This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back for part two of my delicious conversation with Bridget Everett.

[0:21] Bridget Everett: Well, I just shot a pilot for HBO and I'm waiting to see if that's gonna get picked up. That's been really cool.

[0:27] Tonya Pinkins: But is it your show or is it a show you're on?

[0:29] Bridget Everett: It's a show for me. So it's a lot, it has a lot of my sensibilities, like, you know, there's some singing and there's like some comedy, but also drama. But you know, I think like I really want to just like reboot. I don't really know. Do you know what I mean? Like part of like the writing the shows and stuff was like just a way to sort of it felt like primal, it felt like a need, like it felt like I needed to like rip my heart open and like, and I've been doing like a lot of shows, and you know, I feel like there's certain stories that I've like already told. And so now I'm just looking for like the next story to tell, you know. Like, I don't need to be sitting on people's faces right now. I still enjoy motorboating people, I still like enjoy making people laugh, but um, yeah, I just don't know, you know, like it's you know when you're like you know, I'm like a I started as like a cabaret singer or whatever, and then I've been acting more because like that's sort of come along, but like there isn't like a real roadmap for like somebody that looks like me or is me or has my style of performing.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: Do you know Hannah Gadsby?

[1:41] Bridget Everett: Yeah, of course, yeah.

[1:42] Tonya Pinkins: I love Hannah Gadsby. I feel like she's like my muse because she's just crafted her own thing, and I feel like that's what you do.

[1:49] Bridget Everett: I mean, yeah, do you feel that way?

[1:51] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, but then sometimes it feels like you know, it's like this is a bad analogy, but like, you know, before I was like, follow the yellow brick road, basically, like just sort of follow, follow, follow to like Oz, and now I got to Oz and I don't really know what's next. You know what I mean? I achieved the thing I want to achieve, which was for people to see my show and to and to enjoy it, and to like, you know, I got to do a Comedy Central special like five years ago or something, but I want more, I just don't know what it is.

[2:20] Bridget Everett: So now you just like um somebody needs to take you and push you over your edge so you can find it with the next big deal.

[2:27] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I think I need like a thing like that to happen again because before it was just like not desperation, no, it was desperation. It was it was a it was that creative frustration.

[2:38] Bridget Everett: Creative frustration exactly. I gotta create, I gotta create.

[2:40] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[2:41] Bridget Everett: And then you've given this opportunity, and it's like, okay, well, I'm still alive. Yeah, like I gotta do more. I mean, I live there. I live in this place of like, okay, and now I what else? What else? What else can I do? How much I would like to like die like by spontaneous combustion because I've just like expanded creatively so much that there's just nothing left except to just Yeah, and I you know, I think like on you know, there's like on Instagram and stuff, I follow some people, and it's like I feel like there's like people that hustle, hustle, hustle, like they always want to be working, they always want to be, you know, they want to be doing better than the next guy, making money. Like there's people, you know, that that I feel are driven by that.

[3:20] Bridget Everett: Yeah, but I'm driven by what excites me and like what and what creatively like where I can sort of blow out of myself. That's the only way I can describe it, you know.

[3:32] Tonya Pinkins: Just like I get that.

[3:33] Bridget Everett: Just like you know, I get that. Um, and when it and I I don't know what that is next, you know, if it's another like show or more songs or more music, but I just want to feel like the rocket shoot out of my body again.

[3:48] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. I think that you know, we forget that everything is kind of seasonal. And there's that season of winter where there's the time where the things are germinating underground, and sometimes you gotta give yourself some space and time for that next little shoot to pop up. I try to say that to my students that we're always like, I said, you know, what how are you gonna fill your day when you no longer have a teacher telling you what to do or a parent to tell you what to do? Are you just gonna run out and busy yourself building someone else's castle?

[4:15] Bridget Everett: Yeah.

[4:16] Tonya Pinkins: And so I feel like it seems like you have the luxury right now that you don't have to go work at a restaurant or something. So like revel in the luxury of the space and time for that to, you know, the creative fire to start to smolder and then let the flame happen rather than feeling this urgency, you know.

[4:35] Bridget Everett: I feel like that urgency often leads people to keep repeating old things which are which are culture will happily pay you a lot of money to keep doing the same thing over and over again because it's like McDonald's and Starbucks excels. But if you're a real creative being, you're like, Well, I did that. I want to do something else.

[4:50] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, you know, yeah, and that's I want to risk failing. That's what's surprising about it. It's like, you know, I was like, I was like thought, well, I can do this like show for the rest of my life, and I can like I enjoy it, like there's something so vital about doing what you've written and doing it for an audience, but like, but you're right, it's like I need the next creative explosion to happen. But I think that like all the the um the data that the phone is gathering, like, you know, I'm numbing myself. So like I just wanna. I think a lot of people, I don't know, like people do retreats and shit, but I'm like, I think I don't like religion, I don't like I don't like giving up to another another being, another power, whether it's God or Buddha or or that Vikram guy who's legit like put his own.

[5:35] Bridget Everett: Fled the country.

[5:36] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Um so I don't know. I'll have to I'll have to figure, but it's it's it's good to I like what you were saying about, you know, not busy, you know, what are you gonna do? Busy up your day, but like like the where we are right now, you just look out and you see like there's all these offices, right? And there's all those people. And I never want to be one. I never want to be that. I would I would rather go back to waiting tables. I don't hope I never have to, but because I did that shit for 25 years, I think I paid my dues, but I don't know. There's a lot of opportunity. There's like so much shit that can be done, you know, podcasting, fucking writing songs. Maybe I'll move to Puerto Rico.

[6:15] Bridget Everett: Yeah, I mean, I think the possibilities are endless. I think they're only limited by your imagination, and I don't think you have to follow in anybody else's footsteps. I mean, I think that's what I you know, try to instill in my students. Like, create something that never was before. Like your show was something that had never been done before. It was so uniquely you. I think you have to like wait for that same impulse to rise in you. And then I feel like each one of us is this, you know, I'm gonna be all spiritual with you. It doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not, but you're like this divine spark of energy. If you just wait, something's gonna spark up in flame. But I think most of us are like too uncomfortable in the discomfort that we just go and cover up the little smoldering thing with something to just feel like we're doing something.

[7:01] Bridget Everett: I think you're 100% right. I think that, like, you know, maybe I cover it up with too much wine. I don't know, but like you know, wine is if that's I this is I'm I know I'm being like, you know, all preachy. But I feel like the devil is expectation that your life should be anything other than what it is. Like I think you're right. I agree with you. Like if this is what you do, this is what you do. And if you want to change it, you will, or you won't. But if this is where you are, there's something that's feeding whatever the spark that you is out of that.

[7:34] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. And I think the bad things that happened to us, if you look back in hindsight, they led you to the next thing. They were necessary.

[7:42] Bridget Everett: Yeah, it's true.

[7:44] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, fuck. This has been like, you know, it's been like such a crazy day. And I was like, man, I don't want to. Were you recording a new album today?

[7:51] Bridget Everett: No, no, no. I just, you know, I had like, you know, not I don't want to get into it. I was just having like a bad day. And I was like, is this gonna be the next thing? Is this like what I'm gonna go through to have to, you know, but it's I was just like walking around and I felt like sort of simultaneously like fully connected to uh fear, you know, like fully and also like slightly numb, but like, but the fear, like there's something like about fear that you know, you just it makes you idle so much higher or something. I don't know, but it I feel like it's like shaking me out of something, like shaking me out of like this like sort of a awake, I'm a awake asleep. Does that make sense? Like, I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but you know, I'm like sort of just like sleepwalking for a minute. So, like this fear is maybe a good thing, you know.

[8:50] Tonya Pinkins: May I ask what made the day bad? Like, what's your bad?

[8:53] Bridget Everett: I don't want to talk about it. I just I just feel like it was just you know, some some bad news, and you just feel scared, and I'm like, oh man, I don't want to go do a podcast. I don't want to like, but you know, I bet I bet Tonya's maybe just the exact right person to talk to right now. You know, it's it's good, it just means that you know life keeps going and it's a reminder to um wake the fuck up, you know, and just and I just want to like I want somebody to take like the shockers to my creative spirit and shocker. The pilot was really fantastic. Like I felt really fully like I was doing something that felt like fully realized, but if it doesn't go, you know, then like what am I gonna do next? It's just like there's so much uncertainty in in show business and like in the arts and like but what there is an uncertainty in is in your creative spirit.

[9:46] Tonya Pinkins: That's right. So if that show doesn't go, you've got so many more stories, so many other shows. Like, I don't know what your contract is and how that goes, but yeah, it's not like if that show doesn't go, there's another thing that you can make.

[9:58] Bridget Everett: Yeah, and you know, Jim and my our friend Jim, our mutual friend, we are we're part of the songwriters group, and like I have been like sort of like lazy about going, but like the rule is we go once a month and you have to write a song, good or bad. And it's like it just forces you to sit down and like produce, you know, and sometimes you have to have a deadline, sometimes you have to have a reason to go. And we do this thing called the hook challenge. Like, we'll just like for instance, like if you were over and we were talking about like Jim Crow chicken or something, that might be the hook, and we'd be like, do it sing a hook about like Jim Crow chicken.

[10:33] Tonya Pinkins: I think we need a Jim Crow chicken song.

[10:35] Bridget Everett: Yeah. But it's usually like the the silly shit like that that like just inspires, like, oh sorry, that like wakes you back up. So I gotta get back to that.

[10:44] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[10:45] Bridget Everett: But I'm not gonna write the Jim Crow chicken song.

[10:48] Tonya Pinkins: That should be yours.

[10:48] Bridget Everett: Oh, right, right, right. They're gonna make the black girl write the Jim Crow chicken song. I think that's so racist.

[10:53] Tonya Pinkins: No, I know, I don't know. God, I got here I go. Don't get me in trouble, Tonya.

[10:57] Bridget Everett: I gotta get you in trouble, Bridget.

[10:59] Tonya Pinkins: Come on. Gotta get you in some trouble. I mean, like, for me, it's really interesting to hear you talk about this this space of looking for more creativity. Because one of the things I ponder all the time, because I engage with a lot of celebrities. I happen to find myself in rooms with them. And so often my experience of some of the really high level celebrities that I've encountered is that I experience them as caged. That um it may be a really pretty diamond gilded cage, but um I experience them as on somebody's leash, having to go where somebody wants them to go to make this money, to keep this fame, to keep this lifestyle.

[11:51] Bridget Everett: And you know, that's just what I experience it as. And it feels doesn't feel very free. I agree with that, but I think like I but you're famous and you're well known, and you've been working forever. And what I love about you is it's just it's just like at least as a spectator, it's like you don't care. Like you're doing, you're doing what you want to do, like you have your bills to pay, and of course, like you have to work, you know, whatever. But like I feel like you don't make choices based on um driven by like uh wanting me more famous or wanting whatever. The cage scares me.

[12:26] Bridget Everett: Yeah, the cage really scares me, and I think it came from even as a young girl, like it, you know, for boys. It was like for me, it's like I don't want you to just like me because I'm pretty. I need to know that you're gonna like me when I'm not pretty. And so I would like show up not ready. Do you know what I mean? Like I the expectations of others, all of that, uh having to meet expectations and fulfill them all the time. I know that that is not who I am, nor who I want to be. So I I want to just let you know up front. Yeah, let's not have any illusions that I'm gonna be obedient and do that. It's not gonna happen. Yeah, so let's just know that. And if you can deal with that, yeah, great. But other than that, I I'm I'm I'm not I'm too old. I know I can't I can't do it.

[13:11] Tonya Pinkins: But it's hard, like in this, like I feel like in some ways you have to be like a certain kind of obedient in some ways because like you're being employed. I'm speaking for myself, right? Like, it's like that's the cage, you know.

[13:22] Bridget Everett: That yeah, that's the cage. That's the cage. That is the cage. It's it's it, you know. I I think I get to live outside the cage because I my needs are small. Uh-huh. I don't I'm I don't have a lot of material needs. Uh-huh. Um, I find that even when I'm spending, I'm spending to support vendors or artists or creators. Like, like I've had a lot of things, and things never gave me joy. Right. Like some of my most joyful moments are when you know we had a can of beans and something else and we were having fun. So the material does not drive me. Money does not drive me. You cannot buy me if what you're what you have is not gonna engage me, excite me. Yeah, there's just no amount of money you could offer that's gonna get me in the room. That cage, that those golden handcuffs terrify me.

[14:13] Tonya Pinkins: So, what's next for you then? Like what do you want to do?

[14:16] Bridget Everett: I just wrote I just made a movie.

[14:17] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, that's right. I just wrote, produced, directed, yeah, excuse me. What? So what when like what happens? Like when's that coming out?

[14:24] Bridget Everett: And I don't know because you know, it feels like, you know, once again, you know, like the spiritual, but like this force just came through me. Like, I feel like I don't matter in a certain sense. And so the emptiness of me is like, you know, there is something so much bigger than me. And if I just am available to it, it's gonna come through me and do something. Yeah, I came up with the idea for this movie at the end of July. I had it in the can November 2nd. Oh, okay. Like Netflix like screener today not happen, but it does, and for me, it's like about getting out of my way. Yeah, okay, I'm just gonna get out of the way. And I'm like, okay, universe, you wanna spontaneously combust me and keep creating through me? Great. I am available for that.

[15:10] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[15:11] Bridget Everett: I am available to just be exploded or to just die with the universe expressing creatively through me. You've never written a movie before.

[15:18] Tonya Pinkins: Never in my life.

[15:20] Bridget Everett: Wow. I mean, I have done shorts. I've done shorts, and the last one I did was a total failure. And I feel it was a great lesson because everything that could go wrong on that short went wrong. Like the footage had all the um the frame lines and the battery power and all that was burned into the footage. Twenty-six percent of the image was unusable. And I was like, I'm going to finish this freaking film. Yeah. So I think that working on something that I knew ultimately would fail was quite a lesson. Yeah. Quite a lesson of being comfortable with the failure, making the most of the failure. And then when I got to making this movie, I was like, okay, I know what I'm doing here. And I I'd also been trailing uh shadowing directors in television for the last three years. So it's like I I, you know, three years of it having the connections to be able to call showrunners and ask to do that rather than having to apply to programs.

[16:13] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[16:13] Bridget Everett: But after three years, I did not feel any closer to getting a job. And yet I knew I could do it in my sleep. I was like, so I'm gonna give myself this job. Yeah, so now by doing this, you probably know you've set yourself up to you know, you could you could direct episodic and now and stuff.

[16:26] Tonya Pinkins: I don't know.

[16:27] Bridget Everett: I don't I I don't know that I'll get anything out of it. I what I did was I created. I that creativity bursting for me. I needed to do that. Yeah. And so now I gotta learn how to sell one. Now I gotta learn how to license one. Now I gotta learn how to do the art and the marketing and this and the that and it's all new stuff. So that excites me. I'm like, great. I'm gonna be keying keep learning.

[16:44] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. And who knows what else Bridget's gonna do.

[16:47] Bridget Everett: I don't know, Bridget, you might be a showrunner. Take a nap. After you take a nap, you might be a showrunner. You might find that you wanna run a show and you may create a whole show yourself. Yeah. You know, there's so I I see so much. Um you just are capable of so much.

[17:01] Bridget Everett: Yeah. You're right. No, you are you're brilliant, you're funny, you're smart. I love that you have this persona that's kind of the sort of dumb girl, but it's so totally not what you are.

[17:15] Bridget Everett: Thank you. What happens now? What happens now?

[17:21] Tonya Pinkins: I don't know. What happens now, buddy? Bobby's looking my hand, my dog is looking at my hand. Should have fed her before I came. I'm a bad mama.

[17:29] Bridget Everett: I had a friend who had a little um little Toto dog.

[17:33] Tonya Pinkins: A little Toto dog?

[17:34] Bridget Everett: Yeah, a little Todo dog.

[17:35] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[17:36] Bridget Everett: Oh yeah. I'm I w it it it was a tr uh a thing I'm not gonna say. Um yeah, you can say that.

[17:45] Bridget Everett: Yeah I like your uh your your picture here is very beautiful. You know, my mom died last year.

[17:50] Tonya Pinkins: Oh god, I'm sorry.

[17:54] Bridget Everett: A dog, a mom, what's next? No, no, no, no, no. You know, as odd as this is to say, it was kind of the best gift she ever gave me. Um, that she didn't linger, she had cancer for a while and she didn't linger. You know, I see so many of my friends right now who have parents who are ill and who are lingering, and it takes so much of their creative energy and force having to take care of them. And and she didn't do that. She, I think she, you know, went to that, she went into the hospital, she was gone the next day. Um how old is she?

[18:27] Bridget Everett: She was uh gonna turn 70. Wow. And I think she realized that the sickness had gotten to the point where she couldn't, like we were gonna have to put her in a home or something. And she was like, nope, not having that.

[18:41] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I'm checking on out.

[18:43] Bridget Everett: Oh, my mom was 85 and she's like con I mean she's like old. I mean, there's there's a lot of problems. She's like, but if you put me in a home, I'm gonna kill myself. Don't fucking put me in the home.

[18:55] Tonya Pinkins: Does she live alone?

[18:56] Bridget Everett: She lives alone, but you know, she's got one of those life alerts. She's always calling. I've fallen and I can't get up. You know, one of those is bad. But you know, in some ways, I'm like, if she's 85 and she wants to just she wants to be here. She wants to be in her house and she wants to like fall down and have to call the, you know, and she doesn't want to be somewhere where they can assist her and make life easier, then that's her prerogative. And I respect that.

[19:20] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[19:21] Bridget Everett: I really, really do. And I think my mom was like, oh, I'm at the point where some other people are gonna have control over taking care of me. Oh, hell no. Yeah. I'm that person too. I don't want to die in a hospital. No fuck no. Nope, nope, nope. Let me die at home. Let me die, go off a cliff or something like that. But um, no, that hospital thing. I think that's hospitals are for. Either if you if an arm or limb is not fallen off, then we don't need to go there. It's truly.

[19:44] Tonya Pinkins: Oh man, they make me so sad. Hospitals. What is happy about them? Even the colors they paint them. Though I did pass by one of those like exclusive wings where the really rich people got to go.

[19:54] Bridget Everett: Oh, yeah. They have like the you know, wings coating and their suites and living rooms and stuff. Like, what do you gotta do to get in one of those? Do you watch that show? Um, what's it fucking called? It's on HBO. They're all so stressful.

[20:06] Tonya Pinkins: The succession.

[20:10] Bridget Everett: The succession, yeah. Do you watch that?

[20:14] Tonya Pinkins: I did not want to see it. And one of my friends was like, You have to watch it. I couldn't stop there with the most disgusting people ever. But they got you, they go in that nice hotel room. That must be where I saw the hotel hospital. This is the succession. That's the only place it could have been. But I saw it, I was like, man, that shit is real. Like this, I mean, that's like if you're gonna be in the hospital, you can have like a concierge experience like that. But that show, like, I was like, oh my god, I can watch this. I want to watch another thing about another rich family, another, like, you know, like what people, you know, the despicable things people do to other people, you know. But I watched the whole two seasons and probably like four days.

[20:54] Bridget Everett: Wow. Do you it's good, it's good, but this is what I wonder. I wonder if people who are young growing up watching that feel like they should aspire to that because they're famous. That's a TV show about them, so this must be the way to be because I'm seeing it on a show. That's what I worry about.

[21:15] Tonya Pinkins: Well, I worry about like especially like kids in New York, like some of the younger kids I know, they're like so like New York City kids in particular. I'm sure this is is this way other you know, but they're like, they've gotta get in these like really good prep schools, they gotta, you know, they're all like what college are they gonna go into? But it feels like really hyper heightened here, you know, like the this, you know, whereas like my nieces and nephews are like, I want to go to K State so I can party, we're gonna go to football games on the weekend, and then I'm gonna look for a job when I get done, but it's not this like drive, drive, drive. To like for for kids to like have that kind of career focus and life focus at that, you know, when they're 15, 16, when they should be out playing, in my opinion, football, softball, you know, yeah, hanging out with their friends, you know.

I I don't know. But now uh it just it stresses me out. So when I see that show, I was like, this is like all of that manifested, like, you know, people like wanting money and what they'll do, what what the what happens to the family unit, and I don't know. It's pretty, you gotta watch season two. That shit gets grisly. I was like, this is kind of boring. And in the end, you're like, what the fuck? Oh god, I guess I'm gonna have to make myself go to the gym and get on the recumbent bike and watch the season two of succession. It's like it's like homeland watching homeland.

[22:29] Bridget Everett: Well, homeland was worse. Like, I couldn't watch it. Homeland makes me like so stressed out and so I couldn't watch it.

[22:34] Tonya Pinkins: Oh man.

[22:35] Bridget Everett: That girl was mentally ill and like mentally ill, I grew up with mental illness, so I can't I can't watch I couldn't watch it. Triggering it, yeah, it was super triggering. I couldn't watch it at all. Everybody said it was great. I was like, I spend five minutes, and there was that other one with the bridge with the other lady who was like mentally ill. What was the bridge one? I couldn't know that one. That was the person that got killed, and they were half won one bridge in one country and half in the other, and she was also something was wrong with her, and I I couldn't watch that.

[23:00] Bridget Everett: Oh fuck. But Hannah Gassby makes me happy. She makes me laugh. You know, it's so funny. Like the watch, like not I I loved her special, and she makes me laugh. And I think she's a thinker, and she's like, but I had discussions with some of my male friends, straight and gay, and they almost across the board had a problem with it.

[23:18] Bridget Everett: Like, you know, like one of them was like, you know, she's like talking about men, and it's like she's talking to all of us, but we're not all like that. And I'm like, that's you know, like shit like that, or like or it wasn't funny enough, or it wasn't this. I was like, it's a piece, you know. She's giving a perspective, like based on what happened to her. And I did think it was funny, and I thought it was moving, and actually wasn't just men. I think that there were a lot of people that had a problem with it, which I didn't but I love. I yeah, but I I thought was really moving and brave and smart, and I've watched it 13 times. That's how much I love her. Have you met her? No, I don't want to meet her.

She's yeah, autistic and she doesn't like to meet people, yeah. So I was like, yeah, people were like, you can meet her, and I was like, no, she don't like that. I respect gifts from her. I don't need to go and be, she didn't have to, I don't need to be seen by her. She gave me the gift of her, and her second show, Douglas, which is named after her dog, yeah, is about all the hate. Oh, really? Oh, it's so fantastic. She just she does a whole thing on the hate and all the men who were like, I never even heard of you before, but I want to tell you, you're not even funny, and your show is this. And she was like, uh, that was a decision. Yeah, I made it that way. I was there, I wrote it. Yeah, you know, just because you all hadn't heard of me in America, I've been doing this for 10 years right and this is my show this is what I do right I'm not somebody decided to call it a comedy show because that's how they wanted to market it.

Right. And all yeah and also like that's a thing too like that somebody's expectation of what funny should be or how their style of a comedy special should be you know they have to market it somewhere they have to call it something but like that that is you know that is just so like mansplaining or something what's the I don't know the right words you know just like that anybody can like because it doesn't fit the construct of what it looked like before for them it's not good. You know like but for her she doesn't care. I know which is fantastic. And that's when you always get the fucking the moments of glory when people don't care. Right. She's just doing her thing and I feel like that's why she maybe that's my problem I've been caring too much lately.

Sorry I just been thinking about that. Yeah I was thinking about it too I was like you starting to care. Like celebrity is making you care. Oh fuck it I'm not gonna care anymore. Stop caring. That's your joy your joy and I think that that's the gift you give to people is they experience you as so you're like holding your tight now it hasn't such a beautiful story. Come on. But I experience that I think people vicariously get to feel a freedom and comfort in themselves and their body that you give to them and it makes me sad if like now you ride the subway and you worry someone's gonna see you or you can't go to a yoga classic road you're gonna fart. And it's like I think people would love you even more because it's like oh my God Bridget farted and it was great.

I mean, I know it's like fun to see that written, but who cares? Don't read it. Step out of the cage. Step out of the damn cage. Step out of the cage. Because they would put you in a cage and they would pay you a lot of money to be in that cage. And then you will have to break out of the cage. Because it will be just too confining for you. But it'll be very pretty. Yeah. It will. Yeah. Oh, Lord. I found I want to hold your hand. Oh, wow. It's nice to get some human contact, ladies and gentlemen. No, I adore you. I mean, like you are very um I I sincerely meant it that you you changed my life and um just made me a freer artist. And and made and it changed my choices about even the kind of work I wanted to do because seeing you create out of out of yourself and what you what it it seemed like was, you know, nobody was telling you what you had to be.

You made something. I don't even know if the stories you tell in your show are true stories. Um they're great stories. Largely. I have no idea. They're dark stories, and dark stories make me laugh. So um it it really is what inspired me to even start writing more things for myself because it was like, yeah, can I stop being the tool for somebody else's stories? And yeah, is there something that's you can do me? I am good at it, but I think it's because I was raised to be a tool. Yeah. Like, you know, I was always so get your head out of the clouds, you know. Yeah. My mother only ever praised me for being humble. Yeah. And so that's the thing. Like, there's I I got the same shit. You know, I remember like this woman, like one my s I'll never forget it.

Like my sister's college boyfriend. We went over there and like her mother was like asking me to do some chores or whatever. And she's like, okay, I'll give you. She didn't say anything about giving me money, so I did it, and she's like, I'm gonna, how much would you like for that? And it's like, Oh, oh nothing. She's like, I'll give you a dollar. And I was like, Oh, oh thank you so much. And she's like, you know what? I'm gonna give you two because you didn't ask for more. So like it's always sort of stuck with me that like you shouldn't ask for what you're worth or what you think. And like I've had to do a whole reset over the last several years. You know, I think I don't want to say that women feel that way a lot, but I do think women feel that way a lot like knowing their worth and asking for what they want, you know, or asking what they're what they deserve.

And you know I'm good friends with Amy Schumer and she's like always like she's like I'm not doing that. Like I'm worth this amount of money and I won't do it otherwise. And I'm always like well I should probably just say yes because if I don't take this opportunity then it's all gonna you know blah blah blah blah but but I think there's it's so important to just not prostitute yourself you know like really make sure you're getting what you're worth and it doesn't have to be monetarily but just like something that's a value to you a value to you. Like for me if you're gonna take me on a trip that's a value to me. I've worked for people for free because we were going to some exotic place. Yeah it's always just so just so you feel that you're being valued in the right way and however that is you know and I think that that has to come from inside of you yeah you know like other people telling you it's a value or other people saying oh this is what you're worth or they should do this or they should do that if if there's a clarity inside of you that you know this this is good for me.

It's like listen to that shit. Yeah what was that is it is it not waiting for Guffman it's the dog show one did you ever see you know that uh the I know exactly what you're talking about. What the fest in show, best in show. And when she's like, I have instincts, but he tells me to ignore them or whatever. That shit makes me laugh so hard. But you know, I spent a lot of time like not listening to the voice inside of me, but it's you have to. But you've also spent a lot of time listening to it, or you couldn't have to do that. And that's when things always go right what you are. I I do think that your instincts are always right for you, even when they're wrong. Because the wrong is actually the step to the next thing.

You don't I think it's like Oppenheimer who said if you look at your life from the end, it's a perfect roadmap to where you are. So if you're happy with where you are, that's what you needed, you know, the moment before is is necessary. I mean, I'm here with you and Poppy. I guess life's pretty good. And you didn't want to come. No, it's not that you and I might come. No, I just didn't want to like, I just needed I want to. It was cold outside. She's like, damn, I'm trudging down in midtown. I know, but you know what? People do sh, you know, it's that's always like when I have the best time. It's like just fucking go to the things that you know you you may not want to do, and you're gonna have a great time.

Well, I hope you had a great time because I've had a great time having no best time. It's really nice to see you. We gotta get together and have some Jim Crow chicken. You know, Jim, are you listening? Can you invite us over for some chicken, please? It's time for some chicken Jim Crow. You know, I'm gonna say one last thing before we we close out, and that was um I once came to your house and I met some folks and we tried some mushrooms. It was my first time ever. Nothing happened to me at all. Yeah, nothing. Like I was just thinking about that. Yeah, nothing, nothing at all. And um, have you ever done them? Yeah, does anything happen to you? Uh I did them this summer, and I felt just like really happy and giggly, and that's I don't know if that was that or if I also smoked a little pots, and who knows?

Nothing happened to me. It was like so disappointing. I'd read like I had read like 10 books on it, and you know, and I was like, it wasn't for me. And then um then one day someone said, Well, you're just gonna have to up the dose. And I think Tom Dennis McKenna, is that who the person is? He talks about the heroic dose is like seven grams or something like that. And um, I I had to do like nine grams to get to just and I was like, oh, the world is a little twinkly. The world is always twinkly for me. And I was had this sense of like twinkle. Do other people need to do this to get to a twinkly world? Because I feel like the world is always twinkly for me. But it set me on this journey of of, you know, I've I've tried combo and aya and all kinds of things.

You did that? Oh, yeah. I'm like sorry, I don't want to get the No, no, no, it's fine. Um, because what I began to see is that the plants and the animals really are teachers. And so I've been doing a lot of journeying. Um yeah, yeah, and how was that? Uh I've done it about four times and shit. Yeah, it's different every time. Uh one of the things the medicine said to me, which was this great lesson, it was like, you know, we're all slave prisoners to the all. And I was like, well, and it's like, well, you know, everything you create is part of the all. You can't create anything outside of the all, all is all. And when I left that experience, I was like, oh, my deep commitment to free will, I don't I don't have it anymore.

I was like, I don't know that I there is such a thing as free will. I don't even know that the thoughts I'm thinking are mine. I am an expression of something that is all, and we all are expressions of it. And I think there's just been a freedom in my life of like going, okay, so I'm like an ocean bubble, like a little drop of water, and something is expressing through me. And it's been, I've been the happiest I've been in my life coming to this place of like, oh, okay. I'm just uh instrument of something much bigger than me or my will or anything. So that's been a big thing for me. Get my hands on some ayahuasca people. You're gonna have to go to Peru. Yeah. Where's the trip? See you in Peru, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Poppy. And Poppy was quiet the whole time. Yeah. Poppy's sitting there and looking like a little raccoon. She's like, bitch, give me my chicken. Yeah, we're gonna get you some Jim Crow chicken. Oh Lord. Thank you, Bridget. Thank you. And this is uh You Can't Say That Podcast. My guest, Bridget Everett on the Broadway Podcast Network. Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, The Show Where You Can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales. Edited by Derek Gunther, music by Anthony Norman. Available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit bpn.fm forward slash ycst.