Episode 1660 - Leanne Morgan

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Lock the gates!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fucking years?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it how's it going i don't even know what day it is do you is everything all right today i talked to uh leanne morgan um

you know i didn't know her and she came to comedy pretty late in life and had a huge success with her first comedy special i'm every woman Since then, she's released a book called What in the World.

And now she has a sitcom produced by Chuck Laurie coming out on Netflix later this month.

And it was kind of amazing to to talk to her because she's been at it and she's the real deal.

And I just, I didn't know her off of my radar until she wasn't.

Then I'm like, holy shit, this is,

she's the real deal.

And it was great to talk to her.

I'm back at Largo for a comedy and music show on Wednesday, July 23rd.

Tickets are at largo-la.com or you can get them at wtfpod.com.

Got a new band.

The old band was great, but I just wanted to try playing out with some different folks.

Pretty excited about the songs we're singing.

And we're, you know, we're getting a lot of time in.

I actually did some vocal work

with Paige Stark, who is going to be drumming.

And she was like, you got to fucking do some vocal work so we can get the vocal and harmonies right.

I'm like, what?

There's a job to this?

So we hammered that out.

But look, man.

There's a 80% chance I'll choke anyways.

Just the way I am with music.

I'm like the choke king.

Speaking of music,

this was a while back.

I guess it was a couple weeks ago now, not quite.

But I got to be honest with you, that farewell Black Sabbath performance, that farewell Ozzy performance, because he's ill and, you know, he's going out on his own terms.

I've only seen some clips of it, but it looked like the greatest fucking goodbye I've ever seen in my life.

If only more of these boomers who aren't sick would, you know, bow out respectfully, be nice.

And I get shit for this.

It's fine.

But I'll tell you, man, Ozzy is one of the best, one of the best front men, Black Tabbath, one of the best rock bands ever.

And the humility of him and the humanity of him sitting in

what was a throne and deserves to be a throne, going through the catalog, having great

contemporary acts.

And just fans of his come up and do it.

Guns N' Roses, I think, was there.

And I don't know, man.

It just was so, it was, it was heartbreaking and elevating, and it was just beautiful.

It just seemed like a beautiful event for everybody involved.

And, you know, some people get on my shit about this.

You know, it's hard for me

to watch rock stars that I grew up with, I grew up loving when I was a younger man.

Sometimes it's hard for me to watch them as they get very old.

Not older, very old.

And some people think I'm being ageous.

And you can, fuck you, I'm not.

I just, look, I'm not begrudging them.

You know, if they want to go out and play, fine.

I just can't.

It's hard for me to watch because the sadness overwhelms the idea

of, isn't it great these guys are still playing?

I mean, the stones barely make the cut.

I mean,

that makes me a little sad.

Even though they're churning pretty hard and they're doing a great job, it's just hard for me to watch because they represent a vitality to me that drove me as a younger man.

And that old stuff still drives me now.

And look, again,

knock yourself out, fellas.

Go out and get that money.

Go out and make the fans happy.

But it's really hard for me to watch because there was something vital about the music.

And the fact that they can still do it does not,

it doesn't,

it doesn't make me happy.

I mean, I'm glad they're having a good time, but I don't watch it and think like, yeah, fucking rock and roll.

Yeah, I'm just watching it like, oh, man.

Oh, man, we're all going to die.

God damn it.

But again, not ageist, just from where I'm sitting, it's hard to watch.

Again, I think some people should turn it in, but you know, what are you going to do?

But sometimes it's nice to stop on your own terms.

And I don't think Ozzie and the fellas are going to do another farewell.

He's not well.

And it's heartbreaking, but it was beautiful closure.

There's a lot to be said for beautiful closure on one's own terms.

It's weird, man, because I'm out there.

I got a lot of things coming out in the next few months.

The special on HBO, Panicked, out August 1st.

I got Stick on the Air.

I got the bad guys coming out.

I got the Bruce Springsteen movie coming out, the documentary.

I don't know where that's going to end up.

I don't know where the film I did in Memoriam is going to end up.

But mostly in terms of comedy, you know, it took me a long time to put that set together.

And I I was working on it right up until whenever I taped that, June 10th or 11th.

Now I've got till August 1 to continue to do the material live.

And I'm waiting for new stuff to come.

It's not coming.

And it's only been a couple months, but it's not coming.

And look, I'm not freaking out about it.

Used to be, I'd be like, shit, is it going to come?

Is that it?

But now, like, I don't care.

I don't care, man.

I'm going to be 62 in September.

I know a lot of you are like, hey, man, just keep working.

Just keep working.

I'm going to.

But I'm not feeling any anxiety about it or desperation about it.

I assume it'll come.

But there's part of me that's, you know, just, I'm going to the comedy store.

I'm doing the good shows.

I'm a little more detached than I used to be, but I think it's a professional detachment.

I think that somehow or another, I have finally...

managed to figure out how to do comedy that doesn't it is not on the edge of life or death for me in terms of connection and i can kind of give the audience their experience and I can have mine with a little bit of boundaries there.

It's fine.

It's good.

I'm doing the work.

I can do it, but I don't know where the new stuff is going to come from.

But I never do, but just not a lot of stress happening.

So look,

I got a problem.

I don't know what's going on.

I got a problem.

So I got this little, I got a hedge in front of my house, a big one, then I got a little one.

I think they're called box plants.

It's just like maybe a foot and a half, two feet maybe, out in front of the big hedge.

There's a little space in between.

So it's got, you know, like a, yeah, little hedge there.

And lately,

lately, I've been finding little bags of dog shit in the same place behind my front hedge, in between the two hedges.

The other day, I found three bags of dog shit and a couple of paper towels.

And that means this is somebody's thing.

That's their their thing.

They're walking their doggy.

They're carrying around a bag of shit.

And they're like, this is where I put the dog shit.

And look, I can appreciate a habit, but initially I was like, is this somebody, is this a sign?

Is this somebody, you know, registering a protest against me?

Are they trying to dog shit me out of the neighborhood?

What is happening?

How do I read this?

Is this somebody saying, go fuck yourself?

And then the other day, had a plumber come over to deal with a pipe.

And right in front of my gate, he stepped into a wad of gum, almost brought it into my house.

I'm like, I said to him, I said, Did it look like it was put there on purpose?

A giant wad of gum?

Is this part of the push?

Is this attached to the dog shit situation?

Is this a dog shit, wad of gum, full press, trying to terrorize me out of the neighborhood?

Now, that's the way my brain works.

And at some point, you got to reel it in.

Reel it in.

I would say, looking at it rationally, that the waddy gum and the dog shit were not connected events.

And

the dog shit itself is probably not some sort of, you know, act of

trying to frighten me, right?

You think that

they go a little heavier with the dog shit, right?

It's just something someone's doing.

Some people are saying get a camera out there.

To catch the dog shit villain?

Do I need a camera on my head so I can go like, I got you, you bagdropper, you fucking shit dropper, you fucking shit terrorist?

So I'm not going to do that.

Maybe, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I tend to, like, you know, what am I going to do if I catch him?

It'd be a nice moment.

It's a nice human moment when you catch someone doing something not terrible, but annoying and deliberate.

And you're just like, hey, what's going on with the bags of dog shit in my yard?

Can we not do that?

Does it mean anything?

Is it just something you enjoy doing?

And they're like, oh, yeah, I just.

And then you're like, can we not do that?

And that's a nice moment.

You know, you have to get all, you have to lose your shit.

And I imagine that the other person's not going to be like, go fuck yourself.

This is what I'm doing.

This is where I'm putting my shit.

But that's the current attitude culturally.

Just double down.

Could you not put the dog shit in my hedges?

Could you maybe, you know, go a few extra feet, find a garbage can?

Go fuck yourself.

What are you going to do about it?

This is where I'm putting my dog shit.

Well, do I have to get the law involved?

Do I have to have a discussion with the police about, you know, like this guy's, you know, and that would make a good reel for Instagram, a nice kind of minor problem police activity reel, solving the dog shit bag, you know, issue.

I wonder if they double down on the shit bags.

A lot of doubling down going on.

It's annoying.

It's annoying.

Oh my God.

It's all coming to a close.

Huh?

Good times.

So, look, Leanne Morgan is here, and she's a great comedian.

And she has a new sitcom coming out, produced by Chuck Laurie, called Leanne.

It premieres on Netflix on July 31st.

She's also out on tour right now.

Go to leanmorgan.com to see where she'll be and get tickets.

And this is a lovely conversation with Leanne Morgan.

So

I don't think we've ever met.

We have, but it was very briefly.

Where was that?

Comedy store.

Okay.

I did the belly room.

That's the only thing I've ever done at the comedy store.

That's crazy, yeah.

And you were.

How long ago?

That was,

oh gosh, two or three years ago.

Okay.

And they told me to get out of the hallway.

Oh, really?

Sorry.

They said, get out of the hallway.

And then you, I've stomped you because I've known who you are.

Yeah.

You know,

all my life.

And

you were precious to me.

Oh, good.

You really were.

And you were looking at me like, who is this country woman?

Because I probably hugged you and tried to grab you.

I'm available for that.

I'm usually open for that.

I'm not going to be scared.

I'm glad I was.

You were very sweet to me and you went, who are you?

But I had done the belly room

and was scared to death because I've done the improv and all that.

But you know, I was in Knoxville raising a bunch of kids, doing comedy for over 20.

You just met my daughter.

She was 27.

I started when she was 18 months old.

So I had never been, I've never done the comedy store and all those kind of things.

So they said you can do the belly room.

And

some darling man was talking about something really nasty.

And then I went up after him and talked about

somebody bringing me a meatloaf after I got my IUD replaced at my children's Christian school.

And so I didn't know how it was going to go.

And then

really well.

And then, yeah, I had a good set.

And all these young people came up to me and said, can I hug you?

And so I think I'm like a warm blanket.

I'm like a grandmother.

You know, I am a grandmother.

Yeah.

A warm blanket.

And then I found you.

And

I wanted to meet you so badly that I came up to you and you were precious, but they said, get out of the hallway.

So then I went out on the patio thing

and kept my mouth shut.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's odd because I watched a special and I, you know, I know you've been doing it a long time.

I kind of knew, but I never, I never, you know, you weren't on my radar, but a lot of people aren't.

But the special was great.

Because I'm getting old

and I don't see it as much as people that have families.

You know, when you're just as a solitary guy aging without kids, you know, every day, you know, I look in the mirror, I'm like, I'm still good.

And then I see pictures of me, and I'm like, not really.

But something else happened when I was watching it, just in terms of, you know, what you were talking about, gave me some insight into

you know, there's this assumption that people that, you know, live a cosmopolitan or urban life are, you know, are condescending or elitist or whatever.

And I realized watching you and also like my friend Nate, you know, Bargettzi,

that there's just, we don't know about the life.

That, you know, comics, it's rare that they really talk about their life, first of all.

And I always gravitate to that.

But second of all, that, you know, the voice of you know, what it's like to live in where you grew up, it's just, it's not part of the, the broader comedy conversation.

Like I thought, like, there's a couple of bits you did, but that bit that Nate did on his last special about the different types of Christianity was hilarious.

But it's like, I've never heard anybody say it like that.

You know, you hear people talk about religion in a basic way, but he's talking about, you know, people who came back to the church were fanatical, and then as more kids came, became less, like the last kid, it was like, fuck it, you know?

But it was such a framing that, like, just, and also from your point of view as a woman at the age you're at, and talking about just regular stuff of your life gave me insight into

something I have no idea about.

And it's great.

Oh, thank you.

Because I'm not condescending.

I just don't know.

But, you know, you assume, but because of the response of the audience and the way you were talking about a woman's role in the type of families that you were brought up in, and that it was so sort of like received, I'm like, holy shit, this is like, this is regular stuff for so many people.

And to me, it's like, wow, I've never heard that before, you know?

Well, thank you, my darling.

Yeah.

But like, there's a couple of questions.

Some of them are just practical.

I've always been sort of half fascinated with tobacco farms.

Oh, really?

Yes.

And I.

Oh.

Because I never really understood the business.

And I was a smoker forever.

And I was obsessed with tobacco.

And I always thought, like, can I grow my own tobacco?

Would that be a feasible thing?

Is it legal to do that?

Is there a way to dry it and cure it?

But you grew up on a tobacco.

That would take a lot.

You don't want to get into that.

So that's the business you grew up in?

Yes.

Well,

yes.

For generations on both sides back were farming people in that area that is known for dart fire tobacco.

What's that mean, dark fire?

That makes co

skull and Copenhagen.

We made for Skull and Copenhagen.

You were growing for them.

You were a contracted farm for those companies?

Well, yeah, we would sell our crops to U.S.

tobacco that would then make it into, you know, sell it to them.

Yeah.

Because there's also Burley.

There's other types of tobacco that make cigarettes that are good for cigarettes in the land, which I smoked too in the 80s, and I loved it.

Oh, yeah.

And I, and I dream of one day getting to smoke again, maybe an assisted living.

Yeah.

You know, and take like salsa lessons

and smoke.

That's what I want to do.

You can take the salsa lessons they're not going to hurt you

but I am glad I've got that monkey off my back because it was gross I have a Zen in right now I've never been able to get off the nicotine fully my darling yeah I have for a couple I think I have here and there but I don't know it's hard well yeah I wore a patch yeah I got patches in there to get off of these I've been through this so many I can't

well I got pregnant with my first baby and I had to stop I mean that you know that motivates you but anyway yeah once you get off them for for a few days, you're good.

It only took me months.

Yeah, and you can adjust to it and you don't need them anymore.

But then, well, you had a baby because if you get off the nicotine and you got nothing else going on, eventually you're going to be like, well, why am I alive?

If I don't have that reward of being able to wake up and just smoke.

With a cup of coffee.

I know.

But isn't that cool?

Crazy calm.

Like you go.

You go to bed at night just thinking like, I'm going to have, tomorrow I'm going to

have a cup of cigarettes.

and my husband hated it like when we he first started dating me he bought my cigarettes because he was trying to get me yeah and then big spender yeah well he would pump my gas and you know you need a pack of smokes or whatever and I was like oh yeah and then it he turned on me and said you stink and the smell and I don't know if I can deal with this it went through a whole thing but thank God he got me off of okay but yes my little mom and daddies all their my generations back grandparents and everybody are farming people yeah and but my little daddy we still have our family farm.

We lease it out and people, big farmers grow, but the government pays them, I don't even know what's happening now, but they used to pay them not to grow it.

Because of competition or because they were,

I don't think.

To keep farmers, I know, to keep farmers alive and going and doing, but to grow other things, but tobacco was, I guess, so much more lucrative.

So now they grow alfalfa, soybeans, all that corn, all that

for fruit, corn syrup, all that rigor.

But

so my little daddy,

we had a grocery store in our little town of 500 people.

We owned the grocery store and then he started cutting everybody's meat in the back and you couldn't make money on a little grocery store

because we were so rural, people would drive into bigger town and go to the grocery store.

This was when I was a baby, they were still like you could still charge your groceries like on gun smoke.

You could charge to my mom and dad and then when their crop came in, they could pay it all.

So anyway, everybody started getting my dad to cut their beef.

So then he realized I need to open up a meat processing plant.

I can make more money.

So my family,

we worked in that and all my family worked in it.

And we did everybody's hogs, beef, and grass-fed, all that like you have now.

Yeah.

But back then, and deer when people hunted.

And they just bring a deer in and you butcher it.

Yeah.

And then

somebody else killed it off property.

But we always had our farm and had a sharecropper farming for us.

Yeah.

And then we've been able to hold on to that land in Middle Tennessee, right outside of Nashville.

But my dad put me through, my sister and I through college with the meat processing plant.

That's a great story.

I mean, it's so it's so

sort of fundamentally American and family driven and like self-supporting somehow.

I know, and then and they would ask me and my sister to work in it and we were not going to help.

I mean, and we were in the 80s with big hair, blonde, cared about our, you know, beauty.

And then we had to deal with this meat.

I mean, and deer meat is sticky.

I tell you, when they opened it when I was in sixth grade, I did not eat meat.

I guess I was what the California people call vegan,

vegetarian, until I went to the University of Tennessee, and then I was able to eat a hamburger again when I got away from it.

So you could.

Because I was in it.

And you couldn't do it.

Yeah, I could smell it, and I could see it.

Did you feel bad for the animals?

Yeah, I mean, not for food, because I know people have got to eat, but I'm, you know, I don't care if people hunt or all that, but I can't.

Yeah, I can't be doing all that.

But like tobacco, so do you remember the tobacco farm?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And I have worked in tobacco.

I dropped sticks when I was 10 years old.

I wanted a job.

It's harvested, once they cut it, so the plant, they cut it, then they lay those plants down in the rows.

Yeah.

On the same day, you lay sticks down.

Some little child goes in, or or somebody lays sticks down and then they put those plants on those sticks.

Then they hang it on

whatever that's called.

What is that called?

A vehicle, a trailer kind of thing that's got the like scaffolding or whatever.

That you can hang the plants on those sticks.

Then they take it to a barn, hang it in the barn, and then smoke it.

Smoke it with like what?

They have a slow-going fire underneath and smoke it for, you know, I should know this, but days, weeks, I don't know.

But when I would come home from college in September, so it cures it.

Yeah, it's curing that tobacco and you can smell it and it's all over everything.

But it's a good smell.

It's a good smell.

I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

And it made me feel like I'm home when I would smell that smell.

And I could, you know, I'd know it anywhere.

Wow.

And they still do that.

Yeah.

They still do that in my town.

The tobacco business.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It can't be as big as it used to be because no one's smoking anymore.

Yeah, you know, sedentary is the new smoke, and they say.

So, yeah,

I do think it's gone down.

You guys are making dip.

It was dip, and my high school boyfriend

was the skull representative at the University of Tennessee.

So I have put a skull thing in my mouth one time

just to see.

And I, oh.

The room was spinning.

I think I threw up.

Yeah.

But, um, and then he went on to work for U.S.

Tobacco and traveled all over the world and bought tobacco, sold and bought tobacco like in France and all over.

That's crazy.

So, he, his family was big in it, but everybody was.

Everybody went to high school with him.

But, like, do people farming people?

Well, I guess, like, do, do you, like, do, do you keep some of the tobacco for yourself and kind of make your own cigarettes or make your own?

Maybe my granddaddy did, but my people, my little mom and daddy didn't.

Yeah.

No.

But, yeah, my granddaddy chewed big old like tobacco chew

and was darling and sweet.

And my grandmother was this short little round woman, short as she was round.

And she would make three meals a day, heavy, big meals, and the field hands would come in and eat.

Yeah.

And she didn't waste anything.

I mean,

they lived off of nothing, but were able to have a, you know, a good life.

Did they have livestock too?

So were they

cows?

I've been raised around cows, chickens.

I've seen her wring a chicken, pluck it, fry it right in front of my face, and I was a child.

I saw that once, and it really fucked me up.

Like, I saw a guy get a chicken, then cut its head off, watched it run around, and then cut the legs off, and then put it in the hot water to take the...

It was devastating.

But I don't know why, because, you know, we talk about tobacco, and obviously there's bad implications to big tobacco, but there's still something about

the organic nature of it that I just find fascinating.

And I'm just like, I always wondered about how all that tobacco is processed.

And then, and like, what, because in my mind, I'm like, why wouldn't you just make your own cigarettes?

Because you can make your own dope.

Because people are rolling all that dough.

Sure.

It's hard.

Well, now there's big farms to that, of course.

That's the new business, kind of.

Yeah.

Are they farming that down in Tennessee?

They do a little hemp.

Yeah.

But it's hard.

But hemp's old school.

I mean, that's been around for a long time, but like smokable can.

Oh, yeah.

Marijuana, not in Tennessee.

None of it.

We can't do any of that.

I think people are on the streets doing it, but no, it's not legal.

Yeah.

Well, you talk a little bit about that in

your special.

I'm just shocked that everybody's doing dope.

You know, you grow up and they go, don't do dope.

And then everybody's on dope.

I know.

Well, I think

the image of it has shifted.

That in the big picture, you know, dope doesn't turn out to be that terrible.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

But you know where they're smoking a lot of dope in LAX and the baggage claim.

It burns my eyes every time I'm thinking, who is in here?

Once it was legalized, it was everywhere.

I mean, like, I, and I used to smoke, but I've been sober a long time.

But, uh, and I don't mind it, but like, it's kind of amazing because I know it gets you fucked up.

So you just know, like, you said, like,

everyone around you is stoned.

It's not, it's not passive.

It's not like cigarettes.

People are literally like, nah, you know.

And, but you do smell it everywhere.

That was a funny, that was was a funny joke you made.

I got you everywhere I go, in and out of hotels, elevators, everybody's on dope.

But

the fact that that joke landed so hard, you know, that your point of reference was like, who's boiling cabbage everywhere?

It does smell like cabbage.

But I don't know if you can.

Did you grow up eating cabbage?

Not really.

Okay, well, see, my people, Irish, German, English,

a lot of cabbage.

Boiling that cabbage.

They were boiling a lot of cabbage.

I love cabbage.

I eat it now, but

I like a cabbage salad.

Oh, I do too.

Yeah, you know, like cut up like a slaw of some kind.

Yeah.

I love cabbage.

I do too.

Yeah.

So you're growing, so did you make a, it doesn't sound like you, you had to be like, you know, I'm out with your farming family.

You just kind of went and did your own thing.

Yeah.

Well,

my little mom and daddy said to me, because I went, I graduated with 42 people

and in my precious high school.

You just know everybody.

I knew everybody.

I went to church.

We all grew up together, together, everybody.

So you know them all now?

Yes.

And stay in touch.

And,

but a lot of kids got out and worked in farms and owned farms and own land and do great.

There used to be factories.

You know, people would go out and work in a factory.

But my dad just said, you're going to college or the military, which one is it?

And I was like, oh, Lord.

Because I was raised near 101st Airborne.

The boys that flew in, the Navy SEALs that went in there to get Uday and Couset.

That's right on the Kentucky, Tennessee border near me, like 30 minutes from me.

And I was like, ooh, I can't, I mean, I'm too sissy

and cute to be in the military.

So

all my life, though, Mark, I mean, from the time I was like nine or ten, I thought, I'm going to Hollywood.

I mean, I'm going to be in show business.

And so when they would say to me, you need to go to college, and my sister wanted to go.

It's not that I wanted to go to college, but at the same time, I thought,

I'm going to Hollywood.

But anyway, what were you going to do in Hollywood?

I just grew up watching Sarah Night Live, sitcoms, comedy,

stand up.

Yeah, stand up.

And I just thought, that's what I'm supposed to be doing.

But I was this little bitty farm girl that it never dawned on me at 18 to get in a car and go to Chicago to Second City.

Or I didn't even know what it was.

Or I didn't have the guts to say, I'm going to L.A.

and I'm taking everything I've got on $35 like people do.

So I thought, I'll go to college and just see what what happens.

And then

flailed around in college, graduated through the skin of my teeth.

And then,

so, yeah, the farming, like they never said, do you want a farm?

Do you want to take this farm over?

It never dawned.

I mean, I'd get out there and every once in a while bail hay, work in tobacco fields, set on the back of a setter, you put the plant in and it plants it.

Yeah.

You know, pick plants in when it's hot, July, beating down on you.

I didn't want you know they didn't want me to do it and I didn't want to do it and so anyway I went to college and then married my husband who moved me to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and bought a used mobile home business after he got out of MBA school and I started selling jewelry I had my first baby Charlie.

Oh, and I want to tell you real quick about Charlie because I think that you would love him.

He's my first child, old soul.

He researched and found out what tobacco plant they would have grown in the early 1800s

in Adams, Tennessee, and grew one on the back of his porch just to see what it looked like.

So I think you would get along with him because he was fascinated.

He's been fascinated by our people and what they did and that crop.

How was it?

Was it different?

No, I mean, he just grew a big tobacco plant in a pot on the back of his porch just to see what that plant would have.

Because in the 1800s, Adams was known for it was going to be the capital of Tennessee instead of Nashville.

Yeah.

And

some, the Bell family, he, that man ran for president.

So that, that was known as the best place to raise dark fire tobacco in the, I guess, in the United States.

So Charlie just said, I'd like to know what that tobacco plant looks like and does it look different from the ones now?

That are, that have been genetically modified.

Yeah, yeah.

And so he just, I just think you would enjoy him.

But anyway, I had him.

So you get out of college and then you just you get married right away yeah I got well okay Mark I went I got married at 21 you're gonna think you did you squat in a field and have a baby in the Appalachia Mountains no close but close okay so when I was at UT flailing around I married at 21 to my first husband right uh and got a divorce by the time I was 23.

Oh, that happens, huh?

Yeah, and it was bad, but fine.

And

so I got divorced, went back to Utah.

So you didn't have a kid with him, so

praise God.

And let me tell you, Mark, I was fertile.

Yeah.

I was going to say to you, if you want to have a baby now, maybe I could carry one for you.

I'm going to be 16 in October.

I hate to even say that, but I think I could still probably carry one.

I've avoided it this long.

I think I can continue on.

Well, but let me tell you, girls that are raised farming, we've got thick ankles.

We can work in the fields.

We're very fertile.

But anyway, so I

went back to the University of Tennessee, finished after you got married and

changed your life for a few years.

Yes.

And then married Chuck Morgan, and then that's when he moved me to, honest to goodness, the foothills of the Appalachia Mountains.

Where in Tennessee?

In Tennessee, up in Granger County, and it was a little town called Bean Station, beautiful lakes and all that.

But like there, you know, 30 minutes from there, people didn't know who the president was.

Sure.

Sweet.

But I'm talking Appalachia.

So then, and he had gotten an MBA and bought this business and is very entrepreneurial and very smart.

I've got a very smart husband and very ambitious and a workaholic.

So then I had my first baby all the time thinking, I'm going to be a stand-up.

Yeah, really?

While we were dating, my sister lived in Huntington Beach.

We came out here to see her and he took me to the comedy store.

He said, what do you want to do out here?

And I go, I want to ride around in that limousine, in that hearst, and see where people have been murdered in Hollywood.

I want to see that.

The death tour?

Yes.

Had a ball.

Yeah.

Then, and he thought it was very morbid and didn't enjoy it, but I love to see where Bugsy Siegel was shot.

You know, it's funny, if you're fascinated with the myth of Hollywood and all that stuff, it's like, you know, people who aren't, they're like, I don't get it.

And you're like, but there's something you can't even explain.

If you're into like movie stars and weird gangster history and stuff, you got to see.

I love all vans.

Yeah.

I love all vans.

And then I said, I want to go to the comedy store and I got to see Arera.

I'm saying

this would have been

Charlie was born in 93, so like 91.

Oh, yeah.

I was a door guy there in 86 and 87.

So like, you know, I can imagine the lineup.

So you saw Dom and who I was.

I saw Dom and, oh, my gosh,

who wrote for Richard Pryor?

Paul Mooney.

Paul Mooney.

Yeah.

And he went for, he probably did two hours.

You're at the end.

It was probably.

At the end, Yeah.

And he told us all that Elizabeth Taylor had died and she hadn't.

He goes, I'm just kidding, y'all.

He was wonderful.

But I love Dom Marrera, and I've gotten to be with him, you know, through my career.

I went up to him like I did at you at the comedy store and talked to him.

And I'm sure he was like, who is this country girl talking to me?

But I told him how much I loved him.

But anyway,

so I went into the comedy store and my heart beat out of my body.

I had a physical reaction.

And I just, I thought, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

I just know it.

And this is you just have one kid at this point?

I hadn't had any babies yet.

It was for Chuck and I married.

So then anyway, we go and marry.

I have this first baby and I want to stay at home and breastfeed feed him.

So

but I had a degree, but I didn't, I wanted, I thought, well, Hollywood, what was the degree?

Crisis Intervention Counseling.

And I thought, if I don't make it in Hollywood, I'm going to be a child and family therapist.

Right.

And I love all that.

Yeah.

But anyway, I had Charlie.

One of my friends said, I'm selling this jewelry, like Mary Kay and Tumblewear, man.

Sure.

Well, that's what, yeah.

I just talked to a woman who talked about the evolution of Amway.

She does a podcast about it and the type of people that saw that as a business.

And it becomes almost like this weird cult-like thing.

Yeah, I was not in a weird cult-like thing.

I don't think I was.

I was too busy breastfeeding.

Yeah.

Okay, but I was selling jewelry really to just hone my act.

All right, so, but I didn't, I mean, I realized it.

What was the jewelry?

Okay, it was this little jewelry company.

Not little, it was a big jewelry company out of just costume jewelry, not fine jewelry, out of Dallas, Texas.

And you would go to these women's houses and, you know, put all this jewelry out, schlep this big case around, and then they would have a dip and a, you know, brownies or something.

I would do.

Yeah, they'd have their friends over, and then I'm supposed to do a jewelry presentation.

And I would at first, but then it morphed into some of my very first material.

And I was pregnant with my second baby while I was slept in that jewelry.

So I had all this material about, you know, hemorrhoids, breastfeeding, pregnant, all that.

I was killing Mark.

And here I was in people's living rooms.

It was my demo.

And I felt like it was my own little comedy club because I was so isolated up in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

And it gave me, you know,

social and I could be with people and I could make a little money and I could breastfeed my baby and stay at home with him.

But I was honing

my first 45 minutes.

Getting the sets in.

Yeah.

And then the company, I started booking so far in advance, like women would book me like a year in advance.

And I and I remember saying because you got known as.

Well, they said she's fun.

And these jewelry parties are fun.

Yeah.

And so,

yeah, I was funny.

And then the company started asking me to speak at their big things.

And that's when I thought, okay, I could do this for a living.

And then Chuck sold that business and went to work for a large mobile home company, Berkshire Hathaway Company, moved us to San Antonio, and I started working Cap City Comedy Club.

Yeah.

I had three babies by then, and I would drive back and forth to San Antonio.

I worked at River Center.

What do you mean?

Cap City in Austin.

In Austin.

The old one.

The old one.

The big one.

With Margie and Rich Miller and all them.

Yeah, with the big room in front and then the little bar room.

The big room in back and the little bar room.

Yeah, and then there was, yeah, River Center.

It was a nightmare, dude.

I can't even.

In the mall.

I had some very traumatic times there.

I feel like I did.

Well, they had that, remember at the River Center when they first opened it, they had that really nice condo, and then it just turned to garbage.

And then, like, by the time I played that place, the last time I played it, the condo was just like one of the worst examples of a comedy condo.

It's just like nasty, funny.

But when they bought, when I was out there when they first got it.

And I always wondered, what are they laundering through here?

Because

his family was La Quinta Hotel.

Oh, he did.

And then they opened LOL, which is open now.

That's an old Alamo draft house.

Yes.

Right.

You doll.

Yeah.

So I worked that one too.

I played that at the beginning.

But the River Center, I didn't really know.

It was huge.

Thank you.

They were both too big for me.

You know what I mean?

Like to play for 30 people at the River Center was a fucking nightmare.

You're just like in a hanger-sized room, and it's just,

oh, my God.

And then you got to walk out into that mall and walk along that fake river.

But you get to see the Alamo, and I had a couple friends.

San Antonio is beautiful.

And I love it.

I was just there.

I was just there.

I played,

I did all right.

What did you play lately?

What was the LOL?

No, no, I did a little theater.

Majestic?

Yeah.

Oh, beautiful.

Right.

That was good.

Oh, yeah, that's beautiful.

That's right down there by the river.

River walk.

Yeah.

And I did all right.

You know, but I figured it out, though, and someone had told me years ago that one of the reasons it's a hard place to do it is locals don't want to park down there.

Like, you know, the river center is a pain in the ass.

So I wonder, because that club doesn't exist anymore, right?

No.

But LOL is.

Just LOL at the Alamo draft house.

But that might be better because it's a.

There's parking.

That's right.

Yeah.

So you lived there for a while?

About three years.

So you just started, so after the jewelry business, that was your husband's business or no, you just signed up with the business.

He had a used mobile home refurbishing business.

And then he went to work for a huge manufactured housing company that's a Berkshire Hathaway company.

That manufactured housing, but that's like just prefab housing?

Yeah, modulars and mobile homes.

But they're doing some cool stuff with that.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you wouldn't believe it.

Does he do those ones that are kind of modeled on freight containers?

Have you seen those, like the giant freight containers?

I have.

They don't do that cool.

But they do, but they have, but it's nice.

And they have tiny homes that

would blow your mind and all that kind of stuff.

And you just set them up.

If you got water and power, you can just

do it.

Yeah.

Wow.

And, you know, they're out here.

I know.

People get them.

And people get them, and they're in Malibu.

I mean, it's a good place to be.

That's the place to do it.

Because, like, you know, Malibu, if you're into that beach life, there's a very famous, I don't know if it got leveled by the fires.

It's a famous trailer park down there.

Yes.

Chuck Morgan, when he's been out here, said, I want want to go look at it.

Did he go?

Yeah, he did.

But I do.

I wonder if it got murdered.

I don't know.

I tried to find out because I know a guy.

Paradise or?

Something like that.

Paradise Cove.

Paradise Cove.

I don't know if it got leveled.

So, but when do you just start doing open mics?

I went to open mic at the River Center.

They moved me up.

I don't think I did it one time.

They moved me up to opener.

But I was a mom.

I was different from everybody.

I mean, I just look back.

But I had been, I think I skipped all the open mic stuff because I'd been doing that in women's living rooms, selling that jewelry.

Yeah.

And I had, I was kind of not seasoned, but I was kind of ahead of the game just because of all that.

Right.

Well, you could tell a story.

I could tell a story.

Yeah.

And I was just different.

There weren't a lot of mamas in a kitten heel with a, you know, a Capri pant with a bird on it and a bob doing comedy.

And let me say, Mark, during Comedy Central, all that booming and all y'all going and doing, they didn't want me.

Like, I was not,

the comedy world didn't want me, but I did okay

with audience.

What's interesting, though, is that from doing the jewelry thing, you knew exactly who your audience was.

And it was a real audience and a huge audience.

It was just not an audience that was marketed to.

Right.

But I didn't know how to get to them once the jewelry shows were over.

Then I was in comedy clubs and I didn't know until social media, you know, in my early 50s, did I really find my audience?

Isn't that amazing?

I just.

Because there were women, like I knew Brett Butler real well before she went off the grid.

Yeah.

You know, and she started in, you know, kind of country entertainment.

I think she used to write for Dolly Parton and stuff.

And then she got, you know, she built her brain and then became kind of a bit of a more intense performer.

And then Roseanne, you know, but and that was similar, but still a little more aggressive and darker than what you do.

But there were, but I think what's interesting about you is that it's always, it's all pretty honest.

You're not, there's no device.

You know, you're not trying to have a hook or anything.

You're just talking about your life as it is.

And it's crazy that you, that the business didn't gravitate towards it because I guess they were looking for something, something else.

Because there's, I mean, there's more women in the world than there are men, you know, in numbers-wise.

And you got to figure at least 75, 80% of them are going through exactly what you're talking about.

But I think they had an aversion to women talking.

I don't know what it was, but I would have, Hollywood would come after me every once in a while and I'd get a deal, a development deal.

Yeah, I had those.

And then they wouldn't make it.

What, back in the 90s?

Yeah, well,

probably early 2000s was my first one.

My babies were still elementary school and middle school.

So it was like a point of view deal.

They give you development money, they hook you up with a writer.

Yeah.

And then you write it.

Tom Warner.

Tom Warner.

Now we sold it to ABC.

Right.

Writer strike hit.

They didn't make it.

Then I had a second one with Matt Williams at Created Roseanne and Home Improvement.

Yeah.

Went to Nick at Night.

He took it back from them.

Then it went to TV Land.

So I was kind of, I was in the mix, but not really.

Like, I only worked so many comedy clubs a year that would book me.

Nobody, they didn't, most of them did not want to book me.

But the issue was there was no way for you to build a following without exposure that would get you one.

Right.

But what about, like, were you part of the regional circuit?

You know, like, in the middle of the day.

Not really.

I mean, I would, the stardome would work me.

Zaney's in Nashville.

Brian Dorfman.

Yeah, great.

Who was precious to me from the word go?

Chattanooga, that little comedy club.

Austin would always have me back.

But I was,

I did get on a, you know, after Blue Collar blew up that some

agent guy put us three women together and we it was called the Southern Fried Chicks and that Lord that was the early 2000s who was on that Etta May you remember Eta May I do what happened to her she's still out there honey and working theaters okay and then Karen Meals who's a dear friend of mine who we she still she'll open with for me on tour yeah and um and we We did okay.

We didn't do like the blue collar guys, but it kept me on stage working for about three years

pretty consistently.

And Chuck would take care of the babies during the week.

I mean, during the weekend, and I could

take them to school and pick them up and, you know, do everything.

You could stay at home.

I could stay at home.

Because Brian Dorfman said to me, I went when Tess was 18 months old.

You're in Nashville now or where are you going to?

I'm in Knoxville, back in Knoxville.

And I drove to Zaney's.

I asked him if I called on the phone and said, can I come and open?

And he goes, okay.

I opened for Billy Gardell.

She was 18 months old.

She's now 27.

And Brian Dorfman, afterwards, he said, let me talk to you.

And

he sat me down and he said, I think you've got something.

But he said, but as a mom of three children, there's no way you can do this route.

Comedy club.

And I remember being so mad and thinking, I'll show you.

But I look back on it and he was right.

I really think you just don't see a lot of mamas out here really doing what y'all did Right.

Because I couldn't have raised my own children.

And their daddy was an executive, so he was working and traveling all over the United States.

Somebody had to raise these babies.

And I wanted to raise my children.

So I just had to find a different path than what y'all, what I, all the people that I admired and the cool kids and who I

loved and admired and watched all these years.

I could not do what y'all were doing.

I had to take a different path.

But the interesting thing is, is that now that it's worked out, but the priority was the family.

And it seems like you weren't bitter about that.

No, no.

And you weren't quite bitter about

not being able to pursue comedy full-time.

You just accepted the circumstance.

I did.

And I just had to do, I did a lot of private corporate stuff.

I did a lot.

I was your breast cancer girl for fundraisers.

I just took anything I could get to be on stage.

And then I would work those few little clubs after the Southern Front Chiefs went touring.

There would be lulls where, I mean, I couldn't get arrested.

Nobody cared.

And then I get a Hollywood deal.

And it just was enough to keep me.

I know that one.

Yeah.

Like, you know, you don't got money coming in.

And then all of a sudden you get this deal.

And like, whether it goes or not, you feel like you're in the game and you've got money.

Yes.

And then you just watch it, you know, get away from you somehow that doesn't even make sense.

It's like, no, we're taking it to this place.

And I, you know, we, they didn't like it, but they might want.

And then all of a sudden it's like, what's going on with that?

And they're like, oh, yeah, it's not.

It's not him.

It's over.

And I didn't know how all that Hollywood stuff worked.

I still don't usually.

I just know that someone's lying to me and eventually it'll just go away.

I mean, it's a little different now, but the business is different.

You know, the fact that you got...

Like, it makes total sense.

Like, I remember those deals.

You and I are kind of the same age.

You know, I was out there,

you know, for years without a following or without anything, you know, until this podcast.

And, you know, and I had had, you know, and I'd been on Conan like, you know, 50 times, but I couldn't sell a ticket.

I couldn't sell tickets.

I didn't sell tickets until after I started this podcast after a few years after that.

So I was out there, what, 20 some odd years.

I was.

See, and I didn't know that.

I was thinking, Mark Mayor, I just always thought, oh my gosh, he's.

No, I mean, I was visible and I think I was respected on some level.

And I would show up on late night shows, but that it wasn't like the old days.

That didn't guarantee you

a following.

And I'm weird.

I'm not for everybody.

But like I, there's an interview where I said I did 50 Conans, but America did not care.

Yeah, by the time I started this podcast, I was in the middle of a divorce and I didn't have any money and it was not looking good.

And that was 2009.

So it didn't, it didn't turn around for me until I was, you know, whatever, 40 something, 50, 45.

Well, and I remember going to Montreal and they said Mark Marin's doing his podcast and we all ran.

Yeah.

And it was full.

I don't know if you remember it.

And you were, I mean, I just remember sitting there thinking, would he ever interview me?

Come on.

I did.

Because I thought

that would have been 2011, I think.

So we're a couple of years in.

It's still a new thing.

People aren't sure what it is, but it's making like all of a sudden people are aware of podcasts.

Like, I don't even, we're still doing, you know, just talk, no, no video.

But was it one one of those shows where it was like four people, four comics?

I just remember Caroline Ray, you talking to her.

Yeah, we go way back.

Yeah.

Oh, I loved her.

And I was on her gala or whatever.

It was a mom thing, and they let me, Nick at night or somebody let me own that.

And I think I went over because I couldn't find the clock or the light.

But, and I was so embarrassed.

It was me and Tammy Pascatelli and Caroline Ray.

But I went, you know, you could go to different things.

I went to see you.

And Nate Bargettsi is a good friend of mine.

And we've talked talked about it, I would say, but you're one of the cool kids.

He goes, I've never felt like one of the cool kids.

I go, what are you talking about?

You were in New York, and I was just a little mama in Knoxville, Tennessee, but I always kept my thumb on the pulse of what was going on.

I always knew who was coming up, who was doing.

I was fascinated by it.

Yeah, I love Nate.

And I just, I was down there.

I saw him in Nashville.

And

he opened for me.

He used to open for me a bit, you know.

And it was so funny because I remember seeing him and before he was,

before he broke, it was at like the Michigan Comedy Festival.

I had met him in New York, but I didn't know him in New York.

I mean, he was in New York, but he wasn't doing like the comedy seller.

You know, he was like, he was doing this room with Dustin, you know, that guy who opens for him.

They had this like little room.

And like, I met him, but he was still drinking and sweaty and chubby and not really confident.

I don't remember meeting him, but I remember seeing him in Michigan at the Traverse City, one of the Grand Rapids Comedy Festival on just a showcase.

And it was like, who the the fuck is this guy?

And I was like following him around.

I'm like, where the hell do you come from?

You know, he opened for me at Carnegie Hall.

And I told him this story recently when I did it for the New York Comedy Festival.

He did great.

And

I floundered around for two hours

at Carnegie Hall.

But after, I just remember this, I just told it to him.

After the show, I was out front and I was about to just go walk at my buddy.

And I'm like, do you got any of those skull packets?

You got any of the skull pouches?

And

he had like six and a ten left.

And he goes, just take it.

And I'm like, this is the best part of the night.

Back to tobacco.

Back to tobacco.

But yeah, like

it's, it's just, I'm having,

like, I'm having.

Kathy Ladman is going to open for me.

Oh, wow.

And there's just something about

the strangeness that, you know, women in general, but certainly women who have had a life, don't have more voice or aren't more popular.

It's bizarre to me because it's a whole world that I realize watching you and also watching Kathy that's sort of like, I don't know anything about this.

I'm not married and I'm not a woman and I don't have kids.

And I imagine it's got to be like 90% of the people have

the experiences you're having, but you don't, it's underrepresented.

I know.

And I'm and I think I'm the only one in my lane.

Well, you think about Netflix giving me a special, and

I thought it would never happen.

I thought there's no way they're going to have a middle-aged grandmama from Easton C on there, but they did.

They took a shot on me, and it has been wonderful.

Now, had you done a special before that?

I had, okay.

I was just about to quit.

I was not, it was not going well.

Okay, this was in

maybe

17 something like that and i had the my manager at the time said this thing called dry bar

online because i don't even understand it but they want you to shoot a special they're going to pay you a couple of thousand dollars you don't have anything else going on that's what he said to me why don't you go and do it in salt lake city we'll get clips from it and you can get more i was that week i was going to work the debuke chamber of commerce that's how bad my career was going not that i don't love Dubuque, but I was working the luncheon at the Chamber of Commerce, and I was probably in my late 40s, early 50s.

And I thought,

this is not how things should be going.

But I thought, okay, I'll shoot this special.

I thought nobody will ever see it.

He said, nobody will ever see it.

It'll never see the light of day, but it'll give you a little bit of a shit.

But this is early YouTube.

This was 2017.

So, no, not really.

But, okay, so Dry Bar was this clean comedy thing.

I remember it kind of.

Okay, so I go and shoot that thing.

They put it out.

It gets like 50 million views.

On YouTube.

On YouTube and their platform.

Now, Dry Bar, was that the one that they had cameras at certain clubs?

No, that was Rooftop.

Rooftop, right?

Which I loved because I could get a little, you know, bit filmed and use that.

I loved that, but no, not them.

And it was, um, it was this clean comedy thing.

Yeah.

And they've done a million of them, but I thought, nothing's going to come from that.

And it really didn't.

It wasn't, I wasn't selling tickets.

I got millions of views.

I think people were starting to know something like 50 million views on this thing.

For the whole special.

And my hair looked terrible.

I can't even watch it.

And I was rusty.

I was barely working.

I felt like it sucked.

So the, but what it did, I did get work from it, but it wasn't good work.

It was just like little piddly things, but it gave me enough money to then,

I thought, at the last ditch effort, I'd cried to my husband.

I said, it's not going like I wasn't getting development debt.

Like, nothing's happening.

I may have to give this up.

And I knew Charlie had gotten married right out of college, but had waited five years, was about to have my first grandbaby.

And I thought, who is now about to turn five in December?

And I thought, I'll just, country people, grandmama, stay home and cook pinto beans and tend to these grandbabies.

I said, that's what I'll do.

And I'll just forget it.

And maybe I can open up a hardware store.

And Chunk was like, you've lost your mind.

So so anyway it gave me a little bit I didn't even have a good website like my friend had done my website I never invested in myself if I made money I would buy my kids uniforms I get their hair cut that kind of thing which was I should have been smarter than that but anyway so I take well they appreciate it I know when I've got precious baby me smart you love every one of them and my grandbabies two grandsons yeah but um so I took I I took the money I was making off the dry bar thing and I thought I'm gonna I'm gonna get social media people and I said to my manager at the time because I love Jim Gaff again I was watching Nate blow up I go they've got social media people I need social media people he goes no you don't you can't afford them and I just did it anyway and I found these young guys and that was crazy these young guys that worked out of Dallas Texas and they they understood my voice yeah

And I thought, I'm going to give them, I can do this three months because it was expensive.

I thought, I'm giving it three months.

If nothing happens, I'm out.

And I'll just tend to these grandbabies.

So, which I was fine with.

And this is what, 2018?

This was in 2019, something like that, 2018.

Yeah, somewhere in there.

And my baby that you met, I was moving her into her apartment in Brooklyn.

She was going to school in New York.

And those boys put out a clip of me.

Talking about taking Chunk to go see Deaf Leopard and Journey and how everybody looked sick and old and had plantar fasciitis.

And I had never even done that bit.

I had just been to the concert.

Somebody got it on film.

They decided, they thought it was funny.

They put it out.

It went viral.

The day we were moving her in, I could, thousands, it was thousands TikToking on Facebook

back then.

And

like I'm talking, it felt like in a week,

clubs were calling all over the United States because I think people love, people could relate to that.

Men could too, because everybody goes and go, you know, you go and see the Eagles or, you know, whoever and you realize, you know, everybody

looks bad and feel bad and everybody's got a hernia and all that.

And then

people started looking, well, what else does she have?

Yeah.

So then clubs started calling that would not have booked me and had booked me a little bit before that and said, we love her.

She didn't sell tickets.

She didn't get drunk, fighting the parking lot, but we're not having her back.

Then they started begging, and I started selling out all over the United States.

It was the craziest thing.

It was like somebody turned on a light switch overnight, could not get arrested until all of a sudden I was in demand.

And I found my audience is what I'm trying, long story short.

I found these women and men, but women out in the middle of the United States that's raised children that are just normal everyday people.

And I connected with them.

And then Netflix gave me a special.

Well, that was, but it's so funny because that's who you were connecting with in the living rooms.

In the living rooms.

It was always that.

I just didn't know how to find them for 20 years.

Right.

And now you had

these platforms that you, it just clicked.

It just clicked.

Because for years I would say, because I always had management and stuff out here.

Yeah.

But I would say, how can I get to these?

I just didn't know how to get to them.

Because I wasn't out working clubs all the time.

I was, you know, doing little corporate things.

You know, these agents that'll pook you to do these.

I mean, they pay more for the shrimp than they did me.

I wasn't making a lot of money.

Yeah.

But I was able to, you know, keep working going.

Well, that's so, it's like, thank God for that stuff.

I know.

Yeah, I don't know that like without the podcast.

And now, I mean, I have a social media guy, but I don't know how much that brings in.

You know, I do, you know, I have an audience and it's fine.

It's good, you know, but

again, I'm pretty specific.

But oddly, a lot of middle-aged women are coming to see me too.

I bet because you're cute in that shirt and your pants.

Yeah, I got to wear this shirt and this pants.

Those are cute jeans on you.

And you've kept your weight off, honey.

You look good.

Well, you know, it's part of my job, I think.

You know, it's weird when you don't have kids and other pressures.

You know, you can just

compulsively focus on yourself.

Well, now that I've seen my butt on screen,

I'm more conscious

of, because I look at my Netflix special and think, whose breasts are those?

They're not mine.

They're huge.

Mamma breasts.

But anyway, and now with the television show, it's really, I thought, I don't have a chin.

What happened to my neck?

I mean, I don't know.

This show business stuff is crazy.

Yeah, with these high-def TV, you know,

you can't hide.

No wonder everybody's beautiful out here.

I mean, I would compete.

So Netflix, you just start selling out clubs and theaters.

Yeah, then I get up my first tour with Outback Concerts.

Brian Dorfman, that angel from heaven.

Yeah.

They give me a 50-city tour and I sell out almost immediately.

Then they give me another another 50 and then COVID hits.

And I didn't get to do any of them until 2020 or the end of 20 or 21.

But in the meantime, I just sat on my porch and talk about taking care of my elderly parents.

On Instagram.

During COVID,

and I would just...

My social media guys said, yeah, do whatever you want to, Liam.

We don't know what to do.

You know, everybody's shut down and we didn't know.

I did the same thing.

I just did a talk show on my porch, just me talking about my life wandering around my house.

So were you doing a cookie?

I was doing that, not live, but I would just do a video about what I was cooking or what I would cook for my little mom and dad because you think about how many people are taking care of elderly parents and launching children.

So

really, it wasn't contrived.

I just was doing what everybody else was doing, but just saying, well, I cook this or, you know, don't watch the news.

Everything's going to be all right.

Yeah.

You just want to stay engaged.

Yeah.

And that and that.

And that built me even more.

That built me even more because people could relate to what I was saying because of elderly parents and babies and kids and all that and husbands.

And then I was able to tour.

That went really well.

Big panty tour.

I called it the big panty tour because I talked about my panties a lot more.

Then I

got the second tour, Just Getting Started, which I'm still doing that one.

And I named it Just Getting Started because I feel like I'm just getting started in my 50s.

Yeah.

I mean, it's been really nifty.

And

throughout all of this,

was your husband always like supportive?

Yeah.

I mean, he's a very engineered mind, you know, math, practical.

And I remember saying to him when my babies were little, Chuck, let's sell everything.

I can make it.

I know I've got something.

I can make it.

I'll cook off a hot plate.

We can live in an RV.

And he was like, are you crazy?

We need health insurance.

Thank God for him that he's practical because I'm a dreamer and I would have been out here doing God knows what.

But keeping me there in the middle of the United States helped me develop this, you know, I mean, I was able to have real experiences I could talk about on stage.

And I did a movie with Reese Witherspoon and Will Farrell called You're Cordially Invited that's on Amazon.

And Rhys Witherspoon stood by me every day and said, Leanne, you got to raise your own children.

You got to raise your own.

And I would be like, well, yeah, but I know now what they mean because people come out here and they have to work like mules and you're gone and you're doing and all that.

But I really did.

I got to raise my children and then have this second act.

Yeah.

Is Marie Southern?

Yes, she's from Nashville.

Yeah.

Her little mama was raised, born and raised up in East Tennessee where I raised my children.

Oh, yeah.

Darling wants to see me win.

Tiny, I could hold her on my hip.

Precious.

Smart.

Thinking all the time.

Smart as a whip.

Yeah, yeah.

But she's the one that got me that part.

And I had a ball, a ball.

I played Gwyneth, her big sister.

That was the first thing I'd ever done.

Scared me to death.

And then

the second tour was going.

And then Netflix, because my special did well.

And I think my special did well because there's just nobody in my lane on

Netflix or out there.

Yeah.

And so then they gave me a television show.

I know.

I watched a couple.

You did?

Yeah.

Mark, what do you think?

Well, it's great.

It's like it's the type of sitcom that you'd like, you know,

every time I see a straight-ahead, old-school three-camera sitcom.

I'm sort of like, are we in a time machine?

But that's what Chuck Laurie does.

And it's good.

It's well written.

You know, I don't know that I, I can't remember the last three camera sitcoms I've watched, but it's a familiar format.

You're great.

The story's good.

The jokes are solid.

What's her name, Kristen?

Kristen Johnston.

She's great.

Unbelievable.

did you see any with Tim Daly in it

remember Tim Daly from wings and Madame Sincreton sure of course I saw the one I saw Ryan Styles yes who plays my soon-to-be ex-husband no I didn't get to the Tim ones yet okay well he's my love interest really yes

and he's a pro and what they've done is they put you know like Ray Romano they put pros around

Around you because you don't know what you're doing.

I didn't know what I was doing.

And when we went into Netflix, I really wanted to do a camera i want single camera because that to me that was my sense of humor i love parks and recreation office all that and i haven't watched a sitcom in years but they were like we want to bring that back and will you do this we think you're perfect for this and then chuck lorry that's what he does even though he did kalinsky method and kaminsky method kaminsky method yeah but um but they had a successful

yeah he but he's like let's give it a whirl so we yeah they ordered 16 episodes no pilot nothing i mean like we went straight to, which is unheard of now.

And I felt like I had won the lottery.

This is the dream.

I know, honey.

And I'm, okay, but let me tell you, it's harder than I thought it was going to be.

But yes, that was the dream because I'm 59 years old.

So I grew up watching all these sitcoms.

Yeah, and wanting to do that and wanting to do it.

That was cheers.

That was the structure of the system, though.

It was like, your comic will build a show around you.

And you got deals at that time, probably the tail end of when those were really happening.

Yes.

In the early 2000s.

Yes.

When the last one that didn't make it, like it was going to go to TV land and

Fresh Off the Boat was coming out.

Modern Family was huge.

Right.

And they just looked at me, I'm sure, and thought, you're too traditional and you're, you know, you're married and got big kids, who cares?

And it didn't make it.

And I understand that.

You know, it was more of like Modern Family and that kind of.

But, yeah, I grew up watching those.

I loved Cheers.

I loved Frasier.

I loved all that.

Wings, I loved all that.

And so when they wanted me to do one, to me, it felt, is this too old-timey?

I'm just not used to watching them anymore.

Like, every once in a while, I'll pull up cheers on a plane.

But then now that I'm in it, I mean,

I do think it's comforting and people love that format and miss that.

Well, I think what happens, it's not unlike how, you know, you were able to make a break, is that because of the nature of the platform, like everyone's got Netflix.

It's not network beholden.

So there's no, like, you know, you got to go to this place to watch this show to get this amount of numbers.

So if it's on Netflix and everyone has Netflix, is that it's not about the network.

It's a matter of whether the people that like you

will find your show on this thing that everybody has, right?

So you can have weird shit on there and you can have your stuff on there because they did all right with the Kaminsky method.

Yeah.

And there's a generation of people that still, everyone has Netflix.

It's, it's easier to be on Netflix than it is to be on like Hulu or Amazon because then people are like, where is that?

Dude, I don't have that hooked up or that deep.

But Netflix is so

everywhere that, you know,

if the people know that it's there, they'll come see it.

Did it start yet?

No, it drops in

this summer.

But like Young Sheldon, all these things that Chuck Laurie's, they're like number one

on Netflix right now.

The Young children that was on network.

So the people that didn't watch it on network can watch it all at once.

Yeah.

That's the other thing.

All that's coming over.

Right.

Sure.

Wow.

I know.

So there's Big Bang Theory.

Good Lord.

I mean, everybody sits and watches Big Bang Theory all the time.

And friends can't.

And friends.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

So there are people who love that and comforted by that.

And I do think ours is funny, and I think it's also sweet and it's heartfelt.

And I've got these wonderful people.

Celia Weston plays my mother.

Yeah.

Oh, she's great.

Wonderful.

So funny.

And Blake, old Blake Clark.

Blake Clark.

Old Blake Clark.

I know.

Blake Clark's been around forever.

I know, and he's precious.

I used to see him do comedy when I was a door guy.

Oh, he said, oh, Lan, I did stand-up for 30 years.

And then somewhere in Florida at the Yuck Yuck, I don't even know, somewhere, coconut something.

He said, everybody was redneck throwing stuff at me, and I quit.

And I said, I can't do it anymore.

But anyway, you know, yeah, he's been in all those Adam Sandler movies and all that.

But I've got wonderful writers, Nick Mackay, Susan McMartin.

Nick Mackay.

I haven't talked to him in years.

Darling.

Good, good.

We have a ball.

We talk too much and talk about smoking in the 80s and they don't learn our lines because he's a talker like I am, and we want to talk about, you know, dancing to Prince and when doves cry and all that.

But yeah, and Susan McMartin is a showrunner, and they've all written and done stuff with

Two and a Half Men.

Sure.

You know, all that.

Mom, all that.

You know how to do it.

Yeah, no, the jokes are solid.

It moves along.

The characters are defined.

I mean, the real trick to those things is that you really, like, on paper, it's a joke-to-joke thing.

So the characters have to be dug in and believable enough that you don't notice that that's really what's happening.

You know what I mean?

And it worked good.

I mean, I thought it was funny.

And I'm happy that

your marriage didn't actually break up.

Oh, I know.

And let me tell you that my sweet sweet fans like were so worried and torn up and thought that I was really, that Chuck Morgan had had an affair on me after 34 years.

And everybody, they were like, he didn't deserve you anyway, Leanne, on Facebook.

And I'm like, I'm still with Chuck Morgan.

This is fiction.

This is not reality.

You know, like a reality show.

People have a hard time distinguishing between reality and not reality.

It's kind of crazy.

But, well, I'm so happy for your success

thank you my darling i'm glad it all came around thank you is it crazy or what no it's yeah it's it's amazing that

you know you had

like you were ready do you know what i mean sometimes these things like with me like for whatever reason you know if you stay in it enough and you are and you do have If you're ready and you have the talent,

who knows how it's going to happen?

I mean, I didn't think I was going to do it.

It wasn't looking good.

You know, I was almost out.

But it's weird when you want to get out.

You don't really know what else you're going to do.

Even if you were going to go be a grandma,

you still,

are you?

Yeah, I mean, there's always been,

I've always had something where I got to have a side hustle or I've got to have something going.

I just, even though I've stayed at home mom, And I got to do all that, I always had this going.

Yeah.

I just, even if this didn't work out for me, I was telling Chuck, Morgan, I go, I'm going to open up a hardware store or something.

I'm going to be slicing bacon.

I got to do something.

A big cheese wheel.

Yeah.

Sell canning goods.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Something.

Yeah.

I just have, but, but my family had that meat processing plant.

My mama ran it.

And I just feel like I've got to have a, I've got to have something going.

They still have it?

No, they retired from that, but we still have our farm.

People begged them to open it back up, but they're in their 80s now.

And then people said, would y'all do it?

No.

Now there's those grass-fed, you know, there's more of that around.

But back then, I mean, everybody came from Nashville.

We did all the country music stars, beef, all that kind of stuff.

So people would bring their livestock to be butchered?

No, we had a little man, Mr.

Gower, who was missing some fingers.

He was a doll.

But

he would go to somebody's farm.

kill that we were not a slaughterhouse and they would bring then

already dressed and everything or whatever you call it.

And then my dad and my grandfathers and my aunts worked in it, all these people and the people in the town, then they processed it, wrapped it.

And my mama would take the orders while she smoked

Winston Light and would say, you know, how many pounds of hamburger meat, depending on how many was in their family.

She could remember it in her mind.

for all these families for years, for 20 something years.

How thick do you want your ribeyes?

You know, all that.

How many chuckroasts do you want?

So they would get cattle in dressed already and then they take them.

Let them hang, let them hang for like 14 days.

Yeah.

And then they knew how to cut them up.

And then deer season was a nightmare.

We didn't have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving for

because deer season opened up and it would be cold enough back then.

They would hang them in the trees.

until we had freezer space for them because we were so busy.

It was a thriving business for years.

And then we did people's hogs.

So my mama had a sausage recipe that people still say, is there any way y'all can make that sausage?

And we're just like, nobody wants to get in there and grind all that sausage.

But I have thought about it.

I thought, if I don't make it in comedy, I can, you know.

Make sausage.

Yeah.

And smoke it, and then you smoke it in a smokehouse.

Do you still have the sausage?

There's people doing it illegal in Tennessee.

Sure, of course.

You still have the recipe?

I do.

I do have the recipe.

All right.

Well, at least you have that.

I have that, my darling.

I do have that.

But I also can be just a grandmama and put on a house dress and start cooking petal beans.

All right.

Well, it doesn't look like you need to do that unless you're going to do it anyways.

I'm going to do it anyway.

When I go home to Knoxville, and I'm about to wrap this and then go move back home.

I've been out here seven months.

Yeah.

Renting and doing during fire, during, you know, a lot y'all got going on.

Heavy.

And then heavy stuff.

And then I'll go back to Knoxville.

But I go back on tour.

I'll tour all year, the rest of this year, till the end of the year.

Then I got to come up with a whole new hour, and you may have to write it.

Me?

Are you kidding?

It takes me a year and a half to come up with an hour.

Well, is that about right?

As well, it should.

Yes, yes.

For to get it right, to

hone it down.

Oh, my darling, how exciting.

I can't wait.

And you're going to look so cute on film in your pants.

Well, thank you.

Nice talking to you.

Nice talking to you.

There you go.

Leanne Morgan.

Her Netflix sitcom, Leanne, Leanne, premieres on July 31st.

Check out her tour dates at LeanneMorgan.com and hang out for a minute, folks.

Will ya?

Would ya?

Hey, people, six years ago on WTF, we had an episode that people still talk to us about all the time.

It was episode 1034 with David Lee Roth.

My first singing teacher had two numbers on his forearm.

One was his camp number, and the other was his orchestra number.

And as a punk kid, I once asked him in front of the class, I said, so what happens just if you didn't sing good?

And he was very explicit.

He said, if you didn't sing good, you went up the chimneys.

I think of that every single time I sing.

Every single time I get ready to sing, every time my inner child goes, fuck it, you don't need to sing.

Don't worry about it.

You'll sing fine.

I remember that.

And I remember, I think it was Ricky Weiss or whatever, she's 13, 12 years old, saying to him,

no, I remember him saying to me more than once, Mr.

Roth, if you can't find it within yourself to sing on behalf of those who went up the chimneys with a song in their hearts, sing so you don't go up the chimneys.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

And that's where that fire for run with the devil, how long are we going to dance?

We're going to dance the night away.

Hey, how about these words?

Let's jump.

Okay.

Oh, they're all verbs.

Think about that.

All right.

We're going to run with the devil.

Are we talking about love?

No, we ain't talking about love.

And by the way, do you jog?

No, I run.

Who do you run with?

Dante Von.

That's episode 1034 with David Lee Roth.

You can listen to that for free in whatever podcast app you're using to get every episode of WTF ad-free.

Sign up for WTF Plus.

Go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF

Plus.

Before we go, a reminder: this podcast is hosted by ACAST, and here's a little groove I

locked into.

Boomer lives, monkey and the fonda, cat angels everywhere.