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Episode 539: How Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Writes Biographies of TV Shows
265 Plays6 hours ago
"We probably have some sense of what narrative is. So when your brain starts turning into the little movie camera because this is a juicy scene, then it's like, well, what would I want to show? What what would I want to know here?" says Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit'rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America.
Dude, we have Jennifer Keishin Armstrong here today. What brings her to the CNF Pod-o-Verse is her latest book, her ninth, titled Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit-rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America. It’s published by Dutton with a forward by Nick Offerman. Jennifer also is the best selling author of Seinfeldia, and we talk about that as well, how timing is everything and there are so many things out of our control … She can be found @jmkarmstrong on IG and jenniferkamrstrong.com.
OK, so Jennifer’s Parks book came out earlier this year and it’s a wonderful, breezy read about one of my all-time favorite TV shows, a show that is deeply important to me. We watch it all the time. We own the DVDs so we actually OWN it, not beholden to the whims of streaming platforms who can deplatform shows at the click of a mouse, presumably. Jennifer’s book takes you behind the scenes with actors, writers, producers and shares never before told anecdotes and insights as to why this show has such staying power despite nearly being cancelled after every season. So, yes, we talk about Parks, but we mainly talk about:
- Dictionaries
- When your brain turns into a movie camera
- Jennifer’s “practice book” she never talks about
- Her guidelines for pursuing a book
- How the dialogue around TV has changed in the last 25 years
- The ruthlessness of story craft
- How Parks got out from under the shadow of The Office
- Serendipity and non-meritocracy
- Living on the long tail
- Lessons from the Parks run
- And all the things out of our control
Instagram: @creativenonfictionpodcast
Substack: welcometopitchclub.substack.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Upcoming Events
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh, ACNFers, don't forget, I'm at the Eugene Public Library Saturday, August 1st at 3 p.m. for my world-famous biography talk. And then I'm moderating a debut author panel for Hippocamp Online.com.
00:00:15
Speaker
I'm not even getting paid for it. What a guy. Saturday, August 15th at 6 p.m. Eastern. Visit hippocampusmagazine.com to learn more. got to read four memoirs in three weeks.
00:00:29
Speaker
What are you doing, B.O.? I could just open my email at any time and either get the best or worst news.
00:00:44
Speaker
Oh, I see you in efforts. It's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where i talk to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell in alliteration. The art and craft of nonfiction. I'm Brendan O'Meara. The King Agamemnon of podcasting. Yes, farm my aura. And no, I still haven't seen the Odyssey. Dude,
Jennifer Cation Armstrong & Nonfiction Writing
00:01:04
Speaker
we have Jennifer Cation Armstrong here today and She and I, we cut the fucking publicist out of the loop. She was like, bitch, you book with me. And I was like, okay, Jennifer Cation Armstrong, I will. She did not say bitch. What brings her to the CNF Podiverse?
00:01:23
Speaker
Well, it's her latest book. and It's her ninth book. Titled Parks and Rec, the underdog TV show that literally... inspired a vision for a better America. It's published by Dutton. It's got a forward by Nick Offerman. Excuse me, Nick Offerman, you've written a lot of nonfiction books.
00:01:40
Speaker
Let's get you on. Your publicists always say you're too busy. i don't know about that. Let's do this. Jennifer also is the best-selling author of Seinfeldia.
00:01:53
Speaker
And we talk about that as well. and How timing is everything. And there are so many things out of our control. She can be found at jmarmstrong on Instagram and jenniferkarmstrong.com.
00:02:07
Speaker
you want to learn a little more about her. And
Podcast Promotions & Brendan's Connection to 'Parks and Recreation'
00:02:09
Speaker
of course, you can learn more about this episode and others at brendanomero.com, hey, hey, where you may also sign up for Pitch Club and or the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. You may also elect to become a CNF and patron at patreon.com slash cnfpod to chip in a few bucks and get access to the Flash 52 sessions.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's a writing group. Or some coaching from me, depending on your tier and depending on how deep those pockets go. Okay, so Jennifer's Parks book came out earlier this year, and it's a wonderful, breezy read about one of my all-time favorite TV shows, a show that is deeply important to me. yeah We watch it all the time. We own the DVD box set, so we actually own it, so long as there's a DVD player to play it.
00:02:56
Speaker
We're not beholden to the whims of streaming platforms who can de-platform shows at the click of a mouse. Presumably it's a mouse, I don't know. Jennifer's book takes you behind the scenes with actors, writers, producers, showrunners, and shares never-before-told anecdotes and insights as to why this show has so much staying power, despite nearly being cancelled after almost every single season of its existence.
00:03:21
Speaker
So yes, we
Creative Nonfiction Techniques & Passion in Writing
00:03:22
Speaker
talk about parks, but we mainly talk about dictionaries. When your brain turns into a movie camera, Jennifer's practice book that she never talks about. We don't talk about it, but we do talk about it if you follow me.
00:03:35
Speaker
Her guidelines for pursuing a book, how the dialogue around TV has changed in the last 25 years, the ruthlessness of story craft, how parks got out from under the shadow of the office, serendipity and non-meritocracy, living on the long tail, lessons from the park's run, and all the things that are out of our control.
00:03:55
Speaker
Parting shot this week on working harder,
Jennifer's Writing Journey & TV Show Impact
00:03:57
Speaker
not smarter. But for now, let's cue up a montage and bring in Jennifer Cation Armstrong.
00:04:13
Speaker
Beginnings are the worst. Oh my God, I'm such a poser. Get this thing that's like a kick in the nuts. And I take orders from my friends and, hey, I'm going down to the Walmart. What do you need Run into a fucking wall. Excuse me. just going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:04:37
Speaker
What you're excited about in terms of your reading, like what are you what are you reading these days that's kind of putting fuel in your tank? Well, I just finished Stefan Fastis's, it's always so hard to say that out loud and then with the the the possessive at the end there, but Stefan Fastis's book, um Unabridged. This is like the perfect place to talk about it because I don't know if you know this book, but it is narrative nonfiction that is, it combines kind of like he embedded at Webster's Dictionary, um Miriam Webster, I believe. And also it's a history of
00:05:11
Speaker
the dictionary Oh, cool. and it's so fun and it's totally creative nonfiction he's great at it he's ah he also wrote word freak like i think that's a good ten or twenty years ago already but yeah that was that's like such a nerdy fun thing. And it's also about, as you can probably guess, it's kind of like, is this the end of the dictionary? Like, they're not making new ones really that much. It's all online.
00:05:37
Speaker
You know, so it's just very fun, fascinating, both like, on the ground reporting, and then like, he lots of archival stuff that he found about the entire history of dictionaries in America, which is really cool.
00:05:51
Speaker
Oh, that's wild. Yeah, I totally get it. It's so easy to just, you can just type in the word into Google and usually the first search result will be its definition. And it's like, that's so simple. I have this old, old giant random house dictionary over here. It's like from the 70s or something, but it's awesome. It's got the super, super thin paper. I love that.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah. And it's it's massive. And yeah, i'll I'll page through that and get definitions. And I think John McPhee, he does not like to use a or has never used a thesaurus. What he'll do is look up the definition of a word he wants. And then in that definition is often a synonym that is satisfying. And it's a great way have a, yeah, to kind of eschew the thesaurus. Yeah. And um yeah, and find a good word to just in the definition. And plus, it's fun to do.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. and But I have to admit, I don't have a print dictionary anymore. I mean, i did it one time, probably back in college. And then somewhere through moving, it was like, well, space is precious. you know yeah i'm always getting rid of books. And so I think at some point, I don't know when, I just got rid of it. And I do tend to just use, yeah i use I'm sorry, I've used thesaurus.com too. yeah It's just...
00:07:08
Speaker
You know, you get it. And yet when you read something like this, you're just like, oh, we have this rich, beautiful, nerdy history. There's people whose job it is to and it's still true to some extent. Right. Like, you know, for the online dictionaries, there's still people who are lexicographers. We still they do those flashy things like word of the year. All of that is a whole chapter about like the drama of word of the year. um It's so they have, you know, they have like meetings about it and debates and all of this stuff. So like, you know, there's still some stuff out there that the Internet culture is actually amplified about it. But yeah, it was it's. For any of us who kind of had one of those big unabridged back in the day, and I can actually remember as a kid just paging through for you know no real reason, you can't really encounter like a new word the way you used to. it you may You may have looked up a word in the past and then you would see something else and be like, ooh, what's going on over there? So you missed little of that. But I mean, so many of our things in life have changed in our lifetimes. And in these kinds of ways that you just have to be like, well, you know, you take the bad with the good, I guess. Well, in a moment ago, kind of before we were really rocking and rolling, you were talking about building scenes and how you would taught a course on, you know, basically creative nonfiction and building scenes and stuff. So when you're looking to build out a scene, yeah where where do you start and how do you, well, what are some of the best practices you've found to to build the scene and make it really pop on the page?
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, I first of all, like often we'll go through, i mean, I think we all have these extremely arcane, you know, kind of unique to ourselves ways of even assembling the information. I was actually just explaining this to my mother-in-law because she wants to write a nonfiction book. And she was like, how do you deal with all of this? And I was like, well, I'm going to tell you, but you're going to want to fall asleep, um you know? And so when I, what I'll skip a lot of that, but I will say I will eventually end up with compiling all my research into like a massive, massive outline. It's not like a normal outline. It's like almost as long as the book, sometimes longer so that I can then like have it all on the page in roughly the order that I think I want it in. And then, then I kind of have it in my computer and I can like go to the cafe and work from that. And just like, it makes it a little easier also of like, I have a half hour right now to write, let's just do the next part and see what happens.
00:09:36
Speaker
So that's kind of, you know so I'll have like chunks of quotes and interspersed with facts that I got from various sources, et cetera, hopefully in a way that like kind of makes sense and will be the way it ends up in the book. And then I'll go through and like kind of mark things I think could be scenes.
00:09:53
Speaker
you know, you just, it's like you have enough juice there. You're like, oh, i can, first of all, I can imagine this. And second of all, there's like enough already there that I think this can happen. And then from there, you know, i think it's, some of it is instinct. It's like, we all read a lot. We've all been reading our whole lives. We probably have some sense of what narrative is. So, you know, when your brain starts turning into the little movie camera, um because of this is a juicy scene, then it's like, well, what would I want to show? Right. what What would I want to know here? And then to the best of your ability, you know, whether it's I mean, I always think about how much I'll have certain sources in a book who are like kind of my reliable go to's.
00:10:35
Speaker
some of Some of this for me, because a lot of my subjects are famous, some of this for me has to do with like, whose direct email did I happen to get? You know, like i can't go through a publicist and be like, can you please tell me, can you please find out like what? I could, i mean, but you know, you can only do that so much. Like what...
00:10:54
Speaker
Amy Poehler's car was in 2008. But with people like the a big thing for me, because I read about TV shows, is that writers tend to be fairly um accessible. I'll often end up with their direct email addresses. And so I have, in fact, peppered them a lot. And you know what else? They also get it.
00:11:16
Speaker
So like when I say that, I'll just explain it. I won't be like sending them weird texts in the middle of the night. That's just like, what kind of card did you have in 1996? But I'll just say like, you're a storyteller. You probably get this.
00:11:28
Speaker
What I'm trying to do here is build out this scene where, you know, i can remember there was one in my Sex and the City book that was like, basically kind of when they came up with the he's not just not that into you um concept. And like, i it was enough that they had already told me like, well, we' we're eating lunch at our desks and like this and that and the other thing. And so then it becomes like, hey, um I know this is weird question. but like, you probably don't remember exactly what you were eating that day. But if you could even tell me what you tended to eat that day. you know, in that situation. Cause most of us eat the same thing roughly at the office. Like yeah then you can say that you can fudge it a little. You can say things like he was probably getting his typical lunch of hummus and crackers or whatever, you know, like that kind of thing. Sometimes they'll remember because for some weird reason and I'll do similar things with like, okay, what did the office look like? Or a big thing I'll often say is just like, you probably don't know what you're wearing that day, but like, what would you tend to wear? Cause again, they'll be like, oh, I always wore a hoodie and jeans.
00:12:29
Speaker
Great. Now we can make something, you know, you can start to build something more visual and interesting. And it's great if you have lunch, because then you've got, you know, one of those senses in there that you don't normally get, which is taste.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah. And what what you're also getting at, too, and what you what you typically write about is you're physically not on the scene filling in the notebook and building the scene by being on the ground. So you're right. You're interviewing for scene and you're ah you're alluding to it by the questions you're asking. But how did you grow comfortable asking those really inane questions that give us those kind of details that that you're that you're referring to? Yeah, I mean, it's a couple of things that that had to happen. um Something I was thinking about a lot just in preparation for this interview is that the book of mine that I consider my real first book, I can explain that if you want, but I had kind of like a practice book or two for, well, I'd say one practice book. um And it didn't do very well. And in fact, it doesn't even have i wasn't even Jennifer Cation Armstrong yet. And I've just been like, okay, we'll just not we don't need to deal with that too much. That was about the nineteen fifty s Mickey Mouse Club. It was like an an assignment kind of it was like, someone wanted that and I said yes. And it was a great practice, but it really, i didn't learn, like I didn't figure it out during that book. It was really when I wrote my next book like this, that it was about the Mary Tyler Moore show called Mary and Loon, Rhoda and Ted. And what had happened is i i was like, oh, well, this was a cool concept. It's that I could write a book about a TV, you know, this, it's like, I call them biographies of TV shows, right? yeah But what if I did a did a subject, you know, what if I did a show that meant something to me? instead of not that I think that that'll really help the process. So that's when I pitched the Mary Tyler Moore show book.
00:14:19
Speaker
And i was very, very lucky in that Jonathan Karp, um who was at the time the publisher of Simon & Schuster scooped it up out of like all the other meetings. He saw it in like the, so you know, the, the imprint meetings. And he was like, and we had not, you know, we had not submitted to him. And he just kind of like called my agent and was like, I want this book.
00:14:42
Speaker
And he came and like outbid everyone and got it. And then he did assign it to an editor, but she left and he actually ended up editing it, which was very, very, very lucky for me because normally he would edit like Hillary Clinton's book, you know, like. that He did. like that's That's what he did. yeah And you know he's an incredibly experienced and wise editor. And I always tell this story about how he we had a call after my first draft was turned in.
00:15:10
Speaker
And i so to some extent, I can tell you, he did actually say some things that are really important. But my experience of it at the time was like, we talked for a half hour. I got off the phone. And then I knew how to write this kind of book.
00:15:22
Speaker
And then I went and like revised and it was great. It was so weird. um But when I look back, he did say a few things and a huge part of it was just giving me permission to make scenes.
00:15:34
Speaker
like Honestly, I knew about this. I understood it. I read it i was like a huge acolyte of Tom Wolfe's back in the day. like I got it, but i still you know there's a difference between getting it and being able to execute it. And I was still being really held back by the fact that I was a journalist.
00:15:49
Speaker
And so I just felt like, oh, can I do that? you was There was a lot of in my head, can I do that? And I always tell my students now, like, yeah, it's not against the law. Like, there's not a law about this. of course you can do that.
00:16:01
Speaker
You know, so I had to get comfortable with... figuring out how to how to make this happen in a way that made that felt good to me. Because what he said was, this is the actual thing he said, he said, this reads like a very good, very long Entertainment Weekly story right now.
00:16:16
Speaker
And you will get respectful reviews of it that will say it's fine. But... And then something, something about like, we need to like have these bigger scenes. And then he actually, the other thing he did is he picked out some spots where he was like, I can see that you're really excited here. This should be in the beginning. And I was like, I wanted that to be the beginning, but I questioned myself. um So it was like a lot of really confidence. Right. And from there, that's when I like went a little, it i it was clear to me that I was You know, I used to make little scenes for things that I would write for Entertainment Weekly, but that they would only have them literally making a gesture that's like a couple inches because it was like, you'd do it for like a few paragraphs and for a lead. And then you'd kind of jump out and it would be mostly quote,
00:16:59
Speaker
quote stat, quote stat, that kind of thing, you know? yeah And this was like, no no, no, you really need to spread out and go for it And from there was when then I was like, well, I have to then ask these crazy questions. And the main way I ask crazy questions is by saying I'm about to ask you a bunch of crazy questions.
00:17:16
Speaker
And usually i will I will explain it to really anyone. But like I said, something that's worked really well for me is especially if I'm talking to somebody who is a writer of any kind, the minute I say that, they're like, oh, I get it.
00:17:29
Speaker
And so, you know, that's what I will do at this point is just say like, Look, and if if you're lucky, you know, you might not have to go if there's especially if it's somebody you can't go back to the way I was talking about, like just sending them emails. Like that's when I try to be a little more on alert for like in the moment, you know, when we're talking, if I'm only going to get that hour with them, then I have to kind of like pay attention to, you know, if there's something I'm going to need to know and have to stop them and be like, I'm going to ask you crazy questions. The other thing is, you know, there are ways to.
00:18:02
Speaker
do a lot of stuff, as I was saying, you can fudge and by fudge, I just mean you're set, you're you tell the reader, right? Like she was probably wearing, she was probably eating. um You know, you can do a lot of, lot with just research even. I'll look, a lot of times I'm looking up photos because again, at least my subjects are often in somewhat public light. So I can often find photos of the writer's room in Parks and Rec. Or I i struck, sometimes you strike a goldmine. Like I struck a goldmine of a couple stories. And one I really remember is that some reporter was in the writer's room for like a week on Parks and Rec back in the day and describing a lot like that, you know, i don't, I can't remember like so-and-so is on an exercise, you know, ball and while they're brainstorming or they talked about sushi or they did, you know, like the more mundane things. And often I'm explaining to my subjects to like, I know this seems weird and mundane to you, but like this is what would make the scene. And you also sometimes have to assure them, depending on how long ago it was. And it's OK if you don't remember because they'll start to really freak out. i I was this surprised me when I started doing this, that like people get very defensive about memory. ah And you have to also be like, it's totally cool.
00:19:22
Speaker
Nothing wrong with you if you don't remember that about your grandma. I just was curious. It's cool. Yeah. Well, i love um a moment ago how you brought up the the first book you wrote and you did it kind of ah because someone else maybe wanted you to. Maybe there wasn't that interest and passion in it the way the Mary Tyler Moore Show book was. And um I've got a little bug in my ear yeah from my agent about pursuing sort of a follow-up to this Prefontaine book I wrote. And um on paper, I'm like, it's a good idea, but like my my gut is like, I don't know. don't And um how um so for you, like how important is it for you that you that you really want to be like really interested in and locked in and almost love your subject matter for you to pursue a book project?
00:20:06
Speaker
I really have to. I really I actually i have a bunch of internal rules, even though like a lot of my books kind of look the same as i i have to say, like my book Seinfeldia. I'm going to brag about it for a minute. It's just it happened to be it did well. And it happened to kind of open the gates for a lot of other books about TV. Before that, and like no one expected Seinfeldia to do well.
00:20:29
Speaker
but Before that, people said nobody wants to read about TV. And after that, it was a comp for every other book that came after. you know And I saw it. People told me. And I saw it. You can even look on some like Amazon listings. or It'll say, like for fans of Seinfeldia and some other thing. you know um It's just the way it was. And like, but that was not what people were doing back then. But for, for you know, I still have very um specific guidelines. Like I want to also see like a social impact of the show. That's really important for me in a way that it isn't for everyone. um It's just what I like to write about. And I like i also love fan culture. Like those are my two big.
00:21:09
Speaker
things So I want to see that that stuff is there because I want to be able to write about the stuff I want to write about through this book. So like when I wrote a book about Mean Girls, part of that to me was like, oh, I've always wanted to really write about like two thousand tabloid culture and specifically its treatment of young women. And this was a way in to that of like, you know, you don't have to have this more sort of like academic esoteric approach. You go like mean girls and everyone's like, yay. And then you can also write about internet culture and
00:21:42
Speaker
tabloids and young women. So that's kind of something I'm looking for. And I just think like, at minimum, I'm going to be like thinking and talking about this for two years. Like it's going to be, it's your whole, your, maybe not your whole job. It's a lot of your job. yeah You know, for me, I am a full-time writer and it's, I have a couple other jobs, but like, this is a huge part. And then when you go out to promote it, you're just talking about it, you want it to be fun. And i have to say that the reason I think I'm good at it is because of my excitement about my topics. My other brag here will be that I did an event with Nick Offerman's dad, Rick, in Chicago. It was delightful in a number of ways. I could talk for a full hour about that. The mayor mayor of Minooka, right? The mayor of Minooka. And one of the one of the things that stuck with me is, you know so he he is very Ron Swanson-y. is what you think you want him to be, just in in demeanor. And he said,
00:22:36
Speaker
That was great. It was really enjoyable. You have a great enthusiasm. That's what he said. And I was like, thank you. i do. It's true. I get really excited about my topics. I get really excited about TV. TV is interesting to me. TV history is interesting to me. I love getting into the nerdy stuff. And so, you know, and if if you come to one of my events, you will probably hear me refer to like five different episodes as my favorite episodes. yeah um Five different people as my favorite people. um and they all feel true at the moment. And that is because i have this enthusiasm for my topics that fuels me.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, well, my friend, Stephen Knezovich, who's a like a newsletter maven and um talks about stuff of that nature too, and he wrote in one of his little webinars that you know interest is contagious, but so is disinterest. yes So it's that thing too, like you could write a really good book about a subject that you might not feel really strongly about, and it's just, that's gonna bleed over as well, and it's gonna do you no service, and it's like, if you're gonna be spending a year or two or three, well, two to three, maybe more, Maybe more.
00:23:43
Speaker
yeah There has to be some degree of love and like for the your central figures and your central topic. Yeah. I mean, it's especially like for some of the, for most of the books that I've done, um when we're talking about there, what you're doing is tapping into a fandom, like the fandom will come for you. And I remember having like, i don't want to say arguments. That's har that's harsh, but like having like discussions with my editors beforehand about Seinfeldia, where I was like, listen to me, like where they were like, you should start with this anecdote. I was like,
00:24:15
Speaker
I hear you. I understand why you think that that is an extremely well known anecdote. like fans are going to open the book and see that and be like, this isn't going to tell me anything new.
00:24:25
Speaker
And that was like a constant for me, especially with that one. I mean, all of my, you know, part of the deal is like, you want, like, if it's lasted, it's going to have a an enthusiastic fandom. They have different tenors, of course. And like, I was just very nervous about Seinfeld. And so I was constantly like, and you'll still see, by the way, some reviews out there, they're like, this didn't tell me anything new. um And I was like, well, you know, tried. But I really, to me, even ah things like uncovering corners of the fandom or, you know, things that have been going on more recently with the fandom, that kind of thing is new to me and exciting. But you do like they're going to know if you're not a like some kind of level of fan of the thing.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like yeah hearing you talk about TV and going all the way back to you know Seinfeld and then and and even hearing the term like writer's room, I feel like writer's room as a concept got popular around Breaking Bad because they were openly talking about how they break story. So it made me think of maybe like inflection points in TV over the last 20 or 25 years. And I feel like for me, at least in 04 seemed a hinge moment with lost and like message board and theory culture. And as the Internet became what what it started to become. So just for you, like over the last 20, 25 years, like how how would you describe the sort of the arc of television and you know maybe how we consume it, how we have a dialogue around it?
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's you're absolutely right. It's it's a really changed over the last 25 so. in kind of lucky, in that I was at Entertainment Weekly in the 2000s. And I feel like I was like there for when this stuff started to happen. yeah And I mean, I can think of even just like when I came there versus when I left, how I consume TV, how I dealt with the industry. Like I used to watch, I used to have a rule that I would watch every single pilot.
00:26:27
Speaker
that was coming you'd get like a stack first of all it was like once upon a time it was vhs then it was dvds mostly you'd get like a stack of them and i can remember watching the lost one like seven times during the summer because that's all you had you had the the pilot and that's it but i used to have a rule that i would watch every single one of the network pilots that was coming in the fall so that i like i didn't have to keep watching the show but i'd at least have seen one episode of every single show that is just not anything that is remotely tenable at this point at all like you said lost really up the ante in terms of it ended up kind of like a super mainstream show I mean we had others right before this like x-files or buffy or that kind of thing yeah but we didn't have the internet enough to nerd out the way that we were able to when we got to something like lost and you know I've talked about this that like
00:27:20
Speaker
when I was writing about the Seinfeld finale, I had to kind of explain, this is sort of the fun to some extent of like writing books about TV history is like explaining to the kids, right? But I had to kind of explain like before the Seinfeld finale, like people didn't care about finales. it what I mean, once, yes, there people will be like mash or whatever. Yes. yeah Once in a while we'd get a big one. But a bunch of shows just like crawled off the air over time, you know, like they they limped off into the sunset. Nobody cared. Nobody was crafting a finale. And it was really around Seinfeld time, which is late 90s. That was one of the first that was like paparazzi trying to get over the fence at the studio to see what was happening. They were shredding the scripts every day so that none of the word got out about what was going to happen on that thing. And so that kind of started it. But then like we get into the 2000s, we've got Internet, we've got social media, we've got recaps. Recaps fascinate me um because I remember at some point when I was like getting ready to leave my job at Entertainment Weekly, I said, like, I did not get a draw a degree in journalism to tell people what happened on a show they just watched. Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker
They can also be very artful and fun and funny and all of that other stuff. But what a weird, it was like a weird invention that happened and then we all had to do it. But Lost was rip ripe for this, right? Because you did kind of need somebody because you were like, I don't actually know what just happened. Yeah. Please someone tell me. And so, you know, our shows got so much more complicated because it fostered this. I've actually been doing ah quite a bit of research lately about fandom and and lasting kind of, you know, shows that last. and one of the big things is, i won't use the fancy words, but it is essentially like
00:29:16
Speaker
texts that invite interpretation, reinterpretation. um that it's It actually, we can see that in the evidence of what has become popular over time, right? It used to be that we didn't like the X, not a huge amount of people were not watching the X-Files because they could not pour over it on the internet with other people because you just couldn't. you And most people were like, I don't have time to figure out what the show is. Now, we love that because it invites the social part in being like, what do you think happened? What do you think that meant, et cetera? And that has been a huge change. And I think there's to some extent, it's it's become a little exhausting at times. I definitely have moments and Parks and Rec fits into this where i was where I'm like, I don't want to figure out
00:30:03
Speaker
like your monsters and the mystery and all this. I just want to like watch something that makes sense and is normal. Like it gets exhausting at times. So, you know, between the middle-aged men with problems phase, right? Of like Breaking Bad and Sopranos and Mad Men. um Oh, the white men who will, who will save, the fairly wealthy white men, um you know, like, but, but between that and then like just the, the, so the anti hero phase and also the complication there were at times for me, I know, and I loved loss, but it was just like, after that for a little while, i was just like, I can't, especially being burned by the finale. I just, I can't do this right now. Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
ah And I love that hearing you talk about that, you know, the Mary Tyler Moore book was integral to you. You had that interest to it. And at the heart of that as a journalist and then hearing you talk about ah reading the Parks Rec book and how you kind of locked in with Shauna Mulway Tweep's character. Here was this journalist there, too. So I get a sense that when you when you see a female journalist, you know, portrayed in a certain way on TV, you're like, yes. Yeah, I kind of love that.
00:31:16
Speaker
Absolutely. um That's funny that you mentioned that. I just did it i just did ah an event in Los Angeles with Shana Malway-Tweeb. Allison Becker came and joined us. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I do. like I mean, despite her her dating ah history, I really just, I loved her especially because she really, I mean, truly, that's what's so weird about that particular one. I was a local newspaper reporter at at my first jobs. And so seeing her and she showed up really early on the show. and I think it was like part of why I was like into it besides Amy Poehler. It's a little messy at the beginning, but I was like, oh but they've got this journalist. And, you know, we just didn't have as many eligible bachelors at the city halls that I covered. Alas, I can't guarantee I wouldn't have the same dating history if like Rob Lowe was at mine. yeah. But, you know, or at least try But yeah, there was like right away, even even with that sort of joke about her dating history, is she they also kind of portray it relatively accurately for what they show. And I love, you know, she's kind of the more sane of the Pawnee media.
00:32:23
Speaker
to be honest, because then we get purred and then we get Joan Calamazo and they're a little, little wackier because they, you know, they're on TV, their TV personalities. um But I was very obsessed with Pawnee Media going into this. And I think it shows a wider thing, a wider care that they had for creating their entire universe. Like that's just one little part But yet all those characters, I can just name check them and people laugh. They like know exactly who they are and what their deal is. And that's because they were so good at creating even the this sideline characters, you know, is it's just incredible. Yeah, I think a testament to what they were able to pull off with Parks or really really any Michael Schur run show is that all these bit characters kind of come in and out like The Simpsons, you know, and it's but you have the benefit of animation there to just pull in a character and maybe do voice and do the voicing. But the fact that they're able to book actors who are these ancillary characters to come in for maybe one or two episodes for maybe, you know, per season, and they do come back, I think that speaks to the world building that they're able to create and the the culture they're able to foster on set that these actors would.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I'll pop in for, you know, a day or she or a week of shooting, whatever it takes. Yeah, i'm i'm I know that Allison said this to me last week when we were doing my event. And I'm pretty sure like Jason Mantoukas and a number of other people, even like a Paul Rudd, you know. um yeah And I say that only because like Paul Rudd's a big star, you know, like and he was on many episodes of that one season and a couple later. And, you know, they all said like, ah yeah, I would do anything I could.
00:34:12
Speaker
to be there when they called and asked if I was available. Like I am going to do, because everyone just had so much fun being there that they, especially the improv nerds, but really, really everyone, you know, and there were a lot of improv nerds on that show and people just loved coming back because of the fact that it was fun and that they would get their chance to do what they called fun runs, which was when they could just improv the crap out of it and see what happened. And everybody talked about this to me.
00:34:41
Speaker
You know, in in talking about writer's room stuff and there was ah a Netflix show, too, it's called a writer's room and they featured a few and they actually I remember them featuring the Parks Gang and who were Breaking Bad and a few other shows, too. um But given that you've had a lot of deep dives on how shows, how they break story, how they structure it, how they throw all the ideas against the wall, see what sticks. You know, what has that told you about story craft and how you approach your own work?
00:35:07
Speaker
I think there's two big things that stand out to me when you ask that. One is i can remember the Seinfeld writers talking to me about like, you'd come in with this outline and they were like, they put it on the board. There's always boards in these situations. A lot of boards and note cards still, you know, which is kind of exciting. yeah Except a lot of them now are doing digital writers rooms. But anyway, Seinfeld, they'd like, you know, put the story on the board and then they were like, we I'd think I had a great script.
00:35:37
Speaker
you know, on my hands and they would just like smash it down and be like, yeah, that's your first third. Go do some more stuff. And then they'd like smash it down again and they'd be like, you maybe have two thirds now. Try again. And we're talking about we're doing 22 minute shows, you know, and that's still. But I think when you hear that and you think about watching Seinfeld, especially when they're at their peak,
00:35:56
Speaker
You see that it's just relentless because it's so goofy anyway. Like you better be bringing it. We're not this is not high drama. So you better be bringing something and it better be really funny and it better be dense. That's the thing about Seinfeld is it. And I think it's what made it feel different from shows before it. If you think of eighty sitcoms.
00:36:17
Speaker
They're very like, um you know like yeah oh, this happened, then this happened. ha ha ha the yeah you know Whereas they're just like bringing it. And the other thing it makes me think of, which is related but different, is that on Parks, um they always thought they were going to get canceled yeah at the end of every season. And one time in particular...
00:36:39
Speaker
When they were going into the third season, yes, they realized they were maybe very much on the bubble. And this is when they were pre-shooting season the first half of season three because Amy Poehler was pregnant. So they were rushing it at the end of season two, but they also then heard they were getting replaced on the fall schedule, which kind of was not a great thing. And God forbid that show outsourced actually did well. We may not have gotten much more parks. But at the time, it was like an emergency. It was like, we may not be coming back after this. This is, by the way, when we get the Harvest Festival arc.
00:37:15
Speaker
And I think, again, that's another time when you can see like they were really bringing it because they were like, ah and But the other part of that, besides they made an arc, that was the first thing that Mike did, as he said, I think it'll make it easier for the writers to do this like part of these episodes together as one kind of like big goal when we're rushing through them.
00:37:37
Speaker
So he made the Harvest Festival as like the big moment. And I think it pays off. I get like choked up every time they have the Harvest Festival successfully. And the other part was that he said like, all right, ah yeah they had a writer's retreat and they had all these ideas again on the board. And they he was like, we're doing as many of these as possible, even in this short span, because we don't know if we're coming back. And that is how we got Andy and in April's surprise rush wedding. They were going to do a whole big, long, but slow burn deal with them.
00:38:10
Speaker
And instead, they were like, let's get them married. And I know for me personally, when they just randomly get married, it's in the middle of a season, i could not believe it. It's so interesting how tropes work where like you start to expect certain rhythms from your sitcom. And then when they defy them, which I would actually say Parks does quite a bit, both on a micro and macro level, that's exciting and surprising and fun when suddenly like, you were like, oh, I i was sure they were going to say this, or was sure they were going to do this. And instead of having the will they, won't they, they're just like, boom, married. These two are idiots. They're in their 20s. And then they end up totally lasting. And that's really satisfying too. And I just, that that's very telling to me in terms of story and the fact that both it was like, no, get, you know, bring it all.
00:39:02
Speaker
Don't, so don't hold anything back. And also like surprise me. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And that episode too, you, you write about that really well too, in that they were struggling with how to have like Leslie react to April and Andy getting married, whether she would try to just do the Leslie thing and try to stop it. But then they, they pivot and have her just commentate on other, other parts of her relationships that were, don't know, troubling and why she might be a bit trepidatious about jumping into anything with both feet. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was because actually, I mean, this is a very nerdy in the weeds thing and I won't get it too into it. You should read the book. But, you know, yeah, that was like when they loved that episode when they shot it. And then when they edited it, they were like, this is weird.
00:39:45
Speaker
And they actually ended up having her shoot. So this is a nice thing about doing documentary is sometimes you can change the trajectory just by shooting a few more talking heads. And they did reshoot a couple other scenes, too. They had to bring back the set.
00:39:58
Speaker
And another fun thing, though, that happens in that episode that you're reminding me of that is crucial to storytelling here is there's almost like a so a reversal of sorts. Like Ron's the one that kind of talks her down and says to her, like, look, I've been married three times.
00:40:15
Speaker
None of them worked. no one knows what works kind of thing. And it ends up kind of, i think, being a central tenant to the whole show. the show's very interested in romance and how it works, right? And he's kind of like, we try, you know, we try, we see what happens. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's going to be okay. And I found that very touching as well. I think it's one of the first big moments that you're kind of like, Ron, okay. Yeah.
00:40:42
Speaker
You're like, all right, you're better than just like a grumpy libertarian. you're you You have some real heart here. And that is also a little bit of a like, you know, starting to do different things with the characters that still in the end feel true to the characters.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think the show in in lesser hands would probably have put Leslie and Ron together in some romantic yeah capacity. And I'm so glad they avoided that altogether. Like not even a mention. That's what I love is like no one's ever even like, eh.
00:41:13
Speaker
Like, cause I do not want that. i I don't think any of us want that. no I don't. and like Thank God. Even the Mary Tyler Moore show, which is otherwise extremely tasteful, could not stop themselves toward the very, very end.
00:41:28
Speaker
they try they did like a thing where Mary went on a date with her boss, Lou Grant. Which also, weirdly, by the way, and in the 70s, there was no question like, eh, HR? Luckily, they did do, like it made me happy that they like did it. And the funny part about it was like it was like, no, this is too, she kept calling him Mr. Grant. um She couldn't call him Lou even on their date. So I really appreciated that part. But it was like, why did you even have to try? like I didn't have the question. i it in fact, fun fact, the male writers did have the question.
00:42:02
Speaker
The male writers were all like, Lou should go out with Mary, right? And the women were like, eh, should she? um So like, yeah, I'm just so, so glad because this is a very like common, Mary and Lou become a little bit of a sitcom trope, right? You can you see it here, you see it in 30 Rock.
00:42:23
Speaker
um This kind of older male boss who's like gruff but secretly benevolent with a heart of gold and ends up her mentor is like a, it becomes a thing and it, it thank God here they just, they just left that alone and made them be very good friends.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah. And so much of your book illustrates how parks really struggled to find its own identity being in the shadow of the office. So like just kind of walk us through that, how they were able to finally differentiate themselves and get out from that that big looming shadow.
00:43:00
Speaker
This is where I get really excited to talk about TV in a nerdy way. i love, this is why TV is interesting to me to write a book about, because especially network kind of more of this old school model, which Parks still just got ah in under the wire of, right? Because they're working themselves out in front of us. If they're lucky, if they stay long enough, they actually evolve before our eyes. And that's interesting to me as a person who is interested in story and storytelling and character and why why something, I love why it works or why it doesn't.
00:43:31
Speaker
And so this is a very odd origin story for its time, which is that, you know, they kind of the makers of The Office got a blank check from NBC saying we want a spinoff originally. And Greg Daniels was that guy. And he chose Mike Schur from his writer's room very wisely, as we know. um to develop this with him. They end up not doing a spinoff, but you know do like part of the deal is this has to at least be related. like It has to look like we want to put from the makers of the office on these promos. So we're going to stick with the mockumentary format. And then you can see a lot of the similarity in the setup, right?
00:44:11
Speaker
These are regular people in a regular town doing regular things. That's why The Office worked. That's why people still love it. And this is similar. So you've got them at work doing their thing and they're doing a mockumentary. And the problem initially, and you can really see it if you rewatch those early episodes, is that she really is a little too close to Michael Scott from The Office. They kind of end up Being like, oh, this worked here. So what we're going to do is we're going to have this like delusional person at the center of this, you know, ragtag group of people at an office trying to get stuff done.
00:44:50
Speaker
And while she was not telling racist jokes or anything like that, there's a cluelessness to her. There's a delusion to her that's uncomfortable in the beginning. It's a lot cringier at the beginning. And it really seems like they're almost they're very close to making fun of her, you know, it for for her faith in government, for her ambition. And we kind of are led to believe like it'll be like she says, oh, she's really ambitious and she wants to do all this stuff. And then the camera will pan to like.
00:45:18
Speaker
the pit, you know, or whatever. And it's like, the joke is supposed to be like, you know, she can't even get this thing done kind of thing. yeah um And then there's also like an uncomfortable side storyline where she has a crush on this guy, Mark Brandanowicz, who ends up being an interesting trope of his own in sitcom lore. The character who leaves, is never we never talk about him again. But at the beginning, He was a major thing. He was a major love interest. And it was supposed to be that she slept with him once. And then it didn't mean anything to him, but she's still pining for him. And so those two things together were not super working in her favor. And it's only because she's Amy Poehler that like we all got through that. Okay. Can you imagine in someone else's hands? Oh my God. ah But she's so delightful that you're like, i still am kind of into this, but yeah.
00:46:08
Speaker
And they knew like this is what I love about actually this particular book is like this is not a book where they say like, oh, audience testing sucks. They're all wrong. Instead, they got audience testing. It was unfortunately leap leaked to the public and that was embarrassing. But they were also like, points were made. you know They were like, we haven't nailed this thing yet. And so the big pivots were and I think this is so interesting to those of us who create characters or write characters.
00:46:35
Speaker
she becomes more actually hyper-competent, right? it's she It still feels like the same person, but like her ambition begins to be taken seriously. And I think a huge,
00:46:47
Speaker
jump in this is when Adam Scott's character comes in, Ben, her real love I trust as it goes on. And he immediately clocks her and says something like, oh, well, you want to run for office someday, right? And it's the first time anyone's ever said it.
00:46:59
Speaker
And I get choked up about that moment every time because to me, I'm like, and that's very Mike Schur too, is like, he takes her seriously, you know? And um that's why they're going to fall in love. And the other thing was, so she's competent now, maybe hyper-competent. She has her binders, but also we're taking her ambition really seriously. And the weird problem with mike Mark Brandanowicz, and Mike Schur said this like kind of right away, he was like, yeah, we thought it was funny on the page. And then when we saw it, like this whole thing about like they slept together and it didn't mean anything to him and it did mean something to her, was like, it was just kind of sad. Yeah. Like exactly not what we wanted from the show.
00:47:44
Speaker
And so those were the two. They really had to like do some work in season two to pivot her love life. If you think about all this, like Justin Theroux comes in, Louis CK comes in, you know like they have to do all this stuff before but Adam Scott shows up and they're like, OK, now we're on track. yeah And that is really interesting to me. And she becomes this like.
00:48:04
Speaker
kind of almost superhero, you know? It's like a lot of other people around her can then be incompetent because she, and things still don't go always right for her. It doesn't mean she nails it every time. But this way we're not like,
00:48:19
Speaker
delusional and sad. And I always think of the moment later on in the famous scene where she has a um campaign rally. that's where That's where she has to like scooch across the ice everyone. They keep playing get on your feet and they keep falling. Really, really great sequence. Maybe the greatest in this show. but I've been showing it at my events. And so I've seen it a lot of times recently and thought about it a lot. And one thing I really noticed is how when she finally gets up there, a very long sequence. It's like too long. And that's why it's funny. She finally gets up there and she tries to start giving her speech and even her cards are out of order. And then she says, this is terrible, isn't it? This is a disaster.
00:48:58
Speaker
And I was like, oh, season one, Leslie would not have said that. Season one, Leslie would have pretended it was going great. But this is a sign of her growth and why she's going to be the bad bitch that she eventually is and maybe president. We're not sure. Yeah. At the end. Right. And that's because she like says it. She tells the truth to the to her crowd and says, like, oh, I'm so sorry. This has been an awful event.
00:49:23
Speaker
And she meant it, she makes a joke like, I can promise it'll always be exciting if if you vote for me. And like, to me, that was like, oh, there, there she is. That's that's the Leslie that we really love eventually. And that she's just great at her job, even if she's not perfect at everything else.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, in Amy Poehler's book, Yes Please, um there's a scene that I love all the time and it's stuck in my head for various reasons. And it's like they were expected to win an Emmy or they wanted so desperately to win an Emmy and they don't win it.
00:49:56
Speaker
Instead, so what Mike Schur does and his disappointment and his anger maybe or his rage or his jealousy or whatever it might have been, he channeled that energy into writing basically the Ben and Leslie getting engaged story. And I think there's so many lessons that can be unpacked there for a creative person or a writer or anything like, yeah, we like these awards and they're out of our control and they're nice to get. But it it ultimately comes down to the work. And I don't know, you you've clearly read yeah Amy's book in research for this. But maybe when you hear that anecdote, you know what goes through your head as you're thinking of ah yeah as a creative person, you know in those moments of disappointment and channeling that into something furtive?
00:50:37
Speaker
I mean, what's funny is what it really makes me think of is I religiously listen to Good Hang, Amy's podcast. By the way, everyone should do it all the time. it is pure joy. She's amazing. You need to be on that show.
00:50:49
Speaker
I would like that very much. Let's put that out in the universe. um And I want to do everything. I'm like, do literally anything Amy says she does. I'm like, I just want to be exactly like her. But what I remember is, I believe the Jon Hamm episode, they talked about how they started this thing called the Losers Lounge. Right, yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker
after i my impression is that it's after the Emmys it's like they go to a separate location they go to like a bar or something and it's only for losers and if the winners want to come they have to like give a certain amount of money to charity um so but the losers can just let loose and they were talking about like dancing on tables and getting drunk and all this other stuff and I just felt like that's a great like isn't that great it's kind of it's another it's a similar thing of like You know, you have to kind of like, and it I also like when they admit that like this is disappointing to them because they can never say that publicly, really. You're not supposed to say it at the awards. Like I'm actually really pissed that we didn't get this.
00:51:46
Speaker
Totally deserved it. Awards are weird and meaningless for the most, they're right I wouldn't say that. They're random to some extent, right? Like the things that win often are great, but then there's a bunch of other things that don't. And it's really hard in businesses like theirs and ours to handle that. I do seethe with jealousy at times when I scan the nonfiction bestseller list or any number. And you we all do the thing where we're like, I don't know why they got the review in the New York. i Like, ah my thing is better, whatever. Being on this, like getting an appearance on that podcast or someone else shouting out this. but There are any number of avenues that can really raise those envy hackles.
00:52:28
Speaker
I think though, and i kind of just had this insight to some extent in this moment, but like, I think part of it is the serendipity of both industries where, like I said, the things that get stuff often do deserve it, but then there's a like billions of others that don't get the same thing. And it's it's not a pure meritocracy, which means like anything can happen at any time, which makes it easier to get jealous because it's like this thing is just popped up. Also, it it's often pops up like you don't know when it's gonna happen. You open your browser and something's there and you're like, oh, I was about to get a recipe and now I'm like seething with rage because I caught a glimpse that so-and-so got on the bestseller list and they're posting about it on their Instagram.
00:53:14
Speaker
And you can't even remember what the recipe was that you wanted to be in with after once this is happening. um I always try to explain to like civilians, people outside the business, of like I could just open my email at any time.
00:53:28
Speaker
and either get the best or worst news. you know like That's the part that's hard. You get your your job review in the New York Times, if you're lucky, and you know and hopefully it's good. and you just And you often don't know when it's gonna happen. And so all those things together, I think make it easier to And there's just feels like there's so the pieces of the pie are so little and it's getting and it's getting harder. I actually just side note have noticed it this round. have this is my ninth book and I can feel the difference out there because media just barely exists, you know, and the the media we have left has got to be overwhelmed with requests. And we're all dependent on like celebrities to hold up our book, maybe if we're lucky.
00:54:15
Speaker
And it's just so hard now. So it's even more where you're like jealous. I mean, yeah sometimes I'm jealous of friends, you know, I'm happy for them while also being like, Oh, wish that happened to me. yeah yeah Well, it's a, It's a thread I pull on all the time on the show because that was the crucible through which I started this podcast back in 2013, was trying to really work through my feelings of resentment and jealousy and bitterness, and um to which I still experience, but I'd like to think I've matured somewhat out of it. Not entirely, and I don't think we ever will, especially if that kernel is always cooking in the back of your brain. ah But just for you, like how do you metabolize that feeling of envy into something that can be...
00:54:59
Speaker
Productive is the wrong word, but and in a way that doesn't weigh you down. Yeah. And it took me a while too. I should say that it's been a real, and I wouldn't have even guessed that I was that kind of person, all of that stuff. I mean, the reason I think I could even begin to do this job is like, people will ask sometimes like, how do you deal with rejection? And listen, I'm like, I don't know. There's something wrong with me. Like,
00:55:21
Speaker
I was a very precocious child and people, my parents were obsessed with me. And I think it just gave me like a delusional confidence, I guess, that the world should know what I have to say. Like that is delusional if you think about it. Like, it and that you keep doing it. Like I'll just, and I have a very much, and this is anyone I know who's successful at this. Like, I'll be like, do you want this industry? And they're like, and I'm like, okay, I have something else in my computer. Do you want this? Like, I just can't. I don't know why. it that That's part of it. But that does, as I said, this still happens to me. And the thing I ran into once like I started kind of like moving up in the book world beyond my first weird book we don't talk about, um especially and this is I mean, I would never complain about being a bestseller.
00:56:10
Speaker
It's a great privilege. It will be the first line of my obituary. i get things because of it. And you always have it once you have it. It's like completing marathon. It's great. But once that happens, that becomes the measuring stick. And so everything after is a failure.
00:56:28
Speaker
that doesn't do that. And for me, that's everything after so far. And it was really hard for me at first to like, you know, people ask you stuff when you're, when you have a book that just came out and particularly the civilians who are not in the book industry, it's even more infuriating when they ask you things like, how's the book doing? i know Which like, I've, do you ever ask your surgeon friend, like how much money did you make on your surgeries this week? Like, I don't know why they think they can ask us this, but they do. yeah And it I was so weird and defensive and like all of this stuff. And it was very freeing. And I think this has been a movement among a lot of authors. This is not me alone. That, you know, I've seen a lot more on the internet of people being like, hey, this sucked, you know, or like totally failed at this thing. And I think that that helped because was i was also experiencing this during the early to mid days of social media.
00:57:23
Speaker
when everyone was just like, the only reason, the only thing you ever saw on social media is when things were going well. yeah So, you know, it was really hard for me, particularly with the next book, which was my Sex and the City book, when people asked me about it. I just got super defensive and rude and snappy and all of these other things. And it was because I didn't want to admit because I was like little Miss straight A student back in the day. Like it was very hard for me to admit that it didn't happen this time. And the thing is like, I've learned over time, first of all, that's exhausting. And also like, there's some books I i check my numbers only between books. I don't check while we're in the midst of a big push. Cause I just don't want to know when it doesn't help, yeah but I'll check like when I'm getting ready for the next one.
00:58:08
Speaker
And over time, things changed in ways. i would you know like All of a sudden, Marianne, Lou, and Rhoda and Ted, which was a failure when it first came out, is my second bestseller after Seinfeldia. you know Sex and the City and Us did way better than I thought based on how everyone was acting, but it was only because everybody is bummed that it wasn't an instant bestseller like Seinfeldia. So this is this is what I, you have to kind of like see that also the other thing I had to keep telling myself is I can't make thousands of people do something they don't want to do.
00:58:40
Speaker
like just am only one person. and I think you should do the most you can and the most you want to do, you know, because you're excited about the book or whatever, but also like trying to focus more on Did i have some events where a bunch of people wanted to talk to me about this thing and we had a great time?
00:58:59
Speaker
Great. That's what we did. You know, am I connecting with people over this book? That's all that really matters. And you just can't do anything else. And we're going to like, especially right now, we are going through some stuff in a lot of industries and it's might get worse. um So nobody knows what is happening. Nobody knows how to deal with any of this. And I think just like focusing on, in this is something So many people have said like the actual work and like make the best book and then do your best to promote it. Like this is all you can do as one little tiny person. It's actually crazy that I was ever a bestseller.
00:59:34
Speaker
Like when I really think about that, that's like insane and a bunch of weird stuff had to happen and you can't remake those things happen. Like I got a surprise review in the New York Times two days before it came out and they ran it on their homepage because it was a different news cycle time. Right?
00:59:51
Speaker
Like, and it was a rave and that's why that happened. You know, it's just, but I can't like write to Dwight Garner and be like, can you please review all of my books after this and put, the always put them on the New York times homepage. Thank you. yeah it just doesn't, you can't do it. So we all, you just have to do your best at the part you can do Keep your side of the street clean. My goal is always to get to another book.
01:00:17
Speaker
That's what's become my goal. Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it. And I think the arc and the stress under which the Parks and Rec crew produced that show, never knowing if they were going to get picked up again and not not getting the big numbers. And then it they did great work and it was kind of rushed off the air.
01:00:40
Speaker
I remember that vividly 2015. Where they were doing two a week 2015. Yeah, two week back to back. Like, yeah, just hustle it off the air in about eight weeks. Like it was so disrespectful. But like, I also appreciate that they at least got to do it. Exactly. And then the thing is, the show during COVID sort of got a new life. And if you do do the good work, your books, Parks and Rec can exist on this long tail. And as a result, who knows, maybe someone else will pick it up after after it is spiked and have have a new life the way the TV show does. I think we can learn a lot from that, from the arc of Parks.
01:01:17
Speaker
ah Absolutely. Like, it's what's funny about you saying this is I literally have been telling myself this in this particular case, especially because this cycle has been so hard just to get attention. yeah And I just because I was like, I did everything right. I like there's a Nick Offerman ah forward, Mike Schur's quotes on the cover. I can't do anything more than I've done. um And it's a delightful book.
01:01:39
Speaker
And i just think like this is exactly right. This is the thing is that, you know, and I've seen it happen with others of my books. There is some long tail to some extent, and it's hard because the industry doesn't totally recognize that it's one week and out.
01:01:55
Speaker
I wish people, so I wish someone had like told me before it happened the first time. Cause I was like, these people were all up in my inbox last week. And now they're just like, Oh, like gone. Did not know that was going to happen. i will tell you that the opposite does happen too, which is when Seinfeldia was a an instant bestseller and a surprise. Everybody was in my inbox. Then they, oh, now we want to have meetings. We want to do things. Oh, interesting. It was interesting to see the, like, I was thinking video game levels. It was like, oh, here's the next level that I didn't know existed. This is interesting.
01:02:28
Speaker
um But yeah, it's you just all you can do. And that's totally what they did. And it's so it is when I think about it I'm like, it's massively unfair. i don't know. I don't know remember what won all those years. The Emmy is when they were winning or I think it's probably Modern Family to some extent.
01:02:44
Speaker
They were it was great. Like there's just parts like there's seasons of this show where every time I rewatch it, I'm on the edge of my seat. Every time I'm scared that Leslie and Ben are not going to get together this time. Yeah.
01:02:56
Speaker
And it's incredible. Like the Harvest Festival, all of the stuff is just so incredible. They were doing such good work. I think that Adam Scott is one of the greatest actors of our time. He can do anything. Amy Poehler is amazing. I mean, but they're also all getting recognition, I wish should say. So with that like newfound surge, I don't know if it's that or just that they're great. But think of how much you see Offerman. Offerman's doing literally everything. I just found out he's doing a play in Chicago and I was like, how does he have time? like amy is you know, has her podcast now, which is incredible, like incredible. They're all doing, if you look at it really, really well. And so it it you, you can have your rewards, you know, 10 years into the future. Just know that. Yeah. Well, and there's always a great monologue and I don't know it by heart, but it is something I've written down in journals. is it's It's Ron talking about awards. Leslie you know desperately wanted something and he has such a great, like basically just calling it a fool's errand. Yeah. And that way of thinking is there actually a really good way of processing it in the subjectivity of it all, the timing of it all. Like, don't know, you could have i always liken it to you never know who's going to be doing good work like in the pool that you're doing your good work like. You could be a great actor, but then Daniel Day-Lewis had a movie come out the same year, and you're like, God damn it. like There goes that award. No, that's – I mean that's a really, really important point, and I tell myself this a lot specifically with like the bestseller lists. If you look at the bestseller lists, especially now, it is like nonfiction. It's almost all –
01:04:35
Speaker
famous people. Like we can't, i I can't compete with that. And it's the problem with things like awards and lists is that it's um relative. So it's like you said, it all has to do with like who else. I was like, how, why is Lena Dunham taking up all my oxygen right now? Right? Like she was ever, by the way, I've been loving it, but there was also a part of me that was like, can the girl, like, do I, should I try to get the book to her? Like maybe she could carry it somewhere. Like she is everywhere.
01:05:06
Speaker
So there's not no room for non fun nonfiction coverage. Right. But there is very little and she's got it all right now. And that's just the breaks. That's the way you always aren't you always aware of like the books that came out around any one of your books? Oh, my God. That person everywhere. The ah Joe Biden original sin book came out the same week, my Steve Prefontaine biography. And not that I was going to get any attention, but that talk about the oxygen getting sucked out of the cycle for two weeks. yeah My book dropped right the same week. i was like, all right, well, good luck, Brendan.
01:05:38
Speaker
I mean, that's exactly, that's the thing. Cause you're like, sometimes I'm tempted and then I've never done it. Cause I'm like, it's just not going to help. But like, you know how you get your, your date like a year in advance. Yeah. And yeah they always say like, how about April 7th? And you're like, I guess, sure.
01:05:54
Speaker
and then you start to think like, what's going to be happening April 7th. I was that right now it's the news cycle too. Like I was like watching, we, we almost, Like that, the night of my book release was when Trump was threatening to nuke Iran, when he was like a civilization will die tonight. I mean, it was like the the night, like someone announced at my part at my book off event.
01:06:18
Speaker
That weekend was awful. Don't worry, we didn't drop around. And I was like, this is great. um Yeah. And I always think about how Seinfeldia came out right before Trump was elected. So I had a good couple of months and then it was just like, boom, Trump all the time. Like just that's what we were doing. That's, you know, it's just the way it is right now, both news cycle wise and what else is coming out you There's so many things that are out of control. And i mean, you can again go back to parks, anything really, any of these stories, you'll see both the positive and negative kind of like forces of the world batting these shows about, right? And most of my books are about, they're they're all about successful shows. This was a fun book specifically because it was like, almost not.
01:07:04
Speaker
A true underdog. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and it was really that was the story I wanted to tell as I was like, oh, it'll be good because I know I'm not going to get like juicy gossip from behind the scenes. There's not going conflict, which was so true. ah Very, very little conflict behind the scenes. But the big story for me was that every single season.
01:07:21
Speaker
They were battling to stay on the air. And that made it interesting to tell that story. And then the good news is, you know, during the pandemic, they are ascendant and everyone loves them. So and people are not honestly often surprised now when I tell them if they picked it up in streaming, when I say like, yeah, that barely stayed on the air.
01:07:41
Speaker
They're like, what are you talking about? It's a classic. So it's just, it it is a special story, I think, for people like us who are out here, you know, toiling away. And, you know, you want to do the best work you can so that in 10 years when someone discovers it, it's up to the task. That's that's the lesson I take.
01:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's wild. yeah And to the fact with with them in particular, with the specter of cancellation over you still being able to do creative and good work,
01:08:15
Speaker
And that ah that amazes me too. Because you imagine like our book advances, whoever's actually earning them. you know I had one for my last one. Who knows if I'll have another for the next one. But imagine like they're holding onto the plug. We're going to pull ah right make you pay back some of your advance. That's a really good point. In the middle of writing it.
01:08:34
Speaker
like you're You may not get another chapter. Sorry. That would be crazy. And I think you're making me realize that what worked for them is that they were having so much freaking fun. Like that's what I get from, I mean, everybody who talked to me was like, you know, Paul Rudd got on the phone and was like, i don't I wasn't even on the show that much. I don't know how much I can tell you, but I love talking about it. So here we are. um and like, you know, Adam Scott talked about kind of wistfully, i was a little concerned. He kind of looked off into the distance and was like, I just, every morning I just jumped out of bed and couldn't wait to get to work. It was great. Like that, I think that's it. I think like that, and it could be a lesson for us. It's hard at times because we're so solitary, yeah but like have fun, like try to really like remember how great it is that you get to do this and have fun doing it. um It'll come through, but also, you know, what's the point if you're not having, you know, if you're not having fun and these people were like, I don't think they didn't care as we just were saying, they did care.
01:09:35
Speaker
Because they wanted, i think it's a part of, I bet the reason Schur was so mad is that he was like, look at all these great people doing me this great work. It's not just me. It's not like about me. It's just that we're doing incredible work together. Someone should recognize it. And, but they were having so much fun that they like, I mean, do you remember that anecdote from the book about Philly Justice and how they like shot yeah oh whole promo for a fake show that they made up when they were doing bits between scenes And they're working 16 hour days as is, and they have the energy to do something like that in the middle of all of that.
01:10:09
Speaker
It's just that I like honestly recommend people look up because you can see it online now after they dug it up for me, they put it online. um Philly look up Philly justice. um You'll see what they did. But like if you know anything about TV, you know, people are usually desperate to like get the thing done, get home because it's long hours. Yeah. And instead, these crazy people took time or or that you just you just want to go to your trailer for a while and like read emails or whatever. But instead, these people put on wigs and extra outfits, like extra costumes, wrote a whole script.
Unique Projects & TV Recommendations
01:10:44
Speaker
used resources to shoot this fake promo for like a fake law show. And they were like, oh, it would probably star Dylan McDermott. And for some reason, when they asked Dylan McDermott to come, he showed up and was like, I don't know what you all are doing, but sure. And I think it's so important to remember that even though it's online now, it hasn't been online until this year.
01:11:08
Speaker
this I didn' bring that up to say that means they were not doing it for anything. They were not like, oh, this will like the internet will love this, which they would, but they kept it to themselves for 20 years. I made them dig it up because I did not believe Catherine Hahn when she told me that Dylan McDermott came to the set. I was like, no, I think you're like mistaken or kidding. And she's like, no. And I was like, I still like need proof. And it was true.
01:11:36
Speaker
It's incredible. like That to me is the ultimate sign of like how much fun they had. And therefore, I think that's what sustained them. Oh, that's amazing. Well, I want to be mindful of your time, Jennifer. And as I bring these conversations down for a landing, i always love asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. And I can just be like, anything you're finding fun and cool that you want to share. So I'd pose that to you.
01:11:55
Speaker
Yeah, um actually, I've been watching Widow's Bay on um Apple, and I bring that up now specifically because it is... create it is it's a It's like Parks and Rec meets Stephen King is the way I would describe it. Seriously, it's like Matthew Rhys is a... um Mayor of a small town that turns out to be like haunted by all of these things and they're trying to solve it so they can become a tourist destination. and it's pretty creepy at times. Like it's I've been like, I can't watch it beat right before bed. And it is created by Katie Dippold, who was a writer on Parks and Rec. And i I'm so excited for her because it seems like it's like catching on. People are talking about it. It's really fun. really different and it's kind of like funny but also creepy yeah it's just like an interesting little twist of genre and i'm really excited to see this for her and i don't remember if it's in the book or not but she actually talked to me about how she and aubry plaza got along really well and connected partially because they like scary stuff they like creepy gothy stuff and
01:13:01
Speaker
And we're always like dressing up as monsters and trying to scare each other and stuff. So it made me really happy because I was like, this must be like the ultimate for her that she's got this creepy show that's still kind of Parks and Rec like. um So probably unless you don't like creepy stuff. um If you like Parks and Rec, you may like this one.
01:13:20
Speaker
That's amazing. Well, Jennifer, I'm so glad we got to yeah talk ah talk a little bit ah about parks story craft and all the fun things that we get to unpack and he just yeah and really celebrate this amazing biography of Parks and Rec that you've written. It's such ah such a fun book for the Parks fan out there. you're gonna You are going to learn things you never knew. And it's so great that you had such great participation from so much of the cast and crew like to unpack and unspool a really cool story. So just awesome. Thank you so much for the time and thanks for the book.
01:13:51
Speaker
Thank you.
01:14:01
Speaker
Awesome.
Events & Reflections on Work Ethos
01:14:02
Speaker
Don't forget, I'm at the Eugene Public Library, August 1st at 3 p.m., depending on when you listen to this episode. That's either tomorrow or you missed it for my world-famous biography talk, and I'm moderating a debut author panel for a Hippocamp Online, Saturday, August 15th, 6 p.m. Visit hippocampusmagazine.com to learn more and to register.
01:14:25
Speaker
And hang out. Hang out in a real fancy Zoom room. Okay, so I came across a good column in Runner's World by Jeff Dengate about a notion that is somewhat foreign in our life hacky world where if you're not working smarter but working harder, you're a moron or something.
01:14:46
Speaker
you know Very Tim Ferriss-y. Very four-hour work-week-y. yeah That book, I think, kind of ruined my life for a good chunk of time, but that's a parting shot for another day.
01:15:00
Speaker
The whole notion with many of these bro-influencer types of the late aughts and early 2010s was work smarter, and not harder. Learn how to say no, the art of saying no, or it's either hell yes or no, which, okay, fine.
01:15:16
Speaker
yeah This is fertile ground for life hackers and routine porn that prey on people looking to grease the skids of their lives without, let's say, putting in the mileage. This is something Tim Ferriss made a name for himself, be it by outsourcing work to, I don't want to say exploited, but I'll say exploited virtual assistants across the globe and his human guinea pigness of the four-hour body of minimum effective doses and on and on.
01:15:45
Speaker
I got really sucked into this mindset around twenty ten ish Yeah, a buddy of mine bought me the four-hour work week, and then ah for some reason it it sucked me in and not in the best possible way in hindsight. I think it really fucked me over.
01:16:00
Speaker
I only have myself to blame. I don't blame Ferris or anything, but I suspect there are others like me. Maybe not. Case study of one. Sometimes you do have to just work harder.
01:16:14
Speaker
and do all the repetitions. Run more miles, make more calls, do that extra bit of research. If you try to skip the line and just say from the outset, I'm going to work smarter and not harder. You're missing the fundamental part of the journey.
01:16:27
Speaker
You're missing data. yeah At times you've got to ride the knife's edge, the edge of reason, and brush up against that breaking point. yeah Maybe that's nudging up your running from 30 miles a week to 50 and seeing what happens.
01:16:41
Speaker
yeah You wouldn't go from 30 to 50, but you'd build up to it and then see. and Which would include a a few doubles here. Maybe it's an easy three to four miles in the morning and then your big workout at night or flip it around, I don't know.
01:16:54
Speaker
Nudge that up. And maybe that's appearing on 200 podcasts for your book, only to realize that maybe you are better off doing 50 super targeted ones. And before you get better at saying no, you really should be saying yes to everything for a long, long time.
01:17:11
Speaker
I'm still in that mode of, I say yes to everything. You invite me to something, like, yes, <unk>ll I'll do it. I don't give a shit. there' there Speaking of Parks and Rec, this isn't in my script right now. But there's this element of when ah Tom Haverford and his Entertainment 720 business, and he, you know, it goes under very quickly. He's burned through cash. But part of his strategy early on, instead of building a robust client base, was actually saying no to people at first because he wanted to create a false sense of scarcity. Yeah.
01:17:46
Speaker
So that's very reflective of this kind of this, uh, the works, the work smarter, not harder, and you know, saying no to things. He was just saying no without having anything and they had no work and then thus no income and they shuttered entertainment. 720.
01:18:04
Speaker
I wouldn't want to counsel someone to approach true burnout, but I think i tried to find the shortcuts before experimenting with the myriad long, windy roads and that degree of seeking to do, quote, maybe just enough, that ghastly minimum effective dose you hear all these bros talk about. Yet what ended up happening was I wasn't getting the traction I needed or the speed down the runway to get into ah ah get elevation, to get lift.
01:18:35
Speaker
And what would inevitably happen was I'd then have to like get a retail job or landscape or stack produce or work in a wine cellar. Trust me, that's not as sexy as it sounds. Very labor intensive.
01:18:46
Speaker
And this robbed me of thousands of hours of potential forward progress and the thing I said I wanted to do all along.
01:18:55
Speaker
I had and have a tendency to give up too fast on pitches, for instance. you know If I don't hit my target publication, I tend to quit and not go through another five options just to get the thing out.
01:19:08
Speaker
you know So then I'm never landing anything, and that means I start looking for an escape hatch of a menial job that will at least pay me a reliable, timely paycheck.
01:19:19
Speaker
Though working at like Trader Joe's seems pretty rad, and with groceries being the way they are, a discount at a grocery store feels like a pretty sick perk at the moment. All of this is to say, i like this idea of putting in more effort, working harder, putting in more hours, more time on the road, and more time with my nose in a book, more time pitching, then scaling back once I've flirted with Ruin.
01:19:46
Speaker
And maybe this means nothing to you, but I feel like a lazy bum most of the time. and Like, I'm wasting time. Like, I should be farther along, and I only have myself to blame for not being at a satisfactory place. Assuming there is a satisfactory place.
01:20:02
Speaker
To approach. To reach. And maybe you never do. yeah That I should have worked harder in my 30s. And here I am on the other side of 45. Still tapping away at a mountainside with a chisel the size of a nail file. I don't know what that image is supposed to conjure. But I think it has something to do with feeling stuck and stagnant and plateaued.
01:20:24
Speaker
So stay wild. See you in efforts. And if you can't do interview. See