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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show comedian and firefighter spouse Rachel Feinstein.
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from her early life, her journey into comedy, the observations she first had dating a firefighter,
how that material is infused into her latest Netflix special Big Guy and so much more.
Now I do want to say that we were having some technical difficulties and there is distortion on Rachel's mic, but I managed to clean it up and I hope it's not distracting to this interview.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 900 episodes now, so all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Rachel Feinstein. Enjoy.
Rachel, I want to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Behind the Shield podcast. I know we've been mitigating some gremlins in the works this morning.
Yes, a lot, lots going on.
So where on planet earth are we finding you today?
I am in my home in Queens in New York.
So I would love to start the very beginning of your journey. So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
I was born in Washington DC, and my dad was a federal prosecutor for the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department.
So he used to like prosecute like KKK cases and stuff like that. And then he was also a blues musician. So he plays piano, zydeco accordion.
My mom is a social worker and therapist. And now she's retired. And she's here helping me get through this crazy week with a toddler.
Now what sent your dad into the civil rights side of law rather than some of the more profitable areas that might drag a lawyer that direction?
Well, he I think he wanted to be a musician. He was a brilliant, is a brilliant musician. He can play anything by ear. And he's very bright. He skipped two grades in school.
My mom said he never really studied much but did well. But he wants to be a musician. And in his family, you know, they grew up pretty poor, his father.
And it was like, you got to be a doctor or a lawyer. So like they basically gave him that choice. And I think that he thought, well, if I'm a lawyer, then I'd like to do something that I you know, that's helpful that I could believe in.
And he met my mom at, you know, UCSB and my grandfather, I think he was in the Navy. And they moved from Queens to Palo Alto when he was a kid.
And they were, you know, they were working class family that was trying to get to that next level. So they were like, Howie, piano player ain't gonna cut it.
So I think they probably would have preferred that he was a more profitable lawyer. And then he ended up after prosecuting for several years out of the Justice Department, he had three kids, there was a lot of pressure to, you know, make ends meet.
And he tried to get into like a private practice job, which he hated, he couldn't do the schmoozing thing, he really couldn't even do it. Like he's just, you know, he's a weird guy that like flicks his head, that's just strange tics, that's like brilliant, but not like a schmoozer at all.
And they have stories about him in the Justice Department where he was like roasted for wearing two different shoes to trial. And apparently his co counsels like, Hey, Howie, those are two different shoes. And he was like, Hey, thanks for letting me know about that.
Sure, won't happen again. Apparently he came back the next day with the same pair of mismatched loafers. So he was not cut out for private practice and got laid off. And then that was when I was maybe in seventh grade. So there's three kids, my mom's a social worker.
And he, you know, was kind of just trying to play piano at Nordstrom or wherever to figure it all out. So, but he's still playing piano, and I think he's happiest doing that. So that's cool.
What about from the social work side for your mom? And obviously you talk about your mom quite a bit in your comedy, but what have you seen as far as the intersection of her work and maybe even some of the mental health conversations you've heard from your husband?
My husband bringing up mental health.
Or not, I mean, either way, the conversation may also.
I don't think she has exposure to the first responder side, but she did work with more of an adult population trying to intervene before they became homeless and try to help families that victims of domestic violence and, and try to help the kind of families in crisis and
prevent them from becoming homeless. So they sort of offered a variety of services. She started doing therapy therapy, but then she, for most of my childhood, directed this clinic that kind of ran the shoestring budget, but she got a lot of, she basically set up a series of different programs within her clinic and work with other DC associations to do stuff like, like fatherhood initiatives to get fathers who were let out of jail back in touch with their families and different services to help victims of domestic violence find, find
their way and get some help repairing their family and preventing them from becoming homeless. So she did a lot of amazing things. They just recently gave her like a lifetime achievement award and it was very sweet and all these different people came out and said how she changed their lives and all these kids.
There were benefits of different scholarship program that she started and it was cool to see a lot of people turn their lives around and use really use those services like she was good at figuring out what would kind of put people in charge of themselves and figure out what they needed.
And then it was very, she's very successful. She's got two different lifetime achievement things. She did a lot of stuff and she was always like, wouldn't give herself a raise and you know, we drive the same old used Datsun and, but now she's here relaxing in Queens.
I just got her manicure. So she's happy. She's just telling me to put on powder.
But when I speak to a lot of the comedians that have come on the show, it's an interesting conversation because more often than not, there was an element of comedy in their earlier life. And I remember being, I was tiny as a little boy. I had like a blonde Afro, buck teeth. I mean, you know, real, real looker and dry skin to add to it.
And so when I look back, comedy was definitely one of my coping mechanisms or defense mechanisms in a positive way. You know, it wasn't self deprecating to a detrimental point. When you look back now at your formative years, are there any elements you think that contributed to your journey into comedy?
It's hard to know the one thing that did it, but I definitely was a wild moron in school. Just got terrible grades. School moron, not a regular moron, just you know, school moron. And so I was sort of failing everything and kind of just a real train wreck.
I always kind of was like just shedding my things and could never find my papers or whatever I needed for school. And my backpack was always a wild disaster. And I was just getting D's and F's and always being scanned or like at some kind of speech therapy.
I got everything like in school, everything a public school can offer. In elementary school, I already had to like figure out what in God's name is wrong. And we have to just get this girl just streamlined in the system. And it just wasn't working.
So I was like doing voices and imitating people and trying to get attention that way and then probably trying to be liked that way and be like, hey, I might be failing, but I can write a fun loving note on the bottom of my test that you just failed me on, like telling you a short story or something.
So I was always trying to distract people from whatever they actually wanted me to do with, you know, wacky voices. Why not?
So when you think about the traditional education system and how many kids don't actually thrive in that environment, do you think that if it had been a different kind of philosophy, you know, you have trade schools versus colleges, for example, that maybe a different type of school would have been a better fit?
Definitely. And eventually, by the time I was a junior in high school, they were like, she's not going to graduate. So they ended up getting into a tiny Quaker school. And it was a program for kids that were, it was kind of like a juvie. It was like, it wasn't like a juvie for like, there's a room for the violent kids. It was just because they were failing.
So I thought I got in the program and I was later told that it wasn't like a getting in kind of thing. It was like a last resort school. But I went to my last resort school and then I got a small learning environment, like seven or eight kids. It was a tiny little Quaker school in Silver Spring, Maryland.
And it was like seven or eight or 10 kids in a class. We called our teachers like Doug and Jane and I learned things because I had conversations and I like actually began to absorb information and people would talk to me through stories and yeah, I never went to college.
So I definitely believe in trade schools and like getting people just getting working at what compels them the most and figuring that out early on. I have no idea how you accomplish that in a large public education system.
But I think that I like that idea and that maybe colleges will slowly be phased out except for the people that really need them for specific reasons. But just to like kind of go in a real environment and learn what compels you.
That's the only thing that kept me attentive.
Yeah, I think it's a massive part of the conversation. I've got my son and my stepson. He just turned 23 today. My stepson hated school. He was very bright. Like he's the kind of annoying kid that could take the test at the end of the year and still get an A.
I don't know how he defies math, but he ended up becoming a mechanic and he absolutely loves it. My youngest now going through the pipeline and wants to be a veterinary surgeon and you know whether he does or not, that's the academic route for him.
So, you know, there's all these different types of fit and even with my youngest, it's the cool teachers that he really connects with. The ones that swear and tell stories and you know the real human being.
Yes, I love that. Yeah, I always like, I mean when I watch TV, I like to watch like historical fiction because it's like the way I learn. I like stories that involve facts that are entertaining and colorful.
And yeah, like tell me about this period of history through a family and their family dynamics and their fights like, you know, Peaky Blinders like that's how I learn, you know, so I am that's probably why like theater and acting out and like, I just like to have some color.
And that's probably why I like I remember there learned a little more from the teachers with like, you know, accents or weird affectations or just like something I could, you know, something I could like link my head, link my mind into where I was like that that little weird
affectation or something that I found compelling but definitely, I feel like now when I even go into a school when I smell the school it like brings me back to all those feelings and I hope that it's changed enough so that my daughter has a really different experience and that she gets a little more of my husband's more mathematical type learn just just so that it's easier for her, you know, but we'll see.
I don't know. She's kind of silly, but she likes large puzzles and she'll sit there and want to complete it, I can give a fuck about a puzzle. I never remember like looking at a puzzle and caring whether it was done or not.
I'm like, who cares.
Yeah, I get very bored by museums, you know, it seems like a graveyard for like compelling things, you know.
So, I think and I hope that like the education system. It's like less geared towards getting in specific colleges, which just seems like a big financial scam.
In a way, no, it does. You look at the pre recs you know you wanted my wife just in optometry school now which is an eye doctor, and she had to do all kinds of math classes and like this where's the rain man shit and testing your eyes, which is better one or two one or two.
I get you got to have a certain level of math but you don't need to be doing calculus to figure out getting a rocket into space.
Yeah, like so much unnecessary really old school shit just these thick, densely boring books like I would. I mean I was just archaically bored in school just profound levels of boredom so I'm use myself talked a lot of shit got in trouble and
failed until I went to a tiny school where they, we just had a chat about something that works a little better for me. Now what about exercise and sports but we playing back then.
Oh nothing I never played sports I, I really never did any extracurricular activities because I don't think I think that school really on early on what affected my confidence a lot so I don't think that I tried very hard plus my grades weren't very good so a lot of times
I did certain level of grades and not really considering that I think I did a little bit of piano when I was really little, and, and then, but it was taught in a way that I, it was a little again to kind of linear by the book wasn't the way I learned I kind of
got bored by piano or I wasn't doing my lessons I wasn't following up so they stopped doing that and then I did take some acting classes and that I enjoyed.
But for the most part, I was just, you know, talking smack with my friends I was not excelling in any department or area in my life.
Until I later on moved to New York and started stand up and found what excited me. Well prior to that then what were you dreaming of any kind of career or profession when you're in the school age or were you like a lot of
people that you were interested in? I loved Tracy Ullman, and I love the voices that she did and I love when she would get to go outside when I was a little girl she would go outside at the end of her show and she would go, go home, go home, all of you go home, and she would wear her robe and so I used to wear my mom's robe and go out and do that and be like go home, go home.
And I love how she become all these different characters like I thought she was the best I still think she's absolutely amazing, brilliant I love watching her and curb your enthusiasm.
And I love how Tracy Ullman does I still want to see and she was definitely the first person woman that I saw when I was a little girl and I was like I want to do that so that's what I wanted to do some version of either you know doing characters I didn't really know about stand up I wasn't one of these comics that
watch stand up religiously and only listen to comedy albums I think I started like listening to maybe like Janine Garofalo in high school or little Sarah Silverman but I never, I was never obsessively following like old stand up albums I didn't really know that you could do stand up
I didn't tell stories. I figured that was like more for like a clever quick monologue style joke writer which was never what I did I couldn't write those really quick kind of topical clean jokes I admire that ability I think it's very interesting but I'm more of a storyteller.
So, it wasn't really until I started after I moved to New York and started doing theater and acting and medic comedian that I was chatting with in a bar who he was like oh you could do stand up. Yeah.
I remember watching Tracy Almond when I was a kid and I'm 50 now what is it about her that has created such longevity in her career.
She's just so insanely talented I mean she played all these different voices and she did them so well and she picked up on those little weird things that you wouldn't notice about somebody something there.
I does a word choice I love weird word choices and strange effects and, and she was warm like she was silly she wasn't like trying to make some sort of like, I don't know, pious political point she was just, you know,
taking the piss out of thing just being funny being fun that's that's like always how I got into it like I don't want to teach anybody anything I feel like you should always start with like what's funny what makes you laugh and I feel like she just had that that innate
quality and that's the kind of thing that the stuff that would make you laugh when you were a kid when you were sitting around with your friends and you, you didn't think you were smarter than anybody else.
And I feel like that's what I try to stay in touch with the best I can doing stand up now.
I went to drama school years ago following a girl, she was in there doing the set design and so I got into drama school I don't know how, and spent a year realizing that I was probably one of the worst actors that ever grace the planet Earth.
But I found stunt work I was very good at the physical side and swords and all that and that's I ended up doing some alongside the fire service.
Talk to me about your journey into drama school and then how did you make that shift into comedy.
So I didn't do drama school I had a private coach, I was working at a store on Broadway called Star Magic and we sold like little rocks and stones and beads and things and I was 19 or probably like 19, and I sold these little things and then I
was like 25 25 an hour, some lady came in, said she was in with play Greece and she needed something for her co star john cicada.
And I sold her a necklace like a some kind of like cool chain for her co star she's very beautiful this like pretty blonde lady.
You know she just like smelled like money and success and I was like, fascinated that she was just like I'm an actress I'm like you can just say that and that's just what you do that's so cool you know.
And then I fired from Star Magic I had no idea, I was like my goal is just to be not homeless just to be homeless at best.
And I always thought it was gonna be some sort of great garden situation for me so I talked to her, she told me, I have this coach. Her name is Florence Winston.
She's amazing. She teaches the great plays she did her one woman show on Broadway it was called like woman, a theatrical portrait or something and so she's like Florence teaches in her apartment on Riverside Drive, and it's up.
Up town, and you go there for two hours, and you learn a piece of a play a piece of work, and you study it together. You play a piece of jazz.
You speak from the characters perspective and then you go back to the script, and it's just very clean nothing to do with the business I was just getting an agent is nothing commercial she was like an old school but hard as like you had to be there at 10am, you know,
10 to 12 and she spent two hours.
And she would wear this big like hat, and she would kind of look at you and when you didn't do something, when you made a choice that she didn't like you go that choices, Philca, there's a full gallery to it.
Try again, make a more noble choice with the character empathize with the character. And then she would, when she was a shoe kind of glare. And then when she went like this you're like, I got her.
She was like, everybody just wanted to make Florence like lift her eyes up like that and like, maybe lift up her weird hat that she were this like sort of strange hat or like a large cloak and she's like, ah, so you're just trying to get that one expression from Florence.
And she kind of taught me discipline. That was my college, I went there listen to a piece of jazz we tried to empathize with the character we started with Shakespeare I played Juliet but then I liked the nurse character better I liked the weird heinous affected
characters and then I started playing the nurse and gravitated more towards the weird ugly, you know, for, for a lack of a better word just would have been considered heinous at that time characters.
So, um, we did that.
And then I met this guy at a bar, I would have little performances just with the Florence Winston troop.
And then I met this guy at a bar who was a comedian, and we were just laughing and joking at this bar I don't think I was 21 yet when I met him I was just like pretend I'd like a fake ID or something at this Irish bar on the Upper East Side.
And I would just joke around and talk and hang there. And he told me I should do stand up.
And then he said there was a room, like a bar where comics were performing. So I had my manny job and I got I was like terrified all day to do my five minutes at this bar and then I went there and I think I had like four Jack and Cokes and I don't drink that much
like I was like violently drunk just because I was terrified. I went on stage, I don't even think I had the microphone pointed at my mouth I was just kind of aimlessly rambling.
But I was so excited afterwards I found out that I did a pretty bad job and I think they were pretty annoyed and nobody could really hear me because the microphone wasn't pointed at my mouth but I was like I can't wait to do this again.
And the girl that organized that room. Her name was Karen burgreen.
She's a very funny comedian and Karen said, well, there's this show at this place called Gotham Comedy Club and you have to bring three people to perform.
And you can go there at this time and they want you to bring three paid audience members they were called bringer shows and so I did a lot of those and I but I didn't have friends yet in New York so what I would do is I would go to that bar, it's called Sam Beckett's
it's closed long ago. I would go to Sam Beckett's, I would ask everybody in the pool team at the bar like hey I want to be a comedian.
And we come to my show and I remember this one guy Rufus on the pool team and he was so sweet. He was huge he was like morbidly obese but he loved pool and he had this cane.
And he's like I'll be there baby. I'll be there baby. And he was always there and he's the kind of like he was overweight where it was like, I can't imagine how much effort it was for Rufus to get his ass downtown and go to and step outside his comfort zone because he liked that
dim bar and he loved to play pool there and come and you know do what he said he was going to do and support this kid at her dumb dream. But Rufus was there every time.
Other people would be like we'll see you there, we'll come. They wouldn't be there and if you didn't have your three people you couldn't go on. But Rufus was always there and I always like want to thank him. I didn't know he was alive anymore.
I don't know his last name but I always think about Rufus and how he was always there and he was there nice and early and he bought his two drinks and he was just happy for me.
So what was the evolution then from you know kind of that first open mic experience through to developing the style of comedy that you ended up doing?
I think through the first open mic I guess was, I mean it was many many years of all sorts of different experiences.
I would do a lot of open mics, weird situations. I performed at laundry mats.
I had a room, I had a show at this bar called Mr. Biggs and Mr. Biggs was like this bar in midtown. I don't even know if it's open anymore. Anyway, the guy gave me 75 bucks.
And every Wednesday or something and he's like just put on a show at my bar, figure it all out, you get the mic, whatever. So I think I like borrowed a microphone from somebody and I paid the comics.
I think I had like 10 comics or something. I paid everybody. I split it up between everybody and we would go on for our five or ten bucks or whatever it was.
And we would do stand up if you could call that. It was people in a bar that wanted to drink and they don't think they wanted to listen to us and we would just stand on top of tables and like annoy them.
And so I remember there was this one time this guy from New York One came in and he was drinking at the bar.
And I was like, oh my god, that's Louis Dodley from New York One. And I was just like trying to do like crowd work with him and like I was so excited it was him and he was so annoyed.
Like he's just like, bitch, I just want to sit here and drink my whiskey and like drown. This is my little escape from like my life and my wife and my god knows whatever other things he needed to run away from poor Louis Dodley.
And I still felt bad that I was just sitting there bothering him. He was like, what's like? And I was like trying to work him at the bar.
And I recently did this interview at New York One. I got to apologize to Louis who didn't remember me at all. He's probably in a blackout.
But yeah, so I was doing all of those strange things, anything I could. And then I met some comedians that let me open for them on the road, feature for them on the road.
So when you feature on the road at that time, it was like, you know, you got you got to get yourself there.
So usually might make 600 bucks, but you spend it all on travel and your hotel. So I would go do all that, get my plane ticket, stay in places that were actively dangerous, like just forty six dollar price line hotels, and then try to use the rest for like food or whatever.
And and a couple of guys, John Heffron was one of them. He's a he would buy my plane ticket sometimes so that I wouldn't I'd be able to make a tiny bit of money.
And there were a couple different people like that. They had me open. Bill Burr had me open a few times. Todd Berry had me open.
So those people kind of gave me some of my first spots. And and then I got on this show called Last Comic Standing.
Oh, Jeff Ross also Jeff Ross on me. He gave me my first spot at an actual comedy club that wasn't a bringer show because they would sometimes have a famous comedian host the new talent night or whatever at this club called Caroline's that sends clothes.
So Jeff Ross was hosting one night. I remember my outfit. I had this crazy sneakskin pants that looked so dumb. I had a weird snakeskin pants on. I would just like try to dress like I don't know whatever.
I thought like probably I thought I was like looking like I try to copy like some sort of Eddie Murphy dangerous vibe. But it was also mixed with like some sort of I don't know whoring some sort of like fun loving horror.
I was trying to look like that. I probably saw on TV. Whatever I wore the weirdest outfits. It was either like overalls or like snakeskin pants.
Either it looks like a farmer or like a some sort of real estate agent in a porn. So I saw Jeff. Jeff watched my set. Jeff said you're good. I'm going to call Gina at this other comedy club which was in the West Village.
I'm going to get you an audition. And he called this lady and she said she put me up. She watched me. She was like he was like eight o'clock Friday night kid be there. And I was there. And thank God I did well.
And that was when I first got into a real comedy club. And then I got on last comic standing doing an open call audition for that. Probably the third time at audition.
There was so much failing so much failing just wild amounts of failure. So many times I was like weeping on the phone my brother my different friends.
So I think it was the third time I auditioned for last comic standing that I finally got on the show.
Many times it was just I they didn't want to do with me and I would just do some street weeping go back to my nanny job. But this time they wanted me on. I got on that show. I made it to the top five.
I think I was in the yeah I was the last woman on the show that season season 10 of last comic standing. And that enabled me to quit my day job which I really love to because I really love that kid.
We're still close with his family. So that was hard transition because I kind of felt responsible to him. He had autism. We were very close. And and I wanted to help him and I was trying to teach him this sort of facilitated communication.
So I stayed at that job very long even into when I was still featuring a lot because we had a real bond and I related to him and his struggle kind of to learn in school. He was at a wedding. He gave a little speech. He since went to Harvard.
He's he's really done amazing things in his life. He's very autistic. He has like the physical symptoms and the stimming but he's very brilliant.
So anyway we stayed in touch with that kid. I did stand up on last comic standing and that enabled me to headline. I wasn't opening for guys on the road. I wasn't in as many weird CD situations. Now it was like I was actually moving some tickets.
So that was exciting. So that was when I started headlining and then off the heels of that I got my first slowly. This all happened very slowly but probably like another year or two first half hour special on Comedy Central. And that's kind of that was my first big thing on TV.
Going to the caring that you did. What are some of the biggest myths when it comes to autistic young boys and girls or men and women?
Well what I was fascinated with with Danny was that when I first came to the house.
There was popcorn all over because you just sort of travel around his popcorn. Clap a lot. Jump to a lot of ticks a lot of stimming.
And he was nonverbal.
But he would they would use all these picture books he had very loving parents who would make these kind of books that were like menus of all these photographs and magazine pictures of things that he loved.
So when he wanted something he would bring over his cute little scrapbook. He's beautiful kid like flip through all the pages and points that he wanted.
So at this time he'd been diagnosed early on I took him around to a different therapist and stuff but and the parents were hopeful but in over their head with like how exhausting and hard it all is.
And a lot of sensory issues a lot of meltdowns and stuff. But at this point he was nonverbal when I started with him and the best kind of scenario that was being explained to them I think was that you know he'd be able to kind of calm down some of his physical impulses and and they get him into some kind of I don't know with a para or teaching attendance and kind of mainstream program.
But then I came to learn a little bit more about these ideas of facilitate information and facilitate communication where you use a communication device and you teach the kid to by calming the body sometimes even just holding their shoulders without leading them too much.
Teach them to kind of try to say what they're, they're thinking. So it started out when I started doing with him first was using flashcards so I would ask him a point to the flashcard that you use to get information from, and it would be, he'll point a computer and then it'd be like a more advanced
question like hey can you point to the, to the flashcard of people that are arguing and be like a bunch of different people in different situations.
Tell me who looks sad tell me who looks hopeful complicated emotional expressions and things like that and then it would be scenes and he was just getting everything right very quickly.
And I was like he's really smart. I just have a feeling he's really smart. And then he would get up and he would walk to the trash can. And sometimes what our goals would be very simple so it was like trying to understand what he, what he knows that he can't, you know, and then
also trying to get him to complete small physical loop so it'd be like get come to the trash can, throw this out, come back. I related to that, because that's what happened to me at school I would get to the trash can halfway through he would stop and he would just do this, and he was
stuck there and I was always stuck there. So I related to that so I feel like for me, I really related with and probably projected onto him so many, so many things in my childhood where it was like it was so hard for me to just sit still and finish something.
Sometimes I get all the way up to the finish point and then I couldn't push through so then we would do stuff like oh we would go to the trash can and back and I'm like oh my god he threw that out he came back I didn't help him.
And then he would go to walks around the neighborhood and do all of these things. And we had all that we started with what he loves right following his own impulses he love these fish in this lobby so we go to the lobby fish then we go to this, this deli he liked, and we
would get a sprinkle cookie we do all these different things he loved. And then I would just sit in the chair and say if you could do three things in a row so throw this out get it, you know, pick up your hamburger, have a bite do this now this is a million meltdowns in the middle
of the day I've been hit we got you know craziness had happened, but he got a little more in control of his own body, and he felt good about that that helped him feel confident. Then we started doing stuff that his father learned about this woman I can't remember her
name but she's Indian lady who taught her son all these different things by kind of ripping up all these pieces of paper and giving them all these little choices. And he should have very some that we consider very severely autistic and she taught him to
read and communicate and write sentences, then Danny started writing full sentences so could be a day of like, you're going to learn the word they, and then he started doing it on his own, all I had to do is sometimes hold his shoulders, then I would pull my hands back
and he was really actually typing and that was like so exciting. Then he was able to say stuff like something that bothered him and I remember one time we watched this movie.
It's a Helen Keller movie I can remember what it's what it's called but there's a scene with Helen Keller and her teacher and Sullivan, and Helen Keller is having a lot of difficulty learning something.
I mean, sorry sitting at the table, she can't sit at the table and the in the scene.
The parents just let her walk all around and drop food everywhere, because they're exhausted and they're the parents that's the hardest. It's always the hardest for the parents to teach in this kind of situation.
And then in this scene, the answer is not going to give up on her, she's going to sit at that table she's going to finish your dinner, and the scene is crazy. So she's pushing her down she's getting up there, things are flying off the table is complete and insane
chaos and foods being hurled everywhere. And Danny at this point was starting to write in sentences and I said what and then at the end, she sits down her teachers but is all messy, and it's chaotic, but she finishes her meal and they're both kind of angry with each other.
And then at the end of the scene I said, what did you think about that scene and he said, it's interesting, because it looks violent, but there's no violence only love and I was like, this is a kid that could barely say like one word you know and now he's saying these long complicated beautiful poetic
words, it's so exciting. So, I was in the middle of that with Danny and my career was launching off and I felt like I can't leave him at this very critical space, you know, but I ended up sort of slowly easing out while other teachers came in and he ended up doing great
work. And then I went to Harvard with with an attendant, helping him but he's really a brilliant kid and it was so satisfying to see that little. You never know you're like am I projecting all this, these complicated thoughts I think he's having on to him what's mine what's his.
So being able to hear him say that about that movie was amazing because I was like I didn't imagine it like what a beautiful lovely complicated insight and it was from him.
I'm not going to pronounce that question. It's interesting with with the, you know, adaptive and special needs communities as firefighters we don't get any training, you know, so you have you know a police officer that will grab someone with autism or, you know, you'll
you'll run on a person with Down syndrome not realize that their pain tolerance is you know 10 times what a regular person would be.
And sensory issues I love doing I get emotional whenever I talk about, but there's all these like sense sensory issues that you wouldn't be aware of to they're going on to and like they're so trapped inside their own bodies right.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well then, so we're going back to the comedy I one of the things I used to do when I was in university in London was go to the comedy store, it was mine I'll just go on my own, I call it master master dating, you just take yourself out.
It was just, I mean absolutely loved it so you transition from, you know, like you said laundrets and smoky bars, where for a comedian were the best places for the live shows ultimately.
For me, it's different for every comic I like, I love it doesn't really matter the city as much I do like New York crowds I like crowds in. I've had some good crowds in Texas Austin's been fun.
But the most important thing to me I find is a lot of Louisiana, one of the best shows my life recently they were great it was like sometimes it's just some a lot of very small factors a low ceiling, where they kind of feel intimate even a place I tape my
special Sony how they have a lower ceiling even though it kind of looks, it's very, it's a larger room is still there's an intimacy to the room and same with the other place I taught, I shot my special john Jay.
So I find that there's like a low ceiling, the acoustics are good. You're, you're not too separated from your audience for me that that's great.
I don't even know there's like a weird little third element that can be kind of magical when you're on the road and just, I don't I find that it definitely doesn't have to do with East Coast or West Coast and I do find that most people are pretty laid
back as audience members the uptightness the stuff people talk about about like overly woke culture people that are offended by everything that I see more evidence of that online, but I travel all over the world when I try play for real people and real
audiences. They don't really give a fuck they just want to laugh, and they don't care.
So I feel like that's a lot of things that are that's happening more I think online in the comments sections but real like working class people. They don't care. They don't get to offend it too easily. They're pretty cool.
I say the same thing about kindness, you know you watch the TV you watch your doom and gloom, you know choices on on social media. They'll convince you that we all hate each other that we you know the blacks are against the whites and the you know the straights are against the
gaze and, and then you walk out your front door and you're like wait a second there's not a race war going on. And I know people of all colors and creeds that their kids play together and they talk when they're walking their dog so where is this.
And of course it exists but it's a small section of society that's projecting itself on the rest of us.
I agree. Yeah, I don't think that you can learn what our societal problems are from like a Instagram because they'll tell you that we're more divided than we've ever been and that, you know, there's no common ground and or somebody will.
If you don't think this way then you know you're cruel. And if you don't agree, whatever all that shit I see more online, real people they don't give a fuck and they're tired and they want to laugh and they're like that's what's cool that stand up is like, is like, you talk some shit
about what you've been through, and hopefully make some fun of yourself and all your own weird, you know, failures and, and mistakes and somebody gets some sort of relief and you find some common ground, and I don't find that I rarely had people in shows,
freaking out about a word choice or.
Yeah, or anything like that.
And certainly firefighters because now my crowd is about half firefighters and they don't give a shit so people when the comments section be like can you believe that she's saying these things about her hero husband and, you know, so some people will get offended on behalf of
firefighters before my personal experience and I cannot speak for firefighters as a general group. They don't really give a fuck, like you're not going to say a lot to like a rattle, somebody that rolls their body into burning buildings, they're not going to be like, pissed off because I, you know, I don't know.
That I made some dumb joke about them. They don't care. They're the best. They're the best laffers like firefighter families and they're coming out like crazy now so I'm, I'm like, grateful that they have a sense of humor and that's probably a lot of what works in the marriage between my husband and me is like, you know, he infuriates me in a variety of ways that I detail on stage, but he can definitely take a joke.
Yeah, now firehouse humor is amazing and if you're talking about being offended if they put cameras inside fire stations, the world would lose their mind.
Yeah, we always joke about that because it's like the comedy sour table, you know, like we, when a normal person comes over, we always call them a civilian. So and so brought his like civilian girlfriend to the table last night like his comics just want to be deep animal pigs and say unspeakable shit to each other.
And I've heard that it's kind of similar at the firehouse I know even when I walked in and they before they even knew me as a comedian or anybody knew what I did and I was just Pete's appendage which I still am many of places that he's working.
They could feel the chemicals change in the room. And when a person is not a firefighter walks up to that table and it's the same feeling that the comedy star with some normal person comes up and we feel like we can't say unspeakable and saying shit to each other.
I definitely am grateful that that's kind of been the attitude I've gotten from firefighter families and I'm sure that somebody will watch this special and get offended by some said or tell me that I'm wrong for saying this or that or whatever.
I'm sure all that comments and emails and, you know, fuck it. That's all right.
What were some of the biggest misconceptions that you had about the fire service or firefighters that suddenly got debunked when you started dating one.
Well, I didn't know that they.
I didn't know how much they love the fires and just hurling their bodies into fires and except I figured it would be kind of like they enjoyed it but also maybe be more of a hassle.
I didn't know how much rival there either was and shit talk about when you don't get fires we're not in a good neighbor or gave her when you catch a lot of fire so my husband is like, yeah, that's like, that's like shit you can talk between firefighters if somebody is in some neighborhood where they don't get enough good jobs.
I didn't realize how much they love the fires.
And I didn't realize how much other weird annoying shit they have to do. So like, I know that like that was the person that's gonna like, you know, pull a fat guy out of a bathtub or something.
Oh, okay. As a firefighter. All right, I know that I know how many stock elevators were involved this might just be FDNY I don't know but the last stock elevator is, by the way, if you are afraid being stuck in an elevator, it happens like seven times a day so just hang out like, I don't know like, buy something on a so it doesn't matter, they're going to be there in like 15 minutes, he's always getting somebody out of an elevator.
I know how many car accidents they go to. And so there's in New York is like, you know, car accidents, stock elevators, overdoses, like so much other shit. You know, like if you have a seizure, there's going to be a fireman in shorts that you're going to see first.
All right, and then the medics will come but first you're just gonna be looking at a fireman, if you're coming out of a seizure and there's a guy there in blue shorts and you're in New York, it's, it'll be called the medics will be there in like two minutes. Yeah.
So every fire fires department is different from city to city but in New York so some places the EMT is a separate department. And in New York people say they do they we do the ABCs airway breeding and circulation so they come for like kind of stabilizing people and then, but where they want to be is deep inside a fire.
My husband told me we became chief that he wouldn't go into fires anymore. He lied, he was immediately in a fire within like two weeks so this big supermarket fire in Bushwick, and, and I he came home he's like I was awesome I got to knock out all these walls was awesome.
Gorgeous fucking tinderbox, they get upset to when somebody else gets their job there's like, oh, I just thought it was whoever got there first. No, that was our fucking job read the ticket.
I had no idea about that it's hilarious and fascinating to me. But there's a lot of politics around foyers and I don't know how much cake was involved, because in New York if you want to promotion you got to bring a cake there's cakes involved to in England, it's cakes,
I was a firefighter paramedic for 14 years so every time you get your city I didn't know that so I worked initially in the Miami area place go higher leah, then I'm California for a few years and then the around the Orlando area of the last 10.
And so yeah certainly higher leah like it was first everything you had to buy cake first fire by cake first extrication by cake, and you're a poor.
Yes. Yeah, so everything is communicated through cakes you guys want a promotion, you get a fucking pie, and there's different cakes mean different things oh so and so, you know, grandma's are you going to get him a sponge cake.
This guy's wife cheated on him, you know you got to get him an apple pie like whatever. There's different fucking cakes for different occasions and I'm always getting a cake I'm always in a car with my husband, getting a cake to bring to like some local command that you bring your
wife, you clean up nice, and you bring a fucking cake.
Why.
What about the infusion of what you were experiencing as a firefighter, you know girlfriend ultimately spouse into your actual material for your comedy.
Honestly, it happened pretty quick I was like there's a lot here. If I'm going to squeeze a Netflix special out of anybody is going to be using my husband's job.
I'm pretty fast it was funny I was like this is this is crazy. First of all, just his accent alone, like I have a joke about like they say for a foyer fiy a fida.
I was like a little kid trying to say what his daddy does like my dad he's a foyer fiy a fida, and I'm like, I met his brother his brother has no accent. I'm like, Pete, like, why do you speak like this his brother's like oh it's the firehouse so I was like, it, he has one of the thicker
accents I've heard. I can't tell if it's getting softer I'm more used to it but his brother has no accent whatsoever. So I didn't realize that either. And then, just like now Pete bought a house of Bitcoin they all love crypto here.
So, there's always like some firemen here fixing something in our house and I'm like Anthony is not a plumber, and, but he is, and I'm like there's a reason he's pacing outside smoking when we're getting an inspection, because he doesn't want to fucking his captain to fail his
inspection.
He can't he's like, I'm going to mess up the plumbing in my cat's house.
And then, I'm like Pete, don't you think that's not a good sign that he's pacing outside, because he's not a plumber. Can we please hire it's like the mafia everything's inside the fire department, you got to hire inside every day everybody's got a guy everybody's got a guy, and
nothing gets finished, because they've always got another 24.
And I was like, when is this gonna like we Pete gutted the house while I was living inside of it, I almost lost my mind just pulled the walls off our house and I was like, oh, he's like we're going to re insulate the house and I'm like re insulate what, like, when Thursday, like I don't know
I'm like a chew from Bethesda and I explained later that like re insulating means gutting a house. I was like, oh, and where am I going to be, he's like here, upstairs.
And that's what happened just for firemen just ripped out my house and rebuilt it while I was living in it with a two year olds, and I have so have like a twitch because of that.
Are there any other comedians that talk about the fire service specifically or was this kind of new material that you brought to the world of comedy.
I'm sure there are there was one woman I met who her name is Christine. I gotta remember her last name. Anyway, there's got to be another comedian that talks about, I know there is at least one that was married to a firefighter I think she's a Boston comic I can't remember her
last name she's Sarah called lovely and I'm gonna remember later and messaged it to you but she told me that she. I worked with her once and she told me she was married to firefighter, and I saw her stand up that day on the show, and it was really good.
I don't think it's that common. There's not a lot of comedians, it's firefighter marriages that I don't have.
Well, another interesting parallel when I talked to a lot of the people in comedy was some of the basic the mental health struggles they saw in their own profession and we're obviously aware of comics that we've lost through to you know addiction and some other things.
And you know my profession, it's the same thing now arguably there are some similarities probably, you know, childhood trauma on both sides.
Kind of messed up hours when it comes to sleep deprivation conversation. What have you observed in your profession specifically about that element.
There is a lot of mental health issues with comics yeah I mean we're not well there's a reason we need to like hold a room full of people. We basically hijack a room so that people will listen to our points that we need to make, we're not people that were listened to
nobody heard me out early on otherwise I need wouldn't need to like hijack strangers to make sure I got a word in.
People that felt misunderstood, people that needed people to understand something they didn't understand. People that couldn't let go people pleasers, all kinds of stuff.
Now with that building on that so you big guy is the latest special that you've got obviously that's just just being released on Netflix this week.
Is there a sense of satisfaction or you know because some people obviously they chase and chase and chase and feel fulfilled, unfulfilled constantly. Was there a point where you started kind of feeling that it was being nurtured of some of the elements that you struggled with when you were younger.
Definitely just last year on the road, seeing these like firefighter families come out it's been very cool. A lot of the guys bring me their challenge coins, bring me gifts t shirts just for what like telling some jokes saying twad a couple times I mean, I don't deserve these
gifts, it's very moving. They're lovely to my whole family.
They've done all kinds of wonderful stuff for us. Also there's a foundation that I work with here called friends of firefighters and they offer free therapy and mental health services to all of FDNY. FDNY, you can get therapy through the fire department itself, but sometimes the guys don't feel comfortable doing it that way and they want to do it outside of the job.
And this offers therapy also to their entire entire families completely free. Friends of firefighters that's in downtown Brooklyn so I do stuff with them. But yeah, this last year, just seeing how many people came out was pretty cool.
And it's a very, seeing that like this hour, I feel like is getting through to more people. I don't know why, but it feels good. Will I be able to hold on to it? Probably not. I'll read some dumb comment from some guy on YouTube that will get in my head and I'll develop some new physical insecurity but today feels good.
I had Nancy Carbone on the show a couple times talking about friends of firefighters.
Yes, I love Nancy. Nancy is a good friend of mine. You know, we have wine here in Queens and hang out and yeah she's incredible. I love Nancy. Yeah, and the cool thing is she's done Nancy is that she has firefighters in her building, and it's built in a, I'm sorry, she has her mental
building in an old firehouse as an inoperative so the guys feel at home it feels like their firehouse kitchen. And there's a lot of firefighters that work with them and and do other programs to and suicide prevention programs and she just knows how to make it feel like a good hang.
And not to feel weird and make everybody comfortable and she listens to like what it's going to take to do that. She's very smart.
And in fact as well they have a lot of retirees working there. So now, you know, because I think that's that's the population that we kind of failed a little bit you know the door comes down on your last shift and a lot of people that's it and certainly in the departments
I've worked for there's no health insurance, you know you there's nothing you're done, and there's no VA for firefighters you know there's no one taking care of you after beating yourself up for 2030 years.
So I think bringing our retirees back in and give them a sense of purpose to make them feel like they're still in the tribe I think is very important.
Very important because that's your whole world forever like if I had to stop doing stand up I would be unwell I just be rocking in a window like chain smoking glaring strangers, I would not be okay, they need to, they need to do something.
That's the other thing that I realized about firefighters and not still ever my husband is always like just spring some spot in the line like he can't sit down.
He's always doing something that doesn't need to be done, just like painting repainting some piece of furniture some confusing heinous colors because he can't be still. And it's like that when you retire because you don't have the kitchen table.
Yeah, well jittery. We are too. I get that. Yeah, absolutely. I will one more area and then we'll make sure everyone knows where to find big guy.
When it comes to the performance so the singers the comedians that I had on the show. One area that seems very apparent even though there's an element of fame and obviously the financial part.
It seems like a lot of people don't enjoy the actual touring element that being away from the family. What is that that kind of experience so far with you in comedy.
It's very hard for me, a lot of times I bring Pete and Frankie my daughter, we all go together as a family but it's, it's really confusing to juggle it all between his 24 hour shifts and my schedule and to figure it all out so I'm really praying that with this special.
I can get to the place where I can afford to bring a nanny and case piece on the job so that I don't have to trust a babysitter that I don't know in a weird city.
When I'm on stage, and I can't, and I don't have to be away from my daughter I'm away, only usually two days at a time like Thursday, Friday or Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but I try to bring them every time I can and I just I don't want to.
I don't want to have to go away for another long weekend without her and she loves it when she comes like she loves the hotels she has a blast piece into it because you know your job is like it's like unexpected that weird things being hurled at you he's he always says he's going to write a book about the fireman's
review of green rooms. I'm like I think there's a real supply and demand issue with that book but he's gonna be like, yeah, I'll do like a fire fighters review of every green room in this country.
It's a good coffee table book. So he loves the great room and like hanging out and five comics like firefighters because it's like they're not there's no crossover they don't want anything the other one has, you know, they're great laughters, and, you know, most comics I know are not.
Yeah, they're not trying to do anything a firefighter trying to do. So they get on pretty well to go hang.
So big guys on Netflix, where else can people find your other work and are there any websites or social media handles to point people to as well.
Rachel Feinstein underscore
my page Rachel Feinstein is a punch if you go punch up live I have a page there a lot of comedians have a page there with my tour dates also at Rachel dash Feinstein calm.
Yeah, I guess that's it. Sorry, you can edit that make it condense it I'm getting like messages that are distracting me but yeah, Rachel last feinstein.com Rachel feinstein underscore.
You could go to my other touring page which is like to my Instagram and Facebook and watch the special big guy streaming now on Netflix I think it's in the top five today.
Well, I want to thank you so much I know you've been pulled from 1000 directions because of the release so thank you so much for carving out an hour and taking the time coming on the behind the shield podcast today.
Thank you.