Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, you're probably noticing a funny looking episode in
Speaker 1: your movie crush Feed right now, and that's because we
Speaker 1: have a new show on our network, old pal the
Speaker 1: movie crush Now. Many Driver has her own show that
Speaker 1: we did talk about a little bit on her episode
Speaker 1: with me. It's called Many Questions, and uh, it's great.
Speaker 1: It's an interview show where she asks a variety of
Speaker 1: different guests, um seven different questions. Sometimes all the questions
Speaker 1: make it into the final episode, sometimes they don't. But
Speaker 1: she was kind enough to have me on as one
Speaker 1: of her first couple of episodes, and they asked me, heybe,
Speaker 1: what do you think about dropping that episode in the
Speaker 1: movie crush Feed, um, since she was on your show
Speaker 1: and she's beloved, And I said, yeah, that's great, let's
Speaker 1: do it. So I just wanted to record a quick
Speaker 1: intro here for that and why you're seeing this here? Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: She has this weird match where she gets you to
Speaker 1: open up about things you didn't know you're going to
Speaker 1: open up about. Very great, great interviewer and host in
Speaker 1: a warm, lovely human being and she's just great. So
Speaker 1: here we go with my episode with Many Driver on
Speaker 1: her own show Many Questions, a show that you can
Speaker 1: get and subscribe to on the I Heart radio app
Speaker 1: or iTunes or you know what they all say, wherever
Speaker 1: you get your favorite podcast, hope you enjoy it, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is it really true that your podcast has been downloaded
Speaker 1: a billion times? It's weird, my effie goodness. I know
Speaker 1: it's crazy. It's it's amazing. It really is weird because
Speaker 1: it's that show. It's not a show about like how
Speaker 1: to boil an egg. It's a show about stuff that
Speaker 1: is really will help and change people. Like that's extremely edifying,
Speaker 1: and I'm so in are of that curiosity and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it feels good. It's it's weird, and trust me,
Speaker 1: and I told you we'll keep wick up every day. Mike,
Speaker 1: what would I be doing? That? Was a writer, so
Speaker 1: I'd probably be writing pamphlets for cell phone companies or something.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, well, I'm very glad you're not. I'm
Speaker 1: very glad you're hello. I'm Mini Driver and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Mini Questions. Growing up, my family always had the
Speaker 1: radio on. I loved the ritual of listening to shows
Speaker 1: like Desert Island discs on a Sunday morning and hearing
Speaker 1: interesting people answer the same set of questions. Later, whenever
Speaker 1: I got my copy of Vanity fairback when you actually
Speaker 1: bought hard copies of magazines, I would always turn to
Speaker 1: the back page first and read their version of Proust's questionnaire.
Speaker 1: I think it's the scientific method, really. In asking different
Speaker 1: people the same set of questions, you can make interesting
Speaker 1: observations about the way we're the same and different. I
Speaker 1: love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what if
Speaker 1: these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater
Speaker 1: depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as
Speaker 1: conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all these
Speaker 1: different disciplines. I think of this show as a mini
Speaker 1: archive no pun intended, although it's sort of unavoidable, where
Speaker 1: I invite you to observe how these trailblazers overlap and
Speaker 1: also where they don't. So I took the format of
Speaker 1: Proof's questionnaire and adapted what I think are seven of
Speaker 1: the most important questions you could ever ask someone They
Speaker 1: are when and where were you happiest? What is the
Speaker 1: quality you like least about yourself. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
Speaker 1: What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
Speaker 1: What would be your last meal? And can you tell
Speaker 1: me something in your life that has grown out of
Speaker 1: a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of remarkable
Speaker 1: people that I am honored and humbled to have had
Speaker 1: the chance to engage with. You may not hear their
Speaker 1: answers to all seven of these questions. We've selected the
Speaker 1: ones that felt closest to their experience, or were the
Speaker 1: most surprising, or the ones that provided the most fertile
Speaker 1: ground to connect. And today we're talking to Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: with his co host. Chuck is the host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Stuff You Should Know, which if you haven't listened
Speaker 1: to this right after you listen to me, you need
Speaker 1: to go and listen. He's also got another podcast called
Speaker 1: Movie Crush. If you're a movie buff, which I am.
Speaker 1: He's down to earth Junius and he's talking to me
Speaker 1: right now. Chuck, I have so many more questions for
Speaker 1: you than the seven questions that I'm allowed, because I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated about the trajectory to the podcast that you do
Speaker 1: so successfully with Josh Clark, I mad about stuff you
Speaker 1: should know, And I was going to say, did you
Speaker 1: know a lot of the stuff before? Oh no, I
Speaker 1: mean it's uh, we very much gon fell into it
Speaker 1: and and I'm very fortunate, Like I feel like we
Speaker 1: sort of bought a small house in a great neighborhood
Speaker 1: years ago, almost fourteen years ago, when podcasting was in
Speaker 1: its infancy, and the industry kind of just grew up
Speaker 1: around us. And I wake up every day and say
Speaker 1: thank you for this weird life that I kind of
Speaker 1: wandered into. I'm a huge fan. The Mexican wrestling episode
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites because I thought it was
Speaker 1: just large men and masks. I didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: the history of the masks and it's so beautiful and
Speaker 1: amazing and weird. And anyway, your podcast is a mitzvah
Speaker 1: for all of us. So my first question where and
Speaker 1: when were you happiest? Well, I mean, do people cheat
Speaker 1: and sort of dabble in multiple answers, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's cheating. I think I would
Speaker 1: hope that you've been happy more than once. But no,
Speaker 1: do feel free to do an appetizer, main course, and
Speaker 1: dessert if you fancy. Okay, yeah, mean, because when I
Speaker 1: think about when I've been happiest, there are my college years,
Speaker 1: when I was living in Athens, Georgia for six years,
Speaker 1: and especially as I approached fifty years old, looking back
Speaker 1: on the time when responsibility was nil and I was
Speaker 1: waiting tables and felt like I was making all the
Speaker 1: money in the world, you know, living cheaply and just
Speaker 1: you know, these are still my friends that I have today,
Speaker 1: My like, my closest friends are from those years, and
Speaker 1: we all live within two or three miles of each
Speaker 1: other here in Atlanta. So I think about those years,
Speaker 1: but I think when am I happiest in the present tense?
Speaker 1: I sort of, I guess would like to set a
Speaker 1: little scene, which is I'm in my sun room in
Speaker 1: my home, and it's very lovely, lots of windows, lots
Speaker 1: of sun, it's early evening. I've got a glass of wine.
Speaker 1: My two dogs and two cats are in there. My
Speaker 1: wife is in the fat chair reading a home design magazine.
Speaker 1: Michael Kiwanuka is playing on the radio, and I'm playing
Speaker 1: with my her. I'm building something with her like legos
Speaker 1: or magnetiles. That's when I'm happiest. Now, those are the
Speaker 1: best moments. Do you think that your awareness of when
Speaker 1: you're happy. Do you think that it has a sort
Speaker 1: of a knock on effect to the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: That awareness of being able to say, it's in my
Speaker 1: son room, it's playing magnetized with my little daughter, knowing
Speaker 1: my wife is close. Do you think that that reminds
Speaker 1: us to absorb it where it may not be so
Speaker 1: so obvious. Yeah, I mean, I think that's something I
Speaker 1: have to work on in the obvious moments. I very
Speaker 1: much am in that moment, like in the sunroom, you know,
Speaker 1: especially being an older father to a younger child, like
Speaker 1: really recognizing the importance of every day like that, because
Speaker 1: you know how it is they get older and you
Speaker 1: lose those moments they get older quick. Try not to
Speaker 1: dwell on that because it just makes me cry every time.
Speaker 1: So I try to really be in those moments, sort
Speaker 1: of step back and say, like, all right, having one
Speaker 1: of those life moments like drink it in man. But
Speaker 1: it's something I have to work on. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we all do. I think we all do.
Speaker 1: What is the quality that you least like about yourself? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is pretty revealing stuff here. It's like
Speaker 1: therapy territory a bit. I think my reticence to change
Speaker 1: things about myself that I know for a fact would
Speaker 1: improve myself getting kind of stuck and letting myself up
Speaker 1: too easily, giving myself permission to not be the best
Speaker 1: me too easily. I'm too easy on myself. I think
Speaker 1: that's probably the best way to sum it up. I
Speaker 1: love them. Most people are like, I'm too hard on myself.
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm way too easy on myself. I am
Speaker 1: way too easy on myself. I really am, to my
Speaker 1: own detriment. Part of it is procrastination, like yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: work on tomorrow, like I need to drop some weight,
Speaker 1: but do I today, not today, tomorrow, and then the
Speaker 1: next day and the next day, so you know, taking
Speaker 1: the easier path. I can be a bit lazy sometimes
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, but certainly in ways of
Speaker 1: self improvement. It's so mad at myself that I don't
Speaker 1: hold myself more accountable, especially now with a young daughter.
Speaker 1: Like just you know how they do. They're soaking it
Speaker 1: all in, They're watching everything you do. I know they
Speaker 1: forever change us. Obviously, our children what we forget is
Speaker 1: that they continue to forever change us because we are
Speaker 1: always being reflected back, and we have this little person,
Speaker 1: you know, when they say their first cuss word that
Speaker 1: they heard you say only yesterday, right, it's quite sobering
Speaker 1: to know that they are these little sponges. And I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that my twelve year old will ever stop
Speaker 1: tacit me, making me modify my own behavior because I
Speaker 1: see him pick up on everything that I do. Is
Speaker 1: that something that you felt like you needed a lot
Speaker 1: of work to be the best example, or were you
Speaker 1: pretty squared away and it's just little things here and there,
Speaker 1: You know what, I was really ready to be a parent,
Speaker 1: and I have a very flexible but just available view
Speaker 1: of parenting. I feel like parenting is bearing witness. Why
Speaker 1: it's like, mommy, watch this, just watch them. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't have to do anything. But I've noticed that things
Speaker 1: that he's picked up on, whether it's my anxiety or
Speaker 1: some quick fire temper stuff that I go, oh shit, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to really look at that, because I'm quite
Speaker 1: literally teaching him that this is a sanctioned basic architecture
Speaker 1: and we're all faulted humans. But it's good to be
Speaker 1: aware of that stuff, you know. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: can be so great when you see yourself in your
Speaker 1: child or you see your partner in your child, but
Speaker 1: it can also be the scariest thing, terrifying. It's terrifying,
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying. And then you see the generational passing on.
Speaker 1: It's like, whoa, somebody stop this train. This is nuts, Like,
Speaker 1: but you can't do that though it doesn't work that way,
Speaker 1: does it not. I think, you know, it all depends
Speaker 1: on your modeling that you got growing up to and
Speaker 1: without getting too much into the weeds on that, I
Speaker 1: didn't have some of the best modeling growing up with
Speaker 1: my parents in a lot of ways. So the kid
Speaker 1: either wants to grow up and do things completely different,
Speaker 1: or the kid grows up and binding someself falling into
Speaker 1: those same traps that your parents were in. You've got
Speaker 1: a choice to make, that is it. You either grow
Speaker 1: up and you repeat, or you grew up and you
Speaker 1: change because you don't want to repeat, and you're aware
Speaker 1: of that, You're right, it's a choice. It's a fork
Speaker 1: in the road. I think I probably do a bit
Speaker 1: of both. I think, well maybe everybody if you're lucky
Speaker 1: you do a bit of both as opposed to just repeating.
Speaker 1: My next question is what relationship, either real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you. Yeah, this is a three way
Speaker 1: relationship with my wife Emily and my daughter Ruby. She's adopted,
Speaker 1: and there's always just some crazy story about that. Actual
Speaker 1: process ours is no different. It's never easy, it's always weird.
Speaker 1: But we had trouble getting pregnant for years and then
Speaker 1: went to Plan B. And I wasn't a d down
Speaker 1: with Plan B. I kind of thought, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's not gonna happen for us, maybe we have
Speaker 1: a life where we don't have a kid at all
Speaker 1: and we just can pick up and travel whenever we
Speaker 1: want and are beholden to no one but ourselves. And
Speaker 1: that kind of appealed to me a little bit for
Speaker 1: a minute, and then I got on board and it
Speaker 1: all came together very fast. And you know, now I
Speaker 1: can envision my life any other way. Like if I
Speaker 1: could go back and have a biological child, there's just
Speaker 1: no way I would do it because our life went
Speaker 1: in this direction. I can't imagine being more connected to
Speaker 1: a biological child than I am with Ruby. And you know,
Speaker 1: as a parent. It's the purest, purest form of love
Speaker 1: there is. There's no strings attached. It's not transactional, it's unconditional.
Speaker 1: It will get more complicated as she gets older, but
Speaker 1: those first few years, it's just that purity of love
Speaker 1: is very instructive and teaches me a lot about life, well,
Speaker 1: five year old teaching me about life. Yeah, And isn't
Speaker 1: amazing for that to become something that defines love for
Speaker 1: you when in concept it was something that you couldn't
Speaker 1: even really get your head around. The paradigm of our
Speaker 1: hearts is extraordinary and myriad and so beautiful. I love
Speaker 1: that you could go from this idea of why I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I want to adopt, maybe we're
Speaker 1: meant to just have this life of just me and
Speaker 1: my wife, And now you're in this place where you
Speaker 1: simply cannot imagine your life without your little girl. I
Speaker 1: love the flexibility of our hearts and the complete un
Speaker 1: wantifiable nature of them. They're just sort of unbridled in
Speaker 1: their space and depth is such an exciting thing to remember. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the heart, Like when I say you have
Speaker 1: to have the open heart for that, it it doesn't
Speaker 1: even have to be the castle door completely open, like
Speaker 1: you just have to provide the smallest opening sometimes. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And they can worm anything.
Speaker 1: Anyone can worm their way in and take residence there.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. You don't have to pull
Speaker 1: the drawbridge all the way up. You can just have
Speaker 1: a little bit up and that's going to have this
Speaker 1: massive effect. Yeah. The other leg to the tripod that
Speaker 1: is my life is my wife Emily, and marry my
Speaker 1: best friend. And like I highly recommend it. I agree
Speaker 1: it's a good thing to do. We go at it too,
Speaker 1: and fight like cats and dogs. It's not all wine
Speaker 1: and roses or anything. But you know, we always make up.
Speaker 1: I think you've sometimes you just gotta yell at somebody.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that should be an Oh I want to
Speaker 1: yet somebody. I want to really get something, you have
Speaker 1: to yell at someone. You have to with somebody who
Speaker 1: loves me though, that's the important part. With somebody who
Speaker 1: loves me. And that was the thing. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't have the greatest modeling. A lot of yelling
Speaker 1: and fighting in my house. And the difference is, like
Speaker 1: I never really saw my parents make up. It's just
Speaker 1: a long fight, So we always make a big point
Speaker 1: to like make up and let her see that and
Speaker 1: tell her like, hey, listen, mommy and daddy fight sometimes,
Speaker 1: but we're always going to come back together, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's the next day. We never subscribed to the
Speaker 1: don't go to bed mad like, No, sometimes you can
Speaker 1: go to bed mad. Oh yeah, No, I'm a big
Speaker 1: advocate of going to bed mad. It's something like a
Speaker 1: really bad night's sleep, sleeping on and waking up feeling shitty,
Speaker 1: and then going you know what, I really don't want
Speaker 1: to feel like this anymore. Like I said, you know,
Speaker 1: we go at it like cats and dogs sometimes. But
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm traveling for work, I'm gone for
Speaker 1: a day and I missed both terribly. You know, I
Speaker 1: can still have some wonderful experiences alone. Sometimes when we
Speaker 1: do live shows on tours and stuff, I'll have some
Speaker 1: really great nights exploring in town by myself. I'll have
Speaker 1: so much fun. But at some point, inevitably I think
Speaker 1: I wish they were here with me. But with COVID
Speaker 1: lockdown too, it's like this is when everyone's medal is
Speaker 1: tested as far as who they're partnering with and who
Speaker 1: they're rooting down with and we we've had a pretty
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah, I gotta say I love him more
Speaker 1: now having been through this, my partner and all of this,
Speaker 1: I really do. It's interesting how you'd think you'd want
Speaker 1: to get away from people, and you do, but in
Speaker 1: not being able to get away from them, the other
Speaker 1: answer is to sort of go deeper and to laugh more.
Speaker 1: We've laughed an enormous amount, like sometimes slightly hysterically, But
Speaker 1: I always love what question would you most like answered?
Speaker 1: I'm sure that people tend to go towards the metaphysical,
Speaker 1: the you know, are we alone in the universe type
Speaker 1: of stuff. I kind of wish I could understand true
Speaker 1: goodness and selflessness. I said, to let myself up too easily.
Speaker 1: I'm also very hard on myself mentally as far as like,
Speaker 1: I'm so selfish and and I hate it when I
Speaker 1: do selfish things. But I know people that just seem
Speaker 1: like pure goodness and pure selflessness. I'd very much like
Speaker 1: to understand the human brain more when it comes to
Speaker 1: how much of that has learned. Obsess about nature and
Speaker 1: nurture as an adoptive parent, and I also am equally
Speaker 1: fascinated by true evil as well as true goodness, and
Speaker 1: I think just sort of understanding that the combination of
Speaker 1: nature and nurture that make up personality and goodness and badness.
Speaker 1: Would you like that answer because you'd like to know
Speaker 1: how to corral that in yourself more or because you
Speaker 1: are clearly a person who is interested in the world
Speaker 1: around you and knowing things and disseminating that information to others,
Speaker 1: so that if you could say what goodness was, then
Speaker 1: you could more easily understand what evil was. I think both, boy,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. Both I would use it for
Speaker 1: self improvement and also with stuff. You should know, We've
Speaker 1: done so much on the human brain, and we know
Speaker 1: so much more now than we ever have, but it's
Speaker 1: still such a mystery what is going on up there
Speaker 1: in that weird looking clod of neurons that sits within
Speaker 1: our skull. Like, there's so much mystery there. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've done episodes on sociopathy and true crime stuff like
Speaker 1: the Worst of the Worst. There's so much research now
Speaker 1: on literal like brain injury early on and how that
Speaker 1: can take someone down a bad path. And I look
Speaker 1: at that stuff and it's just fascinating to me. And
Speaker 1: there is no good without evil and evil without And
Speaker 1: so I think it's like understanding the human brain and
Speaker 1: what nature wise brings us in a certain direction. And
Speaker 1: how much nurture can I can say no, and how
Speaker 1: much nurture could maybe heal and and change it back
Speaker 1: for sure? What do you think about nature and nurture? God?
Speaker 1: It was one of my four o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: thoughts this particular morning. I mean, as I lay there
Speaker 1: wondering about what on earth was going to happen with everything,
Speaker 1: like you do these days. So when I had my
Speaker 1: little tiny baby, I was a single mom, and I
Speaker 1: was so scared after the first couple of weeks of
Speaker 1: being alone with him at night, because I was like,
Speaker 1: I am an idiot. I have made so many mistakes
Speaker 1: in my life. Who was entrusted this tiny being to
Speaker 1: my care? And what if something happens and I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do. So I called a friend of
Speaker 1: mine and she went, oh, you've got to call my
Speaker 1: mate Stella. She'll come round and she'll be a night
Speaker 1: nurse with you. She'll be there with you and you
Speaker 1: can talk to her. So began just the happiest two
Speaker 1: weeks of my life apart from having this new, tiny baby.
Speaker 1: There was this amazing woman from the north of England
Speaker 1: who would just come and she sat on my sofa
Speaker 1: while I was feeding the baby in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, and she just chatted to me about children
Speaker 1: and babies and childcare and everything that she knew. And
Speaker 1: I would just ask her endless questions in the fog
Speaker 1: of this middle of the night, heavy milk and two
Speaker 1: women sharing I suppose like it was an ancient transaction.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I asked her was,
Speaker 1: all these babies that you've come across, can you tell
Speaker 1: me about nature and nurture and like these babies that
Speaker 1: you've seen and you've spent time with, and then who
Speaker 1: they grew up to be. And she said, I've got
Speaker 1: to tell you beyond just like the physical things which
Speaker 1: you you can't really get away from, like colic. A
Speaker 1: baby has colic. Some babies just get colic. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what the mother eats and then feeds the baby.
Speaker 1: It just happens. But she's like, you see at these beings,
Speaker 1: they come in with a certain amount that is just
Speaker 1: completely and utterly them. And she said, and then you
Speaker 1: watch how the parenting either frames that and holds it
Speaker 1: in a place that it can kind of grow, or
Speaker 1: they suffocate it, or they don't really put it on
Speaker 1: any kind of pedestal at all, and so it kind
Speaker 1: of grows wild. And she said she was always fascinated
Speaker 1: by that fundamental kind of nugget of that person. I've
Speaker 1: watched with my own son because he was my only
Speaker 1: science test with this, and I was always aware of that.
Speaker 1: I always saw from the very beginning who this person was.
Speaker 1: And I've thought about in the moments in our life together,
Speaker 1: whether I'm lifting that up, whether I'm suffocating it. Am
Speaker 1: I damaging it? Do I need to censure it? How
Speaker 1: am I framing it? Because as his custodian, that's my job.
Speaker 1: But I think nurture is huge, but you have to
Speaker 1: honor and respect that nature as the nurture, where you
Speaker 1: have to have a modicum of inquiry into what that
Speaker 1: nature is before you can start nurturing. Yeah, it's so fascinating.
Speaker 1: My daughter has a very good heart and that is
Speaker 1: something that you can't I don't think. I mean maybe
Speaker 1: you can. In our experience, we did not nurture that
Speaker 1: into her. I mean we've tried like you said, we've
Speaker 1: tried to reinforce that and build it up, but she
Speaker 1: just has a good heart. She's a sweet kid, and
Speaker 1: you see it in her relationships with her little friends
Speaker 1: and how she plays. And when you see a kid
Speaker 1: that is not like that, it makes me sort of
Speaker 1: feel bad for that kid and think that that kid's
Speaker 1: going to struggle in life, kids who struggle with their
Speaker 1: instinct being to like push another kid or to help
Speaker 1: another kid up. You know, sometimes it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: What a gift with with that night nurse. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Those are the heroes that like, when you hear about
Speaker 1: a person like that, it's it almost feels like magic.
Speaker 1: She was amazing, She told me so much. That was
Speaker 1: a cool moment in my life. I mean as a
Speaker 1: person and as a new mother. It felt pretty ancient
Speaker 1: because you realize that women have been doing that forever
Speaker 1: and ever and ever that has existed in our culture.
Speaker 1: An elder woman teaching another woman because you know, most
Speaker 1: you know, girls can get pregnant, but you're not also
Speaker 1: instilled when you get pregnant. You don't suddenly have this
Speaker 1: giant download of what you're meant to do with the
Speaker 1: baby you have don't have a clue. They love doing
Speaker 1: that for my friends, of passing on what was passed
Speaker 1: on to me. This might be my favorite question because
Speaker 1: I love food. But what would be your last meal? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm got a cheap big time on this one. How
Speaker 1: are you? I am? Because I'm gonna set up something
Speaker 1: that's not real, that's magic, which is well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: set up a scene. It's not just a meal. It
Speaker 1: is all my friends and family together at a big party,
Speaker 1: big pot luck, and all of my favorite foods are
Speaker 1: at the pot luck. And the magic in the big
Speaker 1: cheat is that I don't get full. Ah that's good, yeah,
Speaker 1: because feeling full is the worst. There's self loathing involved.
Speaker 1: It's like I feel full, I ate the wrong things.
Speaker 1: It's just the worst feeling. So in this magic world,
Speaker 1: all of my favorite foods are in this big spread,
Speaker 1: and I don't get full. So there's fried chicken and
Speaker 1: there's mashed potatoes. I'm a boy from the American South,
Speaker 1: so there's corn bread, there's mac and cheese. But there's
Speaker 1: also Chinese food and Korean spare ribs and tan doory
Speaker 1: chicken and garlic. Non I want to come to this
Speaker 1: party and hot fudge, Sunday's tea, lime pie and birthday cake.
Speaker 1: It's all there and I can have as much of
Speaker 1: it as I want and I don't feel gross afterwards.
Speaker 1: It's so funny how something that we do every single day,
Speaker 1: we eat food, we eat food for fuel, it becomes
Speaker 1: mythic as well. There are these mythic meals, meals that
Speaker 1: we've had with friends when we've visited other countries places.
Speaker 1: They're the last meal that I had with my grandmother.
Speaker 1: It's so funny how magical food is, but also how
Speaker 1: we're scared of it and we let ourselves be punished
Speaker 1: by it. So many people seem to have such a
Speaker 1: difficult relationship with I mean, I think loads of people do.
Speaker 1: Whether it's they don't eat enough, when they eat too much,
Speaker 1: or they punish themselves for wanting to eat delicious food.
Speaker 1: It's very complicated. There's a lot two people in their
Speaker 1: relationships with food. I think if there's no magic involved
Speaker 1: and it's just literally, what do you want your last
Speaker 1: meal to be? It would be a big Southern spread
Speaker 1: of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, my grandmother's biscuits, colored greens,
Speaker 1: mac and cheese. Banana putting. Yeah, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: banana put I love that. Do you eat southern food?
Speaker 1: Have you had much experience with that? Have eaten Southern food? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love Southern food. I'm very suspicious. Is this an
Speaker 1: American thing? Or is I only had it in the
Speaker 1: South at Thanksgiving? This sort of green jelly. It's like jello,
Speaker 1: but it's called a salad. But it's not a salad.
Speaker 1: It's green, but that's where the likeness to salad ends.
Speaker 1: It's jello with it some sort of weird savory dressing
Speaker 1: on it. And I've been confused by it for a
Speaker 1: long time. And perhaps you can explain it to me.
Speaker 1: I can't. God, is that a Southern food? I don't
Speaker 1: think so, I know what you're talking about. Maybe there's
Speaker 1: a Southern food. What is it called? I don't know
Speaker 1: if I love southern food. Also, my mother always used
Speaker 1: to say that if you deep fried your elbow, it
Speaker 1: would taste good, true, which I also agree with. So
Speaker 1: deep fried anything is pretty good by me now I know.
Speaker 1: And a boy in my family history of like cholesterol problems.
Speaker 1: My family was always from the Deep South, and we
Speaker 1: all just grew up with fried food like running through
Speaker 1: our veins. It's cultural, though, isn't it. That's what you
Speaker 1: grew up with. It can still be delicious as well
Speaker 1: as you know, torturously bad on one level, you can
Speaker 1: still enjoy it. My grandmother's the true old southern grandma
Speaker 1: that would the second you walk in the door. It's
Speaker 1: just stuffing food down your throat at every turn. I
Speaker 1: got some chicken and made a bit to pie, like
Speaker 1: have it, have it all, eat it, eat it, eat it.
Speaker 1: It's an expression of love. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It definitely is, And it's hard to untie
Speaker 1: that knot when it is bound up with all these
Speaker 1: beautiful things like love and generosity and nurturing. It's hard
Speaker 1: to then go, yeah, but some of those things are
Speaker 1: bad for me. It's it's it's complicated. Well, but then
Speaker 1: you know so much about eating, Like you said, is
Speaker 1: the experience that you're having with another human. It's experiential.
Speaker 1: You've painted a few pictures that for you. Separating these
Speaker 1: things out is not necessarily the point. It's really about
Speaker 1: the tableau of experience. It's about the people that you're with.
Speaker 1: Your idea of happiness is to be with your family.
Speaker 1: In these questions that I'm asking about yourself, You're including
Speaker 1: all these other people, which is nice. I mean, without
Speaker 1: any training, I would definitely say you're not a sociopath.
Speaker 1: I'm a Pisces. There's nothing more important to Pisces than
Speaker 1: that support group. I got to say, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: I'm an aquarian, but I'm a dog in Chinese astrology,
Speaker 1: so i just want my bally rubbed for people to
Speaker 1: be loyal. I'm a dog in Chinese astrology too. Oh
Speaker 1: you yeah, And you want to hear something cool, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you the short version. One of my best friends, Justin,
Speaker 1: is from London. We went to college together years ago
Speaker 1: and remain friends. His mother, Carrie, is very much into
Speaker 1: astrology and specifically does birth charts for people. And we
Speaker 1: got a zoom meeting together with Carrie and she did
Speaker 1: the birth chart for me and Emily and and Ruby
Speaker 1: as an adopted kid. And it was really really cool.
Speaker 1: Like she said some things, it was just sort of
Speaker 1: mind blowing that we were meant to all be together.
Speaker 1: When she looks at our chart, it still gives me
Speaker 1: chills to think about this one part. She has this
Speaker 1: sort of push accent. She said, Chuck. She said, you
Speaker 1: and Ruby have known each other for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what do you mean? And then
Speaker 1: she started to get into some past life stuff and
Speaker 1: she was like, I firmly believe that you guys I
Speaker 1: knew each other before. And I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I started crying and I'm you know, children's right now
Speaker 1: thinking about it, and I bought into all that. I'm
Speaker 1: usually not into that sort of metaphysical stuff, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I believe it. It's really really good. I
Speaker 1: always believe it. Yeah, everything is going to work out
Speaker 1: for you. Great. I'm in Oh, this next guy, he
Speaker 1: might not be such a good guy. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: very glad. That's really nice. I've never heard of actually
Speaker 1: having a chart cast for a family. That's really beautiful. Okay,
Speaker 1: so listen. My last question for you is in your life,
Speaker 1: can you tell me what has grown out of a
Speaker 1: personal disaster? I hate to go back to it again,
Speaker 1: but the obvious thing is not being able to get
Speaker 1: pregnant At the time, I guess that did feel like
Speaker 1: a disaster. It's really interesting because this is exactly it.
Speaker 1: It's like what you thought was the end of the
Speaker 1: world was actually the beginning of just another world exactly.
Speaker 1: And it came together very fast for us. Like I said,
Speaker 1: we took our time doing all the paperwork and all
Speaker 1: the sort of work that you have to do. But
Speaker 1: once we finally got that all together and submitted, I
Speaker 1: think it was ten days later, we got the call
Speaker 1: like we think we have a match. Good God. That
Speaker 1: is fast. Holy cow. It came together very fast. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that they talked about when you
Speaker 1: adopt is the three losses. There's a loss for you
Speaker 1: as parents to not have a biological child. There's the
Speaker 1: loss of the birth parents and especially the birth mom,
Speaker 1: and then there's the loss that your kid's gonna have
Speaker 1: to deal with eventually. So they really talk to you
Speaker 1: about like those losses are there, like you can't make
Speaker 1: them go away, you can't pretend they didn't happen. So
Speaker 1: you've got to face those things head on and to
Speaker 1: introduce the idea of adoption as they're growing up. It's hard.
Speaker 1: It was very hard for us to sort of first
Speaker 1: say those words like, hey, there's this thing. Uh, you're
Speaker 1: adopted and that's this is what that means. And you're
Speaker 1: three and you have no idea what this means yet,
Speaker 1: But we're just going to plant that little seed and
Speaker 1: uh talk about it more and more as you get older,
Speaker 1: and those losses seem like a disaster at the time,
Speaker 1: very much a personal disaster that I can't even talk
Speaker 1: about it that much without like wanting to break down. No,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I think it's so important to examine these
Speaker 1: things that we call the end of the world without
Speaker 1: saying that they want because most often they are, but
Speaker 1: to really be able to look at and see the
Speaker 1: the things that grew out of that, and how in
Speaker 1: our effort to make everything happy all the time, we
Speaker 1: sometimes forget that it's really good to experience those harder
Speaker 1: moments because they're vital. I mean, I have almost a
Speaker 1: clinical aversion to bad things, Like that's how much I
Speaker 1: want things to always be great and okay, and to
Speaker 1: be liked and loved by everybody and to please everyone.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it's good to wallow in the misery just
Speaker 1: for a bit. I'm thinking about like heartbreaks growing up,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you don't want to feel better right away.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you want to put on the smiths and just
Speaker 1: sit in the dark for three days. I think it's
Speaker 1: very important. I think it's very very important to do
Speaker 1: exactly that. I think we live in a culture, in
Speaker 1: a society and the worst where we do everything to
Speaker 1: nullify pain when an actual fact, it is. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is hard and it is awful, but it is also
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary teacher and the most fertile ground for growth.
Speaker 1: So well, I wouldn't say I'm an advocate for pain.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested and respectful of it, and I try
Speaker 1: to teach my kid to not be scared of it.
Speaker 1: It is part of life. And even though all I
Speaker 1: want to do is cover him in cotton wall and
Speaker 1: make sure that he experiences nothing bad, ever, I actually
Speaker 1: know the better thing is to teach them how to
Speaker 1: handle the pain, because it's unavoidable. Yeah. My wife is
Speaker 1: always really good about telling me and reminding me to
Speaker 1: reinforce with our daughter, like feel your feelings. That you've
Speaker 1: got to feel the full range of those emotions, whereas
Speaker 1: I would much more be prone to try and like
Speaker 1: it's okay, you don't like, you don't need to cry,
Speaker 1: It's all right because look, this is this is actually great.
Speaker 1: You don't need to cry. No, let him feel it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, Pollyanna doesn't get you anywhere. I would
Speaker 1: always rather know where I stand. Pollyanna, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'd like to tie her braids to the radiator. She's
Speaker 1: really really that she really did a lot of disservice
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Yeah, no kidding, Oh my god, Chuck,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been a huge pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 1: I think we figured it all out. I think we
Speaker 1: kind of did. Like stuff you should know is that
Speaker 1: someone needs to figure out how to not be full
Speaker 1: when you eat, and you need to figure out how
Speaker 1: to nurture the good in your child whilst also encouraging
Speaker 1: them to explore what's bad, but creating a safety net
Speaker 1: of love and security. And if you're too easy on yourself,
Speaker 1: maybe be a little bit harder. And if you're too
Speaker 1: hard on yourself, be a little easier. Right balance homeostasis. Dude, man,
Speaker 1: I knew talking to you would figure some ship out.
Speaker 1: I'm so stoked. There's a lot of fun. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, thank you, thank you. Everyone knows Chuck from
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. But I want you to check
Speaker 1: out his other podcast, movie Crush, which I was on
Speaker 1: recently discussing one of my favorite movies of all time
Speaker 1: to see. Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me,
Speaker 1: Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan LaVoi, Research
Speaker 1: assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Minni Driver,
Speaker 1: Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me and
Speaker 1: man Gesh Hettigador. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and Unique Oppenheim at w kPr,
Speaker 1: de La Pescadore, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, And for
Speaker 1: constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver