WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1040 - Kurt Andersen

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

At some point in the past decade, Kurt Andersen felt like he had to figure out America. Coming from a professional career rooted in satire and troublemaking, Kurt had a pretty good vantage point to examine the tug of war between reason and magical thinking that has become a chronic American condition. Kurt talks with Marc about putting this all into his book, Fantasyland, and recalls the founding of Spy Magazine, where he and Graydon Carter took pleasure messing with public institutions like the New York Times, Hollywood, and Donald Trump. They also talk about Kurt's time at the Harvard Lampoon and how he came to host Studio 360. This episode is sponsored by Lights Out with David Spade, Stamps.com, and ZipRecruiter. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what's happening uh this is mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it kurt anderson is here today. Kurt Anderson. Do you know

Kurt Anderson? Kurt Anderson's got his own gig over there at NPR. He hosts Studio 360 for years, and he's written this book, Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500-year history, and you can get that wherever you get books but i read it i told all you guys that were listening about it because i was excited about reading it it just covers it man it it just contextualizes everything just the american unconscious and the that just kind of bubbled over from from the beginning all the way through till now. Just the sort of strange, erratic, fantastical religiosity and hucksterism and self-involvement and the ongoing struggle between reason and bullshit.

It's really a great book, a very dense and readable book, and I was so thrilled about it. I was like, fuck it, man. Let's talk to this Kurt Anderson guy. What compelled him? Because I'm grateful for it. You know, when you can tell you're reading an obsessive screed, you know, that was just, you know, written in fury to understand, to try to get some perspective on what's happening. He was able to really track it that even before this country was settled it was uh you know religious weirdos landed here and then you just watched christianity

mutate and then you watched it you watched pt barnum and hucksterism mutate then you watched the new agers mutate and then you watched this sort of weird ongoing battle between ridiculous beliefs and i actually uh facts and. And it's an interesting ebb and flow through 500 years. And as I said before, it's dense, but he's got a wry wit and he's kind of cutting. So it makes it readable and compelling. And I'm going to talk to him in a few minutes. All right. How are you guys doing? Everything all right? You all right how you guys doing everything all right you're right how's it going exciting times right watching our racist shit bag of a president gain confidence and conversely watching once reasonable people lapse and buckle into intolerance and garbage mindedness. Just an ongoing shit show. A horror. A horror. The horror.

The horror. Well, I hope you're all holding up and holding on to something inside yourselves that is righteous and provides a sliver of hope. At the very least, people, have a fun breakfast, maybe a nice piece of melon. Listen to some music. Enjoy the company of the people you love and like, kind of. And you know what? Maybe help someone out. Throw someone a bone. Help them out.

And also, please, don't kill yourselves. There'll be no killing of the selves. Sword of Trust is opening in more cities this Friday. It's up over 100. Go to swordoftrust.com to see where it's playing near you. I believe we got the number three comedy of the year so far on Rotten Tomatoes. I might be making that up. I might have hallucinated that, but it seems kind of specific.

Also, go to wtfpod. com slash tour to see my tour dates. I'll be in Raleigh, North Carolina at Good Nights starting this Thursday and then at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon the following week. OK. All right. So that's good. I promoted myself. There you go, Mark. So I got it. I got to tell you something. A couple of things. You know that I'm in this ongoing jazz hole and I'm trying to wrap my brain around the new music, the new musics. And I got to be honest with you. I was earlier today, I was just sitting around listening to Wynton Marsalis' first album, Wynton Marsalis. Obviously, we all know the name Wynton Marsalis.

But did I really know the man's work? No, I did not. I really had no fucking idea. But as I said, I'm trying to wrap my brain around the whole jazz thing. So I'm reading this book by Nate Chynan. He sent me the book. I'm going to give you my reading list, my summer reading list. I have it right here in front of me.

Would you like that? Is it too late in the summer for summer reading list? But I'm reading the Nate Scheinen book. The book is called Playing Changes, Jazz for the New Century, right? So I'm reading that a bit. I got through about a chapter and a half. But at the end of each chapter, he makes a list of the albums that he discussed. But now I'm listening to Wynton Marsalis' first album after he talks about when Wynton appeared on the scene, I guess in the 80s. And I fucking had no idea. I had no idea.

I mean, it's so ridiculous. But I don't know if you know this, but Wynton Marsalis is a fucking genius. And I don't know what I was thinking but like am I really that much of a nostalgist am I really that guy the guy that I see that looks kind of like me at the record store about my age flipping through the bins looking for their past looking to connect with something tangible that makes sense am i that guy i don't know but anyway talking about jazz right out of nowhere folks out of nowhere i'm looking at the emails and um for those of you who listen who listen to this part of the show, you'll know this is hilarious. Okay.

I get an email. Hi, Mark. I knew you'd eventually come around. I've been a fan for years. Podcasts are terrific. Even the commercials. Yours. Donald Fagan.

Donald Fagan. I knew you'd eventually come around that was fucking hilarious donald fagan from steely dan knew i'd eventually come around that was a big laugh big laugh i wrote uh one of the great emails to receive hilarious we should talk sometime i'm still getting the hang of what you did and my subject line is i'm going to believe this is you and then donald fagan wrote back yup it's me pleased to meet you df i knew you'd eventually come around anyway folks i'll give you my uh my reading list for the summer fantasyland by by Kurt Anderson, How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History. And then It Came From Something Awful, How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump Into Office by Dale Barron.

This is a great book. Aaron. This is a great book. It's informative, especially for people of my generation or older who don't really know about Reddit or 2chan or 4chan or about a whole generation of people that were brought up gaming and sharing anime information and how that became just a wave of totally toxic garbage that infused itself into the mainstream. And we didn't understand where this stuff was coming from. And it just seemed like news to us. But this is a fucking fascinating book. The two of these books together, they're a dark portal, Fantasyland, and it came from something awful.

But they're well written and there's enough humor, not humor, but it's readable and it's very informative about what's, you know, sort of the history of what's happening and how it's going to continue happening. And then when you get, you know, a little tired of the darkness and the truth, you could go to some lighter truth. And, uh. But this is only if you're a music person. You can read The Birth of Loud, Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar Pioneering Rivalry that Shaped Rock and Roll by Ian S. Port. Great read, especially if you're into guitars and rock music. And then, you know, like me, I haven't finished it yet,

but there's no reason not to get to get started uh with nate chinan's book the playing changes jazz for the new century these are the things i'm reading enjoy now i explained to you what fantasyland is basically about up front there it's really about the history of magical thinking in America, the idea of America being a place where you could reinvent yourself, where anything was possible, where utopias were possible. And then the sort of evolution of that

through Christian hucksterism, huckster hucksterism, all the way through the sort of conspiracies and things of the left and the right, the way the 60s morphed into a new type of magical thinking. And I don't know, it's it's really all there and very specific and beautifully executed. Now, I talked to Kurt about the book and I guess I dropped some names that you should probably, you know, know about. Adam Curtis. We start talking about Adam Curtis because, you know, he's Adam Curtis is a documentary filmmaker. And I've watched a couple of his documentaries, which I found to be mind blowing.

Years ago, 2004, The Power of Nightmares made a big impact. I actually didn't see that. The two that I watched sort of back-to-back were Hypernormalization and The Century of Self. And now that I'm looking at his filmography, he's done a lot of stuff. But I found hyper-normalization and the century of self to be brain changers.

All of these things that I'm mentioning to you today changed my fucking brain, including the book about guitars and just including a chapter and a half of nate chinan's book about jazz the other stuff darker stuff a lot of information but uh they gave me some relief you know right alongside of the terror you know it's like if you have free floating terror because your brain is just taking in information and it's terrifying you know that just causes anxiety but if you have terror that's coming in and then you contextualize it there's relief in that oh there's a context there's even a historical context still terrified but not causing as much anxiety because there's relief in knowing that there's a context as opposed to just this fucking bullshit you know it's just a

a shotgun full of bullshit clickbait and memes go blasting into your brain as soon as you wake up and turn on your phone you just it just sort of like it's on it's just it's on scatter it's like a sawed-off it's not even a tight grouping just a fucking blast of garbage that just blows in through your eyeballs and tries to hook onto your synapses and then find it just goes in sees if it can find an emotion or a desire or a need that it can latch on to and then it kind of rides your synapses for a little while and then you go tell somebody else and that my friends is how uh publicity works word of mouth publicity and also fascism okay good times good times in the autocratic usa USA. Dig it, man. Kurt Anderson is here. And we get into it, man.

We get into it. His book is Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, 500-Year History, wherever you get books. He hosts Studio 360 on NPR affiliate stations nationwide. And it's also available as a podcast. This is me and Kurt Anderson talking in a New York City hotel room. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I wanna let you know, we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family.

Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. So I guess I should start by telling you that. Like, I don't know, I got the book, you know, I get a lot of books, Fantasyland, and I decided to sort of start it.

And then I was like, oh my God, all the answers are here. All the answers I need are here for the whole thing. And there is some part about it, you know, knowing where, you know, you sort of came from in terms of intellectually and comedically and politically, that it feels like there was an obsessive need for you to make sense of this stuff. I don't know if it was fear or some need to contextualize it, but what was it that compelled you to get to the bottom

of this particular part of the fabric of American culture and politics well they're what you're right about the fact that there was this need that had been simmering along for a while i mean um i often i mean people make fun of me for harking back to and harping on the fact that well i grew up in nebraska back in the day when it was like this right and and and one of the things about that that is relevant to this is that yeah sure it was a religious place it was nebraska blah blah but it wasn't it just in the religious sense yeah it wasn't all nutty right like it got right you know right 70s and 80s and 90s so that was part of it but then i i guess i just so it was a thing i'd been thinking about and

like uh when i asked professors like why is america this way right or that way yeah they didn't really have an answer that satisfied me and so so yeah i i felt i had to like figure it out you know and then you know earlier in this century and in the 2000s when when it just kept getting look at that there's there's another example of of of rampant craziness and everybody getting to think you know their own facts sure their opinions are their facts yeah i i really like something's happened here yeah and what it is ain't exactly clear and so i had to figure it out and and but you had to figure that and i think you tried to find some comfort in the fact and it was a lot of research in that

that not only had it happened before that this ongoing struggle between reason and magical thinking, it's pre-America, and it's always been a struggle. But I think the thing that stops the logical-minded person is like, how is that still an issue now? Right. And when I didn't really know, I mean, when I hadn't written a big, I'd never written a big book like this. I'd written little nonfiction books. I'd written novels, but I'd never written a big book like this. And so written little nonfiction books. I'd written novels. But I'd never written a big book like this. And so whenever I write anything, though, it's always, you know, I don't totally know what I'm going to do or say or write or what I think.

The writing is the figuring out, you know? And so I didn't know, like, at first I thought, like, wow, did this happen? Did this start in the 60s? And then I said, no, no, no, no, no. As I did research and found out, no, no as i did research in fact no look look at all these these bits of dna that have been there from the get-go so you know i didn't know what i was gonna say until you know i was in the middle of saying really in terms of oh reassuring that we've we've always had this but and and yes i didn't really and i had a hunch that like wow

why has america gotten this way as opposed to, you know, England or Japan or Australia or whatever. And then I had to figure that out and I had to really like try to figure out like, are we really different than those countries? And, and how are we like what we used to call third world countries in this way and stuff so so but yeah it was it was a it was a kind of like wow this this bugs me and interests me and and i guess i have to write a big non-fiction book to figure it out for myself and it's like the weird thing about the book is is that it's dense but you know because you have sort of a a kind of sardonic sort of humor you know it kind of propels it but it's like it's a lot of informationardonic sort of humor, you know, it kind of propels it.

But it's like it's a lot of information. I mean, you really had to do some homework. And then I guess the intellectual heavy lifting was really positing the reality that the nature of this country was the promise of a type of freedom for reinvention and a type of freedom to practice any kind of life you want. And then the core seed of the book that kind of gets it going is that the first settlements here were based on magical thinking. They were religious utopias, right? And then after that, you get people that are like, i can be whatever i want so the kind of two through lines of of religious magical thinking and just you know classic american hucksterism it's really the the ground on which this country's built that in massacring

indigenous people yes which which which i try to give some uh time to in this book but but yeah the i mean because you know people always said to me when I was writing novels, oh, would you ever write a novel that's completely not funny? I said, I don't know. I don't think so. It's part of how I think about things. And similarly with this, even though it's about this serious thing and maybe this tragic fall

of America and all that, still, there's funny aspects. I find these... I find Joseph Smith funny. I find all this stuff funny. He's hilarious. Yeah. But it's hilarious in that horrible way where you're like, how the fuck do people buy this?

But again, I don't want to make it all about, oh, it's a bunch of suckers and these hucksters. It is that. But it's only part of it. And it's people who do self-select to come here. Like, there's gold? They say there's gold? I'm going. Yeah.

Or what? The Indians are Satan's agents? Ooh. Let's get them. I mean, it's people. I mean, in 1600, when the Europeans started coming here, I mean, it's not as – I mean, the Middle Ages, the primitive Christianity was ending, except for these freaks. So they brought that old version here.

And there's another kind of belief, too. It wasn't just religious. I mean, religion is part of it, but it's also just this, like, man, build it and they will come. I can do anything. It was part of the Enlightenment, too. It's not up to an expert to tell me what to believe. It's up to me to decide what's true. So it was a perfect storm of lucky and slightly unlucky timing.

Now, in terms of the humor, because now we can sort of like, you know, go back a little bit. Because I know you, you know that that was really you know where you you defined yourself was with satire for a while yeah and so what where what's your what's your journey there so you grew up in omaha i did in the 50s 50s i i think of 60s but yes sure but uh born in the 50s and grew up there in the 60s and left in the 70s and and so how does like what was going on in omaha you know I mean what like when I'm growing up I've been through there a couple times but what was the nature of that city was it I remember the insurance company but where you was your family I know you talk a little bit about in

the book were they farmers no I know I started dying off that idea like yeah sure it was a ranch and I know my dad was a lawyer and we lived in a house and it was a suburban nice suburban you know leave it to beaver operation it was it was very father knows best leave it yeah you know and you had an older brother i had three older uh siblings and they're important older brothers are important uh in the education all of my elders my three siblings in their respective ways were all crucial right and when you were in high school, was the plan to be like a journalist? Yeah, maybe. Well, more probably at that point an academic.

My sister, my eldest sister, was becoming a professor. I said, oh, that looks pretty good. In what? Political science at Syracuse. Ultimately, various places before. But that looked good. And, you know, reading, thinking, writing. Sure.

You know know not working three months a year yeah i mean uh but uh so no i didn't know what i i wrote for the school paper and wrote funny things for the school paper like what um like a a joseph heller parody about my high school about a an or and then an outraged thing saying why aren't there any black people in this giant high school white high school of ours and stuff like that. I was trying to make trouble. Sure. Did you succeed?

Late 60s. Yeah. Well, in what? In integrating the school? No. But in making trouble, but not so much trouble that they didn't give me good grades and let me into college and stuff. Yeah. And so you grew up, fortunately unfortunately in a family that put a premium

on education and it was it was you know what you guys did and kind of as i once said to my mother when she was missing all of her children not living there said you know you kind of raised us all to leave yeah right right and she and she took a big sigh and said yeah i know so when did you start uh when did you like so you wrote a joseph heller parody in high school so that was happening so you were in when did you graduate high school 72 so the world was blowing up yeah and i assume that you're in the wow so you're in high school when the bulk of the vietnam war is happening uh correct and and and and i got a draft number and i was i i people my age never actually got drafted i i i as in so many younger just too young yeah you know i was a you know middle younger boomer and and just too young

to get literally just young enough to get a number but not young not old enough to get drafted and your brother went no no no one went no nobody went he had a he had a heart thing oh really not bone spurs he had an actual real heart thing physical Oh, really? Not bone spurs. He had an actual physical thing. A real heart thing. Physical thing, yeah. But like when you, because the more I read about the 60s, because I sort of missed it,

I'm about a decade younger than you, there was, did you feel that the country was coming unglued? As a child in Omaha? No. I mean, I was definitely paying attention to the 60s. Yeah. As a 10-year 12 year old 14 year old

15 year old for sure and and you know went from being a you know having literally a picture of richard nixon on my wall at the beginning of 1968 when i was 13 to like getting high and like revolution man when i was 14 14 yeah oh that's Yeah. So you're getting high in Omaha at 14. Uh-huh. That's good. So it made it up that far, the drugs. Sure. The dead were playing in Omaha all the time in 67. Really?

Oh, sure. No, and there was this little Soho-like part of town where there was a head shop and it was all happening. Yeah. The t-shirts and the pipes and the bongs and the posters, blacklight posters. All that. You saw The Dead in 67? I didn't actually, but all of my siblings and the slightly older kids did.

So you had the brother down the hall in the house that had the posters and the records? No, he was in a rock band. He was in first as a child, the Fabulous Impacts. And then he started his own band, Naked Afternoon. And how'd they do? They did fine. And then he had his own band naked afternoon and how they do uh they did fine and then he then he had a band called kraken and they made albums and he has records out he has records out and he he wrote a song for the temptations he wrote a song for fog hat oh he was cool which fog hat song i don't know one of the big ones blue spruce woman oh yeah

yeah yeah do you do all right on that one he did all right and now he has a wonderful life uh uh rebuilding and creating and restoring old grand pianos and wow yeah and he's like a mat world class uh piano technician yeah really did is he here no he's in los angeles ah that's an interesting niche job it's a great niche job yeah and he And he's apparently a genius. One of the wizards? Yes, indeed. And you have two sisters? I do. And they're both academics?

No, one of them's an academic, and one of them is an executive whisperer, executive coach, consultant type person. Oh, one of those people. Yeah. All of your former Comedy Central and other bosses have hired her, I guarantee you. To sort of reconfigure their career

trajectories and their personal brands. And how they deal with their employees. Yeah, that's a weird, magical sort of profession, that one, the consultant. Because when you ask them what they do, it's sort of like, oh, that seems a little vague, but I understand. It's priestly. Yeah. And then you just

there was no other, you wanted to go to Harvard. I wanted to get out of Omaha. But Harvard's a big, I mean, that's like. No, and I applied to a bunch of, I applied to colleges back when, you know, literally, I don't think my parents knew where I was applying to college and I just did. And I got in and I got into Harvard, so I went there. Did you know what you were getting into?

I mean, I guess I'd visited once, but know what I was getting into i'd uh well i mean i guess i'd visited once uh but know what i was getting into kind of i mean i knew i was i was going to the east i was going to a city and yeah i was this was a this was a portal into the some version of the life i wanted yeah and what so you're at harvard in Now, like, when you get, because I'm fascinated with Harvard because there was no way I was going to go there because I just,

I obviously didn't have the grades and I didn't have the understanding and now when I look at Harvard you realize there's sort of a guarantee that comes with Harvard that you will be placed in society to a certain degree. You will be,

you're anointed somehow. There's some privilege as definitely involved that it anoints. No, there's no question about that. And when you got there, what were you going to study? You know, what I did, more or less, you know, sociology, social studies, economics, history, that stuff. There was no then creative writing study. And so it was like, which version of academic academic study do you want to do and i and

i thought that liberal arts yeah but but specifically kind of the history social science stuff yeah so you're interested in people uh well that's a good question i i don't know i can't that's i i'm not uninterested in people but i was interested in what was i interested in i was interested in like being interested. I also took a lot of art history courses. I liked that a lot as well. Oh, yeah. So it's a broad spectrum, you know, intellectual foundation.

Yeah, it was kind of a liberal arts thing. Yeah, that's fair enough. Yeah. But like sociology and art history, you know, you were not in any way a science guy. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I had done fine in math and science as a child. And then there was this point when I was 14 or so, and I just reached the amount,

the limit of math that I could understand. And I suddenly was getting bad grades. I hadn't gotten bad grades before. I said, I got to get out of this. Get out of math. And back then, at this perfect late 60s time, they kind of allowed me to, no, sure, whatever you want, young man and and so i didn't have to do

math anymore or science after after a sophomore in high school and was it was there like um a lot of uh trouble on campus you know in in the early 70s because like you mean in high school or in college no in college i mean i guess the war was coming up it was over yeah and in fact my my feeling arriving uh there just having turned 18 and i, was like, man, I missed this. I fucking missed the whole student hippie thing. It's done. That was my sense. But the clothes were still around.

Yeah, actually, the clothes were still around. The drugs were still around. Music was different. But basically, Vietnam was winding down and the draft was over. So, like, eh. I mean, that was, for me personally, that was the sensation that, like, wow, the high stakes. How's this going to end? Is a revolution going to happen?

That was over. The revolution was over. That was my sense. As an 18-year-old from Nebraska, yeah. Were you the head writer at the Lampoon? I didn't have a head writer but but i got i i you you try out you write things and then they either elect you or don't to the harvard lampoon and and i did right away uh my first fall in college and and and got elected and uh that was my life i mean that but you know i also did this i went to class and did your sociology and your history yeah but

but the lampoon instantly became the entire center of my universe and and how does it like because i've talked to people who were there much later and they may be an honorary whatever over there i got a little medallion of some kind oh really yeah they had me in so let's let's do our secret yeah i don't i don't remember the secret thing but but there is sort of it doesn't seem because i i i guess i romanticize it because i know there's a lot of people of your generation that made tremendous you know headway comedically and satirically in the world but like these when i got there it was like there's a bunch of kids you know i'm like you're in charge but i guess you guys were kids too as soon as i arrived i

happened to meet sandy frazier who became a writer at the new yorker and still is a writer at the new yorker and an incredibly funny guy and a brilliant writer and and his friend Jim Downey who these two guys who were in the Harvard Lampoon I didn't know anything about the Harvard Lampoon I didn't but I met them right away I thought man these are my people I gotta join this and and so were they deeper or better I don't know they were were fantastic. And the other point for future cultural history of the next 45 years is that there was not yet this pathway from the Harvard Lampoon to writing for TV.

Show business. Show business. I mean, it happened here and there, but that wasn't a thing. And Jim Downey really was the, I don't know, patient zero of that operation. Graduated from Harvard and went to just as Saturday Night Live was beginning and became a writer. Oh, he was the guy that stayed there for like 40 years, right? Correct.

And out of that, you know, other Lampoon people did and The Simpsons started. He's the guy. He is the guy and when you get to the lampoon like what was the well i guess maybe the reason i think that the the the younger people were deeper was they were pushing against uh something more consolidated as as a bad guy like it just seems like that everything's very fragmented and people are more self uh more it's it's more self-centered whereas i think then you're like that we we know the man was still the man exactly right the man was still the man no it's true and you know because like uh you know until later it wasn't like oh i'm gonna go here and go here, and then I go to Hollywood, and then I have a big house in Brentwood.

That's really the case now. I mean, really, that people going into it, once they get in there, they know that this is really a career training institute. It was not a place to get that broader education. No, it was not yet a pre-professional thing. It was still like, I don't know what's going to happen to me now. And you wanted to get a good education if you wanted. I mean, you could get it. Correct.

And obviously, you still can. I get that at a lot of colleges. But there was something about the intellectuals that were attracted to Harvard to teach were the guys. Yeah. And what was the lampoon exactly? I mean, what was the idea of it? Well, Mark, it was... Because I've talked to other people about it,

but it does have a sort of place in comedic history, and it still sort of exists, but it seems like... I'm not sure I'm completely clear on what the original intention is and what it evolved to in the 60s. It started in 1876. It was a college humor magazine,

and it was a time when all all these college magazines and newspapers and things like that were all starting in america all over the place i've looked into it what year recently 76 1876 yeah then in the 20th century you know and then william randolph hearst was hunted and and helped pay for this insane wonderful parody castle building yeah it's still there yeah which is which is a huge part of why the harvard lampoon beyond harvard sustained because it had this funny building yeah you know that that was part of it then you know rob you know the great comic comedian comic writer and comic actor robert benchley and other writers came along and then then the 60s happened and

then doug kenney and henry beer were there and then they started the national lampoon and so they were there before you oh yeah yeah yeah but were they when you got there were they mythic were they they were and doug kenney showed up and was like can we what what god what can we do to you god and he was only you know whatever he was eight years older seven years older than we were, you know. But yeah. And that's sort of where you kind of like honed the writing chops? I don't know about honed the comic chops such as they were. I mean, writing to some degree, but it was mostly just hanging around, trying to make other people who thought they were funny laugh about stuff. I mean, it was. It's like a clubhouse.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It wasn't like the Skull and Bones or a or fraternal organization was it affiliated with the hasty pudding no it was different it was not and uh so it was that it was it was where you know in in this in this immediate post-60s time when when the revolution was over but but like the anti-establishment counter-culturally feeling was still happening and that's and that was a golden moment to be there i think and what kind of stuff were you writing oh i don't know you know about parody a parody of

the new yorker i remember as for a man who well i later went on to write for the new yorker and you recently appeared in the new yorker so that's why i say that yeah anyway that for instance i don't know just whatever yeah what what a 19 year old's right who cares yeah but when you got done with harvard was there a sort of did you want to did you think about trying to write for the real lampoon i mean was that sort of i i don't know i don't remember that that was again by the time i got out of college well no it was still happening then and and actually it was uh animal house was just, no, it was still happening then, and actually Animal House was just about to happen. It was pretty good. I don't know. I was

just trying to get a job. Like doing what? I got a job through a friend of my girlfriend's father being a copy boy at the New York Daily News and realized I'm happy to pay dues, but this isn't the place I want to be.

You don't want to be that kind of newspaper guy? Kind of, yeah. No. And whenever I tell my children, like, oh, don't be entitled, you millennials. Yeah. And then I have to say, but I did quit my first job after one day. So I guess I was the original entitled kid. Well, maybe you just knew better.

I did. Maybe you knew yourself a little better. So you decided, though, New York was where you had to go. New York was like a lemming-ish thing. This is just where I had to be. Why? What position did it hold in your head? Well, I'd seen it on television.

I'd seen it in movies. I mean, growing up in Omaha, I mean, watching New York in all of its incarnations, you know, from the 1940s movies to Woody Allen movies to Patty Duke show to whatever was, wow, New York. Got to go to New York. Yeah. For everything. I mean, I came here, too.

Where else are you going to go? Yeah. That was the goal. Yeah, exactly. But New York was, like, still really kind of New York. Well, New York, when I arrived, was at its nadir. I mean, it was... 77? 76.

Crime had crazily increased for the last 10 years. The city had gone bankrupt five months earlier. I mean, it was... But you're 21. Who cares? Right. That's great. And what were you doing?

What was the scene? What was your scene what was your scene you're not you don't strike me as a punk rock guy i went to cbgb's yeah i did i didn't play but i went and uh so i and i got a job i did i quit this uh copy boy job and got a job writing for gene shallott you recall sure the movie reviewer on the today show reviewer and interviewed all the directors and the actors and authors. He was the cultural guy. Yeah, with the big mustache.

Correct. And my main job for him, however, was he also had a daily radio essay on the NBC radio network. Right. It was funny stuff about the news or whatever. Not movies. No, not so much. And about whatever, about culture. Anyway, no not so much and uh about whatever and about culture anyway so i wrote those and i was doing that and that was a great job and he was a great

boss and living on the lower side and doing the cbgvs and you know doing the new york thing doing the new york thing so would you say that that that experience working for shallot started to you know connect you to the cultural fabric fabric of new y York and get you sort of like on the job with the funny writing? No. I mean, it was a creative job. Right. And it paid, you know, $17,000. It was a good salary.

That's good. Sure, yeah. And then I fell in with a guy, Tony Hendra, who you probably know Tony. Well, yeah, he's the Lampoon guy. He was a national Lampoon guy, yeah. And then film screenwriter. Was about to be in Spinal, a character in Spinal Tap.

Anyway, he was one of these people who was doing parodies. And somebody else I knew doing parodies. So we did a New York Post parody with somebody else. And I did a Wall Street Journal parody. Where were they being published? Just one-offs. Oh, so they come out as magazines as as as physical papers right exactly and uh uh and and so so that that's how i kind of fell into that world a little bit but you had

been like there was some weird there's no coincidence i mean the lampoon sort of shaped you for that a bit for sure for sure and For sure. And I worked on national parodies, the Parody of Sports Illustrated at the Lampoon. And so, no, I saw that, oh, this is a thing that you can do. And you do, yeah, you hone your skills and all that. But it's interesting because there was a time where, I mean, those are kind of refined. Like, that's one thing Lampoon did,

and I remember vaguely those things you're talking about, that these were very sort of specific and refined, very detailed parodies, big-scale parodies. Full-scale. Yeah, and I think that they, like I wonder, before I talked to you, I started to wonder in the face of really the subject matter of Fantasyland, you know, what power does satire really have in the culture we live in? You know, because it seems

to me that, you know, leading up to creating Spy Magazine and being sort of New York-centric around those satirical attacks, that it did have some cultural impact. Cultural impact, sure. Did it make the world better? I can't say that, but definitely had cultural impact. So it make the world better i i can't say that but definitely had cultural impact so so it was was it that was it these parodies that led how long before you started to put uh spy together uh i i don't know six seven years i met my a guy graydon carter who was also a young writer uh not quite as young writer at uh time magazine and uh we just became friends and started talking about what well you know what's our next thing what are we going to do and and had and came up with this idea for a you know a funny but journalistic magazine not the not the lampoon

harvard or national which was just humor but that wedded to journalism and that was the idea we came up with for Spy. And there was nothing like that going on at that time? Uh-uh. There really wasn't. And our thought was, you know, we'd been here a few years. We thought like, wow, you know, we're learning all this stuff about this and that, about the New York Times, about these rich people, about this business guy.

And kind of like the kind of reporting we were trying to do, as well as being about it i mean you know our our motto was smart fun funny fearless right you know so you guys would sit down and you hired writers hired yeah but you were all sit down you had you had sort of a a manifesto to how you we did we had a mission a mission that's for you yeah yeah and it was a monthly magazine 10 times a year originally and first, it was going to be all New York focused. And then it was successful in the way that it was successful. So it became a year or two in, oh, this is national. Yeah. So this is what, 80 what?

86 we start, fall of 86. So this is a decade after you got here and New York is since- I just turned 32 years old. Oh, the ripe old age of 32. But New York had risen like a phoenix out of its bankruptcy. Correct. And now we're talking about the era that Thomas Wolfe wrote about, that Wall Street was going crazy, Fiorucci's was popular,

Danceteria was happening, Studio 54. And yes, New Wave, and it was coming back, and Uptown was going downtown, and downtown was going uptown, and wow! Yes, exactly. But I imagine in the mission of Spy, you realize, like, well, in this excess lies the truth of the human condition, which is just monsters.

We're surrounded by fucking monsters. That could have been the larger mission, Smart Fun, Funny, Fear fearless, and then that. Exactly. And you set out to take down the monsters. No, take them down, but certainly cause them. Get them into the light. Discomfort.

Yes, get them into the light. Exactly. We did not provide comfort to the afflicted so much, but we did want to afflict the comfortable. Now that sounds like a mission statement. comfort uh to the afflicted so much but we did want to afflict the comfortable yeah that now that sounds like a mission statement and and when did you know you were doing that when you went immediately when you poked them and they you got it the bare ground yeah yeah right pretty quick right away yeah right away pretty much because you know whether it was the the new york times

or donald trump right all all the other subjects of our... Who are some of your other favorite whipping people? Well, those were definitely two. I mean, we got a whole different kind of reaction when we started talking about Hollywood. We had people out in Los Angeles and talking about CAA and Mike Ovitz. in Los Angeles and talking about CAA and Mike Ovitz. And again, we were just knowledgeable enough and just on the cusp of young and not young to be a little dangerous.

Well, yeah, because honestly, especially the show business industrial complex is really, that's where the cultural mirror is generated right so you know if you fuck with them if you fuck with the illusion right then it's true you know it's it's going to look at that man behind the curtain yeah yeah well that's why well see that i think that then spy must have provided some sort of template for what, if anything, you did change the nature of journalism a little bit in terms of how magazine publishing was done and also how, you know, that line of humor and actual reporting.

Like, I mean, you know, Hunter S. Thompson did his thing, and this seems like the next turn. No, that's well said. And, you know, Mad Magazine, National Apoon, Hunter well said and and you know mad magazine national poon hunter s thompson you know very i mean noren mailer various kinds of bits and pieces that had been done journalistically yeah you know uh for sure were were our influences and and then as as the boomers were becoming of age and taking over the world, there was this audience for like, yeah, let's look at the world that way. Let's get a strand of this into real journalism, for sure.

So, yes, we were influenced by and then, yeah, we influenced, for sure. Yeah, and it seems to me that like in order, because now that we talk about it like this like fantasy land this could have been written by an academic right i mean i don't i wouldn't consider you an academic but i'm saying if in in no in a certain in someone else's hands this approach to history you know this is sort of like you know howard zen the people's history of the united states this is like this is some other strand of how to look at history but if you weren't able to approach it with humor it would be not only difficult to read but it would be completely horrifying but it would be it would be just too depressing i mean it's pretty depressing as it is

i guess to many people but yes that and also i think a conventional academic uh wouldn't quite have been permitted by her or his lane academic lane right to go all over the place as i do in that book this book now let's talk about new york for a minute yeah um what what's happened well mark what do you mean i mean like because you you actually were there to experience it. And, like, you know, when I see movies, have you watched those Adam Curtis documentaries at all? Yes. Oh, yeah. They're amazing.

Aren't they? Yes. No, Adam Curtis is the, I'm so glad you mentioned Adam Curtis because I regarded this in some neighborhood in my dreams of Adam Curtis. Right. It might have been like some sort of reaction to hyper-normalization, that weird sort of those dueling trajectories of Syria and Trump and New York in the 70s. Like the intellectual juxtaposition without really saying, you know, having an argument, actual juxtaposition without really saying you know having a an argument the way he makes his movies it's really devastating and and enlightening in a way but i guess the point being that you know

you were sort of you weren't here in the early 70s when it was rubble right but you were here you know for the rebuilding i was here well i was here and like when the bronx was burning i was here you know son of sam and right my God, where's this going? For sure. It's really hard to imagine that this city was in that sort of dire straits. Yeah. No, it was. And cheap.

I mean, all the good aspects of that. You didn't buy a building in 1978? I didn't. But I could have a really nice apartment for $400 that would now be over $4,000. Right. You know, yeah. $400 that would now be over $4,000 for sure. So in charting the people that you were kind of reporting on during the 80s, you have been a nemesis of Trump, an early nemesis of Trump.

Yeah. Like he knew who you were. Yeah. And we didn't know who he was. My partner Graydon literally literally kind of, I mean, I'd never heard of Donald Trump. But you probably helped build him in some way. Well, in some way. And Graydon had been assigned to write a freelance piece, I think, for GQ magazine about Trump and came back and, I just met this guy.

You won't believe, Kurt, this guy. What a thug and what an idiot and what a bombastic fool and what a, all that he is. This is in 1985 at this point, you know? And like, tell me more. And so, yes, he became a. And he's well on his way to, like, he had amassed most of his father's real estate. Yes, he was just starting, though, and he was just building Trump Tower

and he had just converted this crappy old hotel on 42nd street to a nice hotel and what we learned from like adam curtis and wherever he learned it was that you know he got a sweet deal from the state that you know they they gave him money on the promise of redeveloping this broken city exactly yeah well and no i wonder if he's actually made that analogy to it. And now I'm, it's a broken American, I will fix it. But that, yeah. No, exactly. He made out like a bandit in the 70s and then the early 80s by like, yeah, okay, we'll fix it up. Yeah, he got these sweet deals from the banks.

Correct, when they'd give it away. Yeah. And like whatever tax abatements you need. Right. And like whatever tax abatements you need. Right. And so when Graydon comes back to you with this information, then you guys just sort of targeted him basically? Well, he also, this was actually maybe even before we were starting Spire,

when we were just thinking about it. Yeah. Because by the time Spire started, there was a Trump Tower. And the other thing he said was, was like, guy he's a big guy he said he's as big as we are and he said but he's got the shortest fingers you've ever seen and so that became a thing yeah it began like just and that kind of resurfaced during the election well indeed short what was it weirdly short-fingered short-fingered bulgarian we called him anyway so he became a subject he was and he was this big you know know, bullying, you know,

bachelor-y jerk. And so, like, we thought, oh, this is a funny, this is a guy to make fun of and report on. Yeah. So we did. And who else were your main target? Oh, I mean, he was, I mean, it's hard. He now looms so large in retrospect,

it's almost hard to imagine the others. But all kinds of, you know uh and mike ovitz right hollywood and and uh various people in television news and business people and you know some of whom are well known some of whom aren't billionaires of various kinds yeah you know henry kravis who subsequently hired and and and effectively fired me um you know lots of people yeah was that was that when did that start? So that was not after Spy in New York Magazine. Oh, New York Magazine, no.

That was like, it was a generation older. It started in 68. But I remember when I was a kid that it did turn towards what Spy was doing at some point a little more, right? A little more humor. Probably, I took it over. Yeah, right. When you were a kid. Yeah, when you was over. Yeah, right. When you were a kid.

Yeah, what year was that? 94. Okay, I wasn't a kid. Right, you were a young man. Yeah, I was a young man. 30 years old, 31 years old. But yeah, but there was a change. Yeah, and that made it more popular.

I don't know about that, but yeah, I think we made it better and kind of a generational change, yeah. So one of the things I'm experiencing as somebody who lived here in the late 80s for a few years and then on and off for many years was that I don't know who lives here anymore. And I don't quite have a full understanding of what's happening to the city. Like I see a lot of buildings.

Where did you live then? I lived on 2nd between A and B, 89 to 92. Oh, really? I lived on 9th Street between 1st and 2nd. Yeah, I see a lot of buildings. Where did you live then? I lived on 2nd between A and B, 89 to 92. Oh, really? I lived on 9th Street between 1st and 2nd. Yeah, I loved it. You know, it was a lot of heroin and a lot of stuff. And then, you know, eventually Giuliani kind of pushed them into the water or wherever they went. I remember the military occupation of the NYPD after a certain point.

And then I lived on 3rd and 16th for a few years. And then eventually I got an apartment in Astoria that I held on to for like almost a decade. But like I come back now and it seems like there's a lot of empty buildings that look like they're not lived in. And it seems like a lot of the people, and I'm speculating, but it feels like there was once a time where people who worked in the city of all economic strata at least could have a place to live here. And it seems like that they're all gone. I would say get out of Manhattan.

Right. Which is, I mean, you went to Astoria at a certain point and you did get out of Manhattan in that sense. So I would say, and no, I mean i i did not leave manhattan because it was becoming too full of rich people yeah uh or anything like that but it has uh you know i certainly when i moved into the neighborhood where we moved to in brooklyn my wife and i and our little our babies 30 years ago yeah it was it was Italian people. It was economically integrated and diverse. Right. Not so much racially.

Right. But it seems like what kind of got lost, and it's weird because I remember when Giuliani, under his reign, when they rebuilt Times Square, and they kind of pushed a lot of people out down here for real estate speculation. I mean, the Times Square thing actually began a little before people out down here for real estate speculation. I mean, the Times Square thing actually began a little before July, to be fair. But there was this sort of part of like this like seedy nostalgia that like, oh, they're ruining it.

But when you go up there, it's sort of like you realize like, I think this was the original intention of what this was supposed to be. A thousand percent. That this is returning it to its glory in a modern way. I mean, you know, I'm with you on that. I mean, it's a, yes, I think that's exactly right. That was the vision of all those big lights and everything. Right. It wasn't meant to be like, oh, I think I'm going to get killed.

You know, I mean, it was meant to be like, oh, yeah, it's a little, you know, saucy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But you go there now, and it's quite a spectacle. It doesn't even matter what the lights are representing, but you go there, and you're like, wow. This is like an hallucinatory experience. And the thing about New York's change that when no matter, okay, it's all yuppies. Oh, it's all rich people.

Yeah. All that stuff. Okay, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. We can talk about it. But now it doesn't even seem like yuppies. Well, what all I will say, I mean, if the miracle, and this is a hobby horse of mine and I'll never stop saying it,

but there are today 87% fewer murders in New York City than there were in 1990 when I was a kid here. 87. 87%. I mean, that is, as I say, it's as close to a miracle as i will ever experience in my life and what were you uh well that's a whole other three-hour conversation i don't know i mean there are all kinds of theories about why that's true i mean it's true i mean obviously

crime has gone down in america generally killers realize that it wasn't as ripe of a killing ground and they've moved out i mean all kinds kinds. You know, it's. Police. Policing is part of it. But, you know, is it. There's a legitimate set of scholarship about the fact that it's getting free of. Getting lead free gas made people less criminal. Really? That increase of abortions reduced the number of murders there's all kinds of

controversial pieces to a theory but there is no one theory and therefore because it's kind of mysterious you know from 2200 murders to 300 murders in 25 years yeah you know it's it's a miracle and you know if if the price of that is too many starbucks okay i'll make that trade yeah sure you know sure but if the price of that is like you know too many police and and really sort of you know uh you know pushing the marginalized further out onto the margin yeah i mean right correct so it's a it's a faustian well or or maybe just like you know okay we solved that crime problem 15 years ago let's now Let's now go to the other thing. And that was the theory behind de Blasio becoming mayor, for instance.

Yeah. You know, okay, good. New York's back. Let's work on inequality and misery. Right. You know. See what we can do with that. Unfair criminal law enforcement.

But yeah. But the feeling I get is that it seems like a lot of the real estate is owned by you know uh I guess you know carpetbaggers from from uh you know the you know China and Russia and and and your you know other money coming in there's that and and all of the empty the empty uh retail uh storefronts that does bug me well that's going to happen everywhere I mean who the hell goes to stores anymore but I mean you know well but that's not no but it's not because they're going out of business it's because the landlords are demanding too much money right it's the the invisible hands are not yet right grasping correct so the cuter shops that were you know more not even mom and pop at least someone's big idea right but but again that's what i say that's one of the one of the pleasures of living in in in places other than

manhattan is there are still more of those quirky, odd, mom and poppy places. Sure. But another thing that's left, though, as the rent control apartments went away and lofts got cleaned up, was that it seems like there was a whole sort of world of a certain type of performance art and I think some visual art that kind of like had to recenter itself somewhere else. Which is all out in Bushwick, essentially. Is that where it is?

Yeah. Yeah, because when I was still here, there was kind of the crashing wave of whatever the New York's performance art scene was. Right. Yeah. Exactly. And it was in your neighborhood, in my old neighborhood. Right.

There were weird little theater spaces. Oh, look, Eric, but goes, what? Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. I watched him work something out for five or six times. Yes. Yeah, but that's all gone. They've all moved to Connecticut. Well, that happens, too, where they have their kids or whatever,

or they haven't made enough money. Yeah. You know, because, oh, no. Can't stay here. I mean, show me what a million dollars buys you in New York City versus Connecticut. Yeah. I mean, the money, there's more money here. Yeah.

Right. I mean, you know. Goes a little further. It's no surprise. Yeah. So you go from spy, then you edit New York, and then you do some other things, but you do end up with this radio show forever. This is like an institution.

Too long. You're right. You should take over. No. No. No. We need you out there. But I mean, how did that start? this radio show forever this is like uh too long an institution you should take over no no we we need you out there but i mean how did that start that started uh when uh uh i'd actually in 1999 i was doing various things and writing i just what is it oh yeah i just published my first novel actually and and in fact i this is not how it happened. But in fact, I was off.

I was doing a public radio show to promote the novel. And I was in WNYC here in New York. And I saw, whoa, look, interesting. They're starting this new show. And so I knew about this idea for a show they wanted to do. And then out of the blue, a month later, when somebody called me and said, hey, would you be interested in talking to us about being the host of this show? I said, oh, you mean this show show and they were astounded that i knew

what they were talking about and blah blah so there was a bit of serendipity synchronicity going on and uh then they said well we think you'd be you know we think you could do this i said i've never done any radio except when i've appeared on other people's shows you know i don't why i said well we just think so you know it's your background your background. You're doing this. So anyway, one thing led to another and I, you know, tried out

and they said, yeah, sure, let's do this. And, and yeah, crazily, it's,

it started, we started 2000 and here, here it is still. It's, it's lasted so much longer than any other of my, you know,

multiple gigs in life. It's crazy. But isn't it great though in the sense that, you know, like even going back to, you know, what your interests were in college is that when you have a radio, even more so than writing because there was something visceral about talking about something,

is that through your show, I think the thing that makes it unique is you can kind of weave all of your intellectual interests into it and put them together however you want a bit yes no indeed and and and because unlike you i don't know when you started like performing and yeah and talking out loud i had my little bits and pieces of it part here part there but like public performing was not a thing i did so wow wow you know i I am, 40 years old, over 40 years old. I'm like, really?

You want me to start figuring out how to do this? Best time to get into radio. But it was, I loved it. And so, yes, you can, you know, you're just talking. So you can be reminded of X, Y, or Z from your life or from a book you read or from whatever. It's fantastic. Yes, exactly in the way you say.

And at least the way we do it with producers who do all the hard work. Right. It's so much easier than anything else I do. Yes. Good producer is the best. Oh, I mean, really. I mean, writing anything is hard. Yeah.

Writing a magazine article or a book is really hard. And really, yeah. Okay. Yes, there are people a book is really hard. And, and really, yeah, they're okay. Yes. There are people who help you and their editors and copywriters, but it's, it's your day.

It's your thing. Whereas this, I don't know about you. I mean, I just go in and get to talk to somebody I I'm interested in for an hour. And then they turn it into radio. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Or, and also sometimes they're like, you know, I don't know if you've thought about this, but he, you know, they'll put something in your ear and you're like, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. And then you sound super smart. The best. Yeah. That's sometimes they're like, you know, I don't know if you've thought about this, but he, you know, they'll put something in your ear and you're like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. And then you sound super smart. The best. Yeah. That's a great.

No, you suddenly named the role that Jeff Goldblum had in 1979. Yeah. Yeah. Because you had someone do the research and put it in your head. Yes. That's the best part of radio. But okay. So now let's get back, get current so I can get some answers.

Okay. So what was the direct, like we brought up Adam Curtis, who I find fascinating. The two movies that, what was it? There was the one, the hyper-normalization one. What was the one about Trump and Assad and Kissinger? And then there's the other one. The Century of Self. Century of Self.

That was about. That was the one that was my epiphany. The PR industry. So your epiphany was the trend of psychotherapy. Yeah, and the way he blends... Why am I forgetting his name? Freud's nephew. Oh, the guy who invented Bernays.

Bernays, yeah. Yeah, the thing that fascinated me about that and also the thing that you you don't that you're you're very diligent and thorough about in your book is that a lot of this magical thinking it became you you know prevalent on the left and in culture with the baby boomers post acid who were into self-realization, which was sort of the perfect amalgamation of the thesis where you can invent yourself, but you can also invent whatever kind of fucking magical thinking structure or paradigm that you want, commit to it, and it's going to have some sort of ripple. Right. No, precisely. And again, I didn't know, I wasn't raised

religiously, so I didn't know really very much at all about Protestantism. So I had to do a lot of research to learn about that because that's so deep in this. The different schools of Christianity and how they broke apart. the priesthood of all believers, that every believer is a priest, not like these Catholics. And I'd never thought about it before. And in the reading I'd done, hadn't really seen it, the lines drawn, the dots connected between that, like, wait. You know, the Protestants said in 1550 or 1604, I don't need a priest. I can just read the Bible and figure out what it means and what I should live and how I should do because of that. Whoa, I'm the priest.

I get it. Well, that carried to all kinds of extremes is what we got here. I mean, and so I'd never, that was like one of the, I don't know, 10 revelations I had or 20, whatever, in researching this book that I thought, uh-huh, that's interesting. Because we talk about, oh, Protestant work ethic. Oh, WASP. Oh, all this. Oh, crazy evangelicals talk about, oh, Protestant work ethic. Oh, WASP. Oh, all this. Oh, crazy evangelicals. Yeah, sure.

All that stuff is there. But this more fundamental piece of what it means to be Protestant in your understanding of your relationship to God and truth and all that is this other thing that I didn't know anything about. Are you talking about being untethered from the church to go ahead and start your own church? Well, that too, and combined with entrepreneurial, like let's make a buck, Americanism, yes, but also just the, wait, I don't need a priest to tell me what's what. Right. It's really up to me.

Yeah. And the way in which that really does relate to the simultaneous enlightenment, which is no, you don't need, I mean, the enlightenment we all think of as, oh, you don't need religion. But it was just, you can figure it out, whatever it is, on your own by studying. Well, that plus this, you know, kooky Protestant religion thing, an application of will together, I really really felt like wow you know i i'm not saying nobody's ever said this or put these together but it for me it was a it was the one of the little things i mixed up as i was doing research here that i got okay i'm on to something here well i like the whole sort of like dealing with the the kind of um you know now that people talk about themselves as brands whether they're on on-brand or off-brand, and the sort of evolution from the sort of 60s Enlightenment to the me generation.

Because I think that just as damaging that organized religion or amassing people into these religious movements and profiteering off of them, but also mobilizing them to nefarious deeds or to sort of fascistic deeds. On the other side of that, you were careful to sort of explore the kind of the other movement, which was to empower people to be themselves in whatever version that is and attain some sort of nebulous spirituality through diet or yoga or whatever. are right but like it seems like the the more powerful uh side of that politically are are the rubes that that are angry and feel like they're doing something for god where the other side of the 60s thing is like you get you know kind of progressives by name many of them successful who are really about you know just sort of self-realization which

you know is in and of itself somewhat ineffectual uh politically well other than like how do i you know ultimately alleviate my guilt by paying you know putting my money into something but still do whatever the fuck i want yeah sure i mean they different, as I try to describe in this book, different flavors of, you know, irrationality. And some are more benign or less malign than others, for sure. And the thing where, you know, I thought I was going to get more shit. There's one little dots I connect where i say like well of course as the republican party has gotten more christian over the last 30 years in a way it wasn't before my parents were republicans my mother left the republican party around 1995 or 8 because it had gotten so christian

but that was on purpose correct but what i'm saying when i made the point that like wow this your party gets more and more christian yeah naturally you're going to fall for things like there's no climate change, and white people are more discriminated against than black people, and all these other untrue things. You know, your religion is, to me, nutty and insupportable, so naturally you're going to,

it's an easy step over to these other things. I thought people, and I don't know maybe maybe the people who would have hated that didn't read it but but i i think i think that's what happens is when when i mean nutty beliefs are fine more or less nutty beliefs are fine when they don't become politicized when they don't spill into the public sphere. And that's the way America was. That's the way everywhere mostly is.

People believe they're nutty things, whatever they are, or they're untrue things, or they're superstitious things, or they're whatever. I don't care. That Thomas Jefferson quote I quote over and over again. I don't care if my neighbor believes in no gods or 20 gods as long as he doesn't pick my pocket or break my leg.

Exactly. But now they started breaking our leg and picking our pocket. And yes, and because there's this organized set of churches that really became politicized in the 70s and 80s, that's a big part of the problem. It's not the whole problem, but it's a big part of the problem. It's not the whole problem, but it's a big part of the problem. Yeah, I guess like, you know, in a broader, like the way it impacts me just on the individual level that once you get, once you're able to suspend your disbelief, you really can and will believe fucking anything. Well, that's it. logic or even sort of, you know, very shallow research or some sort of, you know, inarguable belief in the scientific method would guide most people, you know, to have some sort of barometer of basic truth, but it just doesn't seem to matter, you know, and what causes

that is, you know, ignorance and stupidity on some level right and and this encouragement this again as i argue this thing that's been part of the american character and way oh i don't need to trust an expert oh you elitist i don't need to try oh a book book learning isn't for me then sift that through the 1960s and like man whatever you want to believe it's your own it's want to believe, it's your truth. Right, Mark? It's your truth. Yeah, yeah.

And that's enough. And even if you think you hated the 60s, I'm like, no, I'm against the 60s. I'm a conservative. No. Well, then it allowed you to believe these crazy fucking things you believe because suddenly it was a much easier and freer and more legit and i couldn't challenge it if you believed whatever right and then in the 60s there were actually some you know proven conspiracy theories which fed the fire and then somehow the right appropriated the tool of the conspiracy theory and used it as as uh as as um you know a a political tactic.

Right. Yeah. I really like the focus you put on P.T. Barnum. I mean, like, he goes all the way through the book. And I think that's the weird thing is that, you know, once you have this world where everyone can invent themselves and seek, you know, freedom and religious utopias and have the freedom to do whatever they want,

that the deeper thing is that there's always going to be a bunch of people that are con men and hucksters that are going to take advantage of all the suckers. And that seems to be that combination of free thinking and religious utopia that the more important leg of the country the country are the con men well and that's capitalism it's not but of course it does you could have a socialist con man and a socialist pt no right but but yes the the pt barnum to wwe and donald trump is is one whole thread and then it always interests me i mean pd barnum one of the reasons pd barnum was great is even though his he was like oh look you know it's a mermaid it's a mermaid i'm showing you or whatever

he winked and he and he would write like yeah he was on to himself he was on to himself you know joseph smith you know i i i about so many of these people i wonder if they're on to themselves or not but anyway that's a good question he barnum was wwe obviously is and so that there but there are all these as donald trump that's the question and and there there are a lot of americans and it is part of being american that like yeah i know these you know hulk hogan isn't really beating up but like maybe he is and they kind of hate each other and look in in private life is this so that blurring of of of character and and reality uh and like well maybe who knows it's entertaining is is is is what america is the hybrid that america may started making in in in the barnum age and before so this is like this

is really the storm because now that you know is entirely fragmented, there is no sort of mainstay. There is no kind of communal effect of, like, three networks, even though some of the shit we were getting were lies or misrepresentations. At least we were all on the same page. And there were only white, straight men doing it and all that stuff. Yeah, for sure. It wasn't perfect. But there was a sense of at least community, whether it was wrong-minded in a... Here's the facts.

We all agree on the basic facts. Right. So that's gone. Yeah. So now it's like... Now it's just... And now you have people within the administration, even the president himself, contradicting himself in the course of three minutes.

Right. So there's no real... None of that seems to matter or or saying in his case no no i never said that wait no here's the tape of you saying exactly that you know four days ago and then well four days is enough for it to disappear yeah so i guess you know after all you know said and done you did all this research and i know the conclusion you know was was you know not particularly helpful but but at least you were able to prove to yourself and the reader that this is not an uncommon you know tug of war in in this

country between you know reason and magical it's a chronic condition and and and and we have dealt with and and we have been weird we have been exceptional all along i mean exceptionalism is is not has been taken lately as the this you know conservative no american exceptionalism means we're great we're great we're great we are great uh i don't hate america i don't want to leave yeah but um but we are also exceptional in in in uh in that way in like you know not having having a different grip on the on the reality we're exceptional at bullshit yes we are exceptional at bullshit exceptional at entertainment we there's a reason we invented you know show business yeah um you know i mean again like a religious cult comes over here and and invents you know entrepreneurial business and show business

too i mean that's going to get to unfettered that gets us to where we are after getting through this this book and this research you know to to sate your own curiosity and and try to put your fear in perspective what is your biggest fear about what's happening now in term politically and culturally uh well is it is it something that looks like if some sort of like friendly uh kind of acceptable fascism or well i don't know about friendly or acceptable but yeah some some you know idiocracy slash fascism yeah yeah it is uh it is and It is. And this thing, you know, again, I didn't start with this idea of, oh, this is going to destroy America. I was like, let's figure this out. This has changed since I was a kid.

Let me figure it out. But now, with the coming of Donald Trump, who, by the way, wasn't even nominated for president until I'd finished a manuscript of this book. So it wasn't like I was reverse engineering. How did we get to Trump? But now that he has a presidency and a movement based on denying the reality and the truth of various kinds, as when I quote Hannah Arendt, the great writer about Nazis and communists

and Stalin and Hitler, saying that's one of the things they always did. It's like, no, we're going to lie and you're going to like that we lie and all that stuff. So, yes, this American tendency, not uniquely American, but kind of unique in the developed world, this American tendency to like not my truth is my truth and your truth is your truth and all that stuff that we've come to and and and let's get rid of the establishment let's get rid of the experts to tell us what we're not we're wrong all that

has led us to this place that um yeah could be could be the end of things could could be the end of the republic the end of the democracy democracy. Could really get us into a terrible, existentially horrible place. I've never been a person who screams about that stuff or says, oh, it's like the end of Rome or oh my God, Nixon's a Nazi. I never have been that person but seeing where we are now you know with with trump and trumpism as as the so far apotheosis of this long historical american tendency it yeah it wears the shit out of me yeah so what are you what are you doing about it uh voting um tweeting yeah you wrote the book. No, I mean... I mean, I didn't mean that as indicting. It's just sort of like there is a powerlessness that one feels.

Well, I think I do feel, you know, a certain mission-drivenness to keep talking about this part of it, which I think underlies so much of it, talking about this part of it, which I think underlies so much of it and letting people who have a better standing to talk about, you know, racism or misogyny or other things. Yeah. But I feel like I don't want this part of the nightmare to go on remarked

upon because, uh, it's, it's its own part of the nightmare and underlies so much of the rest. Once people can say these are the facts or these aren't the facts, then you've got no society and you have no conversation and you have no debate about, well, you know. So it's important. It doesn't seem as grotesque and horrible and threatening as

look at this racist thing he said or uh look at this what he's doing to these children in the border or whatever pick your thing but to me it is important so yeah i so i so i'm you know yeah almost two years after this book came out i'm still uh you know ranting about it um you know and and doing doing my best to you know yeah give money to politicians and organizations and well i think like i think it's an important book and i and i didn't know when it came out and i didn't know you know how long it had been sitting around but when i locked into it i'm like well this should be required reading to a certain degree and because it enabled me because there's so much that causes anxiety around what we think we need

to know and how much we do know and you know and you know is this new is it not new and there's so much that causes anxiety around what we think we need to know and how much we do know and you know and you know is this new is it not new and there's plenty of people that are like well it was bad during nixon and but not unlike you you're like i didn't even live there then but like things seem to be worse and there there seems to be a type of kind of accepted you know chaos around the information we take in and and how it's being used so for me it really helped me contextualize a lot of stuff and and uh and i'll keep preaching it thanks for talking and making a movie about it are they making a movie you're a movie well yeah sort of trust is i guess it touches into that in in in it's weird because i you, years ago when I was a younger person and, you know, kind of angry,

but not that educated in, you know, full-formed intellectual understanding of history or anything, I kind of got submerged in the specific kind of one world government, trilateral commission, Freemason, Illuminati conspiracy. You know, I was into reading about that. So I helped deprogram you, really. A little bit, but more so my friend Jim. Like, I remember he worked for Clinton and Obama. He's been a political guy forever, and he worked in Washington.

And I was there during this time. You know, I was visiting him, and we're on the Great Mall, and we'd just, you know, gone into the Capitol Rotunda. And, you know, I actually said to him, I said, we're going to walk around office buildings all day and he was like this is the capital you know and but i had no context i didn't have the appreciation of american history but i did see the obelisk uh you know and the pentagon as some sort of ritual evidence of a an almost magical conspiracy. The Nick Cage movie. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. But I had all the information. I just remember ranting about it, standing there on the Great Mall about what Washington really was. And after I take a breath, Jim just looks at me and goes, Mark, people here just aren't that organized.

Well, no, but that to me is one of the things about conspiracies is like people aren't that organized people can't keep secrets it's it would be really tough to pull off a good conspiracy well yeah but they make they make ignorant or stupid people seem intelligent because they have closure there's no you know it's very easy to connect a lot of dots in retrospect so when you make sense of that and it has the punchline you're looking for that satisfies your particular anger or emotions you're like that feels good that's going to settle in as truth correct and and it's you know you write fiction you write a story you tell jokes whatever it has that pleasure

of oh it's a tidy it it there's a callback oh it connects to this and but and people want reality to be that way and it you 99% of the time is not. And also there's this problem with how every, there's no, nothing has the authority. There, you know, things look like news. Like there's a lot of fiction that goes out there that within a couple of weeks, somehow or another it becomes true to a lot of people

because they don't know where it came from or what the source is. And my dad watches Fox News, not because he's a Republican. It just looks like news to him. There's a guy sitting there. You know, I don't know why he chooses that not because he's a Republican. It just looks like news to him. There's a guy sitting there. You know, I don't know why he chooses that one because he's an angry guy, but he was never a political guy. But he can't quite understand how it's not news.

Well, and again, that's part of the problem of somebody like your father who went from the pre-digital age to the digital age. We're like, whoa, no, look, I saw it on the Internet. Right, right. digital age yeah digital age we're like whoa no look at i saw it on the internet right right and and and uh and and and we just you know it's like we were given wands or sabers or something that we don't know how to use properly yeah yeah digital stuff well i i i hope uh yeah it seems like there's a fight to be fought and i hope uh you know we get back to at least some some respectable form of fighting that's that's all i hope for exactly right is is get it back to at least some some respectable form of fighting that's that's all i hope for exactly right is is get it back to it like a like fighting in the old days yeah and you know i mean things i

i go back and forth some days i wake up and think no we're we're fucked yeah this is it yeah and some days i think no i mean look you know it was nazi germany now they're normal germany i mean it can happen you know there's a lot of people have to die. Or be very uncomfortable. But my fear is, though, and I talk about it on stage, is that I think that people that, where the switch is thrown in their brain, where they can no longer really have any ability to decipher truth from fiction

or what is making them excited against what is the reality, is that I don't think they can a lot of them can come back like yeah and i think that that i don't hear that enough that like you know you have people in your family like my uncle's one of these guys it's like i don't know that they can come back i don't know that there's a way back well and unfortunately now as there wasn't as there wasn't 60 years ago uh there there wasn't all the all the means and venues for keeping them there right no you know if you were just you know your uncle you're this is a crack pot and yeah basket like okay dude maybe but now you got your own tv channel and also you just get online and you know you got friends going like yeah we're still here i know and that that is a new condition and and you know you don't want to be too like

technologically deterministic and oh people were used to say that print would be terrible or or tv would ruin everything yeah yeah yeah i get that but like this keeps the nuts and the crackpots and the and the believers in whatever more believing and encouraged and in a community than ever has been possible before. Yeah, yeah. And also, yes, in answer to your earlier question, they are going to make a, not a movie out of it, but there's going to be a TV, three-hour TV thing.

Really? Yeah. Are you going to narrate it? I am. That's great. Well, congratulations and thank you for writing the book and thank you for talking to me my pleasure there you go the book is fantasyland how america went haywire a 500 year history that was kurt

anderson the other books i'm recommending for your second half of summer reading are It Came From Something Awful by Dale Barron and The Birth of Loud by Ian S. Port. And the jazz book, Playing Changes, Jazz for the New Century by Nate Chynan. This is a new thing I'm doing. Book Club. Book Club with Marin. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for all of my tour dates. I'm going a lot of places. Austin, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, D.C., Philly, Nashville, Atlanta, Toronto, Minneapolis.

A lot. A lot. Just go over there. All right? And find it. And if you want to watch Sword of Trust, you can go to swordoftrust.com to search movie theaters and also streaming options. And now, I will play guitar for you. Boomer lives! It's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family.

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