The New Yorker Radio Hour - Episode 17: Cuba Gooding, Jr., on O. J. Simpson, and Embracing Insomnia

Episode Date: February 12, 2016

This week, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Jeffrey Toobin revisit the O.J. Simpson trial, a songwriter hits the campaign trail, and the lifelong night owl Patricia Marx tries some gizmos to help her sleep. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

the conversation with someone when they have that revelation. It's making the show pretty huge. How does this work as a national story? From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNIC Studios and The New Yorker. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us on the New Yorker Radio Hour.

OJ Simpson formally charged today with two counts of murder. He was supposed to surrender at 11 o'clock today. More than 20 years ago, a white bronco with O.J. Simpson in the passenger seat took a long, meandering drive down to Los Angeles freeway with the LAPD in pursuit and the entire country watching on television. This is Larry King as we stay atop this scene. We're seeing a car that's been pulling up, pulling back, and now we see the white bronco take off at a speed that's considerably faster than it's been driving before. but look at the people standing on the freeway there, waving. Simpson's arrest and trial for double homicide

are the subject of American crime story which started its season last week on FX. If you're older than, say, 25, I don't need to remind you just how big a deal the Simpson trial was. And one of the things that transformed it from an L.A. celebrity trial into a national story about race and justice was Jeffrey Tubin's coverage of the events in the news.

Yorker. Before turning to journalism, Tubin was a lawyer who had worked as a federal prosecutor. The book Tubin eventually wrote about the Simpson trial, The Run of His Life, is the primary source of the FX series. In the course of consulting on the show, Tubin got to know Cuba Gooding Jr. who plays O.J. Simpson, and they met up the other day to compare notes, starting with what happened to Gooding's voice. It sounds like this for the past three, four months. I think it's something I did in this room. Is that true? I do.

I really do. I went to an E&T and I put that tube down my throat and looked at my vocal cords. And I were like, a little red, but no. Do you think there was one scene in particular that you may have lost it? I mean, you may have damaged your voice? It was one of those things. As you know, there was not more than three or four days that would pass where I'd have to yell. And, you know, when you're doing a scene, you yell, take after take after take, after take.

and this condition kind of developed to the six months of filming this thing. Have you ever worked on a longer shoot than this? No, never. And I believe that this is why we have this golden age of television because you have real filmmakers that are telling stories not in a three-hour restriction, but 10 and 13 hours.

And they get to develop all aspects of whatever idea of a story they have. We delve so deeply in the back story. of these characters. We go to Chris Darden's house. We meet his father. We meet the other people and Marcia and her divorce, and we see her struggle through that. And as you see the behind the scenes of these people, you see the perfect storm of events in the courtroom and how they're outside the courtroom lives, you know, affect their judgment inside the courtroom. So let me start with your experience with the backstory. Now, you know, one of the things I think all of us involved in this project get used to is what I think of is the official question.

which is where were you during the Bronco chase? Right. Where were you during the Bronco chase? I was watching the next game, one of the playoff games, at a party with a bunch of people. And I remember we had the game on a big screen, and in the corner of the screen, they cut to an image of the Bronco on the freeway.

So what did you think when you were watching it? I was, you know, a lot of things, you know. I had identified with the fact that he was an African-American, personality, celebrity, and he was being accused of something that he might not have done. Had you ever met him? I did.

You know, it was the height of the Boys in the Hood, hoopla. I could go to any nightclub, and they would get me a table, and they'd have other celebrities in the club come by the table and say hi, and he was one of them. I remember him walking up in his leather pants,

and he had like a girl on each arm. He was like, man, that movie was powerful, and he called me like young bob. or something like that. And then he walked off, and that was, I'll never forget it. Now, my experience with this case begins when I start to write about it, and I have this conversation with Bob Shapiro,

which is dramatized in the film. Thanks for taking that time to see me. I'm doing a piece on Cash for Trash stories. Witnesses selling their testimony. O.J. Simpson trial seemed like a perfect... No, no, no, it's inconsequential. It's window dressing. It's not the best use of your time with me.

The story I'm out here to covers. I know it is, but wouldn't you rather ask me why a man like me would take a case like this? You might be surprised. I might be surprised, but I'm surprised. Okay. Tell me. Because of its far-reaching implications. I've never seen anything like it. And I couldn't stand by and let it happen.

Please. Let what happen exactly? The systematic railroading of O.J. Simpson by a racist LAPD. Because he is a black man. Okay. So all the blood evidence, somehow these cops, a cabal of racist police officers, planted it from the murder scene to the Bronco to rocking him. Who else could have? Jeff, you look like a smart kid.

Don't rush to judgment. We will show that it's impossible for a black man to get a fair shake with the LAPD. We will prove this. So you're going to say this case is all about race? Yes, because it is. I'm just simply shedding a light on it. What was your reaction as you were seeing that just as a citizen, you know, watching the drama unfold? So I remember announcing that they had reached a verdict.

And I remember holding my breath and them saying, not guilty and feeling a huge sigh of relief. Explain that. Why? Why did you feel like I said huge? I didn't care if he did it or not. I just didn't want them to accuse another black man for a crime. He didn't commit. white men get off all the time rich men get off all the time this is one of our heroes and you know you think about it i was a young black successful entertainer you know movie star and i really looked at it as this could be you kiva this could be you being blamed for doing something horrible and the cops planning evidence against you that's how you know that's the only frame of mind that i ever had put myself in, to be honest with you, Jeffrey.

It wasn't until reading the research in doing this, that I finally felt the sense of guilt for feeling that way. You later felt guilty. Why did you feel guilty? I did because I never once did I consider the families. I never considered the Goldman families. I never considered the Browns.

You know, whether you believe he did it or not, there were two families' lives that were shattered. The ambivalence you're describing of, you know, in the different ways you reacted to the verdict, it reminds me of your performance because your portrayal of OJ is not just the guilty murderer and not just the charismatic, innocent man.

You can see him through different perspectives. Well, I know that's the agreement that Ryan and I had come to terms with... That's Ryan Murphy, who is one of the executive producers. And what was the... What was that agreement? Ryan and I got to a place during filming where it was almost like a short hand, like he would walk up to me and whisper before take, okay, this time,

I want you to experience the guilt of what you did. And then he'd come back and say, all right, now this time, I want you to experience the frustration because you know your son did it. You know, it was like little things like that that would just set me in. That strikes me as a non-actor, as very difficult, even in the context of acting, because, I mean, have you ever had a part where you had to play someone so differently within the same scenes?

I think that's the gig. Really? I'll never, you know, that's the artistry. I'll never forget my first master class was on the set of a film called Outbreak. And Dustin Hoffman, he pulled me aside after I'd been weeping in this one scene. He said, laugh during this take. He goes, just laugh. do it the opposite man.

And I did and actually found something that worked. And I think as an actor, you can't judge your character. You can't come in and say, this is how I'm going to play this scene. Let me ask you about one scene in particular, which is so dramatic and so meaningful, which is during the Bronco chase, because all of us in the outside world, we saw the outside of the Bronco. But what is so captivating is you see the inside of the Bronco. And you see you, O.J, holding the gun, contemplating whether to commit suicide.

That's right. What do you want me to do, O.J.? I should die. No, put the gun down, Juce. I'm tired of you driving me around, A.C. Tell me what you need. Take me to the cemetery. No, man, we did that already.

I don't know. What is this happening? Why is this happening in me? I don't understand. I had such a beautiful family, Nicole and Sidney and Justin. You still got the kids, Jukes. All right? Think of it. about the kids. Just take me home.

I want to see Mama. Brother, we've got to have the police in California in pursuit. They might not let us. I understand! You know, it's funny, for the longest time, I would hear actors talk about how it was difficult to shake a character, and I always thought it was bull-ed. I remember Heath Ledger said it with the Joker character.

Right. And after this role, I understood it. I truly understood that you go through a psychosis, And it literally took me, I don't know, months maybe. You know, it's so funny because I'm still today haunted by certain frame of minds I don't want to put myself in. You know, there's this wonderful series called Making of a Murderer that I have not watched because I just can't go there. I can't. I'm not ready to allow myself to indulge in that again.

And that's why I probably won't watch this for a while. You ever seen a movie and you start to cry in a movie? Well, think about an actor. and what got you to that emotional place. You go there again, you know? Let me move on to something that I found a very sort of moving story. One of the episodes is directed by John Singleton, who directed you in Boys in the Hood.

That's right. And when you appeared on the set, tell what happened. No, it was really cool. We did a few takes of a scene, and he goes, come here. And he pulls me onto the quiet part of the mock version of the courtroom. He pulls in there, and he takes him. turns to me and he starts crying. And he starts shaking and he's hugging me. And I start crying because I know what he's going to say. And he goes, we've come full circle. We've come full circle.

You know, he says, our careers, do you realize? And I get a most of the thing about it, but he was right because I was 22 years old. He was 22. And now here we are telling about the social ills in Los Angeles police harassment all over again, 25 years later. And it was just that moment that really hit home with him emotionally. Well, and the it's, that story resonates for so many reasons, not least

because, you know, we are in a moment now where the subject of African Americans in the film business is top of mind. You want an Academy Award. John was nominated for an Academy Award. But this year, no African American actors have been nominated for Academy Awards.

What's your thought? How do you regard the situation now in Hollywood for African-American actors? You know, do we start with the negative or the positive? I've been an academy member since I worked on outbreak again. I mentioned that movie. That was even before Jerry McGuire? So you were an academy member even before you won your honor.

To become academy member, this was in 1993, 92. You have to have starred in three major motion pictures and be nominated by two Academy members. members and then you put your application in. My two sponsors were Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey. I was, and I still am so proud that I got in when I got in. And then a few years later, wind up winning the damn thing, okay? But, you know, there was also statements made by Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith

asking for a boycott. When I won my award, those two individuals stood up first in that audience, and I will always love them for that. even though if I was invited to go, I would attend, absolutely. But I think it was necessary for that dialogue to be started because it promoted change in the voting, and there is a place for people to voice, even if it's a radical voice, it promotes change.

And that's why we're in the better place we are. So you don't support a boycott, but you're glad that people are talking about white. That's right. That's exactly right. Cuba Gooding Jr., who plays O.J. Simpson in American Crime Story, talking with Jeffrey Tubin. Tubin is played on the show by Chris Connor. Next week on the New Yorker Radio Hour,

Jelani Cobb goes to Baltimore to talk about policing and race in the death of Freddie Gray. He'll meet up with David Simon, the former Baltimore son reporter who created The Wire, one of the greatest TV shows of all time. My own assistant director got locked up, just trying to make his way home from the set at 2 in the morning in the Eastern District.

He was literally driving from the set, and, you know, he didn't give enough yes-surs. And, you know, he expressed some polite irritation and bang. Welcome to the city jail. That's coming up next week. Still this hour, hitting the campaign trail with not a political reporter, but a songwriter. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. Hey, folks, this is Matt Diffy. This is Life's a Batch, where cartoonists talk about their batch of cartoons.

This week I'm talking to Jack Ziegler, absolute legend. The magazine's been there for 40-something years. Anyway, I'm going to give him a call, see what he's working on this week. Two, what's working on? If you got any good ideas or bad ideas or otherwise. I had my ideas generally. I had an idea. See, this is a phrase that I've been working with,

directorial debut. Okay. So I've been trying to think of other types of Oriole debuts, like janitorial debut. Yeah. debut. Oh, yeah. So-and-so's short.

I've got to research names now. Quint, do you see how complicated cartooning can be? be. It's incredibly complicated. We'll talk, I guess. We may be right day before we turn in our batches, we can talk. Okay, Matt. See you. Matt Diffey, talking with his fellow cartoonist Jack Ziegler. We'll see how they're doing with their batches a little later in the hour. I'm David Remnick, and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Hello? Hello, David. Hey, Clive. How are you? It's a great honor that you do me. I know you're a busy man. I'm following in your footsteps. You could be talking to. Donald Trump and instead you're talking to me. That's Clive James. Born in Australia, he's spent most of his life in the United Kingdom,

and there are very few creatures like him. He's a poet, a novelist, critic, memoirist, TV hosts, Sunday newspaper columnist, even a TV comedian at one point, but a writer above all. You left out astronaut. It was my period as an astronaut that's very little known. Clive goes to Mars. Nobody can do everything. And really all I do is write. And my favorite writing of my own is, of course, poetry, but I might not be right about that.

And it certainly might not last. For all I know, it might be a few remarks from one of my books of memoirs or from a critical essay. And that'll be it. And of course, in the last few years, when I've been ill, I've had something new to write about, which is imminent death. I had no idea until I fell ill what it was like.

not to be healthy. And how did that happen for you? What was the day you woke up and you were not swinging from the trees? It was all happened in one evening. It was New Year's Eve of 2009 leading into 2010. And I had to go in because I had sudden kidney failure because of the usual cause, a delayed prostate operation. And while I was in there, I got diagnosed for everything else.

I had in addition to emphysema, which I knew about, I also had a brand of leukemia. I could go on like this for too long. The thing I should do is put it in a poem, and I will say it. In a sense you have. You have a collection called Sentence to Life. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's an astonishing book. And early in the collection, there's a poem that is, in a sense, the onset of the great theme that you're dealing with.

the poem called Landfall. And I thought... Landfall, I'm very glad you picked that one out. You'll read it for us? Hard to believe now that I once was free from pills in heaps, blood tests,

x-rays and scans. No pipes or tubes. At perfect liberty, I stained my diary with travel plans. The ticket paid for at the other end. I packed a hold-all

and went everywhere. They asked me. One on whom you could depend. To show up, I would cross the whirl by air And come down neatly in some crowded hall. I stood for a full hour to give my spiel. Here I might talk back to a nuisance call, and that's my flight of eloquence.

Unreal. But those years in the clear, how real were they when all the sirens in the signing cue, who clutched their hearts at what I had to say, were just dreams, even when the dream came true. I called it health, but never stopped to think it might have been a kind of weightlessness, that footloose feeling always on the brink of breakdown,

the false freedom of excess. Rarely at home in those days, I'm home now, where few will look at me with shining eyes. Perhaps none ever did, and that was how the fantasy, of young strength that now dies expressed itself. The face that smiled at mine, out of the looking glass, was seeing things. Today I am restored by my decline, and by the harsh awakening it brings. I was born weak, and always have been weak. I came home and was taken into

care, a cotcase, but at long last I can speak. I am here now, who was hardly even there. Clive, it's an amazing poem, and the expression of health as deception, as weakness. Is that how you look back on it now? Yes, yes, it was, because I'm really, that's poems full of regret. A lot of the poems in this little book, Sentence to Life, are full of regret and penitence. I can say briefly, but only briefly, that I did behave, badly, and I regret it, and some of these poems are about that. But yes, I have a lot to regret about

my days of health, and of course the opportunity which is offered and demanded by ill health as you look back and reflect. I think we get it. It's a poem, in a sense, in part about fidelity or the lack of it, and time wasted, and times well spent. And do you think being so accessible as a poet as being so clear at a time when many poets are many things, but not that? It's a difficult time for a poet, but then it always is. And it's difficult in America. Fun thing, there are a lot of American poets. When I look at, say, John Ashbury, he's doing something that I can't do. And there are early poems by Ashbury. There's a poem about Daffy Duck, which I think are works of genius.

but I can't really follow him now. Poets will go where you don't expect them to or don't want them to. You don't just spend your days humped over books and manuscripts. You also binge watch television with the best of them. With the worst of them. I'm psychotic on the subject. America is waiting to know what you're binge watching and why. I do that in the nighttime after a day's writing and reading.

And often I sit with my younger daughter, who's another fanatic, and we don't just watch standard stuff like Band of Brothers and the West Wing three times and the wire twice and House of Cards and so on we watch the following and believe me if you watch the following Kevin Bacon, the star, is almost the only character on screen who is not a serial killer.

But you're never ever going to make a phone call again, David, to one of your serious writers who's going to tell you to watch the following. You don't think John Ashbury or Louise Glick, they're at home watching a box full of videos? They may be, but if they are, they should put it in the poem. You think most American poetry, as you see it, is too kind of, I don't know, apart from pop culture?

The way to get established as a prestigious poet is unfortunately to write something out of reach of the general public. And I think it should be within reach. One of your acquaintances and friends, one of the many ones, was Christopher Hitchens. And Christopher Hitchens decided, I am a writer, I am dying, I'm going to do this in public, and I'm going to give speeches, and I will come out without my hair and gaunt and all the rest, and that will be my subject.

I see some of this in what your project is now. Christopher really was brave. There are several big differences here. He was in pain, and I'm not. I've got the lucky version of my disease. And it took great strength and bravery to do what he did. But he fought his way through. One of the things that he took up as a cause was religion and its opposite.

Have you flirted with belief at all? I know you're not a great believer, but have you confronted and knew this essential question? No, nothing shakes my, I don't even call myself an atheist. To me, it's self-evident. My objection to Hitchens and indeed to Dawkins and that whole bunch of people who toured the world telling the faithful that they were wasting their time

was that it should be self-evident. And if it isn't, there's no point arguing it. I like to think that my own position leaves room for people to have faith, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. And I'm only halfway there with the arguments that I would like to develop about this, because right now we're up against it. We're up against a faith that has no uncertainties.

And I think we have to find a way of telling our young people, listen, your uncertainties, that's your advantage. The fact that your culture is in doubt is what's good about it. Well, I think what you're talking about is a form of radical Islam. I mean, is that what you're referring to? Yeah. And if Ayanhese Ali tells Islam, it's got to reform itself, we'd better listen. And even more when the president of Egypt, President Sisi, says the same.

I don't know that I'd want to take moral instruction from General Sisi. Well, the question is whether the Islamic clerics want to, and the chances are they weren't. It was the smallest round of applause I ever heard. It's a big question. It's the biggest question. Well, you talk about, in an old kind of Spenglarian, old-fashioned way, you use terms like decline of Western civilization, the preservation of Western civilization. And you have what you have always called a merry personality, but you have a pretty grim view of not only existence, but politics. Is that a matter again of age?

met or we would have found you like this when you were 40. Let's not rule out the factor of stupidity. Maybe I'm just dumb on the subject. But I think the secret of staying civilized is to admit that you might be wrong. And I have a low opinion of how mankind behaves left to itself. Yes, I do. On the other hand, I have high hopes for the good instincts of humankind. And it takes a whole culture and a whole cultural view to balance these things up. This is a huge argument. And any time you ask me for a 12,000 word article on the subject, I'll write it for the magazine. And I know I'll have it the next day. So we had an incredibly odd and surprising and wonderful thing happened a couple of years ago in 2014. We've had covers and cartoons and occasionally

a piece of prose go, as they now say, endlessly viral. and it gets all over the place, it bursts out of the normal readership. And it happened with a poem called Japanese Maple that you published in a magazine. And I wonder if you'd read it for us. I'm very thankful, by the way, before I read it, that that happened. Most poets don't get that lucky. And I still don't quite know why. Here it is. Can I read it?

Please do. Japanese Maple, your death near now, is of an easy sort so slow a fading out brings no real pain breath growing short is just uncomfortable you feel the drain of energy but thought and sight remain enhanced in fact when did you ever see so much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls on that small tree and saturates your brick-back garden walls So many amber rooms and mirror halls. Ever more lavish as the dusk descends, this glistening illuminates the air. It never ends.

Whenever the rain comes, it will be there, beyond my time, but now I take my share. My daughter's choice, the maple tree is new. Come autumn, and its leaves will turn to flame. What I must do is live to see that. That will end the game for me, though life continues all the same. Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes, a final flood of colours will live on as my mind dies,

burned by my vision of a world that shone so brightly at the last, and then was gone. his most recent book of poems, is sentenced to life. Of the thousands of people hopping around the country, witnessing the carnival of the presidential race, Michael Friedman stands out. He's not a political reporter or a campaign worker, much less a candidate. Friedman is a songwriter and a composer with quite a number of off-Broadway shows under his belt. He's traveling to political hotspots to interview people about what's on their minds, this crazy

election year. Then he makes songs out of those interviews, transcribing very precisely the strange turns of phrase and messed up grammar of the way people actually speak and then puts them to melody. Like that guy there, he's a senior and he calls himself a fascist. I don't really think that he's a fascist. And that guy, Andy in the Trump shirt, he listens to his dad a lot. His dad listens to a lot of Rush Limbaugh and he tends to, you know, repeat what he hears. And sure, we're in a... Iowa, so our school is like 97% white. And me? The New Yorker Sarah Larson is following his trip and talked with him about his visit to Iowa.

So, Michael, you've written original music and lyrics for a lot of shows like Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson. And you're also a founder of the theater group, The Civilians, which does a very particular kind of theater. I've described it as documentary theater or maybe documentary musical theater. How would you describe it? Sometimes it's based on interviews, sometimes on historical records or sort of journalistic stuff. So on evidence, let's say, on investigations into real life. So tell me about the campaign tour you're doing right now. Yeah, so I've been sort of following the states along the caucus and primary circuit,

not as much following the candidates, but kind of trying to get the temperature of the states where the candidates are going. So I've spent a lot of time in Iowa recently talking to sort of anyone I could get my hands on to farmers and lawyers and high school students and college students and caucus organizers and petitions and small-down mayors. Yeah. So what struck you about the people you talked to in Iowa? The fact is they were aware I'm not even exactly sure ever when our primary is. Right. That is sort of those private. Yeah.

So who's the subject of the first song? Well, in the town of Carlisle, which is not that far from Des Moines, I got the wonderful chance of meeting with the members of the Carlis High School Mock Caucus Society. And I got to attend one of their meetings and watch them sort of debate for a while. And then I interviewed two of their members. But do you know how your parents, do you know what their views are? I do know what their views are. Were they on different sides? I would say they were on both on complicated sides, which is what I found a lot of people in Iowa were.

On opposite viewpoints of, just due to how I was raised. What would those be, if you don't mind? I'm not sure if this was their complete viewpoint, but when the Trump comment about banning all Muslims, I had a very strong opposition against that just due to how I'd grown up through my church and how I believed we should treat other people through just like being fair and what I knew stats were about Islamic terrorism and that other stuff. And my mom was like, well, I can see how he could say that. And I was like, yes, but you can't do that.

And just that was a little argument. What about these conversations? Made you want to set them to music? I think the moment I got really excited was when one of the interviews was describing growing up in a sort of two-party household with a dad who's a Republican, Mom, he's a Democrat. I was raised in a split household. Mom's a Democrat.

Dad's a Republican. Never ever talked politics. The first election, I remember. Mom was for Kerry. Dad was for Bush. We never knew why. We never talked about it. But last year after the state of the union,

I got into a discussion with my dad. He's a businessman and a Reagan, Republican. And he grew up with trickle-down economics. And then Mom got in there and they were really going at it. And they were shouting at each other. and that's why we never talk about politics in my house. I also have to admit that I just found talking to high school students, which I think I went into a little bit of dread,

and instead completely hardening in the way that they really were participating and excited and interested, even if I didn't agree with their politics. We give high school kids a short trip these days, and so it's nice to know that they actually might, you know, do better than we do. And what's the song called? The song is not very imaginatively titled Mock. At my church, I believe everybody's welcome at the table. So I'm trying to use that to expand my political beliefs,

even though I might not believe the same things as other people like gay rights or the refugee crisis. Everybody says, oh, they're Muslims, they're probably terrorists. And now you know, there's this big issue now of don't offend people that pushed a lot of younger, People push them, like, towards certain viewpoints as they don't want to offend anyone. If someone says Merry Christmas, the other person says, I'm Muslim or something, not Christian. And they're offended like we had a bomb threat. Freshman year and a friend of mine, he jokingly posted on Facebook that it was a Muslim. And we had, like, one or two Muslims at school at the time.

So that's where it gets more difficult. And with all the problems we've had with things like racism, sexism, homophobia, all the stuff that has really come up in the last few years that's really pushed people away from having strong viewpoints on things that has led to bigger problems like shooting and stuff that's made people question why they don't just step in or maybe just let things slide. What's next on your itinerary?

Next up is South Carolina and then to Dallas, Texas, with a little bit of a jaunt up to Oklahoma, then St. Louis, Missouri, or as my father would say, Missouri. Is he from Missouri? My father is from Missouri. I'm always tempted to say Iowa because of the music man.

We live in Iowa. Well, good luck on your travels. I'm excited to hear what comes next. Thanks so much. Thank you. But I'm optimistic. I look for the silver lining, looking at the future.

And in the future, I want to design video games Like infamous from sucker punch and destiny from bungee, Mass Effect from BioWare, the kind of games that I like. They're sci-fi shooters and future the ones where you can make any world you want. You can make. I have to go. I have a history exam at 945 American history from World War I to present times.

Yeah, I'm ready for it. Michael Friedman performing his song Mock Caucus, based on interviews with two high school students in Carlisle, Iowa. He spoke with Sarah Larson, who's a cultural correspondent for New Yorker.com. They'll talk again in a couple of weeks. Now let's go back to Matt Diffy and Jack Ziegler, cartoonists who are struggling away at their week's batch of cartoons. Hey, Jack.

Monday, we've got to turn our stuff in tomorrow. Actually, I turn mine in tonight. Oh, you show off. What did you end up in and in? Or what are a couple of your highlight? That's comedy gold. Did you come up any surprises that you hadn't? That's what's great.

It's hovering somewhere out of rationality. Yeah. Yeah. And how did your... Quintus makes his short-lived gladiatorial debut. Okay, yeah. Although I did have another sort of spin-off as a banjo player. So I have a guy like on stage dressed in, and he's holding a sledgehammer.

Okay. And then there's a banjo sitting on the ground in front of him. Yeah. And then the caption would be something like concerto for banjo and sledgehammer. It could also be like a John Cage kind of musical concept. Yeah. Something. Or goes blue.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck. All right. Thank you. All right. There's a sound.

It sounds like the tone you'd hear before the nuclear disaster. It's supposed to be soothing. Good luck, Patty. You're listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick and welcome back. If I'm not mistaken, Patricia Marks is the only staff writer of the New Yorker whose resume includes a stint writing for Rugrats. She's also worked on Saturday Night Live,

and she's the author of a number of children's books. as well as Let's Be Less Stupid, which is a book for adults. And she's done all this while getting, she estimates, four, maybe five hours of sleep at night. I hate sleep. I really hate sleep. I've always hated sleep. I'm one of those obnoxious people that says, you know what, in order to function, I just need to blink my eyes once.

The truth is, I'm tired all the time, but I don't care because I hate sleep, which is why it's kind of obvious. that I was asked to write a piece about sleep promoting devices. But I do as I'm told, so I tried a few devices. And while I was testing those devices, I kept a diary. Tonight I'm going to try the bulletproof sleep induction mat. This is a black little mat, and it's covered with white little short spikes,

and about 10,000 of them. I'm rolling it out, and it really looks painful. Tonight I'm going to try glow to sleep. This is a sleep mask, and it looks like black, foamy, thick goggles. You can see four kind of blue hatched lines glowing, and I'm supposed to meditate blissfully upon them so that my mind will be switched off, and my mind isn't switched off yet. Sleep Shepherd Hat, which is a black stretchy beanie that would make me look like a nighttime skier, I guess,

skier in my pajamas, except that it has a black plastic box. And if I turn on the switch, which is in the plastic box, There's a sound. Can you hear this? I'll try to see if you can hear it. Sounds to me at least like the tone you'd hear before the nuclear disaster. It's supposed to be soothing. So I would say my friends and I tested somewhere, I'd say,

a billion to a trillion gizmos. And of those four worked, and I'm using. the word work generously. And then I have all of these things all over my apartment and no closet space. Come on in? Yeah, hi. We're going to do that later. You should take your shoes off just so you can see that I got the bed. So I had to get rid of these sleep devices and I invited my friend Meg Wallitzer over. All right, now come to my sleep closet. Yeah. Would you like light bulbs that make you sleep?

Yeah, sure. Okay, I don't know which is which. But wait, don't you have the light off when you're sleeping? Do I wait, half an hour before you do this, and then it conditions you. All right, thank you. Is there, are your instructions? I guess. I've never read instructions in my life.

All right, would you like this, which I want to put a battery in because I like the idea of this. I like things that have cream. What is that? Oh, this is good. This is the cream so you do or don't get electric. I can't remember. It's called, I call everything the sleep induction. This is called Dreammate. Oh, is it a lucid dreaming like in that movie? Not really a watch or pretend watch, a Dick Tracy watch. This is pretty fun. I might even want this back. Even though it does nothing, it feels bad good.

You put it on, you put the cream on so that you don't die and then there might or might not be a battery on. I guess there's no battery, although I don't know who stole it. Okay, so you put the back. battery in somehow. And you turn it on, and it's another fake acupuncture thing. Oh, I definitely want to borrow that. It's fun. It, like, it vibrates you? Yeah, but, you know, if you're sleeping in a bed with somebody, they might say,

pick up your damn phone, because it's, you know, it vibrates. Oh, all right. You'll like it. It's a toy. Okay. Yeah. No, it's not a toy. I take my sleep hygiene very seriously.

Okay. What's this? Oh, it's a heart monitor. Do you want one? Here it is. Oh, that's what this is? This is like a heart monitor? Halloween for neurologists.

Oh, here's what we're going to do. It turns out, unfortunately for me, that sleep is really important. It, you know, makes you more productive, more alert, more your heart's better, you know, you get immortality. So there was one device that I hadn't tried, and, um, you know, you get immortality. because I'm a scientist, I had to try all the pieces. This was an ostrich pillow, which looks nothing like an ostrich. It's stuffed with the little beans that they use in beanbag chairs. So I guess if somebody sat on top of your head, they'd be comfortable.

It kind of looks like a big gray pumpkin that you would put on your head. I don't know why you would do that, but there might be a reason. So I'm going to try to nap wherever I can, and I have a pillow. that makes napping very easy anywhere, like the dinner table, museums, the Davos Economic Summit. So we're going to try it on the subway first. Okay.

Of course, now we have a very relevant Petula Clark song. Don't Sleep in the Subway. Yeah, it's, I love that song. You could play that on your podcast. It's so clever. That is so nice. Okay, so now I'm gonna wait to the subway and then take out my ostrich pillow and sleep and sleep and sleep. There is, okay.

Is it a hat? Is it a? No, I know you said it, it's a, not a hat. It's like, you know what it is? It reminds me also, if my head were the chewy chocolate center of a Tootsie-Role Pop, This would be the lollipop part. All right, it just looked pretty bad. I'm thinking...

In New York, kids. So it has a little opening for your nose, if breathing, it's your thing. And then it has... What do you sell for? How, guess? $3.49? Well, no.

$99. That's expensive. All right. You have to take off your... I didn't take off my hat. And unfortunately, unfortunately... I have makeup on it. It's not going to be good really. It's going to get all smushed and it's going to get it dirty. But you know, given the choice between wearing makeup and sleeping, I would choose wearing makeup.

This is? 23rd Street. Wake me up. All right, ostrich lady. Okay. Wish me luck. All right. Good night. What is it? It's an ostrich pillow. It helps you nap anywhere. I'm going to put it. I'm going to use it on the subway. What did you think it was?

Ear muffs? Ear muffs. It could be, it is kind of. Head muff. All right, where should we sit? Here, you should sit. I should sit, because... Or lie.

Why does it up the holes in the side? Why do you... I can find you... I can find them. You put them here, you tuck your hands inside, and then if you were like at your desk or on the airplane, you could put it down, like here. Oh yeah, but it's not gonna make me sleep.

It's not comfortable. It's not, it's not, yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's good for, like, flying for airplane? It's the, that's the, oh. You should borrow it if you're, yeah. If you want to sleep on an airplane, if you want to fly an airplane, it's bad. You don't know her? All right. Try to sleep.

And I'll just be quiet until something happens, which means I'm going to be quiet. It's kind of where you, the devil horns would come out. Okay, there. Naps are not just beneficial. Even the expectation that you're going to take a nap helps, like, reduce your stress and it's good for everything, yeah. I'm going to sit next to you. Um, that way I can see the shocked stairs. Trying to sleep, Meg.

Sorry. What? Um, looking at me? No one is looking at you. Not even you? I'm looking at you, but no one cares about you. This is what I always suspected. No, there isn't a urinating man.

They are just, it's just New York and no one cares. This is less embarrassing than I'd hoped it would be. Yeah. Sort of subtle. It's like your bed. Right. I thought it would be like taking a shower in public. No. One person is looking at you. Maybe I should go like this. No, that's not comfortable at all, putting it down in between.

No, nothing's happening. Maybe the Atlantic Monthly did this already. Scooped me. Yeah. So I tried as hard as I could. could to fall asleep on the subway. And I did get groggy, which is good. But after trying all of these devices and realizing that none of them was going to put me to sleep, I decided to just embrace insomnia and just wait until sleep goes out of fashion. Facebook went out of fashion, fat-free

diets went out of fashion, KAL's on its way out. You know, I'm just going to stay up. The one and only Patricia Marks. You can read Patty's article In Search of 40 Winks at New Yorker Radio.org. I'm David Remnick. Now let's see one more time how cartoonist Jack Siegler and Matt Diffy made out with the weekly selection

of cartoons for the New Yorker. Hello. Hey, Jack. We're on the other side. How to go for you? Well, what we thought might be an okay turned out to be an okay. There you go. Yeah.

I sold one. one, but it wasn't one that we talked about. But it came from some of the conversations we had. Oh, okay. So the joke that sold was, you know how like some donkeys on a car, pulling a cart will have the pole that holds the carrot in front of the donkey? Yeah, right, yeah. Right.

So a long time ago, I had a concept of the pole with the carrot strapped on backwards. And I also had in the corner of one of my pages of notes, I had wind chimes. So what I ended up with was the donkey with the pole strapped onto the donkey, but the wind chimes are dangling down behind the donkey's butt. Oh, okay. And then, you see where I'm going, probably. The donkey is eating a bucket labeled beans. And then the captioner, heading underneath it is John Cage.

And so that's the one that Bob took? Yeah, amazingly enough. It's a farting donkey joke. That's right. That was Matt Diffey talking with his fellow cartoonist, a 40-odd-year veteran of the magazine, Jack Ziegler. In a few weeks, Matt will be calling up the great Roz Chast, and we'll keep you posted on that.

Thanks for joining us this week for the New Yorker Radio Hour, and let us know what you think of the show. Leave a comment at new yorkeradio.org, talk to us on Twitter at New Yorker Radio, or send a smoke signal. Next week, David Hagelin talks with comedian Maria Bamford, and Jelani Cobb rides around Baltimore with David Simon, the creator of The Wire. I hope you'll join us.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Abe Carrillo, Riannon, Corby, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sharon Meshihi, Sarah Nix, Paul Schneider, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Becky Cooper and Matt Fiddler. Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.