Transcript - Episode 11: Some Interest and Also Some Trepidation
Hey, It’s Me
EPISODE # 11
Hosts: Mike Sakasegawa and Rachel Zucker
Guest: David Naimon
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.
RACHEL ZUCKER: All right, who's going to start us out?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I don't fully know what it is that we're doing this time.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay. I'll start. I'll start.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: ‘Cuz, we broke format a little bit in a couple of different ways. Because we didn't start with a message, and also because David is here.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, let me say this.
DAVID NAIMON: Hi guys [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: We did get a message. It wasn't the normal message that you and I leave each other, Mike, but we did get a message from a listener. We have mentioned David, each of us have mentioned David, and a listener wrote to us over email and said, “Are you talking about David Naimon? Because the reason I found out about Hey, It's Me was from listening to David Naimon on this other podcast.”
And, you know, people, people want to hear more both about David and from David. And so this is what brings us all three here in a recorded state. Although, as maybe we'll talk about, we have these meetings that we don't usually record.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: That's true. So you had had the idea for us each to come up with a couple of questions related to this podcast or podcasting in general. I don't know if either of you guys did that [laughs].
DAVID NAIMON AND RACHEL ZUCKER: I did.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay [laughs].
DAVID NAIMON: Can I start?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah, go for it.
DAVID NAIMON: Do you mind? What I really love is you gave me an assignment, a homework assignment, like each of us are going to come up with two questions, either about the episodes that have already launched of your new podcast or about podcasting in general. And then Mike yesterday sends an email: “Are we doing it or are we just doing a free for all,”because I feel like this tension is part of the show, of, okay, and so my first question is about form. And there's this suggestion that we were going to use a form, and then also this possibility we're going to throw out the suggestion to use the form. And this tension seems really big in your show. It's like foregrounded in the very, like baked into the architecture of your conversations. But I also feel like it's something about podcasting in general, like podcasting is this really weird space, right? So, I could have a show, and every episode could be one second long, and I could launch an episode every minute, or I could have an episode that never ends. I could launch episodes of silence. I could do whatever I want. There's almost no barrier to entry. The costs are really low. The know-how is all available for free. I mean, there are norms. There are norms just based on witnessing what people are doing and how people are falling into certain patterns. But there aren't pressures, except for the pressure of, do you care if anyone cares? Which is one of the main things you've both foregrounded in this really intense way.
So this show feels to me very much a meta show about podcasting, but also you could take out the word podcasting and it could be about art making. How much, or how little, do we care about audience, and then this question of presentation. My favorite episode was your last one, which [laughs] I'm the worst audience member and maybe the best, like, I feel like so much of the material feels I know it isn't, but feels especially curated toward me, like even your conversation, or maybe even particularly your conversation about how you edit.
So, are you going for the flow of sentences? Are you going for a cleanness of sound? None of this is a barrier to entry. There's no pressures on a podcast. You can have really bad audio quality and have a really popular show. I can think of several, or have a really great polished show and have very little audience. But the questions of presentation feel really important.
[5:00]
And there's a, I think there's a politics to it. There's a whole bunch of things that come into play, but it's also about presentation and representation, which is a question about art making in general anyways. So I guess my first question for both of you, because this show is leaning into questions of form, and in a way it feels like it's working against form, even though we're in the most formless space. You're pushing the limits of form. And I wondered what your relationships to, or questions around form are? And if, and if it's always pushing against form? Because I feel like the gesture here is really one of, of extreme limits around form making or form breaking.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I feel like -
RACHEL ZUCKER: What's your, wait, what's the question? [Laughs]. The question, like the question is, I know you, I know you're raising questions around form and presentation, but what's the first, the question about form is, are we primarily working against form?
DAVID NAIMON: I mean, that would be one, that's one curiosity I have. Are you, are you moving towards, do you see in your mind's eye that you're moving towards another way to have a form? Or is it all just about crossing the borders of, of the, the norms of form?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Can I answer that first? [Laughs].. I'm not sure this is correct. But it seems to me that actually what we're doing is very simple, but Mike and I like to make everything very complicated in our own unique ways. But I think what we're doing is we're discovering as we go, what the form of a chat show is. And we're, we're just having, we're having some like aches and pains and, and also pleasures as we move away from the conversation slash interview form into a chat form and we're, we're, we're, you know, there are still choices within the chat form, you know, this question of like, how much form do we want, or, you know, how much focus, how much specificity do we want to have in our own adherence to our own chat form, but my sense is that actually, and I do this a lot in my own work where I'm like, what is this? What have I done? What is the name of this form? What is this called? And then someone, often Mike will be like, it's a blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Oh, Oh. And so often there actually is a received form that I'm kind of vaguely fulfilling, but it like doesn't occur to me. It's like, I'm reinventing a form that already exists. I think we might be reinventing a chat form.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I don't know if we're reinventing. I mean, we've talked about how, how we were sort of working in that space, even in the first episode. I think that my sense of this, this, what we're doing here in terms of form or pushing limits or things like that, is that I think that both Rachel and I have, to some degree where, where each of us is like, has a plan and has a thought about what we want it to be. And to some degree, we're just sort of being instinctive and going wherever it goes. I think that both overall and moment to moment, the sort of spectrum of those two concepts, like one of us is further to one side and one of us is further to the other side, my, my feeling is that, that Rachel is a little more towards the instinctive side and I'm a little more towards the planned side, in general. But then in the moment, I think that that can shift a fair amount. And I think that, when I'm listening back, especially when I, when I listen back to episodes that have already posted, which I don't know if it's embarrassing to listen to your own podcast or not [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: I am.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But especially once I have a little distance, the tension between that, you know, let's plan this out and let's just sort of go with the flow, seems to be like, if there's a plot to this podcast [laughs], and if plot is primarily driven by conflict, I feel like that's, that's the conflict that drives the plot.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay. I would like to disagree.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay [laughs].
[9:55]
RACHEL ZUCKER: I think that both Mike and I are exceedingly planful people, Actually. I think the difference between the way it gets expressed that like seems like it's about like instinct versus plan, or like kind of flexibility versus again, like planning-ness, is that it's just that the questions that I plan to ask are almost always about feelings. I think it's the difference in content, not in form or format, or like propensity towards organizational, you know, stuff, or like a free form. I think that's what's, I think that's the biggest difference or conflict or, yeah.
DAVID NAIMON: Well, what I think of is, do you know, Yayoi Kusama's infinity mirror rooms?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: These are the ones that are like, they have like string lights and stuff, and stuff like that usually?
DAVID NAIMON:Yeah. And you're in the dark and it's, and you see these lights go back into, in a repeated sense into the distance. I feel like there's something really compelling about, it's like an infinity mirror room with the two of you, which is something I feel like I find appealing in art, is that there's a way in which things are spilling over or things are, like in really good art I feel like something escapes the page, or escapes the painting frame. And, and what I really loved about the last episode in particular Is that you moved from the very early conversations with anxiety about audience and how much to think about, will anyone want to listen to us talk, to this really other thing, which I mean, I guess could seem really self reflexive and meta, but didn't feel that way to me, that you're having these questions that are self reflexive about the show, and then talking about maybe a different style about how you want to present your guests, which goes down to the level of the sentence, and also an aesthetic around sound, but then we're learning that all of this is being folded into Rachel's book, which, the longer Rachel spends with the book, the stranger the book becomes to Rachel.
So there's this permeability, which I really like, between what you're doing and the questions you're asking and the art making that Rachel's doing. So, I mean, the most obvious thing being that Mike is a, is a significant character, at least in the beginning of the book, but also the ways in which there's this question, what is this book? And then the folding in of voice messages, and then the folding in of text messages, and all these other things that get put into the book that then further question what the book is, but then to circle back, sort of bring you back to these questions you've raised on the show, how are you going to present the syntax of these different things?
Which seems seems really maybe that's really a boring seems like a boring question to someone who's not on podcasting, but like for instance really early on when I was doing the show and I was still at the radio station and I would sometimes place some of the transcripts in magazines, I remember one I think early with Sheila Heti, it was in the Missouri Review. I think it's a really good conversation, but I wouldn't edit it the way I edited it then, which wasn't that much. Like I left a lot of the sort of convoluted spoken syntax. And the “uhs” or whatever, I don't even remember, I haven't seen that in 10 years. But I think that when people read certain things a certain way, it gives you a certain impression about the intelligence or the perspicacity of a person, how they speak on the page that you don't have as an impression when they're speaking in audio. And that is, that's a really, an alive question for you, Rachel, as you take these audio forms and put them in the book.
But I guess my long answer to all of this around form is, I love this sort of, it feels like there's an infectiousness, like cross contamination, or like when I was talking to Joyelle McSweeney, she uses “spillage” a lot, this sense of maximalism that, something is pouring over the boundary and into something else, probably becoming something else. I really like it. And I'm attracted to writers who are doing that, who are doing that consciously or not, where it feels like it's not contained by the form.
[15:03]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I want to, I want to go back to something that you were talking about at the beginning, David. You said something where, you know, you were talking about the, the form of this show and, I don't remember exactly how you phrased it, but what it was making me think of is just coincidentally, I'm working right now on my monthly newsletter, and this month, as often, I'm working through some thoughts about genre, and it's nothing like new, like I'm always thinking about genre and we've even talked about genre a bit on this show. This particular one, the sort of jumping off point that I'm using is your conversation recently with Vajra Chandrasekara, and how the, a lot of the responses to his first book were very breathless. And some of them were like, what even is this? And one of the things that I'm thinking about in the thing that I'm trying to write, which, I'm not sure is any good, it doesn't really go anywhere, but that's also fine because it's just a newsletter and so who gives a shit, but I find that the way that I think about genre is pretty different from how, like almost every time I try to have a conversation on social media, whether it's on TikTok or a text based platform about genre, people like to make these really declarative statements about, either about what a, what the characteristics of a genre are, or, like to make declarative statements like, this is, or is not this particular work is or is not included in this particular genre. And that's sort of the end of it. And it's really boring.
But I, sort of, one of the arguments that I'm trying to make, is that I think that genre, rather than being a prescriptive marketing thing, which it can be, but that genre is an emergent property of literature. And that anytime you have a sufficient number of texts, where both readers and authors can be aware of the fact that there are other texts, that genre is just something that's going to arise naturally, and I think podcasting is an interesting space for that, because podcasting definitely has genres within it. And subgenres and whatever. And there, but I feel like because it's not, because it's a relatively young medium, and there's not a lot of, or at least in my awareness of it, there's not a lot of academic or critical study of podcasting as a medium, that the discussions of genre in podcasting are one, a lot more informal and they're happening in a lot more casual spaces like social media. But I feel like they also are not necessarily weighed down as much by prescriptivism as like books or movies are, for example.
And so, you know, the, one of the other things, you know, that I would just take as like sort of axiomatic about genre, is that it's necessarily fuzzy, and not every single work of art needs to incorporate every single characteristic of a genre in order to be included within that genre or be participating in the phenomenon of that genre. And moreover, that the author's choice to either uphold or subvert an expectation of the genre is like a really critical tool in understanding the meaning of that individual piece, you know, like, what is its relationship to the larger corpus of the genre? And in the context of this show, I apologize for monologuing, in the context of this show, like, I think that we are both like consciously and unconsciously or, or just instinctively, working to a genre, but also like, because we have an awareness of chat show as a genre, and we have an awareness, and we're both avid podcast listeners, so we have some awareness of what else is going on in the universe of podcasting, but also, whether we're doing it on purpose or not, doing things that deviate from that. And I think that that, you know, in this sort of intertextual, metatextual way, is what like the meaning comes out of, or at least some of the meaning, you know?
[19:52]
DAVID NAIMON: I like how you create this third space, because I see those people who are policing the boundaries of genre, and don't find that compelling, but I also don't find the reflexive response to that of, who cares, just write. Because I think what you're suggesting, or what it makes me think of is, it's still important to know who we're writing among, who we want to be writing among, what lineages we want to call upon, if any. Which ones we don't want to, whether that's genre or not, but it's a sense of not only intertextuality, but sort of a community who, who do we want to be constellated along with?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Could I suggest, I kind of want to hear at least one of Mike's questions, and maybe have one of mine as well, like upfront actually, because I think that it's just fascinating to me, just like the difference of having David here, but also the sameness of like what happens to me internally when I'm recording with Mike and like, I feel this thing that he's, I don't, I don't even know if I should go into it, but like, he's, my experience just now was, I'm so intellectually interested in what you're saying, Mike. I have so many thoughts about it, you know, from a formal perspective and a genre perspective, medium, art making all this stuff. I'm also very aware of the fact that like, I'm noticing my tendency to want to pull us away from, like, I'm having thoughts like, huh, Mike believes in subject matter. And I just want to talk about like the tenor of his voice, or I want to talk about like David and, and Mike and myself feelings. And this is something that this is like part of the conflict and the drama of this thing that we're making where, it's not that we're different in every way, but there's something that happens to us where we start pulling in different directions almost as soon as we start recording. So, and I'm feeling that now, you know
DAVID NAIMON: Let's go where you want to go.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, I just kind of wanted to get the questions out there, because I kind of feel like maybe that will help us even know the directions we could go in?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay. Do you want me to just say? Okay. Yeah, my questions were both real basic. The first one is, and both of them are aimed at both of you. The first one was, is there anything that you would like to see us do more of, whether we've done it or not already? And then the other one is, what other podcasts do you listen to for your own pleasure rather than like, if you're doing research or things like that? And what is it that you like about them? Those were my two questions.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Those are great questions. So my questions were, I wanted to ask David, when he listens to Hey, It's Me, does he feel jealous that he's not there with us [laughs]? Does he feel relieved [laughs]? And, and does it like, does it open anything up for him in his own show? I mean, right? [Laughs]. Like if you could, you both could have guessed that these are the questions that I have, right? Obviously. Okay. So that's, that's, that's my question for David [laughs].
Why is everybody laughing so much? I don't even know why everyone's laughing. Okay. And then sort of similarly for Mike, I think I wanted to know, you know, how, of course I'm going to like want to put Mike on the spot in the sense and say like, okay, Mike, how is this different feeling, how does this feeling different for you right now than when we're talking to David, but not recording, and it's not kind of for our show and, you know, how does it feel to you to like, you know, bring him into kind of the making of it and like, because it's a, it's sort of chaotic, you know, like, is he a guest? Is he a co-host? Like what? It's like, it's fucking everything up [laughs]. And I'm always, I, I'm always like trying to fuck everything up for you and see what happens to you and see how you feel. So that's like, you know, that's…
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Do you… that's an interesting way to put it. Do you actually, this is a question I've actually been wondering about from time to time. And I think you've even sort of addressed it a little bit. Do you like, intentionally try to provoke me? Is that like a thing for you? [Laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: I've been thinking about that so much. The short answer is, I think it's not intentional, but it's like somewhat habitual or almost like compulsive. And I think it has to do with wanting to elicit a feeling of connection with you over and over again. And so it's, it's hard for me to stop doing it, but it's like, and I think I, you know, this is what I was like in my marriage, unsurprisingly, you know, especially if I would feel Josh kind of like pulling away or intellectualizing or something like that, I would do or say something provocative in order to get an emotional response from him.
[25:07]
Usually it would be negative. But there was something very soothing about that, because then I was back in an emotional state of connectivity, which is much less scary for me than distance. So I think it's connected to that. It's like, I'm like, you know, and it's like, it's like a way of flirting, you know [laughs], in a way it's like, I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying I'm aware that I keep doing this.
DAVID NAIMON: Did something just happen that I missed where you felt provoked, Mike, in real time?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I, it's not that I felt provoked. It's that I felt like the question and the, and not just the question, but like the specific way that she phrased the question was like, or might've been, some kind of provocation, whether intentional or otherwise. And I think that like, if I think about the history of the questions that she asks me on this show, it does kind of feel like sometimes she's trying to get a rise out of me, but I also, the reason why I ask is because, you know, I don't always read people very well, so I don't, you know, it's better for me to just ask, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Yeah.
DAVID NAIMON: I love these questions.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay. Right. I mean, I feel like the questions are so, cause like David, your question, if I could just speak about your question for one second, rather than answer it, just describe it. It's like, oh, David is doing David Naimon [laughs]. It's like, he's asking a question about a thing that his question serves to elucidate the what-is-ness of the thing, right? Like that's what you do on your show. That's what you, that's what you just did. You were like, let me ask you a question about the form, but your question helps to describe what the show is from your perspective. It's an interpretation, it's a description. It's like a deepening of the understanding of the show itself. And that's how you, that's how I perceive you. A lot of your questions fall into that kind of category of question making. And then you invite the other person to collaboratively, you know, hone or deepen that description that your question has enabled.
DAVID NAIMON: Okay. I don't disagree with anything you just said, but to go meta on the question, in the spirit of your show [laughs], and we can cut this out if this is the wrong thing to say, but, so I was given an assignment right? Around what to ask about. So to ask a question about podcasting. So here we already in a space that's sort of as a self-reflexive space, but I also know that you have enormous things going on in your life. Yes. Very big things. And that Mike had told me that you desperately were looking for distractions from those things. So when I received the assignment from Mike, let's do a show when we haven't talked, we do our regular meetings, right? Which aren't recorded. We haven't caught up since you've had some major life developments. We haven't caught up interpersonally. And when Mike reaches out in the absences of, in the absence of us catching up and says, let's do a show where we talk about podcasting with these very specific parameters, I'm thinking, oh, at least partially, I'm thinking, oh, this is part of helping Rachel not have to think about these really difficult things in her life. So part of starting in an abstract space is also motivated by my sense of what's going on in the feeling world. And yet here you're pushing back and saying, let's talk about our feelings, which I'm happy, I would love to, like, I'd love to talk about my feelings about listening to your show. That sounds really fun. But I just wanted to contextualize maybe my own choice around the questions, which would be different than if you said, let's just get on the show, I haven't talked to you in, I don't know, a month or a couple of weeks, and just talk.
[29:38]
RACHEL ZUCKER: I think that I thought you wouldn't agree to do that. And I'm not sure Mike would have felt comfortable either. So, so, so the other question for both of you was sort of around that, sort of around boundaries. And, boundaries might not be exactly the right word, but I, in this case, I pushed you David, and it didn't, it didn't go forward to just record with me, about like what was going on. And you were hesitant and sort of said, I really would like to catch up with you. I really would like to talk with you about anything you want to talk about, but I don't, I don't know how I feel about recording, kind of like in real time, you know.
And then when I said to Mike, like, let's go, let's see if we can get David, let's see if we can get David, Mike said, you know, it might take a little more time to set it up. And I think he meant logistically, not necessarily emotionally, but I was interested in that. And I was like, oh, it's interesting because from my perspective, both of you have more, I mean, I'm… in this group of three, I feel like I'm the one who jumps off the pier before I'm really sure that there's like enough water in there.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think it's fair to say that, that both David and I are more cautious in general than you are.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right. So, so my third question, my second question, sorry, was about, what scares you, or what is at risk for you each, in terms of the chat format, or in terms of bringing our relationships into this, like, kind of unplanned, unboundaried, you know, provocative, fluid space that we're not quite sure what it is?
Like, because I sense some interest and also some trepidation that's not the same from both of you, but that both of you have a lot of like, you know, wait, what are we doing? What's the nature of this? What are the questions you want to ask? Why, why are we doing this? When are we doing? A lot more caution, as you said, Mike. And that's interesting to me. Like what, what do you, what, what bad thing could happen to you? That's like really the way I want to ask it. Like, if you could get in touch with like your fear or your, your, like what, what could happen that would be bad?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So I'm going to take a little bit of a, a, a go around the corner a little bit and come back. It'll, it'll come back around, because one of the things that I wanted to say about the way that David constructs questions, both on Between the Covers and today, and this is something David and I have talked about I think a number of times, actually, in a number of different spaces is that, I think anybody who listens to Between the Covers is going to be familiar with the fact that David's questions are often very long. And that was something that, David, you had actually, early on when we first started talking to each other on Twitter, is something that you had expressed a little bit of, I don't know, embarrassment about or something like that, or, or worry about, and I, I particularly remember you, me, and Alyssa, Alyssa Harad were all talking about that. And Alyssa and I were both saying, no, we love your questions. And I think that there is a way that you construct your questions such that, and this is something that not everyone does and not everyone is capable of doing, such that the person receiving the question receives it in the spirit of which is intended, as an act of generosity, right, as a way of saying, I'm going to ask you this question, it is going to reveal something about how I think about your, what you've done. It's also going to give you a lot of like opportunity to go in lots of different directions. It's also going to give you the opportunity to correct me. It's also going to give you the opportunity to see how much time and energy and thought I've put into this and how closely I've paid attention to the thing that you've put out in the world, which for a lot of artists is, I think, what they most desperately want.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And so I, I don't know if I would have necessarily put it in these terms before, but I think that there is an aspect to your questions and especially in light of what you just said about like, how you went about thinking about creating questions for today, that is at least in part an act of care for the person to whom you're speaking. And when I think about like, you know, for example, Rachel and I had a little bit of a back and forth about how we were going to approach you and what the timeline of like that was going to be and what the format of it was going to be, and my caution around that was me trying to thread a needle of trying to take care of Rachel and also trying to take care of you [laughs].
So if I have any kind of concern about what can happen on a sort of chaotic chat show, it has a lot less to do with myself than it has to do with the other people that are involved. I, it's not that I have no concern about myself. It's just that I'm, I'm pretty used to being public, honest, and thorough about what I think and feel. I, it, I do have some fear that, not so much that I, I'm worried that I'll get canceled or something like that, but more that I'm worried that I will reveal to myself that I'm an even worse person than I thought I was [laughs].
[35:29]
But I think that, especially in the moment, what is actually a bigger concern to me, is that I might say something that's going to damage my relationship with someone, or that it will just hurt their feelings. And actually, episode five, the one that you're talking about, where Rachel and I were talking about her book, is a really great example of that. I'm not sure how apparent it is in the finished audio. That episode [laughs] -
RACHEL ZUCKER: Was brutal.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: We had to, we had to have several debriefs afterwards to, like, make sure each other were okay. We, we both walked away from that recording session feeling like shit. And I think both of us were feeling like we hurt the other person's feelings. And also both of us were feeling like our feelings were hurt. And so we actually, it took several days. We had to actually really talk it out. I don't know if that's something that comes across in the finished episode because of, like, not just because of all the editing, but I think because in the moment we're both trying to, trying to be aware at least of the fact that it's, this is happening in public [laughs], you know?
DAVIDI NAIMON: I had no idea that was the subtext. I don't think that comes across at all in the final.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I don't think I realized how upset I was until afterwards. In the moment I was really game, and I was really like, oh, sure. Whatever you want, whatever, whatever you, it's all interesting to me. It's all, it's, you know, this is, this is what I asked for. This is what I'm provoking. This is what I'm, you know, and, and in the moment it really was, it felt kind of like intense at moments, and kind of like gymnastics. Like I was like, Ooh, now Mike's going this way. Hmm. Why? I'm, oh, I'm feeling this. Ooh. Okay. Huh.
But then afterwards, oh man, I was like, I do not feel good. I talked about it in therapy. I talked about it in my writing group. I, I talked about it with Mike. I tried not talking about it a little for, you know, I mean, you know, if I try not talking about something, it's really serious. Yeah. And then, and then, I mean, almost immediately, even though, the, the more that I realized how upset I was, the more I realized how important the, the, the whole situation was to me. Do you know what I mean?
Like, like I learned so much from having that conversation and realizing how upset I was. So in some ways, the more risk… this for me is what is at the heart of this podcast with Mike, which is that I feel safe enough to fuck it up over and over again, or to see what I feel like when we're over the boundaries that are kind of comfortable with me, because there's this foundation of trust.
And I guess for me, the worst thing that could happen is to destabilize that foundation of trust, not to make a mistake, be upset, like all that stuff, I keep pushing us into that. And at least for me, I'm learning so much, and I'm so grateful for it, even when it feels bad, maybe even especially when it feels bad. Most people in the world, I can't do this with over and over again and feel okay.
DAVID NAIMON: Can, can each of you synopsize the way you were hurt?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hmm. Yeah, I, I, yeah, I mean, I'm not, I, I'm, I'm going to take a lot of responsibility for this. I put Mike in a situation in which he was responding exactly as I had asked him to respond, and something about that response, which I absolutely, you know, to talk about whether or not it was a novel, to talk about, you know, whether or not it was finished, to talk, talk about like, how he'd never done this before, you know, in, in the, in this way, I realized that's not what I wanted, but I didn't realize that until we were until after we had done it. I, and I, and I realized, you know, I, I was able to get in touch with the fantasy of what I wanted from him, which was insane, but it was like, I wanted him to be like, this is the best thing I've ever read in my entire life. You're wrong. It is finished. It's totally finished. In fact, don't change a single word. And I can't, no wonder, no wonder you've had a lot of feelings about writing this novel because you're a genius [laughs]. And it's, you know, and I'm so, I don't know what it is, but this is -
DAVID NAIMON: I've been there. I’ve been there many times.
[40:36]
RACHEL ZUCKER: That's what I wanted.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think we all have.
DAVID NAIMON: And it's a pitfall with, you know, like when my partner and I share writing with each other, that's the big thing pitfall is, sometimes we want confirmation, but we're, we're asking for a critique.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I did not, the epiphany that came in the, several epiphanies that came for me in therapy as a result of that episode, recording it, listening back to it, talking about it, were deeply important to me. And just one of them was about how as a child, I really wanted attention. And that was like very complicated, because of my mother or because of a lot of different things, and my relationship to being a person who does crave and seek attention and, and not going into this shame spiral around that and, and not going into the whole like, oh my God, I must be such a narcissist because I like having attention. I mean, I've been working on that constellation of neuroses for 40 plus years. And so to be able to say to my therapist, this is what I did to Mike, and this is how Mike responded, and this is how I feel about it was a gift. Like it was like, you know, five years of therapy compressed into that, but it's, it was, it was hard.
DAVID NAIMON: Yeah. Well, maybe that relates to when we're talking about fears. What my fear was when you reached out, out of the blue saying, can we record, Mike's out of town? And I knew at that point we were waiting for potentially life changing news in your life that were various versions of bad, various degrees of bad, and not knowing what the answer was before we recorded, especially because that element of your life hasn't been part of the podcast so far. Well, actually I haven't listened to the Star Trek episode yet. That's the one that I haven't heard. So if it's there, that would be the reason why -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: In the episodes that have aired so far, it hasn't come up by the time this one airs, it will.
DAVID NAIMON: Okay. So my impression was this isn't somewhere you've gone with Mike in a public way. And if, if we're psychoanalyzing ourselves, like, I don't feel like I am uncomfortable being with someone with life altering news, maybe partly because of my time as a healthcare practitioner, but even before like, like a survival strategy of listening to others to try to make friends when I was a loser as a kid [laughs]. But that doesn't scare me. I know that scares a lot of people, being present for somebody in a really difficult time, being present to the emotions of that, dwelling in silence when I don't know what to say, which can often be very meaningful for somebody anyways, without words. That wasn't the issue. I think the issue was the discovery in real time in a recording in which I didn't know what the recording was for. Like I could imagine the recording was simply because it was comforting to have a recording and that was it. But that wasn't, I don't know that that's true. Was this recording going to be an episode no matter what? Would I have any input on how that would go?
And also recognizing two things at the same time, which are opposite, of having no personal desire to have that be public, that moment between you and I, Rachel, and yet feeling like I was letting you down by, as a friend, who's asking on her own terms, this is what would be useful for me in this terrible time, could you show up and record? So, I was very divided. I think my fears were, I don't even know if I would say they were fears, but my uneasiness was around, well, where is this going to go afterwards? And the sense of being watched by this abstract audience in a moment that feels to me like one where we'd want to pull the curtains and be be intimate and quiet together in some way.
[45:19]
So those, maybe I needed to know more of the grounds of what that meant to record before I could say yes, I'll record. I know this is meaningful to you to record.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I think that speaks to one of the questions that you asked Rachel, that like, how does this that we're recording right now feel different from, I mean, we're on a Zoom call right now, which is how the three of us, when we get together, how we get together, in, in a lot of the particulars and even in a lot of the like flow of the conversation, it's not that different. The energy is definitely different, and it's the awareness of a hypothetical audience that makes it feel different.
I, I know for myself when, and this is something that the two of you, when we get together, the three of us, for our semi regular Zoom call, I don't know if this is something that you, that either of you, you probably have, but I was gonna I don't know if either of you thought about this, but that like, rather a lot of our Zoom calls end with one of the two of you saying next time we should start with Mike because he hardly talked at this time.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And definitely when I'm on the mic for something that I know someone is going to be listening to, I'm making more of an effort to be presentational about myself, to jump in without waiting to be called on, to respond to things as they come up. The energy is real different in that way.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah, I sometimes imagine that the title of our unrecorded Zoom calls is “Mike Zooms with two Jews” [laughs]. I mean, I'm so, I'm so aware sometimes of how, I mean, all three of us, talk and we can talk a lot and we can monologue, you know. It's not that David and I talk more than you do Mike in a kind of objective, you know across the board way. But there is something about David and my conversational styles when it's the three of us that I associate with being Jewish. I don't know that it is, but it's like a certain kind of like, you know, interrupting, joking, like, thing. And I think you're right that like, in part, becoming a podcaster for me was making sure that I'm listening more than I'm talking, which is not my, kind of ,habit. I think both of you are not quite as over talking as I am. You have other ways that like the mic helps you with your kind of like conversational style. But I, I do think that's, I mean, we've talked about this at almost every episode and in so many of our conversations that haven't been recorded, but like, what is changed by the mic, by the recording, by the intended audience, by the imagined audience by all those things, like it changes things so much and, you know, to go back to what you were saying, David, like, I totally understand what you're saying. And I, I understood that at the time too, and it was very interesting to me and helpful to me because it was so outside of my instinct, which was, I think there, there, there's a part of me that's like, okay, I understand intellectually and psychologically that David is like, who knows what's going to happen, and like the whole like real time nature of it, and like, maybe we should like slow down or get, you know, think this through or like, what is this really for? Or think about all that stuff.
I think one of the things about, I mean, it's very extreme. It was very extreme during that period where Abram was being diagnosed and, you know, every single day was about that, and just like the uncertainty of it. And like, just not knowing, like, what is going to happen? What is going to happen today? What's going to happen in a month? Like, you know, what is this? Like, you know, we knew he was sick, but we didn't know what it was. And then even once we started to know what it was, layers and layers and layers and layers of uncertainty. And so in a way, that was my primary experience that I wanted to document, was the uncertainty of it, was the kind of free fall of it, was the feeling of like, I have no idea. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't know if I'm making this, like, is, are we going to keep making Hey, It's Me? Am I going to keep making Commonplace?
[50:00]
Is it, does it depend on Abram’s diagnosis? Does it depend on like… I really just lost, completely lost track of, like, the stakes, the forms, the formats, the boundaries, the like, all that stuff. And that's where I tend to push into that space, even when I'm not in a, you know, I've never been in a crisis quite like this before. But that's like, that's a kind of free fall space that I either intentionally push into or find myself in a lot in my life.
But I think, so I did feel a little rejected, or, or a little bit like, and I've talked to Mike about this a bunch and, on Hey, It's Me, but like, I know, for the most part, I no longer live in a world where people can make plans. And that's one of the many bizarre things about moving from a life in which you are independent to a life in which you are a primary caregiver for somebody who's very, very sick. I'm now living in this state of, like, unpredictability that's beyond what I ever could have imagined, and I'm, I'm noticing that I'm also, like, pushing Mike. We've recorded so many episodes recently. Like I, I have this feeling of like, if we can record, let's do it, let's do it, let's do it. ‘Cause I never know what's coming anymore.
But I might look back on this and be like, that was a time for you to be quiet. And I might regret it. But I think what I'm doing is I'm just reaching really desperately for connection, for, it's not just private connection though. There's something, and we've talked about this before, like I have problems with reality, you know, and, and there's something about the recording that makes things more real to me. I don't know.
DAVID NAIMON: That's where I felt like I was disappointing you in the sense that I knew I think fundamentally that was true, that recording it was important. I'm not sure it was important that it be aired, but it felt like the recording part was important to you.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, that's, but you, the, the rejection that I felt, and that was actually very important. I mean, I'll just say it in a very simplest, simplest way, and I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings, David, but there was a part of me that was like, right. Mike will go there with me, David, but Mike will [laughs], no, I'm serious. I'm serious. And part of it was like, I think part of it, no. And part of it was like, I think part of that's because Mike's on the spectrum. Like there, there are like some, there are some safety, there are you and I have a much, I, there's, there's, there's something that happens between me and Mike, like, I don't know, it like, like Mike just said, like it, it's not always easy. And I don't know whether it's too much for Mike, you know, I'm always worried that I'm gonna like, like, he's finally gonna be like, you know what, I'm done with you. It's just too much now. But there's a way in which… I don't know.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Can I just, it was interesting to me a second ago, you were, you, you were sort of calling out the dynamic of Mike and two Jews.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
DAVID NAIMON: Which is our next podcast, by the way [laughs].
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Because this is reminding me of a thing that one of my previous therapists who is really into something called Bowen family systems would talk about and how in a family that the stable unit is always of a triangle, that there are all these triangles that form, but there's always, the triangles are not actually stable, that there's always two people that are forming the base of the, strong base of a triangle, and one person on the outside And that that even with just three people that that dynamic is constantly shifting. Who's the one on the outside. And between the three of us there are lots of axes along which one any one of us can be on the outside, right, like like you said to two white Jewish people and one Asian guy; two men and one women. One women? [Laughs]
But also, you know, this thing that you're saying right here, I mean, I think that there is a way in which, just because of the fact that Rachel, you and I have so much more contact with each other than either of us does with David, that's where, that he gets put on the outside. I think also that there is, you know, to, to bring this back to the, the, the way that having an audience makes it different.
[55:00]
I know that not everybody who makes art is doing it for this reason, but I know a lot of people who make any kind of art that they then put into the world, are doing it at least in part because we have some desire to be seen, and not just to have our work be seen, but have ourselves be seen through the work. And that is something that I feel very comfortable doing in the context of art, but I, I think one of the tensions in this show is that I have a little bit more reluctance to do that directly. There's something about the fact that this is my voice, and it seems more freeform and chaotic and more like life than a photograph or an essay does.
But I think that there is something, like, if there's some kind of animating spirit of this show, it is in some way about the two of us wanting some kind of a witness and wanting some kind of an understanding and attention as a way of like, filling some kind of need that we have. And I think that there is something interesting about inviting a third person into that space because we are always talking about the audience as being hypothetical, but having a third person in the space who is not exactly co-equal to us, but also not exactly a guest, and all three of us are also negotiating with this, you know, presumed hypothetical audience as well, I think that is doing something interesting.
RACHEL ZUCKER: How does it feel to you? [Laughs] Do you like it? Does it make you uncomfortable?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I always, you know what's interesting to me?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I feel like all of the feedback that we've gotten, you always forward me feedback that we get about the show and I don't always remember to do that for you. I think it's very interesting that most of the feedback that I've gotten have, have been people saying like, yeah, I liked it when you were talking about something. Maybe you should do more of that [laughs]. So, You know, I, I [laughs]-
RACHEL ZUCKER: You didn't answer the question.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I'm, I'm always a little like, you know, am I doing this to play to an audience or am I doing this just to have a nice time? Because I have the sense that I don't think that what we're doing right now is going to be super interesting to anybody but the three of us. Maybe a couple of other people who are also, I have a personal relationship with. And so that feels uncomfortable. Right? Whereas where we started when we were being more sort of intellectual, that felt more like comfortable in a presentational way.
RACHEL ZUCKER: So wait, I just want to say, I do hope that David answers the question that you asked, Mike, about, like, what does he want us to do more or less of and, and that question that you asked. And then I also just want to say, we didn't really respond at all to your question, like the more intellectual part that you were starting off before. So I just want to say, I know it's, it's like, we're kind of almost at time. And so I just want to make, I feel, I feel like, again, I've hijacked -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: No, you can’t hijack your own thing.
DAVID NAIMON: We spent a lot of time on, on the form situation at the beginning, but I like that we're now at a different center of gravity that's less formal [laughs] but, so what is, what is the question I'm supposed to answer?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, Mike asked you, is there something that you want us to do?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I asked to both of you.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh yeah. Okay.
DAVID NAIMON: Well, I just have to say, as a listener, I feel like, and I don't know if it's, I can't tell entirely whether it's a cumulative effect of just having listened to, I think four of the five episodes so far, or whether it's a trajectory of the show, but I feel like the show is getting increasingly more interesting to me, and I don't know that I could articulate what to do more of, except to say that I feel like the trajectory is one of deepening and increased interest with the pinnacle being the last episode.
I do love your dynamic. There's a tension, there's a loving tension in all of them, very different temperaments, but there's, you know, a complicity, a rapport and also a tangible tension as you both push for certain things at different times, which I find really compelling. But subject matter wise, I really liked the last one, maybe because it brought in the act of art making, and not just podcast making?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hmm.
DAVID NAIMON: I don't know. I don't know if that's why.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think you're gonna like Episode Seven.
DAVID NAIMON: Okay. I'm ready.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Wait, happens in Episode Seven again?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Seven is the one where we're talking about the Lois Conner thing.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh, right. What's Six?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Six is the Chappell Roan episode.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh, right. Oh, I just listened to that [laughs]. Oh, you, you're just going to have to listen.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay.
RACHEL ZUCKER: All right. What's what, what's happening here?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I don't know. Should we end it?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Maybe.
DAVID NAIMON: I mean, we can, or we don't have, I'm fine either way, whatever you guys want to do, but maybe we need some way to end it.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Well, one thing, David, now that you're here, one thing we've been searching for is a tagline [laughs] or, or a way to end the episodes. And we keep sort of saying like, “Tagline here” or, “Oh, we need a tagline.” That kind of seems like how, how we end each show. Do you have any thoughts about that?
DAVID NAIMON: How to end the show?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm hmm. Like how to end this episode, but also like how to end every episode. Yeah. ‘Cause we have a good beginning.
DAVID NAIMON: Yeah. I like your beginning.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. We don't know how to end.
DAVID NAIMON: Good question.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Maybe we should just do the Midwestern thing where we just like, Ope, well! And then leave [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Okay. Ooh!
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: David's in space now.
RACHEL ZUCKER: David looks like Albert Einstein right now. With his hair. All right. Let's end. I'm going to press stop.
[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 keepthechannelopen.com. Thanks for spending this time with us. Take care.