Listen Now: The Deep Dive
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This week, The Choice Words team is sharing Sam’s recent appearance on The Deep Dive!
Each week, comedians and best friends Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael take a ‘deep dive’ into their real lives and discuss a wide range of topics including how to pursue joy amidst the insanity of motherhood and family, grief and loss, sh*t they put on their faces, and why they refuse to check their voicemails or unpack their suitcases. The Deep Dive captures the friendship of two women trying to survive adult womanhood.
Over at The Deep Dive, it’s finally Sam Bee Day! This week, June and Jessica find themselves reminiscing about Steve Harvey’s infamous office memo. Jessica is renting a cottage across the street that is straight out of a Pinterest board and like a good friend, June is in full support of Jessica’s questionable decisions. They also chat with comedian and TV host Samantha Bee! Samantha opens up about motherhood, her new podcast ‘Choice Words’, and ignoring editorial notes from men. And remember Deep Divers, do not attempt to walk with me if you’re reading this. Yes. I mean you.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Jessica St. Clair, June Diane Raphael, Samantha Bee
Jessica St. Clair 00:10
Hi, I’m Jessica St. Clair.
June Diane Raphael 00:12
And I’m June Diane Raphael. And this is The Deep Dive.
Jessica St. Clair 00:17
We’re about to do what women have done for centuries. We are crowding around the fire with our generous hunches. We got babies hanging off our tits, and we’re going to share with you our fears, our joys, our tips on how to stay alive.
June Diane Raphael 00:32
Now, Jess we’re heating a call that no one has made.
Jessica St. Clair 00:37
Not a soul, but you’re invited to listen.
Jessica St. Clair 00:39
Absolutely, because we make one promise and one promise only we will not Google a thing because frankly, we’re too damn tired. Please get ready to go on The Deep Dive.
June Diane Raphael 00:57
Jess, your hair’s back, you pulled it up into a bun, it’s like yeah, you’re you’re hearing you’re ready to go, you’re ready to rumble.
June Diane Raphael 01:05
I mean, business. I’m making a lot of I’m making a lot of changes over here. June.
June Diane Raphael 01:13
What’s doing?
Jessica St. Clair 01:14
Okay, I’m gonna tell you, so after BEAST MODE incident. Dan was like, I think we need to change up the environment. This organism is living in ie: me. And he said, because I think that this is just too much too chaotic. And I want to go outside in so like, it’s so interesting. The enemies of the state. You know, they don’t listen to the podcast, but yet they are influenced it gets to them somehow, their influence, you know, and I gotta tell you, my man, he stepped he stepped in in a really beautiful caretaker role in that he was like, we’re gonna get all of these systems in place so that you feel less overwhelmed.
June Diane Raphael 02:06
Wow, gorgeous.
Jessica St. Clair 02:09
And it was really beautiful and very hard for me, as you know, to accept help, so one of the things we did well, first of all, he’s making dinner Monday through Thursday. He said, what is it that’s breaking you? I know this is porn. You know what, everybody close your eyes I’m gonna say it slower.
June Diane Raphael 02:27
Yeah, get there get into a private space right now. Okay, yes a real soft like.
Jessica St. Clair 02:36
Okay, he said to me, what is it that breaks you? What is the straw that breaks the camel’s back? And I said, dinner, and he said what do you mean? I said the idea of dinner? The concept the concept of eating and preparing it breaks me and he goes what if I were to take care of dinner from Monday to Thursday?
June Diane Raphael 03:04
God that’s hot.
Jessica St. Clair 03:08
I just like ovulated uncontrollably, you know I just like wow, that’s hot. And it wasn’t like what if we come up with a plan together? It was like I’m on it. Now he calls it you know we be because his mama and papa because that’s how she pronounced mama and papa but he calls papa Slop Shop, so he makes you know it’s a goulash every night it is a close to there a no recipes. I don’t know what in these things growing shit in there, got it okay. It’s like a […] pasta pot, it’s mostly pasta everything’s.
June Diane Raphael 03:49
Going in.
Jessica St. Clair 03:51
Everything but we’re not losing weight on this. It’s not like protein in a steamed vegetable.
June Diane Raphael 03:59
I don’t know, you weight some you lose some. Like, I think that that’s well worth it.
Jessica St. Clair 04:03
Yeah, so then he said, I think that I’m gonna say it slow again, close your eyes it’s not done. He said, I think you need a room of one’s own. And now we’re bringing in Virginia Woolf. You know, now we’re calling in the ancestors. And I said what do you mean? And he said, well, I know we keep saying oh, we gotta move we can’t move and this is not the time he’s like you do your work from the kitchen table and you carry around in a satchel all of your belongings including a microphone and this is no way to live. I think you need to get an office outside of the home to which of course I’m I don’t deserve it I mean, brings up all sorts of things okay. So then I put that one off I’m like, he’s, he’s crazy I’m not doing that, that’s what people do who care for themselves and that ain’t me. So my dear friend across the street says to me I’m making a huge life change I go I love to hear it, she goes on becoming a digital nomad and I’m moving to Cape Town because I haven’t been able to find like the love of my life here, I’m fucked I’m out. He goes she goes, do you want my two bedroom? little cottage that’s rent controlled across the street. Guys, I rented it.
June Diane Raphael 05:30
I might do we need to start a new podcast do we need to like just spin this off, follow your trip across the street into that cottage like this is such ground break.
Jessica St. Clair 05:43
Guys, I’m going in there on Friday. I’m going to take a video because I of course for the Academy I will be documenting. There is a Pinterest board, I will share it with you. Pinterest, not and tourists, nope it’s Pinterest. It’s called beach cottage, I’m inviting you I’m inviting Lindsay Sloane I’m inviting Kristen, my dear friend from college and her 16 year old daughter and we are going feminine. We are going we are maybe not even going coastal. We might be going soft pinks we might be going terracotta.
June Diane Raphael 06:22
Antique dusty, dusty.
Jessica St. Clair 06:24
Dusty rose, we are doing wallpaper. We are she said to me, my digital nomad friend said to me, you do whatever the fuck you want to it. I don’t care, she’s leaving the beds that’s it.
June Diane Raphael 06:43
Wow, Jess this is so huge, I’m so shocked.
Jessica St. Clair 06:49
We’re all shocked and I cannot tell you so you know how you know a decision is good? Because again is this a lot like you putting a pool in during a strike, sure. But I couldn’t have been more for that decision.
Jessica St. Clair 07:05
And you love it, now at our fan again we’ve always said on this podcast we may end up bankrupt we that’s good, we could be Crazy Eddie remember Crazy Eddie, from Crazy Eddie was a guy back east to how to electronics company and he was always on doing his own commercials. Now he did, he went out of business he did is he was his deals were too crazy. Because his deals were absolutely insane and also like when he went out of business, those commercials got crazier and crazier. Yeah, like you were like, take it they were just like drive up and we’ll throw it in your car easy. It was like we’ll pay you to take it was like getting so crazy with Eddie. I love this so much, and by the way, I really relate to that idea of walking around your home with a tote and just trying you were a digital nomad in your own home. I was oh, and saying that I don’t deserve a space, that’s what’s it’s like, it’s not even like, first of all it’s not like Dan’s like luxuriating up there but I don’t have a door to close, why? Why do mothers never have doors that work or even exist? And you’re just you’re up to the elements. I wouldn’t be on the plains of the Serengeti, you know, fucking out there for anybody to snap me up and kill me. Lion wise, why am I doing that in my, and it’s like signaling to yourself. You’re fucking worth it. You’re a goddamn professional.
June Diane Raphael 07:05
And I love it.
June Diane Raphael 07:19
Listen, I point to, you know, we’re gonna have Sam Bian and we’re just, oh, wow, everyday for Sandy day. But I just want to say that she has a wonderful podcast, Choice Words Assembiy. We didn’t I did her podcast, we didn’t get to actually like the question for me, which was what was a choice that changed your life and, but what I was going to say was, I remember when I had been in such a rot professionally, where I felt like I was like, never getting pilots always testing never the one that was chosen and I was like, really, like, I’ll never get it, I’ll never get it. Every pilot season just like testing for them and it’s not you and the seminars, go through the process, not yours, not you, it’s not you, and then I don’t know why but I got let go of my Toyota Corolla and I got a white BMW with interior.
Jessica St. Clair 09:32
That was a while yes, God, that was a wild move. It was it was a wild move. It’s like data didn’t point this way. No data doesn’t point my way either, doesn’t play like beach cottage this way. It’s a no no, God knows this is the wrong time. So this is a grand experiment.
June Diane Raphael 09:56
I can’t tell you how much I believe in this. You know, and I am carrying it to I do have an office in my house I love my office I do feel really productive here. You also use this office, but I I’m I am carrying a tote around my house, but that’s also because I can’t remember anything so I need my notebook at all time. Just always betting on long COVID and it turns out I think I have had some severe you know, well, you had it five times.
Jessica St. Clair 10:30
Hard to know what’s the what is it the gummy or the COVID? You know.
June Diane Raphael 10:34
Hard to know or perimenopause, like it’s so hard to parse out what I’m suffering from by I’m also a nomad from room to room in my house because I often have to just if I don’t, I won’t remember it, it’s gone by the time.
Jessica St. Clair 10:49
It might be motherhood.
June Diane Raphael 10:50
Go upstairs, it’s so hard to know.
Jessica St. Clair 10:53
Really hard didn’t burn out is it? What is it?
June Diane Raphael 10:56
Anyway, long story short, Jess you know, I once I got in that BMW, I’m gonna tell you this much. I never took a step down.
Jessica St. Clair 11:06
This is what Steve Harvey says.
June Diane Raphael 11:11
What does he say?
Jessica St. Clair 11:13
And honestly, if Paul and I.
June Diane Raphael 11:15
Jessica I don’t even think we’ve talked about like Jessica and I are the biggest Steve Harvey fans. Well, huge if anyone saw our behavior on that show, it was absolute talk about Crazy Eddie was absolutely out of our goddamn minds.
Jessica St. Clair 11:29
The excitement the electricity I felt with you.
June Diane Raphael 11:33
And you guys were you were like Elaine May and you were you had a […] that was old timey It was like watching like a classic vaudevillian like comedy duo.
Jessica St. Clair 11:45
I don’t, I’ve never behaved that way. I’ve never behaved I’ve never been on a game show but to stretch towards the kiss to a kiss to my fingers. And then and then hung on him like I was a piece of meat. And you know, I’ve often said like if Paul Scheer and I were to observe a religion, it would be that of Steve Harvey. He has given us so many pearls of wisdom, and the one thing he said is travel once in your life on first class, show yourself what that’s like, and you might trigger to your brain. Find a way to get me the fuck back to first and then start you’ll start making those choices that get you on first because you know, Steve, he only ever flies first.
June Diane Raphael 12:41
Well, I mean, he also shoots you know, they shoot Family Feud, like five seasons in about like four days, and then he heads on back and, you know, works on his suit company.
Jessica St. Clair 12:51
He has a suit company?
June Diane Raphael 13:02
Of course […] But I believe a suit company does quite well.
Jessica St. Clair 13:09
No, no and we can learn a lot from Steve. Because he Steve is a very talented man. I’ll never take that away from him. But there are a lot of talented people who don’t believe in themselves the way Steve does. Listen if you figured out how to work for five days a year. Five days I’ve got something to learn from you, okay I have got something to learn from you.
June Diane Raphael 13:29
God I wish we could have Steve on the show. God that would be.
Jessica St. Clair 13:32
Again he’s he is he’s hard to get to, I mean never forget never forget the list that he posted on how he wanted his staff to interact after interact with him.
June Diane Raphael 13:44
And I would love to do I think I’ve done it before on this podcast, but I have it saved in my phone.
Jessica St. Clair 13:49
Could you redo a dramatic reading of it? Just to lead us into Sam.
June Diane Raphael 13:54
Of course, makes me so happy.
Jessica St. Clair 13:58
Me too, God I’ve never felt so sexual than standing next to him.
Jessica St. Clair 14:03
And by the way this got so much fucking black people were like even the variety headline I just found this shocking note shocking memo you know, made me my thought. Yeah, this all sounds absolutely clear and right. He says this.
Jessica St. Clair 14:21
Hold on, everybody close their eyes again, close your eyes.
June Diane Raphael 14:24
Okay, zip your pants, yeah he says this. Good morning, everyone, welcome back. I’d like you all to review and adhere to the following notes and rules for season five of my talk show. There will be no meetings in my dressing room. No stopping by or popping in no one. Do not come to my dressing room unless invited. Do not open my dressing room door. Next part is all caps, if you open my door expect to be removed. My security team will stop everyone from standing at my door or who have the intent to see or speak to me. I want all the ambushing to stop now. That includes TV staff, you must schedule an appointment I have been taken advantage of by my lenient policy in the past. This ends now all caps no more. Do not approach me while I’m in the makeup chair unless I asked to speak with you directly either knock or use the doorbell. I am seeking more, this is where people didn’t get the this is why this is the why I am seeking more free time for me throughout the day. Do not wait in any hallway to speak to me. I agree to being ambush, please make an appointment. I promise you I will not entertain you in the hallway. And do not attempt to walk with me. If you’re reading this yes, I mean you. Everyone do not take offense to the new way of doing business. It is for the good of my personal life and enjoyment. Thank you all, Steve Harvey. I tip my fucking hat to it, slow clap because you know, do you know how many people are trying to get their bits out with him trying to ask for him to read their godson script, trying to introduce people trying to get a deal on his suit trying to do you can we even imagine what has happened to lead us up to this note. So much has happened, and he’s he is America’s sweetheart and so we must protect him and I personally appreciate him putting those boundaries around himself and by why I knew when we were shooting with him. I knew as soon as he takes a step as soon as he’s done with us, June avert your eyes. Let him come to us and we did respectfully.
Jessica St. Clair 16:54
I put my hands all over him when the cameras cameras rolling, but the moment they yell “cut”
June Diane Raphael 17:01
Don’t have shit from him. I want him to enjoy his free time, his me time, we got our little Fannie’s out of there and I’m going to say something else. And then we’re going to get to our interview with Sam B who God dammit guys, if you’re not fucking in love with her already.
Jessica St. Clair 17:15
Get ready to rumble she is a treat to be savored. But what Steve was doing in this note was to change his environment so that he could feel more mentally stable. He’s He’s not saying hey Steve, you need to get you need to meditate more so you can withstand these ambushes , no he’s saying I’m changing the outside so that the inside feels better. His personal enjoymey, I ran yes, I’ve run my own show. I do know what it’s like people need answers from you but guess what they can make an appointment to make an appointment is all Steve Harvey is asking of us and I for one so appreciate I salute yes we have an appointment with Sam Bee now unfortunately Deep Divers you are going to realize that when we were recording this interview, my audio went down and my computer shut down and it was absolutely devastating to me. You will hear me drop off. However the interview will continue. And I want to just say and this is not popular opinion. It wasn’t devastating to me because then I got her all myself.
June Diane Raphael 18:08
Sam Bee joined the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central and 2003 Bee departed the Daily Show in 2015 and currently holds the title for being the longest serving regular daily show correspondent of all time. In 2016, Sam received global recognition from the success of her very own Weekly late night comedy series Full Frontal with Sam Bee, which ran for seven seasons on TBS, Full Frontal received rave reviews critical acclaim and garnered 12 Emmy nominations and two Emmy wins she now hosts Choice Words, a podcast on Lemonada media where Sam Bee sits down with people she admires, to examine the biggest choices they’ve made in their lives and the ripple effects. Those decisions have had, Deep Divers please enjoy this very special conversation with Samantha Bee. Sam, I will first I want to start off with how incredibly jealous I am of you.
Jessica St. Clair 18:31
Oh my godness.
June Diane Raphael 20:04
For real because, Sam, I don’t know how many times I auditioned for The Daily Show. I don’t know how many times they told me like, we don’t want you like, I don’t know how?
Samantha Bee 21:51
Absolutely not.
June Diane Raphael 21:53
They’re like, how’d you get into the studio? Like we don’t feel safe around you. And then of course you got it. And I was like, and this is how I know, I love somebody I was like God dammit, this bitch deserved it.
Samantha Bee 22:06
Oh, boy. Well let me tell you.
Jessica St. Clair 22:09
This bitch deserved it, and she’s killing it. And so I couldn’t even hate you and as much as I wanted to.
Samantha Bee 22:16
Wow, this is very high praise. Thank you so much, well, let me tell you something, and this is I’m gonna say this and this will make you feel better about the whole thing. At once I got hired. I was like, I just I was like, I don’t understand, like, I feel like I’m like why am I here? I was like, oh, so nervous and having nervous conversations with all these powerful people and they were like, to be honest, in the audition, you just you just really brought that really busted energy like, June, I mean, like, you see like, he seemed like higher yeah, tired. Like you were like, just like you just seem so like, overall like you’ve been in this business for twenty five years and you’re just like, Fuck it all like double birds and you’re just like dead inside.
June Diane Raphael 23:04
Oh, fuck, I fucking love that that’s what got you the job was your lack of a will to live.
Samantha Bee 23:10
Yeah, so I was just like, just a little more dead inside, and so just like let that percolate. Let that be knowledge of like, you know, your first weeks at a job as an eager beaver you’re like.
Jessica St. Clair 23:27
Um, no, you didn’t have it. Like, where does it I’m like, can I go home?
Samantha Bee 23:33
I was like, oh I think I might be actually dead inside now. I was really excited for.
June Diane Raphael 23:39
Sam I have to ask because I am always fascinated by like to do professional performers, writers, actors, artists hosts get nervous and because it does take like I always find our kind of people to be such an interesting mix of high and low confidence. Like our armored and with like, these waves sensitivity that are like very apt. Yes, especially the women. Especially women, yes, but do you see you, do you get nervous to perform?
Samantha Bee 24:19
I do, but not like yeah, I guess it’s like, I don’t know what the nervousness is exactly. Because it’s not like jittery like I don’t, it’s not like there’s like a muscle memory to you know? I mean, you can yeah, sure thing sure. There’s a comfort in it but those couple of hours before you’re supposed to do something are so dreadful.
Jessica St. Clair 24:41
It’ll kill right sick. Once you have children, and I don’t know if this changed for you, but you really don’t have time to give a shit and you also don’t have you’re like, I forgot to brush my hair. I forgot. Like there’s so many things that go by the wayside, that you don’t have as much time to obsess.
Samantha Bee 25:00
You don’t have time to obsess and also you don’t, you also don’t have time and I don’t think this is true for the men, by the way not to be gender about it but I think like your children want what they want from you when they want it, so like, sometimes I’m on stage and my phone, like my wristwatch is just like, it’s like pinging ping, ping, ping and all the questions are like, why didn’t you get orange juice? We need more bananas and I’m like, literally in the middle of something, and it’s like, and I know something’s happening. And I know it’s probably like, why didn’t you? Did you clean my blue sweatshirt?
June Diane Raphael 25:39
Yeah, and why not? I just found out I have to restart BBs allergy shots, because I’m a week late, and I was like, tough because this is the second time that’s happened and talk about dead inside, she looked at me like, I don’t even I can’t even muster the energy to be disappointed in you. They are they’re very disappointed in us a lot, and that’s and that helps, actually, because how can I be disappointed by Hollywood when my whole family is disappointed?
Samantha Bee 26:09
It actually is, weirdly, can if you would like allow it to free your mind. It totally frees your mind.
June Diane Raphael 26:16
I find it freeing, I find.
Samantha Bee 26:17
And it frees your ego because you’re like no, I’m just, I’m just fucking whatever.
June Diane Raphael 26:23
Like, yes, you’re just a woman you forgot they were introduced.
Samantha Bee 26:27
It doesn’t matter.
Jessica St. Clair 26:28
Yes, I have found that big time that I feel much more comfortable getting my ass handed, in a situation, you know, like, trying something and director being like, no, like, not only no, but don’t do that, again, you know, getting getting dressed down by cast and crew like, because I might, because I’m like, fuck it if like you don’t like you think I’m wrong like that’s, then I think I’ve done my if I’m if I’m testing boundaries a little bit out here. I don’t mean HR boundaries, folks I mean, like artistic boundaries, I feel like that, then I’ve kind of done my job and what’s really nice is that I’m not necessarily looking like I was in my 20s looking for, do they like me? Do they think I’m okay, am I okay? Does this guy does this actor like me to the director think that that was like, I just my tired think it’s okay or don’t think it’s okay. But either way I’m going home, one time. A guy was like a set of base camp, whatever. We were in a hotel, a haunted hotel June and I and and it was cool. There were rules everywhere. There was dead was everywhere, Jesus. And I’ve gotten some tough news that actually mattered. It had nothing to do with work. And the guy at the base camp said I don’t want you guys touching anything this hotel room because we don’t want to pay for it or something was something someone is coming in. Don’t get on the bed, don’t touch the bed.
June Diane Raphael 28:12
Yeah, this was like our trailers.
Samantha Bee 28:16
I had mine, let me tell you what the rules are.
June Diane Raphael 28:19
You don’t get in the bed, and the next time that motherfucker came in the room. We weren’t just touching the bed. We got inside of them together.
Jessica St. Clair 28:30
Under the sheets.
Samantha Bee 28:33
I definitely have gotten to the point and I think I hope this is not a controversial statement. Men can’t give me notes anymore ever again in my life. I can’t I can’t do it. I actually can’t take it when I’m in a meeting or Zoom, I’m I love man, I do I really do love them, husband I love I love men. I don’t necessarily love them in meeting form, or in Hollywood form, whatever that means interpret as you will I’m I literally am pushing them out of my zoom box. Like I’m making a gesture of pushing them out of my space. Because and I am starting to like, not that I have like, I don’t have so many projects. But I did have one thing that was like bubbling around and it was like getting kind of real, and they were just giving me a lot of notes and saying lots of things that I was like, hey, at the end of all of it, I went, I just this isn’t working for me and I feel like it’s not working for you because you just keep giving me notes about how much you don’t like what I do. So I just think we don’t have to like go through lawyers like we don’t have to make it a big deal, can we just like not work on this together? And they were like, wow, and they were like yeah, and I was like, let’s just walk away. We don’t have to.
June Diane Raphael 29:59
Great yeah, that’s hot. That’s one of the hottest stories I’ve eve r heard.
Samantha Bee 30:02
Is that like, it’s like as. And I think, I think about it often because I’m like, this is very good, because I can’t, I don’t want to work on things now with people who don’t like like me, for what I like to do, I don’t care, I don’t care I’m too old.
June Diane Raphael 30:20
But truly, this is the beauty of aging. It’s not that you don’t give a shit like you don’t want to do a good job. But you will, you know, you know, you’re worth it. You know who you are. You’re a distilled balsamic, you are no longer balsamic vinegar, you are that syrup. You know, they drizzle over a salmon.
Samantha Bee 30:41
You get it in a box, it comes in a little wooden box and you buy at a special store.
Jessica St. Clair 30:47
There is some hay and they’re not getting that at Albertsons. You’re not getting age in a barrel in Italy.
Samantha Bee 30:56
Totally and it’s but it’s like, also, it’s not even like, I don’t even think it’s like me necessarily going like I’m worth more than this guys. It’s more like, I don’t, I just don’t have time to listen to, to like mold myself to be what you think I, I don’t want to like spend the rest of my career molding myself like I did it.
June Diane Raphael 31:18
I was not going to work, isn’t gonna work
Samantha Bee 31:21
Isn’t going to work. It’s not going to be like a happy collaboration. We’re all going to be grinding it out, and there’s a better fit for you. There’s a better fit for me.
June Diane Raphael 31:31
It was a better fit for him, so let’s do that. Well, now I want to know because so not to brag, but I did Sam’s podcast, quite recent, so this is just like a continuing zoom for me. And I’m so I couldn’t be happier but I I did ask some, Jess I was like, what’s your rising sign? And she did not know.
Samantha Bee 31:48
I only found out, I found out.
June Diane Raphael 31:51
What are we working with? Wish we had Heidi on the freeway here but okay, our astrologer.
Samantha Bee 31:56
We’re working with and I really like and as I haven’t thought too much about this in my life, but I was so curious. You really intrigued me after our last conversation. So I learned that I was born at 5:30pm on October 25 1969, born in the 60s, love that, and that makes me like a Scorpio sign with some Scorpio sun a lot of sense, Aries rising.
Jessica St. Clair 32:25
What does Aries want now Scorpio because I was just about to say Sam you are so you’re a June, I thought you were maybe a Jessica but you’re a June. It’s so clear, you’ve got June you’re coming with big June energy. Big June energy, which is by the way, the highest compliment I don’t wish for anyone to come as with Jessica. I’m an unstable signal abscess, but you’re coming big June at me but what does Aries rising mean?
Samantha Bee 32:52
Well, I don’t know, I don’t know.
Jessica St. Clair 32:54
We don’t have Heidi so we’re gonna have to rely on June. Oh, wait, June you’re oh, yeah, this is too important. This this, we’re nobodies but Sam, we gotta get you going. You gotta have a session with Katie. Okay, I’m gonna connect you all because this shit is gonna blow your fucking mind. I trust you, she just did this shit. Well, she’s she did, she predicted all of our births and all of the baby’s births. Oh, down to like, crazy shit where a friend wasn’t ever going to get pregnant in the medical society and said no and she was like no, it’s going to work. And then this is not for the record. But Emily husband who had stage four cancer, she said, oh no, it was crazy. She said, I was like, okay, let’s prepare, let’s prepare for like, what’s going to happen? She was like, nope, he’s going to make it. He’s, he’s like a medical miracle. And Heidi said the whole time, and she doesn’t bullshit you she won’t tell you bad news, but she also will not bullshit you. It’s just not what she’s in the market of but this bitch is going to fucking give you the rest of your life. Alright, go ahead. June. I’m ready. June. Are you ready for us? Or are you frozen? I can’t tell. That’s the longest she’s ever not spoken.
Samantha Bee 34:15
I’m feeling frozen. I’m feeling that June is frozen.
Jessica St. Clair 34:17
Okay, she’s frozen. Sam, we’re just going to keep going and if June couldn’t come back, she comes back. Okay, Deep divers here’s the deal. This is a shocking thing, but we’ve lost June okay. She is an unstable signal, do you guys feel upset that it’s just me there is no but listen, because Sam is bringing big June energy. We’re okay, we have a Scorpio on board. Don’t worry, don’t worry we’ve just been talking so we’re going to continue talking.
Samantha Bee 34:49
Yes, and we missed you. We wish June was here but we’re having a great everything’s all sweet out here.
Jessica St. Clair 34:55
We wish her well. I wish her well.
Samantha Bee 34:59
Oh journey so internet, okay.
Jessica St. Clair 35:02
Yes, Sam was just talking about her children and how much she enjoys her children. And we were just saying, you know, that is a wonderful thing. It’s not a thing that every mother feels, obviously. And in different stages in our lives, we have things going on like, I have a best friend who’s dealing with two best friends who are dealing with a parent who is ailing. And when they are like, they longed to enjoy their children, but they yes and focus on anything as long as they’re fed it’s like, okay, but we have to now take care of this child, who is a parent. Oh, but it sounds like you’re in a real teenage sweet spot, which is like people would say, oh God, three teenagers in the house, but you’re saying it’s kind of fun.
Samantha Bee 35:49
Well, I don’t know that, I mean, it’s not always like they don’t I mean, as we discussed at the beginning, it’s not like they’re not you know, they don’t always want to talk to me. They’re not like no, you work for them. Yeah, I’m here. You work for them. I’m their best employee, very loyal person. Very, a very dug into energy. Like, I definitely I’m so flustered today. I was like, I’m so flustered today, but I realized like as I was walking home that I’m so flustered, because I did a side trip to Trader Joe’s to get their favorite peanut butter cup. So yeah, I’m fucking flustered because I like you had Lou my day up. So they could have that special like the right peanut butter cups, which they won’t even eat for like four days.
Jessica St. Clair 36:34
But you will, you will.
Samantha Bee 36:36
How old are your?
Jessica St. Clair 36:37
BB is 10, we’re right on the precipice, you know, we’re like, we’re like trying some, you know, some like adult you know, there’s makeup colors I told you, she’s I told the Deep Divers, she refreshing her makeup in the middle of the day I didn’t even know. Like different brushes were going missing from my bag. I’m like, that’s weird, and like I never have my shit together anyway, so I’m like applying with my hands. You know what I mean meetings. And like turns out they’re going to school.
Samantha Bee 37:06
They’re going to school, yup.
Jessica St. Clair 37:08
They are going to school, but your eldest daughter is leaving for college. And we are just talking about this phase of things which I have only heard tell, and I remember Julia Louie Dreyfus, and I saw each other in the hair salon. She felt my new boobs. And that was a special moment, at the at the bowls. But I remember her oldest or her youngest was leaving, and she was like, I wish I had 10 more. I don’t like feeling she was very, very upset by that.
Samantha Bee 37:38
I wish I could keep refreshing and just adding but my body does not agree or my brain. I could not do it, but of course, but it is how does it feel? It’s like bittersweet it’s both, It’s both great and terrible. It’s like, oh, just please stay and like, don’t forget that I’m here. I’m gonna text you all the time and you don’t always have to get back to me. But please try to do it a bit, because I am a very I’m going to be very lonely for her.
Jessica St. Clair 38:11
She’s yeah, your best friend. She’s you love her.
Samantha Bee 38:15
I love her, oh my god, I will cry thinking about it. Oh, it’s so scary. But I’m happy for her.
Jessica St. Clair 38:23
Isn’t that the thing about motherhood is like if you didn’t want this to happen, then you’re not a good mom. But you have to want it and you have to not want it but you have to make it happen. You have to make it okay for her. Do you feel like you have to keep your own feelings of deep and utter sadness to yourself a little bit or no?
Samantha Bee 38:45
I don’t think that I have that capability if I’m being honest, I can’t I don’t that’s the one. That is one thing that we haven’t really done with our kids is like, just have like a secret, like a secret emotional state with them, we’re just very, like, this is how I’m feeling today like, don’t judge it. Like everybody, like kids are all really funny and we’re all very like, my husband’s like, super fun everybody’s funny, and we’re all like we can like cut each other up. But some days like we give ourselves permission to like have boundaries and go like don’t cross my line today, can’t take it.
Jessica St. Clair 39:22
Yeah, don’t tease me. It can take it can take so you so so your daughter because I have always worried like, oh God, I wouldn’t want them to worry about us. I because I think that they know they don’t but I remember being like see later suckers. Like like I was like and we didn’t have cell phones so we weren’t checking in really? And that was kind of good, because you should forget about your parents and because that’s very difficult for a lot of kids I think who are so close.
Samantha Bee 39:51
Yeah, I don’t know like I feel like this is a different generate like it generationally. They’re all they’re built differently. We’re just we just keep making new kinds of human beings, that’s how I’m trying to see it so like, in the past, like, I don’t know, my dad taught me to talk to my dad, I’ll just see my dad all the time, and he always he’s like, when we weren’t so interactive with you, when you were growing up, and I’m like, yeah, but like, look around at your peers, they have short relationships with their kids. We’re very lucky like.
Jessica St. Clair 40:23
Like they showed you.
Samantha Bee 40:25
They didn’t necessarily work out for them, so our generation is trying something new. I think it’s kind of working, who knows what it will look like.
Jessica St. Clair 40:34
I think we make each other better to write because like, I just had a very, you know, painful conversation with my dad, where I said, like, I want to see you guys more. Like I saw, I mean, of course, it was on Tiktok, I saw Tiktok, I don’t even know who it was, who said, how old your parents, you know, x x h, okay, you got maybe 10 years left, if you’re lucky, if you win the fucking lottery. How often do you see them twice a year? Okay, you got 20 more times to, you cool with that? Okay now, I had to lay this on my father. I think I did it while I was driving.
Samantha Bee 41:13
And best conversations when you’re driving.
Jessica St. Clair 41:16
On the 405, I’m like, yeah we got 20 times you cool with that, bro? And, you know, I’m from New Jersey, like, we really do get at it. And he at that point in that first conversation. He was like, push, you know, he couldn’t take that information in. And then I was like okay, well, I shared my vulnerability in that moment. Because sometimes you wonder, are your parents not just not that into you? Like they have their own lives? They do and it’s harder for that generation to like, kind of just get in a new environment. You know, so for them to leave their house and come to mine, it’s not comfortable for them, and then the next day, he texted me I’ve rethought it. I want to come more too and I could not believe the reversal. And I thought, you know, my being honest, even though it was so painful, was the right thing to do but and I think they would have never had that conversation with their parents.
Samantha Bee 42:17
Never, no never.
Jessica St. Clair 42:19
Time for another break. More deep dive when we return.
Samantha Bee 43:41
We’re just I don’t know we’re just always trying to do better. I don’t feel like I think that’s one good thing about like these subsequent generations of people we’re at least we’re like trying.
Jessica St. Clair 43:53
We’re trying and I so I’m really fascinated to see how your daughter will make your experience different than you leaving home because I think we’re probably in our head going. It’s like when we went to college, it was like see ya, I don’t think about my parents for six months. Like literally I don’t think it crossed my mind they existed and.
Samantha Bee 44:14
It was such a it was just being like thrown. I feel like I just got thrown to the wolves in college. It was just like, yeah, maybe I guess we’ll see. We’ll come to see your Christmas or, and I just I feel like I had diarrhea for two months straight. Were like just fear, just total fear. Wall to wall.
Jessica St. Clair 44:35
Where did you go? Where did you go to school?
Samantha Bee 44:37
I went to McGill? In Montreal, I grew up in Canada.
Jessica St. Clair 44:42
You’re Canadian, right you’re Canadian yeah of course.
Samantha Bee 44:45
This is why it was just like coal.
Jessica St. Clair 44:49
McGill is huge, too right. It’s a big university.
Samantha Bee 44:52
It’s big. I was so scared. I did it all wrong and it just was like such a good learning experience of just like sleeping on a mattress on the floor and cockroaches running past my head like.
Jessica St. Clair 45:04
Oh my God, no different it was. Well, because the Canadian.
Samantha Bee 45:10
University experience is very different than the college, colleges of America where we’re like, it’s like a country club for some people very different.
Jessica St. Clair 45:18
Sam, tell me this I want to talk for just one second about your actual podcast.
Samantha Bee 45:23
Oh, sure.
Jessica St. Clair 45:23
I find to be such a such a joy to listen to because these are the things that I am obsessed with to which is like, the choices you make tell the good listeners, perhaps of the Deep Dive who have not found your podcast why they need to have found it because it’s all the things we talked about.
Samantha Bee 45:40
I love a robust conversation, as we are having now, and I love The Deep Dive because I feel like I’m listening to my friends, do you know what I mean? Because I’m like, well, you are in this as well. This is very nice feeling, Choice Words is really just about I want to hear how people make just big decisions in their life. What are the big choices that they made that like changed everything for them? So a little bit of sliding doors? I’m always so curious, like when people take a leap of faith, or they make a terrible mistake, and it changes everything they.
Jessica St. Clair 46:17
In their lives, not only not but for good for good for good.
Samantha Bee 46:20
Yeah, yeah it’s very interesting.
Jessica St. Clair 46:24
And how did you, where have you always been obsessed with that with with that kind of like, what makes up a life? What makes you come to that? How did you come to this idea?
Samantha Bee 46:35
Well, I myself made like a choice was made for me when I was a teenager that was so dramatic. Like I was going down a very bad path, like a delinquent path like.
June Diane Raphael 46:48
Whoa, I can’t imagine that.
Samantha Bee 46:50
Super unhealthy, like, very bad. And I talk about it pretty openly, but it’s not like it’s it’s funny, and it seems uncharacteristic when I say these words, but I used to steal cars with my boyfriend. And we would like so we would jackers found. Yes, like 1516 but I was like, okay, my path is because I actually didn’t. This is gonna sound so dramatic and it wasn’t only dramatic in my mind that I was like, I don’t see a path for myself like in the world, I don’t see a path for myself. I don’t know what my future is gonna hold, so I think what I’ll do is become a mastermind criminal, literally, with my boyfriend, and he was like, sure we could do that. And I was like, we need to move to Miami, like I was 15. Yeah, I was like, I think we need to move to Miami. We need to get plane tickets. We need to move to Miami and we can really just start working the beach was my plan for life.
Jessica St. Clair 47:54
What? Like, why?
Samantha Bee 47:56
I don’t, I don’t know, I think I just was like, I couldn’t see what I couldn’t see meaning I couldn’t see the bigger picture of life. Everything, yhou know, I was like a teenager I spent a lot of time on my own, I’m an only child, I just was like, I might be good at this let’s do this.
Jessica St. Clair 48:29
And was it a cry for help at all? Did you want people to stop you? Or you were like, no, actually the goal is to become a master criminal. I don’t really like we’re, yeah, a lot of people like it’s a cry for help it’s like, well, no, sometimes no, we’ll just be like, no I’d actually like not to get caught.
Samantha Bee 48:45
It was not a cry for help, but it was a cry I mean, it wasn’t like I wasn’t like, please save me for myself. I definitely felt like very directional. But I wasn’t happy with myself. I wasn’t a natural fit.
Jessica St. Clair 48:59
So tell me what was the big decision what happened?
Samantha Bee 49:03
So I actually just for myself, I think I I kind of looked up from what we were doing. There was something about it, he treated me poorly, I wasn’t happy. I had, like I was alienating everyone in my life. My family couldn’t understand what I was doing. Like, they didn’t know much about it but they knew that I was routinely coming home at five o’clock in the morning. Not wasted just like stone cold, sober and like, it seemed like a dangerous person. And I kind of was in a way I just wasn’t my self. I just wasn’t natural, and there was just literally a moment like a moment of grace. I don’t know what it was where he just woke up one day literally and was like no one in my life likes me. I’m unpleasant, I am a straight A student like I’m a good student and I’m fucking up my life for this guy, what’s going? He’s not even, good looking or nice. He doesn’t treat me nicely. I was like, right, I’m on the wrong, I’m in the I’m on the wrong side of this. And I literally cut him out of my life and my heart that day I just went, no, I don’t do this anymore. No more, broke up with him and I was like, out of my life. I gotta had to get a restraining order like he was, you know.
Jessica St. Clair 50:30
Yeah, well, bad people don’t often they don’t go away, quietly, don’t go away quietly.
Samantha Bee 50:35
But he was cut, that whole life was cut out of my life in my heart. In a day, literally in a day I went, I want to be, I want to have friends. I want to have a future. I don’t want this, this is not me. This is this is unsettling, it’s not natural. My family hates me. I stopped today, and I did and and then after that, I just was like, everything I do for the rest of my life. I’m gonna just try to pay back the universe in some way, for whatever I took from it, and just try to like repair a try to repair what I did, or like the deficit that I created. Does that make sense?
Jessica St. Clair 51:16
Oh, of course it does. And I think that that’s the thing. It’s like this bad thing happened. And you could think of it as Oh, God, I’m going to spend the rest of my life feeling sad that my teenage years were messed up and now you’ve got teens, which is such an interesting healing journey, right? Because usually, they are not alone, they are not alone.
Samantha Bee 51:36
And they don’t have to have a tumultuous existence, like they don’t have to, it’s very different for them and I’m, I’m so happy for them. I don’t know why it shook out that way for me it just dead. I try not to like, I try not to judge it too much. It’s in the past, it’s so far in the in the rear view. And it changed overnight and it was very smart decision but there was some inner there was some like inner person who was like, stood up at the right moment for things went really crazy. And I’m really grateful and I’m so happy for them that they can just have like, they just worry about like teen stuff like actual.
Jessica St. Clair 52:17
Yeah well, you wasn’t your brain wasn’t fully developed. You know, I’ll never forget when Dr. Phil who was my only therapist, and in my 20s literally, I’d be like time for therapy, Dr. Phil, but when he said like your brain is not fully developed until you were 25 I was like, wait a second, why am I carrying around guilt for should I did before I was 25. Fuck that, like, fuck that, like, and then that’s an everybody should have grace, not just for your before 25 self but after that, too. And I think that, like we see movies where the day happens. And that’s the day I changed my life. But obviously, it’s not fake because it happens sometimes. And for me it was getting that call. You know, like, you’ve got the big seat. I was like, I knew I was like, from now on from this moment forward, I will be different and I didn’t warn the girl before because she didn’t know about mortality. And she was busy telling fake stories to herself like that if I worked, you know, 100 hours a day, that that was for my family and that was going to be great and someday soon I would feel happy. And I was like, Oh, I’m long for her. You know, so she had great hair or you know, like great abs you know, she was really killing it. But she was unhappy in that way because she didn’t know the truth about life and you do know God one thing you know.
Samantha Bee 53:43
it is a terrible miracle when things come into focus. Like it is when things when you have like clarity, you can’t ever unhave it and that’s a gift of the universe. That is like that you purchase with pain.
Jessica St. Clair 54:02
Then you have work to do that’s what’s the jammer is like you unfortunately don’t get it and then it’s like great you live your new life you’re like now I have to dismantle my old life which is going to be very hard. And I remember in the midst of that Heidi Rose Robbins who you’re gonna go see bringing back to astrology. I remember texting her because it wasn’t until after the the aftermath of having getting over the big sea. The things when I try was trying to rebuild my life was so hard because I had to burn down the old life. And I remember one day that was so night was so so hard in the morning I woke up and Heidi had said to me the day before like everything needs to burn to the ground. Every old thing needs to burn to the ground like this is that process right now. It should not feel good. And then I woke up and it was like 6am and I was taking one of those like, like lonely mom walks sometimes you’ll see mom’s hitting about the neighborhood at 6am, what are they up to? You know, they’re up to some deep thinking. And I got outside and their house had burned down nearby. And everything was like red, like, like all around us and the smell of burning smoke. And I was like, whoa, okay, universe, sometimes it does, it feels like something bigger is at work. And it sounds like that’s what was happening for you.
Samantha Bee 55:35
Yeah, those moments, those moments are edifying.
Jessica St. Clair 55:39
And now you’re bringing what I love is you’re bringing those stories of other people because I do believe and I, there’s probably some research about this, of course, I’ll never know where I found it, probably Tiktok, that hearing about these stories can actually help another person in the way that living some of them does.
Samantha Bee 55:58
I know that that is so true and also, if people want to talk about these things that change them, they really want to tell the story of how it changed them, it’s like, you know, we all we all just want to tell our stories, we and we don’t always get to tell them in exactly the way that we want to. There isn’t always time or there isn’t always like an open highway in front of you to do so. And that part I it’s really, it people are very eager, and I’m very eager to hear them because I love hearing about different people’s processes like this, the crazy the sacrifices they made are like leaping into the void just like leaping into it. It makes humans.
Jessica St. Clair 56:47
Can be so brave soul that’s so strong, they can withstand so much like I remember someone saying and I’m sure people say this when you tell stories about being doing those crazy things as a child. They’re just like, I can’t even imagine doing that. You’re like, well, you didn’t have to you didn’t do it. But like if you do it, you don’t have a choice. Oh, I can’t even imagine how you’re handling that.
Samantha Bee 57:09
Well, I am.
Jessica St. Clair 57:11
And you would have to too frail.
Samantha Bee 57:12
Too yeah, something’s gonna happen to all of us. Like, we’re all going to be in that place. It’s just sort of like when and how often I don’t know, weeks.
Jessica St. Clair 57:22
And let’s hope we’re not all there at the same time. I that’s what I always say. It’s like, let’s just hope or and luckily, in our group of friends, nobody’s it’s all hasn’t happened at the same time for all of us to be able to be there for each other. It’s like, and talking about, we were talking about the seven people, you know, that we want to be able to see and we’ve given a pass to. It’s like, sometimes we get a bump some of those seven up to the top. So it’s like you’re having a crisis you get number one slot, you’re number one.
Samantha Bee 57:54
Yeah, you’re number one.
Jessica St. Clair 57:55
I think that’s you can’t also be there for people unless you’ve been through something. That is another gift, right? Like, I’ve been through something. Somebody’s kid is going through something you’re like, I’ve been there. Let me share at least with you that you are not alone. And that’s why I fucking love podcasts. We are not alone, we are connected. Now we can hear each other, you know, and people can comment, you know, my DMs are open. My DMS are open and people share their shit with me and I’m like, thank you because now I feel less alone.
Samantha Bee 58:30
Yes, yes, we can. This is I mean, it’s like you can fight there you know what I’m sure we’ve all it’s like a dangerous that we’ve everybody’s siloed in their own communities like in the space of news like it’s not always great, but it is great to find your can find your people. You can find them and hold the good ones close and discard the ones who are not helpful.
Jessica St. Clair 58:56
On their merry way we tip our hat to them as.
Samantha Bee 58:58
Yes.
Jessica St. Clair 59:00
Sam, I love you so much. I’m so sorry that you didn’t get this but she got you to herself before so I don’t care, this was my time this and I got to have you all to myself, and that’s what the universe wanted.
Samantha Bee 59:13
It is, that’s so funny. That is funny but true. I’m for this was so delightful. I can’t even tell you just feel like just talk a lot longer, it’s just.
Jessica St. Clair 59:25
We will, we will and we’ll do it, we’ll do it with alcohol and oh, maybe we hotwire a few cars. Who knows?
Samantha Bee 59:34
I’ll do my best.
Jessica St. Clair 59:35
You do know how, thank you so much, Sam. We love you so much. Thank you.
Samantha Bee 59:40
Thank you.
CREDITS 59:41
The DEEP DIVE is produced by Lemonada media Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael. Our producers Ana Cecilia, our associate producer is Dani Matias and ours supervising producer is Jamela Zarha Williams, our engineer is Johnny Vince Evans. Additional Lemonada support from Steve Nelson, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Special thanks to Anne Geddes for a cover art and Lennon Parham. For her sweet sweet vocals. The best way to support us is to rate and review. Follow The Deep Dive wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.
Jessica St. Clair 59:41
Bye guys.
