Speaker 1: Hi, Katie, Hi Brian. Well, today's episode everyone has a
Speaker 1: very fun origin story. It all started with Afternoon Chief
Speaker 1: but of course, which we do daily. Sure remember our
Speaker 1: series of London episodes back in June. Well, while we
Speaker 1: were there, we had to sneak away from work to
Speaker 1: have some finger sandwiches and a pot of tea, and
Speaker 1: we thought what better place to do with than at
Speaker 1: this amazing hotel called Clarridges, which has a very rich
Speaker 1: and storied history and an elegant tea by the way,
Speaker 1: and that's where we ran into today's guests, Simon Junan
Speaker 1: and Jonathan Adler. They were sitting, remember Ryan, right near
Speaker 1: us at another table, and I was so excited to
Speaker 1: see these fellow, our fellow Americans in the middle of Clarridges.
Speaker 1: I had met them both before, but we got reacquainted
Speaker 1: over scones and clotted cream and we decided, hey, why
Speaker 1: don't you come beyond our podcast? We just book everywhere
Speaker 1: we go anyway, Not to mention Katie, they're quite a
Speaker 1: style power couple. Simon has been called the world's most
Speaker 1: famous window dresser for years. He made the whimsical and
Speaker 1: witty window displays for Barneys, where he currently works as
Speaker 1: their creative Ambassador at large. I would love that job
Speaker 1: on that title. I just don't want the large part
Speaker 1: creative ambassador trim it's spelled anyway. Uh. Jonathan, meanwhile, is
Speaker 1: a potter turned house swears guru. He he's known for
Speaker 1: his namesake brand and the line of boutiques that he runs,
Speaker 1: which sell bold and modern home goods around the world.
Speaker 1: And Brian, we've been talking for some time about wanting
Speaker 1: to have some couples on the pod. What can I say,
Speaker 1: I'm romantic at heart, but they are a very cute
Speaker 1: couple and a very successful one. They seem to have
Speaker 1: a really happy dynamic and they've been together for many years.
Speaker 1: So today is our first time having a couple of
Speaker 1: guests together on the show. Before we get to our
Speaker 1: conversation with Simon and Jonathan, we have a quick announcement. Katie.
Speaker 1: You know what they say about best laid plans. Yes,
Speaker 1: they of mice and men. They often go awry that
Speaker 1: they do. Some of our listeners may recall that at
Speaker 1: the end of last week's episode, we mentioned our plans
Speaker 1: for a two part audio documentary series marking the tenure
Speaker 1: anniversary of Katie's interviews with Sarah Palin. Those docks are
Speaker 1: still in the works, ladies and gentlemen, but the series
Speaker 1: is going to start next week instead of this week
Speaker 1: because we're still fine tuning the episodes. We want them
Speaker 1: to really shine. What can I say, we're perfectionist people.
Speaker 1: We hope you like them. Well, we can eventually listen
Speaker 1: to them now. In the meantime, we're very excited to
Speaker 1: bring you this week's episode, the dynamic duo of Simon
Speaker 1: and Jonathan. So we thought we'd start by asking you
Speaker 1: about how you met. It was in it was on
Speaker 1: a blind date. So set the scene, Simon, you start, well,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine said to me, very en passant
Speaker 1: as a say you should mind, said you should go
Speaker 1: on a date with Jonathan Adler, And I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be fun. I vaguely knew who he was. We
Speaker 1: were already selling his ceramics at Barney's at the time,
Speaker 1: where I was working, and so a lot of people
Speaker 1: think Johnny kind of shagged his way into Barney's, but
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you he didn't. We didn't. He
Speaker 1: didn't sleep his way to the top floor. That's pretty
Speaker 1: a way of saying it. And then so we made
Speaker 1: a date and and yeah, we made a blind date.
Speaker 1: And it's funny. The friend who set us up said
Speaker 1: to me, oh, you should date Simon Dounan. And at
Speaker 1: the time I was like a kind of bohemian clay
Speaker 1: spattered potter and Simon was miss Thing, fashion superstar juggernaut,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, this is not this is
Speaker 1: going to be an oil and water situation, Like I'm
Speaker 1: too gritty and crunchy and real and he's too miss things.
Speaker 1: Put to um. Now, twenty four years later, I can
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, which is that we did a
Speaker 1: complete bait and switch. I am totally like a little
Speaker 1: fancy pants miss Thing and Simon's actually quite crunchy and bohemian.
Speaker 1: So I think, like in many relationships, like the old
Speaker 1: bait and switch happened big time and you were, by
Speaker 1: the way, Simon a bit of a cougar. I can
Speaker 1: relate to that because you were forty two and Jonathan
Speaker 1: was twenty eight when you all met. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: weird thing is we've never thought about it that much.
Speaker 1: The bigger difference was he was on rollerblades and covered
Speaker 1: in clay and carrying a backpack, and I was an
Speaker 1: executive vice president of creative services at Barney's. I had
Speaker 1: a corporate job, so that was a bigger difference in
Speaker 1: the age difference. And I remember us going out running
Speaker 1: and I could run faster than him. Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That is ancient history that you hold on to, that,
Speaker 1: little buddy, You hold onto that. So Jonathan bothered you
Speaker 1: with a lot of direct questions. I read, yes, you
Speaker 1: sort of looked into your eyes and just started quizzing you. Um, definitely,
Speaker 1: like Johnny was asked me almost like an hr interview
Speaker 1: like so blah blah blah, and ask me questions and
Speaker 1: which you answered monosyllabic ly and just sat there. So
Speaker 1: of course I had no choice but to continue the interview.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I'd be like, so, do you have
Speaker 1: any siblings, Like, yeah, I have a sister, yes, crickets, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: and then what's your who's your favorite cultural thing? Like, um,
Speaker 1: you know Johnny's background, Jewish, creative, you know his family.
Speaker 1: They don't stop talking my family. I don't remember them
Speaker 1: starting talking, you know, like it was that was very
Speaker 1: much a cultural thing. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: a critical way. In fact, you all both come from
Speaker 1: fairly unconventional families, and that's one of the things I
Speaker 1: think that brought you together. Very different unconventional families. But
Speaker 1: Jonathan described your family, You grew up in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I grew up in New Jersey, but not New Jersey,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. I grew up in like a little tiny
Speaker 1: farmtown three hours outside of New York called Bridgeton. That's
Speaker 1: very um, kind of in the middle of nowhere, quite remote,
Speaker 1: rural but not picturesque. Um. And as I'm keeping it,
Speaker 1: I'm just keeping it one. I'm sorry Bridgeton, if you're listening.
Speaker 1: And yeah, my family was sort of Jewish intellectual. My
Speaker 1: mother like was living in New York and working for
Speaker 1: Vogue when she met my dad and they got married
Speaker 1: and he said, all right, darling, we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: my hometown. And so they were kind of fish out
Speaker 1: of water. Um, my whole family was. And yeah, my
Speaker 1: dad spent all of his life making art in the
Speaker 1: basement of our groovy modern house, and my mom is
Speaker 1: sort of a creative person. So it was a very
Speaker 1: strange and remote childhood. And I am you know, I
Speaker 1: was gay living in rural America, and one day I
Speaker 1: discovered pottery and that was that, and that kind of
Speaker 1: really was my refuge from rural America. What about your siblings,
Speaker 1: We're all the same. Actually, I have two older siblings,
Speaker 1: were both they got the brains in the family. They
Speaker 1: went to like Colombia and Yale, and they're both hyper intellectual.
Speaker 1: And my sister is a law professor at m i U.
Speaker 1: My brother's like an economist and an artist. So we're
Speaker 1: all freaks, yes. But speaking of freaks, we moved now
Speaker 1: to Simon's family and you called them the Adams family.
Speaker 1: You had this insane description of your childhood in the
Speaker 1: Rooming House. Can you give our audience some of that color. Well,
Speaker 1: I've written, I've sort of written a few books that
Speaker 1: have a lot of autobiographical material in them. And I
Speaker 1: guess I had a choice. I could have written it
Speaker 1: like a misery memoir, or I wrote it through the
Speaker 1: lens of humor, which I think psychologically is easier for
Speaker 1: me than you know, the painful bits. But basically, my
Speaker 1: parents were that generation that Tom Rocock called the great generation, right,
Speaker 1: they were the greatest, greatest, Like they left my mom
Speaker 1: left school at thirteen, my dad left school at fifteen,
Speaker 1: they joined the Royal Air Force subsequently, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the war they met in a soup kitchen
Speaker 1: because they both run away from homes. They both couldn't
Speaker 1: go home, so they met in a soup kitchen. They
Speaker 1: had me and my sister pretty quickly and we lived
Speaker 1: in a two room flat, no kitchen and bathroom. After
Speaker 1: the war, people didn't have anything. There was no reparation
Speaker 1: money coming to England, so it was like squalid. But
Speaker 1: my mother always says that was the most happiest time.
Speaker 1: And then um, but just to set the scene a
Speaker 1: little bit, your grandmother who had had a lobotomy, lived
Speaker 1: on the bottom floor. Well, no, you're jumping ahead, right,
Speaker 1: that's the right juncture because we lived in this very
Speaker 1: small attic. And then my grandmother who had had a lobotomy,
Speaker 1: came out of the institution and she had some cash
Speaker 1: how enough to buy this rambling old house and we
Speaker 1: all moved in there and it became a sort of
Speaker 1: rooming house for our various relatives and lodges, and that's
Speaker 1: where I spent most of my childhood. Schizophrenic uncle Ken
Speaker 1: lived on the second floor. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: mental illness. My grandfather had committed suicide. My uncle commits
Speaker 1: suicide like a lot of alcoholism, mental illness. I mean,
Speaker 1: it actually does sound a bit like the Island of
Speaker 1: Misfit Toys. On the other hand, it's a very serious
Speaker 1: thing that you were surrounded by people who had these issues,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious how you were able, Simon to just
Speaker 1: kind of stay focused and and emerged for work. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I I give my parents a lot of credit for that.
Speaker 1: They had very strong personalities. They're extremely resilient, you know.
Speaker 1: They my sister and I both gay, you know, and
Speaker 1: back then you didn't come out to your parents, You
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it. You just fled as soon as
Speaker 1: you could. And but the best way to do it
Speaker 1: was to go to college because if your parents didn't
Speaker 1: have any money, the government would pay for you to
Speaker 1: go to college. And I felt great. So I was
Speaker 1: like an insanely diligent student for my A levels and
Speaker 1: I got into Manchester University. And that was how you
Speaker 1: got out. Then you start to reinvent yourself, find out
Speaker 1: who you are and blah blah blah. It's in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties self discovery, you know, gay liberation, blah blah, blah.
Speaker 1: So that was sort of my liberation blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And how did how did your folks when you were
Speaker 1: when you realize that you were gatting your sister as well, Simon,
Speaker 1: that was a time when it wasn't embraced, much less accepted.
Speaker 1: So what was that like for you that experience. Well,
Speaker 1: I vividly remember like realizing I was gay, and very
Speaker 1: quickly I realized, oh, it's also illegal. And I think
Speaker 1: my dad was sort of seeing which way the wind
Speaker 1: was blowing and he said to me, oh, yeah, there
Speaker 1: was homicide actuals. You know, they all get put in
Speaker 1: prison or they get blackmailed or blah blah blah. I
Speaker 1: mean he sensed it, yeah, and he was trying to
Speaker 1: put me off going in that direction. But I was
Speaker 1: always reading magazines, you know, and I was always looking
Speaker 1: to the horizon to see, oh, the beautiful people on
Speaker 1: the horizon living groovy lives in London. And I would
Speaker 1: read about these swinging sixties people like Robert Fraser and
Speaker 1: Christopher Gibbs and the Stones and Maryanne Faithful, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I want some of that. I could
Speaker 1: see on the horizon where no one cared what you were,
Speaker 1: you know that the emerging counterculture, the emerging culture of
Speaker 1: the swinging sixties. I could see it within screaming distance.
Speaker 1: And we lived not far from London, so I was
Speaker 1: like getting on the train and going hitching up to
Speaker 1: Carnaby Street and thinking, yeah, these are my people, fashion people,
Speaker 1: gay people, flamboyant people. So I saw an escape route.
Speaker 1: And what about you, Jonathan, I mean, by the way,
Speaker 1: you know you went to Brown It's not like you're
Speaker 1: the black sheep of the family incidentally, in terms of
Speaker 1: your intellect. But was it challenging for you as a
Speaker 1: young gay man in Bridge to New Jersey? Of course
Speaker 1: it was. I'll tell you all about it first. I
Speaker 1: just want to mention like it's once I was talking
Speaker 1: about his childhood. The Dickensian nature of his childhood is
Speaker 1: so startling. And I was just laughing because I was
Speaker 1: thinking about when I was talking about our first meeting
Speaker 1: and how I thought, oh, he's a little miss fancy pants,
Speaker 1: you know, fashionist, a little realizing the Dickensian backstory and
Speaker 1: what that little fella had accomplished. Yes, of course, growing
Speaker 1: up gay, of course it was very challenging. And you know,
Speaker 1: I knew as most gay men do. Quite early that
Speaker 1: I was gay. It was like I knew immediately, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's I think it was one
Speaker 1: of that different weirdly, you know, even though there's a
Speaker 1: big age difference. You didn't walk into some utopia God,
Speaker 1: but he was all gay positive. It was weirdly, you know, similar. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: there was no way I could have been out as
Speaker 1: a gay like that was not well and Brown some
Speaker 1: people were, but you'd be shocked how many of my
Speaker 1: friends from Brown came out after college. Um, I graduated
Speaker 1: in eight eight, and of course people were out, but
Speaker 1: it was still strangely difficult. And um, when I think
Speaker 1: about why gay people are as creative as gay people are,
Speaker 1: which I think is one of the great mysteries of gayness,
Speaker 1: like why are people so creative? And I'm not the
Speaker 1: most spiritual person, but part of me just thinks like
Speaker 1: maybe that's what we're put on earth for. But another
Speaker 1: part of me thinks that the gay experience is growing
Speaker 1: up and kind of operating on two levels simultaneously, and
Speaker 1: I think it really sharpens your senses. So you know,
Speaker 1: one has to sort of go through life as if
Speaker 1: you're going through life and go through all the motions,
Speaker 1: which you are, but you're also aware of the whole
Speaker 1: time that you're sort of hiding something and you're there's
Speaker 1: something inauthentic, and of course that's challenging. But I think
Speaker 1: the flip side of it is that it it makes
Speaker 1: you a little bit sharper and perhaps you know, one
Speaker 1: has to live slightly more vivid fantasy life as a
Speaker 1: gay and maybe that's the source of gay creativity. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's something I think about a lot. It
Speaker 1: is interesting. It's weird when you think about some of
Speaker 1: the most brilliant people in the history of the world
Speaker 1: and their contributions, so many of them were gay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like a creative libera. Yes, exactly who she was.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was thinking of Michelangelo, right, and Leonardo
Speaker 1: da Vinci, one of them. I was thinking Abold, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it was, or Michelangelo or both. We'll
Speaker 1: take both. So can we ask you a question about
Speaker 1: your relationship that I think would apply both to gay
Speaker 1: couples and straight couples. I read and you can correct
Speaker 1: if this is wrong, that you basically haven't had any
Speaker 1: commitment issues, that you bought a house together, or you
Speaker 1: rent an apartment together eighteen months in. How did you
Speaker 1: two just clap eyes on each other and know this
Speaker 1: is it and make it work. All these years we
Speaker 1: just had really low expectations. I was like, Oh, he'll do.
Speaker 1: Actually it's beautiful. Yeah, this is very New York. So
Speaker 1: Sliman had just bought this fabulous apartment when I first
Speaker 1: met him, and it was an apartment that was kind
Speaker 1: of legendary and I had always noticed it, and when
Speaker 1: I found out he bought it, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: you'll do, and that it was really about the nice
Speaker 1: about the apartment story for your vows when you got married,
Speaker 1: because it's just so heartwarming. Like many New Yorkers, it
Speaker 1: was real estate play. You know. I love the fact
Speaker 1: that you both have created this life based on your creativity.
Speaker 1: And I'm fascinated by how people choose a career or
Speaker 1: are lucky enough to turn their passion into their profession.
Speaker 1: Every morning I get up and I thank the Lord
Speaker 1: that I was able to have a job where I
Speaker 1: was able to do stuff that I found creatively stimulating.
Speaker 1: And that and even my corporate years of Barney's, it
Speaker 1: was always stimulating. It was always creative I was involved
Speaker 1: in so much stuff, and I never took that for
Speaker 1: granted because the town I grew up in it was
Speaker 1: like the local factories, that's where you worked. And I
Speaker 1: did do that in the summers, and so I saw
Speaker 1: what that was like. So to have a job where
Speaker 1: you're consumed with passion, even if it's just making paper
Speaker 1: mache props or a window, but you're having fun, You're
Speaker 1: like you care about it, like that is such a gift.
Speaker 1: You have a vision for what you're doing. How did
Speaker 1: you how did you tap into that? How did you
Speaker 1: discover what would give you joy? It was quite specific. Actually,
Speaker 1: I moved to London after college and I worked in
Speaker 1: in stores. You know, that's what everybody did back then.
Speaker 1: If they weren't shut what to do? They got a
Speaker 1: job in a store, so selling fashion when they had stores,
Speaker 1: right remember that number store. And I used to watch
Speaker 1: the window display people and I thought, well, they're busy
Speaker 1: all day. Their work day isn't contingent on customers coming in.
Speaker 1: So I thought I could do that. Doesn't seem that complicated.
Speaker 1: So then I got a job at Aquascutum, great British
Speaker 1: outerwear and Umbrella Frumpy but very is what the queen traditional,
Speaker 1: what the queen was when she's out with the corgis,
Speaker 1: had the aquascutum. So it was great because the windows
Speaker 1: were very elaborate, and I was a shlap you know.
Speaker 1: I was carrying ladders, paint, carrying the mannequins, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I said in London in the nine exactly. And
Speaker 1: then for extra cash I used to go into smaller
Speaker 1: boutiques and say, oh, who does your window. I'm a
Speaker 1: window dresser. I'll give me five quid and I'll do
Speaker 1: your window once a month. So I had a lot
Speaker 1: of these freelance jobs, and one of them was quite noteworthy.
Speaker 1: It was a store on Savile Row and it was
Speaker 1: the first trendy tailor on Savile Row called Tommy Nutter
Speaker 1: and Tommy Nutter and you t t e R. He
Speaker 1: was this legendary guy who's the first one to take
Speaker 1: those old Savile Row idea and make it trendy. So
Speaker 1: he made Mick Jagger's wedding suit when Mick married Bianca
Speaker 1: and he's wearing the white. He made clothes for Elton
Speaker 1: John and the people from that era. So they wanted fun,
Speaker 1: crazy windows. So that is when I started to do
Speaker 1: things where I put like a coffin in the window
Speaker 1: with a mannequin in it, or like, you know, I
Speaker 1: found all these little stuffed rats and made little tuxedos
Speaker 1: for them. They wanted things that were edgy and sort
Speaker 1: of a little more punk rock. And that's when I
Speaker 1: tapped into like, oh, like, if you do something unconventional,
Speaker 1: you'll get attention. People are like it, you get more work.
Speaker 1: And and one day this guy is incredible guy called
Speaker 1: Tommy Purse. He came in and he said, oh, you
Speaker 1: should come work for me in l A. So I
Speaker 1: was twenty five, and I just got on a plane
Speaker 1: and went to live in l A. When I was five.
Speaker 1: And what did you do for Tommy Persum? I did
Speaker 1: dressed his windows at his store, which was then it
Speaker 1: was called Maxfield. Still that which is an iconic l
Speaker 1: as from l A. Yeah, well you may not remember
Speaker 1: what it used to be next to the Troubador. I
Speaker 1: do remember that. And I did those windows with these
Speaker 1: vintage mannequins that Tommy collected. That was where I had
Speaker 1: my swinging, degenerate, crazy twenties, was mostly in l A.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that you were in some ways responsible
Speaker 1: for changing or transforming what was considered sort of window
Speaker 1: dressing into a real art form. Well, there was a
Speaker 1: group of people who were doing that. Um, some of
Speaker 1: them are still around, like Linda Fargo from Bogdors, Candy
Speaker 1: Pratt's Price from Vogue used to do these crazy punk
Speaker 1: rock windows at Bloomingdals. There was. It was a movement
Speaker 1: of because windows are great, because the democratic everyone sees them.
Speaker 1: You can really communicate to a lot of people. So
Speaker 1: I was one of several people, and unfortunately many of
Speaker 1: the great ones died of AIDS. I mean I could
Speaker 1: sit here listing them all and it's Colin Birch, Bob Benzio.
Speaker 1: There was a ton of great people who in the
Speaker 1: early eighties they died of AIDS. So Linda and I
Speaker 1: often say God, for all those people I'd stuck around,
Speaker 1: Maybe would we have gotten our moment? Would we have?
Speaker 1: Because there was so many talented people. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: too to me because here's this art form that's so ephemeral,
Speaker 1: but also, as you said, so democratic, a way to
Speaker 1: gather community. I love looking at people looking at windows.
Speaker 1: The sad thing is windows have kind of become less
Speaker 1: relevant than they used to be like when I first
Speaker 1: moved to New York and Simon's windows were so legendary.
Speaker 1: There will be like people on throned on the streets
Speaker 1: waiting for the reveal. That was, of course, before cell phones.
Speaker 1: Now that kind of democracy and shared experience of windows
Speaker 1: seems to be disappearing. Really, Yeah, people phones taking the
Speaker 1: picture of the window so they can share it on
Speaker 1: social media. Not actually, although I still do see people
Speaker 1: around the holidays, holiday around you know, blooming Dale's and
Speaker 1: Sacks and of course Barney's. And then from the window
Speaker 1: dressing and then Jonathan, We're going to get to your
Speaker 1: sort of career in a second, But from the window
Speaker 1: dressing you went. It allowed you to branch out in
Speaker 1: incredible ways. Well, I when I did my book, Pizza Kaplan,
Speaker 1: who was the editor of The New York Observer, he
Speaker 1: said to me, oh, you should Your book is funny.
Speaker 1: You should come right a column for us. So during
Speaker 1: the day I was working at Barney's, then I go
Speaker 1: home and bang out this weekly column for the New
Speaker 1: York Observer. And Pizza Kaplan was just one of those
Speaker 1: very special people in the newspaper. Yes, fire him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure how that played out, but Jared
Speaker 1: Kushner ended up buying The Observer. Yes, and did you
Speaker 1: work at all under Jared Kushner? Um? Yeah, under isn't
Speaker 1: the preposition because you know, you know the paper. So
Speaker 1: I was one of many people just banging out their
Speaker 1: column and sending it in and um, yeah, we overlapped there.
Speaker 1: But you know I would see him at the Christmas party.
Speaker 1: You I know, Jonathan encouraged Simon to write that column
Speaker 1: because you said you've got to do this. I hate
Speaker 1: to give Simon compliments and clear r L. I typically
Speaker 1: do not. However, I will keep it real. In this thing,
Speaker 1: Simon is a bizarre Polly math who is visually extraordinarily
Speaker 1: gifted but can write like no one else. And it's
Speaker 1: like I think it might be an English thing where
Speaker 1: English there are other english people who are like prominent
Speaker 1: in one field, who suddenly can pick up a pen
Speaker 1: and really turn a rays, like believe it or not,
Speaker 1: Joan Collins, like, I've read some of her writing and
Speaker 1: it's just very sharp and quick. And Simon's like one
Speaker 1: of those English people who just manages to capture his
Speaker 1: cheeky voice in writing, and it can I make a
Speaker 1: sweeping generalization about the English. I think that you all
Speaker 1: value writing and talking and language and diction a lot
Speaker 1: more than Americans do. I think really over enunciating when
Speaker 1: you're saying this, Brian, sorry. I think you're sort of
Speaker 1: informally trained in it based on the way you are
Speaker 1: educated and talked to your peers, and therefore most British
Speaker 1: people I know are really good talkers and writers. My
Speaker 1: theory is that America is an incredibly playful culture. Like
Speaker 1: the first thing you see when I saw when I
Speaker 1: moved to l A was like people stretching at a
Speaker 1: bus stop or bouncing a bowl, like like in pink tights.
Speaker 1: You know, like very playful culture. But when people get
Speaker 1: into print, they get very formal, like I'm writing an
Speaker 1: essay now on blah blah blah. Whereas England is an
Speaker 1: incredibly formal culture historically structurally, and when they get into
Speaker 1: print they just don't care. Like that's when you're your
Speaker 1: only obligation is to be entertaining, so like going to
Speaker 1: the pub, your only obligation is to make people laugh
Speaker 1: and tell funny stories. So there's like a lot of
Speaker 1: cultural stuff that I think makes English people that have
Speaker 1: that sort of witty, loose panash with words that you know,
Speaker 1: someone with the education to back it up though generally right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a Tina Brown or not even like it's I
Speaker 1: think often you know the cab drivers who are Cockney
Speaker 1: East London people have the best gift of gab. But
Speaker 1: on the English tip, back to our relationship for one,
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons we ended up together
Speaker 1: is that English people really like to take the piss
Speaker 1: out of each other. Like they tease each other ruthlessly
Speaker 1: and relentlessly as a sign of affection. And that's how
Speaker 1: I've always rolled. But Americans don't typically do that. I
Speaker 1: think Americans don't. You think people in amermor delicate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we don't make fun of each other ruthlessly and immediately,
Speaker 1: oh I do. Good. Time for us to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, we're going to help
Speaker 1: Simon and Jonathan remember when their wedding anniversary is. That's
Speaker 1: right after this and now back to our conversation with
Speaker 1: Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler. Jonathan, you've built an extraordinary
Speaker 1: career out of your passion as well. You decided to
Speaker 1: become a potter at twenty seven, you left your job?
Speaker 1: What were you doing and why did you decide to
Speaker 1: leave it? Well, um so, I had always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a Potter from the second I touched Clay as
Speaker 1: a kid, I like had a instant love affair with Clay.
Speaker 1: By the way, do you guys ever reenact that scene
Speaker 1: from Ghost Oh Nightly? I'm sure in the beginning we
Speaker 1: used to be like, let's do it happens less and
Speaker 1: less frequently. I'm sorry to say, we should music right now?
Speaker 1: We always have that in the Yeah O is getting
Speaker 1: a bit scratchy and it's on repeat. Um so, yeah.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be a Potter and I always
Speaker 1: wanted to be a jap like I needed to be Yes,
Speaker 1: but that seemed absolutely impossible. So I tried to uh
Speaker 1: work in the movie business after college, and I studied
Speaker 1: semiotics and art history, so I had not I didn't
Speaker 1: have a practical bone in my body. I was completely hairy,
Speaker 1: fairy and impractical, and that really showed itself in the workplace,
Speaker 1: where I got fired from about five jobs in a
Speaker 1: row real news. For like, I slept with everybody in
Speaker 1: the office, and I took personal halls and finally I
Speaker 1: was sleeping with my boss and then you know, I
Speaker 1: broke up with him and he fired me, and I
Speaker 1: was unemployed for like a year, and I couldn't find
Speaker 1: a job, and I started teaching night classes at a
Speaker 1: pottery studio in Hell's Kitchen, just while I was kind
Speaker 1: of trying to get a job and no jobs were
Speaker 1: coming my way. And my parents finally were like, your
Speaker 1: twenty seven, you like went to an ivy league college,
Speaker 1: and you're not making a dime like sell a pot,
Speaker 1: And so I am, I would seemed quite I just
Speaker 1: had a bunch of pots, too many pots and unsold,
Speaker 1: and so I um ended up getting in touch with
Speaker 1: the buyer, Barneys, and I got an order, and uh,
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, but this was after or before you
Speaker 1: guys got together, before we got together, this say I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, So I got this order and I started
Speaker 1: to like make pots, and I still just thought of
Speaker 1: myself as unemployed. But I got more orders, and then
Speaker 1: I kind of gradually, very gradually figured it out and
Speaker 1: realized that I had gone from kind of being really
Speaker 1: unemployable to being highly self employed. And the end of
Speaker 1: this pretty extraordinary entrepreneur you saw that your pots were
Speaker 1: popular in Barney's and then you opened up your first
Speaker 1: retail store five years later. Now there are how many
Speaker 1: stores in al Jathan about stores across the country, and
Speaker 1: too in London. You know a lot of artists. I
Speaker 1: think it's probably an unfair generalization, but they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have a brain for business, as they would say in
Speaker 1: Working Girl. But you actually did. Um, how did you
Speaker 1: translate your artistic skills into business skills? I had maybe
Speaker 1: the worst mind for business of anyone in the history
Speaker 1: of our planet, and Simon can attest to that. I
Speaker 1: was like very ill equipped. I didn't know what an
Speaker 1: invoice was. I was like completely incompay. I just love
Speaker 1: to make stuff, and like we didn't go into this
Speaker 1: with any sort of business plan or any ideas at all.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's not really how people today
Speaker 1: typically approach their careers, like they all, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of want to be a brand from day one. I
Speaker 1: think both Slime and I kind of just figured it out.
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that's one of the more
Speaker 1: um safe for work kind of appellations. Um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I just figured it out, as did Simon. I think
Speaker 1: we both also, like Simon and I both work in
Speaker 1: very reviled professions like Simon's a window dresser and I'm
Speaker 1: a potter. They're not exactly the most season careers. I
Speaker 1: have to say, I have I beg to differ. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would see you both as being a very tony professions.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's probably how they work now.
Speaker 1: But at the time, I mean, before you both hit
Speaker 1: it big, the notion that you would have these great,
Speaker 1: successful careers in those two professions, I mean, boy doubtful,
Speaker 1: because I thought, Um, one of Johnny's best friends is
Speaker 1: Liz Lang maternity. I used to wear her maternity clothes
Speaker 1: on the Today Show. I would love it, and we,
Speaker 1: the three of us in the nineties, we used to
Speaker 1: talk about how hilarious it was that she was in
Speaker 1: maternity where he was a partner. I was a window dresser,
Speaker 1: because these were not you know, that was like being
Speaker 1: a fluffer in a strip club or something like that.
Speaker 1: It was like the world's best fluffer. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was sort of almost like I'll give you an example,
Speaker 1: like say, helicopter parents on the Upper East Side, the
Speaker 1: spending a fortune on the kellicoptering their kid and da
Speaker 1: da da da and the kid comes home and says,
Speaker 1: I want to be a window dresser. The parents probably
Speaker 1: going to crisis meetings with the counselors. Like, because it
Speaker 1: is one of those sort of joke professions. I think
Speaker 1: it predates this whole preoccupation with quote unquote lifestyle brands, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this whole burgeoning industry, whether it's through Instagram
Speaker 1: or Pinterest. This whole thing exploded kind of exactly the
Speaker 1: right time for both of you in a way. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like Simon more fashion and that was a constant,
Speaker 1: but for you, Jonathan, it's become this whole new fielding.
Speaker 1: We both saw sort of white space. So here's some
Speaker 1: an arena which isn't oversubscribed to which people tend to
Speaker 1: steer a bit clear of because it has all these
Speaker 1: sort of um day class A associations. So and Liz
Speaker 1: has talked that way. She was the first person to
Speaker 1: go into maternity, you know, like Carl lager Felt wasn't
Speaker 1: doing a maternity line like maternity scene as being I don't, well,
Speaker 1: it's not like it was like p on the pod
Speaker 1: that's where shopped. And then Liz Lang came along and
Speaker 1: I was like allelujah. Right Liz. It was like she
Speaker 1: revolutionized this kind of dusty thing and made it like
Speaker 1: sexy and great and chic. She she she can. She
Speaker 1: just had this incredible vision. I think she's still a
Speaker 1: white space, like, no one's doing that if you're if
Speaker 1: you're like young and trying to figure out. I think
Speaker 1: that's always a good way to think about it, Like
Speaker 1: what is nobody doing? That's always what I what I
Speaker 1: recommend to bis Stone when I wrote this put together
Speaker 1: this book of advice. He said, find a need and
Speaker 1: fill it. I mean it's almost that simple, like where
Speaker 1: is the white space? And how does that intersect with
Speaker 1: something that I love? Which is also incredibly important, right Jonathan,
Speaker 1: john Yea or Johnny. I think the funny thing is
Speaker 1: that neither of us, like we were both so bumbling
Speaker 1: and unstrategic that we don't think any of us knew
Speaker 1: the word white space until like a week ago. You know,
Speaker 1: we kind of just wet for a long time. There
Speaker 1: was no iteration or planning. I think we just both
Speaker 1: happened to be very very passionate about a particular thing,
Speaker 1: and somehow it all worked. And I think people now
Speaker 1: with this idea of personal branding, and everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: be a brand, and I'm a brand, he's a brand.
Speaker 1: They all think it's attainable, and people are all told
Speaker 1: to like, follow your dream and it will work out,
Speaker 1: And the truth is it really won't. It just won't.
Speaker 1: Like everybody who thinks they can follow their dream and
Speaker 1: it will work out is incorrect. Like inasmuch as mine
Speaker 1: has remind me not to hire you as a commencement
Speaker 1: speed don't ever hire me. Actually think it's good advice
Speaker 1: because most of the people who try to be brands
Speaker 1: just based on nothing, I think fail. I think many
Speaker 1: of the brands, with the notable exception of the Kardashians,
Speaker 1: are actually you know, they're because they're doing something, accomplishing something,
Speaker 1: filling a need. Yeah, but there's also for everyone who
Speaker 1: breaks through and is accomplishing something, there's a million more
Speaker 1: who are more talented who haven't broken through. So there's
Speaker 1: just such a huge element of luck and timing, timing,
Speaker 1: and so really, you know, Andy Warhol said success is
Speaker 1: a job in New York City, and I think that's
Speaker 1: a more realistic approach to how people should think about
Speaker 1: their lives. Like, not everyone, it's so rarely works out that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that you get the combination of talent, luck, timing, etcetera, etcetera. Well,
Speaker 1: why do you think it worked for you? I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I truly really have no idea. I think
Speaker 1: I would say luck is probably the most important. But
Speaker 1: you're not saying other people shouldn't try. No. I think
Speaker 1: I think what I think Nathan saying is be realistic.
Speaker 1: You know, follow your dreams and it all work out.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to reassess your dreams. And I think
Speaker 1: so many people today are driven by this desire to
Speaker 1: be famous. If you look at what people want, it's
Speaker 1: less that they want fulfilling work that makes them feel gratified.
Speaker 1: It's more they want to be a quote unquote brand
Speaker 1: that makes them famous. Yes, thank you, that's totally true.
Speaker 1: And I think I think, you know, if you can
Speaker 1: get a job in a fee old that you're interested
Speaker 1: and that you enjoy, yeah, then that's success. Like that's
Speaker 1: hitting it out of the park. And I think that
Speaker 1: people's expectations have gotten really twisted and unrealistic. On a
Speaker 1: related note, Jonathan, you also said that high self esteem
Speaker 1: is the enemy of creativity. Um, can you talk more
Speaker 1: about that? I thought it was really interesting. I think
Speaker 1: creativity is a very strange and challenging beast to to explain.
Speaker 1: And Um Simon calls me Ariannakfka because he says that
Speaker 1: half of me is like kind of a glib, fun
Speaker 1: like kicky pop songstress, like Ariana Grande, and that's the
Speaker 1: sort of dreamy um side of me in which ideas
Speaker 1: first occur, Like I might wake up one day and say,
Speaker 1: I know, I want to make a gigantic loose sight
Speaker 1: foot in pink looe sight um, And that's sort of
Speaker 1: an Ariana Grande dreamy kind of world. But in order
Speaker 1: to take that idea and turn it into a real thing,
Speaker 1: one has to be intensely like self critical and analytical
Speaker 1: and have very low self esteem. And so you see
Speaker 1: the first and perfectionistic. Yeah, you have to be very perfectionistist.
Speaker 1: You need to perfectionistic, and you need to look at
Speaker 1: the first sample and say that sucks, like me, I'm
Speaker 1: the worst, I'm the worst, this is the worst why,
Speaker 1: And then you need to sort of torture it into
Speaker 1: its best self. So I think I think to be
Speaker 1: creatively successful you need to have a a strange combination
Speaker 1: of dreamy, high self esteem to come up with an
Speaker 1: idea and extremely analytical, intense low self esteem to torture
Speaker 1: the idea. Yeah, to execute it and make it as
Speaker 1: good as it can be. Does your polo shirts say
Speaker 1: jap on it? By the way, it does? That's my monogram.
Speaker 1: I wi should this reverse to Jewish American princess generally
Speaker 1: not the racist description of Japanese people? To be clear, yes, no,
Speaker 1: but I happen to have a monogram that is jap
Speaker 1: Well wait, Jonathan Paul and you're Jonathan Paul Adler, I
Speaker 1: get it. Um, I'm curious. Do you make everything that
Speaker 1: you saw in the store? Do you design everything you
Speaker 1: sell in the store? Yeah? Pretty? I mean there are
Speaker 1: a couple exceptions, like we saw a couple of different
Speaker 1: artists work and stuff, but yeah, I work in every
Speaker 1: medium and kind of furniture, everything, like su everything. I
Speaker 1: really like the vase with the breasts all over it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's um that is from really really like it. Yeah
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I know for Christmas. A lot
Speaker 1: of my friends have it, and they're different, but I
Speaker 1: like the one that has sort of the breasts all
Speaker 1: over it. It's too bad you are missing Katie's gesture
Speaker 1: right now, she's mimicking breasts. You don't, actually, well, she's
Speaker 1: mimicking grabbing breasts. Yeah, would be. That's what I kind
Speaker 1: of like. By the way, before we wrap, we should
Speaker 1: talk about the new challenge you've taken on Simon. You're
Speaker 1: a judge on a reality show because of course why not?
Speaker 1: And it's called Making It And it's hosted by Amy
Speaker 1: Poehler and Nick Offerman, who are two hilarious people, and
Speaker 1: I hope they're hilarious with each other too. Although they're
Speaker 1: not a couple. No, they're not a couple. Yeah are
Speaker 1: they know? Because Nick? But I bet they're a hilarious couple. Anyway,
Speaker 1: can you explain how the show works? Um? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a crafting competition show or crafting competition show. I am
Speaker 1: one of two judges. I'm an expert judge. The other
Speaker 1: judges Dana Issam Johnson from Etsy and Nick and Amy
Speaker 1: are the hosts. And you know, crafts is something that
Speaker 1: Amy polar is passionate about, as is Nick, even though
Speaker 1: she doesn't do them herself. She feels that there are
Speaker 1: the solution to all our problems. We all need to
Speaker 1: put down our devices and start decopaging and macromyng and
Speaker 1: it is a national movement, the crafting movement. I think
Speaker 1: that's why the show is such a big hit. It's
Speaker 1: also positive. I mean the first day on the set
Speaker 1: she said, I don't want any fake conflict, any bitchiness,
Speaker 1: any blah blah blah, and I said, we'll see you later.
Speaker 1: But no, they from the get go it was all
Speaker 1: going to be about positivity and as you say, I
Speaker 1: think people need that right now, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons it's a big hit. So it was so
Speaker 1: fun to do though, because for me it's like being
Speaker 1: back in the display studio, chicken wire props, decoupage mod
Speaker 1: page making stuff. Yeah, it was a great experience, something unexpected.
Speaker 1: So tell me about decorating the White House, Simon was
Speaker 1: that the thrill of a lifetime. Decorating the White House
Speaker 1: was the thrill of a lifetime. I had just become
Speaker 1: a citizen and voted for Barack Obama, and I thought,
Speaker 1: we a'm here, I'm American. And then Desiree Rogers, who
Speaker 1: was the social secretary, she called me and said, we
Speaker 1: want help with the holiday decors. And that was at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, and I spent that year
Speaker 1: going back and forward, and I worked with this wonderful
Speaker 1: florist called Kimberly Merlin. So it was very much you know,
Speaker 1: I was very involved in it, and um, but there
Speaker 1: was a group of us working on it and a
Speaker 1: ton of volunteers. It actually really looked great. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's ever looked better, of course, and
Speaker 1: we incorporated recycling elements and Mrs Obama, which I had
Speaker 1: two meetings with her, and it was she was just
Speaker 1: so lovely and so kind to everybody, and and she
Speaker 1: threw a little party for all the volunteers after the
Speaker 1: installation was complete, and I just remember her extemporaneous speech
Speaker 1: was just so perfect, and uh yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: great experience. That's so fun. I mean, how are you
Speaker 1: all dealing with the current political climate. I can't help
Speaker 1: but listen to that story and wonder what it would
Speaker 1: be like to decorate the current White House. Um, what
Speaker 1: would you do if you were decorating the current White House? Simon? Um,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the mind reels. Fortunately, I haven't would
Speaker 1: you take that job if you were called? Um? I
Speaker 1: don't think so, you know, I think he should just
Speaker 1: do what he does at Trump Tower, that gaudy kind
Speaker 1: of um Roman casino Caesar's Palace look that they have
Speaker 1: going on. Do that like, um no, I am now
Speaker 1: I turned to sort of I'm so busy with these
Speaker 1: book projects. I don't obsess about the political world. I
Speaker 1: voted for Hillary Clinton and I was disappointed. But you know,
Speaker 1: time when you're in retail, time goes by really quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, our holiday campaigns we used to plan two
Speaker 1: years out, you know, so I'm very used to thinking ahead,
Speaker 1: ahead ahead, and thinking of when there'll be a different
Speaker 1: a new person in there, you know, you know, with
Speaker 1: the coverage is so relentless, and if you're in our business,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard not to feel like you're absolutely drowning
Speaker 1: in this constant slew of drama, negativity and tumult. So
Speaker 1: it's inescapable, I think for people like us. But what
Speaker 1: about you, Jonathan? I travel a lot for work, like
Speaker 1: I am in Asia quite often. I've traveled all around
Speaker 1: the world, the Middle East, South, America, and whenever I
Speaker 1: come back to America, I am always like, Wow, America
Speaker 1: is pretty great. Um this sounds you know, Grant, But
Speaker 1: I'm lucky to have sort of a global perspective, and
Speaker 1: you know, I appreciate that word democracy. I think that
Speaker 1: whenever I come back to America, I feel really happy
Speaker 1: to be here. I'm a huge America lover, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a fascinating time to be alive.
Speaker 1: But I'm a busy guy. I don't think the political
Speaker 1: situation has made me mad one way or another. I
Speaker 1: find it interesting, but I'm always happy to be here.
Speaker 1: I can hear people listening to this though, and wondering,
Speaker 1: as two gay men, are you outraged by sort of
Speaker 1: what you see is perhaps a lack of tolerance for
Speaker 1: diversity and a lack of openness for you know, the
Speaker 1: decision tender people right, well right, or you know sort
Speaker 1: of other rising In general, I think that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: one should always kind of keep one's eye on that
Speaker 1: situation and strive for greater rights and parity. But again,
Speaker 1: I always think about the journey from my childhood, when
Speaker 1: I lived in rural America being gay was an impossibility,
Speaker 1: and think about how luck I am to be alive today,
Speaker 1: and and again when I travel the world in places
Speaker 1: where I've been to places where it's illegal to be gay.
Speaker 1: It's always a good reminder to me how lucky, you know,
Speaker 1: think are things perfect here? Of course, oh my god,
Speaker 1: things are not perfect, But I'm awfully glad to be
Speaker 1: here versus some other places. I do think that's a
Speaker 1: healthy reminder than in the grand sweep of history, we
Speaker 1: are so much better off than we were even twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty years. Oh my god. And people kind of
Speaker 1: take that for granted, and it's easy to lose sight
Speaker 1: of that in the day to day, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But in fairness, I think people are worried about turning
Speaker 1: back the clock and some of the rights and and
Speaker 1: oh my god, you know, the progress that's been made
Speaker 1: is going to be reversed, and they want to stay
Speaker 1: ever vigilant on that. And so I appreciate that point
Speaker 1: of We went through that. You know, we got married
Speaker 1: in that window when it was legal in two thousand four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden Prop eight was upheld
Speaker 1: by a referendum and we were unmarried, weren't married again.
Speaker 1: So you know, to go through that, you have to like, Okay,
Speaker 1: tomorrow is another day, Scarlett O'Hara, You know, pull the
Speaker 1: car out of the dirt. You keep going because and
Speaker 1: then in typical American way, it did eventually get so
Speaker 1: want it out and d wins that came along, and
Speaker 1: then it was when we should provide maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more context for people weren't in that. In two
Speaker 1: thousand four, in San Francisco, gay marriage was legalized. This
Speaker 1: became a huge national issue. It was an issue in
Speaker 1: the presidential campaign that year the George W. Bush used
Speaker 1: successfully to get reelected. The voters of California. Progressive liberal
Speaker 1: California voted to band game marriage in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: invalidating your relationship, and then seven years after that, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationally. So that's quite a
Speaker 1: thank you for that. Her story, that was so good,
Speaker 1: But that's quite a quite a journey and maybe hopefully
Speaker 1: a metaphor for progress at large. Weirdly, for us, it
Speaker 1: wasn't an emotional journey because I think we've both been
Speaker 1: through I remember the legalization of homosexuality, the Wolfenden Report,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. So we've been through all these vice
Speaker 1: institutes and you know, as a creative post and you
Speaker 1: stay focused, you you know, you hope for the best,
Speaker 1: and you know they are incredible people in the gay movement,
Speaker 1: like the people at the HRC who doggedly start with
Speaker 1: it and Needy Winsor as I mentioned before, and they
Speaker 1: made it happen. They brought it back to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: which you could probably say a lot better than I
Speaker 1: interviewed James Berghafell, who was the man really behind that
Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision. And it's so interesting to me how
Speaker 1: changing the perspective and really referring to it as marriage
Speaker 1: equality really actually had a lot to do with greater
Speaker 1: acceptance of gay marriage. Yeah, seeing the journey of the
Speaker 1: way other people perceived gay marriage has been so fascinating
Speaker 1: because it took people within the gay world a while
Speaker 1: to even come around to the idea of it. And
Speaker 1: I think actually AIDS had a huge impact on the
Speaker 1: gay in the gay marriage movement because during the AIDS epidemic,
Speaker 1: during its height, a lot of people would die and
Speaker 1: their long time companions would would lose everything they had
Speaker 1: because they weren't legally entitled to it. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize involved, right that happened
Speaker 1: to her, Well, it happened to her, yes, a similar thing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't aids, but yes, and I think and her partner,
Speaker 1: her partner for whom she was like a longtime caregiver
Speaker 1: of the partner I think had MS and eventually ended
Speaker 1: up in a wheelchair, and it was like a very
Speaker 1: sad and inspiring love story. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of straight people didn't really understand the financial implications of
Speaker 1: the lack of game marriage. They didn't really understand that
Speaker 1: if somebody's longtime partner died, they would owe taxes in
Speaker 1: a way that straight couples wouldn't. And I think that
Speaker 1: when you put it into real nitty gritty dollar and
Speaker 1: sense terms, and people are much more sympathetic to it
Speaker 1: because they kind of understand the real implications beyond just
Speaker 1: sort of a concept. A sure, did being married feel
Speaker 1: different to you guys than being in the relationship before that? Nope, No,
Speaker 1: We're like two flokes, were very We're sort of not
Speaker 1: the most sentimental people. I'm glad you told me when
Speaker 1: the dates of gay marriage legalization were, because neither of
Speaker 1: us has any idea when we got married, So now
Speaker 1: I know it was between two thousand and four and
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. Do you remember the date? Nope?
Speaker 1: But you know, my parents got married um in a
Speaker 1: registered office and they went to the pub next door
Speaker 1: and they got paralytically drunk and lost the marriage certificate.
Speaker 1: So they never knew when they were married, and they
Speaker 1: never had a wedding anniversary. So you never celebrate your anniversary. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know what. Every we're very celebratory about
Speaker 1: our lives. Like this weekend, we're a paddle boarding. How
Speaker 1: lucky are we? Look at the weather, look at the dog.
Speaker 1: Hello you you're cute. Like we don't take anything for granted,
Speaker 1: But it's those celebrate every day, but easyctly, we're lucky
Speaker 1: to have such eight lives, and neither of us is
Speaker 1: terribly sentimental. But I will see you like you know,
Speaker 1: I went to Brown in the late eighties and somehow
Speaker 1: all of my friends were these like super fancy heiresses.
Speaker 1: And so after college, Simons when I first well there's
Speaker 1: a reason I'm saying this. So when Simon first met me,
Speaker 1: we went to about ten weddings in a row that
Speaker 1: each one was more extravagant and glamorous than the last
Speaker 1: of these, like ras after ars getting married, and they
Speaker 1: were billion dollar sermons. But they're all divorced. Every single
Speaker 1: one of them is divorced, So you know, I think
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a lesson there. Like Sliman
Speaker 1: and I had a very low key wedding and we're
Speaker 1: blissfully happily together loathies. However many years it's been later
Speaker 1: ten years, if you feel it, because I love for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know that we have a
Speaker 1: lot of events in our lives as to you, events
Speaker 1: events you live in New York because there was some
Speaker 1: bloody thing going on. For a lot of people, the
Speaker 1: wedding is that it's the big thing that they're always
Speaker 1: going to remember, and the just and the flowers and
Speaker 1: the why not if that's you know? So I know,
Speaker 1: I don't have an opinion about it. It's entirely a
Speaker 1: personal thing, whether you do that or not. So after
Speaker 1: watching so many people around you break up, what do
Speaker 1: you think is the secret to your success? I think
Speaker 1: we have a common sense of humor, and our parents
Speaker 1: are weirdly similar. Like our sensibility. We tend to laugh
Speaker 1: at the same thing, you know, make fun of each other, tease.
Speaker 1: I think humor is so important, and even if even
Speaker 1: if just one person in the couple is funny, and
Speaker 1: I think you both are funny, and I would like
Speaker 1: to say in my marriage, we're both I think pretty funny.
Speaker 1: But it's also the ability to appreciate the other person's
Speaker 1: sense of humor, which is really really important as very funny.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes you're funny. He thinks sound funny.
Speaker 1: I think he's funny. And that's when I think most
Speaker 1: duos really work when there's a joint appreciate ation of
Speaker 1: each other. And it's not a common thing. You know.
Speaker 1: The other night, I was in a restaurant and I
Speaker 1: was looking. There was a group of guys together and
Speaker 1: they're all roaring with laughter and drinking. A group of
Speaker 1: girls after work, screaming with laughter, like throwing things at
Speaker 1: each other, having such a great time. And then a couple,
Speaker 1: a man and a woman together and they look like
Speaker 1: they're very anxious with each other, you know, was the
Speaker 1: first date and yeah, And I thought, oh, well, hopefully
Speaker 1: that loosens up a bit, because when you do go
Speaker 1: out and you see a man and a woman together
Speaker 1: and they're laughing and joking, it's the nicest thing to see.
Speaker 1: You think, oh, yeah, look that's a rap pole right there.
Speaker 1: I used to always look at couples in restaurants, and
Speaker 1: if they weren't talking to each other, I'd say it
Speaker 1: to my husband. My my first husband passed away, and
Speaker 1: so I would say, hey, if we ever turn out
Speaker 1: like those people, I'm going to be so depressed because
Speaker 1: they're not even speaking to one other. But I've actually
Speaker 1: come around because I think there's something really nice occasionally,
Speaker 1: not all the time, about being able to be quiet
Speaker 1: with someone too, that not feeling like you have to
Speaker 1: entertain each other all the time, and just sort of
Speaker 1: being comfortable on the first bloody day. Bring it on
Speaker 1: the first date. I mean to get to that point,
Speaker 1: all right, but yeah, but I just need to kick
Speaker 1: it back to us on that first date. My god
Speaker 1: was he mute? You should thank me every day Sliman
Speaker 1: that I was the chatty Cathy that I am in
Speaker 1: now twenty we discussed the word from the control room.
Speaker 1: We just figured out that your ten year wedding anniversary
Speaker 1: is actually tomorrow. Did you know this? Tomorrow? Thank you
Speaker 1: get me sept ten years? All right, we'll be shut
Speaker 1: to um not celebrate that. I think Jonathan has this
Speaker 1: beautiful vase that's covered with rests your name on it.
Speaker 1: What are you getting me? But yeah, it is interesting
Speaker 1: why low these many years later, why we still are
Speaker 1: such a happy couple and to be I would never
Speaker 1: say this, I r l just but I never tire
Speaker 1: of seeing my Simon's face. I'm always happy to see
Speaker 1: that little face too. Simon and Jonathan has been so
Speaker 1: fun to talk to you and actually for me to
Speaker 1: get to know you both a little bit better. And
Speaker 1: happy anniversary. I'm sure you'll celebrate it in style if
Speaker 1: you remember. But just again, it's tomorrow. That's incredible, And
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming by and being on
Speaker 1: the podcast. We really appreciate it and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank you. We had a great time.
Speaker 1: That does it for our first ever couple's episode. Thank
Speaker 1: you to our team at Stitcher, our producer Gianna Palmer,
Speaker 1: associate producer Noura Richie, Andy Kristen who engineered this episode,
Speaker 1: Gratzy Andy, she's very cute. That's Andy with an eye
Speaker 1: and she's a female. And Jared O'Connell who mixed this episode,
Speaker 1: and of course my assistant Beth Demas and my new
Speaker 1: digital guru Julia Lewis. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music.
Speaker 1: Katie Kirk and I are the show's executive producers. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to keep the conversation going, find us on
Speaker 1: social media. I tweet from at Goldsmith B and Katie
Speaker 1: is all over the place on Instagram under Katie kerk.
Speaker 1: Check out my stories people if you want to be
Speaker 1: amused me while. We'll be back next week for real,
Speaker 1: this time because we have no choice. With the first
Speaker 1: installment in our documentary series, looking back at our interviews
Speaker 1: from ten years ago with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Speaker 1: Talk to you then,