Speaker 1: Do you remember when we did that show and you
Speaker 1: had to go find a mini driver? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: Oh my god in London and I had to go
Speaker 1: out of the studio. It was really bad, and they
Speaker 1: had to go out onto the bridge and like find
Speaker 1: someone driving many and not only that, they like, I
Speaker 1: did it. I love it. You didn't. That to me
Speaker 1: is wonderful that you did. That's your curiosity and you
Speaker 1: you're being a game. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Many Questions Season two. I've always loved Crust's questionnaire. It
Speaker 1: was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would
Speaker 1: ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the
Speaker 1: other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method really.
Speaker 1: In asking different people the same set of questions, you
Speaker 1: can make observations about which truths appeared to me universal.
Speaker 1: I love this discipline and it made me wonder, what
Speaker 1: if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
Speaker 1: to depths would be revealed if I ask these questions
Speaker 1: as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all
Speaker 1: these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I
Speaker 1: wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a
Speaker 1: pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where
Speaker 1: were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
Speaker 1: about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: What question would you most like answered? What person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 1: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 1: your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And
Speaker 1: I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
Speaker 1: I am honored and humbled to have had the chance
Speaker 1: to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
Speaker 1: all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
Speaker 1: which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
Speaker 1: or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
Speaker 1: today on many questions is actor, writer, musician, and director
Speaker 1: David d Kovney. Dave and I made a movie a
Speaker 1: little while ago, Okay, a lot a while ago that
Speaker 1: remains one of my favorite movie making experiences, largely because
Speaker 1: he is so clever and funny and such a good company.
Speaker 1: I usually measure a good time by how much I
Speaker 1: have laughed, and that time was a solid nine point five.
Speaker 1: Most people at this point know that David is a
Speaker 1: writer as much as he is a brilliant actor, and
Speaker 1: I've actually longed for him to finish the PhD he
Speaker 1: began when he was at university because its title has
Speaker 1: always been so incredibly satisfying to me. It's called Magic
Speaker 1: and Technology and Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a mouthful, isn't it, But you know, a good one.
Speaker 1: Spending time in close proximity to David's brain has only
Speaker 1: ever been a good and rewarding thing, which is why
Speaker 1: I would urge you to read any of the novels
Speaker 1: he's write, my favorite of which is called Miss Subways.
Speaker 1: I think it's a crucible for some of my favorite
Speaker 1: strands of Decovneyism, the ideas of myth and mythology, time, love,
Speaker 1: and of course New York City. It's always a pleasure
Speaker 1: to speak to someone I've known for a long time,
Speaker 1: but it was extra interesting getting to ask Dave these
Speaker 1: questions at this point in our life, and what I
Speaker 1: hope is a long continuing friendship. Where and when were
Speaker 1: you happiest? Don't laugh unless it's because it's a really
Speaker 1: happy memory. I mean my relationship to the word happy,
Speaker 1: it's pretty fright, you know, I don't know. I mean
Speaker 1: it's a question my mother used to ask me all time,
Speaker 1: are you happy? And I would always think, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to answer that question. There are times
Speaker 1: I've felt fully engaged. Those are the times I'm happiest
Speaker 1: when I'm fully engaged, and usually either with family, with
Speaker 1: my kids, or with work. When I'm fully engaged to
Speaker 1: work and just kind of the monkey brain has turned
Speaker 1: off and it's just like creation, creation, creation, go to sleep,
Speaker 1: wake up, trying to create some more. Those are the
Speaker 1: best moments, and you can have that with kids as well,
Speaker 1: But an actual specific instance, No, I think that's what
Speaker 1: I mean, because sometimes it's attached to a thing that
Speaker 1: we do, But it's really what are the tenets of
Speaker 1: I'm interested in and what the tenants of happiness off
Speaker 1: for people? Because it's a weird one. Yeah. For me,
Speaker 1: it's it's bringing something into being that wasn't here before.
Speaker 1: And that's even a person, you know, that's a child,
Speaker 1: that's a book, that's a song, that's a movie, that's
Speaker 1: a it's a joke. I don't know, it's just like
Speaker 1: that to me, that feels happy, like not that I've
Speaker 1: been kind of basking it, you know, like, oh, now
Speaker 1: I've done it, I've created something. No, it's just that
Speaker 1: feeling of you know, that secle vortex when you're kind
Speaker 1: of in the middle of creating something and it's it's
Speaker 1: just this wonderful kind of unseld feeling and what you're
Speaker 1: doing as I go with your instinct, and that's that's
Speaker 1: a lovely feeling for me. I completely agree. The more
Speaker 1: I've thought about it, and the more that I've lived
Speaker 1: and the more death that I've come up against, you
Speaker 1: really do realize that that moment where you can be
Speaker 1: completely engaged in making something that is part of life,
Speaker 1: that is really as good as it gets, because I
Speaker 1: think either everything else. Since my mother died and I
Speaker 1: do bang on about this a bit, and she would
Speaker 1: get so annoyed that I kept using it as an illustration.
Speaker 1: But it's a good one. There's this brilliant pointlessness when
Speaker 1: somebody dies. There's this existential kind of nihilism which is
Speaker 1: awful to begin with, and then if you're lucky, it
Speaker 1: grows into a proper appreciation for what it might actually
Speaker 1: be about or what it seems to me to be about,
Speaker 1: because when you watch somebody die, you really see, oh
Speaker 1: it's it just ends. So those moments I totally get
Speaker 1: that of distilled creation, and in that moment of birthing something,
Speaker 1: of paying attention, of being engaged, and even if it's fleeting,
Speaker 1: or if it lasts for five minutes, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: five hours of sitting writing something or watching your child
Speaker 1: being born, Like, I completely agree with that. My mom's
Speaker 1: ninety two. Now are you kidding me? You met her?
Speaker 1: You met her and oh my god, I did. I
Speaker 1: met her in Edinburgh? Yeah, exactly. She's fantastic. She's got
Speaker 1: dementia and she recognizes us. But no, she's she's not
Speaker 1: all there at all. And that's the other thing. It's
Speaker 1: not just life ends. It's like identity ends sometimes before life,
Speaker 1: and identity ends. And that's a really weird question, like
Speaker 1: what did that mean? That identity? What was that construct
Speaker 1: of character of personality? Was it a lie or was it?
Speaker 1: What was it? You know? Is it just a screen?
Speaker 1: What's the real thing? It says? Essential? Like you said,
Speaker 1: it's as wow, identity is flimsy. It's super flimsy. It's
Speaker 1: built on sand, as demonstrated by what happens when it
Speaker 1: begins to disappear. But I do believe in something more kinetic.
Speaker 1: Let's beyond that. I really really do, having having watched
Speaker 1: the intellectual side and the body diminished, but still felt
Speaker 1: the presence of that kinetic something. There was something amazing.
Speaker 1: It was just particularly when my mom died, it was
Speaker 1: almost like just the tiniest beginning of a breadcrumb trail
Speaker 1: that she left as she left. I think about that
Speaker 1: a lot, and I don't know if that's just the
Speaker 1: wishful thinking of of missing somebody or hoping that there
Speaker 1: is a life. It was a year on mondaysolutely not
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, it brings up a lot of just
Speaker 1: a lot about the bulwark of that you didn't realize
Speaker 1: was there between you and your own mortality. When your
Speaker 1: parents die, it's suddenly like, oh my god, I am next.
Speaker 1: If you're lucky, you're next, You're lucky. Yes, what person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience has most altered your life? Person, place, or experience? Well,
Speaker 1: I think my mother probably the most formative person for me,
Speaker 1: both going bad you know, place probably New York City.
Speaker 1: I grew up there, spent last like eight years there
Speaker 1: raising my kids that I remember you gave me like
Speaker 1: a whole when we did that screening of Return to
Speaker 1: Me Edinburgh Edinburgh Castle, right, I remember, I remember you
Speaker 1: gave me like a massive prep on your mother, like
Speaker 1: maybe the whole day before we were doing pressed and stuff.
Speaker 1: You were just like just dropping things like, now listen
Speaker 1: if she's really unimpressed and doesn't smile when she says
Speaker 1: hello to like, don't worry, it means this. Now do
Speaker 1: talk about this with her. And there was a whole
Speaker 1: like you knew her so well, you were saying it
Speaker 1: all with a smile. She was so brilliant and she
Speaker 1: was I remember we went on a tour of Edinburgh
Speaker 1: Castle and she was the mistress of the acerbic asides.
Speaker 1: She also like out of shot, which I thought was
Speaker 1: quite kind of her. Of the tour guide filled in
Speaker 1: the massive bits of history that they had missed out
Speaker 1: that she knew about the castle, which was brilliant. So
Speaker 1: I just hung back like the naughty kid with the
Speaker 1: really sort of smart acerbic teacher. Yeah, my mother is Scottish,
Speaker 1: you know. But but I didn't fight out. And here's
Speaker 1: here's the weird thing about one's parents is I didn't
Speaker 1: find out till maybe ten or fifteen years ago. My
Speaker 1: mother was actually born in Queens, New York. What Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that show, who do you think? But I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't learn it there, but I learned other things there.
Speaker 1: But my grandparents came over from Scotland in the late twenties.
Speaker 1: They came to Queens where my grandfather worked as a superintendent.
Speaker 1: That's what I learned in the show. He was super
Speaker 1: for building. They had three kids and then they went
Speaker 1: back to Scotland. So they enjoyed the depression here in America.
Speaker 1: Depression was lifting here, so they decided it's still going
Speaker 1: on at evening. We love the impression so much, we're
Speaker 1: going to continue this good thing in Scotland. So that's
Speaker 1: what they did. Everybody packed your bags were going aback
Speaker 1: for more depression. We're no depressed. One para shute for
Speaker 1: ten years is enough. Mother would als also told me,
Speaker 1: you know, she was in a small town in Scotland.
Speaker 1: She was raised in called White Hills, I believe, and
Speaker 1: she would say that the Germans on their bombing runs
Speaker 1: would take off from I guess Finland, what is closest
Speaker 1: to Scotland and it's right there. It's just so is
Speaker 1: it is it Norway or is it Finland. It's just
Speaker 1: I'm going to go out on a limb and say
Speaker 1: that it's Norway. But quick, someone look at a map.
Speaker 1: I think it's Norway. Yeah. So the Germans had annexed
Speaker 1: whatever country it was for that reason, so they could
Speaker 1: be as close as they could get to London and
Speaker 1: refuel and just go on their their bombing on. So
Speaker 1: they would go on these bombing when I'm taking off
Speaker 1: from Norway on our way to London. And sometimes if
Speaker 1: they hadn't dropped their payload, they would just kind of
Speaker 1: like drop little bombs because any self respecting German aviator
Speaker 1: can't come home with some bombs still in the tank barry.
Speaker 1: They would try to bomb bridges. You know, they're trying
Speaker 1: to trying to create a havoc whatever. You know, they
Speaker 1: didn't drop Willie Hilly. But she says one time she
Speaker 1: was out playing as a young child and this German
Speaker 1: bomber came screaming in low and she made not an
Speaker 1: attach with the pilot and he kind of gave an
Speaker 1: odd and went on his way. Oh my god, It's
Speaker 1: like wow, that is such an eerie story. God, that's
Speaker 1: a really weirdly cinematic image here. That's like when I
Speaker 1: asked my dad he flew in the Second World War,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying, why was going to the Berlin
Speaker 1: Film Festival? And I called him up and I was like, Dad,
Speaker 1: you know Berlin and he was like, only from twelve
Speaker 1: thousand food. I was like, I was more thinking along,
Speaker 1: where could I get a good old schnitzel. That's amazing
Speaker 1: that she remembers that. It's amazing that it was our
Speaker 1: parents generation. I mean, my father was really my grandfather,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, not literally, but he was the same
Speaker 1: age as because he flew in that war, but got
Speaker 1: those stories. Yeah, right, because my dad he was eighteen
Speaker 1: and so he was entraining when the war ended. He
Speaker 1: was lucky. He's really lucky. Yeah. My daddy was eighteen
Speaker 1: and flew the first great and Terrible bombing raid, the
Speaker 1: first and the last day raid that the R A
Speaker 1: F flew, and he was one of only four survivors
Speaker 1: out of twelve planes, five man apiece. There was the
Speaker 1: Verde ron Braun, who was the inventor of that you
Speaker 1: two and instrumental in the creation of nuclear mom he's
Speaker 1: he's a Nazi scientist who re appropriated after the war.
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember they took him in. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wanted all his intel. Yes, so he you know, he
Speaker 1: got to live his his autobiography. I believe it's called
Speaker 1: I Am for the Stars, and Lenny Bruce said it
Speaker 1: should have been called I Am for the Stars. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I hit love. Oh my god, yes, exactly. Wow.
Speaker 1: What stories, what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just gonna go with my first thought.
Speaker 1: But I think of Jesus Christ, who is not my
Speaker 1: lord and savior, but I do recognize him as a
Speaker 1: good teacher, and in the myth he gives his life
Speaker 1: the aga. The Greeks had two notions of love. They
Speaker 1: had aero sexual love romantic love, and they had agape,
Speaker 1: which was friendship or spiritual love. And Jesus to me
Speaker 1: his self sacrifice whatever it is on the cross, you know,
Speaker 1: so that we in the Christian traditions, so that Christians
Speaker 1: may be absolved. The original sin moves me. It moves me.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of a loved one has for what's children.
Speaker 1: You would lay down your life for them. It's a
Speaker 1: complete selflessness without a possessiveness of erotic love. I guess
Speaker 1: that's my definition of that's so lovely. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that aga. I've had friends who go to gatherings where
Speaker 1: I guess that is the particular teaching, like a form
Speaker 1: of worship, like a worship on a Sunday. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that came from the Greek. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think that the eros the erotic side, which is different,
Speaker 1: but I think that kind of it's more encompassing the
Speaker 1: unconditional love of a child or a dog. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we confuse ourselves because people in relationships are
Speaker 1: always talking about unconditional love, and I'm thinking that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound very smart. I mean, I feel like he is
Speaker 1: totally conditional for the most parts. You know, the conditions
Speaker 1: are you know that you are when you say you are,
Speaker 1: you know those kinds of things you know. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I just think it's completely impossible for a human to
Speaker 1: be unconditional. We create these conditions, and whether they come
Speaker 1: from like reptilian brains survival, or whether they come from no,
Speaker 1: I think it really is from that, Like, you can't
Speaker 1: be unconditional as a human being, but you can, I
Speaker 1: suppose be aware of how you can sort of maybe
Speaker 1: release those conditions to let love in because it is
Speaker 1: better like that. Yeah, and you know, when you're lucky
Speaker 1: enough to have children, you realize the different kind of
Speaker 1: love as possible in one's life, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: a scarier one for sure, but it's also it's less turbulent.
Speaker 1: It's it's less subject to conditions. It's not subject to conditions.
Speaker 1: It's no, I know, there's so much letting go. No
Speaker 1: one told me that. It's no one told me how
Speaker 1: much letting go that was with your children. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: but it's like we say, we have children. You know
Speaker 1: I have a child. It's like, no, you don't. But
Speaker 1: I think it does make you a nicer person. I
Speaker 1: think it's made me a nicer person to stand at
Speaker 1: the side of it. Yeah. I'm always amazed that how
Speaker 1: how easily they can do without me. You know, I
Speaker 1: know I thought I was indispensable. I really really thought
Speaker 1: that were It's so annoying because now that my mother
Speaker 1: is gone, I just so wish I could say you
Speaker 1: really were right when you were like, you'll be sorry
Speaker 1: when I'm gone. I really am, But I think that's
Speaker 1: a kid's journey. They have to think that they can
Speaker 1: completely do without us. Yeah, well you want that, But
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's it's terribly painful, suppalling, it's appalling.
Speaker 1: It is to be so entertaining them, you know, unlike
Speaker 1: the coolest, the coolest. Yeah, I guess having children it's
Speaker 1: got some kind of great marketing, like built in marketing campaign,
Speaker 1: because nobody talks about the stuff that is just brutal
Speaker 1: aver how hard it is and how much you have
Speaker 1: to let go of this beautiful thing that used to
Speaker 1: love you and adore you and then has to individuate
Speaker 1: and has to kind of cut ties with you being irrelevant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least for a minute. But you know, I'm still
Speaker 1: thinking about your mom. And my dad died in like
Speaker 1: two thousand and five or saying quite a while ago.
Speaker 1: And it's weird because you say so and so died,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the way we say it. We say
Speaker 1: my dad died, and you say my mom died. But
Speaker 1: my experience of it was more, oh, he's still dead,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like he dies every day.
Speaker 1: In a way. Oh my god, Dave, that's exactly that
Speaker 1: is exactly fucking it. That's it. I've been trying to
Speaker 1: articulate this with these surges of grief, like I had
Speaker 1: one yesterday and I was trying my poor neighbor who
Speaker 1: found me on the beach, just sort of like just
Speaker 1: having a proper moment, and I was trying to explain
Speaker 1: to her exactly that it's that she's still dead. There
Speaker 1: are these moments where my brain simply cannot comprehend that,
Speaker 1: and I think it must be that's the human that's
Speaker 1: the reptilian brain, going that it only exists in and
Speaker 1: of itself, and only when it is gone can the
Speaker 1: heart or the spirit or whatever it is. I got you,
Speaker 1: But we've been having to deal with this extraordinary machine
Speaker 1: in our head that you know, I can't comprehend of
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff beyond it. Well, time from one
Speaker 1: without getting too heavy, because I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about when I talk about time, Well, who does stay?
Speaker 1: That's why I had you on the show. Who then
Speaker 1: knows anything? But every you know, all the all the
Speaker 1: brilliant physicists and scientists will tell you that time doesn't
Speaker 1: exist in the way we experience it, But it's some
Speaker 1: kind of a simultaneous past and future at the same
Speaker 1: time deal going on and the only thing that's going
Speaker 1: forward is kind of entropy, like things breaking apart, but
Speaker 1: there's no like linear from the past to the future.
Speaker 1: And I think when you have such a strong connection
Speaker 1: with another human being, like with a parent, it obliterates
Speaker 1: that illusion of time that starts in the past and
Speaker 1: go straight into the future and kind of put you
Speaker 1: in this weird flow, you know, which is where I
Speaker 1: Sometimes I know my dad's dead, and sometimes I don't know,
Speaker 1: and so I'll go through a day where I didn't
Speaker 1: know it, I don't realize oh, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: or a month where I don't think about them. And
Speaker 1: then there were months where I felt I was closer
Speaker 1: to him than I was in life, you know, that
Speaker 1: I needed him to die for me to get really
Speaker 1: close to him, And that was a weird feeling too.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that I had this novella coming out
Speaker 1: in June called The Reservoir. Because nobody wants to buy
Speaker 1: a novella much. They don't even really want to buy novels,
Speaker 1: but they really don't want to buy an avella. But
Speaker 1: I had this kind of gimmick but cool thing, which
Speaker 1: is a bunch of poems and photographs that I've taken
Speaker 1: and written over the years that you get as like
Speaker 1: a bonus if you buy it early or something. But
Speaker 1: one of the poems I wrote about my dad, and
Speaker 1: I'm imagined him in the poem I think it's called
Speaker 1: seven years Dead, but I was imagining him growing in
Speaker 1: that in death, the way we grow in life. You
Speaker 1: know that he was a child in death somehow and
Speaker 1: in some other consciousness, and I was a man, and
Speaker 1: and does he need me? You know, does he need me?
Speaker 1: Like does that dead child growing in the consciousness of death?
Speaker 1: Does he need to to hold his hand? Or you know?
Speaker 1: You know what we're talking about is like poetry can
Speaker 1: kind of address things like that because it's not sensical,
Speaker 1: it's not scientific, but it tries to get at those
Speaker 1: paradoxes that we're touching on, you know. So I will
Speaker 1: say that I kind of have thought about that, just
Speaker 1: in the sense of, oh, does it grow? Does he grow?
Speaker 1: He was born into that death that that year and
Speaker 1: now he's this many years dead, and is he is
Speaker 1: he growing? Is he you know that kind of a
Speaker 1: question that's so funny. I just I had a conversation. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it's with her or with my head,
Speaker 1: but I asked Mom something and she went, I, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm newly dead. And it was so funny, and it
Speaker 1: was what makes me think that it was her, because
Speaker 1: it was both annoyed and funny, which was a distillation
Speaker 1: of her. I had the dream a long time ago
Speaker 1: about my grandmother, about my dad's mother, who was dead
Speaker 1: at the time, and she loved Fire Island when she
Speaker 1: had a house there and a summer home there, and
Speaker 1: you have to take a ferry there, you know, you
Speaker 1: can't really drive there. And I dreamt that I was
Speaker 1: on this ferry with Julia. I had to call Julia
Speaker 1: because she wouldn't allow anybody to call her grandmother because
Speaker 1: she was eternally and uh so she was out at
Speaker 1: the front of the boat with you know, she had
Speaker 1: a scarfon on her head in the wind and her
Speaker 1: face and she was clearly like loving this moment, being
Speaker 1: on the ferry and the sun, going out to a
Speaker 1: place that she loved. And I was withst some people
Speaker 1: and they were like, you've got to go tell her
Speaker 1: she's dead, And I was like, why me. I mean,
Speaker 1: like she needs to know, she needs to know she's dead.
Speaker 1: It's not right. So I went and I sat down
Speaker 1: next her, and I just sat there for a bit.
Speaker 1: Eventually they said, Julia, I have to tell you something.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that you're dead. And she said,
Speaker 1: but that's such a great dream. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: good forget it. I love that she knew. Yeah, the matter,
Speaker 1: it was incidental. Maybe it is, Maybe it is incidental. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. Having felt my mother so
Speaker 1: keenly throughout my entire life and lived so far away
Speaker 1: from her for most of my adult life but felt
Speaker 1: her as keenly and tuned in, I feel her as
Speaker 1: keenly now and I can feel like I know she's
Speaker 1: absolutely fine. I don't know whatever form that takes, but
Speaker 1: there is nothing disturbed, and I know that isn't mind made.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's just from having kind of explored feeling
Speaker 1: as a currency in my life, not just as a
Speaker 1: post the actor, but just in general. Do you talk
Speaker 1: to your sister about your Yeah, we do, and we've
Speaker 1: started to laugh more like we would do, like we
Speaker 1: used to laugh at her a lot. And then we
Speaker 1: call her and go we were laughing at you so
Speaker 1: hard because we were remembering when you ate that rotten
Speaker 1: lamb and you said the green stuff was mint sauce
Speaker 1: and we were like, no, it's not, its mold, and
Speaker 1: then you ate it and you almost died. Remember that.
Speaker 1: But now we've just started telling stories. And even though
Speaker 1: there's this weird, this adjunct feeling of like falling off
Speaker 1: the cliff because we can't then call her and say
Speaker 1: we were just having a laugh at your expense, it's
Speaker 1: now becoming clear that there can be a different exchange.
Speaker 1: So what quality do you like, at least about yourself?
Speaker 1: I think impatience impatience. I'm impatient. Are you impatient with
Speaker 1: yourself or you impatient with other people or both? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm aware of my impatience with other people. I'm aware
Speaker 1: how torrible it is, so I really try and keep
Speaker 1: it to myself. But you know, I feel it, and
Speaker 1: it's something something I wish I didn't have. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know where it comes from.
Speaker 1: I don't think it serves the purpose, but it's there. God,
Speaker 1: movie sets and television sets exacerbate that. I'm sure, Yeah, certainly, yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt that a lot waiting around on a movie set. Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I'm so often in my
Speaker 1: head like in some kind of whether it's a creative space,
Speaker 1: I'm maintaining that I'm protective of it. And therefore if
Speaker 1: somebody is kind of knocking in a little bit and
Speaker 1: with information that I'm not crazy about or I don't
Speaker 1: care about, I can I just stop. I don't want
Speaker 1: to hear about that. So it probably made me a
Speaker 1: bad father from time to time. You know, when you're
Speaker 1: living a creative life and you have children, there's no roadmap,
Speaker 1: you know, like to a creative life. It's like you're
Speaker 1: always doing it when you're off. So it took me
Speaker 1: a while to figure out how to be a decent
Speaker 1: person and not carve out all this time in which
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be creating, even if it's just being quiet. God,
Speaker 1: that's a good reminder, is that being quiet and appreciating
Speaker 1: the pines against the blue sky is being creative. You
Speaker 1: certainly know that when you've spent a winter in London,
Speaker 1: I must say where it's like, Oh the slab, gray
Speaker 1: against the slate, gray against the pigeon, gray against the
Speaker 1: gray gray. Yeah, well, I remember doing the X Files
Speaker 1: in Vancouver and we would always say, you know, we
Speaker 1: go to work in twilight and we rapid twilight, and
Speaker 1: then we sleep and we wake up in twilight. It
Speaker 1: does get to be a weird state of existence. But
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how much protection I need,
Speaker 1: you know, to do the things that I do. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I air on the side of quiet. Please, you know,
Speaker 1: leave me be, be be. I think it's interesting if
Speaker 1: you know what it's in the service of. Like I
Speaker 1: started querying, like why does this get me so bent
Speaker 1: out of shape? Like why am I being so impatient?
Speaker 1: Because I think impatience is one of my worst qualities
Speaker 1: as well. And I was like, what is it you're
Speaker 1: trying to get to you? And I think it's normally
Speaker 1: that if you're busy wanting to get on with the
Speaker 1: thing that you thought everybody was focused on doing, because
Speaker 1: it usually happens for me at work and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: but no, it's about someone spraying a little bit of
Speaker 1: something on my ear and then tugging on my pant
Speaker 1: leg and having a whole conversation about the buffet at
Speaker 1: lunch and suddenly I've forgotten what I'm doing. I had
Speaker 1: this rule, like, it's going to make me sound I'm
Speaker 1: a bit of an asshole when I made it up
Speaker 1: and when I use it. But I say it only
Speaker 1: in the nicest way. But if somebody on set is
Speaker 1: super like into their job and they're doing it super
Speaker 1: super well, but it's getting in my way, I'll say,
Speaker 1: you're giving a ten percent and that's really admirable. But
Speaker 1: what I need is like se from you right now.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh my god. I can so imagine
Speaker 1: a teacher saying that to me. It's cool, it's horrible.
Speaker 1: I can see that you're giving and you already think like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good things. Been is a good thing. And
Speaker 1: then you're like, what I need from you? Oh ship,
Speaker 1: I gotta let some air out of tires. Okay, last
Speaker 1: question in your life? Can you tell me something that
Speaker 1: has grown out of a personal disaster? Oh? Everything, anything worthwhile,
Speaker 1: anything worthwhile. But specifically, the only specific thing I can
Speaker 1: think of is when I was getting divorced. Obviously I
Speaker 1: had a lot more time because I was living away
Speaker 1: from my kids and my soon b ex wife, And
Speaker 1: that was when I took up guitar started writing songs.
Speaker 1: I never would have done that if I hadn't had
Speaker 1: that particular disaster unfolding and slow motion as divorce does.
Speaker 1: It's like a it's a it's a very slow moving disaster,
Speaker 1: regardless of who wants to do it, who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to every it's a disaster for everyone. I started write novels,
Speaker 1: I started to write songs on guitar, and these are
Speaker 1: things I never probably would have done had I not
Speaker 1: been so uneasy. The cliche that the sand and oyster
Speaker 1: just so kind of irritated, irritated all the time, anxious,
Speaker 1: irritated left what can I do? What can I do?
Speaker 1: And that was my answer was I'm going to do
Speaker 1: things that I haven't done before. Actually think, however, agonizing
Speaker 1: and this sort of guys across the board conflict is
Speaker 1: is ultimately creative. I mean there's a lot of collateral
Speaker 1: damage often along the way, but I do think it
Speaker 1: is creative. I do think that's the other side of it.
Speaker 1: And this being the last question, it's sort of the
Speaker 1: antidote to that first question, because I think we do
Speaker 1: pursue this notion of happiness, probably completely erroneously as human beings,
Speaker 1: when in actual fact it's about not really where were
Speaker 1: you happiest? But where was it shittiest? And what grew
Speaker 1: that was good out of that? I now think the
Speaker 1: person who wrote these questions, which was me, is just
Speaker 1: like dog loving idiot, which was you. Yeah, as me,
Speaker 1: you solved the mystery. I saw the miship and wondering
Speaker 1: which asshole which asshole wrote? It was all yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's it. That's it. Conflict. Conflict is creative. I mean
Speaker 1: way more kind of fundamentally or or literally, divorce or
Speaker 1: any the end of or losing a parent or you know,
Speaker 1: any kind of irrevocable split or loss makes you redefine yourself.
Speaker 1: You have to. You're no longer defined in this way.
Speaker 1: You're no longer defined as a daughter. Necessarily, you're not
Speaker 1: more defined as a mother. What you said like closer
Speaker 1: to mortality, any loss that I could go through, this
Speaker 1: just happens to be the thing that came to mind.
Speaker 1: But in my life, any loss, you do have to
Speaker 1: then look at yourself in the mirror and though, well,
Speaker 1: who am I now? And what does that person do?
Speaker 1: That's exactly it, Like what the sort of evolution of
Speaker 1: identity like on what do you take? What survives that loss?
Speaker 1: What has gone, and it's a good thing. It's gone.
Speaker 1: What am I going to go back and sift through
Speaker 1: the rubble to salvage? But that also takes inquiry, that
Speaker 1: takes interest in inquiring into that. You have to be curious,
Speaker 1: everybody's favorite word. You have to be resilient. Without those things,
Speaker 1: life I think is miserable. I think if there was
Speaker 1: anything that I ever tried to impart to my children,
Speaker 1: it would have been curiosity and resilients. Although it's you
Speaker 1: can't really do that, you know, that's something they either
Speaker 1: have or they don't, or they learn on their own
Speaker 1: or they don't. But I see it all around me,
Speaker 1: especially as I get older, you know, I see the
Speaker 1: people that have given up, and I see the people
Speaker 1: who haven't. I see the people who remain curious and resilient.
Speaker 1: And I'm not judging it. I'm not saying it's easy.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying one way is better than the other.
Speaker 1: I just think for me, I couldn't go on if
Speaker 1: I didn't think I could bounce back in some way.
Speaker 1: I couldn't take chances if I didn't think I could
Speaker 1: bounce back. That's a really good thing to think about.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. It could be very sick too. It
Speaker 1: could be like, ah, you still have need, You still
Speaker 1: have need to be seen or to give, to make
Speaker 1: something that somebody consumes or you know, appreciates, Like I
Speaker 1: haven't chat enough, motherfucker. You know. It's like I've certainly
Speaker 1: had enough. But there's something in me that once they
Speaker 1: keep doing it, it could be an illness or it
Speaker 1: could be beautiful. I'm not sure. Oh I hope it's
Speaker 1: something beautiful. All right, Love, I'm going to text you
Speaker 1: later loads of love and thank you so much. Thank
Speaker 1: you really appreciate it. D see you, lovel by bye.
Speaker 1: Dave's newest book, The Reservoir, will be released on June
Speaker 1: seven and is available for pre order now. Dave's in
Speaker 1: the new jud Apatow movie The Bubble, which comes out
Speaker 1: on April one on Netflix, but I'll let Dave tell
Speaker 1: you about it, and also how I came to be
Speaker 1: in the movie without actually being in the movie, because
Speaker 1: I'm not in it, but I sort of am, which
Speaker 1: is lovely. Wait when is the Bubble out? It's so funny.
Speaker 1: I was just watching the trailers because like obviously I'll
Speaker 1: watched the trailer with the new jut uptown movie and
Speaker 1: you're in it, and then what happens. It's Kate McKinnon.
Speaker 1: K McKinnon is the movie studio bars. She's like, there's
Speaker 1: Mini Driver. I love her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It
Speaker 1: was really weird. I wonder why that came about. I
Speaker 1: mean because Jed wal just sit there on the mic
Speaker 1: and I can just hear him saying, there's a really Driver.
Speaker 1: Just say something. I can't wait. I'll be first in
Speaker 1: line on the Netflix queue. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: on my actual work. It'll jump right ahead of the
Speaker 1: cake shows, straight to number one in my wish list?
Speaker 1: How many times can you watch season? By the way,
Speaker 1: it turns out a fucking lot, because I've done it
Speaker 1: many questions. Is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Speaker 1: Supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver. Additional music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison, No Day, Lisa Castella
Speaker 1: and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
Speaker 1: Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support.
Speaker 1: Henry Driver