THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.4 - JON RONSON

Episode Date: October 7, 2015

Adam Buxton talks to Jon Ronson (author of 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed', 'The Psychopath Test', 'The Men Who Stare At Goats' etc. about dealing with criticism, Woody Allen, neuroses, podcasts and the reaction to his latest book. At the end of the podcast Adam also unveils his brand new song about James Bond, which may or may not be considered unnecessary overkill... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello. Do you love swearing? Well, you're in luck. There is swearing in this week's podcast. Enjoy! Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this. That's the plan. Hey, how you doing? Adam Buxton here. Thank you very much for downloading this podcast, which this week features a conversation,

actually a couple of conversations between myself and John Ronson. Who's John Ronson? John Ronson is a writer of interesting books. If his writing were a pop song, it would be full of hooks. He likes to think about what makes human beings tick and quizzically prod at them with his writing stick. Nice. Yeah, John Ronson in jingle form there. Slightly more expanded version of that would be that John,

as well as being a documentary filmmaker and a brilliant radio presenter, his show John Ronson On, I think can still be found on his website. He's written books like The Men Who Stare at Goats, Them, Adventures with Extremists, The Psychopath Test, of course, which encouraged everyone to go around analysing their friends and people they knew for signs that they might be psychopathic. Very enjoyable. And this year, 2015, saw the publication of his book So You've Been Publicly Shamed. It deals with the way that the internet and particularly sites

like twitter have facilitated people's desire to engage with acts of public humiliation to chastise people that they feel have crossed the line in some way and it investigates what happens in those situations what motivates people to do the chastising, and also what happens to the people who are publicly humiliated, how their lives turn out thereafter. It's really fascinating and compelling and scary as well. I met up with John in New York towards the beginning of last year, 2014. John lives in New York, and I was out there doing a few comedy shows at places like the UCB the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and and good to hook up with John although I was very jet-lagged when I spoke to him I'd only arrived the night before and John was tired as well he was in the

middle of writing So You've Been Publicly Shamed and we met up in this little flat that i was renting on the lower east side of new york and i got it off airbnb in fact it was people on twitter who recommended that i use airbnb and it turned out to be fantastic although it was a little bit like being in a race ahead every now and again no dancing chickens by the radiators but the pipes would occasionally start hissing in quite an alarming way you might be able to hear that in the conversation there were a couple of audio problems with the conversation actually but i think i've cleaned it up more or less and we just had a nice rambly self-indulgent chat about things like woody allen and life on twitter in

general and neuroses that we both suffer from. We're both quite neurotic people, it turns out. And we started by talking about criticism in general, the idea of how you respond to other people's opinions of your work, which can be quite difficult. And towards the end of this podcast, we delve into that subject further in a conversation that I taped yesterday when we chatted on Skype but first of all here's last year's conversation with John Ronson. What I realised long ago is that if you get a really great review like the best review you could possibly imagine I have probably five seconds of satisfaction. Yeah. And then I forget all about it.

Depending on whether there are any spelling mistakes in the review. That's my criteria. No, my thing is that literally, okay, good. Okay, I can sort of tick that off. That's good. Yeah. And then I forget about it. Yeah.

So then if you get a really bad review, surely you should give it exactly the amount of time and emotion. Of course. Of course you should. That's very much easier said than done. But you know, I do do it now. Do you? Yeah, I think, okay, that person likes it.

That person doesn't like it. What if someone really nails something that you are insecure about? Does that not keep its claws in you? You know, not really. I sort of think, okay, that's, yeah, we can all learn. You know, we can all get better. It's like if somebody who I... What if the implication, though, could all learn you know we can all get better it's like if somebody who what if what if the implication though is that no you can't get better you're

just rubbish well then you think well they're a troll yeah yeah yeah like a girl um i'm trying to think what would hurt me i think if i was accused of impropriety i'd feel hurt um impropriety. I'd feel hurt. Impropriety. Yeah. Unfounded allegations of impropriety. Yeah, I think that would hurt. That would hurt, wouldn't it? Yeah, but no, otherwise. Speaking of which, though, and this is a controversial segue, Woody Allen. Right.

We don't know whether they are founded or unfounded allegations, We don't know whether they are founded or unfounded allegations. But what sad times these are to be a Woody Allen fan, someone who you kind of grew up with. I can't speak for you, but I certainly grew up with him being someone I loved and respected as a filmmaker. And now liking his films is a kind of political act, controversial in all kinds of ways. And you feel like you, you know, you have to choose your moment to talk about him or express appreciation for him. He made that transition easier by making mainly bad films for the last 10 or 15 years. Yeah. But then but then, like, I can't really think of anyone else who's turned it round the way he has.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, Blue Jasmine. Like, after an unbroken run of dog plops for about 10 years or something? Yeah. And then Blue Jasmine was good, and Midnight in Paris was good. Midnight in Paris was very good, yeah. I got into a little bit of trouble on Twitter about that. Right.

Twitter's not the best place to get into conversations about anything complicated i don't think yeah and yet people regularly do well if somebody really um correctly tweeted um the other thing about woody allen said it's two moral positions i.e sympathizing with with a silenced victim and innocent until proven guilty, colliding into each other and then exploding. I mean, that's what happened with Woody Allen. Somebody who I really admire and know a little bit as a person tweeted me some really kind of, you know, hostile... I got involved in...

Because your position, though, is that Twitter's not the best place to make these judgments. Yeah, well, my position is sort of based on the fact that I'm writing a book at the moment about public shaming. And so I wasn't actually thinking I mean, this is and I'm not saying this, you know, as a defense of myself, in fact, quite the opposite. I wasn't really thinking of the Woody Allen story, in terms of what it was about i was thinking about our reaction towards it as being you know yet another in a long corrosive string of you know pylons and actually it became really clear really quickly that using woody allen as an example of that was not a good idea yeah because

it immediately becomes about something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I still stand by, you know, the pile-on, my criticism of the pile-on. Yeah. And I'm sure I'm right about that. Well, I was looking at a thing the other day

about this crime author, Lynn Shepard, who I hadn't heard of, I must say, who wrote something on the Huffington Post about how J.K. Rowling should stop writing adult fiction. Oh, yeah, I heard about this. Because it was making it difficult for other authors to get recognition. Right. Because everyone was reviewing her.

I mean, it was a ridiculous piece. Let's see if I can find it here. It was really insane. And it's see if I can find it here. It was really insane. And it's, ah, here we go. She starts off by saying, when I told a friend the title of this piece, she looked at me and the title is, if J.K. Rowling cares about writing,

she should stop doing it. When I told a friend about the title of this piece, she looked at me in horror and said, you can't say that. Everyone will just put it down to sour grapes. And then she continues for about five paragraphs of just about the sourest grapes you've ever, ever seen. This is the last paragraph. This is my plea to J.K. Rowling.

Remember what it was like when The Cuckoo's Calling, this book that she's upset about, that was originally published anonymously. And then everyone found out that it was, or not anonymously, but under a pseudonym. Had only sold a few boxes. And think about those of us who are stuck there because we can't wave a wand and turn our books into overnight bestsellers merely by saying the magic word. By all means, keep writing for kids or for your personal pleasure i would never deny anyone that that's generous but when it comes to the adult market you've had your turn she said you've had your turn enjoy your vast fortune and the good you're doing with it that's nice luxuriate in the

love of your legions of fans and good luck to you on both counts but it's time to give other writers and other writing room to breathe so she writes this and it's on the huffington post and basically as you say people started piling on because you know justifiably outraged by that ridiculous article yeah but then they then they think oh no she's she's got to be told and she's got to be taught so then they start going on to her amazon reviews right and skewing them so that they're all like one star really yeah and just carpet bombing everything all her online presence with hate and and saying don't buy this this is crap all her books and stuff this author god and i i mean i checked on on twitter she's still tweeting like she tweets loads she tweets

about 30 tweets a day or something more than that maybe apologetic well i didn't check back that far but no not really she seems fine she seems fine which i'm which i'm actually glad about because i i people can get destroyed. Yeah, exactly. The whole thing's happened with the Ross family today, I noticed. Jonathan Ross's family. No, no, what's happened? Oh, somebody, he was supposed to be presenting some award.

And this woman who might be winning an award said, basically, I don't want Jonathan Ross to be presenting this award ceremony because I am overweight and I don't want him making any fat jokes. What? Yeah. So she was thinking there was a possibility. So she was accusing him of something he hadn't actually done. And then everyone got very upset and everybody started piling into everybody else.

And Jonathan Ross's daughter, Honey Honey got involved and was very eloquent about what a nice man her father actually is and now that's all and explain that he doesn't write his own fat jokes anyway yeah the pile on I'm presuming by the way that last thing about that article is that like there's no evidence that if you buy a book it's going to stop you from buying another book it's probably just as many people who will buy a second book it's just they've enjoyed the first yeah it's completely meaningless anyway the idea that uh somehow the people at the top are making it harder for you to do your own thing i mean that is just insane yeah it is ridiculous um it's the tyranny of um of having to have an opinion all the time that is is the thing, you know?

I saw someone tweeting a link to the Guardian piece about that article and I read it and thought it was bizarre and funny. Yeah. And then sort of thoughtlessly retweeted it myself. But then I thought, oh, no, hang on. I'm just joining in on the, I'm just facilitating the pile on here.

Yeah. Because I was sort of retweeting it in the spirit of curiosity and amusement kind of thing. I wasn't about to go and start marking down her book reviews on Amazon or write her hate mail. Yeah, but even being involved means that you're part of it. Yeah, exactly. But then maybe someone who I retweeted the thing to would do that. I don't think so because my followers are too nice and level-headed. But you know what I mean?

Like I felt like the best thing would be not even to engage with something like that. You know, I think not. I mean, I love Twitter. I mean, it's because of Twitter that you're staying in this apartment. Well, exactly, yeah. Twitter makes things happen.

When Chris died, Chris Seavey died, it was Twitter that organised a memorial fund for him so he didn't have to be buried in a pauper's grave. And like in a day it raised enough money to bury and exhume and rebury him about half a dozen times. So Twitter does brilliant, brilliant things. But this aspect of it is very... I've got to say, this is why I'm writing a book about it.

It's very important and it's, and nobody's really thinking about it. But do you feel as if it's, because Twitter's still so young, right? I mean, how long has Twitter been around? Six years? I've been there for like five years, six years. So it's growing pains, isn't it, for this medium?

Possibly, yeah, possibly. And what do you think, have you thought about how it will change, whether it'll get better or worse in that respect? I think people need to, this is my most, this is turning into like my most emotional and polemical book. Like I normally have very little, very few firm opinions about anything. You know, The Psychopath Test is a book that's really sort of set in a kind of gray area uh but with this one i think i do have firm opinions which is that public shaming is is is wrong kind of in almost every way and so i'm hoping that you

know my book will sort of be part of the kind of argument to make people think twice about the way that they're behaving and the consequences of it. I'm looking forward to that. Anyway, that sounds great. Psychopath Test was excellent, man. I loved it. Thank you. Is that your most successful book, Psychopath Test? Yes.

I mean, that was like a big bestseller, right? Yeah. Although your royalties are unexpectedly low, especially if you sell all your books to the big chains. Right. Yeah. But obviously I'm delighted. I'm not complaining. Sure.

The Psychopaths Test doing well is the best thing. It's great. I mean, and it's connected with such a big audience. And it's a moral book, you know. It's not a book about let's go out and spot psychopaths everywhere. It's a book about, it's a cautionary tale to not do that. So it's actually a moral book about kindness, I think. Because everybody is more or less nuts.

I mean, that's the thing you find out. The older you get, the more you realize that you just, you start going wrong towards the end of your twenties because, but you don't realize it because you're so boozed up. I went wrong a lot. Did you go wrong earlier yeah i started going wrong about 30 i mean looking but did you feel like you were going wrong though because looking back i can see i started going wrong pretty young but then i didn't realize it

i only sort of started realizing like thinking hang on a second maybe i'm going wrong like about 30 or something actually no i was wrong from about the age of 14 15 and stayed that way till i was about 23 what were the what were the um signals for you i mean i wonder what i would be diagnosed with now if back in the 80s there was quite the frenzy of diagnoses that there is today i'd probably be diagnosed with adhd and ocd and body dysmorphic disorder right and one or two others um but you know the fact that i wasn't diagnosed with any of those things i turned out fine shows that a diagnosis you, in some ways it's neither here nor there. Yeah, because there's a difference between hang-ups and neuroses and being a danger to yourself and a danger to others.

Well, all the things I just said doesn't make you a danger to yourself or a danger to others. It's all about personal distress. I mean, lots of disorders, disorders really they're judged by you know does it matter you know if you've got ocd does it matter and the answer is i guess it matters if it's distressing you and if it's impeding the quality of your life or distressing others yeah yeah or distressing others people love doing little amateur diagnoses these days you know so many times i've gone and seen friends and the conversation will turn to someone or other and they're like oh yeah he's definitely

on the spectrum and all this and they say absolutely seriously yeah he's a little bit on the spectrum actually yeah and they're like oh right yeah you see i really hope that the psychopath test is a book that's sort of encouraging people to to stop doing that yeah um i mean there are people out there with who are on the spectrum sure but i mean the one that always bugs me is ocd it's like oh i'm so ocd i keep all my pencils in a row and it's like if you were so ocd you would be in turmoil and agony yeah so are you in turmoil and agony no then you're not fucking a bit ocd that's what it really i guess it also like when i was growing up the thing to call people was anal and people still do it you know that and that's that so that's anal retentive is that freudian

uh yeah i think probably i think it probably is so i'm not 100 sure i still don't know what anal retentive really is in like psychological terms yeah it means you want to stuff things up your bum i'm trying to think it doesn't it mean i'm this is gonna be quite bad i know because you you don't want to you're such a control that you don't even want to get rid of your poo right yes right yeah something like that you'd rather i wonder whether hoarding disorder then is is but that's just being a man i I tell you, I mean, I've met a few hoarders. It's always about morality. Or the ones that I've met, it's always about morality. So I met one hoarder who was trying to avert ecological catastrophe

by basically keeping all the waste that would otherwise go to a landfill. Oh, man. Yeah. You see, I can sympathise with that. Yeah, well, it's's moral it's a morally good position i get very upset about all that breaks my heart that you know the best like the most painful disorders are all ones that come from wanting to be a good person specifically though as far as throwing things away are you someone that is quite good about getting rid of stuff

like memorabilia yes i'm fine i don't have this i don't have this problem i have other problems but i don't have that problem i've got that problem i've got terrible anxiety problems where i get into a kind of completely irrational spiral about some bad thing that might happen uh-huh and then it's just exhausting you feel sandpapered not in a sexy way no not in a sexy way you You know, do you remember the artist Michael Landy, his piece Breakdown? Yeah, he threw everything away. Threw everything away in 2002 or something.

Just the thought of that made me sad and worried. Yeah, it all went to shredding machines, didn't it? Yeah. His clothes, his car. Every single material possession he had. Yeah. He destroyed it. Do you remember when the KLF set fire to a million pounds? Yeah, but you see, I wouldn't... That I can get my head around more.

Really? You see, I think that was a bad decision. That was more of a political act, though, wasn't it? Because people were angry about them for not using the money to help other people even though obviously that was not the point the point was to ignore that exact thing and just concentrate on the on the the physical yeah idea of money and what it means and stuff like that although i still think they should have used it well exactly you can't really get away from asking that question but with michael landy that it wasn't a problem it was it was all down to how it was going to

affect himself it was in a way it was kind of a uh a more disturbing piece i thought yeah like to to do that to your own life to take away every single material thing it's like suicide i knew his girlfriend jillian waring brilliant artist yeah it was her idea to get people to write down on a piece of paper what they were thinking oh yes so the famous one was like this kind of city businessman ransacked by the advertisers many times yeah so many times and completely ruined because it's been taken over yeah but it was um it was this kind of businessman who looked very together. And he was holding a sign that said, I'm desperate. The most famous one was she got a load of people dressed as policemen to do a sort of group portrait, but not actually take it.

They just had to like stand very still for like two hours as if it's a still photograph and not move. And then I think at one point, one person kind of goes, which is what I do on planes, to suddenly go. You talk about that in the psychopath test. What is it that makes you do the noise? I was on a Ryanair flight and I was in the middle seat and, you know, the breakfast snack pack was on my lap and I couldn't move. And I couldn't scratch my leg and I wanted to get my notepad out because I had an idea for like a line from a book and I couldn't move and it's like and I couldn't scratch my leg and I wanted to get my notepad out because I had an idea for like a line from a book and I couldn't get it out of this and

I'm just gonna go like that and then I was very kind of kind of excited that this I didn't know that such kind of noises existed within me I was quite I felt quite overawed and awed by myself yeah yeah that's impressive behavior was the guy next to you looking at you like yeah oh dear people always do that on planes yeah how are you feeling at the moment by the way are you in a happy happy place no i have been and i'm less so now oh why is that um i don't know i've been getting anxiety spikes lately the last couple of days have been a bit, they're so tiring, you know, anybody who gets like anxiety,

you know, it just, you just get so tired. Yeah, yeah. So I'm tired. But I remember when I saw you and you were in the middle of writing the psychopath test, you were pretty stressed out then. Yeah, it's funny. When it all works in the end,

you look back on your kind of writing of the book i was like oh hello hi i'm just gonna write to you okay finished yeah when in fact it was like you know pulling your face off sure and jack nicholson in the shining um i really want my son to be a writer because i think he'd be so good at it but i'm such a terrible advertisement for writing because i'm i just look so anguished when I'm doing it. Right. Are you a nightmare at home then when you're in the middle of a book and you're having a tough time?

Yes. Yes, I am. Just grumpy. Grumpy and panicky. I wish I was grumpy, actually. It's more desperate and panicky. Finally, this public shaming book, though it's been a long, long, long haul

for lots of different reasons, partly because so painful you know i find the subject very painful uh and it was hard for me to find the humor so that was one problem another problem was hard to find a narrative and hard for it to be a page turner but i think i've got past all of those things now and i think the book will be really good actually so so i feel like i'm seeing the I think the book will be really good, actually. So I feel like I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Good, man.

Yeah, so that's good. Can't wait to see it. Also, can't wait until some part of it is taken up and becomes a scandal and you are publicly shamed. Oh, God. Yeah, I said, like, if I'm a... Who was it? Somebody had done something wrong and then immediately went off twitter and um like didn't respond to eddie and i said to god if that happened to me you know if i was ever publicly shamed i promise you

i will be on twitter like every 10 seconds you know apologizing and talking about it and tracy thorne actually tweeted me and said you're the only person i know who's imagining how they will behave once they've been publicly shamed. Only you would have that nightmare. Yeah, but then again, I am thinking about it a lot because it's what the book's about. Of course, yeah. So yeah, so I wouldn't say I'm that happy because I've been feeling lots of anxiety

and I'm tired and a bit discombobulated. Oh, mate. But I'm happy because the book's definitely getting better. And in fact, before I saw you today, I was working on a chapter called The Terror. I think it's going to be called The Terror, this chapter, chapter eight. And it's coming together really well.

So that's... So much about writing I've discovered is juxtaposition. So much is just the order that you put things. Right. Like I've had this section of my book, which is one of the very, very first things I wrote, like, three years ago, and it's just been sitting there,

just been kind of hovering there. And it wouldn't have made it to the book except the last couple of days I thought, oh, if I put it there in chapter eight, it'll work. It's all about the flow of the kind of journey for the reader. That's the difference between success and failure. Can't wait, man. And I'll get the audio book as well.

I love the soothing sound of your voice. Yeah, my voice definitely divides people. I've noticed this. Some people think it's an annoying voice and other people think it's a soothing voice. Yeah, I like it. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's a voice I find that you have to get used to.

Yeah. But it's like David Sedaris. Yeah, he's the same. Who I absolutely adore. Yeah. But it's like the first, literally, it's just five minutes, you know, but you're like, ooh, that's a strange voice. And then you get into it. I mean, his voice is, I don't think of your voice as odd.

I think he's got quite an odd voice. Yeah. I know what I haven't asked you about because you're a podcast fan, right? And what podcasts do you listen to? Okay. I am a very big fan of Mark Mallon WTF. Right, which I want to ask you about because you were on it.

Yeah, I love it. I listen to the Breaking Bad Insider podcast with Vince Gilligan, which is fantastically good I listen to the Longform podcast which I've also been on where they do like these big long hour interviews with writers and journalists

Oh No with Ross and Carrie that's a funny sceptic podcast Radio 4 Music I think is like brilliant it's like the best documentaries in the Radio 4 archive that's been great a fantastic BBC World Service thing

called the History Hour which is brilliant I always think there's like a each one is like everyone is like a movie that hasn't been made and then I listened to This American Life

Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's film reviews, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Is this getting boring? No, no, these are all good recommendations. Okay, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe I like. I found it very soothing and it puts me to sleep. And it contains a friend of mine called Rebecca Watson who's very funny.

Did you listen to Melvin Bragg's one in our time? No, no, I don't. I should. Some of them are very dense. Yeah. I don't want to should. Some of them are very dense. Yeah. I don't want to sort of think too much. Front Row Daily, which is going to be slightly sullied by the fact that Mark Lawson's just left. Arsecast, which is a very funny Arsenal podcast.

The film programme Answer Me This with Helen and Ollie, which I'm a big fan of. And Radio 4 General Knowledge Quizzes. I like WTF as well. And I'm, again, going to ask you about that in a second. I love Todd Barry's podcast. Oh, I don't know that one. New York Comedian. It's one of the many podcasts that's fairly forensic about the world of stand-up comedy.

And, you know, they discuss, like, what kind of hotels they stay in and how to get upgrades on planes and things like that. I really love it, though. Plus, Todd Barry's just very, very funny. I'm going to subscribe. There's one called The Comedian's Comedian Podcast, which I just listened to

because it's got an interview with Tony Law, where Tony Law was just drunk out of his mind after a show in Edinburgh and he's very, he's funny with it. So that was pretty enjoyable. Oh, I love Richard Herring's podcast, Reholestipa. Yeah, you know what? I haven't yet heard it, but I'm going to do it in a couple of weeks' time when I'm in London.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That'd be great. So, John, you were on WTF with Marc Maron, and you are one of a pretty elite group of Brits that's been on there. Yeah. The ones that spring to mind are Stephen Merchant, Simon Amstel. Billy Bragg.

Billy Bragg, Dylan Moran. All of those are big big comedy names you're one of the few sort of non-straightforward comedians yeah to be on there

it's quite a compliment and he's into your stuff because of Them I think was the thing that got him into you I think so Them and then

The Psychopath Test yeah I actually had him on my Radio 4 show which I had you on too that's right yeah he he did this incredible

podcast years ago with a comedian who was who'd stolen jokes carlos mencina carlos mencia mencia yeah and um so i had him talking about that yes and yeah i was in la he just sort of said to me once next time you're in la get in touch and we'll try and put you on the show and and so i was in la and i did get in touch and he did put me on because Because before I came out here, and you were nice enough to name check me briefly on that show. Yeah, well, it's something I've been talking a lot about, actually. I do it in my Frank talk about the time that you and I had both not won a radio award.

Yeah, the Sonys. Yeah, the Sonys. And then I stepped outside to get some air and you were standing there too. I think we were both sick of the stupid basement yeah this you know grand ballroom at the groven house hotel yes i think we were both a bit sick of it all yeah it's never fun if you don't win yeah which i i that's not my only experience yeah at least you have one but but the night that we were there that we both lost and we went outside and i

saw you outside and and yeah we were leaning against railings and the limos were going back and forward and you said to me um you know why we always lose and i said why he said because we're marginal and the things that we like are marginal and it was a big moment for me you know it's like it was sudden realization that must have occurred to you before though hadn't it no not the way you said it at that particular moment in my life meant something oh well that's good yeah i mean i do believe that but it's it's not as if i'm you know completely uh immune to uh moments of anxiety about wanting to be less marginal yeah you know of seeing my friends um splashing around in the mainstream and thinking, oh, that would be fun. It would be fun to get things commissioned easily and be fun to be flown out first class or whatever.

All those kind of things you think, yeah, it'd be nice. But the rewards of plowing your own furrow sometimes outweigh a lot of the anxieties that you see those other people going through as well. a lot of the anxieties that you see those other people going through as well. My big mainstream moment, I suppose, was, you know, suddenly finding myself for a couple of weeks, you know, with George Clooney and the whole Minister Goats movie circuit, like going from like different festivals, Toronto and Venice and London. And that's probably as mainstream as it gets, right? And I wouldn't say that I've ever, you know, missed or yearned for that since.

Right. I'm perfectly happy. Yeah, it's fun to have a look though. It's fun to have a little look. It's not that, it's like being on a film set with George Clooney isn't the unimaginable fun that you think it might be before it happens to you. I'll tell you what is unimaginable fun, though. I got the chance to make a little short film, direct a little fiction short film for Sky

called The Dog Thrower, starring Matthew Perry and Tim Key and with music by Bill and Sebastian. Wow. Yeah. What an incredible group of people. And that week of me directing it in a completely stress-free way,

I thought to myself, you know what, I'm just going to enjoy this. That's great. Yeah, and that was unimaginable fun, actually. Yeah. What I loved about it was getting to deal with, like, costume people and make-up people and stuff. I thought that was brilliant. And, yeah, when it finishes, they give you a round of applause.

And I remember thinking, you know, when I go to like a Ku Klux Klan compound and leave, like after I've done my stuff there, I don't get applause. No one applauds me. You don't really want applause from the Klan that much, do you? No, you don't. So that was lots of fun. But, yeah, but, you know know i actually my few brushes with the mainstream world what i realized is that it's not it's not chalk and cheese you know it's not night and day it's all kind of the same thing yeah exactly um so how was marin great he was um he

i'm an incredibly smart i was very intimidated because obviously he's you know the world's i think he's nice to people who he knows because after you mentioned my name on the podcast right I think Johnny Greenwood tweeted, oh Mark Maron you should get Adam Buxton on your show and then you sort of joined in

a little bit and then a few people started tweeting, yeah come on Mark Maron, get him on and so I thought, oh look, there's all these people tweeting that. Maybe I'll just sort of throw my weight behind it. And I wrote a blog post as a, like it was a spoof of a really crap sort of CV, a job application thing. Because I noticed that he tweeted, well, I'll have to familiarize myself with his stuff.

So I thought, okay, rather than him searching for what I've done and just finding something that he thinks is awful, I'll try and guide him through the things that I think he might like. Because there's all kinds of weird stuff that I've done. Yeah. And did anything happen? No. Nothing? No.

Death in silence. It did take two years for me to end up on his show. And when I turned up, i did think that he felt and i felt what am i doing here you know do i deserve this uh because it is as you say it's a big honor to be on a show and um and it took a little while i think for us to both settle in and think actually this is fine i you know i was thinking maybe he's just never going to put this out he's just doing this to be nice to me and um but then it did go out and people did seem to like it so it seemed to justify itself but i tell you what was unexpected for somebody so

intense and so sort of you know intimidating when he smiles or laughs he becomes very kind of gentle and suddenly he's less suddenly he seems quite vulnerable and sweet so there is that side to him um he lives right out in the middle of nowhere in los angeles like not in a fancy part of town at all like in a very sort of anonymous sort of suburb quite a long way from town um and there's cats everywhere and it's very small and it's in his garage. And it's funny to think that like every week, you know, Will Ferrell or, you know, whoever, you know, this big Iggy Pop will sort of turn up to this little suburban house. I mean, he's really realised the potential of podcasting

in an amazingly effective way. I'm glad you put that. I panicked that night. I woke up in the middle of the night and had a panic attack. I felt I'd given away too much about my book. Oh, right. Yeah, and I felt like the whole thing was just a mess and it was just a mistake.

I just had this panic spiral. Oh, I don't think you can give away too much about something like that because it's never going to be the same as actually reading it. Well, I haven't told anyone who's in the book, what stories so yeah that's all still secret no because i listened to the whole thing and and i thought it was great and i'm it made me really excited to read it oh thank you um but listen john thank you so much thank you my my jet lag is kicking in now so i hope i haven't been too uh no i've enjoyed it i've enjoyed it very much are you going to have a couple of hours sleep before you go to UCB no no no no no no no

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no alright there's no way I'm going to take a nap before I go to UCB I'm going to be on my laptop preparing my set so that I can get there and be told by the tech guy that they didn't realize I needed a projector. And I'm going to have to go back to the apartment and bring back the mini projector that I brought with me to New York and set that up on one of the seats at the front of the auditorium and ask a member of the audience to actually hold it and point it at the screen that's what i'm going to do okay that's how ucb is going to go anyway john ronson wise i caught up with john again yesterday on skype it was very futuristic i don't know if you've used skype it's like a fax but you can see each other and we chatted about how things have been going since the

publication of so you've been publicly shamed specifically i wanted to know about some of the criticism john has received since its publication i mean i should say that the overwhelming reaction to the book has been positive and people have enjoyed it as much as i did i really loved the book and i recommend getting John's audiobook versions as well, because he's very good at reading them. And it is, he does a, you know, it's like a performance. And so it turns it into a, an extended private performance with John Ronson. But we chatted briefly about some of the people that have taken issue with aspects of the book. And this is what John had to say.

Okay, so it started, one of the main stories in my book was about this woman called Justine Sacco, who was on a plane. She was about to get on a plane and she tweeted, going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white. And then when she was asleep on the plane, Twitter took control of her life and wrecked it in a kind of unprecedented way. She was like the kind of, you know, ground zero of online shaming. And that's the story that really kind of sums up the book in many ways, isn't it? Or it's one of the main stories that you tell when you're promoting it and it's the one that people ask most about probably but so one of the things about that story is that she wasn't intending to be racist she was coming from the comedic tradition admittedly she wasn't of a good example of the comedic tradition but of people acknowledging their privilege and then mocking it

yeah so you know i mean you can think of countless good good people who do that like randy newman and south park and so on um anyway so she did it badly so so she wasn't intending to be racist she was she was attempting to mock privilege but she never got the opportunity to tell that to anybody because she was asleep on a plane while Twitter ruined her, got her fired, mangled up her mental health, you know, just changed her life unutterably. And when I say Twitter, what I mean is kind of nice people like us because it wasn't trolls.

It was, you know, people like us who were, I think, ultimately trying to do something good. People who took the comment at face value and expressed outrage. Because, yeah, so it was the desire to be seen to be compassionate and also the desire to be compassionate, caring about people dying of AIDS in Africa that led people to commit this uncompassionate act of tearing apart a woman

while she's asleep on a plane and completely oblivious and completely unable to explain her joke and in fact her inability to explain her joke became a sort of part of the gaiety that night like we're about to watch this Justine Sacco bitch get fired in real time before she even knows she's being fired that's that's one of the tweets so this piece so the book was extracted in the new york times that was the very first thing that happened to the book and it was that story and at first it reminded me of like one time i was on a beach in scotland and i was a flock of terns circling above my head and then they started to dive bomb and my wife was like yelling you're too close to their eggs and I'm like I have no idea where

their eggs are I was like running back to the road like shrieking with my arms in the air while these terns were diving because at first the kind of condemnation I should say by the way it like most like most of what happened was was positive like people got it and understood and saw it as an important story and saw it as you know we thought that justin saka was the villain but now we understand that she was the the victim so most people saw it that way but then a few people were like a few very uh as it would turn out relentless people were like um at first they were like oh i can't believe john runston's bringing all this back again when we all moved on and i was like well you know poor you you know justin didn't move on or it took her a year to

move on anyway um and then it's like oh well her father's a billionaire you know i don't have any sympathy for her her father sells carpets but people had to create this kind of false narrative of her father being a billionaire because we need to dehumanize the people that we hurt it's for the same reason that we call people sociopaths or whatever um because we want to hurt people and not feel bad about it but then it was like um well i can only assume that john ronson's a fucking racist too and that idea like we don't want to feel we know we you know what it says to me is that you know we know we did something wrong but we don't want to feel bad about it and so we're going to scrabble around to try and find some reason

why we can still feel okay about what we did and one of those things was to was to call me a racist and then every time i can't tell you adam like all year every time like a racist cop shoots somebody i get like a flurry of tweets of oh are you gonna are you gonna put your cape on for this racist cop, Ronson? As if a liberal joke that came out badly is the same as a racist cop shooting somebody. Or, you know, waiting for John Ronson to whine about, you know, the guy who buys up the drug company and hikes the price of AIDS drugs from $13 to $750. and hikes the price of AIDS drugs from $13 to $750. So basically everybody who was publicly shamed all year, regardless of the transgression,

people were like, oh, looking forward to Ronson whining about that one. So, you know, that became... Yeah, depressing. Depressing, tiring, frustrating as well because... And did you try to answer back at all most of the time i didn't because at one point at the beginning i tweeted one thing i just tweeted oh by the way the excerpt in the new york times isn't a standalone article it's a excerpt from a book called so you've been publicly shamed and straight away somebody tweeted oh now rodinson saying it's an extract from a book it's like what the fuck does that mean it was always an extract

from a book or did you think i kind of ran home and quickly wrote a book and so that's what i realized that like anything i say is just going to be more evidence for the prosecution um so i stopped talking somebody said why isn't john rodson replying to any of us and somebody else wrote because John Ronson only replies to men so most of the time I stopped responding once in a while I kind of respond and once in a while I think I

convince somebody of I convince somebody to see her story my way so sometimes but it takes a lot of energy a lot of energy and and yeah and how do you look back now at the period when you were writing the book was it you know because it turned out really well um but were you excited at the time did you feel like it was going to go well? I mean, you could tell actually from that, from when we met, you know, a year and a half ago and did that conversation. I wasn't like skipping home from meeting people like Justine Sacco or Lindsay Stone.

Rubbing your hands and thinking, I'm going to get a number one bestseller out of this. Right. No, exactly. I was, it felt, you know, I was going home I had to I had to um well in fact after the book came out uh I gave I did this video um in New York about the book and there was a woman on in the studio before me who was doing a video about her book she was the doctor like a GP and um she said to me I'll watch your book about and I I said, it's about public shaming on the internet. And she said, oh, did you read that piece in the New York Times? And I said,

I wrote it. And she said, oh, you must be so happy. And I said, actually, I'm not. And she said, why not? And I said, because there's a backlash with some people calling me racist. And she said, so what do you want? And I said said um xanax and she got out her pad and wrote me a prescription for 60 xanax um so i and i i did notice throughout writing this book for the first time ever uh it was a story that that compelled me to take xanax. I was waking up and having, you know, it was all rubbing off on me. What was it that was making you anxious, though? I think it was the fact, when I think about some of the other stories I've written, like, for instance, I did this, you know, appallingly sad story, like 15 years ago,

about a family of white separatists in Idaho called the Weaver family and I spent a lot of time with one of the daughters up on Ruby Ridge were they up on Ruby Ridge exactly and and uh the FBI killed her mother and her brother shot her mother in the head while she was holding her baby just the saddest story you could ever, you know, think of. But when I left Rachel's house, like, I didn't feel that same sense of anxiety. And I guess it's because, you know, that's a tragedy a long way away, whereas the tragedies in this book, it's stories about us. It's stories about we could be destroyed and we are destroying. It's what we're doing kind of every day.

And that was very kind of anxiety-intusing. And I thought I want to try. The best compliment that the book gets is when people say it's like it's it's like it's like a horror movie like their heart is pounding when they read it and that's what I was intending I think in the psychopath test I play my anxiety for laughs and in this book I want people to know what it feels like to have an anxiety attack. So that was basically it as far as talking about John's work was concerned. But before we started talking about that yesterday on Skype, John asked me how things were going with the podcast. And I told him that I'd been getting some very good feedback from people via Twitter

and also in the comment sections on my SoundCloud page and also on my blog where you can leave comments. And I'd encouraged people to do so. I suppose the reason I did that was because feedback and interaction from listeners when I was on Six Music with Joe Cornish were so valuable and such an important part of the show and such an important part of the show and such an enjoyable part of the show, I had this notion that it would be great if I could carry that on somehow.

But of course it's much harder when the show isn't live, when it's podcasted and pre-recorded and everything. It's very difficult to get that interaction going. And rather than leaving sort of funny stories the way that people used to for our radio show some people have been leaving these quite detailed analyses and critiques of this podcast and what i do in general which i wasn't really expecting i mean i did encourage people to send constructive criticism but uh well but nothing really So I should shut up. And so I got some. But it tweaked a few of my insecurities and slightly bent my mind. I did hesitate about whether I should include this in the podcast. But then I thought I may as well just for the sake of honesty, because I appreciate that I can get things wrong sometimes.

wrong sometimes. But I thought it would be good to see what it's like reading these things from the other person's point of view. And in case you're worried, I did check with the guy who wrote me this. I'm not going to say his name. And actually, I didn't post it on my blog, so you won't be able to find it there. Because I moderate the comments on my blog, so I didn't approve that one. But I did get in touch with him and told him that I might talk about it on the podcast and asked him if he was okay with that and he wrote me a very nice reply indeed apologizing for any confusion and saying that it would be okay if I talked about it so here's me relaying that message to John Ronson check this out I still miss Adam and Joe on six music so it's great to hear you started a new podcast Adam listening to you and Louis Theroux Check this out. You know, he says, you know, people are just pleased to hear you.

I think the slightly contrived comedy bits right at the end of the podcasts are probably unnecessary overkill. Just be yourself. Maybe a little less sweary. One of the reasons the six music show was popular was your super nice guy image. You should stick with that. I do like you. That's quite a message, isn't it? Yeah.

I remember this guy I wrote about in my public shaming book, a journalist called Jonah Lehrer, who had transgressed and had the chance to apologise. And what he didn't realise until he turned up to the site of his apology, which was at lunch at a Journalist's Foundation, was that they were going to live stream his apology. And they had a giant screen Twitter feed right next to his head so anybody watching at home could tweet their opinion on his pleas for forgiveness in real time. And every single tweet was going into his eyeline. So he was reading

people's response to his apology while he was apologizing and i asked him afterwards um you know which of the tweets do you remember the most like which hurt the most and he said it wasn't it wasn't the kind of just you know the kind of crazily cruel ones. It was the ones that mixed in a bit of tenderness. And that's what your that's what that that that letter that you just read out did. It mixed in a bit of tenderness. And that's what hurts the most. It really got under my skin for a couple of days. And it took it.

I actually had to go and walk the dog and talk to to myself. And talk my way through it. As if I was my own therapist. And I came to the conclusion. That of course. It was meant totally nicely. He wasn't trying to fuck with my mind. But he pushed so many buttons. It was incredible.

It was like. I think there's five. What were the buttons? Well first of all. Listening to you and Louis Theroux. Almost like listening to you and Joe, except Louis isn't quite as funny. And so I felt hurt on Louis' behalf and I didn't agree. And I also felt that he was implying that Joe was like the comedy. Joe was the funny one.

Yeah, he was the senior comedy partner and I had drafted in Louis as a replacement, but Louis wasn't quite matching up. So altogether, that was a failed exercise. Can I interject with the observation? I'm not sure that Louis necessarily tries to be funny. That's what Louis is about. No, exactly. Yeah, he's more about trying to get things out of people i mean louis is a funny guy but um his main thing is to be kind of uh analytical i suppose yeah analytical

and interested you're right it's a different type of it's a different type of communication yes so i was able to rationalize that one you sound like you've mellowed with age, Adam, although maybe still a little too desperate to please. Gotta say, that one's hard to feel OK about. What do you do with that? There's nothing you can do with that. No, because there's two responses to that. Either you, because you are desperate to please,

say, oh, I'm so sorry. I'll try not to be so desperate to please in future. Or you say, fuck off. I'm not fucking desperate to please you fucking twat. But then that's probably a little too aggressive. Yeah, that's bad too. Yeah, that's too aggressive. Yeah.

And then he goes, you know, people are just pleased to hear you. Basically, I've come off my entire career thus far sounding like someone who's just about to crumple into a ball if anyone says anything nasty to him. That lad was him saying in a gentle voice, it's OK. It's OK. Yeah, you're fine. Exactly. You know, people are just pleased to hear you. And then I think the slightly contrived comedy bits right at the end of the podcast are probably unnecessary overkill, he says.

And again, that zeroes in on an anxiety I have about most things I do, which is that I over egg the pudding and I put too much stuff in because I like listening to things that are quite dense myself. But then on the other hand, I'm always reminded that the more you strip things down and the simpler you keep things generally that the better they work so it might be an indication that that he's you know he's he's zeroed in on one area that probably i could trim things down and it would improve the thing rather than weaken it although i've been getting a lot of messages about those bits at the end of the podcast from people who like them and i always think well they're just it's at the end of the podcast you have to listen to it that's like a little bonus thing for for people who've

made it that far and they're still listening you know yeah i i i very much like your songs. I think you should do a different song every episode. Right. Could you do that from now on? Well, I have got a song in this one. I've got a new Bond song, a new song for the new James Bond movie. Because I did one before for Quantum of Solace. Quantum of Solace, I remember it. I want a Quantum of Solace, but only a Quantum.

Yeah. What was the next line? I know they do big bags of Solace, but remember it. I want a quantum of solace, but only a quantum. Yeah. What was the next slide? I know they do big bags of solace, but I don't want them. This is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. Squarespace. And I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch,

use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Oh, my goodness. The self-indulge-o-meter is about to explode over there in the corner. And now I'm going to wrap up this podcast in a way that's going to disappoint that fellow once again with another one of my slightly contrived comedy bits.

More unnecessary overkill from Buckles. But that's because I'm desperate to please. All right. So a lot of people were saying, hey, you should have a crack at the new Bond theme for the Spectre movie. Of course, myself and Joe, as John pointed out there, myself and Joe did themes for The Quantum of Solace a few years ago on The Six Music Show.

This is something altogether different. A lot more epic, a lot more stirring, a lot more in the spirit of what James Bond is really all about. Take care. I love you. Bye. I am James Bond I have got a gun I go to shoot my enemies In the legs and head

It will be fun I go to dress up like a ponce And drive to a fancy house And eat a crazy boring guy who wants me dead. I'm going to shoot, shoot, shoot my enemies with my pistol gun. I'm going to kill them in the bum and head. It's going to be terrific fun. Guns, guns, guns, guns, guns. They're so exciting and great i'm officially allowed to shoot one by the state modulate i am timothy bond i have a shiny powerful gun i'm like a kind of handsome jeremy

clark son i like to sleep with a lot of women Drive my car into the sea I get my suits and guns and DVDs for free I'm going to punch and kick the naughty men In the head and tits I hope I never meet an enemy Who scratches and who spits Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight

I love to punch and kick People who don't like punching make me sick Guns, guns, guns, guns, guns They're so exciting and great I'm officially allowed to shoot one by the snake I'm going to get you, Phil Spector!