Ellen DeGeneres | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

hello welcome to the armchair expert I'm your host Zach brph today I'm speaking with a good friend of mine Ellen degenerous you've probably never heard of her she's mostly unknown I mean she does have a daytime show that's pretty popular she's had many sitcoms in fact she is such a Powerhouse I think she even has a uh game show that's very popular so it's hard to get a few minutes with this woman and she was gracious enough to give us some of her time this is a shorter episode than you're used to because of her Channel alling schedule and limited window of opportunity so you might notice I'm going a little quick through here I'm kind of trying to take you from Soup To Nuts in an accelerated way and you'll just have to bear with that because she is so worth it Ellen [Music] degenerous because I have you for such a short period I'm going to jump right [ __ ] Okay jump in all right I'm going to just tell you that I very much was interested in standup when I was younger and I used to watch every single standup on like Comedy Central wherever they showed it back then right and um I really really liked you as a comedian when I was younger and the thing that I think is defined you you could differ in this opinion is your Embrace of silence and your commitment to your pacing was very very unique yeah and Seinfeld was on Stern the other day and he was talking about the The Comedians he's most drawn to him has the most amount of respect for and it's the ones that can Embrace that scary period where you're just waiting and how can you do that why why were you so confident did that evolve or did you start was that your brand of standup right out of the gates no not at all no my brand was really bad corny puns and and like really silly really silly things like knock knock jokes or no like I would uh I would just like bring out different fabric I would hold up like and I would just show the audience just quietly I would just I would just show people Fabric and then I'd pick up something else and I would show them and then I mean I did that for a while and I'd say I was just trying out some new material and I would do like uh I would I used to pass out my autograph because I I would notice that big celebrities had to wait in line and and so I wanted to be thoughtful ahead of time so um I passed out my autograph and and people would just leave them on the tables you know when they left and um I just did a lot of a lot of prop stuff too did you like Andy caufman or something was there anyone that you were kind of I never saw him and I but I heard about his stuff but um no you know Bob newart was a big influence of of mine and Woody Allen and um Steve Martin and no I think that as I got a little more confident a little better and had material I was happy with the silence the the biggest silences I had were the phone call to God that was the phone call to guy was waiting on for the other empty side of the conversation which was really dangerous to do at a club porsa showed a clip of that at your birthday party right was that the clip that that was shown in the little video package phone call to God yeah did you do that on Carson yeah that was my first appearance right yeah I I I think so but it was like it's when when you do phone to God like it is literally you're just waiting for people to scream and fill in that whatever the other side of the conversation is but that was my fear when I started doing the talk show is that I wouldn't be able to have because you can't have too many silences on on television it's it's different and I thought I'm going to ruin my entire kind of that's my rhythm is just having pauses and I can't do that on the show but but you still do you have this still bizarre confidence in silence which is just it's just very rare unique I love it when you did I do want to ask you when you were on Carson and for people who don't know the big thing with Carson was if he really really liked you right he invited you over to the couch so you go into that performance knowing that he's going to call me over to the couch or not and I'll know whether I sucked or did great right what is that experience like well this I've told this story before but I'll I'll condense it a little bit I um my girlfriend was killed in a car accident when I was like 20 years old and uh I wasn't doing comedy I was I think I was probably waitressing someplace at the time um I was living with her and when she was killed uh I couldn't afford to live where we were living together and so I moved into this this tiny little basement apartment that was is this in New Orleans yeah okay and I was uh so I moved into this basement apartment that I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and it was infested with fleas and I was just thinking I just and I used to write all the time I wrote poetry and songs and stuff and I I thought why is this beautiful 21-year-old girl just gone and fleas are here and I just thought it would be amazing if if we could just pick up the phone and call up God and ask questions and actually get an answer right and so I started writing and I just thought you know it rings a long time because it's a big place I'm I'm put on hold right away um and it just it just it just unfolded I just wrote the entire thing and when I finished I read it and I thought oh my God that's hilarious I'm going to do this on Johnny Carson and I'm going to be the first woman in the history of the show to be called over to sit down and you thought that yeah and I and i' had never done standup I oh you hadn't even done standup but it came to you like I've heard hit songs be described like where the writer just gets kind of the whole song out of nowhere it's not like they pined over it for a month I just wrote it just came out and it came out of this pen that was moving on the page prior to that did you deal with what what order are you in your family are you a middle child or no just me and my brother and and you're older or younger younger okay so were were you lightening the mood in your house with comedy um he left uh when my my parents divorced it was just me and my mother oh okay that's a bizarre split that's unconventional yeah he went on the road he was a musician so he just left oh okay um he was old enough to leave not really he was like 15 that's not old no we don't advise that but he left okay he's gone it's just you and Mom it's just me and Mom did you feel like you were lightning the load with her did you try to cheer her up yeah that was sort of where it started where it started yeah this is how it happens yeah yeah I was a middle child in case you were curious yeah I was going to ask you know you wer we'll save it for your show does that does that uh mean something being the middle child it does because um uh generally uh there's a baby in the mix so the baby's [ __ ] nuts and they're they're stressing mom out right and then the older kids getting into other [ __ ] in my scenario the age gaps were big so it was a teenage boy and a baby and who both of them drove my mom crazy and so my role was um don't ask for a thing nothing I could be on fire I wouldn't ask her for water and um try to lighten the mood about this chaos in her life I think that's where it started in dyslexia that in there too yeah yeah so yours started with Mom yeah okay I it totally hijacked your story so you you wrote this thing and you actually thought I'm going to start doing stand up and I'm going to end up on Carson he's going to invite me to the couch but you somehow knew people got invited to the couch so you you followed comedy already oh yeah I mean I was a I was a huge fan of of standup and and you know yeah you liked it very yeah and my brother uh at that time I think he was already on Saturday Night Live he created Mr Bill so he was Mr H you're kidding me yeah I didn't know that yeah another thing I loved when I was younger yeah so he he was uh Mr H and he was on Saturday night life I think that I don't know if he had started that then or or but he was he was The Talented one he was a musician and he was funny and he was creative and I was just kind of around around right doing nothing do you think him having a measure of success um said well this is possible I live in a world where this is possible I could leave New Orleans and things could happen no no okay still I I didn't think that well yeah you told me the other night that you you thought you were likely to die before sixth grade was out right yeah yeah was a yeah I didn't think I was going to live to be a an adult right yeah and here we are yeah yeah so you wrote that and then did you immediately start performing that no no I don't know what happened I think uh there was no comedy club in New Orleans at the time I I don't know I don't know the sequence of of what happened but then I started doing um stand up like I don't coffee houses and you know people asked me I didn't go searching for it I didn't go where how can I get on stage and then uh and then I slowly had a you know I was an MC at at a club that opened up out of nowhere and I started working on material there and then I started touring you would introduce people that were coming up yeah and do and do like five minutes and then it was was 10 minutes and then I built up to where I could go out on the road and do like as an opener like 15 minutes and yeah so but I you know it took it took a while and and it was slow cuz there was no club like I said so it was just a few months of just me performing where I could and how do you end up on Carson um I was living in San Francisco and I won I actually didn't win Sinbad one I lost by like a tenth of a point there was a big you probably have the right outfit I he helped me shop by the way oh he did he did he loves clothes he likes big baggy balloon pants parachute material yes we became we were really good friends um he he won this contest uh that is uh the San Francisco comedy it's a big deal and I came in second and people from NBC saw me and and I really should have won like I was doing really really well and he won by like a he such a crowd pleaser like was so anyway he's a humongous personality and I was still kind of not confident and anyway I got to I I ended up in New Orleans cuz a lot of people saw me and said you should move you should do a sitcom and so I moved to LA and I was still doing standup at The Improv and different places and and um so the guy that booked The Tonight Show saw me at The Improv and booked me were you scared uh yeah of course but you had done that routine at that point a thousand times yes but and I can't you can't say because there's one of the lines in there like uh you know the reason I'm call in is there are certain things on this Earth I I mean Jesus Christ not that we're still talking about that um but you can't say Jesus Christ on television so I had to remember to you know there are certain things on this Earth that you know I don't like you know no not Cho and you know like you know you don't even know who Charro is it was a singer yeah dat South American singer yes yeah I kind Latin like a some kind of coochie coochie yes yes it was in Old I did it in the ' 80s anyway so yeah I was really nervous and then because and every time you can imagine Roseanne was on tonight's show and she killed and I was like oh no no and he didn't call her over and you know Carol Leaf was on Paula Poundstone was on everybody I would watch I was just like you know cuz I really had so he had really never called over a woman I was in still when he retired I was the only woman he called over on the first appearance it was like five men and me so when I did it and I knew I was doing really really well but I didn't look over at him I looked over at Doc senson and Ed McMahon I looked over and then finally I looked over and he was just kind of like you know signaling me to come over and he had been doing that for a while but I didn't look at him cuz I was so if you look at that appearance I was like my my voice was really high when you go sit on the couch I was I just wanted to come out and snuggle you you you so little you're so little in that moment yeah yeah I don't know if this is the same for you but for me it was Letterman I loved Letterman so much and then the first time I did Letterman I had had to keep reminding myself like don't just be staring at him like ear to ear smile yeah uh you're this is real you're really on the show did you feel that way about Carson yeah of course yeah yeah yeah he was he was Letterman before I mean Letterman felt the same way about Carson I mean Carson was the the you know Pinnacle of of as a comedian and then of course it became Letterman but but Johnny Carson was the guy and he could change your career overnight yeah it's czy to hear the stories about people going on there because at that time what did he he had 20 million viewers or something insane that doesn't exist now right like one and three people are watching it so literally overnight there were no you know there weren't the amount of late night shows you couldn't watch Cops at 11:35 you couldn't watch and I think it was it all went off the air at midnight or something like there wasn't anything other than Carson there was not another late night there weren't competitive shows wouldn't that'd be great to be in show business where you just knew they're going to have to watch me yeah ever Better or Worse that's the only thing that was on like it's it's changed so much it's crazy to think about that there was no competition yeah it's really kind of a testament to anyone who's succeeding currently that they it's crazy you could Niche out something that's successful um so and did overnight did you get a sitcom is that what happened no after oh God no no for the sake of our time could you say over the next morning you went straight to the lot instead of recording your sitcom I didn't get I I got uh everybody else was getting their own sit comes and I uh got a line on a show uh I think the first show I think I had uh hello okay but somehow I made it very funny and uh it was the people Neil and Carol Marlins and they had created The Wonder Years and growing pains and uh so they did this show and I was not the lead I was just and my brother was like why are you taking that like you know literally Drew Carrey has his own show and you know Tim Allen and everybody and other people that I can't remember that don't even have anything right now but they had their own shows and I just um I just thought they're great people they're smart and maybe they'll see something in me and and develop something for me and sure enough that was who developed my sitcom oh really and um but but did the appearance at least get you a um a huge bump in how many people would come see you when you T yeah so so now I would imagine after that like you're making pretty good money at that point yeah I was making like $5,000 a week like that's pretty great though right when you're sure I mean that was a lot yeah that was a lot for me I mean I it was that's the tricky thing about money it just keeps changing there's never the amount that you whatever you think it has but then I started doing you know theaters and you know like larger venues and it started becoming $5,000 for one night you know and then it was but then a night then I stopped doing clubs all together and just did theaters and so yeah then it was and then every time I was on I thought I was going to walk around the next day after I did cuz he calls me over so I'm like a big star now right so the next day I was in San Diego cuz I was playing The Improv I was just looking around like waiting for people to run up to me and like no one recognized me not one I was like how so many people watch this show how do people not re you know and everyone watched it and you know it takes a lot of appearances for people to recognize you but I assumed I was going to be mobbed the next day also show businesses is just the perfect occupation for anyone like myself who has swings of um total self-loathing and then total Grandeur so it's like oh my God I'm going to I'll barely be able to walk out of my house around morning and then you're immediately back to oh no that's right I'm a piece of [ __ ] I I remember well I didn't think I was a piece of [ __ ] but I just I don't go that I went I I went that's why I had to self-medicate um but when you um when you got your show when you eventually started doing your sitcom was it what you wanted it to be yeah I thought it was really funny I thought it was I got to do physical comedy it was very different when we first started it but yeah it was it was a lot of uh because I was a big fan of Lucille balls so I kind of Incorporated a lot of physical comedy into it and um yeah and you enjoyed going to work and doing that it was it was great I couldn't wait to stop standup because I had been doing it you know it's hard I think for anyone to tour and be in a hotel room much less a woman like I was by myself it's not like I had friends I could afford to put up with me or like you know and I wasn't flying private I was flying you know commcial commercial all the time and changing planes and I hate flying I get anxiety when I fly so I couldn't wait to stop touring yeah and there's ways people deal with that I think the male comedians just go out in town and try to get laid that becomes how you not feel L you did a bit of that I'm kidding um but yeah that seems to be like the male response to that is like I feel lonely and awkward in this hotel room I'll at least go out to a bar you know you have an app you have some kind of medicine you can pursue and when you're staying in a condo which sometimes happen with these two strangers these two males so if I'm the headliner or the the middle I'm with the opener and the you know like I was with two guys and we're all so I'd see them bring home you know random fol like yeah it was it was gross it was like you know you were scared to sleep in that bed and who was there before and you know yeah what's in the rug that kind of thing yeah sure anytime you're living with dudes it's it's it's touch and go even if you love that guy it's it's hard we're not the best creatures to cohabitate with it may have INF my decision the direction life yeah absolutely cuz you had had boyfriends I've heard you say that right you had you had yeah yeah yeah but I was gay at when I started doing standup I was I was because my girlfriend had been killed in the car accident I was already seeing women but uh yeah I had boyfriends all all the way through the end of high school I I didn't realize and I think you were largely spared when we get grossest which is as we get older I was just describing earlier like the the the throat clearing and all the things I do that like my grandpa did and my dad did I now do in front of Kristen and I don't even hear myself and occasionally I'll go oh Jennifer I've been clearing my throat for like 2 minutes and I'll look at her and I'll say God bless you that you can stand next to me at the sink yeah yeah we just get worse and worse and worse that's a shame yeah you you made the right the fork of the road you chose correctly I made the right decision uh I don't really know it as well as I should but your show ended and it ended why uh because I came out okay and and then the network said okay well that's a different show now that your public Persona is such that this is a long long story but but they really didn't want me to come out just so you know I don't even want the juicy details I mostly want to know how you dealt with the Heartbreak of that whole situation that's what I'm most interested in so I'm not trying to get any juicy details of who who was a [ __ ] at NBC no no no I know but it's like they didn't want me to come out I wanted to come out uh they kept saying you know uh I I said it it's my life and I want to come out I want the character to come out it's the time and and they and I said I'm going to lose the career like you can just put another show on it's my show to lose yeah so uh even though it wasn't my show it was but they they finally let me come out MH and then uh they they didn't really and it was a huge success the night of it was huge it was celebrated it was you know 45 million people that watched and and then they just stopped promoting it cuz everybody was scared ABC Disney didn't want to be because their sponsors were giving them a hard time we were losing sponsors so they were just acting like we're we're just letting it Glide we're not going to touch it so I I got no more advertising I got no more um promotion I got so it just you know so they canceled it yeah so um and during that time because there was so much talk about it um everyone was just sick of it and even though I had only done the cover of Time Magazine a prime time special with Diane Sawyer and Oprah those are the only three places I talked people were reporting on reports and reports and reports and even Elton John said shut up already we know you're gay be funny and I'd never met him and I thought what kind of support is that from a gay person but everybody assumed I was just non-stop talking about it yeah so I was just it hurt my feelings I was making I was getting jokes made at my expense on every late night show people were making fun of me so I I was really depressed and because of that and because the show was canc I I was looked at as a failure in this business so no one would touch me right so I had no agent I had no possibility of a job I had nothing and I was and I didn't have money saved because I wasn't making that much on my sitcom I wasn't making what Jerry Seinfeld made or Tim Allen or you know I was making Drew Cary yeah or Drew Cary I think he made a lot I heard yeah and I I didn't make that much so I didn't have money saved stay with us for more armchair expert after this message that that's what is incredible to me about your journey is when that all goes away how on Earth do you find like this career that I'm I'm suggesting is really defined by confidence how on Earth do you find in that law like [ __ ] that I'm writing this story I I can still do something like this show was next right would you just celebrated 15 years well no I mean I had to I had to come back for so I after a couple of years like three years I didn't work and I just thought I'm not going to work again unless I do standup you know I mean that's I got to do standup so I wrote the beginning which was my HBO I thought well at least I can do standup because that's what I do and I didn't want to do it because I was done with it but I wrote the beginning because it was beginning again and it's how I began so I wrote the beginning and I went on tour and uh and it was people still loved you uh it was gay people still love me I I had very few straight people showing up to those because they thought they assumed I was just doing gay comedy so it was really hard for me to get a crowd again you know what's weird I've been guilty of this it's hypocritical and it's paradoxical I've thought when I found some someone was gay um I thought oh well well I'm am I going to be able to believe them in a role where they're in love with uh someone of the opposite sex is that going to get in the way my knowledge of them being gay well I think in these scenes oh but they don't really like that it wasn't until I was probably watching like two straight dudes play gay guys and I'm totally invested and I believe they love each other where I realized oh this is so [ __ ] hypocritical and but it w i was susceptible to that for whatever reason I don't know why is like you you think somehow that you're not going to be able to buy into this fairy tale because you know too much about the person well yeah but you're just talking about like you know being at home watching a movie or going to a theater like these are people that are scared to stand in line going people are going to think I'm gay if I'm here like oh I got you so I I was like and so I ended up making a joke about it in my special like that we're all here for a re the same reason we're all gay and and then I was like you know now the straight people are like do they think I'm gay I'm not gay and so I do this whole long thing you've thought about it I haven't thought about it like so I did this because it really was I was kind of looked at as the new leader and I I didn't want to be a leader and I didn't want to be political and I didn't want to be an activist I just wanted to be free from a secet and that's all I wanted so it was really hard to go out on tour again and see that I only had and sometimes like really you know the gay community is like a really difficult like line to walk like some people thought you're not gay enough and you're not doing enough for our community and and there are so many people who have done more and it's like I didn't say I was your leader and I didn't say I've I have done more and there's as much diversity in the gay community as there is in any Community right so there's this assumption that you guys are somehow on the same page about something but you're you're just all unique people that but that's what I'm saying but there are a lot of like really militant gay people that get really angry if you're not like just and it's like I don't I just want to be a comedian and I just happen to be gay and I just and of course I'm going to you know speak up and I think I'm doing a lot just by being a you know physical presence of you know hopefully a representation not of the entire gay community but of somebody at home going oh there's someone who's gay so anyway it was really tough cuz there were a lot of gay people that thought I wasn't being you know active enough and and political enough and gay enough and then you know if I then the straight people were like you're being too gay and if I even mention yeah like how gay how I think I'm the right amount of gay for me it works it's working for me I found it to be a very appealing so anyway it was a really um it was a really tough time so was was there was there um some relief accompanying the the the depression of having the show go away all that is is the joy of having the secret out is is is that quantifiable do you do you feel that do you feel like oh this is a big burden releas of course you are but then you're also dealing with some something that's very hard to deal with which is this lull in your career well it was a high and it was celebrated and then it was a complete low and then you know so it was it was and you know I never thought I'd even be successful enough to have a a sitcom in the top 10 so to me I had reached the Pinnacle of su success and then I get you know the cover of Time Magazine cuz I'm the first you know person to be first person in America yeah but on on a sitcom like to to you know so there's all this attention on me for that so that gets a lot of attention so I'm thinking you know that's the Pinnacle and everything is just now taken away from me and now how do I start over on a millionth of that level I I can relate to having been honest about being molested in interviews and then that always becomes a very big story right and then I always I get this fear people think I'm promoting this right when I was just maybe being honest in the moment when someone ask me what's all in this bag of tricks that led to X Y or Z and it is a it's so tricky because I I remember being young and seeing certain people say stuff in magazines and then I thought well that's weird you're bragging about that you know and I come from that place and it and it's prevented me from doing things and then when I do them I just eventually I have to go who gives a [ __ ] if someone thinks I'm trying to promote that right I can only just be honest about my own story and then just whatever if people think I'm trying to get attention for this a weird way to get attention but okay I just I'm going to have to live with that right so I mean I understand somewhat I feel like yeah that weird feeling of like hey I'm not promoting I'm just being honest there's a difference yeah you just have to just trust that you know there's going to be haters out there now you have a achieved far more success than you thought you were going to right MH has it healed any emotional stuff for you oh yeah I mean I let go of all that a long time ago it I held on to like bitterness and anger for a little while but you know I'm really grateful for it now I'm I'm actually really grateful for it I I think it's I can't believe that I was able to achieve what I achieved lose it all and then get to this point in my life at 60 years old like to start over at 45 and no women start no no no body starts over at 45 in this business much less a woman and so I'm really grateful that I had that experience and it made me a stronger person did you have a mentor during that time or anyone that Whose advice you were seeking or no a lot of people reached out to me like Madonna reached out to me and Oprah reached out to me is it hard for you to ask for help or guidance no it's just that I wasn't like in the the these were people that literally made a you know like Madonna literally made a phone call to me like I didn't even know her and she reached out and said you know you you are uh Brave and trust that that's going to come back to to be the best thing that ever happened yeah and certainly there's probably no one ahead of you that navigated this all beautifully that you could call up you know I think every lesbian was looking at me like Mir cats like they were just like their heads were like you know what's going to happen and then they all went back in their holes and then they're like never mind I mean I know Porsche has said that to me like people really were watching like should I come out let's see how this that was the litmus test yeah you're the canary in the coal mine so yeah it it was it was definitely something that was like I said and when it was really celebrated I think a lot of people were like oh and then it took a while for other people to to decide to do that and I have to assume people tell you in real life all the time that they must thank you for all that yeah that's the one thing when it when it first started happening because I was closeted I wasn't part of any kind of you know gay organization like glad or or the Trevor Project or anything I I was not part of the gay world and so when I came out I got letters from like kids that were literally about to commit suicide and I saved their lives and and so when I saw the impact and then Matthew Shepard was was killed right after I came out and I went to the steps of Washington and spoke out and basically in tears was saying this is why I did what I did to hope that this would change the world I mean I was it was stupid naive of me to think that I could actually make that kind of impact in the world just by coming out but when Matthew Shepard was killed it it broke my heart yeah cuz I I just thought this is going to stop now and people have an example and so I would I learned a lot about you know how much impact having um a presence you know out there and and being and and instead of saying my career and my money is more important I realize that that actually making a difference in the world and and just being honest about who you are whether it's if you were molested or whether it's that you're gay or what whatever it is because whatever your secret is there's lots of other people out there that have the other that same secret well yeah and I that that's why I'm so attracted to you is that I I don't think it's helpful uh for people to see other people with some crazy skill set they're never going to have but I what I think is super helpful is to go like oh I have the same secret I'm carrying the same shame I really like that person I I must not be as bad as I think I am cuz I know they're not like I think that's so helpful to people absolutely and I think that you feel better about yourself that you're actually you know I I know that I I'm not just a famous person I'm someone who's actually making a difference in the world for a lot of different people and I'm really proud that I'm openly gay and I get to talk about and say the word wife I mean the the fact that that was never talked about on television but that it's becoming part of the vernacular that someone can hear wife and and that there it's at least it's digesting you know slowly into society and and that I can you know talk about my my amazing incredible life with another woman is is I think doing something yeah it's pretty incredible when you took on this show did you feel like the stakes were super high like oh God if this doesn't work now what I've done a sitcom I've I've done a talk show did you feel that pressure of this got to [ __ ] work I may have but I don't I don't really remember that pressure I I remember just thinking it was going to be fun and I had high hopes for it well I think the amazing thing that you've done with the show is the same thing I loved about your standup when I was young was it's in a box we all recognize which is daytime talk show but it is 100% you if you want to be talking about animals you do it if you want to talk about any kind of social issue you make room to do that and you don't seem to worry about what the outcome of that's going to be you you somehow stay very very true to who you are and I think it's just an incredible accomplishment for someone to just bet on exactly what they are and for it to work out and it's really really impressive and I really am glad that I know you and that we're friends I feel the same way about you all right thanks for doing this I love you I love you too we'll kiss someday okay well we kiss a lot but now we don't make out and not even have to be a makeup just like a longer a longer kiss yeah like one where people are like are they going to stop I don't think that's going to happen well you say that now but you know a lot of things ahead of us yeah I may relapse we may do Ecstasy together some point doubt it yeah it's very unlikely but you but just there is a world in which that could happen yeah I don't want to I don't want to end this on a bad dad uh cuz it was so good but you're I can always cut it out none of that's going to happen I love you love you stay tuned if you'd like to hear my good friend and producer Monica padman point out the many errors in the podcast you just heard Monica this was a short episode so I I I I like to think that you're your lifting was light this week was it it was there's only there's only a few things Tock okay and some of that's just clarification not even not even someone was wrong or egregious but you were wrong once at least once good okay good Ellen talks about how she started out as an MC in a club in New Orleans and that is Clyde's Comedy Club oh Clyde Clyde's comedy club is it still around don't can't remember yeah that's a hard thing to remember yeah and then you guys were talking about Sinbad's clothing okay and you were you were just referring them as big baggie pants but they have a name Harum pants oh yeah he wor he wore a lot of Harum pants which is super fitting for someone with the name Sinbad he had to he had no choice he did not have a choice he could have never worn overalls been Sinbad although he probably could have pulled them off he probably had Harum overalls super billowy at the bottom tight on top lot of loud colors too did I tell oh I didn't have time to tell the story because it was such a short interview and I knew it but I was shooting a movie I can't even explain how deep in the valley I was and if you're not from Los Angeles you know the the further away from the center you go you're just deeper deeper deeper Valley you know the concentration obviously of movie stars out in that the Deep recesses of the valley they fall off pretty dramatically and we were shooting this movie at a carpet store that we had bought out the afternoon for they shut down and Sinbad showed up while we were shooting and he was not happy that his carpet store was shut down oh it was one of the weirder celebrity sightings I've ever had because I just couldn't understand why sbat a was shopping for carpet B why was he shopping for a carpet there that's interesting and he um I'm sure he had come become accustomed to the star treatment and he couldn't believe they weren't going to open up the carpet store for him M and let me also say I may be feeling in the blanks there he may have taken it well it appeared from my point of view that he he was he was there for a while long after he learned that it was shut down for the day interesting it was very interesting and he wasn't dressed as loudly as I would have liked him to have been oh no it's not like I I saw a huge burst of color walk through the door then looked and it was Sinbad it was more I noticed it was Sinbad and then there was no real aut tral to back up the Persona that's really a bummer God I hope I'm right that it was s bad are yeah are you is this could this be deformation of character to have been accused of shopping for carpet the deep deep valley in the middle of the afternoon I like it because it shows that we all need carpet even Sinbad needs carpet that's right well hepe again keep needs of flying Magic Carpet maybe he was there to to try fashion his own whatever okay what else okay Ellen brought up Charo and you said she was South American and she said she was Latin American I just want to clarify she's from Spain oh okay so neither yeah NE either yeah great although if she said Latina did she say Latina no I don't think so okay may I don't Espanola I just want to put into context Ellen getting the KN of approval from Johnny Carson because there are so many huge comedians who did not get invited to the couch yeah like Jerry Seinfeld unimaginable guys Gerald Seinfeld one of the most accomplished comedians in the history of the art Forum did not get called over yeah Jim Carrey now really quick do you think that this because Carson was an anti-semite wait are you are you wait I'm trying to start a terrible rumor oh okay I thought I'm just trying to you know humans we've talked about this you know we try to make sense of things after the fact when things we are not retroactively yes we're uncomfortable with things not having made sense so when I hear Seinfeld was not invited to the couch I think there has to be an explanation cuz it sure as [ __ ] ain't that he wasn't funny yeah that's true so I go straight to Carson was an anti-semite which of course is not true at all it's not true all these comedians when they go on are at the beginning of day they get a sitcom deal some of them people don't know them yet but then often the next day people would know them and then they'd get huge 12 million people are watching or whatever is that one of the facts you're going to bring up cuz I think I took a stab at how many people that comes up okay um so anyway yeah Jim that felt a little soft when I was saying it uh oh Jim Carrey didn't get invited over wow so maybe he hated tall people yeah we got to figure we got to explain these anomalies but maybe off night yeah that's the other thing if you're putting all your eggs in this one person's little finger waving you over he know he could be bloated he could had diarrhea that day and he wants to give the [ __ ] off that stage and deal with his business exactly uh also you know some people's comedy really lends itself well to a three minute cuz they don't give you any time which is almost shocking that Ellen's went so well because she has a very paced casual delayed yeah or Chappelle I think of Chappelle trying to go on a talk show and be funny in three minutes it's not you need he needs to kind of like bring you into his world for a little while before you that's true yeah are on your ass yeah okay so here it is you said Carson had 20 million viewers yeah I was really out on a on that one and then you said one in three people were watching it which wouldn't be 20 million right exactly because there there were 256 million people in the US in 1992 that would have been 84 million so it would have been about 1 in 13 people okay but do we even know how many people were really watching him the final week of his run in '92 averaged 19.43% oh my goodness but that's the final week so we can we can assume that that was inflated I tried to find average numb is not could be done I should have gone to Box Office Mojo guess I don't think they would had it maybe TV by the Numbers that's another website I like to go to to check up on things okay TV by the Numbers you guys were talking about how much other comedians were getting paid for their shows around that time and you said you had said like oh Drew Carrey made a lot oh on his yeah his his Network show on the Drew Cary show I had heard 250 million did I say that out loud during thecast I don't know but according to my research now I feel nervous it said 750,000 per episode well right but that that's not any of the money those guys made the way a TV contract works right he was getting 750 Grand to show up in film and then he was getting a residual when they reared it but way more importantly is he owned a significant percentage of that show and when it got sold into syndication for example the 70 show which I don't think was as big as the Drew Cary show their first cycle of syndication went for like $780 million the Seinfeld catalog gone for billions of dollars that's how Jerry Seinfeld ended up with whatever he's rumored to have 800 million or whatever so yeah I I I only meant that Drew Carrey ended up with 250 when they sold his show or whatever you said 250 million I have always heard that he made $250 million on show I think he said that on this podcast but but not from his fee for acting but from his ownership once it was packaged 750,000 an episode is a l damn good [ __ ] money no one makes anything like that no they sure don't okay that's all oh great well did you like sitting with her you you we on the way there we were discussing the fact that you're regularly around a lot of famous people and that and I'm not a famous person and you're not a famous person right you have been in movies but whatever and that you're never really I'm not star star at all but then when we left there you go I felt a little nervous on the couch right yep yeah it was weird we were yeah we had just been talking about it and I said it's so weird cuz I'm not I'm not nervous around to anyone anymore I'm not Star Struck I don't think there's anyone I could meet now that I would besides Maybe Barack Obama being the only exclusion yeah keep your politics out of this podcast um I love him so I do too um anyway yeah I was just noting that and then we got there and we were sitting and we were we were waiting a little bit as as we were setting up building the tension yeah cuz she's a very busy lady as you said and we had such a short window and I started to get nervous that she was gonna be in our presence and then I just had to throw out my whole my whole thesis from earlier do you think any of it had to do with the fact that she's such a powerful woman that like being in the presence of someone that has accomplished so much as a woman do you think that was a aspect of it oh that's interesting maybe yeah cuz I think like you know I think part of Oprah's power is not just that she was that successful that she made a billion dollars but that she did it as a black female there's something that is just quadruply impressive about that that's yes I mean yeah it's overcoming much more odds but I don't think that's registering for me as much as she's a lesbian female yeah again but that's still not I feel I feel like are you allowed to say I just said that word out loud and I felt like I'm not supposed to say it anymore do we still say lesbian yeah okay I it just felt weird coming on you know sometimes you know like I feel like my grandparent yeah we haven't said grandmother thinks she's being very respectful when she says someone's colored like cuz that in her childhood that was as good as you could do right so she thinks she's being really respectful and it is rough when you're at a restaurant and she's talking about the colored people in her neighborhood or whatever and I just want to go like guys she really thinks she's doing she saying African-American right now yeah yeah I think it's okay that you just said that I think she said it okay but this is a weird thing to say maybe it's not true but when you meet men and you're a woman there's more involved than just like taking them in at face value there's like other things that come into play when you're meeting men like whether you're attracted to them or not yeah that's a weird thing to say but I don't know you're an animal number one job is to procreate it's all subconscious the idea that none of us are not thinking about a 24/7 is a [ __ ] joke so so the one thing we're here to do is eat but it's not intentional I think it's all it's not like you meet someone and you think am I attracted it's just there's there's a subconscious thing happening you're evaluating a little bit more in a different way well and in a weird sense now that you're saying it that does put a little bit of the power in your lap cuz you're like well I'm making a decision now whether I'm attracted to this person or not so you are you at that moment are kind of in the driver's seat yeah so it could rightsize their absolutely their power but when you meet Ellen that's not there so it is you're just confronted with just her at face value and yeah and her power and all of her skills and it's a little more intimidating yeah absolutely so I've been kind of wanting to do this for a while and I'm going to attempt to do it off the cuff because I think in this podcast we we're going to have time on this one because she was short I often reference uh the 12-step program that I'm a part of and I say that I do think there are some elements in that program that could be very useful to all people alcoholic or not and let me also say this sometimes you'll hear me reluctantly say AA and I prefer to call it a 12-step program and that is because in the principles of the program we are supposed to to remain anonymous at the level of press and media and I have broken that and I've made a very it was a you know a wellth thought out or not I put a lot of time into whether or not I would break my own anonymity publicly I ultimately lean towards the fact that I think more good can be done than harm if I'm honest about it and someone might think you know that I'm someone they they might want to emulate and then they might find sobriety and so you know I've I've pissed off probably a lot of people in AA by by talking about it the more important reason that I don't generally say a specifically is because I may relapse I've been sober 13 years but I just as likely to relapse tomorrow maybe as I was on day 15 of this and so I do not want to be the face of AA because if it fail if I fail at my sobriety it is not a failure of AA it is a failure of me I'll have stopped working it the way it needs to be worked so I just want to be very clear about I am hesitant to to to talk about it so much because I don't want to be the poster and I don't want if I fail for it to be a a mark against AA with all that said I want to tell you about my interpretation of the four step because I feel like it is the most breakthrough kind of thought process that's changed my life tremendously it's really clever in the way it's constructed because it gets you to do something that you probably wouldn't be able to do if if constructed any other way so the very first thing that they ask you to do is just make a list of people that you're resentful towards right so you might say I hate Mrs Glendy she was my third grade teacher she always put me in the back of the class blah blah blah blah blah right so Mrs glendy's on the list then you might have an ex-boyfriend on the list you might have someone you work with you know this this list can vary I've gone over many guys four steps with them you know some people put 15 people on this list some people have a 150 people it doesn't really matter you do want to get at least you know I think around 20 people on this list and it's throughout your whole lifetime so it's just a list of people you're resentful towards or angry at so that's on the left column and then you make another column and you say so Jerry I resent Jerry what what is it you resent about Jerry so the next column is he's always trying to get me fired he's always telling my boss if I'm late or I didn't turn in something right so that's easy to answer why why do I hate Jerry well here's why he's always trying to get me fired and then in the third column you're going to say what fear of yours is is being triggered by this so if Jerry's always trying to get me fired well that threatens my sense of Economic Security right so I will write down my fear of economic insecurity and then ultimately what you could then think about is well if I'm never late there's really nothing for Jerry to tell my boss right so I I do play a role in this minimally if I don't turn in my [ __ ] late there's nothing to report on me so I do play a role in this me hating Jerry I'm part of this but way more importantly and I encourage anyone to try this if you make a list of 30 people or 120 people or whatever you will start to see so quickly that all these people you're upset with trigger the same three fears over and over and over and over again so for me I have a huge fear of economic insecurity growing up kind of poor at the beginning so there's a lot of people on my list that they just triggered the same fear over and over again and then I have a fear of my status I'm so worried about this person was trying to make me look stupid or make me look less than or whatever I'm mad at Mary because she said this or that so I have a big fear of that I won't be high enough status or that I'm less than and then I have a fear that uh people think I'm stupid I've talked about that on here and that comes from being dyslexic or whatever and so when I'm done with this whole four-step list I now have a a sense of these three fears that are basically running my life because I am there's people I I hate because of these fears I'm certainly doing a lot of my Character defects are probably to support this fear I have and now I have a road map of what to attack because if I don't have any fears I'm not going to have any resentments because you really can't be triggered by people that aren't triggering fears of yours the example I always like to give is you could put a 100 people in a room put me on a stage and every one of them could be shouting Dax you're too short you're too short you're embarrassingly small you're just a [ __ ] you're so embarrassingly short I could withstand that for 10 hours and it would always be comical to me because I know I'm 6'2 or three I have no fear of being short and it just will have no effect on me but if you put me in a room with just one person who's saying you're egomaniacal at times and narcissistic and you talk too much and you need everyone's approval that's going to get on my nerves right quick because those are real character flaws I have and I act those ways to try to elevate my status because I have a fear status or to overcome this that people think I'm stupid again if I can get my arms around the things I'm afraid of it's incredible how much Downstream business it takes care of and there are steps you can take to confront your fears if I have a fear of Economic Security then I should do some real Financial Planning and I should really crunch the numbers and find out what it takes me to stay alive uh for a year or support my kids and I should have a real number not one that I've I just never feel safe you know I should really put some effort into going what what's worth being afraid of and what's not and then you know my status a thing I I like to do to confront that fear of mine is is to just every time I start comparing myself to someone else like an alarm in my head will go off going here we go this is you you're always going to feel worse when you compare yourself to somebody and you're not going to feel like your higher status at the end of this um and and you're really only entitled to compare yourself to an older version of yourself a previous version cuz really your only your only goal is to make yourself better and that's something I can do I can also help other people who need my help because when I'm engaged in that activity I kind of stop thinking about status and I start recognizing the truer and more meaningful things about being a human on this planet but anyways that's just a tip I thought I'd throw up this way you don't have to go become an alcoholic just to join AA to learn how to do a four-step but it is fun especially in a relation ship if you start talking about a topic and you feel your heart rate accelerating and your blood pressure Rising it's a good time to go hm I bet a fears being triggered and I know what fears I have so which one of these fears is being triggered my fear of Abandonment my fear of you know this or that it's very helpful when you start to fight with a loved one to take 15 minutes go into a room and really get honest about what fear is being triggered and recognize that this is something from childhood and it's not real in the the moment right now and then go out and tell your loved one you know what when you said that it really triggered my fear of Abandonment and that's what I'm actually fearing I don't care if you go on a trip to Spain I just that I felt that way and then your loved one could tell you I will never abandon you and that may solve everything so that's my two cents on that and maybe I'll tell some other steps if that was of use or value to anyone else I'm glad you shared that oh I really am oh good cuz I feel like getting to know you over the past couple years has really changed the way I think about those things because you talk about that so often yeah and we've had fun kind of like going through things if they're hot button topics for you in the moment will kind of dissect them and it's fun right yeah and it's very helpful all right I love you I love you [Music]