Wild Card with Rachel Martin - David Sedaris

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Writer David Sedaris tells Rachel he doesn’t mind being humiliated, because he knows it will wind up as great material. David’s new book, “The Land and Its People,” is full of such material. In their conversation, David talks about his latest humiliations as well as the benefits of cleaning while angry and how a British radio soap opera reminds him of how lucky he is.To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcardSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Are you preoccupied with the past or the future? Oh, I'm preoccupied with the past. I mean, I thought when I was young, that when you got to be 69, you would give anything to be young again. And now I realize that when you're 69, you say, thank God I'll be dead in 20 years. Because I don't know how much more of this I can take, you know? I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week my guest answers questions about their life.

Questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me. My guest this week is David Sedaris. And I just had my whole life ahead of me and I didn't know, you know, I knew what I hoped it would be. I just wanted people to know my name. I wanted that so bad. I don't know where I was when I first heard David Sedaris reading his end. essays on the radio. But I remember feeling like I was witnessing something revolutionary. He was

snarky, hilarious, but also big-hearted. His essay called Santa Land Diaries was about the indignities of working as a Christmas elf at Macy's. He read that essay on NPR in 1992, and it jumped started his career as one of this country's greatest observational humorists. To me, his books have always felt like a big old love letter to the messiest parts of being human. His newest collection of essays is called The Land and Its People, and I am so very glad to to welcome David Sedaris to Wildcard. Hi. Hello, thank you so much for having me.

I'm objecting to the word snarky. You are? Yeah, I want you to pull that from your vocabulary and never use it again. That's a true statement. I stand by it. Really? There's some snark, David. No, I object to the word snark.

I object to it. Sometimes during Q&A when I'm doing a show, someone will say, I have a question about journaling, and I say, I want you to write down, I say, I give the date, and I say, I want you remember this. the last time you're going to use the word journal as a noun. I mean, as a verb. As a verb. Yeah.

And this is, I don't know, I just want you to reconsider. Snark. You use a snark. Yeah, it's not a word. It is a word. Yeah, but it's not a good one. It doesn't apply to me. Okay, so the first round is about memories.

Okay. First three cards. One, two, or three. Two. Two. How similar are you to your siblings? How similar am I to my siblings? Very.

Are you? All of us find the same things funny, and all of us, you know, tend to dislike the same thing. You know, like none of us use a word that would ever use words. That's awesome. You know, like none of us would ever, and if one of us said it, the others would be like, what happened to you? Well, you can't say awesome?

You can't say snark or awesome? There's a long list of things you can't say. A physical list, you know, and things go on the list all the time. Sometimes something new pops up and it's on the list by in no time, you know, just a brand new word or phrase that popped up. There is a little bit in your book about the word, perfect. Oh, my goodness. You don't like the word perfect. Your siblings also don't like the word perfect.

No, no. I said to a hotel clerk, and I didn't mean to be a jerk about it, but I said, you've said perfect seven times. They do it without thinking. Right. But they're told in a hotel that if they say, okay, that's not positive enough. So they have to say perfect. And it's the corporatization of it that I object to. You would say, I'm going to check out early.

They'll be like, perfect. Perfect. It's perfect. Perfect. Yeah, perfect. It's like at Starbucks and right, they now, they have to write a message on your cop. And if someone felt like writing a message on your cop, that could be interesting, right? But they have to do it. And so I said to someone a while ago, I said, you don't have to write on my cup.

And she said, yes, I do. And I said, then write, die already. And she said, I can't do that. I said, I have terminal cancer. I said it would be a blessing. You still wouldn't do it. But you know what I mean? Once it's like a corporate idea, it just takes all the fun out of it and it's just dead to me.

There's also a bit in your book, was it your brother who put, what was it? Like a sign on your back when you were walking through the airport? Asked me about being gay. Yes. He hugged me goodbye. My brother's such a practical joker. He hugged me goodbye and I walked through the, well, I was getting into a car. Oh, in front of six of my neighbors.

in New York a couple weeks back, and my sister Amy yelled, hey David, good luck with the operation. You're going to love having breasts. And then all during the ride, I thought, I wasn't like a shame that the driver thought, I wasn't embarrassed that the driver thought that I was transitioning. But I thought, what kind of breast would I get? Like, because I don't, never occurred to me. Would I want large ones or would I, would I say, you know what I've got is, let's just shave them. ones I have now. I mean, your family gatherings must be such a good time. And you are very lucky to share a sense of humor. I mean, you are. I'm terribly lucky. I'm very aware of it, too. Is that, I mean, you had a very contentious relationship with your dad. You love your mom.

Was she funny? I mean, did it all stem from her? Did she cultivate that? I don't know where humor comes from. But I mean, my mother was very funny. But when there were six kids, you know, at the end of the school day, you're trying to get a little attention, right? And so you learn pretty quickly that if you tell a long, boring story, then someone's going to interrupt you or cut you off. So you just learn to edit and get a laugh. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God, there's not enough editing in general. Okay. Next three. One, two, or three. One. One. Where would you go when you wanted to feel safe as a kid. I'll turn that on you.

Oh, look at you. Well, two places. I mean, I don't know if I went on a regular basis, but I have memories of feeling safe in these places. Are you taking notes? Yeah. One, I lived in a very religious household. And there was a real pressure to, like, except Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

And when I did this, I was in the pantry sitting on the flour, plastic thing that held the flour. And I remember doing this religious tradition in that pantry. And then it just kind of felt like a safe place after that. So after I ordained myself a Christian, I would just go in the pantry all the time and shut the door. And it felt, you know, with the canned tomatoes, whatever, it felt like. a special reprieve from chaos. And the other place I went, when I was older, I got my own room in the basement, and there was a heater, like attached to the wall. I'm sure it was an electrical hazard that you could really crank up, really hot. And I would have one of those pillows that has

arms, you know, it has a back and it has a couple arms. And I would put that little pillow down in this corner and situate it right in front of that heater. And I would just crank that heat up. and I would just sit there and sort of hide from my siblings and write notes to boys that I would never give them and kind of dream. And I also remember feeling quite safe in that little corner of my room. And you? What you got?

I was in Canada a few weeks ago doing a show in a theater and there was a man with a rainbow striped pin on that said you are safe with me. So he was like a roving safe space, right? And I'm like, how unsafe is a gay person at my show, right? In Canada. But he was a roving. Also, I don't know.

If someone's advertising it, I almost, I recoil a little bit. I did too. The skeptic in me is like, are you? I did too. It just felt like everything that was wrong with the world, a roving safe space. But you have the best, because you're not. You felt safe in Christ's bosom is what I was hearing there. I did as a child.

I did feel safe in Christ's bosom. I felt safe at home. Yeah. I mean, I just had, I mean, I was a mess, right? I was, I would, this with my eyes and this with my head. And so I just, I've. Wait, you had a tick? Oh, I had like a half a dozen of them.

I was a mess. And, but at home, I mean, my father would be like, cut it out, yeah, stop it. And my mother and the others, I don't know why they didn't. Anyway, so I felt safe with them because they wouldn't give me any grief about it, you know. Or I could just be in my room and just do it to my, you know, to my. Wait, can I ask, did you have Tourette's? I don't know. There were six kids.

You don't get taken to a doctor for anything. You don't, you know what I mean? Which actually, I think. is kind of a good way to do it. Right. You know, because otherwise, well, I can't really speak to it because I would have been on medication and this and that, but, and maybe that would have done me loads of good, but I don't know, was nobody, just stop it.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it went away. And then later, I wrote something about it and I was, I was contacted by someone who said, like it was a form of juvenile Tourette's. you know, that you kind of grow out of. I noticed when I started smoking that a lot of that went away,

and then this doctor said, yeah, that makes sense too. I mean, cigarettes. I don't know, though, about, I don't, a woman came to me at a book signing last week. She went to a book signing with her 15, I mean, she went to her 15-year-old son to the DMV to get his driver's license, right? And the woman at the desk said,

no, ma'am, you are not coming. coming in here with those protruding nipples. And she said, what? And she said, I had a bra on, but the woman at the DMV said, your nipples are protruding. You can't come in. So she went and she bought a t-shirt at a strip mall and her son was so embarrassed. She said, I wanted to call eyewitness news because everyone should know that this is happening, right?

But she wanted to embarrass her as fun further. Anyway. Please tell me how this time said. I said to her, if I were you, I would have said to the woman, I understand completely, you have a pair of scissors I could borrow? And I would just cut my nipples off, right? And then say, now can I come in? But, and then I said that on stage, and then someone came and said,

you know, your nipples are the only part of your body that regenerate. It's like a lizard's tail. And so I told the audience that the next night, and a doctor came and said, no, they don't. I was so naive to believe what somebody said. To me, it's not true at all. I would have gone through the rest of my life believing that nipples regenerate. I don't know how that ties into the safe space you went to when you're a child, but it's a damn good story, so we're just going to leave it there. Jesus is booze him.

Oh, Jesus! That's why you're good. Okay. Last one in this round. One, two, or three. Three. Three. What was your most intimidating move? move, physical move? Yeah. Moving to New York City.

When? Where are you? How old are you? I went to the New York City with, I went to this Greek-American summer camp one year, and so we flew to New York, and then I went to Greece from there. But I had a godfather who lived outside in New York, and he took

my older sister and me into Manhattan, right, to show us what a hellhole it was. And I was like, I need to live in this hellhole. And then I got posters of the skyline, and then it was just about New York and when I moved to New York. But the thing is, you know, I'd known people who moved to New York too soon,

and then they just couldn't make it, you know, and then they had to go home with their tail between their left. So the window opens, and you've got to be ready and jump through the window when it opens. So I moved to Chicago first because I thought, Well, that's a good halfway point, and that's a good place to build up. And in Chicago, you know, my sister Amy, she followed me there, and then she started at Second City. And, you know, you could get a theater for next to nothing and put on a show.

And my friends and I put on these silly shows, and I started reading out loud. And then the window opened, and I dove through it. And I had a job teaching at the Art Institute. That was the window. Someone offered you a teaching job? No, I had the teaching job. Oh, in Chicago. And I didn't deserve it. You know, I never went to graduate school.

But they offered me a job teaching creative writing. Anyway, so I felt kind of fraudulent, but I was, it was a real job. And I left it, knowing I'd never get another one. But the window opened. What was the window? Like, what was the polls in your? There was a fellow who I knew in Chicago who, had a two-bedroom apartment in the West Village,

and he had been subletting it, and he was going to move back there, and he asked if I wanted to be his roommate, and my half of the rent would be $350. And I just felt like professionally, you know, I'd been doing, I started reading out loud in Chicago, and I felt like I'd hit the ceiling there, and it was time. And so all the signs were there,

and I just went, And I was, you know, if I had the wherewithal, I would have maybe had more money, you know, saved up, or I would have had some kind of a job lined up. But the window was open and it might have closed if I didn't act right now. So I acted. Getting an apartment is like 90% of success in living in New York. And part of it too was my father, they're going to eat you alive. You idiot

You're the only decent job You're ever going to have in your life And you're leaving it behind You were going to regret this Didn't that make you want to just do it even more It did But it was just that chorus in the back of your You know

You've already got your doubts and stuff But the last thing you need is that added to it But I've I'm And after that I could move anywhere Right

So when you got there How long did it take you to actually like were there points where he's like I don't know if I am going to cut it or did you find work and a foothold pretty early? I was there for about a month and I had a budget of $7 a day

and I found a job at Macy's as an elf but it didn't start until the day after Thanksgiving and in retrospect your origin story. Yeah, in retrospect it was the best job I ever had, right? But at the time, it was pretty tough because he'd moved to New York and people are like, he's an elf. He moved to New York and he's an elf. Like, it just was so

humiliating, right? But did you watch the comeback? Lisa Kudrov's show? Oh, no. It's one of the best things ever on TV. And there was three seasons of it. And in one of the episodes, somebody said, I've just watched you being humiliated over and over, and she said, oh, no, it takes two people to be humiliated. I never signed up for it. Yeah. So I sort of felt that way. Yeah.

Like if you write and something humiliating happens or something degrading happens, it's just like somebody handing you money, right? Right. I mean, I know people, and if someone insults them, you know, it ruins their day, they're weak, their month. but to me, I feel grateful for it because I can write about it and I can get a laugh out of it. It's like someone handed me money. Let's pull out of the game for a few minutes and talk about your new book. Congratulations. So in this book, readers get a sense of you, I would say, most accusation.

in relationship with other people. Like there's a lot of you in relationship with your very close friends, from present, from past, your sisters, especially Amy and Gretchen and Hugh, who we shall call your person. Nope, you're probably going to hate that one too. Yeah, I hate that one too. He's the person I'm married. He's the person you marry. Yeah. Yeah. So we should just dispense with this. Hugh is legally your husband. I don't know that word. It's not part of your...

I don't know that word. Your lexicon. You've been with this human for a long time, though. I think 36 years. God, that's a long time. And in the book you write about getting married, you can say that. You can say married.

But you did it in secret. Mm-hmm. Why? It was a shotgun wedding. It was just arranged by our banker to save money on inheritance stuff. Yeah. So that's the only reason we did it. And I didn't tell anybody about it because I don't, you know, I didn't want people saying,

is that your husband? But then people just started assuming it. So people started saying it anyway, everybody, right? So I thought, well, I might as well make some money off it. So I wrote about it. I wrote about it. his mother, when the story came out in The New Yorker, sent us a dozen roses, and I thought, what are those for? And then I realized, oh, oh, right. We're married. And then people started

saying, congratulations. And I said, for what? And I thought, oh, right, we're married. Okay, so what's your issue? What's your issue with the word husband? What's your, I mean, I understand people don't really care about marriage. If you said to me, my husband loves driving drunk, Take offense. You know, then it would be, I'd be like, wow, tell me more, right? But if you were a man and you said my husband likes to drive drunk, I would think, well, I hope he gets in an accident and that's one last husband in the world. I just, I don't, I wanted gay people to fight, fight for the right to marry and then not a single one of us to do it. I thought that would have been remarkable, right?

To say I spit on your marriage, you know. I want the right, the availability to do it. Yeah. And I also don't need it. Yeah. Uh-huh. And so I just don't like, you know, like my husband, well, I was on the phone with my husband this morning. And for some reason, my voice.

Wait, why are you falling into a southern accent? I know it. My voice always goes to that. You know, my husband, all I know is my husband loves me. Like, I just, that's the voice in my head when I hear the word husband. Okay. And Hugh, your person that you married's name is Hugh. Yeah.

Is he agnostic? He doesn't care either way. Does he introduce you as his husband? No, God, he would never. No, no. No. That's one of the reasons we're together. Right. You know, I mean, we agree about things like that.

Yeah. He didn't tell anybody either. But the difference is that Hugh, I've never met anything like it, anyone like him, and that Hugh is incapable of lying. And so if someone said to Hugh, are you too married? He would say, is it going to snow? He could change the subject, but he could not say, oh, no, we're not married. We just live together.

And the easiest thing in the world for me to say that. But it was a real struggle for him. So he doesn't have to lie. He doesn't have to evade anymore. So you've been traveling for so much of your life. I mean, every time you write a book, you go on a tour. It seems like you, I mean, you don't have to do this. I know it helps to sell books.

But it does seem like you're out in the world in front of audiences, reading and reading and reading and engaging with people for decades. I don't like to be home for more than a few days. Really? Yeah. How come? Just feels... I get tired of my office or everything just seems the same to me.

You know, I just feel like, I'm in a rot, and he will say, you've been home five days. Yeah. And so he'll know that. He'll be like, it's time for you to go. You've got to get out. Or is he resentful? He says that. He doesn't like being uprooted and being moved somewhere else.

He doesn't, I mean, he doesn't go on tour with me. But he, you know, his mom is in poor health, so he goes to Kentucky a lot and then he has to go. Then there'll be something going on in England and he's got to go there or something going on in France and he's got to go there. And so he bounces around a lot too. He just doesn't do it as cheerfully as I do. Yeah. But it still fills your cup, sounds like. Yeah.

Round two. This round is called Insights. Okay. One, two, or three. Two. Two. What do you enjoy complaining about? Oh, my goodness. What a silly question for you. Wow. I love complaining. And I realized a while ago that, you know, I thought, gosh, why do older people complain? And it's because we can remember an alternative to whatever you put in front of us, right? So I remember a time when people didn't have cell phones. So therefore, they weren't watching TV on their phone without headphones on, right? Right? whereas a younger person grew up with that. So they don't remember anything.

They don't remember it being any different. But like one of your opening chapters is you complaining about the fact that Hugh has to have some kind of surgery and can't cook for you. Yeah. Well, that was a real complaint. I mean, he... Well, like physical. And also when you get to be a certain age, you know, the organ recital. You know, when you get together with people and it's like, my back hurts, my kidney.

heard. You know, you don't want to get into that either. That's no fun. So you avoid that. You avoid the health stuff. And a lot of times when I start complaining, I think, oh, I just sound old. Right. So I try not to complain about those things. Right. Make your complaints make you seem young. That's, I think, a good. But I don't ever, you know, whenever I complain about something, I think, okay, I'm going to go down to my hotel and I'm going to tell them, excuse me, you told me that my room was recently remodeled, I'd like to say, I'm so grateful that the lights are just on a switch. It's not a master switch where all the lights come on, right? Or they have predetermined moods. I'm gay.

I can create my own mood. thank you very much, right? I know what lights to turn out and what ones to leave off. So I try to do that. You try to affirm the positive when you find yourself wanting to complain. I'm in a situation and I say, yesterday, my flight attendant, I said, can I get you some to drink? And I said, I'll have some coffee. And do you have any made?

She said, no, but I'll cook you some. And I thought, that is so nice. I'll cook you some coffee. Wait, what are you writing down right now? I forgot to write it in my notebook yesterday. I'll cook you some. That's how she said it. And when I got off, I said, you cook coffee, good.

Okay, next three. One, two, or three. One. What's an irrational fear you can't shake? How much fear do you have in your life? Do you have an irrational one? An irrational fear. that I can't shake.

Irrational. I think all of my fears are pretty rational. I'll skip it. I'll skip it. Yeah. I love that your fears are rational, though. Okay. Okay, I'll just let you pick from these two. One, two.

Two. Two. What's a sound that instantly puts you at ease? A leaf flower. I'm kidding. What's a sound that puts me me at ease. It's an earnest question. The Archers. The Archers is a soap opera that's been playing on the BBC for, what is it, 70 years now, and it takes place in a small farming community.

And Hugh listens to the Archers. And the sound of Hugh... It doesn't even really watch it? Oh, it's on the radio. Oh, it's on the radio. Oh, my gosh, and every episode is, what, 15 minutes long? Yeah. And it takes place in this little farming community. and the sound of Hugh in the kitchen listening to the archers is makes me feel lucky whenever I hear it because there's no cursing on the archers, nobody ever, there aren't murders on the archers. It's all pretty gentle stuff, right?

Like somebody will decide not to get their dog spayed. And that's like, oh my goodness, you know, It's a big scandal. And it's right up, and it's right up Pugh's Alley, you know, like, he doesn't want to, like, watch a movie that's violent. I do. To me, a gun makes a movie, right? Throw a gun in there. Let's liven things up.

But it's very suited to his nature. And it just makes me feel. lucky that that's a good time for him. Yeah. Is sitting, you know, standing in the kitchen, and he'll happily spend three hours making dinner. You don't care, you know. And so he's in there, and if we're in England, we have a fireplace in the kitchen, and you've got a fire going in there, and it's, it just feels really, it's just exactly my idea of a home, you know, you know, Yeah. We eat dinner with candles on the table and we eat at the table.

Like we've never, the only time we're allowed to eat in front of the TV is when the Academy Awards are on. And we've never eaten over the sink and we've never, I don't know, it's always an event. It always feels like an event. He's not a snob cook like he doesn't put foam on things or, but he's a, He's the best cook. Most people I know know. Wow. Lucky you.

Yeah, no, I'm very lucky that way. And him listening to The Archers means that he's making dinner. And again, means that I'm lucky. It means that I have a home that he keeps. I don't mean that he's a homemaker, but he is. You know, he's, like at Christmas, you know, we always have big stacks of gifts. He makes cookies every year.

You know, he decorates a tree. He thanksgiving. It's all of those things he does them and he puts his back into it. And I know it's so easy for people. And they say, well, no, you get a Christmas tree. Then you've got to take it down. Oh, my God, no, it is not easy as a person who does that in my family. It's not.

No. It takes a lot of effort to make. It puts a lot of effort. into us having a home or seven homes, you know. Okay, last one in this round. One, two, or three. Two. When do you feel most like an outsider?

When do I feel most like an outsider? Mm-hmm. I feel most like an outsider in, uh, Well, in England, you know, where we live half the year. Right. Because I am an outsider, but I grew up in North Carolina, but my family moved from Western New York State when I was in second grade. And so back then, all the newscasters had accents, and one on the radio had an accent,

and if you didn't have an accent, you were a Yankee, right? That's what you're called, a Yankee. And, you know, when you win the war, you don't ever think about it. again. You know, it's only when you lose that you dwell on it. So we moved to a place where people were still sore about the Civil War, you know. You could get beaten up and call the Yankee. So I grew up in that environment, so it felt normal to me. So when I moved, you know, we moved to France and then we moved to England. And then in France, everyone just thought you were on vacation. You know, like I remember I went to the hardware store and the guy said, are you on vacation? And I was like, I've been coming here for

four years. Like that would be a really long vacation. In England, it's not that you're on vacation so much. And so you're really, but you're an outsider. No, but there's a thought barrier. The thinking in the UK, the way they think is so fundamentally different from the way that we think. And I really think that there are, it's a culture of envy that we didn't, we're, I'm seeing here post-pandemic, but I didn't really notice it before the pandemic. I didn't notice how, I mean, I've said this a trillion times. And I heard someone else saying, I don't remember who, but in America, if your next-door neighbor has a Rolls-Roy's, you want one too.

And in England, if you're next to a neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want them to die in a fiery accident. That seems harsh. Yeah. But it's a really fundamentally different way of thinking, right? And it suggests that you can't better yourself, whereas actually your chances of improving your social situation are better in England than they are in America. But British people don't believe it. And Americans do believe it. Delusionally do.

Yeah. But delusionally do, but not, I feel like the pandemic changed a lot of that. And then you started seeing more just sort of people feeling stuck and people feeling like it's not fair. You know, because it used to be, oh, if you work, you can have what that person has. But now I feel people thinking like, well, no, I am working and I'm not getting that. It's something, it's more than that. That's the system. Yeah.

There's something structural. And so I feel that changing in America. And it really had a lot to do with America being a beautiful place was optimism. Yeah. You know? And, you know, Europeans will make fun of American optimism. But I always thought, like, well, make fun all you want. It's a really nice quality.

It's a nice quality to believe in the future. And it's a nice quality to feel, to see. see your place in it. You know? And I hate seeing that... Diminishing. Dimm. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. But they still like you in England. I'm sure you still do book readings and sell books. You know, I've been very fortunate to have a show on the radio on the BBC for, I don't know, 10 years or so. Yeah. So they've let you in, sort of. They've let you into their club.

Well, you know, that was the thing. Living in France, there wasn't a place for me. And then I started going to the UK. I started going to England, and they said, we'll just scoot down and make a place for you. You know, like, oh, you want to write for the newspapers? Sure, we'll just scoot down. You want to be on the radio? Sure, we'll just scoot down a little bit.

And it really made me feel welcome and appreciated. And it feels, nothing feels so good is making your way in another country. Yeah. You know, because they've got their own people to read. And, you know, funny, I mean, come on. You know, they're pretty funny. They're just born that way. Right, I know.

And they don't need me at all. And so I just so appreciate them. Although every time you succeed there, there's somebody who wants. But see, the thing is, the thing is, when you're, when you're, I feel like, when you're an American and you come back. to America and you go to customs, there's a cape, a wool cape, soaked in water, and they say, welcome home, and they put it on your back, and that is race relations in America. And you forgot what it was like not to wear it, but now it's on your back again, and you're back in the United States, right? And like the class stuff in England, I can walk down the center of.

It's not my game. You know? And so I'm excluded from it in a lot of ways as well. So it's really nice. It would be like in France, I didn't have any beef. You know, like there's tension between, you know, French people in Arabs, but wasn't my thing. You know, and when I would go into like an Algerian market or whatever, once I heard my accent, they were like, great. Malcolm?

You know. And so again, it wasn't my thing. Okay. On that note. I said, welcome in. I hate welcome in. Did you just say it? I said welcome in.

It's a whole thing in your book, how you hate when people say welcome in. I know it. I said, and they wouldn't say it either. They wouldn't say it either, welcome in. It just is in your head. Yeah, I guess it was in my head. Oof. I got to clean my head out.

You really do. Snarky, snarky head. Okay. Beliefs. One, two, or three? One. Are you preoccupied with the past or the future? Oh, I'm preoccupied with the past.

The past. Yes. I don't know if it's an age thing or, oh, it must be, because most of my life's over. Yeah. You know. There's more to think about in the past. When I think about the future, this all gets worse. You know, I mean, everything gets worse when you think about the future, right?

I mean, I thought when I was young, that when you got to be 69, you would give anything to be young again. And now I realize that when you're 69, you say, thank God I'll be dead in 20 years, because I don't know how much more of this I can take, you know? Because if you went back to being 20, it'd be, then you'd feel like, oh, I'm not going to have any career. And I'm not going to be able to afford to ever buy my house. And I'm not going to ever have children. And I'm not going to be able to ever do any of these things. Because that was your psychology then? Or you just think the world has changed to the point where if you were 20 now, that would be your reality.

That's what I would be. Maybe not. I mean, it's a beautiful thing about being young or used to be a beautiful. thing about being young is that your future was wide open and you didn't feel, you know, you were an optimistic person and some, maybe that, you know what, I'm putting an old head in a young body is what I'm doing. Yeah. I think. But also, I can't write about the future, you know. I mean, I can write about. People do, but it's not a thing that's interesting. It's not my thing. Yeah. So I was just writing something.

My brother, I saw my brother last month, and he's like a, you know, just a slob like you wouldn't believe, you know. But his house was clean. And he said, man, I spent a month cleaning. He said, you know, you ought to, I did that mad clean. You know, you've got to be mad to really clean. And my sister Amy and I were like, oh, we thought we were the only ones who did that. But you know when you start cleaning, you just get furious.

Yeah. Not at who left the mess, but like, I have things that I go back to. And I was cleaning. And then I was like, oh, the priest's wife in 1968. You know what I'm cleaning my bathroom thinking, oh, I wish I'd said this to her when she told me that. So I can really hold on to things. It's an effective motivator. Yeah.

It's like your aggression. It's like a steam engine. You know, you're shoveling coal into the steam engine. But, yeah, the past is, and it could even be yesterday. You know, I mean, but that's where my material is. My material's not ahead of me. It's all behind me. Yeah.

Okay. This is a really good way to do an interview. Well, thanks. Yeah, it's kind of fun. One, two, or three. Three. Are there any reoccurring symbols that show up in your life? Turtles.

Turtle? Really? Yeah, it all comes back to turtles. I mean, doesn't it, though? Yeah. I mean, I have no idea. But just tell me why. I don't know.

I just find up, wind up writing about turtles a lot. They just show up. There's no escaping them. Just everywhere. I mean, they don't live in England. There are no turtles living in England, so I don't even have them there. But then I'll come back to the United States, and it's like turtles again? I just see them everywhere.

You'll be driving, and they'll be like a snapping turtle trying to cross the highway. No, that doesn't happen. It doesn't? No. Oh. But, gosh, there's a place in North Carolina where all these turtles get run. run over because they're trying to mate. And so, and it's like, not the highway, not the highway.

And then they just get run over and it's just the saddest thing. And you wish that they could. Have you ever hit a turtle? I've never driven. What? I've never driven a car. I don't want to hit turtles. That's what I decided when I was young.

What if I were driving at night and not paying attention? I had a turtle. How could I live with myself? No, I never learned to drive a car. I mean, that is wild, because you didn't always live in cities, but... No, but you know what? If I didn't learn to drive a car, I wouldn't be sitting here, you know? Because other people my age were out going wherever they wanted to in a car. And I was like at home, and I thought, well, how do I entertain myself at home? So I started off doing it. doing artwork and then I started writing. But if I had the world at my fingers, you know, like... Like when you were 16, you just had no desire or whenever you could get your license?

I took driver's ed, but then I hit a mailbox. And I thought, what if that had been a turtle? How would I live with myself? And I never drove again. That's not true. Well, Hugh, okay, maybe 10 years ago, Hugh and I were in New Zealand and he said, you drive. But you don't have your license. No, but we were just on the driveway of our hotel. And I drove the car over to a stone wall, scraped the whole side of the car on the stone wall.

I couldn't go straight. I freaked out and I got, I don't know how people stay in the middle of a road. Well, first of all, we don't do this. You don't? We try to get 10 and 2, David. You give your hands at 10 and 2. Yeah. Okay.

Last one. One, two, or three? One. One. What's something you want younger generations to understand? What's something I want younger generations? What is your wisdom to bestow to the youngs? So understand.

Or share with them. One thing you can't. you don't have when you're young that you get when you're old, is that I can look at somebody now and I can see what they looked like when they were young. And I can recognize that they had a youth. And I can see somebody like this woman had defecated in her pants on the plane. And she's coming up the aisle, you know, and they're taking her off the plane. And I saw her when she was 20 and she was so beautiful.

And I could give her that courtesy, do you know what I mean? Yeah. But I couldn't have, if I were younger, I would just say, you know, like you don't imagine an old person having a life really. Right, that's true. When you're younger. Yeah, right. And I think it's just something that comes with age. And I don't know that you even could do that when you're young.

And maybe that's what part of what, it's part of the, I don't want to say self-centeredness. It's something you can't know when you're young. Right. You know? But there is, I hear you saying it is worth the time to think of the sum total of a person and not just this one experience or this one judgment of them. But to imagine them as a fully developed 360 degree human who was a child, who was an adolescent, who has made other mistakes, who has done wonderful things,

and maybe you're catching them at a bad moment. But then, too, I just say this now when it behooves me. You know, so when I'm the one who defecates in my pants, you know, people are going to be like, he was hot when he was 19, you know. Not really going to do me any good, you know. But I don't know. I still feel, I still feel that if you, work hard, you can get stuff, you know. I don't feel like it's hopeless. I don't feel that it's rigged.

You know, I don't feel that because I, that's one thing. And I don't, I don't know that I don't know that I work harder than anybody else. but I'm pretty sure that I do. And so I just say that from experience, you know. And nobody had more, I don't know, like I kind of got a late start in what I do. It never occurred to me that I could be on the radio with this voice. You know, I grew up at a time when, you know, radio announced people on the radio had really beautiful voices.

and it would be like thinking that I could be a hand model if I had like, you know, rheumatoid arthritis. Like I would have never occurred to me that I could have, you know, so things change and doors open and, and, but, you know, unless you do the work, it's not going to, you know, it's not going to happen for you. and I guess just the value of that and the way that the pleasure it can bring you,

I think, is profound. And I don't know, it's brought me a lot of pleasure in my life. And, you know, finding your way like that and kind of creating a career for yourself and making a, you know, carving a path in the world. Sounds like you're still a rather optimistic person. I think I am, and that's a good quality.

I mean, snarky, let's be clear, but also optimistic. Yeah, I am. I keep hoping, I keep hoping that they'll open a four seasons in Kansas City. David Sedaris, we end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. In the time machine, you revisit one moment from your past. It is not a moment you want to change anything about, but it is a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. What moment do you choose? I am a senior in high school.

It is in October afternoon. It's perfect fall weather. and I brought the stereo. My sister Gretchen had a stereo that was in a cabinet and I brought it outside into the backyard and plugged it in and I'm listening to Phoebe Snow's first album and I'm raking leaves and it is the happiest I've ever been in my life and I wish I could go back and linger there.

I remember just because growing up in North Carolina, It could be October, and then all of a sudden it's like 90 in high humidity. And this was a perfect fall day, perfect. And I had my little perfect fall clothes on. And I had an activity, you know, to rake the leaves in the backyard. And I didn't, and I think, you know, I don't know what's in store for me, but I think on my deathbed, I'll think, well, let me go back then. And there weren't even other people around.

But I remember I was going to be seeing people that night, so I had that to look forward to. But, and it was so simple. You know, I mean, I think people, I was invited to the Academy Awards this year. And just based on something that I wrote, it wasn't a movie. I wrote something about a movie, and they liked what I'd written, so they invited me. And so I was in the audience, and I was thinking people winning the award, you have to worry that what if this is in? What if this is the best moment of your life? And I always thought I wanted the best moment of my life to just be,

in retrospect, I would see like, oh, it was that. And it was so simple. And it didn't take, it's never taken much to make me happy, you know. Really, when you, you know, good weather can just be, you know, just a beautiful fall day. And I like the autumn. and being in a nice place and where we live

in England and the countryside it's so beautiful it doesn't it does I can't get used to it it's so beautiful and I think there's something about thinking

you deserve to live in beauty you know because you resist that and you think I don't deserve this something says they're going to take this away from me I shouldn't have this but then when you add the right music and then if you add the right weather,

that's really all it takes. But I was so, and I just had my whole life ahead of me, and I didn't know, you know, I knew what I hoped, you know, it would be. I just wanted people to know my name. I wanted that so bad. And I don't know why.

You know, it didn't matter anything to other. people, but, and it was really important to me that that happened. And, you know, but when you're, it's not like year 30 and you're like, why, it hasn't happened yet. And you're, you know, feeling like, oh, you could be a failure. You're 17. Yeah. It's all before you. And, and it's a great day and, you have a rake in your hands, you know. What could be better? David Sedaris, his newest book is called The Land and It's People. It has been such a pleasure. Thanks for doing this.

Oh, it's been a real pleasure for me too. So if you're a David Sedaris fan, or if you heard him for the first time in this episode and you dug what you heard, I would recommend checking out my conversation with comedian Tignitaro. Tig and David Sedaris have this style where they are just having the time of their lives, observing all the weird stuff humans do, and they'd be doing it anyway if no one was listening. but we are. It's like we, the audience, are being invited into their hilarious inner dialogue. My conversation with Tig was one of my favorites. This episode was produced by Alicia Zhang and Summer Tomad.

It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Andy Huther. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolana Sangweni, and our theme music is by Ramteen Arablewee. You can reach out to us at wildcard at npr.org. We're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.