Name: Lakers Owner Jeanie Buss | This Past Weekend #122
Uploaded: 2018-08-16T13:00:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Lakers Owner Jeanie Buss | This Past Weekend #122' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-08-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Lakers Owner Jeanie Buss | This Past Weekend #122' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-08-16. Transcript available.

Lakers Owner Jeanie Buss | This Past Weekend #122

This episode brought to you by Gray Block Pizza. Gray Block Pizza at 1811 Pico
Boulevard in Los
Angeles. Consider Gray Block. Today's episode features a young lady that I met
through a friend
with a mutual friend and she's a bad beauty of basketball if you ask me. You
know and I've
honestly always had maybe a mild little crush on her if I'm being 100%
transparent and I am.
I'm just so happy to have her here today. She's smart and she's eloquent and
she's extremely
charming. She is the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, Miss Jeannie Butts.
First female that we've had in that's not a comedian I think. I'm trying to be
a comedian.
I know that's true. Can you hear her? Hello, hello, hello.
The lovely Jeannie Buss is here. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me.
Yeah and we were
talking because you and I have a mutual friend, Dr. Will Kirby. Yes. And we
were talking about
you're doing stand-up comedy. I'm taking a class because I'm asked to speak a
lot and I'm painfully
shy and so I thought if I could be a little bit more funny then maybe it wouldn't
be so painful for
me. Wow. So I'm taking a class. It's for you know it's called Pretty Funny
Women and so it's women
only. Is it Lori Kilmartin that runs that? No. Who is that? Lisa Sunstead. Yes.
And so I'm looking
forward to that and it's you know to challenge myself. And tonight's the first
class. Tonight's
the first class. So I had to prepare you know kind of an opening where she
talked about you know
like when you when you get up in front of an audience you try to connect with
them. Right. Right. And so
she said if you have something outstanding about you like a funny voice or you're
really tall or
something you know maybe talk about that in your opening just so then because
people are watching
you up on stage they don't know what who you are. Right. They're just thinking
immediately about what
they say. Right. And so like and so I kind of wrote my opening around something
that a friend of mine
said about me. Okay. And I took that and that's going to kind of be my comedy.
Let's start look I want
to start right there then. So let's do you have the opening? I can't I mean I
can kind of give it to
you. Okay give it to me a little bit if you feel comfortable. Okay so so you
know I get up on stage
and I say you know you know it's great to be here tonight and you know I'm this
new for me I'm learning
how to do it and you know I was kind of told that you kind of introduce
yourself to the audience and
you know maybe something about you and and and so I asked one of my girlfriends
when you if if you saw
me standing up in front of an audience and you didn't know me what would you
think? And she said
I would think Barbie and and I'm thinking oh Barbie okay I can I can kind of
get that a little
bit. Okay. And she goes mom? Barbie's mom? And I went oh my gosh wait a minute.
Like let's hope
the Corvette's insured kind of thing. Barbie's mom? Who's Barbie's mom? Have we
ever talked about
Barbie's mom? No. We don't know. We don't know who she was. That's so true. Who
is it? Sondra?
What's the mother's name? Diane? Right. Is it like is was she like a science
experiment? A test tube? Like
and and you know did Ken miss out on like a mother daughter trio? And and I
thought about like you
know every time you know Ken and Barbie got married I never invited mom. Yeah.
Mom wasn't there. Like I
think it's ruined a generation of women's relationship with their mom. Because
Barbie didn't have one.
You didn't need one. Yeah. Right? So and then of course that leads us to the
you know well then
who's Barbie's dad? Oh wow. Well we know she had a Corvette and a dream house.
So maybe it's
Donald Trump. Maybe it was. That's good. I like that. That's good. I didn't see
that coming.
So that's kind of the first build into the joke. Oh that's perfect. That's like
the first thing I've
ever written. Oh wow. That's good. No um I love hearing you talk about that and
the other night
whenever uh whenever I saw you whenever we you know we're at our we have a
mutual friend and and we've
met before. I saw you a few times over the years and then we sat together at
their wedding or on the
same table. Yeah. Um but uh but you started talking about stand-up comedy when
we were talking
about it and I was like wow I said Jeannie is just she's so charming you know.
I thought you were just
a beautiful lady. I thought you were just extremely charming. I was like I
would laugh uh I want to
know more about like her trying to make people laugh and I took a class. You
know when I got into
stand-up a lot of people know I took a class and I didn't do it for about two
years but I did take a
class um and it was helpful and it was a lot of fun and you get to perform at
the end.
So you guys will have a date probably in a couple of months where you'll be
doing stand-up comedy.
Probably. Yeah. If I can last that long if I don't have a heart attack.
Are you taking a friend with you to the class or no? No no this I have to I
have to push myself and
challenge myself and and you know get myself out of the zone of of comfort and
you know it's just
this is what I decided to do. Yeah. And and I really appreciate um you know the
people that I've
spoken to that are in the comedy business have been so nice and supportive and
so I really I kind of
cornered you at the the 4th of July. It was fun. Barbecue and and picked your
brain um and and you
know how generous you are with your advice and and support and I really
appreciate that. Yeah I want
to look I would love to help you punch up any jokes. I told you I want to come
to one of these
functions because you're like because you have to speak at a lot of functions I
guess um and now are they
functions are they leadership functions like um and just to preface so so just
so anybody's clear and
I'm not even sure are you you are part of the partnership that owns the the Lakers
or or a chairperson
what is it? Yeah you know it's it's um the Lakers have been in my family since
1980 and um
you know it my father bought the team I was 17 years old and I have worked in
the family business in
different aspects um but really what my father intended was he wanted the team
to stay in the
family and he passed away five years ago and through a very uh conscientious
effort on his part he um
you know he left the team in a trust that would be controlled or benefit the
his children his six
children and so he he had to designate who the person ultimately in charge was
because the NBA
through league rules only will recognize one owner one voice wow that is the
the sole decision maker for
the franchise and so that's the position that I have and what some people have
heard about is
you know um a year ago I had to uh remove my brother who was running our
basketball operation at the time
okay and um it was kind of an unusual circumstance because I had to use the
authority that was given
to me by my father to to do that and and and and people right and people who
are in family businesses
can understand um how difficult that is um but it was something that was really
important to my father
to keep the team and the family and I couldn't see any progress as to how the
basketball side was run
and so I brought Magic Johnson in to run the operation and I think he's done a
good job in the last 16-17 months
and is Magic just pretty fascinating he must be just so charming huh is it just
immediate charm what is it about him
you know what it is it's very interesting because he you know people kind of
compare him
with another Laker great Kobe Bryant and both equally successful in terms of
winning championships each have won five
but Magic had this big smile on his face yeah the charisma always oh he smiled
his way out of HIV pretty much
it seems like you know you know he smiled his way out he's yeah he is he is a
natural leader
with that kind of charisma but uh now that I've I'm with him in the in the
boardroom and hearing him
make strategy as to how we're putting our team together he will continue to
smile as he talks about
dissecting the other teams in the league cutting them apart he is he will he
will make you feel good
but he will beat you he likes it he wants to win yes and now do you think that
he always had this um
because I'm a Magic fan I don't think I bet I don't think you could find I
never thought about this I
don't think you could find a person in the world that's probably not a fan of
Magic Johnson you know
what I'm saying like there's just something about him you almost I mean you
remember what team he
played for the Lakers but you just there's something about him that makes you
feel good
well he he's a worldwide figure and certainly Muhammad Ali was you know beloved
and and stood
really for for so much in this world and um I would say that Magic has that
same kind of
of uh persona and uh he's revered all around the world that's fascinating and
so do you know but his
business acumen is that something that he's learned he he is he he's like uh
you know he wanted to learn
everything even as starring for the Lakers and winning championships he was
wanting to know more about
business and he he was like a sponge he would go and he would pick the brains
of all the the the smart
people that he would meet and most importantly my my father and so when he and
I are together uh you
know working strategizing we speak the same language because we were basically
raised by the same man
you know I my dad bought the team when I was 17 Magic came that same year at
age 19 so we're basically
the same age and we learned at the you know the hand of of one of the greatest
owners ever most
winningest owners uh Dr. Jerry Bass my father yeah uh what what what's
something that you miss about
your father oh um you know he used to uh I was thinking about this so this is
the first thing on my
mind um he used to sing there's a song called I Dream of Jeannie with the light
brown hair he used to sing
that to me all the time and um you know nobody's ever nobody sings that song
anymore nobody really
even knows about that song but that was you know that was his special song for
me I gotta move my
purse sorry oh nice so yeah so that was like a sweet thing that you guys had he
would sing that
sometimes yeah um what was something like he would do like even like a physical
affection like I remember
like my father was 70 when I was born my dad was very old and I remember like I
didn't have like a
lot of moments with him but I remember like sometimes my dad would and my mom
never let him sleep in the
bed so he would just be out and about basically just wandering around the house
all night you know
and he'd sit in a chair lay on the couch or something and so sometimes I'd come
in and like I'd you know
sneak into the kitchen to get some milk or something and he'd be over sitting
in a chair and he'd be like
come over here and I wouldn't know he'd even be over there just be in the dark
kind of and I'd go over
and he would just kind of like um he would like kind of put his arm like on me
or something and then
his breath would kind of smell like beer like he had a couple beers and we just
spent so few moments
together but it's one of the moments I remember the best it was like for me
that was like a third of
our relationship was me like you know um anything else about your dad that was
just kind of like a special
thing that you guys would do or a special moment that you remember even from
any point in your life
um well I you know going back to your dad I love hearing the story about I didn't
realize
not only was your dad an older father but you guys he had a bunch of kids you
guys had a bunch of kids
you're right like so you had siblings yeah you well you had like siblings so
like you know it wasn't
just like you by yourself with oh yeah there were four of us running around I
remember my mom
she would get mad that my dad wouldn't spank us of course he's 76 years old you
know what I'm saying
like he doesn't really have the