Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My guest today is David Sedaris. David, when we talked about doing this, you said, oh, it could be eleven o'clock or later. Are you a late night person?
Yeah, I am, well, especially because I'm in England right now, so there's a big time difference. So sometimes when I have to do interviews, I'll do them like it. I don't know, midnight, that's always a good time to me, you know, that's I don't know, still a reasonable hour, you know, on the West coast of the United States or even on the East coast.
Well, if you don't have to do an interview, what time would you go to sleep?
Usually between two and three?
And what are you doing late at night?
I leave? I usually leave at midnight and I walk to the train station because with a headlamp on. I live out in the country and there are any street lights or anything like that. But it's a five mile walk to the train station and back. So I usually do that because there's not any traffic then and I can clean the busy road, you know, pick up trash on busy roads and not have to worry about traffic.
And do you listen to anything on your phone or are you in silence? What do you do?
I listen to audio books and sometimes I listen to podcasts, but mainly books.
And how do you view the experience of audio books as a writer yourself, as opposed to reading a printed book.
I think the difference is a book comes into you go. You enter the world of a book, and an audiobook enters your world. Right, So I can recall where I was when I was listening to certain audiobooks, but I can't recall where I was when I read a book, you know, Like I often don't think, oh, I remember I was lying on the sofa when I first read
that passage. But I can remember, Uh. You know there's a like less you know, a novel by Andrew Greer, whan I remember the stretch of road I was cleaning when I just really was just just convinced I was listening to the best book ever. Uh. I like audiobooks because you can do other things at the same time. You know, I have a I have shit to do. You know.
Do you find that your mind drifts and you have to rewind or you concentrate. No problem, if it's if.
It's you know, if it's not a very compelling book, that'll happen. But uh, but I think it's you know, it's probably just like skimming, you know, it's the same thing.
And how do you decide what to listen to?
Gosh, Well, there's this writer named Alexander Heman, and I read something by him years ago, and then a couple of days ago, I thought, oh right, Alexander Heman. So then I bought one of his audio books and just loved it. And so now I'm listening to another one, and so I'll just kind of dig him for a while.
Okay, So you're walking late at night? Are you also walking after you wake up?
No? When I wake up, I just go to my desk and work.
Okay, so you'll only walk once a day?
No, I walk at midnight. I go out, now walk five miles, and then at one o'clock I'll go out and I'll walk you know, ten twelve miles.
Okay. How often do you have to replease your shoes?
Well? The main issue, I mean more than that, my toenails fall off a lot. Like I'll take my socks off and I'll feel something hard in my sock and it's always a toenail. They fall off like you wouldn't believe, Like like autumn leaves, my toenails fall off because I walk so much.
Well, what's your strategy there? How do you prevent them from falling off? Is it about the sock?
I don't shoe, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what else I can do. I have, but it doesn't worry me, Like it didn't hurt when they fall off and new ones grow back, So I think it really doesn't bother me in the least. I just am mad because I wish i'd started collecting them years ago.
How many do you have?
I'd have a jar fall by now. But you know how that is. You don't start collecting something, and then I always feel it's like too late to start collecting, you know, like, oh, if I started collecting now, I would just have like three toenails in my jar with heart start, you know, ten years ago in vi a jar full.
Well, I remember when my mother my father died. My mother threw out everything you owned within a week. So all these things you're collecting, what do you anticipate will happen to them? Or are you leaving them to when you die.
Well toenails would be an issue. But other things I collect, like well I collect. I have a really good collection of model mushrooms.
Okay, and I don't.
Know what will happen to my mushrooms when I die. I mean it's a really nice collection, and they look really good in my house here where I've got them. They just seem like they just you know, I'm in England right now and it's a five hundred year old house and there are beams everywhere, and the mushrooms looked just like they just came up on their own. You know. It's not like having them in a in a sleek modern setting, but they would they could work there as well.
Where's a good place to find model mushrooms?
Gosh, Paris is a good place to find them. I often find them when I'm traveling in other countries, Like if you can find a like a kind of a shop that sells natural history stuff, you know, like two headed cow skulls and weird like there's a it was a store I went to once that sold like wax figures that they used to to show what different diseases look like, you know, like a woman with horrible herbes
blisters on her lips. H You know, walk into a store like that, there pretty much guaranteed they're gonna have some mushrooms in there.
So how many mushrooms do you own?
I only have, like, I don't know, I don't know thirty mushrooms, but they're good ones. I discriminate, you know. Sometimes people give me mushrooms and I say, that's great, but I don't keep it because it's not the standard to which I'm.
So what do you do? What do you do with a substandard mushroom?
Give it away to somebody? When I go on tour, I always have gifts for teenagers, and quite often it's things like that. It's things people have given me and then I say, oh, I've got something for you. And then you know, they can go with you do with it what they want, but I don't want them to. I don't know. I'm always so flattered that a teenager would come to my show. I mean I was flattered thirty years ago, but now I'm like their grandfather's age.
So that's somebody going to hear someone their grandfather's age read out loud. But they would just be poisoned to a teenager but still they come with their parents sometimes and I just always want to have something for them. I can really count on one hand the time I haven't had something for a teenager.
Okay, what if someone comes to your house and says, where's the mushroom I gave you?
Most people wouldn't do that. But here's the thing. This sounds bad. I have two I have six houses, so I just say it's in another house. I say, Oh it's in Paris, or oh it's at the beach, or oh it's in North Carolina, or oh it's in London.
Okay, you have six houses, are you viewing another one to purchase or you're looking at downsize? Your six is the right number?
Well, my boyfriend Hugh, he's the one who takes care of everything, and it's always something. You know, A couple of the houses are on the coast of North Carolina, and you know, a hurricane comes and tears the roof off the house, you know, so you have to put a new roof on. Or somebody needs the account and needs to know how much interest our French checking account earned last year, you know. So I would never do a thing like that. I would just never answer that
kind of an email. I don't even open emails from the account, right, I don't open any envelope that doesn't look like fan mail. I'm useless that way. But my boyfriend, Hugh, he takes care of that. So he sold something recently and I thought, well, okay, I can't really complain. He's the one who has to take care of it.
So now, if you have six houses, houses need maintenance. There's issues with theft. Is there someone in every house at all times, a caretaker, someone looking after it sometimes?
I mean there was a man we knew in London named mister T and his wife kicked him out of their house I don't know, thirty years ago, and he'd been living in his car ever since. And so mister T used to stay at our house in London for months when we weren't there, he would stay there. We told him to make himself at home, but he never slept. He brought a sleeping bag and slept on top of the bed. And he uh only used one cop. Well, you never used any pots and pants, just one cop.
And then eventually there was nice mister Government found a house for him, an apartment for him, uh, and he would go on weekends. He had a friend who lived in a trailer and didn't have any legs, So mister T would carry this guy to the car and they would go bird watching all week But mister T, everyone needs someone like that. You know, he's a plumber as well.
You know, he just operates out of his car. But mister T was exactly the kind of person who Or one time I was in Greece and I met this woman and she was working in a tomato plant and the museum of a tomato in the gift shop of a tomato paste factory, right, and I'm.
Waiting to hear what they sell there at the gift shop of the tomato Peasce factory.
Well, they had like big cans of tomato paste that they turned into baskets. They had different labels, you know, old labels from tomato paste. I actually bought a lot there. But there was this woman who worked there, and she used to have her own TV show in Greece, and then the economy tanked and then her English was perfect, and and I said, do you think you can get a job in England with that interest you? And she said,
I would love that. So she came and stayed in our house for I don't know, four months when we were away, so you know, it's it's And then we've had some friends who just have had financial problems and they've stayed in like in the apartment in Paris. You know, one person stayed there for two years. You know another person stayed there for six months. So I don't know, that's part of the reason to have them, you know, so that you could set somebody up.
You know, Okay, you keep referencing you as your boyfriend. Although I've been married once before. I've been with my girlfriend for eighteen years and we're not married. Why don't you marry you?
I don't want to be the kind of gay guy who's like, this is my husband, Brad. I just don't want to. I wanted gay marriage. I wanted gay marriage to become legal, and then I wanted no gay person to act on it. I thought that would have been perfect for every one of them, to say, you know why, you'd take that marriage and shove it up your ass. That's what I wanted. So I just don't. I just don't want to be married. I mean, I don't want to. I don't ever want to use the word my husband.
You know, okay, from growing up, have you always been kind of a contrary, Like if the mainstream is one thing, you're saying, no, I'm evaluating I'm the opposite.
No, no, But I just I don't know. I did feel that way about Marri. I know it's different for young people today. I mean I never grew up thinking that I would get married one day, Like it was never a dream of mine to get married. But now you meet young gay people and marriage has been legal since they were you know, when they're late teens and
they're talking about kids. You know, I mean some in my age, like growing up the way I did, you could never get your hands on a child, you know, like, no way you could get your hands on a child. That makes me sound like a betaphile, but there's no way you could be allowed to adopt the child, or you know, probably if your sister died and left you her child, and once the authorities found out you were gay, they'd come and take it away. So it just wasn't
ever a part of my thing. Like I never dreamed of getting married, and I never dreamed of having kid. I just I never Maybe if I were twenty, it would be different, but no, I don't need it.
So you're growing up in North Carolina. What was your experience growing up being gay in that environment? I mean, now, having such fame and notoriety, it's a different game in fifty years of gone by. But what was it like back then?
Well, there weren't any books in the library about it. I don't mean in the school library. I mean, of course they weren't in the school library, but they weren't in a public library either. So I thought, I really thought I was the only gay person in the world. I mean, there was nobody to talk to about it. I just thought I was the only one. And then,
very ironically, I was at the library. My mother took me to the library one Saturday because I had a book report due, and I walked into the men's room and there were two men having sex in the bathroom, and I thought, oh, it's not just me, there's those two guys too. And I learned it at the live which is what's just funny to me. But you know,
I'm fine. I mean, this is something I guess when I read a book, I would, you know, I would relate to the characters because they were human and I was human, right, now, I feel like so many people they need a mirror, right. It has to be a book where the character's gay, and the character's American and the character lives in England. You know, people want to they don't. They can't relate unless they're looking into a mirror, right,
But I don't know. I kind of feel fortunate to have come up in a time where again I could relate to a book or a movie or anything, because I'm human and they were human as well. There's something about, you know, like now everything's about inclusion. There's something about
that that almost embarrasses me. You know, Like I'm doing this duo lingo to learn German, and the sentences are like, you know, a man will say that's my husband over there, or my grandmother has a new girlfriend, or my aunt's wife is a lawyer, and I guess that's supposed to make me feel included and stuff. But I never felt unincluded. When I was in high school and I was studying Spanish, you know, they didn't teach us to say I am
in the closet or Carlos is my type. But I just figured if I wanted to make that sentence, they gave me the building blocks and I could make them. I mean, I know it's a different world. Now. I'm not saying you know now a kid, you know, you didn't be really dumb to think you're the only gay person in the world. You know, you have the evidence on television and pretty much everywhere you turn, and that you know there's something to be said for that. But
I'm just saying it didn't. It didn't destroy me to not have that.
Okay, you were in high school. How did you fit in or not fit in? In high school? Were you a member of the group, were you an outcast? What did it look like?
Oh? I think I was most like most kids, you know, you you're kind of lost and then you find your people. And I found mine in the tenth grade or eleventh grade one in the drama club. You know, it never occurred to me to do drama. And when I look back, every guy in the drama club was just as gay as it could be. But you didn't know it, you know, like because I still thought I was the only one. But but I don't, you know it was it was really I just woke up when I found the drama club.
I just I'm not a good actor, never was but they were a really fun group of people, and I just felt like I had a lot in common with them, and they were funny, and they didn't they didn't you know, we did obnoxious things like wear top hats to the airport, you know. I mean, I see kids like that now and I think, oh my god, that's so obnoxious. But at the same time I have to think, like, oh, you know, I hope they're having a good time. I know them.
Okay, when did you know you were gay?
Come? I don't know, Like, there wasn't a word for it, but I just knew that I didn't fit in, you know, that something was wrong. I'm not wrong. Well, yeah, it felt wrong to me. You know. I wasn't interested in sports. I didn't like being around boys. I preferred the company of girls. I didn't I just I felt a difference between me and boys. And again I didn't have a name for it, but I figured that out by the time I was like, I don't know, seven, but I wasn't,
you know. And then when I was became like fourteen or thirteen, you know, and then you start getting attracted to people, and then you feel, you know, then you're pretty sure of it. You know, when you when you're I had a woman come up a while ago and say she had an eight year old son, and she said, my eight year old is gay. And I thought, really, I mean that seems a little bit early to me, you know too. I mean maybe he felt different, but I don't know that at eight years old, you are
physically you know, you don't get an erection. You're not turned on by someone at the age of eight.
So when did you know you want me to be a writer?
I dropped out of college and then I was picking apples in a little town in Oregon, and I was by myself, and there was a library there, and I just didn't have any friends or anything. So I started going to the library and reading. And then I just noticed how moved I was by what I read in books. And I was doing visual artwork, but I wasn't ever really very good at it. I mean I was disciplined,
but I wasn't good at it. And then I just noticed again, books were, you know, just I would read something in a book and I would memorize it, and I would when then when I was at work in the canning factory or out picking apples, I could turn it over and over in my mind, and it's a pleasure it would bring me to recite something to myself. And I started keeping a diary, and then I remember, and then I secretly thought, like, wow, it would be great to be a writer. But I would look at
what I wrote and it sucked. And then I would think, well, of course it sucks. I just I just started six months ago. Of course it's going to suck. And then a year later I thought, well, I just started a year ago, of course it's going to suck. And then three years ago, I three years later, I thought, it still sucks, you know. But you know that makes sense. So I never put a timer on it. You know, I never said to myself, I need to publish a book. Why I'm twenty By the time I'm twenty seve and
I'm giving up. It wasn't that. I just figured I just work at it every day and very slowly I'd get better. And I just completely kept it to myself for seven years. I never showed anybody anything i'd written, because it sucked, you know. And then I went back
to college. I had dropped out, so I went back to college and I took a writing class and started writing more than a diary, you know, started writing short stories, and uh, and I chose the right place to go to college because it was I went to the school at the Art Institute of Chicago, and they didn't have a writing program, but they had some you had, they had some people teaching creative writing, and and there were really good people, and they had so much to give,
and nobody really wanted it, you know, but I did. So they gave me all their attention and they gave me all of their knowledge, like there was nobody else asking for it, just me, and and it was really the right It was just the right place for me. Like I feel like if I had gone to the Iowa Writers Workshop, I would have sunk, you know, I would have I wouldn't have been strong enough. And I didn't I don't know that I wouldn't have gotten in the first place, but I don't think I would have
been able to. This was a good environment for me because there really wasn't any well, competition is not the right word. It was like it was like I had my own It was like I had my own private teachers, and they really responded to what I wrote.
A writer is born were the taught.
I don't know that you can teach writing. I had a student I taught for a brief while at the Art School of the Art Institute. I was never qualified to teach, but a teacher back down at the last minute. And so two years after I graduated, I was thirty, I think my old teacher called me and said, there's this creative writing class and there's two classes, and we don't have anyone to teach. Will you come and do it? And like I said, I wasn't qualified. You know, I
never went to graduate school. I don't know. I don't really know how to fix my own I know how to fix my own stuff, but I don't know how to fix other people's. But I had one student, and it was really clear that she was talented. And the difference is that she read. She read a lot, and she was disciplined, and so I could be her cheerleader and I could suggest things for her to read, and I could read everything she ever gave me and get back to her as soon as I possibly could. That's
the best I could do. And anyway, her first book came out a year and a half ago, and I've never felt that. I never felt well, I guess I've always felt proud of my sister Amy, you know, and I felt proud of Hugh. But anyway, I felt so proud. It was such a it was such a wonderful feeling, you know, to to watch somebody come into her own like that and create something that was so magnificent and just I guess, I guess it was the only time
I'd ever mentored anybody. You know. Somebody came up to me at a book signing once and said, will you be my mentor? And I said, well, it doesn't really work that way, you know. I mean, it's a beautiful thing when it works out, but it has to be organic. I think.
Let's go back to the Iowa Writers' School. A lot of that is about adopting a literary style. They talk about rewriting as opposed to writing. What's your view on writing like that?
It just takes a while to find your style, you know. I mean, you know, you start off and you imitate other people, and then there comes a point where you think, all right, I'm never going to be that person. But what have I got right?
What what do.
I have that nobody else has? Or stop trying to be somebody or not, and stop being ashamed of what you've got. I remember I was. I had asked my students one time to write something about their lives, and everybody, well not the majority of the students wrote, you know, made it sound like they were raised by wolves, you know. And I realized they were ashamed of their lives. And they were ashamed of their lives because they were middle class and they grew up in the suburbs, and they
felt that their life was inherently uninteresting. And I thought, wow, that's really sad. You know. It used to be poor people who were ashamed of their lives, you know, and then it became wealthy people and middle class people. But I thought, I thought, well, I didn't want to be like, there's nothing extraordinary about my life, but I I didn't want to be ashamed of it, you know. I didn't
want to to feel like it. I mean, what an awful feeling to just think that your life there's no value, or that you have none of your stories are worth telling. But I again, I think that had to do with just not putting a timer on things, and even because I did find my voice eventually, but if I had put a timer on things and said, well, if I don't, you know, if I don't get something published by this age,
then it's all over. You know. It takes some people longer than others, you know, to not find out who they are, but just allow themselves to be themselves.
You know, are you ever even at this lead date? Like I saw you a few months ago, you were talking about your relationship with your father. You're peening your father somewhat negatively, and then you said, but you're alive and he's dead. Are you ever self conscious? Are you ever self conscious about about revealing information and how people will judge you as a result thereof?
I usually feel that the more honest you can be, the more people will relate to you. Yeah, I mean, you can usually tell when someone's thinking it, when somebody's faking like a h when somebody's oh, just kind of
spouting bullshit. You know, you can usually tell and if somebody is being honest about something, even if it's not like, there's a way that somebody could get up there and just be honest about something that's really pretty brutal or something that even that I don't believe in, But there'd be a way that maybe I could relate to it, maybe just because they're being honest about it, you know, Like if I think about it, like if one of those January sixth people right could tell me a story
about that day. But if they were, I don't know if they were if they were honest about it, and if they were, I don't know if there was some way I could connect to them about it, right, I mean, I guess that's the thing. I like, we we live in we're in the country right now. I'm in the countryside, right, I'm in West Sussex, and we have a pastor behind our house, and there's a shepherd we know. That a
great sentence. There's a shepherd we know, and he was looking for someone's place to put his rams, and so we said, well, we have a pasture behind our house and we have these rams who have been living in our backyard. And rams are assholes, right. So I wanted to write about the rams, but I wanted someone who's never seen a ram to be able to relate to it, right. So that's when I sit down to write about it, I think, Okay, how can I approach this in a
way that somebody who's has no relationships with rams? Could connect. And I don't know. I wrote this essay. It's the New Yorker just bought it. I'm going to read it on tour next week and I'll see if it works. But I think I found a way that it could everyone could. I don't know, yeh, connect with it?
Okay. When you're walking lead at night? Is that when your ideas come to you spontaneously? When do your ideas come to you? And how do they come to you?
Usually they usually come to me at my desk, you know, I just get up and I go right to my desk. I don't like to write on my feet because then I don't know. I sit at my desk and I'm just kind of forcing something. But where I like for it to just be organic and come out of I mean, I have a list of story ideas, and so I sometimes I turn to that, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Right Like I was with my friend Dawn in Montrose, Colorado, which is just a very flats, really hot.
A little bit slow. I've been to Montrose, Colorado, which of course you fly into if you want to go to tell your ride, and it's south of Grand Junction. What would you doing in Montrose, Colorado.
I had a show and tell your ride, but I had to leave early the next morning. So I was staying in Montrose at a hotel. It was like a four minute walk from the airport, right. And the thing is I found when you when you go on tour, if you're staying like at a four Seasons, you know you're not going to get a story out of it, right, But if you're staying at a hotel, well you can walk to the airport. They're usually going to leave with
the story. So I did, but I put that on my story list and was trying to think of a way to h and then sometimes something happens, like I was in Australia and something happened and our flight got delayed and delayed and delayed, and I wrote the entire essay right there on the airport, you know, the thing
that had happened the day before. I mean, it needed to be rewritten like a dozen times, but I got the first draft out usually, you know, and I'm like everybody, you know, every every now and then I think like, okay, that's it, there's nothing more. I reached the bottom of the barrel, and that's it. But then I find when I read something really good, all kinds of ideas come to me. Not you know, It's like if I'm reading
a book about, you know, somebody with COVID. That doesn't mean that I think, oh, I'll write about COVID too, But it can just make me look at the world with fresh eyes. Again. That's what it does. It takes my eyes out of my head, it washes them, and it pops them back in and then for a brief time, everything looks new and interesting to me.
Can you be just as inspired staying home for a month reading as you would be going on the road and interacting with others for a month?
Yeah? Well, like the story I just wrote, the essay I just wrote about the rams, you know, ah, yeah, very much.
So let me ask you this, if you were to just read, would you have enough ideas? Or is it everyday life interacting with other elements, animate or inanimate that inspire you.
It's a combination of the two. You know, it's reading and it's living. It's going out into the world and having things happen. And again, it's not like massive things happen to me. But I don't know, I just I like to kind of make something out of nothing.
Or take the micro and expand it. But so when you sit down every day, are you usually working on something you started or are you starting something? What do you do when you literally sit down?
Well, I sit down every morning, and first thing I do is I write in my diary, and then I turned to whatever it is and I'm working on. And then sometimes, like yesterday, I had to make a hard choice and I abandoned something. You know, I thought, well, maybe in a year I can come back to it and get it to work, but I'm not. It just felt like I'd already written it, you know, so I turned to something else.
Is the process that you lay it all down quickly and we write it or do you eke it out sentenced by sentence? How does it come?
Oh? I don't know. Like today I probably wrote three pages on something I started, and then you know, I'll expand on it tomorrow. I'm going to love to be finished with it in a week, but I don't know that that's gonna happen. It'll just come in its own time. It's hard to write things whole cloth when I'm on tour, Like I start a tour next week, so I'm going to I don't know, forty two cities or something. But I can rewrite when I'm traveling, so I have a lot to rewrite.
Okay, you have this great success. You were on the road. Many people who have household names success which you do have, say, oh no, it just happened to me. But most of these people were driven. They needed it. So why are you so successful? Being talented is not enough.
No, But I was always on fire, you know, like when I was doing visual art, it was the same thing. I was just on fire, had blinders on, nothing else. You know, everybody else is going to the party. I'm staying home and working. I've just always been that way, Like I just a kind of a laser focus. And also I'm you know, I have some obsessive compulsive stuff going on, and so it was always very easy for me to do the exact same thing at the exact same time every day.
Tell me a little bit more about the OCD. I get that, But like, are you locking the door twenty times? Are your order?
It used to be? I mean I used to lock the door twenty times, and then it when I was a kid, it was just like really bad. But then when I got older. You know, I'd written something about it one time and I had said, how you know, it seemed to get my life thing to get better when I started smoking. And then someone called and said, no, that makes sense. You know that nicotine can can be a way to self medicate for that kind of thing. But then I quit smoking, and I thought everyone everything
would come roaring back, but it didn't. Now I'm more like I'm a prisoner of a Yeah, I'm a prisoner. Like I got a fit bit, you know, and so that's why I go out after midnight. I forgot a fit bit. So then I started walking between fifteen and twenty miles a day when I'm in Sussex, right, so I have to do that. Then I have to do duo lingo. But it's not just I have to do it, like I have to be like in the top three. And so that's hours and hours and hours and hours
and hours that I have to do that. And I have to do my own work, and then I have to swim a certain distance every day and I have to Uh, it's it's a lot on my little schedule, Like there really not enough hours in the day, and I never know when something else is gonna pop up. One time it was feeding spiders. And I'm telling you I fed spiders. This was in France, and we had lots of spiders in our house, and I was feeding spiders for hours every day, right and monitoring them.
No, wait, a little bit more, a little slow, a little more granular. So you see a spider in the house, you think they're hungry. What's going on there?
There was a spider, a Taganaria gigantia, who lives in They live in a horizontal sheet web.
And how big a spider is that? And I think I know what a horizontal web is, but tell me.
The size of an unshelled peanut. It's a pretty big, black brown you know. Horizontal seat web, It's just a flat web, right, with a little funnel that it goes into that it lives in. And they can be pretty big those. So it was in the corner. We had a casement window. It was in France, so it was an old casement window. So there was a there was a it was built at the bottom of the window so I couldn't open the window because I would destroy
the web. Right, So, and I heard a fly buzz and then I heard it buzz differently, and I stood up and I went over to the window and I saw the had gotten a fly. It was dragging it into its little home, right, And I thought, I want to see that again. So I caught a fly in a jar and then I shook the jar up so the flylight would hit its head, you know, and get knocked out. And then I poured it into a web, and then when it came to the spider came out
and took it right. And we had so many spiders in our house, and then we had outbuildings, so it was easy to feed forty spiders a day, right, so all day long, I mean, and we kept our door open so the house was for flies. So that wasn't hard to do. But you know, flies can eat like I mean, spiders can eat like once a week and they're okay. But spiders got so fat, you know what I mean. It just wasn't good for him. But I
just kept doing it. And then I went on tour, and of course I didn't have my spiders, and then I went back to France and then it was winter so we didn't have flies. And I don't know, there's a flimsy kind of a spider that you don't want, you wouldn't think twice about, but it would devour all the other spiders. So by the time I got home, there was nothing left but the flimsy spiders. And the next summer I did it all over again. And it wasn't until I moved to England that I stopped with that.
But I never know when something's going to come along. It's like a hobby, but it's just taken too far.
But is it a compulsion more than a hobby.
Yeah, yeah, it's a compulsion.
So the compulsion cannot be broken by you. It has to be like a very distinct thing, like you leave town or something like that.
Yeah, I can't. I can't like the duo lingo thing. It's just ridiculous.
Just a little bit. There's a chart you say being in the top three.
Explain that there's a competitive aspect to do a lingo, which I didn't realize.
It's a lot I told you told me in my audience A little bit more about dual linger.
It's a language learning app, right, So you choose what language you want, and I started off with Japanese and it will teach you the alphabet and then it will give you a sentence in Japanese. You have to translate right from a menu of words below, or it'll give you sEH, It'll give you a sentence in English, and then you have to construct it in Japanese translated into Japanese. And I had studied some Japanese before, but I'd never really learned to read, so it was good for that.
And then I branched out, and then I started doing the German as well, right, And then I discovered one day that there was there were leagues I just hadn't no, right, So there's like the Obsidian League and the Pearl League, and I would get these congratulations, Oh, you're in the Pearl League, and I thought, so that feels good. And
then the highest is the Diamond League. Right, so you get these extra points on dual lingo and a normal person might get, oh, I don't know, forty extra points a day, and I'll be getting like four thousand extra points a day. So it was like it was a big part of my day. It's a huge part of my day. And I can't even say that that It wasn't even about learning anymore. It just became I've never played a video game in my life. But that's I think what it became was me was a video game.
Today when I walked to the village today, we live on the edge of what's essentially Downton Abbey, and I can there's this massive, massive tudor. It's not a castle, it's just a pile, you know, It's just it's on thousands of acres of land. And it's also a deer park and there's right away in England. So I cut across the grounds and this is the time of year when the stags stand underneath trees and cough to attract females like I never thought deer made any noise at all,
but they it is cough. It is unspeakably beautiful and it's fall and the temperature has changed and the air feels different. And I'm leaving tomorrow to start my tour. And I walked across the param house twice today doing dual lingo as I walked right doing it on my iPad so I could rack up four thousand extra points. And I'm so mad at myself because I stopped at one point. It's so beautiful that every day I notice how beautiful it is. Every day I think what a kind of a world is this that I get to
live amongst such beauty? Right? And I didn't do it because I was doing this stupid duo lingo and I'm competing against people I don't even know who they are. They're like twenty five of them from all over the world. Everyone has a nickname, right, it doesn't matter at all? Right, And I don't. I can't. I can't. It's like a trap. I man, I can't get out of it. And Hughes said, has just stop doing it? But I can't.
Okay, just for one second. You're in the competition with duo lingo. But the main goal of duo lingo is to learn the language. Right, have you learned the language? Racking up all these extra points?
There's only well, see, the way to rack up the extra points is to do these practice because you get more points doing the practice thing. So, but I was in Germany a week ago. I was there on a book tour, and I talk to German all the time. I and people said, oh my god, I didn't know you spoke German. And they said, oh my god, your German is perfect. Now my German is not perfect. They were just being nice, but and I would overhear people talking and maybe I would understand one word out of
every twenty. But then, you know, so it's easy to give up. But then you think, well, one word out of every twenty is better than one word out of every fifty or one word out of every hundred. You know, so keep at it and and you'll get better.
Okay, So you're at home. Let's say one day it's really raining, terrible weather, you're driven, you have to walk anyway.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, that rain, and that happens a lot here. No, they didn't stop anything.
What would it take for you not to go out on your walk?
One night, I was out after midnight and the police stopped me, and there was somebody who I don't understand if it was somebody who ran away from home or they were looking for the police. And there were helicopters overhead, right, I don't know if it was somebody who had wandered away from their home or run away from home. They wouldn't tell me, right, but they just said, you can't be out here, and they put me in the police
car and drove me home. And the second they were gone, I went out to get you in the other direction, and I just thought, well, if I see the police car coming, I'll just run into the woods. You know.
Let's say I was in your house and I locked all the doors and I said, you cannot leave today. What would be going on inside your mind?
Uh? Well, how I would overpower you? Because like even the pandemic, that didn't stop me, you know. But it would have been different if I'd been in Paris, because in France you had to have a document to go out. You had to and the police would check your documents. I guess you downloaded it and you have to put the time you leave and all that stuff. So that
would have been a hardship for me. But I would have just left the country that that had been the thing, and I would have gone to a place where they didn't have They weren't quite so strict.
Well, I guess, are you tortured by this? It's one thing to do it. It's another thing to say I have to do it or I just won't feel right.
No, un tortured, Yeah, no, it becomes It's it's like I really admire people who have hobbies.
You do know that there's therapy for this? Now? Yeah, if I said I could get you with a therapist such that you would not be tortured. Is that something you would be thumbs up or thumbs down about.
I'd be thumbs down because I feel like the things that I do are good things to do. Right, It's good to walk, It's good to walk.
Okay, all that rationalization is good. But the question is to what degree are you tortured? To what degree does it interfere with you living your regular life?
Well, I'm always I always think like I can handle this, but see, then what happens is that I go on tour, right, and then on tour you don't have control. You know, you're out of your You're out of your environment.
Right.
So sometimes it'll happen that a plane will be delayed or canceled, and then my agent will call and say we've sent a car and a car is going to take you seven hours to somewhere, right, And I'm like seven hours. I can't get my steps in. If I'm in a car for seven hours, right, what am I going to do? So what I do in that situation is I get I mean, so in case that should happen, I would never leave my hotel in the morning with
no steps right, so I would have gotten up. If it means getting up at five o'clock in the morning, I'll get up at five o'clock the monay it means getting about four o'clock in the morning, I get up at four o'clock in the morning right, just on the off chance that that might happen. And then one time I was thrown into a car for eight hours and I hadn't met the minimum right number of steps I need. And so I was signing this young woman's book and I said, what are you going to do now? She said,
now nothing, I'm not doing anything. And I think she thought I was going to ask her out to dinner. And I said, great, I'll give you twenty dollars to go out and walk two miles. And I put my Apple watch on her and I gave her twenty dollars, and I had her walk for me.
Well, a little bit slower. Why does her walk work because it's on your watch and therefore it's part of the chart I gave him.
I put my watch on her wrist, so and I sent her out to walk for.
I understand what you did, but you're saying it's more about the number on your watch than what's going on inside you as a human being.
Well, no, because we have some French friends who are staying right now with us, and they went to the village and back today and when they left, I thought, fuck, I should have given him my watch, you know, to wear, because that would have been an extra six miles. But no, that's different because they weren't six miles that I would have earned, you know what I mean, Like, I'm in my environment, I'll earn the miles, I'll earn the steps.
Okay, Now, so somebody has to earn the miles. Generally speaking, it doesn't have to be you. You want it to be you, But if it's someone else, that would be okay.
Because I have When I look at my watch, it tells me that I have a perfect record for one thousand, seven hundred and seventy nine days. Right, I've had a perfect record on my Apple Watch. I cannot lose that perfect record.
Just so I know how many steps is that?
Oh a set to I have to walk like ten thousand steps a day, which is nothing. That's like depend It's just like four and a half miles.
Right, Okay, let's get into it for a minute. I had a fit bit, and the accuracy of the step count on the fit bit was completely different from what it was on the phone. I mean, there are certain times I'll be hiking in the mountains and I know the altitude difference and the phone does not register it, whereas the fit bit did. Are you just locked into the equipment or do you ever think about, well, it's this accurate.
Well, for a long time I had a fit bit and an Apple Watch, and I wore them both. But then I thought I was too old to have two things on my wrist, so I just have the Apple Watch. Now they were close enough, you know, I felt like the two things were pretty close. I've never used my phone to check my steps. I've never done that.
Well, you can look on her in the health app. I find it wildly inaccurate. So what about the swimming, Although.
My record is I walked forty two miles in a day.
You know, we are not young people by the standards of human life. You walk that much, does your body hurt?
Yeah? It hurt for days afterwards. Forty two miles was like, that's a really long walk. I started at midnight. I did it with a friend of mine and we came back at six in the morning, and we rested for three hours, and we went out again, came home for lunch, went out again, came home for dinner. Uh yeah, that was a real accomplishment.
Well, most sports industries, court and I've had plenty of talk to the doctors, are from over use. So as we sit here now, since you've been walking using the same muscles, et cetera, how's your body right now?
Oh, that's pretty good. I mean, my poor boyfriend, Hugh, he's got like, you know, sciatica, and you know, his hip bothers him, and I just feel bad for him. I don't really have anything like that, you know, I don't have anything that's that troubles me. And then he had a pool put in and so then it's like, you know, gonna have to swim.
How many laps a day?
Oh, not that, you know, not that many laps, like, you know, just it's a lap pool. But before I was caught in this swimming thing and then that because swim is really boring to me, And then I would swim a mile every time I went to the pool, and that's so boring to me. So now it's like just a quarter of a mile. It's not that much, but it's still something I have to do.
And how much is this exercises about? We control body image.
I eat a lot of food, Like I can eat anybody under the table. I will eat as long as there's food on the table. I will eat your food. I will eat the person next to you, I'll eat their food. I'll say, are you going to finish that? And so it's I just have to exercise a lot if I'm going to continue to eat the way that I do.
And were you always insatiable or eating well available?
And it's funny, my bro he eats the same way I do, and it's shocking to watch him eat, you know, but we eat the same way. I don't know if it was six kids and you're just always convinced there's not going to be enough food and you have to really you eat with your handguarding your plate, you know, corraling your plate, and you just shovel it in and then you fight for seconds. And we weren't poor, you know, it was you know, let's say all the chicken was gone, well,
there would still be stuff. You could make a sandwich or you could you know, make yourself a pancake or something. It wasn't off limits, you know, the kitchen wasn't off limits to you. But I don't know, am I other people in my family don't eat that way, but just my brother and me.
And does it matter what kind of food it is. It could be junk food, it could be gourmet food, just as long as it's no I'm.
Not a big I'm not a big junk food person, and I'm not a food snob. I mean, he was a really good cook, uh but and I don't like it, you know. I don't want to come home at two thirty in the morning after a walk, and I don't want to sit there in front of the refrigerator and eat cheese. You know. That doesn't make me feel good about myself. I bought all these crazy outfits to wear on tour, and they're really expensive, you know. And I would just feel like such a loser if I was
too big to fit into him, you know. So that's a lot of it right there. I gotta I have to do this so I can fit into like a backless floor length sport coach. Just crazy stuff.
When did this clothing obsession begin?
I always when I started reading out Loud. I was living in Chicago, and I would go to other people's readings, and you know, people would usually I wasn't the only one on the bill. Maybe they'd be like three or four people on the belt, and I would just notice people would get up there and they would be wearing you know, they would just looked like they were mowing their lawn. And then thought, oh fuck, I have that
show to do tonight. But I always got dressed up because just so the audience would know you made an effort, you know that you that if nothing else, you know, you're going to try something new, and maybe it wouldn't work, but you took it seriously enough to put a tie on right, And and then it just got more abstract, you know, as the years passed, Like I always you know, I used to wear a jacket a tie, and then a jacket and a tie, and then oh now, I
mean I just bought a jacket that doesn't have any arms. It's not a cape. It's just a jacket that doesn't have any arms. We're just like wearing a bell. We just want to find that come to Girlson. It's a it's a Japanese designer Ray Kawakuba, who has a company called Come to Girlson And it's like a plaid bell right that I'm gonna wear on stage. And then I also got for this tour. It's like a black sport coat that's cut off at the bottom of the ribcage
with scissors. But then in the back it's like one of those pillows that people use on lanes, you know, Tho's neck fellows is sewn into the back, so you have a hump back and this abbreviated jacket with it, and all I do is think about what I'm going to pair it with. You know.
Okay, you know a musician goes on the road, he literally brings a wardrobe trunk. How many outfits do you bring on the road and how do you decide what to bring and how do you carry them?
I just bring, you know, last year I started bringing two suitcases, well a suitcase and then a Duffel bag. And you know, there's no turning back once you add that second bag, there's no turning back. So now I'm a two bag person. But I'm just gonna Usually I just bring one sport coat to wear on stage, but I'll just have two this time. But one doesn't have any arms and the other one's cut off in the middle.
They're only taking up as much room as well as and then you know theaters usually have washes and dryers, you know, big theaters, right, So I don't need to bring that many shirts, and maybe I'll bring, like I don't know, three pairs of shoes, you know, a pair of sneakers from when I go walking or go to
the fitness center. And then two pairs of a pair of airport shoes and a pair of because sometimes you know, your luggage gets lost and you don't want to show up at the theater looking like a slob, you know, so you need that extra pair of shoes and you need airport clothes, right.
Okay, the musicians, the super successful ones, there is a very thin elite that they'll locate in one town and fly out for each gig. But most of the others, just one step down, have all given up flying to be in the bus because the bus leaves when the gig is over and it arrives, you're not waiting in the airport, et cetera. Is that something you ever thought about?
Something they've talked to me about a boss, And but The thing about a boss is, let's say you get on the bus and then you go to the hotel the next morning.
That's what you do.
Yeah, yeah, that's I mean, I'd be willing to give it a try for a while and see, you know, I'd give it an honest try. But what if you're just going like four hours.
Well, the nature of the bus is the bus is got all your amenities and has space, so it leaves when the gig is over. You don't burn all that time. You don't have to wear a schedule. So if you were sleeping when you get to the destination, you continue to sleep. If you're up, check into the hotel. Yeah, let me go one step willing to try it, let's go one step further. You are you know you have one of the best gigs of all time. Maybe you
travel with a microphone at most. Okay, and you ever hire a plane fly private from gig to gig.
Well, you know, one time I was doing a show in Santa Barbara and I was flying out of Portland, Oregon, and the plane was delayed, delayed, delayed, then canceled. So my agent called and said, I've gotten you a I booked you a private plane, get your luggage back. You're going next door to the airport. There's a And it turns out that next door to every big airport right
there's it's called a clubhouse. Then there's no security. You don't have to turn anything off, you don't have to fasten your seat belt, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. And the first time I flew private, I thought, why didn't I do this every day? And then I found out it was ten thousand dollars and I had to pay for it, And I said, how was that fair? You know, like the theater, if I'd had to cancel the show, they would have to
refund all that money. And my agent's still getting a cut, right, so how is it that I have to pay the ten thousand dollars? Anyway, we wounded up splitting it three ways, so every now and then that'll happen. You know that I have to take a private plane, but I'd never have asked for one, or I've never you know, it's enough already to have people say, aren't you ashamed of yourself for flying on airplanes? And I think, well, the plane wouldn't be The plane is going to New York,
whether I'm monitored or not. But a private plane that's a little bit different because it's not going to New York. You know, it's not going to Cleveland, whether or not you're on, if you're not honored, it's not going to Cleveland, although you.
Know are There are these new airlines like JSX in the West, which hold like twenty to forty people. But it's like flying private. I mean, you have to get there, but you only have to get there twenty minutes before. There's no security. Yeah, google it JSX, but they don't fly absolutely everywhere you have to be going where they're flying.
Wow JSX, Yeah, huh, I'll fuck it.
And it can be mine, you know it can. At some times I had to fly to Denver and they fly to Bloomfield as opposed to da which is east of Denver by a significant amount whatever, it ended up being cheaper because it turns out if you rent a car in the suburbs, it's actually cheaper than renting the car at the airport.
Oh, I never learned to drive.
You never. Let's let's wait, let's go back just a chapter before that. What do people not understand about the rest of the world, you're a world traveler, you live in the UK, have a house in Paris, et cetera. We have a very closed minded, ethnocentric population and they hear socialism and they run away. What do people not understand about life and the rest of the world.
Uh, oh gosh, there's so much they don't understand, you know. Like one thing, Americans I think tend to feel like like when it comes to it's an outdated term. But like when I was in Germany in Italy last week on book tours, every question was about political correctness, which is an outdated term in the United States. Not sure what it's been replaced by, but I know that it feels outdated. Americans think that that the only ones in the world who are have undergone a sea change in
terms of language and behaviors, and it's happening everywhere. You know, Americans believe that they have the best healthcare in the world, which is not even not even in the top ten. You know. I just always feel like everyone should just get out more. You know. When I lived in Paris, one time I flew back to New York and there were these students on the plane and they kissed the ground when they got off the plane, and I thought, because you couldn't get a big gulp what I mean, like,
how how bad was France? You know? But it's true you can't get a big gulp and carry it into a store. People would be like, no, you can't do that here. I just don't always interested like the free items that so many people in America are concerned with, you know, like I need to be free to bring a gun to Starbucks, which is just not but here you're free to send your kid to school and not worry that your kid's going to get shot up, you know.
So they're they're trade offs, right. There was an artarticle in the New York Times a couple of days ago, and it was about in Korea, if you're a senior citizen, you get to ride the subway for free, right, And so it was people in Seoul riding the subway and it was so delicious to read the comments, you know, and it was in the New York Times. So the comments aren't like you're a fat, no you are, you know,
they're thoughtful comments. But everyone was the same thing, like they couldn't imagine riding the subway for pleasure, and what they saw a sparkling, clean subway. You know, nobody playing music, nobody, nobody's sleeping, nobody stretched out, nobody eating. Like the rest of the world has a whole lot to recommend it, you know, really does. I just feel like it would just do everybody some good to just get out and just see what's going on in other places.
Okay, for me, the more exotic the place, the more I'm into it. I mean, England is great, but they speak English. I once went on a business trip about ten years ago to Colombia and everybody who was around me they'd had a family member shot and killed. And it was just a fascinating place. So where have been the more fascinating places that you have been?
Law? India, Uh, Vietnam. I'm going to Pakistan in a few months. That should be pretty interesting. Uh, Brazil was Uh, China. I mean, I'm with you, like, you know, when you've got uh, it's nice to have nothing to hold on to and you have to look at the people around you and just do what they do. And I'm always surprised by that when I traveled with other people and
that they don't do that. And then I'd say, like, do you not notice that nobody is standing side by side on the escalator, like if you've not looked around and noticed that. The first time I went to Tokyo, I got off the the Narita Express in the middle of town and I lit a cigarette, and then I
looked around and I noticed nobody was smoking. So I put the cigarette out, and I noticed there were no cigarette butts on the street, and I thought, we'll just put it in trash can, and I noticed there were no trash cans, so I put it in the cuff of my pants right and then threw it away when I got to my hotel. But I love when you're in a situation like that and you just don't know the rules, and it just makes you super observant. It's a gift to have to be observant like that.
And where have you not been that you want to go?
I've been to Africa except for Northern Africa. But I was on a plane one day and there was a I was flying from Paris to Lisbon, and there was a fellow in the window seat, and then an empty seat, and then me, and at one point the fellow in the window seat put a plastic bag of euro coins on the seat, the empty seat, And I said, is that sixty eight dollars worth of euro change? And he said, that is exactly sixty eight dollars worth of euro change.
And he is a doctor, this guy, and he buys change on the internet, right, buy let's say one hundred dollars worth of change for ninety dollars, right. So he buys change and then he goes on vacation with it. But the bill will come and help. It's like he pays for a bill with twenty p and fifty p a one pound coins, right, So it was just so
funny to me. Anyway, he is that turned out to be a doctor, and he travels around the world and he he does a lot of things for free, like maxillo facial surgeons, you know, like if somebody is born with and so he said, why don't you come with me? He said, because I always wanted to go to Lagos, Nigeria. You can't really go there on vacation, you know what I mean, you can't go on I don't want to go on vacation to a place where they don't have
a word for vacation, you know. So but this way I could go, and I could I don't know, hold somebody down while he makes him a new nose or something, you know. And I thought, oh, that'd be the perfect way to go, because I'd like to. I'd like to. I mean, India was interesting to me, just the everybody was super sweet. But I always wanted to go to India and leave when I got thirsty, you know. But and so's I stayed three days. But the thing is when you stay for a shorter period of time, then
you just see, you just notice the thing. Anyone would notice, you know, who was there. It would be like you'd go to Paris and someone said, what Paris like their dog shit everywhere. It's like, yeah, you know, if you stay longer, you get beyond that. But I didn't stay long enough to get beyond that in India. But there was shocking to see just the juxtaposition of wealth and extreme poverty.
Where were you in India?
In Mumbai? No.
I was in Mumbai for about a week, and you saw the extreme poverty. But the other thing was I was just stunned how educated the average person was. You know that we would go for these meetings. These are all people in the entertainment business. They all had graduate degrees. It was just, you know, much more than you would see in the US, as they say, yeah, you don't want to drink the water. The funniest thing though, I
was in a hotel. There's two. There's the main hotel where they have the bombing, and they have an outpost on the other end of town, which where I was standing, and I called up an uber and it was an Uber X. It looked like a Fred Flintstone car. Like the guy was using his feet together and there's a gate for security. Whatever. This guy pulls up in this car. They give me a look like they're ready to eject
this guy. I didn't realize if you're in Mumbai, you get the best Uber available, which is still like nothing. So you love a good hotel, we're a couple of the great hotels you've been to.
Oh gosh, well, I just stated this. Four Seasons in Tokyo that was amazing. Usually we stayed in an apartment there, but the apartment was available. But this four Seasons had a service where they would take you it was right now to the Tokyo train station, like and they would take you, walk you to Tokyo station and put you on the Narrita Express, which I don't need them to do that. I mean, I've taken it so many times.
But if you'd never been to Japan before, it would be really great, you know, because there's you have an assigned seat on the train and assigned car, and if you've never been before, it might be too confusing. I mean, it would be confusing and you wouldn't be able to
find your h see. But it's a service they offer that they take you there and put you on the train, And I think what I like too is that you just absolutely do not tip in Japan, you know, so it was kind of nice to have that burden lifted. So you weren't always thinking, oh is that enough? Should I? You know, should I have given more money? Should I? Like I was in I had just shown Copenhagen and I stayed at the oh gosh, what was the name
of it. It was like like everybody was waiting for Deposh Mode was staying there, so there were people outside waiting for them to come out, and the next day there was like some big rap star staying there. It was like it was almost like being first class on an international flight, like like business is good enough, you know, what I mean, like first class sometimes is like just
they didn't want to bother you. See, you wind up having to ask for everything, and if you're a timid person, it just, you know what I mean, you just think, oh, just put me back in business class. And that hotel was like that. Sometimes when it's so you know, so grand, you just feel well, uncomfortable. I suppose would be the word. I love the gosh I used to. I always loved that built Moore in Santa Barbara, and oh yeah, it's
right on the beach. But there's some kind of labor dispute or something and it's closed now.
There was I haven't kept up with that. I know there was a labor dispute.
But it's just sitting there empty. Now. I've never found my hotel in Los Angeles. I mean I go there a lot, and I've stayed in a million places, but I've never found.
Okay, okay. So if I say you're going someplace, it can go to the Four Seasons, and we know every four Seasons is not physically identical, although they are very similar. Or I could say you can go to the one off special hotel rated as well. But you're listening to the travel agent. It's not like you're talking to five people who went there. Which one are you going to choose?
Wait, my choices? Are you telling me to go somewhere?
No, you're going somewhere. You got to choose a hotel. It could be the Four Seasons, my known quantity.
Yeah, or a uh. I'm probably gonna go with the Four Seasons. I'm not proud of myself for saying that, but it's all about a pillow to me. You know about a really soft pillow in the Four Seasons. I know what the pillows and sheets are like, and they're really it feels really good to be between those sheets
with your head on that pillow. I remember being with my dad one time and we were driving from Illinois to Tennessee and every place he stopped was like, oh, I don't know, Like it was McDonald's and it was everything was a chain, and I said, why are we doing this? And he said, because yeah, I know what you're gonna get. And then I remember because we passed all these great places and he wouldn't stop at any
of them. So I hate being that way with you know, to say, oh, I'll stay at the Four Seasons rather than the one off hotel that we like. Do you go to Portland, Oregon? Very often?
No? I've been there, but not often.
Okay, because I used to stay at the Heathmen, and then someone said, oh, you have to stay at the Nines. Right, that's where the basketball players stay. But the Nines is used to be a department store. So unless you have one of the windows facing the street, you're in an interior courtyards. You know, you look out the window and you see the restaurant. You know. I can't stand that kind of a thing.
No, No, it's like that big hotel in Nashville.
Well, I like the Hermitage in Nashville.
Yeah, but Andrew the one convention hotel where everything looks in on a courtyard. It's very very weird. But whatever they do.
Well, see, I like the Hermitage. And then they opened a four seat Seasons in Nashville. And then I think, well, I don't want to be disloyal to the Hermitage. And the Hermitage has really nice sheets, you know, so I think that's the situation where I would remain loyal to them. Right. But in Portland, the Heathman then got sold and we
just went right down the tubes the Nines. But then they opened a Ritz Carlton, and I can't wait to stay there because I don't feel a need to be loyal to those other places, because they both let me down.
I'd hate to be elitist like this. But isn't the four seasons more dependable than the rich Carleton?
Yeah? It is right, But I always stay at the Ritz Carlton in Chicago always, and I'm never not interested in trying any other hotel there. I mean I have before I found them. It's Carlton, but I think because they can keep staff, you know, So I don't know, I just really I just like everything about it, and I like the restaurant, and I like the and I know that sounds you know, I know what that sounds like.
But I'm never the one paining for my room. If someone else is paying for your room, why don't you get the best room in twn?
Exactly?
And then if I'm going to forty two cities in forty four days, I can do that. I can go to forty two cities in forty four days. But being in a nice hotel just makes it easier.
You know, you got to ask for it. Otherwise they'll give you. You learn that over time. It's built in if you ask, and it makes such a difference. It's really cool.
One thing I learned a long time ago on a book tour, right, Because sometimes you go on a book tour and the publicist will say the bookstore recommended this hotel. I'm like, no, now, new, new, new.
Never.
They make it sound like the like, what I need is something within walking distance. I said, no, I don't want walking distance. I want a nice hotel.
Yeah, the whole I was in Toronto last week, the same thing you wanted. First of all, Toronto is not that big. They put me in a hotel. God, worst hotel I stayedd in years. But uh, if you're in the hotel, will you venture out for food or you a room service kind of guy.
I don't like room service because it's your room, but then somebody comes into it, and then it they violated your space, even though and it's crazy to say that because it's not really yours, but it just feels like. So. I usually eat dinner while I signed books.
Is that part of your contract? Part of your deal? They serve your dinner?
Well, otherwise, by the time I get back to the hotel. It's midnight or one, and it's going to take an hour for the food to come. And then when I'm on tour, I just go back to the room and go right to bed. So I eat did it while I signed books and they bring me menus and I choose something. I'm not a big you know, I'm not a snob about food, but I can't be anything I eat with my hands because I have just signed books.
Okay, so you're legendarily will stay there until the last person is there, and you talk to those people. If you're talking for hours a night to the guests, be I know that you want people to tell you jokes, et cetera. How many times do you have an A level experience talking to all those people?
If I'm lucky, I'm lucky twice a week. When I say a level, I mean like they just told me a story and it's like unbelievable. And I don't mean they were saving it up to tell me, right, I mean we got to talking and then I learned something that's like wow, you know that just blows my mind.
Tell me a couple of those.
A woman she said, oh, you have the same My father was just like yours. She said, he just never liked me. And when she was young, she was sitting on a fence and there was a German shepherd on the other side of it, and it came and it bit her hand and it bit through her hand right, so, and her father said, you know, this is all your fault and took her to the hospital and was yelling at her the whole time. And then he said, you know, I'm going back to that house. And she thought, oh,
that's going to go and cause some real trouble. Her father went and bought one of the puppies. It turned out the dog that bit her had puppies. He bought one of the puppies and brought it home, so the girl had to raise it. Isn't that isn't that like that's a level story. That's that's really good.
Wow? Yeah, okay, do you do this to get the love of your father that you didn't get?
Uh? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think everybody who maybe not everybody, but I mean I think usually people who perform or whatever are trying to fill some hole, you know, and it's maybe it's a different hole for everybody.
But.
I don't know. When I was young, I just wanted to I wanted to walk into a room and have people say that damn and just I was just going to die if that didn't happen, you know, I'm just gonna die if I didn't. Then when I was in school, I part school, I would I would just think, like, give me a sign, Like somebody in this room is going to make it. Just give me a sign, you know, like let me know who it is. And I think,
like most people. I remember there was this guy when I lived in Chicago, when he was really he was a boy. He was an alcoholic, you know, go to a do a reading and then afterwards punch somebody in the face and then be found passed out on the street the next day. And he was super good looking. And I remember thinking, Oh, he's going to be famous, And then I thought, why it's just said he's his writing's not good. He's just good looking and he looks good passed out, you know. So I think we all
tend to put our bets on that person. You know, we're gonna we're gonna put our money on you know, really super good looking person or a super popular person or but it's not always that person, you know. Uh, And I remember thinking like, well, then it could be me. If it's not always that person, it can be me, you know. And you know it's just a midget celebrity. You know, it's not an everyone in the world knows who I am. But enough I just have enough people
know who I am to fill a theater. I'm happy, okay, And again it could be more. You know, I'm a publisher. What we say, we need to take this to the next level, and I would say, no, we don't. Let's say I have a really good audience, and one of the things they like about me is that I've never treated them like they're not good enough, you know, like, oh, you're a good starter, audience, but I can do better than you. I can't do better than them, I really can't.
And I don't know that those other people would be loyal the way that these people are.
However, the nature of being an artist is you always want your work to reach more people. Now, live is one thing, in book is another. But let's just talk about the book side. Do you have a desire always to reach a larger populace?
Uh? Well, I think my books except for the first book and then a book of fiction that I wrote, my first and second book, and a book of fiction I wrote. So ten of my books have been number one on the New York Times bestseller list, right, so that doesn't you know, me doesn't get better than that. Now,
if a book didn't reach number one, I'd be pretty meserable. Now, I figure when I talk about a bigger audience, I mean it's hard because well, there's an audience that pays for stuff, and then there's an audience, do you know what I mean? And now paying for something's a choice, right, you feel benevolent if you paid for something, Right, you're the big man because you paid two dollars for a song instead of just getting it for free. Right. And
it's easy to get my books for free. And now there's some kind of a national library where you can get the audio books for free, you know. So really the only so if you look at book sales, right, those are down, but they're not down, I don't know because fewer people are reading my books. It's just fewer people are paying for my books, right, Yeah, And that's like that, It's like that for everybody now.
And where do you stand on the digital versus print divide.
Uh, I don't I understand that a lot of people. I'd like, I'm not a person who needs to hold onto books, you know, So I get books. I buy digital books, you know, every now and then. I mean, if a friend has a book out, I buy the audiobook, I buy the physical book, and usually I buy the digital book as well, because if I want to quote, you know, quote long passages, that's easy to do with that with the digital book, and then email little passages
to yourself. I mean, I'll go all out, you know, if it's uh God, I want that person to have sales. I want those sales to register. I want I want success for that person.
You're a very competitive person, though you have a unique act. Who is in your league? I know you're suey generous, but when you think about people who read live, do you say I'm the bests or anybody else to say, well, that person's competition.
I don't know who else does it really well? Neil Neil Gaiman, I think. I mean, I have a lecture agent, and he has other clients, you know, but I don't think they work. They don't work like I do. They don't go to one hundred cities a year. Now, sometimes they don't go to one hundred cities a year because you know, Zadi Smith could go to one hundred cities a year, but she doesn't want to. She's got a family,
she doesn't want to leave them. She doesn'tay it. You know, there are a lot of people who don't do it because they don't enjoy it. I enjoy it, and uh one Garrison Keeler. He I mean he would have his show, but also he would go out and just read and recite things from you know, recite poetry and read things from books. But I don't really know who else does it? Really? I mean, who goes on a reading tour?
I don't. There is nobody else. And you have to be credited for building this unique business, both the business itself and the art upon which it's based. But what we've established here is there's a gamification in your life and there's a ladder. Now, maybe the fact that this is separate works in you say, I'm unique if you want what I'm delivered and you can only get it from me, and I have a status, But it's always in the overall sphere. I mean, you've established with duo
lingo and all these other things. Where you are on the ladder, where you are in the landscape is very important to you.
I guess it is. I mean, I don't feel competitive with other writers. I don't feel competitive, like, no, I don't. I feel like I celebrate them because I think my boyfriend Hugh, his French is perfect. Right, So if someone speaks lousy French, Hugh says, no, their French is good, because he's confident enough to feel that about people, you know. So I don't feel I don't feel what's the word, uncomfident about what I have. I don't feel like it's threatened. I don't feel like I mean, I feel like I'm
in a pretty good place with it. And so that allows me, I think, to feel generous towards my fellow writers. I I don't feel like I I don't know. I know, I don't feel competitive, I guess because what we're doing is so different. And then also it's not like if you look at the best seller list, it's like a little lot of really shitty books on the bestself, you
know what I mean. So it doesn't mean that my book is good, right if it's number one, And if I look at what's around me, like that's really you know what I mean, Like Tucker Carlson's number two. So it's not like it's rewarding, wonderful writing. So it doesn't It's just a sales that's just about sales. I'm not.
I but does it make sense because I said Sam, I mean I'm I mean, I'm driven.
I don't know if that's the same as competitive.
Well, you're definitely driven. I mean, I don't need to psychoanalyze you. I'm not a professional anyway, but you do have the situation with dual lingo for let's go back the other way. People who are don't have your level of success have no idea how hard it is to be that successful. They have no idea of the drive, They have no idea of the constant focus and what the sacrifices are. So the people who reach an iconic level, which you have, okay, there is something inside them that
made them iconic. They may be talented enough to be iconic, but there was something inside as you say, you mean you said it. He let somebody talk long enough. You wanted to be the person to say, oh that's little David over here, Yeah, we'd come. He play he's the guy. And if you didn't have that, I think, as you said, you said, if your book wasn't number one, you'd be greatly disappointed. Where someone could call you up and say, oh, well,
this week, this politician put out a book. They only sold ten thousand, and they gave away a certain number for free. You would say, no, it has to be number one, not because of any honey, I'm gonna make no one's going to give me an award or whatever. It's an internal thing, and I would think if it wasn't number one, as you said, you go into a tailspin. I don't know how long that tailspin lasts two days, two months, whatever, and you're going to say, fuck this, I'm going to show him next time.
Well, because everybody's waiting, you know, nothing lasts forever, you know, so I'm always waiting to get to the theater and they'll be like, oh, we had to cancel the show. You know, well the only twenty tickets sold. I mean, it's going to happen, and I'm just always waiting for it, right, But I don't want it to be my fault. I mean, it could be my fault because people are tired of me. But I don't want it to be my fault because it was lazy, you know what I mean, I don't
want it to be my fault movement. I got out there and thought, like, I'll just read something old or it doesn't matter, you know, it's just it's just a kipsie. It doesn't really mean any difference. I don't ever, I don't ever, I don't know. I read an interview with Tony Bennett or it was a Terry Gross interviewed Tony Bennett, right, and it was so beautiful to hear him talk about his audience and just talk about uh, just the gratitude
and respect that he had. You know, it was a really I'm going to say that's old fashioned thing, but I don't. I don't think it is. I mean, I know that there are acts who will get up there and just if they're contracted for forty minutes, they will
only do forty minutes and not one second later. And I know there are people who show up at the theater and you know, they watch basketball games in the hotel, you know, in the backstage while the audience waits an hour, two hours, you know, but you know, I'm sure Bonnie Rait gives everything she's got to be. I mean, there's plenty of plenty of people out there who.
Just well, let's go the other extreme, because you're talking about the person, the person who's phoning it in. Then we have people like Bruce Springsteen. When I say about Bruce Springsteen, I have no problem with Bruce Springsteen, I just hate his audience. These people become prisoners of the audience, like he split up from the Eastreet Band. This is thirty years ago now, and everybody got all this negative blowback.
If Bruce Springsteen were to come out and play for an hour and a half, people would go say, well, you know, you're letting us down. He was charging one hundred dollars and people said that was too much, So you can ultimately, you know, this is an interesting thing. This is we're talking about musicians. Neil Young has survived by constantly decimating his audience, saying I'm not going to
give you what you're looking for. Okay. You know you're different in terms of writing because most writers don't have this profile. Zadie Smith has a new book, but White Teeth was the first book huge footprint in America. Now. Zadie Smith is from the UK, but in America your level of reach is probably three or four times that of Zadie Smith. It's a whole completely different league. As I say, you are an entertainer in addition to being a writer, and that makes all the You know, this
is the opposite of what's his name, Pinchon. You don't know where he lives and he's just ekeing out a book. You are very accessible. You are working it even though you're not singing songs. You're doing something traditional that many people do live, which makes it both fascinating and I'm sure you feeling you're walking that tightrope. You can't say, well, this person does it. Their audience is steady. That person ever started. Oh, in Cleveland, business is pretty good. But
every time you go out, it's just you. The nature of writing is private. But let me just put it another way, and you mentioned it going to Germany next week. To what degree is the audience in your mind when you write?
Uh? Very much. I mean I'm thinking, I'm thinking when I'm writing something, I think, oh, that's been a long contince. I've had any dialogue that's going to be boring to an audience, you know, or gosh, that's a lot of information right there. I should break that up into smaller portions because that's going to be boring to an audience. Or oh, I could do this is my voice when I read this out loud? Or that'll be fun. It would be more fun to do it, then I should.
What if I whispered that? So I think about it a lot. I'm going to think about the performative aspect of it.
Well what about the reverse? You say, this is what I want to do, but I know I'm going to lose the audience a little bit, orclosing the audience.
Uh, well, you know, just thinking about that because I was writing something about my friend Dawn, one of my oldest friends.
Does she live in Montrose?
No, No, she came with She comes with me on tour sometimes. Okay, we both hate dogs. Nothing will it cause you to lose an audience more? I'm you hate dogs? People you just feel them leaving you, you know what I mean? Like you could say you hate children, not a problem, right. Uh, you say you hate Catholics, they'll find a way to forgive you. But if you hate dogs,
oh my goodness. So just thinking about putting that in this essay, that I'm writing that done dogs, and I thought I just thought about it, you know, because really people get so upset when you don't like dogs, so.
You got to put it in or leave it out.
Ah, I don't know, I don't know. I think I mean Don really, Don hates dogs so much that she will like cross the street if she sees one coming. Like she's very She's the kind of person who doesn't like cigarette smoke but goes like this. You know, it's kind of overkill, right, you know, you can just sort of quietly hate a dog. You know, you don't need to make a big show about it. And I've often pointed that out to her. But I would love to get on an airplane and not have a full sized
dog sitting next to me on the airplane. I'd love that.
Oh yeah, but you know, what you're act is such that you're breaking taboos all along. But you're just saying dogs is the third rail?
Yeah, it really is.
Okay, let's talk about woke it politically incorrect. You tell phenomenal jokes. The joke you said about you know, the size of a woman's vagina whatever, I've told that a million times, That the one about the railroad. I've heard that a friend of mine tells that whatever. But by traditional standards, many people would say these are off color, politically incorrect. How come you get away with it when no one else can?
Well, I don't know, I mean, but those jokes are nothing to me, I mean are not. I don't you know. Someone told me that I didn't write them. I'm just repeating them. But I can see how that doesn't make any difference if you're in front of an audience. But gosh, I don't know. I mean, I know there are jokes I wouldn't tell on stage. You know that are just racist jokes. I mean, that's the whole point out them, is that they're racist jokes. That's not going to work
in front of an audience now. But I wouldn't have read those on stage ten years ago either. I mean, I might read them at a dinner party. But well, like, there was a joke that somebody told me that I repeated on stage. And a woman calls her husband very upset because their son has just had sex with this
teacher and been expelled from school, and she's devastated. But the father goes and buys his son a brand new bicycle and presents it to him and says, I just want you to know I'm kind of proud of you. And the kid looks at the bike and says, maybe i'll ride it later after my ass stops hurting, And then the audience.
That's fantastic.
The audience usually groans, and I'm like, why didn't you groan when you heard the kid had sex with this teacher? Why do you only groan when you find out if it's a male teacher. I love that kind of a joke because because it's true. Why do you grown? Why do you only grow when you learn it was a man you know? Well?
But just to stay on the theme, if a straight guy told some of these jokes, I think that there would be noise. I think there would be blowback. Really, oh, I thought about this a lot. Absolutely, you're saying I'm the other, therefore I can get away with it. This is part of my persona I don't even know.
I don't know.
Definitely, definitely. The only problem is your lack of you was so far not hit a major third rail. Not that that's your general act, but the fact that you don't seem to under you don't see that some straight Guys by Dad problems makes you wonder whether you whether there's some third rail lurking out there. But okay, if you say you sold the story to the New Yorker, you know, and that's going to be printed, to what degree do you start getting anxious feeling knowing the stories
come out then it does come out. How much feedback do you get in your inbox or in the phone call whatever?
Not much? Not so much. I mean maybe a couple of friends will say, oh, I saw your essay in the New Yorker, But I mean I don't I'm not on social media. I don't know what goes on.
Well, I'm talking more. Okay, you write an essay, let's just use for the sake of discussion. It's not going to be well, how long is usually the lag time?
What do you mean the time between you and.
You finished something and it hits print.
Oh well, gosh, my agent gave this to the magazine like three weeks ago, and then we just heard a couple of days ago they're taking it. And so I've done the first rewrite, and then you know, the fact checkers will call. So today I wrote to the Shepherd and just sent him the essay and said, did I get anything wrong here? You know? And are you okay with the fact checker calling you from the New Yorker?
So when it's going to be published, do you get spilkissed? Do you get up tight now that it's going to hit the world at large?
No? I mean no, I'm excited. I mean I think it's a pretty good essay.
I guess, you know, when I write something and then people could read it, there's an emotional process and then a cool down. But each to his own. Let me ask you another, just one final question here? What do you do with all the money.
I buy a house?
If I were to ask you, and I'm not going to ask you how much money you have, would you have any idea?
I don't really know much.
Do you ever say I would like to buy something, but maybe I can't afford it.
Well, like we were just talking about there's a house near us that came up for sale, and we were talking about, we'd like to buy it for this young couple we know, you know, and then they could with the understanding they could kind of check in on us when we're older and we're you know, we're thinking, well, what if they get a divorce, what if this? What
if that? But uh, I don't know, I'm not uh And I'd buy art a lot, you know, like paintings that are really expensive that I never thought I would be able to do or And you're crazy if you think of it as an investment, because what twenty year old on the street today wants to buy a Picasso pain? You know they're they're you know.
Art has become detached from the art itself and it's become a trading item. You sit here and talk about devaluation of Picasso. I'm not sure. I don't agree with that. Picasso's one thing, It's forever.
But what I'm saying is you better like it. You know, if you're buying something, you better like it. So that's my attitude. You know. I'm not thinking will I get my money back? Or will it increase in value? I'm just thinking, oh, do I love it enough? And the answer is often yes.
And have you made it to the mountaintop or is there a peak in the distance that you want to climb.
I've made it to the mountaintop, So.
What keeps you going? Now?
I love it. I really like what I do. I find it incredibly rewarding. I feel I'm at my best when I'm on tour. I will be really, really sad when I can't do it anymore.
How much of the enjoyment is writing the piece as opposed to performing live?
Thirty writing it seventy percent performing at live.
Wow. Wow, that's very interesting. Okay. I want to thank you so much for taking the time, David, to speaking with me, and my audience certainly learned certain things about you that I did not know. I'll be thinking as someone who has their own issues with OCD. I found that very interesting.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for having.
Me right and I just have to comment. You know, I was aware of you and you were off. I'm not really a big NPR person, although I've subscribed to The New Yorker forever, but my girlfriend about fifteen years ago said, we had to see you at UCLA. And once someone sees you, they're closed. I mean, theoretically, someone could be at your gig and leave within the first two minutes, but if you're there for two minutes, you're there till the end. It's you know, it's a unique act.
No one can sit there and say, hey, I've seen this before, and I think one of the most interesting things I say, and this goes back to the woke thing, is you say the unsayable that we all know. It's like your point about the middle class. I believe everybody has a story, at least one story, the story of their life. And when you're going on about your father on this recent tour, we all have you know, it's Kiaraskiro with our parents at best. So for someone to say, hey,
this is my experience. We all live in a very lonely world and we're looking to identify and you're providing a service to all these people who don't feel connected. Forget the people who are just saying I subscribe to the New Yorker. I hear you on Terry Grows, I'm a fan. There's an essence there. And the great thing about it is you're not pandering in the process, because many people are. You continue to chart your own course, which is just a long winded way to say, if
David is in your town, you must go. You must go. Everybody will be talking about it. You'll live on the story. You know. You can watch a movie then say where are we going to dinner? That but if you go to see David you'll be talking about it for at least a week, so thanks again for taking the time. Thanks Bob, till next time. This is Bob Left Sense