Podcasts about neil you

Finn Thank you! Thank you sound effects! Thank you, Neil! Is this all for me? I feel like quite a celebrity! 芬恩 谢谢你！ 谢谢音效！ 谢谢你，尼尔！ 这一切都是为了我吗？ 我感觉自己真是个名人啊！Neil Yes, a celebrity – someone famous - particularly someone in show business, that's the world of entertainment, theatre and film. Today we're talking about fame, and teaching you some related vocabulary.尼尔 是的，名人——著名的人——尤其是演艺界的人，这就是娱乐、戏剧和电影的世界。 今天我们谈论的是名气，并教给大家一些相关的词汇。Finn Yes. Some celebrities are famous for their talent, which means by their ability to do something well, like singing, acting or telling jokes …芬恩 是的。 有些名人因其才华而闻名，这意味着他们有能力做好某件事，例如唱歌、表演或讲笑话……Neil And others are famous for… well, for being famous or being associated with someone who is. The names Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian come to mind: wealthy women with their own TV shows. But, talking about celebrity, let me ask you a question.尼尔 其他人则因……嗯，因出名或与出名的人有联系而出名。 我想到了帕丽斯·希尔顿和金·卡戴珊这两个名字：拥有自己的电视节目的富有女性。 但是，说到名人，让我问你一个问题。Finn Actually Neil, only if you play that lovely applause again. Go on Neil!芬恩 事实上，尼尔，只要你再次响起那可爱的掌声。 尼尔加油！Neil I knew you would love this. Right. Here it goes.尼尔 我知道你会喜欢这个。 正确的。 就这样吧。Finn Yes! Anyway, Neil... I can give you my autograph later…芬恩 是的！ 不管怎样，尼尔……我稍后可以给你签名……Neil You mean signature? An autograph is the signature of a famous person, Finn. Fans collect these and things like photographs.尼尔 你说签名？ 亲笔签名是名人芬恩的签名。 粉丝们收集这些东西以及照片之类的东西。Finn Yes, we call things like those memorabilia.芬恩 是的，我们称这些东西为纪念品。Neil For example, Michael Jackson's leather glove with shiny crystals - it became very famous in the 1980s when he presented his moonwalk to the world. How much was it sold for at auction in 2009? Was it: 尼尔 例如，迈克尔·杰克逊 (Michael Jackson) 的带有闪亮水晶的皮手套 - 在 20 世纪 80 年代，当他向全世界展示他的太空步时，它就变得非常出名。 2009年的拍卖会上，它卖了多少钱？ 是：a) US$ 150,000b) US$ 250,000 orc)US$ 350,000Finn I think Michael Jackson has some big fans in the world so I'll say c) US$ 350,000.芬恩 我认为迈克尔·杰克逊在世界上有一些忠实的粉丝，所以我会说 c) 350,000 美元。Neil Okay. I'll give you the answer at the end of the programme.尼尔 好的。 我会在节目结束时给你答案。Finn So the idea of celebrity seems very modern in some ways – does it have a long history?芬恩 因此，名人的观念在某些方面似乎非常现代——它有悠久的历史吗？Neil Well, Lord Byron, a very famous English poet born in 1788, is considered by some experts to be the world's first modern-style celebrity. Let's hear Dr Corin Throsby, English Literature researcher at Cambridge University.尼尔 那么，拜伦勋爵，一位非常著名的英国诗人，出生于1788年，被一些专家认为是世界上第一位现代风格的名人。 让我们来听听剑桥大学英语文学研究员 Corin Throsby 博士的看法。Finn Why was Byron a celebrity?芬恩 拜伦为何成为名人？Neil Listen out for the noun she uses in the first sentence meaning a product, or something for sale.尼尔 仔细听她在第一句中使用的名词，意思是产品或待售物品。If we think of celebrity as the moment where someone's personality becomes a commodity. So, for Byron the fact that he was popular on this scale that had never been achieved before because his career had coincided with mass printing. But something more than that, that there was a sort of a secondary industry of Byron stuff, you know, that there were Byron neck ties, people wanted to look like Byron. There was this mass of people that loved him. He could no longer control his image. I think that's what separates celebrity from the fame that had preceded that.如果我们将名人视为某人的个性成为商品的时刻。 因此，对于拜伦来说，他的受欢迎程度是前所未有的，因为他的职业生涯恰逢大规模印刷。 但更重要的是，有一种拜伦的东西的第二产业，你知道，有拜伦的领带，人们想要看起来像拜伦。 有这么多人爱他。 他已经无法控制自己的形象了。 我认为这就是名人与之前的名气的区别。Finn So the noun was 'a commodity'. She said that when someone's personality becomes a product, that's when they turn into a celebrity. 芬恩 所以这个名词是“商品”。 她说，当一个人的个性成为一种产品时，他就成为了名人。Neil She talked of fame so big you can't control your own image – that's your reputation, the way other people think about you and imagine you. Someone interesting in this respect is Justin Bieber.尼尔 她谈到名气太大了，你无法控制自己的形象——这就是你的声誉，别人对你的看法和想象。 贾斯汀·比伯（Justin Bieber）在这方面很有趣。Finn Yeah. Are you a fan, Neil?是的，你是他的一个粉丝?Neil I'm a massive fan of Justin Bieber. I love him.尼尔 我是贾斯汀·比伯的超级粉丝。 我爱他。Finn I believe you.芬恩 我相信你。Neil He's a big name and he's always in the newspapers. His fans are called 'Beliebers'…尼尔 他是个大人物，总是出现在报纸上。 他的粉丝被称为“Beliebers”……Finn and Byron's fans were called 'Byron maniacs'. That's the name his wife gave his adoring fans. Though she wasn't too happy about them. 芬恩 拜伦的粉丝被称为“拜伦狂人”。 这是他的妻子给他崇拜的粉丝起的名字。 虽然她对他们不太高兴。Neil Yes. Byron's life was full of scandals, actions which cause shock and disapproval among people.尼尔 是的。 拜伦的一生充满了丑闻，其行为引起了人们的震惊和不满。Finn And for Byron it was mainly his love life. He had affairs with men and women. 芬恩 对于拜伦来说，这主要是他的爱情生活。 他与男人和女人发生过关系。Neil For Justin Bieber it's about his behaviour. He was accused of driving after drinking alcohol, and of vandalism.尼尔 对于贾斯汀·比伯来说，这与他的行为有关。 他被指控酒后驾车和破坏公物。Finn Vandalism means causing damage to property.芬恩 故意破坏是指造成财产损失。Neil Poor Justin Bieber!尼尔 可怜的贾斯汀比伯！Finn Though he's very popular - his career started when he was in his early teens and I think it must have been difficult growing up with this global fame. Still, I wonder how much his autograph is worth in the current market…芬恩 尽管他很受欢迎，但他的职业生涯在他十几岁的时候就开始了，我认为在这样的全球声誉中成长一定很困难。 不过，我想知道他的签名在目前的市场上值多少钱……Neil Well,I don't know about Justin Bieber's autograph but I do know about Michael Jackson's shiny glove. It became iconic in the 1980s, but how much was it sold for? Was it US$ 150,000; US$ 250,000 or c) US$ 350,000?尼尔 好吧，我不知道贾斯汀·比伯的亲笔签名，但我知道迈克尔·杰克逊的闪亮手套。 它在 20 世纪 80 年代成为标志性建筑，但它的售价是多少？ 是15万美元吗？ 250,000 美元还是 c) 350,000 美元？Finn I said c) US$ 350,000.我说是C)350000元Neil And you were right.尼尔 你是对的。Finn Wow! That's rare.哇，好难得Neil Did you buy it?尼尔 你买了吗？Finn It wasn't me. No.不是我，我没有买。Neil Well, our time's up but let's remember the words we heard from today. Finn.尼尔 好吧，我们的时间到了，但让我们记住今天听到的话。 芬恩.Finn We heard:芬恩 我们听到了：celebrity名人show business影视圈talent人才autograph签名memorabilia纪念品commodity商品image照片scandal绯闻vandalism蓄意破坏

"Neil, his name is Neil" You'll get it once you hear the episode. Future YOU mindset The Magic of Christmas reminds me of the Power of your Future you. Let me explain. I was watching the Santa Clause with my kids, (you know the one with Tim Allen) and in the story they say,,, “Seeing in not believing, believing is seeing” This quote stuck with me as it reminds me of how you don't need to see the future you to believe in your future you. If you want something, it's not about knowing how to get it, it's about knowing that you'll be able to figure it out and get it no matter what. The power of believing in something is so powerful that your brain will start to find evidence to support that belief. Listen to today's episode about how to create a future mindset that empowers you. Because all it takes is for one belief to change your entire destiny. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melissa-margres/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/melissa-margres/support

Being only an employee leaves you vulnerable to the ups and downs of the market. Real estate investing is one powerful defense against job loss and economic downturns. In this episode, Neil Timmons provides insight into the real estate business and shares his experience with overcoming economic adversity to secure a robust financial position. Neil Timmins is the CEO of Legacy Impact Partners, where they invest in real estate opportunities ranging from houses and apartments to industrial and medical offices. In 2021 Neil published his first book, Unicorn Hunting for Real Estate Investment Companies: How to Easily Attract, Screen, and Land a Unicorn. The book is tailored to helping real estate investors find and retain top talent through the strategic systemization of hiring. Neil also hosts his own podcast, “Real Grit” where he pulls back the curtain on real estate investing through interviews with industry titans. “Real Grit” provides listeners with the tools they need to secure their lasting real estate legacy!   Episode Links: https://legacyimpactpartners.com/ https://legacyimpactpartners.com/podcast/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Neil Timmins, who is an author, a podcast host, entrepreneur, real estate investor and he's gonna be talking to us about going from an agent and employee to building a significant business in the real estate space and what it takes to do so. So let's get into it.   Neil Timmons what is going on, man, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for taking the time to come hang out with me today.   Neil: Good. It's so good to see you again. I appreciate the invite. Looking forward to this for some time now.   Michael: No, likewise, the pleasure is mine. I'm super excited. So you and I of course know each other. We were chatting offline just before we hit record. But for anyone who doesn't know Neil Timmins, give us the background quick and dirty. Who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing real estate.   Neil: High level out of Des Moines, Iowa, born and raised, started as a residential real estate agent built a built a brokerage there on to REMAX for a number of years was a top REMAX guy with my 20s and then eventually found my way stumbled into investing worked my way through single family investing, we still do a little today but morphed into commercial investing. And that's a primary focus today.   Michael: Love it and I hear this this theme so often with agents start as an agent, got my teeth cut, then went into the investment side. My guess if you're a top performing agent, in your local market, you're making a lot more money on an annual basis than you would if you're investing. So why did you make that transition? Why'd you make that jump?   Neil: Yeah, no good question. Well, the not so fun story is I was probably 31 ish at the time. Maybe 32, I came home one day to my wife of a decade in our three little kids, all about five or younger, and my wife had them all packed up and said she was leaving, leaving for good. I had spent the better part of seven years or so working like a dog every day of the week, I worked. My second year in real estate, it worked 355 days. So that business was built, ultimately, you know, I was able to put his team in place and that business, but it largely was built on my back and my effort and so it was at that point that, you know, I had an ultimatum and I begged and pleaded with her to go, you gotta give me give me an opportunity. I understand. So give me an opportunity. She did thank God. 45 days later, I sold my REMAX and took a whole bunch of time off to decide, well, how am I going to how am I going to do this? How am I going to make a living in contribute because I like doing what I was doing and not the not to the degree in which I did it. But I enjoyed real estate a lot, right? The people, all the fun things around it. So it took some time off to evaluate things and then ultimately plugged back in largely on the investment side.   Michael: And today you own a business around the real estate investing space. Tell us about that.   Neil: Yeah. So I own a couple of things. On the on the investment side of things. We're primarily focused on commercial investing, right, we buy by multiple asset classes, you're on a primary ladder, Des Moines, Iowa, we still do fix and flip in the office. Although I'm not largely involved, we've got a nice little machine that runs that really good. Contractor base in place, literally same contractor. Don't quote me on how many but we've done probably nearly 200 with the same exact crew. So it makes running things and the efficiencies there of all awfully simple. I love talking to people going you know what I don't like flipping because then I gotta go pick the carpet, I gotta pick the paint whatever else I'm like, What do you mean, you have to do that we picked it once. It's the same carpets, the same paint, same countertops, the same appliance, nothing, nothing changes. You're not doing a whole block of these things. It's not like anybody notices. You just pick it once yeah and so then also, I run an education business, which we launched this year, which has been very well received from folks who want to make that bridge want to leap into commercial real estate and, you know, figure it out either how to do their first deal or how to do their next deal.   Michael: And I'm curious, Neil, because I also come from the education space, and the folks that you're working with, are they the DIYers or are they the folks that have heard of commercial and want to get exposure to it in some form or another are a mix of the two?   Neil: Yeah, no, it's really DIYers. Yeah, that's not largely the passive investors, if you will, it's people who are active in real estate like, like using… if you will, you know, in my career was it just laid out you know, as well cradle to grave if you will, coming through I'd like if you were to go, how should someone progress? Although most don't do that, you know, they end up in one thing and often stick there, but I kind of work my way through that. Is this constant evolution of how do we elevate oneself and one skill set to take it to a to a new level and that's where these folks are they know they've done, they've done single family, they've largely been exposed to it, maybe they've been exposed a little commercial, but just haven't gotten to the results. They haven't they haven't been on a foundation, a legacy had been on a foundation of financial freedom and, you know, arguably, in mice that that commercial gets you there faster and easier.   Michael: And within commercial because it is such a diverse asset class and really name where do you see folks going that are having the most success?   Neil: Oh, good question there. You know, we bring people in, and we do a lot of things from a training standpoint, want to be in an asset class exercise to go alright, well, fill this little asset class matrix out, we have my hand if answer a handful of questions to go, you know, do you resonate better? Would you rather work with people or businesses, and we just bring them through a series of questions, and that lines it up to go well, top to bottom ranked, we focus on six level six largest asset classes, there's top to the bottom, here's what here's what it looks like and then my encouragement from there is, Listen, if number two resonates a whole lot better with you than number one on that list, that's what you should do, because it's just easier and you know, this, if we were to go work on something you can get passionate about, it's a whole lot simpler, then put a little more effort into it and something you're just like, huh, maybe?   Michael: Totally, totally and, you know, I'm curious, so many folks, I think can go invest in single family on the side as a project as a test as an experiment, the DIYers that are doing commercial real estate, are they doing it on the side? Are they really jumping in with both feet, kind of like you did, and making this their full time gig?   Neil: Yep, great question most are doing on the side, most are either stacking it on to their single family business or, you know, if they've got a day job and several folks do is they're doing this, you know, in the evenings, nights and weekends, side hustle, if you will and you think about you know, from makeup, a number of you were to go market to single family or markets or commercial just by being in commercial, the number of available prospects has been largely diminished. It's a much more manageable group of makeup, an asset class, let's say self-storage, you're going to go market self-storage is in your county, well, in comparison to houses, it is a mere fraction. So your ability to call text or you know, mail somebody or connect with a broker, perhaps it's very manageable. You don't have to do it full time. In fact, that would not encourage it, because you're gonna sit around, you're gonna get discouraged. Because there's candidly not enough to do versus the single family side, you could always find something to do.   Michael: Interesting. Talk to us about kind of the exits and the thought process around the exit from that business. Because in my mind, and I think in a lot of other investors' minds, a house is a house is a house, you know what it is? I know what it is everybody on the street, you know, that you bump into knows what it is, and knows how to buy it, versus a self-storage unit. I could maybe Name one person that I know that's involved in that business and so if I'm trying to sell it, who's gonna buy it?   Neil: Yep, no, exactly. So that's, you know, what I do on the training side is bring people through, even if you know, largely set some goals, understand why you want to be in this business, and perhaps what you'll do get through the training go, I don't want to be in the business. And that's okay, too. That's okay because what you don't know or what you what you now know, empowers you, right? To make a better decision about what the path you should be going down. So we bring people through that large infusion for retraining to expose them to what this world looks like, and then how to, you know, identify an asset class that really resonates with you how to price something up, how do we get leads, so largely from a marketing standpoint, from a lead standpoint, what do we say then? How do we value it? How do we actually put something a price to it to go alright, this looks like a potential really good deal, then how do we put it under contract and then from there, you know, the exit plans largely are or we get to resell the property. Occasionally, we get a property that comes in our wheelhouse, what I call, it's not our perfect seller, so it's a good deal, just not for us. Now, can we move that along, so to liken that to single family wholesale it double close it novated right, do all the same things in the commercial side or, you know, we decide, hey, this is our perfect seller with the property we want to own. So how do we how do we close it up or we get to raise equity? How do we go get debt and then how do we bring the whole thing together to properly manage it? So that's what we show folks how to do and ultimately starts you know, on the front end of the process to go Alright, how are we buying this because I know what our required returns are and if it doesn't hit that I'm that's gonna lead us down a different path to either go it's either a non-deal or we're gonna get this moved along to another investor and cash up the big check that we can utilize for the next year.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense and you use the term that I'm not frankly familiar with novate. What does that mean?   Neil: Novation is that this has become very popular on the single family side. So there's a lot of buzz on the single family side, especially for those in the wholesaling business. Okay, it is to replace one contract with one another with another contract. So essentially, if I was to, you know, say, for example, I was to buy a property from Mr. Jones, I have a contract in place with Mr. Jones, I decided I want to move this property along under innovation process, you would then provide me a contract that would replace mine, there's typically a difference in pricing, right, you're gonna pay more than what I've just paid and that delta ultimately gets paid back to me. As part of the process. I'm high level in here. There's some moving pieces but high level?   Michael: Yeah, okay okay. Great to know. Neil, I'm curious if we can zoom out for a little bit, because you went from realtor agent, which is a kind of a unique profession and that, yes, you are an employee, but also you are kind of the business owner, your own of your own little business, your own little domain, and then you went and put a team in place, and then you ultimately sold that business. But for so many people that are employees in a traditional nine to five w two employee position to make the transition from employee to business owner, I think is a big leap for a lot of people. What was that like for you mentally going from? I'm going to be an agent to now I'm going to start and run and operate a business.   Neil: Yeah, no good question in it. I think that's, it comes in incremental gains, right. So how do you how do you elephant, right, one piece at a time and so the same thing occurred from me mentally and I think that is? It's a terrific question because I think so much of this business, in business in general is mental, right? It's a six inch game in between your ears and so how do you combat that I read a book when I was probably 20 to 23 years old. The Millionaire Mind by Dr. Thomas Stanley. He wrote The Millionaire Next Door, that's probably his most famous book, The Millionaire Mind was incredible and it broke it down to, you know how millionaires think and my thought process, of course, is well, if you just think like a millionaire eventually, and then, therefore, act and operate like a millionaire, I will eventually become one, right. So it's not it's not hard success leaves clues. So there was a lot of things in there that that impacted me at a very deep level and one of them, the biggest takeaway for me was, the largest risk that one has is being an employee. They can let you go any day of the week, this is what I came to believe in, it's still my operating beliefs today are just risky, if you have no control and I, I am well aware that as a business owner, as an operator, as a real estate investor, we take tremendous risk. There's no doubt about it but I still think they pale in comparison to putting all eggs in one basket, men have an employer of someone else.   Michael: Yeah, it makes total sense. So as you started moving things along, and created and formed and founded your business, how did you figure out who the right people were to put on the proverbial bus because I think, again, so many people have either a great idea, and they're really good at maybe doing that one thing. But doing that one thing isn't a business and so how do you scale it and have a proper functioning, running operational business?   Neil: Yeah, no, great question and that's, that's probably, if I was to attribute any of our success over the course of last three ish years, two and a half years, somewhere in that range, we've had significant success in that period of time, it's largely been correlated to my evolution as a leader, knowing that the only way forward is ultimately with and through other people. And so I've had a focus internal so go back to a question you just asked earlier, from a mental attitude of taking that leap. For me, it's how do I develop as a leader how to become a better a better person, somebody that people look up to somebody that people want to be around, so many people want to listen to, and, and be on the same bus with going rowing in the same direction and so that has largely, that's been a big focus over the course the last couple of years. When I was at a spot where he's gone, it's time to grow. You can't hire and retain a player's unicorns as I call them. You can't hire and retain unicorns if you're not one. So how do you how does one improve their personal self to be able to get to that level? That other a players want to be around?   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense. So what it what did you do? Can you open the vest a little bit, let us peek under the curtain…   Neil: Yes, you know, it's, I wish there was a silver bullet here, but it's largely just been, you know, what do they say what's mentionable is manageable and for me, it's just having that Cognizant thought that okay, well, now, I'm mindful of this and so now I need to give thought to this. How do I say things how do I handle things? How do I handle certain situations? What is the impact when making this isn't with an employee or with a team or with a customer in front of folks, how's this gonna resonate? What does this look like and then having the vision as a leader, as any leader, doesn't any organization, that vision to go, where are we going and this isn't about me, this is about us and so oftentimes you'll hear me say, we did this, I almost, you know, I try very hard to say that 100% of time, I didn't do anything. We did this collectively, all the results are collective right. It is us together and that reading, continuing to stay focused on that, stay ahead of what's transpiring, trying to, you know, hosting a podcast being around other people like yourself, other people in the industry having an understanding what's going on. So been trying to be on that curve from a knowledge base standpoint about what's transpiring that's helpful, too.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. I love that and asking for a friend. I hate people and I don't think I want to interview people and screen people and that sort of thing. Does that mean that I shouldn't start a business with my great idea?   Neil: The first part is I don't like people. So let's just call that the introverted, right? They don't want to interact with other people. My right hand gal is an introvert. She's not very gregarious as it relates to people. She's very good with people. But she wants to she's far more task oriented about how do we execute on what we're doing? I think that's terrific and now, what hadn't you hire her because she's the Yang, right? It's Ying and yang. She complements me in a perfect opposite fashion and I do the same thing. The other way around. Yeah, it's, I think that's terrific. I think it's wonderful, if you can, what you just expressed was, you know who you are, if you know who you are, you can identify a path forward and I would encourage you absolutely. Knowing what your deficiencies are is wonderful. We're all we're all given strengths someplace, just balance this balance your weakness with somebody else. Don't try to what are the what don't master in the weaknesses, right? So anytime we have a weakness here in anybody, you know, largely for me, it's going just don't do it. Don't master in the minors, because at the end of the day, you're still going to be a d minus for you, no matter how good you get at your weakness focus on your A's.   Michael: Yeah. Oh, that's such a good expression. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, oh, I wanted to visit with my best friend. We're so similar that I'm like, that doesn't sound like a good partnership.   Neil: Sounds like sounds like a great bar and I but not a good business decision.   Michael: Yeah, I know. Totally, yeah right.   Neil, if we zoom back into the commercial side of real estate coming from the single family space, what is it that you see is the biggest hurdle of barrier to entry for folks that want to make that leap into commercial but utilize someone such as yourself to help them get there?   Neil: You'll never guess us? Are you ready for this?   Michael: I hope so.   Neil: I know, you're it's a mental barrier. It's all made up in their head. It's they don't think they can't. Yeah, but they don't think that that is it because past that, the ability to go well, okay. Well, if you've ever let me let me liken it to single family. A duplex is like a single family rental house, right? It's just two doors and the numbers change a little bit? Well, a 20 packs is the same thing. There's largely, there's not much difference in these things you're adding some zeros are calculated a little differently, but it's pretty much the same. In fact, management, in my opinion, gets easier. The more doors you have, right, you get professional management, you get it, it becomes simpler. Yeah and then to make a change to go into some other asset class, we just have to make a bridge. What does that look like? They have to go to an industrial buildings on a triple net lease, which is probably the simplest thing to calculate and get one's head around when you're going, well, they just pay a lease rate, and then they fix all the stuff that goes wrong with it, right? That's it your true and your true and why is the rent, we've got multiple properties like that and we're the management company, which means we just get the rent and never hear Yeah.   Michael: Yeah, that's by far the easiest piece of property in my portfolio is triple net.   Neil: Yes, correct. But people are, you know, we're scared about what we don't know and that's true of all of us, right? We're scared about what we don't know, afraid to make mistake, which is totally understandable and so we just help folks, we educate them as we go answer questions as we go and show them the exact path to be able to get from, you know, I want to learn more about commercial real estate, I'd love to be able to buy a deal to actually get to a close.   Michael: That's awesome. And I'm curious, Neil, what's your favorite asset class and why?   Neil: My favorite asset class, although I own I'd have to calculate up four or five different asset classes, but my favorite today is going to be industrial.   Michael: Industrial why is that?   Neil: Yeah, industrial is in demand like crazy. Secondly, in 2021, had the second largest rent increase across all asset classes, only trailing two apartments. But in comparison to apartments, they're far easier to manage, right, I get a triple net deal, or a double no deal, there isn't much to do, there's very few moving pieces you end up with, on average, let's say a five year to 10 year lease is pretty straightforward.   Michael: Okay. So if I'm playing devil's advocate here, and we're looking at this industrial building, this is suited only for a business. This is not for people can't come live here and the type of business you might have to build to suit it out for that particular business 5-10 years down the road, that might be a future Neal problem. But let's drive down that path that tenant leaves goes out of business, what have you economy turns? If businesses aren't doing well, in the area, are you stuck with this vacant building now?   Neil: 100%. If businesses are doing well in the area, meaning they're laying off or not employing people, my thesis is you still have you still have an apartment problem relative to occupancy and or rent rates. This goes back to earlier question is, admittedly, we have to take a risk someplace, right? It's just my comfort level and I like the box, you know, not a somehow engineering building has been added on to or defined for one, one person's exact use, I like a big giant box, just a rectangle, that's it, a business of multiple businesses come into that and fill it out in which way they want to. So like the fact that if I can buy my, my preferred buying is for buying some older not buying brand new stuff, buying some older buying something with a value add or on buying at a discount of some managers, the intent is to buy it correctly. And if I can buy a property, let's call it make up a number right now 70 to $80, a square foot brand new construction is gonna be 120 to 130 a square foot, I think I'm in pretty good shape over the course of coming years, I think that my dollars, and my rent rates get pulled up to the fact that sheer cost of new construction is gonna be 60% higher.   Michael: All right, I dig it, I dig it and for anyone, I'm just realizing now, some of our listeners might not be familiar with the term double net triple net lease, can you give us a quick definition of what it is?   Neil: Yeah, it just defines what people pay for double net, for example, is probably one of the least likely terms that use but let's say triple net triple net means ultimately that the tenant pays for everything, there may be some nuances inside the lease, but taxes, insurance, repairs maintenance, the tenant pays for that. So if your releases 100 grand a year, your net is 100 grand a year before, before your mortgage, any sort of debt payment you have on it. A double net means they don't pay for everything they pay for perhaps taxes and insurance, but not all the repairs and all the maintenance, and therefore your NOI is gonna be a little lighter, depending on what you have to maintain and pay for.   Michael: Okay, perfect and I'm sure some of our listeners are hearing that and thinking like, this is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm gonna go put all of my single family homes and all my apartments on Triple Net leases. Why is it only a thing that's been heard of in the commercial space?   Neil: Yeah, no good question. You know, to liken it to single family, you're like lease with an option or a contract sale, that's probably the closest thing you get to a triple net in the in the single family house side, right? So you kind of contract sale, somebody that mean that contract buyer is now responsible for everything associated with that house, right? That's what it looks like. If you look at the closest thing, there's some differences there. Obviously, a contract sale into a down payment interest rate. That's not the same as a triple net lease on the industrial side but that's probably the easiest way to liken it to single family.   Michael: Yep. Yeah, that makes total sense and for anyone listening, like Neil mentioned, it's just the cap rate is like the easiest thing ever in the Analyze easy thing ever, you got a million dollar building cap rate 6% they're paying 60 grand a year, then bam, boom, end of discussion. You're not paying taxes, you're not paying insurance, you know, capex and maintenance. So you can calculate your true return, and then look to calculate what your debt service payments gonna look like and determine what your return looks like after that, versus the traditional single family rental or apartment or traditional residential space. They pay you a set fixed amount, the rent, and then you have to go figure out the taxes, insurance, repairs, maintenance, capex, that sort of thing.   Neil: So hey, just because I like it or you know, in other investors likes something else doesn't mean it's right. There's only what's right for you.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. I love it. Neil, this has been so much fun, man. I want to be very respectful of your time. Let's get you out of here. But before we go, like where can people reach out to you find out more about you continue the conversation if they're interested?   Neil: Yeah, no, great question. Well, if you want to learn more about commercial real estate getting rich in what I call the 20x niche, why do I call it that? Well, because our target internally is to produce in a monthly return that's 20 times that of us Single Family return so we're scaling up largely is just go to my website give you a free download free report just you can learn more about the industry getting into commercial. So www dot legacy impact partners forward slash gift JF T legacy impact partners Ford slash gift: https://legacyimpactpartners.com/   Michael: Right on thank you so much and before I let you go I mean I'm not gonna let you out of here without mentioning your podcast you're also the host of a podcast was that was a you're kind enough to have me on what is that called and what can people expect to hear on it?   Neil: Real grit is the name of it it's about the trials tribulations anybody from real estate. So we talked about single family talking about commercial talk about everything in between. But really, so that we fully admit that you know, life isn't all about Lambos and big houses on cash and checks and everything on Facebook that or social media wherever you'd see it right? That there's ups and downs there's, there's we have to go through stuff and many times to be able to find our own personal success and so we talk through that and people's personal stories and how they got there because all bunch people, they get their different ways and it's really exciting. It's, we get into some really interesting, very dynamic conversation a lot of fun, love it. You and I had a great conversation.   Michael: I had a ball. I had a ball.   Neil: It was a blast, man.   Michael: Awesome. Well definitely go check out that podcast, real grit, a lot of fun, really cool stuff going on there. Neil, thank you again. Any final words thoughts for our listeners?   Neil: No, you're going to find me you know, like I shared it though the website I'm also on all the all the social media platforms. Facebook's the best place to find me Neil Timmins, or there are many Amin just spell it right you got me   Michael: Right on, many thanks again. Appreciate you, see you soon. Bye.   Neil: Bye, bye.   Michael: All right, well, that was our episode. A big thank you to Neil for coming on the show. Really, really interesting stuff that Neil's been through seen and experienced. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

Neal Amrhein is the founder and CEO and Matt Erickson is the CTO of My Goat. My Goat is a subscription mowing service for commercial properties. They use robotic mowers and elegant software tools to make turf care easy, convenient, and affordable. Follow Neal on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-amrhein-9398969/). Follow Erik on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-erickson-153fish/). My Goat (https://mygoat.co/) Follow MyGoat on Twitter (https://twitter.com/MyGoatCo), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MyGoatCo), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/my-goat-inc), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjV3ITbDvfqhQGIImFL5T7g/featured), or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mygoatco/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is a couple of people from a company with actual robots. It's Neal Amrhein, the founder and CEO, and Matt Erickson, the CTO of My Goat. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me. So tell me more about this idea that you are robot-agnostic? Are you helping people choose the solution that's right for them? Or do you have go-to vendors? NEIL: We do. So my philosophy, having spent a number of years in technology selling hardware and even software solutions, is that one thing that my experience has held is that hardware gets better, faster, and cheaper. And for us to invest in a hardware platform or have customers invest in a hardware platform, I liken it to my early adoption of high-definition televisions where in 2003, I was one of those guys that spent $2,400 on a 42-inch Sony Wega TV. And now you can get a 70-inch with a lot more technology and so forth for about $300 at Costco. So my feeling about hardware is it gets better, faster, cheaper. It's really the software that makes the difference in terms of how you leverage it. So we engage about 6 to 12 different hardware manufacturers that make autonomous robots from robots that are 27 to 35 pounds up to 1,200 pounds and all different variations in between. And then, we extract the communication tools so that we can help our users who are formerly the groundskeepers become technology groundskeepers. And they are now interfacing with the concept of autonomous robots that are mowing commercial properties 24/7, which we would actually call maintaining versus mowing. So we use nighttime, you know, day, night, rain or shine. So that's why we're robot-agnostic and welcome the latest and greatest designers and developers of hardware. We've got some folks that are just totally focused on designing, and developing, and building awesome autonomous robotic mowers with solar panels or great things that are going out there. And we're the software platform that brings it all together. CHAD: I totally get what you're saying about the progress of hardware and wanting to be in the business of creating value on top of that. How do you make sure that you don't take on the business risk of one of the manufacturers just providing the solution that you're providing? NEIL: Chad, we don't look at a business risk if there's a manufacturer that's going and selling autonomous robotic mowers. We welcome that, in fact, because that helps us with the adoption process. The idea of having, you know, Roomba is the de facto vacuum cleaner that goes randomly in your house. But there are half a dozen other hardware devices and opportunities, and they're all selling it. It's really how are you managing that Roomba? Which is also the subscription component of the Netflix part of our business, which is that Roomba may be a shark next year. It may be something else the following year. For our customers, we select the best hardware for their particular property, whether it's a golf course. They may have an autonomous robot that's manufactured by XYZ for the tee box and another one for the fairway, and another one for the greens. They just pay a monthly subscription for access to the software to manage those particular hardware pieces and optimize that hardware. And that's something that Matt will talk a little bit about. But we really have taken the approach that robots are just like cars. They'll sit in your garage 20 hours out of the week, but they're actually effectively useful 168 hours a week. So how do we maximize that and utilize the hardware itself? And that's what our software does. And of course, with that, we share that information with our customers and our users to continue to make it more efficient. CHAD: Thanks, Neil. Matt, what does the software stack actually look like that you're all putting together? MATT: So we got to talk about the technology so Laravel, PHP, MySQL. We host in DigitalOcean. And we have a WordPress front end, but the back end is all Laravel PHP. CHAD: And so it's in the cloud for all the customers? MATT: Yes. CHAD: And then how do you communicate with the fleet? MATT: So we connect through APIs. The hardware generally has an API that can give us status updates at various intervals. So we aggregate that information back. And then, we present a web-based solution dashboard that includes different views. We can get into the different users and how we've tried to meet their needs and drive workflow for them. But at a high level, we've got some graphical dashboards. And we also have some very tactical workflows for the guys. We call them shepherds taking care of our goats on the ground. CHAD: I know that you said it's autonomous, but how do you communicate with the robots when you need to? Is it radio frequency locally, or is it cell phones? MATT: So the robots actually come with…they have both GPS and cellular connectivity. So we have pretty good real-time connectivity with the robots. So we can remotely control them. We can park them, or we can send them back to their charging stations, different features like that. You can adjust cutting height, things like that, remotely. We also use just text messaging, SMS for communicating with shepherds. It's kind of real-time feedback. So yeah, let me dig in a little bit, the autonomous idea of the robot. Yeah, we want them to be autonomous. And we work with our shepherds, groundskeepers so that each of the goats works in a pen, an area defined by that in the ground kind of like an invisible fence dog wire type thing. But basically, we work with the shepherds, and we have this training certification process. But basically, they can get that pen to an area where really what we shoot for about 72 hours of the robot should be able to operate autonomously within that pen for about three and a half days. And then shepherds will be instructed to move that robot to another pen for about three and a half days. Usually, one robot is taking care of…it ends up being about two and a half days. And that's kind of the way the software solution is driving that efficiency of people time as well as robot time. The robots can mow 24/7. They take care of the grass. They maintain it, as Neil mentioned earlier. So it's not throw the robot out once a week kind of thing. You have to change your thinking. A lot of what we deal with when we go to a robot solution over that traditional status quo mowing we really have to help people through that thought process of this is not how it used to be. It works differently. But yep, that's kind of the solution. CHAD: I feel like I need to ask, even though it's going to be a little bit of a tangent. MATT: [laughs] CHAD: How did you arrive at the name of My Goat and take the leap on a quirky name like that? NEIL: Yeah, it's a great question. [laughs] First of all, I think that I first saw one of these robots through a YouTube video about three and a half or four years ago. And you may or may not know this, Chad, but there are about 3 million of these things that have been sold since 1995. So this is not bleeding edge technology in any way, shape, or form. When I saw it on a YouTube video, it just kind of hit me that wow, these things are out there doing their thing day or night, rain or shine. And interestingly enough, the market, I guess the landscape market, the residential side, was somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 to $80 billion that we were targeting and looking at. And as far as the goats, I had talked to some early folks who were marketing folks, and we just settled on Goat. And then we put my on the front end of it. And before we knew it, we had My Goat. And as we've evolved from just a cool robot-centric organization that's using software, we've evolved into an organization that's really teaching shepherds how to become interactive with the goats. And it's taken a life of its own. The blades are called teeth. CHAD: [laughs] NEIL: And those are some of our…of course, the goats need to be brushed. They don't get washed, or they don't get sprayed down with water, but they get brushed. And there's the whole the operating system is the heart and all kinds of stuff that's been going on. CHAD: Well, I feel like with a name like My Goat, if you're not going to commit and carry that branding through to everything, what's the point? [laughter] NEIL: Right. Yes, it has taken a life of its own. And it's interesting. I don't know that it's the most catchy name for a software technology company. But it's certainly gotten some folks' attention, and it's helped. Let's put it this way: our marketing team really enjoys everything about what they can do with it. CHAD: Well, and there's something to having a brand and carrying that through in the naming that causes ideas to resonate with people and makes them special. At the end of the day, you're mowing lawns. And so making it special and communicating that you have something special, I think, is something that people can do regardless of what their product is thinking of ways of doing that. NEIL: Yeah. And I would add that I think the only pushback we've received on the name is probably from some of our high-end golf course users and prospects who don't want to turn their golf course into a goat track, so to speak. CHAD: [laughs] NEIL: But that's probably the extent of it. But overall, it's been well received without a doubt. And as we're focused on the software component of interacting with autonomous robots, our software development mentality and our vision is that it may be the same thing applied to 500 Roombas inside of a million square feet at a fulfillment center for Under Armour. And instead of having 50 people cleaning the floors, you may have five people managing 500. And how do they do that effectively and efficiently? So there's really a business-focused component of the vision that I've had for the business. And that's helped me, along with many others, to get us to where we are. MATT: I'm just going to jump in. You're right; the name sticks and people really adopt to the shepherd mentality. We get a lot of requests for shepherd crooks. [laughs] They all want a shepherd staff. CHAD: So along those lines, when people are considering working with you, what are some of the questions or concerns that they have about a solution? NEIL: Sure. So it's disruptive, Chad. I think I could probably start by saying the traditional way of maintaining or mowing commercial properties is that you have a big guy and a big machine, and how fast does it go? How much noise does it make? How many grass clippings get blown all over the place? You get in, and you get out. And then you start over. So in the state of Tennessee, where we are here, it's about 34 to 36 weeks of mowing a year. In Michigan, it's 17 to 22 weeks, depending on where you are. In South Florida, believe it or not, I know there are only 52 weeks, but they're mowing 56 to 58 times a year. So it's the frequency of going and mowing and blowing, right? CHAD: Mm-hmm. NEIL: We're changing that by saying, why be worried about the weather? Why would you be worried about darkness? Why would you be worried about noise regulations when you can have the grass maintained all the time? So that mentality of maintaining essentially two football fields a week up to three football fields a week with less than 35 minutes of labor. There is nothing in comparison. There's nothing you can compare with the traditional what we call the status quo to make that happen. So the labor efficiency and improvement in labor productivity is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the cost savings and the financial payback. So because we are so disruptive, a lot of what we do, and a lot of the time we spend, and one of our core values is being educators. So back to your question about manufacturers selling their own proprietary hardware; absolutely, the more the merrier. We welcome. To me, the sign of success and progress is not the small city block that has one gas station but has four gas stations on the corner. It just now means there are cars that are driving around. And so, I embrace that level of competition. I believe iron sharpens iron. And folks who are traditionally in the landscape space who have made trimmers and blowers and chainsaws are now finding a little bit of competition with folks who are now solely focused on making unbelievably efficient autonomous robotic mowers, or cleaners, or robots in general, which is, again, we're not crashing giant robots although that's the name of your podcast. [laughter] We're not trying to crash them or break them. But it is certainly the foundation for where we are. MATT: Hey, Neil, you've got a good analogy. I think analogies help explain concepts. So you want to run through your airport analogy with the runways and the different airlines? NEIL: Yeah, I could share that with you. Thanks for reminding me. So my philosophy about…we sell subscriptions that are based upon a geography, Chad. CHAD: Size of geography, you mean? NEIL: Yeah, the size of the geography. So it's about a football field, give or take. Based upon some limitations with technology, we put invisible dog fences in the ground, and we charge our users, our subscribers by the particular pen or the number of pens, and then there's a ratio. So much like in an airport, we're not selling flights; we're selling runways. And those runways are accessible by all kinds of…you may have 30 terminals at the gates, and you may have five different airlines. And each of those airlines has a different brand and name, but they're using multiple hardware components. Those jets are maybe McDonnell Douglas, or maybe they're a Boeing or whatever it may be. All of that is fine by us. What we do is we have the software that runs the gates, the terminals. So you have Southwest in terminal two and Delta in terminal 32. And they're using our software to figure out how to get the baggage on the planes and get those planes off the ground so they can make money for their businesses. So we look at it that way. And that's kind of where our IP rests is in that spot in that place. And, again, there'll be other airlines, whether it's Allegiant or whomever buying more Boeing planes. But ultimately, they'll all need a runway, and the software that manages the process and the workflow is what we're focused on. CHAD: So, is the total cost of ownership of autonomous solution typically lower than what they are doing today? NEIL: It is, specifically, the labor improvement is generally about 3x in terms of improving the efficiency of the labor. So if you talk about an average groundskeeper who may be responsible for mowing, if it's a perfect day outside mowing nine acres a day and they are out there five days a week, they may have efficiencies of maybe up to 40 or 45 acres a week. With our solution, that is increased to about 135 to 145 acres a week where they can maintain about 70 mowers, 70 autonomous robotic mowers, or 70 goats as we call them. They'll herd 70 goats with the same full-time employee. So that's one aspect. With that, the immediate reaction is, well, you're eliminating jobs. We're actually redeploying jobs. I'm a builder. I'm a job creator. I've had 4,800 folks work for me in my home care business over the last 12 years. And so, I'm a big believer in improving and deploying folks in areas that we don't have robots. So, for example, there's no robot right now that's pruning trees or making up a sand trap, robots that are planting flowers or putting mulch in a flower bed. So those kinds of jobs are still out there. We're just making the traditional idea of throwing somebody on a mower in the middle of a cemetery or golf course or open space and having them manage that through our software platform sitting in their F150 pushing start and stop or pause and doing other things. CHAD: Instead of riding on the mower. NEIL: You got it. MATT: A lot of our potential customers come to us because (we kind of touched on that) there's a labor shortage. It's hard for folks to find people that want to ride zero-turns. So to Neil's point, we're not about deploying robots, kind of one for one replacing jobs. It's basically we're taking the labor force that we can get, that we have, and we're retraining them to be more efficient through these robots. Pretty age-old story when you're talking about industrialization. But the idea is we haven't displaced workers. They're not hiring fewer people. They're taking everybody they can get. And they're doing all of that value add. The groundskeepers now have time to go out and do the mulching and the landscaping, trimming, improving the property. A lot of these groundskeepers have a lot of pride in their property. And they would rather be doing the items that to them are a value add and beautification projects rather than just riding a Back 40 or a zero-turn. We had one shepherd say, hey, it's really helped his back. Riding a lawnmower is kind of rough. And walking around every now and then helping out a robot is a whole lot easier of a physical life for you. Mid-roll Ad I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: So I saw on the website because of the kind of solution and the scale that it's at, it seems like you have a few different key customer bases. You want to talk about that and whether you knew that going in, or did you find them along the way? NEIL: Yeah, that's a great question. So we came out of the gate initially with early investors. We were focused on what we considered was the low-hanging fruit in the residential space. So we had designed and developed the operational and financial template to actually have shepherds who were employees of My Goat. And we would have the Goats sold in a subscription model to residential customers. And then we'd have the goat stay on a property and then get moved, et cetera. But we learned very quickly that business to consumer and residential customers it's not that impossible; it just was not as low-hanging fruit as we had thought initially because folks leave rakes in the yard. And anytime a goat comes upon a rake, it's going to get trapped, and therefore it needs to be rescued. And you have to send a shepherd out, et cetera. Or somebody decides to put a new vegetable garden, and they break the wire that's in the ground. They're just a bunch of…, or there's a dog chasing the robot or a little kid out there, or somebody stops it. So those required a lot of…it didn't make the robot autonomous. So we pivoted in late 2019, early 2020 into the commercial space. We expired all of our subscriptions to residential customers and went completely into the commercial space. And we had had some success with some golf courses and some cemeteries. And we've gained a lot more momentum now with cities and counties, regional airports. But large open areas that are a minimum of five acres, typically we would run a pilot or a preview with at least 12 to 14 acres. But the biggest restriction, of course, when you get into those large open areas is electricity because they've been traditionally maintained or mowed by gas-powered machines. So back to your other question about where the savings is and the payback period, and how we have an immediate impact. There's an operational savings that is pretty quick in terms of the return because we flatten out a lot of the ups and downs that a traditional landscaper has. So let's take a golf course, for example. The average golf course spends about $80,000 per hole per year and depending on the course, 45% to 60% of that is spent on mowing, mowing machines, and people involved. And we're able to take that, and they're hiring temporary people in March here in the south, and they have them here until October. So they're having to go through that cycle every single year. So if they can flatten that operational expense out by redesigning the golf course and having…and maybe it's not 100%. Much like a Roomba, you still have to get the corners and the edges, maybe with a broom if it doesn't get into every nook and cranny. So it's not a 100% solution. It's not for every application. But as we moved into the commercial space, we found a greater payback period not only on the cost of the gasoline is...you know, take a zero-turn mower. And again, I say that's probably our greatest competitor is institutionalized thinking to say, this year we're going to buy a big green, big red, or big orange machine for $16,000 or $18,000, Kubota, Toro, or John Deere. And we're going to do the same thing we did last year. We're going to find a guy who can operate it. We're going to put gas in it, and we're going to run it around. Well, you put hours in those things, and they're very costly to maintain if you hit a root. So you've got to make sure that you can't run a 1,800-pound mower when it's been raining for three days. So what do you do with a fairway when it's soggy or any other commercial area that could be…or a hill that could be dangerous. So we've found a lot of application and then, of course, the environmental part of it, Chad. So the average zero-turn emits the equivalent of a carbon footprint every hour it's running about 300 miles of a Toyota Camry running. So they haven't become more efficient. And then you've got noise regulations and so forth in a lot of communities. And even in California, they're moving in the direction of I think it's 2024 where gas-powered and oil-powered landscaping blowers and tremors, et cetera, are not going to be allowed, or you'll be fined for using them. So that's the third component of where My Goat has seen some opportunities in the commercial space. CHAD: You mentioned that they can run at night. So they must be quiet. They must be. NEIL: Yes, they are. And it's not the traditional…you're not making as much of a mess. Some of our cemetery customers have mentioned that the fact that their trimming has been reduced by up to 50% because they're going up and over markers because they only weigh 27 pounds. They're mostly plastic and rubber. They're not doing any damage to vases. So they're having a cost reduction in that regard but also with the uprights. Folks have their family members in a particular private estate area where they may have an upright, and if you have a zero-turn mower out there throwing and splashing grass clippings, you're likely having to go out there again with more labor and take a blower and clean up the mess that the mower made. So these little small operational components along with the experience. Again, back to the cemetery, you're asking about why we're there. We know that industry very well. And we know that the experience that loved ones want to have when they're out there celebrating life and grieving across a 40 or 50-acre property. They don't want to hear a zero-turn. So you're turning those things off three or four times a day for those services, and you're having that individual parked a quarter-mile away. No longer is that an operational challenge or a concern because all of these robots are being controlled, start, stopped, and programmed through our software. CHAD: That's really cool. So you mentioned investors and the early pivot away from residential to commercial. What does your funding story look like? And what phase did you get to when you took on investment? And let's start there. How did you find your initial investors? And what phase were you at when you did that? NEIL: Yeah, that's a great question. So we went through the traditional friends and family and moved into an angel round, but really I started my first company…bootstrapped it. And so, I wasn't really proficient in raising money in the traditional sense. I had an idea, put a business plan together. And I talked to a couple of folks and just told the story. To be honest with you, Chad, I wasn't really asking for money. I was more or less asking for advice. And then a number of folks were like, "Are you taking money? I'd like to take an equity position." And so, we structured the business and the shares on a pre-revenue valuation. And then, within 14 months, we were able to double that valuation. And we're now opening a new round here and a Series A with a valuation that's nearly five times our initial valuation. So we're making a lot of progress because we have, again, it's an annual recurring revenue stream. It's a subscription model. And what we did with our investors in the early rounds is many of them came on, and they just wanted to be silent. They were not interested in having an opinion. They wanted me and my team to run it. So that's been very helpful. So that's where we are in 2022. We'll be opening and closing a Series A. And I certainly can get more specific with others about that if your listeners or audience are interested. CHAD: So when you think about a Series A, what will you be using that for? What are your next scaling goals? NEIL: My commitment to my investors in the previous two rounds has been to sales and technology, so sales, business development, and technology enhancement to the software, so hiring more developers, scaling that team. Matt's leading the vision, and we've got a number of other folks who are involved in the user experience. But again, because we're a software company, it starts with a demonstration that's usually 15 or 20 minutes that can be scheduled through our website at mygoat.co. And it goes from there. On the sales side and business development is telling the story. In those verticals, we're interested in building out potentially even reseller markets with other industries that are aligned with us. We've had some very high-level conversations with folks that sell electricity for a living. The Tennessee Valley Authority we became an early preferred partner with them and because they have carbon credit that they can offer and sell to their customers, their local power companies. And they're in the business of selling power. And we're in the business of providing subscriptions that require power. CHAD: What are some barriers to continuing to scale? Do you have geographic barriers? NEIL: I have self-imposed geographic barriers, [laughter] So it's a Neil Amrhein barrier. But overall, our barriers, our challenges really are; I've never heard of these things before. Do they actually mow? So we get through those conversations fairly quickly. But depending on who we're talking to, it also becomes a fear. People fear change and especially things that are disruptive. So our barriers, once we get through the fear, is we don't have any electricity here on this golf course, or this city park, or this regional airport that there is unlimited electricity. So we can pull whatever electricity is necessary there. So it is really the barriers of education, just like anything that's truly disruptive in an industry that's been doing the same thing for 45 or 50 years. CHAD: So you already talked about how you view potential competition from manufacturers, but how do you view competition in general? Is there other competition out there? NEIL: The biggest competition we have is institutionalized thinking, which is doing the same thing we did last year. So that's a battle that we have every day. I like competition because I think it makes the end product, and the customer is the one who benefits the most from having lots of people in the market no matter what their angle is. We like our position because, again, we're not the hardware manufacturer. We're able to work with others. We're the financial advisor that gets to work with the insurance guy and everybody else, where all your money is with your college buddy who's managing it, et cetera. We're agnostic. We're putting it all together. So it benefits everybody. And those who make and manufacture these robots get the benefit as well because it's part of the subscription process as far as that's concerned. But the more, the merrier. A lot of people come to me and say, "Well, I saw an autonomous robotic mower out on this lawn or in the neighborhood here." And that's good for us. CHAD: Matt, I assume that being robot-agnostic means that you need to integrate with the different systems. Does that have challenges? MATT: You know, not really. Robots are, as far as the autonomous robotic lawn mowers, they're pretty much telling us the same thing. There are status updates; there are battery updates; there are GPS coordinates. It does tend to be a pretty common data set that we're seeing. So it's been a lot easier than I thought. When you think about…data integrations are always the top challenge you have. It's worked out a lot better than we thought initially. CHAD: Well, that's great. Has there been anything surprising the other way which was something you thought was going to be easy turned out to be a lot harder? MATT: Yeah. We've had a manufacturer that actually had a tiered concept in their data availability. They weren't giving us all of the data that they had. They were saving it because they were running their own kind of hey, you can use home automation techniques to integrate with your residential autonomous robotic lawnmower. Hey, if it's raining at your house, we could park your robot. So they were kind of hiding some of the API from us. We were able to work through that. But I think that goes to one of your questions about concern around competition from the manufacturers. They're really not looking at this from that niche that we're hitting, that commercial perspective. Maintaining one Roomba in your house is the analogy I use. You kind of know where he gets stuck, and you go find him. And that's okay. You don't need a lot of software for that. But that analogy Neil mentioned, if you have 500 of these guys running around a warehouse, or for us, we have property with 50 robots on. How do you know which one right now -- CHAD: And the space that that takes up. MATT: Right. Right. CHAD: You can't see them all necessarily even. MATT: [laughs] Exactly. You can't. You can't just walk around and see everyone and visually check. You need that software to be efficient to know; oh, there are three things I need to do today with the robots. Let me plan that out, and let me take care of it. So I think, like Neil said, the manufacturers out there they're making lawn equipment. They're making lots of different hardware. And to them, fleet management is really where is my hardware right now? [laughs] That's the extent of it. And they can't think about a property that needs maybe two or three different manufacturers of hardware because properties are not one homogeneous set of type of grass. There are always different needs, different features on that property. So there's always that idea that we're going to need a couple of different manufacturers, maybe. So, yeah, it's really interesting. For me, I think it's we're really hitting a home run in an area that there really aren't any other competitors exactly in our niche. And if there are, I think the industry for us what we do is at a place where we need more adoption out there in the world. [crosstalk 34:03] CHAD: Do you ever hear from early adopters? People who say they've either already bought autonomous mowers and they're struggling to manage them, or they really want to, and they're coming to you to do it? NEIL: That's a great point. I have a couple of thoughts here because you guys are going in a lot of different directions here. MATT: [laughs] NEIL: Chad, the short answer is when people buy anything early on, they're going to have the proverbial challenges of who supports it when it breaks? Who do I call? What happens next? It just goes on and on and on, whether it's a hardware platform, and that's mostly the case, or it's something else. It's what does that support look like? So the early adopters when we talk about their experiences, and this is one of the things I would say is probably our biggest challenge is that we have created a learning management software platform, a video library of how do you work with robots? We know that they're going to get trapped. There is no doubt that a 27-pound autonomous goat if there is a lightning strike like there was here in Nashville last night, they're going to be tree limbs that are down. And there'll be goats that are trapped. And it's going to take a human being, a shepherd, to be notified via SMS alert to proactively go to that spot on that property across 50 or 100 acres and rescue that goat. And it's just a matter of these kinds of things happen environmentally. So we talk about, when we talk to customers, about their utilization of the goat. And we talk about optimizing their property. It's not really that the goat doesn't graze or the robot doesn't work. It's what are the restrictions and the environmental challenges that are in front of it? If there are erosion issues around a marker or in a large open field, and if it's a really well-groomed practice field or intramural field, it's likely going to be aerated. It's going to be very flat, et cetera. But most commercial properties are not that way. So the goats actually have a tendency to go out, and they're going to find all those environmental challenges. And it requires a human being to go out there and fix them. Because if the environmental challenge is that there's a hole and on a horse farm, it's going to be there until somebody throws some dirt in it. It's just the reality. And that goat is going to find that environmental challenge every single time. So there is a learning curve that goes with it. There's a level of patience. And I think you mentioned what's our challenge? Our challenge is letting folks know that it's an evolution, not a revolution, as far as what your property is going to look like. I spent a number of years at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, and we talk about property health as is it a two-star property, a three-star property, four-star property, five-star property? We recognize that a lot of commercial properties are going to just be a two-star. But potentially, they could be a three-star property. Or if it's a cemetery and you've got a goat that's maybe found environmental challenges on a cemetery, it also becomes a liability or risk for family members who go visit their loved ones. So now we're using the robot proactively to improve the status of the property as opposed to saying, well, it just gets trapped every time it finds a hole or every time there's a situation that goes on. So it does require an active level of engagement and maintenance. And the philosophy has to be changed so that groundskeepers are now checking their phones or being alerted at 7:15 in the morning. And they may go rescue Billy, the goat, because a lot of folks name their robots. [laughter] They're going out there, and they're in pen 34,27, 31. And then at lunchtime, they may have another two or three of the same goats that were trapped, need to be rescued, and then again at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon. So it's a maintenance mentality as opposed to a mow and go mentality. So that is philosophically a big change in terms of their mindset. CHAD: So what's next for My Goat then? You mentioned the Series A. Is there anything in particular on your radar that you're either worried about or are looking forward to? NEIL: Looking forward to more folks like your audience and listeners hearing our story. I'm in the business of telling our story. And I welcome, again, the competition because that means there's validation for what's going on. I don't think we're going to stuff this genie back in the bottle, so to speak. It's going to be hard for me to believe that five, six years from now, folks are going to be out there firing up a push mower that they just bought at Lowe's when they can buy something at Lowe's that's $250 for a residential robot that they get to use. Same thing on the commercial space. I don't know what it ultimately looks like from a vision perspective. But I think our challenge is continuing the messaging, the adoption, enhancing the payback period. It is really just like any good technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, et cetera. I mean, that combination. I hold the position, Chad, that I don't really think any technology is being developed or new per se since the invention of the internet. It's the application of the technology. It's what are people doing that they weren't doing before? We have the communication tools with 5G or what have you that we didn't have five or six years ago that we can now ping our goats every 15 minutes and find out what their status is. And then we can report that back to the user and say, "Hey, your optimization or utilization on your hardware and your subscription is X, Y, and Z. And your return on investment is six months to 16 months." That's where I think it elevates the conversation of efficiency and changes the game. So our next steps are continuing to get the message out, embrace not only users but industries we haven't thought about. I mentioned horse farms that just came on my radar screen not too long ago. We've had some success with cities and counties. You can imagine…everything one of our core values is green is good, and time is a number. So you just drive down the interstate, and you can see so much green everywhere as far as opportunities ahead. And there's plenty of room for lots of people to play in this space. We welcome more and more of probably the designers and developers that you got on this podcast to come up with the latest and greatest hardware and make those APIs available for Matt and his team to integrate and continue to grow. CHAD: That's great. If folks want to reach out to you to either learn more or see if you can work together, where are the best places for them to do that? NEIL: Sure. Let me first direct them to www.mygoat.co. And there are a series of areas there where it's either click on a demo now or information. Our phone number is listed there as well. I'll also give you my email address, which is Neil, N-E-I-L neil@mygoat.co, so neil@mygoat.co. And Matt's is just matt@mygoat.co as well. And those are probably the fastest way to connect with us. And if they put in a quick subject line your name and your podcast, it'll bubble everybody to the top a little faster. CHAD: Wonderful. Thank you both for joining me. I really appreciate it. MATT: Absolutely. Thank you, Chad. NEIL: Thank you for having us. CHAD: And I wish you all the best. You can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guests: Matthew Erickson and Neal Amrhein.

HIGHLIGHTS 02:34 Always being at the tip of innovation and learning how to be innovative07:33 A.I. and psychographics: Automating admin and ushering disruption 14:01 Training companies to become disruptive requires a mindset shift23:31 Rethinking business model, product and service to serve customer needs30:57 The 10th person rule: Diversity of thought in the workplace drives innovation37:12 Projects that help nonprofits and the need for more Fortune 500 to innovate40:23 Connect and work with NeilQUOTES05:01 Neil: "You never take the chance to explore, and I think that's a challenge a lot of people have is you're not really born as a great innovator and you can actually learn to be a great innovator. You learn to be a great creative thinker."06:45 Neil: "To be innovative, we actually have to step back and say, is there a different way of doing this? Can I actually go out of the forest and say, is there are a whole different approach to actually do this?"17:00 Neil: "Most people, we hate change. So someone throws out an idea, our first reaction is to figure out why it won't work. You know, well, you can't do this, or you've never done that. You want to unlock innovation, you have to shift that."20:57 Jonathan : "The process could begin with getting close to your customers and really finding out their psychological desires or needs or wants and trying to serve up something that aligns with that psychological or psychographic and bring them in through that."39:54 Neil: "If you're not trying to Uber yourself, you're going to get Kodak-ed. And if you're not trying to figure out a way to disrupt your own business, someone will disrupt you."To learn more about Neil, you can check out the links below.LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilsahota/Twitter - https://twitter.com/neil_sahota/Website - https://www.neilsahota.com/If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, review and share with a friend who would benefit from the message. If you're interested in picking up a copy of Jonathan Goldhill's book, Disruptive Successor, go to the website at www.DisruptiveSuccessor.com.

In this week’s show, Phil talks to Neil Thompson, the founder of Teach The Geek, helping STEM professionals to communicate effectively by developing their public speaking skills.   Prior to Teach The Geek, he was a biomedical engineer, a freelance writer and a product development engineer as well as a professional speaker.   Neil talks about why we should always nurture and develop the soft skills that can make our IT careers far more compatible with those without engineering or technical backgrounds. He also discusses the importance of leveraging out the tasks you’re weaker at.   KEY TAKEAWAYS:   TOP CAREER TIP As professionals in IT, we often focus on technical skills, but ignore the soft skills required. Communication helps everyone to understand each other better, and makes the free-flow of information and ideas far more possible.   WORST CAREER MOMENT An important project was cancelled because it was misunderstood. This demonstrated the value of effective communication to Neil.   CAREER HIGHLIGHT Obtaining the first job in the marketplace was a real highlight, and not as easy as Neil was led to believe. Experience, and not just qualifications, were needed.   THE FUTURE OF CAREERS IN I.T The way in which IT is constantly evolving and innovating. Neil has witnessed, first hand, the ways in which IT has energized and radically revolutionized many sectors.   THE REVEAL What first attracted you to a career in I.T.? – Neil went into IT because his father advised him to do so! What’s the best career advice you received? – To play to your strengths and to surround yourself with your weaknesses. What’s the worst career advice you received? – To try to be a jack of all trades and master of none. What would you do if you started your career now? – Neil would have developed relationships with hiring managers instead of blindly applying through automated systems. What are your current career objectives? – To grow Teach The Geeks so that other courses can be offered. What’s your number one non-technical skill? – Communication – it’s vital to the proliferation of ideas and thoughts. How do you keep your own career energized? – Constant learning and trying new things. What do you do away from technology? – Neil enjoys performing stand-up comedy!   FINAL CAREER TIP Play to your strengths whenever you can. It’s important to know what you’re good at, and leverage your weaker tasks to those who can do them well.   BEST MOMENTS   (4:24) – Neil - “It’s one thing to learn engineering principles at schools – it’s another thing to communicate them to people in the office” (16:11) – Neil - “Play to your strengths and surround yourself with your weaknesses” (16:57) – Neil– “People that want to be great at everything – I don’t know if that’s all that useful…” (18:43) – Neil – “You could be the most technically proficient person in the world, but if you’re not able to communicate your expertise to people, all that information you have will just go to nothing”   ABOUT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS   Phil Burgess is an independent IT consultant who has spent the last 20 years helping organizations to design, develop, and implement software solutions.  Phil has always had an interest in helping others to develop and advance their careers.  And in 2017 Phil started the I.T. Career Energizer podcast to try to help as many people as possible to learn from the career advice and experiences of those that have been, and still are, on that same career journey.   CONTACT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/philtechcareer LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/philburgess Facebook: https://facebook.com/philtechcareer Instagram: https://instagram.com/philtechcareer Website: https://itcareerenergizer.com/contact   Phil is also reachable by email at phil@itcareerenergizer.com and via the podcast’s website, https://itcareerenergizer.com Join the I.T. Career Energizer Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ITCareerEnergizer   ABOUT THE GUEST – NEIL THOMPSON   Neil Thompson is the founder of Teach The Geek, helping STEM professionals to communicate effectively by developing their public speaking skills.   Prior to Teach The Geek, he was a biomedical engineer, a freelance writer and a product development engineer as well as a professional speaker   CONTACT THE GUEST – NEIL THOMPSON   Neil Thompson can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/teachthegeek LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilithompson/ Website: https://teachthegeek.com/  

ABOUT THE GUEST Stephin Merritt is a singer-songwriter who has released more than a dozen albums with his band the Magnetic Fields, along with albums from the 6ths, Future Bible Heroes and the Gothic Archies. He’s also composed music for movies (Pieces of April, Eban and Charley) and stage (Coraline, The Orphan of Zhao, Peach Blossom Fan) and was the subject of the documentary Strange Powers. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Andrew Litton Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Intern: Emme Zhou Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION STEPHIN: Should we do a slate? NEIL: Yeah, sure. I'll just clap. Neil, talking to Stephin Merritt whose work he has adored since whenever the Faraway Bus came out. STEPHIN: Wayward. NEIL: Wayward Bus. There's a faraway. Where does faraway fit in that? I know there's something. STEPHIN: I don't know. I have a large catalog. NEIL: Yeah, I've heard. Word on the street. But it is true, I have just so profoundly loved your work since way back then. STEPHIN: Thank you. I'm thirsty. It's hot in here because I've turned the air conditioner off for audio. NEIL: I appreciate that. STEPHIN: I will be doing product placement for Mineragua Sparkling Water again and again. NEIL: Mineragua sounds like it could be a symptom. I'm sorry, I can't have a podcast today. I have Mineragua. I feel a little bit refreshed just looking at the label. Do you mind my asking, before we got on online, you were mentioning that you had COVID and you are experiencing brain fog. Can you describe what that feels like? STEPHIN: Well, it feels like writer's block and an inability to organize anything. I mean, everybody, pretty much... A lot of people have writer's block, but I have really weird writer's block. I agreed to write an article about ELO for a book someone is doing about the albums that changed my life. And I tried to write about ELO out of the blue. I just had to write 1000 words. I happened to have already written 1000 words on ELO out of the blue in junior high school, so it should not be a problem. But it took me six weeks and I eventually gave up. I just couldn't do it. STEPHIN: At the risk of interviewing you, in your background you have what seems to be a painting studio with a television on it, on the desk. Do you paint the television? STEPHIN: When I was in film school I filmed the television all the time. It's a really good source of images. NEIL: I don't paint, my studio mate does, so those are her paintings. Then the TV, I've got asked to do a project where I'm reviewing some work I did back in the mid 90s and reflect on it, so I broke out the old CRT and I've been pulling a Stephin Merritt in film school, I've been filming the TV set. Which is a very familiar, old feeling because I used to do that a bit too. STEPHIN: Everything looks better if you record it onto more than one medium. NEIL: You mean if there's like a generation loss? STEPHIN: Yes. Well, two generation losses of different kinds so that they have a sort of moire pattern in between them, so that you got the grain of the film and the scan lines of the video distorting each other. It makes everything prettier. NEIL: I love that. It's almost like wearing a plaid tie and a striped shirt, but the plaid tie is translucent or something like that. STEPHIN: Yes. NEIL: I didn't know you went to film school, though. STEPHIN: Yes. I never finished, but I went. NEIL: I remember when you wrote in TimeOut, was that about film? No. Or was it about books? No, it was about music. What the fuck am I talking about? STEPHIN: I reviewed a lot of different things in TimeOut, music, theater, food. I don't think I reviewed any books for TimeOut. Every year, I reviewed the calendars for the following year and the Christmas records, which is the worst job I have ever had. Entailed listening to at least 10, well, I chose 10, so a lot more than 10, Christmas albums. I hate Christmas albums. NEIL: Where are you speaking to me from? STEPHIN: New York City. I have a view of the Empire State Building from my chair. NEIL: Is it a north view, are you looking downtown onto the Empire State Building or uptown? STEPHIN: No. NEIL: Sideways? STEPHIN: You think I'm uptown? Jesus Christ. NEIL: Yeah, sorry. STEPHIN: No, I'm downtown baby. I am looking at the southern angle of the Empire State Building. NEIL: That's beautiful. STEPHIN: Where are you? NEIL: I'm on the lower east side, where I used to be able to actually to see The World Trade Center right out my window, speaking of landmarks. STEPHIN: I hope you were not able to see it burning. NEIL: Yeah, I did see it burning. Did you? STEPHIN: I saw it burning, but not from my room. NEIL: It is a different thing. STEPHIN: I would have been very upset. I mean, I was very upset. No, I saw it from my roof with binoculars, an experience I'm glad to never repeat. I now have a phobia of binoculars. NEIL: Because of that? STEPHIN: Yeah. NEIL: Some entomologist is really loving that they have, on the tip of their tongue, the scientific name for the phobia of binoculars. I've never heard that before, though. STEPHIN: Diocularaphobia, or something. NEIL: Also, there's something about a phobia is sort of in a meta relationship to something, which binoculars are in relationship to the thing being seen, so it's like... I don't know. There's something very complex going on. I'm detecting a kind of like lens theme happening. You spotted the TV set, film school, the filming of one thing with another thing, binoculars. What's going on? STEPHIN: Sometimes when suddenly a theme occurs to one it's always been there in everything and you just grabbed onto it as a filter. NEIL: Can I ask, when people don't know you, do you have a succinct way that you describe what it is you do? STEPHIN: I'm a songwriter not aligned to any particular genre. My preferred genre is variety. And I recently realized that my favorite genre is variety because I grew up on AM radio, and that was what AM radio was like. It would be Frank Sinatra followed by Black Sabbath. NEIL: That's so beautiful. I love it as a genre. I often say my favorite TV show is the menu, and I have spent vast amounts of time pretty contentedly looking through the selection of things to watch on the Netflix menu, whatever, and then kind of called it a night. STEPHIN: Reading the TV guide listings was almost always more entertaining than watching television. NEIL: It was a precursor to the genre variety. STEPHIN: Yes. Also, I'm not a good cook, but I do collect bento boxes and I make bento for lunch for myself. NEIL: Bentos are like a structure for variety. STEPHIN: Yes. NEIL: Shall we try some cards? But if anything doesn't speak to you just say pass or whatever. STEPHIN: No, I'll say brain fog. NEIL: Brain fog. Yeah. But so the first card says certain art ideas, when you come back to them or like a cup of coffee you left out on the counter. STEPHIN: I don't drink coffee, so I don't know what it's like when you leave coffee out on the counter. But I suppose if you have milk in it, the milk is probably curdled. NEIL: It's gotten cold. STEPHIN: What about iced coffee? Can you make iced coffee out of coffee that is simply gone cold or does it now taste bad? NEIL: I have very specific requirements around the iced coffee. I need for it to be designated from the start as iced coffee. STEPHIN: I'm a tea drinker and tea doesn't work that way at all. You can just heat it up again and it's fine. NEIL: Well, what's it like for you? How do you return to something that's in process, the cup of coffee that's been put down, and follow through on it maybe even after the initial heat, I'm really pushing the metaphor, has gone? STEPHIN: If I don't find what I worked on yesterday to be inspiring, I don't work on it again. I guess I don't work on things where the initial heat has dissipated. Red says I dump out the coffee. Or if I don't dump out the coffee, what I'm more likely to do is find something fun in it, cross out everything else, copy that to another page, and just go with the fact that Wallaby turned out to rhyme with. NEIL: Implicit in that is the idea that your working style involves pushing through to a type of finish. STEPHIN: Well, the most recent Magnetic Fields album was called Quickies. And by the standards of, say, The Cure, none of the songs on Quickies are finished because they're all under two minutes 20 seconds long. And I think that the two minutes 20 seconds is actually made that long by the guitarist tacking on an intro and outro that isn't a part of the song. STEPHIN: Everything is under two minutes long and all of the songs are a maximum of two parts, they don't have middle eights or anything, and they end as soon as they can. They don't have vamps at the end and that sort of thing. So there's that kind of finished/unfinished, but also I usually have a pretty wide variety of lengths of song on a given record. 69 Love Songs goes from 15 seconds to five minutes. So a song is really finished when I say it's finished. STEPHIN: I guess the recording is what's going to sound under cooked or not under cooked, not so much the song itself. I don't think I've ever left in a really stupid line in a song just because I can't think of something else. I don't know. Maybe on... I was going to say maybe on my first album, but then I was a perfectionist on my first album, so no, probably not. NEIL: Have you become less of a perfectionist with time? STEPHIN: I think every artist becomes less of a perfectionist with time. Especially Mondrian, who got bored. He got bored quite rightly. NEIL: Is there any correlation between a duration of time that it takes to, let's say, "finish" a song and the duration of the song itself, or can it take a really long time to do a short song? STEPHIN: There's a number of songs on Quickies that have been sitting in notebooks for decades unfinished, and they were finished by, sometimes, my simply looking at them and saying, "Oh, they're finished," and other times by my saying, "Well, if I just subtract this part, then it'll be finished." So I take songs that were really awful because the verse was so terrible, but the chorus was great, just play the chorus, and the song is done. NEIL: That is wisdom. STEPHIN: Finish by subtracting. NEIL: Yeah. Hello. One of the cards I hadn't thought of, but that I remember now, is I hate bridges in music generally. How do you feel about bridges? STEPHIN: I'm trying to think of one that I love. Here's a bridge that I love. In the ABBA song, Hole In Your Soul, it's a hard rock song, the closest ABBA could conceivably come to being hardcore. And then there's a bridge and the bridge is completely different. No drums, everything drops out, and you hear a beautiful synthesizer and an almost operatic tone of voice. You really hear Agnetha doing her Connie Francis imitation, because Connie Francis was her favorite singer, and then it goes out of that into a shrill, very high note, and you can't believe she can sustain this note, as the hardcore comes rushing back. And the bridge has actually done what bridges are supposed to do, which is give you something completely different to listen to for 10 seconds as an excuse to play the chorus a fourth and fifth time. That's the only bridge I can think of that really justifies the existence of bridges. NEIL: I feel like we're comrades on that. Because it always seems to me the bridge is serving a purpose outside itself. You know what I mean? STEPHIN: Generally the purpose of the bridge is to make the song longer than two minutes and 50 seconds, which is the length that singles used to have as a maximum in the heyday of the seven inch single. Before Bohemian Rhapsody you were never going to get a song on the radio if it was more than two minutes and 50 seconds long, unless it was going to be on FM radio and who cares about FM radio? So yeah, bridges are a purely commercial thing. Art songs never have bridges and folk songs never have bridges. NEIL: I feel so vindicated. What about key changes? I feel like often there can be a type of hubris in a key change. STEPHIN: The Barry Manilow problem is that once you're tired of the chorus, he goes up one half step and plays the same exact chorus all over again in identical arrangement, except that it's one half step up. And sometimes that pesky Barry Manilow does it again, more than one. NEIL: Can't Smile Without You. STEPHIN: Can't Smile Without You, yes. I actually love Barry Manilow's voice, but the key change habit drives me nuts. NEIL: You're someone who, if there's a key change in your music, I am 100% all in. Nothing is coming to mind. I know there is one. There's got to be. STEPHIN: I always make sure that if I really hate something, I make sure that I put it into my music. So I agree that there must be an unnecessary modulation somewhere, I just can't think of where it is. NEIL: Perhaps we'll call this episode, unnecessary modulation. Next card. STEPHIN: Maybe gratuitous. Gratuitous modulation. NEIL: Gratuitous modulation. See now gratuitous bridge is almost redundant, right? STEPHIN: Yes, it's redundant. NEIL: We've determined. STEPHIN: Except in Hole In Your Soul, where the bridge is at least half the point of the song. NEIL: I can't wait to hear it. And I should apologize, every now and then I'm speaking over you just because there's a little delay in my earphones. STEPHIN: That's fine. NEIL: Apologies if that's confusing to you. STEPHIN: A friend of mine hates being interrupted. That's her problem. She's miserable. She thinks everyone disrespects her. Not at all, it's the way everyone speaks. She just has a pet peeve that she should get over. NEIL: It's interesting, so I teach and I had this student who was amazing, but was completely... She was wild, and she was also a just insane interrupter of other people in the class, but- STEPHIN: Classrooms are not conversations, and if the other person is trying to learn something from you, then her interrupting them, interrupting a question in particular, is much ruder than it would be in an ordinary conversation. NEIL: Great point. And so I said, "How would you like to be interrupted?" And she said, "I love being interrupted." And I really believed her. It wasn't just like she was okay with it, she loved it. STEPHIN: I also love being interrupted. I'm all in favor of that. However, it's not really her decision to make if this is a hierarchical class. I don't know. Was it a lecture or a seminar? It makes a difference. NEIL: Studio art class. I mean, that's very contested hierarchy there. STEPHIN: If she did it all the time, it's just annoying. NEIL: And she did indeed. She was a great student, though. Sondheim related card. The song Ladies Who Lunch, I really get stopped on the line, aren't they a gem? And I know you're a stickler for grammar, and I don't know if this is a grammatical error or what it is, or it's just a choice. But how do you feel about that? Here's to the ladies who lunch, aren't they a gem? STEPHIN: I'm failing to see what you're pointing out as a grammatical error. NEIL: Aren't they gems? Unless ladies who lunch is singular. STEPHIN: They collectively. Aren't they a circus? Aren't they a gem? Aren't they a peach? NEIL: Aren't they a peach. Aren't they peaches. You don't have a problem with it. See, aren't they a circus I would be okay with because that a circus is a collection of... I guess a gem is a collection of what? STEPHIN: Carbon atoms. NEIL: So you're okay. That was in Sondheim's notebook, aren't they a collection of- STEPHIN: Carbon atom. More than on carbon atom. A gem, in fact. NEIL: All right, you've solved it. We're done in terms of my issues with that song. Next card.   STEPHIN: All of my Sondheim quibbles are from West Side Story, but I don't really want to air them. NEIL: I have a lot of quibbles with Sondheim. Can I just go there? Sorry Stephen Sondheim, if you're a listener of She's A Talker. I don't emotionally trust his work. So much of it is about relationships, but the way he talks about it, it feels very outsider speaking as an insider. It doesn't ring true, maybe, is all I'm saying. STEPHIN: Do Rodgers and Hammerstein ring true? Do you find Flower Drum Song to be a photorealist masterpiece? Not a hint? NEIL: I guess I am talking to the wrong person. But is it claiming to be? Or maybe it's in the uncanny valley of sentiment. Meaning it's trying to represent- STEPHIN: And then it's not realistic enough for you. NEIL: Exactly. I don't go into Rodgers and Hammerstein song, at least in this historical period, expecting that. Sondheim represents himself as offering this kind of acute nuanced insight into the dynamics of relationship. Or am I wrong? STEPHIN: I don't want to speak for him. I certainly don't present myself as offering a particularly subtle or nuanced insight into relationships. NEIL: But, I'm going to interrupt, that's the paradox. STEPHIN: My work is more about other work than it is about portraying reality. And you could say, I'm not sure that Sondheim would be comfortable with it, but you could say that Sondheim's work is more about theater and music than it is about whether Bobby is going to get married. STEPHIN: I always say that the kind of plot that I hate boils down to, will the boring straight people fuck each other? And it is. Two thirds of the plots in the world are, will the boring straight people fuck each other? Which is why gay cinema should not emulate straight cinema. NEIL: Not to mention gay life. STEPHIN: Gay life. NEIL: The thing I was going to say about your work is there's a paradox, for me at least, which is I've heard you say that you don't, and you've just said it, that you're not aiming for a certain type of realism, for lack of a better word, but paradoxically it inadvertently achieves it one way or the other, for me at least. Emotional- STEPHIN: Realism. NEIL: Emotional realism, absolutely. STEPHIN: Psychological realism, in fact. NEIL: Indeed. Verily. STEPHIN: I'm not a fan of psychological realism as a genre, so I don't delve. NEIL: You may be getting in through the back door, as it were, speaking of queer. STEPHIN: Hubba hubba. NEIL: Dog's name? STEPHIN: What's the next card? NEIL: This one's about animals, and I know you're a dog person. What are your pups' names? STEPHIN: Edgar and Agatha. They are not named after the mystery novel prizes, they're named after the people the mystery novel prizes are named after, Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie, because they were from mysterious origins. NEIL: Where are they from? Or it's mysterious. STEPHIN: They were found rooting through garbage in Atlanta, Georgia. NEIL: Beautiful origin story. STEPHIN: They should probably have been named after some realist authors like Zola and Tolstoy, or something. NEIL: We could talk more about that, but I'll say that my cat's origin story, and Beverly is the mascot of the podcast, was found hiding in the wheel-well of a car in Brooklyn as a little kitten. She's a survivor. But this card says, the way an animal's affection and vulnerability are connected. STEPHIN: Is what? NEIL: It's just an observation, I guess. That, at least for cats, they'll do things like they'll slow blink, which is a way of making themselves vulnerable, which apparently is a way of, according to the interpreters of cat behavior, it's a way of expressing affection for you. STEPHIN: Like putting your head down is a way of being lower and therefore more vulnerable. NEIL: Yeah. STEPHIN: Like kneeling before the queen to be knighted. She could decapitate you, but she doesn't. She symbolically decapitates you in order to show that you are loyal enough to present your neck for decapitation by the queen. NEIL: Is that what that's about? STEPHIN: Yes. NEIL: How does that live with Edgar and Agatha? STEPHIN: They put their heads down, I don't decapitate them, we live happily. NEIL: All right, one more card. The sound of turning off an NPR story mid-sentence always makes me feel like I'm in a movie. Like, let's say I have to get out of the apartment, but I'm listening to NPR and there's a news story and I turn it off, suddenly I'm like, I'm in a movie. No? Yes? STEPHIN: This is Nina Totenberg reporting on the zombie massacres happening in Lebanon today. We have the BBC correspondent. Are you there? Are you there? I can't quite hear you. Well, we'll have to get back to Lebanon. Now, we go... Yes, sounds like you're in a movie. NEIL: To me, it does. Just when I turn it off in the middle of a sentence, do you have that experience? STEPHIN: I am so unlikely to turn anything off in the middle of a sentence that I would have to say non-applicable. NEIL: Is that because you're a completist or is it because... What's that about? STEPHIN: I'm sure it's a mental illness of some kind, but although I'm willing to interrupt people who are having a conversation with me, I'm less willing to interrupt people who are mechanical reproductions, I guess. NEIL: Kind of reminds me of someone I know, came as a child from Romania for the fall of communism, and she saw Tony the Tiger on TV saying, "Buy Frosted Flakes, they're great." And then she went to the store with her mom and she became desperate, telling her mom, "We have to get the Frosted Flakes." She didn't realize that someone on TV telling her to get something, it's actually optional. Could it be that? STEPHIN: What a sad story. NEIL: She's doing okay now. STEPHIN: It's probably more that I want to hear the end of the sentence. NEIL: So the unit is the sentence. STEPHIN: It's not like I wait until the end of the show to turn it off or anything. NEIL: Got it. All right, well, last question. When current circumstances, however you understand them, COVID, quarantine, social distancing, are over, what is it that you're looking forward to, if anything? STEPHIN: BEAR WEEK!  

Contrary to popular belief, optimum nutrition is not one-size-fits-all. What works for others may not work for you. Our body type is dictated by genes that we cannot change. What we can do is tailor our exercise and diet so that our genes respond and are expressed the way they are supposed to.  This week, Neil joins me to explain how to personalise your optimum nutrition and exercise. Throughout the episode, we emphasise the importance of knowing your body type in building the right diet and exercise for your specific set of genes.  If you want to achieve optimum nutrition and health according to your genes, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join their free live webinar on epigenetics.   Online Coaching for Runners Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching. You can also join our free live webinar on runners' warm-up to learn how a structured and specific warm-up can make a massive difference in how you run.   Consult with Me If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset, to head injuries,  to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/consultations.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: http://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   My Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Know the three general body types.  Get Neil’s recommendations for each body type to get optimum nutrition. Discover the role of genes in shaping our biology.    Resources Email lisa@lisatamati.com to know more about my health optimisation consulting. The Search for the Perfect Protein by Dr David Minkoff     Episode Highlights [04:17] Genes and Body Types All body types are unique.  Genes are the blueprint of the body. Everything that happens in the environment affects your genes. The exercise and food we give our bodies dictate how our genes express themselves.  Our bodies can significantly change if we do the wrong exercise or give it below optimum nutrition. We may end up with an unhealthy body. [09:15] The 3 Major Body Types The formation of body types starts at embryogenesis. It depends on which layer (ectoderm, mesoderm, or endoderm) is provided with more energy.  Different bodies will respond to exercise in different ways.  Ectomorphs are taller, slimmer, and leaner with a low percentage of body fat. Mesomorphs are shorter and have the classic triangle shape (broad shoulders and narrow waists). Endomorphs are great at putting on fats and muscles. They have bigger bones and evenly shaped lower and upper bodies.  [14:46] Nutrition and Exercise for Mesomorphs Mesomorphs are agile and quick responders. As a result, they are coordinated and athletic.  Activities that work well for this body type include 20- to 40-minute CrossFit-style exercise, intensity interval training and short bursts of high-intensity activity.  Make sure to have enough rest to avoid injuries and health burnout. Have three full meals a day, with regular snacks. Get your protein up for recovery.  [24:32] Nutrition and Exercise for Endomorphs Endomorphs are good at endurance and strength.  Get heavier weights and lower repetitions. Start slow and exercise optimally late in the day. Also, take longer warm-ups.  Take later breakfast and lunch, with lunch as the biggest meal of the day.  Increase your vegetable intake.  [31:22] Fasting for Different Body Types Women have to be a little careful with more prolonged fasting because of their cycle.  Fasting should be shorter for ectomorphs and mesomorphs. For ectomorphs, 12 hours intermittent fast is good.  Endomorphs can last up to 16 hours or longer. They take two to three meals per day.  [33:05] Nutrition and Exercise for Ectomorphs Ectomorphs have a more developed nervous system and are suitable for speed endurance.  Cycling and swimming help calm their body.  Because they have stiffer and more rigid body tissue, speed, endurance and flexibility work should be balanced.  You can put a heavier load with higher repetitions — for instance, 12 to 20 reps. Do this at 7 in the morning and in the afternoon.    7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘We’re all born with around 23,000 genes; we’re all born with a blueprint. That’s a blueprint of our genes, and those genes were given when born. But what we can do now in a way our body responds with the exercise and food we give it will dictate how our genes express themselves’. ‘Here's my genes. Here's how I can optimise them, and how I can also be aware of perhaps some of the weaknesses that I might have and how I can make the best out of my body, and out of my mind, and out of my sporting performance and out of my health’. ‘If you look around — look at your family, your friends, those around you — you'll see that we are all different shapes. And we should be different shapes. It's okay to be different shapes’. ‘You can still be a long-distance runner, but it becomes more important, then, that you rest harder’. ‘You can get gains without pain’. ‘It's okay to be me, in all aspects’. ‘There are advantages and there are disadvantages to every body type. The thing to take away is let's work with our advantages’.   Enjoy the Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can personalise their diets and exercise based on their body type. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Introduction: Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential, with your host, Lisa Tamati. Brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Pushing the Limits this week. Coming up, I have a very good interview with Neil Wagstaff, who has been on the show regularly, my business partner at Running Hot Coaching. And today we are getting into personalized nutrition and personalized exercise. So, understanding how to build the right exercise and diet plan for your specific set of genes.  So, this is related a little bit to a couple of episodes that we've done prior, but it's focusing in on the nutrition aspects, and on the exercise aspect. So I hope you really enjoy the session.  Now Christmas is coming up. So if you haven't got your Christmas presents ready yet, you might want to grab one of my books. We've got three Running Hot and my first one, Running To Extremes, both of those chronicling my adventures all around the planet. Lots of successes and failures, and lots of laughing, lots of fun we have at those books. And my recent book, Relentless—how a mother and daughter defied the odds, which is really a book about empowering you to overcome obstacles, think outside the square, take control of your own health. And it's a love story between a mother and a daughter and family. So I hope you grab one of those for your Christmas present this year. You can get them over on lisatamati.com, under the shop banner.  And before we go over to Neil, I just want to remind you, we are taking on a small—very small number—of clients on one-on-one sessions. If you have a health problem—I just was getting asked all the time, ‘Can you please help me with this or that problem’? And so we've actually opened up a number of places, we're only dealing with 10 people at a time on their health journeys.  If you've got a complicated health journey that you want to help with, or you want high performance, or you've got some big massive goal that you have, and you need some support around your mindset, or brain injuries, or a cancer journey, or stroke, or whatever the case may be, then please reach out to us, support at lisatamati.com and tell us what you're looking for. And we can see whether we'll be able to help you. We're enjoying working with a number of people and getting some fantastic results. So, let us know if you want to do that.  Please also give a rating and review to the show if you haven't. It really, really helps the show. And I can't emphasize enough how appreciated that is when I get a rating or a review from a listener, it really makes my day. I love hearing from listeners because you don’t—you're always talking into a microphone, you don't actually get a lot of feedback. So, we do appreciate you telling us what you think. And if there's guest recommendations or if there's things that you want us to talk about then maybe we can add to the list, then please let us know. Okay? Reach out to us. And yes, right, over to the show now. We'll be enjoying this conversation with Neil Wagstaff, all around personalized diet and exercise.  Welcome back, everybody. Fantastic to have you with us again. Today, I have Neil Wagstaff in Havelock North, my business partner at Running Hot Coach, my long-time coach, and exercise scientist, brilliant man, welcome to the show again, Neil. Fantastic to have you back again. Neil Wagstaff: Thanks, Lisa. Nice introduction. I like that.  Lisa: Yes, well, got to [00:03:40 unintelligible] you up a little bit. (laughs) Neil: Very nicely. Very nicely.  Lisa: All very well entertained, by the way people.  So today's subject and I love having these conversations with Neil because we love to learn together, develop our philosophies together, train together. Yes, it's all fantastic. So today we're going to be looking at exercise and nutrition, and how to personalize it to you, so that you are doing the right diet and the right types of exercise for your particular body.  So, Neil, where do you want to start with this? Do you want to start with the body types and that type of thing?  Neil: If we give people a little bit of an overview of just the phenotype, what we're going to be looking at and then we can go into some of the body types in there. So just everyone should appreciate and understand, Lisa, they're all unique. And it's okay to be different. It's okay to be themselves. And gone are the days of the one-size-fits-all program for the exercise and nutrition point of view. And your exercise and nutrition should be personalized to you.  Now as we look at that and sort through, it is good to look at it through the lens of—which is where we're going to be looking at it—through the lens of epigenetics. So, as you know, we’re all born with around 23,000 genes, we’re all born with our blueprint. That’s our blueprint of our genes, and those genes are what we’re given when born. But what we can do now and where our body responds with the exercise and food we give it will dictate how our genes express themselves.  So, if we're giving ourselves the wrong type of exercise, or the wrong type of nutrition, or doing it at the wrong times of day, or a different time of day, then our genes can respond in a different way. And what we get as a result that is a phenotype, with you and I looking at each other with how we look. Our phenotype can look some differently different, it can be affected from a health point of view, if we've got the exercise, wrong time of day, wrong dosage, and the wrong intensity. And the same from nutrition point of view—wrong foods, wrong time of day, and the wrong amount. And all of a sudden, our phenotype can change quite significantly. And we can end up with a body that is not in a good state from a health point of view. Lisa: Yes, and this is where the one-size-fits-all approach of the fitness industry—up until recently, at least—has put certain body types in down the wrong direction. And you use a couple of terms there, I just want to clarify, and people would have heard on a couple of our earlier podcasts, if they have listened to a number of them. We're really big on understanding your genes and understanding how to optimize your genes and how to make the best out of your body, and not seeing the genes as something as deterministic. But seeing them as a, ‘Well, here’s my genes, here's how I can optimize them and how I can also be aware of perhaps some of the weaknesses that I might have, and how I can make the best out of my body and out of my mind and out of my sporting performance and out of my health’. So the word phenotype is a word that we use in our daily language now. But people probably don't quite understand what a phenotype. So, if you think of your DNA, your 23,000 genes odd, we're still counting, but around about there. And then everything that happens in your environment, or your food, your nutrition, the way you think, the perspective on life, your emotional well-being—all of these things affect your genes. And what is the result of that is how you are. That includes not only the way you look physically, but also the state of your mind, the state of your body, and the state of your health. It’s a combination.  So the ‘epi’ meaning above the gene, it’s outside of the genes, what's influencing the genes. So when we talk about genes being turned on and off, this is where it gets exciting because we have the ability. So, we inherited our genes, we can't do anything about that, mum and dad did that for us. We are given the blueprint half from mum, half from dad, we got to make this or that. However, which genes are actually activated and which are being transcribed—transcription is a word that is used in regards to genes—and actually read is very much in our control.  So some people get a little bit nervous when they hear genes or ‘Getting my gene system, maybe I'll come back with some bad genes’. Well, there's no such thing really as having—well, there is some bad mutations and so on—but we don't need to say, ‘Well, that means I'm going to get cancer. I've got the bracket gene, so I'm going to get cancer’. Or ‘I've got the MTHFR gene and the methylation, and I've got some bad mutations, therefore I am going to get XYZ’. That's not the case. It's like, ‘Oh, okay, got a bit of a problem here. Right, I have to do some certain interventions, or certain things that can help support my body’. And that's what we're all about. And today we want to focus in on the exercise part of the puzzle, and also the nutrition part of the puzzle.  So, if we go now into some broad body types, to give you a bit of a framework to build this around, and unfortunately, the podcast, for those watching on YouTube, we do have slides and stuff, but we haven't got them with us today. It's a little bit hard to picture. But if we go in now and talk a little bit about the three major body types, Neil, can you explain visually how they look? And what, yes?  Neil: Yes. So somatotypes, as they're called, are basically three different body shapes. Okay, so different bodies are going to respond to exercise in different ways.  Okay? So an ectomorph are generally taller, longer, slimmer, low percentage of body fat, leaner, and generally, depending on what they're doing, we'll find—will often struggle to put more lean tissue on. And regardless of whether exercising or not, they normally keep a similar sort of shape.  A mesomorph are normally a little bit shorter in stature, then that sort of traditional triangle shape. So broader shoulders, narrow at the waist, and shorter with the lower limbs, and they're very, very good at putting on muscle mass and usually put it on very quickly. And they're usually those a little bit more agile, quick, good coordination. And usually those good in the sporting arena as well.  Endomorphs are usually bigger bones, great putting on all tissues. So great putting on adipose tissue or body fat, also great putting on muscle. So bigger, much, much bigger units from a body point of view and evenly sort of shape with upper and lower body so that that mass is kind of distributed quite nicely across the whole body as well. And if you look around you, look at your family, your friends, those around you, you'll see that we all different shapes. And we should be different shapes, it's okay to be different shapes.  If I'm an endomorph, I don’t want to spend my entire time... Lisa: ...trying to be an ectomorph.  Neil: ...trying to be an ectomorph. But this is the way the health and fitness industry has been set up, it is the picture of, ‘This is what we should all look like we should all look like this’. And we should all be great, which for some people, they're going to fit into that box and they're going to go, ‘Yay works for me’. Others, it's just not good news. We need to trade some more individuality and personalization around it, that people getting the right results.  If we take it a step further as well, this whole process starts when you're growing in your mum's tummy. So, the science of embryology, this all happens at that phase. And if you imagine as you're growing in mum's tummy, how much energy you're given to each of your derms. So you've got your ectoderm, your mesoderm, and your endoderm. As you're developing and growing in mum’s tummy, you'll get certain amount of energy into each of those derms. So this whole process of what body shape or somatotype you're going to be starting as you're growing in your mum’s tummy.  As you're developing—I’m just kind of sit as a ecto-meso, a little more on the ecto side. So, I'm kind of taller, stroke, with muscle — I can put some muscle tissue on more than the true ectomorph could. As I was developing in my mum’s tummy, I have much more energy go into my ectoderm. So, I have more development through my nervous system. So, I've got quite an active nervous system, more sensitive to pain, and a little bit of a very active mind. And probably described the body's a little bit more fragile than an endomorph body would be, which has more development through the digestive tract, and the ability to put more on tissue. So therefore, a much more resilient body, going to be better to deal with the calibre stress... Lisa: The human weight  Neil: Endurance wise, it’s great at taking a whole lot of burn, physical endurance. From an exercise point of view, it’s a sort of body that's going to be well suited to powerlifting and things like that, but great endurance wise,  Lisa: Dwayne Johnson is a good example of one of those, isn’t it? The Rock.  Neil: Very much so. Very, very resilient body. This whole process is starting, as you—when you come into the world, you're kind of already going to be an ecto, a meso, or an endo, or a combination of—you might be an ecto-meso, meso-endo, and an endo-ecto.  But if you can start to relate as you're listening and look at your body shape, and start to think about where, what sort of body shape I've got, and what sort of activities should I be doing for that for that body? And what time of day, should I be doing it? And how should, what sort of dose of exercise should I be applying? Then you can start to get some good wins. Okay, you can start get some real, real good wins with your exercise and nutrition plan. Neil: And that's what we sort of want to cover off today, it’s a little bit of a broad—it's a very broad overview. So Neil, and I have a program where we actually do your genes and have a have a whole technology behind us if you wanted to go into it and do a deep dive and find out exactly what you are and where you sit and what the right recommendations are for your body—the right foods, the right exercise, the right times a day.  But to just give you a broader overview here, what are some takeaways from today, so start to think where do I sit? So, I know that I sit on the ecto-meso sort of side of things. So I'm not a true-true mesomorph but I am quite muscular in built. I'm a little bit taller than your average mesomorph. So I have some ectomorph tendencies as well. So if I'm looking for me, there are certain things that are really good for me and certain things that are not so good for me.  And so, we're going to cover off a little bit today, those from them three major groups, the ectomorph, endomorph, and the mesomorph. What some high level wins that you can just take away from this podcast today and actually go, ‘I think I fall into that category or a combination of those two’, and then you can start to experiment. I mean, of course, come and see us, ask us some questions, do the program if you want to do it, but if you don't want to do it, you can take some high level wins away from this.  So for the—let's start with a mesomorph because it's sort of the part that I fall into and know quite well. So the mesomorph from our body type is very good at putting on lean muscle mass, they're very quick adapters. So when they exercise, they get results quite quickly. They're very coordinated usually and quite athletic. From a personality perspective, they can be quite into challenge and into beating everybody else, very competitive. They love to express themselves. So they're quiet, they need to be able to share their thoughts. Sometimes there's no filter between the brain and the mouth. And they have a dominance in testosterone and adrenaline if they're true mesomorph. And this means that they have a bit more of a risk-taking personality, they have a lot of drive and determination, they can push through, and they tend to go hard out. And they like a lot of change, and a lot of like, challenge, and that sort of thing. So, you can see, possibly, that I fit nicely into that category with a bit of ectomorph in there as well.  So for that person, Neil, can you explain what are some of the high level wins for them from an eating and an exercise perspective? Neil: Yes, no worries, Lisa. So natural strengths for the sort of body you're just describing is going to be good from sort of hand eye coordination point of view. So, getting involved in activities that involve good hand eye coordination. They're going to be quite agile and quick, they're going to be able to move quickly, and respond quickly. From a body awareness point of view, they're going to have good connection with their body. Often you'll find—if you're the sort of body, you'll be able to pick things up quite quickly. Try sport, try an activity, and get it quite quickly. As you say, quick responders, so the type of exercise you're doing, and you're going to respond quickly to.  To be fair and probably very honest, this is the message the sort of people that the fitness industry is...  Lisa: Catering to  Neil: ...screaming about for years when you should do high intensity and sport training. So CrossFit style exercise, high-intensity interval training, short bursts of high intensity exercise worked very, very well for this body. So if you've got this body, those shorter sessions are sort of 20 to 40 minutes, is going to work very well for your body.  And things to be careful of here exercising for too long. So exercising for long periods of time, it's a lot to involve in, resulting in additional information and additional load on the body. So one of the biggest wins—and we've worked a lot on this, at least ourselves as well with your programming—is making sure that there’s enough rest in the program. Here, it's all about going hard but then resting hard. Going hard, resting hard.  Now what often happens is, a lot of our athletes, the runners that we work with, and just people looking for general health goals as well, we find that they go hard really well, but they don't rest so well. So, you end up with that inflammation, that additional load on the body, and then the next one, you end up with the injuries, niggles, and health burnout as well.  So just, yes, rest hard and all right to work out, make sure the rest hard is there as well. Move daily, the regular movement. As I'm talking to Lisa, now she's moving around on a... Lisa: Rocket board.  Neil: Rocket board. So she's rocking back and forth. That’s great for her, it means we can do what we're doing. And she can stay in flow and she can stay in flow because she's moving regularly. For this body type, leaving it sat still, desk all day, is a recipe for disaster.  Lisa: Kills me. Neil: So don't be sitting in the tree in the afternoon. Okay, be conscious about moving in that 2 to 4pm window, getting out and moving. If you sat at your desk, then stuff where you can work and move is very useful as well.  Lisa indicated that about having a competition—the challenge, whatever you’re doing, exercise-wise. This is why for the mesomorph programs like CrossFit works so well. You get a workout after the board, it’s like, ‘Right. What is the challenge for today? I don't know what it's going to be, what is it? We've got the challenge, it’s up on the board, the way we go, and now the whole group of people I can be’. So that’s why it works so well for the mesomorph. Looking for opportunities as well. Working out earlier in the morning. Some good wins when you work out through the afternoon. But make sure that you are dipping things down and going through your working install exercises in the late afternoon and evening.  So you turn in the body down, mobility work, meditation work, stuff that's going to slow the system down and get you into a parasympathetic state. So, you're then ready to rest and recover and go and do the same thing the next the next day. Lisa: Don't go hard out all night, which I used to do, day and night (laughs). Relinquish. Neil: Rest, rest, rest hard. Food wise, you can start to see that it's a similar—it's going to be with the amount of movement that we're encouraging for the mesomorph. It’s like, ‘Right we're going to need to feel that’. So food to this body is like kindling on a fire. If you put it in and it burns through it quickly, transit time from mouth to bomb is pretty quick.  So you need to keep fuelling. So, three good meals, with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then regular snacks. So, you're going to be looking at up to sort of five or six meals a day, that paleo style food recommendation, again has come out from the fitness industry, is great for the mesomorph.  Lisa: This type...  Neil: Okay? And enough protein. Protein is going to be key. Often we find that a lot of mesos we work with, and some are even vegetarian or vegan, where we get some massive wins, is getting the protein up. So protein is needed for the recovery, it's needed to see more so for this body type, so getting that happening and increasing that can be can be key. Lisa: And to that point, quickly we did a podcast was two weeks ago, I think, with Dr. David Minkoff, make sure you go and listen to that podcast because it was all about the perfect amino combination and getting the right—so amino acids bring the building blocks of proteins, and this is a game changer for a lot of athletes, especially people who are in the mesomorph interview.  Definitely if you're vegan or vegetarian and try in your office body type, or if you're like me, and you're constantly dealing with a protein deficiency, then that can be really detrimental to your health. And there's a product that Dr. Minkoff has put out, which is just next level. I've had some great ones with it already with a couple of people that I'm working with and with myself. And just healing much better, much more calmer and so on because you're finally getting all the proteins that you need in the right combination.  So make sure you go and listen to that because when you have a steak, only 33% of that steak is actually going to turn into protein. So just because you eat meat, don't think you've already got it covered. So make sure you go and listen to that episode a couple of weeks ago.  Just as an aside, but the mesomorph does need a lot more protein. The mesomorph also has a lot more oxidative stress—they have a lot more oxidants. So, they need a lot of antioxidant support. So these antioxidants are things like your vitamin C, which I've just done a massive series on as well. Very, very important for this body type to define as your master, antioxidant bioflavonoids.  So, getting your fruits and your veggies and your things that have got this antioxidants in there can really help this type as well.  Neil: Connecting the dots a little bit for the listeners as well, Lisa, is that we're recommending here, when we said sort of dosage wise, we were talking about that sort of 20 to 45 minutes short session.    Now it could be, we got some runners listening and doing ultra-marathon runners like you used to, with your big distance you've done in the past, is looking at right, it doesn't mean you've got to stop running long distances and you've got to cut back to doing 20 to 45-minute sessions. You can still be a long-distance runner, but it becomes more important then that you rest harder. So the rest dosage needs to go up. Plus, really conscious then, are you getting the right amount of food in each day? And is there enough protein to support that additional workload?  So it's getting clever with going, ‘Right. There's other exercise that I want to do, which isn't necessarily the best choice of exercise for my body type, but I love it. So I'm going to carry on doing that. But now I can use the other information I've got to go right. What do I need more of to support my body through this’?  Lisa: And that's working in the grey, if you like. We've got our personal goals and then we've got our genetics and what they want. So, it's that's what we help with people to work in that grey area to make—like I wanted to do ultras, I did it for 25 years and had some fantastic times and successes but it did come at a cost because I wasn't aware of all this spec being and not necessarily covering all my bases which lead to problems, as shall we say.  Okay, let's move over now to the endomorph body type. So, these are those—the types of people that are bigger boned, like literally bigger boned, and they have more muscle mass, more bone mass, and they tend to be conservationists in their body type.  So, my mom's a classic example of an endomorph body type. Can level the smell of an oily rag basically, as far as food goes for a long period of time, and not lose weight and also not lose muscle which can have huge advantages and huge disadvantages.  So Neil, what are some of the exercise and food recommendations for the endomorph body type? Neil: But generally, these guys' bodies we said when we're talking about the embryology side with the body shapes, these bodies are going to be good for endurance, they're going to be great for strength, you can put a significant amount of load through them.  Okay, so we've talked for now you start to see some differences coming in. We talked about the mesomorph, short, sharp, high-intensity, fast, explosive, quick style movements, Cross fit style stuff. Now we're going to talk about getting heavier weights. Okay? So heavier weights, lower repetitions, could be in the sort of five to eight rep range with good rest periods in between. So, you can get gains without pain. That message again, that's come out of the fitness industry over the years is, ‘Got to keep pushing. No pain, no gain’. Yes, we can get gain without the pain, that's fine. Just let the body take its time, put some good loads for a bit.  Things to take into care in here as well as we've got runners listening, which we probably have with the audience. Lisa's looking at making sure you've got a longer warm up. So, this body is going to take longer to warm up, if you're going to do some endurance stuff, give it a good 15, 20 minutes. A mesomorph body type might not need as long to warm up. Okay? There's going to be differences and care for the perfect repetitive impact and jumping without the extended warm up can still do them, but you need the longer the longer warm up for it.  Now, and generally in the morning, this body type—we said with a mesomorph get up early and get into some stuff. What we're saying here with this, the endo body shape is start slower. This body is going to have a different hormone balance as well. So, getting up early and loading the body with a high intensity class at 6am is probably going to result in that body putting on all adipose tissue and body fat tissue.  So you could do bootcamp, literally three days a week. You can train like a HIIT train and get better or not change at all. So both are just crazy concepts. I train three mornings a week, I eat six meals a day, and I'm getting better. So it's looking at—the morning should be about improving your circulation and rising slowly. So if you want to move, move, but keep at low volume. Lisa: Low stress level. Go for a walk.  Neil: Low stress level. Ease into the day, spend time in nature, and then slower heavy lifting will start to get you better results.  Optimum times—when doing some training is going to be later in the day. So, the later you can push your training in the day, the better against slow start, pick up steam, and then go hard. And then use your energy before you go down into the latter part of the day. And yes, just look at low reps, try it and test it. Okay? Like you said at the start, if you want to get the exact, here you are, come and look at the program. If you want to play with it and test it, see what results you get. Some more traditional style lifting, bigger compound movements, get some good weights through the body, and that weight will—sorry the body will respond well to that additional resistance. And that applies to guys and girls. Ladies, don't worry that you're going to start getting bigger. The result of this will start to change shape in a positive way by getting more load through your body.  Lisa: Exactly, and muscles are good things, girls. And an example of this is my brother Dawson, who looks like The Rock actually. And his classic training style is heavy, heavy weights, and doing them quite slowly. Whereas if you watch us two at the gym, I'm going hard out hard out, like back-to-back seats, changing. And he's sitting near with his music on and he's doing one set, and then he's having a rest, and then he's doing another set and having a rest.  And I used to think, ‘Shit, I don't want to do that because that's wasting my day. Like I don't want to spend so long at the gym’. And then he’s cut it down to the size he wants. But that's the right way to exercise for his body. Conversely, with my husband, Haisley—and I've said this before—I used to make them do CrossFit at 6am in the morning, which was a complete disaster for his body. Neil: You’re a hard woman, Lisa.  Lisa: Yes, I am a hard woman. Poor Haisley.  And now that he does super long-distance running. And he does heavy weights, he doesn't like doing the weights particularly, so I got to drag him to the gym. But that—his body responds to that heavier slower weights but don't make him do CrossFit, he won't get the results and it won't be a good experience for him.  From a meal perspective, let's talk a little bit about their eating times and the chronobiology of their—when they should eat. Neil: Yes. We talked about with the mesos that five or six times a day, the food is like kindling on a fire. Now we're going to change that. For this body type, we're looking at potentially changing the meals to say 10, 2, and 6. So later breakfast, later lunch, with lunch being the biggest meal. Lunch being the biggest meal of the day and then a smaller dinner as well. And in some key cases, depending how close you are to the meso and how close you are to the ecto in some cases, looking at—for the endomorphs looking at getting rid of breakfast all together and having a longer fast in the morning. Higher vegetarian. High vegetarian intake for these bodies as well.  And it's amazing, some of the local wins we've had with some of the guys working with locally in Hawke's Bay. Big guys, big sportsmen as well, and just going from eating sort of four or five times a day, lots of meat, reducing that meat down, increasing the vegetarian portion of food that's going into a diet, longer fast in the morning. Their energy has gone through the roof, their clarity of mind has gone through the roof. Their resilience with regards to niggles and injuries that they had before, which was probably down to inflammation, has now started to go. And the results they're getting is phenomenal.  Now, again, you see in the media that everyone should be fasting’s next best thing. What we're seeing now that for some people it is the next best thing, it's the perfect thing. Lisa: For these guys, it’s great.  Neil: For these guys, it’s great. For others, if you put me on a fasting process like that, when we talked about the ectomorph having the high nervous development in the nervous system, need carbohydrates for the brain. I'd be out cold by lunchtime, if I follow through a meal time like that. I would have probably eaten one of my limbs. So the more time for a person... Lisa: I mean, you could do a fast. But you do a shorter fast don't you, Neil? So you do a 12-hour as opposed to... Neil: Yes, so generally I won’t eat after seven in the evening and then don't eat until seven again in the morning.  Lisa: So it’s a 12-hour fast type of thing? Yes Neil: So, to kick start my day, I need to eat the carbs.   Lisa: Yes. And so that's just working in with your thing. Because there is good things about fasting, don't get me wrong here. Like there is really good things about fasting for all body types to a certain degree. Woman have to be a little bit careful with a longer, longer fast, in relation to—so I find and if you're of an ectomorph side of the wheel then, and to a certain extent, a meso, then your fast should be a little bit shorter.  There are some great things about fasting, especially if you're dealing with weight issues or inflammation on the body. Or if there's some specialized reasons why you want to do longer fasts for autophagy, inhibiting mTOR and things like that. But that's outside today's discussion.  But it is a general rule, a good 12-hour intermittent fast for an ecto is a great thing to give your body a rest. For an endomorph, if you can last for up to 16 hours or even longer, brilliant. And you can actually even go for longer periods of time if you're really on the endomorph side of the scale without too much detriment.  So it's a learning to understand but definitely only two to three meals a day. And not five to six meals a day is probably a key takeaway point. Neil: Correct. And the way we've had the biggest wins just as a little summary for these guys is changing the exercise time. So, moving the exercise the later in the day, and going to three meals, at 10, 2, and 6. Huge, huge, huge wins.  Lisa: Already.  Neil: So it's simple changes, massive results. Lisa: Yes, slower, slower periods in between your seats, or long-distance slow sort of aerobic activity perfect for these guys.  Okay, now let's go to the ectomorph, the last sort of group on the spectrum, if you like. What do these guys need?  Neil: So these guys are generally going to be your speed endurance guys and girls. They're going to be the ones that got the ability to live on that threshold. So, they often be your triathletes, your sort of middle-distance runners, those people that—and some people also long-distance runners—but they can live on the edge, that lactate threshold quite comfortably and enjoy it for quite long periods of time.  So high drive to do that as well. So, they want to do that, enjoy doing that. And we talked as well about them being more developed in the nervous system. So, the rhythmical exercise of cycling and running and swimming, that helps calm his body a little bit as well. So the rhythm is a good exercise, almost like a meditation, will help calm that I find being able to process my thoughts of mine while I'm on a bike or running is the best place to do it.  Things to be careful of. This body will often be stiffer through the spinal cord and will often have to tie some more rigid tissue. So, you need a balance of that speed endurance work and but also to complement that, you're going to need a lot of mobility work, flexibility work. Okay? Stuff that's going to mobilize, moving up the spine.  From a repetition point of view, we've just talked about the endomorph having higher reps. I am personally, historically would always come out...  Lisa: Oh right. Actually.  Neil:  ...generally done a strength block a couple of times a year. I would end up doing reps of sort of five to eight heavy lifting and that's when I'd usually pick up most of my injuries. The  reason is my body just wasn't, is... Lisa: Not designed for that. Neil: Not capable—capable is not the right word—it’s not designed, as you say, to do that. I can put some heavier load through it but we need to be a lot more careful than an endomorph body would. So high reps, 12 to 20 reps, lots of mobility work and really going a day of high intensity, endurance base work followed by a day of recovery, yoga, mobility work, and peaking and troughing like that.  Okay, and good windows of opportunity with exercise around seven in the morning. And then again in the afternoon, depending on what works best for this body type. Okay, again, seeing quite big differences. Differences in body shape, therefore differences in the type of exercise you're going to respond to and the results you're going to get from it. Lisa: Yes. Now, I think that rounds it out really nicely.  So you got your ecto, your endo, and your mesomorph.  And this is a helicopter view, guys. If you want to dig deeper into the whole science of the genetics and epigenetics, then we can get really granular. Like we can tell you, ‘Don't eat kale, do eat spinach’, like down to that root sort of level.  But just to keep it so you can take away some wins for today, those that I think, try and identify what you are. Whether you're like me, a bit of a mixture between a mesomorph and an ectomorph, and where use it on that scale, listen to this, again. Pick out some of those—because this is about low hanging fruit and getting a couple of wins. And if you take away from this that you should be eating a little bit later in the day and doing your exercise later in the day, then that's a little bit already a positive one then, that’s an understanding. I think one of the biggest things that I've gotten out of this whole genetics, this whole genre of it, you and I’ve gone down, Neil, in the functional genomics and the epigenetics is, it's okay to be me. In that in all aspects, whether it's us working together in our business, in the way our brains work, in the way our personality is, in the times of the day that we do things, right through to the nutrition, and right through to the social, and understanding, ‘Hey, I was born this way’.  Not that this is an excuse to be not great at something, but it does explain why I do things in a certain way, and why my brain works in a certain way, why my body reacts in certain ways. And that gives you permission to be you because like as a young woman, I know that I was always wanting to be an ectomorph. I always wanted to be the super skinny model type girl and I was a muscular athletic girl and that was not okay because that was not what I wanted to be. And I know Neil's struggled with the same thing here. Small calf muscles and thought, ‘If I do a billion reps of calf muscle exercise, I’m going to have big calves’. And you're pushing should have basically, aren’t you, Neil? You can’t be what you’re not.  Neil: They weren’t enough.  Lisa: Now you love your calves because you can run a lot faster than I can, that's for sure.  Neil: Yes. They’ll look great in heels.  Lisa: Exactly. And you know, for someone like mum who struggles with the weight because of the endomorph tendencies. I tell you what if she hadn't had that type of body, she wouldn't have got up out of a wheelchair after two years of being unable to walk. Because she still had muscle mass. She still had good bones, she still didn't have osteoporosis, or anything.  So there are advantages and there are disadvantages to everybody type. The thing to take away is let's work with our advantages. Let's be aware of our weaknesses and let's accept ourselves, I think, as we are and understand ourselves better. And that's probably a good place to wrap it up... Neil: Nicely. Lisa: ...for the day.  Neil: We'll wrapped up. Very good. Lisa: Okay guys, well thank you very much once again for listening to us. Please do reach out to either Neil or I if you want support doing this program. We'd love to have you join us of course.  Or if you've got any other health issues or whatever you want to talk about, or your fitness journey, you're running, you've got some goals, please reach out to us. You can get us at support@lisatamati.com. Give the show a rating and review and share this please with your friends. We love doing this type of thing, aren’t we, Neil?  If we could just do this all day, we’ll be stoked.  Neil: Would be nice. Would be nice.  Lisa: We love teaching, we love sharing, we love having good content out there in the world. So, thanks very much, guys and we'll see you again next week. That's it this week for Pushing The Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.   

Exercise gives our body a physical and mental boost. It’s good stress, but it’s stress nonetheless. Thus, doing a running warm-up before an interval run or training is integral to get the most benefits out of running.  Neil joins me in this episode to explain the steps in preparing for a running workout. We emphasise the importance of setting your mindset before training. We also cite different examples of run-specific movements, drills and breathing exercises. If you are a runner wanting to do a running warm-up right, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join their free live webinar on epigenetics.   Online Coaching for Runners Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Consult with Me If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset, to head injuries,  to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/consultations.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: http://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   My Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: You will learn about the role of stress levels and mindset when preparing for training. Know more about running warm-up and breathing exercises. Discover the importance of run-specific movements.    Resources Email lisa@lisatamati.com to know more about my health optimisation consulting. Visit my YouTube channel to watch warm-up, workout and training videos for runners.   Episode Highlights [03:47] Understanding Your Bucket of Stress The bucket of stress is filled with things going on in your daily life. You layer exercise on top of it. Having an overflowing bucket and doing high-intensity interval running will cause more stress to the body, causing injuries and pain.  Conduct a wellness check to assess your current state. The checklist includes sleep, nutrition, hydration, movement, energy, body, and stress. Listen to the full episode to learn more about computing your wellness score! Change your warm-up and training to suit how you are feeling. [12:13] Shifting Your Mindset Neil is a father of three. He works out because he wants to be a superhero for his kids.  Figure out what training means for you. Mindset is essential when doing a workout. You need to shift from work mode to training mode. Incorporate diaphragmatic breathing exercises to activate your body’s parasympathetic state. [18:47] Activating Your Muscles Spiky balls, rolling sticks and foam rollers are some of the tools you can use to activate your muscles. Expose your feet to neural stimulation to get them to move freely. Because the feet are connected to other parts of the body, activating it will start to relax the muscles and tissues above it. Activation may vary from person to person. Some people have a lot of tension in their bodies, while others are hypermobile. [22:11] Static vs Dynamic Stretching Static stretching is holding a single stretch in one position for 30 seconds or longer. Doing a static stretch lengthens and switches off the muscles, making them too relaxed. The body thus becomes too floppy. Static stretching has its benefits after a run or during a yoga session but not before a run. Dynamic movements allow the body to move more freely. [25:48] Warm-Ups and Fascia The fascia connects the different parts of our body from our head to toes. Fascia lines run across the body. Warm-ups should help open, lengthen and move the fascia. Stretching and moving the fascia allow you to move better and run more freely. [31:47] Doing Drills It is best to do run-specific movements and drills. Ball of foot hops and carioca are some of the drills to help you warm up. Listen to the full episode to learn how Neil does his warm-ups! Listening to music helps to have cadence. You may create playlists for before and after you run. If you’re doing a recovery run, you can use calmer music.   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘That's what training is about. It's not about the actual run where you actually get the results. It’s in the recovery phase’. ‘How you prepare your mind is going to be key when you understand your “why” before you warm up’. ‘A lot of people find their toes are bunched together and tight. If we can get some movement through those, we start to get more benefit from our running as well’. ‘Gone are the days of static stretching and standing on the doorstep during your quad stretch, holding. All you're doing there is switching the nervous system off and increasing your likelihood of injury and discomfort’. ‘You take which bits of the tools you want out of the toolbox, and then you start using them from your perspective’. ‘Looking at what you're currently doing, who you are and how much in a warm-up — what percentage you use each tool for will be quite different for each person’. ‘You will have — and I promise you this — a much more fun run, and you'll enjoy it more if you've put the time into this warm-up piece of the puzzle’.   Enjoy the Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can optimise their running warm-up. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential, with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of Pushing The Limits. Today, I have Neil Wagstaff, who is my wingman at Running Hot Coaching, and we're going to be talking everything about running and preparation for a good training session — how to tell if you're ready for that session that's on your list today. We're talking about stress levels. We're talking sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. We're talking activating muscles. We're talking lymph and circulation and a whole lot of great info that you don't want to miss if you're into exercising, fitness or running. Before we go over to the show, though, I just want to remind you please give a rating and review to the show if you enjoy it. Share it with your family and friends.  We've been going now for five and a half years, and we've been in the top 200 globally ranked shows in health and fitness genre, and we really appreciate your support. And every one of those reviews and ratings really helps the show get seen by more people, heard by more people, so that they can get this great information that we're getting out. Just want to also let you know, we are taking on a small number of clients on one-on-one health optimisation consulting. If you got a really tricky health situation, if you're not getting the results that you want in the normal world, if you are needing help navigating some complicated situations, then we'd love to help you. We only work with a very, very few people at a time. And that requires quite a commitment from us, from the research side of things in helping people optimise their health or navigate their way back to health. So if it sounds like something like you would like to know about, please email me lisa@lisatamati.com. We only work with a very few people at a time at that level. So just letting you know that that's available.  Now over to the show with Neil Wagstaff in Havelock North. And I hope you enjoy this fantastic interview. Lisa: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have my wingman, Neil Wagstaff. Neil, how are you doing? Neil: I'm good. Thanks, mate. I'm very good. How are you? Lisa: It's very hot here. I'm sweating as well. Neil: Here as well. Lisa: Very humid! Right, people. Today, we have a really good webinar for you, podcast episode for you, all around the importance of — this one’s for runners, really — and it's all around runners warm-ups. Why do you need to do one, what's included, why you need to incorporate breathing into that warm-up routine. It's more than just running warm-ups, believe me, you'll get some great value, if you're a runner in this one, or if you're into fitness. And we're going to be talking about the importance of running specific movements to prepare for your run. And we're going to be going over some of our top drills to activate your body and get you ready. So, Neil, we did a fabulous session yesterday on this, and it was so valuable we decided we got to record this for the podcast, so… Over to you, mate. Neil: Thanks, mate. Thanks, and as you say, it is a lot more than just the runners warm-up, but it's… Gone are the days we just lace up your shoes and run out the door. That's what many, you know, we definitely did in the older days. And a lot of our clients we work with do, a lot of people, as you said in the introduction, as well, it’s not just the runners. It's in an exercise environment as well. So we put a lot of emphasis on this in the gym environment. So important, there should be some good nuggets for everyone. So the first thing first before you even think about the warm-up is understanding about what we call your bucket of stress. So the bucket of stress, if you will imagine you've got that bucket sitting in front of you. And within that bucket, there's things that will fill it up. Now some of those things are going to be what's going on in your daily life. They're going to be your kids. They're going to be your work. They're going to be family. They're going to be other stresses that are happening, and then you layer exercise on the top of it. So with the bucket stress, it’s understanding how full yours is. If you're going to go out and do a high-intensity interval run, where you're doing 1K intervals at 80, 90% of your max effort, and your bucket is already overflowing, then that run, those interval runs on top are just going to cause your body more stress or more loads, which will give you a pretty harsh response, which will then result in injuries, niggles and pain. Lisa: Yeah. Neil: On days where your bucket is full, what you want to be doing is really changing your workout or changing your routine to suit how you're feeling. Okay, you know, I've had massive conversations over the years about the bucket. What's your— give us your perspective of it and how you manage your routine a little bit differently now. Lisa: Yeah, and I'm still probably a bad example some days. Neil: You’re a good work in progress. You’re a good work in progress. Lisa: Do what I say not what I preach sometimes. But it's really, I have really adopted the fact that it is important to do a warm-up when you're preparing for a run. And also to understand what we're trying to get across here is that just because stress is good for your body— I mean, sorry, running is good for your body or exercise is a good stressor, if you like, it is still adding to your total stress load. So the level that Neil used to run it when he was not a dad of three little children and had a bit more time and didn't have a massive German, a couple of businesses to run, he could dedicate more intense time to training without breaking himself, if it makes sense. Now, because his energies are split in every which way, he has to be a little bit more careful how he prepares for an event, the time that he takes for it, and the time that he prepares his body.  So if your training plan says today, you should be going out and smashing a really long run or a really intense run, but you haven't got the resources because you had a really shitty night sleep, and you didn't drink enough yesterday, and you didn't eat properly, and the kids have been up all night, and goodness knows what else — you've got a lot of stress and a lot of worries on your mind — then you're probably not going to get to that adaption— adaptation, sorry, when you do that training, which is what you're actually doing it for. It's not just about ticking the box because my coach said or my plan said that I had to do that today. And I've ticked the box, therefore I am good to go. It is about saying, 'Is my body going to respond to this training session today’? Yes or no? Or, ‘Would I be permitted to postpone that really intense workout to a little bit later, maybe tomorrow? And I'll get to bed early tonight. And I’ll drink well, and I’ll hydrate well. An I’ll do all the other bits and pieces as well. And then I might be a bit more prepared for that'. Does it make sense? So you’re not doing things when your body is not going to get the adaptations because that's what training is about. It's not about the actual run where you actually get the results; it’s in the recovery phase. So understanding where your body is at, which is a really good segue into our wellness checklist. Isn't that, Neil? Neil: Yeah. So yes, you go through as well as, just asking yourself each day, where you're at a number of different things and things we get with our wellness checklist. And you can all do it at home as you listen to this. It’s a simple scale of 1 to 10. So 1 to 10 on these things we're going to talk about. How well did you sleep? That's the first one. How well have you eaten, and where you're at from nutrition point of view? Lisa's already mentioned hydration, number three. So how well have you hydrated? How well have you moved? What sort of exercise movement have you done in the past day? On a scale of 1 to 10. And then energy wise, where's your energy score at? 1 being the toilet, 10 being at rock and roll levels, you’re ready to party. And body, any niggles, any injuries? And your stress score, so 1 with the stress will be low and 10 will be good. That gives you a total score. If you've got a score up over 50, and it'd be a good indication that you're ready to go and do a warmup that relates to what's in your program. If it’s saying that, we're doing the example, the 1K, then that puts us in a position that we should be ready to do it. If my score is lower, which some days it is, then I'll look at my program and go right, I've got intervals. But I mean, my score’s down at 40. So those two workouts don't match up then. So what I then do is go, ‘I can still go train, but my training may be a recovery run instead so I feel my energy levels back up’. If you are continuously having low scores with this full stress bucket, it's not a runner's warm-up you want to be considering. It's about— it's really another strategy, which is how am I going to empty some of my stresses out of my bucket? Because your bucket should be managed on a daily basis. So that you, you know, 80, 90% of the time you're doing what your program says, it's just having the confidence and understanding that some days when things don't go perfectly you can tweak it. Okay, so just to recap: sleep, nutrition, hydration, movement, energy, body, and stress, scale of one to 10. 1 being in the toilet, 10 being rock and roll. And we can send the, or add the… Lisa: Yeah, we’ll put this in the show notes, actually, the checklist. Neil: Wellness check to the show notes. Yeah, so that's understanding again really helps you manage your bucket. So before you've even warmed up, you're asking, what's my session I'm going to do? Now, I know what type of warm-up to do. The other bit to consider as well is really, really a little bit about your why. If you are… Many programs out there, what we've looked at over the years, designed by ex-professional runners, often male, without giving them a hard time, and often by men. And in our business, we work with a lot of ladies. Over 70% of our business is working with females. And a lot of our athletes we're working with, mums or dads, and they have got busy work lives, busy family lives. So those programs are running five, six days a week just doesn't work. So ask the question as well, what's your why? And who are you? So for me, personally, as Lisa knows, my three little ones, Ellen, Cameron, Annie, I love the idea of getting dressed up as Superman. Okay, and we shared a couple of pictures of me dressed up as Superman. So it's understanding what your why is and why you're doing it. I want to be a superhero for my kids. Therefore, the type of workout is different now, as Lisa said earlier, than I was doing in my… pre-kids. And when I was back in my 30s, then I was thinking more like a professional parkour athlete and wanted it to be doing. So therefore, the warm-up is going to be different. So what we're trying to do, and the big thing especially from Lisa's perspective as well, is how important mindset is. We're really big on that with what we do as well. So understanding what mindset you're going into this workout in. So for me, I'm going in as a superhero, wanting to be a superhero, for my kids. Some people who are listening will be going in with a professional athlete mentality. So how you prepare your mind is going to be key when you understand your ‘why’ before you warm up. There's no need for me to warm up like a professional athlete if I'm wanting to go and warm up like a superhero. It’s a different mindset as I do that. Does that make sense? Lisa: Yeah, it does make sense. And I mean, like, I'll give you an example out of my sort of, you know, day. So if I'm, like, full on busy with the business all day, and I'm sitting a lot at the computer and meetings, and blah, blah, blah. And then comes five o'clock and I go right, I'm shutting the computer, I'm out the door. And if I go out without any preparation, and we've had arguments with people, they said, ‘Well, I've just slowly increased my pace. Isn't that a warm-up’? No, it's not a warm up. And I'm still guilty of this on occasion when because you're like, you've got half an hour, and you got to get out the door. And you don't want to do a warm-up, and so… But there's a couple of pieces missing out of that puzzle. One, there's a really important reason why you— firstly, you want to shift your mind, you've been in work mode all day. And now you got to, ‘Oh my gosh, I got to go and train’. And the last thing you feel like when you've been sitting for hours in a static position is to go and do a full on workout. So you have to change your mindset because you can fail before you get out the door. And a lot of people have this argument with themselves every single day. It's like, ‘That’s on my list, but I’m knackered from work, and I don't feel like going out the door. And I just want to go home and eat a packet of chips and sit on the couch’. And so there's a couple of tricks that I use to get myself out of that thought process. So the couple of rituals that I do. So when I go and I go, ‘Right, I'm going to get into my training gear, regardless of whether I'm going out the door or not because I'm just going to do that’. And when I just go and do that, I put my training gear on, that is a ritual for me that I am… My body starts to go, ‘Oh, when we're heading for training. We better get ready’. And it gives you enough, a couple of minutes, just to get your mind in that new space. You've been in the work space or the driving space or whatever you've been in, and now you're entering a new phase, and you're bringing yourself into the present moment. You're getting your gear on, and for me, putting my running gear on as always, for me, like putting on my armor, and I'm getting ready for a battle of sorts. It doesn't always have to be a hardcore workout, but I'm getting ready for action. Then the next thing I do once my gear is on, it's like, well, ‘I might as well just do a little bit of a warm-up and see how I go’. Like this is when I'm having those days when I don't want to train, you know, you know those ones. These are the tricks that I do to get myself out the door. So then I start to activate my muscles. And we're going to go through a whole list of things with Neil, right now. But just from a mindset point of view, when I start doing my dynamic stretches and my activation and my thing, and I'm getting my heart rate up. And then by the time I've done that for a few minutes, my mind is ready for the actually going out and then my body is also woken up. So that's just a little bit of a mindset tip to get yourself out the door and bring yourself into the present moment. We also like to incorporate in that some breathing exercises, just, we could talk for hours on breathing. There is so much to learn about breathing. But just to give you just a simple quick exercise that you can do before you go out. So you've just come from work. You're going to do a box breathing exercise, where you're breathing in for four in the inhale, holding it for four, out for four with the exhale — a nice strong exhale — and then holding it for four. And you just do that box rhythm for maybe three, maybe four breaths. And in that time, close your eyes, seem to yourself into your body, start to feel your heart pumping, start to feel how do my arms and my legs feel, and you're just pulling your focus in, and then you'll be ready. Once the time you've opened your eyes, you'll be ready to get underway or get your warm-up sorted. So those are just a couple of little quick mindset tips to help you over that hump, whether it's in the morning and you get out of bed and you're going training or after work or whatever the case may be. Neil: Perfect, Lisa. Let’s go with the breathing just to add in as well, it’s the… often, when you've not just flipping the mindset, you're also flipping things like the diaphragm. A lot of the time, if people have been in a sympathetic state throughout the day, which a lot of us are throughout the day now. Then if we go to, we're breathing through our upper chest and breathing through our shoulders, a lot of people will get massive results, just by them realizing that they can breathe properly into their lungs, and they're actually going out with not having enough energy to run because their breathing patterns, off. So getting that breath going, and as Lisa said, with the nasal breathing is a great thing to add in, a very simple thing to add in as well. As we go through this, this already, we haven't even got to the moving part yet, we've already had quite a long discussion, we want people to realise is we're creating a toolbox for you. That's a toolbox of things that you'll be able to pull out when you need them. Some of you won't need the breathing as much as others, depending on what else has happened in your day already. It's a great thing to do. But some of you may find you've had quite a relaxing afternoon before you go run, and you're already breathing very nicely. So you don't need to use the breathing as much as someone that's been in a stressful situation for the afternoon or is in a very sympathetic state before they head out.  Lisa: Just briefly on the sympathetic and I think I've covered this in a couple of podcasts. But just to recap.. Sorry, took the computer over. You have a parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. So you, when you're in a sympathetic state, what we're meaning by that is that you're in a hypervigilant, alert, stressed out state, where you are producing quite a lot of stress hormones. Your cortisol levels might be up. Your adrenaline might be up. And your heart rate might be up, and your breathing, very often, is in the upper third of the chest. And this is telling your body, 'I'm in fight or flight mode. There’s dangerous things happening to me’, even if those dangerous things are just emails and a shitty telephone call from the boss. Yeah, that isn't necessarily a lion or a tiger that, you know, used to be chasing us when we were back in the caveman days. But it's the same response in the body. And so what we’re wanting to do with this breathing exercise is to doing some diaphragmatic breathing, so that's breathing into the belly, and we're going to do sessions on breathing because honestly, that's a couple of bucks worth.  But it's all about flipping it, getting that sympathetic nervous system activated. So you have nerves in the bottom of your lungs. And when you do very good strong exhales are really important in breathing in with the diaphragm, you're actually activating those nerves at the bottom of the lungs and tuning on that parasympathetic state. Now that parasympathetic state is all about rest and digest and recovery and immunity and all those repair processes. Now, we are going into an exercise situation, but to start off in a place of not being stressed is a good place to start. So flipping your mind and flipping your body over from one thing into the next thing. So that's just a very brief touch on sympathetic versus parasympathetic states. Neil: The next piece in the… or the next tool in the toolbox is going to be our rolling or myofascial release. So the tools we use for this are spiky balls, one of our favourites, rolling stick, which like rolling pin and a foam roller. Easy wins and low hanging fruit are always going to be your feet because they spend most of the day wrapped up in a shoe. And generally, our feet don't move as well as they should. Our feet should ideally move like our hands do, and our toes should move like our fingers. For most of us they don't so getting them out, getting them exposed to more neural stimulation and releasing any tight bits in the feet and getting them moving more freely makes a massive difference. You got... Lisa: Can you explain the neural stimulation? I think that's— it’s really why they're activating those fibers in the feet is the connection to the brain and the coordination and… Neil: Connection to the brain. One thing it does, it's like waking your feet up. So if I spent all day with my hand, for example, in a big glove and deprived it of senses and deprived it of being able to feel and touch things, I'd lose connection with what was going on around me. So I start to lose connection with understanding what was hot, what was cold and what things should feel like. If I can have that stimulation through my foot, and the great thing with a spiky ball, we're not going to smash it, is it starts to wake the feet up again. So all I'm saying is, wake up, wake up! I'm sending messages from my feet through my nervous system up to my brain going, ‘Ah, that's how I move my big toe’. Ah, that's the big toe, with running real important. But that's how I move it. And that's how my other toes move. A lot of people find their toes are bunched together and tight. If we can get some movement through those, we start to get more benefit from our running as well. Other people are going to have calves that are locked up and feet that are locked up, everything in your body is connected. So if we start to stimulate the feet, we get massive results with people who've got lower back pain or people who have got shoulder pain or neck pain, because the connection with the fascia in the bottom of your foot, it then runs up the back of your body up across your calf, your hamstrings, your hips, starts to relax a tissue above as well. So simply two things that are going to happen as you do that. One is you're going to get some muscles relax that need to be relaxed. Then the other thing, you can actually start waking the feet up. Okay, depending on where, and it's gonna be very much dependent on where you're at as a person. Some people are carrying loads of tension in their body, and some people are hypermobile. So those that are hypermobile aren’t gonna need these tools as much as those that are rigid and stiff. Yeah, do I make sense? Lisa: Yeah. Neil: You need these tools for what you need. And that's the emphasis we want to make is doing this whole thing when we finish talking about it. And its shortest version would be between five and eight minutes or longer version might be 12 to 15 minutes, but some of you are going to use more tools than others. So some of you, what we've discussed already, may use the breathing more than the rolling. But feet is an easy win, calves are an easy win. Rolling around the hip area, the glutes is a very easy win, the quads and getting those areas both, switching off muscles that needs to be switched off. But also starting to wake up muscles that need to be woken up. And it's easy ways to do that with those tools. Gone are the days of static stretching and standing on the doorstep during your quad stretch, holding. All you're doing there is switching the nervous system off and increasing your likelihood of injury and discomfort. Lisa: So just to explain what static and dynamic is for those who perhaps aren't familiar with that term. So static stretching, where you're holding a single stretch in one position for, I don't know, 30 seconds or something or longer. And that's not a good thing to do prior to a run or exercise because you're actually lengthening that muscle, and you're switching it off and making it too relaxed and then you're going to be able to flop it, for lack of a better description when you go out. And so you want to be waking it up, activating it, getting the blood flowing through it, but not turning it off. The static stretching has its value but that comes after the run or if you're doing, say, a yoga session or something like that, then it's a different thing. But you wouldn't go into a yoga class and then go for a run, for example. That would be a recipe for injury, but you're wanting to activate these different areas. The other thing to note with the foam roller was don't smash the crap out of yourself like, it's not go hard or go home. Cause I used to do that, to be fair, you know, when I first started with foam rolling years ago. It was like, ‘Ah, the more it hurts, the more I have to do it’, and, you know, as with everything, yep, you fight through the pain. But actually, the more we've learned about lymph and all the other stuff that we've learned in activating, you don't need to go full ball hard. If it's that painful, you should be around, what, six and seven, right, Neil, for what you're doing with the foam rolling. And you know, we have lots of videos and stuff on our YouTube channel if anybody wants to check it out, or, of course, joining our club and you'll find out all that sort of detailed information. So that's the activation phase. Your hips, your calves, your feet are a good place to start. Neil: It's a good technique, just simple techniques to work with are released with awareness. So we've already talked about breathing. If you find a sensitive spot, you can apply some pressure to that, getting no more than sort of six or seven out of 10. Use your breath, in through your nose, out through your nose to actually release. Your nervous system, we’ve already talked about and your body is fully connected. So by using my mind to tell my brain and to tell my foot or the muscles in my foot to switch off or switch on, I can have that control over my body. I'm using the spiky ball to stimulate it, which gives me something to feel and then I can say, right, wake up or tone down. So use the breath with awareness or release with awareness by using the breath to actually switch things off. If something feels tight, you can imagine the muscle actually switching off, toning down, almost like it's got a volume button on it and you're turning it down. Okay. The next technique, which is a good one, is a pin and stretch. So if you find a niggly spot, thinking about rolling the calves. I'm sitting on the floor with my calf and leg up on a roller. If I find a niggly spot, then I can actually pin it. And then I can move my foot backwards and forwards. So I'm pinning and then stretching. I'm moving my foot in and out of plantar and dorsiflexion. Okay, and then actually flushing the muscles as well is another great technique. We're rolling up and down and across the muscle and a great way to… almost like imagining like your muscle’s like a sponge, where you're you're wringing it out and then putting it back in a bucket of water so it can absorb again, and wring it out. So you’re flushing out and getting fluid moving backwards and forwards. Lisa: Yep. And so on. Yeah, that's absolutely, that’s key. Neil: Right So next on our list. So now we've breathed, we've worked out where we're at, if we come back from the top, we've worked out more from mindset, breathing, rolling. And now we're going to look at our — the body is all connected — so we're going to look at our fascia. So the body is connected, again, like static stretching — gone are the days where we should be looking at the body in isolation, and looking at warming up or moving specific muscles like our chest on its own, or biceps or triceps on their own, or our thighs on their own. The body is connected from toes to head. So the fact that it’s connected from toes to head, and there is myofascial lines that are running right across our bodies — front, side, back. We want to be in a position that the movements we're doing in our warm-up should help open, lengthen, move. Imagine your fascia like a superhero suit. I love talking about superheroes and the superhero suit. And you can— that superhero suit should move easily; you should be able to move easily in it. So what we're doing with these big fascia movements, is you want to be in a position where you're getting that superhero suit just to fit a little bit better or fit a bit more comfortably. And if you do that, then it fits more comfortably when you start running. You're running more freely, we haven't got any sticky bits. Okay. Lisa: So like, just explain a little bit, you know, in two seconds, it's like the chicken skin is. I know. It's like each of these subjects we could do an hour on that seriously, but the fascia, so we all know we've got ligaments, we've got tendons, we've got muscles, but a lot of people really have a struggle. What the hell is fascia then? And what do you mean it's all over my body? And you get that? Like, you know, that…  Neil: Connects absolutely everything. In two seconds, fascia connects everything. It will connect the tissue, like you described the chicken skin on chicken. It's on the superficial level. It connects muscles, it connects bone, it connects your vital organs. So if there's anything locked up in any of that fascia, it's almost like a, like a web, if you look at it. Lisa: That’s a good analogy. Neil: And have a look at it. And depending on what parts your body you're looking at will depend on how dense that web is. Lisa: Like a spider cobweb’s like. Neil: Exactly, exactly that. You move that to the… To move freely, if I've got something as locked up and my fascia’s sticky, or it's not moving as well as it could, then it could be that I've got a shoulder pain on my left shoulder. And that's actually my right foot. So it’s looking at, and all we're doing with these big fascia movements and looking at myofascial lines, and very simply speaking of the anterior, posterior and downside of the body as well, you’re starting to get that suit to fit more comfortably. We're starting to iron out any of those sticky spots. Now, if you find that as you're moving through some of these movements, that you find that you are stickier in some areas and others, it starts to let you know that you've got some imbalances there. Now on top of that, as part of dynamic movement, you then want to add in some run-specific movements. So if I'm going to run, I'm going to be spending time on a single leg. I want to, at some point in my warm-up, I want to be doing something that ideally is on a single leg and is involving opposite arm and opposite leg, like running will. So the warm-ups and dynamic movements we include as part of our warm-up will include stuff that resembles running, gets blood flow and heart rate up, gets tissue open and ready to move and work and gets me ready for the run. So when I get into the run, I'm not spending the first 2 or 3K trying to iron myself out. Open up my fascia, I'm actually running comfy, my body is now awake; my blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate and tissue are all up and warmer. And I'm in a position where I can move more freely. Yeah, do I make sense? Lisa: Yep. So without having been able to show you visually here how to do the exercises, what we are working on is giving a little, some sample runner’s warm-ups to do that will show you some of the dynamic movements that we're talking about here to open up and get that fascia going. We haven't got that organised yet, have we, Neil. Hopefully, by the time this comes out, we might have something or coming soon. To give you a bit of an example of the types of things that we're talking about here. So just to recap from the top once again because it sounds like a hell of a lot to do before every single run. But actually, we're talking five to eight minutes. Or if you're doing a really— that's the other thing, if you're doing a super intense workout, you need to warm up longer. Like today I did an interval session, so I spent more time on the rolling and the activating and the getting the heart rate up and doing the drills, which we'll cover in a second. And before I actually went hard, because I don't want an injury. And the harder the training session is, the more I'm going to be engaging all my muscles to sprint, then I need to have everything at operating temperature. If you think about a car on a winter's morning, if you turn the motor off and then jam your foot on the accelerator and tear off, what's going to happen? Your car's not going to be very happy with you because it hasn't been able to warm up, get the blood going or the petrol going or whatever it is in a car, and get it up to warmth, get it up to speed, before you go flat tech if it makes sense. So we've done the mindset, changing your mindset, putting your gear on, getting your head in a good space, tricking yourself into just getting out the blumming door for starters. Then we've covered off some breathing. We've covered off some activation exercises — rolling the feet, rolling the calves, rolling around the hips with the foam rollers and the balls. Then we've gone and looked at some warm-up exercises, which is activating all your fascia or getting your heart rate up and so on. And the last piece of the puzzle — and this should all take you five to eight minutes, 10 minutes if you're doing a hard session — the last part of the puzzle, Neil, what's it? Neil: It’s the drills. So we do some run-specific drills that are same with the dynamic movement. And this becomes part of the dynamic movements, there's quite a lot of crossover here anyways. It's part of that movement. So things like we were talking about — opposite arm, opposite leg movement. So things like, some of our favourite ones are simple things like ball of foot hops, which is like a skipping movement, where we're just bouncing, landing on the ball of the foot with the heel kissing the floor. So warming the body up, starting to get the elasticity and the muscle doing the job it should and getting ourselves ready to roll. We use some other run-specific movements like forward land, which is simple opposite arm, opposite leg movement, where we're starting to really work on the pull of the leg and the action of running. And then another good one that we get some great results with is our carioca, which is a crisscross of the legs. And you can do carioca and have a look, and you'll see that all, we've got videos of these drills, if anyone wants them. Lisa: Yeah, email us. Neil: Please let us know. And the whole idea of these is that, again, everything — hips are open, heart rate’s up, blood pressure's up, we're ready to move. And we've done some movements that are run-specific, so when we go run, we're actually ready to run. So to break it down and give you an example of what my normal warm-up would look like — I'll always run my feet. Okay, I will always go through my breathing, sort of goes from my breathing start and then go through and roll my feet, and I roll my calves, and I roll across the top of my hips and up either side of my back. So they’re my go-tos. From there, I will do three usually big fascia movements, one for the front of the body, one for the solid body, one for the back of the body. And then I go through two or three drills. I’ll go and run. On a recovery run that will take me about five minutes. Okay, on a higher intensity run, as Lisa was saying before, on interval run, that might take me sort of 12 to 15 minutes. But it's you… You take which bits of the tools you want out of the toolbox, and then you start using them from your perspective. The other bit to throw in, just throw the mix, finally, is just looking as well, I'm a big fan of using music. We've talked about this quite a lot before as well as. So music helps me have a cadence. So if I'm doing an interval run, I find music really helps me with cadence to help me keep my cadence up. I'm doing a recovery run, then I don't enjoy using music as much because I'd rather you know, hang out and make it more of a meditative state and chill out from there. So thinking as well about what's in your playlist. Does music motivate you and help add to the mindset? Or does silence help add to the mindset? Working out what you need for each run and should it be part of that session; I use music often in my warm-up. And the music I choose for recovery run is significantly different than one I use when I'm warming up for an interval run. One's going to be really lifting me intensit-wise and mindset wise, the other is going to be letting me know that this is going to be cruising, it's going to be laid back, it's going to be about recovery. Using music as well can make quite a significant difference. Lisa: Because it's… Sorry. It's all about the mind part of the puzzle really. You know, you put, I don't know, Thunderstruck on when you're trying to do an interval session. And you're like, yeah! And you going for it, and the cadence helps you and so on. And that's using your body to activate those that, again, in that case, you're activating some adrenaline and getting that going, which you need for that session. And then you know, you want to calmer ones with you if you're just doing a recovery where you don't want to be smashing yourself and you just want to be cruising, then you want a more cruising music. But just on that note, though, just be aware, if you're in traffic, you know, it can be really dangerous. And I've been hit by a car because I had bloody things in my ears, and I was unaware of the traffic around me. So just being a little bit cautious if you are out running on roads and crossing streets, especially when you come to intersections, and you can’t hear that car coming around the corner. Neil: Pick what you're doing and where you're doing it. Lisa: Be aware, be aware of your environment. Neil: Looking, then you should have that toolbox in place now. Looking at what you're currently doing, who you are and how much of a warm-up — what percentage you use each tool for will be quite different for each person. So as we said at the start, some people will need to spend more time breathing. Some people will need to spend more time rolling. Others might need to spend more time with the dynamic warm-up. You'll all do a little bit of each but it's going to be, the percentage will be different. And when you use each tool, it’s going to depend on what you're doing and what's on your program. Lisa: And one other point here is that you will have — and I promise you this — a much more fun run, and you'll enjoy it more if you've put the time into this warm-up piece of the puzzle. Because I know a lot of us are under time pressure and stress. And we've got like, ‘I've got 30 minutes, I've got to get my running today. That's all I've got, I don't want to spend 10 minutes warming up’. Okay, negotiate with yourself and try to do at least five minutes, because it's better to get that five minutes because that other 25 is going to bring you more than that extra five minutes of running, if that makes sense. Because you— if you talk to runners, most people and if you're a beginner, you might not be aware of this, but the first 20 to 25 minutes are absolute crap for everybody all the time. You know, it's very rare, where you just run out the door, if you haven't warmed up, that you'll be enjoying yourself and your body will be stiff, it'll be sore, it'll be not activated, you won't have a good posture, you'll feel like your heart and your cardiovascular system isn't woken up. All of that can be avoided if you do all of this in the preparation. It's like laying the foundation of a house. If you do it on quicksand, you're not going to have a very stable house. If you do it on concrete and you put your foundations and your poles in properly, you're gonna have a house that stands for a long time. You're going to enjoy your run a lot more. You know, today's session was was a classic example of that, you know, interval session full on, hardcore, big good workout, warm-up prior and the session wasn't nearly so difficult than if I just jumped out the door and done it. So don't underestimate that. Neil: Good polling, Lis. I liked it. Lisa: Don't underestimate a good warm-up. So people, if you've enjoyed this content, please share this with your friends and family. Share it, get it out there, get it out in the world, we really appreciate you doing that. And if you, you know, want to come and join us at Running Hot Coaching, this is what we do. And what we love is to help people with their running journeys and inform people. And as you can see, we take a very holistic approach to our running into our health programs and to all of the programs that we do. Because we look at people as whole people and not as runners or not  as ‘You've got a health issue or specific health issue’. We look at the whole person the whole time so that you can actually get the best performance because there's no optimal performance without optimal health. That's probably a good place to leave it, actually. Neil: I like it. Lisa: Well, thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Neil, for your wisdom as always — epic. Really appreciate you, right. And we'll see you again next week. Thanks, guys! That's it this week for Pushing The Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends. And head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.  

Artist Oscar René Cornejo talks about burning his home down as a child and other early artistic endeavors. Neil talks about the erotics of Amazon checkout. ABOUT THE GUEST Oscar René Cornejo earned an MFA from Yale School of Art, a BFA from the Cooper Union, and was a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Scholarship for research in El Salvador. In 2004, he cofounded the Latin American Community Art Project (LA CAPacidad), where for seven years he directed summer artist residencies to promote intercultural awareness through community art education. He is a founding member of Junte, an artist project based in Adjuntas, a town in the mountains of southern Puerto Rico. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions, including To look at the sea is to become what one is, at Radiator Gallery, Queens International 2018: Volumes, at The Queens Museum, White Flag, at Princeton University; and Parliament of Owls, Diverseworks, Houston, TX. Cornejo has completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he is a Fresco Instructor, and at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2016. He currently teaches at the Cooper Union. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE’S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Andrew Litton Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL: I'm so happy to have with me on SHE'S A TALKER, Oscar Rene Cornejo. I fear my pronunciation probably leaves something to be desired. OSCAR: No worries. It sounds good. You can't, unless you want to start rolling your R's that's another thing, but it sounds pretty good to me. NEIL: Okay. Well, I can roll an R but I think this is like a little metaphor for how I can go through life. It's like, I'd rather not try and then not be accountable for having tried, in terms of the rolling the R's, is a metaphor for me. OSCAR: They say that some, even though I do roll my R's, sometimes my parents tell me I exaggerate the rolling. NEIL: What do you think that's about? OSCAR: I don't know what it is. Maybe it's growing up and teaching others to roll the R. And so you backlog some self consciousness in the back of your head and you [inaudible 00:01:02] . And I have no idea, but it's like, "Oh, okay. That's a little extra, but it's fine." It's like, "All right. Well, I'm always caught in between where I'm like, English is my second language here. And then I visit El Salvador and then Spanish becomes my second language over there. I'm stuck in between. NEIL: Do you have anything that you would consider your first language? OSCAR: Yeah, I guess just loving to manipulate material. Just fucking with shit since did one. I remember, I don't know what age I was, but they called me ranch burner back in El Salvador. Because I was always tinkering with things. And that led me to burn a ranch down when I was a small child. NEIL: What is a ranch? A whole house? OSCAR: There was apparently an original ranch burner in El Salvador and my parents came over. I don't know if it was four or five, and I burned an apartment down and only left everyone with the clothes on their back. NEIL: Wow! OSCAR: They got wind of it in El Salvador. And apparently when I burned it down, was the week that the original ranch burner passed away. And so I inherited, Quemar Rancho, is what they called me, ranch burner. NEIL: Wow! And where was the apartment that you burned down? OSCAR: Houston, Texas. So it was an apartment unit, I think on the second floor they say. NEIL: And how did you burn it down? You were how old? OSCAR: I don't know, like four or five. I do have a memory of lighting something on fire, like in a closet, on a shiny surface. It was like the dry clean plastic that you cover your clothes. And I think the plastic caught on fire and it turned into liquid flame or something. And it got out of hand. NEIL: Do you put this on your art resume by the way? OSCAR: No, but it used to be my Instagram profile, ranch burner, in Spanish. Like what the hell is Quemar Rancho? Well, it's Quemar Rancho. NEIL: I was expecting it was your first enchantment with materiality, the translucence of the dry cleaning bag. And do you need it to do an intervention on it by way of a match? OSCAR: Yeah. Well, before that there was a draw towards the flame and I would set up stuff and then burn them down. I guess maybe I was a little pyromaniac or something, but I was always fiddling with things. NEIL: How do you succinctly describe to someone who doesn't know you, what it is you do? We're talking like you have an elevator ride with them. OSCAR: That's a tough one. I guess I reflect on the histories that I come from, that at a young age I had no idea that I was a part of. And so to make visible the history of my immediate family and community through objects. I feel that growing up my community and my family had a lot of PTSD due to the civil war conflict. They absorbed and internalized a lot of violence and were displaced. And so where do those energies go? And so I tried to, in my head, reconcile those energies in the types of objects that I'm making. So the objects become, not necessarily a MacGuffin. You have a conversation around the object, but it's something where you start project and amplify things that are considered whispers or not important. NEIL: Mm-hmm (affirmative). OSCAR: And so it becomes a speaking piece, something to a screen in order to project light onto and see what shadows have been cast onto that screen. NEIL: How would your parents describe what it is you do to their friends? OSCAR: They probably have no... They're like, "Oh, he's obsessed in working with kids in villages somewhere, like missionary work. Not that it's futile, you should just get a real job. NEIL: Can you just for our listeners, describe the work that you're talking about, that they would say he's a missionary. OSCAR: I spent a lot of time, when I was still an undergrad, I felt the closing door or light of losing that community and facilities. And while I was, I think towards the end of sophomore year into my junior year of undergrad, I started inviting my peers and friends of my peers down South to central America, offered them free studio space, but they had to teach two to three days out of the week what they knew, to the community.                 And so it was this mutual cultural exchange. It was a way to put our theories into practice and to anchor some of our ideas around some of the injustices that we thought were going on in the world. And then hitting hard reality too, with trying to do idealistic things in like a place with no running water, for instance. How do you run silkscreen workshops for that? How do we basically apply these idealistic notions of what a community should be developed when there's these conditions present? Like people living on dirt floors, or no running water, but they still should be exposed to culture and not just be treated as a workforce thing. NEIL: Right. OSCAR: So, yeah, that's the missionary work. NEIL: And your parents don't like that you do this work or what did they say about it? OSCAR: I know you mean well, but these people don't care kind of thing. You need to take care of yourself because it's always about the struggle and surviving and taking care of the family. NEIL: In their eyes? OSCAR: Yeah. It's like, "Why do you care so much about these other people?" Kind of thing. And I was like, "Well, that's exactly why. Because you're saying that." Because someone said that about you when you were displaced immigrant fleeing death squads in El Salvador and you're being dismissed as criminals or cockroaches in a new society. And so that's exactly why I do it. They don't really know, I guess the resume and what that means. They don't know Cooper union or... I don't want to start listing names. But Things that- NEIL: I'll do that for you at the beginning. OSCAR: No. Other people, their parents would be very proud. And for me they're like, "What about being a mechanic?" Which I don't mind, I would love to fix cars and pay bills that way. But they just want something that they feel that it's stable and it's not fleeting. I guess they'll stop thinking that way if I get a tenure track position or something. NEIL: There we go. Which if there's any justice, which there isn't, but if there were, and maybe there will be, you would have. It sounds like your parents' histories really informed the themes in your work. Have they informed the making of the objects, the form of the objects? OSCAR: I don't know something about just seeing my mom always cooking and my dad always working in constr... Working with their hands, their hands were always manipulating things. And I think I just tried to copy them. And then as I got old enough, I ended up joining them. I would clean houses with my mom and, or being assistant to my dad on construction sites.                 I didn't see it immediately. It became very evident much later, I would say even into my early thirties, when I started to be very over scrutinizing every decision I was making, formal decisions. Then I started seeing fabrics, draped fabrics. Thinking about changing beds and pillows or washing clothes with my mom. And then carpentry. Even before carpentry, I got into woodcuts a lot, carving wood to make images. And so that was the close connection that I had with my dad, as far using knives and tools and manipulating wood that eventually evolved into carpentry and fresco, which I feel share a relationship to the construction site. Working with plaster and covering surfaces. That instead of using cement, you're using plaster, but there's an [inaudible 00:10:42] affinity, it's physics and it's chemistry that made it easy for me to be drawn to those mediums as an artist, just the visual vernacular of the construction site starts to come into the way I make decisions in the studio. Yeah. NEIL: If your parents were looking at, let's say an object that you made, how would they describe that? OSCAR: I had an installation at the Queens Museum, and I think that my mom would respond to the fabrics, the naturally dyed cotton fabrics. She would associate them to altars. And my dad would respond to the material, the construction, like joints and carpentry and chalk lines and tar. He would respond to the materiality, that it's being used in a fine art setting, but they could easily translate to finishing the surface of a countertop or cutting a surface of a wall or cutting into and repairing a broken window by putting new two by four studs. And so he would respond to it in a construction material manner. NEIL: Deep. Did any of them- OSCAR: What's a right angle. What's not. It's like, "Oh, that's not meeting," and stuff. NEIL: Do you get critiques about your construction skills? OSCAR: Oh yeah. It's still a little wonky. NEIL: That's what they would say. I would say your work is often strategically wonky. Wouldn't you say? OSCAR: Yeah. NEIL: If I looked at, not consistently, but if I see something that isn't a good right angle, I feel deep trust that that is significant. Is there ever any joking about like, let's set this on fire, burn down the ranch. OSCAR: Personally, I do have a fantasy of a body of work in a certain timeframe to, instead of keep paying storage on it. Like burn all that series of work and take the ash as pigment and a one monochrome painting. So I've consolidated and condensed the entire body work into one piece. NEIL: And would you call it... How do you say ranch burner? OSCAR: Quemar Rancho's dream or requiem or something. I don't know. I don't know why. NEIL: Not to put titles on your piece, but I could talk about this forever, but shall we, Oscar, move to some cards? OSCAR: Yeah, sure. NEIL: First card is, the uncanniness of bird songs. Not just the sound of them, which can sound so electronic, but how the sound feels disconnected from the movement of the bird's mouth. OSCAR: I have a bird myself. I have a parrot. NEIL: What's your parrot's name? OSCAR: Her name is Pepper. She's charcoal, peppery and has a bright red tail like a red pepper, but she's also sassy and spicy in character. So it's just like pepper all over. Uncanniness of bird songs. Yeah, it's like really weird to see this static beak. You usually associate lips and you think that lips and the tongue is super important to articulate the sounds, but their beak is just static and just opening and shutting and they have a stiff tongue.                 And so that for me is so super weird. And especially with birds that speak, right? NEIL: Right. OSCAR: How did you just say that word without lips and very stiff tongue? NEIL: Did you ever say that on a date? OSCAR: No, I think they bring it up. Especially parrot tongues, it looks like the head of a penis. NEIL: Oh, really. OSCAR: Yeah. It's weird. NEIL: Wow! Sexy. OSCAR: Yeah. They're like, ugh. But I think that the way it operates is that they have amazing muscles in their trachea. And so their tubes or their trachea is so sophisticated that it does all that movement for them to create the sound of words. Or even like a chainsaw. NEIL: Yeah. OSCAR: It's so weird. NEIL: You've named something though, so the uncanniness is about the lack of lips, primarily, and also the stiff tongue, which I haven't observed before. But now that you say it, yeah, I could see that. OSCAR: I think that's what it is. It's kind of opening and shutting that beak and these sophisticated sounds are coming out of it. Like it's being let loose. It's being let loose, like prerecorded. NEIL: Right. OSCAR: But it's this kind of internal thing that you're not seeing that's moving in such a complicated way, that's manipulating those sound waves that create such a beautiful thing. NEIL: I love it. It just sounds other worldly. It's like an electronic, like I said, it has an electronic quality to it or something. OSCAR: My parrot sounds like a robot or a voicemail. Usually there's parrots that sound phonetically like their masters or their owners or whatever you want to call it, their companions. But mine sounds like a terminator. It's like, "Hello Oscar," like, "Stop it, stop it." And they pick up electrical sounds easily. Those are first things that she picks up, are those electrical sounds. And I'm sure there's other things on higher frequencies that we're not even catching or lower frequencies. That I think it is, I'm wondering how it sounds to a bird. It sounds electronic to us because of the type of limited hearing that we have, but to birds could sound completely, I don't know, godly. NEIL: Right. OSCAR: They also have ultraviolet, like I know parents have ultraviolet vision. They can see [inaudible 00:17:29]. Right? And so certain flowers look like landing strips and we just see a little flower. NEIL: Oh God. I spend so much time thinking about what things look like to animals, especially my cat. But just generally it's the eternal question. Because cats, we have our cat, Beverly. He just spends so much time looking, and so you spend a lot of time looking at them looking, and I'm just wondering like, what is it?                 And you know that they have different color spectrum, as you say, are available, or in the case of predator animals, I know they have different contrast or reduce variation in color as a way to target and focus their attention. So I have a pet that prays on your pet. How do you feel about that? OSCAR: I'm always flirting... We were talking about, when things go out there, there's always that danger. Like God, my roommates, I'm enlightened at the moment, and my roommates have two cats at this farm house and one's definitely a killer. And it's not like you want to prevent anyone from doing what they got to do, but it's like you just got to monitor and be very mindful. I haven't been put in a position of a [inaudible 00:18:49] cat where you see those memes where the parrot is hanging out with the cat or it's on top off the cat and they're cuddling.                 But there's always that sense of danger in the back of my head, because just a cat scratch can kill a bird, just the bacteria in its claws. NEIL: Yeah. I never trust those videos of the... It's such a trope in internet culture in generally this idea of animals getting along. And I think I read something about that in certain interpretations of the story of the garden of Eden. It's that before the fall there was no predation. But whenever I see, yeah, the cat snugging with the parrot, it's like, "Well, what comes next? OSCAR: Yeah. Well, and that's where the hard wired nature of the animal. Like you can socialize a parrot but it's still wild. It's not domesticated like dogs. NEIL: Right. OSCAR: And they even say that with cats, if the cat's were just- NEIL: Exactly. OSCAR: 20 pounds larger, they will totally kill their owners. NEIL: I hear that. Totally. OSCAR: They're like,"You didn't feed me, you got to feed me. All right?" NEIL: Yeah. Next card. How everything changes at the cart stage of an online transaction, like in sex when you say, "I'm close." OSCAR: I'm more curious what you have to say about it. NEIL: All right. So this is something I had the other day, I'm just going to talk about Amazon here, speaking of birds. So when you're browsing on Amazon, it's a guilty thing I try not to do. But when you're browsing on Amazon, there's a kind of casualness. It's like, this is what other people say. You might also like this, click here. And then you put it in your cart, and okay, it's in your cart and maybe you go look at something else you need. But then I find, once you hit the cart button, everything gets really fucking intense. It's like, "Do you want to buy it in one click? "Where do you want to send it?" And it just reminds me of like, okay, that's like in sex when you go from just fooling around to, okay- OSCAR: That moment. NEIL: I'm going to cum, or I'm getting close. Do you feel that at all? OSCAR: Yeah. I think, I think when you started sharing your relationship to that, it is being like overly self aware and not being... When you're shopping, you're kind of swept off your feet. You're shopping, you're only gazing, you're going through, you're not over analyzing. And if you are over analyzing, it's like really to legitimize your buy, it's like [crosstalk 00:21:39] in the reviews and all that. But it's still part of the courting, the dancing of that final [inaudible 00:21:45], that final click. And I feel like going to the cart is somehow replaying all the foreplay and then putting up the possibility of criticizing, "Oh, I did that wrong." Or I took too long. It's like, "Do I really need to buy all this stuff?" It's like you're overthinking it. And it's funny you say that because you're kind of reliving your life right before you cum.                 And for some people, they say when you cum, [inaudible 00:22:20], that it's a little death. NEIL: Oh right. OSCAR: Yeah. NEIL: [inaudible 00:22:26]. OSCAR: Yeah. And so I think that the cart or the clicking is like seeing a little portrait of how you lived your life in that shopping cycle. And it's like, "Do you really need that?" When it just started with a casual, like, Oh, and then being captivated and seduced by the product, and you courting it and being coy and all that stuff. And then you come to the finish line, it's like, "Oh, was it all worth it?" NEIL: Oh my God. I love it. I love it. It's also a little different for me. I think this also speaks to, well, it speaks to a lot of things, but I find, like in sex, not to go too deep into it. There can be a certain part of me that's like, "Okay, this is so intense. Let's just get this over with.' So with shopping, it can also be like, "Let's just resolve this. Let's just-" OSCAR: Well, they even add more stuff. It's like, "Is this a one time buy? Is this a 12 week recurring buy?" Or, "We do have warranty on it. And if you want one its used at 30 days.", How committed are you into this [crosstalk 00:23:37] or this relationship? NEIL: Right. It's almost like that, you know that meatloaf song, I'm going to date myself like paradise by the dashboard light. OSCAR: Oh my God, no. NEIL: Do you know that song? OSCAR: I've probably heard it. I just don't know it by title. NEIL: Basically, it's a fucked up song, but the gist of it is he wants to have sex. His partner wants to get him to commit to marrying him. So there's this negotiation of, he's saying, "Let me sleep on it. I'll give you an answer in the morning." And she's like, "I got to know right now." And so, I think that thing that happens with the ad-ons is like, because you're trying to cum, you're trying to make the purchase, and then they're like, "Yeah, do you want to subscribe? Can we do the subscribe and save?" Because they have you, they have your right before you're about to cum. OSCAR: Yeah. And sometimes, yeah, there's a shame of, of course it's like I definitely don't shy away at it from commitment, but the kind of sincerity, and maybe impulse is a strong word, but the initial seduction or eye contact, the initial moment of connecting and organically following through to then start to rationalize it. Like, what is this? Is this going to be a longterm thing? When you could just be in the present and enjoying the moment. NEIL: But that also is a big part of like, I don't know how this extends to the Amazon shopping cart stage. But so much, I think of the work in a relationship where you're already fully committed is finding your way back to those initial seductions where the pleasure is not knowing, you know what I mean? OSCAR: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). NEIL: It's just in your cart. OSCAR: I think that's romance right there. NEIL: Neoliberalism and feeling virtuous about donating your plasma. I noticed I had COVID as, maybe, no. And as soon as that happened, this is early in the pandemic. It was like, "Well, you get to be a hero by donating your plasma." And there was a type of language around it. I often feel that way about like, to me, blood drives or the height of neoliberalism or walk-a-thons. It's like, "Why should this be something that gets this outsized validation?" Why isn't it just something you do? I don't know. Does that resonate with you at all? OSCAR: Yeah. It's the same... Valentine's day or you show your love by how much you spend. Yeah. It cheapens things. It should be natural for you to want to share your plasma because you're trying to find a cure. But it doesn't mean it should be tied to heroic deeds. But it's not in your nature to supposedly share and care about the other, you're just trying to survive. But if you do this, you're a hero. I start to think in relationship to neoliberalism is that you start to create human emotions and human qualities into commodities. NEIL: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. Yeah. Yeah. OSCAR: Because what they're asking is literally a piece of you and your time, which is precious. And so, what do you have for me, for me to take time out of my day? What do I get out of it? NEIL: Right. And so what they're offering you is the feeling of being a hero rather than whatever you wouldn't- OSCAR: Whatever sells at the moment. If it's xenophobia or nationalism, or whatever's kind of hot at the moment. They'll use something that's very natural and a part of us, but it's been pushed down. It's not practical to evoke those feelings of like, yeah, I am contributing. I guess it's social capital to think that you're courageous and a hero, short of like giving you money.                 And so they're selling you an idea for you to donate instead of it being like, I don't want to say social duty, but your care and love for your people. NEIL: All right. Some closing questions. What is a bad X you take over a good Y? OSCAR: Huh. A bad X over a good Y. I'm going to expose myself here. I'll take a really funny, dumb cartoon over a good independent or supposedly good independent film. Because I'm maybe spending a little bit too much time watching the good independent films for preparing for a syllabus or something, I'll probably take a break and breather for a good bad episode of cartoon network, which I haven't done in a year or something. But now you've reminded me. NEIL: When the specific limitations of quarantine, however you want to describe this current situation around COVID is over, what are you looking forward to? OSCAR: When it's over? NEIL: Yeah. OSCAR: When I drive through New York, I do get nostalgic feeling when people are basically not social distancing, they're not wearing masks. They're like, "Oh my God, you're killing me." But I'm like, "Oh man, I miss just going out to a bar and just meeting with a bunch of friends with the coffee in the background of-" NEIL: Right. OSCAR: Connecting on a social level without the invisible boogeyman. NEIL: Right. So you're having, when I look at those scenes and I think when a lot of people look at them, they're like, "How fucking irresponsible." Like a lot of judgment, a lot of anger. You're secretly not feeling that or not so secretly not feeling that. OSCAR: I do feel that, but then there's this aftertaste of like, "Oh man, it would be nice to just go it all, just to be social in that manner. NEIL: Yeah. OSCAR: But then going back to what is COVID or this situation presenting is presenting a situation to be more nuanced of the different types of way that we are social. For instance, in this, like what we're doing now, it's like another element of... And so that has been amped up like FaceTiming and connecting with people more frequently, that usually it would be related to a zip code if you're not in the city. Like, I probably won't see you. So there is a silver lining of gaining that type of social connection, even though it's mediated through technology that is being lost by just the kind of serendipity of going to a bar and then bumping into someone. Which in New York is I think the great thing about New York. Is walking through space and just meeting someone by chance and like, "Oh, what are you doing here?" And then you grab a coffee or a beer or something. NEIL: Let's say I never liked that kind of stuff. OSCAR: No. NEIL: I'm so relieved not to have that opportunity, but that's me. But on that note, Oscar Rene Cornejo, I try to do a little [crosstalk 00:31:52]. But what about if you were trying to do that thing you were talking about before of like doing a more flamboyant rolling of the R. OSCAR: It'd be like, Oscar Rene Cornejo. Yeah. So there's a little like, okay, that R was a little bit millisecond too long. NEIL: Right. Oh, I love you. I love talking to you. Thank you for making the time. I do feel like this is a model for me of like, God, a hopeful model for how one can exist in the world without physical presence. Thank you for being on SHE'S A TALKER.      

Writer Ray Lipstein describes the melodrama of looking in the mirror.  ABOUT THE GUEST RL (Ray) Lipstein is a writer, editor, and performer who works for The New Yorker, and previously for the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and the United Nations. They were elected president of Girls Nation in 2009, on a universal healthcare platform, before leaving mock politics and organized gender. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE’S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Andrew Litton Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL: I am so happy to have Ray Lipstein with me on a remote version of She's a Talker. Ray, thank you so much for being with me. RAY: It is my pleasure. More than my pleasure. NEIL: What is more than your pleasure? RAY: My pain, I guess. I don't know. NEIL: So you're saying it is painful to be here. RAY: Yeah. It fits somewhere between ennui and delight. It goes backwards. NEIL: There falls the shadow. So we're talking remotely, how are you doing? Whatever that means. We're talking, I think, probably two months into quarantine in New York. RAY: I am holding up well. I rearranged my bedroom last night in a feat of extreme 2:00 AM industriousness and it feels great. It's converted the bed psychologically into a day bed, the new orientation. So I'm excited for my roommate to get back who is with their partner. They're not a Gog. I'm going to send them away again. It's very big news. NEIL: Okay. When someone asks you what you do, how do you succinctly describe to them what it is? RAY: I work at The New Yorker. No further questions. NEIL: Okay. I'll accept that. RAY: No, no, no, don't accept it. Don't accept it. If someone asks me, what do I do, well, first of all, I would say, "Do you mean for a living? What do you mean? And why are you asking?" Those are all first line questions. And if push comes to shove, I say I'm a copy editor at The New Yorker. NEIL: All right. So first card is most photography is melodramatic. By definition, photography is melodramatic because it's the moment, right? It's always the moment. RAY: To preserve a moment is melodramatic. NEIL: Well, I don't know if to preserve it, to present it, to say, okay, here's this flux of life and I am going to take this one moment. Fuck preserving it. And I'm going to offer it. I'm offering you this one moment. Okay. That's the theoretical problem with it, but then I think pragmatically, photographs often look melodramatic just by virtue of something being stopped in the middle of something. So let's say you're looking at a picture from a photo album where your mother is looking into the camera and your father is looking off to the side and you're in the baby carriage holding a rattle. That is melodrama, because all that shit by virtue of being extracted from the flux of time is being given this outsized importance. RAY: It definitely seems like a bit arrogant or presumptuous. I mean, that seems like part of it, right? What you're saying that, to free. Yeah. And to present any moment, any given moment in time, it's something worthy of, as you say, isolating it out of that flux. I associate melodrama with overwrought emotionalism. NEIL: Which I think this has paradoxically by its restraint. RAY: Huh? Yeah. I mean, if you're going to say that, I mean, I have to say that all art is melodramatic then. I would say that card is melodramatic. NEIL: Oh, all the cards are melodramatic because it's by virtue of saying, look at this thought I had. It's worth your attention. It's sort of like at the beginning of the podcast, can I tell you this may be a slightly different thing, I've in the past introduced it by saying, "Hi, I'm Neil Goldberg, and this is She's A Talker. That to me seems like the height of presumption or melodrama or something, like who the fuck cares if you're Neil Goldberg and who cares if the podcast is called She's A Talker? RAY: Well, once you said that it's melodramatic in its restraint, I kind of start to feel like everything, including life, is melodramatic because then both the things that are literally melodramatic and the things that are restrained are melodramatic. And I absolutely feel that way. We're constantly looking to melodrama. NEIL: Everything. Everything is melodramatic basically. RAY: And you would only start it with most photography. How quickly were you realized? Yeah. I mean, I think for practical reasons I can offer a defense of you giving your name and the name of the podcast at the beginning, but I definitely see why it seems crazily hubristic and presumptuous and absurd, but it also feels crazily hubristic and presumptuous and absurd to look at myself in the mirror in the morning and try on multiple outfits and then go out the door thinking about how I look. I mean, it's presumptuous to have an identity. That's why you just got to strive for ego death. Everything short of ego death is melodrama. NEIL: Next card. Does the immune system ever get tired of all the conflict? RAY: This one made me giggle. I love to personify the immune system. NEIL: When you kind of personify it, does it have features? RAY: My immune system would be extremely neurotic. It would be anxious and avoidant and inefficient, over-reactive. Oh, all these sorts of things that you also might characterize me with. It would be true of him, my immune system. NEIL: Okay. Your immune system is gendered male. RAY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Uses he pronouns for now, I guess. NEIL: You say that your immune system is avoidant. What does it avoid? RAY: I mean, I think of my immune system's avoidant in terms of hay fever. When allergies come, it just absolutely drops. The ball runs the opposite direction. It doesn't even put up or maybe that's wrong. Maybe it's an over, I forget exactly what is it. NEIL: If you have allergies, that means you have an overactive immune system, I believe. RAY: Yeah. I think we're going to have to scratch all this for my pride, but I mean, it may not be avoidant in a literal sense, but it's avoidant emotionally and it knows that and I know it. Just because you're tackling, you could be avoiding a real conflict by throwing yourself at the conflict in an inefficient way. There's all sorts of ways you can avoid. NEIL: Oh my God, that's the story somehow of my art career, but not about conflict, but about opportunities. NEIL: Once one has decided that the Zoom meeting is over the rush to end the call. I'm talking about pressing the button that actually ends the call, so as not to be in that zone between when the meeting is over and the call has been disconnected. RAY: Yeah. I'm so glad you named this. I relate to it strongly. And I embarrassed myself at work Slack bemoaning it happening to me with my therapist. Every time we Zoom, she beats me out of there. So I'm working on it. Because it feels, and that doesn't just feel like embarrassment. That feels like abandonment. I mean, it's therapy. Every time. NEIL: You don't want to be abandoned. RAY: You don't want to be abandoned. NEIL: That's it right? It's about abandonment. RAY: You don't want to be the schmuck alone in the room. Yeah. It feels like rejection, I suppose. But the Zoom, you have to click it and then it'll say, "Are you sure you want to leave the meeting?" So there's that second. That's where I always get held up. Everyone leaves while I'm waiting to confirm that I want to leave, but on FaceTime, they don't ask you anything. And I was talking to a good friend of mine yesterday or two days ago, and I wanted to beat her out of that call so that I didn't feel abandoned. And I tried to compensate for the popup and there was no popup. And instead I hung up on her in mid sentence and that's kind of like, that's the price you pay to make sure you're not the last one left. NEIL: That really reminds me. I was deep into magic as a kid in high school. No. Well, yes, in high school, but all the way in elementary school. And I remember I once did a magic show for the elementary school. Maybe I was in junior high and I came back to the elementary school to do a magic show. And the teacher was introducing me, but I had the feeling like, wait, she's actually not going to introduce me. She was doing kind of a roundabout introduction that I think was maybe speaking to magic broadly, and I had this profound fear that she's just going to forget to introduce me. So I just came out in the middle of her introduction and started doing my show. Let's sit with that, right? RAY: There's a lot there. NEIL: I think I do, and I suspect you do too, if someone is, well, an introduction is often praising and of course I desperately want to be praised, but I don't want to be seen needing the praise, so I try to preempt it. So if someone is saying something nice about my art, which of course I want to hear, but I'll often cut them off. This connects to a card actually that I have here, which is when people praise me, it makes me wonder what narcissistic thing they detect in me that is pulling for them to praise me. Whenever someone's praising me, I think, oh wait, they can tell I'm asking for the praise or my whole personality is structured around needing praise. RAY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). What makes you think that they can tell? NEIL: Because I feel like one is always 100% transparent. That I deeply believe. People can always tell, don't you think? RAY: I don't know. I don't know. I was in a dialectical behavioral therapy group for a bit and they have these versions of Zen koans, but they're kind of very banal phrases instead. And there's one that's like, never in the history of the universe has anyone ever read another person's mind. But I took issue with that one because I mean, it really just eliminates the idea of magic from the schema. I don't want to believe it, but also it does give me some comfort because then no one, you know. I remind myself that constantly that no one can read my mind and it helps. It might help you receive compliments, because you do. We really want them. NEIL: Okay. There's the magic version of reading minds, but reading a mind is also just picking up on cues that manifest themselves. I feel like I'm a terrible liar. I just know if I'm lying to someone, unless they're just really tuned out, they can tell it. So that's not them reading my mind that they know what I'm saying is a lie. They can read it on my face. Likewise, if I'm feeling greedy for a compliment, I just think that manifests itself. RAY: Maybe you have very expressive body language. NEIL: This card says, how animals hide their pain, but what about a hypochondriacal animal? RAY: Do you have an animal that is hypochondriacal? NEIL: No, I had known lots of people and people are animals, but no, the closest I could come up with are those birds that as a strategy to protect their nests, they fly away from the nest and pretend they have a broken wing to attract the predator to them and then they fly away. Is that hypochondria or is that, well, it's a strategy and maybe hypochondria is a strategy. And it draws attention, which hypochondria does. RAY: That's interesting. NEIL: That's the closest I can get to a hypochondriacal animal. RAY: There is a dog in this 19 whatever vet book about an English veterinarian who lives in the countryside. NEIL: All Creatures Great and Small? RAY: All Creatures Great and Small. NEIL: Oh my God. That was, I think, the first book I ever read. RAY: No shit. Yeah. Really? NEIL: Oh, I was obsessed with it. James Harriot. James Harriot, right? RAY: Yeah. Totally. So right. James Harriot goes, he's this country doctor and he has to earn the respect of his eccentric boss and join the practice. He's seeing a Pekingese, I think, who is owned, I forget what the Pekingese's name is. I'm trying to find the, oh, I opened to it. Amazing. Ms. Pumphrey. Oh, yeah. Tricky, the Pekingese and Tricky needs, I don't know whether it's Tricky who is the hypochondriac or Mrs. Pumphrey, but he needs to squeeze Tricky's anal glands every so often. NEIL: Oh, I remember this vaguely. RAY: Tricky gets uncomfortable. Yeah. Iconic. I mean, definitely an iconic one. And then the story is really about how Mrs. Pumphrey anthropomorphizes Tricky and how James Harriot has to make sure to thank Tricky and not Mrs. Pumphrey for the cigars and the sherry or whatever he gets at Christmas because the gift is from the dog, but the dog, he doesn't really even seem to need the anal glands being squeezed. So actually I think it's still the owner who's hypochondriacal unfortunately at the end of this whole story. NEIL: You're right. It's like Munchhausen Syndrome by Proxy. God, lots of memories from that book. And I worked summers in high school at veterinarian's offices, because I wanted to be a veterinarian for a long time. An animal lover. RAY: Was it because of the books? NEIL: I think the books were because of that. I was just obsessed with animals from an early age, but one thing that will turn you off to being a veterinarian is working for veterinarians. I think for me, it was just seeing a lot of animals suffering. I just couldn't deal with it. But I saw a lot of anal glands being expressed. Did you say express? RAY: I didn't. NEIL: Because that's what it's called. You express the anal glands. RAY: I love that more than anything I've heard all day. That is. Tell me if this is true, because if so, it's tragic. Must anal glands always be expressed by another or can they express themselves? NEIL: I don't have the answer to that question. I got to believe that they can be expressed themselves, unless that was some real clever form of domestication that happened. It's like maybe that's why dogs domesticated themselves, to get their anal glands expressed. RAY: They lost the ability to express. Yeah. Well, let's just hope they don't take up photography. NEIL: People who go through a stage where they don't smile for photos should just skip that phase. I went through that phase, I should say. RAY: Let them just skip it. Let them skip it. They don't need it. NEIL: And there are some people who are stuck in that phase. But you're right. You don't need it, but is there any photograph that's better by virtue of the fact that the person's not smiling? RAY: Loads, millions, all of the ones. I think so. It introduces this kind of amazing mystery to all the photos before the convention of smiling in photographs. There's a photograph in my parents' basement of a great aunt of ours. And there're just all these incredibly pale looking Latvian girls in dark robes and they all look, they're so serious, but you know that they're school girls and someone's got gum in someone's hair and eight of them have crushes on each other. What's happening? And you can't tell. There's this sort of unaccountable distance that the imagination has to bridge between what these faces might look like if their personalities could have come through if they'd had more choice, I suppose, in how to form their expressions. RAY: I guess what I advocate for is choice ultimately. There shouldn't be a mandate to smile. If you think you have a crappy smile and it makes your face look funny, as I kind of feel about my face, then you shouldn't have to smile. You choose the expression most appropriate in the moment. NEIL: I like that. RAY: And that's the only way to really keep it from being a melodramatic photograph, I think. NEIL: I think smiling in a photograph is a way to acknowledge the melodrama. How's that? I think not smiling supports the melodrama. RAY: Yeah. Smiling fights it. I agree, because then it's a farce if you're smiling. NEIL: You're acknowledging. You're acknowledging it. RAY: Yeah. I'll just say if you take away the coy avoidant pout from me for a photograph, you'd be depriving me of one of my few remaining crutches, so I hope you come around. NEIL: I do know that pout. I know that pout. I like it. I love it. I also love your smile though, because I feel like your smile is a hard one smile. RAY: Interesting. It's about a great battle. That does recall, yeah, I was going to say something earlier when you were talking on the card, the card on people praising you because it makes you wonder what narcissistic thing you did they detect. I mean, please don't include this. But there was in high school, they called this face I made the a hundred face, which was when I got back an a hundred on a quiz or a test and it would be this evil, a rapid flicker between a smile and a frown and a frown that was exaggeratedly. It's a horrific, horrific bastardization of what a facial expression should be. Just a constantly moving war to prevent a smirk, a smirk for getting at a hundred on a quiz or a test, or just to hide the joy or to hide whatever the self satisfaction. And whenever it came, I was so conscious of what my face looked like to others, that they gave it a name. NEIL: The hundred face, but can we just completely put a button on this by saying, you say there's no such thing as mind reading, you were trying to kind of jam the signal of people's ability to read your mind as expressed by your facial expression. This speaks to the truth that people can read your mind, or at least you fear people read your mind. I have to include this. You prefaced by saying not include it. I just feel like I would violate, even though this isn't journalism, I would violate journalistic ethics to include that. RAY: Oh my God. Only if your credibility as a journalist is on the line. If those are the stakes, then I will see. NEIL: Oh my God. RAY: And maybe my friend, Lizzie, will hear her famous phrase. NEIL: Oh, I love Lizzie for naming that. You know what the hundred phase reminds me of by the way, although I think it's actually totally different, but it's this thing I do where I'm saying something and I'm about to use a fancy word. And by the way, I'm using that word not to show off, I think, but because it feels like the right word, but I don't want to be seen as trying to show off. So there's this little stumble or pause or something I do before I say the word that actually I think it then draws attention to the word or to me. I don't know. Do you have that situation? RAY: Yeah, I have that situation really bad. I don't know if I do the pause, but no matter what, the way I handle the self consciousness makes it more conspicuous. I think I just make a really shameful hand in the cookie jar kind of face and dark glances to see if anyone's noticed that I've used an unacceptable word. And I mean, I was made fun of this my whole life for using big words, I guess, was the common accusation. And like, "Why do you have to talk like that?" All sorts. And they're absolutely right. There was no reason to talk like that. I mean, it's just I was getting vocab words in my lunchbox every day from my mom from a book and there's only so much you can do with that much input and had to use it, use it or lose it. NEIL: Because your mom is a librarian, right? RAY: My mom, she works at the library. She is a library circulation. She's a clerk. NEIL: And she would slip a word into your lunchbox every day? RAY: She would casually slip a word of the day every day of the week. And then on Fridays, a vocab quiz, or maybe it was the end of the month after and I do 30 of them, I'd get quiz. NEIL: Wow. Now, would she ever slip in a vocabulary word, but forget your actual lunch? RAY: I think probably the words were what kept her remembering to make lunch. NEIL: Maybe your mom should be on She's A Talker since it's so centered around these index cards. RAY: Yeah. Well, in fairness, they were cards printed with the names of Lindt chocolates in different combinations, like milk chocolate shell with a hazelnut filling and a coconut shavings on top and numbered and then the backside was blank, and they were being reused from when my dad was a market researcher and Lindt Chocolate was his client at one point. And for our whole lives, our note cards were these focus group discarded Lindt Chocolate cards. NEIL: That's so beautiful. I hope you're saving that for whatever, for your novel, for your one person show. RAY: I think I was saving it for this. And this is where this memory will finally be discharged. NEIL: I love it a discharged memory, especially remotely. A remote discharged memory. RAY: I knew you wouldn't let me get away with saying discharge. NEIL: When this is all over, by this I mean our current who the fuck knows what over means, but what is it you're looking forward to? RAY: What am I looking forward to? One thing I miss is getting on the subway and moving through all the cars of the train in case my one true love is somewhere on the train, but not in the car that I got into and going from car to car to see if someone is there who I will meet, and none of that is possible now. NEIL: I love it. I'm sending you a huge virtual hug out to Bed Stuy from the Lower East Side. Thank you so much for being on She's A Talker. RAY: Neil, thank you so much for having me. It's been a total delight. NEIL: She's A Talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds. Yeah.  

Actor Kathleen Turner talks about not bringing characters home. Neil wonders if he himself created COVID. ABOUT THE GUEST Among Kathleen Turner’s numerous accolades are Golden Globes for Romancing The Stone and Prizzi’s Honor, an Academy Award nomination for Peggy Sue Got Married, Tony Award nominations for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. Most recently she guest starred on The Kominsky Method, Mom and Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings. Her film credits include The Man With Two Brains, Jewel Of The Nile, The Accidental Tourist, The Virgin Suicides, among many others. On Broadway, she has starred in High, The Graduate and Indiscretions. Also a best-selling author, she wrote the books Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts On My Life, Love, and Leading Roles and Kathleen Turner On Acting. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE’S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Andrew Litton Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Social Media: Lourdes Rohan Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL: Kathleen Turner, thank you so much for being on SHE'S A TALKER. KATHLEEN: I think this is going to be a pleasure. NEIL: Oh. Let's check in at the end and see. What's something that you find yourself thinking about today, May 16th? KATHLEEN: Oh my. I'll tell you, being able to tolerate this isolation. Because I live alone. I have a wonderful cat, thank you very much, but this really means that I ... I don't have a spouse or a kid or something with me. And I've had a women's poker group for about ... some of them have played together for over 30 years. NEIL: Wow. KATHLEEN: And we get together at least once a month and play poker and eat and have a silly time. And so, we are Zooming together every Sunday evening, but they almost ... well all of them have spouses or people that they are isolating with, but it's hard. It's really hard right now. NEIL: I can totally imagine. Are you finding outside comfort in having your cat there? KATHLEEN: Yes, I do. He's this beautiful black. A little black cat. He can seemingly pretty much sense when I need him. NEIL: This podcast, the mascot of this podcast, is my black cat, Beverly. What's your cat's name and what color are his eyes? KATHLEEN: His name is Simon and his eyes are mostly yellow, sometimes into green. But when I went to get another rescue, I'd had one that died, I've been told that black cats are hard to get adopted out of superstition, or I have found out, being difficult to see in the middle of the night, especially if you have a dark rug. NEIL: Yes. Yeah. Often, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I will mistake certain things for the cat. Let's say I've left my backpack on the floor, and the tender way I touch my backpack makes me kind of think about the backpack differently. If only I touched everything as tenderly as the things I thought are my cat. I know you were born here, but you seem like such a quintessential New Yorker to me. Do you feel that way? KATHLEEN: Oh yeah. I do. I always knew I was coming to New York. I never thought of settling in Los Angeles. And even the time I've spent there working, which is the only reason I go, I'm not comfortable. I'm just not comfortable there at all. Never have been. Never lived there, never invested, which people tell me makes a difference. But no, all I ever wanted was New York, which I consider to be as close to the rest of the world as possible. NEIL: Can you identify what it is about Los Angeles that made you know it wasn't for you? KATHLEEN: Oh, heavens. There's no communication, there's no commune, there's no colony. People get to know each other's cars better than they do the people. They go, "Oh yeah, you're the black BMW 550," or something. You go, "Well, yeah." And it's so isolating. It's so lonely. I don't know how people survive. NEIL: The experience you're describing I connect to in my own way powerfully. My work has always been about New York, and I question everything about my life, but I never question New York, even now. KATHLEEN: Right. NEIL: But this is the first time in my whole time in New York where I'm finding it unpleasant to be on the street. And how are- KATHLEEN: It's hard. NEIL: Yeah. KATHLEEN: It's hard to go out and not being able to see people's faces. NEIL: Yeah. KATHLEEN: I miss that because I love looking at people's faces and seeing how they use them, and it might give me ideas for a character or something. So now this seeing just part of people, and then the shock of seeing somebody with no precautions, without a mask, without anything. NEIL: Yeah. I know. It does bring up a whole level of, for me, among other things, a type of not crankiness, but a like, "What the hell are you doing?" KATHLEEN: Yeah. NEIL: In New York, I can often feel pre-COVID, sort of, I appreciate generally how New York relative to other cities, there's a kind of sense of your body and space. That's something I noticed in LA, for instance, going into a supermarket. The way people occupied space there suggested that they didn't fully take in, "Hey, you know what? We're all sharing this space, so we have to be attuned to the fact that- KATHLEEN: Oh, I agree with that. Yeah, no, I like the unspoken treaties we have. NEIL: Thinking about what you're saying about the masks and not being able to read people's faces, it makes me realize how much I use ... One of my cards is I love mouthing, "Sorry." KATHLEEN: Yeah. Mouthing, "I'm sorry." Yes, I know it. The way somebody moves, holds their lips, you can immediately get a grasp of that person's personality. Does their mouth turn down at the corners in rest, or does it turn up? When they're not thinking about it, when they're not doing anything, what are the signs that their personality is left on their face? I like that stuff. NEIL: First of all, when you're wearing a mask and you want to kind of communicate, I don't know, acknowledgement to someone, do you find you're kind of making a lot of extra use from the nose up or something? KATHLEEN: Well, yeah. I think you kind of see when someone's smiling just from the eyes. I don't know. Yeah, it turns into a kind of sign language, but you use your body for that too. It's its own challenge, but I do miss seeing people's faces. NEIL: Let's just launch right into some of these cards. First card is, "I could see when I get toward the end of my life thinking, 'I'm done with this particular personality, I've worn it out.'" KATHLEEN: It seems to me that I've already had several lives. And I expect that this is the beginning of another. I kind of accept that easily, actually. I like change and having to adapt, it's not frightening to me. NEIL: Where do you think that comes from? KATHLEEN: I think I'm a pretty down to earth person, pretty practical, and some of my experiences fighting rheumatoid arthritis for years and other injuries have just made me more accepting. NEIL: It also seemed like your childhood involved a lot of the need to adapt. KATHLEEN: Oh yeah. A lot of change. NEIL: Yeah. KATHLEEN: Yeah. Yeah. I was the only one of the siblings born in the States, but then we moved to Canada by the time I was three months, and then from there, to Cuba. From Cuba, we had a year or so in Washington, and then Caracas, Venezuela for five years. And then we transferred from Venezuela to London, which was a marvelous thing because it was my high school years, and that's where I was so sure. I became so sure that this was the career I wanted. Many, many actors have had a kind of transitory background, either in the service, or with their parents being high-level executives, or in the military. And I think it kind of makes for good actors, I guess. NEIL: Could you break that down? What about that, do you think? KATHLEEN: Well, I can remember vividly when I went from Venezuela to London thinking, "Well, I can be anybody now. I can be anybody I want to be because nobody there knows me, nobody has any history with me. So how I present myself when I start school or something is completely up to me." And I thought that was rather exhilarating. NEIL: That's interesting. You also in your book talk a lot about the role of empathy in acting. KATHLEEN: Yeah. NEIL: I wonder if having to move around a lot develops empathy. KATHLEEN: Well, I'll tell you one thing it does is it takes away some of your sense of control. These things are out of your control, and that's kind of how I've approached the dealing with the rheumatoid arthritis and other things. I don't control this. Now, if you give up the idea that you control everything around about your life, then you are open to thinking about others and their choices and their needs because you're kind of advocated here. NEIL: So as long as we're talking about thinking about others and empathy, I'd love to talk about this card, which simply says, "Empathy poisoning." And that comes from a place in me where I found myself often as a kid overwhelmed by the empathy I felt for my parents who were going through some tough stuff, and I found that past a certain point, empathy can almost feel toxic. KATHLEEN: Empathy poisoning. If anything, I might get that more from the characters that I play than other people. You play Martha in Virginia Woolf for 500 performances and there's no way you're going to keep yourself completely separate from her. So I would say that that's more empathy poisoning to me than other people. NEIL: So in other words, your empathy with the character can kind of embody itself in you. KATHLEEN: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. It's like when you're creating a character, take Martha. At first when you really start to study her, you think, "What is wrong with this woman? She's sitting around drinking endlessly and ruining the one friendship relationship in her life, what the hell?" And then you go a little deeper and you think, "All right, this is 1962, and no women held any tenured position in any university. All their energies and praise came from the status of their husbands." KATHLEEN: She has a husband who has assiduously worked to remain an associate professor for 17 years. She's ambitious, she's intelligent, she has energy, and absolutely no way to use it. What's she going to do? Just host faculty wives teas? And then you start to understand, "Okay, wait a minute now. If I had these endless barriers in my life, how would I fight?" Anyway, you can understand how you would start to really, really feel something for this woman and with her. The rage, I think more than anything. Yeah. NEIL: At the end of a performance, is there a process by which that empathic connection is released, or is it over the course of a run? KATHLEEN: Well, I used to believe that I did not bring any characters home. My ex-husband and my daughter have made it clear that that's not entirely true. Anyway, part of it's the energy at the end of a performance, say. Maybe you just had a standing ovation of 1100 people. It's thrilling, it's fantastic, and you can't just say, "Okay. Well that's all right, now I'm going to go home and have a different life." I have to work it off. I've been known to go up and down the stairs in my building just to get rid of some of this energy that keeps me going. I try to just, I don't know, tire myself a bit, I guess. NEIL: Since we're talking about acting, which I'd love to keep talking with you about, next card would be acting. Pretending to notice something when you walk into a room. I could never do that. That, to me, seems like a monumental challenge. KATHLEEN: But if you wanted to talk about what acting is, I'll tell you that acting is a very carefully chosen series of communications, both physically and through the text. It is incredibly deliberate and detailed, and never really spontaneous. I don't do ... what do you call it when you get thrown something and the- NEIL: Improvisation? KATHLEEN: Yes. I'm not good at improv, no. NEIL: But how does one perform surprise? KATHLEEN: Oh. Well, it isn't just performing. You allow yourself to be surprised. This stuff is half physical, half in the body, and half in your mind making the choices, but then you feel them in the body. NEIL: You teach acting, correct? KATHLEEN: I do. I coach, and now I'm starting to teach online a bit, which is very difficult, really, because I can really work on the text. I can really work with them on the meanings and the basic, but I cannot get them on their feet and have them move. Because then I really wouldn't be able to see them well. And so that, I really miss. I miss being in the room with somebody and looking at them from their feet to their head and going, "Okay, wait a minute. You just said, 'I hate you,' and your legs are crossed." It doesn't work like that. The body is not saying the same thing your mouth is. So I miss not being able to be in the room with them, but still, we can do good work. NEIL: Do you feel effective as a teacher? Yeah. Do you feel- KATHLEEN: Yes. Yeah. I find it very fulfilling. I really enjoy it. NEIL: See, I teach art, visual art, and I also find it super fulfilling, and I also feel effective, but sometimes when I step back, and I'm curious how this is for you, recommending references and theory. I do believe it works, but I don't know. I don't know, I sometimes feel like an effective quack or something like that. KATHLEEN: Well, heavens to Betsy. I'm not sure that's our responsibility. We give them what tools we think they can use, but we're not responsible for what they actually do with them. NEIL: I love that you're able to comfortably ... to own that. And it may be a difference between teaching acting and teaching visual art in that I wonder if there's something less mediated, more direct, I wonder, about teaching acting. KATHLEEN: Well in acting, we have a specific text. Chosen words to work with, which is a structure, and I don't know that you have that in art. NEIL: Not really, no. And I think so much of the teaching of art involves almost manufacturing parameters to contain the ideas. The worst thing you can do for a student is to say like, "Make a video," versus, "Make a video that has to be two minutes long and that doesn't use sound and that involves some aspect of memory." Whereas I guess, as an actor, that's such a great point. You always have the text as a kind of infrastructure for your teaching, correct? KATHLEEN: Yes. Yes. NEIL: I love it. Next card. Actors and animals. They're both about commitment. I feel like my cat is never fully other than 100% in what she's doing, and that could just be a question of I don't know if I'm interpreting her correctly. But it seems to me that actors, to be effective, kind of have to have something akin to that. Do you sense a connection? KATHLEEN: I do. I do. I believe very strongly in getting commitment. Again, you make your choices, and then you have to fill them. You have to fill them physically, vocally, mentally. I can tell when an actor hasn't committed to the role they're playing. It's very clear to me. NEIL: And when you look at Simon, are you ever inspired as an actor? KATHLEEN: I look at Simon and I see just a cat boy. He walks around with this swagger with his ass kind of swinging around and you go, "Oh, you're a real Butch, aren't you, cat?" No, I enjoy him that way, yes. NEIL: Oh, I love their embodied presence. I love the way they walk. KATHLEEN: Yeah. NEIL: You mentioned you can tell when actors aren't committed. Next card would be actors who are bad at acting, even in the posters. KATHLEEN: Oh. Wow. Well, that's very poor photography or choice then. I find still photography very difficult because I feel so fake. I feel staged- NEIL: Interesting. KATHLEEN: ... as opposed to the actual doing of the character, which feels quite natural to me. So then I really have to say, "All right. The PR people, the photographer they choose, I'll listen to them." NEIL: That's interesting. So it's sort of that fact that your character, when you're performing, unfolds in time. KATHLEEN: Yeah. He's moving. NEIL: Right. KATHLEEN: And it's stopped in a poster, in a photograph. NEIL: So do you have any tricks for that? Are you trying to kind of- KATHLEEN: No, I've never been very good at it. I don't like being photographed. Just still photography. It makes me uncomfortable to be just still. NEIL: What's your relationship to a fear of failing? KATHLEEN: Oh, I'm going to. I have to. If I don't risk failure, then I'm not going far enough. If you don't, and I say this to all my students as well, look, you go to the point of failure, you will have to risk to the point of failure. Now, sometimes that means, uh-huh (affirmative), yeah, you will go over the edge. But at the other times it means that have pushed yourself further and found more than you had previously, and I think that's our job. NEIL: Do you feel like in acting, is there the notion of having succeeded? KATHLEEN: Yes, I think so. I know when I've done a good performance when I've hit all the marks that I set up for myself. I know when I have done what I hoped and wanted, what I set out to do. I will never forget opening night on Broadway. Well, any opening night on Broadway, but Virginia Woolf, and there were four of us in that play. And when the curtain came down, I was holding onto two of my co-stars, and I said, "Do not ever forget this moment. Don't ever allow yourself to forget this because they are few and far between." NEIL: As a visual artist, you rarely get that experience. KATHLEEN: Yes. NEIL: It's always mediated. I always say I love attention, but I like it kind of bounced off a wall. But what you're describing sounds so powerful, for lack of a better word. KATHLEEN: It is. It's astounding. There's such an extraordinary phenomena in theater where people sit so close, or they used to sit so close to each other. Total strangers. Closer than they sit in their own homes to people and they start to breathe together and they start to hold their breath at the same time and they laugh at the same time. So in a way, they become one body, one person, and it works for them in that they leave the theater feeling that they were part of something. They weren't just the individual that walked in that door to begin with. That it was something more than that. And as they become more attuned to each other and more one, they're easier in a way for me to work with. NEIL: Is there work that has to be front-loaded in a performance to kind of help create that feeling of coalescent? KATHLEEN: A lot of it has to do with the actor's confidence. Because if they see that you feel confident and good about what you're doing, then they'll trust more easily. NEIL: Do you always go out feeling confident, or do you perform confidence? KATHLEEN: I always think that I'm so much more confident in my working self than in my private self that I'm quite sure the decisions I make as an actor are right. But then take me off the stage and give me a decision to make about whether you want to see these people or not and I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know." Yeah. And so it's very difficult sometimes. NEIL: I'd love to do sort of a quick lightning round of a couple of quick cards. First card would be gratuitous eye work in movies. I notice certain actors sort of try and telegraph a type of subtlety or something by way of a whole lot of stuff going on in the eyes that doesn't need to happen. KATHLEEN: That's interesting. Yeah, I can see that. I don't know, I guess. To me, for example, it will be too much smiling also. It's hiding. It's hiding yourself. It's feeling like you're keeping busy and you're doing something, but in fact, you're just dodging. NEIL: One of the cards here says, "Friendships that are tenured." KATHLEEN: That are what? NEIL: Tenured. KATHLEEN: Oh, yes. Well, to me, and this is something that I learned from my mother, for me, women friends. Really strong, interesting women friends are essential. And out of this poker group, we have an investment banker, a gynecologist, a film editor, a retired lawyer. I don't think any of the businesses are repeated, necessarily. And these are women I've met over the years through some reason or another and wanted in my life and said, "Come on. I want you in my life." I will actually say that. KATHLEEN: Anyway, my mom, when she got older, she had three or four very, very important friends in her life, and they would check on each other, and they would celebrate birthdays together, and they'd go to concerts together, and they'd volunteer at the library together. And so there was a constant. She didn't end up feeling that she was that alone. NEIL: People are less surprised by my age as they used to be. It used to be I would tell people, especially students, I'd say, let's say 10 years ago, I'd say, "I'm 45," and there'd be a, "What?" Now, when I tell them I'm 56, they're like, "That's about right." That's what the look says. KATHLEEN: No. For years and years, I always played characters older than I was, and it started with Body Heat, that once I was cast, only then did the director, Larry Kasdan, say, "By the way, how old are you?" And I said, "Well, I'm going to be 26." "No, you're not. No, you're not. You're 29." It was wrong for a woman to be that powerful that young is what he said. So then for years I played women who were older. I was not 42 when I did Peggy Sue Got Married, for God's sake. I don't think it was until Virginia Woolf, where the character is 50, that I actually got to be 50 playing 50. KATHLEEN: And now, I tell you, the thing that I find most extraordinary, I'm turning 66 next month, and I find it fascinating how the looks have changed over the years. How time and everything that contributes to your life has affected how you look or if you care. NEIL: What is your relationship to caring? KATHLEEN: Yeah. I don't. I certainly don't care as much as I know I used to. I still like to look nice as it were, but no, I don't set out to knock somebody out, you know what I mean? NEIL: I'd love to end, if you don't mind, with two questions I like to ask. First question is, fill in the blank for X and Y. What is a bad X you would take over a good Y? KATHLEEN: What is a bad ... Oh. Hell, why would you? Well, I suppose a bad meal but with good company would be doable. NEIL: I love it. And what's something you're looking forward to when this crisis, as it were, is over? KATHLEEN: Oh, getting back on stage. Theater is just shut down. I was booked for the fall at the Guthrie in Minneapolis and looking forward to that, and they've closed their whole fall season. There's to lot of figure out how you can get an audience again. And if you can only sell half the seats, how do you survive? Because these companies need full houses. So there's a lot of figuring out that's going to be there, and whether we survive or not. And I miss it. I miss being on stage. NEIL: What's something that keeps you going? KATHLEEN: Oh, I suppose a kind of a belief. I'm thinking that there will be something after this and there will be changes to be made and understood, and that keeps me going. NEIL: That seems like such a wonderful place to end it. Kathleen Turner, huge, huge, thank you for being on SHE'S A TALKER. I so appreciate it. KATHLEEN: Well, it was good, Neil. You said I'd know at the end. NEIL: Oh, right. KATHLEEN: Yes. It was good. NEIL: Thank you. I really, really appreciate it. KATHLEEN: You're most welcome. NEIL: All right. Have a great rest of your day. KATHLEEN: I'm leaving the meeting. NEIL: All right, bye-bye. KATHLEEN: Bye-bye.  

Neil talks about his childhood wish to stop the waves. DJ and academic Mike Dimpfl talks about his research on "toilet feelings." ABOUT THE GUEST Mike Dimpfl is a teacher, academic, costume builder, and DJ. His academic work explores the connection between hygiene, bureaucracy, and institutional racism, particularly in the southern US. Mike’s costumes often focus on the comic and confusing relationship human beings have to their garbage and to the possibility of the divine. When music is his focus, he is especially committed to reckless abandon on the dancefloor. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE’S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund, Western Bridge, and the David Shaw and Beth Kobliner Family Fund Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Fraser McCulloch Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Social Media: Lourdes Rohan Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL: Mike Dimpfl, welcome to SHE’S A TALKER MIKE: I’m so delighted to be here. NEIL: It’s impossible to imagine you’re as delighted as I am to have you here. Now, can I ask where this recording is finding you? MIKE: Yeah, this recording is finding me, sitting at my dining room table in Durham, North Carolina. It’s a lovely gray, 64 degree day. NEIL: Do you like a gray day? MIKE: I do right now because I have a bit of sort of structural gardening work to complete. And when the summer comes here it becomes so insanely hot that it’s just completely impossible to be outside. We’ve had a really long, cool spring, so the bugs aren’t here yet. NEIL: What is structural gardening work? MIKE: It’s a critique of the, sort of political economy of earlier forms of gardening. We’re remaking our yard and we’ve been doing all of the actual construction work. So not planting plants, but building walls and building fences and moving dirt around and things that. So all the things that are sort of a pain in the ass and give my sort of inner type A control freak a lot of pleasure, but don’t actually produce anything you would say is recognizably a garden. It’s a lot of getting your hands cut by all of the pieces of broken glass that are in the soil around your house. NEIL: Oh, how come there’s broken glass inside the soil around your house? MIKE: It’s just an almost a hundred year old house, and I think that over time things break and people throw bottles into the former dump behind the former garage that’s no longer there, and you find them and I’ve probably taken out an entire garbage can, an actual garbage can of broken glass out of the yard. NEIL: Wow, one shard at a time? MIKE: One shard at a time, yes. I’m going to start an Etsy store with all of the other things I found, like yard cured fork and yard cured wrench, they have a nice patina. NEIL: Oh, I bet, people would pay a pretty penny to give you their new wrench to make it look that. MIKE: To bury, totally, totally. NEIL: It’s like the kimchi of wrenches. MIKE: Exactly, exactly. NEIL: What drove you to leave New York? MIKE: Oh God, I had a terrible day job, crushing, horribly boring development work that I was doing. And I don’t know if you knew, I’d had a bunch of surgeries on my ears. I had a genetic hearing loss condition and they actually messed it up in my right ear, so I’m super deaf in my right ear now. And it meant that I couldn’t DJ as much. And so I kind of lost the love of New York, and I was like, “Maybe I’ll go back to grad school.” And I did, and of course grad school is a little bit returning to the fourth grade playground. But you realize that your bully is secretly closeted and you’d just know that. And then I did my PhD down here at Chapel Hill and was lucky enough to get a job at Duke, and I teach in the writing program there. And I have been kind of unlearning grad school since then, but enjoying life. NEIL: What is unlearning grad school consist of? MIKE: I mean, I’d be curious about what your own experiences of this actually is because you teach in another kind of weird, precious environment. The performance of mastery, I think is one of the most insane and weird things that we encounter. There’s some tension between mastery and a willingness to just be open to what is, I feel they push each other away. And I feel like a willingness to be open to what is, requires a particular kind of thinking and willingness to take things apart in a careful way. Whereas the production of mastery is, do I know these terms? Can I Lord over this seminar space? Can I make some comment that seems complex? And there’s so much value placed on that style of interaction. NEIL: That question of mastery makes for such a great segue to the first card, the connection between teaching art and 19th century medical practices. You tell someone like, “We will bleed you for 30 minutes and then you must go home and apply the poultice.” MIKE: Yeah like, “Wait for the moon to wax, and put these three stones on your back steps.” NEIL: Exactly, but instead it’s, watch this other artist read this text. MIKE: Yeah, I feel like mastery and practice are at odds with each other. NEIL: Yes, yeah. MIKE: Practice is what I’m into, practice, just keep practicing, right? You just have to keep doing. NEIL: Yes, yeah, and if you’re holding onto idea of mastery, you will make one piece of work, maybe. Because making art is about getting to the place of most resolved failure, where the failure becomes clear, and then that is what carries you over into the next piece. Also this idea of professional development, to use that term where, where so many students have the idea of, “Okay, well, if I do this, this, this, and this, I will have an art career versus if you do this, this and this, you will make art, I guess.” MIKE: Well, I mean mastery, it relies on it in some ways, like the way that we’re so addicted to exceptionalism. It’s a weird narrative that despite the fact that all, effectively statistically, all artists are failed artists, right? NEIL: Right, exactly. Exactly, exactly. MIKE: They’re like, “No, it’s going to be me. I’m going to be the next Jeff Koons, but I hate Jeff Koons.” That whole… NEIL: Totally, that is the Vegas thing that keeps graduate programs in business. This card is writing midterm evaluations for art school is like doing a horoscope. MIKE: Oh my God, I love that for a number of reasons, just because I imagined you doing it. Just sitting cross legged with your taro out and the incense going, just watching videos of student work on your phone or something. You’ve got a very rough hewn robe on, you’re like- NEIL: You nailed it. MIKE: … your wicker sandals, whatever it is that gets you in that sort of coastal medieval witchcraft mood. Yeah, it’s funny, as a grader, I tell my students that I’m a harsh critic, but an easy grader. We have to be able to look at our own work with critical kind of generosity and be willing to be wrong. But to be a generous writer is a whole thing that takes your whole life to do. It’s easy to be critical, right? It’s easy to be snarky and sarcastic or funny or quick, right? You can be creative and original, but also quick in a way that I feel is not always helpful, right? Being generous is about taking care, but also I was just thinking about it and if only we could be actually honest. If only you could just be super honest with your students about what they’re doing. MIKE: I mean, would that change what you said to yours? Because I feel like I am honest to a certain extent, but I’m also not, and I don’t mean this in a mean way, but I just want to be like, “This is just a terrible waste of your time, this thing that you’ve written. The way that you’re going here, isn’t going to get anywhere that’s going to be fun for you, interesting for other people, allow you to do the work that you’re going to do.” And I never quite do that. NEIL: That’s where the horoscope comes in though, about I’m honest but there’s always kind of a anomic, is that the word? You add this intentional ambiguity. MIKE: It’s both honest and a little bit of a sidestep- NEIL: Exactly, yeah, yeah. MIKE: You’re like, “There’s something that’s not right here. It’s in this thematic zone of things that aren’t right, consider that zone for yourself.” NEIL: You said something about mortality as it relates to grades and we’re all going to die. MIKE: No, my thing was like… I think the thing that I always want and increasingly want, I always want students to think of themselves in their lives… Think of themselves as living their lives, not as having goals about what it should be. I was at Chapel Hill and now I’m at Duke, they’re both iterations of very fancy campusy bubble experiences. The way that we produce the isolation of education always struck me as a little bit problematic. I used to teach about labor at Duke and I’d be on the first day, my activity was like, “On one side of this card, tell me a job that you want based on your experience here. And then on the other side, tell me a job that you would love to have if money were no object or job security were no object?” And it’s like stockbroker, magician. The world of the jobs they want is the world we all want to live in. It’s like, runs a dog farm, is a chef, is a magician. And the really problematic ones are the ones that are stockbroker, stockbroker. MIKE: I think in my most compassionate sense, I want to be like, for kids who are really freaking out, but really good students just be like, “This is great, it wasn’t awesome. There’s a lot more in the world that you should be thinking about besides this class. Go call your mom, go be with your family, go do something that’s about your life that’s worth living because you’re getting lost in the illusion of mastery.” NEIL: Professor Dimpfl, what’s my grade? MIKE: Yeah, literally at the end of all that, I’ll give them this whole… I will put on my NEIL: shaman cloak, I will go for a walk around Duke’s campus and I’m trying to share some… I’m always trying to get all my aphorisms in check and at the end they’re like, “But do I still have an A minus?” NEIL: Okay, those people who you think are going to eventually feel embarrassed for themselves, but never do. MIKE: I feel like they’re from a more perfected future. People who are never embarrassed, I feel like they just are doing it better, right? Their inability to feel shame is in some ways a rejection of our worst selves, right? Shame is a wasted emotion, it’s not even they’re proud, it’s post embarrassment. Not being able to feel embarrassment is not about not being ashamed, it’s just being beyond embarrassment. If we could only live in that world, think about how forgiving you would be about being wrong, if being embarrassed wasn’t a part of being wrong. NEIL: So where does Donald Trump fit in that? Sorry to do that but… MIKE: Donald Trump is from the post embarrassed future, at his best self. There’s some childhood version of Donald Trump that would be able to exist in the post embarrassed future. And in a tragic way, he was just corrupted in the most horrible way by his life and turned into this horrible… He is his own portrait of Dorian Gray, there was some switch that happened. He walked through the mirror, in the mansion early on and that was it. It’s actually Ronald Trump that we wanted to be living with and Donald was the one that we got. But the ethos there, I think isn’t wrong. The content is horrible and hideous, but the idea that you would live in a world where your mistakes, aren’t the thing that define you is a world beyond embarrassment. NEIL: This episode is going to be called post embarrassment, I think. MIKE: I hope for all of us it is, I want that… Because shame is such a heavy, historical emotion. I don’t know if you read, I always want to call it The Velvet Rope, but that’s the Janet Jackson album, The Velvet Rage. NEIL: No, I never did. MIKE: The Velvet Rage is some queen wrote a book about how, it’s problematic in a number of ways, but the overarching theme is that gaze of a certain era learn shame before they have a word for it. And it just festers inside of them and creates all this anger and frustration and all these problems later on in life, the closet and all that stuff. And I think just in general, we govern ourselves so much through shame. Instagram culture is shaming. Facebook culture is all about shame. Mastery is about shame. Our actual inability to deal with the future, and the inevitability of death is about being ashamed that we’re not going to be living a life that’s rich enough to justify our death. I think that there’s a lot tied up in that experience. MIKE: And to be looking at someone who’s beyond embarrassment. I mean, I think about the people that I was like, “Gosh, I hope they feel embarrassed about that.” And now in retrospect, I just admire them all. I’m just like, “God, you just don’t care that everybody hates that joke. You just don’t care.” And your joie de vivre is unassailable and it’s a like a Teflon joie de vivre, what a joy. NEIL: Okay, next card. When someone mentions shit while you’re eating. MIKE: Oh my God… Okay, first of all, it just reads as when you mention shit, because I am this person. I still get toilet news from people that I’ve encountered across the globe, all the time. NEIL: Could you share for the audience, your professional relationship to shit? MIKE: My professional relationship to shit, I am not only a person who shits, like all of your audience, but I wrote a master’s thesis, I would like to say that it’s about toilet feelings. I interviewed a bunch of people who had been forced by the city of Syracuse to install composting toilets in their lake side cabins, as a means of protecting what was an unfiltered watershed. So they couldn’t install septic systems. They had this kind of high functioning, but archaic system where they all had outhouses, and instead of shitting just into a hole, they would shit into buckets. And then every week the city would come around on a shit boat and collect all of their buckets of shit and take them away from them. MIKE: A job that I think about a lot, just when your job is to, in the hot summer sun, drive around on a beautiful, pristine lake with a boat full of buckets full of shit. That boat is post embarrassment, that boat is living a post embarrassment life. We have nothing on that boat. MIKE: Anyway, so I wrote this master’s thesis and I interviewed all these households and it was a lot of older folks, people who have had these cabins for a long time and a lot of retired folks. And I’ll tell you what, if it’s summer and you’re going to visit an old retired couple and you actually want to talk to them about their shitting, they’re there for that. They are really there for that. In some ways, the knowledge of their own death to get back to it, the fact that they’re like, “It’s coming.” They’re like, “There’s no reason to hide.” They’re all trying to, for better or for worse, are trying to deal with these strange toilets that don’t flush and encountering them with their bodies that sometimes don’t work with them. MIKE: So this one couple, the wife was always on antibiotics and you can’t use a composting toilet when you’re on antibiotics because it kills the bacteria in the shit that actually digests the toilet, so it just becomes a kind of cesspool, kind of anaerobic nonsense. And so they had two toilets, one, one of my favorite, the macerating toilet, which is a toilet that has a food processor on the back that you turn it on and it makes this kind of horrible grinding noise, and it turns your poop into kind of a poo shake. And the other was this incinerating toilet, and it has a little jet engine in it and you poop and then this jet engine thing turns on and just burns your shit to ash, it’s like an outer space thing. I mean, obviously I had to use all of them, so it’s this crazy noise of like, “…” It’s like being in an airplane. MIKE: And so to be honest, I did it for two reasons. One was how we structure our relationship to the nature in our households is a real problem, right? We have a lot of weird ideas about what is inside and outside. I think that’s the kernel of truth behind it, if I were to be my post embarrassed self. But I think the other is that I just was so aware of the absurdity of grad school at a certain point that I was like, “I’m just going to write my stupid master’s thesis about people shitting.” So that I get to go to conferences and give presentations, which are like, “Here are things that people said about their own shit.” On panels of academics who were like, “What is the materiality of the biological other?” MIKE: All this theory that actually not only makes no sense, but it’s profoundly unethical and has no politics. And is the bread and butter of graduate school theory. All of these things where they’re like, “What is the boundary of the human? And we cannot tell.” And what do you say? It makes no sense. NEIL: I was just reading Jacques Derrida on the animal, he’s talking about the violence done on the animal. And someone asked him, “Are you a vegetarian?” And he was like, “I’m a vegetarian in my soul.” It’s like, “Fuck you.” I’m sure the suffering pig is so happy that you’re a vegetarian in your soul. MIKE: So happy to hear that, like in a real zen like moment. NEIL: Yeah. MIKE: But the crazy thing about that shit thing is I was at dinner the other weekend with Jackson’s sister’s family and she’s a plastic surgeon. And I just thought about, I’m mentioning shit at the table and maybe people are uncomfortable with that or whatever. And she was like, “Yeah, this…” One of her former clients was run over by a backhoe or something. But she talked about reconstructing one of her breasts and then did this gesture of like, “And then you just kind of stitched up her chest.” And kind of did this putting out a vest of your chest skin kind of gesture. And I had a bite of food in my mouth and I was like… It turned to like ash. MIKE: On the one hand, it was perhaps the appearance of mime at the dinner table that I was like, “Goddammit, mimes.” I wanted it to seal myself up in my own mime box to not have to hear it. But then I was sort of like, “Wow, props to mime, it’s a powerful medium. Actually, I get it now, you can fake make the wall all you want.” MIKE: But when you hear someone mentioning shit, are you that person? Or are you someone- NEIL: I’m not mentioning shit at the table, no. MIKE: You’re not NEIL: I think about it all the time, but I know I don’t talk about it at the table. And Jeff, for instance, my husband, Jeff will casually mentioned shit at the table and I’ve never told him in our 12 years of being together… MIKE: Don’t do that. NEIL: Yeah, because at that moment, something happens in my mouth. Yeah, where it’s just like, it’s wrong, but yeah. MIKE: You got to be post embarrassed about it. You got to just be like, “Yep, I’m just chewing future shit right now.” NEIL: Right, future shit, future shit. I love… Oh, God. Makers spaces and the fetishization of making. MIKE: I don’t even know what’s that… I just want them to just be like, “Call it a real thing.” Where I understand what’s going on there. Makers spaces, it’s like we work. I find it to be such a twee like… The maker space is just Ren Fair trying to be normal. It’s like Ren Fair without the foam swords. I’m like, “What’s the point of going to Ren Fair if you can’t have a foam sword?” It’s like Ren Fair without the carbs, I guess is what I would say. NEIL: I think it’s Ren Fair with 3D printers. MIKE: It’s Ren Fair with 3D printers. Where is the raw craft in that? I feel like 3D printing is the cheating of making. NEIL: But the flip side of it, first of all, this is going to come back to shit, I just realized. But the flip side of it is the fetishization of making. Why don’t you just make and not tell us about it? MIKE: I think that there’s something there, the fetishization of making, because we live in embarrassed culture, so we know that we don’t make anything, right? NEIL: Right. MIKE: In the system we live in, we don’t make anything, right? You don’t make shit, you maybe make your lunch and that’s the end of it. NEIL: You exactly make shit. That is what you make. MIKE: You only make shit, and even that you’re like, “Let’s not talk about it.” The fetishization to me is just all back to the leg, what is missing? I mean, I’ll wear a cutoff overall that’s handmade, for sure. But I don’t need to post it on it in my Etsy account or the hand carved spoons, even though I really love the hand-carved spoons. It was a local spoon maker that I just found that’s in the triangle or whatever, and they make these gorgeous spoons and the fetishization of spoon making is that it’s very hard. People are like, “Oh, it’s a very…” I don’t know if you’ve heard that, but people are like, “If you carve wooden spoons…” It’s some achievement of woodwork to make a spoon. And I always think in my head, spoons have been around for a pretty long time, we’ve known how to scoop a thing for awhile. NEIL: Well, just the idea that you fetishize it by virtue of its difficulty, that is a… MIKE: Totally, totally. It’s like endurance performance art, right? Which I love, I’ll tell you this, I have been doing a performance art project with my friend Ginger for a couple of years now. It’s called, Leaving Impossible Things Unattended, it’s a waste project. And we work with plastic… We’ve made this half mile long braid of plastic bag that we roll in unroll in awkward ways. But we went to Miami to the art fair this year, and the piece that we did, it’s physically super, super hard. But watching people say stuff about it there, it’s like the fetishization of how painful it is, becomes the mark of its value. NEIL: Oh my God, yeah. MIKE: What I want to be is like, “No, encounter your fetishization of that as the mark of the thing you’re supposed to be thinking about here.” Your fetishization of that is more important to me as a thing that you’re engaging with right now, then anything that we’re doing. What is it about you that you need to see someone bleeding from the cut glass that they’re crawling over to be like, “That’s real.” NEIL: The thing I wanted to add, to just put a button on the whole question of maker spaces and what are we making, is when I was a kid, my parents would ask me, “Do you need to make?” MIKE: Oh yeah… Yeah, totally, to take a shit. NEIL: Right, do you need to make? MIKE: Yeah, no, I feel like do you need to make is a North Eastern cultural description for taking a shit that is so like… I want to just know the colonial etymology of that, is it the puritanical thing or like… Also, I find, do you need to make to be similar to people who say that they make instead of take pictures, I make pictures, I make photos. NEIL: Oh, that’s interesting. MIKE: I’ve heard photographers say I make photos, instead of saying I take pictures. NEIL: Oh, right, right, I take photos, yeah. I get that.   MIKE: …around shitting in the exact same… it’s like, do you need to make a shit or do you need to take a shit? I mean, why don’t we say, I need to leave a shit because that’s really what’s happening. NEIL: Okay, let’s end with one last question, which is, what keeps you going? MIKE: I think the thing that mostly keeps me going is a pretty secure notion that it’s not supposed to be bliss, it’s just supposed to be work. So if you’re ready to work in whatever way, then life is just going to keep unfolding for you moving forward, right? There is a future if you think that life is a struggle. Because that’s a beautiful thing, even though it’s incredibly difficult. And I think that, even though I have a deep, deep concern for the future and I certainly worry about it a great deal, I don’t feel hopeless. I don’t feel like a cynic or a nihilist I guess. I don’t have that energy in me whatsoever because it’s not supposed to be easy. NEIL: Mike… MIKE: Neil… NEIL: This is amazing, thank you so much for being on She’s a Talker. MIKE: And it’s my absolute pleasure.

Neil talks about air conditioning and sense memory. His guest, literary scholar Sharon Marcus, imagines a daredevil visit to a perfume shop. ABOUT THE GUEST Sharon Marcus is editor in chief of Public Books and the Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the American Council of Learned Societies, she is the author of Apartment Stories (University of California Press, 1999), Between Women (Princeton University Press, 2007), and The Drama of Celebrity (Princeton University Press, 2019). ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE’S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund, Western Bridge, and the David Shaw and Beth Kobliner Family Fund Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Fraser McCulloch Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Social Media: Lourdes Rohan Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL: Okay. So, Sharon, thank you for being on She’s A Talker at this fucking crazy time. SHARON: Thank you for having me, Neil. NEIL: So, Sharon, if you need to succinctly tell a stranger what it is that you do, what do you say? SHARON: I try to avoid volunteering what I do because I’m a professor of literature, and when people hear that 97% of them say, “Are you going to correct my grammar?” NEIL: Oh my God. SHARON: 2% of them say, “Can you recommend something that I should read?” Or, I once sat next to someone in a plane who launched into a, “What would you say the greatest book ever written was? What would you say the five greatest novels ever written were?” After I, like, just looked at him, and I said, “You seem really quite obsessed with lists and rankings. Why do you think that is?” To his credit, he laughed good-naturedly and said, “It’s true. It’s true. I am.” And then 1% get this like deer in the headlights look and say things like “I wasn’t very good at school.” NEIL: What do you say back to that? SHARON: Well, in this particular case, I was on a date and I said, “Yeah, well, you don’t have to be good at school. I do. I’m the one, who’s a professor.” First and last date, as you can probably guess. NEIL: Yes. Can I ask you, what are you thinking about today, March 21st? SHARON: Okay. So I’m just going to be a total fucking pain in the ass and say that the question, “What are you thinking about today?” doesn’t actually resonate with me with how I think or how I get through a day. Like, I don’t wake up and go, “What am I going to think about today?” Or even find myself thinking, “I’m thinking about blah, blah, blah.” Thoughts come in, they go out, I see things, I observe things, but it feels a little more organized maybe than my brain actually is. NEIL: Oo, I love it. So how could that question be reframed to more? SHARON: For me? NEIL: Yeah. SHARON: “What did you do today?” “What did you do today?” NEIL: Nah, nevermind. SHARON: Exactly! And I can tell you it hasn’t been very interesting, so. NEIL: Right, which is different from how it normally is for you, but maybe we’ll get to some of that. Alright. Let’s go to the cards, shall we? SHARON: I’m ready! I’m doing some of the moves I learned in my hip hop class to warm up. NEIL: Great, that’s perfect. First card is: How hugging is meant to express intimacy, but it actually articulates the separation between our bodies. SHARON: So apt! Well, it would be really nice to hug someone right now. So, my first response is it doesn’t sound like it’s really about separation. Hugging would be so nice, but I think, you know, that speaks to something very profound, which is you can only connect by acknowledging your separateness from someone. If you think you’re merged with someone, if you think you’re the same person, if you don’t take them in as a separate different person, you can’t really meet them and bond with them and touch them, even. And that does seem related to what’s going on right now, where we have so much difference in how people are responding to the situation. People who are now being really reckless about their ability to be close to other people physically I think are doing so out of a lack of sense of the existence of other people as separate from them. NEIL: Mhm. SHARON: They’re being very self-absorbed. They think they’re the only ones that matter. And so, you know, I think we’ve all seen the huggers who also are hugging to assert a certain kind of power. Not even just like a power to touch you in a way that might not be fully consensual, but a power to have their interest in feeling intimate with you and feeling connected be dominant. You know, there’s like that etiquette of: Do you go in for the hug, but then wait enough that the person can pull back without it being a big deal? Do you actually say, “Can I hug you?” Or, you know, how do you handle that? And that’s all about recognizing the separateness. So I think implicit in that card is the sense that our separateness is sort of sad and that the hug is not aware of the sadness of our alienation from each other. But I would turn that around and say if we can just remember we’re connected, but we’re separate, this society thing can work. NEIL: So what you’re saying in part is that there is something paradoxical: That those people who go ahead and hug right now, in a way, don’t recognize a type of connection. Is that right? SHARON: They’re just seeing other people as extensions of themselves. But that said, I think I would also say that it’s okay that we’re separate from each other and the hug doesn’t overcome that. We’re hugging because we’re separate from each other and so we want to feel closer. I don’t think that the total merger that maybe is implied by the perfect hug is really that desirable or really that merged. What I’m saying is, to really connect with other people and bond with them you have to respect their separateness from you and your separateness from them. NEIL: Beautiful. Next card: The ambiguity of the word helpless. “I feel helpless” is usually said in reference to, “I can’t help someone.” SHARON: Right. NEIL: And I feel helpless can also mean “No one’s helping me.” SHARON: “And I need help.” NEIL: Mhm. SHARON: “I need help so desperately because I can’t help myself.” I’m just trying to think it, how, if those are really different. I mean, I hate the word helpless because nobody’s really helpless. Everyone can always do something to help someone else. And when someone says, “I feel helpless in this situation,” I think they’re often saying that instead of saying “What can I do to help you?” NEIL: Right. Right. Very true. SHARON: One of the things that’s been interesting and challenging for me about this situation — And I think everybody has their own particular circumstances that you can’t help but bring to a pandemic and quarantine — is that my wife of 20 years died a year and a month ago of cancer. And she was basically dying of cancer for a year and a half before that happened. And she noticed that the people who really wanted to help her would either say, “What can I do to help you?” Or, even more powerfully, would say, “What can I do to help you? I was thinking I could…” and then they would say some very specific things. They wouldn’t insist on doing those specific things, but they would follow up a general offer of help with ideas that they had come up with that they weren’t imposing on her, but it was a demonstration of good faith. And it was also definitely the case that there were people who not only demonstrated their helplessness by being pretty much missing in action but people who would go the extra mile and articulate, “I feel helpless,” “I don’t know what to do,” “I wish there was something I can do for you.” It’s really annoying. I think in this current situation, it’s probably pretty similar. I think people are saying, “Oh, I feel helpless, I don’t know what I can do to help other people.” You know, it’s like a very quick Google search away. It is challenging to figure out how to help other people when you can’t leave the house and when the biggest thing you can do to help people is not leave the house. Because we’re used to thinking of health as taking very concrete action and being very direct and present and, also, we like our help to be acknowledged and, offering help at a distance, it’s harder to get acknowledgment for that. But there’s plenty of things we can all do to help right now, the Internet’s full of them: food banks that we can donate to, artists groups that are being set up to help support people who are being very quickly and harshly put out of work. So, you know, it seems like a disingenuous word to me, “helpless.” NEIL: Mhm. SHARON: Whether applied to the help when gives others or the fact that one needs help oneself. Because nobody’s — if you’re talking, you’re not that helpless in terms of your ability to take care of yourself. If you’re breathing and you’re talking, you could probably, instead of saying, “I feel helpless,” again, just make a more specific request. Like, “I could really use help with X.” But then again, I’m not a very empathetic person towards people who would use the phrase “I feel helpless.” So I feel, I should just say that if you’re feeling helpless, stay away from me, go find somebody else, which I think most helpless people figured out a long time ago. NEIL: But you are a very empathetic person, just not around that issue. SHARON: Yeah. The people in my circle who might apply that word to themselves, they don’t usually do it in my presence. NEIL: Next card: Remembering when headphones first dared to go inside the ear. SHARON: I just love headphones. I think I recognize the value of the ones that fit in your ear because then you can wear a hat if it’s cold out, but they really, really hurt my ear. So I have yet to go that route. I like the big kind that sit over your ear and kind of pillow your ear, which also serve the secondary function of sunblock so that the sun can’t get on your ears, which are actually really susceptible to skin cancers, because they’re so exposed and they stick out and the skin of your ear is quite thin. So, public service announcement: when you put on sunblock, make sure to cover your ears. NEIL: You know, I knew that! You know what I didn’t know, is to cover your neck! And I’m horrified to learn that all these years I’ve been a dedicated sunscreen-wearer every single day, but I haven’t been putting it on my neck. And I am getting a little bit of a, you know, kind of waddle or something. I don’t know what the word is. SHARON: It’s never too late to start. NEIL: Right. That’s true. What book was I reading where the answer was “the best time to do it is yesterday?” SHARON: Mm, there is a message for our times. NEIL: Oh, it was in this book, The Overstory, which I’m obsessed with. Have you read it? By Richard Powers? SHARON: Not yet. Are you enjoying it? NEIL: I finished it. I loved it. It’s not imperfect, unlike all that other perfect art out there, but, one of the characters says “The best time to plant a tree is always 20 years ago. But planting it today is better than planting it tomorrow” or something like that. And that’s a kind of a recurring — that returns in the book. SHARON: It’s true for some things. For other things it’s good to wait and sleep on it and maybe don’t do it, you know? Like that text you were going to send or that purchase you were going to make. NEIL: Next card: Perfect Sleeper seems like a counterproductive name for a mattress. Stressfully setting the bar too high. Like what about the, just like, Great Sleeper? I think Perfect Sleeper stresses me out. SHARON: As far as I’m concerned, if I’m asleep at all, that’s perfect. I don’t know what “perfect” sleep would be. It’s like a pleonasm, a redundancy. Sleeping is perfect. If I can fall asleep and stay asleep for more than 10 minutes, perfection. NEIL: Next card: Cathedrals as places that are both inside and outside. My love of them connects to my childhood wish never to leave my home; to be able to drive my house. So when I was a kid, I was always drawing a version of my house, the house that I grew up in, in Hicksville, New York originally, and I would put a turret on it that had a steering wheel so I could drive the house. And it was so comforting. I loved it. And when I go into a cathedral, I kind of get that feeling, how, without a doubt, it’s an indoor space, but there is some quality of the outdoor to it. SHARON: Because they’re so vast and soaring? NEIL: Yes. SHARON: Kind of like an Airstream? NEIL: Yeah. Yeah, I did love — Jeff’s parents for a while had an RV. And I loved riding around in that. SHARON: Hm, I do feel comforted and secure inside pretty much any dwelling that is mine, even if it’s a very small apartment. But I also remember, that also reminds me of the show Romper Room when I was a kid. Do you remember Romper Room? NEIL: Oh, yes. Miss Something. Miss Pat? Or Miss… SHARON: Miss Something. I don’t know. I really liked her. I feel like I can almost picture her and she would do a thing where she would have kids put boxes around them and pretend they were driving. So there is something I guess, about that rectangular — being contained within a rectangle that is house and car. NEIL: See, for me it was less, at the time, about a pleasure of driving. The predominant thing was not wanting to leave the house. SHARON: Mhm. NEIL: But the idea of being able to move through space while staying inside. SHARON: Without ever leaving your house. NEIL: Yeah. SHARON: So it wasn’t so much about making your car into a home. It was about being able to make your home into a vehicle so you’d never have to leave. NEIL: Exactly. SHARON: Interesting. Interesting. Well, we’re all going to get to have some version of that in the coming weeks and months, because we’re leaving our homes less than we ever have. I think it’s, I mean, this is certainly more true for people in a city. I mean, I think that people who are living in less populated, less densely populated, places are still getting in their cars and, for example, going to pick up food in a parking lot, rather than going inside the store to pick up the food. But, you know, most people who live in New York don’t have cars. And what we’re having to learn how to do is be inside, but learn to project ourselves out imaginatively. Or, by talking to people who are located somewhere else I — One thing that’s been really striking to me, it was just not exactly the same thing as driving your house, but it may be something like flying your computer. So, I stopped going out significantly on March 7th and a few days later, something kicked in where distance really stopped mattering and, in some ways, time did too. That will change because we’re all going to have to get more on schedules to stay sane, I think. But right now it feels reasonable and healthy to just accept that we’ve been very disrupted and it’s going to take us a little while to get into a routine. And so I thought, well, “Let me take advantage of this and see if I can speak to my friends who are, you know, in some cases, in such different parts of the world that I could only figure out what time it is, where they are if I look it up. I have to look it up every single time. Like, I can never remember if Australia is a day before, a day later, like, what’s going on? So, you know, all of a sudden I really do feel like my computer is functioning for me the way a plane ride used to. So maybe, maybe I have figured out a way to drive my house metaphorically, virtually. NEIL: Next card: The primal feeling of eating soup; of this liquid from the outside becoming part of the inside. SHARON: So interesting that you bring up soup because I keep going back and forth on whether I should get a blender, which is the primary way I make soup. I feel like if you want a soup, it should just be liquid you bring up in the spoon. It can be, you know, thick, it can have texture, but if it’s going to be chunky just go ahead and make a stew. So I really need a blender if I’m going to make soup. That’s my “of the moment” response. But you’re actually asking a more — Actually a lot of your questions have been about inside and outside and, you know, are we connected? Are we separate? And I guess the soup one is one as well, but I don’t know if it’s any different from any other food. I mean, I think about that. I think about how we take a lot. Like, we take food in, we incorporate it into our bodies. Even the stuff that we excrete, like, I don’t know about you, but I feel like my excretions are part of my body even though I let them go. Just like I feel like my fingernails are part of my body, even though I trim them. And yeah. To me, food really feels just like it’s inside us. It doesn’t feel separate. Read the card again. Read that card again, Neil. NEIL: The primal feeling of eating soup; of this liquid from the outside becoming part of the inside. I guess maybe that comes, also, I think I had read, you know, maybe the fact that we all kind of originated as cells in this kind of primordial soup. I don’t know what it is. Or that there’s something soupy about, I don’t know, something about this. Something from the outside that matches a little bit. Something about what it’s like inside. I don’t know what it is. SHARON: I think it’s that the ideal temperature of soup is very close to our body temperature. I think you don’t want your soup to be quite as hot as maybe some other hot foods. And so it does feel like it’s sort of copacetic with us. NEIL: I had another thought just as you were talking: I think it’s also that soup is this — like, coffee is a single note and I’m sure that there are tons of compounds in it. SHARON: Tell that to the people writing tasting notes on coffee. “Oranges, shoe leather, tobacco, bergamot, bubble gum.” But okay. I’ll go with you on that. I only smell one thing when I smell coffee. So, you know, I’m with you. NEIL: Yes. And I hear them, but with soup, at least it’s — Okay. What is coffee made of? It’s made of coffee. Let’s put it that way. SHARON: Yes. NEIL: Okay. So what is soup made of? It’s made of carrots. It’s made of ingredients that have come together in this thing. Maybe it’s that I’m saying we’re like soup. We’re like soup in a package. SHARON: Yes. Yeah. We are. We’re just this bag of organs and bones and muscle and blood, and it’s all supposed to be working together until it isn’t. And then you’re drowning in your own bodily fluids internally because your immune system overreacted to a virus. NEIL: Next card: Is there a fetish/porn structured around the dutiful sex couples that are having difficulty conceiving have? SHARON: There’s a fetish for everything. There’s gotta be a fetish for conception sex. Sure. I don’t know whose it would be, but when you’ve been alive, as long as I have, I mean, I think you just have to accept that there’s a fetish for everything. NEIL: You just named it conception sex, but there’s a hitch which is it’s, like, infertile conception sex. In other words, these are people who are having sex, it’s not happening, and you have to be kind of really assiduous. Is that the word? SHARON: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. My point is more global, which is: is there any sexual situation that is not susceptible to being fetishized? But, you know, in general, people fetishize pleasures they don’t feel comfortable with. So the real question is, is anyone getting pleasure out of… Also, I don’t think it would be the people who actually had that sex who would fetishize it. It would be people imagining it who probably had never gone through it who would fetishize it. On another note, I can’t believe we’ve gone this far and not talked about my cat. NEIL: I have a segue, a card segue if you want. SHARON: Okay, yes, yes. NEIL: Okay: Changing the kitty litter makes me think about the possibility of redemption. SHARON: I don’t know about redemptive, but a fresh start. I guess that’s what some people’s idea of redemption is, “My sins will be redeemed and I will have a blank slate and be able to start again.” I’m not Christian so I don’t really think that way. NEIL: That’s what it brings out for me. Especially scooping. It’s just like, okay. But cleaning the whole thing, it just feels, like, “Okay, this is possible. This is possible.” SHARON: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And conversely, there’s always a tug of like, “Is it time to scoop? I should probably go scoop. I don’t really wanna scoop. I guess I better go scoop.” And then when you finally do it, there’s also the satisfaction of doing something that you’ve been procrastinating about. NEIL: Right. I don’t procrastinate on the scooping. It’s part of my, like basically morning and evening ritual. And it’s a little bit, uh, truly like a treasure hunt for me because we use, I use this recycled newspaper kitty litter that is kind of brown, and it’s shit-colored basically. So I always feel like a radiologist trying to like find the pattern of her shit in it. And, I don’t know. It also reminds me of like those Zen gardens, those Zen sand — SHARON: Absolutely! Right. Where you’re raking and then making little hillocks that are supposed to represent Mount Fuji. Absolutely. Yes. Does your cat ever, when you give her food that she doesn’t like, do the scooping gesture that you normally use to move their litter box around? They do it on the floor as though to say, literally this food is shit. NEIL: No. I think part of it is we’ve never given Beverly any food that she doesn’t like. SHARON: You know, for me, her eating habits are a little bit of a mystery to me, but I’ll never really know what goes through her mind. That’s one of the things about living with a cat. I think it’s one of the reasons we enjoy living with pets, especially cats because dogs are easier to project onto and at least imagine we know what they’re thinking. Cats I think we’ve bred to be a bit opaque. NEIL: Exactly. I think that that’s true. That’s what people don’t get. It’s like their inscrutability is a feature, not a bug. SHARON: Well, Darwin, when he is trying to explain evolution at the beginning of On the Origin of Species, uses the example of domesticated animals and also how people graft plants onto each other to say, “We know we can change species.” We do it all the time, and that’s why he calls it natural selection because, for him, pets are an example of artificial selection. We have artificially selected inscrutability, a certain standoffishness. You know, all of these traits in cats. NEIL: What’s a bad X you would take over a good Y? SHARON: I’d take a bad sweet over a good salty. NEIL: What are you really looking forward to? What are you most looking forward to after this is over? SHARON: I am really looking forward to going to a perfume store where all people do is walk around, picking things up with their hands, bringing them up to their faces and noses, and inhaling deeply, and trying a bunch of perfumes. It’s going to feel like, for me, the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest in terms of risk-taking, but when I’m ready to do that I’m really looking forward to it. NEIL: Sharon, I love you so much. I cannot believe fate has brought us together and here we are living through — I feel like we spent a lot of 9/11 time together. SHARON: We did. NEIL: You came and slept over and here we are with this one. SHARON: Yep. So nice to get to live through all this. So great. I feel so lucky. But, we are lucky because we’re here and we’re alive and we’re talking. And so, you know, I’m just going to soldier on. NEIL: Yea. Thank you, Sharon, so much for being on She’s A Talker. SHARON: Yes. Thank you for having me. JEFF HILLER: She’s A Talker with Neil Goldberg. She’s A Talker with fabulous guests. She’s A Talker, it’s better than it sounds, yeah!

BONUS EPISODE In this bonus live episode, artist Michael Smith talks about how to get creative with bad teaching evaluations. Season 3 coming soon! ABOUT THE GUEST Michael Smith’s recent solo exhibitions and performances include Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Yale Union, Portland, Oregon; Tate Modern, London; and Greene Naftali, New York; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. His work is in the collections of the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Inhotim Institute, Brumadinho; LWL Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich; Mumok, Vienna; Museion, Bolzano; Paley Center for Media, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock TRANSCRIPTION NEIL GOLDBERG: Hello, I'm Neil Goldberg, and this is She's A Talker. We recently finished our second season, and we'll be launching Season Three very soon. In the meantime, we thought as a bonus we'd share a live episode that was recorded with artist Mike Smith way back in the good old days of February, 2020. The event happened at the New York headquarters of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Skowhegan's primary program is an intensive summer residency up in Maine for sixty-five emerging visual artists from all over the world. And in 2015, I had the good fortune of being faculty there, and it was actually there that I took the first steps for what would become this podcast. I was inspired by all the experimentation happening, and I decided to play around with this collection of thoughts I'd jotted down on index cards for the past twenty years as the basis for some sort of performance work. So here we are. My guest, Mike Smith, was also faculty at Skowhegan a couple of years before me and has been a favorite artist of mine for years. He's recently shown work at the Tate Modern in London, and his work is also in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Walker Center, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, and many other places. Here it goes. NEIL: Hi everybody. Thank you so much for coming. So, the premise of the podcast is I typically start with some recent cards, uh, before I bring on a guest. And I thought, uh, this is a recent one: seeing an unflushed toilet at an art school. Now, um, I teach at Yale and, uh, I try to like use the bathroom as far away from where I teach as possible. And I also like to try and mix it up a little bit. So, you know, every now and then I'll go into the basement. Other times I'll go to the second floor. Uh, keep them guessing. And there was a while, very recently at Yale, where every time I walked into a bathroom stall, there was an unflushed toilet full of shit. And I started to think like, okay, is this like a student's like art project? Um, but then beyond that, I really was cognizant of the impact it had on the crits I did later in the day, which is like, I found myself sort of evaluating everything I was seeing in relationship to the impact that seeing a unflushed toilet unexpectedly will have on you. Because think about it, that moment where you're kind of like, you open the stall door and there is the unflushed toilet. That is, I think, what we're all going for as artists. Um. Anyhow.  With all that in mind, I am so happy to have, as my guest, Michael Smith, who I have been a fan of for a very long time. I have actually had the experience, Michael, of going to your shows, and I will say that its impact on me was not unlike that of an unflushed toilet encountered by surprise. So, please welcome Michael Smith. NEIL: Hi, Michael, how are you?  MICHAEL SMITH: I'm okay. I guess I, I don't know if I should be flattered or - what I'm following in terms of the conversation or - NEIL: when in doubt, be flattered.  MICHAEL: Yeah. I have so much to say. I don't know if we'll be able to get to another card.  NEIL: I know, right? Well, what's your elevator pitch for yourself when you? When you encounter someone who doesn't know what it is you do, how do you succinctly describe what it is? MICHAEL: Well, it's usually layered. I usually, I mean, if it's a total stranger, I'll say I'm an artist. And then they say, "Oh, are you a painter?" And I say, no. And then sometimes I'll just cut to the chase and say I'm a performance artist. And then it doesn't go any further.  NEIL: Do you feel like that's accurate though? I mean, that doesn't feel to me like it encompasses the breadth of what you uh, do. MICHAEL: Well, when I first started performing or thinking about performing, I would tell people I was a comic. Because it was, I dunno, it was a little more interesting at parties or whatever. And also performance artist wasn't really part of the vocabulary then. Usually I'd say I'm a comic, and then they'd look at me and they said, "You haven't said anything funny." So, it was like, well, I didn't say I was funny, you know? So.  NEIL: Um, are your parents alive?  MICHAEL: No.  NEIL: When, when they were alive, what would they say that you did?  MICHAEL: My mother probably would say, Michael is Michael. And Michael -  NEIL: That is a full-time job, isn't it?  MICHAEL: Michael had such a sweet voice when he was a child. And my father said, I don't know what the hell he does, you know, he didn't know what it, yeah.  NEIL: Right. I didn't know you were Jewish until quite recently. You're like one of those stealth Jews, you know, Smith. Okay.  MICHAEL: I asked my father once what it was before Smith, and he, he said, Sutton.  NEIL: Sutton? That's like a wall that's been painted multiple times, like, okay, and what was it before Sutton? That's where it gets into like Schmulowitz or whatever. MICHAEL: That got too deep.  NEIL: Yeah, exactly.  MICHAEL: It was, yeah. It's opaque.   NEIL: And what's something on you - today, what's something you've found yourself thinking about? MICHAEL: Well, you know that card you first - NEIL: Oh yeah.  MICHAEL: That card you first brought up. I actually, I've been in my studio for, since '99. And I actually cleaned the toilet in the public bathroom for the, the building because it was just getting a little gross, so I thought I'd clean it.  NEIL: You just took that on yourself?  MICHAEL: I took it on.  NEIL: Wow.  MICHAEL: Yeah. I should also say that when I first came to New York, I was a professional cleaner.  NEIL: Really?  MICHAEL: Yeah. I was very good.  NEIL: I bet.  MICHAEL: Mike the Wipe. I was originally I, I was, I originally was going to be a house - well, I was going to, I advertised in the New York Times, "Mr. Smith will cook and clean." And no one wanted me to cook, you know, just wanted me to clean. NEIL: So many follow-up questions, Mike. Um, shall we move on to the cards? You don't have a choice at this point. We're all in. Uh, this card says: There are no friendly reminders. You know, like, I feel like, is there anything more passive aggressive than someone's like, just a friendly reminder.  MICHAEL: That's like, if they, if they preface what they're going to say with that, yeah. That would be horrible.  NEIL: But they do all the time.  MICHAEL: Really?  NEIL: Yeah. Or in an email - friendly reminder. How many, I mean, haven't you? I've probably gotten a friendly reminder in the last week.  MICHAEL: I guess FYI is not a friendly reminder, huh?  NEIL: No, FYI can be pretty passive aggressive too, but I use it a lot  MICHAEL: BTW?  NEIL: That's fine. Yeah. I dunno.  MICHAEL: So, I have a feeling I probably do it, but I'm not aware of it.  NEIL: Of a friendly reminder?  MICHAEL: Yeah.  NEIL: Hmm. So you're not bothered by it? MICHAEL: Probably, yeah.  NEIL: Probably not bothered by it?  MICHAEL: Probably bothered by it. Yeah, I am. I get bothered by people easily. And I had something really good to say, but I've, I've already forgotten it.  NEIL: I'm excited for the rest of this conversation, Mike. This is, um.  MICHAEL: I'm still thinking about that dirty toilet.  NEIL: We could go back to that anytime you want. NEIL: Uh, this card says: Things that are lost but you know will turn up. Talk to me.  MICHAEL: Well, I, I was with a friend the other day, and, um, I, I said, Oh, I don't, I don't recognize that person. I said, I'm not good with faces. And then she mentioned the name and I said, no, I'm, I don't recognize the name. I'm not good with names. And she said. Mike, what else is there besides faces and names? So anyways, I just wait until it comes, you know, it just till, the name comes, I just wait and wait. And in the morning, I figure, after looking at all those places for the keys or whatever, I'll eventually find it. And then I'll look in the unlikely places and I find it. NEIL: What are the unlikely places in your life for keys?  MICHAEL: You know where I've been to keeping them lately? On my front door. So I go outside and they're always there now, so yeah. That's where I seem to keep them.  NEIL: That is really, why don't we all just keep them there?  MICHAEL: Right. I trust my neighbors, evidently.   NEIL: We just very recently got a knock on the door from our neighbor Arlene. A shout out to Arlene if you're listening, and I know you're not, but, um, bless Arlene who very aggressively knocked on our door. She kind of is like policing the hall in a very loving way, but authoritative. And I left the keys in the door. And um, you could tell Arlene lived for this moment. The keys, they're in the door! You know, it's like, and uh, and then of course I have to like reciprocate with like, um, thank you so much. Oh God. Wow. How did we do that? Thank you, Arlene.  MICHAEL: I have - the person that polices our place, uh, has a Trump hat.  NEIL: Oh no. I don't know if I could deal with that.  MICHAEL: He is taking over the recycling, which is great, but he's got it under lock and key, literally under lock and key. So you go downstairs to get rid of your bottles and stuff. And it takes a lot longer. So then everybody just leaves it down there.  NEIL: Every now and then, forgive me, is there like a, an immigrant child in there as well?  MICHAEL: Oh, there's not an immigrant child, but there is something I think it, I realized it bothers him, that people pick through the garbage and it's mostly like, you know...  NEIL: The people who shouldn't be here. From the shithole countries. MICHAEL: Yeah. So I thought about that later and then I just didn't want to think about it anymore cause I was getting all upset.  NEIL: Um, have you had a political conversation with him or?  MICHAEL: I don't go there. Yeah, he's on, he's a little unstable and he asked, one time he asked me if I wanted to take something outside.  NEIL: Oh, he asked you if you want to, I thought, take something outside like garbage. MICHAEL: Right.  NEIL: But no, he wanted to take a discussion outside.  MICHAEL: Yeah.  NEIL: Wow. I'm gay enough that I have never had that conversation, you know? Uh, or if it is, it's like, it's nasty and it's happened a long time ago and it wasn't a fight. Um, wow. Okay. I'm glad that worked out okay. Uh, this card says: Read my - MICHAEL: Can I be, can I, I had a hard time reading that, kind of, reading them.  NEIL: Yeah. Well.  MICHAEL: Your penmanship is like...  NEIL: Well, I always say if my, if my handwriting were a font, it would be called Suicide Note, so I'm...  MICHAEL: Not judging. I just said I had a hard time, you know, deciphering it at times.  NEIL: Yeah. Read my course evaluations at my funeral. That's what that says.  MICHAEL: Oh, well, I was thinking that when, when I do pass, I would like to get ahead of the thing and have people send out a, uh, an announcement saying, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, you know, come to my show, I'll be like, you know -  NEIL: I'll be here for eternity. MICHAEL: Um, class evaluations. Yeah. I love my class evaluations and I save them and I, I find them very funny. One, I actually made a poster and it was, uh, it was, "I'm not sure if I agree with the way Professor Smith teaches this class. He called my work crap and he called us idiots. This is a waste of my time and money." I was very happy with that.  NEIL: And you made that into a poster?  MICHAEL: I made it into a poster.  NEIL: Do you, do you have any other ones that come to mind? I bet you get great course evaluations.  MICHAEL: Some are good. But like I, I forget them, you know, um, I get them, I still get them handwritten. You're supposed to, a lot of people just go online, but I always, I always hand them out and, and I, I have to leave the room and I always say to them, before, "My livelihood and my future is dependent on how you judge me. And I'm so sorry, I meant to bring the donuts. We'll get to that." NEIL: Huh? See, I try to be real coy about it. Like, you know, they make me do this and, you know, try and like keep it open to, um, other than positive feedback. But obviously it's a desperate wish for approval. MICHAEL: Yeah. I, I always tell them I care deeply for them too, when I'm, yeah. You know, I care deeply for all of you.  NEIL: See, you can,  MICHAEL: One thing - I, one of my students who I happen to, like, he-  NEIL: Happen to like. Whatever.  MICHAEL: He came up to me and he said, you know, Mike, even when we're watching videos in the dark, we always know what you're thinking. We can always read you.  NEIL: Wow. That's a scary thought.  MICHAEL: It is. Cause I'm, I have no filter with, you know, I, I just, it, it comes out, I just sort of convey it with my face.  NEIL: See, I find you, because there is a kind of like genial neutrality, you know, like the, the idea of like quote unquote resting bitch face. You have kind of like resting, mm, bemused face. Um, I find it actually kind of opaque. I wish I knew what you were thinking.  MICHAEL: You know what? A lot of times nothing. I get the feeling I'm not answering the, I'm not answering these cards very, uh.  NEIL: Do you need me to take care of you a little bit right now in terms of - I think you're doing a phenomenal job. You know, this is a fucked up, um, project, by the way, because everyone, like I, I once was doing an iteration of it and this kind of high powered curator said to me, did I do okay, or did I do it right? And I wanted to say like, you did, there's no way of not doing this right, but let's talk about why you've never put me in a show. But that's a different story. The faces of spectators at art world performances. The dutifulness and absence of pleasure. We've all seen this like documentation of a performance at an art event and you see like the spectators, like-  MICHAEL: I often say to my, uh, um, to myself and sometimes my students, where's the joy? Looking for the joy. You're talking about pleasure. I'm looking for the - all the time, I'm wondering about that.  NEIL: Where's the joy? Yeah. I'm stealing the hell out of that for any teaching I do. And also, that would be my teaching evaluation for like 95% of the art I see. I mean, it can be art about, um, Auschwitz and you can still appropriately ask the question, where's the joy? Don't you think? Provocative question.  MICHAEL: Um. NEIL: What was the question?  MICHAEL: No, no, no. I thought I'd get some room tone. You know, we start with the toilet and then we put, where's the joy with Auschwitz. You know, this is- NEIL: This is like a balanced meal or something. I'll take the toilet, joy, and Auschwitz. Well, we'll have to talk about what constitutes dessert within that.  NEIL: Uh, okay. Let's try this: The brutality of a memorial service having a duration. MICHAEL: All right. Are you, a duration, like a time limit or like, um, it doesn't end?  NEIL: You answer it however you want.  MICHAEL: Well, I, I, I think brevity can be good, you know, um, and I don't think I need to go to a durational memorial. I may have misunderstood the question or, not the question, the card. I have been in position where I've, I've helped organize them in a, you know, like emceed them. So you get a little nervous, you know, so you want to keep it like, it becomes like a fucking variety show. NEIL: Exactly. That is so true. Memorial services are a variety show.  MICHAEL: I don't know if that's appropriate. You know?  NEIL: What should it be instead?  MICHAEL: Well, it can, I guess it, it should be kind of free-flowing and with me at the helm, it's not going to be free-flowing. NEIL: Because you keep it, you keep it moving? MICHAEL: I try to, yeah.  NEIL: That's a lot of responsibility. I've never, I, I've done, I, I seem to be the person who you will call to do the slide show for your loved one's memorial. I've done a number of them.  MICHAEL: That's a lot of work.  NEIL: It is. And you can't complain about it. Uh, you know.  MICHAEL: And also you have to be in touch with people to get that material.  NEIL: That I - that I have subcontracted and, you know, but even so, it's a lot of work. And you do not want to fuck that one up. Um. But see, for me, I love the idea of durational, like for those of our listeners who don't know, there's a terminology within the art world of durational art, and to me that is like the height of decadence. Like we have such a surplus of time, you know, that we're going to make art from that surplus or something. You know what I mean?  MICHAEL: I have a, getting back to my students, I have a, um, a three-hand rule.  NEIL: Oh, let's hear it.  MICHAEL: Um, well, if some of the, when I'm covering some work like early seventies, you know, and you kind of get the idea after like five minutes and it goes on. If, if one person, three people raised their hand, we'd go onto the next video.  NEIL: I am learning so much today.  MICHAEL: But I don't think you can do that in memorial service. I don't think that'll, I don't think that'll work, no. NEIL: Oh, that's funny.  MICHAEL: How surprised would they be if you, you mentioned that in the beginning of the memorial? NEIL: Yeah, listen, not to create pressure, but it's kind of like the Apollo where you get the hook. MICHAEL: How am I doing, how am I doing? Yeah. Right.  NEIL: Okay. A bad X you would take over a good Y. So, for me, perpetually, my example is I would take a bad episode of RuPaul's Drag Race over a good Godard movie. So, what's a bad X you would take over a good Y?  MICHAEL: Well, I'm of the school that something bad can have lots of charm. There's something redeeming about it. Where there's something is overly so good, like a certain kind of Broadway kind of, um...  NEIL: Careful.  MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, you understand a certain kind of large delivery or something. A certain styling, a certain song-styling. Um, oh, I'm going to lose the whole audience on this reference. NEIL: Go for it. You have me.  MICHAEL: Okay. The, the, the Bobby Short commercial singing Charlie. I would, I will always cringe at that one. And then I would much rather take a bad public access, uh, commercial than that.  NEIL: There's a fragrance that's here to stay and they call it Charlie. NEIL: Um, so Mike, uh, what is it that keeps you going? MICHAEL: Uh. Hm. I don't know what's keeping me going right now. Um, that's a big one. Um, I, you know, when I was lot younger and doing my work, I, you know, and reinventing the wheel, you know, reinventing the wheel and stuff, I was very excited. But I don't, I wonder what, what keeps me going? No one knows. No one knows. Looking for the joy.  NEIL: On that note, thank you to all of you for being here. Thank you, Mike, for coming to this live taping. Thank you to everyone at Skowhegan. Sarah, Katie, Kris, Carrie, Paige, everyone else. Um, now, this series is made possible with generous support - thank you Jesus - for Still Point Fund. Oh, Siri, something set Siri off. That's, that's my husband, Jeff. Um, oh, sorry. I know, you know, it's interesting. One of the cards I have is every time I stub my toe, I look for someone to blame. And it's often Jeff. And, um, so. Uh, the calls are coming from inside the house. The house being my subjectivity. Let's do that again cause this is important. This series is made possible with generous support from Still Point Fund. Devon Guinn is our producer. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handles social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, and Rachel Wang. Our card-flip beats come from Josh Graver. And my husband, Jeff, sings the theme song you're about to hear. And he's going to perform it live. He's a professional. JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's A Talker at Skowhegan. She's A Talker, it's better than it sounds. NEIL: Thank you, everybody. Thanks everyone for listening to this bonus episode. Keep your eyes open for She's A Talker, Season Three, coming soon. And in the meantime, be well.

SEASON 2: EPISODE 8 Film critic Melissa Anderson talks about the correlation between smoldering internal rage and a lighthearted use of exclamation marks. ABOUT THE GUEST Melissa Anderson is the film editor of 4Columns and a regular contributor to Artforum and Bookforum. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, Rachel Wang Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL GOLDBERG.: Hello, I'm Neil Goldberg, and this is SHE'S A TALKER, coming to you today from the Lower East Side. Today's guest is film critic Melissa Anderson, but first I'm going to find someone here on the street to talk to.  We're doing a podcast, and we just need people to know... Oh, okay. Sorry to bother you. Would you have a minute for a podcast, just to read this card into a microphone?  REMY: Why not? NEIL: Thank you. I love the "why not?" REMY: What podcast? NEIL: It's called SHE'S A TALKER. It's built off a collection of thousands of these index cards doing interviews with people. Uh, but now we're playing around with having people on the street read them. Would you mind?  REMY: Okay. When people sing out loud to themselves with headphones, wanting to be heard.  NEIL: It's often a cutesy thing. You know, someone's on the subway. They got their headphones in. They're singing. They're pretending like they don't know they can be heard, but they can be heard. Do you know what I'm talking about there?  REMY: I have absolutely done that. It was another version of me years ago, if that helps.  NEIL: Tell me about that version of you.  REMY: A version that was, really wanted to be heard, man. I mean, everyone really wants to be heard, but especially like I had just moved to New York. Like when you find those little secret ways where you don't even admit to yourself that you are reaching out. It's, it's a little bit of a lifeline.  NEIL: Can I ask what your name is?  REMY: Remy.  NEIL: Remy. Would you do one more card or no? This, okay, great. Hang on. I'm going to find another one.  REMY: I feel a type of violence when someone marks a file as final.  NEIL: Do you know that experience? Like do you ever work with electronic files and like?  REMY: Yes. Completely. Yeah.  NEIL: Are you someone who is, uh, who marks things as final?  REMY: I try not to because then you end up with another final and final two and final seven, and yeah, it is a lot. Um, so I try and keep it organized, but never final. Nothing's final. NEIL: I'm so happy to have as my guest, film critic Melissa Anderson. Melissa is the Film Editor for the unique art criticism site 4Columns, and frequently contributes to Book Forum and Art Forum, and before that was the Senior Film Critic for The Village Voice of blessed memory. Non-professionally, Melissa has a longstanding practice of emailing me abuses she encounters of the word 'journey', which she describes as the COVID-19 of nouns. We spoke just after the new year at a recording studio at The New School near Union Square in New York City.   NEIL: Melissa Anderson.  MELISSA ANDERSON: Yes. Neil Goldberg. NEIL: Welcome to SHE'S A TALKER. I'm so happy to have you here. This is your first podcast.  MELISSA: Yeah.  NEIL: Wow. How does it feel?  MELISSA: I feel that I'm in the best of hands. I'm with a creative conversationalist of the highest order. And I'm, I'm ready to talk.  NEIL: Um, what is the elevator pitch for what you do?  MELISSA: Oh, it's very simple. I'm, I'm a film critic. I'm the world's preeminent lesbian film critic. There's my elevator pitch. Elevator to the stars.  NEIL: I love the lack of ambiguity about that.  MELISSA: I mean, of course. I'm a film critic. That would be my elevator pitch. I don't, I don't want to get too grandiose so early on in our conversation. NEIL: Well, hopefully there'll be time later. You know, I'm, I'm thinking of criticism as its own literary form. So I would say, Melissa Anderson is truly a critic of film whose criticism rises and surpasses the attributes that we apply to the other literary arts. Or it rises to the level of literature. Would you agree with that? Is that an intention?  MELISSA: You are putting a woman in a very precarious position. I mean, if I agree with you, "Oh yes. All those wonderful things you said, oh of course, I am the best." But I also don't want to go into some display of false modesty.  I will just say that, yes, I practice the dark art of film criticism. I've done it for several years now. I always feel that my writing could be so much better. That's always the goal: to not just coast, to really play with language, have some ideas, say outrageous things. Yes. And, and not just rely on plot synopsis, because that is, is really the, the dullest form of cultural criticism, especially film criticism. I think it's inevitable. You have to give the reader just some sense of what happens in terms of, you know, action or just the, the, the barest plot synopsis. And from there you can branch out and talk about the really interesting things, like Brad Pitt's face or what French actress I may have a very big crush on. You know?  NEIL: Do you get a lot of followup? Like what kind of followup does one get? MELISSA: Yes. I do get the follow up question quite a lot, which is what kinds of films do you write about? In fact, this came up just the other day. I was meeting somebody for the first time, and I said, you know, I really try to cover anything. And then the person I was talking to said, Oh, would you review the new Star Wars movie? And that's when I realized, actually, I do not cover the waterfront because I have not seen a Star Wars movie since 1983. And I almost never write about anything in the Marvel Comics Universe or DC Comics, simply because, I mean, I have, I, I have made a very concerted effort to see these films to keep up. But, and I'm not exaggerating, I found them so depleting. I remember watching Guardians of the Galaxy. And while I was watching it, I thought, this is like watching a toaster being assembled. It, it just, it simply seemed like nothing but a product where Tab A goes with Tab B, or this part slots into this part, and I thought this, this cinema is just simply not for me.  NEIL: Yes. Well, you use the word depleted, which is interesting, which I think of depleted as being like, something is taken from you. So what is taken?  MELISSA: Uh, well in those instances, my love of going to the movies. I mean it still really seems like an adventure to me. Anytime I go to a screening room, you know, anytime I'm, I'm, I'm there to review something, I'm there with my, with my uni-ball pen and my MUJI line notebook and I enter the screening room really as an act of good faith. And so these movies I'm describing, like Guardians of the Galaxy, or Thor, or whatever, those I saw as a civilian because I also think it's very important that as a film critic you, you see more than the movies that you are assigned to write about. And so I went to see these superhero movies, comic book movies, intellectual property movies on my own, you know, just to keep up. And with these films, that sense of adventurousness - that ended. Then it just, it felt like a chore just to remain in my seat until the film's completion.  NEIL: Out of family obligation, I will be seeing a lot of the franchise movies or whatever they're called. I just saw Star Wars over the holidays. And, uh, it, it does feel a little bit like a tour. But you know, my approach to the movies and this sounds so snobby, but, uh, I really do feel like sleeping during a movie is a form of interactivity. You know what I mean?  MELISSA: Andy Warhol certainly thought that, and have your fact checking department vet this, but the great Amos Vogel, who was a crucial person in New York City film culture, one of the founders of the New York Film Festival, I believe, he also said that sleeping during a film is an absolutely legitimate response to, to what you're seeing on screen.  NEIL: Absolutely. You know, you're doing a little re-edit, you know, by, by sleeping and - MELISSA: De tournage, you're detourning the moving image.  NEIL: Exactly. What is, what is a recurring thought you have? What's a thought you keep returning to?  MELISSA: Can I turn the oven off? No. Well, that is sadly... Uh. Well. It's a recurring concern, and I mentioned it earlier, which is, how am I going to make my writing better? Just yesterday, in fact, I looked at something that I wrote last year that when I completed it and filed it and went through the editing process, I thought, Oh, this piece is all right. Yesterday, while revisiting this year-old piece, I thought, how was I not run out of town? This is a colossal embarrassment.  Yeah. I don't know if, how you approach your previous works. Do you revisit older stuff that you have done or do you just, do you operate under the assumption that no, never, never look back? Just keep moving ahead.  NEIL: Revisit it to, to revise it or just to look at it?  MELISSA: Just to look at it.  NEIL: It's something, it's - one of the things I truly dislike the most is, as part of the whole artist shtick, one has to do artist talks and show past work, and I, I don't like doing it at all, primarily because it just feels so dead. Like, and I do feel like a work for me is not finished until the point that I have stopped really having feeling for it. You know what I mean? One becomes detached to it, and maybe there's a value to becoming detached from it in that, um, it allows one more flexibility, fewer feelings of darlings that are being killed and stuff. But I'd love never to look at it. For sure. But you, it sounds like you do kind of consciously revisit your past work. MELISSA: Well, sometimes, you know, invariably, I will be writing about an actor, a performer who I may have written about in another film five years ago, and I'm curious to see what I wrote then, just so that I don't repeat myself. I'm revisiting stuff just to make sure I'm not saying the same thing over again, or I'm curious to gauge my different responses if indeed there is a difference.  NEIL: Let's go to the cards, shall we?  MELISSA: I'd love to.  NEIL: Excellent. Okay, so the first card is the correlation between smoldering internal rage, and the lighthearted use of exclamation marks. MELISSA: I, when I see an abuse of exclamation marks, particularly in email correspondence, I feel nothing but a red-hot smoldering rage. Not even smoldering, just full-on Mount Vesuvius-level Krakatoa explosion. I have been told this is generational, that those younger than this elderess, and that is now billions of people, prefer the exclamation mark. And the period, which I think is a very fine mark of punctuation, is considered by millennials and younger to be somewhat passive-aggressive.  NEIL: Oh, that's interesting. I feel like exclamation marks aren't necessarily passive-aggressive, but they're meant to.  MELISSA: No, no, no. The period is passive-aggressive. NEIL: Right. No, I get that. But I feel like there's a similar kind of belying or something happening with the exclamation mark, but it's about rage. Like, um. Well, I guess passive-aggressive typically means, uh, that you have aggressive feelings that you're masking. I think of it as a more diffuse, the, the exclamation mark, as more - it's not trying to communicate anger at someone, but a free-floating anger that is perfumed by way of the exclamation mark. MELISSA: Right. Because the exclamation mark perfumes it with a cheerfulness or an excitement. It just exhausts me.  NEIL: Oh, absolutely. It asks so much of you. You always have to ask, what does it mean?  MELISSA: Yes.  NEIL: And when was the last time you used one?  MELISSA: Just yesterday, in fact, wishing someone a happy 2020.  NEIL: Oh yeah. You got to do that. A period there is, is slightly hostile. MELISSA: That seems very dour and grim.  NEIL: Next card: that bring-down moment, after you've watched a transcendent performance, when you first go to look at your phone. And perhaps this applies to movies.  MELISSA: Well, after I've seen something really terrific, whether it be a live performance or a motion picture - to maintain that feeling, I will defer looking at the phone for quite some time. I just like to replay it in my mind.  NEIL: Yeah. How do you feel right after a show if you're with someone and they're, like, wanting to analyze it?  MELISSA: This drives me crazy. Of the many billions of things that I appreciate about my fantastic lady, one of them is that, in the many years that we've been together, in the many thousands of movies that we've seen together, we will leave the theater, and neither one of us feels this compulsion to say, so what did you think? What did you think? Which really sends me into murderous rage. And, uh, there was a time when I was going to film festivals fairly regularly. And for seven years I went to Le Festival de Cannes, where, talk about depleting. Press screenings at the Cannes Film Festival begin at eight-thirty in the morning. NEIL: Wow.  MELISSA: So one is rushing to see, you know, the latest Lars von Trier or whatever. You come stumbling out into the bright Mediterranean sun, and you are just surrounded by all of these film critics who are just assaulting, assaulting you with a quote. What did you think? What did you think? And I. This really, so many times, really put me over the edge. You just need time to simply let the images or the live performance, whatever you've just seen, let it wash over you. Sink in. So I find the question an assault.  NEIL: Next card, Melissa. Looking in my apartment's compost container is sort of like gossip. I find I enjoy looking in the compost.  MELISSA: You know, I also enjoy it somewhat, and I will also say that I feel that now one-fourth to one-third of my waking hours are spent taking the compost down to the compost bins. Yeah, it is, it is something of a time investment. But when I look at it, forgive me, I must say it - I'm overcome with a sense of virtue because my lady and I, we like to do a lot of cooking at home, and I make, uh, at least one, sometimes two cups, very strong French-pressed coffee. So all of my coffee grounds around there. And so, yes, in fact, before leaving the house, I took the compost out, and I thought, Oh look. Greens and coffee grounds and brown eggs. We're doing great.  NEIL: This is your own compost you're talking about.  MELISSA: My co- the compost of the soul.  NEIL: I hear that. It is deeply virtuous. I feel very embraced by compost. Like I like that compost, within its parameters will accept everything, and you don't have to tell food scraps how to become compost. I know that there's some work involved. It just feels embracing. It takes. Compost takes.  MELISSA: You know, one feels really in tune with the spirit of the first Earth Day in 1970. NEIL: That feeling when the plane lands and they dramatically reverse the engines to slow it down.  MELISSA: Well, if it, particularly if I'm coming back to New York, I'm, I'm spirally thinking, will I be able to make it to the air train in time? Will I be able to make it to the LIRR to pull into the Atlantic Terminal, which is a convenient 10-minute walk from my house. One would hope that the slow brain would kick in. The slow brain being, Oh, how great. One has landed safely, although now that I mentioned that, should one be feeling grateful that one has landed, or should one be filled with what my Shero Greta Thunberg has us thinking about, which is Flygskam, or shame of flying. Yeah. So I think the next time I fly, and I'm not sure when that will be, yeah. I, when the plane lands, maybe I'll just be feeling filled with shame.  NEIL: Yeah. I feel a variation on that because when it goes in reverse, you feel how much force is required to, to stop the plane, you know, which suggests how much, how much energy is going into propelling the plane forward, and you're burning fuel to send it in reverse. So it is a moment of - MELISSA: And killing Mother Earth. You think, how big is my carbon footprint?  NEIL: Oh God.  MELISSA: Sorry, Greta.  NEIL: Yeah. I just watched Greta's um, speech, finally, um, over, yeah, over the vacation, because, I don't know how I hadn't seen it before, but - MELISSA: I still haven't seen it.  NEIL: It's prophetic. A lot of it is like, You, meaning people of - I'm 56, like my generation. "How dare you" is the refrain, which, I think, I would have reworked that. Um. MELISSA: You're going to copy edit Greta.  NEIL: Yes, exactly.  MELISSA: Take a red pen to Greta.  NEIL: But a lot of it... I can imagine 20 years, something down the line, I do feel like there's going to be a generational justified wrath, um, hitting us, hitting people of my age, you know. And she speaks that.  MELISSA: I find her incredibly inspiring. I mean, yes, in all seriousness, I really am. I'm not someone who flies a tremendous amount. I'd say I'd average two to three flights a year. But this whole concept of the Flygskam, it has really made me think, thanks to this 16-year-old prophetess that, yeah, this is really, um, a great harm that I am perpetuating by flying so I can have a vacation in Paris or go visit friends in Los Angeles. So I have tremendous respect for this fiery, oracular, young person.  NEIL: Melissa, when you put your arm around a friend or hold their hand, but then the discomfort of when to disconnect emerges.  MELISSA: Um, I think of myself as a pretty physically-affectionate person with friends. I'm really not a hand-holder.  NEIL: Uh huh.  MELISSA: Even with my lover, and we've had some discussions about this. Because she, when we first began our love journey so many years ago, she would often like to take my hand out in public. And I thought, this kind of bugs me. But, and I, you know, I wanted to check in with myself. Why? Is it internalized homophobia? And then I realized, I, I, I landed upon what bothered me about it. There was something about my hand being held. It made me feel infantilized. Her arm around my shoulder, or even better, her arm around my waist - that I was into. Cause that felt more like a PG-13 type of public display of affection. NEIL: Right.  MELISSA: And also with the hand-holding, you know, I try to be very conscientious about taking up public space. And when you're walking around a couple holding hands, it's an impasse.  NEIL: It is like a blockade.  MELISSA: If there's a way that one could have a public display of affection while walking single file, that is, that's the challenge of 2020. Lovers, lovers of New York City. Think of how this can be done. The piggy-back ride. Will that be the way to show somebody you're really sweet on them in 2020?  NEIL: You do see the occasional piggy-back ride, but it doesn't make me feel good.  MELISSA: Not so sexy, right? You know, we're surrounded by an army of lovers. NEIL: That's true. Taking up space. Um, you know, I feel the same thing about holding hands in public. It's not about the physical infantilizing thing, but it is a type of intern - I don't know if it's internalized homophobia. It's like, yikes. Are we gonna get a bottle thrown at us?  MELISSA: Hmm.  NEIL: I'm sure there's internalized homophobia in there too. MELISSA: But again, I don't, it's, it's not that, it's just... Okay, well actually now I'm thinking about this more. I'm fact-checking myself, holding hands in the movies is okay. Because you're - one's parents, or certainly my parents, wouldn't hold my hand during the movie.  NEIL: True.  MELISSA: But holding, holding one's hand in public. That is something your parents did to you as a child.  NEIL: We've nailed it. You've nailed it. That's it. Yeah. MELISSA: I'd like to thank all of the years of psychotherapy I've had on the couch of, well, should I name my psychotherapist?  NEIL: If you want to give a shout-out.  MELISSA: Well, she's a... She knows who she is. NEIL: Yes, exactly. That. Let's hope. Let's hope one's therapist knows who they are. I've never name-checked my, my therapist either. Um, and yet all my years in therapy, I never came to the conclusion about the hand-holding. NEIL: What's a bad ex you'd take over a good Y? MELISSA: Me, who considers herself to be really one a gift of the gab - I'm stumped. I would take, I would take a bad movie that's not in the Marvel Comics Universe or a Star Wars movie - I would take a bad movie any day over a good television show.  There's no romance to watching television.  NEIL: Is it context?  MELISSA: There's no sense of adventure in staying home and watching television. When you commit to seeing a movie, you have to leave the house. And it seems that, increasingly, even in New York City, this great, dynamic, incredible place, the messages we keep receiving are: stay at home, stay at home, cocoon. You never have to leave the house. Everything will come to you. You'll have your content delivered to you. You'll have your food delivered to you. Stay home, stay home.  No, leave the house, people. It's very exciting to go to the movies, even if it's a stinker. There's so much that could happen, so much that's beyond your control. It's terrifying, but it's exciting. Leave the house. Leave it. Leave your house.  NEIL: On that note, Melissa Anderson, thank you for being on - that didn't sound genuine. I have to do it again.  MELISSA: Yeah. Talk about passive-aggressive. Speaking nothing but periods.  NEIL: On that note, Melissa, thank you so much for being on SHE'S A TALKER.  MELISSA: It was a great honor, Neil Goldberg. I thank you.  NEIL: Bye. That was my conversation with Melissa Anderson. Thank you for listening.  Before we get to the credits, there's a listener response I'd love to share with you. In my conversation with Jon Wan, in response to learning that they studied jazz saxophone in high school, I said, "I'm going to make a controversial generalization: I don't think jazz is gay." Jon and I then talked about the way jazz offered a model of cool and casualness that didn't feel available to us as awkward, closeted high-schoolers. Steven Winter emailed saying, "Jazz is self-expression within yourself being rendered into outer sensation. There are so many ways to cut the cake of the music called jazz, but three key essentials are: one, freedom; two, swing; and three, improvisation. Can these elements not also be used to describe the fundamental pillars of LGBTQ survival in the 20th century up till now? Jazz is about describing and finding yourself as an individual. That's why you can hear a dozen jazz versions of the same tune, and each will hit you in a different way. Can the same thing be said of the gay movement? Yes, it can." Thank you, Steven.  If you have something you'd like to share about a card or anything else you've heard on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at shesatalker@gmail.com or message us on Instagram at shesatalker. And also, as always, we'd love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend. This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Devon Guinn produced this episode. Andrew Litton mixed it. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handle social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, and Jesse Kimotho. Our card-flip beats come from Josh Graver, and my husband, Jeff Hiller, sings the theme song you are about to hear. Thanks to all of them, and to my guest, Melissa Anderson, and to you for listening.  JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds, yeah!

SEASON 2: EPISODE 5 Poet Nick Flynn talks about the ways in which he won't die. ABOUT THE GUEST Nick Flynn has worked as a ship’s captain, an electrician, and a caseworker for homeless adults. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and nonfiction have appeared in include the New Yorker, the Nation, the Paris Review, the New York Times Book Review, and NPR’s This American Life. His writing has won awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, PEN, and the Fine Arts Work Center, among other organizations. His film credits include artistic collaborator and “field poet” on Darwin’s Nightmare (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 2006), as well as executive producer and artistic collaborator on Being Flynn, the film version of his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. His most recent collection of poetry, I Will Destroy You, appeared from Graywolf Press in 2019. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Lili Taylor, and his daughter, Maeve. http://www.nickflynn.org/ ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock TRANSCRIPTION NICK FLYNN: I was driving my daughter to soccer. And she had a bike and I had a bike and we'd ride, even though it was a little cold.  NEIL GOLDBERG: Yeah.  NICK: But a guy went by on a bike and he had like a boombox, one of those boombox that plays, he's playing like a podcast, like really loud, and it was so odd. We both just laughed. It was like, what is that? You're just blasting a podcast going down the street, blasting.  NEIL: This is fresh air.  Hello, I'm Neil Goldberg and this is SHE'S A TALKER. I'm a visual artist and this podcast is my thinly veiled excuse to get some of my favorite New York writers, artists, performers, and beyond into the studio to chat. For prompts, I use a collection of thousands of index cards on which I've been writing thoughts and observations for the past two decades, kind of like one of those party games, but hopefully not as cheesy.  These days, the cards often start as recordings I make into my phone. Here are some recent ones: I really love how Beverly pronounces 'Meow'. It's never appropriate to share scrap paper from home with students. I'm never sure what a simmer is. I'm so happy to have as my guest, poet Nick Flynn. I have been a hardcore fan of Nick's writing since his first book, Some Ether, came out in 2000 and was blown away by his memoirs, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and The Ticking is the Bomb. In the fall, he released a new book of poetry, I Will Destroy You, and in the next few months he has two more books coming out: Stay, and This is the Night Our House Will Catch on Fire. I met Nick briefly in, I think, the late eighties in Provincetown, and we reconnected recently via our mutual friend, Jacques Servin, who is on an earlier episode. Nick and I spoke in January at a recording studio at The New School near Union Square in New York City. NEIL: Are you comfortable?  NICK: Like on a scale of one to ten?  NEIL: Like, you know those smiley faces, like if you're in the hospital. NICK: How much pain I have? Uh, I hadn't even thought about it till you just said that. Now I'm wondering if I am, so.  NEIL: I feel like I'm, I'm totally not, I'm not feeling any pain at the moment.  NICK: No, I'm not feeling any pain. No, I'm feeling no pain.  NEIL: That's different from, feeling no pain is different from not feeling any pain. NICK: That means if you're kind of fucked up, I think.  NEIL: Exactly.  NICK: You're feeling no pain.  NEIL: Um, I'm so happy to have you, Nick Flynn, on the show, SHE'S A TALKER.  NICK: I'm happy to be here, Neil Goldberg -  NEIL: I, you know -   NICK: on the show SHE'S A TALKER. Is the 'She' the cat? NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: That's, that's who the 'she' is.  NEIL: It is, yeah. I, you know -  NICK: I guess I got that. Yeah.  NEIL: Well, you know, in 1993 when everyone was dying... Everyone is still dying, but just differently.  NICK: I remember that. Yeah.  NEIL: Yeah. Uh, you know, I did a video project where I interviewed, it turned out to be, like about 80 gay men all over New York City in all five boroughs who had female cats, combing their cats and saying "She's a Talker." NICK: They were combing the cats?  NEIL: Combing the cat. It was just almost like, it was like a stealthy way to like, not stealthy, but it was a way to document a lot of gay men who felt like really imperiled, and it was my first video project. And, I don't know, when I decided to name this, that came up for me. But subsequently I get a lot of like, what does the word 'she' mean at this point? NICK: Right, right, right. Yeah.  NEIL: Maybe I should rebrand it. What should I call it?  NICK: Uh, you should stick with it, I think. Hmm.  NEIL: Uh, when, when you're looking for like a short hand, like you encounter someone on the proverbial elevator and are looking for like a pithy way to describe who it is you are and what it is you do, what do you, what do you reach for? NICK: I say I'm a poet.  NEIL: Period.  NICK: Period. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that usually gets a pretty dead-eyed stare like the one you just gave me. Like that's it? That's it.  NEIL: When someone is confronted with poet, silence, do you ever feel like helping someone out?  NICK: Well, it depends on like, often, that'll pretty much be the conversation-ender.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: So it does nothing to help cause they're gone right at that point.  NEIL: If your folks were around, how might they describe who it is you've become? NICK: Wow, that's a, that's an interesting one. Would they, would they still be, are they like idealized, my, like my parents on their best day or on their worst day?  NEIL: Oh, I wouldn't mind hearing both if you don't mind. Like the...  NICK: Ah, like, you know, there's the idealized version of your parents. Then there's the, not the reality, but the, you know, but recognizing at a certain point that they had some rough days, you know. In my mind, it's hard to deny they had some rough days. So, um, it's a little, it's a little harder to pretend. Yeah. Uh, my father, he knew that I'd published books and he was sort of, you know, strangely proud of that. Uh, but proud just in the way he knew I'd be a good writer because he was such a great writer, so I got it all from him. So he took all credit for any of it. So I imagined he would still take credit for any accomplishments I've had or that he perceives I've had. I've, I'm trying to think if he had like on a good day, that's sort of like a not so good day. Yeah. On a good day, he did have a couple moments where he was able to just recognize the struggle it had been, uh, between the two of us, uh, to actually acknowledge that. And I think that would be like, he'd say like, yeah, this was, this must have been hard, you know? So I think that would be. That'd be a good day for him.  My mother's a little more enigmatic, like it's actually, when I think about it, like, cause I mean, she died before he did. I was younger. I didn't know her as well, probably. So, although I grew up with her, but, um, I sort of studied my father more, and my mother's more of a, uh, a construct of the imagination in some ways. Although, I mean, we spent so much time together too. It's strange to say that actually, I don't know if that's true.  You know, I, there's always the question like, what would my mother be like now? So I'm, I look at women that are my mother's age, that would be my mother's age now. Like I don't know how, how she would be. So either way, I think she's, since she, from her backhouse sort of WASP-y Irish background, she probably wouldn't say directly anything. I'd have to decipher what she said.   NEIL: So it would be cryptic in terms of her estimation of you, or?  NICK: I mean, she, I think she'd say, "Oh, I'm, I'm proud of you." But the deeper levels of that I think would be harder to get to.  NEIL: Yeah. I see you came in, you were, you had a bike helmet, which I connect to. Um, on your bike ride over, did you have any thoughts?  NICK: Wow. Thoughts as I was coming here - the sort of meta thing is I was listening on my headphones to SHE'S A TALKER. And you're talking to someone about riding a bike over the bridge.  NEIL: Right, yeah.  NICK: So like, yeah. I mean, at the moment I was riding over the bridge. I was listening to you talk to someone else about riding over the bridge and then thinking that I would soon be here talking to you, and I brought my helmet it, I didn't - usually I lock it on my bike  but maybe I brought it in so you would ask me about it. It's possible, but I think I just brought it in cause it was cold, it was so cold outside. I wanted a warm helmet when I went back out. So.  NEIL: Aha, you didn't want to put on a cold helmet. I never thought about that. NICK: What I thought about on the bridge was that it was way colder than I thought it was. It was the wind, it was like howling and I had a hat in my bag and I kept thinking, I'll just stop and put my hat on under my helmet and I didn't stop. I kept thinking, I'll warm up at some point, but I just kept getting colder and colder the further I went. I just never stopped, I just kept going.  NEIL: Well, let's, um, go to some cards that I curated for you.  NICK: You curate these for this conversation?  NEIL: Yes. Yeah.   (Card flip)  So the first card is: the specific, tentative, hyper-attentive way one tastes something to see if it's gone bad. NICK: Um, what I usually do is I'll, I'll, I'll cook it and then give it to my brother. NEIL: Mikey likes it?  NICK: Yeah. And then if he can get through it then it probably hasn't gone so far bad. Cause he's pretty sensitive actually. I mean, while I'm presenting, it sounds like he'd just eat anything. No. He's quite sensitive. So he's like sort of the. He's, he, he, he's a Canary. Ah ha. Yeah. So I'll just fix it up and give it to him and then, cause he'll, usually, he's quite happy if I make him something, give him some food, then if it's no good, then, then I throw it away. Yeah. If he eats it, I'll eat it.  NEIL: He's your taster. Um, where, where does your brother live?  NICK: He lives upstate, New York.  NEIL: Oh, okay. Yeah, but he's your older brother, right, if I'm remembering? NICK: But why did you say, "but." Because he lives upstate?  NEIL: No, because of the scenario of like, your brother, the implication. He's an implied younger brother in the story.  NICK: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. He's an implied younger brother in life too.  (Card Flip)  NEIL: Next card. When a toddler falls, that space before they start to cry. NICK: Well. My daughter was, uh, three. And for us, like three was really like, spectacular meltdowns and just like, you know, tantrums and just like wildness, just like absolutely wild, like wild animal, just screaming and frustrated and like, you know, furious. And one day she, uh, she was in a tantrum, she fell and she hit her cheek on the corner of a staircase and it split open and like bled. It sort of woke her up. Like it was right at the end of her being three, she was going to turn four. It was a Sunday night. And my wife and I were like, Oh, what do we do? Like, I'm like, I guess, do we take her to her doctor or do we like, you know, just like, like leave her with a scar for the rest of her life? And so I butterfly-stitched it, you know, like made a little butterfly thing, to hold it together to squish the skin together, you know? And, uh. That's what we did. We sort of looked up t see like how big and deep it had to be to go to a doctor and stuff and to need a stitch, and it was sort of right on the edge. So I butterfly-stitched it, and then. Yeah so now she just has this pretty little scar on her face and she's perfect.  NEIL: Wow. And does she know the story of the scar?  NICK: Oh yeah. I would say it's a part of her myth, part of her origin myth. The wildest, the wildness poured out of her cheek. Yeah. Yeah.  NEIL: Uh, can, can you share -  NICK: Did that answer your question? NEIL: Yes and no. That's always the, um, I think it's beautiful. I have the idea, I'm not a parent, but when I see a kid having a tantrum - NICK: I wasn't either before that.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: It comes on kind of suddenly.  NEIL: But how did you deal with tantrums?  NICK: I, I've been sort of attentive and amused by the whole process. Like I feel like we're really lucky. She's a really good kid and just a really interesting kid and like, so I just sort of like see it, like, I admire the tantrums in a certain way. Like, I think everyone should be like, just screaming, running down the streets, you know, most of the time. Like this sucks. Um, so there was something very, uh, wild about it. Like just to see like, wow, like you can just do this. You can just go and like, you can go to a store and just pull a whole rack down. If you don't get your Popsicle, you don't fucking. She, she used to fire me like every day as a father. She said, if you do not give me that Popsicle, you will not be able to kiss me. You will not be able to hug me. You will not be my father.  NEIL: What did you say to that?  NICK: I'm like, Oh, that's really hard. I'd be sad not to be your father. She was like, you will not be able to, you will have to go to Texas and never come back.  NEIL: Crafty.  NICK: Yeah, she was good. Yeah, but I, you know, I was onto her though. Yeah. I'd be her father like in half an hour later. NEIL: Did you ever say -   NICK: She'd rehire me like half hour later. Yeah.  NEIL: Was there a re-intake process?  NICK: No. No. We just pretended it didn't happen. Yeah, it was all moving forward. It was all the continuous present.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: You just kept this present moment. This present moment had no connection to the other moments whatsoever. NEIL: Did you ever join your daughter in a tantrum?  NICK: Did I ever join her in a tantrum? Oh, wow. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I remember one night, like early on when she was like six months old and that. The beautiful hallucination of early parenthood where you just, you just don't sleep. You just like, you're just awake for like months. Like just not sleeping. And you just fall asleep in the middle of things. Just like, you know, you can just barely do anything. Everything's filthy and like, you know, you just wash all the clothes and immediately they're filthy again, the food is just taken and thrown to the floor. I think the dogs eat it. You just give up in a certain way. There's one night I was up with her at like three in the morning and she was just screaming. And I was just like, I think I filmed her screaming with my phone. I'm just like, okay, just scream. Just scream. I'm going to make a movie of you screaming. I was like, I don't know what to do. So I just made a little movie of her. NEIL: Wow. But you didn't, but, but it didn't call on you the feeling of like, now I am going to lose it myself and cry?  NICK: Um, well, I think I viewed, it's like, you know, I'm from like a sort of WASP-y Irish background, and so we don't really show that stuff. And I'm sort of always like that, but it don't, I don't, I try. I think no one can see it, but I think everyone actually sees it.  NEIL: So always you're, you're crying always. NICK: Melting down, yeah.  (Card Flips)  NEIL: Okay. Kids with artist parents. Because both you and your wife are artists. Like to me, the idea of like, two artists come together and they have a kid, well that's going to be a super kid. And then that kid maybe, will - NICK: Be with another artist, yeah. NEIL: It's almost like an artistic eugenics kind of vision or something.  NICK: Um, yeah. I always think it for our daughter, like Lord help her. Really. I don't think like, Oh, you've been, you've won the lottery. Like, like, this is the card, this is the hand you've been dealt. Good luck with it. You know, we're both like, yeah, we're both a little. I, I don't know, I don't know if neurotic is the right word, but like, you know. You know, we're, we're sensitive. We're like, you know, in some ways not made for this world, we're, we're awkward where other people are comfortable, we're, uh, you know, we found our place to, to survive, which is really lucky, you know? And also, you know, in a culture, like I'm a poet too, I'm not, like, it's not that like, this is like some hugely respected artistic position in our culture at the moment. You know, like, that's why I say that I, I say it perversely if someone asks me, with the elevator pitches, like if they ask me what I do, I say I'm a poet. And just because it's perverse, it's like it's so perverse, you know? You know when, if you go to a doctor's office, I write it on a form. I write 'poet', just, you might as well ride hobo or something. Right? That's not right. I'm a wizard. So it's not like, it doesn't feel like that she's suddenly being dealt like this, like, like a superhuman. Like, what are you talking about?  NEIL: Right. NICK:  It's just unfortunate. Like, you know. Artists get attracted to artists because we can vaguely understand each other, maybe. You know, we're not like, you know, I've tried to be with civilians before and it's like, not easy, you know? I really, I feel less understood, you know? I barely feel like I fit in now. To this world. So you know, you find someone who you feel like, yeah, you also don't feel like you fit in. So that's a kind of connection.  NEIL: How does your, how does your daughter describe what, what you both do? Does she unabashedly say -  NICK: Well, it's a little easier for Lily, for my wife. I mean, cause she's like, you know, people actually will sometimes recognize her on the streets and stuff, so she's a little prouder.  NEIL: But him, the hobo.  NICK: And my dad's a poet.  (Card Flip)  NEIL: Okay. Next card: the fetishization of storytelling.  NICK: Yeah. Right now there's a, there's a whole storytelling thing going on, right? Yeah. There's a whole sense of revival and stuff, and I don't exactly get it. I mean, I, I admire it, like I've gone to The Moth, I've participated in a couple of storytelling things. It's a, it's a strange form for me. It's a strange art form for me, and I admire it when it's done really well. I admire it. The ones I've gone to, that I've been part of, they were, kind of felt a little closer to stand-up, which is another art form too. But I'm like, the line is a little blurry and a little like strange and, and it makes sense that stand-up would be part of it. Cause they are sort of like, like jokes in a way. They're sort of packaged. I mean it's a packaged form. It's like improv is more interesting to me. Like where you don't know where it's going to go. But where, if you know where, I mean, like I say, people that do it well, it's really beautiful.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: It's just not what I do. It's like memoir is not storytelling. Uh, it's another form. And storytelling is like one part of it. You sort of tell the story, but then you sort of have to turn over the story and say like, why am I telling this story? Like what am I trying to present in telling this story, ignores all these other realities that are happening or all these other things I don't want you to know. People will come up and say like, you know, how's it feel to like, have that people know so much about you now? Like, well, you only know what I want you to know. You're gonna get some glimpse from a book.  NEIL: Right. Yeah.  NICK: From storytelling, I don't know even what glimpse you get, you get a glimpse of how they tell a story I guess. I want to know about other people. I want to know like what their, the interior life is of other people, what the landscape is. Which is why I like read... Or, why I, why I do anything. Like go see art. Or just to sort of like have that, so you're not so, so you recognize it's not all, all ego, you know? It's not all, like everything isn't sort of springing forth from within me. You know?  NEIL: Right. I'm not interested in other people's stories generally.  NICK: Yeah.  NEIL: Specifically too. I'm not interested in other people's stories, but I'm interested in hearing people think, which is what this podcast is about. So like the way their thought processes reveal themselves. That interests me. I don't know, but I'm, I'm, I'm not interested in the content. NICK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand. Yeah. I teach creative writing and often it's like, I'm much more interested in like, the stuff around the content. It's not about the content, like it's more about the stuff around like how you're like, like, you know, how this one thing transformed something else or how you chose to make this weird sentence, or how like these things that have sort of moments of excitement. The story itself can be rather deadening.  NEIL: Right.  NICK: Yeah. Because, I think because it's somewhat packaged too, it is a lot of times, yeah.  NEIL: But I also, the thing I really resist is this, like: "We're about stories." You know, like the, this fetishization of storytelling has creeped into like how, how stories are talked about. It's like, we bring you stories da da da, stories. It's like, it feels infantilizing too.  NICK: Well, you know, I was just talking about this with one of my, some of my students, uh. You know, the, what's the most famous Joan Didion line? "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."  NEIL: Right, right.  NICK: And, yet, The White Album goes on. That's the first line of The White Album. That'll probably be on her tombstone. Uh, you know, they make bookmarks of it in bookstores, and yet if you actually read The White Album, that essay, she totally just doesn't believe it and contradicts it and says like, why? Like this makes no sense at all. And like that this is, I thought I could do this. Like I was, I was desperately trying to create a story that would protect me from something and it, none of it worked. And it just dissolves, the whole thing just all is like, so to take that one line out of context and say, this is actually a truism is so strange. It doesn't make any sense at all. And there's a  thing, my therapist came up with this thing of the, I don't know if he came up with it, but we talk about my, one of my disorders, uh, one of my many disorders is a narrative affect disorder where I'll create like stories like, but you know, it's not stories like you're talking about, it's creating books and creating like versions of what happened, um, in order to contain it and to be able to hold onto it in a way that seems safe, so I don't have to feel the actual emotional intensity of it.  NEIL: Right.  NICK: Um, and I think it's, it is a type of illness. I think storytelling is a type of illness, uh, that keeps you from actually feeling.  (Card Flips)   NEIL: Next card: often when I leave the apartment, I think, is this how I'd like it to be found if I die today? NICK: I think that one's more about you than me. I think. Um.  NEIL: You don't think that when you leave?  NICK: Well, I don't think I'm ever going to die. I'm pretty sure. NEIL: Do you really believe that?  NICK: Yeah. Like I, yeah, no. I have a thing where like, I'm, I'm, there's, well, I just know the ways I'm not going to die.  NEIL: Okay. Let's hear it.  NICK: I'm not going to die in an airplane crash. I'm not going to die by getting eaten by a shark. Might die by getting hit by a car on a bicycle. I mean I might, so I have to be careful.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: But I can swim for miles in the ocean filled with sharks. I'm fine. Yesterday I was on a plane coming from Houston and, uh, it was just like, like being on a ship in the middle of a, of a nor'easter. Like it was just wild, you know, like it really, like it was almost spinning. Yeah. I was fine. I'm like, Oh, this is cool cause I'm not gonna die in a plane. Like, you know, so I just have these sorts of things. They might be, you know, just delusional. You know, I mean, how could I possibly know? But I'm almost positive I'm not going to get eaten by a shark. NEIL: Uh huh.  NICK: Which really, which really helps in Provincetown. Cause there's a lot of sharks there now and a lot of people don't swim in the water. And I'm like, ask yourself, are you going to get eaten by a shark? Do you really think that's the way you're gonna die? And most people would say no. I mean, wouldn't you say no? Like no. If you know, on a rational day, like that'd be really, and if you did, that'd be so cool. Like how many people, how many poets get eaten by a shark? That'd be so excellent, right? Like it's a win-win. I have a poet, there's a poet, Craig Arnold, a really great poet that died a couple of years ago. He was writing a whole series of poems on volcanoes. Traveling the world, like got a grant to travel the world and look at volcanoes. He's just gone. He just vanished one day. He vanished. We think he fell into a volcano and died. Like, that's like an amazing story. Like it's terrible, terrible, awful. But I mean, there are a lot worse ways to die than falling into a volcano.  NEIL: Oh my God. How would you feel about being bitten by a shark and surviving it?  NICK: That's cool. That woman, that, that surfer that only has one arm, she's cool.  NEIL: You'd be okay with that?  NICK: If I could surf like her.  (Card Flips)  NEIL: Um.  NICK: I really killed this bottle of Perrier.  NEIL: Oh, awesome. I love it. Um, good job. Uh: the ambiguity of "It's downhill from here."  NICK: Oh. The whole idea of like, you know. There's a few things. Yeah. The opposite is all uphill from here, right. It's all, so downhill sounds pretty good, right? But it suggests like we're sliding into the grave, I think. NEIL: Yes.  NICK: Like it's all like we've reached the peak.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: That was the peak. It was really hard to get to the peak. And as soon as you get to the peak, you start going downhill. Yeah. You know? Uh, and, uh. Yeah, I often joke, yeah, I'm on the other side of the, on the other side, now, you know, that you somehow that the, the, the greatest work and the greatest, uh, notoriety so that was a while ago. Um, and.  NEIL: But also maybe the greatest struggle, no?  NICK: Was a while ago.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: Yeah. Oh, I dunno. But I, I joke about it. I just, I don't really believe that. The most recent project I'm doing just feels completely, uh, uh, fulfills me. You know, I'd have this other book coming out, this book, Stay, coming out, which I'm, I worked on a lot last year and I'm happy with that. And another book coming out after that. So there's like, you know, I don't really worry about it, but it's, it's almost a thing. It might be sort of Irish too, like just so you don't want to sort of, uh, be too full of yourself. You know, you want to like sort of be somewhat, you don't want to show how many fish you caught that day cause then you have to give half away. So you sort of downplay it. You downplay it. So the downhill side is where we sort of live. We live on the downhill side. I don't know, it's a strange metaphor.  NEIL: It's, it's ambiguous. NICK: Yeah, it's a strange metaphor.  NEIL: But I'm also thinking it's a paradox, too, and, as you talked, because take the downhill part. Um, it does get easier.  NICK: Yeah.  NEIL: I think, I mean, my life, I will say, and anything could change at any moment, has gotten so much easier, you know, now that I'm clearly on the other side. NICK: Psychic.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: Psychically. Yeah.  NEIL: For sure.  NICK: Yeah. Yeah.  NEIL: Um, yeah. It's also, I am sliding into the grave. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's a long slide, but...  NICK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mortality. The cold wind of mortality does start to, you start to feel it. At a certain point.  NEIL: In your back.  NICK: Yeah. You started, you know, it's blown in your face. Yeah. It's like, it's like you feel it, which I, you sort of thought you felt it in your 20's but you really, you could have, I mean, we know a lot of people that died in their 20's, sure. It was not like this. This is like the real thing. Yeah. This is like, yeah. There's no, like, there's no choice in the matter. So like, yeah, maybe I'll just overdose or something, you know, or, or, you know, or I'll just be reckless and didn't die. Now it's like, yeah, no matter what I do, doesn't matter what I do, I can, I can eat kale, I can eat kale the rest of my life.  NEIL: Yeah. I don't have to coax the process and it's still going to happen. NICK: Yeah.   (Card Flips)  NEIL: The existential space of the clipboard. NICK: Well, I mean, clipboard, I think when you say clipboard, I was thinking of just like first of a blank clipboard, but then I was also thinking of the thing you put clippings on, that you put other things on, combine things together.  NEIL: I'm thinking of the clipboard, the computer clipboard. Like when you cut something. That space.  NICK: Well, what do, what is it? What is that on the computer?  NEIL: The clipboard. NICK: Yeah. What is that? I'm not sure what it, what do you mean? You cut and paste stuff? Or... NEIL: Anytime you, surely you do Command X and Command C, right?  NICK: You mean like copy things and then cut things? Yeah. Yeah. Cut. Yeah.  NEIL: So when you copy something -  NICK: And Command V.  NEIL: Oh yeah.  NICK: Yeah, yeah. Can't forget Command V.  NEIL: Absolutely. When you do Command C - NICK: Yeah. That copies it.  NEIL: Into the clipboard. And then that command, do Command V - NICK: It takes it off the clipboard.  NEIL: Yeah. Well, it stays in the clipboard, but it also pastes the inside.  NICK: See I don't think, I never knew that. Yeah. I never would've thought of that.  NEIL: I'm acutely aware of the clipboard. NICK: I never thought where it went. Oh. Oh. Well, this is a tough question cause I've never really thought of this before. So, uh, existential, I mean, that's kind of heavy to suggest it has to do with life or death. Um, uh.  NEIL: You don't think about your text in that kind of liminal state between when you cut it and when you've pasted it? NICK: I figured it just, it goes away. Like it doesn't, like if I, if I cut something else, then that replaces the thing I cut before, or if I copy something else, replaces the thing. So I just assume there's not a clipboard holding all of them.  NEIL: No, it isn't. That's part of the existential condition.  NICK: Cause it just vanishes once you put something else on top, once you copy something else.  NEIL: Yeah. It's fragile.  NICK: Yeah. I make a lot of copies. I try to, I try to like, save things as much as possible and like, yeah, like I'm, and print things up. I, I prefer to write by hand first. Uh, really. Um, and then to print it and then to write by hand on the thing I've printed and then to keep going back and forth like that. I like writing by hand. There's a, there's a young poet, um, who created an app called 'Midst.' It's hard to say midst, like in, you're in the midst of something. Yeah. I don't know how to - midst. M. I. D. S. T. It's very hard to say for me.  NEIL: Yeah. Me too.  NICK: Can you say it?  NEIL: Uh, yeah. I feel like it's going to intersect with my sibilant A-S. Let's try it. Midst.  NICK: Yeah. Oh, you do feel very well.  NEIL: But a little gay, right?  NICK: I didn't, I didn't say that. I raised one eyebrow, but I did not say it.  NEIL: When straight men raise one eyebrow, it somehow doesn't look gay. Midst. Midst. What's Midst?  NICK: Well, it's a, it's a program that she did where you can, where you write a poem, I guess you write anything, but it sort of keeps track of all the cutting and pasting you do and the, the process of making it. So you ended up, you send her like a final poem, but then she can press a button and can see all the stuff you did to make it. Um, so I have to try it though, but I usually, I really usually write by hand first and she's like, no, you have to write it on the, you have to compose the whole thing on the thing. I'm like, okay, so I just haven't quite done it yet, but I'm, yeah, I'm planning on it though.  NEIL: But this is basically, this isn't a useful tool. This is a tool to create a kind of -  NICK: To create a thing. She'll publish like a magazine that shows, like you look at a poem and then you press a button and it all sort of like, maybe it goes in reverse and dissolves back to the first word or something.  NEIL: Yeah. I just am not into those kinds of things. I feel like there's a lot of that peripheral to the art world. These things that kind of like perform a process or reveal a process. I'm just not into that. You know what I'm saying? NICK: No, but that's okay. I mean, I try, I believe that you are not into it. I'm just like, process is nice. Like I love, I love, I love seeing the process. I love seeing, don't you love like, like thinking like Michelangelo's slaves, you know, on the way to the David, right?  NEIL: Oh yeah.  NICK: We get to see the slaves like coming out of the block of marble and everyone says that they were like incomplete.  NEIL: Yes.  NICK: Yeah. We just said, which is such bullshit. Like if you think about it, like what, he did twelve incomplete at the same stage, like they're half out of the block just, Oh, I'm just gonna stop them all here.  NEIL: Right?  NICK: Like, it makes no sense at all. Like you couldn't finish one of them? NEIL: Right. NICK: Like he clearly saw that it looked cool for slaves who were pulling themselves out of what they're stuck in. And that, I find it so much more interesting than David, which is complete and perfect. I think, I think that's the meta thing where it's like all about process. That's like the process right there.  NEIL: Huh.  NICK: Yeah. So I try to think about that. That was just sort of a highfalutin way to counter your anti-process.  NEIL: Doesn't feel highfalutin. I think my thing was like faux highfalutin.  (Card Flips)  What keeps you going?  NICK: Um. Uh, just wondering what's gonna happen next. Yeah. Yeah. NEIL: Poet. On that note, thank you, Nick Flynn, for being on SHE'S A TALKER. NICK: Thank you, Neil. NEIL: That was my conversation with Nick Flynn. Thank you for listening.  Before we get to the credits, there were some listener responses to cards that I'd love to share. In my conversation with artist Tony Bluestone, we talked about the card: That moment when you forget what you should be worrying about and try to reclaim it. In response to that card, Jamie Wolf wrote, "A single brussel sprout rolled under the stove, and I wasn't gonna let Shavasana get in the way of my at least remembering to retrieve it." John Kensal responded with what I think is a haiku: Please sit or flee, my wee and quiet executive function disorder. Another card Tony and I talked about was: Fog is queer weather, to which Jonathan Taylor wrote, "To me, fog is transgressive because it's like a cloud. So it's either you or it is not where it's supposed to be."  Thanks to everyone who wrote in. If you have something you'd like to share about a card on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at shesatalker@gmail.com or message us on Instagram at shesatalker. And also, as always, we'd love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend. This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Devin Guinn produced this episode. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handles social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, and Rachel Wang. Our card flip beats come from Josh Graver. And my husband, Jeff Hiller, sings the theme song you're about to hear. Thanks to all of them, and to my guest, Nick Flynn, and to you for listening. JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds, yeah!

SEASON 2: EPISODE 6 Performer Jon Wan argues that kids are campy. ABOUT THE GUEST  Slipping in and out of drag skin Kiko Soirée, animagus Jon Wan serves an alluring feast of emotion - sensual, sincere, stupid. Kiko (@kikosoiree) is a queer comedian, host and drag queen, performing at venues like Club Cumming, Joe's Pub, The Bell House, Ars Nova, Caroline's, Union Hall, MoCA, Caveat, and UCB. They've been named by Time Out Magazine as one of the rising LGBT POC comedians to watch. Monthly, Kiko hosts 'A+, The Pan-Asian Drag and Burlesque Revue', in the Lower East Side, and seasonally, produces the original musical advice show, 'Dear Kiko'. Their Spanish is better than their Cantonese which hasn't made their mother proud but tracks for the American Born Chinese narrative. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, Rachel Wang Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock TRANSCRIPTION JON WAN: I just took saxophone cause my friend was also gonna play saxophone, and I just played it through middle school. Then I just continued in high school, and then after freshman year I was like, I don't actually like this instrument. And I'm definitely not a jazz person. Cause I was having saxophone lessons with this person who was a very cool cat. And I was like, I am not understanding fundamentally why I'm here. This isn't clicking with me.  NEIL GOLDBERG: I'm going to really make a controversial generalization here. I don't think jazz is gay.  JON: Oh, no, I don't think so either. You have to be like kind of loose and like -  NEIL: Exactly, a type of casualness. JON: Yeah, and like comfortable with your body and expression, and I was not - like I was learning classical piano from an oppressive Russian teacher, growing up as a Chinese American, closeted, in a primarily white town. I did not know how to express myself in a healthy way.  NEIL: Right. JON: Right. NEIL: Hello. I'm Neil Goldberg, and this is SHE'S A TALKER. I'm a visual artist, and I have a collection of thousands of index cards on which I've been jotting down thoughts and observations for about two decades. In SHE'S A TALKER, I explore the cards through conversations with guests and responses from listeners. These days, the cards often start as voice memos I record throughout the day. Here are some recent ones: When a parent says to a kid, "Look at me," I'm suspicious and think the parent is probably a narcissist. Thick Sharpies are to thin Sharpies as water bugs are to roaches. Art project: drawing all the missing arms in selfies. Today, my guest is Jon Wan. Jon, who often appears on stage as their drag persona, Kiko Soiree, describes themself as a Swiss Army knife performer whose work weaves together musical comedy, storytelling, standup, and beyond. Jon's performed at Club Cumming, Joe's Pub, the Bell House, Ars Nova, Caroline's Mocha, and has been named by Timeout Magazine as one of the rising LGBT people of color comedians to watch out for. We spoke in February at a recording studio at The New School near Union Square in New York City. I'm so happy to have with me Jon Wan.  JON: Hello.  NEIL: Hi Jon. Thank you for being on SHE'S A TALKER.  JON: I'm enchanted to be here. Simply.  NEIL: Simply. What are the alternatives, in terms of enchantment, besides simple enchantment? JON: Oh, very complex. Yeah. Like arcane magic, you know? Not for pedestrian folk.  NEIL: Yes. Complex enchantment. What is your elevator pitch for what you do? JON: I am a drag queen, performer, comedian bopping around New York City. You might know me as my drag persona, Ms. Kiko Soiree, performing and doing shows here in this beautiful garbage city and really always aspiring to one day live within walking distance of a Trader Joe's. NEIL: I see it for you. I really see it for you. You know, a Trader Joe's just opened opposite where Jeff and I live.  JON: No, which one?  NEIL: Uh, it's on Grand Street. Grand and Clinton.  JON: Oh, wow.  NEIL: It's the biggest Trader Joe's on the Eastern Seaboard, I'm told.  JON: That's crazy. So you live near not only a Trader Joe's, but a historic one. NEIL: Yes, exactly. Uh, what does your mom, when she's talking to her friends, what does she say you do?  JON: Oh, (In his mother's accent) oh, Jon um, oh, Jon lives in New York City. (back to normal voice) And then she kinda just like shoos the conversation. I think, she knows I'm a drag queen. I don't think she publicly has the language to talk about it the way she might alternatively say, "My daughter works for a pharmaceutical company." Do you know what I mean?  NEIL: Right. Do you have a sister that works...?  JON: She does. Don't worry. It's a good pharmaceutical company.  NEIL: Oh yeah. Uh, what does your dad say?  JON: My dad, uh, is actually very vocally supportive of my creative life. He usually says, "He's a performer and a comedian, and..."  NEIL: What kind of performances does he do? JON: "Oh, (In his father's accent) Jonathan does his funny stand up in New York City." And just stuff like that and yeah, I don't think they're, they're like ashamed of anything I do, but my dad came here for college. My mom came here when she was 13. They're kind of this transition generation, you know, they, they were really straddling both cultures and had to deal with the more brutish parts of assimilation. They came from traditional Chinese parents, but they're, you know, they're open-minded. They both grew up. They were like hippies. You look at old photos of them. My mom had like hair down to her waist. But, you know, you know, I'm the first drag queen of my family.  NEIL: That you know of.  JON: Hopefully not the last. NEIL: Yes. What is something you find yourself thinking about today?  JON: Um. Today, I was thinking about how everyone is a walking advertisement. I was a sucker for the AirPods, the first ones that came out. They're just, I know when I put them in my ear, I'm going to feel very sexy, and I had this thought today as I was putting them in my ear. It's like everyone is a walking advertisement.  NEIL: So when you're wearing AirPods, you're an advertisement for...  JON: Yeah, for Apple. My AirPods now suck because I lost the original case and I bought a knock off one on Amazon for like 30 bucks and they do try to pair with everyone on the train.  NEIL: Oh really?  JON: I just kind of, but you can't do it successfully. NEIL: It's like your dog humping strangers' legs or something. JON: Truly. I can see on people's phones like something comes up and says, Not your AirPods. It goes all the time and I just keep my head down and I just. I didn't want to pay another $70 for the case. NEIL: I've curated some cards just for you. Um, first card, Jon.  JON: Okay.  NEIL: All kids' names are campy.  JON: Absolutely. Cause kids are camp.  NEIL: How so?  JON: I used to teach, um, preschool in undergraduate. so I worked with three, four, and five-year-olds. And when you talk to a kid, it's very serious. It, it's of the utmost importance. And it's also insane.  NEIL: Which is the essence of camp!  JON: Which is the essence of camp. Um, but you know, when they're just playing, they're just talking very seriously about something. Or they're telling you an opinion, something they saw today, like.  (imitates kid's voice) "Like, Mr. Jon? Today, I, I saw a dog and... Dog had a really long tongue."  (back to normal voice) And they like will drop whatever they're playing with me to let me know about this thing, which neurologically like they're doing that thing where like, they have seen a new category that they don't yet understand and they're trying to integrate it into what they do, right? So I have to be there and say, "Daphne, tell me about the dog." You know, like I want to know more. Well, what color was the dog? You know what I'm saying? "It was, it was brown." I'm like, okay. All right. It was brown. I love that. So, but then it's also insane cause you're like, this is so crazy.  NEIL: To me, it makes perfect intuitive sense how that connects to camp. But could you, could you... JON: I think it connects to, I mean, camp, I mean, treats itself seriously, but knows it's also ridiculous. You know. I mean, campy drag queens like divine, completely over-the-top makeup and personality, but acting and performing with a lot of conviction.   NEIL: The difference, though, may be being, and maybe it's a technical difference, do you think kids know that they are ridiculous? JON: No. Absolutely not. Did you - NEIL: Okay. So they're inadvertently campy?  JON: Unless they were like early stars and then they're like, Oh, okay, people are enjoying what I'm doing.  NEIL: Right, right, right, right.  (flip card) I love the smell of a drag queen.  JON: Absolutely not. If you really smelled, uh, maybe the perfume that we put on at the very end, but if you smelled any of our undergarments or any of our clothing, that's, some of that, I mean, the vintage pieces maybe haven't ever been washed. Maybe just sprayed down with some alcohol and water.  To get rid of the bacteria and the smell. Um. And I'm not washing pantyhose every single week. Are you thinking of the metaphorical smell?  NEIL: I have no idea what that is. And I'm all in.  JON: Every drag queen has a different energy and that can be very intoxicating. That's like half the fun, that someone's showing you something on the other side of the looking glass. NEIL: Aha. But the literal smell for me is always about just powdery perfume. But you're saying beneath that is just... filth.  JON: I've, I guess I've, I've done it so many times. I'm no longer piqued by just the smell of powder and, and lipsticks and things like that. Just, that's kind of smells like the entrance of a, of a Macy's, you know? You know what I'm talking about, right? You walk into a Macy's and it's always like the perfume entrance, right? NEIL: Yeah, yeah. That somehow seems like a euphemism. Smells like the entrance of Macy's.  JON: God, she smelled like the entrance of a Macy's. I'm not going back there, Charlotte.  NEIL: Um, I guess I have thought about like with padding and tucking, uh...  JON: Mhm. Machinery going on. NEIL: Yeah. Which does involve compressing the body, or, or depriving the body of air circulation, which I guess could generate smells, right?  JON: Yeah. It's tight. I mean, if you're, I mean, if you're just, even if you're putting on hips, right? Let's say you're padding, some people, some queens are wearing four or five layers of tights, right? Just to make a smooth silhouette. Um, you know, and you're hot, you're moving around, your head is hot cause you're wearing a wig. My hair lines are glued down, so everything's sleek. So when I go, you know, getting out of drag is the best feeling.  NEIL: I can imagine. Do you get out of drag at the venue or at home? JON: I am an at home queen. And I'm also a get ready at home queen, too. I just ride the train down.  NEIL: Really?  JON: Yes. I mean, I'm in drag, but have like a winter coat on, and a scarf, and I have sweatpants over my dress, so I look like just like a, a gymnast going to a meet or something.  NEIL: To a Wheaties commercial.  JON: I look like a suburban mom going to Costco. NEIL: That thing of posing people in nude photos, so their genitals are hidden by a raised knee or what have you.  JON: That's very Black Mirror to me.  NEIL: Oh really?  JON: Oh, just like it's on the cusp of this is, this is very sexy, and also, what are we doing, right? What the hell are we doing? This is insane. I think of Instagram immediately. NEIL: Oh yeah, sure.  JON: People just like, a sexy photo of themselves. It's like, "You're naked." You hid, you moved your body a little bit. We're one centimeter away from seeing whatever it is, you know? But it's like, if you cover a little bit, Instagram's like, Oh, you're not nude.  NEIL: Isn't that deep?  JON: It's crazy. It's true. It's true. It's truly wild.  NEIL: I wonder if there is a fetish around obscured - like if there are people who get off on the actual obscuring.  JON: Oh, 100% yeah. 100% think that's a fetish. I mean, in the same way that just wearing a leather chest strap, that's totally nonfunctional.  NEIL: Right, exactly.  JON: Like there's not even a function to it. NEIL: Yeah.  JON: But I'm just imagining you in a different way. I mean, you know, cause you're an artist. Marina Abramovic's, um, performance where she stood naked, right? And she had a table of instruments.  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: That was, I think like the exploration of like is, is this actually like. Well, it was exploring a lot of things. Like one of the questions I had was like, is this sexual? Like, she had a feather. She had a knife. She had a gun, right?  NEIL: Uh, may have had a gun, uh, I thought she had scissors too. Or maybe I'm confusing that with Yoko Ono's "Cut" piece. Um, yeah, there were things that could do violence for sure.  JON: I think there was a gun. NEIL: Yeah, that sounds right.  JON: Um, that sounds very Marina probably.  NEIL: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.  JON: But, um, I think the reason why I thought Black Mirror at first, cause it's like we are so... We are surfing the simulacra of society.  NEIL: Oh my God.  JON: Who, Baudrillard? Is that the philosopher?  NEIL: Mhm. Society of spectacle. JON: I am really smart right now in this hour... NEIL: Oh my God. Um, it's funny you mention Marina Abramovic, cause one of the cards I have, or this is just an idea for an art project I would love to do, which is, you know, the artist is present where, you know, you would sit with and look into her eyes. But I'd like to do that with, butt warmth. You'd sit on chairs and then you would just switch. Like I could feel your butt warmth on the chair, and you could feel mine.  JON: And I'm going to, I'm going to build on this. The seats, to kind of give it some sort of like, um, sexy factor. The seats are thermo-visually dynamic. So when you sit, you can see the warmth, um, like a print? That the last person -  NEIL: The heat, the heat map.  JON: Mhm. The heat map of the last person.  NEIL: If that's what it's called. Our first collaboration.  JON: That's going to sell tickets at the MoMA. NEIL: This is a card I found tucked under my, uh, the, the sofa in my studio, and all it says is: Anus. JON: You know, synchronicity. Because we recently got a bidet. Um, which has quickly made my Top 2020 List of things to improve your life.  NEIL: Oh my God. Yeah.  JON: Um, bidet.  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: Pretty, uh very affordable. There are certain models that are just like, even under 50 bucks.  NEIL: Oh, wow. Okay.  JON: Will change your life.  NEIL: Huh? I, um, I would be, cause I feel like I've seen some like bidets that border on like the geriatric medical in terms of their appearance, you know, where they look like an add-on to the toilet seat. And, I feel like I would embrace a bidet deeply, but I need for the aesthetics to be on point.  JON: I hear you. I'm also someone who is an obsessed aesthete. And also I'm very practical and functional. And I really saw no point of a bidet cause I had a, was doing perfectly fine for God knows how many years, right? But we won it in a Santa Swap, like a, you know, the white elephant thing. Um, so we brought it home. I took it through the airport. My bag was fully paused cause they thought I was carrying home a bomb. Like what the fuck is in your bag, right? There's like piping and tubing, and this big shape of plastic and a knob. So, um, so this one's pretty sleek. And a bidet is, it's like a shower just for your ass. And. And that's it. It's, it's like, it's like taking a shower, but just for your anus. I, there's no other way to feel it. And I thought, and then I, I'm, and now I've, I've talked about it in my office because if I'm excited about something, I must to talk about it.  NEIL: Oh, yeah.  JON: And I'm going to put it out there - bidets are very sexual, and every straight man who's out there is understanding the queer experience. I, or like, this is like, you understand. It's like, Oh that's right, butt play isn't just like a gay thing. It's like a universal thing. And uh, you know, the anus is a sexual region, so you let it go for as long as you want. Some people have heated bidets, and that's nice cause then it's warm water. Mine is not, we have a cheap kind. So in the winter time it's frigid. But I like it because it makes me feel like I'm alive, and it's a test of character, which I get off on. And then you're done. And then it's, and then it's like you took a shower. NEIL: Ah. But you know, you should have front loaded the part that it's not heated. That might be a deal breaker for me. Although I also, like you, I'm energized by like, as a depressive. I love winter because it really brings out, um, a feeling of like, the will to live in me.  JON: And it's good for your skin.  NEIL: Cheers. But I don't want. I don't think I want, I don't know. I've never had that experience. I don't think I want a cold-water anal shower.   JON: Uh huh. Well, you know, and neither did I, I thought it would, it would never be on my radar. And that's why it's made my Top 2020 List.  NEIL: Wow.  JON: And I know we're just wrapping up the first month, but I think it's going to be on there. NEIL: Oh, I'm so confident in that, I'm so confident in that. I think if they called it a cold-water anal shower, it wouldn't sell as many units as a bidet.  JON: It would only sell in niche markets for sure.  NEIL: Uh, next card. The way you can tell certain people won't age well.  JON: Yeah. Um, you can just tell. Uh, for me it's just like an impression.  NEIL: Yes. It's not based on facts, for me.  JON: Truly not based on facts. A lot of it really just has to do with their energy.  NEIL: Exactly.  JON: Absolutely. Like their energy, the way they carry themselves, the way they think about themselves. Did you read that Roald Dahl book, The Twits?  NEIL: No. JON: The Twits. I can't recap the entire plot in entirety, but there's this one part of like, they think ugly thoughts and then they became ugly. And it was, you know, he is an amazing writer. But yeah, that never left me as a kid. And I think that continues to apply today. Even there are people who are old, but they just. They look and appear and they feel so young. And they're aging like, “Oh my gosh, you're aging beautifully.” NEIL: Right. I love that.  JON: Right?  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: It's not about having wrinkles or things like that. There really is a disposition, the way you carry yourself.  NEIL: Yeah. I find also, I think that card for me came from like, it, it can be a strategy or it used to be a strategy for managing, like desire. Like I would see someone who was hot to me, but then I would mentally age them and be like, No, as a way to... Yeah, manage my desire.  JON: Yeah. I mean, I'm not petty, but I recently went to a high school reunion and I said, I loved that I did not peak.  NEIL: Oh my God.  JON: I'm still ascending.  NEIL: Oh, you so are. You totally are.  JON: Oh, thank you. And you are too.  NEIL: Um, I think I, I don't know where I am.  JON: You're aging gracefully.  NEIL: Thank you. I'm trying.  JON: That's, and that's the goal. Yeah. No. Cause it's like some people that were like super hot in like, in high school and you're just like, Oh wow. I think we, I think our people had a different kind of strategy. We had a different strategy.  NEIL: Yeah. It's like, um. I just read this book called The Overstory, which is all about trees. I don't know if you heard of it. It's so good. I recommend it, but, uh, it talks about the different things different trees' seeds need to become activated. Like some seeds need extreme cold. Some need to be set on fire. Um, so I think the gay seed... That sounds bad. JON: No, no, no. Perfect.  NEIL: Um, benefits from not having peaked in high school. JON: Yes, absolutely.  NEIL: Can I ask how old you are?  JON: 29. 29, my numerological golden year.  NEIL: Oh, what does that mean?  JON: Everyone has a life path number.  Okay, so mine breaks down to 29 slash 11 slash 2. If you're a, ever all my die-hard numerologists out there. Um, and so 29 is the first reduction. And so I'm 29.  NEIL: I love it. Um 29 and 11 are both prime numbers, aren't they?   JON: Mm, I studied visual arts in undergraduate, so I'm going to pass on this one. But you know, you calculate your number by just adding your birthdate across like... So mine is zero plus eight plus zero plus two plus one plus nine plus nine zero equals 29. Two plus nine is 11. One plus one is two. NEIL: I love it.  JON: And then they all have meanings. You know, there's a whole book. You can Google it.  NEIL: Yeah, I can imagine. Wait, so you were born in August? Was that what I heard? Leo? JON: I'm a Leo. Are you a Leo?  NEIL: No, I'm a Virgo.  JON: Oh! I have a lot of Virgo friends.  NEIL: I have a lot of Leo friends. Well, Virgo teaches Leo. You're taught by the sign that follows you. So Virgo is taught by Libra. Leo is taught by Virgo.  JON: Yes, yes. And. The sign before you teaches a person after to remember that they didn't have to give up the qualities that they left behind. NEIL:  Cheers.  JON: Virgos are famously the perfectionists, right? Natural at managing their immediate environments and, you know, being very meticulous and they could run the whole system, but then they forget that they're also, you know, they can allow themselves to shine. They don't have to be so critical of themselves.  NEIL: That is such a beautiful, um, flipping of the teaching thing. I love it.  JON: You know who is a prime example of a Leo-Virgo cusp?  NEIL: Who? JON: Beyoncé. So you can tell she has the Virgo energy of like, everything must be perfect.  NEIL: Absolutely.  JON: Um, and I'll think of my idea and then I'll present it to you. But then she's also, you know, still carrying her Leo energy of like, I am a star.  NEIL: Right, exactly. That's deep. You have forever changed how I think about, um, the Zodiac.  JON: And that's my time today.  NEIL: Yes. (flips card) What's a bad X you'd take over a good Y?  JON: What's a bad X you'd take over a good Y? Oh gosh. I would take a bad massage over a good meal.  NEIL: I'm with you, totally with you.  JON: I had to really think.  NEIL: Yeah, you look a little spent right now.  JON: No, I mean that, that took the, the, the final juice of my brain. Yeah. We have, we have gone to the trenches of my brain and pulled everything out. That was it. I mean, like, that's it. That's my, that's my ethos.  NEIL: Have you had a bad massage?  JON: Absolutely. And would I take it over a good meal? 100%. I'm a little, I'm a little surprised that I haven't vocalized this earlier in my life, but that's how you know this is the genuine response. Bad massages? Oh, I don't care. Someone's touching me, oh, I melt. I like, I think I'm like in a constant state of low-grade ecstasy when someone's touching me. Right?  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: It could be terrible. And I have had my share of terrible massages. You know, Chinatown massages have a spectrum.  NEIL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  JON: No frills. You can't complain.  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: Good meal? Okay. But I know I'm gonna be hungry again. You know, like... Meal goodness to me is controllable cause you could let yourself go to the brink of like, I can't see, I'm so hungry and anything will taste good. Yes. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I let myself get so hungry if I'm, if there's a meal I'm not thrilled to eat. I'd be like, Oh, I'm more vegetarian now, but when I would, when I was less, I would hang out with some of my friends, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to go to their place. I'm going to let myself get famished cause then it won't matter what I eat.  NEIL: Cause they're not good cooks, potentially? JON: Cause like, Oh, I really wanted meat. But like who knows what the vegetarian meal will be. A crap-shoot. But I'll be so hungry. It's going to taste like milk and honey from the Bible.  NEIL: You found a way to turn - you've made it predictable. You've managed it.  JON: I mean the gamble is, you do become more irritable and you have to kind of like have a lot of self-control. NEIL: Right, right, right.  JON: People want to small talk with you. You'd be like, okay, when's dinner?  NEIL: When's the shitty dinner that I'm starving for?  JON: A shout out to all my vegetarian friends. I love coming over to your house and don't stop making food from me.  NEIL: On that note, Jon Wan, thank you so much for being on SHE'S A TALKER. JON: Oh, thank you for having me, Neil. NEIL: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of SHE'S A TALKER. Before we get to the credits, there were some listener responses to cards that I'd love to share. In my conversation with Buddhist teacher Kate Johnson, we talked about the card:  I can imagine thinking as I'm dying, "Here we go again."  In response to that card, David Coleman wrote, "The one time that I ever really thought I was about to die, all I could think was, 'Wow, so this is it. Nothing more than this.' It was a feeling of peaceful surprise. This story is from 9/ 11. My building was so close to the World Trade Center that when the first tower started to collapse, it appeared as though it was going to fall to the East, which would've completely flattened my building, and I felt so sure I was about to die. Actually, for the next several months, I had this little secret thought I'd never shared that maybe I really was dead. But then again, my neurologist also said I was the only person he'd ever heard of who enjoyed having a stroke. So don't go by me." Thank you, David. If anyone out there listening has something that you'd like to share about a card on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at shesatalker@gmail.com or message us on Instagram at shesatalker. And also, as always, we'd love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend. This series is made possible with generous support from Still Point Fund. Devon Guinn produced this episode. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handles social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, and Rachel Wang. Our card flip beats come from Josh Graver, and my husband, Jeff Hiller, sings the theme song you're about to hear. Thanks to all of them, and to my guest, Jon Wan, and to you for listening. JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds, yeah!

Writer and performer Annie Lanzillotto discusses the pleasure of wolfing food down and how the "feels like" temperature is measured. ABOUT THE GUEST:  Born and raised in the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx of Barese heritage, Annie Lanzillotto is renowned memoirist, poet, and performance artist. She's the author of L IS FOR LION: AN ITALIAN BRONX BUTCH FREEDOM MEMOIR (SUNY Press), the books of poetry SCHISTSONG (Bordighera Press) and Hard Candy/Pitch Roll Yaw (Guernica Editions). She has received fellowships and performance commissions from New York Foundation For The Arts, Dancing In The Streets, Dixon Place, Franklin Furnace, The Rockefeller Foundation for shows including CONFESSIONS OF A BRONX TOMBOY: My Throwing Arm, This Useless Expertise, How to Wake Up a Marine in a Foxhole, and a’Schapett. More info at annielanzillotto.com. Catch Annie performing her one-person show Feed Time at City Lore in Manhattan on November 15 at 7:30pm. ABOUT THE HOST:  Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA and other museums, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE:  SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS:  This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Stella Binion, Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Assistant Producers: Itai Almor, Charlie Theobald  Editor: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Media: Justine Lee with help from Angela Liao and Alex Qiao  Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Roger Kingsepp, Tod Lippy, Nick Rymer, Maddy Sinnock, Sue Simon, Shirin Mazdeyasna TRANSCRIPT: ANNIE LANZILLOTTO: In the Bronx we weren't poor. You're in the Bronx. My father was, working class, had his own business. There wasn't such big class distinctions. It was like Fiddler on the Roof class distinctions, like the butcher ate better. NEIL GOLDBERG: Right. ANNIE: We all had Raleigh Choppers. That was the best bicycle and really, most of us on the block could get that, a Schwinn or a Raleigh, you know? That was it really. That was in terms of being a kid, that was the class distinction. I achieved it, so I grew up feeling pretty rich until I was 13. NEIL: Hello, I'm Neil Goldberg and this is my new podcast, She's A Talker. On today's episode I'll be talking to one-of-a-kind of poet, playwright, memoirist and performer Annie Lanzillotto. But first, I want to tell you a little bit about the podcast itself. I'm a visual artist, but for the last million or so years I've been writing passing thoughts down on index cards. I've got thousands of them. I originally wrote the cards just for me or maybe as starting points for future art projects, but now I'm using them as prompts for conversations with some of my favorite artists, writers, performers, and beyond. Why is it called She's A Talker? Way back in 1993, I made my first-ever video project which featured dozens of gay men in their apartments all over New York city combing their cats and saying the words, "She's a talker." 25 years later, I'm excited to resurrect the phrase for this podcast. NEIL: Each episode, I'll start with some recent cards. Here they are, photo project, the litter boxes of celebrities, those people who have strong feelings about you're saying, "Bless you.", Before they sneeze. Babies making their dolphin noises at a wedding. Those glass buildings that appear curved, but then you realize it's just an approximation of a curve made from rectangle. I am so excited to have as my guest, writer and performer Annie Lanzillotto. Annie and I went to college together many, many years ago and have been dear friends ever since. She produced, what to this day, is still one of my favorite performance pieces ever. A site-specific opera featuring the vendors at the Arthur Avenue market near where she grew up in the Bronx. I remember a butcher singing a gorgeous love aria while frying up chicken hearts. NEIL: Annie has a new double book of poetry out from Guernica Editions, called Hard Candy / Pitch Roll Yaw, which touches on parental mortality, her own struggles with cancer and poverty. And if that sounds heavy, there is so much beauty and joy and pleasure and straight-up polarity in the work. I spoke to Annie very late on a very hot August night in my art studio in Chinatown. NEIL: I'm recording. I'm recording. NEIL: I'm here with Annie Lanzillotto. Okay, Annie. Here are a couple of questions that I ask everyone. What is the elevator pitch for what you do? ANNIE: Oh my God, that's so hard. I write and speak and put my body on stage, and in live and an audience, whoever's in the room, I resuscitate that room. NEIL: Is that what you would say to someone in an elevator who asks, "Hey, what do you do?" ANNIE: No. NEIL: What would you say to them? I resuscitate the room. ANNIE: Some people I say, "Well, I do theater. Oh, I'm in theater." Then they say, "Oh, I saw the Lion King.", or something. Oh, that's beautiful. At some point when I was cleaning out the closets, I found the picture I drew as a kid. I think the question was, what do you do or what do you want to do or what do want to be or whatever? I drew five situations where this stick figure was commanding a story. One was at the table, one was on a corner, one was on the stage, and I thought, "That's what I do." NEIL: I love it. I love it. ANNIE: The truth about my elevator pitch is I'm listening to the other person in the elevator. That really is the truth. I always feel like I'm very good at bonding but not so good at networking. So, that elevator pitch, in my mind, is someone who is in a position maybe to help me advance my work, which is a problem to frame it that way. But in reality they end up telling me about their sick kid and we're hugging and that's really the elevator pitch. NEIL: Right. ANNIE: I'm just listening to- NEIL: Do you do an elevator catch? ANNIE: Yeah. Just listen. NEIL: What did your mom, Annie, let's say a friend of hers asked her, "What does Annie do?" What would she say? ANNIE: Well, she at times, probably would've said, I taught. I did workshops, taught writing and theater. I think with her neighbors, she would really share with them her love and pride. NEIL: How about your grandmother? Why would she say? ANNIE: Oh God. Well, Grandma Rose, she would, Grandma Rose always wanted to know you were eating good. At the time when she was alive, I was hustling a lot of teaching jobs, like Poet in the Schools. Mostly I was a Poet in the School, so I would call her between schools. I was running from one school and another school and she'd just always want to know cosa mangia oggi? What did you eat today? Really that was the conversation. NEIL: Would she, in talking about you with friends, would she tell them what you had eaten that day? How's Annie doing? ANNIE: She's a good eater. She eats good. Mangia bene. No, I don't know. I don't think she talked to her friends that way. NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: But to boil it down, she would want to know if you're making money. And that's the conversation with friends. Oh, she's a good girl. She makes money. She helps her mother. NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: It wasn't about career choice or something. NEIL: Annie, what's something you find yourself thinking about today? ANNIE: One thought I'm having is that prices are arbitrary. The other day I went for breakfast in a diner. I ordered one way, but the waitress understood in a different way. So anyway, it was two eggs, whatever. So she said, "That'll be $17." I said, "That sounds like a lot." She said," Oh well you got this, you got that" I said, "Yeah, but I ordered the combo. It's shouldn't be that much." So she rang it up a different way. She was like, "All right, how about $12?" It's almost seems like prices don't matter and it seems arbitrary. I think this is a new experience for me because in the past I started noticing what my mom, every time we went food shopping, several items were rung up more than they were supposed to be. My mother was sharp at this because I think in ShopRite if you caught a mistake, you got a lot for free, whatever the, there was some bonus like you got that item for free or whatever it was. So she caught them a lot. But it was pretty much every time. NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: I'm cognizant now not to buy too many items at once because then I can't keep track of what the prices were on the shelf. The old way, if you go to the market for two, three things, string beans, peaches and a piece of meat you don't lose track because you're buying, you have a push cart with a million items, how can you keep track? So I guess the thought is that prices have no relevance anymore to what the thing is. NEIL: Okay Annie, let's go to the cards. Shall we? ANNIE: Let's do it. Let's go to the cards. NEIL: Okay. Our first card, the card says the pleasure of wearing things out. ANNIE: I love that you brought that up. Well, I was always wearing out my sneakers and throwing them up on the telephone wires or the light wires, or whatever wires were over our heads in the Bronx and that was the joy to wear them out. My mother, who was a cripple as a kid because she fell out a window, would always say to me when she bought me new sneakers, PF flyers with the sneakers that I wore as a kid, "Wear them out. God bless you, be in good health. Wear them out." Every two months I'd wear out those sneakers, and my grandmother was horrified. NEIL: But your mother would love it? ANNIE: Yeah, because to her that was health. Wear out your sneakers. That meant I was doing the work of a tomboy, of the kid. I do feel worried about wearing out pajamas and things that I don't really have money to replace. So my neighbor saw me sewing a new elastic in my pajama bottoms with the flannel pajamas. She was making fun of me." Why don't you just go buy a new pair?" I was like, "Well this season I really don't have another 40, 50 bucks for LLB or whatever. I want to get through the season.", which is something I grew up hearing, but it stayed with me, like see if he could get into the season out of it. NEIL: I wonder if we'll ever feel that way about our lives. Let's see if I can get another season out of this. ANNIE: Well, I do hear people saying, "I wish I had a few more summers at the beach." Or, "I could, I hope I could have a few more summers." People do count like that. NEIL: That's true. ANNIE: Like seasons. NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: "I hope I see Italy one more time." I hear people, "Will I get back to Paris." NEIL: Right. ANNIE: You know, I hear people saying things like that. NEIL: yeah, ANNIE: So they do try to stretch it out, I think. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I've done enough. There is a part of me that feels like I've done enough to be satisfied if there's no more. If there's no more, it's okay. NEIL: Okay, next card. ANNIE: I love these cards. It's like playing a game like Monopoly. NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: And you get Community Chest or whatever the- NEIL: I know. ANNIE: Chance. It's like Chance. NEIL: Yeah. Here's this Chance. I think it's important to have access when you are eating something you love to imagine them as they are to people who hate them. For me the classic example of that is dark chocolate, which I love. It's very easy I think, for me to plug into how someone would find this disgusting and somehow my tuning into finding it disgusting, helps me to enjoy it even more. ANNIE: Really? NEIL: Yeah. Do you remember the first time you had coffee? ANNIE: No, because I was probably two years old with expresso on my bottle, like most Italian kids. NEIL: Right. ANNIE: I don't eat things that I know people who, they hate what I eat. But people do, I feel like having a version to my proportions, the amount I eat. I think that freaks people out because I grew up, and I still wolf food down. Just Wolf it down and too much of it. Just shoving it in your mouth. Like your cheeks bulging, you're chewing and you're just yeah. Shoving as much as you can in your mouth, basically. NEIL: In Yiddish, you say, and I think it's related to German, human beings es but animals fres. So, if you're talking about someone eating in a certain way, you say they use the term for how animals eat versus how people eat. ANNIE: Fres? NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: What does that mean? Like that? NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: Like a piece of pizza I could just shove in my mouth, inhale, a good piece, out on the corner. NEIL: Right. ANNIE: I just pull up in Hoboken where my friend is, where she works, there's a great pizzeria right on the corner. She gets free pizza because she does their printing services. So I meet her, she says, "Oh I'll meet you outside" So we get a piece of pizza. Oh you want a piece of pizza. All right, give me a piece of pizza. Fine. I'm an Hoboken, eat a piece of pizza. She gets a few slices. We stand on the corner. Just boom, shove it in our mouth. Wolf it down like folded by. No soda, no water. Just inhale the piece of pizza. NEIL: Is there pleasure in that? ANNIE: Yes. NEIL: Because see I always just associate the pleasure of eating with eating slowly but- ANNIE: No. Not Italians NEIL: Talk to me about it. ANNIE: It's just, this pleasure of your mouth is full of this gooey perfect thing. You just can't believe that you lived another day just to have ... It's like then I want to stay alive because it's such satiation, with just shoving it in your mouth. You're not taking your time because you're not worried there's another bite. It could just be gone. NEIL: See, this makes me feel good because I remember when my dad, after he had a stroke, he couldn't feed himself. He couldn't communicate and we had this person who would help him. She was cold and she used to feed him so quickly, spoonful after spoonful, to get it over with. I knew that my dad actually like to eat slow. I know I talked about with my sister. I was like, you know, do you think I should ask? I can't remember her name, little trauma blocked out, but to feed him slower. My sister said. "No, I think there can be pleasure in eating fast." Speaking of food, but this question doesn't need to just apply to food, what is a taste that you've acquired? ANNIE: Well, coffee, vino, peppermint soap. Dr. Brown's peppermint soap. Myrrh. NEIL: Oh wow. Okay. ANNIE: The street oil from the guys. I've grown accustomed to Myrrh, and the smells of the city, I've learned to groove on in a way. I sometimes feel in the grassy suburbs, I could sneeze hundreds of times and I just need to get to the city and it'll stop. So something about like, yeah, I'm good with the asphalt, tar. My mother used to tell me to go breathe where they're burning tar. She said it clears out your lungs. NEIL: Wow. ANNIE: She said tar ladies and never get colds. NEIL: Okay, next card. I feel really judgmental of people with a strong will to live. ANNIE: That gives me so much good feeling because I'm so tied to having to struggle to live. But the best, Jimmy Cagney in this movie I saw, I don't know what movie. It was on TCN, and he's about to run into this gunfire and he says to his partner, who was hesitating, he says, "What, do you want to live forever?" I thought, "Thank you, thank you. That's just what I needed to hear." I'm so tired of fighting to live, from the cancer and the breathing issues and just, Oh my God, that's a relief. It really is. NEIL: Next card. Life is hard, but how the pitch rises when you fill a water bottle can still be pretty beautiful. ANNIE: The pitch.? NEIL: Yeah. Is that the word for it? ANNIE: Like, how you feel? NEIL: You know when you fill a water bottle and it goes, errr? There's always that still. ANNIE: I like filling my water bottle. I've been filling it in the Britta, so I have to stand there with the fridge open to fill it and then I water the plants and it's the same kind of feeling. I like doing that. I like seeing the plants grow and it's the most pleasurable thing in my life to see in these plants growing and feeding them water. NEIL: I went away and we sublet our place. I have one big plant that really only needs to be watered every two weeks. But I had one plant that needs to be watered, I water it every other day. ANNIE: Every other day? NEIL: Truthfully, this plant, I remember one day I came in, it had wilted, after. I hadn't watered it for three days and I found myself saying out loud, "Drama queen". So anyhow, we were down in DC for a month and I was going to take the plant with me, but we had this really wonderful sub-letter and I just said to her, "Do you think you would be okay watering the plant twice a week? Totally no problem. "If you're not, I'll just take it down with me". She was like, "Absolutely no problem." When I came back, she left me a note that said, I'm so sorry but I killed your plant. ANNIE: Oh my God. NEIL: It was clear it hadn't been watered the whole time I was gone. ANNIE: Really? NEIL: Yeah, I don't think so. I moved on, but my point is, I don't get how a plant could be there in your living room and he could not see it and it could be dying over there without you're taking that in. ANNIE: When I'm someone's house and the plants don't look healthy, I register that in a big way. NEIL: What is that registration? ANNIE: Well, people could think they're so smart or hip or they make such great decisions and doing this. But if you can't take care of a fucking plant, it doesn't mean anything to me. Sometimes I can't go back to people's houses for reasons like that because I can't witness the abuse. NEIL: Plant abuse. ANNIE: Well, any sentient being. Yeah, some of the stuff I just can't stomach, to be honest. The plants dying or no one's ... You're that busy? Then what do you have plants for? Give it away. I just can't- NEIL: I hear you. Do you think of plants a sentient? ANNIE: Yeah, a plant is alive and I think communicates in ways we'll never understand. A plant has movement, responds to light, water, earth, the sky, the sun, everything. NEIL: I just have a card that's called, swallowing pills. ANNIE: Swallowed a big one today. NEIL: Yeah. ANNIE: Before I go to the dentist, I have to take Amoxicillin. In America they give you a 500 milligram pills. You got to take four. NEIL: Wow. ANNIE: They go down easy. But I had some Amoxicillin from Sicily. They were one- gram pills. They were big and I tried to swallow three times. I couldn't get it down. I had to really focused then. Should I bite it, should I swallow it? what can I try? Am I going to choke on it? Finally I got it down this morning, but it wasn't coated so it stuck a little in the mouth. I went through this whole thing with this pill. NEIL: You really have to consciously will yourself. The experience of swallowing pills is such an odd, it's not eating. You have to do this thing where you don't chew something. Swallowing- ANNIE: You got to open the back of your mouth a little bit, the throat a little bit. NEIL: Yeah. And it goes against something really basic or a bunch of things that are really basic. ANNIE: It does. Right. You don't swallow M&Ms. NEIL: Right. ANNIE: You'd never swallow an M&M. NEIL: Absolutely not. ANNIE: Never would you swallow an M&M. it would be like, what are you doing? NEIL: I had a colonoscopy recently. ANNIE: Oh, brother. NEIL: Thank you. ANNIE: Nice and clean? NEIL: One thing, I was telling a friend, I got a colonoscopy and he said, "Oh, you know, I had it. I just did one, a couple of months ago, and my doctor really commended me for how clean my colon was." I realized when I had a, because I've had to have a few because of this history in my family. Every time, they go out of their way to praise what a job, how clean your colon is. So when I was done with the colonoscopy, and I was talking to this friend and he said, "Well did he praise you for how clean your colon was?" I was like, "He didn't." ANNIE: He didn't? NEIL: He didn't, but then I got the report about the colonoscopy and it's like very formal, and it's the patient presented with an exceedingly clean colon or something. ANNIE: Which is abnormal. NEIL: Exactly. ANNIE: Very abnormal. NEIL: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Last card. The feels-like temperature. ANNIE: Feels like. NEIL: You know how you feel when the weather- ANNIE: It feels like, yeah, that's weird. NEIL: What is the feels-like temperature? ANNIE: I don't know but- NEIL: How do they- ANNIE: But today when I felt like, before I put on a jacket, I had to go on the stoop to feel what it was going to feel like. Then I didn't do it. But I don't know how they measure the feels-like temperature. That's a sweet thought. So there's a thermometer, then there's a naked lady standing there saying, "Well the thermometer says this, but it really feels that." That should be a job for somebody. NEIL: Oh my God, to come up with the feels-like temperature? ANNIE: Yeah. Like is it a nipple hard day? Is it what day? What kind of day is it? NEIL: Okay. Annie, this is a quantification question. What's something bad or even just okay that you would take over a good thing of something else. ANNIE: All right, I'll give you a list. A bad eggplant Parmesan hero over a good raw sushi meal. A bad thunderstorm storm over a hundred-degree day. A hard day in the hospital with someone I'm close to, over being at the beach with 10 friends. Take any day, bad or good in the rehearsal room, over chit-chat brunch. A bad rant in the basement of the mental home with my father over a beautiful meal with intellectuals. NEIL: On that note, Annie, I love you. Thank you for being on the show, She's A Talker. ANNIE: She's a talker, baby. Thank you, Neil. You're my favorite host. NEIL: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of She's A Talker. I really hope you liked it. To help other people find it, I'd love it if you might rate and review it on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to it. Some credits. This series is made possible with generous from Stillpoint Fund, and with help from Devon Guinn, Aaron Dalton, Stella Binion, Charlie Theobald, Itai Almor, Alex Qiao, Molly Donahue, Justine Lee, Angela Liao, Andrew Litton, Josh Graver, and my husband Jeff Hiller who sings the theme song you're about to hear. Thanks to them, to my guest, Annie Lanzillotto, and to you for listening.  

Is having a 9-5 easier than being an entrepreneur? Marketing master Neil Patel shares his perspective on the realities of running a multi-seven figure business and the one thing that you need to be doing to drive demand in the next 90 days as a coach or entrepreneur.   In This Episode Would it have been easier working 9 to 5? Why you need to love what you do Marketing 24/7 Whether you like failure or not, it’s going to happen   “It takes years to see results” - Neil “When I get to 6 figures, everything will be amazing” - Jess “Sometimes I think we assume that entrepreneurship will be easier” - Jess “At the end of the day you really just gotta figure out what works for you” - Neil “If you don’t love what you’re doing, you’re not going to put in the time and energy that you need to succeed” - Neil “I’ll be taking a shower and I’ll be thinking about marketing” - Neil “You’re never batting 100%, if you are, you’re not taking enough risk” - Neil “As a young person, I didn’t always learn from my mistakes” - Jess   Download The Free Workbook For This Series: https://smartleaderssell.com/6-figure-success-stories/   More Neil! www.neilpatel.com   More Jess!https://podcastingthatpays.com/ http://bit.ly/SLSGroup https://jessicalorimer.com/supersize-your-sales https://jessicalorimer.com/list-building-legend Content DisclaimerThe information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article, video or audio are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article, video or audio. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article, video or audio. Jessica Lorimer disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article, video or audio.Disclaimer: Some of these links are for products and services offered by the podcast creator