

and I always did plays from when

39:00

I was very little. I would drive

39:03

my parents crazy by writing my own play. Yeah,

39:06

yeah, yeah. You know, rewriting West

39:08

Side Story and doing

39:10

plays for my family and singing

39:15

choir and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,

39:17

yeah, yeah. Did you go see a lot of plays? Not

39:19

as many as I should have. Right. I

39:22

think the first play I saw was... The first Broadway show

39:24

I saw was The Magic Show with Doug Henning. Of

39:27

course, Doug Henning, the long haired... It's

39:29

an illusion. Yeah, I saw that show.

39:32

I saw Beatlemania. Beatlemania, I

39:34

wish I'd seen. Did you get

39:36

to see Marshall Crenshaw in it when he was... I wonder.

39:39

I don't know. I don't remember when I saw it, but that was

39:41

when my grandparents were living in Jersey and I'd come back for a

39:43

few weeks, once or twice a year

39:45

and go into the city. Oh, wow. And

39:47

then I saw Better Shows. I mean, I think

39:49

I saw Brighton Beach Memoirs. Oh,

39:51

I saw that in... With Fisher Stevens, I

39:54

think. Was Fisher Stevens in it? You didn't

39:56

see Matthew... No. Because

39:58

that was going to... Jewish

40:00

high school. That was a school

40:03

trip. Look, a Jew did this. Look

40:05

at us. Look what we can do. Yeah,

40:10

we do everything. We make

40:13

the bombs, we cure the diseases. Right,

40:15

we do. Look at the things. Look at the...

40:17

Okay, Matthew brought up, he's not a Jew, but

40:19

he is a Jew. Sure, he's an

40:22

honorary Jew. Like Nathan Lane,

40:24

or Valerie Harper. Right, I can't believe Valerie

40:27

Harper is not Jewish. I mean, no, or

40:29

Norman Jewison. No, I knew that. Yeah,

40:31

but Valerie Harper was a... I think that was

40:34

a shock to all of us. Yeah, I've just got

40:36

a DM from the woman

40:38

who's now in charge of education at

40:40

the synagogue in Albuquerque that I grew

40:43

up in. Wow. And she's overseeing

40:45

the Hebrew school and she was asking, is it

40:47

true that you went to this Hebrew school? Oh

40:49

my God. Because I'd like to be able to

40:51

tell the kids in this time of troubles, in

40:55

terms of anti-Semitism, that

40:57

this guy made it out. Yeah, and

40:59

look at... You're flourishing. Yeah, I'm

41:01

sure none of the kids will really know me

41:03

unless she brings up the bad guys movie. They'll

41:06

know you. Maybe. They'll know you from

41:08

GLOW. Yeah, maybe. I don't

41:10

know how old these kids are. They're pretty young in Hebrew school.

41:12

I mean, you're under 13. Are

41:15

they very... No,

41:19

it's conservative. Okay, yeah,

41:21

that's what I... Conservative people think. I

41:23

think it means very conservative.

41:26

No. Conservative is in the middle. Yes, the

41:28

middle way. It's not the reform... Not the

41:30

reform with... There's no guitars on the pulpit.

41:33

Right. Not like... Not the bima. Not one

41:35

seder. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. But... It's... Yeah,

41:39

it's weird that when you grow up

41:42

that a conservative, you do develop a

41:44

resentment for either other side. Yeah. Yeah,

41:47

we ended up going to reform synagogue and it was kind

41:49

of... I remember we sat behind

41:51

Ron Silver, which was exciting. Angry

41:53

Jew. And really angry Jew.

41:55

But, you

41:57

know, my day school where I went to... Ben

42:01

Stiller went there. I remember

42:04

him there because he was, you know, at that

42:06

point he was, it was very little I think,

42:08

only for a few years, but he was Benji

42:10

Stiller. Oh wow, I had no idea.

42:13

Yeah, and we knew that

42:15

he was the son of Stiller

42:17

and Mira. Funny people. Funny people. Yeah,

42:20

yeah. Funny, because I think Ann Mira converted, right? I

42:22

don't know if she did. Did she? I don't know.

42:25

They were funny though. They were really funny and Jerry

42:27

Stiller, I mean they were both hilarious. Yep,

42:29

they're both gone I think now. They are gone. So

42:32

when does it shift though? So you're

42:34

doing theater in what, high school? High

42:36

school and,

42:40

you know, I'd always had a, I don't know, it's

42:42

not a subversive streak, but maybe

42:45

it was, you know, and it was latent,

42:48

but, because

42:50

I would always get in trouble for things in high

42:52

school and I didn't do, like I didn't do drugs,

42:54

I didn't have sex, I didn't drink, I didn't do,

42:57

I did drink once. During the, at

43:00

the high school, it was the

43:02

high school every year because this was

43:04

my high school on the Upper East

43:06

Side, which

43:08

was my introduction to Jews who

43:11

weren't Democrats. Right. Like I couldn't

43:13

believe that they were like Jews. I

43:15

didn't learn that till later either. Yeah. That

43:18

the sort of pro-Israel

43:21

bunch, the more

43:23

radical of them were kind of taken

43:25

in by the Republicans. Yeah, they

43:27

were like, and they would wear like the

43:29

girls, they all talk like this because they

43:32

were from, you know, Great Neck and they

43:34

would talk like that. I thought, why do

43:36

the boys like them? I don't understand. And

43:38

they were pretty, but they wore like little

43:40

Chanel suits and I thought like they dress

43:42

like their mothers. I don't, it was just

43:45

very confusing. So,

43:48

but I found my little niche of weirdos

43:50

and then in the school, high school dinner

43:53

dance at the Waldorf Astoria that the parents

43:55

would pay a lot of money and

43:58

the choir would sing and the, I can't remember. I

44:00

think it was senior year, I decided like, oh,

44:03

they're allowing me to have like Kalu and Cream,

44:05

like I can just, and then I was just

44:07

too, I was like way

44:09

too far gone to be on stage

44:12

and sing with the choir. My

44:14

parents were like, where's Tammy? I don't know where

44:16

she is. And then, so

44:19

I was drunk then, and oh, that was junior

44:21

year. And then the next year, I was

44:23

kind of like a cautionary

44:26

tale. Like, I don't know what your parents

44:28

let you do at home, but nobody's getting

44:30

drunk this year. But my parents don't,

44:32

like my father was- She must have made a real scene of it. I

44:35

guess I did, but I really

44:37

wasn't, like I'd get sent because it was

44:40

the 80s and I wore a mini skirt and I would get

44:42

sent to the, you know, principal's office.

44:45

I didn't do anything. Yeah. It

44:47

wasn't, so, I don't know, where did I

44:50

go from there? Then I remember going downtown

44:52

to like dance clubs, the

44:54

Peppermint Lounge. Sure, Danceteria.

44:57

I went to Danceteria and

44:59

then in college, which was NYU, I

45:02

went to Tisch, I started out in Tisch School

45:04

of the Art. And I hated it, I hated

45:07

it. Why? Because

45:09

they, you know, you audition for Tisch and they put

45:12

you, if they take you, they put you in one

45:15

of the five theaters, like Stella

45:17

Adler or Circle in

45:19

the Square. They put me in experimental theater, because

45:22

like, oh, she's weird, we'll put her in experimental

45:24

theater. I had no interest in like movement

45:27

or dance or being an

45:30

animal or contact improvisation. Where,

45:32

you know, you'd have to kind of, everybody closes

45:34

their eyes and, you know, feels you. Yeah,

45:37

not your thing. Not my thing and also

45:39

like, you know, guys were like, they're

45:41

18 years old and they're feeling all

45:43

the girl. It's like, you know, as somebody

45:45

once said to me, in sweatpants, like,

45:48

because you could feel like, when

45:50

the, I mean, when

45:52

nature happens and you're

45:54

closing your eyes and everybody's feeling each other and you

45:56

suddenly, you're like, ah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though

46:00

then I started taking acting classes outside of

46:02

school and I would go to and I

46:04

again. I didn't really do anything like I.

46:06

I hated living in the dorm so I

46:09

started living at home with my parents. Were

46:11

not pleased with. The

46:13

But I didn't care for year and or

46:15

and lesser going to like clubs like Palladium

46:18

but only if I could get into like

46:20

I'd see if I could get into the

46:22

mud todd room if I could sneak into

46:24

like. The. Little People rules people

46:27

room. I remember going to the

46:29

Mtv Awards. Like in nineteen eighty six getting

46:31

a ticket and thinking I would be with all

46:33

the big star via and and i thought wait

46:35

a sec know I'm just gonna be was. Sentenced.

46:38

Him on the floor so rabble. Rabble,

46:40

The Hoi Polloi, some likes I see doors

46:42

has do not enter so when and and

46:44

all of a sudden there's like everybody there's

46:46

the Hooters thirty dollars and I just stood

46:49

there and like talking to them and hanging

46:51

out and been else and he rebel waves

46:53

at me and I'm like okay I'm in.

46:55

Us like a greater than a minute.

46:57

I the idea, resistance and in and

46:59

do when you start. Music Music. I

47:02

started it was around like when I

47:04

started getting into that because I was

47:06

doing traditional acting I got on it.

47:08

I did a role on a soap

47:10

for a while like a little sister.

47:12

small part that became. Bigger.

47:14

I was like a A made I had

47:16

taken over for Allison Janney who was a

47:18

Made on Guiding Light and then she got

47:20

a role in another sells for the casting

47:22

director said can you just be dismayed and

47:25

a kind of created a little character out

47:27

here and they kept and I would make

47:29

up my own lines and they kept calling

47:31

me back and the know I could putting

47:33

you with Allison so else in a nice

47:35

where the to wacky maids and Guiding Light

47:37

for like two. Years? Really? Yes, yours

47:39

with thousand yen every now. And

47:41

for to came to my first wedding

47:43

release so it's very silly, so crazy

47:46

and we we got along so well

47:48

and I mean the humor was because

47:50

I'm five three and sees. As

47:52

she would Zero Five Twelve vs. did you

47:54

know I said out and making up my

47:56

own lines See and we would make up

47:58

our own lives together with. We. Had the

48:01

doctor anymore? You know I see.

48:03

Athletes Eight. It's why nice liver

48:05

disease like that. How many Emmys

48:07

and Oscar and this is famous.

48:10

Same what was your name then Tammy. It

48:12

was Kemi Lang here and I

48:14

started tell me say starlight because

48:16

you know I was going to

48:18

surf reality. Or that so so

48:20

how that happened. So you're acting and then

48:23

you go down because of that, plays a

48:25

very specific place Yeah that that doesn't have

48:27

a real. Place. In history know

48:29

and it was a was a place

48:31

it was a player me I think

48:33

Rob Preacher Diesel live there he. Did

48:35

with his then wife Jenny. Yeah, and there's

48:37

a four year old daughter. Smoother on

48:39

my go it was on second

48:41

now in our know how and

48:43

our air. Osiris. From Like

48:45

Blue Stockings, The Lesbian Bookstore.

48:47

Yeah, right. Yes. And this was

48:50

like a a performance. It was

48:52

a venue, but it was also

48:54

kind of a collective Yeah, right.

48:57

But it was really more performance

48:59

art and variety base. Because it

49:01

was. I remember when Moon Allowed

49:04

started that there was this tensions

49:06

between that world of performance art

49:08

which was surf reality, a collective

49:10

unconscious. Yeah, collective unconscious. Yeah, like.via.

49:13

and and then like that that

49:15

the sort of mainstream comics come.

49:17

Down there right? And he got all these weird

49:19

little lax around that are I put the fuck

49:22

is this Yeah, this is our place. A It

49:24

was. Good l I remember

49:26

because what happened was mates first.

49:29

Husband he was. it's a you know,

49:31

com net and and Tonic after. And

49:33

we did a play together on coed

49:35

prison sluts, the Musical or her which

49:37

was it something that the producer of

49:40

this Assad? ah it was done by.

49:42

This is originated by the Young Annoyance

49:44

Theater. It's in Chicago. Who did the

49:46

real life Brady Bunch? yeah I this

49:48

in Chicago. We did it in your.

49:50

Focus. Colored prison sled so. On

49:53

and then. Ah, His.

49:56

One. Of his best friends, Frank Hall who

49:58

is known as state. Facebook. Facebook, yeah,

50:01

I remember Facebook. Facebook said, hey,

50:03

I've been going down to this place

50:05

of reality, you can do characters there.

50:08

Facebook, right. So you did

50:10

this, you just got cast in the prison sweats

50:12

thing? In the prison sweats. Were you part of

50:14

the, from the ground up or what? I

50:17

was working, my

50:19

ex and I were working at this

50:21

telemarketing company that sold

50:24

theater tickets over the phone and everybody

50:26

there was an actor and the boss

50:29

and his wife were producers.

50:31

And, or they wanted to be.

50:33

And so the boss went

50:36

to Chicago, saw this and said, I want to

50:38

do it here with and cast these like people

50:41

who I work with. Yeah, so that's great. So

50:43

it was great. And we held auditions for the

50:45

other roles and we ran for like, I don't

50:47

know, a year and a half or something. Oh

50:49

my God. That's a big thing. Yeah. So it was a

50:51

thing. It was a thing. And it was like,

50:54

it was dirty. It was like, you know,

50:56

people in prison and there were songs like

50:58

that were called Shit Motherfucker. Like it was,

51:00

that was, again, I think that was. I

51:04

think you could do it today, but I think like

51:08

the cross dressing psychiatrist might

51:11

not be considered as funny

51:14

as it was then. Like

51:17

that the joke was that the

51:19

psychiatrist was. Had problems. We

51:22

had problems and wore women's clothes and lipstick

51:24

and that that was, you know, like

51:27

a little like that was the joke. Like,

51:29

like it hot like that. And so maybe it

51:31

would have to be adjusted. Sure. Sure.

51:33

So you got in that and that's a year and a half.

51:35

And that's the year and a half. No,

51:37

he wasn't in it, but he was

51:39

best friends with my ex and he

51:42

ended up, God, he ended up living

51:44

with us like for eight months, which

51:47

was like in my apartment, which

51:50

my ex-husband, who was my

51:52

boyfriend at the time. And he's like, oh, can

51:54

Frank just stay here for a few

51:56

weeks? And I said, yeah,

51:58

because I didn't know how to say that. thing,

52:01

no. But like my one

52:03

bedroom, yeah, okay. But you

52:05

know, through Frank, we got to surf

52:08

reality. I never could get a handle on him. His

52:11

brother is John S. Hall, who

52:14

was the lead singer of King Missal. Yeah,

52:16

I remember them. Yeah, I remember John. He was

52:18

an odd sort too. Brilliant poet. Yeah, yeah, I

52:20

like that guy. I think I interviewed him at

52:22

some point. I don't know if it was on this show

52:25

or another show. I liked King Missal a lot. Yeah. Because

52:27

that was a Kramer band, wasn't it? Yes, it was.

52:29

I actually did a record with Kramer. Oh,

52:31

yeah? We did, like it was a one-off

52:33

on Shimmy Disc. It was his title, Glenn

52:35

or Glenda, and I did the lyrics and

52:37

he did the music and I sang. Yeah,

52:39

that's a whole other world too. That era

52:42

of performance in New York, that Shimmy Disc

52:44

era and Kramer era. Yeah. I mean, there

52:46

was a lot going on. I think Ann

52:48

Magnuson did stuff with Kramer. He had Bongwater

52:51

with Kramer. And Kramer's still around.

52:53

Like, and he's a brilliant musician

52:55

and, you

52:57

know, he had his stuff.

53:00

Yeah, it was such a rarefied thing, but

53:02

like it doesn't sort of factor in to

53:04

like, I don't know if there's any histories

53:07

or books written about that era of New

53:09

York performance. Maybe that, maybe Rob's book, which

53:11

I didn't read, The Guy from Luna Lounge.

53:14

Oh, yeah, Rob Sacker. Yeah, I think he

53:16

wrote a book that probably brought in some

53:18

of that stuff. Probably. I don't know because

53:20

he was more of a music venue, but

53:24

Faceboy, okay, so that was his brother.

53:26

Yeah, Faceboy was sort of a, he

53:29

was sort of an impresario. Like, he

53:31

would present things. Yeah. I forgot that

53:34

we had

53:36

a little comedy troupe, me

53:38

and my ex-husband Jay

53:40

and Faceboy and John

53:42

Hall, his brother. Yeah. We had a short-lived

53:45

comedy troupe called Squeal Like a Pig. Yeah. Where

53:47

we did all these kinds of characters

53:50

and one of the characters that

53:52

was this right-wing country singer named Tammy Faye

53:54

Starlight, which I named because my name is

53:56

Tammy and Tammy Faye was in the news.

53:58

I thought Starlight sounded stupid. Yeah, you know

54:00

like a cheap lounge. Yeah, okay that

54:02

that's fine So that was just a character in

54:05

a sketch group a character in a sketch group And

54:07

the only thing I had was that I did

54:09

the song stand by your man and in between

54:11

the two choruses I would put in a monologue

54:13

about being happily gang-raped to

54:16

the tune of stand by your man and

54:19

so That kind of that

54:21

kind of took off and then I thought

54:23

everybody's doing all these different characters like you

54:25

know John Leguizamo and yeah, Eric Bogosian

54:27

who was a big I'm

54:30

influence and I

54:34

mean even whoopi Goldberg or like Lily Tom like

54:36

that and I just didn't want to do that

54:39

They just locked into town just like I want

54:41

to do one thing and if I'm gonna do it I'm

54:43

and I want to do it. I don't want to wear

54:46

wigs. I don't want it to be camp I want it

54:48

to be mean and so she was

54:50

mean and in a in a sweet way,

54:53

but hated Jews Yeah, you

54:55

know sweetly hated you sweetly hated Jews

54:58

And that was because that's when I knew you that

55:00

was what you did. Yeah Sammy

55:04

face starlight that was it. Yeah, that was

55:06

it and I was like locked in and I

55:08

had a band I had a band which which

55:11

at one point included Billy Ficca from

55:13

television Oh, wow. Yeah, I

55:15

knew him and I saw him perform with like

55:17

the Washington Square So I I thought

55:20

well, I want to Washington Square. Yeah.

55:23

Oh my god They were sort of like a take

55:25

on a folk group. Yeah, they were actual

55:27

like great musicians Lauren

55:30

Agnelli who was the only one who's still

55:32

around Bruce J Pasco and Tom

55:35

good kind who were and they

55:37

I remember seeing them in college I remember seeing

55:39

them at Irving Plaza the reason I went to

55:41

see them But it was kind of half a

55:43

bit wasn't it? It was sort of a bit, but

55:46

they were so good Yeah, they were so talented.

55:48

Yeah sang like Peter Paul and Mary, right? But

55:50

they were the first people in 1984 I ever saw do They

55:55

did like a funny version of like a

55:57

folk version of come on feel the noise.

55:59

Yeah kind of where that, you

56:02

know, that kind of meta sensibility. Yeah, yeah. It

56:04

kind of broke your brain in terms of like that

56:07

you knew that musical satire, you know,

56:09

could not be stupid. Yeah. Right.

56:13

And it could be. And so as Tammy Faye, then I started

56:15

like, oh, I can write songs. So I wrote the

56:19

anti-abortion song called

56:21

God Has Lodged to Tenant in My uterus.

56:23

Yeah. That was the first one that I wrote. Yeah. And

56:26

later on I wrote, it was

56:29

a parody of the Dina Carter song, Did

56:31

I Shave My Legs for This, but only,

56:33

not lyrically, only through the title, Did I

56:35

Shave My Vagina for This. That was, and

56:38

then I decided to just start going

56:40

down to Nashville and doing Kamikaze, like

56:43

I was like, I loved Nashville and I

56:45

studied everything. I read all the biographies

56:48

and autobiographies and I

56:50

read. Oh, the music business down there. Yeah. Of

56:53

Naomi Judd and Tanya Tucker and

56:56

Barbara Mandrell. Right. All

56:58

these, and all these quotes that were so

57:00

good, like Barbara Mandrell saying Christians aren't better,

57:02

only forgiven, like that kind of stuff. Right.

57:05

I loved, thrived on it. I loved going, and

57:07

I thought I decided I would go down to Nashville and I

57:10

was like, how am I going to get there? And

57:12

I saw that there was an ad

57:14

on the Nashville network, like do your

57:16

songs for industry professionals and

57:18

get assessed, you know, your marketability. Yeah.

57:21

And I'll go down as Tammy Faye

57:24

Starlight and do my stupid songs and

57:26

see what they say. Yeah.

57:29

Because I thought it would be hilarious. Yeah. So

57:31

I go down there and I took Lauren Agnelli from

57:33

the Washington Squares who played guitar for me and

57:35

I dressed like this big Loretta Lynn

57:38

ball gown. Yeah. And

57:40

white kabuki makeup and black lipstick.

57:43

And I'm walking through the halls of Opryland

57:45

Hotel, which is, you know, in the world. I know

57:47

that place. Yeah. So it's like a theme park

57:49

on home. It's a theme park. Yeah. And

57:52

it's all under a dome. So I'm running up the

57:54

stairs and I look, you know, like a freaking like,

57:57

you know, Susie in a banshee's refugee.

58:00

Like and something goes to me. Oh you

58:02

look pretty and I thought okay I'm in

58:04

the right place and I did God

58:06

has lodged a tenant in my uterus. Yes, and

58:08

the woman for the industry professor

58:11

Yes, and the woman wrote

58:13

she you know, she wrote the in

58:15

the little court card I don't know what you're doing,

58:17

but keep doing it And

58:20

then I was standing in the hall This

58:22

is real with all these Cowboys in their

58:25

Garth Brooks, you know half green half white

58:27

shirts and the cowboy hats go do that

58:29

you're a song again, and then

58:31

I just kept going down there and Like

58:34

go doing open mics with the stand-by-your-man or

58:36

doing a song that I wrote called ride

58:39

the cotton pony About going down on

58:41

a woman during her period and I would get I

58:43

did it at the bluebird cafe Which is you know

58:45

the the hallowed ground were

58:47

you know, not only Taylor Swift played

58:49

but Garth Brooks Yeah,

58:52

yeah, yeah, yeah, and I did ride the

58:54

cotton pony and I think I did I did

58:56

a song called moonshiners child that I wrote which

58:58

is my coal miners daughter about a girl

59:01

whose father's a moonshiner and then he Fucks

59:04

her and has she has his baby and

59:07

I got hissed at the bluebird but

59:09

there were people in the back who were laughing and

59:11

I just ran out and then I would do the

59:14

stand-by-your-man with the gang rape monologue and People

59:17

would you know yell at me or shut

59:20

me down? But I

59:23

didn't care because I thought it was hilarious and

59:25

then It started to kind

59:27

of build and then I kind of got

59:29

a following in a sense in Nashville

59:33

And your record. Well, I did

59:35

a Temi Fey record before that like in

59:37

1998 89 and it

59:39

was actually Bizarrely

59:43

with Jeff Ward as an interviewer. It was

59:45

a radio interview, huh? And I was

59:48

horrible and in two levels on that because

59:50

one This

59:53

is so awful. I was I was

59:56

having an affair. Yeah with Somebody

59:59

who was in my band Yeah. And I

1:00:01

didn't, my husband didn't know. Yeah. My ex-husband.

1:00:03

Yeah. I don't do that anymore now, because

1:00:05

I'm happy with my husband. Yeah. But I

1:00:07

was doing it, I was, for whatever reason,

1:00:10

and I decided on the record, it would

1:00:12

be funny if in the script, it

1:00:15

would come out that Tammy Faye

1:00:17

was having an affair with this

1:00:20

bass player. Yeah. And,

1:00:22

you know, my husband was on the record,

1:00:25

and he was, I gave him lines, say,

1:00:27

I can't believe you're having an affair. Yeah. You

1:00:29

know. And it was all real. It was all

1:00:31

real. Oh, wow. And, um... Did he find out?

1:00:33

Yes. What? Later.

1:00:36

But... The Cry For Help album.

1:00:39

It was, and, you know, I

1:00:42

was so, and then, and I was

1:00:44

so awful, um, I

1:00:47

wrote reams of poetry that I would just

1:00:49

leave by our bed, like, I

1:00:51

wanted. Yeah. And, but

1:00:54

then, before he found out about it, I

1:00:57

had booked myself on the Columbia University

1:00:59

radio station, um, I think it

1:01:01

was WKCR or something. Uh-huh. The guy who booked

1:01:03

me knew what my stick was, my wish stick.

1:01:05

Yeah. But when I got there, it

1:01:08

was this Barnard girl who was subbing, and

1:01:10

I just went into Tammy Faye's starlight, and I

1:01:12

was saying, I could tell she was

1:01:14

Jewish, and I'm like, honey, you know, why

1:01:16

don't you take all that filthy Jew money and just cleanse

1:01:19

it? Yeah. Give it to Christ. Yeah. And

1:01:21

then I did the uterus song. Yeah. And

1:01:23

after the song, she goes, okay, we're gonna

1:01:25

go for a break now. And then she

1:01:27

turns off, she puts it on record,

1:01:29

and she's like, you have to get out of

1:01:31

here. People are calling, and they're screaming at you.

1:01:34

And, like, they're so angry. And

1:01:36

I had my whole band there, we ran out of there

1:01:38

like it was, like the cops

1:01:40

were chasing us. Yeah. Scooby-Doo. And then we

1:01:42

hear on the radio, as we're listening, she

1:01:44

has a nervous breakdown on the air. And

1:01:48

my ex-husband, God bless him, taped

1:01:50

it. Yeah. And we put it on the record. Oh.

1:01:53

Where she starts, where she's crying. What happened to

1:01:55

that girl? I don't know. Her name

1:01:57

was Ally Gold, and it's, it's...

1:01:59

Have you made any... No, I

1:02:02

don't make them. It's comedy, man. At

1:02:06

some Yom Kippur, I'm going to have to

1:02:08

do that at some point in the day of reckoning.

1:02:12

So Tammy Faye really had a life. Oh, shit.

1:02:14

It was kind of a radical thing, huh? Yeah,

1:02:16

it was a radical thing. And then I did

1:02:18

a Tammy Faye play, and then it kind

1:02:21

of petered out. Then I decided

1:02:23

to write about Nico. But did you

1:02:25

tour with Tammy Faye? Oh, yeah. I toured

1:02:28

in California. Yeah. Did you

1:02:30

open for people, or you just did smaller venues? I

1:02:32

did smaller venues. I mean, it was all self-funded.

1:02:34

Yeah. Did you make any money?

1:02:37

No. I

1:02:39

don't make money now. I don't... How

1:02:43

do you survive? Because my family is

1:02:45

gone, and because my brother, my dear brother,

1:02:53

had a malpractice

1:02:56

suit that he won, and then

1:03:00

he passed away. Got some money. I

1:03:03

got some money saved. So,

1:03:06

yeah, no. So

1:03:09

where was I? Well, it was after Tammy Faye.

1:03:11

You got to Nico. I got to Nico.

1:03:13

But like at this time, so you're doing

1:03:15

all this stuff, and there was

1:03:18

an environment for it. You know, Wheeler Walker Jr.

1:03:20

does the thing. Oh, yeah. What's

1:03:22

his name? Ben? I forgot that. Oh, he's another

1:03:24

Jewish guy. Yeah. Somebody else was

1:03:26

just mentioning him. He does

1:03:28

big production Nashville, you know,

1:03:32

country music satire. Yeah. Ben

1:03:34

Hoffman. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's

1:03:36

really Jewish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a

1:03:38

funny guy. He's an interesting guy. That Wheeler

1:03:40

Walker character, something. But just that

1:03:43

type of parody is common. But like, you

1:03:45

know, you were doing it very thoroughly. He's

1:03:47

doing it very thoroughly. Yeah, I

1:03:50

didn't want it to be cute or, you

1:03:52

know, difficult. Right to the edge where

1:03:54

like, you know, if you weren't really paying

1:03:57

specific attention, you would think it was the

1:03:59

real thing. Yeah, I remember doing

1:04:01

a show at NYU, like the

1:04:03

Skirball Center, and I don't

1:04:05

know why, but it was for a Jewish

1:04:08

group, and they were running out of the

1:04:10

theater. Oh my God, you had so many

1:04:12

experiences with this sort of truly offended people.

1:04:14

Oh, I did a show, I don't know if

1:04:16

you remember, Susie Felber used to do a show

1:04:18

at Yield, he fell in. I remember her. And

1:04:21

I was doing the Tammy Fathing, and it

1:04:23

was a cop bar, and this cop comes

1:04:25

at me with a dart and says, like,

1:04:27

don't make fun of Jesus. And

1:04:30

I said, can I make fun of Jews? And

1:04:32

he said, okay. I said, all right. I've

1:04:35

had people call me

1:04:37

like, fucking anti-Semite. And

1:04:40

I used to do, like, I would sometimes sing songs

1:04:42

in Hebrew, like, oh, I can speak your language if

1:04:44

I can just hold your hand, and I can feel,

1:04:47

I can feel that coming into me, you know, and

1:04:49

I know that your characters are right to left, and

1:04:51

you know. So I'm like,

1:04:53

why would I know this stupid language, like, not

1:04:55

this stupid, but this language if I didn't, if

1:04:57

I wasn't Jew, like. Yeah, but there's

1:04:59

also like sort of a quality to

1:05:02

committing to a character, it's almost a

1:05:04

vaudevillian thing, where you are that person,

1:05:06

and, but you're just an actress in

1:05:08

a way. Yeah. So

1:05:11

what happens to Tammy Fath? Is it you just burn

1:05:13

out? It kind of burned out, and

1:05:15

it kind of, she

1:05:17

comes back, she came back for the 2012 election

1:05:23

when it was, because I remember that it

1:05:25

was, DOMA was

1:05:28

big, the Defense of Marriage Act, and

1:05:30

I called the tour the Doom Tour,

1:05:32

the Defense of Opposite Marriage, because that

1:05:36

one of some, I think some beauty

1:05:38

contestant said she called it opposite marriage.

1:05:40

Yeah. What kind of, what does that

1:05:42

mean? It's a heterosexual marriage,

1:05:45

opposite marriage. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah.

1:05:48

Yeah. Also, she came

1:05:50

back to

1:05:52

be pro-Trump in 2016, because I

1:05:54

thought that would be hilarious. I

1:05:58

did a show on election night. Oh,

1:06:01

okay. 2016, I was hired. You brought her back?

1:06:03

Brought her back and we thought it would be and

1:06:05

actually We

1:06:07

did it. It was an early show We were we

1:06:09

were hired by this guy who worked

1:06:11

for Publishers Weekly to do the show at Pangea which

1:06:13

is a club that I play at and I

1:06:16

actually threw what? Producer

1:06:19

Russ Teitelman who I know got Keith Carradine

1:06:21

to come to the show and he sang

1:06:23

it. Don't worry me with us Oh,

1:06:25

yeah, he did that Nashville Yeah, in

1:06:27

Nashville. In the movie. In the movie

1:06:29

he wrote it. Right. I

1:06:31

remember. It was kind of a hit It was

1:06:33

kind of a hit. Yeah, like and

1:06:36

And we thought oh, it's funny, you

1:06:38

know, then it wasn't that funny He

1:06:42

did it pretty earnestly Oh, he did it

1:06:44

earnestly but the night turned out not to

1:06:46

be so hilarious when Trump won. Oh, right.

1:06:49

Bad night. Yeah Yeah, it was not great.

1:06:51

Yeah, everybody was I was on

1:06:53

the set of glow with 14 women. Oh

1:06:55

my god On election

1:06:57

night There's a lot of

1:07:00

crying a lot of crying and just it was in

1:07:02

shock. Yeah. Yeah And

1:07:05

then I came back after

1:07:07

during the pandemic in in 2020 of

1:07:10

that during The

1:07:14

election cycle Tammy Faye came back to do

1:07:16

like it was a live

1:07:18

stream because we weren't doing live shows yet at

1:07:22

through Pangea We

1:07:24

also got a really nice Times review.

1:07:26

Yeah, Tammy Faye became Q anon You

1:07:30

know, the whole show was I just wrote

1:07:32

it as like one kind of long monologue

1:07:34

interspersed with classic rock songs Okay,

1:07:37

and she went really batshit cute. So

1:07:39

I did a kind of die. Okay, that's

1:07:41

good. That's funny No, it was funny.

1:07:43

And when did Nico sort of happen?

1:07:46

Nico happened. It started in 2010 And

1:07:48

then I did it at the

1:07:50

duplex of all places at Old

1:07:54

school Greenwich Village in 2011 and

1:07:56

2012. Yeah, David Frick

1:07:58

from Rolling Stone and Robert Crisco liked

1:08:01

it and like all these people. Then we did

1:08:03

it in LA and I had

1:08:05

a great band with Pete Thomas, you

1:08:07

know, from Elvis Costello's band. And then

1:08:09

it happened in 2013 where the guy

1:08:11

saw it and

1:08:14

said, you have to have a new director. And then- Here

1:08:17

we are. And when did you do Marianne Faithful? Marianne

1:08:20

Faithful, I started around that

1:08:22

same time as the Nico

1:08:24

show in 2014. I mean,

1:08:27

basically everything that I do I

1:08:30

loosey Ricardo my way into everything.

1:08:32

Like getting into doing your

1:08:34

show. Like I'm just like, please let

1:08:36

me be on the show. So the guy

1:08:38

who used to build break and he used to

1:08:40

book Joe's Pub, then he was booking

1:08:43

Lincoln Center. And I'm like, please can I do a

1:08:45

show at Lincoln Center? Please can I do a show

1:08:47

at the atrium? Please can I do Nico? And he

1:08:49

wasn't like a huge Nico fan. And then I said,

1:08:52

a friend of mine wants to do broken

1:08:54

English. Can I do Marianne Faithful's broken English?

1:08:56

And he loves Marianne Faithful. And so I

1:08:58

broke him. Finally, I broke him. And that's the

1:09:00

late Marianne Faithful. Late Marianne Faithful. Well, she's still going

1:09:02

so it's mid period. But that was her- Yeah, that

1:09:04

was her- Yeah, that one she had the scary voice.

1:09:06

Yeah, that was the like the

1:09:08

emergence of that really. The Ross

1:09:10

Bevo. Well, you know, it's weird because I used

1:09:12

to work at a coffee shop in Harvard Square

1:09:15

when I moved to Boston to star

1:09:17

comedy. It must've been like 87. Oh

1:09:20

wow. And she was at McLean's. Oh my

1:09:22

God. Drawing out. And she would come in.

1:09:24

She lived in Cambridge. Yes. And

1:09:26

I didn't know her but she would come

1:09:28

in like every day and she looked beat

1:09:30

up. Oh, yeah. She had

1:09:32

a hard time. I think it was in Boston

1:09:35

where it might've been there. I can't remember

1:09:37

if it's there in New York. She had a husband or

1:09:39

a boyfriend who killed himself. Yeah,

1:09:41

I don't know. But I think what

1:09:43

I heard was she was going, she was

1:09:46

at McLean's probably as an outpatient or

1:09:48

something. That was the psychiatric hospital at

1:09:50

the time. And she used to come in

1:09:53

and you know, like I remember,

1:09:55

I don't think we could smoke indoors them but

1:09:57

she would go out to smoke. But she was like, it was.

1:10:00

The and she was Intense. Yeah, she's

1:10:02

of there's. An interview that she

1:10:04

did with Danny Fields around that time? Us

1:10:06

and you that that. He gave

1:10:08

to me you know, the copy of

1:10:11

India and she's talking about her sobriety

1:10:13

and then. And.

1:10:15

Either she's very. Protective

1:10:18

of her sobriety and then. Detail.

1:10:20

Things. She relapse.

1:10:23

Arms and has no Effect is see relapse.

1:10:25

But I think there came a point Where

1:10:27

is she has said that she would have

1:10:30

like that? She went on Tom Snyder a

1:10:32

few years later and said that he does

1:10:34

have a drink now and then. Ah but

1:10:36

she still. Be around when I find

1:10:38

her records are they come to me somehow?

1:10:41

I'm I'm always happy to hear them because

1:10:43

it's so haunting and as in broken English

1:10:45

is really the beginning of that haunting. Miriam

1:10:47

say oh business, it's brilliant. The and

1:10:49

dumb adjusted at. A There. Was

1:10:52

a compilation album that was just

1:10:54

done via As Little. Saw.

1:10:56

This ah spearheaded by this rock writer

1:10:59

Tanya Pearson who we are book about

1:11:01

Marianne Faithfull and she wanted to do

1:11:03

something for her. So are these artists?

1:11:05

Know did and others covers so I did

1:11:07

it with Barry Reynolds who played with me

1:11:10

because as a kitten like I said like

1:11:12

a site if I want to do something

1:11:14

I wanted to do with a real people

1:11:16

you're very played with her size like I

1:11:18

want him to play with me so he

1:11:20

plays with me so he plate we did

1:11:22

the ballot of Lucy Jordan that's a cat

1:11:24

power and keep then peaches or on it

1:11:26

and. He's his own observed or while.

1:11:29

And done This really meant it. surely

1:11:31

mans and impeaches why to do it

1:11:33

with his the really felt his song

1:11:35

Cat Power the Earth as working class

1:11:37

hero Tanya Donnelly of them your number

1:11:39

of yeah yeah so it's it's a

1:11:41

really good com police officer. Great but

1:11:43

says it. the Marianne Faithfull shows just

1:11:45

doing full record. It was doing the

1:11:48

full record That's what I did it

1:11:50

at dad the Lincoln Center Atrium. And

1:11:52

then I ended up doing a variety

1:11:54

of Marianne Faithfull shows. A

1:11:57

few in ah, Let's.

1:12:00

See I did. Some kind of a male

1:12:02

launches. Are you early? Marianne to the. Not

1:12:05

too much because they don't have that kind of

1:12:07

soprano. He I know it, it, it's in.

1:12:09

it. deserves the broken one. Right have broken

1:12:11

ones that are either with the in the

1:12:13

lower t or when seats you know or

1:12:15

the octave below. Right versus hang his

1:12:17

original. Yeah, yeah, I'm. So

1:12:19

but some of her more

1:12:21

recent. And. Been two thousand and two

1:12:23

is how recent is that? They are. Vagabond

1:12:26

Ways which is really great album the

1:12:28

and Us. then I did. I've recently

1:12:31

in Twenty Nineteen Ice and I found

1:12:33

out that she didn't like that I

1:12:35

was doing it through the producer how

1:12:37

wilner who a new. Three. Us through.

1:12:40

Penny and you know, three or ferry and.

1:12:42

Everybody. Loves him everybody. Loved him! He

1:12:44

was wonderful and. He

1:12:46

said that she. Didn't. Really like at

1:12:49

my company be a lesson and

1:12:51

so I did. I stop doing it

1:12:53

well as and then and twenty nineteen

1:12:55

I realized it would be the fortieth

1:12:58

anniversary Broken English of course, an excuse

1:13:00

to do like a show like.

1:13:02

As were at like forty seven years

1:13:04

ago. I decided I knew her

1:13:06

nom de ses book which she was on

1:13:08

at that point and I wrote to her

1:13:10

and I said. I

1:13:13

I I would love to do that in

1:13:15

broken English if that's okay with you have

1:13:17

not it's that's fine and sure it. Do

1:13:20

it darling. it'll be great. And

1:13:22

receipts those seats and I think she

1:13:24

didn't give a shit is with says

1:13:26

like like dumb fuck who is this

1:13:28

person soon of the nico thing but

1:13:30

you know. What

1:13:32

is a difference? Like sort of

1:13:35

the context. Of

1:13:37

cabaret, you know, As

1:13:39

more of an audience than kind

1:13:42

of random for some insert the

1:13:44

ice so so that must be

1:13:46

nice. It is, it's and this I

1:13:48

always see more is just. Kind

1:13:50

of. It's it's almost a

1:13:52

jukebox musical because it's a it's

1:13:54

dialogue and then there's. The. Song and

1:13:57

you're in charge of own. character the whole

1:13:59

time and Ford is the is

1:14:02

the hapless Australian interviewer and it takes

1:14:04

place in 1986 and

1:14:07

we have a large

1:14:09

band my

1:14:12

husband's in it yeah I saw some footage of

1:14:14

it is yeah it's a big band good band

1:14:16

tight who's that drummer oh Ron Metz

1:14:18

he's great he's great and

1:14:21

he's loud which and he does the

1:14:23

velvet song perfectly and

1:14:25

Keith my husband does

1:14:28

a he does these days we have a

1:14:30

recording of it with him and my other

1:14:32

guitarist Rich Farid and yeah that we recorded

1:14:34

and we did a little video for also

1:14:36

during lockdown it was the first

1:14:38

time I'd taken trains and you know in 2020

1:14:41

yeah like yeah yeah scary

1:14:44

and Danny Fields is in it in the

1:14:46

video because he's still around oh yeah okay

1:14:48

he's a dear friend and I

1:14:50

am years ago I love him I remember

1:14:53

that I listen it was hilarious yeah

1:14:55

it was great yeah

1:14:58

Danny is wonderful and a just

1:15:01

a brilliant man yeah yeah yeah he's

1:15:03

okay he's seen it all he's seen

1:15:05

it all he's he's had it all and

1:15:08

yeah and he's over

1:15:10

it all over it all and you can just you

1:15:13

could say anything yeah you release your

1:15:15

id yeah yeah yeah and that's

1:15:17

kind of what I like about Nico

1:15:19

is that she says things that are

1:15:21

so wrong yeah we even had to

1:15:23

tamp down for we did it kind

1:15:25

of as one shots last year in

1:15:27

March at Joe's Pub and then in

1:15:29

July and having revisited

1:15:32

it after several years of it kind

1:15:34

of being dormant there

1:15:36

were some lines that I thought

1:15:38

were hilarious back in the day

1:15:41

yeah back in 2014 or 2016 which I think the

1:15:44

last time we did it we did that at Lincoln Center too

1:15:46

and but given

1:15:49

the climate there are certain things that

1:15:51

became gratuitous oh yeah certain lines that

1:15:54

a certain line that Nico said because

1:15:56

she had things that could be They

1:16:00

don't like to use the word racist, but adjacent.

1:16:05

And she would sometimes say things, I think, just

1:16:08

to shock, or I don't know what

1:16:10

she really felt, but I think

1:16:12

it was, she just liked to provoke. Didn't

1:16:14

she die in a bicycle? She died in

1:16:16

a bicycle in Ibiza. She

1:16:19

was, it was July

1:16:21

in Ibiza, and she somehow wrapped herself

1:16:23

up all in black, and

1:16:26

was bicycling and fell off. And

1:16:29

somebody found her, and it took, this

1:16:32

cab driver was trying to bring

1:16:34

her to all these hospitals, and they wouldn't take her because they

1:16:36

thought she was just some junkie, and finally

1:16:38

got a hospital, but they

1:16:40

had diagnosed, I think, a cerebral hemorrhage,

1:16:43

and too late. And from

1:16:45

what I've read, again, they

1:16:47

couldn't find a vein, because, you know, so. She

1:16:50

was at it the whole time, huh? Yeah,

1:16:52

and I think she was on methadone at that point, like

1:16:54

she was trying to. Yeah, people, it's very hard to get

1:16:56

off that shit. Yeah, and

1:16:59

so, but yeah, she had some

1:17:01

things that were, you

1:17:03

could say were racist, that she said that I

1:17:05

would say, you know, thinking that I could say it

1:17:07

with impunity. Because you're in character, yeah. Because I'm

1:17:10

character. And you got pushed back? I didn't

1:17:12

get pushed back, but I pushed back on myself,

1:17:14

because I realized there's certain things that I could

1:17:16

let in, a little bit of it, and the

1:17:18

things, I wrote some lines

1:17:21

for her that she didn't say, but I,

1:17:23

you know, I thought, okay, that's a

1:17:25

softer version, because there's certain things that if

1:17:28

you say, it

1:17:30

stops the audience from thinking, should I

1:17:32

laugh? Like, is this funny? Take them out of

1:17:34

it, maybe. Take them out of it. And you don't need them. I

1:17:36

don't need them, and I didn't need, like, I

1:17:39

certainly didn't need lines

1:17:41

that she didn't say that I just made up, because I

1:17:43

thought it would just heighten

1:17:46

the racism. Right. And

1:17:48

so. To make it more ridiculous. To

1:17:50

make it more offensive. Right. Just,

1:17:52

I really, I never

1:17:54

like things that are just, you

1:17:56

know, everybody Gives a sense of,

1:17:59

born on me. I don't

1:18:01

like that kind of stuff, which is

1:18:03

why I love you and. You

1:18:06

know? And there's certain comedians that

1:18:09

I love because. You

1:18:11

you transgress but not you

1:18:13

know.a nodes like. Not

1:18:16

in a crass way noise and do it from your

1:18:18

own point of view. Yeah, and in a way that

1:18:20

you know where you're. Coming from your example

1:18:22

an area it's important yards is is

1:18:25

as you get older to. To.

1:18:27

Sort of engage your empathy and also decide

1:18:29

whether or not it's worth it. Yeah,

1:18:31

yeah, and it's you know

1:18:33

their. The. Comedians I love

1:18:35

are still the ones that. Like. I

1:18:38

saw. At Luna like you

1:18:40

and and Lily here in L

1:18:42

as idea say that eating. As.

1:18:45

Ours is that you know he

1:18:47

I later I work as well

1:18:49

as hell a tell great and

1:18:51

Sato here. Hilarious hours on. Didn't

1:18:53

gas again. Oh yeah great always say I

1:18:55

had so funny we remember those like armor on

1:18:57

Gaf again was. To. So I

1:18:59

kind of this strange depressive

1:19:01

large a pale man wandering

1:19:03

around. I. Remember. That is it

1:19:06

was. He was kind of the an

1:19:08

aberration because he wasn't this hip downtown

1:19:10

like. Now he's a real job guy

1:19:12

but he was. He was much more uncomfortable

1:19:14

before became a character. Yeah. I

1:19:17

know me and I liked that. yeah I mean

1:19:19

Rick Superior I'll I don't know like he's is

1:19:21

called the dude. It was great to hear from

1:19:23

him items you know kind of kept him on

1:19:25

the phone for half hour and heard him out

1:19:27

in the until the my. It was good to

1:19:29

hear from a mother things down in Florida. Ah.

1:19:32

Cause. But. Our What Happened

1:19:34

To I Like Michael Portnoy and oh

1:19:36

so a bomb via I remember. That

1:19:38

when and we were like, that's like nine.

1:19:40

Use like a fixture down the Reverend

1:19:42

Jazz every janice still around here as

1:19:44

as like I've seen or over the

1:19:46

last decade or so. Yeah seems to

1:19:48

have a kind of the says he

1:19:50

became sort of or a more kind

1:19:52

of a sex pause it is. I

1:19:55

think I think she wrote a book

1:19:57

did see I think she wrote a

1:19:59

like a Bts. Them back One! Oh

1:20:01

wow I didn't area and she

1:20:03

in. I think she would go

1:20:05

the elf ears and the Romanian.

1:20:07

About that is that the L Six I see. I don't

1:20:09

see or without the else like a carrier. Know she

1:20:11

was great and I can't remember some of the

1:20:14

other person as course Todd Barry or Hundred Years.

1:20:16

Around and I don't know if you remember

1:20:18

to remove a rush Riley He wasn't even

1:20:20

a surf guy and he was quiet here

1:20:23

that he had this one character that uses.

1:20:25

I would tell my husband Keith about this

1:20:27

and that he actually heard Bill Burr talk

1:20:29

about it because he saw as which was.

1:20:32

Rust did this. Thing.

1:20:34

It surf reality called the Kkk

1:20:37

Comic. The Us. And it was the

1:20:39

only good at once. I remember thinking

1:20:41

eats Jenny Pritchard it was didn't mistress

1:20:43

at as she made him. Take.

1:20:46

The I had three and he did

1:20:48

this joke that was I said i'm

1:20:50

as it zealand loved it he does

1:20:52

you know as the case com a

1:20:54

Keats he said like them either they

1:20:56

say six million jews died in the

1:20:59

holocaust name. To be. Spotted

1:21:01

like that is. sadly that stuff is

1:21:03

to a year hill is it. Mostly

1:21:05

Now the act of normalizing anti semitism

1:21:07

Recount his. There's no satire to it.

1:21:09

I. Know and that's with Nico to see.

1:21:12

Says a few things about jews which I

1:21:14

have met a ill again I had been

1:21:16

do as I don't. Have. That

1:21:18

kind of, You know, I don't need to have

1:21:20

a delicacy about. Admit. I. Haven't

1:21:22

done it since. October

1:21:25

seven sir I did. A little bit of

1:21:27

neat though once it in or around October

1:21:29

fifteen via I was doing a show of

1:21:31

like the you know just a different characters

1:21:34

just. Briefly and I mentioned you know

1:21:36

is nice but you know you've mentioned the

1:21:38

Jews and it's. Zero. Like

1:21:40

not funny, Yeah yeah,

1:21:42

doesn't doesn't land the ourselves as

1:21:44

of weird discomfort. Yeah, so hopefully

1:21:46

you know I may. I think everything

1:21:49

should be signed by then her. As

1:21:51

a yes or really knows all this, I

1:21:53

may. yeah. I think I may everything

1:21:55

in l a surgeon and run. Yeah

1:21:57

to run and it's a forces. The

1:22:00

Jazz Club which. To. Me is like

1:22:02

that. I'm really grateful that they gave

1:22:04

that to me and I just would be

1:22:06

great or yeah I hope like a i

1:22:09

hope it's to be fun it's it's of

1:22:11

it's a really bizarre so it's. It's

1:22:13

funny. It's dark and. You.

1:22:16

Know there's popular songs. Good like

1:22:18

these days and all that oh yeah they'll

1:22:20

be murdered A good as far as very

1:22:22

sure of. Yeah we'll bring you to thank

1:22:24

you so much rather than me and I

1:22:26

says he are so grateful the I. Say.

1:22:34

Go! That was a trip down memory lane

1:22:36

for me. For

1:22:38

so Nico underground as as Joe's Pub.

1:22:40

every Wednesday and may go to Joe's

1:22:43

pub.com for tickets. Hang out a minute

1:22:45

folks! Pay.

1:22:49

People More blasts from the past On

1:22:51

the former In this week, we're talking

1:22:53

almost twenty years in the past we

1:22:55

posted some interviews from my old radio

1:22:57

show Morning Sedition with future Wtf guests

1:23:00

Chelsea Handler, Joe Pantoliano, and Andy Richter.

1:23:02

Only sort of thing is that there

1:23:04

are times when he got something to

1:23:06

say you some and then and then

1:23:09

the moment passes and it's just insert

1:23:11

away since the that's there is like

1:23:13

wasted my cereal just because of time

1:23:15

and you don't want to go for

1:23:17

it. Back up guys. Zola

1:23:20

to your Cinema search. Of.

1:23:25

It is be there for that But but

1:23:27

it is true that then there's a lot

1:23:29

of times too especially like if if car

1:23:31

I work in have been crabbing with or

1:23:33

each other's air B a bad interview with

1:23:35

the So Much Love in I Like to

1:23:37

the Stanley. Having fun, As.

1:23:42

Well, as much as

1:23:45

I was. to

1:23:48

get all the bonus episodes on

1:23:50

the former and that's to exclusive episodes

1:23:53

every week was all the wtf episodes

1:23:55

ad free go to the linked in

1:23:57

the episode description go to wtf

1:23:59

pod.com and click on WTF Plus. And

1:24:02

remember, before we go, this podcast is

1:24:05

hosted by Acast. Now this is

1:24:07

that song I was telling you about at the

1:24:09

beginning from the record store day release, Love

1:24:12

LA. This is me

1:24:15

and Paige Stark

1:24:19

and Luke Paquin on

1:24:21

the bass doing a cover of

1:24:23

Arthur Lee and Love's Sign

1:24:25

DC. You can go find

1:24:27

this wherever you get through record store day vinyl. All

1:24:30

the proceedings are going to benefit

1:24:33

the Fernando Pullum Community Art Center,

1:24:35

providing performing arts instruction to youth

1:24:37

in South Central LA. And

1:24:40

I think this is the first time I've been

1:24:42

this prominently featured on

1:24:45

a music record. Sometimes

1:24:58

I feel the

1:25:01

same. Sometimes

1:25:07

I feel the

1:25:09

same. I

1:25:14

come down and I'm

1:25:16

scared to face

1:25:22

my fears and I'm scared

1:25:24

to face my

1:25:33

fears and

1:25:37

I'm scared to face me. What

1:25:50

did it feeler? ite

1:26:32

Satsang with Mooji

1:26:34

Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd.

1:26:36

All Rights Reserved. No part of this

1:26:39

recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media

1:26:42

Ltd.'s express consent. Mooji

1:26:59

Media Ltd.'s express

1:27:01

consent. Mooji

1:27:28

Media Ltd.'s express

1:27:30

consent. Thank

1:27:58

you. Thank

1:29:00

you.