Sam Fragoso

over it. You're twenty seven, like loads more terrible ship's going to happen to you. Be more worried about that. This is literally nothing, you know. I felt the same way going back on for Christmas. I said, you know, I'm not winning an Oscar this year. I don't get it now. I didn't make a film, but I still think back in the nineties, my favorite David Letterman joke.

Every time they would have like Ebert and Cisco on you know they do like their Oscar preview, and David Letterman would say, God, you know what, it's so upsetting. Barber Strives in once again snubbed, and Roger would say, well, she didn't make a picture that year, like doesn't matter. She got snubbed. She got snubbed once again, Barbara, And that was you at seven, And it's me to be snubbed. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions, Season two. I've

always loved Cruce's questionnaire. It was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method, really. In asking different people the same set of questions, you can make observations about which

truths appeared to me universal. I love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what if these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed if I ask these questions as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where were you happiest? What is

the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered what person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that's grown out of a personal disaster. And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and

humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest today on many questions is Sam frago So. Sam as the host of Talk Easy podcast, which currently has over two hundred and fifty episodes, meaning he knew it was cool to do a podcast

before all the rest of us. He's brilliant. His guests include musicians like Lord and Janelle Monet, are writers like Nikki Giovanni, screen legends like Matthew McConaughey and Law Done. He's also a director of writer and I imagine an ideal dinner guest. He's a really interesting cat. I'm very happy that I met him, and I very much hope you enjoy this wonderful conversation first question, when and where

were you happiest? All these questions are so hard. You have to know that, and someone like me who prepares a whole bunch. The first thing I thought of is this Normanly philosophy. And I'll explain this. When I moved to Los Angeles, I had started the show. I've been a year in and he agreed to come on. And back when I started it, you have to understand, like, I don't come from money, my family is from Chicago.

I don't know anybody. So I'm bringing this microphone, the one I'm talking to two people's homes or offices or whatever,

and it's all portable. So I go to his office and when you walk in, it's like a president or it's like someone who's met the president, and he has my every president and we do this interview and it goes great, and at the end of it, he says, and it's something I thought he hadn't said before, but it's something he often says, which is he says, Sam, It's taken every split second of my life in this case seven years to get here sitting across from you

in this moment, and it's taken every second of your life to get to this conversation too, And I appreciate every second of that journey. I hope you do too, And so every day it has to be or I try to make it the like effervescent moment, which is the one we're in. So I'm gonna say you and I it's Tuesday morning, I'm talking to many driver on her show. The answer is you right now for right now. Oh my goodness, that's a very good thing to have

co opted a Norman Lair quote. He's extraordinary. Oh god. I sang at his birthday party once with a full jazz band, and I came in on the wrong count and I just had to I just had to do it. And it was honestly the most excruciating performance of my entire life. I just I never caught up with the band. I never found my way through it. It was so bad. And he just sat there with his hat on, smiling, and I could see in his eyes he was like, just don't stop, just keep going and you'll get to

the end. And I did. I can't believe you've say in a jazz band for Norman there, Oh my gosh. It was magnificent. He'd actually bought the record label I was signed to, which is why. And it was kind of this Hollywood affair. It was amazing. Even though I was terrible, it was still the total privilege to be terrible in front of him. I bet you were better than you think. I don't think I was, But I do like that idea in the unhappiness of this year,

which has been true for so many people. But honestly, particularly having lost my mom and rend your post about that, I was very moved by that. Well, you know, I wish I could have a conversation about one's host death ruminations about your parents. It's my parents, like the one person I want to discuss, like, oh my god, Mom, it's so weird how all of this stuff has receded, all of the ship between us, and all of this

amazing stuff comes to the foreground. And the one person I want to talk about it with is her, because she would roar with laughter. She would say, isn't that amazing? Gosh? I wish I'd known that when I was alive. But it's it's less the sound of one hand clapping than you'd think when a mother dies. She does involve herself

in conversations with me. It feels like, when does that happen? Well, when I talk to her, I can't help but talk to her because it's been a lifetime of doing that and I don't I don't put any judgment on that whatsoever. And I feel like because I did ask her, I was like, is this just my brain generating your voice? And she was like, well, you know, I don't have a brain anymore, so I'm just going to coop yours. So yeah, it is me, but it's your brain, which

is such a statement. It's weird. Though your grief is a funny beast. I feel like my mom's coop in my brain in real time. She doesn't need to be gone for that to happen. That is a really good point, and it's true, like moms just do that. They do you do that to your son? Well? You know what I think about that because as our relationship is changing now that he's thirteen, and I can't bite him and booby him like the way that I want to or

the way that I did. You know, he's this young man now it's inappropriate and not cool, and he's very tolerant of my love. But I realized that I've got to temper it somewhat now and it's kind of heartbreaking, but he's so tolerant of me, and I do try not to Actually that's not sure. I hardly try it all to not be in his brain. But we have a weird shorthand maybe because it was all just him and me, we still laugh a lot. So I think it's okay. Look, if you think it's okay and he

says it's okay, then it's probably okay. I do think about that, the idea that it is still a gift every split second of life, because when you really see it go, when you really see it gone, I know how much we will want it back. So to say that that this present moment and every split second this is it. This is where I'm happiest is being alive in this moment and actually having an awareness of that life. And that's the ambition. I mean, I think that it's

impossible to feel that every day, every moment. Yeah, but I did think this morning, when I was showering, I was getting dressed, I was like, well, I'm doing a podcast with you. We don't even know each other so well, I mean almost at all. So I don't know. I just love his way of saying, it's taken everything in my life to get here, and that's true of all of us. It doesn't just mean two people on a microphone. It's true of any good thing that happens. It's taking

everything else to get there. He always says, the two most underrated words in the English language are over and next, and if there was a hammock in the middle of those two words, that would be the best definition of living at the moment. Oh well, that's brilliant, that's so good.

I like that hammock idea. I know, but my mama was used to say that you should hate the words why and should into the backyard and I take a really big hall and bury them, and then you would have the hammock over the pit where Wyan should was. I'm liking all of this. Are we thinking about this a lot? And that things are connecting? There? What person, real or fictionalized, defines love feeling? My joke answer right away was I was just gonna say Phantom Threat, Oh

my god, I love that film. Oh I would so get that. You literally want someone to poison you and then make you better. That's dark. I love it. But for the sake of not sounding um like a psychotic person. So I'm going to say both of my parents offered different things, and I grew up with many divorces over and over, and both of them beyond remaining amicable amongst each other, they both I don't know. I guess my idea of love for my dad is because he didn't

raise me day today. He was there on the weekends. The thing that I always think about is he did some things that annoyed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaheah whatever, But anytime he said he was going to be there, he was there. I don't know if that's a tragically low bar, but no, to be reliable, to have a sense of safety in the world, oh my god. Yeah, I think that's actually a great unsung tent pole in one's life, is being able to depend on someone. Yeah

he showed up and give a ship. And quite honestly, that's basically the philosophy I've tried to take in my own life. Quincy Jones father has this quote, and it's like I read it every week and everyone on our team reads it. Which is um, be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all? And I think about this about everything it's exhausting. By the way.

It's like I'm taking out the trash. It's like just to take it out and make sure the neighbors don't ruin their basket, you know, just do it right, and I should just like toss it sometimes because they're rude neighbors. But I'm not gonna get into that. It's just everything in my life. I think about that. And that's what my dad and my mom both they both that they showed up when they probably want to, and they gave a ship. And that's that's love for me right now.

Or it's phanom thread by the way, I think it can be both. I think it's fanom thread for you. Oh no, I mean having people who like not so much my parents really, but just the relationships that I had with men, it was always it was like, ta, they showed up. Oh my fucking god, where have they gone? Wait?

I was just getting settled in this and then something would happen for it to disappear, which makes me then think, yeah, the phantom thread version that relationships are about manipulation, the idea of abandonment, then the opposite of that being somebody stays. But oh god, this is getting really dark. I like your parents version of the definition of love and the

phantom thread. Say what you're going to say, Well, it's really just that idea that if enough people disappeared, like a love relationships, from the relationship when you love them, eventually you think, oh, I have to do something to make them stay that I'm not doing. So then the phantom thread idea of trying to kill some one and then you healing them doesn't become quite such a strange idea. Let me ask you, did you know that someone was going to leave before they left or was it always

a surprise? Well, that's really what any best friend or shrink would tell you is in the rubble of your relationship to go back and look for the red flags, and invariably I could see them afterwards. But at the time now no real proper blindness in love, me just useless. It's hard for me to imagine this because you seem very observant, You're self aware, and love was the leveler. I could never see it. Yeah, I could never see it.

In the thing, I could just never see it. And then afterwards like, oh my god, how could I not see Because one guy who was one of the great loves of my life. Like we were on this huge cliff walk, like a really dangerously close to a death drop of a cliff in Cornwall and England. Oh literally, there's not a metaphor you literally we were on with

a bunch of people. We were doing this walk. We were walking for like five miles to a restaurant, and he'd sort of been running and he'd been running the path and then running backwards and then suddenly he just didn't come back and he was gone, and he was gone for like forty minutes, and I thought he was dead, and my sister and my mother were like, he's definitely not dead. And I was like, how do you know?

And I got into this hysteria, and both my mother and my sister were like, something's up, because when he did reappear, he had a really terrible excuse about having to go off and peace somewhere private or something, and everybody knew something was up, Like everybody secretly knew that he'd gone off to call this woman he was having a relationship with, which is exactly what he was doing, except me, who was like, no, he's dead, He's dead and gone, and I mean I just useless at reading

the tea leaves, Well, I think you're being hard on yourself. Well, he was a total dick, So I mean, you know I didn't like mother, to be honest, Yeah, exactly. You never liked him. He would have You would have told me that. I would have said, hey, Minnie, we just met. But it does not take four hi men, it's it doesn't even take forty minutes to pooh. It doesn't even take forty minutes to be like, why he said pie

and not poo. Also, if you're having an affair with someone like why would you try and sanitize anything anymore? Goes bananas? Not that good of a liar, a terrible lie. And I think he must have on some level been rolling his eyes that, like, when is she going to get it? I never did get it. You know, I want my romantic partners to be good liars and and good at breaking up and try and kill you with soup.

You want to get phantom threaded. Look, if someone's going to be a really good and dustarly lover, you want them to phantom thread you. I want to be fantom threaded. Hey, you know what, I don't know. It's honest, It's sucked up, but it's honest. I love the Phantoms Thread. I love that movie. I love how she pulls the coffee. It makes me want to punch her. Oh absolutely, you know, she pulls the water really high on the ground. So in your life, can you tell me about something that

has grown out of the personal disaster. When I was twenty, which is not that long ago, it feels long now, it's been seven years. When I was twenty, I decided I was going to leave school, and I got this offer from a really tiny, tiny publishing company to write a book. The book was going to be called Talk Easy Conversations with the Filmmakers of the Future or something like that. That's when I was doing that kind of

interview writing work. And so I left school and I started writing this and then by chance, at a film festival it was in Toronto, i met someone and they were offered a job they didn't want, and it was to be the creative director of this art house theater in San Francisco where I went to school, incidentally called the Roxy. I don't know if you've ever been, but it's called the Roxy Theater in San Francisco. It's one of the oldest art house theaters in the country. He's

been around since the late twenties. It's definitely the oldest one in California, I'm pretty sure. And they needed a creative director, and I had done enough film work I guessed to be in the conversation to get this job. Anyway, skip ahead. I get the job. Obviously, in hindsight, hiring a twenty year old to save an eighty year old institution, non for profit with no programmatic experience, not the best idea. Not the best like junior creative director wearing like a

bow tie. I didn't wear a bow tie, but you can, you get it. And so I do this job, and um, I'm not good at it. I mean, honestly, I'm I'm not I've never done it before. I'm programming movies and I'm helping manage the staff of people, and I'm bringing in people from around the country to come and do you know Q and I and all these things, and I'm doing the best I can. But I'm also twenty and then twenty one, and I'm twenty one, like in an apartment and trying to be like an adult, and

it's a joke. I'm just not qualified. And by the end of this run of doing it for about eight months, I'm let go now. We said I left, but really it was I was pretty much asked to leave, and I was trying to traumatize because I was a twenty one year old in a nonprofit working with other adults in the thirties, forties and fifties. The point is I didn't do the job particularly well. But the one good thing that came from it is that every night I

had to do these Q and a's on stage. And you've done many Q and his Q and a s are terrible. They're They're usually horrible experiences where the audience says, like ninety seven things and then they asked, like, what was it like to work with Matt Damon in your case? Oh god, it's so true that that's the question. I think I've been asked more than do I want worship with my mail? Yeah, which I'm sure if you're not going to give a real answer to that, and why

would you? These Q and a's are terrible, But the good part of this is that for seven days a week, I had to moderate these conversations, and I had to do these interviews over and over and over again. Some are great, Some are bad in front of people, in front of like an audience that's like trying to be interested. And that's where talk Easy was born, the show, because it came from me doing these Q and a's on stage and kind of failing over and over and then

slowly getting better. And so what was a traumatic experience of doing this job and failing publicly in front of people, not just the audience, but amongst the staff, amongst like board members, Like imagine like a twenty one year old trying to impress board members that have money, Like I was so ont of my depths, And what came from that is the show. And so I'm grateful for that.

But it was a personal disaster. And the thing about disaster, you know, when a tornado happens, you're not ever thinking, but you know in three days, like we're going to have a great meal. You're not thinking about the meal. You don't even know there is going to be a meal. It's just a disaster. It's just a goddamn disaster. How do I get out of it? And so that was a very long winding story. I love that though, because

that's a proper It did not work out. It ended up with me getting canned, like any which way, you apparently splice that it's not good and yet that's couldn't be further from the truth. Failia. It's such a weird word to me because there's so much gifting in it invariably, which doesn't mean it's not agony. But again, two things can be true. How have you processed it? Because as an actor, it's one of the most agonizing jobs in this way of are you getting this ongoing? Yeah, it's ongoing,

and it's literally you. It's someone saying you're okay, You're not okay. It's literally someone going not you. And then you think that asking why will make it better, But what happens is they actually tell you, and then it's even more personal and dreadful because it really is you that they are saying no to hard, no to you Mini. So how do you? How do you deal? Know? You go crazy and you end up doing a podcast like this where you sound absolutely bat ship the whole time.

You know what, you start seeing it as being as opposed to the the awful idea of a snake. You think it's tale, it's the good version of that, which is it is all the same. What you, cause failure is also success and vice versa. There are a huge senses that I've had that didn't help me at or didn't teach me, so I think it doesn't ever stop being hard, but now I really can laugh about it more. And part of why I like social media it's before when years celebrity or an acting, there was no recourse.

There was no way of rejoining ship that people would say about you, And now I love that there is, which makes it so much easier. If there has been some kind of slight or something that is misunderstood, there's a way of actually interrogating and usually humorously putting that out there, which I like to make fun of the stuff that is hard, to take the sting out of it,

but also to get over it, you know. And I think in my case of this story, when I was twenty getting the job, I didn't think, that's kind of funny that they're giving job. Well, because we have Hubris and you're twenty, of course they give it to me. I thought, Yeah, the San Francisco Chronicle, they should write the story about it. It's going to be great. And then in hindsight, I'm my for one, that haircut is not good on me, not for bad, bad, the outfit

even worse, the attitude somehow worse. I mean, there made no sense, I mean no sense. I love that. I love that for you. You love the failure for me. I'd love that failure for you. And it's perfect because

it gave you something really foundational. You know, if you can't remember how you got the good things, then you're a real dummy, because how you got the good things was what Norman said, that every moment and every second, it took all of it to get to that, and that required a lot of goofs and gaffs and failures, and some have them more public than others, but we all have them in our lives no matter what you do.

But I do wish this is the hope I have getting older, that the gap between something good happening and making that recognition that it took all these things to get there, that that gap lessons and then I'm more appreciative more quickly. That is the hope. That is a

hope I think that does happen. I hope that happens for you, has happened for you totally, because it's like you realize the crazy expectations you put on yourself when you're young, or I know that I did that in order to be happy, it has to look like this, and it's like, wow, that may happen if you're lucky once maybe twice. To stopping having that expectation, that's what sets you free. And then things that you didn't realize

we're going to make you happy make you happy. So actually it's in a huge expansiveness that happens with getting older that nobody talks about what is the quality, like least about yourself. I think because I try to maximize every moment, every situation. And that's true not just on microphone but in my life with friends, and it's exhausting. I'm controlling and it works well as a podcast host, it works well as a filmmaker, but there's a part of me that has a really hard time being the

passenger in any situation. To be fair, I have terrible motion sickness, So that is true. I just don't I don't let go easily. I'd like to figure that out. I'm also a big I don't know where this comes from. I think childhood, but a big post game review kind of person. So I grew up playing sports, and you know how, after a basketball game happens, or any sporting event, the commentators come on and they say, God, like Lebron James,

like you really didn't do that? Well tonight will? That's like basically what I look forward to sometimes after a party is with my friends being like, can you believe that fucking idiot? Can I swear in here? Yes you can. Sometimes I get too negative. I'm reviewing every interaction and saying like, yeah, that person was kind of a schmucker. God, I can't believe that person married that person. So I'm

overly critical and I'm controlling. Those are my answers. What do you think would would happen if you did let go? Do you have a sort of image of yourself in a kind of gauzy state being led by someone else and like, finally just feeling sort of like I don't agree with Guss And in one of those movies from the forties, she's just floating through a garden. Is that what letting Go feels like you? Or is it terrible? Yes?

It feels like every forties film. For me, it feels like every single moment of his Girl Friday when it's working that film so much. No, I don't know what that looks like. And I think if I had an image of who that looks like or what that looks like, I may be quicker to embrace letting go. But I don't know. What I know is what it's not, which is not being as anxious or not feeling like I have to control the lighting or the music at a thing in that part, I would love to let go.

I would love to let go. Do you have to be on the demis switch. I don't have to be, but it's better if you are. You know. I'm just making some adjustments that I think we'll all agree on. Oh my god, ye so funny. I've made sounds with big, big personalities, both male and female, and someone was like, you're being really I think they said beta. I would say beta, you'd be really beta, like on the set with this person like, how is that? Because you're really alpha?

And I was like, well, here's the thing. What I'm good at is actually realizing that it's more important for someone to be alpha than it is for me to be alpha. And actually the most alpha thing you can do in a situation where someone wants to be alpha is be beta. So basically what I'm saying is, if you really needed to be on the dimmer switch, I would fucking let you. And I have let people be on the dimmer switch in movies where it might have

been better if I didn't. Well, this sounds great for you, and I'm wondering how it's going to translate for me. It's really interesting, particularly people have the expectation that you're going to stand up and go funck. Now, you can't do this, you can't do that, stop it. I want to do that. I think it's just good to think about. It's like, in the next moment where you're really wanting to be on the dimmer switch, if you go, well, maybe if I let them be on it and see

what happens. I love it. I'm convinced. The next question, no, no, no, what I was thinking about it. You said something that triggered a whole bunch of memories, which is I have let other people. We've really taken this metaphor very far, but move the dimmer switch up and down. And what happens is if they're used to you controlling the lighting, whatever the plans, when you're not, there's almost like a

paralysis that happens, at least amongst my pals. So I have to let go, though, I have to just let it be. I think it's kind of interesting just doing something differently. Maybe it is this past two years of just going, well, what's the fucking worst that can happen? It's all happening, so just to see what that looks like and if it doesn't work out, that's actually also fine. When did you figure that out that you needed to sometimes take a step back for the other person to

step into their element. Honestly, on a set with my son was very small with an actor who was really there were a lot like it was hardcore, like that process was a lot the way that they were on set with a lot and this whole idea of going, if I've sort of fight for what it is I want to do here and how I want to do it, it's going to cause so much trouble. And I had a panic, going, well, how am I going to do my job if I don't get to do it like I need to? But if I do it like I

need to, it's going to piss this woman off. And I then realized that it would actually be really interesting to go they clearly need it, they need it more. And what if it's a high degree of difficulty and it's actually more interesting if I try and figure out how to do my ship without doing what I normally do and asking for the things that I normally need.

What if I just tried that, Because I could really see that she was looking for something to hang her stuff on, and it could very easily have been me. It did feel like being a superhero or some form of like Judah, like you've cracked the code or something, kind of like it took all that energy, all that expectation that she was going to have a big fight with me, and just didn't do anything except allow her to get everything that she needed. And I didn't feel smart.

It was pretty cool. Actually, I feel like having a kid. I think it was probably Henry. It probably was. That was like I'm making milk and like feeding my baby. If you need to do what you need to do, go ahead, I'll just be over here making milk. That is the part of parents today. I'm looking forward to, not the milk part, but just I don't know something about it feels deeply humbling and probably in a good way. Yeah, I see those kids with their parents. They don't really

care about their parents. And they don't care that you didn't win an oscar at seven. No, they really don't. They don't care about any of the stuff that we think we care about, Like, they just don't. There's such a relief in that because you actually get to be the most unadulterated version of yourself because they don't know what your best qualities are. They just want food and love and pepper Pig. What's that? Oh, you'll find out pepper Pig will rule your life one day. Sam, It's

a cartoon. You sounds like you just joined a cold When you've watched every every episode of pepper Pig, it's sort of like you have joined a cult, poor signed cult. Check it out. Just google pepper Pig and watch it a a little episode. It's an English cartoon. Absolutely will not what person, place, or experience has most aughted to your life. When I was fifteen, I moved to California from Chicago. It sounds like I made the move. I was moved.

People broke up. I moved really strange to go to a high school and have to meet three thousand new kids, And I did the best I could, but honestly, for the majority of my sophomore year of high school, I would spend lunch in the library watching old Ebert and Cisco videos as they reviewed movies from and nineties. Then I would watch them on the late night shows, and I would obsess over these tapes. Because at the time

I was a film critic. I was writing all these reviews on the weekends, and in that lunchtime, I would immerse myself in these two middle aged guys, in part because I didn't have friends. At the end of high school. As I continued, I went to a festival called Ebert Fest. Roger created it. It's down in Champagne, and again I'm from Chicago, so there's added significance, and my father and I went. At this point, Roger had a cancer where

he couldn't speak anymore. But at the end of the weekend he was signing everyone's book and I was like, I don't really want to do this. I really want to go home, but my dad said, look, we're not going until you go up to him. So I went up to him. I gave him my little business card that had a sad blog domain where I wrote all these reviews, and an email and I wrote a little

note on the back and he signed the book. We went on and at the end of my junior year, on lunch break, I remember sitting in my car and I get an email from him and it says, dear Sam, I read your stuff. It sounds good. You can be a writer, film critic or otherwise. But by the way, I wouldn't include your age on the website in these times. Who knows. And that was it. And that note, you know, at seventy eighteen, when you come from where I've come from,

that changed everything. It basically said, give it a go. And if you don't, you know, you're a real idiot. So I gave it a go. I think it's so amazing that idea of incidental mentorship. I think about the things that people have said to me, things that were said in passing that had exactly what you just said. He was seventeen, sitting in your car, you received this email and it actually changed your life. And I guarantee he was not thinking about that when he wrote it.

He was just, Oh, that kid. Oh. I listened to a couple of his things that was just him being a good just being a good person. It's amazing, like that kind of relay. He didn't know that he was handing you up baton, but he was. And I love that. It's a remarkable thing. And it's something I think about all the time because you and I are talking on

microphones in a fairly charmed existence. And if you don't have gratitude and if you don't try to pay that forward in some way, even if it's just an email, an incident, mentorship. It took a moment for him. It took him less than three minutes. Imagine that you changed someone's life in three minutes. The doors wing open. I like that there's magic in the things that one says that you don't know that you were meaningful. It's like Norman Lear, Norman Lear laughing and looking so kindly at me.

Just go and just get to the end of the song. It totally blows, but just get to the end and it's going to be done. Like that's really good advice. And that was just going a look, I've no I've been changed by a lot of people who don't know that they helped me. That's for sure, So we must do it ourselves. Incidentally, if you're interested in people, at least For me, Talk Easy is literally a show about other people. I think being preoccupied with other people is

it's a worthwhile venture. I've never really learned anything from talking myself. Maybe we share that. Listening to other people's thoughts about the world and what they think is such a great respite from being in the echo chamber of my own brain not being able to answer questions. I'd much rather ask people questions and get them to answer, and then I can go, oh, God, yeah, God, and then add that into whatever my four o'clock in the morning echo e head is saying, I think you're right.

I've done almost three episodes of the Showdow, it's so impressive, Like, that's a lot of talking. Well. I started when I was I like specific questions, like all of the kind of like speculative looks that goes on and on being interviewed for years and years. When you're a hundred, you really appreciate the brevity of what did you have for breakfast? That I can answer. Well, when you come on Talk Easy, yes, I'll ask my specific questions, yes, and I'll try not

to get to well, we'll get existential. It's impossible not to. Well, that's the thing. I mean, I've realized it is good to talk about these specific things because I do think they lean into other stuff. I think they're big enough questions that they balloon into other things so that we see the thing is what's revealing about it. The level of interrogation is maybe interesting to one person, is scary and toxic to another, and will actually reveal stuff that

they don't want to be revealed. Largely, people want to keep their heads in the sand. And I know that because I am a fucking Ostrich. You know about a lot of things. Part of this show was like, No, you have to face it. You have to face these hard questions. You have to. I have to. It's funny I always say them about you. You're really like an Ostrich. Really, um.

I think the emotional interrogation is utterly terrifying for most people because it's a house of cards, Like literally and figurative, it is a house of cards, just keeping everything together, with the debt, the payments, the social constructs, the parenting, the professional success, the love and the sex. We barely hold it together most of the time. And it doesn't take an enormous man, which is why I think people

just can't fathom it. I kind of admire that you have seven that you hit as opposed to every week. I feel like I have to reinvent the does the person though? When you're doing your podcast, doesn't the person help you reinvent the wheel a bit themselves because they're either super vibos or they're really not a ricalcitrint. You have to pull it out of them. I never say ricalc I love that word. It's my favorite word. Everything about me feels ricalcitrant right now, except doing this podcast.

I know I can feel some of it through you in the zoom. I have this quality. It's I unfortunately absorbed whatever the other person feels. Oh my goodness, you're a zoom em path. What a nightmare for you. I'm a normal EmPATH even zoom. It's not broken it. You are so amazing, you really are. It is an absolute pleasure to have talked to you, and I can't wait to come on your podcast many driver, Thank you very much.

You can hear Sam's podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso every Sunday, were ever you listen to your podcasts to learn more about his work and view the show's library of over two hundred and fifty episodes. Visit talkisipod dot com. Coming up soon, you can hear episodes with Stacy Abrams, Margaret Atwood and many more. Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer

Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and a Unique Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, And for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver.