Speaker 1: I got such an angry letter from a Liz Fir
Speaker 1: fan when you so kindly came and did backing.
Speaker 2: Vocals on So What one of my songs.
Speaker 1: One asked me to dance, and I got a letter
Speaker 1: from a person going, don't advertise Liz Fair unless she's
Speaker 1: going to actually be able to be heard in the mix.
Speaker 2: How dare you mix her down? How dare she be
Speaker 2: a backing vocalist?
Speaker 1: How dare you, Mini Driver, use Liz Fair as you
Speaker 1: have used you use her own?
Speaker 3: Oh God, and so you had on the other country.
Speaker 2: I moved to England.
Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Mini Driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It
Speaker 1: was originally in 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. In asking different people the same
Speaker 1: set of questions, you can make observations about which truths
Speaker 1: appear to be universal.
Speaker 2: And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
Speaker 2: just the jumping.
Speaker 1: Off point, what great day would be revealed if I
Speaker 1: asked these questions as conversation starters. So I adapted Pru's
Speaker 1: questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I
Speaker 1: personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
Speaker 4: They are when and where were you happiest? What is
Speaker 4: the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
Speaker 4: or fictionalized, defines.
Speaker 2: Love for you?
Speaker 4: What question would you most like answered? What person, place,
Speaker 4: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 4: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 4: your life that's grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 2: And I've gathered a group.
Speaker 1: Of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
Speaker 1: humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
Speaker 1: may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
Speaker 1: We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
Speaker 1: their experience or the most surprising, or created the most
Speaker 1: fertile ground to connect. My guest today on many questions
Speaker 1: is the recording artist Liz Fair.
Speaker 2: Liz is a unicorn.
Speaker 1: By that, I don't mean that she's mythic, because she's
Speaker 1: one of the realist people I know.
Speaker 2: But she is rare and she carved out.
Speaker 1: Space for herself where she roamed wild and free, and
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, still does. Liz was an
Speaker 1: iconic force right out of the gate. From initial recordings
Speaker 1: under the Girly Sounds banner. She was then signed and
Speaker 1: she released her first album, Exile in Guyville, in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. And girls just weren't singing and writing the
Speaker 1: songs I heard on that record. They were honest and factual,
Speaker 1: blunt and sexual. I just thought she was the coolest
Speaker 1: kind of feminist, and she still is. She and I
Speaker 1: share a similar sort of doomish wisdom, where we think
Speaker 1: everything good comes out of some kind of dead end,
Speaker 1: constantly reimagining artistry and continuing to explore life outside the box.
Speaker 1: I am thrilled that my good friend Liz agreed to
Speaker 1: come on the show today.
Speaker 2: So, Liz Fair, where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 3: This is a dull answer, but it's when I'm on
Speaker 3: vacation with friends and family. I love the feeling of
Speaker 3: being suspended. I have a lot of trouble with rules
Speaker 3: in society, although I'm also someone that appreciates order, so
Speaker 3: it's a contradiction in me. But I really love taking
Speaker 3: everyone I love out of context and being away where
Speaker 3: you're outside of your norms, you're outside of your roles,
Speaker 3: and you're together somewhere, and I feel a sense of
Speaker 3: freedom there. And I don't think I ever feel more
Speaker 3: like myself than when I'm on vacation, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like you just strip off all of society
Speaker 3: and it just feels so good. So I think I'm
Speaker 3: happiest and freest when I'm outside of the roles that
Speaker 3: we're given, that we're scripted.
Speaker 1: That's pretty wild given that you like the bell Weather
Speaker 1: rock and roller creating her own reality literally a one
Speaker 1: woman show band, Like how does that fit in?
Speaker 3: Like what?
Speaker 1: Because it's so funny the way that you made it
Speaker 1: sounds like it's kind of corporate the world that.
Speaker 2: You're escaping from.
Speaker 5: You know, all these rules and regulations, like when you're
Speaker 5: on the stage.
Speaker 2: To do with your monitors down? What is it?
Speaker 3: No, it makes sense, it's all of it. If I'd
Speaker 3: come up now, maybe it would have been. But I
Speaker 3: feel like when I came up in the music business,
Speaker 3: every step was convincing someone that I could do it,
Speaker 3: or just taking the step and then they're like, what
Speaker 3: are you doing? You took a step? What did you
Speaker 3: take a step for? I'm walking here, I'm walking, you know,
Speaker 3: And so like every step along the way felt like
Speaker 3: a bravery test. Wow, you know, like a fight for
Speaker 3: the right to be an art I know it sounds stupid,
Speaker 3: but that's how I feel now.
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound stupid at all. It doesn't sound stupid
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: The people that cut the path through the field, who
Speaker 1: are up front with the machete so that everybody else
Speaker 1: can travel down that pathway. Like I always feel like
Speaker 1: you were one of those women. Thank you, I did that,
Speaker 1: So no wonder you're tired and you want a bloody holiday.
Speaker 1: And that's why right.
Speaker 3: Down you're always on alert for the tigers. You know,
Speaker 3: you don't know what you're cutting into. And a lot
Speaker 3: of times I know that in my career I've ruffled feathers.
Speaker 3: Look my poor fans, are you know, haranguing you because
Speaker 3: I haven't been positioned right? They also harangue me, you know,
Speaker 3: if I haven't positioned myself correctly.
Speaker 1: So can I just tell you that it's so crazy
Speaker 1: because like hearing you say that, like it makes me
Speaker 1: want to punch something. The idea of like being positioned
Speaker 1: right because for me.
Speaker 2: You are. I can't.
Speaker 1: It's important for all these female artists. If you hadn't
Speaker 1: done that, they wouldn't exist. So but it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you the way that you feel that you weren't positioned right.
Speaker 1: I think you were positioned incredibly Like in my heart
Speaker 1: and in so many millions of people's hearts, you are.
Speaker 1: But I understand that of sort of hitting a wall
Speaker 1: and going wow, they don't they don't get where I
Speaker 1: want to take this next.
Speaker 3: Well, you went into music, and you wrote a book,
Speaker 3: a beautiful book, a beautiful memoir.
Speaker 2: I've got to keep making.
Speaker 3: All of those things are things that no one gave
Speaker 3: you permission to do. You just said, this is what's
Speaker 3: in me, and this is what I'm going to do next.
Speaker 3: And I would imagine some of your agents were a
Speaker 3: little bit surprised at your musical detour.
Speaker 1: Possibly, yeah, I mean they definitely were like, well, that's
Speaker 1: it for you, love, If you're going to move to
Speaker 1: Hawaii just like lat music, goodbye, good bye.
Speaker 2: No one will remember you when you come back.
Speaker 1: And largely they were sort of right, but I think
Speaker 1: theyde underestimated how much women are used to having to
Speaker 1: insist on their space at the table, even if you've
Speaker 1: left the table briefly for whatever your reasons are, mental health,
Speaker 1: your soul, have a child, the fact that we can't
Speaker 1: come back and go yeah, I'm going to sit back
Speaker 1: down now.
Speaker 3: Which is interesting. And you talk about roles. I mean,
Speaker 3: until I moved to Hollywood, until I knew artists like you,
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that acting was just another facet of
Speaker 3: their artistry, That everyone who's an actor is also an artist. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so there's so much more to them that, you know,
Speaker 3: Hollywood doesn't have a use for just do that acting thing,
Speaker 3: look more beautiful, keep acting these people, these large souls
Speaker 3: getting put into small roles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or if you fall into the trip, the implied
Speaker 1: insistence on youth and beauty, and that if you don't
Speaker 1: subscribe to that and end up looking this weird, homogenized
Speaker 1: way that a lot of women look now from having
Speaker 1: bowed to that pressure, it doesn't work then either, because
Speaker 1: then in a way you're then punished for having given in.
Speaker 3: You've made yourself replaceable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, you know, I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of people have felt that way about women aging anyway,
Speaker 1: But I don't see women doing that. I see people
Speaker 1: writing off ads about women doing that, But no one
Speaker 1: I know does that. No woman I know over the
Speaker 1: age of fifty is invisible. They are the vibrant, most
Speaker 1: powerful versions of themselves.
Speaker 3: I know, I don't understand that. It's almost like fear mongering.
Speaker 3: I'll always look up from an article. I'll be like,
Speaker 3: do I I don't feel in.
Speaker 1: If they shout more at the articles that I read
Speaker 1: about you know, women and aging and what it means
Speaker 1: and aren't you worried about this? No, you're worried about it.
Speaker 1: You're just getting the clickbait. And I suppose I did
Speaker 1: click on it to read it.
Speaker 3: Well, you always want to know what are they saying.
Speaker 3: There is a sense of our people to talking about this.
Speaker 3: But I mean I watched my grandmother remarried twice after
Speaker 3: the age of seventy. So I watched her date.
Speaker 2: I love that. Did she have a great time doing it?
Speaker 3: She did? And there was one that she became like
Speaker 3: a teenager giggly at the tate. We're like, what's up
Speaker 3: with winky? Look at her? She's like like, you know,
Speaker 3: like this laugh. This personality comes out of your grandmother
Speaker 3: that you've never seen before. So I think I had
Speaker 3: a good role model in the sense that it ain't
Speaker 3: over until it's over, and it's such a brief life anyway,
Speaker 3: you know, why on earth are you limiting yourself in
Speaker 3: these seventy two hundred years in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you see it reflected back in the media,
Speaker 1: and it's it's only like that if you say it
Speaker 1: is like, the more I've thought about it, the more
Speaker 1: I genuinely believe there is only the meaning that we
Speaker 1: assign in this world, and it's what lives in the
Speaker 1: same space. For me is you get what you say,
Speaker 1: You get what you say you worth. I think you
Speaker 1: have to tell the story that you want to live.
Speaker 2: You really do that activity.
Speaker 3: I have a great metaphor for this. At one point
Speaker 3: in two thousand and three, two thousand and four, there
Speaker 3: was a lot of money being poured into promoting me,
Speaker 3: so I was everywhere I was like under Capitol Records,
Speaker 3: and I was very visible, and so everywhere I went
Speaker 3: there's this tension of if people recognized you. But I
Speaker 3: realized something at my own shows that if I needed
Speaker 3: to leave the venue or go meet someone and there's
Speaker 3: a line of people outside my show waiting to see me,
Speaker 3: if I walk like it's no big deal, Like I'm
Speaker 3: just super casually walking back, nobody recognizes me. I can
Speaker 3: walk past my own line casually strong. But if I
Speaker 3: have like people around me that're like, okay, we got
Speaker 3: to get her out of here, everybody notices. So I'm
Speaker 3: literally creating my own reality by how I'm carrying myself
Speaker 3: and how I see that situation, and it stuck with me.
Speaker 3: How you carry yourself to a large degree does shape
Speaker 3: how you experience it and what that means to you
Speaker 3: later on, and how that sticks with you. So if
Speaker 3: you want to be invisible as a woman, you can
Speaker 3: carry yourself invisibly, or you can carry yourself loudly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the things that bothers me most
Speaker 1: about the way in which middle aged women they speak
Speaker 1: about this invisibility.
Speaker 2: I bought into it.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, that does happen, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, it doesn't. I remember calling
Speaker 1: my mother really sad, one like genuinely profoundly depressed, and going,
Speaker 1: I'm so sad.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. What do I do?
Speaker 1: And she was like, oh, put on some lipstick, be seen,
Speaker 1: put your face on, act like it isn't what you
Speaker 1: are saying is act like that and see what happens.
Speaker 2: I remember being so annoyed with her put on.
Speaker 1: Fucking red lipstick to act like I'm happy when I'm sad.
Speaker 3: It was completely right, though when they say it visible,
Speaker 3: what they're really just saying is men are not going
Speaker 3: to try to run you down and conquer that for
Speaker 3: such that is.
Speaker 1: That is exactly that is exactly right.
Speaker 3: But I don't want to be run down and conquered
Speaker 3: for sex anymore.
Speaker 2: So enough of that. Oh I'm sick of it. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what I've been I've been run over it anymore. Frankly,
Speaker 2: it's you're right.
Speaker 1: It is to do with a woman's worth being enforced
Speaker 1: and tethered to this idea of desirability.
Speaker 3: For sex specifically whatever.
Speaker 1: Man, If that's really what it comes down to, just
Speaker 1: like where you want to go and have sex.
Speaker 2: Allow me to be invisible.
Speaker 1: Let me maintain my invisibility, and I'll get on and
Speaker 1: do all the really interesting shit that doesn't involve, you know,
Speaker 1: ten minutes of sex with you.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, thank you for putting such a fine
Speaker 3: point on that.
Speaker 2: And now we can I'll tell you my visibility over
Speaker 2: a swift turn with you.
Speaker 1: Love.
Speaker 3: The articles never explained that part of it.
Speaker 2: They never do. What is it we're going to be
Speaker 2: seen by a swift ten minutes. I don't, I really don't.
Speaker 2: I don't go and google Sally Rooney and see what
Speaker 2: she's writing next. Thank you off?
Speaker 1: Oh God, what relationship, real or fictionalized?
Speaker 2: Defind love for you?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Tell me.
Speaker 3: I never knew this. In my twenties and thirties, how
Speaker 3: I felt in relationships was of paramount importance, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't until I became a mother, and frankly, it took
Speaker 3: fifteen years past that to really understand that if you
Speaker 3: love a person, you want the best for them. You
Speaker 3: want them to find their journey, you want them to
Speaker 3: realize their potential. And that's the kind of love that
Speaker 3: I think is the highest love. It's the best love.
Speaker 3: It's the most rewarding love. It's really hard to find,
Speaker 3: and it's really hard to give. But to love somebody
Speaker 3: and to love yourself wanting the best for you and
Speaker 3: wanting you to fulfill your highest potential, that's real love.
Speaker 3: That's the kind of love that if you break up
Speaker 3: and it's not right between you, you can still look
Speaker 3: at the person and say, I admire this person. There
Speaker 3: was a point at which a relationship was something that
Speaker 3: fulfilled me, that I got something out of, and then
Speaker 3: I morphed into someone that wants the best for the
Speaker 3: other person and only wants to date someone that I
Speaker 3: would feel that way about.
Speaker 4: Hmmm.
Speaker 1: So distill it to what defines love for you?
Speaker 3: A lack of selfishness, a keen interest and admiration and
Speaker 3: feeling for a real connection that you can't put into words.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't just consume, that doesn't just say, oh great,
Speaker 3: when can we be together? What can we do? But
Speaker 3: that listens to what they want to do, What are
Speaker 3: you trying to do with your life? What are your dreams?
Speaker 3: And then supporting that. I guess it's about only dating
Speaker 3: people that you really already respect and admire as people individuals,
Speaker 3: not meshing, not going to that full mesh that I
Speaker 3: did in my twenties. Do you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: About, Like, yeah, full mesh for the birds?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it was fine. Those are the epics
Speaker 3: stories and the fights in the street and the like
Speaker 3: ro Julia and the steaks or something. No, I'm not
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 2: I'm too tired for that.
Speaker 1: But I also don't want I don't want ten minute sex.
Speaker 1: But I also don't want that. I don't want I
Speaker 1: don't want that screaming in the streets you to actualize.
Speaker 3: I want you to have what you want in life,
Speaker 3: and I want to be there for the ride.
Speaker 1: But it's about respect, right, respect and recognition. And you're
Speaker 1: right about liking who they are and that you support
Speaker 1: that despite the compromise that it might be to your
Speaker 1: own life, because you love them, because that's actually what
Speaker 1: what love is.
Speaker 2: I think that's interesting.
Speaker 3: You want the best for them.
Speaker 2: Have you got that?
Speaker 3: No? And I remember a boyfriend telling me that that's
Speaker 3: what it was, and I wanted to punch him. I
Speaker 3: really did. I was like, take your Hallmark guard and
Speaker 3: hit the road.
Speaker 2: But he was right.
Speaker 1: I hate it when someone tells you something that's right
Speaker 1: and then you know they were right, and then you
Speaker 1: have to carry that around.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is. I don't have the relationship back, but
Speaker 3: I took the advice.
Speaker 2: Then you profited from that.
Speaker 3: No do I have that now?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: I do not. It's very hard to find. But I
Speaker 3: also don't trifle with possibles. If I don't feel deep
Speaker 3: compulsion that this person is connecting with me, I think
Speaker 3: of it as chakras. If they're not lighting up five
Speaker 3: of those chakras at once. I'm not going to bother.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so great. It's like a traffic
Speaker 1: light system. That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm sorry, and there's all
Speaker 1: three lights are going. We don't have anything happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes it very practical. You have an internal traffic.
Speaker 3: And if you're friends, that can always change because you know,
Speaker 3: you'll fall in love if it's not ten minutes, if
Speaker 3: it's half an hour's eare and it's satisfying.
Speaker 2: Listen, I'm giving ten minutes. I'm giving ten.
Speaker 1: Minutes a bad app there's a good version of ten minutes.
Speaker 1: It's just the people that are cooling women invisible over
Speaker 1: the age of fifty, and not that people have a
Speaker 1: good ten minute sex.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the that's the fucking deal right there.
Speaker 1: But that fellow, But I'll take a good ten minutes.
Speaker 3: This is all the truth you need.
Speaker 1: I'll take a good ten minutes with my boyfriend any
Speaker 1: day of the week.
Speaker 2: God damn right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's also probably a forty five minute or
Speaker 3: a ten minute or a five minute or and any
Speaker 3: sort of thing.
Speaker 2: He's all the minutes. Indy, Oh, the minutes I need.
Speaker 2: I think we should drive a song. He's old minutes.
Speaker 3: And we can even have parts of it. We're like
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes now, you know, No, it's like twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: Hi, my name's twenty minutes and I'm a mid point
Speaker 5: in your day. Hi, my name's two minutes. I'm a
Speaker 5: knee trembling in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: I'm your launch pray.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 3: He's all minutes in the hour, so he's all a
Speaker 3: minutes by me.
Speaker 2: Oh my godnes on a Tuesday. By the way, I'm
Speaker 2: definitely writing the song. I'm going to send it to you.
Speaker 1: All right, Angel in your life, can you tell me
Speaker 1: about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 3: The knee jerk reaction is everything's grown out of personal disaster.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 3: Correct way to say is I see personal disaster as opportunities.
Speaker 3: Not at the moment, but I always keep that in
Speaker 3: the back of my mind. So if you consider the
Speaker 3: fact that I was adopted, I came right out of
Speaker 3: a personal disaster into a pretty good situation. And you know,
Speaker 3: though I I wanted to be a visual artist, the
Speaker 3: personal disaster of me sort of having my I'm not
Speaker 3: going to school anymore. I hate everything, I hate everyone.
Speaker 3: That personal disaster wrote Guyville, and so then the personal
Speaker 3: disaster of oh god, now it's my job to perform
Speaker 3: on stage that personal disaster. Or when I was having
Speaker 3: trouble with my record company, well, I have a college degree.
Speaker 3: I could write a book, you know. So everything comes
Speaker 3: out of a dead end. For me. Everything that I've
Speaker 3: done that has really impressed me about myself has come
Speaker 3: out of a dead end where something isn't working out.
Speaker 3: And that may just be that I value those experiences
Speaker 3: more because I overcame something. But personal disaster for me
Speaker 3: equates with growth. So anytime I break something or someone
Speaker 3: breaks me, even in the depths of it, and trust me,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go hide in a cave for about
Speaker 3: six months. It's just been my experience on life like
Speaker 3: that is what happens. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Speaker 3: That is the truism. But it's true, and it's extremely
Speaker 3: useful in my life because otherwise there's no rhyme or
Speaker 3: reason to what I've done in my life. Young people
Speaker 3: should remember that exactly.
Speaker 1: It's just like wait a minute, just let it breathe
Speaker 1: when it's really bad, give it a second.
Speaker 2: What person, place, or experience most altered your life.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy we have arrived at this question. Music,
Speaker 3: music industry, music business, music fans, playing music, performing music.
Speaker 3: You know, I got into this business to be recording
Speaker 3: artists and never thought that I would have to perform
Speaker 3: said music. And it has been something that I have
Speaker 3: had to learn how to do, had to learn how
Speaker 3: to love, had to get better at and it has
Speaker 3: changed me so profoundly that it's hard to even explain.
Speaker 3: But sometime around two thousand and five, I was a
Speaker 3: new mom. I had a six year old and I
Speaker 3: was teaching him about singing, and I realized that opening
Speaker 3: my heart to be a better singer was not about technique.
Speaker 3: For me, it was about not strangling my voice, not
Speaker 3: feeling that shyness. It's always for me about letting you
Speaker 3: see me, letting myself be vulnerable in front of people,
Speaker 3: and the fact that given a choice, I would never
Speaker 3: do that, and that because of my job. It's been
Speaker 3: the work of my life. Has made me such a
Speaker 3: better person in so many ways. It never lets me
Speaker 3: totally put roots down because I'm always being asked can
Speaker 3: you give more? Can you give something new of yourself?
Speaker 3: Can you open up again? And that has shaped me
Speaker 3: in ways that I'm deeply grateful for. Wow, because I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have you wouldn't know. I would have been like
Speaker 3: I would have been a know it all. I would
Speaker 3: have sat back and been like, I don't do that.
Speaker 3: But now I can never say I don't do that.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe I do do that. I don't know,
Speaker 3: because the thing that I would least like to do
Speaker 3: became my job.
Speaker 2: What did you think you were going to do?
Speaker 3: Sit back and make records, make art, make visual art?
Speaker 3: Maybe right, anything behind the scenes, nothing in front of
Speaker 3: the camera.
Speaker 2: Who made you go in front of the camera?
Speaker 3: People fans?
Speaker 1: When you made a record, you must have known that
Speaker 1: you were going to have to go out and tour
Speaker 1: that and promote it and get on stage.
Speaker 3: No. No, I was twenty six. I had fully prepared
Speaker 3: and trained to be a visual artist. I had my
Speaker 3: whole life set out. I knew I'd have a studio.
Speaker 3: I fantasized about being like on the East Coast, you know,
Speaker 3: and having the life of the house and then my
Speaker 3: studio next to it. HM, that would be my fantasy.
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, but you anyway.
Speaker 3: I did it anyway, I mean not just anyway. I
Speaker 3: did it and did it and did it, and like
Speaker 3: I said, the biggest gift was the thing that I
Speaker 3: wanted to avoid, and that lesson never left me. Now
Speaker 3: I always know if something comes up and I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, she'll probably do it, and maybe I should,
Speaker 3: maybe I shouldn't, but like I could, I could try.
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, I love that like I could.
Speaker 2: My mother was like that till the very end.
Speaker 1: She was eighty four, and probably a month before she died,
Speaker 1: she didn't know she was going to die.
Speaker 2: She'd started a new business because she.
Speaker 1: Was like, I love it because because I want to
Speaker 1: and there's like a gap and because I can and
Speaker 1: I'm doing it, and she did it, and that whole
Speaker 1: notion of yeah, you see something that you can't do,
Speaker 1: you go, yeah, but I could.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like doing that, Yeah, but I could.
Speaker 2: I could do that. I love that that.
Speaker 1: There is only the limit that you put upon yourself.
Speaker 1: That you say, that is andy invisible cloak that you.
Speaker 2: Put on yourself.
Speaker 1: There is only that sort of stifling of your thoughts.
Speaker 3: They're fragile, you know, they can be shattered. I love
Speaker 3: that chapter. But may I talk about your memoiral like
Speaker 3: that chapter about your mom passing. There was brutal parts
Speaker 3: about it, but the eloquence with which you described the
Speaker 3: love you have for her and how she was determined
Speaker 3: the Duchess, I mean, like, it's just that was such
Speaker 3: a satisfying and beautiful chapter to explain a daughter's love.
Speaker 3: And it was complicated, and it was filled with so
Speaker 3: much stuff, and there were things you wouldn't even try
Speaker 3: to put into words, you know, the way you would
Speaker 3: sit by her, and how quickly you were rousable from
Speaker 3: your sleep, the way you had been when your son
Speaker 3: was so young, Like that just meant a lot to
Speaker 3: me as my parents are getting older, and just thank you.
Speaker 3: It meant a lot to me. And I think that
Speaker 3: you have a very powerful way of opening up private
Speaker 3: experiences to a very broad encompassing lens. That's so it's
Speaker 3: really thank.
Speaker 2: You, Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's just an exploration, as you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Just like go on a journey.
Speaker 3: That's a hard relationship to define, and you did it
Speaker 3: so beautifully without defining it.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: She sounds like she was a very formative love.
Speaker 1: She was always slightly out of reach, like I could
Speaker 1: never quite get her, and then obviously death has been
Speaker 1: the ultimate.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, she got away. I never quite. But
Speaker 2: that's that you.
Speaker 3: Wrote a song about you.
Speaker 1: And what she like, what she inspired because there was
Speaker 1: no the idea of her being an arrival point. That
Speaker 1: that has been like rocket fuel in my life to
Speaker 1: keep exploring. And it's not about not being satisfied, but
Speaker 1: staying curious about how do we keep feeling in this
Speaker 1: world that's so hard?
Speaker 2: How do you keep.
Speaker 1: Having fragile feelings and experiences. She taught me how to
Speaker 1: do that because it's what she did, and she went
Speaker 1: out chasing whatever came next in a way.
Speaker 3: Always Yeah, yeah, I respect that so much. I mean,
Speaker 3: starting a business while you're on your deathbed, that's something
Speaker 3: I'd like.
Speaker 1: To do, Yeah, totally, whilst also watching the football and
Speaker 1: telling us all what we needed to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, she was immense, amazing, she was immense.
Speaker 3: That's what you gave word to Our mothers are immense.
Speaker 3: They are immense, and that's what you cant you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thomy, thank you so much. All right, I
Speaker 1: better ask you the next question otherwise, well, next question,
Speaker 1: what is the quality you like least about yourself.
Speaker 3: I thought about this for a long time. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of qualities I don't like about myself, but the
Speaker 3: most I think troublesome to my The way I want
Speaker 3: to come across is impatience. I am impatient. It's very
Speaker 3: hard for me to slow it down and let things
Speaker 3: unfold if I think I know where they're going, and
Speaker 3: I miss a lot. I miss people by doing that,
Speaker 3: I miss letting them unfold.
Speaker 2: Hmmm.
Speaker 3: So I like that least about myself.
Speaker 4: Hmmm.
Speaker 1: Do you take steps to I don't know have self
Speaker 1: correct is the right word, because that that all sounds
Speaker 1: a bit like you need a writing crop.
Speaker 3: What do you I do? I could use it.
Speaker 2: I need to whip myself.
Speaker 3: Listening. I practice listening, as we were talking about before
Speaker 3: with my career, trying to always step where no one
Speaker 3: has given me permission to step. That can create a
Speaker 3: you kind of a not pushing us, but like a
Speaker 3: I hear no, but I'm seeing you know maybe that
Speaker 3: kind of like let's try this. So letting things happen
Speaker 3: to me, letting myself go through things without speeding it
Speaker 3: up or escaping it.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I mean I think a lot of it is wrapped
Speaker 1: up with like again having to be the herald of
Speaker 1: your own work. Like also, you weren't in a band
Speaker 1: like it was you, like that's how you presented yourself,
Speaker 1: and you're writing all the songs, so there had to
Speaker 1: be probably quite a lot of people that needed to
Speaker 1: be tuned out who were telling you what to do.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, though, a really useful tool then becomes something
Speaker 1: that as we evolve, it's like, oh, that thing that
Speaker 1: served me so well, then perhaps that part of me
Speaker 1: has to evolve so that now it actually does listen,
Speaker 1: now that it's not a survival technique.
Speaker 2: Not listening, that's it.
Speaker 3: You've just encapsulated perfectly growing up because whatever characteristics you
Speaker 3: had in childhood, they were adaptive. You're doing the best
Speaker 3: in the environment that you had, and this is how
Speaker 3: you made it through whatever you were going through. And
Speaker 3: if you're lucky enough to get control of your life
Speaker 3: to some extent, you can look at those things. Since
Speaker 3: for so much of my life I just kept going.
Speaker 3: It worked before, just keep going, and it wasn't until
Speaker 3: my forties I think that I stopped and said, yeah,
Speaker 3: but the same problems keep popping up, like the same
Speaker 3: failures keep happening. And so I had to kind of
Speaker 3: pull apart as we do our psychology and look at
Speaker 3: it and think about what if I changed my mind
Speaker 3: and I approach everything that way. Now I'm going to
Speaker 3: change myself before I'm going to change anyone else.
Speaker 2: That's so good. I got to try and do that more.
Speaker 3: It's hard. I don't succeed all the time, believe me,
Speaker 3: It's just what I try to do.
Speaker 1: It is interesting, though, when one realizes, you know, we've
Speaker 1: all had to learn how to actually be kinder to ourselves.
Speaker 1: As my friend Emma said one day, yeah, but are
Speaker 1: you being too kind to yourself?
Speaker 2: Do you not need to be a little bit tougher
Speaker 2: with yourself?
Speaker 1: I was like, and she's absolutely correct.
Speaker 2: Now and now I think about.
Speaker 1: Being the common denominator in all my shit. And even
Speaker 1: though I used to beat myself with that, then I
Speaker 1: kind of forgave myself completely and let myself off the hook.
Speaker 1: And the weird thing is that there's this whole part
Speaker 1: I just never evolved because it was like, look, either
Speaker 1: you have never found the middle way of going It's
Speaker 1: okay for this fallibility and this shit, but just let
Speaker 1: it remind you in a more robust way as opposed
Speaker 1: to I'm either going to pretend it's not there and
Speaker 1: like love myself and it's not about me, it's about them,
Speaker 1: beat myself like that. There's somewhere in the middle. I
Speaker 1: think that's actually what middle age is, is that you
Speaker 1: find the fucking middle path. Everyone's so busy talking about
Speaker 1: your wrinkles, they don't realize it.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite sweet.
Speaker 1: I'm not living in a quite such a polarized way
Speaker 1: with yourself.
Speaker 3: The extreme. Yeah, it's easy to shift into the extreme,
Speaker 3: like go go go that way, go go go this way.
Speaker 1: That was my twenties and thirties right there.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's my next book. It's just going to
Speaker 2: be that.
Speaker 1: It's just going to say that's fair.
Speaker 2: Wrote my next book.
Speaker 1: That's what it.
Speaker 2: Don't be called by many driving.
Speaker 3: I love you Mini, thank you so much for this,
Speaker 3: and thank you for your memoir. It was very personally meaningful.
Speaker 2: To thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: Angel, really really really and also really hope to see you.
Speaker 2: Back in California.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: I mean allor right, Angel, Hi, take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: We'll see Sue See Sue, Hi Love Bye. Mini Questions
Speaker 1: is hosted and written by Me, Mini Driver Executive produced
Speaker 1: by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support from Jennifer Bassett,
Speaker 1: Zoey Denkler and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2: The theme music is also by.
Speaker 1: Me and additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, a, Nick Oppenheim, A,
Speaker 1: Nick Muller and Annette wolf A w kPr, Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: Nicki Etoor, Morgan Levoy and mangesh Had Tiggadore