Rachel (4:19)

I was so incredibly lucky to have filmmaker David lynch on our show. He died seven months after we talked. Lynch was always into the metaphysical, right? And he was deeply spiritual. So this answer that he gave me to the memory time machine question shouldn't necessarily have surprised me. But it still did, I think in part because of all the verve in his voice when he told the story. You'll see what I mean. Which moment are you going to choose?

David Lynch (4:48)

Okay, so I was. I heard about this show at the LA County Art Museum. All these things from India were coming over from the Far East. Great giant sandstone carvings. So I went with my second wife, Mary, and my daughter Jennifer. We went over to see the show and we got separated. They went one place and I went another on my own. And I was going along this white wall and I turned around the corner and I realized it was part of a wall that was used to create a long corridor. So when I walked around the end of the white wall, I turned and I saw I was looking down a long corridor. And my eyes went down the long corridor and there at the end of the long corridor was a pedestal. And on top of the pedestal there was the head of Buddha. And my eyes went up the pedestal and landed on the head of Buddha and boom, white light shot out of the head of Buddha and shot into me. And I was balloon filled with bliss. I was filled with so much bliss. I had it for hours, this bliss in me from the head of Buddha.

Rachel (6:19)

Wow, that beats, you know, sitting on the grass in my front yard with my mom and some sun tea, which is usually the memory that I go to in a map.

David Lynch (6:31)

That's a beautiful memory you've got there. That's a beautiful thing. That's beautiful. Are you kidding me?

Rachel (6:36)

I know it's beautiful.

David Lynch (6:37)

And look at the happiness you had there in that, in that moment. It's all about this happiness and a good feeling.

Rachel (6:48)

The thing to remember about the memory time machine is that you don't have to take it somewhere filled with bliss and good feelings. Remember, it's a place you just want to linger in a little longer. And for actor Rob Delaney, that meant revisiting an impossibly difficult time in his life.

Rob Delaney (7:04)

Well, I'm gonna try not to cry for radio, but it would be taking a nap in my son's hospital room while he took a nap when he.

Terry Crews (7:18)

Would fall asleep in his hospital bed.

Rob Delaney (7:20)

Cause he was 2 when he died and, you know, 2 year olds still nap. So in the afternoon, if we'd been doing whatever we were doing in the morning and had lunch and nap time rolled around, I'd set him up for.

Terry Crews (7:34)

His nap and we were usually in.

Rob Delaney (7:38)

A chemo ward and I would lie.

Terry Crews (7:42)

Down on the bed that they have.

Rob Delaney (7:43)

For the parent in the room there and put on a little music and take a nap with him.

Barry Jenkins (7:48)

And we would sleep in the same.

Rob Delaney (7:50)

Room and we would dream together and be there. That's what I would pick.

Rachel (8:06)

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Rob Delaney (8:37)

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Rachel (9:31)

Next up, we've got actor Terry Crews and his memory Time machine pick. Was this lovely moment with his wife made more profound because of the context. Take a listen. What moment do you choose?

Terry Crews (9:44)

Oh, it was a great man. The moment just came up. It was beautiful. Dodger Stadium. Look, I don't even like baseball. Look, I can't play it. Don't know it. Don't even know what the rules are. I'm at Dodger Stadium at a baseball game, and my wife and I had just been regrouped. We rededicated ourselves. We had been married 20 years and almost broke up, but we had. We'd been through therapy and the whole thing, but we rededicated ourselves to each other. And she had just sang the national.

Rachel (10:22)

Anthem at the game.

Sandra Cisneros (10:23)

Wow.

Terry Crews (10:24)

But she comes off the field and the sun is going down, and I've never been happier. I was like, wow, like, we're going to do this. Going to make. Just made me go. I'm so thankful. I'm just. It was. My heart just exploded with full of gratitude for having my wife, for my family, for still being here and being able to enjoy this moment, being able to enjoy this game. I don't even understand, you know, it was just a full, like, wow. It was one of those. Aww. It was a bit of an awe moment. But, man, that's a great memory. Just a great memory.

Rachel (11:13)

When film director Barry Jenkins got to go in the memory time machine, he chose to go back to the infamous night of the Oscars in 2017. You remember this when Warren Beatty announced La La Land as best picture. And then it turned out that Barry Jenkins movie Moonlight was the actual winner.

Barry Jenkins (11:31)

It was absolutely chaotic. Just talk about again.

Rachel (11:36)

Totally absolute chaos.

Barry Jenkins (11:38)

Yes, absolutely chaotic. And typically, you would expect that, oh, I wish they would have just said moonlight and it would have been a normal thing. I don't wish that because, you know, sometimes you go into a foreign country and, you know, the custom sports are like, oh, and what do you do? And they. Oh, what have you? Well, you know, you wouldn't know. But you remember that thing with the envelope. Oh, I made that film.

Terry Crews (11:58)

People always really.

Rachel (11:59)

Oh, my God.

Barry Jenkins (12:00)

And so. Yeah, and so I don't. I wouldn't change the way it happened, but I just didn't allow myself to be present. And so I just don't have a memory of that moment, that night, that event. I just don't it's all just. It kind of. I feel like it. It got away from me. It eclipsed me. It eclipsed my experience in a certain way.

Rachel (12:23)

So you want to go back and actually have a memory. So we are changing it a little bit because you want to actually pay attention in that moment.

Barry Jenkins (12:29)

Well, you said that you could live in for a longer time.

Rachel (12:32)

Yeah, There you go.

Barry Jenkins (12:34)

And I do wish I could have had more time with that moment. Not because of winning Best Picture, but it was the culmination, you know, a dela Romanski. We went on this journey to create something in our image. This very small story about myself and this gentleman, Terrell, Ivan McCraney's life. And look at how far it traveled. Look at how many people it impacted. And at the moment when that was celebrated, I just don't have a memory of it. I don't have that in body. I hasten to even talk about that because it's so far in the past.

Rachel (13:09)

No, but it's still. Yeah, it's still.

Barry Jenkins (13:11)

You asked the question, and so it is. It is the answer.

Rachel (13:14)

God, Barry, how much I wish I actually did have the power to put you in a magical time machine. So.

Barry Jenkins (13:20)

So you can do Rachel. This is the power of what you do. You just did.

Rachel (13:23)

Okay.

Barry Jenkins (13:24)

You just did.

Sandra Cisneros (13:25)

Okay.

Rachel (13:25)

I hope so.

Barry Jenkins (13:26)

You just did. And I thank you for it.

Rachel (13:28)

As a person who watched it, it was a beautiful moment. It was awesome. You were great.

Barry Jenkins (13:35)

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have been at a watch party watching. As someone who watches a lot of live sports. Watching that happen would have just been absolute madness.

Rachel (13:44)

It was madness. And. And it was magic. One moment in your past that you would not change anything about.

Natasha Rothwell (13:55)

Oh, thank you.

Rachel (13:56)

This is the author Sandra Cisneros. She shared her memory time machine moment with me in front of a live audience at the National Book Festival last fall. It was magical, and I expected nothing less.

Natasha Rothwell (14:09)

I've written about it. It's called Akumal. It's a place in the Yucatan, away from Cancun, in that neck of the woods. And I had a mystical experience when I was very young. I've had a lot of mystical experiences, but that was, like, major. I went there with my parents just before I started graduate school. And my father and mother were very interested in getting water, and we stopped. At that time, Akumal was. There were no hotels, no condos like now. It was just some hammocks strung up between palm trees and some little sheds selling drinks. And they left me alone. And I lay down on a very shallow body of water that was a little inlet. I don't like beaches and I don't like water. And I'm not a great swimmer, so it has to be like that shallow for me to want to get in. And it was the softest sand. If you've been to the Mayan Riviera, you know, it's the softest sand in the world. And it was all rippled like the roof of your mouth, so when you lay down on it, it cushions you at the right places. And the water was warm and the palm branches were giving me a cleansing. And the wind was just right and the ocean was lapping at my earlobes. And suddenly everything shifted by itself. And I was in a state that we don't have a word for. It was like I understood what the Buddha understood, that I was connected to everything. I could never die because I was also the wind and the trees and the water and the sand and the universe and everything was one textile. It was all interwoven. And I understood that. And I knew that, you know, well, I don't mind dying right now. This is perfectly fine because I can't die. And it was so wonderful. I don't know how many seconds or years or minutes I was in that state of absolute bliss. And then my father said, sandra Vavanos. And I had get up and go back to the real world and get in the car. And I thought, what the hell? What was that? I was too young to know what that was. I still am not old enough to know what that was. And whatever it was, it just was a little like, you know, zoom, we're going to give her a little laser beam. And I thought that was so amazing.

Rachel (16:51)

So every once in a while, a memory time machine trip completely surprises me, which is how I felt about Natasha Rothwell's choice. It was so honest and so intimate and also relatable. And it left me wanting to scream from the rooftops to all the women I know this, this. Listen to this. What moment do you choose?

Uzo Aduba (17:15)

I'm thinking specifically, I went on a trip to Greece and I was there with like, some friends. And I just remember floating in the pool in this two piece. And at one point I took. At one point I took my top off.

Rachel (17:43)

As you do.

Uzo Aduba (17:44)

As you do. And I was just kind of floating there and I was at such peace, but it was also peace with my body and myself. It was just kind of like a freedom. And this is coming from someone who, like, would wear giant T shirts over a one piece at the community pool when I was younger. So to be at this pool, and I should clarify, this wasn't a public pool. This was at the place you were staying. My courage is not that far up to go to a nude beach, but in the privacy of this, this place. We were staying in this quiet moment by myself and I was floating in this little donut and just had my eyes closed and I was just drifting and I was just like, had no worry in the world, but I was just so in my body, which I struggle with a lot. And I just was just like had, you know, tits out, a beer in my hand. It was bliss. I would not change a thing about that moment.

Rachel (18:52)

I love it.

Rob Delaney (19:01)

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Rachel (20:34)

Okay, next, in our favorite memory time machine moments, we've got actress Uzo Aduba. What moment do you choose?

Sandra Cisneros (20:42)

It's just a moment. I'd like to linger in a little longer. I think it will have to be the I'm just gonna go with the first thing that came into my mind. Senior portrait day in high school.

Rachel (21:03)

Not usually a thing that people want to relive. I'm already intrigued.

Sandra Cisneros (21:09)

Yes, this was a Turning point for me. And these were the fancy school pictures. Cause it was the senior year picture, you know, so kind of like a photo shoot. And he's taking my picture. I'm laughing and being myself and chill, easy. And as soon as he would take his camera up to take my picture, I would stop laughing. Wide mouth. And start smiling like this.

Rachel (21:37)

Mouth shut.

Sandra Cisneros (21:38)

Yep, mouth shut. And he said to me, you know, why do you keep smiling like that? And I said, I don't know. And he said, no. Why? What's it about? And I said, I don't like my gap. Because I was very self conscious of my gap at that time. I wanted braces so bad.

Rachel (21:54)

The gap in your teeth. Yeah.

Sandra Cisneros (21:55)

And I just remember he had his camera in his hand and he just said, like, I think you have a beautiful smile. And my mom had been saying that to me my whole life. My family, everybody. And I never believed it. But that day, for some reason, I believed him for the first time. He was the first person I ever believed. And it stuck with me. I don't know who that guy is.

David Lynch (22:25)

What a gift.

Sandra Cisneros (22:25)

But I owe him a lot.

Rachel (22:27)

Yeah.

Sandra Cisneros (22:27)

And it just changed in my head. Like it didn't matter what the outside thinks. It's what do I think? And so now I smile all the time. And I always say I think it's because I'm making up for lost smiles. And my mother actually used to hate that story. Cause she's like, I used to tell you, I told you all the time, you had a beautiful smile. Now this random man comes and tells me, now you believe him. You know, she hated. She was like, this ridiculous story my daughter's telling.

Terry Crews (22:56)

No.

Rachel (22:56)

We can hear the same message for years and years and years. And sometimes you just have to be open in a different time and place, and a different person has to tell you the impression.

Sandra Cisneros (23:04)

Correct. Correct.

Rachel (23:05)

And it sinks into you in a new way.

Sandra Cisneros (23:06)

Correct. But that has lived in my DNA forever. And if I could even go and revisit that moment and appreciate it, then I wish I could, so I could smile on that day, on that picture day. But it stayed with me. I think you have a beautiful smile.

Rachel (23:24)

Brett Goldstein mulled over his options for the memory time machine.

Barry Jenkins (23:28)

I absolutely can't. Can't tell you my first answer.

Rachel (23:31)

Which of course made me want to know that story. But I don't get to push them in a certain direction when we're in the memory time machine. So I had to settle for what was clearly the answer that was fit for public consumption.

Barry Jenkins (23:44)

Second Answer would be.

Terry Crews (23:51)

I don't.

Barry Jenkins (23:52)

I don't think I'm finding this one difficult, but give me. Give me another minute.

Rachel (23:58)

You want to sit here all day?

Jenny Slate (23:58)

Yeah.

Barry Jenkins (23:59)

Okay. Something I'd want to sit in. I mean, for real. I. I say it in the special, but I really mean it was the best day of my life when I went to Sesame Street. Just give it to me. And there was a thing that I watched, and I could have stayed longer after I did all my stuff, and they were very, very nice to me, and they. They still had more stuff to shoot. And they said, would you. Would you like to go? Would you like to hang out? And I was like, fucking hang out. And I watched a group of grown people, older than me, I believe, on lying on their back on skateboards with cat puppets on their hands, riding into each other and pretending and. And playing catch, trying to catch a ball in the air whilst pretending, whilst making cat noises. And I thought, this is fucking brilliant. And I did think, I would like to retire here on Sesame street and just do any job on this. Like, it was truly like a collective everyone imbuing this thing with magic. And it was so fun and so lovely and so stupid. Just these fucking adults on skateboards smashing into each other and going. And I thought, that's fucking great. It's great. I could have. So I would have extended the day at Sesame Street.

Rachel (25:48)

Our last destination in the memory time machine today comes courtesy of the young adult author Jason Reynolds. And it must be said that my conversation with Jason is one of the most profound I have ever had on this show. And I really urge you to check it out if you haven't already. Jason's memory time machine taps into something all of us who have lost someone feel. Which moment do you choose?

Terry Crews (26:13)

Oh, I. No, my father, when I. When I finally made it, started to make a couple dollars, you know, I went and I bought myself a 911. A Porsche 911. Cherry Red, guard red, as the Porsche people say. And I took it to my father's house. My father had been fighting cancer for a while at this point, but he was home. He had done some surgeries. It was looking good, and I took it. He was a car man, specifically American muscle. He loved the Mustang. He loved a Corvette. Those were his cars. And he did not like anything other than those cars. But I took my German sports car to his house and he came outside, and at first he thought I'd bought a Tesla because I had been teasing him that I was gonna buy a Tesla, which he was very much like, are you crazy? We don't, you know, all of that. And so he comes outside and he sees this car, and his eyes light up, and he's like, let me drive it. And he gets in the car, and we pull out onto the main road. He lived in the country, and we drove about. We pushed it to about 150 miles an hour maybe. And I remember him slowing the car down, and I'm looking at him and I'm like, man, mind you, I'm white knuckling. And he's like. And we pulled back into his driveway, and he's like, I won't lie to you. I was a little afraid, right? And we just bust out laughing. We had this moment. And then right after that, he told me that he was gonna die. So right after that, he said, look, I'm not gonna be able to beat this thing. And I probably got six weeks. And so I just wanted, you know, so we started to have a very different conversation. And it was all very lovely, honestly, but painful, you know? And if I could extend a moment, me and the old man, we would have driven a lot longer. We would have taken a. We would have taken a road trip. We would have. And we had taken a road trip two years before, but we would have done it in the Porsche. We would have just tore the road apart. Because it was the last time that I saw my father alive. He was living for another six weeks, but the last time I saw that thing in his eye that reminded me of who he was and what he had given me. This knucklehead kid who had a penchant for toys. And I'm just like him, you know, fast cars and all the things, all the stupid stuff of boyhood. I. You know, I think about that often. You know, this is after telling me that he had a fake Rolex. I always thought he had a real Rolex. Like, all of these, like, it was. You know what I mean? Like, just, you know, like, he set all these standards for me, that I grew into this man who got all the better versions of the things he was pretending to have. And so I just wish he would have lived a little longer for me to give him and show him some of the sweet bits.

Rachel (29:41)

If you like this episode, I encourage you to go back and listen to or watch all of these episodes in full. Many of them are on our YouTube page. All you have to do is search for Wild Card with Rachel Martin. This episode was produced by Taylor Hutchison and Summer Tomad, Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni and our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei. You can reach out to us@wildcardpr.org and you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.

Progressive Insurance (30:18)

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Rob Delaney (30:50)

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