WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 984 - Sam Lipsyte

Episode Date: January 10, 2019

Not only is Sam Lipsyte one of the funniest modern fiction authors, he’s also one of Marc’s best friends, a kindred spirit with whom Marc shares a deep mutual respect and understanding. Whenever Marc is in New York City, he and Sam sit around and talk, going over the pressing questions and answers about the way things are. This is the first time they recorded it for an extended period of time. They get into Sam’s early years with the art-punk band Dungbeetle, how he creates his stories in a manner he calls “moving sideways,” how his life has been enriched by teaching, and why it took him a while to write his latest novel Hark. This episode is sponsored by Comedy Central, Squarespace, Stamps.com, and Deadly Class on SYFY. 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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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18-plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it how's it going i know i've been doing this kind of the same way at the beginning for years, for years, but I enjoy the consistency. I turn on the mic and I hear

myself say those words and I'm in it. I'm ready to talk to you. And by the way, how is everything? Are you okay? Did you get it all done? You feeling better? Well, yeah, I mean, maybe you should like to steam a little bit. Yeah. Neti pot. Did you neti pot? Did you get a flu shot? You didn't, huh? Well, I'm not going to say.

Look, who knows? But, you know, I mean, you should probably take one day off. I mean, you probably shouldn't be at work today. Am I right? I mean, look at you. You're all covered in snot and you can't breathe and your eyes are watering and you're touching things. Maybe you should go home. Well, you think you'll lose your job if you go home?

So maybe if everybody gets sick because of you, everyone can have the day off and you're a hero, a secret hero. Who am I talking to right now? What's happening, folks? I have a couple of announcements. I do. I'm going to be doing some more small batch artisanal local shows here in Los Angeles, starting with a show at Dynasty Typewriter on Sunday, January 20th. And we're going to add a bunch more. That's a small space. It's a great space.

It's in sort of near downtown Los Angeles. It's a little theater. And I'm going to be working through some stuff. You know, not issues, maybe a few issues. But, I mean, I got to get ready. I got to get my head in the game. I got to get the hour thing together and do it. You know, we've been through this before, but since I've been shooting and kind of busy,

I haven't had time. So I'll do a little residency over there at the Dynasty Typewriter. I'll let you know when that is. But I do know the one gig that we have on the books at this time is January 20th. That's a Sunday. You can get the link to the tickets at wtfpod.com slash tour we we good with that come down you can also usually see me at the comedy store on the weekends but this will be like an hour plus set oh i gotta i gotta find some people to uh

feature for me remind me to do that um What else? Sam Lipsight is here. Sam fucking Lipsight is my guest today. Sam Lipsight is a dear friend of mine, one of my best friends. And we haven't known each other our entire life. But you know when you meet some sort of, I don't know if it's kindred spirit or when you have an understanding with somebody or where you just have such a deep mutual respect and an understanding of people. I don't know if it's kindred spirit or when you have an understanding with somebody or where you just have such a deep mutual respect and an understanding of people. I don't know, man. I think Sam's a genius. He's a great writer.

He's one of the funniest writers I know. If you like this sort of legacy of Barry Hanna, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Terry Southern even a bit, but just 70s style satire. Fucking hilarious. Sam Lipsight. Sam fucking Lipsight. Sam Lipsight is so funny. I actually read one of his stories, The Worm in Philly, for the Paris Review podcast. Go look that up.

Mark Maron reads The Worm in Philly for the Paris Review podcast. Go look that up. Mark Maron reads The Worm and Philly. I loved it. It's so great to read funny material, but just also the, you know, he's so tight, man. You know, his prose is so tight. And so his voice is so singular. I am happy to be friends with this man. And he's one of these guys sam is one of these guys he teaches at columbia he's written like i guess four novels now let's see the subject steve homeland the ask and the new one hark hark this book is hilarious they're all pretty hilarious there's there's no doubt he's got a collection of stories called the venus drive and another one i think called the fun parts is it?

I think, yeah, The Fun Parts. You should read. Oh, he just wrote a story, actually, that I just read in The New Yorker. I just read a new Lipsight story called Show Recent Some Love, which was hilarious. Look, some of you people trust me in terms of my taste taste and uh and and i'm i'm not misleading you i you can start anywhere go go read the short story the new one and then you know you can pre-order the book hark is you can go to harkthebook.com he's going to be touring sam's going on a tour he's going to be touring bookstores in new york washington dc brooklyn seattle portland san francisco corda madera california los angeles tulsa austin oxford mississippi princeton new

jersey boston you can go to harkthebook.com you can pre-order the book you can read some advanced praise and uh you can check out his tour to go hear him read which is hilarious sam is a guy that when i go to new york we sit and talk and this is actually he's been on the show like three times partially like smaller interviews he was there at the very beginning he was on episode 10 he was on episode 52 and he was on episode 196, which was a live one. And none of these were a full WTF interview. Also, he was on my old radio show, Morning Sedition, quite a bunch. Anyways, me and Sam, when I go to New York, we go out to eat.

We usually, lately we've been having Greek food and we just talk. And it's something we enjoy doing. We sit and we'll talk for, you know, maybe an hour or so at dinner. Then we'll walk and talk for another hour and then maybe we'll have coffee and we'll talk some more and just let it roll. Let the thinking and laughing begin. And I've seen him through a lot of books. I think I met him right after the subject Steve came out. And then in Homeland, he wrote a lot of that book in my old apartment, which I had left in Astoria that was pretty empty. And I just let him have it as sort of a writing zone. And I think he sat in the kitchen and wrote some of

Homeland in there. And I don't know. I don't read a lot of fiction. I've had a few fiction writers on here, but very few. And every time that Sam writes a book, I get very excited. And I'm excited again. But what I'm really excited about is this is the first time that we've talked, you know, for the whole thing. The big WTF interview with my buddy sam whipsite yeah it's gonna happen any second now it's gonna happen i like to read some emails where somebody who who is uh not prone to writing emails and and almost like you know feels like

like he had to write it because you know know, it just it had to be done. Writes me an email. Yeah, I'll read that. The subject line was a grabber, not a ball licker. I just wanted to say and then into the the body of the email. Your ability to make guests feel comfortable through your intrinsically connected experience is astonishing. Paul McCartney interview was transcendent. Robin Williams interview, they ought to put that in a time capsule. I'm just scratching the surface. Buddy Hackett's son interview, I don't think you even comprehend how good that was. I'm not going to list them off. You know how good this shit is.

Let me just say this. I'm constantly amazed at how much you make your guests feel at home through kindred moments and flat out shared experiences i don't know any other way to put it you rock dude it matters not but i'm a 61 year old musician from detroit trust me motherfucker when i tell you that it takes a lot to impress me i just feel you need to know that you have touched my soul paul p.s I have never ever sent an email to a quote unquote celebrity. I think it's safe to say that my record is intact. Thank you, Paul, for just feeling like you had to do that, because I'll tell you honestly, Paul, made me feel good. It made, you know, I'll take it.

I'll take it. You know, I'll take it. I'll take it. You know, in these days where things are tentative, where the existence of the planet, I'll take it. Thank you, Paul. I'm glad I made a difference. So, all right. So I think I've told you enough about Sam.

I love him as a person. I respect him as an artist. He is one of the funniest writers I know. And I'm thrilled with this new book, which I read immediately. You can go to harkthebook.com for his tour dates and for pre-order. You can pre-order it now. It actually comes out next Tuesday, January 15th. You can also check out the other books I mentioned,

The Subject Steve, Homeland, The Ask, Short Story Collections, Venus Drive, and the fun parts. The latest story over at The New Yorker. I have a few laughs. He fucking deals with all of it. And now I'm going to deal with him. And we're going to deal with us. And we're going to deal with all of it. This is me talking to Sam Lipsight in a hotel room in New York City.

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Zensurance, mind your business. I used to sing in a rock band, so I'm used to a little bit of this. Yeah, do you feel it coming back to you? I feel the surge. I did a thing where I put my whole mouth over the mic and scream into it. Oh, really? So you made that horrible distorted noise?

Yeah, exactly. And the sound technicians did not like that at all. That was back in the days of Dung Beetle. Dung Beetle, yeah. Was that what it was called? It was called Dung Beetle, yeah. You were exploring the freedom of the form. We were pushing the boundaries a little bit.

Yeah, for those few people, you pushed the boundaries. For about 12 people. But did Dung Beetle ever record? We recorded a few things here and there, never a full record, but we did some singles and we were on a soundtrack for an independent film, things like that. Oh, really? What film?

It was called Half Cocked and it came out in the 90s and it was- Same 12 people enjoyed that movie? Do you remember the band? Well, there were a lot of bands that were on the soundtrack, like the Grifters. I don't know if you remember them. Kind of? Yeah. What year are we talking?

I'm trying to figure out. When people ask me about music, it's sort of like, was I even doing anything but wandering around doing i guess it was mid 90s it's like yeah i might have missed the whole i think i missed most of the 90s it's sort of a it's sort of a movie about a fictional band that gets in a van oh and goes and then the filmmakers were in bands too and they used songs from friends yeah who are also in. And so it was kind of a celebration of a certain moment and a sad moment, maybe, in American indie rock. That moment, what is that? It was actually really at just a moment.

It was like about a year. It was more like three seconds. For some reason in the 90s, I missed everything. Like LCD sound system, I didn't even know they existed. Well, they didn't exist in the 90s. They didn't?

What was that? Well, James Murphy. He's a friend of yours, right? Yeah, he is. And he worked with us with Dung Beetle. He worked with Dung Beetle? Yeah. James Murphy did.

Yeah. See, that's clickbait right there. That's going to break the music press. Yeah. They're just James Murphy, Dung Beetle connection. Well, I was just with him the other night and we were talking about who do we listen to that music or who even talks about that music which music just whatever was going on beetle dung beetle yeah

is anyone right now in this world is there one person watching that movie wondering who's this band is there one person playing the dung beetle single probably not on a record player but you know what i bet you lady madonna is playing somewhere absolutely or uh or even like i would go as far to say that you with the beatles maybe somewhere right now paperback writer which was you know which is a b-side i would think he's probably playing somewhere but dung beetles what was your hit a hit what was your single uh well we had a we had a song called the man went out that was very the man went out yeah it was very popular it was uh the line was taken from one flew over the cuckoo's nest i remember when uh when chief through the no when billy kills himself oh yes and someone says the man went out and that's that's

what it's based on well that's that's what that's what the song's about but that's where the where the line comes from you guys are thrilled when you thought of that yeah that's got to be a song you guys pretty good that's that's a song the man went out yeah so so wait so what did you and murphy decide uh well he went on of course and became a really important rock star last night and him last night, and you were talking about the music. And what was the conversation? Well, it was just, you know, this music, these bands. What was it?

Who listens to it now? It doesn't get talked about, sort of. I'm not talking about Dung Beetle. You're talking about that moment. Yeah. What would you call that moment? This sort of like art, rock, punk, matrix. Something like that, yeah.

A kind of... Who are the other rock outfits we're talking about? Dung Beetle, The Grifters? I wouldn't even put The Grifters in there, but there was a band called Rodan, I remember. Oh, yeah, sure. There was another band we played with a lot was called Six Finger Satellite.

And they were an amazing band. Yeah. We played with the Jesus Lizard at that time. That one I heard of. Yeah. But now I'm that old guy. I don't know Six Finger Satellite. They were great.

And the guy from Six Finger Satellite, John McClain, went on to become, he has a group called The Juan McClain now. But it's more like kind of dance music. But it sounds like you're keeping up with it. Well, I keep up with the stuff that my friends are doing now, but I don't keep up that much. You don't listen to it, but you heard.

I listen to what they're doing. You do. But I'm not deep in any scene or up. I mean, I might check in on Pitchfork like every other American, but that's about it. I didn't even know they existed i i'm surprised at how far out of the loop i really am i know like even when you just i don't know brendan like knows a lot of things he seems to fill his brain with stuff and but i guess you just hit random people and they all assume like you know everyone's doing that i don't know if everyone's checking in on Pitchfork. I don't know if they are. I mean, I'm talking about 15 years ago. I mean, I try.

Now I just, I asked my son. Like yesterday. I asked my son who, he's 14 and he only listens to rap, I guess. Yeah, who's this guy? He's really into, you know, Travis Scott or A$AP Rocky. A$AP Rocky. He has an A$AP Rocky poster over his bed. Really?

And ASAP Rocky fell on him during a show. So he feels a special connection to him. That's a life changer. That's going to define things that you don't even understand yet. No, no. It's shaping him deep ways. Well,

that happens though. You never forget that shit. No. Like what, like, do you have a music moment where you're like, you know, that's it right there, where you had the experience, the revelation? I'm going to be a fucking punk rock singer. Well, I think it was more, I don't know if I had, I used to scream into a hockey stick in front of a mirror when I was, you know, 10 or 11. Sure. So I, you know, I was imagining, before i even saw a show i was kind of imagining yeah what that experience might be

but uh why was there a hockey stick in the house because i we played street hockey in the driveway yeah in jersey in jersey what part of jersey northern new jersey we've covered this probably in personal conversations but if what county bergen county so not far from morris county where my my grandmother lived no what town there's a town called closter closter which is a weird word but it's dutch i think and you think you should know i know it's dutch i'm just using that generational i think to sort of soften the blow of certainty I think there's something, as I get older I'm starting to think that much of what's important

Came out of New Jersey Well, New Jersey is densely populated Yeah And so the chances of something interesting coming out of new jersey are just higher yeah because there are just more people crammed in there italians jews all sorts of people yeah yeah and then just the hill people the hill indigenous people yeah there's a lot going on and there are you know they i keep hearing now about it's an old state well i keep hearing now about because of the election you know there are fiveidas, I'm sure you've... Oh, yeah.

But there are a lot of New Jerseys. Sure. There's like five jerseys on a two-block radius. Exactly. There's several jerseys. It's not the same anymore. I think there was fewer jerseys when people would have to go out into the street and walk around a little bit. But now everyone's just like bunkered in, hunkered down in their house looking at their internet.

But before... Well, now you're talking about 15 million New Jerseys or something like that. Well, that's sort of what it is. Everybody's their own piece of property. Everyone is their own New Jersey. Yeah, their own New Jersey. Everyone is their own New Jersey.

That's the new album by Dung Beetle. Maybe Springsteen will do a guest track. He'll do one of 1,500 guest tracks. He'll say one word. You'll sample just him going uh hey and then when people pick it out like yeah we sampled that from a springsteen yeah because like i guess i should i think we met because it feels like we've known each other for centuries which we probably have it's just there's some people in your life that, you know, like we go back to Rome probably somewhere, right? Who, you and me?

Yeah. Ancient Rome? Yeah. Yeah. You know, we were complaining. I don't think this is going to end well for the Jews. Maybe we were Christians then. Maybe.

That's true. Maybe we were new Christians. I don don't that's true maybe we were new christians like i don't know if this thing is great well new christians were basically just jews right right what do we what do we change do we have to change is it is it a different sandal that we what's the big change i just don't want to be one of the guys that's not part of the group but uh no but i met you do you know what year it was yeah i do um vaguely i think it was uh 94 95 it was a little later i was uh your wife and my girlfriend were friends my ex-wife and your ex-girlfriend were friends deborah and kim yes we're friends so that was after i moved to astoria already i feel like it was here we were still in new york we were still in the city i think we were but we we met a few times yeah we i think we went out may have gone on like some

double dates yeah uh that's right yeah and then you and i and i was and then those relationships ended but we remained friends and then we were both in Astoria. No, right. But I remember the big change. See, what happened was when Debra and I broke up, I moved out to Astoria. That's when I moved out to Astoria. But the bigger thing was that I remember that it was probably just past mid-90s. So I didn't get sober until 99. And at that time, you were sober.

And I reeled you back in i was the satan yeah you did i i i feel like i i i should apologize for that i should make an honest amends for making you smoke pot that day in the park you do you remember that yeah i did amends for making you smoke pot that day in the park you do you remember that yeah i did you probably how could you forget it i remember that i was like come on man we like what a fucking monster but but fortunately and i'm happy to say that it didn't send you back it didn't spin me out into some terrible life after that no i think i think it actually i think you were actually appreciative of it like i somehow like just eased you back in to you realizing, like, well, maybe I'm not as bad as I was,

and it turned out you weren't. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Well, what was it? Okay, so you grew up in New Jersey. Your dad's a sports writer and a popular, well, maybe aspiring young adult fiction writer. Well, not aspiring, a very successful YA writer ya writer i think that's what it's

called ya yeah i mean but what was the book that he was the that didn't that didn't get uh published what was it enter the fiddler oh that was that was much later he wrote a he i mean he's a he's kind of a legend in the young adult writing isn't he also a legend but he's even kind of a legend in the young adult writing world but he's even more of a legend as a sports writer Robert Lipsight who wrote a column for the New York Times for many years and he was very important in the he was one of the

kind of first I don't know first but one of the major sports writers who really started to kind of talk about things outside of just the game, talking about sociological, the political, the economic implications of sports. And he also, his big story that he kind of covered forever was Muhammad Ali. And because he, when Ali first sort of came out and said, I'm not Cassius Clay anymore. I'm Muhammad Ali and took certain political stands. A lot of the older sports writers started attacking him. But my dad would listen to him and took him seriously.

And they formed a sort of, I'm not going to say a friendship, but an understanding. And my dad had access to Ali for many years. Did he come over to the house? No, like I said, it wasn't like that. Did he come over to the house? No, like I said, it wasn't, it wasn't right like that,

but, uh, did he go up to the training camp? Oh yeah, no, I mean, he would go and cover him at different points in his life. And he wrote a book,

an important book on Ali. Well, he wrote a book about Ali. He wrote a book that's just actually been reissued and I'll plug his book. It's called sports world and it was first written in the seventies, but it's sort of his magnum opus about you know sports and society and and uh it's a it's a pretty incredible book yeah yeah but i mean but the weird thing is like like i'm not trying to be disrespectful but i don't i mean

you are a little bit am i no i'm just kidding no i just i'm not a sports guy right and you're not really either no i mean i growing up i probably was into it a little more than he was he was not really into sports i mean he he had found himself in sports yeah but he just wanted to be a writer and a journalist and yeah and think about things and right he he got a job at the new york times when he was a kid and they put him in the sports department and i think he maybe thought he would he would move on to something else, politics or whatever. But he ended up staying there and building a career there. But he's not a guy who ever sat around and watched games or kept track of anyone's batting average.

Or he liked the story around sports, and he liked the human interest and all the other stuff. But he wasn't a nitty gritty sports fan. And when I was a kid, if I'd be on a Sunday afternoon sitting on the couch watching a football game, he'd come in and say, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you sitting around on your ass watching a football game? That's the dumbest fucking thing you could do with your time yeah and that's so that's did he have a suggestion so everyone says to me oh it must have been amazing growing up with him because you guys you probably had tickets to everything and he took you to every game and taught you everything about and i said no you know he had a tremendous amount of self-loathing around his life as a sports writer,

and he had to elevate it into an intellectual exploration just to live with himself. Well, we all do that to some degree. Right. But what was the—he told you to get off your ass, but what was the suggestion? What did he want you to do? Well, he wasn't against sports. He was like, go out and play a sport. Go out out and run go out and do something right breathe some fresh air right get some exercise read a book whatever but don't sit and watch these professional guys bash

each other on tv but when so this was in jersey yeah and what so you got a younger sister who i know right yes susanna it's just the two of you. Yeah. And you're growing up in Jersey. Yeah. And your mom and dad stayed together for how long? They were together until I was a sophomore in college. Right.

But my mom was a writer, too. And during that time, she published a novel and did a lot of journalism. What's the novel? It's called Hot Type. under what name uh marjorie lipsight oh yeah yeah and and she was what year was that was it 70s yeah that time late 70s was it a a sort of a feminist novel it had yeah i mean it had a kind of she was a feminist yeah she wrote for a feminist newspaper and it was she had been is that first wave is that considered first wave i guess she was second wave she was a reporter had been a reporter at the new york times where she met my dad and so she there was a novel that was kind of autobiographical about being a young woman working

in the 60s at a big metropolitan newspaper that's that what that book was about. And is it available? I mean, yeah, you can find it. It's not in print, but it's available. Isn't that weird about books? I find that about records, too. You're like, who the fuck is this guy? And then there's one or two people who are like, that guy's the most important guy. Yeah, no.

Well, it's amazing how much you can access now. You can really get everything. So you're growing up with two writers, so you had no choice. What happened? You had a rebellion? Well, I had a choice. I mean, my sister's not a writer. What did she do?

She's a lawyer. Oh, that was smarter probably. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to turn and run. I mean, I tried to... What you do is you find a way to be a writer, but not the writer that they are. Right.

You find a new path. Right. You hope. But what was the process? Did you write in high school? Yeah. I mean, I think I was kind of a, I figured out a way to write really well when I was young and get lots of pats on the head and stars on my papers and

what were you writing early on well I mean whatever I was writing poetry involved yeah there was a little poetry no you have to you have to I think that that the poetry is an exercise especially when you read your prose it's important to understand it or at least it I think it's important as a writer to have an experience with poetry where you're like i see why this gets through well i think that i mean i had a teacher who said if you want to write fiction you should read poetry right you know you what do you you want your sound to be as close even as a prose writer you want it to have poetic elements you want it to sound you know have have a music to yeah right so uh i've always been going for that i think that there was a period just in high school where i kind of learned how to write short stories i read a lot of new yorker short stories and

i was writing i guess my point is i was writing a lot of stories about experiences i didn't know anything about i was sort of mimicking a lot of what I read. Who were you mimicking mostly in high school? I mean, probably 80s minimalists at the time, you know, Raymond Carver. Oh, yeah. And people like that. Can you drop some more names? I want some more names because I don't know them.

At the time, like people that, I mean, Raymond Carver, Bobby M. Mason, Frederick Barthelme. Yeah. And then later I discovered other writers who were more like what got called postmodernists, like Robert Coover and John Hawks and Thomas Pynchon and people like that. But anyway, I guess my point is I kind of learned how to write a certain kind of story and win prizes for it and stuff like that. But I kind of got disgusted with myself at a certain point because I felt like it wasn't really coming from me. It felt like a fraud?

I felt a little bit like a fraud. In high school? Well, in college. So I kind of turned away from the writing for a while. So that's when I got into the music stuff. The real stuff, the visceral. Well, it was also a way for me to like scream but not be heard like i didn't want my words to really be heard and so you really turned on writing really turned

on writing and then after that that was when i kind of rediscovered writing for myself when you know i was no longer the son of these writers i mean i still was but i'm just talking about kind of that that moment where you realize why you're doing something. Yeah. You're not doing it for other people. And you realize they don't, in the end, and this was a big lesson to me, was realizing nobody gives a shit. Yeah. You know, the people who love you, they want you to be happy, whatever that means. Yeah.

And they want you to have health insurance and they want you to, but they don't care whether like you write that short story that you've been thinking about or not. Right. All the pressure that's coming from the outside, most of it's imagined. Yeah, you're projecting all of it. You're projecting all of it. So it was that realization that nobody cares, and that's a very liberating thought. And then it's, well, then you have to ask yourself, do I care? And if the answer is yes, then you really go. So do you do, it seems like this is something that I like that,

those three steps do, you know, do they care? Am I making up what I think they're thinking? And then that's step one. Yes, I am. Step two is,

um, does anyone care? Yeah. Do I care if anyone cares? That's step two. Step three is do I care? Now this, this to me is a daily thing.

Yeah. I mean, some people call it prayer. That's step two. Step three is, do I care? Now, this to me is a daily thing. Yeah, I mean, some people call it prayer. I understand that it was. Some people call it philosophy. Yeah, looking back at it, this is a moment where you remember, but I remember that from earlier today. Yeah, right. That was 8.30 this morning. Yeah. today yeah that was that was 8 30 this morning yeah but like yeah i'm not saying it's a one-time experience but around writing i really i mean maybe it was daily for a while until i really got a sense of what who you know who i was in all of this sure but so like so in high school

you're you know you knew that this is this was your thing and you had a you had a knack for it you worked at it and you know you aspire to it and there and i succeeded on a high school level at it but there's nice you know edible competition to it yeah yeah it's very you know the other thing is realizing like you can kill your dad but it's really exhausting yeah yeah yeah but like you can kill your dad, but it's really exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. But like, you can't really kill them. So when you, when you do it that way, when you do it through, uh,

dads are zombies. It's true. They, they keep coming back. Well, that is true. Both of our dads are still alive and that's a nice thing. I,

it took me a while to realize that, but it's a good thing. But the weird thing is you can win a certain battle. Like you can't kill it. Like, you know, they can eventually battle like you can't kill like you know they can't eventually acknowledge like all right so you did you you did what you set out to do and maybe you've he clips me a little bit you know but that doesn't really kill him because once you get past that you're still looking at them and you know in their mind they're like i'm still here

fucker yeah exactly i'm not dead yet how you? I already went through what you're going through, all the other stuff. Raging Bull was on TV the other night. It was that moment where he was like, you never put me down, Ray. You never put me down. You never let me down, Ray. Just insanity. And Ray's just looking at him like, all right, you fucking weirdo. That's the relationship.

That's fathers and sons. Yeah, exactly. So early on, you weren't like like me like i you know at some point i was like i'm not going to college but you know i just was you know kind of locked into some sort of townie dream for a minute there until i panicked but growing up with not academics but people who put a premium on you know intellectual activity did you were you whatever one of those people were you like i'm not gonna, I'm done. You always knew you were gonna go to college.

Well, I kind of wanted to go to college because I thought it would be a way to get out. Right. I mean, it was a nice town I grew up in, but I was ready to go somewhere else and meet some other people.

And I kind of, I had this fantasy that turned out to be just that, that when I went to college, everyone would be interested in the things I was interested in and care about what I cared about. And, and there were a few people,

but then there were a whole bunch of other assholes too, you know, just like anywhere else. Right. Of course. And you went to Brown. Yeah. See,

I, I, I never, I didn't have a lot of choices when I, uh, you know, decided to go to college, you know,

and there was in brown's an ivy leaguer right yeah i think it's called it's known as a minor ivy minor ivy but it's also known as a sort of like you know heavily liberal arts kind of a celebrity children thing right well especially when i was there it was this is the 80s and it was you know getting covered in the media as the hot school and people hadn't really paid attention to Brown before, but suddenly, yeah, there were celebrity children. The royalty was there. In the student phone book, it said somebody's name

and then just comma and then Princess of Greece. Oh, really? Stuff like that. But this was for... I mean, sometimes you ran into those people and sometimes you didn't. But it wasn't, but see, the thing is, that's always been the case with Ivy League schools, like Yale and Harvard have always been sort of like the educational facility for aristocracies

and tyrants and dictators, families and what it was a place to get everybody the good education. But it seemed like Brown was sort of like, we got this one bad kid. Yeah. This princess is problematic. It was for like ruling class fuck-ups there's definitely yeah it was some of that and then there was a kind of intellectual kind of you know clove cigarette smoking kind of thing going on there maybe more than at some of those other schools uh it was very big into uh there was a semiotics department yeah it was theory and so you went

in there immediately without you know really any context you were reading all these french deconstructionists and and and getting into some if you were if that was your kind of major if you were kind of an english major kind of person oh so they because of the nature of the school and that it was more yeah it seems like the the regimen was different than some of the nature of the school and that it was more, it seems like the regimen was different than some of the bigger Ivy League schools. Right. Well, you weren't necessarily like, I feel like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, you're really being trained to run the world. Right, right, right. And Brown, it was like you were there to be the black sheep relation of the person who ran the world.

I never became a disciplined intellectual of any kind like i don't you know i understand the words you're saying and i think i have an idea in my mind of what they mean but i did not uh i i got no training so when you say post-modern and deconstruction like just you know you could probably explain it right yeah i mean it's not that interesting but for years i was sort of like why don't i know about that i was the guy that you know had i didn't fuck off in college i you know i i did well i graduated with honors to a certain degree and i cobbled together a english degree but like when it came right down to it i was on the lower east side in the late 80s and early 90s with all

the semiotech books you know, that's the same stuff. Trying to put it together. Yeah, yeah. But without any sort of guidelines. Right. Like I'm reading this book now by this guy, David Shields. I know David, yeah. Yeah, there's an element to it there that he clearly comes from that.

And I'm having the exact same experience. I enjoy reading the lines and I think I have an idea of what he's saying. But obviously there's a whole context, not unlike the language of philosophy, where he idea of what he's saying but obviously there's a whole context not unlike the language of philosophy where he knows exactly what he's saying and I'm just sort of like I kind of get it well I mean I felt that way coming into college I was given these texts and I didn't really have a way to relate to them and so I mean it was some of it was mind-blowing and some of it was really alienating yeah and I didn't you know I wasn't you know I wasn't coming from the ruling class so I couldn't you know fuck off fuck, so I couldn't fuck off. But I tried to take it seriously, but I was trying to grasp it all.

And some of it, I think I absorbed some, and some of it definitely helped shape my worldview. But it was kind of a general, I mean, it was not that different from any kind of vaguelyxist progressive worldview you might get right anyway right um and uh and there was there were definitely levels that i didn't i didn't get to well well yeah because if you do get to those levels then it becomes your job to uh to sort of continue pursuing the the depth and range of those levels like you know i imagine if you get to a certain level of understanding of that kind of stuff, you're required to commit your life to it. Well, it becomes a kind of priesthood or something. Right, yeah.

As time goes on, no one gives a fuck about it. Right, and it's losing traction even. Yeah, which is the Church of the Deconstructivist. I mean, this stuff's been around for 30, 40 years. It's not, you know, people rage about it now. People rage against the postmodernists now. It's not like the postmodernists are running anything. So I don't understand all of the...

I'd like to meet some of the people that are raging. See, like, it's sort of like... Well, I'm thinking of, you know, even if you look at people who are getting a lot of attention now like a guy like jordan peterson if you're aware of that guy you know and he will rage against the post-modernists and and i think he his feeling is you know it it has filtered down into the identity politics and and all of that but uh it probably has but it probably has but i mean i you know i think i feel like that's just kind of a straw man in a certain way. in terms of education, but now have become enabled through language

and through funneling it through their own anger to kind of like make half-baked arguments with the proper language. And then it becomes really problematic. Yeah, I mean, people are just throwing terminology around to rile up their audience. Right, and then you have a certain group of people that are able to say that actual know actual facts are a good theory

it's then it becomes problematic but they but i don't think we should get lost into that shit so but i do want to talk about the the relevance of of writing because you know you and i are not you're you're a little younger than me, but like, uh, obviously our, our heroes are in the same sort of time zone. Um, but like when you, when did you start, was it when you got to Brown that you started really to sort of dig into the guys that informed your writing the most? Well, I think I, when i was in college i definitely encountered a few writers that would have a lasting impact on me uh writers like barry hannah yeah stanley elkin yeah uh grace paley thomas mcguane uh and then i became uh very much a fan of a, I discovered a journal that was coming out called The Quarterly that was being edited by a guy named Gordon Lish, who was a famous New York City editor.

He had edited Raymond Carver. It was very controversially. But so I started sending stories to this magazine I just wanted to get in. And I'd get these really nice rejection letters, and I just kept sending and sending. From Gordon himself? Yeah. And, you know, you write little notes, you know,

just keep trying or keep going. And so that encouraged me to keep going. And so even while I was doing the band stuff, I was still harboring a little desire to get involved with this. And then eventually, after the kind of things, my life kind of fell apart and I was rebuilding. Wait, so we can't just, like, that's not the thing you just kind of skirt over? I don't know. I was going to backtrack to it. Oh, yeah. Okay, so after your life fell apart?

Well, a bunch of things happened. The band fell apart. We got involved with drugs. We didn't get to the beginning of the band. happened the band fell apart we got we got involved with drugs we didn't get to the beginning of the band so so the band starts at brown uh after a little bit after yeah so you're at brown we're living in providence and we're doing this band and you're like sitting around smoking cigarettes being angry sweating over mirrors and lines of cocaine no not really there was no coke really it was just like beer and cigarettes yeah uh and playing at local clubs and hanging out but who was the guitar player a guy named rob reynolds uh-huh uh who's now a painter in la and a really good friend of mine but uh is he a good painter he's a very good painter big painter he paints big and small

abstracts uh he does all sorts of things. He does some abstract things and some figurative things, too. I wonder if he knows my girlfriend. He might. So he's a painter. And so who was on drums? A guy on drums, his name was Bruce Cooley, but we called him Bruce Oyster Cooley. Sure.

Just Oyster sometimes? Just Oyster. oyster cooley and um sure he uh just oyster sometimes just as oyster yeah he had been actually our our ta in a class but we kind of dragged him into this oh yeah he was a little bit older yeah and um and then on base we had a a guy named uh nicholas butterworth sure and uh although he went by big jimmy fingers at the. We all had rock names. What was your rock name? Sam Shit. Sam Shit? Oh, that's good. Or Sam Beetle because it was Dung Beetle,

but I sort of did both. So the birth of Dung Beetle, they were all RISD guys? Or no, they were all brown guys? Yeah, they were all originally brown guys. Uh-huh. And what was the manifesto? Well, the manifesto was just to be kind of weird and crazy

and never wink at the audience, never let them know that it was a joke. Oh, okay. That just seemed very important to us. Uh-huh. And just kind of to be as alienating as possible while still being entertaining. Uh-huh.

We wanted you to have a good time, but to feel bad, feel disturbed on some level. wanted you to have a good time but you know to feel bad feel disturbed on some level and and did you have a following well those 12 people we talked about i know but it was really just 12 really yeah people would show you were part of a scene we were part of a scene we like i said there was a band six fingers i like some other bands we were in providence and then we moved we moved the band down to new york after about a year but you were still at brown no no we were done we were we had graduated so we oh i see so after brown was over we spent a year in providence playing around

in clubs there so you did your degree yeah and you you wrote your stuff you got through brown yeah with a degree in what english yeah english major and you'd publish some stuff and during college just no not really college magazines maybe but nothing okay and afterwards you're like we're banned and we're going to new york well first we spent a year in providence okay yeah right and then we went down to new york it was serious yeah we were serious i mean i don't know what so we didn't know it's not like we were serious like we thought we were going to end up on tv with this but we were serious about wanting to keep playing and keep playing in clubs and keep pushing the envelope with the fuck you

ness well fighting interesting ways to say fuck you because it's easy to say fuck you in a boring way but so what who are the musical influences if we were to listen to dung beetle we'd be like oh you know this sounds a lot like all the osmonds i don't know you must have seen yourself on some sort of continuum yeah i mean it was punk rock it was but it was i mean also we were all coming from different places but you know we liked bands like the laughing hyenas like the gun club if you remember the gun club i love the gun club uh so uh the great lizard the gun club was so good yeah the stooges we loved oh yeah sure yeah it's that kind of if you can find that then so when did the wheels start coming off after about it i mean it was i think that a couple of us started to be interested in other things

you know started to think about the guitarist was thinking more about painting at a certain point the bassist was thinking about politics and and uh we just started we started to lose a little bit of steam and we started to lose that uh that team feeling that i think we had and drugs were getting involved and drugs were getting involved people you got all fucked up? I got pretty fucked up. For how long? Not that long, but long enough for it to screw up my life. Did you get scared? Yeah.

Were you, I don't know how much you really want to talk about it. I'll be diplomatic about it. But were you strung out? I mean, they were not for long periods but for good enough periods i was you know yeah thinking about what am i gonna do today to get the money to to not feel shitty right let's put it that way and that would that became the job at times that's and that became you know a full-time job and what did you do for the money to get the stuff to not feel shitty sell stuff sell my belongings oh yeah you know so he's getting sparse things got i mean and we knew things were going bad when the drummer

started selling his drum kit one piece at a time so claiming that it was you know because he was into a more minimalist sound but a more minimalist sound of just what's going on in his head in the corner of the empty room. It got down to just the snare. Exactly. This has got sort of a military feel. I don't know if that's what we're looking for. But it got to a point where you're like, I've got to clean up.

Yeah. And you did it. Yeah. And that's when you started to rethink the writing yeah i mean i kind of was doing all sorts of things to make money including uh substitute teaching at high schools and and i was and this is also a point where my mother uh had had she had been in remission from breast cancer for about 13 years but came back and it got pretty bad. And I was sort of rebuilding my life and she was in this bad place, so I moved in with her. In Jersey?

No, this is now my parents are divorced and they both lived in the city. And so I kind of took care of her and was trying to take care of myself at the same time. Right. And it was kind of an amazing time. I mean, I'm glad it worked out that way that I was able to be there. Well, it's good that you were sober and not taking her medication.

That was good. Could have gone the other way. It could have gone the other way, but the timing was right. So I was a help rather than a hindrance. So really, you nursed her? And we helped each other. Yeah. How so? Just by talking? Emotionally,, you nursed her? And we helped each other. Yeah. And then.

How so? Just by talking? Well, emotionally, yeah. Oh, yeah? Being there for each other. And then she, you know, but it, you know, she got sicker and sicker and then she died. Yeah. And you were there the whole time? Yeah.

You were the primary caretaker in a way? Yeah. Wow. I can't, like, yeah, that's. And what affected that i mean it must have been like i assume because i can only you know speculate but like to sort of process that and go through it it must have brought you closer and given you a deeper understanding of something well i mean part it gave me a deeper understanding of her yeah which which i was really grateful for

because you know she'd been my mom and you know whatever a lot of other you know and i i'd known her in so many ways but now i kind of got to know her in a new way and kind of understand her as a person yeah a lot more you know i'm sorry that it took this right for that to happen but but you had you sadly but also in some bittersweet way, you had the time. Yeah, and we did have, there was time. It was a period of a couple years. And you probably, because of what you just, the identification probably was so strong with your dad. After a certain point, you detach from your parents and you realize you have no idea who they are.

Yeah, exactly. And you were able to sort of know her. Yeah. That's great know her and in a way i'm getting to know my dad now in a way that i wasn't able to before when i was filled up with all sorts of feelings and resentments yeah resentments and you know uh independence and like sort of necessary defiance or right distancing whatever. Pushing back. Pushing back, yeah. Yeah. But that was a very key, I think, moment in my life was that time with her. Yeah.

And then after that, but, you know, I really didn't start to really write seriously and write the things that I would eventually publish until after that. Yeah. She died and then i was kind of then in a strange way that was the final like well nobody really the only person who really truly gave a shit is dead now so now now it's on you now it's on me do i give a shit yeah yeah who am i doing it for yeah but it must have like i i imagine that that experience kind of helped humanize and define the darkness a bit right yeah you know because there is sort of like there's that one short story where the the junkie dude shoots up his mother's ashes right that like the you know i i imagine it would be hard to think of that comedic device, if you could call it that,

or make it sort of poignant and funny without having the experience that you had both with your own life and with your mother passing away. Right, and I mean, that was an important story for me to write at that time. What was it called? Cremains. But I think that my experience had had been I'd been kind of at that point anyway sort of a good son yeah but I didn't want to write that

that's not interesting so I was done I was more interested in writing about you know what it's kind of a story it was almost like an alternate history of what if I had you know stayed on a bad course right and and had the same Right things experience with my mother right so that was that was kind of the imaginative right leap Yeah, that's a good one and and I didn't know that I wrote this I was writing the story. I told this Before but I was writing it and I didn't know where it was going and then As soon as he shot up his mother's ashes I was like oh I guess it's over I guess where you go from there exactly I guess the story's you've done it it sort of circles back

around to what I keep circling back around to without saying is that you know when I talked about our our own heroes and about who they are when you talk about people like stanley elkin or barry hannah or dennis uh what's his last name well i mentioned thomas mcguine but uh mcguine you're gonna say dennis johnson he definitely dennis johnson was certainly a but these guys like you and you know i brought up what did i bring up with you oh the brodigan book i dug up and i was but like these guys were this this pantheon of these 70s writers yeah you know who like to a certain group of people were were you know incredibly important and culturally relevant you said you went to philip roth's memorial right i did go to yeah and like i just wonder like you know how how they defined culture when they were

alive because it seemed like the there was a good part of culture that was sort of intellectually bent uh well i guess you you know you mentioned the 70s and you think about books and movies and all of it together it's just it is there's a kind of cultural feeling that i guess we both feel yeah steeped in and feel formed by and yeah definitely you know we grew up in it yeah i mean i grew we i grew up in the 80s but I guess we both feel steeped in and feel formed by. And I definitely, you know. We grew up in it. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in the 80s,

but it was really the 70s I was paying, you know, what had been done in the 70s that was what I was marinating in. Yeah. And then when you, like, I guess, like, in terms of, like, your own books, that there's this idea, like, I know who the writers, some of the writers are that are in the world that you're in, your generation or whatever, and even the ones that are really big,

you know, it's still sort of, it seems like an insulated community. Like, when you say someone's a priest of deconstructionism, right, that there's still this world of literature that I feel like gets more and more, you know, specific and insulated. You know what I mean? That it doesn't have the cultural resonance that it once had. That's really true. And I always say, you know, I think there was a time when, you know, there was a particular book or a particular movie or a particular record that, you know, when you went to the

party, you just had to at least pretend to have experienced. And I think that that's still true, except the book is off the table. You don't have to pretend to have read a book at this point. Well, no, it seems right. Or a novel, anyway. No, I think that's true. But also I think what's happened is

instead of having a common conversation about this thing that's supposedly important, it seems like the the real uh uh you know conversational premium is is knowing something about something that no one knows about like you know sort of like oh you didn't see that it's like i didn't even know it existed no of course you didn't like there's it's not right you know but maybe in in the world you run in that's still with movies or whatever but it seems more that people like there's no there's no common thread that you know there's there's so much shit out there we're all in our niches that's all right then the niche can be very small yeah and so there's no common thread

there's no there's no main narrative we're all commenting on i mean besides the political one which right right now we're all yeah but that's. That's what we're all looking at. Recent. Right. You're into these books. You're into these movies and these books over here. And they don't necessarily touch each other. Well, I think that's what's great about the new book, Hark, about the new novel,

is because having watched you go through the other novels, the subject, Steve, the first one. Well, first is Venus Drive, right? The stories. And those are stories, and they're great, and they're dark, and they're solid. through the other novels the subject steve the first one well first is venus drive right the stories yeah and those are stories and they're great and they're dark and they're you know they're they're solid but then subject steve is is not as accessible as homeland right it's a little like fragmented not in a bad way but you were doing something what was i doing what was i doing what no i i mean i think like see like i they're like when

i read elkin or i read some of these other guys like elkin is not really an easy read i mean one writer i didn't mention that i think the subject steve was probably uh indebted to his delillo delillo is the greatest right right he's a he's another lish guy well they're they were friends i mean i wouldn't say lish really shaped delillo but you know uh and well like a book like white noise or something you know sure yeah right white noise yeah exactly that was the first delillo i read and then i've read all of them at a certain point and but that was the one that really was his big finally that was what what his fifth novel probably like that yeah because the other ones it's it's it's right so fragments not the right word i don't know how to talk about novels that

much but it wasn't insanely accessible no i mean it it was trying to do certain things as you said it was it was structured in an in a weird way it was these kinds of diary entries or these itemizations they were called and so um you know i you know was trying to get to a lot of it was doing a more kind of cultural analysis than some of the other right books maybe and but but then but i think now you you've come back to it but you your voice is so you know well defined and and also i think more broad yeah i mean i think yes i see what you're saying i think you're i agree with you i think there's a bit of the subject steve in hark but with more of the character stuff and more of the human stuff right brought in more funny and funnier yeah because they like the all the comedies the

characters are very well defined and and the comedies, the characters are very well-defined, and the humor, because the characters are not only believable but familiar and sort of well-defined, yet the humor has a lot more punch to it. Well, thank you. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I mean, I'm going for that. That's the effect I'm after.

So in your personal arc like because i've just watched because like homeland was funny but like uh homeland was really driven by this ridiculous voice yeah and so yeah it was very funny right because the guy had a chip on his shoulder he had a chip on his shoulder and it was about like reading through his bombast yeah through his his mania right and then the, we get into this other world where you're sort of like, you know, you've got the guy that's trying to, you know, make it, you know, just survive life.

And he's in this weird world of servicing rich people. Yeah. So it's just kind of like this walk of shame through the whole book. This kind of series of humiliations that reflect, I think, what a lot of people feel in their working life. And I think in that book, The Ask, which I love,

but I just see the natural evolution of sort of like dealing with the ideas that you like to deal with, but like somehow or another, the characters become like i in this book as i told you before like i i don't i'm not going to mistake you for the right main guy in the ask i'm like that's sam and then there was actually a part where like that's actually a conversation i had with sam yeah that's true

i never tell anybody i'm not particularly proud of where I was at at that time, but that beat that you used in the book was hilarious. That's not a problem I'm having. I don't even want to tell people which one it is. They can figure it out. But this book, the guy, what's the protagonist's name? Not Mark, the other guy. Fraz.

Fraz. There are aspects of me in there, but it's a lot of different people. Look, the guy, what's the protagonist's name? Not Hark, the other guy. Fraz. Fraz. Like, I mean, I can see. There are aspects of me in there, but it's a lot of different people. And I don't mean that in that usual fiction writer evasive way of don't pin me down. It's, it really, I am drawing from a lot of different. Sure, the experience of being married and having two children. But that's, yeah, I mean, there's emotional autobiography there, right? You know, it's.

Right. A lot of those feelings are feelings I've had. The situation's not so much. But I just feel in this book, I guess not unlike, you know, White Noise in a way, that you were able to sort of get it all in. You know, get, you know, politics, culture, you know, spirituality, the exploitation of spirituality, commercialism, you know, you know tech you know like that the entire you know sort of chaotic but defining cultural landscape that we're living in which seems really hard to wrap your brain around you were sort of able to harness it through this he's not even a charlatan he's he's almost a haphazard uh spiritually yeah i mean right yeah and then there's a kind of revelation at the end about who he really

is but yeah yeah it was very satisfying that and to me that's the trickiest thing and i think i don't know not as somebody who talks literature much or or claims to to even you know study it but it seems that when you're dealing with a novel that has you know definable characters that's not abstract that that third act is the trickiest one how are you gonna end that how do you land it yeah but like you landed it great yeah thank you i mean that was a that was a leap as they say you know that was uh should i do this that was a moment where i thought i'm if this is wrong i'm really fucked no but it was satisfying because like i said like like from before in talking about about poetry that if

you have laid the groundwork i i think in again not an academic but you have a certain amount of freedom with poetry to the point where you know a lot of times you can't determine whether it's terrible or it isn't right but you'd laid all this groundwork so to take the leap that you took you know just poetically is sound to like yeah you know whether or not the the there's the logic is going to hold or if it's believable doesn't really matter does it no i think that it's i mean you're what you're talking about is just a general storytelling idea which is do you earn it or not right yeah but you earned it and you're sort of like i guess he's going gonna do it that way yeah that's fine that's great good yeah and um but yeah i mean i think you're right i was trying to it took me a long time to write this book i started it in 2012

really and so it wasn't something i i mean it was something that was i kept layering things into it and it changed a bit as I went. And my conception of even what it could be altered a lot. And I like that it took a while and I like that those layers are there. It creates more texture and creates more space for all of those themes you mentioned and also creates or allowed me to work on those characters and make them as dimensional as possible. Yeah, and I think the comedic device of it, a lot of them that kind of move throughout the book, the changing names of local restaurants.

Yeah. You know, it does sort of, it kind of guts the reality we live in a little bit. Yeah. And that we're all such suckers for such bullshit, you know, so daily. It almost seems to change every day. But, you know, the sort of what really,

the continuum, the thing that stays is like, you know, Fraz's problems. Right. You know, and his particular character, you know, his emotional problems and his, you know and his particular character you know his emotional problems and his you know his sense of insecurity that no matter what is shifting around you or how complicated the world gets is that at the end of the day you're still that guy you're still you but like what elements like you know gordon lish is this sort of uh kind of infamous character who ran these

writer workshops yeah i mean they were yes for me is that the word wrong word no no no i just it was i was thinking about workshop because we didn't really he didn't go over your writing that much in these classes he more lectured and spoke about writing and then sort of it would go for about six hours each session and then at the end he'd ask people to read from whatever they were working on. And it was a very nerve-wracking experience. Is he still alive? Yeah. And he would listen to what you were writing,

but really point out immediately where you were going wrong. He was harsh. And didn't he wear military garb, too, or something? It was safari garb, maybe. Here's a character, a New York character, that had written a lot of books. Well, he wrote a lot of books. He edited almost all the writers I cared about

at some point or another. And when he was editor at Esquire and Knopf, he published most of the writers I care about. So he was someone that i look to as this is a guy who has who had already helped shape what what i thought was some of the most exciting uh writing in in the last 50 you know whatever 40 years of of american fiction so uh he and he was an incredible and right still teaches a little bit, I think, but maybe he hasn't in a while. But he was an incredible teacher. He he really gave of himself.

He gave everything he had. He had the most best ear I've ever encountered. He could hear everything you were doing. And he he taught you how to really I always say he taught us how to listen to ourselves, which was the most important thing. Because I think that before then, one is writing and one sort of doesn't even, one writes and writes,

but isn't even paying attention to what you're doing. Right. You're just trying to get to the next thing and you're not staying in the moment. Or else you're sort of elaborating to a degree where you're entertaining yourself but not necessarily honoring yeah what you want to say and what you've put into motion it's a very the idea is you begin with these elements and you have to follow them and you

can't if you're going to veer away from them you have to account for that right and the thing the thing that i have found which is what i like about what i do is I get to, when I begin, write a first draft, that's an improvisation. And that's a performance. You're talking about a 200, 300 page performance? Yeah, but then you get to fix it. You get to keep working on it and keep fixing it and revising it.

Yeah. And so you get the best of both. So with something like, with Hark, where did that start? What was the driving idea? I think I began with Hark, where did that start? What was the driving idea? I think I began with this idea, this kind of silly idea of mental archery. You know, just this image of people doing these. So this is your sort of satirical riff on yoga?

All that stuff. Yeah, I mean, my wife is really into yoga, and we talk about this kind of stuff all the time. And, you know, I've tried to do it. know maybe i was thinking of a a yoga i could do which mental archery well the thing that's so funny about it is that you you you sort of you know flesh it out enough to you know historically yeah with with with bullshit and in actual fact yeah that you you created a history for this idea that, that becomes a spiritual idea. That was a lot of fun.

That, that, that part of it sort of naming the poses and doing the historical background on all of them. And also it, it, it's vague enough to be, you know,

open to almost any interpretation, right. Which is, you know, how, which is the secret to a lot of these things and how this guy becomes put in the position of being a spiritual guru. Well, the idea of Hark himself is he's someone everyone can project upon. And so different characters have a different idea of what mental archery is and what it means and what it can mean for them and for society.

So some people see it as a more private practice, a more spiritual practice. Other people see it as an agent for political change. Other people see it as a way to bring communities together. And everyone's projecting onto Hark. Some people see him as this kind of old-style shaman. Some people see him as this new leader. And then there's the forces of capitalism and technology that want to exploit it and to commodify it yeah so he's but he's you know one of those guys who can be everything to everybody right yeah except like who is he who is he and he's just like i don't know

it's almost it just reminded me well he says i just want to help people focus that's what he keeps saying in the book. And everyone's heaping all of this other stuff on top. Everything will be good in the garden. Yeah. It's a little like, yeah, being there. He's a little bit of a Chance the Gardener type. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I just thought of that when we were talking. But so it started out with mental archery. That was the idea. That came to you in a flash of some kind. Yeah, mental archery and then somebody kind of teaching it going somewhere upstate to do a seminar and that was the the the

the basis well that's how that's what triggered it all and then i i was writing that there was a whole scene that didn't make it into the book that was maybe the first thing i wrote yeah but then i realized that this guy hark needed some kind of sidekick and then that's where the frazz character came in and then then i i had this other storyline the initial hanger on yeah yeah yeah the guy who saw something in it for himself right but spiritually and and like he defined his life he's feeling this lack yeah a lack and he needs he needs to plug into something. And here it is. The lack. And then I also, there's another subplot about someone who transports organs around. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I met this guy who is a German actor who does this, you know, he does acting jobs all around the world, but then he's also transporting organs all over the place. It's kind of his side side gig. Yeah. And I became interested in sort of that, uh, that there's a little subplot there. And so there's a woman who's one of the main characters is also transporting organs at different points.

It's so funny that that out of the entire book, I would have thought that would have been the one contrivance, but that's actually rooted in a guy you met. Like, where the fuck did this come from? And you're like, a German guy. And then you just sort of move through the rest of it. I mean, because I remember talking to you once before about where you start, and you kind of start in the middle and build out. Well, there was a little, I mean, because of that of that scene you know wasn't necessarily the beginning of a story it was showing them

already established in their routines right then i'm like who are these people what is who are the what are their lives like where did they come from that's the building out you sort of figure out though and what's going to happen right and so that and that takes a long time and so i always say i kind of i'm writing sideways because i'm moving forward but then i'm always going back and playing with what i've done and then moving forward again and going back and moving forward so it's kind of this sideways crab like yeah movement it's not a straight shot sure of course right but what's also interesting is because of the time that this evolved over whatever what is it five years six

years yeah six i guess six years is that you were able to integrate a lot of the cultural dialogue that's going on around you know gender and around uh you know uh feminism and around uh you know um paradigm shifting yeah you know active uh you know patriotic takedown that they're there it's not like a full subtext but you you address it like because i think there's a lot in this book that is is very immediate and relevant cultural commentary in a very you know cutting but funny way you know yeah i think it's stuff that was bubbling for a while and yeah in the air and it's not you know you didn't wedge it in there i didn't wedge it in there because these characters were kind of naturally talking about this stuff.

But then I started to see, oh, this thing's heating up and that aspect's heating up. Yeah. Yeah. There was very few things that you didn't really touch upon, I think. I think you got it all in. I think you did it. So I'm done. Yeah.

No, now you go back to much simpler things. Now you just sort of uh now it just becomes about you on a beach for a while and now you gotta like because i think i don't know what you have to do this book is just coming out what do we got to talk about the next one for it oh there is no next one yeah that's it i'm just saying no i mean i hope there's a next one but yeah i feel empty right now right you gotta spend a little time filling filling back up i i was just so uh you're proud of you and excited, because I always love reading your books

and I always get a big kick out of them. But as I know you as a person and also as an artist, that when you see somebody just sort of go like, oh, this was the next one. This is the one that it's all fully realized. Yeah, I'm not saying you're done but i'm saying that no i want to feel like the worst feeling is oh the the third book was the best and i've just been on this downward i mean and you're always going to meet people who like

different books that you've written right but you want to feel like yeah but don't trust those people no you want to feel like this is you know i'm trust those people. No, you want to feel like this is, you know, I'm as good as I can be now. Right. And I'm. Exactly. I'm the best I've been now. And this is as good as I have done. That's what you want to feel like.

Right. But, you know, that's weird for people like me and you. And maybe, I don't know, really for you. But, like, I know, you know, even if I did my best effort in the past. Yeah, you already. At the time that it wasn't there yet. I know that I don't tell people that necessarily, but when I look back on my choice to do ThinkyPain as a loose hour and a half exploration of things, some of which were not fully realized and and but i wanted that's what i wanted it to be right i don't think it was a a cop-out or or rationalization that was just how i was working at that time and now like you know after i did that i'm like long and tighten it up

right yeah like you know what i mean like that that was a good experiment you know i'm glad people like it that had its own quality to it, but I got to tighten it up. Yeah. And there's also this sense, I mean, when you look back at the end of everything, people are trying to make a story out of your career. Yeah. Everything you did. Oh, it went this way and built this way. Yeah. It reached this pinnacle. But that's not how you're feeling.

You're just feeling like, now I want to try this. And now I want to do this. And now I want to go out in this direction. Yeah. And then I want to go this, and now I want to do this, and now I want to go out in this direction, and now I want to go out in a different one. So you're not thinking of the arc of your biography when you're making all these choices about what you're working on. Not insane, insecure, creative people. Ambitious people that are able to project what they want their life to be

and their career to be, they seem to do that. But, yeah, I don't have that luxury. You're not saying, you know no what would mark maron do now no sometimes i wish i had more of that yeah i mean that would help actually it's true some people they lock in they're like this is what i do good and i'm gonna keep doing this because it's making me money or whatever and this is what people want the benefit for us is that like you know we we haven't uh locked into something that makes a lot of other people money you know, we haven't locked into something that makes a lot of other people money, you know? Right, so you're not feeling that pressure.

Yeah, yeah, from us or the outside. You're not supporting a lot of families. Right, well, that's, yeah, I've always, listen, I hate when I say I've always said that, you know, you don't make money until you make other people money. That's the sign that you're making money, right? Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I've sort of gone around that,

so that worked out, you know? Like i i don't have to answer to anybody but that we're not talking about me we can though no i'm tired of it well let me ask you this because like you know you teach like the you know the one route that that people take you know take in your racket is that you haven't – like, again, this speaks to that planning or what are you going to do with your talent that you know that you have? And you haven't really sort of succumbed to this sort of Faulknerian journey to Hollywood. Well, I mean, people like me, you can write for TV. You can teach. Yeah. You used to be able to get by on journalism,

doing magazine stuff, but that's kind of contracting, and it's not really viable anymore. So people are really, now it's television or teaching yeah and i mean i i have done a little bit of the tv stuff but mostly it's been most of my career has been teaching well what but what is your experience with it because i know some of your story your books have been optioned and you know and and you're maybe going to be made into a movie which is fine they give you some money and you're like yeah i mean that happens all the time they get a tiny bit of money and some somebody has an idea for a movie

but wasn't there a point where you were kind of part of the process of making which one well there's always been talk about the ask becoming a movie but i did several years ago i i wrote a half hour script yeah i remember yeah h bought, but nothing ever happened to it. But there was, I had this two week period when I thought I was about to become this really successful showrunner. And what happened? You can imagine me as a showrunner.

I remember. Like, what do I do? And so it was this, it was almost like fantasy camp where like they make you, you can pay $1,000 and pretend you're a showrunner for a week. That's what it felt like.

What happened with that? What was it called? It was called People City. I wrote it in a couple weeks. My agent said, why don't you try writing something? And I did and they bought it right away. And then I was going out to tea with movie stars to see if i liked them yeah yeah oh

yeah yeah sure and then and then you know who'd you go out with uh i had a nice uh a nice time drinking tea with uh michael keaton oh yeah oh he's great he's great yeah but it was just this moment where they're like, how do you see it, Sam? How are you going to realize your vision? And then it was done. And it was fine, but it was exactly the way it's supposed to go. It was like every story you ever hear about how it didn't work out.

Right. But did you leave doubting your vision i had no i mean i had written a funny script but i had no idea what i was doing and had no place at that point doing you know it shouldn't have happened because i even didn't really have a vision for a whole show you know well that's where you call your friend mark and you go like what do you think we should do with this? I think I did call you. Maybe I wasn't ready.

I think you did call me. But I'm like, I don't know. Do you want me to introduce you to somebody? Well, I mean, I think it was just one of those things where they were deciding between a couple shows and they went. also what's happening now is that like you oddly when i get opportunities to do that kind of stuff because of the podcast or because like you know you're teaching and you're still writing your books it's like you really have to ask yourself it's like do i want to throw fucking a year or two of my life and time down that fucking you know hole because i mean you can be locked into that shit for years and it doesn't go anywhere right

you have to want to be doing that yeah i mean you have to that's what you needed to be chasing the whole time and i'd kind of stumbled into it and i wanted it to be like the old my old idea of hollywood with writers where they just paid you some money for something and then told you to go away but they were like no we want you to be part of this. Yeah, but I think the point that I'm trying to get to in my mind is that you can do something on television and movies that is now, because of the media landscape, they can immediately become equally as irrelevant as books.

Right, yeah. You know what I mean? There's so much of it. Right. Like you can do this amazing thing and nobody will see it. Well, yeah, because it is, like, now it's the same thing.

Because I hear people, everyone's talking about a different show, and they're saying, I haven't seen that, I haven't heard of it, where is that? Right, that's right. Oh, what are you talking about? It's the best thing on television. It changed my life. Right, that's the point I made earlier. Do you remember when we were talking? I'm just catching up to it i'm a little slow today okay well that's a good point sam i i don't i don't know what you would do without my blazing insight about the landscape the cultural landscape i mean

no i just like that we were so immersed in some other conversation then that when i brought it up it apparently didn't register at all until you made it your own thought a half hour later. Well, that's good. Well, when you first said it, I just said, file that away and bring it back as your own idea. Don't acknowledge that he's having a good idea. Or that you understand what he's saying in that moment.

Just blow by it now. Circle back. Let it go through your mill and drop it in where you feel like it's irrelevant but uh but i am i'm i'm doing some more stuff like that i think i might play around with that kind of writing well well good but i you know i i got an email from somebody and i can't remember you know what whether it was him or his daughter or something. But somebody written to me, because I mentioned your name, and said that either they were in your class, or they said you're a great educator.

Well, that's nice to hear. Yeah. I mean, this is the main part of my life. I've been teaching for 15, 16 years. I remember when you started, though, and it was sort of like, I don't want to get sucked in. Oh, I'm chair of the department. I mean, I'm sucked in.

But do you remember when you were struggling with the bureaucracy? You're like, I don't know if I can take the politics. Now I am the bureaucrat. But what does that mean? I'm the guy at the desk making things difficult for. But like you didn't jockey for that. Was it a process of elimination? No, it's a rotation. And everyone in the program, all the teachers have to take their turn doing this kind of administrative work.

Are you going to be tenured? Well, it's funny you should ask. After being there about 13 years, I'm going up for tenure this year. Do they put you up or you asked to be put up for it? How does that work? I didn't ask, but they said, you know, we think you should go for tenure. And so I am, but it's scary because if something goes wrong with it, if you don't get tenure, you're out of a job.

What do you mean? Like either you get it, you don't keep working? They call it, you know, up or out. Really? Yeah. But why would you be out? Because once you go through that process, if you don't pass tenure, then you have to leave. Really? Yeah. But why would you be out? Because once you go through that process, if you don't pass tenure, then you have to leave. Really?

Yeah. What kind of fucked up system is that? That's the academic system. Even if you're a great teacher? Well, I mean, I guess they're deciding that. Huh. I mean, we'll see. Everyone who is in that world, not everyone, but a lot of people in that world have to go through this process.

And it's, it can be very scary for people because usually they do it after seven years or something like that. And then, you know, if they don't get tenure, then they have to leave and find it, find another job.

Then you got to go to a smaller liberal arts college somewhere. Well, if you're lucky, I mean, I don't know. I mean, the other thing is, uh,

my family, we live in Columbia housing where I teach. So it's kind of, it's all company town sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah. There's a little bit of that in the book too. Yeah. But it's, what was it? What did they make at that place?

Was it waffles? Yeah, no, it's a waffle town, yeah. Frozen waffle factory. Yeah, the company town man it's like stuyvesant town was uh was that met life or what was it i don't know what it was but it was the insurance company i think yeah but uh i've always i mean a lot of my books i'm always interested in the individual's relationship to institutions and to the way you're kind of sucked the way you are sucked in you know well but but i think that it's it's it's sort of a beautiful thing that that you did you know after a certain point in time take to you know what the importance of of what teachers

are well i mean absolutely i mean the thing is is that i never imagined myself as a teacher when i was younger right and I love teaching. You do? Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm really, that's one of my happiest times is in the classroom. Yeah. You know, that to me is a refuge from everything. Now we're here and we're talking about stuff I care about and you care about and we're all here trying to get better as writers.

That to me is really exciting. So that was always a thing of, oh, some people have to write. I mean, some people have to teach so they can write, and it's what a drag. But no, that's been really thrilling. But that was an evolution for you. Well, I had to find out that I was a teacher. Right, but also you had to also, because I think that at the beginning, that was the thought, that it was some sort of concession.

Yes, exactly. That it was a necessity. concession. Yes, exactly. That it was a necessity. If I wasn't going to sell out or try to do that or dilute myself or become desperate and have to pimp out or whore out my skills, you teach. you know, as somebody, a fiction writer, you know, always existed. But it also implied that on some level, I don't know if it's true or not, but that you weren't a success. Yeah, well, that was the idea. Well, they always said those who can't do teach. Yeah.

But in my world, like everybody teaches. Right, right. But there's always that hovering over. And then you find out that you really love teaching. Yeah. Or what I did anyway. Well, that's great. And what do you try to impart in the kids in a general way

if you could you know in terms of approaching writing that nobody cares is that the name of your first class that's that's yeah that's the first class that's good if i ever write a uh a book about you know writing writing it'll be just called nobody cares write a uh a book about you know writing writing it'll be just called nobody cares except you got to decide whether you do yeah do you care chapter one do you care and do you see the the contraction academically in you know writing programs in the liberal arts in general well i know i mean ours has been growing i think a lot of people a lot of people want to want to study this and a lot of people that normally because of various socioeconomic factors or others felt shut out of these kinds of programs are kind of coming in and bringing new perspectives and so you know there's more diversity in all ways

and so that's i mean that's something that's i think great and do you find that most of the students are are looking to you know build a life in in writing fiction or do you think that you know that the the i think they're real a lot of them are realists and see that it's not like 1972 right now right and um it's a different world out there for a literary novelist or a um it's a different world out there for a literary novelist or a short story writer and you know they're they're you know so i think some of them want to want to they want to write books but they they're thinking well maybe i'll teach or maybe i'll find some other thing to do as well right um and uh and i think a lot of them are i I remember, this is a couple years ago, I walked in on my class and they were already talking about stuff. And they were talking about all these writers and they were dropping all these writers' names.

And I didn't recognize any of them. And I thought, oh, my God, I'm really out of it. I'm not paying attention to what's happening in literature right now. I really got to catch up. I'm really falling behind. And I kept listening. And then I finally said, who are these people? And they were all TV writers that they were talking about. right now yeah i really got to catch up i'm really falling behind and i kept listening and then i finally said who are these people and they were all tv writers that they were talking about so

so i think they're savvy and they understand that that's you know but there's a place that they need to look into as well and also because yes there there's been a lot more space afforded that medium to explore more literary things. Yeah, I mean, you can do a lot of stuff there. It's not like, you know, we used to, you know, back in the day, you could only do things, you could do things in books that you couldn't do on TV. So there's no content you can't do on TV. And what do you think... So then the question is why... If that's the case, then why write a book?

And it has to be because you care about language. It has to be because you care about that medium. Right. And do you think that... Because there's no story you can't tell on television. But what you can do in a book is capture the speed of thought and association and funnel it through poetic language. So if you want to do that and that excites you, and that has to be what gives you a charge, then you're in the right place to be writing but i think that for all sorts of people fiction uh is is a really uh still an exciting yeah and um liberating place to to operate both as writers and readers and

there is something that that prose fiction can do that movies can't do and i say this to my students when i'm teaching when we're talking about even what they're doing in a specific scene or saying, would a movie do that better? Because if a movie did it better, do something else. If you're just describing a movie. Know the battle. I'm just like, is that just a reaction shot

that you're giving us? Do something else because we have a medium for that. Yeah, well, you do. You tell them that because that's the way they think, I imagine, some of them yeah that's great so there's but so just just to say i think that you know it it will always find new relevance and new meaning for new generations and people are still you know and maybe it's going away but people talk about the internet you know the bad internet and all that stuff but the fact is that people through email and texting or use are writing all the time yeah so in a way the the even the idea

of expressing your way yourself through language through written text is something that's still still happening it happens more now in a way yeah because less people want to talk right because it used to be just the telephone right now it's everyone's writing a treatise yeah everyone's to go out misreading the tone of text. Exactly, right. Well, and then you have to learn how to be a better writer just to be able to meet your friend for coffee.

Okay, I'll let you have that. That seems like a good rationalization. I mean, it's borderline, but it's good. It's solid. So have you decided on sections of the book that you're going to read when you go out and read your book, Hark? I've been playing around with a few different ones. You want to read one?

Do you want me to read something? Yeah, read something. And then I want you to tell me on the mics that Jewish joke you told me the other day. I'll just read the very beginning, and then I'll read another little bit. Okay. Listen, before Hark, was it ever harder to be human was it ever harder to believe in our world the weather made us wonder the markets had the wars the rich had stopped pretending they were just the best of us and not some utterly different form of life the rest the most could

glimpse their end on earth in the parched basins and roiling seas, but could not march against their masters. They slaughtered each other instead, retracted into glowing holes. Hark glowed too. He came to us and was golden-y. It wasn't that Hark had the answer. It was more that he didn't. All he possessed, he claimed, were a few tricks or tips to help people focus. At work, at home, out for coffee with a client or a friend. Listen, before Hark, was it ever harder to find focus? Hark gathered his tips together, called it mental archery. Pretty silly, he liked to say. But some knew better. Some were certain he had a secret, a mystery, a miracle. For what was mental archery but the essence of hark, and what was the essence of hark but love? In this hurt world,

how could that hurt? The hunters of meaning had found no meaning. The wanters of dreams were dreamless. Many now drifted toward hark-mourner. This is like the backstory. The front story is about a bunch of people and a movement they launched under the banner of Hark, a movement that maybe meant nothing at all, or maybe it did. It's tough to tell. The past is tricky, often half-hidden, like a pale, flabby young man flung naked into a crowded square. The past doesn't stand there, Grant ganders. The past clasps his crotch scurries for the cover of stanchions benches history hides that's its job it hides behind other history great that's the opening of the book yeah i'm in and then here's a little bit about

one of the characters tovava, and her kids. Yeah. Tova's on the train with the twins. She sits between them, keeps them yoked in relatively loose pro-wrestler chokeholds. They are temporarily immobilized and thus unable to assault each other or fellow riders, both of which with these maniacs are possibilities, especially this morning. Meanwhile, she texts emendations to her supervisor's proposal to the provisional head of development at the Blended Learning Enhancement Project.

Her supervisor, Cal, possesses what Tova knows the business community deems leadership qualities, meaning he's equal parts fool and lout, a human facsimile on a ceaseless quest to collect his salary and cover his butt. Apropos of which, the reason she's here on the subway restraining her kids in semi-legal grappler grips instead of already at her desk is because one or both of her children have, as she put it as concisely as she could on the phone to the doctor, concerns of the ass. More specifically, doctor, concerns of the ass. More specifically, ass worms. Tova may have ass worms too. What happened was that all of their assholes started to itch, and Tova looked this symptom up, discovered a detailed photograph of a hairy, nearly microscopic worm. Somebody had earned

enough trust from this creature to achieve a lively, candid shot, as the critter regarded the camera with unamused scorn, mostly expressed through what Tova supposed were eyes, but on further inspection might have been anal orifices themselves. Tova tried to call Fraz, but hasn't been able to reach him. He could be tutoring or doing a favor for Mr. Dirsch, or more likely, cleaning and jerking, perhaps at the gym gym more likely at home

excellent so funny buddy thank you man and now to close i want you to tell me that joke again because like uh there there's a few jokes like whatever my decision is and whatever the history of jewish comedy is but there's the joke i told john Cleese, you know, which is, you know, when he went in, he had a hat, you know, that bit, right? Yeah. Yeah. Did you? I don't think you told me that. No, no.

But I've heard that joke. I probably told you. I would hope. I think you did tell. Yeah, that's where I did hear it years ago. Yeah. So what? The grandfather and the son on the beach.

Right. Yeah. So what's it? Tell me the one you told me again, because I want to make sure I get that. I think I might have heard this first from Gordon L lish oh really 20 years ago but well i'm not as good a joke teller you're great but there's a the old man an old man's dying yeah and he's at home and uh he's in his on his bed on his deathbed and he's he's dying and his son, his grown son, comes to see him and sits by his bedside and says, Dad, Dad, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. You've been such a good father. You've been such a wonderful dad. Is there anything I can do for you now? Do you need anything? Is there anything I can help you with, Dad? Is there anything I can do? And Dad says, Oh says oh son it's so

good to see you you're such a good boy you're such a lovely boy i'm just so glad you're here i i guess there's no there's really nothing well maybe there's there's one thing you could do for me boy anything dad any dad just tell me anything i'll do anything well son i i smell your mother's chopped liver coming in from the kitchen. And it smells so good. She just makes the best chopped liver. And son, I mean, I'm on my deathbed. I don't know how long I've got.

But you think you could just go into the kitchen and get a little of that chopped liver and just put it on a cracker and bring it back to your old man? Do you think you could do that, son? And of course, dad, of course, anything. I'll be right back, of course. And the son leaves. A little while later, the son comes back, and he's empty-handed, and the dad says,

son, son, what happened? Why don't you have the chopped liver? Why didn't you bring me back the chopped liver? And the son says, I'm sorry, dad, but mom says it's for after. Yes, and that's it. That's the entire history of the Jews somehow, the American Jews. It's pretty good.

Yeah. All right, buddy. It was good talking to you. Do you want to eat? Yeah, we should eat. What do you feel like eating? No Greek this time. Do you want to go over and see if we can sit down at that Ross and Daughters Cafe?

Yeah. It looked pretty crowded, but I think we could check it out. What, you walk by the one in Houston? No, they got a cafe. It's probably down an orchard where you can sit at a table like a person and eat Jew food. Okay, let's go eat some jew food okay sam whipsite and me talking into mics in a hotel room in new york city love it love him the new novel is hark it's available for pre-order now comes out next Tuesday January 15th

alright so I will play guitar oh man nothing original so Boomer lives! 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 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,

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