What It Means To Be A Good Man Today With Tom Junod

My founding father was my dad. I made two vows. One, I am never going to be like him. And the one that I couldn't articulate to myself is like I want nothing more than to be like him. >> First guest tonight is >> award-winning journalist Tom Juno. Everyone >> Tom Jano is famous for writing essays that have defined both people and events. He wrote a piece called The Falling Man, which is like the canonical piece for 9/11. And then later on, he wrote the iconic piece for Fred Rogers. >> Do you think you went to Fred Rogers suspecting that he would have secrets like your father? >> I was terrified of my dad. >> Yeah. And I think that one of the ways that I found to sort of to deal with that terror was to build up my dad in my head, to build this narrative. Before my mother went into surgery, she comes out and she says, "I [music] know you idolize him, but he's a mean, nasty little man and no one to idolize." My book begins with the sentence, "Everybody knew." There's a a point in the book where I open my father's briefcase and find hard evidence of his secret life. The only measure of my father's wrongdoing was my mom's tears. >> Did you find throughout your life given your father's example on you that you were attracted to figures like that or were you repulsed by figures like that and you went towards the Fred Rogers type? I went and I read this past week I read the meditations. >> Oh, really? What did you think? >> Um, I was really knocked out by it. >> Yeah. >> And I I'm knocked out by it on a couple of on a couple of different levels. Do you want to get into those levels? >> I have questions I want to ask you, but I want to hear this more. Well, so [gasps] you know, number one, you you go I had the same feeling reading Marcus Curelius that I did like when I first read when I first read Samuel Peeps, which is like, oh my god, he's a dude. I mean, >> yeah. A glimpse into the humanity. >> And so he lived a long long time ago, but his concerns are not very different from our concerns. >> Yes. >> Okay. So that so that's [clears throat] so that's one thing. There is that there is that thing >> a time travel element. >> A time travel element to it. you you you see yourself in there in a way that you don't see yourself let's say in the New Testament >> or certainly or even in Aristotle like you're just like this is smart and I get it but you seem like a person wearing a toga that I don't understand >> and he's talking and he's talking to you >> I mean he's talking to himself the book is I think probably addressed to himself but he's talking to you >> and he's talking to you and he and he's and he's making sense yeah >> and so and so here's my other my the other thing that I went to towards he's talking about death and he's talking about how to live as a human in the face of death >> in in the years where Christianity is being developed and coming up with a very very different answer. Aurelius is basically saying okay so so death is simply a fact of life and and to accept that changes changes everything. It's natural. It's part of the natural world. less natural than birth >> and it's part of and it's part of you. >> Yeah. >> Where whereas you have Christianity on the other side saying to me what is the greatest philosophical mistake in the history of humanity which is the wages of sin or death. >> Mhm. >> I think that is a mistake and I think it's it's it's actually a deadly mistake that it's actually and upon that deadly mistake is premised to me mankind's worst invention. its worst idea which is hell. Well, so I've said this before like because yeah, Markius and Christianity at the same time. Jesus Saka born the same year, >> right? >> Both in provinces of the same empire. Yes. >> Both die the hands of the state. I've said like the the Christian argument is like don't sin or you will go to hell. >> And I think the stoic argument is don't sin or you will live in hell. Like that that it's a it's a somewhat logical argument against >> excess and cruel. like when he says the best revenge is to not be like that. >> Okay, so that's the argument. So that sentence of all the sentences in the book that is I've circled it three times. I have stars. I have the page dogeared to it. I mean that is the sentence. >> Yeah. >> In in in the book that that has stood out to me. It's going in I have I keep like a chatbook and stuff and that goes there. And so I think that the book really gave me some hope. I don't read philosophy that much. Yeah, >> I read poetry a lot more than I read philosophy. But both poetry and philosophy give me difficulty in that they don't tell a story usually. >> Yeah. >> Some I mean some poetry does actually, you know, obviously like you know, epic poetry and stuff, but but philosophy doesn't tell a story. And so I I have trouble with it. But it really spoke to me in a way that was, you know, really powerful. And now I want to learn more about Senica for sure. >> I think Aristotle said uh both the philosopher and the poet are concerned with wonder. >> Yeah. >> And I I think when you you don't get that when you read ironically Aristotle or most of the other philosophers but when you read Marcus Aurelius it doesn't feel like he's doing philosophy but he is >> right by talking about himself. It's much it's similar to Montaigne where he's like who am I? Why am I here? What's going on? What does this mean? How could I do it differently? That that has philosophy. It definitely does not feel like he's doing philosophy. It feels like he's talking to you and he feels in certain ways like a modern-day advice writer, you know, a so-called self-help writer. Well, there there's a French philosopher named Pierre Hado who wrote this book about marxis and meditation said his argument is that that is doing philosophy writing notes to yourself about your temper about your fear of death about your anxiety about obnoxious people reminding yourself of what you believe oftentimes right after you've just acted in contrary to that belief. That's philosophy, not philosophical discourses where you attempt to explain the universe >> or to get at something right or wrong. >> Yes. Yes. Meditations is is philosophy for Marcus Aurelius and its accidental byproduct is that you and I can read it 2,000 years later. >> Right. And so I was really happy to read it because I'm trying to figure out like what's my next book to write and that it's that's I mean I'm not saying that I'm going to like do my own meditations. I'm not saying that but I'm saying that it it basically broadened possibilities for me and that was a really great gift. So >> as as a >> I appreciate that to you >> as a great writer. I would be curious what you thought of it as a text. Like put put the philosophical contents aside. H how did you take it stylistically? And >> I thought it was I thought it was it was really well done and and astoundingly modern. >> Yeah. >> You know, >> especially given that it wasn't for an audience, >> right? Astoundingly. And I think perhaps it's because it wasn't for an audience that it it still stands up. Yeah. All these years. He's he's not he's not on a stage. >> Yeah. >> And a you know you feel that a lot of times when you read the ancients like they are on a stage. The fact that he's sitting either in his bedroom or in a camp tent or whatever doing this is I think what lends it its immediacy and and so that's the thing that I liked about it stylistically was that there is a certain immediacy to it. You get that advice about like, you know, just be really raw and vulnerable and and specific and that creates the general and you don't really believe it and then this guy writes something for nobody >> and it somehow reaches millions of people for for 20 centuries. It's kind of like the proof. Did you read the Joan Diddian book that came out, the the notes to John? >> I have not read the whole thing. I read the I read the excerpts that came out. That's it. I have the book, but I haven't I haven't read. >> By the way, this is this was her table. Didn't I tell you this? >> No. >> Yeah, this was the table. She she could have written some of those notes like at this table. >> Wow. Um but um the chairs too. Um dang when I read that I was like >> oh she can't write a bad sentence like like she was writing for her husband. Like she was writing notes from therapy for her husband. And if if this if that text had gotten discovered 200 years from now and someone wrongly interpreted it as an epistlary novel, they would have been like, "This is great." You know what I mean? it it somehow it's like she's so good at what she does that even when she's jotting notes down from a therapy session to her husband it's good and I felt like here's Mark's realist writing reminders to himself his to-do list is an enduring work of philosophy >> notes so notes to John is interesting because from the excerpt that I read and I remember when you know like basically the whole discussion of of whether it was right to publish it whether it was morally right to publish it and the thing that made me go out and vote yes by buying the book and reading and reading I I guess it was in the New Yorker the excerpts was that I thought that the excerpts from her notes to her psychiatrist or or psychologist or therapist was actually better than one of the books that she came out with toward the end of her life which is Blue Nights which I did not like Blue Nights. >> Oh really? >> Yeah. >> I thought I thought Blue Nights was I like Blue Nights. I liked obviously your magical thinking, but it it was clear that she was not >> capable given the profound grief and pain of your daughter drinking herself to death. >> She could not be fully honest about like >> and that's what I thought. That's what that's what I thought of all of the work that she's done. It was the only thing I read that did not seem quite honest. >> And by honesty, we're not judging. were just saying like she couldn't say the full weight of what she felt. It was it was crushing. But in the clearly in therapy and writing the notes to her husband, she was able to look in the eye in a way that she couldn't in blue. >> I completely agree. >> Yeah. >> But the thing about the thing that I didn't like about Blue Nights is that she couldn't say what she needed to say. So she said other things that seemed distracting would be the would be the nice word. >> Yeah. >> To to talk about it. It just seemed it seemed not just not quite able to be honest, it seemed in some parts almost dishonest and and that was the part that I didn't like about the book. >> Yeah. It's it's the definition of cognitive dissonance like and and I think you probably could relate to that in in your book where it's like you're having to face >> things that you have spent your whole life not facing and not only not facing but telling yourself >> a contrary story. >> Yeah. Right. or or just or just in in my case more knowing but not saying knowing but not speaking. >> Right. Right. Right. Right. Like you could read th those two books and just think that her daughter got a mysterious infection and died. >> That's right. >> And probably part of that was private. Like I think she probably started that on a year of magical thinking cuz her daughter was still alive I believe when she was writing it or or she didn't she didn't there's a privacy issue. There's all these other things. But yeah, at the end of the day, you're like, "Oh, there was a lot more to the story that the that the notes illustrate." >> In Blue Knights, to me, she falls upon she falls back upon some of her [sighs and gasps] her stylistic ticks, like brand names, which in that book seems just they seem so out of place and so strange. >> I was curious. So, speaking of things that you know that you don't say, reading this book and then going back, I read the the Mr. Rogers story. Sure. >> How much do you think he sensed that you weren't saying >> about your father? Cuz obviously you guys were talking about your relationship with your father and he's sort of kind of helping you heal and deal with that. But like you didn't fully know all the stuff then that you knew here and I'm sure you didn't tell him >> that much. Did Did he have a do you think he had a sense or what do you think he understood about your father? Well, so I I think that Fred was a genius. Yeah. >> So I think that he he definitely had a sense. Yeah. >> And I think he had a sense about everything, including, you know, how I felt about my dad. And >> what he was at pains to assure me about was how my dad felt about me. >> Yeah. >> I mean, he wrote me emails really until the until he died. And I have emails from him that I, you know, I've kept and held on to until he died. And he wrote me often about my dad really >> and about how much I like I I know how much he loves you. >> Yeah. >> And so he he didn't really deal with it in a way that is in that story, but he dealt with it in a way that was even more specific and straightforward. >> Yeah. There there's something about those people that have just the ability to kind of see past all your defenses and pretentions and and I Yeah. I wondered if he could just read you like a book. >> He he was that guy, you know, and and I think that it wasn't just me. Yeah. >> He had that ability with every person that he met. He had the ability to go and like what does this person need? >> Yeah. >> And how can I supply it to him and how can I minister to him? And that's what he that's what he did with me. But the the thing that's interesting now that you've mentioned it with Fred Rogers. So I wrote that story in 1998. >> Yeah. >> My profile of Fred Rogers. In 1996, just two years earlier, I did the profile of my dad for GQ under the title of my father's fashion tips. >> Right. And I mean, there's something that happened with that story that I've only just written about, which is that my father told me a lot of his secrets. He told me about what happened, you know, back when I was a kid, and he had his affair with Valerie Shocket. He told me about his his bravado affair with both Gabbor sisters. And he told me, of course, at the end of this, he told me that he of all his conquests, there there was one woman who was the one. >> Yeah. >> And that all that all was told to me two years before I got to Fred. >> So you had all the you had the truth, but you didn't have all the facts. >> I had the truth, but not the ability to tell the truth. >> Yeah. Sure. Also that. Yes. >> So which which was which was more of it. I, you know, I mean, I had I had a lot of the facts, but I did not feel free to write about them or even talk about them. >> Yeah. And I suspect you didn't need to tell Fred Rogers. He just knew. >> He just knew. >> There's another author that he had a relationship with. I'm forgetting his name. He wrote for Tim Madigan. >> Yes. There was something about I read that book, too. And there's this remarkable thing where he just he just starts signing his his letters to Tim like, "I'm proud of you." He just sensed that he hadn't heard that enough and he knew that he need it was it was like I don't believe in miracles but it struck me as like a very heavenly miraculous >> kind of like little bit of heaven on earth kind of thing. It was part of his like miraculous abilities, but also he it was also part of like how he spoke like >> like so I I spoke to Fred Rogers I guess two months before he died. >> Yeah. >> And it was a it was like a it was like a really it was a sort of another sort of dadriven occasion. My father was still alive, but one night my cousin, you know, had a got a load on, you know, got had had drank too much and called me up. It was Christmas Eve to basically to cuz my father had been living with his mom for a while. And basically, he called me to tell me, you know, what a what a piece of my dad was. >> Yeah. He's a monster basically. >> Yeah. That he was a monster. And and not just a monster, but a a gonif, which is the word which is the word he used. But he he >> What does that mean? >> Gon is a is a Yiddish word for a thief. >> Oh. >> And he called up and he talked first to my wife Janet and sort of laid it on her as well. And she got really really upset and couldn't go to sleep that night. She couldn't fall asleep on Christmas Eve. And the thing that enabled her to finally fall asleep was to think, what would Fred Rogers do? >> Oh. And so she told me that in the morning. And so Christmas morning 2002, I called Fred to tell him exactly that. >> Yeah. >> And his response to me was, "Tom, how like you to tell me that?" >> Wow. >> Which is what he did. So So like, so I'm so proud of you. How like you? All those things. I, you know, I get a chill just thinking about it. >> And he's saying how like you that that someone had thought something nice about someone. and someone [snorts] basically. >> Yeah. >> And he he had that ability to like what is Tom to isolate like what is Tom doing here that's good? >> Yes. >> And to tell you >> what's good and and to reinforce in his way that you had done the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. Which is so basic and yet so incredibly rare. >> It's so incredibly rare. >> The contrast like the idea of your father and your relationship with him being sort of part of that piece. Then reading this book, it's like oh this is like a angel devil on the shoulder situation or a d like the >> Martin Luther King talked about how we have like a north and south in our soul and it's like you that was to me the embodiment of that. >> Yeah. So Fred is very rarely mentioned in the book like hardly like hardly at all. And yet he is he is you know he stands tall in the book as sort of an alternate father figure that I happened upon >> you know fairly late in my life. >> Did you find throughout your life given your father's example on you that you were attracted to figures like that or were you repulsed by figures like that and you went towards the Fred Rogers types? >> I would say both. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. actually both. But my father took up so much space and you know he was such you know he was the giant of of any room that he stepped in. So it was hard to to like think like like I'm going to I'm going to find like another guy like this >> to to be influenced by or to follow. And so and so you the thing that I I did was I wrote about guys like that. >> Yes. >> You know Tony Tony Curtis. I mean I it was definitely that is a profile. I wrote that profile in like 19 95 for GQ and what it really was was a profile of my dad by proxy. >> Do you think you went to Fred Rogers suspecting that he would have secrets like your father? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I I thought that there would be something something, you know, behind behind that particular facade. >> Yeah. And I and I think that that's basically if if you have to take a look at my career sort of preferred and post Fred, I would say that preferred it was definitely driven by the desire to find out people's secrets. >> Yeah. [sighs] >> Post Fred, it was a desire to understand people's secrets. And I think that that was the difference. >> Yeah. I remember I when I a couple of years ago I read Walter Isacson's biography of Da Vinci and he he it's not a huge theme in the book but for whatever reason I it it struck me probably because I was looking for to write about something similar but he's talking about how Da Vinci's relationship to his father he's an illegitimate son his father can only kind of partially support him and then his father has another family and all those kids get a different relationship and so so one of Isaxen's theories is that basically Da Vinci spends his whole life looking for the perfect patron like the the perfect unconditional loving king who says, "Leo, you're amazing. Just do what you do. Don't feel any pressure." And he and he he finds himself in the orbit of this pope and then that Medici, whatever. And then inevitably there was a falling out and then he would leave the work unfinished and go on to the next one. And you're just like this great artist is still >> stuck in this cycle, this pattern. And I think we all have some version of that. I just wondered if it's like are those the kind of editors you went to? were those kind of people you profiled or those the bosses you had like you can't have that influence in your life and not be sort of normalized to it and even attracted to it. >> Well, I've had definitely like my relationships with my editors have put me here. You know, I've had great great editors. I can I can you know I can name them all from from Jay Love early on to David Granger and you know now Eric Neil is my editor and you know we have really really deep relationships and I feel like you know I've grown through each of those. The growth happens through the power of the relationship. Sure. I mean I think a lot you know I mean I I I take responsibility for the things that I write but I think that part of the power of the things that I write are you know from the shared power of friendship of mentorship whatever it is. I think that living with my dad and worshiping at the altar of my dad constituted a sort of moral injury. And and I think that I think that my my book I mean those there's a lot of things that are never mentioned in my book. No word a lot of words that are never said. Trauma being one of them. Sex addiction being another. Um even abuse is like comes as a surprise to me. >> Yeah. >> It's not part of like the pallet of words that I'm I'm I'm using. And moral injury is another. Yeah. >> And yet I I think that the book is very much about moral injury. >> Yeah. I mean, for that generation, we sent them out to do this thing, feed them into this machine. Some of them came home, some of them didn't. There was, unlike other wars, there was at least some moral clarity about why they were there. But that doesn't change what you're seeing around you. You came home to this country that wasn't like the one you left. It was now an industrial behemoth and imperial power and also experiencing wealth and prosperity unprecedented in human history. >> Are you going to sit down and process your moral injury or are you going to go party and >> not when not when Bill Levit likes your face? Not when Elizabeth Taylor can't keep her eyes off you. According, you know, according to my dad. Yeah. Um, >> I think about like my grandfather that was all there for them. >> Like I think about my grandfather, he also in Normandy and then like my I remember him he bought this condo in Hawaii and I go like I imagine explaining a condo in Hawaii decades later to a person who's on the beach in Normandy. Like those would have been >> like did I die? What is like like the how could you comprehend? And so, so the the the America that he comes back to and the temptations and the prosperity and the the busyiness of it, I mean, I imagine it would have been like heroin or something. >> Well, but especially for my dad because I mean, my dad was seriously wounded, you know, in the in the hedge of Normandy. He he suffered first he uh he was hit by the force of a grenade, if not the shrapnel, and then when he was in the field hospital, the field hospital got hit by artillery. And so, he almost died. I mean the the the rumor that I've heard not from him but from you know my cousins and my aunts was that he was given was he was given last rice. >> Wow. >> And so then after that he's about to go back to the front and what happens? There's a lieutenant who hears him sing >> and takes away his gun >> and >> transforms him from an infantry man to a band singer in this. It is it's Gatsby-esque. It's it's Don Draperesque >> and and the name of the the the the act the show is called For Men Only. And so then my father goes back to the United States. He goes back to Brooklyn and tries to sing. >> Yeah. >> And can't and doesn't he he he gets he chokes as as he told me when he when he went to like do a try out for Arthur Godfrey. So he chokes. So what does he do? He becomes I think I call him at the end of the book a bedroom gangster, but he's also he's also a bedroom celebrity. >> Yeah. >> And that's his legitimate legitimate celebrity is is bedding and wooing probably hundreds hundreds of women. You know, >> that's the one place where he feels like who he almost could have been had >> has been realized. Has been realized. And then you have a son, me, who is is watching this and believes in his father's celebrity but follows that celebrity to the place where it really exists which is in you know in regard to sex and that is forbidden that is secret that is never to be spoken of and so it's hence that's why I wanted to talk to you about moral injury. Yeah. And in a way we we have the kind of language and understanding to deal with more obvious and straightforward forms of abuse. >> Yes. >> But in a way like Yeah. Dad gets angry and hits me is disorienting, but it at least it's straightforward. >> Sure. like what you went through would have been profoundly disorienting and destabilizing because not only would you have not fully understood what was happening because it's clo and dagger but like it's not clear that there's anything wrong with that necessarily as like that that that your father's probably thinking I'm just living my life this has nothing to do with you the understanding isn't there of what's happening and you don't understand what's happening and that is the moral injury of what you're subjected to >> and the I mean the only measure of my father's was wrongdoing was my mom's tears. >> Yeah. Yeah. And she doesn't fully understand what's happening or articulate it either. So you >> she can see it and she knows it but she doesn't articulate it. >> But I mean if your mother had left when you were five and said he's a piece of That would have given you some clarity as to. So you're you're you're looking around and going I don't think this is right. This is wrong. Is my dad a monster? And then you're like but mom's more or less okay with it dayto day. That's another element of of destabilizing, too. >> Well, you know, well, once again, I mean, my, you know, my mom, you know, she would she would go into the her bedroom, you know, in the afternoon and just I think that she was taking pills. She used to have, you know, migraines and and I don't know whether to put my, you know, quote marks around those migraines or not, but she would take the pills and then just go out, you know, go into the bedroom and pass out for 3 hours, >> right? >> What am I to make of that? >> Sure. I mean, even Yeah. that whole era like our even our understanding of what an alcoholic is or isn't is not you know is is still kind of being formed >> and yeah it would have been I mean how a kid >> how a teenager makes heads or tails of this would have been impossible. >> Yeah. Especially when when I know as a teenager that the room where my mom repairs to, you know, just to get away from it is where my father like keeps his stuff. >> It's in that it's in that room. I mean, >> and to anybody who doesn't know the book, you know, I there's a a point in the book where I open my father's briefcase and find like hard evidence of his secret life. And that's what he that's that that briefcase is sitting at the bottom of the closet in the same room where my mom has passed out on the bed. >> And the pressure of that like it's this combustible situation cuz you know all the ingredients and you know that they could be combined at any moment and you don't know how that's going to go. >> That's right. And you don't know what you're supposed to do either. Do you tell her? >> Yeah. >> She's suffering and she's suffering because of this unseen thing. Right. >> Do you make her see it? >> Right. What's the right thing to do? >> What's the right thing to do there? >> Yeah. >> I mean, I've I've I've thought of that a lot and especially as in writing this book because I mean, when you write a book like this, you ask yourself whether you're doing the right thing. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and there is something inherently exploitative is not the right word. But Janet Malcolm's right when she says there's something fundamentally sort of cruel about writing >> in the end. Do you know what I mean? like there is there's an act of betrayal in it. It's not >> I do I mean I I saw the you have the Janet Malcolm book given prime position back at the store and if you ever want to get into the Janet Malcolm thing I I will because I I I just think that she's wrong. >> Tell me. >> Well, because I think that she >> draws everything with way too broad a brush. And so I think that the act of human witness is an essential essential act of what we do. And it's act it's not just what we do, it's what we do, right? So I have I have a shed back in Shelter Island where I write. Yeah. >> And a few years ago, I had to get bookshelves for it >> finally, you know, to to just to fit all the stuff. And and then getting the bookshelves, I had to figure out like how am I going to like arrange these books? And I arranged them ultimately chronologically. It begins it begins with Finnegan's Wake and then the Bible and it ends with so there's two copies of Finnegan's Wake. There's always a Finnegan's Wake at the beginning and there's Finnegan's Wake at the end. So James Joyce would have been really really happy and proud of that. But looking at the history of humanity through a chronology of its books makes you realize that we get most everything that we do wrong except this one thing which is which is which is bear witness to the things that we've done bad. But I think what she's saying or what I take it to mean is that when a writer is sitting down and looking at a story or a person's story that ultimately their obligation is to that act of bearing witness and the truth of it and the the human wisdom or education or lesson or whatever not always to the flesh and blood person across >> I wish that she would say that. She doesn't say that. She She doesn't She doesn't give any allowance to the to the necessity and the moral rightness of it. >> Yeah. She makes it seem like it's something sorted. And and I I think what she's doing is expressing the sortedness from the perspective of the subject like like and I think Joe Ddian has a great passage about this too actually where she's talking about how like >> I think it's in slouching towards Bethlehem where she's talking about how like people assume she's nice as a reporter cuz she's small >> and she's like actually a killer, you know? She's and she's great. She's great on that subject. And I and I think that she draws distinctions there that are finer than the distinctions that Janet Malcolm draws. >> And you experience this where it's like you really start to like this person care and and they're telling you things. Same with your father where it's like the difference between how you perceive yourself and how this is going to be perceived by the wider world who has no vested interest in buying into your mythology or cognitive dissonance. That is the sensitive nature of the >> of the job. >> Yeah. There's a there's a a thing that I' that people have been mentioning to me about Joan Ddian that is sort of pertains to this in one of the stories in slouching towards Bethlehem where she finds a couple on acid taking care of the babies and she's asked later on like what did you think when when that happened and she answered that I thought that this is gold. >> Yeah. So, I don't I I've never thought like that, >> right? >> I really haven't. And I mean, I've thought like, "Oh, this is like this is so sad and I'm going to write about it." But I never given myself that allowance to say, "Oh, this is gold." And maybe so maybe I'm I'm I'm fooling myself more completely than Joan did. But I I a factor piece of information both ways. You can't go like, "Oh, I I see where this fits in and I also see this as a human being." >> Oh, I always, you know, I I try to I try to always see the people as a human being. And in in this book, I mean, I I try to see my dad as a human being. I try not to do a tell all. I try not to come in, you know, with a grudge. And I don't know how you you look at it, but to me, the book is about loving a guy who might be and probably is a bad man. >> Given the title and what's happening in the world, I do think it would be worth talking about like the idea of masculinity. Obviously, your dad's version of it in some ways like we need more of it and in other ways we have to eradicate it from the face of the earth. And you can see how generations of those flawed ideas are haunt people and create this >> people and are right now sort of making a comeback. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, how do you think about that? >> There's that Miller Light commercial where they have a there's a kid, young man. He's at a bar and he's looking at his phone and there's a girl sort of flirting with him and then Christopher Walkin is at the bar and says, "Hey, go talk to him." You know, go go talk to her. she's, you know, don't look at your phone, talk to her. And so, there's this lesson about manhood that's being >> promulgated right now on our TV screens. And I I have to say that I I sort of agree with it. I I I see my dad in that position. He's sort of the Christopher Walkin in that position saying, "Hey, >> hey, go out and and experience life. you might take your lumps, but but if you have confidence in yourself or or at least exude confidence, you'll you'll do okay. I sort of agree with that. >> But I think that at the same time, I see a lot of people sort of out there and they're using masculinity as a as essentially as a as a shield. Yeah. to accomplish one thing, which is being able to lie your face off with no consequences. >> Yeah. >> And I think that that is like the thing that I I would love to address, you know, even just now because I don't address it in the book. The book is it's it's my story. I don't I don't get political in the book at all. But I think that the idea that that masculinity, manhood gives you a get out of jail for free card, I think is like Yeah. is intensely damaging. Yeah. [snorts] It's it's like they want the sort of old-fashioned ideas of masculinity with like action and strength and whatever, but they don't want any of the other ideas that were inseparable from it, at least as an ideal in the past. you know, honor, dignity, you know, >> those are the big words. I mean, you just said the biggest word, which is honor. >> Yeah. >> And and you don't see masculinity being um championed as a means of honor. >> Yeah. >> And I I look at it and I think that somehow my dad actually taught me, not by example, but at least in his words, that honor was a worthwhile goal. The problem is we look back and we will focus on examples where they either lived up to it or didn't live up to it. And what we really should be talking about is that these are all encompassing ideas, not things that you can compartmentalize. Like I'll give you two examples I thought about from the book. So on the one hand, um there's a scene where you you as a kid cuz hurt people hurt people. You're bullying this kid in the neighborhood. Your dad sort of finds out and he puts a stop to it and he sort of he's like this is not what we do. Basically, right? >> Pick on someone your own size is what he says. there's some kind of honor and and there's a valuable lesson in there. >> Same time, there's no honor in repeatedly humiliating your wife, lying, cheating, stealing, all the things that but but I don't think your dad probably saw that as a contradiction in terms because he probably had some sense of like who you owe honor to and who you don't. >> I think that that's a really it's a really interesting question. So, is manhood the thing that gets you to the point where you are allowed to have this other second life or is or should it be the the thing that basically tells you to not to have that life to put on the brakes? And I think that like that's like a really interesting and confusing question. I mean, did did my dad's actions invalidate his words? Did his actions basically prove that the words were were empty? Or is it how I I look at it is like the words were good. It if only his actions had been better. >> Well, and this is what we do historically, right? We look at the founders and go, "Yeah, sure. They said all this stuff, but then, you know, here's George Washington putting out a letter demanding the recovery of his slave who he intends to beat, or here's Thomas Jefferson's, you know, sort of uh slave concubine. And we go, oh, they didn't mean a word of it. And it's like, no, I think they did mean it all. And they were just shamefully, woefully inadequate at living with them. And then also they lived in a society that allowed them to get away with that obvious contradiction cuz they were all sort of in in on it. And part of what witnessing and storytelling is really about is about bringing those contradictions to the surface for absolutely like I was just I was just reading Ron Chernel's book on Mark Twain. Mark Twain has this fascinating thing where he's like, "My mother was like the sweetest, kindest, nicest, most charitable person you ever met." And yet she didn't, he's a little patronized. She didn't understand the contradiction. I think it's that people allowed her to live in the polite fiction in which these two things were not diametrically opposed to her. And part of what activism and storytelling and media and culture does is surface these secrets and contradictions and force us to wrestle with them or toss out whatever the the veneer of politeness and civilization which is kind of what we're doing now. >> The Yeah. The baby with the bathwater. >> So my book begins with the sentence everybody knew. >> Yeah. And I think that what you're talking about right now, that there was an entire society set up to basically allow the founding fathers to do whatever they really felt like doing while, you know, producing the the poetry and the and the, you know, the genius the genius vision that, you know, gave birth to this country. But my founding father was my dad. >> Yes. as good as [laughter] for >> you know and and he had a whole system in place of enablers mostly men who basically allowed him to do you know whatever he wanted men who also had you know really really deep relationships with my mom or at least what I consider deep relationships with my mom I mean you know my uncle Johnny my god you know my godfather um Frankie Klein and who called, you know, every every Saturday morning to see like who my dad was betting and to see who I liked. You know, all these guys, they were really good friends with my mom. >> Your grandmother was an enabler, also a victim, but an enabler. >> Yeah. 100 100%. So, my dad had this whole sort of world that enabled him to do what he wanted to do. And not only enabled him, the thing is they were thrilled by it. >> Celebrated different than enabling which is kind of this secret tacit acceptance. It was like this is part of who you are. This is great. This is impressive. >> They were doing it for him. like you know my dad somehow convinced people that like the things that he was doing was an was just like proof that life held sort of untold and unseen marvels. >> That's the kind of darkness of it. The contradiction where they're they're not thinking about what this would be like for >> the children in the house, what's like for your mom, what it's like for >> Yeah. that the the women who are being sort of chewed up >> spit out of the system. There's that moment in the book where I mean I am just about to turn 50. It's the day before I turned 50 and I go to see Frankie Klene who was my father's wingman in Florida and he and I'm bring him my he loved my father so much that I'm bringing him some of my father's ashes in a shot glass so that he can spread them in the lake behind his house. So I give him the it's it's a trans there's a transaction that's going on. I give him the shot glass and he says, "Anything else?" And I say, "Yeah." "Who was this woman of my father's in Florida?" And then everything changes. >> Yeah. >> But what he says is, "So, you know." >> Yeah. >> Because I wouldn't have told you if you didn't know, >> right? >> And and it that's what enables me to get in and to find out what her name was. And you know that's that's the route that I take throughout the rest of the book because what I am trying to find out something not just not just write about my dad. There's a the world that my father left behind is a world that I try to investigate and infiltrate and do. >> Yeah. It's uh it's like in recovery they say you're only as sick as your secrets and and so like the the secrets >> people think they're helping by preserving the fiction or not challenging you on the fiction. And this is true in individual relationships, individuals, but then I think it's also true as a society. Like there's the things we don't want to know. like we vaguely know what happens in a slaughter house or in a sweat shop, but we're like >> I know that I probably have to buy more expensive shirts, you know, and and so society understanding that you don't really want to know. >> Yeah. >> Doesn't tell you. And so do you have and all of us are guilty of it and all some of us are better at it than others but I think we're all guilty of just like I know but I don't want to really know because if I really know it's like how does the other half live? What do you do about it? >> Well, in in this book, you know, finding out the secrets does require me to act. And the way that I do act is I I try to find out, you know, the the people that my father sort of left behind. Yeah. >> And you know that that to me ultimately becomes for me whenever I sort of ask myself about like did I do the right thing with this book to me the proof that I did the right thing you know >> it [clears throat] exists and she and she you know more to the point she exists. I I have a I have a si you know I have sister that I find at the end of the book and I mean I I wrote to her this morning and she wrote to me. I mean, we have a now a sibling relationship and it's it's like a great gift of my life in my life and I never saw it coming. >> The Wright Thompson profile of Tiger Woods, he quotes someone. I think about this all the time. He says, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, we become like daddy after all." >> Yeah. >> How have you wrestled with that? >> Just try to, you know, be honorable. I do. I do. You know, and I because I think that I think that in in my life, I made two vows. One to myself articulated and one to myself just in my, you know, in my bones and in my cells. And the the one that I articulated to myself is I am never going to be like him. >> Yeah. >> And the one that I couldn't articulate to myself is like I want nothing more than to be like him. >> Yeah. And so, you know, I've had to I've had to balance those things. >> It's the north and south. They're at war with each other. >> Yes. It's it's the it's the north and south. Yeah. >> And so, you know, and this is where I think where stoicism really comes in here when you're dealing with that kind of split. It's hard to find a language for it. I don't mean on the page. You can find all the language that you want on the page, but I'm talking about to yourself in your self-t talk. And I and I got to say that that you know reading Marcus Aurelius over the last week has given me sort of like a a new kind of selft talk. It's given me it's given me a language in which to address these things. I'm not bullshitting you on that. Well, in Marcus' life, he has he loses his father very young, and then he comes under the sway of a monster, Hadrien, who's like although a very capable emperor, a a killer, like a not exactly a sadist, but what a person who you would expect would be attracted to absolute power. And so, he kind of has this, well, I don't want to be like him. And if you notice, he he almost never appears in meditations. He's not in the list of acknowledgments. He >> that's that start the book, right? >> Yeah. But but the dominant entity in the acknowledgements is not his mother who he clearly loved. It's this stepfather Antonyinus who you might have predicted they'd be at odds with each other >> because they're not related and they're jocking for power and they're in this forced arranged kind of marriage. >> But he l I mean in the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man. That could come from that passage that Mark is talking about Antonitis and you just see like oh >> if you get lucky enough to come in the orbit of an incredible person and you decide to listen it can really heal a lot of wounds and [snorts] get your compass dialed in. It's a pretty remarkable relationship they have. >> And I think that I think that Fred Rogers was was definitely that for me. interesting that you know you say the title because you know a lot of people you know know that it comes from the first line of the first song of the first Led Zeppelin album. However, the people who don't know that tend to think it's from from antiquity. >> Yeah. >> They they think, "Oh my god, is that is that Homer?" >> Yeah. It see it seems like it could be. >> The idea that we can sort of learn from our parents what to do and then also what not to do. And then it's but it's very hard to know in the moment which one like like you know are you are you unconsciously acting like them or are you unconsciously acting like them you know it's like it's hard to know. >> Sure. You know before my mother went into surgery in back in 1999 when she was 83 years old. She was set up and she was she was going into uh open heart surgery and you know and she waited until that moment to tell me what to think of my dad. [sighs and gasps] >> Right. Yeah. So she it's it's the night before I'm on the the balcony of their condo in Florida and she comes out and she says, "I know you idolize him." >> Yeah. But he's a mean, nasty little man and no one to idolize. >> Now that's like so that's a moment, right? That's heavy. >> That's heavy. And I think it, you know, it sort of, you know, messes me up at the time, but I have definitely, >> you know, when I have gone to make decisions in my life, you know, it's not only Fred Rogers that I fall back on. Yeah, >> it's definitely my mom as well. >> Well, that was it's like she should have given you that kind of moral clarity when you were 13. Either she couldn't get there herself or she thought somehow it was wrong to badmouth your father, but like you were trapped in one perspective on him until some ways that moment. >> So there's a there to me one of the most powerful scenes in the book is when I am listening to the song Sunshine when I'm in eighth grade. It's by, you know, that song by Jonathan Edwards. And I hear it as a song about my dad. And I and I hear it not only as a song about my dad, but as a protest song about my dad. And she hears it the same way. And we have a moment where we sit down next to each other and she says, "I know you like that song." And I said, "I do." And she goes, >> "I do, too." And then, you know, we begin we we both began crying sitting there next to each other. And that was definitely a moment when I understood that she was fighting the same thing that I was fighting. And I think that she understood that I was fighting the same thing she was fighting, >> but didn't know what to do about it. >> Right? The problem is so much of the stuff we pick up on, >> it's not conscious, right? And so it's not until someone else goes, "Hey, that is like just the worst way to handle that or that's not what everyone else is do." I mean, part of one of the good things about getting married ideally is you get a second set of parents and you're like, "Oh, other families are not like this." you know, >> I mean, I I remember going to the for the first time to my wife Janet's, you know, family dinner and there was it was there was a little bit like the scene in Annie Hall when the when the when the dinner table splits in and you see the, you know, the Annie Hall family and the and the and the Woody Allen family and it was very it was very much like that. I mean, it couldn't have been more different. >> There's no king holding court. There was no there was no king and and there was and the thing there was no fear either, >> right? >> And there was fear >> in my family. >> Yeah. >> And I don't think I've I really got that until just this moment, which is the the whole reason I love doing these kind of talks is that I I'm, you know, continually on the road to understanding the thing that I've written. And and yeah, so there there was fear. >> Yeah. And therapy is like that where you you're surprised by the words coming out of your mouth because you'd never you you hadn't been forced to articulate >> or explain >> some deep-seated assumption or >> reality that you took for granted and then it's coming out of your mouth and you're like, "Oh, this is insane. What am I saying? This isn't how it is. This doesn't need to be this way." >> But what do you do with fear? You know, and that's I think we're, you know, we're, [sighs and gasps] >> you know, I've thought of a lot of different ways to deal with it. One of them is writing, but now on the other side of writing, you know, there's there's stoicism. There's and you know, which is a pretty seems like a fairly good way to go forward. >> You want to go check out some books in the bookstore? >> I would love to check out some books in the bookstore.