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Colorado Matters
April 6, 2026: Move premiere deeply personal for Denver comedian Adam Cayton-Holland
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- [00:04]
Ryan Warner
For Denver comedian Adam Cayton Holland, the highest high and the lowest low came one after another. He'd landed a huge stand up gig. Then his sister killed herself.
- [00:16]
Adam Cayton Holland
No matter how much we know it's not our fault, it doesn't matter. In our hearts, we feel guilty. I look back at Lydia's life and I'm sickened that we couldn't see it coming.
- [00:26]
Ryan Warner
So Caten Holland wrote what he calls a tragicomic memoir.
- [00:30]
Adam Cayton Holland
This book is the best therapy I ever got myself, and I'm so proud that people are responding to it. I'm now well, well aware of how pervasive an issue mental illness is, which makes me feel less alone.
- [00:44]
Ryan Warner
It went on to win a Colorado Book Award. Now it's been adapted into a movie, premiering at the Boulder International Film Fest. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News and krcc. I'm Ryan Warner. A premiere at the Boulder International Film Festival this weekend will be deeply personal for Denver comedian Adam Caytin Holland. See youe When I See youe is based on his book Tragedy plus Time. It recounts the suicide of his younger sister, Lydia, his struggle to come to terms with and the stigma around mental health. I spoke with Caton Holland in front of an audience at the Newman center in Denver when his book hit shelves in 2018.
- [01:32]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Welcome to the program.
- [01:34]
Adam Cayton Holland
Thank you. Thank you for having me on the program.
- [01:36]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You've said that writing this book was, quote, an extremely necessary act. Why?
- [01:44]
Adam Cayton Holland
For me, writing the book was earnestly how I processed it. I did a lot of therapy, but putting it down into words for me was the best way to get through a lot of it. As soon as this happened, I was kind of doing well in comedy and I'd been making jokes for eight years, and suddenly the worst, most unimaginable thing happened to me. And I didn't feel funny and I didn't feel like getting up on stages and making jokes. But after a little, a little while of mourning and trying to get back up on the horse, I just, I felt like I'm gonna start writing about this. And so I wrote some articles that really helped me purge a lot of what I was going through. And that led to this opportunity to write the book.
- [02:29]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Now, of course, you can write in a very personal way in a journal, and you can write in a very public way for publication. Tell me what went into that decision. Cause this is an incredibly intimate chapter of your life.
- [02:41]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah. You know, unfortunately, I'm this very creative person who feels the need to share what I'm going Through all the time, I've chosen a creative path in life, stand up and writing. And so I work through a lot of what I'm going through and experiencing in the things I produce. And it just felt to me like this happened. And suddenly I couldn't talk about it. I didn't want to talk about it. I was breaking me into two. So writing about it was the only way that I could sort of start to feel like I was addressing it. And for me to write about it in a journal and put it away is not kind of how I operate. For eight years prior to Lydia's death, I'd been going up on stages and writing for Westward and trying to be a public person. And then suddenly the most profound thing in the world happened to me for the worse. And I just was silent and it felt wrong to me. And this book has been a huge breakthrough for me in that regard of just kind of not keeping it secret, not wondering if people know this about me or my family. Just kind of kicking open the door and being like, this happens to me, and it happens to a lot of people and a lot of families, and it's tragic and sad and it's part of me. And here it is.
- [04:01]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You grew up in Denver, in Park Hill. Your father is a civil rights lawyer. Your mother was a journalist when your parents met. You have an older sister, Anna, also a lawyer. Lydia was the youngest. And throughout the book, you refer to your family as the Magnificent Cayton Hollins. Talk about what that means to you.
- [04:22]
Adam Cayton Holland
I think my family's always had a sort of royal Tenenbaum esque quality. Just pretty smart people, but quirky and, you know, a house full of animals and just take it. We went to Mongolia and came home with a friend, Barsa, the Mongolian, who lived with us for six months. Just a weird, interesting family, and in my mind, a magnificent family, and one that I think anyone would be so lucky to land in. To be born into that family was a gift. And I think part of why I referred to us as the Magnificent Caitin Hollins in this book is to establish that mental illness is not this thing born of. When did it happen, or what terrible thing happened that made Lydia have mental illness? Nothing. Even in this really ideal family that I think anyone would love and enjoy being a part of, mental illness can just strike and take one of them out. And. And so the Magnificent Caton Holland was a shorthand way of describing this sort of ideal that I felt we had and still have, but just in a much sadder way yeah, minus one important member, Minus a hugely important member.
- [05:41]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
So deep feelings were encouraged, even expected in your household. When you were 4, you had to go to a therapist after seeing the one of those Sally Struthers commercials on tv.
- [05:53]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah. It takes so little for you to become a special friend to a child in a developing country, but boy, the good it can do is worth more than you can imagine. Wow. Fun day for your research guy.
- [06:09]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You stopped eating, drinking water after these ads would run. You write, I may have only been in preschool, but my white guilt was at a 12th grade level. I have to say, I actually find this incredibly devastating. But the laughter is fine.
- [06:28]
Adam Cayton Holland
Sure. Welcome to my world.
- [06:32]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
As you got older, how did you come to terms with that upbringing, though, of compassion and empathy almost above all else?
- [06:41]
Adam Cayton Holland
I think that my parents were pretty great. You know, you mentioned that my dad was a civil rights attorney and my mom was an investigative journalist. And I think was a sense in our family of no filters, not putting any gauzy cover on the world, but hey, here it is in all its awfulness. Now go do something about it. There was an encouragement to be proactive about it, but I think they were also just very sensitive. Look at the professions they chose. They're big hippies, they're loving people, and we had all of that in our DNA. So it definitely knocked us all out. I mean, I think it led us into various OCD tics and anxiety and just measures that we took to sort of try to control the chaos we saw in the world. But as we got older, I think we all dealt with it in our own ways. We all figured out Anna became this pretty badass civil rights attorney and she was working for handicapped rights groups in high school. And I sort of pursued my art. And you did air quotes there. Yeah, I did. Good old sight gag for radio. And I think Lydia was the most empathetic and the most wounded by the sadness and suffering and hurt that we all see in the world. But Lydia, as much as I was a four year old going to therapy, I grew out of it somewhat. I think Lydia never really did. And I think she just kind of tabulated it, a crude sadness and just kept it inside of her. There's an example in the book I talk about. You know, Lydia was very, very into animals. And so was my mom. She became a zookeeper. Later. Any stray animal Lydia took in, we had them all in our house. But Lydia also would just sort of count dead animals on the side of the road. She would recognize them, you know, way more than Any of us would. And she really felt that death every time. And it was sad, and she was saddened by it. And we tried to be like, sorry, Lydia. Bad things happen. Animals get hit by cars. But that wasn't really enough for her. It was just really a devastation every time.
- [08:55]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You write so vividly and lovingly about Lydia, and I really want people listening to understand what a unique soul she was. So on the subject of her love of animals, she became a vegetarian when she was 9. She saw inanimate objects even as living things.
- [09:12]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah, this was part of Lydia's OCD tick. We all had ocd, and we all. I still have ocd. And we kind of. Once we recognized it in each other as siblings, we traded things. We're like, hey, I got something you might be into. And be like, oh, yeah, what's that? I was like, you should count to the 100 on the remote control compulsively over and over and over again. It's like, yeah, I could do that. I could get into that. But Lydia's tick was so iconically Lydia. If something fell on the ground, say a goldfish cracker or a peanut or something, if you accidentally dropped one, Lydia would drop another one instinctually so that that wasn't lonely. So. So the initially discarded one wasn't lonely on whatever new path it was on. And then eventually that turned into threes, representing me and Anna and Lydia. So, you know, that was Lydia in a nutshell. She cared about those things. Nobody else I've ever met would be like, oh, that poor wayward peanut. It needs a friend. And, like. And that was Lydia. And while it really weighed on her, I love that part of her. The empathy.
- [10:23]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
The empath you call her the champion of the overlooked and minuscule. And I'd actually like to have you read from this part of the book, starting on page 10.
- [10:33]
Adam Cayton Holland
Oh, I guess there's no sense faking this anymore. I don't know how to read. I've been faking it so long. Once we passed a dead animal on the side of the road, and I noticed Lydia's lips moving as though she were reciting a prayer. I called her on it. Are you praying, Lee? No, she insisted, repulsed. Religion was anathema in our house then. What are you doing? I'm saying, rest in peace, little doodle. Rest in peace, little doodle. It was what Ned Flanders said to a cheese doodle in episode 89 of the Simpsons, Boy Scouts in the Hood. After a disastrous scout trip, Homer and Ned and their sons find themselves stranded at sea in a raft. Starving, Homer decides to use a cheese doodle, their last precious morsel of food, as bait to catch a fish. He ties it to a line, hurls it into the water, and despite everyone's protestations, he promptly catches a fish, which promptly breaks the line and disappears into the water forever. Rest in peace, little Doodle, ned says sadly. Lydia loved that line. She thought it was sweet. So in the absence of any religion growing up, she appropriated the Simpsons ism as a shorthand eulogy for fallen innocence. I saw her do it on countless other occasions over the years, often unconsciously. Not one sad piece of roadkill escaped her attention. And always, even mid sentence, she would stop and murmur those words like a silent reverie. Rest in peace, little Doodle. Not only were all deaths wrenching for her, all deaths were also worthy of mourning. We traveled to Borneo and Indonesia when we were kids. Lydia cataloged every dead animal she saw the entire trip. The final tally was over 100. Many of them we never even saw. She sought them out.
- [12:30]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
I think one of my favorite details about Lydia from the book is that she could talk backwards.
- [12:35]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah, it was incredible. There's some friends of Lydia's here. I heard them laugh because they've heard her do it. She had to be able to spell the word. So if she could spell it, she could instantaneously say it backwards. It was incredible. If she couldn't spell it, I guess she couldn't see the letters in her head and reverse them. But you know, she was a smart girl. She could spell most things. So by the time she was a teenager, it was fantastic. Like at parties, it would be like, lydia, why don't you say the sentence? The girl is walking down the street and just backwards, like immediately. It was quite a skill.
- [13:09]
Ryan Warner
Denver comedian Adam Caton Holland speaking with me in front of an audience in 2018. His memoir, Tragedy Plus Time, is now a movie which premieres this coming Sunday at the Boulder International Film Festival. When we come back, how Adam answers the question, is there more I could have done to save Lydia? This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. It's Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. Let's get back to my conversation with comedian Adam Caton Holland. He formerly wrote for Westword, he co created and co starred in the TV show those who Can't. And his 2018 memoir, Tragedy Plus Time, is now a movie premiering this weekend in Boulder. The tragedy in the book's title refers to the suicide of his younger sister, Lydia Lydia.
- [14:00]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You also explore your own struggle with mental illness. In this book, and you've mentioned the ocd. One of the loveliest anecdotes from the book is that when you would pray as a kid. Just tell. You tell the story.
- [14:15]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah. So at night, I had a very long ritual for going to sleep that was about a half hour long of just things I had to do to allow myself to rest. One of the last things was to just sort of say prayers for my family. So I would bless my mom and my dad and my sisters, but then I would reverse the order so that nobody had priority in the prayer. So if I said my mom first in the initial offering, the second offering, my mom was last. And that way I knew everything was equitable. Equal amount of prayers.
- [14:51]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You've talked about this as being like a reservoir of the world's pain that was sort of in the family. Do you think your parents knew the effect that their deep sense of caring for the world, do you think they knew what effect it had on you and on Lydia?
- [15:10]
Adam Cayton Holland
Well, I very clearly want to say this wasn't cause and effect type of thing. I think if my parents had never had tried to shield us from every horrible thing in the world, we'd be the exact same. I think they're just loving, empathetic people, and that's in our DNA just as it's in theirs. So I don't think they thought anything was weird or off. I think not a lot was weird or off. I think a lot of smart, caring families raise sensitive children who might have some OCD tics and be saddened and have to go to therapy sometimes. I think that's quite normal. And in our family, it was very normal.
- [15:54]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
As Lydia got older, she struggled with depression. And there were signs later that something wasn't right. I mean, she went to your father's office and told him that she hadn't been able to sleep for months. Essentially, she couldn't turn her brain off. Later, she overdoses on sleeping pills, ends up in the hospital. I wonder how your family and of course you, reacted to these events, which, when you're reading the book, they feel like they come on really fast compared to a life, right?
- [16:28]
Adam Cayton Holland
Absolutely. I'm only able to look at it now with any clarity. You know, Lydia died when she was 28. And that first incident you're talking about where she said, you know, I can't turn my brain off was 26. So the last two years of her life, in retrospect, were this hellscape of mental illness taking over a person and that first confession to my father that she wasn't able to sleep was sort of the first sign that Lydia was not doing well in a troubling way. You talk about warning signs growing up, and if my parents were concerned, not at all. Because everything that Lydia had, all three of us had as siblings, all the, you know, I had depression, I had went to therapy. All of us had nervous OCD and anxious stuff, and we all flirted with the macabre all the time. That was normal. We all worshiped at the altar of Sylvia Plath and Elliot Smith and Vincent Van Gogh. All. All our favorite artists killed themselves. But it was never concerning. That was just kind of who we were. That's the royal Tenenbaum quality I'm talking about. But then when that incident happened, it was like, this is darker and further than any of us have gone. And it was immediately quite concerning. And immediately we pounced on it and circled around the family member that seemed to be not doing well. And immediately we're like, good job telling us, that's horrible. Let's get you help. Let's be proactive. You know, we did everything right from the jump. And that's what's so sad about it all. And so definitively makes me see how much of a disease it is. Not like, well, what if we did this and what if we did that? It's like from the start, we did everything right.
- [18:21]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
I think your book will certainly be helpful to people who've lost someone to suicide. And you have some direct advice that I'd like you to read.
- [18:31]
Adam Cayton Holland
Whenever people write to me concerned that someone they love is suicidal, my advice is unflinching. It's not enough what you're doing right now, it's not enough. Do more. Ask more questions. Drive them to more shrinks. Spend more nights watching them sob. I regret every time I rolled my eyes because Lydia was having another bad day. So much I'm ashamed of myself for it. We all are. No matter how much we know it's not our fault. It doesn't matter. In our hearts, we feel guilty. I look back at Lydia's life and I'm sickened that we couldn't see it coming. A preternaturally intelligent girl who speaks backwards regularly, is sensitive and socially awkward, obsessed with dark literature and music and television, overdoses on sleeping pills. And we thought she'd turn it around. What pills were we taking? Deliberate indifference, I believe Anna and my dad would call it. Borrowing a term from one of their many briefs, taking down nursing homes or prison officials as smart as we all are, as goddamn magnificent, why weren't we smart enough to see this sooner? Why couldn't we do anything to stop this?
- [19:39]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
At the risk of over probing, Adam, I feel like in the book and even in some of your answers here, I feel like you're still struggling with this balance between what could we have done? Did we do everything? And we did everything we could. This is a disease, and this was out of our control. Do you still struggle with that question?
- [20:00]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right. But one of my goals with this book was to illustrate that it's a constant struggle and that you never land at one place of resolution or. Okay, I think I've got my final thought on this. It's always there and it's always changing. And I definitely have a conclusion that I've landed at which I could discuss now or later.
- [20:32]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
No.
- [20:33]
Adam Cayton Holland
Okay. But even knowing that conclusion, it's an academic knowing, sometimes it's impossible not to be like, what if I'd done this that night? Or just feel guilt or anger or any of the stages of grief. But the one I've landed on, and this truly was organic in the writing that I landed on, this was okay. I talked earlier about how much Lydia was an empath and how more than anyone I've ever known, she was truly empathetic for all living and even non living creatures. And to see us hurting the family hurting would break her in two. If she ever saw us hurting or she caused us hurt, she was mortified. If she saw I was down, she would be there tap dancing and trying to do anything she could to get me up. And that's true for any of our family members. So if she inflicted a hurt upon us, then she was so full of shame and sadness and would do anything she could possibly do to make us feel better. And the fact that she did this, that she took her life, knowing that that would devastate all four of us and still decided that that was the out she had to take, really puts me in touch with her level of desperation and her level of mental illness that it would kill her to cause us that hurt. Yet still I gotta do it because my hurt's greater. And, like, when you get to that place, you're not mad or guilty anymore. You're just really sad for that person. So that's been my, like, big takeaway from it all. And that's the profound thought that I've sort of stopped at, but I continue to waver.
- [22:25]
Ryan Warner
Comedian Adam Cayton Holland on stage with me at the Newman center in Denver in 2018 for the release of his book Tragedy Plus Time. It's now a movie, see youe When I See youe, premiering this coming Sunday at the Boulder International Film Festival. And Colorado Matters continues in the next half hour as Adam struggles with whether there's an afterlife. I'm Ryan Warner. You're with CPR News and KRCC. You're back with Colorado Matters. From CPR News and KRCC, I'm Ryan Warner. Denver comedian Adam Katen Holland's memoir Tragedy Plus Time won the Colorado Book Award in 2019 for best creative nonfiction. It's now a movie that premieres this weekend at the Boulder International Film Festival. We spoke in front of an audience at the Newman center in 2018 for the book's release. Just as Adam's star was rising in the world of stand up, his little sister Lydia killed herself. She was 28.
- [23:28]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
For you, grief turned to depression. You previously struggled with ocd. As we said in college, you sank into a deep depression, turning to drugs and alcohol and vandalism. But then after your sister's suicide, you drink alone until you're numb. You think about killing yourself. There's a scene in which you're purposely drowning yourself in the ocean, but finally, you turn to something called emdr, eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. What is that?
- [24:01]
Adam Cayton Holland
First of all, great job on desensitization.
- [24:04]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Thank you.
- [24:05]
Adam Cayton Holland
Because I've had a real hard time with that. It's a form of therapy that is designed to treat ptsd. And how it works is it simulates rapid eye movement, which I've learned is the way that the brain best processes memories. And so I.
- [24:28]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
The kind of movement that happens when we're asleep, Right?
- [24:30]
Adam Cayton Holland
Exactly. Okay. And so I was having a lot of horrific flashbacks and nightmares that were really plaguing me. And I had tried a lot of therapy, and a lot of it just felt very. It wasn't for me. A lot of the therapists were going out of their way to sigh dramatically and let me know how sad they were for me. And a lot of, oh, my God, that's terrible. And I appreciated that. But I was also like, yeah, yeah, it's terrible. Can we get to it? And this woman who I eventually landed at, this great therapist here in Denver, specialized in emdr. And so how it works is you literally put these electronic pulsers in your hands and they tick tock back and forth, not audibly, but you can feel them. Back, forth, back, forth. You close your Eyes. And that back and forth makes your eyes instinctually do rem. And then you go through the traumatic memory you have in a guided fashion with this therapist. And it can be quite overwhelming. And they have you concoct a safe space, a happy place to retreat to. When it gets to be too overwhelming, that's the first thing you do.
- [25:44]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
What was your safe place?
- [25:46]
Adam Cayton Holland
My safe place was a beach in Cape Cod.
- [25:50]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
What did the EMDR do for you that those previous sessions weren't able?
- [25:55]
Adam Cayton Holland
Well, I think it's important to let listeners know that I found my little sister. And that was the traumatic memory that was very understandably haunting me. And as that therapist related it to me, when you go through something like that, she used a metaphor where people are all about metaphors when it comes to the brain. Her metaphor was that the brain is like a filing cabinet. And this traumatic memory had become a loose file. And so what the EMDR does is it in an orderly fashion. It helps you file this memory away there to access should you want it, but not coming up inappropriately. And that's what I needed so bad. And I remember to my earlier point going into that office and waiting to go in. And the first the patient that was in there came out, and it was clearly this veteran who. I'm not going to pretend I know what he went through, but it was. This guy looked quite hurt and wounded. And he left. And I went in and I learned that this therapist works with veterans who have seen horrible things, work with people who've been, you know, sexually abused their entire lives. She told me she had, like, an African child of war client. So her attitude was very much like, what happened to you is horrible. I see a lot of terrible things. Let's get to work. And I just needed that. I needed, like, tough love and tough therapy in that moment because I was tired of pity.
- [27:26]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You've talked a little bit about faith in this conversation that you. You don't come by any means from a religious family, although you said prayers as a kid. And I thought a lot about what your relationship might be to a higher power. As you were struggling with this after Lydia's suicide, you found solace from a woman named Maggie, the wife of a friend who calls herself an empath. That's interesting because you used that word about Lydia, and Maggie claims to be in communication with your sister. At first you're dismissive of this, and then you open yourself up to the idea what changed your mind.
- [28:05]
Adam Cayton Holland
You know, after Lydia died, there's been a lot of spiritual searching and despite being a cynical comedian, I'm way more open to that stuff than one might think. And you know, when you're a child not raised in any particular dogma, but having very wide eyed, curious parents, you sort of just appropriate things that you like and fashion them into your own religion. And I've done that my whole life.
- [28:35]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Into your own flying spaghetti monster?
- [28:37]
Adam Cayton Holland
Absolutely. Yeah. And like, why is that worse than anybody else's? I don't think it is. So when Lydia died, you find yourself searching for things. And my mother and I had both started having these strange run ins with red tailed hawks. If you read the book, it sounds a little less batty, but just these insane encounters with these birds. She had one shortly after Lydia died, right after her funeral in our backyard where this bird was just perched on a fence and it just looked weird. And my uncle was there and I was like, is there something weird about that bird? Is it a juvenile? Like, adolescent birds look a little weird, but it just wouldn't go away. And it stared at them. A squirrel came up, sat right next to it, and they're just like, something's up with that bird. Then a couple days later, my mom gets into the car and a red tailed hawk lands on her car and like starts doing this weird thing where it was kind of like putting its head, rubbing its head along the top of the car, like the back of its head on the top of its car, completely flipping its head around and doing that. And my mom sort of only could see it as a gesture of like lying prostrate before my mother. And she just felt compelled in that moment to go Lydia. And it just stared at her and flew off. And my mom related this story to me and I was like, oh, I got a hawk story for you. And I had. Turns out I had had this weird run in with a hawk. And then, you know, on Lydia's birthday, I went to sort of mourn her in my own private way. And I was lying in City park and red tailed hawk lands in the tree. It just kept happening. And I think when something this traumatic happens to you, you might be looking for signs more than normal, but they were just undeniable. And then when Maggie came up to me after a show at a bar and just was like, I need to talk to you. Lydia's trying to reach out to you. I was like, what is this? This is crazy. Like, go away. And she made me put my hand on her neck and her pulse was just beating through her neck. I mean, if it was me, I would have gone to a hospital immediately. For real. It was concerning. I was like, sit down. Like, here's some water. And she kind of calmed down, and she explained to me that she has this sort of gift of communicating with forces from beyond. And I was like, this sounds nuts. And I think she could see it bothered me, and I didn't really want to go there with her. But yet Lydia kept trying to get to Maggie. And so Maggie, after my wedding, she gave me that space to be like, let him enjoy his wedding. But after my wedding, she's like, I have to talk to you. Lydia is reaching out to me nonstop. She's relentless. And I was like, yeah, that sounds exactly like Lydia. So I was just more open to it at that point. And we had a really profound conversation about it all.
- [31:36]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Is there anything you'd feel comfortable sharing about the message you received?
- [31:40]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah, I mean, I write about it all in the book, so I'm comfortable, as you can tell by my body language.
- [31:49]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
And yet again, the comedian does a visual gag on radio. He has his arms crossed.
- [31:55]
Adam Cayton Holland
I look like Trump up here being like, it's fine. Everything's fine. It's like, look at that guy's body language. Nothing is fine. Open. So essentially, I called Maggie, and we talked on the phone for two and a half hours. And when Maggie said that her family describes her as an empath, that word was just like. It just hit me. It was like, that's what Lydia was. I had never in my life called her an empath. And I didn't even know that that was a noun. I knew empathy. I didn't know an empath. When Maggie said that, I was like, oh, like, Lydia is an empath. And it just made sense to me and Maggie that Lydia, from wherever she was, was trying to reach out to whoever was closest to me that was open to these types of signals to get to me. And so Maggie put Lydia off for almost a year, and Lydia was knocking down her door. And all she really said was that Lydia wanted to relay that she's there. She's there for me. And she said, do you talk to Lydia a lot? Do you find yourself asking Lydia questions? And I did. In the shower or jogging or just when you're kind of in your subconscious state, I find I just like blabbering, talking to Lydia. And so she just kind of picked up on that. And basically, she just said, she's here and she's proud of you. And that if you see little things like lights flickering on and off or just strange little mystical Things. That's her. And I don't know. I just needed to hear it. Perhaps there's some parlor tricks involved of the hypnotist. I don't think so. For me, it felt really true, and it felt like a gift that Maggie gave me and. And that I needed.
- [33:47]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
It must be so lovely to hear that Lydia is proud of you, because I feel like, in many ways, you owe a lot of your comedic self to her. I mean, you guys would kind of, like, run bits as kids in the basement.
- [34:02]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah. Lydia and I spent hours together watching television and forming our bizarre senses of humor. And I realized, you know, she was my first co conspirator. We'd riff together, and as I got more established in comedy, she was helping out with shows, and she was running the door and making flyers and running tech. And the day after big shows, we'd go and have breakfast, and she'd kind of help tag my bits and be like, hey, you should remove this part. Or what if you did this? And they were the type of intimate conversations you should only allow with a fellow comic. But this was Lydia, the funniest person I know, and my little sister. So I was like, yeah, get in here. Let's talk about that. And her suggestions were awesome.
- [34:46]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
I think what I really love about her presence in your life is that she's genuinely happy for you when you succeed. And I have to think that in Hollywood, that is hard to come by. In other words, everybody is trying to scrape their way to the top, and so success kind of hurts you in a way. Like, oh, Adam got a TV show. You know, I just did a Tide commercial.
- [35:08]
Adam Cayton Holland
Like, I would kill for a Tide commercial. I would love a Tide commercial.
- [35:14]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Maybe Tide pods.
- [35:15]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah, I feel you could do a lot of fun. I'll put one in my mouth.
- [35:20]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
But I love that Lydia was genuinely happy when you did.
- [35:24]
Adam Cayton Holland
Well, yeah. Two days before she died, I was in Montreal at the Just for Laughs competition. Or it's not even a competition. It's just called Just for Laughs festival.
- [35:35]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
But it must feel like a competition, because this is the creme de la creme.
- [35:38]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah. There's a thing called new Faces, and every year, they pick 20 new comics to go to Montreal. And the Denver comedy scene has really gotten great. And it's not as uncommon for a Denver comic to go there now. At the time, my buddy Ben Roy had gone the year before, and nobody had gone from Denver 15 years previous. So Ben got it, and then I got it the next year. And, like, for Denver comics, that's insane. It's all New York and LA comics, so we're so happy to be there. And I went there and I kicked ass. And Lydia was texting me nonstop. And she's like, what's it like? And I was like, I went and took lunch with an agency. Oh, my God, they paid for everything. And then, you know, so even in the bowels of what was going on with her, she was still very much there and still very much being like, this is so crazy. And I could text with her back and forth about it from Montreal to Denver. And then, you know, two days later that happened. And you can imagine what a shock that is and how everything that you think you've wanted is right there in the palm of your hand. And you're like, I've made it. And then life just knocks it right out of the way. And being like, oh, these are your priorities. Those matter. Not at all. And that's been my life ever since.
- [36:57]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
You make your living being funny. I wonder how Lydia's death has affected your life as a comedian.
- [37:04]
Adam Cayton Holland
Well, I haven't talked about it much on stage at all. Maybe at a storytelling show here or there, which are vastly different from Stand up, but it was definitely a block. And in a lot of ways, that's why I wrote this book, to be like, I'm here, I've dealt with it.
- [37:22]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
This book is a bit of your EMDR.
- [37:25]
Adam Cayton Holland
It's 100% that, and it's been more beneficial. This book is the best therapy I ever got myself, and I'm so proud that people are responding to it. I'm now, well, well aware of how pervasive an issue mental illness is, which makes me feel less alone. But I 100% wrote this thing to just heal myself and process it, so.
- [37:52]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
And get rid of the block.
- [37:53]
Adam Cayton Holland
And get rid of the block. And I. You'll see if I talk about it on stage, but I also don't feel like I need to. I. There's a great comedian named Tig Notaro, and she's kind of the prime example of talking about the horrible stuff on stage. She had this insanely bad year where she had breast cancer and her mother died and her lover left her, broke up with her when she got diagnosed with breast cancer. Just awful. And she went on stage at Largo, this place in Los Angeles, and just talked about it and it was brilliant. And someone recorded it, they put it out, it won an Emmy, and it's like, all hail Tig Notaro. This woman knows how to do this stuff. Tig was. Is a friend. And so I sent her the book and. And I was just emailing with her, and she said she liked it and whatever, and I thanked her. And then just to kind of. I don't know. Cause I try to just be friendly, I was like, well, I'm not as good at talking about this on stage as you are talking about this type of stuff as you are. And Tig just wrote back, however you grieve is perfect. And I just felt like, okay, well, I'm off the hook because this is like the Picasso of taking the grief to the stage and. And dealing with it through comedy, man. And she's like, hey, if you want to do that, do that. If you don't want to do that, who cares? And I was like, thank you, Tig. I needed to hear that.
- [39:11]
Ryan Warner
Let's say it again.
- [39:13]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
However you grieve is perfect.
- [39:14]
Adam Cayton Holland
However you choose to grieve is perfect.
- [39:16]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Wow.
- [39:17]
Adam Cayton Holland
That was such a kind gesture and a really perfect thought about it.
- [39:22]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
One thing that really comes through in this book is your love of Denver,
- [39:25]
Ryan Warner
of the zoo where your mom volunteered,
- [39:28]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
of finding hidden elves that are painted in the dioramas at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
- [39:33]
Adam Cayton Holland
Oh, yeah.
- [39:34]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Of the dive bars on Colfax. And you write about your determination to stay here even as your career takes off. Have you figured out how to have a successful career as a comedian and
- [39:45]
Ryan Warner
still live in Denver?
- [39:48]
Adam Cayton Holland
I mean, currently. But it's fragile ground, Ryan. It's very fragile ground. I just. Lydia reminded me very clearly of what matters. And I had my bags packed after that Montreal thing. You know, you can only get to a certain point. So the conventional wisdom goes, before you got to jump ship for New York or la, if you want to make it in the entertainment biz.
- [40:14]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
And your bags were packed for la?
- [40:16]
Adam Cayton Holland
My bags were packed. I felt I had done enough here. And everyone was like, move here, kid. Let's make it happen. And they all spoke in old timey Hollywood voices, very disconcerting.
- [40:28]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
And wore spats for some reason. Right?
- [40:32]
Adam Cayton Holland
Very weird. But then that happened, and my priorities shifted immediately. And at the time, I was like, I need to be here for my family. And I've seen enough of the ugly side of Hollywood to know that I don't enjoy it. I'm just happier here. And I also really am keenly aware of the value of mental health. And I can feel my brain being healthier here, and I choose that over anything. So if in 10 years I'm destitute, someone here hire me.
- [41:05]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
How do Your parents. How does your family feel about the book? And as you say, about it being trotted out, you know, it's written up in the press and it's. It's on television, it's on radio.
- [41:17]
Adam Cayton Holland
Yeah, it's an odd thing. Obviously, I wrote this. Obviously I'm peddling it. Obviously I want it to do well. I gave it to my family, to every member, to read before I turned it into the publisher. And I was like, anything you want changed, it's changed. Obviously, I'm not trying to make our family have any more pain or suffering. We've been through enough. So if you want anything changed, let me know. And they were all cool with the depiction. They had some different memories here or there. Nothing was like, you take that out because there was nothing bad. I love the family. It's a loving portrayal. It was more just like, I remember this differently. You might want to tweak it that way. Helpful suggestions, but my mom gave me the nicest compliment ever. She read it in one sitting, and she laughed and she cried a lot. And she said, I felt like I spent the afternoon with Lydia. And it's like, after that, you don't care what Publishers Weekly has to say about it. It's like, this is. That's. That's the best I could hope for. But that said, we're all individuals, and I'm the only one currently doing this thing where I get on stages or I talk about myself for a living. So it's hard for the family to have to see this all the time. I'm sure every Facebook post with that cover being shared is probably something they didn't need.
- [42:37]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
That second, the COVID is a picture of you as kids, the three kids.
- [42:42]
Adam Cayton Holland
My family's been really gracious about allowing each member to mourn however they need to mourn. And mourning is ugly and chaotic and unscripted and ever changing. So if one family member's down for what you feel is too long of an amount of time, so what? That's how they're mourning. If one family member doesn't want to talk about it, that's how they're mourning. If one family member needs to write all about it, that's how he's mourning. And my family really respects that, and I really appreciate that. It's very gracious of them.
- [43:16]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
And their way of grieving is perfect.
- [43:18]
Adam Cayton Holland
And their way of grieving is perfect. Yeah, totally.
- [43:20]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
All right. You end the book with a note to Lydia, and I'd like to wrap up with you reading that.
- [43:26]
Adam Cayton Holland
I'll try not to cry. To Lydia. I hope you like this book. I hope you feel it does you justice. Mere pages could never contain the charm and the wit and the humor that you brought to your life. But I tried. It was such an honor to get to be your brother. Lee, you were such a great sister and daughter and friend. Everyone who took the time to get to know you came away profoundly affected. You were a total original. That's about the highest compliment I can give. I wish I could have had so many more years with you, but I'm grateful for every second that I had. So thank you. I love you and I miss you so much. See you on the other side.
- [44:08]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Thanks, Adam.
- [44:09]
Adam Cayton Holland
Thank you, Ryan.
- [44:14]
Ryan Warner
Comedian Adam Katen Holland on Stage one with me in front of an audience at the University of Denver's Newman center in 2018. We spoke for the release of his book Tragedy Plus A Tragicomic Memoir. It's been adapted into a movie, See youe When I See youe. The Colorado premiere is this Sunday at the Boulder International Film Festival. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. It's Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. One of Colorado's fiercest competitions this year wasn't on a court or in a more than 2,000 high schoolers poured their hearts out on stage last month, hoping to become the state's top young poetry performer. Indeed, in the end, only one remained.
- [45:01]
Adam Cayton Holland
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls along the sea sands damp and brown, the traveler hastens. D.B.
- [45:10]
Ryan Warner
henderson is Colorado's 2026 poetry out loud champion. He's a student at Coronado High School in Colorado Springs and and he'll represent our state at the national competition in just a few weeks. Henderson had the highest score for his three recitations, which included the Tide Rises, the Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
- [45:33]
Adam Cayton Holland
Darkness settles on roofs and walls, but
- [45:36]
Ryan Warner
the sea, the sea in the darkness calls. If you hadn't thought about iambic pentameter in a while, you might be happy to know it's on the minds of young people. Henderson said he got into poetry in middle school, reading Edgar Allan Poe. He was fascinated, among other things, by the rhythm the morning breaks, the steeds
- [45:57]
Adam Cayton Holland
in their stalls step and neigh as the hostler calls. The day returns, but nevermore returns the traveler to the shore.
- [46:08]
Ryan Warner
Governor Polis, whose mother, Susan, is a poet, said he'll be cheering Henderson on as he competes for the $50,000 national award in Washington, D.C. and to quote Shakespeare, good luck go with thee. We're going to leave you with music from Denver band the Savage Blush and a song they recorded in Spanish, although its title is indigenous. Here's the track m'.
- [46:34]
Interviewer (possibly Ryan Warner or another host)
Poshtli.
- [46:45]
Rebecca Williams
We have a very like Latin background, so we've always had kind of like that kind of style in the music. But this one, I wanted something that was more within like, psychedelic cumbia vein of things. I'm Rebecca Williams from the Savage Blush and I play the guitar and sing. I feel like the songs are always especially lyrically, they're not really stories. I think I write very metaphorically. It's kind of a battle song. It's more of a battle cry, really. Ma bachli is a Nahuatl word. It's a Mexican indigenous language. And that word means to take with one's hands. So it's very metaphorical in that. But it's, you can do it. Don't give in, don't give up. You're always going through something and not to let the internal or external, you know, get you down. Sort of stand up for yourself, fight for yourself. I think I always that people were more curious about it, especially if you don't speak Spanish. And even if you do, you're kind of like, what does that mean? Or at least that they can like, listen enough to think about how just the song as a whole kind of makes you feel. I think that's the only thing I care about, period. Bottom line is like, how this can make someone feel anything, just anything.
- [48:52]
Ryan Warner
That's Rebecca Williams of the Savage Blush talking about their song Mapashtley. The Denver band's been featured in the Local 303 by our colleagues at Indy 102.3. Here at CPR News and KRCC, I'm Ryan Warner. This is Colorado Matters.