Jen Kirkman (Chelsea Lately, Drunk History) and Paul have an epic “Fear Off” that leaves both of their souls emptied. Jen shares about her panic attacks and what it was like to be in New York on 9/11. Paul shares about the horror of being in an earthquake. They talk about the odd beauty that humans are capable of in horrible circumstances.
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Paul: Welcome to the Mental Illness Happy Hour, Episode 12. I’m Paul Gilmartin, and my guest is Jen Kirkman, but before we get to that, some reminders. The website is mentalpod.com, there is a forum, there is a -- blogs that I’ve written, there is a survey you can take. You can also check out how other people respond to the survey, it’s pretty fascinating. You can support the show with a financial donation. You can use our Amazon link to buy stuff through Amazon. We’re going to have t-shirts for sale pretty soon.
If you want to support the show by going to iTunes and giving us a good rating that’d be awesome because that helps boost our ranking and that draws more people to the show. Our Twitter and Skype names are mentalpod and our Facebook group and Facebook fan page are Mental Illness Happy Hour.
It’s been an interesting week. A guy I know named David H, we met a couple of years ago, had an interesting story. He’s a crack smoking millionaire and I can’t get enough of the crack smoking millionaires, because there is no end to the awesome stories that they have. When somebody loves crack and has enough money to keep smoking it, you know some drama’s going to ensue. And that happened with David. He got to the point where he had been pronounced dead on a gurney a couple of years ago, and somehow pulled out of it. Doctors told him, “You ever smoke crack again, you’re going to die.” And that’s just what he did three days ago, OD’d on crack and heroin because he just couldn’t put his ego aside and ask for help.
If you looked at his life on the surface, he had it all. Wealthy family, 6,000 square foot house on Mammoth Mountain, all the stuff that when I look at, I think, “Oh fuck, why can’t I have that?” And then I saw the obituary that his family had put out, and it said that he had died of a brain aneurysm, and I thought you know -- I don’t know how enjoyable that house would be with a bunch of people that can’t be honest about what’s really happening in their lives. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, maybe I’m pointing fingers, but -- why am I bringing this story up?
A:I want to sabotage my show. I like to start off with a really shitty hole that I dig and then see if I can even get one person to listen all the way through. No, I guess I bring it up because I have the feeling that there’s probably a couple of people listening to this show that want to get sober or want help with their psychological problems, but are really afraid to ask for help.
David was one of those people. He left behind a teenage daughter, he left behind friends like me that told him, “If you don’t get help, you’re going to die.” I told him at least a half a dozen times, “David, you’re dating women that make you crazy and you are absorbed in your work and you’re obsessed with money and you’re a crack smoker. This is not a good combination.”
But he just didn’t believe that there was a spiritual component to life. He thought that it was all in the material world, and I’m sorry if I’m getting a little new agey on you there, but there is more than meets the eye in this universe of ours, and I don’t know. I’m beginning to bore myself. Jesus Christ. How about this? How about we kick things off with a quote. This is from Eckhart Tolle and his book A New Earth. “The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction. Its own madness.”
[Show Intro]
Paul: I’m here with Jen Kirkman. And we’re going to try this again. I was here about three weeks ago.
Jen: [laughs]
Paul: And a --
Jen: --oh, you’re not even going to tell them about what just happened now?
Paul: Oh, I should do that. Yeah, I came here about three weeks ago and thought I was recording through the microphones that we’re holding, but had fucked up in the setting and recorded us through the shitty little microphone in the laptop, so I came back here today, we started recording again and we were about five minutes into it and something didn’t seem right to me, and I looked and I had made the exact same mistake--
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: --again. But I’ve got it figured out now and we’re ready to rock and roll.
Jen: Yay.
Paul: So for those of you that don’t know Jen, she is a hilarious standup comedienne. You’ve seen her on Funny or Die. She did a really funny drunk history lesson about Frederick Douglas. She’s a writer on Chelsea Lately and a performer and panelist on that--
Jen:: --yep--
Paul: --as well. Is there anything else that people might know you from or are those the two biggest things?
Jen: I think those are the two biggest things. Some people know me -- this show I used to do Cartoon Network’s Home Movies years ago--
Paul: --okay--
Jen: --did some voices on there, and every once in awhile people will come out of the woodwork about that, but--
Paul: --okay--
Jen: --that’s not face recognition.
Paul: Okay. And if people want to reach you on Facebook or Twitter, how would they do that?
Jen: Twitter is @jenkirkman -- with one “n”, the Jen, and my website jenkirkman.com has all my info. And Facebook I just use privately. But there's a fan page, but--
Paul: --okay--
Jen: --you know? I think that’s just -- they’ll find it.
Paul: Yes. Well, one of the things that made me want to have you as a guest on this show is in your standup there’s a vulnerability and a self-effacing quality that I find very endearing and that can be signals that you’re somebody who is very comfortable talking about their own foibles, and so when you told me that you had listened to this show and enjoyed it I was like, well, I gotta have you as a guest.
Jen: I’m so honored that you asked. I really was just writing to tell you how much I loved it, because I was on the road alone in a hotel room for a weekend and I listened to every episode back-to-back.
Paul: You have no idea how great that made me feel when you sent me that, because I had just started doing it. And you were the first comedian I knew that had listened to it and sent me anything about it.
Jen: Oh!
Paul: I wasn’t realizing how this was being received yet, and I think I was having one of those days where I was just kind of feeling sorry for myself and--
Jen: --oh, how cool!
Paul: And it was so nice that you could artificially pump me up for that day. And I could feel good about myself in a way that was really synthetic.
Jen: And now you’re pregnant, after I artificially pumped you up.
Paul: That’s right. So let's talk about you. Where’d you grow up?
Jen: Needham, Massachusetts.
Paul: What was your family life? You were raised Catholic, correct?
Jen: Yes.
Paul: And what was that like?
Jen: Well, I don’t have the damage that other people do. I didn’t go to Catholic school, it was the mostly church once a week.
Paul: So you visited prison? You weren’t in prison?
Jen: Yeah, no, no, no, I walked through--
Paul: --I was in prison for eight years--
Jen: --oh, you were?
Paul: Yes, yes, yeah--
Jen: --yeah, I walked through like, ‘what’s the problem?’
Paul: [Laughing] Right.
Jen: Either I said this to you, or I might have said it to both of youse--
Paul: [chuckles]
Jen: I did Julie Klausner’s podcast a little while ago, really funny writer, and she’s Jewish and she was talking about the guilt, and I was saying that Jewish guilt, from what I hear, seems more like your mother guilting you about your life and your behavior, and Catholic guilt is very much you’re imposing it on yourself, and because I don’t remember my parents giving me any guilt about God. But it was just like -- to the way I was raised it was like my parents were middle management and God was the boss. And it was like, ‘Hey, I don’t like the rules either, but you’ve got to do it because he’s watching and I don’t know.’
Paul: Right, yeah.
Jen: So it was kind of like they weren’t like, ‘are you having sex, are you doing this?’ it was just like, ‘Here’s the rules from God, don’t screw them up’--
Paul: --and they would just remind you every once in a while.
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: ‘Now, you know what God thinks if you’re doing this.’
Jen: Yeah, exactly. I think also--
Paul: --I think that’s a great way of highlighting the differences.
Jen: Yeah, and I think, too, like, there was always -- I focused more on the notion of every once in awhile you’d hear, you know, ‘you’re all sinners, everything is horrible’ but every once in a while--
Paul: --well, the theory is you’re born a sinner and you die a sinner, and you might have a shot during your lifetime to clean that slate up--
Jen: --yeah--
Paul: --but the chances aren’t good. Go have a nice life--
Jen: --well, what I focused on was oaky, I’m born a sinner, I die a sinner, Jesus fucking loves sinners. He’s hanging out with a prostitute. I got no problems. All I’m doing is going to third base with boys in high school and not having sex with them because it’s not right.
Paul: Right.
Jen: So I didn’t see what the fuss and drama -- I didn’t ever have that kind of guilt or anything like that.
Paul: Right.
Jen: I really didn’t. So thank God, quote unquote, that I heard that message of, well, wait, I’m this bad person but Jesus likes these bad people and I think he seems to forgive them all at the end anyway so--
Paul: --I must have missed that part where Jesus loves sinners, because I just went right to the ‘I’m a piece of shit’ and ‘If I’m enjoying sex I must be dirty.’
Jen: See, I think it must be a Kennedy thing.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Growing up in Massachusetts where the Kennedys are like the figureheads, and you know they’re all horrible people, but they’re all at church every Sunday and they seem fine.
Paul: Right.
Jen: You really think a Kennedy’s going to go to hell? Like, there was just that kind of -- they were like our pope, even though like--
Paul: --they were the Sherpas of what you could get away with in Catholicism.
Jen: [Laughs] So I just thought of it as, like, we’re all just doing this thing, God’s checking and who’s -- he’s taking attendance--
Paul: --yes--
Jen: --you’re in church on Sunday, listen, you’re doing better than most.
Paul: Yeah, the curve is obviously low, because the Kennedys are doing okay. None of them are dying -- oh, wait [Laughs].
Jen: I guess if you think death is a curse, Paul.
Paul: [Laughs]
Jen: No, no, but it’s so funny because, like, I’m now an atheist -- I say that word because -- but I’m not committed to it
Paul: Right.
Jen: I don’t literally think--
Paul: --you haven’t shut your mind.
Jen: No, I’m -- I believe -- I pray, I believe in a source of energy, and I don’t -- people can say, well--
Paul: --well, to me that’s not an atheist then. It sounds to me like you’re an atheist in terms of the organized religion version of what God is, but if you believe that there’s a source of something, that to me is -- would make you not be an atheist.
Jen: I guess so, but even if the source is just science that’s big enough for me to whatever and so for me--
Paul: --science has to come from somewhere.
Jen: Yeah, and for me the easiest way to tap into it and just lose myself is to literally say, you know, if I’m saying a prayer like, ‘please help me’ I don’t have to know who I’m talking to. I could be talking to a molecule, it doesn't matter. But if I say -- I know I’m just talking to my higher self, but for me even though I intellectually know I’m probably just talking to a higher part of myself that I need to listen to, I can’t access that self any other way.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I can’t just sit here and think, ‘What would the higher self think?’ I have to get really humbled--
Paul: --I think it changes our chemistry when we think about ourselves not being the ultimate power that is running things. Something I think happens on a molecular level, because to me I can’t throw science out the window to believe in something. I just can’t. That’s why the Bible to me makes a perfect coaster, is--
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: --you know, the fact that, you know, the world is only 5,000 years old. No, it’s not.
Jen: No.
Paul: It’s been proven it’s older than 5,000 years--
Jen: --it’s more miraculous that it isn’t.
Paul: Right. But that to me doesn’t discount the teachings of Christ, which I think are beautiful.
Jen: Right.
Paul: And I think they’re great rules to live by, it’s just the rest of the Bible to me is confusing and full of a lot of thunder and really boring sentences.
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: And maybe I should -- to be fair, I should read it and stop judging it, but I would rather read autobiographies by drug-addicted rock stars.
Jen: Oh, well, I have two things to say about that. First of all, there’s a great book called The Yoga of Jesus which this like famous yogi wrote, and he’s just saying like this is what Jesus meant from a more hippie dippy yoga spiritual Buddhist perspective.
Paul: Right. Uh-huh.
Jen: And so all that thing of like, ‘I am the son of God, I am God’ isn’t literally like, ‘My Daddy is God and he’s going to kill me.’ It’s like we’re all -- we’re all pieces of God--
Paul: --we all come from--
Jen: --because we’re all part of a higher self, we’re all a consciousness, we come from nothing, we go back to nothing, that kind of thing. But I feel bad for my friends that went to Catholic school because a lot of them are angry atheists because they feel like -- they’re still in that phase where they’re like, ‘You don’t tell me what to think.’ And so they’re angry all the time. And I’m like, ‘You know, you guys can make up your own thing if you want. Like, if you wanted to believe in something it doesn’t mean they got you or whatever.’
Paul: Right.
Jen: You know? And maybe they really just don’t believe, but I don't know why there’s so much anger about it. Because for me it’s like I think I used to believe in the Catholic stuff growing up and then I just kind of like slowly over time was like, ‘It’s not really doing anything for me, I don’t actually think I believe this. Oh, cool, I don’t. Oh, thank God I don’t, oh good, I’m comfortable not doing’--
Paul: --did you go through an angry phase, where you were like, ‘Oh, why did I let them shove that shit down my throat’?
Jen: No.
Paul: Okay.
Jen: Because I guess it was never shoved down my throat, I guess that’s where I don’t relate to my friends, it was never shoved down my throat. It was just a once a week--
Paul: --yeah, you didn’t attend Catholic grade school eight years.
Jen: No. My mom taught CCD classes, I had to go to those once a week, and there was this terrible nun, who thought she was cool because she wore normal clothing, and she was just a bitch. I mean, she didn’t like me and she would see me in the hallway at CCD and go, “Kirkman.” I go, ‘You’re a nun.’ But, like, there was no hitting me or anything like that, it was just mostly like these two people yelling at each other in the hallway and I remember my mom--
Paul: --nothing like a nun who thinks she’s Maude.
Jen: [Laughs] Oh my God, that was great if she was like anything like Maude--
Paul: --she’s just at the door to the church every time you go into church, the door opens and there she is--
Jen: [Laughs] [singing:“And then there’s sister Julie.”] But yeah, there was this cool priest that was like young and she was young and people thought they were having an affair, and maybe they were. And so my mom taught CCD class and this kid -- my mom said, ‘Do you have any questions?’ And this kid raised his hand like, ‘What would happen if Sister Julie and Father Arnst fucked?’ And my mom was like ‘Get to the--
Paul: [Laughing]
Jen: --‘get to the principals’ office, or, you know, get to Sister Julie’s office right now.’
Paul: Did the kid actually use the word fucked?
Jen: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: Really?
Jen: I wasn't there. My mom told me about it later, but--
Paul: --oh my God, that’s hilarious.
Jen: But I guess when the kid when to Sister Julie’s office, she was so concerned with being cool, that she yelled at my mom like, ‘Hey, the kid has a question, answer it.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry for thinking that that would be inappropriate in a CCD class.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: So I never had that thing where my parents were like, ‘Listen to the nuns and the priests.’ Like, my mom was like, ‘This woman’s fucking crazy.’
Paul: Yeah, yeah. Let’s -- I sent you an email asking if you would be interested in doing a fear-off with me, and do you have some in your brain that you could -- you feel like you could--
Jen: --yeah, I didn’t write them down but I got them.
Paul: Oh, that’s okay.
Jen: Yeah, Yeah.
Paul: All right. So for those of you that haven’t heard me do a fear-off, we just basically -- we trade fears, it’s a tag, you’re it until one of us can’t come up with a fear anymore. And I’m at a disadvantage because I’ve done it -- this would be, I think, the second or third time I’ve done this on this show, and I gotta try to come up with new ones and have them be actual fears that I have--
Jen: --oh, okay, so you’re not just trying to win.
Paul: No, no, I don’t want to repeat a lot of ones that I’ve done before.
Jen: Oh, okay, okay. This will be fun.
Paul: But fortunately I’m fucked up enough that I should probably never--
Jen: --it’s probably a deep well--
Paul: --run out of -- oh, there’s a very deep well.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: So, I will start it off.
Jen: Okay.
Paul: I am afraid that I will die alone.
Jen: Oh. I’m afraid that everyone I know will become successful and forget about me and I’ll have no money and no career.
Paul: Oh, that’s sweet. That’s sweet. I actually looked at their Day Planners, and that was in it, so that is actually reality.
Jen: That’s just a premonition.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Shit. Okay.
Paul: I have a fear that I will die a long, lingering painful death.
Jen: I have that same fear.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I have a fear that you know you’re dead and it’s just pure torture the entire time.
Paul: Oh.
Jen: And at the last moment of death there is no white light and you’re just gasping and regretting.
Paul: Wow.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: Are you sure you’re not thinking of a Nora Ephron movie?
Jen: [Laughs] I might be [Laughs].
Paul: I am afraid that people know things about me that I don’t and they pity me.
Jen: Oh. [Laughs] Shit. Okay. Well, I’m afraid that I’m going to lose my mind, go insane, and be homeless and schizophrenic and babbling and never be able to get help.
Paul: Oh, but think of the material you’ll be able to get out of that. But nobody would give you stage time.
Jen: Well, I’d just be on the corner, that would be my stage time.
Paul: That would be your stage.
Jen: I’ll just get an amp or something.
Paul: You’d have your own show.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: Finally Jen Kirkman gets her own show, the bad news it’s on a street corner and she –
Jen: --it's outside Target--
Paul: --and she smells like feces. I have a fear that I will get sick and not be able to get health insurance. And that’s a real -- a very real fear, because I have a stack of MRIs that is like an inch thick from just shoulder injuries, and the fact that I’ve been diagnosed as clinically depressed, and so that’s one that really really fucks with me.
Jen: I have that same one.
Paul: Yeah?
Jen: Yeah, I have a fear that I’m going to die before forty and that there won’t be anyone to help -- that somehow everyone will be too busy to come visit me. Like, I’ll be dying in a hospital somewhere and it will never be that It’s a Wonderful Life ending.
Paul: Well, that is, so far into the game, the most ridiculous fear yet.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: We’ve had some that are kind of maybe loosely--
Jen: --you think that’s ridiculous?
Paul: Oh, absolutely, you’ve got a gazillion friends and people that love you.
Jen: I know, but will they show up at the important time?
Paul: Yes, they will.
Jen: Hmm.
Paul: It’s up to you get the cancer--
Jen: --I’m already mad at them about it [Laughs].
Paul: It’s up to you to get the chance to press them on the issue. I am afraid that I am disappointing people who love me and I don’t know it.
Jen: [Gasps] A lot of don’t know its for you.
Paul: Yeah. One of my biggest fears is that I’m dumb. You know, that I’m -- and I think I compensate by trying to be a know-it-all.
Jen: That's funny.
Paul: Just like I think people that are insecure -- I think the most insecure people are people that are cocky.
Jen: Oh yeah. It’s funny, I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m dumb. I was just thinking about that. But, okay, well, I have a fear that people think I’m fucking crazy and are just patronizing me and there’s no one really in my life that’s actually my friend, it’s just a bunch of people who are like, ‘Okay [nervous laughter]’
Paul: Right.
Jen: And that no one really trusts that I know what I’m talking about, like if I’m talking about my life or, ‘Hey, I went through this thing.’ That everyone’s like, ‘Well, you’re fucking crazy.’ That deep down people just going ‘pssss’ behind my back.
Paul: Yeah. I am afraid that I will start drinking in the future and die an ugly, alcoholic death.
Jen: Ooooch.
Paul: That is a very real fear.
Jen: Oh, I hope you don’t. I have a fear that every decision I made in life is the wrong one, and it will be shown to me how I fucked up and how easy it could have been to just make the other decision.
Paul: That’s delicious. That is so awesome.
Jen: I think about that all the time.
Paul: That is like -- that fear should have been served on like velvet, like how they present a diamond. That was so gorgeous.
Jen: It is the Cadillac of fears.
Paul: Oh, that has a leather interior, that fear.
Jen: Yeah, I mean, because everyone says, you know, ‘wherever you are, that’s where you’re meant to be’ and there is -- you know, it’s just the now.
Paul: And what’s the opposite of that?
Jen: But if I found out, no, it’s not just a now, there’s a whole past, we’ve been tracking it, if you had just fucking turned around on a Tuesday, everything would be different--
Paul: ---oohhh, here’s where you blew it.
Jen: Yeah, and every decision you’ve made is wrong, and it is not true where wherever you are you’re supposed be, and everything doesn’t happen for a reason. It was happening and you--
Paul: --missed it--
Jen: -- you fucked it, up, yeah.
Paul: Oh, you must have loved Defending Your Life, Albert Brooks’ movie, Defending Your Life.
Jen: Shit, you know, I don’t know if I have seen it at all or just in so long that I haven’t--
Paul: --oh, you’ve got to see it--
Jen: --I think I did--
Paul: --there’s a scene in it where it’s a montage of all the bad decisions he’s made in his life.
Jen: Oh, okay, no, I didn’t see it. That’s a horror movie to me.
Paul: Oh, it’s -- and of course Albert Brooks makes it genuisly funny.
Jen: I have to see it, I really like him a lot. How did I not see that?
Paul: I don’t know.
Jen: How did I not see that and see Mother twice? Which I don’t totally love.
Paul: I agree, Mother -- I love it, and yet at the same time I’m like it’s not a great movie, it’s just a movie I relate to so much that it’s almost like a $7 therapy.
Jen: Right. Right. Right.
Paul: $7? What am I going to see movies in 1992?
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: Well, actually that probably was when it came out. But I am afraid that I will never make good money again.
Jen: Wow. Yeah, I am afraid I will have no savings and I’ll be this little old woman who is actually a woman I used to work with, who smokes Pall Malls and lives in like a studio apartment and has like, you know, lives day-to-day on cash. That I’ll have to keep working until I’m 90. Not in a Joan Rivers way, but in a teenage summer job way.
Paul: Yeah, and you’ll be in front of people in line and they’ll look at you, ‘Oh, she has to buy that brand.’
Jen: Ohhh.
Paul: Yeah, I know, I know that fear. I am afraid that -- this is kind of similar to the other one, but I’m afraid that I’m really really clueless and don’t know it.
Jen: [Laughs] I would almost say you probably are.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: That all of us are, on a deeper level.
Paul: I think you're right. I think you’re right. And as long as we know that we’re not the only ones that don’t have all the answers.
Jen: Right, exactly.
Paul: That nobody has--
Jen: --that almost seems like a comforting meditation. I’m clueless and I don’t know it. Sounds good to me.
Paul: Yeah, we’re all clueless and we don’t know it.
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: This is a property thing [laughing] as far as like I’m afraid that someday I’ll have the money and want to buy a beach house and the day I get there they’ll be a tsunami and I’ll be washed out to the ocean by myself.
Paul: [Laughing] That is such a specific fear.
Jen: [Laughing] I think about it all the time.
Paul: That’s so awesome. That someone even shits on your dreams.
Jen: Yeah, because I remember reading an interview with Jim Carrey, and I know the most famous thing he did was write that check and put it, you know--
Paul: --check, yeah.
Jen: But he did this other thing where he used to drive over Mulholland and look at all the houses and just kind of go, ‘That’s my house.’ And just like point to -- you know, just like ‘I live there’ like manifesting it.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: And so sometimes I’ll do stuff like that, and then in my fantasy it’s a beach house, and then there’s a tsunami and everyone -- no one else dies but me, because everyone I know is still on mainland, and then I can feel myself choking and drowning.
Paul: I had a short version of that where my wife and I were in line for the lobster truck, have you eaten at that? There’s this thing in LA, these food trucks--
Jen: -- I’m against eating out of truck, but I--
Paul: -- oh you are?
Jen: Yeah, not for you, for me. I don’t like it.
Paul: Okay, there’s this thing called lobster rolls which are really popular on the East Coast.
Jen: Oh yeah.
Paul: And it’s kind of like similar to a hot dog bun, but a little different, and they grill it and they make it delicious, and then instead of a hotdog, it’s just packed with delicious lobster meat or crab. And I had never tried one before. And when this truck shows up they tweet that they’re going to be at a certain place, and when they show up the line is around the fucking block. So I’m hungry, I’m waiting in line, and there’s like ten people ahead of us, and I can -- I’m just obsessing about how it’s going to taste, and all of a sudden, a fear strikes me that is so real that an earthquake is going to hit and I’m never going to get to try to the lobster roll.
Jen: [Laughing] Yes, this is so quality problem.
Paul: Isn’t it?
Jen: It’s the best.
Paul: But I turned to my wife and it took all the power out of it, because I told her, I said, “Here’s what I’m afraid is going to happen.” And she just laughed. And I did get to eat them and they were fucking delicious.
Jen: And then there was an earthquake somewhere else. Take that.
Paul: That’s right. I’m afraid that there will be a civil war in this country again.
Jen: Hmm.
Paul: I don't know if that one is ridiculous or not, because--
Jen: --I kind of wish there would be, but in my fantasy it goes really well for me--
Paul: [laughing]
Jen: --and my values. [Laughs] And nobody gets killed, but we just separate into two different countries.
Paul: Ew. What’s that look like?
Jen: I don’t know how it looks on the map, but it looks like there’s a Canada Part II, and then a Mexico.
Paul: Where gays can marry and we can get free health insurance.
Jen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there’s a maturity to the media. And then the other country can just be a -- it can just be like an episode of like, Intervention or Hoarders, it’s just a--
Paul: --just a big episode of Cops.
Jen: Yeah, exactly, it’s just that, it’s all that and they can just--
Paul: --and super right wing Republications.
Jen: People will probably -- they’ll probably just start dying, and then we can take that land back.
Paul: Apparently -- I haven’t read it, but Albert Brooks’ book 2030 kind of is a reality-based extrapolation of today’s problems into 2030, and it’s supposed to be really good.
Jen: Is that the one he’s promoting on Twitter?
Paul: Yeah, on my God, his tweets are so fucking funny.
Jen: They’re really funny.
Paul: My two favorite tweets of his are, “Does it mean you don’t like someone if you Google their name and put ‘cancer’ after it?”
[Laughter]
Paul: And the other one he had was, “Bin Laden’s last email: what are you wearing Shy1, black or dark black? Just a minute, I’ve got to get the door.” [Laughing]
Jen: I saw that, I remember that one. ‘Gotta get the door’--
Paul: --so fucking funny--
Jen: --isn’t that funny, that’s actually how I picture it. I read this whole article about they got in there and actually in my head was picturing they just came through the door like a drug bust. Well, I have a fear -- I guess I kind of said it before, but it’s very specific, I have a fear that even though I quit smoking ten years ago, that I will get some kind of weird black lung and it’s already happening and it’s impossible to stop.
Paul: Yeah, that wouldn’t happen, you’re in LA, the air is very clear.
[Laughter]
Jen: I might as well just smoking again.
Paul: I am afraid that no one will stop the corporations from running our country.
Jen: Oh, I have that same fear. It’s probably already come true.
Paul: And I suppose in a way that’s me introducing politics into this show, which I swore that I wouldn’t, but since that’s a fear of mine, I get a loophole.
Jen: That’s fine.
Paul: The corporations get a loophole.
Jen: Yeah, they didn’t pay taxes this year--
Paul: --I get a loophole--
Jen: --you can talk about it.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I guess I have a fear that there will be nuclear war in my lifetime.
Paul: Yes.
Jen: Oh.
Paul: Yeah. I have that same fear. I have a fear that our country is becoming more ignorant.
Jen: That’s probably a reality.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Well, I have a fear that--
Paul: --don’t you also think, though, that our country -- I feel like we’re heading to different poles. I feel like there is a part of the country that is becoming more enlightened and tolerant, but I also feel like the other people are becoming angrier, more violent, and more ignorant.
Jen: Yeah, I was just going to say, less educated on every level.
Paul: Right.
Jen: Yeah, I think that’s probably pretty true. I only get senses of it from weird social experiments like Twitter or how audiences react to things, but I’d like to think that’s kind of a good pulse, just the anger that when I say something, I’m not saying it to anybody, I’m just saying it on my Twitter and I usually try to make it funny, and I’m not that political on Twitter, and I think I’m saying things that everyone kind of agrees on, even people that might vote for her -- like, today, I said something about Sarah Palin’s recent Paul Revere video, and there’s a lot of hatred and anger towards me from teenagers. Someone wrote, “You don’t matter.”
[Laughter]
Paul: That is the harshest thing that you can say to another person.
Jen: It’s awful.
Paul: It is awful.
Jen: And I was like, see, that’s not even intelligent debate, and I made a joke about Sarah Palin’s video, which is undoubtedly false, like the stuff she said about Paul Revere’s ride is not true, and I was presenting fact and being funny as a comedian. And I didn’t write it to anybody. I didn’t find someone that supports Sarah Palin and said, “You know, you’re stupid because of this.” it was my opinion, and the proper way if we’re going to go analogous, is that kid would read what I wrote and think well, what do I think about this. What do I think about people who think Sarah Palin’s dumb, and he’d make a joke, not directed at anyone, and just put it on his Twitter page, you know?
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Blah blah blah, something funny liberals. That’s analogous to what I did.
Paul: Right.
Jen: But he goes at me with a personal thing, and that’s the level of debate I feel like in this country, and people can say that’s a troll, that’s a thing. No.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: There are people who speak to each other that way--
Paul: --yeah, on both sides--
Jen: --yeah, when confronted with something they don’t have a fact to back it up with, sometimes when I’m in a debate with someone about stuff, and I don’t know, I will say, ‘I actually don’t know enough to know what we’re talking about anymore’--
Paul: --yes, what I’m talking about, so, yeah--
Jen: --yeah, so let’s stop and whatever. But I don’t think they’re -- yeah, so I agree, it’s getting crazier out there. Oh, I have a fear that my apartment’s going to get broken into and it’s just going to get Mad Max around here and the poor will be terrorizing, you know, the poor -- you know, it’s like, I’m not in a mansion, I’m in an apartment, but I fear that people will just come in and start taking things and raping me.
Paul: Boards over the windows.
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: You know, I’m making a break for a gallon of gas, cover me.
Jen: Yeah, that kind of thing. I have a feeling that’s -- I think about that every night.
Paul: The nice part is we’ll all get to wear leather. That is the good part.
Jen: But it’s -- well, then I hope for a winter kind of human apocalypse then, because it gets hot in the summer in LA with leather on.
Paul: Yeah, riding a motorcycle with a gimp mask on.
[Laughter]
Paul: Mad Max, that’s one of those movies when it’s on I can’t help but watch some of it because it’s--
Jen: --oh, I’ve seen it once when it came out and that’s it.
Paul: Oh, it’s just -- there’s something so soothing about an apocalypse, because it kind of tells me, ‘No, you’re on the right track, in terms of what you think.’
Jen: Oh, okay.
Paul: In a sick way.
Jen: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: You know, I should be revolted by it, but there’s something like--
Jen: Yeah, that is really weird--
Paul: --like, you know, maybe you’ll find out a trick to survive by watching this movie.
Jen: [Laughter] Oh, okay.
Paul: It’s so wrong on every level. I’m also afraid that our country’s becoming more violent. Although I saw something in the paper the other day that said that our country -- either our country or the whole world is at a historic forty year low for violent crime.
Jen: Oh, that’s great.
Paul: It hasn’t been this low for violent crime in forty years--
Jen: --maybe it’s all the drugs people are on.
Paul: Yeah.
Guest: I don’t mean antidepressants, I mean like smack and things that make you fall asleep.
Paul: Yeah, if it keeps you in your chair, God bless you.
Jen: I have a fear of -- it’s related to lung disease, but I have a lot of fears around breathing. I have a fear that will have some breathing problem and have to live in an iron lung, like a portable one. So my breathing will always be compromised, which will compromise my quality of life, but I’m otherwise healthy and I would have to make the choice whether to stay alive or not.
Paul: I gotta say, I think you in an iron lung on a Rascal is a good look.
Jen: [laughs]
Paul: It’s a good look.
Jen: It’s a good look?
Paul: Yeah. I think as long as you -- the iron lung is an earth tone and it brings out your cheeks, I think--]
Jen: --yeah, well, I’ll have to ask for one. I’ll see what my insurance covers, they might say that’s cosmetic.
Paul: Yeah. I have a fear that I will become a stinky old person that people pity and avoid.
Jen: That’s probably going to happen.
Paul: It probably will.
Jen: People do that to the elderly.
Paul: Yeah, they do. Is it that the elderly lose their sense of smell and they think that they don’t have to shower as much anymore?
Jen: No, I think when you’re rotting from the inside, it’s so constant.
Paul: AH!!
Jen: That you can’t-
Paul: AH!!
Jen: --wash it off enough. You’d have to be in a shower twenty-four hours a day.
Paul: Oh, that’s harsh. That is harsh.
Jen: But you are, you’re really -- we’re all just rotting from the inside.
Paul: Isn’t that a little dramatic, though? We’re rotting--
Jen: --yes! Of course.
Paul: Rotting -- but you said it--
Jen: --it makes me laugh--
Paul: --you said it so seriously, like you were serious that we are all rotting from the inside--
Jen: --I am serious, but I guess it’s dramatic, but I guess that’s just how I am. I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to be dramatic, I was dead serious.
Paul: Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Jen: But I guess it is dramatic.
Paul: Yeah, do you hear a noise?
Jen: It’s my neighbor’s shower.
Paul: Oh, okay.
Jen: Isn’t that crazy? Oh, you know what, or it’s their hose outside or something, but yeah, it happens -- it’s something in the pipes.
Paul: Oh, okay, for a second I thought it was my recording equipment.
Jen: It could be Armageddon. I have a fear I’m going to lose gravity and fly up into space and be trapped up there by myself.
Paul: Are you serious?
Jen: That’s been one of my biggest fears since I was a kid.
Paul: Are you serious?
Jen: That’s -- I used to have panic attacks.
Paul: Just you are going to lose gravity?
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: So, really, that is the most arrogant crazy fear I’ve ever heard.
Jen: Yeah, then--
Paul: --that you will be chosen to defy the laws of the universe.
Jen: Oh, well, see, now it’s like a compliment, but it does come from a narcissism, but yeah -- that I will lose, because when I would have panic attacks the last thought I would have before it went to full blown was ‘you’re going to be taken away from‘ -- I think it’s more for me, ‘You’re going to be separated, taken away from everything, and you can't breathe.’ And I would picture myself flying up into orbit and being like, ‘Help!’ and I can’t get down and, you know, I don’t have my phone on me or there’s no way to contact anyone.
Paul: Well, if you think about it, that is a wonderfully creative embodiment of all of our biggest fears, that we’re going to be completely powerless and we’re going to be completely alone and we’re going to suffer physically.
Jen: Yeah, I guess you’re right.
Paul: You combined them into one, no wonder you’re a writer.
Jen: I never thought of that, thank you.
Paul: Oh yeah, that’s like genius. Like sick genius.
Jen: Yeah, shooting up into space and just floating around--
Paul: --yeah--
Jen: --maybe I should make a cartoon about that or something.
Paul: You should.
Jen: Don’t steal it anymore.
Paul: We’re all fucked.
Jen: [laughs] Then I’ll pitch it and they’ll go, ‘Do 18-34 year old boys like this?’ I don’t know what they like.
Paul: Oh my God. You know, when I started woodworking a couple of years ago people would say, because I would be out there eight hours a day making furniture and stuff, and people would say to me, ‘Why are you so intense about the woodworking?’ And I said one of the things that I think I love so much is no douche bag in a suit walks into my shop and says, ‘That type of wood isn’t popular with 18-34 year old men.’
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: You know, there’s just such a freedom in being able to do what you want. And I think that’s why podcasts are so great.
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: Because how many notes would we have been given so far?
Jen: ‘Oooh, mental illness’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: ‘Let’s think about that name.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: ‘Is there something more like Sassy Friends Sitting Around Talking?’
Paul: [Laughs]
Jen: ‘Ooh, you mentioned death. People don’t like that.’ Well, I’m sorry, we don’t either, maybe that’s why they’ll like listening to this.
Paul: We have sponsors on Dinner and a Movie and they’ll come on for a segment or their product will come on and we’ll talk about the product, and just -- it’s evolved to this point now where the sales people have given the sponsors more and more say as the years have gone on, in an attempt to just keep sales afloat, and so now literally the marketing person from that product will be sitting and watching the segment and saying, ‘Can we take that joke out because we don’t want to be in the same segment with that joke.’ And we had--
Jen: --slippery slope.
Paul: It is. We had Papa John on, who is a perfectly nice guy, but a little -- uh, not camera ready, a little stiff on camera, and so I’m just trying anything to get it to seem conversational, and this -- I said something like -- oh, he was tossing a pizza up and it wasn’t really funny, we were making tortillas and his thing was, ‘You call that a thing, here’s a’ -- and you know, and he tosses a big pizza.
Jen: Oh yeah, sure.
Paul: Yeah, but you could feel it was just kind of falling and so I made some crack about him being cocky with his big pizza thing, and the marketing person came up and said, ‘Could we say confident?’
Jen: Sure, because that would be hilarious. Just make a statement.
Paul: I just wanted to go, ‘That’s not a put down.’ There’s no--
Jen: [laughs]
Paul: But that 18-34 year old pursuit of -- oh, it’ so tiring.
Jen: I’m like, so you’re asking me to figure out what an 18-34 year old man wants? That’s been the downfall of every woman’s life. We don’t know! I’ll never been able to think that way.
Paul: [Laughing]
Jen: I guess what they want -- why don’t they make a show about this, about me never wanting you to call me. How about that show, they’ll love that. I don't know what to do.
Paul: Based on my experience as an 18-34 year old man, I want to kill myself, that’s what I want.
Jen: Let’s make a show about suicide and just not really being good at dating women.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: It’ll be hit.
Paul: I want to jerk off and hang myself.
Jen: [Laughs] You can do that now.
Paul: I actually tried that in college one time because I read about it and I was like, ‘Let me try this’ and my roommate came home--
Jen: --thank God--
Paul: --and fortunately I had locked the door and I was just trying to put something around my neck and I just took it as a sign from the universe that this is a bad--
Jen: --thank--
Paul: --because supposedly it intensifies your orgasm--
Jen: --yeah--
Paul: ---but so many people have died doing it.
Jen: Yes, just get some like hot cream or something.
Paul: Yeah, oh yeah, I did -- jerking off is good enough on its own, why do you need--
Jen: --don’t risk death--
Paul: --yeah--
Jen: --he could have saved your life. Your roommate.
Paul: He could have. He could have. And I told him. He was really good friend of mine, so--
Jen: --oh, okay--
Paul: --afterwards I told him, I was like, ‘You’re not going to believe what I was fucking trying to do.’
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: How did we get off on that tangent? Oh.
Jen: --flying through the space---
Paul: --dying and jerking off. Yes, and before that talking about flying into space. It’s funny, I have to keep notes of which of these shows I will be comfortable making a copy and sending to my mom. And could have--
Jen: --almost, almost mom ready--
Paul: --sent it to her until about two minutes ago.
Jen: Ohhhh.
Paul: Can’t send that one.
Jen: You know what, I think she -- I was just -- it’s so funny, I was just thinking of your mom when you said that you were trying to do that. And I thought, ‘His poor mom if he had died.’
Paul: Yes.
Jen: Just thinking, ‘Why was he suicidal?’ Or, you know, and you weren’t, or she knew what you were doing and was just like, ‘Oh, my perv son.’
Paul: Yeah, my pervy, pervy--
Jen: --‘what a freak.’
Paul: Pervy son. So back to the -- we were still dong the fear-off, was it you or me?
Jen: I’m up in space now so it’s your turn.
Paul: Shit. Because I’m out of ones that I wrote down, so now I’ve got to see if I have any that I can just come up with on the -- oh, I’m afraid that ants are going to overrun my house. I fucking have a total -- just OCD things about insects
Jen: I don’t care about ants, but I have a fear that cockroaches will overrun my place. That I will wake up and they will be all over the walls, all over the floors, it’s horrifying.
Paul: Ew.
Jen: I have such a fear of them, they are not here, they do not exist here, but I fear it every minute of the day.
Paul: I have a fear that nobody is ever going to want to represent me in entertainment.
Jen: [Laughs] Some of your fears are so…
Paul: Real? Make perfect sense?
Jen: No, they're like comforting to me.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I long for the day when I’m like Bill Murray and no one’s repping me and I’m like, ‘Call my machine and if I want to do it I’ll do it.’ I can’t wait for the day no one’s repping me.
Paul: I think--
Jen: --I’m kidding.
Paul: I think we’re heading toward that day though, because I think managers and agents are becoming less needed with the internet and people being able to put their own stuff up and just send somebody an email and say, “Hey, take a look at this.”
Jen: Yeah. Well, I hope -- I was thinking of episodes I could send to my manager, and this one is now not -- I can’t -- she just wanted to know episodes of your podcast I should send. And I was like, ‘Not the one with me on it.’ I just made that up.
Paul: [Laughs] Are we on you? On your fear?
Jen: Yeah, no, I have a fear of being shot point blank in an alley.
Paul: Really?
Jen: Mmhmm.
Paul: Let’s walk through that.
Jen: I guess it’s that old fear of just something surprising me and just catching me off guard, because that’s a big thing of mine too, in any way. Although anytime I’ve been caught off guard, anytime a real, terrifying, horrible thing has happened I’ve been fine. I was in 9/11 in New York. I was fine. I wasn’t scared. I’ve been more scared riding an elevator than I was walking down the street away from the smoke.
Paul: Let’s talk about that for a second.
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: Tell me the story of that.
Jen: And honestly, I wasn’t that close. I was like--
Paul: --in New Jersey.
Jen: I was in Connecticut [laughs]. No, I was on like 19th Street and it was downtown and stuff.
Paul: So how far away, a half-mile, a mile?
Jen: Maybe a mile.
Paul: Okay. But still, that’s close enough seeing the smoke.
Jen: Oh yeah, watching the buildings fall.
Paul: Did you see the second plane hit?
Jen: No, I heard it. It was so funny, I was on a train--
Paul: --oh, that makes me just sick to my stomach though, the thought of hearing that sound.
Jen: You don’t know what it is though, because it was--
Paul: --but even after the fact, then going, ‘Oh, that's what that rumble was that I heard.’
Jen: Yeah, it wasn’t like -- I think other people heard it like [makes sounds effect] I just heard a -- I can’t even remember what it was. It was more like just -- I can’t explain it, it was just a [sound effect] big loud sound. And this guy was outside. And he came running in and he goes, ‘I saw this plane like really, really, low and it’s [stutters].’ And then I was like, ‘Oh, that’s what I heard.’ But I was taking the subway into work, and I lived in Brooklyn and there was a stop where it goes outside for two stops and you’re going over this bridge and you can see the Trade Center.
And the first plane had hit, I think -- it was either this, it was one of two situations, that I was above ground and saw the Trade Center for the last time and then went underground for the last time before it got hit, or it was that it had hit and it was already burning and I didn't look up, I didn't look out the window that day. I can’t remember what happened, but I was on the subway at that time and I don’t remember which one it was, but then I got to work a couple of minutes later and I was at the coffee stand on the corner, I was calling my friend at work, leaving a message about, ‘Oh, this comedy show that went on last night, I didn’t go to it, and I don’t get any respect.’ And a plane with people in it are dying -- people are already dead, and I didn’t look up, because the typical New Yorker thing, why would I look up and see what’s going on at the Trade Center? I see it every day. So I just had my head down--
Paul: --there’s no comedy club up there!
Jen: [Laughs] Oh, that would have been great. So I’m at the coffee cart and I’m bitching, ‘Hurry up, I’m late for work, blah blah blah blah.’ And I don’t think anyone else there knew what was going on, nobody was talking about it, but it had already happened. And then I went into work and as I was walking in, I think that’s when the second one came screeching down, and my friend who was late for work was like stressing about being late for work, and then he saw this thing, and he had heard about this first plane, and that’s when he was like, ‘I think there’s something going on.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait, there’s plane -- what?’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Like so out of it.
Paul: Wow.
Jen: And then I remember calling my boyfriend at the time, who worked at some place right next to the Trade Center, and I didn’t realize like everyone’s cell phone wasn’t working, so that was kind of scary, but he was fine, but he was like, “Oh my god, it’s crazy.” And he ran up to where I was and then my boss was like so oblivious to what was going on. He was like--
Paul: --he had reports to file.
Jen: He literally asked me to call Cantor Fitzgerald and see if anyone was still there, because that was the company where everyone died, because they were like on the 100th floor, and it was all these young dudes, and we were going to have some meeting with them, and he was like, ‘Can you see if anyone’s…’ I’m like, ‘What?’
Paul: What?
Jen: It was a blatant terrorist attack at this point. The Pentagon, everything had been hit, and I was like, ‘Do we get to leave?’ And he’s like, ‘Where are you going to go?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, to be with my loved ones? Like go to a bar or something with my friends?’ Actually, that was a reaction I didn’t have. Everyone was getting drunk and I was like, ‘I’m staying dead sober.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I take Klonopin for panic attacks, and I usually have them on planes. And I keep it in my purse in case a panic attack comes on, and that day I left it in Brooklyn. I wasn’t panicking though, but I remember later noticing in my purse that was the one day that I forgot to bring my Klonopin with me in my purse, and I didn’t even need it.
Paul: Really?
Jen: There was no panicking. I went outside, the buildings fell, I felt sick and I felt like just overwhelmed, but this weird acceptance was like, “I guess we’re at war. This is way bigger than me.” Everything changed for me personally, then it went back a couple of years later.
Paul: Do you think when something is big enough that it clicks in our brains that we don’t have control, and maybe panic attacks are about trying to grasp what little control we think we have. Because sometimes I’ll get more upset by something that’s small to medium-sized than I will be by something that’s huge. There’s almost like a calm that comes over me, like in an accident or something like that.
Jen: Yeah, I think it’s like your body’s natural chemistry. Because I get panic attacks on planes but nothing's happening, it’s all in my head, and I have absolutely no control in that situation, but yet--there’s no communal--
Paul: --maybe it’s the not knowing, maybe it’s the not knowing how the bad thing is going to take place.
Jen: Yeah, like once thing the bad thing happens, you’re like, ‘Oh.’
Paul: At least I do know what the bad thing is.
Jen: Yeah, I’ve anticipated this, it happened. It’s almost like there’s no way anything else is going to happen now, or if it does you really are all in it together, and when you realize -- at that moment, I was like -- I’ve been--and I don’t think it’s selfish to have a panic disorder, I have a disease, but the quick moment in my head I went ‘Oh, what a luxury disease to have where I have been triggered chemically by things that aren’t happening, but thank God I now know that when things happen I will be okay.’
It was kind of a beautiful moment, and I was like, well the only time I have to worry on this day is if I’m physically harmed, and I’m not. So what can I do to help? And not that I was particularly helpful, I didn’t give blood or go down there, I hate to say it. But you know people just come up to you on the street crying, like some weird post-apocalyptic zombie movie, and so you just hug someone and listened to them and move on.
Paul: Wow.
Jen: And that happened all day long.
Paul: What was that like?
Jen: I thought it was beautiful. I’m like, ‘I am experiencing New York in a way that will -- that has never happened and maybe will never happen again.’ The next day it was a ghost town, there was no cars anywhere, you know, but it was beautiful, it was like people would just walk down the street crying, no one was a freak, we all knew why everyone was crying. Within an hour all these posters were up, missing this, missing that, and it was just nice to just walk along the street and actually connect with someone and move on and talk to people and life was going on, and not in a disrespectful way, but there were still people sitting in cafes, it was like, ‘Well, I don't know what else to do. I’m going to sit here and have a coffee.’ And everyone was talking to each other, and just on high alert. Of not fear, there wasn’t fear. That’s what I remember, and that’s why I get so angry -- and not to bring it back to politics, but how fearful people that weren’t there seemed to be about this thing. No one was afraid. I know you see the videos of people running and screaming, that’s -- that’s a fight or flight reaction to not get hit by a building.
But once you’re way from it no one was like, “[Gasp] What’s happening next?” We were freaked out, and obviously no one wanted anything to happen next, but there was so much love amongst your fellow man on the street, that I don’t remember fear. It was like, ‘Get out of here fear, we don’t have time for this nonsense.’
Paul: Right.
Jen: You know? People are dying and if we’re not the ones dying, then we don’t have room for fear.
Paul: Yeah, there’s something interesting that happens when something tragic happens, and your priorities -- you can see your priorities now very clearly of what’s important, you know, giving and receiving love from people. Helping people. It almost seems like when those moments happen and our priorities become clear, why is it that we then stop slowly doing that and get back into being upset about shit that doesn't matter.
Jen: I know, I was going to say, it didn’t take long. I mean, I was like, ‘Please let me never forget this feeling.’
Paul: Yes.
Jen: And I did. But I didn’t know -- see, back then I didn’t meditate or have any spiritual thing, so, you know, or any -- I wasn’t in therapy. I had been in therapy but I wasn’t going regularly, so I had no outlet to get outside of myself. And in New York you really have to survive by thinking about yourself constantly.
Paul: Kind of going into a shell just to not be bombarded by--
Jen: --yeah, just -- just sensory bombardment.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: So it took maybe a year, six months -- well actually, I moved six months later, so -- but then I moved to LA and it was like -- you don’t even have to deal with your fellow man because it’s more spread out and no one’s walking anywhere, so yeah, it didn’t take long.
Paul: It bums me out how many people pass each other on the street and avoid eye contact.
Jen: In LA or anywhere?
Paul: Mostly in LA. And I consciously try to say Hi to people and connect to people, but it kind of makes me sad that the kind of default position is to avoid eye contact, because that to me is just the worse way to go through life, but I was that way for many, many, many years. Getting back to what you were talking about, that there was a beauty underneath the tragedy and the horror of that, my wife and I had moved here to Los Angeles a week before the Northridge earthquake in 1994, and it was horrifying. The earthquake itself was horrifying. The loudest most violent thing I’ve ever.
Jen: You heard it from LA?
Paul: No, we were in LA. We had just moved here in a week.
Jen: But what do you mean, what was the noise? You could hear the Northridge earthquake?
Paul: Oh my god, the Earthquake was the loudest thing you’ve ever--
Jen: --and Northridge is like 40 miles north isn’t it? Am I crazy?
Paul: No, no, no, Northridge is about 5 miles from here.
Jen: Oh, I didn't realize that, I’m stupid, okay.
Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But.
Jen: Oh wow.
Paul: But it is the loudest, deepest, thundering rumble -- I mean, you could scream and almost not be heard over how loud it is.
Jen: Really? I had -- no one has ever told me that, it’s terrifying.
Paul: It is the part that freaks you out the most is -- well, that, and being thrown up in the air three feet in the air for thirty seconds.
Jen: What?
Paul: You’re up three feet in the air, you’re up, you’re down, you’re up, you’re down, for thirty seconds
Jen: [Gasps] And that was just five miles from the epicenter. That’s way scarier than a man taking a plane -- that’s the Earth throwing you around.
Paul: And that was my fear when we moved here was I’m going to die in an Earthquake, and I wake up at 4:30 in the morning six days into being here and I’m like, “My fucking nightmare has come true.”
Jen: Oh my God, I forgot to put that on my fear list, earthquake and getting trapped.
Paul: Yes, me too. But my point was is after the earthquake died down, everybody in our apartment building -- and I had just met these people--
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: Actually, the way I met them is I come stumbling out of our apartment in my underwear without my glasses.
Jen: [laughs]
Paul: And I’m standing there and everybody’s pouring out of their apartments, and I decide in that moment I would rather be crushed by the building than stand out here without pants and my glasses, so I went back in and got my pants and my glasses, came back out. And the thing that was -- the beauty underneath the horror was that people came together in that courtyard. For a week we managed, we cooked for each other, people that didn’t have water borrowed each other’s water, people that didn’t have gas, we made -- and I remember thinking to myself, this is so fucked up, but I want this to last forever, this feeling of everybody coming together and sharing and talking about their fear and feeling like we have each other's backs. And I didn’t want another earthquake to hit but I wanted that sense of community.
Jen: That’s how I felt after 9/11. I know the City’s going to go back to normal.
Paul: Yeah, so how do we on a daily basis -- I suppose in some way maybe that’s what I’m trying to do with this podcast, is kind of rekindle that feeling that I’m not alone, and that, hey, I’ve got these fears and let’s talk about them and -- I don’t know, but I can never get enough of that feeling of being safe in a group of people and feeling loved.
Jen: And it’s funny, because when I put myself into what I call like an artificial situation, like if I went to a meditation class or setting, I’ve gone to a few meditation classes where there’s maybe a speaker and they talk about it, and then they tell you what technique you’re going to do, and then they’ll say, ‘Now turn to the person next to you.’ And I freeze up, I get fearful. I talk to people for a living. I love meeting new people, but in those moments, I’m like, ‘No, I don’t want to.’ I want to be in my thing -- I want to be in the group, but not part of it.
Paul: What do you think that’s about?
Jen: I don’t know. I get primal fear.
Paul: But what do you think is going on?
Jen: Someone’s going to need something from me.
Paul: Now we’re getting somewhere
Jen: That’s the blurt out, like, ‘This person’s going to take it too seriously and need me.’
Paul: Yeah, or, ‘I’m afraid they’re going to bore me.’
Jen: Oh, that too, I guess, yeah, that’s more of a … for me, that would suck, but the primal fear is I just don’t want to have anything to do with this person, where if it’s a –
Paul: --is it that you’re afraid that you’re going to be inconvenienced or that you’re going to disappoint them?
Jen: Inconvenienced.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: And maybe the sub layer is disappoint them, but probably -- it feels like I resonate with inconvenience. But now if there was an earthquake and I had to run out and talk to the neighbor, the adrenaline and the craziness of it, the bond would throw us together, we wouldn’t have to find a common thing, we wouldn’t have to try, it just is, it’s survival mode. But turning to someone and “Nah, nah, nah, nah” I’m just so afraid of crazy people needing things from me.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Which is so stupid.
Paul: Where do you think that comes from?
Jen: It must come from my family, right?
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: That’s where everything comes from. My family is wonderful, I’m still very close to them.
Paul: Jen, I’m not a doctor but I am a hypochondriac.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: So let’s examine this.
Jen: It’s probably, yeah, from having a chaotic home growing up and that kind of thing of like probably having to grow up fast -- not having to grow up fast, I had a great childhood, but just kind of like a lot of yelling and fighting and stuff in my house, and just kind of trying to be a peacemaker. And I always seem to attract, although I haven’t in a long time, crazy people.
Paul: When did your panic attacks start?
Jen: When I was 10, I think. 10 or 11.
Paul: Can you talk about that a little bit?
Jen: It was all around like the Cold War, and that movie The Day After had come out, I had watched that, and so to me it wasn’t like an if, and or maybe -- it was when this happens. So I had this sense that the adults running the world didn’t know what they were doing, they were hell-bent on killing us all, and that there was no control, but not in a good way. No control in a just like terrifying way. And I didn’t put two and two together, it’s not like I knew that and then felt panicky, I just -- that was kind of what I always thought, and then one day I was on a bus on a field trip, and we were trapped in traffic, and my friend who is really funny, and she just has this kind of like evil sense of humor, was totally joking, did not know this would get my goat, went ‘We’re trapped. We can never get out of here.’ And that, boom, I had a panic attack.
Paul: What was the physical sensation?
Jen: Sweaty palm, can’t breathe, heart racing, throat closing up. Racing thoughts, that are just, ‘You’re going to die’ so that you just start to believe it within two seconds, ‘I’m dying, I’m dying.’ That kind of feeling, they call it feelings of unreality, if you read descriptions of panic attacks, and I think that’s what I mean by flying up into space, that feeling of unreality, like almost that feeling of if you’ve ever woken up and you’re not quite awake yet, you feel like you’re watching yourself outside your body, that whole thing. So you really feel like almost you’re being pulled out of yourself. So that was my first panic attack. And my arm was really numb too.
Paul: Wow. That’s intense for a ten year old to feel that. You’ve been through therapy, and you’ve done a lot of work on yourself, what connections have you made, if any, to what you think might be behind the panic attacks?
Jen: Well, I think my mom had them growing up. She talks about it. She called it hormonal. But I think it’s just genetic. My grandmother is an anxious -- she’s dead now, but she was an anxious person. I think it is probably genetic, but I also think that it was just this, you know, my sisters were older than me, so they left home when I was 8, and so I was literally raised as an only child, and I think also some people are just kind of born that way. I was very sensitive. If there was any trouble at home, if my parents had a fight, if there was anything.
Paul: You picked up on it.
Jen: I picked up on it, and was like I have to fix this.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Nothing is secure.
Paul: Were you afraid that your parents were going to break up and you’re--
Jen: --no, I wanted them to.
Paul: You did?
Jen: Because divorce was very chic in the ‘80s.
Paul: [Laughs]
Jen: And all I remember is my friend, Jennifer Frangello was her name, was this lower middle-class kid like me, her dad and mom got divorced. Her mom married her divorce lawyer. Instantly, Jennifer is rich. They live in a mansion. She has two Christmases, a new car, and I’m like, ‘This is awesome.’ So I thought you get a divorce and you marry your rich divorce lawyer. I was just like, ‘I want that.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: And, you know, my parents won’t fight, and then we’ll have two Christmases. I really thought that there was--
Paul: --did your parents fight a lot?
Jen: Yeah, I think that--
Paul: --what were their fights like?
Jen: I don’t know what they were about to be honest with you, I think they were just--
Paul: --but the tone of them?
Jen: Oh. Anything from just kind of a quiet dinner, where you know something is going on. To crying and yelling. Nothing violent or anything, but crying and yelling and just both talking over each other. And fights at times of the day that are -- you know, fights that aren’t like -- I never knew where they started. My only memory it’s always like being in bed and it’s early in the morning and I’m woken up by the sound of fighting. I think they just didn’t get along. They’re still married, they’ve fine now. They joke -- they’re bickerers, they pick at each other.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: But I don’t know what they were going through then. I have no idea, I have no idea of they didn’t feel in love, I don't know anything about how they felt, but I think as a kid, that’s gotta -- if you don’t feel like you’re being protected, I think your mind goes to, ‘I’ve got to protect.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: And that’s such a wrong instinct.
Paul: And it’s such a load to put on a kid, to feel that your parents -- that you have an influence over your parents’ destiny.
Jen: Yeah, and of course my parents never put that on me, and if I talked to them about it now, they’d go, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s all in my head, but it’s the way -- I mean, I’ve heard people who are abused -- my therapist would tell me about people who are abused side with the abuser and not the other parent. They see the other parent as like a victim in a bad way, and they have sympathy for the abuser, because their mind can’t handle it. They can’t handle seeing both of their parents as wrong. Like one has to win -- it’s some weird thing in your mind, so for me it was like -- I just became this little codependent in training, like fix this, fix that.
Paul: If you’re happy I’m happy.
Jen: Yeah. And I don’t think I’m like that so much now. I guess maybe I’m more of an avoider of--
Paul: --we were talking before we rolled--
Jen: --oh yeah.
Paul: Tell the listeners about the conversation that you had with your mom. That’s one of the things that I love when you talk onstage. Weren’t you and Morgan Murphy doing something on stage where you were--
Jen: --oh, Whose Mom Said It.
Paul: Whose Mom Said It. Oh, that’s so fucking genius.
Jen: That's a great bit.
Paul: Do you guys do that anymore?
Jen: No, Morgan made that up. And actually it was a talk show she used to do, and then when she moved away I just did the talk show alone, but now that she’s back, I think we should bring our talk show back.
Paul: Oh, you’ve got to do it. I would go see that in a heartbeat.
Jen: It’s really funny.
Paul: So tell me the conversation.
Jen: Well, I was just talking to my mom on the phone -- who by the way is -- we’re so close and she’s very lovely and if she’s listening I’m not making fun of her. Actually, she’s at Foxwoods right now, they go gambling every weekend together. And she was like calling me to tell me, ‘John Oliver and Marc Marron are there and I’m going to go say Hi to both of them.’ And I'm like, ‘Please do, whatever.’ So we’re talking about -- she was telling me about my dad and he’s retiring and they just have this, in my opinion, this wacky view of like what you are owed when you retire, and my mom is upset that my dad has to train the next person coming through on the job and she’s like, ‘This woman is getting all this credit that your father is not.’
And I go, ‘Mom, what do you mean? It is really -- is someone really saying, ‘God, Sally, you’re amazing and Ron you sucked.’ What kind of credit is she getting?’ I said, ‘Are you making it up?’ And she goes, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘You know, my therapist says, he says you’re MSUing, Making Shit Up.’ And I said, ‘So just relax, you’re just making shit up.’ And she goes, ‘I thought your therapist was a woman?’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s my psychologist, this is the guy that gives me the Klonopin for my panic attacks.”
And she goes, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were still taking that?’ And I said, ‘I take it when I get on planes, but just a very small amount, I’d never take it others and I got two refills a year, 30 pills, I mean nothing.’
‘Well, Jen, I just read Stevie Nicks’ books and she had a slow addiction. She was on the same thing, the Klonopin, and she didn’t realize that it was slowly building up and she -- a silent addition.’
I’m like, ‘Mom, you must have misread it. And also, drug addicts lie, they always say they didn’t know a prescription is bad. I know I sound like I’m lying, but this is not the same thing. I take a half milligram when I fly which is nothing.’
And she’s like, ‘Well, it’s just cause I love you too much.’ And I go, ‘No, I know.’ I said, ‘But really really don’t worry, like this doctor I have to go talk to him once a month. I‘m not a celebrity, I’m not going to be getting pills just because someone wants to be a sycophant.’
And she’s like, ‘All right, I just know about these slow addictions.’ And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’
Paul: You know, moms have such an annoying way of loving you sometimes. I love my mom, I know that she loves me, but sometimes they don’t -- I don’t know if their generation weren’t shown the tools of how to love a child, and so they do it in the best way they know how, and we interpret it the wrong way.
Jen: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Paul: I think that’s what it is. And I think it takes you years sometimes to realize, ‘Oh, that’s my mom or my dad trying to love me, trying to show me love.’
Jen: Well, you know what’s funny about my parents is they -- and I don’t say this meanly, but they really are -- my mom didn’t work for many years, and she got one job and that’s her one job, and my dad’s only had one job. They’re not used to this life I live where it’s you move around a lot, and then in Hollywood if you stay in one place too long, you know, it’s kind of good to move around.
And they’re not the type of parents that I call and say, ‘Hey, help me make this decision.’ Because they get kind of freaked out, like, ‘I don’t know, don’t ask me.’ And so when I left Chelsea Lately to take a writing job on a sit com, it was definitely a--
Paul: --but you’re back at Chelsea Lately now--
Jen: --but I’m back at Chelsea, because through trial and error I realized as a performer that’s a better type of writing job for me, even though it is technically -- you know what I mean, your agent wants you writing on a network sitcom more than they want you on a basic cable late night show, but for me it’s better. But when I left my parents were devastated because they couldn’t see me on TV anymore, and they didn’t understand, and they love Chelsea and they know her star is rising, and they were so freaked out that I’d made the wrong decision.
And I talked to them over and over about why I made it, and why it was okay. And I don't think they could quite understand. It’s a hard thing to understand anyway. But they just don’t like decisions at all. So I didn’t know this, but as I say, they go to Foxwoods Casino every weekend and there’s always -- there’s a comedy club there and there’s always a comic performing, and they know all my friends, they visit all the time, they know their work, they love comedy. Every time I had a friend come, they’ve all told me this since I’ve been back at Chelsea, every time I had a friend roll through Foxwoods they told me my parents would come up to them, and my mom would go, “Did Jen make the right decision leaving Chelsea? Is she screwed up? Is she okay?” And my dad would be like, “What is like TV writing sitcom, is that better?” Everyone told me that they were pulled aside backstage. And I‘m like that’s their way of trying to love you.
Jen: Of loving me.
Paul: Yeah, not trying to love you. Of loving you.
Jen: Of loving me, and saying, ‘I know I can’t help her with this decision, but I’ve got to get some information.’
Paul: Yes, I’ve got to set her in the right path. I guess, you know, you never stop being their kid. There isn’t like a birthday that hits and you go, ‘Okay, they’re making their own decisions now, I can stop wringing my hands.’
Jen: Yeah.
Paul: And I think we’ve just to recognize that and know that it is coming from a place of love.
Jen: Absolutely. And they have their own opinion about what they think makes a good life. And in their opinion, being on TV is the ultimate. And I could be making 10 million dollars a year writing on another show, and they would be like, ‘But you’re not on TV.’ It’s very important for them to turn me on in their living room, and see me there, that means something to them. And I could say -- I have to pay them to do that. They hit me in the head, no. They just love to see me there. It’s what makes them comfortable, and it’s very amusing to me.
Paul: And it’s away for them to get to see you
Jen: Yeah, and they like to see me, but It’s very cute and I actually -- they’re like, ‘Not every parent gets that.’ I’m like, ‘No, that’s true.’ It’s really funny, they trust my decisions but they don’t understand them.
Paul: Right. Did we finish the fear-off?
Jen: Yeah, you went through all my fears and then you reminded me the one I never said was earthquake.
Paul: Oh, earthquake.
Jen: That’s pretty real though, I was trying to think of things that may or may not happen.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: But earthquake is real.
Paul: it is real.
Jen: I have a kit, and as you were talking I was going to go to the grocery store later, and I’m going to get some bottled water and keep it here just in case, because my filtered faucet is not going to help me when the supply is shut off.
Paul: No, it’s not. And I may be the worst podcast host ever. I’ve got this podcast to help myself and to help others that might be depressed or struggling with things, and the two things that I give them to take out of this is, ‘Hey, let’s talk about 9/11.’
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: And earthquakes are very real.
[Laughter]
Jen: But, as long as we can laugh through it.
Paul: Yeah, yes.
Jen: That’s all that matters. And I’ve got Klonopin if anyone needs it. I’m kidding.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I’m not sending it. It’s a silent addiction.
Paul: Yeah, my wife had to take a pill to fly, so I totally get that.
Jen: I’ll see her in rehab.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: --between me and Stevie Nicks--
Paul: --I’ve sat next to her on planes, and I want her to have that Klonopin.
Guest: Oh yeah, you need it.
Paul: For some people, no amount of rationalizing or talking to them. If you have a loved one that is afraid to fly, don’t try to change them. Don’t try to berate them or make them see things your way. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s a ration fear, let them deal with it.
Jen: And you know what, I actually love flying, it’s like the only time I get to be alone.
Paul: It’s the best time to read too.
Guest: Yeah, I love to travel, I like to just flip through -- I never sit on the couch had flip through TV, now I can do it on the plane. I love being in the air, I love looking out the window. I believe and trust it’s 100% safe, but there’s just a physical thing that I do not like to be stuck up in the air. I don't like it. So it gives me a panic attack, even though I know it’s safe, and so I take a pill. And I have actually stopped saying I have a fear of flying, it’s what I used to say so I didn’t have to get into the panic attack thing, but now I just say, “I have a panic disorder and being in a plane triggers it and I need to be comfortable.”
Paul: Mm-hmmm.
Jen: Because the fear of flying thing, it’s true, it brings up so much in people. They want to help, they want to tell you you’re stupid. And it’s like, I used to sit and listen to people and go, ‘I don’t even really have a fear of flying and I just invited this conversation.’
Paul: Right.
Jen: And the panic I think shuts them up, because either they get it, or they don’t, and they’re like, ‘You seem to know that that is -- I don’t know.’ So yeah.
Paul: Yeah. That makes sense. I remember being--
Jen: --I literally just spilled water down my front--
Paul: --it’s a good look, it’s a good look. It’s a tiny wet t-shirt contest just for me.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: I remember at my most depressed, when I was feeling really suicidal all the time, flying was awesome, because it was a chance that I might die without having to kill myself. And I remember--
Jen: --aaaahhh!
Paul: --the plane talking off and thinking, ‘Come on, let’s fucking go down. Let’s do it.’
Jen: Oh my God!
Paul: And then I won’t have to -- my parents won’t have to feel that additional pain of he’s dead and he killed himself.
Jen: Ooof.
Paul: That is one of the few pluses about being suicidal is you’re not afraid to fly.
Jen: I think I mentioned this on our last podcast is my panic disorder went undiagnosed and unhelped for so long, for eleven years, that eventually it turned into very severe depression. And when I was depressed I wouldn’t panic, and when I was not depressed that’s when I panicked.
Paul: Really?
Jen: So the depression was actually like a very comforting hug in a way, because I was so low chemically that I couldn’t produce the chemicals needed to panic. So I kind of enjoyed being depressed because I was like -- it was a relief. ‘Oh, I’m not going to have a panic attack today, I’m too depressed.’ But then once I got therapy and help and stuff the depression did lift.
Paul: So is the only time that you really get -- are kind of prone to panic attacks is flying? Do you –
Jen: -- now it -- I used to have them just balls out walking down the street coming upon me for no reason. Now if I have those I--
Paul: --what’s the most ridiculous thing you remember panicking about.
Jen: I don’t even know if that’s ridiculous, but I think I had one like in a clothing store once, like on the third floor of the Beverly Center, and I’m like, ‘I can’t get out of here fast enough.’ And I was running like a dragon was chasing me.
Paul: Really?
Jen: And then when I got outside I was fine.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: It’s like that kind of weird thing. But that’s like -- those are almost silly now, if I have one of those I go, ‘I can breathe, I have my pill, it’s fine.’ But a plane, for me there’s no amount of talking myself down, because I know I can’t get out. That one thing always trumps it, so yeah, that’s the only time I have panic attacks now, and I think um--
Paul: --it’s actually almost irrational to not be afraid flying.
Jen: Yeah, it’s--
Paul: --because if you think about it, you’re in a tube going 500 miles an hour--
Jen: --30,000 feet in the air.
Paul: Yeah. At the mercy of a person you don’t know.
Jen: Right. I mean, to have a thought about it -- I get not to obsess on it--
Paul: --if you’re listing to this podcast [starts laughing] on a plane I apologize--
Jen: --[laughing] stop listening. You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. Oh my God.
Paul: The worst host ever. [Laughing]
Jen: This is the worst episode. [Laughing]
Paul: The worst.
Jen: Hey, at least if you’re on a plane you are safe from earthquakes.
Paul: And I used to think that after the earthquake, is I would -- in fact I used to have a little fantasy the plane would take off and I would see an earthquake start, and I would be like a -- I would be the victor, because I had been in the right place at the right time, and I got to be entertained by seeing shit fall.
Jen: Why would that entertain you?
Paul: Because I am so competitive, that if you’re suffering and I’m not, I win.
Jen: Really?
Paul: Oh yeah, I’m a dick,
Jen: Oh, I didn’t know that. I’m not competitive at all, and I say that not to be better than, it’s probably a fear -- but I’m jealous--
Paul: --luckier, I should say. Not better than. In a better position, because I’ve always felt like--
Jen: --yeah, luckier.
Paul: Yes, I’ve always felt like, ‘Oh, I’m unlucky, I can’t experience happiness, I can’t experience this.’ So if there’s a place where I get a break, that would give me the feeling, oh, the universe does love me.
Jen: Right, I’m tapped into the right thing.
Paul: Yes, yeah. And I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel good naturally, but--
Jen: --oh, that’s good, okay--
Paul: --but there’s still -- somebody said something this morning that I liked. They talked about how you have no power over what thought pops into your heard, but you have a power -- the way they described it is you have no control over a bird landing on you head, but you have control over whether or not you let it build a nest.
Jen: Oh, that’s great.
Paul: And I like that, because it -- I don’t let the nest get built nowadays.
Jen: Yes.
Paul: A lot of fucking birds land on my head, but that is the recovery to me, is what I do with the crazy thought or fear when it pops in--
Jen: --that’s how I am with the panic, it usually starts with a thought. All the work I’ve done on it, they say ‘what was the thought before?’ and usually I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ But now it’s what crazy thought comes in, it’s just like popcorn popping, I’m not even--
Paul: --yes, because you are not your initial thoughts, that is -- we’re powerless over what pops into our head.
Jen: Your brain’s just trying to entertain itself.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: That’s what someone described to me as.
Paul: It’s a very selfish guest.
Jen: But, yeah, just turn it off. Turn it off, don’t talk to yourself like that.
Paul: Yeah, and I think that’s -- that’s an okay place to be for me, I’m really cool with knowing that for the rest of my life, I’m going to have crazy thoughts and fears, but I have tools now to decide what I do with them when they pop into my head. And for me, this podcast is so much fun because finally there’s a use for them instead of them making me crazy and sad--
Jen: --right--
Paul: I can feel connected to somebody. So maybe it’s like the little earthquake that this is the little party in the courtyard after the earthquake.
Jen: Oh, that’s true, yeah.
Paul: How cheesy is that?
Jen: No, it’s very sweet.
Paul: Yeah, well, Jen, thank you so much for letting me redo this. Our interview, after two botched attempts.
Jen: [Laughs]
Paul: I think we finally got it right, and I had so much fun talking to you. That might be my favorite fear-off so far.
Jen: Oh, good, okay,
Paul: That was good.
Jen: I think a lot of your fears are okay.
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: I think you don’t have it so bad. That was good hearing yours, because I can--
Paul: --I’m just starting to dig. I’m just starting to dig.
Jen: Oh, okay, well it’s fun to hear someone else’s that has the same fear as you, because when someone else says it you laugh, you go, ‘You’ll be fine.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: So then you’re, ‘Oh, I can talk to myself that way if I want.’
Paul: Yeah.
Jen: Well thank you, yeah, it was fun.
Paul: And is there anything you want to plug before we go?
Jen: Oh, I have a CD out called Hail to the Freaks.
Paul: Cool.
Jen: And it’s -- you can buy it on iTunes or Amazon, and I hope that people do. They will enjoy it I think.
Paul: I am sure they will. And if you’re out there and you’re stuck, there is hope, and just remember, you are not alone. Thanks Jen.
Jen: Thank you.
[End of recording]
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