Comedian Heather McDonald draws from personal experiences for material
Heather McDonald has her niche as the wife and mom of the “Chelsea Lately” gang, but it comes with a price.
“This is very much trying to balance two lives,” the comedian says. By doing stand-up Friday at South Point, she will be missing her son’s “big first-grade play.”
“I tried to explain, ‘Six months ago this casino asked me if I could tell some jokes, and said, “We’re going to give you money you could spend toward taking your kids on vacation and to Disneyland.” And that same night happens to be the night of your play.’ ”
See how she worked in Disneyland? But it didn’t fly.
“He looks at me like, ‘Hmmph. You’re a monster.’ Which was followed by a suggestion: ‘You just call up Las Vegas and you tell ’em to change the day because your son is in a play.’ ”
She settled on going to a dress rehearsal. But as all parents know, you can’t win.
“The older one is in baseball and says if he sees my face it brings him bad luck, so I have to hide. My younger son makes me feel guilty if I can’t go to something. Each child is so different.”
McDonald’s new book, “My Inappropriate Life,” includes a story about taking the lads to the Hard Rock Hotel pool — when it happened to be in session as the dayclub Rehab.
“We went down at like 11 (a.m.), because my boys were dying to go down the water slide for so long,” she recalls. “Come around 2 o’clock it’s starting to get really crazy.
“Chelsea (Handler)’s going, ‘I think you better leave, because if you keep going down that slide, you’re going to get pregnant.’
“I tried to get the kids to leave and these girls are drinking out of penis straws,” she recalls with a laugh. “When I was in my 20s, Vegas just wasn’t like this. Every pool a huge party like spring break. Now it’s hard to even find a hotel (to) chill by the pool.”
McDonald, who turns 43 on June 14, says she is always reminded that in “Chelsea” circles, her life is so normal it’s unusual. Her children go to the same Catholic school she attended when growing up in Southern California.
And when she says she’s been married 13 years, some people ask if that is “from just the one husband?”
“No, I’m not adding up two marriages into one.”
She weaves a lot of family material into her casino appearances, and doesn’t assume audiences get “all the pop culture references, like the average 25-year-old that watches our (TV) show does. I usually do more stuff about my life that I think is unique to me, but everyone can relate to.”
Las Vegas is a measure of how Handler’s stand-up and talk-show fame has affected McDonald’s own career since she signed on in 2007 as one of the original “Lately” panelists and staff writers.
On one side of the Strip lies The Improv at Harrah’s , where McDonald worked as the middle comic in the rotation “in my late 20s, for like a week.”
On the other side is the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, where McDonald was one of Handler’s opening acts when Chelsea-mania was at its peak in 2010 and 2011.
As the TV show’s popularity surged, McDonald remembers the first time “I got my own flight” to one of the shows. By the time of the “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang” tour in 2010, “we had a jet for each thing that was amazing. We took the plane to the Colosseum that night and that was like, oh my God.
“All those type of things, I did really relish it and try to appreciate it. Hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish those things on my own, but I’m so happy with how everything has gone that I feel like I’ve already accomplished a lot.”
“Chelsea Lately” has turned out to be strong support for each panelist’s separate book endeavors “because they all kind of help each other.” And the show feeds her live act in a way that works in reverse from doing stand-up on other late-night talk shows.
“You’re not burning through material. You’re not doing five of your best minutes and then you can’t be on (that show) for another year. You’re writing fresh jokes because it’s a topical show.
“Sometimes I’ll write something for the show and go, ‘That’s a really funny subject. I wonder if I could expand on it for my own act.’ It’s an exercise to keep you fresh, too.”
Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at
mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.