← Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Héctor Tobar, Jena Friedman, and Joseph (REBROADCAST)
00:52:35
This episode features author Héctor Tobar, writer and comedian Jena Friedman, and music from indie folk trio Joseph.
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- [00:03]
Luke Burbank
Hey there. Welcome to another edition of Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week we are going to be talking to award winning author and journalist Hector Tobar about what it means to him to be Latino in this country. His new book is Our Migrant A meditation on Race and the meanings and myths of Latino. Hector's going to talk about growing up in la, what his family was like, and also why he thinks Star wars might be the ultimate ladies Latino film. We're also going to talk to the comedian and filmmaker Jenna Friedman. Her new memoir, Not Funny, has a misleading title because Jenna's actually very funny. Although there is one joke or topic that she's probably going to steer clear of. Going forward, she'll explain why and then we will hear some music from one of our very favorite bands, the band Joseph. We've got one heck of a show in store for you this week. Don't go anywhere. Livewire starts right after this. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.
- [01:09]
Hector Tobar
A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old and a.
- [01:13]
Luke Burbank
Centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago.
- [01:17]
Elena Passarello
How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again?
- [01:24]
Hector Tobar
Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:31]
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- [02:01]
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- [02:30]
Luke Burbank
Episode of Livewire was originally recorded in June of 2023. We hope you like it.
- [02:35]
Elena Passarello
Now let's get to the show from prx, it's Livewire.
- [02:48]
Sponsor Announcer
This week.
- [02:49]
Elena Passarello
Award winning author Hector Tobar.
- [02:52]
Hector Tobar
Latino is essentially a term that to a lot of us feels like a marketing term.
- [02:58]
Elena Passarello
And comedian and author Jenna Friedman.
- [03:00]
Jenna Friedman
I do still think you can joke about anything as long as you're coming from a place of humanity or not. I mean, I didn't watch the Trump town hall, but like, he seemed to be killing it in that room.
- [03:10]
Elena Passarello
So with music from Joseph and our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.
- [03:25]
Luke Burbank
Thank you so much, Elana Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in all over the country. We have a truly entertaining show in store for you this week. Talking to a bunch of interesting folks, including Jenna Friedman, who has written a book with a sort of misleading title. It's called Not Funny, although Jenna is a very funny person. Was actually nominated for an Academy Award for her work on Borat 2 subsequent movie film. And as we were talking about Jenna's book, Elena, we realized that you have a story about a time when you were trying to be funny and it did not have the desired effect. We're gonna hear that story coming up in a few. First though, of course, we gotta kick things off with the best news we heard all week. This right here is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. Sometimes you just have to look for it. Alaina, what's the best news you heard all week?
- [04:21]
Elena Passarello
This is a special one. I hope you're ready. It involves a young professional person named Emily Ben. Shudder. She's 29. She lives somewhere near the American Southwest. And she recently in July took some kind of job with a forward facing capacity, front of house in some kind of service industry position. I think she got the job through through an application in which her appearance was not visible. So when they realized that she had pink hair, they had to let her know that her hairstyle was in violation of the company's quote, natural color policy. And I think they really wanted to keep her or she really wanted to keep the job. And so she said, what do you suggest I do? And they said wig. And she said, oh, challenge accepted. But they didn't say what kind of wig she needed to wear and they didn't say the quality of wig. Wig. So for the past month or so, she has been posting on Tik Tok the wigs that she has been selecting to wear to her job. All of them are natural color. One of them is a total vintage 1994 Jennifer Aniston wig. Another one is a slash slash Nikki Six kind of motley Crue style wig. I think I saw a Richard Simmons wig at one point.
- [05:41]
Luke Burbank
We're getting any kind of like flower founding father action going on. Any of those, oh, you know, kind of constitutional style wigs.
- [05:48]
Elena Passarello
Full on George Washington curls on the side, black ponytail, Ichabod Crane style wig. It's in white, which is for some people a natural color. And then there are some that just looks like the wigs. Natural blonde hair was caught in like an electric socket. And in all these TikToks, she's wearing what looks like kind of her uniform and these wonderful wigs. And she says she has a new mantra. The worse wig, the better. And the coolest thing about this story is that followers have commented on their own little acts of corporate dress code rebellion. There's a hospital in some unnamed town that won't let people have different colored hair. So they all bought matching. I'd like to speak to your manager, Karen Wigs and the whole staff is wearing them. So the dissent is happening amongst the wage earning Americans, at least the ones that are on TikTok. And I just love that level of sass. And I hope that she never runs.
- [06:42]
Luke Burbank
Out of wig options if you can't beat them. W. That's right. New rallying cry. The best news I saw all week is also another workplace story. It involves, well, kind of a guy named Jeff Simpkins going into a Home Depot in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Now, Jeff goes to this Home Depot in Mount Laurel a lot because he's a commercial floor installer. And I speak as somebody who's been remodeling a house. You end up living in your local home improvement store when you're doing this kind of stuff. And Jeff, it also turns out, is a real cat lover. In fact, Jeff has two cats. They're named, wait for it, Will and Grace.
- [07:21]
Elena Passarello
Oh, no.
- [07:21]
Luke Burbank
And as Jeff was wandering the aisles of this Home Depot, he kept noticing cat related stuff in the Home Depot. Like not stuff they sell, like a cat tree, a used litter box. He was like, something's going on here. So he grabs one of those like orange vested employees and says, is there a cat living here? And the person just says, come with me, and leads Jeff to the heating and air conditioning aisle where just sitting like a king is Leo the cat who lives in this Home Depot. Turns out the employees of this particular location in New Jersey, somebody adopted, rescued Leo because they had a mouse problem. So they got this cat to live there and take care of the mouse population, which apparently is working.
- [08:09]
Elena Passarello
Oh, good.
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Luke Burbank
But then what happened was Leo had a little skin condition and they had to put some kind of bandage on it. And Leo was kind of like messing with the bandage. So they put a T shirt on Leo to try to like, keep him from messing with his bandage. And this became a whole thing. He's wearing a hocus pocus T shirt currently. Like, people come in with outfits for Leo. Jeff started posting pictures of Leo and videos on TikTok to draw attention to the idea of rescuing cats. These have been viewed like millions of times. It's a whole thing. People are coming from far and wide to go to this Home Depot to find. And also the thing is, Leo just free ranges within the store, so you don't know where you will find him necessarily. He does sleep in the garden center at night because it's climate controlled. They cannot close this Home Depot Elena, until they go find Leo and make sure he's in his safe spot in the garden section. He hangs out in the toilet section sometimes. There turns out are cats that are living in a few other Home Depots. One in Chandler, Arizona. That cat is named Cat and roams that Home Depot. And then there's one also in New Jersey in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Oh, yeah, there's a cat named Oscar that is living in that Home Depot. And all I can say to the Home Depot of Longview, Washington, where I spend most of my time and money, get a cat.
- [09:34]
Elena Passarello
Get a cat.
- [09:35]
Luke Burbank
This should be part of every experience. Exactly. Just let them wander in. So that's the best news that I saw this week. All right, our first guest is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, acclaimed novelist and contributing writer for the New York Times Opinion Pages. He's also a professor at UC Irvine in California. His latest book, Our Migrant A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of Latino, seeks to decode the meaning of the term Latino in the modern United States. Publishers Weekly calls the book probing, heartfelt, lyrical, and uncompromising. Hector Tobar joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon to talk about the book. Take a listen, Hector, welcome to the show.
- [10:36]
Hector Tobar
Hey, thanks for having me.
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Luke Burbank
I really enjoyed the book. One of the things that jumped out at me though is like almost one of the first pages is this photo. I presume it's you at Griffith park, like where the observatory is for people that don't know, like Rebel Without a Cause backdrop. What's the story with that photograph?
- [10:55]
Hector Tobar
That photograph was taken three or four months after I was born. My mother had been in the United States for about six months. My parents are Guatemalan immigrants. And it was my father playing with his new Polaroid camera. It's a little Polaroid, like a three by five. And my father wanted to take a picture that was his family, his new family in front of this symbol of American science and technology and modernity. You know, they're from. My father's from a very small village in Guatemala. And suddenly here's in Los Angeles in front of, you know, the Griffith Observatory.
- [11:31]
Luke Burbank
What was it like for you growing up the son of immigrants in Los Angeles? Did you have a sense of that as a kid, that your parents had come from somewhere else?
- [11:40]
Hector Tobar
Oh, absolutely. I mean, my parents told me stories about Guatemala as this land of wonder, volcanoes, military coups, you know, tamales.
- [11:53]
Luke Burbank
And.
- [11:54]
Hector Tobar
That we lived in the United States, which was the greatest country on earth. You know, it was Los Angeles when the freeways were being built. You know, I grew up during the space program. I had my model Saturn V rocket. You know, I had a little space jumpsuit that my parents bought for me. And, you know, I remember watching the moon landing with my mother. My mother was terrified that Neil Armstrong was going to sink into the moon, you know. Really? So, yeah, I mean, it was living with the sense of American greatness, but also this romantic sense of where I was from, that Guatemala was a really beautiful place of love.
- [12:30]
Luke Burbank
Before we go too much further, I want to make sure that I'm describing the folks in this book properly. Why do you feel the term Latino is so flawed?
- [12:41]
Hector Tobar
Yeah, Latino is essentially a term that to a lot of us, feels like a marketing term. You know, it groups together a lot of different kinds of people. I mean, there's nothing really more different than your average Guatemalan guy and your average Cuban person. You know, Cubans are very excitable. Guatemalans are very stoic. Right? And so we all. But we all have this common relationship to the United States, which is that we're from Latin America, right? And so the term Latino was invented to, you know, describe us. But your average Latino person is really a mixture of many things, right? So the European part of us is favored by the term Latin. It says that we have something in common with people from Spain, but also people from Italy.
- [13:27]
Luke Burbank
Right?
- [13:27]
Hector Tobar
That's where Latin comes from. And it ignores the indigeneity that many of us carry. I have ancestors who are Mayan Indians. Many Guatemalans, many Mexicans have ancestors, many Cubans and Dominicans who are African Right. Of African descent. And so Latin kind of Latino erases that.
- [13:47]
Luke Burbank
What do you tend to use then in conversation? Like, how have you solved this problem?
- [13:52]
Hector Tobar
Well, I think, you know, I think that our race terms, and especially white, you know, no human being is white.
- [14:00]
Luke Burbank
I'm really trying tonight with this outfit.
- [14:01]
Hector Tobar
Yeah, you're giving your best shot. But, you know, those terms describe a state of mind. They're creations of history. White was created as a counter to black and it was, you know, it's a product of slavery. That's, that's where that term comes from.
- [14:20]
Luke Burbank
Well, so then from a practical standpoint, and you of course, don't speak for. You only speak for yourself. Yes, but what, what feels like an accurate and respectful way for people to talk about this wide, wide range of folks that are from Central and South America?
- [14:36]
Hector Tobar
Well, I think you just have to recognize when you're using them, that's what you're doing. You're making a generalization. I like Latino. Latino's fine with me. Latinx is okay. It's more of a university term. Now they're throwing out Latin A, which only people on college campuses use. So, no, I think Latino is good. And the terms are also, they're expressions of solidarity.
- [14:59]
Luke Burbank
Right.
- [15:00]
Hector Tobar
So for example, in my family, I'm Guatemalan. My wife is Mexican American, also calls herself Chicana. Our kids are Guatemalan, Mexican American, Angelenos, which is just easier to say Latino. Right.
- [15:16]
Luke Burbank
This is Livewire from prx. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello right over there. We are talking to journalist and author Hector Tobar about his latest book, Our Migrant Souls. When we get back, Hector is going to tell us about some of the personal stories that make up the book, including maybe the most iconic video ever of a guy skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac while drinking cranberry juice. Don't go anywhere that's around the corner here on livewire.
- [15:49]
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- [17:10]
Luke Burbank
Welcome back to livewire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We are listening to a conversation we recorded with celebrated writer Hector Tobar talking about his book our Migrant Souls. Let's get back to that right now. Recorded live at the Alberto Rose Theater here in Portland, Oregon. One of the things that you talk about in this book is that your family lived like about 100ft or so from James Earl Ray, the person who assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What memories do you have of that time in your family's life? Were you conscious of that person that was living 100ft away from you?
- [17:47]
Hector Tobar
Oh, no, absolutely not. I mean, I only put that together 30, 40 years later when I read about the King assassination, read some histories about the King assassination, I saw where he lived and I realized that was the next street over. And so our backyard faced his like, you know, alley. And so we were with like 200ft from James Earl Ray. And I traced it all together. And to me, you know, James Earl Ray was really transient. You know, when he was plotting the King assassination, he had escaped from jail in Missouri and he was living in all these flop house type places. And Hollywood, it was in East Hollywood, California, was a real transient place. And so to me, it speaks to the fact that almost all of us, you know, we're living inside American history and we often don't know how our lives overlap with these events. And the really interesting thing about that story of James Earl Ray is that at the same time that I'm living next to James Earl Ray, the guy who drives my mother to the hospital when she's pregnant with me is this African American guy from Memphis. And he had escaped Memphis because he had participated in a sit in protest against segregation in the Memphis Public Library. So he meets my mother in the laundry room of the tenement building where they're living. He's studying Spanish at LA City College. College and he tells my mother, look, I see you're pregnant. If you need anything, let me know. And she says to him, you know, well, I could use a ride to the hospital. And then when she goes into labor, she drives in his convertible to LA County General Hospital. And he became my godfather. So Booker Wade. And I found him 40 years later, thanks to Los Angeles Times in a column that I wrote. And so I'm living next to this white supremacist, but I'm also living next to, you know, an NAACP activist for, you know, civil rights.
- [19:36]
Sponsor Announcer
Wow.
- [19:36]
Luke Burbank
We're talking to Hector Tobar. His latest book is Our Migrant Souls. What were you hoping to really explore as you wrote this book? And how did you go out on that journey? Who were you looking to talk to?
- [19:47]
Hector Tobar
Well, you know, this is my pandemic book. And I watched this incredible documentary, I Am not yout Negro by Roald Peck. And it's the essays of James Baldwin, right, set to these images. And I just heard Baldwin's voice talking about race in America. And I thought, you know, we as Latino people, we don't have a book like that. You know, we don't have this essay that talks about what it means to be brown skinned, Mexican American, Guatemalteco, within this story of the United States, the way James Baldwin takes it apart. And so I gave myself the task of writing that book, you know, a.
- [20:25]
Luke Burbank
Simple assignment, the definitive text on, right.
- [20:30]
Elena Passarello
Just be like James Baldwin.
- [20:31]
Luke Burbank
Right.
- [20:32]
Hector Tobar
Well, you know, I learned that as a little Guatemalan kid. You know, it's like the way you're gonna get noticed is do something big, you know, and so when I got to the LA Times, right, for the front page, and so I wanted to do something. Yeah, it was very ambitious, but I've always been that way.
- [20:45]
Luke Burbank
Well, could you read a little bit from the book? I mean, there's so many parts of the book that jumped out at me, but there was one section is actually sort of towards the end, but I was hoping you could share that with folks.
- [20:56]
Hector Tobar
Yeah, this is a story. This is another pandemic story. It's about something that I saw, you know, when we were all watching the Internet all day long and we were sharing TikToks and Instagrams. And so as the pandemic lingers on, a man from Idaho Falls posts a video on TikTok. In an interview afterward, the creator of this work of art will say he first used the social media platform at the encouragement of his daughter. He lives in a trailer without running water in Idaho Falls across the street from his brother's house. At one point in his life, he had been homeless, living in a tent on a dirt road along the Snake River. When his car breaks down on the way to his job at a potato warehouse, he takes the long board he has on his front seat and decides to ride it the rest of the way. On one level, this is a humiliating moment of precarity, as a social scientist might say, a reminder of so many things that have gone wrong in his life. But he turns on his cell phone camera and in the video that results, Nathan Apodaca transforms his precarity into something else. Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac sings and he lip syncs to her voice. The effect is like that of drag, a juxtaposition of masculinity and femininity. He's a tough looking dark skinned guy next door, a gang member in the eyes of ignorant strangers. And yet here he is, bearing his feminine soul. Underneath the 12 o' clock shadow on his shaved head, you can see the feather tattoo on his skull, which he wears in honor of his Native American mother, a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe. His father is Mexican. And later he will tell an interviewer, I'm native Mexican.
- [22:50]
Luke Burbank
That's Hector Tobar reading from our Migrant souls. One of the things you mention in the book, Hector, is that LA is both the most sort of Latinx city in the US and it's also the center of the entertainment industry that you write makes billions of dollars telling Empire fantasy stories. How do those things coexist in the same place?
- [23:18]
Hector Tobar
Yeah, you know, the thing is that to me, my kids love, you know, cosplay and fantasy movies, you know, the Marvel Universe. And you know, I, we, I've been watching those for 20 years, the 20 years of my kid's childhood, I've been watching those movies. And then I read this great quote from Junot Diaz who says essentially all of those movies are really about us, about people of color, right? Star wars is really an allegory about imperialism, right? There's the evil empire and the, you know, the, the resistance is fighting this guerrilla war. And so to me, it's really kind of a sad thing that these stories of people of color, the guerrillas fighting the evil empire, become these fantasy stories. And they usually don't have, except for Oscar Isaac, they usually don't have a Latino member in the cast, right? And only recently have there been more people of color in these casts. So to me, that is part of what makes those stories so powerful. Because most of us, many of us have stories of resisting power. Right. If you're Irish, you have a story, right. Of resisting the British Empire. If you're Jewish, you have stories of resisting. Right. And so that's what Hollywood is doing with these stories. And it's ironic that this industry is based in Los Angeles because Los Angeles is a Latino city and there's hardly any Latino people in these movies.
- [24:45]
Luke Burbank
Right. One of the things too that I was thinking about having lived in Los Angeles is that anyone who comes to the US from somewhere else will have a strong connection to the place they came from. But it seems like it could be different for Latinos because geographically it's still pretty close. And you have this back and forth migration that can happen sometimes seasonally. The connection oftentimes between their life in the US and their life in the place they were from before the US is it's, it's closer. Does that impact, in your experience the way that Latino people experience their time in America because of that back and forth?
- [25:21]
Hector Tobar
It used to. It used to. I grew up with that and I think that was true until the early 2000s. And so, yes, people went back and forth. I grew up going back and forth. I'm very lucky. My parents came earlier. They got green cards very quickly. They both became citizens. I was there when they took the citizenship oath. But since 19, the late 1990s, we have this wall and then we've been militarized and we have, there are sensors in the ground and there's drones overhead. And so there are literally millions of people who are separated from their relatives. You know, I teach at UC Irvine and every quarter I hear a story of a student describing their parents looking at the grandparents funeral on FaceTime because they can't go back. Because if you go back, then you're going to have to come back across that wall past the border patrol. And so what the fence has done is it's become this big scar in millions of Latino families. This sort of barrier between halves of families. People don't see each other for a generation or longer.
- [26:28]
Elena Passarello
You mentioned your students and one of my favorite parts of the book is the fact that so many of your students get to tell a little bit of their stories as you're doing all this deep research and all of all of your great interview work from being a master journalist. How did you get these student stories to be a part of the text? Did you interview them or.
- [26:47]
Hector Tobar
Yeah, well, you know, I teach these really big classes. I teach Latino studies, intro to Latino studies class, which is about as big as this Auditorium. I have like about two or three hundred students sometimes, you know, I'm a writer, and I really don't know how to teach anything well, besides writing. So part of the assignment is I tell them, as I could tell you, tell me a story about the Latino experience. So most of my students, you know, half of them are Latino. And so they'll tell me a story about their father, their grandmother, whatever. And then I tell if you're not Latino, it's okay. Tell me about a Latino friend, or tell me about the time that you had tacos for the first time. So this Chinese guy wrote about, I got off the plane at LAX and I went and I saw these flat things and I found out they were called tortillas. And it's, you know, that kind of story. And I also tell them, look, this is not like any other assignment. I have to read all of your papers. I am going to spend an entire week reading your papers. So they have to be really good. They have to be funny. So you'll get an A if you make me cry or you make me laugh. And, you know, they love it. And so I get all kinds of great stories that way.
- [27:51]
Luke Burbank
I'm curious, after spending the time you did traveling all over the country, talking to all different kinds of folks who, you know, have come here often from somewhere else or the descendants, do you feel hopeful after having those conversations and meeting those people, or do you feel a certain amount of despair because of the inequities that still exist in this country and seem pretty intractable? Like, where do you kind of land after this project?
- [28:16]
Hector Tobar
Yeah, I think the inequities are really equal opportunity inequities. You know, there's a lot of different kinds of poverty in this country. There's a lot of white poverty, a lot of Latino poverty, a lot of black poverty. And so, yeah, I think the inequities are there, and you see them across the country, but you also see people getting along. You see Latino people living next to black people in New Orleans. Or you see part of my book takes place here in Oregon, right, in Woodburn, Oregon. And you see Latino people getting elected to the state legislature and starting parades and organizations. And I'm just really, really hopeful. And to me, the interesting thing was, you know, traveling across the country, I really felt I met so many Latino people that I realized that being Latino really is just another way of being American, you know, And I just really felt more connected to my own country than ever before.
- [29:08]
Luke Burbank
Well, I'm glad that as somebody who read you at the LA Times a lot. I'm glad that amidst your life in academia, you're still going out and reporting and writing great books like this. The book is Our Migrant Souls. Hector Tobar, thank you so much for coming on Livewire. Thank you.
- [29:20]
Hector Tobar
Thank you for having me.
- [29:27]
Luke Burbank
That was Hector Tobar right here on Livewire. You can read his book Our Migrant Souls, which is out now. And by the way, it was named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, which is a top literary award in the book industry. So congrats to Hector. Hey. Special thanks this week to Megan Keys of Portland, Oregon, and Tammy Coulter of Seattle, Washington. Did you know that Megan and Tammy are part of the Livewire member community? And they are generously supporting our show with a donation each month. And we're really thankful for that support because it's how we get to keep making Livewire. So a big thanks and shout out to Megan and Tammy. This is Livewire from prx. Now we're going to be talking to Jenna Friedman about her book Not Funny, in which she talks about her various attempts at humor. She's a comedy writer and performer as well. But, Elena, as we were kind of looking at this week's show, you mentioned that you have a little bit of a story of a time when you tried to be funny and it did not go so great. What happened?
- [30:48]
Elena Passarello
I don't just have a story. I have myriad stories. But I could just give you one today if you would care to be regaled.
- [30:57]
Luke Burbank
Please regale me.
- [30:59]
Elena Passarello
When I was a little baby cub writer, the writer that I wanted to be more than anybody else was David Sedaris. I wanted people to feel the way I felt when he was telling me, telling me these stories. And I was just hanging on his every word and laughing my butt off. And so I sat down. I had a old desktop computer that I kept on my kitchen table in my studio apartment. And I wrote the funniest story I could think of about this dude who would drive his weird van with a sunset on it to our elementary School, R.D. head Elementary, Gwinnett County, Georgia.
- [31:30]
Sponsor Announcer
What?
- [31:31]
Elena Passarello
What? And he would take groups of students into the woods and, like, play the recorder and make them tea. All knew that when you were in fifth grade, this is something that you got to have happen. And I was so excited. And then when it happened, we just were like, hanging out with this weirdo in the woods while he, like, played the recorder and made tea out of dirt. It was just like such a letdown. And then we walked back and my mom, my mom knew his partner, and my mom was like, oh, they're getting a divorce. He lives in that van. So I was like, this is it. I'm gonna write this story. There was an event coming up that my professor asked me to read for, and I worked so hard on it, and I didn't read it to anyone, and I just was like, this is a yuck a minute. I cannot wait. And when I got up there, it was this big crowd on the Pitt campus. And I read the story, and nobody laughed. Not a single person laughed. And I had to keep going. And I was like, I am the worst writer in the world. And then when it was over, people, like, thunderously applauded, and I was like, oh, wow, my friends are here. They're so nice. And then my writing professor came up to me, and he was like, that was one of the most beautifully sad stories I've ever heard. And then I realized that was what I realized. Some people think that they're sad but are actually very funny, you know, which I think Sedaris has said about himself. Like, I think he thinks of himself as a very serious person, but then it just comes out kind of hilarious. And some people think that they're, like, yucksters, but it turns out they have, like, a dark, sad core on the inside. Because, of course, I was telling this story about this poor guy who completely disappointed this group of fifth graders and got into his van and drove away.
- [33:09]
Luke Burbank
But the good news is you are a great writer. People enjoyed it, but not for the reasons you were expecting going in.
- [33:16]
Jenna Friedman
Yeah.
- [33:16]
Elena Passarello
Yeah. The other lesson of the story is, of course, you need to read your work aloud to other people before you read it aloud to a large crowd because you don't quite know the effect that it's going to have. So it was a good discovery, and.
- [33:27]
Luke Burbank
I'm glad it led you to write the amazing books that you have written, which is how you ended up working on this very radio show with me. Speaking of attempts at comedy, these ones may be a little more successful than Elena's. Our next guest is a filmmaker and a creator of the show Indefensible on amc. Also the show soft focus on Adult Swim. She's worked on the Daily show with Jon Stewart and was nominated for an Academy Award for her work on Borat 2 subsequent movie film. Her latest book, not essays on life, comedy, culture, etc. Was called an entertaining and soulful debut by Publishers Weekly. Jenna Friedman joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater to talk about that book. Take a listen.
- [34:17]
Jenna Friedman
Hi, Hello.
- [34:19]
Luke Burbank
Welcome to the program.
- [34:21]
Jenna Friedman
Thank you so much for having me. This is so great.
- [34:23]
Luke Burbank
You dedicate this book to your mom, who you say is the funniest person that you know. Is that because of what she said about you at your grandmother's funeral?
- [34:31]
Jenna Friedman
Yes. And a lot of things. I mean, I get my comedy from her. She died. I'm so sorry. It's so sad. I know. I know. I'm not being funny. No, it's horrible. And the book is called Not Funny, which is great because it's like this disclaimer. She passed away after I'd finished the book. It was.
- [34:48]
Luke Burbank
Oh, my gosh.
- [34:48]
Jenna Friedman
I know you guys, and I'm trying. Here's the thing. I'm trying to write jokes about it in my comedy, and it's so not funny. Like, she died of pancreatic cancer. It was over five weeks. I was so pregnant. It was awful. I know we didn't need to talk about this, but right afterwards, my husband was like, you should get on stage and try to make comedy out of it. And so I did this show. He's supportive, but I did this show, and I was like, hey, everybody, my mom died. And your mom's gonna die, and your mom's gonna die, and you'll be lucky if your mom dies before you. And no one laughed. It was less of a thanks now. But it was, like, less of a joke and just like a sad scene in an indie movie nobody's gonna watch. Yeah.
- [35:34]
Luke Burbank
First of all, I'm really, really sorry that your mom passed away.
- [35:37]
Jenna Friedman
That doesn't make it feel better, but thank you. Your earnestness doesn't diffuse the tension that I just lobbed into this, like, joyful show by.
- [35:47]
Luke Burbank
But I wanna point out that what you just described, you going on stage and saying something that you think is gonna be funny, and it not working is a real theme in the book. It seems to be your comedic style.
- [35:58]
Jenna Friedman
Yeah. I mean, it's not working.
- [36:04]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [36:05]
Jenna Friedman
Do you guys know who I am? You don't. It's fine. But.
- [36:10]
Luke Burbank
Like, you tell a story in the book about a friend of yours who is a comic, and you would text back and forth with this comic, and you had this sort of go to joke about, like, an illness that somebody could die from.
- [36:24]
Jenna Friedman
You're being so measured. Mike Di Stefano, brilliant comedian, passed away.
- [36:30]
Luke Burbank
Take it away. Jenna Friedman.
- [36:32]
Jenna Friedman
I wrote about it. I did my job. I want to hear you.
- [36:43]
Luke Burbank
Well, all right. This is an audience of mostly grownups. They can handle it. You would make a lot of jokes about AIDS and about people dying of aids. And you would make these jokes to your friend Mike Decafano.
- [37:00]
Jenna Friedman
I mean, okay, they weren't jokes about people dying of aids. They were jokes about.
- [37:04]
Luke Burbank
Well, now you want to try to contextualize it.
- [37:06]
Jenna Friedman
Well, they're not making fun of people dying of aids. So, you know, tragedy plus time equals AIDS jokes. And when you're a young comic, you just. You talk. I'd personally talk about what I'm afraid of. And I grew up. You know, kids was like, a seminal movie for me. I just had. It was something I was afraid of. And Mike was really encouraging to me as a young comic. He's like, joke about anything. Anything can be funny. And so they weren't jokes about aids. They were jokes about my fear of aids. And I would text them to him all the time. You can continue. But I would text those jokes because he was like a mentor to me and really encouraging, and I would text those jokes to him.
- [37:43]
Luke Burbank
And then he let you know that his wife had passed away from aids.
- [37:49]
Jenna Friedman
Yeah, yeah. And I write about it in the book.
- [37:52]
Luke Burbank
How do you sort of bounce back from that in the conversation?
- [37:56]
Jenna Friedman
He was cool. So, no, I just. It's a horrible story, and it's not one I would ever say out loud, which is why books are cool. But books.
- [38:06]
Luke Burbank
When you can't say it out loud.
- [38:08]
Jenna Friedman
When you can say it out loud. I was just being honest. I mean, I think when you're a young. Like, he was a mentor to me early on, and he called me, and he was like, did you know my wife died of aids? And I was like. And I didn't. And I talk about how I thought effort. Like, I couldn't believe that. And then it was real. And he actually has a story on the moth about it. And it's so. I mean, it's incredible if you can listen to it. And Mike Di Stefano, again is his name. He passed away. But I'm so. This is so light. I'm really glad I called the book Not Funny.
- [38:47]
Elena Passarello
But the book does talk about so many different ways in which a certain kind of comedian gains their momentum and their creativity from pushing those boundaries, not just with, like, tragedy or death, but also with, like, things that are politically, you know, people don't want you to say on television or.
- [39:05]
Jenna Friedman
Yeah. And that whole conversation and experience with Mike really did, like, inject more humor, humanity, I think, into my comedy. And again, I think comedians get into trouble for tweets from a decade ago or whatever. But I think when you're a young comic, and you're starting out and you're finding your voice. I'm using quotation marks. What does that even mean? Or your point of view? You misstep. You make missteps before. You need to cross the line to know where it is and make mistakes. And so that was just one kind of moment on my journey of getting to working on Borat. My missteps before that were like that experience with Mike, and Mike being so cool to me and talking about how, you know, he was not offended by it on any level, but it was just. It was like an interesting kind of awakening for me.
- [39:53]
Luke Burbank
Do you, at this point in your career, have a sort of a different line or way of thinking about what is, you know, fine to joke about and what isn't or, you know, sort of how to approach these things? Do you think about it differently at this point in your career?
- [40:08]
Jenna Friedman
I mean, I'm a little. I have more experience under my belt. I do still think you can joke about anything as long as you're coming from a place of humanity or not. I mean, I didn't watch the Trump town hall, but, like, he seemed to be killing it in that room, so. Or you can just joke about anything if CNN picks your audience. You know, I don't know.
- [40:31]
Luke Burbank
We're talking to Jenna Friedman about her book Not Funny. One of the things that you also talk about in the book is this idea of likability and how that's really often used against women and people of color. But the thing that you wrote also that I thought was really surprising was you say that as a kid, you didn't really care if people liked you or not. Which I feel like is the thing that makes most people do comedy and host radio shows. A desperate need for people liking them. And you didn't have that as a kid.
- [41:01]
Jenna Friedman
I was cool. I was a cool kid. I was. I just didn't care. Care about that stuff. And then when I started to fall in love with comedy, I was like, I need for people to like me so I can get stage time and get better at this thing I love to do. I need for people to like me so I can get work, so I can, you know, open for these other comics and get paid and pay my rent. And, like, likeability became this, like, central thing that I had to care about. And it was confusing. And then I think when I turned 30, I just stopped trying to care about it because I realized by that point it was something that I couldn't even control if I wanted to.
- [41:37]
Luke Burbank
So there was A window of like six years.
- [41:39]
Jenna Friedman
Yeah. In my 20s, I was like, no, I don't know why I'm talking. Like, I'm in my 20s, but I just was with like the vocal fry. Men love it when a woman's voice is suppressed, you know, like, she's so likable. Hire her.
- [41:58]
Luke Burbank
You were doing a show for Adult Swim called Soft Focus.
- [42:03]
Jenna Friedman
Yeah.
- [42:03]
Luke Burbank
And I was watching it this week. It's really funny.
- [42:08]
Jenna Friedman
Thank you.
- [42:08]
Luke Burbank
It's very subversive. What were you kind of like, what were your goals going in? Like, what kind of show were you trying to make?
- [42:15]
Jenna Friedman
So, full disclosure, Mike Lazo, who ran Adult Swim, who I really do love. Cause he took a chance on me, but he had gotten for some comments he made about women and comedy. I don't know. And so because of that, they were like, we need to hire a woman. And that's happened to me in a lot of ways, my friends, where that is how we get work and it's fine. And I was flown down to Atlanta right after Trump became president. And I don't want to go too into it, but there was this other show in adults home that was this very alt righty show. And it was popular and it was really upsetting. And I just wanted to make like, the antidote to that show. And I wanted to make guy gamers who would, like, watch episodes of Rick and Morty and then like, accidentally watch my show stoned. Like, I wanted to, like, I wanted them to not hate women. So that was my unfunny way in. But then Adult Swim gave me all this leeway to do whatever we wanted, and it became just such a fun. It was such a fun show. It was kind of like a little bit. I don't know if any of you know Nathan Fielder. He's hilarious.
- [43:17]
Luke Burbank
Nathan for you.
- [43:18]
Jenna Friedman
Nathan for your. It had elements of that, but it was like a feminist version of that. And it was my dream show. And then we're about to shoot the third special, and then the pandemic happened.
- [43:28]
Luke Burbank
So the book kind of is asking a question of, like, particularly in comedy, when does somebody make it? And the book kind of ends with you. You're nominated for an Academy Award for your work on Borat, two subsequent movie film, and you and your husband are going to all this cool stuff related to it. And you're there. You're in the room. It's happening. You're nominated for an Oscar. Now you've got this book out. You're a touring comedian. You have been nominated for an Oscar. Do you feel like you've made it?
- [44:00]
Jenna Friedman
No, but that's because I haven't. Nobody knows who I am, and it's fine. And I like that. I love anonymity. I just want, like, it's just nice to be able to keep making things and getting paid to make things. That's all I want. I do think. But I. So in the book, I talk about when I worked for the Daily show and someone asked Jon Stewart, you know, it was his last week, and the vibe was relaxed. And somebody's like, john, when did you know that you've made it? And he's like, I still don't. You know. And you're like, what? I think that's just what drives comedians to keep making things and keep doing that kind of dissatisfaction with life. No, no, no, no. That's not. I love, you know, I'm great. Everything's great. But that's not what my point was. I just, you know, I think the idea of making it, it's elusive. It changes. I think it's like, you know, it's the same thing with happiness. It's just the. I am happiest when I'm doing work with cool people and making cool things that say things. And I think that's just kind of what you have to hold on to if you're in a creative profession. But making it is like this arbitrary term that, you know, the minute that you feel like you have made it, then, like, you're resting on your laurels. And that kind of complacency isn't good for art either. So.
- [45:15]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, well, the book is very funny when it's not talking about death. Yeah, the book is Not Funny by Jenna Friedman. Jenna, thanks so much for coming on Livewire.
- [45:23]
Jenna Friedman
Thank you so much for having me.
- [45:28]
Luke Burbank
That was Jenna Friedman right here on Livewire, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. Her memoir, not essays on life, comedy, culture, et cetera, is available now. Hello, I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We gotta take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we are going to hear a Tom Waits cover from the folk trio. Joseph, stay with us. Hey, it's your friend Luke reminding you, as if you didn't already know, that Livewire has sort of always been a show that does not really work out on paper. The math doesn't totally math, as they say. We're a weekly national broadcast. We do dozens of live events that are produced on a budget that is mostly held together by, like, duct tape and determination. I Guess so. As you have probably already heard, things are really tough out here in public radio, especially for shows like Livewire. Government arts fundings have been slashed. There are a lot of stations that can no longer pay for the show, and ticket sales and sponsorships are down across the entire industry. These are all the ways that we've been able to kind of balance our books over the years, and those are going away. We have somehow survived for two decades, basically by being too stubborn to quit, and we are not going to quit anytime soon. But we cannot do this alone. If you are hearing my voice right now, we need you to join us to make this radio show and this experience happens. Look, maybe you discovered a musician on Livewire that you weren't hearing on, like, the top 40 radio. Maybe you found, like, your next favorite book or author. Maybe you ugly laughed alone in your car or ugly cried. No judgment. Look, if this show has been there for you in any way, shape, or form, we are asking you right now to help us build a version of Livewire that can't be defunded, can't be canceled, and can't disappear because budgets get tight, which is what we're in danger of having happen now. Right now, if you can join our fully charged campaign@livewireradio.org fullycharged, you will help us keep the lights on and keep the weird, wonderful conversations that Livewire is known for flowing. So thank you so much for stepping up and doing your part to keep Livewire going. We can't do this without you. Welcome back to Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. All right, it's time for a little station location identification examination. Uh oh, I can hear your enthusiasm down the line. This is where I quiz Elena on a place in the country where Livewire's on the radio. She's got to try to guess where I am talking about. Now, this town was designated the hang gliding capital of the west in 1991. Everybody was talking about it.
- [48:37]
Elena Passarello
Is it the Dalles, Oregon?
- [48:39]
Luke Burbank
You're in the right state. It is not the Dalles, Oregon. How about this name for a geyser? They have a geyser in this town called Old Perpetual.
- [48:47]
Elena Passarello
Oh, geyser.
- [48:48]
Luke Burbank
So it's feels like the Pepsi to Old Faithful's Coke.
- [48:52]
Elena Passarello
Old Perpetual. That means it's in the deserty part of.
- [48:56]
Luke Burbank
Think about a wetter desert where a body of water is contained in a kind of circular fashion.
- [49:02]
Jenna Friedman
Crater Lake.
- [49:03]
Elena Passarello
Is it Crater Lake?
- [49:04]
Luke Burbank
It does. It has lake in the title. It's Lake View, Oregon. I'm going to give it to you. You can lead in the lane of the water and you can give her the point for Lakeview, Oregon, where we are on koap. So shout out to everybody listening down in beautiful Lakeview, Oregon, the tallest town in Oregon. We're told you're listening to Livewire Radio. All right, before we get to our musical guest this week, a little preview of what we are doing on the show. Next week we're gonna be joined by bestselling author, playwright and advice columnist R. Eric Thomas. I promise you, whether or not you think you know who R. Eric Thomas is, you've seen his photo. It's in every newspaper and every newspaper website in America because he writes the nationally syndicated column Asking Eric. He's going to talk to us about how he approaches this job and how he sort of manages to answer these questions, trying to look at all of the different sides of a relationship. Then we're going to go to church, folks. Not that kind of church. It's actually the Church of Stop Shopping, which has led to by activists Reverend Billy and Savitri D. They mix in performance art, politics and a sort of a genuine spiritual calling to basically have us all thinking about what is our relationship with consumerism. There was a period of time where a lot of the Starbucks in Manhattan had a laminated sheet that said what to do if Reverend Billy shows up in your Starbucks and starts protesting. We're also gonna hear a sermon from the Reverend Billy. And then we've got some fabulous old timey country music from an amazing trio. They're called the Broody Brothers. They're actually brothers. They're from my hometown of Seattle, Washington, and they have this amazing story on how they managed to get millions and maybe even billions of streams online for a song of theirs that unexpectedly blew up. Anyway, make sure you do not miss next week's episode of Livewire. In the meantime, our musical guest this week, or maybe we should say guests, is a group with roots right here in Oregon. They've got a strong sister bond and even stronger harmonies. They are a trio. They've performed on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. They played TV shows like the Tonight show and Conan and music festivals like Coachella. This is the band Joseph, who joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. What song are we gonna hear?
- [51:44]
Sponsor Announcer
We're gonna do a song we did not write, but that means a lot to us that we recently covered and.
- [51:50]
Luke Burbank
Put on an album.
- [51:51]
Sponsor Announcer
It's a Tom Waits song which we are new to him. And we knew who he was. We just hadn't listened to his music yet.
- [51:59]
Elena Passarello
Correct.
- [52:00]
Sponsor Announcer
Just to clarify, not that far under the rock.
- [52:03]
Luke Burbank
What Tom Waits song are we going to hear?
- [52:06]
Sponsor Announcer
This song is called Come on up to the house.
- [52:09]
Luke Burbank
All right, this is the band, Joseph, here on Livewire.
- [52:38]
Joseph Band Member
Well the moon is broken and the sky is cracked? Come on up to the house? The only thing you can can see is all that you lack? Come on up to the house? Oh, you're crying don't do no good? Come on up to the house? Come down off the cross? We can use the wood? Come on up to the house? Come on up to the house? Come on up to the house? The world is not my home? I'm just a passing through? You gotta come on up to us.
- [53:40]
Luke Burbank
O.
- [53:52]
Joseph Band Member
There's no light in the tunnel? No irons in the fire? Come on up to the house? And you're singing leads to panda when a junk man's quiet? Come on up to the house? Doesn't life seem nasty, brutish and sure? Come on up to the house? The seas are stormy? You can't find no boy? You gotta come home? There's nothing in the world that you can through? You got a corner to the house? You've been whipped by the forces that are inside you? You got to come on up to the house? You're high on top of your mountain wall we got come on up to the house? You and I should surrender? But you can't let it go? We got it? Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on? Come on up to the house? Come on up to the house? The world is not my home? I'm just a passenger? And through it you gotta come on up to the h. Thank you so much.
- [55:51]
Luke Burbank
That was the band Joseph. Their newest album, the sun is out now. And that is going to wrap it up for this week's episode of Livewire. A huge thanks to our guests, Hector Tobar, Jenna Friedman and Joseph. Livewire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
- [56:13]
Elena Passarello
Laura Haddon is our executive producer. Heather D. Michelle is our executive director, and our producer and editor is Melanie Zevchenko. Eben Hoffer and Molly Pettit are our technical directors, and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Al Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.
- [56:36]
Luke Burbank
Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Anti Endowment for the Arts. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members Megan Keyes of Portland, Oregon and Tammy Coulter of Seattle, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to livewireradio.org I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire team. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week.
- [57:22]
Elena Passarello
Prx.
- [57:30]
Luke Burbank
Hey, if you appreciate the work that Livewire is doing to amplify riveting and unexpected voices to a national audience, and I gotta tell you, it's a big audience these days, please, please, please consider offering some monthly support by becoming a member of our League of Extraordinary Listeners. Here's how it works. Membership starts at just five bucks a month and there are great perks at every level, including a special shout out on the broadcast. Impress your friends by being shouted out on Livewire. It means the word world to us and really does make it possible for us to do the show. So please, if you can help, support us by visiting livewireradio.org Memberships.
- [58:16]
Jenna Friedman
From prx.