The Daily Stoic - Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk,

Starting point is 00:00:52 to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. It is a beautiful day here in Austin, Texas. I just took my kids for their daily nap walk. I did about three miles this morning on our walk before breakfast and then my wife was working here at the bookstore, at the Pain and Port, for rearranging the furniture and stuff. So I took the kids for their napwalk, and we did another three and a half or so miles, but it's just that temperature before it's too hot in Texas. And so we are very much enjoying the spring. And I wrote this email for daily dad about the beauty of spring,

Starting point is 00:01:40 but also this sense that every time you get to spring, it means another year has passed, which means another year you don't get your kids at two, another year you don't get your kids at age five. And so there is a kind of a bit of sweetness to spring that I, that I suppose my guest last week, Susan Kane would have appreciated. But anyways, my guest this week is one of my all-time favorite writers. I have read many, many of his books, and I reached out through his publisher, who actually was the editor and publisher of the book that I wrote with Chris Bosch, letters to a young athlete, and I said, could you please find a way to have me to let me have Chuck Kosterman on who's just one of my favorite

Starting point is 00:02:25 thinkers and writers about music, about history, about pop culture, about sports. He's just one of the most unique writers out there with a really unique voice, but I think it's not the voice like the style is interesting, but that's not what makes Chuck Kosterman great. What makes Chuck Kosterman great is the perspective, the

Starting point is 00:02:44 view, the uniqueness, the view, the uniqueness of the take that he has on pretty much every issue. And that's what makes him compelling, and I think one of the best writers there in the world. And I will give you this interview with Chuck Losserman, New York Times bestselling author, many times over his books include Sex, Strugs, and Cocoa Puffs. But what if we're wrong? One of my absolute favorites. We care it here at the Painted Porch. Chuck Losserman X, two novels, Downtown Owl, and The Visible Man. He's written for The New York Times, a Washington Post, GQ, S.Q. ESPN, and more. He was the ethicist for The New York Times magazine for three years. Has appeared as himself in the New York Times magazine for three years has appeared as himself in the documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits.

Starting point is 00:03:27 He was an original founder of Grantland with Bill Simmons. He's been in many 30 for 30s on ESPN, but his most recent book, The 90s, I quite enjoyed my wife's book club here in Vastrop Texas as part of the bookstore is all reading it. So I've been seeing it's pretty funny to see in this small town, all these people carrying around this book. It's got a very iconic cover, but it's just a great book. And of course, the 90s, or the decade I came alive, I was born in 87.

Starting point is 00:03:54 So my earliest memories are of the early 90s. And as always, costumant just has an absolutely fascinating way to think about it, digest it, talk about it. Look, if you're looking for a definitive history of the 90s, a boring ass book like that, don't read this. If you're looking for the 90s as an excuse to explore a bunch of angles and perspectives and quirks and events and all of the things I think history is

Starting point is 00:04:23 supposed to be there for. Well then this is a great book. And honestly I wish I had another hour or two with them and I do hope to have them on because as soon as I finish I was like oh man I have like a thousand other questions. So here is my interview with the one and only Chuck Kosterman. You can check out his new book the 90s absolute must read carrot in the painted porch. So click the link in the page below. And you can go to Chuck Kosterman author.com for his website and We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Starting point is 00:04:47 We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Starting point is 00:04:55 We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Starting point is 00:05:03 We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. So one of your definitions of the 90s is the release of Never Mind and the end of, and then 9-11. And that's like sort of a sign post of it. Could one as a metal fan also date the 90s as the release of Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark, the sort of last great 80s Iron Maiden album, although it's like 92. And then Bruce Dickinson returning to the band in 2000. And then isn't it weird that there are no good

Starting point is 00:05:30 Iron Maiden albums in the 90s effectively that this is this weird wash period? Well, that's not what I anticipate you're gonna ask me about. I will say this. I bet not. The Bruce Dickinson solo record with the song Tattooed Millionaire on it. That's a real good song.

Starting point is 00:05:47 And that many ways it actually sort of philosophically fits into what was happening or would happen with Grunge in a way. Because what he's really talking about in a lot of ways, they're like guys in the sunset strip in the 80s who are like, you know, like pre-boy Floyd or whatever, these bands that like started with their look and then kind of became a band later. So even though it doesn't have any grunge elements to it, it sort of fits into the grunge sort of world. I guess you could frame the 80s around this aspect of Iron Maiden's career, although it

Starting point is 00:06:22 would be confusing to some, because I don't think many people associate Iron Maiden's career, although it would be confusing to some, because I don't think many people associate Iron Maiden with great 90s. I'm saying they're conspicuously absent in the 90s. Well, yeah, well, but that was something that happened to a lot of bands from the 80s, where there was this wide-scale shift sort of, particularly in the way music was covered, that a lot of the groups in the 80s that had been huge, the music media did feel an obligation to sort of cover

Starting point is 00:06:54 these out of their commercial success, but also kind of showing their kind of taste for it. Their discomfort with these bands that they did not see as artistically relevant. You know, it seemed odd that they were massive in groups like R.E.M. or still kind of seen as like college rock or whatever. And then this shift happened with Nevermind, where now the bands, the kind of band they had traditionally sort of supported, was now as big as any band in the world. So they could kind of bury these other groups,

Starting point is 00:07:27 even though a lot of them continued to have a surprisingly high degree of success. I mean, I always use Bon Jovi as the example of this. Almost every story about Bon Jovi in the 90s is about how they were over. And this kind of running of the past and like it's almost embarrassing that they're still doing this.

Starting point is 00:07:45 But they were still extraordinarily successful. I remember one weekend when I was working in the Beacon Journal, YouTube was playing and Bon Jovi was playing the next night at Gondorina. And we had to choose kind of to cover one. And we selected YouTube because PJ Harvey was opening and it seemed like just like the more meaningful thing. But YouTube and PJ Harvey did not sell out Gunterina. Banzhouvi did with zero coverage.

Starting point is 00:08:10 And we just sort of acted like it wasn't that strange. It was like, well, this is how it is. I aren't made in probably. It would be very, especially, internationally. I would guess that they made more money in the 90s gross than they did in the 80s from their international touring success. But partially because of inflation, but also because they played continuously. There is a lot of these things in the 90s that were really extension of the 80s that were

Starting point is 00:08:44 sort of forgotten for ideological reasons, even though they were still happening and still sort of having more success than the things that we thought were important. I mean, like, you know, like I mentioned in the book, it's like, you know, Courtney Love is a real 90s figure, okay? She's an essential part of thinking about the 90s. But for every record she sold, Shenai Twain sold 14, roughly. And we don't really think of Shenai Twain as this 90s figure. In the same way, we don't really think of Garth Brooks as this 90s figure,

Starting point is 00:09:16 90s figure. Even though we know that was one that picked, you know, worth of these monster artists kind of, but they don't fit't fit the 90s caricature. So we just sort of act like, well, that was also happening, but not really. That is what's weird about Iron Maiden who I love, is that, you know, they were sort of never popular, and yet they've sold like a hundred million albums, like how is that possible? And yet to have a period in the 90s where they were sort of even less relevant, but kept going.

Starting point is 00:09:49 I think it's that the international thing that you mentioned is part of it, but then also this idea of there being these enormous subcultures, which the size of a subculture in the 90s would be mass culture today. The numbers that a subculture mightulture in the 90s would be mass culture today. The numbers that a subculture might do in the 90s would be a mass market event today.

Starting point is 00:10:11 Well, I mean, also, I'm using Iron Maiden as this example. It's like they had an interestingly bifurcated fan base because on one hand, Iron Maiden, you just prized early Metallica, all these groups were seen as like the more serious version of metal, for more serious hard rock people. So if you, they kind of looked at bands like Motley Kuru, when Fastry puts it, it's like,

Starting point is 00:10:33 that's fake. This is the real thing. But then on the other end of that sort of access, were the people who liked Iron Maiden t-shirts and would wear like any t-shirt to, you know, to like a Varukaselt show or something. There was also, there was this, like they had so many key signifiers of metal. Like the things about them sort of became a way to sort of, I don't know, for like the Dilletowns version

Starting point is 00:11:04 of being into metal, because it was the most visually metal. But it was that middle chunk, it was like, well, the music is like, it's not really what we're into, it's not really poppy enough, it was like, so, but they had like the most serious people and the most casual people. Well, and that subculture then would be more than just a thing you stream on the internet because you like it, but it also affects how you dress, you know, where you live, how you act, you know, that a subculture then was so much more inclusive and holistic than just like a thing you follow on Instagram. Yeah, well, I mean, like, it was, there was a lot more sort of, I guess, commodification of subcultures.

Starting point is 00:11:47 Because, you know, it's like if you were in to say, maybe an easier example would be golf music. Okay. Unless you were, you know, an unusually rich 14-year-old, it's like, there's only so many records you could buy, and there was only so many pairs of black pants you can purchase. And there was all, you know, so it's like, once you sort of made those investments, it kind of stopped you from sort of having the kind of more kind of Catholic view of this.

Starting point is 00:12:18 It's like, well, you know, my budget allows me to buy sisters of Mercy in the chair and you know, nine nails or whatever, and these two t-shirts and this poster. So I'm almost in the subculture by default. It's like these are the things that I have, these are the things that sort of express my identity, you know, because when you're young that's what you use these things for. And if you're limited to those items, that is the subculture you're part of.

Starting point is 00:12:47 And you're gonna gravitate toward people who have similar things. Whereas now, because the way all subcultures are now kind of internet based, it's much less limiting. And in a way that seems better. Like it seems better that And in a way that seems better, like it seems better that it's easy for a young person to have myriad interests that have no relationship, that they could have an Iron Maiden song and

Starting point is 00:13:14 a Shania Twain song on their computer right next to you. And yet I do think that it also kind of erodes how important those things feel to the person. Because when you have this limitation and it's all you have, I've mentioned this in a million interviews, but like there was a long period of my life where I had six and then seven cassettes. That's all I had. I would play them over and over again, and I would read the line,

Starting point is 00:13:47 and it's over and over again. And I was obviously giving things out of that music that the artists themselves are not putting into it. Because I was injecting basically my entire experience into kiss animal lives. And then hearing things from that cassette that there's no way that could have been there, but I feel really lucky I had that experience.

Starting point is 00:14:09 I mean, certainly if you would have given me the choice as an eighth grader, would you rather have these six cassettes, or 60,000 songs? I would have said, give me the 60,000 songs, but I think I would be a totally different person if that had happened. I have been on a million podcasts over the years and I've met the host of most of the big

Starting point is 00:14:30 shows. And I would say one of my favorite people and one of my favorite shows to go on is the Jordan Harbinger Show. And I've known Jordan forever. I was just going back through my phone and I found a text between him and I trying to link up at some talk I was giving an L.A. in 2012 when my first book came out. But the Jordan Harbanger show is one of the oldest and biggest podcasts out there.

Starting point is 00:14:52 In 2018, Apple rated it one of its best podcasts. And he's had everyone you can imagine on the show hostage negotiators from the FBI, mobsters, art forgers. And the interviews are great because he has put in his hours and he knows his stuff. I enjoy the Jordan Harbinger Show. I think you will as well. There's a lot to like.

Starting point is 00:15:13 You can check it out at jordanharbinger.com slash start for some episode recommendations, or you can search for the Jordan Harbinger Show at Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and maybe start with my episodes or Robert Green's episode and tell Jordan that I sent you his way. Well, scarcity creates value, not always the right value or values, but abundance doesn't create the connection the way that scarcity does.

Starting point is 00:15:44 Absolutely. And it, I think it makes it more likely that these sort of secondary things become kind of closer to the person's identity. Although there's a lot, a lot of things in society now that would suggest that I'm sort of wrong for thinking this. I mean, like this idea of like, you know, you hear about people saying,

Starting point is 00:16:12 parasocial relationships with TV characters now. I mean, you familiar with this, this idea that they, yeah, there's an individual on a television show which they seemed absolutely as a real person. And then that they completely invested in how that character is sort of a plays into the arc of the show and all of these things. And, you know, I think that that was always possible. But people did not do that as much in the past as they do now. And it might be because it was seen as sort of something you would almost be

Starting point is 00:16:46 maybe ashamed of but with view as a weird aspect of your personality like but wasn't it also technically impossible right because like you couldn't you couldn't you could only watch Seinfeld when it was on you know I remember when the Seinfeld DVDs came out in the 2000s and realizing how many episodes I had missed, one because I'm a little younger than that demographic, but even in reruns, it was like, oh, there's episodes that they're not playing in reruns, or they've cut it in reruns, in syndication, and realizing that, oh, this is the first time it's literally been accessible by people to watch it at the level that you could have a pair of social relationship with a character. That's very interesting.

Starting point is 00:17:33 I guess I thought about, I thought you were going to go in a different way because of what I thought you were going to say. The thing is, is like to me, a pair of social relationship essentially means you're thinking about the thing even when you're not experiencing it. So you're using signfell as an example. You relate to Elaine. So you're thinking about Elaine, even when you're not watching signfell, the difference

Starting point is 00:17:55 is in the past, that was basically the extent of that parasocial relationship. You thinking about it, maybe having one friend to talk to, whereas now you could find a community of people who would have, you should share the same sort of potentially unhealthy relationship with a fictional character, and you're unhealthy in this can almost kind of, you know, ricochet off each other, and you can actually start feeling normal. Like, suddenly you can normalize the idea of being uncomfortable obsessed with something. So I would have thought it was that the internet, but particularly social media

Starting point is 00:18:33 which sort of allows this to thrive. We're in the past, the thing you're talking about, you just had to think about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on Reddit, I follow like subreddit about the office, and they make this joke about, like, have you watched the office versus do you watch the office? Because to those people, it's still on. Do you know what I mean? The universe is still, it's like this parallel universe

Starting point is 00:18:58 that continues to this day on this kind of infinite loop, whereas a show in the 90s, it ran once, and then yes, it ran in syndication, but you couldn't inject it into your veins or immerse yourself in the metaverse of the show on demand, the way that you can. So I just wonder if technology changes our relationship with the characters and what the groups are the bands

Starting point is 00:19:23 in that way, like even let's say you get into a band today, maybe you actually have more information about them than you ever have before, but like, I don't know, maybe you get it out of your system faster, or I don't know, it's, I wonder how technology interplays with our, with our, with our relationship with the art. Well, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I see a huge part of it, I think, because, okay, the example you just used, right? So, to me, if, let's say I decided that I was, became obsessed with the band like Tayman Paula, and I just wanted to learn everything about them.

Starting point is 00:20:00 I could get out of this podcast and do that, really easily. Where, in the past, before we got to this sort of shift, the amount of work one had to do to learn new things about bands was much harder. I mean, it was like, you know, there were things everybody knew about Manhaling and then these things that if you were an obsessive person, you would look to find out. And if other people liked manhaling, they might actually come to you and want to know these things that you would, you became almost like the Wikipedia entry for the band. And I think that that made that knowledge feel more valuable. One thing that I've often

Starting point is 00:20:44 noted was that like, okay, so when I worked in newspapers in the 90s, both in Fargo and in Akron, there was a common thing where there would be somebody at the newspaper whose job it seemed was mainly to remember odd things. Like, it would be somebody in the copy desk and like, you would go to this person, it was usually an older guy in Akron, it was this guy named Mickey Porter who's dead now. But like

Starting point is 00:21:10 you'd be like, oh hey, you know, there's this movie. And it was like, it was a beach boy in it. And at one point, the film dissolves and there's cars. And he'd be like, oh, that's too lame blacktop. And you'd be like, yes, that's what it is. Okay. I always sort of imagined I would become that person, I was like, I'd older, I would be the person just kind of remembered all these things, but there's no need for that person anymore. The need for that is gone. Like we have now a collective way to figure these things out.

Starting point is 00:21:37 And it was, I do think one of the underrated things about how the internet has changed the way people live, is that it has two degree eroded the importance of memory, which when I was young was essentially the core of being smart. A smart person was the person who remembered the most and knew the most. And if you were having a conversation about the 1970 Kent State shootings, if they knew the most, they were the person you listened to sort of. And that has sort of been moved away. It's like it almost seems, I think, to a certain kind of young person sort of idiotic to remember things. I mean, why would you, you know, it's hard to convince my son in a way.

Starting point is 00:22:25 It's like, you know, you gotta learn the state capitals, but I can already tell the eight-year-old, he knows, I can find that in a second. So, you know, I don't like that, but I've made reason and I like it, it's just because it's different. And I can't say it's worse, it might be better, but I don't like it, you know.

Starting point is 00:22:43 You know, I think it's worse in some ways, because if memorization or a knowledge of the facts themselves is not the thing that people are competing on, which is at least somewhat based in objective reality, we live in a world now where the competition, the scarcity is who has the hottest take on set issue or said fact, right? So who has the most unusual point of view or controversial point of view, or just plain insane point of view? So it's this sort of constant moving of the overt in window by like whoever is the most shameless or weird or fastest to the story.

Starting point is 00:23:21 I think, you know, if the medium is the message, and the 90s was the, that, or, postman talks about this, if the 90s was filtered through television, this, this, uh, era is, Twitter, is filtered through the social media mechanism, which I think is a worse mechanism for what it elicits from people. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I, you mean, I mean, how much, how much rose memorization did you do growing up? Was that a part of your elementary school education

Starting point is 00:23:52 you're trying? Yeah. What are the things that you had to memorize? Yeah, I mean, state capitals, multiplication, tables. I mean, even like, you know, I was probably one of the last groups of kids that we did a lot of cursive writing, you know, like there was it was preparing for a world in which computers were not a guarantee. There was the computer room in the house, right, or their computer laboratory in the school. It wasn't an integrated part of our existence. So I think I was one of the last generations where these were like separate bifurcated things

Starting point is 00:24:29 and then the generation after where those things are merged, suddenly what one is required to learn and how one is required to learn it changes. I mean, it is an interesting thing. So I'm born in 72, most of my schooling was in the 80s. So we had to memorize the Gettysburg address. We had to memorize the preamble of the Constitution.

Starting point is 00:24:48 And because I was Catholic, I had to memorize a shitload of prayers, right? That's about it. Even by the even in the 80s, the idea was already sort of like, well, wrote memorization, that's not critical thinking. Then I read Bob Dylan's memoir, and he said something just really fascinating, which is he's like the reason he wrote, he writes such long songs with so many verses,

Starting point is 00:25:13 is purely for sort of like the, almost the practice or the requirement of memorization. And that he really sees the idea of memorizing things almost without any context, as a meaningful thing in itself, because that's like a mental muscle or something one has to do. I do wonder, it's like,

Starting point is 00:25:39 it does seem sensible in some ways to get away from just memorizing lists of things, isotopes and chemistry or whatever. It seemed odd that we had to memorize that stuff, but I bet it is valuable. Yeah, I think it's totally gone. I think it's just totally gone. When I'm always jealous when you read biographies

Starting point is 00:25:59 of people like the greats from the mid-1980s, 1800s, just the sheer amount of poems they had memorized that they could sort of pull at a moment's notice is always sort of like, what how? It's like I couldn't, I don't know if I could give you more than a couple verses of a couple of the most famous, almost cliche poems, but you just have Churchill riffing,

Starting point is 00:26:25 you know, some 20 verses of a Kipling poem off the top of his head in your life. I know, yeah. I remember when I was at one age, I was like, I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna memorize this Robert Frost poem about stopping on the woods on like a winner evening, you know, like, whose Woody's that I think I know,

Starting point is 00:26:40 it's also in the village. Sorry, I just remembered that I was like, at the time I was like, at some point, I'm just gonna break out this poem and just say it somehow casually, I don't think it ever happened. Maybe this is the first time that I'm doing this podcast now. But yes, you're right. It's you look, there was a period

Starting point is 00:26:57 where that was a real common thing where people just memorize poems, you know? And it's, you know, it's like you see a whole movie and someone's like quoting Shakespeare or whatever and you're like, they would never happen. And you're like, maybe it would actually, maybe they would have did that, you know, then. Well, I have another 90s music question for you. As what I liked about the book was the idea that there was the boundaries of these generations are more porous than we think.

Starting point is 00:27:23 But one song that stands out to me that I don't think of as a 90s song, but essentially is, like, and you would, a normal person I could just ask, but you probably know exactly when it's come out. Like, when do people think free fallen by Tom Petty came out? You know, like, that song doesn't feel closer to never mind to me than to fortune at sun. But it came out in 1989 that feels like a song that's been here for, I don't know, it feels like it's almost like as old as rock and roll itself. It's an interesting thing because you know, freefong, you had a kind of memorable video

Starting point is 00:28:04 and by having a memorable video That's that places it kind of with a certain window of time basically sure it has to be in the middle of the 80s to the middle of the 90s Baselets when videos like that were made So so like how okay, can I ask a old joy? Yeah, I was born in 87 So 87 so so in in to maybe to you I guess a way, it was sort of like when you started getting really interested in music, this is a pre-existing song in the same way, something off Abbey Road would seem pre-existing. I guess that's always part of it.

Starting point is 00:28:38 That time feels different when you're that age. I mean, I'm six years older than my wife. Okay. It very rarely does it, is that six years ever kind of coming to play, except say we talk about the first oasis record. When I covered that as a journalist, working in the newspaper and she was in high school,

Starting point is 00:29:02 then it seems weird. Nice, I shouldn't be getting this person. Yeah, she's too young for me or whatever, you know? So like, but now, we moved six years into the future, so we move up to, you know, 90, I guess that'd be like, you know, 2000 or whatever, a song from that period. It would seem almost like we had the exact same experience.

Starting point is 00:29:22 Right. Tom Petty though, you know, he always did seem a little bit older than he was even to his peers. I mean like he was in the traveling wheelbarrows and they were all seemed like remnants of a much earlier time. I mean the 60s, Jeff Lindjou degree the 70s, you know, were all wish orborson you could say almost as a 50s person, you know. So he did seem older than he was.

Starting point is 00:29:47 He looked older. He had sort of the sentiments and the mentality of an older person. You know, so that is interesting to me. I mean, I'm not surprised that it feels that way to you, you know? It just feels like such a timeless song. It just doesn't feel like it has anything to do with

Starting point is 00:30:06 the period. Even when you watch the music video, it's a very 80s, early 90s music video. And like the first time I probably heard the song a thousand times before I ever saw the music video because I never would have watched it on TV as a kid. It's like, oh, this is like the beginning of MTV. That's what this video is coming out. But the song, like, if you told me that it was popular during the Vietnam War, I'd been like, oh, that makes sense. But it is weird how time, right before you, and then probably whatever time you sort of stop caring about popular culture, it all just feels part of one amorphous indefinite period.

Starting point is 00:30:46 Well, the other thing is like free falling is a pretty simple song and simplicity is the key to transcending time. I mean, like there are, you know, you listen to an early Beatles record, it sounds like kind of the early, you know, foundational period of rock. If you listen to their later records,

Starting point is 00:31:02 they sound like, you know, you know, the apex of what was happening in music at that time. But if you listen to Robert Soule and Revolver, I used to notice this in the 90s, that it was like, boy, this music seems so similar to what's happening in Indie Rock right now, or like with a waistess, I guess, or a lot of these things. And you know, there are just certain times when somebody will hit on something without much ornamentation, like it says, it says straightforward as it can be.

Starting point is 00:31:34 And those are the things that seem to become harder to place on the trajectory of time, because they could simplistic kind of fits in anywhere. Whereas like, you know, a lot of, say, the earlier Tom Petty records, I mean, they sound like the time they were made in. I mean, like the way the drum sound and like the sort of like the, you know, it's, there's a real kind of crispness to the recording and it's kind of almost a clinical nature. The things are real separate. The instruments are real separate. More so than like that, you know, that record does that song at least could come out in

Starting point is 00:32:08 a lot of different times. No, that's a really interesting point. So if I'm trying to find my one connection in this conversation to ancient philosophy, as opposed to just nerding out about music, which is really what I wanted to do, what's fascinating, I don't know if you've ever read Mark's releases, meditations, but what's surreal about this work compared against essentially all other works of ancient philosophy is that a normal person can just sit down and read it and make sense of what he's talking about because Mark and Serious was writing a simple diary to himself, right? There was no intention of it being published. So none of the conventions of the time,

Starting point is 00:32:45 none of the conventions of philosophy, none of this is infiltrating or influencing the work. It's just highly specific, but therefore universal, kind of in the way that really great comedy is timeless if it's based in the individual experience as opposed to making fun of what's happening in the world right now. Like Jerry Seinfeld's airplane bits don't work as well as the sort of, you know, other banal observations about the human experience. So you're right. I think simplicity is what allows something to stand the test of time because it's been boiled down to whatever the essence of the thing it's been boiled down to whatever the essence of the thing that's trying to be expressed.

Starting point is 00:33:28 Well, you know, like the second book I wrote was Sex Rugs and Coco Puffs, and that was a lot about the 92. And when the book came out, the things that people gravitated to the most, it seemed like, or that's how it felt at the time. I would use sort of specific cultural examples that to the person felt it seemed like, or that's how it felt at the time. I would use sort of specific cultural examples that to the person felt shockingly recent, that they were like reading something in a book that is something that to them was like a new idea, you know?

Starting point is 00:33:54 But of course, 20 years later, those are the things that make the book seem the least, sort of, like they're the things that kind of knock people out of the present, you know? And it seems like, well, this, some of these ideas, even if they're not necessarily, you can say, I guess, daydread the pejorative way. But just more so, it's like, oh, this reminds me that this is something from the past, you know? Whereas, when I would just be talking about my life in that book, that seems to have the city residents now is it then? It's spring here in Texas and one of the great things about spring is doing outdoor projects

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Starting point is 00:35:20 30% off your first month plus free shipping on any crate line with code Stoic at KiwiCo.com. That's 30% off your first month, kiwi.com promo code Stoic. Yeah, it's like the proper nouns are sort of like an instant connection. It's like a shortcut, but there's like an expiration date on it, you know, because you think Harvey Weinstein is the producer that people will always be talking about in as the dominant producer, and then suddenly events change and now it has a very different perception. But it's two sides of it, I guess, like one thing like Kurt Vonnegut argued was that people would always say it in like a

Starting point is 00:36:08 creative writing class or workshop. They'd be like, don't talk about technology. Don't talk about popular culture. Do not, like that's kind of a gym form of writing. And what he said is that if you don't write about technology and you don't write about culture when you're writing fiction, it's going to end up like these Victorian novels where they don't talk about sex and all anybody thinks about when they read those books are is this actually about sex. It's like if you remove this constantly, if you remove technology from your book, all it's going to do is make people go like, well, how much of this

Starting point is 00:36:39 is actually just a manifestation of what was happening with the telephone it's done or what was happening with cell phones or whatever You know, so I always do put that in my books not I mean I did anyways I should say like not because of this I did anyways and then I was real happy to find this quote Because it kind of made me like oh I'm doing it right, but you know It's like sure Okay, so so and my final music question because I remember you talk about this in in the book I think the idea of like an album coming out and it being a big deal. They're being it's sort of critical reception mattering The sort of speculation about what it's in it

Starting point is 00:37:16 The last album that I remember that happening for was one I read your review of before it came out, which is you wrote a review of Metallica's St. Anger, which I remember coming out, I remember not having access to it until it was released, but I remember, and I looked it up before we talked, I would not have dated it to 2003, I think I would have thought it was earlier, but that album sticks out at me as being not quite a 90s album, although Metallica was an 80s band, but it really hit it big in the 90s. What always has struck me about your review of that album. You said something like, it's good for bands to experiment, and we should encourage it. But then what do you do when the experiment is awful, like when it goes bad? And I think you qualified it as one of the worst albums

Starting point is 00:38:14 from a great band ever. Because you're not talking about my review of the Lulu record, right? The Metallica League. I might be conflating the two of them in my head, but I've no I've read both of them. Yes. Singing anger was the record that came out along with the movie some kind of monster, the documentary about Metallica. So in many ways that was a 90s record because it took years to make that. James had filmed went away. Right. Interesting. Sure. Sure. Sure. So like, in a little bit, that's why I think in some ways, like Chinese democracy is the last 90s record

Starting point is 00:38:48 because he was working on that Paul Scherner. Sure, 90s. I'm going to be more of a show. OK, when did that even come out? It's just like 2008, 2009. When did it come out? Yeah, it came out really that the worst possible time for it, if you had to come out 10 years earlier,

Starting point is 00:39:01 or even 10 years later, the interest would have been much different. It really was kind of an inter-pair. The record that Mattelka made with Lou Reed, which I just, you know, I probably maybe, if I went back and listed the record again, maybe it would seem better to me. But one of the things that struck me about that at the time was throughout the 70s and 80s and 90s, I had just been endlessly told, and everybody had been endlessly told, that the biggest detriment to the musician, the rock musician, was the music industry.

Starting point is 00:39:37 The music industry delimited them to not let them kind of pursue what their own sort of kind of wild fantasy wanted. You know, sometimes it did with like Steely Dan or Fleetwood Mac, you'd let a band go in the studio for three years, just a bunch of money and cocaine, just let them do it. But for the most part, there was this idea that the music industry was dictating how long the song needs to be. There needs to be three and a half minutes.

Starting point is 00:40:01 There needs to be a video. There needs to be a hook to this, you know, all these things. And that record that Metallica made with Lou Reed sort of shows what happens when those obstructions are removed, which is now because the stakes are different. There's less money on the line. There's less of an investment by the label and less potential money to be made.

Starting point is 00:40:21 That there's no idea that you need to tour behind this. You actually now do have the freedom of your Metallica to do whatever you want, what you want to do might be great for you artistically, but as a product for people, not good. You know, like that's like, like they would have never done that in 1993. Like somebody would have said to them, hey, you know, it's like, you can do this if you want. It's a really interesting project, but you know, if you just do your normal songs

Starting point is 00:40:51 about nuclear holocaust, it kind of like, you know, these kind of thrash-pronged songs, you know, you'll sell 27 million records and you can tour the world and stuff. And, no, let's do that. Let's get Bob Rock in here and do that, you know. So that was interesting, you know,

Starting point is 00:41:04 like, everything that's supposed to make things better, Let's get Bob Rock in here and do that, you know? So that was interesting, you know, like everything that's supposed to make things better, also make things worse, even if it does get better. Some things are gonna be worse all the time. It's like nothing is a solely net positive. I just, I really believe that. But I'm actually remembering what you said in the same anger review now,

Starting point is 00:41:23 which is what I've thought about is you said Almost every good band has a bad album, but even those bad albums have some or at least one good song And I think what's unique about St. Anger which I remember being so mad about when I listened to for the first time is there's almost nothing in it that Has stuck as part of the catalog, right? Like even, you know, Atlantic City is on the best of Bruce Springsteen, even though most of the rest of the album isn't kind of in the Bruce Springsteen catalog. There's always like something that sticks. It's rare and terrifying, I think, to have a complete miss like that.

Starting point is 00:42:07 Well, it is a little bit rare because the thing is, if you become, you know, if you like a band, you like their best work. If you love a band, and if you really love a band, you tend to be very interested in their worst work. And if you really wanna understand what the group is like or what the artist is like, a lot of times it's in like, you know, I'm like, I'm a huge kiss fan, right? So like music from the elder to me is by far their most interesting record.

Starting point is 00:42:36 Because you know, with, I keep mentioning Oasis, but like when I talk to Nolgalger, I wanted to talk about be here now. I wanted to talk, you know, you, you, you, the failures sort of are what sort of allow you to understand what someone is really like. Now with Metallica, it doesn't really seem like that with St. Anger partially, I think, because maybe the documentary that came with it is like the way to do that, like maybe that in some ways can be seen as their artistic failure,

Starting point is 00:43:10 even if it was kind of personally satisfying. The load records they made from the middle 90s, I, they seemed real bad to me when they came out. I think if I listened to them now, I think that I would be fine. Like even if I didn't love the music, I would find it very interesting because it's always interesting when somebody

Starting point is 00:43:28 achieves at a level of success that forces them to ask the question, well, how come this didn't make me happy? Like, how come I have the thing that my life is devoted to and yet I'm still fundamentally the same person which happens to almost every artist and almost every idiom, that whether they're a director, a musician, a writer, that at one point you just think early on, you wanna write the book that you wanna write, you know?

Starting point is 00:43:58 And then you're like, well, I hope this book is successful, and as these things happen, there is this unconscious idea maybe that once these things are achieved, like you will sort of unlock the way you want to feel about it, but that's not how it happens. And you got to ask these weird questions like, well, now what do I do? And I think that you can see this a few times in Metallica's career. Yeah, and the funny thing about that documentary is that I think it's one of the best music

Starting point is 00:44:24 documentaries ever made. It's fascinating. And I remember the big controversial thing about that documentary was that they hired like a psychologist to work with the band. And in retrospect, how ahead of its time that was, now every sports team, every person, every special forces unit, every hedge, I mean, there's a, that person is a character on the show, Billions, like the hedge fund has a psychologist that works with the people to get the best performance out of them.

Starting point is 00:44:54 I remember people really turning up their nose at them, thinking how strange that was, and then what a sort of accepted part of performance and sort of elite organizations that has become. But it was shocking to see in a documentary about a band. Well, that acceptance thing you're saying, you could maybe argue that Metallica is the reason that happened to some degree because like that guy, he had worked with the rage against the machine. He had worked with at the St. Louis Rams, I guess the LA Rams now, but you know,

Starting point is 00:45:28 so these things were happening, but it was, I don't know, like I can't even, well I don't think it was an in- an in- an embarrassing thing to go see a therapist, but for a group like Metallica, it seemed very antithetical to what their

Starting point is 00:45:48 fan base sort of saw Metallica as, which is a group who did not need to talk about how they felt. It's like there was a sort of a straight ahead sort of vision of it's like, you know, don't tread on me. Like this is like we, the people you think we are, are the people we are. Within the band, the big controversy about that movie was the section of the film where Lars Ulrich sells all his art

Starting point is 00:46:17 at like a Christie's auction for like $8 million or whatever. And the other guy is the band, we're like, don't put this in there. It's like, if you make, you band were like, don't put this in there. It's like, if people don't like this, they're going to hate this. And his argument was kind of like, well, I'm a person who collects art. I collect high-end art. There's so much money, it costs to buy a painting at Christie's or whatever. So it was this idea that like, I did a store for the New York Times magazine about Metallica with this movie. And I'll say this, it was a great experience to interview them after this therapy. Because I had interviewed James Headfield in the 90s, just kind of like he was touring

Starting point is 00:46:54 through Fargo, so I interviewed him. He was a jerk, an uncooperative, and didn't want to be doing it, didn't want to, you know, all those things. I talked to him again after this therapy, he's a totally different person because he had just been conditioned to hear a question and then just really sort of think like, well, what does this question mean to me? Okay, so I'm gonna answer what the question means to myself

Starting point is 00:47:24 that was really effective for interviewing. I don't know if they're still like that I it would be interesting to see if in any ways they've sort of drifted back But from that period when that movie was coming out they were ready to emote Well, what I think haunts me about that album and I think it I don't know how old I would have been and So I was like 16 years old and that album, and I think it, I don't know how old I would have been, so I was like 16 years old, and that album came out. So as a heavy metal fan, for a heavy metal album to have no guitar solos on it, it was like, what the fuck is this?

Starting point is 00:47:54 How could you do this, right? But I think what's haunted me creatively about it is like you want artists to question the assumptions of the industry that they're in, or the form that they're in. And so the idea that we're gonna do heavy metal, heavy metal, I'm not gonna have guitar solos. On paper, that sounds like sort of to go to your Lulu point, the kind of decision you want people to be thinking about.

Starting point is 00:48:18 That's how boundaries get pushed. That's how the status quo gets changed. And then for it to fail so catastrophically and not work, it's sort of like, I don't know, it's how the status quo gets changed. And then for it just to fail so catastrophically and not work, it's sort of like, I don't know, it's both humbling and a little terrifying to me. Okay, so because I was doing a story on that band at the time that film was coming out, I think I saw the film three times. And there's a scene in this film you'll remember it where they're telling Kirkham at the guitar player, we're not going to have guitar solos. And he's sort of like, you don't want to have guitar solos because you think it'll

Starting point is 00:48:50 sound dated. But if we don't put guitar solos on this, it'll be dated to this specific time. And every time that happened, all three screenings, the crowd laughed kind of. They was like, this is like spinal tap now. He sounds like Nigel Puffinola,, where it is, he was completely correct. He was absolutely correct. And it really shows a kind of a pressing thinking for me, but he's basically saying that's like,

Starting point is 00:49:14 if we always use guitar soles, we don't on this record because that's unpopular right now. All it's gonna do is remind people that this is when the record came out and he's right. You know, so now the question becomes like the simplicity thing we were talking about. For Metallica, I suppose, crafting songs without guitar solos was actually a less simple way to do it because it's outside of the way they'd always done things in the past. Should have perhaps, if they had made that record,

Starting point is 00:49:45 the same way they had made master of puppets or the black record or any of those things, maybe when you listen to it, it wouldn't have felt the way it did to you. That's interesting. Well, you know, I think it's about, sometimes you realize that there are conventions or practices that are there for a reason. Like, I heard this expression that there are conventions or practices that are there for a reason.

Starting point is 00:50:05 Like, I heard this expression that traditions are solutions to problems that we've forgotten about, right? And I remember I worked on this movie earlier in my career and the person making the movie was like, you know what I hate? I hate movie trailers where all the good lines from the movie are in the trailer. So they made this movie trailer where they didn't put the best lines from the movie in the movie trailer. And he was thinking, you know, he's questioning this obnoxious like show biz assumption. What turns out the movie flops horrendously because people watch the trailer and they're

Starting point is 00:50:40 like, this movie looks like it sucks, right? Because it doesn't have any good lines in the trailer. And so sometimes, I think we forget that the convention as oppressive or annoying or in some ways cliché as it might seem is actually there for really good reason. You kick it out, you've actually kicked out a leg of the stool that you didn't know was supporting more weight. Yeah, I see. I think like what you're describing is I think a real common thing that happens, which that a change is made not because the person had an idea for what would be a better way to do it, but just to remove it from the thing they don't think they like. I had a book come out

Starting point is 00:51:22 in 2016, but what if we're wrong? So we're making it into the audio. Yeah, I hope thanks. But we're doing an audio book for this, right? And I'm like, well, you know, I don't like all people. I don't like the sound of my own voice. And I think that in some ways that it,

Starting point is 00:51:42 I would have been better off if I'd never ever spoken public in some ways because people would just inject their own vocation to the writing. But anyways, we're doing the audio book and they want me to do it. But I'm like, you know what? I don't want to do this because I don't like the way that is. Let's get a British woman to do it because I love the sound of the way that I'm just speaking.

Starting point is 00:52:00 You know? And she did a great job and yet anytime I've seen anyone right or discuss the audio version of that book, they have complained about the British woman reading it. And they're like, it just, you know, it seems, and I didn't make that change because I thought, oh, it'd be great to do it this way. I didn't want to do something, So I kind of swapped that in. So I won't make that mistake again. At my ranch here in Texas, we've got about 40 or so acres, which I don't obviously manage

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Starting point is 00:53:20 Full season plans start at just 1.29 and you can get 20% off and check out when you visit getsunday.com slash doughick. That's 20% off your custom plan at getsunday.com slash doughick. Well, I loved that book and that was a question I wanted to ask you. So I actually have two questions. I'll do the easier one first. So what I love about that book and all your books, is that you always have a very unique point of view on things, and you're often exploring things that maybe one wouldn't think that you would explore to understand that thing. So when you're writing the 90s,

Starting point is 00:53:54 obviously you talk about a lot of the big moments in the 90s, but then you also seize upon some moments that, maybe one wouldn't think would be banner moments in the history of the 90s. So you sort of cultivated this ability to think about things differently and that's the premise of what if we're wrong you're sort of thinking about things that we take for granted tajar calon has this interest in question and i loved you on his podcast but

Starting point is 00:54:15 he's sort of like how do you practice what you do like it is a commutation plays their scales like how do you get better at what you do? What's your version of playing scales? How does one cultivate that ability? And I obviously some of it's natural, but how have you gotten better at it specifically over the course of your career? Hmm. Well, my honest answer kind of is like, it does seem like an unnatural thing.

Starting point is 00:54:48 I don't know if that's arrogant to say that I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem like something that I need to try or focus on. But, you know, I do think that, you know, just like the natural maturation process of becoming, you know, an older person helps because you learn new things along the way, you know. And also, you know, I suppose that having had so much of my life, or my, at least the career part of my life in public, of my life or my, at least the career part of my life in public and having so many people respond to it, that it probably does make you a little, like the natural thing I'm talking about. Now it seems natural for me to think about my work and how it will be received as I write it, which I don't know if I used to be that way.

Starting point is 00:55:49 And even as I say this, a loud, I don't love that. Like I think that it would be in some ways better if I was able to not of not think about anyone else when I'm writing, but you know, it's a strange thing. It's like when I was younger, I couldn't write as well as I do now,

Starting point is 00:56:15 and I wasn't as smart as I am now. Not that I'm brilliant now, but I was even dumber then, right? The thing was, the thing was, I didn't care about other people in the same way. And I just went for it. Like, I just, I didn't think to myself kind of like, how can this work? How could this be misinterpreted? Which now is something that I'm almost just obsessed by when I'm working. It's like, how, not how will this be taken

Starting point is 00:56:46 by someone who understands it, but what's gonna happen when someone misinterprets this? I didn't care about that when I was young. So now I'm better at writing. I have like structurally for sure. You know, my writing is tighter, there's less fat on it and all that stuff. You know, I'm aged, so I'm a smarter person.

Starting point is 00:57:03 If I could somehow combine my emotional intelligence or maybe my lack of emotional intelligence when I was young, but the person I am now, it would be ideal, but it's strange. As one thing improves, the other thing disappears. Now, I'm much talking about self-consciousness. Is that the vulnerability you're talking about? Consciousness is the thing that kills art. It really does. It's like, you know, and and yet the process of being alive and trying to think critically about the world pushes your consciousness forward. Like I'm more conscious of reality now than I've ever been in my life. And there is a detriment to that though in terms of being creative because you have to I don't know. I don't want to misdescribe this or something, but it seems as though the more I think about

Starting point is 00:58:15 what something means, the less able I am to kind of comfortably illustrate that to other people. If that makes sense. Well, I've noticed this. I've found that as I've written more books, each one is a little longer than the one that came before it. And I don't think it's that I'm getting long-winded or self-indulgent. Like, I do feel like I try to edit and I try to catch myself and I try not to get egotistical or, you know, like the sort of cliche of a windbag writer.

Starting point is 00:58:45 But I found that when I go back and read some of my early work, I was letting myself get away with certainty or simplicity that now I would just cringe at saying such a complex thing in so few words without the necessary qualifications or support or side notes. I mean, Tony, that's the weird reality. People like polimics. The consumer prefers to have someone whose opinions are almost too strong. Like the person just seems inflexibly certain about this.

Starting point is 00:59:26 And for me now, I don't trust people who are like that. And I am very nervous to do that myself. So when I read this book, the 90s is a really interesting deal. Like I felt that in many ways, I was almost like a picture only throwing fastballs and change ups. I was almost like a picture only throwing fastballs and changeups. I was just coming straight down the middle. I was looking, I was trying to completely remove myself from the book.

Starting point is 00:59:54 In a sense that nobody would, I thought to myself or tried, but nobody would read the book and be like, well, this is his experience. That was the books I wrote 20 years ago. This was trying to be like, well, I'm trying to just sort of be as balanced as possible. And as a result, it's almost like people think I was secretly doing it. We're like, I was trying to fool people, trick people.

Starting point is 01:00:16 Like I'm actually trying to impose my personal worldview because I'm not saying it. You know, it's like, because I'm not transparently saying this happened to me or this is what I liked, I must be in some way secretly trying to convince people that this is what I believe and what I think. It's just, it's a tough, I don't want to say it's a no-in proposition, maybe it's like a completely understandable deal, but it's odd. The less I put myself into things I write, seems to have no impact on how much people think I'm in it. But I think it isn't no win proposition.

Starting point is 01:00:58 I wrote this book about Peter Tio and his lawsuit to destroy Gokker. And so it was like my book about media. So there was this, I had to like get off Twitter and I was like, I don't want, I was like, didn't want to think about those people, like the people who I knew would read the book and have really strong opinions about and tweet about it. And yet when I look back and I most,

Starting point is 01:01:19 the things I regret most about the book are the moments where I was thinking about what people would think I was writing, like where, it's not that I pulled my punches, but I was self-conscious. I was like, well, this will play this way, so I should do it this way. And so I regret those moments, and those people fucking hated the book anyway. And then the people who liked the book didn't even notice that any of that was happening. And what always ends up happening, and this is why I say self-consciousness is such a problem, is that what it does is it makes the person think like, well, okay, how can I mitigate this?

Starting point is 01:01:54 And very often, the attempt at mitigation amplifies it. So I have this big section in the 90s book about Nirvana and Crunch. And then there's a short essay, kind kind of afterwards about Tupac Shakur. And now I have a footnote there where I saw he describe how I can understand how it can be perceived that I'm writing about this white guy from the kind of the, kind of the roting world of rock.

Starting point is 01:02:21 And then I read about this hip hop guy from the rising world of rap. And then I read about this hip hop guy from the rising world of rap, you know, and yet one is smaller than the other. And I kind of just kind of described why though that I did this and like thinking was, and that has actually made people more aware of it. That it would have been better if I, it would have been better if I just, now part of me, my natural inclination is always to do stuff like that, because I always feel as though, like,

Starting point is 01:02:52 if I'm thinking of something, it means it's informing when I'm writing, and I want, you know, that kind of self-consciousness or self-awareness seems in the moment like the thing, the right thing to do. And then it usually is not. So I don't know what to do sometimes, except just keep trying and keep failing. I have two more questions. Do you have time? Sure. I get plenty of time. All right. So to go back to being wrong wrong and then I'll close with the 90s.

Starting point is 01:03:26 But one of the things I took from that book that I just thought about the last two years is invariably there will be some things from the, and I guess this also goes to self-consciousness. There's going to be some things from the pandemic that turn out to have been totally wrong, right? That we just got completely wrong. Have you thought about what those things would be? And it must be so tricky because let's say us use a row of reference, the us and the reality-based community that generally have taken the science for what it is, we sort of listen to the instructions, we took the pandemic seriously, not, and I'm not referring to the sort

Starting point is 01:04:08 of conspiracy theorists or the deniers. You're sort of taking it, but then there has to be a part of you that also knows if the history repeats itself as it always does, at least one or two of these big things will turn out to have been incorrect or based on insufficient information or it's more complicated. Applying your mind, what do you think that might be or have you thought about what that might be?

Starting point is 01:04:35 Well, I have thought about that. And it is hard to know because I think that because the science was consistently changing, there was sort of, you know, we'd hear this phrase, within abundance of caution or whatever. It's like the idea of taking the safer route was always perceived as being the better of the two moods. It's always like, you know what, I guess,

Starting point is 01:05:03 I don't know if we'll ever know the answer to this, but I do wonder if prior to the vaccine, if most of what was done ultimately had zero impact on the number of fatalities and you know, and that it was kind of like it was like the best sort of guess. But you know, I remember when it first happened and they were like do not let kids play on outdoor equipment. It can live on steel for nine days or whatever. And it was like, even at the time I was like, yeah, I suppose that there is some lab where in a perfect situation that kept, I, it just doesn't seem possible.

Starting point is 01:05:47 I mean, I live in Portland, Oregon, it rains all the fucking time here. But there's no way, if COVID is all over this jungle gym, there's like, there's no way I'm not gonna get it. Okay, like, you know, and I never did get it, or at least I didn't know, if I did, I didn't know. Like I, in terms of like, big things, I just,

Starting point is 01:06:09 I think that we may find out eventually is that, maybe the detriment to what it did to kids' education for that year is actually gonna be greater than the detriment if the illness had passed through them. I also sometimes wonder if it would have been like 1918. And that was our limits of communication, technology, and stuff like that. Would it have just sort of like just flew through the entire world populace? And all of the things that happened in the course of 18

Starting point is 01:06:46 months would have happened in two months. And it would have been really the same ultimate sort of effect, but it would have happened much faster. And that would have meant we would have returned to life faster, but that's not going to make that much difference. I mean, you have any thoughts on this? I'm curious. Yeah, I don't think that would make sense, because if you look at Omicron and, you know, it's significant, it looks like the deadliness of the virus is going down, plus the treatments are getting better, you know, you're still getting thousands of deaths a day, right?

Starting point is 01:07:16 So like, imagine if that level of spread was two years earlier, and it all happened at the same time. What a catalyst, like the hospital systems never ended up fully getting overwhelmed. It got close, but never had ever. But if that had happened in March and April two years ago, what the world would have looked like?

Starting point is 01:07:37 I don't know if you can imagine. I mean, because the risk was like, you know, was so because the risk was like, you know, was so high. And it was like, you know, and it was so unknown. It's hard to sort of, you know, I mean, it's easy to look back on these things and be like, well, I guess we shouldn't have done that. But I was like, no one really knew what was going on. And I think about a little bit about like with why 2K when I wrote about that in the book, how during that period, you know, there was this, there was this constant discussion.

Starting point is 01:08:08 It's like, well, it's overrated. Oh, no, it's huge. No, it's not going to happen. And then it didn't really happen. And some people said that, you know, this proves it was never going to happen. But then a lot of people are like, well, no, if we had not done all these steps, there would have really been a cataclysmine. But yet there were of people are like, well, no, if we had not done all these steps, it would have really been a cataclysmine. But yet, there were, like, self-career didn't do anything, and they seem to have the exact same effect as everybody else, like, for why? Okay, I don't know what the right answer is. Well, it's this kind of weird thing.

Starting point is 01:08:38 Was it Keith? Someone who said, like, the mark of genius is to be able to hold conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. And I think that that has sort of separated like the intelligent from the really stupid during the pandemic, which is the like, hey, we're probably wrong about a lot of stuff in what we're thinking about. And yet, it's the best information we have, so we should probably follow it. Do you know what I mean? The ability to go like, hey, mate, it seems people struggle with masks probably work, so you should wear one versus, they've been wrong about this, so they're definitely wrong

Starting point is 01:09:19 about this, so I'm just not going to do it. Do you know what, we've struggled with the ability to do that. It is, it's, you know, I always sort of went along with what the conventional thinking was the whole time. And I still do. It's like if whatever one is doing it, it's sort of what I'm doing too, I guess. You know, it, you know, does it seem possible to me that some of the most outlandish,

Starting point is 01:09:44 maybe not the most outlandish ideas, but some of the most outlandish, maybe not the most outlandish ideas, but some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories that exist. Not just about COVID, but about many things could eventually prove to seem more reasonable than unreasonable. Absolutely, but you can't factor that into your worldview. Like the fact that something could possibly be true, you have to go with what is most likely to be true, even if you can see that sometimes

Starting point is 01:10:11 you're gonna be completely wrong about that. Like, if it turns, it would be crazy. If it turned out that 20 years from now, like everybody who got the Moderna vaccine spontaneously had some insane thing happen to them. Like, that would be crazy, right? Like, is it completely impossible? I suppose it's not completely impossible, but it wouldn't stop me from getting the vaccine. I mean, I just, you know, you can't factor in every possibility as a reason not to do something, you know? as a reason not to do something, you know?

Starting point is 01:10:47 Yeah, it's like this, it's like when you study history, you realize that we're wrong about pretty much, we've been wrong about big things consistently throughout history. But if that informs your current worldview, you end up as like an idiot or a nihilist or something in between, it's like this weird thing where you have to accept that you're likely to be wrong,

Starting point is 01:11:09 but if you throw out everything, you're definitely gonna be wrong about a lot of things also. Yeah, it's hard, it's interesting when the problem is small, it's real uncomfortable when the problem is big like this. We're talking about small issues, it's fun to speculate on this, and then when it's a real truly omnipresent thing like that,

Starting point is 01:11:40 it's just, I don't know what the proper reaction is. You know, I'm not sure there is a single company that has changed my life in business more than Shopify. Shopify is how we launched the Daily Stalkin, and it's really the reason that you're listening to this podcast right now. It's been such an enormous part of my business and my growth. I can't recommend it highly enough.

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Starting point is 01:12:47 Shopify.com slash dot. Well, so to go back to the book, which again, I love, you sort of marked the end of the 90s with 9-11. And you have this interesting sort of media analysis. You're looking at like the headlines of all the different newspapers, the day before 9-11. And it was like, if my memory of what you were saying was that like,

Starting point is 01:13:14 we all existed in these little individual, like the people in Cleveland lived in Cleveland. And they were focused on the news in Cleveland. And I would grew up in Sacramento. And I remember listening to Morning Radio in Sacramento about what was happening, and then 9-11 happened. And then it's like suddenly we're all in the same boat. Like you look at the papers on 9-12,

Starting point is 01:13:34 they all have the same headlines effectively. Which is a weird sort of paradox of the 90s, which is that 90s were a mass culture generation. And then 9-11 was a mass culture generation. And then 9-11 was a mass culture event that unified everything into this sort of global, singular news story. And yet, the time that came after is we all live in these fractured groups where we don't,

Starting point is 01:14:01 like we don't even agree on reality, right? To go back to what we're just talking about in the pandemic. Like, it's this weird, I'm not sure what came out of it, but the unity of whatever, like we're all following the same news and living in the same universe, that seems not to have held. Well, yeah, you know, I, I, like, it's almost like I was very an entire book just on the period

Starting point is 01:14:26 right after 9-11 and what you're talking about right now. That would be a completely reasonable thing to read a 500 page book about. You know, so, so we have to, the day before 9-11, like I was looking at various newspapers across the country and, you know, it wasn't that they were just covering local news. They were covering national news, but they had different ideas of what would be interesting to people. Like Detroit, they're Detroit paper, it's Jimmy Hoffa and like the Hawaii paper and Honolulu had something about the Children's sex trade and and you know there was

Starting point is 01:14:52 You know different places had there were one news favorite stories about KFC moving into China. So even national stories There was more this idea that You could kind of Kind of pick and choose. Pick what make, we're here at this newspaper, we have a staff, or we're here at the local news channel. What do we think is sort of important? We kind of weigh this in this individual way.

Starting point is 01:15:16 9-11 happens, and then all the news is the same for everyone, at least for a short point of time. Everyone's interest. Everyone's talking about the same thing. And then we kind of move out of that period. And over time, what has happened is that culture has become more splintered, right? So you'd think that you'd think that the result would be that these little localized pockets would have even more sort of a kind of unique or capricious ideas. But that's not what happens when culture

Starting point is 01:15:46 splinters. When culture splinters in order to cover it from a media perspective, you have to look for the handful of things that still seem to have residents across all borders. I mean, we talked about music earlier in this conversation. This is an easy example of this. Like, now, if you want to cover pop music and you want to cover pop music, and you want to write about an artist that you feel that most people who see this will have some kind of relationship to, the number is increasingly small. It's like Taylor

Starting point is 01:16:18 Swift, Kanye West, Kanye West, Kanye West. Exactly. Okay, because as things have been broken up into this huge spectrum of possibilities to connect with more than a small pocket of people, you have to just direct all your focus on whatever seems like the most universal. It's why the last episode of Game of Thrones, despite being watched by less people than an average episode of Seinfeld, felt like a bigger deal culturally than the finale of Seinfeld. Now, granted, the finale of Seinfeld was a big deal.

Starting point is 01:16:54 It was like on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, it was in the cover of lots of magazines, everyone was sighing, but for the finale of Game of Thrones, it was discussed basically for a year before it happened and the responses to it were still going on three months later because they felt, well, this is something most people know about. And it's just strange.

Starting point is 01:17:15 It is like the more you break something up, the more essential the biggest chunk becomes. What's like, you think about the job of the person who has to pick who's going to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. The number of artists that they can choose from is getting smaller and smaller and smaller because who is possibly going to appeal to 50 million people. There's not many acts that fit that criteria anymore. Whereas in the 90s, there were probably many acts you could choose.

Starting point is 01:17:48 Well, yeah, although it's a little different in the sense that the, I mean, the Super Bowl halftime show has always used this example. And like we were talking about Metallica earlier, that would seem to make a lot of sense from Metallica to play that show. But the idea I think is that the kind of person

Starting point is 01:18:04 who loves football and is watching football anyways probably also likes Metallica. So you don't really need to get that person. You're looking for the person who would never watch football otherwise. So that's why a lot of people love Lady Gaga. Do it whatever. Like Lady Gaga did not seem to have a natural relationship to the NFL. But the Super Bowl now has become this completely bizarre thing where I covered the Super Bowl when it was in Detroit at Ford Field. And you know, they're for the whole week and there's all this crazy stuff going on

Starting point is 01:18:38 that's just kind of ancillary to the game. There's all these kids things, there's all these family things, there's all these musical events. And then finally on Sunday, like a football game happens that seems exactly like any other football game when you're watching it.

Starting point is 01:18:50 But everything else is different, you know? Well, yeah, it's like the need, you need things that have a draw now because nobody has, like you talked about this in the book, like people used to watch things because they were on, right? So the scarcity created a natural attraction, whereas now you need things that bring,

Starting point is 01:19:14 it's like the television form of virality. You need things that are gonna draw people in or create conversation or make it bigger than it would be on its own because the thing itself doesn't have the power that it would have in a different technological and cultural environment. I mean, television was the most popular thing in America from basically 1950 on to the 20th century.

Starting point is 01:19:41 And yet, it mattered less. It was what you watched when there was nothing else to do. Like, you weren't going to a movie, you weren't going out, so you're going to stay in and watch television. It was the best option when there was no other option, which was a lot of the time. Now, that thinking is kind of gone because I don't think that there is a belief anymore that people are ever in a situation where they have nothing to do. They can just look at their phone. Like people, like when you're waiting in line at the bank, if you still do it, you are

Starting point is 01:20:14 not necessarily bored. You're looking on, it's one of whatever. So I think now the idea with television is that it's got to have, it's got to be offering people, frankly, the illusion that what they are seeing is so important that they need to be engaged with it. It's not an optional thing anymore. You can't, you know, like I'm watching Severance right now, and there's this sense that you can't kind of casually watch this show.

Starting point is 01:20:39 It's like either you're all the way in or you're not in it all, you know? And that has really both elevated the content of television, but made the experience very, very different. Like the meaning of what the television is now is different than what it used to be. And that's partially related to the content, but more to the experience. Yeah, I think the,

Starting point is 01:21:07 I've been, as I watch those shows, and I've kind of just come back to watching reruns of stuff that I like because I'm finding that it's all about are the last 10 minutes interesting enough, or do they create enough tension that you will let the auto play feature roll the next episode right So instead of like hey, it's over at 30 minutes to come back next week

Starting point is 01:21:32 It's more like you're just the slave of this one feature Which is trying to get you to binge watch said show and get to a point where you've invested enough hours in it that you want to make those hours pay off in some way. Well, and to a degree now, because television got better, I think there's an unconscious idea that television, the experience of watching a TV show is now more like the experience to watching a film. You saw this with the end of the sopranos

Starting point is 01:22:04 and really with the end of Lost. Where it was this idea that if this show doesn't sort of tie together what the entire show has been about in a way that is satisfying, the show has failed. And this is, I mean, for now it's a normal way to think but it's incredibly new thinking. I mean, like a TV show like say W W.A.K.A.P.

Starting point is 01:22:26 in Cincinnati. The last episode of that show is like any other episode of the show. It's just the last one. There's no idea that we have to figure out what these, like, are we going to imagine these characters living on, forward, you know? Or like, like, or the end of the TV show, Newhart,

Starting point is 01:22:41 where it ends up the entire show was a dream and he was actually still on the Bob New Heart show. If someone did that with the television show now, there would be outrage that this thing that they had experienced and love was actually false, that somehow that, that, you know, like, if it turned out that like Tony soprano woke up in the last episode and actually he was a normal garbage man

Starting point is 01:23:03 who had dreamed that he had been this mafioso. People would have lost their fucking mind because it's like they, because they watch these shows. The Mad Men was a, clearest example of this. I don't know if you watch Mad Men, but late in that show, the character of Joan makes this kind of, this, this interesting decision where it's like she sleeps with a guy in order to get an account for Jaguar cars. So she has sex with this guy in order to get this account. And this show would run for quite a while when this has happened. So people who love that show were like, Joan would never do that.

Starting point is 01:23:36 That is not how she would act. Okay, well first of all, if you go back and see the first episode of Mad Men, she totally would have. That person totally would have. But second of all, it's a fictional character. She does what the script says, okay? Like whatever he, it's, it's, it's a bizarre thing. In fiction, like in nonfiction and in life,

Starting point is 01:23:55 we expect people to make decisions they would never normally make all the time. Every friend you have has done something in their life that to you was a complete on- Out of character. Yes, but in fiction, you can't do that. There can be no actions. I mean, that's why writing fiction

Starting point is 01:24:11 is so much harder than writing nonfiction. Because when you're writing fiction, everything has to fit together perfectly, even though we all know in life, it never does. Yeah, there was a story I saw a couple years ago where I guess there was some moment in the office where John Crescensee's character was going to have an affair. Yes. And he refused to do it. He was like, my character wouldn't do it. And you can imagine the what would have

Starting point is 01:24:38 happened had he had he done that because those characters are effectively real to us, to people. And for one of them to betray the other, even in a fictional way, is unconscionable to the audience. Yeah, I mean, I don't even think, you know, I'm sure what he said is my character would never do that. But I think that's an understanding of the audience will not accept my character doing that. Like, you know, the audience for this, the actor won't ruin my career by doing it. Well, it will change the way people think of every previous episode, where, you know, in the past, the idea of like a, I think there was often,

Starting point is 01:25:18 you know, a desire for actors and actresses to have their character maybe kind of, you know, go bad or whatever. You know, become something different. And now it's like, no, we don't want that, yeah. Have you read Fahrenheit 451 at all since high school? Not since high school. You should reread it.

Starting point is 01:25:38 I reread it for this thing that I did somewhat recently. And like first off, it has a very, I had interpreted the book as originally as a kid that it was about government censorship, right? That like the government's like, we don't want you to have access to these subversive ideas. Actually, it's more subtle. It's more about not wanting to offend people. Like it wanted everyone to get along. But then the other part of it, which haunts me sometimes, is the idea if she has the wall of television on her screen, it's like her entire wall of her house, it's those television

Starting point is 01:26:12 screens, Montag's wife. And she's basically addicted to these stories, which is this ongoing kind of fictional reality show. And it doesn't she have, I I think she has like headphones in, like little white pods. It's fucking trippy to think that actually Bradbury is almost perfectly describing the moment we're in, put aside the political correctness,

Starting point is 01:26:36 but just the thing you open with the idea of this parasocial relationship that we have, where these people are real to us. And we need them to do a certain thing almost as a numbing mechanism so we don't have to exist in the chaos and unpleasantness of reality itself. I think it's really cool that you say that when you're a kid you had this you imagine what it was about because this kind of an embarrassing thing to admit, but I will admit it.

Starting point is 01:27:05 I think for a large chunk of my life, maybe until I was in college, I rarely recognize subtext. I only recognize text. I would read books just as text, right? And here's what I have found. My memory of books that I read in 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th grade is still super high. Like, I can still like, like, I can remember specific scenes

Starting point is 01:27:37 from like Richard Wright's Black Boy, whatever, in this kind of vivid way. And now, it's like I read only for subtext. And as a consequence, even if I kind of get the idea, the rest of it just kind of evaporates away. I'm reading Jonathan Franz and his crossroads right now, and it's great, and I've already forgotten parts of the beginning of the book, because all I'm reading it for is sort of like his take on faith, and like does he have a real belief on what faith is, and like is he

Starting point is 01:28:03 the right person to be describing this and do these characters seem realistic and if they don't seem realistic is on purpose? And yet the actual mechanics of the story, I think I'm not absorbing the way, like, my favorite book of all time probably is Animal Farm. And it's really funny to me to think that the first time I read that,

Starting point is 01:28:24 I must have read it only as text. Like I was just reading about the animals and the problems the animals were having and it's like this is an interesting problem because I didn't know anything about raw share or whatever and I read that book like yeah I was like so I uh but I wonder if the reason that I can still kind of like like I feel if someone gave me a quiz on that book right now, I do pretty well. Oh, like, I'm like, I like, I like, I like what happened. I'm just, and yet, if I read that book now, I'd be like, this is an allegory, thinking

Starting point is 01:28:53 about other things, thinking about what it means, like, you know, well, no, that kind of goes, it's like the flip side of self-consciousness where instead of just being present and experiencing it, you're already asking yourself, what does it mean? Are they doing a good job? You know, it's like you're breaking the fourth wall yourself or something. Yes. And there's something about being a kid who doesn't understand any of that. So you're just actually fully, immersively in the experience, and you can kind of only do that one time. Yep, yep.

Starting point is 01:29:30 When it's gone, never comes back. Yeah, and then I'm sure being a critic, you're having to fine tune your ability to not do that, to think about all those other things. So that probably does suck a little bit out of it too. Yeah, I mean, maybe I'm being too broad. Maybe I was getting subtext from it, but it wasn't in this conscious way now,

Starting point is 01:29:49 where now I just, anything I read or watch, even music I listen to, if I'm listening to the lyrics, to me, it's sort of like, what is the meaning of this that is not obvious? And yet, maybe what I need to do is focus more on the part that is obvious, like the straightforward part, you know what I mean? I love that.

Starting point is 01:30:11 Well man, this is so awesome. I'm a huge fan and I love the new book and I love What If For Wrong. And I also love I wear the black hat. I thought that was a great book too. Thanks man, I appreciate you having me on. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa. The Stoa, Pocula, the Painted Porch in ancient Athens.

Starting point is 01:30:31 Obviously, we can all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the Stoa. We're calling it daily Stoic life. It's an awesome community. You can talk about like today's episode. You can talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts

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The Daily Stoic - Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties

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