WEBVTT - Read This: The Only Difference Between Kanye and John Safran 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.600 Hi there, It's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:06.400 another episode of your favorite podcast about books, Read This. 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.760 It's hosted by the editor of The Monthly and self 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.159 confessed book nerd Michael Williams and features conversations with some 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.400 of the most talented writers from Australia and around the world. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.200 In this episode, we're going to hear from writer and 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.800 filmmaker John Saffran, who's just published his fourth book called 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:28.800 Squat a Week Squatting at Kanye West Mansion. As always, 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.400 I'm joined by host Michael Williams to tell me a 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:32.479 bit more about the episode. 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:33.920 Hey Michael, Hi Ruby. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:39.159 So Michael, like many people, you've followed John Safran's career 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.120 for years now, and I think it's fair to say 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.800 there's been some twists and turns. I wonder if you 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:46.199 could sum it up a bit for us. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:51.480 Yeah. Look, John first hit Australian media like an absolute 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.840 mailstream when he appeared on the ABC TV show Race 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.360 Around the World. For those who don't remember that show, 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.200 it was like one of the first reality TV show 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.200 formats and the ABC did it. They gave a whole 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.800 lot of young people cameras and travel budgets basically, and 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.120 they had to go and make these short documentaries and 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.319 John was in the first series. He didn't win because 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.000 he lost a whole lot of points for recording secretly 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.280 in a confessional, which broke the law and meant that 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.760 he was penalized for it. But he was definitely the 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.080 person in that first series ever unremembered. John's brand was 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:30.119 this kind of combination of high concept explorations of identity, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:34.360 of religion, of race, of politics, coupled with a kind 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:38.360 of punk esthetic and a deep sense of madness. And 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.840 really his career has followed that trajectory ever since, and 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.040 in recent years he's made the move to books. 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.040 So tell me about his latest book, squat He's exploring 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.400 identity and belonging, but in this kind of unusual way. 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.600 Yeah, unusual is right, and it is classic Saffron. Basically, 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.600 the premise is that he took issue with some anti 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:06.400 Semitic comments that Kanye West made publicly and decided that 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.639 this was something worthy of exploring, and then John being John, 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:14.000 it kind of went from that to him ultimately squatting 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.920 in one of Kanye's abandoned mansions in la and through 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.880 this he looks at ideas of Jewishness, ideas as you say, belonging, 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.480 and really just pretty quickly goes mad in an abandoned 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.040 mansion in la And as you'll hear from the interview, 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.040 madness is never that far away when you're talking to John. 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:37.600 Saffron coming up in just a moment, the only difference 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.400 between Kanye and John Saffran. 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.800 You decide to go and use Kanye's abandoned mansion as 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.560 a writer's retreat. But at that point you don't even 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.840 know the book you're writing. You're not in there because 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.959 you know you want to necessarily explore Kanye, explore Andy, Semitism, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.679 explore you just you've got a vibe and totally that's 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:05.600 what I want to ask you about today is because 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.320 for you, you sent to me to be the most 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.960 counterintuitive mix between intuition on the one hand and the 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.480 way that you approach your work and then a real 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.480 kind of deliberateness and a real sincerity which I think 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.079 surprises people about you. And that's that's what I want 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:22.440 to get to. 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.280 Yeah, I follow things that feel emotionally true to me 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.880 and just the energy in the universe, and that might 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.800 sound pretendial but it's not because I'm like, I like 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.720 leave the house. And so when you leave the house, 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.440 if you're like walking around the streets of LA and 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.400 you're sort of you're following things and reaching for things, yeah. 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.480 You just you get vibes. 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.440 And probably because it's my fourth book, I reckon I 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.360 would have been more nervous. If it was my first book. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.120 I would have gone, Okay, it can be a chapter 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.560 of me going into Kangne's mansion. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:55.400 But I felt it. 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.960 I felt like, if this book is basically set up 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.360 my whole week inside this mansion, yeah, I'm going to 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.000 go with that. And it just seemed, even though I 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.720 couldn't quite explain it, it just seemed it seemed unusual 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:09.520 enough and a bit you know, not the same old, 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:09.960 same old. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:11.680 So for instance, if the book. 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.800 Was me chasing Kanye and then hanging with Kanye like that, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.360 of course that could have been really good in some 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.520 other way or whatever. But I felt, you know, you know, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.520 like I'm old, and I thought, is that like a 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.920 bit cringe? You know, chasing Whilst I felt there were 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.159 all the pieces of like making my way into Kanye's 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.840 mansion and spending a week there, as the Writer's Retreat 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.080 just had enough stuff that it made it kind of 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.840 you know, interesting and tense and everything like that. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.760 Tense and also quite exposed, like it is a story 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.279 about a kind of week long descent into a kind 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.880 of madness in your own head. As you get more 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.720 and more spooped by the weirdness of your surrounds, you 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.240 have moments of lucidity where you realize how crazy the 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:00.840 thing you're doing is, and then you know, Also the 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.240 overlay of that is some of the questions that you're 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.040 asking about Kanye as a figure. I want to maybe 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.880 go back to that for a second, because while you're 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.479 a huge hip hop fan, you weren't a hardcore Kanye 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:14.960 devotee necessarily. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.920 Yeah, So it was Kanye coming out in support of 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.320 Hitler that was just so fascinating to me because he 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.359 was a mainstream celebrity. Also, it was like eclectic his 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.880 anti semitism, like it like it wasn't like just this 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.200 general like I'm pissed off as the Jews, where you 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.599 could kind of, you know, just some generic kind of 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.440 thing where it could have been Asians or Muslims or whatever. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.320 Like he was reaching into things like the protocols of 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.040 the Elders learned Elders of Zion. So yeah, so it 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:54.160 was just like fascinating that this mainstream figure was spreading 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.480 that to a totally new generation who had no context 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.880 of it, of what it meant. And then also the 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.200 fact that you know, he wasn't a white American, who 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:05.120 was a Black American. 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.680 That made it interesting because. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.000 You know, I got to look into the history of 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:15.719 Black Americans and Jewish Americans and how they were allies 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:17.920 over things like civil rights sometimes, but there was a 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.960 there's a prickly relationship to sometimes and you know, even 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.000 looking at the threads in the founding of hip hop 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.760 and there's the Jewish record producers but also Jewish artists 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.240 and stuff, and like are they taking that music? 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:33.840 And and yeah. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.240 So it just it like ticked a lot of boxes, 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.000 a lot lot of awkward boxes. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:42.560 That the awkward boxes one hundred percent on brand for 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.560 you is that there's a friction here in a set 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.800 of contradictions, and lots of people would be like it 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.479 was a bit uncomfortable. I'd rather look away, and you're like, 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.720 I'm going to just keep picking up that scab. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.760 Yeah, lots of writers would have liked that if it 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.120 was Mack or Moore, why did it have to be 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:07.160 a Black American rapper? Why couldn't have been Vanilla Ice? Well, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:08.919 I couldn't have been post Malone. 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:10.560 Is it still could be. 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:16.400 They're very capable, yes, so yeah, And it's just I'm 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:21.600 really interested in cultural fault lines, and I think I'm 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.760 just interested in it generally. But also so if I 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.880 never got into what I got into as my occupation, 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.320 I'd still be interested or whatever. But like in my work, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.800 it just seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.320 I'm one of the first things. One of the earlier 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.520 things I did on a TV show called John Saffran 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.840 Versus God, is I try to join the Ku Klux Klan. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.760 And I'm acting all phone naive lately, you know, like 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:51.720 I find out their history and about how or one 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.520 point they didn't allow Catholics in, but now you know 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.040 they're allowing Catholics in. So I went there through want 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.800 of the bunkers of one of the chapters of the 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:00.760 Ku Klux Klan. 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:03.360 They didn't know what's Jewish before I got there. 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:05.920 But then during the interview, I'm asking who can join 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.160 the clan, who can't or whatever, like can women join 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.640 the clan? And yeah, of course non Americans, Yeah yeah, yeah, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.200 Catholic yeah yeah. And I said, what happens if you're 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.280 you know, you're brought up Jewish, but you don't do 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.600 anything Jewish anymore because that's. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:20.080 Where I'm at. 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.560 And then he's sort of what is like, is your mother? 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.840 He goes, yes, and she were. Jews are from their father, 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.800 the Devil. They're from the Synagogue of Satan. And I'm 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.320 like phone naively pitching back to him, going yeah, but I 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.800 don't do anything Jewish, you know, I drive on the Sabbath, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.719 I mix milk and meat. And he says, going, yeah, 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:43.920 but we think it's a race, not just a religion 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.559 or whatever. And then I said, yeah, but look I'm 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:51.199 white and than Hitler. He had brown hair and brown eyes. 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.439 I have blonde hair and blue eyes. If I went 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.760 to school with Hitler, I'd be the one beating him 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.800 up for being a wog. And so when I did 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.079 that at the time, I didn't like overly think about it, 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.720 like the whole kind of arbitrary nature of like identity 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.320 and race and how it's so important, but like exactly 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.000 that I'm wider than you know, like, and I think 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.240 that taps in with a lot of people, especially a 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:20.600 lot of people in Australia who have like their Australian 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.080 but they've got something else as well. And I think 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.480 this kind of vibration I have in my head of 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.040 like where do you stand and you're one thing. 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:30.560 But you're the other. 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.319 I think a lot of people feel that, even though 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:37.240 I express it in the silliest outrageous way or whatever. Yeah, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.040 it's just interesting because I identity. It's so important obviously, 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.319 and yet yet it's so kind of arbitrary. 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.360 It's so important and important to your work. But like 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.760 you mentioned in the Klan example, yeah, the phone naivity thing, 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.320 you know, there is an element of performance there. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:52.640 Yeah. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.360 Ever since race around the World when you clocks that 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.440 actually your instincts were good about what people wanted here 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:04.360 and the sweets was putting yourself in situations of mild 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.560 to severe peril in the interests of kind of teasing 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.840 out these uncomfortable ideas. But there is a kind of 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.840 performance there. Yeah, definitely. How does that performance make the 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.000 shift when you become John Saffron writer of books. 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.319 I just yeah, I kind of float around to see 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.000 what's working. So yeah, once an American saw one of 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.720 my shows and they said, oh, it's very confusing to 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:32.760 watch because if you compare it to like some Sasha 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:36.960 Baron Cohen thing, like there's a consistent reality. So, for instance, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.880 a voiceover by Sasha Baron Cohen on a Borat thing 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.160 is the same character as Borat, but he's going It's 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.440 so confusing because you can have one one segment on 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.880 your show where you're kind of phone naive, and then 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.960 on top of that, the voiceover is you being sincere, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.559 but then the next segment is you just being more 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.800 Louis Thurrouy in more just normal you and you're going 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.960 to a Hindu temple or whatever, but you're just you, 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.320 and you're there and you're very curious and you're normal 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.360 and whatever, and then the next segment is like a 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.880 scripted song parody or something like that. So yeah, it's 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.440 definitely left me with a kind of a CV that's 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.600 kind of which where I'm like all over the place. 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.480 I do think like, notwithstanding that eclecticism, like the through 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.920 line from your earliest media work to this book is 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.040 a pretty clear one. Yeah, on the question of sincerity. 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.760 How since his can you like, how much is this 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.920 useful stuff to pass or unpack and how much of 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.920 it is part of hyper performance or frankly just unwellness. 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.280 Yeah, so when it comes to is it a performance 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.559 or does he actually believe these neo Nazi things? Like 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:55.079 I look into that in the book where I have 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.000 a conversation with, of course a problematic person, Gavin McGinnis, 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.560 who's the founder of the Proud Boys, because we were 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.880 discussing about how well David Bowie had a period where 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:11.679 he leant into like fascist iconography, including the swasticker, and 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.880 I think that's part of his thin white duke period. 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.480 So it became well, aren't artists allowed to lean into 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.000 dangerous things? And I mean the other one is Sid 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.439 Vicious from the Sex Pistols, the nineteen seventies punk band, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.199 and you know he had us a swasticker, and it's 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.560 like people kind of come to these things with their 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:36.960 own little reasons and and ill thought out reasons, and 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:42.040 Kanye maybe like just you know, that's part of it, 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.480 you know, Like David Bowie, like Sid Vicious was just 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.800 feeling this is the ultimate transgression and I should put 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.400 this out there that people have said to me and 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.680 it's a very good point. They go, yeah, John, it's 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.640 the laziest transgression. It's like, if you were really a 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.000 good transgressive artist, you just come up with something less 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:06.760 corny than using neo Nazi iconography. And he's probably a 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.840 bit like me, not fully thinking through everything and just 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.439 like chasing these kind of like impulses. 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.400 I like that you reference the whole concept of trolling 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.520 because it is so much part of that provocation for 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.560 provocation sake, Oh, there's this orthodoxy that is therefore the 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:25.600 safe way to be. If I want to be an 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.720 artist or an agitator or whatever, then it's my job 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:33.160 to push to that uncomfortable place, which strikes me as 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.559 a position that you would personally have a huge amount 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:37.160 of sympathy for. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:38.040 I would. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.480 But the thing where I'm different to Kanye is the 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.920 only thing, the only thing where I'm and also some 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:50.840 other part. I really think literal politics kurdles art. But 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:55.520 I guess when you're in this transgressive space where you're 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.199 sort of trolling and everything like that, I do think 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.679 the energy in your work is partially relying on the 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.800 ambiguity of things. You know, Like, I don't know why 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:06.680 he ruins his work by kind of hanging out with 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.640 political figures and taking out the ambiguity in things. 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.120 When we return. As unlikely as it seems, John shares 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.600 the emotional truth behind the writing of Squat We'll be 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:29.200 right back. The thing about most of John Saffron's work is, 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.720 even the first time you watch it, you've got your 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.480 hands over your eyes. You're kind of cringing with the sheer, 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.200 excruciating audacity of it. So it seems unthinkable to me 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.400 over a career that his work is something he would 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.840 return to. So I had to ask, does he rewatch 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:45.840 his earlier work. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.160 The only thing I've watched several times is when I 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:54.960 got exercised by an evangelical Christian exorcist in America or whatever. 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:56.920 I've watched that several times. That's like half hour long 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.360 of just me being for some reason, I can watch that. 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.400 Everything else I don't really watch. But then when I 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.680 do watch some of that back, I kind of go 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.040 when I was fourteen or sixteen, if I watched this stuff, 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:08.800 I would have gone, oh, it's pretty cool or whatever. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:10.040 I feel better about it. 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.880 And I also think it's interesting how the backdrop to 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.800 the world changes and things are a different context, and 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.760 that's kind of interesting, and it kind of explains that 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.680 different reactions explain the changing backdrop. 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.840 Given what you say about like the ambivalence about rewatching, 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.880 say race relations. Part of it is having done it, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.200 you're happy to relinquish it to the people who watch it. 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.440 Is that different for your books, like your four books 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.320 in that And I do think there is a discernible 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.760 difference in the kind of storytelling you're doing on the 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.680 page the stuff that you're doing on the screen. And 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.640 I'm curious about how much you get in your own 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.200 head about it as a physical artifact that is unchanging. 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.320 Yeah, I definitely like and it's never like one thing 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.720 or the over arching thing in my mind or whatever. 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.440 But I do like things like you're not meant to do, 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.520 but not in a bad way. Like I like how 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.520 this story about Kanye should be a series of tiktoks 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.840 or whatever, but it's not like there is something kind 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:09.360 of fun about how. 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:10.480 It's this old school book. 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.240 There's already a bit of that online even though the 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.960 book's just been released on like this hip hop American 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.360 hip hop subredit where they've already picked it upthough they're 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:20.760 just confused, like. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.200 Why is this a book? Like why are you allowed 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:24.120 to do a book like this? 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.480 And also it means that you do play with the 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.000 book form as well. Some of the chapters are super short. 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.680 The chapter that shares its name with the book Squat 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:34.640 is just about you going to the toilet in there, 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.880 and that's a very short chapter but necessary because you know, 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.560 a pastor points out to you the Jesus' story isn't 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.520 meaningful if you don't cover him defecating on the cross, 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.840 so you have to do the same for yourself. 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.480 Oh yeah, I feel like this book I Reckon. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.160 My first book is way more I'm shooting my documentary, 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.280 but I just happen to my first book should almost 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.640 be open on a wide shot of it, And by 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:01.600 this book, I've kind of got a bit more casual 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.040 and cruisy, and it's yeah, I think it's more of 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.360 a book book, even though it is like short chapters. 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.400 Like for instance, like that's sort of like bumble around 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:12.560 at the start of when I'm trying to figure out 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:14.480 in Los Angeles, like what I'm. 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.120 Doing or whatever. I reckon. If earlier on. 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.080 In my writing career, I would have been like really 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.480 nervous that I've got to explain to the reader, like 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.480 almost like in a documentary it's or a TV show, 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.840 it's like coming up, you know, like oh, you know, 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:31.840 everything has to be on the first place, like I 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:33.439 can't lose anyone or whatever like that. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.879 Like going into a podcast and insisting you have to 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:36.919 set up the book at. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.560 Yes, totally the start of the podcast, rather than just 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:40.439 give it over to it. 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.639 I know, I know, very similar. 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.000 One of the most stressful things in this book, and 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.240 there are many stressful things in this book, but is 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:49.840 that you only have a single pair of socks that 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.399 were wet on the way in. That seems like a 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.880 useful metaphor for lack of forethought on your part. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:03.680 Yeah, well, you're validating mine my process where this book, 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.919 I just wrote things that just felt right, and I 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.480 didn't like this. I had some emotional truth that I 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.919 did not overthink a lot. I've never thought of what 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.880 you just said then, but it's true, and so now 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:16.920 I'm like, oh, that's why I must have put it 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.240 in the book. But subconsciously, I think there's connection of 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.399 all these scenes that are like emotionally true and some 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.280 are more kind of focused and on point with some 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:30.480 kind of thesis about identity and anti Semitism, and some 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.440 are less I feel like because they're all emotionally true 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.200 and I'm at the center of them, it somehow makes sense. 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.880 I feel like lots of my stuff makes sense until 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.320 I have to explain it, and I guess that is 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:46.160 because this is an art project as opposed to old 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:50.199 school thorough getting all sides of things journalism, so you 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.680 can kind of hold things together through emotional truth. 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.720 It's really interesting to me because I'm curious about the 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.520 extent which the book reads like an exploration, like you 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.879 genuinely don't know how you feel about this stuff, and 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.919 you're teasing about and you're playing about. But how much 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.040 is the emotional truth for you in grappling with his 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:14.399 identity stuff infused with grief or fear or you know, 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.240 because some of these are pretty weighty kind of concerns, 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:19.280 particularly at the moment. 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:20.160 Yeah, totally. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.600 When I went there, I didn't know what I was 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:27.359 going to entirely use Kanye's outburst in service of Like, 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.719 for instance, I was thinking, perhaps it can be about 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:36.560 the history of artists and their uneasy relationship with benefactors, 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.200 and so I'd go back to Michaelangelo and the Church 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.200 and see how that all the way up to Taylor 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:47.960 Swift and having fights with Apple Music over royalties and 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:48.439 stuff like that. 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:50.680 So I thought like that might be it. 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:53.560 And in Australia, because I did a little bit of 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.880 research beforehand, and then also in LA when I was 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.080 talking to people that I was still kind of feeling 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:00.600 away whether that was going to to the idea. The 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.960 other possible idea was going to be about artists who 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.199 go too far and how we kind of want to 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.600 We want artists to be transgressive and go into worlds 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:12.880 that we're too scared to go to, and it's all 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.359 fun and games until it isn't. And there's a little 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:16.960 bit of that in the book. But like that's how 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.840 I didn't actually know it was going to be so 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:24.119 focused on using Jewish Americans and Black Americans as some 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.760 illustration of you know, identity and how precarious identity is 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.879 and all these weird cultural fault lines or whatever. But 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.400 the conversations I had, just because they were so much 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:42.080 more meaningful to me intellectually, I could write a piece 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.439 about Taylor Swift and Spotify and but I don't think 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.840 people would have felt it. I've always like talked about 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.600 things like about my grandparents, but I realized I didn't 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.560 do this on purpose, but I really I've always let 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.000 myself and the reader off the hook. So, for instance, 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.920 in puff Piece, my book about Philip Morris the cigarette 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.960 company getting into e cigarettes, there is a bit of 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.520 a motif of like eight million people die a year 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.399 from cigarettes and that's a holocaust and a half or whatever, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.560 and so what is it about that we're just allowing 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:18.320 this to happen? 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:19.680