Transcript - Episode 1: What Are We Doing?
Hey, It’s Me
EPISODE # 1
Hosts: Mike Sakasegawa and Rachel Zucker
Transcript by: Leigh Sugar
Transcripts formatted after those from Disability Visibility Project
Please note: transcripts are transcribed directly from recordings of live conversations; as a result, quotes and statements may be approximate and there may be unintended memory errors.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Hey! Okay [laughs], you know, there is, um, this, this title idea of yours has made me incredibly self conscious about how I start these messages. “Incredibly Self Conscious,” that works, right? Maybe that could be the title.
I don't know how I feel about having just one of our names in the title. That feels a little weird to me. And actually, like, having it be, “Hey, Mike, it's me,” is weird on two levels, because one, I'm the only one with my name in the title, but then also, it's, you are the speaker. You know what I'm saying? Like, that doesn't, it feels a little, like, that would just be you talking to me, and not necessarily us talking to each other. But I like that idea.
And I actually think just, “Hey, It's Me,” “Hey, comma, It's Me,” is a pretty good title. I don't know if that works for you, but one of the things that I was actually thinking, it gave me this little idea for a format, which is the idea that we have for this show feels… it’s weird to do a bumper at the beginning, like, you know, the way that I do with my show right now, which is different from what you do, but, you know, at the beginning of every episode, boom, theme music, and then I say, “Hello, and welcome to Keep the Channel Open, a podcast featuring conversations about art, literature, and creativity.” And I do that because that was just, like, one of the things, one of the sort of list of best practice items that I remember hearing when I was starting out that like, it's good to have a little bumper at the beginning that just like very succinctly explains the show to new listeners.
And this idea that we have for this, it just doesn't feel right to me, to have a, “Hey, welcome to the show” kind of thing. So the idea that I had was to start every episode with one of these messages, right? And not have it like rerecorded, but just like an actual, one of these messages with the crappy audio and everything so that there's actually, you can have an audible difference between the episode itself and the intro.
And it would be something like, “Hey, it's me. Uh, I saw something today that I want to talk about. And so I thought maybe we could talk about that.” And then if we wanted to put in, put music under that or put like a little interstitial, the way that you often do with Commonplace, where you have a cold open and then you put in the intro with some music and then get into the actual episode - I think that would work well for something like this.
Having it be called, “Hey, It's Me,” makes it a little less one-sided, but I think it has all of the right ingredients for what you were talking about. I do find myself interested in a couple of questions. First, why, why, why are we doing this as a podcast? Like, if we just wanted to talk to each other, we could do this, you know, we could just schedule like a phone call [laughs], you know, we don't, we don't need to do it as a podcast. I also kind of wonder, like, is this, is this really going to happen? Or is this really the kind of thing that's more fun to just think about instead of actually doing it?
Anyway, so this is sort of what's on my mind right now. It's not lost on me that this particular message that I'm sending you could be a cold open. It's a little long at six minutes right now, but if I chopped it down, it could actually be, it could actually be the cold open of our first episode [laughs]. So anyway, okay, all right, bye.
[Music]
RACHEL ZUCKER: I am recording onto my sound device’s recorder, through my microphone, and I'm wearing headphones that are plugged into my computer. Can you just, can you just reassure me that that is correct?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think that's correct.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Thank you.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: That's a much better flag than the current flag of Maine.
[5:00]
RACHEL ZUCKER: I know. It's great.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: The current flag of Maine looks like—there's like 10 other states that have flags that look exactly like the current flag of Maine.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah, well this is the vacation state.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Laughs]. Are you in Maine right now?
RACHEL ZUCKER: No, I'm in New York.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Are you in Maine right now?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I, nope, no, I would probably be more awake and already showered and stuff if I were in Maine.
I don't want this part to go into the episode, just so you know [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Whatever. Alright, do you want to draw an invisible line in the audio, and then I'm going to try to be different?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: What does that even mean?
RACHEL ZUCKER: I don't know, but you just said, “I don't want this to be in it.”
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I just didn't think that, like, if anybody else was ever going to listen to it, that, like, having us yammering about the state flag of Maine… [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay, well, I, okay, I hate to do this, but I actually think that, um, that is part of either our process or what's going on here, which is how much or how little we think about someone else listening to this and how that affects us. But we don't have to go meta meta every, every second of the time. So we could just, we could just start over. And then in 30 seconds, you might be right back to that feeling. You might be like, yeah, I don't want this to go in this. You might have that feeling the whole time, or not.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: All right. Well, let's just, okay. So I went back and I re-listened to the message that I sent you, just now I was listening to it and, the things that I… I made a few bullet points. The things that I was mentioning in there, talking about the title, um, with a note that like, you know, who is speaking is an interesting question. Who's asking the questions and who's receiving them. That's interesting. The format being, you know, starting with the WhatsApp messages as a cold open and then maybe doing an intro after the cold open. But then the two sort of final questions being, why are we doing this as a podcast? [Laughs]. And are we actually going to do this?
Why are we doing this as a podcast?
RACHEL ZUCKER: It's a really good question. A few reasons. One is we love podcasts and we love podcasting and it is a form that we've used both as listeners and makers to explore some questions that we're really, really interested in about friendship, or being seen, or our relationship to needing or wanting an audience.
And we do other things, but podcasting has been a really important way of exploring some of these other themes. So I think that's one reason, because it's like, it's a form that we've gotten a lot out of, and it's also a form, it's the way that we first connected, so that makes sense that we would turn to, you know, a podcast as a way of further developing our friendship, our relationship, and our relationship to podcasting.
And then I think there's a second part, which is we have podcasts of our own and we're each experiencing some difficulties in our podcasts, in our separate independent podcasts. And we're not quite sure what to make of that, like whether to change our individual podcasts or not change our individual podcasts, whether it's the form of podcasting itself, so I think one possible reason to make a new podcast together is to also explore, not necessarily overtly, but through the act of making another podcast, see if that elucidates some of our difficulties with the podcasting form.
So I think, you know, we want to try something new. We're not exactly sure what, I don't know, does that, does that strike it, strike, like, why are we doing this? Why a podcast?
[9:57]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: A little bit. I mean, what I'm thinking of as I was listening to you is we communicate in a lot of different ways already, that, you know, you've been on my show four times. So we've done that several times. We occasionally have had phone calls. We did meet in person. The one time it was a long time ago at this point, but we, you know, we talk to each other asynchronously via WhatsApp, voice messaging mostly, several times a week. And then, you know, we have a standing zoom call with you, me and David.
And this is something we've talked about before is how the tenor of each of those kinds of conversations is a little bit different, that particularly since we've talked to each other while recording four times now, and the nature of our relationship was different at each one of those points, that there's a really stark difference between the way that we talk to each other when we're recording versus the way that we talk to each other when we're just sort of off the cuff and we know nobody else is going to be listening to it. And I do think there's something really interesting about that. I think that there is a way that having it be recorded does add a presentational aspect to it. I think that both of us have a tendency of speaking more formally and a little less frantically when we're recording.
And that's interesting. I also kind of wonder, I mean, all of that happens because we have this imagined audience in mind. And I wonder how much of it has to do with wanting to present ourselves in a certain way if we're going to be seen by other people besides just the two of us. But also, I don't know about you, but I do have some awareness that if I'm going to put something out there for other people to listen to, I don't want it to be the kind of thing that's going to be annoying to them or uninteresting. I've always had the feeling that, you know, if you're going to do some kind of creative thing, you first have to make the thing that you want to make, cause otherwise what's the point?
And then you can't worry too much about the audience because otherwise you're not really going to be making something that's meaningful to yourself. But I think that if I really thought that no one else would find it interesting, then I don't know if I would bother. And that is sort of, I guess, one of the things that I'm thinking about with this new project is, what is it about this that might be something that anybody else besides the two of us might want to listen to?
And on the one hand, I don't know that it really matters because, you know, even if this is just for you and me, that's, I mean, it's not against the law, but what is it that we're doing here that might be something that anybody else would want to listen to, especially people who don't know us personally, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay. So, so this is giving me some good ideas or some ideas. I want to respond to two things. First of all, you said that there's different tenors of our conversation, you know, depending on the platform, and whether it's synchronous or asynchronous and, um, and that, and that is of deep interest to me.
And you said that we tend to speak more formally when we're recording. And of course, the word “formal,” um, I'm thinking as a poet and I'm thinking of like, yeah, all of these are different forms in terms of like, synchronous, asynchronous, length, audience, no audience. And so I'm always fascinated, if not obsessed, with how does the form change the content? How does the form… you know, so I think I really do think that that's one of the questions that this idea of a new project together and a new podcast together is about for me.
Whether that's interesting to someone else or not leads me to my second thing, which is, we can get into this or not get into this, but based on our individual histories of friendship and marriage and divorce and, like interpersonal relationships, I think I'm going to put it for myself and, and, and say this out loud. Like there is something radically selfish, in a way that's very interesting and compelling to me in the idea of making this podcast with you because I am interested in it and because you are interested in it and sitting with this discomfort of not knowing whether anyone else is interested in it, like, there's something that feels, you know, maybe that will just feel so cringe when we listen back to it [laughs], or we'll be like, “Oh, great. We've, we've really matured in the sense that we've like done something so selfish.”
[15:30]
But I don't know. I think we're actually exploring something that at least to me is worthwhile and interesting. And I think it's, I can't do it alone, and I can't do it in my writing in the same way, and I can't do it with just anyone. I trust you.
And so part of it is about the relationship. I'm going to give you a chance to respond to that. And then I want to say something about my novel. But yeah, like how would it feel to you if you asked me the question, “What are we doing? Why are we doing this? And are we going to do it?” Right?
And what if my response is as simple as, “We're making a podcast together and by podcast instead of just like recording or just conversations, we are recording conversations with each other with an intended unknown audience in mind, future audience in mind, and we're doing it because we want to. And we don't really know much more about it than we want to, and that we don't really necessarily do stuff just because we want to, and so we're exploring how that feels. And are we really going to do this? I don't know.”
[Laughs]
How does that make you feel, Mike?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, on an intellectual level, I think that all of this is perfectly reasonable. And I put it in the context of both of us being artists and both of us having a tendency to make work that if you were being uncharitable, you could describe both of our work as being pretty up our own butts.
I think that that's like the least charitable, well maybe not the least charitable, but a particularly uncharitable way of saying it about both of us. I think if you were connecting with it, then, you know, you would say something more like, that it is, you know, engaging with a certain kind of freedom, being able to find your voice, and obviously both of us have made work in the past that people did connect very deeply with. So I think that there's something even outside the value to ourselves of making that work. We can demonstrate that there is the possibility that it will have value to somebody else.
I find it an interesting thing to think about because you, you even sort of said that there's something about this that you can't do by yourself and you can't do in your writing in the same way. But when you were talking about, what was the word you used? Radical selfishness?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mhm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And doing something because you want to and saying the thing that you want to say… I feel like there is a lot of that that could describe your poetry in a very similar way. Um, a lot of it, you know, this sort of idea of this say anything or say everything poetics, this idea of a poetics that's very like taking the interior and making it exterior kind of thing.
And it made me wonder, like, is this a poem? Which that's like, if you want to talk about things being up their own butt, like talking about, “is this poetry,” [laughs] but I do think that that's an interesting question.
Is this a poem, or what's different about this than the poem? Why is writing, why is this different from, or, what is it doing for you or for me or for the listeners that's different from what writing a poem would be about? And then more to the thing that we were talking about before that, what is it that we're doing in our existing shows, and what would be different about this one?
I mean, obviously there's a lot that's different about this in terms of format and stuff like that. But, you know, why were we doing those other shows in the first place? And what is it that we're hoping to get out of this one that's different?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Can I, can I answer that?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Am I just answering your questions with questions?
RACHEL ZUCKER: You, you kind of are a little bit, but that's helpful, actually. So, uh, let me respond to the question of like, what are we doing differently in our other shows? And I'll say it for myself. When I, in Commonplace, when I have another guest, and I've had episodes, I've had full episodes, more than one that are basically about me overtly, right?
Like episode about my own books, but even those episodes, and especially most of the episodes, which are not about, you know, not overtly about me and my own work, there are all of these important considerations around the power dynamics in the podcasting room, so to speak, in the conversation, wanting to make the guest feel seen and heard and respected, wanting to think about the audience's experience as I'm recording in the post production.
[20:52]
You know, why did I invite that particular guest? What am I hoping to get out of it? How can I balance what I want to get out of it from what I perceive as the needs and desires of the audience and the guest? And I think one of the things that… there's nothing wrong with that. I think that's what makes our shows compelling to listen to. And I think it's what makes guests. say to us sometimes afterwards, “Wow, that was really great. That wasn't what I expected. You know, it wasn't an interview. It really felt like a conversation. I really feel like you're such a good reader or you're, you asked really good questions” and that makes me feel so happy and good at my job. And, you know, like I did something good and that's great. And I don't want to give that up, but I want something else.
There's content that I want to talk about that I don't want to talk about on Commonplace either because, you know, it wouldn't naturally come up and then I'd be forcing it into the conversation, but it's like, you know, the deeper question of why do I want to talk about these things publicly? And that's something you and I talk about a lot. Like, why do we need an audience? Um, but I do!
And I want the audience specifically to be you and this other future audience but with a different… I want to care less about making sure that this is interesting to our future audience than I usually do. And I want to care less about hurting your feelings because it's somehow maybe not exactly equal, or I'm talking too much about me, or, you know, are you feeling good about it, or something like that. So those things, I think that's a huge difference. It's oriented towards us and towards ourselves, um, more than our other shows.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Hmm. It's striking me as you're talking, you know, we're both sort of talking about what's different about this. And like, you know, and I've talked to you about this before when I do a book club episode, it's a pretty different kind of conversation than when I'm doing an author interview. There's different kinds of things that you can say when you're talking about somebody else's work than when you're talking about that person's work.
But I think a big part of it that is maybe more, that's a nice sort of philosophical thing to think about, but I have been thinking a lot lately about, how much of it is just that I want to be able to say what I think directly without having to sort of imply it through the question? And then that is making me wonder, is this what my midlife crisis looks like? Of just, you know, wanting to be able to say what I think and not worry about it too much?
I don't know that I'm ever not going to be aware of the power dynamic at play between me and whoever I'm talking to, I also don't know that I'm ever gonna 100 percent feel comfortable just sort of saying whatever I think without couching it a certain way, but it is something that's on my mind.
You said you wanted to say something about your novel.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah, I do because I feel like it's an important context for a future listener, but also for you and to answer this question of like why I want to do this and maybe what I'm hoping to get out of it. So I'm writing this novel, as you know, it's got three sections right now.
[25:02]
It starts very soon after my ex-boyfriend broke up with me, and it starts with transcripts of audio messages between you and me, and the first section has audio messages between us, which I have edited, I took out all the things that I could possibly imagine you would not want, you know, anyone to know about you.
And that was very easy to take out. But then I also took out, you know, some other stuff for, for style and stuff, which is really a big deal actually. And then there are also some text messages between me and my ex boyfriend. And then there's writing that's in third person about, it's clearly me.
And then in the second section, what actually was initially an audio message to you on WhatsApp has become like this long monologue, for which you are not as clearly the intended listener, so then it becomes like you are the listener, but also the reader is the listener, and it shifts also in form and tone and sort of formatting, visually on the page.
And so one of the things is that right now, this novel is really about, it's not really, I mean, it's about this breakup and my grief over that, and about like, me starting to write again post this breakup. But it's also about, like, movement from third person, she, to first person, and how I get my voice back.
But it's also like, what is the real love relationship in the book? Is it between me and this guy, who happens to have the same name as you do? Which is, which is confusing. Or is it about me and my writing? Is that kind of the most stable reciprocal relationship that I have in my life in the book? Is it about me and the reader? Is it about me and my podcasting audience? Or is it about me and you?
Like, there's a way in which the relationship between us, at least as I describe it in my novel, is really kind of like a modern contemporary love story of two people who are communicating across the country, who never see each other in person, who, you know, during a global pandemic, that's like never fucking ending, and our messages, first of all, what it has meant to me to know that I have you as this audience for the act of me, like, speaking aloud and recording my life. And then I get a response, an actual, which I don't get from readers, you know, in the same way. And you know, the written text is so different from the spoken. You know, and then also there's all different levels of spoken. What do I mean by spoken? What do I mean by written? You know, all of those things.
But I think, you know, that's, it's extremely meaningful and important to me as an individual and in my life, our friendship. But I also think that it is really interesting from a literary perspective, from a formal perspective, from a craft perspective, and that podcasts, like our relationship inhabits so many aspects of what podcasts can do and can't do, in terms of intimacy, in terms of connection, in terms of getting to know someone.
So I feel like I'm saying all of that to say, you are a real person. You are my friend. You are a character in my novel. You are a podcaster who I listen to as an audience member. You're one of my favorite listeners of my podcast, and I love the feedback that I get. We have these amazing conversations with David about podcasting and about our lives and stuff.
[30:05]
And I think that there's something, despite all of this contact that we have with each other, apparently I want more. And I want to examine, I want more of being able to talk to you, and I think that there's something is going to happen when we talk synchronously in this format, which we haven't really done, and I'm excited and interested to see what comes out of that.
But also I want more contact with you and I've been interested, I mean, you know this, but I think it's important for me to say it here, you know, one of the biggest dramas of my life right now is that I'm looking for a partner. And it mostly seems like I'm looking for a romantic, sexual, you know, uh, life partner. But I'm also looking for a partner in my business. I'm looking for a partner in my podcasting. I'm looking for a partner.
And so for us to do this together, whatever it is, however, whatever shape it takes is also a way of me engaging with you in a partnership. And that's, that's a big deal to me. And that's something really interesting to me. And I'm really interested in seeing like, how that plays out, what our dynamic looks like, you know, as partners in this, and maybe what it opens up for me in the parts of my life outside of this.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. Something that I've been thinking a lot about lately, you know, what's causing this sort of general dissatisfaction I have with my life, and you and I have talked about that a lot. And I do, both of us right now are in relationships, romantic and sexual relationships.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Not with each other, just to be clear.
[Laughter]
That would be really sad because we never ever see each other.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But I think this question of, what do you get from your romantic partner? What can you get? What should you get from that person? What do you need to get from somebody who isn't your romantic partner? I think that's something that, well, I know a lot of people are struggling with that question and thinking about it because it's like a quarter of what I see on TikTok [laughs].
But it is an interesting thing. And just to sort of, I don't know, this sort of touches on the whole, not power dynamic, but just that there is a dynamic, the fact that you're a woman and I'm a man, and we have this friendship that's very close and very intimate, but we're not romantic or sexual with each other. I think that's interesting.
And just in terms of thinking about it as a podcast, something that I think a lot about is how, and I'm certainly not the first person to say this, but podcasting is in some ways the most intimate form of media because it's literally, because you're listening to it on headphones so the, the sound is literally in your head, like it's actually, I mean, even just physically it's reverberating in your skull cavity.
But also it's something that really encourages people to form relationships with the people that they listen to because if a show is long running, and there are shows that I've been listening to for, you know, more than 10 years now, maybe 15 at this point, where having those particular people in my life on a weekly or biweekly basis, it does sort of meaningfully, those people are meaningfully part of my life. Even if they don't know it, although me being me, several of them do know it at this point.
It's a funny thing you were talking about getting feedback from readers. A lot of people don't realize how with any creative endeavor, but including podcasting, most of the time you get very little feedback from your audience. And, often just people, especially with podcasting, people being the way they are, if you're going to get feedback, a lot of times it'll be negative feedback because people won't feel motivated to say something nice, but if they're pissed off they'll feel motivated to say something.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So yeah I mean there is something interesting about that and I guess when I listen to other people's shows where it's not a solo podcast,like yours or mine or David's or, you know, a few other people that I listen to, but where it's a team or a duo, um, there is something about those people's relationship, whether it's family or, um, a romantic relationship or a friendship that is part of what makes it a compelling thing to listen to.
[35:22]
It seems a little weird to be setting out to start a project with that in mind. But it sort of gets at, what are we going to talk about on this? Like right now, what we're talking, like this is like a particularly meta conversation that we're having because it's a conversation about what the conversations are going to be.
And presumably that's going to be present in some form, probably in most or all of our future conversations, just because I know what you're like, and I know what I'm like.
But I don't think that that's going to be the main focus of every conversation that we have going forward. So, or at least I hope not, because I think even I would get tired of that for a certain point.
But what kind of stuff are you imagining that we're going to talk about?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Great question, Mike.
[Laughs]
I love this so far. Both your discomfort and yeah, I just love it. Well, I really, really want to talk about my dating life. And I want and not just like how it's going for me, because I'm not actually that interested in talking about that, but I'll just give you one quick example, which is, \you and I have talked about this. Maybe we have to like ban ourselves from saying you and I have talked about this before, uh, and just talk about it. But so on Feeld, there are all these categories, um, things people like, you know, and they range from, you know, peeing on someone or, you know, dressing up or whatever. And one of the categories is aftercare. And I had never understood what aftercare meant. And then I was like, wait, what is this? Is it, you know? And, I think for most people, it just means like what I would call cuddling or snuggling or like being together after you do stuff?
You know, sexual things maybe. And so I was really annoyed and, and struck by the fact that there's like a term for it. Like, why should there be a term for it? But then I actually started to get interested in that term. And I told you this, that I went to a play, um, with Aaron and, I've been to two plays recently and I, I have such an extreme emotional response to plays in general, but also to these two plays and, I said to Aaron, “I feel like all plays should come with aftercare.”
And the aftercare, as I envision it in a play, is that, like, the director is there, and, you know, the producers and the actors, and we all just sit around and, like, kind of snuggle, in the sense that we're talking about, like, how'd that go for you? How are you feeling? What was that about? What was that like?
And I started to think about, like, whether the Reading with Rachel classes can be a form of aftercare. Like together, we all read this book and now we're going to talk to the author and also without the author about the experience that we all just had individually and together. And then I was thinking about the podcast, you know, Commonplace and Keep the Channel Open and like, what the, what the relationship of aftercare is.
So, that's one example of like, I want to talk about dating as a metaphor for me in terms of understanding art and the rest of my life and friendship. But I also wonder specifically about like, could this be a place where when we go into the world, you know, and see, we read a book that we really like and, you know, or that we hate, you know, even maybe more so a book that we hate, or we go to a play or, and we're doing these things separately because, you know, we don't see each other in real life, can, can these chats, which are definitely not interviews and maybe aren't even conversations, but can these chats be a form of aftercare?
[40:06]
Or, can we check in with each other around, articles, TikTok, you know, I'm terrified of talking about politics and the news, but like, whatever it is, really, inclusively, whatever it is that we are feeling a lot of, like, energy toward or confusion about, like, I feel so safe with you, you know, I call and leave you messages and describe the dates that I've been on in ways that, like, I don't describe, you know, to other people.
I don't necessarily want to do that here. That's not what I mean when Isay, like, I want to talk about my dating. It's more this other stuff. It's this, like, conceptual stuff that, like, I want to talk it through. I want to hear what you have to say. Like, you and your responses to me, because we've had this long, intimate, but in some ways, formal and disparate friendship, you will say things to me like, “Well, you know, that's your it's I, that's like your addiction to defining things,” you know, which you which you admit that you have as well, which you have demonstrated in this conversation, amply, that you really want to define what's going on here [laughs].
And I'm like, trying to pull you into this maelstrom of uncertainty and keep you here for as long as as as as possible. But so, yeah, I want to talk about books. I want to talk about movies. I want to talk about dating. I want to talk about friendship. I want to talk about podcasting. I basically want to talk about everything and anything. But specifically, to you, in this format, and see what happens.
What about you?
[Laughter]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, what's interesting to me is you know, framing it in terms of aftercare, it's interesting for a number of reasons, not least because, my understanding is that that phrase comes out of the kink community, which, I don't think either of us know a ton about, and also because it is something that, although, you know, we're sort of using it in a metaphorical sense right now, it is something that is explicitly understood to be about sex, which is like, the main thing that you and I don't do [laughs].
Like, we have a very close relationship, but that's not part of it. And so bringing that into the conversation is just interesting. But also even on that metaphorical level, I think one of the things for me is that when I imagine conversations, the conversations for me are not the debriefing or the working it through or the processing. The conversation is the act.
And so, you know, like ever since we started thinking about doing this project together, which calling it a project feels a little strange, but whatever, I've been thinking about, “hmm, what's something that I would want to talk about with Rachel?” And so, you know, like for example, the other day I had a few TikToks and Instagram reels that I bookmarked for possibly talking about at some point in the future, that are all sort of tangentially about art, but mostly about sort of the broader culture. And if you want to put it in that framework, then me bookmarking those things and thinking about, “I'm going to talk about this on this show with Rachel,” it's not, it's not completely dissimilar to the kind of thing where, like, if I was texting with my girlfriend and thinking, like, you know, we're gonna see each other in a couple of days, and I'm, like, I have a certain anticipation about, you know, what we're gonna do while we're together, for which there will be an aftermath and, like, a debriefing and a cuddling time, right?
And I'm wondering if it's, if it's sort of the difference between, I mean, I don't want to make everything about men and women, especially because I think a lot of the ways that people conceive of the differences between men and women are really stupid.
[45:06]
But, you know, there's something that I'm not quite able to get my arms around about this dichotomy and what, how we're thinking about it, like thinking about, and I'm not sure if it's, whether it's like thinking about the personal versus the intellectual, or emotional versus intellectual, or, you know, thinking about ideas instead of thinking about people, or, and all of those binaries feel very inadequate because I think both of us are interested in both sides of all of those things, but it's just interesting, if not terribly surprising to me, that the two of us are thinking about this in in a little bit of a different way.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, how much certainty do you need to just keep going?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I don't know that I necessarily need to have certainty. But one thing that I do know about recording versus just talking is that something that I really enjoy about podcasting is that even though there is always an element of uncertainty when I'm going to record with someone for Keep the Channel Open, because I don't, do a pre interview, I don't send my questions ahead of time. A lot of times I don't even know the specific questions I'm going to ask, but that uncertainty is happening within a framework. Like there is a sort of superstructure to the conversation where I know that generally we're gonna have two conversations for each episode that I do,and one of them is going to be about the work and one of them is going to be about something that I may or may not know about ahead of time, but it's going to be on a topic, and my experience has been that when you know that there's going to be a topic ahead of time, it really changes the way that you engage with the conversation. It not only provides a certain momentum that eliminates the sort of awkward pause kind of thing, especially when somebody is a little more in charge of directing the conversation and supporting it, which is, I don't think what's happening here, but having that framework in mind, it does make things comfortable in a certain way.
And it also makes it so that you can skip the small talk part of it, which is something that in real life conversations, if I'm just going to be talking to somebody at like a, hangout or a party or something like that, there's a certain amount of like, dancing around each other that you have to do first before you know whether or not you're going to even be able to have a conversation.
But even at that point, the fact that even if you know, there's a compatibility, which you and I know that we have with each other already, having that framework that you're that you know, the scaffolding for the conversation, it makes it easier for me to have the kinds of conversations that I like having. Let me put it that way.
Because, and it's, it's interesting, I've said this to so many people in, uh, in so many different places, but it's only maybe 25 percent a joke that I started my podcast as a way of tricking people into being my friend for an hour at a time. I really deeply enjoy and need conversations with people. And I really don't get to have interesting conversations very much outside of the context of podcasting. Even when you and I are talking to each other, it's not not about podcasting and, or like when you, me and David meet for our zooms, that's a podcasting conversation.
So there is just something about the idea of having a format that I feel like really facilitates the kinds of conversations that I kind of need to have in my life.
So it's not so much that I can't sit with there being some uncertainty, but it's very helpful to me to have some kind of parameters.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay, I hear you and I feel like I can help.
[Laughter]
I think that we should come up with a format that's as specific as possible, and I'm going to make a suggestion in a minute, and then we should commit to doing either two or three rounds of that format, and then be open to changing the format. I think that what might be getting us off track or where we're getting stuck is it's as if we're debating whether we're going to have a format at all, or it's just going to be like the Wild West all the time.
[50:11]
And I think we should have a format and then maybe we'll change it and maybe we won't. So I think, first of all, I don't know if I can commit to the 30 minutes. We're already at almost an hour. Okay. So I can't like, I can't, you're either going to have to take full responsibility for reining me in and cutting me off, which is not that easy, or it's going to have to be an hour.
So, okay. Okay. UI can commit to an hour. I can't commit to 30 minutes.I can re-envision that and, and maybe commit to 30 minutes. But right now I'm saying, for me, I think we should do two or three episodes in which there are two segments, and one segment has a topic that we decide upon a week before - it doesn't necessarily have to require preparation from the other person, but I think like, for example, these TikTok videos that you bookmarked, I would say like a week before we have a recording, you will WhatsApp message me, text me, whatever, and say, “I know that I want to talk about it these TikTok videos,” and then it's up to you whether you want me to look at them beforehand or not look at them beforehand. That can be up to you. And let's say that's going to be the first segment. Whether we each want to bring something specific, or whether just you are bringing something specific, I don't know yet.
You can decide that for the first two, and then I think the second segment should be more open, not that the first is so closed, but the second section should be either, a discussion about our discussions, or about this project itself, like maybe we allow ourselves a specific amount of time where we can get as meta as I want and like to get about, like, whatever, not the content of the first segment, but what's happening, um, or, you know, It can be something. I don't know, but… how do you feel about this?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think what you're describing is aftercare.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay, fine. Great. So why don't we try that for two? Why don't we try that? So we're going to discuss a topic, for the first two, for the next two, you're going to pick the topic, you're going to tell me a week in advance, you know, or a few days, it doesn't have to be, you know, it's going to be an hour long. We're going to, at the 30 minute mark, we're going to stop talking about the topic, and we're going to have some aftercare. And we're going to try to keep the aftercare to 15 minutes, but knowing me, it's going to be half an hour.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay. All right. All right.
RACHEL ZUCKER: How does that sound to you?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think I can do that.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah? I mean, the one request that I would make is, you know, as much as possible, as an experiment, and maybe this is the thing that I will ask you in the second segment of our next chat, is, whenever you feel that question, “Is this going to be interesting to anybody else?” you just say, “Hey, this is a good part of who I am that I care about other people's experience, and I'm not going to go down that road right now. I'm just not even going to really sit with that question very much. I'm not going to try to answer that question.”
And then I'm interested in knowing how that feels for you. What that changes, what that opens up, like, does it feel freeing? Does it feel terrifying? Does it feel gross? Does it feel selfish? Does it feel like I can't, this is really uncomfortable, you know, I'm interested in that. So as you pick the topic, as we do this, can you not judge that voice that that's, you know, asking, “But who could possibly be interested in this?”But if you could just say, “I'm not going to pay that much attention to you right now.”
And then talk with me about what that feels like.
[55:03]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I don't think that that is a primary motivating thing for me here, that question or worry or anything like that. In general, the way that I had been imagining this is just, there's going to be something that comes up that I want to talk about.
And you know, like with these videos that I was thinking about, I could just make a TikTok about it, or I could write something for my newsletter, even though I haven't written in my newsletter for a year and a half, or I could put it out as a mini essay that I do for the Keep the Channel Open Patreon.
But there's going to be something where, I actually want to talk about this and have somebody talk back to me about it. So that's kind of built in there. If I'm not interested in the topic at all, then I, why would I want to talk about it with anybody, you know? So I'm not too worried about that part.
RACHEL ZUCKER: No, I'm not saying that you would worry that I wouldn't be interested. I'm for sure going to be interested.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Well, don't say that because that's not necessarily the case. But in any case, you know, it's always been my sort of MO that if I'm putting something out there, it has to be primarily for me. And if somebody else is going to meet me there, then that's fantastic. But I can't really worry too much about whether or not anybody is going to meet me there.
Obviously, like, I mean, even just the format of Keep the Channel Open now, if I really wanted that show to be more popular, then I would make a lot of changes to have it be, instead of being like all creative topics, it would just be just books maybe, or even more narrow than that, just science fiction or something. And I would have it be shorter and I wouldn't include the second segment. And I wouldn't, you know, there's a lot of things I could do to make it more mass marketable, but I'm not doing that because that's not what I want to do.
So I don't think I'm too hung up on whether or not there will be an audience for what we're doing here. When I'm talking about format, it's really more, it's more of a way of saying, “Am I going to be able to, am I going to be able to get what I want out of it?”
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Good. Radical selfishness. I love it. I love it.
[Laughter]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay.
RACHEL ZUCKER: All right. So when are we doing the next one? And how do we end?
[Laughter]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It would be funny if we had a little stinger to put at the end of everything, but I don't think that that's gonna work like having a tagline or whatever.
RACHEL ZUCKER: No, we're gonna have a tagline. Obviously we're going to, we just haven't found it yet. So we'll just be like, “Tagline here. To come.”
[Laughter]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Ok. That's probably as good as it's going to get right there. All right. It's over.
RACHEL ZUCKER: All right.
[Music]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You've been listening to Hey, It's Me, with Rachel Zucker and Mike Sakasegawa.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hey, It's Me is a production of Rachel Zucker and Likewise Media
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Editing on this episode is by Mike Sakasegawa, music is by Podington Bear, and transcription help is by Leigh Sugar.
RACHEL ZUCKER: You can find more information about the show, including contact information and transcripts, at heyitsmepodcast.com.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: If you'd like to hear more from us, you can find Rachel's other show, Commonplace, at Commonplace.today.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And you can find Mike's other show, Keep the Channel Open, at Keep the Channel Open.com.
Thanks for spending this time with us. Take care.