WEBVTT - Graydon Carter 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.960 Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us today on Table for two. 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:13.000 I'm Bruce and we are in my hometown, NYC at 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:13.800 Via Coroda. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.640 We're gonna order some lunch, Okay, I mean, I know usually, 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.600 I guess the last night today we were having lunch 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.680 with a man who has come out with his memoir 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:26.840 called When the Going Was Good and. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.360 Editor's Adventures during the Last Golden Age of Magazines. Mister 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.680 Graydon Carter, I'm gonna do the beat salad and the chicken. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:41.559 Okay, I'll have the and I might have the I 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:42.839 think it was the best restaurant you are. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:43.760 Thank you do. 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:52.560 That's a big thing coming from. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.880 So pull up a chair, grab a glass rose, and enjoy. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.240 I'm Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast Table for two. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.200 So if you've pulled up a chair. 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.240 Today on Table for two, we were sitting with a 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.560 man himself, mister Graydon Carter. Graydon's come out with a 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.720 book which Graydon, It's a great memoir. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:19.959 It really is well was good in. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.440 Editors Adventures during the Last Golden Age of magazines, not 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.399 only because I actually saw my name in it, which 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:26.199 blew me away. 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:27.000 I guess. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.360 My first question is why is this the time for 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.760 you to tell your story, do you think? 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.760 Oh no, it happened completely backs And I was having lunch 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.600 with a friend of mine, James Fox, the great journalist 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:43.839 who wrote wrote the book White Mischief and wrote worked 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.319 with Keith Richards on his memoir Life, which was a 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.160 huge bestseller. And he said if I ever decided to 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:55.880 do a memoir that he would help me. And I'd 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.360 never even thought of it up to that point. And 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.200 then I had was approached by Bob Barnett, who's he's 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.680 a lawyer of Williams and Connolly, but he also represents. 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:07.960 Authors. 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:12.640 He represents you know, presidents and popes, who represented the Clintons, 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.120 the Obamas, and he you know, he's Bob Woodward's agents, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.360 and so he said he would love to represent me, 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:26.840 and so so, you know, we I coupled together a proposal. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:27.280 I thought. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.440 I retired from Benny Fair, I had a little bit 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.000 more time on my hands, and and I and it 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.760 made me think that I realized that as I sort 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.520 of did the proposal, that I had lived through this 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:45.000 incredible golden age of of magazines that was very sort 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.280 of glamorous and fun. But because do great work and 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.920 great journalism, and James was invaluable because he you know, 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.760 he knew how to organize. He was helpful in organizing 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:57.920 the book and he would talk to some of my 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.639 ex employees that I was real like, you know, colleagues, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.160 because I was sort of too embarrassed to say, can 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.280 we talk about me? And this way he could do 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.440 that and then he sort of guided me through the process. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.960 I'd worked on it in with him in the South 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.880 of France, in New York, in Connecticut, and in London. 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.800 It's interesting because when you know that you worked on 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.000 it with someone and you're such a great writer and 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.760 your your letters always in you know, the editor's letters 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.040 were so great that one would But now I understand 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.800 too because it is a sort of weird thing to 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.000 not only formulate it and put it together, but ask 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:32.880 people for things. 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:34.600 Working with someone that you. 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.920 Will He would tell me what's boring and what's not boring, 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.080 and hopefully we left the non boring stop out as 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:41.880 much as possible. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:42.400 Really did. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.720 Also, I like having a partner quite frank I'm not 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.960 that sort of solitary writer and a Garrett sort of person, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.800 and I adore his company and it made it a 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.120 lot more fun than if I'd done it just myself, 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:55.240 a lot. 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.640 More fun having grown up, and I used to save 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.520 all my vanit affairs. I still have a big stack 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.280 of them. The covers were so great, the articles were 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.080 so great. I mean, you created something, because everything always 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.280 sort of reveals itself. When did you start to smell 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.040 the discontent or the age was ending? 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.360 Well, the Internet and the Internet and the financial crash 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.240 of two thousand and eight really caused magazines a great 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:25.080 deal of trouble. The Internet sort of gobbled the week 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.920 The Internet sort of gobbled the weeklies first, and it 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:30.920 was slower to get to the monthlies. But then at 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.240 the same time, the financial crash had dried up a 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.960 lot of advertising pages. We didn't suffer that much because 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.080 I had a very close connection to my advertisers. I 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:43.320 wrote thank you notes every month. But then the newstand 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:47.600 just started disappearing. And in New York, you know, every 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.880 major street corner had either one or two newstands on them. 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.640 And now when you see a newsstand on a street 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:55.159 corner in New York, you think it's like part of 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:59.440 a movie. Said so, and every every building, every office 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.919 building in the had a news stand in the lobby, 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.360 and now if they do, they sell gum and lotto 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:07.839 tickets where there's no magazine. 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:08.000 Right. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.400 In fact, when we moved to one World Trade Center, 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.280 when Connie Nass moved there, I don't think anybody who 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.440 thought to ask for a news stand in the lobby. 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:18.000 There wasn't one. 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.440 We had to send somebody time to Square to get 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:24.840 a magazine. There was a so called efficiency move a 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.760 foot that would combine all half of my staff into 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:29.880 a group run. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:30.800 By and a win tour. 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.200 And I thought I'd worked with these people for twenty 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.120 five years. They were key to the magazine. That was 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.919 the art direction staff, the photo staff, the fact checking staff, 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.600 and the legal staff. And I thought I couldn't possibly 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.640 work that way without the regular people I had, because 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.200 they knew these like the fact checkers and the researchers. 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.760 They knew that every writer's strengths and weaknesses, and they 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:54.880 were the ones who kept us. 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.520 Out of court or libel actions. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.720 So yeah, and so you know, when Anna tried to 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.840 take home half my staff, and I don't I mean, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:06.599 I don't. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.200 Blame her in anyway, but it just had that sort 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:09.240 of marked the end for me. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:10.200 And then I'm sure. 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.240 My wife Anna had been pestering me to retire, and 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.120 so I thought I was coming up to twenty five years, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.000 and I thought that's a nice tidy number. So she 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.240 went ahead and rented a house in the south of France. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.479 They had sort of finalized the whole thing because it 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.120 started in December and my last day was I think 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.000 sometime in November, and three days later we were on 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.760 a flight to Europe, So it is that amazing. 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.479 How did it feel after twenty five years? And I 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.279 want to really go through sort of the editorial, like 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.200 you know, I would love you to explain what the 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.239 editor does, and you were. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.520 Not that much by Oh yeah, we will, I'll do 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:49.040 my best. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.200 I don't know about that with your magazine because your 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.320 magazine was so curated, so perfectly and so beautiful. But 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.360 when you woke up in France after twenty five years, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.400 did it feel like oh okay? 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.600 It was like I was, I have not missed a 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:05.800 single thing. It's funny. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.040 I thought I'd missed having a car and driver, but 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:09.440 they invented this thing called. 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.960 Uber so that took care of that. 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.960 And I missed not seeing my colleagues when I was 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.800 over there. But Brad, you know, Airmail is staffed with 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.320 old Benny Fair hands, and I see all my colleagues 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.760 on a regular basis, so I don't I don't. I 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.880 don't now miss them because I see them. And it 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.080 was like losing like fifty pounds overnight, you know, I 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.520 felt healthier. It was, you know, running those big, a 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.800 big magazine like that under a lot of is a 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:44.280 lot of stress, and I I felt immensely relieved when 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:46.080 it was over, and I you know, I could wake 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.239 up in my own hours. I saw I got about 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:55.160 two thousand letters after I retired, and I took a 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.080 couple of months and answered every single one of them. 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.880 Wow. So I mean, well that's reflective like this access. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.400 I think of Vanity Fair and of you, and I 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:05.040 kind of want to go a little bit back in 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:05.520 your life. 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.000 Is the why the parties were something? 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:13.080 Why you is the attention to detail and the level 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.200 of elegance and respect that you make sure you have 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.360 an aesthetic that sort of I mean, you're from Ottawa, 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:23.480 You're from Canada. You love you know, you have an 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.520 incredible restaurant here in New York called Waverley. 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.680 The Waverley in and it's beautiful in the foot. 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.000 How did you sort of develop this aesthetic from being 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.640 a kid from Ottawa who worked in the I mean 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.959 the early years of your life were tough. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:38.200 They weren't dead tough. 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.800 I mean my parents I sent My parents were like 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.960 a lot of my parents' friends. They sent their sons 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.440 off to work somewhere out in the West coast, either 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.800 on the oil fields or the railroad, to toughen them 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.400 up before they started college and got on with their lives. 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.840 And I worked for six months for the Canadian Railroad 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.200 and National Railroad out of the Prairie as a lineman, 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.560 and I lived in a box car with eleven man 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.400 I couldn't believe, many of whom had sort of criminal records, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:12.640 some minors, some slightly less so. And I adored these 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.439 guys and I had a great time and it taught me. 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:16.480 It taught me a ton. 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.200 First of all, I got over my fear of heights, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:22.559 because you had to climb first twenty foot telegraph poles 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.000 and then thirty foot ones. 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.439 And it was hard labor, and it was really. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.079 Enjoyable, and I felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.120 So and a tough it did tough me up. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.160 I came back with muscles I didn't know I had, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:42.840 all of which are probably gone now. And so but I, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.360 you know, I felt, Okay, I'm done with that, and 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.600 now it's time to get on with an adult life. 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:51.719 And I care about little things because I just do. 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:52.439 And so. 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.000 I spent you know, I had a magazine in college 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.480 that was a literary political magazine, and it used to 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.800 spend hours and hours and hours there and spend sometimes 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.200 eighteen hours a day the Canadian Review, and it was 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:09.959 it was not very good. It was a magazine put 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.600 up by a bunch of young people who had never 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.040 worked at a magazine before. 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.079 And what was it like articles? 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:18.760 It was like it was like a like a very 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:24.160 bad collegiate version of Harper's or The Atlantic, and uh, 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:29.679 it just never did anything but lose money. And uh, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.679 the Canadians like they the Canadian writers produced poetry at 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.920 incredible an incredible volume, and so that I hate contemporary poetry, 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:40.640 or not all of it, but I hate most of it, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:42.240 at least the stuff that was being sent to me. 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.440 And I used to just at one point I just 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.120 the staff found caught me. They were very big on poetry. 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:53.680 And they caught me shoveling a load of recent submissions 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.040 into the waste basket one day, and they revolted on 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.319 masks and I had to bring in the news style. 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.200 And there was at this point you were I was 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.640 like twenty, and there just it was constant infighting. And 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.000 you have no idea the level of infighting at a 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.640 small magazine. And but you know, we eventually sold it 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.120 to our closest competitor, and it got me a job 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:28.960 at Time magazine. 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.120 You talk about New York at a time where I 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.880 was growing up in New York and was in the seventies, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.320 was in elementary school, but like ending by like fourteen, 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.040 so hitting nineteen eighty to fifteen, and New York truly 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:45.520 was and I can from at any I think at 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.920 any stage you were in a magical. 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.480 Place in the seventies, it just was. 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.440 I agree, explain what New York was to you, because 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.280 you really came and again impressive, the tweed blazer that 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.079 you know you're sweating your ass off. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.880 When you're trying to like a dime in your pocket 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:02.559 for a phone call. 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:04.480 Yeah, I didn't have New York clothes. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.640 I didn't have you know, like like you know, seer 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.960 soccer suits or anything like that, because Canada is much 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.320 colder and I didn't have to wear a suit that much, 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:12.920 so I only came. 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:13.640 I only had a. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.720 Huge thick tweet jacket and a huge thick blue blazer. 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.360 And uh, I just love. I was so excited to 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.520 be New York. They burned as you know, they were 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.320 burned out cars. There was prostitutes everywhere. There's drugs everywhere, 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.840 there was there was like crime and fasted feet. Was 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:35.720 I've never been more excited. And you know, also when 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.719 you look back, it was New York was it was 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:39.640 sort of more free wheeling than it is now. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:45.200 And I'm not even no comparison. 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.560 No comparison, and and I mean I appreciate that it's 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:49.199 less pre wheeling now that I'm older. 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.840 I wouldn't want to be like the seventies again, for sure. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.000 I mean my brid was, yeah, two hundred dollars a 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:55.280 month from apartment not. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:55.920 Far from here. 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.520 Chewing gum was ten cents twenty. 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:00.560 I mean every I know, it's sound hot, the concrete, 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:10.960 well it's those eywhere else. Probably the you could go to, uh, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.680 you know, a movie for two bucks. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:15.520 I mean you could go out and have a full 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:16.479 dinner movie. 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.559 Experience for twenty bucks. That was at that but more 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.400 so it was there was like anything could happen. And 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.440 and anyone who has lived through that, who I've spoken to, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:30.160 it's not like we're glamorizing something. We're just appreciating sort 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.160 of the I think something that you are so good. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:38.000 At, the authenticity of what it was. And how did 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:39.480 those years gifts? 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.800 I think, I think they really do influence influence you 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:47.880 in Time Life Spy to then get to Vanity Fair 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:48.880 because you go. 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.640 From satirical to satorial. 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:54.840 So it's an interesting at some point you made a 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:56.320 shift in something. 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.959 Well, as you get older and as you get paid 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.040 a little more, you can dress a little better and 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.040 so and I have the love clothes. I'm not interested 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.400 in patch that money at all, but I really love clothes. 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.960 And also close I'm putting on a beautiful suit in 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:15.439 the morning makes. 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.840 You feel better about the entire day, all right, So. 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:22.840 No, it just everything was sort of gradual, and I 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:24.760 was so just happy to be in New York. And 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.880 there was a review in the Washington Post with the 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.680 credits really funny, so compared me to Buddy in l 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.400 and I thought, hey, that's really offensive. 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.320 B it's really funny. And see it's really accurate. 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.360 That's one of the great facets of your personality when 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.160 you read this book too, is you fine when it's bad, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.400 but then you're like, but you know what, I really 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:48.520 that was really funny. 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.360 Okay, Okay, Canadians are very happy people. Look at the 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.360 Canadians you probably know in York, Mark and Short, Catherine O'Hara. 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.880 They're really happy people, right, They're really very affable. And 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.440 it's not a it's not a just a surface happiness. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.960 They're happy, right, And I think they're especially happy to 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:08.240 be in America. 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.280 This other than I think is right. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:27.680 Up until the last couple of months. 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.200 Welcome back to Table for two. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.080 After writing for Time and then Life Magazine, our guest 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:46.320 Graydon Carter co founded Spy, a satirical magazine. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.080 That ran for twelve years. What inspired him to make 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:50.560 the leap? 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.160 What kind of gave you the cajones to say now 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:56.800 I'm going back out on my own. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.920 Wellus having had a magazine in coll It just I 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.240 knew how to make a magazine. I didn't know how 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:05.920 to make a good magazine yet. And I knew, but 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:06.560 I knew the. 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.320 Elements of Megia magazine, and so I teamed up. When 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.400 I was at Life, I was a little bored. The 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.360 city had come out of that seventies period, burned out, 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.760 car has been towed away, with less drugs and prostitution, 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.720 and all of a sudden the city was washed with 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.360 investment bankers right and money and ladies who lunch and 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.000 people like Donald Trump and Riona Helmsley. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:37.320 And Steinberg, Sawberg, Godfrey, Shebang. 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:43.640 So so it was accidentally really good timing. And so 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.640 I teamed up with Kurt Anderson, who I had met 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:51.000 at Time magazine, and over a nine month period he'd 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.520 come up to my office at Life every day and 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.280 we'd work on a proposal for a magazine called Spy, 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.920 which would be a funny, journalistic magazine. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:01.680 About New York City. 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.120 And then we raised the money and we both left 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.360 our jobs, and it was. 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.880 A shockingly big hit at the time. 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.160 So when you were sitting with one another and you're 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.520 now putting together the issue, how did you target the 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:21.480 person that you're like? 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.760 Didn't target anybody other than we just tried to make 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.840 each other laugh, and we thought if we laugh, other 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:28.480 people will do. 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.040 And the covers were quite interesting. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.080 They were good. We had no money, but we did 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:34.280 our best with covers, and. 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.640 We had sometimes we had very primitive versions of photoshop, 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.760 but we haven't. We attracted a number of good photographers 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.199 to shoot the covers, and we did the covers in 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:43.680 the way. 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.240 That Lauren did Saturday Night Live. 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.879 In the early days, we thought we were sort of 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.320 not ready for prime time, but we wanted people on 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:51.800 the covers. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:53.920 It'd be like the guest stars on Saturday and Live, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:55.280 that the. 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.520 Reader would recognize the people on the cover, if not necessarily. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.320 In the early stages, the writers of the. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.800 Magazine, okay, so we had like, yeah, famous, like Chris 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.480 Elliott was on our famous cover for people who don't know, 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.399 Chris Elliott was a big thing when David. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:15.240 Le Chris Elliott, who is so funny, very funny. So 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:17.960 then because really it's the road to. 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:24.200 Vanity fair that I think pivots, probably pivots your whole 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.399 life in this way, and you leave that room, it 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.720 seems like you're leaving a room and coming into another 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:36.199 room of now elevating the people in a way that 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:37.040 you were. 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:42.040 Now satirizing just writing in a straightforward way. 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.480 But there was a after we sold Spy after five 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.800 years to excuse me, Johnny Pagazzi and Charles Sacci, and 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.639 then I went and edited The New York Observer. It 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.800 was very sleepy, upper each side broadsheet. It was salmon colored. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.320 It had some New York Times type type face is 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:06.600 on the front page. After about six months they caught 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.720 on and I started sending complimentary copies to friends of mine, 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.400 A lot of them were editors in Europe. And then 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.240 sign new House, who made a. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.560 Twice yearly trip to all his properties in Europe. Young 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.000 you know, Vogue and The Fair and The New Yorker. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:27.800 And Details and GQ and Architective Digists and a dozen 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.280 other magazines. So he would go to visit and go 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.240 to London, Paris, Milan where their offices were in Europe. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.920 And at one point, everywhere he went he'd see a 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.120 copy of The New York Observer in the editors in boxes. 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:46.040 And he came back thinking that this the paper was 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.639 this international success. I mean, it wasn't. I was, I 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:51.959 was sending them copies, but it was. It was a 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.159 success in New York. And so he he asked me 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.399 if I'd like to get together. And I'd met him previous. 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.720 Anna Winter and introduced me to him, and so I 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.280 went to his apartment and he said, like, I wonder 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.280 if you'd be interested in one or two of the 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:12.000 magazine and I said, all Earth, and he said either 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:13.400 The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:17.000 And I thought, oh my god. Right. So I we 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.360 had made religious fun. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:25.840 Of Banny Fair, both the writing style, the editors, some 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.000 of the contributors, and I thought, so he said, well, 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.040 let's let's do the New York for them. And so 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.359 I worked on a plan for The New Yorker. And 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.720 then two weeks before no the day was supposed to 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:38.680 be announced. This is This is about two weeks after 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.240 he'd operated to me. So the day was supposed to 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.359 be announced, and a Winter calls me up and says, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:45.080 it's going to be the other magazine. 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:47.840 So I said, uh, okay, okay. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:53.400 And by that time, you know, I'm sort I had 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.920 no plan for Vanity Fair, but I felt that after 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:58.480