WEBVTT - David Duchovny 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:03.520 Do you remember when we did that show and you 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.280 had to go find a mini driver? Oh my god, 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.639 Oh my god in London and I had to go 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:14.200 out of the studio. It was really bad, and they 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:15.880 had to go out onto the bridge and like find 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:17.800 someone driving many and not only that, they like, I 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.280 did it. I love it. You didn't. That to me 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.680 is wonderful that you did. That's your curiosity and you 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:29.159 you're being a game. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:34.279 Many Questions Season two. I've always loved Crust's questionnaire. It 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.520 was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.879 ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:46.080 other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method really. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.600 In asking different people the same set of questions, you 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.919 can make observations about which truths appeared to me universal. 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.840 I love this discipline and it made me wonder, what 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.600 if these questions were just the jumping off point, what 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.120 to depths would be revealed if I ask these questions 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.520 as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.120 these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.840 wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.080 pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.000 were you happiest? What is the quality you like least 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:24.520 about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.600 What question would you most like answered? What person, place, 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.640 or experience has shaped you the most? What would be 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.280 your last meal? And can you tell me something in 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.960 your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.440 I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.039 I am honored and humbled to have had the chance 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.680 to engage with. You may not hear their answers to 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.080 all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.520 which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising, 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.640 or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:05.320 today on many questions is actor, writer, musician, and director 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.560 David d Kovney. Dave and I made a movie a 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.080 little while ago, Okay, a lot a while ago that 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.360 remains one of my favorite movie making experiences, largely because 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.360 he is so clever and funny and such a good company. 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.600 I usually measure a good time by how much I 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.919 have laughed, and that time was a solid nine point five. 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.920 Most people at this point know that David is a 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.360 writer as much as he is a brilliant actor, and 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.960 I've actually longed for him to finish the PhD he 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.040 began when he was at university because its title has 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.600 always been so incredibly satisfying to me. It's called Magic 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.639 and Technology and Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry. I mean, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.200 it's a mouthful, isn't it, But you know, a good one. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.600 Spending time in close proximity to David's brain has only 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.200 ever been a good and rewarding thing, which is why 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.560 I would urge you to read any of the novels 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.160 he's write, my favorite of which is called Miss Subways. 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.160 I think it's a crucible for some of my favorite 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:13.360 strands of Decovneyism, the ideas of myth and mythology, time, love, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.520 and of course New York City. It's always a pleasure 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.880 to speak to someone I've known for a long time, 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.440 but it was extra interesting getting to ask Dave these 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.600 questions at this point in our life, and what I 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:33.399 hope is a long continuing friendship. Where and when were 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:40.160 you happiest? Don't laugh unless it's because it's a really 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:44.720 happy memory. I mean my relationship to the word happy, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.560 it's pretty fright, you know, I don't know. I mean 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.520 it's a question my mother used to ask me all time, 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:51.840 are you happy? And I would always think, well, I 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.320 don't know how to answer that question. There are times 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.800 I've felt fully engaged. Those are the times I'm happiest 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.920 when I'm fully engaged, and usually either with family, with 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.280 my kids, or with work. When I'm fully engaged to 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.840 work and just kind of the monkey brain has turned 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:12.640 off and it's just like creation, creation, creation, go to sleep, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.240 wake up, trying to create some more. Those are the 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.880 best moments, and you can have that with kids as well, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.880 But an actual specific instance, No, I think that's what 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.760 I mean, because sometimes it's attached to a thing that 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.159 we do, But it's really what are the tenets of 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.960 I'm interested in and what the tenants of happiness off 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.240 for people? Because it's a weird one. Yeah. For me, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.599 it's it's bringing something into being that wasn't here before. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.800 And that's even a person, you know, that's a child, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.240 that's a book, that's a song, that's a movie, that's 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.560 a it's a joke. I don't know, it's just like 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:49.359 that to me, that feels happy, like not that I've 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.479 been kind of basking it, you know, like, oh, now 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.120 I've done it, I've created something. No, it's just that 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.040 feeling of you know, that secle vortex when you're kind 0:04:58.080 --> 0:04:59.920 of in the middle of creating something and it's it's 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.240 just this wonderful kind of unseld feeling and what you're 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.720 doing as I go with your instinct, and that's that's 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.360 a lovely feeling for me. I completely agree. The more 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.520 I've thought about it, and the more that I've lived 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.599 and the more death that I've come up against, you 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.240 really do realize that that moment where you can be 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:21.040 completely engaged in making something that is part of life, 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.240 that is really as good as it gets, because I 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.520 think either everything else. Since my mother died and I 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.440 do bang on about this a bit, and she would 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.200 get so annoyed that I kept using it as an illustration. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.279 But it's a good one. There's this brilliant pointlessness when 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.120 somebody dies. There's this existential kind of nihilism which is 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.640 awful to begin with, and then if you're lucky, it 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:46.280 grows into a proper appreciation for what it might actually 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.919 be about or what it seems to me to be about, 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.279 because when you watch somebody die, you really see, oh 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.120 it's it just ends. So those moments I totally get 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.159 that of distilled creation, and in that moment of birthing something, 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.880 of paying attention, of being engaged, and even if it's fleeting, 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:03.600 or if it lasts for five minutes, or maybe it's 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.200 five hours of sitting writing something or watching your child 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.680 being born, Like, I completely agree with that. My mom's 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.320 ninety two. Now are you kidding me? You met her? 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.320 You met her and oh my god, I did. I 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.560 met her in Edinburgh? Yeah, exactly. She's fantastic. She's got 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:24.080 dementia and she recognizes us. But no, she's she's not 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.520 all there at all. And that's the other thing. It's 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:31.839 not just life ends. It's like identity ends sometimes before life, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.919 and identity ends. And that's a really weird question, like 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.080 what did that mean? That identity? What was that construct 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.080 of character of personality? Was it a lie or was it? 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:43.960 What was it? You know? Is it just a screen? 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.080 What's the real thing? It says? Essential? Like you said, 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.160 it's as wow, identity is flimsy. It's super flimsy. It's 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.359 built on sand, as demonstrated by what happens when it 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.960 begins to disappear. But I do believe in something more kinetic. 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.839 Let's beyond that. I really really do, having having watched 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:06.360 the intellectual side and the body diminished, but still felt 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.400 the presence of that kinetic something. There was something amazing. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.160 It was just particularly when my mom died, it was 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.520 almost like just the tiniest beginning of a breadcrumb trail 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.440 that she left as she left. I think about that 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.160 a lot, and I don't know if that's just the 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.800 wishful thinking of of missing somebody or hoping that there 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.320 is a life. It was a year on mondaysolutely not 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.240 that one. Yeah, it brings up a lot of just 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.520 a lot about the bulwark of that you didn't realize 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.080 was there between you and your own mortality. When your 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.240 parents die, it's suddenly like, oh my god, I am next. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:46.640 If you're lucky, you're next, You're lucky. Yes, what person, place, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:51.760 or experience has most altered your life? Person, place, or experience? Well, 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.040 I think my mother probably the most formative person for me, 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.000 both going bad you know, place probably New York City. 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.760 I grew up there, spent last like eight years there 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.040 raising my kids that I remember you gave me like 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.040 a whole when we did that screening of Return to 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:13.360 Me Edinburgh Edinburgh Castle, right, I remember, I remember you 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.880 gave me like a massive prep on your mother, like 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.160 maybe the whole day before we were doing pressed and stuff. 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.320 You were just like just dropping things like, now listen 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.040 if she's really unimpressed and doesn't smile when she says 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.760 hello to like, don't worry, it means this. Now do 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.800 talk about this with her. And there was a whole 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.600 like you knew her so well, you were saying it 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.720 all with a smile. She was so brilliant and she 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.640 was I remember we went on a tour of Edinburgh 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.199 Castle and she was the mistress of the acerbic asides. 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.960 She also like out of shot, which I thought was 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.960 quite kind of her. Of the tour guide filled in 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.720 the massive bits of history that they had missed out 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.360 that she knew about the castle, which was brilliant. So 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.680 I just hung back like the naughty kid with the 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:02.040 really sort of smart acerbic teacher. Yeah, my mother is Scottish, 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.000 you know. But but I didn't fight out. And here's 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.920 here's the weird thing about one's parents is I didn't 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.200 find out till maybe ten or fifteen years ago. My 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.480 mother was actually born in Queens, New York. What Yeah, 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.160 I did that show, who do you think? But I didn't. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.880 I didn't learn it there, but I learned other things there. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:23.960 But my grandparents came over from Scotland in the late twenties. 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.480 They came to Queens where my grandfather worked as a superintendent. 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.520 That's what I learned in the show. He was super 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.839 for building. They had three kids and then they went 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.560 back to Scotland. So they enjoyed the depression here in America. 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.400 Depression was lifting here, so they decided it's still going 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.520 on at evening. We love the impression so much, we're 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.600 going to continue this good thing in Scotland. So that's 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.440 what they did. Everybody packed your bags were going aback 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:56.240 for more depression. We're no depressed. One para shute for 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.920 ten years is enough. Mother would als also told me, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.640 you know, she was in a small town in Scotland. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.120 She was raised in called White Hills, I believe, and 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.240 she would say that the Germans on their bombing runs 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.240 would take off from I guess Finland, what is closest 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:13.520 to Scotland and it's right there. It's just so is 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.520 it is it Norway or is it Finland. It's just 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:17.199 I'm going to go out on a limb and say 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.520 that it's Norway. But quick, someone look at a map. 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.440 I think it's Norway. Yeah. So the Germans had annexed 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.240 whatever country it was for that reason, so they could 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.679 be as close as they could get to London and 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.520 refuel and just go on their their bombing on. So 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.679 they would go on these bombing when I'm taking off 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.920 from Norway on our way to London. And sometimes if 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.520 they hadn't dropped their payload, they would just kind of 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.200 like drop little bombs because any self respecting German aviator 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.720 can't come home with some bombs still in the tank barry. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.040 They would try to bomb bridges. You know, they're trying 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.000 to trying to create a havoc whatever. You know, they 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.600 didn't drop Willie Hilly. But she says one time she 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.120 was out playing as a young child and this German 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.120 bomber came screaming in low and she made not an 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.400 attach with the pilot and he kind of gave an 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.720 odd and went on his way. Oh my god, It's 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.600 like wow, that is such an eerie story. God, that's 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:15.839 a really weirdly cinematic image here. That's like when I 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.200 asked my dad he flew in the Second World War, 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.680 and I remember saying, why was going to the Berlin 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.000 Film Festival? And I called him up and I was like, Dad, 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.280 you know Berlin and he was like, only from twelve 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.240 thousand food. I was like, I was more thinking along, 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:33.360 where could I get a good old schnitzel. That's amazing 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.839 that she remembers that. It's amazing that it was our 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.959 parents generation. I mean, my father was really my grandfather, 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:40.800 Like I mean, not literally, but he was the same 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.120 age as because he flew in that war, but got 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.000 those stories. Yeah, right, because my dad he was eighteen 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.040 and so he was entraining when the war ended. He 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.720 was lucky. He's really lucky. Yeah. My daddy was eighteen 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.440 and flew the first great and Terrible bombing raid, the 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.800 first and the last day raid that the R A 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.640 F flew, and he was one of only four survivors 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.959 out of twelve planes, five man apiece. There was the 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.599 Verde ron Braun, who was the inventor of that you 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.400 two and instrumental in the creation of nuclear mom he's 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:15.720 he's a Nazi scientist who re appropriated after the war. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.320 I remember, I remember they took him in. Yeah, I 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.719 wanted all his intel. Yes, so he you know, he 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:25.360 got to live his his autobiography. I believe it's called 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.959 I Am for the Stars, and Lenny Bruce said it 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.160 should have been called I Am for the Stars. But 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:36.679 sometimes I hit love. Oh my god, yes, exactly. Wow. 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:53.000 What stories, what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.439 I mean, I'm just gonna go with my first thought. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:59.880 But I think of Jesus Christ, who is not my 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.160 lord and savior, but I do recognize him as a 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.520 good teacher, and in the myth he gives his life 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.000 the aga. The Greeks had two notions of love. They 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.080 had aero sexual love romantic love, and they had agape, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.040 which was friendship or spiritual love. And Jesus to me 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.280 his self sacrifice whatever it is on the cross, you know, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.160 so that we in the Christian traditions, so that Christians 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.320 may be absolved. The original sin moves me. It moves me. 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.840 It's a kind of a loved one has for what's children. 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.280 You would lay down your life for them. It's a 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.880 complete selflessness without a possessiveness of erotic love. I guess 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.440 that's my definition of that's so lovely. I didn't know 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.120 that aga. I've had friends who go to gatherings where 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.280 I guess that is the particular teaching, like a form 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.960 of worship, like a worship on a Sunday. I didn't 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.000 know that came from the Greek. I think you're right. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.160 I think that the eros the erotic side, which is different, 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.760 but I think that kind of it's more encompassing the 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:01.440 unconditional love of a child or a dog. Well, you know, 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.920 I think we confuse ourselves because people in relationships are 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.480 always talking about unconditional love, and I'm thinking that doesn't 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:10.640 sound very smart. I mean, I feel like he is 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.960 totally conditional for the most parts. You know, the conditions 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.079 are you know that you are when you say you are, 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.800 you know those kinds of things you know. So it's like, 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.120 I just think it's completely impossible for a human to 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.880 be unconditional. We create these conditions, and whether they come 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.400 from like reptilian brains survival, or whether they come from no, 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.400 I think it really is from that, Like, you can't 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.880 be unconditional as a human being, but you can, I 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.520 suppose be aware of how you can sort of maybe 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.920 release those conditions to let love in because it is 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.600 better like that. Yeah, and you know, when you're lucky 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.320 enough to have children, you realize the different kind of 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.560 love as possible in one's life, you know. And it's 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.760 a scarier one for sure, but it's also it's less turbulent. 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:57.320 It's it's less subject to conditions. It's not subject to conditions. 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.560 It's no, I know, there's so much letting go. No 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.600 one told me that. It's no one told me how 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.160 much letting go that was with your children. I was like, oh, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.400 but it's like we say, we have children. You know 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.320 I have a child. It's like, no, you don't. But 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:14.760 I think it does make you a nicer person. I 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.080 think it's made me a nicer person to stand at 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.560 the side of it. Yeah. I'm always amazed that how 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.080 how easily they can do without me. You know, I 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.640 know I thought I was indispensable. I really really thought 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.840 that were It's so annoying because now that my mother 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.000 is gone, I just so wish I could say you 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.520 really were right when you were like, you'll be sorry 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.520 when I'm gone. I really am, But I think that's 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.520 a kid's journey. They have to think that they can 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.760 completely do without us. Yeah, well you want that, But 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.920 at the same time, it's it's terribly painful, suppalling, it's appalling. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.800 It is to be so entertaining them, you know, unlike 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:59.760 the coolest, the coolest. Yeah, I guess having children it's 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.320 got some kind of great marketing, like built in marketing campaign, 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.360 because nobody talks about the stuff that is just brutal 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:08.480 aver how hard it is and how much you have 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.360 to let go of this beautiful thing that used to 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.160 love you and adore you and then has to individuate 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.920 and has to kind of cut ties with you being irrelevant. Yeah, 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.400 at least for a minute. But you know, I'm still 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.480 thinking about your mom. And my dad died in like 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.840 two thousand and five or saying quite a while ago. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.920 And it's weird because you say so and so died, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.960 you know, that's the way we say it. We say 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.600 my dad died, and you say my mom died. But 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.320 my experience of it was more, oh, he's still dead, 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.000 you know what I mean. It's like he dies every day. 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.400 In a way. Oh my god, Dave, that's exactly that 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.480 is exactly fucking it. That's it. I've been trying to 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.720 articulate this with these surges of grief, like I had 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.520 one yesterday and I was trying my poor neighbor who 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.080 found me on the beach, just sort of like just 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.960 having a proper moment, and I was trying to explain 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.280 to her exactly that it's that she's still dead. There 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.000 are these moments where my brain simply cannot comprehend that, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.240 and I think it must be that's the human that's 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.119 the reptilian brain, going that it only exists in and 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.359 of itself, and only when it is gone can the 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.280 heart or the spirit or whatever it is. I got you, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.880 But we've been having to deal with this extraordinary machine 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.280 in our head that you know, I can't comprehend of 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.320 a lot of stuff beyond it. Well, time from one 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.840 without getting too heavy, because I don't know what I'm 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.680 talking about when I talk about time, Well, who does stay? 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:38.720 That's why I had you on the show. Who then 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.040 knows anything? But every you know, all the all the 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.719 brilliant physicists and scientists will tell you that time doesn't 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.000 exist in the way we experience it, But it's some 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.920 kind of a simultaneous past and future at the same 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.960 time deal going on and the only thing that's going 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.359 forward is kind of entropy, like things breaking apart, but 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.760 there's no like linear from the past to the future. 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.280 And I think when you have such a strong connection 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.720 with another human being, like with a parent, it obliterates 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.840 that illusion of time that starts in the past and 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.560 go straight into the future and kind of put you 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.920 in this weird flow, you know, which is where I 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.280 Sometimes I know my dad's dead, and sometimes I don't know, 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:21.840 and so I'll go through a day where I didn't 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.480 know it, I don't realize oh, you know what I mean, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.320 or a month where I don't think about them. And 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:28.760 then there were months where I felt I was closer 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:30.879 to him than I was in life, you know, that 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.240 I needed him to die for me to get really 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.520 close to him, And that was a weird feeling too. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.640 I'll tell you that I had this novella coming out 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.639 in June called The Reservoir. Because nobody wants to buy 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.240 a novella much. They don't even really want to buy novels, 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.320 but they really don't want to buy an avella. But 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.000 I had this kind of gimmick but cool thing, which 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.320 is a bunch of poems and photographs that I've taken 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.800 and written over the years that you get as like 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.479 a bonus if you buy it early or something. But 0:18:57.520 --> 0:18:59.679 one of the poems I wrote about my dad, and 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.160 I'm imagined him in the poem I think it's called 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.480 seven years Dead, but I was imagining him growing in 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.760 that in death, the way we grow in life. You 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.920 know that he was a child in death somehow and 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.760 in some other consciousness, and I was a man, and 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.280 and does he need me? You know, does he need me? 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.879 Like does that dead child growing in the consciousness of death? 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.159 Does he need to to hold his hand? Or you know? 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.560 You know what we're talking about is like poetry can 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.159 kind of address things like that because it's not sensical, 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.640 it's not scientific, but it tries to get at those 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.760 paradoxes that we're touching on, you know. So I will 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.040 say that I kind of have thought about that, just 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.640 in the sense of, oh, does it grow? Does he grow? 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.560 He was born into that death that that year and 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.639 now he's this many years dead, and is he is 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:51.439 he growing? Is he you know that kind of a 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.880 question that's so funny. I just I had a conversation. Well, 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.119 I don't know whether it's with her or with my head, 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.240 but I asked Mom something and she went, I, you know, 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.000 I'm newly dead. And it was so funny, and it 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.160 was what makes me think that it was her, because 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.760 it was both annoyed and funny, which was a distillation 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.920 of her. I had the dream a long time ago 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.680 about my grandmother, about my dad's mother, who was dead 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.240 at the time, and she loved Fire Island when she 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.800 had a house there and a summer home there, and 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.439 you have to take a ferry there, you know, you 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.919 can't really drive there. And I dreamt that I was 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.760 on this ferry with Julia. I had to call Julia 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.399 because she wouldn't allow anybody to call her grandmother because 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:41.199 she was eternally and uh so she was out at 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:42.879 the front of the boat with you know, she had 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.080 a scarfon on her head in the wind and her 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.400 face and she was clearly like loving this moment, being 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.879 on the ferry and the sun, going out to a 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.320 place that she loved. And I was withst some people 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.600 and they were like, you've got to go tell her 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.400 she's dead, And I was like, why me. I mean, 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.640 like she needs to know, she needs to know she's dead. 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.160 It's not right. So I went and I sat down 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:09.960 next her, and I just sat there for a bit. 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:14.120 Eventually they said, Julia, I have to tell you something. 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.480 I have to tell you that you're dead. And she said, 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.960 but that's such a great dream. Yeah, it was a 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.440 good forget it. I love that she knew. Yeah, the matter, 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.960 it was incidental. Maybe it is, Maybe it is incidental. Yeah, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.360 I just I don't know. Having felt my mother so 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.760 keenly throughout my entire life and lived so far away 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:41.000 from her for most of my adult life but felt 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:43.879 her as keenly and tuned in, I feel her as 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.400