Introducing "Damp January" podcast, plus Adam Gopnik and Dessa

Summary

Live Wire with Luke Burbank: Episode Summary - "Introducing 'Damp January' Podcast, Plus Adam Gopnik and Dessa"

Introduction to "Damp January"

In the January 3, 2025 episode of Live Wire with Luke Burbank, host Luke Burbank unveils a new limited series podcast titled "Damp January". Drawing inspiration from the popular "Dry January," "Damp January" aims to explore varied relationships with alcohol through candid conversations with creative luminaries. Luke emphasizes that the series is not focused on promoting sobriety or excessive drinking but rather on understanding mindful consumption and the diverse experiences individuals have with alcohol [00:02].

Interview with Susie Burbank: A Personal Journey with Alcohol

A significant portion of the episode features an intimate interview between Luke and his mother, Susie Burbank. Susie delves into her early encounters with alcohol, recounting her first experience of getting drunk at a neighborhood dance during her early teens [03:18]. She shares how familial dysfunction, particularly her strained relationship with her stepmother, led her to use alcohol as a means of escapism [04:27].

Susie discusses her transition to sobriety through her involvement in the evangelical Christian community, highlighting a period of over two decades where alcohol was absent from her life [05:30]. However, the reintroduction of alcohol through social gatherings with her adult children triggered a relapse, underscoring the complexities of maintaining sobriety amidst changing social dynamics [06:34].

A pivotal moment in her journey occurred during a Christmas gathering where her excessive drinking became apparent, prompting a decisive intervention from her family [13:16]. Susie reflects on her initial denial of the severity of her alcoholism and her eventual acceptance of the need for help [07:58]. She credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with playing a vital role in her recovery, emphasizing the importance of community and mutual understanding in overcoming addiction [18:27].

Notable Quotes:

• Susie Burbank [07:58]: "I never had hangovers, and I guess I was spared them, for lack of a better term. So it was like I really didn't come to terms with me being an alcoholic. I was in denial."

• Susie Burbank [13:16]: "I just had like five months of that questioning, like, am I really an alcoholic? Until May 26th, to be exact. That was kind of the stopping point right there."

• Susie Burbank [18:27]: "AA was vital. It was a whole new group of people that understood what alcohol could do to me."

Conversation with Adam Gopnik and Dessa: Exploring Mastery

Transitioning from personal narratives, the episode introduces an engaging discussion with Adam Gopnik, a seasoned writer for The New Yorker, and Dessa, a multi-talented rapper, poet, and musician. Adam discusses his latest book, "The Real Work on the Mystery of Mastery," which explores how individuals learn and master new skills [26:38].

Dessa shares her insights on mastery, drawing parallels between learning artistic skills and the dedication required in other fields. She recounts her experiences with magicians, emphasizing the concept of "real work"—performing with authenticity and personal flair rather than mere technical proficiency [27:45]. Dessa illustrates how incremental progress and personal connection to a craft are essential for true mastery [30:05].

Notable Quotes:

• Dessa [27:45]: "The real work means not who invented the trick or the illusion, not even who had perfected it, but who did it in the most credible and spontaneous and persuasive way."

• Adam Gopnik [28:49]: "If we've swung at a 40 mile per hour fastball, we have some vague general idea of what that task is, how difficult it is, and what the skills are you need."

• Dessa [34:01]: "We have a plurality of masters, which raises the question, what is it that distinguishes the people who we think of as being uniquely good at doing something?"

Dessa's Musical Performance: "Crash"

Enhancing the episode's depth, Dessa performs her poignant song "Crash," showcasing her lyrical prowess and emotional resonance [49:08]. The performance encapsulates themes of vulnerability and the complexities of human relationships, aligning seamlessly with the episode's broader conversations on personal struggles and mastery.

Conclusion

This episode of Live Wire with Luke Burbank masterfully intertwines personal vulnerability with intellectual exploration. Through "Damp January," listeners gain intimate insights into the struggles and triumphs associated with alcohol consumption, while the dialogue with Adam Gopnik and Dessa offers a profound understanding of the journey towards mastery in various creative endeavors. The inclusion of Dessa's musical performance further enriches the episode, providing a multifaceted listening experience that is both heartfelt and thought-provoking.

Listeners are encouraged to engage with the "Damp January" series, which promises to continue offering honest and diverse perspectives on alcohol and its role in creative and personal lives. With guests ranging from authors to musicians, the series is poised to deliver compelling narratives that resonate on multiple levels.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we have a very special guest. She is nearly impossible to book, but we got her. My mom, Susie Burbank. Let me explain. We are releasing a new limited series podcast. It's called Damp January. Get it? Kind of like Dry January, but not as dry. It's basically a series of interviews with various creative luminaries that we've met through the show about their relationships with alcohol and also my relationship with alcohol. And as it turns out, my mom has a pretty interesting story of her own journey. So we're gonna talk to her, then we're gonna get back to normal Livewire programming with the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, plus music from rapper, poet, musician Dessa. Hey, it's a new year, and we are trying something new this week on the show, so please stick around. Livewire comes your way, right? Hey there, Livewire listeners. It's Luke Burbank, your host. I know that this is typically the part of the show where you would be hearing the dulcet tones of our announcer, Elena Passarello, telling you who is on the program this week, but we are trying something a little different, a little special, and that is we are launching a new limited series podcast. It's called Damp January, and the first episode is actually out right now. You've probably heard of Dry January, right? It's when people decide not to drink for the month of January, which got us here at Livewire kind of thinking, like, as a show, what exactly is our deal with alcohol? And also, specifically, what is my deal with alcohol as the host of the show? And also, how are our guests doing with their relationships with drinking? So we decided to record a series of interviews, not really with the goal of making a sobriety podcast or one that, you know, celebrates mindlessly getting wasted. We just wanted to have some really honest conversations about living at various points on the booze spectrum and maybe, you know, find out if mindful consumption is a thing that can actually be achieved, possibly for radio hosts named Luke. So, anyway, here we are with Damp January. We are going to be releasing a new episode every Wednesday this month. We're gonna be talking to people like the comedian Moshe Kasher, also the bestselling author Gary Steingart, and from Terrible. Thanks for asking. We're gonna talk to Nora McInerney. First, though, we are going to start at the source of my life. Yes, that's right. My mother, Susan Burbank, who agreed to sit down with me the other Day at the dining room table that I grew up eating on to talk about her journey with drinking.

[Susie Burbank]

Are you planning to actively eat the cheesecake while we're talking?

That's what I was hoping. Would you rather me just kind of wait on it? It'll sit just fine.

I mean, or you could have it now and I could wait. It's kind of your call.

I'll just let it sit. It's got some whipped cream on it, so it'll kind of melt into the cheesecake. It's all good.

How did you think about drinking when you were a young girl? Like, before you got involved in the church and that became your life? Did you drink a lot? Did you feel really good when you drank? Like, what was your relationship with alcohol? Like, in a pretty brief window for you of, like, you know, high school into before you got to the lighthouse ranch? Cause then, obviously, things changed.

Well, the first time I ever actually, I guess, got drunk, I was really young, and I was going to a dance. I think I was 13 or 14, a neighborhood dance that it was actually Thanksgiving night. And I drank a bunch of my mom's, my stepmom's gin, and I just guzzled it down. Like, I put it in a little Tupperware container, put it in the basement. And then I just thought, okay, I'll just gulp this down. And it was like, oh, my gosh. I don't even know how I got to the dance, how I got back from the dance, because that set off this chain of not just drinking, but drinking to get drunk, you know, so.

Even as, like, a teenager, that was the goal. You wanted to kind of erase your feelings or just not be in your head.

I think so. Because my, you know, there's dysfunction in the family. I totally love my dad, but my dad was, you know, like I said, he. He didn't marry well the second time, you know, to my stepmother. And there was a lot of problems in the family, and I did not get along with my stepmom at all. So there was a lot of escapism going on in my heart. Like, I was always out with my friends as much as I could get out of the house.

What I think is so interesting about your life story, mom, and your relationship with alcohol is that basically you go from being this sort of wild kid in Philadelphia to moving out to California to getting saved, to becoming part of this, you know, evangelical Christian movement where, like, nobody's drinking. And so for basically the intervening, I don't know, 20, 25 years, you're not Really a drinker, right? Like, did you crave alcohol? Did you think about alcohol when you were younger, you know, raising kids and living in this kind of social environment where like no one ever drank?

No, I really didn't think about alcohol. And I used to love marijuana. I didn't think about marijuana. Those things were like not even a part of my day to day life at all. So it was kind of interesting how it snuck back in.

And my sense of that is really that it was kind of us kids in a way, because we, you know, a couple of us, the older ones had grown. We were now over the age of 21. We'd come home for things. It was a barbecue or whatever, you know, holiday. And we would bring alcohol. Cause we now liked to drink. And that kind of put it back in your mind and to some degree, but a lesser degree, dad's mind?

I really think so. And I wanted to relate to my boys. So I started to really get interested in football and especially the Seahawks. Well, the same thing happened with the alcohol back then. It was like when my grown kids would come over and they'd bring a bottle of wine or something, it was like really fun to drink with them. But for me, I couldn't stop with just like a glass or even 2 of wine. It was like it triggered something inside of me and I just wanted more and more and more.

So there was pretty quickly when you kind of reconnected with alcohol, there was like secrecy around it and kind of having more than everybody else would kind of be aware of.

Yeah, I think so. I think it was really secret. But I knew there was something not quite. Well, I knew there was something not right almost from the get go because I, when I stopped drinking at 20, 21, whenever it was, I was pretty much on the road to full on alcoholism, although I didn't identify it that way. But then when I started drinking again As a, well, 40 year old, it was almost like you pick up where you left off because it triggered something in me that it just gave me that sort of like buzz that I really liked and I wanted to really like not think about some things. There were some things coming down. We had moved and there was like a loneline. So it kind of met some of those needs. And yeah, that's pretty much what happened.

What was your thought process once you realized, oh no, I'm in a bad place with this, but I don't know how to stop it? Were you just kind of thinking, I just got to make better decisions starting tomorrow. I know the Feeling personally of having too much to drink and then waking up the next day and thinking, okay, I'm never drinking again, or I'm never making these kinds of bad decisions, and that's going to fix it. When you were in the midst of, as they would say, your addiction, when what was your mentality?

Well, I never had hangovers, and I guess I was spared them, for lack of a better term. So it was like I really didn't come to terms with me being an alcoholic. I was in denial. But I knew something was wrong. When I would be in town and I would call my husband, you know, we had cell phones, and I would call and say, not, are we out of milk? Cause we still have kids at home. Are we out of wine? And he'd be like, yeah, we are out of wine. And I would like beeline right back to the store. Because to me, being out of wine was more critical than being out of milk. And there was something really wrong with that one.

I'd forgotten that the youngest kids were still at home in high school or whatever. What do you think the impact was on them of them being home in this period of your life, as much as you can kind of know that from your perspective?

Well, I really did hide it well. But what I would do is, if I was drinking a lot, I would just say, oh, I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap, or I'm going to go to bed. So it wasn't really addressed until it got to the point where it had to be addressed with the kids and with my husband. And, yeah, that came pretty abruptly. So I hid it for a really long time. But I knew something wasn't right when I would not only drink wine, you know, like in the early evening, but I would buy port, which is like, oh, just to think of the taste right now, you know, cheap port. It was so sugary, but I would put it up in my bedroom and hide it in different places. And then I would just guzzle port, which had quite a bit of alcohol content in it.

Just the sugar content of that is difficult to imagine. Like, you know, a lot of people that struggle with kind of secretive drinking, they switch at some point to vodka because it doesn't lot of smell and it's pretty clear. Doesn't. You know, it's like. And unfortunately, it's like the way that you can sort of get by with it. Port is not usually on the list.

[Luke Burbank]

Of the things that people secretly guzzle.

[Susie Burbank]

It's very true. But for some reason, it went down really quick. It wasn't like I had to like cough it down or anything. It was easy to drink, but I knew when I was actually hiding it, like in the hamper or wherever it was, there was something that was just in check in my mind. Like something's gone a little over the top here.

[Luke Burbank]

You're listening to Livewire from prx. I'm Luke Burbank. I know this doesn't sound like the typical episode of Livewire. We are doing something a little different this week. We're playing you some excerpts from our new limited series podcast which is called Damp January. And it's just basically me talking to various folks, some of them kind of famous, some of them my actual mother, about their relationship with alcohol, hence the name Damp January. We have much more of this conversation with my actual mom coming up here on Livewire. So stay with us. Special thanks to our sponsor, Up Up Books, a Portland bookshop specializing in diverse authors, local writers and independent presses. They're located across from Revolution hall in the Buckman neighborhood and they offer a space for book clubs, workshops and events. Check out their website and grab a [e-mail] welcome back to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. We are doing something a little different on the show this week. We are playing you an excerpt from this new limited series podcast that we are releasing. The show is called Damp January. And the idea behind it is that I'm gonna talk to various kind of well known folks from comedy and writing and podcasting about what their drinking habits actually are like, for better or for worse. This is not a sobriety podcast per se. It's just kind of, I don't know, like a check in on what kinds of different relationships people have with booze. And we figured, for me, my relationship to life, like to being alive starts with my mom, Susie, who actually has her own story with alcohol. So we're gonna get back to that conversation recorded in my parents actual dining room in Silverdale, Washington recently. Take a listen.

[Susie Burbank]

So then you sort of had this moment where you had way too much to drink and it was kind of a scene and dad came and got you and I was, I think maybe living either in LA or New York at this time, but I just heard the sort of story of it and it was you'd had way too much and it was kind of a situation. Luckily law enforcement was not involved. But that basically after that there was a family meeting and the conversation was like, you can't keep doing this. Did you kind of know Right away in that family meeting. Or maybe we'll call it an intervention. Or. Did you understand instinctively? Yes, this is the end of the road for me with this alcohol thing. Or did some part of you think these guys have it wrong?

No. The second time I knew it was definitely, you know, I had to stop. But the Christmas before that, May, when I, you know, realized I need help. I got really drunk over the Christmas time. And it was. We had company over, my sister from Seattle and her family. And they were actually missionaries at the time. And so it was really uncomfortable for me that they were coming over because I kind of, like had to hide my problem. Instead, I intensified it by getting, you know, running errands and doing things the day they were arriving and just drinking, like, you know, Dr. Pepper from Burger King with just booze in it, you know, like driving around. I was like, the nervousness of them coming and thinking my sister was going to judge me. So I just drank so much that I was totally plastered when they came and I had to pick them up at the ferry. It was just pretty scary. And that was like that wake up call happened because I basically went to bed and it wasn't Christmas Day, but it was close to Christmas. And they. I woke up to hearing the dishes being put away, you know, washed, and I could hear kitchen activity. And I wasn't a part of it. So dinner had already been eaten. And I was so embarrassed. Cause I had nieces and nephew here and my own kids. And I remember coming downstairs and saying, I'm so sorry, I'm an alcoholic. This was Christmas time. And I remember them all, like, downplaying it. And the adults, you know, like, oh, no, no, no, you a little too much to drink. And really downplaying it to the point where I was like, maybe I'm not. Maybe that was just a really weird thing that I did. So I just had like five months of that questioning, like, am I really an alcoholic? Until May 26th, to be exact. That was kind of the stopping point right there.

So that time, the second time, that there was again kind of a. And it sounds like the first thing wasn't so much an intervention, almost like a reverse intervention. You were trying to tell everyone else, hey, I got a problem with this. And then the second time, it was everyone else saying, hey, it seems like there's a problem with this. And that second time, did you just kind of feel in your heart like, okay, I'm done?

Well, what happened was I was in the habit at this point of buying port, you know, and just, like, hiding it in the trunk of the car, you know. Cause my husband had his truck and I had my car. But I picked up my youngest daughter, who was working at a little consignment store around here, and took her to a nail place to have her nails done. Cause she was begging me. And so I took her. And then when she was in the nail place, I remembered I had this, like, bottle of port that was still in the trunk that was, like, partly drank. So I thought, I gotta get rid of that. So I guzzled that port. And then, I mean, I was beside myself with, you know, with the reaction from it. And I just remember going into the nail place to go to the bathroom and leaving my keys on the counter. And it was just. It was so scary because I didn't remember doing that. Of course, I'm in, like, blackout. And I come back out to the car, and as I pass through, my daughter says, I'm almost done. You know, my nails are drying and all this. So I go back out to the car and I'm looking for the keys. She comes out and I have the glove box open. Spilled out all the stuff. And I'm looking in my purse, same thing all opened up. Couldn't find those keys. And I was just beside myself looking for the keys. And even my daughter said, mom, what is wrong? And my husband happened to be in a movie with the two youngest boys. So she was really scared that I was going to find those keys and try to drive home, which was only about 4 miles, but still. So that's when really, it came down to it. Then my husband did show up after she had the police come, or the sheriffs, and they all kind of came at the same time. The movie was over and so on. And she got ahold of them, but it all kind of. The whole crowd was there. And I remember the sheriff saying, if those keys were in the ignition, we would be giving your wife a DUI right now. But I hadn't been able to find the keys. And the gal from the nail place came running out with these keys jingling. And that saved me from dui. It really did.

Yeah. So then when you actually went to your first AA meeting, was that intimidating for you? Was it a relief? What did that feel like for you?

No, I was really scared because I felt really, like, vulnerable and very alone. And there was a gal in our church that was going to meet me there at the hall, which I was glad of that I found some comrade in the church. You know, I didn't really know her. But I remember parking and going into the meeting and I was just petrified because I didn't really know at that point, life without alcohol. And I was like so afraid of what it was going to look like.

And how important has AA been or was AA to your sobriety?

Oh, it was vital. You know, this was a whole new group of people that understood what alcohol could do to me, you know, or to them. I mean, it was like we understood and other than that, we had nothing in common. You know, it was just like there were people of all ages, but a lot of people that were, quote, worse off than me. But you see that, okay, you have to look at, at least in my case, alcohol as like you're allergic to it. Because I couldn't just think at that point. After going to a few meetings, I understood. I couldn't just think, you know what, I'll just lay off for a while or I'll just really. No, it was like an allergy. So once I had a drink, like they say, all bets were off. So that realization was a little bit, I don't know, unnerving at first, but it really began to sink in and I met some of the most wonderful people I'll ever know in those halls of aa.

Have you had any close calls? Have you had any kind of moments in your almost 20 years of sobriety where you've forgotten that, that you're allergic to it?

Actually, no, which is really interesting because I have a super addictive personality. I'll be watching a series on Netflix and I'll just prop my eyelids open to watch every single episode until it's over. So I have that tendency to be that way. But I was a little nervous about like, you know, occasions like a wedding or toasting or. But it really sunk in pretty quickly that life without it was very doable because I had done it for several years and life really had a lot of uptimes to it. And you know, if I felt low or I felt depressed, there was other things I could do besides drink alcohol.

How much of a factor in your recovery was the fact that dad was very happy to just not drink anymore?

[Luke Burbank]

Not that he was ever a heavy.

[Susie Burbank]

Drinker, but he was very happy to just be a non drinker so that it would support you.

Oh, that would have just been a deal breaker. I know it because of my tendency to be that way. And I don't know if he was so much happy, but he's a very loyal person. So he was like, hey, if you can't drink hun, if you aren't drinking anymore, I'm not drinking anymore.

So then when you became aware that you had a problem with alcohol, did you then at some point start to be concerned or have you been concerned about your kids relationship with alcohol specifically? Like me, as somebody who has at times been a pretty heavy drinker.

Yes, definitely. But you know, when your kids get to be a certain age, they're adults and so all the worrying in the world isn't gonna make a difference until they realize if they indeed have a problem. And like they say in aa, there's some things I used to think were pretty harsh. It's not my business, keep my side of the street clean, you know, sweet. And when it came to my kids, it was harder because of course I love them with all my heart and soul, but that wasn't my role anymore as a mother to like worry about them and just, you know, pray for them if there was concerning things. And it was things other than alcohol, but not like get in their business, you know.

Sure. But I guess also it's sort of like there's a lot of kids in the family and I would say generally when it comes to the topic of alcohol, which is what this sort of podcast series is about, I feel like most of my siblings have a very, very casual relationship with alcohol, like are not really heavy drinkers. And I think that's also probably related to their biology being different than mine. They're technically speaking half siblings. And they've also got dad's, Walt's genetics and he's the person who's had no problem kind of having a beer or never having a beer. I'm so directly related to you and the Kellys and this sort of family history and the biology on my father's side. I just wonder, do you feel, have you worried that I'm sometimes maybe too much of a chip off the old block?

Yeah, I think so. Because yeah, Luke and I are so, we're so much alike, you know, but with my dad, I'm getting back to my dad here that I remember an incident when I was back in Philly as a single mom for, you know, half a year or whatever and I came to my parents house, my dad and my stepmoms to do some laundry and it was early in the morning because I had things to do and I had a little apartment but didn't have, you know, washer and dryer. And I came over there and my dad was already in the basement with washer and dryer was. And with a shot glass of whiskey and a beer. And I remember saying to him, dad, it's 8:30 in the morning or 9 in the morning. And he said, sue, come here. And I went over to him and he said, I want you to touch my chest. And it was just quivering. He said, I have to have it. And that was like there was nothing I could do to help him in any way. And I felt that this is before my whole experience with, you know, alcoholism to the extent that it got. But I didn't know anything about AA or resources to help. And I'm so grateful that there are resources and places that people could. And even Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas, they have these alcathons. So anybody who's struggling with, you know, being at places with their family where there's a lot of alcohol, they can come there and they, you know, pretty much 24, 7, will have support. It's a really beautiful thing.

[Luke Burbank]

That's me talking to Susie Burbank about drinking and also about being my mom and how she got sober. It's part of our new limited series podcast that we're releasing. It's called Damp January. New episode every Wednesday this month, including a conversation with the journalist named Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl. This guy literally wrote the book on finding the cure for the hangover. We're also going to talk to Gary Steingart, Moshe Kesher, and podcaster and writer and friend of mine, Nora McInerney. It is going to be a really fascinating series. Please go download Damp January wherever you do that kind of stuff.

[Susie Burbank]

Thanks.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, special thanks. This episode of LiveWire two members, Kirsten Kay Klim of Portland, Oregon, and also Tiffany Stevenson of Portland, Oregon. Kirsten and Tiffany are part of the Livewire member community, and they are generously supporting us with a donation each month. And we could not be more grateful for that support because it is how we are able to keep doing Livewire.

[Adam Gopnik]

So huge.

[Luke Burbank]

Thanks, Tiffany and Kirsten for keeping Livewire going. All right, let's get back to some maybe slightly more normal Livewire action. Our next guest has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1986. He's also a New York Times bestseller author who's published many, many books, including the bestseller Paris to the Moon. His latest book is the Real on the Mystery of Mastery, and it explores the fundamental question of how do we learn and master a new skill? I think something we're always trying to do, and many of us, myself included, are challenged by actually accomplishing that. We thought this would be an appropriate conversation here at the beginning of the year when folks. Or trying to start doing new things and maybe stop doing old things. Also, by the way, Adam Gopnik appeared in the Oscar nominated film Tar, starring Cate Blanchett, where he appeared in a role that was specifically written for him. Take a listen to this interview with Adam Gopnik. We recorded it at Town hall in Seattle, Washington.

[Adam Gopnik]

Hello, Adam. Welcome to the show.

[Dessa]

Thank you. The last time I was here, I was doing my one man show here.

[Adam Gopnik]

Here in Town hall in Seattle?

[Dessa]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Dessa]

This is Seattle, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, I think so.

[Susie Burbank]

Maybe.

[Adam Gopnik]

Yes. As we're recording this, you're at the beginning of a tour promoting this new book, which is amazing, by the way. Can you talk about what the real work actually means? It's like a magician's term.

[Susie Burbank]

Sure, yeah.

[Dessa]

I learned this term from magicians when my son. Son. Luke. Luke was. Was about.

[Adam Gopnik]

This is one of those Luke, I'm not your father situations.

[Dessa]

Exactly. In that case, I am his father. Right. That one's the other one. When he was about 13, he got obsessed with card magic, which many 13 year old boys do, but he got really quite good at it. And we ended up going off to Las Vegas with his teacher, wonderful magician named Jamie Ian Swiss. And we spent a lot of time among magicians. And what I noticed is magicians have the most wonderful shop talk of any human being. Shop talk is the best kind of talk there is. But writers don't really have shop talk because all we can talk about is advances and book tours. That's the only thing that ever happens to writers. But magicians have fantastic shop talk because they can only talk with each other.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Dessa]

Because they can never tell a civilian what it is that they're doing. And the phrase that kept coming back again and again at 3am in a diner in Las Vegas was the real work. Who's got the real work on the. Does he have the real work on that? She's got the real work on that. And what they meant by it, I realized after time, was not who invented the trick or the illusion, not even who had perfected it, but who did it in the most credible and spontaneous and persuasive way. That's the person who had the real work. And as soon as I heard that term, I said, oh my goodness. Because we all know what the real work is in the field that we're a master of. We know instantly who's got the real work on anything. And I was at a stage in life where I was doing a lot of compensatory Work, you know, wanting to study things that I had missed somehow or failed to do. And so I realized I was in pursuit of the real work.

[Adam Gopnik]

You, after being an art critic for many years, you started taking a drawing class, which feels like the punchline kind of writes itself. You know, after critiquing so many other people for so long, you then tried to put sort of pen or pencil to paper. How did that go for you?

[Dessa]

Very badly. I was probably the single most unskilled draftsman since the Renaissance. In fact, I think they wanted to cancel the Renaissance once they saw what I made of a drawing. But it was useful for me. Now, you can make the case that you don't have to be a skilled drawer to judge art, but I think it's generally true that if we don't have some basic empathetic understanding of the enterprise that we're talking about that we're criticizing or judging, none of us will ever be able to hit 100 mile per hour fastball. But if we've swung at a 40 mile per hour fastball, we have some vague general idea of what that task is, how difficult it is, and what the skills are you need. So I studied drawing, looked at a lot of naked people who come into the room and stumble to get them. Right.

[Adam Gopnik]

I don't want to give too much away from the book, but there is a memorable moment where a naked person you've just drawn comes over and observes.

[Dessa]

Yes.

[Adam Gopnik]

How the drawing's going.

[Dessa]

Yes, exactly.

[Adam Gopnik]

Which seems like it'd be a lot of pressure on you.

[Dessa]

It was immense pressure because she was about 4ft tall, you know, and I had done this with this magnificent, terrible drawing of her at the time. And she came over with a heavy New York accent. She said, is that me? Right. And the. And the.

[Adam Gopnik]

And I assume she was the only nude person in the room. So the fact that she had to ask.

[Dessa]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

If it was.

[Dessa]

But you know what? What was so cool, though, about learning to draw is that you don't learn to draw by looking at something and then saying, oh, I'm going to get it down. Right? Because that's totally numbing and totally paralyzing. What you learn to do is all these tiny little steps and stunts. So my drawing teacher, great, totally reactionary guy who thinks that art's been taking the wrong course since 1855, basically hates all art since 1855. Cezanne, Van Gogh. Whoever doesn't, you know, thinks they're all on the wrong track. But what he taught me was that the way you Draw a face is not to attempt to draw the face, but just to imagine the face as a clock face. And you see the way you tilted your head right now, Luther, this is a great radial moment right when I.

[Luke Burbank]

Say it's a highly visual medium.

[Dessa]

I believe we see the way you just tilted your head, but you did just tilt your head and you tilted it right at 1:00, you see? So if I draw clock face on you, I can get the tilt of your head right at 1:00. And I spent weeks just doing tilts in time and just those little crude schematic steps over time turn into the seamless illusion of a drawing, of a better drawing, if not actually a good drawing. And if there was a continuity in everything I did, you know, I learned to drive and I learned to dance and I learned to box. And what all those things have in common is that you learn these horribly embarrassing, stumbling little steps and just through sheer perseverance, they begin to turn into the illusion of a seamless sequence. And that's invariably the nature of the real work.

[Adam Gopnik]

This is Livewire Radio coming to you this week from Town hall in Seattle, Washington. We are talking to Adam Gopnik about his latest book, the real work on the mystery of mastery. One of the stories that you tell in this book is of this chess.

[Luke Burbank]

Playing machine called automaton.

[Dessa]

Yeah, this is in the 18th century. A magician really built this machine that seemed. It was dressed in Ottoman garb and it was brilliantly designed. So it seemed to be a robot playing chess. They didn't have the word robot. They called it an automaton. And it defeated Napoleon and Ben Franklin and every celebrity of that time and great chess masters. And nobody knew how it worked. They figured it's a machine that plays chess. Now, if they had been thinking clearly, as none of us ever do, they would have said, well, if there's a machine to play chess, there should have been a machine to play checkers before it. Right. It's kind of come out of the blue, this machine. And of course, it wasn't a machine. It was an illusion. There was a chess player buried inside the chest at the bottom of it that was manipulating the pieces.

[Adam Gopnik]

But they would, like open the cabinet.

[Luke Burbank]

And show these gears exactly.

[Dessa]

And the chess player would be on the kind of of a springboard, and he would come back up and then he would slide back down and all of it. Here's the fascinating thing about it to me, everybody speculated, including Edgar Allan Poe, if you can imagine, how was it that this thing Worked because they said it has to be this insanely great tiny chess master. A child who's been drugged for life. Right. Or a little person who's been enslaved to do it. Here's how it worked. The magician, his name was Von Kempelen, would go from town to town, come to Philadelphia or Boston or Paris, and he'd go to a chess cafe, and he would say, is there anybody here who needs a gig and doesn't mind very close working conditions? And in each town he went to, he found a strong enough chess player who, once you put him in this very, very impressive garb, suddenly became a great chess player, because. Sort of like the wizard of Oz, right? It's the little man behind the curtain. We are impressed by. By the atmospherics of things as much as we are impressed by the efficacy of someone doing it. And so a mediocre, A good chess player became a great chess player in the garb of the Ottoman. Basic lesson there.

[Susie Burbank]

And the other thing, too, that you.

[Adam Gopnik]

Point out with that story is there.

[Luke Burbank]

Are a lot of people who are.

[Adam Gopnik]

Like, pretty good at stuff.

[Dessa]

Exactly.

[Adam Gopnik]

Like, he could find chess players, enough of them to really wow people.

[Dessa]

Absolutely. That's one of the truths about modern life, is that we have a plurality of masters, which raises the question, what is it that distinguishes the people who we think of as being uniquely good at doing something? And invariably, it's not just that they have a level of technical virtuosity. It's that they have some. They've discovered some form of personal, human way of vibrating, of altering the technical virtuosity to give it a uniquely human signature. Jimi Hendrix, Child of the City we're sitting in. We love Jimi Hendrix, not just because he's technically amazing, but because of the distortion in his guitar playing, because of the way he found a whole new realm of sound to play with. That's what distinguishes a very good guitar player from a uniquely great guitar player.

[Adam Gopnik]

Well, speaking of recognized masters, the actor Cate Blanchett is in this movie, Tar, that's nominated for an Academy Award. I think of it really as an Adam Gopnik picture.

[F]

Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Because you are basically the first 15.

[Adam Gopnik]

Minutes of the film. It's incredible. I mean, how did that come about? And was that really nervous making for you to be on this set with somebody like Cate Blanchett?

[Dessa]

Todd Field, the director and the writer, wonderful guy, called me out of the blue and said, I've written a movie for Cate Blanchett, and there's a character in it named Adam Gopnik. Would you consider playing him at first I said, you know, I'm a writer and I'm a serious intellectual, and I'm concerned with, you know, with the crisis of incarceration and the national emergency of Trump, and I don't do things like that. And he said, that's such a shame because Kate was so looking forward to working with you and will be so disappointed if you're not there. And I said, hold on, Let me call Mr. Gottman to the phone. And off we went to Berlin to do it, and we spent two days doing it. Kate, my friend Kate, actress Kate and I did this.

[F]

Well, talk about mastery. Were you working on the book project while you were working with Caitlin?

[Dessa]

And truly, it was one of the things that drew me to do it was because I thought, this will be really interesting to work with a master actor like Cate Blanchett. But what was most amazing about her was her professionalism, which I know sounds like a minimal way form of praise. What else would she be except professional? But by that I mean that she had found psychological motivation in every line of that very. What could have been an extremely tedious. What may have been, in fact, an extremely tedious scene otherwise, she had found a way into it, and she always found a little variation on it, but never departed from the path that she had chosen. And it was amazing. It was like playing tennis with somebody who's a master tennis player and keeps hitting the ball just over the net in a way that you can handle.

[F]

So she could be consistent take after take after take after take. Which makes it easier to make a movie out of this thing that she's sort of pulling out of herself.

[Dessa]

Exactly. And they had to remind me that once I'd done an improv that was successful, they could keep it, but they couldn't. I couldn't change it shot after shot as we worked it over for two days. And in fact, the audience, though it was supposed to be in New York, was made entirely of Germans, Berliners, German speakers. And there had to be a German assistant director who would tell them when to laugh at my jokes, and I would laugh.

[Adam Gopnik]

Something going on.

[Dessa]

If Germany is the best place for a comedian to work, actually, because they have assistant directors who enforce laughter at every turn.

[Adam Gopnik]

You also, in this book, decided you wanted to get your driver's license. And how old were you when you got it?

[Dessa]

I was 55 when I got my driver's license. Only in. Thank you. Only in New York can you survive that long without knowing how to drive. But I believe that I am Distinguished. I believe I am the only person who ever got his driver's license on the same day, the same afternoon as his 20 year old son. I went into the car and did the test. Then I got out. Luke got into the car and did the test. We both passed. They passed him because he could drive. I think they passed me as a kind of experimental joke. What will happen if we allow this guy out on the streets? And what will be the final result? I'm sure they're still laughing about it at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

[Adam Gopnik]

You know what I actually, I found so charming about that part of the book? Was that you, upon getting your license, called your dad.

[Dessa]

Yes, I did. Well, my dad. One of the themes of the book, if I can be serious for a moment, is that all of the things we learn to do are never about technique. They're always about another person. I have a chapter about learning to bake, and it's about my relationship with my mother. The chapter about learning to drive is about my relationship with my super competent father. And we all make ourselves in the shadow of our fathers, but also searching for sunlight that they don't eclipse. And my father was super competent. And that was one of the reasons I had never learned to drive. I had spent my entire marriage in what was traditionally gendered as the woman's seat. You know, I was the one who was always saying to the kids, just shh, be quiet, your mom needs to find the exit. You know, please, can we. Let's just keep it down for one second while your mom, your mom is focusing. And I ended up doing it. But I had a great teacher. You know, the book is very much about great teachers. And there was never a better teacher than Arturo Leone, who was my driving teacher, because he taught me the single most important thing in driving, which is the hand. And he said, whenever you're likely to be in any kind of conflict with another car, he said, just use the hand. Just hold up. Use the hand, he said, because the hand means everything. Said the hand means you. The hand means bless you. The hand means thank you. The hand means wait a moment. The hand means I'm exiting, the hand means I'm entering. Just use the hand at every time. And I have been using the hand ever since.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you brought it into other parts of your life?

[Dessa]

The hand will work for everything.

[Adam Gopnik]

Going to the airport, wherever you are, just like.

[Dessa]

Exactly.

[Adam Gopnik]

It's sort of, you're right. I mean, it's, it's. You're not taking any more crap from this person. But you're also not giving them, like, something that's openly aggressive or hostile.

[Dessa]

They can interpret it as broadly as they want to. Right. And that's it. And Arturo's point, which is a good one, is that the reason, the thing I learned about driving is that it's actually not that difficult, even if you're 55 when you start.

[Adam Gopnik]

Except for the fact that he apparently picked you up in front of your house in Manhattan. Yeah.

[Susie Burbank]

And was like, get in.

[Adam Gopnik]

And that was your beginning of driving.

[Dessa]

I was paralyzed with fear as I went up Madison Avenue with taxis honking and 16 wheelers surrounding me. But that's the thing about driving. It's not really that difficult. It's just incredibly dangerous. If you learn to do it when you're 15, you don't understand danger as a concept because you're immortal and nothing will ever happen to you. If you're 55, all you can think about is, I've got three tons of metal at my command and no one is stopping me from plowing into the next car, from running through the light. And it's terrifying. I mean, if, if anyone looked rationally at what driving is, we would never allow anyone to drive.

[Adam Gopnik]

We're talking to Adam Gopnik here on Livewire about his new book, the Real Work on the mystery of Mastery. That's a typical reaction in Seattle when you mention the end of cars.

[Dessa]

Oh, yes.

[Adam Gopnik]

Uniquely, most of the people recumbent biked here.

[Luke Burbank]

This is Livewire from prx. We're talking to the writer and essayist Adam Gopnik about his latest book, the Real Work on the mystery of Mastery. We have to take a very short break, but when we return, Adam is going to tell us about conquering his biggest fear, peeing on airplanes. It's actually a very real thing and a very serious thing for Adam, so stick around. I know you're actually going to want to hear this coming up on Livewire. Livewire is sponsored by Secret Aardvark hot sauce. Celebrating 20 years of awesome sauce, plus a whole line of hot sauces and marinades, from their classic aardvark habanero hot sauce to their fiery reaper smoked and red scorpion. There's a sauce for every heat lover. Stay connected by following Secret Aardvark on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for recipes, hot sauce fun and more. Welcome back to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. We're listening back to a conversation we recorded with the writer Adam Gopnik talking about his book, the Real Work on The Mystery of Mastery. We recorded this at Town hall in Seattle. Check it out.

[Adam Gopnik]

This book really took an unexpected turn for me sort of towards the end after, you know, you're talking about learning to drive and do all these things that you wanted to sort of master. And a thing that you also decided you wanted to master or at least improve on was the ability to pee on an airplane.

[Dessa]

Yes, I suffer from a condition which I suspect somebody else in this room does, if the statistics are right, of extreme shy bladder, which is called periuresis. It has a medical name, perioresis, and it sounds like the most. It is the most embarrassing condition you can possibly have. You can't urinate in public places and certainly not on planes. But it exacts an enormous price because if you think about it, if you're on a seven or eight hour flight and you're in extreme discomfort for most of the flight, and it's one of those things that's simultaneously trivial and embarrassing and very life dominating for anybody who suffers from it. It's one of those things like insomnia or claustrophobia or something that is only as trivial as it is unless you've got it. And I went to work with a cognitive behavioral therapist, a wonderful guy named Dan Rocker, who does nothing except treatment guys with periuresis. I won't repeat how he describes his daily work.

[Luke Burbank]

It's in the book.

[Dessa]

It's in the book.

[Adam Gopnik]

It's worth purchasing the book for.

[Dessa]

But that's what he does. Because the answer to periuresis, as with most phobias that we suffer from, is just to practice your way out of it. Just to practice your way out of it. And I set about doing that. The funny thing that happened is that Dan, bless him a wonderful guy, is a fanatic bicyclist. He loves, like, as here, loves biking through New York. And he encouraged me to get on my bike and follow him to all of these public bathrooms where we would practice urinating in public. Now, here's the difficult thing, right? It's actually not at all dangerous to pee in any public place. It is incredibly dangerous to bicycle in New York City. So he got me out of one phobia, which was painful, but not, in fact, dangerous, by encouraging me to pursue an activity which is not painful, but is insanely dangerous to be doing, because there are monuments to fallen bicyclists all around New York, right? There are no statues to guys who couldn't pee on planes.

[Adam Gopnik]

But I have to say, like, I really appreciated you being vulnerable enough to write about this because I think, and you sort of say this in the chapter, the term shy bladder, in a way, it diminishes it or makes it.

[Luke Burbank]

Seem like, hey, why are you being so shy?

[Adam Gopnik]

But I mean, it's on the same sort of continuum as a sort of a small panic attack, right?

[Dessa]

It is a form of a small daily panic attack in one little room. You know, the truth of it is, and this is something that I wanted to draw attention to, of course, it was difficult and embarrassing, and I was at some moment reluctant to do it. Everybody's got something. Every single person in this room and in any room you turn into is struggling with something. And that's part of our common humanity. We struggle with our phobias, we struggle with our anxieties. And it's sort of the reverse of the accomplishments I'm talking about. You build accomplishments and skills out of all of these tiny little steps. And then somehow in life, we do the reverse. We build things that imprison us and limit us out of tiny steps that we don't even remember from our childhood. And then we have to disassemble them so that we can enter more fully into concert with other people. And I just think that that's the single most important thing you can learn. You build up the real work through little steps and you disassemble the bad work through the same kinds of little steps. That's the task that's before all of us in life.

[Adam Gopnik]

Yeah. The book is the real work on the mystery of Mastery, written by the star of the movie Tarot, Adam Gopnik.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Adam Gopnik right here on Livewire. His latest book, the Real Work on the Mystery of Mastery, is available now. You are listening to Livewire. Before we get to our musical guests this week, a little preview of what we're doing on the show next week. We've got something for everyone, my friends. First up, it's the writer Noe Alvarez, discussing his book Accordion Eulogies. It's such a fascinating piece of writing. It's kind of part travelogue. It's part family history. It's part deep dive into the history of the accordion, which it turns out has like a really interesting backstory. Also, I get to hold an accordion on stage, which felt like a. A lot of pressure, honestly, speaking of pressure packed situations. We are going to meet John. John is a tiny robot who will be performing standup comedy for us and for you. John is the invention of a professor named Naomi Fitter at Oregon State University. And I feel extremely confident when I say that this will be the first public radio performance from a robot standup comic. You really, really want to tune in for next week's show. It will also include music and storytelling from our pal, the one, the only, John Craigie. This is Livewire. Our musical guest this week has performed at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury and contributed to the Hamilton Mixtape and the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary. On the writing side, she has been published in the New York Times as well as lots of other places. The LA Times says she sounds like no one else. All Songs Considered calls her a national treasure, and we are so proud to call her a friend of the program. This is Dessa, who joined us on stage at Town hall back in March of 2024. Take a listen.

[Adam Gopnik]

I feel like. I feel like you may have gotten the loudest cheer. I mean, I feel like you've got some fans here.

[Susie Burbank]

I feel like there's no better way to shut down a really pleasant evening than with an utterly demoralizing song.

[Adam Gopnik]

Oh, good. What's your.

[Luke Burbank]

What song are we gonna hear?

[Susie Burbank]

This is a song called Crash.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, this is Dessa here on Livewire.

[F]

Yeah.

[G]

Crash a party Looks like your party crashed itself, everyone. I left early. There must be something good going somewhere else but I see it through the window you're wearing that face you make when you're alone I knock and you let me in though you wanna know what I came for? I accidentally tell the truth I don't know what to do when I'm not here with you I'm lost I'm running around I'm a creep, I'm a clown I'm exhausted Oh, oh so, oh so I came to crash a party me, yeah, I know now it's too late to talk I just want to help pick up all the pieces feel like it never even happened at all I came to crash your body come on and say I can stay just to help I know you could use somebody to get the glasses back up on the shelf I came to crash your voice I came to crash your party Well, I came to crash your party to crash your party I came to crash.

[Adam Gopnik]

That was beautiful.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Dessa right here on Livewire. Her album Bury the Lead is available now. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode of Livewire. A huge thanks to our guests Adam Gopnik, Dessa, and my mom, Susie Burbank. Make sure you do check out our new limited series podcast. It's called Damp January coming out every Wednesday this month. By the way, Laura had is our executive producer, Heather D. Michel is our executive director, and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Eben Hofer is our technical director, Leona Kinderman is our assistant technical director and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Hazik Bin Ahmad Farid is our assistant editor and he mixed this episode along with the fabulous Molly Pettit. Ashley park is our production fellow and Andrea Castro Martinez is our Internet our house band. You're wondering, well, that's Sam Tucker, Ethan Fox Tucker, Eyal Alves and Awalker Spring, who also composes our music. Our damp January music is composed by Benjamin Kleek. Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we like to thank member Kirsten K. Clem of Portland, Oregon and Tiffany Stevenson, also of Portland, Oregon. What are the chances? 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. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week. Hey there Livewire listeners. Luke Burbank here. You know how a lot of people like ring in the new year with a cheers or a toast? That's pretty common. Well, something kind of special is happening here at Livewire this month as we have entered 2025, we have launched a brand new limited podcast series. It's called Damp January. Throughout the month, we are going to be going on like a little journey to try to better understand our relationship with alcohol. And by that I mean my relationship with alcohol and also drinking culture at large. It's such a big part of our society and we wanted to find out more about sort of how it's working for people. We're going to talk to friends and family and cultural luminaries who are just at various points on the booze spectrum. By the way, just a practical heads up. You're going to see the Livewire podcast logo change to something new. This is just for the month of January. Do not worry. The regular Livewire episodes that you know and love and crave are still going to be in your feed every Friday. That's just going to be alongside a damp January episode that's going to drop every Friday, Wednesday. We have never tried anything like this before, but I think it is a really interesting project. Like, if somebody else made this show, I would listen to it, okay? But nobody else did, so we're making it, and we hope it's interesting to you. It's called Damp January, and it's every Wednesday in January.

[Dessa]

From prx.