WEBVTT - David Sedaris 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.600 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.920 My guest today is David Sedaris. David, when we talked 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.800 about doing this, you said, oh, it could be eleven 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.279 o'clock or later. Are you a late night person? 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.480 Yeah, I am, well, especially because I'm in England right now, 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.440 so there's a big time difference. So sometimes when I 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.080 have to do interviews, I'll do them like it. I 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:39.080 don't know, midnight, that's always a good time to me, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:43.600 you know, that's I don't know, still a reasonable hour, 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.400 you know, on the West coast of the United States 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:48.920 or even on the East coast. 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:52.479 Well, if you don't have to do an interview, what 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:53.560 time would you go to sleep? 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:56.560 Usually between two and three? 0:00:57.680 --> 0:00:59.240 And what are you doing late at night? 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.240 I leave? I usually leave at midnight and I walk 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:09.280 to the train station because with a headlamp on. I 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.160 live out in the country and there are any street 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.479 lights or anything like that. But it's a five mile 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.639 walk to the train station and back. So I usually 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.520 do that because there's not any traffic then and I 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.680 can clean the busy road, you know, pick up trash 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.800 on busy roads and not have to worry about traffic. 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.240 And do you listen to anything on your phone or 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:35.800 are you in silence? What do you do? 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:44.120 I listen to audio books and sometimes I listen to podcasts, 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:45.120 but mainly books. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.240 And how do you view the experience of audio books 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.160 as a writer yourself, as opposed to reading a printed book. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:02:00.160 I think the difference is a book comes into you go. 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.840 You enter the world of a book, and an audiobook 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:08.320 enters your world. Right, So I can recall where I 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.240 was when I was listening to certain audiobooks, but I 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.400 can't recall where I was when I read a book, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:16.960 you know, Like I often don't think, oh, I remember 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.320 I was lying on the sofa when I first read 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:24.600 that passage. But I can remember, Uh. You know there's 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.880 a like less you know, a novel by Andrew Greer, 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.959 whan I remember the stretch of road I was cleaning 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:39.679 when I just really was just just convinced I was 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:45.720 listening to the best book ever. Uh. I like audiobooks 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:47.720 because you can do other things at the same time. 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.760 You know, I have a I have shit to do. 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:51.200 You know. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.720 Do you find that your mind drifts and you have 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.000 to rewind or you concentrate. No problem, if it's if. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.280 It's you know, if it's not a very compelling book, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:09.640 that'll happen. But uh, but I think it's you know, 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:14.880 it's probably just like skimming, you know, it's the same thing. 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.920 And how do you decide what to listen to? 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:26.800 Gosh, Well, there's this writer named Alexander Heman, and I 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.079 read something by him years ago, and then a couple 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.160 of days ago, I thought, oh right, Alexander Heman. So 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:37.520 then I bought one of his audio books and just 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.080 loved it. And so now I'm listening to another one, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.000 and so I'll just kind of dig him for a while. 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.760 Okay, So you're walking late at night? Are you also 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.120 walking after you wake up? 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:52.480 No? When I wake up, I just go to my 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:53.320 desk and work. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:55.680 Okay, so you'll only walk once a day? 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.280 No, I walk at midnight. I go out, now walk 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.600 five miles, and then at one o'clock I'll go out 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.120 and I'll walk you know, ten twelve miles. 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.120 Okay. How often do you have to replease your shoes? 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.360 Well? The main issue, I mean more than that, my 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.160 toenails fall off a lot. Like I'll take my socks 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.240 off and I'll feel something hard in my sock and 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.920 it's always a toenail. They fall off like you wouldn't believe, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.159 Like like autumn leaves, my toenails fall off because I 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:28.000 walk so much. 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.640 Well, what's your strategy there? How do you prevent them 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.359 from falling off? Is it about the sock? 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.560 I don't shoe, I don't, I don't know. I don't 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.800 know what else I can do. I have, but it 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.320 doesn't worry me, Like it didn't hurt when they fall 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.560 off and new ones grow back, So I think it 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.800 really doesn't bother me in the least. I just am 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.520 mad because I wish i'd started collecting them years ago. 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:53.760 How many do you have? 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.280 I'd have a jar fall by now. But you know 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.040 how that is. You don't start collecting something, and then 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.000 I always feel it's like too late to start collecting, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.520 you know, like, oh, if I started collecting now, I 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.160 would just have like three toenails in my jar with 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.160 heart start, you know, ten years ago in vi a 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:12.839 jar full. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.120 Well, I remember when my mother my father died. My 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.680 mother threw out everything you owned within a week. So 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.200 all these things you're collecting, what do you anticipate will 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.200 happen to them? Or are you leaving them to when 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:27.320 you die. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.680 Well toenails would be an issue. But other things I collect, 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.800 like well I collect. I have a really good collection 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.680 of model mushrooms. 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.440 Okay, and I don't. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.440 Know what will happen to my mushrooms when I die. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.279 I mean it's a really nice collection, and they look 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.120 really good in my house here where I've got them. 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.760 They just seem like they just you know, I'm in 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.280 England right now and it's a five hundred year old 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:01.919 house and there are beams everywhere, and the mushrooms looked 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.839 just like they just came up on their own. You know. 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.400 It's not like having them in a in a sleek 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.359 modern setting, but they would they could work there as well. 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:14.800 Where's a good place to find model mushrooms? 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.560 Gosh, Paris is a good place to find them. I 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.039 often find them when I'm traveling in other countries, Like 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.320 if you can find a like a kind of a 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.480 shop that sells natural history stuff, you know, like two 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:41.440 headed cow skulls and weird like there's a it was 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.800 a store I went to once that sold like wax 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:51.680 figures that they used to to show what different diseases 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.320 look like, you know, like a woman with horrible herbes 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.159 blisters on her lips. H You know, walk into a 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.480 store like that, there pretty much guaranteed they're gonna have 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:03.480 some mushrooms in there. 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:05.960 So how many mushrooms do you own? 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:11.040 I only have, like, I don't know, I don't know 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.600 thirty mushrooms, but they're good ones. I discriminate, you know. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.600 Sometimes people give me mushrooms and I say, that's great, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.800 but I don't keep it because it's not the standard 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:23.840 to which I'm. 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.120 So what do you do? What do you do with 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:28.720 a substandard mushroom? 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.760 Give it away to somebody? When I go on tour, 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.920 I always have gifts for teenagers, and quite often it's 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.920 things like that. It's things people have given me and 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.400 then I say, oh, I've got something for you. And 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.120 then you know, they can go with you do with 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.320 it what they want, but I don't want them to. 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.040 I don't know. I'm always so flattered that a teenager 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.080 would come to my show. I mean I was flattered 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.880 thirty years ago, but now I'm like their grandfather's age. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.880 So that's somebody going to hear someone their grandfather's age 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.200 read out loud. But they would just be poisoned to 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.200 a teenager but still they come with their parents sometimes 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.520 and I just always want to have something for them. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.560 I can really count on one hand the time I 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.160 haven't had something for a teenager. 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.880 Okay, what if someone comes to your house and says, 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.040 where's the mushroom I gave you? 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.000 Most people wouldn't do that. But here's the thing. This 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:43.000 sounds bad. I have two I have six houses, so 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.280 I just say it's in another house. I say, Oh 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.680 it's in Paris, or oh it's at the beach, or 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.840 oh it's in North Carolina, or oh it's in London. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.800 Okay, you have six houses, are you viewing another one 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.719 to purchase or you're looking at downsize? Your six is 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:02.520 the right number? 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.120 Well, my boyfriend Hugh, he's the one who takes care 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.319 of everything, and it's always something. You know, A couple 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.920 of the houses are on the coast of North Carolina, 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.720 and you know, a hurricane comes and tears the roof 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:20.400 off the house, you know, so you have to put 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:25.640 a new roof on. Or somebody needs the account and 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:31.120 needs to know how much interest our French checking account 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.280 earned last year, you know. So I would never do 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.560 a thing like that. I would just never answer that 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.080 kind of an email. I don't even open emails from 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.680 the account, right, I don't open any envelope that doesn't 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:51.440 look like fan mail. I'm useless that way. But my boyfriend, Hugh, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:56.160 he takes care of that. So he sold something recently 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.439 and I thought, well, okay, I can't really complain. He's 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:00.160 the one who has to take care of it. 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:05.600 So now, if you have six houses, houses need maintenance. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:09.679 There's issues with theft. Is there someone in every house 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:14.520 at all times, a caretaker, someone looking after it sometimes? 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:16.560 I mean there was a man we knew in London 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.760 named mister T and his wife kicked him out of 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.400 their house I don't know, thirty years ago, and he'd 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.559 been living in his car ever since. And so mister 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.360 T used to stay at our house in London for 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:36.440 months when we weren't there, he would stay there. We 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.560 told him to make himself at home, but he never slept. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.440 He brought a sleeping bag and slept on top of 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:49.200 the bed. And he uh only used one cop. Well, 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.760 you never used any pots and pants, just one cop. 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.240 And then eventually there was nice mister Government found a 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:02.360 house for him, an apartment for him, uh, and he 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.560 would go on weekends. He had a friend who lived 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.240 in a trailer and didn't have any legs, So mister 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.360 T would carry this guy to the car and they 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.959 would go bird watching all week But mister T, everyone 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.280 needs someone like that. You know, he's a plumber as well. 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.080 You know, he just operates out of his car. But 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.559 mister T was exactly the kind of person who Or 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.240 one time I was in Greece and I met this 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.600 woman and she was working in a tomato plant and 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:40.920 the museum of a tomato in the gift shop of 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:46.840 a tomato paste factory, right, and I'm. 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:48.800 Waiting to hear what they sell there at the gift 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.480 shop of the tomato Peasce factory. 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.200 Well, they had like big cans of tomato paste that 0:11:54.240 --> 0:12:01.120 they turned into baskets. They had different labels, you know, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:06.320 old labels from tomato paste. I actually bought a lot there. 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.760 But there was this woman who worked there, and she 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:11.600 used to have her own TV show in Greece, and 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.000 then the economy tanked and then her English was perfect, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.640 and and I said, do you think you can get 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.360 a job in England with that interest you? And she said, 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.320 I would love that. So she came and stayed in 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.560 our house for I don't know, four months when we 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:34.800 were away, so you know, it's it's And then we've 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.679 had some friends who just have had financial problems and 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.920 they've stayed in like in the apartment in Paris. You know, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:47.640 one person stayed there for two years. You know another 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.520 person stayed there for six months. So I don't know, 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.600 that's part of the reason to have them, you know, 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.880 so that you could set somebody up. 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.880 You know, Okay, you keep referencing you as your boyfriend. 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.000 Although I've been married once before. I've been with my 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.920 girlfriend for eighteen years and we're not married. Why don't 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:10.840 you marry you? 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.640 I don't want to be the kind of gay guy 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.760 who's like, this is my husband, Brad. I just don't 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:24.800 want to. I wanted gay marriage. I wanted gay marriage 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.360 to become legal, and then I wanted no gay person 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.880 to act on it. I thought that would have been 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.920 perfect for every one of them, to say, you know why, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.240 you'd take that marriage and shove it up your ass. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.200 That's what I wanted. So I just don't. I just 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.160 don't want to be married. I mean, I don't want to. 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.839 I don't ever want to use the word my husband. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.320 You know, okay, from growing up, have you always been 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.160 kind of a contrary, Like if the mainstream is one thing, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.600 you're saying, no, I'm evaluating I'm the opposite. 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:58.760 No, no, But I just I don't know. I did 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.520 feel that way about Marri. I know it's different for 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:06.200 young people today. I mean I never grew up thinking 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:09.400 that I would get married one day, Like it was 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:14.200 never a dream of mine to get married. But now 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.760 you meet young gay people and marriage has been legal 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.160 since they were you know, when they're late teens and 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.120 they're talking about kids. You know, I mean some in 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.520 my age, like growing up the way I did, you 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.440 could never get your hands on a child, you know, like, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.120 no way you could get your hands on a child. 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.240 That makes me sound like a betaphile, but there's no 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.200 way you could be allowed to adopt the child, or 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.600 you know, probably if your sister died and left you 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.480 her child, and once the authorities found out you were gay, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.800 they'd come and take it away. So it just wasn't 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.120 ever a part of my thing. Like I never dreamed 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.440 of getting married, and I never dreamed of having kid. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:59.440 I just I never Maybe if I were twenty, it 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.160 would be different, but no, I don't need it. 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.520 So you're growing up in North Carolina. What was your 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:10.280 experience growing up being gay in that environment? I mean, now, 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.960 having such fame and notoriety, it's a different game in 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.440 fifty years of gone by. But what was it like 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:17.040 back then? 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.200 Well, there weren't any books in the library about it. 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.840 I don't mean in the school library. I mean, of 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.000 course they weren't in the school library, but they weren't 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.680 in a public library either. So I thought, I really 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:34.680 thought I was the only gay person in the world. 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.360 I mean, there was nobody to talk to about it. 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.880 I just thought I was the only one. And then, 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:45.720 very ironically, I was at the library. My mother took 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.400 me to the library one Saturday because I had a 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.040 book report due, and I walked into the men's room 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.200 and there were two men having sex in the bathroom, 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.040 and I thought, oh, it's not just me, there's those 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.880 two guys too. And I learned it at the live 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.720 which is what's just funny to me. But you know, 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.160 I'm fine. I mean, this is something I guess when 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.720 I read a book, I would, you know, I would 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.840 relate to the characters because they were human and I 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.320 was human, right, now, I feel like so many people 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.000 they need a mirror, right. It has to be a 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.200 book where the character's gay, and the character's American and 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.240 the character lives in England. You know, people want to 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.520 they don't. They can't relate unless they're looking into a mirror, right, 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.400 But I don't know. I kind of feel fortunate to 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.040 have come up in a time where again I could 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.760 relate to a book or a movie or anything, because 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.600 I'm human and they were human as well. There's something about, 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.680 you know, like now everything's about inclusion. There's something about 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:01.400 that that almost embarrasses me. You know, Like I'm doing 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:06.600 this duo lingo to learn German, and the sentences are like, 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.840 you know, a man will say that's my husband over there, 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:17.240 or my grandmother has a new girlfriend, or my aunt's 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:21.680 wife is a lawyer, and I guess that's supposed to 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.640 make me feel included and stuff. But I never felt unincluded. 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.400 When I was in high school and I was studying Spanish, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.919 you know, they didn't teach us to say I am 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.159 in the closet or Carlos is my type. But I 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.080 just figured if I wanted to make that sentence, they 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.880 gave me the building blocks and I could make them. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.360 I mean, I know it's a different world. Now. I'm 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.760 not saying you know now a kid, you know, you 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.720 didn't be really dumb to think you're the only gay 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.120 person in the world. You know, you have the evidence 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.800 on television and pretty much everywhere you turn, and that 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:04.879 you know there's something to be said for that. But 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:11.040 I'm just saying it didn't. It didn't destroy me to 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:11.680 not have that. 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.640 Okay, you were in high school. How did you fit 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.359 in or not fit in? In high school? Were you 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.280 a member of the group, were you an outcast? What 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:22.040 did it look like? 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:25.439 Oh? I think I was most like most kids, you know, 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:31.159 you you're kind of lost and then you find your people. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:38.040 And I found mine in the tenth grade or eleventh 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.760 grade one in the drama club. You know, it never 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:45.119 occurred to me to do drama. And when I look back, 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.600 every guy in the drama club was just as gay 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.080 as it could be. But you didn't know it, you know, 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.720 like because I still thought I was the only one. 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.879 But but I don't, you know it was it was 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.520 really I just woke up when I found the drama club. 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.679 I just I'm not a good actor, never was but 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:08.800 they were a really fun group of people, and I 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.160 just felt like I had a lot in common with them, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:17.840 and they were funny, and they didn't they didn't you know, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.440 we did obnoxious things like wear top hats to the airport, 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:26.480 you know. I mean, I see kids like that now 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.080 and I think, oh my god, that's so obnoxious. But 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.160 at the same time I have to think, like, oh, 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.840 you know, I hope they're having a good time. I 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:35.320 know them. 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.080 Okay, when did you know you were gay? 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.520 Come? I don't know, Like, there wasn't a word for it, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.239 but I just knew that I didn't fit in, you know, 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.800 that something was wrong. I'm not wrong. Well, yeah, it 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.879 felt wrong to me. You know. I wasn't interested in sports. 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.000 I didn't like being around boys. I preferred the company 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:01.119 of girls. I didn't I just I felt a difference 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:06.760 between me and boys. And again I didn't have a 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.080 name for it, but I figured that out by the 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.320 time I was like, I don't know, seven, but I wasn't, 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.000 you know. And then when I was became like fourteen 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.080 or thirteen, you know, and then you start getting attracted 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.840 to people, and then you feel, you know, then you're 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:28.320 pretty sure of it. You know, when you when you're 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.359 I had a woman come up a while ago and 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.000 say she had an eight year old son, and she said, 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.000 my eight year old is gay. And I thought, really, 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:43.199 I mean that seems a little bit early to me, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.600 you know too. I mean maybe he felt different, but 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:54.640 I don't know that at eight years old, you are 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.119 physically you know, you don't get an erection. You're not 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:06.440 turned on by someone at the age of eight. 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:11.040 So when did you know you want me to be 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:11.400 a writer? 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:21.159 I dropped out of college and then I was picking 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.199 apples in a little town in Oregon, and I was 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.040 by myself, and there was a library there, and I 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.400 just didn't have any friends or anything. So I started 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:36.879 going to the library and reading. And then I just 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:42.840 noticed how moved I was by what I read in books. 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.440 And I was doing visual artwork, but I wasn't ever 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.080 really very good at it. I mean I was disciplined, 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.159 but I wasn't good at it. And then I just 0:21:53.280 --> 0:22:00.560 noticed again, books were, you know, just I would read 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:02.840 something in a book and I would memorize it, and 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.639 I would when then when I was at work in 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.160 the canning factory or out picking apples, I could turn 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:11.840 it over and over in my mind, and it's a 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.400 pleasure it would bring me to recite something to myself. 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:21.240 And I started keeping a diary, and then I remember, 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.320 and then I secretly thought, like, wow, it would be 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:28.520 great to be a writer. But I would look at 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:30.920 what I wrote and it sucked. And then I would think, well, 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.680 of course it sucks. I just I just started six 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.240 months ago. Of course it's going to suck. And then 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:40.320 a year later I thought, well, I just started a 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:42.359 year ago, of course it's going to suck. And then 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.600 three years ago, I three years later, I thought, it 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:50.720 still sucks, you know. But you know that makes sense. 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.040 So I never put a timer on it. You know, 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:58.040 I never said to myself, I need to publish a book. 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:00.239 Why I'm twenty By the time I'm twenty seve and 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:04.040 I'm giving up. It wasn't that. I just figured I 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.160 just work at it every day and very slowly I'd 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.320 get better. And I just completely kept it to myself 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.320 for seven years. I never showed anybody anything i'd written, 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:19.240 because it sucked, you know. And then I went back 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.680 to college. I had dropped out, so I went back 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:28.640 to college and I took a writing class and started 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:33.000 writing more than a diary, you know, started writing short stories, 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:39.000 and uh, and I chose the right place to go 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:41.080 to college because it was I went to the school 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:43.359 at the Art Institute of Chicago, and they didn't have 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:47.600 a writing program, but they had some you had, they 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:53.040 had some people teaching creative writing, and and there were 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:55.240 really good people, and they had so much to give, 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:58.760 and nobody really wanted it, you know, but I did. 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:03.359 So they gave me all their attention and they gave 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:06.280 me all of their knowledge, like there was nobody else 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:13.040 asking for it, just me, and and it was really 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:15.399 the right It was just the right place for me. 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:17.399 Like I feel like if I had gone to the 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.280 Iowa Writers Workshop, I would have sunk, you know, I 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:24.399 would have I wouldn't have been strong enough. And I 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:27.879 didn't I don't know that I wouldn't have gotten in 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:29.840 the first place, but I don't think I would have 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:34.280 been able to. This was a good environment for me 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:42.760 because there really wasn't any well, competition is not the 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:48.600 right word. It was like it was like I had 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:52.359 my own It was like I had my own private teachers, 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:58.080 and they really responded to what I wrote. 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:01.240 A writer is born were the taught. 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:05.040 I don't know that you can teach writing. I had 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.760 a student I taught for a brief while at the 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:11.560 Art School of the Art Institute. I was never qualified 0:25:11.560 --> 0:25:16.520 to teach, but a teacher back down at the last minute. 0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:20.399 And so two years after I graduated, I was thirty, 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:23.920 I think my old teacher called me and said, there's 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:28.080 this creative writing class and there's two classes, and we 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:30.040 don't have anyone to teach. Will you come and do it? 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:34.399 And like I said, I wasn't qualified. You know, I 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:38.120 never went to graduate school. I don't know. I don't 0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:40.719 really know how to fix my own I know how 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:42.399 to fix my own stuff, but I don't know how 0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:46.280 to fix other people's. But I had one student, and 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:50.199 it was really clear that she was talented. And the 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:54.720 difference is that she read. She read a lot, and 0:25:54.800 --> 0:26:01.080 she was disciplined, and so I could be her cheerleader 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:05.600 and I could suggest things for her to read, and 0:26:05.640 --> 0:26:09.160 I could read everything she ever gave me and get 0:26:09.200 --> 0:26:12.000 back to her as soon as I possibly could. That's 0:26:12.000 --> 0:26:16.320 the best I could do. And anyway, her first book 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:18.200 came out a year and a half ago, and I've 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:26.400 never felt that. I never felt well, I guess I've 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:29.520 always felt proud of my sister Amy, you know, and 0:26:29.560 --> 0:26:35.760 I felt proud of Hugh. But anyway, I felt so proud. 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:41.840 It was such a it was such a wonderful feeling, 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:50.480 you know, to to watch somebody come into her own 0:26:51.119 --> 0:26:57.840 like that and create something that was so magnificent and 0:26:59.240 --> 0:27:05.240 just I guess, I guess it was the only time 0:27:05.280 --> 0:27:08.359 I'd ever mentored anybody. You know. Somebody came up to 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:10.240 me at a book signing once and said, will you be 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:12.400 my mentor? And I said, well, it doesn't really work 0:27:12.440 --> 0:27:15.000 that way, you know. I mean, it's a beautiful thing 0:27:15.040 --> 0:27:17.240 when it works out, but it has to be organic. 0:27:17.640 --> 0:27:18.320 I think. 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:22.800 Let's go back to the Iowa Writers' School. A lot 0:27:22.800 --> 0:27:28.480 of that is about adopting a literary style. They talk 0:27:28.520 --> 0:27:32.639 about rewriting as opposed to writing. What's your view on 0:27:32.760 --> 0:27:33.680 writing like that? 0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:38.560 It just takes a while to find your style, you know. 0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:42.160 I mean, you know, you start off and you imitate 0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:46.080 other people, and then there comes a point where you think, 0:27:46.200 --> 0:27:51.040 all right, I'm never going to be that person. But 0:27:51.160 --> 0:27:53.200 what have I got right? 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:54.840 What what do. 0:27:54.880 --> 0:27:58.439 I have that nobody else has? Or stop trying to 0:27:58.480 --> 0:28:01.600 be somebody or not, and stop being ashamed of what 0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:04.960 you've got. I remember I was. I had asked my 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:10.119 students one time to write something about their lives, and everybody, 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:17.040 well not the majority of the students wrote, you know, 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:19.600 made it sound like they were raised by wolves, you know. 0:28:20.520 --> 0:28:23.399 And I realized they were ashamed of their lives. And 0:28:23.440 --> 0:28:25.920 they were ashamed of their lives because they were middle 0:28:25.920 --> 0:28:29.880 class and they grew up in the suburbs, and they 0:28:30.000 --> 0:28:35.960 felt that their life was inherently uninteresting. And I thought, wow, 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:39.240 that's really sad. You know. It used to be poor 0:28:39.280 --> 0:28:42.560 people who were ashamed of their lives, you know, and 0:28:42.600 --> 0:28:46.400 then it became wealthy people and middle class people. But 0:28:46.480 --> 0:28:51.400 I thought, I thought, well, I didn't want to be like, 0:28:51.680 --> 0:28:59.280 there's nothing extraordinary about my life, but I I didn't 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:01.320 want to be ashamed of it, you know. I didn't 0:29:01.320 --> 0:29:06.479 want to to feel like it. I mean, what an 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:13.560 awful feeling to just think that your life there's no value, 0:29:13.720 --> 0:29:19.160 or that you have none of your stories are worth telling. 0:29:22.360 --> 0:29:26.840 But I again, I think that had to do with 0:29:27.040 --> 0:29:29.680 just not putting a timer on things, and even because 0:29:29.720 --> 0:29:35.400 I did find my voice eventually, but if I had 0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:38.360 put a timer on things and said, well, if I don't, 0:29:38.440 --> 0:29:41.040 you know, if I don't get something published by this age, 0:29:41.200 --> 0:29:45.560 then it's all over. You know. It takes some people 0:29:45.680 --> 0:29:50.160 longer than others, you know, to not find out who 0:29:50.200 --> 0:29:53.320 they are, but just allow themselves to be themselves. 0:29:53.960 --> 0:29:57.800 You know, are you ever even at this lead date? 0:29:57.880 --> 0:29:59.640 Like I saw you a few months ago, you were 0:29:59.680 --> 0:30:03.360 talking about your relationship with your father. You're peening your 0:30:03.360 --> 0:30:06.560 father somewhat negatively, and then you said, but you're alive 0:30:06.640 --> 0:30:10.600 and he's dead. Are you ever self conscious? Are you 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:15.440 ever self conscious about about revealing information and how people 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:17.960 will judge you as a result thereof? 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:22.880 I usually feel that the more honest you can be, 0:30:23.000 --> 0:30:27.360 the more people will relate to you. Yeah, I mean, 0:30:27.400 --> 0:30:30.640 you can usually tell when someone's thinking it, when somebody's 0:30:30.760 --> 0:30:46.000 faking like a h when somebody's oh, just kind of 0:30:46.080 --> 0:30:49.160 spouting bullshit. You know, you can usually tell and if 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:53.880 somebody is being honest about something, even if it's not like, 0:30:53.920 --> 0:30:55.720 there's a way that somebody could get up there and 0:30:55.840 --> 0:31:01.720 just be honest about something that's really pretty brutal or 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:06.880 something that even that I don't believe in, But there'd 0:31:06.920 --> 0:31:12.080 be a way that maybe I could relate to it, 0:31:12.680 --> 0:31:15.360 maybe just because they're being honest about it, you know, 0:31:15.480 --> 0:31:17.520 Like if I think about it, like if one of 0:31:17.560 --> 0:31:23.240 those January sixth people right could tell me a story 0:31:24.320 --> 0:31:31.560 about that day. But if they were, I don't know 0:31:31.640 --> 0:31:36.520 if they were if they were honest about it, and 0:31:36.600 --> 0:31:41.080 if they were, I don't know if there was some 0:31:41.120 --> 0:31:46.560 way I could connect to them about it, right, I mean, 0:31:46.600 --> 0:31:51.200 I guess that's the thing. I like, we we live 0:31:51.240 --> 0:31:53.840 in we're in the country right now. I'm in the countryside, right, 0:31:53.880 --> 0:31:58.520 I'm in West Sussex, and we have a pastor behind 0:31:58.560 --> 0:32:03.320 our house, and there's a shepherd we know. That a 0:32:03.320 --> 0:32:06.720 great sentence. There's a shepherd we know, and he was 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:09.480 looking for someone's place to put his rams, and so 0:32:10.040 --> 0:32:12.000 we said, well, we have a pasture behind our house 0:32:12.000 --> 0:32:13.840 and we have these rams who have been living in 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:18.880 our backyard. And rams are assholes, right. So I wanted 0:32:18.920 --> 0:32:22.000 to write about the rams, but I wanted someone who's 0:32:22.040 --> 0:32:24.960 never seen a ram to be able to relate to it, right. 0:32:25.560 --> 0:32:28.120 So that's when I sit down to write about it, 0:32:28.200 --> 0:32:30.720 I think, Okay, how can I approach this in a 0:32:30.760 --> 0:32:37.600 way that somebody who's has no relationships with rams? Could connect. 0:32:37.880 --> 0:32:42.720 And I don't know. I wrote this essay. It's the 0:32:42.760 --> 0:32:45.000 New Yorker just bought it. I'm going to read it 0:32:45.040 --> 0:32:47.400 on tour next week and I'll see if it works. 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:52.680 But I think I found a way that it could 0:32:54.240 --> 0:32:58.200 everyone could. I don't know, yeh, connect with it? 0:32:58.920 --> 0:33:02.320 Okay. When you're walking lead at night? Is that when 0:33:02.360 --> 0:33:06.200 your ideas come to you spontaneously? When do your ideas 0:33:06.240 --> 0:33:08.320 come to you? And how do they come to you? 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:12.360 Usually they usually come to me at my desk, you know, 0:33:12.480 --> 0:33:14.520 I just get up and I go right to my desk. 0:33:15.160 --> 0:33:17.640 I don't like to write on my feet because then 0:33:19.240 --> 0:33:21.000 I don't know. I sit at my desk and I'm 0:33:21.000 --> 0:33:24.240 just kind of forcing something. But where I like for 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:26.600 it to just be organic and come out of I mean, 0:33:26.640 --> 0:33:33.560 I have a list of story ideas, and so I 0:33:33.720 --> 0:33:36.520 sometimes I turn to that, but I don't want to 0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:41.080 get ahead of myself. Right Like I was with my 0:33:41.200 --> 0:33:48.760 friend Dawn in Montrose, Colorado, which is just a very flats, 0:33:48.840 --> 0:33:49.960 really hot. 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:54.160 A little bit slow. I've been to Montrose, Colorado, which 0:33:54.160 --> 0:33:56.160 of course you fly into if you want to go 0:33:56.200 --> 0:33:58.880 to tell your ride, and it's south of Grand Junction. 0:33:59.160 --> 0:34:01.600 What would you doing in Montrose, Colorado. 0:34:02.120 --> 0:34:04.480 I had a show and tell your ride, but I 0:34:04.520 --> 0:34:06.600 had to leave early the next morning. So I was 0:34:06.640 --> 0:34:10.520 staying in Montrose at a hotel. It was like a 0:34:10.640 --> 0:34:15.439 four minute walk from the airport, right. And the thing 0:34:15.680 --> 0:34:19.520 is I found when you when you go on tour, 0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:24.120 if you're staying like at a four Seasons, you know 0:34:26.320 --> 0:34:28.839 you're not going to get a story out of it, right, 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:32.359 But if you're staying at a hotel, well you can 0:34:32.400 --> 0:34:35.320 walk to the airport. They're usually going to leave with 0:34:35.400 --> 0:34:40.560 the story. So I did, but I put that on 0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:42.759 my story list and was trying to think of a 0:34:42.800 --> 0:34:50.200 way to h and then sometimes something happens, like I 0:34:50.280 --> 0:34:53.960 was in Australia and something happened and our flight got 0:34:54.920 --> 0:34:57.280 delayed and delayed and delayed, and I wrote the entire 0:34:57.400 --> 0:35:00.319 essay right there on the airport, you know, the thing 0:35:00.320 --> 0:35:03.560 that had happened the day before. I mean, it needed 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:06.200 to be rewritten like a dozen times, but I got 0:35:06.200 --> 0:35:11.640 the first draft out usually, you know, and I'm like everybody, 0:35:11.680 --> 0:35:14.960 you know, every every now and then I think like, okay, 0:35:15.040 --> 0:35:18.360 that's it, there's nothing more. I reached the bottom of 0:35:18.360 --> 0:35:22.719 the barrel, and that's it. But then I find when 0:35:22.760 --> 0:35:26.799 I read something really good, all kinds of ideas come 0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:29.880 to me. Not you know, It's like if I'm reading 0:35:29.880 --> 0:35:36.080 a book about, you know, somebody with COVID. That doesn't 0:35:36.120 --> 0:35:38.359 mean that I think, oh, I'll write about COVID too, 0:35:38.880 --> 0:35:42.880 But it can just make me look at the world 0:35:44.680 --> 0:35:47.160 with fresh eyes. Again. That's what it does. It takes 0:35:47.200 --> 0:35:50.839 my eyes out of my head, it washes them, and 0:35:50.880 --> 0:35:54.800 it pops them back in and then for a brief time, 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:59.920 everything looks new and interesting to me. 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:04.640 Can you be just as inspired staying home for a 0:36:04.760 --> 0:36:08.200 month reading as you would be going on the road 0:36:08.239 --> 0:36:10.440 and interacting with others for a month? 0:36:11.320 --> 0:36:13.800 Yeah? Well, like the story I just wrote, the essay 0:36:13.840 --> 0:36:22.640 I just wrote about the rams, you know, ah, yeah, 0:36:22.760 --> 0:36:23.160 very much. 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:26.040 So let me ask you this, if you were to 0:36:26.239 --> 0:36:29.719 just read, would you have enough ideas? Or is it 0:36:29.840 --> 0:36:34.239 everyday life interacting with other elements, animate or inanimate that 0:36:34.360 --> 0:36:35.000 inspire you. 0:36:36.200 --> 0:36:39.640 It's a combination of the two. You know, it's reading 0:36:39.880 --> 0:36:43.080 and it's living. It's going out into the world and 0:36:44.320 --> 0:36:51.680 having things happen. And again, it's not like massive things 0:36:51.719 --> 0:36:58.600 happen to me. But I don't know, I just I 0:36:58.719 --> 0:37:00.919 like to kind of make something out of nothing. 0:37:02.920 --> 0:37:05.960 Or take the micro and expand it. But so when 0:37:06.000 --> 0:37:10.600 you sit down every day, are you usually working on 0:37:10.680 --> 0:37:13.759 something you started or are you starting something? What do 0:37:13.840 --> 0:37:15.399 you do when you literally sit down? 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:19.960 Well, I sit down every morning, and first thing I 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:22.080 do is I write in my diary, and then I 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:25.480 turned to whatever it is and I'm working on. And 0:37:25.520 --> 0:37:28.279 then sometimes, like yesterday, I had to make a hard 0:37:28.360 --> 0:37:33.960 choice and I abandoned something. You know, I thought, well, 0:37:34.400 --> 0:37:36.480 maybe in a year I can come back to it 0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:41.160 and get it to work, but I'm not. It just 0:37:41.200 --> 0:37:44.239 felt like I'd already written it, you know, so I 0:37:44.280 --> 0:37:45.400 turned to something else. 0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:49.320 Is the process that you lay it all down quickly 0:37:49.760 --> 0:37:51.839 and we write it or do you eke it out 0:37:51.880 --> 0:37:53.759 sentenced by sentence? How does it come? 0:37:55.880 --> 0:38:00.359 Oh? I don't know. Like today I probably wrote three 0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:10.480 pages on something I started, and then you know, I'll 0:38:10.480 --> 0:38:15.960 expand on it tomorrow. I'm going to love to be 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:19.600 finished with it in a week, but I don't know 0:38:19.680 --> 0:38:25.480 that that's gonna happen. It'll just come in its own time. 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:29.960 It's hard to write things whole cloth when I'm on tour, 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:32.120 Like I start a tour next week, so I'm going 0:38:32.160 --> 0:38:36.239 to I don't know, forty two cities or something. But 0:38:36.280 --> 0:38:39.200 I can rewrite when I'm traveling, so I have a 0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:41.480 lot to rewrite. 0:38:47.239 --> 0:38:50.560 Okay, you have this great success. You were on the road. 0:38:51.080 --> 0:38:56.200 Many people who have household names success which you do have, say, 0:38:56.280 --> 0:38:59.440 oh no, it just happened to me. But most of 0:38:59.480 --> 0:39:04.080 these people were driven. They needed it. So why are 0:39:04.160 --> 0:39:07.600 you so successful? Being talented is not enough. 0:39:09.160 --> 0:39:13.520 No, But I was always on fire, you know, like 0:39:14.600 --> 0:39:16.959 when I was doing visual art, it was the same thing. 0:39:17.040 --> 0:39:22.000 I was just on fire, had blinders on, nothing else. 0:39:23.120 --> 0:39:26.080 You know, everybody else is going to the party. I'm 0:39:26.120 --> 0:39:32.560 staying home and working. I've just always been that way, 0:39:32.680 --> 0:39:36.560 Like I just a kind of a laser focus. And 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:42.080 also I'm you know, I have some obsessive compulsive stuff 0:39:42.120 --> 0:39:44.560 going on, and so it was always very easy for 0:39:44.600 --> 0:39:46.720 me to do the exact same thing at the exact 0:39:46.800 --> 0:39:47.959 same time every day. 0:39:48.520 --> 0:39:50.680 Tell me a little bit more about the OCD. I 0:39:50.719 --> 0:39:54.120 get that, But like, are you locking the door twenty times? 0:39:54.120 --> 0:39:55.040 Are your order? 0:39:55.280 --> 0:39:57.359 It used to be? I mean I used to lock 0:39:57.400 --> 0:40:01.840 the door twenty times, and then it when I was 0:40:01.880 --> 0:40:06.040 a kid, it was just like really bad. But then 0:40:06.080 --> 0:40:09.839 when I got older. You know, I'd written something about 0:40:09.840 --> 0:40:12.560 it one time and I had said, how you know, 0:40:12.560 --> 0:40:15.319 it seemed to get my life thing to get better 0:40:15.360 --> 0:40:17.960 when I started smoking. And then someone called and said, no, 0:40:18.120 --> 0:40:22.360 that makes sense. You know that nicotine can can be 0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:24.919 a way to self medicate for that kind of thing. 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:30.320 But then I quit smoking, and I thought everyone everything 0:40:30.320 --> 0:40:34.280 would come roaring back, but it didn't. Now I'm more 0:40:35.080 --> 0:40:38.440 like I'm a prisoner of a Yeah, I'm a prisoner. 0:40:38.520 --> 0:40:44.400 Like I got a fit bit, you know, and so 0:40:44.440 --> 0:40:47.120 that's why I go out after midnight. I forgot a 0:40:47.160 --> 0:40:50.400 fit bit. So then I started walking between fifteen and 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:53.520 twenty miles a day when I'm in Sussex, right, so 0:40:53.560 --> 0:40:56.799 I have to do that. Then I have to do 0:40:57.160 --> 0:40:59.920 duo lingo. But it's not just I have to do it, 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:06.040 like I have to be like in the top three. 0:41:07.160 --> 0:41:10.000 And so that's hours and hours and hours and hours 0:41:10.040 --> 0:41:13.120 and hours that I have to do that. And I 0:41:13.120 --> 0:41:15.719 have to do my own work, and then I have 0:41:15.880 --> 0:41:20.759 to swim a certain distance every day and I have 0:41:21.000 --> 0:41:27.800 to Uh, it's it's a lot on my little schedule, 0:41:27.920 --> 0:41:31.759 Like there really not enough hours in the day, and 0:41:31.880 --> 0:41:34.560 I never know when something else is gonna pop up. 0:41:34.800 --> 0:41:37.600 One time it was feeding spiders. And I'm telling you 0:41:39.680 --> 0:41:42.880 I fed spiders. This was in France, and we had 0:41:43.360 --> 0:41:47.600 lots of spiders in our house, and I was feeding 0:41:47.640 --> 0:41:52.120 spiders for hours every day, right and monitoring them. 0:41:52.280 --> 0:41:54.360 No, wait, a little bit more, a little slow, a 0:41:54.400 --> 0:41:58.320 little more granular. So you see a spider in the house, 0:41:58.480 --> 0:42:01.040 you think they're hungry. What's going on there? 0:42:01.680 --> 0:42:06.040 There was a spider, a Taganaria gigantia, who lives in 0:42:06.280 --> 0:42:07.960 They live in a horizontal sheet web. 0:42:08.719 --> 0:42:13.200 And how big a spider is that? And I think 0:42:13.239 --> 0:42:16.040 I know what a horizontal web is, but tell me. 0:42:16.800 --> 0:42:20.239 The size of an unshelled peanut. It's a pretty big, 0:42:21.440 --> 0:42:26.600 black brown you know. Horizontal seat web, It's just a 0:42:26.640 --> 0:42:31.080 flat web, right, with a little funnel that it goes 0:42:31.120 --> 0:42:33.480 into that it lives in. And they can be pretty 0:42:33.480 --> 0:42:37.520 big those. So it was in the corner. We had 0:42:37.760 --> 0:42:40.160 a casement window. It was in France, so it was 0:42:40.200 --> 0:42:43.800 an old casement window. So there was a there was 0:42:43.840 --> 0:42:47.000 a it was built at the bottom of the window 0:42:47.040 --> 0:42:49.440 so I couldn't open the window because I would destroy 0:42:49.520 --> 0:42:53.440 the web. Right, So, and I heard a fly buzz 0:42:53.719 --> 0:42:56.200 and then I heard it buzz differently, and I stood 0:42:56.280 --> 0:42:58.279 up and I went over to the window and I 0:42:58.400 --> 0:43:04.719 saw the had gotten a fly. It was dragging it 0:43:04.760 --> 0:43:08.439 into its little home, right, And I thought, I want 0:43:08.440 --> 0:43:12.120 to see that again. So I caught a fly in 0:43:12.200 --> 0:43:15.400 a jar and then I shook the jar up so 0:43:15.480 --> 0:43:17.919 the flylight would hit its head, you know, and get 0:43:18.000 --> 0:43:20.360 knocked out. And then I poured it into a web, 0:43:20.920 --> 0:43:24.239 and then when it came to the spider came out 0:43:24.480 --> 0:43:27.800 and took it right. And we had so many spiders 0:43:27.840 --> 0:43:32.319 in our house, and then we had outbuildings, so it 0:43:32.400 --> 0:43:36.719 was easy to feed forty spiders a day, right, so 0:43:37.000 --> 0:43:39.839 all day long, I mean, and we kept our door 0:43:39.880 --> 0:43:43.200 open so the house was for flies. So that wasn't 0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:47.319 hard to do. But you know, flies can eat like 0:43:47.520 --> 0:43:49.480 I mean, spiders can eat like once a week and 0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:54.000 they're okay. But spiders got so fat, you know what 0:43:54.000 --> 0:43:57.719 I mean. It just wasn't good for him. But I 0:43:57.880 --> 0:43:59.960 just kept doing it. And then I went on tour, 0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:02.799 and of course I didn't have my spiders, and then 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.120 I went back to France and then it was winter 0:44:06.000 --> 0:44:09.000 so we didn't have flies. And I don't know, there's 0:44:09.040 --> 0:44:12.239 a flimsy kind of a spider that you don't want, 0:44:12.320 --> 0:44:16.520 you wouldn't think twice about, but it would devour all 0:44:16.560 --> 0:44:19.160 the other spiders. So by the time I got home, 0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:21.880 there was nothing left but the flimsy spiders. And the 0:44:22.080 --> 0:44:25.080 next summer I did it all over again. And it 0:44:25.120 --> 0:44:28.000 wasn't until I moved to England that I stopped with that. 0:44:30.239 --> 0:44:32.360 But I never know when something's going to come along. 0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:34.919 It's like a hobby, but it's just taken too far. 0:44:35.239 --> 0:44:37.400 But is it a compulsion more than a hobby. 0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:38.880 Yeah, yeah, it's a compulsion. 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:43.920 So the compulsion cannot be broken by you. It has 0:44:44.000 --> 0:44:47.200 to be like a very distinct thing, like you leave 0:44:47.320 --> 0:44:48.880 town or something like that. 0:44:49.560 --> 0:44:55.120 Yeah, I can't. I can't like the duo lingo thing. 0:44:55.120 --> 0:44:56.279 It's just ridiculous. 0:44:56.640 --> 0:44:58.600 Just a little bit. There's a chart you say being 0:44:58.640 --> 0:44:59.479 in the top three. 0:45:00.040 --> 0:45:03.480 Explain that there's a competitive aspect to do a lingo, 0:45:03.560 --> 0:45:04.719 which I didn't realize. 0:45:04.760 --> 0:45:06.600 It's a lot I told you told me in my 0:45:06.640 --> 0:45:08.279 audience A little bit more about dual linger. 0:45:08.400 --> 0:45:11.840 It's a language learning app, right, So you choose what 0:45:12.000 --> 0:45:16.200 language you want, and I started off with Japanese and 0:45:17.080 --> 0:45:19.879 it will teach you the alphabet and then it will 0:45:19.920 --> 0:45:24.040 give you a sentence in Japanese. You have to translate 0:45:24.480 --> 0:45:28.120 right from a menu of words below, or it'll give 0:45:28.160 --> 0:45:31.759 you sEH, It'll give you a sentence in English, and 0:45:31.760 --> 0:45:41.919 then you have to construct it in Japanese translated into Japanese. 0:45:42.320 --> 0:45:48.000 And I had studied some Japanese before, but I'd never 0:45:48.040 --> 0:45:50.160 really learned to read, so it was good for that. 0:45:51.160 --> 0:45:53.040 And then I branched out, and then I started doing 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:57.000 the German as well, right, And then I discovered one 0:45:57.080 --> 0:46:00.879 day that there was there were leagues I just hadn't no, right, 0:46:01.320 --> 0:46:06.040 So there's like the Obsidian League and the Pearl League, 0:46:04.920 --> 0:46:09.160 and I would get these congratulations, Oh, you're in the 0:46:09.200 --> 0:46:13.359 Pearl League, and I thought, so that feels good. And 0:46:13.440 --> 0:46:17.200 then the highest is the Diamond League. Right, so you 0:46:17.239 --> 0:46:21.280 get these extra points on dual lingo and a normal 0:46:21.360 --> 0:46:25.120 person might get, oh, I don't know, forty extra points 0:46:25.160 --> 0:46:29.440 a day, and I'll be getting like four thousand extra 0:46:29.480 --> 0:46:32.160 points a day. So it was like it was a 0:46:32.200 --> 0:46:35.799 big part of my day. It's a huge part of 0:46:35.840 --> 0:46:41.640 my day. And I can't even say that that It 0:46:41.680 --> 0:46:44.839 wasn't even about learning anymore. It just became I've never 0:46:44.840 --> 0:46:47.080 played a video game in my life. But that's I 0:46:47.120 --> 0:46:49.959 think what it became was me was a video game. 0:46:50.719 --> 0:46:55.160 Today when I walked to the village today, we live 0:46:55.239 --> 0:46:58.799 on the edge of what's essentially Downton Abbey, and I 0:46:58.840 --> 0:47:07.840 can there's this massive, massive tudor. It's not a castle, 0:47:09.840 --> 0:47:13.640 it's just a pile, you know, It's just it's on 0:47:13.800 --> 0:47:16.879 thousands of acres of land. And it's also a deer 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:20.600 park and there's right away in England. So I cut 0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:25.919 across the grounds and this is the time of year 0:47:26.000 --> 0:47:31.600 when the stags stand underneath trees and cough to attract 0:47:31.640 --> 0:47:34.920 females like I never thought deer made any noise at all, 0:47:35.000 --> 0:47:46.319 but they it is cough. It is unspeakably beautiful and 0:47:46.360 --> 0:47:50.960 it's fall and the temperature has changed and the air 0:47:51.080 --> 0:47:57.520 feels different. And I'm leaving tomorrow to start my tour. 0:47:58.680 --> 0:48:03.680 And I walked across the param house twice today doing 0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:08.200 dual lingo as I walked right doing it on my 0:48:08.280 --> 0:48:14.720 iPad so I could rack up four thousand extra points. 0:48:15.200 --> 0:48:18.839 And I'm so mad at myself because I stopped at 0:48:18.840 --> 0:48:23.640 one point. It's so beautiful that every day I notice 0:48:23.640 --> 0:48:28.120 how beautiful it is. Every day I think what a 0:48:28.200 --> 0:48:29.840 kind of a world is this that I get to 0:48:29.880 --> 0:48:33.359 live amongst such beauty? Right? And I didn't do it 0:48:33.480 --> 0:48:37.359 because I was doing this stupid duo lingo and I'm 0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:40.160 competing against people I don't even know who they are. 0:48:40.920 --> 0:48:43.560 They're like twenty five of them from all over the world. 0:48:43.640 --> 0:48:50.600 Everyone has a nickname, right, it doesn't matter at all? Right, 0:48:51.719 --> 0:48:57.440 And I don't. I can't. I can't. It's like a trap. 0:48:57.480 --> 0:48:59.960 I man, I can't get out of it. And Hughes said, 0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:02.160 has just stop doing it? But I can't. 0:49:03.120 --> 0:49:06.920 Okay, just for one second. You're in the competition with 0:49:07.040 --> 0:49:10.480 duo lingo. But the main goal of duo lingo is 0:49:10.520 --> 0:49:14.280 to learn the language. Right, have you learned the language? 0:49:14.360 --> 0:49:16.000 Racking up all these extra points? 0:49:17.280 --> 0:49:20.040 There's only well, see, the way to rack up the 0:49:20.080 --> 0:49:24.359 extra points is to do these practice because you get 0:49:24.360 --> 0:49:29.000 more points doing the practice thing. So, but I was 0:49:29.040 --> 0:49:31.719 in Germany a week ago. I was there on a 0:49:31.719 --> 0:49:37.160 book tour, and I talk to German all the time. 0:49:38.000 --> 0:49:43.520 I and people said, oh my god, I didn't know 0:49:43.560 --> 0:49:46.359 you spoke German. And they said, oh my god, your 0:49:46.400 --> 0:49:50.640 German is perfect. Now my German is not perfect. They 0:49:50.640 --> 0:49:54.080 were just being nice, but and I would overhear people 0:49:54.120 --> 0:49:57.759 talking and maybe I would understand one word out of 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:02.560 every twenty. But then, you know, so it's easy to 0:50:02.600 --> 0:50:06.120 give up. But then you think, well, one word out 0:50:06.120 --> 0:50:08.239 of every twenty is better than one word out of 0:50:08.239 --> 0:50:11.960 every fifty or one word out of every hundred. You know, 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:23.760 so keep at it and and you'll get better. 0:50:24.800 --> 0:50:27.919 Okay, So you're at home. Let's say one day it's 0:50:28.080 --> 0:50:32.600 really raining, terrible weather, you're driven, you have to walk anyway. 0:50:33.520 --> 0:50:37.880 Oh yeah, oh yeah, that rain, and that happens a 0:50:37.880 --> 0:50:41.040 lot here. No, they didn't stop anything. 0:50:42.080 --> 0:50:45.960 What would it take for you not to go out 0:50:46.000 --> 0:50:46.720 on your walk? 0:50:47.760 --> 0:50:51.640 One night, I was out after midnight and the police 0:50:51.680 --> 0:50:56.879 stopped me, and there was somebody who I don't understand 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:59.000 if it was somebody who ran away from home or 0:50:59.000 --> 0:51:03.080 they were looking for the police. And there were helicopters overhead, right, 0:51:03.400 --> 0:51:05.240 I don't know if it was somebody who had wandered 0:51:05.280 --> 0:51:07.600 away from their home or run away from home. They 0:51:07.600 --> 0:51:10.480 wouldn't tell me, right, but they just said, you can't 0:51:10.520 --> 0:51:13.160 be out here, and they put me in the police 0:51:13.160 --> 0:51:18.400 car and drove me home. And the second they were gone, 0:51:18.760 --> 0:51:21.320 I went out to get you in the other direction, 0:51:22.080 --> 0:51:23.960 and I just thought, well, if I see the police 0:51:23.960 --> 0:51:26.319 car coming, I'll just run into the woods. You know. 0:51:27.600 --> 0:51:29.520 Let's say I was in your house and I locked 0:51:29.560 --> 0:51:32.400 all the doors and I said, you cannot leave today. 0:51:32.760 --> 0:51:34.960 What would be going on inside your mind? 0:51:38.120 --> 0:51:47.600 Uh? Well, how I would overpower you? Because like even 0:51:47.719 --> 0:51:52.239 the pandemic, that didn't stop me, you know. But it 0:51:52.239 --> 0:51:54.520 would have been different if I'd been in Paris, because 0:51:54.600 --> 0:51:56.839 in France you had to have a document to go out. 0:51:57.400 --> 0:52:00.000 You had to and the police would check your documents. 0:52:00.280 --> 0:52:02.359 I guess you downloaded it and you have to put 0:52:02.400 --> 0:52:04.279 the time you leave and all that stuff. So that 0:52:04.320 --> 0:52:06.439 would have been a hardship for me. But I would 0:52:06.480 --> 0:52:08.680 have just left the country that that had been the thing, 0:52:08.880 --> 0:52:10.879 and I would have gone to a place where they 0:52:10.880 --> 0:52:13.120 didn't have They weren't quite so strict. 0:52:14.080 --> 0:52:18.160 Well, I guess, are you tortured by this? It's one 0:52:18.160 --> 0:52:20.520 thing to do it. It's another thing to say I 0:52:20.600 --> 0:52:22.480 have to do it or I just won't feel right. 0:52:24.080 --> 0:52:30.520 No, un tortured, Yeah, no, it becomes It's it's like 0:52:30.680 --> 0:52:34.400 I really admire people who have hobbies. 0:52:35.320 --> 0:52:42.440 You do know that there's therapy for this? Now? Yeah, 0:52:42.800 --> 0:52:47.840 if I said I could get you with a therapist 0:52:48.120 --> 0:52:51.800 such that you would not be tortured. Is that something 0:52:51.880 --> 0:52:54.240 you would be thumbs up or thumbs down about. 0:52:55.760 --> 0:52:59.600 I'd be thumbs down because I feel like the things 0:52:59.600 --> 0:53:04.200 that I do are good things to do. Right, It's 0:53:04.239 --> 0:53:07.160 good to walk, It's good to walk. 0:53:07.560 --> 0:53:11.640 Okay, all that rationalization is good. But the question is 0:53:12.239 --> 0:53:15.719 to what degree are you tortured? To what degree does 0:53:15.760 --> 0:53:18.400 it interfere with you living your regular life? 0:53:20.600 --> 0:53:23.480 Well, I'm always I always think like I can handle this, 0:53:23.640 --> 0:53:27.120 but see, then what happens is that I go on tour, right, 0:53:28.480 --> 0:53:32.839 and then on tour you don't have control. You know, 0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:37.160 you're out of your You're out of your environment. 0:53:37.520 --> 0:53:37.759 Right. 0:53:38.400 --> 0:53:44.560 So sometimes it'll happen that a plane will be delayed 0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:48.160 or canceled, and then my agent will call and say 0:53:48.239 --> 0:53:50.799 we've sent a car and a car is going to 0:53:50.840 --> 0:53:54.279 take you seven hours to somewhere, right, And I'm like 0:53:54.920 --> 0:53:57.160 seven hours. I can't get my steps in. If I'm 0:53:57.160 --> 0:53:59.320 in a car for seven hours, right, what am I 0:53:59.360 --> 0:54:05.200 going to do? So what I do in that situation 0:54:05.360 --> 0:54:10.360 is I get I mean, so in case that should happen, 0:54:11.760 --> 0:54:14.640 I would never leave my hotel in the morning with 0:54:14.760 --> 0:54:19.160 no steps right, so I would have gotten up. If 0:54:19.160 --> 0:54:21.200 it means getting up at five o'clock in the morning, 0:54:21.280 --> 0:54:22.839 I'll get up at five o'clock the monay it means 0:54:22.840 --> 0:54:24.600 getting about four o'clock in the morning, I get up 0:54:24.600 --> 0:54:27.640 at four o'clock in the morning right, just on the 0:54:27.680 --> 0:54:30.960 off chance that that might happen. And then one time 0:54:32.520 --> 0:54:35.560 I was thrown into a car for eight hours and 0:54:36.280 --> 0:54:40.480 I hadn't met the minimum right number of steps I need. 0:54:41.440 --> 0:54:43.759 And so I was signing this young woman's book and 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:45.640 I said, what are you going to do now? She said, 0:54:45.640 --> 0:54:48.160 now nothing, I'm not doing anything. And I think she 0:54:48.200 --> 0:54:49.720 thought I was going to ask her out to dinner. 0:54:50.360 --> 0:54:52.320 And I said, great, I'll give you twenty dollars to 0:54:52.360 --> 0:54:54.120 go out and walk two miles. And I put my 0:54:54.200 --> 0:54:56.840 Apple watch on her and I gave her twenty dollars, 0:54:57.480 --> 0:54:59.839 and I had her walk for me. 0:55:00.000 --> 0:55:03.000 Well, a little bit slower. Why does her walk work 0:55:03.080 --> 0:55:05.200 because it's on your watch and therefore it's part of 0:55:05.239 --> 0:55:06.319 the chart I gave him. 0:55:06.520 --> 0:55:08.680 I put my watch on her wrist, so and I 0:55:08.760 --> 0:55:10.040 sent her out to walk for. 0:55:11.800 --> 0:55:15.399 I understand what you did, but you're saying it's more 0:55:15.440 --> 0:55:18.920 about the number on your watch than what's going on 0:55:19.080 --> 0:55:20.839 inside you as a human being. 0:55:21.840 --> 0:55:24.359 Well, no, because we have some French friends who are 0:55:24.360 --> 0:55:26.480 staying right now with us, and they went to the 0:55:26.560 --> 0:55:29.839 village and back today and when they left, I thought, fuck, 0:55:29.920 --> 0:55:32.720 I should have given him my watch, you know, to wear, 0:55:32.880 --> 0:55:36.759 because that would have been an extra six miles. But no, 0:55:37.040 --> 0:55:40.000 that's different because they weren't six miles that I would 0:55:40.040 --> 0:55:42.879 have earned, you know what I mean, Like, I'm in 0:55:42.920 --> 0:55:47.040 my environment, I'll earn the miles, I'll earn the steps. 0:55:47.120 --> 0:55:51.760 Okay, Now, so somebody has to earn the miles. Generally speaking, 0:55:51.800 --> 0:55:54.920 it doesn't have to be you. You want it to be you, 0:55:55.320 --> 0:55:58.120 But if it's someone else, that would be okay. 0:55:58.239 --> 0:56:02.799 Because I have When I look at my watch, it 0:56:02.960 --> 0:56:08.000 tells me that I have a perfect record for one thousand, 0:56:08.160 --> 0:56:12.040 seven hundred and seventy nine days. Right, I've had a 0:56:12.080 --> 0:56:17.400 perfect record on my Apple Watch. I cannot lose that 0:56:18.560 --> 0:56:19.320 perfect record. 0:56:19.719 --> 0:56:21.319 Just so I know how many steps is that? 0:56:22.680 --> 0:56:25.200 Oh a set to I have to walk like ten 0:56:25.239 --> 0:56:29.760 thousand steps a day, which is nothing. That's like depend 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:31.600 It's just like four and a half miles. 0:56:31.920 --> 0:56:34.239 Right, Okay, let's get into it for a minute. I 0:56:34.360 --> 0:56:39.480 had a fit bit, and the accuracy of the step 0:56:39.520 --> 0:56:42.920 count on the fit bit was completely different from what 0:56:42.960 --> 0:56:45.680 it was on the phone. I mean, there are certain 0:56:45.719 --> 0:56:47.759 times I'll be hiking in the mountains and I know 0:56:47.880 --> 0:56:51.719 the altitude difference and the phone does not register it, 0:56:52.239 --> 0:56:56.000 whereas the fit bit did. Are you just locked into 0:56:56.040 --> 0:56:58.560 the equipment or do you ever think about, well, it's 0:56:58.560 --> 0:56:59.240 this accurate. 0:57:00.280 --> 0:57:01.879 Well, for a long time I had a fit bit 0:57:01.960 --> 0:57:05.319 and an Apple Watch, and I wore them both. But 0:57:05.440 --> 0:57:08.319 then I thought I was too old to have two 0:57:08.400 --> 0:57:11.680 things on my wrist, so I just have the Apple Watch. 0:57:11.760 --> 0:57:15.360 Now they were close enough, you know, I felt like 0:57:15.440 --> 0:57:17.840 the two things were pretty close. I've never used my 0:57:17.960 --> 0:57:20.280 phone to check my steps. I've never done that. 0:57:20.840 --> 0:57:22.439 Well, you can look on her in the health app. 0:57:22.480 --> 0:57:27.320 I find it wildly inaccurate. So what about the swimming, Although. 0:57:27.320 --> 0:57:31.240 My record is I walked forty two miles in a day. 0:57:32.560 --> 0:57:35.440 You know, we are not young people by the standards 0:57:35.480 --> 0:57:40.240 of human life. You walk that much, does your body hurt? 0:57:40.960 --> 0:57:44.680 Yeah? It hurt for days afterwards. Forty two miles was like, 0:57:46.320 --> 0:57:50.240 that's a really long walk. I started at midnight. I 0:57:50.280 --> 0:57:51.880 did it with a friend of mine and we came 0:57:51.960 --> 0:57:54.600 back at six in the morning, and we rested for 0:57:54.640 --> 0:57:57.160 three hours, and we went out again, came home for lunch, 0:57:57.200 --> 0:58:01.920 went out again, came home for dinner. Uh yeah, that 0:58:02.040 --> 0:58:05.160 was a real accomplishment. 0:58:05.800 --> 0:58:08.600 Well, most sports industries, court and I've had plenty of 0:58:08.760 --> 0:58:11.880 talk to the doctors, are from over use. So as 0:58:11.920 --> 0:58:15.200 we sit here now, since you've been walking using the 0:58:15.240 --> 0:58:18.560 same muscles, et cetera, how's your body right now? 0:58:20.440 --> 0:58:24.720 Oh, that's pretty good. I mean, my poor boyfriend, Hugh, 0:58:24.880 --> 0:58:30.800 he's got like, you know, sciatica, and you know, his 0:58:30.960 --> 0:58:33.680 hip bothers him, and I just feel bad for him. 0:58:33.720 --> 0:58:35.760 I don't really have anything like that, you know, I 0:58:35.800 --> 0:58:43.680 don't have anything that's that troubles me. And then he 0:58:43.760 --> 0:58:46.960 had a pool put in and so then it's like, 0:58:47.840 --> 0:58:51.800 you know, gonna have to swim. 0:58:51.800 --> 0:58:52.840 How many laps a day? 0:58:54.760 --> 0:58:58.480 Oh, not that, you know, not that many laps, like, 0:58:59.240 --> 0:59:04.200 you know, just it's a lap pool. But before I 0:59:04.240 --> 0:59:06.640 was caught in this swimming thing and then that because 0:59:06.680 --> 0:59:09.520 swim is really boring to me, And then I would 0:59:09.520 --> 0:59:11.960 swim a mile every time I went to the pool, 0:59:12.600 --> 0:59:15.640 and that's so boring to me. So now it's like 0:59:15.880 --> 0:59:17.680 just a quarter of a mile. It's not that much, 0:59:17.800 --> 0:59:19.040 but it's still something I have to do. 0:59:19.720 --> 0:59:24.080 And how much is this exercises about? We control body image. 0:59:25.800 --> 0:59:29.080 I eat a lot of food, Like I can eat 0:59:29.280 --> 0:59:33.280 anybody under the table. I will eat as long as 0:59:33.280 --> 0:59:37.560 there's food on the table. I will eat your food. 0:59:38.040 --> 0:59:41.480 I will eat the person next to you, I'll eat 0:59:41.520 --> 0:59:43.320 their food. I'll say, are you going to finish that? 0:59:46.880 --> 0:59:50.000 And so it's I just have to exercise a lot 0:59:50.080 --> 0:59:52.760 if I'm going to continue to eat the way that 0:59:52.800 --> 0:59:53.040 I do. 0:59:53.800 --> 0:59:57.680 And were you always insatiable or eating well available? 0:59:58.960 --> 1:00:01.400 And it's funny, my bro he eats the same way 1:00:01.440 --> 1:00:05.200 I do, and it's shocking to watch him eat, you know, 1:00:05.320 --> 1:00:07.160 but we eat the same way. I don't know if 1:00:07.200 --> 1:00:10.360 it was six kids and you're just always convinced there's 1:00:10.400 --> 1:00:12.640 not going to be enough food and you have to 1:00:12.800 --> 1:00:17.600 really you eat with your handguarding your plate, you know, 1:00:17.640 --> 1:00:20.400 corraling your plate, and you just shovel it in and 1:00:20.440 --> 1:00:25.320 then you fight for seconds. And we weren't poor, you know, 1:00:25.960 --> 1:00:29.320 it was you know, let's say all the chicken was gone, well, 1:00:29.720 --> 1:00:32.360 there would still be stuff. You could make a sandwich 1:00:32.480 --> 1:00:37.280 or you could you know, make yourself a pancake or something. 1:00:37.440 --> 1:00:41.280 It wasn't off limits, you know, the kitchen wasn't off 1:00:41.360 --> 1:00:44.640 limits to you. But I don't know, am I other 1:00:44.680 --> 1:00:46.760 people in my family don't eat that way, but just 1:00:46.840 --> 1:00:47.560 my brother and me. 1:00:48.600 --> 1:00:51.840 And does it matter what kind of food it is. 1:00:52.000 --> 1:00:54.480 It could be junk food, it could be gourmet food, 1:00:54.560 --> 1:00:56.760 just as long as it's no I'm. 1:00:56.640 --> 1:01:00.800 Not a big I'm not a big junk food person, 1:01:04.280 --> 1:01:06.720 and I'm not a food snob. I mean, he was 1:01:06.720 --> 1:01:15.040 a really good cook, uh but and I don't like it, 1:01:15.160 --> 1:01:19.320 you know. I don't want to come home at two 1:01:19.360 --> 1:01:21.439 thirty in the morning after a walk, and I don't 1:01:21.480 --> 1:01:23.720 want to sit there in front of the refrigerator and 1:01:23.840 --> 1:01:28.040 eat cheese. You know. That doesn't make me feel good 1:01:28.040 --> 1:01:33.720 about myself. I bought all these crazy outfits to wear 1:01:33.760 --> 1:01:38.520 on tour, and they're really expensive, you know. And I 1:01:38.560 --> 1:01:44.800 would just feel like such a loser if I was 1:01:44.800 --> 1:01:47.680 too big to fit into him, you know. So that's 1:01:47.720 --> 1:01:50.320 a lot of it right there. I gotta I have 1:01:50.400 --> 1:01:54.920 to do this so I can fit into like a 1:01:54.960 --> 1:02:01.240 backless floor length sport coach. Just crazy stuff. 1:02:08.400 --> 1:02:10.360 When did this clothing obsession begin? 1:02:12.720 --> 1:02:16.840 I always when I started reading out Loud. I was 1:02:16.880 --> 1:02:21.680 living in Chicago, and I would go to other people's readings, 1:02:22.040 --> 1:02:24.840 and you know, people would usually I wasn't the only 1:02:24.840 --> 1:02:26.800 one on the bill. Maybe they'd be like three or 1:02:26.800 --> 1:02:29.480 four people on the belt, and I would just notice 1:02:29.520 --> 1:02:31.560 people would get up there and they would be wearing 1:02:33.280 --> 1:02:34.880 you know, they would just looked like they were mowing 1:02:34.920 --> 1:02:37.280 their lawn. And then thought, oh fuck, I have that 1:02:37.360 --> 1:02:40.800 show to do tonight. But I always got dressed up 1:02:41.240 --> 1:02:44.240 because just so the audience would know you made an effort, 1:02:44.520 --> 1:02:49.080 you know that you that if nothing else, you know, 1:02:49.120 --> 1:02:52.560 you're going to try something new, and maybe it wouldn't work, 1:02:53.440 --> 1:02:57.400 but you took it seriously enough to put a tie 1:02:57.400 --> 1:03:03.880 on right, And and then it just got more abstract, 1:03:03.960 --> 1:03:07.000 you know, as the years passed, Like I always you know, 1:03:07.040 --> 1:03:10.400 I used to wear a jacket a tie, and then 1:03:10.400 --> 1:03:14.240 a jacket and a tie, and then oh now, I 1:03:14.280 --> 1:03:17.920 mean I just bought a jacket that doesn't have any arms. 1:03:18.040 --> 1:03:21.800 It's not a cape. It's just a jacket that doesn't 1:03:21.880 --> 1:03:25.520 have any arms. We're just like wearing a bell. We 1:03:25.680 --> 1:03:29.600 just want to find that come to Girlson. It's a 1:03:29.840 --> 1:03:35.120 it's a Japanese designer Ray Kawakuba, who has a company 1:03:35.160 --> 1:03:38.440 called Come to Girlson And it's like a plaid bell 1:03:39.120 --> 1:03:46.520 right that I'm gonna wear on stage. And then I 1:03:46.560 --> 1:03:50.360 also got for this tour. It's like a black sport 1:03:50.440 --> 1:03:53.040 coat that's cut off at the bottom of the ribcage 1:03:53.200 --> 1:03:58.240 with scissors. But then in the back it's like one 1:03:58.280 --> 1:04:01.680 of those pillows that people use on lanes, you know, 1:04:01.720 --> 1:04:05.800 Tho's neck fellows is sewn into the back, so you 1:04:05.920 --> 1:04:14.720 have a hump back and this abbreviated jacket with it, 1:04:16.040 --> 1:04:18.080 and all I do is think about what I'm going 1:04:18.160 --> 1:04:19.400 to pair it with. You know. 1:04:21.360 --> 1:04:25.240 Okay, you know a musician goes on the road, he 1:04:25.360 --> 1:04:29.920 literally brings a wardrobe trunk. How many outfits do you 1:04:29.960 --> 1:04:31.840 bring on the road and how do you decide what 1:04:31.880 --> 1:04:33.439 to bring and how do you carry them? 1:04:34.600 --> 1:04:38.840 I just bring, you know, last year I started bringing 1:04:39.000 --> 1:04:42.680 two suitcases, well a suitcase and then a Duffel bag. 1:04:43.160 --> 1:04:45.320 And you know, there's no turning back once you add 1:04:45.320 --> 1:04:49.520 that second bag, there's no turning back. So now I'm 1:04:49.560 --> 1:04:52.160 a two bag person. But I'm just gonna Usually I 1:04:52.200 --> 1:04:54.640 just bring one sport coat to wear on stage, but 1:04:54.720 --> 1:04:57.520 I'll just have two this time. But one doesn't have 1:04:57.560 --> 1:04:59.800 any arms and the other one's cut off in the middle. 1:05:00.400 --> 1:05:02.640 They're only taking up as much room as well as 1:05:06.280 --> 1:05:09.240 and then you know theaters usually have washes and dryers, 1:05:09.680 --> 1:05:12.400 you know, big theaters, right, So I don't need to 1:05:12.400 --> 1:05:16.000 bring that many shirts, and maybe I'll bring, like I 1:05:16.000 --> 1:05:20.720 don't know, three pairs of shoes, you know, a pair 1:05:20.760 --> 1:05:23.400 of sneakers from when I go walking or go to 1:05:23.440 --> 1:05:26.000 the fitness center. And then two pairs of a pair 1:05:26.040 --> 1:05:30.160 of airport shoes and a pair of because sometimes you know, 1:05:30.200 --> 1:05:33.080 your luggage gets lost and you don't want to show 1:05:33.160 --> 1:05:37.360 up at the theater looking like a slob, you know, 1:05:39.840 --> 1:05:42.040 so you need that extra pair of shoes and you 1:05:42.080 --> 1:05:44.880 need airport clothes, right. 1:05:45.680 --> 1:05:50.000 Okay, the musicians, the super successful ones, there is a 1:05:50.080 --> 1:05:53.320 very thin elite that they'll locate in one town and 1:05:53.360 --> 1:05:56.800 fly out for each gig. But most of the others, 1:05:56.880 --> 1:06:00.640 just one step down, have all given up flying to 1:06:00.720 --> 1:06:03.200 be in the bus because the bus leaves when the 1:06:03.240 --> 1:06:06.440 gig is over and it arrives, you're not waiting in 1:06:06.520 --> 1:06:10.560 the airport, et cetera. Is that something you ever thought about? 1:06:10.800 --> 1:06:16.480 Something they've talked to me about a boss, And but 1:06:16.600 --> 1:06:18.600 The thing about a boss is, let's say you get 1:06:18.600 --> 1:06:21.000 on the bus and then you go to the hotel 1:06:21.080 --> 1:06:21.840 the next morning. 1:06:22.920 --> 1:06:23.680 That's what you do. 1:06:23.800 --> 1:06:30.480 Yeah, yeah, that's I mean, I'd be willing to give 1:06:30.480 --> 1:06:32.840 it a try for a while and see, you know, 1:06:32.880 --> 1:06:37.600 I'd give it an honest try. But what if you're 1:06:37.640 --> 1:06:39.280 just going like four hours. 1:06:40.160 --> 1:06:43.720 Well, the nature of the bus is the bus is 1:06:44.440 --> 1:06:48.640 got all your amenities and has space, so it leaves 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:52.400 when the gig is over. You don't burn all that time. 1:06:52.440 --> 1:06:54.520 You don't have to wear a schedule. So if you 1:06:54.560 --> 1:06:58.960 were sleeping when you get to the destination, you continue 1:06:58.960 --> 1:07:03.320 to sleep. If you're up, check into the hotel. Yeah, 1:07:03.800 --> 1:07:05.800 let me go one step willing to try it, let's 1:07:05.800 --> 1:07:08.520 go one step further. You are you know you have 1:07:08.600 --> 1:07:11.000 one of the best gigs of all time. Maybe you 1:07:11.160 --> 1:07:15.960 travel with a microphone at most. Okay, and you ever 1:07:16.760 --> 1:07:19.320 hire a plane fly private from gig to gig. 1:07:19.840 --> 1:07:22.720 Well, you know, one time I was doing a show 1:07:22.720 --> 1:07:25.880 in Santa Barbara and I was flying out of Portland, Oregon, 1:07:26.080 --> 1:07:29.880 and the plane was delayed, delayed, delayed, then canceled. So 1:07:29.960 --> 1:07:33.080 my agent called and said, I've gotten you a I 1:07:33.120 --> 1:07:36.400 booked you a private plane, get your luggage back. You're 1:07:36.440 --> 1:07:40.120 going next door to the airport. There's a And it 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:44.920 turns out that next door to every big airport right 1:07:45.040 --> 1:07:51.760 there's it's called a clubhouse. Then there's no security. You 1:07:52.400 --> 1:07:55.120 don't have to turn anything off, you don't have to 1:07:55.200 --> 1:07:58.360 fasten your seat belt, you don't have to do anything 1:07:58.400 --> 1:08:00.560 you don't want to do. And the first time I 1:08:00.560 --> 1:08:03.720 flew private, I thought, why didn't I do this every day? 1:08:04.320 --> 1:08:07.360 And then I found out it was ten thousand dollars 1:08:07.400 --> 1:08:09.680 and I had to pay for it, And I said, 1:08:09.960 --> 1:08:13.400 how was that fair? You know, like the theater, if 1:08:13.440 --> 1:08:15.960 I'd had to cancel the show, they would have to 1:08:15.960 --> 1:08:20.840 refund all that money. And my agent's still getting a cut, right, 1:08:21.280 --> 1:08:23.720 so how is it that I have to pay the 1:08:23.760 --> 1:08:27.240 ten thousand dollars? Anyway, we wounded up splitting it three ways, 1:08:27.560 --> 1:08:30.080 so every now and then that'll happen. You know that 1:08:30.200 --> 1:08:34.280 I have to take a private plane, but I'd never 1:08:35.680 --> 1:08:39.840 have asked for one, or I've never you know, it's 1:08:40.000 --> 1:08:43.600 enough already to have people say, aren't you ashamed of 1:08:43.640 --> 1:08:46.479 yourself for flying on airplanes? And I think, well, the 1:08:46.520 --> 1:08:49.559 plane wouldn't be The plane is going to New York, 1:08:49.640 --> 1:08:53.760 whether I'm monitored or not. But a private plane that's 1:08:53.760 --> 1:08:56.479 a little bit different because it's not going to New York. 1:08:56.520 --> 1:09:02.760 You know, it's not going to Cleveland, whether or not 1:09:03.080 --> 1:09:06.000 you're on, if you're not honored, it's not going to Cleveland, 1:09:06.360 --> 1:09:06.880 although you. 1:09:06.840 --> 1:09:09.680 Know are There are these new airlines like JSX in 1:09:09.760 --> 1:09:12.840 the West, which hold like twenty to forty people. But 1:09:12.880 --> 1:09:15.120 it's like flying private. I mean, you have to get there, 1:09:15.160 --> 1:09:18.000 but you only have to get there twenty minutes before. 1:09:18.240 --> 1:09:23.800 There's no security. Yeah, google it JSX, but they don't 1:09:23.800 --> 1:09:27.320 fly absolutely everywhere you have to be going where they're flying. 1:09:29.280 --> 1:09:36.000 Wow JSX, Yeah, huh, I'll fuck it. 1:09:36.640 --> 1:09:40.479 And it can be mine, you know it can. At 1:09:40.520 --> 1:09:43.960 some times I had to fly to Denver and they 1:09:44.000 --> 1:09:47.519 fly to Bloomfield as opposed to da which is east 1:09:47.560 --> 1:09:51.640 of Denver by a significant amount whatever, it ended up 1:09:51.640 --> 1:09:54.519 being cheaper because it turns out if you rent a 1:09:54.560 --> 1:09:57.439 car in the suburbs, it's actually cheaper than renting the 1:09:57.520 --> 1:09:59.400 car at the airport. 1:09:59.720 --> 1:10:02.080 Oh, I never learned to drive. 1:10:04.160 --> 1:10:07.680 You never. Let's let's wait, let's go back just a 1:10:07.800 --> 1:10:12.920 chapter before that. What do people not understand about the 1:10:12.960 --> 1:10:16.360 rest of the world, you're a world traveler, you live 1:10:16.400 --> 1:10:18.759 in the UK, have a house in Paris, et cetera. 1:10:19.360 --> 1:10:24.200 We have a very closed minded, ethnocentric population and they 1:10:24.680 --> 1:10:27.400 hear socialism and they run away. What do people not 1:10:27.560 --> 1:10:29.639 understand about life and the rest of the world. 1:10:33.200 --> 1:10:39.840 Uh, oh gosh, there's so much they don't understand, you know. 1:10:39.920 --> 1:10:45.560 Like one thing, Americans I think tend to feel like 1:10:45.560 --> 1:10:49.120 like when it comes to it's an outdated term. But 1:10:49.320 --> 1:10:52.759 like when I was in Germany in Italy last week 1:10:53.680 --> 1:10:57.880 on book tours, every question was about political correctness, which 1:10:57.920 --> 1:11:00.360 is an outdated term in the United States. Not sure 1:11:00.439 --> 1:11:02.559 what it's been replaced by, but I know that it 1:11:02.560 --> 1:11:06.479 feels outdated. Americans think that that the only ones in 1:11:06.520 --> 1:11:11.080 the world who are have undergone a sea change in 1:11:11.160 --> 1:11:15.840 terms of language and behaviors, and it's happening everywhere. You know, 1:11:17.360 --> 1:11:20.920 Americans believe that they have the best healthcare in the world, 1:11:21.040 --> 1:11:23.840 which is not even not even in the top ten. 1:11:24.600 --> 1:11:28.519 You know. I just always feel like everyone should just 1:11:29.200 --> 1:11:32.879 get out more. You know. When I lived in Paris, 1:11:32.920 --> 1:11:36.040 one time I flew back to New York and there 1:11:36.080 --> 1:11:37.920 were these students on the plane and they kissed the 1:11:37.960 --> 1:11:40.000 ground when they got off the plane, and I thought, 1:11:40.240 --> 1:11:43.519 because you couldn't get a big gulp what I mean, like, 1:11:44.120 --> 1:11:49.800 how how bad was France? You know? But it's true 1:11:49.840 --> 1:11:51.920 you can't get a big gulp and carry it into 1:11:51.960 --> 1:11:54.640 a store. People would be like, no, you can't do 1:11:54.760 --> 1:12:00.000 that here. I just don't always interested like the free 1:12:00.000 --> 1:12:02.760 items that so many people in America are concerned with, 1:12:02.920 --> 1:12:06.000 you know, like I need to be free to bring 1:12:06.040 --> 1:12:10.559 a gun to Starbucks, which is just not but here 1:12:10.640 --> 1:12:13.720 you're free to send your kid to school and not 1:12:13.840 --> 1:12:16.280 worry that your kid's going to get shot up, you know. 1:12:17.080 --> 1:12:27.320 So they're they're trade offs, right. There was an artarticle 1:12:27.360 --> 1:12:29.439 in the New York Times a couple of days ago, 1:12:30.600 --> 1:12:34.719 and it was about in Korea, if you're a senior citizen, 1:12:34.840 --> 1:12:38.360 you get to ride the subway for free, right, And 1:12:38.439 --> 1:12:42.600 so it was people in Seoul riding the subway and 1:12:42.640 --> 1:12:46.640 it was so delicious to read the comments, you know, 1:12:47.240 --> 1:12:48.680 and it was in the New York Times. So the 1:12:48.720 --> 1:12:51.519 comments aren't like you're a fat, no you are, you know, 1:12:51.560 --> 1:12:55.040 they're thoughtful comments. But everyone was the same thing, like 1:12:55.240 --> 1:12:59.720 they couldn't imagine riding the subway for pleasure, and what 1:12:59.720 --> 1:13:06.560 they saw a sparkling, clean subway. You know, nobody playing music, nobody, 1:13:08.000 --> 1:13:14.719 nobody's sleeping, nobody stretched out, nobody eating. Like the rest 1:13:14.720 --> 1:13:18.040 of the world has a whole lot to recommend it, 1:13:18.400 --> 1:13:21.840 you know, really does. I just feel like it would 1:13:21.880 --> 1:13:24.920 just do everybody some good to just get out and 1:13:25.000 --> 1:13:28.240 just see what's going on in other places. 1:13:28.880 --> 1:13:32.720 Okay, for me, the more exotic the place, the more 1:13:32.760 --> 1:13:34.720 I'm into it. I mean, England is great, but they 1:13:34.760 --> 1:13:37.759 speak English. I once went on a business trip about 1:13:37.760 --> 1:13:41.679 ten years ago to Colombia and everybody who was around 1:13:41.680 --> 1:13:45.960 me they'd had a family member shot and killed. And 1:13:46.040 --> 1:13:48.760 it was just a fascinating place. So where have been 1:13:48.800 --> 1:13:51.080 the more fascinating places that you have been? 1:13:53.000 --> 1:14:01.960 Law? India, Uh, Vietnam. I'm going to Pakistan in a 1:14:02.000 --> 1:14:15.759 few months. That should be pretty interesting. Uh, Brazil was Uh, China. 1:14:17.920 --> 1:14:21.880 I mean, I'm with you, like, you know, when you've 1:14:21.920 --> 1:14:27.040 got uh, it's nice to have nothing to hold on 1:14:27.120 --> 1:14:28.960 to and you have to look at the people around 1:14:29.000 --> 1:14:32.160 you and just do what they do. And I'm always 1:14:32.160 --> 1:14:35.640 surprised by that when I traveled with other people and 1:14:35.680 --> 1:14:38.960 that they don't do that. And then I'd say, like, 1:14:39.120 --> 1:14:42.639 do you not notice that nobody is standing side by 1:14:42.640 --> 1:14:46.200 side on the escalator, like if you've not looked around 1:14:46.280 --> 1:14:48.719 and noticed that. The first time I went to Tokyo, 1:14:49.560 --> 1:14:53.400 I got off the the Narita Express in the middle 1:14:53.400 --> 1:14:55.439 of town and I lit a cigarette, and then I 1:14:55.439 --> 1:15:00.160 looked around and I noticed nobody was smoking. So I 1:15:00.200 --> 1:15:03.519 put the cigarette out, and I noticed there were no 1:15:03.720 --> 1:15:06.120 cigarette butts on the street, and I thought, we'll just 1:15:06.120 --> 1:15:08.000 put it in trash can, and I noticed there were 1:15:08.080 --> 1:15:10.719 no trash cans, so I put it in the cuff 1:15:10.760 --> 1:15:13.800 of my pants right and then threw it away when 1:15:13.800 --> 1:15:18.240 I got to my hotel. But I love when you're 1:15:18.240 --> 1:15:21.240 in a situation like that and you just don't know 1:15:21.360 --> 1:15:25.400 the rules, and it just makes you super observant. It's 1:15:26.240 --> 1:15:30.680 a gift to have to be observant like that. 1:15:32.080 --> 1:15:34.040 And where have you not been that you want to go? 1:15:36.200 --> 1:15:44.080 I've been to Africa except for Northern Africa. But I 1:15:44.160 --> 1:15:46.800 was on a plane one day and there was a 1:15:47.120 --> 1:15:52.760 I was flying from Paris to Lisbon, and there was 1:15:53.320 --> 1:15:56.280 a fellow in the window seat, and then an empty seat, 1:15:56.320 --> 1:16:00.080 and then me, and at one point the fellow in 1:16:00.120 --> 1:16:05.640 the window seat put a plastic bag of euro coins 1:16:06.160 --> 1:16:10.400 on the seat, the empty seat, And I said, is 1:16:10.439 --> 1:16:13.320 that sixty eight dollars worth of euro change? And he said, 1:16:13.360 --> 1:16:16.200 that is exactly sixty eight dollars worth of euro change. 1:16:16.960 --> 1:16:19.840 And he is a doctor, this guy, and he buys 1:16:19.960 --> 1:16:24.320 change on the internet, right, buy let's say one hundred 1:16:24.360 --> 1:16:29.559 dollars worth of change for ninety dollars, right. So he 1:16:29.680 --> 1:16:33.599 buys change and then he goes on vacation with it. 1:16:34.120 --> 1:16:36.880 But the bill will come and help. It's like he 1:16:37.040 --> 1:16:41.880 pays for a bill with twenty p and fifty p 1:16:42.960 --> 1:16:49.320 a one pound coins, right, So it was just so 1:16:49.439 --> 1:16:53.080 funny to me. Anyway, he is that turned out to 1:16:53.120 --> 1:16:57.200 be a doctor, and he travels around the world and 1:16:57.400 --> 1:17:01.519 he he does a lot of things for free, like 1:17:01.680 --> 1:17:04.759 maxillo facial surgeons, you know, like if somebody is born 1:17:04.840 --> 1:17:07.280 with and so he said, why don't you come with me? 1:17:08.640 --> 1:17:11.480 He said, because I always wanted to go to Lagos, Nigeria. 1:17:12.000 --> 1:17:15.000 You can't really go there on vacation, you know what 1:17:15.000 --> 1:17:17.439 I mean, you can't go on I don't want to 1:17:17.439 --> 1:17:19.200 go on vacation to a place where they don't have 1:17:19.240 --> 1:17:25.160 a word for vacation, you know. So but this way 1:17:25.320 --> 1:17:27.160 I could go, and I could I don't know, hold 1:17:27.240 --> 1:17:30.400 somebody down while he makes him a new nose or something, 1:17:30.520 --> 1:17:32.799 you know. And I thought, oh, that'd be the perfect 1:17:32.840 --> 1:17:40.600 way to go, because I'd like to. I'd like to. 1:17:43.120 --> 1:17:46.599 I mean, India was interesting to me, just the everybody 1:17:46.680 --> 1:17:51.599 was super sweet. But I always wanted to go to 1:17:51.640 --> 1:17:55.120 India and leave when I got thirsty, you know. But 1:17:55.600 --> 1:17:59.360 and so's I stayed three days. But the thing is 1:17:59.640 --> 1:18:02.599 when you stay for a shorter period of time, then 1:18:02.640 --> 1:18:06.080 you just see, you just notice the thing. Anyone would notice, 1:18:06.160 --> 1:18:08.760 you know, who was there. It would be like you'd 1:18:08.760 --> 1:18:11.400 go to Paris and someone said, what Paris like their 1:18:11.439 --> 1:18:14.960 dog shit everywhere. It's like, yeah, you know, if you 1:18:15.040 --> 1:18:20.559 stay longer, you get beyond that. But I didn't stay 1:18:20.560 --> 1:18:25.040 long enough to get beyond that in India. But there 1:18:25.120 --> 1:18:31.680 was shocking to see just the juxtaposition of wealth and 1:18:32.320 --> 1:18:33.400 extreme poverty. 1:18:33.760 --> 1:18:35.960 Where were you in India? 1:18:36.280 --> 1:18:37.680 In Mumbai? No. 1:18:37.840 --> 1:18:41.120 I was in Mumbai for about a week, and you 1:18:41.160 --> 1:18:44.320 saw the extreme poverty. But the other thing was I 1:18:44.439 --> 1:18:49.479 was just stunned how educated the average person was. You 1:18:49.520 --> 1:18:52.040 know that we would go for these meetings. These are 1:18:52.040 --> 1:18:54.799 all people in the entertainment business. They all had graduate degrees. 1:18:55.600 --> 1:18:57.880 It was just, you know, much more than you would 1:18:57.960 --> 1:19:03.720 see in the US, as they say, yeah, you don't 1:19:03.760 --> 1:19:06.720 want to drink the water. The funniest thing though, I 1:19:06.760 --> 1:19:09.400 was in a hotel. There's two. There's the main hotel 1:19:09.400 --> 1:19:11.320 where they have the bombing, and they have an outpost 1:19:11.360 --> 1:19:13.679 on the other end of town, which where I was standing, 1:19:14.000 --> 1:19:16.439 and I called up an uber and it was an 1:19:16.560 --> 1:19:19.200 Uber X. It looked like a Fred Flintstone car. Like 1:19:19.400 --> 1:19:22.320 the guy was using his feet together and there's a 1:19:22.400 --> 1:19:25.439 gate for security. Whatever. This guy pulls up in this car. 1:19:25.720 --> 1:19:27.759 They give me a look like they're ready to eject 1:19:27.800 --> 1:19:30.720 this guy. I didn't realize if you're in Mumbai, you 1:19:30.760 --> 1:19:34.439 get the best Uber available, which is still like nothing. 1:19:35.720 --> 1:19:38.120 So you love a good hotel, we're a couple of 1:19:38.160 --> 1:19:39.400 the great hotels you've been to. 1:19:41.720 --> 1:19:46.120 Oh gosh, well, I just stated this. Four Seasons in 1:19:46.200 --> 1:19:50.120 Tokyo that was amazing. Usually we stayed in an apartment there, 1:19:50.120 --> 1:19:55.000 but the apartment was available. But this four Seasons had 1:19:55.040 --> 1:19:59.800 a service where they would take you it was right 1:19:59.840 --> 1:20:05.639 now to the Tokyo train station, like and they would 1:20:05.800 --> 1:20:08.760 take you, walk you to Tokyo station and put you 1:20:08.880 --> 1:20:11.800 on the Narrita Express, which I don't need them to 1:20:11.800 --> 1:20:13.679 do that. I mean, I've taken it so many times. 1:20:13.840 --> 1:20:17.120 But if you'd never been to Japan before, it would 1:20:17.160 --> 1:20:19.840 be really great, you know, because there's you have an 1:20:19.840 --> 1:20:23.479 assigned seat on the train and assigned car, and if 1:20:23.479 --> 1:20:26.519 you've never been before, it might be too confusing. I mean, 1:20:27.080 --> 1:20:29.600 it would be confusing and you wouldn't be able to 1:20:29.680 --> 1:20:35.360 find your h see. But it's a service they offer 1:20:35.439 --> 1:20:37.519 that they take you there and put you on the train, 1:20:38.200 --> 1:20:40.080 And I think what I like too is that you 1:20:40.160 --> 1:20:44.360 just absolutely do not tip in Japan, you know, so 1:20:44.800 --> 1:20:47.240 it was kind of nice to have that burden lifted. 1:20:47.520 --> 1:20:50.640 So you weren't always thinking, oh is that enough? Should I? 1:20:51.000 --> 1:20:55.160 You know, should I have given more money? Should I? 1:20:55.600 --> 1:20:58.960 Like I was in I had just shown Copenhagen and 1:20:59.040 --> 1:21:03.120 I stayed at the oh gosh, what was the name 1:21:03.160 --> 1:21:08.400 of it. It was like like everybody was waiting for 1:21:08.640 --> 1:21:12.040 Deposh Mode was staying there, so there were people outside 1:21:12.080 --> 1:21:14.760 waiting for them to come out, and the next day 1:21:14.800 --> 1:21:19.720 there was like some big rap star staying there. It 1:21:19.800 --> 1:21:24.200 was like it was almost like being first class on 1:21:24.240 --> 1:21:29.040 an international flight, like like business is good enough, you know, 1:21:29.080 --> 1:21:31.840 what I mean, like first class sometimes is like just 1:21:32.479 --> 1:21:34.240 they didn't want to bother you. See, you wind up 1:21:34.240 --> 1:21:36.719 having to ask for everything, and if you're a timid person, 1:21:36.840 --> 1:21:39.639 it just, you know what I mean, you just think, oh, 1:21:39.960 --> 1:21:42.960 just put me back in business class. And that hotel 1:21:43.160 --> 1:21:49.240 was like that. Sometimes when it's so you know, so grand, 1:21:49.400 --> 1:21:56.280 you just feel well, uncomfortable. I suppose would be the word. 1:21:57.520 --> 1:22:06.080 I love the gosh I used to. I always loved 1:22:06.160 --> 1:22:10.439 that built Moore in Santa Barbara, and oh yeah, it's 1:22:10.520 --> 1:22:12.719 right on the beach. But there's some kind of labor 1:22:12.760 --> 1:22:16.720 dispute or something and it's closed now. 1:22:17.000 --> 1:22:18.720 There was I haven't kept up with that. I know 1:22:18.760 --> 1:22:20.679 there was a labor dispute. 1:22:20.320 --> 1:22:24.920 But it's just sitting there empty. Now. I've never found 1:22:25.000 --> 1:22:28.360 my hotel in Los Angeles. I mean I go there 1:22:28.400 --> 1:22:31.000 a lot, and I've stayed in a million places, but 1:22:31.040 --> 1:22:32.480 I've never found. 1:22:32.479 --> 1:22:36.040 Okay, okay. So if I say you're going someplace, it 1:22:36.080 --> 1:22:40.240 can go to the Four Seasons, and we know every 1:22:40.280 --> 1:22:45.679 four Seasons is not physically identical, although they are very similar. 1:22:46.640 --> 1:22:48.679 Or I could say you can go to the one 1:22:48.760 --> 1:22:53.559 off special hotel rated as well. But you're listening to 1:22:53.600 --> 1:22:55.519 the travel agent. It's not like you're talking to five 1:22:55.560 --> 1:22:57.840 people who went there. Which one are you going to choose? 1:23:00.400 --> 1:23:03.679 Wait, my choices? Are you telling me to go somewhere? 1:23:03.760 --> 1:23:06.400 No, you're going somewhere. You got to choose a hotel. 1:23:06.439 --> 1:23:10.400 It could be the Four Seasons, my known quantity. 1:23:10.560 --> 1:23:14.519 Yeah, or a uh. I'm probably gonna go with the 1:23:14.560 --> 1:23:16.880 Four Seasons. I'm not proud of myself for saying that, 1:23:17.240 --> 1:23:21.080 but it's all about a pillow to me. You know 1:23:22.200 --> 1:23:25.960 about a really soft pillow in the Four Seasons. I 1:23:26.000 --> 1:23:28.120 know what the pillows and sheets are like, and they're 1:23:28.120 --> 1:23:33.040 really it feels really good to be between those sheets 1:23:33.280 --> 1:23:36.640 with your head on that pillow. I remember being with 1:23:36.680 --> 1:23:40.400 my dad one time and we were driving from Illinois 1:23:40.439 --> 1:23:45.200 to Tennessee and every place he stopped was like, oh, 1:23:45.280 --> 1:23:48.519 I don't know, Like it was McDonald's and it was 1:23:49.080 --> 1:23:52.280 everything was a chain, and I said, why are we 1:23:52.400 --> 1:23:55.760 doing this? And he said, because yeah, I know what 1:23:55.800 --> 1:24:01.000 you're gonna get. And then I remember because we passed 1:24:01.000 --> 1:24:03.320 all these great places and he wouldn't stop at any 1:24:03.360 --> 1:24:07.559 of them. So I hate being that way with you know, 1:24:07.680 --> 1:24:10.120 to say, oh, I'll stay at the Four Seasons rather 1:24:10.240 --> 1:24:16.840 than the one off hotel that we like. Do you 1:24:16.840 --> 1:24:18.479 go to Portland, Oregon? Very often? 1:24:18.920 --> 1:24:20.800 No? I've been there, but not often. 1:24:21.080 --> 1:24:24.200 Okay, because I used to stay at the Heathmen, and 1:24:24.240 --> 1:24:27.000 then someone said, oh, you have to stay at the Nines. Right, 1:24:27.560 --> 1:24:31.160 that's where the basketball players stay. But the Nines is 1:24:31.960 --> 1:24:34.280 used to be a department store. So unless you have 1:24:34.439 --> 1:24:36.880 one of the windows facing the street, you're in an 1:24:36.880 --> 1:24:40.160 interior courtyards. You know, you look out the window and 1:24:40.200 --> 1:24:43.000 you see the restaurant. You know. I can't stand that 1:24:43.120 --> 1:24:43.639 kind of a thing. 1:24:43.720 --> 1:24:46.560 No, No, it's like that big hotel in Nashville. 1:24:46.920 --> 1:24:49.280 Well, I like the Hermitage in Nashville. 1:24:49.360 --> 1:24:52.120 Yeah, but Andrew the one convention hotel where everything looks 1:24:52.120 --> 1:24:55.679 in on a courtyard. It's very very weird. But whatever 1:24:55.720 --> 1:24:55.920 they do. 1:24:56.640 --> 1:24:59.479 Well, see, I like the Hermitage. And then they opened 1:24:59.479 --> 1:25:04.479 a four seat Seasons in Nashville. And then I think, well, 1:25:04.560 --> 1:25:10.000 I don't want to be disloyal to the Hermitage. And 1:25:10.040 --> 1:25:13.400 the Hermitage has really nice sheets, you know, so I 1:25:13.439 --> 1:25:18.120 think that's the situation where I would remain loyal to them. Right. 1:25:19.240 --> 1:25:23.760 But in Portland, the Heathman then got sold and we 1:25:23.840 --> 1:25:26.439 just went right down the tubes the Nines. But then 1:25:26.479 --> 1:25:30.080 they opened a Ritz Carlton, and I can't wait to 1:25:30.120 --> 1:25:33.680 stay there because I don't feel a need to be 1:25:33.880 --> 1:25:38.880 loyal to those other places, because they both let me down. 1:25:39.400 --> 1:25:43.519 I'd hate to be elitist like this. But isn't the 1:25:43.600 --> 1:25:48.400 four seasons more dependable than the rich Carleton? 1:25:50.360 --> 1:25:53.200 Yeah? It is right, But I always stay at the 1:25:53.280 --> 1:25:58.120 Ritz Carlton in Chicago always, and I'm never not interested 1:25:58.160 --> 1:26:00.599 in trying any other hotel there. I mean I have 1:26:00.760 --> 1:26:04.080 before I found them. It's Carlton, but I think because 1:26:04.160 --> 1:26:10.960 they can keep staff, you know, So I don't know, 1:26:11.080 --> 1:26:14.200 I just really I just like everything about it, and 1:26:14.240 --> 1:26:17.200 I like the restaurant, and I like the and I 1:26:17.280 --> 1:26:20.640 know that sounds you know, I know what that sounds like. 1:26:20.800 --> 1:26:24.519 But I'm never the one paining for my room. If 1:26:24.520 --> 1:26:26.960 someone else is paying for your room, why don't you 1:26:27.040 --> 1:26:28.160 get the best room in twn? 1:26:28.439 --> 1:26:29.040 Exactly? 1:26:29.880 --> 1:26:32.960 And then if I'm going to forty two cities in 1:26:33.040 --> 1:26:36.040 forty four days, I can do that. I can go 1:26:36.080 --> 1:26:41.240 to forty two cities in forty four days. But being 1:26:41.439 --> 1:26:44.719 in a nice hotel just makes it easier. 1:26:45.640 --> 1:26:48.360 You know, you got to ask for it. Otherwise they'll 1:26:48.360 --> 1:26:51.439 give you. You learn that over time. It's built in 1:26:51.520 --> 1:26:55.000 if you ask, and it makes such a difference. It's 1:26:55.040 --> 1:26:55.559 really cool. 1:26:55.640 --> 1:26:58.120 One thing I learned a long time ago on a 1:26:58.160 --> 1:27:00.920 book tour, right, Because sometimes you go on a book 1:27:00.920 --> 1:27:04.479 tour and the publicist will say the bookstore recommended this hotel. 1:27:04.560 --> 1:27:06.080 I'm like, no, now, new, new, new. 1:27:06.320 --> 1:27:06.599 Never. 1:27:07.360 --> 1:27:10.320 They make it sound like the like, what I need 1:27:10.360 --> 1:27:14.439 is something within walking distance. I said, no, I don't 1:27:14.479 --> 1:27:18.320 want walking distance. I want a nice hotel. 1:27:19.040 --> 1:27:21.160 Yeah, the whole I was in Toronto last week, the 1:27:21.200 --> 1:27:23.040 same thing you wanted. First of all, Toronto is not 1:27:23.080 --> 1:27:27.200 that big. They put me in a hotel. God, worst 1:27:27.240 --> 1:27:31.880 hotel I stayedd in years. But uh, if you're in 1:27:31.920 --> 1:27:34.720 the hotel, will you venture out for food or you 1:27:34.880 --> 1:27:36.320 a room service kind of guy. 1:27:37.439 --> 1:27:41.479 I don't like room service because it's your room, but 1:27:41.600 --> 1:27:45.839 then somebody comes into it, and then it they violated 1:27:45.880 --> 1:27:49.320 your space, even though and it's crazy to say that 1:27:50.040 --> 1:27:57.160 because it's not really yours, but it just feels like. So. 1:27:58.120 --> 1:28:00.000 I usually eat dinner while I signed books. 1:28:01.840 --> 1:28:03.599 Is that part of your contract? Part of your deal? 1:28:03.640 --> 1:28:04.479 They serve your dinner? 1:28:05.200 --> 1:28:08.080 Well, otherwise, by the time I get back to the hotel. 1:28:08.360 --> 1:28:10.880 It's midnight or one, and it's going to take an 1:28:10.920 --> 1:28:14.639 hour for the food to come. And then when I'm 1:28:14.680 --> 1:28:16.680 on tour, I just go back to the room and 1:28:16.720 --> 1:28:20.960 go right to bed. So I eat did it while 1:28:21.000 --> 1:28:23.000 I signed books and they bring me menus and I 1:28:23.120 --> 1:28:26.080 choose something. I'm not a big you know, I'm not 1:28:26.120 --> 1:28:28.960 a snob about food, but I can't be anything I 1:28:29.000 --> 1:28:31.120 eat with my hands because I have just signed books. 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:41.360 Okay, so you're legendarily will stay there until the last 1:28:41.400 --> 1:28:45.920 person is there, and you talk to those people. If 1:28:45.920 --> 1:28:50.600 you're talking for hours a night to the guests, be 1:28:50.680 --> 1:28:52.360 I know that you want people to tell you jokes, 1:28:52.360 --> 1:28:54.760 et cetera. How many times do you have an A 1:28:54.920 --> 1:28:57.160 level experience talking to all those people? 1:29:00.520 --> 1:29:13.000 If I'm lucky, I'm lucky twice a week. When I 1:29:13.040 --> 1:29:16.400 say a level, I mean like they just told me 1:29:16.439 --> 1:29:20.840 a story and it's like unbelievable. And I don't mean 1:29:20.880 --> 1:29:23.040 they were saving it up to tell me, right, I 1:29:23.080 --> 1:29:26.120 mean we got to talking and then I learned something 1:29:26.200 --> 1:29:29.200 that's like wow, you know that just blows my mind. 1:29:30.040 --> 1:29:31.080 Tell me a couple of those. 1:29:32.479 --> 1:29:35.760 A woman she said, oh, you have the same My 1:29:36.479 --> 1:29:39.400 father was just like yours. She said, he just never 1:29:39.600 --> 1:29:42.080 liked me. And when she was young, she was sitting 1:29:42.120 --> 1:29:44.840 on a fence and there was a German shepherd on 1:29:44.880 --> 1:29:46.240 the other side of it, and it came and it 1:29:46.360 --> 1:29:50.320 bit her hand and it bit through her hand right, so, 1:29:50.760 --> 1:29:52.599 and her father said, you know, this is all your 1:29:52.640 --> 1:29:54.880 fault and took her to the hospital and was yelling 1:29:54.920 --> 1:29:56.920 at her the whole time. And then he said, you know, 1:29:57.040 --> 1:29:59.760 I'm going back to that house. And she thought, oh, 1:30:00.040 --> 1:30:02.479 that's going to go and cause some real trouble. Her 1:30:02.520 --> 1:30:05.160 father went and bought one of the puppies. It turned 1:30:05.200 --> 1:30:07.759 out the dog that bit her had puppies. He bought 1:30:07.760 --> 1:30:10.000 one of the puppies and brought it home, so the 1:30:10.040 --> 1:30:16.760 girl had to raise it. Isn't that isn't that like 1:30:16.880 --> 1:30:22.400 that's a level story. That's that's really good. 1:30:23.000 --> 1:30:28.360 Wow? Yeah, okay, do you do this to get the 1:30:28.439 --> 1:30:30.479 love of your father that you didn't get? 1:30:32.920 --> 1:30:36.920 Uh? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think everybody 1:30:37.000 --> 1:30:42.519 who maybe not everybody, but I mean I think usually 1:30:42.520 --> 1:30:45.519 people who perform or whatever are trying to fill some hole, 1:30:46.400 --> 1:30:53.519 you know, and it's maybe it's a different hole for everybody. 1:30:53.560 --> 1:30:53.720 But. 1:30:56.439 --> 1:30:58.599 I don't know. When I was young, I just wanted 1:30:58.640 --> 1:31:01.519 to I wanted to walk into a room and have 1:31:01.640 --> 1:31:07.760 people say that damn and just I was just going 1:31:07.840 --> 1:31:10.280 to die if that didn't happen, you know, I'm just 1:31:10.320 --> 1:31:13.559 gonna die if I didn't. Then when I was in school, 1:31:13.640 --> 1:31:16.840 I part school, I would I would just think, like, 1:31:17.120 --> 1:31:19.439 give me a sign, Like somebody in this room is 1:31:19.439 --> 1:31:22.320 going to make it. Just give me a sign, you know, 1:31:22.560 --> 1:31:26.040 like let me know who it is. And I think, 1:31:26.160 --> 1:31:28.360 like most people. I remember there was this guy when 1:31:28.400 --> 1:31:31.640 I lived in Chicago, when he was really he was 1:31:31.680 --> 1:31:35.880 a boy. He was an alcoholic, you know, go to 1:31:35.960 --> 1:31:39.040 a do a reading and then afterwards punch somebody in 1:31:39.080 --> 1:31:43.280 the face and then be found passed out on the 1:31:43.280 --> 1:31:46.559 street the next day. And he was super good looking. 1:31:46.720 --> 1:31:49.639 And I remember thinking, Oh, he's going to be famous, 1:31:49.680 --> 1:31:53.680 And then I thought, why it's just said he's his 1:31:53.760 --> 1:31:58.719 writing's not good. He's just good looking and he looks 1:31:58.720 --> 1:32:03.599 good passed out, you know. So I think we all 1:32:03.680 --> 1:32:07.120 tend to put our bets on that person. You know, 1:32:07.560 --> 1:32:12.280 we're gonna we're gonna put our money on you know, 1:32:12.479 --> 1:32:15.839 really super good looking person or a super popular person 1:32:16.160 --> 1:32:20.920 or but it's not always that person, you know. Uh, 1:32:22.360 --> 1:32:24.720 And I remember thinking like, well, then it could be me. 1:32:24.920 --> 1:32:26.880 If it's not always that person, it can be me, 1:32:27.760 --> 1:32:34.200 you know. And you know it's just a midget celebrity. 1:32:34.400 --> 1:32:37.800 You know, it's not an everyone in the world knows 1:32:37.800 --> 1:32:42.040 who I am. But enough I just have enough people 1:32:42.720 --> 1:32:46.879 know who I am to fill a theater. I'm happy, okay, 1:32:47.080 --> 1:32:49.560 And again it could be more. You know, I'm a publisher. 1:32:49.600 --> 1:32:51.280 What we say, we need to take this to the 1:32:51.320 --> 1:32:54.400 next level, and I would say, no, we don't. Let's 1:32:54.439 --> 1:32:56.840 say I have a really good audience, and one of 1:32:56.880 --> 1:32:58.960 the things they like about me is that I've never 1:32:59.040 --> 1:33:03.519 treated them like they're not good enough, you know, like, oh, 1:33:03.560 --> 1:33:05.960 you're a good starter, audience, but I can do better 1:33:06.000 --> 1:33:09.240 than you. I can't do better than them, I really can't. 1:33:09.360 --> 1:33:12.240 And I don't know that those other people would be 1:33:12.320 --> 1:33:14.200 loyal the way that these people are. 1:33:15.080 --> 1:33:18.080 However, the nature of being an artist is you always 1:33:18.160 --> 1:33:22.479 want your work to reach more people. Now, live is 1:33:22.560 --> 1:33:25.479 one thing, in book is another. But let's just talk 1:33:25.520 --> 1:33:28.360 about the book side. Do you have a desire always 1:33:28.400 --> 1:33:30.120 to reach a larger populace? 1:33:32.720 --> 1:33:38.599 Uh? Well, I think my books except for the first 1:33:38.640 --> 1:33:43.040 book and then a book of fiction that I wrote, 1:33:44.960 --> 1:33:47.479 my first and second book, and a book of fiction 1:33:47.600 --> 1:33:50.200 I wrote. So ten of my books have been number 1:33:50.200 --> 1:33:52.479 one on the New York Times bestseller list, right, so 1:33:54.000 --> 1:34:00.320 that doesn't you know, me doesn't get better than that. Now, 1:34:00.320 --> 1:34:08.960 if a book didn't reach number one, I'd be pretty meserable. Now, 1:34:09.040 --> 1:34:12.479 I figure when I talk about a bigger audience, I 1:34:12.560 --> 1:34:18.960 mean it's hard because well, there's an audience that pays 1:34:19.000 --> 1:34:21.200 for stuff, and then there's an audience, do you know 1:34:21.240 --> 1:34:28.760 what I mean? And now paying for something's a choice, right, 1:34:29.280 --> 1:34:35.920 you feel benevolent if you paid for something, Right, you're 1:34:36.000 --> 1:34:39.000 the big man because you paid two dollars for a 1:34:39.080 --> 1:34:43.479 song instead of just getting it for free. Right. And 1:34:43.520 --> 1:34:47.400 it's easy to get my books for free. And now 1:34:47.400 --> 1:34:50.280 there's some kind of a national library where you can 1:34:50.320 --> 1:34:53.799 get the audio books for free, you know. So really 1:34:53.920 --> 1:34:58.559 the only so if you look at book sales, right, 1:34:58.720 --> 1:35:01.720 those are down, but they're not down, I don't know 1:35:01.920 --> 1:35:04.639 because fewer people are reading my books. It's just fewer 1:35:04.640 --> 1:35:11.360 people are paying for my books, right, Yeah, And that's 1:35:11.479 --> 1:35:14.120 like that, It's like that for everybody now. 1:35:14.960 --> 1:35:20.000 And where do you stand on the digital versus print divide. 1:35:20.439 --> 1:35:24.639 Uh, I don't I understand that a lot of people. 1:35:24.920 --> 1:35:27.439 I'd like, I'm not a person who needs to hold 1:35:27.479 --> 1:35:32.400 onto books, you know, So I get books. I buy 1:35:32.439 --> 1:35:36.120 digital books, you know, every now and then. I mean, 1:35:36.160 --> 1:35:39.840 if a friend has a book out, I buy the audiobook, 1:35:40.200 --> 1:35:43.800 I buy the physical book, and usually I buy the 1:35:43.840 --> 1:35:46.080 digital book as well, because if I want to quote, 1:35:46.400 --> 1:35:48.880 you know, quote long passages, that's easy to do with 1:35:48.960 --> 1:35:51.560 that with the digital book, and then email little passages 1:35:51.560 --> 1:35:55.960 to yourself. I mean, I'll go all out, you know, 1:35:56.080 --> 1:36:00.439 if it's uh God, I want that person to have sales. 1:36:00.479 --> 1:36:04.799 I want those sales to register. I want I want 1:36:05.960 --> 1:36:07.719 success for that person. 1:36:09.000 --> 1:36:15.480 You're a very competitive person, though you have a unique act. 1:36:15.840 --> 1:36:19.360 Who is in your league? I know you're suey generous, 1:36:19.479 --> 1:36:22.640 but when you think about people who read live, do 1:36:22.680 --> 1:36:26.080 you say I'm the bests or anybody else to say, well, 1:36:26.080 --> 1:36:27.240 that person's competition. 1:36:29.000 --> 1:36:32.800 I don't know who else does it really well? Neil 1:36:32.960 --> 1:36:35.599 Neil Gaiman, I think. I mean, I have a lecture agent, 1:36:35.720 --> 1:36:40.160 and he has other clients, you know, but I don't 1:36:40.160 --> 1:36:43.040 think they work. They don't work like I do. They 1:36:43.080 --> 1:36:46.880 don't go to one hundred cities a year. Now, sometimes 1:36:48.520 --> 1:36:50.479 they don't go to one hundred cities a year because 1:36:52.000 --> 1:36:54.400 you know, Zadi Smith could go to one hundred cities 1:36:54.439 --> 1:36:56.920 a year, but she doesn't want to. She's got a family, 1:36:57.160 --> 1:37:01.120 she doesn't want to leave them. She doesn'tay it. You know, 1:37:03.080 --> 1:37:04.800 there are a lot of people who don't do it 1:37:04.880 --> 1:37:11.640 because they don't enjoy it. I enjoy it, and uh 1:37:12.479 --> 1:37:16.360 one Garrison Keeler. He I mean he would have his show, 1:37:16.479 --> 1:37:20.040 but also he would go out and just read and 1:37:20.640 --> 1:37:24.040 recite things from you know, recite poetry and read things 1:37:24.040 --> 1:37:31.759 from books. But I don't really know who else does it? Really? 1:37:31.840 --> 1:37:36.240 I mean, who goes on a reading tour? 1:37:37.920 --> 1:37:40.320 I don't. There is nobody else. And you have to 1:37:40.320 --> 1:37:44.000 be credited for building this unique business, both the business 1:37:44.040 --> 1:37:46.760 itself and the art upon which it's based. But what 1:37:46.880 --> 1:37:50.960 we've established here is there's a gamification in your life 1:37:51.320 --> 1:37:54.640 and there's a ladder. Now, maybe the fact that this 1:37:54.840 --> 1:37:58.640 is separate works in you say, I'm unique if you 1:37:58.680 --> 1:38:00.800 want what I'm delivered and you can only get it 1:38:00.840 --> 1:38:05.280 from me, and I have a status, But it's always 1:38:06.280 --> 1:38:11.000 in the overall sphere. I mean, you've established with duo 1:38:11.160 --> 1:38:13.880 lingo and all these other things. Where you are on 1:38:13.960 --> 1:38:15.960 the ladder, where you are in the landscape is very 1:38:15.960 --> 1:38:16.680 important to you. 1:38:19.360 --> 1:38:23.040 I guess it is. I mean, I don't feel competitive 1:38:23.640 --> 1:38:29.479 with other writers. I don't feel competitive, like, no, I don't. 1:38:29.560 --> 1:38:36.880 I feel like I celebrate them because I think my 1:38:36.960 --> 1:38:43.400 boyfriend Hugh, his French is perfect. Right, So if someone 1:38:43.680 --> 1:38:47.320 speaks lousy French, Hugh says, no, their French is good, 1:38:47.920 --> 1:38:52.519 because he's confident enough to feel that about people, you know. 1:38:53.280 --> 1:39:03.000 So I don't feel I don't feel what's the word, 1:39:03.120 --> 1:39:09.400 uncomfident about what I have. I don't feel like it's threatened. 1:39:09.520 --> 1:39:12.960 I don't feel like I mean, I feel like I'm 1:39:12.960 --> 1:39:14.920 in a pretty good place with it. And so that 1:39:15.080 --> 1:39:27.040 allows me, I think, to feel generous towards my fellow writers. 1:39:27.800 --> 1:39:35.120 I I don't feel like I I don't know. I know, 1:39:35.240 --> 1:39:41.479 I don't feel competitive, I guess because what we're doing 1:39:41.600 --> 1:39:46.280 is so different. And then also it's not like if 1:39:46.360 --> 1:39:48.920 you look at the best seller list, it's like a 1:39:48.920 --> 1:39:52.280 little lot of really shitty books on the bestself, you 1:39:52.320 --> 1:39:54.240 know what I mean. So it doesn't mean that my 1:39:54.320 --> 1:39:58.479 book is good, right if it's number one, And if 1:39:58.479 --> 1:40:01.360 I look at what's around me, like that's really you 1:40:01.400 --> 1:40:03.760 know what I mean, Like Tucker Carlson's number two. So 1:40:03.880 --> 1:40:11.360 it's not like it's rewarding, wonderful writing. So it doesn't 1:40:12.840 --> 1:40:17.800 It's just a sales that's just about sales. I'm not. 1:40:21.439 --> 1:40:27.160 I but does it make sense because I said Sam, 1:40:28.320 --> 1:40:31.960 I mean I'm I mean, I'm driven. 1:40:36.040 --> 1:40:39.840 I don't know if that's the same as competitive. 1:40:41.640 --> 1:40:45.360 Well, you're definitely driven. I mean, I don't need to 1:40:45.360 --> 1:40:48.960 psychoanalyze you. I'm not a professional anyway, but you do 1:40:49.200 --> 1:40:52.479 have the situation with dual lingo for let's go back 1:40:52.520 --> 1:40:56.080 the other way. People who are don't have your level 1:40:56.120 --> 1:41:01.000 of success have no idea how hard it is to 1:41:01.000 --> 1:41:04.879 be that successful. They have no idea of the drive, 1:41:05.520 --> 1:41:10.160 They have no idea of the constant focus and what 1:41:10.200 --> 1:41:15.360 the sacrifices are. So the people who reach an iconic level, 1:41:15.439 --> 1:41:20.960 which you have, okay, there is something inside them that 1:41:21.080 --> 1:41:24.719 made them iconic. They may be talented enough to be iconic, 1:41:25.160 --> 1:41:28.640 but there was something inside as you say, you mean 1:41:28.920 --> 1:41:31.320 you said it. He let somebody talk long enough. You 1:41:31.400 --> 1:41:33.599 wanted to be the person to say, oh that's little 1:41:33.680 --> 1:41:36.559 David over here, Yeah, we'd come. He play he's the guy. 1:41:37.600 --> 1:41:41.759 And if you didn't have that, I think, as you said, 1:41:41.880 --> 1:41:44.120 you said, if your book wasn't number one, you'd be 1:41:44.160 --> 1:41:48.559 greatly disappointed. Where someone could call you up and say, oh, well, 1:41:48.640 --> 1:41:51.519 this week, this politician put out a book. They only 1:41:51.520 --> 1:41:53.920 sold ten thousand, and they gave away a certain number 1:41:53.960 --> 1:41:57.680 for free. You would say, no, it has to be 1:41:57.840 --> 1:42:00.960 number one, not because of any honey, I'm gonna make 1:42:01.040 --> 1:42:02.920 no one's going to give me an award or whatever. 1:42:03.240 --> 1:42:06.880 It's an internal thing, and I would think if it 1:42:07.000 --> 1:42:10.400 wasn't number one, as you said, you go into a tailspin. 1:42:10.479 --> 1:42:12.719 I don't know how long that tailspin lasts two days, 1:42:12.720 --> 1:42:15.680 two months, whatever, and you're going to say, fuck this, 1:42:15.960 --> 1:42:17.360 I'm going to show him next time. 1:42:18.720 --> 1:42:23.400 Well, because everybody's waiting, you know, nothing lasts forever, you know, 1:42:23.640 --> 1:42:26.280 so I'm always waiting to get to the theater and they'll 1:42:26.360 --> 1:42:28.720 be like, oh, we had to cancel the show. You know, 1:42:29.320 --> 1:42:33.160 well the only twenty tickets sold. I mean, it's going 1:42:33.240 --> 1:42:38.280 to happen, and I'm just always waiting for it, right, 1:42:38.840 --> 1:42:42.080 But I don't want it to be my fault. I mean, 1:42:42.240 --> 1:42:44.680 it could be my fault because people are tired of me. 1:42:44.800 --> 1:42:46.439 But I don't want it to be my fault because 1:42:46.439 --> 1:42:48.240 it was lazy, you know what I mean, I don't 1:42:48.240 --> 1:42:50.000 want it to be my fault movement. I got out 1:42:50.040 --> 1:42:53.519 there and thought, like, I'll just read something old or 1:42:54.240 --> 1:42:58.959 it doesn't matter, you know, it's just it's just a kipsie. 1:42:59.200 --> 1:43:02.920 It doesn't really mean any difference. I don't ever, I 1:43:02.960 --> 1:43:07.240 don't ever, I don't know. I read an interview with 1:43:07.320 --> 1:43:11.439 Tony Bennett or it was a Terry Gross interviewed Tony Bennett, right, 1:43:11.720 --> 1:43:16.240 and it was so beautiful to hear him talk about 1:43:16.240 --> 1:43:25.560 his audience and just talk about uh, just the gratitude 1:43:25.600 --> 1:43:27.559 and respect that he had. You know, it was a 1:43:27.760 --> 1:43:31.640 really I'm going to say that's old fashioned thing, but 1:43:31.720 --> 1:43:35.040 I don't. I don't think it is. I mean, I 1:43:35.080 --> 1:43:37.519 know that there are acts who will get up there 1:43:37.560 --> 1:43:40.240 and just if they're contracted for forty minutes, they will 1:43:40.320 --> 1:43:42.760 only do forty minutes and not one second later. And 1:43:42.800 --> 1:43:44.439 I know there are people who show up at the 1:43:44.439 --> 1:43:48.679 theater and you know, they watch basketball games in the hotel, 1:43:48.880 --> 1:43:52.080 you know, in the backstage while the audience waits an hour, 1:43:52.280 --> 1:43:58.599 two hours, you know, but you know, I'm sure Bonnie 1:43:58.680 --> 1:44:03.200 Rait gives everything she's got to be. I mean, there's 1:44:03.360 --> 1:44:06.200 plenty of plenty of people out there who. 1:44:06.200 --> 1:44:08.760 Just well, let's go the other extreme, because you're talking 1:44:08.800 --> 1:44:12.280 about the person, the person who's phoning it in. Then 1:44:12.360 --> 1:44:15.280 we have people like Bruce Springsteen. When I say about 1:44:15.320 --> 1:44:17.960 Bruce Springsteen, I have no problem with Bruce Springsteen, I 1:44:18.000 --> 1:44:22.600 just hate his audience. These people become prisoners of the audience, 1:44:23.600 --> 1:44:25.479 like he split up from the Eastreet Band. This is 1:44:25.520 --> 1:44:29.720 thirty years ago now, and everybody got all this negative blowback. 1:44:30.080 --> 1:44:33.240 If Bruce Springsteen were to come out and play for 1:44:33.280 --> 1:44:35.559 an hour and a half, people would go say, well, 1:44:35.600 --> 1:44:37.720 you know, you're letting us down. He was charging one 1:44:37.800 --> 1:44:41.080 hundred dollars and people said that was too much, So 1:44:41.439 --> 1:44:44.920 you can ultimately, you know, this is an interesting thing. 1:44:44.960 --> 1:44:50.080 This is we're talking about musicians. Neil Young has survived 1:44:50.240 --> 1:44:53.280 by constantly decimating his audience, saying I'm not going to 1:44:53.360 --> 1:44:58.080 give you what you're looking for. Okay. You know you're 1:44:58.280 --> 1:45:03.280 different in terms of writing because most writers don't have 1:45:03.360 --> 1:45:06.719 this profile. Zadie Smith has a new book, but White 1:45:06.720 --> 1:45:12.639 Teeth was the first book huge footprint in America. Now. 1:45:12.800 --> 1:45:16.080 Zadie Smith is from the UK, but in America your 1:45:16.240 --> 1:45:20.000 level of reach is probably three or four times that 1:45:20.120 --> 1:45:24.880 of Zadie Smith. It's a whole completely different league. As 1:45:24.920 --> 1:45:28.360 I say, you are an entertainer in addition to being 1:45:28.400 --> 1:45:32.120 a writer, and that makes all the You know, this 1:45:32.200 --> 1:45:35.679 is the opposite of what's his name, Pinchon. You don't 1:45:35.720 --> 1:45:38.200 know where he lives and he's just ekeing out a book. 1:45:38.439 --> 1:45:42.599 You are very accessible. You are working it even though 1:45:42.640 --> 1:45:46.400 you're not singing songs. You're doing something traditional that many 1:45:46.439 --> 1:45:50.840 people do live, which makes it both fascinating and I'm 1:45:50.880 --> 1:45:54.599 sure you feeling you're walking that tightrope. You can't say, well, 1:45:54.640 --> 1:45:57.439 this person does it. Their audience is steady. That person 1:45:57.479 --> 1:46:00.040 ever started. Oh, in Cleveland, business is pretty good. But 1:46:00.240 --> 1:46:03.519 every time you go out, it's just you. The nature 1:46:03.520 --> 1:46:07.360 of writing is private. But let me just put it 1:46:07.439 --> 1:46:10.439 another way, and you mentioned it going to Germany next week. 1:46:10.520 --> 1:46:15.120 To what degree is the audience in your mind when 1:46:15.200 --> 1:46:15.799 you write? 1:46:17.960 --> 1:46:23.479 Uh? Very much. I mean I'm thinking, I'm thinking when 1:46:23.520 --> 1:46:26.960 I'm writing something, I think, oh, that's been a long contince. 1:46:27.000 --> 1:46:29.040 I've had any dialogue that's going to be boring to 1:46:29.080 --> 1:46:33.519 an audience, you know, or gosh, that's a lot of 1:46:33.560 --> 1:46:36.759 information right there. I should break that up into smaller 1:46:36.800 --> 1:46:39.120 portions because that's going to be boring to an audience. 1:46:39.800 --> 1:46:42.000 Or oh, I could do this is my voice when 1:46:42.000 --> 1:46:44.760 I read this out loud? Or that'll be fun. It 1:46:44.760 --> 1:46:46.599 would be more fun to do it, then I should. 1:46:46.640 --> 1:46:49.760 What if I whispered that? So I think about it 1:46:50.040 --> 1:46:53.120 a lot. I'm going to think about the performative aspect 1:46:53.160 --> 1:46:53.360 of it. 1:46:53.960 --> 1:46:56.479 Well what about the reverse? You say, this is what 1:46:56.520 --> 1:46:58.000 I want to do, but I know I'm going to 1:46:58.080 --> 1:47:01.280 lose the audience a little bit, orclosing the audience. 1:47:02.840 --> 1:47:07.160 Uh, well, you know, just thinking about that because I 1:47:07.200 --> 1:47:10.840 was writing something about my friend Dawn, one of my 1:47:10.880 --> 1:47:11.639 oldest friends. 1:47:12.479 --> 1:47:13.960 Does she live in Montrose? 1:47:15.320 --> 1:47:17.640 No, No, she came with She comes with me on 1:47:17.680 --> 1:47:23.840 tour sometimes. Okay, we both hate dogs. Nothing will it 1:47:23.840 --> 1:47:29.280 cause you to lose an audience more? I'm you hate dogs? 1:47:30.160 --> 1:47:33.320 People you just feel them leaving you, you know what 1:47:33.360 --> 1:47:37.040 I mean? Like you could say you hate children, not 1:47:37.200 --> 1:47:41.360 a problem, right. Uh, you say you hate Catholics, they'll 1:47:41.560 --> 1:47:44.160 find a way to forgive you. But if you hate dogs, 1:47:44.479 --> 1:47:48.080 oh my goodness. So just thinking about putting that in 1:47:48.080 --> 1:47:52.519 this essay, that I'm writing that done dogs, and I 1:47:52.640 --> 1:47:57.439 thought I just thought about it, you know, because really 1:47:57.560 --> 1:48:01.240 people get so upset when you don't like dogs, so. 1:48:01.160 --> 1:48:02.679 You got to put it in or leave it out. 1:48:04.479 --> 1:48:12.080 Ah, I don't know, I don't know. I think I 1:48:12.160 --> 1:48:15.200 mean Don really, Don hates dogs so much that she 1:48:17.000 --> 1:48:19.719 will like cross the street if she sees one coming. 1:48:20.000 --> 1:48:22.799 Like she's very She's the kind of person who doesn't 1:48:22.800 --> 1:48:26.479 like cigarette smoke but goes like this. You know, it's 1:48:26.640 --> 1:48:29.240 kind of overkill, right, you know, you can just sort 1:48:29.240 --> 1:48:32.599 of quietly hate a dog. You know, you don't need 1:48:32.640 --> 1:48:35.280 to make a big show about it. And I've often 1:48:35.360 --> 1:48:38.040 pointed that out to her. But I would love to 1:48:38.040 --> 1:48:40.599 get on an airplane and not have a full sized 1:48:40.640 --> 1:48:43.080 dog sitting next to me on the airplane. I'd love that. 1:48:44.240 --> 1:48:47.120 Oh yeah, but you know, what you're act is such 1:48:47.160 --> 1:48:50.360 that you're breaking taboos all along. But you're just saying 1:48:50.439 --> 1:48:52.160 dogs is the third rail? 1:48:52.720 --> 1:48:53.680 Yeah, it really is. 1:48:57.200 --> 1:49:01.479 Okay, let's talk about woke it politically incorrect. You tell 1:49:01.720 --> 1:49:06.200 phenomenal jokes. The joke you said about you know, the 1:49:06.240 --> 1:49:09.280 size of a woman's vagina whatever, I've told that a 1:49:09.360 --> 1:49:14.599 million times, That the one about the railroad. I've heard 1:49:14.680 --> 1:49:18.360 that a friend of mine tells that whatever. But by 1:49:18.479 --> 1:49:23.160 traditional standards, many people would say these are off color, 1:49:23.200 --> 1:49:28.120 politically incorrect. How come you get away with it when 1:49:28.160 --> 1:49:28.880 no one else can? 1:49:31.080 --> 1:49:32.920 Well, I don't know, I mean, but those jokes are 1:49:32.960 --> 1:49:37.479 nothing to me, I mean are not. I don't you know. 1:49:38.400 --> 1:49:40.920 Someone told me that I didn't write them. I'm just 1:49:41.000 --> 1:49:44.240 repeating them. But I can see how that doesn't make 1:49:44.240 --> 1:49:49.680 any difference if you're in front of an audience. But gosh, 1:49:49.840 --> 1:49:51.719 I don't know. I mean, I know there are jokes 1:49:51.760 --> 1:49:53.880 I wouldn't tell on stage. You know that are just 1:49:54.080 --> 1:49:57.320 racist jokes. I mean, that's the whole point out them, 1:49:57.439 --> 1:50:01.360 is that they're racist jokes. That's not going to work 1:50:01.400 --> 1:50:04.960 in front of an audience now. But I wouldn't have 1:50:05.000 --> 1:50:07.599 read those on stage ten years ago either. I mean, 1:50:07.640 --> 1:50:13.439 I might read them at a dinner party. But well, like, 1:50:13.520 --> 1:50:15.400 there was a joke that somebody told me that I 1:50:15.439 --> 1:50:19.439 repeated on stage. And a woman calls her husband very 1:50:19.520 --> 1:50:22.320 upset because their son has just had sex with this 1:50:22.479 --> 1:50:28.599 teacher and been expelled from school, and she's devastated. But 1:50:28.640 --> 1:50:31.120 the father goes and buys his son a brand new 1:50:31.160 --> 1:50:34.400 bicycle and presents it to him and says, I just 1:50:34.439 --> 1:50:36.040 want you to know I'm kind of proud of you. 1:50:36.360 --> 1:50:40.040 And the kid looks at the bike and says, maybe 1:50:40.120 --> 1:50:47.160 i'll ride it later after my ass stops hurting, And 1:50:47.240 --> 1:50:48.600 then the audience. 1:50:50.720 --> 1:50:52.080 That's fantastic. 1:50:52.920 --> 1:50:55.880 The audience usually groans, and I'm like, why didn't you 1:50:56.000 --> 1:50:58.439 groan when you heard the kid had sex with this teacher? 1:50:58.680 --> 1:51:00.720 Why do you only groan when you find out if 1:51:00.720 --> 1:51:03.960 it's a male teacher. I love that kind of a 1:51:04.040 --> 1:51:09.559 joke because because it's true. Why do you grown? Why 1:51:09.560 --> 1:51:11.479 do you only grow when you learn it was a 1:51:11.520 --> 1:51:14.240 man you know? Well? 1:51:14.240 --> 1:51:17.960 But just to stay on the theme, if a straight 1:51:18.120 --> 1:51:22.360 guy told some of these jokes, I think that there 1:51:22.400 --> 1:51:25.720 would be noise. I think there would be blowback. Really, oh, 1:51:26.040 --> 1:51:29.160 I thought about this a lot. Absolutely, you're saying I'm 1:51:29.240 --> 1:51:32.800 the other, therefore I can get away with it. This 1:51:32.840 --> 1:51:35.800 is part of my persona I don't even know. 1:51:35.960 --> 1:51:37.000 I don't know. 1:51:37.520 --> 1:51:45.439 Definitely, definitely. The only problem is your lack of you 1:51:45.560 --> 1:51:48.519 was so far not hit a major third rail. Not 1:51:48.640 --> 1:51:53.240 that that's your general act, but the fact that you 1:51:53.320 --> 1:51:55.719 don't seem to under you don't see that some straight 1:51:55.800 --> 1:51:58.880 Guys by Dad problems makes you wonder whether you whether 1:51:58.920 --> 1:52:04.040 there's some third rail lurking out there. But okay, if 1:52:04.080 --> 1:52:06.280 you say you sold the story to the New Yorker, 1:52:06.880 --> 1:52:09.599 you know, and that's going to be printed, to what 1:52:09.720 --> 1:52:14.040 degree do you start getting anxious feeling knowing the stories 1:52:14.080 --> 1:52:16.840 come out then it does come out. How much feedback 1:52:16.880 --> 1:52:19.800 do you get in your inbox or in the phone 1:52:19.840 --> 1:52:20.439 call whatever? 1:52:21.400 --> 1:52:27.840 Not much? Not so much. I mean maybe a couple 1:52:27.840 --> 1:52:30.040 of friends will say, oh, I saw your essay in 1:52:30.080 --> 1:52:33.240 the New Yorker, But I mean I don't I'm not 1:52:33.360 --> 1:52:36.640 on social media. I don't know what goes on. 1:52:38.240 --> 1:52:42.120 Well, I'm talking more. Okay, you write an essay, let's 1:52:42.160 --> 1:52:43.960 just use for the sake of discussion. It's not going 1:52:44.000 --> 1:52:46.280 to be well, how long is usually the lag time? 1:52:48.080 --> 1:52:49.720 What do you mean the time between you and. 1:52:49.840 --> 1:52:51.920 You finished something and it hits print. 1:52:53.439 --> 1:52:56.440 Oh well, gosh, my agent gave this to the magazine 1:52:56.560 --> 1:52:59.320 like three weeks ago, and then we just heard a 1:52:59.360 --> 1:53:01.360 couple of days ago they're taking it. And so I've 1:53:01.400 --> 1:53:05.280 done the first rewrite, and then you know, the fact 1:53:05.400 --> 1:53:09.080 checkers will call. So today I wrote to the Shepherd 1:53:09.240 --> 1:53:12.559 and just sent him the essay and said, did I 1:53:12.560 --> 1:53:16.679 get anything wrong here? You know? And are you okay 1:53:16.720 --> 1:53:19.000 with the fact checker calling you from the New Yorker? 1:53:19.720 --> 1:53:24.200 So when it's going to be published, do you get spilkissed? 1:53:24.200 --> 1:53:26.280 Do you get up tight now that it's going to 1:53:26.320 --> 1:53:27.800 hit the world at large? 1:53:28.479 --> 1:53:33.439 No? I mean no, I'm excited. I mean I think 1:53:33.439 --> 1:53:34.439 it's a pretty good essay. 1:53:36.280 --> 1:53:38.360 I guess, you know, when I write something and then 1:53:38.400 --> 1:53:41.920 people could read it, there's an emotional process and then 1:53:41.960 --> 1:53:44.640 a cool down. But each to his own. Let me 1:53:44.640 --> 1:53:47.519 ask you another, just one final question here? What do 1:53:47.560 --> 1:53:48.960 you do with all the money. 1:53:50.320 --> 1:53:50.960 I buy a house? 1:53:53.280 --> 1:53:55.320 If I were to ask you, and I'm not going 1:53:55.360 --> 1:53:58.360 to ask you how much money you have, would you 1:53:58.439 --> 1:54:00.200 have any idea? 1:54:00.920 --> 1:54:02.040 I don't really know much. 1:54:03.680 --> 1:54:07.120 Do you ever say I would like to buy something, 1:54:07.200 --> 1:54:08.760 but maybe I can't afford it. 1:54:10.360 --> 1:54:13.200 Well, like we were just talking about there's a house 1:54:13.280 --> 1:54:15.639 near us that came up for sale, and we were 1:54:15.680 --> 1:54:18.559 talking about, we'd like to buy it for this young 1:54:18.600 --> 1:54:22.200 couple we know, you know, and then they could with 1:54:22.280 --> 1:54:24.760 the understanding they could kind of check in on us 1:54:24.760 --> 1:54:27.880 when we're older and we're you know, we're thinking, well, 1:54:28.200 --> 1:54:30.400 what if they get a divorce, what if this? What 1:54:30.439 --> 1:54:37.680 if that? But uh, I don't know, I'm not uh 1:54:37.800 --> 1:54:42.240 And I'd buy art a lot, you know, like paintings 1:54:42.280 --> 1:54:48.240 that are really expensive that I never thought I would 1:54:48.320 --> 1:54:52.320 be able to do or And you're crazy if you 1:54:52.320 --> 1:54:54.880 think of it as an investment, because what twenty year 1:54:54.920 --> 1:54:57.520 old on the street today wants to buy a Picasso pain? 1:54:58.320 --> 1:55:01.080 You know they're they're you know. 1:55:01.200 --> 1:55:03.800 Art has become detached from the art itself and it's 1:55:03.840 --> 1:55:07.720 become a trading item. You sit here and talk about 1:55:07.840 --> 1:55:11.240 devaluation of Picasso. I'm not sure. I don't agree with that. 1:55:11.760 --> 1:55:13.440 Picasso's one thing, It's forever. 1:55:14.080 --> 1:55:17.240 But what I'm saying is you better like it. You know, 1:55:17.400 --> 1:55:19.440 if you're buying something, you better like it. So that's 1:55:19.480 --> 1:55:23.480 my attitude. You know. I'm not thinking will I get 1:55:23.520 --> 1:55:26.360 my money back? Or will it increase in value? I'm 1:55:26.440 --> 1:55:30.480 just thinking, oh, do I love it enough? And the 1:55:30.520 --> 1:55:32.720 answer is often yes. 1:55:34.480 --> 1:55:37.720 And have you made it to the mountaintop or is 1:55:37.720 --> 1:55:40.240 there a peak in the distance that you want to climb. 1:55:41.440 --> 1:55:44.640 I've made it to the mountaintop, So. 1:55:44.640 --> 1:55:45.760 What keeps you going? Now? 1:55:47.600 --> 1:55:55.040 I love it. I really like what I do. I 1:55:55.240 --> 1:55:59.760 find it incredibly rewarding. I feel I'm at my best 1:56:00.440 --> 1:56:05.680 when I'm on tour. I will be really, really sad 1:56:05.720 --> 1:56:06.920 when I can't do it anymore. 1:56:08.480 --> 1:56:10.800 How much of the enjoyment is writing the piece as 1:56:10.800 --> 1:56:12.120 opposed to performing live? 1:56:16.360 --> 1:56:19.280 Thirty writing it seventy percent performing at live. 1:56:19.480 --> 1:56:23.720 Wow. Wow, that's very interesting. Okay. I want to thank 1:56:23.760 --> 1:56:26.919 you so much for taking the time, David, to speaking 1:56:27.000 --> 1:56:30.800 with me, and my audience certainly learned certain things about 1:56:30.840 --> 1:56:33.040 you that I did not know. I'll be thinking as 1:56:33.080 --> 1:56:35.480 someone who has their own issues with OCD. I found 1:56:35.520 --> 1:56:36.520 that very interesting. 1:56:37.520 --> 1:56:39.879 I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for having. 1:56:39.680 --> 1:56:43.200 Me right and I just have to comment. You know, 1:56:43.280 --> 1:56:46.600 I was aware of you and you were off. I'm 1:56:46.640 --> 1:56:50.160 not really a big NPR person, although I've subscribed to 1:56:50.200 --> 1:56:55.560 The New Yorker forever, but my girlfriend about fifteen years 1:56:55.560 --> 1:57:01.800 ago said, we had to see you at UCLA. And 1:57:01.960 --> 1:57:07.120 once someone sees you, they're closed. I mean, theoretically, someone 1:57:07.160 --> 1:57:09.520 could be at your gig and leave within the first 1:57:09.560 --> 1:57:12.920 two minutes, but if you're there for two minutes, you're 1:57:13.000 --> 1:57:16.680 there till the end. It's you know, it's a unique act. 1:57:17.200 --> 1:57:20.640 No one can sit there and say, hey, I've seen 1:57:20.720 --> 1:57:24.680 this before, and I think one of the most interesting 1:57:24.760 --> 1:57:26.840 things I say, and this goes back to the woke thing, 1:57:26.960 --> 1:57:30.840 is you say the unsayable that we all know. It's 1:57:30.840 --> 1:57:33.880 like your point about the middle class. I believe everybody 1:57:33.920 --> 1:57:36.640 has a story, at least one story, the story of 1:57:36.680 --> 1:57:40.120 their life. And when you're going on about your father 1:57:40.680 --> 1:57:44.040 on this recent tour, we all have you know, it's 1:57:44.120 --> 1:57:49.520 Kiaraskiro with our parents at best. So for someone to say, hey, 1:57:49.560 --> 1:57:52.760 this is my experience. We all live in a very 1:57:52.920 --> 1:57:56.800 lonely world and we're looking to identify and you're providing 1:57:56.840 --> 1:58:00.920 a service to all these people who don't feel connected. 1:58:01.400 --> 1:58:03.680 Forget the people who are just saying I subscribe to 1:58:03.760 --> 1:58:06.720 the New Yorker. I hear you on Terry Grows, I'm 1:58:06.720 --> 1:58:10.600 a fan. There's an essence there. And the great thing 1:58:10.600 --> 1:58:13.560 about it is you're not pandering in the process, because 1:58:13.560 --> 1:58:16.760 many people are. You continue to chart your own course, 1:58:16.920 --> 1:58:20.560 which is just a long winded way to say, if 1:58:20.680 --> 1:58:24.520 David is in your town, you must go. You must go. 1:58:25.600 --> 1:58:28.560 Everybody will be talking about it. You'll live on the story. 1:58:28.760 --> 1:58:30.840 You know. You can watch a movie then say where 1:58:30.840 --> 1:58:32.240 are we going to dinner? That but if you go 1:58:32.280 --> 1:58:34.080 to see David you'll be talking about it for at 1:58:34.160 --> 1:58:36.680 least a week, so thanks again for taking the time. 1:58:37.800 --> 1:58:42.000 Thanks Bob, till next time. This is Bob Left Sense