EXPERTS ON EXPERT: Elizabeth Gilbert

[0] I over eight.

[1] You watched me, Monica.

[2] But you worked out a ton.

[3] I worked out a ton.

[4] It's still probably a net loss.

[5] It's full down there.

[6] And then I just popped some DC down, hard and fast.

[7] And you heard the result, and I apologize.

[8] I hope you'll cut out the belch for the listeners.

[9] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[10] My name is Elizabeth Gilbert.

[11] And today's guest is Dack Shepard.

[12] I'm here with Emmy nominee.

[13] What is happening?

[14] It's experts on experts Thursday, Monica.

[15] You've gone crazy.

[16] I over ate.

[17] That's what happened?

[18] Yes, and I thought I should explain to the listeners, the cherries, why I'm a little off my rocker, because I overconsumed.

[19] Okay.

[20] I think it's relevant, don't you?

[21] It's context.

[22] Okay, in reality, I'm your host, Dan Shepard.

[23] And you still are Emmany nominated in miniature Maximus Mouse.

[24] Emany, yeah.

[25] Emany, Emany, Emany.

[26] Today's guest is Elizabeth Gilbert, who is one of the most successful writers on planet Earth.

[27] She wrote, Eat, Pray, Love.

[28] It was on the New York Times bestseller list for, I don't know, success.

[29] thousand weeks.

[30] Reddit loved it.

[31] Reddit loved it.

[32] Committed, she also wrote.

[33] Big Magic, she wrote.

[34] She has a new book called City of Girls, which was released two days ago on June 4 that's available everywhere right now.

[35] So please check it out.

[36] I'm just going to be honest.

[37] I want to be very transparent right now.

[38] Okay.

[39] I didn't read Eat, Pray, Love.

[40] It was one of my favorite interviews.

[41] I had so much fun talking to her.

[42] I came in like, oh, I don't know.

[43] I didn't read that book.

[44] And then he started reading about her and I got really interested in her.

[45] And then through talking to her, one of my favorite guests.

[46] What a cool person.

[47] So cool.

[48] Anyways, Elizabeth Gilbert was an absolute blast.

[49] I really hope I get to talk to her again.

[50] One last thing before we go.

[51] We have tickets if you live in Cleveland.

[52] I'm going to go further than that.

[53] Guys, I get a lot of tweets from people in like Pennsylvania.

[54] Come to Philadelphia.

[55] Guys, Cleveland is close.

[56] Go to Cleveland.

[57] We're going to be in Cleveland on June 23rd.

[58] And there are tickets still available.

[59] So go to our website to check that out.

[60] Also, Detroit, my sweet hometown.

[61] We've got a hell of a lineup guest -wise on this Midwest tour.

[62] So if you want tickets for Detroit, that's on the 21st.

[63] Go to our website, www.

[64] Warmchairexpertpod .com and come party with us.

[65] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[66] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

[67] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[68] Elizabeth, it's really fun to have you here.

[69] And I'm also, I just want to applaud the fact that you're coming off of already talking a bunch, right?

[70] Yeah, but that's not a problem whatsoever.

[71] I talk a lot, just in general.

[72] Would you say as a hobby?

[73] As a disorder.

[74] Okay.

[75] It might be more than as a hobby.

[76] Sure.

[77] Yeah, it's always been that way.

[78] So this is not a problem for me whatsoever.

[79] It's going to be a problem if you stop talking to me and then I'll cry.

[80] Okay.

[81] Well, you have no fear, I will never stop.

[82] Okay.

[83] Now, if you're someone who enjoys talking as I do, do you kind of organize your life around that activity?

[84] Let me give you an example.

[85] Please.

[86] Can't stand being somewhere with loud music.

[87] As much as I love music and I love loud music, I am immediately mad when we're somewhere where I'm not going to be able to talk.

[88] The only reason I'm going anywhere is to talk to people.

[89] I will leave a restaurant if it has loud music.

[90] You will.

[91] Yeah, or I'll say like, could you just do a very white lady thing.

[92] Yeah.

[93] Just to put that down, just a little bit.

[94] Yeah, honey, thanks.

[95] Yeah, like make yourself super tiny and then say something subversibly aggressive.

[96] Very entitled, but like, just a little baby.

[97] Excuse me. I'm going to fucking blow my head off if I don't get a little lower volume in here.

[98] Thank you.

[99] Yeah, for you, what is an ideal amount of people to have over?

[100] Because mine's capped.

[101] All right.

[102] To have over?

[103] Yes.

[104] Like some people, they like to have a gathering of like 40 people.

[105] There's music at the house.

[106] At eight, I'm already, like, that's going to be a lot.

[107] Like, how about we say six, and you get to bring a couple of your kids?

[108] Six grown -ups and a couple kids is all right.

[109] But beyond that, no, I don't want that.

[110] Yeah, because structurally at a table, something happens once you go beyond 10, where now there's going to be modular conversations, compartmentalized, right?

[111] Because you simply, acoustics don't afford for you to hear the person at the other.

[112] I have no interest in that party.

[113] Somebody is speechifying, and that's horrible to be at a dinner party with 10 people where somebody is giving speeches all night.

[114] I have a hunch.

[115] That's me. Side note, do you remember that movie about Schmidt?

[116] One of my favorite gags in that movie was Kathy Bates, ex -husband, loved giving speeches.

[117] He was always trying to give a speech at any given time.

[118] And finally, at one point, she goes, just shut the fuck up.

[119] No speech right now.

[120] And I thought, what a funny characteristic to give somebody because we all know people who live.

[121] for that moment.

[122] Clink, clink on the water glass.

[123] Now, you had a super interesting childhood, especially in today's context.

[124] Yeah.

[125] Dad was a chemical engineer.

[126] Yes.

[127] Mom was a stay -at -home mom.

[128] She was a nurse.

[129] Oh.

[130] So she worked part -time out of the house, but she was also like a full -time farm wife and stay -at -home mom.

[131] And you guys lived on a Christmas tree farm.

[132] That is correct.

[133] Ooh.

[134] Isn't that weird, Monica?

[135] I'm so excited to hear about this.

[136] You are?

[137] Yes.

[138] How many acres.

[139] are we talking about tiny like really tiny like a little postage stamp piece of land in rural connecticut and the berkshares my dad was really into efficiency so almost every single inch of our property had a Christmas tree on it really yeah so we didn't have much play space oh okay and then we had a pasture because we also had goats and chickens and honey bees and then the garden like so it was about maximizing the amount of space so that everything was producing something you guys were way ahead of your time.

[140] That's kind of like the movement you see happening up around the Bay Area and stuff.

[141] I guess it is.

[142] Although I think at the time in the 70s around the oil crisis, there was a little bit of that like, back to the land kind of hippie thing.

[143] Yeah.

[144] But my parents were weird because they're not hippies.

[145] They're Republicans.

[146] So I guess they're, I guess they're more like survivalists.

[147] Conspirates.

[148] Kind of, but without guns.

[149] Right.

[150] Okay.

[151] So take away the guns and the racism.

[152] I've never quite found the demographic that they fit into.

[153] But, but I guess.

[154] it would be libertarians.

[155] Oh, yeah, yeah, there you go.

[156] I, for a while, was a libertarian.

[157] Just side note.

[158] Oh, yeah?

[159] Had that work for you.

[160] Well, the economic meltdown of 2008.

[161] I was like, Oh, maybe we need some regulation.

[162] This is a joke.

[163] Yeah, they will not act in anyone's, and even in their own best interests.

[164] The market won't regulate.

[165] It'll collapse.

[166] That became very obvious that this thing has gotten way too complicated for us to rely on the invisible hand of Adam Smith.

[167] You know that great line.

[168] I think it was John Oliver years ago, who I heard say, you had an invisible hand, what would you do with it?

[169] Like, so that's what the market does when it has an invisible hand.

[170] It steals and it gropes and it does all sorts of things.

[171] But, yeah, my dad is still of the opinion that the problem is that there's too much regulation in the banking industry.

[172] Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

[173] A lot of people feel that way.

[174] Well, because they just have kind of a take -no prisoners look at it, which is like, no, they should all collapsed.

[175] I'm really obsessed with all these biographies around the late -18 -100s, early 1900s.

[176] kind of the original tycoons and prission class and all that.

[177] And when you read those books, banks were failing every two hours.

[178] Right, that's true.

[179] They failed nonstop.

[180] The biggest institutions were collapsing all the time before we got some regulation.

[181] The other great example of it, too, is the earthquake that took out Haiti.

[182] If I'm right about this, Monaco will fact check in you, but Haiti's one side of an island, right?

[183] And the other side is Dominican Republic.

[184] Yeah.

[185] And the Dominican Republic did not collapse.

[186] Same exact earthquake, Haiti completely collapsed.

[187] And that's because the Dominican Republic has building regulations.

[188] Right.

[189] And just the easiest.

[190] Oh, you mean literally collapse?

[191] Like the buildings literally didn't collapse.

[192] They stayed mostly intact.

[193] Well, then led to all that.

[194] So when you see those things, you're like, oh, no, maybe not.

[195] You can't leave it to the guy or gal writing a check to build something to do it the perfect way.

[196] Another thing that'll talk you out of libertarianism is going to Scandinavia.

[197] Okay, tell me why.

[198] Because you're like, wow, everything works.

[199] really, really well here.

[200] They have a lot of rules and they have a lot of taxes and they take care of their society and wow, it seems really fair and everyone seems to be really healthy and like, hmm.

[201] Well, there's a lot of metrics to support the fact that they are happy as much as we can measure that.

[202] They're like making people share and it seems to be working.

[203] Yeah.

[204] You're Swedish, right, by design?

[205] Scandahoovian by about, yeah, Swedish.

[206] Scandahoovian.

[207] Skandahoovian is my general term for that part of the world.

[208] Yeah, my mom's family is Swedish and my dad's family has some Scandahoovian and them.

[209] Okay, tell me the Viking.

[210] Hoovian part of this.

[211] It's just a word that I made up once.

[212] Oh, good.

[213] I think I made it up.

[214] Maybe someone else made it, but it's the word I use for the language in the IKEA manuals is Scatoo.

[215] Oh, I like that.

[216] Hoot to Hoot to Who to Screwdriver, you know.

[217] And I'm going to over generalize here, but that's kind of what I do.

[218] And then Monica points out how it was wrong.

[219] But, you know, I've been to Minnesota a bunch.

[220] Have you?

[221] Uh -huh.

[222] A bunch.

[223] My mom's from there.

[224] Okay, great.

[225] Yeah.

[226] They deliver on the stereotype that there, the nicest people in the world.

[227] Within nine minutes of me at the airport, you're like, where did I just land?

[228] Canada?

[229] What is this?

[230] Yes.

[231] I'd go even further than Canadian.

[232] I mean, there's in there, again, I think there's a lot of elements to it.

[233] It's a very dangerous climate to live.

[234] You really do need to rely on neighbors and help and all that kind of stuff.

[235] But certainly the Scandinavian underpinning is compelling.

[236] It is.

[237] Now, we have, in my family, my sister and I call it Scandinavian standoff, which is when you keep writing thank you notes back and forth to each other.

[238] A nice song.

[239] This happens in my family a lot where, like, I will go to my mom's house for dinner and she'll write me a thank you note saying thank you for coming to see us.

[240] As I'm writing her a thank you notes saying thank you for dinner.

[241] And then you might even get a thank you note saying thank you so much for your note.

[242] I loved it.

[243] And that's a Scandinavian standoff.

[244] That's hardcore.

[245] And one of the only upsides to having family is you don't have to be proper in any way.

[246] That's the actual appeal.

[247] It's like, I'm going to show up whenever the fuck I want, and then I'll leave.

[248] I don't have to make an excuse.

[249] Yeah, not my people.

[250] And you'll love me. My people don't do family that way.

[251] They don't.

[252] You know, the old joke of why wasps don't have group sex.

[253] Oh, tell me. That's because too many thank you notes to write afterwards.

[254] Oh, my God.

[255] I've never.

[256] Yeah.

[257] I like that.

[258] Anyway, that's the kind of people I come from.

[259] Okay.

[260] You'll be getting a thank you note.

[261] Oh, my gosh.

[262] I look forward to it.

[263] I've only gotten one from a guest, and it was from David Sedaris, who we worship.

[264] Of course.

[265] Are you friends with him at all?

[266] Or have you met with him?

[267] I've never met him, but I love him so dearly in my heart.

[268] And I once was on book tour where I was following him from city to city.

[269] And so every city I went to, I got incredible David Sedaris stories.

[270] I bet.

[271] Would you like to hear one?

[272] I would love it.

[273] Okay, this is one of the stories that I was told.

[274] I was told that David Sedaris was in the book signing line.

[275] This was in a pretty southern place.

[276] And every time he saw a woman who was there with her husband, sort of figure, middle -aged, nice -looking man who looked like he had come just to be there with his wife.

[277] And they'd be standing back while the wife was getting the book sign.

[278] David would call the guy forward and he'd say, listen, I just want to ask you a personal question.

[279] I'm kind of taking a survey.

[280] Do you mind if ask you a question?

[281] The guy says, sure.

[282] And he said, if you were to wake up one day in the woods with a lump on the back of your head and bruises and cuts on your knees and a used condom hanging out of your rectum, would you tell it?

[283] And the very nice man in his, like, Christmas sweater would be like, uh, no. And David would say, you want to go camping with me?

[284] Oh, my.

[285] And he did it to goodness.

[286] A guy after guy after guy.

[287] Isn't that amazing?

[288] Yeah, it holds up.

[289] It really holds up based on the stories he was telling us.

[290] He's so charming and lovely that he somehow gets away with that.

[291] He's likable.

[292] I certainly hope it's okay that I just repeated that.

[293] Oh, of course.

[294] He would love it.

[295] I love it.

[296] Everyone loves it.

[297] Because what I'll come up often is there are jokes you're apparently allowed to tell and not allowed to tell.

[298] But I was molested.

[299] I'm very open about it.

[300] So I enjoy molesting jokes.

[301] One of my favorites is a Boy Scout leader and a young Boy Scout.

[302] Well, right.

[303] Boy Scout leader and a young Boy Scout walking deep, deep into the woods, it's night.

[304] And the Boy Scout says the scout leader, it's scary out here.

[305] I'm really scared.

[306] And he goes, how do you think I feel?

[307] I'm going to be walking out of here by myself.

[308] Isn't that awful?

[309] Oh, this so reminds me. Okay, so when I was growing up, I had my dad, my grandfather, two of my uncles and my great -grandfather, when they were all alive and when they were all active alcoholics instead of like recovered alcoholics.

[310] Oh, are they?

[311] My uncle is like a reformed alcoholic.

[312] At this point, my dad doesn't drink like he used to.

[313] My grandfather doesn't drink anymore, but only because he's dead.

[314] But like, there were these.

[315] gatherings, these family gatherings, when these guys, and they were all hilarious, outrageous, loud, joke -telling, competitive drunks, and they're the happiest memories of my entire childhood is sitting at that table as a seven -year -old, and they're editing themselves, not one bit, not one sense of consciousness.

[316] The second -grade girl sitting at the table maybe doesn't need to be hearing the rape joke, the abortion jokes, the violent, like, and it just trained me in everything about what.

[317] to delight in the world, you know, like, and how to be with pretty much anybody.

[318] Like, it's why I was able to be a bartender and work on a ranch and do all this stuff that I've done in my life.

[319] But it's also, people ask that question, if you could have dinner with anybody living or dead, I'm always like, I just want to have one of those again.

[320] Like, if I could just go back and, like, just sit as a kid at that table and listen to the completely hideously filthy jokes being told by my drunk male relatives.

[321] I can't think of anything that I would rather do my entire life than be there.

[322] I totally agree with you.

[323] And it's relevant to think of as a parent.

[324] I would argue you're an example of it.

[325] I'm an example of it.

[326] The highlight of my childhood was being able to observe that for a minute.

[327] And also they're teaching you this interesting dynamic which exists in society, any society, which is there's the forbidden, then there's this dance around playing with it.

[328] And there's some weight to that.

[329] You feel at all times I do the weight of society.

[330] What you're expected is good or bad at a grocery store?

[331] Like, you're aware of it at all times.

[332] And I would argue it serves a pretty cathartic purpose to be able to break that for little periods of time in a way that is acceptable and it's healthy.

[333] Somehow kids know, too.

[334] I mean, it's not like I went to school and talked to my third grade teacher that way the next day.

[335] Like, I knew that this is for this time and you're super lucky that you're getting to sit at this table.

[336] You know, and I felt like I had a tiger by the tale.

[337] You know, and half of the jokes I didn't understand, but what I did understand, I was like, oh my God.

[338] Yeah.

[339] You know, and I've tucked them away, and I still have those jokes in my memory, but no one told me you can't bring this to school.

[340] I just knew.

[341] If I think of my greatest frustration as a kid, it was most often that I was being talked to in a way that I felt was definitely underestimating what I was understanding.

[342] Right.

[343] No, no, I get this.

[344] I'm seeing all this stuff.

[345] I'm not not seeing it.

[346] And I was frustrated with the notion that I was not understanding it.

[347] You know, it was almost like feeling like I was getting gaslit or something.

[348] Well, that's the opposite of the Minnesota Scandinavian upbringing, right?

[349] So my dad's family's from New York.

[350] So they had, like my mom's family wouldn't have done that around the kids.

[351] And they would have said, you know, you have to be nice to people and you have to be polite about your neighbors.

[352] And you can't say bad things about people when my dad's family would sit at the table and they would talk about the neighbors and call them a conglomerate of assholes.

[353] And like, because, Because that's what they actually felt.

[354] And there was nobody at the table saying, you know, you're not supposed to say that about people.

[355] Like, yeah, you're totally supposed to say that about people if they happen to be a conglomerate of assholes.

[356] There was like some East Coast truth to it, I think, in a way.

[357] Yeah, there was consensus minimally.

[358] It felt safe because I think the truth always feels safe.

[359] Yeah.

[360] Whereas if someone's an asshole and someone's telling you that you can't say that or feel that about them, there's something agitating in it where you're like, but that's not in keeping with my experience.

[361] Yeah, there's dissonance with what you're observing, what you're being.

[362] told you're allowed to observe.

[363] But I think ideally you would have what you had, which is like a New York...

[364] A little bit of both.

[365] Yeah, a New York dad and a Scandinavian mom.

[366] I was definitely drawn to negativity and bonding with people over mutual hatreds for things when I was younger.

[367] Right.

[368] And as I've gotten older, I find that I try now to bond mostly with people that we have a shared love for something.

[369] Right.

[370] And for me, it's just I feel better at the end of all that.

[371] Right.

[372] I don't think one's right or wrong.

[373] It's just how do I feel at the end of it?

[374] And I feel much better doing it this way.

[375] but I'm grateful to have been exposed to all the different kinds so that I could make that kind of choice.

[376] And don't you think when you're young and learning how to be funny, it's the easiest way to be funny, too, is to be mean and hateful?

[377] Oh, it's the first stop, yeah.

[378] And then you can try to figure out other ways to be funny beyond that because it makes you feel a little acidic after a while.

[379] So you're on this Christmas tree farm and you don't have television and you don't have even radio or record players or...

[380] No media.

[381] No media.

[382] Yeah, we were almost like more.

[383] We were a men's in Utah in a way, but we were in New England in Connecticut.

[384] And we don't have neighbors our age.

[385] But we had books.

[386] Like my parents were big into reading in books.

[387] The library was within reach if you could get your hands on a bicycle.

[388] So we had that.

[389] Is your sister older or younger?

[390] She's older.

[391] And she is a writer as well.

[392] You were just a clue on Jeopardy this week.

[393] The two of us as sister, she's a young adult, children's book writer.

[394] And so she kind of created the worlds that we lived in.

[395] when I was a kid because she would read stuff and she was three years ahead.

[396] I mean, she was and is brilliant.

[397] She's kind of the Scheherazade of spinning these narratives.

[398] Who's Scheherazade?

[399] Sheherazade from Arabian Nights, the storyteller who keeps telling stories so she won't die.

[400] Catherine had that ability, and she just generated everything that we played.

[401] Like, I don't remember us really ever playing any games except what she made up.

[402] And then I was her foil, so I would just be whatever part she told me to be in the story.

[403] And she wrote plays, and we made books.

[404] And she would incorporate anything that she was currently reading, she would just kind of alchemize with her imagination and turn into a game.

[405] So she's reading a book about cave twins and we become the cave twins, but she's also reading a book about FDR and so one of us has polio.

[406] So she was just the force of education and imagination.

[407] I don't remember ever wanting to be anything other than her, you know, like what she could do I wanted to do.

[408] Yeah, you guys went to public school, I assume, right?

[409] Yeah.

[410] There can be this weird transition for siblings, right?

[411] Where she's your whole world.

[412] She's the coolest person you've ever met.

[413] And then you guys enter this other world, and then you can have varying levels of social skill.

[414] And it can get like murky, can it?

[415] Yes, absolutely.

[416] I was always more social.

[417] It was way easier for me to make friends.

[418] And also because I had to learn from a very early age how to agree and adapt because I was smaller and stupider.

[419] You know, and you've got the older, more powerful, smarter person, and you just can't really do much but agree and adapt.

[420] I wasn't going to win in any kind of a battle against her.

[421] So that agreeability and adaptability may be able to make friends easier.

[422] I would also argue, too, I witness it now with my girls who are two years apart, they're four and six.

[423] The amount of rejection, the younger child experiences hourly throughout a day, it's in the hundreds.

[424] You know, it's literally they'll get rejected over a hundred.

[425] Yes.

[426] And learning that you can live through that.

[427] Yeah, that's interesting.

[428] Is an asset.

[429] So it's like you might think you might want to go talk to somebody.

[430] And you you might go, oh, but they might hate me, and you go, yeah, my sister hates me 20 times a day.

[431] I'll live through that.

[432] I'll try.

[433] You don't scare me. You should see my sister.

[434] Oh, you don't want to be around me?

[435] Yeah, my sister doesn't want to be around me 70 % of the time.

[436] Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

[437] I know how this feels.

[438] In your social circle now, are most of your friends younger and middle siblings or older siblings?

[439] Because almost every one of my friends is the youngest or a younger child.

[440] I have very few friends who are oldest.

[441] We just did this.

[442] We were at a pool party at our friends' house, and there was probably like 16 notes.

[443] And we just started going through the order, right?

[444] And what had kind of happened is the people having the conversation were largely younger siblings or middle children, right?

[445] And then we were isolating who the only children were.

[446] And like one of them was my wife.

[447] She's by herself over in the corner of this pool party doing God knows what.

[448] And then the other one was over on the other side of the pool.

[449] Like it was, it happened real time.

[450] Replicating.

[451] Yes.

[452] Like we were kind of seeing patterns emerge just as we asked.

[453] The only child thing was pretty startling.

[454] Yeah, it was Charlie and Kristen, which was really funny.

[455] And Eric, who was literally asleep on the other side of the pool on the ground.

[456] At a party.

[457] At a party, he decided to go take a nap in the middle of this.

[458] I just need a little now.

[459] Yeah, yes, he had to escape it.

[460] And you're kind of really an only child in ways because her brother is eight years younger than her.

[461] So she's dancing.

[462] She's got feet in both domains.

[463] But what I'm curious about is that was a chemical engineer.

[464] And a farmer.

[465] He was working in.

[466] rubber chemicals.

[467] He was making tires at the uniral chemical factory in Nagata, Connecticut.

[468] One of my favorite topics, volcanization and how we solved that in World War II.

[469] Yeah, he was a rubber chemical guy.

[470] Yeah.

[471] It's a very inspiring story how we came up with artificial rubber, I think.

[472] It's a testament to what we can do if we have to do something.

[473] Right.

[474] Because of the need in the war for the...

[475] In World War II, we no longer had access to all the rubber trees that were growing it.

[476] And we were trying to replant them in South America, which was working varying success.

[477] And we were like, this isn't cutting it.

[478] And they just dump money and scientists into it and said, solve this now.

[479] And like the Manhattan Project, they came back and they're like, we can make rubber out of petroleum.

[480] Here it is.

[481] Yeah.

[482] Yeah.

[483] You have no idea how literally fascinated I am by this one.

[484] I'm not even being sarcastic.

[485] I'm like, really?

[486] I just didn't know this.

[487] It's so inspiring to go like.

[488] That's so interesting.

[489] Well, my dad hated it.

[490] Oh, yeah.

[491] He did.

[492] He's a brilliant mathematician and scientist.

[493] He's a little spectrumy and really can neither give nor receive an order was always meant to be solitary, was always meant to be a farmer.

[494] And thank God he found it.

[495] He found Christmas tree farming and that became his salvation.

[496] And did he quit to just, oh, he did.

[497] He eventually did.

[498] And because my parents are so frugal, and I will have a frugal off with anybody's parents about, like, but because they're so frugal, he was able to eventually quit and just be a farmer.

[499] And then he became a far happier man than he was when I was a little kid.

[500] Is he still alive?

[501] Mm -hmm, and he's still a farmer.

[502] Is he able to take money from you?

[503] No. Or give it.

[504] Yeah.

[505] That's not true, actually.

[506] I've sent them on vacations and, yeah, it's a, oh, money.

[507] It's a very complicated.

[508] Yes, and a lot of insanity around that in my family.

[509] But once he became a farmer, he was a lot happier.

[510] He was never meant for corporate world or industrial world or meetings, bosses.

[511] He just can't.

[512] And were they in general supportive of you?

[513] you and your sister pursuing writing as a occupation?

[514] Totally.

[515] Because my dad hated his career, he didn't ever have that thing of, you need to get a solid job because he had learned instantly what a trap that was.

[516] Oh, great.

[517] So, I mean, I remember him saying very early on, you know, go to college to get an education, not a career.

[518] The great and terrible thing about my parents, and often the great and terrible thing about somebody is the same thing.

[519] But in this case with them, it's very much so.

[520] Their whole parenting philosophy is you're on your own.

[521] So the terrible thing about that is you're like, what?

[522] I'm on my own.

[523] I'm a kid.

[524] I don't know how to do anything.

[525] You know, there's no coddling, you know, like figure it out.

[526] The great thing about that is you're on your own.

[527] So there's also no helicoptering, hovering or controlling in terms of what you have to be.

[528] Isn't Waldorfi?

[529] Isn't that all Scandinavian?

[530] I guess it is kind of, yeah.

[531] And my mom's side, I would say that that was tinged with a bit of terror on her part.

[532] And in the sense of, she had a real fear of raising daughters who would be dependent on anybody because she'd seen firsthand what happened to women who are dependent on anybody.

[533] So for her it was like panicked.

[534] Like you have to learn how to do everything yourself because nobody will ever do anything for you.

[535] It was a little scarcity based, you know, it was like, no one will ever take care of you.

[536] But the great thing about that is that their whole thing was like, well, we know we're not going to take care of you.

[537] So you go do whatever you want.

[538] As long as you're not asking us to bankroll you or help you in any way, we don't give a shit what you do.

[539] You know, like either your life, not ours.

[540] And they felt, and they treated us like that from a very young age.

[541] They put a lot of responsibility on us and a lot of, like, yeah, you do, you do whatever you want unless you're causing a problem.

[542] Now, you went to NYU.

[543] Yes.

[544] And did you love NYU?

[545] You must have.

[546] I loved New York.

[547] Yeah.

[548] And I got, I think I got a pretty nice education at NYU.

[549] It wasn't as good as school then as it is now.

[550] I'm not sure I would have gotten into it now.

[551] I can see how competitive it is now.

[552] But all I wanted was to be in New York City.

[553] All I wanted to be was in downtown New York city.

[554] So for me, NYU is just an excuse to be in New York.

[555] And what I loved most about it was second you step out of a building at NYU, you're not on a college campus here in the city.

[556] And that's all I've ever wanted was to be in New York.

[557] So it was awesome for me. Yeah, it's such an infectious place.

[558] I was just there this week.

[559] And yeah, you walk outside and your just overall energy level goes up 400%.

[560] I'm like, oh, it's great.

[561] I still love it.

[562] I mean, I'm almost 50 and I still feel like for some reason, New York City is the only place in the world where I don't feel like a visitor or a tourist.

[563] I just always felt like I was supposed to be there.

[564] Now, when you were in school, you were studying Polly Sye.

[565] Why were you doing Polly Sye?

[566] Because I didn't want to take English classes.

[567] I really did take my dad up on what he had said about get an education.

[568] And I felt like I should take advantage and learn stuff I didn't know or couldn't learn on my own.

[569] Which for me meant a lot of history and a lot of political science.

[570] But I wanted a broad liberal arts education.

[571] But I didn't feel like studying English was going to get that for me. So what I would do, this is such a fucking nerd, is that I would get the curriculum for the English classes.

[572] And in the summers, I read everything that those classes taught on my own because I figured, well, I can just read a book.

[573] Sure.

[574] Yeah, yeah.

[575] And you're writing short stories throughout this period.

[576] And do you have favorite at that time short story writers?

[577] Writers.

[578] Alice Monroe, I loved.

[579] I was reading a lot of, who was I reading in college who I really loved?

[580] loved drawing a blank.

[581] It's hard sometimes, isn't it?

[582] Canadian author wrote trilogy.

[583] Somewhere people are screaming his name.

[584] Oh, I love this.

[585] You're going to get a billion tweets.

[586] I'll find it.

[587] And I was reading a lot of dudes.

[588] All the Pretty Horses was a really important book for me. In high school and college, I read a lot of Hemingway, a lot of Faulkner.

[589] I think I wanted to be with those heavy -hitting literary guys.

[590] I kind of wanted to be like those guys.

[591] Well, they're like the ultimate romantic.

[592] They were like what I pictured, when I pictured what writers were.

[593] There was a period where I read a lot of stuff, and I had a very romantic view of the world, and I wasn't sober yet.

[594] And now I'm sober.

[595] And when I read Hemingway, I'm like, yeah, he's up hunting.

[596] It's five in the morning.

[597] He's hung over.

[598] He's not writing about it.

[599] But he, you know, he has a serious drinking problem.

[600] He also has a serious depression.

[601] He blows his own head off at the end of his life.

[602] It's so interesting to now as like a full -blown adult.

[603] Try to read between the lines of a lot of that stuff.

[604] Yeah, you'll see that in Faulkner, too.

[605] Oh, yeah.

[606] And all those guys, I mean, the alcoholism in that era was absolutely astonishing.

[607] Man, when you're young, it's so romantic, isn't it?

[608] It is pretty.

[609] It's hard to not be a young romantic person and think that that's just not the shit.

[610] Yes.

[611] I had no issue with being an alcoholic.

[612] My hero was Bukowski.

[613] I'm like, yeah, oh, I'm a fucking drunk.

[614] Yeah, and that's sexy.

[615] What is it with young men in Bukowski and Kerouac?

[616] Tell me what it is.

[617] Yeah, when I read it now, To me, what's very obvious now at 44 is he was a guy that felt invisible in school.

[618] He had these huge boils all over his face.

[619] His father was a World War I, like, beat the shit out of him, miserable existence, came to hate women because no women liked him, became an alcoholic, got some fame, had access to women, which made him even maybe more misogynistic because now he didn't trust why they liked him.

[620] Now I can see all that.

[621] Right.

[622] But when you're 18, what I saw was, yeah, go live at the bar.

[623] Everything else will take care of itself.

[624] All the stories will fall out of that experience.

[625] One need only ordered that first drink and then the whole opera will start.

[626] That was so appealing to me. Right.

[627] The lack of accountability was appealing to me. Right.

[628] And it must be too when you're young and you're so scared that you're going to get trapped in a marriage and a job and kids when you see a guy.

[629] I feel like the female equivalent for.

[630] girls that age, for a romantic girl that age, he is Frida Kahlo.

[631] Okay.

[632] Like there's this kind of, I want to be as wild and free as her and dress and weird drag and not pluck my eyebrows and be rebellious.

[633] Yeah, I'm going to also never surrender to convention.

[634] Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

[635] It's just, it's harder for girls to get there, I think.

[636] It's romantic for a guy to be like, fuck everything, but it's way harder for a girl at that age to get on bored with that idea i think like i was like almost like a super power yeah like i would need to somehow imbue a superpower to behave like that whereas a guy you're almost halfway there just by there's just by your disposition yeah yeah yeah totally agree yeah it's interesting stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare what's up guys it's your girl kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you it's too good and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest okay every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation and I don't mean just friends I mean the likes of Amy polar Kel Mitchell Vivica Fox the list goes on so follow watch and listen to baby this is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast we've all been there turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

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[643] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music.

[644] So you were writing short stories and you wrote a short story called Pilgrim.

[645] Yes.

[646] And you got published in Esquire.

[647] Yes.

[648] Now, I in college was trying to get a book of short stories published.

[649] I did the thing.

[650] where I, the S -A -S -E envelope, what do you call it?

[651] Yep, self -trusty, yep, yeah, yeah.

[652] Yep, I spent a lot of money on those envelopes.

[653] Me too, and I didn't have it.

[654] I spent, I sent hundreds of samples in my short stories.

[655] Yeah.

[656] And, you know, you'd be delighted that they just gave you a rejection letter.

[657] Most of the time, you're like, I don't know how to even get there because you didn't even get the rejection letter.

[658] Yeah.

[659] What was the experience like of getting the postcard back?

[660] It wasn't.

[661] It was a phone call, and it was after seven years of those rejection letters.

[662] Oh, God bless you.

[663] Seven years.

[664] But what had happened is there's those levels of rejection letters, like there's none, and then there's the form letter, and then every once in a while to get a form letter with a little note at the bottom.

[665] I got a couple of those that said, like, interesting, not for us, in somebody's handwriting, and God help them if they sign their name to it, because then, from then on I sent it to them.

[666] I was like, hey, Bob, it's Liz Gilbert again.

[667] Maybe this one will be for you.

[668] Yeah, exactly.

[669] And like, I would lie in the cover letter and be like, thank you for asking me to send you more, you know, or just in case they forgot.

[670] that they hadn't actually asked me that.

[671] But there was a guy named Tony Freund, who was an editor at Esquire, who wrote me like a pretty nice actual letter back after one of my stories saying, like, we almost bought this, but it's not quite for us and do please send more.

[672] And so for two years, I sent him more things.

[673] And he just kept saying, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

[674] And then I moved around so much because I was doing my version of my Buchowski thing and my own way of living in many places that I could, working in as many jobs as I could.

[675] So I always gave my parents' phone number and address on the letter because they never moved anywhere.

[676] So I figured if ever something happened, you know, because sometimes it would take six months for them to get back to you.

[677] And by then, I'm in a different location, actually.

[678] So my uncle was staying at her house and he took the message five o 'clock at night on a Tuesday saying, Esquire called, and he took no further message beyond that.

[679] Oh, because he's such a dumb ass, called me and he was like, oh, by the way, somebody at Esquire magazine, I don't know if I got the name right, you know, here's the number.

[680] That was one of the worst nights of my life.

[681] It was.

[682] Because I didn't dare to hope.

[683] I was like, are they calling to have me renew a subscription?

[684] Are they calling?

[685] I just remember being in a kind of panic that night.

[686] And then at 901, the next morning, calling.

[687] And it was Tony's direct line.

[688] And he said, yeah, we're buying it.

[689] And I didn't have an agent.

[690] I mean, it was out of the slush by.

[691] He said, you're the first unpublished writer.

[692] We're publishing since Norman Maylor.

[693] Oh, my gosh.

[694] So he was such an angel.

[695] And he was not much older than me. I was 24 or something.

[696] and he was about the same age and he just helped me find an agent.

[697] He just nursed made me through the entire process and I still have the agent that he found me and just beautiful caretaking.

[698] Did it come easy to you to avow yourself to being mentored or helped?

[699] Yeah.

[700] It did.

[701] Anyone who wants to help me is welcome at any time to help me. Yeah, absolutely.

[702] That's a good quality.

[703] Yeah, no, like if anything, I'm usually walking around screaming, help me. So, yeah, definitely.

[704] That might be one of the better parts about being female.

[705] I think so, too.

[706] It's way harder for a guy, I think, to be vulnerable, to admit you need help.

[707] You know, I'm supposed to have this figured out.

[708] I don't know.

[709] It's macho.

[710] It's weak to say, I don't know about this.

[711] You know, and I want to say this, too, in light of, you know, what's coming out with me, too, about the media world and women in the media world.

[712] I was so beautifully taken care of by the male editors and agents and publishers who I worked with all through my 20s.

[713] there was such a sense of real mentorship, including Bob Cucciani Jr. at Spin, who gave me my first journalism job and was at some point sued for sexual harassment.

[714] Oh, he was.

[715] But people gave me such bigger chances than they should have.

[716] I was nobody.

[717] And just one after another of these guys were like, well, let me show you how to do this.

[718] Let me help you how to do this.

[719] So I just kind of wanted to send a little love to those men because they were really, really good to me in a very professional way, Not in a kind of patronizing, they're their little girl way, but in a, you know, we want you there.

[720] What can we do to make this easier for you?

[721] What are the chances you want to take?

[722] What are the risks you want to take?

[723] How can we support you?

[724] I got that at GQ.

[725] I got that at spin.

[726] I mean, for years, I only worked with men, which is why it was so ironic when I became chicklet girl.

[727] Yeah.

[728] But do you believe, was that because percentage -wise or number -wise, there weren't even females in those positions?

[729] Well, yeah, to be sure.

[730] Yeah, to be sure.

[731] I mean, all of those magazines were run by men.

[732] Sure.

[733] They were really about men.

[734] I mean, Spin was mostly writing about men and GQ was mostly writing about men.

[735] Well, gentlemen's quarterly.

[736] I mean, to be fair.

[737] You know, it's their job.

[738] They're a men's magazine.

[739] You know, but I was so grateful for that.

[740] People will sometimes ask me about writing screenplays.

[741] You know, should I get this book?

[742] Should I get that book?

[743] And I'm like, that stuff's great.

[744] Let me just tell you the facts.

[745] Go write a terrible fucking screenplay because that's what's first.

[746] Right.

[747] You're not going to sit down and write Pulp Fiction.

[748] You're going to learn to write through writing, not through reading about writing.

[749] not right it's like you gotta just do the thing read it realize by the way when you're not so impressed with yourself for finishing something and loving it because of that months later you'll reread it and go oh that's a little week there that's a little week there and then through the process of rewriting you can learn to write like do you have any feelings about that as well I think rotsangay said it best recently in a tweet where she said you know you all just keep coming to me and asking for tricks and and hints and you know ways to game it like how to get ahead in writing.

[750] She said, I wish that there was another thing I could tell you other than sit your ass down and do it every day.

[751] But unfortunately, that's always going to be my answer.

[752] Yeah.

[753] There just isn't another way to do it beyond that.

[754] Right.

[755] It just isn't.

[756] So you can read all the books you want.

[757] You can, but no, nothing, nothing will get you there other than doing it.

[758] I mean, I've also learned, though, there's, I used to say that to people.

[759] And now I don't say that to people because I think the way I say it now is a little bit more subtle, I think.

[760] But I feel like if you're an adult, then you know how your circadian rhythms work.

[761] Sure.

[762] And if you've reached a certain age, then you know what works for you.

[763] And you should know by this point in your life what time of day you're good.

[764] Like, what time of day is your brain at its best?

[765] Because the reality is we all get maybe like two good hours, a day where we actually feel kind of awake and alert.

[766] And the big important question is, who currently gets that time from you?

[767] The best time of your brain every day, who or what currently gets that and would you be willing to take it back so that it's yours and then give the world the second rate version of you which is the other 22 hours of the day right?

[768] And so you get to decide based on just your own empirical experience what is that for you?

[769] For me it's between 6 and 8 in the morning that's when I'm sharp, I wake up on fire but there are other people who can't even think till 3 p .m. And it would be so cruel to say you have to sit down every morning and write because that would be murderous for them.

[770] And then I also have a friend who's bipolar and she doesn't have two good hours a day.

[771] She has two good days a month, maybe.

[772] But she's figured out that those are hers.

[773] The other 28 days of the month, managing her mental illness is her full -time job.

[774] And then when she gets that clarity, she's like, fuck it, I'm taking this.

[775] You won't be hearing from me because this is the only time I can write.

[776] You know, or if somebody's got young kids, they might have one day where they're divorced and they're a single mom and their husband's got the kids and that they have one day.

[777] So if you were to say to them, you have to write every day, that's cruel they can't.

[778] You know, so it's really just about, I think, a ferocious self -accountability about looking at the reality of your life, your biology, your energy, your mental health, your financial needs, and being like, what do I have that I can give?

[779] Am I willing to draw a circle around it and say, okay, this is sacred?

[780] And it might just be the one day a month.

[781] That's fine.

[782] That's yours too.

[783] Yeah.

[784] And let me put a little finer point on my earlier statement, because that was a little harsh.

[785] One of my hacks, my personal, knowing my own psyche, is I have to give my permission to write something shitty.

[786] Right.

[787] I have to say, just write five pages.

[788] They can suck.

[789] That's just my trick for me. That's very generous to yourself.

[790] Yeah, it's like your only commitment right now is five pages, not five great pages.

[791] Just that's your only commitment.

[792] So you do it by page?

[793] Because I do it by time.

[794] Do you know Don Roos, that writer?

[795] He's a very famous screenplay writer.

[796] He's kind of someone I look up to a lot.

[797] And he has a document he gives to other writers, and it's called the Kitchen Timer.

[798] And he uses a kitchen timer.

[799] That's it.

[800] Nothing in the world is allowed to be addressed in that one hour other than your writing.

[801] Yeah.

[802] And if you did it without doing anything but that, you knew had a great day of writing.

[803] That's the only measure for me. Like, did you sit for an hour?

[804] Did you not do anything else?

[805] Perfect day of writing.

[806] Oh, that's great, too.

[807] But to me, that also sounds like you're managing expectations nicely.

[808] Yeah.

[809] Like, you're right?

[810] Because I think a lot of people, and I've heard you speak about this, when you ask people what their character defects are and they list perfectionism as one of them, to me, that's a little triggering, like, oh, so your one problem is that you're too perfect.

[811] That's my own pet peeve.

[812] Not humble brag.

[813] Yeah, yeah.

[814] But people certainly suffer from being perfectionist, and it can be really arresting for a writer, yeah?

[815] Well, not just in writing in every single part of your life.

[816] I mean, even in relationships, even in every, but you know, my line is that perfectionism is just fear in a fancy minkgo and pearls pretending to be fancy.

[817] All it is is fear that you're not enough, that you're not enough, that you're not enough, that you're not And the reason perfectionism is such an insidious version of fear is that it tricks you into thinking that it's a virtue.

[818] So perfectionism's great, great, awful, vile trick is to tell you that it makes you special when all it's doing is stopping you from having any kind of a life that's rewarding or good or generative or interesting.

[819] So it's not your friend.

[820] Right.

[821] But you, in big magic, yeah, you look at fear a bunch.

[822] Yeah.

[823] And you have a cool relationship with it, right?

[824] Yeah, I wish that I had this relationship with fear and other.

[825] aspects of my life, but I have it in creativity.

[826] I've evolved it in creativity and it's a very loving, friendly relationship.

[827] My theory of it is that, you know, fear is the oldest part of the conscious brain.

[828] You know, it's like the reptilian brain, right?

[829] It's almost like toggle.

[830] It doesn't have any subtlety.

[831] It doesn't have any creativity.

[832] The only thing it knows is to tell you to stop.

[833] And it will always tell you to stop when you're about to do something where fear itself does not know what the outcome is going to be.

[834] So fear, looking at you about to embark on something, doesn't know what the outcome is going to be.

[835] Just to be safe, it's like shut it down.

[836] Sure, why take that risk?

[837] Fear's thinking, if it can be said to think, is I don't know what this is.

[838] I've never seen this before.

[839] I don't know how this ends.

[840] Therefore, no. Because this is probably going to end in my death.

[841] Which is why, when you sit down to do something like write a poem, it feels like you might die.

[842] Like, it's so weirdly frightening because your fear actually thinks you will.

[843] And my experience of fighting it is that the more you fight it, the more it asserts itself.

[844] Because the more you fight it, the more it's like, oh, now things are really serious.

[845] There's a panic of, no, shut the whole thing, you know, and it's on lockdown.

[846] Well, it has race fuel.

[847] So the more it fights, the more your adrenal glands dump, your cortisol, and it's got high -octane shit.

[848] Your frontal, the other part of your brain having that conversation with itself doesn't have high -actane fuel.

[849] No, it's also new.

[850] It's also only 100 ,000 years old, and the fear is a lot older than that.

[851] Like the new creative consciousness is like this brand new operating system.

[852] Fear has no idea what it is.

[853] They don't really know how to talk to each other a lot.

[854] Right.

[855] And so my tactic has been to learn how to talk to fear in a really loving way and to be really kind to it.

[856] And so it's very different from what I think we're taught in this culture, which is like, get up every day, kick fear in the ass, show to his boss, punched in the face.

[857] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[858] Yeah.

[859] It doesn't work for me. It just all it does is make me more scared.

[860] So for me, it's just this very gentle, very loving, very motherly voice that's like, oh, my God, sweetheart, I can see that you're really super freaked out right now.

[861] And you are totally allowed to stay in the room.

[862] I don't send it into exile.

[863] You know, you're totally allowed to be here with me and I'm going to be here.

[864] And, you know, me and your sister creativity are going for a road trip.

[865] You're welcome to come.

[866] We've got a car seat for you in the back.

[867] We love you.

[868] You're part of the family.

[869] Get in the car.

[870] You're not allowed to drive and you're not allowed to navigate.

[871] You're not allowed to pick the snacks.

[872] And you're not allowed to suggest detours, but you can be in the car.

[873] And then fear's job is to sit in the back seat of the car screaming in terror the entire time.

[874] And I'm just like, it's all right, honey.

[875] We're doing this anyway.

[876] Right.

[877] So there's an inclusion of it rather than an exiling.

[878] You went on a speaking tour that Oprah hosted.

[879] And there were 20 ,000 folks in attendance, right?

[880] If you're a human being, you had to have had anxiety and fear about the very initial step out onto the stage.

[881] Yeah.

[882] So what did fear say to Elizabeth?

[883] What did Elizabeth?

[884] What did a little?

[885] Elizabeth said of fear.

[886] That one was interesting.

[887] Fear took me over in a physiological way at that point.

[888] And I'm pretty comfortable public speaking at this point.

[889] I mean, I've done TED talks, but I was, I've never certainly done a stadium tour where Oprah's sitting in the front row watching you.

[890] And she's just said, I'm giving you exactly 50 minutes to inspire 20 ,000 people go.

[891] Good luck, kid.

[892] You know, don't let them down.

[893] Don't let me down.

[894] I remember being backstage the first day.

[895] And I'd never had this experience before, but you've maybe had this, this stage, my knees were quite literally knocking right from adrenaline yeah I could feel my bones hitting each other yeah and my hands were shaking there was no way to hide it and it wasn't even a thought it was just a complete physiological response anybody who has stage fright is probably listening to this with their palms sweating right now yeah but what happened was some other part of me kicked in and and this is exactly how the conversation went I said to myself there are times in your life liz where the greatest gift that you could ever give to women because it is 95 % women in this audience.

[896] The greatest gift that you could ever give to women is to show them your human vulnerability and let them see that you're exactly like them in your anxiety and in your insecurity.

[897] And today is not that day, motherfucker.

[898] Today is not that day because these women already know how to be afraid.

[899] They already know how to be insecure.

[900] They already know how to diminish themselves.

[901] Your job today and the most generous gift that you could possibly give to these women is to model for them what it looks like when a woman stands in her own self -confidence and her own power.

[902] So why don't you show them what that looks like?

[903] The way I sort of twisted it in my head was I have an offering that I want to make out of love.

[904] And so the love that I felt for the women in that audience and for me wanting them to be able to see what it looks like for a woman to be relaxed because so few women are relaxed overcame the fear.

[905] So it was again love over fear.

[906] but it was love for them over fear for myself.

[907] So I love it, but let me just, I'm going to be an advocate for two seconds, devil's advocate.

[908] I remember, poor Monica will never be able to track this down, but I either read or heard that the some result of self -help books, it doesn't help people in that they are introduced to a model that is kind of unattainable and they dedicate all this time to it.

[909] And they now have, quote, the tools and yet they can't implement them.

[910] So now they feel even more like a failure because they were.

[911] just given the tools and they can't implement.

[912] Right.

[913] So I would just, I'm curious, I could see where you'd go, well, you stepped out on stage and you just showed these women something that really is almost impossible.

[914] Could that have the effect of like, oh, here's one more thing I couldn't do as opposed to if you came out and you go, my knees are knocking, I think I'm going to pass out.

[915] Right.

[916] But I'm going to go anyways because I love you guys and I want to do this.

[917] Right.

[918] Is that more relatable?

[919] I mean, I love what you're saying.

[920] I'm just working it all through in my head.

[921] You might be absolutely right about that.

[922] I don't know.

[923] I'm just wondering.

[924] Yeah.

[925] Well, that's interesting.

[926] I have a question for you.

[927] Have you ever been helped by a self -help book?

[928] Well, A .A., if you call A .A. In the big book of Alcoholics and Amis self -helpic, which I think it is.

[929] Yes, incredibly.

[930] But I don't know that the book on its own.

[931] In fact, I'm almost certain the book on its own wouldn't have helped me. It was the community in watching how.

[932] how this dude interpreted that thing and how he employed that part of the book that I didn't really understand or I'm an atheist and is there any other atheists?

[933] How are you guys dealing with all this guy?

[934] The higher power stuff.

[935] Yeah.

[936] Yeah.

[937] Oh, well, this guy made a great point.

[938] The sun comes up every day and it goes down every day and I'm not the force doing that.

[939] Right, right.

[940] Oh, yeah, I'm not either.

[941] Okay, I guess I'm pretty insignificant compared to gravity and the symmetry of the universe.

[942] Thank you.

[943] Right, right.

[944] Like that line from the book of Job, have you ever commanded the dawn?

[945] No, never, not once.

[946] Not once.

[947] Like that's what I. I find that really helpful, too.

[948] When I start panicking, I'm like, not once have I commanded the dawn.

[949] And guess what?

[950] The sun's going to keep coming up and going down long after I'm gone.

[951] But I would say definitely, it's been way more the community that's helped me. It's the room that helps you more than the book.

[952] Yes.

[953] Yeah, exactly.

[954] I just want to go back though.

[955] I want to make, I want to be very clear.

[956] I'm not, I wasn't in any way trying to challenge.

[957] I didn't take it as a challenge.

[958] I think it's a really, you know, and I'm still thinking about it.

[959] I guess my question is, do you think you could have come back from that acknowledgement?

[960] Well, I think what I spoke about in those 15 minutes was very vulnerable.

[961] The stories that I was telling them were not heroic stories.

[962] They were stories of my pain and depression.

[963] So I was testifying in a way.

[964] But it was more about what I really want to see are women, almost even the way you stand as a woman, are women who can stand in a stadium relaxed with their head up and say, yeah, I'm here because I should.

[965] be.

[966] Yeah.

[967] Yeah.

[968] I did feel like that was a great gift to offer.

[969] Yeah.

[970] Was to say, I'm here because I was invited to be here and because somebody who I trust trusts me. So I'm going to tell you my sad, fucked up stories about my sad, fucked up mistakes.

[971] But I'm going to tell it to you from a place of showing you what it looks like to just own your story, not come out on that stage and say, oh my God, I can't even believe I'm here.

[972] I shouldn't be, you know, because that's something I see women doing a lot that I wish that they wouldn't quite do so much.

[973] Well, they mitigate a lot.

[974] Yeah, I wish they wouldn't.

[975] They'll make a great strong statement and then they book in it with, but I don't know, you know, a lot of people blank.

[976] That was my takeaway from editing this show.

[977] The difference between listening to the way women speak and the way men speak.

[978] You don't notice it as much in life, but when you're listening and all you have is the auditory, it's so incredible.

[979] The percentage of women who backpedal and who apologize and the, percentage of men, it's the reverse.

[980] It's like 85 % of women do it, 85 % of men don't do it.

[981] Like, it's incredibly apparent when you're just listening.

[982] Yeah, so I think that's the feeling.

[983] And it worked because my physiology relaxed in that sense because I felt like, oh, no, this is what we all need.

[984] So it was almost like the collective love that I felt was stronger than the ego fear.

[985] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[986] So I don't know whether that's transferable, but that's how it worked for me. We had this other really weird anecdotal observation from doing this show.

[987] If we've had 130 guests, we've invited probably 400 people to be on the podcast.

[988] And if we broke down who's most likely to say yes and who's least likely to say yes, it is pretty stark.

[989] You ask a white male if he wants to come talk for two hours and like, yeah, I've definitely got two hours worth of stuff to say.

[990] And then that number is cut in half for women.

[991] And then it just keeps going down.

[992] And we just started kind of like, again, it's only a sample set of 500 people.

[993] But what we've seen, it makes sense to me. And if you would have said to me before doing this, men are so entitled.

[994] Like they just are so entitled.

[995] I'd be like, what, I don't know if I believe that.

[996] But just witnessing who says yes, it does lead me to think, yeah, we think we've got two hours of great shit to say.

[997] All white men.

[998] They'll be the hero of every movie you've ever seen.

[999] Yeah.

[1000] You know, we're the ones they're supposed to be talking in this society.

[1001] The president's a white man. You know, like, yeah, you...

[1002] Oh, that's funny.

[1003] It's just very interesting.

[1004] Yeah, it's terrible.

[1005] Yeah, that's really interesting.

[1006] But I think you, I think your decision to be confident is what helps change that, is what helps turn the page a little bit, is to see more women in those power positions.

[1007] I think you're right.

[1008] That's a great way.

[1009] Just model what it would look like, you know.

[1010] Some of your anxiety was what probably totally.

[1011] subconscious, but the mere fact that, yes, in your lifetime, you've probably seen 90 % of these great speeches were probably made by men.

[1012] So that on some subconscious level is in the stoop.

[1013] And I've seen a lot of women get on stage and start by saying, oh, my God, you guys, I'm so nervous.

[1014] Apologizing immediately.

[1015] And I just, I don't want to see it anymore.

[1016] See, these are the great counterpoints.

[1017] So you have, I would call it, and you would not, a pretty great then, right?

[1018] ride from getting published in Esquire to then getting published in...

[1019] I think it's a great ride.

[1020] Okay, good, good.

[1021] Most people don't think of their own ride.

[1022] Oh, my God.

[1023] It's been a great ride.

[1024] Oh, good.

[1025] Yeah, yeah.

[1026] Totally.

[1027] You become a freelance writer, and you're writing for all these great publications, GQ, and Spin, the New York Times Magazine.

[1028] And you write about, you were a bartender.

[1029] Mm -hmm.

[1030] Now, I completely now acknowledge that I've been wrong for 20 years.

[1031] I always thought Coyote Ugly was based on hogs and heifers.

[1032] Now you're in a family dispute.

[1033] Okay.

[1034] Hoggs and Heffords and Coyote Ugly were two bars in New York City that were both born of the same parent.

[1035] And their parent bar was a bar called The Village Idiot that I used to go to when I was in college that was the diviest skankiest dive I've ever been in my life.

[1036] I mean, the guy who owned the bar used to like piss in the beer ice.

[1037] You know, I mean, it was just a gross place.

[1038] But there was something also fabulous about it.

[1039] Bukowski -esque about it.

[1040] I loved it.

[1041] I used to go there when I was in college, and the bartenders were all women, and they were kind of skanky, kind of hot, kind of tough, kind of bikery, kind of cool.

[1042] And when the bar got too crowded, they would light the bar on fire with Bacardi 151 to just keep people back.

[1043] I thought the place was heaven.

[1044] Sure.

[1045] And then it closed for numerous health code violations.

[1046] And then two bartenders from there each opened, one opened Coyote Eugly right across the street, one opened Hogs and Huffers.

[1047] And Coyote Eugley was where I worked.

[1048] Okay.

[1049] And then I wrote an article for GQ about my time working at Coyote Eugley, and the movie Coyote Eugley was made out of it.

[1050] Simultaneously, Hogs and Hevers became a very successful bar.

[1051] And for some reason, because they were so similar.

[1052] They had the same kind of vibe braws on the thing.

[1053] You can park a motorcycle in there.

[1054] PBR's, you know, guys would come in and you'd just pour a shot right down their throat.

[1055] Like, there was all sort of, it was all very similar.

[1056] But in fact, in fact, I am very happy to set the record straight that Coyote Eugly was the, was the, I know because I worked there I wrote the story.

[1057] Yes.

[1058] It's long occurred to me that I'm wrong, but I'm glad to understand how it was somehow there was some connective tissue there.

[1059] It's my honor to set that record straight academically.

[1060] Because our good friend, Caitlin Olson, was in Coyote Ugly, and it came up on her episode, and I still was like, why do I think it's hogs and hover?

[1061] Ah, no, it's Coyote Ugly.

[1062] Okay, so you wrote that article and became a movie at that time, is that, I mean...

[1063] It was the weirdest thing.

[1064] It must be, right?

[1065] But you didn't write the movie.

[1066] No, I didn't write the movie.

[1067] movie.

[1068] I never even believed for a minute that that movie was going to exist.

[1069] Sure.

[1070] And I still have trouble believing that it exists.

[1071] And it has almost nothing to do with the article that I wrote in GQ.

[1072] Disney called and said, we want to buy this because we want to make a story for teenage girls will like, which is essentially what coyote ugly was.

[1073] I was like, how did you take this skanky, disgusting bar filled with day drinking alcoholics and like a real boozeback dive and turn it into something that felt like footloose, but they did.

[1074] And it's interesting, if you watch the movie, they managed to somehow take drinking out of it.

[1075] Yeah, they kind of dance around all the stuff.

[1076] They literally dance around, but there's not really anyone drinking.

[1077] It's interesting, whereas my article was really entirely about drinking.

[1078] What was your take on that experience?

[1079] On the movie or on working on your article.

[1080] I loved that job so much.

[1081] I mean, I didn't have the stamina to continue it.

[1082] I worked there for about a year and a half, and then after that, I went to another bar that was much less strenuous because it was a lot of physical work working there.

[1083] Uh -huh.

[1084] It was loud.

[1085] You had to put on a show.

[1086] It was your responsibility to keep that bar packed and entertained.

[1087] Were you drinking hard yourself?

[1088] I've never had the stamina to drink hard, so I faked drinking hard.

[1089] Oh, really?

[1090] And because it was actually required of the bartenders there that they get drunk every night with the customers, and I couldn't drink like that once without up going to a hospital.

[1091] I was never shit -faced.

[1092] My trick was that I would knock back a shot of Jack Daniels and I would chase it back with a Coke and I'd spit it back into the Coke.

[1093] I got away with that for a year and a half.

[1094] There was one guy, a regular name Lou, who was so attempted that he was hip to me in one night.

[1095] He's like, I'll give you $25 for that Coke at the other day.

[1096] I pray you sold it to him.

[1097] He deserved it.

[1098] And I was like, don't you ever tell anybody.

[1099] I will literally lose my job.

[1100] But it was fun.

[1101] It's just exciting.

[1102] And it was, and it has, and it has, and it has, and it a lot of power because there was no bouncer and the woman Lil who on the bar had a theory and I think she was really right that having women only working behind the bar and no bouncer there would never be bar fights and she was completely right there was no male power for drunk men to fight against and so all I ever had to do to keep shit under control was to turn the lights on and turn the jukebox off so like the minute two guys got into it I would just lights would be up jukebox would be off and I'd be like nobody's getting a drink or music will play until this stops.

[1103] How effective was that?

[1104] Entirely, 100 % effective.

[1105] How frequently were fights breaking out there?

[1106] Well, that would be as far as it would get.

[1107] Oh, really?

[1108] So I'd have to do that.

[1109] Like once or twice a week?

[1110] You know, but that was it.

[1111] And there was something about, if it was a dude, I think they would have fought me, but because it was a girl, they didn't, there was a weird kind of power that I had over all these men.

[1112] I loved it.

[1113] I was a waitress, too, and I never felt like I had power as a waitress.

[1114] I always felt like a servant, and I felt like people often treated me like shit as a waitress.

[1115] There's something about being a bartender It gives you enormous fucking power.

[1116] And there's 1100 people trying to get your attention.

[1117] Your waiters coming to your table.

[1118] You don't have to charm them.

[1119] I don't have to serve you.

[1120] Right.

[1121] And so I threw men out of the bar without any problem.

[1122] And the other thing is that each bartender had her own kind of posse of regulars.

[1123] So I had my team.

[1124] So I had like 20 guys there who I loved and who loved me. So I never felt like I was in danger.

[1125] This is my family.

[1126] It makes me think of this great article in Vanity Fair.

[1127] was it was about Germany and the German character and how they're very straight -laced, clean, efficient, orderly, and they're really drawn to chaos.

[1128] So the point was like, they want to be close to the flame.

[1129] Like they're not from that and they're kind of drawn to it.

[1130] It was a very great article.

[1131] But I wonder, coming from the Christmas tree farm with no media and just you and your sister, it's not an accident you end up at this bar.

[1132] No. I mean, I walked into that place.

[1133] I was trying to go to the village idiot that night to have a drink with my best friend.

[1134] It was closed, and they were like, oh, there's a new place.

[1135] And it was literally the first day that Coyote Ugly opened.

[1136] And I walked in, and I was like, Mama, I'm home.

[1137] And I had also just come from working for two seasons on a ranch in Wyoming.

[1138] And that was also a similar kind of vibe.

[1139] You were a cook there.

[1140] I was a cook, and then I was a trail cook.

[1141] And I was a ranch hand.

[1142] And it was around those kind of guys, the same kind of guys who I've always been really attracted to and interested in.

[1143] And walking into this place where George Jones was playing on the jukebox and people were drinking Paps Blue Ribbon, I was like, oh my God, this is in New York.

[1144] I can do this in New York.

[1145] So it just to me felt like home.

[1146] But it also felt like, you know, I was such a story hunter.

[1147] All I wanted was stuff to write about.

[1148] You know, so I was a predator for stories.

[1149] So what better place to be than in a bar like that?

[1150] So I was out there looking for stuff to write about because I had had a very sheltered life.

[1151] Robertson Davies is the Canadian guy.

[1152] Stop tweeting everybody.

[1153] Oh, good job.

[1154] Okay, we got it.

[1155] Okay, now go ahead.

[1156] We'll find yours back.

[1157] If you weren't indulging in the drinking, Was there an aspect of that lifestyle that you were indulging in?

[1158] Did you think you were in any conscious level trying to gather your own story?

[1159] You know, your own drama.

[1160] I was in love with the vision of me like ruling this bar like Lion Tamer.

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] You know, and having, you know, these 300 men at my command.

[1163] Yeah.

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] I thought that was the balls and I still kind of.

[1166] I was also very much taking notes, you know, like literally taking notes.

[1167] So behind the bar, I had a notebook, and I was writing down things that people were saying.

[1168] And then the morning when I woke up, I was journaling everything.

[1169] And how frequently would you date the customers?

[1170] Well, I married a guy that I met there.

[1171] Oh, okay.

[1172] So my first husband was a customer at that bar.

[1173] So I was definitely indulging in that aspect.

[1174] Yeah.

[1175] And I was boy crazy.

[1176] That's what I was curious about.

[1177] And it was full of boys.

[1178] Yeah.

[1179] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1180] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1181] Okay, so you wrote a profile in 2000 on Hank Williams Jr. The third.

[1182] Yeah.

[1183] And I'm a huge outlaw country music fan.

[1184] Yeah.

[1185] I guess I'm just curious what drew you to doing that story.

[1186] I mean, why would you not want to write about Hank three?

[1187] He's fascinating.

[1188] The entire story of his life is fascinating that he didn't know who he was until he was 16.

[1189] Oh, he didn't?

[1190] No. Oh, wow.

[1191] He didn't even know that Hank Jr. was his father.

[1192] Okay, Hank Jr. Otto wedlock or something?

[1193] You know, and then all of a sudden he finds out who he is.

[1194] And then there's this, like, amazing kind of made -for -TV moment where he goes to Nashville and he meets Minnie Pearl.

[1195] And she looks at him and she says, Lord, son, you're a ghost.

[1196] Because he doesn't look like his father.

[1197] He looks exactly like his great father.

[1198] Like, strikingly so sounds like him, looks like him.

[1199] And then he's carrying that legacy.

[1200] And he's like this punk, like skate punk kid who starts getting.

[1201] into old -timey country music and creating this weird punkabilly hybrid hybrid thing i mean i don't i haven't kept up with him but certainly at the time that i knew him he was appeared to be actively trying to drink and drug himself to death sure well it's in the blood how old was hank senior he was like in his 30s right yeah or maybe younger maybe 20s i mean he definitely had absorbed this idea that that is actually what he had to be and what he had to do he had even monstrously talented um and also very sweet about his father despite that the fact that his father had never, never took care of him financially or in any way.

[1202] He was very defensive of his father.

[1203] People would say to him, your grandfather was awesome, you're awesome, your father sucks.

[1204] Sure, sure, sure.

[1205] And he was constantly defending his father, which I thought was very, very sweet and strange.

[1206] He's a lovely kid.

[1207] He was very sensitive, beautiful.

[1208] So often us addicts are, yeah.

[1209] I love an addict.

[1210] I'm such an Alanonic.

[1211] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1212] Well, if dad and uncles were like to party.

[1213] I just love them.

[1214] I can't help it.

[1215] My mom says she never met an alcoholic.

[1216] She didn't marry.

[1217] Okay, so the humongous moment in your career life is 2006, eat, pray, love.

[1218] Yeah.

[1219] How long was that on the best sellers list?

[1220] Years and years.

[1221] It was at number one for over a year.

[1222] And then it was on there, I think, for like three years or something.

[1223] It just sat there.

[1224] Is it easy for you to absorb and take that in?

[1225] No. It's hard, right?

[1226] Yeah.

[1227] No, it's not easy.

[1228] But I wouldn't say that it became a full -blown crisis.

[1229] I think something like that could become a crisis for a person.

[1230] I think if it was my first book, that would have been really traumatic.

[1231] And so I'm grateful that it wasn't.

[1232] And I'm grateful that my relationship with writing is, I think, in many ways, the healthiest relationship in my life.

[1233] It's like the one constant and has been long before anybody ever heard of me. I loved it.

[1234] I respected it.

[1235] I loved it.

[1236] And I treated it with reverence.

[1237] I think that was the kind of foundation that made it okay.

[1238] because I knew that I could continue to write something after you pray love.

[1239] It didn't have to ever do that again.

[1240] It was really great that my first book sold, like, what, 4 ,000 copies or something because I had that as a standard where I could say, like, it's absolutely fine to write a book that sells 4 ,000 copies.

[1241] Yeah.

[1242] I love that book.

[1243] Right.

[1244] I still really like that book.

[1245] So if after this, I write books and they sell 4 ,000 copies, that wasn't a problem before.

[1246] It doesn't need to be a problem now.

[1247] Yes.

[1248] You know, so there was some kind of sense of perspective that I had that I think, was really just based in respect for writing itself.

[1249] But that said, it was tricky to navigate.

[1250] It was a puzzle to figure out how to navigate it without letting it undo me. And so I think that, like, when people ask me, what's it like to have Julia Roberts play you in a movie?

[1251] My answer that I truly give is I still have not digested that.

[1252] Right.

[1253] And in fact, I'm not even going to try.

[1254] Yeah, that's great, yeah.

[1255] Because I don't know how to digest that in a healthy way.

[1256] I'll tell you why I even think about it.

[1257] it is there's the I don't know if you've ever watched American Idol they do it every season they take these kids back to their hometown they have a parade and all of them sit on the back of the convertible that sounds like hell they are crying with like just exuding like they are so in that moment that looks really joyful and even rapturous I can't do that I don't know that I should be striving to but I do I do see it and I'm envious of it when they win the when they win the Super Bowl, and the people are cheering, and then the quarterback's crying and hugging all these people.

[1258] I'm like, fuck, I want to feel that feeling.

[1259] That looks really intoxicating.

[1260] Well, okay, this is going to sound, I don't know how this is going to.

[1261] Who gives a fuck how it sounds?

[1262] I'm not in charge of how it sounds.

[1263] I'm just going to tell you the truth that I enjoy creating the stuff that I create so much.

[1264] And I've been amply and generously rewarded by the world for it.

[1265] And I have yet to have a reward that feels nearly as good as what it feels like to do it and to make it.

[1266] And so I feel like maybe that's also the foundation under me. When I wrote the last page of you pray love, and I remember where I was and I'd gone out to this artist residency in Wyoming, living that book and writing that book took me from depression back to myself.

[1267] So it was a salvation for me to do that and going on that journey and getting to go on that journey and getting to spend the year traveling around the world, meeting these incredible fascinating people and studying all this stuff and learning how to speak Italian and learning how to meditate and falling in love and having all of these adventures and then getting to come and try to synthesize that into a book and going out to the middle of Wyoming and being in a cabin alone and writing it.

[1268] All of that I loved.

[1269] I loved.

[1270] I loved being alone.

[1271] As much of a gregarious person as I am, I am never happier than when I'm alone with my work.

[1272] I love it.

[1273] I love making something.

[1274] And I love being an engaged conversation with the book.

[1275] And the day that I finished writing the last page of Eat, Pray, Love, that's when I cried like I'd won the Super Bowl.

[1276] I sat there alone in that studio, and I wept with gratitude like I have never felt.

[1277] I was so happy.

[1278] And I've never cried tears like that since for Eat, Pray, Love, because that was my peak moment.

[1279] Right.

[1280] You'd gotten the thing out of your head successfully into this.

[1281] And because I'm an animist and a pagan, and I believe that everything has spirit, and I believe that everything that I've ever created, I'm in relationship with.

[1282] So I believe that this book is in relationship with me, that it wanted to be written and I had a relationship and we made this thing together, me and the mystery.

[1283] And I talk to my books all the time as I'm writing them and I ask them what they want from me and how I can work with them.

[1284] And because I have a certain level of kind of witchy magic about the way that I work.

[1285] When I was finished writing that book, I remember I had gone into town and printed it.

[1286] I hadn't even read through it yet.

[1287] And I put my hand on it and I said, you have given me everything and I am so grateful.

[1288] And as far as I'm concerned, you never have to do anything else.

[1289] And if you want to just sit on a shelf and be a book that nobody ever reads, I still owe you my life.

[1290] And I am so grateful and I love you so much and thank you.

[1291] Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[1292] And that's the relationship that I had with that book.

[1293] So the trophy moment for me was that.

[1294] I mean, not to say that.

[1295] I wasn't super psyched to have it on the bestseller was for three years and that it made my life so much easier financially.

[1296] It did so much for me after that.

[1297] But yeah, that's the difference between an intrinsically motivated thing and an extrinsically motivated thing.

[1298] And generally, the former results in self -esteem and happiness and the latter does not.

[1299] But to be fair to the Super Bowl player, that moment of them winning is that.

[1300] It's that exactly.

[1301] It's the finale.

[1302] It's just that it's being filmed.

[1303] Exactly.

[1304] It's the end of the journey.

[1305] It's exactly it.

[1306] Yes, they deserve to cry then.

[1307] They totally deserve to cry because they did it.

[1308] And that's the feeling.

[1309] And thank you for that point.

[1310] I think you're very right about that.

[1311] Thank you.

[1312] It's just that there weren't any cameras in that.

[1313] Yeah.

[1314] You're right.

[1315] It looks like the moment is about the winning, but it's not.

[1316] It's about the completion of a really big journey.

[1317] And you work together as a team and everyone did the thing they were supposed to for sure.

[1318] Now, do you think on any level you were initially drawn to writing because you could have totally.

[1319] control over the world you were creating you get to make people say what you want them to say characters and stuff you are god you are totally god i mean yeah hell yeah oh my god why else would you do it yeah but well the reason i was wondering if you might be the exception is that the way you just talked about allowing the book to tell you what it wants to be and that kind of push and pull and communication and openness i'm more like listen you fucking square peg you're getting in this round Like, you got, we got to end this fucker at 112 pages.

[1320] That is standard.

[1321] We're doing, you know, like, it's not that for me. That when I interviewed Tom Waits for GQ years ago, he said that there'll be one song that won't cooperate when he's making an album.

[1322] And he's like, I will send everyone out of the studio.

[1323] I will pull down the shades.

[1324] And I will start screaming.

[1325] I will say, listen.

[1326] The rest of the family's in the van.

[1327] We're all going on this vacation.

[1328] Get your shit packed up.

[1329] You're going to be in this album.

[1330] in the next 10 minutes, you know, just like this threatening thing.

[1331] And I know, like, Vladimir Nabokov said all my characters are galley slaves.

[1332] But, yeah, there is, for me, there's a level of magic in it, too, where there's something that happens sometimes that I know isn't me that's coming to me through me that just feels like it can only be magic.

[1333] So it doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it's pretty great.

[1334] So you had two husbands.

[1335] Yeah, not at the same time.

[1336] Not, well, I wish.

[1337] It's too bad, I know.

[1338] But you had two marriages, and then you had a friend.

[1339] Raya Elias, who was, were you guys best friends?

[1340] Beyond.

[1341] She was my, my human.

[1342] Okay.

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] She got diagnosed with terminal something.

[1345] Pankeratic and liver cancer.

[1346] Okay.

[1347] And from the moment she was diagnosed, something shifted.

[1348] Is that the right way to say it?

[1349] Yeah.

[1350] I loved Rea more than I have ever loved anyone or anything.

[1351] And she was this like glamour, butch, lesbian, rock and roll, of course, she was a former junkie.

[1352] You've got to love addicts.

[1353] Until they steal your shit.

[1354] And then help you look for it.

[1355] Yes.

[1356] When I met her, she'd been sober for a few years, but she had been a major speedball heroin junkie on the Lower East Side in the 80s.

[1357] She was from Detroit, born in Syria, moved to Michigan as a kid.

[1358] She was a hairdresser.

[1359] She was a filmmaker.

[1360] She was a writer.

[1361] She was just the most dynamic.

[1362] Christ, I've never, I mean, I've met all sorts of people.

[1363] I've never met anyone with more charisma.

[1364] She was a weather system coming through.

[1365] She wasn't.

[1366] Oh, God.

[1367] and she was vital to my life and we became best friends but that word never even really worked I always just called her my person she was the most important person I'd ever known I could not do life without her and the first phone call in any crisis the first phone call with anything great to report the safest I have ever felt in my life was whenever Ray was in the room it just felt like she's got it and if I don't know what to do she will and she had this quality and she was very tough and very street smart She'd lived in 10th city in Tompkins Square Park.

[1368] I mean, she'd been in Rikers Island.

[1369] She'd been in Bellevue.

[1370] She'd lived every kind of bad ass life that there is.

[1371] But, you know, there's that adage, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

[1372] And with most people, it isn't true.

[1373] What doesn't kill them makes them really fucked up.

[1374] You know, but with Ray, it was actually true that what hadn't killed her had indeed made her stronger and had also made her kinder.

[1375] She had this infinite capacity for mercy because she had truly been a horrible person.

[1376] When she got clean, had to go beg so many people.

[1377] for forgiveness and many of them forgave her.

[1378] And she was so humbled.

[1379] Her heart was so broken in the most beautiful way by the amount of forgiveness that she was on the receiving end of that her general policy was to withhold mercy from nobody.

[1380] Well, at the same time, having immaculate boundaries.

[1381] It's not like anybody could ever run her over.

[1382] So she was this incredible powerful combination of very strong, very forceful.

[1383] You're never going to manipulate her.

[1384] And she would never throw anybody away.

[1385] So this sense of safety in her presence was incredible.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] And on the day that I, I found out that she had terminal pancreatic and liver cancer, massive tumors and all of her organs and that she was going to die.

[1388] The bottom just fell out of my life.

[1389] I was like, this is the one human being in the world I cannot live without.

[1390] And within a couple weeks of that, it just became abundantly clear to me that I had just never called that relationship by what it really was, which is, this is the person who I love.

[1391] Right.

[1392] This is the person I'm in love with.

[1393] The minute I knew that, I just had to change my entire life.

[1394] Well, so we had this great moment in here.

[1395] Rob McElhen, he was one of my favorite human beings ever.

[1396] His mom left his dad for a woman.

[1397] And he goes, well, let me just be really clear.

[1398] My mom will tell you she's not gay.

[1399] Mary's gay as hell.

[1400] Right.

[1401] Her partner, but she just fell in love with Mary.

[1402] She doesn't like just like all women.

[1403] She fell in love with Mary.

[1404] Yeah, Raya was gay and I was in love with Rea.

[1405] Yeah, and it's so unique and interesting.

[1406] Yeah.

[1407] I'm proud of you.

[1408] for being open enough.

[1409] It didn't cross my mind.

[1410] That was never the issue.

[1411] You know what I mean?

[1412] Like, there was so many bigger fish to fry during that time than what people's sexual identity is.

[1413] Right.

[1414] You know, I was just desperately in love with her.

[1415] But again, I'm saying it's aspirational that, like, I am in such a solidified compartment in my own head.

[1416] I love many of my friends.

[1417] I'm very touchy with my friends.

[1418] Yeah.

[1419] I don't know that I would be open to that I was in love.

[1420] with one of my male friends you know but you haven't been probably like you love them but you probably haven't been in love with them but I do question whether I have a governor on my throttle that has just like Aaron Weekly I think about Aaron Weekly all day long I have since I was 12 years old I love him so much I have a connection to him on a cellular level and we used to snuggle when we were kids we never did anything sexual but I just I loved him in a way that is just very unique and I do wonder if I have a had different parameters in my brain if I'd be like, no, no, I, like, Aaron and I should live together for life and adopt kids.

[1421] I just wonder.

[1422] Well, there's also, there's also just this feeling that I had.

[1423] I mean, I saw, I saw a vision and that, and it was just dreadful.

[1424] I mean, everything that I was seeing was dreadful.

[1425] Seeing a railyous world was dreadful.

[1426] It felt like, like it would be a post -apocalyptic landscape.

[1427] It would just be, like, how on earth am I supposed to live in this world without this person.

[1428] But I also, what I saw was, you know, I knew I would be her care.

[1429] I mean, I knew I was going to be the person to take care of.

[1430] I knew I was going to drop everything I already had.

[1431] The second that phone call came, it was like, nothing else in the world matters to me except taking care of it.

[1432] Right, we're doing this.

[1433] What I saw was a vision of her moment of death.

[1434] And I knew I would be there for that, and I was.

[1435] And I saw that, like a premonition of it.

[1436] And I saw me holding her hand in her dying and her leaving this world, never having known what she was to me, never having known that she was the love of my life.

[1437] And me letting her go without her ever knowing that.

[1438] It just felt like my soul was appalled by that vision.

[1439] Yeah, that would be a tragedy.

[1440] It was appalling.

[1441] It was appalling.

[1442] Yeah.

[1443] And so it could not.

[1444] Who I really like that.

[1445] It could not be allowed to happen.

[1446] Yeah.

[1447] You know, it just couldn't be allowed to happen.

[1448] And the moment that I saw that, then it was just now everything must change and did instantly.

[1449] And that didn't happen.

[1450] She died and I was holding her hand and she knew exactly how loved she was.

[1451] She knew exactly what she was to me and to many other people too, by the way, who were there with her.

[1452] Everyone's desire in a dream scenario is to be looking at the people they love the most.

[1453] And certainly when I think about if I get to stare at my dog, when that happens, I feel like I will be so happy and grateful.

[1454] Yeah.

[1455] You know, like that could make that experience to me, which is unimaginable, so fulfilling and something I could die with complete gratitude.

[1456] Yeah.

[1457] What you might not know is that it might be even more important for them to be looking at you when you die than for you to be looking at them.

[1458] Because you might not be conscious, but like there's something about the need to be with the beloved at that moment is very primal.

[1459] And the promise that I had made to Rea and her ex -wife and her ex -girlfriend, we were all there, was...

[1460] It's like Mederan's funeral.

[1461] We will.

[1462] We will.

[1463] Yeah, exactly.

[1464] Very nice.

[1465] She was such a Mac daddy, of course.

[1466] She was, like, surrounded by hot blondes when she died.

[1467] But, you know, she...

[1468] But the promise that was made was, you know, we will walk with you right to the edge of the river.

[1469] And we had to, for our own hearts.

[1470] It was as much for us as it was for her.

[1471] It was essential that we do that.

[1472] So the post -apocalyptic landscape that I had anticipated would be a raillist world has not actually come to fruition.

[1473] And I think it's because I shifted the story so dramatically that I got to love her and that she got to know that love and that I'm really proud of us.

[1474] I'm so proud of us that we did that.

[1475] My wife and I will have these horrific conversations.

[1476] I don't know why humans do this to themselves, but we'll talk about if something happened to our kids or whatever.

[1477] And my take on it, which I doubt I would be able to employ, I would refuse to disrespect what a beautiful experience this had been by measuring it all by the end.

[1478] Like right now, my kids, if the bomb comes tomorrow, what a fucking success.

[1479] Just the best six years of my life and four years respectively.

[1480] And I would refuse to measure it by that last moment.

[1481] You know, I would force myself to see it as a success story, as a happy story, you know, which...

[1482] Nourishing way to see it.

[1483] But I'm sure nearly impossible, but I just feel like that would be the most respectful way to them to go like, wow, what a fucking gift.

[1484] I met you.

[1485] I shared my life with you and I was...

[1486] We got to do this.

[1487] And to your point, I didn't hold the thing back.

[1488] You knew how I felt about you the whole ride.

[1489] Yeah, yeah.

[1490] That's a big win.

[1491] Yeah, it is.

[1492] It is.

[1493] I would not have missed a minute of it, and it was horrific.

[1494] And even in the worst of the horror of it, there was nowhere else in the world I could have been.

[1495] It wasn't, it's like my, I remember the day that it happened.

[1496] Like, my feet led me to her apartment with a suitcase of what I would need, and I never left.

[1497] I just never left.

[1498] Like, I slept on her couch that night, and I just never left.

[1499] She just said, don't come.

[1500] And I was like, this isn't even, I'm not even deciding this.

[1501] This is a mandate.

[1502] Yeah.

[1503] Like, I'm just following instructions from the mothership.

[1504] I have to be on your couch.

[1505] Right.

[1506] And that's how it's going to be.

[1507] This is what we are doing now.

[1508] This is what we are doing now.

[1509] This isn't even a decision.

[1510] Well, that's a tragic, but it's such a beautiful story.

[1511] I'm really happy for you that you've, you had that and you followed that voice and you did all those things and you have no regrets.

[1512] That's a unique way to be living.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] Okay.

[1515] Tell me about your new book.

[1516] So to totally shift gears.

[1517] Let's fucking flip at 180.

[1518] This exact book.

[1519] Did you write it after she died or while she was dying?

[1520] I wrote this book right after she died.

[1521] So that's relevant.

[1522] It is.

[1523] And I wrote it as an antidote to grief.

[1524] It's called City of Girls.

[1525] It's a novel about New York City Show Girls in the 1940s in the theater world.

[1526] It's a book about promiscuous girls behaving with total reckless sexual abandon.

[1527] It's like a fake memoir.

[1528] So it's written from the voice of a woman in her 90s as she's remembering the 40s and the shit that she got into with these girls who she fell into when she was 19.

[1529] She's a nice girl from a nice family who gets kicked out of Vassar because she's bored and doesn't study and her parents don't know what to do with her, so they send her to New York City live with her Aunt Pegg who runs a theater company in Midtown.

[1530] And she instantly falls in with this group of New York City showgirls and becomes part of them and tries to be as bad and reckless as they are, gets into all kinds of trouble.

[1531] I mean, one of the reasons that I wanted to write it, I've always been fascinated with New York City in the 1940s.

[1532] I think that's an impossibly glamorous era and I wanted to write about the theater world and I wanted to write show business and from that period I love the language, I love the clothes, I love everything about that time, New York, during the war.

[1533] But I also have always wanted to write a novel about girls who are really reckless and promiscuous and their lives are not destroyed by it because that is a very difficult story to find in the annals of literature.

[1534] Yeah.

[1535] Because normally the wages of sin for females is usually death or exile from the community or ruination or if you manage to survive, your promiscuity than like you had better than settle down, get married, become a really good girl.

[1536] There's like maybe a season of your life where you're allowed to be sexual and then you've got to pack it up and put it away.

[1537] And I just wanted, my character is sexual for her entire life and I want to write about that.

[1538] And I want to write about surviving the consequences of your shitty decisions because there are consequences in this novel to her reckless decisions that she experiences and they are weighty and she survives them because we do.

[1539] Right.

[1540] You know, there's this idea that girls can't survive themselves.

[1541] somehow, but we actually can.

[1542] Yeah.

[1543] So that's the story I wanted to tell.

[1544] I got to talk to, like, a lot of old showgirls and dancers who were telling me about when they were like that and how they got around it and the sex that they had and the sex that they wanted and the sex that they regretted and the sex that they regretted not having, you know, like those kind of conversations with women in their 90s was pretty awesome.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] I mean, a lot of it is just misogyny and double standards, obviously.

[1547] In this novel, the men behave just as badly as the women.

[1548] and the women are more severely punished, as always.

[1549] Bill Clinton gets a presidential library.

[1550] Monica Lewinsky becomes a punchline, right?

[1551] It's like we all know that this is kind of how it goes.

[1552] But it was also, it's also really, you know about the Bechdel test, the Allison Bechdel test.

[1553] So she is a cartoonist and a writer.

[1554] She wrote Fun Home, which is amazing, amazing book.

[1555] But she came up with something that she calls the Bechdel Test, which is like a feminist test of female characters and movies, and it's a certain number of questions.

[1556] So the first question is, is there a woman in the film?

[1557] Is there more than one?

[1558] Is there more than one woman in the film?

[1559] Do they have names?

[1560] Do they ever speak to each other?

[1561] And do they ever speak to each other about anything other other than the man in the movie?

[1562] So those are like for, and you would be shocked how many movies, like how many movies I love that fail that test?

[1563] Yeah, yeah.

[1564] You know, like Raiders of the Lost Dark.

[1565] Like there's just like movies that are like critical to my life where, whoa, that fails it.

[1566] It's called the Bechtel test.

[1567] So this novel also is kind of like a total reversal of that because it is fucking stacked with female characters.

[1568] And it's so much about female relationships and friendships.

[1569] I was actually realizing that it's like well into the book, maybe halfway through the book, before there are two men talking to each other.

[1570] You know, there's male characters, but it's just, it's a book about women and lots of different kinds of women.

[1571] There's lesbians in it, and there's older women in it, and there's a very high -tone British actress in it who's very fancy.

[1572] and there's like low -class Bronx -born showgirls in it and there's all these different sort of female, different kinds of female voices.

[1573] So for me, it was a delight to just like just write a novel that's just stacked with women.

[1574] I mean, the most fun scene I've ever written ever is in this book and it's the scene where she loses her virginity and the showgirls, they find out that she's a virgin and they're like, what?

[1575] And they're like, we're like, who are we going to get to fix this?

[1576] You know, and like, they kind of put their heads together and like create, they set it up for her.

[1577] in a very loving way for her.

[1578] Like, it's got to be exactly the right person.

[1579] It can't be somebody that you like, but it can't be somebody grotesque.

[1580] It's got to be somebody who's going to use precautions.

[1581] Like, there's all this discussion among them about, you know, who they're going to enlist.

[1582] And it's this very medical kind of clinical diverginging.

[1583] And it was, I had such delight writing this scene because I feel like most scenes that I've read of women losing their virginity are either very traumatic or very, to my mind, unbelievably romantic.

[1584] Yes, yes, yes.

[1585] you know, where it's either just absolute trauma or it's impossibly pleasurable, which is not my or most women's experience with the first time that, like, you would know what you were doing so first.

[1586] So I thought, like, I want to write this where, like, it's orchestrated by women for a woman, and it's completely clinical and it's neither romantic nor traumatic.

[1587] Yeah, yeah.

[1588] And actually is sort of comic, so that was really fun to write.

[1589] Well, Elizabeth, it's been so fun talking to you.

[1590] Nice talking to you.

[1591] This is exactly all I ever want to do.

[1592] Okay, great.

[1593] I could not be happier.

[1594] Okay, great.

[1595] Well, your book does sound awesome.

[1596] And I really, to put just a little side note in it, I am always, I talk about this with Monica all the time.

[1597] She's so sick of me talking about it.

[1598] I always feel like there is a faction in America always trying to hijack whatever movement's happening back to a puritanical shame -based sex thing.

[1599] I think there's so many people with that objective.

[1600] And so I'm very into a book that is pro.

[1601] Yeah, you know, I started writing this before the Me Too movement and I didn't change a word of it during the Me Too movement and I love the Me Too movement and I'm grateful for it.

[1602] And it's not a but, but it's an and.

[1603] And I always just want to remind everybody that as important and vital as female consent is, it's not the only and final word of female sexuality is not just about consent because I feel like that's a little passive.

[1604] Consent is vital.

[1605] But what it implies is that women are just waiting around and then a male will come to them and say, can I take this from you or not?

[1606] And they'll say yes or no. And that is not the entire dialogue of sex between men and women.

[1607] also such a thing as female desire, and it is magnificent and beautiful.

[1608] And when you see a woman who looks across a room and is more predator than prey and says, I want that, it is something to behold.

[1609] And this is a book that is sort of celebrating female desire.

[1610] Which I couldn't applaud more.

[1611] And that is not to take anything away from the current movement, but just say, let's not forget about female desire.

[1612] No, thank you.

[1613] Because yes, the old paradigm is fucking broken.

[1614] No, question about it guys must change the whole system must change with that said we have had a long tradition of males pursue females females have the brake pedal males have the gas pedal we're going to change all that which is great but i need i do want to hear the voice that's saying guess what also now gals you got to get assertive and tell us what you want because that's part of this as we evolve i've never had the brick pedal.

[1615] You should have been raised in England.

[1616] I've always had the accelerator.

[1617] It's not just me, but I've seen lots of stories of women pursuing men.

[1618] I've been pursuing men a lot in my life.

[1619] I'm saying the conventional, a guy asks a woman to prom.

[1620] So guess what?

[1621] Time for girls to ask guys to prom.

[1622] Like that's what I'm talking about.

[1623] That's part of the evolution that has to happen as all this becomes much more even -handed.

[1624] Let's teach girls.

[1625] You like a dude, ask him to coffee.

[1626] You like a dude, ask him to the dance.

[1627] Boys, listen to fucking women, ask women questions.

[1628] You know, both sides really need to evolve.

[1629] Dax, you're going to like this book.

[1630] Okay, wonderful.

[1631] Well, you're a delight.

[1632] So are you.

[1633] I really hope we'll do it again when you write another book.

[1634] Oh, the best.

[1635] Thanks.

[1636] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1637] She's got facts and it seems.

[1638] to me reminds me of factual memories where everything was as fact -checked as the bright truth sky now and then when I see her face she fact -checks me away to that special place and if I falls a far too long I'll probably break down and cry oh wow sweet fact -checker of mine Whoa.

[1639] Ooh, that was a lung.

[1640] Sweet love of mine.

[1641] That's great.

[1642] I didn't write it.

[1643] Someone wrote it for me. I had almost ate too much food to sing that song.

[1644] I felt some of the food making its way north in my G .I. I'm glad you sang it.

[1645] You're glad I sang it?

[1646] Yeah.

[1647] Oh, good.

[1648] I don't know.

[1649] I couldn't comprehend what you said.

[1650] Oh, no. This is a nightmare.

[1651] No, you know what I was just about to say?

[1652] Opposite of a nightmare for me. dream come true we didn't get to do two fact checks and it was I hated it we're back three three that's right a real time fact checked you we've missed three I missed everybody I missed everyone and I'm glad to be back me too but you had a great trip right there was a combo yes yes yes well I said in the intro I was at home in Michigan for a medical issue for a friend yeah my best friend I know you want to talk about it yes my best friend Aaron weekly was yeah sick and I went home.

[1653] But I know everyone's loves Aaron Weekly.

[1654] Oh, he's alive.

[1655] He's very much alive.

[1656] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1657] He's okay.

[1658] He's with us.

[1659] He's with us still.

[1660] He'll be in Detroit.

[1661] Yay.

[1662] So guys, come to Detroit because best friend Aaron Weekly will be there.

[1663] Yeah, that's a reason to come.

[1664] And I'm going to, you bet your ass I'm going to make him cross that stage or something.

[1665] Yeah.

[1666] Can I tell you how much fucking fun we had in a hospital room?

[1667] This is a testament to your best friend is your childhood best friend.

[1668] Mm -hmm.

[1669] You can really be anywhere.

[1670] We were for four days sitting in a hospital room watching.

[1671] We watched a naked and afraid marathon.

[1672] We loved it.

[1673] We were checking out all the buns male and female.

[1674] Okay.

[1675] Well, it's a PG program.

[1676] It's on normal cable.

[1677] But you see buns, and generally the buns are nice.

[1678] All right.

[1679] And then we watched the Andre the Giant documentary.

[1680] I sent you a text of our favorite moment in the Andre the Giant documentary, which is Took a fart.

[1681] Yeah, when Mean Gene says that Andre would take it.

[1682] go far.

[1683] Mean Gene is not Gene Cordell.

[1684] People should know that.

[1685] Different mean Gene.

[1686] Yeah.

[1687] Also, you got to hang out with Gene Cordell recently.

[1688] I was so jealous because I love him so much.

[1689] Your own love with him.

[1690] You think he's so much funnier than me. And I've always been really jealous and threatened by him.

[1691] And it's not too big of a word to use nemesis.

[1692] He's my nemesis.

[1693] Yeah, he is.

[1694] And there we found ourselves at an improv show at the Ace Hotel to raise money for some Detroit cause and I fell in love with them like you did yeah it's easy to do and for our listeners who don't know the backstory it's Eugene Cordero not Jean Cordell that's the name Dax gave him to dismiss him yeah because I was threatened by his comedy chops yeah I was delighted to find out that mean Jean was from Michigan yeah mean Jean Jean Cordell in this case not mean Jean from the documentary that's right that's right yeah I don't know where Gene the WWF announcer was from No. He doesn't feel like a Detroiter to me. No, but he talked about Andre the Giant, and he said that he would, he took a fart.

[1695] When Andre would take a fart, he could clear a whole room.

[1696] And then everyone just then talked about his farts.

[1697] For 10 minutes in that documentary, they dedicate so much time.

[1698] Yeah.

[1699] It's one of those weird things where it's like, I kind of wish I had smelt one.

[1700] I mean, they're clearly the worst things that's ever happened.

[1701] But to hear everyone reminisce about it, you do feel a little left out, a little fomo.

[1702] Oh, you feel phomo about that.

[1703] That, okay.

[1704] Fartmo.

[1705] I don't.

[1706] Fart of Missy now.

[1707] I don't have that.

[1708] I don't need to smell his fart.

[1709] Okay.

[1710] Let's talk about your trip, though.

[1711] So then I got home and then you immediately hit the road.

[1712] I did.

[1713] I went on a trip with my old best friends.

[1714] All your Georgia pales.

[1715] Yeah, my best friends and their families, it was a whole big group of us in a house.

[1716] And it was so lovely.

[1717] Yeah.

[1718] It's special, too.

[1719] have people who just know you that well.

[1720] They know you more than anyone.

[1721] Yeah.

[1722] And then you were posting things and I was getting jealous.

[1723] You were.

[1724] Well, remember, I responded to your story saying, I really regret not hanging out with the smart kids.

[1725] Yeah.

[1726] Because they were all making this, like, really high -quality breakfast.

[1727] It was called French.

[1728] It was Friends Breakfast.

[1729] And everything began with an F .R. So French toast.

[1730] fruit fried bacon was a stretch but we needed bacon there so um french toast casserole a frittata we were going to do a frozen drink but we didn't end up being able to pull that off so yeah like my group of friends at home and i still adore them but when we would get together we would sleep in tents and then we would have um miller high life for breakfast sure well not okay but we're older now So back then we probably weren't, no, we still did cool stuff in college.

[1731] I lived with two girls and we would every Wednesday make dinner for each other.

[1732] Oh, that's lovely.

[1733] And these dinners got extravagant.

[1734] The bar kept, like, rising and rising and rising.

[1735] One time, Callie made fortune cookies from scratch.

[1736] From scratch.

[1737] Problem was she wrote fortunes in them.

[1738] So cute.

[1739] But the pen did, it bled into the cookie.

[1740] Into the product.

[1741] So we couldn't really eat it.

[1742] Oh, I would have eaten a little ink.

[1743] I mean, I ate a little bit of the edge to please her, but, you know, it was a debacle.

[1744] What did the fortune say?

[1745] Silly stuff.

[1746] She's very clever.

[1747] Did you play the game growing up where you read your fortune and then you always add in bed?

[1748] Of course.

[1749] It makes them so good.

[1750] It does.

[1751] It does.

[1752] Like, it works on every single fortune I've ever read.

[1753] Yeah, it's really fun.

[1754] In bed.

[1755] Anyway, oh, God.

[1756] Try that.

[1757] Oh, God, in bed.

[1758] That doesn't work.

[1759] That doesn't work, really.

[1760] Also, let's update everyone that we just had a really great trip.

[1761] Wabiwob, Mamma, Ma, and Dan, and Dan.

[1762] We went to San Francisco, and we went Seattle, Washington.

[1763] Yeah, it was really fun.

[1764] So fun.

[1765] Great weekend.

[1766] Lots of laughs.

[1767] Lots of tears.

[1768] A lot of too many flights, but other than that, really a great time.

[1769] When we finally can teleport places, I'm going to be.

[1770] I can't wait.

[1771] I just cannot wait.

[1772] Well, listen, can I say one thing about be careful what you wish for?

[1773] We're saying we'd like to teleport.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] But I think it's kind of like cell phones.

[1776] Like, we wanted all the convenience and then you're a slave to it.

[1777] So here's what would really happen with our live shows.

[1778] We'd be sitting fucking here until 5 p .m. in L .A. Oh, that's true.

[1779] And we would just teleport to the theater.

[1780] We wouldn't get to have fun in the city?

[1781] No, there'd be no adventure anymore because it would be no like, what's the hotel going to be like?

[1782] Oh, what kind of food they get?

[1783] Hotels would go out of business.

[1784] Every industry would collapse of teleporting.

[1785] Manhattan, why is it so expensive to live there?

[1786] Well, because that's where the jobs are that pay millions of dollars a year.

[1787] So if you could live in the middle of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and then work in Manhattan, everyone would do it.

[1788] There would be no property value of anywhere, because everyone could live anywhere on a lake in a scenic pastoral setting, then work in a city, and then go home at night and be on a farm.

[1789] Everyone would do it.

[1790] I don't even know if it's like work.

[1791] working so much as like, I want to live in New York so I can like have Emily's Burger every night.

[1792] You could have it.

[1793] You would need to live there.

[1794] Let's go to dinner.

[1795] Where are we going?

[1796] Now, imagine the fucking line at Emily's Burger.

[1797] Okay.

[1798] If everyone in the world can go there for dinner.

[1799] Yeah.

[1800] How would reservations happen?

[1801] Also, so real estate values will collapse because no one's going to live in Manhattan and choose to pay $16 million for an apartment when they can just live wherever the hell they want and still work in Manhattan or walk around a Manhattan when they want to.

[1802] Number two, transportation, oil, big oil, auto manufacturing.

[1803] I mean, you name it.

[1804] Every industry almost would collapse with teleporting.

[1805] We'd have to have new industries.

[1806] I know, but it would be a rough transition.

[1807] Yeah.

[1808] I'm just saying if someone did invent teleporting, maybe they already have.

[1809] They've been definitely murdered by a syndicate of OPEC and whatever real estate board there is.

[1810] I think it's J .K. Rowling that invented it because she knows about flu, And ways to teleport in Terrence Posner books.

[1811] Oh, really?

[1812] So she already cracked the logic of it?

[1813] Yeah.

[1814] So she knows.

[1815] Certainly if you could teleport, I feel like then you could time travel probably.

[1816] I don't know.

[1817] That seems very different, actually.

[1818] Okay.

[1819] Yeah.

[1820] That makes sense.

[1821] Assuming you're teleporting over the Internet, yeah.

[1822] Do you want to tell people about your new time travel plan?

[1823] Yeah, I would actually.

[1824] While I was away in Michigan, this like hit me like a ton of bricks while in my hotel room.

[1825] I, you know, previously I've said I want to take a time machine back to 1940s, India, meet your grandmother and woo her and make love to her.

[1826] That's off the table now.

[1827] It occurred to me that would be even more pleasurable would be to take my time machine, go back to the set of Legends of the Fall, kidnap Brad Pitt, aka Tristan, at that time, then take him back to India, have him woo your grandma, and then just watch those two make love.

[1828] Because could you even imagine the power of the world's two most beautiful humans to ever live on planet Earth engaged in sexual Congress?

[1829] Let's hope she becomes pregnant because I can only imagine what the offspring of Brad Pitt and your grandma would look like.

[1830] child.

[1831] It would be there would be posters everywhere like Chairman Mao all over the world just celebrating the beauty of this child they created.

[1832] That's not the way it works.

[1833] Always.

[1834] No, sex leads to babies.

[1835] What do you mean?

[1836] No, not always.

[1837] No, beautiful people don't always make beautiful children.

[1838] In this case, I'm pretty certain they would.

[1839] Okay, that seems.

[1840] But you're right, you're right, you're right.

[1841] It doesn't always happen.

[1842] And if you did that, you'd change the course of history because then my mom wouldn't be born.

[1843] I wouldn't be born.

[1844] But you'd rather have that happen than have met me. No, all this would mean is that your mom would be the most beautiful human being to ever live.

[1845] Well, she already is.

[1846] Okay.

[1847] The second most beautiful.

[1848] Oh, boy.

[1849] Anyway, no, that's not what it would mean.

[1850] My mom isn't made of Brad Pitt.

[1851] Yes.

[1852] I would be different.

[1853] We'd all be very different.

[1854] So.

[1855] Okay.

[1856] It'd ruin the course of all of our lives.

[1857] in doing this.

[1858] Now, if you went back, your original plan, it wouldn't.

[1859] Why wouldn't it alter anything?

[1860] Because you guys wouldn't get pregnant.

[1861] Right, because I'm sterile.

[1862] You'd be sterile.

[1863] Well, I am sterile.

[1864] Oh, yeah, you'd be going back now.

[1865] Yeah, you'd be sterile.

[1866] I'd have to go get Younger, Dax Shepard.

[1867] Yeah.

[1868] I don't know why I just said my full name.

[1869] That sounded very weird.

[1870] Younger Dax Shepard.

[1871] By the way, if I showed up to Younger Dax Randall Shepard and just said, hey, I got a time machine.

[1872] I need you to hook up with this chick in 1940.

[1873] And I wouldn't even have to finish the sentence.

[1874] I'd be in that time machine.

[1875] Like, do you think you would need some convincing if you went back to younger Monica and tried to get her to get into your time machine and go run an errand?

[1876] Would there be any of them?

[1877] Yes, of course.

[1878] There would.

[1879] Of course.

[1880] A stranger who's me. Well, you recognize yourself.

[1881] For sure, Monica, don't even look up in the air and think about it.

[1882] What?

[1883] I'm allowed to think about it.

[1884] Okay.

[1885] You don't look much different than you did here.

[1886] I saw a picture of you the other day when you were 11.

[1887] You look very similar still.

[1888] That's true.

[1889] Old soul eyes?

[1890] Yeah, because I already had like wrinkles on my face.

[1891] No, and that's not what you were saying.

[1892] You said you had dark circles under your eyes.

[1893] I had dark circles.

[1894] No, but I would be very skeptical because I don't know how I turned out.

[1895] I could be misanthrope and trying to get my younger like rule behaving self to break some rules.

[1896] So I need more info.

[1897] Yes.

[1898] So different.

[1899] If I saw older me step out of a time machine, first thoughts would be that's me. Second thought would be, oh my God, I have my hair still.

[1900] Thank goodness.

[1901] Because my dad was bald.

[1902] I was very much thinking.

[1903] You were thinking that your whole life?

[1904] Absolutely.

[1905] Absolutely.

[1906] Then I'd be like, oh, wow, I'm stronger when I'm older than I am now.

[1907] I'm in better shape.

[1908] That's great news.

[1909] Because I'm loosey goosey.

[1910] Like if I go back to 24 when I was pounding beers and never exercised.

[1911] You know, I was jiggly, jiggly a little bit.

[1912] And I would be like, oh, wow, good on us.

[1913] Okay.

[1914] He ended up with biceps.

[1915] So I would trust that person because that person getting out of the time she would clearly be much more together than 24 -year -old me. I'd listen to whatever future me said.

[1916] So your first reaction is like aesthetics.

[1917] Absolutely.

[1918] It's all I care about, Monica.

[1919] No, it's not.

[1920] For myself.

[1921] Absolutely.

[1922] You would not, no, no. You would, no, if an old version of you appeared, you would not be like, oh, he's still my hair.

[1923] You'd be like, how, what is happening and how did you get here?

[1924] Absolutely not.

[1925] I'd be like, boom, we got hair.

[1926] Now tell me what.

[1927] No. I would.

[1928] No, you would.

[1929] All right, let's take it to current day.

[1930] Let's pretend there's a knock at the door right now.

[1931] Come in.

[1932] It opens up.

[1933] I step in at 68 and I look better than I look right now.

[1934] well okay my first thought is oh you're right yeah i thought it was all downhill from here it's uphill from here what a great thing to see i can't believe that is your first reaction absolutely then i'm like how'd you get here wow you don't think you would first evaluate your physical appearance no no oh my god we're so different no i don't think you're you're evaluating this appropriately if an actual you walked in here you would not first thing i would do is evaluate what i look like for sure i would definitely feel you wouldn't immediately see how your fat natchie's held up over time like oh wow those are still up in the air no i'm glad we wore those bras at night i don't wear bras at night oh don't some people i don't know i don't know you shouldn't if anyone's trying to it's not good for you oh it's not good for your what circulation and your I don't know why, but it's not good.

[1935] It seems torturous.

[1936] Yeah.

[1937] I'm not promoting it at all.

[1938] Forget I said anything.

[1939] Unless it's third love.

[1940] I guess here's my.

[1941] Do you want your fatchies to stay buoyant?

[1942] Of course.

[1943] Okay.

[1944] Well, at least we, I mean, I don't know, though, because.

[1945] No, but you're saying, you're, you're painting a picture of yourself that I really started wondering if you even care if your fatchies are going to be up north.

[1946] You've said so many things today that make me feel like you don't know me. I know you better than you know you.

[1947] This is my first reaction.

[1948] Come in.

[1949] Who, wait.

[1950] Who are you?

[1951] I'm Monica.

[1952] I'm 69 -year -old Monica.

[1953] Wait.

[1954] No, you're not.

[1955] Yes, I am.

[1956] Prove it.

[1957] Okay.

[1958] When you were 11 years old, you thought about a young man throwing up and diarrhea and you found yourself aroused.

[1959] Okay.

[1960] Well, you just looked at.

[1961] listen to a podcast, I think.

[1962] I don't believe that you're really me. We're going to need to get a blood test and I need some actual proof before I can go any further with this conversation.

[1963] And I pray this is what she says.

[1964] You know what?

[1965] I never liked you.

[1966] I'm leaving.

[1967] I'm not going to argue with you of that.

[1968] I'm me. Oh my God.

[1969] She would not say that.

[1970] If she was me, she would understand.

[1971] Well, if she was you, she might not believe you were you.

[1972] even though she came back to see you Hey Or she would have brought a blood test She might have come prepared She probably would have come prepared That's a nicer idea, Rob Rob knows me so much better than you know me Anyway Anywho It's nice to be back It's really nice to be back Why are you mad dog at me?

[1973] Because you're mean.

[1974] Tell me the mean thing I said.

[1975] You're mean when you time travel and I don't like it and we're not doing it anymore.

[1976] I'm mean because how about this?

[1977] This is probably how I would go.

[1978] Come in.

[1979] Hi, I'm older Monica.

[1980] And then you'd say, what?

[1981] No. Are you really?

[1982] And I go, oh my goodness.

[1983] Those suckers really held up.

[1984] Congrats.

[1985] I'd probably look at you and say congrats though.

[1986] Real time you.

[1987] Not future you.

[1988] I don't think they'll hold up.

[1989] if I'm being honest.

[1990] I think they might.

[1991] I don't.

[1992] They're very heavy.

[1993] So gravity would say otherwise.

[1994] But anyway, see, if you came and you looked better, my reaction would not be like, oh, good for you.

[1995] I'd be like, oh, there's some science in the future.

[1996] Oh, yeah.

[1997] That makes this all capable of looking young.

[1998] Yeah.

[1999] Yeah, yeah.

[2000] But I would be asking about the science.

[2001] And I wouldn't be like, oh, great job.

[2002] We didn't even consider that.

[2003] So you just brought up something that could be really interesting.

[2004] Okay.

[2005] If fucking 29 -year -old Dax walks in, but it's really 80 -year -old Dax.

[2006] A Benjamin Button?

[2007] No, that the science got, like you're saying, when I'm 60, the science got to a point where you could revert back to your 20s.

[2008] Young age.

[2009] Still be wise and boring.

[2010] It would be very confusing.

[2011] And this is my point.

[2012] So you take all this at face value.

[2013] Someone's 80, but actually looks 29 and they're you.

[2014] The first thing I would just think is, thank goodness I look good.

[2015] Wow.

[2016] Yeah.

[2017] I just don't think I'll care about that when I get old.

[2018] Maybe that's what it is.

[2019] Okay.

[2020] Now, how about this?

[2021] Come in.

[2022] Hold on.

[2023] I'm trying to squeeze between.

[2024] Oh.

[2025] Why do I, first of all, I'd be like, why does your voice sound disgusting?

[2026] I'm Monica, and she's a mongous pumpkin.

[2027] What's your first thought then?

[2028] Okay, yes, yes, then would be like, oh, my God, I fucked up, right?

[2029] Yes, of course.

[2030] It's like the Ghost of Christmas future.

[2031] Yes, but that's a different.

[2032] You wouldn't believe that's you either.

[2033] You would look very different.

[2034] You know what's crazy?

[2035] I would believe that more than the person who looked.

[2036] Good.

[2037] Like, I would believe that, like, oh, no, like, something has gone really awry.

[2038] But also...

[2039] Ooh, my metabolism took a nap.

[2040] Do I even have one in the future?

[2041] But I'd be able to be more concerned about, like, health, not aesthetics.

[2042] I would really be concerned about what happened that made me get to that point.

[2043] I don't think when I'm 70, I'm going to care what I look like.

[2044] I mean, that's the dream.

[2045] But I'm just being.

[2046] honest with you.

[2047] I care so much about what I look like.

[2048] You don't?

[2049] I mean, I do.

[2050] Like, I want to look good.

[2051] Yeah.

[2052] I recognize it's shallow and vain and pointless, but if I'm just being honest with you, I want to look good.

[2053] I think about how I look all the time.

[2054] I don't think it's shallow.

[2055] I think it's normal.

[2056] And I do that.

[2057] I, of course, care about how I look.

[2058] But I'm also like, we're stuck in our bodies and our faces.

[2059] Like, this is what we're working with.

[2060] And you can make some things look a little bit better and a little bit worse, but I don't know.

[2061] What can we do?

[2062] I can't be too obsessed with things.

[2063] There's nothing I can do.

[2064] Right, unless you start getting like some, you know, cutting edge surgery down in Guadalajara or something.

[2065] You're like leg extension surgery or something.

[2066] Oh, okay.

[2067] Yeah.

[2068] Well, what's interesting is we both agree, though, even though we care about how we look and you and I both don't like certain things about our face, we have both decided that we'd rather look like this than potentially look fake, i .e., go get a nose job, and then all of a sudden what people are more aware of is like, oh, your nose doesn't look real.

[2069] That would be a bigger fear of ours than to have the noses we have that we don't like.

[2070] Is that accurate?

[2071] Yeah, I mean, I would get one.

[2072] Again, I'm not shaming anyone who's gotten plastic surgery.

[2073] Oh, you would.

[2074] No, no, no. I wouldn't because I could never guarantee the outcome of it.

[2075] If you could guarantee the outcome.

[2076] I would do it.

[2077] You would do it.

[2078] Oh.

[2079] Yeah.

[2080] Interesting.

[2081] If I could guarantee.

[2082] It would make me so sad, but I understand.

[2083] I totally understand.

[2084] Yeah.

[2085] I love your nose.

[2086] Do you like mine?

[2087] Yeah.

[2088] Yeah.

[2089] Right.

[2090] I hate it.

[2091] And you like it.

[2092] I know, but I would not allow you to get a nose job.

[2093] Right.

[2094] But if you can comprehend that I don't like mine, but you like it, can you comprehend that I like yours and you don't like it?

[2095] Yeah.

[2096] Yeah.

[2097] Tit for tat.

[2098] Quid pro quo?

[2099] Okay, Elizabeth Gilbert.

[2100] Lizzie Gilby.

[2101] Yeah.

[2102] So you said in the biographies of these old tycoons, banks were failing every two hours.

[2103] Okay.

[2104] So I don't think it was every two hours.

[2105] I couldn't really get hourly rates on bank failure.

[2106] But in the wake of the stock market crash of October 1929, people were growing increasingly anxious about the security of their money.

[2107] Wealthy people were pulling their investment assets out of the economy, and consumers overall were spending less.

[2108] and less money.

[2109] Some 650 banks failed in 1929.

[2110] The number would rise to more than 1 ,300 in the following year.

[2111] Ew, 1950 banks in two years.

[2112] Good math.

[2113] Yeah, that's a couple a day for sure.

[2114] Yeah.

[2115] Think how many people's lives were literally ruined.

[2116] I mean, okay, that's too big of a statement because obviously your life's not made or broken by money, but.

[2117] Well, it is when you lose all your money.

[2118] Yeah, all these people have lost everything they've saved their whole life.

[2119] It disappears in a second.

[2120] Oh, my God.

[2121] But again, if you're living with zero savings, you're like, yeah, welcome to my world.

[2122] Right.

[2123] Most people don't have savings.

[2124] Most people?

[2125] I don't know.

[2126] I'd have to do some research.

[2127] Yeah.

[2128] Robb, Rob, you want to look it up?

[2129] Yeah.

[2130] I think the average Americans in debt.

[2131] Like, I think the majority of Americans are in debt.

[2132] But, okay, but you can be in debt and also have a savings.

[2133] That's the thing that we can't really, we won't be able to really have a good answer on this.

[2134] Well, maybe net negative or something.

[2135] Because people have like, they own, school debt.

[2136] Or they own, they owe $200 ,000 on their house, but they have a savings account of $60 ,000.

[2137] Yeah.

[2138] They're just paying slowly.

[2139] Yeah.

[2140] Okay.

[2141] So anyway, so Roosevelt in 1933 gave, you know, these fireside chats.

[2142] Uh -huh.

[2143] In the first fireside chat, Roosevelt spoke on the bank crisis explaining the logic behind his closing of all banks and stating that your government does not intend that the history of the past few years shall be repeated.

[2144] We do not want and will not have another epidemic of bank failures.

[2145] And so yeah, he closed him and then reopened and then he created the FDIC.

[2146] Yeah.

[2147] Some stats on savings.

[2148] Oh, okay.

[2149] So in 2006, a survey said 35 % of all adults only have several hundred dollars in their savings.

[2150] 34 % have zero percent, and only 15 % have over $10 ,000.

[2151] In 2006?

[2152] Oh, 16.

[2153] So over 60 % had less than $1 ,000 saved.

[2154] Yeah.

[2155] That's rough.

[2156] Yeah, that is rough.

[2157] Yeah.

[2158] It's a scary way to live.

[2159] Yeah, that's scary.

[2160] We're lucky as fuck.

[2161] We are incredibly lucky.

[2162] Okay, you said the Haiti, the earthquake and the Dominican Republic did not collapse the same way.

[2163] same earthquake.

[2164] Same island.

[2165] Yeah.

[2166] So the key disparities between Haiti and Dominican Republic, which contribute to each country's ability to recover from natural and manmade disasters.

[2167] This is according to CNN.

[2168] Geography, basically like where the fault lines are.

[2169] Oh, uh -huh.

[2170] Haiti lacks resources to prepare for natural disasters.

[2171] There are no funds for disaster response or infrastructure improvements in watershed protection or irrigation programs that could help prepare for hurricanes and storms.

[2172] widespread deforestation in Haiti has also led to flooding dramatic rates of soil erosion.

[2173] Back in 1960, the two countries had the same GDP per capita, according to the World Bank.

[2174] And now the Dominican Republic's GDP per capita is about seven times that of Haiti, which remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

[2175] Oh, wow.

[2176] Isn't that crazy they share the same island?

[2177] Yeah, it is crazy.

[2178] Is Waldorf parenting Scandinavian?

[2179] You said you thought it was Scandinavian.

[2180] It's German.

[2181] Also known as Steiner.

[2182] Education, based on the educational philosophy of Rudolph Steiner, strives to develop people's intellectual, artistic, and practical skills in a whole, and holistic manner.

[2183] The cultivation of people's imagination and creativity is a central focus.

[2184] First Waldorf school opened in 1919 in Germany.

[2185] Do you think it's possible that the same Waldorf invented that school and the Waldorf salad?

[2186] Yeah, I do.

[2187] Wouldn't that be a diverse?

[2188] I think he had a big life.

[2189] A big huge life with many interests.

[2190] What is exactly in a Waldorf salad?

[2191] Isn't a Waldorf salad like maybe pecans, cranberries, and grapes?

[2192] I was about to say grapes.

[2193] Yeah, I think there's definitely grapes.

[2194] And some real dark green lettuce.

[2195] Oh, I was going to say light green lettuce.

[2196] Oh, friset?

[2197] No, not a friset.

[2198] More like a romaine.

[2199] Okay.

[2200] I think there might be a dash of friset in there, too.

[2201] Oh, Robbie's got the ingredients.

[2202] There's mayonnaise, lemon juice, and this recipe.

[2203] Mayonnaise, lemon juice, apples, grapes, celery, walnuts, and lettuce.

[2204] Oh, they can get specific about the lettuce.

[2205] Yeah, it sounds like a little bit like a chicken salad.

[2206] Mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

[2207] The ingredients mimic a chicken salad, yeah, which I like.

[2208] Subtract bread, add lettuce.

[2209] Costco has a really good chicken salad.

[2210] Do they?

[2211] Yeah.

[2212] I don't doubt it.

[2213] It's good.

[2214] Well, they have the best.

[2215] canned chicken breast.

[2216] That's what we're making our chicken salad sandwiches out of.

[2217] Yeah, that's true.

[2218] Yeah.

[2219] I want that.

[2220] I'm going to get back into the kitchen.

[2221] You are?

[2222] You're going to switch in the kitchen?

[2223] Samin encouraged me. I think I'm going to get back in the kitchen.

[2224] Oh, I can't wait.

[2225] It's going to be a summer of trashy food, I think.

[2226] Ooh, I cannot.

[2227] Well, when we're in Michigan, for sure, I'm cooking a ton of shit.

[2228] Yeah.

[2229] When we're in bathing suits all day.

[2230] I'm eating ground beef every meal.

[2231] Okay, you mentioned, because she was talking about submitting short stories to these publications, and you said that you did that, and you were talking about an SE envelope.

[2232] I didn't know what you were talking about.

[2233] S -A -S -E?

[2234] Yes, but it sounded like S -E, I didn't know.

[2235] An S -A -S -E is an envelope on which you have stuck a stamp and written your own name and address.

[2236] You send it to a person or organization so that they can reply to you in it.

[2237] S -A -S -E is an abbreviation for self -addressed stamped envelope.

[2238] And you've got to buy a lot of them.

[2239] If you're submitting.

[2240] I know remember when like sending your resume out on paper was a thing yeah and I had to do it I had just bought or I didn't even think I bought I think my mom got it for me for Christmas it was a list of every publisher in America it was a big thick book and you just fucking went through this thing one by one and addressed it oh my God printed up your short story and send it off cover letters I applaud Elizabeth I I had like you know a six month attempt at it and I was like I'll never going to get published seven years she did it yeah it's impressive it is impressive it is impressive it's inspirational you got to stick with it yeah that's like when i first moved out here and i was just sending out emails to all those agents like just agents all day long it's so desperate i was so desperate during that but you are desperate yeah you are desperate for anything yeah you're like how do i get into this party i don't even have an i didn't have an agent forever and my first agent fired me commercial agent mine too yeah it was so embarrassed yeah do you have the letters still i kept mine oh i don't know i might barbara cameron kirk cameron's mother oh she fired me she did yeah i have a long letter it's in my memories box i know i probably kept mine too i probably didn't keep mine i was like i got to throw this away and never think about it ever again it was so embarrassing have we talked about your your trip to florida in here i don't think you're encouraged to play black.

[2241] I don't know if we have.

[2242] Yeah, Callie and I in high school, after our senior year, I think, of high school, or maybe it was going into our senior year during the summer, we took a trip to Ocala, Florida.

[2243] Because you had an inn.

[2244] We had an inn in the industry in Ocala, Florida.

[2245] Her grandpa's brother lived there.

[2246] Great Uncle Mike.

[2247] He had some connections, yeah.

[2248] He had some connections.

[2249] connections he hooked us up with some meetings uh -huh this is so fucking cute and then we went the first meeting was at this like guy who basically made instructional like fishing videos kind of and it was very swampy and you know i don't know if he had all his teeth you know and we were grateful to talk to him of course yeah we didn't learn about how to angle a small mouth bass Yeah.

[2250] But the big, big, big meeting was with this one lady who, God, I wish I knew her title.

[2251] Actually, let me see if Callie knows.

[2252] She like a talent scout or a?

[2253] No, not even that big.

[2254] No. Well, I think anyone can give themselves that title.

[2255] So we met with her.

[2256] She was very nice to us.

[2257] And she was giving me tips.

[2258] What was her age just so I can paint a metal picture?

[2259] I would say 60.

[2260] Right.

[2261] So probably 50 because you were 18 and you thought she was 60.

[2262] So she was probably 50.

[2263] Maybe.

[2264] And she gave me some good advice moving into the industry that I could play a lot of different ethnicities.

[2265] I could go out for black roles.

[2266] Right.

[2267] And I should do that.

[2268] I should maximize my opportunity.

[2269] For sure.

[2270] And I also remember she said that we should go to all the parties, like make sure.

[2271] sure we went, but then we had to order soda water.

[2272] So Callie thinks that she was part of the Florida Film Commission.

[2273] Okay.

[2274] The FFC.

[2275] Who knows what that even means, to be honest.

[2276] It's good to know that an employee of the state was telling you to play black.

[2277] She wanted me to play black and attend all these, like, kind of like, rapy parties, but don't get drunk there.

[2278] But keep your wits about you.

[2279] Yeah, exactly.

[2280] And she was kind of on to something, you know.

[2281] But we felt good leaving that.

[2282] We had some good tips.

[2283] Yeah.

[2284] And we were ready for the big city.

[2285] And it worked.

[2286] And then we went to Codoba, Mexican quote restaurant for a big meal, for a big celebratory meal.

[2287] Uh -huh.

[2288] This is the cutest trip ever.

[2289] I wish they had been making a documentary on Youngest Spir.

[2290] You know what?

[2291] It was a great reflection of what actually happens out here, which is you can never get in front of anybody.

[2292] real for a long time yeah yeah like it was a good first experience even though I think we were still I think we thought we had like I think we really left and felt like oh that was productive right step one yeah step one check yes yeah well by the way anytime you're just taking action whether you're even aware of whether it's useful or not just to be taking action towards a goal you have always kind of feels good it does feel good that's true and people don't need to get hung up on like whether it's ultra effective at the end of the day It's like, just be active.

[2293] It's all about how you feel.

[2294] It's not really about the results.

[2295] So you guys felt good about that.

[2296] And that's great.

[2297] Now, upon further investigation, maybe not the greatest advice.

[2298] You do drink at parties and you don't play black and you're doing great.

[2299] Everything's working out.

[2300] Yeah, almost you follow the opposite.

[2301] Anywho, so self -help books.

[2302] Are they productive or not?

[2303] Okay, there's a psychologist, Sven Brinkman, who says, no. We've become obsessed with looking inward and trying to achieve our ideals.

[2304] It's actually made us less equipped to be a human on the outside, the type that's connected to other people.

[2305] And on top of that, we're supposed to be happy all the time, which turns out is a hard thing to do when you're constantly being told you can do better and more positive and more productive.

[2306] And then he's talking about depression and anxiety and books about that.

[2307] He said, these are likely problems that are part of the human condition.

[2308] In many ways, they are productive for us.

[2309] It's rational to feel anxiety when there's something to fear.

[2310] It's irrational to feel depressed when something awful has happened to you or if you've been under a lot of pressure for a long time.

[2311] Depression is an organism's way of reacting, withdrawing, and perhaps metaphorically recharging the batteries.

[2312] But now there's so much pressure in modern society to perform and be productive to be efficient that we don't have this time to recharge, we tend to pathologize these kinds of sadnesses or losses of energy.

[2313] Yeah, that's true.

[2314] But Big Magic is a good book.

[2315] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2316] Yeah, and people should read it.

[2317] So is the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[2318] It's all relative, you know.

[2319] But my favorite line in all of the big book is we claim progress, not perfection.

[2320] Mm -hmm.

[2321] That's so key.

[2322] Mm -hmm.

[2323] Oh, you'll find this interesting.

[2324] So I was looking for the Vanity Fair article about Germans.

[2325] Oh, the German characteristic.

[2326] Yeah, and I don't know.

[2327] I don't think I could find it, but I found another article in Vanity Fair also about Germans.

[2328] Maybe it's the same one, but I couldn't find the stuff you were talking about.

[2329] But, so there's this anthropologist named Alan Dundees set out to describe the German character through the stories that ordinary Germans like to tell one another.

[2330] Dundies specialize in folklore and in German folklore, as he put it.

[2331] One finds an inordinate number of texts concerned with anality.

[2332] Anality?

[2333] Is that shitting?

[2334] Yes.

[2335] It is.

[2336] Yes.

[2337] Oh, okay.

[2338] Shit, dirt, manure, ass.

[2339] Now we're talking.

[2340] Folk songs, folk tales, proverbs, riddles, folk speech all attest to the Germans' long -standing special interest in this area of human activity.

[2341] Dundies caused a bit of a stir for an anthropologist by tracking the single low national character trait into the most important moments in German history.

[2342] Well, already, you know, I love.

[2343] I know, you love this conversation.

[2344] Maybe you're, are you German at all?

[2345] I was so disappointed.

[2346] I've been telling myself that I've been German until I 23 to me. Uh -huh.

[2347] No, I'm predominantly like a Scottish -English.

[2348] Yeah.

[2349] Why did you want to be German so badly?

[2350] I'll tell you.

[2351] Tell me. Because I'm obsessed with Neanderthals.

[2352] And Neanderthals primarily lived in the biggest numbers in Gaul and in Germany.

[2353] Uh -huh.

[2354] And they intermingled.

[2355] That's how they got absorbed by Homo sapiens, they didn't go extinct.

[2356] We fucked them until we all became one species.

[2357] But the much higher genetic rate of Neanderthal, there in Germany and eastern France.

[2358] And so I just want to be Neanderthal.

[2359] Okay.

[2360] Yeah.

[2361] That's why.

[2362] And when I go to Germany, well, it's interesting.

[2363] I was in Hamburg and I was like, this is how you run a place.

[2364] Like the city is spotless.

[2365] Everything runs on time.

[2366] It is a Swiss time piece to mix metaphors.

[2367] Yeah.

[2368] And I was loving it, loving it.

[2369] And it so happened that that trip took us immediately over to Paris.

[2370] And I got to Paris.

[2371] And I was like, no, fuck order.

[2372] fuck time, fuck cleanliness.

[2373] This place is colorful, vibrant, there's rhythm.

[2374] Yeah.

[2375] And then I got really split.

[2376] I think my nature's drawn to order, control, cleanliness.

[2377] But when I have fought that, my greatest moments in life are always when I'm being much more Parisian and colorful.

[2378] Yeah, that makes sense.

[2379] Yeah.

[2380] Okay, so the fiercely scatological Martin Luther, I guess he said, I'm like ripe shit and the world is a gigantic.

[2381] asshole, Luther once.

[2382] Sometimes I kind of wonder if this whole thing is like a parody.

[2383] I believe it.

[2384] I don't know.

[2385] Is it in the onion?

[2386] No, it's in Vanity Fair.

[2387] Okay.

[2388] Okay, Mozart's letters revealed a mind, as Dundee's put it, whose, quote, indulgence in fecal imagery may be virtually unmatched.

[2389] One of Hitler's favorite words was shithead.

[2390] Uh -huh.

[2391] He apparently used it to describe not only other people but himself as well.

[2392] After the war, Hitler's doctors told U .S. intelligence officers that their patient had devoted surprising energy to examining his own feces, and there was pretty strong evidence that one of his favorite things to do with women was to have them poop on him.

[2393] Ooh, Hitler had a kink.

[2394] Yeah.

[2395] Perhaps Hitler was so persuasive to Germans Dundee suggested because he had shared their quintessential trait, a public abhorrence of filth that masked a private obsession.

[2396] Yeah.

[2397] The combination of clean and dirty, clean exterior, dirty interior, or clean form, and dirty content is very much a part of the German national character.

[2398] Interesting, right?

[2399] That's definitely the same article, yeah.

[2400] I hope we didn't offend any Germans that are listening in Stuttgart or something because I have a great affinity for Germany.

[2401] I don't think it's offensive.

[2402] Well, if someone, let's assume for one second that maybe the vast majority of Germans aren't obsessed with shit and then we're saying this and they're like, no, we're not into a clean exterior and a filthy interior.

[2403] I'm just saying what the anthropologist said.

[2404] I'm just saying what the Van de Ferriset.

[2405] Yeah.

[2406] When did Hank William Sr. died who's 29?

[2407] The Beckdale test is a measure of the representation of women in fiction.

[2408] It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.

[2409] About half of all films meet this criteria.

[2410] Passing or failing a test is not necessarily indicative of how well women are represented.

[2411] in any specific work.

[2412] Rather, the test is used as an indicator for the active presence of women in the entire field of film and other fiction and to call attention to gender, inequality, and fiction.

[2413] Mm -hmm.

[2414] Mm -hmm.

[2415] I think there's layers to that problem.

[2416] Uh -huh.

[2417] I thought you might.

[2418] Yeah, I think there are.

[2419] I think the field's been dominated by male writers.

[2420] Uh -huh.

[2421] And I think people write what they know, and they're much more privy to what men are saying than what women are saying.

[2422] But they're writing women's stuff.

[2423] They're just not.

[2424] They have to write.

[2425] the women's characters because there's going to be women in the movie yeah and so look I think there's undoubtedly like a misogyny to all of it or just a lack of many things but also women tend to write female conversations when they write and males tend to write male conversations when they write like I don't think one gender's better or worse at it I think it's it's just the limits of empathy and the limits of your own personal story but it's hard to to be a woman, I mean, getting better, working in that industry.

[2426] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2427] So that's the point is, like, no one's being represented in front of and behind.

[2428] Yeah, absolutely.

[2429] Yeah, the problem is there's just not as many female creators and directors and all that stuff.

[2430] That are working.

[2431] I don't think that they aren't trying to be.

[2432] Oh, yeah.

[2433] I have no position on how many are trying or not trying.

[2434] I'm only saying that they're underrepresented as writers, employed writers.

[2435] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[2436] Now, there's a lot of it's getting better.

[2437] It's slowly getting better.

[2438] But certainly over the history of film, yeah, it was very male -dominated.

[2439] But I'm just saying I'm not willing to go so far as to say that those men who wrote hated women or were trying.

[2440] I don't think I'm saying that.

[2441] Like they write the same way women write about women and men write about men.

[2442] Yeah.

[2443] Was that everything?

[2444] That's everything.

[2445] Okay, great.

[2446] Well, I'm so happy to be back.

[2447] Happy to be back.

[2448] This is the icing on the cake.

[2449] Yeah, sure is.

[2450] Sure is.

[2451] I love you.

[2452] Love you.

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