Paul interviews Grey DeLisle, one of the most in-demand VO (voice over) actors in Hollywood. She’s the voice of Daphne on Scooby Doo, Azula on Avatar: The Last Airbender. They talk about pervy relatives, her date with a pervy celebrity, and breaking the cycle of bad parenting. You can follow her on Twitter @greydelisle
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Paul: (Introduction) A quick note before I play the, uh, the interview that I did with Grey DeLisle, she told a story about going on a date with a celebrity that was not very flattering towards the celebrity and while I appreciate Grey’s honesty, I didn’t want to get into any kind of legal trouble should that person decide to sue me because they have a lot of money and I don’t and I’m a pussy. So, enjoy the podcast.
Paul: Welcome to the Mental Illness Happy Hour, I’m here with Grey DeLisle in her beautiful condominium — and can I tell them what city we’re in?
Grey: Sure!
Paul: We’re in Pasadena, California. I don’t know, there might be stalkers out there, you’re a very popular lady on the television. I should have asked you these questions before I came and ‘TURNED THE MACHINE ON’, but give our listener some of your credits since I was such a douchebag and forgot to do that at the top —
Grey: You didn’t research me, Paul?
Paul: Yeah, uh —
Grey: You need to do your research?
Paul: Well, here’s what I do know is that you are basically working from nine to five every day, running around recording voiceovers for animation, commercials, etcetera, etcetera. Correct?
Grey: Yeah.
Paul: Okay. So give us, uh, some of the big ones that you’ve done.
Grey: Um. I’m Daphne on Scooby Doo, which is probably my biggest, most recognizable thing...and I do Azula on Avatar and, um, I did Betty Rubble once.
Paul: You did? What was that for?
Grey: For, um, like On The Rocks. It was a ‘Flinstones Reunion! On The Rocks!’ or something, I don’t know. It was a big honor, though, because I grew up, you know, watching that. I was Emily Elizabeth on Clifford The Big Red Dog. I’m Wubbzy on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, but you have to have little children, Paul. If you had little children you would be losing your shit right now!
Paul: It doesn’t count if I’m a pedophile? That — just *really* liking children —
Grey: Then you’d have done research, wouldn’t you?
Paul: Well, it’s interesting the way that I met you...we both go to the same coffee place, Pete’s Coffee, in Studio City —
Grey: Don’t tell them where! Don’t tell them where!
Paul: *laughs* I can rest assured that nobody is interested personally in me out there.
Grey: But I’m there!
Paul: Oh, that’s true. Have you ever had a stalker?
Grey: Not...not a ‘stranger’ one. Ones that I’ve dated.
Paul: Not one that didn’t make you come?
Grey: *laughter* I have standards for my stalkers.
Paul: But you came up to me and said that you had seen me in doing Richard Martin, you know, the Republican character, and you gave me a very nice compliment. And then I bumped into you, like, a week later at a Word Girl party, which my wife had written for—
Grey: Mmhmm, Word Girl.
Paul: And we started talking again and you were saying how you related to the character so much — it struck such a chord in you because the home you that you grew up in, your mom could have easily been one of Richard Martin’s wives and you started channeling your mom and I was like, “She’s perfect. She is perfect!”
Grey: My mom, I mean just, when I first saw Jazz, I was laughing louder than anyone at the UCB Theater. It was a little alarming to people next to me. I mean, everyone was laughing but not like me. I was laughing from a deep place of sadness and frustration. Yeah, my mom, I was telling you that night at the Word Girl thing, my mom always is gossiping but she, you know, cloaks it as prayer. “You know, who we need to pray for, is Janice because her husband is having a terrible affair. And I don’t know who this person is but we really need to keep her in prayer because I heard...” and you know, she just goes on and on. And she’ll say, “Oh bless you heart, bless her heart” after whatever really horrible... “And that little girl, that little girl over there is just so fat! Bless her heart. I don’t know WHAT they’re feeding her!”
Paul: Well, what I love, and I’m sorry if I’m being a little inside for people that aren’t familiar with what I’m taking about, but there’s a Republican character that I do and he’s a satire on not ALL Republicans, but the kind of far-right nut-jobs and you have (had?) started performing with me as my wife, but you bring a completely different kind of character than Maria Bamford does as Jazz. They’re both great, but you’re, you bring this...I don’t know, this...I don’t even know how to describe the qualitude of it, but it’s so REAL. So being a talented voiceover person, obviously you have studied people and their voices for a long, long time. Let’s go back to the beginning and describe for me, if you would, what your environment was like at home growing up.
Grey: Well my mom and dad were really young when they got married, 19, and they had me when they were 20, and my dad went into the Army, so my mom, you know, fooled around and left and my dad was pretty devastated. And then my mom, you know, she’s young and she wants to party, so she kind of dropped me off at my grandmother and didn’t look back for quite a while. So she partied pretty hard, you know, alcohol and drugs and um, and fun. And I just grew up with grandma and my mom would visit, you know... I lived with my mom sometimes, but I don’t have a lot of memories of being with my mom when I was younger than... The first time I remember being, like, living with my mom was maybe when I was maybe 11? But yeah.
Paul: That must have really fucked with your head, though, you know, having both parents kind of disappear on you. I mean, I know kids don’t consciously think to themselves, ‘I’ve been abandoned’, or do you? Is that something that does—
Grey: I remember at, like, parent-teacher things I... I don’t remember anyone being there...I remember my mom coming once with her creepy, druggy boyfriend and they were doing some kind of a drug that was making my mom really thirsty and she kept, like, drinking out of the drinking fountain—
Paul: And this was your mom who’s very Christian—
Grey: Very religious now! Of course. Isn’t that how it works, Paul?
Paul: Well, you know, for some people, it really, if that’s what gets them to clean up and straighten up, I say more power to ‘em. But if they then just use that to say, ‘Oh I’m not a bad person, I go to church’, then I’m like, ‘fuck you, no you’re just hiding behind your religion’. But if they do genuinely change—
Grey: I feel like it’s like it’s another addiction. And I mean, and I go to church, but I feel like it’s cynical all the time. But I feel like I’m pretty Jesus-y for somebody who makes come (cunt?) jokes quite a bit. I’m a dichotomy. When people at work actually found out that I taught Sunday School for a short time they were just horrified cause I’m all about the pussy jokes.
Paul: Have you ever — do you feel like you have ever gotten in touch with the pain or the anger that might be in there at your parents for not being there?
Grey: I’ve touched on it. But I just—
Paul: What did it feel like? Was it scary?
Grey: Well, it is a little scary, especially what brought it out was being a mom cause I have a four-year-old. I, he’s so...he’s so sensitive, he remembers everything, he knows exactly...he knows the tone of a room or the tone of a conversation and he’ll ask, “Who’re you talking to on the phone?! Are you talking about me?” I mean he’s just, I just think, ‘God, I hope I wasn’t that perceptive when I was a little kid’. That’s kind of what just brought it all home and that’s when I got into some heavy therapy because I was just crying if I couldn’t be at every sock-puppet show or at his school, it was just the end of the world. I remember I joined this little baby group when he was maybe six months old or something and I couldn’t go once and I had to send the babysitter to go with and I just felt like the most horrible person and I was bawling and I was telling his dad that I just couldn’t, and he couldn’t go either cause he was, he still is, a musician - we’re not together anymore, but he’s still a musician - and he tours around quite a bit—
Paul: Can I tell ‘em who he plays for?
Grey: Yeah!
Paul: He plays bass for The Old-97’s, correct?
Grey: Mmhmm. And sings, yeah. Um, but yeah. We’re great, great, very close friends and we get along great, but um yeah. He was just like, “God, yeah, it’s just not that big a deal. It’s one baby class, he’s six-months-old!” And I was just like, ‘Yeah, but nobody was ever there for me and nobody showed up and I don’t wanna be’...it was just so much bigger than this silly little baby class. But, um. My dad TRIED to be there for me but he was you know...my mom kind of kept him away.
Paul: God, that’s so awful, and I’m reading Ashley Judd’s autobiography—
Grey: Did you say ‘Ashley Jug’?
Paul: Did I say ‘jug’?!
Grey: I thought...I don’t know. *laughing* That’s my thing.
Paul: I’m reading her autobiography and she, uh, basically, it’s the same deal. Mom and dad didn’t—
Grey: We’re so attractive, that’s the thing that’s the same about us.
Paul: You ARE both attractive! You are both attractive. But she got in touch with those feelings that she had towards her mother, well, what happened with her situation was her mom had lied all along saying that, um, her father was also the father of her older sister when in reality her older sister had been fathered by a different father and she had been trying to keep this lie going forever and put Ashley between that and her sister. But anyway I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get into that whole thing.
Grey: This isn’t about Ashley, Paul.
Paul: *laughing*
Grey: Can we focus on the more important person?
Paul: No, I’m gonna abandon you and start talking about Ashley. I think you’ve been nurtured enough. So, you touched into those...how hurtful that was?
Grey: Well, yeah, I think I might...let’s talk about Ashley more. I think that I could relate with cause my mom is BEAUTIFUL and very talented and very charismatic and I still, I mean we are very close, and we get along great, even though we have completely different ideas about things.
Paul: Do you think she’s a little narcissistic, or no?
Grey: A lot of people do...if my mom hears this, she’s gonna die. But, uh, she doesn’t even know how to, she doesn’t even have a computer. But um, no uh, a lot of people...she is very, I don’t know...when they hear the stories about me growing up, they get an idea about her and then they meet her and she is so charming that they just go, “Oh! Well, all that’s in the past.” And for a while, I tried to let it go a little bit, but she would just say, “Oh, well, I’m forgiven for all that. Jesus forgives me for that, so.” And I was thinking, ‘Well what about ME?! Do I get to forgive you, or...cause you didn’t leave Jesus with crazy people while you left’—
Paul: Who were some of the crazy people that she left you with?
Grey: Um...some relatives that probably weren’t good to be leaving your kid with. You know, just abusive people.
Paul: Like in what way were they abusive? Were they sexually abusive?
Grey: Mmm...yeah, yeah...
Paul: Really?
Grey: I don’t remember much of it, but I definitely know yeah, yeah...
Paul: Wow, you had a lot on your plate as a little kid. So how old were you at this point?
Grey: Um, four?
Paul: Oh my god.
Grey: Yeah, yeah. So I don’t really remember much. But I remember somebody showing me their hands and telling me, “If you tell your parents what happened I’m gonna, I’m not gonna...my hands, these hands are big scary hands” or whatever.
Paul: Oh my god, that’s so awful! That’s so awful.
Grey: I know. And when I was in therapy, my therapist said, “You’re just so flippant about the things that have happened to you.”
Paul: You don’t seem to be doing that now.
Grey: Oh, really? Good. Cause I feel like—
Paul: But I do get the feeling that there’s a part of you that is, uh, kind of bubbly because you’re afraid that Angry Grey is gonna come out and maybe the room won’t be so fun.
Grey: Maybe...
Paul: Is that a correct assessment?
Grey: Well, from being in therapy for a long time, I realize that, well, she said that I talk and then that bubbliness is a defense mechanism of, you know, being accepted and not allowing people even the room to reject me.
Paul: That makes sense.
Grey: I don’t know... She was a pretty good therapist. I’ve had therapists where I’m like, ‘Eh, whatever...” It seems like it’s the problem where you’re just like, ‘Good guess! But no.’ But she was pretty...this one that I went to. She was expensive, but she was really good.
Paul: Yeah, yeah. And so you were raised by relatives and kind of crazy people from four ‘til when?
Grey: ‘Til I was about, well, when I was 13 I moved in with my mom and her abusive husband and um, he’s still in my life, and we have an up-and-down, you know, he...I feel bad for him. He actually begged for my forgiveness at one point. He went to one of those Promise Keepers thing that everyone’s got an opinion on, but for him I think it was a really great thing.
Paul: At least he’s trying. At least he’s trying to do something.
Grey: Yeah, and you know, I...I mean, I don’t really remember the abuse much, so I don’t think it affected me...I don’t know.
Paul: In what ways...was this your stepfather?
Grey: Physically, yeah. I mean—
Paul: Oh, he hit you?
Grey: Yeah. And just raged. He was a rager. I mean, you never knew what you were going home to. He threw our Christmas tree, you know, across the living room, and yeah. I remember I was about to have friends over and I had bought all the decorations myself because I’m kind of...I like things a certain way, in case you haven’t noticed.
Paul: Yeah, you have the COOLEST apartment.
Grey: But I wanted a certain decorations, so I went and bought ‘em all and decorated the tree and I had some friends that were coming over - I think I was like 15 - and he was mad about something, I don’t remember what it was, but he picked up the Christmas tree with his bare hands and threw it across the room and there was shattered glass just all over the place and I was just afraid for people to come over. His parents were both alcoholics so I think even though he didn’t drink much he just, he just had that -ism. You know?
Paul: Yeah, cause it’s funny. You don’t have to be a drinker to have that rage inside you. Sometimes just being the kid of a drinker is enough to just fill you with that anxiety. Because the drinking isn’t really about the drinking, it’s about the anxiety that’s underneath it and, you know, escaping from that. You know that’s funny, they say that everything is about sex except sex?
Grey: *laughter*
Paul: I always think that is so funny but like—
Grey: Sex is the only place I feel uninhibited and free.
Paul: Really?
Grey: Yeah! I mean, I don’t have sex with a lot of people...I have a really dirty mouth a lot of times and I’m able to talk about things that are...people are like, “oh my god I can’t believe you said that!” But so they think, “oh she must be easy” or “she must...” But I’m really not, not at all, really. I think people get excited when they go out with me thinking, “She’s gonna”—
Paul: “It’s gonna be a CRAZY night!”
Grey: Yeah, like, “It’s a sure thing!” But no. I just...I don’t know... But when I am monogamous with somebody I don’t have any hangups about sex. That’s, like, kind of the one area that I’m like, I feel like free to play—
Paul: That’s awesome because somebody that’s been through what you’ve been through could easily be completely shut down sexually.
Grey: It just feels like a playful place, I’m very playful. I don’t know.
Paul: That’s awesome, because from what I understand, people that’ve been sexually molested either shut down sexually or become hyper-sexual, that it’s rare that somebody strikes that balance. So that’s cool.
Grey: Well my therapist was talking about that, too, and she says that I kind of went the hyper-sexual way but I never “closed the deal”. I just wanna be...I just wanna be wanted. And you know, that’s what it’s about it.
Paul: Yes. You know, I get that. I totally get that. Cause it’s not really about the sex, it’s about—
Grey: I guess I’m a big tease, but when I do...I do sometimes do that with people, but not often, and it always has to be committed cause I think I have too much of an ego to be a whore. I don’t have enough self-esteem to be easy!
Paul: You’re gonna hang on to what little self-esteem you have left!
Grey: It’s true! I gotta really be wanted and really be worshipped.
Paul: So you seem pretty self-aware about what you’ve gone through and it seems like you’ve obviously done some work on yourself to get to this point where you’re comfortable with who you are and you aren’t letting what happened to you define you. Because I think that’s why so many people get stuck is they may know, ‘hey, you know, this fucked me up’ but they don’t know how to move beyond it. They don’t know how to forgive the people that harmed them. Have you ever gotten to a place where you forgive that guy that molested you?
Grey: Yeah.
Paul: You did?
Grey: Yeah. Absolutely. Well he had a crazy life, too—
Paul: So what did you think or say to yourself...walk us through that.
Grey: Well, the thing is that because I don’t really remember it that much, I just feel like, ‘you poor person were shut down by your family your whole life and you...‘ He was a terrible alcoholic. He died when he was 44 of drinking himself to death. Like his stomach...it was like Leaving Las Vegas.
Paul: You would probably have to if you were a pedophile.
Grey: I think was it that? Or were you just...I don’t know. But I have sympathy, like, ‘You just hated yourself so much that you just didn’t eat.’ He didn’t eat for, like, two months and just died.
Paul: Wow.
Grey: He decided he was doin’ it. So, yeah. And yeah, it was a thing that he had done to mom and I don’t wanna out anyone else in the family... But I don’t really remember the actual thing...I mean, probably if I remembered it more, I would have some anger about it, but I have more anger, I had more trouble forgiving my step-dad for what he put me through in high school. But he had fall-down-drunk parents that he almost killed when he was seven. Like, he was walking around the house with a can of gasoline when he was, like, seven or eight.
Paul: What?!
Grey: Yeah. Cause his parents were really horribly...his dad, like, shot his dog in front of him.—
Paul: Are you kidding?!
Grey: And ran over his tricycle because he had gotten grease on his pants, yeah ran it over with a car.
Paul: Jesus.
Grey: I mean, just. He also saved up a bunch of money to restore this...he really loves old cars, my mom’s husband, and his dad...one day he came home, he had restored, he had spent all of his paper-route money and lawn-mowing money fixing this car and when he got home one day it wasn’t there and his dad had a bunch of money in his pocket and his dad had just sold it, out from under him.
Paul: Jesus.
Grey: Yeah, ugh, the amount of rage...I’m mad about that! So, but, you know, he was terribly abusive to me, and I mean, my mom didn’t really protect me cause she was so afraid of being alone and abandoned and I’m sure she had a whole thing of issues that I...and I remember being physically, like, he was on top of me hitting me and my mom was going like, “What did you do? What did you do?”
Paul: To you?! ‘What did you do to make him so mad?!’
Grey: Yes. *laughing*
Paul: ‘Why were you so bad?’ Ugh.
Grey: Yeah, and I saw the The Burning Bed, or something in high school or whatever—
Paul: And you were like, ‘Yeeeeah!’
Grey: Hey, you know, I got my little sayings, ‘I could never have been good enough’, and now I understand that. Or maybe it wasn’t in high school, I guess I was a little kid.
Paul: How are you today with caring what people think?
Grey: It’s...it consumes me. *laughing*
Paul: It’s good, that’s so good that you can admit that, though, it’s still, I’m still that way, I care more than I should. I have days when I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks, but—
Grey: I don’t have those days, Paul.
Paul: They’re nice! They’re nice. It’s like a holiday from your head, but, um, what are some of the things that you’re afraid people will say or think about you? If you can think of any.
Grey: Well, my grandmother was a great, really positive influence in my life. I mean, if I hadn’t had her I don’t know what I would do. I think that’s why I’m such a vintage girl, I’ve always got the red lipstick and the purses and that’s why this place is all decorated like 1940’s and, you know, I think that I just identified so much with her because she was such a stable influence in my life and she was an amazing singer, she used to sing with Tito Puente and she was just glamorous and sweet and solid.
Paul: Is that where you got your musical chops from? Because we should also mention that you’re a recording artist who has done a couple of amazing albums. You have a beautiful singing voice—
Grey: Thank you, Paul. She was a singer and my mom was a singer, so yeah, it just kind of came out of the family. A very musical family.
Paul: So you feel like she kind of was your rock?
Grey: She was my rock. Definitely. And she was a great parent. A lot of the things I do with my son I do because my grandma said, like if he wants something at a store and he’s making a fuss, she would just take me outside and go, “Well we’ll just wait for you to cry and then we’ll go back in” and I just think, ‘well this isn’t doing what I wanted to do...’ and you only have to do that once or twice before the kids they just know that when you ask, that when they ask for things, that you’re just not gonna get it. That whining’s not going to work, that’s what she taught me. But on the other hand, she’s very superficial and very like, you have to look a certain way and keep yourself up...I mean she’s always, I mean when I see her she always makes me feel good about myself but she puts so much, um, emphasis on looks. She’s always like, (in a Mexican accent) “Oh keep your figure, keep your figure, don’t get fat. And people don’t like it when”—
Paul: Does she have an accent?
Grey: Oh yeah, she’s Mexican. Yeah, so she’s like, “Majita, don’t ever get chubby, stay that way, don’t ever get old.” And I’m like, ‘Well..‘ That’s not advice I can really run with! And if I don’t have lipstick on or don’t have makeup on or don’t, you know...she’s like, “Oh you look dead, you look terrible. Put something on, something!” So as soon as I do go to the store without looking, I’ll see someone from high school and go, ‘ah darn-it, she was right!‘ But, I am terrified...‘don’t let it go, don’t let yourself go!’
Paul: I understand that and it’s gotta be double for women cause our society is so, I don’t know, much more critical physically of women than men. I think we’re slowly starting to catch up to you in that category.
Grey: You’re gettin’, like, chest implants. Well, not you personally—
Paul: No I just happen to have had chest implants, very subtle ones.
Grey: You’re a nice full C, Paul. Yeah, but no, she used to tell stories about how she never used to have to pay for car repairs because she was so beautiful and she would, like, cause car accidents. She was gorgeous, she was like Rita Hayworth or something and she just said, “You know, then just one day, it isn’t your turn anymore. And then one day you know, a young man who’s handsome just comes by you and you straighten up and you realize ‘you’re not looking at me, I’m an older lady’.” And she said, “I remember when I first had to pay for a car repair I was like 45 years old and I was indignant...”
Paul: Really?!
Grey: Yeah she goes, “I was irate, I could not believe they were gonna charge me for the car!”
Paul: Oh my god, and is she still around or did she pass away?
Grey: Oh no, she’s around, she’s 86. We’re going to Las Vegas this weekend.
Paul: Are you really?!
Grey: Yeah, she’s crazy. We...I love to dance, I love to swing dance and do all that old-fashioned dancing like shag dancing and the Lindy and all that so I take her out to all the Lindy places and the Jitterbug and she just has a ball.
Paul: That’s fantastic.
Grey: And she stays out ‘til two! She’ll out-dance me, she does not want to leave. She goes, “I love being with you, because you don’t treat me like an old lady. The rest of the family treats me like an old lady.” And I probably should treat her like an older lady than she is because I do kind of drag her around.
Paul: What’s interesting, is that a lot of people who are really good at voices and accents have a parent who was not from this country.
Grey: Oh I didn’t even really think of that.
Paul: Yeah, Mike Myers...his dad was from England, and there’s, there’s a half-a-dozen other people that I’ve noticed had a parent from—
Grey: (voice actor’s name indecipherable to my ears)—
Paul: Yes!
Grey: I worked with him on a lot...we do, I do grandma and he does his mom, and we go back and forth.
Paul: My favorite character that you do is the woman on your answering machine. Tell that story, if you would.
Grey: Yeah, a lot of people call...there’s an old-woman voice on my answering machine and I can’t, I really don’t remember what my machine says, but something like, (in a stereotype of an old lady’s voice) ‘Hello. You’ve reached Grey DeLisle. She can’t come to the...you just leave a message...’ and then I have an imaginary conversation with my grandson or someone who’s helping me run the machine, ‘I don’t know how to do it now...you just push the?’ And then it just goes, BEEEEP.
Paul: That is such a brilliant voice, it is so detailed! I can picture that lady’s apartment, I can picture the dish of hard candy that’s been there, I can you know...and she probably drinks wine out of a box, you know.
Grey: She’s Kathy Griffin’s mom! It’s funny when people call, they’re really careful with me, if they don’t know me, ‘Hello? Mrs. DeLisle? This is the bank calling, we just want to make sure you made that deposit..’ and it’s really loud and careful and um or men that I meet, if I give out my number or something? I can tell if I’m gonna like them just based on their reaction to that cause just some are...’uh, I met you at the Starbucks...and I’m actually leaving town for a little while, but I guess I’ll just give you a call when I get back...‘ They leave no number. I call her “Verna”, that voice. I use it in cartoons sometimes, as like a random old lady and she went to church. And the lady’s name wasn’t Verna, but she said “VERNA!” really loud in church. The pastor, I was raised in a Pentecostal church once my mom married my step-dad and there was a lady who was in our church who would try, who had, like, a 55-year-old assistant that she would go to church with and she probably did her shopping with her and stuff and drove her around and so you’d always hear the old lady talking really loud and the assistant talking really softly. So the old lady would complain if the service went even one minute past what time it was gonna, so she would say, (old lady voice again) ‘he’s taking a long time!’ (whispering as the assistant) ‘well he’s just taking his time he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do’ (old lady voice) ‘well, I hope so..’ (assistant whispering) ‘he’ll be finished soon’ (old lady voice) ‘well, I hope so, I’ve got people coming!’
Paul: *loud laughter*
Grey: And one day he asked everybody to, he said you know, ‘we’ve got a lot of parishioners who are sick and at home and couldn’t be at the service today and I just want to take a moment to keep them in prayer so if everyone could just bow their heads and say the name of your friend or relative, say their name softly to yourself’ and that lady was sitting right behind me and all I heard was, (old lady voice) ‘VERNA!!!!!!‘ And everybody started laughing.
Paul: Oh my god, that’s so fantastic.
Grey: So anyway...
Paul: What do you think...people who are really talented at doing voices, so many of them seem to be a little...disturbed. I don’t know any other way to put it, I’m just gonna put it right on the table.
Grey: I call it “the carney folk”! I’m not one of them, Paul, I’m one of the eloquent, sweet—
Paul: I don’t think of you, I don’t think of you as disturbed, but I think of you as having an anxiety, there’s an anxiety in there that the voices relieve. Is that, am I—
Grey: There’s a crazy crackling inside.
Paul: When did you start finding comfort in doing voices, or notice that you were good at it?
Grey: I can’t even remember when I didn’t. I mean, I’ve always done voices. I’ve done little baby voices...my mom does voices a lot. We would do ‘em back and forth, we would make recordings of ourselves on tapes, doing little girls talking back and forth to each other. My mom does a pretty good one and I remember, ah, this was probably one of my oldest memories, I was probably like six? Did I say ‘membries’? You know, my (in southern accent) ‘MEMBRIES’.
Paul: You ‘member!
Grey: Anyway, I was in like, first grade or something and I decided, ‘I’m gonna practice my screams!’ and so I took the hall pass and went to the little girls’ bathroom and just screamed bloody murder for, like, a few minutes. And a janitor and a teacher and, like, three adults running into the bathroom like, ‘what are you, what’s going on what’s going on!’ and I immediately just started crying cause they were so upset and so...and I felt bad and I was what just happened and so then I remember them just asking me, they were like, ‘what were you DOING in here?’ and I said (in a whimpering little girl crying voice), I was practicing my screams!!’ And they said, ‘why would you do that?’ and I said (in whimpering little girl crying voice), ‘I don’t know’.
Paul: *laughter*
Grey: I just always knew and I scream at least twice a week for money because, like, I don’t know. It’s something that a lot of voice actors like, I don’t know...
Paul: It’s a scared scream or an angry scream?
Grey: I can...whatever you like.
Paul: Really!
Grey: But I do a really good, if I say so myself, my specialty is really just that 1950’s horror movie, just that gut-wrenching, terrified wailing scream. I just did it the other day, I was working with Paget Brewster. She was doing Batman with us and I did a scream and everybody was like, ‘whoa’ and she just said, “I don’t know where that comes from, I don’t know if I could just do that on, out of nowhere.” And I can. It’s right there! It’s so close.
Paul: If you don’t mind, I would love to have you be the first guest to take the survey that I have on the website. (speaking to audience) If you haven’t gone to the website, it’s mental-pod-dot-com and there’s message boards that you can go on and there is also a survey that you can take and, uh, (speaking to Grey again) it’s been really interesting because I’ve had some listeners take the survey and it’s really cool when people take a survey anonymously, which you won’t be doing, to hear some of the stuff that they reveal. Um, I think I already know what sex you are—
Grey: Transgender?
Paul: And I know how old you are...yeah, I decided to put “transgender” down for sex cause, you know, I thought—
Grey: Yeah, I respected that when I saw that portion. I’m 37.
Paul: Which best describes your drug slash alcohol intake? And anti-depressants wouldn’t count as drugs.
Grey: You know, I don’t even take aspirin. I’ve never had a drink in my life and I’ve never done drugs...oh, actually, I did mushrooms once.
Paul: So, ‘rarely touch either’, you would put for that one?
Grey: Yeah.
Paul: Um. What best describes the environment you were raised in? “Stable and safe” - we can check that one off! - “a little dysfunctional”...NOPE. So it’s either “pretty dysfunctional” or “totally chaotic”...
Grey: Yeah, I think “totally chaotic”. *laughing*
Paul: But it’s paying dividends with a beautiful voice-over career! And some nice period furniture. I’m basically sitting on your dirty uncle right now.
Grey: *laughing* So did I.
Paul: *laughing* (reading from survey) Have you ever been through therapy more than 20 sessions?
Grey: Yes.
Paul: (from survey) Describe any behaviors you wish that you didn’t engage in but you do anyway. This is one that is might make it a little tough because you’re not anonymous.
Grey: Well, yeah, I mean...
Paul: Is there anything that you’re afraid that you wanna withhold that’s too embarrassing that you wanna put there?
Grey: No, I’m pretty accepting of all my faults because of all the programs that I’ve been through. I had to make a list of them! I, uh, ah, brag a lot and I try not to, but I do. Especially if I like someone and I want them to think that I’m really great. I mean, and of course, it’s so transparent and I know that they know—
Paul: Isn’t it awful when you catch yourself doing it? I find myself doing it if I’m in a room, if I’m in a green room, and there’s a bunch of comedians who are, you know, more successful than I am, which is not hard, I find myself getting, like, a panicky feeling like ‘ME TOO! ME TOO! I did this one thing, does it measure up?! I mean that’s basically what I’m doing!’ It’s so, so sad.
Grey: If I know someone that someone knows that’s kind of an important person, I want to make sure that they know that I know that person. Yeah I mean, it’s so, for a long time, before I really did, you know, some self analysis, I didn’t realize how ‘everyone knows what you’re doing, Grey, they can see it’ but I just thought—
Paul: You’re always the last to know that you’re a pompous ass, that you’re a braggart, you’re selfish, yeah.
Grey: And that’s why around people, men that I have no interest in, men that I’m not interested in at all think I’m great because I’m just myself and I’m just relaxed and I can be charming.
Paul: I guess you’re not interested in me! *laughing*
Grey: *laughter* You are married, so that was taken away early. But no, but uh—
Paul: That was a compliment towards you that, yes, I find you to be, to be very...because that really surprised me that you said you sometimes brag because you seem quite the opposite way to me with, you seem very humble, humble about all the amazing stuff that you’ve done.
Grey: In front of people that I’m not trying to, you know, that I feel like they accept me and I feel relaxed, I’m great, I feel like I’m a good person! But if it’s any bit of attraction there and I’m just a mess. I also, aloof and almost off-putting. Like I act like I don’t like them at all. I’m mean and I brag a lot. So yeah, not very datable.
Paul: A cunt, basically!
Grey: A neverendingly empty cunt. That cannot be filled.
Paul: You so are not. I mean it’s amazing what you’ve, what you’ve come out the other side of and fortunately for you it’s probably fed your creativity and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast because there does seem to be a relationship between really creative people and emotional pain, it seems to drive art somehow.
Grey: I’m always glad when I hear somebody that wasn’t, didn’t go through a bunch of shit and is actually really creative and great because sometimes when I’m raising my son I think, ‘I wonder if he’ll be interesting because he’s having kind of a nice life, mm, I don’t know...what can I do to throw a little’—
Paul: Or, who knows, maybe he’ll be a spoiled little fuck because you, you’re you don’t ever want him to experience not going to the movie or being at his PTA thing or whatever.
Grey: Yeah, I know!
Paul: It seems like every generation swings too hard the other way, to make up for what their parents did.
Grey: I try to say “no” a lot, like, I don’t...like, I say “no” 80% of the time. So whenever I do say “yes” he’s just so over the moon about it that he can’t believe it.
Paul: That’s great.
Grey: And now I feel bad about it because now I feel like he’s sort of, you know, a fatalist about things. He’ll go, when he’s asking me for things, “Can I have a Whopper or no?”
Paul: *laughter*
Grey: He’ll, he answers the question for me. “Can I go across the street to Cooper’s house to play, or no?”
Paul: That’s so adorable. Let’s continue, you were just describing behaviors you wish you didn’t engage in, but you do anyway...
Grey: Bragging...
Paul: Being aloof sometimes.
Grey: Being aloof to people, I guess I just want their approval so much that I’m just terrified that I’ll reject them.
Paul: Any, like, non-verbal activities that you engage in?
Grey: Um...
Paul: Like, I don’t know, like overeating...uh, you know...stealing...
Grey: I like sugar. No, no stealing.
Paul: You wouldn’t admit that anyway. Who would? Who would admit—
Grey: When I was little I stole all the time—
Paul: I think all kids do, though.
Grey: It was for a man, though. I liked this boy in class named Jack and I stole a heart-pin that said “I love Jack” from the Hallmark store.
Paul: During my stealing phase, I would not steal just a pack of—do you remember Whacky Packages? No, you were too young to remember them, but they were in the 70’s, the stupidiest things you could ever collect and I was, you know, being an alcoholic, having an alcoholic brain at that age, I wouldn’t steal a pack, I would steal the entire box and then sit on the curb outside Ben Franklin and open them all and eat all the gum. Like 30 pieces of gum, in my mouth. Yeah. Good kid. So do you feel like we answered that one, ‘describe any behaviors you wish you didn’t engage in’?
Grey: I wish I didn’t love, I love coffee so much.
Paul: Oh, that’s a pussy one.
Grey: Yeah...
Paul: Oh, please.
Grey: Yeah I know, it’s like, ‘I wish I wasn’t so nice to everybody all the time, I’m probably a little too nice’.
Paul: Yeah (kindly mocking), ‘yeah, I put a little too much cinnamon in my tea and it’s so you know but I have to have my tea!’ All right.
Grey: It’s like on job interviews. ‘What are your weaknesses?’
Paul: ‘Well, I care too much.’
Grey: ‘Sometimes I try too hard.’
Paul: ‘I have too many angels around me.‘ (reading from survey again) Do you believe some person, place or thing is keeping you from being happy? If so, what?
Grey: Me, sometimes. But I mean, I’m pretty happy. But sometimes I feel like I talk too much and I think I put people off sometimes. I don’t know. My friends probably would disagree, I have a lot of people who go, “Oh you’re great, I love you, I loved you from the minute I met you” but sometimes I do feel like I’m a little bit much for some people but then the other part of my brain goes, ‘ah, fuck them, they don’t get me.’ So I dunno know, um, if anything, me. I’m definitely not a blamer. That’s one thing, you know, the whole when I went through my Al-Anon program - that’s a program of (indecipherable) so I probably shouldn’t be promoting it right now but um yeah I uh I was never in that ‘it’s their fault!’, I was always like, ‘I did it, it’s my fault!’
Paul: People do seem to fall into one of two camps.
Grey: A lot of times people step on my feet and I’m like, ‘I’m sorry!’
Paul: ‘I shouldn’t have put my shoes there!’
Grey: Yeah, I know, ‘I put my feet in them!’ Yeah, my therapist, I remember, one of my first therapists when I was, like, in high school or something...I’ve been in therapy a long time, um, was just like, “You know, you apologize too much.” And I went, “I do?! I’m sorry!” I immediately apologized.
Paul: I don’t know if I’ve shared this on the podcast yet, but I caught somebody, a workman - we were having hardwood floors put in our house, and I caught a workman stealing a CD of mine and I was so afraid of confrontation, I pretended that I didn’t see it. How awful is that? And I didn’t even fire them from the job and I was like, ‘I need help, this is, this is not good. This is really not good.’ I didn’t wanna embarrass him in front of the other co-workers! How little do you care about yourself when you let something like that happen?
Grey: I could tell you, cause I...’oh, you shouldn’t have, don’t confront him in front of his friends...’
Paul: ‘He SHOULD have Led Zeppelin II! There’s some great cuts on there!’
Grey: ‘Why can’t he have nice things?’
Paul: Yeah. Uh. So. (back to survey) Rate your typical bad mood, typical good mood, and your most common mood from one to ten, one being “attempted suicide” and ten being “enthusiastic about life, peaceful, purposeful, at-one-with-the-universe”.
Grey: I’m a pretty bubbly, happy person. And I feel like it’s a genuine feeling—
Paul: So which one, let’s start with your most typical bad mood, where would that be on the one to ten?
Grey: I hardly ever am in a bad mood, hardly ever, but when I am, it is so abysmal, it is so, like, ‘I am not gonna be able to pull out of this.’ Like that kind of feeling, and it only happens every once every three years or something.
Paul: Okay, well, I’m gonna read them from the bottom to the top and you tell me where to stop when it sounds like it’s your typical mood.
Grey: Okay.
Paul: (reading from survey) “Attempted suicide?” Better than that?
Grey: I faked it once when I was in high school.
Paul: Okay. Number two would be “fantasizing about suicide constantly”. Number three would be “profoundly depressed, sometimes thinking about suicide”.
Grey: Ahh, I’d say there.
Paul: You’d say there? Okay.
Grey: But I really wouldn’t. I really wouldn’t, flirting with it, I would never really do it.
Paul: Okay, so you were thinking about it...when I was at my worst, that’s where I was.
Grey: Yeah, it was only like once and maybe every few years I just get in a dark place.
Paul: Then your typical good mood. Obviously I read what number ten would be, um, number nine would be “excited about life, able to accept almost everything that life brings.”
Grey: Yeah, that’s about right.
Paul: About right? Okay.
Grey: Yeah, I’m pretty sturdy. I’m a sturdy personality.
Paul: And then, your most common mood. Where do you think that would be?
Grey: Um, that one.
Paul: That one?
Grey: Yeah!
Paul: So your good mood is your most common mood!
Grey: It is! Oh yeah, I’m pretty sunny. And a lot of people think it’s put on, that’s one thing, when I do turn people off or people don’t like me, they think it’s—
Paul: They think you’re a phony.
Grey: That they think I’m a fake, yeah. Like, “Who’s that happy?” But I really am pretty happy!
Paul: That’s amazing.
Grey: I think that because I had such a crappy life, the first half, I feel like God sort of went, ‘let’s cut this kid a break.‘ Because things are pretty great now. I mean, I’d like to be, I’d to be in a relationship, but if I never meet anybody again, I’m happy. I have a great kid and I have a great job and really amazing friends.
Paul: That’s great!
Grey: But I mean, at this point, anybody who was added to it would just be gravy, it would just make it better.
Paul: Do you think any where you are would be possible if you hadn’t done the work on yourself and you didn’t have some sort of spiritual life?
Grey: Absolutely not. Like, that program that I was in saved my...I was just, all I would date were fall-down-drunk alcoholics and drug-addicts and try to get them better. I bought a guy a car, I moved them in with me, I was just like...it was bad. I mean, my heroin addict, my recovering heroin addict boyfriend, who is a great friend now, and he’s been sober for like 11 years or something, he’s the one who was just...he broke up with me and again he said...I was messing with his sobriety, because I needed so much attention that I would try to make him jealous and I was playing all these weird mind games and, you know, and he was just like, “This is...you’re making me kind of crazy and I’m thinking about falling off the wagon here, I’ve gotta get my...my sobriety the most important thing and I’ve gotta get away from you. And you need a program, I’ve got some places you need to go.” So I started going but, um, I said, ‘I know you don’t wanna see me anymore, but can we still have sex?’
Paul: *laughter*
Grey: It was just so...he was like, oh god, really. Just the things that I would...yeah, I was in a bad, a bad-bad place. So, I actually had a blackout because my sponsor had said, “You can’t date. Your picker’s broken, you gotta take a year off from dating.” And I was just like, ‘WHAT? Are you completely, like, out of your mind? That’s crazy!‘ And of course I didn’t listen to anything she said. So I went on a really horrible date with (actor’s name omitted)—
Paul: Oh my god!
Grey: *laughing* And actually, called, you know, one of my—
Paul: What was horrible about the date?
Grey: Well, what’s he gonna do to me, I dunno. He’s just one of those, well, hm. I was at a bar, I don’t know why, I wasn’t drinking. But his assistant came up and said, “Hey, my boss wants to buy you a drink.” And I said, ‘tell your boss that if he had any balls at all he’d come up here and ask me himself!’ And I didn’t know who he was, you know, and he came up and he was really funny and was like, “oh I’m sorry that was, yeah, lame I should’ve come up...” So, and I knew...this was a long time ago, he wasn’t in anything yet. I mean, he had been in (show/movie title omitted) at the time and he had that (title omitted) show, but I didn’t really know who he was, I just knew he looked familiar. So we ended up going out to dinner, but he was just bragging about himself...maybe it was just projection, that’s why I hated him, because he bragged about himself the whole time and he kept saying, “I’m doing, I’ve got this really big movie that I haven’t heard back on so I don’t wanna jinx it, I better not talk about it”, so I was like, ‘okay!’ moving on...and he just kept bringing it up! Like, “this pretty big thing, it’s with Nic Cage, and it’s about, you know...” And I was like, ‘okay, we won’t talk about it then...” And he goes, “Well, it’s a movie called-” but it was where the guy (plot of movie omitted)—
Paul: And then you HAVE to fuck with him at that point, when you know it’s like...somebody I know wanted me to know that they, uh, she had bought an expensive painting and I know she wanted me to ask her how much it cost so I purposely didn’t ask! She just kept saying, “It was a lot of money” and I was like, “Oh, that’s great...” “I mean, you can’t believe how much money we spent on this painting.” And I was like, “Oh, good for you.” “I MEAN, it’s ridiculous.” So eventually I think I said, “Do you want me to ask you how much you spent on it?”
Grey: Oh yeah, I’ve had people who have, I call it “going fishing”, where they just throw in the line, like, “can’t wait ‘til tomorrow!” Then I’m just like, oh all right, ‘what is it that is happening tomorrow? I know you wanna tell me what it is, so I’ll bite. I’m biting.‘ Yeah, so it was just a lot of that, and a lot of talk about yoga, and health drinks, and just boring-ass stuff. And then we got back to his house, a beautiful house, but I wasn’t that impressed with that...I’ve never been that impressed with that kind of stuff, I mean, because I date the dregs of society, Paul, who don’t have a home! I mean, not anymore, but back then. So we started kissing out by his pool and I, we, it was not at the making-out phase where pushing the head down would be something you actually might do? It was just, like, we’d been kissing for, like, ten seconds and the head-push happened—
Paul: Like, ‘blow me’?
Grey: Yes! Like pushing the back of my head—
Paul: Really?!
Grey: And I was just, like, immediately like, “What are you doing?!” And he said, “What...you don’t think I’m gonna...?” And he REALLY wanted me to stay and was just going, “oh come on!” he was kinda grabbing my arm and I was thinking like, ‘is this going south? Am I, do I need to be worried here?‘ So I turned around and I was trying to get the door open and finally he goes, “Just look at it! Just look at it!” That’s what he’s saying, behind me and I’m like, ‘what is he talking about?’ and I turn around and his pants are down around his ankles. *laughing*
Paul: Oh my god.
Grey: So I went running out of there and I called one of my fellow sponsees and I was just like, “oh my god!” and she was like, “see? You’re not supposed to be dating right now, your picking crazy people.” And then the funny thing was that I had finally gotten serious about my program and I was (indecipherable) daily like a year later and obviously I’m his type or something because he came up AGAIN and started talking to me! And I said, “You know, actually, we’ve actually been out before.” He didn’t remember me, I obviously don’t make an impact, Paul. But um I said, “We’ve actually been out before...” and he said, “Oh my god, yeah!” And I kind of explained it to him and he goes, “Give me a chance to make it up to you” and I said, “No, I’m actually kind of, I’m kind of doing some work on myself now.” And he goes, “That’s a really shitty thing to say, that you’re doing some work on yourself right now. Why don’t you tell me you just don’t want to go out with me?” And I said, “Okay, I don’t wanna go out with you.”
Paul: *laughing*
Grey: And anyway, then he got all (omitted) and I was very upset. *laughing*
Paul: Wow.
Grey: And then I ran into another guy at an audition that totally remembered me. And he goes, “remember me, Grey?” and he goes, “yeah, we went out a couple times...” and I go, “I dunno...” and he’s like, “Yeah, we wrapped Christmas presents at your house...” He was telling me where I lived—
Paul: What?! No!
Grey: Yeah, he obviously knew where I’d lived, but I don’t remember him at all. “And remember we went to get Mexican food?” and he’s telling me, and then it dawned on me that I remembered during our meal, I said, oh no, he ordered a drink and said, “I probably shouldn’t be drinking, I just got out of AA.” And I’m like, ‘you’re kidding me.’ I said, “I’m not supposed to be dating either, I just started a program...” And obviously I’m in the right place when I go to those meetings. But I had had like, a blackout! A dating blackout and it was so embarrassing because it was at a voice-over audition and we were in the room and everyone’s just like, ‘oh Grey you don’t remember this guy and he knows all about your life?’
Paul: Oh, wow.
Grey: Yeah, cause he’s just talking pretty loudly in this waiting room and me going, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you...” Oof.
Paul: Isn’t it interesting when the universe is giving you signs that you should or shouldn’t do something and you ignore it? How fucking hard in the face you get slapped?
Grey: Yeah...
Paul: (reading from survey) What best describes your spiritual life: non-existent, a little, average, a lot, or full?
Grey: I think it’s pretty full.
Paul: Good.
Grey: I mean, I talk to God all the time. I mean, 10, 15 times a day. Just in...like, my little friend. I definitely think there’s something there that’s gotten me through some things.
Paul: Yeah, we’ve talked about this, we’ve touched on this a little bit on the show and my fear is that when people start talking about god on this show is that people are gonna turn off. They’re gonna, it’s gonna shut ‘em down because organized religion has soured a lot of people on the concept of god. It soured me for a long time on the concept of god. I believe that there’s something out there that we can tap into or we can ignore.
Grey: Yeah.
Paul: And I just, I ask people to keep an open mind and, um, I respect atheists for believing or not believing, having their own opinion, so I would just ask people to respect people who say, “I have found something that works for me as long as I’m not trying to shove it on you.” Please respect. Because I have found something that there is a design in the universe that has a, an energy, and there is a program for living with that energy that works for me. And when I ignore that, I get shit on. It’s funny, I was on my way over, and I drove past a Porsche dealership, and about five years ago, about four years ago maybe, things were going well for me. I was being paid probably more than I should have been and I, dunno, I was just starting to get into myself a little too much, kind of lose my touch with the universe and I thought, ‘I need a PORSCHE.’
Grey: *laughing*
Paul: And so I went over there and I test-drove some Porsches and when I came home and told my wife that I was thinking about buying a Porsche - and I was gonna buy a used one, cause I couldn’t have afforded a new one - but—
Grey: *laughing* That’s not douchey, a used one.
Paul: Yeah, totally. And this is embarrassing to talk about because I fucking hate people who drive sports cars but there’s something about the Porsche 911 that, and I couldn’t care less about cars, but there’s something about that car that I just...it’s just so beautiful and it’s just fun to drive. And I wouldn’t ever want anybody to see me in it, honestly! I would probably wear a ski-mask—
Grey: That’s why they have tinted windows.
Paul: I would truly just want to drive it because I like to go fast. And I, it seems like it would just hug the road and get your adrenaline going and I have always just wanted to experience that. Um, so I test-drove one, and when I came back and told my wife I was just thinking about buying this, she fucking lost her shit. She was like, “You gotta be kidding me. There’s a fucking war going on in Iraq, people are dying.” and just started laying all this shit on me. And while she was a little dramatic about it, you know, I was like, ‘okay, I’m just gonna’—
Grey: “But it’ll be USED!”
Paul: Yeah, that didn’t matter to her. ‘I’m gonna think about it. And I’m not gonna let you make my decision, I’m gonna think about it.‘ Even though in the back of my mind I was like, ‘I can’t get a Porsche if she doesn’t want me to get a Porsche.‘ And the next day, I get a phone call, and my paycheck had been cut by 60%.
Grey: Oh, wow.
Paul: *laughing* So every time I pass a dealership that has Porsches in it, I just kind of, I kind of think, ‘don’t get too big, don’t let your head get too big, cause the universe is just going to fucking slap your face.‘ You know? There is that dichotomy between you want nice stuff but you don’t want nice stuff that makes people hate you. ‘How can I live comfortably without drawing attention to myself?’
Grey: I had a classic car, which is good. I had a Mustang, like a copper convertible, it was beautiful. And that was great because it was like, it was BEAUTIFUL. And I got a lot of attention cause I’m empty inside, but people didn’t hate me, they thought it was cool. Not anyone...that’s my thing, not anyone can get, I don’t want to dress like everybody else, I always wear vintage clothes and stuff and I always wanna be—
Paul: You are a very sharp dresser.
Grey: Thank you! Well I just wanna be, I just wanna be wearing things, I don’t wanna be the girl...that any girl could get the same...I don’t know, I just wanna be special. I just wanna be special. I was never special growing up, Paul. I was never cherished!
Paul: You weren’t!
Grey: No, I know, and so I think there’s where I’m kind of after.
Paul: That’s so cool that you can be in touch with that feeling, though. Lemme ask...there was one more question, on the survey, which was, “what best describes your exercise? ‘never’, ‘once in a while’, ‘average’”—
Grey: Never!
Paul: Never?
Grey: Never. I dance quite a bit though, I dance.
Paul: Oh, well, that’s exercise.
Grey: Yeah, but it isn’t...I feel like I’m just having fun, getting really dressed up and having fun.
Paul: Oh, I lied. There’s three more questions. “Do you currently take any medications for mental illness?”
Grey: No.
Paul: Okay. Well, there’s a couple of answers. “Yes, they’re prescribed by a psychiatrist”, “Yes, but they’re not prescribed by a psychiatrist”, “No, but I tried ‘em in the past and they didn’t work”—
Grey: I’ve abused gummy vitamins, Paul.
Paul: So you’ve never tried meds?
Grey: No, nuh-uh.
Paul: Okay.
Grey: But I don’t have any depression or anything. But I do eat too many gummy vitamins. You’re only supposed to have two? And I have, like, eight.
Paul: Really?
Grey: And that’s my bad side. I put too much cinnamon in my tea!
Paul: Maybe that’s what’s making you constipated.
Grey: *laughing*
Paul: By the way, when Grey and Janet and I - Janet Varney and I - get together, we like to talk about our bowel movements.
Grey: Or lack there of.
Paul: Or lack there of.
Grey: Sometimes I, like, don’t wanna date, cause I’m like, ‘I can’t date anyone when I’m this full!’
Paul: Oh, it’s the worst. Constipation is the fucking worst.
Grey: *laughter* ‘I’m gonna rupture! Don’t touch me!’
Paul: (from survey) “Do you share your feelings with anyone on a regular basis?” The answer are “yes, and it helps greatly”, “yes, but I don’t know if it helps”—
Grey: “Yes, and it helps greatly.”
Paul: Good.
Grey: I’ll talk to anyone who’ll listen.
Paul: You know, it probably saved you. Probably kept you, that and your grandma, probably kept you from...and then, uh,(reading from survey) “what best describes the healthiness of your diet? ‘terrible’, ‘not too good’, ‘good’, or ‘excellent’”?
Grey: Good. I’m a pretty good eater. I do love sugar. I love chocolate and I love coffee. Sweet coffee.
Paul: I think as long as you do—
Grey: But I have a pile of broccoli for lunch, with brown rice, and yeah. A lot brown rice. A lot of vegetables.
Paul: So what would—
Grey: Still no poo.
Paul: *laughing* But when it does come out, it’ll be vintage. It’ll be the nice thing about it being up there for a while, it’ll come out in the shape of an art deco egg. So what, in closing, would you say if there’s a woman out there, or a man, because men, very under-reported, I was molested...there was an older kid in my neighborhood who, uh, pretty much tried to diddle everybody. He was not really successful, but it was creepy.
Grey: You had a loser molester.
Paul: Yeah, I had an underachiever molester.
Grey:*laughing* I had a good one, Paul. He was excellent.
Paul: He was a deal-closer. He got to drink the coffee. What would you say to somebody that is stuck because of that? What advice would you give ‘em?
Grey: Well, I just. I remember thinking, ‘who is this serving? Not me’. You know? ‘For me, I need to be selfish and move on from this and get help and go on because this is only continuing to hurt me.‘ So, yeah, just do it for...get help for you. To spite them, if that’s the way you need to look at it. I just never, I cannot dwell on any bad things that ever happened to me, almost because I feel like it will make...I have, like, a superstitious thing about it, like I feel if I tell people about, or just, you know...not tell, but just dwell on things too much that it will attract more bad stuff. And that people will start to think of me as the person that bad things happen to and then more bad things will happen because, I don’t know, and I think people...I tend to really dwell on my positives, which is - that’s the bragging, if there were somewhere in the middle...
Paul: I don’t think that’s bragging! I think dwelling on your, well, obsessing, obsessively thinking about yourself, I don’t think is healthy, but thinking about your positive qualities is I think is really healthy.
Grey: Well, like, I do little polls with some friends from college every week, or from high school actually, and there’s always a “best thing that happened this week” and a “worst thing that happened this week” - that’s always the last question. And I never answer “the worst thing” cause I just think, ‘what’s that gonna...’ I don’t wanna talk about it. I mean I don’t wanna even think about it, really. I mean, like, if thinking about it’s not gonna help me, by sharing with someone and getting help for it, then I don’t really wanna talk about it.
Paul: So when it is bad, you will talk with somebody and you’ll open up about it?
Grey: Yeah, like getting therapy and all that is great. But like therapists are, like, hookers. They’re paid to do a certain thing and you don’t have to see them again. And they won’t mess with your life.
Paul: But a lot of times they give you a perspective that a lay-person probably couldn’t.
Grey: Oh, yeah. And it’s almost like you know it? But you just need them to go, “hey have you thought about...” and you’re like, “YES! I knew that deep inside, I just needed you to push the door open a little bit.” Yeah, but I feel like therapists are really...I have one dearest, best friend in the world, April, who I tell everything to and she tells me everything, but we’re done. Like once I tell her, I’m like, ‘okay I’m done talking about that I don’t wanna talk about that anymore.‘ You know, that’s that. I just feel like if you start being the person who’s like, ‘and then this happened and then this happened’ then people just start to think of you as that. And I feel like it’s energetically the universe just, like, feeds that.
Paul: Yeah. Self-pity is a real fucking dungeon that you can get trapped in, but in the absence of any type of recovery, self-pity is kind of the default because you—
Grey: And you get that little bit of attention for a minute from people but after a while—
Paul: You drain, you begin to drain people.
Grey: And then no one wants to give you any kind of attention.
Paul: Yeah, I call them “jacuzzi shitters”. They see that everybody else is having a good time so they gotta jump in the jacuzzi and lay a big log, ruin everybody’s good time.
Grey: And then I’m jealous of them, because they were able to lay a big log!
Paul: Yeah, cause they were able to shit. *laughing* So if you’re out there and you’re struggling, don’t be a jacuzzi shitter. Go get some help cause, you know, a lot of people have been fucked with in their lives and had shitty childhoods, but it doesn’t have to stop you in your tracks. In fact—
Grey: Just get a Twitter account and write out horrible things to the masses.
Paul: And in a lot of ways I think that the shit that we go through, if we come out the other side of it, it, we’re even better than normal in terms of how we can deal with life because we think, ‘fuck, if I can get through THAT’, if you can get through forgiving that guy who molested you, um, there’s not much in life that is really gonna keep you down.
Grey: They say that, like, about trees...I definitely give my son a lot of, um, like...I, uh, give him a lot to push up against, by like being strong and saying “no” a lot, sometimes letting him...and not making sure that things don’t always go great, like if drops a toy in the car and he wants me to pull over and get it, I’m like, “no, we’re gonna have to wait” and sometimes he loses his, he doesn’t do it anymore, but he used to lose his shit over it, and I just thought, his teacher said, that when they plant trees, there’s no wind and there’s a hot-house environment? As soon as they’re out of the hot-house and the wind blows, they fall over cause their root system is not...and she said, “So it’s good to not”—
Paul: Give it some wind, give it some wind, sure! Not a hurricane, a dirty hurricane—
Grey: A dirty-cane! But yeah, so I think we are stronger because we had a hurricane, but I think some wind is good.
Paul: I’m already minimizing mine. Because mine wasn’t as bad as yours, but yeah. You know the feelings that are what is important, the feelings that are left that are...that you don’t matter, that you know—
Grey: Or that all your worth lies in your sexuality. Cause I remember thinking that if somebody just wanted to be my friend, I didn’t understand that. I just thought, ‘well, I need to make everyone value me that way because I don’t have any other...’
Paul: And the celebrity that, uh, that you were talking about was probably fucked with as a little boy. You know? And hopefully he’s getting help.
Grey: He’s getting it all out in yoga.
Paul: Hopefully. Well, Grey...is there anything you wanna plug before we say goodbye? You wanna tell ‘em, or you wanna remain anonymous, your Twitter account?
Grey: No! I’ll plug it. I play a character called Stephanie Client on Mike Detective, which is through EarWolf.com, so you can follow me on Twitter @StephanieClient* dot com, not dot come, just Stephanie Client...I’m not big on computers, Paul.
Paul: That new-fangled machine—
Grey: You know, The Twitter, The Twitter. Not The Facebook. If you’re talking to me on Facebook, it’s not me. I know we’ve had very meaningful conversations late at night, but that’s not me you’re talking to on Facebook.
Paul: Thank you so much for letting me come interview you and opening up about those parts of your life that not a lot of people would be comfortable and but, uh, thanks for it. I enjoy having you as a friend.
Grey: Awe, me, too.
Paul: So if you’re out there, and you’re struggling, just know there is a solution and you’re not alone. So thanks for listening.
Paul: (outro) I’d also like to give a shout-out to Martin Willis, who helps me with my website and always goes above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you, Martin. And don’t forget to go to the website, mentalpod.com. You can also type in mentalillnesshappyhour.com, but you might get writer’s cramp. So, uh, go check it out. Read the message board, post, ask questions, and answer questions, take a survey...get crazy. Or stare at the wall with your jaw open.
*Grey’s Twitter handle has since been changed to “@GreyDeLisle”
next week
05/06/2011 at 5:49 pmArgh! I’m dying to know who was the celebrity she had the nightmare date with!
yummybear
05/14/2011 at 12:33 pmSo am I! ;(
Ryan
05/16/2011 at 5:24 pmThis was my first episode of the Happy Hour – It was a good introduction. My take-away from this episode was how open both Paul and Grey were with their past struggles and feelings of vulnerability. I think we tend to fear sharing our vulnerabilities as we’re afraid of being viewed as weak or unlovable. On the contrary, both Paul and Grey appeared very strong. I look forward to hearing more shows.