This week Ken welcomes writer, TV personality, former MTV VJ and all around great human being Karen "Duff" Duffy to the show.
Ken and Duff discuss the heat of NYC, the road to MTV via nursing homes, New Jersey, Modeling, selling Skippy Peanut Butter, Saturday Night Live, Frank Sinatra, studying up, dressing for success, the multi-disciplined approach of classic TV presenters, broadcasting vs. narrowcasting, Firehouse vs. Firehose, the end of the hair bands, researching, photogenic memories, Whit Crane of Ugly Kid Joe, the fun of dating someone with a drinking problem, staying tight with the crew, Tabitha Soren, taking over for Martha Quinn, Rods & Cones, V66, The Basement Tapes, bands on railroad tracks, Ted Demme, Fade to Black, Fab 5 Freddy, Jermaine Jackson's Jermagesty, soul music, Herb Alpert, performers figuring out the business, George Clooney, Bill Murray and Duff's Wedding Present of the gift of performance, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Bill Murray's musical prowess, buying horns off Ebay, Michael O'Donohue, owning a baseball team with your friends, Brockton, MA, sports, free vasectomy, The Rat, when sporting events became high priced bars, Rock and Jock, The Real World, Anna Nicole Smith, House of Style, Cindy Crawford, burkinis, Who Do You Think You Are?, the loser table, drinking tequila for the betterment of Africa, small Irish Catholic Families, ABC's Wide World of Sports, ABC After School Specials, The House Without a Christmas Tree, Jason Robards, becoming a wiseass to counteract the weakness of emotion, 42nd St, being starstruck, Colin Quinn, 24 Hours in America, not taking credit for videos you didn't make, making Mariah Carey angry, Paul Abdul's opposite, Karen's early life as a Video Vixen in Special K, NKOTB, Keith Sweat and Heavy D Videos, Dwight Yoakam, Karen's wooden acting style, being in a terrible movie, Dumb and Dumber, Chris Farley, TV Nation, going back to MTV 20 years later, Jim Carrey's Gallstones, Lauren Holly: Slutty Sexy Nurse, Karen's dream of owning a museum of celebrity used parts, The National Endowment for the Arts, Michael Moore, TV Nation Day: August 18th, Viaticals, Devout Catholicism, being a devout trained hospice chaplain, writing tough questions on a cake, love night for hate groups, winning an Emmy the day before you get canceled, The Awful Truth, Bravo TV, Jon Stewart, loyalty, the difficulties of being George Clooney's sister, seeing good people get rewarded, why talking about the charity you do doesn't count, Stoic Philosophy, the immodesty of social media, growing up with James Gandolfini, Sarcoidosis saving the world from awful Disney Movies, Blank Check, Revlon, old people smell, Kurt Loder, doing red carpet for MTV, going to a really ugly high school, living within 10 miles of where you grew up despite your best efforts, The Real Housewives of New York, America Family, avoiding quality TV, Debi Mazar, living for the New York Rangers, introducing your son to The Little Rascals, undercover make up artists, Museum of Broadcasting traditions, Zoom, The Funny Face rival of Kool Aid, racist snacks, and when your children show no interest in your fame.
you have a TV no I'd like to read the TV guide read the TV guide don't need a change hello and welcome to TV guidance counselor as always I am can read your TV guidance counselor and I want to welcome you to one of my favorite shows we've recorded thus far in the year and a half or so that we've been doing the show if you are tuning in for the first time welcome this is a very fun show my guest this week is Miss Karen Duffy who you may know better as Duff when she was a VJ on MTV in the 90s she's also an actress as we discuss here you may know her from dumb and dumber blank check or any other of the movie she's been in and a correspondent on TV Nation which was an excellent show she's a fantastic writer after this episode if you do not already have it definitely go out and buy her book it is fantastic she's got several books actually but model patient my life isn't incurable wise ass is her first book about her struggles with her illness and it is incredibly well written very funny and she could not have been nicer she's one of the best people I have ever met and interviewed on this show by far she was incredibly gracious I loved talking to Karen very very funny smart fun person and we do hear some of the stories in this episode they are unbelievable but true so as always sit back relax and enjoy as I know you will this week's episode with my guest Karen Duffy hello so nice to have you in my office thank you for having me in your office it's very very hot day in New York it's very summertime like I'll do it is not summer I know I know we just you went right from I was it was freezing at our farm in Connecticut we actually was 32 degrees and now it's 90 well it's like going away to the tropics in the middle of the city it is I know but you're holding up very well I'll say well thank you thank you I was I try not to walk around too much as I as I often sweat very very perversely so we were just chatting in you were talking about how you kind of managed to get on MTV which was which was pretty fascinating not to jump right in but you were saying you were working at a home for the elderly at a nursing home I've always I've worked at a nursing home since I was 13 okay actually 12 so I started when I was in seventh grade and you grew up in New Jersey in New Jersey and New York my family runs Duffy sanitation which is the longest continually operated family business in New York City very nice sanitation is a long the second oldest business in the world so right across the street from my family's town house is a nursing home and I started volunteering there when I was in seventh grade and then when I went away to college I went and studied gerontology and then went up my post-grad degree and I wound up going back to work at the nursing home that I had volunteered at since I was a kid and I loved it and I I was saying that my experience working with Alzheimer's patients who have a two-inch attention span right I really had to speak clearly I had to elocute and I also know how to speak with my hands to kind of and what's interesting too is just my physiognomy I have black hair white skin and red lips yes and to elderly people they see gray hair doctors and white lab coats against a white wall right so they really can't see who's talking to them so I would just stood out I stood out so I could get people to pay attention right right so I knew all these tricks and I was like you know look at those jackasses on MTV I mean I'm a jackass - why shouldn't I do that literally jackasses later so I wound up getting um I made a video and unsolicited sent a video and sent it in I sent it on a Friday and it was Memorial Day and on Tuesday they said come on in that's that's insane I know it was I really didn't have high expectations I've been working at the nursing home but also as a model and doing a ton of commercials right you've been doing some stuff I'd been in front of the camera but never never hosting right never as you looking directly into the camera and sort of speaking yes I essentially had like the one pose that everyone does when they make like what they think is their hot face in the mirror okay that's essentially what I did well first commercial you like what were some of the commercials you did skippy peanut butter okay classic and that footage hello she was it yes and I remember on the set of that peanut butter commercial I grew up with a lot of people who are gaffers and best boys and and I remember being on set and this woman Dee Dee Dolan who I went to high school with like a big chip tooth tattoos and she's like wait a minute aren't you one of those Duffy girls that I graduated from Park Ridge high with I was like oh no no you're thinking of my older sister and I totally lied to her face but I did about maybe about a hundred commercials oh wow so I did a ton of commercial shooting so in this was in the mid 80s probably late 80s late 80s early 90s and really they were shooting the majority of commercials in New York at the time like all the TV production for most shows aside from like soap operas and some game shows basically moved to LA in the 60s 60s early 70s but commercials soap operas and the news kind of stage and Saturday Night Live and then MTV comes along and in 81 and was the biggest thing ever probably in New York at the time and you were a really unique place in MTV because you were kind of the first generation of VJs that kind of grew up watching it well he has interesting because I went to school in Colorado in the West Coast and MTV rose in there right and I actually at a nursing home I couldn't afford right and it's not on in the nursing home yeah it wasn't on the nursing they were watching that so it wasn't until I actually was on the channel that I actually well I mean I mean I was completely aware right and I would watch it at friends houses right but I didn't actually get it wired legally into my house where you pay for it right and so it was interesting that having the experience working with the elderly transfer to working with the audience that also had a two-inch attention and musicians who often do as well true so there was a there was a challenge and I would go and I really wanted to get up to speak so I wanted to be good right and so I would go to the Museum of Broadcasting and just watch all the old Frank Sinatra variety specials which probably sounds crazy to people now because essentially now you could just probably click that into YouTube and see the whole history of everything we just physically go to what was essentially a television video library yes and sit in a booth and watch these things with headphones on and they still the commercials and it was amazing and I just watched I was like okay like a huge Sinatra fan right and it's like cuz of the New Jersey New York connection that's definitely in his amazing pipes but I just really thought like he did it so well right and one of the things that I noticed really was always really dressed right and it was very self-deprecating and really let when a performer was on just let them shine and so he always just seemed so gracious so I kind of internalized that and this was at really the height of grunge in the 90s but I would always have stockings and high heels on and be dressed and you know my esteemed colleagues was a Karen I was a woman Karen after Carolyn Hedman there was a spooky was a guy Steve Isaac oh yes yep and Kennedy just started we all started to know we all started the same time yeah right on the same time because after you was like John Sensio and like I Dallas and Bill Bellamy yes yes I work with Bill too we kind of overlapped but kind of like right after me it was on Dave Holmes he's amazing in Carson yeah and then they just blew up and they don't have BJ's anymore yeah and then and then it's over yeah but it was amazing because years later I've I joined the Sinatra society at the nursing home I would have the Frank Sinatra appreciation hour okay and I would write fan letters to Frank Sinatra and a friend of mine actually who knew Frank Sinatra said oh yeah there's just Vijay and MTV and he's crazy about you and she talks about you all the time and I was in the hospital and a huge I think it's right there oh yeah eight by ten of Frank Sinatra came and the next day a big wooden crate and Frank Sinatra painted me a watercolor he painted you a lot it's amazing that's crazy I know and he was probably in his 80s at that point yes well yeah he died in 80 yeah in his early 80s in 1980 in 1998 he died wow so this is his 100th year he was born on December 15th 1915 you're fan yeah but it's an interesting thing too about that sort of the people that came up in the you know in the 40s through the 60s who were hosting things on television they weren't a generation raised on television so they still had sort of a showbiz you know have to multi-talented kind of thing where you might sing but you might also have to present a show and you also have to dance and act and do comedy sketches and all these sorts of variety show things which is kind of a lost art now because people specialize so much more or or whatever the opposite of specializing is whether or not you can't do anything and that that's very unusual and I think we're starting to wane probably in the early 90s so I think that you definitely stood out as a VJ when you would when you would watch you on MTV which now makes sense why because I knew those psychological tricks and also you're probably the only VJ with an advanced degree I'm guessing well it's interesting I was I was a couple years older and then spooky like the other they were all in like there I would say like early to mid 20s and I was in my late 20s and and they were much more casual right and and I remember like certain VJs almost had like a sense of like proprietary fandom over certain genres like they and I was kind of like you know yeah I just felt like the best thing is to broadcast and not narrowcast and kind of be I mean it was like when a cheesy band would come on right I felt like well you know what hooray for them they made a video and got it on way better than I ever did Jesus Jones is doing well Jesus Jones or Firehough firehouse fire fire house firehouse yes there was their love of a lifetime yes and firehoughs was good yeah firehoughs and also the it was kind of at the end of like the hair hairband era and so I would actually do my research because I was used to preparing for my job right at the nursing home if you're a man of you someone you should know something about yeah and I and also I I have a unbelievable memory I have not exactly photographic but I was a photogenic so not quite Mary Lou Hennell actually my sister and I are like what the hell Mary Lou Hennell that happens does all the time right actually my sister Kate and I are entering the memory Olympics oh nice and I think one of the reasons that I think my memory is so strong is I always felt that your eyes look dead if you were just reading a teleprompter oh absolutely and so I could actually just look at a page and almost take a picture of it mentally right and then look at the camera and then read what was in my your memorizing copy like that yes and I would write it myself I would work with a writer because I felt like I was so new and also the other my colleagues were all really into very specific genres and I didn't have that so I just approached my job as a fan yeah and you came across more like the newspeople which is a compliment you know where it was where it had a little more gravitas and did seem more knowledgeable and that did stand out you know like when they'd send you to like spring break or something it always seemed a little bit like is something is she reporting on something bad that happened I kind of felt like mutton dressed as a lamb a little bit but it was always really great fun and then I wound up like dating this knucklehead that I am still crazy about I dated Whit Crane from ugly kid Joe oh yeah and we're still unbelievably tight and the cats in the cradle yes yes and they I hate everything about you but this thing was their biggest song was a cover so they yeah yeah that curse hit them there it was really kind of funny dating this California surfer knucklehead right do you consider yourself very East Coast yeah very yeah I mean I would never like love New York I love where I'm from and he'd be like a he dove is um it's like New Hampshire a state it's a state of mind it's have you read a book yeah and he's like no and I remember one time he just he was just hilarious like anyways oh and sometimes dating somebody with it with a drinking problem can be a lot of fun that's true yeah I mean hindsight it's often yeah always sounds can be a lot of fun yeah and I remember like one time saying you know what you know you are just such a great guy and you're so funny and you know you always tell me how much you love me when you're hammered yeah like you never tell me when you're normal right and he's like well that's easy because normally you're not that cool ah yeah you set yourself up for that one love him even more and I left my ass off better than if you said I love I know it was even better he just never let me down he was so consistent in being a knucklehead and I just adore him I just I talked to him at least once a week so you still you're still in touch with a lot of the people yeah some great friends I mean actually very tight with the crew yeah um with my actually just today it's for in the afternoon and I probably I probably spoke to maybe six people that I worked with at MTV over today and that's just a natural part of the day right right right uh Jody Moorlach who did hair and makeup Gina Ross Otano who's was the stage manager my producer Angela Carbonetti I spoke to today Tabitha Soren oh yeah tabs great she's doing amazing yeah she's doing photography now yes she has a big show which I would highly recommend baseball photographs yes well done photographer well done yeah she's um yeah I would say I'm probably closest to Tabitha yeah well she was the news first and sure it makes sense that like you had probably similar mentalities probably felt similar among the rest of the people yeah I mean it was just I think we actually we came really close actually after we left because our our departments weren't really together but I spent most of the time with the crew right with the technical crew and and it just seemed like that was a little bit of a destabilizing time because I came in I took over Martha Quinn yes yes so you took over for the original VJ so this was like the this was almost like the second cast of Saturday Night Live it was like all this pressure these people who sort of invented this format that no one had seen before although side note we were mentioning your brother is this was in a Boston van called Rods and cones who were very popular in the Boston area because they were on V66 which was the local UHF MTV rival which is very strange so I've been aside from that local sort of blip it was MTV was kind of it and I sort of invented this format and also MTV did something great where they had the basement tapes yes where unsigned bands could send in their videos or something and they could come against each other and pretty much absolutely every band you know had a photo of themselves on railroad tracks yes railway tracks were very big that was the big late 80s photo and like the 90s photo was like in a field yeah or like a flower field was the big yeah was the railroad tracks then flowers yeah there's been a trajectory trajectory of that and you would they would have you host like you'd fill in I think I saw you host MTV Raps once or something no I actually I when I first got hired on MTV I hosted Fade to Black okay which was an R&B show okay and I hosted with Todd Wan okay and Ted Demi bless him and heaven was the director and I this I was funny I had dinner with Fab Five Freddie left and it was just so great to see fab because fab was the original host of your MTV Raps when it was on like on Saturday nights right like once a week once a week and then we became a daily show in about 92 yep so in between that time there was a weekly show called Fade to Black okay and that was more that was like hip-hop and R&B stuff yes hip-hop and R&B and it was kind of cool cuz I like you know got to like interview you know Jermaine Jackson right this would have been like your Majesty yes he has a quote when he was on the UK version of Big Brother he was telling other cast members about his kids and he goes my son is a very special name there's your majesty and they're like that is quite the introduction because that is a very special name yeah and I know it's I do collect people who name their children odd things yeah it's a good collection yeah but I loved I felt like that was not my wasn't it was actually I love like like definitely like the sound of Philadelphia TSOP I love you know Larry Gamble and Harold Melvin in the blue nose okay so classic stuff classic more Al Green yeah actually went to Al Green's church the full gospel oh well church and Memphis so I like Barry White yeah and her Balbert actually well he had a song at that time with diamonds that Janet Jackson sang that's right same time you you would probably just starting at MTV and her Balbert is unbelievable he's in his 70s he's an accomplished artist yeah started A&M records with signing Larry Moss yeah what a smart guy he's one of those guys we were talking earlier that kind of get in the industry as a performer and then kind of get how it works truly unlock the business piece of it yes he's a polymath yeah and the way he was essentially self-educated and you know he was a Russian Jew yeah but everyone thinks he's Mexican because of the Tijuana Browns playing the horns but I go to see him every year and early in the year when George Clooney was getting married yeah George and our old buddies and George comes up often on this show yeah he's well he's very funny and has an unbelievable body of work and what he's doing next in in television I mean he's taking it to the next level well he's a guy that was on so many shows for some people are from the facts of life you know he's on the original ER comedy show and then ER later in the talking baby show baby talk yeah with Julia Duffy the first season before they recast with Scott Baio the only time Scott Baio replaced George Clooney ever yeah it may happen again at some point but you know it just been around forever and these things and it's amazing when you see those people who transition from television to you know movie stars and do all these amazing things like that it was interesting that we were saying again how you have to really expand your talents I think in order to be a true entertainer and we talk about that a lot like you know we're always like you know is it Frank Sinatra or Sammy and George is always I guess for sheer talent Sammy Davis could do everything really and so for George's wedding I convinced Bill Murray and I that we should actually perform okay and I have a terrible voice but the I also know all I had to do was essentially get Murray to agree yeah and people are gonna be looking at him he'll be yeah yeah yeah he's you bring out the bread mustard the ham was on the stage yeah so we rehearsed for about five days in that's dedication yes no we really worked hard it was funny we're out in our terrace and it was just amazing just the fact that I'm you know that two of my best friends happen to be icons right right and where did you meet them or initially I met George through his cousin okay and I worked with his cousin and he was like you know you would love right my cousin George and George and I met and have been really really tight and I would go to all these events with them because I'd be his wingman because like I'm not gonna jump on his lap when I can comes around and also having another chick makes every other women every other woman really competitive so okay it was it was a good it was a good thing so I introduced George to Bill and they became really good friends yeah they seem to have a similar sort of wise-ass sense yes the Irish wise and timers and they did the fantastic Mr. Fox at our farm they filmed that they recorded they're really yes that at our farm oh I've seen the footage of that then on the DVD yes so that's yeah that's that's our house and Wes Anderson wanted a place that was a real farm where he could actually incorporate all the sound so it's funny so I did all the female voices until some ingenue came in and over yeah Meryl Streep so there's no funny like like there's one scene where we're you know talking in a rocking chair and they had to like animate a rocking chair yeah you could hear that on the creek so George and Bill became really good friends and when George was getting married my husband was the best man and so Billy and I were rehearsing so we decided to do a medally of her bowbert and the carpenters very nice and essentially what carpenters on well we started off with her bowbert this guy's in love with you okay appropriate and then we went into the carpenters close to you okay all right so it's they still have the horns yeah and then you didn't use the Rick Moranis parenthood arrangement no no we actually Bill arranged it Bill was a Bill was a musician before who was a comedian and it's amazing because again he looks like he's just flying by the seat of his pants yeah but he we rehearsed he arranged right and then when we got to Italy we met with the band and rehearsed I mean he works really like seamlessly to make it look effortless right which is the hardest thing to do it's so incredible so the night after George did a great thing they had the rehearsal dinner the day after the wedding yeah because he didn't want everyone to be all hung over at the wedding so it was like the wild party after and Billy and I went up and I had horns I bought a bunch of trumpets of eBay yeah and that's place to buy mouth instruments and then but we had a three-piece brass section so we didn't it looked like we were faking it yeah and it looked like we were actually playing and it was just amazing and one of the best moments of my life so did you girl I imagine watching SNL and when Bill was on it and stuff yeah and it's it's yeah it's funny because I met Bill at this guy Michael O'Donoghue yeah Michael O'Donoghue was the original writer for SNL was one of the original national impoon writers yes he's sort of credited with giving SNL that that edge when it first started yes and so I knew Michael and Michael died of a brain a brain hemorrhage probably like around 94 95 yes and he wrote Scrooge yes he wrote Scrooge and did another one with Doug with the guy's name we wrote Animal House oh yes from national impoon Doug Kenny Kenny yeah yeah so I met Billy when Michael at Michael's funeral at Michael's wake okay and have just been great we're actually we own a baseball team together oh nice a couple of those you do with your friends I know I mean literally it costs less to be a shareholder of this baseball team which is in New England yeah we own a team called the Torrington Titans and it's in Connecticut oh Connecticut okay and the Brockton rocks oh yeah the Brockton rocks yes love the Brockton's I have weirdly on this show I've had guests the most amount of guests who've been on the show have been from Brockton you're kidding it's been like six people from Brockton on the show and that doesn't include Rocky Marchiano no they were called the Brockton rocks yep the most amount of boxers have come from Brockton and yes well also who's it had had Glenn yep had Glenn was a shoe town fell on hard times and then made boxers yes make shoes will make people who fight it's pretty it's a it's been amazing I feel like it's a Nantucket sleigh ride working on this it's a wooden bat league yeah yeah it's it's been around for I think this is our fifth season and we're already outselling the Cape Cod League were you a big sports fan growing up yes I mean my I mean I wanted to be Marge shot okay not a racist did you play sports yes okay yeah I was a played baseball and ski taught skiing I really do more independent sports right right team sports would you come into the city a lot and go to games or yes it'll live for the Mets okay and I just love that baseball doesn't have a clock and it just unfolds and so it's it so Bill is the commissioner of fun for our league it's like the futures that's a cool baseball league and I'm actually going to go to the vineyard it's opening weekend June 4th okay next weekend and for Father's Day Bill wanted to give out a free vasectomy excellent and the father there for the Catholic church has shut us down they would shut that down they're very touchy no pun intended about vasectomies I don't know why or what it is especially in the New England area especially with Catholics yeah it's very very strange it was but uh it's it's been really great fun to come up with cockamamie ideas yeah and you have the means to sort of make these things happen which is crazy and it's also like it's essentially it's a nonprofit we're just doing it just to have fun and you know it's our tickets are five dollars each which to me is so I mean I grew up in Boston which has become a ridiculous sports time where it's it's I just don't see it how it's fun anymore because people are just so serious about it and it's it's not a game and so when I see this sort of minor league teams I'm like oh you know if it was like this I would go all the time like it would seem more fun yeah I love how you know every time you know in between innings there's always some sort of entertainment right our our goal with this unbelievable group of the board of directors and the players they're all college athletes hoping to go into the major leagues like Steve Strasburg you know the picture who won the World Series he came up through Torrington Connecticut okay so it's funny like you can live in Torrington Connecticut you know where it's a very kind of depressed mill town right you know as your best athletes yeah or you could wind up playing for the Martha's Vineyard Sharks and living in some swanky billionaires guest house but it's it's really fun and I love the humor of it and yes it's more it's sort of probably more like what going to games is like when you were growing up yes exactly now where it's I don't know it just seems more like a bar where people yeah true true like a college bar or something yeah and like like like what's up with like food like oh it's ridiculous it's insane yeah I I can when I was growing up well first of all for the red sucks that the rat which you mentioned earlier is the punk rock club and that was across the street from Fenway Park and they rented out their parking lot to people going to games so inevitably when the game got out it was just a huge fight while people like drunk people came back but I used to go to Celtics games all the time because it was after they had won championships and they didn't have any players anyone cared about and you could just walk in check tickets walk in and it was a lot more fun you know there wasn't like these ridiculous food prices they weren't getting lobsters yeah and so it was like this is just kind of fun to hang out you know it's not like oh it's gonna cost me $400 it's true like I went to the Rangers with my son my son's a goalie and I love hockey and we wound up in these amazing seats and they're like oh there's a buffet I'm like it looked like a wedding but I like at the hockey game there is more food than at like my wedding like how long is this game gonna be if there was a sushi bar and there was like lobsters and just like I remember going when I used to go to Ranger games with my uncle Freddie he would eat peanuts with the shells on yeah because he's like I missed too much hockey peeling him okay I don't want to look down yeah exactly it's original stadium buddy and the stadium pal yeah and it's just funny that you know now there's a well it's like you know it's ruining this five-star restaurant no sporting event going on at it I think if we could have some incorporate that so you did rock and jock as well yes I was the first one speaking of that yes my friend Mitch Kozechowski who I speak to all the time he was the producer and the he was actually the technical director but a great great guy and I think I was I think I was doing a sideline reporting and and a Nicole Smith was the background yeah and one of the things I wanted to do with this baseball league is actually revive the rock and jock oh yeah you know having it one of our oh one of our events yeah and that'd be great I think that'd be great fun because I think that stuff sort of fell by the wayside because that's it where you're in this is sort of transitional period at MTV when they started doing these more original programming and the thing that literally changes the world the real world started and probably the same year that you started on the network and that literally changed the world and invented the reality show format that everywhere has and so you're seeing things like that MTV sports and rock and jock and the big picture and it's sort of becoming more of like a lifestyle branding thing and one of my favorite shows was House of Style yes Cindy is Cindy's ex Cindy's the one person that I'm probably closest to okay did you know any of the any of the people from that show first from modeling I knew it was Cindy yeah well Cindy and I lived near each other we were neighbors in the West Village and then when she how's the style was done through the the news department okay because it's there's there's a special started specials and actually Cindy wasn't the first host it was I think different hosts and then yeah there are different people on each special yeah I'm trying to think of who hosted the first one I can't remember but it's funny because Cindy is like really a great girl and we go away every year and we're going in June this big group of us and already I'm getting emails like all right you know there's a specific set of problems as a middle-aged woman that like when you're best friend is Cindy Crawford and you're going away with your families like yeah what do you wear I think that would be just not even for middle-aged women just for everybody who's not Cindy Crawford well I've said it's not really what we're wearing it's what Cindy's gonna wear right so we ordered her a Burkini nice which is a full burka swimsuit excellent and my friend was complaining that you could still see her eyes and she's got very great problem sunglasses did you see her episode of that show who do you think you are oh like she's like some queen like something from royalty it was really she actually went to New England and it was very interesting Cindy actually is very very bright very quiet yeah for Midwestern she seems yes very low-key and her husband Randy's great at at the wedding I kept teasing Jars like don't sit me at the loser table right there was no there was a table at George King's wedding it's not possible I got I got invited to a wedding on block island that was my uncle's they put me at a table with everyone he forgot to put at a table oh yeah there's like people they invite like used to work with thing but I didn't think of coming like how do you know I don't like it's my uncle and they're like why are you sitting here you got the loser table so you requested no loser table so I and I was sitting next to Cindy and Cindy and George Cindy's husband Randy and George own a tequila company okay and all the money that George makes for with this tequila company Casa Amigos goes directly to the enough project okay and the satellite Sentinel which they buy time on a satellite to monitor the border of North and South Sudan Wow so every time you do a shot you are doing not getting that great NGO you're not getting that with Sammy Hagar's cowboy exactly you're just getting cirrhosis you're just getting cirrhosis and and probably embarrassment to hide the bottles yeah you throw them away so you're you grow up in New York and you watching you know center at live but like what were the shows that really resonated with you how many kids are new families for okay so a small Irish Catholic family yes and you were in the middle or yeah I'm the second eldest okay so you you probably had a little bit of sway on the TV yes more of a negotiation if he's always sports I mean I loved ABC Wild World of Sports I mean I had weird stuff on that yes I mean I love that memory in our family my parents were going out and they would like Barry White would be on the record player there'd be scented candles the lights would go down and we'd have a fire and I just loved watching like the highlight reels especially like the sports highlight reels that they would marry to pop music right right you know like all the great fun yeah like all the great fumbles to like Frank Sinatra's that's life and so I loved that I really love like the very nostalgic ABC after-school specials yes like my sister Kate and I will you know we'll watch them together on your favorite one stoned is the big one that I like that one I really liked the house without a Christmas tree yes you like the holiday special yes and that's well it's just so sad Jason Roebards is such a dick Jason Roebards is one of those guys that I always like watching but he seems just like a sad old jerk and everything that he's done something wicked this way comms might be my favorite thing he's ever done but he's like amazing and Magnolia yes yes yes yes there's one called up my dad lives it my father lives in a downtown hotel okay I just saw that yes I know it was out of the Joe's and Roebards vehicle so yeah we were talking about stone pillow early seal ball on yeah we don't I think that generation has missed these sort of scarefulness I don't know how effective they were I also really loved Angel Dusted with Helen Hunt yes yes yes crashing through a window yeah that was great um would you watch those sort of with a sense of irony growing up right yeah well I come from a big family a long line of wise and timers and like to show any emotion you were immediately pummeled oh you had to like have this like like this like very thick undercoating that they cover battleships with barnacles those like before you'd watch anything like you couldn't get a lump in your throat or you have to make fun of it to sort of counteract this stupid yeah it could sound like Lord of the Flies yeah it was like that and I like my sister and I love like Blackula and let's kill uncle some dreams go to the old 42nd Street when you were growing up yeah I mean all the time when I was 15 when I was in high school I would come in every Wednesday for I'll go to the theater all the time and see those exploitation movies well no no I'd go to the Broadway shows yeah but like I remember going to see Al American Buffalo with Al Pacino okay yeah and the father from the Walton's yes Ralph White yes yes actually sitting next to me and then he went outside to smoke a cigarette and it was just like interesting living I grew up 13 miles from New York City so very close so did you get kind of not blazae but was it difficult to be starstruck because you were sort of running no I actually remember the first time going to MTV and when I was going to do actually my screen test yep and I walked in and Colin Quinn yep was there remote control at the time remote control and he was so funny and and he was like oh look at this woman I wonder what she's doing and it happened to be there was a book that they were doing called 24 hours in America oh yeah and so I actually had me like walk in and at the moment when they were taking a photo at MTV perfect timing and I've been being so much struck I'm friendly with Colin and he still I'm still starstruck by him because he's he is a massive talent oh yeah and had you seen him do stand up or no yes and I mean I've actually seen is she's done amazing shows oh yeah that's I felt directed yes and one sanctifying grace which was a beautiful another SNL alum as well yes I know he's so great and then so it was somewhat kind of starstruck seeing like the presenters right but not necessarily with the musicians because they were also new right so they didn't have that sort of yeah like but it was just like gravitas you but I had the admiration because they were there right and you know they made something that I didn't and I always felt like my brother always like oh some of those VJs act like they're wrote directed and starred in those videos so I always felt like you know I'm never gonna have that I never felt that way but I never wanted to come across in anything other than like no matter what cool thing out that someone else did yeah yeah yeah although I did get in trouble with a Mariah Carey I was like every once in a while like an amazing voice comes together in a story with the video and it's just knocks it out of the park but until that happens yes that video is Rush Rush all Abdul and Keanu Reeves and why are she dances with the animated cat oh yes two steps forward two steps back you're so weird because she was like opposites a track I'm like you're saying the opposite of you is an animated cat I know I know it's just the songs don't have to make sense no absolutely not in fact the less sense they make the more people enjoy them I was like when Mariah Carey first came out she for years it was like she was a backup singer for Brenda K star you know we'll be like and that you could only shoot her on one side of her face yes yes I was in a lot of videos as a video Vixen before you're a VJ V for VJ yes how would which videos I think a new kids on the block they fascinate me yes a lot of um hip-hop videos okay I think a heavy D special okay like now that we found a key sweat did you ever have to introduce a video that you were in no they never were at that point no they were out of the rotation and I don't think I would have actually if that happened I don't think I actually ever cop to it yeah yeah I think that would have been weird or if anyone called you say that you just not me yeah yeah Cheryl Pepsi Riley I did a bunch of them I did a lot of a lot of videos and then I was dating Dwight yolkam that oh yeah and I was in like it I was like yeah I can't be in one of right right it's too much it's you know it it's it is you are so like such a masterful musician right like you don't want me tanking this in any way so with your ability to memorize stuff and clearly you're you're naturally inclined to be a performer you've done some acting stuff but that didn't seem like the path that was that interesting oh have you ever seen anything I'm in I mean I have a few things like I've got Dutch I could have Dutch elm disease I am absolutely so wouldn't I mean I just freeze up or yeah I'm very comfortable being myself yeah yeah and she was like a great talk show guest like you seem like a person they wouldn't pre-interview like that kind of they always pre- interview you and but the great thing is if you get somebody who listens like David Letterman who listens that you could play with but actually it was I did a movie I think it was called 29th Street it was like my first big role where I played I had auditioned you know I read for it for the director and I wound up getting this part and I was in LA and I was driving back from the studio because I did do some looping and I was like what is it about that movie I was like I know that's the worst movie ever saw in my life I better get a new job before a box office poison so I knew that movie was gonna be coming out in like November right and I was like okay what's a New York there's I've got to get something now people anybody sees this movie and sees how terrible I am so there was like soap operas but then again that's a totally different like I think it's such a specific group of people that can do that yeah plus I don't have the mug for it like yeah you know in um but I I was like no and Saturday Night Live but I was like MTV so that's why I that's why I sent in the video to MTV and smart that's a very good process and elimination sort of give what I wanted to see what was available get their game shows and I wasn't gonna be a game there's no game shows and so I really you know I knew that I wanted to have a new job before this came out right and of course the movie came it went nobody ever noticed but I knew yeah but I know it was horrible and but the funny thing is is that when dumb and dumber when I read the script for dumb and dumber I had grown more comfortable in front of the camera yeah and I when I read it it was originally called the power tool is not a toy and it was a it was gonna be $800,000 movie a very small movie and so soon as I read it it was so funny on the page that I called the writer and just was like this is hilarious and I happened to be in LA and we met I met Peter Farrelly and we became great friends and I was like I will I will just ask everybody so I asked like all my actor buddies to do this and like I was dating Chris Farley at the time and I couldn't get anybody to do it yeah and originally I was gonna play the main role of Merrick yeah the Lauren Holly role and then Jim Carrey came out with Ace Ventura Peppetech which blew up yeah that was that was a small movie that nobody thought was gonna exactly had an animated series it was so popular he's um so he wound up signing on and then he wanted Lauren was much more something I think they were I think they were definitely she was she was more his type yeah okay I see so I was like I'll do okay I'll do craft services like I'm so glad it's yeah and so it's very sweet they're like well you've been such a good sport about it as it will give you like a percentage point oh that's and nothing will come of it and that's exactly like you don't have to do this I'm just over the moon so they gave me literally a role of a man what are the bad guys like star and so I wound up you know having a ball and I was filming TV nation at the same time but it was so great and then it who would have thought that it yeah I mean that movie is just like the all their movies are such huge called hit like they're the quote movies that like they were bond over the quoting of their movies I mean I would you know Peter and his brother Bobby were really struggling they were selling round beach towels in Venice and so it was really just so fantastic that they wound up success couldn't have happened to a better group of guys and there are guys that like when you when you hear them talk about their movies every role is someone they know yes like every person in the background they're like I grew up with him he's a guy I went to camp with like they just just stack the movies with everyone they know true it's like which is such a great indicator they always have hockey players yep former Red Sox yes they only did they have like they're because they want the people that they want to meet yeah yeah and Bill Murray's always in them yep and as well he should be Bill Murray's in the second one and in dumb and dumb I haven't seen that okay it's pretty funny because I was at his house and I said oh I was just for dumb and dumb and to I still owned a book right and then which was amazing MTV hired me back 20 years later to go everything no I had no idea you know I'm like you know my 52 and I was going back to MTV and it was amazing what was it like walking back in there did it I did it on location okay and it was so similar we had a conversation I was always pretty much fairly self-contained right because I could write every you know right approaching more like a new story yeah so I knew how to so no producer came right and I went on set it was just amazing because you know I was on MTV when I filmed the first one right and yeah that was back and 20 years ago for the first dumb and dumber Jim Carrey who is exactly the way he is on in really he's just funny and charming and just will go for the laugh and he is so sweet and really thoughtful and I would say very philosophical right but he kept falling down like and grabbing his stomach and everybody thought he was joking and I'm a trained community emergency response team and I was like are you okay anything but nobody would believe him right so the meat wagon comes and I was like where does it hurt and I was like if it's if it's here it could be your either your appendix if it's low yeah but it's by your colonist or it's and it was his gallbladder oh so I was like you have gallstones and I said when they take out your gallstones will you give them to me okay so as they're reeling him in he's like save my gallstones for Duff so then I went back to see him in the hospital and actually this was kind of cute Lauren Holly was dressed up was like a total sexiness like like really slutty sexy nurse and he had a huge green TV and he was watching his operation he's interesting God okay and I was like all right fork over the yeah I want the gallstones and actually I have it I had it set and not ring or something yeah it's independent over and I'll show and I wore it to when I interviewed Jim and I was like does this look familiar this you are human oyster wow and it looked like Malachite oh very weird yeah he had three and on so one big one and then he gave one to Lauren oh nice yeah I was gonna make her earrings but yeah but she did the last one yeah so you're collecting pieces of celebrities I thought it would be good to open up like like a museum of celebrity used parts yeah a people would go to that yeah I mean they would happily go to that I think that would be more what people would want to see than anything else you know when when I was on TV nation we did a story about the national endowment for the arts yes having their funding yes and the NEA and NEH and the American taxpayer spends about of all their tax bill it's like 70 cents a year 80 cents yeah but we spend as a country more money on military marching bands then we do on actually publicly funded art yeah so it's it was really a fun story to kind of tell the story of what would the art landscape be in America if we only had privately funded so I went to like coke world and I went to Kentucky Fried Museum and all the military museum of chemical warfare fun for the whole family it was funny but we really got into it like the beer can museum oh yeah and then I was like we we actually because some of those museums like some of the things were finding it's like okay we had to like essentially make parameters and it was like would you rather want to see a pig drive a car right or go watch angels in America right I was so wanting to go drive in the car so we couldn't actually show the really funny like museums we had to kind of keep it right because it's like a three-minute yeah yeah so TV nation is a show that I really loved and it I think it was a summer replacement series on Fox yes it was yes probably yes and it was Michael Moore it was right after he had done Roger and me and it was essentially like a proto daily show yes people that don't know and you had Louis Theroux was the first thing I ever saw him on Jean Grafolo and it was a fantastic show it was amazing it was yeah it was a summer replacement show and I and on Fox of all things I know it was a really left-leaning show talking about corporate greed so much it was some of the things that we did I actually got that job by writing letters the same way that I sent in a videotape to MTV I wrote a letter to Michael Moore when I heard that he was doing a show okay and I wrote a letter to the head of NBC which is maybe Warren Littlefield the head of Tristani Tristar and I've a congratulations this guy's a talent you know I wish you all the best this is a show and I wasn't lazy I didn't just write the same note to three people and apparently Michael said that he was in a meeting and they're like oh we got this note and three people opened up and showed that they got these letters they're like this person must really want a job we're enthusiastic about so I met Michael Moore at the Howard Johnson's in Times Square nice and I've actually been on every show that he because the awful truth the awful truth yes but the first season was so crazy we created something called TV nation day okay we actually hired a lobbyist and had we had August 18th announced as TV nation day and I had to go to a hospital and the first baby born with a TV baby was probably 20 now yeah I know it's so crazy let's one down the TV and we gave him a salami from cats is deli and like a club and all these crazy things and I mean it was so crazy then we had we closed down we actually got all of the in Fishkill New York it became TV nation day and that was where they closed the banks and we closed the bank holiday yes and we had a parade and it was so out there it was really really interesting points though too and I think that like the one of the segments you I appreciate you did the segment that sticks with me is when they were people buying AIDS patients yes the Viaticles yeah that is one of the craziest things I've ever heard my life and you're able to present a thing like that which is horrifying but in a funny way and also I thought you know I am a devout Catholic I am a hospice chaplain I'm a chain chaplain and the word Viatica the Viatica insurance is where I have to say I have a life insurance policy and it's for say five hundred thousand dollars you as an investor can give me three hundred thousand dollars and take it right there it's like a bail bondsman yes and then you can take your mother you know and it was mainly AIDS patients and I remember interviewing the guy and he's like listen the great thing is there's no cure so I mean you can't go wrong and I'm like well you can really go wrong morally and it was funny I was just talking to a buddy of mine and I remember I had to ask some really tough questions right because that was one of the more serious really serious and it was also I had to ask questions that I was not comfortable and so I would actually write the question on a cake so I would actually I had to get the question out so I would go to a bakery whatever town we were and I would be like okay how do you morally justify this and then I just give them the cake and he'd have to read it and tell me it's a shame that that part isn't in the segment I think there's a shot of the cake yeah cuz everyone likes cake everyone likes cake and also I you know people usually need you know something to kind of fire them up in the afternoon right but you know it's interesting the people the viadical comes from the viadicum which is the communion that during the Crusades the priest would give to the crusaders fighting to dominate Christianity all over the world so I thought that that was kind of an interesting history and one of the things that I learned was like they were like listen we can go into cancer go into you know ALS and all these I just think of all of these it is a growing business and he was just saying like you know and there's no cure on the horizon so you really and I said well how do you know and he said it's well you know because this was before the world was wired so the way so say I you own my life insurance policy and you've given me 350 thousand dollars and you're but you're gonna make so the way I did is the person had to send you a postcard every month like someone being held for ransom yes so you've got essentially a note that that was all the company would give you a you know a stack not dead yet yes essentially you know and then your job was once a month to put that in the post and then you would get it and then when you didn't get a postcard for a few months cash it in that's when you would cash in that I just it's so weird to me that some of that stuff seems so fringy and crazy then that I feel like the world has grown into that kind of stuff more and it seems more okay to do that kind of thing now yeah I loved when we did a thing where we we had love night for hate groups yes so we had like the gay men's choir ghosting to all the people who hated them the most and we would have like you know Baptist choir singing to the Klu Klux Klan and we just really found hate groups and it's funny I'm very very close to everybody on that show Michael I mean because it was so extraordinary and so brave I mean what you guys got away with on that show was amazing I mean this is a primetime network show that has a very very clear point of view and a message and are presenting these stories that wouldn't even get covered on a mainstream news program and it's it's mostly being watched in the summer by kids or teenagers because they're off school and they're watching so much more TV here's on it Friday night yeah and it it definitely made an impact I think with people who see that kind of thing because television when you stumble on these things and you get that spoonful of sugar that helps a message get through is one of the most powerful tools there is for things and especially where people didn't have the internet to go let me see if that's true or let me find something that counteracts that so I can make myself feel better yes yes sort of thing I've just just wrote my latest book and this is the third book this is my cookbook in the memoir so this is a book called how to live in chronic pain without turning into a chronic pain in the ass but I also have another book the hockey mom's guide to life but I didn't I'm holding I I'm gonna publish the pain one and then the hockey one okay I didn't want to flip them over but my editor is somebody who I worked with the TV nation or two people and it's just it was so much fun because you know we it was essentially a race because we had to get the satellite we had to get the tape to NBC and sometimes it would be like within like a minute because Michael was always tweaking and I remember so that was a summer replacement series and we were nominated and won best information series we won the Emmy and it was incredible and we got canceled the next day yeah and then obviously sim I think NBC picked us up and then canceled us I think we went and then eventually the BBC and the Canadian broadcasting funded it and then kind of went to the awful truth but it's funny because my when when we were working on TV nation I had a beach house with some people from MTV and some people from TV nation and my buddy was dating Liz Winstead oh yeah and show creator Liz Winstead so when we were all working on TV nation she was developing the daily show and John Stewart who actually he was the one who gave me all the gummy bear gummy drops and he was doing a ton of stuff on MTV at that time yeah he had a great show called you wrote it you watch it was what the state came out of yes they would actually wrote a story into you wrote it oh you did yes about finding a dead body in my neighborhood well but I loved that show and he had the John Stewart show and he was doing a lot of stuff on House of Style as well that's right and I was the first guest on every single one of John's shows yes because he had this indicated show that replaced our senior hall later yes great show and I loved his MTV shows his love you know he is again so immensely likable yeah any at Howard feller I know he's such a nut right it's funny the same team that we all worked with at MTV have been working with John for 20 years so it's a means such loyalty everything you've said about how being in touch with still and working with these people still it's really the exception rather than the rule and it's interesting how you stuck with all these people for so long yeah they stuck with me well it's true yeah and when George when George was getting married he he has a beautiful sister and it's very difficult I think to be George Clooney's sister mother George's mom is Miss Kentucky and his father was you know this newscaster his aunt yes so George's sister who's a private citizen I just thought oh gosh it must we're gonna like let's like we've got a we've got to buy some dresses because I just imagined like I was just getting the monkey squirts thinking about like what I'm gonna have to wear and I'm like in and nobody cared about me offered wasn't coming oh no she was yes I know yeah so I wanted George's sister to feel beautiful and comfortable because this was a lot of pressure life was changing as well and I also wanted her to get makeup and hair but I also didn't want her to feel judged in any way and so I mentioned this to John and to my Jodi and he then like without a beat come and use my studio and it was just so beautiful that like that uh John Stewart opened up his hair and makeup so I could help this middle-aged woman who is from Kentucky that's never had her hair done never had her makeup done and not only that like they bought her everything in the makeup kit like just good people like which seems rare like that's a me and these seem less like people that you worked with and more like people that you like went to college with yes maybe I feel that's that's true because we were all starting out and on a level playing field we were all kind of rookies and in sort of inventing this stuff as well I mean all the sorts of genres were basically new I mean you were only the second generation of MTV VJs these sort of comedic news programs hadn't really been done I mean pieces of them had been so mess and else you know but this was all new and so you didn't have the expectations I guess of what was going into it so that probably makes you feel closer to these people because you're sort of inventing this true and also I think what I've noticed and as you're saying this Ken it's a like if you if you don't give up you'll eventually get there and I just saw like how this group of people that are really admired the funniest most thoughtful group like still just so generous yeah and you know 20 plus years together but they are so inspiring to me and I think their generosity has truly been a beacon it's amazing to see good people get rewarded yeah because they think so much in the world now especially entertainment industry just like sociopathic jerks yeah doing well and you're like oh god there's no hope for people who are actually decent human beings but there is and it's it's nice to see that yes and that they don't change as people like they they have more means to help more people yes like the tequila with Clooney yeah and you know John Stewart doing and it's amazing yeah John Stewart has like I think one of I think the principles that we all share is that if you do something like for someone else if you if you talk about it it doesn't count right and I'm doing it and so it's just I'm a great devotee of epic Titus who is the father of stoic philosophy and the stoics believe that we can't control what happens to us we can only control how we respond and that's just been I think truly guiding my morality is just the fact that I can't control what's gonna happen but I can control how I'm gonna react to it and how I can respond and how I can maybe do this with grace which is very interesting for someone raised Catholic yeah it's I think of you know you take faith where you can find absolutely but I see that that morality and that generosity and that humility it's funny I find I'm not really invested in social media and it's so immodest yeah I think if I just wanted to read boasts I could just read my journal like if I would you're brand you can post but so I don't do a tremendous amount of of social media and what I see with my friends like John Stewart and people who have really at the pinnacle like you couldn't get any better than what John or what George doing it's funny because I grew up with Jimmy Gandolfini oh yeah yeah we went to junior high and high school together and I remember my yearbook he wrote Duff I'll see you on Broadway and I'm thinking unless they build a new Broadway in the middle of Park Ridge New Jersey I won't be seeing you anywhere just about the street or the actual and it was very interesting because again Jimmy was a great guy and success in no way changed him yeah but he never enjoyed it like he I mean I would say he enjoyed it in his own way which was a very grouchy but like but grudgingly like I like I'm missing out on a part of my life because I have to know I think he loved what he did but he was very shy I think like the things that came with it yes he loved doing it right and again he was a guy that would literally give everybody on the set an envelope yeah and there'd be a lot of zeros yeah and he again was a one-man conga line of generosity well there are those people who go look I have enough yeah true rare but there's some people who are like and I feel like you know they're they're really trying to I think there is a sense of gratitude and when I'm you're making we kind of reflect on the people that I've kind of come up with and I kind of when I was really I just signed like a three movie deal at Disney and I got really sick and I just think well thank God for sarcoidosis because it saved the world from a bunch of crafty movies three more Disney movies toys two and three no I mean no my Disney movies I did we're like so they're I would not watch them if they were screening on my own corneas is any channel no they were didn't like blank check oh blank check yes yes horrible nothing nothing made sense so I kind of for a couple years stopped working and but actually kept working on TV nation and awful truth and awful truth and and Revlon but really couldn't I couldn't pass a physical right so I couldn't get insurance so I couldn't well I couldn't be insured to be a part of a show right so if you know like I had the way that they pay farmers not to farm right I would make these deals to do a TV show like to do it to do a talk show and I just could never fulfill it I couldn't pass that so that was kind of interesting because I really spent more time writing and that's when we wrote the first book wrote the first book and then wrote the second book and I write don't write for the times and have a I had a weekly column in the New York Daily News which is a lot better than making blank check yeah yeah yeah that's true I drew love being alone and writing and thinking and just like like just today control yeah I was like okay you were my apartment and my son and I were coming up from school and I looked at them and he as you exited on the third floor oh people and I don't know and he was just like I have no sense of smell he's like this apartment smells like old people I didn't buy this or well there's a lot of old people okay so then I looked up why do old people smell right and this is kind of interesting maybe that's no do you always never had no sense as well I lost it through chemo okay so I was gonna say maybe that's why it was easier for you to work the nursing home that's coming handy it definitely comes in handy as a hospice chaplain yeah so old people smell kicks in and what it is it's called non-eal odor and it's essentially an off-gas because you're as you age you become less moisturized right so you essentially you're turning into human jerky yeah so non-eal odor but the way I think it's a kicks in at 40 that's not that's so essentially Jennifer Lopez has been smelling like an old lady for seven years that's if you look when her branded perfume camera yeah that's problem it's the same year so it makes perfect sense and Benedict Cumberbatch is like 11 months away from smelling like an old person now before it's too late or it's too late to bottle that stuff yeah do you ever watch the things that the people that you came up with are in like did you watch the surprise did you watch oh yes yes um is it hard to get into them no well actually I worked at HBO when I I was I had a deal at MTV and they for a long time yeah the guys at MTV I mean I just felt like as much as I loved it it was really skewing way younger yeah and it just I just didn't fit that's when tweens were kind of yes yeah I was like come on I'm eight years away from smelling like an old person I couldn't believe how long Kurt Loder hung on there talk about really like him he had this like senior statesman right but so when I got the offer to do TV nation the big cheeses at MTV were more than happy to wish me well and wish me luck and actually I'm still great friends with them I mean I just saw Tom Preston at dinner so I left to do TV nation and then I got hired for for HBO and I was with HBO for about 15 years so I did all the red carpet and all the interior stuff but I loved the sopranos and you know it's just funny because you know I did all the what musicals with Jimmy I was cheerleader like Jimmy was like never want Jimmy's would never want to do any press yeah and I was like again I have pictures of you in my cheerleading uniform yeah so we can do this the hard way that I always wish did more comedy it's like he's so great yes yes amazing in that movie I know you know you get cast as the heavy but he was really funny he was really funny and in our high school he was voted best looking and I was voted class clown oh nice which goes to show you that I went to one ugly high school my my had you beat where did you go to high school no Rose high school no Rose Massachusetts and that is a Boston suburb yeah it's about seven miles north of Boston so and I hung out in the city all the time and didn't hang out with the high school today I thought I was like new all about crazy city things which I did not I only knew stuff I went from movies so do you still live in I really live like a mile from where I grew up we I lived in London for a long time I met my wife there we worked a cartoon or together and then oh really did you work with a Derena and she was the head of Cartoon Network probably yeah yeah she's a Kiwi yes yes yes we did she's back here working for Yahoo oh okay in New York in New York oh yes I did I met her before yeah we because TCM was in there and CNN and all that stuff this was in the 2002 yeah and we moved back to Boston and then we lived in Somerville which is like the Brooklyn yes I know for about 10 years and and we're looking to get a house and we I was like I'm never moving back to where I grew up and I'm like where are a mile and a half yeah which is very very strange actually that is not because statistically people wind up actually moving within 10 miles of where they grew up I guess you stay where you know I mean you never moved to LA my family grew up on Perry Street yeah I moved five blocks yeah so it's it's probably true for just about everybody and I moved almost as far away as I could to London and then I'm like and then we're back I'm I have perfect that's great so to rip up is there anything that you watch now like other things that you can't miss or things that you watch the family it is so deeply shameful the reality yes and when the spawn of the real world the real housewives is I have a friend on it and my little boy I was Carol Radzewell on the Real Housewives of New York and I would when she just started I was I would you know go with her and my little boy was like listen you're not going on that show go on the show if you do don't come home like he was good to have that grounding yeah so I love I don't know why but maybe because I American family was so big in like 1971 yeah PBS series people forget was sort of the first reality series yes that agonizing episode where the Sun came out as gay yeah Lance loud yeah very very interesting show and there's a great Albert Brooks parody movie real life yes and then HBO did a dramatic they did a movie about the the Louds and so I do like the real housewives my son and I like it's funny like I've never seen an episode of the wire right or breaking bad or what is like a madman like madman no never but show me a midget renovating his bathroom and all over it oh yeah oh yeah we my wife and I watch this old house every week and we'll literally turn it on we just spent ten minutes literally watching a guy hammer nails nothing else happened a guy just hammered nails what are we doing like I don't know why we're watching this yeah it was funny was that with some girls last night and we were saying like Debbie Mays are a friend she's got a great show called younger yes yeah yeah and it's very kind of it's smart and cheeky and Debbie's awesome and it's a really interesting idea of a 40 plus year old woman who can't get a job isn't because she smells like an old person right that's and then she dresses up as a 26 year old right and and it's and it's really smart so I like that and Debbie did a lot of stuff on MTV too she told us it was VH1 I think she co-hosted like some stuff at RuPaul yes oh yeah Debbie is amazing I was actually with her the night she met her husband oh nice I was on we were she's was Madonna's makeup artist yes she started his makeup artist and she'd be great on your podcast she's incredible she had a cooking show she's her cooking show is fantastic yeah extra virgin so I like that show I watched tons of sports live for some things stay the same yeah still at least live for the Rangers and other any shows from your youth that you felt you had to introduce your son to like yeah the little okay so when my son was born I loved the little rascals okay and I have the box set of every little rascals so you're probably watching those on Piax or something yes yes was offers a Joel Bolton yep and so I would watch I would I would watch them to my show them to my son and we would just kill ourselves laughing and what was really interesting as he was just starting starting to talk he actually picked up lingo from the little rascals that's dangerous so you'd be like say let's hot look it out why is your son talking like a 1940s gangster he's hiding out it's like no I swear I'm a kid that's fantastic oh yeah it was really funny because he totally picked up these mannerisms just for a short time yeah I wish it lasted forever but I do like to show him I think I'd zoom I think I have like a bunch I've got every zoom book produced in Boston my sister every year when I go out for the Golden Globes I usually I do all the red carpet interviews for HBO and I would bring my sister Kate and I have the makeup artist come and do my hair makeup and I was like oh can you just do my sister while she's here and I was like okay can you just give me your your past and then you can go home yeah I just said to my sister pretend you're my makeup artist and and I gave her like a powder puff and Kate like lost her mind she's on the red carpet just taking pictures of everybody and like not doing her job but my producer was just like I love this makeup artist she's like she's on orthodont she's playing her own role she's really funny and charming and we my sister my sister's red hair and freckles we don't look anything alike and and then like we went out to all these parties and my sisters like you know is get like has got like a soul-trained dance line well Farrell and everybody loves Kate yeah so they're like oh my where did you find this makeup artist and I said well actually she's my sister I let the makeup artists go about 12 hours ago and the guys at MTV my my wonderful production crew they ever since then have put Kate on the call sheet and they fly her in that's fantastic so much fun so Kate and I we have this tradition when we go to LA we go to the museum of broadcasting yep and we watch like the the stuff that we're 11 months we're 15 months apart my brother and I are 11 months apart most Irish twins yes so Kate and I would go and we'd go to the museum and we'd watch like all old you know zoom and after school specials and and we go every year and the dojans at the museum of broadcasting like it's our anniversary you were here like last year I pulled all the things for you yeah it's amazing and he's like you know I've got the original like the original commercials in my garage and all of a sudden like Kate and I are ready to like follow them to us we want to see those funny face drink mix commercials I know it's funny my friend Julian Moore sure the name of her book is Rekle face strawberry yeah yeah which was funny face yeah which was huge was a rival the Kool-Aid yes the Kool-Aid rival the Kool-Aid rival that's they won that war yes they did but they remember that because they were there was a really racist one - oh yeah was Chinese cherry yes well there was also the lemon heads they had cherry clan yeah yeah perfect now they're just cherry heads I do I show my son old commercials and I like found like a really racist jello commercial for and he was like oh my gosh like this is so not okay they're making fun of Asian people like in like it's all like so insane it's like good fun it's like Mickey Rooney it's like it makes that look it's crazy I think that's amazing that you show your son that cuz I think context is lost in the world today and it's it's interesting to see some of that stuff you're like okay this for the time is okay but still you make your room you're like no this was not ever okay this is just wrong do you ever show them any commercials that you did yes and actually I don't really think it it's not interested no we're like he really has no like he's in fifth grade now and like dumb and dumber is on a lot and a lot of his friends recognize me from that or from some of the Disney movies so I'd show him because it's funny because like a lot of our friends are like essentially calls riots like when yeah there's a paparazzi factor and not with me but with with my with my friends and so I think it's been interesting we went on set to see George do a new movie that Jodie Foster was directing and you know and he just sees what a pain in the ass everything yeah and I was like do you have any interest he sees behind the curtain and he's like yeah I'm playing hockey lady yeah like it's it's interesting that it just doesn't turn his head at all right right do you think you'd have a wealth he said I want to I want to be an actor no he did a few voices for the fantastic Mr. Fox yeah he was little but no it's it's I think he's really confident in in his belief that this is not for him yeah the magic's kind of gone because it's like seems like being a carpenter or something yeah yeah it's kind of interesting I think he's had an interesting life getting a window to this and and seeing our friends who have just who are so beloved right and he just is like why does everyone know them he knows them in a very different way yeah which is interesting and and I imagine some of those things that those people are in are unavoidable if you live in America this world so it'd be weird to be flipping through the channels and be like my mom's friend on the TV yeah this is very strange you know that you got a little be here yeah it's kind of interesting yeah but a real perspective yeah it's been great well I really enjoyed spending this time with you and I love your checking out your podcast oh thank you thank you I'm gonna tell all my friends to come on thank you so much that would be amazing you are fantastic at this oh thank you thank you from a very practiced expert well enjoy your jerky thank you very much and thank you for you are a very good TV guidance counselor thank you there you go that's Karen Duffy aka Duff that was one of the best episodes that I've recorded I think and I had a ton of fun and I cannot thank her enough for taking the time to talk to me again by her books read her writing she's written for for all kinds of things and is a great writer and I always enjoy reading things she writes as will you and if you like the show please rate and review the show it's a huge help helps get the word out there to people about the show and if you have any questions or comments or anything like that feel free to email me at TV guidance counselor at gmail.com or at candidate can read calm go to our Facebook page just search TV guidance counselor or you can tweet to us at TV guidance on Twitter and I love hearing from you guys I always try to get guests that you request I tried to answer your questions when I can based on my somewhat non-limited knowledge of television I don't know everything but I will try to find out and I just again like hearing what you guys think of the show and hearing that you guys listen it means quite a bit so as always I thank you and as always we will see you again can I say as always more often in this episode I possibly could in fact I just said it again but Wednesday we'll see again for a brand new episode of TV guidance counselor song don't have to make sense but show me a midget renovating his bathroom and all over it
