TDS Time Machine | Conversations with Authors

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Welcome back, my guest tonight, one of our favorites. Very funny best-selling author. His new book is called Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls. Please welcome back to the program, David Sodaran. First of all, let me say you look terrific. Very nice uh uh shoot. I enjoyed very much. Uh let's talk about uh your book. You are all over the where how far your book tour is? How many cities, how many do you even know anymore?

Sixty or fifty-seven, but I started uh I think I've been to like thirty-six cities so far. Thirty-six cities. Uh which one did you hate the most? Any of them? I just notice how people dress differently in different like in Reno, Nevada. The questi the icebreaking question when I was signing books was why did you choose that t-shirt?

I mean you'd think this was like a lecture tour. So people bought tickets and they're going to the theater. Right. And so you would just think maybe you'd put on a long pair of pants or a Shorts that weren't cut off, maybe if you were going to buying a ticket. What what was the the climate like? Was it a a particularly hot and and humid environment that people thought

Well I don't I don't want to perspire. No, I asked a woman and she was wearing a count chocula t-shirt. She was in her and she was in her sixties and and I said, is that your good count chocolate t-shirt? And she she said, I didn't think anyone was going to notice. You know, it's I think it's the same thing. You know, when people go to the grocery store j wearing anything, I think it's the same th you know, except this they bought a ticket and they spent

fifty or sixty bucks and same thinking. But the people are all I mean I like them I mean I like them all perfectly fine. Yeah, they're just noticed from city to city. One other were there other cities where it's where it's D are there some people that come in like with a top hat and tails? Like is there a more like formal

Uh San Francisco I think I find people are trying to are they trying too hard in San Francisco, do you think? No, no, they they they but they you know they put a little effort into it. That's just I noticed. Did you find anyone came up to the table and you didn't say anything and they were like, hmm. I I worked really hard on this outfit. Like, did anyone come up with like epaulets or like a Michael Jackson outfit or anything like that?

Nothing that nothing that severe. I love the count chocolate thing because I didn't even know that that T shirt like she must have gotten it when she was twenty. She was in her mid sixties and she had a count chocolate t shirt on and And I think did she have sweatpants on with it? But she had it was a whole outfit. She had the whole she was working the whole outfit. We can settle this right now'cause you've got like thirty more cities to go.

I think you should ask people to all wear the same thing. Everyone should come in like a yellow jumpsuit. Well, I like Uh but you know, I know that there are people who go on their book tour and they're like that. But I talk to people so much that they are like, let me let you go. Let me let you go. Because because I'm either I'm either in a room by myself I'm either in a room by myself writing or I'm out in the world. You know, so I

And so it's good opportunity if there's a theory that I'm working or a poll that I want to take and so I at the beginning of the theory. You're asking so at a book signing someone will come up to you and you're asking them Polling questions. Yeah, like I had a theory w when I started the tour that men with beards had guns. But you know what I've discovered? What I've discovered, men with beards have fathers who have guns.

I'm 80% right on this. 80% right. Men with beards have fathers who have guns. Were the beards uh grown at gunpoint? Was this is this a situation where they wouldn't normally grow it, but the father was like, I insist. I met a guy and he was from the Philipp, you know, his family was from the Philippines. He had like 17 hairs on his chin. His dad had bullets. Not a gun. I don't know if he was gonna throw'em at people or what, but his dad just had a box of bullets but no gun.

Do you find that different like if someone had a full beard would you be like we have to investigate this man's father? Like the like he would have an arsenal, like were were smaller facial hair configurations. uh uh uh correlated with smaller weaponry? No, I met people with like Van Dyke's whose dads had arsenals. Really? Mm-hmm. And they would would they ever be taken aback like, why do you want to know? Like that Yeah.

But then also on this tour, I was out with a friend and he I've known him since junior high school. And we went to a restaurant for lunch and then the waitress asked if we want a dessert. banana cream pie. And then I looked across the room and there were two other men splitting a piece of pie and they were around our age and they were gay. And I thought because because straight men

would not share a dessert. So I started asking men at the book signings, would you share a dessert with another guy? And and they said, like one guy said, you know, I'd share a plate of buffalo wings. Peace, Ali. Peace, Ali. But like a piece of pie, that's just crossing the line. I really I'm like I'm pretty secure in my sexuality. But for the first time'cause as soon as you said that, like, sure, I share pie all the time and now is now so now I have to feel like

Oh God, is this the right lifestyle I'm leading right now? I'm gonna go home to my wife and be like, honey, I think we have to talk. I met these other guys and they had just recently shared a piece of cake, but they told the waitress we're not gay. Like they wanted her to know whether that they weren't gay. But then I met a whole other kind of guy. Who's just all about the dessert and he would eat it he would eat frosting off if it was... If that's what it was being served on, you know. See.

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My guest tonight an acclaimed historian, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author. His latest book is 1776. But you're welcome to the program, David McCullough. David. How are you? Sir. Thank you. I always find that the Pulitzer Prize winner sits first. Nice to see you, my friend. The book is 1776. What a wonderful read. You and I are both. Historians and authors to some extent. You chose to fill your history book with facts. Interesting choice. Tell me why.

Stranger than fiction. Stranger than fiction. Stranger. How do you find new facts about a subject so poured over as the American Revolution? It's amazing how much there is uh that hasn't been worked over before. There in the uh the best material for me at least was in diaries and letters, memoirs. All of which are uh have survived all these years and they're in archival collections or libraries. And that's how you can get close to the real flesh and blood people who

caught up in that drama. Do you believe that they wrote their diaries for historical perspective? Absolutely. Is there is there a self-consciousness in them? There's some there is, but uh most of the the best of them are Written by soldiers in the ranks or young officers writing home to their families or keeping the diary for their families. And they're uh they're under such duress, they're living through uh hell and they're not uh making anything up and they're not um

Uh, they're not doing it for the history books. Now, some of the those who were the were th in the positions of real leadership or responsibility, the more conspicuous officers and so at times may have been doing that, but they really They don't know how it's going to turn out. It's awfully visceral. And they uh they're living day to day. Uh that's so important to remember. And they they um

They don't know if they're gonna get through the day alive very often. And they're trying to write it down. And the and also keep in mind too that the there was no uh journal no journalists covering the war. Newspapers didn't do that then. No town criers embedded? No, we don't No reporting at all. Uh it's all what you can find in what they the participants said, the protagonists themselves. And it ranges from a kid who was uh Pfeiffer boy.

who was sixteen and looked about fourteen, John Greenwood. You talk about a kid who's ten. You you you you mentioned a kid who was working as a cook in here who's ten years older than another gentleman who's fifty seven. Yeah. And the the range is all over the place in age and uh background.

You also deal from both perspectives, which I thought was very interesting and difficult to do. And I and I became very sympathetic to what the British soldiers and the Hessian soldiers were going through. They were very courageous, brave people. Uh they were on the wrong side, but uh they were nonetheless impressive. The Hessians, if I may, and uh no disrespect, seemed uh kind of a little pricky.

There was a lot of technical term. A technical term. There's a lot of uh cut off his head with a bayonet, stuck it on a pole and put it outside the fort. The Hessians seemed to be like drago and Rocky, like killing machines. True. But that's what they were trained to do. That's what their business was. They were professional soldiers, as were the British. And we weren't very good at being soldiers at first. And some of these kids that fought

Battle of Brooklyn, for example, Green follows off of a Connecticut farm who maybe had been carrying a musket for two weeks, and they're up against the best professional soldiers in the world. And Washington appeared to have somewhat of a disdain for these, especially for the New England soldiers, guys that he thought maybe weren't of the quality of the Southern soldiers.

thought that their personal habits were not up to snuff. It's very interesting to read about his ambivalence. He and he tried to hide that bias because that's really all he had to work with at first when he took command. And he'd never commanded an army before in his life. Uh he'd been in the French and Indian War and distinguished himself uh with courage and

certain abilities, but he had never commanded an army, and here he had an army of New Englanders who were all people that he thought were dirty and avaricious and he didn't like them. And they had this odd idea that they would decide things for themselves.

You know, they'd vote on whether they would uh do this or not. Please. Yes. Ridiculous. And uh uh but he overcame that, and what's so interesting is the two best officers that he had he spotted within a few days after meeting. Uh, Nathaniel Green and Henry Knox, one of whom uh was a Quaker who uh had no business. by his background, being in the war at all, who had a limp so bad that he would have been uh disqualified for uh service in the in the military.

rules and regulations we have, let's say. And Henry Knox, who'd had part of one hand blown away in a hunting accident, who was a twenty five year old Boston bookseller. And he had said without those guys we don't win. But they uh But they'd read books about the military, and that was an age and a time when it was widely believed, age of the Enlightenment.

Good way to find things out was to read back. That's over now. Yeah. I mentioned earlier, it seems like what's almost so disheartening about reading it, even though it's an exciting read, is the redundancy of war. The humanity of the characters fighting it, uh the feeling of powers that are out of their control that are that are driving it, the redundancy of the arguments, it is so cyclic.

Is is that, as you read about these and you and and you write these, do you feel like we're just always damned to repeat this kind of cycle? Well, I think you have to differentiate between wars. Now, this was the most important war in our history because it's the war that makes possible our birth. It is the the awful labor pain of the birth of a nation. And it was the longest war in our history except for Vietnam.

And it was the bloodiest war on a per capita basis, except for the Civil War. This was a very bloody long war, and people suffered. And you can't just judge the horrors of war by how many people died, because for every person that died, are being reminded constantly now there are people suffering from grief. I think one of the lessons of this war, this particular year of this war, seventeen seventy-six, the most important year of the most important war in our history.

is that it could have gone either way at almost any time. Right. The wind blows differently at the Battle of Brooklyn than the British can bring in their shirtle. If the wind had been a different direction, I think we would uh had had a quite a different outcome. Um also some wars are worth fighting. And this really was worth fighting. And the people who were in it felt that way. And it's a story that now we have at the Birth of Our Nation that resonates because we're proud of the five.

And maybe that's the most important thing for it. Yeah. We tend to see the people of the eighteenth century as sort of figures in a costume pattern. Ruffled shirt. Powdered hair and they look sort of like fox. These are very strong people, very tough people. And uh we owe them so much that we really never can know enough about them.

Well it's I have to say, it what's so wonderful about it is the nuances it brings to the characters, uh, even a story that's well worn and well known by people. So thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you. Appreciate it. 1776, Donna Good Shells now. David McCullough.

My guest tonight is a best-selling author whose new book is called Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. Please welcome Roxanne Gay. Thank you. Welcome to the show. Um I know you from your writings, I know you from your columns. Many people know you from topics that range from feminism to politics to social commentary.

But this book is something different. This book is a memoir that takes us through your life in a way that I don't think anybody would expect. It takes us through your life through the prism. Of eating and through the prism of being a fat person living in the world. Why did you choose to write it in this way? Because I didn't want to write it at all. But um as I was thinking of what I wanted my next nonfiction project to be.

I wanted to tell the story of my body because when you're fat in the world, people n people have assumptions about who you are and why you're fat and they think you're stupid, like yesterday someone emailed me. Do you know that exercise is required to lose weight? No. Never occurred to me. And so um, you know, I think it's important to show like what it's actually like to live in this world in a fat body.

really heart-wrenching is the story that you tell in the book. And that is you were gang raped at twelve years old. Yes I was. And that led to a journey of hating yourself, hating your body How did that come to be? How does how does your world collapse? I know you write about it in the book, but I mean how does that happen? I you know, when I was twelve, it this thing happened and it was so unexpected and I was a good Catholic girl and so I didn't even know.

like what sex was. I mean I knew the technicalities, but I did not know what rape was. Right. I certainly didn't know that you could be with more than one person. And so my world was shattered in the aftermath, and I just thought, I want to be stronger, I want to be bigger. And so I thought. If I eat a lot, uh those boys won't do this again because I'll be able to fight them next time. Right. And they won't f want to do this because I'll be fat and boys don't like fat girls.

And so in many ways it was a deliberate choice. And of course looking back I'm like, girl, talk to mom and dad but You know, twelve year olds with secrets hold on to them very tightly. And that was something you didn't do. You didn't talk to mom and dad. Why? I was really scared because I believed everything that we learned in church about premarital sex being a sin and I was absolutely certain that I was going to hell.

And then those boys went to school the following day and told everyone a different story that I wanted it. And so everyone started calling me a slut and I just knew nobody would believe me because it was gonna be my word against these guys. You you talk a lot about the consequences of living in a world that sees fats a certain way. Now I won't deny

As a comedian and as a person, I've made a ton of fat jokes in my life. Absolutely. And w there was a time when fat was seen as a novelty, as a choice. America's now gotten to a place where people are realizing it's an epidemic, they realize it realizing that there are effects. What are some of the effects that you've dealt with living in your body? Well, you know

There are a lot of things that you encounter. Like at the grocery store, people make commentary on what they see in your cart and uh they send you unsolicited advice. I'm a writer and I do events and I've had people come up to the signing line and offer me nutritional advice. I'm sorry, it's just insane. Um

You know, the world doesn't fit often you don't fit in the world oftentimes. I write in the book that the bigger you c become, the smaller your world gets because, you know, you can't necessarily fit in theater seats and airplane travel is such a pain because

Those seats are not roomy for anyone. And so you either have to buy two tickets and then the airline is like, why did you buy two tickets? Or you buy one ticket and you encroach on someone else's space and they're like, Why didn't you buy two tickets? And so no matter what you do, you can't fit. And the world is not really interested in creating a space for you to fit. People just judge you and they say, you know, you're gonna die nine years younger, which why do you care?

And then they you know, they think you're draining the healthcare system as they smoke a cigarette. And so it's just a constant sense that you don't belong and people feel no compunction about being cruel about it. It's it's honestly it's it's an amazing story and I I can only thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here, Roxanne. Abercrabie knows how denim should And this year is about curating a denim collection.

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Welcome back, my guest tonight, a best-selling author. His latest book is called Half Empty. Please welcome back to the show, David Rayoff What's happening? Not much. Thank you for having me. Please. What have you brought for our audience tonight? I've actually been eating so much candy backstage that I'm about to burst into tears, so I really do. The police called having... Once again, hilarious book. Uh there is a warning on the on the book, uh may say it, no inspirational life lesson.

And it turns out to be true. Actually. Tell me about this. Tell me about the philosophy of Well the book is meant to be a defense of pessimism, melancholy, uh sadness, all the um emotions that uh a self-selecting group we can just call them Jews. Might feel as their sort of baseline did not see that coming. You know the baseline that that baseline way you see the world turns out to be as value neutral as having brown eyes.

There's nothing there's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than than optimistic. Optimism is sort of broad-based non-detail oriented thinking. Pessimism is detail-oriented thinking. Well see, here's what's interesting to me. I am pessimistic by nature, but optimistic by force. Because I Force myself to then go back through history. Like in other words, I have Pure El, but then I realize, well, two hundred years ago.

They had we pooped in the water we drank. You know. Exactly. So I I look at I look at it, what I do is I deal with my own uh neuroses and then I try and place them Because in the larger context, yes. But the only thing that gives me hope right now is that things are cyclical. That's the only thing that's giving me hope. Really? Yeah. But don't you think people in ancient times who had r like bubonic plague and all that w d they didn't have neurotic people then? They didn't have like

Oh, if I but if I go there, I might get the typhoid. You know, like they they just neuroses is almost a luxury to some extent. A certain kind of neurosis, but I think that the the more pessimistic, detail oriented people stayed in

you know, illuminating manuscripts or inventing telescopes or what I don't know. Telescopes to make sure there were no asteroids that were going to hit us. That's exactly now in the writing of the book, was your worldview in any way validated as you were this pessimistic worldview, this melancholy, did anything occur? Any little sort of thing? Anything that might have Well, you know, I was writing the book. I I was my editor said, you know, you seem to have a

problem with accessing pleasure or uh feeling joy. So why don't you actually write about that? So the book was underway and um the book was really late for a long time. I had this pinched nerve in my arm. And so I was like two years late and my editor was sympathetic to a point, but you know, it's a pinched nerve. You know, but my arm was on fire for like two years. Um, turns out to uh a big old tumor was pinching my nerve. So

Um it's great though. I mean here's we're not great. I'm not sure. Can I just savor that those two sentences juxtaposed? It turned out to be a tumor, but it was great. Well here's the thing. If you're writing a book about how we should all look at the world in all of its flinty, afflicted, dark reality. Right. The ultimate money where your mouth is moment is, oh really, Mr. Smart Guy, Mr Negative, Mr I feel so bad? Boom, tumor. So um So it at least so so at that point

You can go to your editor and go, I told you so. Exactly. Exactly. And so uh so the book was really late because of that because then I had, you know, radiation and surgery and chemo and to me. Again, you look great. You look healthy, you look vital. Uh how are you feeling? Like is it I feel fine. I mean I'm currently in chemotherapy. So right now.

I mean not immediately right now. This is what I I I've always wondered about, and sort of the old Woody Allen conundrum. The people who worry about things that could happen to them. When the thing happens to them. Is there a kind of a relief? Uh there is a kind of I mean Yes, it's like waiting for rain and then finally it rains oh. Uh kind of. Or do you go like I bet it turns into a tornado. Like is it what?

What happens at that point? Well it turns out here's the thing, when it turns out to be your own mortality on the line, people generally tend to be quite optimistic about their long term chances of survival. I think I think the will to keep on going i is is incredibly strong. Do I feel uh therefore does it extend to feeling optimism about r the Roberts Court? No. Um so so you feel like the cancer you can take care of.

The Roberts School Citizens United, we are just completely screwed. That has metastasized. Precisely. That is wild. It's so interesting. Do you like your caregivers? Do you do they try and pump you up? Do they give you hope what No, luckily enough they don't. They they recognize me for what I am and who I am. Which is there was a study, it even talks about it I even talk about it in the book.

There was a study that shows that the long-term mortality of people with lousy attitudes is no different from people with great attitudes. So you can be the worst bastard on the ward and you will not die at any greater rate than the other people People will simply be gladder when you do. But but no all that positive outlook stuff I've I'm not

You know, all that sort of I'm going to chemotherapy, my sky high Jimmy Chews and crazy sexy cancer. It's like what what you're essentially saying is that the the alternate the alternative, if you can't do that, if you can't sort of enact a sex in the city episode on your way to cancer treatment, if you just feel lousy all the time, then it's somehow your fault.

I don't really subscribe to that. Right, right, right. I it seems kind of blame the victimy to me. Right, right, right. Oh that's a real that's an interesting take on it. The only thing I would be concerned about is i when you're a bastard, you're also requiring uh uh you're you're you're falling upon the kindness of strangers. There is a certain like the nurse

Oh yeah, you will get bed dealers. You will. That's what I was gonna suggest. Like, you know what? Let's give them a sponge bath with the Brillo. Let's see how that goes. Your room will smell like a hobo camp. Believe me. That's gotta be the title of your next book. It is the title of my next book. Your room will smell like a hobo cam. Well, I'm I'm so pleased uh to see you uh

looking so good and being so sharp and and uh thanks man it's always great to see you and I I wish you love. The book is hilarious. Half empty. It's on the bookshelves now. David Ragle

Hello, welcome back, my guest tonight. Best-selling author of one of our favorites for forthcoming book is called Lafayette in the somewhat united states. Please welcome back to our program, Sarah Vowell! I have missed you. I know. And I'm so delighted that you could come join us. I'm glad I could be here at your deathbed too. Just like President Garfield of Ohio.

It is similar. What do you think? Now, does McKinley deserve an Alaska Mountain? I mean, then you're just throwing mountains around everybody. I mean Well I mean do we really want to talk about McKinley? I mean who doesn't, right? Yeah. I mean we'll get to Lafayette. I do want to talk about Lafayette because I'm fascinating.

stuff in the news with the Confederate flag. Yes. And you know how um the Civil War the people who were in the Union and the president at the time, a lot of the ones on that side were Republicans. Yes. And then a lot of the people these days who want to keep the Confederate flag on their stupid state lawns. Are some of them are Republicans? Yeah, it switches. Yeah. It was President McKinley, he had this guy His name is Mark Hannah.

And he was like his Carl Rove animator? It was like he was um he was like his Carl Rove. Oh, okay. He has a very nice tomb in Cleveland, if you're in town. Okay. Um And he decided, hey, we um it was, you know, um eight in the eighteen nineties, n uh and um he decided there are all these white guys down south who can vote.

We should get them to vote for the Republicans. And so he sent McKinley down to South and um McKinley gave some speeches about how McKinley, a civil war veteran, gave some speeches about how the Civil War was about American valor. Wow. And that's how they started Southern strategy. So that's how they started courting. Why didn't that take hold until like George Wallace?

And and the Dixiecrats. Well it takes a while because the guys who still remembered being shot at. So they were still being like I don't know I still don't trust the Democrats. They were shooting at us. They somewhat work. But let's go back even further now. To the the beginning of this grand experiment and Lafayette. Let's ruin everyone's fourth of July. Let's not. Let us enlighten the world from your perspective. Why Lafayette?

What is so valuable about him and how did a child he was a child. He was nineteen. Yeah. When he came to to basically defend America. Why did he do that? Um one reason uh the British had killed his dad in a war So we had a grudge. He wanted to get used to be a theme throughout history. He was he wanted to get away from his in-laws. So did Lafayette then have to convince the king of France, why don't we get involved in this?

Could expose it into a global war. Right. I mean he was in on it. There were some um ministers uh who were working for the King of France. Um you know, Prime Minister Virgin, he was a very good idea. Yeah. Well as you know, I I think of you as my Virgin. I was gonna say you think of me as your Prime Minister of Virgin, yeah. Who ultimately ended up getting the king killed. I mean, well, because he spent all his money helping us.

And then they went bankrupt and then the peasants are like, I'm hungry You know Um The Founding Fathers, they had a problem with taxation without representation in general. But they were pretty open minded about the French king taxing the French people. Yes. You know? Without representation. That is a a an irony that I never picked up on but you're absolutely somebody should write a book about it. I hope they do soon. Very soon. So Lafayette comes here

He wants he wants glory without Lafayette, in truth, we have to be honest here, without Lafayette there is no United States of America. We don't defeat the Well I mean he's pretty important. He's thinking, I'm gonna go help these poor these these people who believe in liberty and you know, some of them wanted to stay in Great Britain and some of them wanted to fire George Washington and you know, uh we were always a bunch of bickerers and

So you're not surprised by the the the tenor in the country right now, you're not surprised by the arguments we're having in the country right now, and this has really been a part of our DNA from the get go. Yes, for sure. And I think it's our strength. As well as our weakness. The Continental Congress one guy said we should have a a fast day, you know, to they don't eat to humble themselves before their God. Yeah, Jesus and and Jefferson

Jefferson was like, eh, that seems a little religious. And then and then John Adams stands up. And he's like, Jefferson, I thought you were a man of piety and virtue and now this, you know. And so and right at the moment Adams was like, Huh, Jefferson is my friend. Maybe I offended him at that moment. Jefferson, he got up out of his chair and he went over. And he just sat next to his friend John Adams. So like we can fight and we can disagree, but we can still sit next to each other. Please.

Lafayette in the somewhat United States. That is a beautiful message to end this on. One of my favorite authors of all time. Lafayette in the summer United States. It's on the bookshelves in October. This is pro linebacker TJ Watt, and I'm back with YPB by Abercrombie for another ActiveWare Drop. My second co-design collection has new shorts and tanks that keep up with all my in-season workouts. And their new restore collection is a game changer off-the-field.

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My guest tonight, a critically acclaimed best-selling author. His new book is called The Message. Please welcome back to the program, Tanahaus and Coats. Hello! Hello, my friend, you are grappling. This is a a book of of grappling. It is it's Reparations, the purpose of art, the purpose of of writing, your role, your responsibility. The uh Israel, Palestine. I

I can see you don't want to go back to just writing comic books again for five years. This is is what what was in you that you thought I I need to take on these big questions, including What is this for? What is what is writing for? Um I have For a long time had in the back of my head that we do not have a complete understanding of politics.

That is to say we think of politics as what happens inside of a voting booth you go in and you choose, you know, pull a lever for who whatever. Right. But there's a whole entire architecture that happens outside of that voting booth that defines What what goes on inside of it, what issues are appropriate, frankly, who is human and who is not. Um, and that is the work of stories, movies.

Television shows, writing, all of that. And being a writer, and this coming out of me talking to my students at Howard University. I really, really wanted to address You know, so often I get the question, why should I write?

Why should I write? Not in general, but by the time they get to meet, they usually my students are like there. But a lot of you know other times when I'm you know out in the world, what what is writing gonna do? Like what is it actually gonna change? And what I wanted people to understand is writing actually shapes the world around. Right. Yeah. See I would have said basic cable. But okay, write it. But somebody has to write the scripts, right? Somebody has to

Do you grapple with that as a burden or a call to arms? What is for you, how do you wear it? Oh, it's exciting. It's exciting. Yeah, it gets me up in the morning. Right. Uh it like pumps my blood. Like I I I can't wait. You know what I mean? Like there are people who um I got a friend who's an ER doc, right? And I was texting this morning about, you know, everything that was going on. Right. And he disappeared for a second. He said, sorry, this guy just got shot. I'm sorry.

And I said to him, how beautiful is it to have work that actually matters? Like you out there saving people's lives. And I'm not an ER doctor, but it is a blessing to feel like what I write. actually matters in the world. Right. You know what I mean? It gives me meaning and purpose. And I kind of wanted to convey that.

you know, to all the young writers, you know, who hopefully As inspiration. Yes. Yes, the beauty. Your friend was at work when the guy got shot, right? He was, yes, he was. Because for a second I was like, wait, he was at work, right? Yeah, he was. He was at work. No, no, no, no. He was at work. All right. That's that that's very good. Do you get frustrated and this is something that that I think about sometimes that

the world that you would prefer to see, that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice and the work of writing is trying to help facilitate that. That it is that That that arc of moral justice is so resilient against bending, that it's so hard.

To matter in that form. I get sad. Right. And there are a lot of moments in here where I was really sad. Right. You know? Um, but. At the same time, like I said, it fills me with purpose. I don't know if I would add that purpose I talked about just a few minutes ago. You know, without that great difficulty. Honestly, it feels great. to know that if I actually try really, really hard at the thing, if I actually work really, really hard to write the best book I possibly can.

You know, that I could be here talking to you. Oh you could have written a shitty book and been on air. Listen, if that's the case, I can tell you that you didn't have to work nearly this hard. But it is. It's a beautifully felt book.

I want to ask you, there's a certain aspect of your career that has really tried to reconcile not with things in the present, but their vestiges, the structures, uh racial politics, slavery, economic injustices, where it might not be the active virus, but it's these vestiges of it that still you know, leach into the groundwater and make it toxic and pollute it.

This book felt a little different in that you were also going into the present. Yeah. And bringing those lessons with you. And I th I thought that was a a really moving part of the book. Yeah, that that's true and uh I guess I'm gonna be the one to broach this, but uh it was obviously most active when I was in Jerusalem, when I was in Haifa, when I was on the West Bank. I mean it was it was the history, but the history was active. Right.

That was tough. That was tough. I'm used to, you know, going to some, you know Slave plantation and saying, well yeah, this did happen 150 years ago, but here's how you know you can still feel the impact. And you got no no, it's right now. Right. It's it's right now. And it comes on the heels of it. So in the book, you're also you take a trip to Senegal. I do, yes.

Is is that in relation to your trip to uh Israel and the West Bank in that same time frame or is that was that split up? It was about it was a f uh so I think I went in uh this would have been like September of twenty twenty. two to Senegal and then May of twenty three, uh to the West Bank and to Israel and um

Weirdly enough they are in conversation with each other. I can't say I intended that. Right. Well that's that's why I was curious. Because there is a music there between the two. Yeah, yeah. No, there there is. I mean, Cynegal is very much about me, frankly investigating the very stories that gave me my name, you know, and gave me my identity. Um and trying to work through that and frankly not completely working through it by the time I I got over there. And then, you know, I take this trip.

you know, with this wonderful organization, a Palestinian Palestine Festival of Literature. And I get over there, you know, for five days and I spend another five days with these uh ex-IDF guys, you know what I mean, who had had their own political evolution and This is very weird to say, but as much sympathy as I had for the Palestinians, watching Zionism in the world. Even feeling like this is wrong, what I'm saying is wrong, I was like, my God, I know how you get here.

I know how you get, I know how it happens. And I don't mean like I approve of it. But I mean like I see, I see how it happens. I totally see how it happens. Is is how you see how it happens cause you talk about uh Yad Vashem and and going there and and being moved. Is the idea cause you have a line in the book that I think is is one of the most powerful, which is and I want to make sure that I get it right, uh, which is

Your oppression will not save you. Yeah. Which is and and you write about that in relation to the black experience in America, but also about the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, as well as

In in Israel. And what did you mean by that? I think we would like to think. that you go through, you know, a horrific experience, be it the middle passage Jim Crow here, be it the Holocaust or the centuries before that of of pogroms, oppression, uh, et cetera. And somehow you will be morally improved by coming out of that. You might be.

You might be, but it's just as likely that you will conclude that in fact the world is a cold, hard place and it's a zero sum game, you know what I mean? And what matters is who has the guns and who doesn't. Right. You know? Um I stand opposed to that. Just on principle, period. You know what I mean? Um

But I I get how people take that lesson. Right. You know what I mean? And it's I think it's disconventing for us to feel because we feel sympathy for people. You know what I mean? When we I of course when I'm walking through Yad Vashem and I'm I'm feeling it on a very, very deep level, only to come back here and realize I was, you know, about a mile away from a massacre of a Palestinian village. That's hard to take. Hey, it's listen, I was I'm raised in obviously cultural Jewish

tradition and I imagine, you know, if you were to feel like people in the name of your people did some things that you found objectionable, it hits you different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it does. It does, it does. And

It's not a complete parallel, but that's why in that chapter I wanted to talk a little bit about Liberia, for instance. You know what I mean? And just the idea. I get it. The appeal of hey we're gonna have a state of our own. We're gonna get away from these people that did, you know, X, Y, and Z for us. We will have safety there. And yet then you find yourself enacting, you know, systems that if not are the same or similar.

are at least, you know, morally deeply problematic. And having to justify them through either threat or the situation or you don't understand. And what I'm what I'm wondering is Is that the story in a condensed form of all of us? Is does does for society to progress?

Does there also have to be exploitation? Do you grapple with this idea that when we think about anything, whether it's the American story or th the Israeli story or any of those, it's stories of empire, whether it was the Ottoman Empire or the Caliphate, it's groups of people Living under the grace of a leader who controls their lives, and can we progress?

Outside of that, is there an is there do you think about is there another way to do this? Has there been another way to do this? Yeah. If we shine that light on any country that that That grew through. Won't there be a story of exploitation and mistreatment that we find? Maybe not as horrific, but but we find it. Yeah, I I I think though we have to guard against the temptation to accept that history is necessarily the limits of who we are as human beings.

That just because I mean you know that that's been you know that it's been that way, that it necessarily has to be that way. I I will for instance highlight, you know, the underlying role of of nationalism and the belief that a nation state is the way to secure and safeguard a minority. That is a very recent development as a belief system, actually.

Right. But prior to that, wouldn't it have been tribalism or wouldn't it have been something collection of the thing? It would have been a pope, it would have been, you know, my allegiance is, you know, X, Y, and Z. But what I'm saying is it is not innate in us.

You say I am of this in ethnicity, we should all have a stay together, and perhaps more importantly, we should deny rights to people who are not of that ethnicity. Right. We don't have to be that way. We don't have to be that way. A man from from your lips to God. So there was that, I can't remember the experiment, but it was they assigned a class where people with brown hair got privileges. Yeah. And all of a sudden the people with blonde hair were like,

Right. And they got set. And then the people with brown hair started to kind of abuse the people with with blonde hair. And there's a part of me that thinks, boy, we could solve religious differences. And somehow we would go back to killing each other over something else equally as arbitrary. And that I I'm wondering how you get that that zero sum game element that you witnessed up front out of it. Because I'd like to believe it's not malevolence but

Ignorance and fear. I think it's a lot of fear. And frankly, I think it's a lot of anger. Right. I think um and obviously for obvious reasons you would know this better than me, but I sense that a lot of it is the humiliation of the Holocaust. I think that is, you know, very, very much present. Right. Um And not feeling like I will never be in that position again. Sure. You know? Um Well never. I mean

Never again. Right. I think the the thing that so many Jewish people and not everybody, look, it's not a monolith either. Jewish religion, Jewish culture is certainly not a monolith, and there's many different opinions.

I think if we start from a baseline of I would like a safe and secure Israel and a safe and secure Palestine and that's my starting point to any argument and then we're just talking strategy. But I think the idea of never again, you don't you try to internalize it not just as a self-defense kind of dictum. You hope to think of that as never again for anyone. Right, right. And and that's the part

that feels the worst. Yeah. When when when you look at it in in that way. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious how you feel, you know So in Africa, you know, I'm I'm curious about what you think about this idea of diaspora. Yeah. When people are in diasporas and it carries this weight of you are lost. Mm-hmm. You are not in a place where you can you know, I don't think Italian people who live in America

think of themselves as I'm in a diaspora. They think of themselves as like, I'll take a tour, maybe when I'm old, you know what I mean? But Jewish people, black people, there's this feeling of somehow we're not safe. And I feel like that's a dangerous That's a dangerous thing to being degraded And being made to feel like you are outside of the place that maybe you would like to. Call home. This is great uh That's interesting book, uh the The Pity of It All. It's about

uh Jews in Germany probably. Are you gonna make me read something else? No, no, no, it's gonna be quick. I promise to be quick about this. I'm still just getting through breaking bad. I can't even But it's it's all of these, you know, uh Jews who and all these German Jews who want to be German. Right? Like they really, really want to believe in Germany. Right. And they get the Holocaust.

Right. You know what I mean? Like that has to assault your sense of, you know, uh The idea that you can somehow be safe out out of the thing. what has been what we would consider the modern age version of exploitation and colonialism. Like was I mean, even when we think about the regions that you were that you went into were kind of a post

World War One mandate that was drawn, you know, Lebanese, Syrian, Palestine mandate. The French are gonna take this, the English are gonna take that. I mean it's It's, you know, pawns on a board that people are are moving around. And does that humiliate a region to the point where if we don't address that We can't get through it. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean I I I I I I will say that one of the hard things about that and and and getting a little too psychological about this is

I spent ten days there. Uh Oh so you know it all. Exactly. One of the tough things was I have to tell you, the the perspective of Palestinians And the extent to which their perspective has been pushed so far out of the frame.

Incredible. I felt like I was seeing a new world. Right. You know what I mean? And I and that's that's like shameful for me to admit. I'm not bragging about that. You know, it's not because that world wasn't there, that world doesn't, you know, hasn't been trying to present itself. But I mean, I I just wonder how many of these conversations would be improved.

If our media organizations made a concerted effort, whenever they talk about this topic, to ask, do we have anybody Palestinian that we've invited to entirely? I think access to different stories has always been a difficulty for America in general because of that sort of salapsistic worldview. You know, we we tend to be

slightly narcissistic when it comes to uh the vision of it. And it's such a necessary thing. I wonder if it if it really improves it. I mean here's here's something that I grapple with. I've known about it forever. I have friends who have Palestinian families who've suffered through it. I have friends in Israel who suffered through it. And I it sometimes feels as though The only people that benefit are the powers that be. And all these good people. behind by

this weird power structure that we left in place there. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't but I you bring up an interesting point, which is a path forward of reconciling humiliation. And I don't know What is the mechanism of that? Is there one? And is it that sort of, you know, you think about South Africa and truth and reconciliation, but is there a mechanism? To heal that for people? Or is it purely self-determination and that's You know, I don't know. Well that's all the time we have.

I don't know. I don't know. But it is, I wonder because you y you bring up such an interesting it is such a powerful river of emotion. Yeah. And when you say I can almost not cry talking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's It so deeply gets at the heart of our humanity. Like people just wanna be seen and just wanna be No, and it's powerful. I could feel it.

W one thing I would suggest is and we have actually had this struggle with this as African Americans and I'll I'll tell you this from the from the black perspective. There is great not always spoken Shame in the black community. Over the kind of physical traumas we've endured, you have to understand, man, every single one of us, every single African American is a child of sexual violence. All of us. All of us. There is not a single pure African American.

African American who came through a sleep. There is an amount of humiliation in that. There is an amount of humiliation in watching and I've written about this, you know, films from the sixties and watching these kids and these children, you know, get beaten by the cops. There is humiliation in you know, watching today, you know what I mean? George Floyd, you know, a a knee on his neck. And a and and I do think, you know, a a significant part of it is understanding, particularly with the past.

These people didn't want to be enslaved. You know what I mean? These people didn't want to get beaten. And and it's not true that these people did nothing. It's not true that these people just willingly, you know, you know, went to it. There was a slogan out for a while that a lot of us shouted down, we are not our ancestors. As if to say we somehow are more, you know, resilient and resistant. You know what I mean? We're not gonna be punked and chumped. Yes, we would've.

You know, and you hear it a lot about, you know, the first thing Hitler did is he disarmed the Jews and you're like, the Jews were not like gun toting motherfuckers. If you had taken our violins, maybe that would have been something like like oh they disarmed the the Jews and and that's how Hitler uh was able to get the Jews to do that and you're like, oh you know who had guns and didn't do too well with Hitler.

Oh, France. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. But you're right, there's that sense of like, how could you let your people how could you allow that to happen? And it does skew uh their perspectives. And I can already see your next book where you fix it all. It's really, it's it's an amazing piece, guys.

And listen man, like let's not kid ourselves. Once you delve into Israel Palestine, you're gonna take a ton of shit. I don't know where it's it'll come from everywhere. And and I hope you don't. uh wear it personally, but you've done the most important thing. Can I just say one quick thing? Yes, please. It will not measure up to the burdens of what I saw Palestinians on the West Bank Baron. It's not even that's an excellent point.

The only point I was gonna make is Through your discomfort, albeit not the same discomfort, you've done the most important thing, which is try to advance and delve into an understanding of a complexity that we haven't figured out in ten thousand years. And so I applaud that and your writing as always is Uh so beautiful and moving. So thank you so much for being here. The message and I have to coach, we're gonna take a quick break. get your pot.

Show weeknights at 11. Stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central Podcast. If you're a podcast host, listen up this one's for you. My name is Allie Jackson. I'm the host of Finding Mr. Height, a dating in relationship podcast that I've been doing for four years now, sharing my positive and practical approach to dating that's built on my own life experience.

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