Paul F. Tompkins, José Olivarez, and Esme Patterson (REBROADCAST)

Summary

Live Wire with Luke Burbank: Paul F. Tompkins, José Olivarez, and Esme Patterson (REBROADCAST) – December 20, 2024

Host: Luke Burbank | Produced by PRX

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Introduction

In this festive rebroadcast episode of Live Wire with Luke Burbank, host Luke Burbank brings together a trio of talented guests to celebrate the holiday season. The show features comedian Paul F. Tompkins, acclaimed poet José Olivarez, and indie folk artist Esme Patterson. Together, they explore themes of comedy, love, poetry, and music, all wrapped in the warmth of holiday cheer.

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Paul F. Tompkins: Comedy, Podcasts, and Holiday Traditions

Overview:
Paul F. Tompkins, known for his extensive work in comedy including his voice role as Mr. Peanutbutter on BoJack Horseman, discusses his collaborative podcast endeavors and shares humorous anecdotes about his experiences with live performances during the holiday season.

Key Discussions:

• Stay F. Homekins Podcast:
  Paul delves into his podcast with his wife, Janie Haddad Tompkins, titled Stay F. Homekins. Initially a pandemic initiative, the podcast evolved into a beloved series that blends personal conversations with comedic elements.

  Paul F. Tompkins (04:11): "First of all, I wouldn't say it's become really popular. I would say we were surprised that anyone listened to it. By that measure, yes, it's astoundingly popular."

• Weekend Water Concept:
  The term "weekend water," coined by Janie's mother, is explored as a means to casually enjoy a drink without the stigma attached to it.

  Luke Burbank (12:36): "What's the story on weekend water?"
  Paul F. Tompkins (12:39): "This was a phrase that was coined by Janie's mother... I never forgot it."

• Experiences at the Tam O'Shanter:
  Paul recounts his interactions with Victorian carolers at the Tam O'Shanter in Los Angeles, highlighting humorous mishaps and the challenges of live performances during the holidays.

  Paul F. Tompkins (19:58): "I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep. Love, actually style."

• Improv Career Insights:
  Discussing his foray into improvisational comedy, Paul shares how working on podcasts like Spontanea Nation honed his skills in character development and live performance.

  Paul F. Tompkins (25:17): "I started doing live improv shows... I started doing a podcast where I had to improvise every week."

Notable Quotes:

• Paul F. Tompkins (15:24): "It's like David Sedaris really does. I wish I could take credit for it. I'm just reporting the facts of the world."

• Paul F. Tompkins (14:39): "That's a scripted line from BoJack Horseman. Mr. Peanut Butter said that."

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José Olivarez: Exploring Love Through Bilingual Poetry

Overview:
José Olivarez, celebrated poet and author of Promises of Gold, discusses his latest collection of poems that serve as a love letter encompassing various forms of love. He emphasizes the importance of writing for all relationships, not just romantic ones, and shares insights into his creative process.

Key Discussions:

• Promises of Gold:
  José elaborates on his new book, highlighting its bilingual nature and its intent to celebrate love in friendship, familial, and romantic contexts.

  José Olivarez (32:47): "I want to write poems for the people that don't usually get them because we tend to think of poetry as something that is reserved for the romantic interest in our lives."

• Bilingual Presentation:
  The book features poems in both English and Spanish, allowing for a broader audience and bridging cultural gaps.

  José Olivarez (38:33): "The idea came from doing community workshops with bilingual students and bilingual families... my hope was to offer something that might be useful to those families."

• Translation Collaboration:
  Discussing his collaboration with translator David Ruano Gonzalez, José underscores the intricacies of translating poetry to maintain its artistic essence.

  José Olivarez (40:27): "David would have questions because he'd be like, you know, I googled this word. Bougie. Yeah, yeah, bougie."

• Navigating Cultural Expectations:
  He addresses the challenges of being a Mexican American poet, balancing cultural themes with personal expression without being confined to stereotypical subjects.

  José Olivarez (41:19): "There's this expectation that those of us who have marginalized identities, that we kind of write about it in this one particular way."

Poem Excerpts:

• Ode to Tortillas (34:56):
  A humorous and heartfelt exploration of tortillas in Mexican culture, blending tradition with modernity.

  José Olivarez:
  "There's two ways to be a Mexican writer... You can eat tortillas with your hands or roll them up and dip them in caldo like my mom does."

• Love Poem – Beginning with the Yellow Cab (43:14):
  A romantic piece capturing the essence of love through vivid imagery and personal reflections.

  José Olivarez:
  "I ask you, what's the first thing you think about when you see the color yellow?... When you put your hand on my thigh, it was like I knew for the first time why God gave us thighs."

Notable Quotes:

• José Olivarez (42:16): "What keeps me walking is, you know, like a belief that just because things are one way right now, that it doesn't mean that they've always been this way."

• José Olivarez (33:49): "I was always listening. Like, I loved language even when I couldn't fully understand English."

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Esme Patterson: Original Christmas Melodies

Overview:
Esme Patterson, an indie folk artist known for her evocative performances, graces the show with an original Christmas song. Drawing from personal sentiments and familial themes, Esme presents a heartfelt piece that encapsulates her conflicted feelings about the holiday season.

Performance:

• "Heart for Christmas":
  Esme delivers an original song that intertwines her emotions with the essence of Christmas, emphasizing intangible gifts like time and love over material possessions.

  Esme Patterson (50:30):
  "For Christmas, I want something that I can't find... I want something that I can't buy. I want your heart near mine."

Notable Highlights:

• The song captures a blend of melancholy and warmth, reflecting Esme's personal relationship with the holidays.

• Her performance is accompanied by a simple yet poignant melody, enhancing the emotional depth of the lyrics.

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Listener Holiday Traditions: Sharing Joy and Memories

Throughout the episode, host Luke and co-host Elena engage with listener-submitted stories about their favorite holiday traditions. These anecdotes range from unique family customs to humorous mishaps, showcasing the diverse ways people celebrate the season.

Highlighted Traditions:

1. Rob's Fireplace Feasts (28:59):
   Rob shares his father's special tradition of cooking hamburgers and hot dogs over a fireplace fire on New Year's Eve, making it a memorable family event.

   Rob’s Quote:
   "It was the only day of the year that he would make a fire in the fireplace and cook hamburgers and hot dogs over it."

2. Carly's Lotería Marathon (30:06):
   Carly's family enjoys playing Lotería, a Mexican bingo game, after Christmas dinner, turning the evening into a lively and competitive gathering.

   Carly’s Quote:
   "It's so crowded and everyone's so focused. It's always loud. It gets rowdy with 20 plus people playing."

3. Jesse's Latkes Night (46:19):
   Jesse describes the intense preparation and enthusiasm involved in making latkes each December, highlighting the delicious results despite the effort.

   Jesse’s Quote:
   "The squeezing of the water from the shredded potatoes, the slapping of the hands of all of the people that can't wait to get their mitts on a delicious latke."

4. Joe's Advent Jam Challenge (47:06):
   Joe's family participates in a Bon Maman Advent jam calendar, where they taste and guess the flavor of each jam without looking at the labels.

   Joe’s Quote:
   "We open it each day without reading the label and then have a taste test to try to guess what flavor it is."

5. Sammy's Movie Tradition (48:43):
   Sammy's family makes it a point to watch Christmas-themed movies after dinner, sometimes opting for unexpected choices like scary films while wearing ugly sweaters.

   Sammy’s Quote:
   "One year we all watched a really scary movie while wearing ugly Christmas sweaters."

Humorous Interjections:

• Luke’s Blackjack Anecdote (31:03):
  Luke shares a funny story about setting up a real blackjack table for family gatherings, which led to unexpected financial challenges with his in-laws.

  Luke Burbank (31:03): "I've never wanted to bust more in a round of blackjack and I could not lose."

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Conclusion and Credits

As the episode wraps up, Luke extends heartfelt thanks to the guests and acknowledges the support from livewire’s community members, including special mentions of contributors and sponsors. The festive atmosphere is maintained with closing remarks that emphasize gratitude and holiday wishes.

Final Thoughts:

• Guest Acknowledgments: Luke thanks Paul F. Tompkins, José Olivarez, and Esme Patterson for their contributions, highlighting their unique talents and the joy they brought to the special holiday episode.

• Community Support: Special thanks are extended to Lynn Pham from Beaverton, Oregon, for his generous support, underscoring the importance of listener contributions in sustaining the show.

• Holiday Wishes: The episode concludes with warm holiday greetings, encouraging listeners to leave reviews and share their own experiences.

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Notable Quotes Throughout the Episode

• Luke Burbank (06:13): "And was it just sort of... regular nachos, like you were. You didn't bring home a bunch of leftovers and, like, integrate them into the nachos or anything?"

• Elena Passarello (07:05): "Christmas nachos sound incredible to me right now."

• Paul F. Tompkins (16:10): "It's very good."

• Luke Burbank (24:12): "Paul F. Tompkins, everybody. That was Paul F. Tompkins right here on Livewire."

• Jose Olivarez (43:14): "I ask you, what's the first thing you think about when you see the color yellow?"

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Final Credits

Production Team:

• Executive Producer: Lara Haddon
• Executive Director: Heather D. Michel
• Producer and Editor: Melanie Savchenko
• Technical Director: Molly Pettit
• Assistant Editor: Trey Hester
• Marketing and Production Manager: Karen Pan
• Operations Associate: Rosa Garcia
• Production Fellow: Jackie Ibarra
• Internet Coordinator: Aunt Diaz
• House Band: Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Eyal Alves, and Awaker Spring

Sponsors:

• Progressive Insurance: Auto Quote Explorer
• Up Up Books: Portland bookshop supporting diverse authors
• Hotel Crocodile: Seattle-based hotel with a musical heritage
• Secret Aardvark Hot Sauce: Celebrating 20 years with a variety of hot sauces
• ZBiotics: Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink for better mornings

Acknowledgments:

• Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
• Special thanks to member Lynn Pham of Beaverton, Oregon.

Listener Engagement:

• Encouragement to leave reviews and share experiences to help sustain and grow the Live Wire community.
• Invitation to visit livewireradio.org for more information and to listen to episodes.

Closing Remarks:

Luke concludes the episode with festive wishes, reflecting on the shared stories and performances that made this holiday edition of Live Wire memorable. Listeners are invited to continue participating by sharing their traditions and engaging with the Live Wire community.

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Thank you for tuning into this special holiday rebroadcast of Live Wire with Luke Burbank. May your season be filled with joy, love, and memorable traditions.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank. Okay. We wanted to spread a little holiday cheer this week, and we thought, who better to help us than Paul F. Tompkins, the comedian. He's gonna talk about his podcast that he does with his wife and also the time that he had to listen to what is probably the most tense version of oh, Holy Night. Then we are gonna hear from the poet Jose Olivares about his new book of poems, Promises of Gold. It's sort of a love letter to all the kinds in our lives. Friendship, love, romantic love, all of it. And as a special holiday gift to you, Jose is going to read two love poems from the book. Finally, we're gonna wrap things up with some music from Esme Patterson. She's gonna play an original Christmas song that she wrote about her family. So that is the plan for this week's show. Tis the season to hang out with Livewire. It all gets started, right.

[Monet X Change]

Hey, y'all. Welcome to Monet Talks with me, your girl, Monet X Change, a weekly podcast where the only thing hotter than the tea is our topics dwarling. Every single Thursday, we'll be bringing you candid interviews, fun segments and games featuring a dazzling array of guests, including fellow queens, other celebrities, pop culture icons, friends, and maybe even an ex boyfriend or four. Head over to YouTube.com monetexchangeofficial and tell all your friends you can listen to Monat Talks completely free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or anywhere else you get your podcast.

[Luke Burbank]

Livewire is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Hey, Elena.

[Elena Passarello]

Hey, Luke. How's it going?

[Luke Burbank]

Good. The holidays are here and it is time for I consider this a somewhat holiday related station location identification examination.

[Elena Passarello]

Ooh, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Okay, this is where I'm going to tell you about a place in the country where we're on the radio. You got to try to guess where I am talking about. This city is home to the historic annual Grandma's Marathon, which is not actually a marathon for grandmas, but it's named after Grandma's restaurant. It's one of the largest and best known marathons in America. It's got over 20,000 participants.

[Elena Passarello]

Ah, I don't know. I mean, there's grandmas all over this country. It's one of the things that makes it great. I mean, marathoning. Is it a certain time of year?

[Luke Burbank]

It doesn't say on my list here. I'm guessing not in the winter, because I'll give you another hint. This is a place where it is very, very snowy around the holidays. In fact, thousands of people flock to this city during Christmas time to see Bentleyville, the largest walkthrough display of lights in America. There's also a Christmas village and the historic Glensheen mansion, which has over 25 Christmas trees in it.

[Elena Passarello]

I still don't know, but a snowy place that I love is, let's say, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

[Luke Burbank]

Man, you're so close. I'm just winging it with this hint. But did you know Telly Savalas recorded a series of ads for this city to promote it? This is a real thing.

[Elena Passarello]

Is it Duluth, Minnesota?

[Luke Burbank]

It's Duluth, Minnesota. Why was that the hint that worked for you? They're amazing. By the way, Telly Savalas doing ads for Duluth is something you just can't unhear once you've heard them. Where we're on the radio NWSCN out there in Duth. So thank you so much to all those folks for tuning in. Should we get to the show?

[Elena Passarello]

Let's do it.

[Luke Burbank]

Take it away.

[Elena Passarello]

From prx, it's Live Wire. This week, comedian Paul F. Thomas.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep. Love, actually style. I mean, I would show up and turn the cards over for sure. I would do that.

[Elena Passarello]

Poet Jose Olivarez.

[Jose Olivarez]

I want to write poems for the people that don't usually get them because we tend to think of poetry as something that is reserved for the romantic interest in our lives.

[Elena Passarello]

With music from Esme Patterson and our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, thank you so much, Elena. Thanks to everyone for tuning in from all over the country. This is a special holiday edition of livewire, and as such, we've asked the listeners a special holiday question. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We're going to hear those responses coming up in just a few minutes. In the meantime, Elena, I'm curious. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

[Elena Passarello]

Well, so back when I was a youngin, we would always get into the car and drive just a couple hours to my grandma's place in North Carolina and have like a noon Christmas meal. But we would she lived in a pretty small house, and so we would drive home. She Made this gigantic southern, you know, like, butter beans and, like, two kinds of meat and biscuits galore. It was like a week's worth of calories, and we ate it. And we always were like, we're never gonna eat again. And so then we'd drive home, and we would invariably get strangely hungry at like, 7:30pm and there would be nothing in the fridge, Right? So I. I don't know how to cook. I still don't know how to cook. But the only thing that I was confident, because I was, like, a college student, a high school student, was making nachos. So for years, our Christmas dinner, like, watching It's a Wonderful Life or whatever, was Christmas nachos. And it was kind of special because it was literally the only time that I ever made food for my mother and stepfather.

[Luke Burbank]

And was it just sort of. I mean, regular nachos, like, you were. You didn't bring home a bunch of leftovers and, like, integrate them into the nachos or anything?

[Elena Passarello]

No, no, no. Now that I live with a kind of a good gourmand, we do take those kinds of nacho liberties adventures. But it was just like, oh, there's a can of green chilies in the pantry and some tortilla chips and some shredded cheese. And I never go anywhere without having chips and salsa close by. But we've continued the tradition, like I said. Now I live with David, who can make a heck of a holiday meal, but we still always make space at one point during the Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, whatever, to eat a plate of Christmas nachos. It's just not Christmas without them.

[Luke Burbank]

The colors also work. You get the red salsa, you get the green of some chilies. I mean, honestly, I can't believe more people aren't making Christmas nachos. Alaina.

[Elena Passarello]

Well, maybe this will start the tradition now.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. If you try some Christmas nachos this year and you enjoy them, email us. Let us know how it went for you. I would say that one of my favorite holiday traditions is kind of related to the fact that I grew up in a sort of odd Christmas environment. My parents, we didn't really celebrate Christmas when I was a young kid because of the church my parents went to and stuff. But over time, we started to. We had stockings, and then we would put some presents in there. And then there was a sort of growing sense of Christmas in my house. And so I remember one year when I don't even know if we had a tree yet, but I know that it was like we were allowed to give each other presents and go buy presents and stuff like that. And I think it was like my first year, I'm probably like, I don't know, 10, 11 years old, my first year where I'm going to Craigens Pharmacy in Seattle and spending all my allowance to get amazing gifts. Like, I got my dad a laminated sign that said to error is human. To really screw things up, you need a computer. And it just had like a total like 1980s computer that was spewing paper out of the printer.

[Elena Passarello]

It was sounds like a Garfield joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Totally. It was like, these were the worst presents. But I remember sitting in my bedroom and listening to the radio while I was wrapping these presents. And this is Christmas Eve. And I was just so excited to get to like be part of having presents and giving presents and all that stuff. And they happened to be playing this old time version of A Christmas Carol, like an old radio production of A Christmas Carol. And like, you know, when you're a kid, sometimes you'll do something weird where you'll just like sit kind of crisscross applesauce in an uncomfortable fashion for no discernible reason and then make a goal for yourself. My goal was I had to wrap all the presents before I was allowed to sit in a more comfortable position. I don't know why. I just remember sitting on the floor in my bedroom listening to A Christmas Carol and sitting and wrapping presents. And to this day, when it is time for me to wrap presents, it is Christmas Eve. I have found that same recording. It has Lionel Barrymore in it playing Mr. Scrooge. I play it now. It's from the Internet, of course, but I play that. I sit on the floor. I don't sit on a chair like a normal person. I sit on the floor and I wrap presents. To this day, I'm 46 years old.

[Elena Passarello]

Well, you know, if you ever want to switch it up, you can also go on the Internet and look up the Yinzer Christmas Carol, which is like.

[Luke Burbank]

As in from Pittsburgh.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah. It's these two comedians that are called Greg and Donnie. And they do like, instead of saying, bah, humbugs, Scrooge says, oh, bull crap. And he's. He's like. And the boy, boy. It's like, boy, what day is it? Get out of Giant Eagle. Give me the biggest turkey you can find.

[Luke Burbank]

I love like, head down to Prim. Biggest sandwich you can find.

[Elena Passarello]

It's very good.

[Luke Burbank]

Say there, boy. Are the Steelers still in the playoffs?

[Elena Passarello]

D Are you being Nebby with me, Mr. Ghost? I don't Think so.

[Luke Burbank]

I would absolutely listen. In fact, you know what? Maybe that can be. I can add that I'll wrap some of the presents the night before Christmas Eve and I'll listen to the Yinzer.

[Elena Passarello]

Christmas Carol or just get into a cross legged position and eat Christmas nachos.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not kidding you. Maybe I'm just too hungry when we tend to record the show, but Christmas nachos sound incredible to me right now. I would crawl across broken Christmas ornaments to get my hands on some Christmas nachos. That's how hungry I am. I could be like Bruce Willis and Die Hard getting to the Christmas nachos. Anyway, we're gonna read the listener responses to their favorite holiday traditions coming up. In the meantime, though, we've gotta welcome our first guest on over to the show. Now, if you are looking for comedy and podcast royalty, this person definitely qualifies. He's been on over 200 episodes of comedy Bang Bang, the Great podcast. Also, he's Mr. Peanutbutter on BoJack Horseman, and he hosts about like nine different podcasts, including the Neighborhood Listen and Varietopia. This is Paul F. Tompkins, recorded at Revolution hall in Portland, Oregon. Hi.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Hello.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome to the show, Paul.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Thanks for having me back, guys. It's a pleasure to see you again.

[Luke Burbank]

It's been a long time coming. We've been trying to get you back up here for like a year and a half and you wouldn't come.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Yeah, I took a year off last year and I said, I'm gonna really take some time to sit and think.

[Luke Burbank]

At the beginning of the pandemic, I know you and your wife, the actor Janie Haddad Tompkins, started doing this podcast, Stay F. Homekins.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Yes, that's correct.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a lot of Hadad Tompkins heads here. That's what that cheers.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Absolutely. Absolutely. The hat heads. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And this show has actually become really popular. It made a lot of kind of best of the year lists. It's a delegate.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

First of all, I wouldn't say it's become really popular. I would say we were surprised that anyone listened to it. By that measure. Yes, it's astoundingly popular.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like this podcast should be in the Stay F Homekins podcast should be in the podcasting hall of fame for just one thing, which is popularizing a term that you and Janie engage in as you're recording the show. So the sort of conceit of the show is as an after dinner chat, you're just kind of talking about the world and your Lives and everything. And you're enjoying a little weekend water.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

That's correct.

[Luke Burbank]

What's the story on weekend water?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

This was a phrase that was coined by Janie's mother, who lives in South Carolina, and one of her grandchildren was. Was making a move to pick up one of her drinks. I think this was at 4th of July. And she said, oh, no, honey, don't touch that. That's Grandma's weekend water. And I never forgot it.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like that could really revolutionize someone's relationship with drinking. Maybe not even for the best, because.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

If, like, definitely not for.

[Luke Burbank]

If it's Tuesday, so are you having a drink? It's like, four on Tuesday. Like, I'm just having a little weekend water. Really kind of takes the judgment off of it. Yeah.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Then it just becomes a matter of semantics.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, indeed. I was wondering if hosting this podcast with your wife has been good for the relationship, bad for the relationship? Have things remained unchanged?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

It's been good for the relationship. I think it was very. It was a very weird thing. We'd never done anything like that before together. We'd never done a podcast together before. So it was like, well, this is my personal relationship with my wife. I don't know if I want to share it. And then it was fun. Like, the first time we did it, it was fun. And I was like, I guess we're doing this for as long as we are stuck here inside. And then after things lifted, it just seemed like, let's keep doing it. But we couldn't do it with the same regularity because things started to, like, we started to work again. And, you know, but I think we're going to keep doing it once a month. It's just. It's become its own thing at this point. And we have merch, so we got to sell it once. Merchant, listen. Once merch enters a marriage, there's no turning back.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it was the most recent episode where you were expressing a certain amount of concern for Adele. You feel like she is singing in some kind of new accent. What is your evidence?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Okay. We were right before we started recording, we were listening to Adele's new album, and there's this style of singing that I think. I don't know if it's pushed on young women, like, they have to do this if they want to have a hit, or if, like, young women are just like, oh, that's how people sing now. So I'll just do that. But I call it the. The Cajun baby singing voice because it's very, like, it's sort of like a. I'm sort of a child, but now I say toyne instead of turn. Like, that's not a. That's not like a singing accent. You can just have, like to just sound like a little baby doctor John.

[Luke Burbank]

It's all basically David Sedaris singing the Oscar Meyer theme song as Billie Holiday.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

I wish I would. And Oscar, my ouie, you've nailed it. That's exactly what it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, but I mean, that's a thing that David Sedaris really does. I wish I could take credit for it. I'm just reporting the facts of the world.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Oh, and he sings it in the style of Billie Holiday.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a style.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

That's exactly what it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of singing, I know that you are a fan of the Tam O'Shanter in Los Angeles, the Scottish Steakhouse.

[Elena Passarello]

Not the hat.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I wouldn't put it past you.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

I'm also a fan of the hat. I wouldn't put it past you. I wouldn't put it past you. Wear one of those hats.

[Elena Passarello]

Do you own one?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Of course I do. Of course I do.

[Luke Burbank]

Hold on, Paul. You know what? We need to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask you about the live caroling at the Tamwa Chantry.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Sure. What a knifanger.

[Luke Burbank]

Guys, this is livewire. We're talking to Paul F. Tompkins. Back with more in just a moment. 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].

[Esme Patterson]

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[Luke Burbank]

Special thanks to our sponsor, Hotel Crocodile, a hotel above the legendary Crocodile music venue in Seattle where you can rock roll and slide into bed. Interestingly, the Crocodile is where I saw most of my formative music shows growing up in Seattle. If you'd like to stay the night at the Hotel Crocodile, they've got you covered with 17 uniquely designed rooms. Or if you're just passing through, you can check out their ongoing music series called Lobby Sessions, an intimate concert series with artists you love and others you've yet to discover. Learn [e-mail] welcome back to Livewire from PRX. Coming to you from Revolution hall in Portland, Oregon, I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Paul F. Tompkins from Threedom and BoJack Horseman and Mr. Show and so many other amazing fun places. And the Tam O'Shanter, Los Angeles, leading Scottish steakhouse where they feature live Christmas carolers. Yes. What's your relationship with that form of entertainment?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Well, with that form of entertainment, I think it was a thing. Caroling, I think, was always a thing I was scared would show up at my door. It was a thing I was afraid I would be invited to do. Neither of those things ever happened.

[Luke Burbank]

But you're such a good singer.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Well, don't say that. I'm okay. I do all right. But there's something, there is a weird thing. There's like a certain shyness that you get when you can do a thing but you're asked to do it in a weird situation. And it's like, I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep. Love, actually style. And I mean, I would show up and turn the cards over for sure. I would do that. If you want to print out the words to Good King Wenceslaus on a, on a series of cards, I will show up at someone's door and turn them over. This is actually not a bad idea. The more I'm thinking about it, it's a, it's a bit of whimsy that I think people would enjoy. But so I, I started Going to the Tam O'Shanter, which is one of the oldest restaurants in Hollywood. Walt Disney's animators used to. And I think still do. I think the Disney animators, still out of tradition, go there to get drunk. And a thing that I did not know the first time I went there with a friend of mine during the Christmas season, we were just going to meet up for a dinner and catch up. That they have strolling Victorian carolers that walk throughout the restaurant, and they come up to you and they ask you what song you want to hear, and you have to tell them the name of a song that you want to hear, and then they sing it at you.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello from the Other side has to.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Be a Christmas song, although I've never tested that out.

[Elena Passarello]

You can change it to, like, hello from the Yuletide.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Absolutely. So the first year that happened, we were like, that was weird. So the next year, we were like, how do we prevent that from happening again? And so we said, all right, we'll devise a plan. I don't think we can make them stop. So we'll figure out where to look and so it won't be as uncomfortable. And so what I did was afterwards, we compared notes, and I said, where did you look? And he said, I just looked at the. In the eyes of the ladies, I just did that. And I said I looked sort of in the middle distance and nodded my head as if I was really into it. Like, it was really powerful to me. So then the thing is, we kept forgetting that this was going to happen. And we had a yearly engagement after Thanksgiving. We would go to the Tam o'shanter and have dinner. So the next year, we're prepared for it, and we say, all right, here's what we'll do. We'll tell them, oh, you already sang the one that we wanted to hear. We just heard you sing it at this other table. Well, guess what? You could tell from the reaction. They had heard this before. It got so passive aggressive. They were all. All of them, four of them in this Victorian garb were like, oh, okay, all right, great. Yeah, no problem. No problem. And they're walking away, and we're like, it was so beautiful. I was like, yeah, huh? Yeah, sure. And that felt so bad. So the next year we're like, okay, we're just gonna let it happen. And we're, you know, it's like, why are we bothered so much by this? So then that's the year that we're cheerful about it. We're like, yes, we can't Wait, let's hear oh, Holy Night or whatever. Then we witness them getting into a weird fight about the key, because the.

[Elena Passarello]

Oh, no.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

The guy on the end says, what key is it again? The guy on the other end says, it's in C. And so they start looking through the book and, like, trying to figure out what key is this in. And the guy on the end is like, it's in C, like I said. And then they finally find it in the book, and they say, okay. And the guy on the one hand says, okay, and it's in C. And the guy on the end says, like I said. And then they sang the tensest oh, Holy Night that I'd ever heard.

[Luke Burbank]

You should invite them on your variety show that you've been doing in Los Angeles.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

You know what? I should. I absolutely should. I should invite them out of season.

[Luke Burbank]

To get them on there, talk about that. Because you've gone back to live performing. I'm wondering, like, for the audience, is the audience subdued, or are they just, like, excited to be somewhere? Are the performers. I mean, what's the general feel?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

The audience is very subdued. It's not going well, and it's been fantastic. My first show back was in September, and the feeling in the room for everybody on stage, everybody offstage, was just cathartic. Everyone was excited to be somewhere doing something that felt kind of normal. It's a big show. It's got a big band and, you know, a lot of guests and everything, and a lot of songs to be learned and things like that. And I'm hoping to ride that feeling for as long as I possibly can.

[Luke Burbank]

People can watch this on Vimeo if they're not in Los Angeles.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

That's right. Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

I was wondering. You're a very skilled improviser. You improv all these characters. The irony is we planned that that.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Was not improvised, but that was scripted months ago.

[Luke Burbank]

And he kind of stepped on my line.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

I did. I couldn't wait. I got excited.

[Luke Burbank]

One job. Tompkins, did you go to one of these improv programs, like A Second City or Groundlings or IO or something? How did you get started with this and when did you know? Oh, this something I'm actually kind of have a knack for?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Yeah, it was really. It was osmosis from doing podcasts, because when I started doing characters, I never had to do that before to sustain a character and to sort of conceit and like a story over the course of that long. And so from doing podcasts and doing them with other people who did that. Kind of character work regularly. I got to a point where I was like, I think I want to throw myself into the deep end. I think I've learned the precepts of this from being around it and seeing it done so much. And so I started. I started doing, like, live improv shows. Like, you know, a couple of people asked me to do it, and then I started doing a podcast where I had to improvise every week. And that was a podcast called Spontanea Nation.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Thank you. And that was like. I was like, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna make it so that I am the weakest link of every show, and if I can be good as the weakest link of the show, then that's what I'm gonna be. I'm gonna get people. I'm gonna get guests on the show who are so good and so skilled at doing this that that's how I'm gonna learn how to do this.

[Luke Burbank]

That's amazing to me because as a Spontaneous Nation listener, I assumed that we were sort of catching up with you in, like, year 15 of your hardcore improv career.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

You sure weren't.

[Luke Burbank]

Really?

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, that was impressive. You also uttered maybe one of the greatest lines I believe was on Spontaneous Nation. I don't know if this was improvised or actually part of. You said, I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, you've reached the end of your Benjamin Franklin quote of the month.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

Luke, can I tell you, I say.

[Luke Burbank]

It in my head all the time.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

That was a scripted line from BoJack Horseman. Mr. Peanut Butter said that.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no, no.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

So not only did I not come up with it myself, a cartoon dog said it.

[Luke Burbank]

Paul F. Tompkins, everybody. That was Paul F. Tompkins right here on Livewire. The newest season of Paul's comedy improv podcast, the Neighborhood Listen, where they basically reenact actual postings on those weird neighborhood apps where everyone's always freaking out about stuff. That's the Neighborhood Listen. And the new season of that show, the Neighborhood Listen, is out now. Hey, special thanks this episode to Lynn Pham of Beaverton, Oregon. Lynn is a vital part of the Livewire member community and generously supports the show with a donation each month. And we are very, very thankful for that support because it's how we can keep doing Livewire, something I know Lynn loves because he's there every week when we do the show. So thank you, Lynn, for keeping Livewire going. This is Livewire, of course. Each week, we ask our listeners a question. This is a special holiday edition of the program this week. So we asked our listeners, what is your favorite holiday tradition? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?

[Elena Passarello]

Okay, I love this one from Rob. Rob says on New Year's Eve, my father would make a fire in the fireplace and cook hamburgers and hot dogs over it. It was the only day of the year that he would do this. Just like, well, well, you know, in with the new year, have a fireplace, hot dog junior. I love it.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think it even occurred to me that you could do that, but that sounds really fun. Also, it seems like the house would smell amazing after that.

[Elena Passarello]

I wonder what receptacle one needs to cook a hamburger in a fireplace. But I'm sure they figured if you can make popcorn, they have that cage for fireplace popcorn.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure. It's like the old Mel Torme song. Hot dogs roasting on an open fire, Grease spots dripping down the hearth.

[Elena Passarello]

Mel Torme puns are your holiday tradition.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, my gosh, I am. Ever since I was a kid and I saw Mel Torme on the TV show Night Court.

[Elena Passarello]

Night Court.

[Luke Burbank]

I remain obsessed with, with Mel Torme.

[Elena Passarello]

The smooth, dulcet tones of Mel Torme.

[Luke Burbank]

And he wrote that Christmas song. All right, what's another tradition that one of our listeners likes to enjoy this time of year?

[Elena Passarello]

Oh, I love this one from Carly. Carly's family always plays loteria, which is like Mexican bingo after Christmas dinner at the table with the whole family for money. Since there's so many of us playing. A pot of money is so big and everyone's so focused. It's always loud. It gets rowdy with 20 plus people playing. It's always so much fun. A lot of my favorite memories from Christmas come from the dining room table.

[Luke Burbank]

Did I ever tell you, Alaina, about the time that I bought an actual blackjack table that was like legit dimensions and everything. And I was the house, so I was like, you know, the casino and these are my former in laws were there playing for real money. And I cleaned them out and it was so bad. I was like, I've never wanted to bust more in a round of blackjack and I could not lose. And I remember my former father in law just with a kind of a stern look on his face as he took another $5 out of his wallet.

[Elena Passarello]

I'm surprised how many holiday traditions among families involve gambling.

[Luke Burbank]

It gets boring after a while. Let's be honest. You got to throw a little skin in the game. A little money.

[Elena Passarello]

Well, how about this for a game? This is great. Matt Says every year my family does an ugly Christmas sweater competition. The rules are you have to buy a sweater from a secondhand shop and then decorate it. Everything on the sweater has to be diy, and then everybody makes the sweaters together. And that is awesome. I love that idea.

[Luke Burbank]

And also financially, probably less damaging than losing to me at blackjack.

[Elena Passarello]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe if you lost at blackjack, instead of paying money, you'd have to wear one of these sweaters.

[Luke Burbank]

That would be a very festive punishment. All right, we have more audience cards to read a little later in the show, so definitely stick around for that. In the meantime, our next guest's book of poetry, Citizen Illegal, was named a top book by NPR in the New York Times. His latest collection of poetry, Promises of Gold, is a bilingual exploration of love in all of the forms that it takes. And it has been long listed for the National Book Award. So take a listen to this. It's Jose Olivarez recorded at the Patricia Resource center for the Arts. Jose, welcome to the show.

[Jose Olivarez]

Thank you for having me.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for traveling all the way from Jersey today to be here in.

[Jose Olivarez]

Beaverton, you know, all in today's work.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, man. You write in the foreword of your new book that you wanted this to be a book of love poems for your homies, you know, kind of your non romantic friends. But then it didn't exactly turn out that way. What happened?

[Jose Olivarez]

So I had the idea for the book before the pandemic started. And so in my mind I'm like, this is a pretty straightforward book of poems. I want to write poems for the people that don't usually get them because we tend to think of poetry as something that is reserved for the romantic interest in our lives. Right. My friend Nate says that we usually go to poetry in times where someone's either getting married or buried. Right. And so in my mind, I'm like, I want to kind of fill in the gaps. And then when the pandemic happened, all of my language became a lot darker and I realized how much fear I was living with and how much uncertainty, I mean, and anxiety was just kind of filling my poetry. And so the poems themselves are kind of aiming at this type of love, while a lot of times landing in uncertainty and anxiety and all of those other emotions.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm curious about your growing up years and words and poetry and things like that. Were those in your life growing up in. It was Illinois.

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up in Calumet City, Illinois, in the south suburbs of Chicago. And also my parents are immigrants. They came from Jalisco, Mexico. So English is my second language. And so that means for a large part of my life, I was often very quiet because I didn't want to mess up the language and have people laugh at me. Right. I didn't want to mispronounce anything. And so I was used to kind of living in that quietness. But I was always listening. Like, I loved language even when I couldn't fully understand English. I loved the way my peers would kind of like, flip words and make up phrases on the fly. And so what poetry allowed for me was it gave me a chance to think about, like, do I really want to be quiet? Or is this quiet something that has kind of been put upon me? Right. And so when I was kind of asked to write my own poems, I was like, it turns out I have all of this language that I've just been kind of storing and thinking about for all of these years.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we actually hear something from the book I was hoping that we could hear? Ode to Tortillas.

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah, absolutely. So this poem is called Ode to Tortillas. It was inspired by eating tortillas. It's deep. You know what I mean? Poetry. How does it happen? Who knows? Ode to Tortillas. There's two ways to be a Mexican writer that we've discovered so far. You can be the Mexican writer who writes about tortillas, or you can be the Mexican writer who writes about croissants instead of the tortillas on their plate. Can you be a Mexican writer if you're allergic to corn? There's two ways to be a Mexican writer that are true and tested. You can write about migration, or you can write about migration. Can you be a Mexican writer if you never migrated? If your family never migrated? There's two ways to be a Mexican writer. You can translate from Spanish, or you can translate to Spanish, or you can refuse to translate altogether. There's only one wound in the Mexican writer's imagination, and it's the wound of the chancla. It's the wound of birria being sold out at the taco truck. It's the wound of too many dolores and not enough dollars. It can be argued that these are all chanclasos. Even death is a chanclasso. There's only one miracle gifted to Mexicans, and it is the miracle of never running out of cheap beer. It's the miracle of never running out of bad jokes. There's infinite ways to eat a tortilla made in the ancient ways by hand. And warmed in a comal made with corn or with Taco Bell plastic. They count. What about flour tortillas? Flour tortillas count. If you ask San Antonio, my people, I am poly with the tortillas. You can eat tortillas with your hands or roll them up and dip them in caldo like my mom does. You can eat them with the fork and knife like my bougie cousins do. What? Bougie cousins? I made them up for the purpose of this po. You can eat tortillas in tacos or warmed up by microwave and drizzled with butter. Tortillas con arroz, tortillas con frijoles. Tortillas flipped by hand or tortillas flipped with a spatula. Tortillas with eggs for breakfast. Tortillas fried and sprinkled with sugar for dessert. Hard shell tortillas. Gluten free tortillas for our mixed family. We are still discovering new ways to. To fold a tortilla, to cut a tortilla up, to transform a tortilla into new worlds, to feed each other with tortillas. My people, if I have children, I will teach them about tortillas, but I'm sure they'll want McDonald's.

[Luke Burbank]

Jose Otavarez reading from Promises of Gold here on Livewire. You talk about translation in that poem, and the layout of this book is really interesting. So half of it is in English. Well, it's the same poems but in English. And then the other side is in Spanish, so you flip it over to read whichever side you're reading. Did you always have that in mind for this book?

[Jose Olivarez]

That idea came from doing community workshops with bilingual students and bilingual families. And what I would find is, you know, I would give readings to students who were fluent in both English and Spanish, and that would be great. But then I would give workshops that included their parents, and the parents only spoke Spanish. And so I would do those workshops in Spanish, and those were also great. But the parents would come up to me afterwards and they'd be like, you know, we wish we could also read your poems alongside our kids, but we only read in Spanish. And so that, for me, made me remember that. Like, for example, in my education, when I was reading James and the Giant Peach, I could never bring that story home to my parents and ask them to read along with me or tell them about what I was reading. And so my hope was to offer something that might be useful to those families.

[Luke Burbank]

That's such a great idea. I read the English side, and then I actually enjoyed reading Some of the Spanish side, with my very limited high school Spanish, to just see the way the words work. It's just such a beautiful thing to see. But there's a note from the translator in the book. I'm curious. You speak Spanish, but did you have the poems translated into Spanish?

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah. So I worked with a translator named David Ruano Gonzalez, who's a poet from Mexico City. And the reason I worked with the translator is because, like I mentioned, I studied in English. And so that's really the language that I feel most comfortable with, being creative and kind of thinking academically and at this point. So when it came time to translate my poems, like, I could get a rough estimation, but to do it with the kind of precision and art that poetry requires and the musicality, I really needed to kind of lean on David.

[Elena Passarello]

Do you have conversations with your translator when he's, like, working through the book about the things that aren't necessarily there in a word to word translation? Like you said, the art.

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the way. I mean, you could kind of tell from that poem. Right. But I like to write in vernacular and kind of really draw out the music of the everyday. That's something that's really beautiful to me. And so David would have questions because he'd be like, you know, I googled this word. Bougie. Yeah, yeah, bougie. And it's just. It's not making sense to me. And so then I'd have to, like, explain it to him. And he'd be like, do you remember.

[Luke Burbank]

Where it landed on the Spanish side, what we did with bougie?

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah, yeah. Los primos. Los. Los muy muy, I think, is what.

[Elena Passarello]

Los muy muy.

[Jose Olivarez]

Los muy muy. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice. The poem that we had you read, you talked about there being sort of two ways to be a Mexican poet. Do you feel constrained at times by an expectation about how you might be as a poet who is Mexican American? Like, if you just don't necessarily want to write about something related to that experience on a given day?

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah, kind of. I remember. So in my first book, there's, you know, there's also basketball poems. And I remember sometimes being asked by audience members, like, in a book that is about immigrations and its discontents, why is there a poem about Scottie Pippen? And I'd be like, because I like Scottie Pippen. You know what I mean? It's just so. Yeah, I think there's this expectation that those of us who have marginalized identities, that we kind of write about it in this one particular way. And for me, I want to think about, like, how I present those pains and then also, you know, what I want to share and what I don't. And in that, what I might gain by surprising people and reminding them that even through those moments of struggle and pain, that there's always a lot of joy in song and dance.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. You have a quote in the book from Eduardo Galeano saying utopia is. Is on the horizon. And Basically, you take 10 steps towards it, and it takes 10 steps down the horizon. I'm curious. What keeps you walking?

[Jose Olivarez]

What keeps me walking is, you know, like a belief that just because things are one way right now, that it doesn't mean that they've always been this way, and it doesn't mean that they have to continue to be this way. So I really believe that through imagination we can start to think and really build a world where things are different for us. And you can see those little victories from time to time where even underneath all of this oppressive weight, there's something that we're constructing, that we're slowly making bigger and bigger.

[Luke Burbank]

Could we sneak one more poem? Yeah. I would love for folks, maybe something on the. On the shorter side, just for time, but anything that you might want to pick.

[Jose Olivarez]

Yeah. Thank you. I'll read a love poem. This is a poem I wrote from my wife, Erica. It's called Love Poem Beginning with the yellow Cab. I ask you, what's the first thing you think about when you see the color yellow? And like a real New Yorker, you say yellow cabs, not sunlight or a yellow ribbon tied around a vase of fresh begonias. Yellow cabs honking down Broadway. I still remember the night we first shared a cab. You whispered honey, whispered lace, whispered chrysanthemum. All that practice, and it turns out I had never ridden in a cab the right way. Around us, the street lights blurred into yellow ribbons. And when you put your hand on my thigh, it was like I knew for the first time why God gave us thighs, why God gave us hands. Maybe God invented yellow for the calves. So the first time we touched like this, it could be accented in gold.

[Luke Burbank]

My goodness. That's a love poem. Jose Olivarez, thank you so much for coming on Livewire. The book is Promises of Gold.

[Jose Olivarez]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Jose Olivarez right here on Livewire. His latest book, Promises of Gold, is out and available now. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. You are listening to a special holiday edition of Livewire. We gotta Take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We will be right back with an original Christmas song performed by the lovely and talented Esme Patterson. Stay with us. 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 from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Alena Passarello. This is a special holiday episode of Livewire and so we have expanded our audience question portion of the show because we've asked Livewire audience, what is your favorite holiday tradition? Elena has been tracking those responses. What else are you seeing?

[Elena Passarello]

Okay, we got this one from Jesse. Jesse says one word, latkes. Have you ever seen like a latke evening in usually a Jewish household in December is an intense ordeal. The squeezing of the water from the shredded potatoes, the slapping of the hands of all of the people that can't wait to get their mitts on a delicious latke.

[Luke Burbank]

So good though. So I try to show up right when all the work is done and it's eating time.

[Elena Passarello]

Are you an applesauce guy or a sour cream guy?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sour cream. I don't really like the, the savory and the sweet together.

[Elena Passarello]

Same, same.

[Luke Burbank]

Not for me. I, I'm, I like, I'm, I'm all about that sour cream. What is another holiday tradition one of our Livewire listeners want to tell us about?

[Elena Passarello]

Oh, I love this one from Joe. Joe says my family is obsessed with the Bon Maman Advent jam calendar. We open it each day without reading the label and then have a taste test to try to guess what flavor it is. Have you seen Bon Mamma is that jam that has like almost like a handwritten label looking and like a kind of checkerboard top, really yummy jam.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I've ever seen that.

[Elena Passarello]

Oh, they're great. They're just affordable fancy jam, let's say that. And they have an advent calendar where you open the door and the teensiest weenciest like airplane sized canister of jam. And my lovely sister in law bought my dad, Tony Passarello, Livewire's biggest fan, the Advent calendar last December and he was delighted because he is a major proponent of jelly in all kinds, but it's great. I love the Advent calendars that are whiskey Advent calendar or like makeup Advent calendar.

[Luke Burbank]

I have problems. You know, that's whatever that kind of experiment they would do with children where they would sit them in a room and they would sort of offer them like a. A cookie.

[Elena Passarello]

Marshmallow test.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, the marshmallow. I fail that every year with whatever kind of chocolate based Advent stuff comes into my life. You go right away, it's like December 1st and I'm already digging into like this. I'm already all the way to December 22nd.

[Elena Passarello]

I got a perfume advent calendar once and on the first day I took the little vial of perfume out and I put it on my wrists and I held it up for David to smell and he went, you smell like a floor. And then I didn't open anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Honesty.

[Elena Passarello]

Merry Christmas.

[Luke Burbank]

It's how you've been together for so many years. It's just a level of honesty between the two of you. Okay, One more holiday tradition from one of our Livewire listeners.

[Elena Passarello]

Sammy says after we eat Christmas dinner, my family always goes to the movies. We do in the Passarello family as well. We try to see something Christmas themed, but if not, we'll watch whatever. One year we all watched a really scary movie while wearing ugly Christmas sweaters.

[Luke Burbank]

It was hilarious.

[Elena Passarello]

I saw Titanic on Christmas Day. I remember that I watched that boat sink on Christmas Day.

[Luke Burbank]

I have never seen that movie. That's my number one, like never have I ever thing that I can trot out. Now. The problem is my whole personality is based around the fact that I haven't seen Titanic. So I can never see Titanic.

[Elena Passarello]

Me and Star Wars.

[Luke Burbank]

You haven't seen Star Wars, Correct.

[Elena Passarello]

I've tried, but I used to when I couldn't sleep, David would just recite the plot of Star wars to me and then I would fall asleep.

[Luke Burbank]

I will say the later ones. I used to just call them galactic C span. Very governmental, very process oriented. Just lawmakers from other galaxies debating, like trade embargoes and stuff.

[Elena Passarello]

I have seen, however, the Star Wars Christmas special, which is spectacular. I mean, really, you don't need to see anything else other than that.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Maybe that can become my new favorite holiday tradition. Thank you to everyone who sent in your responses on this special episode of Livewire, where our musical guest this week is Esme Patterson, who comes from the mountains of Colorado. She's known for her indie folk music. She's performed on NPR's Tiny Desk. She's been on Conan the Late show with David Letterman. And she joined us at Revolution hall way back in 2015 to perform her song if I. This is Esme Patterson from Livewire.

[G]

Hi, everybody. Wow. I'm gonna play a Christmas song that I wrote. I'm kind of conflicted about Christmas, and I'm from Colorado, and somebody kind of challenged me to write a Christmas song, even though that's kind of something I'm not really into. And so I the songs for my family who I miss a bunch. If I was the forest I'd give you a treat If I was brand new I'd give you a guarantee For Christmas I want something that I can't find I want some of your time for Christmas I want something that I can't buy I want your heart near mine if I was the sky.

[Paul F. Tompkins]

I'd.

[G]

Give you a star if you're wondering what I got you the best I can give is my one patient heart Heart for Christmas I want something that I can't find I want some your time for Christmas I want something that I can't buy I want your heart near my mine near mine for Christmas I want your heart, your mind for Christmas I want your heart I want your heart I want your heart I want your heart.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Esme Patterson right here on Livewire. Her newest full length album is Notes from Nowhere, and it is available now. All right, that's going to do it for this special holiday edition of Livewire. A huge thanks to our guests Paul F. Tompkins, Jose Olivarez and Esme Patterson.

[Elena Passarello]

Lara Haddon is our executive producer, Heather D. Michel is our executive director, and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Molly Pettit is our technical director, and our house sound is by Dneil Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor. Our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow, and Aunt Diaz is our Internet. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Eyal Alves and Awaker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.

[Luke Burbank]

Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. This week we'd like to thank member Lynn Pham of Beaverton, Oregon. What up, Lynn? 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 crew, thank you for listening. Have a very very happy holidays, and we'll see you next week. Dear Livewire, when we first met, I was really shy. I had no idea we'd spend so much time together or that you'd be one to fill my heart with joy and make me want to be a better person. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were here. I was busy reading a review from one of our many, many rapturously smitten listeners. Oh, wait. Actually, no. Sorry. This is from Elena. Anyway, the point is, it would be really helpful if you wanted to leave us a review. Feel free to say really nice things about us, and we'll even read them now and then on the show so you might hear your review of Livewire read on the program itself. Reviews help other people hear about the show, and then we can keep doing this for a long, long time because we love having this job. Thank you so much. If you've left a review, and if you're about to leave a review, you can go ahead and do it right where you get the podcast.

[Elena Passarello]

From prx.