Michele Norris You grew up in Massachusetts. Do I have that right?

Pete Holmes You do. Lexington, Massachusetts. Birthplace of the American Revolution. You're welcome.

Michele Norris Okay. All right. Thank you, I guess.

Pete Holmes No. You owe a great debt to me and everyone who's ever lived in Lexington. Well, we were talking briefly off mic. That is where the shot around the world happened on the Battle Green in Lexington. Which is, you know, it's a park.

Michele Norris It's near the end of that park.

Pete Holmes Yeah, it's near the CVS.

Michele Norris I've heard many campaigns and politicians like to go to that park.

Pete Holmes Oh, as they should.

Michele Norris Mhmm so describe your New England community. Walk me down the street to the front door of your house. And if I came in through the foyer and made my way to the kitchen, what would that look like?

Pete Holmes Oh, well, it's an old Victorian house, is the house that I grew up in, so it looked a little, scary. All my friends were scared of my house, I wasn't.

Michele Norris Oh, wait, what's the story there?

Pete Holmes They were just scared of my house. It's a big old Victorian house. It just looks like a haunted house. There was no, like, circumstantial reason to be afraid of my house.

Michele Norris Other than just like The Last House on the Left, it just looked like.

Pete Holmes Well, yeah. In fact, if you watched, like, The Amityville Horror...

Michele Norris I was just thinking of how many villains. Yeah, that was a big white Victorian house.

Pete Holmes Victorian houses have bad marketing because, you know, they're old. So those are going to be the haunted houses, I suppose. You had a porch. We had a porch. And there was an extension that my father built, on the back part of the house, which is very cool. But nobody wanted to do sleepovers at my house because they just thought it looked haunted. But if we walked in, you'd see my parents love of antiques, so you'd see a roll-top desk. My father loved roll-top desks because it is what he would say. And there was a whole room that you couldn't go in that was called the antique room.

Michele Norris Roped off or something. Or did they just, don't you dare go in there.

Pete Holmes It was like an invisible fence for dogs. There was no roped off, but we had been shocked enough times to not go past there. You know, you could go and you just couldn't touch anything. It wasn't fun. They had, like, a horsehair sofa.

Michele Norris That sounds sticky, like. Oh, a little bit.

Pete Holmes The whole thing is an exercise in just like none of this is working, it doesn't make you happy. You don't like it. Why are you doing it? Like, well, like horsehair. So, it's a good metaphor for the entire house. Like, let's just get a nice, comfortable sofa. They're like, no, we have a horse. Here's our house. This is me. Realizing, our house was a horsehair sofa. Like we could have streamlined it and made it cozy and welcoming, but it was an uncomfortable, sticky. And you're right, it was sticky. Who's ever touched a horse's tail and been like, I need this fabric. Yeah, no, they just wanted it because no one else had it, I don't know.

Michele Norris Wait, so to the kitchen, was the kitchen the one comfortable space or did it also have like an old-fashioned white stove, you know, kind of Victorian vibe?

Pete Holmes You know, the kitchen. I wouldn't call any part of the house welcoming or hobbit like or warm. But there is something sweet I could say, which is that my father knew my mom liked to cook, and when they redesigned the house in a very loving gesture, made a very, for the 80s and 90s, modern kitchen, which just meant it had an island, there was a cooking island surrounded by countertops and the stoves and stuff, and there was a lazy Susan, which was cutting-edge technology. You know, I used to love showing my friends where we kept the peanut butter because on this little rotating thing, very again, that was the future. We didn't know about AI and wireless internet. We were just rotating a drawer.

Michele Norris Happy with a lazy Susan.

Pete Holmes It was so happy with a lazy Susan and a big pantry. You know, which is just a walk in, you know, food closet. But like these, these were the cutting edge of the, of the 90s. And my mom had that. And, I think I like questions that help me remember kindnesses because my parents, you know, still don't really get along. They're still together. But, like, there are these gestures. And the the kitchen was one of those gestures. It was like, I know you like cooking and I'm going to do that for you.

Michele Norris That's lovely. Did it make her happy?

Pete Holmes No. What do you nuts? I'm a comedian. What do you think? You think comedians grow in happy soil? No.

Michele Norris There might be moments.

Pete Holmes Yes, I'm joking. There are, of course, were moments of happiness. And I do have moments, I have memories of my mom. You know, not twirling in the kitchen, but, you know, looking at it the first time and being really thrilled that she had. I remember the island being a really. Special thing to her was that she had her space.

Michele Norris Julia Child had an island.

Pete Holmes Well, my mom was obsessed. Yeah, obsessed with Julia Child. And for her birthday one year, I got her a framed, it was from the Boston Globe, I'm from Boston, and it was a story of Julia Child. And she just loves that woman. And it's still up in her kitchen. They've moved from this house that I consider the house I grew up in. But that Julia Child thing made the move and is still up in the in the new house. So yeah, you're right on. She loves Julia Child. She wanted to have that sacred space.

Michele Norris So tell me a little bit about your mom and your dad. Your dad was an oilman, and your mom was a refugee from Lithuania.

Pete Holmes Yeah. Good combo. Classic combo. The old oil man meets the refugee from World War two. Lithuania. That old trope. But my my mom and my dad met, and I think they had both. It's safe to say I hadn't met anyone quite like the other. I think that's definitely true. My father is a very gregarious and charismatic, likable, funny, larger than life person. And one of the things that's unique about him was that he really had, like an appetite for for bigger things. He was like an adventurer and he wanted more. He he he didn't. I don't think this is unique to Boston, but a lot of people are kind of like from their neighborhood, and they stay in their neighborhood and they might kind of work what's familiar and, and do and my dad wanted to know the old man who owned the mansion on the hill, like he wanted to go and talk to him. And he had the kind of personality that could go and talk to those entrepreneurs. And then his father died when he was quite young, and his mom not long after that. And he he's really like an American Dream story. But my father was that kind of guy. He could pitch. You know, I want to buy properties in Somerville and Cambridge, and I want to this. This was new. There weren't people that were, like, flipping things, you know? It wasn't. There wasn't like.

Michele Norris This was before. Like all those house shows on.

Pete Holmes Exactly where my father got it. I don't know, like, he must have just he had a sense for it. He was like, somebody owns these buildings and and I really.

Michele Norris It might as well be me.

Pete Holmes They might as well be me. And I admire that. He had that thirst for something more. And then my mom kind of fell into that was, here's this woman from Lithuania who's just not like the girls from Boston. My mom moved to, South Boston when she was seven, so she was very much from Boston. But, you know, seven years in Lithuania, that's enough to kind of get a different flavor to you. And she was incredibly and is incredibly no nonsense. And she's very, very smart and very, very emotionally intelligent and also just deeply, wickedly funny. So I think my father was intrigued by this, you know. Off the menu person. It wasn't just another from the neighborhood girl. And also, she didn't take his, crap, you know, she she gave him guff, and I think he liked that. And then they got married, and. And away we go.

ACT 2 CULTURE

Michele Norris What was your, if I may ask, what was your mother running from? What was her family fleeing in Lithuania?

Pete Holmes You know, that's not entirely clear to me. Because it wasn't entirely clear to my mother. And as it's kind of been revealed, some gaps have been filled in. I know my mom's brother became a freedom fighter for Lithuania. Like, And it's very tragic. He he got captured and he was, killed by a firing squad, which of course is. Yeah, deeply traumatic. So there's a lot of sadness in my mom's side of the family. Her mother and her father had to deal with that, loss. She had to deal with that loss. And, of course, it makes me so grateful for. The modern world, how aware we are of of therapy and just in our language like you need to process that and and that must have been hard for you. That wasn’t.

Michele Norris No one was talking about processing things. That was just not part of our vernacular or the way we lived back then.

Pete Holmes Yeah. You kind of you had to eat it to a certain extent. And I think, you know, that's where a lot of my mom's sharpness came from. I think she was a survivor. And South Boston, you know, Boston is the only not the only place, but it's it's really elevated it to an art, the way white people can be racist to other kinds of white people. So, you know, Boston is a trouble, troubled place.

Michele Norris It’s a city of fiefdoms.

Pete Holmes It's a yeah, yeah, it's tricky, but they'll they'll divide on themselves. Look, it's all nasty. It's all ugly. But, you know, the the Irish hate and then the Lithuanian hate and whatever it might be. So my mom got, like, rocks thrown at her and was just sort of othered. And that was very hard for her. And that brings us to my father again is I think my dad wanted something different, and my mom wanted something that would help her belong in her country. So they both got. I think they both got that. Again, I'm not an authority on this. This is how I understand my parents story.

Michele Norris Yeah, but you know, there are you see your parents, as you get older, you start the it's almost like a Polaroid that keeps developing. You get older, you sort of understand aspects of their life and their marriage and it's like, oh, okay, now this makes sense. This didn't make sense. But as I get older, become a parent myself.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris Mortgage myself.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris Things start to make sense.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris I wonder I've read a lot about, the so-called refugee kitchen, that people who come to America from somewhere else and often with a single bag, you know, are fleeing something. That refugee personality sometimes evolves in the kitchen and that, you know, the kitchen is a place of plenty, because when they first came to a country like this, there was so much that was uncertain. Or the kitchen becomes a place where we're going to work it out because they came from a country where they weren't allowed to do that or, liberty of thought winds up being so much, so important in the lessons that they pass on because they came from a place where there was no liberty of thought. I'm just wondering if that if you experienced any aspect of a refugee kitchen.

Pete Holmes Boy, as you said that. It just warmed my heart. But I, to be completely honest, I always felt a little bit excluded, from those movies and stories and plays. Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind, this idea of like. But we know how to eat. What are the tricky things about my family is we really felt like four individuals, and we didn't have a lot of tradition, and we didn't have a lot of ameshment with with one another, necessarily, and with the idea of our culture. It was like it was people that were trying to redefine themselves. I don't think it was conscious, but it wasn't a complete denial of it. There were Lithuanian things and there was Lithuanian food, but there wasn't. Okay, I guess a better answer maybe would be on Christmas Eve. My aunt Jean, who passed, and my cousins Raymond and John and my mom and our family, obviously my dad, we would have like a very traditional Lithuanian Christmas. And now that I'm older, I'm looking back. I'm like, it's a very Catholic Christmas. We weren't Christmas. There was like fish and there were like, quahog's, you know what a quahog is?

Michele Norris It's a kind of clam, isn't it?

Pete Holmes Yeah, it's like a stuffing filled clam, but it's clam stuffing.

Michele Norris But it's spelled like Q-U-A-H.

Pete Holmes Yes.

Michele Norris It doesn't. It's not spelled like it sounds.

Pete Holmes No, it's the name of the town and family guy, which is a fictional town in Rhode Island called Quahog because it's very New England. It's served in this enormous clam shell, and it's like a clam stuffing. I didn't know until years later that this was agress- not aggressively but aggressively Catholic kind of traditional. You know, it's we don't eat meat on Christmas Eve or on Friday kind of thing.

Michele Norris Something almost like feast of the Seven Fishes. Like a version of that.

Pete Holmes Fairy. Yeah, exactly. And you know. I think both me and my brother had. You know, we loved being American. We loved being like Bart Simpson. We didn't have an extreme connection to really anything. But as we got older, we got more curious about our Lithuanianess. And, you know, my brother, more than me, was like, why didn't you teach us Lithuanian? Like, there's almost like a a retroactive. We would have liked having a culture like us. But again, my mom's to have some compassion. Me not not you, obviously. Me, my mother and her association to Lithuania was so fraught that I don't think it was like a warm, safe place for her. It was the place where her brother died, you know. And she was running from it. As much as I don't know if those are the words she would use. It wasn't Fiddler on the roof. It wasn't. Let me teach you about our ways. So when we got these little tastes of ceremony and ritual and and, you know, when we were young, the table, the all the stuff that we had on Christmas Eve was so, you know, kind of gross. And then as I got older, I started to really appreciate it. It was a lot of beets. There's exactly what you're thinking. It was a lot of beats. There's a lot of smoked fish. It was a lot of pickled fish.

Michele Norris Herring?

Pete Holmes There was herring. There was eel. We would eat eel, like just a slice of eel. Like you knew what it was. It was a you were eating an eel off the bone, and then later it got kind of fancy. She would steam my aunt Jean, would steam lobsters in the dishwasher.

Michele Norris Wait wait whoa. Back it up. Back up.

Pete Holmes Back it up.

Michele Norris Steam lobsters in the dishwasher.

Pete Holmes Yeah. Apparently you can cook lobsters if you put them on the steam setting in the dishwasher. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know what. I didn't know either. And that started that was maybe the last 4 or 5 years. That was a later addition. But we would eat dishwasher, we would eat dishwasher, lobster.

Michele Norris I want to try this now. I actually want to try this. What does your dishwasher smell like? Lobster like for a long time after that? Do you have to, like, run lemons or something through it? Exercise it so you get the lobster smell out of it.

Pete Holmes I think you need a little cascade. Just run one with no dishes in there just to get the smell out. Probably. I mean, lobster is no joke. There's. There's a definite aroma.

Michele Norris Yeah, a definite odor.

Pete Holmes Yeah, but, you know, is a steam is a steam. That's not what we said, but it's what we could have said. A steam is a steam.

Michele Norris Restaurants do this if it, you know, they just get a bunch of dishwashers. As much of kitchen aides back there and steam the lobsters.

Pete Holmes Yeah. I mean, it's so funny when.

Michele Norris It's kind of brilliant though. Have you ever done a lobster in the dishwasher?

Pete Holmes We've never used our dishwasher for anything other than washing dishes, but as as we're talking, I'm like, are we missing out a whole angle?

Michele Norris I'm married to a man who loves seafood. And so upon hearing this episode, I have a feeling that we're going to be doing this in our house.

Pete Holmes Honestly.

Michele Norris Honey, you know what you've done? You have kicked off a viral TikTok thing.

Pete Holmes Yeah. There you go. You're going to be.

Michele Norris Like steam in there. Lobsters and crab legs all over the place.

Pete Holmes There you go.

Michele Norris And you will take. You know we'll all credit it to you.

Pete Holmes Well, to Aunt Gene full respect. To the OG gin. Old Gene. Original Gene.

Pete Holmes Well, when we set this up, I was like, oh, I don't have that many interesting things to say. I'm like, oh no, you're a good interviewer. We do, we do. We had dishwasher, lobster and stuff. We called the pink stuff, which was like a beet salad, like kind of a mayonnaise, the beet thing, a lot of beets. And that that brought me to my mom's dishes was first and foremost was, was beet soup, which was, like borsch, very similar to borscht, but somehow it was Lithuania. I don't know what what it had or it didn't have. And this really brings me back is you would put a just a spoonful of sour cream in it. I'm salivating. So is this pink, very dark pink soup with the beat. Stock beat beat. You know, the beet root? The beet greens. And beets obviously just sliced beets and I think it had beef in it or something like that. But the part that made it. Like beautiful. Like literally like physically beautiful was the sour cream wouldn't quite mix in. So kind of like looked like a snowy day in a pink atmosphere, like on Mars or something. And God, that was just so good. And you know, I'm grateful for this conversation because as much as I like to tease my family and like we were all crazy and we were, I have very fond memories of eating that with my mom and like, without talking about it. So this is a little fiddler. But appreciating that we both knew it was something from her. You know, this was as close as we came.

Michele Norris This is a piece of me.

Pete Holmes Yeah, this is a piece of you, and we're eating it. And I remember being proud that I liked it. No shade on my brother, but my brother was a was a picky eater, and I wasn't. And I would eat the co-op eggs, and I would eat the dishwasher lobster, and I would eat the, the beet soup and I would eat. Now, you know, the most recent one my aunt Jean passed. But when the last time we were there, I ate the herring. I ate all the like I told, I went full Bourdain and I was like, give it, give all of it to me. And I think I was even vegan at the time. I'm a vegan now, but like, I was vegan then and I put the vegan ism, which I firmly stand behind, I put it aside. I was like, look guys, this is already dead. There's no ethic that I can have that's going to save this eel. So I'ma chomp it. And I did, and I'm so glad I did. And in the same way that when I go back, again, still a vegan, my mom makes this apple pie that's like in a sheet tray, like in, a casserole dish. And it's got the thickest cookie like crust on top of it. And I used to help her make it. I would peel the apples and she'd slice them, and she'd put them down, and you bake it. But I can't stress enough how thick that crust is. It's like the thickest, thickest, stickiest. It's incredible. It's like it's it's unbelievable. And veganism goes away when that, when my mom.

Michele Norris Because there's a lot of butter, a lot of dairy products. Or is it lard.

Pete Holmes I believe it's butter. Yeah. It's it's, it's it's butter. I'm pretty sure it's butter.

Michele Norris Ok because it could be lard also.

Pete Holmes Which, you know, even more offensive to my vegan brethren.

ACT 3 + MIDROLL

Michele Norris It sounds like you grew up in an in an interesting household. You've said you've done comedy about this. You've talked about it many times that your your mom and dad had some tensions. Yeah, but you were particularly close to your mom.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris Was that in part because you weren't trying to protect her from anything physical? But did you feel like you were? In some ways, it's interesting. I talked to Jeff Tweedy. He said almost the same thing.

Pete Holmes Oh, wow.

Michele Norris That he, you know, he was really close to his mom because he just felt she needed a buddy.

Pete Holmes Yeah. That's correct. You know, it's interesting. My therapy lately has been uncovering all of this. All of these good things I thought I'm doing kind of like somatic, internal family systems work. And I'm going in and talking to my inner child, and I'm sort of new to it. But the first thing is he's been showing me is, is sort of like all of these good parts of it. Not not necessarily, stuff with my folks, but like a feeling and feeling safe and and feeling happy. So I want to give respect to that. And just as compassionately and hopefully even handedly, I can say my mom and I had each other and and needed each other and, and that sort of got a little chunky. Funky. When. The roles just get a little blurred, you know, to Jeff. And I know he would agree, Even if there's something lovely and necessary about finding refuge in one another, it gets a little complicated later in life when you go, like, I didn't want to be, up here. I wanted to be your child, you know what I mean? And that. And that's okay. We can we can explore that and unpack that with love and understanding. But a lot of my adult life has been like, you know, oh, sweetheart, talking to myself, that couldn't have been easy. To basically be like an ally. Like. Like, you know, it sort of blurred the line to, like, a father, a friend and sort of like a non-romantic husband. Or you could even say, like a girlfriend would gossip about my dad would talk shit about me, like, what are we doing? Like, I that's my dad's like, this is so confusing. But we did what we did. We did what we did because it's what we needed to do to survive later in life. We look back and we go, what's that appropriate, Not… And that's a conversation for that point in your life. But we bonded hard, sort of any port in the storm. And we helped. We helped one another and we did. And my mom was incredibly generous and loving. And was there for me. Yeah.

Michele Norris Yeah. You should go back and listen to Jeff's episode.

Pete Holmes Oh, really?

Michele Norris Yeah, yeah. He talks about sitting up late at night with his mom.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris Drinking Coca-Cola and watching late night TV. Because she want someone to sit with her?

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris It was a beautiful conversation.

Pete Holmes If that might be triggering for me, I appreciate that. To use the hot word triggering? I just mean it. It got a little. I wish it was that man. I don't have thoughts like that. I have thoughts of comforting a mourning and traumatized person every day of my adolescence. I shouldn't have been in that position. I'm saying this for the people listening, by the way.

Michele Norris Yeah.

Pete Holmes I'm not saying this to get out anger or revenge. I'm just saying I know there are millions of people that relate to what I'm saying. It wasn't watching late night TV and sharing a laugh. It was comforting a hysterical person. While no one was helping. And me feeling like, Who's comforting me?

Michele Norris That at the time. Or do you feel like when you look at the young version of Little Pete, I'm wondering who is comforting him?

Pete Holmes That's a great question.

Michele Norris I just feel like a natural thing to do. Because we don't have boundaries in the same way that we do as we age.

Pete Holmes No, you're no, you're right on. And you're very, you're very wise because I don't think that's a grown up thought. Who's comforting me? I didn't know any different. And that was the pattern that we had fallen into. But later you go and that's literally what the therapy I'm doing now is going back and and asking things like. I think we want to, you know. It's over. That's a very New England thing. I don't know if it's unique to Boston, but like, why would you open that can of worms is a big thing. And I'm a huge believer in like people think it's stoic or brave or courageous to push away the past and just forge forward. And I'm like, you're not courageous. That's the opposite of courage. And I don't think it's masculine. I don't think it's admirable. I always say to those people that are just like, God, just keep moving forward. I'm like, your pain would destroy you, glory. That's what you think. So really courage is in the opposite direction. And by the way, if you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for every human relationship you have. If you think it's nave. Yeah, well, that's the other Boston thing.

Michele Norris You’re getting the result of your decision to say it's merely a flesh wound and just you know, press on.

Pete Holmes Exactly. And the Boston voice in me is like, that's too indulgent. It's navel gazing. And I'm like, it's the opposite of indulgent. If you want.

Michele Norris Big Boston tough thing.

Pete Holmes Yeah, don't look at it. And if you did look at it, you're somehow being indulgent. And I'm like, it's literally way more courageous to look at it. And it's literally the most generous thing you can do, if you'd like. When I am with my daughter and I'm with my wife and we're present and we're there and we're available to one another, that is the direct result of of me looking these things in the eye. It's not running away.

Michele Norris You're a wise man.

Pete Holmes Well, you brought it out of me.

Michele Norris Now, I know that you're a wise man. And you're a funny man. At what point did you realize that you were funny and was part of that, making your mom laugh?

Pete Holmes I, yeah.

Michele Norris Oh, making the kids laugh at school to get accepted. At what point did you realize I have this gift? I'm very funny. I can make people laugh. I can change the atmosphere. I can change the temperature in a room.

Pete Holmes Wow, that's so generous. It's a very generous question. I you said all of the answers in your question. I watched how my father would take over a room. That's my father's magic. Is it when he goes in a room, he becomes, in a very fun way, the center of gravity.

Michele Norris Is he a big man? Is it his space or he does it with his personality?

Pete Holmes He is big. He's six two, maybe six three. And he's loud and he's funny and he's handsome and he's just persuasive. And he can lock on to somebody. When I say a good salesman, I don't mean a trickster. I mean somebody that can, you know, a good salesperson is somebody who can see your need and then address it. But I saw my father doing that, and I saw the power and more importantly, I saw how people liked it. I really think, watching my father take over rooms. And then I recognized pretty quickly that, you know, they call it the gift of gab or whatever, but what really the gift of gab is, which you and I are both doing it. It takes me absolutely no effort to put this sentence together. I'm not I'm not bragging, just a certain type of lingual structuring of the brain. And when I was in high school, I know I started to notice that not everybody was that way. And what I identified the talent of being funny. Yeah, there's being funny. There's like, you know, acquiring and cultivating a sense of humor based on influences based on trial and error. But there's also the talent of it, really, to me, at least in my case, was an ability to think while I'm talking. And that's what I'm doing when I'm doing stand up is, is an ability to. Know the whole thing and calmly. Deviate. Stay. Linger. Add. Subtract. That's actually what's going on when you're doing comedy more than being funny. If that makes sense.

Michele Norris And you have used in your comedy your own life. You talk about your faith. You talk about your family, you talk about an early divorce and your first marriage. Is that necessary for comedy to mine your own life, to dig deep inside your own life and your own soul to create comedy that is authentic>

Pete Holmes You're so good. Stop it! You're so good.

Michele Norris Well, you know, I ask that because you mentioned there's a different kind of comedy when people are willing to, to actually go there.

Pete Holmes I completely agree, and I started in comedy thinking this would be another way to kind of whitewash and, and you could present yourself however you wanted. And so the first ten years really was me trying to prove in bars and smoky places that I was clean and that I was gentle and I was nice, and I wasn't greedy and I wasn't selfish and I wasn't afraid, and at that time in my life, I knew what God was, and I knew who was going to heaven and who was going to hell. And I just wanted to kind of twinkle like a, like a toothpaste commercial. That's, you know, that's a huge part of the beginning of, of life, kind of doing an impression of who you think you're supposed to be. And then after my divorce, I got a crash course in kind of, finding what's what's deeper and more interesting now I love your question, because when I, I can feel very protective of comedy as a whole. And when I see comedy, which is pretty often meaning if I'm on a show, I'm watching the other people. And my little dark, little or little mischievous game that I'm playing when I'm watching a lot of other people doing comedy, is they'll be like, they'll say something and they'll be like, I was at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I would be like, no, you weren't. You know what I mean? Because I know they weren't like so much of it. It's like, no, you weren't. That didn't happen. That's not true. And I could be wrong, but. 90% of the time. I bet I'm right. Meaning, even if it's not circumstantial, I'll go. That's not how you feel. That's the first draft of how you feel. And it will haunt me. I actually don't like watching comedy very much because I'll work on it just as a hobby. I'll be driving home working on their bit.

Michele Norris Oh right, so you're critiquing other people.

Pete Holmes I won't. I won't tell them because that's not my place unless they're a friend of mine. But like, there are people that do jokes in there. Like it was like this and I'm like, no, it wasn't. And I'll want to come up with the metaphor just as a human, as a human being, meaning a shared human experience. I'm like, there's no way that's how you feel.

Michele Norris You really are an empath.

Pete Holmes I am very empathetic. Yeah, I'm a super empath and I'm a highly sensitive person, and I am. This is going to sound however it sounds. It's going to, it'll sound how it sounds. I'm sort of. It's almost to the point of disgust, but it's more anger at things that aren't real. Like, I don't know if you know the Enneagram. I'm right down the middle. I'm an Enneagram four and a three. But a four is like, give me that real, give me that depth. And I can't stand that when people are surface or they're not taking some sort of chance. It's like what we were doing earlier. It's like I'm like, oh, do I want to talk about comforting my sobbing mom? I'm like, that's the only thing we're here to do. That's the only thing we're here to do. And I'm thinking about people in their cars listening to this and that warm feeling you get when you're touched and you feel less alone. What is the price of making all of us or some of us feel less alone? I'm like, that is the cream of the crop right there? Is everyone leaving, feeling less alone? That's what comedy, that's what art is and I, yeah. Yeah, I think you get it.

ACT 4

Michele Norris What did you experience in that childhood kitchen that lives in you today?

Pete Holmes High cholesterol (laughs).

Michele Norris Okay. All that sour cream?

Pete Holmes Sour cream. Saturated fat. Um.

Michele Norris And it doesn't have to be food. I just wonder if there's something that you saw that you ate, that you absorbed, that you witnessed in the kitchen, that lived with you today and and maybe is, evident in the kitchen that you're creating with your wife and your daughter.

Pete Holmes Well, I must have seen it. I either side at home a little bit here and there. I'm sure I did. And then I would see it at other people's homes and I and I'd also see it in media. You know, it was really challenging as a child, when I would watch TV shows that sort of showed families cooking and you know what I mean? And I was like, look, again, everybody did the best they could, but that wasn't my experience. So one of the beautiful things about the way the universe works is, it's often people that had that deficit that springs forth a beautiful family kitchen. And that's really lovely. That's sort of like, every part of the buffalo ness of, of the world. So I didn't, I don't have memories of my father whisking the eggs while my mom chops the chives or whatever. I don't have that. But I have it now, and that is. And would I have prioritized it if I gotten it? I don't know, and maybe not as fervently, because I really was like, that's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to do.

Michele Norris So you cook together.

Pete Holmes We cook, we cook together. My daughter, I don't know if you've seen the blue episode about the omelet, but like, we let Lila crack the eggs and it's a mess. It's the most… I mean, I'm not recommending this, but I let my daughter use knives that are way too big and way too sharp. But I'm there with her. Isn't that life? We brought this thing into this world and there's knives and but I'm here and I'm with you. There's a lesson in that. And and we're eating it together. I do this thing with my daughter where I go, do you see a cup? And she goes, I see a cup, and I go, we are not separate. We like we both you and I both see this cup. We are not separate. That's incredible. And when you can eat the thing, how much more so? Are we not separate? Do you taste an omelet? I taste an omelet. We have chickens, by the way. So I'm a vegan, but we have chickens. And I'll eat those eggs because those chickens are like lifestyle. The rich and famous chickens, they're doing great.

Michele Norris So there's no moral issue.

Pete Holmes There's no suffering

Michele Norris Free range.

Pete Holmes Oh, these guys are great.

Michele Norris You play music for them.

Pete Holmes They have little chicken cars. So we do make omelets and you know…

Michele Norris The vegan police are going to come knock on your door because you have talked about a lot of non-vegan food in the course of this conversation.

Pete Holmes I know. Well. There's no word for what I am, but the quickest way to say it is vegan. But, you know, if it's about animal suffering, which for me, it is, and we have chickens that are out there smoking little chicken cigarettes and getting little chicken massages. You also see just how many eggs these things produce. You're just like, eat them up.

Michele Norris When chickens are happy, they really do.

Pete Holmes They, these guys produce these ladies. They produce hard.

Michele Norris Yeah. We should talk about that apple pie that you mentioned.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris I want to go back to the apple pie, which is it called apple pie if it's cooked in a big sheet pan? Is it an apple tart?

Pete Holmes It's a great question.

Michele Norris At that point, is it a apple cobbler? Whatever it is, it sounds like it's delicious. I want to know more about it. What kind of pan is it prepared in?

Pete Holmes It is a casserole. Pan for sure.

Michele Norris Like a glass casserole pan. Pyrex.

Pete Holmes Yeah, exactly. And the the most important part of the Lithuanian apple. Whatever tradition. Is that you absolutely eat it at the end of. Well, I guess when would that have been? Thanksgiving? Yeah. Thanksgiving. And everybody loves it. And you have it with ice cream. But the most important part was in the morning, and my mom and I are both morning people, so we would be out before everybody and we would eat the apple pie out of the tray. You don't serve it. You have to eat it out of the tray together for breakfast, which far and away, is my favorite, food memory is eating apple. I remember you talk about what you said. When it all starts coming back. I remember the spoons. I remember the flair of the spoon and the way that the foil looked and where we sat and all of that. And. And again, these precious, like, this is what we do and would often finish it like it would be gone. And it's like, yeah.

Michele Norris By the time your dad and your brother woke up. Sorry.

Pete Holmes Sorry, sorry.

Michele Norris Snooze you lose.

Pete Holmes Literally snooze you lose. And that recipe…

Michele Norris Is it double crusted? Is there crust on the bottom in addition to that thick crust you described on the top?

Pete Holmes No, it's all on the top. It's all on the top. God. It's good. And if you get a corner piece.

Michele Norris Oh, I always love the corner pieces of cobbler.

Pete Holmes Yeah. Forget it. Just forget. You know it is. It's more, I think. I feel like an alien. What you people might know is cobbler. Like, it is more of a cobbler, for sure. Because it's not, it doesn't have the bottom. It's not sliced. You get a square of it. It's a cobbler, I guess, but, man. Unbelievable.

Michele Norris Okay. We're going to try this. Do you know if it has a little lemon in it or.

Pete Holmes No lemon I don't even, I don't even know. There's got to be cinnamon in it.

Michele Norris Yeah probably.

Pete Holmes Raisins, I hate to lose a third of the audience listening, but I'm pretty sure. Walnuts. Yeah.

Michele Norris Okay, I just felt people back away from the table.

Pete Holmes Yeah.

Michele Norris Raisins and walnuts, whoa. Okay.

Pete Holmes Walnuts. Yeah, I think, oh, you know where the raisins are. The raisins are in the apple mix, and the walnuts might be in the crust, I'm pretty sure. But, guys, this is Lithuania. They're not here for you. You're lucky to have Lithuania. Lithuania doesn't care what you want in the pie. Shut up. Here's your pie. Lithuania. You don't like walnuts? Shut up! Lithuania.

Michele Norris Well, I look forward to fixing this in my own kitchen. Yeah. Find you some way and send you pictures?

Pete Holmes Yes, please.

Michele Norris Love this conversation.

Pete Holmes Oh. Me too, so very much, I really did.

Michele Norris Thanks for making time for us.

Pete Holmes I absolutely loved it. And, thank you for having me.

Michele Norris Loved hearing about your mama's kitchen.

Pete Holmes I loved remembering it. It's nice. Like I said, with my therapy. I'm 45 now. I'm like, in the business of finding those those sweet moments. You know, I mean, it's your 20s and 30s where you're like.

Speaker 3 Fuck you, mom.

Pete Holmes And then your 40s. You're like, wait a minute. Everybody was just doing what they had to do.

Michele Norris And from that point on, it's kind of like, thank you, mom. Glad I had this time with you.

Pete Holmes Totally. Well, in the other hand, acknowledging that was nuts. It can be. Thank you. That was nuts.

Michele Norris Yeah, but we survived.

Pete Holmes That's right. All right? Yeah. My pleasure. Should I stop recording?

Michele Norris They're going to tell us what to do.

KICKER

This conversation cracked me up, and it was also surprisingly eye-opening. For being a notable funnyman, Pete proved himself to be so self-reflective. It was inspiring to hear about his spiritual journey. His ability to face the trauma of his past and confront it, in order to be a better father, husband, person and ultimately, an incredible comedian. He’s a good soul.

And even though he grew up in a kitchen where no one cooked much, things are different today. He, his wife and his daughter all cook together, like he’s making up for lost time. There’s an image that will stick with me from this conversation, when Pete described sharing his mother’s Lithuanian beet soup with a dollop of sour cream. She didn’t talk much about fleeing Lithuanian and yet she was sharing a part of her heritage in that dish. Yes, sometimes food has its own language.

Now, about that apple pie, you will find the full recipe for his mama’s Lithuanian Apple Pie that looks like cobbler on our website, yourmamaskitchen.com. Make sure to eat it right out of the pan like he did or with a BIG scoop of vanilla ice cream. And we of course want to know how it goes. Send us your pictures. If you have your own killer apple pie recipe, share that too because we can always use another apple pie recipe. I will also make sure to post the recipe on my Instagram page at Michele underscore underscore Norris, that’s two underscores.

Thanks for joining us! Make sure you come back next week because we are always serving up something good. Until then—be bountiful.

CREDITS

Michele: This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original. Produced by Higher Ground Studios.

Senior producer - Natalie Rinn

Producer - Sonia Htoon

and associate producer- Angel Carreras

Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen and Ryo Baum

Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thur de Koos.

Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman and me, Michele Norris.

Executive producers for Audible are Nick D’Angelo and Ann Heppermann.

The show’s closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels.

Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media.

Talent booker - Angela Peluso

Chief Content Officer Rachel Ghiazza

Head of Creative Development at Audible: Kate Navin

And that’s it - goodbye everybody.

Copyright 2024 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC.

Sound Recording copyright 2024 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC.