David Sedaris is Mostly Bark, Some Bite

- Welcome to Ponte of America. I'm John Love it. I just wrapped a great conversation with the writer David Sideris who's out

“with a new collection of essays called The Land”

and its people we talked about. His father's support for Trump, why no one cared when David was bit by a dog, what you can't talk about in a healthy relationship. Moby Dick, international McDonald's,

the word queer punching down, why he avoids pried parades and what he fears most about getting old. And speaking of pride over on The Leather Leave a channel, this week we are doing a pride special

with Mark and Delicado from Hacks, Drag Race Winter, Mikey Meeks, Otsco, Katska, and the legend himself, Bruce Valanch, plus many more guests, check out, Leather Leave it, every Wednesday and Friday on YouTube,

or wherever you get your podcast. All right, now let's go to my conversation with David Sideris. (upbeat music) David Sideris, so nice to meet you.

So nice to have you here. - Oh, thanks so much for having me.

- 10 years ago, after Trump won the first time,

you wrote an essay for the Paris Review about arguing with your father over whether Trump is an asshole. And then the next day, your dad says to you, "So are you still talking to me?"

And I thought that was interesting because he didn't say I'm not talking to you. He said, "Are you still talking to me?" And I often feel like with, especially inside of a family, when you're arguing about Trump,

there's this understanding that whether it's admitted or not, you know he's a bad person, and there's something a little bit wrong with voting for him. And people are looking for some kind of forgiveness or lack of judgment, even though they know they did something wrong.

And I'm wondering if you felt that when you were talking to your father, other people in your life that voted for Trump? - Well with my dad, it started really, he was like a Republican, like just wanted

to keep more of his own money. And then he voted for Jesse Helms, which was a thing because Jesse Helms would grow up in Raleigh and he was on that, who was a, he was a, did editorials on the news.

And even as a kid, you were like, wow, that guy's really severe, you know? And then he ran for office. And it really, it really, when he voted for Jesse Helms,

it just became a different thing. And then conservative radio came along and then he started listening to Rush Limbaugh and then he, Fox News came along. And so then he was just in it all the time.

He was in it in his car and he was in it at home.

“And it was on all the time, like a rage machine, you know?”

And then when he moved into an assisted living when he was like 95, and he didn't know how to work the TV.

And for the first time he, he wasn't up.

He wasn't being agitated every minute. And toward the end of his life, he regretted. He said, don't me, he regretted voting for Trump, which is interesting to me. But I, like I have a friend who in England

who is a politician and he and I pick up trash together, right? When I first moved to the countryside in England, my boyfriend, Hugh wrote a letter to the council saying, like, what's going on with all this trash on the side of the road? And they invited us to the clean and tidy advisory board, right?

To a meeting. So we met this guy who's a local politician and he goes and picks up trash himself. And so I do it myself every day between four and six hours. And sometimes he comes with me, right?

And he was a Tory, but now he's reformed, right? Now he's Nigel Frage. And he said, you're not going to want to talk to me anymore. And I said, oh, no, that's not the case at all.

You know, like I would never stop talking to him over that.

He answers any question I ask him, you know, we don't, and I appreciate that. I'd like to know why he feels the way that he does. We've never raised our voices to each other.

“It's, I think it's a great relationship.”

And when my dad was like you're not going to get right, he-- well, I think part of it, too. I mean, my dad, North Carolina, you know, gay marriage was illegal in North Carolina. And then they introduced like a resolution

that would make it extra extra, extra, extra illegal. And my dad was so happy to tell me he voted for that. So happy to tell me that. And I would happen to be in North Carolina at that time. And, you know, my sister-in-law, her sister is gay.

And I said, why shouldn't she be allowed to marry her girlfriend? It sends the wrong message.

And then he couldn't really answer. He'd heard the answer on the radio or on TV,

“but he couldn't quite remember what was wrong with that, right?”

He couldn't quite recall those words. Anyway, he was a dick, you know, just complete dick. But-- and that was like the least of it. They don't mean-- it wasn't like he was a dick because of that. He was like a massive dick anyway.

And then there was that. Right, right, no for sure, but even like what you're saying about this, the person who said he went reform, like, I got your probably, you know, probably not come on a talk to me.

I've never heard a liberal say, I voted for Mamdoni,

but you're probably not going to want to talk to me. There's some kind of acknowledgement inside of it that it's an act of not sabotage, but I'm so mad about everything. I'm going to vote for these terrible people, or I'm going to become extreme.

My reasons are legitimate, which you don't appreciate. But I know on some level, I'm doing something wrong. That to me is what I often hear from. And I feel that inside of when families are having these kinds of arguments.

“And I'm wondering if that's what you've felt from your dad,”

even though you felt like he was also-- I felt it was more like that me being gay had something to do with it. It would be like saying to a Jewish friend, I voted for the Nazi party. You're probably not going to want to talk to me.

Whereas you would say to somebody who wasn't Jewish,

you would say, yeah, I voted for the Nazi party. And you wouldn't, and you're probably not going to want to talk to me. Because you can see how your vote is going to make this person's life more miserable. But to you.

You know, I know that towards the very end of his life, your father did say really acknowledge how much success you had and what you had built. But at the same time, he's looking you in the eye and being like, yeah, I'm just voting for the thing

that is going to make your life worse. And I'm just doing, because I have some of my friends from the radio, like, what is that? Like, is there any acknowledgement? Like, what do you think that was?

“Like, why could he, why did he care more about what he was seeing”

on the television than he did about you? - Because it was all about money. Just money.

- I mean, yeah, ultimately it all came down to money.

I mean, if, oh my goodness, if, you know, if a candidate said I'm going to bring back the concentration camps, but I'm going to knock $2 off your taxes, my father would have voted for that person because he would say $2.

I mean, $2 was that important to him. It's not like he didn't have $2. It was just, ultimately, it was all about money, about keeping more of his money. - So in 1990, I was looking at one of your older diaries

and in 1990, you and your dad and your brother Paul spent 18 hours in a pickup truck together, driving from Illinois to North Carolina. And for someone who is now sitting, your father was a dick, you also spent a lot of time together.

Like, my father and I don't know what we would talk about if we were in a car together for 18 hours. Do you remember that drive? - I remember it clearly. Yeah, but if my father and I were in a car for 18 hours,

then he just would have criticized me for 18 hours, but my brother was there. And so that made it fun, that my brother was there. But yeah, that was nice. I often think of that.

I was moving to New York City. So I was leaving Chicago and then I had some stuff I was going to bring to North Carolina. And then I was going to go, I was going to paint a house. My father had rental property.

And I was going to paint a house and then use that money to move to New York with. So we drove from Chicago to North Carolina. And I painted the house. And I don't want the deal was maybe

that I was going to get $2,000 from painting the house. And I painted the house and he said, I'll give you 500. I mean, everything about my father prepared me for Trump. You know, someone works for you and then you don't pay them. Or then you say, I'll pay you a quarter of what you're going to pay me.

You get a quarter, you get nothing. So he was only a dick. You know what I mean? He might have driven me, you know, that was nice of him. But I mean, it wasn't like you just taking like a day's vacation from being a dick, you

know. So now it's all these years later and you're telling the Wall Street Journal that you bought a $2,500 coat for your tour. So things have changed. Things have picked up for you.

You're traveling around the world. Talk to me about what, international McDonald's has taught you. Everything McDonald's in other countries and what it teaches you about the world and

I don't, like I eat McDonald's once a year and the Dallas airport because I find myself at lunchtime in the Dallas airport at least once a year and there's no really no other place to eat, right? But when I go to other countries, I just love to see what McDonald's is often like the Grand Canyon Burger.

We don't have the Grand Canyon Burger here. The Brooklyn Burger. I don't even know what would be on a Brooklyn Burger.

You go to other countries and you see billboards and so I always write it down.

I don't know. I'm just, but you don't eat them. You just go through. No, I don't try them. No, I just write them down and have them on my list of things in McDonald's offers

and other countries. Like I don't, I don't necessarily know what they've got here.

“But I think if they had a Grand Canyon Burger, I would have heard about it.”

Or I would have seen an ad for it. They don't have that. I go there all the time. When I was in Japan, I was visiting a friend in Japan, 20 years ago, and he was

peace spoke Japanese, so that was going to be helpful.

And I don't speak any Japanese, but by the time I had landed, he had gotten quite sick. And so I was alone in Japan and everyone's in a while in a kind of feeling of overwhelmed and panic. I would go to the McDonald's. But you don't even eat the McDonald's in the other countries.

So for me, it's occasionally like a recipe to be abroad and be like, you know what? I need to go into. I need 10 minutes to be inside of the comfort and warm blanket of McDonald's, including eating it. But for you, it's more just sort of observing it almost like David Attenborough on the

Serengeti as opposed to sort of consuming the McDonald's. Yeah, in Tokyo, I observe it.

“And then I go to Horishanasbaga, freshness burger, and that's how it's pronounced.”

Horishanasbaga, or a moss burger, and they're great. They're Japanese-chained, and they're great. So you seem to be a little bit annoyed by the language of the left these days. And you acknowledge that part of this is that you're getting older and everything is starting to annoy you more and more, which I appreciate though.

I feel like maybe you've always had a little bit of like, you've always had a kind of,

I don't know, a personality old man inside of you, and maybe now it's from a charming out. But you do have an essay to book about punching down. Is there anyone beneath you that you'd like to take a shot at right now? Or anyone you'd like to punch down?

Oh, that essay came from when I first moved to New York City, I didn't know anybody. And so there was a class at the Y called Writing Funny, and it was taught by this woman named Frida Garmayes, who used to be a Saturday commentator on all things considered. And really funny, this British woman, and I thought, oh gosh, it's not going to be any places left in the class because she's teaching.

And so I signed up for this class, and I was the only one who knew who she was. And the first day, she said, what are the rules for comedy writing?

“And I said, you should never make fun of anyone who has less power than you.”

And she said, where on earth did you get that idea from? She said, no, the only rule of comedy writing is that you should be as tasteless as possible. And so I've stuck by that, ever since she told me, I thought, that's a good rule. But you don't, but who are we punching down at? Who are you punching down at these days?

Who's annoying you? You know, no, like I had something on CBS Sunday morning, right, not long ago. And I was in Minneapolis, airport, and I went for lunch, and it was this place where you had to seat yourself, order yourself on the screen, pay, enter all your credit card information, and then it asked how much you wanted to tip.

And I thought, I've done everything here. What would I be tipping? And then I saw this woman come and set food in front of somebody. And I wrote that I saw that she was an immigrant, and I thought how my parents, my grandparents were immigrants, right, and then it went on from there.

And the board of race and culture at CBS said I was using my privilege to punch down and call someone an immigrant. And then I said, and then they gave me an opportunity to defend myself. And I said, immigrant is like a pharmacist, that's the word for it. You know, I'm an immigrant, and the United Kingdom.

I didn't say filthy immigrant. I didn't say, I just said immigrant, and how did I know she was an immigrant? Oh, I don't know. I mean, she was Ethiopian, you know, and she had an accent. So I figured she must have immigrated to, but I wasn't criticizing her in any way.

And there's nothing wrong with the word immigrant, you know, and it sat on the shelf there for a year and a half before they aired it. And so to me, that's, I don't, I didn't understand even the charge like, that's not punching

I just didn't, I, anyway, was just completely mystified by that.

“And I found that that happens quite often with, um, with writing lately, you know, like”

another circumstance, like we flagged this because you used the word "nanny." And it's like, yeah, I know people who are nannies and they identify as nannies. And it's not, it's not, I'm not criticizing, I'm not making fun of anyone. Again, it would be like if I said that Peter was a pharmacist. Ponte of America is brought to you by Armoura Colostrum.

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for life. And you have to smalls.com/curricate. It's clearly what you're getting at, right? Like there's that, there are people that will say like, you know, it may be the case that one reason Trump is present is because people find a left in the way.

And people will say that's good, and we have a lot of bigger problems in the world than people being worried about words we use, right, and that this is focusing on the wrong thing, and the right is hyping this all up at the same time, though. There does seem to be something where, you know, you have a story in the book about what happened when you got a bit by a dog.

And you felt like the audience wasn't on your side because of who owned the dog. And what you say in essay is that people are worried that they will be perceived as not being empathetic enough. They'll be worried that they'll be perceived as being kind of Republican.

“Do you just talk about that and what happened there?”

I was bitten by a dog, and I was in Portland, Oregon, and there were these three people smoking fentanyl, and they had two dogs, and I was walking down the street, and one of the dogs that both the dogs rushed forward and one of them bit me. And when I told people about it, I had a show that, a show that night, and I talked about it, and a woman said, "Well, you know, people with an opioid use disorder need incredibly

difficult lives." And there are no positions to take care of their animals. That's the sad part. And I'm like, "Is that the sad part?" And then other people were like, "What kind of a dog was it?"

If I had said this tech bro had this dog that bit me, they'd be like, "Oh, those

people, I've added up to hear with those people." But because they were smoking fentanyl, people felt like if they said, "Oh, that's awful." Then people might mistake them for a Republican. Yeah. Since Wayne did allowing dogs to bite people, become a Democrat, point-and-printable.

I just don't understand that.

“And it's the kind of thing, and the reason I think is, like, this gets at something because”

it's, of course, not a democratic point of principle, and I'm sure there's a subset of people who genuinely feel when you tell that story, like, "Oh, this is not the issue, you're punching down, or you're not being respectful enough of the challenge, etc."

But I would think most people would say, "Well, that's terrible, and we have a real

problem here, and that shouldn't have happened," and we need to address the ways in which people don't feel safe on the streets, whatever. And I sometimes feel, but I do think a lot of people are afraid to say they're afraid to voice, like, you know, right now in Los Angeles about to have a mayor's race, right? And a lot of what the issue is around how L.A. has a big, unhoused, homeless population.

At the same time, there's a lot of people that will get angry at a democratic politician for being, say, to aggressive at trying to clear homeless in campus, right? When I bet if you hold people, even Democrats who be a 70, 30, 80, 20 issue, but a loud, vocal group of people online are there to tell you that you're being fascist. And I wonder how many of the people telling you, when people being afraid to tell you that

they think it's terrible to that dog that you are not saying what they really feel, they're afraid

of some sort of, like, online mod or something. You need to get bitten by a dog. I mean, it's shocking, because, like, I told a guy in my New York building, I got bitten by a dog, what did you do, and then other people were saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying, you would be amazed if you get bitten by a dog at how people were, what kind

of a dog was it? And people, I was shocked, nobody said, nobody said, oh, that's awful. You've been by a dog, well, like, two people dead, but if you talked to 15 people, two of them would say, oh, that's awful.

“Was it, like, a stitches situation, how bad of a, how deep did this wound go?”

It broke the skin. I went to the pharmacy, and she told me to go to the emergency room. And then I just thought that the people who's, whose dog it was, they were just going to carry on with their day. And I was like, and then I'm going to spend all day in the emergency room.

I just decided I would rather die than do that, that I would literally rather die than go to the emergency room. Another, I got a lot of letters about people who've been bitten by dogs, like, this one woman, she was sitting on sofa at a friend's house, and she got up and the dog bit the back of her neck, and the owner had to come and pry its dogs open and said, I told you

not to make any sudden movements, you scared him. Like, it's a, it's a dog thing, and it's a, uh, drug addict's dog thing, it's both. And then I, uh, I got a lot of letters from people, and this woman was walking after dark, and a man was following her, close behind her, and she stopped and turned around and said, can I help you?

And he said, I'm homeless, I want money, and she said, I don't have any money on me. And she kept walking, and he kept following her. And she turned around and said, look, this is making me really uncomfortable. And he said, I also take cash app, and she said, I don't have cash app.

“And what she told people about it, they all said, you don't have cash app?”

Because if that was the point of the story, right, where again, if she had said, if she had said it was a fraternity, brother, following her, and they'd be, that's outrageous to be following somebody after dark. But instead, they acted like the whole point of the story was that she didn't have cash app.

It is my job to know just, no, no, I'm glad you, well, it's, the thing about it, I'm interested in this in part because, you know, whatever people's morals around this are, and there will be people that will say, like, oh, you know, David's at our, David's at our, it's become an old conservative, he's getting, you know, conservative in his old age. But if a political movement is not honest about how people actually feel, it's doomed

to fail, right? Like we have, how do people like Spencer Pratt and L.A. or Donald Trump get purchased?

to feel a certain way, and that the Democrats don't have a good answer for their legitimate frustrations, then they'll go to people with bad answers. And so I do think sometimes like, it's like acknowledging that, hey, like, there's something where we're not, we're being a little bit disrespectful for how people feel when they say get bitten by a dog or feel like things in their community don't feel safe.

Now it is pride, happy pride. Are you pride guy? Are you going to the parade? Not a pride guy. Not a pride guy.

That's surprising to me. Never. I'm not a parade person. I know. I know.

You're a walker, though. You could walk a parade.

“That's a nice, that's a nice way to get in your steps, no?”

No, it's too slow. Too slow. I mean, I went to that, I went to a march, the, what was that, in New York, the, no king. No king.

But you're walking like a, you know, you're walking like a third of a mile per hour.

So it's not the place to get steps. Is there anything gay you've done for Pride to celebrate Pride? What's the gayest thing you've done this month? The gayest thing I've done this month, my luggage got lost and so I had to go to the airport United Desk in Denver, Colorado and the guy said, if we open your suitcase, we find your suitcase

and we open it. What is in there that will know what's yours? And I said, it's a burberry dopped kit, I said, plaid, but it's not their iconic plaid. That was gay.

It's like that. That I've done in years. What are you doing with a burberry dopped kit? Why do you need a burberry brand to do what? What is that doing for you?

What happened to you? It is burberry dopped kit. Oh, it's so pretty. Oh my gosh, it's so pretty. Because it doesn't, I don't really like their signature plaid, but this was just random.

It's so random. It's just so pretty. And I saw it in the window of the store in London. And then I went in and I said, I would love that dopped kit in the window and they said, what?

And then I said, okay, shaving kit in the window. And they said, that's not a shaving kit, that's just to carry things around in. But it's a shaving kit. I mean, you know what? It has a handle on the side.

And it's waterproof on the inside. It's a shaving kit. Anyway. And I love it.

And I, you know what, if I lost it, that was when I thought about, if I never

“got my luggage back, that's what I thought.”

I thought my shaving kit. Do you remember when I met a bi-dimministration official who is non-binary was stealing luggage and then putting on the dresses, they found inside of the luggage, and then taking photographs of themselves in public places with the stolen clothes? Mm-hmm.

Oh, you should read that story. Mm-hmm. It was pretty exciting. Sort of, the first non-binary bi-dimministration executive was stealing suitcases and then wearing the clothes from inside of the suitcases.

Mm-hmm. And it was a very good location. It was fantastic. Mm-hmm. It was fantastic.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Speaking of, now you struggle with the word queer, and how the language around being gay has evolved. Have you heard about, from people on the road about this, that call themselves queer from

“some Gen Z, that use different terms, like where are you at now?”

He doesn't backlash for what you said. I love asking people about it. I love it. And I find that generally it's a generational thing, right? Like a lot of times when I meet young women, I say where do you stand on the word lesbian?

And a lot of them are just someone's fault that I even used that word. They reject the word lesbian, and they don't want to be put in a box. And I say, well, I'm still putting you in a box, but this one has irritating person right on the side of it, you know? And I find my problem with the word queer, I have two problems, right?

One, it doesn't tell me anything, right?

And two, it's the third time in my life I've been rebranded.

And it's just, it'll happen to you too when you get older, like people keep changing your name. Your asks you, no one ever asks your opinion. It's like, oh, you're this now. And then when people come up to me and say, oh, you're a queer writer and it's like, no,

I'm, no, I don't, and again, it doesn't have anything to do with the word formally being an insult. I appreciate that it's short, you know, but that's all that I really appreciate about it. But I love asking people about it, and usually the people, you know, younger people, they like having their own word, you know, this is a young word.

And so they feel like it reflects them. But I feel, I guess I don't know, you know, a woman came up to me and said, oh, you're

said, oh, how? And she said, she's a sexual, I said, in that what you want, in a 12 year

old, you know, I mean, maybe she's just 12. Yeah. Well, that's in this sort of edge case. Well, I remember when I was a, I was a speech writer and I struggled with this because I, you know, when I was growing up, there was gay in the restraint and we all kind of

shit, bisexual was a joke, right? If a girl was bisexual, she was really straight. If a guy was bisexual, he was really gay. And we didn't really talk about trans, we didn't

know about, we didn't talk about non-binary, or gender wasn't really as much a part of it.

And when I became a speech writer, I remember watching as we would say, like, you know, we're proud to celebrate gay rights. And then, it was a, well, you can't just say gay

“rights. You have to say, if there's also trans people, and then we started including”

in speeches, LGBT. And I remember as a writer, feeling offended by LGBT because it felt so, like, mechanical. It felt so, it felt like it was from a manual about gay rights. It felt technical, as opposed to, you know, we're so proud to have achieved so much for gays and lesbians or the gay community saying, LGBT felt just, just felt, it had a bad sound, right? And that, to me, so then, then you go to queer, and that's meant to be a

catch-all. But I had the same feeling that I think you have, like, we, this word doesn't feel exactly right. But I wonder how much of, like, what is it about the word that doesn't feel? It's not just that it was a slur, right? There's something where it, like, it, it doesn't feel like it captures who I am, and I wouldn't use it, but it is a useful word

“to have a catch-all. And I'm wondering if you've thought about, like, what is that feeling?”

That kind of, because if it was just that it wasn't, you have a bad feeling about the word. It's not just that it's not as good as gay. There's a good, you don't want it. So why? Well, again, part of it, too, is that I just feel that it's unspecific. It doesn't tell me, often when I think of queer, I think of somebody who is in a heterosexual relationship, but is open to the idea of a three-way and has the septum ring. And so, and that's a thing,

right? And so, if that's your identity, you can be, that's your queer. Have it. Please, and I'll call you queer and everything, but I'm not, I'm not queer. So, I'm gay, and you can be queer, and that's fine. But I don't, when the word queer is used on me by well-meaning people, who think, well, that's the word now, that's a word they like us to use, you know, that person. I cringe, you know, and I don't, and, but again, when you said something earlier as a writer,

okay, I mean, as a writer, yeah, language is what I do, it was what the tools that I work with.

“So, when people say it's just a language thing, well, yeah, it's, it's what I'm working with, right?”

Like the New Yorker, like I can't say prostitute and the New Yorker. I have to say sex worker. To me, a sex worker, like if you lost both your arms and an accident, a sex worker would come to your house, and teach you how to pledge yourself by rubbing against a door frame. That's a sex worker, right?

Yeah, yeah. But if, but then there's a prostitute, you know, so I will never write about a prostitute in New Yorker,

because I don't want to use a word sex worker. I don't like the word, you know, and, and the same way, if I was in a situation, they said we have to use a word queer, I would say, okay, well, I won't write anything for you. Or I won't write about that. If I know I have to use that word, I don't want to use it. I don't like the way it sounds. I don't like, I don't want to see it on paper. You know, I don't want to type it. So, and that's, I don't know that that has, I don't know if that's a old thing, you know, just from being old,

or, I mean, there are, it's not like I, any new word, I don't want anything to do with. I mean, sometimes, well, there are a lot of them. Well, it's not a one thing to do with. Pods of America is ready by fast growing trees, fast growing trees is America's largest online nursery with thousands of trees and plants for every space and climate, and they make it easy to get plants that actually work for your yard, delivered right to your door. Okay, we can sense your

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Terms a good display. The sex worker thing is interesting because here's what I worry about.

Form, like, why am I reluctant? And is it because it's because I don't want to be associated with the style of writing that uses words like queer and sex worker? Right? That if you're describing a sex worker, it is a kind of, there's a kind of a performative obtuseness and kind of a performative progressivism that feels artificial. And so I am, am I rebelling against that artificiality, not because of the word itself, but because I don't like the way other people use it and the

kind of writing and thinking it's associated with. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

“A sex worker took one college course. Okay. Is it prostitute who took one course in college?”

Like, I think if you went to the streets and you and someone was offering blow jobs and you say, what do you land and be called? I think, I don't know how many people would say sex worker.

Yeah. Sort of like how I would never make anything. Maybe the thing to do would be to say to them,

what would you like to be a dress say? What would you like to be called? Yeah. Well, as we went through a round of this one, people were saying kind of Latinx. And it turned out, you know, that that's sort of an artificially produced sort of activism-based word that wasn't really used outside of those spaces. And then kind of went through a cycle of how people were using that word and then eventually we're sort of, we're not using that word anymore and it's like, okay, great.

We're back to Latina, Latina. Well, I think about it sort of for me, right, because I identify, I'm gay. But at the same time, I became comfortable with that at a time when I didn't have another option, right? And I'm now 43, I am married to a trans person. I, like, as I choose to call myself gay, even though truthfully, I am the word queer probably more appropriately defines

“what I am, but I choose to be gay because I think being gay is a choice. Nobody's going to take”

that away from me. Well, I, like, when I was a, I remember the word gay coming into you, right, and the term was homosexual. And so I remember the term gay. And maybe because I was 18 years old, I thought, great, because it fit, you know, and so maybe there were people who felt like gay was on specific, or, you know, they just didn't like the sound of it. I mean, homosexual, I'm fine with it's just longer. You know, like for some reason, we just keep making

words longer. So again, anything, one syllable, but an LGBTQ, and then it became QQIA, and then it was a plus was added. And I agree, it was a lot. Well, this is where it's like, it's about persuasion, too, which is like, hey, like, if nobody who's not paying very close attention is going to master LGBTQ2IA plus, like it's stupid. It's just, like, at some point, we're allowed to have sort of aesthetic judgments. I'm sorry, but that's, that's stupid. It is stupid to go around

saying so many letters in a row and to keep adding new letters to it. It's just aesthetically unpleasing. We're allowed to have taste, right? Two, but you couldn't blame people from making fun of LGBTQ2IA plus. You know, it's funny. Yeah. Now, on the, you've also been advocating

worn skirts at our live show and have become proponents of skirts. What do you think men are afraid of with these skirts? You know, I don't want to be stared at and I don't want to be a woman and I don't want to have breasts and I don't want to wear makeup, but a skirt just looks good. I don't know, have the world wear skirts and they don't make any big deal about it. I mean, I went to Fiji and, you know, all the guys that were in skirts and you go,

G, I mean, again, you go to the Middle East and you see people and basically dresses. I

remember I went to Morocco when I was in high school with my Spanish class and I bought, I don't know what it's called, but it's like a floor length rope, you know, and I wore it to high school when I got back. And I remember thinking, I look good and and just being made fun of like so roundlay and just remember thinking, like, why you said a big deal? Like why it's got one hole instead of two. Really? And you're going to get that upset about it, but yeah, I have a bunch of skirts

and I'm happy to, you know, I don't have, I don't have many skirts and stuff. I have, you know, usually they go, you know, to the floor or, you know, almost to the floor and I just, I just think they look great. I do think that when, you know, conservatives get upset about trans people on some level what they're upset about is the ways in which they're holding on to these sort of traditional definitions of like the right way to be a man and how small a definition they want for

“that. And I think as someone that has been publicly gay, since you were writing so long,”

like you never really came out. You're just gay from the, for the first moment I've heard of you

if you were gay the whole time. You never came out. You never, you never had your moment to going on television being like, I'm gay. But at the same time, I was, I was lucky enough to come around on time. I can write about my relationship and people just, it's about trying to make a life with another person, right? That the world could, could see that. The world wasn't like, oh, it's a gay, never mind. It's not for me because he's gay. And that was, you know, if I

done it 10 years earlier, then that would have been completely different story. So I was just fortunate to come along, you know, to that so much had happened before I got, I arrived, I suppose. But the reason I bring it up is because it does seem like what's happening now. So being gay as an abstract identity, right? Like, I'm a gay person. That means I, I date and want to marry someone of the same gender, whatever. It seems like the part that we're now grappling

with is everything around it, like wanting to wear skirts, being more feminine, right? And

“defying other aspects of what it means to be a true, sort of masculine man. And I know as I think”

about what when I was made fun of when I was a kid, right? Like, I was called gay a million times.

I was a little bit of feminine. But it was, it was, it was, it was becoming okay to be gay, but it wasn't okay to be a mincing little queen, right? And it does seem like right now, there's a real kind of pushback from the right about defying the gender norms. They're okay with a Scott Besson to being the Secretary of the Treasury, but they worry a lot about what happens if say of a man shows up and makeup and a skirt. And I wonder how you think about that as somebody that

has, like, sort of been publicly identified as gay for so long. Well, I mean, I feel, I remember when I was young and like I moved, I lived in San Francisco for one summer, right? And I remember it was like a pride parade there in San Francisco. And it must have been, it was like summer of 1976 or something, right? But I remember there were drag queens at the beginning of the parade. And I remember being embarrassed, you know, and thinking, oh, I don't want people to

“think that that's what gay people are like, right? And now, I just, now I, I think the opposite”

when I see somebody being like a massive assistier or something, it just worms my heart, you know, and I'm just so happy that they could just be in themselves. And I can see how, you know, it can make someone uncomfortable because you're not sure, you know, like when I'm signing books,

gives you a book and then it's got, well, especially like a name like Zia on it, you know,

and then is that Zia? Zia, somebody else, you know, so I always say, uh, who's Zia? And then sometimes

people look, I am and I say, well, I'm asking because it could be your cousin, it could be, you know, it could be anyone. So I have a nice out that way that you don't necessarily have in day-to-day

“life. But I think it just makes people uncomfortable. Like, if I'm wearing a skirt, I don't see any”

reason for anyone to call me "memory". It's just a skirt. I don't have any makeup on it, but sport coat on and, you know, I guess I don't care if they're uncomfortable. I suppose that's a difference. Right, but I do think part, like, I'm interested in like, what is that discomfort, right? Like, you know, you'll, you'll turn on Fox News and let me somebody saying like, you know, real men don't sing happy birthday, real men don't drink soup, real men don't have straws,

right? Like, constraining, constraining what it means to be a man to this really, really narrow box.

And I, I wonder how much of that discomfort people feel is in the same way, someone, you know, is understands that voting for Trump might be wrong in some way that like, they're like, I spent a long time building this prison. Like, how dare you? How dare you try to escape? Like,

“this is where I live. I feel safe here. Well, in a lot of ways and I think a lot of people would”

be surprised by that, but I feel sorry for straight guys. You know, I feel sorry that they're in their prison. And I feel sorry that sometimes I feel like they don't know how to talk to people, you know, like if you're listening in conversation on a plane and there are two guys in front of you who, you know, strangers who are talking. I just, I just feel bad. I feel bad that they don't again, that their confines are so narrow. Yeah, I remember realizing that I was a, that I was a

worse friend to my straight friends, my straight male friends, because I was less a feminine, and what came with being a feminine was being thoughtful, you know, like asking people about their debt. You know, like there's a, there's a way you are with, with with, there's a way, game and are, that is more feminine. And part of it is just being, I don't know, thoughtful, consider it, sweet, right? And I was, and I remember realizing, like, oh, when I'm with my straight male friends,

I act more like them. And I'm much worse and basically every respects, right? Like, I would never

think to be like, be like, if I'm in my, if I'm kind of in that straight mode, you're kind of like, you would never be like, so how's your mother doing? Like, you know, is she getting better from her fall? Like, you wouldn't say anything like that, which just doesn't come up in straight world. I was an elevator, and I was in Atlanta a few weeks ago, and I'm going down from breakfast in this guy gets on the elevator, and I said, oh, I saw you on my plane last night, I said,

I would, I noticed your shoes, you know, and that's such a thing that would be so scary like to a straight guy that you A, V, remembered them, and B that you were looking at his shoes, you know, what was the reaction? How did it go? Well, he was wearing shoes without a back to them. So, of course, he was gay. Oh, right, so it all worked out. Yeah, that's sort of this. Sorry, I just didn't have to make sure you're talking to another gay man.

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Quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted? If you said yes to

“both, welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan and I'm Alyssa Mastermatico and we're the host of”

hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy culture and not losing their minds in the process. We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill in classrooms and everywhere the stakes are high. It's sharp, honest analysis, featuring women's voices with humor and zero handholding. Listen to hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube. you're the bird to you as your boyfriend. He's your husband.

Right. Uh huh. Still uncomfortable. I don't like the word. Yeah, he's a man I'm married. Right. What? What's the problem? He's a husband. I don't like the word. I don't know. But you got married. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Just for financial reasons. Right. It was a shotgun wedding arranged by my banker. Mm-hmm. And I don't want to marry anybody else. You know, didn't mean anything to be me married. I didn't choke off. I didn't. I don't. It was, it was just a

legal thing to me. Mm-hmm. I just got married. Mm-hmm. Any advice for a long and successful

relationship? Yeah, I do. He and I have been together for 36 years. Never talking about

a relationship to that other person ever. Never talk about it. Never talk about it. Because that just it doesn't bear, it doesn't bear the harsh light of scrutiny. You can talk about it with other people. Right. You can complain about them. But don't talk about it with that person. Right. It's sort of like talking about happiness. If you're talking about it, you aren't it. Uh don't talk about your relationship. That's pretty good. Now, I noticed something else in one of

these essays. You also are deeply uncomfortable talking about your bowel movements in front of you. Oh my god. No, I've never had one. And he's never had one. What is that? What is what? So, I don't know what you're talking about. But so, what is it about feminine mystique? I don't know what you're talking about. So, I like, I notice I definitely feel like there's two kinds of relationships. And I don't think there's a middle ground. There are couples for whom the bathroom

is just a room with a sink and a shower. Yeah. And that's it. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then there are couples that are just fully in it about every detail. Yeah. I'm in that category. We talk about everything. Mm-hmm. We go into great detail. Mm-hmm. And it brings us closer together. Don't

“you want to what you're leap. Like, how do you know a person? But how can you know a person?”

A big part of every day, David, is the part of the day where you had either a good shit or a bad shit? It's a big, right? No. Come on. You know, I have no idea what you're talking about. So, you come home from a long trip and Hugh is in a bad mood. He's just a bit upset and you don't know why. It might

be because he's having stomach trouble. But you'll just never know that. You'll never know that

he's been, he's been, oh, I was sorry. He's never know that about me. But then it's, it's, but then you're strangers to me. No. This plenty of other stuff we know. It's nice to have a little window of mystery. You know, like I know people, couples who like fart in front of each other and do things. No. You're not farting out on each other? What are you getting up and going to never happen? Come on. What are you never talking about? If somebody has an accident every now and then,

it's never acknowledged, never mentioned. Never forever. And you know what? I'm really glad because both of us are like that. So, if just one person was like that, then it would be pretty hard.

“Well, I don't think those people make it. I don't think that's what divorces. I think it's people”

finding out that they're, that they're, they're, they're with a wrong person because they want to, they want to talk about it and the other person doesn't. It's like you can't put the life with

something like that. Yeah, no, Hugh and I, um, no, never been discussed. I don't know what it would be.

Now, if, if, uh, like, if I get cola, cola and cancer, rectal cancer, sure, he will never know. I will go, see, I will say, I have to go to the hospital for a few weeks. I will say, uh, why even tell them that? Just that I'm going, I have a little trip I need to take. So, well, you know, you're, get it. You went right to the right. You went, your mind went to correct, I know where your mind went, which is to the fact that you have an aging body as we all do.

And you're, in one of the stories you basically are repulsed by the fact that he needs for a time after a hip surgery to have one of those cushy higher toilet seats, which you compare to a coffin. Uh, you both have human bodies that will slowly fail over time. And the best

but you're together in the end. Like, there's no avoiding the fact that, that you have a corpus and it will decay before each other, right? Isn't that the goal? But I don't, I don't see the need to put him on the toilet now to prepare for putting him on the toilet 20 years from now. 20 years from now if I have to do it, I'll do it. But I don't have that. But now all of a sudden at the very end of your relationship, we're going to finally have to talk about this thing that

you've been avoiding. You won't let her talk about it. We'll never talk about it. We'll never talk about it.

Never. If, if he was like in his 90s, and he soils himself, we will never talk about it. Ever, ever, ever talk about it. Are you thinking about what these, look, your document, you know, you've been writing in your diary, did you write in your diary today? Yeah. You've been writing

“in your diary every day. Do you think about what those last entries are going to be like? I think”

it's easier to to conceive of our death than it is of our decrepitude, you know, in the thought of being in an assisted living center in one room, your life reduced to one room like my dad's was, and to all your friends are dead, and you're defecating your pants, maybe, or you're you're unable to get up from your bed. Being dead, I can think sure. Yeah. But that is just to know that that's coming or to think. So he and I, we were going to throw ourselves off the terrace,

you know, of our apartment building, but then he didn't want to make a mess, and so we're going to put ourselves in body bags first, and then throw ourselves out of the house. That is considerate. That is considerate, you know, you got to, I would say double rapid, because who knows what kind of splat that, you know, you're going to make a lot of impact, and then boom, you're coming out the sides. I spent 10 days at the medical examiner's office in Phoenix, so I know, I know what it looks like,

“and I know, that's why you're right. Double body bags is a really good idea.”

All right, so something good came out of this conversation. Well, here's the thing I would say too,

but like, isn't a part of you, like, ready? Like, you will have an interesting perspective on what it's like to slowly decline in one room as all your friends die, isn't that the final, isn't, aren't those the stories for your sort of need, we need you to write, because it'll be helpful to other people that are going through it. Isn't there something beautiful like about getting, getting that last experience, which is so common for people? Yeah, I think the thing is, so

Calvin Tompkins died recently. They aren't critic for the New Yorker, and he was, was he a hundred, obviously, but the thing too is that you can, his eyes were really failing him at the end, so you could be in a situation where you couldn't write. You know, when you really sick, you can't sit up, you know, like if you were, so you, it's a nice idea that you could write until the day you die, but you have no control over it, you know, so maybe if G, if he was mother,

right, huge reader, I've never known anyone who reads more than her, and now she can't read,

and she's 95, and she's just sort of parked in front of a TV, her worst nightmare, and she can't read a book, and even if you gave her an audio book, she can't focus on anything, so again, I don't necessarily have control, I'd like to be able to write until the end of my life, even, I don't mean that to write in order to put a book out, but just, you know, I've done every single day of my life for the last 50 years, so I don't know who I would be without it.

I regardless of it being published or not, I just don't know how I would, how I would know who I am, I suppose. So I said, maybe it's the kind of thing where you wait for the kind of double wrapped phase, you can age into decrepitude, but then when you finally can't write, then you do the double-backing, right? Maybe sort of, let's just sort of hold off, let's put a pin in the double-backing

“until, but I think it's unfair, and I think it's unfair that you can't, you know, insurance policy,”

your life insurance won't pay off. If you, if you kill yourself, I mean, I understand the problems with changing that, but I just don't think it's fair to expect people to put up with that amount of misery and, you know, like if you're defecating in your pants, and somebody's cleaning you up, and then you're just like, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not even having a good time."

be able to kill yourself. I have this idea for Canyon Day, and it's, you put logs, you put logs around the Grand Canyon, right, just along the lip of the Grand Canyon, and you take people there at night, and then so if they trip over a log and fall into the Grand Canyon, it's like a little loophole, you know, where it's called, like, so to get, to get the insurance to pay out, that it's just a lot of people tripping on the Grand Canyon. Yeah, it would be called Canyon Day,

and then it wanted to participate in Canyon Day. You would be allowed to. Well, I think that's a great idea. I'm not sure the insurance companies aren't going to catch wise to it pretty quickly, suddenly, hey, we've seen a huge uptake, an accidental death, so the Arizona side of the Grand Canyon, but hey, it's a great, it's a great thought before. Well, I shared it with somebody, and they said, what if you don't die? Don't you hate people like that?

No, first, I mean, it's a pretty long fall. I know what, there's no way you're,

plus you're going to be decrepit to begin with. Like, you know, you're even saying, man, what if you don't die? You're going to die. You're going to die. That's not the problem with the listen, I want you to know something. There's a lot of problems with that plan. All right,

“that's not one of them. It's a big fall down there. It's a big Canyon. It's ramp. It's ramp. That's why”

they name the burger after it. Before we let you go, I want you to just a rabbit fire, a few things see where your heads at. People saying no problem instead of your welcome. That doesn't bother me, really, yeah, but you don't like perfect when people say, oh, I hate perfect, perfect. I was at a hotel the other day, and I, and then women said, perfect, five times, before I even sat down at the table. And they're told in hotels like, if you say,

wonderful or terrific, that's not positive enough. See, I have to say, perfect. But no problem. I know people who are bothered by no problem. I know people who are bothered by, of course, could I have another coffee? Of course. And there are people who don't like, of course. I have no problem with it. Okay, emojis. I used one one time.

“Just an eggplant. No, it was a, it was a huge sister. And I don't remember what it was. I don't like”

to text. Okay. College professors assigning fewer books and more experts because their students have lower attention spans. Gosh, that makes me sad, you know. But that said, if I were in college, and then I had to read Moby Dick by tomorrow, I'd be like, fuck, I got to read Moby Dick by tomorrow.

You can skip the whaling chapters. You know, that's the key thing with the reading Moby Dick.

People need to know that. There's a lot of whaling chapters in there with detailed information about the technique. You don't need those chapters. Well, I wrote something one time about, I was writing for Ask Why or they did an issue, whatever a man should do before the age of whatever. And so I, I said, read Moby Dick. So I started reading it. And I was like, oh, no. This is really boring. It's so boring. So I told myself, I could not shave, brush my teeth,

take a shower, or wash my hair until I finished it. And then on the second day, I helped the neighbor clean out or chicken coop. And so, you know, I had this little mite all over me. And, but I couldn't

take a shower. I couldn't do any, I had to read Moby Dick first. There's an audio book version of Moby

Dick, read by Bert Reynolds. It seems like he was done here to do it at gun point or something. And really, it's really grossious. It's highly recommend go find it. He does sailor's accent, but he can't maintain it. So it, like, you, you hit plan this thing and it's Bert Reynolds being like, call me a Schmale, but by the end of every chapter, he's kind of back into classic Bert Reynolds. And then the next chapter begins and it's back without the whale, it was out there.

You know, he does a voice. It's crazy. It's crazy. And he doesn't do any of the whaling chapters. So you can just, it's a bridge. It's a bridge, it's a bridge right in the town. That's good.

“That's what we got a lot of good ideas out of this session. Really happy about that.”

Last thing, do you hold grudges? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. I don't necessarily act on them, but my brother said a couple of weeks ago I saw my brother and we were talking about cleaning. And he said, man, you're got to be, you know, I got to be mad to clean. And whenever I start cleaning, I go back to my grudge drawer and I pull something out and it just fuels me when I clean. It's like feeding the steam engine while I clean. And then I finish and I'm fine.

What's your oldest grudge right now? Mrs. Arsenew, 1968, ice cream creations after recrystening, we went to ice cream creations, people from the church, Greek Orthodox church in

Arsenew came and said, you go over there and sit with the boys. No 12-year-old boy should be sitting

with his mother. And I was having such a nice time with my mother. And I thought, what business is it, a viewers, where I sit? Do you know what I mean? Like my mother wasn't complaining about

“having me there. And my mother's dead. And I think she robbed me. Mrs. Arsenew robbed me of like”

an extra half hour with my mother. And no one back there said, bitch, they told me where to sit.

Like nobody would have done that. Who just did what she said? I just did what she said. And I

think about it. I've held a grudge since then. And she's long dad. You know? Yeah, for sure. But yeah, that's probably my oldest grudge. And see now, the kids would talk back. Something that you find repulsive because the kids aren't listening to their parents anymore, but that was a case where had you talked back to your teacher. You might have had more time with your

mother. Well, there was a guy in my high school who we had a math teacher. And he was, he was also

a coach. And he was a dick. And he was chewing out this student, Ms. female student. And she started

“crying and he kept at it. And this guy in the class stood up and said, you need to back off”

to the teacher and nobody did things like that. And he got in so much trouble. But it was somebody needed to do it. You know? And I'm so proud because he was gay. There's no, I mean, he, it wasn't talked about back then. But there's no way this guy wasn't gay. And I thought about it over the years. And I thought, wow, it's a gay person. I mean, it wasn't this gay person. But it was a gay person. Who it wasn't, he didn't threaten the

“teacher or anything. He did it in really the perfect way. And I think about that, he's probably”

forgotten about it this guy. But G, it was such a, it was huge to me. I think about it. Quite often. David Sedaris, thank you so much for being here. Everybody, latest collection of essays, David Sedaris, the land and its people. Thanks for coming by. Good to meet you. Good to talk to you. Oh, you too. Thanks so much. Thank you, David Sedaris for joining us. John Tommy and I will be back in your feeds on Tuesday morning. And that's it. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by

Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Ferris Abaris with Reed-Gerlin, Elijah Cone, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Grope, Ben has coach Jordan Cancer, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellaby, David tolls, Mia Kalman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singles. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America at East. In moments like these, it's easy to fill overwhelmed and even easier to fill powerless. But we are neither. I'm Stacey Abrams, and on my podcast, assembly required,

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