Rituals, Haptics, Misfit Toys
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Sarah shares some of her favorite nightly rituals. Plus, she helps a man who feels like his brother’s keeper, recommends the best places to pee near Central Park, and learns about The Luckiest Club.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Sender 5, Michelle, Amy, Tyler, Ali, Lyrics, Shannon, Cody, Sarah Silverman, Timmy, Wendy
Sarah Silverman 00:14
Hi everyone, it’s your old pal, Sarah. And you know, if you know me, and you do, I am a fan of ritual. I was thinking about this the other night. It doesn’t really even matter what it is. I feel comfortable. It makes me feel safe isn’t the word, but like, I don’t know. I just I like the feeling of having rituals, whether it is flossing my teeth, washing my face, putting on various creams and, you know, I’ll, I’ll use anything. I’ll use the fancy cream, you know, that Amy got me to buy, or my facialist sold me or I also love Sarah V, you know, but whatever it is like, if I get something in a gift basket or, you know, an eye cream, I will use that eye cream every single night until it’s gone. And then I don’t know if I’ll reorder it or not, but I just like ritual. I love that nighttime process. I love all those creams, all the serums. I’ll tell you what I have my nighttime wish ritual, which actually I did do a song about a music video with my amazing friend that I wrote this musical with the bed wetter that passed away April 1 of 2020, from covid, the great Adam Schlesinger. We did a song together that’s about my nightly routine, and it’s, it makes fun of, like, those party songs, you know, like, I’m gonna go out to the club or whatever, but it’s just about my actual favorite thing, which is my nighttime routine, which is, you know, wash my face, moisturize, floss, take a puff, then brush and then I go to my yoga mat, get my stretch on, and go to go to bed. But in the thing, I include my masturbation search words and then going to bed, I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s called tonight, or, yeah, oh, perfect night. It’s called per and Will I Am, is we got Will I Am to.
Amy 02:26
Do we have permissions to play it like, do you own it? Or does somebody else own it? I’m just curious.
Sarah Silverman 02:30
No, I we made it for Josh, our old website.
Amy 02:34
Okay, I’m gonna play it. I’m curious.
Lyrics 02:35
This is gonna be a perfect night. It’s a perfect night tonight. It’s gonna be right, it’s a perfect night. I’m stayin home by myself. Don’t need anybody else. It’s just me, myself and I with my puppy by my side. Use my phone for clever tweeting. I just followed Michael Keaton, and I’m tired and I’m lazy, she’s about to not get crazy. Hey, yeah, she walking in sweatpants, and she watering their plants and she ordering food. Is she not in the mood wash all them pants? Now she taking a long hair and she’s shaving her all this. Now she looking for something that she wanna watch on Netflix.
Sarah Silverman 03:43
But speaking of ritual, and that feeling is like I am now all I wanna do, and all I can think about doing is playing Call of Duty. I just I right now, I just wanna get home and get everything I need to get done, and so I can play Call of duty. Rory will play with me, and if he’s busy, I play by myself, and I just, I am not proud of it. I’m don’t, I’m against war. I don’t like killing. It’s it very much like porn in that, it’s nothing I would want in real life, but the heart wants what it wants, and I’ve just been on a real jag where it’s just all I can think about. I’m sure it will pass at some point, and then as quickly as I got sucked back into it, I’ll suddenly not even be able to relate to wanting to spend all this time doing something that is is not anything, doesn’t yield anything, and that will be that. But right now I’m I love it so much. I love the haptics of killing is that right? That’s haptics is like the like the feeling your phone makes, like Rory made me. This is how I know haptics, because Rory forced me to put it on my phone because I never have the ringer on. And so it drives him crazy that, like my phone’s in my pocket, and he’s trying to reach me, and I, I don’t feel anything, you know, I just don’t pick up. And Amy goes crazy too. And so she’s a little crazy, but, you know, she I should be reachable, certainly by these two people. So I have put haptics on my phone, and now I know what haptics that’s the vibration. It’s the little, little sensations you get, and that’s what I feel in my controller, and it’s so great because, well, one time I I set it up for myself, and I didn’t know how to mute both all the real live players and myself, which is how I play. So I was I could hear the people I was playing with, and it’s just like 14 year old kids telling me to kill myself and just screaming the N word and the F word non stop. And at one point, one of them was saying, like, I’m not kidding you really should kill yourself, dude. And he said, calling me dude, dude, dude. And then I finally talked, and I said, I’m not a dude, I’m your mother, hoping, praying that I maybe sounded like one of their mothers, but they didn’t respond, and I realized I probably was on mute. But um, I play, of course, with so usually I play where I don’t hear them, they don’t hear me, but it does make me laugh. I feel a little guilty, but not really after hearing them, but it makes me laugh thinking I love playing. I love playing makes you think maybe that I’m very good at it. I’m not. I’m terrible. I’m always in last place. If I’m in second to last place, I’m so proud of myself. You know, I look at my kill death ratio. I’m just trying to beat my own score, but I am sure that whatever team I’m playing with hates my guts. So well, what are you gonna do? But, yeah, ritual. I love it. I like routine. Let’s take some calls.
Tyler 07:37
Hi, Sarah, my name is Tyler. I’ve been a fan of yours as long as I’ve been alive, I’m rewatching The Service often, program work, and it’s making me feel really good, because it’s really funny. I can’t get over that bit where you’re just like, um, you sound crazy. How can a man be a dishwasher? I come to you seeking advice about how to alleviation, alleviate a relationship with my older brother. He had an incident in high school where he was dating a girl, and his best friend at the time was jealous, and so he was ambushed by his group of friends and had his head stomped in at a park, a public park, and ever since, he’s been a husk of his former self, he’s been like completely inebriated for from his mental health. And so in our adulthood, I’m finding myself having to take care of him perpetually, and I want to live my own life, and I find it difficult. I have no problem ethically doing this for him, but I feel like I have to put a lot of my own shit on the back burner to take care of him. He’s semi functional, so he can, like, hold down a job stacking boxes, but he’s very temperamental, obviously, he’s got a lot of mental health problems, so how do I kind of cope with this new perspective reality and future of mine? I love him to death. I’ll always be there for him, but I want to be able to mitigate this the best I can, but I love you so much, thanks for listening, bye.
Sarah Silverman 09:05
Oh my god, I’m so sorry. This is what a tragedy. I mean, listen, I’m not a litigious person, but I do you have any connection to the boys, the now grown men who did this to him, or is there any lawsuit? Were there any, you know? I mean, now for the rest of his life, he needs some level of care. And care for him in this country is probably something that costs real deal money, I think, and you’re doing it, and I know he can work and stuff, but you know you’re telling me he needs care. You have been responsible for that care, and where I always say, hey, you are responsible for your own happiness in this scenario is tricky, isn’t it? I’m, you know, I I don’t know if there’s anyone else in the family that can help or that can chip in, either financially or with helping with care and time, slight subject change or adjacent subject change. On my Hulu show, I love you America, I interviewed that woman who is Amy, you remember, she was the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-jen Poo, she’s amazing, and she is an expert on elder and family care and care workers, and she has a podcast called Sunstorm. Anyway, you know, check her out Google around, because there may be something that might take you to a place that helps you find some kind of answer there. But I don’t know, ultimately, it might just come down to boundaries, like, hey Fred, or whatever your brother’s name is, it’s probably Fred, right? No. Hey, I’m available Wednesday between four and six and Friday between, so maybe I can help you with it that one of those times, you know. And just even if those aren’t all your times that are free, but some of the times that are free aren’t free for him, because you need them, you know what I mean? So I mean there’s something with that too, of just having loving boundaries, and he doesn’t need to know their boundaries. Those are the times that you’re free for him, but definitely protect time that’s for you, for fun, for doing nothing for doing something. All right, what else?
Michelle 11:47
Hey, Sarah, Michelle, from Connecticut, I just finished listening to your podcast, and you were talking about having to stop and use the bathroom and ask permission. I’m in sales in Connecticut and New York, and I go to hotels. Because I’m on the road all the time. So just walk into a hotel, the lobbies are always the bathrooms are close to the lobby and they’re always clean. Thanks, Sarah, I think you’re a great podcast, and I love you.
Sarah Silverman 12:14
Thank you. I am totally on to that, not just as a fully realized, grown woman, but when I used to play softball in my early 20s with Coach Mike Ivey, I think I don’t know if I’m talking about him, I played for the improv and we would play every Monday at two. And are there bathrooms in Central Park? Yes. Are they fucking disgusting? Yes, I am not setting foot in there. I set foot in there once. That’s all I need. But Central Park is surrounded by gorgeous, schmancy hotels. So what would I do? I’d be filthy with my jean shorts and my T shirt and my mitt and my hat, and I’d walk into like, you know, the Essex hotel or whatever. And I had a whole narrative in my head. I probably didn’t need it, but this is what I would do in my head. I’d walk in like I was meeting my parents there. I look around, huh? I guess they’re not here. Well, I’ll go pee while I’m waiting. Then I’d go pee in a gorgeous, single stall, immaculate, fancy five star hotel bathroom. I’d go back and play softball, and when I would shop like, say, even in my adulthood, if you’re shopping in Soho or some fancy area and you have to take a shit, go to the Mercer hotel, walk downstairs to their restaurant, look around like you’re where is your friend? You’re meeting for lunch, huh? I guess I’ll go to the bathroom while I’m waiting. They have a gorgeous single stall bathroom, and it’s a great play. I don’t shit, obviously, but it’s a fantastic place to take a shit and then go on with your you don’t have to do it in some not even even you know, like at go to the fanciest hotel, they can’t stop you. They have the greatest bathrooms in their lobbies and restaurants. There’s also an app that tells you where the best, cleanest bathrooms are in New York City, just in case, you know.
Cody 14:44
Hey, Sarah, it’s your friend, Cody from Denver. Listen, you weren’t terribly helpful with my first question that you answered, but I thought maybe this would be more your bag. I know that you’re still friends with a lot of your exes. So I was just curious if you ever had a friend or close friend, best friend, that you had a falling out with that you never spoke to again, like a real friend breakup, a falling out that you couldn’t come back from. And I was just curious kind of what circumstance that was, and you know how you moved on from it. Anyway, still a big fan, thank you.
Sarah Silverman 15:27
I really don’t you know what the only thing that sticks out to me, and I’m probably blocking out something bigger, but in seventh grade, my best friend dumped me, and I got to be honest, I had it coming. But as adults, we’re friends, and I love her. I you know, I guess the closest is some big ideological differences with some friends that have made us in the present moment, not quite as close, but I really feel it’s just for the time being, and for the most part, having like different takes on things has never been a problem or bothered me or gotten the way of friendships, but lately, it’s been a little hard, so a little bit a little bit, but even that always, almost always passes. I and I have friends for which we have very, very different political outlooks, and we still love each other. What do you know? You know, did I talk about the Netflix brunch? The comedian’s brunch? Netflix Ted Sarandos had a giant brunch at his house for like, every comic you’ve ever heard of. It was like, it was awesome and so cool to meet. There are still comics I’ve never met. You know, you always think you’ve met everybody and and talk about drop dumb beefs, which we should probably make some kind of audio drop of. I, you know, I don’t, I didn’t have it. I don’t have many beefs with comics but I know that there are comics that have beefs, and a lot of them were all there, and boy, I just feel like once comics are together in the same room, nobody cares. We all love each other, everything just goes, melts away. We’re so happy to all be in one room. We spend so much time living these parallel lives alone on the road and to all be in one place, so many of us, so many comics, a big bulk of comedians. And I just love how I always say this, you know this, we’re kind of an island of misfit toys, but it is every color, every religion, every age, every melody, every everything we really are, every kind of person, but we have this one thing in common, And it’s really at our core who we are, and it just, it’s moving to me. But the all beef seemed dropped on that day, and it was nice. Anyway, drop dumb beefs. Should that be a t shirt? Didn’t that come from a call? All right? What else?
Shannon 18:42
Hey, Sarah, it’s your best friend Shannon. I am listening to your May 9 episode, and generous caller called in to refer back to a previous episode when someone called in with some suicidality, and I love your suggestion about the sobriety meetings, personally for me. AA, I never knew sobriety was an option for me, and thank God I found this other option. AA, was always too religious and shame laced with too much shame and judgment for right.
Sarah Silverman 19:19
It’s a little God.
Shannon 19:20
The luckiest club. Check out the luckiest club. Lara McCall, Laura McCowan, it’s incredible. There’s no shame. They have a queer space, they have a bipoc space. They have a woman’s space. They have a man’s space. It is, it’s beautiful, and it’s a spiritual experience. And I struggle with suicidality on the daily, and this this space, which is only virtual right now, we’re trying to figure out how they’re gonna do in person at some point.
Sarah Silverman 19:50
At some point, you’re gonna have to accept that your basement.
Shannon 19:53
Are incredible and this space is incredible. They do no dogma. There are no gurus. That’s like part of their tagline. So check it out. I It’s been revolutionary for me and my mental health, and I think it would help a lot of your listeners. Love you.
Sarah Silverman 20:08
Shannon, thank you for that. I have never heard of that, and I love the name of it, The Luckiest Club. How brilliant. That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. Great AA alternative, the luckiest club. And I wonder if it has different sections beyond you know, if there’s NA, if there’s GA, or if there’s, you know, all the other stuff. Luckiest club version. Thank you for calling in. That’s awesome, all right what else?
Sender 5 20:38
Hi. Sarah Silverman, I love your show. One thing I’ve always wondered about stand up specials is they’re directed by someone, and I don’t understand what is directed. Like, don’t you just go out there and say what you say that you’ve rehearsed or, like, I guess are there a lot of cuts, and the people in the audience are seeing a version that a director comes out and says, don’t do that, do this, what is directed about a stand up special?
Sarah Silverman 21:15
Sure.
Sender 5 21:16
Just curious.
Sarah Silverman 21:17
Direct, directed when it comes to comedy specials, is not talking about the material and a director saying, do them this material, or don’t say this, or walk over here, or here, the stand up is the stand up. Nobody’s directing. You know me, or either I, I mostly just stand at a mic anyway, I don’t pace some comics pace. That’s not the work of a director. What a director and a comedy special really is directing the cameras, not directing the comedian. I can see how you would think that, because the director right. But no, the director is, you know, and a comedy special, in my point of view, is really basic. You need a close up shot. You need a cowboy shot, you know, waist up. You need a wide shot. You need a ultra wide shot, maybe a shot from behind or a shot from the side, like six little cameras, and maybe one camera that moves, and then the choices happen in editing, you know, or, oh, I, I hate the way I said that joke, or let’s edit this piece, so we’ll cut to a shot of the audience or a shot of the back of my head, and then cut back, and that way we can trim this thing out, or whatever. I’ve had great directors. Liam Lynch directed Jesus’s Magic, which I haven’t seen in many years, but trust me, there’s some great moments, and a lot is wildly problematic and does not does not look good in today’s world. This is comedy, it’s not evergreen, but if you watch it, it’s very much directed, because it isn’t just stand up. We had songs, we had music videos. We had scenes, backstage scenes. It was a bunch more of a movie. And that was Liam Lynch, and he’s so brilliant. Google him, look him up. He’s like, amazing. And then he directed the next two. And then this one, the last one I did was John Kreisel, who is a brilliant director, and he knew it wasn’t going to be a lot of, like, putting that crazle stamp on things, because he’s so brilliant, he’s, you know, baskets, Tim and Eric. He’s like, an amazing director. And I said, hey, this is going to be, it’s just a stand up special. It’s a, you know, you can’t put a lot of director cool angle things on it, because it’s really just about the words and the comedy and seeing my face or seeing my body and hearing the words you don’t want to get in the way of it. You know, I see like fancy directors or, you know, that will direct a comedy special, and they go between their legs, or they do some crazy and for the most part, to me, that doesn’t help a comedy special. I don’t know that it hurts it, but it doesn’t any of that fancy stuff gets in the way, in my view. So that’s the answer, pretty simple, but I totally understand how you would think director, director directs like the acting or the performance, but it isn’t that way. In stand up, they wouldn’t fucking dare. I remember the first time I did a special with Netflix. I think unless it was, couldn’t have been HBO. I think it was Netflix, and they hadn’t done a lot of specials. When I my the first special I did, I don’t think, and they said, send a transcript of your material. And I said, No, that you don’t do that with stand up. And you know what? They said, oh, okay, great, cool, thank you. You know, like they just, were like, too super open. But the owner, the guy who started Netflix Ted Sarandos, is a huge comedy fan, and boy comedians feel it. It’s really nice to get that kind of love and respect and deference from somebody who’s become so powerful, you know. And I knew him, I’m proud to say I knew him, when he was the DVD guy just sent DVDs to your house.
Timmy 25:25
Hey, Sarah, it’s your friend, Timmy. This one’s kind of heavy one, and you know, like total trigger warning to anyone who’s dealt with sexual assault. I’m just like, I’ve been really rattled recently because a good friend, it’s turned out, he’s just been living this double, double life of like a real creep. Been married to his wife for 15 years, three kids, and he’s been cheating on her basically since the beginning, with, like, prostitutes and strippers and all the, you know, all sorts of kind of online stuff and blah, blah, blah. And most recently, he has been indicted. He’s facing sexual assault charges because he had an encounter with a woman on an airplane, and he says it was consensual. I mean, given what I know now about the secret life. I don’t believe that. And you know, it’s like, he is at least admitting he has a problem after 25 years of this secret life, but at the same time, like he is a creep. He is like, and he’s like, hurt people. He’s hurt people. And it’s like.
Sarah Silverman 26:37
Hurt people.
Timmy 26:38
Who I just don’t know what kind of friend I can be to someone like this, and I don’t, you know, I could use your advice. I don’t know if you’ve had someone who’s turned out to be a real creep, like, how you’ve navigated that, I’m trying to be there for him and as best I can, but at the same time, like, I’m still, like, super fucking creeped out about it. Anything you can help me with.
Sarah Silverman 27:00
You don’t have to stay friends with him. You also can stay friends with him. That’s up to you. You know, it’s really exciting that men are really starting to get wise about speaking up with their friends when they exhibit red flags when it comes to women, that’s what being an ally is, not just, you know, being around women or, you know, but in your male relationships, speaking out, you know? I mean, a great friendship is when we keep each other in check, right? You know? I there’s a part of me that believes with the right kind of care and opportunity, people can change, and they also have to want to and grow. That’s what growth is. So hopefully we’ll get to a place where people are not if they don’t want to be, and if they care about growth and change where they’re not defined by their worst moments, and that might take a friend who’s an ally to women, who stays when his when his friends shit stinks, at least for as long as you can see if your friend wants to really change. And if your friend not only wants to change, but wants to, is interested in being a detective in his own life to find out where this behavior comes from. Because until you do that, you really don’t have the understanding to know how to change. You know, that’s a, I think that’s a big aa thing. Hurt people, people who are hurt. You know, hurt people, hurt people. But you are allowed to still love him and not accept that part of him and talk to him about changing if he’s interested in that. And, you know, spending the rest of his life doing everything he can to make things right as much as possible. There are aspects of my life and the things I’ve learned and the things I’ve done where I am spending the rest of my life making certain things right. It’s not bad. It’s a pretty good thing. It feels good. Doesn’t have to feel bad, you know, to not be defined by your worst moment, you have to stop defining yourself by your worst moment. And how do you do that? You figure out how to do better, and you get into it because you can’t change the past. Not yet, we haven’t gotten to a place where we can change the past. If you’re really into quantum physics. You may know that there is, there may be a way to do that at some point, as our understanding gets expands, but right now, we can’t change the past, but if we are open and willing, we can change our future. Yeah, you ask for forgiveness from the people you hurt, and hopefully you forgive yourself, because until you do that, you’re not you’re not going to grow, and you’re not going to get to a place where you behave like the person you want to be, because you are that person. So the choice really is his, and you can let him know that you are there for him if he’s interested in exploring the whats and hows and whys of what he did, where it came from, blah, blah, blah, and learning and practicing and doing better. Listen, there’s probably some micro version in your life that you’re, you know, I’m working on this, you know, like, like, I cut people off all the time when they’re talking. And I’m working on that. So let’s keep each other in check and you don’t assault women. All right, sorry. Listen, you’re not beholden to stay friends with him, but just like he has a an opportunity, like all failure, all of our failures can be opportunities. This is one for you, and you just have to decide if, if the juice is worth the squeeze and good luck, what else?
Ali 31:19
Hi, Sarah, this is Ali. I used to work at a pizza place, and I always wore jeans. I always do wear jeans. They’re super comfortable, and I think they look good, and they take a mess well, I feel like like they took flower well, but one day, a coworker of mine wore jeans, and I guess he normally didn’t, but he was feeling good. He said something about how his jeans made him in a good mood, and I’m always in a good mood. Rarely do I wear, like athletic wear, or sweats or anything. Do you think there’s something to this that jeans boost mood, or that happy people wear jeans or something? I know you wear a lot of jeans, thanks.
Sarah Silverman 31:55
I wake up and throw on my jeans. Sure. I mean, I think whatever makes you happy makes you happy, and that certainly could be one of them. There’s something like their structure, but they’re comfortable. It doesn’t feel like you’re in pajamas. But, um, it’s so funny because I remember, I don’t know if this is in any way and, uh, has anything to do with this call, but it just made me think of it as I lost my virginity, my freshman and only year of college, but to like a 30 year old man, and I was positive. I had AIDS, 100% positive I had aids, because it was itchy down there. And so I went to the free NYU gynecologist, and it was a man to like, I can’t even imagine now, but um, and he let me know that I actually just had a yeast infection. And here’s, you know, monostat or whatever. And then he said, you know, you should be wearing dresses and skirts and not jeans all the time. I thought, what a cock. I mean, can you imagine fucking a but on the other hand, there was a time when one of my sisters got used so many yeast infections. She used to say that if she even looks at a pair of jeans, she’d get one. So he may have had some kind of point, but everybody’s different. All right. What else?
Wendy 33:26
Hi, Sarah Silverman, this is Wendy Girard, and a long time ago, you said something that I seem to have written down in one of my, I don’t know, journals, and it is damn brilliant, and it is as follows, if you don’t make peace with your wounds, you will be tempted to despise the wounded. If you don’t make peace with your wounds, you will be tempted to despise the wounded. I don’t know, I just loved it, and I want you to know that I loved it. I want you to know how brilliant you are. So thank you, that is all.
CREDITS 34:14
That was, I was quoting someone when I said that who is brilliant, and it is something like if you don’t make peace, or if you don’t make In other words, if you don’t make friends, if you don’t learn to love your wounds, to accept yourself warts and all, if you don’t make peace with your wounds, you will be tempted to despise the wounded, and boy, once you hear that, you see it everywhere and in everyone, and it makes so much sense. And that quote is from Father Gregory Boyle, who is an amazing, amazing man with an amazing story, Google it. He was also a guest on I love you, America, and CO created Homeboy Industries. Started out as a bakery, but Google them, check them out, get to know him. He’s a really, really, really special guy, I believe, a Jesuit, which, you know, I love them Jesuits. But yeah, what? What a great quote. I think about it all the time, and I’m glad it affected you too, as much as it affected me and dad, wherever you are in time and space, we are winding down. This is part of the podcast. When I say, send me your questions. Go to Speakpipe. and, by the way, they could also be comments, go to speakpipe.com/theSarahSilvermanpodcast, that’s speakpipe.com/theSarahSilvermanpodcast, and subscribe, rate and review. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you hear that the end of every podcast, but really hear it. Subscribe that helps us right, rate if you are going to give it a high rating and review if you like it, wherever you listen to podcasts that helps us stay on the air. And there is more of the Sarah Silverman podcast with Lemonada premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus questions, like one from a guy whose friend became very distant ever since his brother took his own life, subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Thank you for listening to the Sarah Silverman podcast. We are a production of Lemonada media, Kathryn Barnes and Kryssy Pease produce our show. Our mix is by James Sparber. Additional Lemonada support from Steve Nelson, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Our theme was composed by Ben Folds and you can find me at @SarahKateSilverman on Instagram. Follow the Sarah Silverman podcast wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.