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Episode 478: Nick Paumgarten says, ‘The Reporting Suggests the Root System’
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"I'm a guy who needs a lede. I need the lede to work. I need it to be compelling. And it doesn't have to be the best place to begin. It just has to be a place to begin that works and that amuses and sucks you in. I. So once I have a lede, then that will lead to another place," says Nick Paumgarten.
Wow, so today we have Nick Paumgarten and can I tell you something? Nick has long been my favorite New Yorker profile writer. Whether it’s profiling Mikaela Shiffrin or Mr. Money Mustache, or features about elevators, teaching birds to migrate, the Eagles winning the Super Bowl, or a feature about a sketchy restaurateur; he is appointment reading.
I see his name in the table of contents of an issue of The New Yorker and I will stop just about everything I’m doing and spend the next hour or so reading Nick’s work. Over the years, he’s been the model, for me, as the perfect profile writer.
Nick is a long-time New Yorker staff writer. You know, it’s funny, since I’ve never landed a big feature at a big magazine like the New Yorker, I kinda feel like a phony, a fake writer, even though I have two books under my belt. When Nick and I were off mic, he was saying how because he hasn’t published a book yet, he feels like a fake writer. This is Nick Paumgarten (!) saying he feels like a phony. It goes to show, none of us feel good about ourselves.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The reporting suggesting the root system of a piece
- Loosening your grip
- Stories being like a rip tide
- Need a lede to work first
- Befriending chronology
- And the nerdery
I mean, great stuff. I was finally put in touch with Nick by CNF Pod alum Jared Sullivan, the author of the brilliant book Valley So Low, of Ep. 443 fame, and I’m so glad we got to make this happen.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm drinking some water. I'm drinking some water. That's water with a W. ACNFers, as you know by now, most likely, the frontrunner is out.
00:00:13
Speaker
Book I wrote, and I think it's gaining a bit more traction out there. Some events worth considering. On Thursday, July 17th, I will be at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Washington.
00:00:26
Speaker
In conversation with the author Maggie Mertens at 7 p.m. On July 27th, there will be a live taping of the podcast. This one featuring your boy, B.O.
00:00:38
Speaker
CNF Pods Reigns are being handed over to Daniel Littlewood.
Nick Palmgarten's Career and Writing Insights
00:00:44
Speaker
at 1 p.m. at Gratitude Brewing in Eugene. Go on, get yourself a front runner.
00:00:51
Speaker
It's only sold 2,400 copies. So, you know, help a CNF-er out. Wouldn't say I'm having fun while I'm doing it. I'm one of those complainy writers.
00:01:11
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's right, 2,400 copies. Oh boy. Wish I was famous. Alright, this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell, the art and craft of telling true stories.
00:01:25
Speaker
I'm Brendan O'Meara, the necessary evil in your life. How goes it? Wow. Today, we have Nick Palmgarten.
00:01:36
Speaker
And can I tell you something? Nick has long been my favorite New Yorker profile writer. Whether it's profiling Michaela Schifrin or Mr. Money Mustache or features about elevators, teaching birds to migrate, the Eagles winning the Super Bowl, or a feature about a sketchy restaurateur.
00:01:59
Speaker
He's appointment reading for me. I see his name in the table of contents of an issue of The New Yorker, and I will stop just about everything I'm doing and spend the next hour or so reading Nick's story.
00:02:11
Speaker
Over the years, he's been the model for me as the perfect profile writer. Show notes to this episode tomorrow at BrendanO'Meara.com. Hey, hey, there. You can find links to hot blogs, tasteful news, and forms to sign up for the flagship Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter,
00:02:26
Speaker
And the hottest thing since to me and seven inch and seam shorts, Pitch Club, where I have a journalist audio annotate a pitch that earned them publication. If you're a working journalist, you'll want to subscribe. If you're a teacher of journalism, you'll want your students subscribing forever free because I'm not a dick.
00:02:45
Speaker
Welcome to pitchclub.substack.com. And shout outs are in order for Dave Floss. He makes his triumphant return to the Patreon crew for the big package.
00:02:55
Speaker
If you really crunch the numbers on what I offer you for the $25 a month package, it's kind of insane what you get. And if you want to support the show and its infrastructure and my ego, go to patreon.com slash cnfpod.
00:03:09
Speaker
You get the FaceTime with me. get to talk things out depending on your tier. It's not very organized, but it's something. And don't we all need a little something?
00:03:23
Speaker
So Nick Palmgarten is a longtime new Yorker staff writer. You know, it's funny. Since I've never landed a big feature at a big magazine like the New Yorker, though, that's like a life goal.
00:03:36
Speaker
I kind of feel like a phony, like a fake writer, even though I have two books under my belt. And when Nick and I were off mic as we I was waiting for these files to populate up to the cloud, as one does, he was saying how because he hasn't published a book yet, he feels like a fake writer.
00:03:54
Speaker
And this is Nick fucking Palmgarten saying he feels like a phony. It goes to show none of us feel good about ourselves. In this episode, we talk about the reporting, suggesting the root system of the piece, loosening your grip, stories being like a riptide, needing a lead to work first before proceeding, befriending chronology in the nerdery. oh what could that be?
00:04:21
Speaker
Great stuff. Great stuff. I was finally put in touch with Nick and you know several months ago at this point by CNF pod alum Jared Sullivan, the author of the brilliant book Valley Solo of episode 443 fame.
00:04:35
Speaker
And I'm so glad we got to make this happen. So stay tuned for a parting shot on the AI band Velvet Sundown. But for now, here's Nick Palmgarden.
00:04:52
Speaker
How many times do you need to get hit by a fucking piano or jump off a cliff? I'd rather not hit it on the nose
Journalism Journey and Storytelling Approach
00:04:59
Speaker
because I have bad aim, you know? we're We're different people now. We've changed.
00:05:03
Speaker
but This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:05:17
Speaker
Theoretically, you know, still it's still it's still wrapping up. It's still being wrapped. I'm still wrapping. I had to sort of pivot, as they say, to some New Yorker work.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah. and the And so I've been doing that for a couple of months. I think you've read a couple of the things I did. and have one more to get out. You know, I sort of owed i owe different masters lots of words. It's boring, but the circumstances sort of dictated that I do i do these New Yorker stories quickly.
00:05:46
Speaker
For sure. Yeah, it must have been a and must have been pretty cool the fact that you had a the the feature on the teaching the birds to migrate again, like in that centennial issue to like be in that issue for the New Yorker. That must have been pretty cool just a to be a yeah among that.
00:06:00
Speaker
yeah It was an honor. it's And it's always good to have real estate sort of that that's waiting for you, you know, a made bed, because it means it's going to run if you know, if if they say it's going to run on this issue.
00:06:12
Speaker
It gives you a target and it and it gives you a home. um So it's nice to be in those issues. Sometimes in special issues, you get lost a little bit or, you know, it's's it's kind of hard to say. I think different writers have different opinions on the special issues. But that one in particular being a 100th anniversary issue, that was pretty cool.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And when ah something i I like analogy I like to use is is game tape was with um with sports, and you know, be it a you know magazine article or certain books that you really like to you know dig into the game tape, dig into the footage.
00:06:44
Speaker
And right when you were when you were like, you know, just getting interested in this line of work, what were some of the those stories and those writers that you maybe read with that degree of critical eye that, you know, put fuel in your tank and inspired you to just similarly do take your have your own spin on this kind of journalism?
00:07:03
Speaker
It's funny. You know, I think a lot of my colleagues have been pretty serious scholars of the form. you know, I sometimes get the idea in conversation that they've read everything.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah. And sometimes, obviously, sometimes that's performative when you're writing a critical piece about something you might casually convey to the reader that you've read everything when in fact you've done it for that particular assignment.
00:07:26
Speaker
Nonetheless, I've always had the sense that among among my peers, among my colleagues, that I'm someone who probably read a little bit less of you know of of the of the history of of the magazine and of magazine writing in general and of
Crafting Stories and Writing Processes
00:07:42
Speaker
you know, the great nonfiction long form journalism of our time. I, you know, i I read a lot of fiction and for a while I wanted to be a fiction writer, you know, to what extent I was really serious about it or or it was more of a sort of ah a pretense. I still haven't quite determined.
00:07:59
Speaker
But, ah you know, I grew up reading magazines for fun. You know, it's it's it's how we learned about the world when, you know, people of my generation, it's just,
00:08:11
Speaker
You know, it's how you learned about music. It's how you learned about sports. It's how you learned about politics. When I was younger, my parents to had, you know, interview magazine around. I remember seeing paper magazine around. So I learned about downtown, downtown, the idea as much through magazines as I did through living in New York and being a kid, you know, there there were, I read about the the outdoors adventure stories, you know, um, whether it was national geographic or, or sort of obscure skiing mountaineering magazines. you know I learned about that world from periodical journalism.
00:08:48
Speaker
you know i i wasn't necessarily reading collections of the great works of the New Yorker writers or anything like that. you know In college, I started reading stuff like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolf, a lot the new journalism stuff. and And I became a big fan of Harper's Magazine at that point and and you know the esquire earlier Esquire stuff. and you know, kind of got up to speed and and started reading collections of essays of old journalism, and you know, from the 50s and 60s and 70s.
00:09:16
Speaker
But and I was not the kind of reader who was like, this is how to do it. I wouldn't map out what they'd done. or I think it just I just soaked it in as as a fan, as as an American, as a civilian, as a reader, and and methods and sensibilities sort of just soaked in by osmosis.
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah. And similarly with um how ah Mark Maron on WTF, he's ah obsessed with ah SNL cast members and the how the how they get on SNL and everything. And it's probably because he harbored a certain longing to get on that show at one point. and He always loves picking their brain. out Similarly, I'm like that with New Yorker writers.
00:09:54
Speaker
And ah so how did you the long chain of events? How how did you get to the New Yorker? I moved back to New York in 1995 at the age of 26. twenty six I had had some, you know, I'd lived in California before that I lived in Montana for a while. i was from New York and I'd had some odd jobs, sort of internship stuff, some weird writing gigs for really obscure publications.
00:10:17
Speaker
Uh, and I still didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up and I was already sort of, ah I felt like I was past grown up, but, uh, I still wasn't getting paid to do much. you know, it's that period of life where you're like, should I go to grad school and study fiction writing? Should I go to grad school study English? Should I go to law school?
00:10:35
Speaker
Should I go work on a fishing boat? Should I join the Marines? I don't I had no idea what to do. The 20s, kind of a dismal time. Anyway, move back to New York. Long, long story short, looking for jobs in a recession.
00:10:48
Speaker
Pretty hard, not as hard. There were more jobs then than there are now. you know working working the ah networks, you know just all phones. And then ah eventually got, I was an intern at Harper's Magazine, you know did the internship there for five months in 1995.
00:11:04
Speaker
And and that was sort of ah that was sort of a ticket into the you know the mafia, the sort of publishing mafia of New York. And then I got a job, I was at the New York Observer for five years. I started out as sort of a fact checker reporter.
00:11:19
Speaker
um was there from 95 to 2000. Over time, writing more and more, and then and then became an editor, you know, and then was sort of editing younger people. And I felt like I was too young and and hungry to be already in the sort of teaching ah editing phase. So i was a little bit, sort of I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I started looking around for jobs.
00:11:39
Speaker
And then i got a call from the New Yorker. They were looking for a deputy editor of the talk of the town. This was in the okay Summer of 2000, Susan Morrison, who was the editor of the Talk of the Town, ah called and a former new york New York Observer colleague had recommended me.
00:11:56
Speaker
And so I went through the process of applying for the deputy editor of the Talk of the Town job, which was kind of a part part editing job, part writing job. So it suited me at the time. I think I was expected to do a lot of rewriting, you know, to come in and and and take people's, take freelance talk pieces and kind of rewrite them from the top, which was sort of the old way. This is what Brendan Gill had done years, years before.
00:12:20
Speaker
ah and So it was in the summer of 2000 in August that I was hired to go be at the New Yorker and be a deputy talk, talk of the town editor mostly. And, and you know, I was editing Jim Sirwicky's column for a while and writing talk pieces and editing talk pieces and just kind of getting my feet wetter and wetter doing that.
00:12:41
Speaker
And then, you know, I think it was three or four years before I wrote a really long, and before I wrote a proper long piece there. And then, you know, in 2005, there came a moment when it was, you know, a managing editor there, a friend said, okay, what's gonna be? What are you gonna be when you grow up now that you're in your mid thirties?
00:12:58
Speaker
writer and editor and I'd been editing some longer form stuff and the I think the the ego in me the the the glory the glory hound in me the selfish part of me which is a big part of me wanted wanted to write and and and rather than edit um and so I made that decision and so I've been sort of a staff writer there since whatever it is 2004 or 2005
00:13:24
Speaker
i've always I've long loved your your profiles, and the there's there's a certain amount of fun that I i gather from a lot of your profiles. ah It seems like you're having fun, and yeah it comes it convey comes at me that way on the page, and and depending on the subject, of course. But is that ah is that something you try to imbue into your reporting and your writing, that ah that there is a lightness to it at times?
00:13:48
Speaker
ah Well, I don't know. I certainly wouldn't say I'm having fun while I'm doing it I'm one of those complainy writers. Um, you know, it's, it's a pain in the ass. I like reporting, you know, I love being out there and meeting people and learning things. And, you know, you get, I do get sort of a high when I'm out, out in the field, as we say, and, uh, you know, you're, you're exposed to something new and you're learning, learning things and, uh, and your ears, your ears and eyes are open and you're sort of fully immersed in that, that, that,
00:14:21
Speaker
That I enjoy and have fun doing to the extent that you, that you've seen my stories is that you see fun or funniness or humor or levity. i guess it's just a function of ah personality, ah temperament, and also just what I like to read.
00:14:38
Speaker
You know, I like to be amused. I don't like to be lectured. I don't, I don't like to be bored. I don't like to be fire hose with information. I, know, I like to crack a smile or, or, or laugh as as often as possible. So.
00:14:53
Speaker
last year I had Jared Sullivan on the show for his, uh, for his book Valley Solo. And, uh, you know, was someone that you've, uh, that, that you've helped out and mentored, mentored a bit.
00:15:04
Speaker
And, uh, he, he wanted me to, but he's like, make sure if you talk to Nick, you got to talk to him about the restaurant story of, uh, Damon Burrell. Yeah. He's like, that has a wild backstory to it about the reporting of it. And I just, uh,
00:15:17
Speaker
Maybe you can ah give us a little bit of the the dish behind that stuff. I'll get stuck give it a small taste. I mean, it's sort of and it's an ongoing mystery. And it's a bear that I'm loathe to poke.
00:15:30
Speaker
But ah yeah, I mean, basically the the the shorter version, and it won't even be that short. i was I was assigned to do a quick story about a restaurant in upstate New York. in the Catskills where a guy basically, ah you know, he forges on his own property and makes everything from the the ingredients that he finds on his own property.
00:15:50
Speaker
You know, it it was sort of ah obscure and it was supposedly the hardest to get reservation in any restaurant in the world. The waiting list was for three years and was all very mysterious and you had to do it over email through an assistant.
00:16:04
Speaker
And, um, I thought I was just gonna do a quick, you know I needed to do words for the magazine. I needed, I had to do something quick and I was behind as I often am. I thought this would be an easy one, just you know go up, see an eccentric and and take notes and return and write it up and voila, a piece of work.
00:16:25
Speaker
When I went up there, it was it was it was just it was sort of a bizarre scene and my my spidey sense tingled a bit. And then when I came back from my first visit there,
00:16:36
Speaker
I started to wonder about some of the things I'd seen. I became skeptical that any of it was true. And I poked around a little bit and talked to other people and other people thought it might not be real, that there might be something, some, some kind of, uh, something not something not on the level happening there. And, uh, I spent, I spent like four months on this story and reported the shit out of it. Like, like full on, like, uh,
00:17:03
Speaker
the deepest reporting I've ever done and and just never really broke through, never really figured out what was going on. And um ultimately, the piece was, its conclusions were it was agnostic. You know, we we we couldn't say,
00:17:19
Speaker
one way or the other what was going on there. and and it And it seemed even, seemed in bad form, bad taste to declare that something untoward was going on there.
00:17:30
Speaker
You know, it's like, especially with what we knew and what we didn't know, the unknown unknowns were vast. And so the piece was very strange. And I think it was unsatisfying for some people because it didn't and didn't make a declaration by the end that,
00:17:45
Speaker
this
Interviewing Athletes and Deep-Dive Subjects
00:17:46
Speaker
is a fraud or this is for real, but both because I couldn't say for sure and both and because it seemed aesthetically and morally better to leave it open.
00:17:57
Speaker
And I think Damon's still operating. But yeah, I mean, without going into it deeper, it was it was it was pretty surreal. I mean, it was there were elements of danger involved, you know.
00:18:08
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah, I mean, not to, like he said a moment ago, poke the bear too much, but what what elements of it are you ah remiss to try to push up against? Well, it just seemed impossible.
00:18:21
Speaker
it just seemed It just seemed impossible for him to to do what he said he was doing. and Yeah. ah and And a lot of the stuff about the you know the the difficulty of getting the resolution, it was sort of ah ah the illusion of scarcity, which he was creating. and And so then the question became, why? What is he up to?
00:18:39
Speaker
And you know the paranoid mind, the the questing mind can can come up with conclusions to that question that are pretty dark. and And the vibe was pretty dark.
00:18:50
Speaker
And the unanswerable questions... you know, some of the answers would seem to have been dark. So, um you know, i there was ah there was a moment where I was stepping inside his walk-in fridge when I was revisited the place where I was like, oh, he's going to lock me in this thing and, you know, I could die here. um and And that was, you know, but I'm not sure if that was just my imagination or a projection or or if it was an actual accurate assessment of the situation.
00:19:22
Speaker
But, you know, we're talking about like a, you know, ah so a small restaurant in in the Catskills. We were not talking about Syria or, you know, or the, you know. Like the mob or something. Yeah, i mean, this is, you know, this is, it's almost like it was like mock danger. The whole thing was very strange. It was it was funny.
00:19:41
Speaker
It was exciting, but we I wanted to be careful, and i still do, about Damon and and his life and his business and, you know, his art. Yeah.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know what else to say, man. oh yeah yeah well there's an element of ah of mythology that you interrogate in the piece too and ah in doing any good long form article or profile or biography you know ah ah big leg of the table as David Marinus might say, is getting beyond the mythology.
00:20:14
Speaker
So in a piece like this or just any profile you're up against when you're looking to more round out somebody, you know, how do you best burrow below the mythology and get to something all more all the more human?
00:20:27
Speaker
Right. Well, so that story, it's good you bring that up because that story really, that you know, The goal of that story was more to shine a light on and make fun of serious foodies who had who had created the myth in some ways by believing it and by by fostering it and and You know, they were they were the ones that that I was calling out more than than Damon himself.
00:20:52
Speaker
um It's that foodie culture that sort of exclusive restaurant, the people who fly around the world to special restaurants. I mean, there's that movie last last year with Ralph Fiennes, you know, oh it's so good. The menu.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, right. I mean, I have to say that I saw that movie and I said, did someone rip off my piece? Like, should I be should I be calling my agent? Because, I mean, you know, I thought that there was a piece that there was a film to do, you know.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah. the Charlie Kaufman kind of film that would have been a little bit like like the menu, perhaps not quite as. But it was that kind of a thing and that kind of culture, which, again, the menu is making fun of the foodies more than it is the chef himself, obviously. i mean, they're not making fun of him. He's a psychopath in that one. But anyway.
00:21:32
Speaker
um But yeah, you know, I usually look I like there to be subtexts and, and ah you know, greater contexts to the stories I do. Sometimes I don't even know what that is.
00:21:45
Speaker
consciously it's just a subconscious feel like I know there's a root system there and ah the reporting suggests that root system and I write the piece and sort of put things together and I get a sense of it but it's almost like it's it's almost ineffable it kind of it's doesn't quite form forms then disappear so I'm i'm not saying anything outright I kind of like that just to kind of suggest connections or are or deeper implications. You know, if I'm writing about the Super Bowl, it's sort of, you know, it's obvious, it's a little more obvious there because it's about America. It's about this time in America. It's about the entertainment media complex. It's about our politics. It's about our our ongoing race wars, the culture wars. It's about, you know,
00:22:29
Speaker
and American entertainment, being entertained to death. It's about tribe and family and emotion. It's about all those things that are all connected. And I just felt it but because I was there for that week at the Super Bowl.
00:22:40
Speaker
And you know if you just write your experience there, it all kind of comes out and I don't have to state too baldly what that all means. And yeah i because i'm I think part of it is that I'm incapable of stating things like that baldly. I'm not smart enough.
00:22:55
Speaker
I lack the language and the real rhetorical muscle sometimes to state things baldly. I'd rather not hit it on the nose because I have bad aim, you know?
00:23:08
Speaker
So and some sometimes I feel like my stories just suggest things because the reporting reporting suggests things, or I have a you know ah feeling that something's going on beneath the surface here, but I'm not going to belabor it for the reader's And a profile I've reread a few times, namely because i want to model profiles in a similar fashion as the one from a few years ago about Michaela Schifrin.
00:23:32
Speaker
And yeah I really loved your, I just love the structure of it and how you went about it. And when you're taking on an athlete, you know, like that, who seems to be altogether pretty thoughtful herself, which is not altogether, which is kind of rare sometimes.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, when you're setting out, setting your sights to report on ah on ah on a figure like Michaela, where do you start? What is the first domino? Well, I can't really remember the structure of the piece or or how I went about that one in particular. But I suppose you know i came with some prior knowledge.
00:24:05
Speaker
you know My enthusiasm for the piece had to do with the fact that I'm ah i'm a fan of the sport. And i you know I have some history with the sport. And so I bring some, i like you know I like to bring something to the table, whatever it might be.
00:24:22
Speaker
and it's it's ah it's like It's like the nicotine that gets me to to open the pack, you know? um i just I usually have something, some some node of connection to to the story I do. I prefer it that way.
00:24:35
Speaker
And I'll even gin one up in my mind, which is kind of, seems almost anti-journalistic in a way, but it's, it's and from an essayistic point of view, I guess it makes sense. Also with athletes, you you don't expect to hear much in terms of conversation. you're not You're not coming into a time with an athlete and expecting to hear a lot of great insight or self-reflection because, you know, obviously athletic success has a lot to do with with keeping those thoughts, that self-consciousness, that self-awareness out of your out of your mind on a day-to-day basis.
00:25:06
Speaker
So it was more, ah you know, how do I appreciate this person as as a, you know, a paragon of expertise of just that. athletic expertise and and and sort of the the mental game and the training game.
00:25:19
Speaker
And then you also, you know biography is important, you know, knowing that someone has an interesting story. And, you know, and in Michaela's case, her family's interesting. Her mother was interesting.
00:25:30
Speaker
Her path was interesting. And then, you know, to me, thiss to to get time, you know, when you when you write about athletes, a lot of the time I've i've found that and The typical ah athlete interview professional athlete interview is 10 minutes next to a locker you know with a scum around, and they say, after 5, 10 minutes, they say, got what you need?
00:25:50
Speaker
you're like, i I don't even know what I need. I don't even know what i want. But whatever it is, I ain't got it because that's five minutes of just baloney. So if you can conspire to have real time with someone, just they get to let down their guard. and you you kind of you know like I went back to Michaela's condo, and she...
00:26:09
Speaker
to talk after her workout and she's full of endorphins and she's in a good mood. And she's really nice and she's a good host. And so she's kind of cooking lunch, reheating some stuff from the fridge and just kind of, and talking. And that was, you know, that's, that was the most natural way you could probably experience her as a person.
00:26:29
Speaker
And ah instantly was like, this, she's a real person. She's a thoughtful, kind person. She asks questions, she listens, she answers, she answers questions, each one anew. She doesn't just give you canned answers. And um that those those people are rare you know i another one who was like that was was roger federer who i interviewed oh my gosh yeah for men's vogue and uh i mean he's just a prince of a dude i mean he was just he was he answered all the questions as though he had never heard them before he was he was a gentleman you know he was cool he was funny and then like later you know
00:27:04
Speaker
Like my brother ran into him like 15 years later down in
Writing Challenges and Editorial Communication
00:27:07
Speaker
Miami tournament. My brother's like, hey, Roger, but my brother wrote that story about you. And he's like, oh yeah, him say hi. You know, he's like, just a cool guy as well as a beautiful tennis player and all that. but So, i you know, I prefer to write about those kinds of people or people like my colleague Ben McGrath did incredible story about Lenny Dykstra. And that's that's another kind great way to go. The real sort of, the real peaches, you know.
00:27:34
Speaker
yeah the Yeah, to your point earlier about what makes some of these athletes so good is their degree of ah remove, the fact that they don't think about what they're doing. ah David Foster Wallace's essay on Tracy Austin and his disappointment with sports memoirs, ah it's because they all are almost so, and the almost, for lack of a better term, simple, because they don't they don't think, and him, he he had a bad head.
00:28:03
Speaker
Similarly, in my baseball career, I kind of had a bad head too. I couldn't get out of my own way sometimes and succeeded despite it. Yeah, what what makes them so good is being able to turn that off. And yeah, so when you can get someone who is elite and can articulate it brilliantly, it's like, oh my God, yeah that is that's the gold if you can get there, rare as it is.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know I've always always thought of golfers in particular as having just like this sort of... this breeze blowing through their ears, like the only way that they can yeah remove the nerves and the thoughts from their head is by probably not having those thoughts in the first place.
00:28:38
Speaker
so yeah Because I and i don't even, I hardly play golf. I mean, I play like twice a year and I get the yips on the first chip. I'm just shaking like a leaf and um I don't even care. Nothing. It's like my sixth shot of the the hole. Like who gives a shit?
00:28:52
Speaker
yeah I don't know how they do it. i mean, I don't know how the tennis players make a second serve when it's break point in fifth set. I don't know how people make free free throws. or get the pitch you know Major League Baseball pitchers in in the in the postseason, like I don't know how they do that.
00:29:08
Speaker
really don't understand it. And they're not gonna tell me how they do it. So it's up to us to sort of imagine it and and and investigate it as best we can and and and probably project onto them a lot of stuff that's not even relevant.
00:29:23
Speaker
But there's it is for people, for self-conscious, neurotic, self-involved people, it's it's it's it's it's incredible to behold. And it's one of the reasons why I like sports.
00:29:35
Speaker
but Even watching them more than writing about them, to be honest. but Before before we hopped on the phone here, I was speaking with another journalist, ah Nick Davidson, who had a great story come out recently in the Atavist magazine and writes for Outside a bunch among his other freelance assignments.
00:29:50
Speaker
And we were talking about just ah how how we come across stories and he's reached a point where he. he kind of just surrenders. He's like, you know what? Oftentimes, like the stories are starting to find me more than I'm ah like actively going out and trying to find stories.
00:30:08
Speaker
And so he's a bit of a surrender to that. i wonder just for you, to what extent are you actively searching for ideas or do you just kind of, yeah, have your antenna tuned to that frequency?
00:30:21
Speaker
That's interesting because there there was a time in my life where you know I knew that there were colleagues and peers and writers who would look through regional papers and would hunt and hunt and hunt.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I was just bad at that. And so the the only ways that it would ever happen for me and has it really ever happened is that you know things just kind of come to me either... Either it's an assignment for the magazine, it's someone else's idea, or I just notice something and it just, something clicks. I get, like I said before, I get some kind of personal connection to it, like something, something stirs in me. ah And I'm like, oh yeah, I could spend a couple months with that subject.
00:31:00
Speaker
And I also have to imagine that the writing will somehow be an enriching for me and and for a reader. yeah. so That's typically what happens. You know, I, I, and I also find that when I'm doing a story, this is sort of a corollary of this more and more.
00:31:20
Speaker
I, I give into the story more. i'm ah I'm a less aggressive pursuer of the story as I'm working on the story. And especially this kind of story where I'm in a place, obviously I have to get into the rooms and get audiences with the people that I'm supposed to, that make the best subjects or that are essential to the piece. And that often involves inviting myself into things or hustling my way into things or talking my way past guards or or or gatekeepers ah and persuading people. But I also just kind of let the thing happen.
00:31:56
Speaker
<unk>s like and it's it's it's like ah It's like a riptide, just don't fight it. And you will have the feeling while you're doing that, this always happens to me on these assignments where I'm, where I'm, you know, like the Superbowl or the masters or when I'm in Davos at the world economic forum, I will feel, you know, for eight hours, like I'm just, I'm getting so much good stuff.
00:32:18
Speaker
Oh my God. There's just so much good stuff here. And then for the next eight hours, I'll feel like I'm doing nothing. hi I'm just like, I have no game here. i have nothing. I'm missing it. I'm screwed. I'm going to go home and I'm going to be screwed. Because, you know, when you're that kind of assignment, you need to get it while you're there.
00:32:35
Speaker
You know, you need to it's like it's almost like photography. You have to get the shots. You know, I've realized over time that you don't always have to get that shot because you can write about things that you're not present at.
00:32:47
Speaker
that can actually be in some ways it can be a ah benefit to the to the story that you're telling. You know, instead of having to leave out a great scene, you you have to leave out the great scene because you weren't to be with, you know.
00:33:00
Speaker
and And so, you know, i've I've learned after so many panicky returns or panicky writing sessions to to relax a bit about what I got and what I didn't get.
00:33:12
Speaker
What I got is what I got. And I tell the story best I can. And there's usually more than enough. And I'm not going to sit here and stress that i that I didn't get into that thing or I didn't get that interview with that person or I missed that particular thing Because you can't be everywhere all at once.
Media Consumption and AI Impact
00:33:26
Speaker
And also, you talk about fun. like i just I don't want to be miserable all the time when I'm writing. I mean, so... I just have to teach myself not to freak out when the deadline's approaching and I'm making use of what I got and just to try to make what I got delightful to me and to the reader.
00:33:46
Speaker
that's That's something like age has taught me a little bit, just to just to loosen my grip, I guess. you know And it's ah that's a sports thing, it's true. like Don't swing too hard. like whatever Whatever sport, like it you don't want to swing too hard at a tennis ball or a golf club. you know you're surfing, you kind of have to relax and just feel it, you know, and, uh, skiing, at just point it downhill, man. I don't, you know, don't fight it. And I'm trying to get to that point.
00:34:13
Speaker
Of course it doesn't, that's, it's all bullshit. What you talk about on a sentence to sentence but level and the, you know, the laying down of the bricks and the actual technical problems of what comes in what order. And how do I say this? If I haven't even already introduced this other idea and if I have to introduce that other idea first, then how do I put that in there? And the, you know, that all, that all that stuff is the stuff that drives us crazy. Right.
00:34:32
Speaker
feel like yeah I'll never solve this problem. The algebra, the you know, the sort of algebra stuff, order of operations stuff. I never take pleasure in that. Yeah. Are you much of ah an outliner at the outset of a, of a story?
00:34:45
Speaker
No, I mean, I've been scolded. I've been scolded for not being that person. ah ah ah ah Typically I will, you know, write sort of a rough outline on like a piece of paper that I then have here, you know, or a legal pad that, I really, i'm like I'm a guy who needs a lead.
00:35:04
Speaker
and i need i need the lead to work. I need it to be compelling. And it doesn't have to be the best place to begin. It just has to be a place to begin that works. And that, again, like amuses and sucks you in ah So once I have a lead, then that will lead to another place. And and and there are certain, you know, New Yorker templates and structures that you kind of can default to or rely on and that are at this point for me, slightly, I guess, internalized.
00:35:31
Speaker
And sometimes those feel cheap and you you and you resist them. But you know, the chronology is your friend. So you always have chronology and um and then there's, you know, a big thing is going back and forth between reported scenes and detail and the sort of the pullback of the camera, you know the line break, pullback, those things, you know,
00:35:52
Speaker
there's sort of an energy that, that, you know, a sort of push pull energy that happens there that, that, that in the, in the absence of an outline, it just, it just suggests itself as you're working. That's, it's time for me to pull back here.
00:36:05
Speaker
And then you pull back for a while and then you're like, okay, let's go to that other place now, you know? Oh, for sure. You do that exceptionally well in, uh, the elevator story. Uh, you're like, you do have that, you know, the one guy who's locked in the elevator and you're always going kind of, we don't stray too far from him because we need to know like, Oh my God, what's going to happen to this guy.
00:36:24
Speaker
And, uh, and yeah, and then you go through, you know, various other, ah spurs of the, or spokes of the wheel, uh, about elevators. And I think, uh, Yeah, when you're writing a story of that nature, like you said a moment ago, is that the story and the writing kind of suggest when you need to take a break from one particular through line and then go down? Yeah, I mean, that one was, mean, kind of, I decided I was going to write a story about elevators because we had something called a journeys issue every year. And I started making it a challenge to myself every year.
00:36:58
Speaker
to come up with a more and more banal journey. You know, like I and i did did, I did commuting and I did, ah GPS, can't remember when I did, but I was like elevators, like that's like the non-journey journey.
00:37:11
Speaker
And then I started nerding out about elevators, elevatoring, the history of elevators, the history of bodies in space, all this you know kind of arcane New Yorkery deep dive stuff.
00:37:23
Speaker
But I knew that I needed a ah primary narrative and I needed to find someone, you know I needed to find a ah sort of tale to tell. And then i I found that story somewhere, I can't remember where,
00:37:35
Speaker
mean, it had been out there a little bit. And ah I called the guy and it was like a Friday evening at like six. And i was in my office at the New Yorker and he started talking and I just started writing down his story on a legal pad.
00:37:51
Speaker
He just told the story chronologically. And then I, you know, it was like three hours. And I went home and like that the next day I was like, I'm just going to type that up.
00:38:03
Speaker
and basically just put it into my own words, but I'm not, it's his story. tells He tells it, he tells it well, he's told it, he had told it at that point for many years. It was his story. Um, and then, it that then it was pretty obvious that that was going to be the structure, that that would be the foreground story and that all the nerdery that was taking up way more of my time and it was harder to write and was, you know, harder to justify, but, you know, it was also kind of neato and strange.
00:38:28
Speaker
Now had it, now had a place to sit and now had a, you know, and had a, it had a boat to float on. And, And so that through line, you know, it made it work. And I was rescued by that that story.
00:38:40
Speaker
Funny aside, last week, and a a colleague of mine, bless him, he called and he's working on a story. And, you know, it's I'm not going to tell you what it is or who he is, but he's, you know, it's like sort of a similar deal. It's like a story about a a broader thing, but there's like a central storyline. And he's like, I'm going to i'm going to use this this structure where I tell that guy's story and i go back and forth.
00:39:05
Speaker
And he was actually yeah asking for my blessing, like, because it was like my gimmick. And I'm like, I was like, dude, that's not my gimmick. That's like ah just a standard structure. ah you know yeah don't You don't need my permission. I'm i'm'm flattered.
00:39:20
Speaker
And of course you have my blessing. and I can't wait to see the story, but That's like a standard structural move. And I, you know, you just I just lucked into it that one time. but It's a great model to use. yeah Yeah. yeah Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:35
Speaker
It's like you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just change the tires. Right. Exactly. exactly Yeah. And um ah we just ah seeing you mime, you know, writing on the yeah legal pad as he was the recounting that story in the elevator.
00:39:51
Speaker
ah When you're in the field reporting or interviewing people, are are you one of the the strict notebook and pen people or do you employ recorders to detail information too?
00:40:04
Speaker
You know, I've been doing this for 30 years and I still haven't figured it out. I still don't. Like no one knows. Yeah. It's one of the ons the the great debate. It's of those things.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah. i I take notes. A lot of time I don't even record because it's like I'm not going to ah not going to type up four hours of just walking around, hanging around stuff. Like if you say something good, I'll write it down.
00:40:29
Speaker
But then you miss paragraphs. mean, because I'm not a, I'm not a, I don't write to shorthand like some New Yorker people do or have done or claim to have done. i don't how they do it to be honest. Like, it's like, but how do you get the texture of human speech if you don't get the texture of human speech?
00:40:45
Speaker
I don't know how they do it. I mean, some people have an ear probably, they have sort of ah a memory for it. But anyway, i so i you know if you're writing down a notebook, you're getting sort of every second or third sentence sometimes. And so if I want it to be where I, if I want someone speaking in paragraphs, I have to record it.
00:41:03
Speaker
ah So ah you know for talk of the town, for instance, sometimes I don't bother because I just like i just need like four quotes. Ultimately they're short. I'll write down everything I can. I'll get as much as I can. That'll be good enough. It'll be more than I know what to do with.
00:41:16
Speaker
But sometimes I record and take notes. Sometimes I'll sit down, you know like this week I've been, I've been transcribing conversations where I was taking notes and, but knowing that I was recording it, I i started taking less, ah you know, my my notes got worse.
00:41:31
Speaker
They got thin. And so as I was listening through, i was like, I'm just going to have to transcribe this whole so thing. And I, know, and I haven't really figured out the, the AI transcription bot thing for a while. i i would pay people to transcribe certain like sit down interviews, like you sit down with a politician or with a CEO for an hour in an office, with like a PR person.
00:41:54
Speaker
And you know you're not gonna write down everything he says or she says, you're gonna basically, you know you're gonna just try to stay on the ball and make sure you ask the right questions and interrupt, you know stop them from stonewalling you or whatever.
00:42:08
Speaker
ah you know, just talking blather until your, your hours up. So you have to, you know, you have to kind of be on your game sometimes in those situations, because that's sort of a a fencing, sporting, you're in the ring. and you so I like to tape those things and transcribe later.
00:42:24
Speaker
and all this is I would think this that this is boring stuff, but I guess this is ah this is a podcast for people who do this. it really Yeah, I know. it's Sometimes it can feel kind of just blah on the surface. But a lot of people who listen to this show, and I find it fascinating about how reporters and certainly reporters and journalists and writers who i just deeply admire.
00:42:43
Speaker
how they get their information, how they organize it and curate it. You know, are like a Darcy Frey when he's writing the last shot, and you know, 30 years ago, yeah he was not a tape recorder guy. Like he would have the kids in the backseat and Coney Island, he'd drive, he'd pull up to a red stoplight and he'd scribble like crazy in his notebook with his notebook on his thigh, go to the next light.
00:43:04
Speaker
And, know, he was just, he made a deal with himself not to use a recorder early on. And yeah. I do a lot of that. I mean, you know, this is, this is, you know, here's. Oh, I love it. The classic. And they're just all, that's like this year.
00:43:20
Speaker
ah And frankly, you know, you asked earlier about pieces that had ah an influence. I would say that that piece in particular, the last shot and and Harper's of that era of like the early, early, and the mid nineties and the folio really jazzed me, got me jazzed back then.
00:43:38
Speaker
And I, so I got to be an intern there and sort of, see how the sausage was made a bit. And yeah, I mean, I was actually not like a religious New Yorker reader necessarily in my college years.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yeah. When you, when you lock into a particular subject, I know for me, I'm drawn to people of singular obsession and devotion mainly because i think, because I lack that in myself and I really admire it in them.
00:44:05
Speaker
Like ah just for some such a frenetically ADHD person, Addled mind is just like I really admire that. I wonder for you, like, what are the people ah or do you find that the people you're most attracted to to cover?
00:44:19
Speaker
They have something that you fundamentally admire and maybe wish you had. I'm just attracted to people that are obsessive, that have the deep the deep knowledge of something, ah that know a lot about a thing. where it's Their life's work is is is burrowing in on one subject.
00:44:35
Speaker
I mean, i'm like I'm a total generalist. Even as a reporter, I don't be i don't have any area of expertise. I know a little bit of a few things. but But people that really know their subject, and it you know that's like you know John McPhee. That's sort of a classic form. You meet this person and they're – Their life is devoted to to this particular avenue of expertise. That's part of it.
00:44:56
Speaker
Part of it is, I think it's interesting when those people devise, like they have a worldview and a sort of of a philosophy of life and of knowledge that ah arises out of that. So i I want to encounter, you know, people with sort of a fully formed philosophical outlook on life.
00:45:13
Speaker
And often those people are eccentrics. Often they're difficult as subjects. You know, they might be controlling or thin-skinned. or you know sort of spectral sometimes. you know But I prefer that to you know like a politician who's who's presenting a sort of ah you know a public persona to you, like a fake persona that you then have to, you have to sort of, then you're like, uh, you know, reading the poetics of that fake persona, which has nothing to do with what's actually happening, how how they play power chess behind the scenes. Like that's, that you know, I, so I have a problem with a lot of political reporting, you know, it's, it's, it's always this sort of surface. Like I'm, you know, here I am with this Congress person for, for a week and I'm watching them perform congressman or Congresswoman and,
00:46:01
Speaker
you know, I want to know what their acts, you know, i want to, I want to know the sort of the deep, dark house of cards stuff. i want to know what they're, how they're really sort of playing chess with each other and screwing each other over and and using leverage and power.
00:46:13
Speaker
They don't, you know, to do that, you have to be really deeply immersed in that as a beat and to know people. And so, you know, for me to go into political reporting, for example, is always it always, it always feels like I'm, you know, it's hard for me to get up to speed and get and get sourced up well enough to really know how the game is really being played.
00:46:30
Speaker
When you're sitting down to to write, you know, we talked them just a moment ago just how ah some people listen the show, myself included, ah just love organization and how we yeah how do we best have that material ready so it's accessible.
00:46:47
Speaker
And we sit down to write. And for you, what are what are the systems you like in place, Nick? mean My desk here is a goddamn mess. I, you know, I, again, been doing this for 30 years, i really have not devised a proper system. But I would say, I've taken to typing up the notes. So that's, a you know, that's sort of ah a one phase of culling and of of reintroducing yourself to the material.
00:47:10
Speaker
both getting it down electronically so it's searchable and and and and copy and pasteable and all that stuff, but also you're just doing another sort of deep pass through it. And then just piles. I'm a piles guy.
00:47:23
Speaker
And I have, you know, notebooks, pieces of paper, legal pads, um various, you know, Word files open. I write in Word still. You know, I just got a...
00:47:35
Speaker
I got Scrivener, I'm working on a book and I got Scrivener for that, which was kind of interesting, interesting move for me. That is helpful. That sort of tile aspect, you know? Yeah. It's basically just the the note card on the ping pong table type approach, but it's electronic, you know, and that's helpful at greater length, I think.
00:47:58
Speaker
But you know I'm able to, you know for like a 10,000 word piece, I can kind of keep it in my head and on paper around me in piles, like that that works, it sort yeah surrounds me. But it's not organized, it's not efficient. And I know some of my colleagues and peers and friends um are much more organized and have you know proper folders on their computer and in drawers.
00:48:26
Speaker
I just, just kind of a sloppy person. Yeah. Same. I'm just like, I wish I weren't, but I, you know, I just, ah it's all, it's all I can do to get stuff down and then get it back out and then turn it into something on a screen. That's like, that's, that's all I can handle.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah, and some people, they had they struggle either generating that first rap or like the revisions are hell or wherever. i was like Where do you stand on that? like Where do you find, when does it really start to get difficult if if it's not all difficult?
00:49:04
Speaker
I'm not one of those like pound it out fast and then go back and rewrite it, guys. i am I'm definitely the sort of inch inch forward, i need the sentences to be good because then the ideas make sense. Like if and if the if the writing is is is rough and kind of slack and relaxs and lacks any sort of sharpness or or acidity, then then i think that the material is bad and that and therefore i I can't make it work. And so I have to... i have to I sort of, you know, I have to move forward with with good sentences and then, you know, i kind of then spit some stuff out and then and then turn that into better sentences and then I can keep moving forward that way.
00:49:45
Speaker
And there will be blocks that will be less written. It'll be like reported blocks, you know, like you take a big chunk of like a reported scene that's like just you just get it all down there and then you have to go in and like cut stuff out and sort of turn it more into like a...
00:49:57
Speaker
like a little one scene play kind of thing. um Both because editor's gonna do that anyway and the tolerance for baggy scene writing is low and for the reader too. And the magazine, as long as these stories are and as indulgent as the New Yorker is, 8,000, 10,000 word stories, that's a lot, especially today's standards.
00:50:22
Speaker
especially by today's standard one feels the sort of the pressure of space at all times. Like you just, the the need for economy and efficiency, get in, get out, you know, try not to repeat yourself. And it's it's sort of amazing how you know, when ah and I'll do a story and then I'll have to tell a subject like, yeah, you know, there just wasn't enough room for that thing. And they're like, I just opened the magazine. It's like 10 pages of like a wall of gray, you know, how can there not be room in there?
00:50:53
Speaker
know, you found room for your dumb jokes or your riff about your own home life. Like, I'm like, yeah, I know. I don't really know what happened there, but I ran out of room. yeah Yeah. Yeah. That pressure is always there. the sort of,
00:51:07
Speaker
and ah And it used to be that I would, well, I guess I still write. I tend to write long and then, you know, the editor has to take a whack at it and I have to take a whack at it and you lose good stuff and you kill your darlings and all that kind of stuff. But I can't, I kind of have, I feel like I have to let leave leave it all out there.
00:51:25
Speaker
I have to write what I have. um And, you know, sometimes if so, if the assignment's like six to 7,000, I'll be like, okay, I'm at 10,000, but I got it all down. Now I'll give it to the editor and say, what do you think doesn't work?
00:51:38
Speaker
You know? um Yeah. How do you like to be edited?
00:51:45
Speaker
Well,
00:51:48
Speaker
ah I have a really good editor, Willing Davidson, right now. And before him, I had a great editor, too. Both great editors, yeah John Bennett. they're they don't They're not the kinds of editors who who rewrite stuff or...
00:52:02
Speaker
really take the thing apart and put it back together again. um They're judicious, but like I trust, I trust, I trust them. you know and There was one moment with John Bennett years ago where He cut a joke and I kind of put it back in there and then he cut it again.
00:52:22
Speaker
I was a god like, what's wrong with that? Why did you cut that joke? He's like, because it was lame. i was like, okay, man, no argument.
00:52:34
Speaker
It's like, geez, sorry i even wrote it. you know That's the right answer. it And it know stopped me in my tracks. So yeah, I like to be edited with care and delicacy, but also with a firm withering hand. It's like coach tough but fair. like that.
00:52:56
Speaker
you know he's tough but fair you know i like that Right. Yeah. Because you can run across people who are like just very, you know, they're very terse and to the point.
00:53:08
Speaker
um But at some point, you like as writers, we're just kind of inherently insecure. So sometimes like, well, don't be, don't be too, like, let's, let's ah defang some of this stuff a little bit because I do have the most fragile ego between the two of us.
00:53:22
Speaker
Well, I mean, the worst part, the worst time is when you file a piece. And then like, like after filing it, like five minutes later, like, what the hell? Where's my response? And then you, you need the response. Like, you know, any, at least in my experience as an editor and also as a writer who likes a certain kind of editor, I need someone to tell me this is great.
00:53:42
Speaker
And then they can tear me to pieces. Yeah. And there's a whole thing, like there's a whole, you know, lexicon of that. you know, when you know, this is gonna be great. It's like, okay, this is a this is a mess.
00:53:55
Speaker
I'm sorry. yeah This is gonna be great. You're like, Oh, I really screwed the pooch this time. like Sorry. but um so is what out the door tailta I mean, I am sometimes amazed and it this happens more doesn't happen with me at the New Yorker. But other places I've had people you know, you file something and like no one responds to you for a week and you're like, it's like the rudest thing I can imagine. I can't i can't believe that someone would be an editor and would leave a writer hanging. It's like, do you understand? Like I'm, you know, I'm standing on the chair, you know?
00:54:30
Speaker
Like I need a response here. So that amazes me when you you don't get a response. and the other And the other experience that i've that I've had elsewhere, but not at the New Yorker is like this, and I haven't had it in a long time because I avoid these circumstances. It's like, ah can you rewrite it this way? Actually, let's rewrite it this other way or like like just like redo it. ah totally Do a totally different story.
00:54:51
Speaker
It's like, well, i this is the story I did. is what I found. I'm not gonna like redo a whole nother version of it. if you did if you wanted it a particular story and you have a vision for it what that story is, why didn't you just write yourself? Why you bother hiring me?
00:55:05
Speaker
Because I'm just going to do what I find and I'm going to find a way to write it that's like amusing to me. And it may not be what you have in mind, but that's the story that comes back. You know, there's a tension with that at the New Yorker. You know, it's it's an editor's magazine, always has been.
00:55:17
Speaker
um but the But the writers get granted some lassitude to go out and have have an experience and writes and write what they discover and what they feel is relevant. And, uh, you know, there's push pull there all the time.
00:55:29
Speaker
Well, Nick, I want to be mindful of your time. And this was just ah so, so fun to just talk a little shop and how you, how you go about the work and how I would like to end these conversations and bring them down for a landing is just to get a, a recommendation from you to the, to the listeners out there, just something that's yeah you're happy about that you want to share with them. ah Could be a brand of coffee or fanny pack or ah long walk. It's totally up to you.
00:55:54
Speaker
Oh man.
00:55:57
Speaker
oh like music. Yeah. I like this band. I like this band, the bug club. They're fun. bug club. Trio. They're fun.
00:56:09
Speaker
yeah, that's one thing. I did jujitsu for the first time a couple of weeks ago. That was interesting. I've been, you know, I have friends who've done it and said, you should try it. I'm like, my body's broken. I really don't want to do that. And I had the experience of, you know, I'm kind of broken and,
00:56:26
Speaker
really shouldn't have been doing jujitsu, but I found myself suddenly like rolling on the floor with some stranger and like basically felt like fighting. felt like the way I felt when I used to fight my brother when I was 10 years old, you know, like ah trying to prevent the person from hurting you, but it's it's it sort of feels like life or death.
00:56:46
Speaker
And I'm 56 years old and I have like a lot of ailments and problems, but i I will say that that was so exhilarating that feeling of fighting someone really and and and the sort of did the, the, the, like that rash exposure to the need for technique and the levels of the game, you know, like the levels of expertise that it would take to be good at this. And I mean, I was just on the mat with this, he was a white belt. I mean, he was in his twenties, he was half my age, but it was still like, Jesus Christ, there's a lot to learn here. And so there was a side of me, I'm like, huh, this would be a cool thing to do. And you know, my later life, um,
00:57:26
Speaker
cause used to play hockey and I love that. The concussions laid me low. ah that's the That's the book I'm writing. I'm writing a book about my beer league hockey years and sort of about men and all that.
00:57:39
Speaker
When I finished that, we can talk about that. Oh, cool. Well, yeah, well, let's make, ah let's make that a point, Nick. ah Fantastic. Well, this, this is great so great to get to touch base and um yeah, been such a long admirer of your work and to get to have a conversation about it was a real thrill. So just thanks for carving out the time, Nick.
00:57:56
Speaker
Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me on. um I'm honored. I'm honored for the attention and time. So you keep up the good work there.
00:58:07
Speaker
Yes. Awesome.
00:58:12
Speaker
That was great. Yes. Thanks to Nick. And thanks to you, CNF, for making it this far. We're still doing it, aren't we? We're still doing it.
00:58:23
Speaker
It wasn't until the other day that this thing came up. This ah AI band by Spotify called Velvet Sundown.
00:58:33
Speaker
it's ah It's a bad name. It is the perfect name for AI. And the imagery of this AI band, especially look up the one of them eating hamburgers. Not even eating, they're like looking at hamburgers as if they don't know what food is.
00:58:53
Speaker
It's the perfect encapsulation of AI. The fact that AI bands are a thing is one of the many mounting insults to humanity as we know it. The fact that this fake band has more than a million followers on Spotify is all the more upsetting.
00:59:08
Speaker
And I'd like to think that maybe 999,999 are AI invented followers because who the fuck knows anymore? What can we fucking trust?
00:59:20
Speaker
The answer is almost nothing. Two things hit me almost right away. I need to see more live music, and I need to own more analog music delivery systems, be it a record player or ah CD player.
00:59:37
Speaker
I have some vinyls and Metallica records. But I'm not a big vinyl guy. i have more CDs. I still have a small cache of CDs from high school that I listened to in the car. I've been really just hammering through Metallica's load.
00:59:51
Speaker
have the 1996 release. Some really awesome sludgy riffs in that. House that Jack built. That opening little riff.
01:00:02
Speaker
The burn-a-na-na-na-na. And how he holds that chord and he's just it's just muddy. Oh yeah.
01:00:14
Speaker
I have a burn CD called B.O.' 's Walk in a Class Mix that I made in the fall of 2000. It's it's experience. I'll talk about that another time. It's ah essay worthy for sure.
01:00:28
Speaker
But what's even more disturbing about Spotify is the CEO, Daniel Ek, Swedish dude or whatever, has invested something like $700 million dollars in AI tech for the fucking military.
01:00:41
Speaker
like Listen, I understand we need armies and shit, I guess. But the glut of funding the war machine at the expense of so many other things, I just find almost like morally indefensible.
01:00:56
Speaker
I mean, how about we skim off, let's just let's just skim off a cool billion off the military spending, which is like kind of nothing in this country. And we can send 10,000 kids to college debt-free if the average four-year college degree is around $100,000, of which is far less depending if you're in state or whatever.
01:01:16
Speaker
Think of how many people we can educate. Think of how many people we can insure and feed. Anyway, can't have that. Can't do it. Definitely not.
01:01:26
Speaker
Fact is, the algorithm's is ever so insidiously nudging us into numbness to keep blunting the edge of our taste until we're consuming the most banal art imaginable.
01:01:40
Speaker
The only thing we can trust is IRL, baby, in real life. That's the vision that Ruby McConnell and i had a couple years ago and then executing at the start of this year as we started to do these quarterly live podcasts.
01:01:56
Speaker
you know With AI taking over, eroding our trust in what's real and what's not, what's unmistakably real is gathering as a community and celebrating reading, music, and conversations.
01:02:09
Speaker
It's all we can trust. And these tech giants? Think they're the arbiters of culture? The gatekeepers of taste? No, they're poison. Worse, they're a fucking parasite, sucking the blood of our data and our attention, and we do it willingly.
01:02:25
Speaker
Oh, there's a tick on my arm? Yeah, keep going, buddy. blowed out and give me Lyme disease while you're at it. So yes, I still pay $16.99 a month for Spotify because in theory, it's amazing.
01:02:40
Speaker
In theory, all this music in my hand. Oh, I want to listen to the Queen's Gambit soundtrack, the Arrival soundtrack, the Inception soundtrack, the Batman soundtrack.
01:02:51
Speaker
I like to write the soundtracks. Whale sounds? Sure. Falling Rain? Uh-huh. Every Metallica record? Pantera? Gojira? Sabbath? Black Label Society?
01:03:02
Speaker
Matchbox 20? Live? Soundgarden? As I've said before. They numb us with convenience. We sell off so much of ourselves for convenience.
01:03:15
Speaker
But it's in the inconvenient where life exists. Interfacing in public. Be it at a live podcast recording, July 27th at Gratitude Brewing, 1 p.m.
01:03:26
Speaker
in Eugene.
01:03:28
Speaker
A concert, trivia night, fucking bingo, I don't care. It means we have to leave our homes and interface with the I'm a bit of a recluse. It's not in my nature to do it. Coming out of the pandemic too, it's very hard for us to build that musculature up to be in public again.
01:03:45
Speaker
I think we're still dealing with a lot of fallout from that and we don't talk about it. I'm also an introvert. So the idea of being around people, though I don't mind being around people, it just drains my fucking battery.
01:03:57
Speaker
like You have no idea. and If I'm out in public, by the time I get home, I have to go into like this Darth Vader egg to recharge for like a week. But I know it's the way.
01:04:09
Speaker
I peruse used CDs to find some of my favorite 90s bands and records to listen to in my car. yeah I'm going to go look for a used boombox today at St. Vinny's.
01:04:20
Speaker
It's going to be used like a Goodwill store, but it's like Oregon-centric. Or located in Oregon. Whatever. i was never a real music nerd.
01:04:32
Speaker
I love music, but not not the way like the the true music nerds are. But some of my favorite memories. like I remember in 1997, I believe it was in either November or December, and you know my buddies and I, we all went to...
01:04:49
Speaker
it was either sam goody or the wall at the mall the silver city galleria and we bought uh metallica's reload and then we went back to john's house and threw it in the cd player and like that and then a fuel comes out of yeah like fuck yeah fuel and that memory remains the devil's dancing unforgiven too and uh better than you whatever listen to the whole album was awesome And then in my late 20s, I was at a different buddy's apartment.
01:05:17
Speaker
You know, both sports writers at the Saratogian newspaper. Friday night or some Saturday night, we're done working. It's like midnight, hanging out, listening to Tool Records, Metallica Records, beginning to end, drinking Budweiser's and eating ramen. You know, listening to a CD, beginning to end the way the artist intended. It's magical.
01:05:38
Speaker
For me, Spotify's days are numbered. Like, not in the culture, but in my culture. They treat artists like shit, pay them shit, and this AI nonsense and military investment has eroded what little trust I had in the service to begin with.
01:05:55
Speaker
My Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter feels more relevant to by the day. Go subscribe. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.