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