The New Yorker Radio Hour - Episode 24: Larry David, Amy Poehler, and Randy Newman

Episode Date: April 1, 2016

This week, three highlights from The New Yorker Festival: Larry David explains why he envies his sociopathic alter ego on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Amy Poehler describes the joys of doing comedy while nine months pregnant, and Randy Newman on why he still can’t understand why some people bridled at his song “Short People.” 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.

You're listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour. You feel good? Yes. I feel there's a lot of bright people here, maybe too bright. Yeah. It is bright. Relax. Relax.

Welcome to the New Yorker. You're killing me here. No, I'm sorry. Go. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. This is a great day on the show. We've got three unique and hilarious people in live interviews from the New Yorker Festival.

The great songwriter and troublemaker Randy Newman. comedian Amy Polar from S&L and Parks and Recreation and starting off the Emmy Award-winning writer and comedian Larry David. Now, if you've watched a sitcom in the last quarter century, you've got to know Larry David's work. He was the co-creator of Seinfeld. I think that's the last TV show that everybody watched. And after that, he created a show that a lot of people just couldn't watch

because it was too cringe-inducing. The show was curb your enthusiasm, and it was genius, a deadly satire of privileged people and their first world problems. I spoke with Larry David in 2014, and we started at the beginning. I want to sort of find a way to discuss the whole of Larry's career, and he grew up in Sheepshead Bay in Deepest, Darkest, Brooklyn. This is correct, this is correct. Son of Rose and Morty, David.

Just as we were coming out, I asked you, Did your parents ever go to see you in your early days? Oh, not once. First of all, I wouldn't let him come. My mother actually wanted me to be a mailman. That was her dream. Best case scenario, you know, because, you know, you have benefits,

you always have a job. Right. And, you know. And you started doing comedy right out of school? Or you were just doing kind of this job and that job? He worked as a taxi cab driver, a limo driver. Also, bra salesman. Bra salesman.

Were you good at that? David, I was good at nothing. There was nothing I could. No, I was not good at it. But I did write a Seinfeld episode about it. Yes, you did. And that was true, though, because he did give me a bag of bras and told me to take them home and study them. To study them.

I gave that to George on the show. Yeah. So at what point do you start making a bid for being a performer? Because you seem the unlikeliest at that point person to want to get up on a stage and do this impossibly hard thing of telling jokes and structuring an act and having it go for 15 minutes and killing. I mean, that's a really hard thing to do.

Yes, yes, it is. We're just running out of options. Well, first I took an acting class. I wasn't even considering stand-up, but I thought, all right, maybe acting. So I took an acting class, and I didn't like that very much, because I kept having to wait to talk, you know. You weren't practicing Jewish listening, waiting for the other person to shut up. Okay, come on, come on, come on, I want to go, I want to go, you know.

And I didn't want to be talking to this person. I wanted to be talking to the people who were watching me. So, and then I had a friend who said, you know, you're funny. you should be doing stand-up. So I put something together. I did like in folk city, Gertie's folk city in the village. They had a hoot-nanny night

where anybody can go up. So I wrote some terrible, awful material. But I got up, and then I went to Gil Hodges' bowling alley in Brooklyn. They also had a night. I did it there. So that was twice I got up. How'd you do? Terribly.

Then I went to Catch a Rising Star, and I did something and it wasn't half bad and he said, come back, you could start working out here. And so who was around? Who was in the circle of people that you started to meet? Richard Belzer, Richard Lewis, who became my closest friend. Let's see, Ed Bluestone, Andy Kaufman,

Elaine Boozler. And Jerry Seinfeld comes into the picture at what point? I started in 74 and Jerry came in the picture in 76. and then Jerry and Larry Miller, Paul Reiser, Carol Leifer, they came along then as well. And Larry, you were doing okay, but Jerry was really starting to take off when you became friends. What point was his career when the two of you sat down and had a cup of coffee and kicked around the idea of... That was 19, that was 1988. Right. And there's a kind of caricature of what the show was intended to be, a show about nothing.

What was it really? What was the cup of... I mean, really, you talked about it for the length of a cup of coffee? And what was the conversation? What was the show supposed to be about? Well, the initial seat of it was that we were in a grocery store, and we were talking about the products and the grocery store in the way we did, and we always had funny conversations, and I said, this is what the show should be. Right.

I would have conversations with him, kind of conversations I never saw on television. We're going to show a clip from Seinfeld. This one is one in which Jerry has progressed too far in his dating life of the woman to ask her name. He has forgotten her name, but he knows that it rhymes with a female body part. Now, let's try breast. Celeste, Kest. No. Rest, sest.

Hest. Hest. That's not a name? What, you should have just asked. asked her. I know I should have asked her. What are you going to do now? I don't know. I can't ask her now. I've already made out with her. What do you make out with a woman? You can't ask her her name. Aretha.

No. Bovary. All right. That's enough. Well, you know what you got to do? You got to go through a purse. You know, the credit cards, driver's license. Well, how am I going to do that? When she goes to the bathroom. Ah, there you are. My dates drew me up. Listen, will you guys go to the operation with me? You asked a date to go to the operation? Oh, yeah.

So, come on, what do you say? Huh? What kind of operation is it? Spleenectomy. Isn't that where they remove the... No, no, don't ruin it for me. I haven't seen it yet. Come on, what do you say?

Molda. Ah, come on, you want to go? All right, all right. Just let me finish my coffee. Come on watch him go slice his fat bastard about, yeah. And the girl's name, of course, was, in the end. Dolores.

Delores, yes. Now, this show was an absolute phenomenon, and people didn't know you and your face very well. Was that comfortable for you, where you were dying to get in front of the camera more? Not dying at all. There's no way I could write the show and then also be on it. It would be impossible. To write, to write the show, be on it, and then write next week's show and the show the week after. Couldn't be done. Couldn't be done.

The show ends. By this time, it is a phenomenal hit, and it's being compared to everything from the honeymooners to the very best of television. You take some time off, and you conceive an entirely different thing for cable television, curb your enthusiasm, in which you are front and center. Improvisation is much more at play. I want to show a clip from one of my favorite episodes. It's called Kamikaze Bink. in which Larry is in a Japanese restaurant with Cheryl Hines' his wife and a Japanese guy.

They're talking about this guy's father. Hey, by the way, my dad and your dad are becoming very friendly in that nursing home. Oh, no. Isn't that cute? Yeah. It was just his 80th birthday party. We took him to Japan. No kidding.

Really? He hasn't been back since the war. He saw some of his family and some of his military buddies from the Air Force. Wow. What did he do in the war? He was a pilot. Really? What kind of a pilot?

Kamikaze pilot. Wow. Mm. Wow. Wouldn't he be dead? Not all of them died. I don't know. When kamikaze pilot kind of implies that.

that, you know, Kamagasy Paz is a pilot who crashed and died, right? But he didn't. He survived. He survived. Yeah. He survived. Yeah. What did you say?

Come by, yes. But what happened exactly? Did he, did he try and crash the plane into a ship? He grazed the ship. Okay. All right. He grazed the ship. He grazed it.

Hmm. Is that because there was some kind of malfunction with the plane? It doesn't really matter. Better, really, great. I'm just curious. He lived and... And he's alive. And he's alive.

Yeah. But at the last second, what happened? Was he coming down all of a sudden? He said, you know, Jesus, this is a kamikaze business might not be for me. I think maybe I'll go back to base. Something like that. It's... Huh?

So what happened at the last second there? I'm uncertain. You know what's good is the, um, the rainbow world because it gives you a little bit of everything. Are you ready to order? Yes. I will have the chicken terriaki. Chicken teddyaki. Chicken.

Chicken. Chicken. Chicken. How about you, you? Little chicken? Just grazed it. What I love about that scene, in addition to the obvious, is Cheryl Hines. She is attuned to the social conventions.

She has a super ego that quashes the id of wanting to know every. last fact, every last embarrassing fact. You know, Curb is more about, just like that scene, all the things that we think about that we can't say. Yeah. All the things that I think about

in my life. And generally do say. No, I don't. You don't. I don't. That's why I love doing this show so much, because I'm normal. You know, I'm not like him. I would love to be like him.

But I'll love to be like that. get beat up and, you know, that's so, he's a sociopath, you know. But that's me, really. If I'm thinking that, and I want to say that, but I can't. So the show is the silent voice of Larry David brought to the service. Yes, yes. I like to take the small things and make them big,

and I like to take the big things, like disease and death and things like that, and make them small, you know. Because, why the latter? Because then you, because if you, You take them seriously, you can't joke about it. You know, we all have thoughts that we're not saying, and if we say them, people will identify with it.

I think that way too. Right. Part of the job is to go too far enough, to push the boundaries, to make people uncomfortable, to make people laugh, but also to make them squirm a little bit. Okay, you know what? I never knew about the squirming stuff. Yeah. So, you know, we do the show and it's on the air,

and all of a sudden people start coming up to me. I had to leave the room. I couldn't watch that scene. I go, really? You know? And then I kept hearing it over and over again. People were closing their eyes. You know, they couldn't look at it

because I was making them so uncomfortable. It never occurred to me that anything I was doing could ever make anybody on. uncomfortable. I could see it making, I could see it offending someone. Yeah. Which, as S.J. Pearlman said, the Office of Humor is to offend. So, um, I didn't, I don't, I don't mind that. Uh, I, I, I welcome it, you know, I don't, everybody can't like it. So, um, but the squirming part, I had no idea about that. When have you ever offended? When have you felt sort of out there, oh, this one really, this one

pushed the outer limits? Well, the Survivor episode. You should explain a little bit. Well, there's a show on CBS called The Survivor, a reality show. And then there are Holocaust survivors. And one day

I heard Survivor and then I thought Survivor and I went, holy shit. And, you know, my head exploded over how funny that could be. And I thought, I have got to write this and film it as fast as I possibly can because somebody's going to come up with this idea. It's just so obvious, survivor, survivor.

How can nobody have done this? And what was the outcome? Did you get endless letters? We got, yes, we got a lot. You know, it's amazing. And did that upset you? Did it secretly please you? No, it didn't upset me at all.

No. Not in the slightest. Not even a little. No, not even a little. Okay. No. Is there anything off limits for you? You ever sort of have that inner Larry David voice and say to yourself, no.

Not that. I'm sure, but... You want to fess up to anything? I think you could do anything depending on how you handle it. Right. And you have other people. Take a look and when you're dealing with sensitive stuff, whether it's about religion or race or gender or anything like that,

is there a restraining mechanism that you ever use, human or otherwise? Well, Jerry was a big restraining mechanism for me. He was the super ego of the show. Jerry, yeah. He said, no, we can't do that. You know, that's why I never pitched the contest to him. He was more conservative. Jerry, yeah, yeah.

But he did surprise me a lot more. as we started to do the show, he was right on board with most everything. I thought he was more conservative than he wound up being, but he really wasn't at all. You know, we watch lots of stand-up people, and we learn, it's an extended golden age of stand-up, but it seems like such an immensely complicated world.

It seems like it has its real, darkness? First of all, when I did it, there was nothing else that I could have done in my life. I mean, that was it. If I didn't succeed at this, I would bomb frequently, and then I would go home. I would buy a pint of Hagendust and Smilers at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I would sit and I was so depressing, you bomb, because this is it. If you can't do this, what else? That's it. You weren't a drinking guy or a drug guy. No, no. No, no, I wasn't. But it's a very close-knit community, and we feel, look, I'm going to do it again. There's no doubt because it's an amazing feeling, just being on stage, making people laugh.

You find the best aspect of your personality, the person you want to be, the person you love, a person you love comes out of you, as opposed to the guy you can't stand throughout the day. Writer and comedian Larry David joined me on stage at the New Yorker Festival in 2014. Today we've got three of the highlights from the festival for you, including Randy Newman, and in a moment, one of the luminaries

among the Saturday Night Live alumni, Amy Poehler. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. Welcome back to the, the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick. Amy Poehler is one of the great stars of Saturday Night Lives history, and she was also the center of parks and recreation. She spoke at the New Yorker Festival with staff writer Aria Levy. The two go back quite a while. Ari wrote a profile of Amy Poehler when she was performing with the Upright Citizens Brigade. That was in the mid-90s, and the

Upright Citizens Brigade then was just a four-person comedy troupe in Chicago, not the huge comedy empire it is today. Polar also went really big, making the jump from live improv to doing sketch comedy on national television. Well, in many ways, I think I was one of the last generation of people that used to still perform on stage, and that's how you got a television show. Now, most people do their stuff, and they put it online, and people can see it, and they can email it. Nobody ever has to leave their office to see you. But at the time, it was like very waiting for Guffman. We would save a seat for the executive at Comedy Central and keep peeking out of the curtain to see if he or she were coming. So we performed on stage a lot for very few people for a long time.

And that was a really good, it was good training for failure and rejection, and it was also a good time to experiment and take big risks because nobody was literally nobody was watching. That was something I was going to ask you. Is there anything you miss about not being famous as a performer? No. You started on Saturday Night Live in September of 2001. Her first show was the first show of SNL on the air after September 11th. Right. Two weeks after.

Our first read-through was planned for September 11th, which is of course canceled. So tell us a little bit about what that was like starting there at that moment. time? Well, I had lived in New York five years before then, so I considered myself a true New Yorker. We shot UCB in New York, and so unlike other people, I wasn't moving to the city to start this new job, but I had many friends that had already worked in the show. And I was incredibly excited, and then, you know, the nation and the city was under crisis. And there was a lot of talk about, will we ever be funny again, right? Do you remember that? Well, can we ever laugh again? Comedy's dead. Everything's over.

And so it was a strange and tough time to start a weekly variety show. And so for the first couple months, I just tried to figure out where the bathrooms were and stayed out of everybody's way. And it was an interesting time to be on a sketch show, frankly, because for the first couple years of S&L, we had to stay away. from stuff that is, you know, in many ways it's bread and butter, the kind of heavy political stuff. And there was a lot of pop culture stuff that we did until slowly people started to want to have people, you know,

make fun of George Bush again. How long did that take? How long before it felt admissible? It varied. The audience really told you what they wanted. And you could, and that's the cool thing about doing live performance, is that the audience, you start to feel, oh, this is what's working, this is what the audience wants.

It was lovely about working on the show was very full circle as 2008 came and the campaign came and suddenly everybody was paying attention to politics and knowing every, if you guys remember, it was like a sporting event and everybody knew everybody's names so there'd be a very small player. Everybody knew that Dennis Kucinich's wife was hot.

Don't know what I mean? So there was so much attention being given to every candidate and every person so you would do something and everybody would laugh and everybody was sharing that moment. And so to start on a show where politics was taboo and end on it when it was like exploding was super fun. But, you know, it was a time of real bad guys.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. So how do you get somebody, you know, it's one thing to make jokes or to write comedy about Osama Bin Laden. It's a lot different to have someone play him. So it was like trying to figure out how to have someone do that. And so it took a while. The next clip we're going to see is a character that Amy does called Caitlin, which is my favorite thing you do.

And I think you could watch, there's no context. Let me tell you something. I want a star earring. No, I want a diamond. No, I want a diamond. No, I want a diamond K. No, I want a diamond K, a P sign, a cross, an arrow, a rainbow. And then my ears will look so good that people will be taking my picture and I'll be like,

over here, Caitlin, over here. And I'll be... Caitlin, you have to wear a sted or gold stuff. and you have to keep it clean to avoid infection. I know a girl whose belly buttoned got infected, and now she's in a wheelchair. Oh my God, Rick! Rick, can I have a sip of your soda for sustenance?

No. No more soda for you. Yeah, I can't have any more soda, because one time I drank a ton of Mountain Dew, and I stayed up all night, and then I was like, oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day! And then the next day, I was super grumpy.

Remember, I had the best thing ever? I love that. I want to adopt that kid. One person in that scene has an Academy Award. The cousins, Kate Winslet. Is that what you were like as a kid? Yeah, a little bit. Not as hyper, if that's the correct term, or a PC term. I don't know. Spazzy? Probably worse. But it was a real look at me kind of kid. And I love that age, girl, that age very like all elbows and lots of big, dreams and I want to be a veterinarian and a firefighter and a waitress and an actress and

like all that stuff where girls that age are you know not really interested in boys yet and very enthusiastic about the world so and and and frankly that was written with emily spivey who's a long time partner of mine and it was kind of our homage to gilda's uh-huh judy Miller character which was the brownie who would you know jump off the bed and bang herself into the door so It was an attempt at an homage to her. The thing I love about that so much is the physicality is just, it's exactly what that is just like, a girl's totally comfortable. Or not just scrambling.

Yeah, and we used to wear like a binder and I always kept my fly open. Just little thing. Actor's secrets. What did you like to watch besides Kilda Radner? Yes, Kilda and all the SNL people. Although, frankly, to be honest, I kind of caught up with them later. I was much more in Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy was my time at SNL when I was like 10.

I find SNL when you're like 13 is like your prime time. You know, meaning who's on whenever you're like, you know, I was a huge Jan Hooks fan growing up. And Jan Hooks, I think I was like 14 when Jan Hooks was on. I loved Carol Burnett. But a lot of the physical stuff, and Steve Martin, and Eddie Murphy, probably, Woody Allen, all that kind of stuff. One of the great things about you on SNL

was that we got to see you be funny, not just as characters, but also as yourself on Weekend Upday, or as yourself as a character, I guess. So could we see the clip from Weekend Update, please, of Amy and Seth? Talking about Rod Blagojevich. Really? Really? And really? It's 2008. Did you not know that people tap phones?

Really? You never seen a TV show or a film? When you're doing something illegal, you need to speak in code. When I call up my weed dealer and I ask for $50 worth of circus tickets, you know what? He doesn't give me circus tickets. Really? Really? And really?

How did you think you get away with this? George Ryan, the governor before you, was in jail for pretty much the same thing. When people are burned, they become vigilant. Really? My friend once brought a girl home who turned out to be a dude, so every time he meets a girl, you can bet he checks for an Adam's apple. Really? Really.

Really? That really happened to Seth's friend. Really? Really? Really. It's beside the point, but the hair, the hair. The hair. Really? It looks like you're wearing a toupee that's also wearing a toupee. Really? It's like you have a pro-seating hairline. Is that really your hair, or did you grow out your eyebrows and comb them up? Really? Really. Hair on backwards and one of those Fisher Price people. Really?

The first time I saw you, I thought you were walking away. Really? Really. But go ahead of it. You're supposed to put the rogene on the crown, not the forehead. Really? I thought you had a bad temper, but maybe your head is just hot from being under that bearskin rug. Really?

Really? Wow. This has been really with Seth and Amy. Those were fun. Tell us about that. about, because you and it's almost, it's more like stand-up almost. I mean, it's not characters. Well, Seth used to write all of those with additional jokes by our writers,

but, you know, he's, he was the master of all of that. And in real life, we are, we love to talk like that with and to each other. And it was just so fun to do that with him because it was so natural. and it was, I think, a bit that showed our real chemistry, which I think we had and we hoped to try to show on the show. It's like improv in that way you're... Yeah, yeah. It's kind of succeeding and failing together.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Did you like having the opportunity to do social commentary in such a direct way? Yeah, it was... You learned at SNL that, you know, when you were like, I really want to say something. I want to make a point. It was like, oh, boy.

and you know there's nothing worse than like being angry when we had Sarah Palin on the show you know we had to kind of in all we had many political people in the show you know you have to kind of try to make you there's nothing gained when someone's in front of you and you're being mean to them like it just doesn't work the audience doesn't like it and you look like a jerk

and you're just like you know you can't make your point or um and it's a comedy variety show It's not a crossfire. So you have to find a way to make it still funny. Tell us how you came up with that amazing rap you did when Sarah Palin was on. Yeah, well, I was, thank you. I was very pregnant. I gave birth five days later, I think.

I remember watching it and thinking it was so funny, but also being tense because I was like, if she doesn't stop rapping so hard. Yeah, her stomach's going to fall out. Yeah. Yeah. The baby's going to come out of her butt. Baby isn't coming out. Yeah

Me too There's something kind of cool About being nine months pregnant on TV It's weird It's like you're You have this weird power Because first of all everybody has to get out of your way So you take up a lot of space

And you bang into people And everybody's kind of nervous for you And it's kind of exciting Because you may blow Yeah you may Right Right and there's a lot of like Yeah

And everyone kind of looks at you like a freak Like it's exciting Yeah I can't explain it or maybe I'm trying to. And then also there's a hormonal freedom where you're like, I don't care, I'm like it. Right? So the combination of like, oh, fuck it.

And the combination of like feeling kind of weirdly powerful, I just wrote it. She was very game. And regardless of anyone's politics, there's a certain amount of respect you have to have when somebody, when you say, hey, come into our house and will you come

do this. You know, you can't, what you could, but I thought it was bad manners to, you know, they're being game. And at the time, the election was very close. So there was this feeling of, wow, everything these candidates are doing right now is important. Every move they make is super important. And so it was a really exciting time. Another person who you've risen with in tandem is Tina Faye. So I wonder what it's like making a movie with somebody who you did, you know, sketch with, improv with when you were 22. It's a blast. It's like, it feels like cheating. It feels like you're getting away with something. I mean, we certainly knew each other when we were diamonds in the rough. And both would probably say late bloomers in many different ways. And so

what ways? Physically in our face and body parts. And, um, professionally and finding all of it. No, but we were still, you know, we weren't famous at 30, so we were still, you know, schlapping and doing her thing and trying. So we felt like, you know, we got to experience a lot of similar things together. And it was really nice to have a partner like that along the road, for sure. We got to kind of just be idiots together. And that's sometimes all you really want in your kind of.

comedy is two people that you like being idiots together. That's a good recipe for a hit. And women don't always get to be that way. Sometimes they have to be like, you guys, stop being idiots. Or, you know, they have to be like, oh, I slept with that idiot. In addition to letting us see female idiots, some other great work that Amy does is Amy's character, Leslie, nope, and parks in recreation. and tell us a little bit about how that character evolved. Well, Mike Schur, who is the creator and captain of the massive ship,

he worked with me at Saturday Night Live. He was the head writer on Update when I was there, and he went on to have great success working and producing on the office with the American office, and then he went off with Greg Daniels to produce his own show, and he had pitched me this idea about doing. doing a show. And Leslie was his creation. For use. Yes, written for me, but certainly he had this idea of who this person was before I kind of was introduced to her. And then we talked about her for a long time and I had the

luxury of, you know, sketch comedy is very transient, very disposable. And for the first time, I got to really sit and think about this person and build a character together with someone. It was really exciting. So we did that. We started to create this person. And then in the course of the show, we started to refine her as it went on. But it's been, I really, someone asked me the other day about playing her and it's so actory. I'm sorry, but it's so, it's like the most fun character I've ever played because she's a real, close to a real person. meaning I used to really like

shows growing up where I could imagine what the character was doing on the weekends like when I wasn't watching them and I and Leslie is this really optimistic

incredibly big-hearted not cool goofball but the show really lets us go to sweet and soft places, which is nice for, you know, a sketch comedian to get to turn the volume down a little bit. So it's a dream. Let's watch a clip from it. This is when Leslie is talking to her friend

Anne about internet dating. Yellow-haired female likes waffles and news. Sexy, well-read blonde, loves the sweeter things in life. Much better. Hobbies. Organizing my agenda. Wait, that doesn't sound fun. Um, jamming on my planner. Favorite place? Upstairs, there's this mural of wildflowers, and I like to sit on a bench in front of it. Really? It could be anywhere in the world. Paris, Hawaii, the Grand Canyon. Nope, just the bench in front of the mural. What about, like, an actual meadow where wildflowers are?

Ew, Ann, I'm scared of bees. Mural. Okay, what do you think of dogs? Love. Cats? Love. Fish. Love. Turtles. No opinion.

They're condescending. The great Rashida Jones. To me, Leslie, the main thing about her is her driving force is she's someone with a life plan. Well, it's fun to play someone ambitious. And, you know, I think in the beginning of the show, people found her optimism to be kind of naivete. And I don't think that, you know, believing one person can make a difference

or that change is going to come means that you're silly or you're like uninformed. And so trying to find the balance of how do you play someone optimistic and not make them seem like they're clueless. But she's also very ambitious and very, has a lot of, you know, like she's really driven. So that's been fun to play on the show in the last couple of seasons. You're super organized. Very organized.

Jamming on her planner. Yeah. Are you like that? Are you someone who's super organized that's had a life plan? No. No. I'm not that much like her. in real life that character

she loves to go camping for example and I do not but I do think I share a similar sense of believing in the bigger idea of life I don't know if that makes any sense but I plug into and really like and respond the fact that she

thinks she can't do it alone and so she likes to rally the troops I certainly like to rally the troops that's certainly what we have in common. Life plan-wise, do you think you thought of your life being like this? Is this where you thought you'd be at this age? Yes.

Seriously? Yeah. Amy, thanks so much for being here tonight, and thanks for being such a great audience. Thank you, everybody. That was really good. Actress and comedian Amy Polar talking with the New Yorkers, Aria Levy.

They spoke at the New Yorker Festival back in 2011. A few months ago, Polar revived her great Hillary Clinton impression as a guest on Saturday Night Live, and you've got to believe that we'll see more of that this year. I'm David Remnick. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. I'm David Remnick. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. Next week, I'll talk with James McBride, who's an even bigger James Brown fan than I am. His new book, Kill Em and Leave, searching for James Brown and the American Soul, is absolutely terrific. If you care it all about American music, you'll want to hear from James McBride.

If you pull out the guitar part to a James Brown piece and listen to it contrasting as the other part... Because it's another drum or it's melodic aspect? Because it's both melodic and rhythmic. And usually they're two guitars, and they play off against each other. And they make perfect success. They used to call it the washing machine thing.

How do you mean? What does that mean? Because the old washing machines would make this shuk-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-choo-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch- And so they would... The sound that he was trying to create was the sound of these old washing machines when all the parts were grinding together. Can you give an example of that? Well, one might be, Papa Don't Take No Mess. That's next time on the New Yorker Radio Hour. Today we're hearing some highlights from the New Yorker Festival.

And now I'll turn things over to my colleague Susan Morrison. Hi, I'm Susan Morrison. I'm the articles editor of The New Yorker. And on Randy Newman's first album, which I'm sure a lot of you have, there's a banner that says that he created something entirely new under the sun. And in the 40-odd years since then, he's done that again and again and again. Singer, songwriter, composer, please welcome Randy Newman. Thank you. Randy and I did this at the festival years ago.

When I was talking to downstairs, I had exactly the same feeling that I did last time that we met, which is you seem like such a cheery, friendly guy. I mean, where is that person who peeks out from all of your more kind of misanthropic songs? It's a little surprising. Yeah. Well, I don't know what to say. I've always been that way. I like to make people laugh.

I'm not generally, socially, I never gloomed around too bad. But the last time I talked to anyone was about a year and a half ago. so I mean, it's easy I saved it up, you know. So, sweet guy, dark songs. It's very similar to... They're kind of dark, but see, the thing about it is, I always thought, yeah, a darker shade of Pam. Well, I was about to say that it's the same kind of tension,

the same kind of dichotomy that is at the heart of most of your best songs. You know, your music pulls in two directions. You have these incredibly sweet, beautiful melodies, and then you're brought up short by these unsettling lyrics. And so I wanted to ask you, is that something you kind of hit on as a technique early on, or is that just your worldview? Is it something? No, it's something I kind of can't help, I think.

What I did do early on was I sort of got bored or despaired of writing a love song. you know, which is 90% of the repertoire. I mean, it's what people like. Even fans of mine, which are some out there, their favorite songs of mine are songs like Feels Like Home. Right. And you don't value those particularly, do you? I don't value them enough.

I mean, I should write more of them. But they interest me a little. I hate to admit, because you can't say it to people without them thinking, oh, you'll think I'm stupid, huh? they just have always meant a little less to me than things like a song like davy the fat boy which just earned it over its first dollar in 40 years it's made a dollar 12 now so i was always more interested in individual character i always felt songwriters i couldn't see why you couldn't have the same latitude a short story writer had now

the medium doesn't really fit it very well. But I don't see why a kid writer can't say, I left home the other night. I'd never been away before. My mother didn't call me in the first week. Went as far as Norfolk. And by what he says, he talks about his mother. He's on this road trip he's on.

He says, you know, I didn't think about my mother too much. One thing like that or, you know, just talk about something like that. The reason is the kids, it's not going to get any girls that way, and it's not going to make any money. But, I mean, it interests me more somehow to hear it. It would, I think. You like to write about cities. You like to write a poet of geography. And it's always been interesting to me to know that very often you write these songs about cities that you've never been to.

A couple times, yeah. And what is it about them that sparks your... imagination. Well, in the case of, you know, when Kurt Vial and Breck write about Chicago, how silly, their picture is of them, you know, the gangsters and stuff. But it's kind of fantastic. Like when I wrote about Baltimore, I saw pictures of Baltimore in a National Geographic, and I saw it from a train also. And that was it. and I could see all that marble.

It looks different. And when I went there, I was right. Not necessarily about the city dying and all that stuff. They were mad. But the marble, and it looks different. All those cities in there, it's great. All these, Wilmington and Baltimore and Philadelphia and Boston, New York, I mean, it may not be news to you.

But when you come to where I come from, a river, you know, brick, it's different. Well, thinking about the names of the cities, you know, maybe think about how one of the things that makes your character songs so incredible is the attention to syntax and diction. Like you have a remarkable ear

for speech patterns across class lines. That's how I start off, how a person speaks. and what words they do know and what words they don't know and try not to make a a mistake you know

well how do you as I mean to get a little biographical here you felt like something of an outsider as a younger person and what do you think I don't feel like an insider now

insider of what right right but I was going to ask you I thought good things happen to me but I don't feel like I still root against the Yankees, you know. I don't feel like, I really don't feel like I'm on the winning team still. I never will.

Even though I know, I did fire, I know how lucky I've been. In this interview I'm talking about that I can't remember where it was that I read with you, You said that, you quoted Philip Roth saying that, thought that Jewish American artists often had a deeper connection to America as subject matter. They want to, you know, that they, you know, kind of really want to embrace it and own it sort of more. Yeah. But he said it about Irving Berlin being the second great genius after Moses. Because he took the blood out of Christmas and made Easter about a holiday or something. About fashion.

Yeah, fashion. But, I mean, it's interesting, you know, talking about anti-Semitism. That I feel. That so many of your songs have inadvertently triggered, you know, people getting hysterical thinking that you're a bigot about this or that. I mean, it must be a peculiar thing to have a song like short people become such an, I mean, a hit because it's a great song, but kind of an accidental hit with so many people not really completely understanding. People got Show be just the same Such as I

Obviously you One of the things that's great about your work Is that you write with the assumption That your audience is really smart And a lot of artists don't do that So They are smart But the audience period is smart

You know, I don't know what I'm doing there Well so how do you Okay Randy How do you feel How do you feel when You know thousands of people misunderstand something? Obviously, it doesn't make you go back

and then write the next song in a dumbed down way. Thank God. I know what the limits are on things. Look, there hadn't been many good lyricists in pop music since it's 1954 when it all started. I don't pay attention to it myself. I mean, a guy could sneak by me and be phenomenal. It could be Shakespeare and I might not notice.

But the music of the century is about to be, you know. Well, you're a bit of a rap fan. though, aren't you? I've read you say that that rap is the only... There's been, you know, two more than two, I'm sure, really, some very good guys in it. You know, music at Kanye West is one of the best

I've ever since 1954. Well, particularly in the context of what we were just saying about these character pieces, you know, that rap artists use that device in the same way that you do, sort of have a character. who just sounds off. Some do.

And so I think that's another place where that's working. Yeah, but it's not a straight brag. Right. When they're willing to be, you know, I like it when they're willing to be a little weak or mistaken or Eminem does it or did it. And Kanye West Sir does it. And musically, that stuff's phenomenal. I mean, I listen to someone.

He's got, I hesitate to use the word in the context of rock and roll. It's a counterpoint, you know, on that beautiful twisted fantasy, one of those songs, Monster. He's got four or five things going on, not just over the same core. They're going on for a while, you know, like the Bach family, you know, or something. Could you imagine? Who's got the goddamn time? Could you imagine doing some kind of collaboration? I mean, that would be really interesting.

Could you imagine doing some kind of collaboration? Who would be driving the bus? But, I mean, it's, one of the things that I've always wondered about your movie work is, you know, I think of your work as incredibly uncompromising. But the one thing, you know, compromises the name of the game when you're working for the movies. So what is it like after just doing everything you want with your own songs to have some director kind of telling you what the mood should be and to change this and to fiddle with that? I mean, how do you deal with that? Do you have any good horror stories to tell?

us. But I mean, you've got to pick who you work with. Yeah, you know, I got horror stories. But, I mean, it is the nature of things. And, you know, those days that I get to work with an orchestra are about the best days I have. And the Pixar people have been all right. I wish that I'd done more movies, you know, where I had, you know, Merrill Streep, you know, going like this. And I could, you know, do.

Well, I was going to. say, I was going to say... But I didn't know I had people running around. But in the Pixar movies, one of the things your music does is it brings a real human warmth to a screen where there are no human beings. And is that a particular

challenged when you're writing? I mean, it must be a completely different thing, writing for this computerized images. Not because the look. It's because they always, they always, and they say it, and it's obvious, they're adults, the whatever they're monsters or whether they're toys

and they have adult emotions and I play it that one some of the other guys don't the composers I mean it's a different thing but I think they wanted at first they definitely wanted it to be full orchestra big deal because they were worried about possible coldness I don't think that's a problem the way they have

I see and when you're writing these songs is it kind of liberating to not be thinking about your own voice, I mean, to be able to be writing them for someone else? My own voice, it also, my own voice, inhibiting to me in a number of ways. The song-like feels like home, for instance. I don't think I'd have written it for myself because I'm all knotted up. You know, it's like I won't write myself a straight love song. There's something that matter with you.

But do you ever sing for instance? I love you just the way you are, you bitch. I'm blown it. I'd have done something. We've just come up with a great idea for your next album. Randy Newman's annotations of the... I'm really sure. It's such a great idea.

I love you just the way you are, and I'll have ruined it, you know, I'm there. Well, thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you. That's Randy Newman performing short people. If you've got hate mail, please send it to him. He spoke with the New Yorkers Susan Morrison in 2014. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, and that's it for today.

Thanks for listening. Next week, James McBride on James Brown. You can find any of the interviews you heard today, and in fact, everything we've done over the past five months at New Yorkerradio.org. 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 Garvis of Tuneiards with additional music from Alexis Quadrato. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon Corby, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sharon Meshihi, Sarah Nix, Paul Schneider, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alex Barron, Becky Cooper, David O'Hanna, Sarah Lilly, and Rhonda Sherman.

The New Yorker RadioR is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.