Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fergo, so welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Today. On our final episode of the year,
Speaker 1: we present our annual holiday special. We've been doing this
Speaker 1: since the podcast began back in twenty sixteen, but if
Speaker 1: you're new here, let me explain. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: we release fifty two episodes featuring dozens and dozens of people.
Speaker 1: To close out our year. I've invited a handful of
Speaker 1: those people to sit and reflect on the past twelve months.
Speaker 1: George Saunders, Julie Delpy, Glenn Terman, Winnie Bienema, Nick Offerman,
Speaker 1: and many many others. To everyone, I presented a few
Speaker 1: central questions. What piece of art spoke to you in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, did you have a moment where life
Speaker 1: felt like life again? A dinner, a concert, a wedding?
Speaker 1: And then, lastly, what do you hope the next year
Speaker 1: looks and feels like? These are questions answered by many
Speaker 1: you're about to hear from, but I'd also love to
Speaker 1: hear your answers, whether you want to share them with
Speaker 1: us on Instagram or Twitter, at talk easypod or over
Speaker 1: email at talk easypod at gmail dot com. I'm curious
Speaker 1: to hear your responses. There's also one more question, which
Speaker 1: is how are you spending your holidays. I think most
Speaker 1: of us, if you're lucky, are going to spend this
Speaker 1: time with our family, our friends, our loved ones. In
Speaker 1: doing so, many of you listening, perhaps even right now,
Speaker 1: are going home or already at home for the holidays.
Speaker 1: And it's this idea of home that made us want
Speaker 1: to make this episode, and not just make it, but
Speaker 1: partner with an organization offering refuge and resources to homeless, abused,
Speaker 1: and traffic youth across America. That organization is called Cognant House,
Speaker 1: and through the remainder of this year, one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the proceeds from our mugs and vinyl records will
Speaker 1: go to their programs. If you don't have one already,
Speaker 1: our mugs come in cream and Navy, and our vinyl
Speaker 1: record is with the iconic, the Brilliant Friendly Boots. If
Speaker 1: you'd like the support the great work Covenant House is doing,
Speaker 1: visit talk easypod dot com slash shop. That's talk easypod
Speaker 1: dot com slash shop. Like I said, one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the proceeds will go towards the work they do
Speaker 1: beyond immediate shelter. They provide the long term support that
Speaker 1: is needed to heal the hundreds of kids that come
Speaker 1: through their doors each day. This is a modest contribution,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, any purchase you make will be helping them
Speaker 1: do the work we so greatly need them to do,
Speaker 1: especially in twenty twenty two as we continue living through
Speaker 1: this pandemic. If you need the URL, take a look
Speaker 1: at your phone. We put it in the description of
Speaker 1: this episode. Whether you're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google podcast Stitcher,
Speaker 1: you'll see we've presented the link for easy access. Also
Speaker 1: in that description, you'll notice how each guest has been
Speaker 1: given a specific time code in case you ever get
Speaker 1: lost or just want to remember who you're hearing from
Speaker 1: at any given moment. So our first of three phone
Speaker 1: calls is with Julie Delpy. But to get this started,
Speaker 1: I'm going to hand it over to one of my
Speaker 1: favorite entertainers. I would say her name, but she says
Speaker 1: it's so much better than I ever could. So thank
Speaker 1: you for being here and I hope you enjoy Here
Speaker 1: we go. Is it on? Is it on? Honey? Is
Speaker 1: this thing recording? Who? What's the betube? Land? Twitter, Land, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Land Snapchat, ground a scruff BGC Jack, Facebook, pier Scope
Speaker 1: and less but not least differ single one of Christian
Speaker 1: mingle and the Land's all across the land. This is
Speaker 1: your girl, T. S. Madison, Honey, and I'm coming to
Speaker 1: you live, live and always. I'm forever in color. From
Speaker 1: the Talk Easy podcast Smith's Elebration Conversation. Now listen, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you the piece that spoke to me in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. It was none other than the TS
Speaker 1: Madison experience on we TV. My show was groundbreaking and
Speaker 1: it was a think piece for all of the people
Speaker 1: out there in America who have this perception about trans women,
Speaker 1: especially trans women of color. I hope that I did
Speaker 1: my service to the girls and redirected the thoughts on
Speaker 1: trans women. Honey. I hope that I made them feel
Speaker 1: that they had a human experience while watching the T. S.
Speaker 1: Madison Experience. I will say that this year, in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, was the first year in fifteen years that
Speaker 1: I have put up a Christmas tree in my house.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what came over me, but for
Speaker 1: some reason I felt the need to experience the joys
Speaker 1: of Christmas and laughter and holiday fun again. I think
Speaker 1: the feeling had left me when my aunt passed away
Speaker 1: in two and twelve, and also when my best friend
Speaker 1: died in twenty seventeen. But baby, this has been a
Speaker 1: really good year for me. I was able to give
Speaker 1: back to my community black and trance, and I also
Speaker 1: made lots of money this year. Lots of money, honey.
Speaker 1: I just felt the spirit of giving, the spirit of love,
Speaker 1: laughter in life came back into me and I decided
Speaker 1: to put a Christmas tree up and I am in
Speaker 1: the holiday spirit again. Maybe this might be the year
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two I find my one true love. Who's
Speaker 1: even looking anyway? Everybody, I'd like to wish you a
Speaker 1: very merry Christmas and happy holidays, and get ready because
Speaker 1: the new year is coming. High YadA boshata, Get all
Speaker 1: of those resolutions in because the time to start it's now.
Speaker 1: I love you, Be blessed. This is t S. Madison. Hi,
Speaker 1: It's Jake Tapper from CNN. And the only moment where
Speaker 1: life felt like life again for me this year was
Speaker 1: when Dave Matthews and the Dave Matthews Band came to
Speaker 1: Merriweather Post Pavilion and I saw that show with a
Speaker 1: couple of friends of mine, because that's the only time
Speaker 1: on that I was in a crowd. It was outdoors,
Speaker 1: but people were not masked generally speaking, and it felt
Speaker 1: normal ish. It's not like it wasn't present, but there
Speaker 1: were moments there where I kind of just lost myself
Speaker 1: and the music and enjoyed the company of humanity and
Speaker 1: things seemed back to normal fleetingly. Hi, my name is
Speaker 1: Lucky Creeps. So I remember during the lockdown because we
Speaker 1: were doing a movie where a concert was playing, and
Speaker 1: because that was at a time where there were no
Speaker 1: concert so we kind of made it up for the
Speaker 1: movie and would started out as a scene where we
Speaker 1: would stand and listen to the music became almost like
Speaker 1: a party. I mean it was not a party because
Speaker 1: I didn't have, you know, alcohol, and it wasn't long enough,
Speaker 1: but for one hour at least, everyone was dancing to
Speaker 1: the music, and I had forgotten how good it feels
Speaker 1: to be surrounded by people in one room and everyone
Speaker 1: moves to the music and the music is actually live
Speaker 1: and someone is playing it. That was the most magical
Speaker 1: moment for me in twenty one and for Christmas, I
Speaker 1: decided to stay here to stay in the sun because
Speaker 1: I'm working in Arizona, and I decided to have my
Speaker 1: kids come over and now We're just going to stay here,
Speaker 1: me and my two kids and have Christmas in the sun,
Speaker 1: which will be very exciting for us because we never
Speaker 1: had that. That was actor Vicki Creeps, CNN host Jake Tapper,
Speaker 1: and the one and only T. S. Madison. Next up,
Speaker 1: we call writer, director actor Julie Delpy. Julie Delpi, Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? I'm okay a little Is that
Speaker 1: a real answer? Yeah, I'm a little bit in a
Speaker 1: state how do you call it? Manic? Like I'm writing
Speaker 1: twenty pages an hour and being very productive, but kind
Speaker 1: of in an obsessive way, you know, I'm being obsessive
Speaker 1: about things I'm writing, like about ten screenplay at once,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure which one I'm going to end
Speaker 1: up finishing up. But I'm writing one that's being ordered,
Speaker 1: one that I decided to write a month ago. So
Speaker 1: am I the first real person you've talked to in
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks? Well, no, I speak to
Speaker 1: my son. But outside of my son, you really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not very many people I speak to. I'm honored
Speaker 1: I speak to this once in a while for the listener.
Speaker 1: What are you holding right there? So I was holding
Speaker 1: a little some creature named Puffy puff Puff, my son
Speaker 1: and I favorite titty bear that we do a lot
Speaker 1: of things with, you know, we tell stories and stuff.
Speaker 1: She's actually kind of like a sort of Marilyn Monroe
Speaker 1: because we make up phil Noir scenarios with a koala
Speaker 1: named Panatone who's mafia, and you know, all sorts of
Speaker 1: things like that. Okay, so it's me, your son, and
Speaker 1: Puffy puff Puff. I'm in good company. I asked you
Speaker 1: how you're doing, because when I pose that question to
Speaker 1: you the first time we talked earlier in the fall,
Speaker 1: you said, I have to be honest with you. I
Speaker 1: can't be emotionally involved in my art anymore. Here's the quote.
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to stop. I can't take being
Speaker 1: emotionally involved in something like writing my guts out in
Speaker 1: a movie. I'm good at what I do as a filmmaker.
Speaker 1: I should just take a script, make a great film,
Speaker 1: and not worry about anything anymore. Truth is, I did
Speaker 1: the extreme opposite. I'm writing something that's even more personal
Speaker 1: than anything I've written before. So it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: I might not take a job for hire either, you know,
Speaker 1: like I think I can do both. I love this
Speaker 1: because I don't know if you remember, but at the
Speaker 1: end of our conversation, I kind of was begging you
Speaker 1: to maybe keep going. Yes, I was. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a hard business because you some people will will
Speaker 1: be greatly respectful of the fact that you put your
Speaker 1: guts out, and some people will just shit on it.
Speaker 1: You know, It's funny because everyone talks about mental illness
Speaker 1: and how hard it is for people in the sports
Speaker 1: people in this and no one's talking about creatives being criticized.
Speaker 1: And you know, the minute you do a critic on
Speaker 1: a film that's a very personal film, you do affect
Speaker 1: deeply the filmmaker or the writer or the painter or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, the art pieces or if you want
Speaker 1: to consider film art piece or not. That's the reality.
Speaker 1: So it makes you want to just not do it again.
Speaker 1: Not all of them. Some are real great critics, and
Speaker 1: I think I can read the difference when I read
Speaker 1: a critic even that doesn't necessarily love my work, but
Speaker 1: d stands the process and is respectful. And then you
Speaker 1: have the people that are just doing it. Who knows why,
Speaker 1: you know, because they couldn't get hired to do something
Speaker 1: else or something. I had a critic really trash me
Speaker 1: on one movie which affected me greatly, and I could
Speaker 1: tell I'm not even sure he's set all the way through.
Speaker 1: You know, it used to be they used to be
Speaker 1: a real culture of critics in France, for example, was
Speaker 1: all those new wave guys. We were critics, right, but
Speaker 1: they were doing they were doing it out of love.
Speaker 1: On the subject of something we liked this year, what film, book,
Speaker 1: TV show, exhibit, what spoke do you in twenty twenty one?
Speaker 1: What's something that you fell in love with. I'm in
Speaker 1: the process of watching all the foreign films right, which
Speaker 1: is always the greatest pleasure for me of voting at
Speaker 1: the Oscars is the Foreign film and I'm finally part
Speaker 1: of the Foreign Film Committee. It was about time they
Speaker 1: offered me that to do that, because it's like, my
Speaker 1: favorite thing is watching foreign films, but also a few
Speaker 1: American films that I love, like Come On, Come On,
Speaker 1: which I think is a sort of a little perfect gem,
Speaker 1: you know, of its own kind, and I think it's
Speaker 1: really brilliant. I really loved the Paulos Orentino film, you know,
Speaker 1: hand the Hand of God, and I love Compartment six,
Speaker 1: a Finnish film about someone in Russia. Finnish woman in Russia.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I mean a beautiful film to
Speaker 1: really see. You know, There's so many films I loved.
Speaker 1: I just watched The Mexican Entry, which is really heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: the Australian Entry, which is actually a film about Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: which is also wonderful. So many great films that I'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. It's not an exhibition. It's it's
Speaker 1: what I love the most. It's a movie. It's a
Speaker 1: bunch of movies. No, But that's really interesting what you said,
Speaker 1: because two movies are exactly what I had started a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago writing. They're in the same concept,
Speaker 1: which has come on, come on end, and the Hand
Speaker 1: of God. There's something to it that is speaking to
Speaker 1: me deeply because it talks about children, education, what comes
Speaker 1: next for a young man in a way, and it
Speaker 1: talks to me about my son. And those two films
Speaker 1: are really affecting me. And there's also I saw a
Speaker 1: film I saw again Aida quovadisovadis Ida, which has made
Speaker 1: me cry and scream and lose my mind again. You've
Speaker 1: never seen that film, I haven't. No it was. It
Speaker 1: was nominated at the Academy Award last year. It's a
Speaker 1: film about Serbian war, about the Balkan War. It's really really,
Speaker 1: really shocking and heartbreaking and makes you very angry at
Speaker 1: the same time. And you know, I'm watching all those
Speaker 1: films that are affecting me emotionally, like tremendously affecting me emotionally.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I don't think ever in my life
Speaker 1: I've been affected by film than I am. Now you
Speaker 1: know it's probably my film is probably never going to
Speaker 1: happen and it's not going to be half as good
Speaker 1: as those guys film. No, no, no no, I'm not putting
Speaker 1: myself down, but I know, I know, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: critics will take a big giant turret on my face.
Speaker 1: But you know, are you leaving your closet? I'm leaving
Speaker 1: my podcast, I'm walking out. You're working out of your
Speaker 1: own podcasts? No, but seriously, you know I know that,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't care. I'm writing it. And
Speaker 1: you know, if if I'm dead next week, you know,
Speaker 1: at least someone will have an idea of what, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: It's hard to engage with so much positivity. Well, it's
Speaker 1: the holiday season, you know. I do hate Christmas and
Speaker 1: I hate this time of the year, festival. It's my
Speaker 1: birthday soon. I hate my birthday. I'm born the darkest
Speaker 1: day of the year and it's shit. I also hate
Speaker 1: my birthday. It's my least favorite day. Every year. I
Speaker 1: hate it. I wish I could skip it. And it's
Speaker 1: always been like that. It's not just because I'm I'm whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm getting older. I don't even care. But the problem
Speaker 1: is I hate it. And it's near Christmas, and Christmas
Speaker 1: people get drunk. They threw up in the yard. And
Speaker 1: I mean my memory of Christmas is like my uncle
Speaker 1: who would drink way too much and threw up in
Speaker 1: my parents little tiny garden. So that's that's my memory
Speaker 1: of Christmas. And people were so drunk, at least in France,
Speaker 1: and they were a little bit of the presence. But
Speaker 1: then people would I remember an uncle that arrived drunk,
Speaker 1: you know, dressed as Santa. That was the end for
Speaker 1: all of us of our belief because you were like
Speaker 1: a little kid and you were like that's not Santa.
Speaker 1: That doesn't look like Santa. Santas not being on the
Speaker 1: carpet and the Delphi household, are you the Santa peeing
Speaker 1: on the carpet? I focus on food. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: because I'm going to Europe for Christmas, and usually my
Speaker 1: dad will make all sorts of stuff that I really like,
Speaker 1: like searchin in the shell. It's not very like greasy
Speaker 1: crazy food. We don't like that stuff so much. But
Speaker 1: I mean we like it, but not you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like Thanksgiving here where people feel sick after they eat.
Speaker 1: You know, we could we tried to eat like no,
Speaker 1: but it's true. I felt sick again. I mean every
Speaker 1: year I feel sick. I don't know. I always teak
Speaker 1: too much. I don't know why, because it's an all
Speaker 1: day event, I know, and I felt, Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: feel good. When you came on this fall, you said
Speaker 1: that you're making meals for all your friends and your
Speaker 1: kids and your partner all the time. This made me think,
Speaker 1: how chaotic is your like cooking schedule around Christmas time. No,
Speaker 1: it's not more at Christmas than any other day. I'm
Speaker 1: cooking all the time, really complex meal and to feed
Speaker 1: my family every day, and I steam vegetables while I
Speaker 1: sue tea others and things in the oven. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm making Tamoli's for six months to freeze and then
Speaker 1: I'm making You know, I'm very conflicted with cooking and food.
Speaker 1: So you're going back and forth between writing eight or
Speaker 1: nine or ten scripts and cooking a bunch of meals.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, how many therapists do you have?
Speaker 1: Only one? You? That's it? My only therapist. You know,
Speaker 1: I have to say something. We haven't checked in in
Speaker 1: three months. I'm not in therapy, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: I was for a short time last year. I like
Speaker 1: to go to therapy for specific stuff. I don't like
Speaker 1: to do like overall therapy for my life because it's
Speaker 1: way too complicated. I just like to focus on one
Speaker 1: event that's bothering me and I just try to work
Speaker 1: it out. Me too, I'm the same way. It needs
Speaker 1: to be a concentrated problem and we'll see how long
Speaker 1: it takes to fix it. When you go home, what
Speaker 1: does that mean? To go back doesn't mean anything? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And I have to say the pandemic. The hardest part
Speaker 1: for me was not being able to go home because
Speaker 1: even though I live here in Los Angeles to not
Speaker 1: be able to be near my father and in Paris,
Speaker 1: I still consider it my home, and eventually and my
Speaker 1: son too. Weirdly enough, my son, who was born in
Speaker 1: Paris but has been completely raised in the US, consider
Speaker 1: friends is home. It was hard to not be home,
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine when people are either don't
Speaker 1: have a home or have to leave their home because
Speaker 1: of you know, wars or economical or like whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You know, it's tragic. In the past year, so many
Speaker 1: of us haven't been able to go back. We haven't
Speaker 1: seen people. We don't know where this new variant is going.
Speaker 1: God willing it's not lethal. But in this past year,
Speaker 1: was there a moment where life felt like life again?
Speaker 1: To you? Exactly when I lended in Paris, I think
Speaker 1: a little bit before the minute that I knew I
Speaker 1: had my ticket and I was not stuck somewhere. You know,
Speaker 1: there's something about being stuck somewhere that drives me insane.
Speaker 1: I mean, it happened in September eleventh, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: It was like that because no one could travel for
Speaker 1: a while. It was like really crazy. Everyone was paranoid,
Speaker 1: freaking out. It was like that for me, Like for
Speaker 1: a while I could not travel, and this was the
Speaker 1: same with COVID, and that was really really unpleasant. And
Speaker 1: the minute I had my ticket and I knew I
Speaker 1: could leave, I actually started to enjoying LA again. People
Speaker 1: were vaccinated. We were not stuck anymore. I mean, we
Speaker 1: were stuck for how many what a year? Stuck in
Speaker 1: this world. It was really really, really unpleasant, I really,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone hated it, but you know, and some
Speaker 1: people lost their loved ones, so I can't complain, you know,
Speaker 1: but still now that we're somewhat unstuck. And I say
Speaker 1: that very cautiously. There was this whole conversation last year
Speaker 1: and some of this year about the other side of this,
Speaker 1: people will have more gratitude and made maybe more kindness
Speaker 1: towards each other. Do you believe any of that? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think other problems are arising and as
Speaker 1: set people into a world of you know, living from home, streaming,
Speaker 1: not going to the movies, not going out. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people I've given up and for good
Speaker 1: in the social world. And I think that's not healthy,
Speaker 1: because how can you empathize with other people. If an
Speaker 1: algorithm is telling you what to watch, how can you
Speaker 1: open your horizon when we are being so limited. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the next step will be. I'm writing
Speaker 1: pamphlet after pamphlet about the future world that I will
Speaker 1: never publish or send anywhere. But I'm writing them every day,
Speaker 1: you know, pages and pages and pages like a crazy person.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm really scared of the world that's
Speaker 1: coming this. You know, I'm happy to see my kid
Speaker 1: listening to vinyl and playing guitar and not video games.
Speaker 1: For example. I'm happy to see my kid telling me
Speaker 1: not to watch TV or stream some stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: like sitting on the couch, eating and falling asleep. It
Speaker 1: gives me hope that he won't be a victim of
Speaker 1: this world. But I am completely stuck in, you know,
Speaker 1: not getting out, not seeing people, and just like a
Speaker 1: drooling in front of their TV. What's in this pamphlet
Speaker 1: and what are these pamphlets? Just writing shit? I'm like
Speaker 1: writing shit like a crazy person. You know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: think and sometimes I speak a loud also, like you
Speaker 1: remember that feel naked? That's me right now? No wonder
Speaker 1: you said yes right away to this invitation, You just
Speaker 1: wanted someone to speak to someone? Also, no, but seriously,
Speaker 1: I speak to my son. My husband was here until
Speaker 1: a week ago, so I was speaking to him. But
Speaker 1: my husband speaks a lot, so I end up not
Speaker 1: speaking that much. You know, he talks a lot. That
Speaker 1: seems impossible. He talks more than me, like about twenty
Speaker 1: times more than me. Before we go, let's try to
Speaker 1: end on a hopeful note, if we can. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the film Come On, come On. I really enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and one of the questions posed in that movie to children,
Speaker 1: I'd like to post to you. I realize you know
Speaker 1: you're not a child. What do you hope for in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two? You know truly what I hope for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. I hope to make this film I'm writing,
Speaker 1: which is a very very small film, but the most
Speaker 1: personal thing I've written. I hope to make it and
Speaker 1: quick and fast and shoot it my house and fucking
Speaker 1: do it like I did my first film. And also
Speaker 1: we're planning to move to Europe for a year because
Speaker 1: my son is really really animated. And I hope also
Speaker 1: for can we actually go into like kind of turn
Speaker 1: the tracks of this world? Into a better direction, because
Speaker 1: right now there are people, you know, shooting themselves in
Speaker 1: space and not really just I hope, you know, some
Speaker 1: people will take the future of our world in their hands,
Speaker 1: you know, almost like those children, and come and come
Speaker 1: on and actually do something that's not destructive and violent
Speaker 1: and will take it somewhere else. And maybe they need
Speaker 1: our help. It's not just in their hands. They need
Speaker 1: the help of all of us. You know, how old
Speaker 1: is your son, He's going to turn thirteen. Okay, so
Speaker 1: long as your thirteen year old son is listening to
Speaker 1: Vinyl records, and so long as my sister, who just
Speaker 1: turned twenty is sending me old Todd Rundgren songs, I
Speaker 1: think we have a chance. I think it's all about music. Really,
Speaker 1: a chance is all we got, and it's better than nothing. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Let's hope that's the direction we're heading. As always, lovely
Speaker 1: talking to you, Julie Delpy, Thank you very much, Thank you. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's tween the artwork that really spoke to me. It's
Speaker 1: kind of two. One was Jennifer Packer's show at the Whitney.
Speaker 1: Seeing her work. There's something about the experience of being
Speaker 1: in that room, seeing what she can do with paint,
Speaker 1: what she can do with placement and people in a
Speaker 1: way that felt very kind and very like messy in
Speaker 1: the way that humanity is messy, but still so exquisite
Speaker 1: and expert and just such a confidence and a confidence
Speaker 1: in knowing that perfection is impossible and the thing that
Speaker 1: makes us beautiful, the elements that make us memorable are
Speaker 1: in fact the things that can't be capitalized on or
Speaker 1: subsumed and incorporated into something that is about worth or value.
Speaker 1: It's beyond that. It's I guess, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, is priceless. And how connections very similar in
Speaker 1: that effect. For me was a film called Drive My Car,
Speaker 1: and it's a long film, but it was a beautiful
Speaker 1: experience because I saw in a theater and it was
Speaker 1: the pacing, was the editing, it was the way that
Speaker 1: language was used so beautifully. How different people from different
Speaker 1: experiences and different ways of communicating linguistically came together to
Speaker 1: create an artwork that still was palpable and really lean
Speaker 1: into how to communicate feeling and to show again connection
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be what we expect or what we know.
Speaker 1: It can be the unknown. It can be someone who
Speaker 1: speaks or translates something in a completely different way. And
Speaker 1: the moment I felt the most alive this year would
Speaker 1: have to be spending this past summer on a trip
Speaker 1: with my cousin Benjamin and getting to know him, getting
Speaker 1: to know ourselves and traveling together. It was really magical
Speaker 1: and we shared some beautiful moments and I got to
Speaker 1: learn about patients. I got to learn about forgiving myself
Speaker 1: in order to forgive others and to not be as
Speaker 1: judgmental about the world, which will really opened me up
Speaker 1: to a lot of beauty and so I'm really grateful
Speaker 1: for that. Hello. My name's Anna Sale. I host the
Speaker 1: podcast at Sex and Money, and I am a former
Speaker 1: Talk Easy guest. I'm a Talk Easy fan. I really
Speaker 1: let's see what do I want to tell you about?
Speaker 1: I will tell anyone who listens about Reservation Dogs if
Speaker 1: they haven't watched it yet, And in particular the episode
Speaker 1: where they go out hunting or the episode that follows
Speaker 1: the local REZ police officer around his day's work. Those
Speaker 1: two episodes in particular, I just absolutely loved. I loved
Speaker 1: the pacing. I loved the way that it made me
Speaker 1: realize how rarely we see rural communities on screen respectfully
Speaker 1: and with humor. And whether I have felt like my
Speaker 1: life is life again, I don't know. That's coming gone
Speaker 1: a few times this year. I will say I had
Speaker 1: one moment earlier this fall where my older child started
Speaker 1: kindergarten and my other child started preschool, both wearing masks
Speaker 1: full time, but both out of the house in person learning,
Speaker 1: and it was startling to me to realize that for me,
Speaker 1: not just from COVID, but also from early parenthood, I
Speaker 1: had not ever in a long long time, at least,
Speaker 1: I had not been alone in my home on a
Speaker 1: week day morning, just with quiet to start my work day.
Speaker 1: And it was glorious. So that was a moment that
Speaker 1: stands out in twenty twenty one. I wish you all
Speaker 1: a great holiday season and all the best in the
Speaker 1: new year. Stay safe and healthy and talk soon. Hie Hi.
Speaker 1: This is Glenn Turmot. I'm very excited about a new
Speaker 1: book that has just come out by Keith Ryan Cottwright
Speaker 1: and is called Black Cowboys, a rodeo the unsung heroes
Speaker 1: from Holem to Hollywood and the American West. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that's got me so excited about this
Speaker 1: book is the fact that I'm in it. I've got
Speaker 1: a chapter dedicated to Glenn Thurmant. It's just come out,
Speaker 1: and it's very well written, and it's got so many
Speaker 1: of my heroes mentioned in it, my friends mentioned in it.
Speaker 1: You guys go out and get it Black Cowboys a
Speaker 1: rodeo by Keith Ryan Catt right. The forward is by
Speaker 1: Danny Glover. I think the biggest moment of normalcy for
Speaker 1: me was registered when this Thanksgiving. The family came through
Speaker 1: in shifts like the good old days, where everyone came
Speaker 1: by and grabbed a plate. We were able to be together,
Speaker 1: you know, the kids were running around and the wife
Speaker 1: had prepared such a scrumptious meal for everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: complaining all a while about how much work it was,
Speaker 1: and of course indeed it was a lot of work,
Speaker 1: but she's always been able to handle it. That was
Speaker 1: a wonderful time. This Thanksgiving was really great because we
Speaker 1: were once again able to enjoy it with family. Hopefully
Speaker 1: that's the way we'll spend Christmas. That was legendary actor
Speaker 1: Glenn Turman, host of Death, Sex and Money and a Sale,
Speaker 1: and artist toyeen og Odetola. Before next call, I want
Speaker 1: to remind everyone why we're doing this episode. In the
Speaker 1: first place. The good people at Covenant House are providing
Speaker 1: refuge and resources to homeless youth across the country. They
Speaker 1: do this work year round, but as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: they're working overtime during the holiday season as temperatures decline
Speaker 1: and shelters grow scarce. To support, we are selling our
Speaker 1: talk Easy mugs. They come in cream and navy. We're
Speaker 1: also selling our vinyl record with my favorite curmudgeon, fran Lebowitz.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent of the proceeds of your purchase go
Speaker 1: to Covenant House through December thirty. First, you can make
Speaker 1: your purchase and in turn your donation at talk easypod
Speaker 1: dot com slash shop. That's talk easypod dot com slash shop.
Speaker 1: If you need the link, you can find it on
Speaker 1: your phone right now in the description of this episode.
Speaker 1: Once again, the link is talk easypod dot com slash Shop.
Speaker 1: Thank you in advance for supporting us, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: the good people at Covenant House. Next up, why don't
Speaker 1: we call one of my favorite people and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite working writers today George Saunders. Here we go, Hello, Hello, Hey, Sam?
Speaker 1: Is this uh George Saunders? It is how are you doing?
Speaker 1: Sorry about that you're calling here? Are just kind of
Speaker 1: waiting around? You were sitting there waiting for my call,
Speaker 1: And I disappointed. No, No, I disappointed by not reading
Speaker 1: my email closely enough. I disappointed myself as often as
Speaker 1: the case. Well, you know, I think we can get
Speaker 1: through it together. I think we do. How are you
Speaker 1: spending your holidays? Our two daughters book live in La Area,
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna pack up from here and go
Speaker 1: down there about the twenty third and then spend a
Speaker 1: couple of days with each of them and then get
Speaker 1: an airbnb. So we're kind of doing it. Is the
Speaker 1: first time we've ever yeah, since we've been married, I
Speaker 1: think the first time we've ever done Christmas away from home,
Speaker 1: and we don't have a tree up, and we're just
Speaker 1: going to kind of improv a little La Christmas. And
Speaker 1: you know, for me, that's the best because I guess
Speaker 1: I started really enjoying Christmas as an adult when we
Speaker 1: had our babies, you know, and then I was working
Speaker 1: full time and it was a chance to kind of
Speaker 1: like have three days in a row off and just huddle,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think we have that kind of
Speaker 1: memory in our bones a little bit, So I think,
Speaker 1: girl looking forward to it? What are you doing well,
Speaker 1: I'm in La. I'm going to crash the Saunders festivities
Speaker 1: just like screwed. Just bring the biggest turkey on the
Speaker 1: cart and then you're welcome. Now, in terms of a
Speaker 1: holiday gift, this sub stack newsletter of yours is a
Speaker 1: pretty good one. Why don't you tell people about what
Speaker 1: you're doing here? Yeah, it's I started this a newsletter
Speaker 1: on sub stack and it's called story Club, and I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of extending what we talked about last time,
Speaker 1: this Russian book of Swimming upon in the Rain, where
Speaker 1: I just was taking any short stories apart and trying
Speaker 1: to understand how they worked. The story Club is me
Speaker 1: writing about stories and writing life and kind of writing
Speaker 1: tips and exercises. And it is so much fun. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've got some like tens of thousands of people on there,
Speaker 1: and it's the weirdest thing, Like the comments section is
Speaker 1: so positive and supportive, and so I'm kind of addicted
Speaker 1: to it. I think of it is kind of like
Speaker 1: an extension of my teaching life. So I've got the
Speaker 1: same kind of feeling like, oh hey, what can what
Speaker 1: can we talk about next week, and so it's been
Speaker 1: really shot in the arm around. Like the thesis of
Speaker 1: this newsletter, you wrote something I like you said, the
Speaker 1: essential work involves an offering and a playful exploratory spirit
Speaker 1: on the teacher's part, and an openness to receive on
Speaker 1: the students. And you know, I learned this teaching at Syracuture,
Speaker 1: where we have these great students. There's no way that
Speaker 1: anyone person knows anything about writing that's simply transferable my hope,
Speaker 1: writing life. I learned how to work with my mind
Speaker 1: in my early drafts and revise them in a particular flavor.
Speaker 1: But all of that is so personal, you know. So
Speaker 1: I think that the right stance for the teacher is
Speaker 1: to say, okay, I know a few things that mostly
Speaker 1: pertain to me, but let me put them in front
Speaker 1: of you, to your student, and you are not obliged
Speaker 1: to take them, but if you feel like it, you
Speaker 1: could sort of expose yourself to them and see if
Speaker 1: they knock anything loose, you know, see if they strike
Speaker 1: any court. So in that way, it's not like I'm
Speaker 1: going to teach you this or I have the right
Speaker 1: way and now I'll give it to you. I think
Speaker 1: it's more like curating an experience where you take a
Speaker 1: talented person who always has a lot of momentum of
Speaker 1: her own any way, you know, a lot of desire,
Speaker 1: a lot of momentum, and then you just subtly put
Speaker 1: a little obstacle in front of her, and in surmounting
Speaker 1: that obstacle, she's always taking on the thing that's obstructing
Speaker 1: her most. So I think offering is the right word,
Speaker 1: and helping just okay, so I'm not sure I can
Speaker 1: help you, but tell me what's going on. I'll try.
Speaker 1: You know. That's sort of the spirit of the thing.
Speaker 1: The spirit also seems to be around this paragraph you
Speaker 1: had when we talk last time. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember, but we spoke shortly after the Capitol riot
Speaker 1: on January sixth, and you said it occurred to me
Speaker 1: that if we had the idea that stories weren't important,
Speaker 1: this moment right now is proof that they are. Because
Speaker 1: when a shitty story is propagated and gets into a
Speaker 1: human mind, pretty soon the human body starts doing very
Speaker 1: stupid stuff. It's really tragic to see people who had
Speaker 1: they been encoded with more reliable, good hearted information, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been there doing that stuff. Yeah, in the
Speaker 1: last year since we have spoken, what kind of stories
Speaker 1: do you think this country is starting to tell each
Speaker 1: other about ourselves. Do you think we're getting any better
Speaker 1: at storytelling? Well, I don't know about that. I think
Speaker 1: we're getting panicked. I think people are finally starting to
Speaker 1: realize that this isn't really a tenable thing. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like if you, you know, you had a married
Speaker 1: couple in a car and they're fighting, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they see they're in a blizzard and they
Speaker 1: go off the road. The fighting has a consequence. I'm
Speaker 1: picking up the first inklings of a tone that says,
Speaker 1: maybe this has gone far enough, you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: have to find some way to get this dragon back
Speaker 1: in the box of partisanship, you know, and of auto
Speaker 1: snark and all that. So I don't know that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the only hopeful thing I can I can see
Speaker 1: is that people are starting to be able. The strain
Speaker 1: of the instability, that's the first motion of change, is
Speaker 1: when people are like, this is unbearable, I can't do
Speaker 1: this anymore, and then suddenly they start looking at new solutions.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the interesting thing. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: I'm doing the subject is I wrote that Russian book.
Speaker 1: You know, the times were crazy. It was the election
Speaker 1: and the pandemic and all this stuff, And every day
Speaker 1: I went up there, I gave myself a little license
Speaker 1: to enjoy myself, you know, like to read Chekov, to
Speaker 1: forget everything else. Just let's look at these three people
Speaker 1: in this fictional world. And I always came down happier,
Speaker 1: a little more cheerful. Now you could say I was
Speaker 1: put my head in the sand, but I would say
Speaker 1: I was putting my head in the sand and then
Speaker 1: coming up peppier, you know. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things about the Story Club I'm feeling already
Speaker 1: is people are kind of going there for a little
Speaker 1: bit of good old fashioned positive community that isn't snarky,
Speaker 1: you know, and where you could take a chance and
Speaker 1: say something and no one's going to jumps on your throat.
Speaker 1: In a bad time like this, you have to find
Speaker 1: sustenance where you can, because whatever the world's going to
Speaker 1: require of you, it takes a certain amount of happiness
Speaker 1: to do it right. You know. I do believe your
Speaker 1: work and a few pieces of art this year are
Speaker 1: doing this thing you're talking about, where the ego and
Speaker 1: the conceptual mind, which you always talk about, they're very strong,
Speaker 1: but maybe in the act of engaging with a piece
Speaker 1: of art, whether it's check Off or George Saunders, it
Speaker 1: recedes and in that moment some mild transformation happened. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious, was there a piece of art for you
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one that did that. I actually had
Speaker 1: a really good reading year. I think when we were talking,
Speaker 1: I was reading Don Quixote and I finally got through
Speaker 1: that and that was a riot. And then I also
Speaker 1: read Maggie Nelson on Freedom, which was really beautiful, and
Speaker 1: then followed that with Dannis Spioto's novel Wayward. So so
Speaker 1: alsos are so powerful. They did what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: They just I felt out to write these things. These
Speaker 1: two women had to get out of their own way
Speaker 1: and really go for the truth, you know, And so
Speaker 1: I felt that transferred to me. The same with Joshua Ferris,
Speaker 1: that book of Calling for Charlie Barnes. Have you read that?
Speaker 1: I haven't read it really daring, and he takes on,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the American middle class hustler, you know,
Speaker 1: and he does it with so much love. It's so
Speaker 1: unexpectedly compassionate towards this guy that often fiction and TV
Speaker 1: kind of just kicks and you know, moves on some.
Speaker 1: And then I also discovered the work of a Monty Perry.
Speaker 1: She's got a new book called South to America that
Speaker 1: I'm reading now, and it's just the tonal originality of
Speaker 1: that thing is really inspiration. So I'll just dip in
Speaker 1: and kind of just be reminded about how if you
Speaker 1: take the trouble to really work with your pros, you
Speaker 1: can get it sounding like nobody else's and thereby saying
Speaker 1: new things. How was your writing this year? Well, I
Speaker 1: think it was pretty good. I finished the new book
Speaker 1: of stories back being in November. I think partly because
Speaker 1: of that Russian book. I just went on a tear
Speaker 1: like I wrote four new stories between then and now,
Speaker 1: which I never do. I'm like a one story or
Speaker 1: two story a year a person that we were up
Speaker 1: there in the cast skills and deep winter, you know,
Speaker 1: and so I just wrote like crazy. And this has
Speaker 1: been true my whole life, not just during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: If I'm feeling self doubting, which I constantly am, or
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling like I'm in love with life and
Speaker 1: I wish I could live bigger, which I always am
Speaker 1: sitting down and writing it at this point in my
Speaker 1: life is really the medicine, you know. I just love
Speaker 1: the feeling of saying I can't control anything else. I'm
Speaker 1: so confused by the world that's not going anywhere I
Speaker 1: wanted to. But in this one little realm, you know,
Speaker 1: I can exercise complete control. I know, you just turn
Speaker 1: sixty three. What are you self doubting about at this age? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean everything. I mean maybe it's just it's just
Speaker 1: who I am. But I you know, I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure you wrote some books, but you're probably done now,
Speaker 1: or you know, you wrote some books. I want if
Speaker 1: you can do better. And also just personally, you know,
Speaker 1: like I kind of know what I want to do
Speaker 1: and how I want to be, you know, which is
Speaker 1: like really nice and present and you know all that,
Speaker 1: But then in real life it's just I disappoint myself.
Speaker 1: So and I don't really see that as a bad trait,
Speaker 1: like for me to be self satisfied as the end
Speaker 1: of everything, you know. So I don't mind seeing a
Speaker 1: little bit of desire or self criticism bubbling up. I
Speaker 1: really like that feeling because then I just work harder.
Speaker 1: The way you're describing this want to be kind and decent,
Speaker 1: So many people associate your work, and I think your
Speaker 1: interviews with creating this empathy within them and in turn
Speaker 1: putting it back out into the world. And I do
Speaker 1: wonder when you're not kind, how bad does it feel
Speaker 1: for you? Because it's something when people start to think
Speaker 1: of you as someone, as people start to thank of
Speaker 1: you as someone who's kind and you're not, I have
Speaker 1: to imagine that it's tough to balance. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I try to think myself as someone who advocates for kindness.
Speaker 1: I'm not, you know, like I believe in it. I'm
Speaker 1: all for it. So that gets you off the hook
Speaker 1: a little bit, because I, you know, I'm such a
Speaker 1: cranky person sometimes I can't even pretend to be like
Speaker 1: Gonda or something. The more you talk, like, the more
Speaker 1: you're public, the more I'm public. This question of kindness up.
Speaker 1: You give a pithy answer and then it starts to
Speaker 1: work on it. Then you're like, oh God, I'm in
Speaker 1: my hotel and feeling grouchy, and I'm that guy who
Speaker 1: just talked about kindness, So that's not very fun. You know,
Speaker 1: to say to somebody be kind is pretty obnoxious and
Speaker 1: fascile you know, yeah, okay, sure, I'll just be kind.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting to me is to start poking it
Speaker 1: that a little bit and go, okay, so how was
Speaker 1: grouchy today? Why was it? And what could I have
Speaker 1: done about it at speed? Or what could I be
Speaker 1: doing every day? So that doesn't happen so often. And
Speaker 1: then you get into you know, all kinds of things
Speaker 1: like you know, presence of mind, And I guess the
Speaker 1: deepest thing is like when you are grouchy, what does
Speaker 1: that actually mean? Like, is there a way that you
Speaker 1: could that part of you could step outside of that
Speaker 1: temporary grouchy feeling and undo it? Maybe maybe not, you know,
Speaker 1: but suddenly now you're talking about something deeper than being kind.
Speaker 1: You're talking about your your relation to your own phenomenon.
Speaker 1: That's endlessly deep. So I think when I tuk up,
Speaker 1: I just be like, yeah, well of course you did.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just a guy who talks about kindness,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're like with that thing. But I'm
Speaker 1: not a doctor about a play one on TV, you know,
Speaker 1: I like that you're advocating for kindness. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's a good description. I'm a fan of it, Like
Speaker 1: if you're If I'm out on the road and I'm
Speaker 1: talking about kindness every day, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: the funk I'm talking. I'm just making it up. You know.
Speaker 1: I operated on the idea that if you could get
Speaker 1: a big public lives, you should take it, and I
Speaker 1: sort of defended it by saying, well, I'm a writer.
Speaker 1: I always complained that people don't pay attention to writers.
Speaker 1: If I get a chance to do something public, I'll
Speaker 1: do it. You're not thinking about the ratio. You know
Speaker 1: what ratio makes you feel healthier. So the subject thing
Speaker 1: is for me a perfect solution because it's private and
Speaker 1: that I'm doing it here in my house and I'm
Speaker 1: revising this stuff I'm typing as sort of an element
Speaker 1: of control, but it's also got this lovely community element.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of thinking I'm going to slide that in
Speaker 1: where this all this traveling used to be and just
Speaker 1: stay home a bunch more. You and I haven't really
Speaker 1: spoken since we sat down back in January, maybe early February,
Speaker 1: I can't remember, now, have you had a moment where
Speaker 1: life felt like life again. We did we when we
Speaker 1: first got back here to California. We just got vaccinated,
Speaker 1: and it was just that kind of window where I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's over. And we went out to
Speaker 1: the same place twice in a week or two. Here's
Speaker 1: what I felt is that in that moment, all of
Speaker 1: the built up tension of the previous year kind of
Speaker 1: went away. You know, probably the higher level way of
Speaker 1: thinking this is this is life. I mean, let's just
Speaker 1: imagine that this goes on forever. It's still life. You know,
Speaker 1: when people were in World War Two, when people were
Speaker 1: in the Civil War, it was life. For my own self,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, well, let's not make this binary
Speaker 1: of life and not life. This is life. It's a
Speaker 1: slightly messed up life relative to the one we used
Speaker 1: to have, but certainly there are still pleasures here, and
Speaker 1: there's still work to be done, and the time is
Speaker 1: still taken by. In a weird way, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get less hopeful about this thing being over and more
Speaker 1: resigned to trying to live it up while it's still on,
Speaker 1: I guess, or just accepting the fact that we have
Speaker 1: to live with it, yeah, which I think most of
Speaker 1: us want to avoid. I think that's a harder thing
Speaker 1: to reconcile. You're right, Well, the other thing I've been
Speaker 1: trying to do is just like, do the math of
Speaker 1: how many minutes a day am I actually living in
Speaker 1: a different way. I think I'm trying to avoid making
Speaker 1: too much of it in my mind. You know, we're
Speaker 1: still another pandemic. But in fact, yesterday, for example, I
Speaker 1: did absolutely nothing different. Everything was exactly the same. So
Speaker 1: I think that's another long term coping strategy is just
Speaker 1: to say, well, yeah, today I had to wear a
Speaker 1: mask for seven minutes. Okay, I can do that. You
Speaker 1: and your wife have been married since nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: is that right? That is right? May twenty third. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but the pandemic
Speaker 1: it's been tough. It's been tough for relationships. It's tested
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of breakups. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have had pandemic babies and then broken up
Speaker 1: and well, yeah, I know, and then break I'm maybe
Speaker 1: they get back together, but we don't know that. The
Speaker 1: stories it's unfinished. But I want to know, how the
Speaker 1: hell do you make something last that long and make
Speaker 1: it as lovely as it seems. I mean, honestly, I'm
Speaker 1: paraphrasing that, Olivia Harrison, but we just don't break up.
Speaker 1: We love each other and we have a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: but also we just it's not really something we're going
Speaker 1: to do. And so it's amazing how that takes the
Speaker 1: pressure off a little bit. You know, you have a
Speaker 1: bad week, you can have a disagreement, you can have
Speaker 1: a close period and a less close period. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter because that person is your partner. And then
Speaker 1: what happens in that space is you I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just builds up into us a real steadiness that says,
Speaker 1: this person has definitely seen me in every kind of
Speaker 1: weather and she's still here. So that makes you feel
Speaker 1: pretty loved. But we also joke, we said, let's try
Speaker 1: not to talk about our marriage in public because you
Speaker 1: don't want to be that you know, that couple. And
Speaker 1: then but yeah, it's been nice. I promise I won't
Speaker 1: forward her this talk easy tape. My last question for you,
Speaker 1: like I said, you turn sixty three about a week ago.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go see your kids over the holidays. As
Speaker 1: you know, we like to think of this show as
Speaker 1: a time capsule. What do you hope twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: looks and feels like I just hope that we put
Speaker 1: this pandemic behind us somehow that I really just there's
Speaker 1: so many other things to worry about behind that that
Speaker 1: I hope you can get her act together and start,
Speaker 1: you know, behaving like grown ups and just wear masks
Speaker 1: and get vaccines do the work. Personally, I it's the
Speaker 1: same every year, you know. I want to try to
Speaker 1: make progress in certain areas like writing would be one
Speaker 1: and meditation would be another. And then also I want
Speaker 1: to really try to visit in with family and stuff
Speaker 1: and friends, which has kind of been russo last a
Speaker 1: couple of years. But it's pretty much the same. I mean,
Speaker 1: I kind of I've always known what I wanted to
Speaker 1: do with my life. The big thing is how do
Speaker 1: I eliminate the daily inefficiencies and the kind of confusion
Speaker 1: of motives, you know, or either I'm working too hard
Speaker 1: and not taking care of personal stuff, or I'm forgetting
Speaker 1: to work, or my work is not focused. But it's
Speaker 1: it's always been kind of the same thing. So I
Speaker 1: just I just want to do better, you know, even
Speaker 1: at sixty three, there's room to draw. What's funny is
Speaker 1: it becomes urgent for one thing, and also it narrows
Speaker 1: you sort of see where you need to grow. A
Speaker 1: lot of the boxes are checked to offer. You know,
Speaker 1: you kind of have figured out that you're probably not
Speaker 1: going to be in the NBA, you know whatever, But
Speaker 1: then the stuff that remains is huge. It's kind of exciting. Actually,
Speaker 1: as you get older, the playing field narrows a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's two or three real difficult things
Speaker 1: to get over. You know, like if you said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to really be an incredibly loving person, you know,
Speaker 1: like goes, yeah, well, okay, how's that working out? You know,
Speaker 1: and you see, okay, though that's the only thing i
Speaker 1: want to do. Forget everything else. I'm gonna quit writing.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not even gonna drive anymore. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: sit at home and be trying to be a more
Speaker 1: loving person. And you see what you job that is.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the work of many lifetimes. So it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of exhilarating if they get older, especially because
Speaker 1: you know, like I still feel really energetic and re
Speaker 1: engaged in stuff you're saying, does it get narrower because
Speaker 1: of mortality concerns. No, well not really, you know. I
Speaker 1: think it's just that you've burned through the stupid shit.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. In my forties thirties, I might
Speaker 1: have imagined some different life or something, But now like
Speaker 1: I've convinced myself that I'm living the way I am
Speaker 1: for a very good reason. You know, writing is something
Speaker 1: I just love if I can't manage in doing anything else,
Speaker 1: and then some kind of spiritual developments in front of me.
Speaker 1: Continuing to be a father and husband, that's it, and
Speaker 1: the son. That's really about it. You know, travel, I
Speaker 1: don't really care anymore any of the other stuff that
Speaker 1: kind of falls away. So I guess it's just maybe
Speaker 1: it's just like having lived within your own mind and
Speaker 1: body long enough, you get some clarity on what really
Speaker 1: matters and what you're meant to do. I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know. I say that in the next year I'll
Speaker 1: learn whether it's a circus or something, So who knows.
Speaker 1: I know you hate being followed around by quotes, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to present a quote to you as we leave.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. By the way, you said, I
Speaker 1: have a very limited gift, and the essence of that gift,
Speaker 1: as I've come to understand it, is that I can
Speaker 1: sometimes produce a moment or two of increased empathy and
Speaker 1: a reader. And I'm grateful for that gift and understand
Speaker 1: it as fundamentally political stand behind that. I know you're
Speaker 1: still trying to figure a whole bunch out. I think,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's very reassuring to hear you at
Speaker 1: sixty three, still figuring it out, just like everyone else
Speaker 1: listening to this. But I thank you for the gift
Speaker 1: day after day. I think. I think when you stop
Speaker 1: trying to do that decline, life gets kind of scary,
Speaker 1: you know. That's when you start phoning stuff in, and
Speaker 1: so God saves from that. Yeah, thanks for reminding you
Speaker 1: that quote. That's a good that's a good aspiration anyway.
Speaker 1: Thank you for thinking to me, sim and and good
Speaker 1: luck in the new year and all that you do.
Speaker 1: George Sounders always, and thank you for the time. I'll
Speaker 1: see you on the other side. Good take care, be safe, byebye. Hello,
Speaker 1: This is Nick Offerman. Among the things that spoke to
Speaker 1: me this year is an older recording by the great
Speaker 1: Petra Hayden from two thousand and six or two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven or so entitled Petra Hayden Sings The Who
Speaker 1: Sell Out. She takes the record by The Who called
Speaker 1: The Who sell Out, and she records every sound of
Speaker 1: the record using her voice. So obviously she does the vocals,
Speaker 1: but then she does all the instruments as well and
Speaker 1: emulates the satirical advertisement interludes that The Who initially did.
Speaker 1: And it's just a hypnotic and genius piece of work.
Speaker 1: She's a very special talent and I highly recommend all
Speaker 1: of her works. Another piece of writing that really spoke
Speaker 1: to me is a book by my friend Patrick Lourie.
Speaker 1: In the UK, the book is called Native and in
Speaker 1: the United States the book is called Galloway Full Disclosure.
Speaker 1: I wrote an introduction for the book in the United States,
Speaker 1: but it hardly needed a goose from a slow talking actor.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful account of him and his wife making
Speaker 1: a go at a small farming operation, mainly raising native
Speaker 1: Galloway rigate cattle on a piece of land in the
Speaker 1: southwest of Scotland, where generations of his family have tried
Speaker 1: their hand at farming before him. It's a brutal and
Speaker 1: often thankless life that nonetheless is irresistible and full of
Speaker 1: passion and hard one rewards. He's one of the brains
Speaker 1: and hearts on the side of good, looking to perpetuate
Speaker 1: our species ability to live on this planet, rather than
Speaker 1: looking to maximize his profits by growing some monoculture or
Speaker 1: other on his land. Happy Holidays, Happy Holidays. This is
Speaker 1: Joy McMillan. A moment in twenty twenty one where life
Speaker 1: felt like life again and also I was inspired by art.
Speaker 1: Happened up in New York. We were there for the
Speaker 1: Zola premiere and our friend Jeremy surprised us with a
Speaker 1: sprinter van and took us around New York City and
Speaker 1: one of the stops was the Gagoshen and the director
Speaker 1: and curator Antoine took us on an amazing tour of
Speaker 1: the current exhibit and one of the ones that stuck
Speaker 1: out to me was I Believe It was called a
Speaker 1: Song for Frankie. It was a selection of some of
Speaker 1: Frankie Knuckles albums, and it was quite fascinating because some
Speaker 1: of these were like these really one of a kind.
Speaker 1: Not too many of them exists in the world, and
Speaker 1: as the DJ was playing them, he was also making
Speaker 1: a digital recording of the Vinyl to Be Archive, which
Speaker 1: I thought was such a smart way to preserve the past.
Speaker 1: It was amazing to walk around and see people still
Speaker 1: doing art and still being inspired by the world, even
Speaker 1: though we are facing this pandemic that left it a
Speaker 1: lot longer than I think a lot of us thought
Speaker 1: it would. It was a great day and New York
Speaker 1: felt alive again, and I was happy to be there.
Speaker 1: I hope you all have a happy, happy New Year,
Speaker 1: and I'll see you in twenty twenty two. Thanks bye. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Jennick Soa bravo. I'm a writer, I'm a director.
Speaker 1: What piece of art spoke to me this year? The
Speaker 1: first film I saw in a theater this year was
Speaker 1: on April thirtieth. I remember it because I got into
Speaker 1: a car accident May first the was it was by
Speaker 1: Moses Sumney. I knew it was a screening of a
Speaker 1: film that he had worked on, that he had directed,
Speaker 1: and I was late. I'm always late, and I had
Speaker 1: texted him and then I thought, oh, it's so rude
Speaker 1: to be texting someone that you're going to be late
Speaker 1: to their thing, but you also want them to know
Speaker 1: that you're definitely coming. So then at some point I
Speaker 1: stopped texting because I didn't want him to be spending
Speaker 1: any energy on me. Anyways, I get there and it's playing.
Speaker 1: You know, we're minutes into the piece. It's called Black Alasia.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm standing for about twenty minutes in
Speaker 1: the wings and then I finally take a step forward
Speaker 1: into the theater a bit into the light, and when
Speaker 1: I looked to the left, the room is pretty full.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's masked. At this point, I'm double vaxed,
Speaker 1: and I think everyone in the space is double vaxed, right,
Speaker 1: And I had this kind of paralysis where I was
Speaker 1: afraid to walk into the room for a few reasons. One,
Speaker 1: I'm standing there for long enough that I feel like
Speaker 1: if I walk in, people are going to think that
Speaker 1: I just got there, and then there isn't the room
Speaker 1: to explain that I've actually been there, and then I've
Speaker 1: just been standing Exactly the thing I was dreading happens,
Speaker 1: which is I get there and then you know a
Speaker 1: handful of people that I know that I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: or asking if I just got there and there I
Speaker 1: can't talk over the movies, so I don't. Anyways, it
Speaker 1: was my first time in a theater since I think
Speaker 1: I don't know March of the year before, so it's
Speaker 1: now the last day of April. I really miss that
Speaker 1: that dark, I miss that quiet. I miss looking at
Speaker 1: someone else's breath pattern and you know, some distant kind
Speaker 1: of laugh or hearing someone's stomach. And the work was stunning.
Speaker 1: I mean, Moses's voice is godly right, you know, he
Speaker 1: is extraterrestrial. The other things I was going to cite
Speaker 1: was being in London and going to the Tape Modern
Speaker 1: and I hadn't been to a museum in over a year,
Speaker 1: and going to see this play that my Pala mccorn
Speaker 1: was in, and I hadn't seen a play in over
Speaker 1: a year. And those three experiences are in harmony or synonymous.
Speaker 1: As I missed being around strangers, I longed for strangers.
Speaker 1: I was hungry for strangers. And it was so wild
Speaker 1: and fun and just it was something I hadn't done
Speaker 1: in a really long time. And it was the first
Speaker 1: time in a bit that I just thought like I
Speaker 1: kind of want to like let go some because I've
Speaker 1: been so fucking wound up my like anus has been
Speaker 1: like so coiled and so far up my body that
Speaker 1: it's like basically like touching my fucking intestines, you know,
Speaker 1: which might actually be how your body works. Anyways, this
Speaker 1: doesn't stand up. I felt like I was breathing, you know.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was really looking through my eyes.
Speaker 1: That was writer and director Jannicks, Bravo editor Joe McMillan,
Speaker 1: actor and author Nick Offerman. Our last guest is Winnie
Speaker 1: bi an Ema. She's the executive director of UNAIDS. She's
Speaker 1: spearheading the efforts to end AIDS by twenty thirty. In
Speaker 1: the past, she served in the parliament of her home
Speaker 1: country of Uganda before becoming the executive director of Oxfam.
Speaker 1: She's also a long standing champion and activist for social
Speaker 1: justice and gender equality. As we were putting this holiday
Speaker 1: special together, I have to be honest, she was the
Speaker 1: first person I really wanted to hear from. I have
Speaker 1: a feeling you'll understand why in a second. So why
Speaker 1: don't we call her up? Winning an Ema? Hi, So,
Speaker 1: how are you doing. I'm okay. I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: see you again. How are you well. It's been almost
Speaker 1: a year since we last did this. A lot has
Speaker 1: happened in the world. I'm curious because we haven't spoken.
Speaker 1: What have you been up to this year. I have
Speaker 1: a feeling it's been a much more interesting year for
Speaker 1: you than me. Well, I don't know, but certainly this
Speaker 1: year has been a big one for us here at
Speaker 1: NAIs where I work, because this was the fortieth year
Speaker 1: since the first case of HIV was identified, actually in
Speaker 1: the United States, and it's twenty five years since our
Speaker 1: Joint Program of the United Nations was created, so well,
Speaker 1: were marking forty years of the disease. We haven't ended it.
Speaker 1: We have no cure and we have no vaccine, but
Speaker 1: we've put almost three quarters of the people who live
Speaker 1: with HIV on treatment and they're living good lives. That's
Speaker 1: like thirty million people, but we still have ten million
Speaker 1: others to put on treatment. Now, you mentioned HIV AIDS,
Speaker 1: and I want to stick with this because the international
Speaker 1: nature of this pandemic. It's something that Americans have had
Speaker 1: a hard time processing. Again and again. You recently released
Speaker 1: a video where you spoke on the comparisons between COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and the AIDS epidemic. Could you speak to that
Speaker 1: a little bit while we're here. Yes, I had the
Speaker 1: pleasure to narrate a film together with the Priest Hurry
Speaker 1: of the UK, and we were highlighting the parallels. Unless
Speaker 1: we do the things that we know our right to
Speaker 1: end a pandemic, whether I say HIV or COVID, we
Speaker 1: won't end HIV and we won't end COVID. And what
Speaker 1: are those one that you must make the right to
Speaker 1: health a right for everyone to enjoy. It can't be
Speaker 1: for some are note for others. A pandemic doesn't choose
Speaker 1: it just knocks everyone in the way. So equality, ending
Speaker 1: inequalities in health is key. But look at the world
Speaker 1: we are in. There's a vaccine seventy percent of people
Speaker 1: in which countries are vaccinated, only about seven to six
Speaker 1: percent are vaccinated in the developing countries. What is that
Speaker 1: We will not end the epidemic without vaccinating everybody. So
Speaker 1: vaccine equity is key. We had the same problem with
Speaker 1: the HIV when the anti retrovirus came twelve million people
Speaker 1: in Africa died waiting for the prices to come down.
Speaker 1: Eventually they did, but still we have to push and
Speaker 1: push and push until we have all medicines, all health
Speaker 1: technologies available to everybody at the same time and for free.
Speaker 1: That's important. We also raise other issues, but this is
Speaker 1: the most important right now, the vaccine equity in the world.
Speaker 1: By not solving it, we are getting new variants. Omicron
Speaker 1: didn't have to happen. Another variant wilcome until we vaccinate
Speaker 1: the whole world. You and your team are on the
Speaker 1: ground combating this issue, and I'm curious. You said that
Speaker 1: there are things that we now are the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, and yet when you said that, my first
Speaker 1: start was, but we don't do them. Yes, we don't
Speaker 1: do them because we have allowed very rich people and
Speaker 1: their companies to write the rules for us and keep
Speaker 1: making super super super profits money they will never spend
Speaker 1: in a lifetime as people die. So those rules need
Speaker 1: to change. South Africa and India have put in a
Speaker 1: proposal that the rules on this monopoly be suspended for
Speaker 1: a while until the pandemic is over, and most of
Speaker 1: the world agree with them, but a handful of countries
Speaker 1: of leaders whose companies are maximizing profit won't sign on,
Speaker 1: so we want those countries to join the consensus. Good enough.
Speaker 1: President Biden has joined that consensus once the rules suspended,
Speaker 1: but some European countries have resisted, and we still are
Speaker 1: waiting for them to come on board. Until then, no
Speaker 1: other company can make it without being sued if it
Speaker 1: copies the technology that's available. So that's why. But there
Speaker 1: are also other things ensuring that health systems work for everybody.
Speaker 1: We know that even if the vaccine itself is available,
Speaker 1: but you have a health system that doesn't treat everyone equally,
Speaker 1: that there will be people left out. So we need
Speaker 1: to have also human rights for everybody and non discrimination.
Speaker 1: This issue of inequality, it's something you talked about last
Speaker 1: time we did this, and he said, inequalities are not
Speaker 1: natural to us. When we find them when we are young,
Speaker 1: we question them. But as we get older, the social
Speaker 1: norms of society start helping us accept them. We don't
Speaker 1: have to accept any equalities. Now you're in your sixties,
Speaker 1: unable to accept an equality, how do you do that?
Speaker 1: I'm young, got hurt. Let me put it this way.
Speaker 1: I am suspicious of status or and convention. I question
Speaker 1: all the time. You see. I find it so strange
Speaker 1: when I'm in the meetings with people from business and
Speaker 1: when we start talking, for example, about this vaccding equity,
Speaker 1: they always start by telling you that we are all
Speaker 1: for making sure everybody gets vaccinated, but please, let's not
Speaker 1: talk about the rules. If the rules work for you,
Speaker 1: you defend them. If they don't work for you, you
Speaker 1: challenge them. I happen to be from a very poor
Speaker 1: country called Uganda. I'm a black woman around this world,
Speaker 1: I'm a CEO, but many times I'm pushed around like
Speaker 1: I am illegal, not legit wherever I go. So I
Speaker 1: am reminded constantly that my race, my country, my gender
Speaker 1: put me at the bottom, even though actually have overcome
Speaker 1: that I'm at the top. That's fun makes me challenge
Speaker 1: all the time because anyway, I am confronted with inequalities
Speaker 1: all the time. What's an example of you being pushed around?
Speaker 1: There is a restaurant here. I have made a joke
Speaker 1: about it. I like it. I like the food, it's
Speaker 1: very nice food. Every time I went there, they will
Speaker 1: tell me there's no table, even when I can see
Speaker 1: how the restaurant is empty, and I would insist and insist.
Speaker 1: Then they'll give me a table right at the back
Speaker 1: and near the toilets. And when I see the restaurant
Speaker 1: with seeds facing the beautiful Geneva and they never allowed
Speaker 1: me half of you, So I started being very stubborn
Speaker 1: but funny, and I would keep out at the end
Speaker 1: of my name, say excuse me, you said that table
Speaker 1: was results. Nobody's been there the last one out and
Speaker 1: a half, and I would laugh. Now I started to
Speaker 1: say to them, I think you don't like me because
Speaker 1: of how I look. So then we started to apologize.
Speaker 1: So now now I go there, they are not racist anymore.
Speaker 1: But it took a year to give them to accept
Speaker 1: me because of a stubbornness. But now I can't do
Speaker 1: that all the time. I tried to hail a taxi
Speaker 1: in your own city in New York. Then I repasses
Speaker 1: right by me and stops at the next block and
Speaker 1: pick somebody else. Yeah, I face the same discrimination that
Speaker 1: people might color face black people. And when you are
Speaker 1: also a woman, they look at you. They think you
Speaker 1: are the cleaning lady. I enter buildings for meetings, and
Speaker 1: they first stopped me and interview me and ask for
Speaker 1: my all my documents, and then maybe with my staff
Speaker 1: member who is white too, who is not asked the question.
Speaker 1: I love God, but this kind of world is not natural.
Speaker 1: It happened like that because of history, and we as
Speaker 1: people can choose not to live like that. So I resist,
Speaker 1: I stand up for myself, and I do my job
Speaker 1: in a way where I'm always as starting equality for
Speaker 1: everyone and for myself. To those experiences, ever, harden your
Speaker 1: heart at all, I have to say. Sometimes I'm angry
Speaker 1: and I speak loudly and angrily, but most of the time,
Speaker 1: my attitude is that I must not be distracted from
Speaker 1: what I've come to do. Don't spend all your life
Speaker 1: fighting discrimination and racism. Mine it's all around you. But
Speaker 1: if you pay attention all the time, you'll not get
Speaker 1: your job done. But yeah, sometimes it does get at me,
Speaker 1: but I have to remind myself that I have overcoming.
Speaker 1: I am forced to think about those who are crushed
Speaker 1: at the bottom, who cannot rise, who are crushed forever.
Speaker 1: You know, every one of us can do something, and
Speaker 1: I have to say that there is energy and enthusiasm
Speaker 1: that comes from trying to do something beyond yourself. Fortunate
Speaker 1: to have a job where I'm trying hard to make
Speaker 1: a difference in people's lives through healthcare, so that gives
Speaker 1: me energy, and there is something that propels me to
Speaker 1: fight on because there's something that some people gain from
Speaker 1: so equally every one of us can do something you can't.
Speaker 1: Volunteer in your community. There are so many people who
Speaker 1: need shelter, who need food, who need care, who need
Speaker 1: someone to talk to them. They might be old and alone.
Speaker 1: All this improves the quality of life of someone, And
Speaker 1: you can join a group and all this will bring
Speaker 1: you energy and even better health. Because rather than sit
Speaker 1: they're angry at someone who's been racist to me on
Speaker 1: the street, I channel oh my anger and frustration in
Speaker 1: a job that is about helping other people. So to me,
Speaker 1: activism brings joy and health and spirit. You know the phrase,
Speaker 1: sometimes the only way out is in. That's it. That's
Speaker 1: so clever. It's just sometimes you don't want to go
Speaker 1: back in. It's true. The world is so unjust, and
Speaker 1: I think the only way to live with hope is
Speaker 1: to commit to do something to make it more just.
Speaker 1: This idea of home and shelter and refuge is central
Speaker 1: to what we're doing this year on the holiday special.
Speaker 1: What does home and this time of the year mean
Speaker 1: to you? And how and where do you spend it?
Speaker 1: Like most people, I want to be with. Funnily, yesterday
Speaker 1: I was sticking with one of us that I here
Speaker 1: who told me I have to run. I'm going to
Speaker 1: meet my daughter at the airport. I haven't seen now
Speaker 1: for a year and a half, So this season for me,
Speaker 1: I'm conscious of the fact that there are many people
Speaker 1: who haven't been with their families because of COVID, not
Speaker 1: being able to travel, or people who've lost jobs and
Speaker 1: are stuck and have no money. So I feel so
Speaker 1: lucky to be able to I'm going to take off
Speaker 1: some time with my son, will go in the sun
Speaker 1: because for me, holiday season like this is not the
Speaker 1: snow and it's not snowflakes. For me, sunshine. So we're
Speaker 1: going to go to Africa and enjoy some sun, spend
Speaker 1: time together, read books in nature. That is what holiday
Speaker 1: is for me, for me to be in a garden,
Speaker 1: to be the bush, to be the sun and family.
Speaker 1: Since we spoke, have you had a moment where life
Speaker 1: started to feel like life again, where you had some
Speaker 1: experience that reminded you of life before March of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty Oh, yes, I was so nucky. In November I
Speaker 1: had been invited to the Paris Peace Forum, but after
Speaker 1: the meeting, I went to are Not Fair. It's called
Speaker 1: also known as Africa, and that art Fair so many
Speaker 1: art dealers literally say, and so people come there to
Speaker 1: see contemporary African art to admiring to buy it. You
Speaker 1: find their collectors, you find their curitos, journalists, writers, musicians
Speaker 1: and beautiful art. And suddenly I felt I'm an art lover.
Speaker 1: And suddenly I felt the world that I had been
Speaker 1: in where I I could visit all galleries all the time,
Speaker 1: like attend expeditions all the time, had come back. This
Speaker 1: was embarrassing. In November, and I was able to buy
Speaker 1: two nice pieces of art from Zambique that was nice,
Speaker 1: really nice. It made me feel life was coming back.
Speaker 1: And do you think it is, yes for some, not
Speaker 1: for others. Because even as I was there and in
Speaker 1: that artfare, with all this beautiful art from all over Africa,
Speaker 1: in fact, I didn't even have to wear a mask
Speaker 1: by the wing, this omicron hadn't come yet. I remember
Speaker 1: I said Channel dwel to wear my mask. The signal
Speaker 1: you don't have to as long as you've vaccinated. So
Speaker 1: it really domed on me that, my goodness, these people
Speaker 1: are vaccinated. I mean, this space with hundreds of people,
Speaker 1: it's clothes. No one's wearing a mask because it's free
Speaker 1: from the virus, and yet back hold in Africa, less
Speaker 1: than seven percent of the people have been vaccinated. I
Speaker 1: felt the inequality deeply. That everything was normal in the
Speaker 1: rich North, and I was enjoying what I always enjoy,
Speaker 1: but I was conscious in my head because it's just
Speaker 1: coming from convoction. I was so aware that everywhere else
Speaker 1: in the developing world, they're not back yet. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: on the one hand, gold, on the other, heart paying
Speaker 1: at the inequality your whole life. It seems like you
Speaker 1: have to hold those two worlds every day. For some
Speaker 1: You're so perceptive. It's true. I live two realities and
Speaker 1: I have to hold them together all the time. I
Speaker 1: cannot escape from one. I have this phone. It is
Speaker 1: the constant reminder again because technology has brought us together.
Speaker 1: Every few minutes, I'm getting a message from my village
Speaker 1: in Barrera telling me that I can't pay fees for
Speaker 1: my child, or my dad is in the hospital and
Speaker 1: I can't pay the bill. Can you help me. I
Speaker 1: am constantly aware of the challenges people face where I
Speaker 1: come from, while I'm also living in abandance myself and
Speaker 1: those around me. So there are two realities I have
Speaker 1: to deal with all the time. And if i'd meaning
Speaker 1: now that I'm at any one time doing the right
Speaker 1: thing for myself, my family, for my community. In these
Speaker 1: two realities that you have as you move into twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, what do you hope to do? And both
Speaker 1: of them a big, big agenda ahead? Are you pulling
Speaker 1: out a notebook for the agenda now? I'm I'm looking
Speaker 1: at a lond As I go forward in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: I'll keep focused on two things. One is to keep
Speaker 1: reminding both people in government and people in business that
Speaker 1: they have the keys to end to pandemics, COVID and HIV,
Speaker 1: that they just need to be leaders and do the
Speaker 1: right thing. And that right thing will save lives, save
Speaker 1: our economies, save jobs, create new jobs, and move us forward.
Speaker 1: But they have to focus on those inequalities that are
Speaker 1: stopping us from ending a terrible disease. They have to
Speaker 1: focus on that. So I will be doing more advocacy.
Speaker 1: I will be mobilizing more. I'll be raising the voice
Speaker 1: for HIV because it's almost forgotten because everyone's panicking about COVID.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that HIV last year killed six
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety thousand people, one and a half million
Speaker 1: people when you reinfected. So it's going on. So I'd
Speaker 1: have to keep reminding the world of that. I will
Speaker 1: also help to keep raising funds to get that work
Speaker 1: done and reminding business and politicians that you can solve this.
Speaker 1: Be leaders do the right thing. We can't be beholden
Speaker 1: to a few companies making super profits. They've made their
Speaker 1: money several times over ready. You know what, We've calculated
Speaker 1: that FISA, Moderna and Astra Zenega are making a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars every scad of profit. So count one, two, four thousand,
Speaker 1: five thousand, six thous By the end of my centers,
Speaker 1: they've got ten thousand limb the account. What's that? Do
Speaker 1: they really need any more money? Where can they pass
Speaker 1: the technology on? And we must produce these vaccines for everyone.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what I'm going to be doing,
Speaker 1: Stronger advocacy for equity for both in both HIV and COVID,
Speaker 1: and pushing for leadership to make those decisions. Many people
Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of hope right now. You've
Speaker 1: rattled off a handful of issues. Things I know you
Speaker 1: will do. Do you believe people will do the right thing? Yes,
Speaker 1: they will have to but it's taking too long, and
Speaker 1: people are dying, and not dying just from COVID because
Speaker 1: now people in listening your radio are no longer hearing
Speaker 1: of COVID debts. But people are suffering, people who have
Speaker 1: lost jobs and continue to lose jobs. People are dying
Speaker 1: of other diseases that are not being taken care of
Speaker 1: in the developing countries because the systems are overwhelmed. Kids
Speaker 1: are not in school in many countries, and those who
Speaker 1: are in school are not where they should be. They've
Speaker 1: lost a year, the lost two years, violence against women
Speaker 1: and girls have spied. So these things continue to happen
Speaker 1: as we wait for leaders to step up. But they
Speaker 1: will step up. And I'm sad to think that this
Speaker 1: is going to happen only after so much suffering and
Speaker 1: paid but I can see that the way it's rocking
Speaker 1: the markets and the economies, the way politicians are finding
Speaker 1: it harder and harder to look credible in the rich
Speaker 1: countries for their own electorate, because when they've declared victory,
Speaker 1: then omicron comes. When they have boosted the vaccine, another
Speaker 1: variant will emerge from another poor country that hasn't got vaccines,
Speaker 1: and then they will have to explain to their people
Speaker 1: why once again they are locking them down. All this
Speaker 1: is going to force them ultimately to find the final
Speaker 1: solution to this Vaccinate everybody. But why is it taking
Speaker 1: them so long to see? They are going to lose
Speaker 1: elections and that's all they care about. These politicians. They
Speaker 1: will lose their elections because they keep making a promise
Speaker 1: and the virus hits again, so it defeats logic. They're
Speaker 1: going to do the right thing, but it's coming late,
Speaker 1: and anyway, we must keep pushing for the right decisions,
Speaker 1: and so we'll keep advocating. We'll all keep supporting the
Speaker 1: work in the developing countries of helping the health systems
Speaker 1: to cope and for people to have their right to
Speaker 1: get services. So that's the work we do well until
Speaker 1: those leaders do the right thing. We're not naming any
Speaker 1: names here, but I thank you for doing the right
Speaker 1: thing in their place, and more importantly, I thank you
Speaker 1: for looking beyond yourself for as long as you have
Speaker 1: and as fearlessly as you have and maybe just maybe
Speaker 1: inspiring some of us to do the same. Sounds like
Speaker 1: you're so kind, But thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: platform for using it to sub humanity. You do an
Speaker 1: amazing job to bring these issues on your platform and
Speaker 1: share with a whole audience that listens to you. Thank
Speaker 1: you too. It is a modest offering, and anytime you
Speaker 1: want to come, please, I would love to speak with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'll be back until then. Winnie be an Ema,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Thank you. By Happy holidays, and
Speaker 1: that's our show. Before I go through the credits, a
Speaker 1: few words, I just keep thinking about what Winnie said
Speaker 1: at the end. There there is energy and enthusiasm that
Speaker 1: comes from trying to do something beyond yourself. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's what I most hope for in the year to come,
Speaker 1: that we can collectively do something beyond ourselves for others,
Speaker 1: for the people around us, the people whose names will
Speaker 1: never know, whose holiday dinners will never attend. As COVID
Speaker 1: cases continue to surge in America and abroad, it's been
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult, at least for me to find or feel hope.
Speaker 1: It's like that feeling after your heart has been broken
Speaker 1: and you can't imagine falling in love again. It seems
Speaker 1: too daunting, too painful. But then and time you do,
Speaker 1: or at the very least you try to, because The
Speaker 1: alternative to not love or to not try to do
Speaker 1: something beyond yourself is so bleak that there really wouldn't
Speaker 1: be any point in continuing onward. Noam Chomsky said, we
Speaker 1: continue onward by embracing the bicycle theory. If you keep
Speaker 1: riding the bike, you won't fall off. I like that,
Speaker 1: especially from him at age ninety three. But I go
Speaker 1: back to Winnie here. She said, the world is so unjust,
Speaker 1: and I think the only way to live with hope
Speaker 1: is to commit to do something to make it more just.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're going to do here with this show,
Speaker 1: every Sunday, every week, even as we remain in repair.
Speaker 1: Those are the words I'm going to hold and bring
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty two, on the show and off. For now,
Speaker 1: I want to give a special thanks to all those
Speaker 1: who made today's episode possible. Ts Madison, Jake Tapper, Vicki Creeps,
Speaker 1: Julie Delpy, Toyeen og Odetola, Anna Sale, Glynn Turman, George Saunders,
Speaker 1: Nick Offerman, Joy McMillan, Janick so A Bravo, and of course,
Speaker 1: Winnie Bienema. To hear our conversations with each of those
Speaker 1: people from twenty twenty one. Visit talk easypod dot com
Speaker 1: to find more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You
Speaker 1: can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk
Speaker 1: easypod once again. If you want to purchase one of
Speaker 1: our mugs they Come and Cream or Navy, or our
Speaker 1: vinyl record with fran Lebowitz, you can do so at
Speaker 1: talk easypod dot com slash shop. That's talk easypond dot
Speaker 1: com slash shop. We'll be donating one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: the proceeds to the good people at Covenant House. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about our fundraiser and their great work
Speaker 1: on our website. I want to thank our team for
Speaker 1: making this episode and really this year possible. Talk easy
Speaker 1: is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Jannick Sobravo.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited
Speaker 1: by Caitlin Dryden and Clarice Guvara. It was mixed by
Speaker 1: Ben Polladay, illustrations by Christia Schanoi. Our engineer is Tim
Speaker 1: Moore out of York, Recording here in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Gaberzac, Ian Jones,
Speaker 1: and Ethan Seneca. Special thanks to Patrice Lee, Kaylin Ung,
Speaker 1: Shilo Fagan, Nikki Spina, and Callie Syringis. I'd also like
Speaker 1: to thank Delizia, Clea Benson, and David Cameron. Of course,
Speaker 1: our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Heather Fame, Mia LaBelle,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, Maya Knig, Carly Minkleori Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, and Malcolm Cladwell. I'm san fragoso. As always,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I hope you
Speaker 1: and yours are remaining safe. I hope you're eating too
Speaker 1: much food. I hope you and your annoying cousin have
Speaker 1: only fought about politics once so far. I hope you
Speaker 1: fall asleep watching a movie on the couch. I hope
Speaker 1: you're okay. We'll be back with new episodes come January.
Speaker 1: Until then, stay safe and solo