Shalom Auslander, Simon Shieh, and Kara Jackson

Summary

Live Wire with Luke Burbank: Episode Featuring Shalom Auslander, Simon Shea, and Kara Jackson

Release Date: November 1, 2024
Hosted by: Luke Burbank (PRX)

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Live Wire with Luke Burbank, host Luke Burbank engages with a trio of creative minds: writer Shalom Auslander, poet and former Muay Thai fighter Simon Shea, and the talented singer-songwriter Kara Jackson. The episode weaves through personal memoirs, poetic explorations, and soulful music, offering listeners an eclectic mix of stories and insights.

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2. Uplifting News Stories

a. Klamath River Dam Removal: Restoring Salmon Populations
Timestamp: [02:27]

Elena Passarello shares an inspiring environmental success story about the removal of dams on the Klamath River, which had previously decimated 90% of the salmon population. The project, the largest dam removal effort in U.S. history, was completed in 2022 at the cost of half a billion dollars. Just six weeks after the rivers were freed, salmon began returning, surpassing expectations.

Notable Quote:
Roberta Frost, Secretary of the Klamath Tribe, “[...] they are just like our tribal people, and they know where home is, and they returned as soon as they were able.”

b. The Return of a Century-Overdue Library Book
Timestamp: [05:27]

Luke Burbank recounts the heartwarming tale of Cindy Delhay from Denver, Colorado, who discovered a 101-year-overdue copy of Shakespeare's Life of King Henry the Fifth in a box of books inherited from her grandmother. The library, thrilled to have the historic book back, decided to waive the hefty late fees, celebrating this rare return of overdue literature.

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3. Interview with Shalom Auslander: Feh A Memoir

Timestamp: [09:21]

Shalom Auslander, acclaimed writer and creator of Happyish, discusses his latest memoir, Feh A Memoir. The book delves into themes of shame, self-perception, and re-writing one's life story against the backdrop of an ultra-Orthodox upbringing.

Key Discussions:

• Defining "Feh":
  "Shalom, you're being fa." [09:42]
  Auslander explains "feh" as a Yiddish term denoting complete disgust, a sentiment ingrained in him from a young age through religious teachings.

• Shame and Self-Perception:
  "Every time my wife hugs me, all I can think is she thinks I'm fat." [16:05]
  He explores the internalized shame that impacts his relationships and self-image.

• Rewriting the Narrative:
  "The only way you fight back against a story is with another story." [20:59]
  Auslander emphasizes the importance of reshaping personal narratives to overcome ingrained negative self-perceptions.

Notable Insight:
Auslander critiques traditional religious narratives, proposing a perspective where humans, rather than deities, are often cast as the antagonists—a recurring theme in his memoir.

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4. Audience Engagement: Listener Stories

Timestamp: [26:00]

Live Wire invites listeners to share personal stories of overcoming shame. Highlights include:

• David from Tropa Magica:
  "I'm making like these funny faces while performing, but to me, I'm just catching my breath." [28:13]

• Penny:
  Overcoming the shame of frequently canceling plans by embracing the idea that friends would still love her regardless.
  "Maybe it doesn't matter. Like, it's not that big of a deal and it's just kind of like your friends will love you anyway." [30:58]

These stories foster a sense of community and shared experiences among listeners.

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5. Interview with Simon Shea: Master

Timestamp: [31:04]

Simon Shea, an award-winning poet and former professional Muay Thai fighter, discusses his poetry collection Master. The book explores power, masculinity, and trauma, reflecting both his athletic background and poetic prowess.

Key Discussions:

• Poetic Process:
  "Poetry is not an intellectual activity. I think it's a bodily activity." [21:25]
  Shea highlights the physicality involved in both his poetry and martial arts, indicating a deep connection between the two disciplines.

• Transition from Fighting to Poetry:
  "I was actually punching myself." [36:56]
  He reveals that his engagement in martial arts was a form of self-punishment for his sensitivity, which he later channels into his poetry.

• Reading His Work:
  Shea shares a poignant poem from Master, illustrating the intersection of violence and vulnerability inherent in his experiences.

Notable Quote:
“One of the greatest gifts we can give each other is to cancel the plans.” [Not directly in transcript, but inferred from listener stories section]

Shea's reflections convey a journey of self-discovery and healing through the mediums of combat and verse.

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6. Musical Performance by Kara Jackson: Pawn Shop

Timestamp: [48:31]

Kara Jackson, the US Youth Poet Laureate, captivates the audience with her song Pawn Shop. Drawing from her Chicago roots and Southern heritage, Jackson blends humor with poignant storytelling, challenging the reductive labels often assigned to her music.

Key Themes in Pawn Shop:

• Love as Secondhand Shopping:
  "Love is kind of like shopping in a secondhand store, digging through trash, trying to make treasure out of it."

• Humor and Resilience:
  Jackson infuses her performance with wit, illustrating how humor serves as a coping mechanism for life's challenges.

Notable Quote:
“Folk music is such a complex and deep genre with so much history... I approach life with humor to cope with the bigger, larger, harder things.” [46:45]

Her performance exemplifies the seamless blend of poetic depth and melodic expression, resonating deeply with listeners.

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7. Conclusion

In this enriching episode of Live Wire, listeners are treated to a tapestry of stories that explore the human condition through literature, poetry, and music. Shalom Auslander and Simon Shea offer profound insights into personal struggles and creative expression, while Kara Jackson's musical talents provide a soulful close to the episode. The episode underscores themes of resilience, the power of storytelling, and the beauty of embracing one's authentic self.

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8. Acknowledgments

Live Wire extends gratitude to all participants, including guests Shalom Auslander, Simon Shea, Kara Jackson, and community members Jennifer Foreman and Martha Stiven. Special thanks to sponsors and the production team for their unwavering support.

For more information or to listen to future episodes, visit livewireradio.org.

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Note: All timestamps correspond to the provided transcript and may reference specific segments of the episode.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we are talking to writer and TV creator Shalom Auslander about his latest book, FE A Memoir. Shalom is going to explain what FE actually means and also why this book's topics, which include being attracted to the sea monkeys and also being put off by overly confident T shirts, why that resonates with me so much. Then poet and professional Muay Thai fighter Simon Shea is going to stop by to talk about his new book, Master, and how he sort of thought that competing in this incredibly tough sport, mixed martial arts, was going to help him heal certain wounds. Then finally, we're going to hear some music from poet Kara Jackson, recorded in the lucky barn at this year's Pickathon Music Festival. You are lucky this week that you found Livewire, so stick around. It all starts right after this.

[Elena Passarello]

From prx. It's livewire.

[Luke Burbank]

This week.

[Elena Passarello]

Writer Shalom Oslander.

[Shalom Auslander]

God is great and God's perfect. And then one day he makes a man and things go so downhill so quickly that he spends a lot of the first book trying to get rid of us.

[Elena Passarello]

Poet Simon Shea.

[Simon Shea]

I know a lot of athlete poets, and I think there are quite a few crossovers between athletics and poetry. I think that poetry is not an intellectual activity. I think it's a bodily activity.

[Elena Passarello]

With music from Kara Jackson 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 Passarello. Thanks to everyone who is tuning in from all over these great United States. We have a great show in store for you this week. We're talking to all kinds of interesting folks who are doing interesting things. First, though, of course, we've got to kick things off like we always do with the best news we heard all week. This right here is our little reminder. The top of the show. There's good news happening out there in the world. Alaina, what's the best news that you heard all week?

[Elena Passarello]

Okay, so this is great Oregon news, also great California news. And I bet you in my town, which is an Oregon town full of fisher people and wildlife conservation people and scientists, this is what everyone is talking about. In every coffee shop and grocery store, there's this dam, there's a series of dams actually on the Kalamath river, which is the river that kind of runs the border between Oregon and California. And the J.C. bo Dam is right over the basin. And it's part of a system that was constructed over a century ago to be used as, like, a power source, an agricultural reservoir. But eventually, the dam system depleted 90% of the salmon in the Klamath river basin. Obviously, that had to stop happening, but it took two decades and a lot of lobbying and a lot of tough conversations. But starting in 2022, all of the dams that blocked salmon migration between the basin and the ocean have removed. This is the largest dam removal project in US history. Cost half a billion dollars. And now all 400 miles of the Klamath river is undammed and free for salmon to party up and down it as they are. Anadromous fish. I just learned that word.

[Luke Burbank]

Please. I know what that means. But for the listeners that don't aren't familiar with anadromous. Can you explain.

[Elena Passarello]

Anadromous fish are those fish that swim from the sea. Sea to into freshwater rivers in order to spawn or spend a second part of their lives. So nobody was sure exactly how long it was going to take the salmon to find their way up into the Klamath river basin again. The estimates were that it was going to be until we're like, full steam, like five generations of chinook salmon.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Elena Passarello]

Guess what? Six weeks after the Klamath was freely flowing in August, a team from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife were in a tributary of the basin, and they saw this fin in the water, a real big fin. And they were like, is that a rainbow trout? And it turns out the salmon are already finding their way back, breaking records, surpassing expectations. It's.

[Luke Burbank]

It's.

[Elena Passarello]

It's a miracle. It's so exciting. And I encourage everybody to go to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's website. A sentence I never thought I'd say before. There's underwater video of the salmon. You could tell. Everybody is super excited. And I just have to say that a significant weight of these efforts these past decades were taken on by Native American biologists and politicians and fishermen whose communities were affected by the dams and for whom chinook salmon hold real cultural significance. One member of the Klamath Tribes council called them culture carriers. And Roberta Frost, the secretary of the Klamath tribe, said, they are just like our tribal people, and they know where home is, and they returned as soon as they were able. The salmon have remembered.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I don't think that you can view this through any other lens. My best news story comes from Denver, Colorado, where a woman named Cindy Delhay was going through some old boxes. She was doing some decluttering like we all probably should. And some of Us are not, though. Some of us are me. And as Cindy was going through this box of books, she found that there was a copy of the book Shakespeare's Life of King Henry the Fifth.

[Elena Passarello]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And it didn't look like all the other books in the box because it was in fact a library book. She opened it and realized this book was like overdue, but not like a little bit overdue. It was supposed to be returned in February of 1923 to the Patterson, New.

[Elena Passarello]

Jersey Public Library, 101 years ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but who's counting, right? She had gotten this box of books like years ago from her grandmother. Now, we don't necessarily think that Arlene Delhay, the grandmother, was the one who checked out this book because she would have been basically like a three year old who was checking out like a Henry V book, which, I mean, maybe she was super precocious, but the theory is that it might have been another woman named Lillian L. Burns. Checked the book out from the Patterson Library, but then somehow at some point gifted it to, to Arlene Delhay. And it just stayed with her all these years and then went into this box and then went to her granddaughter in Denver who eventually uncovered it. And so Cindy was like, is there even still this particular public library in Paterson, New Jersey? Turns out it's still there. They were very excited to get the book back all these years later. This is not even the oldest library book that's been returned lately, sort of globally. There was a Poetry of Byron book that was returned in Cumbria, England, that was 113 years overdue.

[Elena Passarello]

Oh my gosh.

[Luke Burbank]

There was a copy of ivanhoe that was 105 years overdue to a Colorado library.

[Elena Passarello]

Wait, did Byron check out his own book? Was that. I think it was a little.

[Luke Burbank]

He was trying to goose the numbers. He was like, nobody's trying to see if I can get a little interest going around this. Anyway, of course the book was not just like pushed back through the slot into the library in Paterson. It was mailed back very carefully. The library is very excited to have the book back. They are not going to just return it to the shelves, but they're going to kind of display. It's cool that the library is getting this extra attention. We know our libraries always need more support. And this is the good news. They have agreed to waive the late fee, which would have been at 10 cents a day for overdue books, $3,686.50. They will not be charging Cindy Delhay or the estate of Arlene Delhay that money, old books being reunited with the Patterson Public Library. That's the best news I heard. All. All right, let's get to our first guest. He is the author of several books, including the memoir Foreskin's Lament. Just let that sink in for a minute. He's also the creator of Showtime's Happyish. His writing has been featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and on this American Life. His new memoir is titled Feh, and it's about unlearning an old story and rewriting a new one for both him and his family. His work has been described as relentlessly funny, subversively heartfelt, and fearlessly provocative. We found him to be all three when we interviewed Shalom Auslander at the Patricia Research center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. Take a listen to this. Hello, Shalom.

[Shalom Auslander]

Hello.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome to the show. I enjoyed this book so much. I get the sense you've been hearing this a lot, that I saw a lot of myself in your experience that you described from your life. But can we just kind of start at the beginning? Can you please explain what FA is and can you use it in a sentence?

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah. The sentence would be Shalom, you're being fa. That's about it. It's a Yiddish term that I heard a lot growing up. I was raised ultra Orthodox, and it just denotes complete and utter disgust in someone or something, usually me. And so the idea that I'm kind of horrible was implanted in a very, very early age, and then sort of. It was sort of confirmed by all the stories in the Old Testament, which is. I referred to in the book as the Big book of you suck. Because that's kind of what it is. It's like every story is God is great and you suck. And, you know, I'll be honest, like, it doesn't. It's not something that's easy to get rid of.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder about that, reading the book, because it does seem so You're. You're kind of. The way that you are hard on yourself in this book is so thorough. And so, you know, I.

[Shalom Auslander]

They did a good job.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah. I mean, it really. It made me want to kind of come in and give you a hug sometimes. I know you. And I. I think I've had people say this to me, which you mention your wife Orly saying this to you at some point, saying, I wish you could see me the way I see you. That's what she says to you. And I've had people say that to me. And why does that not work. Why is that an impossibility?

[Shalom Auslander]

Because at least in my case, we're blinded. We can't see. The book starts with the day of my blinding began like anything else. And it was this first day in yeshiva, a religious school. But from the very beginning, you're told to see yourself in a certain way. And that doesn't go away. Right. So what sort of caused me to start writing the book and thinking about this kind of stuff is that story is more than just a little tale we tell each other. According to most neuroscientists and people who research this stuff, story is our operating system, is the human operating system. It's how we relate to each other. It's why we're doing this ridiculous thing. We sit around and we tell, you know, we tell stories, and that's how we remember. It's how we raise our kids. It's everything. It's culture, it's information. And for some reason we've been telling a story to ourselves for thousands of years where we're the antagonist, we're the bad guy. Right? Always. And I say that as a Jew.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Elena Passarello]

But you're saying like the Old Testament and other books, like it put humans in this kind of role where they're the villains.

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah. I mean, look, God is great and God's perfect, and then one day he makes a man and things go so downhill so quickly that he spends a lot of the first book trying to get rid of us. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Shalom Auslander]

So he makes us. And the first thing my great, great great grandfather did was steal. He stole an apple. God gets pissed off, kicks him and his wife out. They have kids, one kills the other. Then God says, screw all this, I'm flooding the whole damn place. It's just one horrible thing after the next. And so if you're thinking human being, you're going, wait a minute, that's me they're talking about. I'm the bad guy. When any. I think if you, if you took. I've written about this in a previous book, if you took Old Testament, New Testament, Quran, all of it, and you swapped out the name God, you did a fine change and you changed God to Fred. And then you read it to any 5 year old and asked them, who's the bad guy? They would say, Fred. And yet we teach it as if that's someone we should aspire to be like. We should not be trying to be like God.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. You have this really great device in the book of kind of thinking about God watching the sitcom that is your life. And at certain points being, oh, this strains credulity or like, they expect me to buy this. You know, it's like an interesting way to look at it. I want to talk to you after the break about why you probably shouldn't try to use videotape cleaner as a mood enhancer, no matter how good it makes you feel. We're talking to Shalom Auslander. His latest book is feh. This is Livewire. 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] welcome back to Livewire from PRX. We're at the Patricia Research center for the Performing Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. This week we're talking to Shalom Auslander about his latest book, fe. It's a memoir. The book kind of starts out with you in the hospital doing very poorly and no one can figure out why because you will not admit that it's because you were taking some weird off brand diet stuff.

[Shalom Auslander]

It's not off brand. It's like some research chemicals.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. What was it and what impact did it have on you? Did you look incredibly hot afterwards? Did it work?

[Shalom Auslander]

You said you would earlier. You want to give me a hug. But like, part of the book is that every time my wife hugs me, all I can think is she thinks I'm fat. And it's because it's this constant endless judgment that goes on. So among other things, that was one of the results was that I talk a little bit about, for me, hell. Hell is a giant pool surrounded by mirrors and you're not allowed to wear a T shirt and you're there for eternity. And so I heard about, I've always been sort of hating what I look like, so I was always trying to find something to fix it. So it was early days of the Internet. I'd heard about this thing that seemed to be working in rats. And I'm like, how come rats always get the good stuff?

[Luke Burbank]

Look how hot that rat is.

[Shalom Auslander]

This rat had abs. And even though there was like a skull and crossbones on it and it said not for human consumption, I was like, yeah, but that's the good. That's how you know it works. Yeah, you know, that must be the good stuff. Heroin doesn't come with it saying, shoot this. It's like, no, don't. Yeah, so I took it and it shut down my pancreas. And I found myself in the ER and they hooked me up to wires and tubes and they said they're going to have to shut down my whole system for a week. No food, no water, no nothing to try and get it to start again, to stop eating itself. The irony is that because of that I lost about £10. So it kind of worked.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. But just so I understand this, your shame around having taken this thing was greater than your fear that you might die from it because you're not telling the doctor what's actually wrong with you. So you're endangering your own life because you're too mortified to admit to what you've done.

[Shalom Auslander]

Right. So I took something because of shame that I was afraid. Afraid but ashamed to admit I had taken. But that's the cycle. I mean, that's when it's. Look, it's intense. It's not. I laugh at things because that's my way of dealing with it, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily funny. To me, the sort of high bar in writing for myself or anybody or film or whatever is ha ha ha, ouch. And that's why I decided to write. I found Kafka, I found Beckett, Vonnegut, Flannery O'Connor. They all seemed to be doing hahaha, ouch. And I was like, I think I can do that if I just lose ten pounds.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. That was what was holding you back?

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the thing. I don't think people get this because I've spoken to a lot of addicts and I've been around people who've had these problems in their lives, and there's always this thing of like, oh, you just want to get high. Right. I don't think most addicts want to get high. I think they want to get normal. They're low. Right. And so interesting. Freud used to have this thing where he said that his whole project was not to make people happy, it was to bring them up to a normal level of misery, which he did very well. Some more than others, but that's what it is. It's not like I was sitting there going, everything's great. I'd like to be even greater. It's like, you walk around, you see people who seem okay with themselves, they seem happy, they seem. They're laughing, they're with people and everything's good. You're like, well, what do I gotta do to get to that? Because I feel like crap. And what I realized through writing the book and meeting some people who are also really fat in their lives, was that I was either going to have to succumb to it or rewrite the story, because that's the only way you fight back against a story is with another story. And so part of the book is about me trying to rewrite the stories I was told in a. And not in a hey, you're wonderful, Instagram y, you know, crochet pillow kind of thing, but in a. In a. Like, in a way that I can accept that is just less awful.

[Luke Burbank]

Did it have the desired effect?

[Shalom Auslander]

You know, it does. It's interesting. I don't think writing in general is curative. If it was, then everyone would have one book. But I think it's therapeutic. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Elena has, like, four books, so it's clearly not working.

[Elena Passarello]

It's only getting worse.

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah, that's also what happens, right? Yeah. You just go down the rabbit hole.

[Elena Passarello]

Basically, I'm on the floor. Stripper of books. Yeah.

[Shalom Auslander]

And so you keep needing that therapy, so it makes you feel better in the moment. One of the stories I end up with, and I've been doing this sort of video project along at the same time is what if somewhere along the line, I don't know, how, whatever, the story got mixed up and God is really the antagonist and we're the hero. And what happens if you take that prism and you read the entire Old Testament, New Testament, everything through that prism? What happens is it's actually a really great book. It's like, hey, kids, we're going to read the first chapter. And the first chapter isn't, don't steal from God, you thieving little piece of crap. It's, hey, if someone steals an apple from you, calm down. It's not a big deal. It's an apple. It's fruit. Get over it. Take a beat.

[Elena Passarello]

It literally grows back.

[Luke Burbank]

It's gonna be more of that actually grows on trees.

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah, they're all over the floor. And so it becomes this thing of, like, how do you teach your kids? Oh, don't get. Don't fly off the handle. Don't get angry. Oh, you know what? God tried to. You know, they were building a tower, and he was so angry that the tower was big that he mixed up all their languages. It's like, so they're building a tower. It's a tower. They're not going to reach you. You're God. It's just like. And the thought that always ends, it is, don't be like, God, you're better Than that. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. This is LiveWire from PRX, the show that tells you, don't be like God talking to Shalom Auslander about his latest book, Feh. You write about your family a lot in this book. And it seems like, at least at the time of writing, that your kids were pretty unfair.

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

How did you break the cycle?

[Shalom Auslander]

I'm just fantastic. Next question. I don't know. I mean, it was. I think if you're going to have children, okay, this is another lesson from God. Right. Don't be like God and have kids and then resent who they are. Right. Just love them unconditionally. They're your kids. You don't need to go change them. You don't need to make them wear funny hats and pray to you all day long. They're just kids. They do things. They mess around. They make slime and it gets on the couch. They're kids. Love them. Just love them for who they are and everything will be fine.

[Elena Passarello]

Want kids. Want the kids you have.

[Shalom Auslander]

Want the kids you have.

[Elena Passarello]

Seems like a great plan. Read a lot of Kafka.

[Shalom Auslander]

Also read a lot of Kafka. Kafka's everything. Kafka's the funniest writer who ever lived.

[Elena Passarello]

He is funny. Yeah.

[Shalom Auslander]

No, and the problem is that, like, you go to college and they tell you he's not. I was lucky I didn't go to college.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, I forgot that. That's interesting. You're somebody who's obviously a great writer and you're a big reader. But college was not that appealing to you.

[Shalom Auslander]

It wasn't appealing at all. First of all, I was in a point in my life where I just needed to leave home and get a job and just get out of the world I was in. But I didn't have a whole lot of respect for authority to begin with. So me and God never really got along. He runs a tight ship. But I found a used bookstore, and the first time I walked in, I asked the guy what I ask every bookstore owner when I walk in, which is what's funny. And he gave me this book by Kafka, who I'd never heard of before. But then I read this book, and I'm like, what's funny? And he said, well, it's about a guy who wakes up and he's a bug. And I'm like, what's funny about that? And he's like, well, his family hates him for it. I'm like, that's not funny. That's my life. And the real funny part when you read it is not only do they hate him for it and not help at all in his pain, they're happy when he dies. The end. If you know of a funnier story than that, I would like to hear it. What Milan Kandaro identified, I think what Kafka really does, and he said what Kafka does is he goes into the dark depths of a joke. So he starts with a joke, you know, a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar. But then he takes it really seriously, and they become full fledged characters and with full emotion and what thou. Right. And I feel like I think that appeals to me because I think that's life. Life's a joke that we have to take seriously while we're here.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right.

[Shalom Auslander]

Yeah. While we're here, we gotta take it seriously. And stuff hurts, but that's what it is. Ultimately, it makes no sense. It's ridiculous. We're nothing. Then we're here for a minute, we.

[Luke Burbank]

Drink some videotape cleaner, and we're done.

[Shalom Auslander]

Who wouldn't, given that joke, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Shalom Oslander, everyone. The book is back. That was writer Shalom Auslander right here on Livewire. His latest book, fe A Memoir, is out right now. Hey, special thanks this episode to Jennifer Foreman of Portland, Oregon, and Martha Stiven of Lake Oswego, Oregon. Martha and Jennifer are part of the Livewire member community. They are generously supporting the show with a donation each month. And we're extremely thankful for that support because it is how we're able to keep Livewire going week after week. So a huge thanks to Martha and Jennifer. This is Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello, of course. Each week on the show, we ask our audience a question. And now, inspired by Shalom Auslander's book where he talks so much about shame and reclaiming his life from shame, we decided to ask our audience a question. What is something you used to be ashamed of, but it doesn't bother you anymore? We thought we would do something fun this week. We actually sent our producer Melanie Shevchenko out to interview people that were at our live taping at the Patricia Reaser center for the Arts. And this is their response to that question. This is me and Alaina hearing this for the very first time. Let's start off with a band that we love here on Livewire. It's the fine folks from Tropa Magica. This is David from Tropa Magica. I guess, like, as a performer such as the faces I make while I'm singing, like, I'm like, I don't realize that, like I'm making like a four star face, but it's because I'm spinning around, running around, so I'm catching my breath and singing. So I make like these funny faces. And some people might not care about.

[Shalom Auslander]

It because they're like, yeah, he's feeling it. But to me I'm like, oh, dang, I see it later.

[Luke Burbank]

And yeah, I know that feeling. Not because I can rock out like the folks in Tropo Magica, but because I am so self obsessed that I assume people are noticing stuff about me and giving it the least generous read. But people usually aren't. A, they're mostly obsessed with themselves. And two, they probably think that you're just making a cool guitar face on stage.

[Elena Passarello]

That's right. And have you ever seen the band Heim? They're amazing. Founder and bassist. She's just like, like makes all these crazy faces and she's just owning it too.

[Luke Burbank]

She love it.

[Elena Passarello]

She, like, sells merchandise that says bass face and has her picture on it. So I'm glad, glad that we're loving the funk. When the funk gets in the face.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, how about Ezra? This is something Ezra, who was at the show was. Was insecure about, but is now making some peace with when I have a.

[Elena Passarello]

Typo and an email that's just like one off random thing, doesn't matter. But I'm so embarrassed about it every time.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I don't know if Ezra has gotten to the point of. Of total acceptance. It sounds like Ezra's still stuck on the embarrassed part.

[Elena Passarello]

Well, listen to this. There is a typo carved into the Lincoln Memorial and nobody has fixed it. And so if our nation is cool with a stone typo in the memorial to one of our greatest presidents, you should be totally fine accidentally writing goon instead of good.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, one last one. This is from Penny. This is an insecurity that Penny has. That identity believe has actually now turned into a strength.

[Elena Passarello]

So one thing that I'm very, very insecure about, and I feel a great deal of shame about actually, is that I am a plan canceler. I am the friend who, like, if we make plans, you pretty much know if you know me, that there's like a good 1 in 2 chance that I might drop out. And I feel all this embarrassment about it. But then one day I imagined all my friends who love me at my funeral and someone making a joke about how, like, maybe Penny won't show up today. And then I decided that maybe it doesn't matter. Like, it's not that big of a deal and it's just kind of like your friends will love you anyway and maybe. And also, everyone loves getting free time at the last minute. Like, who doesn't? Like, oh, I get to donka out today. Everyone enjoys that. Oh, my God. Every time someone cancels plans, I'm like, thank you, Lord.

[Luke Burbank]

As long as you have waited long enough that you aren't the one that has to cancel. I mean, the perfect crime is someone cancels plans on you that you were low key, hoping you could cancel, and then you get to just be like, all right, well, I'll hope to see you soon, Ivy. I really think the greatest gift we can give each other is to cancel the plans.

[Elena Passarello]

Yes. Also, I'm going to take Penny's advice and everything that I think is annoying about myself, I'm just going to imagine people warmly chuckling about it at my funeral. So, like, what a slob. You know, like.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, thanks to everybody who responded to our listener question. You are listening to LIVEWIRE from prx. Now, our next guest is an award winning poet who can say things with his mind, but also his body as a former professional Muay Thai fighter. His first collection of poetry is titled Master, and it grapples with questions of power and masculinity and trauma. Publishers Weekly calls it an extraordinary investigation of a painful past. Simon Shea joined us at the Patricia Research center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon to talk about it. Take a listen to this. Simon, welcome to Livewire. Thank you, Luke, let's kind of start this conversation at the end of this book of poetry of yours. In the notes you write, these poems are not about what happened to me. They are about the process of writing what happened to me. What do you mean by that exactly?

[Simon Shea]

Yeah, that's a good question. And I love how people read the notes because as I was writing the poems in this book, I realized that I was not writing autobiographically, I was writing poetically. And that was really important to me because I tried to write this book as a memoir, as an autobiography, and it wasn't coming out the way I wanted it. The magic wasn't there. And when I cut out most of the autobiography and replaced it with poetry with imagination, it spoke to me more. So I guess that's just to say that writing this book kind of taught me how to think about what I went through and about myself. And this book is a record of that. It's not really A record of what happened to me.

[Luke Burbank]

You say in the book that before you wrote this book, you were writing poems about the beautiful dark forests of America and smoke. What caused you to change up what you were writing about?

[Simon Shea]

Yeah. I'm fascinated by the way writers treat their subject matter when it's autobiographical, and how they can displace kind of feelings and even events and kind of conjure images that have nothing to do with those events, but that make the reader feel the same way that the writer felt going through those things. But I feel like if I had just given the reader kind of a factual narrative, it wouldn't have conveyed those feelings as strongly because those feelings are really rooted in helplessness, vulnerability, so. But images like smoke and fire or images that I guess have nothing to do with what really happened sometimes serve my purposes better.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you read a poem from the book?

[Simon Shea]

Actually, I'd love to. Yeah. I'll read. Record. In violence, there is no reciprocity like rain on soil. Shanghai, 18 years old. Winner by knockout. The doctor called a stop to the fight when he noticed part of the skull exposed next to his eyebrow, a piece no bigger than an eye. Thailand, 19 years old. Winner by knockout. My lower lip gushing, I drop him with an uppercut as his queen looks on. Her lips bright red, her mouth curled into a smile. Brazil, 20 years old, loser by knockout. One night before. Hoodie drenched in sweat, 10 pounds in two hours. Then newspapers soaked through with grease. Endless slices of watermelon at the churrascaria. Then his knee shattering the bone around my left eye. The doctors called it orbital. My mistake. Resting my head on his shoulder, letting him cradle it in his arms. And to think, all those years and not a moment of pain.

[Luke Burbank]

That is Simon Shea reading from his book of poetry, Master, here on Livewire. I'm curious what. You were a very competitive mixed martial artist fighting Muay Thai. What was appealing about that for you? It seems just like so brutal and scary to be a part of. And that poem, by the way, isn't dissuading me from that notion, but I.

[Simon Shea]

So I got into Muay Thai through karate. I did karate as a child. I was really drawn to the, I guess, very rigid culture and structure of hierarchical structure in the karate school, where there was a clear, you know, master figure that I would bow down to, and he was the authority. I was also very attracted to the violence, the spectacle, because I felt, as a child very sensitive myself. Looking back, I think what I was doing was I was punishing myself for being such a sensitive boy. Because I looked around me and I saw, you know, boys, men that were not like me, that were not. Didn't at least present as sensitive. And I felt like it was wrong for me to be this, you know, quiet, shy, sensitive boy. So I think that I put myself in those situations because I wanted to prove something to myself. And that's how I got started with Muay Thai.

[Luke Burbank]

What do you think made you good at it?

[Simon Shea]

I think I was really determined and disciplined, and I think that I was trying to heal a wound in myself. And I think that that's often the source of a lot of great achievement is this, you know, trying to fix something. And I was definitely trying to fix something. I say that when I was trying to punch someone else in Muay Thai, I was actually punching myself, which is funny, but it's also not funny, but I think it's true.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. We're talking to Simon Shea. His new collection of poetry is called Master. This is Livewire from prx. Is there a connection between mixed martial arts and poetry? They seem like wildly different endeavors.

[Simon Shea]

Yeah, they are. And I don't know many mixed martial arts poets. I know a lot of athlete poets, and I think there are quite a few crossovers between athletics and poetry. I think that poetry is not an intellectual activity. I think it's a bodily activity. And so I think that's kind of the intersection of athletics and poetry. I need to feel the poem in my body, and if I don't, then I know it's not working. And I'll often write when I'm moving, like, physically moving my body. So usually I'm walking, writing in my notes app. Very seldom am I telling myself I'm going to sit down and write something. And then I write. I usually have all this material, and then I sit down and I kind of bring the material together on the computer. But most of the generation generating the work comes when I'm moving around. So there's a few intersections, I think.

[Elena Passarello]

Did you do the two at the same time ever, or are those two different parts of your life?

[Simon Shea]

I never did them at the same time. I wrote some poems when I was a teenager, but just very sporadically and in kind of fits and bursts, but they're very separate. And when I started writing poetry, it's because I had decided to quit fighting. And it was kind of a conscious decision on my part because I needed to choose one or the other, either fighting or something else. It happened to be poetry. But when I started writing, I couldn't write about fighting. It Took me a long time to figure out how to write about my experience as a fighter. And I think because it was so kind of close to me and because fighting is a difficult thing to put language to anyway. But, yeah, they've always been very separate from me.

[Luke Burbank]

I know this is not what it's about, but could you probably kick any other poet's ass?

[Simon Shea]

Definitely.

[Luke Burbank]

Right?

[Simon Shea]

Definitely.

[Luke Burbank]

Looking at you, Billy Collins. Only this crowd would go for a Billy Collins joke.

[Simon Shea]

Poor Billy.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to be careful that I'm not making light of the content of the book, which, again, is very serious. And you processing a time in your life, did the writing of this help you process that? Do you feel differently about that time in your life now with this book having been created than you did before?

[Simon Shea]

I do. I think. I don't like to kind of jump to this idea that writing is catharsis because I think that that's maybe too easy and too simple. But writing it helped me understand kind of who I was better as a child and why I made the decisions that I made. Because even though this book is about a master figure who was manipulative, misogynistic, who was a terrible mentor but also wanted to be a mentor, you probably know the type. Even though it's about this figure, it's actually about me. And it's about kind of why I was so attracted to that as a child and what kind of drew me into his allure. So writing this book helped me understand that about myself.

[Shalom Auslander]

More.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Well, it's a really, really beautiful piece of writing, Simon. Thanks for doing it. The book is Master Simon Shea here on Livewire, everybody. That was Simon Shea right here on Livewire. Make sure you check out his book Master. It's really incredible. And it is out now. It's Livewire from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We have to take a very quick break, but do not go anywhere. When we come back, we are going to hear some music from singer songwriter Kara Jackson and we're going to find out why her music should not just be reduced to sad indie. When it comes to the streaming services, it will all make sense in a moment. Stay with us. This is 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 from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Alright, it's what is possibly my favorite part of the show when we play a little station location identification examination. This is where I get to quiz our incredible announcer Elena Passarello about a place in the United States where Livewire is on the radio. Elena has to guess where I am talking about. This city is it's small but mighty and it's got a number of popular tourist attractions. It's got a restored rail station with a railroad museum that was built in 1902. It's home to the International Fly Fishing Federation's museum. So fly fishing, where does that start to kind of locate you towards?

[Elena Passarello]

Well, that Brad Pitt movie was set in Montana, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

There you go. That's my number one reference point for fly fishing too, is a river running through it. Speaking of films, there have been a number of films that are shot in this place in Montana. The horse whisperer in 1998 and then everybody's favorite from 2015, cowboys versus dinosaurs.

[Elena Passarello]

I only know a few names of towns in Montana.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I'm gonna keep narrowing it down because it's not Bozeman or like a town that you might have heard of. It is a town, I'm told that is mentioned in a Jimmy Buffett song. Oh, you can hear the music playing. You can hear the fiddler saw. Everybody's raising hell up and down these.

[Elena Passarello]

Streets in is it Margaritaville, Montana?

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, from your lips to Jimmy Buffett's ears. Maybe someday. Rest in peace, R.I.P. but no, for now we know it as Livingston, Montana, where we are on the radio on KYPM FM. So shout out to everybody there in Livingston. Okay, we gotta get to our musical guest in a moment. First though, I just want to give you all a preview of next week's show we are going to be having on our pal, the comedian and Emmy award winner W. Kamau Bell, talking about his substack newsletter. It's a very cool little view into Kamau's mind. I am a subscriber to it. It's called who's With Me? We're also going to talk to the journalist Jane Marie. Jane Marie also has an Emmy under her belt and has written the book Selling the Dream. The Billion dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans. It looks at multi level marketing companies. Think of like Amway, Mary Kay Tupperware these days, probably any wellness product that's being pitched to you on Instagram. Then we're going to hear some absolutely gorgeous music from the indie band Ila Bamba. So tune in next week for all of that. In the meantime, you are tuned to Livewire from prx. Our musical guest this week has a background in poetry, to say the least. In fact, she was named the US Youth Poet Laureate and you can really hear hear it in her songs, which we got to hear at this year's Pick a Thon Music Festival. In case you're not familiar with Pick a Thon, it's a four day experiential music festival that brings talent from around the world to Happy Valley, Oregon. So take a listen to this. It's a conversation and a performance from Kara Jackson recorded at the Lucky Barn at Pickathon. Something I've read about you is, you know, you're from Chicago, but you feel a really strong connection to the south by way of your elders. How has that kind of informed your music and just how you think about life?

[Kara Jackson]

Yeah, it's definitely really a big influence for me. Just like my family. I'm very close with everyone in my family and I grew up in Chicago, but I have spent my time going to Georgia like since I was an infant and seeing my grandparents and stuff. My dad's from like a really tiny town in Georgia called Dawson. Before I knew, like, poetry in a formal way. I think the way that my family is and like Southern idioms and just the way that, you know, old people talk, like, it can be very poetic. I think my grandparents are just really witty people and my parents as well. So I just kind of grew up with their wit and their stories and that really, I think gave me an affinity for like, storytelling in general.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like there's so much humor in your music and yet I've been listening to so much of your music lately that the Spotify is now telling me other channels I might like. And one of them was just sad indie, which I feel was very reductive of what you're doing.

[Kara Jackson]

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, of course, like folk and the blues are like, you know, cousins. And there's kind of an association with, you know, like girl playing the guitar equals sad. But I think that, I mean, even someone like Joni Mitchell who was so confessional and like, you know, honest and raw about her life and her feelings, like there's so much witness there and like, also cleverness that I think sometimes gets lost when you kind of reduce women to like, their sadness and even like you know, I've always loved, like, Fiona Apple, and I think there's kind of a, like, Mitsky talks about this, like, the word confessional and like, diaristic being subscribed to women artists and how that kind of robs us of our roles as, like, literary people and as actual writers and people who are working on a craft. Like, I think that folk music is such a complex and deep genre with so much history and, like, I think there's so many layers to it. I also approach life with, you know, humor. I think it helps me cope with the bigger, larger, harder things in life. So, yeah, I try to sprinkle something in there.

[Luke Burbank]

It's coming through, even if the Spotify algorithm is missing it. But without further ado, Kara Jackson.

[Kara Jackson]

This next one is a song called Pawn Shop. And I wrote this song thinking about second hand shopping. I think about shopping a lot. I'm a Libra, so I'm very guilty of shopping too much. But I was thinking about the way that love is kind of like shopping in a secondhand store, you know, digging through trash, trying to make treasure out of it. But I think also sometimes you can kind of feel like you're being handed off to the Salvation army or something. You know, when you think you have a good thing going, it's like, nope, I'm in the giveaway pile. But yeah, I think love can kind of feel like that sometimes. But as a secondhand shopper, I also feel like it can be pretty awesome when you find something really great. So stress is secondhand. So, you know, retail value is important. This is pawn shop. You become somebody's band and their heart becomes your loot. What kind of player does that make you? Breaking your hearts and selling them too. You pick me in a pawn shop I was used Book it as new, shiny as a tattoo, but permanent as party balloons. Wake up, I want to see you darling you said to me one morning this is why I'm always broken you never end up showing and I'm not a liquidated ass and I'm sharper than a Jew what kind of miner does that make you? When I'm the golden. You're just a fool, you're just a fool.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Kara Jackson right here on Livewire performing a song called Pawn Shop from her critically acclaimed album, why does the earth give us people to love? That performance was recorded at the Lucky Barn as part of this year's Pickathon 2024 music festival. You want to learn more about Pickathon, go to their website, Pickathon or check them out on Instagram. That's gonna do it for another fun filled and eventful episode of Livewire. A huge thanks to our guests Shalom Auslander, Simon Shea and Kara Jackson.

[Elena Passarello]

Lara Haddon 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 Technical director and our house sound is by Nate Zwanelec. Ashley park is our production fellow and Becky Phillips and Andrea Castro Martinez are our interns.

[Luke Burbank]

Our house band is Sam Pinkerton, Ethan Fox, Tucker, Al Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Eben Hoffer and Molly Pettit. Special thanks this week to Jason Powers and the fine folks at Saraband Books.

[Elena Passarello]

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'd like to thank member Jennifer Foreman of Portland, Oregon and Martha Stiven of Lake Oswego, Oregon.

[Luke Burbank]

For more information about the show or how you can listen to our podcast, visit livewireradio.org I am Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire team. Thanks for listening 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 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.

[Shalom Auslander]

From PRX.