Full transcript: Felicia Michaels on London Real
7:25 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My co-host today is Mr. Paul Gee, who is finishing his degree at Imperial College London in Computer Science. Almost done.
7:33 And you’re about to go back to the Big Apple to make the big money, right? Trying to, yeah. You’re tired of this one-horse town called London, right? Yeah, I’ve had enough. Okay. Good ride. It’s been good You might remember Paul from a co-host in the episode with Dave Asprey the bulletproof executive Paul’s a big fan of medafinal and Soon to be data whatever it is data science data science. Yes. Okay. Thanks for being here today and our guest is miss Felicia Michaels Hello, who is an American stand-up comedian nominated twice for the funniest female comic by the American Comedy Awards You’ve appeared on Showtime, MTV, VH1, Jesus Christ, NBC, ABC’s Full House, and you were also, back in the day, the grand champion on Star Search.
8:18 I always get nervous when people say Star Search because it automatically dates me. You know what I mean? I was working some club in Canada last week and the guy kept saying, you know, the MCN, you know, Felicia Michaels from Star Search, and I was like, oh my God, no one in this audience knows what the fuck he’s talking about you know cuz everyone’s like 18 years old yeah but the older audience respects it but there is no older audiences it does date you but you got to be who you are and then you followed up star search with another extremely interesting career choice by posing nude for Playboy yes I did that’s pretty cool you know what I I it was the The whole Star Search thing is the abnormal thing in my career because I was always a very dirty comic from the beginning, I’ve been doing comedy for a very long time, I took a big break for kids but when that came along to do Star Search, I just did it on a fluke and then won because the way that Star Search worked at that time is it was a competition and they would do two periods of tapings, so one would be six months before the other and then the semi-champions from each one would go against each other.
9:30 So it was a complete fluke that I even got to the semi-finals. Wow, but you did. But I did, and I won. But everyone that knew me as a comedian had so much confidence in me. They came up to me, because all my jokes were filthy, and Star Search was like a squeaky clean show.
9:46 And they were like, look, I want to give you a couple of my jokes. All my friends, and a part of me, was like, well, I should maybe take those jokes. But then I was like, I would never live it down ever. one with some dirty jokes. So I tried to figure it out and thank God I only had to do like five minutes in total. So they wanted to give you jokes that were clean so you wouldn’t screw up Star Search. Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And you won for comedy. I won for comedy.
10:09 Were you competing against other comedians or was this like a tap show and a this person and a that person? No, it was comedians. So it was all comedy? Yeah, yeah. But Star Search wasn’t just comedy.
10:17 No, they had other things on there too. They had like a the model spokesperson category yes and they had like singing and they had they had a bunch of stuff yeah okay it does that you I barely remember star yeah I know because it was so early in my career and then you know it was completely ridiculous and the thing about because it was Ed McMahon do you remember Ed McMahon Ed McMahon this was his solo venture this was his solo this was the Johnny Carson yes man for so that’s right and so they would house all the performers away from Ed McMahon and kind of in this cafeteria space, except for the model spokespeople. They got to have the only sweet dressing room right next to his.
10:56 Wow. Yeah, it’s pretty weird. Let me finish with your CV. Okay, sorry. Felicia, you’re also an accomplished photographer.
11:02 You’ve had this project called Stand Up, Strip Down. I’ve looked at some of those photos, which won first place for the people’s choice of some crazy thing in Paris. The pre-de la photographie. That sounds fancy. For photojournalism.
11:15 So there you go. And you also might know Felicia, which is where I first met her from the podcast Beauty and the Beast with our good buddy Joey Diaz. Joey Diaz. So there you go. Welcome to London, Miriam.
11:25 Thank you, thank you for having me. Thanks for coming. It was just really random on Twitter and someone mentioned you were coming to London. Well yeah, because I had put on my Twitter and Facebook, oh, I wanna go to London on vacation with my kids but I’ve always wanted to do a set somewhere in London and someone hit me back like I should get in touch with you. Isn’t that wild?
11:44 That is wild. No, I saw that and I was like, yes, yes. Because I sent you an email like 18 months ago when we started doing our podcast, because I was listening to your podcast regularly when I first started, two years ago. It was like you guys, Rogan, a couple others, Marin, you know, but Beauty and the Beast was a regular. Yeah, oh, that’s good, it’s nice to hear, yeah.
12:04 I think you responded to one of my emails and then you never responded to me again. Oh, wow, can I tell you? I know, you had bigger things to do. So how are you finding London? I mean, I know you came via Europe and stuff like that.
12:16 Well, no, it’s nice. I like London. It’s expensive. Is it? It’s terribly expensive. A dollar is a pound. It’s the same. It’s one to one. Oh, I thought it was one and a half. But it is, but it isn’t.
12:27 So if something costs three bucks in the States, it’ll be three pounds here. That’s what I’m saying. But when I looked it up, it said, how is it is and isn’t? How does that work? Basically there’s an exchange rate of one and a half, but everything really is just the same price. So a Macintosh might cost $2,000 in the States here. It’ll cost 2,000 pounds. So my way of saying everything’s about 50% more expensive here. Wow. Felicia’s like what are you talking about? I have no clue what you’re talking about. Okay so it’s expensive. Yeah I feel it’s expensive but it’s lovely it’s nice. What do you like about it? What do I like about it? Well people speak English that’s a bonus because I just came from Rome and Brussels. I like it you know what I like that people are very excited about comedy here still you know in the States like if you tell someone you’re comedian it’s like whatever because there are a lot of them because there are a lot of them and it’s kind of passé now and but here you know people are still excited oh you want to come do a show oh yeah comment you know what I mean I feel like it’s still a fun here. When you say states that you mean in LA right or LA in New York yes I mean but I mean everywhere like if I’m in Kansas and I say I’m a comedian they’re like whatever yeah oh yeah they don’t care. It’s interesting because I hear I I listened to a lot of comics because I’m not a comic,
13:45 But they always talk about the golden day of comedy and what Boston was like in the 80s and all these great times, and now they’re over. Always weird that now they’re over, but do you think London is still kind of part of that? It’s exciting. I do think it still kind of has that a little bit, yeah. I mean, because in the golden days of comedy, it was amazing.
14:01 My ex-husband, he is on the business end of comedy, and he started out working at the Improvs as a manager. And he would say, like, in those days, Like Judy Tenuta, I don’t know if you know who that is, she’s an older female comic. She would do the clubs just for the weekend and get a $100,000 bonus. Like, middles would get bonuses, like the middle actor would get a bonus, yeah, yeah. So there’s just tons of people going, it was just huge business.
14:26 Tons of people going, lots of business. If you had someone saw you do the right set, you could get a half a million dollar holding deal from one of the studios. I mean, it was, this went all the way till probably the middle 90s, yeah. Holding deal to make a movie. make a TV show or just to keep you one network would give you a holding or development deal to try to develop a show around you or they would give you a holding deal to because they didn’t want the other network to have you maybe they weren’t really going to use you but then they maybe had a project that was similar to your character so they would try to get you off the market for the other now you know it was pretty crazy and what changed I mean people still like to laugh do you think there’s think there’s more choices they have Or was it?
15:08 I think it is more choices and it just became oversaturated. Like right now comedy I feel is kind of oversaturated in the States. There’s a lot of comedians. There’s a lot of comedians. So are there any good ones?
15:19 There are a lot of good ones. There is good comics, sure, of course. But now, like in LA, you know, every actress or every actor says they’re a comedian, you know. Okay. For acting work or for stand-up as well?
15:32 No, comedian, yeah, for doing stand-up. They do that because they think, oh, it’ll help get me acting work. But it’s two different animals, yeah. You can do 15 minutes in Los Angeles when all your friends come see you. But when you’re in Canada, you know what I mean?
15:46 And drunks are throwing beer bottles. It’s not gonna fly. I listen to these comics on the podcast and these guys are on the road. I mean, you really have to be on the road and there’s no middle ground as a comic, right? Absolutely.
15:58 When I was doing it before, I had two times in my career, the first time I did it for 15 years. And I literally was on the road 30 weeks a year. weeks a year. I mean, that was crazy. I lived in New York the first three years. I didn’t know the west side from the east side because I was constantly gone. I knew how to get to the airport. It was crazy.
16:16 You just have to make the rounds. And it’s everywhere. It’s the Midwest. It’s like Canada. It’s all these little smaller towns.
16:22 It’s everywhere, yeah. But it’s easier if you are traveling so much to travel out of New York because the way the population is in the United States, you know, you have all of the south and you have like Minneapolis and up into Canada and it’s easier to fly up and down than it is to fly across when you live in the United States. So if you live in LA and you’re working you’re constantly flying across the country. That’s a huge flight you know so you’ll might get up at five in the morning to get there barely before showtime. I mean it’s a lot of stress on your body. Are you still traveling that much? I do. I don’t travel that much. I try to travel once a month because I have kids so you know And it can really ruin your comedy.
17:05 It can, you know, kids will ruin your life. Kids will ruin your fucking comedy. They’ll help your comedy, but they’ll ruin your fucking comedy. But no, that- You’re telling kid jokes? Or just because you’re not the same comedian?
17:17 Just because, you know, like they get mad if you tell jokes about them, you know? And, you know, like I told a joke about my kid on TV and he got super pissed and it was like, Well, don’t carve your name into the wall, asshole. Don’t carve your name into the wall, you know what I mean? Is that going specifically to one of the kids? Okay.
17:38 He knows who he is. Okay. Was that a good joke even, or do you think your comedy gets ruined because all you’re observing now is your kids? I think it’s shifted. Certainly it’s shifted.
17:49 It’s made it more well rounded, or before, like I said, I was really, from the beginning, a very dirty comic. Because when I started out in Los Angeles, in Los Angeles at the time, there were two clubs, basically. The Improv and the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. And if you were the Improv, you were a guy like Bill Maher. You know what I mean?
18:08 You were a guy that did observation, political humor more, it was very clean. You were, you know, kind of someone who they could tidy up for television pretty quickly. But if you were at the Comedy Store, it was rock and roll. It was like… It was kinescent and all these guys.
18:22 Oh, yeah. I started in the time of kinescent and it was crazy. is mid 80s early 80s I started in 1986 okay yeah and can you talk about those two differences we just explained the improv in the comedy store so which one did you spend time at I was a comedy store comic from the very beginning because the at that time there weren’t that many girl comics there were hardly any girl comics so the woman that owned the comedy store who still does although she’s very sickly now Mitzi Shore she was one of the first people to give a a lot of women a chance. So for me, I was at the comedy store and I was 19, 20 years old at the time. I saw Richard Pryor on stage. I mean, I can’t even explain to you as a comedian how effing cool that is.
19:12 Was it awe-inspiring even when you were 19 or 20? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Because it was interesting because Richard Pryor would come in and he didn’t come in a lot but if he came in he would come at like a week at a time and so he would come in on a Tuesday night he wouldn’t come on Mondays cuz Mondays at the Comedy Store was really craziness he would come in on Tuesday nights and you would see the great Richard Pryor eat the biggest turd on stage really oh yeah like you know cuz he’s trying all new material but then you would see the process of him coming night after night after night and then And by Saturday night, I mean standing ovation.
19:50 To see him work like that made you really understand how to go about it. And the fact that I got to see that is pretty amazing, you know? Did that instill that work ethic in you as a comedian? To see that you can’t… There is no work ethic when you’re a comedian.
20:04 Really? I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you at all. Define work. Well, okay, so prior to getting up and sucking on Tuesday, everyone’s seen how badly he sucked in order to get better on a Saturday performance.
20:15 Isn’t that work? Well, no, it’s work, obviously, but it inspired a young performer, absolutely, and to see… I’ve been very lucky now because I’ve been in comedy and then I got out for a while and then I went back in that I’ve got the pleasure to see so many people start out from the beginning like a guy like Louis C.K. When I was doing comedy, I got really lucky because of the Star Search thing, which happened pretty early in my career. So I got a lot of opportunity way before I was ready to get opportunity.
20:51 So when I was headlining clubs, a guy like Louis C.K. was my opener. And he was way funnier than I was, but because I had the television opportunity. But the great thing is to see people’s progress in their career. Like a guy like Louis C.K., when he started doing his comedy, he did comedy for a long time, but then he went into films.
21:14 People don’t realize that he was doing films and doing all sorts of projects that did OK like they got into festivals and played here and there a little bit, but that he has this whole backlog and whole catalog of work. And so that’s what’s been great about being in comedy for so long and coming back to it, is you really understand people’s life path. That not everyone has this straight shoot up to the stars. That it is all about the journey. and as lame as that sounds, you know, you really…
21:46 That’s our tagline here. Oh, it is? No, it isn’t, is it? No, it is. Oh, it is.
21:51 Yeah. It’s about the journey. I didn’t even know that about Louis Beck at Cattle Hug of Films. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
21:56 Yeah. It’s amazing. And he’s a talented, I mean, obviously a very talented guy. He was fiddling around with cameras. I was so inspired by him because he would, whenever he would make a chunk of money, like if most of us made a chunk of money, we would splurge and spend it on, didn’t even think for a second to be creative with it.
22:15 He was one of the first guys that every dollar that came in was two dollars that went out on a creative project. And that’s how you have to live your life, because it is not about fame, it is about the work, you know, it is about the projects that you’re doing. It really is that. If they work out, great, if they don’t, who gives a shit, you know? And that’s what’s great about nowadays with the internet.
22:38 Then you can do your own projects to put them out there. You can do your own projects, yeah. Why do you say it’s all about that? You’re saying for self-satisfaction, ultimately you have to do what you want to do creatively? Well, if you do what others want you to do, and you’re going against your grain, it will not resonate, you know what I mean?
22:54 It won’t resonate because people can call you out. It’s like when they used to do a night at the Apollo, I think that was the show where it was filmed out in New York and it was black comedians. And then you would have one guy that wasn’t as black as black as the other guys and he would get up there and do comedy and no, no, no. The audience would just start pooing. The audience could smell it out.
23:17 Like, dude, we know. You went to a white school. You got a real job. You know, like they know, you know what I mean? That’s how comedy is or that’s how your artistic endeavor has to be.
23:27 Or anything you do in your life, it’s not just about an artistic endeavor, anything you do in your life. You have to really find what you want to do and kick its ass. If you don’t make a million dollars, you don’t make a million dollars. and you still feed yourself when you’re 52, if you can do that, then it’s all good, you know? You live in LA, which is a crazy town to be in, and you’re also in show business in LA.
23:51 And does it ever get to be too much, where everyone’s either performing or working on the next project, or you think, I need to perform, or I need to be famous, you know, more, or, you know, or did you get over that when you were younger and do you just now focus on the work? Because I’m older now, it’s all, to me, it’s all about living my life and enjoying my life and trying to fill as much of my life as I can with comedy or my projects that I’m doing. Because I have kids, I have to also focus on that, you know?
24:22 But when I was younger, it’s a mind fuck, you know? Because you are literally like, why did he get that? Why didn’t I get that? I’m just like that girl, why did that girl get that? Okay, so maybe I can’t act as strong as that girl, But I’m clearly the choice, you know?
24:36 And you can feed off yourself, and it’s not good. You know, it can really destroy you. And it was one of the reasons that I quit comedy after 15 years, because the people that aren’t comedians and that are controlling the artists, you know, they kind of make it this situation where we all have to fight against each other. and especially in Los Angeles. I was very lucky that I got to also move to New York and do comedy in New York.
25:10 And in New York, that was a completely different experience because in New York, it was people offering you a hand up or down, you know what I mean? New York was different than Los Angeles. You wouldn’t expect that from New York. You wouldn’t expect that, but it is. LA is more like, well, can that get me?
25:26 You know what I mean? So, but New York, it is like that a little bit, but it’s very removed from Los Angeles. so you can really work on what’s important to you, you know? Ari Shafir just moved to New York, and he’s trying the whole comedy scene there. Do you think it’s different nowadays as well?
25:41 New York versus LA? Or is it really ultra competitive now, or overdone in New York? Yeah, you know, it’s hard for me to answer that because I haven’t lived in New York for eight or nine years, maybe even longer, so it’s hard for me to answer that. But at the time when I did live in New York, it wasn’t as saturated. Comedy right now is super saturated.
26:05 I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy how many comedians there are. And no one is really jumping out of the pack, you know? And the thing is like, everyone thinks, oh, Louis C.K. had an overnight success.
26:19 Well, it’s 25 years of work, you know? And I have all these friends that like when I, because I didn’t do comedy for about nine years. And then all my friends that stayed in comedy became big stars. So once someone becomes a big star, sure they’re still your friend, but they have this whole other schedule now, and you hardly ever see them. And to ask someone, hey, can you give me a little part on your show, it’s just not done.
26:50 Someone either offers to help you, but to ask is like taboo in a sense. How do you get back in? Well, that’s the thing. I thought to myself, to get back into comedy, I’m going to have to know where all the open mics are. I know I could go to the laugh factory and get on stage right away.
27:09 But then the thing that’s bad about Los Angeles is the whole industry is there. And for me, I knew having gone through that process of starting comedy in Los Angeles the first time, I knew that people see you way before you’re ready. If I start doing comedy, let’s say in Austin, Texas, and I am farting around for five years trying to find my voice, no one sees me. Then I go to LA, and it’s like, whoa, where’d you come from? But if you’re starting in the hotbed of the industry, people remember, oh, I saw her four years ago.
27:39 She’s not that. You know what? Yeah, so I realized I’m going to have to work outside the main clubs until I get on my feet again because I was so nervous doing it the second time than I was the first time. because I understood, you know, how to go about it. My ex-husband at the time, he’s a big manager.
27:56 And so I understood how it worked. So for me, it’s like, I have to start from the bottom. What can I do? Fuck it, I’m gonna take a comedy class. And this is after I won an American Comedy Award and won Star Search, and that’s what I did because I had to make friends with people that were just starting out in comedy again.
28:16 I had to swallow my pride and do it. And then literally the first time I did comedy again and a bowling alley. It was horrific. It was terrible. Thank God I didn’t go to the laugh factory. Because you were out of practice, you were terrible. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and it’s more nerve-wracking because the first time when you do it and you’re 18 or 20, you’re half drunk, you don’t give a shit, you don’t realize, you don’t understand how it really works, you’re just doing it on a dare, you know what I mean? But then the second time you understand, Oh, if I go there someone might see me that I’ll be embarrassing. They won’t give me acting work You know you understand the whole process. Wow, that’s almost like a mind Yeah, it’s a trip and what’s funny is cuz I I went to this There’s this woman in Los Angeles named Lisa Sunstead and she has his classes called pretty funny women I’m like when I started doing count comedy the first time there were no classes There were no classes like it I remember when I was at was first starting to come the comedians were so mean they were so mean, like I would be on stage and they’d get on the microphone and like, yeah, the diaper truck is here, Felicia, they’re waiting for you.
29:27 They were so mean to me because there wasn’t that many girls. And so it’s so odd that then like 25 years later, now you just take a class and you learn how to be a comedian. So I went and did her class and I met a bunch of girl comics and that’s how I started to understand where the open mics were and started to do it again. And I gave myself three years. I was like, if I can’t get on television within three years, then I’m gonna have to quit.
29:55 Wow, that’s quite a long-term plan. So two months before the three-year thing, I got a TV thing and I was like, whoa. That was a close one. Was it tough to survive at the comedy store that first couple years? And was Mitzi hard on you?
30:08 And the guys must have been really rough, but I’m guessing since you were dirty, they might’ve given you some respect for that? Or not? It was an odd thing because the reason I was so dirty, too, when you’re 18 and 19 years old, let’s say the average age of an audience in a comedy club is probably 23 to 40. Let’s just say that’s the average age of an audience member. When you’re 18 and 19 years old, you really haven’t lived your life yet or really have no understanding of how the world works, or you can watch the news or whatever and you had a couple of boyfriends, but you really don’t understand how to connect with the audience because you don’t have any experiences that the audience has.
30:55 And for me, starting out at the comedy store, first of all, it wasn’t the time of kennison and prior and dice clay, you know, and because that was rock and roll comedy. It was pretty crazy. So for people that don’t understand what is rock and roll comedy, how would you describe it? They would do copious amounts of coke, they would be up for three days at a time. It was crazy.
31:22 Billy Idol would come up in his motorcycle. There was a house that Mitzi owned where the Comedy Store is located on Sunset Boulevard. Behind it is a pretty sharp hill, and up above it was this mansion called Crest Hill. They called it Crest Hill, I don’t know. She would house comedians that she liked that weren’t making a lot of money.
31:43 You could live at Crest Hill and work the door. That’s how guys got into the comedy store. And so behind the comedy store outside the kitchen is where everyone would go and do all the drugs and all these like drug dealers were there. I mean it was insanity. I can’t even explain to you the insanity of it.
32:04 So much drugs went down that the police department rented another mansion next to Crest Hill so they could take pictures of the comedians doing the drugs backstage, I mean back behind the kitchen. I mean it was… Were they do busts or not? I don’t know how, you know, like one time I was dating this comic, he’s still one of my very best friends, his name was Allen Stevens and he was one of Kineson’s crew, they used to go as the outlaws of comedy, I don’t know if you ever heard of that.
32:32 And so he called me up and he was like, hey, we’re all going to go with Sam on the road. We’re going to Canada. And I go, oh, you guys are flying to Canada? And he’s like, no, we’re going to rent a couple of vans and we’re going to drive over, you know, past Vancouver up into Canada. And thank God for me I said this.
32:50 I was like, I was 20 years old at the time. I was like, Alan, although I would want to hang out with you more than anything in the whole world. First of all, I have a spot Saturday night, but second of all, I’m not going to go over mountains with you people all coked up, you know what I mean, you know, because I wasn’t, you know, I’d do a little freeze on all my gums, I’d smoke a shit a little weed, but for me it wasn’t my thing, you know, and you guys, I know you guys are going to go over the border with drugs, because I had been at Sam’s house when they had shipped drugs through suitcases, like, you know, not shipped, but when they flew from gig to gig, I mean, it was craziness.
33:26 They would have parties where they would stay up three, four days at a time. I mean, it was really insanity. Sure enough, they go over the border, they get busted. Yeah. So you’re in the middle of this at the comedy store.
33:37 That’s how I came into comedy. And without Star Search, you wouldn’t have been there. Did that help me? No, that was before Star Search. That’s what I’m saying.
33:45 When Star Search happened, like, you know, five or six years later, it’s like, this is the most apple pie contest in the whole world. All right, and you were already known as a dirty comedy people in LA. And how I got into comedy is I had, When I was 18, I was a stripper, and a comedian came in the club, and I met him in Colorado, where I’m from, where I was growing up then, and so I was like, comedian. What? Did he think you were funny?
34:14 Or you just… No, he thought I had a nice rack. I didn’t think I was funny. You never knew that was a career choice possibility? I never knew in my…
34:23 No, I had no idea. And then… I guess you’d gotten over stage fright. I was… Yeah.
34:30 Well, I had more stage fright as a comedian than a stripper. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
34:36 When I stripped at Stone Cold Sober, when I did comedy, I had to drink a little wine. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you were saying… So somebody you danced with someone, he was a comedian and then he told you about it and you were like…
34:48 Then we started… He said, I’m a comedian and I was like, what’s that? And then we started dating, and then about six months later, we’re just hanging out, and he took me to go see in Denver, Colorado, at a comedy club there, and this girl bombed on stage, and I was a little drunk, I think I was probably 18 years old at the time, and I was like, God, anyone can do comedy, I could bomb like that, and he was like, you don’t understand how hard it is even to bomb, and I’m like, whatever.
35:18 So we made this deal, this bet, and so I had to win the bet because that’s how I roll. So then I tried comedy, that’s how I got into comedy. Wow. And you just rolled up to, then you decided to move to LA and then… Then I did it for about six months and then we broke up and then I just thought, I want to get out of Colorado.
35:36 And he had opened a comedy club and I had met a bunch of comedians and so I moved to California. So walk us through those first 10 years of comedy, like in the comedy store. And then in the background, of course, all this madness is going with Tennyson going up and you must have seen him go down. You know, because he died pretty much, you know, he died pretty early on. So it, you know, because it’s a hard thing to talk about because you do, you know, comedians are the coolest people on the fucking planet.
36:14 I mean, they are my peeps. You know what I mean? comedians are like broken toys that you just love to death you know what I mean like you know you ever see the movie Toy Story yeah when all the toy all the broken toys come out of the creepy kids room under the bed they’re all like you know got other things stuck to them that’s what comedians are you know okay and so to see people who are so clued in on how the world in some way really works, and who are so brilliant to be destroyed by drugs, it’s sad. Like I knew God, I don’t know if you ever knew Mitch Hedberg. No, I’ve heard the name but I yeah. Mitch Hedberg was one, was a game-changer in comedy in my opinion. His comedy was very much like jazz, and he had made a feature film that I was an assistant director on, and he he was one of my heroes, and to see someone who had the world literally by the balls to throw it away with drugs is one of the saddest things and after he died I was at a Starbucks and you know sometimes I don’t know they do it here but in the States and Starbucks a lot of times have like a fancy chalkboard over the cash register somewhere and then they’ll put quotes from like Aristotle or you know really cool quotes and after he died I went in there and there was a Mitch Hedberg quote and it’s like that’s That’s how important comedy is, you know what I mean?
37:48 Some a few weeks before he died in New York City, and you couldn’t really tell, you know, you couldn’t tell that he was going through anything or that he was, he just did a fantastic show and, you know, it just felt like he was on a roll, like everything, I’ve heard of him prior to that and he just thought he was doing great and really unexpected. Yeah. So go ahead, you were saying, so do drugs and comedy go together, I mean is this a a standard arc, or is it show business in drugs, or is it just?
38:18 Well, it’s accessible, number one, because people give you drugs. Not all the time. It’s not like it used to be. The best gig you could ever have is being Tommy Chung’s opening act. That’s the best gig you could ever have on the planet, because then he doesn’t carry it, so he just gives it to whoever’s opening for him.
38:36 But I think just because it’s accessible, and it depends on what kind of comedian you are. Like, it just depends, you know? So the rock and roll comedians were destined for a certain fate. Oh, geez, yeah. Not necessarily a certain fate, but they just lived life pretty hard.
38:55 I mean, it’s really almost a mistake to say rock and roll comedians, but I’m just trying to shortly explain to what it’s like. I mean, I don’t know if you guys know of a comedian named Paul Mooney. Paul Mooney was one of Richard Pryor’s first writers. Paul Mooney is one of the most amazing comedians you’ll ever see, and one of the most uncomfortable comedians you’ll ever see. It’ll make you crawl out of your skin.
39:19 And he was also part of that crew. I don’t think he partied like they partied because he was older than by that time. And he still now is doing comedy with 20-year-olds and still the most edgiest guy doing comedy. And everyone has their different path, but it really makes you understand when you see your friends pass away from something so frivolous as drugs, you know, and it just is, it’s a terrible thing. You know, because then you think, wow, what else could they have said, or what other connection could they have put together, you know?
39:58 And the people that do comedy, I mean, what makes you, as a broken person, stand in front of people and try to entertain them just by the timber of your voice and, you know, in an observation? I mean, what, you know, people that do that, it’s, it’s, you know, they’re fucked up. And special, and special, you love them like the broken toys. Like I remember when I first met Mitch Hebert, I turned to my ex-husband and I said, I think that dude’s autistic, you know what I mean?
40:29 Because he could never really look you in the eye. I mean, you know, there’s, or Kinison, Kinison was this guy that, you know, like he would just try to mind fuck you all the time. like, but he did that with everybody. Can you imagine how exhausting that is to try to mind fuck everybody in the room? That’s like what Hitler wanted to do.
40:49 And I’m not even joking, you know what I mean? But you’re still nostalgic for him. For Kinnison? Yeah. I’m nostalgic for the time period that he encompassed.
41:00 And he was one of the first guys at a, he was older than me, much older than me, But he was one of the first guys that made comedy interesting again and made it work. I mean, I remember when I went with him with my friend Alan and a bunch of comedians. Before that time, comedians really was a singular thing. You went to a gig in North Dakota. You came back.
41:25 It was just you. The local people would figure out another comedian to put on the show. And when Kinison came, it was like a rock and roll train wreck. You know what I mean? He took 10 people with him.
41:37 It was a party. And then you would go in the theater. I remember we were in Santa Barbara at this theater. And you would be downstairs in the basement. And people would be stomping their feet.
41:48 And the whole theater would shake, just to see him on stage. Like that, I’d never seen that before, to understand the power of your words that would make a theater shake. I mean, that’s amazing. And that doesn’t exist anymore. I think it’s, I think it doesn’t, I think it doesn’t.
42:09 And will it ever happen in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, 400 years? But there are comics that tour now and they, now, what I’m saying, he was one of the first guys that did that. Now people tour together, which in the beginning wasn’t like that. It was more of a singular thing. You did the Tonight Show, so you got to go to North Dakota.
42:28 And at that time, that was right in the mid-80s that started to change. Because people got on The Tonight Show, and if you had a good set, that made your career. But that was one of the only few ways you could have a big, fantastic career was The Tonight Show. And now, what’s great about now is even though there’s so many comedians, and you’re like in a school of fish, what’s great now is the internet, that you can do it on your own terms. You can have a good set on YouTube and 100 billion hits.
43:00 That’s right. You can do it on your own terms with a shitty camera. It doesn’t even have to look good. Do you think that’s taken away some of the power that you said managers, comedy managers, had? Oh, yeah.
43:11 So hopefully democratizes the whole system for everyone. I think, yeah, I think, of course, that’s like with everything, the computer and the internet has done that. I think it’s, as time goes on, it’s no big secret that, of course, there’s always going to be people that are hugely famous and still within the machine, but it’s going to be the evening out of it all. People will make money. It won’t be the huge money.
43:39 Three people making huge money. Now it’s, let’s say, 15 people making a living, making a pretty good living, yeah. Do you think your success, would you rather it came later for you, like when you were 25? Or were you glad it happened when you were 18, 19, 20? and did you handle it being that famous, that young?
44:00 Well, I wasn’t, even though I had some fame, see at that time too, because there was no internet, you didn’t understand, you know, like it’s weird to me when young comics come up to me and they’re like, oh my God, I totally remember and you did, I totally remember, you did Full House, like I’m just like Christ, you know. What did you just say? Oh, I totally remember when you did Star Search and like, you know, especially girl comics, I had this girl comic come up to me because I was always really dirty and she’s like, you were the first dirty girl, one of the first dirty girl comics, which isn’t true.
44:31 There were a lot of, you know, like Todie Fields. There was like so many other women comedians that got, that people forget about. But, and it totally inspired me to do comedy and then she got up on stage and did just some of the worst, filthiest, like where even I’m like, jeez sister, at least put a joke in that. You know what I mean? You just can’t just pull out your vagina and just be like, ah, I don’t know what I mean.
44:59 There has to be a reason you’re showing your, but you know, there has to be a reason for the filth, you know? And you created that. Well, I’m not saying I created it, but I’m saying I was one of the first people to kind of stumble around on it, you know? Okay, so you were happy when your fame came, and what was your run like then? So you were like 15 years in comedy, you were at the comedy store, and then obviously you decided to stop when you had kids.
45:21 What was your career like? Well, at that time, I don’t know how much you know about comedy, but in the 90s, there was a big shift in comedy, when the alternative comedy scene came about, and that was one of the reasons that I quit comedy. There was a couple of reasons. Number one, I had a child, a baby, and I was going to have another one, and I was a little bit done with it. And number two, the alternative comedy scene came around and the people that were part of the alternative comedy scene really shunned traditional comedy, you know.
46:04 And even though the people that did the alternative comedy scene were the same age as I was, but because I had already been doing comedy five to ten years earlier than they had because I started so young, I was grouped into that old school kind of mechanism. But then, you know, I come from the school of, if you’re going to put a show, let’s do a show. If you’re going to do it, you fucking bring it. You know what I mean? And so for me, it was really hard to understand the attraction of why people would want to see alternative comedy, because it wasn’t always funny, and it was awkward, and you You know what I mean?
46:45 They were so judgmental against each other, and I mean, comedians are kind of like that anyway. But it, you know, and at that point, too, it kind of happened where I’d had five holding deals, you know. I’d been on television quite a bit, and I was never able to make the big step up. Even though I had a small amount of fame, I was never able to make the ultimate step. Which is what?
47:10 Like the hour special on television, or the big tour, this would be a big tour? And probably at that time I was on television at least 50 times, you know, but I wasn’t, because my comedy was so dirty, it just really rubbed a lot of the wrong people, a lot of the right people wrong. Like I remember once being at the comedy store and there was this guy, Jimmy Brogan, who booked the Tonight Show, and he came up to me and he’s like, Felicia, the problem is you’re just too dirty, you’re just too dirty, you’re never going to get work.
47:44 I mean, it was really hard to get television work past a certain point. And I said, oh, but Jimmy, I have clean material, and it works only a little bit dirty. And he said, yeah, but that’s like saying, you know, there’s only a little bit of garlic in the soup. You can still taste the garlic. And I said, yeah, but without the garlic, there’s no flavor.
48:08 So you could never change your stand-up anyways. No, because you have to do what’s right for your voice, you know? Yeah. So no regrets there? Absolutely not.
48:18 No, no, not at all. And are you glad you got back into comedy? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m glad I got back into comedy because when I quit comedy, I hated it.
48:28 I hated it. Nine years though. I hated it. What were you doing? Well, I did a lot of…
48:33 That’s when I started doing photography and I had kids and, but I mean, I couldn’t And even when my ex-husband is a big time manager and he would always be watching it, I’d be like, turn that shit off. I mean, I really hated it because it hurt me that I felt like I was shunned, you know? And then the alternative common theme was getting quite large and everybody wanted those kind of people and it hurt my feelings, you know? That you weren’t part of the party.
48:58 Yeah, that I wasn’t part of that. And even my ex-husband at the time, like I remember once I used to do this hack joke about sex in the butt like and I would only do it on the road because I was too embarrassed to do it in time it would be like one of those bits like when they drop the checks that you would do it you know because you don’t give a shit and they’re dropping the checks and why waste good material when the checks are being dropped and it would keep some people’s attention and he would say to me all the time don’t do that in town I’d be like I know motherfucker I know right but then Louie who was one of his clients at the time would go on stage and he would do like verbatim the same exact joke but like it’s all it wasn’t that difficult of a joke to come up with. I was going to say the TV must be a lot more ready for this kind of material.
49:41 Oh yeah now, yeah now. But he would be like oh that’s genius, Louie did that genius butt-fucking joke and I’d be like did you ask, I did that joke and you told me not to do it in town. You know what I mean? That’s how, that’s to me what there was such it was just so defeating. So you You couldn’t do the material because of you and your history of how they understood Felicia Michaels.
50:05 It wasn’t the joke that they didn’t want to hear, they just didn’t want to hear that joke from you. They didn’t want to hear it from me, they didn’t want to hear it from a woman, they didn’t, you know, they just, you know. And it would be frustrating because like a person like Janine Garofalo, I have tremendous respect for Janine Garofalo. I’ve seen Janine Garofalo in a club in LA or New York where it’s like, oh, I fucking get why people love Janine Garofalo.
50:28 But it would hurt my feelings in a sense that they gave her so many accolades, but then she would have a difficult time in front of a normal audience because, choose Janique Raffalo. Right. She was that alternative comic. She was the queen of it. And so to me, it was very frustrating at the time of, wow, I just can’t win.
50:52 I’m getting it from all sides, so fuck it. Did you miss not being able to express yourself and perform and all that stuff? Well, I had photography and I did it through that, but when I got divorced, that’s when I missed it because it was so crazy making. I missed sharing that and writing jokes about that, and that’s what prompted me to go back into it. Writing jokes about the divorce.
51:15 Well, about the divorce or just when you go through shit. That’s because comedy is therapy. people from the outside don’t realize all those little nuances of comedy. So, wow, okay, that’s cool. I didn’t even expect all that stuff coming.
51:31 Did I chat too much? No, no, it was really good. It was really good. So, photography, how does that work? Can you talk about that piece you put together where it’s kind of like behind-the-scenes and it’s a project called Stand Up, Strip Down. And when I was in New York right before, about a year or two before I quit comedy because I was on the road so much like 30 weeks out of the year and at that time when you work the road you would work Wednesdays through Sundays so you had a lot of time on your hands during the day and so I picked up a camera and I just made myself busy with that and I probably should have been writing scripts but I picked up a camera instead and when I started when I moved to New York I started photographing a lot of the comedians from the beginning like Marc Maron and Louis and all those guys in the alternative comedy scene. It was so weird it’s like you can’t come do comedy with us but you can come photograph us. See how they are. So I would just do that just to practice and it was at night so I had to learn about exposure and all that and I just started doing that and then I really started getting into the photography when I quit comedy and I really like shooting people and I like you know documentary photography and and I literally was taking a shower one day and and I was like God I really want a project I really you know and I was racking my head about what kind of project I think if I could have one
53:03 Good project I could rock it and get some notoriety out of it and then I was like you’re the biggest idiot on the planet because you’ve been photographing comedians now for five years, that should be your project. And so then it kind of started from that point. And is it just photographs, or do you have writing that goes along with it till I talk about it? It’s just photographs, pretty much. And I will add some writing to it.
53:28 And it started out on film because it was so long ago. And so, of course, I’ve made the transition to digital. And now, sometimes I do video with it and put together little multimedia videos with it. And yeah, it’s really, it’s interesting how, like if I’m on a show performing, it’s really hard for me to photograph because it’s two sides of your brain, you know? But it’s really made me appreciate comedy, even though I wasn’t doing comedy.
54:01 To photograph them backstage just brought whole new different appreciation of comedy you know because if when you’re backstage it’s all about you know you know a game of like I’m funnier than you you know what I mean it’s all about positioning yourself within the crowd if you’re comic and who can I sit next to might book me somewhere and you know what I mean it’s all about that but when you’re and you like these people I like these people oh yeah I love these people I love these people these are These are the people you want to go to jail with, you know what I mean? These are the people, when you’re coked out and about ready to die in an alley, you want convicts there, you know what I mean? These are the people.
54:42 Like, if you’re in a political situation in Cuba and someone’s about to hang you, you want to be hung next to a comedian. I mean, this is what you want, you know? That’s how awesome they are. But to be able to photograph them backstage really made me appreciate everyone’s different way of how they go about it. Because there is that moment when you’re screwing around with all the other comedians, but then you go and you walk behind the curtain.
55:06 There is that moment where it’s just you then. That’s very fascinating to see. So you try to do your photographs when you’re not performing. It’s hard to do both. It’s hard to do both.
55:18 Sometimes if I’ll get on a show or, because now it’s like I collect them. Now I feel like it’s Pokemon cards, you know what I mean? Gotta get them all, you know what I mean? All the comedians. Yes, all the comedians.
55:27 So I was like, if I’m on a show, let’s say with Chris Rock at the improv, which it would be very rare, but then it’s like, I’m gonna bring my camera, you know what I mean? But it’s really hard to do both, it’s really hard. Even to photograph, if I’m going on first, then I can do it after I’m off stage. But to be able to do the photographs and then just go on stage, it’s impossible. Yeah, that makes sense.
55:52 So it’s like an ongoing project or you just still keep little bits of video together? No, it’s an ongoing project and I’ve been working on a book. So it’s an ongoing project And I have entered it, won that thing in Paris. And I’m going to do it for the rest of my life, as long as they let me in a comedy club. That’s how passionate I feel about it.
56:11 And there are other people that do comedy photographs, too. But there’s our, I know a guy, Mike Carano, his is mostly on stage, comedians on stage, which I kind of find boring. His photographs are beautiful, though. But to me, it’s like, I’m a comic. It’s like, they’re just standing there with a microphone.
56:28 It’s like, that has worn off for me. you want to get like the tension or the elation or the relaxing they’re having behind the scenes. Absolutely. Yeah. I can see that in your pictures.
56:38 It’s good stuff. Talk to me about podcasting. You were one of the early people doing it. Yeah. And yeah, you’ve kind of been there and done that.
56:45 You kind of came, maybe your podcasting career mimics your career with alt comedy. I don’t know. Maybe you were earlier than a lot of people that came later to the scene. Now there’s so many people podcasting. How do you feel when I say the word podcasting?
56:58 Does it make you do a little tick? You know, podcasting is awesome. It’s so cool. I agree. It’s so cool.
57:10 How I even got into it was because of Joey Diaz. When I did comedy the first time around, I was working in Denver and headlining, and the MC was Joey Diaz. So I don’t, I barely remember Joey Diaz, but I do remember when the club owner was paying me, Joey was very funny, he hadn’t been doing it very long, maybe six months or something, that I said, a small talk as the club owner is counting out my money, hey, that guy Joey Diaz, he’s pretty funny, you should put him up more.
57:45 And apparently, when I said that, people, he got a lot of stage time after that, it was at the Comedy Works in Denver, I don’t ever remember that. And then I had seen Joey Diaz like 15 years later, but he had changed remarkably because he used to be kind of trim and athletic kind of looking, and he, you know, is Joey now because Joey had a good time. There’s no secret about that. And he’s a big guy now, and I, when I saw him again, didn’t recognize him, but then it kind of put two and two together, and my friend Alan, who I spoke about earlier, He was like, Joey has this gig at the improv in La Brea in Brea, California.
58:25 You should, maybe he’ll put you on. And so I called him up and he put me on and then we, Joey was one of the first guys because when I got divorced, my ex-husband is a big comedy manager. Not very many people would talk to me and Joey was one of the first guys that didn’t give a fuck. Because they didn’t want to make enemies with your ex. Right.
58:47 Yeah. to be in comedy when you act as a manager, Jesus. When he is one of the biggest managers, yeah. I get it all the time. People are like, well, we’d book you for this festival, but we don’t want to cross.
58:58 Then I have to call him up and say, can you call them up and say that you won’t get mad? And he’s like, Christ, but yeah. Because there’s no big deal. He doesn’t care. Although sometimes he does talk smack to me.
59:09 We had to go to court over an issue. And I said to the judge, can you ask him not to talk smack about me to industry insiders? And the judge said, yes, but then you can’t make jokes about them. And I thought, well, nevermind. Too much good material.
59:22 Jokes are good. So Joey called me up, and he’s like, hey, would you like to write some jokes together? And I was all like, Joey Diaz called me up, because then I realized, oh, he’s kind of a big comic now. And I was like, yeah, yeah. So we just started hanging out, writing jokes and bullshitting.
59:43 And then he said one day, hey, you want to do a podcast?” And I was like, a podcast? What’s a podcast? And the thing is when I had stopped doing comedy and was doing a lot of photography I really did it seriously and I worked at a digital capture firm as one of the techs where when they would shoot ad campaigns they shoot now directly into the computer you know and so I understood a lot of computer stuff and he knew that about me so he was like we’ll do a podcast together and then you do the computer stuff, and I was like, all right, why not?
1:00:14 So you did all the work, and you always just show up? Yeah, yeah. What year was this? This is about three years ago. Okay.
1:00:21 Yeah, 2010. Yeah, too. So Rogan had already been going by that point? Rogan had already been going for quite a while at that point, but he just was like, I want to try my own podcast. And so then we just started doing it, and we practiced it like complete dorks, and like he didn’t even want to tape it.
1:00:39 We would just get together and try to have funny conversations and then we finally started taping them and I, at the time it was a little bit harder to do pod, to figure out how to go about it. Now it’s pretty easy. And so we just did, we didn’t even have guests for the first year because Joey is the source of a cajillion stories and the most amazing storyteller of all time really is Joey Diaz. And so that’s how it all started. Yeah.
1:01:06 That was two years you did it? We did it for two years, about two, almost two and a half years. But it was immediate. I mean, we were surprised the first time we put an episode up and it was like, what? This many numbers?
1:01:21 What? And then you start asking, because it’s cagey, podcasting is cagey. Like if I was to ask you, how many hits you get a week, come on now. Everyone’s like, well, you know, even if it’s Marin, that and Marin’s like, wow. get cagey about it 300 and 700 thousand yeah usually yeah yeah so you’re getting like a hundred thousand right you know like me and this guy and this guy get an average of yeah yeah it’s and then once you understand how it works you’re like oh yeah whatever yeah yeah and iTunes doesn’t tell you Jack iTunes doesn’t tell you anything and there’s little tricks you can do with iTunes to kind to help your numbers and you just ask for reviews and stuff like that yeah cuz if the more reviews you get the more it puts you up into the hot list so you guys got hot pretty quick we got hot really quick and and it was it was an amazing experience and and he kind of schooled me on it because the thing about Joey cuz Joey I don’t know of all the listeners all of them probably I mean a lot of would know who Joey Diaz is if they’re into podcasting but some people might not. But Joey grew up on the streets, very hardcore, within a group of people who were connected, shall we say. And so, he is very good at seeing something, how it is, how something works, you know what I mean? Like, because that’s what you do on the street. Who’s that guy over there? Why is he going to that guy? You know, why is he taking that out of his pocket? Like, he’s really good at understanding how things
1:02:53 Work pretty quickly and so he really schooled me on on the podcasting and he would get so angry like I would be like cuz I’m I’m a comedian and I get precious over stuff and I want to write the good joke and he would be like just stop that shit with the jokes they just want to hear you talk right because that’s so different because you guys are used to performing and cracking jokes but if you do that on a podcast yeah it doesn’t sound genuine right that’s right yeah it’s very now I can I could throw in a joke if I wanted to you You know, but then it was kind of a difficult thing to understand. So he immediately saw that it’s not a stand-up act. It’s completely different.
1:03:30 Yeah. He immediately was like, it isn’t about comedy in a sense. Sure you want to be funny. It’s not about that. It’s about having a real connection with people, like people want a personal connection.
1:03:41 And so that’s what it was about. And it was, you know, like I used to edit the podcast because Joey can get a little racy and so I would have a lot of fear around it like you know you know Joey grew up on the street so his vernacular is the you’re the queen of dirty comedy yes yeah but but hey there’s a you know but I you know like Joey can get a lot of people would perceive Joey as being racist you know and he would say stuff where you’d be like that would come across as racist I understand why you’re saying it because you grew up on the street and that’s the vernacular of the street and I know you’re not racist you know what I mean to a point so to me but it’s also like but you’re but you’re in a Disney movie so to me it’s like you know I’m I might take out a couple words okay so you were actively editing I remember your edits and stuff yeah remember your background music when you edited yeah did it in did you get that from a friend of mine made it okay yeah So, then it ended and he went on to his new podcast.
1:04:50 By the way, I know Joey. I interviewed him out in LA about six months ago and then we had kind of a falling out after that to do some aggressive publicizing via Twitter, via my interns, but I still have nothing but love for you, Joey, even though I can’t listen to your podcast anymore. But I was a big fan of The Church of What’s Happening, which came after your podcast. So how did yours end and how did all that happen? Well, you know, we did my podcast, I have a fancy garage behind my house, and that was the studio, and he said that he wanted to do another podcast, and that, you know, it was like, who am I to stop?
1:05:28 Yeah, go ahead. Because we, like last year, were nominated for a funniest podcast alongside What the Fuck and all that kind of stuff. And Beauty and the Beast was, you’re saying. Beauty and the Beast was. And we were doing pretty gangbusters on numbers, but he kind of felt that he wanted to reach a different audience.
1:05:53 So when he first said he wanted to do a podcast, and he started doing it, and I was all like, well, do what you got to do, and it’s all good. Then I went and saw him tape one of the podcasts, and I can’t sit there and smoke drugs. I can’t smoke drugs, it makes me sound so old, but I can’t smoke weed on a podcast. I can smoke it off the podcast. I have kids, I have a cranky ex-husband with a lot of money.
1:06:19 I’m just not going to do it. And it came to the point where we would get the most amazing fan mail. I mean, the podcast really did change people’s lives because the podcast was all about second chances. And people would write the most amazing stories to you about. I was at this point and I wanted to kill myself and then I heard this story about the boxer whose dad raped him.
1:06:48 It was pretty amazing, the fan mail, but we would also get a lot of fan mail from very young listeners, 13, 14 year old boys, that they were very attracted to the talk of drug use. And I know when Joey’s talking about his former past, he doesn’t do it to glorify it. It’s a way of coping with what he did and they’re fucking awesome stories and they’re ridiculous and they’re funny and they make you laugh and they make you appreciate that. There are people like Joey Diaz out in the world.
1:07:19 Do you know what I mean? I guess the way of cataloging would actually happen, not to make comment on it one way or another. Right, exactly. And I love the way you just put that. That’s very amazing.
1:07:31 But then that started to kind of bug me because my boys were starting, you know, they’re and 13 and to understand that that boys that were my son’s age were taking the wrong message from the podcast started to like just kind of eat at me a little bit and then when I went and saw him do the podcast and he kept saying you don’t want to be a part of this Felicia at first of course it hurt my feelings not in some I’m stomping my feet kind of way but but then when I saw what he was doing it’s like yeah I can’t be a part of I really can’t be a part of that it’s you know because I’ll my boys will get taken away if my ex-husband shows this to the judge I’m dead meat you know and so that kind of was how that started and and I honestly have the utmost respect for Joey Diaz but Joey Diaz can get a little aggressive and really yeah it’s hard to imagine and And sometimes it’s a little scary, you know, and so If I was a guy, I don’t think I would it would have bothered me but as a woman, you know, it was just like I’m just kind of done with this behavior and That being said I was in the beauty and the beast you guys had conflicts about what you did We would have the biggest effing fights like I mean and I my house the back of my house There’s a preschool on the other side and one time I swear to God This is the first fight we ever had because I don’t know we were talking about something and he wanted me to let go of the
1:09:01 Topic matter and I wasn’t understanding his signals cuz Joey’s show during the show during the taping of the show because cuz you know And I and when I say this it’s with the most complete respect for Joey Diaz as a human being Joey Diaz is an amazing person you know, but he it was hard for him to some it’s hard for him sometimes to verbalize a difficult sentence to you if he knows it’s gonna hurt your feelings. It’s hard for him, it’s really hard for him to do it. So then he’ll hold on to that and then it’s like fireworks and we got in this huge f-ing fight and he’s like like and when he yells at you it’s like you know what I mean it’s like what’s that Oh science fiction movie with Sigourney Weaver. Alien. It’s like the alien the mouth mouth comes out and spit like goes across your face and you’re like, whoa, it’s like that.
1:09:57 And we were in my backyard, I could hear the children playing the, you know, at the preschool swinging and all this and then we were like, fuck, I mean, it was like the biggest, hugest fight. We had a fight one time so bad that Josh Adam Meyers’ comic was literally standing at my front door, I saw him through the window, and Joey and me were screaming at each other for 15 minutes, screaming, you know, like, you never fucking listen, Felicia, and I’d be like, get the fuck out of my, I mean, just screaming, and afterwards, you know, it would be funny, but then it just got to the point where it’s just like, you know, no, that’s, you know. When you have kids, and I have boys, and at the same time you’re trying to teach them how to not dominate another person physically and he never dominated me physically by any means but but you can dominate someone verbally you can dominate people verbally and make them afraid and I just thought you know I’m just done with this oh do you want your kids to see the podcast or you don’t want to see that happen no I it was it was a two it was confusing to be you know that morning like you guys need to respect each other and get along and if If he says a bad thing, you can’t just slug him.
1:11:16 To teach that lesson cut to two hours later, you know what I mean? Get the fuck out of my house! You know what I mean? Like, I’m not fucking you, dude. You can’t yell at me like that.
1:11:25 You know what I mean? Like, basically, that’s all women. Like, if you’re not fucking me, you can’t yell at me like that. You know what I mean? There’s the bit.
1:11:32 Yeah, there’s the bit. That’s good. All right. So you parted ways. Well, you parted ways.
1:11:37 Okay. All right, so you you parted ways we parted ways and I and and and it wasn’t in anything disrespectful and I’m Very proud of Joey as a friend even though we don’t really talk I still do consider him my friend because he he is an amazing human being and by the way I’m no joy to be around and I gave back as As good as like I get I got I gave back So it’s interesting what you say because I listen to you guys for a long time and I love the stories that you guys How I’m beating the beast I mean Jesus Like you had some very high-profile actors get very honest about the things they did in their past and it was a really good show to listen to it was an awesome And I mean, let’s be honest Joey’s life is one big second chance So that was the under his life is a third chance of fourth chance. Yeah, he has an amazing life You know, but at the same time what you know, I can understand like as a young boy You hear these stories about, you know, drop an acid and doing coke and kidnapping people and it starts to sound cool a little bit As you know, maybe you’re a little bit older and then you’re like, you know, actually there’s actually nothing cool about that It’s actually not cool to beat someone up and not cool to kidnap somebody and not cool to hit somebody with a gun and and I think it’s hard when you’re listening to it as a younger person Maybe to know as a younger person and and by the way like sitting there and listening to Joey do it
1:13:00 That you have an understanding that he’s not saying it’s cool. No, I agree. He’s in no way saying that it’s cool. I agree. But it was an interesting experience.
1:13:12 And I didn’t realize, I mean, one time in the very beginning we were doing a podcast and we’re just laughing and blah, blah, blah. And then he’s like, yeah, you know, when I went to prison for kidnapping a guy and I was like, what? What? Like I had no idea. And I was literally on, we were doing the podcast, and I was like, oh my God, I let a kidnapper in my house.
1:13:35 My children are in the front house, what do you know what I mean, like, you know? But, yeah, there’s some real deals there, definitely. Well, I’ve been on the rage side of Joey Diaz after I interviewed him in LA, and it wasn’t very nice, and I thought was one of our finest moments at London Real because we didn’t engage in a Twitter verbal battle, and I didn’t tell him to fuck on all that stuff. And we just took his interview down, even though it was a very good interview.
1:14:00 Why’d you take it down? Because he wanted us to take it down. Why? He didn’t like the way we were publicizing the interview via Twitter, and I think he thought it was like we were tweeting it out to too many people, and then he kind of lost his shit, and then it was kind of over. So that was our little brief kind of thing with Joey.
1:14:15 But I don’t have any ill feelings toward Joey. I can’t listen to his podcast anymore, but I still wish him the best. Oh, I’m sorry that you can’t listen to his podcast anymore. No, I’m sorry about that, because I love Joey. I love watching him still, still.
1:14:33 We were at a club the other, and he didn’t know I was there and he was on stage, and I love watching Joey, yeah. He really is one of the most fantastic natural performers I’ve ever seen in my life, and that’s saying a lot. Yeah, you’ve seen a bunch of them. So you moved on to another podcast after that. Yeah, I did a podcast with girls called She Said What, and that went about 30 episodes, And that was a lot of fun.
1:14:58 But there’s not as many women listening to podcasts as men. And so that kind of came to an end. But now I’m working on a project called Peeping Comics. And it’s going to be a video web series. And I met this girl named Susanna Lee.
1:15:16 And she also goes by Lucky Deluxe. And she’s a burlesque dancer. And I had photographed her at a festival three years ago. And I was looking on Indiegogo, just farting around. You know how you smuggle, and then you’re looking at stuff all over the internet.
1:15:31 And I came across her pitch campaign, because she had this idea of interviewing people at a peep show, comedians at a peep show. Because she sometimes, as a side job, worked at the last one of, not one of, it is the last old school peep show in Los Angeles, California. And I just thought that was fascinating, you know? And so we filmed them, and they’re going to start coming out in September. So it’s going to be peeping comics.
1:16:03 And we got Paul Provenza’s on it, and we’ve got a bunch of comedians. Felipe Esparza, a bunch of comedians are on it. And so I’m kind of into that mode. And I think I might pick up podcasting again. Really?
1:16:14 You’re not done with it? I’m not done, but I, you know, at the end of the Girl podcast, I had done an interview with this guy, David Drosan, Because I was always afraid to do it by myself, you know? So I had interviewed this guy, David Drosin, who was the first guy to ever record Richard Pryor and did a lot of his comedy albums. And I very much liked doing that because it also gave me freedom to edit different stuff into it and to make it more luscious as an audio listening file.
1:16:49 And so if I do that, if I do podcasting again, I think it will just be myself. You can only get so creative in a podcast. I mean, that’s the thing. I mean, if you have three people in a room, there’s only so much we can do. We have a really cool conversation.
1:17:04 I can ask you a really crazy, interesting question, but ultimately, your creativeness is limited, right? It kinda is, it kinda is. And since you’ve done it for years, you’ve probably got over that initial excitement and rush and buzz and coolness. So maybe you just need a different treatment. And it’s a weird thing to, once you have a partner that has such a big personality and he drove the numbers to the podcast, it wasn’t me.
1:17:29 I mean, that’s the reality of the fact. I was lucky to be on the ride, you know? But it’s a scary thing to do it on your own without a huge personality sitting there with you. Growing experience. Totally a growing experience.
1:17:44 So you’ve got that new web series coming up and you’re still doing stand-up, how do people find your dates? How do they follow you? They can go to FeliciaMichaels.net, and I did have a .com till I quit comedy, and then someone else bought it up, and it’s gonna cost me like five grand to get that back, so it’s FeliciaMichaels.net. People still charging for domain names. Can you believe that?
1:18:03 Do people still pay that much money for a domain name? Well, if it’s your name, yeah, and someone snatches it up. Just people who are, essentially, have a bunch of common domain names. Cyber squatting, I think that didn’t work. Okay, so .net.
1:18:14 Yeah, and I love my Instagram, I’m an Instagram viewer, so my Instagram is comicsi, so it’s a underscore comics, underscore i, and Felicia Michaels on Twitter and hook me up on the Facebook. I like Facebook more than Twitter. Do you like your Twitter? I like my Twitter because I interact with people I’ve never met and I don’t know, which lately has been a good thing. When I ran into Joey Diaz, it wasn’t good for a while, but most of the stuff is positive, so I kind of like it.
1:18:43 Do you mean the Facebook like a fan page you find out? I have they can just follow me on my Facebook I hit back and then but I I do have a Twitter and I’m pretty active on it But you like Facebook better, you know, just cuz I can’t I can’t ever get it under 140 characters Sometimes I’ll take a picture just to Instagram it just to put it up to Twitter so that people can go and read Like fuck the picture. I just want them to read the joke. Oh, so that’s written. Yeah Yeah, you really like the Instagram. I do love the Instagram. It’s getting big, right?
1:19:11 You know just because I like to take pictures okay and when you’re going home I am going home and on Friday but I have a big date coming up in Minneapolis I believe the 21st through the 25th I’m working on a movie in New York after that yeah I am producing a movie called The Devil’s Tree and it’s a horror slash comedy film and it’s gonna be hideous yeah and then I was on a show last year called Parental Discretion which is on Nick and it’s got picked up and so hopefully in the fall I’ll be filming more of those. Wow so you’re very busy. I am pretty busy yeah. Yeah that’s super. Now you’re gonna do comedy tonight in London? I’m gonna do comedy tonight at the Phoenix yes have you have you been there? I haven’t been there. I’m nervous I’m very nervous. I was just gonna say are you are you gonna adjust your comedy for the English audience or Or would you even know how to adjust it?
1:20:11 Well, that’s the thing is I’m nervous about that. Then I have this opening joke about my son wanting skinny jeans. And so today I was Googling, how do they say skinny jeans in England? Like, is there a different word for it? And then it’s like, fucking skinny jeans.
1:20:23 And I was like, really, Felicia, pull it together. As Joey would like to say to me all the time, pull it together, dog. I’m curious how the English take like really dirty jokes. From an American woman, too. I don’t know.
1:20:36 Are the English comics dirty? I don’t know, I don’t think so. There’s a lot of clean ones. English comedy, like you would understand it better, but it’s not like you go around the city and you have to look for the comedy clubs. It’s not like they spring up everywhere.
1:20:50 A lot of the nights are in pubs on different nights. And of course there is a comedy store and there’s a few others, and there’s a lot of mainstream acts that you see in big theaters and O2s, but they’re very clean. So I mean, can you name a dirty English comic at the top of your head? No. Really?
1:21:05 Because I’m about to blow it up And we could be totally wrong. You just be you. Well, I just have to be. Yeah. Yeah.
1:21:13 That’s like the only solution, right? That’s the only solution. Awesome. Thanks for coming on. Thank you.
1:21:18 I’m sorry. I was so chatty. It was a pleasure. No, no. It was okay.
1:21:23 It was like a good little, I mean, I hate to say history lesson because that’s a horrible thing to say. But it was like, I didn’t know what was going on in comedy and it’s good to see your perspective. Yeah. And comedy is an amazing thing. Go out and support your local live comedy.
1:21:34 Just means go watch them basically. Go watch some comedy, yeah, drag your ass out of bed and go watch some comedy. Okay, deal, put some butts in seats. Yeah, exactly. Awesome.
1:21:42 Paul, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. And we were both basically just listening to Felicia the whole time, which is good. It was awesome. That means it’s a good show.
1:21:48 And good luck in New York. He said he’s going to miss me when he goes to New York. Yeah, when are you moving to New York? October 1st. Oh, wow.
1:21:54 I’m doing a bit of road tripping across the West Coast, so, you know, it’s going to be fun. Are you going to be in LA? I’m going to be in LA. Oh, you should hit me up. Absolutely.
1:22:02 Okay. Definitely. And yeah, get that paper. All right, good. If you’re listening to us, please subscribe.
1:22:09 Felicia will tell you. It’s good to have subscribers and give us a review, it was good as well. Yeah, go to iTunes and leave a review because it helps put you guys up in the What’s Hot list. Yes, and if you want to see our beautiful faces, we’re on YouTube as well, our channel London Real TV. We’re on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff.
1:22:26 Felicia, thanks so much. You’re very welcome. Thank you for having me. Until then, you’re welcome. Until then, it’s about the journey.
1:22:31 It really is. It really is. Wow. Alright guys, thanks, bye.
