Debbie & Tommy Live: Laughing More

Tommy Smythe  0:00  
Welcome everyone. I'm Tommy Smythe, I'm not Debbie Travis.

Debbie Travis  0:03  
I'm not Tommy Smythe, I'm Debbie Travis. Welcome everybody. Here

Tommy Smythe  0:07  
we go. Thank you. Oh,

Debbie Travis  0:08  
my nice and clear all the technical stuff

Tommy Smythe  0:12  
that's great. Just put just put it right in my face,

Debbie Travis  0:16  
as the actress said to the keep it clean.

Tommy Smythe  0:22  
Thank you. So I want to first mention that some of you know who this is, but we do have a special guest joining us in this chair a little bit further along in the program. We're very, very excited to have her. There's a hint with us tonight. So a little bit more about that later. This is live so we want you to enjoy yourselves. We want you to have fun. You don't have to be quiet just because we're being recorded. You can hoot and holler and clap and say things and shout things, and it's totally fine. We want it to feel like there's a live audience, because you are alive for now. In the audience,

Debbie Travis  1:05  
anybody dozes off.

Tommy Smythe  1:08  
So it's only Monday. This is a lot for a Monday. It's a big Monday, and we want to start that off well, so we have drinks. So we want to say, you know, Aperol is a big part of our lives, actually. I mean, they are a new sponsor for the Trust Me, I'm a decorator podcast, but Debbie and I are both big fans of

Debbie Travis  1:30  
Yeah, we are. We actually drink it and a lot. And, you know, it's one of those I'm not drinking. Give me an apple. But it's also, it's a great drink for all year, because it's been one of those drinks that you have just in the summer, and now it's become, it's very autumnal, isn't it? I

Tommy Smythe  1:44  
mean, look at that. I

Debbie Travis  1:45  
dress like an apparel This is my Halloween costume. I'm going as an apparel spritz.

Tommy Smythe  1:50  
I'm the Hamburglar, but McDonald's is not a sponsor. No, it is. It

Debbie Travis  1:57  
is very, just lost the sponsorship.

Tommy Smythe  1:59  
It's very it is an amazing companion for food, and it's great for conversation and hang out with friends, and that's really what the, trust me, I'm a decorator, podcast, is all about. So we're thrilled to have Aperol on board, because life is more fun when you're sharing laughs with friends over in Aperol Spritz. And we're gonna do that tonight. How about right now?

Debbie Travis  2:19  
Oh, cheers, everybody. Cheers everybody's got a drink. So

Tommy Smythe  2:23  
cheers everybody. Oh, look at there's our families in the back. Okay, glaring

Debbie Travis  2:27  
at us. I can see my son going, please, none of the usual stories.

Tommy Smythe  2:33  
But me growing up, it wouldn't be a podcast episode if Debbie wasn't embarrassing at least one of her children. Sorry. Max. Okay, so getting on with the program. We are going to be starting off with talking about Debbie's book, which I brought out with me here. So could you just say best selling book ever? I can say that I think you just did. So this is already a best seller. Yeah, it is called laugh more stories from an unexpected life. Having known Debbie for as long as I've known her, and having spent as much time together as we have, I can tell you that when you're with Debbie, you do laugh more, and that unexpected things in life happen when you're anywhere near. Debbie, so fasten your seat belts, folks, because tonight could be one of those times. But Debbie, we're going to talk a little bit. I'm going to interview you a little bit about the book, if that's OK. All right, so one thing that we should start with, coming off of that little toast that we've just done, is that isn't there a story about Aperol Spritz in the book,

Debbie Travis  3:44  
there is which was written before

Tommy Smythe  3:45  
Aperol was a sponsor. Oh

Debbie Travis  3:47  
yeah, yeah, no, there's a recipe in there, because we drink a lot of it. I know there's a lot of ladies here have been

Tommy Smythe  3:54  
to our retreats. There's my retreat girls, yeah,

Debbie Travis  3:56  
so, so in the book, there's, I think there's recipes, because recipes ignite memories, and memories Ignite, you know, meals and things, and we all had that famous, you know, that souffle that we remember because it was with some gorgeous person and on holiday that you just met. So I put recipes in because they're beautiful memories food. So there's quite a few in there. But really, the book is a year. It's I started writing it 18 months ago, two years ago, as the year goes around. So it's a year in Italy around the four seasons. But just like any of us, when you go on a girls night out, are you talking? And I know we won't keep to any script tonight, you kind of bounce off the story. So you tell a story about something that's happening in Italy, and then you go, Oh my God, that remember, you know, reminds me of when I was eight and and this happened, so it's, it's bit attention deficit, and bouncing all over the map in it. And then, and then, of course, that story would ignite a meal, you know, so I put the recipe in there as

Tommy Smythe  4:58  
well. It's a little bit being like. Like inside of Debbie's mind, which is frightening, delicious and colorful and, yes, at times a little chaotic.

Debbie Travis  5:08  
When you said that when we got off the boat, you were like, goodbye, don't call me again ever.

Tommy Smythe  5:12  
I was seeing you in three days time, we

Debbie Travis  5:14  
went down the desert together for a week, and he nearly drowned me.

Tommy Smythe  5:19  
Okay, back to the book. So what inspired you to write this particular book, because you've written several others, and what is it about this book that sort of sets it apart from the other books that you've given us? So

Debbie Travis  5:30  
this book came out of when we do these, you know, we I kind of left television and bought this ruin in Italy, decided I didn't want to spend my twilight years, just sitting looking at the husband and the dog, I would invite other people to share it with me, because I felt so good whenever I was there. So since 2015 people have been coming to stay, and everybody who's here, who's ever been knows there's a lot of story telling, and we have forums in the evening, and when I tell a story, then somebody else tells a story. And these stories that have come out of our guests, really, you know, it's a camaraderie of people being together. And so I decided to really write down funny stories, because we're living in an age, which an age a week, shall we call it? That is so depressing we don't even want to turn the news on. So I just feel sometimes, you know, when you have a book that you can dip in and out of, and there's just funny stories of this unexpected life, which is my life. I'm hoping you'll have a very, very good laugh. Well,

Tommy Smythe  6:35  
the first little bit that I heard you actually read at the last retreat that I was, was your guest host of and it was so funny. And I mean, you can't write a book called laugh more and then not make it funny. So like, the stakes are high. And I can tell you, she had us all in the room laughing hysterically. It's extremely what was the story funny? It was the story about the pond. Oh,

Debbie Travis  7:01  
well, yeah, there was. So we can I tell a story? Well,

Tommy Smythe  7:04  
the next question is, What's the most embarrassing story you shared in your book? So I don't know if this one's embarrassing, but certainly most of Debbie's. I will say one thing before you start on this story, I realized when Debbie started telling us about the different chapters that were in the book, and reading from a few of them, that every story features a really extraordinarily handsome Italian man, or two,

Debbie Travis  7:29  
or two, yeah, well, we have where the where the villa is on, where does the sun go up? On the east, right. So on the east side? Is it the east? It is east. Yes, that's why I'm here tomorrow, he's the clever one. So on the east side, we have a natural spring. So we've been arguing for years about putting in a pond where the women could come and do meditation. And I'm sure any man here would say, yes, let's put the pond where the spring is. But I like the other side, the west side, because that's where the sun went down, and it was nicer for the meditation platform I'd planned. Anyway, a couple of years ago, Hans, who's my husband, who's cringing somewhere, no, he's back in Italy. He had come back to Canada and left me with quite a nice chunk of money just to pay workers and things like that. There was quite a lot going on at the property. Anyway, one day, I see a car parked in in the woods in one of the olive groves, and this very handsome, but like a caricature of an Italian with the long, slick back hair, the cigarette, the type Prada pants, you know, and everything, leaning leisurely over the car, Tommy, stop it. I

Tommy Smythe  8:43  
noticed that they were tight pants, but you did, you noticed. So he

Debbie Travis  8:47  
walked up to me, and he said this wonderful Italian word, Prita. And I said, Oh yes, yes, yes, hello. And he said, I have you ever thought about putting in a pond? I was like, Oh, my God, you've been reading my thoughts. I said, Well, yes, he said, let's walk the property. So we both decided together we would put the pond where there's no water. So so he said, Well, would you like to go ahead? And I said, Yes, when can you start? And he said, tomorrow morning. So, which is very unusual for Italian so I said, Okay, great. So I handed him this pile of money, yeah, you know where this is going. So the next thing was, I woke up in the morning and there was more gorgeous looking guys with a bulldozer, and they dug out a hole the size of four tennis courts. And I'm like, Whoa, okay. And then they put this plastic in this this rubber all the way around, where I started thinking, Oh, that's not very nice, but he brought me figs. So Prince bet I bought you figs from my farm. So it's like, oh so nice, even though I had this gut feeling something was going terribly wrong. And then Hans arrived back, Mr. Miserable, and said, I. Who is that man with the sleek back hair? And I

Tommy Smythe  10:03  
said, did Hans notice that the pants were tight? I don't think. No,

Debbie Travis  10:07  
he didn't. No, he was too miserable. And he said, That's I said, That's Sergio. And he brings me figs fresh every morning from his farm. He said, Who's Sergio? I said, He's the pond builder, digger, whatever. He said, Why is he putting a plastic liner into me when we have no water in the summer and the pond should go on the other side anyway. It was all a bit of a disaster, because Sergio didn't. He just made a run for it and disappeared. And then we lived with this mess of a pond because the weeds all came through it, and every all any water we had disappeared like a like a sieve and and then, of course, we had to rip the whole thing out. But the figs were very good. The figs were delicious, and so was Sergio. Wonderful things, very,

Tommy Smythe  10:48  
very lovely figs. Who is your favorite writer? And is there a book that you have read a number of times? Could you share some of your favorites? I mean, we know that you fell in love with

Debbie Travis  11:00  
Well, yeah, I have to say it's one of, one of my favorites, and I'm very lucky that Francis Mays also So Francis wrote the back of the book, and she's a fabulous writer. She's done about 80 books, I think. And of course, the most famous is Under the Tuscan Sun. And her book, her new book, a great marriage too, is really a great marriage that's just come out, and then women in sunlight when she wrote the back of the book, I'm like, really, really, it's better than the whole book, you know, the paragraph on the back. So I love her books. I think she's an she's a very poetic writer.

Tommy Smythe  11:34  
I do too. And thank you for introducing me to her, because she's quite she loves you. Really fun person to hang out with. Yes, you requested me when I was there last time, I was quite flattered.

Debbie Travis  11:43  
She said, you can leave Debbie at home. I tried my

Tommy Smythe  11:47  
best to be a good conversationalist. Okay, so what we're gonna do now is we're gonna do a little bit of a game, yes, okay, because we want to warm everybody up before Cynthia comes out, because, you know, before

Debbie Travis  11:58  
the strippers come out. Oh, did I just give it away. Oh, Tommy,

Tommy Smythe  12:04  
listen, I said there would be hints. Okay, maybe that was a really like a name. Big hint. This is called name the host, and it's sponsored by our friends at aprol, who are all about joy and laughter. Of course, just like us and like the book and Basma beauty, it's a Canadian company founded by Basma Hamid. They're in Sephora, and they're being worn by all the biggest celebrities. The winner of this game will get shade matched for the viral popular foundation stick and cream blush. All of their products are ultra hydrating and super buildable, which in makeup means, like, you can really work with multiple layers. And, yeah, we know. Okay, well, you get your makeup done now, because you're so posh. Okay, so our producer, wonderful, amazing producer, Sarah, thank you. Sarah has compiled a list of crazy things that we've said or talked about since we started the podcast. So these are quotes that you have said, things you have said, and things that I have said. She remembered them. Well, she has the tapes, okay, the digital recordings. I'm aging myself saying tapes. She's got the analog eight tracks. She's winding them with a pencil. Okay, so here's how it works. We have two audience members who are going to compete, and we're going to invite them to meet Sarah at the front of the stage. Now they are Heather and Marcy, the player with the most points after five questions, will win a little prize pack, which includes a copy of Debbie's book, this one here, and some other goodies. When we read the quote, we're not going to tell you who said it, which of the two of the two of us said it? You're going to hold up the paddle that has the face of the person you think said the quote, and then I'm going to use that little pad and pen there and keep track of and keep score, probably very poorly. Can we join in? The audience is allowed to join in? You can totally shout the answers. I will say who it was, for the people that are listening and can't see this or not watching on YouTube, because these are going up on YouTube. Now, I never thought I would be on YouTube. My friend's son has a YouTube channel, and I thought, Oh, I'm on YouTube now. So okay, Heather and Marcy. Where are you? Okay, which one are you? Heather, where's Marcy? There's you. Okay, come on. Yes, of course. Oh, my God, I know Marcy. Amazing. Okay, yeah, Marcy wins. Sorry, sorry Heather. Heather wins. Sorry, Heather. Unless you've got a couple of brown notes in there could be Marcy. Okay, so we're gonna start. I did not select the photo of myself, but clearly Debbie selected the one of her because it's stunning, and mine is goofy and weird. Actually, Debbie probably selected both. I did. Okay. So if you are listeners to the podcast, many of these things. How many are already listening to the podcast? Lots of you. Great. So you met. You may remember some of these comments, but if you haven't remembered the comments, try to think. Of which one of us would have said this thing. Okay, so let's start which one of us nearly died once from an artichoke. Marcy gets it because she was first. And it's Debbie. Wait, you have to turn that up. Oh, you've got it for the audience. Yes, do it when? For me, but also for them. So like this? Marcy, yes, exactly. Flick of the wrist. Flick of the wrist.

Heather, I see you. I do, I do, and if you accuse me of favoritism, you will win, just so you know, Okay, which one of us had a television show?

It's both You're both wrong. You're both wrong. We both did. Who said? And this is a quote I like to eat the Clean 15 and hang out with the Dirty Dozen. Yeah, it's me, not me. Which one of us once used dog shampoo, particularly that of an Irish setter. And it was Debbie. Oh, my God, why? Well, it's shiny.

Debbie Travis  16:21  
Okay, have you used it tonight?

Tommy Smythe  16:28  
Whose partner's private parts were showcased on Instagram Live? Marcy was first and, yes, it's Debbie. It was, yeah, it was hands. He was on the sofa, sleep. Oh, God, and you could see right up the right up the leg of his wife runs. No. What

Debbie Travis  16:46  
happened? What happened was, during COVID, the reason we did this podcast was because we used to do a live Instagram, and I was always in London, in lockdown, Tommy was here, and we weren't very good at it, and the camera falling on the floor and getting it done and everything, and I am blind as a bat, so I had the camera there, and suddenly we're 10 minutes in, and there's a banging on the door, and a friend up the road was listening to the podcast and listening to the Instagram she comes and she said, Debbie, please. I said, What? What I said? I said, I'm in the middle of an Instagram Live. And she said, I know, but you've got the camera the wrong way around, enhances in his underwear watching something on television, and he was sprawled out with a beer in the background.

Tommy Smythe  17:31  
And then we moved the Instagram lives to the podcast format, because Debbie was gonna get canceled if we didn't Okay. The next one is, who said driving in a car with you is one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had. You are such a chaotic driver. I'm not who was first. Heather was first. Said

Debbie Travis  17:57  
you actually said, If you don't stop driving like this, I'm getting out. And I said, Sure, jump.

Tommy Smythe  18:02  
Well, I think Patrick was in the car too. I think we were both clutching each other in the back, and Jackie was in the front with you, saying, I'm trying to tell you not to reverse into the tractor. That part I remember very clearly, Debbie, please don't reverse. There's a tractor. Don't reverse into the Debbie, don't reverse into the tractor that was going on and on, who rode off a car, as in, like, got it in such a bad accident, it was a total write off and almost killed some poor man an hour before their wedding. You're not allowed to put up your earrings. Sorry. Who was first? It was Marcy. Oh, my God. Marcy, yeah.

Cynthia Loyst  18:40  
We're

Debbie Travis  18:42  
tired. Come on, girls, let's make it really difficult.

Tommy Smythe  18:45  
Okay, whose morning travel routine is get your coffee and walk until and I quote, I have to rush back to the hotel, because we all know what coffee does. It was me and who was first, Heather. I think Heather was first. Heather's very honest. She's like, Yes, I was first, very honest. Heather very honest. Who said, if you are what you eat, my partner and I are at least 50% olive oil. It was Debbie, and Heather got it. Oh, yeah. And it's Debbie's olive oil that we are 50% made from, whose granny intentionally delivered an eight by 10 envelope sealed with a nude photograph of her sitting on a rock in her mid 40s for Christmas one year with Debbie, and it was others. Do you ever do anything

Debbie Travis  19:36  
wrong?

Tommy Smythe  19:37  
I mean, there's a lot of Debbie's in here. Apparently, Debbie says the more outrageous things, which is why we went to a pre recorded format. These are the things you actually heard on the podcast, the things that Sarah has in her back pocket in case she needs them one day. Are a lot more who tormented. A 200 year old rose garden in Vienna. It was okay, so you were first and you were wrong. Heather Marcy gets it

Debbie Travis  20:09  
wasn't my fault. That was. What do you mean? It wasn't your fault. You were hanging from a 200 year old rose branch. Vienna. Vienna, isn't it beautiful? It isn't it the most beautiful place? And Tommy and I went on this, this cruise thing that we had to do. And anyway, we go into Vienna, and there's a rose garden. This is the most beautiful rose garden you've ever seen. So I said, we've got to do some Instagram shots. You

Tommy Smythe  20:34  
wanted to do a meme thing? Yeah.

Debbie Travis  20:36  
And there was a beautiful arch that was probably goes back to, I don't know if anybody's watched the Empress. Oh my god. Watch it on Netflix. I'm watching it now. This goes right back to the Netflix, and there's this gorgeous this gorgeous arch. And I said, Well, why don't we get to the camera? Why don't I swing on and of course, I'm not exactly 10 pounds, so I go like this anyway. And everybody's standing there. So if you ever go back to Vienna, to the Rose Garden, now, it's probably all wilted roses,

Tommy Smythe  21:08  
I think, I think it was okay. I did look at it really closely, and I think it was just a bit of a false alarm, but it was very stressful for

Debbie Travis  21:15  
yes, but we have, but we got the crack on this on the video.

Tommy Smythe  21:18  
Oh my god. Okay, moving on. And this is a trick question, because it really could have been either one of us who referred to speedos as grape smugglers, nut huts, budgie smugglers, Scrope totes or truffle duffels. It's Debbie and it was either got it first, okay, oh God, tie it again, okay, who was almost escorted out of a palace because they kept feeling it up. Get your hands off the marble. Marcy gets it. It was Debbie. She was feeling up the marble, and she was told not to do it. And then the man walked away, and she went like this. I swear to god that is a true story. I could I was just like Jeremy, who is writing a book titled 101 ways to get arrested in Europe with my co host. It's 100% me. Heather gets it. It was, you were right. It was, could have been, been either one of us. So

Speaker 1  22:22  
We're tied again, so we need one more. Do you want me to come up with it? Or do you guys want to come up with

Tommy Smythe  22:29  
it? You better, because I can't remember what I said yesterday, let alone like 30 episodes ago, who

Unknown Speaker  22:35  
had potentially a love affair with a carrot.

Tommy Smythe  22:43  
Turn it around for me. Marcy, nope. Marcy still gets it. She was fast. It was Debbie. I was the one who had a love affair with a carrot.

Debbie Travis  22:55  
Oh, you just wished you're my top. You want to hear about the

Tommy Smythe  22:59  
carrot? Oh, my God, this is we talked about this on the last live podcast. Yeah,

Debbie Travis  23:05  
this was awful. So I was doing an event with Martha Stewart in Kansas, and I was very tired. I'd been doing quite a lot of stuff, and I fly in and there's a mall there, a really amazing looking mall with Neiman Marcus, where we were going to be doing this speech, and a fancy hotel. So I go in the hotel and there's going to be a cocktail or something, a welcome thing. And I thought, I really don't want to go, so I made some excuse, and there were quite a lot of hosts there, so it didn't really matter. Anyway, my room was really small, really, really small. And I thought, I just going to watch a movie and I'm not going to eat. And then I was like, oh, maybe I'll have a little bit, you know. So I called downstairs, and I said, you have a chicken breast? And the guy said, yes, yes, we have a chicken breast and some vegetables. I said, Okay, great, I'm going to order a chicken breast. He said, Would you like something to drink? So I said, No, no, it's fine. So he comes up, and he brings the chicken breast, and I've put a movie on. And those were the days, I don't know if they still do it, where you pay for the film. And it was, what was the film

Tommy Smythe  24:12  
called? Oh, it was that really filled with Diane Lane and really hunky guy with the cargo,

Debbie Travis  24:17  
unfaithful, gorgeous French guy, absolutely gorgeous, and she's married to

Tommy Smythe  24:27  
just watching that movie made you feel like you're being unfazed.

Debbie Travis  24:29  
Terrible marriage with Richie gear. She she's in the Windy City, and her stuff falls over, and she meets this French guy. Anyway, there's some very heavy sex scenes, and I mean real legs in the air, diving all that kind of stuff. Anyway, the guy knocks on the door, and he comes in just as the filthy it looks like I'm watching, you know, and he walks in, and the room is tiny, so he's getting past the bed, and he's looking at the television like that, and all I'm looking at is the chicken. And I said, that's not a chicken breast. That's a chicken. Leg. He said, Oh, I said, Can you bring me a chicken breast? I don't like chicken legs, so he says, okay. So he backs out of the room, and he comes back up, and this time, he's not gone very long, and he's, I'm sure he's just sawed off the leg and smashed it like this, probably in the elevator, you know, like that. And he brings it in, and the next scenes on it was even filthier. And he's like, and he's a little old man, you know, in this posh hotel, and he's looking at like this, and he's looking at me like going, and I'm in my pajamas, and I'm like, okay, just leave it there. So he's obviously gone downstairs and says, there's some sex fiend in the room watching dirty movies. Anyway, I thought, I do need a drink, so I called downstairs, and I said, Do you have, do you have a carrot of wine? And they said, A what? I said, a carafe. I said, You know what? Not a whole carriff? I'll have, I'll have half a carriff. And it's deadly quiet on the phone. And he says, Okay, ma'am. And next minute, there's a little old man knocks at the door, and I believe me, the next sex scenes on, and he comes in with one little white plate with half a carrot on. Obviously, I couldn't take a hold, and I have

Tommy Smythe  26:16  
one question, did you leave the movie on? I'd given

Debbie Travis  26:19  
up. I just wanted to put my head under the pillows, really. Sorry. Did I interrupt?

Tommy Smythe  26:25  
Your son is here? I know. Sorry, Max, that's the second sorry, max of the evening. Okay, so I think the moment has come to segue into our third block, our third block, which means we are welcoming back return guest, Cynthia Loyce from the social Cynthia also has her own podcast, which encourages laughing at uncomfortable moments, called Cynthia and josie's unmentionables. Cynthia, your food. Please. Cynthia,

Cynthia Loyst  27:04  
look at how good you load. Well, they're sparkly, aren't they? And I have a story about a cucumber, but it didn't go the same.

Tommy Smythe  27:12  
I'm kidding, guys, we're all friends here. I think we can talk about all the vegetables that we enjoy, yes, whether at home or in hotel rooms while it's traveling. So welcome back, Cynthia. We're so happy to have you back. I want to talk to you a little bit about like, in keeping with the theme of speaking about joy and laughing more, I want to talk to you a little bit about like, how laughter in friendships and co hosted shows matters so much, because your career has really had so many different layers to it. Really, you're an author. You've been co host of the social for so many years. I was in rehearsals with you, like before that show even aired. And now you know, after selling you were a sex expert, which a lot of people don't know, because it doesn't actually come up on the social all that often in conversation, but there are a lot of layers. So where does laughter come in with sex? CO hosting and writing books? I

Cynthia Loyst  28:11  
mean, sex has always got some laughter in it. Good sex. I listen. I think

Tommy Smythe  28:15  
for the men, maybe not

Cynthia Loyst  28:18  
for me, I've always wanted to connect with other people, and I think there are some people who got into this business like ours because they really love the limelight. I'm actually a reluctant on air host. I know that about you, yeah, my default mode is to be an introvert. It took a lot for me to get comfortable being in front of people and speaking. And the one thing that keeps coming up time and time again is just how wonderful it is to work with other women and and be joyful and laugh a lot. So the social has been this wonderful thing that I sort of fell into later on in my career. And you know, we've had ups and downs, but a lot of laughter and a lot of having each other's backs. And then during the pandemic, of course, like everyone else felt like, What the hell is going on in the world? And found this unexpected friendship in this woman named Josie dye, who works for chum radio. She's a long time radio host, a legend in that world. Yeah, some fans here. And so we were, we were hanging out together because she has an immune compromised son, and we were both very nervous about sending our kids back to school, so we started this small, little learning pod, because our kids were all around the same age. And what was born out of that was this incredible. We would sit around, we would have a couple drinks, you know, let the kids play, and we would talk about things. And the theme that kept coming up over and over again with us was, oh, I would love to talk about this, but I can't say that out loud, right? So with this theme of kind of unmentionables emerged, and you know, our very first podcast, for those of you who haven't heard it, it is called Cynthia and josie's unmentionables, but it is about both of us discovering that we both had hemorrhoids at the same time. And you have to sort of listen to the podcast, but it is. One of the funniest stories in the world, because I, you know, was not as uncomfortable with this topic as she was. I mean, I kind of was uncomfortable. Everybody's

Tommy Smythe  30:07  
uncomfortable. How many people in the audience have hemorrhoids right now? Now not, not a single hand goes up. That's how uncomfortable people are. That's how uncomfortable, I

Cynthia Loyst  30:16  
guess. But Josie had been hiding it from everyone in her life, her work, she had told them that she had some kind of a disease because she needed to take off, time off work. So she'd concocted this lie that took on a life of its own. And it just so happens that I got it out of her anyway. We have to listen to the podcast, but we have had more laughs. And I think the idea that I think is that when we talk about things that supposedly are supposed to fill us with shame, there's something liberating about it, because most people have had awkward, awful, strange, funny, sexy, sometimes experiences. And I think that they these stories unite us, and I think we should liberate they liberate us from shame. Sometimes

Tommy Smythe  30:57  
the sex and the shame and the humor all go together like a salad. I

Debbie Travis  31:00  
bet there's something that neither of you seen to do with hemorrhoids.

Tommy Smythe  31:06  
No, what are you going to do?

Debbie Travis  31:07  
I'm not going to show you mine. I walked across Vietnam to raise money for colon cancer a few years ago, and we had elephants carrying our bags, and one of the elephants, I can guarantee nobody in the room has ever seen this before. Had a hemorrhoid. And if you've ever seen an elephant's hemorrhoid, it's larger than you

Cynthia Loyst  31:26  
can't unsee that. I'm sure I'm picturing it. It was weeping.

Debbie Travis  31:32  
And we had a lot, we had a lot of nurses on the track, and one of them said, If I had some dental fluff, I could get that off. It was disgusting. I

Tommy Smythe  31:44  
want I want you to know that the next question yes, that I am to read on this podcast recording is discuss a time when you couldn't believe something your co host did, the elephant hemorrhoid story now ranks very high for me. Cynthia, how about you?

Cynthia Loyst  32:05  
I mean, I was shocked when, again, my co host Josie, decided to share her husband's broken penis story. He broke his penis, broke his penis, and

Tommy Smythe  32:17  
I've broken a few in my day. You have not? No, I haven't. Oh, my God, Patrick's mother is here. No, I haven't. I've never had sex in my life. Patrick's mother's in the room.

Cynthia Loyst  32:25  
It was an incredible thing because, like, I heard that he'd broken his penis. Because she called me and she was like, Joel broke his penis. And Joel is this elegant man. He runs a record company. He's not anymore, very successful. And what was amazing about it is that he opened up and talked about it as well. So that's awesome. Yeah, I was shocked that they were so open. And I think we did a public service, though, because I learned a lot. We had a doctor come on to talk about the what and the why and the how of it. And you know, for everyone who's wondering, it has healed, they have had sex since then, they're all okay.

Tommy Smythe  33:01  
To look this podcast. I listen to the podcast. Well, just in case, just

Cynthia Loyst  33:05  
in case. Never, never know. Penis owners, beware, wow. There is no bone in there to break, though, to be clear, but you can still break it. Yes,

Tommy Smythe  33:12  
the word boner is, I found that out by accident. Don't ask for that story. So Debbie, anything that you were shocked that your co host said or did? Well,

Debbie Travis  33:26  
yes, I was embarrassed of you the whole time on the boat. Tommy's so nice to people, and I love with people. And so Tommy had gone on this cruise, and I'm not a cruise person. And I said, I will never do it, Tommy, I will never do it. He said, they pay you. I said, Okay, when are we going? So, so we went down the Danube and Tommy would go off every morning with these coaches of people. And I would be, Oh, they've all gone. I had the whole boat to myself. It was absolutely amazing. But, but you were quite good. I mean, you did embarrass me a bit though. I mean, well, I

Tommy Smythe  33:59  
love embarrassing you, because you can't be embarrassed. Well, literally, just told the story about an elephant hemorrhoid.

Debbie Travis  34:05  
Yeah. Well, we, we were both kind of embarrassed, but we also made a big mistake. So in the middle of Vienna, in this, I mean, Vienna is just gorgeous, in the middle of the piazza the square, Tommy and I go on our own, not with the other people, and we and they have these. They're like taxis, or like you have in New York, the carriages with the horses. But these are, like, they're little motor person, like Chitty Chitty Bang, bang. They're like Chitty Chitty Bang, bangs. But they're obviously built off the famous carriages that they used to go in the Viennese in the empire. And it's absolutely dark, dark blue, beautiful, with, with, you know, like the, like a crest on the side and everything. And I said, Well, I think they're like toys things. I think we can go on one of those. So the first guy we go up to was really rude and nasty and very Germanic. And don't forget him. Anyway, across the other side there's this gorgeous looking Afghanistan guy, and he's going come, come, come, come. So I said, Well, how much is. It, and Tommy's available, yeah, how much is it? And he said, it's 40 euros. So I said, Come on, Tommy, let's do it. So we like little tourists, and we go around, and he's pointing, and, I mean, it's just stunning, and he's pointing all these buildings out and everything. And one of them, I said to him, which is the famous library, because there's a library there that's like a museum, and it is ninth century. It is absolutely good, and which is the library. So he points at that. And we go around and everything. And nearly towards the end of this one hour trip with, you know, driving along, we said, how long? How long have you lived in Vienna? Because your English is really good. He said, Oh, I've only been here a week. And we said, oh, oh. Okay, then so we pay when we get out, everything he pointed out, he just made up. Yeah, it was wrong. It was like it was the Grand Palace. Turned out to be a supermarket. And then we go, oh. And then I embarrassed you, because we go to the library, which he pointed out, which was not the grand library. So finally, we leg it miles, and we find this, oh my god, the building was gorgeous. And we go in, and there's a line of people paying, and then you go up the stairs into this library, which, if you ever go to Vienna, you must go, you can't take a book out. It's like, you know, it's a museum, it's a museum, but it's beautiful. And Chopin wrote there. Mozart wrote there, anyway. So I said to Tommy, nobody's going to notice. Let's just go in. Tommy said, we have to pay. He says he's only 20 euros. I said, Tommy, don't, you don't have to pay. Come on. Come on. So we go upstairs, and there's a little old man on the door, and I said, Tommy, you, you, this is how I save $20 you talk to him and I'll sneak in. Like, Tommy's like, standing there, like, anyway, I get in, and I get a big kick out of not paying for things. So I get in, and Tommy's standing in the doorway apologizing to this ancient man. You know how you get really old people working museums, being nice volunteers. So apologizes to them anyway. He disappears, and I thought he's gone to pay Yeah, so, and you

Tommy Smythe  37:01  
sent me, like, 15 text messages. Do not go downstairs and pay for a ticket. You are not to pay for a ticket to get in here. I'm already all the way in. He doesn't even know I'm in here now, you just run right past him, like, all these decks coming in. Meanwhile, I'm I'm paying for a year over tell me for her ticket and my ticket, yeah. So he went and paid, and then I said, this is for me and this is for my friend, yeah? And he was like, yes,

Unknown Speaker  37:23  
we've already called the police. And

Tommy Smythe  37:24  
I find it really amusing when Debbie tells the story about the tourist car guy, because if Debbie got a job doing that job, she would lie about every single thing that was in the city as well. She'd say, that's the city hall. No, it's not. It's,

Debbie Travis  37:39  
well, my biggest fear in Tuscany, because we do a lot of walks and hikes and stuff, is that, and we have had it a couple of times, that we have a historian there, because sometimes we have had a couple of going really,

Tommy Smythe  37:49  
that's not what Debbie said. If

Debbie Travis  37:52  
you don't know what it is, just make it up.

Tommy Smythe  37:55  
Oh, my God, okay, Cynthia, we want to know the origin story about, like, how you ended up on the social we talked a little bit about what you were doing before that. You've been on air on television for a while before it happened. But how did it all come together? Because not a lot of people really know. Like, yeah,

Cynthia Loyst  38:11  
I mean, I was, I was, I had been a producer for many, many years on a documentary series about human sexuality, and it was like an award winning, really, really smart, edgy show. It was groundbreaking for very innovative show. Yeah, very innovative. And we took ourselves very seriously. So again, the only reason why I kind of fell into doing on air work at all was that in 2008 there was a merger, and I could tell that the new company that had come in and bought us, we're not really interested in that sex TV show. They were just like, whatever. But one of the CEOs was like, I'm interested in you being a face for to talk about sexuality, because you feel comfortable and and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, not interested. But at a certain point I realized, like, I was probably gonna lose my job if I didn't take him up on this. So I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the leap. And so I did a little bit of television for a bit talking about sexuality. Had my own show briefly on CB 24 called Sex matters. And then I kept hearing rumblings about this show that someone was working on. It was going to be the Canadian the view. And there had been one incarnation that I don't know if I'm still can talk about this actually, where we did a pilot for it. And at the time, I was coming on as a sexuality expert, but the people who were in it were totally different than the people who ended up on the social Yeah. So there was an incarnation, and then I died. I don't know why. Fast forward a couple of years, there were rumors, again, they're auditioning, and at this point in time, I'd done a bit more television, so they wanted me on as a possible to audition for being a host. And there were a lot of people there, yeah, like, basically, almost anyone you can think of in the Canadian television industry was there showing up. But they did different combinations of people, different groups. The very first the four of us were the four in the very first group who did audition were the four who were chosen, yeah, which was Melissa and Tracy. Tracy Lainey and myself, and then Jess Allen as well. Was a later issue.

Tommy Smythe  40:04  
Well, Jess was like the social media person who then ended up just being too fabulous to be off camera. That's

Cynthia Loyst  40:09  
right, that's exactly it. Yeah, so and then. But we, none of us. I remember doing press right before the show launched. First of all, we initially were doing it in a studio upstairs that was such a pile of garbage.

Tommy Smythe  40:19  
Oh yeah, that was taped before they made it over. It's nice now. Yeah,

Cynthia Loyst  40:23  
it does look nice now, but it looked garbage. And then they moved us downstairs. But literally, we were doing press, and none of us, we were like, people were saying, what is the show gonna be about? We're like,

Debbie Travis  40:32  
we don't know.

Cynthia Loyst  40:34  
They're actually, no, I remember us kind of stringing words again. It's like, fashion and it's fun and it's blah, blah, blah

Unknown Speaker  40:39  
buzz words. What

Cynthia Loyst  40:41  
in the hell is this gonna be? Ponytails? It was a lot. And yeah, actually, Jan Arden has called us, like, when she first saw the initial photographs that were taken, she said somebody was asking her to be on the show in executive and she's like, I don't want to be on the show. This is the big hair and tight dress show. And I look

Tommy Smythe  40:58  
back at those old not too on brand for Jen.

Cynthia Loyst  41:00  
She did not have any interest in it, but we warmed to her, and then we warmed to each other. And I think what is unique about that show is that we decided to have each other's backs early on. And I think it's too easy for a long time in television, women, I think, were encouraged to be very threatened by one another, yes, and it was really easy then for people who were in charge to like, be like, Oh, well, Debbie thinks this about this, like, pull you apart and make you jealous and mad around each other. And we were like, screw that. We are not letting that happen. And it hasn't been perfect, but I think for the most part, we've tried to sort of connect and trust each other because it made more sense than anything else. Daily energy, yeah, nice.

Tommy Smythe  41:41  
I think one of the things, because I've guessed it on the show a few times, and so it's Yeah, so have you, and so is Debbie. One of the things that people ask me a lot is like, are they really friends? And my answer to that is always like, well, the show wouldn't work. If they weren't, it wouldn't work. And so it's very important. I think I love the message of that I have your back, because I think it's something as a guest on the show, I always felt I was always brought into that circle of trust and of, you know, faith, that you would get through this live hour of television, and if something went wrong, somebody would help you. Yeah, and a lot of people fear live television, like it's not fine, it isn't easy, but it's also incredibly exhilarating. It's like, sports, well, it's

Cynthia Loyst  42:25  
like, every day, you know, we get to put on a live play, like, that's what it feels like, and the energy the audience is is palpable, and it is so important. It's the extra person on the show, is the entire audience, I feel like, but it is. It's scary as hell, and I'm surprised there haven't been more F bombs. I'm surprised there haven't been more farts, like, things like,

Tommy Smythe  42:45  
it's amazing. Yeah, there have been, but they've been, yeah, they were silent but deadly. No, there have been

Cynthia Loyst  42:55  
falling down the stairs. Like, that's only happened, like, once. Like, now that I've put it out there, it's gonna

Tommy Smythe  43:00  
happen tomorrow? Well, it's a very it's a special show, I think, because you feel that camaraderie and you feel the energy of the live broadcast. And the My Favorite television I've ever done was live television. So I understand, you know, how important an aspect of it that is, what can you tell us, what your best or and or worst celebrity stories are. And you can change the name of the celebrity, or you can be ambiguous about who it was, I

Cynthia Loyst  43:31  
think, a rule of thumb. And maybe people know this is that the bigger the actor is, generally the more gracious and lovely they are. Yeah, and there's something about the middling and or an actor who once had success, or a musician who once had success, who then has fallen from grace, and they are generally the crappiest people. There's a chip on their shoulder. They roll deep with a big entourage, whereas you have someone like Ryan Reynolds who drives himself and just like parks and like wanders through like, there's just a different energy. So probably some of the one story that, of course, those of you know the show might know this, but I'm going to share it anyway. Jason Momoa is a beautiful man who you might know from that is, and I'm not that type of a girl like my husband, my partner. He's he's actually a small man, like, I'm not really about a refrigerator like, kind of hulking being. That's not my bag. But I first noticed him when he was on Game of Thrones. Any Game of Thrones? Fans, yeah. So way back in season one that

Tommy Smythe  44:35  
Khaleesi around like a baton, but he was sort of an awful

Cynthia Loyst  44:39  
character, like he there was a real problematic but I could not take my eyes off him, if you know I'm talking about, okay, so Aquaman, then now, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, long hair. Was married to Lisa Bonet. Anyway, I had actually interviewed him a couple of times, but, like, you know, didn't expect him to remember, but then I ended up saying a lot of filthy stuff. About him, like a G rated, filthy stuff, but on the show, like I'd said, like, I'd like to play a game on that throne. Oh,

Tommy Smythe  45:06  
my God. So between the two interviews you had, yes,

Cynthia Loyst  45:09  
I'd said a lot, a lot of stuff. And then one of the producers thought it would be a great idea to assemble a little montage of all of the things I'd said about him and show it to him live on the air. God, when He was on the show, so he so I didn't know. I knew they were up to something, but he came and he sat down, and then they played it, and I was just more. He was luckily, so gracious about it. But I will tell you, so, yeah, he was so gracious about it. He was lovely. He had a good laugh.

Tommy Smythe  45:38  
How fired is that producer?

Cynthia Loyst  45:40  
No, she's amazing. But I will tell you that it was so interesting to watch the impact that he had, because even men behind the cameras were like, I get it. I get it. I want to have sex with them too. Like, yeah. So he was one of the best. He was just amazing. And then worst, not that they're the worst, well, there's the worst of someone who I will name, which is that, like, you know, they say, never meet your heroes. So I, I was so excited, because my very first, like, when I was like a kid, like a child 45 was the police. It was like, message in a bottle. And I obviously had been a big fan of the police and sting, and so when Sting was coming on the show. I was like, he's like, into like, Tantra. He's like, so he's gonna be so cool. We're gonna get along. I just thought we would have a connection. And he was like, cold as ice, wow. And I was just always a bit shocking. And then, but then I'm kind of giving grace. Like, imagine how many people try to make a connection with him on a daily basis. It must be exhausting. But he was a bit Freezy. And then there's one person I won't name, who is an actress who was on her show twice. The first time she was on, she was just short with her answers, not very kind. She was promoting a side hustle that she has, and it was unmemorable. She came around a second time around a year later, and was again promoting this side hustle. And we do rehearsals sometimes beforehand where a producer stands in and says, Okay, here's when this actor is going to say. We run through the questions, basically. And one of the producers was pretending to be that actress, and it turns on that the monitors were actually projecting into the green room where she was waiting she saw the whole thing, but guys, she came out sweet as punch, and she ended up sending a huge basket of gifts to the social staff. I think maybe it was a small time where she learned about herself and actually maybe became, maybe a more nicer person thanks to the

Tommy Smythe  47:42  
social. Maybe the social does make people nicer. I am nicer after I go on. It is a true thing. Thanks.

Debbie Travis  47:50  
I think also sometimes it's not just the people you have on the show who's nice and who's not nice. It also depends on the show. So it's like Cynthia's right, you know, the bigger the star they're usually the more you know, gracious they are, right?

Tommy Smythe  48:04  
And Debbie is very gracious and

Debbie Travis  48:07  
but sometimes the others, the other side of it is the people who work on the show. So the smaller the show you they can. They just treat you like, these are the like the runners and the stuff. They're nobody. They're like 17 year old, spotty kid, you know, intern who it's like, seriously, like, who are you? You know, like this, and they don't make you feel special. And I had an incident, because I did Oprah quite a few times. And I get to the all the way to Chicago, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and I'm going to be doing something for them. And I come from some small Canadian town where they were kind of so rude to me, the people behind the scenes, because it was a tiny little show. So I get to Oprah, and they were so nice. And then I get in the green room, and there's an older gentleman sitting there, very quiet, just sitting like this, and I'm getting my suitcase out, and I've got all my stuff out and everything. Anyway, this intern comes in and says, Mr. Travis, I'm really, really sorry, but you're going to have to leave. I said, leave. He said, Well, we've canceled your segment. And I said, Oh, why? And and he said, Well, you know this gentleman here, we're going to do the whole show with him. Looked at him, I filthy look, and I said, and who are you? He said, My name's Nelson. I said, Nelson. Who it was? Nelson Mandela, and I'm packing up my suitcase, and he said, What were you going to talk about? And he had this beautiful voice, like, like velvet. And I said, Well, I'm showing people how to really rip off wallpaper. And what were you going to talk about? He said, Well, world peace. I said, well, you'll never know how to rip off wallpaper now. And it was I. Just didn't know who it was. And then, of course, out of the studio, called my husband. He said that was Nelson Mandela, you foolish woman.

Tommy Smythe  50:11  
Oh. Debbie, Okay, Cynthia,

Debbie Travis  50:13  
I want to talk. I want to never know how to rip off your paper.

Tommy Smythe  50:18  
I want to talk about find your pleasure, which is your online hub? Starting with, what is an online hub? I'm 54

Cynthia Loyst  50:26  
Well, listen, it was something that I launched in the midst of, like, a couple years into the social I had basically a live a panic attack live on the air, and I didn't tell anybody at the time. And I, you know, I was struggling with this new show, and I was a new mom, and I was pumping my breasts at work, and it was a bit of a mess, and I was sleep deprived, and so I ended up, I think it was when Justin Trudeau was on one time before he actually became the Prime Minister, and I remember listening to him talk, and I just sort of like blanked out. And it was a really scary experience, because I thought I might throw up or pass out. I didn't either, but I was, it was very alarming to me. I thought something's not right, so, and you

Tommy Smythe  51:01  
had been doing live television for so long, and that's the scary part, I imagine, is like, this is something I know. This is something I can do. This is my everyday life, yes. And then that took over,

Cynthia Loyst  51:11  
and then it took over, and then I just started thinking about how, and that's why I, you know, I love the work that you do. It was just like I hadn't experienced a lot of like, joy or pleasure. And I think a lot of new moms can relate to this. I wasn't doing anything for anything for me. I was mired in to do lists and Mother guilt and all these kinds of emotions. So I decided to do this sort of deep dive on pleasure, because also I was raised Catholic, and that word was so fraught when I was growing up about, you know, and it was always associated with sex. And I think pleasure is about so much more than that. So I wanted to sort of explore, how do we live a sensual life? How do we tap into our bodies and our thoughts and find you know, our choices? Yeah, and so I wrote this book, which I described as a book that has recipes for life. Sorry, it's not. It's not a book,

Tommy Smythe  51:56  
and it's a great book, thank you, which is called, find your pleasure, the art of living a more joyful life. You contributed some

Cynthia Loyst  52:03  
photos to it. You and your lovely partner, Patrick, just some beautiful photos. So yeah, it was a labor of love. It was it was amazing, and it was launched. So I would highly recommend people don't do this. Do not launch your book when there's about to be a global pandemic.

Tommy Smythe  52:17  
I, yeah, I've managed to avoid that one so far. But

Cynthia Loyst  52:21  
anyway, it was lovely. Yeah, we launched in January 2020, or I launched it. And so, yeah, it's a multi faceted thing right now. It's been a bit dormant as I've been doing the podcast, and also because I don't want to burn out, but I am slowly starting to resurrect it. And it is, stay tuned.

Tommy Smythe  52:37  
I can tell everyone listening, and everyone here in the live audience. It's actually a really, really special book, because it's one of those books where you'll find something that you completely intimately relate to, and then you'll find way more things that you should be more mindful of and had kind of forgotten about, maybe or not noticed in a little while, like I remember when I was in high school. I don't know how many of you know who June Callwood was, but she was a journalist and a humanist, a humanitarian. She started Casey House, the first ever freestanding AIDS hospice in North America. And she came to my high school because Brie Fitzgerald, her granddaughter, is an old friend of mine, and we went to school together. So June came to speak at our school, and she spoke on the subject of recognizing kindness in the everyday. And there's a lot about pleasure in that. You know, the discussion that ensued with these we were 16 year old high school kids was really about looking for simple things that you might not have noticed a person who opens the door for you and then maybe later on that day, you hold the door open for somebody else. And what do you experience when you do that pleasure? Yeah, it actually makes you feel good. So I loved the book, not just because my pictures went out. I ran by the book because I was like, Oh my God, I've got pictures in a book. And then I read it, and I was like, this is a really, really beautiful book. Thank you. Thank you. So, yeah, highly recommended. Again, not a sponsor. Thank you. Thank you. But truly, truly, genuinely, highly recommend it. Okay, so are you ready for a game? Yes,

Cynthia Loyst  54:07  
I'm ready for a game. You ready for a game? We're

Tommy Smythe  54:09  
gonna do another game,

Cynthia Loyst  54:12  
but there will be no winners. Well, the winners will be just so everyone who might laugh, Everyone's

Tommy Smythe  54:17  
a winner, Everyone's a winner. So Sarah, who you know now, our producer, is walking around with cards, and the cards have words on them. If she comes to you, you're going to pick a card, any card, and read the word out to us. We will have to tell a story inspired by that word or associated with that word as a jumping off point. Scourger loins, ladies, this is Linda Mick Jagger. Oh, I think we both have a big Jaguar. I've got the moves like Jagger, you do, but I'm not doing that tonight because they're not paying enough.

Debbie Travis  54:52  
Oh, that's a good one. Do

Cynthia Loyst  54:53  
you want to go? You do? Okay, I'll try to keep this short. So years ago, I used to. Moonlight in my early producing career as a belly dancer. So I belly dance for about 15 years of mine. I do. I knew this about you. I had gone to Egypt. I learned how to dance from a million different places. And so I was moonlighting as in Arabic clubs around the city. And one of the places that I danced at was a place called FES Batik. Does anyone remember it on Queens? I remember people in the back amazing place. And so I was dancing this one night, and when I finished up my set, I was having a drink, and I noticed Edgar. I was like, That guy looks like Ron wood, Ronnie Wood. And he was with a bunch of people, and none of my friends knew who the role like. They were just like, who's rolling to Rolling Stones. They were just totally clues. I'm like, that is Ronnie Wood. No, that's not, I don't think people are trying to, like, look it up on their phone. Anyway, I forgot about this. I didn't have the courage to go up and say anything, because I wasn't really I was a bit insecure that it wasn't him. Anyway, forgot all about it. I'm back. I'm doing producing. I'm working very hard, and I'm starting to kind of distance thinking, like, I can't do so much belly dancing. I got to just focus on my daytime career. I

Tommy Smythe  56:01  
think this all the time. This is literally what I think every Monday night

Cynthia Loyst  56:06  
shisha club, swords on head. It was getting to be a lot, so my agent calls me up and she says, I have a gig for you. It's on a Tuesday night. It's a 60 year old birthday party a man. And I was like, No, I'm out. And I'll fast forward to the end of this story. Give me the egg. And I was just like, I had to cut out some things. And my girlfriend calls me the day, and she's like, Oh, Cynthia, girlfriend, guess what? I took your spot, and it was Mick Jagger's birthday party. And all I know is I feel like Rodney Woods saw me and chose me, and I would have been there. And then the thing is, is that I've had to rationalize it being like, maybe it was not the path it was meant to go down. Maybe I would have ended up being like, the mom of his still impregnating people at like,

Tommy Smythe  56:55  
oh yeah, no, totally. Nobody's safe. Nobody's safe. Oh, Nobody's safe because he's still sexy, so you could still maybe, you know you might, you might give permission. You know you might. I might. Never been told I look much like Jerry Hall. So I don't think it's happening. That's a way back throwback. I like that. Okay, do we have another word, air drop? Does everybody know what AirDrop is? By show of hands, so AirDrop Is this thing on your phone where a person, if your phone is turned on to a certain setting, a person can send you a picture. And I was sitting in the airport terminal at the gate at LaGuardia in New York, and this thing popped this air drop message popped up. And so I thought, Oh, somebody's, I must know somebody here. And I was looking around, do I know? And I hit the thing to look at the picture, and it zoomed out, and it was a picture of a large hand holding a dangling man by his penis.

Cynthia Loyst  58:02  
And I thought someone felt you had to see that photo.

Tommy Smythe  58:05  
I didn't know what to feel. I thought, is this a proposition? Is this a threat? I really didn't know. What

Cynthia Loyst  58:15  
do you immediately look around and be like, who's who's like,

Tommy Smythe  58:19  
I of course, the first thing I did was, like, who sent that? And there's, like, the little old lady over here, and the sort of very buttoned up businessman over there. I know it was the businessman, yeah, but it was so fast forward, like, later on, Patrick has always been trying to send me things by AirDrop, like, because, you know, we're sharing photos all the time from trips or nights out or whatever. And for some reason, my phone doesn't work with AirDrop anymore. So like the hand with the dangling penis. Guy broke my AirDrop, I think, because it literally doesn't work. Patrick's right there in the back, banned from it. Oh, I might be banned from it, just like you're banned

Debbie Travis  59:02  
from Uber. Dangerous air drop, isn't it? You

Tommy Smythe  59:04  
could just send anybody anything. It could have

Cynthia Loyst  59:07  
it open, like, if you have your AirDrop thing, it's context only. You gotta close your you probably close it's

Tommy Smythe  59:12  
like having your mouth open, like, close it. Something could fly in there that you don't want someone

Debbie Travis  59:18  
could fly.

Speaker 1  59:21  
Right? Next one. So it's Laura, Laura, and the word is audition,

Tommy Smythe  59:27  
audition. Okay, why are you looking at me? I don't think I have an audition story. I'm gonna pass on

Debbie Travis  59:35  
that one. I had an audition. I just remembered this one many, many years ago, centuries ago, as a bunny girl at the Playboy Club in London shut your when you're talking to me this, that's the only time I've ever auditioned for anything.

Tommy Smythe  59:50  
And I don't think I've ever

Cynthia Loyst  59:52  
heard Hugh Hefner there. No, it was the

Debbie Travis  59:54  
bunny club in London, and there was other stuff. Going on there as well. But they paid well, and they did, yeah, and I went with my friend, and we were given these bunny outfits where they're basically the bra is like a shelf, so you can have the flattest boobs, and you're like, you've got a cleavage like this. So you have to get into this thing because it's tiny, and your waist is, like this big. Your boobs are hanging out. And mine wouldn't stay in. They just would not stay it was like a piece of the cardboard. And so we had to go in. It was awful. I mean, this was the early you know, you everything was cringe. And so we had to go in. It was a bunch of guys sitting around a table and I'm being interviewed, obviously, with fishnet stockings on this red thing and a tail. And my tail, my outfit, somebody else had obviously worn it the night before. So my tail got now, I remember, got trapped in the door, so my half, my tails come off, and as they're interviewing me, because they're asking me if I can, you know, serve, because you're walking around serving, yes. I mean, I think it was closed down a few years later, and I and these guys are staring at me now. Look down. My boots had just fallen out, and I was basically topless. I was just sitting there chatting.

Tommy Smythe  1:01:21  
Sorry, Max,

Debbie Travis  1:01:25  
did you get the job? No, I started painting houses.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:33  
You made the right choice.

Tommy Smythe  1:01:36  
I didn't see that one coming. Neither did they just remember

Debbie Travis  1:01:39  
that one on the spot. Hi, my love. My name is Yvonne. Hi, Yvonne, and the word is horse. Wow. Horse on six.

Cynthia Loyst  1:01:50  
I feel this is an odd story that I think about with horse. Do you have a horse

Debbie Travis  1:01:54  
story? No, do you have a horse?

Tommy Smythe  1:01:56  
I mean, I've been on horseback, okay? I mean, there's not, like an extraordinary story, so you take it away. Well,

Cynthia Loyst  1:02:05  
I mean, this is a bit horse adjacent. Does Is anyone familiar with the Fetish pony play? Yes.

Tommy Smythe  1:02:13  
Okay, sorry, I said that really fast and really emphatically, but I do happen to know a little bit about this, and there's a reason. I

Cynthia Loyst  1:02:21  
mean, it's interesting, because so I told you that I used to work at this documentary series about human sexuality, and again, we interviewed everyone from, like, super high academics to priests to porn stars. It was like the whole gamut. And the idea behind the show was to hold a mirror up to interesting things happening around the world. And at first you hear some things or whatever, and I'm just like, oh, like, what is up with that? And then sometimes I had to marvel at the sheer imagination of it all. So I heard about

Tommy Smythe  1:02:47  
a lovely way of putting it.

Cynthia Loyst  1:02:51  
There was, I had heard this story, but I think it might have even have its origins in England. I'm not, don't quote me on that, but there was this whole group of people who like part of their erotic kink was that they would get dressed up as a horse and a rider, okay? And they they take this very seriously. So the person who gets into, like their pony space puts in like a bit and, like a feather thing, and wears a tail and and then has, sometimes hooves, and then the rider is just the rider. So I found this as a, again, documentary producer. I found this couple who I was going to, I believe it was in North Carolina. Okay, so I traveled with my I was doing a bunch of different stories along the way. It was a road trip. I get there with my camera guy who I don't really know that well. And this is an odd show. It's an it's a professional

Tommy Smythe  1:03:37  
environment that's about sex is unusual, yes.

Cynthia Loyst  1:03:41  
And again, to be clear, I went to the University of Michigan just a couple years ago to get my sex educator certificate, and they showed episodes of our show. That's how influential this show was as

Tommy Smythe  1:03:51  
a really teaching environment. Sorry,

Cynthia Loyst  1:03:52  
I feel like I need to justify it a little bit. But anyway, this particular episode was not necessarily used as a teachable moment, but it was for me in the sense of, like I met this so the guy by day, he was a photographer of, I think, beauty pageants, and he traveled the world, and that was how he made his living. He was an odd kid. He seemed kind of medicated, like a little bit like Southern and he wore a kind of cowboy hat and a shirt, but very nice and very kind. His wife had this, like, long red hair, quite beautiful, very curvy, and she was a scientist. She was like a boss lady, really whip smart. She had told me that she got out of this messy divorce, and she was trying to just experiment with dating scene. And she thought maybe she wanted to explore this sort of S M scene, and she wasn't sure she was. She said she thought she was maybe a submissive, but she was frustrating. A lot of dominant personalities because she was too bossy. And so somebody said to her, Well, you might be a pony. And she's like, what? And it turns out, this girl had lived on pony like lands, like she was obsessed with horses all her life, just thought they were so beautiful. And so it all it was like for her, it was like a moment of like, click, click, click. Like I'm a pony girl. And so she found this guy, Paul. Her name was Mary, I think Paul, anyway. And the two of them, love was born. And so I listened to them talk about this thing that, again, doesn't really involve intercourse at all. It's adult play. They get into their imaginative space. He showed me around. They did a kind of little act and whatever. And again, not erotic at all from my perspective. But at the very end, of course, this guy turns to me and he goes, so do you want to put on a French maid costume and let me ride you around a little bit? No, no, thank you. You don't want to offend the people who are interviewing. You

Tommy Smythe  1:05:38  
had left your French maid costume at home. Obviously you didn't know to bring it.

Cynthia Loyst  1:05:43  
Thank you. But then from the other room, this stupid camera guy goes, because I sold it. What I said was, my excuse was, I was like, you know, I'm a journalist, like, I'm just here to observe, like, I don't get involved in anything I interviewed. And my camera guy goes from the other room, Oh, it's okay, Cynthia, if you want to do it, I won't tell anybody how. Anyway, I was anyway. Oh, my

Tommy Smythe  1:06:05  
horse story on the job training for that camera guy, I mean. And, wow,

Cynthia Loyst  1:06:11  
I've seen a lot of things. There's some things I can't

Debbie Travis  1:06:14  
unsee. Did you do lots of people who do swapping and stuff like that, all

Cynthia Loyst  1:06:17  
of it, I've been Yeah, because, you know, I

Debbie Travis  1:06:19  
always thought if you ever ended up by mistake at one of those parties with the keys in the ball where they swap couples and stuff, you know, we'd be sitting there. Nobody picks us. I just can get a burger

Tommy Smythe  1:06:33  
your husband. Your husband is adorable. He would get picked for sure. So would you Okay? Are we ready for another word? Okay, here we are. Hi there. My

Unknown Speaker  1:06:43  
name is Jill, and my word is restaurant.

Debbie Travis  1:06:45  
Well, actually, I have, I do I have my artichoke story? Oh, my

Tommy Smythe  1:06:51  
God, the artichoke story. Okay,

Debbie Travis  1:06:53  
I think we should. So this is a restaurant in London. It actually brings Mick Jagger in because this was a club. So in the book, you know, I'm writing about something that's going on in Italy during this year there. So in the spring, artichokes are really the most exciting thing that's coming out, because we don't import food in Italy. Everything is grown there. So art, there's about 200 varieties of artichokes, and the Italians go nuts. And you go to the market, and the old ladies are fighting over them, and they have tiny artichokes that are like golf balls that they slice raw, very, very thin the Italians and put a vinaigrette on. Then they have purple artichokes where they make a sauce, and there's just so many. And then they have the big, like, you know, the big globe artichokes. So what happened when I was writing this book, you're telling this story, and there was a crazy thing that happened in the market, but as I'm telling it, I thought, God, I remember, I nearly died. Once I I was nearly killed by an artichoke. What? Oh, yes, I was awful. So what happened was, I come from the north of England, where the food is drama of it all,

Tommy Smythe  1:08:03  
I was nearly killed by what an artichoke.

Debbie Travis  1:08:10  
Gather around the fire. Beware, all artists. So as my children said, I've actually only learned my son will say this in the last few weeks before this media tour, because I've told this story a few times. How to say it right? Because I can't actually say the word am I right? Max I say artichoke. He said, Mom say 20 times artichoke. So anyway, now I've got it right. So in London, when I moved to London, when I was 1616, and a half, told my mom I was leaving home, and she basically said, you want a jam sandwich for the bus. And that was it, and and that was the way I was brought up. She had a big family. She was widowed. She was very young, and it was one less mouth to feed. So I went to London, and at about 17 or 18, you know, we were clubbing, you know. And it was the really fun days of clubbing and stuff. Now, the most famous club in London was called tramps. Every movie star, musician, John Collins, would be there. You know, Bowie on the dance floor, Jagger on there. All these people were there, but men were not allowed in on their own, because they didn't want gangs of guys going in. So what men would do, they would go to the wine bars, pick up a couple of girls. The deal was, they bought you dinner. So they could get into the club, and then they could go and get somebody prettier or thinner or whatever. And that was that went on all the time. So I end up with a bunch of guys and a bunch of pretty girls, and in the restaurant, in the club wasn't a restaurant like it was open. One guy, wealthy guy, orders the dinner for everyone, and then everybody gets asked to dance, except me. So they all get up and they're all out there with, you know, these famous people dancing on the dance floor and stuff like this. And I'm sitting there, you know, like, fly on the wall, you know, wallflower. And the waiter comes and he puts the starter down, and it. An artichoke. And next to it, he puts a little bowl warm water with a lemon in it. And I have never seen an artichoke in my life before, and I'm looking at this thing and thinking, God, they're weird in London. What is this big plant? You know? What is it? So I eat it. I eat the thorns, the outside leaves, the inside hairy bit. And I'm thinking, God, these people in London are weird. I'm chewing this thing. So I drink the bowl, because it helps. It kind of goes down

Tommy Smythe  1:10:32  
anyway, which is a finger bowl.

Debbie Travis  1:10:34  
It's a finger bowl, yeah? So it's a posh, posh people's food, you know? So anyway, everybody comes back from the dance floor, and the girl sitting next to me goes, Did you not get anything? As they delicately pick into this this artichoke, I said, Well, I ate it, and as I said it, there was a line of blood, and I was taken in an ambulance to the hospital, to emergency, and I literally ripped the inside of my throat apart. I was allowed to speak. Was very difficult for about a month, and I the entire thing. So I was, I had a phobia of artichokes for a very long time. Like, was

Cynthia Loyst  1:11:10  
there any point at which you were consuming this that you thought, like, maybe I'm not doing this? Yeah? Like,

Debbie Travis  1:11:16  
yeah, that's what I wonder, too. But you know, when you're young and you're vulnerable and you're in. You wanted to fit in, grown up, fit in and

Cynthia Loyst  1:11:26  
squash. People eat painful food.

Debbie Travis  1:11:29  
That's why they're all so thin.

Tommy Smythe  1:11:31  
I had a friend who who was at a cocktail party on a dock in the Muskoka lakes, and this very glamorous woman who was wearing a pooch dress. They were handing out corn on the cob. It was a summer party, and she ate all of the corn off the cob, and then proceeded to eat the cob, no in front of all of these people, and in front of my friend, who was so flabber casted that she was dumbfounded and couldn't even say anything to stop her, and she ate the whole fucking thing.

Cynthia Loyst  1:12:00  
Kind of admire that. I mean

Tommy Smythe  1:12:02  
less danger, like less sharp than an artichoke, but equally as alarming that she wasn't eating it and thinking, this is very woody. You know, texturally. They're

Debbie Travis  1:12:14  
not very good cooks at this place. Yeah. Also,

Tommy Smythe  1:12:16  
nobody else was eating the cop. They were putting them down. Don't

Cynthia Loyst  1:12:21  
even know what to say to that. I

Tommy Smythe  1:12:22  
don't know either. No, I don't know either. Okay, we have another word, hi.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:28  
It's Joanne. Hi. Joanne.

Tommy Smythe  1:12:31  
Embarrassed. Oh, well, leaving constantly. Yeah, non stop.

Debbie Travis  1:12:37  
Well, we could say how embarrassed our boy on the boat was so when we went on the boat, I had a butler

Tommy Smythe  1:12:45  
this but this is the love story to end all love stories, Debbie and her Butler. Nobody has ever wanted or dreamed of or appreciated a butler more than this woman appreciated your Butler's name was Marion. He was called Marion, who's a huge man named Marion.

Debbie Travis  1:13:00  
Yeah, he was Yugoslav. He was about six foot five, and he was watching old reruns of my show. And honestly, I think he wet himself when I walked on the boat, and he was like, and then he was given to me, and he was my personal butler. And of course, I've never had a butler before, so I use Butler, Marion. So he did everything for me, and he would, Tommy, would have to say, when we go for dinner, right? Marion, you can leave now, because he'd just be like,

Tommy Smythe  1:13:31  
it was a scenic it was a scenic cruise. But really, in Debbie's mind, it was Cleopatra's barge.

Debbie Travis  1:13:38  
And then so one morning, most people had left the boat, so it's me and Marion, and a couple of people were playing cards on the front and they had these glass doors. So I thought, Great, nobody's here. I'm going to go and get a coffee. But they'd closed the glass doors, and I had a brand new white shirt on with a cup of coffee, hot coffee, and I walked right through the glass door, and it didn't break, but because it was that kind of special glass, and it bounced back Debbie proof glass, but it but it went all over me. And then Marion came running, like in slow motion, like 20 times the length of this room, and he was horrified. He's

Tommy Smythe  1:14:19  
so devoted to her. Has anyone ever seen that show, Veep? You know, what's his name? Peter Hale, something Hale, yeah, yes. The character Tony Hill, that was Marion to Debbie was the Tony Hill. He kept in touch.

Debbie Travis  1:14:35  
Oh, yes, we're married now.

Tommy Smythe  1:14:41  
Okay, okay, so we're gonna wrap it up on that. On that note, we're gonna do a little Q and A Sarah's gonna go into the audience with the mic like Sally, Jesse Raphael, who has a question. If anybody has a question, you can ask anything, because if we don't, if it's too inappropriate. Well,

Debbie Travis  1:15:00  
I have a Sally Jessie Raphael story.

Tommy Smythe  1:15:02  
Oh, my God.

Debbie Travis  1:15:03  
Oh my god. I just remembered this one. Can I take? Can I tell it quickly? Yeah, she was out of LA. Do you remember she was one with the big glasses, right? So I was invited on the show and in, though it was before 911 so you could take your paint on the plane. So I had luggage with a huge can of green paint and boards. That was my demo for the show. And I get to LAX. And you know, when the suitcases are coming round, I see a trail of green. Oh god, no. Oh god. Anyway, they put me in the Beverly Hills, the really fancy hotel, and everywhere I went, pulling the thing, the pulley was aligned, all through the lobby, all in the elevator, but I didn't care, because it had my clothes in. I got into the hotel, I said, I know. I don't need to know where the fridge is. Goodbye. I opened the thing up in the bath, and my clothes are ruined, I mean, ruined. And I was on the show, and it was late at night. I, you know, there was nowhere to go for clothes, so I had to wear,

Tommy Smythe  1:16:07  
well, in LA, there are places to go for clothes late at night, but not the kind of clothes you want to wear on TV. They're the kind of clothes you want to wear on the corner. The

Debbie Travis  1:16:14  
mess I made, I ended up washing the carpet in there, washing the dish, wasn't that and then I had a friend and I in LA and I said, Can you come and pick me up? So like, kind of drug dealers, we put all the towels that are soaked now in green paint, this is the night before the show, and we drive around, where can we leave them? Because I didn't want the hotel to see them because they charged me. And so we find it absolutely true. We find a dumpster down a back alley. So she drives up. It's my friend, Elspeth. I get out, open the pulley, and it's full of soaking wet. It had a gallon of paint in it, right? Of all the towels from the hotel room, from the Beverly is the Beverly Hilton. Beverly. Beverly Hilton, yeah. So we opened the dumpster, I just throw them in, and as I'm getting back in the car, a face came out and said, Oh, thanks a lot, mate. And then I did the show in my horrible clothes that I'd flown in with Marla Maples, who was not very nice. Do you remember her? Yeah, Donald Trump, yeah. And, and I remember her saying, you can change, you know, and I don't have any clothes, and people like and that was it. She was nice. Sally Jess,

Tommy Smythe  1:17:26  
she was nice. But Marla, not so much.

Speaker 1  1:17:29  
Hi, I'm Cheryl from Toronto, and Tommy. I just wanted to know, how did you start your career relationship with? Sarah Richardson,

Tommy Smythe  1:17:36  
oh, that was kind of like Charlie's Angels I was toiling away at in retail, actually really loving working in retail for one of my mentors, Yousef, has Vani, and Sarah was a frequent customer in the store, and she and I knew each other socially before that, she was friends with my sister Christy Smyth, who's a fashion designer. And early on in Christie's life, an exploration of fashion, she started knitting hats, and Sarah was photographing Christie's hats on two of my friends who were models. And Sarah and I became friends socially. And then when she was a client in the store, she just came in one day and she said, You know, I'm doing this new television show for HGTV called room service. And I said, No, I know it. She'd already done one season, and she said, Patsy is leaving, and I need somebody to come in and fill her spot. Would you ever consider leaving? La, tell ya, and coming and working for me on the show? And so I did, and then that turned into a year round relationship. So I stayed on and did client work with Sarah outside of the production schedules. And then just as the years went on, we did room service for several years. That was back when television networks were commissioning 26 episode seasons. Now, if you get six, it's good. If you get eight, it's like a huge parade up University Avenue. So we, we just did a lot of that together, and spent many years together, and then developed into, you know, the network started saying, you know, you've got, like all of the people at when she did design ink, which was the maverick TV show that changed the game and lifestyle television again, after Debbie changed it first, she kind of pulled back the curtain on the runnings of a real interior design firm, and I did well on that show, I think mostly because, you know, she and I worked so well together and liked a lot of the same things, but also because my mother, you know, had said to me, you just have to be yourself. And because if you're not, if you don't, and you might have to hold up this lie for a really long time, because what if the show runs a long time? So the network started saying, Could Tommy do more Episodes Season to Season? Could you give him eight instead of two? And so then it turned into Sarah's house, and then I was invited to become her co host. Great. Yeah. And it was a, it was a really fun you know? What? Way to be able to be we always said, Sarah and I that we were on television because we were good designers. We were not good designers because we were on television. And the distinction for me was always really important, you know, Sarah, I think, you know, the TV thing was more important to her, not than design, but more important to her. In general, for me, I fell into it. I kind of just it happened to me. It wasn't something that I ran toward or that I pursued. And now that I'm basically retired from doing television, people are always like, when are you going to do more TV? And I always say, you know, like, I just, I don't it. Always needed me more than I needed it. And then I feel like, you kind of naturally age out of it. It's a hard job, you know, it doesn't pay well in Canada, my American counterparts make 10 times more than I ever did. And so you have to really be, you know, energetic. You have to have the energy to do it. You have to really love doing it. And you're taking a huge pay cut, you know, I was working for, you know, literally less than a quarter per if you broke it down to a per hour rate when I was doing television than I was making when I was doing actual design work. So, but I was so fortunate to do both, and I loved doing both. So yeah, that's Sarah, and I had a very organic way of meeting. Yeah,

Speaker 1  1:21:14  
hi. My name's Joanne. I'm told this is the last question. So I'm very fortunate. Mine's for Debbie. Would you ever, because you do retreats? Would you ever open the villa up to where a couple could come and stay for a week, like a hotel, kind of like a hotel, like I've been to Tuscany and have stayed at remote, little places that are like five or

Debbie Travis  1:21:39  
it's difficult. So we do classic car rallies now, which, which we love, absolutely love. And we started with the retreats. The problem is, of you know this, I'm doing this really for fun. I love it. And running a hotel is a whole different thing. When you run a hotel, and it's a dream for so many people, I want to have a B and B and everything, but you become chained to it, because then what happens is the phone rings and it's like, you know, can we come away? And we get this all the time now, people call and say, we're in the area. Can we can we come for two nights? We say no, and they turn up and, yeah, you know? And so, no, it's not, it's not what it is. It's our home. So it's our lives, it's our home, and it's, you know, during COVID, we did have a Dutch couple call us, because during COVID, when you were all stuck in your houses, Europeans could travel by car, and it's very easy to go from country to country. So this couple said, Can we stay? And we were like, nothing to do. So we said, Sure. And the kid got to the place, and they were like, it's all ours. And we were like, sure, you know. But then we found them in our fridge, you know? Because we said, well, if you want food, you have to go out. And because we're not, we're not a restaurant, you know. So you give an inch, and so no, we would no. Because the great thing about the retreats is I can organize it. I know exactly what we're doing in the year. And then we take kind of July, August for our family and friends and things like that. So no,

Tommy Smythe  1:23:08  
okay, well, that was our last question. I want to say. I have a couple of things to say as we wind down, as we wrap up. Cynthia, thank you for coming back. Please come back again. We never get to touch on everything that I want to talk to you about and that Debbie wants to know about you. I know that the two of you are becoming closer friends, off big fan, off camera, and I really want to thank you so much for being here. We are going to be staying around for a little Hi. How are you afterwards? Debbie is going to be signing books. So the ladies from Indigo outside, if you haven't already bought a book, Debbie is going to be signing those outside. I want to thank Of course, the women in media network Sarah Burke, our incredible producer, Podcast Producer, and and her and her cohort and friend, Chris Brenton, who's my manager, sort of conceived of these live shows, and it's been such a pleasure and so well organized. And thank you all for being here. Thank you to Universal Music and the Academy. This venue is so cool. Don't you think like it is just that whole art installation in the back is old chair backs from Massey Hall. So universal is where music in Canada lives. It is a super special, amazing place. This room, this building, was designed by super cool, which is like one of my favorite Canadian architecture firms. So thank you to universal. It's always a pleasure to be here. I came and sat in on Jan's recording, and it was amazing, and that's how we came to be here. So thank you to everyone at Universal, Lisa dawn, and, of course, Basma and our friends at Aperol. So Basma beauty, thank you for allowing us to have a cute little loot bag and fun games. And thank you to Aperol Spritz for tonight and all those other nights. And all the nights to come. So thank you, everyone. That's a wrap. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai