DL: As a kid you were picked on and through that you found comedy as a way to conquer the bully. From high school you went on to college and pursued a degree in social sciences. The comedy bug had bit you long before this, did you think that you would ever get on a stage and tell jokes or was that considered a "pipedream"?
HH: I wanted to be an entertainer for as long as I remember. I even pretended to bomb when I was a kid. I had this picture of cartoon monsters sitting in an audience. I have no idea where this came from or why I had it, but it was a cardboard cut out of Dracula, a mummy, a Frankenstein monster, a wolf-man and some other assorted monsters, all with flat, unimpressed expressions on their faces, and I would stand in front of it and tell jokes and then look from face to non-laughing face and say things like "what is this, a picture of an audience?!" Holy SHIT! I was a weird kid! No wonder I was bullied. Anyway, I figured everybody wanted to be famous. I know it might seem weird, but I didn't pursue it because if everybody wanted it, but relative to the population so very few had it, I figured it would make me a cliché or something. Then I heard Seinfeld do that bit about how more people were afraid of public speaking than death, and somehow in my mind, if it was unique to have this urge to make groups of people laugh, I had a responsibility to at least give it a try.
DL: You have an internet radio show called Naughty Bits and you co-host for HSR on Bob Levy's channel (www.stickam.com/levyland), How did you get started in the internet radio field?
HH: I met a comic at a show who gave me a CD of his pod cast. I was trying to get in his pants, so I became a fan and listened every week. Yes, women do that shit too. Anyway, one of the guests on their show would come in the chatroom on occasion and he was constantly trying to pick me up. He tried everything to get me to make the trip from Pennsylvania to Long Island, and finally convinced me to come be a guest on his podcast. I, of course weaseled my way into the third mic position, and yadda yadda yadda, he's my husband now. We've been doing HSR for like 6 years now and I started Naughty Bits about 3 years ago.
DL: Naughty Bits is considered a Sex Advice show with a comedic flavor, was this your brain child?
HH: Yes, obviously I'm somewhat driven by sex. Its one of my favorite subjects, in fact. Lets face it, we're sexual beings and if we weren't by it, we wouldn't make new people, so its kind of necessary. But I could never do a show that didn't include comedy. Being funny is how I communicate. My first choice for a co-host was my friend Aden Ardennes, because he is pretty much my opposite, and he's gay. Every female comic needs her homosexuals. Not everybody gets Aden, but he has become one of my closest friends, he can take me giving him shit, and has a lot to contribute. Recently we added Pro Domme porn star Julie Simone. She adds the sexy to the show, while mildly horrifying our more vanilla listeners with stories of the sessions her clients request. Julie is being inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame this year. We're so proud!
DL: You've worked with some cool folks while doing stand-up comedy: Colin Quinn, Robert Kelly and Mick Foley, how was it working with "Cactus Jack"? (Btw, I'm a huge wrestling fan! LOL)
HH: I consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with these guys. My husband is a huge wrestling fan, I am a huge fan of making fun of wrestling. My husband thinks its hilarious, he wants to do a series of youtube videos of me making comments while watching wresting, I don't think other wrestling fans would appreciate it as much as he does, so my sense of self preservation has kept him from pursuing this project. Now don't go hatin on me! I make fun of wresting on T.V. Because I m a cynical asshole, but the very things I joke about are the exact things I love most about wrestling. I love the history of wrestling, the Carney esthetic, the athleticism and choreography of the matches. I enjoy watching documentaries and movies about the wrestling world. There are so many correlations between that world and the world of stand up comedy. The movie "The Wrestler" made me question why I wanted to be a comedian. Mick Foley is one of my favorite people. "Beyond the Mat" just blew me away! The genre is low brow, and doesn't exactly garner the respect of, lets say, Opera. But if you broke them down side by side, Opera isn't that much different from Pro Wrestling, the only difference is people dress nicer to go see an Opera and the fat lady doesn't drag razor blades across her forehead and get hit with a folding chair while she's singing her aria. Alright, there are more differences, just go with me on this. O.K. My point is, working with Mick fuckin rocked! He's the only person I would do this for!
http://youtu.be/2ezOeoFn8YwDL: Seriously, do you ever get intimidated when you're told who you will be working with?
At my level I vie for position to work with people. I don't get told who I'm working with, I beg for spots on shows with them! Then, when I realize what I've done, I try my best not to freak the fuck out and choke on stage in front of them. Comics are very self centered, ego maniacs. I take solace in the fact that it is very unlikely that any of them pay attention to what I do on stage and, if they did hear it, they will probably not remember. When I worked on the show with Colin Quin, I kept myself calm with the thought that he would be in another room while I was on stage, and certainly didn't give a shit about listening to me. As it turned out, I was doing the last set before the headliner, and ended up doing my whole set with him standing in the doorway staring at me. I put it in my head that he was probably staring through me while thinking about what he was going to say. Not that I don't day dream about someone higher up in the business hearing my set, thinking I'm hilarious and taking me under their wing, its just incredibly unlikely, and a sure fire way to end up messing up on stage and turning it into a huge bomb that they'll never forget.
DL: You're also a writer and have been in different publications, columns, magazines, etc. How cool is it when you look back and reflect that you turned all that bullying and what not into a career that rocks?
HH: Wow! I never looked at it exactly that way. I admit, I like seeing Facebook friend requests from people that I thought hated me in high school. They're usually fat or bald and still live in the same neighborhood, or even better, with their parents. That's more of a weird circumstance associated with social networking than where my career has gone. Lets be honest, who doesn't like to see that they're more awesome than somebody who was an ass hat to them in high school? So, if I do reflect on how the said "ass hats" of life has made me deal with things the way I do and had a part in making me who I am, I'd say it's cool as shit!
Thank you again for allowing me to take a bit of your time for this interview. You can find Heather on Facebook (www.facebook.com/heatherheight) on Twitter (@heatherheight) and listen to her podcasts; HSR Sunday's from 2 - 5pm EST and Naught Bits Fridays from 8 - 10pm EST on Levy Land (
www.stickam.com/levyland)
Check us out to find out who's made The Dean's List, HOLLA!
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