The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - November 29, 2024


Addiction, Comedy, and Trauma with Brittany Schmitt ｜ EP 214


Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

198.3

Word count

9,796

Sentence count

62

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

40

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 when you're drinking and using it's like driving a station wagon throwing every problem in the
00:00:04.800 back seat it works until it doesn't you know but it's like when you get sober it's like slamming 0.56
00:00:08.660 on the brakes and all that shit comes forward so you have to get ready to deal with it i was great 0.96
00:00:12.080 i was confident i was successful i was happy healthy married like it was like i was great 0.98
00:00:16.840 and then it i got sober and i was like oh i'm not okay now we're in an era of comedy where there's
00:00:23.080 a lot of sobriety because we've seen like the generation that came before us right like burning
00:00:28.820 out dying in like really crazy ways and a lot of it is tied to addiction we're confronted with
00:00:35.700 the choice of like do we want to live long lives or do we want to burn out
00:00:38.940 britney schmidt welcome to my podcast thank you for having me so happy to be here yeah this should
00:00:48.160 be fun so you're on tour now i'm on tour right now and what shows are remaining so i have phoenix
00:00:53.620 tonight and then I have DC and then I have um Chicago Milwaukee Appleton and then I'm done
00:01:01.180 okay cool yeah so I guess before we jump into things for people who don't know who you are
00:01:06.100 can you give a brief background about who you are and what you do sure yeah I'm um a comedian
00:01:11.580 I've been a comedian for professionally only for actually four years which is kind of crazy
00:01:16.720 I prior to that I worked in advertising and recruitment and I have a podcast and I've written
00:01:25.680 a book and yeah I've just been pouring my energy into being creative for the last couple of years
00:01:31.060 which has been a nice change. Wow so what made you switch out of advertising? So when I worked
00:01:37.380 in advertising I started as a copywriter intern and I would always present my ideas to the client 0.75
00:01:43.400 and they would be like no no no and I would be like I think it's fucking great you know I was
00:01:49.760 like I think these ideas are great and so I knew I couldn't be a creative in the capacity of somebody 0.54
00:01:55.000 who was told what they could and couldn't do and so while I still needed to like make money to stay
00:02:00.880 afloat in LA I transitioned into creative recruitment and advertising and then I did that
00:02:06.280 for a long time but on the side I started doing comedy I actually started doing comedy because I
00:02:13.060 got a DUI in Arizona oh no I know and I literally just came to LA from Wisconsin Wisconsin DUI laws
00:02:22.480 are like very chill they're like you can get three of them before they call your landline and they're
00:02:26.920 like hey stop it you know like it was very chill and then I went to Arizona got my first DUI ever
00:02:32.000 and then my lawyer was like yeah you're going to jail for 30 days oh my god I was like no I was
00:02:37.900 like are you sure you know I was like can we run that back and she's like no you're going to jail
00:02:41.820 for 30 days or you can just never come back to Arizona and I was like I could do that like I
00:02:48.500 don't think I ever need to come back here and then like a little voice in my head said you're 0.92
00:02:52.880 gonna need to come back here for work you have to go to jail and so holy shit yeah I went to jail 0.81
00:02:58.420 but I was so depressed during that time I was a pretty bad alcoholic and I wasn't accepting of 0.95
00:03:03.520 that so I was so depressed and I was working at an ad agency and the guy that I sat across from
00:03:09.340 at the agency he was quitting comedy to go do or quitting advertising to go do comedy full time
00:03:15.460 and I was in a bad place and he's like listen comedy is just like therapy except it's free
00:03:21.700 he's like you're really funny you should try this so that's actually how I got in to comedy
00:03:26.500 wow and then yeah and then I did it and the first time I ever did it I was like oh this is what I
00:03:31.660 was born to do and it was probably the best night of my life but I was still such um in a dark
00:03:39.120 place with my alcoholism and I couldn't like there was no world where I was like oh jump in
00:03:43.880 the net appears like I'm sure that would have happened but I was just caught up in drinking
00:03:48.420 and I was like I need to like work this day job and then you know I got to pretty much the top
00:03:54.060 of where I could go in recruitment and advertising and I hated it like it was just soul-sucking so I
00:04:02.060 kind of just saved my money and I was like I'm gonna make enough I have enough that if I don't
00:04:06.980 make any money in comedy for two years I'll be fine and I decided at the end of 2019 I was like
00:04:15.040 I'm gonna do comedy full-time and I was literally in London what a year yeah exactly I was in London
00:04:22.600 doing shows with Chris Redd and then like the pandemic started trickling in and I was like
00:04:29.200 no fucking no way no way and then I still kind of refused to go back to advertising because I could
00:04:35.480 have fully worked in recruitment during the pandemic that would have been very easy for me 0.98
00:04:39.420 to do but I was like no I told myself I'm doing this so instead I just you know there were secret
00:04:44.620 shows going on in LA and I wrote a book and I just like kind of followed it that way and then
00:04:49.660 when everything opened up I filmed my first special in Austin and um put it out a year after
00:04:56.080 that and it did really well so that's like kind of I got very fortunate very lucky wow wow yeah
00:05:02.720 Yeah, okay, that's quite a story, yeah.
00:05:04.960 Why did I decide to build an online university?
00:05:08.840 Well...
00:05:11.640 There is a crisis now in higher education.
00:05:14.320 The president of Harvard University resigned today, weeks after...
00:05:17.600 Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's code of conduct?
00:05:22.600 We have a problem of affordability and cost, spiraling student loans.
00:05:26.540 We have a groupthink emerging, and that warps the entire academic enterprise.
00:05:31.800 I experimented with putting my lectures online and found that I could teach far more people
00:05:37.680 at very low cost than I could at the university.
00:05:41.160 And I thought, well, why not scale that?
00:05:47.100 What I'm hoping to do is to find the best lectures in the world and to bring them to
00:05:53.420 as wide as possible an audience.
00:05:55.800 He came to me and he basically said, I want you to do the best course that you've always
00:05:59.900 wanted to do.
00:06:01.140 We want to bring you the highest quality education possible at the lowest possible price.
00:06:05.880 It's extremely high level content that anybody can use to educate themselves and it's available to everybody.
00:06:11.100 Well, that would be good.
00:06:13.980 I think it's funny because I got cancelled at the university so I could try to return the favour.
00:06:22.220 So what was your book about?
00:06:24.780 My book is about, it's like, did you ever read any of Chelsea Handler's books?
00:06:29.060 No. 0.98
00:06:29.320 okay well she no it's okay um she it's literally just like dumb stories and sexcapades it's just 0.83
00:06:34.980 like a little memoir but like basically comedy kind of memoir yeah yeah okay yeah cool and that
00:06:40.480 did well yeah so is that when you started social media and everything or did you get that started
00:06:45.100 beforehand that started um no i wrote the book before social media the social media stuff started
00:06:50.260 really when i put my first special out it went very viral um so like the clips kind of blew up
00:06:55.300 and I was fortunate in that way cool yeah okay wow well good for you thanks I mean that's that's
00:07:03.060 quite a switch yeah and I'm sure was that hard your first show like how did you prepare for that
00:07:08.100 my first special well say you you started doing comedy before the special right so no just just
00:07:13.880 a show in front of people oh it was terrifying the first one I ever did was terrifying but when
00:07:20.180 i got through it and i did it i was like oh that's the best feeling and like as an addict and a
00:07:26.140 person who likes to get high on stuff there's nothing better than like the high of being on
00:07:30.240 stage yeah which is i get that why you'll see a lot of addicted personalities in comedy yeah okay
00:07:36.700 yeah that makes sense so did you prepare did you have a set you had to memorize and everything or
00:07:41.700 do you play off the crowd yeah no i don't do crowd work that's that's the thing that's become
00:07:46.400 really popular with like kind of Matt Reif yeah I feel like Matt Reif is to comedy what T-Pain
00:07:52.580 it was to music or it's like he introduced this thing like T-Pain did the auto-tune you know
00:07:58.400 and it kind of was like but that's not what we were doing and it's not good or bad because people
00:08:03.220 love it and he's brilliant he's literally like a psychic when he's doing that crowd work I think
00:08:08.180 he's so smart and skilled but it's just a different thing you know when I started doing comedy my I
00:08:15.060 learned from a teacher and he always said that um crowd work was just a lack of preparation
00:08:20.700 and so that kind of stuck with me where I just really wanted to be a writer you know I wanted
00:08:27.320 to write like tight great jokes where I knew where the setup was I knew where the punch was
00:08:32.840 and it was just like formulaic in that way so then were you always I mean you got into average
00:08:38.560 I can also kind of see how like advertising and marketing and things plays into the
00:08:42.680 comedy element, you know, vaguely. But did you always have an interest in writing? Like,
00:08:49.640 were you always funny? What made you funny? You went through a bunch of traumatic experiences.
00:08:53.320 There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't, I wish it was funny when I was a kid. You know,
00:08:57.400 so many comedians are like, oh, I figured out if I made people laugh when I was young,
00:09:00.620 that they would like me. And I didn't have that, unfortunately. I was so, I really just wanted
00:09:06.220 everyone to like me, but I couldn't figure out how. And then honestly, when I started drinking,
00:09:11.060 I finally was like fuck all of you and then like I got like this personality that was attracting 0.99
00:09:16.780 people because I didn't care you know there's like that desperate energy in people when they 1.00
00:09:20.400 like want to be liked and it makes you go like that's like what I was my whole life until probably
00:09:26.780 like 16 and then around 16 I started you know I really do think drinking helped me with my
00:09:33.200 personality and then it you know started killing me but did some good and some bad I didn't see
00:09:38.840 i got rid of anxiety yeah and like inhibition and everything yeah and like that just like deep want
00:09:43.620 to be liked i was just like oh i don't need to be liked i'm okay interesting yeah that makes sense
00:09:50.200 what did you think of uh the tony hinchcliffe roast uh the trump on him trump um i just thought
00:10:00.140 everyone really overreacted you know i knew what he was doing but you have to know tony like i've 0.99
00:10:05.660 known Tony not personally but comedically forever and that's who he is you know he's a little shit 0.98
00:10:12.600 stir and you know everyone was going crazy being like oh he's gonna lose the election I was like 0.93
00:10:17.600 don't worry he's not it's fine like I don't think you guys realize how many people don't want Kamala
00:10:25.520 in office like yeah I'm like you'll be fine yeah yeah yeah yeah I thought what did you think of it
00:10:31.360 I thought it was okay so I've seen his like I've seen him live and I've watched Kill Tony
00:10:38.880 so I think I'd heard that joke at Joe Rogan's before yeah and I was like it you know it's not
00:10:46.480 exactly he's rough like he it's called Kill Tony he kind of goes in for the kill so it was like
00:10:52.580 that's kind of what his jokes are like and they're funny and like he's very popular people like him
00:10:58.020 he sold out madison square garden like people like him i was like it was whoever picked that
00:11:03.220 for a rally i was like that was risky that was it was risky because obviously in politics anything
00:11:09.340 is going to be taken anything you say is going to be like cut out and like oh how dare they do this
00:11:15.420 but i mean i don't know i thought i thought it was entertaining i suppose i mean listen
00:11:20.820 yeah you do have to and that's the thing is a lot of people don't have a sense of humor about
00:11:24.720 politics especially yeah like people are so serious about it so it's like yeah maybe that
00:11:29.100 wasn't the right venue for him didn't do anything anyway yeah no exactly yeah he's skated he skated
00:11:38.300 through that yeah so what's it like is it what's it like living in LA you like it um it's like a
00:11:45.640 post-apocalyptic nightmare okay so yeah so I don't or is that a good thing no no it's not a
00:11:53.360 good thing i mean here's the thing i'm really excited about the new da because we just got a
00:11:57.320 new da in there who we had before gascon just was letting crime go completely rampant on the heels
00:12:04.280 of you know the blm and all those protests and everything like that um they really leaned into
00:12:12.800 defunding the police which i knew from the start was going to be a mistake um because the first
00:12:19.320 unit that they defunded was the gang unit and i'm like okay i guess politically i can see why they
00:12:25.740 chose that seems like a bad idea but seems like the most important unit yeah in la that's like
00:12:31.740 run by gangs like you cannot like you know i was moving in i wasn't moving i was i was shopping for
00:12:37.580 a house and um one of the houses was like you know for la it's it was underpriced it's still
00:12:44.440 for anywhere else in america it's overpriced but for la it was really underpriced and i went to go
00:12:48.280 see it and it was stunning and i was like what is the deal and they're like and my realtor's like 1.00
00:12:53.140 i'm gonna tell you this because i love you but like the the latin kings are like rampant here 1.00
00:12:59.260 and i was like okay so like as a single woman i'm not moving into a neighborhood overrun by like 1.00
00:13:04.780 you know a mexican gang that's not that's not for me um and it actually lowered the price of the 0.98
00:13:10.120 house yeah wow yeah um but yeah i mean la they just got to get their shit together they decriminalized 1.00
00:13:17.700 way too much stuff i remember i was shopping um at a bed bath and beyond and this woman just like 0.51
00:13:22.780 filled her cart up and walked out the front door and i was like are you guys not going to do
00:13:27.000 anything like you're actually seeing that oh i saw it i remember i was stunned i was like why is
00:13:32.220 oh but i'm supposed to pay like wow you know it really was like really confronting and it's also
00:13:38.600 really sad but i was like i i don't know the the decriminalizing theft i think that's it's already
00:13:45.320 hard enough for brick and mortars to stay it's also such an obvious thing it's like if you
00:13:51.300 decriminalize it people are probably gonna steal yeah because it's not like is it even stealing
00:13:56.640 if it's decriminalized yeah so i in la i think it was like if you were under 18 it wasn't you know
00:14:02.180 you could just go do it so people were sending their kids into the stores to do it and i was
00:14:06.360 like this is dark but you know it got really bad after the pandemic too i used to live in
00:14:11.000 Venice Beach and like they um removed the ordinance where they could move encampments off the beach
00:14:17.960 because it just I don't know what happened but they're like oh now they can just live there but
00:14:21.940 it's like that's the most expensive property these homes are like 18 to 20 million dollars and they
00:14:26.780 have people in tents cooking meth and like starting meth fires and they're and I'm like that's not
00:14:32.960 sustainable like not going with the vibe yeah it's not and you know some people that live in
00:14:38.460 Venice are like you know it's grimy and that's part of it but I lived there for eight and a half
00:14:42.280 years and I was like okay I have to leave now because I'm not safe there's a guy named Raven
00:14:45.540 on my front porch cooking meth I'm like that's that's that wow but then what so then I know that
00:14:52.940 there's a big influx like I know a lot of people especially I've heard at least people in tech too
00:14:57.480 moving to Scottsdale from California why are people just hanging on to see if things change
00:15:02.220 politically because it's not sustainable right yeah I don't think it is sustainable I think
00:15:07.500 there's like the dream of LA yeah and then the reality of LA and I think they're very different
00:15:12.520 and I think they keep getting further and further apart especially as Hollywood starts to struggle
00:15:17.280 with you know everything they're not really making a ton of movies the industry is kind of
00:15:23.720 struggling right now um so I think like the dream of like oh all the industry is here is not really
00:15:29.460 real anymore um i i love la because i do i love the weather and i like i live in beverly hills so
00:15:38.920 i'm like in a i'm in a like little protected bubble because they have their own police
00:15:43.020 it's very safe like there's nothing crazy going on and as like a single woman i just need to feel
00:15:48.560 safe so i'm in a pocket where i do feel safe and i i'm from wisconsin and i would never go back
00:15:53.820 there so like i don't know where my next move would be but i was driving around here and i was
00:15:58.060 like this is nice this is really nice we we moved from miami last year and we looked at because
00:16:04.080 california weather is just i don't know there's like nothing better than that and here it is hot
00:16:10.460 in the summer and you kind of adapt you actually kind of adapt to it but no one really adapts to
00:16:15.200 115 120 degrees heat yeah so it's like okay there's like four uncomfortable months but i'm
00:16:21.240 from canada i was like yeah it's like six uncomfortable months there and it's at least
00:16:25.680 there's sun here yeah um but i was wandering around beverly hills i was like this is nice
00:16:30.960 but as soon as you go outside it's like oh yeah maybe not yeah beverly hills those is like tiny
00:16:37.140 little haven yeah it's nice but there's also no culture there you know it's very um it's a lot of 0.89
00:16:43.920 the same it's a lot of just persian jews and like there's not a lot there's like shopping and good
00:16:49.420 food and there's but there's not a lot else yeah but consider New York too but it's cold and I 0.99
00:16:58.440 don't know New York I just feel like it's soul-sucking like I go there and the energy's
00:17:02.700 crazy everyone's so angry I'm like at least in LA everyone's on antidepressants and they're just
00:17:07.820 like you know New York people are like actually mad yeah yeah yeah I see that I feel like people
00:17:17.240 in toronto are like that too to a lesser degree yeah so then when you're performing i know like
00:17:24.840 a number of your jokes and stats are pretty personal was it hard to start doing that like
00:17:31.300 is like i guess the question would be like is it harder to be vulnerable on stage well yes and no
00:17:38.000 i would say no because all i know is my lived experience so it's all i really can talk about
00:17:44.060 honestly so that's like my way in um yes it's harder when I'm like here's my soul and then
00:17:53.000 they don't laugh or they don't think it's funny or like so my mom when she committed suicide I
00:17:59.120 tried to start making jokes about it before before I was ready and I have to you know what I mean
00:18:05.160 like here's the thing about crowds is they're really smart they're smarter than we give them
00:18:08.640 credit for and they know if you're okay so if you're talking about something and you're not okay
00:18:12.700 yet they can feel that you have to be okay and you have to say it from like a place of power
00:18:18.040 but I remember I did it both with my um with my mom's suicide and with my divorce I tried to get
00:18:24.880 on stage and be like and I'm like but they're like oh she's not okay and that's when it's
00:18:30.080 devastating but those are the times where I've been like okay I just need to take like a month
00:18:33.600 or two off and go like take care of myself because I'm not ready for this right now yeah yeah sorry
00:18:38.780 hear that that's a lot to thank you yeah handle yeah yeah it was yeah she killed herself three
00:18:45.700 days before my wedding um and but it was honestly I it was it had it had to happen like she was just
00:18:53.960 she had borderline personality disorder and schizoid at the end and she was that is so
00:18:58.940 heartbreaking yeah and she was miserable like I never knew somebody who's been unhappy every day
00:19:04.380 of their life except for my mom so it was like you know I were we were estranged them but like
00:19:11.120 now that she's gone we're very close so oh that's yeah that's hard mental illness is like I get that
00:19:17.660 it's yeah it's just and I feel like too we're more aware of it now we're so fortunate to be
00:19:23.320 more aware of it and paying attention to it but our parents generation especially from like where
00:19:28.040 I'm from like small town Wisconsin they just like they ignored it or they drank about it and that
00:19:33.680 was the only two options you know um so you know her family just kind of her whole life i was like
00:19:40.560 hey guys she's not okay is are we gonna do anything about this and they're like it's just
00:19:44.580 gail being gail you know and i'm like okay and then when she died i was the only one who wasn't
00:19:49.160 surprised everyone was like shocked and i was like yeah no that's like how this was gonna end
00:19:53.560 oh man yeah yeah that's rough yeah it was hard see that divorce how was that and was that in
00:20:02.840 the public eye I mean ish ish you know I remember actually I don't know I don't remember how we
00:20:10.100 started following each other on social media but I remember one of the first things I saw
00:20:13.960 from you was your announcement about your divorce and I felt like so connected to you because I was
00:20:21.380 like oh my god this just helped me so much because it is so scary to like go through a divorce with
00:20:27.080 people watching you yeah I know making an announcement about a divorce is not yeah it's
00:20:33.240 something you expect to do yeah it's not great first of all getting divorced is not something
00:20:38.360 you expect to do oh that's for sure and then making an announcement and then having people's
00:20:42.520 opinions about it I remember so I didn't announce mine for a long time neither did I yeah because
00:20:48.440 it's like you have to heal before you're gonna like open the floodgates of everyone else's
00:20:51.760 opinion about what you're going through and I probably didn't heal enough I did what I could
00:20:56.660 but like at a certain point it was like I was dating other people and like people then started
00:21:01.360 like gossiping about you know what does she you know and so I was like okay I have to I have to 0.96
00:21:06.320 say that I'm divorced and um yeah that that fucking sucked like he and I are still really 0.97
00:21:15.980 good friends um it just like you know it wasn't working and there's there's nothing worse than 0.98
00:21:22.120 that just to love somebody and be like we have to go separate ways is is so hard but I remember
00:21:29.000 I just am so grateful that I saw you do what you did with so much grace because I was like okay
00:21:34.800 there's like a high road to take here we don't have to like get in the weeds of like what went
00:21:39.620 down we can just leave with our dignity you know yeah I appreciate you for that thank you yeah
00:21:47.860 yeah that's shitty it's i know you have such a like nice i don't know about you i had i don't
00:21:54.780 even know why i had this i guess every little kid has this like view of how their life is gonna go
00:21:58.800 yeah and you're like when i'm this old this will happen when i'm this old this will happen
00:22:03.360 and there's certain things that'll never happen because i'm not that type of person type of thing
00:22:07.520 and that's just yeah that's just yeah i mean that's also a child's thought right you know it's
00:22:13.200 like I I when I got married I was like I'm never getting divorced like my parents had the most
00:22:19.320 acrimonious divorce they spent eight years divorcing they lost everything like they had a
00:22:24.180 ton going into it and then at the end they both had next to nothing and um I remember
00:22:30.480 just being like I will never get divorced and I think here's the thing I think anytime you say
00:22:36.500 I'm never gonna do x that like puts a target on your back for the universe to be like you need to
00:22:41.260 now go through that because it's like when you're that adamant that it's not gonna happen
00:22:45.780 yeah for some reason it needs to happen i i completely agree i'm so careful with that now
00:22:51.980 yeah i used to this is so you know my diet i just eat meat for auto an autoimmune disorder
00:22:57.840 and psychiatric issues like a host of problems but i used to be the person that was like gluten 0.94
00:23:02.680 free stupid that's like california ditzes yeah like jumping onto a fad that doesn't make any 0.98
00:23:09.240 sense and I didn't don't even know why I was emotionally like charged about it and I was 1.00
00:23:13.160 young this is probably when I was like 16 17 when I was like that's for stupid people 0.95
00:23:17.200 and I feel like that just got me because I remember as soon as I was like oh I'm really 0.97
00:23:22.960 I can't eat gluten at all yeah I was like oh no oh no my face yeah
00:23:27.980 so what do you do when you need like a little snack because I was just eating a banana on my
00:23:34.060 way over here and I was thinking of you I was like what would she eat a slip jib like what's
00:23:37.880 like the to-go food for so like the lower carb you get the less you snack okay you just don't
00:23:44.680 you just kind of stop snacking so when like I first started the diet I was eating three times
00:23:49.640 a day and snacking because that's kind of what I was used to and I actually started gaining weight
00:23:55.420 because if you're just eating meat that is a lot of calories and I was like I didn't know if I was
00:24:00.100 hungry or not because I was used to like eating and snacking all the time basically and so after
00:24:04.800 about a year of floundering around I was like oh I only need to eat twice a day and I never really
00:24:10.780 skip I know people skip breakfast all the time now but I never really skip breakfast I eat late
00:24:14.760 but I still eat three times so I don't really snack if I do snack I usually eat jerky okay
00:24:21.180 which I like liked prior to dieting so it wasn't the end of the world and and they have so many
00:24:26.820 healthy things you can do now meat wise like there's so many people eating paleo and keto
00:24:34.180 diets and things that they're actually making snacks now so mostly jerky okay yeah i used to
00:24:39.860 bring meat around in a bag yeah this is when it was just like oh whatever like all i did i just i
00:24:45.860 give up like what are you bringing in a plane mean a bag i don't even just like look at me if you
00:24:50.500 want to look at me i don't care it was steak in a bag it's like whatever you know i give up i ate
00:24:55.280 like i was also so annoyed at that i was thrilled that i didn't have an autoimmune or psychiatric
00:25:00.640 issues mostly anymore but for the first couple years I just ate off of a cutting board in the
00:25:07.380 kitchen because it takes like if all you're eating is steak it takes like eight or nine minutes to
00:25:11.780 eat a steak yeah it takes like no time and I was like I'm not gonna like set the table and sit down
00:25:16.940 and like pretend this is the thing I'm just gonna eat the steak and continue on with my life yeah
00:25:21.020 no I do the same thing I mean I'm not full carnivore but I'm trying to eat more meat and I just cook
00:25:25.800 myself steak pretty much every night and I just eat off the cutting board I'm like is this depression
00:25:29.200 or that's what i thought i was like is this insane or is it like fast yeah and i decided
00:25:34.360 it's no it's a life hack and it's speedy and you have other things to do exactly yeah there you go 0.69
00:25:39.560 precisely yeah uh so what is it like being you know do you know what the percentage of females
00:25:46.620 are in comedy i have no idea but like way lower way lower yeah so what's that like um or does it
00:25:54.360 matter well i i i do think it matters i've only ever experienced comedy as a female so i don't
00:26:01.200 know what the experience would be like differently if i were a male but what i can see from like
00:26:06.720 outside or looking in is that the boys club is alive and well you know it's like um they all do
00:26:14.380 favors for each other and like you'll see them all go on each other's podcasts a hundred times
00:26:19.360 before they have one female comedian on and um some of them are just scared of having women on
00:26:28.060 some of them don't think women are funny um that's like the the main piece of feedback that
00:26:34.600 any female any female comedian will get which is we're not women aren't funny women have never
00:26:40.000 been funny will never be funny and um i for that i just have to remember it's just like an incel
00:26:45.680 in his basement commenting that you know what I mean I'm like and how funny are you Chad in your
00:26:51.280 mom's basement you know like you don't seem like a blast either but I think being a woman it's hard
00:26:58.700 in the beginning when I was like doing it and I was drinking and I was partying and I was like 0.80
00:27:02.840 kind of treating it different I was doing it wrong and guys will take advantage of like a sloppy girl
00:27:08.160 at the party you know what I mean it's kind of the same thing but when I came back and I was sober
00:27:12.220 and i was married it was so much better because it was like you don't if you don't like my comedy
00:27:17.920 we don't have to talk you know what i mean there's no like you're not hitting on me you're not going
00:27:21.960 to get something out of me so yeah guys you know more earlier and like when i started in 2013 or
00:27:28.640 2012 um guys were worse but now it's like they're my peers and we have like mutual respect for each
00:27:34.980 other but um yeah still not a ton of favors are being done so that makes sense that makes sense
00:27:41.540 what was um like your journey to getting sober are you still sober yeah I'm still sober um so I
00:27:49.580 I was just an alcoholic my whole life it was like kind of the crux of my relationship with my mom
00:27:55.160 right like my mom so my dad drinks a lot you know and my mom called him an alcoholic and she always
00:28:02.980 just said like you're gonna be an alcoholic just like your dad you know that was like the thing and
00:28:06.600 So because my mom and I didn't get along, I drank at my mom. 0.99
00:28:10.340 Like when I first started drinking, I was like, I'll fucking show you an alcoholic. 0.80
00:28:13.460 You know, so I was drinking at her like to spite her because she was such a kind of negative force in my life. 0.97
00:28:19.580 And then I also liked it.
00:28:20.720 I also really enjoyed it.
00:28:21.860 And I, you know, partied for years.
00:28:24.300 And then when I got to L.A., it really changed.
00:28:26.600 Like I graduated Marquette in 2011 and I moved out here right afterwards.
00:28:30.920 And, you know, drinking in Milwaukee is just drinking. 0.94
00:28:33.460 like sure people are like maybe doing coke here and there but I was like cocaine's for losers like
00:28:38.160 this is you know whatever and then when I got to LA it was like molly cocaine like it became
00:28:44.980 a more intense party with like lower lows like the lows got way way lower that's a lot different
00:28:52.160 than just drinking yes it's it's way different and I I do think it rewired my brain because I
00:28:57.680 don't I don't know that I was ever depressed when I was just drinking but I know that when I started
00:29:02.700 doing hard drugs I like found it's like living in a house your whole life and not realizing there's
00:29:06.860 a basement and then once I went down there I'm like you can never unknow that it's down there
00:29:10.440 you know so it got kind of dark and then my ex-husband and I when we started dating
00:29:16.580 he and I were like drinking buddies we like partied you know and then honestly when I got
00:29:24.120 the call that my mom killed herself I it was like a monkey just like off my back where I was like
00:29:29.880 oh my god I don't have to do this anymore like it was I didn't even realize how much of it was
00:29:35.740 connected to me living to spite her while killing myself oh my gosh and so we were going away for
00:29:44.360 our wedding in Nicaragua and all of our friends were coming and you know close family and I knew
00:29:51.920 that was going to be like my send-off I was like this is it we we partied we had honestly I think
00:29:58.240 everyone would there everyone there would say it was like one of the best weekends of their life
00:30:01.460 like it was just great it was perfect I mean yeah my my dad was really sad when my mom passed
00:30:07.120 my sister was obviously really sad um I think we were there was like a a layer of sadness that
00:30:13.400 actually made everyone like rise up and and you know make it really wonderful and then when I went
00:30:19.920 home I was doing this thing with my therapist where she's like let's see if you're in control
00:30:23.520 of your drinking you know she's like you know every day when you wake up decide in the morning
00:30:28.860 whether you're gonna drink or not and she's like and it doesn't matter like you can you know wake
00:30:32.940 up on a Wednesday and say I'm I'm gonna drink today and that's it you can drink that day she's
00:30:36.760 like but if you wake up and say I'm not gonna drink today just make sure you don't drink that
00:30:40.100 day and I remember so that was the seed that was planted because it was probably like about a month
00:30:45.900 before my wedding and I it was like a Wednesday and I woke up and I was like I'm not gonna drink
00:30:49.560 today and then I was like at lunch with my ex-husband and before I knew it I was on my second
00:30:53.880 beer before I even realized that that I had made a pact with myself and I was like oh that's not
00:31:00.120 good so that was kind of like the thing and then you know my mom passed and I was like okay I'm
00:31:04.500 gonna I'm not gonna get drunk at her funeral like that's a good time to not get drunk and um I
00:31:10.680 didn't think I did and the next morning I woke up with my cousin and my friends and I was like oh
00:31:15.520 last night like it was pretty good right and they're like looking at each other and I was like
00:31:19.980 what and they're like well you went back to the bar and like cried on the bar for like three hours
00:31:25.340 and I was like I'm done I was like I'm done with people telling me about my life like I need to
00:31:29.860 know what's happening I don't want to be offline in a bar crying for three hours like so literally
00:31:35.600 that morning I drank a mimosa to take the edge off and I never drank again and wow yeah so that
00:31:42.460 was december 11th of 2017 wow yeah did you have to like change friends or anything or friends will
00:31:53.780 fall off that like you'll realize who your drinking buddies are right you'll realize that i thought i
00:32:00.920 was very social and what i realized in my sobriety is that i just didn't want to drink alone so
00:32:06.360 people will be like oh i haven't seen you in so long you know and i'm like oh yeah i don't drink
00:32:09.460 anymore and they're like well I don't need to be drunk to be around you and I'm like well I need
00:32:12.580 to be drunk to be around you like we have nothing in common you know what I mean other than we used
00:32:16.960 to drink so yeah friends kind of fall out and then you know I went into the program and you'll meet
00:32:22.900 people there that have like similar experiences and you get friends that are you know fewer
00:32:27.700 friendships but more meaningful which I think is something that happens as we age anyway
00:32:32.240 yeah you know definitely yeah interesting well good for you thank you I had um I had
00:32:43.500 alcohol issues I don't even know if I would classify it as alcoholism I don't know I don't
00:32:49.460 know how to you know I was in my this is in like early 20s and things but I started drinking pretty
00:32:54.860 young because I was miserably depressed and it was like I had a bit of alcohol and I was like
00:33:00.080 oh my gosh the cloud is gone and I think that I knew my dad my dad had quit drinking but I knew
00:33:07.860 it was a thing for him because my mom was always saying like he used to drink like heavily and then
00:33:13.780 he stopped and he stopped when he was like 27 or something like that or 28 and he just quit
00:33:19.100 and I was like okay so it's like okay I kind of had it like it's okay that I'm drinking this isn't
00:33:24.340 like when I was a teenager too and it made me feel so much better I don't think I really slowed down
00:33:29.740 until i got like the depression like i got mentally better it was definitely using it as a crutch
00:33:37.740 yeah well yeah that's the thing so they say like in the rooms when you're drinking and using
00:33:42.540 it's like driving a station wagon and throwing every problem in the back seat yeah it's nice
00:33:47.980 kind of yeah and then when you get it is it works it literally that's the thing too i never judge
00:33:53.940 anyone who's an active alcoholism or addiction because I'm just like it works it works until it
00:34:01.060 doesn't you know but it's like this the station wagon analogy is like when you get sober it's
00:34:05.200 like slamming on the brakes and all that shit comes forward so you have to get ready to deal 0.64
00:34:08.240 with it because before I got sober I didn't think I was depressed I never had any suicidal ideation 0.99
00:34:14.460 I literally if you would have asked me I was great I was great I was confident I was successful I was
00:34:20.520 happy healthy married like it was like I was great and then it I got sober and I was like
00:34:25.340 oh I'm not okay turns out I was drinking for a reason so yeah that was that was a reckoning that
00:34:32.360 was like probably the hardest yeah one of the hardest six months of my life yeah oh that totally
00:34:37.540 makes sense yeah it's an absolute reckoning wow well good for you especially to have a career
00:34:43.840 where you're going on stage like I and I don't know I'm not involved in like the comedy sphere
00:34:49.120 but i would assume people drink like you're on stage in front of a bunch of people it takes the
00:34:54.640 edge off and things so yeah it's interesting i think now we're in an era of comedy where
00:35:01.100 there's a lot of sobriety because because we've seen like the generation that came before us
00:35:08.220 right like burning out dying in like really crazy ways and a lot of it is tied to addiction and it's
00:35:15.640 like you know we're confronted with the choice of like do we want to live long life like do we
00:35:20.260 want to live long lives or do we want to burn out you know like sam kenison like it's that makes
00:35:28.000 sense so yeah there's a lot of um camaraderie and sobriety there's a lot of sober comics now
00:35:33.500 which is nice there's definitely amazing i know theo talks about it too yeah yeah okay that's
00:35:40.240 great yeah yeah no um yeah there's a there's a there's a handful of them so it's it feels like
00:35:47.000 a more of a safe space to be sober now good good well what are your future plans are you
00:35:54.160 going to continue touring you like touring I don't know I I'm really enjoying being on the
00:36:01.880 road and figuring out this hour I don't like traveling like so much you know I'm a real home
00:36:07.520 body so I don't love that aspect of it but unfortunately I have to um but this is part
00:36:14.540 of the job you know what I mean so it's I I have to um I don't know what my future plans are I
00:36:20.820 honestly I'm just kind of like whatever God has planned I'm like done making plans that don't
00:36:25.540 work out yeah totally reasonable yeah as much fun as that is yeah I'm like I'm just gonna let go and
00:36:32.020 see what happens I'm writing a few things I'm excited about so we'll see I don't know cool
00:36:37.360 yeah my i went um my parents tour all the time my dad tours all the time yes and i went with him
00:36:44.440 just to open his shows for a month and it was exhausting exhausting it was like it's great and
00:36:50.520 like you know the show part is great but the traveling part is a lot it's like this is really
00:36:57.220 exhausting it's really a lot and if you think about the ratio of show to travel yeah it's all
00:37:04.080 travel it's all travel i mean not this year but last year i remember i was like driving across
00:37:10.280 oklahoma in like a rental car by myself like going from okc to tulsa and i'm like what am i doing
00:37:16.660 with my life why am i alone in the middle of oklahoma going to tulsa i've taken a wrong turn
00:37:25.160 oh yeah so yeah i don't know i don't know i'm kind of just like whatever the universe has
00:37:31.320 plan for me I'll do that yeah that makes sense yeah so then like how do you come up with ideas
00:37:39.100 for your jokes is this just based on experiences you've gone through yeah it's all lived experience
00:37:44.600 and then you know you have to like elaborate or add little lies to make it funny sometimes but
00:37:50.780 it's like if something if like the meat of something is funny I'm like oh that'll be a joke
00:37:54.960 you know yeah like the other day I had a friend I was at this friend's party and you know I'm
00:38:01.120 dating now I'm not seeing anyone exclusively but I was talking to her business partner and at the
00:38:06.880 end of the party we didn't get each other's information and I um texted her I was like oh
00:38:11.600 he's cool can you connect me with him and she's like cool and I was like your business partner
00:38:15.100 and she's like yeah sure she connects me with this guy and we're like talking and he's like
00:38:19.960 let's go to dinner and I was like totally and um I get to dinner I get to Soho House and I'm
00:38:27.820 waiting for him and this guy walks up to me he's like why do you look so surprised to see me and I
00:38:31.580 was like who are you no no no no no I think I talked to him at the party for like 20 seconds
00:38:39.960 oh no I was like wait what happened so I then in that moment had to just be like okay I'm gonna
00:38:45.860 sit down and have dinner with this man I'm not gonna be like not you you know so I'm like I'll
00:38:51.880 make that into a joke eventually okay I still haven't told him by the way that is funny did 1.00
00:38:58.180 you tell your friend yes I was like how did you fuck this up like realistically how did you fuck
00:39:02.620 this up I was talking to the other guy for two hours I think that guy and I maybe said hi for 0.99
00:39:07.240 like 20 seconds oh my gosh she's like bitch you weren't specific enough I have two business 0.99
00:39:12.160 partners I'm like okay oh that's funny yeah so oh my gosh so how do you think just like switching 1.00
00:39:20.460 topics how do you think did you watch Trump on everybody's podcast like Joe Rogan's Theo Vaughn's
00:39:26.800 um or any of the clips or anything or JD Vance I listened to JD Vance on Tim Dillon and I didn't
00:39:34.380 know he went on Tim Dillon yes that was my first exposure to him so I'm not like super political
00:39:40.100 yeah yeah um but I I was curious um I listened to Trump on Theo's podcast like half of it I got
00:39:48.240 about halfway through i have a hard time with listening to podcasts i really so do i yeah can
00:39:53.220 you do audiobooks i do audiobooks yeah i can't do audiobooks either i transcribe podcasts and
00:40:00.500 read them okay see i can i can do audiobooks like one out of five audiobooks like one out of five
00:40:08.240 will catch my attention but sometimes if an audiobook is on i'll just be thinking about
00:40:11.920 something else does that happen to you too yeah yeah it's like is it a brain problem i don't know
00:40:17.380 like what it is people like yeah I can listen to audiobooks and like two times the speed it's a
00:40:21.680 really easy way to get information like I just instantly tune it out yeah but I can read it
00:40:27.580 that's fine right yeah no I don't know what that is but I can I always listen to Tim Dillon's
00:40:32.740 podcast because he is I feel like that's kind of where I get my political point of view I'm like
00:40:38.000 he kind of metabolizes everything in a way where I can like understand it you know um but yeah I
00:40:45.120 listened to jd vance on that one and then i listened to trump on theo's yeah do you think
00:40:51.820 that played a role i think played a role in like their i don't know their eventual win
00:40:57.480 i think so i i think it would be silly to undermine the mob that is theo von's fans
00:41:06.720 joe rogan's fans and also i'll throw shane gillis and his podcast in there they never had any of them
00:41:13.880 on to interview but they were very very vocally pro-Trump the whole time and I think the dogs
00:41:20.200 like they're they're very loyal fans so I think they're kind of like susceptible to taking on 0.94
00:41:25.080 the opinion of the people they idolize that makes sense yeah yeah I think it was silly
00:41:33.740 have you noticed I guess living in California any change in in media since the election
00:41:41.940 I know you're not super political yeah no I still try and like read I don't know if it's
00:41:47.820 California specifically I think there was so much fear-mongering around Trump's return
00:41:54.160 but that's something that I I sort of try and look past like when the media's I can tell when
00:42:02.240 they're trying to scare me yeah yeah yeah and I'm like I'm not going to read this you know I'm not
00:42:06.440 even going to give it a scroll because I can see the angle they're coming from and it's not
00:42:11.220 objective so i don't know how much if the media has changed i don't know i know california is
00:42:18.820 going to be you know eternally liberal so i don't think a ton will change but on the flip side of
00:42:25.320 that i will also say when i was walking around beverly hills there was teenagers walking around
00:42:30.200 with trump trump flags this is after the election before oh really that's when i knew he was gonna
00:42:36.300 win because i was like i was like oh boy i was like if the kids in beverly hills want trump
00:42:42.040 trump's winning um but i think there there's a real you know i think la and california will
00:42:48.720 always be liberal and and i don't inherently have anything wrong with that except when it
00:42:54.900 impedes everyone's safety you know it's like when we're going so far left that we're not safe and 0.99
00:43:00.180 the taxpayers you know we're paying you know taxes out the ass and like i mean out the ass 0.98
00:43:07.460 and you can't you know you don't feel safe in your neighborhood that's like a that that's a 0.99
00:43:12.160 problem but i don't know i don't know what the media is up to i'm not paying attention to them
00:43:17.200 really i'm paying attention to them a bit more yeah i think i think people are getting you know
00:43:23.340 there is there is a little bit of a sentiment that people are sick of the like far far left
00:43:27.700 yeah I don't think people are even going to go like ultra I don't even think so I've been to a
00:43:34.780 couple of I went to a couple of rallies I guess I went to one rally I'd never been to a rally and
00:43:39.820 I'm also Canadian yeah but so like yeah went to one rally and I went to one Tucker Carlson show
00:43:44.960 and I was just like wow this is crazy just to like see what it was like I don't I didn't even
00:43:51.180 get the vibe from people there that they're hyper conservative like i don't think at least the
00:43:59.400 people who swing conservative that i know their beliefs aren't conservative like i used to think
00:44:05.620 a conservative was 10 years ago like i i went to like the show with tucker had russell brand on
00:44:13.900 stage with like no shoes on cross-legged and it was just the weirdest combination of people it
00:44:19.600 was a bunch of like it was pretty much middle-aged women like a lot of women watching like a conservative
00:44:29.520 and a hippie talk on stage it was just the I don't know what's going on it was what was that
00:44:34.240 conversation like really open yeah like I think coming from a more liberal background it's been
00:44:42.620 I always had this view of conservatives like they were conservative so like not as open kind of
00:44:48.060 stuffy pretty rigid like that type of thing and so watching a conversation with russell who's like
00:44:56.280 uh i don't know he's one of the most open people on the planet like he he's i don't know i don't
00:45:01.640 know even how how you would describe him like hippie-ish like just out there um and talking
00:45:07.840 to a conservative it was just it was weird it was like a couple of universes collided and it just
00:45:14.420 popped up into this reality did it feel like anywhere they were meeting in the middle on stuff
00:45:18.960 and agreed on oh yeah yeah oh definitely that's what i'm picking up on is it's we're melding more
00:45:25.460 into like i know it can feel very separate but i do feel like most people that i talk to are
00:45:31.260 melding more into the middle i think so too yeah where it's like you know even my dad who's
00:45:37.740 hardcore conservative like his whole life and you know he had he had really rigid beliefs about
00:45:46.020 certain things that he no longer holds and part of it's probably from raising two daughters but
00:45:51.120 you know he was very homophobic and anti-abortion and racist and like there was there's like all
00:45:59.260 those things I kind of associated with being super conservative but I think everyone's kind
00:46:06.440 of just coming more to the middle and like i see it literally with my dad where he's like he's like
00:46:11.860 women should have rights to their own bodies like that's not the problem he's like the problem is
00:46:15.660 like the country's in shambles you know and i think yeah yeah we're spending too much money
00:46:20.360 overseas and there's trillions of dollars going to ukraine you know what i mean so it's like
00:46:24.140 i think everyone's kind of starting to get closer to having the same beliefs even if they don't know
00:46:29.740 it. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Maybe COVID was so random for people and things got so dicey and unstable
00:46:36.820 that they're like, okay, what do we really care about? Right. These things. Yes. People are looting
00:46:41.500 cities where we live. Yeah. We don't like that. Nobody likes that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I
00:46:46.700 completely agree. Where can people find you online if they want to follow you and where are your
00:46:51.620 specials available and where can people get your book? Okay. So my book's on Amazon. Um, it's called
00:46:57.460 stop talking about sex and other advice i didn't take and then my first special is on hulu um that
00:47:04.800 one's called from hoda housewife my second special is on youtube that one's called horny 0.91
00:47:09.580 and um i think that's it i'm on instagram at britney schmidt it's s-c-h-m-i-t-t uh no d
00:47:18.300 i took all of those in college and um people always spell it wrong i have to i had to come
00:47:24.620 off of something it's not bad yeah so um yeah that's where i'm i'm there on tiktok and instagram
00:47:31.000 and it's really not me it's my social media manager and your podcast yeah my podcast yeah
00:47:36.960 this is the worst and yeah and then i also have scumbags of history do you like podcasting
00:47:41.620 do you like touring yeah you know i'm kind of on everything i i'm grateful that i can make money
00:47:51.880 just like yapping um but also sometimes I feel overexposed you know what I mean like I'll do you
00:47:59.700 ever have that well I don't go out a lot like so maybe because you're like out and about on tour
00:48:08.700 and meeting people it's different I'm pretty like I don't go out a lot so I don't I don't
00:48:17.900 really feel overexposed I think when I was going out more it probably felt different but now I'm
00:48:24.340 just like in a house but I think yeah no I get it um I I think more overexposed in like I'm like
00:48:31.020 oh should I have said that oh who's gonna be you know there's just like always an angry mob behind
00:48:35.380 every door yeah okay that's fair that's what I'm saying where I'm like even on this podcast I'm
00:48:40.880 like so excited to be here but I'm like oh can I say that oh can I say that you know what I mean
00:48:43.800 like everything I say because I've just had so many people get mad at me for saying stuff that
00:48:47.620 I'm like why would I podcast if I can't have a voice if I'm like not allowed to have a voice
00:48:53.220 you know what I mean cares about those people I know I know but those are the people you don't
00:48:57.020 have to worry about in their basement yeah being angry at anybody yeah any sort of success yeah
00:49:01.980 yeah yeah so yeah and also you know I the podcast I do with Brittany Furlan is like a dating podcast
00:49:07.560 but she's married so it's just my dating life I'm like this is nice this is nice um so yeah
00:49:14.700 that's how I mean overexposed, but we'll see. Okay. We'll see if they keep doing it. That's fair.
00:49:19.680 Yeah. Well, good luck with everything. Good luck with your shows. Thank you so much for coming on.