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Nancy Rommelmann on podcasting, getting cancelled, and sympathizing with straight white guys
58 Plays24 days ago
Nancy Rommelmann is a journalist and an author of many books, including her latest, Forty Bucks and a Dream: a collection of nonfiction pieces about her time in Los Angeles. She is also the co-host of one of my favorite podcasts—Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em.
We discuss….
- Nancy’s favorite books.
- Nobody “snows you” like your kids.
- What percent sociopath are you?
- If you got a voucher for a free strip-o-gram, would you take it?
- Team Sarah (yes to love life writing) vs Team Nancy (not as much so)
- I ask why and how “Sarah and Nancy work as a podcasting duo.”
- Smoke Em Dramas:
Sarah and Nancy debating “negging.”
Nancy and Walter Kirn debating Viktor Orbán.
Sarah’s botched introduction to Michael Tracey. - Nancy writing about the Ristretto Roasters saga.
- Where the “Hot for Due Process” swag idea was borne.
- The art of not falling apart: having something important and unselfish to do?
- The first of the Musings of the Night Nurse series.
Music by Duncan Barrett, who you can follow and listen to, here and here.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Out of the Wild' Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
This is the Out of the Wild podcast with Ken Ilgunis.
Introducing Nancy Rommelman
00:00:18
Speaker
Nancy Rommelman is a journalist and an author of many books, including her latest 40 Bucks and a Dream, a collection of nonfiction pieces about her time in Los Angeles.
00:00:30
Speaker
She is also the co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, Smoke Em If You Got Em. Nancy, hello. Hello, Ken. gutenag Guten Guten Morgen. Well, it feels guten Morgen. I just kind of rolled out of bed. Yeah. um so ah I'm just starting this podcast and just still kind of feeling my way through
Cultural Influences Discussion
00:00:51
Speaker
it. And I think one of the interesting ways to get to know people is through kind of their cultural influences. Like I want to know people's like favorite books, movies and albums before we even start the the podcast. And I asked you for some of your favorite books and some of those books. i't I haven't read any of these, but some of them include... really
00:01:10
Speaker
ah Days of Rage, Lost Girls, The Adversary, Shot in the Heart, um things I need to read. And I fed these into ai without you know putting your name in there or anything. And i want I said, I want a psychological portrait of this person. Can I read it for you? Yes. Oh, this is great.
00:01:32
Speaker
Okay. um It says, this reader is drawn to moral friction, places where personal psychology collides with systems, families, ideologies, or historical forces.
00:01:46
Speaker
They distrust tidy explanations, sentimental redemption arcs, and institutional narratives. What they want instead is interiority under pressure. I don't know what that means. um How people actually behave when ideals fail, when families rot, when power reveals itself, when identity fractures.
Complex Narratives and Human Behavior
00:02:07
Speaker
There's also a quiet through line of shame, secrecy, and survival, not in a voyeuristic way, but a steady human gaze. How does that land for you, Nancy? ah Pretty darn well. I mean, it's pretty nicely...
00:02:21
Speaker
compact, but this is what I do. I write about people. I've said this before. um a lot of my stories, including the book before 40 Bucks in a Dream, which was called To the Bridge, the story of motherhood and murder was about a woman that threw two kids off a bridge in Portland, Oregon, and I followed the story for a long time and wrote about that. And when that story in particular hit the papers, um the idea was two narratives instantly that people knew. They knew why. It was either because she was evil or she was crazy and goodnight or close the door and that's it. That's the end of the story. And I thought, Wow, that's sure. You sure made it easy on yourself. And what have we learned? And I think that there's always a lot more going on. So, yeah, that what the the intor interiority, clumsy word, um is something I guess I am interested in. Shame is an interesting thing to mind. I find it has a lot of power, whether you're writing fiction, which I've written some fiction and sometimes nonfiction. um But the books I love, and hopefully the books I write, um are not about the easy narrative, maybe not about the expected narrative. And um I don't know if that's going to make for popular reading, but it makes for popular exploration for the writer. that's what I try to do.
00:03:39
Speaker
So some of those books um that you you gave me, some of them were true crime, not all of them.
True Crime and Sociopathic Themes
00:03:45
Speaker
You've written kind of a true crime book. Now you've got like this separate podcast series about sociopaths. you're You're really interested in this stuff. My my wife, um she's always watching like this German true crime. she walk I don't understand German, but I just hear it like on the laptop next to me while we're in in bed. And she's like, I shouldn't have watched this right before i went to bed. And my theory was this is kind of comfort food for for her. Like this is there's bad guys, there's good guys. the bad guy is probably going to get caught or at least the truth will be revealed.
00:04:23
Speaker
For you, what is the allure of all this stuff? What draws you to stories like these? Well, it's interesting because this is pretty well-known. Women are either either constantly watching watching crime shows or baking shows. And the crime shows, the vast majority of them are very compact. They're like 45 minutes long. You get the story with the dramatic music and then it's solved by the end. This brings, I guess, some satisfaction. There's also some idea that women like to be like, close to crime, but not really victims of crime. So that's why they're watching. I don't know if that's true for me.
00:04:59
Speaker
It's always, well, a couple things. I'll address the first part of what you said. So I do i have a substack called make more pie where I do have a, Oh, actually, no, I am putting that sociopath series on smoke them. If you got them, sorry. Yeah. another substack Um,
00:05:13
Speaker
I have written about a lot of people that I would consider on the sociopathic sociopathic spectrum, whether it's John Wayne Gacy, who is the serial killer who I interviewed on Death Row, or whether it is a family member who is always trying to charm people out of their money, or Candace Owens, who I just wrote about. There's a...
00:05:36
Speaker
that these people believe that they are entitled to get away with certain things. I think that kind of drives me bananas. So I kind of want to dig into it and maybe expose it a little bit. In terms of true crime, it's sort of going back to what I said before,
00:05:52
Speaker
I kind of want to know the story under the story. Like, how did we get there? Nothing comes out of the blue. You know, Amanda Stott Smith, who was the woman that tossed her kids off the bridge in Portland, Oregon, she didn't wake up that day and go, oh, you know what? I think at 1.20 this morning, I'm going to throw my kids off a bridge. That's not how that works. Yeah, it was a long journey to that point. a long journey. Thank you for reading that book. And I think most most things, just ah almost nothing comes out of the blue. It's calculated or it's... it's Triggered emotionally. So that is something I'm, I'm always looking at and and and this often turns out to be like really pedestrian stuff, but it can accumulate and and that's the story I guess I'm interested in the story that's kind of animating what we see on the outside the one underneath.
00:06:38
Speaker
So that's what I'm drawn to. What I what i noticed in in that book, To the Bridge, was just kind of the cultural forces. She kind of had this submissiveness to her, probably from her religion and you know other cultural forces. And um you know he came from like this working class background and he was into drugs and stuff like that, right? He was actually not working class. he His parents had money. That's right. Okay. Yeah. he was So she was very sort of working class, very religious, very close knit family. He came from not like the kind of money you would think of, like in Connecticut with a mansion, but, you know, pretty well off. His mom owned a lot of real estate and he was just one of these young people.
00:07:21
Speaker
who always, the money always bought him out of his troubles. And and the reason for that was not just because they're like, oh okay, we're going to bail Jason out again. It's because he's one of these charming people that, and especially with parents, look, you're a parent, I'm a parent.
00:07:35
Speaker
Nobody can snow you like your kids. Okay. And if you're on the spectrum of where they're, you know, have these tendencies to take advantage, there's no one like their parents that are going to fall for it. So anyway, yes, he came from that kind of background. She came from the other. She was beautiful. He was not. But he slowly stole from her everything that made her who she was, her looks, her children, her her financial security.
Exploring Tragic Stories
00:08:05
Speaker
um it was ah it was a It was a very bad situation and it was sort of a cat's cradle that she couldn't get out of and eventually she figured way out, which unfortunately cost the lives of of one of her children. And and also she she was caught the same day and and put in prison and she she died in prison um a couple of years ago. I don't know how um the the Oregon State um will not release what it is, but I don't think she was murdered. I think she just sort of perished.
00:08:37
Speaker
Gotcha. And I want to touch on this book a little bit later on, but just to kind of go back to so sociopathy. um that's That's always been something that's kind of intrigued me. And I wonder i wonder if you see any sociopathy in yourself. like Are you like 4% sociopath? Have you ever reflected on that?
00:08:59
Speaker
Um, I haven't. Oh, actually, i have wondered occasionally I have have I actually have a strain of a particular sort of if you call it narcissistic, malignant narcissism, sociopathy strain that runs in my family, family members that I know of.
00:09:18
Speaker
And um they're all they all it's all they're all different generations and they all sort of act the same. So, you know, I've seen this and as someone who I don't believe is is and similarly personality, um I've had to do a lot of, um how do I say, fixing of the things that get unfixed. um But I did, I have thought a few times like, wow, is it possible that I too behave this way and I don't know it? But I i don't think so. I think that
00:09:53
Speaker
I'm a pretty straight shooter and the people that are around me reflect that and we take care of each other and sociopaths don't, they don't take care of other people for honest reasons. They will will take care of other people. This is actually a trait that runs through a certain strain of sociopathy. They like to be around sick people if it can make them look heroic.
00:10:15
Speaker
while they're ministering to these sick people but it's not really about the person who's ailing or sick it's about the identity that they believe is being um that they are acquiring by appearing to help um the ailing or the sick or the dying katya yeah they don't sound like nice people at all i think i asked i asked that question because i've i've thought about it myself especially in relation to like my my writing career and like when you're writing a memoir or you you know even doing some interviews and doing um like a reported piece,
00:10:50
Speaker
ah like you're you're kind of a little bit worried about how this is going to come across for the person. And sometimes you know this isn't going to come across well at all and you're going to hurt this person and you're going to do it in service of your piece. And I know there's part of me that's just like, okay, let's let's do this. I care about the art form. I care about the piece. So I feel a bit sociopathic um in those moments. Sometimes I'm um'm willing to take a little bit of damage, say in my personal relationships for the
Challenges of Truthful Writing
00:11:25
Speaker
craft. Does that resonate at all?
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've done a lot of pieces where people were unhappy. You know, they let me into their lives and I told their stories as they told them to me and as other people told them to me. And I wrote them as carefully as I could. And it was holding up a mirror to them that they didn't like. um I have had this happen more than once. My editors have gotten letters. I've gotten threatening calls from lawyers and threatening to sue me. Nothing ever happened though, because I'm ah i'm a careful journalist and I don't i don't actually have um i don't have an ax to grind with anybody that I'm writing about.
00:12:05
Speaker
um'm I'm trying to tell the story of what happened. So. So it's in service of the story. The story comes first. charge this The truth comes first. Well, you know, the truth is such a weird thing to say, right? Because you and I could, John Smith, who owns the gas station on the corner, you want to write a profile of him. I want to write a profile him. They're not going to be the same profile, obviously.
00:12:27
Speaker
But um the story has to be in charge. That is something that I think has is is something of a lost art, Because things happen so quickly and they we want maybe you're on team A or team b I love having the time, whether it's for the publications I write for or just on my own, for my own sub stack or books, to have the time to let the story be in charge.
00:12:52
Speaker
And sometimes it's like I'm a baker as well. Like sometimes things rise quickly and you can do it quickly. And sometimes it just takes freaking forever. And you know that it's the one thing that I think I've learned. Well, I know I've learned as a journalist over 30 years of doing this is like, you know, when it's not right.
00:13:10
Speaker
Like you just know, you know, like this is getting close to it, but it's not there yet. There's something in your gut telling you it's not there. I do it. Or even if I'm doing, I wrote a short piece yesterday. I'm going to be writing some opinion pieces. The wall street journal has a new, a new free expression opinion piece section I'm going to be doing. And I, and I wrote a piece, i actually banged it out really fast, but even, you know, this, like when you've got a piece like 800 words, but then you got to like tick, You got fine point it and you know it, you know it now because you've been writing long enough to know when it's not quite right. It doesn't sing, it doesn't land. So I think it's the same thing with a long form piece. Like, you know, when it's not right you know, when you have to go do some more reporting, you know, when maybe you're like, am I lying to myself here by phrasing it that way? And so, yeah, the stories just take time and they have to be in charge.
00:13:59
Speaker
I realize people are going to listen to that. Some of them be like, oh what is this airy fairy crap stories? Well, it is. What can I tell you? I feel a lot with humor. Like I try to make my travel books funny. And sometimes I get to a point, and this is like my 80th time editing a paragraph. And I kind of like force a laugh like, hu but I know it's not like a real laugh that I'm feeling. And then it's just like, that's got to go.
00:14:26
Speaker
It doesn't work. It might work for 1% of people. But let me transition into 40 bucks and a dream. Yeah. And I knew I was going to like it because I love your writing, but I'm not really drawn to stories about l L.A. um And I think that's just because, you know, there's a lot written on
Essays on Los Angeles Life
00:14:44
Speaker
the coasts. If I look at some literary fiction, it's probably going to be set in New York City.
00:14:49
Speaker
a lot of stories coming from the West Coast. I'm from Buffalo, New York. I've lived in places like Nebraska and Alaska. like I want kind of like other places. But but you really get into like the nitty gritty of yeah of a LA, like motel rooms and um police bars. I want to bring up one essay that'll probably make you blush, if that's all right. Sure. And it's about an encounter you had with a strippogram
00:15:20
Speaker
man oh god oh man i hate this um it's fine i put it in there um just so your listeners know so the book is yes it's all it's all stories of los angeles some of them are reported pieces that were la weekly cover stories or shorter pieces in the la weekly mostly the la weekly some were never before published essays that i just wrote um when i was living or when i moved out of la so Yeah, the strip-o-gram.
00:15:50
Speaker
the ah the um So i won't I won't go into the nitty gritty details of that. but the ah book i mean You gonna read it. But we're not even sure if he was a stripper gram man or just like a very competent stalker.
00:16:06
Speaker
i don't Okay. yeah I think I have to, I think I have to tee this up a little bit for you. Okay. Go ahead. go Okay. So I worked, I, you know, I had a little kid in l LA. I was freelance writer and I got offered this opportunity to write like soft core for play boy. Right. I was going to show on showtime. It wasn't like soft core. Porn writer, you know, actually a lot of pretty successful women writers in l LA, so like some punks, some people that had done documentaries. the Playboy just had this really weird idea. So, okay, I did, I wrote two episodes, the series closed, ah and the producer was like, whatever. i get this thing saying, can't remember exactly what happened, but I get this thing saying that the producer has sent me a gift.
00:16:55
Speaker
yeah Okay, this is normal. You know, they want to send you a gift. And what was it again? I can't remember what the gift itself was, like a box of donuts or some candy something. I don't remember what You described him as doughy. You might be confusing doughy and donuts. Whatever it was, this person was going to deliver it. And I was like, okay. And he's like...
00:17:16
Speaker
And he he's, God, now I'm even forgetting my own story. But it was something like it came with some sort of like sexy strip. that Am I getting this wrong, Ken? Well, he came with a present. ah No, like you got a present in the mail. And then you got a note saying this comes with a stripper, Graham, or you got a phone call or something. Phone call. That's right. I had a phone call with my daughter who was four at the time. And her friend were like eating macaroni and cheese. And this call says, well, comes with this strip of ground thing. And is it a convenient time to come over? And I'm like, yeah, not really. And so i was like, well, maybe Friday now. Okay, let's back up.
00:17:54
Speaker
Why in God's name would I say this? Well, why would I say this? I was working, I was like 32 years old. I'm working in Los Angeles as a nightlife columnist for the Big City Magazine. I'm writing all kinds of first person stuff all the time. I probably thought it was going to make a good story, okay right? yeah To have some guy come over and strip for you.
00:18:16
Speaker
Well, anyway, he came over. he was sort of
00:18:24
Speaker
doughy yeah and not very coordinated. And I remember- That's when the s sexiness of the scene kind of, I just i just couldn't get into it. gets a little flaccid, right? And he he, I know, I remember he told me that he also worked at the Guitar Center, which is a big place in LA on Sunset. All the young guys are getting their guitars there and everything. That's what he told me. Let's say, I don't remember his name. Maybe it's him. Let's call him Ken. Okay.
00:18:50
Speaker
and okay Ken tells me he works at Guitar Center. And then he's doing this strip and he's like, you know, he's touching my leg. and and then and ah One thing leads to another.
00:19:04
Speaker
Okay. One thing leads to another. You leave it at that. People can use their imaginations, their vast imaginations. but then Can you describe the dance? Like, do you remember the dance? It was terrible. He couldn't dance. He was like this, like, he looked like a guy that it hung out on the back of the 7-Eleven or something. No, he couldn't dance. and But he was like touching my leg and going up. And I'm like sitting in my reading chair where I read, you know, for work and do stuff. I'm just like, okay.
00:19:30
Speaker
Anyway, the deed is done. the next day, i'm like i I don't know, I called another one of the gals that had worked on the series and I'm like, did you get this like- Did everybody get this guy? Did get this thing? And everyone everyone's like, no. And I called the producer and she's like, what are you talking about? And I called Guitar Center, no Ken works there. And the phone number he called me from went to like some weird looped system. Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
i just He gave you an invoice too, which is a nice touch, but it sounded like it was completely homemade. It was a paid invoice. Yeah. That he wrote on his mother's typewriter or some shit. But yeah. So basically I invited some guy into my house so he could fuck me.
00:20:22
Speaker
And I felt very strange after that experience. It's the only experience like that I've had in my life, but hello, Los Angeles. And it made, it made a good story.
00:20:33
Speaker
so it was It was a great story. It's certainly one one of the most memorable ones. And this brings me to kind of a topic that you and Sarah talk about on Smoke Em If You Got Em podcast.
00:20:47
Speaker
Because you guys are always having like these little ah spats and i I love those little fights. When we disagree with that. Yeah, yeah. And one of your most, i think your like most common one is about like sex essays and sex memoirs or love memoirs or something like that. And Sarah's position is that they're valuable, if I may speak with for Sarah. So, you know, they might provide insights into human behavior, modern sexuality, things like that. You you seem to say it's it's too much...
00:21:22
Speaker
It's not helpful. I don't want to read about your your love life. So I guess I want to challenge you in a couple of ways. One, are you kind of ah breaking your own rule there by writing about this stripper gram? Again, I'm happy that you did. Here's the thing. I actually don't.
00:21:41
Speaker
like to read about other people's sex lives. I don't know if I'm a little like ah like a good girl that way or something. The essay about the stripper ground is funny. It's a very funny piece. And that's the way, and that's why I wrote it. I mean, somebody could write it to be like, oh my God, I can't believe what happened to me.
00:21:57
Speaker
And you know, my life life always has been terrible and I make bad choices. That's not what that piece is about. That piece is pure humor and me looking like an idiot. And that's why I wrote it because it's fun. It really isn't about sex. It's about...
00:22:10
Speaker
being ridiculous and a very, very LA story. I think Sarah thinks it's absolutely valuable and that's great. It's just not what I want to read about.
00:22:21
Speaker
I just don't, I don't know why. And I certainly don't want, and I know this sounds like I'm contradicting myself, like my, my love life, my actual like sex life. I would not talk to anybody. I don't talk to Sarah about it.
00:22:35
Speaker
I don't talk to my daughter about it. Like it's my it's mine and my guys. Like I've considered that extremely private. So other people don't. That's fine.
00:22:46
Speaker
Just for me, that's how that's how it is. I think it should be private for 99.999% of people, other than you know sharing something with a close friend that you need to share with. But putting it out there in essays and books, it's just like most people shouldn't be doing that unless you're a gifted memoirist who can kind of bring some art and meaning and humor and edification and entertainment to it. So in in that way, I'm definitely on team Sarah's side here. And I have an unpublished book.
00:23:18
Speaker
manuscript of ah of a love life memoir. So like Sarah, I've been kind of working on on something like that. And just like when someone writes about like their love life or sex life, especially like a straight dude writing about it. like I want to get on my knees and just say, like thank you. like Thank you for kind of taking like this dark, dimly lit hallway of our lives and shedding some illumination. Because I think what I get out of it is is insight and wisdom. it's just like I learn about myself through them. Does that make sense to you?
00:23:55
Speaker
It does, but I wonder, i think, I mean, at least in the era we're in we're more used to or conditioned to have women writing about this kind of stuff. Men are like, you know, dudes are dudes. Like, oh I don't know, working on the car. I don't want to, it's not interesting to But i I think like the best writers, and we could go back to, you know, whether it's Mailer or whoever Delillo or whatever, I think there's a lot of,
00:24:22
Speaker
fuel in their writing. I'm reading right now, a Farewell to Arms. And it's like, he's not talking about his sex life, but man, there's a lot of fuel in there that is sexual. So I think I like when you write about it, but you don't look directly at it.
00:24:40
Speaker
Like you're, it's out of the side of the eye or it's just, it's just cloaked. It's there. Like you don't have, it's implied, I guess is the sense. I guess that's how I prefer it. i I think I get that. Like if you look at some old movies where you just couldn't be explicit about that and it's just kind of dark and in the corners. I really appreciate the art of getting it in there. And as everybody knows, art is sometimes best when it has guardrails and boundaries and you kind of have to work within them. But I think um with regard to this, like when it's, I don't know, like we we we have so little guidance and wisdom to go on when we're navigating the
00:25:23
Speaker
matters of the heart in our love lives that I just kind of want someone to talk about these things. I want like a Bible of love that can kind of help me navigate these issues. I mean, I don't need that anymore. I'm i'm married and yeah maybe I still need a little help here and there. But I think when I was going through my 20s and 30s and dating and contemplating monogamy and um, ah permanence and all that. That's when I really wanted, um, just some, some help. Uh, uh, one of my favorite essayists is Tim Crider. Have you read any of his stuff?
00:25:58
Speaker
I, I, I think you would, I'd be very interested to know what you, uh, ah K-R-E-I-D-E-R. He used to be a ah cartoonist during the W. Bush era. And then he came out with two books of essays. And his writing is just some of the best in the English language right now. like Every paragraph is fresh and alive. And his second one was, i wrote this book because I love you. So I hope you'll read that. And I'd love to hear your...
00:26:32
Speaker
It's like, okay, facebook I have to accept. But let's, let's stay on you and Sarah for a second. um Again, it's one of my favorite podcasts and I've been listening to podcasts for, you know, go getting close to 20 years now. What do you, how do you articulate what makes you as a duo work?
00:26:54
Speaker
We like talking to each other. you know, and we're, we're that, that podcast team that is not constantly, but sending each other ideas. Did you see this? you like this? Oh my God, that's driving me crazy. Good. We should talk about that. Or do you like this guy? I don't know. I, I want to read him or a book. Like I just sent her a book by Sebastian Younger because I met him. He's a fast friend and like, she'll read that. And then we'll, we'll add, we just also, we've been writing, you know,
00:27:20
Speaker
for a combined professionally combined 50 years at this point, something like that. We have a lot of connections. We have a lot of overlaps of the things that we love. We just are interested to talk to each other. And as you said, we sometimes disagree and people love that.
00:27:36
Speaker
You know, like negging, I've told you this before. I know, i know, but I don't believe it. I just don't believe I would like it. mean, you're going to have to trust me on this. You look really fat today. Oh, no, that's not, that's very, that's artless.
00:27:47
Speaker
And um we haven't, we have, we, ah she's become like one of my best, if not my best girlfriend these days. And it just works. i mean, I'm, I'm really, I'm very happy that people listen to it. Sometimes I'm surprised. I'll meet someone at a party, like some famous person and they'll be like, oh, I love your podcast. I'm like, really? yeah Um, It's very satisfying and I love doing it. it's i love and love having a podcast. I mean, one of the reasons we did it, I was i was really looking to podcast with somebody and um she said, yes, I got down on one
Podcast Dynamics and Disagreements
00:28:21
Speaker
knee.
00:28:21
Speaker
she I love how you guys have those disagreements and it's a mark of a secure relationship when, you know, you can get a little full throated and both of you, and it's it's not like you're worried about, um you know, the relationship coming to an end. Sometimes I'm like, is someone going to chuck like a podcast mic against the wall now? Like it can can be pretty heated. do those ruptures, do they...
00:28:47
Speaker
um everlast beyond the podcast episode do do you guys not talk for like a week or something no no no no no no not even close i there i think there's been sorry i live in new york city i live next door to a firehouse you might hear some fire engines in the background um think there was one episode, I don't remember what it was now, like we finished and I think we were both like a little snitty, like, you know, blah, blah, blah, but but no no no, no, no, never last. And I, and sometimes it's just funny because as they, they Mike Peska named me knee jerk Nancy, you know, I like, I get out there, I pull out my soapbox, I yell for a little while, she, you know, humors me. Um,
00:29:27
Speaker
No, we never, no, no, no. We've never had heavy weather that lasted more than. I i vote to retire knee jerk, Nancy, by the way. Really? Because knee jerk connotes um that you're wrong, that you're that you're emotional and you're wrong. You're coming to like a knee jerk decision. And oftentimes you're right.
00:29:47
Speaker
um and But you're passionate. It's cute. You're okay with it? You can live with it. That's fine. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Go ahead. go ahead um There's two conversations. I've listened to almost every episode of Smoke on... Whoa, dude. Yeah. We're 237, not including all the smoking diaries and pie talks and sociopaths. I haven't listened to all that stuff. Okay. But there's two conversations that I thought were going off the rails. So when I say that, do the people come to mind? Do the interviewees come to mind when I say that?
00:30:29
Speaker
Oh, Michael Tracy? yeah yeah i was Yeah. And and um what Sarah was doing was kind of giving her one of her like big introductions and started to like talk about the Wikipedia page of Michael Tracy in a completely non-malevolent way. I think she was just like conveying information and he just kind of...
00:30:52
Speaker
freaked out. um well Well, he wouldn't let her. she he He interrupted her. like I mean, I haven't listened back to it, but like maybe 14 times during his introduction.
00:31:03
Speaker
But let's see if he falls for our charms. It's going well so far. According to Wikipedia, Michael Tracy is a heretic on the left who dislikes i identity politics. ignore the Wikipedia.
00:31:14
Speaker
Back in 2009, he was a parent. I know what this is going to be because this is just what people want to emphasize to... cast aspersion on me. Like, why would this need to be read out in a podcast intro? I mean, it's fine if you want to go over it Because it's germane to the Charlie Kirk stuff that we're going to talk about.
00:31:31
Speaker
How is this germane at all? Now she, I know Michael. I've met him several times. We've been to events together. We were in Poland together because I was going into Ukraine. He was there. We had dinner. He, he reported from Poland. I went into Ukraine. Like I know Michael.
00:31:46
Speaker
well but she had never had the Michael Tracy experience. So she, it was like, she was getting pelted in the face with pebbles. It was like, whoa, what's happening here? um Anyway, so let you want the second one? You want me to say? Well, just to comment on that, like, um I don't know what this is going to sound like, but I do consider myself like a well-adjusted person. Like, I think I could take an insult or a bad introduction breezily. It seemed like he couldn't handle that. But at the same time, like and he talked about kind of his obsession with these Epstein files. And I was just like, there needs to be like,
00:32:27
Speaker
people like Michael Tracy, who are a little bit rough around the edges, who are going to be really interested in stuff, obsessive, going to poke people, going to be angry with people. like I'm just not that person. I'm just too kind of calm and mild-mannered. So while I recognize he came across as a little maladjusted in that exchange, I also see how that could be an asset for a writer.
00:32:55
Speaker
It's his personality. And everybody knows, everyone who knows Michael is is is like this. And he can, like, sometimes his opinions are just so crazily wrong. You're like, okay. You know? But he's, you know, he I think he's i think he's he's he's done really, he's he's a deep diver. and you know, whole lot more than 99.9% of journalists have done on Epstein. And that's story I'm not particularly interested in myself. um And though I could be, you never know. Something could, another trend. 20 million documents could be released next week by the Justice Department. um But I think that his position on it is interesting. It's counter to a lot of the narrative. And I and i think it's valuable. And he's he's reporting now for a matt Taibbi's site.
00:33:38
Speaker
Oh, okay. Which brings me to the other guy, which is Walter Kern, um who I think does or does a podcast. Do you remember that exchange that you had with Walter? I do, because I called, um who was it that I called an authoritarian? You talked about the ah the autocratic leader of Hungary, and you you know you just kind of sent some like mild criticism their way, which you know I've never been to Hungary, but I thought that was perfectly justified. he um he yeah, he... He said, like, who's talking? Is that Nancy?
00:34:08
Speaker
Weyance to like a Viktor Orban and now to Putin. So it's like, oh, do you have like a hard on for this sort of authoritarian governments? One thing I think was actually kind of. Viktor Orban is. Nancy?
00:34:20
Speaker
Yes. Where do you get your information? about Twitter. yeah Is Viktor Orban not a democratically elected president of his country? And he got very snippy with me. And I was like, whoa, I was trying to backpedal because I'm not like a great historian on, you know, on on European countries, ideologues. And i I thought I was right. I thought, and I don't know if I had compared if I had said something about Trump being authoritarian or something. But in any case, he was not happy about this. And he he dressed me down. And I was like trying to be super nice. And he just kept going. But he did apologize afterwards.
00:35:01
Speaker
He did. Okay. he That's good to know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Nancy. I didn't care. think it makes for good podcasting. It does. It makes for good entertainment. And you know, we're so, we're, everyone's so nice on these podcasts nowadays. It's good to see some like old school.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah. yeah We're actually going to have him back on. He, he, and yeah, I won't, I won't, I won't give, I won't, you know, I won't, what about it? Like I won't scoop myself, but yeah, he's going to be coming back on. So yeah. Okay. Well that yeah yeah rupture was repaired. I still thought he was out of line. Um, but, um, I thought it was funny actually.
00:35:36
Speaker
okay Um, uh, I know you've been on a ton of podcasts. You've done 250, like a 250 smoke them if you got them. So I'm going to ask you if you're okay talking about something, but if you've talked about it a million times, it's okay if you just like, yeah don't want to go down in this direction, but I'm interested in talking about, um, ristretto coffee. Can we talk about that? Sure. Um, just You don't sound excited, though. Well, it's just, you know, it's something that it happened now. It's twenty almost 20. Well, no, it's not almost 2026. It is 2026. It happened on January
Podcast Controversy and Personal Impact
00:36:22
Speaker
2019.
00:36:22
Speaker
I was sitting on my bed with my husband in Portland, Oregon, watching something on TV, and he got an email from an employee who said, I think you should know that a former employee who had been the um kind of general manager of all the of all the cafes. My husband was a coffee roaster and had five or six cafes at the time in Portland. um A former employee who had quit in August, she had been there a while and he and her, they really weren't getting on and she left unhappily right before he was about to fire her. Anyway, I think you should know, I'm just going to call her by the letter C. i don't feel like going more deeply into that. Other than that, ah is has sent this letter around. She has asked other employees to sign it. and she's sending it to the press.
00:37:10
Speaker
And it basically said that a podcast I had been doing, i had done three whole episodes of with another journalist based in New York City, named Leah McSweeney, who was later a Real Housewife of New York. we were We had a podcast called Hashtag Me Neither. um That was basically questioning some of the overreach of the Me Too movement.
00:37:32
Speaker
um We had each written about Aja Argento. Aja Argento was the girlfriend of Anthony Bourdain, who had committed suicide, who had been pumping money to her to cover up the fact that she slept with an underage boy.
00:37:47
Speaker
At the same time, she was one of the faces of Me Too. And we both separately, before we knew each other, had written about how we thought that was a bad look for Me Too. If you've got a woman that has been credibly accused with photo documentary of sleeping with a 17 year old and her boyfriend who has just committed suicide has given $300,000 to this boy, we thought she was probably not the best face of Me Too. So we talked about that on the air.
00:38:12
Speaker
we i didn't I didn't realize you only did three episodes. Well, I did five altogether because I did two after the whole pylon. um So there was that. We did one about the Kavanaugh hearings. um we did We did one basically talking about like, we got to get some due process here because you can't say that an R. Kelly... And what he did to a lot of young women is the same as an Aziz Ansari who served a wrong kind of wine to a girl, had a sexual thing with her, and then she went public to destroy his crew. These just aren't the same things. And Leah is a survivor, of was had been sexually assaulted. I've certainly had my incidents when I was younger with men accosting me.
00:38:57
Speaker
um we were very adamant about, you know, there are people that are actually raped and rape kits sit for years and judges have this backup of cases. We really need to extend our resources and our sympathies and to people like this rather than someone that says he bought me the wrong kind of wine and I feel like he should be destroyed.
00:39:20
Speaker
Okay. Right now, these are things you could say in 2025, 2026, which are completely anodyne. Nobody will bat an eye. In 2018, was a little ahead of the curve. Anyway. It was ballsy. Yeah. Well, I didn't consider it ballsy. That's the thing. i was like, what? it This is just normal. Like we're having conversations and the whole tagline was like, you know, talking about difficult topics. Anyway.
00:39:46
Speaker
So you kind of didn't know like the moment where we were in where people were so sensitive um and would would, you know, mob you. Well, that I understood was happening. But I also thought i am very against people who play the victim for their own whatever, their own sunshine, their own getting ahead.
00:40:09
Speaker
There are people that are victims in this world, absolutely. And I understand we all have different gradations. Like I could go to party, some guy pinches my ass and I'm like, get the fuck off me, right?
00:40:21
Speaker
I don't care. i don't think about it. Somebody else, this really rocks their world and maybe for 25 years. I personally think that is excessive, but we were in a weird time where none of that mattered. You had to kind of toe the line. Well, in any case, ah the letter goes out to the press and it says that my podcast puts the employees of Restretto Roasters, my husband's business, in danger ah and i'm and and by extension, the community.
00:40:52
Speaker
And we were in a moment. in Portland, Oregon, especially a young town with a lot of activism, um that they eat it up. And people also are terrified that if they associate with you, your shame is going to um bounce onto them.
00:41:12
Speaker
um She was claiming I was an owner of the company. I never was. I had worked with him and helped him doing some backroom stuff, but i it was his company. It wasn't mine. um And um basically, ah everybody fled. The employees quit.
00:41:27
Speaker
The wholesale um customers, which make up most of his business, fled. um The people that baked the vegan brownies wouldn't bake the brownies. The people that washed the cloths wouldn't wash the cloths. um he needed He needed repair on his machine. He kept calling the people that had done it for years. And finally, the guy said, I can't. My wife won't let me.
00:41:47
Speaker
she's She's done. We had friends leave. um And our my marriage, which was already i was already settling on the East Coast little bit, was kaput. And we had to sell the house.
00:41:59
Speaker
And he lost everything. So that was that. um And ah it was, as I said, a long time ago. Life rolls on. It was certainly worse for him than it was for me. This was a business he built.
00:42:15
Speaker
He built this business with his hands and his home like equity line of credit. He never had anybody give him anything. I mean, his best friend loaned him $5,000 when he first opened. And my dad helped us a little too.
00:42:27
Speaker
But it was um it was really it was really a crying shame. And um you know it's one of these stories. um I was then living in New York and um he lives in Arizona now.
00:42:39
Speaker
And you know, you go on, you survive. Do you think you'll write about ristretto? um i have, you know, a book, a book known. I won't write a book about ristretto. No, but I may, I may do some writing about 2020 and maybe that, maybe that filters in there. We'll see. um I have written a lot about it when it all happened.
00:43:03
Speaker
i was very helpless. I was very powerless to to stop what was happening, but I did publish four stories in one week. One in the LA Times, one on Quillette, one in Reason, and another on a medium on Medium. Because my another thing, which was interesting, my book had just come out to the bridge and it had been very successful. um It was on the cover of most of the magazines and newspapers in Portland. And with these things, you have to you have to notice, and you will notice now that I'm mentioning this, or people will, like, people don't go after like their dry cleaner.
00:43:37
Speaker
when this happens. They need a target that is going to have some sort of impact, right? They don't usually go after anonymous people because it's not going to get them the sort of maybe credibility they're looking for or make people feel bad for them or or have the impact. So just once I've now said this, you'll you'll notice that. People go after the big fish. Not that I was a big fish, my God. I was ah maybe a big literary fish in a small pond. um But yeah, it wasn't good.
00:44:08
Speaker
wasn't great. If Ristretto is the movie, I'm wondering what the prequel is in terms of like what brings you to be someone who, you know, opposes peak wokeness as a lot of us did, but not only that, but like who openly speaks out against aspects of it, which very few people were willing to do back then. And I think where I'm going with this question is, is there a direct link from your life experiences as a journalist that, um,
00:44:44
Speaker
let you hold the positions and views that you do that made you outspoken about the excesses of of me too maybe i think that we we started talking about um the easy answers. When we, any sort of movement that is happening, there's a certain, you know, I covered the protest movements extensively in Portland in 2020 and 2021. And, you know, there were the certain, you know, lines, A, C, A, B, all cops are bastards. Everybody has the little sing song things that they're supposed to do. And you sort of get into this like belief system that don't, don't stray from it. Don't stray from it because our movement does not have the tensile strength to be strayed from. um
00:45:31
Speaker
i um I'm gonna bring it back to the protest movement, but I will loop back to what you were asking. i I've written a hundred stories about the protest movement in Portland, and I would interview a lot of different kinds of people, like you know cops and protestors and this. And when I would go to a lot of these young protestors, was like, all right, I know you've been here. i know you've you know you're pelting flaming garbage at the cops. You've burnt down the the station. You've done this. You've lit the dumpster on fire. Can you tell me what it is you're trying to build?
00:46:00
Speaker
Photography equals death. I'm like, okay, great. All right. Tell me what it is you're like. And they couldn't because they didn't get that far. They only got to the sloganeering. They only got to the way it made them feel to be part of a movement. It was epiphanic. As I've written, it was near orgasmic every night in the streets. you you're You're locked up in your house during COVID, but at night you can get out there and scream and be with your friends and change the world.
00:46:28
Speaker
Well, they They didn't change the world and they did a whole lot of damage to Portland, which had been a city on the rise and now is a city in the doldrums. So I guess... For me, I'm trying to get past the sloganeering. I think Me Too did a lot of that at the beginning, too. It was like, it wasn't believe all women, it was believe women.
00:46:47
Speaker
Okay, sure. Believe anybody. Believe but quote but but verify, right? And that was the thing that you were not supposed to do. Because doing that not only was counterproductive to women moving forward, It was actually re-victimizing them historically because historically they have not been believed. I'm like, that is true. And that is why I'm telling you what we should work toward is getting the rape kits tested. What we should work toward is making sure that the court systems are not flooded with things that are like quasi cases of Me Too. Let's be let's be solid.
00:47:24
Speaker
That was not a popular position. And you know what? May not be a popular position right now. But I believe, I mean, we've we've never done it, because I'm slow. But we our swag for for Smoke Em is going to be t-shirts that say, hot for due process.
00:47:41
Speaker
Because I believe in due process. I believe that you know you are innocent until proven guilty. And we lived through a time in this country, and I think forever will under certain circumstances.
00:47:54
Speaker
aspects of what we do where it's like, no, you will believe now or your or you're the enemy. and And I don't agree with that. And to go back to kind of my original question, um like, does being in an l a um motel and an L.A. police bar and following someone like Amanda, who tried to kill her two children, um throw them throw them off of a bridge, does that does that really shape, like, your your political outlook or just your your your view of humanity? i I guess what I'm getting at is I think
00:48:32
Speaker
but Let me answer the question for you. i think I think when you kind of like get out of your bubble and see the real world, it kind of vaccinates you against extreme beliefs. And you know I've had like a university bubble I've been in. I have like like a middle-class suburban bubble I've been in, but I've also hitchhiked 10,000 miles across North America alongside carnies and alcoholics and people who like were coming just out of prison and um pipeliners and and
Broadened Perspectives through Travel
00:49:09
Speaker
truckers. And I feel like those experiences, again, like vaccinated me against um extreme beliefs because I could see the the humanity and the larger story happening. Does any of that resonate?
00:49:22
Speaker
A hundred percent. ah Vaccinate against simple beliefs is is a hundred percent. I mean, you know, we, oh, we live in a country now where so polarized in terms of, you know, Trump or the other side and this and that. And, you know, you meet people like I could never, i could never be friends with someone that voted for Trump. I'm like, you know, i'm gonna bet you already are. and You don't even know it.
00:49:41
Speaker
And my solution to this was, and Matt Welch and I have talked about this and written about this. It's like, I challenge you to get in your car. If you have a car, and drive 2,000 miles or drive for five days, let's say, whatever, drive 1,000 miles. And every day when you stop, talk to two or three people at the Waffle House, at the gas station, at the Walmart, because you're going to be stopping Walmart for something, Band-Aids, deodorant, something.
00:50:11
Speaker
And then tell me that you hate your fellow Americans. because you're not going to be able to do it. We do not live in a world where there are these kinds of people and those kinds of people.
00:50:23
Speaker
You're being told to do that. And it makes, it simplifies everything to say, oh, he's Republican or she's a liberal or whatever, but really we're people. Um, and we have stories and they are not what you might think they are. i too have written about carnies. I hung out at the carnival once in, um, sort of in the desert area of California and talk to the carnies. I have ah have a a sweet, sad story. That was another story that was on the cover of the LA Weekly. One thing I say a lot is that even when people are lying to you, they're telling you their story.
00:50:54
Speaker
And there was a guy I kept seeing and he worked the Ferris wheel. And he said to me, you know, He would sleep just like on the straw under the Ferris wheel. They're carnies, you know? and um And he said to me, you know, this is not who I am.
00:51:09
Speaker
This is not who I am. I'm an artist. I'm an artist. And I i have actually a piece of mine called Floral Still Life at, I can't remember, like the, Smith Gallery in New York City. And he was so like, he was so happy to tell me this, that like that someone would recognize him for who he really was. So when I was writing the article, I looked it up and and there was no such gallery. There was no thing. Okay. No, there was no still life. But he was telling me like what was in his
00:51:40
Speaker
heart and what he, in his hopes, this is like, God, I mean, this is what my daughter and I call the good owl. It like hurts so much, but you need to have that hurt in order. It's like the connection you have, the sort of um mind melding or heart melding you get with someone when you talk to them, when they tell you their story, even when they're lying.
Finding Strength in Personal Loss
00:52:01
Speaker
And I, I mean, you know this too, like this is the most privileged job in the world as far as I'm concerned.
00:52:10
Speaker
Wow. Um, wonderfully said and backing up to Ristretto. I'm so sorry you went through that. Like that sounds like the hardest that must've been, was that the hardest thing you've ever gone through? Well, here's, here's a little counterintuitive thing that happened. Um, my daughter's dad, who's not my husband, um, was living with us going through his second bout of cancer. This time it was terminal. The second, the first one I wrote a modern love about it. It's kind of nice called I'm taking my ex back for his own good. But then five years later, cancer came back and um he lived with us. My daughter was home. She was a wreck. taking care of her dad like a mother hen Her husband at the time was there.
00:52:49
Speaker
My husband was there kind of losing everything and everybody was a mess and I couldn't, I couldn't fall apart. Like I couldn't, there was no possible way and sort of, it sounds kind of awful, but also kind of great. And he would love it if I said this, Tim, my daughter's dad, him being there sort of like anchored us.
00:53:10
Speaker
in a way, because we had to take care of him every day and keep things sort of quiet. And he died with me. I was with him when he died. I i washed his body. I took care of him. And i for something happened during that time where I i didn't fall apart.
00:53:30
Speaker
And um I think it made me, like you're talking about being inoculated, I think having to stay or choosing to stay, I don't know, being not cheerful, but like as calm as possible through all that, that stayed with me.
00:53:45
Speaker
that's i That's like, it changed me ah to be sort of the, maybe the calm person in the room. I don't think I was hysterical before that, but um it was life changing.
00:53:57
Speaker
It's also interesting how you went straight from a very online conversation. And I know this was more than just online for you. You know, it came into your life and your husband's business and all that. But you went from this online conversation to something very corporeal and material, someone actually dying and having to care for someone. And I can imagine how that might help put things in perspective.
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah, it does. When he's right there and you're, you know, you're giving him some food. And my daughter and I, we ah we learned how to drain his lung. We're like, yo, we're going to get a side hustle. We're going to be some lung drainers here. and my and And like, you know, he was such a great guy and he's like, he he never complained. And it was just, it was a very...
00:54:44
Speaker
I mean, part of it was horrible, yeah. But part of it also, I just sort of remember it being we encapsulated ourselves. and ah But thank you for saying that.
00:54:56
Speaker
i you know What's interesting, though, is like, okay, so here I am talking with you, put out other books, have a successful podcast, successful journalism career. And people are like, oh, you weren't canceled. What are you talking about? It's like, okay, sure. You just you just you just keep going on and believing that. That's fine.
00:55:15
Speaker
All good. yeah That's terrible to kind of just look away from someone's experience and pain like that. You know what? i I've said this before.
00:55:25
Speaker
Like I'm dealing right now because my mom is dying and I'm having to deal with a lot of institutions that behave very badly or like, or some sort of political thing that is going on and they just act so
New Writing Series Announcement
00:55:38
Speaker
badly. and'm like, you know what? They get to hang out with each other and I get to hang out with all these really wonderful people. So I win.
00:55:47
Speaker
You just announced that um you're starting a new series called The Night Nurse. And when i when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's that sounds sexy. It does. Well, I don't know how sexy it's going to be. It's called Musings of the Night Nurse. And I wrote my first piece. I would love it if people go over read it. I've got a sub stack called Make More Pie or nancyrommelman.substack.com. I am going to write about what it is like to be. you you've got For me, it's an elderly mom, but it could be someone else that's just in your family that is suffering suffering.
00:56:16
Speaker
And the entity is set up to prey on the vulnerable. It is incredible. It's incredible. And you can't know it until you're there. my One of my mom's caregivers, my favorite one, um told me that yesterday. She's like, people don't know until they're there. Until you're there and you realize, oh, my God.
00:56:37
Speaker
These people have their hands in my pocket and they know that I have so many fires to put out right now that they're going get away with it. It's, it's pretty rough. And it goes from like the, the kind of like podunk half wit in Poughkeepsie to multinational corporations. It's, it's, and the medical community, it's wild. Anyway, i I'm going to write another one today. So, um,
00:57:00
Speaker
And i'll I'll put them in the show notes. Oh, cool. um we we need to talk about another vulnerable population, which is straight, white, millennial men.
00:57:12
Speaker
My dudes. I see your podcast as a very kind of male-friendly podcast. do you Do you know the demographics? like are you like I imagine you're kind of like fifty fifty men, women Well, I don't, I think we're skew actually a little more for men. And I know my readers, my Substack readers and people who read my, okay.
00:57:33
Speaker
I know that I have more, like 80% of my Twitter followers are men. I know that. Um, and I can't say whether my readers are men or if they're just the ones that make comment more than women. Like they'll get, they'll reach out to me and say this or that or blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, I think, yeah, we're probably about 50, 50. We do. We love men. Sarah and I just like, that's our other t-shirt. We love men or our ashtrays or whatever we're going to make. And that's why I was waiting for you guys to talk about this this piece in Compact. i was like, when are Sarah and Nancy going to talk about this? but we're so we're going to have that conversation now. and Maybe you'll have it again with Sarah.
00:58:12
Speaker
Hey folks, thanks for listening. That's the end of the free portion of the episode. um There's still another 30 minutes or so of conversation between Nancy and I.
Podcast Continuation for Subscribers
00:58:24
Speaker
We get into Jacob Savage's um viral article, The Lost Generation, about the plight of straight white guys in the publishing, media, arts, academia industries. We talk about Rob Reiner.
00:58:41
Speaker
Nancy kind of a specialist in tales of Hollywood and family rot and murder. So I shouldn't be laughing, but um we get into that. We talk about that.
00:58:52
Speaker
um And we talk about our cold cube. um The smoke them ladies have this thing called the hot box where they talk about what they're really enjoying in the culture. We talk about what we're not enjoying.
00:59:05
Speaker
um So yeah, if you'd like to be a paid subscriber, go to my sub stack. You'll have access to all my podcasts and essays. Thanks for listening.
00:59:16
Speaker
Bye.
00:59:22
Speaker
Oh