Shownotes Transcript
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Fortune Feimster is here. By the way, it's the greatest name and currently working in show business today. Fortune Feimster. Super funny. Her new Netflix special is out now. She's promoting her new tour, taking care of biscuits. And the special is called Crushing It. That's on Netflix. Super, super funny gal. Let's get her going. ♪
I'm going, like...
I'm going back to the future. I'm going, I haven't had my hair this long since like,
2005 and then previous to that, the 80s. So my wife likes it. There's got to be a lot of men very jealous of that head of hair. That's a good head of hair. Listen, you cut me and I bleed Propecia. I have it on an IV. Like Michael Jackson had his nighttime milk that he had to go to bed with. Yeah. Mine is Propecia. Ah, gotcha. Yeah. All right. Little secrets. Listen, I started at 30. I was like...
I did a photo shoot and I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What is? What? What's that? What's that going on possibly? It wasn't even like a real thing, but just the notion that it might happen. It works. I'm a hedgehog. Yeah. It's amazing. Good for you. Yeah, me. What the hell? And you'd think that like, you know,
Big Pharma would call and go, you know, you know, talks a lot openly about Propecia. Rob Lowe. Yeah. But no.
You should be doing commercials. I mean, come on. Man's got to hustle. That's right. I mean, I'd be down. I'd be down to clown. Where are you? Are you in North Carolina? I'm from North Carolina, but I live in L.A., so I'm in Los Angeles. Been here about 21 years, but the accent is still very strong. North Carolina accent's having its moment right now. I know. I'm White Lotus. Tim. Tim.
TM. You started it. You were doing TM. I was doing TM for a long time. I know. I think they kind of, you know, took my TM. But I do like how Parker Posey just extends everything. That is a sign of a true Southern woman. Isn't it? Yeah. Tsunami. Tsunami. All right. So the real question. Tar Heel.
Or a blue devil? Tar Heel, baby. I know Duke is a formidable team, obviously, and been killing it. But yeah, I was a Tar Heel gal. I have a picture of me as a kid in a little cheerleading outfit from UNC. Amazing. I look like Shirley Temple. You'd be a great Shirley Temple. I know. And Shirley Temple, who, you know,
grows up and realizes she's a lesbian. Yeah, I like that iteration of Shirley Temple. The lifetime story. Yeah, yeah. You know, we're Duke, my family's big time Duke people. My son went there. I fake went there on the West Wing.
That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah, a fake one. Yeah. Law school, not even undergrad. Undergrad was Princeton. The people I play are way smarter than me. I just play way smarter. That's how it should be when you have Aaron Sorkin writing for you. Yeah, right. Those are the academic background. Yeah, you just kind of say the words and get out of the way. For sure. All right, I got to know about...
Working with my guy Arnold on FUBAR. You got to have good Arnold stories. Oh, man, that's a treat. I mean, first off, I never thought a silly comedian as such as myself would be asked to do any sort of action. How did that happen? How did that come into your life? It was really weird. I was back home visiting my family in North Carolina and I got an audition for it.
And, you know, in a normal circumstance, I would be like, yeah, let's do it. But we were doing like dealing with some family stuff and I just couldn't. I said, I just don't have time. I can't I can't get to this.
And, uh, two days later, they're like, oh, no, they've actually sent you an offer to do it. I was like, oh, so by like just inadvertently saying no, just out of, I just couldn't do it at that time. I got the offer and I was like, oh, so I'll probably be like, you know, cause it's about the CIA. I was like, I assume I'll be in like a van, uh,
with the slushy, like doing the coordinates of everyone. 100%. That's my lane. That's the lane. 100%. And they're like, no, you're going to be a CIA agent in the field shooting guns, running from explosions. Yeah.
And I was like, oh, okay. And I said yes, you know, because I thought, when am I going to get to do that kind of stuff with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Like the action guy. So we were, I remember our first big action sequence together. We were in this cabin together.
And he and I were on the floor and there was explosions going everywhere and they have debris falling on us and we have to like army crawl across this cabin side by side. And, you know, I'm like, but I don't want to like, I don't want to look out of shape because he was like the presidential fitness ambassador when I was a kid.
And they yell cut and Arnold turns to me and he goes, now you know what I've been doing for the last 40 years. I was like, this is crazy. Right. But it's, it's so cool. I mean, we're, we're going to have our second season coming out this summer.
And what a treat to get to have this kind of twist in my career. It's so great. FUBAR reminds me a little bit of my favorite Arnold movie, True Lies. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
They did it like they're pretty good about like taking his classic movies and giving you like little snippets of it or jokes from it. And this one has that daughter instead of the wife not knowing he's in the CIA. Right. It was his daughter, but she also is in the CIA. So a little fun twist there. But yeah.
Yeah. We'll get him to say his sayings all the time on the show. Do you? Yeah, I'm always like, get to the chopper. Let's go. Come on. So amazing. I mean, there's something about his...
Have you ever had an opportunity to be in public with him? Because it's like being with it. It's like trying to take a giraffe out in public. Yeah, probably the same with you. I mean, yeah, it's it's like such a wild thing because there are only so many of you guys that have just have been so famous on such a high level. Like it's so fragmented now.
And I've, well, we would go bike riding with him in Toronto. And, you know, he just bikes through Toronto and he has this guy with him. But people on the street are like, wait, what? And they're like, I can't believe that Arnold is...
is riding by them. It's like a giraffe. It'd be like, dude, was that a giraffe pedaling down Bloor Street? And there's no one that doesn't recognize him. Everyone recognizes him. We filmed in Europe for a week. I mean, it was like, his fame here is big, but over there, he could not walk two feet without a hundred people descending upon him. And we went to Oktoberfest with him. Oh, no. You did Oktoberfest with him? Yeah, we went to Munich with him. Okay, give me the, give me the, the like, oh, this is so sick.
So what's the protocol? What's the program? We're going to be up at four and then we're going to the tent and then I'm going to be going here. Like what? Yeah, well, he doesn't have a phone. So he, you know, if you want to try to communicate with him, you either have to like email him or FaceTime him on his iPad. Oh, yeah. And he's pretty bad about like being in the lobby in 30 minutes. And you're like, wait, what?
Oh, so you don't really know what's happening, but he took us to a store. It felt like Pretty Woman, where he's like taking us to a store to shop for lederhosen. And, you know, they like...
shut the store down for us. And he's like, that one looks really good. You know, look at this vest. And like, we're trying on lederhosen for Arnold. And people are just like, oh my God, this is so trippy. So yeah, we went shopping with him and then went to lunch and just seeing everyone turning their heads. He's like, you know, a God in that area. And
at the actual Oktoberfest, you know, it's crazy. It's just like thousands of people in these tents and we're like squished into a table drinking the big steins of beer with them. And he gets up on stage and conducts the band. So we went up there with them because we were like, when are we going to get on stage at Oktoberfest? And
And they have this song that they sing that they've been singing for years. It's just Arnold goes to Hollywood. Arnold goes to Hollywood. No way. This whole tent is singing this song with this band and he's conducting the crowd. Like, yeah, it's like the whole country is celebrating that Arnold has gone to Hollywood. He has his own folk song.
Yep. That's how famous he is. I had no idea. Oh, God. It was so fun. I mean, I was like,
I remember before we got to the tent, we wanted to take a picture as a group at the Glockenspiel. And it's the plaza. No one's allowed to drive on to it because there's like thousands of tourists taking pictures of this place. And he's like, we're going to go take a picture of the Glockenspiel. And so these guys are just like bringing this van up into where like a thousand tourists are and
And like, we're all having fun in this kind of like sprinter van. And then all of a sudden he gets very serious. He's like, all right, everyone, you're going to have to follow me. Listen to what I say. Single file line. We're going to take a picture and then we can get back in the van. And he knows that like, it's about to be chaos. So we get out of the sprinter van and every like, you know, a thousand people at one time go,
And we were like quickly taking this picture. Like, come on, take it, take it, take it. And then he's like, all right, let's go. And then like, I mean, a thousand people are trailing us trying to get his picture as we get back into the Sprinter van. It's wild. Isn't it? Isn't it insane? There's just, there's nothing like it. There's nothing like hanging with Arnold. They're really...
You know, over the years, we all get to see a lot of stuff. Yeah. A lot of stuff. You guys ever smoke? I imagine you'll have quite a few cigars together. Oh, and jacuzzis and ski slopes and the state capitol. Yes. I smoked cigars with Arnold when he was listening to the Death Row Pardons.
Oh, wow. I'd like to be in a hot tub with you guys. That sounds like a good time. It's a good time. We hang. Are you ever going to be in Santa Barbara? Yeah. We'll hang it out, man. All right. I love it. It's beautiful up there. You've done it right being up in that area. Yeah, I've been up here 30 years now. Oh, so pretty. Early adapter. My favorite hotel is the San Ysidro Ranch up that way.
Isn't that amazing, that place? It's super special. I was going to propose to my wife there, but I had it all planned out. Everything was ready to go, and then it was right when the mudslides happened. It got destroyed. It got absolutely destroyed. They built it back better than ever. Oh, I love that. Did you have an elaborate proposal going on in your head?
Yeah, I thought... First, I'm going to have the ring here, and then I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to say that, and then it all goes to hell, because that's what happened with me. Oh, yeah.
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I, um, you know, you, you watch shows like The Bachelor and you forget that like 20 producers are setting that up, you know? Yeah, exactly. I'm not known for romance. I'm not a romantic person, but I felt like this is the time. If ever there's going to be. Right? There's no, there's no better or bigger time. And I, but I have this expensive ring. I'd never spent this much money on anything.
And I hated the responsibility of it. I just wanted her to have it. Like, I don't want this anymore. Where did you keep it? I kept it in a lockbox in my closet. But I was so bad at having it. I just was jittery the whole time. And we ended up pivoting and going up to Big Sur. And everything was just a hair off.
It was really weird. I splurged to upgrade to this ocean view cabin, significantly a huge jump in price.
And when we got there, it was so foggy for two days. The whole time we were there, you could not see your hand in front of your face. You would have no idea that the ocean was right there. So we did not need to be in this room. I could have been saved like two grand a night.
And, and then I had told, I'd asked the hotel, can I, can I pay to like have roses, you know, rose petals put around the room and, you know, candles, like, again, like what they do in The Bachelor. Let's just do that. And I was like, I'll take her to their restaurant and then go to the room and it'll be romance. Yeah.
And I told the waiter what was happening and he was so sweet. I talked about it in my special good fortune, but
But he was so enthusiastic that he kept going behind my now wife and like, you know, doing thumbs up. Oh, my God. She kept asking her if she wanted dessert. And I'm like, she doesn't want dessert because I had asked for chocolate covered strawberries. But she kind of knows that something's happening. And she's like, wait, should I order dessert? Is there like a ring in the dessert? Oh, my God. And so the whole dinner is kind of awkward. And then we go to the room and like this.
The rose petals that they had were white and dead, and they were just strewn about the room in the most chaotic way. A person got a leaf blower and was like, Rose petals!
They put the chocolate-covered strawberries in front of the fireplace, and the chocolate was dripping down to the floor. Have they not seen The Bachelor? What's wrong with these people? I don't think so. Bachelor's not big up in Big Sur. Well, you know, they didn't have electricity in Big Sur. Literally no electricity until 1937. So, yeah, they're behind the times. They tried, but it was definitely, like, the most awkward proposal where I was just like, well, we're here. I should have just, like,
In hindsight, I should have just been like, all right, let's do it another time. Like, everything's off. You had the fatal mistake of not knowing what venue you were playing in. That's true, yeah. I mean, it's like when you go up there, the last time I was up there, I looked at the list of, like, spa treatments in Fixer. And I chose a session with the shaman. Mm-mm.
And the shaman came. Yeah. And he, you know, I had to pick a rock and he told me what the rock was. And then we channeled my ancestors. All right. I visited, I had some past lives come up and like they can do that. Gotcha. But if you think they're going to do
Sort of traditional American pedal ceremonies with a single stemmed rose. That's not. That ain't their bag. That's not their bag. It's not what their bag is. You said yours was awkward. Were you not great at the proposal? I was scared of the ring. Oh, yeah. Scared of the ring. It was too much responsibility. It's a lot. I don't. Yeah. I don't like that much money on a finger.
For me, it was more that my wife is a bloodhound for any trinket, surprise, gift, plan. Gotcha. She's trying to get to the bottom of it. She should have been in the Warren Commission. We would know who killed JFK. So it's hard to surprise her. Impossible. So I was like, where can I hide this ring?
that she won't some air quotes somehow find it. And I came across the idea of putting it in a dirty sock. Oh. In my car. Yeah. And that's where it was for like a week. And then I was like, where do I want to propose? I want it to be somewhere memorable. And I was like, I know we'll go up to Mulholland.
by the twinkly lights. Yeah. She was like, I just want to go home. We had dinner. I'm just, I've got to pee. Why are we going to Mulholland? What? Why? Yeah. It's just like, trust me, we want to go to Mulholland. It's pretty up there. It's pretty up there. It's just like when you try to recreate what we've seen in movies and TV, you realize, no, no, those were a group of people that came in a room
And how about this? Oh, I know. I got a better one. Each more incredible than the next idea. Yeah. And the best idea wins. It goes into the movies. It gets repeated. And normal people can never do it. We can't do that. I know. And you've been part of that. You've, you've...
added to that romance on film. I should know better. There's no prop department. Like, you know, they keep the ring. They keep the ring and they give you the ring. They give you the ring at the last minute after they've spent, you know, $250,000 transforming a room into like the most romantic setting in the world. And the co-star, you know,
Demi Moore is not a bloodhound looking for the ring, going, am I getting proposed to? It's been six months. When is this happening? She's like, you know, just showing up. So it's a whole different. Playing romantic is very different, as it turns out, than being romantic. It is true, Rob. It is true. That's why we're going to just keep watching you be romantic on screen. Okay, I saw in, I did a little deep diving on you, and I'm obsessed with this.
as a good Southern, uh, bell. Mm-hmm. You were in, you had a, did you have a debut? Did you debut, make a debut? I did. I came out to society twice. Um. That's amazing. That's amazing. Ah, that's so great. My mom was, uh, a debutante and my grandmother was. You're like, take two. She was determined for me to be one. Okay, walk me through what,
What is it? Okay. It starts at what? Like you're like 10 or 11. You're like, I want to come out to society. Yeah. It starts with something called cotillion. All right. Walk me through this. So cotillion is like when you're 12. This is a Southern old, like so stupid. I love it.
And, yeah, when you're like 12, they have something called, or maybe ages 10 as well. I don't know. It lasts a couple months a year on like every, like once a month on a Saturday. You and your friends like dress up in like Sunday clothes and they teach you manners and how to like waltz.
And they see so much waltzing going on. I mean, you have no idea how much waltzing happens. Isn't it amazing? Like, I can't tell you the amount of times where I've been somewhere and the waltzing starts and I don't know how to do it. It's fucking mortal. I'm so missed out when you were 12. Can you imagine in these times, 12 year olds waltzing and box stepping? It's crazy. Which would which do you think is more creepy? That
Or taking 11 years and saying, here's how you do the gritty. Right. Which would be worse. It's so crazy. It seems so, I mean, it was antiquated then, but like even now, like so wild. And, you know, these boys were having to learn how to open doors for ladies and pull a chair out. And the girls are, I don't know, just trying to be feminine. So the boys are at Cotillion as well at the same time?
Yeah, it's co-ed. And I remember we got in a circle and you change partners. Like they play music and you do the box step or waltz or whatever. And then like every minute, they're like, all right, next partner. I don't know what we're doing here. But yeah, so it starts then. And then nothing for a couple of years. And then when I was
I was going into my senior year of high school. My mom's like, you've been invited to
to be a debut shot. And I'm like, no, thank you. Not for me. And my family, I talked about this in my Sweet and Salty special. My family back in the day had a lot of money. My grandfather was a very prominent contractor and architect. He designed all these beautiful homes and schools and libraries all over North Carolina. But then he died unexpectedly at the age of 50.
And over the course of time, my grandmother lost all this money. So my mom grew up with a lot of money. By the time I came around, there was nothing. We were broke.
My dad grew up in a trailer park. So I had these two worlds that I was divided between. I knew this fancier world and manners and cotillion. And then I knew NASCAR and eating chicken wings and whatever. So I was kind of stuck between these two worlds, but there was no money. We had no money. So to do this debutante thing, you have to pay up for all these parties. And I'm like, we don't have...
the money, like, why, who is this for? And she's like, you're doing it. Cause you know, she wanted to like relive the glory days and,
You know, I'd show up, come home and our couch would be missing. And she's like, you're going to the party. I'm like, I'd rather have a couch. This is crazy. So, yeah, when I was 18, I was, you're presented to society as a young woman.
You have to wear basically a white wedding dress, which is the only time in my life I will have ever been in one, even as a married woman. And my brothers escorted me down. You know, you're basically like, you walk down in front of all these people. It's just like a big dance thing.
And the pictures now look like I was getting married to my brother. That's amazing. It's so crazy. They still do it. I saw Apple Martin, Gwyneth's daughter, debuted in Paris. Yeah, Paris is a—I think maybe where it originated. It's a big—
to do over there. So it's some old tradition that I don't know where it stems from. I don't want to look it up.
You're worried. I can see you're worried. You're like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be a part of it. My mom made me. And I, yeah, it could not be further from like what I want to do or spend my time. No, that's what makes me laugh about it. It's so amazing. Like you are like maybe the least debutante person
But North Carolina, you are such a magnolia. You are a magnolia. Yeah, it was for my mom. She got to have it. Thankfully, as I got older, I learned how to say no.
But I didn't have that ability at 17. But now, aren't you? Think of the material. Think of the material you got. I know. When people saw that picture, when I talked about it in that special, I put pictures up and people were like, oh my God, that's really true. It is the kind of thing you go, that can't be true. Yeah. Did that really happen to me? Yeah, I guess it did. But as a comedian, you know, all of my stand-up is all of my life. I tell stories.
about growing up or about who I am, about my family, my wife. So all that stuff just adds to these fun specials that I get to put out and talk about my silly life. The new one's out now. It's out now on Netflix. When did it come out? It came out a couple months ago. It's called Crushing It. It's my third hour on Netflix.
And every special follows where I'm at in life. Sweet and Salty was about me growing up and realizing who I am and coming out. Good Fortune was about meeting my wife and sort of entering adulthood. And Crushing It is being firmly in this relationship, married, my parents getting older and balancing the like,
responsibilities between being a daughter and being a wife and how those can conflict sometimes. And just those everyday things you deal with as more of an adult person. Do you have like sort of instant recall if you're living your life and you go, oh, that this is something, this is a bit, this is going to be great. Do you write it down immediately or do you remember it? Like what's your process for putting together the writing like?
Well, sometimes things are so crazy that you're like, oh, this is going to be something. I'm starting a whole new tour with a whole new hour, actually, in like a week. And my wife and I went to Greece and there was something that happened that I was like, this is like a stand-up bit. And you know right off the bat. There are other things from childhood where I remember I'll do Q&A sometimes at the end of shows in a club and
And someone, I was back in Charlotte near where I'm from, and someone just yelled, remember when you were on the swim team when you were a kid? And I was like, oh, yeah, I sucked. Like, I could not swim. I used to run across the pool pretending to do the butterfly. And they laughed, and I never thought about that as a stand-up story. Right.
And hearing them laugh at the visual of me as a kid running across the pool pretending to do the butterfly, I was like, oh, maybe there's something here. And so I just kind of recounted what happened, just the facts. Here's what happened.
And, and from there, you just, I just keep building it like, oh, this is a funny, you know, like, how do I build that world out? And how do I describe it in a way that's more interesting than the reality? And then it became one of my most popular stories. People will still yell, do the swim team bit, you know, and it,
It just was one of those things that was me telling a silly memory. Where do you stand on having, when you have a famous bit like that? Like, when do you retire it? When do you retire? Do you not want to retire? Is it like going to the Rolling Stones and then they don't play Brown Sugar and you wanted to hear it? Or like, what's your thought on that? Because I've talked to a lot of comedians about their famous bits and there's a lot of different thinking. I mean, gosh, that's the hardest part about being a stand-up is once your hour comes out, you have to start
fully over, I would give anything to just be able to sing Cheeseburger in Paradise every show. Wouldn't that make life much easier? I'll give people like 50 minutes to an hour of brand new stuff.
Because they want to be surprised. People like that about stand-up. They want to not see what's coming. That's part of the fun of it is discovering new things about you. But at the end, usually the last five to ten minutes of my...
I will sometimes throw out to the audience, I'll do, I call it a classic or whatever. What do you guys want to hear? I can do Hooters. I can do Swim Team. I can do Coming Out to My Dad. And they'll kind of yell as an audience.
And so every show is different. I'll, I'll, I love that idea. One last, um, yeah, fun one. That's, uh, and I have my Hooters story is probably the one people know the most. And, uh, basically,
Basically, I went to Hooters my entire childhood because I had two older brothers and my mom spearheaded those trips. Did that have anything to do with you deciding your sexuality? No, but it was definitely a fun byproduct. I would say. Look at boobs. What's going on? At the time, I was just fat. I didn't know I was gay.
So I just enjoy chicken wings. But my mom started dating a very conservative religious man when I was in college. And one night I was like, let's go to Hooters. And she goes, ah, hell.
never eaten at Hooters and was dead serious because she didn't want her new man friend to know she would dare step foot in such a scandalous restaurant. So I tell this whole story about it and the backstory of how much she would go to Hooters. Amazing. So now when I tell that story, the entire audience yells with me,
Never. And it's like so crazy to be like having people yell your, you know, story back to you. I never saw that as a standup comedian being a thing. That's so cool though. Yeah, it's really cool. But you know, that's the standup is so popular right now. It's, it's wild. When I, I started in 2005, I,
And it was in a down cycle. It kind of is cyclical where it will be really popular and then go completely away. Or not completely away, but just not as prevalent. But I think as people are going to the movies less...
They want that live experience. They want to laugh with other people. So shows are selling out everywhere. It's unbelievable, isn't it? Do you think it's, I think it's sustainable. I think, I think it's the new normal. I think so. I mean, you know, it's people, there's a lot, as you know, going on in the world, there's a lot to worry about. There's a lot that of uncertainty and,
especially, you know, just politics alone, but, you know, coming out of a pandemic, whoever thought in our lifetime we'd experience something like that. I think it made people go, I need to, I need to like have some levity here. This is a lot.
So that's something I'm proud of as a stand-up is to provide that. I try not to get in the weeds of divisiveness. There are other people that are way more skilled to talk about politics, to talk about
the current state of the world i'm not the person you go to for that my tour is literally called taking care of biscuits i'm not that gal uh digging digging deep on that stuff but if you want to come if you want a biscuit if you want a biscuit you want a biscuit let's go i got you let me ask you this are you um okay hooters was your was your jam yeah
Mine's Waffle House. Yeah, so good. And people in California, there's no Waffle House. There's no Waffle Houses here. I'm not sure where the dividing line is geographically of where they stop. I know, maybe Arizona. It's my favorite thing in the world. I feel like a Waffle House would do well in like a Riverside or Rancho Cucamonga. I
Listen, I'd open one in Santa Barbara. Yeah, they're so good. I mean, you know, it's very, you know, minimal. You go in there. You know what you're getting. You know what you're getting. And it's not the cleanest of places, but the food is delish. I wanted to do, I've been trying to pitch this idea, you know, like, what is it? What's the cop show where they ride along with,
Oh, cops? Yeah, cops. Cops. What is the cop show again? Oh, you mean cops? Yes, that one. Bad boys, what you gonna do? I want to do Waffle House where all you do is put the cameras in, let them run for a year. You don't even have to have any technicians. Just let them run for a year. And just capture the magic. And then you get a team of editors and go through it in the magic of a Waffle House. Yeah. We all know that
You know, like after midnight on a Friday, Saturday, great stuff goes on, right? There's got to be a lot of stuff that goes down because some of them are 20... They used to be 24 hours. They might have changed that recently. A lot of them. My...
I always thought that they were, but, you know, like everything else, I'm sure they're fucking that up now, too. Yeah. I mean, does anything really need to be open 24 hours? Yes. Not in Vegas. Not. Well, that's true. I mean, there's nothing better. You're driving across country. From like three to at least close down from like three to five.
Well, that is true. This is when we can like mop the floors, right guys? This is where they should clean more than they do. You're right. Maybe that was the issue. They're like, how do you expect us to clean and be open 24 hours? We cannot do both. You can have one or the other. I was in one and I was with my mom and I was just enjoying this delicious waffle and a cockroach the size of like a mouse is like going up the wall. And I'm just like,
If I tell my mom what is behind her right now, she will like cause a scene. So I'm just like slowly eating, watching it, making sure it doesn't go anywhere near her. And I never said a thing. That is a problem. When in Waffle House, you just that's just part of the experience. It's kind of like being in New Orleans. Yeah.
Like when you go to New Orleans, you're going to see rats. Yeah. And you're going to see drunk people. You're going to see cockroaches and you're going to see vomit in the streets. And that's... What a life. That's part of the charm, though. Yeah. I think you should... If anyone can get that made, I think you could. I think you need to get back to trying to sell that. I am. I definitely am. I got to get... I got to figure it out. But then the thing is like...
Would the Waffle House sign off? Why wouldn't they? They should lean into it. Yeah. Well, if you're like, hey, guys, it's me, Rob Lowe. Don't you want me to do this? You know, every once in a while on this podcast, when I talk about something sort of like this, it becomes real. Who was I talking to? I was talking to Bill Simmons and I were talking about our love of Yacht Rock. And then we started talking about our love of how hard it is to make
horror comedies. And then we're like, we should make a movie called Yacht Rock Killer. And now it's about to come to fruition. There's some movement on Yacht Rock Killer. Come on. I could see you with a captain's hat on. Oh, right. And all of a sudden, murder. And like the ghoul is like Kenny Loggins. Yeah. Yeah.
Please make this happen. I don't want to be the one to call Kenny, though, and go, so, Kenny, listen, we're doing Yotra Killer, and you're playing the killer. Why would he not want to get in on this? He might. He's my pickleball partner up here. Oh, yeah? I have a direct line. I imagine you have a direct line to quite a few people. I've got some good ones. That Santa Barbara pickleball connection is strong alone.
It is. It's strong. Katy Perry, she's a big pickleballer. Look at that. Yeah.
I mean, we have a very strong pickleball. Although I have to go on the record. I'm of two minds about pickleball. Yeah. It's like the seriousness with which certain people take it. Yeah. With the backpacks, with the pickleball paddles sticking out of them. With the ball that thuds. I don't know. It's like, come on. I'm a tennis player. Same. So, you know, I...
I have reluctantly come to pickleball. Yes. I like it, but I still prefer tennis. Same. Yeah. I've been playing tennis since I was seven. I played in college. Oh, wow. It's hard to just like give over to the pickleball. I'm with you. I think we need to keep tennis alive somehow. When they transform tennis courts into pickleball courts, like my heart hurts.
Which do you think is more outdated now, tennis or waltzing? Definitely the waltzing.
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Well, we have cool tennis players now that are... We do have... Ben Shelton, all those guys, they're making tennis cool again. We need it. It's really true. Like, we really... Like, you know who else lives up here? I see all the time, by the way, speaking of tennis, is Jimmy Connors. Oh, nice. Yeah. And I'm like... Does he still get feisty? He's feisty. He's like breaking his rag. You're like, dude, just for fun. Jimmy Connors. He was the OG. He was... He was...
a badass among badasses. OG and short shorts. Right? A lot of short shorts back then. Everybody had them. Yeah, those were the times. I think I've seen you rock some short shorts. Oh, there's a picture online of me at Battle of the Network Stars. Yes. Not only am I in short shorts, I'm in dolphin shorts. Oh my God, yes.
Oh, true sign. You're not even running. You're not even. Those are for marathon runners. You're not even running. You're just like, this is the look. You probably had a sweatshirt on too with it. Oh, no, it's worse. I had no shirt on. Giving the ladies what they want. And I'm all of 17 years.
And I really could use a good meal. Yeah. It's like I am the twinkiest of the twinks. Oh, my God. I'm like King Twink. You had everyone drooling over you, though. That must have been quite the power trip. And I was so young, too. I didn't know what was going on. I was like visiting probably like Melissa Gilbert, who was like the dunk tank or some shit. Yeah.
You know, and you just know some photographers like, hey, why don't you sit Indian style, the way they used to call it. Yeah, just a little more. Okay, you're just a little wider. Yeah. Just like that. Whoa, they would do that? And I'm like, okay. Yeah. Dumbass. And then there's like now the twink shot lives in perpetuity. Yeah.
But you know, when you got it, flaunt it. If I had looked like you, even now, I would just be walking through the world naked all the time. Like, yeah, this is what I'm working with. Enjoy it.
This is what I'm working with. That's a good title. This is what I'm working with. This is what I'm working with. I like that. You were part of my comedy, like, obsession. Tommy Boy was one of my early days of, like, realizing how much I love comedy and watching a movie on repeat. It's a good one, right? Oh, man. So good.
And we had no idea, none, that we were making anything special. Really? Like, I always compare it to, like, Wayne's World or Austin Powers. Well, the Austin Powers movie, you knew those were going to be special. Yeah. But Tommy Boy, it was like a comedy programmer. Like, Paramount in those days made one or two a year. They just churned them out.
Like under $30 million budget. And Lorne had a deal where he would just plug in whoever he thought was hot off SNL. Yeah. And they just like a factory, you know, and Molly Shannon would do Superstar. And then there'd be this Stuart Smalley movie. There's a lot of them lost to the mists of time. Right. But Tommy Boy like broke out. Yeah. So, I mean...
As a kid from small town North Carolina, I didn't have access. I didn't know what stand-up was. Unless my brothers listened to something, I didn't know what it was. But movies and SNL, that world was something I had access to. So those were very informative years watching things like that. Going, I really like that.
I like how silly this is and how ridiculous everyone is. But everyone's like committed to the ridiculousness of it. I love that. Like we know this is insane and broad and crazy, but we're so committed to these characters. I love that too. I love that kind of, that kind of comedy actually is now it's, I think it's why standup is so big is it's thriving there and it's not really thriving there.
in TV and movies that comedy is now like if you go on Netflix or Hulu or any of the places and look for comedy for the most part they're kind of dramedies mm-hmm
Or action, some action to it as well. It's got to be big. Yeah, but it's not absurdist. Exactly, yeah. There's no 30 Rock. Like all those things are so funny. Always Sunny still does it. But they started doing it. I think they're in their 17th season. That's right.
Crazy. 17 seasons or something. Crazy. Yeah. I think that I'm hoping, obviously, as a comedian and as someone who also acts, I really hope the pendulum swings back into some of that absurdist stuff. Yeah, me too. Because it's my favorite. Same. I got to have a tiny part in the movie Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar, which came out during the pandemic, but it was supposed to have a big theatrical release.
And I just think that would have been such a treat to watch in a theater with other people. Because those are the movies you want. Like, I start laughing, it makes you laugh, it starts making you laugh. It's just a chain reaction. And you want to have this shared moment of like, can you believe she just said that? I want to see more of that stuff. But it's hard to...
Enjoy those in the same way, like at home by yourself. I still, you know what I do now is I keep clips on my phone of things that make me laugh. And they'll usually come over my algorithm, like on TikTok or something. It knows that I love stupid shit. And like, I'll be watching Borat, you know, just laughing. My wife. My wife. Are you a big TikTok guy?
I'm embarrassed to say I am. I mean, it's kind of a new entertainment now. Oh, I get more consistent laughs.
in a half an hour on TikTok than I'm going to get anywhere else. I just am. Yeah. I'll sit down to watch TV, like, all right, I'm going to settle in. And I'll, you know, because we're all like riddled with ADD now and no attention spans, I will grab my phone and like look at a clip on TikTok and then suddenly an hour's passed.
And I was like, oh, well, I guess that was my TV time. It's really a barrier for me to watch TV.
the things I know I should watch and that everybody is like, dude, have you seen Adolescence? Right. And I'm like, no, but I did see this amazing duck on TikTok. Yeah. Or you'll see people talking about Adolescence. You don't even watch it yourself. You just see the commentary on it. And the clips. And you'll see a clip and you'll feel like I feel like
I watched every, The Crown. I saw everything having to do with The Crown, but then I realized, no, no, you just saw all the highlights on TikTok. Yeah. I saw all the different queens. I saw all the different, you know, Winston Churchill's. I saw all of it. Buckingham Palace, this, that. I saw it all. I don't need to see anything else. I get it. You're like, so good.
I know. Maybe that's where it's all come to. We're just going to... We're going to exist solely in... In clips? In clips. I think so. Are you going to keep... Do you think you're going to keep doing comedy or is that...
I love it. I love seeing, I went to your, the roast they did of you. Oh, did you go? I was there in the audience. That was so fun. I love that you don't take yourself seriously. You know, like you have fun. I love the roast. The roast is one of my favorite things I've ever, it sounds weird, like the favorite thing I've ever done. I didn't really do anything. But like in terms of like, if you want to laugh, it's pretty strong.
Really strong. That was a good one. Didn't, did Nikki do...
Yeah, that was Nikki's first big coming out. Like she was like really under the radar and she like it wasn't a foregone conclusion that she would be on the panel. Yeah. And she as she always does murdered. Murdered. Yeah. But everybody did. There wasn't like Jewel killed. That's right. Yeah. Like like when Jeff Ross is the least funny of the panel.
You know you have a great panel. It's a strong deus. Yeah. And now these roasts are like so popular. They're so popular. You were...
leaded the charge on that. I think people kind of consider it still the best. I think it pound for pound just because everybody murdered. Every single person. And I love sitting there getting eviscerated. Like literally, I mean, there are a couple jokes in there that are so brutal. Yeah.
I mean, one, but why does it make me laugh? Is something wrong with me that that stuff makes me laugh? I mean, maybe because you've been doing this for so long that, I mean, you started, well, how old were you when you started? 15. Yeah, I mean. I mean, I started acting when I was eight, but I. Yeah, so you had to have a thick skin. I don't know if any, I don't know if other people could.
Put up with it. I never want to be asked to even be on the joke teller of it because I can't. It's not for me. Because then you get hammered, too. That's what people forget. Yeah, you get eviscerated and you're just like, okay, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's almost better to be the person they're roasting because you know it's coming.
than to be on the panel and then all of a sudden someone's taking a shot at you. Yeah. And you're like, oh, I didn't see that. I didn't expect that one to come. Because on my roast famously, Ann Coulter was on the panel. That's right. And I'm convinced Ann had no idea. Oh, for sure. You could see in her face she was like, get me out of here. She had no idea that she was going to – anybody there was fair game. Mm-hmm.
And it became the roast of Ann Coulter. I was just sitting there. I got off easy. You got to breathe for a minute. Oh, I was breathing. I was like, but I did not want to turn around and look at her. I did not. I remember sitting next to Peyton Manning. Peyton was on the panel as well, and we were just like, oh, brother. Yes.
We haven't heard as much from her since. That might have been the beginning of her being like, well, I'm getting out of here. It was, it was, that was, yeah, that was, that's an evergreen. If a roast can be an evergreen. Yeah. That's an evergreen. That's an evergreen one for sure. Yeah. Maybe in another 10 years, I'll get roasted again. There you go. Right? Yeah.
There's new stuff to eviscerate you on. I keep fucking up. I keep doing stupid shit. There'll be plenty of stuff to roast me about. That's right. I make you this vow today. I'm not done doing stupid shit. There we go, Rob. Well, thank you for... This is so fun. I...
It was so nice talking with you. I've never gotten to talk with you before and what a treat. I'm such a fan. And vice versa. Thank you for having me and wanting to chat. Your special's out now and FUBAR. When is FUBAR coming out? Next year? Sometime this summer. Summer, great. Yeah, I don't know the exact date, but...
But yeah, it'll be soon, here before we know it. So hopefully people watch. I have to have the big fella back on for that. Yeah, you should. You should listen to the podcast I did with Arnold. It was one of the first ones I did in person. Yeah. And he made me go to the house. In the recliner? With the compression socks on? Yes. In the recliner? Yes.
Yeah. You know, the next one needs to be in the hot tub. Oh, for sure. Get those dolphin shorts back out. Dude, the dolphin shorts. Right now, people are Googling. I'm apologizing in advance. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Rob. I'll see you at the Waffle House. Yeah, let's get that waffle, bud. All right. What is it shaking? What is it?
turned and burned. Oh, smothered, covered, diced. Diced, diced, turned and burned, smothered, covered. Then diarrhea. And then lots of Pepto-Bismol. All right. God bless. Good to talk to you. You too. All right. Thank you for being with us. Fortune and I are off to Waffle House. I'm off to take more Propecia.
And I will see you guys next week. Really good guests coming up. So don't forget to download. Don't forget to share with your friends. And let's build the literally army to the most powerful army in the world together. See you next time.
You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Grau. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant.
Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally. Auto insurance can all seem the same until it comes time to use it. So don't get stuck paying more for less coverage. Switch to USA Auto Insurance and you could start saving money in no time. Get a quote today. Restrictions apply. USA!
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