Bette Midler and the Meanest Man in Showbiz
2024-05-10 00:54:18
<p>To be human is to fail – period. And not just to fail once, but to fail a lot. As the author Samuel Beckett said: “Fail again. Fail better.” This saying means a lot to me and my family – so much so that my daughter got a tattoo of it. Why are we, and so many others, so deeply concerned by failure? And if it’s something we all do so often, why are we so afraid of it – especially those of us here in win-at-all-costs America? In this podcast, I sit down with successful, thoughtful people like Ben Stiller, Bette Midler, Sean Penn and more to talk about failure – or what they labeled “failure,” but what was really an unparalleled opportunity for growth and revelation. I even want to delve into my own hardest moments, when I wrestled with setbacks, shame, and fear. We’ll still fail again. And again. But maybe if we fail better, we’ll feel better -- and maybe if we can all laugh together in failure, that's a start.</p>
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So I'm going to meet John McNamara, Mac, for lunch. We shot Aquarius together. Very sharp dresser. Very picky eater, too. So we got to choose the right place.
We go to this place that I like, that I used to always stop at this place on the way back home from shooting Californication, and I'd memorize the next day's lines over my tuna burger. So here I am, back at this place, and I think I see Bette Midler, and I say to Mac, is that Bette Midler? And he says, yeah, that's Bette Midler. And I was like, ah, that looks a lot like Bette Midler to me, and I have something I want to tell her. But I don't like going up to celebrities, because once I went up, I asked the flight attendant if I could say hi to Ringo.
The Ringo thing didn't go so well, and I jumped out of a cab to say hello to Muhammad Ali. I did that a long, long time ago, so I don't want to bother Bette Midler at her lunch. But I really want to tell her this story because I think it's something that she might like to hear, an experience I had watching her that was really revelatory way, way a long time ago when I used to cater. So anyway, I finished lunch, Bette's still there, and I go over to say hi to her. She couldn't be nicer.
I said, hi, Bette Midler, I'm David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Now, not only did I ask Bette Midler to be on my podcast, but it's a weird ask, because you're saying, I want you to be on a podcast called Fail Better. And naturally, somebody's going to get their back up and go, I don't want to talk about my failures. What kind of a fucked up ask is that? And incredibly, she said yes.
Bette was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, created the alter ego of the Divine Miss M in New York City's gay bathhouses in the early 70s. She's part of the fabric of my city that I grew up in, and I know it. I know where she came from. She became a Grammy-winning singer and the star of stage and screen, as they say. But not everything was hocus pocus and beaches.
How can it be? Not everything can be hocus pocus and beaches. Her 1982 movie, Jinxed, was a disaster. Her sitcom, Bette, unfortunately didn't last a full season. And at the start of this interview was another technological failure.
And like 15 minutes of trying to get everything perfect, and between me and Bette, we couldn't know less about how to work these things. Connect the microphone, get the headphones to work, all of that shit. But we took deep breaths, we cursed all things technological, and we soldiered on. And this is the Zoom call that came after that.
Technology. It's the worst. Oh, yeah.
Well, you know, I tell you something. If I had grown up with it, it would have been different. But I think the fact that I came in so late, it's this really steep learning curve. So I resent it. I resent so much of my day being spent trying to keep up with it.
Because it's been 15 or 20 years, and I'm still not used to it. And I find that it agitates me terribly.
What does it do to your creativity?
It's ruined my life. It has ruined my life. It has ruined my life. My creativity? What creativity?
I can't even crack a joke anymore. I mean, really, truly.
It's kind of like when you learn a language as a kid, you get it, right? You just know how to speak it. But I don't... We're going to sound like terrible people, but I don't see anything...
We're not going to sound terrible, we're just going to sound super annuated. We're just going to sound old.
Super annuated. At least there's something super about it. But I want to thank you for talking to me today. It's really kind of you to do it. And when I first saw you, and I told you this, we've only met once.
We met at lunch a couple months ago, and I came and I professed my admiration for you. And I was a bartender at Radio City Musical in 1983..
And all these great acts came. Marvin Gaye and Prince, and Brian Ferry and Peter Allen and you. And I got to see, after I broke down the bar at intermission, I got to see the acts. And I was into. Yes, I was into The Stones, I wasn't into Bette Midler, you know?
And I went and I walked in to watch Bette Midler. And my God, I mean, I got emotional when I was telling you. I've never seen a performer go from sentiment to irony and somehow do both at the same time. And I was like, how the hell is this happening? How is she doing this?
And I've never forgotten it. And I just jumped at the chance of telling you the other day. And what I wanted to ask was, you know, where did you get those balls?
Well, I think I was born with a lot of confidence. And I never really had anyone squash that confidence in a public way. If my father said, you'll never amount to a row of pins, that only made me angrier. Oh, that only made me more determined to show him. So you had all that, I'll show you feeling from a very early age.
Even though, I mean, I worship my dad. He was that kind of a guy. He was not a praiser. He was not a praiser. And my mom was so overwhelmed that she didn't even, she didn't have the time.
She was barely keeping it together. So I had that, I'll show you thing from an early age. and it just grew. And when I saw the greats, I used to see the greats. People used to take me to see, you know, whoever was in, I was in Honolulu, whoever was in town.
I saw Sophie Tucker once. I really didn't get it. And when I got to New York, you know, rock and roll was at its height. You know, you would see Janis Joplin, you would see Tina Turner. And when I saw them, I said, oh, my God, I know what that is.
I know what that is. That's what I do.
What is it?
It was confidence. It was this innate confidence. And it's a kind of energy that is absolutely overwhelming. This kind of energy, I always thought everybody has this kind of energy. I didn't know that most people don't.
And it took years for me to realize, oh, most people can't do this. Years. But when I saw other people doing it, using their energy or allowing their energy out,
pushing their energy towards another group of people, I realized, oh, that's a thing. But I didn't know that most people couldn't do it. I have always had that energy. I walk fast. I talk fast.
I talk loud. I this, I that. So it's always I. So I harnessed it. I allowed it to come out.
I allowed this power, which I identified. The energy is what I identified as power. Once I identified it, I never let it go. And that's why it's part of the reason that I'm practically unrecognizable on the street. Because when people think of me, especially on the stage, they think of this gigantic person.
But I'm really quite small. And I'm like a mouse. But on the stage, I'm like a lion. And it's very easy for me to turn the switch on and off. Very easy.
In real life, it's kind of painful. Because I'll go to dinner with a whole group of people who think they're coming to dinner with the lion. And they're sitting at the table with a chickadee. So it's a little bit, sometimes there's a disconnect there. And it can be quite sad sometimes for me.
If I think about your character, the divine Miss M, and I think about her force and her energy,
I just want you to take me back to here you are. You're in New York. You have a small part on Broadway. You're feeling like you're doing okay. You're on Fiddler, right?
You're probably going up on auditions and not getting anything, right?
That's right. That's exactly right.
And you're hearing what? What are you hearing? Are you getting feedback?
Too short, too fat, too tall, too thin, too big, too small. I mean, the same old thing. You got close, but no cigar. It's the same old thing.
Does this hurt? Or you're just like, you know what? I'm going to become, the divine Miss M right now.
No. No, no, no, no.
But out of that pain of rejection, you became this thing. How does it happen?
How did it happen? Well, I got tough. I toughened up.
And I sort of decided that this was not working out. This theater thing was not really working out. And I looked for another avenue. And I always tell people who say, how can I get started in your industry? A word I love.
Show business.
I always say, look for loopholes. Because you might not be the biggest star on Broadway. But if you can do this or that or the other thing, try writing for other people. Try stand-up.
That's an amazing thing to say. But to actually go and do it? I mean.
Why not? What have you got to lose? I don't know. I mean, it's just, what are they going to do? What are they going to do to you?
They're not going to murder you. They'll make you feel bad for 20 minutes. But maybe you'll find out that you really love this. I know people who have been, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. And then they do.
And they say, I love that. I love that. That's what happened to me. I was languishing in the theater world. And I was in a show for three years.
I asked for a $25 raise. They refused it to me. They refused to give me the $25 raise. I said, I've got to get out of here. And I said, there's got to be something better than this.
And a woman who was very kind to me, who was in the show with me, Marta Heflin, very kind and very beautiful and a great singer. She said, well, I'm going down to this club downtown. Why don't you come with me? So I took my little bag of music, which, and I've had this bag. I have carried in my life for 60 years, I have carried a bag of music.
Sometimes the bag gets better. You know, sometimes it's cloth. Sometimes it's Louis Vuitton. Sometimes it's, you know, rubber.
Not the same bag.
Not the same bag, but the music is basically the same. So I carried a bag of music. I carried my little bag of music with my audition songs. And I went down to Hilly's, which was on 9th Street. No longer there.
May he rest. And the piano player was a genius. And I had my little bag of music and I sang some ballad. I don't know. It never entered my mind or something like that.
And then the third song, your Loud Three song, was God Bless the Child, which I had learned after I saw the Clara Ward singers in a dump in Honolulu where all the sailors went that I frequented. I saw the Clara Ward singers and the lead girl saying, God bless the child. that's got his own. And I connected with that song immediately and I made it part of, I said, I'm going to sing that song. And that was the song I sang that night at Hilly's.
And I had this out-of-body experience. I mean, I didn't even know who was singing. Somebody took over my body and these waves of sorrow and, you know,
revenge came out. And there I was. And it was an experience that was so transformative that I knew that I had turned a corner and that this was a way out. This was my exit from the theater.
I'm hearing that it just felt completely authentic to yourself at that moment. You were present on the earth. This was what you were supposed to be doing. Yes. What a beautiful moment to have.
And I never forgot it. Of course I never forgot it because it was so different from anything I had ever experienced in my body before. And I loved it. I mean, it was an actual physical experience. The heartbeat and this energy coming out of me.
It was just.
Yeah.
And I wanted it again.
Yes. Well, this is what I was going to say. Did you chase that? And did you ever really, did you find it again or get close enough? You know, performing, performing, performing night after night.
Every single night. Once I found it, I went for it every single night.
That is amazing to me. That's amazing to me. That's amazing to me. That's your energy, then. Because that takes a hell of a lot of energy to do that every time.
But I knew. But you see, the thing is that I knew how to tap into that energy. I don't know how. It wasn't something I thought of. It was just something that happened, that I allowed to happen.
And you never felt it would empty either. You never felt it would go away. Never. It was limitless. Never.
I didn't care what end of it I was in. I just loved it. I loved performing. I loved music. And I loved dance.
And I loved sets and lights and costumes and wigs. And oh, I loved all of it. I loved the artifice of it. And I just gave myself over to that. And I pursued that diligently, for, I would say, 55 or 60 years.
And now, now that I'm nearing, wending my way towards the wings, I often wonder whether, I mean, I haven't really performed in over five years. And I haven't really sung in five years. The need and the desire and all the things that you have when you're young. And I do think a lot of it is hormonal. And I'm sorry to say that because I know people are disappointed in a way.
But I feel like a lot of things are hormonal that are just in your body. And in the phases of life that you go through, they change because you change. every single cell in your body is different every single day. So I don't have the need. And when you have need, you do things that other people don't want to be bothered with or afraid to do.
Sometimes the need is so gigantic that you can't stop yourself. And I think that I must have had that need. I was incredibly needy in the day, but I'm not so needy now. And I'm glad.
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It seems like many people have this one failure that kind of sticks and burns and hopefully teaches, but it's really that moment of teaching and liberation and resilience that I'm looking to talk about with people that have been through it. And I'm curious, if you have something like that, that you—.
Oh, I've had—I've been through it. I've had that happen many times, many times in my life. I can remember one example that I've actually spoken about before, and that's when I landed in movie jail. Now, a lot of people don't know about movie jail. Movie jail is when, you know, you upset the powers that be, the powers that run the town.
And because someone has put out that you're disagreeable or you're a pain in the ass to work with, I had left my manager, who had been very protective of me for many, many years, about 10 years, and I had embarked on this career on my own. And I was—I didn't really know what I was doing, and I managed to get this movie called Jinx. Right. And I was sort of in charge, and my writer friend and I were, you know, we were kind of like heading the production. And we made the mistake of hiring possibly the meanest man in show business, who was Don Siegel, as the director.
Now, Don Siegel was kind of notorious in the business.
Was he the Dirty Harry director?
He was, indeed. He was. He was Clint Eastwood's director of choice. And he also made the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And the story that I heard about him on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers was that he was so unpleasant.
There was one scene where he was supposed to be in a—he was going to shoot—I forgot the guy's name—Kennedy. Arthur Kennedy. Arthur Kennedy. In a kind of a hole with a manhole cover over it. And Arthur Kennedy said, Don, why don't you just show us what you want?
And they put Don Siegel in the hole, and they clamped the manhole cover on top of him, and they locked it, and they went to lunch. That's how much they hated him.
You said, I gotta hire that guy to yourself.
I didn't know. I didn't.
You didn't know that story.
No. And that was the takeaway from that experience. Because he made my life completely miserable. And it was my turn to pick the co-star. I interviewed the co-star, and the first thing the co-star said to me was something incredibly racist and homophobic.
And I didn't—my mouth just fell open. But I didn't listen to myself. I let it go. Right. So here I was with this really miserable co-star and this really miserable director.
And eventually, they kind of ganged up on me. They did gang up on me. And when the picture came out and it was a dud, they blamed me, of course. And in the press, they blamed me. And I wound up in movie jail for years.
They blamed you in what sense?
All the usual things. That I was too demanding, that I was arrogant, that I was riding roughshod over people. Really, I was just trying to do my job. But I couldn't make myself understood, and they didn't bother to make themselves understood. It was not collegial.
It wasn't collaborative. But there came a point where we were doing a musical number, and I kind of do know a little bit about musical numbers, where the director just absolutely lost it. And he slugged me. He hit me. And his girlfriend, or maybe it was his wife at the time, held me back, held me by my elbows and let him hit me.
I mean, I tried to hit him back, but she was holding me, so I couldn't hit him back. That's not really fair. I mean, that's charges. You bring people up on charges for slugging other people. So I went to movie jail for a couple of years, and it was devastating to me because I had heard about all this kind of behavior.
I had heard that they didn't like women telling them what to do. I had heard that. But I had always been in charge of my own shows. I built my own shows. I hired my own people.
I paid. I was in charge of the payroll. So I was the boss. And in this case, I was the boss, but I wasn't the boss. And I didn't know that I wasn't the boss.
So it was a constant push and pull about who was going to be the boss. And I didn't realize until afterwards that that's what the conflict was about. So that was a big lesson. Do your homework. Know who you're getting in bed with.
Call people who have worked with these people and find out just who you're dealing with.
And maybe have a manhole cover handy as well.
That's exactly right.
I had read a quote somewhere, and I bet you're referring to this, where you were accused of grandstanding, and that really hurt your feelings. Oh, yeah. Is that this?
Yeah.
So that word grandstanding. really, I was curious about that. But obviously, it's very painful for you. And if you could tell me what that means with respect to this.
Well, I think, when a man does it, it's being effective. And it's being a man. It's being the boss. But when a woman does it, it's somehow a negative. And it's unfair.
There's no other word to explain it. It's unfair. And I was brought up with most of my high school life, no one spoke to me. People didn't speak to me. I have no memory of anyone saying good morning to me or goodbye to me at school.
So I was a reader. I was a reader. I was a geek. And I had other friends who were also sort of, like, on the fringes. And I was okay with that.
But because I recognized early on what my status was. And it didn't really bother me, because I always had my books. I always had my imaginative life, which is kind of what leads me to my next big flop, which was my television show. I did a television show.
Yes, Bet.
Yes, Bet. Does it get any more generic than that? Bet. A big, big mistake. Why?
Well, I think for several reasons. It was the wrong motivation. It was a part of the media I simply did not understand. I watched it. I appreciated it.
I enjoyed it. But I didn't know what it meant to make it. I had made theatrical live events. I had made films. I had made variety television shows.
I had been on talk shows. But I had never done a situation comedy. And I didn't realize what the pace was. And I didn't understand what the hierarchy was. And no one bothered to tell me.
Well, the hierarchy should have been, since Bet is the name of the show, you should have been number one on the hierarchy.
Well, I was kicked to the curb immediately. And I didn't know what to do about it. I mean, all the signs were there. But because I was so green, I didn't understand what my options were, what choices I could have made to improve my situation. I didn't know that I could have taken charge, that I could have asserted my ‑‑ because, I think, because I was so terrified of being branded, you know, a grandstander again.
That stuck with you and alienated you from your own power and knowledge in a way.
Yes, yes.
So what was the vision of the show if you had been able to execute it in a way?
Well, I thought that it would be entertaining because it's common. I mean, it's everyday. It's like an everyday life. You know, I do go to the store. I do sit down and, iron, you know, darn my clothes.
I do make the bed. sometimes. You know, occasionally I lower myself to sweep the floor. I mean, I do it. I do all that stuff.
And I thought that was a riot, because your core business, a phrase I almost never use but I've taken to using recently, my core business is this kind of creature that I've made. Right. That I've built. And she is the public facing person. But this little, you know, the wizard of Oz is behind here pulling the string.
So I thought it would be fun to show the wizard in everyday circumstances. But the fact is that I believe it would have worked if I had had a team that was on my side. Things happened that were so astonishing. I didn't know those things could happen. For instance, Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter in the pilot.
Well, after the pilot, Lindsay Lohan decided she didn't want to do it or she had other fish to fry. So Lindsay Lohan left the building. And I said, well, now, what do you do? And the studio didn't help me.
Adopt. You have to adopt. You have to adopt.
Adopt or adapt. Well, I didn't manage to do either. And it was very chaotic. It was extremely chaotic.
They have things called contracts. You're not supposed to be allowed to do that. A contract. You're not supposed to be allowed to leave a show. I know.
I know that. And if I had been in my right mind, or if I had known that part of my duties, were to stand up and say this absolutely will not do, I'm going to sue, then I would have done that. But I seemed to have been cosseted in some way that I couldn't get to the writers room. I couldn't speak to the showrunner. I couldn't make myself clear.
And there were so many competing personalities. And I have to say, the main thing that was so shocking to me was the pace of it. I didn't understand how fast you had to go. You know? Can you speak to that?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know.
I had no idea how fast people make it. Really, you have to give people so much credit when it's great because the speed of it is so taxing. And if you didn't keep up, you just couldn't. You were in big trouble. So I was booked on David Letterman and he said to me, how do you like it so far?
I said, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. I said, it's like being a dung beetle and pushing a pile of shit up a hill every day. And, of course, the next day I was fired. My lawyer called me at 9 o'clock in the morning and said, you're fired. I said, oh, isn't that fantastic?
I mean, we were on the 18th episode out of 22.
. And I was so thrilled not to have to continue because I could not gather myself enough to make it work. I didn't know how to make it work for so many reasons. Not least of which was that it was a completely different situation than I thought it was going to be. And the mad scramble to keep up was just too intense.
So I was glad. I was glad to be fired.
But the heart must hurt a little bit and the ego as well.
Well, you know, after that heart was broken on that first picture, I got a little scarred. The scars were pretty deep and they were pretty thick. So I had developed a kind of an armor by that time. It did, however, upend my business life because my business partner of many, many years and I parted company. And I left my production company, which I loved.
I mean, it was a thriving entity, not as thriving as some, but still we made pictures. And I closed it and my business partner and I parted company.
And, you know, she was not just my business partner. She was also a very dear friend. So that was very, very, very rough. But I had to go on. I felt that I had to go on.
I felt that I had made so many mistakes that were so obvious. My biggest failure is haste and acting on impulse. I have never actually been able to control my sense of haste. I'm very speedy. I walk fast.
I talk fast. I used to think fast, but I don't think at all anymore.
But let me push that another way, because I see that you've talked about the power of spontaneity, you know, that nothing is more powerful than the power of spontaneity. So I feel like, you know, you could call it haste. I might call it spontaneity. I think it's a hell of hard work to look spontaneous. And I think that's what you're getting at.
You didn't have time to prepare enough to look like you were just making it up as you went along.
That's exactly right.
Right.
That is exactly right.
And I suffer from the same thing because I'm like, you know, I don't even want to rehearse half the time. I just want to say, well, I just want to, let's do it. I got a feeling. I got a feeling. I just want to go with the feeling.
Let's do it. And the phrase in Latin is festina lente, which is called make haste slowly. Do you know it?
Yeah, I've heard it.
I've heard it. And that's what we have to learn. That's what we have to learn.
Well, I'm 78 years old. And if I don't learn it tomorrow, it's going to be too damn bad.
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If you know me, you know that I am constantly traveling. I was just in Greece for a shoot and I had an amazing time, but when I came back to the U.S., I was already getting ready for my next trip. To be honest, I don't think I even unpack my bag fully. One thing about traveling that's not so fun, besides having to squeeze everything into your suitcase, is how often it means leaving your home sitting there underutilized while you're gone. And if you can relate to any of this, then you should definitely think about becoming a host on Airbnb.
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It's interesting to me, because what I saw in Radio City Musical on 83 and what I see in your career is not the need for being hip or approved of in the moment. Because your bag, your song bag, and your comedian bag, and even your performance bag, it wasn't even made for 83.. You put all that shit together from odds and ends that I would think that your mother steered your way, or you found in a library in Honolulu or whatever. You completely collaged an act together, and the need wasn't to fit in. What I was impressed by when I saw you in 83 was like, this woman does not give a fuck about being hip.
She's doing some old stuff there. She's doing some of her own stuff over here, and somehow it's all of a piece.
It wasn't the need for love me. It was a need to express.
Certain things that people ignore or sweep under the rug or don't want to be bothered with or put in the back of their minds because it's too painful to deal with. I always used to say that I'm a bit of a magpie. I think many, many people are.
I never like to throw stuff out if it can be useful. I used to find things that were beautiful that other people didn't find beautiful. It's like restoring an old house. Just because you love the idea, you love the aesthetic of this old house. You just love it.
You don't want the wrecking ball to come and throw it down because it's too beautiful. It gives people joy to see so much beauty.
As you were putting this thing together, were you not afraid of rejection? Never. Because you must have gone out and said, the Stones are filling up Madison Square Garden and I'm going out there singing Boogie, Woogie, Bugle Boy.
I didn't give a fuck.
I want to bottle that. I want to bottle your. I don't give a fuck.
I believed in it. I believed in it. I think that I have. I believed in it. I believe that I'm such a snob.
I'm such a terrible snob. I really am. As far as writing is concerned or movies is concerned, or different kinds of performance is concerned, I'm a terrible snob because I really trust my taste. I trust my own taste. I think, if this makes me laugh, a lot of people are going to get a kick out of this.
If I sing this and it's well done, it's well executed, people will enjoy this. I just trusted my own taste.
I think the times when I failed most egregiously were the times when I didn't trust my own taste. I didn't trust myself. Like with this show, that show, and certain records that I've made, where I allowed A&R to push me around. Why would I let A&R push me around? They didn't know me.
Oh, you have to sing disco. Why do I have to sing disco? Oh, you have to sing disco. They won't play you if you don't sing disco. So I sang disco.
I mean, it's the worst garbage. Not the worst, because there's so much garbage out there. now. I mean, it's garbage, but this was my share of the garbage. Sometimes I hear that stuff and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that.
I can't believe, I didn't stand up for myself. But the thing is that you can be intimidated. One can be intimidated, especially by people who have money and power over you. So I'm really happy about Taylor Swift, because Taylor Swift has kind of rewritten the playbook. And she's very beautiful.
and she's lovely and she doesn't have to raise her voice, but she makes herself understood. And for a long time, I refused to recognize the fact that there were these power structures. In retrospect, there were power structures, but now that I'm so old, I recognize them. But when I was in it, there was no language for it. You didn't say, oh, so-and-so has power over me because he owns the company.
Of course he has power over you. He owns the company, you idiot. So of course you would go along to get along. And there are a few things that I regret, but honestly,
I'm pretty good-natured about that. Ah, didn't work out. Next. Thank you. Next.
Well, because you still have your voice inside.
To me, that's the lesson that you were born, knowing. Your confidence to me is exemplary. And I'm envious of it in many ways, because I could get knocked down and it would take me a while to get back up.
Well, you know, every day is different and every set of challenges brings a different response. The thing to do is not to beat yourself up.
Oh, but I'm really good at that. I'm really good at that.
You're good at that? Everyone in the whole world is good at that. And it's good sometimes to separate. I'm just learning this now. It's good sometimes to separate the thinker.
from yourself. I mean, the thinker seems to have its own life.
Do you mean like the ego? You mean the thinker is the ego?
I have never been able to identify which one it is, but I will say this.
It's my mother. It's my mother in your head is what it is. I think the thinker is my mother in your head.
You can give yourself a vacation from your thoughts if you realize that this thinker, the one that keeps denigrating you and grinding you to bits, if you can say, oh, well, it's just doing its thing. I don't have to listen. Or you can say, you know what? Be quiet for a while. I have this work to do.
Just leave me the fuck alone. And it does stop. If you push it back, it does stop. It does give you a few, you know, an hour or two of respite.
Yeah, there's that, or you go like, hey, you know, I understand that you are there because you make me work hard, because I think that I'm nothing and therefore I've got to. And so I needed you at one point in my life when I needed to do that, but I don't need you anymore. So you can go and take a vacation. But I think I want to leave you with, you've been really generous with your time. I just want to say one thing to you.
You have enthusiasm. And I just wanted to, because I'm an over-educated idiot, I will tell you that enthusiasm means in Greek, to have God in you. It actually. Oh, really? Yes.
How fabulous.
You know Greek?
No, I just know that.
You just know the word. You just know the meaning of enthusiasm. to have God in you. Fantastic. Fantastic.
I, I have a, I sometimes feel that enthusiasm and optimism are very close. You know, are very, very close to each other.
Jesus. I hope not. I hope not.
But I think like when you wake up in the morning, you feel like, I feel like this is going to be a good day. That's the kind of enthusiasm. Yeah. It is. It's like, I think there, and I want to think that I'm sunny, that I'm a sunny person, that I'm optimistic.
I want to think that you could be an enthusiastic pessimist. I think that's what I am. I think that's what I am. I want to think I can wake up with enthusiasm and say, not so great out there today, but fuck it.
You know, there you go. You know what it is? Yeah. This too shall pass.
Going Bible on me.
Yeah. This too shall pass and everything fades. So, you know, the gigantic thing that is the most terrifying and horrible thing will, it will diminish with time. And also the greatest thing, that the greatest accolades, the greatest thrill, the greatest success you've ever had, will also fade. You know, that's just the way of the world.
Beth, thank you for coming on. And I hope to see you around campus.
I look forward to that. That burger joint.
Great.
See you soon.
All right. Thanks, Beth. Bye.
Just some random voice memo thoughts about the Bette Midler interview, because I'm still afraid of the technology over there on the table. I'm just going to hold my phone near my mouth. I can trust that. You can hear some street noises for free.
Yeah, the thing, like, to me,
she just hasn't, like, in sports, like, you, talk about somebody's motor, and it's just like somebody who never seems to get tired. You know, they can just play all day. They've got a big motor.
And Bette, to me, she's got a big motor, you know, and just it's still firing, you know, now. And I feel like I understood what she was saying about always knowing. She had a knowing that she had something to say, something to express, some talent to share. And I think, talking to Bette, I was put in touch with that in myself again, you know, that young part of myself where I'd quit graduate school. I was in my late 20s and didn't have a career.
And all of a sudden I was acting, a fairly soft-spoken, shy-seeming person. People very confused, especially my family. Why is David doing this? And yet I had this knowing. So I'm talking about me after Bette.
But what I feel that I missed, and again, I feel bad about this, was the hurt of whatever our parents did to us, you know. She clearly touched on her father as not giving approval and her mother as almost like a fantasist, you know, living in a Hollywood world, way out there in Honolulu. So a very interesting place that she came from created her mind. Fascinating, I find. And I guess I wanted to ask, you know, how did that affect your parenting if you grew up with a father who didn't easily give approval or applause?
What kind of a mother were you? Even saying that out loud right now, I don't like myself. What kind of a mother were you?
But this is where sometimes we have to go or allow. I needed to allow her to go there.
It is produced by Keegan Zemma, Aria Bracci, and Donny Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of New Content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Krupinski, and Kate D.
Lewis. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Kramer, and me, David Duchovny. I mean Duchovny. Damn it. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis, Rowan, and Sebastian Modak.
Special thanks to Brad Davidson. You can find us online at Lemonada Media, and you can find me at David Duchovny. You know what it means when I say at David Duchovny. Follow, Fail Better, wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
I'm Sam Smith, and welcome to The Pink House.
I love being in The Pink House with you.
Join me as I talk to my friends and some amazing queer icons about their idea of home, like Elliot Page, Joel Kim Booster, and Gloria Estefan.
Music was always my escape. It was my happy place.
The Pink House from Lemonada Media is out now. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Get ready to dive into some of the funniest podcasts around with Lemonada Media's comedy lineup. You can enjoy Choice Words with Samantha Bee, as she laughs along with guests while they talk about their sometimes questionable life decisions. Or listen in as Sarah Silverman answers unpredictable voicemails from her fans on the Sarah Silverman podcast. And don't miss Threedom, where Scott Aukerman, Paula Tompkins, and Lauren Lapkus hang out, tell stories about each other, and see who can make the other two laugh the most. And the best part?
You can listen to all of these podcasts and more from Lemonada Media on Amazon Music.
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