Good Life Project - James McBride | A Life of Music, Words & Love

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

 James McBride is an accomplished musician and author whose books have been translated into 19 languages and sold millions of copies around the world. He's toured with jazz legends, written songs for everyone from Anita Baker to Grover Washington, Jr. McBride also penned the National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling The Good Lord Bird, which Showtime is turning into a television series, authored bestselling American classic The Color of Water, along with Miracle at St. Anna, which was adapted into a film by Spike Lee. Awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Obama “for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America,” McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. His newest novel, Deacon King Kong, (https://books.apple.com/us/book/deacon-king-kong/id1469783511) drops you into Brooklyn, circa 1969, with a fierce interplay between social commentary, immersive storytelling, and wild humor that ultimately lands in the form of awakening, redemption, and love.You can find James McBride at:Website : https://www.jamesmcbride.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/jamesmcbrideauthor/Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today, James McBride, grew up in Brooklyn, the eighth of 12 kids, really immersed in community, church, music, and books. Eventually heading off to school, he would find himself at Columbia Journalism School and then in the career as a journalist for the better part of a decade, working for places like the Boston Globe, People, and the Washington Post, before leaving journalism behind to turn music into a full-time profession, where he would then spend the better part of the next decade touring and playing sax with jazz legend Jimmy Scott and so many others, and also writing songs for people like Anita Baker,

Grover Washington Jr., and even for the PBS television character Barney. But here's the thing. While he was on the road, he kept writing and he kept looking back at his life and especially his mom's life with curiosity. And that would eventually become his landmark memoir, The Color of Water, that sat on the New York Times bestseller list for two years and led him back into a more blended career writing and playing music. The Color of Water is now considered an American classic and is read in schools and universities across the United States. His debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna,

was translated into a major motion picture directed by Spike Lee. And his novel, The Good Lord Bird, really about the American revolutionary John Brown, won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. And McBride's newest novel, Deacon King Kong, it drops you into this sort of fictional world of church and community set in 1969 Brooklyn, which is rich with these incredible stories, deeply flawed, yet lovable characters, and this fierce interplay between social commentary and humor that ultimately lands in the form of awakening and redemption and love. We explore all of this along with his lens on the interplay between music and writing

and life and teaching, and also really the power of the moment that we are all in together right now and the hope that it's creating. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight risk. It doesn't matter what you study in college. This matters that you learn how to think, you know? Yeah, tell me about it. I mean, but it's interesting because you, I mean, at Oberlin, you studied music, music comp pretty much, right? Yeah, I studied music and quote-unquote communications. And I didn't use any of – well, I used it all, actually.

We had – was it last year? We had Mitch Albom in the studio. Oh, yeah? I remember asking him. I was like – we got talking about writing. Then we got talking about music. And he's like, man, I gotta tell you, if, if I could choose one, like I forget the writing thing. I just would, it would have been music all the way. If I could have been a rock star, that would have been it.

Well, I, you know, I think that music is for me personally. I mean, if you'd asked me when I was 25, I'd have said, yeah, I want to just play jazz the rest of my life. But now I realize that what music did for me is what I hope it does for my sons and for my little program I run in my church. And that is it prepares you for a life of labor and learning and enjoyment. I mean, there's nothing more enjoyable than driving down the street and listening to, you know, Sonny Rollins or The Doors or Beethoven or anything that's beautiful. I mean, you know, I was listening to Mahalia Jackson yesterday. I mean, there's nothing more pleasurable than enjoying the first, the highest art form of all, which I think music is.

And so I think to study it just gives you a great appreciation for life and for teamwork and for discipline and for the things that are important that help you do whatever you'd like to do. I think most of you are great scientists and engineers and architects and attorneys. I mean, a lot of them have great scientists and engineers and architects and attorneys. I mean, a lot of them have great experience with music. And I think that's – so I see music as – you know, look, I could have supposed – I could have gone on to just the life of being a musician.

But that wasn't enough, really. Because music shouldn't be your life, really. Life should be your life. Yeah. because music shouldn't be your life, really. Life should be your life. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the kid you're working with now, I guess, at the church, because that was pretty much your, I mean, the early days for you was really, I guess it was really just a big part of your family, you know, sort of like church music, books.

Sounds like your introduction to the music side also was sort of, you know, the church needed people to play. That's true, yeah. Well, you know, we grew up in the music side also was sort of, you know, the church needed people to play. That's true. Yeah. Well, you know, we grew up in the church, in the Baptist church, so we heard that kind of music growing up. And we listened to it at home. We didn't have, you know, I grew up in a time when you listened to records and you, you know, and you only had a certain number of records. So you listen to whatever was on the radio and whatever records you had at home. And I think it gave you a wider palette in terms of what you draw on later or what I drew on later when I became a musician.

Because you had to listen to what everybody else listened to also, as opposed to just listening to the kind of music that you thought you liked. But yeah, I grew up in a church, and we always listened to music that swung hard, that sort of heavy, hard swing in 1950s, 1960s gospel. That is really, really one part of the so-called African-American musical experience. But it's one of the most popular and one of the most affecting and sweetest. So it always made music special to me. I just can't imagine a life without music. I just can't imagine being a writer without having music as part of my vocabulary, you know?

Yeah, I almost wonder, I mean, when you, do you go back and forth when you're working on something between playing, composing, and writing? All the time. Yeah. No kidding. All the time. Do you feel like that? Like you can feel the sensibility sort of of the two interplaying with each other? I don't know.

I mean, I just do it to keep from going crazy, you know? Yeah. gone crazy you know yeah i mean you know you you you you only have so much gas in the tank when you're running these characters on the page or they're running you around on the page and you have to get up you have to move around but you don't want to go you know to a coffee shop and start gossiping with somebody about nothing so you sit down the piano you say i was working on this and i mean writing and music share this They are about the process of failing continuously. And so you just learn to accept that failure and you absorb it. And then it pushes you to something that's new and hopefully special or different. So the act of just getting your

tail kicked every day by these two art forms that you know you're not really as good as people believe you to be at it helps you live it keeps you humble it keeps you keeps you healthy you know yeah i mean it's it's interesting also because um sort of when i look at um the two together also and it sounds like from what I know, your approach to both, you know, it's, it's not about structure.

It's not about sort of like building the outline and filling it in. It's, it's about, it's, it's jazz. Like either way, it's jazz. Absolutely.

I mean, but you know, you have to be careful when you say that. Yeah. Okay. I saw Bruce Springsteen one time in my life, back in the 80s. He was at the Meadowlands. And I didn't even want to go.

Because I was like, I don't like rock and roll. And man, the concert was four hours. And it felt like it was a half hour long. I mean, it was so good. It was so good. I mean, Clarence Clemons. This was when he was, you know, I don't Clemens, I mean, this was when he was, you know, I don't know if your listeners even know who Bruce Springsteen is.

No, they do. They do. I saw him play three years ago at, you know, what used to be the Meadowlands also for four hours. And my mind was blown. Oh, he's just a bad cat, man. I mean, that's ridiculous, man. So, I mean, but my point is that if it's right, you just feel it. And Bruce Springsteen's got plenty of jazz in his music. I mean, you know, his jazz isn't supposedly like the most sophisticated, you know, but there's plenty of jazz there. I mean, what is jazz? You know, as Louis Armstrong said, you know, if you have to ask, I really don't know. You know, music that brings, that moves to the heart, that makes you feel good inside,

that gives you hope, and it makes you want to hug your neighbor, that's jazz. And Bruce, in that regard, Bruce Springsteen is loaded, man, because he's, you know, he spent his entire career trying to make people see the best part of themselves and of others. And that's what jazz should do. That's what any good music should do. And that includes all forms of classical music. So for me, jazz and blues and gospel have been part of my DNA, my musical DNA. But that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate, you know,

klezmer music or, you know, 18th century music or, you know, composers like Virgil Thomas or whoever. I mean, everyone has a different song. And if you're smart and if you have a liberal arts education, which I'm fortunate enough to have, you learn that if you, if you want to enjoy life, you learn to appreciate all of it. You know, I completely agree. I think my reference to jazz was more just, and this is,

I play guitar for most of my life. I don't play jazz, but, but like you said, it's to me, it's, it's the reference is more about knowing the notes, developing a certain amount of craft, but then holding everything lightly and being responsive to the moment and making it about the interactions and the play and the freedom. Well, I mean, if you do that, it helps you in the rest of your life. If you can do that and you can get it from jazz, it helps you in everything you do. When I was working at the Washington Post, I used to work with an editor named Jeff Frank. And they became friends. And he ended up at the New Yorker.

And now he writes books. And one day, I was at his house. And Jeff pulled out his guitar. And he turned out to be a really good guitar player. I mean, like when I say good, I mean a musician level good, not just like good because your friends, you know, you can play, I want to hold your hand by the Beatles. I mean, he could really play. And it made sense because that's just who he was. He was a person who knew how to listen, but he also knew when to not listen and when to speak, you know. And it showed on the page in his work. So music teaches you to listen.

And if you're a writer, that's your job. You know, that's your job to listen to people and to, you know, to reflect back to them or to others what you've heard in a way that makes it palatable and makes us care about each other. Yeah. Well, I guess you go to Oberlin, you end up in Columbia J School and then out and I guess spent the better part of a decade really on the journalism side of things. I mean, Boston Globe, was Washington Post the last place you were? Yeah, that was my last stop. Yeah.

Right. But I guess it was when you were there, at some point along the way, the early seeds of what would eventually become The Color of Water dropped when you wrote a piece. I just got curious about your mom and her Jewish background and then what it was like growing up there. And that really started out as something that was published early on in The Globe as an article. Right. Yeah, that happened like back in 19—I was a year or two into my professional career. And I was talking to an editor at The Globe named Alan. He was a very nice guy. He was—I guess he was Jewish.

I'm pretty sure he was, but I can't quite recall his last name. I can recall his last name, I can tell you. But in any case, it just sort of came out that I had somehow come into the knowledge that my mother was Jewish. And he said, well, you need to look into that. So I went home. I guess it was Mother's Day or something like that. I went home for a holiday. And I started asking her questions. And she was really resistant. And I became more curious. And then the piece was created. And I left that alone after that for many years. I didn't fool with it until, I guess, the early 90s, I guess.

And I started thinking about writing a book. You know, she was getting up in years. And, you know, life had evolved. I was no longer a young whippersnapper. I guess I was, you know, was out of my 20s and into my 30s, I suppose. And I just started thinking about things differently. You know, that happens when you get a little older. And there you have it.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. I mean, because you had, I guess that happens early on. You're still in the journalism side of things for a chunk of years.

But even when I was on the journalism side of things, I always played music. Yeah. I mean, I was always taking off on Thursday or Friday night and heading to a gig somewhere. I was always, I never kept music too far from that. I was always practicing, you know, and I did it on the down low. I didn't really talk about it too much with my colleagues because I didn't want people to think I wasn't dedicated to the job.

You know, what I did do, and I never, I sometimes tell this to young writers, I just would not be hanging around for dinner and coffee and all that other stuff and wasting time gossiping about what other people, I would just, after the work was done, I would go home and I'd practice. And I'd find where the music was, wherever I was, Boston, DC. I would find out who the musicians were, who was playing, you know. Ironically, I'd learn more about local news and local events as a musician than I ever learned as a reporter. Ah, no kidding. No, it's the truth.

Because, you know, when you're a reporter, you're stuck. You know, you have to report. So you, quote unquote, are supposed to or you must report certain things. And when you're a musician, you know, you're just kicking around. Oh, you heard this? Oh, wow, let's go check in. So you drive to the other side of town, and then it's not there. And then, oh, yeah, well, oh, and then they're selling a saxophone over there.

You check him out, and there's a keyboard player you want to meet, but he lives over there. And the singer, her cousin just got arrested, so you got to go help her out. I mean, you know, there's stuff that happens. When I was at the Post, I remember I wanted to do a story about a baseball scout. And I saw Ben Bradley, who was the editor of the paper, in the hallway. And I went up to him. He was a legend back then. I mean, as well he should have been. And I said to him, you know, I want to go do a story about a baseball scout. And he said, well, he said, have you talked to Mary Hadar?

She was my editor. I said, yeah. And she said, go ahead and do it. Mary Hadar was like the best editor, in my opinion. She should have run the post. But in any case, I said, yeah, Mary. He said, go ahead. So he said, well, what are you waiting for?

He said, if I had, he said, he pointed to the newsroom. He said, if I could make everyone in this room get up and clear out of here, I would do it right now. He said, the news is not here. It's out there. He pointed to the window. And so that's really what it is. Even now today, you know, where we gather news is just, it's just terrible. No local news.

Nobody goes out to report. Well, it's happening now. It's forced to. No local news. Nobody goes out to report. Well, it's happening now. We're forced to do it now. Yeah, I think we're seeing this just massive move of sort of citizen journalism also. It's sort of like everybody's got a device where they can report what's happening in the smallest corner of the smallest place or in all the places where maybe a big outlet isn't going to send someone. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah, no, completely agree. I mean, I've heard you say something a couple of times in the past about your time there also, which is that journalists become cynics, which I'm kind of curious about.

Well, if you want to stay creative, you have to avoid the cynicism that journalism creates. Because, you know because journalism falls, it's magnetized toward politics. They kind of go together in some way. They're like three fingers of one hand and three fingers of the other hand, and you shake hands. Okay, well, that's six fingers. Well, the other four fingers, you better guard them carefully

because if the cynicism and the blood and the guts from the first three fingers, first six fingers feed over to the rest of the fingers, then your whole hand is bloodied and wounded and you'll never be able to build a house. That's a horrible metaphor. But my point is that cynicism is destructive in terms of creativity. And creativity is what makes one of the things that makes America a very unique and very, very great place. So creativity doesn't happen when you're picking up a video game about car thefts or some other bullshit. It just doesn't happen.

Excuse my language. It just doesn't happen. If you want to stay creative, you should read books and walk the earth. Otherwise, you're never going to. Journalists, by comparison, do get out and do things. But the level of cynicism that you allow into your life as a journalist will, at some point, simply will just pour water on your spark, your creative spark. So you have to be careful. And that cynicism doesn't happen.

Rather, skepticism can roll in. That's fine. Skepticism is fog, but cynicism is thunder and lightning rain. You just got to move. You can maneuver your way through fog and discover great things. But when it's raining hard and the thunder, you're just looking for shelter. And there goes your story.

Goodbye. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. At some point, you end up moving entirely over. After your time at Washington Post, you decided to go all in on the music side for a chunk of time. I'm curious, was that a slow building of a feeling like this is the right move, or was there a moment or event or happening that sort of triggered that decision? I can't remember.

I think I went to see my stepfather's grave in Virginia. That's what did it. And I loved him. He was such a good person. And he died. I was 14 when he died. And I realized that. He was such a good person. And he died. I was 14 when he died. And I realized that life is just going to happen no matter what. Life will shove you forward.

And I just decided I didn't really want to be a journalist anymore. I saw a lot of people who were really great writers who were at the Post. I mean, talented people, man, who were older than me. And how disillusioned they'd become. And I said, I just don't want, I'd rather this not happen to me. So I stepped away from it. And then I collapsed into poverty and I was broke for a long time, but I was happy though. That's the thing. I remember one time I was talking to a music publisher after I left the post, and I was writing songs, and I was peddling my songs around, and he said to me,

I said, can you tell me what happens to a song when I sell it to you? And he got so mad, because they offered me a deal to buy my songs outright. And he got so mad, he said, this is very sophisticated stuff. He said, this is very sophisticated stuff. You're not really capable of understanding. You're just a songwriter, OK?

So just write songs, and I'll make you a deal. And of course, I didn't. I didn't make a deal with the guy. I just listened. But ironically, I don't know, six months before that, I was standing in the White House with a notebook out listening to Ronald Reagan talk. Or Mrs. Reagan. I think it was Mrs. Nancy Reagan. And I said to myself, I'm sophisticated enough to learn this, but I didn't say anything. I just kept my thoughts to myself, and I just went back to work. And eventually, it started to happen. I started making money writing songs. And I got a steady gig playing in a couple of bands,

and I was making it. Yeah. I guess the journalism bug had kind of left you, but the writing bug definitely didn't, because I guess it was that same window, right? When you're sort of, you're playing around full time, you're touring, when the bug sneaks back into you to return to your mom's story and go a lot deeper into it.

Well, I always liked to write. I always just felt journalism was not creative enough for me. That's really the problem. It was just not that creative you know so that so the color of water really gets written over i guess a period of years when you're on the road when you're playing music when you decide to go way deeper into this and which means going back to your mom who you, as you shared, was pretty hesitant the first time when it was just for an article and say, I want to know a lot more. I'm curious how she

responded and how those conversations unfolded. Well, I mean, she was not cooperative, but she had reached the point in her life where I could beat her down a little bit and say, look, I need to figure this out. And there was something she needed to resolve for herself that hadn't been worked out. I think David Preston's getting my best friend. David Preston got married. I guess it was in the 80s. And when he got married, she went to his wedding, and she was really moved by the whole ceremony.

They smashed the glass, and they got married under the, I forget what it's called. The chuppah, yeah. Yeah, and it was really nice. It was a beautiful wedding, and she was really moved by that. And she loved David and his wife, because we were good friends. And his wife, Rondi, helped my mother quite a bit. Rondi, and his wife, you know, because we were good friends and his wife, Rondi helped my mother quite a bit. Rondi, by the way,

just as a coincidence is the person who is behind that whole business of, of, uh, you know, the, the, the drug treatment centers in Philly where they, where they allow drug offenders to get, um, free, free, uh, you know, uh, treatment, you know, she's, she's been in the news quite a bit. She's really, to get free treatment. She's been in the news quite a bit. Really, she's an amazing person. In any case, I think that wedding between her and David

kind of loosened the historical chains for my mother in terms of her life as a Jewish girl growing up in the South. And I was curious about it. And then, of course, we went and visited her friend, and we went to Suffolk, and she began to open up some. Yeah. Were you surprised along the way as she started opening up and sharing more? Were there things that really took you by surprise that you didn't know?

I mean, yeah, but, you know, people change. They evolve. I mean, she was, you know, she was not culturally wrapped in a way that kept her chained to the notion of Judaism or Christianity. She loved her mother. She felt tremendous guilt about leaving her mother behind. And she never got over it to her dying day. She

never got over that. And she left her mother behind with her abusive, screwed up father who, you know, who supposedly called himself a rabbi. I mean, that's juicy shit for, you know, for the people to ponder. But the fact is, people love their parents and they do the best they can. And the woman, meaning my mother, did the best she could with, you know, she was really dealt half a six pack when she came to this country, because Jews were treated like pretty badly in the South and in America in general. But the fact is that she took everything she could and did the best she could with it within the framework that existed for her. And the result was good, mostly, for her and her children. I don't know that my mother ever felt that she was that unique. I think she felt that she was just, she did what any mother

who loves her children would do. And that's the truth of it. Yeah. I'm fascinated also, you know, because her coming to New York, her coming to Harlem originally, and then starting up a church and introducing you to it is so important in, in your most recent work, you know, Deacon King Kong, though, it's a novel, you know, clearly it's like, it's just, the whole thing is built novel, you know, clearly it's like, it's just the whole thing is built around, you know, a community and a church community and a local community that feels just powerfully

informed by your own upbringing and by, you know, probably a lot of like elements and pieces of characters who you knew and who you were and who you're around. Yeah, that's true. But I mean, this takes all the fun out of life. The fact is, when you create a novel, you're not creating it. You're just following the people. You step into a world that's no longer yours. And then you get a chance to see these people. Look, the hard work is getting the characters to leap out the cupboard drawer and start moving around. Once they start moving around, there's no work to

be done other than your ability as a craftsman to follow him or her as they go about their lives. True, many of the paradigms, the crude outlines of the characters and plot design in Deacon King Kong are rooted in my life as a boy growing up in a small Baptist church in New York. But, you know, I mean, I didn't know these people. You know, I didn't have, you know, organists like screwing the deacons and all that. My church, they were proper people. You know, if that stuff went on, it's not something that I really was privy to. You know, I've heard of it, of it, but everybody hears of everything.

You don't know what you hear is true. You hear rumors about this, that, and the other. What's important in Deacon King Kong and in any good story, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that if the book is really good, you can tell the writer really loves his or her characters. Rachel Kushner loves her characters. Lindsay Shriver, who is probably, I mean, I think she's kind of cynical, but she's talented. And I wish I'd written her books, but she loves her characters. I don't agree with her cynicism, but she understands. So, yeah, where the book comes from, sure, it's rooted in some of that, you know, the life that my mother created. Does that make sense?

Yeah. It's an interesting question, right? Why would anyone feel curious about what led somebody, like the experience that led someone to create something that deeply moved them? I think my sense is that it's because we want to know the person better. Well, in my case, you know, the color of water was written because I simply didn't know who I was. But after I wrote it, I had a better idea. Deacon King Kong, I really don't know what inspired me to write the book. Honest to Jesus, I just, you know, I just was laying in bed and this guy popped into my mind, you know. And because people I know that who are part of the church, especially people my age, I'm 62.

I remember back in the day when, you know, when you went to church, it wasn't like when you went to, people went to church, it wasn't like a Broadway show, you know, like the band played. Now you go to church, the big churches, the band's playing, the drums going, you know, and it's all this phony. It's just like, it's all theater. It's no real spiritual thing, you know? I mean, the whole stereotype of the church was someone's, they're going, ooh, ooh, Jesus, you know, people jumping around. That really wasn't how it was. How it was is that it was very quiet, and then someone would stand up and they would talk, and then something else was supposed to happen, but someone else got up and just had a word about something, and during the sick and shut-in prayer list, someone would stand up and say,

don't forget to pray for such and such. And then he or she would talk. And then they might feel a song and they might start singing. And then everyone just, it would strike your heart too. And you would sing. And that was the most beautiful thing. I used to see that when I was a boy with my mother. And when I saw that with her later on,

when she described going to church as a young woman, brokenhearted, it made complete and perfect sense. But, you know, you never knew where the spirit was coming from. And so the spirit of Deacon King Conley, you can analyze it, but it's like trying to analyze love. If you love someone, it's just inexplicably great. It's like trying to describe why Frank Sinatra was a great singer or why Count Basie was one of the greatest band leaders in the world. You just hear the music, you go, oh, I get it. Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that.

Because the one word that I wrote down to myself after reading it was just, it was one word, and it was love. And that was the overwhelming feeling that I got from it. Sure, it was fun. Sure, it was like amazing characters. It felt like you were having a blast creating this. There was a spirit of joy that was funneling through you. But at the end of it, the overwhelming experience that I had was one of acceptance and love. Absolutely. I mean, I feel like when Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote A Hundred Years of Solitude, he had a lot of fun until the end.

I don't know if he had fun then. But I had a lot of fun writing this book and The Good Lord Burr. The Good Lord Burr was an escape for me because, you know, it came when I was in the middle of a very, very, very difficult divorce. And my mother died and, you know, it was an escape for me to get away from, you know, the difficulties of my life. Deacon King Kong was just, it was just a world I was so happy to be part of, you know. Just, it's a story that made me happy, you know.

And that's really kind of what it was. Yeah, I have a friend of mine who writes who basically says he writes because there's something that needs to get out, but also because of the way something makes him feel while he's in the process of creation. I'm curious whether you feel this at all when you write or whether it's something that and not all of it is fun, that there's a feeling of being alive when he's actually writing that he feels flows into and is palpable eventually when somebody picks it up and reads it or listens to it. I never thought of it that way. As an artist, I simply do what I can do best. And I can't imagine not writing or living without words and without music. It would be very difficult for me. And I've been doing it so long now that I don't know how else to live. I mean, I walk around with a pad in my pocket everywhere and a pencil everywhere, everywhere I go. And no matter what I'm doing, even if I'm cutting the grass or working with plants, it doesn't matter.

Wherever I am, I always have it. I have hundreds of notebooks laying around my house. Really, I just can't. And I never go back to look at them. I just have these ideas. I write them down, and then I just forget it. But you have to be a little bit obsessive i just forget it you know but i it's just you have to be a little bit obsessive and compulsive when you're a writer uh and you're always trying to

be free you know when i met el doctor i felt like i was talking to and i talked to him for all of three minutes but i was i felt like i was talking to a man who was working at his freedom mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. I'm fascinated that you mentioned earlier, like a big part of the process of writing is observing, you know, is learning to see and is capturing. What makes you go back to, and if you have all these paths and you're sort of like constantly observing and constantly capturing, what makes you know when something you've written down, something you've seen, something you've observed needs to be expanded on, needs to actually turn into something bigger. Or is it just a feeling? You just start building around it and it tells you.

Good question. I'm not really sure. Usually if it moves from, if the characters can move easily from one room to another, then you know that you're on to, you struck, you know, your fire has been struck. How big that fire burns depends on how big a piece of pie you're going to cut. I always find it's always better to cut as small a piece of pie as possible because there are so many ingredients in that one small piece that you could, you know, you can pretty much guarantee that you're going to be 250 to 350 pages in before you know it. Look, I have plenty of books sitting around,

not plenty, but enough stories sitting around that have not been finished. And they haven't been finished because they just don't have the power of my respect and adoration of the characters and love for the story. And it's not the wall that I'm able to push against in order to make the story happen. Yeah. And I guess really to make the story happen, I mean, it's interesting. I feel like that wall has to be there. Well, you have to really want to let people know about, you want to tell them something. You want to share something with people that helps them. You're a merchant.

You just want to give away the goods. I mean, it's nice that people pay for it, but you'd give it away if you could. You're a kind of preacher. You're a kind of preacher. You're a kind of cantor. You're a kind of singing priest. You're just trying to get people to listen because the end result is good if they look in the right direction. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I know we talked for a heartbeat about the fact that you're teaching music to kids now also.

Are you still teaching writing over at NYU? Yeah, yeah. Because I'm curious, because I'm fascinated by, like, if somebody comes into a room with you, what they're looking for, what they think they're looking for, what they think they need to actually step into this place of being a writer versus what you really feel matters? Well, the young writers that I meet at NYU are really wonderful people.

First of all, I don't teach like, you know, honors classes and, you know, super duper writers who are trying to be, you know, write for super duper publications or magazines or anything like that. I basically, you know, whoever signs up, you know, the first super duper publications or magazines or anything like, I basically, you know, whoever signs up, you know, the first people who sign up before the course hits its limit are the ones in the class. And then I just make them write, make them write about themselves. And I teach, I mostly focus on structure, you know, I mean, because you can't really, unless you can get time and place set,

centered in your story, nobody, you're just blogging. No matter how good you are as a writer in terms of, no matter how fast you can run the 100-yard dash, a book is a marathon. So you can run the 100 yards and beat everybody else, but after 100 yards, I'll be running backwards and I'll go leave you behind because you don't know how to do it. Structure. So I talk about structure quite a bit. And I make them right. I send them out.

I make them right. I don't talk that much. We read a little Nietzsche. We read a little bit of Gary Smith, who's a wonderful writer who used to work for Sports Illustrated. But he didn't really write about sports. He wrote about life. And then we write. That's it. And I hear their thoughts about things. But then we write, that's it. And I hear their thoughts about things,

but then we mostly write about what they know. So I send them everywhere. I send them all over the city. I send them to go get ice cream and cake. I'll send them to the Bronx. I send them to go see what the plaque that said where Ebbets Field was. Go find a joke. Go get a haircut. Tell us what you see in the barbershop. I make them do that. When they're finished writing, it's red ink because all of the pages are bloody. But they're game young people. You know, they really are. I get a lot of inspiration from my students at NYU.

Yeah, I mean, it must be interesting. Well, I don't know if you're teaching summer class these days, but when we come back in the fall, you know, given the moment that this country is in right now, when you step into a room of, you know, like people from 18 to 21 years old, who are really looking to write and a big part of your, what you're asking them to do is go out into the world and observe and participate and understand how that comes into the classroom and the conversations and the writing with you. I only teach one course, and I barely have time to do that. And I do it mostly because I just love the kids, man. They give me so much.

They give me so much more than I could ever give them. When I think of young people in this country, when I think of these kids who I meet at NYU, I'm encouraged and I'm inspired. All of this stuff that's been happening lately is just encouraging and inspiring for me to witness. I'm delighted that so many young people have taken it upon themselves to speak on behalf of people who cannot speak and to try to write things at a time when so many of them are having such personal difficulty and such deep personal challenges. Yeah, I mean, it is incredibly powerful to see what's going on and to see so many people rise up and step out and actually say things and acknowledge things. And especially when people who feel drawn to deeply observe and

then turn that into language that somehow, like what you said, goes out into the world and in some way affects other people. It's sort of a powerful place to be, but also a place where I wonder what the sense of responsibility that some people would feel in being the people who try and observe and then turn that into language that goes out into the world and in some way affect other people. I don't think that people who do that sort of thing think that deeply about it. I mean, they probably should.

I don't think they do. So, you know, there's that. I mean, the fact is that, I don't know, people who have an enormous amount of influence in terms of our sway in the world don't really think about how far their words are reaching. The clever ones, some of the evil ones do. They figured it out. But look, the problem is that if you want to change society, your words, your deeds have got to reach deep into the bowels or into the guts of CNN, you know, who works the night shift and the producer of Fox News and whoever is getting the message so they don't just follow the crowd and just do the same story that the other guy did. I mean, that's really the problem. I mean, it's very unusual for me to get asked these kinds of questions that you're asking because a a lot of the people who create the news or who follow the news just don't do their homework. I've done many, many,

hundreds of interviews. Oftentimes, the people are just not prepared. They just don't do the homework. When I was at Columbia, one of the things that they really forced on us was they made us get ready for interviews. If you weren't ready for interviews and you brought your story back and it wasn't good, they just sent you out and made you do it again. Of course, you didn't like it, but you did it. You know, nowadays, I'm interviewed by dozens and dozens of journalists who oftentimes just don't even do the homework. I understand.

Look, I'm trying to read the book. I understand. But you can tell that a lot of them aren't doing the homework out in the real world. With a 15-minute bit where someone takes a bit, a piece of shit, excuse my language, and just blows it up into nothingness that's passed around the world. There's 200 million kids in the world go to bed hungry every night. There's millions that go to bed hungry every night in this country. And we're arguing about some Twitter feed or something?

I don't want to hear that. You know? Look, if you're going to be a reporter, do the job. If you're going to wear the mantle of First Amendment and the 14th Amendment that so many people died for, when you suit up, you better suit up all the way. Pull your socks on and put your sword on and go out there, do the job. Don't do a halfway job. It doesn't help. That's why Donald Trump became president, because that's one reason. Because reporters, there weren't enough of us out there hitting it hard. I'll tell you something else that was interesting.

I was thinking about this yesterday. Since I'm blowing off so much steam, I don't know why. But I remember when Princess Di was killed. When she died, she died in a car accident. And there were pictures of her. And there were really people were yelling and screaming about the photographers that took her picture. And one of the photographers said something I'll never forget. He said, I went to Angola to take pictures of the Civil War there and nobody bought them.

He said, if people were buying pictures of the Angolan War, the war in Angola, I would be there shooting those pictures. They don't buy those pictures. These are the kinds of pictures they buy. So as much as we want to yell and rant and scream about Donald Trump and all the, you know, whatever else that, you know, we have problems with, Black, you know, the police, you know, the militarization of the police department, the answer begins right at home with all of us. You know, what do we do? Who do we pay attention to? What do we read? What do we

support? Have we voted? Those kinds of questions. A lot of us are moving in that direction. I'm delighted about that. And that really doesn't have anything to do with what my generation has done. That's really coming from young people. Yeah. No, I completely agree. And I'm inspired to see that. And I also agree that it almost kind of comes full circle to, you know, the beginning of our conversation where, you know, so much of the answer is a return to understanding, you know, family, however you define that, and community, however you define that, and the roles that we all have and the, you know, the freedom that we get and the, you know, by actually stepping into a place of shared responsibility, whether it's with your biological family, your chosen family, your religious family, your local community, whatever it is. And I feel like we're, I don't know if you're seeing the same thing, but I feel like we're seeing people start to look back at that and say, we need to reexamine this and maybe a bit of a reclamation of that as more of like a governing

part of life. I agree. I think that that's what we are seeing. And it's, I never thought I'd live long enough to see it. Just like I thought I'd never live long enough to see someone like Donald Trump become president or Barack Obama for that matter. I mean, I'm happy that this has happened. Yes, this is awfully terrible. It's just very painful. And, you know, look, one of the things that comes from being, you know, a so-called Christian and being involved in the church is that you do understand that there's lots that you can't control. But witnessing this makes me happy. It makes me feel like, you know, God is still on the throne because these kids, these young people, they don't have to do this

and they're doing it. And look, there's a lot of raggedness to it but it doesn't matter, man. Someone has got the wheel of the thing and they are spinning the wheel and the ship is turning. You can't stop this kind of thing. It's kind of like the Vietnam War, you know, that little tiny island that you really just couldn't be taken over.

I mean, you can't stop it when people, the spirit of people is greater than anything. It's greater than evil. And it doesn't need a lot of fuel to run. Evil and hatred is like a diesel engine that just gulps fuel. You have to just constantly pour. You've got to keep that fire going. But when something is propelled by love and decency and honor and justice, true justice, the car can run on popcorn, and it'll run for a long, long time. So we're witnessing something special, even though this is an extremely difficult time yeah this

feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well um so in this container of the name of the podcast is a good life project so if i offer up the phrase to live a good life curious what comes out for you oh that's easy just love somebody put it in your work you. Oh, that's easy. Just love somebody. Put it in your work. Let everybody, it's real quick. It's real simple. Everything that we do is connected. Everything that you and I do connects to what someone else does.

And that's how the world works. So if you just love your neighbor, you're making the world a better place in a real way. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com.

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will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him!

Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.