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- [00:01]
Dylan Mulvaney
Hi, is this an okay time? It's your girl, Dylan Mulvaney and I am inviting you to my weekly cocktail party and my brand new podcast, the Dylan Hour, brought to you by Lemonada Media. Life is stressful and there is so much darkness in the world. I think we could all use a little bit of trans joy. So join me every week as I interview some of my favorite A list, celebrity friends and gurus, and of course the dolls. While we sip and split, spill the scalding hot tea. So put your worries aside and join me at the Dylan Hour. You can listen on Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Love ya.
- [00:36]
Hoda Kotb
Hey everybody, it's Hoda Kotb and I would love for you to join me for new episodes of my podcast, Making Space. Each week I'm having conversations with authors, actors, speakers and dear friends of mine, folks who are seeking the truth, compassion and self discovery. I promise you will leave these talks stronger and inspired to make space in your own life for growth and change. To start listening, just search Making Space wherever you get your podcasts and follow for new episodes every Wednesday.
- [01:08]
David Duchovny
Lemonada. I'm David Duchovny and this is Fail Better. A show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Graydon Carter is the former editor in chief of Vanity Fair, where he spent 25 years overseeing countless stories and photo shoots that became cultural touchstones. Graden's influence was instrumental in popularizing the magazine's unique style. From candid portraits of Hollywood icons to bold investigative pieces, Vanity Fair's content became a must read under his direction. I was lucky enough to grace the COVID in June 1998, photographed by the great Annie Lebowitz, who proceeded to glue dead flies all over my face. I never look better. He was also behind what's considered one of the most exclusive suares in the entertainment world, the Vanity Fair Oscar party. In his new memoir, when the Going Was Good, graden pulls back the curtain on the glory days of magazines. It traces his journey from starting outsider magazine Spy in the late 80s up through his time at Vanity Fair and beyond. Graydon and I chat about weathering the storm of failure, building new platforms like airmail, shaping the media landscape we know today. We talk a lot about resilience and authenticity, going with your gut and learning from mistakes. His ability to capture the pulse of the moment has solidified his legacy as one of the most influential figures in modern journalism. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
- [02:54]
Graydon Carter
Hey, you know we should. We have a school connection.
- [02:56]
David Duchovny
I was gonna say three of my.
- [02:58]
Graydon Carter
Sons went to Collegiate? Yes, your old school. And two of my daughters went to Grace Church where your mom worked.
- [03:04]
David Duchovny
Did she. Did she teach her daughter? This is Duchovny. Yeah. Did she teach her daughters?
- [03:08]
Graydon Carter
No, I don't think she did.
- [03:10]
David Duchovny
Yeah, my mom was a legendary teacher over. Over there at Grace Church. And when I. When I walk around downtown, people will stop me and they won't want to talk about any work I've done. They want to talk about my mother. It's true.
- [03:22]
Graydon Carter
This is the company? Yes.
- [03:23]
David Duchovny
Are you Mrs. I once visited her classroom. I'll never forget this. And this little girl, second grade little girl, came up to me and said, I just love children's logic. She asked me, do you know your sister Laurie? I just love the way those minds work quite well. Yes, I've seen her around the hallway so that out of the way. I was trying to think about how to begin speaking to you. And one of the things I want to ask you is, why write a memoir? What is. What is the impetus for you at this point of writing a memoir? Is it. Is it to set the record straight? Is it to relive the glory days? Is it to say, I was in the room and this is how it happened? What compels someone like you to. To want to write a memoir?
- [04:11]
Graydon Carter
Well, in large part is for. For my children, I have five of them. And I think like most fathers, if I ever start talking about the old days, they, you know, they sort of get bored with all that. But I. I've never thought of it. And I happen to be having lunch with James Fox. He's a dear friend of mine, and he had written the Keith Richards memoir Life.
- [04:33]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [04:33]
Graydon Carter
And he said. He said, if you ever want to do a memoir, I'll guide you through it. So I thought, yeah, I can probably do this. And I had re. Retired from Vanity Fair, and I had a bit of time on my hands. This is like 2017, 2018. And I really realized how fortunate I was to live through this golden period of New York, golden period of magazines. And I thought, you know, it's good to. I think it's inspiring for other people because I was not some exceptional child who is automatically going to rise to the top. But I thought it'd be somewhat inspirational for everybody out there who thinks they're somewhat average when they're a teenager or in their early 20s, but has some sort of dreams of being on average if they can.
- [05:20]
David Duchovny
That's very interesting to me that you. That. That. That is the impetus, because I find it moving that you say this is in the sense of failure, not in the sense that average is failure. But you're saying you don't have to be exceptional from the get go to become an exceptional person or to have an exceptional success?
- [05:38]
Graydon Carter
I don't think so. I don't think most people, most teenagers I grew up with, they didn't have a definite career in mind or even a definite profession. It just sort of usually often happenstance and you fall into something and it agrees with you and you work hard and they do well. But I'm, I'm always slightly suspicious of a, a teenager who knows exactly what they want from life. That sounds calculated.
- [06:04]
David Duchovny
Yeah. And, but when you were a kid in Canada, did you have an image of where you wanted to end up or an ambition? And was the ambition in the arts, was the ambition or just to make enough money to live? Was there something for you that you were aiming at from a young age or when did you veer towards the world that you ended up being in?
- [06:25]
Graydon Carter
My parents subscribed to Time and Life magazine, Esquire, and they sort of, you know, to a young kid growing up in Ottawa, they sort of brought the outside world to me. My life was all about hockey and skiing and, and canoeing. But then, but magazines told me about this world outside, specifically the world outside here in New York and, and I basically, I wanted to, to, to move to New York, but I had no idea what I would do. I needed to make a living. And when I was in college I stumbled upon a, a magazine that was being started, created and being launched and I sort of joined on and they needed an art director and I told them I could draw a bit. So they said okay.
- [07:13]
David Duchovny
Was that true?
- [07:14]
Graydon Carter
100 so I, I sort of fell into the magazine business and I was a great student of magazines, so I, so I, I, then there were, you know, little magazines were always like, people are fighting constantly. And so the, the main editor left and I became the editor and I found something that agreed with me. The magazine wasn't very good, but the job was a dream for me.
- [07:41]
David Duchovny
Well, how would you describe an editor's job at a magazine? You set the tone. You're like the director of a film, I'd imagine, like the director of a.
- [07:50]
Graydon Carter
Film and a bit like a chef in that you try to find the most interesting stories, you try to couple them with the, the best writers and photographers you can get your hands on and you try to put it all together in a package that'll appeal to the reader. Then that the Mix and whatever that issue is, has enough different notes that it creates a good chorus and that you hope that reader will like it and come back the next month. So it's basically, you're like a cheerleader, you're a psychiatrist, you're a plumber. I mean, it's just, it's. There's no school for editing. There's no university that teaches people how to edit. So it's just, it's. It's trial and error.
- [08:36]
David Duchovny
And I'm. I'm wondering if you were surprised to learn if, if you self describe as, as an average student or an average person or whatever. But were you surprised to learn that you had a extraordinary gift for taste, for signaling out good writing or good photography or being able to find people of great talent?
- [09:01]
Graydon Carter
Well, I read all the. Even though I was an average kid, I was an on average reader. I read everything when I was growing up and, and I can appreciate good writing. And most of the stories in Vanity Fair are big, where a lot of them were big, epic narratives, something which I'm incapable of. But I can recognize that talent in others. And, you know, I became better at understanding how photograph photography can work in conjunction with words. Spending time at. I spent two years, two years at Life magazine, which was built around for the great photographers of the era. And I appreciate how hard it is to take a great photograph. I mean, you and I can go out and we can sit on Malibu, on the coast of Malibu and take a picture of the sunset and it's going to be nice. But Annie Leibwitz has to go out and under difficult circumstances every single time, come back with something fabulous.
- [09:54]
David Duchovny
I'm also a big fan of Annie Leibowitz, although when I did my Vanity Fair cover, I. I put dead. She put dead flies all over.
- [10:01]
Graydon Carter
I remember that. It was catastrophic. I know, I, I didn't quite understand that one, but yeah, it was a.
- [10:06]
David Duchovny
It was a pun. It was flies and files. If you were dyslexic, maybe you'd. You'd get it.
- [10:12]
Graydon Carter
I didn't see. I didn't even get that.
- [10:14]
David Duchovny
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm glad to give you the punchline. 25, 30 years later than that.
- [10:20]
Graydon Carter
Yes.
- [10:21]
David Duchovny
Yeah, it was like, you know, here's my dream. A dream. Annie Lebens is going to shoot me. And here's, here's the. Under. Here's the failure part. She's going to put. And this is before Photoshop. So these are real dead flies I didn't even know that are being affixed to My face and some airplane hanger up in Point Magoo. But still, you know, I'm sure Mrs.
- [10:40]
Graydon Carter
Duchovny did not like that.
- [10:42]
David Duchovny
I don't know that Mrs. Duchovny, you know, she, she was not a magazine reader. She was a reader. She once told me that she found it disorienting when she would, you know, check out at the grocery store, which is where they would have not Vanity Fair so much as tabloids back in those days. And she would see me on a tabloid and she'd think, well, that's my son. You know, what does this all mean? It doesn't make any sense. But I want to. When you started to write, you know, you having the insight into what makes great writing, you've worked with Halberstam, Michael Lewis, who's actually a classmate of mine as well.
- [11:15]
Graydon Carter
I didn't know that.
- [11:16]
David Duchovny
Yeah, from Princeton. 82, Michael Hair, of course. So. So Vanity Fair was this very interesting combination to me of the celebrity bait, the kind of celebrity, the bait of satire. And then there was these long form articles that were Pulitzer worthy and often movie worthy, documentary worthy, as you know, as, as you have taken those into other forms as well. So it reminded me very much of when my dad would tell me that Playboy paid the most for fiction.
- [11:52]
Graydon Carter
That's true.
- [11:53]
David Duchovny
And so people would always have the excuse of saying, well, I buy Playboy for the fiction, actually. So. Well, I want to ask you two things. One, about when you sat down to write, were you cowed by having edited and worked with these great writers? Did it freeze you up at the keyboard a little bit when you started to write? And was that kind of packaging of glitz and substance? Was that the mission statement in the beginning or is that something that kind of organically arose over time?
- [12:22]
Graydon Carter
Well, I'll go in opposite. I'll answer the second one first. I always thought of the COVID as sort of the, the gift wrapping. You want to get somebody to go to a newsstand. Back when we still had newsstands, see something that appealed to them. We have maybe a half dozen cover lines on it which told you what was inside the magazine. An appealing cover image generally not somebody covered in flies. And they would take that off and that they would read it and they'd be happy on the. It's the coffee table. But once you get past the COVID it was, it was all substance inside. And on the second part, I wasn't intimidated because I knew I couldn't write like Halberstam or Michael Hare or Michael Lewis or David or Hitchens. Or anything like this. I have my own voice, and it. It is what it is, and it rise and fall on. On the strength or weakness of it.
- [13:13]
David Duchovny
Did you have a sense of sometimes reaching to. To write a certain way or to. To. To be lyrical or descriptive?
- [13:21]
Graydon Carter
I'm not a poetic waxer, really. And. And so I know I just sort of told it as I thought I'd try to tell it in an interesting way. And I think that it's the. The failures that are more interesting and the hiccups that. That are more engaging for the reader. So that's a large part of what I. What I included.
- [13:42]
David Duchovny
Well, also not. Not just more engaging for the reader, but more important for one's own soul and one's own spirit, in a way. And that's kind of what we talk about a lot on this, is that. And I think you say at one point in the book, you know, you've never learned anything from success. Nobody ever learns anything from success.
- [14:02]
Graydon Carter
I don't think so.
- [14:04]
David Duchovny
I mean, I think success will inhibit you because you try to have. You try to repeat it. You know, so you. You do. You start to do by program what you did instinctually at first. And that's a. That's a recipe for disaster. And all of a sudden, you're inauthentic and you're. You're doing an imitation of yourself, in a way.
- [14:25]
Graydon Carter
One of the things when we. When we would do issues, if I put out an incredibly great issue, it would actually make me more anxious because I would think, sure, oh, my God, we'll never be able to do that well again. And if I put out a sort of substandard issue, I thought, okay, that's it. I've lost it. We're never gonna get it back. So almost when you're. When you're in the world of arts, almost nothing makes you authentically happy if you're really thinking about everything.
- [14:53]
David Duchovny
No, it's really. I mean, as a writer, it's. When I get the galleys. And I don't know if you had that experience too. It's like, oh, here. Here's this book. It exists. It's not out there yet. You know, it's not.
- [15:04]
Graydon Carter
That helps. Yes.
- [15:05]
David Duchovny
That moment, to me, was one of the richest moments that I've had. Is just when you feel the physicality of the book in your head.
- [15:11]
Graydon Carter
Yeah. Yeah. You feel it' the first time. Yeah. I just typewritten pages. Yeah.
- [15:16]
David Duchovny
But it's really only real when it goes out there and gets, you know, destroyed and savaged. And lauded or whatever it is, you know, for other people. What I found fascinating in reading the book, and it really took me back because you say, and I'm going to like, just take like a macro view of the late 80s and 90s, and I believe this, that if you look at the tone of those years, I see like the three, three major figureheads of that are. Well, first there's Letterman, I think, who brings, for lack of a better word, irony to, to television. And then there's Lorne Michaels and in with Saturday Night Live, and then there's you in publishing.
- [16:02]
Graydon Carter
Two Canadians, oddly, from the same town, really, and about, about a half a mile born a half a mile apart.
- [16:11]
David Duchovny
Well, what's, what's in that water?
- [16:13]
Graydon Carter
Go figure. Yeah.
- [16:14]
David Duchovny
You know, they didn't add fluoride to that water. They added irony to that.
- [16:18]
Graydon Carter
Yeah, no, we had just cold water because it was Canada.
- [16:22]
David Duchovny
I, I find that fascinating because, you know, it's a DNA that I think we still have. You know, I, I don't think that that tone that was created by say, Letterman, Michaels and, and yourself, and I'm not even saying it was a tone that was deliberately employed. Go beyond before Vanity Fair and go to Spy. Really, it's really an outsider tone, 100%.
- [16:49]
Graydon Carter
And Dave's from like, I don't know, Ohio or Indiana.
- [16:52]
David Duchovny
Exactly. So it's not, it's not hip yet. It becomes hip, but at first it's an outsider tone. And I wonder. And again, this is a kind of a question. It is about failure and success because it's. When you go into it at first, and what I found fascinating was you talked about Mad magazine, which was something that was big when I was a kid, and I thought, oh my God, that is, that's like Rosebud. You know, it's like he's, he's talking about Mad magazine, which nobody is going to say is a great magazine, but you're saying it's fundamental to your consciousness and your sense of publishing. And I'm wondering if you could talk to me a little about the creation of your publishing mind, your notion of an outsider, humorous, satirical view of the hip people.
- [17:44]
Graydon Carter
Well, you know, Mad magazine, one thing it did, at least for a kid growing up in cold, cold Ottawa, was it explained things to you and explained how adult life worked when you, if you're like a 13 year old, say, when I, I started reading when I was about 10.
- [18:01]
David Duchovny
Sure.
- [18:02]
Graydon Carter
And it was instructive. And, and Mad and Looney Tunes cartoons were very much a big part of my my, my youth and my, all my, my friends when I was growing up. Whereas the, you know, the Disney cartoons were all sort of wholesome and, and sort of wonderful and uplifting. Looney Tunes were, were more slightly underground and Bugs was like the, the epitome of the cool character who's never is unflappable and, and in, in any situation. And so I, I think you'd find that anybody my age, Mad magazine was an influence and then, and then the heart, the National Lampoon as it got bigger. And I think it's, you're fortunate if you come from outside the geographical area where you eventually work because I probably, I came to New York when I was 28. You grew up in New York. So I saw New York in a completely different way than you did. You took everything for granted. Yes, as, as did my kids. And, but for me everything was new. And I think you outsiders like me and Lauren or like most editors that did well in New York, they came from like Denver or Missouri and so, and also we see things the way the native doesn't. Also if you grew up in Canada, and I'm sure Lauren would say the same thing, half of your, your culture over, you know, TV and everything like that came from the United States and half came from Britain. So you have a, you're sort of a good bridge of those two sensibilities.
- [19:53]
David Duchovny
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- [22:35]
Megan
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- [23:20]
David Duchovny
To me that's always the double edged sword of editing or being a powerful magazine editor is the embedded nature of it. Like you're reporting in a way on the hip people and you're kind of skewering them in the beginning, but then the failure of your success is that you're becoming one as well.
- [23:42]
Graydon Carter
That's interesting. That's a good question. I mean, I mean New York, I came in 78 and the city had just come out of bankruptcy and it got into a bit of recession. So by the time we started Spy and it was completely accidental when we did start it, which was 1986, all of a sudden this new sort of life form of investment bankers had been invented and there was city was awash in money in certain areas, not all areas. And so that was a great time to have a Magazine that poked fun at the people who were sort of the parade floats of that era. And there were people like Leona Helmsley and Donald Trump and all those ladies who lunched at Le Cirque. And yeah, it was a really good time to do all that. And they provided ample copy.
- [24:36]
David Duchovny
Yeah. What were you skewering exactly? Were you skewing the pretension that money can buy class or taste or substance? Or that there was a sense of there was a real New York underneath this new hedge fund New York that was, you know, rat infested, but more bohemian and artistic? Or is it just like, we've got a month to put out this magazine, we've got to figure out what to do. You know, flying by a bit more.
- [25:04]
Graydon Carter
Of the last part, but also a bit of the early parts of your question. And no, it was that New York was filthy rat infested still. But most important, if you were in your twenties, rents were cheap.
- [25:16]
David Duchovny
They were.
- [25:16]
Graydon Carter
And that allowed, you know, all these creative people to be able to afford to come to New York. I mean, the apartment I had, which is about. I live in a village. My first apartment is about 300ft from where I live now, and I paid $200 a month for it.
- [25:33]
David Duchovny
Are you comforted by the fact that you have stayed in the same place and live your life at present amongst the ghosts of the past? Because I find that very difficult in New York for me when I go back because there's just so much history for me. I get a kind of a. Vertigo.
- [25:53]
Graydon Carter
Well, it's funny because I have. I sort of. I'm giving away most of my suits that I had made at Anderson shepherd in England when I was at Vanity Fair. And I've given them to friends of mine and to my sons. And I only kept two suits, both of them basically for weddings, funerals and memorials at this point. There's no other reason to wear a suit in New York and these days. And yes, I mean, I, I, you know, I'm constantly surrounded by the. The memories of people who I worked with or friends and. Or I worked with and were friends and, And I've passed. I mean, this, the building I'm in. You know, Morris Sendak used to live here. Paul Whiteman, Max Ernst. I'm in the building that was very much a center of successful haute bohemia back in the day.
- [26:47]
David Duchovny
And how does that feel personally to you? To me, there's a certain stuckness to it or a certain staying in the past to it that I find I cannot get out of my own head in that way in New York, in a way that you seem to be able to is there. To me, being in New York, there's. The past is so heavy that there's a sense of failure about it because it's no longer with me. I haven't been able to continue somehow. It's very human. You know, we all have to age and die. And yet if you're like me, you feel like you were supposed to not do that.
- [27:26]
Graydon Carter
Yeah, no, no. I think that I happen to. I don't live in the past, but I adore the past and, and figures big in the books I read, in the movies I watch, especially the last half of the last century.
- [27:41]
David Duchovny
I want to go back to, you know, you were saying you only have two suits. There's no reason to wear a suit. But there was always something about you personally that was a style. You know, you had a certain sartorial style. And I also want to make the connection between the outsider system. Basher or pretension Basher Editor is somewhat punkish, you know, punk. The, the not not being a punk, but punk rock. And I wonder if it's possible to think of your creation of SPY and then metamorphosizing into Vanity Fair as kind of a punk, kind of a punk movement. And yet the, the role of tastemaker is, is not punk, is pre punk. Is it harkens back to a like pre empire.
- [28:31]
Graydon Carter
I mean.
- [28:31]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [28:31]
Graydon Carter
You know, the thing is, even at Spy, we dressed. I think most of us came to work in jackets and ties because that was the thing in those days for journalists. And I always felt that you would be taken more seriously if you were a sort of quasi revolutionary dressed in a nice suit than you would if you're wearing a hoodie.
- [28:55]
David Duchovny
And so you were a quasi revolutionary. You did think you were a quasi.
- [28:59]
Graydon Carter
People thought of that when we were at SPY and, and then. But I happen to love clothes. I, I, I'm not interested in fashion, but I love clothing. I mean, I love clothes.
- [29:08]
David Duchovny
Yeah. And which clothes do you love?
- [29:11]
Graydon Carter
Well, I love all my old suits. And as I say, I'm slowly giving them all away to people roughly my, my height. And how tall are you?
- [29:22]
David Duchovny
I want to ask now because maybe.
- [29:23]
Graydon Carter
I can get a suit a little over six feet.
- [29:25]
David Duchovny
Well, I like that. Keep me in mind.
- [29:27]
Graydon Carter
Okay. I've got a nice tweed that might look very good.
- [29:32]
David Duchovny
See, I'm, I'm, I, I have trouble with style. I, I've always had trouble with styles. You know, clothes are always some kind of a signal And I'm wondering if you were aware. Well, you just said you were. You wanted to give the signal of I'm a serious person, I'm a professional.
- [29:50]
Graydon Carter
No, that we were revolutionaries, to be taken seriously. We weren't necessarily that serious, but.
- [29:56]
David Duchovny
Yes, but I think you were serious. I, I think, I think, I think you were serious. And I think you, you know, you instinctually had a target. You had a kind of a, I see a kind of a punk ethos in that. You were saying the system, whether that system is magazines as they're configured or magazines as they're tonally configured at the moment is, is not for me. You know, I'm going to break it up and I'm going to, you know, if I'm on the outside, I've got to crack some things to get on the inside. So there's going to be.
- [30:31]
Graydon Carter
This goes to your, your notion of, of failure. I'd had a magazine, this magazine I had in, when I was in school in Canada. And it cost me. I, I, the, I was thrown out of a university because I didn't attend classes enough, because I spent all my time working on this magazine. The magazine. At the end of the day, after, after it folded, I realized that it folded because it didn't really have a point. It wasn't far left wing, it wasn't far right wing. It wasn't, you know, highly intellectual. It wasn't all that popular. It was, it was just a magazine and then put out by a lot of people who had never worked on a magazine before. Only when spies seemed to do catch on and do really well did I realize why it was because it had a point to it. And my first magazine did not have a point. And so everything to be, if you want to be noticed, it has to have a point. And I learned that in the magazine. In the restaurant business. We opened the Waverly Inn in the West Village about 20 years ago. I mean, it's a hundred and some odd years old now, but we've had it for the last 20 years. And we also did a restaurant right nearby, like about two blocks away called the Beatrice Inn. And the Raverly Inn has red banquets and white tablecloths and American comfort food and a wonderful mural around it and fireplaces. And the Beatrice Inn had greenback cats and white tablecloths and fireplaces and was very cozy. But it didn't do as well as the Waverly Inn, because if people wanted the Waverly Inn experience, they came to the Waverly Inn. And so the Beatrice, other than Being another restaurant, it didn't have a point, but the Waverly did have a point. The Waverly Inn, when we took it over, there were very few American food restaurants, comfort food restaurants in the village. Most were Italian or Japanese. And very few restaurants with banquets and with white tablecloths. And so the. The Waverly Inn, right from the beginning, had a point to it, and it's done incredibly well. Right, but the other one didn't.
- [32:46]
David Duchovny
Well, the other one was a. A replication of the success, in a way.
- [32:50]
Graydon Carter
And that's not a good thing. No, but that's like Jaws 4, but.
- [32:54]
David Duchovny
It'S so easy to fall into.
- [32:56]
Graydon Carter
Yes.
- [32:56]
David Duchovny
And. And it feels great because, you know, it's the same amount of money for less work.
- [33:02]
Graydon Carter
Yeah.
- [33:02]
David Duchovny
You know, so, you know, in reading your book, I. I think, you know, one of the obvious. One door opens, another door closes, or the reverse of that is when you were either up or thinking that you might be up for getting editor of New Yorker, becoming editor of the New Yorker, and instead you ended up becoming the editor of Vanity Fair. So you could have looked at that as a failure, and maybe you did at the time look at that as a failure that you. That maybe you had your. No, you didn't.
- [33:34]
Graydon Carter
No, not a failure at all. It was just. It was a. It was just a shock to the system for the simple reason that at Spy, we had spent five years making fun of Vanny Fair, its editor, its writers, its host style of writing. So winding up there was a lot more awkward for me.
- [33:53]
David Duchovny
Sure, I get that personally. But what was it about Vanity Fair that you were making fun of? And then what did you change when you got there to get rid of what you had made fun of or did you become?
- [34:06]
Graydon Carter
There was a baroqueness to the writing and that I. That didn't sit well with me. And one reason we wrote about Vanny Fair is because it become one of the more successful magazine in the country. And so when I got there, the first thing was to change the baroqueness of the writing. And some editors pit people against each other and hopefully that the strongest will survive and the weak will fall away. I'm not like that. I'm very much a collegial person. I like people to work together, to respect each other's talents, to respect each other. And so it took about two years, and I got rid of three troublemakers in one week that had been left over from the previous regime. And that sort of changed everything. And because then all of a sudden, people started working together and saying, thank you at the end of notes or. And respecting each other. And that's the way it was for the next 23 years.
- [35:07]
David Duchovny
Very interesting. What you're talking about, really, is what a lot of people talk about in sports organizations as a culture. You went in to create a culture that was, you know, paradoxically, to me because I often think of. I'm stuck on, like, this kind of WASPy in the sense of sting tone that the magazine could have. But behind the scenes, what you're saying is very collegial and very. Thank you. Oriented. And I'm interested to dig into the fact that an editor is actually. Because we asked, what does an editor do? I guess an editor creates a culture.
- [35:46]
Graydon Carter
That's an important thing. It's funny, because people used to think Spy must have been put out by a group of misfits. They weren't misfits at all. They were all very civilized, very collegial. They've all done well since Spy. I mean, the big biography of. Of Lorne Michaels is written by Susan Morrison, who was our deputy editor at Spine, is now an editor at the New Yorker. I've been blessed because every single office I've worked at has been like that.
- [36:16]
David Duchovny
Well, do you. Well, would you say. I would say you're the common denominator, though, right?
- [36:19]
Graydon Carter
No, no, no. But I inherited. I mean, I just walked into time, but it was very collegial.
- [36:24]
David Duchovny
So it's not the team of Rivals culture.
- [36:26]
Graydon Carter
It's the opposite. It was, in a way, but it was. And I would hire people who I thought would get along with everybody else and add to the mix in terms of stories and talents.
- [36:39]
David Duchovny
I also know from directing that actors have different things that they respond to. Some respond to a pat on the back and gentle whispering, and some respond to challenge and panic. You know, some like to work in chaos and some like to work in structure. So I imagine that it wasn't just as monolithic as what you're describing, the culture of it, but that you, as an editor, knew how to handle your horses.
- [37:10]
Graydon Carter
I did. I mean, I was very appreciative of what writers and photographers do. It's a lot easier being an editor than a writer. And the, you know, the writer has to. At Vanny Fair, they'd go off for. Sometimes for months at a time, away from their families, try to get the story, try to build the story and. And tell it in a great narrative arc. And all I had to do was assign it and edit it and tidy it up a bit at the end and. And sort of Merge it with great photography. But writing is really tough. And so I was, I came out, I treated every writer differently and some needed more handholding than others. And. But it was. I. But I loved dealing with them.
- [37:56]
David Duchovny
Do you feel like you ever failed with a certain writer or on a certain assignment?
- [38:01]
Graydon Carter
All the time. First, I woke up every morning terrified because during that golden period of magazines, you were at the coal face of competition and so just made everybody, you know, better. And like anytime you assigned a story, you were terrified that another editor would sign the same story to their writer and they'd get it in better and first. So that was it. Just, it was just constant anxiety. In a good way, in a very healthy way.
- [38:29]
David Duchovny
Well, I. There. You do say at some point in the book that every day you'd go to work, you'd look up on the board and see if you were still listed as the editor of the magazine.
- [38:39]
Graydon Carter
That was the first. Those were the first two years.
- [38:42]
David Duchovny
First. Okay, yeah. Once I got only two years, it was only two years.
- [38:45]
Graydon Carter
Only two years. No, the first two years were brutal. But after that I had, I sort of, you know, then I knew I was okay and I could play a long ball. I mean, long game. I mean, a number of our stories took two years to come together and so. But no, the first two years were brutal. And that's when I would check that little notice board outside there in the lobby of the building just to make sure my name was still on it.
- [39:20]
Megan
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- [40:25]
Emily Deschanel
Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder premieres April 8th. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:00]
David Duchovny
Hi, I'm Emily Deschanel.
- [41:01]
Emily Deschanel
And I'm Carla Gallo. And we're here to bring you Boneheads.
- [41:04]
Megan
The official Bones rewatch podcast.
- [41:07]
Emily Deschanel
That's right. We're watching all the episodes of Bones, starting with episode one. And we are the right people to do it.
- [41:12]
Megan
I play Dr. Temperance Bradnon and I met Carla 16 years ago on set.
- [41:17]
Emily Deschanel
I played Daisy Wick.
- [41:19]
Megan
Tune in every Wednesday to hear all our behind the scenes stories, conversations with cast and crew, and our favorite moments.
- [41:24]
Emily Deschanel
Boneheads from Lemonada Media is out. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:48]
David Duchovny
You say in, in the book at the. In the poor Richard's part at the end, rules for life, one is carry a hanky. I don't have a. I don't have a pocket on my shirt, so I can't do that. There's your hanky.
- [42:03]
Graydon Carter
I've never left a house without one. In fact, I feel naked. It's like going out without, I don't know, like pants to me.
- [42:11]
David Duchovny
You're not suggesting to wear a hanky like your pants, but you're saying you could cover it.
- [42:15]
Graydon Carter
But if you did go out without your pants but you had a hanky, you can cover the naughty bit.
- [42:19]
David Duchovny
That could be like number 21 in your 20 uses for the Hanky. I think you had 20. But you say to your kids, you never learn from success, only from failure. Just try to keep the failure small and the successes big. Which sounds great how?
- [42:35]
Graydon Carter
Well, even like the very first Oscar party we did, I'd. I'd gone to Swifty Lazar, who Swifty Lazar was a, you know, big, famous. You know, he's sort of one of the great super agents of the period and he invented the Oscar viewing party. And he invited me to. To it one year and it turned out to be his last one. He died in December and I thought Fanny Fair could step in and do it. I thought, if I'm going to fail, I want to fail before as few eyes as possible. So we only invited about 120 or 130 people, maybe 150 people for dinner, and then about 150 or 200 people afterwards who would come from the Academy Awards then. And I did that simply because we could have made it bigger, but I did it simply because I thought if we fail, I'd rather keep it to like 350 people talking about our failure rather than a thousand. And, but we, we succeeded. And, and, and then it just grew and grew from there.
- [43:43]
David Duchovny
I, I, I would, I would love for you to talk about Trump because, you know, in a way, you spent, well, that was more at Spy, where you spent, you know, kind of taking shots at this ridiculous New York, New York City real estate developer. But in some ways, you know, the, the lore has it now that he was kind of humiliated into running for president as a, you know, to get you, to get you all back, to get us all back for embarrassing him. But I'm wondering if you ever think back on, you know, the DNA that you kind of created, I say, with Lauren and Letterman, you know, back then, and, and I'm not saying in any kind of responsibility, but I'm just wondering.
- [44:31]
Graydon Carter
I do not take responsibility.
- [44:32]
David Duchovny
No, no. And I'm not saying you should.
- [44:34]
Graydon Carter
The Trump was. It would be impossible for magazines like Spy or Comedians or columnists not to have written about Trump in anything other than a derisory way. He was ripe for ridicule because he was a narcissist. And narcissists are fascinating subjects to write about because they can't get enough of themselves.
- [45:01]
David Duchovny
Well, it's true. But I think also that when I contemplate Trump and he does take up more space in my brain than I do, then I, I can't, you got.
- [45:13]
Graydon Carter
To see somebody for that.
- [45:17]
David Duchovny
There was some sense in, in Spy and in Vanity Fair of I'm going to shame this person slightly or whatever because they deserve it. You know, I'm going to puncture that balloon. And shame. Is this kind of a tool or a cultural phenomenon that brings people down to size would bring a narcissist down to size. And yet that's what I see running out of control on the Internet is everybody is shaming one another. Aside from virtue signaling, you know, you have these two extremes where I signal virtue and I shame you, and Trump is just this guy who is impossible to shame.
- [46:03]
Graydon Carter
I, I don't recognize this Donald Trump in a way. I, I knew he could be vengeful, but not on this epic level of vengeance where that, you know, he's, I mean, the, the, the, the, the destruction to the US government is so breathtaking and to you know, the weather service and at the time of crime, climate crisis. So, and FAA so just, they're just making flying which was a, a nerve wracking part of our lives anyway, much less safe. Then you started dismantling the, the teams that handle our nuclear warheads, the intelligence communities, our relationships with our neighbors. And speaking as a Canadian, I've never been prouder to be a Canadian. I always am too. They handle it well.
- [46:52]
David Duchovny
I'll be asking you for recommendation very soon.
- [46:56]
Graydon Carter
The restaurants in Toronto.
- [46:57]
David Duchovny
No, no, just on my, on my passport. I'm going to try and, I'm going to try and become a Canadian. But I think the thing with Trump is like he's a narcissist, but he's also a nihilist. And to quote Game of Thrones, chaos is a ladder. This is a guy, you know, he's just creating chaos. He's just destroying things. He's not creating anything. And as long as chaos exists.
- [47:18]
Graydon Carter
He owned three casinos.
- [47:20]
David Duchovny
Oh, I know.
- [47:20]
Graydon Carter
He had three business where people go there intentionally to lose money almost and they went bankrupt.
- [47:26]
David Duchovny
Right. He's the biggest loser of all time and yet there he is. But I know I, I know I gotta let you go in five minutes. So I just wanted to, just to touch on. You're not just, you're not done. You've still got airmail and which, which is kind of a multimedia enterprise as well.
- [47:46]
Graydon Carter
It's like Vanity Fair, but a weekly digital Vanity Fair in a certain way.
- [47:50]
David Duchovny
But let's say what was, what was the point of, of airmail if, if, if it needs to have a point, as you said?
- [47:59]
Graydon Carter
Well, I thought I could, I thought I'd read a lot of foreign papers. I was living in France. I thought, I'm reading all these stories that I know are not in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post. And I thought I could pull something together that I think could be entertaining for my friends and, but I wanted it to look beautiful and I wanted to have, I didn't want programmatic ads and I wanted to have the sort of advertising we had at Vanity Fair like Hermes and Dior and Ralph Lauren. I think it's the most beautiful digital anything on, on the Internet and because it was made by magazine people, so.
- [48:36]
David Duchovny
It was a, it was an object of beauty in a way. And yet it's not really an object because it, does it not exist in hard copy at all?
- [48:43]
Graydon Carter
No, it's just digital everything. I mean you know, it's funny, if the Internet was at this stage when we started Spy magazine, I doubt very much if we would have had a printed magazine. I think we would have done it digitally because there's a million with magazines, you gotta. There's color correction, there's going to the printer, there's binding the magazine, there's boxing the magazine, shipping the magazine to wholesalers. They sell it, they give it to retailers. The retailers have to open the box, put them on the newsstand, and then they sell, send all the covers of all the copies they didn't sell back to you. It's a process that could take months and you're not getting paid during that entire period.
- [49:24]
David Duchovny
Absolutely. And, and what strikes me about the transition from Vanity Fair, which was a beautiful looking magazine, and yet, and this is in contrast to your, to your memoir, there's something disposable about a magazine.
- [49:42]
Graydon Carter
Well, they date. I mean, unless. Unless they're National Geographics, like when we were growing up. Magazines date as physical things.
- [49:51]
David Duchovny
Because did that ever. Was that ever a struggle within you as a human being on this planet? Was that ever since of, oh, this is why I want to write a memoir. Because in a way, this, you know, everything dates eventually, but this will date not quite as quickly as the June edition of Vanity Fair.
- [50:16]
Graydon Carter
You know, books, books don't really date. And I, it's funny because I very consciously did. There's no index in the book.
- [50:25]
David Duchovny
Well, I wanted to call you out on that because, you know, it was such a. It's such a power move, I have to say, because everybody in Hollywood is, you know, St. Stryson did the same thing, right? There was no index. So you actually have to read the goddamn.
- [50:40]
Graydon Carter
Andy Warhol did the same thing, but there's no index and there's no photographs. And I had this wonderful artist, Eric Hansen, do drawings to open each chapter because I remember when I was growing up reading books with just drawings and to launch a chapter.
- [50:57]
David Duchovny
And I agree with you because when I started to write novels, I really had a sense of, well, yeah, this may date in certain aspects, but it's also the fullest expression in a way, of my experience as a human being on this planet in this time. And it is there for my kids. And in fact, like, you and I was moved by the fact that you said you wrote this memoir for your kids in a way, not just because you don't want to bore them anymore by telling the stories, but it's really like, yes, you could pulp the DNA of Vanity Fair and spy and make it into a kind of soup. And that would taste a little like Graydon Carter. But this is more like, this is who your father was, is. And beyond that to people who are not your children. This is more who I am, what I saw, what was important.
- [51:49]
Graydon Carter
And also a portrait of an era both in New York and America. You know, when my wife and I watch, we watch Frasier most nights before we go to bed because it was a night, a non alcoholic nightcap. And, and the reason we watch Fraser is because, you know, it was the time before social media, before the Internet, the World Trade center towers were still standing. And so it's just a. I think I was fortunate enough to wind up in New York at a really good time, the late 1970s. So I saw the grit and I saw, you know, the glory. And then, you know, after this, the turn of this century, everything else.
- [52:31]
David Duchovny
I understand that. I often watch Star Trek reruns before bed and it's the same, the original. And, and I, I felt very guilty about it for a while and then I read an article because I thought, you know, what are you doing? And then I, and then it settles.
- [52:48]
Graydon Carter
The, if it settles the nerves, it's a, it's a good thing.
- [52:51]
David Duchovny
And then I read this article about, you know, because they say you're not supposed to watch television in bed or before bed because it could be, you know, exciting in a way that would make it hard to sleep. But, but this, whoever was writing the article said it's actually good to watch things that you've seen before because there's no surprises.
- [53:09]
Graydon Carter
You can actually, there's nothing that's going to scare you.
- [53:12]
David Duchovny
Right?
- [53:12]
Graydon Carter
But it works for, it works for us.
- [53:14]
David Duchovny
Now, I would end just by asking, because what you said just a moment ago made me think of this because we were talking about airmail and you know, the sense in which, you know, I'm not done yet, I'm not done yet. I'm going to make this new thing. And there's a point, here's the point. It's not, it's not just because I did Vanity Fair and here's this iteration of it again. No, it's a new thing. It's different. Is one of the points of airmail or of your work now? Do you have anything to say to the present or is it more an exercise in finding the audience of people like me or like you, who want to kind of revel in the tone that they grew up in?
- [54:02]
Graydon Carter
I mean, it's a celebration. I mean, we're only here once. And to spend your life with a hair shirt on is probably not the, the best way to get the most out of life. And for most of us, you know, we go to a, a restaurant in the evening, which is one of the life's great miracles. People ask you what you want, they bring it to you, they clear up afterwards. I think restaurants are simply amazing. Like, there's so many good things in life, like traveling in Europe or, you know, swimming in the lake. And this is not about. I just wanted. Didn't want something that was constant depressive politics, because politics is depressing nowadays. And it just got much more depressing over the last two and a half months.
- [54:45]
David Duchovny
I think what you say is very. I'd like to highlight that for a moment because what it makes me think is you spoke of a hair shirt and I think we've kind of entered into a sense and culture where you're not allowed to enjoy yourself in a way.
- [55:03]
Graydon Carter
Yes, 100%, at the office especially.
- [55:07]
David Duchovny
And I think that that's a dangerous thing. And I think what you're saying is profound and that we are here, you know, and this is in no way saying that everybody has the same shot. You know, I'm not saying you and I aren't privileged or there isn't such a thing as privilege, but there is such a thing as enjoyment. And that, that it is. There's a value in seeking enjoyment. That's not just a hedonistic value.
- [55:31]
Graydon Carter
I agree. I mean, I mean, life is, life is. Grab life now. Well, it's good. Just imagine if you were in Gaza, you know, five years ago, you're, you know, looking out on the sea and, and that's gone now. So it. Take advantage of everything you can right now because nothing is permanent.
- [55:51]
David Duchovny
Yeah, because I think what we've gotten away from in the last five or 10 years is any sense that that enjoyment is a good, you know, or something not to be ashamed of, especially.
- [56:04]
Graydon Carter
9 to 5, whether it's work, work during the day. I do find most people take enjoyment in their evening, their evening lives, and I just think they should spread that more to what they do during the day. I wake up every morning and I think I'm so blessed at my. And I feel very fortunate and that I, I figure out what the day is going to be like and, and I think I'm living in New York City in Granite Village, doing something I love and with a wonderful family. And I, I think I'm really fortunate to have all that. And I'm not going to. I don't depress easily. I worry all the time, but I don't depress easily.
- [56:43]
David Duchovny
Well, that's. That's a trick right there. I'd like to learn that way.
- [56:47]
Graydon Carter
Yeah. Alcohol at the end of the day helps.
- [56:52]
David Duchovny
I was. I'm thinking it's constitutional, but there's. There's resilience in there. You know, it gets back. We can end with this. It can. It gets back to how one deals with failure or how. And worry is really just the contemplation of future failure, really, isn't it?
- [57:05]
Graydon Carter
100%.
- [57:06]
David Duchovny
So how. You know, and you raise kids. I raise kids. They're very different, constitutionally. But my son was a worrier about future failure. And we realized at one point, his mother and I, that it's a way of inoculating yourself against failure when it does happen, so. Cause failure's coming for all of us.
- [57:27]
Graydon Carter
Like building up muscles.
- [57:28]
David Duchovny
It is. It's like you're playing out the scenario and you're trying to see if you're gonna survive. Cause that's all of our fear, is that this failure is the one that's going to. The herd is going to reject me. They've seen my true colors. I don't belong here. I'm gonna have to die on the Savannah.
- [57:46]
Graydon Carter
By and large, when somebody has something written about them in page Six, I say, listen, just let it in. That's not that flattering to them. I say, how many years you've been reading Paid Stitch? And they'll say, 25 years. I said, tell me one item about somebody else that you remember. And nobody can, because it's just. Unless there's. Unless there's 50 articles that say you have web feet and you walk funny, then maybe people start looking at your feet when they meet you and seeing if you walk funny. But if it's one story in the. In Page six that says you have web feed and walk funny, nobody's going to remember it.
- [58:22]
David Duchovny
Well, that's. That's one of my beefs with the Internet, is that things linger a lot.
- [58:28]
Graydon Carter
Longer, but then you gotta Google the person's name, and you go to Google their name and they put webfeed and walkfunny.
- [58:33]
David Duchovny
Exactly.
- [58:35]
Graydon Carter
You gotta know that they have webfeed and walkfunny, but the chances are you don't, because you don't remember that item from 15 years ago.
- [58:41]
David Duchovny
Okay, I'll buy that. Thank you, Graydon, for taking the time. It's been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit And David.
- [58:48]
Graydon Carter
Thank you so much. I'll see you at the Waverly Inn, maybe.
- [59:04]
David Duchovny
What a sparky talk with Graydon Carter. Time flew by. Really enjoyed that and we got to it at the end. I'm not sure if it's in the podcast itself, but I. I've had kind of a bit of a, as I said, as I said with great rancor, a be in my bonnet about the fact that Air Mail had never reviewed one of my novels and Grade informed me that Air Mail does not review fiction. So there you have it. I've been harboring this kind of, you know, just a little bubbling resentment against Air Mail because I've. I've seen how they've reviewed memoirs of actors and they must be memoirs at this point because I, I've seen how they reviewed actors writings and I was like, ah, why are they not addressing me? So there you go. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is forgiveness. I'm an idiot. Thanks so much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven't yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You'll get bonus content like my thoughts on conversations with guests including Alec Baldwin and Rob Lowe. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or for all other podcast apps, head to Lemonada Premium to subscribe. That's lemonadapremium.com Failbetter is production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of New content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kupinsky and Brad Davidson. The show is executive produced by by Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowland and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.
- [61:29]
Megan
Social distancing slows the spread of Coronavirus, so we should all stay home to lower the risk for everyone. More info@coronavirus.gov let's all do our part because we're all alone together. Brought to you by the Ad Council.
- [61:45]
Chris Guillebeau
Hey there, I'm Chris Guillebo. I'm an author of books including Time anxiety and the $100 startup and I'm also the host of side Hustle School, a daily podcast that's been running for more than 2,900 days and counting, with real stories of people creating new sources of income without going into debt and without quitting their job. Each episode is short, actionable, and designed to get you started today, whether you have an idea or you're just looking for inspiration. So if you're ready to create financial freedom and build something for yourself, or even if you're just curious, hit, follow, or subscribe wherever you listen. New episodes every day.