Painfully Funny, with Paul Scheer

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Intro – 00:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: This episode includes brief discussion of emotional and physical abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

PAUL SCHEER: One of the most important things about writing a book like this is you want to be open. Because the best things that have come out of my life is through hearing other people's stories. And whatever those stories are, you know, whether it's stories about how to be on set, whether it's stories about how to be a parent, whether it's stories of abuse and trauma, whatever it is, there's something you take from it.

I may not have the same exact experience as you, but I can learn. I can see myself in those things. I can try to put myself in it. It's creating empathy.

BLAIR HODGES: Paul Scheer is an award-winning actor, screenwriter, comedian and podcast host of How Did This Get Made? So you'd think the most interesting stories he has to tell would be about his audition for Saturday Night Live or how he came up through improv comedy to star in shows like The League and Black Monday.

Those are interesting stories for sure. But in his new memoir, Paul decided to give center stage to family stories. Growing up with a loving mom and dad who divorced, enduring the tyranny of an abusive stepfather, and what it's like to become a marriage partner and a parent in the shadow of those traumatic experiences.

Paul Scheer joins us now to talk about his New York Times bestselling memoir, Joyful Recollections of Trauma. Finally, a guest my own kids know, thanks to his appearance on Nailed It! I'm journalist Blair Hodges, and this is Relationscapes.

 

Kids Don’t Know What They Don’t Know – 01:43

 

BLAIR HODGES: Paul Scheer, welcome to Relationscapes.

PAUL SCHEER: Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

BLAIR HODGES: It's a pleasure to have you here. We're talking about your new memoir. Some of the seeds that led to this book were actually planted on your podcast How Did This Get Made?, which I've been a longtime listener of. And for people who don't know, this is a show where you and other comedians watch some of the worst films that were ever made and talk about how bonkers they are.

So you'll be breaking down a film and your wife June Diane Raphael will be there and your friend Jason Mantzoukas, and you'll kind of toss out a childhood recollection. Like, “Oh, yeah, this is kind of like when you're a kid and this happens,” and they'll be like, “What? That is not what happens when you're a kid!”

So you say their responses sort of helped you see that maybe your supposedly normal childhood wasn't all that normal. Which seemed ironic to me because you're talking about weird, absurd movies, and you can really break those down. But then when you're telling your own story, some of the biggest absurdities are, like, going right over your head.

PAUL SCHEER: Well, yeah. I mean, I think any child doesn't really grow up with this idea of, like, what's right and what's wrong. Like, there's that story about a family who taught their kid Klingon as his only language, right? He's not going, like, wait, this is odd. Why am I learning Klingon? Right?

So I think oftentimes when you look back at your life, you know, you're not questioning what you learned as a kid, because it was just sort of, that's what we did. That's how we lived. But later, when you do go back, that's when you kind of, I think, start to uncover these things.

And these are not things you would bring up in a therapy session. “Oh, my grandma told me this crazy story about a guy who kidnapped kids and made him into chop meat if you opened the door when no parents were home!” It's neither here nor there, right? They're just kind of the garnish of life, you know?

And so you're right, there were certain moments—seeing the reaction to a story from the crowd or from Jason and June—that kind of started me on this journey of, “Oh, wow, these are things that I never really clocked as being weird.” Because the truth is, the things I knew that were different, the things I knew that was really weird, were the things I'm not talking about. I'm giving you the safe version of my story. Right? Like, if you knew the weird, the hard, the dark, you know? Everyone's always saying to me, “Oh, Paul, that story is so dark!” I'm like, you don't—that's nothing comparatively to what else went on, you know? And so that was kind of the impetus for the book in a way, writing those stories.

I thought that would be a good jumping off point. But then I realized, anecdotes are fun for a dinner party, but they're not necessarily great for a book. And if I was going to do this and do it right, I needed to go deeper and kind of uncover more of it. And I think in looking at it that way, those moments I still tell on How Did This Get Made? are still very joyful in comparison to some of the moments that are really traumatic.

BLAIR HODGES: True. And you said you were kind of hesitating to do the book because you knew if you were going to do a book, it wouldn't just be a funny anecdote book. That wasn't what you were going for and you'd have to tell the full story. And you weren't sure that you were ready for that.

Was there something that really made you ready at some point? What caused you to finally say, I'm gonna do it?

PAUL SCHEER: You know, it wasn't like, “Am I ready for it?” It's like, is this what people want? Which is a different thing. You're talking about commerce versus where I was emotionally and psychologically. I could write this book because of where I am as a human being, but it was this kind of balancing act of going, do people want this from me?

They want my funny Blockbuster story or they want my funny story about, you know, kissing my mom or whatever.

BLAIR HODGES: Which wasn't in the book, by the way!

PAUL SCHEER: No, no! I mean, because there's no real story there. Right? That's the other thing. It's like. It's just, it's funny. It's a side note. You know?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

PAUL SCHEER: And I think when I sat down to write the book, what I'm really happy about is that I sat down and I wrote before I had a book deal. I know a lot of people that are comedians and actors, they'll often go sell a book and then be like, “Oh my God, I gotta write this book,” you know?

And so I didn't want to do that. I wanted to know what I was writing. So I sat down and I started writing. And as I started writing, I started to kind of uncover this book, because it was like, my initial thought was, all right, I'm going to write this story about Walt Disney World. I've told this story a bunch of times. It's a story I know very well, about finding out that I am lactose intolerant at Walt Disney World. That's a good basis for me to begin the writing of this book. And as I was writing that, that's a story that I have told out in full.

But I started to wrestle with, like, how that fit into a larger narrative of my life and what that actually represented. And that started to open up more and more doors. So every story that I wrote in the book came from this place where I was kind of leapfrogging.

There's a great exercise in improv where you're like, it's called Pattern Game. It's probably the least interesting to watch, but the idea is that you say “spatula,” and spatula makes me think of—

BLAIR HODGES: Hamburgers.

PAUL SCHEER: Okay, sure. Yeah. There you go. Hamburgers. Great. And then hamburgers might make me think of barbecue. Right? So you want to kind of jump and go, spatula, barbecue, and then hopefully you keep on jumping and leapfrogging to the, like, two ideas away from it.

And so that's really how the book kind of came up. Each essay kind of handed off to the other. So much so that, when I was done with it—or when the book came out, I should say—someone on Twitter, like, posted a list of all the stories from the podcast. I was like, oh, wow! I forgot all those. Like, none of those are in there. It just goes to show you, I wasn't trying to recapture what I did on the show, but I really was trying to tell a story that was a little bit more truthful and narratively, I think, fulfilling. Thematically fulfilling.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, that's great. And I want to just give a quick teaser some of the other wild stories, because we're going to focus in on the family stuff for the rest of the interview. But you mentioned a few already. But some other examples. The piracy that you committed as a kid working for Blockbuster Video to create the most amazing video library ever.

BLAIR HODGES: The “George Costanza” like job you had for two years, where you were given nothing to do until the day you found yourself eating lunch with Britney Spears before you even knew who she was. There's all the experiences with improv comedy that eventually led you to audition for Saturday Night Live, and all the times you made a fool of yourself encountering celebrities in the wild.

 

The Hidden Divorce – 07:53

 

BLAIR HODGES: And I love all of this. It really makes it a Paul Scheer book. But what I found personally more interesting was learning more about your family background and what family was to you, what your upbringing was like.

So let's begin with young Paul. This is you and your parents, and I have to say, their divorce—I’ve never heard a divorce story like this. Maybe you have. I haven't. It began when you were about three. It's the most clandestine divorce I've ever heard of. So take a second to tell us what happened here.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, I grew up in a time—and it's probably dating myself to a certain extent, where I was really the only divorce kid in my class. Right? That was very foreign. And I know that sounds kind of crazy in the culture that we live in now, because I think so many people have gone through divorce, so many kids are familiar with divorce.

But for me, it was a very isolating thing. And I want to put it in that context because when my parents got divorced when I was about three years old, they knew it was going to be pretty traumatic for me, and they really tried to figure out a way to make it less so. So they kind of created this fake reality, this idea of them still being together.

BLAIR HODGES: It's the Truman Show without the cameras.

PAUL SCHEER: A hundred percent. Yeah. And it started out being just them sleeping in different rooms but being in the same house. And then it kind of grew into my dad leaving when I went to bed and then getting there in the morning before I got up, so it had this kind of regularity. It felt like my home wasn't disrupted.

And they did that for two years until I was about five years old. And as a kid, there were things that I knew were off. And I think it's like, that's the tricky thing as a kid, going back to your original question, like, you don't know anything different.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

PAUL SCHEER: But you know when things don't feel right, and you know when things are weird.

BLAIR HODGES: And I think things need to be okay, too, for a kid. Like, you want safety, right? You’ll work to assume normality.

PAUL SCHEER: Oh, a hundred percent, yeah, you want safety. But you also, you don't know how to articulate what isn't working, right?

I have two kids right now, and I watch them work out their moments of being uncomfortable and their moments of having questions, and it's never direct.

I think I learned a very important thing early on. We may even get to this in a reading that you'd like me to do in a little bit. But you can't second guess what kids are worried about, because it's often not what you are worried about. You're an adult. You have a whole life in front of you. Understand how the world works. You know, kids have a much simpler point of view.

So for me, I knew something was different. I think, like, why am I never seeing my dad in pajamas? What's going on over here? And I would always try to make my parents hug, and like, “oh, hug, hug.” It's like I wanted to put them together.

And again, it's not like I had some sense, but I knew something was off and I was trying to fix it on some level. And I think those are the kind of emotionally traumatic things, and there are some more traumatic things in the book, but those are the things that kind of exist with you even longer because it feels like there's a lie and you're in a lie.

PAUL SCHEER: And I think that's something that kind of becomes this slow kind of poison in yourself. Like, who can I believe? Who can I trust? Because these two people that I really love so much—in an attempt to protect me, not to harm me, but to protect me—lied to me. So who else is doing that? And I think it's hard to kind of unpack yourself from that.

BLAIR HODGES: Do you think they would kind of justify it today? I mean, it's really hard as a parent to think about the ways we're going to second guess ourselves. But it seems like, I mean, you're a pretty well-adapted person in your adulthood, and that could have gone a very different way. Do you think they wonder, why did we do it that way? Or are they just kind of like, okay, it worked out.

PAUL SCHEER: I think that oftentimes, and in writing this book, I think I came at it in a very different way than if I came at it in my 30s, before I had kids. Having kids really helps redefine your own childhood, but also allows you to see the fallibility of your parents and have empathy for them.

PAUL SCHEER: Because as a parent, I make mistakes. Like, I think there's a stat—it was like, 70% of the time we're making mistakes. We don't know, we're trying to be better. Or maybe we're doing everything right 70% of the time, and 30% is mistakes. Whatever it is, it's like—

BLAIR HODGES:

You're probably 30. I'm 70. Doing it right, I'm sure. [laughter]

PAUL SCHEER: I think it's like this thing where I really appreciated, and I still do appreciate, my parents going, “He's so young. We don't want him to grow up in this world where he doesn't feel safe. Let's try to create something that makes it safe.” And it was good for them and it was good for me.

PAUL SCHEER: And I don't think there was anything ultimately wrong with it in the sense that I'm three years old and it was, it wasn't like, you know—But at the same time, there are these things under the surface that are forming and you can't necessarily know that.

So, I think that we have so much more access to tools, therapy, online discourse that will allow you to kind of approach things differently. I know I head online all the time whenever there's an issue or something there. So, for me it's like we have to remember our parents didn't have all that.

There's a—Sorry, I'll move off this in one second—but this idea that like our parents and their parents I think had a very similar tack of how to be a parent. But from our parents to us, incredibly different. Incredibly! The world has changed so much. The world has opened up. So it really is. We're light years ahead.
BLAIR HODGES: I definitely feel the same way.

That's Paul Scheer. He's a comedian and a Screen Actors Guild award-winning actor who you've seen on shows like The League, Veep, Fresh off the Boat, and Black Monday. And he's talking with us today about his new book, Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

 

Stepfather Woes – 13:52

 

BLAIR HODGES: Let's get to some more of your joyful recollections, Paul. We're going to talk now about Hunter. This is a man who your mother married. She remarried when you were about 7 years old. And so you've got this new stepdad and you say he wasn't exactly a carbon copy of your dad. Give us an idea of what Hunter was like compared to what your dad was like—who by the way remained in your life.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, my dad is an incredibly sweet, kind man. He's a pharmacist, just a nice human being, lots of friends, he's a guy that you would call on for a favor. And when my mom got remarried to Hunter, he was very different.

He was like a commercial truck driver for a supermarket chain. He carried a big knife on his belt. He had the energy of someone who looked like they were hungover. He wasn't an alcoholic, but the way I can kind of describe his energy and attitude was that of an alcoholic. You never really knew what you were going to get. Moments in the day he would be gregarious and loving and fun, and then it would turn instantly and get incredibly dark.

So it was tough from the get-go to kind of encounter this person in my life, because when I'm talking later about this idea of like, what's true, what's not true, you're coming back home to this moment of like, how is he going to act? What's going on? It's constantly putting you in a defensive position, not being able to trust or relax into anything.

BLAIR HODGES: What kind of things might set him off and what were his reactions like?

PAUL SCHEER: Again, as a kid you only are privy to the way that your kid brain kind of accepts things. And I think with Hunter, I didn't know what set him off. I think there was an innate jealousy of attention. The attention that my mom—obviously I am her son and she has taken care of me as a mother.

I think there is a lot of insecure men who when they come into a situation like that, they are jealous of that. Why are you giving him all the attention, not me? It takes a very well-rounded person not to be jealous of the child. I think what happened with us is his relationship to me became very much like a big brother.mBut he wasn't a big brother. He was a 40-year-old man. I was an 8, 9, 10-year-old kid.

So it's like whenever anything hurt his ego, whether it's a Monopoly game, where we were playing a monopoly game and he landed on Boardwalk and he owed me a lot of money. His reaction to that was, “Don't do this, don't get yourself into this. Think about what you're doing.”

BLAIR HODGES: And that wasn't a joke.

PAUL CHEER: Yeah. And it was like as a kid I thought, no, you gotta pay me, you gotta pay me. He's like, “No, think about what you're doing.” And I'm not thinking anything significant. I played Monopoly a million times. But then within a moment he's choking me and saying, “How much do I owe you? How much do I owe you?” And I'm like, “Nothing, nothing!” And I kind of just drop into my seat and then the game just goes on.

So I think, to me, that's the tricky thing. I think when you're in an abusive household, to keep the peace, to keep everything at bay, not to be the issue—because there's so many other issues there. So I really got into a habit as I became older to be that person of, I don't wanna rock the boat, I don't wanna make a big deal, I wanna be smaller, I wanna be passive because I know that when I do become the problem.

I guess I've never thought of it like this, but there's those movies—the John Krasinski movie. I'm forgetting the name, but there's been three of them where if you speak, the aliens kind of find—

BLAIR HODGES: A Quiet Place

PAUL SCHEER: Right. A Quiet Place. So that's kind of the same idea. Like, who knows when whatever you do—I land on Boardwalk. I come home late. I didn't do my chores the right way. I didn't hang up my jacket. Anything could set it off. So it's like you're just always walking on eggshells.

BLAIR HODGES: Was it hard to write about that? I mean, I assume you've probably brought this up in therapy. You've probably talked to people about it. When you're putting it down on paper, did that feel any different?

PAUL SCHEER: No, not really. Because the book isn't therapy for me. The book is like a reflection of therapy. And I think that that, to me, was why I was able to write this book. Because once I write about this, I'm giving it over to everybody else. Right? I'm giving it to you. I'm giving it to any reader.

So my hope is that I'm okay with it enough. Because I had an experience very early on when I was doing press for this where that story I just told about being choked over a game of Monopoly, a person started off their interview with me by going like, okay, my family was very competitive, but we never choked anybody out when we were playing Monopoly. Right? And that is a traumatic moment. But if I was in it still, if I hadn't dealt with that, if I didn't understand where I was at, that would kind of be like, “Oh, wait, you're making fun of this thing.”

But meanwhile, I am in a place where I go like, “Oh, I know, right?! And it wasn't even Pacific Palisades!” or whatever it was. It’s like I could just jump right into it and I can roll with it. And I think a lot of the times writing a book like this, that is, the book isn't about my career. It really is about the effects of trauma and how they reverberate throughout your entire life and the decisions I had to make—getting married, having a kid. And yes, there are funnier traumatic incidents in the book. But I think when you write a book like this, you have to have a point of view, because I could come into it and feel like, oh, I'm being too hard on my parents.

Because in therapy I can say whatever I want and there's no consequences. In a book that's released, there are a lot of consequences. I have parents that are alive. I have parents that work. I have parents that I love. The book is a very raw and real reflection of my life. But it also isn't every detail because every detail isn't fit for print and for mass consumption. So finding that balance is really important.

 

Home Alone – 20:13

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, let's give people an example of something from the book here so they can get a sense of your authorial voice. One of your joyful recollections of trauma comes from this summer that you spent home alone as a kid. Which to you, it's kind of a dream. Your mom and Hunter had sent you off to the summer camp. It didn't work out, so they let you come and hang out at home. You were alone. This is awesome.

But then one day, this really angry stranger shows up. Because Hunter's problems weren't just happening in his home. They also existed beyond the home. And so danger could come from the outside. This man shows up, he's pounding on the door, he's screaming for Hunter. Is there anything else you want to mention about that story before I have you read?

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, I mean, basically I survived a little bit of a home invasion. This man kind of broke into my house. I fended him off with a wooden sword that I had from a Halloween costume. And the cops came and he left and the house. I was fine. And there's this thing, one of the pictures fell off the wall because he was banging on the door so much—

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it shattered.

PAUL SCHEER: It shattered. And my parents kind of just took the broken glass of that picture and hung it back up on the wall. It was very indicative of how everything kind of happened in my house. So I'll kind of read this chapter here knowing that I haven't read this part out loud in a bit. So we'll see. Not since the audiobook.

I rebounded from these events very quickly because I grew up in a family where if you survived, you were fine. If everything turned out okay, it was all right, move on. The idea that there could still be lingering emotional trauma and fear didn't cross my parents’ mind. It was just like that picture that was rehung on the wall. A casual observer might not notice anything. And you can pretend that nothing's wrong with it, but if you actually, look at it you see it needs some attention. But this is how my mom and I had to survive.

Now, as a parent, I wrestle with that desire to fix things or minimize the trauma that my own kids feel. But I also know that acknowledging their fears and sitting with them in their anxieties is just as important. I give them a chance to express themselves without minimizing their emotions. And I don't always get it right. I'm trying to find that balance.

After a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas my oldest son came home from school and asked us, did you hear what happened in Texas today? And while this wasn't the first school shooting he'd been alive for, it was the first one he was aware of. And we asked how he was feeling, and he told us that he felt safe with all the protocols in place at his public school. And it felt like at first, he was just trying to convince us that he was okay.

So we just listened and let him tell us of his experiences of the events. We didn't race to make it okay or tell him how far he was from that school. We let him ask us questions, and we really wanted to center his experience and feelings and not ours, which was hard to do.

And as I tucked him into bed that night, we spent a longer time than usual just lying there talking. And all of a sudden, he said, I'm scared. And I fought everything in me that wanted to make it better for him. And I remembered how fearful and alone I felt as a child. And I knew it could be different. And I said to him, “it's okay to be scared, but I'll always be here for you.” I grabbed him, and he grabbed me tighter than ever. And when he released, he smiled and said, “Thanks, Dad. I feel better.”

I think every kid wants to be Kevin McAllister, be home alone. But no kid wants to feel alone.

BLAIR HODGES: That's Paul Scheer reading from the book Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

 

Being Honest With Kids – 23:58

 

Now that you're reading it back, what comes to mind for you, Paul, as you're putting yourself back in that headspace? Because that's a pretty intense part of the book.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah. For me, it is a good reminder that kids are constantly learning, and kids are so fragile. And I’m thinking about my second child, what he went through when my wife's father passed away. He was 3 years old. And he understood that someone had died, and there was this want to kind of describe, what death is, you know? Because it's the first time he's going through that. And we talked to a friend who works with a lot of children as a child psychologist, and she said the best rule of thumb is to be honest but brief. The more that we kind of create a narrative, the more we kind of create a story, the more we kind of lay down, it's like spinning your tires out. Right? We create more mud. It becomes a harder thing. It might actually work in the moment. It might feel like, oh, we're moving forward, we're hitting the gas, the car's wheels are moving. But what you're doing is actually creating a bigger rudder. And it's about understanding where your kids are and where you are.

Because a good example of this is just recently my oldest son, believing in Santa Claus.

BLAIR HODGES: How old is he now?

PAUL SCHEER: He's 10.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay. My kid is 9 and a half or so.

PAUL SCHEER: Right. And then this is it. I should say he was about nine when this happened. And he was starting to ask more and more questions. And he was starting to become aware of it. And I had a choice to make, and my wife had a choice to make. Do we continue this lie, which is a lie in good spirit? Right?

BLAIR HODGES: I loved it.

PAUL SCHEER: It's like, very rarely do kids come out and go, like, you lied to me about Santa Claus. How dare you!

BLAIR HODGES: By the way, that happened to John Hodgman. I don't know if you've heard his story, but it was, like, super traumatic. But anyway.

PAUL SCHEER: Oh, I love that.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, he's anti-Santa for this reason.

PAUL SCHEER: Oh, my gosh. Well, so I started to hear what he was saying other kids at school were saying, that he doesn't exist. And the choice was, do I continue this lie for myself, for him, or do we, are we honest with him? And that was a really important moment because it's like, it was my first kid. My first kid not believing in Santa. And we told him the truth. And as much as I think he wanted to hear it, he didn't want to hear it, and that was difficult. And then that also opens up the door because it's like, wait, is the Tooth Fairy real, or is the Easter Bunny real?

BLAIR HODGES: Right. It cascades.

PAUL SCHEER: Things start to go, yeah, things start to go away. But it's also like, understanding I probably could have gotten him to believe in it a little bit longer if I forced it, because I have that power as his parent, he's gonna trust me.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

PAUL SCHEER: And it's sort of the long story short of all this is, like, understanding where your kids are and meeting them, not bringing them into something that they're not ready for. And it's a constant balancing act. It's a constant balancing act.

Like, June is very open. My wife, June is very open to, like, having “bad word time.” They'll say, all right, it's bad word time. You can get them out of your system. And I think that's actually been really helpful because it lets them know that there's a freedom. They can come around to this. They don't have to feel like they have to hold their tongue. That's pretty much like a minute long window that happens every two weeks.

That's important. It's like trying to find that thing where they feel comfortable enough to share. They feel comfortable enough that they can make mistakes. So that chapter, to me, or that little thing out there is a constant battle of how do you be a confidant, how do you be a friend, how do you be a helper, but really be a helper and not just make yourself feel better?

BLAIR HODGES: You seem like a person who really takes in the ideas of specialists. It sounds like you're a proponent of therapy. You're talking about child psychology. And that impresses me because you didn't have a great experience with the first therapist that your mom and Hunter take you to.

You go to family therapy there, and you start kind of talking about what's going on. And therapists are supposed to be mandated reporters. So I was really disappointed to see this therapist kind of let you down in that moment.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: But it didn't ruin you for therapy, though.

PAUL SCHEER: Well, it definitely kept me away from therapy for a while because it's like, oh, how do you go to this thing? I didn't have a real strong desire to go back. As a kid, felt incredibly let down.

But when I was about to go through a breakup with a girlfriend I had been dating for a while, we went to couples therapy, and I kind of went there in an attempt to salvage the relationship, and I wound up staying with it. So I don't know if I would have continued to.

I brought myself there not because I wanted to or even that I acknowledged that I had things. I brought myself there in an attempt to save a relationship and a relationship that was dying because I was this person who, I had this kind of unsorted trauma and had a very strong passive streak in me and wasn't really speaking my mind. So it really was like, the reason why that relationship failed is the reason why I did ultimately need to be in therapy to deal with the issues that were behind me. So, it was a good thing, but it wasn't like, “oh, I finally trust therapy again.” I did once I got back into it.

 

How Memory Can Impact Family Relationships – 29:29

 

BLAIR HODGES: Hmm. I also wanted to ask about, to me, one of the most difficult things in the book. How you navigated how to talk about your dad's response to Hunter. And it seemed like one of the more difficult things to come to terms with, because when you started sharing with him what was going on with Hunter, you'd think that a father would just jump to the rescue or just be in your corner or say, “this can't happen,” but it seemed like he didn't have your back on it so much.

PAUL SCHEER: Well again, this is sort of this thing that we come up against a lot, which is like, I think my dad was trying to do his best and trying to understand how to help and how to protect me. And I think that we're very—We all have the ability to filter out something, if they're like, ah, well, I don't know how to act, so you can kind of give yourself your own pass, you know?

And it wasn't just my dad who wasn't helping me out. It was this therapist that you brought up. It was Child Protective Services that came to the house and didn't do anything. It was grandparents. It was everybody. So while it is my dad and it is like, oh, you feel like, okay, he should have stepped up, I feel like I also have a real empathy for these people, not having the tools, not understanding what to do and feeling overwhelmed by it.

I know how I would react, but I'm also not my dad. I'm also somebody who has grown up differently, and also I know I would do something, but that's also because I'm a product of who I am and my dad's a product of who he is, and it's different.

BLAIR HODGES: I kept waiting for a moment when maybe you would come to terms with that with him. And I'm not sure that that's happened, that he maybe has said, “oh, you know what? Gosh, Paul, I think that was really—I see how that affected you. I'm really sorry about that.” Do you expect a moment like that or, how has your dad reacted to this even being in the book?

PAUL SCHEER: No. One of the things I was very aware of when I did this book was wanting to protect my parents. I want to make sure that they were taken care of. I didn't want to tell their story. I wanted to tell my story where they are characters in it.

So I was very careful to talk about things that I had talked about with them. I’ve had those conversations with my dad. I've given him that opportunity. I didn't want to put a caveat on it. Well, that's the last chance we're going to talk about because now it's going in the book! But we had that moment and I said to him, “You come to me when you want to talk about it because I know I'm catching you off guard.” It was in the process of writing the book. And he never did and he probably wouldn't have. And I think it's sometimes hard to hear these things.

One of the reasons why I wrote this book—and people are like, why didn't you do a one man show? I like the idea of a book because I don't have to worry about anyone's reaction to it. It's private. And a lot of the times when you're telling these stories, you can kind of feel people's like, butthole clenches a little bit. [laughter] They're like, “oh, I want to do something. I want to make it right. And I want to beat up Hunter. Oh, well, why weren't your parents…”

People are looking to assign blame and fix it. And if I know anything from being married for a very long time, it’s that the worst thing you can do when someone is telling you something is just immediately jump at fixing it. Sometimes it is just like about listening and hearing. So my dad at one point is like, “I am sorry. I am sorry.” I am like, “I do not need you to apologize. I did not write this book because I wanted an apology from you. We are past that. I do not need anything from you. But I hope that maybe you start to investigate why you didn't and why you did this.”

That is something I can't answer. That is not my journey to go on. That is his journey to go on. And maybe he will, maybe he won't. But at least in black and white, when it's there, he could probably take it in a different way. He could reread it. He can look at it again and understand, really, what's being said.

Because I think it's so hard sometimes when you hear somebody, you're thinking about a million other things. What is my response going to be? “Okay, well, okay. What do they mean by that?” But when you actually can see it, you can kind of breathe through it in a different way.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, man. I mean, I feel like Paul Scheer’s book is published, but the story is still going, so who knows? And I feel like you done well at navigating the balance between honesty and confession and also privacy and respect in the book.

PAUL SCHEER: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. To me, it's like, this is one of the most important things about writing a book like this is you want to be open. Because the best things that have come out of my life is through hearing other people's stories. And whatever those stories are—whether it's stories about how to be on set, whether it's stories about how to be a parent, whether it's stories of abuse and trauma, whatever it is, there is something you take from it. I may not have the same exact experience as you, but I can learn. I can see myself in those things. I can try to put myself in it. It’s creating empathy. And for me, it was like, I want to tell this story truthfully. And really. And there are just certain things that you don't need to include because it doesn't really ultimately affect the story.

Like, I remember my mom, when she read it, she's like, “well, you could have gone a lot darker than this.” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. I guess that's not really the point.”

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] You’re like, “Joyful” is in the title.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah. And, you know, everybody has got their own thing. It reminds me of, like, when I was working on—as a real left turn here I'm gonna give you—but when I was working on Galaxy Quest. I love that movie. And I was writing a television version of it, and everyone had a different thing that they wanted from it. Right? It was very hard when you have IP, it's like, well, I want this to be this. I want this to be that.

So I really wanted to make this book like, this is my story. There's other things here, but this is this journey. It's not the complete story. It's a piece of a story. It's a piece of a journey that I've been wrestling and talking about.

BLAIR HODGES: You're also not just about, like, “Here's what everybody else did to me,” or whatever. I mean, you reveal things about yourself, too. I really enjoyed the part about being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. I have ADHD. I was diagnosed as a kid. So it’s been part of my life this whole time. But you came to it later on because a troll on Twitter was like, “yeah dude, you got ADHD.” And you're like, “wait, do I?” [laughs] And then June was like, yeah, no kidding.

 PAUL SCHEER: It's so funny. That chapter was a thing I was really caught up about. I was like, oh, I don't know if I should put this in the book. It feels like sometimes I think memoirs can feel a little “woe is me.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Self-indulgent, right?

PAUL SCHEER: Self-indulgent. Trauma dumping. And I really wanted to. I wanted to avoid that. And there was something about that chapter that I felt like, “oh, is this just me talking about this thing? Is it over-diagnosed? Is it under-diagnosed?” Whatever it was. And a couple times I'm like, I'm taking that chapter out.

And June's like, no, you can't take that chapter out. It's great. And my publisher said the same thing. And what I started to hear—and I've talked to so many people like yourself and other people who have gone through it and found it as young, found it as old, as partners with somebody, and I think that was the thing I didn't really quite understand. Like, I thought in many respects, like, the trauma of being in an abused household was maybe more universal than this other thing that I was dealing with. And I don't know. But I'm so happy that I left it in.

My conversations have been really amazing because of that.

What I like about this book, or I should say what I like about the reaction to the book is, people can walk away and say, oh, my gosh, I had a stepfather like that. Oh, my gosh, I got diagnosed with ADHD after I had kids. Oh, my gosh, I worked in Blockbuster, or I had a run in with Alan Alda. Right?

BLAIR HODGES: I shat my pants at Disney World! [laughs]

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, exactly. Right? So everybody has their own entry point. And I think that that's part of the fun of the book, is knowing that you can find it wherever you want. It's not a book that's all one thing.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And truthfully, though, I haven’t shat my pants at Disney World. Not that there's anything wrong with the fact that you did.

PAUL SCHEER: I didn't technically shit my pants in Disney World. I vomited in a hotel room. Yeah. So.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, good. That's a good fact check. That's fair.

We're talking with Paul Scheer about Joyful Recollections of Trauma. You might have also heard him on the smash hit podcast How Did This Get Made? And also another podcast called Unspooled, with his co-host, Amy Nicholson. He and his partner, June Diane Raphael, are the parents of two.

 

Getting Married – 38:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: Speaking of which, let's talk about June. I think the most surprising thing about June here is you're telling the story of how you two met, how you fell in love, and how you proposed. It's really a sweet story. But something caught me by surprise, I did not see this coming at all. The fact that you hadn't really talked about marriage with June in any serious way before popping the question? As far as I could tell from the book.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: That this was a legit surprise, that she seems like such a planner and you kind of do, too. So, like, when you're like, I don't know, maybe it's from my own background where you're gonna bring it up. You're gonna know months in advance. But you didn't know.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, well, look, we definitely planned a wedding. Right?

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, okay.

PAUL SCHEER: But, it's like, with the proposal it seems like it's—That's where you don't have to plan. Or at least there's a lot of things that you learn as you get older that, the movies have prepared us the wrong way.

Like, I think childbirth is a perfect example. My idea of what childbirth was from TV and movies versus what it is  was wildly different. And for me, it was sort of like, yeah, we hadn't really talked about it. We haven't really decided in any way. And there was something about it where I was like, well, this is this person that I really love. And there's this one day where I was like, I kind of want to do this, but should I? I do not know. And I gave myself a month. I was like, if I still feel this way in a month, should I do it? And I did. And I felt this way. I was like, man, all right, maybe. I guess I need to.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, maybe you weren't a marriage guy before that?

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, right. It's like, maybe it was reflective of the relationship. And so I wanted to plan it. I wanted it to be special. And no offense to anyone who discusses getting the ring, but then it's more about when it will happen. That's a beautiful way to do things, too.

BLAIR HODGES: Sure.

PAUL SCHEER: I think I just went in a way that I felt like was much more of a movie moment. And if you know anything about me, I'm very slavish to pop culture and the movies. So that's why I kind of erred on that side.

BLAIR HODGES: I mean, it worked out. You didn't spend a lot of time in the book talking about navigating a relationship in Hollywood, and a lot of these Hollywood couples sort of become news, and you guys haven't really, maybe gone through that as much. But was there kind of a deliberate decision of, like, we don't really need to, it's not really part of the story I want to tell, is talking about what it's like to be in the industry and how that might impact a relationship? Because, I mean, obviously, I wouldn't be able to really relate to that. Or maybe there are things about it that I would relate to.

PAUL SCHEER: You know, for me, like, the important thing for this book, and it was just my own decision, was like, I didn't want to write a book that felt like a showbiz book. Right? I didn't want to get into that. And honestly, June and I, our profession is in this business in Hollywood as writers, directors, producers, actors. But the truth is, it has nothing to do with our relationship. Like, that's the outside factor that you only let in what you need to let in. Like, my relationship with June, this is as much as I've shared about it publicly, because it is something that I like to keep private.

And my kids as well. And that's my—not my prerogative, but the relationship isn't dictated by outside things. It's dictated by the two of us and how we react. Because it's like you can be in any profession and if you come home impacted based on something from work, it's going to affect our relationship. But we really try to keep it—yeah, that doesn't really play a part in it.

 

Becoming a Father – 41:22

 

BLAIR HODGES: It was fun to read about your experience becoming a father. I mean, you talk about how your first son, Gus, changed your whole world pretty much right away. And for people that have gone through this, there are a lot of different ways to become a parent, to experience it. There's no one universal experience. But there's something I really recognized. Maybe one of my favorite moments in the book is when, it's a couple months after Gus is born. You and June are up in the middle of the night. It's like three a.m. and you're dealing with, like, being exhausted, disrupted sleep, dirty diapers, the loss of your autonomy and freedom. You're feeling disconnected from social life. You kind of feel captive to this little child. And June just turns to you and says, just, “This sucks. I miss our old life.” And you finally break, like, “Yeah! I do too!” And then you could kind of celebrate this moment of catharsis that you've been holding back on.

PAUL SCHEER: Well, a lot of people don't ever talk about the grief, the trauma, the mourning of your old life when you have kids. I think that if you are responsibly having kids, it's a decision that you don't come to unless you're like 70% sure, right? Like, if you're a hundred percent sure, then you don't understand what you're doing! And if you're zero percent sure, you shouldn't have kids. But seventy feels about the right level.

June and I had been living a good life, we loved our life. And then when you put this kid in there, which we equally love, and wanted this, and it was something that we did with deliberate thought and care and attention to. But you also have to acknowledge, like, oh, but I can't do all these other things. And it's a mourning period that people don't want to talk about because they want to talk about how amazing the baby is.

And by the way, if you have a healthy baby, it is amazing. And that is the most important thing. But you can also recognize this and when you have a good partner like I do, we can both sit there and it's like, I know exactly what she's saying. She's not saying, I don't want to have a kid. She's like, I am a overwhelmed, and this sucks. I'm like, yeah, me too. And that's always something that's important to kind of, I don't know, figure out how to do, is just have those conversations. I love those conversations. We can be very raw with each other.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I love that. Again, we're talking about the book Joyful Recollections of Trauma with Paul Scheer.

 

Paul's Favorite Coming of Age Films – 43:25

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, Paul, you're a big film lover, and your podcast, How Did This Get Made? looks at the worst movies, while your show Unspooled with Amy Nicholson looks at the best movies. I thought that with your really vast film knowledge, I wanted to put you on the spot and ask for your top three coming-of-age films.

PAUL SCHEER: Oooh.

BLAIR HODGES: Your book is a coming of age memoir. What coming of age movies have you really loved?

PAUL SCHEER: Oh my gosh. It is tricky, right, because it's like, coming of age can be so many different things—

BLAIR HODGES: It could even be something like Stand By Me, right? It's like, you don't have to see the whole scope of it, but, like, you know.

PAUL SCHEER: No, yeah, no, I definitely have some. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm going to be picking... Picking the ones that I feel like are really important to me.

I would say, like, Say Anything is a movie—it's a romantic movie, but it's also like, I felt like that was a movie that really spoke to me as far as, “Oh, wow, this is what it's like to be a teen and be in love and feel like you want to try to find your place in the world.”

That movie was big. And speaking in the same way, that same idea is in Dazed and Confused. I'm going to be a teen. Gone is the time of—I'm going into another phase of my life. What is that? And Dazed and Confused was a big movie where I'm like, I recognize all these moments.

And that movie obviously focuses on two halves, which is people going off to be like, what's next? And people, I mean, it is what's next for both sides. It's like the kids going into high school and the kids that are leaving high school.

Also, one of the things I thought about a lot—and I didn't watch it when I wrote this book, but it was a movie that connected to me as a kid, but is The Boy's Life, with Robert de Niro and DiCaprio, like, there was something about that and my specific story that I always really related to, and really loved.

And then conversely, the movies that I still see now that I love, like movies like Eighth Grade and stuff like that, I'm like, oh, these are great movies. I love, Thirteen and Roll Bounce and stuff like that as well. But, different movies.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, man. Good picks, all good picks.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, they come in.

 

Crafting the Book – 45:31

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, so there's Paul's Picks. People can check out those films. I also wanted to ask if, in writing a memoir, you're really familiar with film tropes and storytelling. Did your familiarity with scripting and pacing, I mean, you've written for comics. You've done a lot of different things. Did that impact how you wrote the book? Kind of knowing how the arc of a good film works?

PAUL SCHEER: I didn't think about the book’s pacing because when I was writing it, I was writing it—like I said earlier on, where I'm jumping from thing to thing. I didn't know where all the pieces were gonna end up. And as a matter of fact, one of the best parts of editing a book is kind of taking a chunk out of this story and popping it over here.

Because I knew, like, for example, the first story in the book, it wasn't written as a first story, but it had to be kind of re-tuned because it's like leading off a lot of different things. Because it's essays. It's a memoir through essays. So I try to keep you on a path, but I'm also, like, kind of dropping you right in here and there. I'm not starting from birth. I'm going backwards and forwards, but I think in a way that you can kind of keep it up.

And the way I thought about it—and you were very kind to say, you know—there are heavy moments in the book, but I wanted it to feel like a conversation where as much as I'm not paying attention to the listener, if I'm talking to you across table, I'm telling you the full story. I'm also aware that, like, there needs to be, like, release valves. Right?

BLAIR HODGES: Yes.

PAUL SCHEER: We can go here. We can release it. We can go back in. And so some of those chapters that, on the surface, might seem really light, like, whether it is meeting celebrities or, you know, working at Blockbuster—

BLAIR HODGES: Meeting Christopher Walken when you were a kid.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah. Whatever, those stories, I think, overall fit in with the thematic nature of the book. These kind of traumatic moments that leave you a little bit like, “oh, my God!” But also are there to serve as release valves from making the book feel too heavy, too much like you are being—I wanted to find these moments. People say, oh, I'll laugh and cry in the same line. And that's my style of communicating and talking. So that's really the only thing I really had in mind, is making it feel enjoyable for an audience, making it feel like it's not just a diary entry, making it feel like I need to be doing the ultimate job, which is entertaining you. That's important.

BLAIR HODGES: You wanted it to be safe, too. I think your approach might go back to growing up in a house where you needed things to be a certain vibe, like you said earlier. That vibe certainly comes through in the book. You're able to talk about some tough stuff, but you want to make it safe for readers.

PAUL SCHEER: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you saying that.

BLAIR HODGES: At the end of the book, you also remind us that we're just getting vignettes. Were there any excruciating cuts, or maybe the editor said, “yeah, you can leave that out.” Like, you mentioned you thought the ADHD one might not be necessary. Was there anything else that was hard that you decided not to put in?

PAUL SCHEER: For me, like I was saying earlier, there are stories people brought up to me that I was like, “Oh, right, I should have put that in the book. I didn't even think about that.” But it also felt complete. There was something about it where I, in rereading and really editing the book—and that's where I spent a majority of my time, like I had two months where I could really just be sitting and crafting and tweaking and moving things around. That, to me, felt like the time where, I'm very happy with the book. There's nothing I cut out, and I just was aware of…

For example, I put this on my Substack. I put this story about my relationship with cars. And I talk about my relationship with cars a little bit in the book, really about my obsession with a minivan. But there was a whole chunk of that chapter that it was kind of lifted from. And I think part of that was when my editor and I were talking.

She's like, “I find a perfect essay length to be X amount of words.” I think it's like 10,000 words or something like that. And at first I didn't fully agree with it because I'm like, well, we need this! But I also understand pacing and things like that. Those are those little tips and stuff that I learned after the fact.

So, yeah, there are pieces and chunks that I would love to put back in, but I also think the overall pacing of the book is probably better for it.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 49:50

 

BLAIR HODGES: That's Paul Scheer. We're talking about his book Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

Well, Paul, we always like to conclude with a segment called Regrets, Challenges and Surprises. So this is a moment for you to reflect back now that the book's out in the world, I should mention, is a New York Times bestselling book. Congratulations on that.

PAUL SCHEER: Thank you so much.

BLAIR HODGES: Is there anything now that you'd change about the book, or what was the hardest part about writing it, or what was something that surprised you? You can speak to one, two, or all three of those.

PAUL SCHEER: The one thing that's come up a handful of times—and I haven't really ever talked about this because I thought it was a given, but, a lot of people will say to me, well, what did your mom do in these moments? And my mom and I were both suffering at the hands of this abuse. And I don't really detail that in the book for two reasons. That's her story to tell.

But also, if I could go back and change anything, I think I would maybe add a line or two just to underline that. I have things in the passage I read earlier, that's the world that my mom and I were living in. But it doesn't really articulate that she also was—it wasn't just coming from me, and I thought it was apparent that that was something that was going on. But I guess to some people, they may feel like, oh, it wasn't. So that that was one thing I thought about after.  

I'm like, oh, maybe I could have been clearer about that. Again, I think I was walking that line of being respectful also of the story that she wants to tell and that she wants out there, you know?

BLAIR HODGES: Right. Any challenges or surprises, anything that shocked you about yourself, self-revelations?

PAUL SCHEER: Well, going back to that first thing I wrote the story about, like the lactate and getting sick at Disney World, as you say, shat my pants, [laughter] the thing that I really learned there, because it was the first story I wrote. I wrote it the way I would tell it to you. And there was a part of me where I was like, why do I keep on coming back to this story? Like, what about this story? Yeah, it's funny. Sure, sure, sure. But I think on the final pass I realized the reason why it's in here is because it's a story about losing innocence for another time. Like Disney World was a place I could do and do anything. My parents vacationed there a lot. But once I learned I was lactose intolerant, I got into this place where it wasn't safe anymore. Right? I couldn't drink or eat things that I could do. And I was already looking over my shoulder at home.
And now with this idea of like being lactose intolerant, I started to look over my shoulder everywhere. When there's pizza parties and there's whatever, you know, cheese is everywhere, milk is everywhere. Especially when you're a kid. And I think it kind of grew me up in the limited places where I had to be a full-on kid, it kind of forced me out of it.

And I think when I realized that I was like, “Oh, that's interesting.” And I know it sounds silly to be like, “Oh yeah, my lactose intolerance raced me into adulthood.” But I think when you understand all the situations around it, I think it's more true than not.

BLAIR HODGES: That's Paul Scheer talking about the book Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

Paul, this has been great. I love the book, highly recommend it. Thanks for joining us.

PAUL SCHEER: I really appreciate your really wonderful and thoughtful questions about the whole thing. Was a pleasure.

 

Outro and Updating the Show Name – 53:16

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to Relationscapes. A full transcript of this episode is available at familyproclamations.org. If this is your first time listening, welcome, thanks for being here. We're exploring the history and evolution of family, relationships, gender, and sexuality. We're looking at things through scientific, and cultural, and personal approaches. We've got interviews with great authors on all kinds of topics so far, like adoption, divorce, being trans, being parent of a trans kid, caring for elderly parents, child protective services, immigration, women's reproductive health, single life, having an only child, and a bunch of other stuff. It's all good, really. If you liked this interview, I think you're gonna like the other ones.

There's a lot more to come, but it won’t be coming on Relationscapes. The show will go on, but I’m giving it a new name in the new year. If you aren’t already aware, that means you haven't followed @famprocs on Instagram. Follow me there, I talked about it a bit there. I’ll be revealing the new name in the last episode of the year, in about two weeks from now. I’m closing the year out with a mini episode on divorce. If you’ve already listened to my episodes with April White or Maggie Smith, I’d love to hear your thoughts about those. Send me a voice memo, email it to blair@firesidepod.org.

Take 60 seconds or so and tell me about something you learned from those episodes, something that surprised you, or troubled you. Maybe a book that you read about divorce that you really liked. Something you wish we’d talked about. Whatever. Send me a voice memo, record it on your phone and email it to me, or record it in Instagram DMs.

Don’t be shy, the show is small enough yet that people aren’t knocking down the door to send content my way. You could be featured in the next mini episode! Send me your thoughts. 

Mates of State provided the theme song. Relationscapes is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm Blair Hodges and I'll see you before the year's out. 

 

Note: Transcripts have been lightly edited for readability.