Episode 41: Love, Peace & Taco Grease
November 14th, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guests: Rax King and Devin Kelly
Produced by Katie Rainey
Transcript by Jon Kay
Podcast Assistant: Dylan Thomas
We were off for a week because life got in the way, but we're back with a sparkly new episode for you, featuring the one and only Rax King alongside your faithful host Brian Birnbaum and our Priest Vallon, Devin Kelly. Rax King is a dog-loving, hedgehog-mothering, beer-swilling, gay and disabled sumbitch who occasionally writes and works as assistant editor for Sundress Publications. She is the author of the collection 'The People's Elbow: Thirty Recitatives on Rape and Wrestling' (Ursus Americanus, 2018). Her work can also be found in Catapult, Electric Literature, and Autostraddle, and she is most recently a columnist for Catapult with her ongoing series "Store Bought Is Fine". In this episode, we're talking all things Guy Fieri, Bruce Springsteen and authenticity in writing.
>> Brian: Welcome to the 41st episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum. We're here today with Rax King and Devin Kelly. Rax is a dog loving, hedgehog mothering... which is actually literal... beer swilling, gay, and disabled sumbitch... that's Southern. I love it. Who occasionally writes poetry and works as an assistant editor for Sundress Publications. Right? Did I get that right?
>> Rax: Sundress.
>> Devin: Sundress Publications.
>> Brian: I didn't know that was one word. Amazing.
>> Rax: Just the one.
>> Brian: I write. I'm actually known as a writer. She is the author of the collection "The People's Elbow", 30 recitatives on rape and wrestling. Out with Ursus Americanus?
>> Rax: Yeah.
>> Brian: Fucking A. I'm killing it today. Which is also one of the best titles I've ever... We discussed this once. The people's elbow. Who is that? Is that Stone Cold?
>> Rax: Uh, excuse me. That is none other than Dwayne 'The Rock'' Johnson.
>> Brian: Okay. Yeah, That shows how little I know about wrestling. Despite the fact that we did a podcast with Ian who said that wrestling is modern Shakespeare.
>> Rax: Yes, that's correct.
>> Brian: That's correct? We'll get into that and a little bit. Rax's work can also be found in Catapult, Electric Literature, and Autostraddle. Devin Kelly, as you know, is the OG. The priest Vallon of Animal Riot.
>> Devin: Wow, that's new.
>> Brian: Pulled that out.
>> Devin: I always wanted to be a priest.
>> Brian: Yeah, well, you know, in Gangs of New York he is the literal OG. So for old time's sake, Devin earned his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, Right?
>> Devin: Yes.
>> Brian: Everyone's excited. And is the author of two collaborative chapbooks as well as two collections of poetry, "Blood on Blood"... we will get into that, too, you know.
>> Devin: Some Bruce.
>> Brian: Okay, out from Unknown Press. And "In This Quiet Church of Night, I say Amen" with CCM, as it's known among the cool kids but also known as Civil Coping Mechanisms. This episode's fuckary I just thought of is brought to you by George, also from Sarah Lawrence College, who may or may not still be alive because Alabama lost last night. Roll Tide. And Rax tried to teach someone Roll Tide in a British accent last night or sometime recent?
>> Rax: (laughs) It was last night. He had a British accent. I wasn't doing a British accent.
>> Brian: Yeah. Well, they were going to say it in a British accent because they're British. And so it's like saying people evacuating a building when it's just a building being evacuated. Because, like people being evacuated according to The Wire, is people getting in an enema.
>> Devin: What's the fuckary?
>> Brian: The fuckary is whether George is alive.
>> Devin: Okay, I see. Because occasionally we have to think about that.
>> Brian: Yeah, let's read the text again. Bring that. Yeah, bring that up. We'll just do that real quick. This is very important. I have to file a missing persons report.
>> Devin: At 7:09 Brian said not looking good, George. At 7:11 George said we got it. At 7:57 PM, when it was over, Brian said, Don't drink too much tonight buddy. And immediately after George said Too late. And that's the last thing.
>> Brian: That's fucked up.
>> Devin: We haven't heard from him since.
>> Brian: That's a death knell right there. Alright, cool. Let's talk about how you got this Catapult column. And you say it. You say Guy's name really fancily. I'm getting ahead of the gun here.
>> Rax: But no, I don't say it fancily. I say it appropriately, and Christianly. He pronounces it fi-etty.
>> Brian: Oh he does?
>> Rax: Yeah, he always introduces himself as Guy Fi-etty. It's respectful, actually there, and I don't feel good about it.
>> Brian: I still want to say Fieri. I just want to like there's I don't know, But anyway yeah, let's let's talk about the essay because I read it recently. I thought it was amazing, actually. But you said you were surprised that it blew up. Why were you surprised? Well, let's talk about what it's about. For people who haven't read it and you can read it on Catapult, and it is called...
>> Rax: It's called "Love Peace and Taco Grease", which is something that Sir Fieri says often. Well, sometimes.
>> Brian: That's like his mantra
>> Rax: Yeah, yeah, he looked like on his way into his Camaro to, like, leave your town. He'll say, "love, peace and taco grease". And so my essay is about my obsession... some might call it a dangerous obsession with Guy Fieri's show "Diners Drive ins and Dives", which sprang up as it were from from my marriage, which collapsed for many reasons. But partly because my husband was like a super dick to me about everything that I cooked for the two of us. And I was like a 21 year old college student. I truly did not know dick about cooking, and his whole thing was like, You need to make me food regularly and it needs to be good and you need to do a better job than you're doing. And then my essay is about my journey from like being the meek little, you know, trying to be a housewife person to watching so, so much Diners Drive Ins and Dives. So much and realizing like it's actually not fucking important, to, you know, learn the exact, perfect French way to roast a chicken. You can just roast a chicken that you want to eat, and then you can eat it, and that's all that has to be. So thanks, Guy Fieri, for teaching me the way in the light.
>> Brian: Yeah, I forgot if you put this in the essay, but did you start watching it immediately after, Like you left him?
>> Rax: Yeah, pretty much. It was somewhat in reaction, cause when I was still with him is when that New York Times review came out of one of Guy Fieri's restaurants.
>> Devin: Like lambested it?
>> Rax: Completely, and it was so mean and like I've said this before, But what the fuck was the New York Times restaurant critic doing like visiting a Guy Fieri joint in Times Square that had, like, donkey sauce and chicken fingers on the menu like, what was any of that?
>> Brian: It sounds sadomasochistic.
>> Rax: Yeah, like the whole point was to write something bitchy that would be fun to read. And I didn't care for that at all. And it reminded me very much of like being in my own home, trying to cook a meal and my husband being like you completely fucked this up. And I'm like, Why do you care? I'm so young and tired. So then I ditched him.
>> Brian: Because they review like Michelin Star restaurants, right?
>> Rax: Often.
>> Brian: So that was sadomasochistic.
>> Devin: Whoever that critic was/is a reprehensible person for doing that, in my opinion, because you don't go in there... You don't go in there thinking that, like, that person probably went in there saying, like, I'm going to pan this restaurant and, like, I am going to just, like, spend the entire time there like, looking for shit.
>> Brian: Like gathering evidence at a crime scene.
>> Devin: Yeah. You have the guilty verdict already.
>> Rax: Yeah, this was also, I think, 2012 which was pretty firmly like, I think I feel the backlash has quieted down quite a bit. But back then it was super cool to hate on him because he was the guy with the bleach blonde hair driving a red Camaro in a bowling shirt with flames on it.
>> Brian: Trust me, I did. Until I read the essay. (laughter)
>> Rax: That is the highest compliment. I'm really hoping that people read it and they're just like I have been such a bitch to Guy Fieri.
>> Brian: I was on that Hell's Kitchen. What the fuck?
>> Devin: Gordon Ramsey. Who holds a different kind of respect in my heart.
>> Brian: Yeah. Which, according to your essay, would fucking trigger you, right? Have you seen Hell's Kitchen?
>> Rax: I have no actually a lot of you because there's a lot of yelling and stuff, but it's I don't know, Gordon Ramsay, for all that...
>> Brian: He's got a good heart.
>> Rax: I think so. I think that in, like the universe, the Gordon Ramsey universe, the Gordon Ramsay cinematic universe, he is like, ultimately, the good guy, because all these people whose restaurants he's visiting and all these chefs that he works with are really trying to convince him that they know better than him. He's there to help.
>> Devin: He's a true antihero in the most in the fullest sense of that word.
>> Brian: Sure, yeah, he'll yell at you and then he'll take you aside like Listen, you know what? This is really what it was all about. Like all this intimacy comes out. It's beautiful.
>> Devin: Yeah, I think he's like the good coach yells at you and like, and then you don't realize until eight years later you're like, Yeah, that person caused a great deal of trauma in my life. But like I am better for it is perhaps not a good thing, but it's still...
>> Brian: My JV basketball coach did that not if I turned out alright.
>> Rax: We all turned out pretty fucked up.
>> Brian: But yeah calling your ex husband now, I presume?
>> Rax: Yeah. Finally.
>> Brian: I heard a little bit about it.It was very pretty recent, when I was, like, finalized, right?
>> Rax: Yeah. So I left our shared house five years ago. But there's all this pain in the ass stuff surrounding getting a divorce. Like you have to be split up from each other in most states for at least a year. And then I moved up here right after, and you have to be a New York resident for, I think, two years in order to be able to start filing for things like divorce. So I had to wait even longer, and then I just could not get my shit together because wanted was a lawyer, so I wouldn't have to deal with them. And they're expensive. So it was just this year that I could even swing that and, yeah, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's over. He likes signed papers. I didn't think he would So on my way out.
>> Brian: Fuck yeah.
>> Rax: I'm a divorcee now.
>> Brian: Well, I was, I was gonna say, calling him a dick for calling him a dick for criticizing the way you make food. Sounds like a very sounds. Very use euphemistic, if not just like outright reductive compared what you alluded to in the essay, you know? Yeah. Like the whole restaurant scene where you don't get a burger instead of like salad. I was like, What the fuck?
>> Rax: Yeah, that was his other favorite thing was just like you. I need to eat less food because you're a girl. And that's what girls do.
>> Brian: Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you feel comfortable about this, but like, what do you look back and say? Like, I know why I kind of met... that when I met this person like this happened. And, like, anything like that, Or is it kind of still...
>> Rax: No, I know, and I'm happy to talk about this stuff whenever
>> Brian: Because a lot of people go through this.
>> Rax: They do. Yeah, and I think a lot of us and myself included in this situation just launch ourselves into these really ill fitting relationships and then continue trying anything possible to make them work rather than just cutting our losses. And that's what happened here. You know, I had a crush on a hot guy, and then I looked up two years later and I was like, Oh, Jesus.
>> Brian: Yeah. And you were young. You were very young.
>> Rax: Very young. Yeah, and he had drugs. So a perfect storm. I hope he hears this and his just like is that what happened? (laughter)
>> Brian: We can send it to him on a cassette tape. But so, yes you wrote that for Catapult, right? That came out a Catapult. And so they give you a column?
>> Rax: They did.
>> Brian: So what's the column about? Does it stem like, directly from that theme? Or is it I kind of just like, Oh, you're you're the shit, like write about what you want.
>> Rax: Well, not exactly that, Although I'm really hoping to get to a point where people are just like throwing money like onto my person for me to just write 10,000 words about Bruce Springsteen or whatever. But we're not there yet. So my editor at Catapult reached out to me to ask if I'd be interested in writing more and doing more food writing. And at first my thinking was like, I am so not a food writer. I genuinely enjoy instant ramen more than most other foods.
>> Brian: Katie and I were just talking about that last night when we were at the Ramen spot.
>> Rax: It's fucking good.
>> Brian: We're like, Yeah, everyone ate instant ramen when we were kids. Did we even know this existed? Like I didn't know of fancy ramen?
>> Rax: You know, part of that is I am a white kid like ramen was probably never gonna be in my direct wheelhouse, but regardless, instant ramen tastes good as hell. I think I'm valid for that viewpoint. But my point being like, I'm not a food expert exactly, except in really like, low falutin types of food. And then I thought, Well, no, that's probably good to have somebody writing semi professionally about food who doesn't care about her cuisine and who just cares whether food tastes good to the people who want to be eating it. And so that's more or less what my column is about is like food television and class and working away from a hook cuisine framework and trying to instead back into a looser framework of like, This is what I want to eat. I'm gonna shut my mouth and go with God because it's what tastes good to me.
>> Brian: Yeah, sure.
>> Devin: Your most recent one was about Bobby Flay?
>> Rax: Yes, my nemesis.
>> Brian: I haven't read that one yet, but I saw the title. It's like about hyper masculine masculinity, right?
>> Rax: Yeah. And I mean, I do take celebrity chefs typically as inspiration and emblematic figures that I can write about when I'm writing this column, partly because they're an easy point of reference. So many people watch these shows or have watched these shows, and I'm typically a fan. I like a lot of celebrity chefs, even though I know that, like, to be a celebrity anything is not a great thing to be. But their work has been important to me. But Bobby Flay I'd fully do not fuck with. I think that all of his shows that I've seen are just him trying to, like, dominate people and prove that he's the best. And even if its tongue in cheek, I'm not about that.
>> Brian: So Gordon Ramsay without the moral underpinning, is essentially what? Because I've never seen Bobby Flay before.
>> Rax: Yeah, he's a chaos Ramsey. He has no reason to be, like, busting into other restaurants...
>> Devin: He's not invested in other people's improvement, Which you could argue Ramsey is.
>> Brian: He's the New York Times credit busting, and Oh, yeah, sure Guy Fieri restaurant just being like, This is everything. You're fucking up and that's it. Speaking of what people want, we have Bruce Springsteen right in front of us connected between two people.
>> Devin: Yes, Bruce Springsteen is in this bag of veggie crisps.
>> Brian: He's everywhere. He is in everything we've just talked about.
>> Devin: I might cry.
>> Rax: Devin and I sat up straighter on hearing his name.
>> Brian: But yet you guys have very similar. What do you call it? Sort of like approach in terms of titles for your poetry books. Like Blood on Blood, and The People's Elbow. It's just like I'm a Springsteen fan. I'm a you know, you know, the Rock or a wrestling fan, whatever. And yet like the you know, it's poetry, right? It's poetry.
>> Rax: Thank you.
>> Brian: How did you guys come at it from this angle. I'm curious. And either one of you can start. I'm looking at you.
>> Devin: Yeah, I know. Well, Blood on Blood only came out because Bud Smith was out of reading with him. And I read some poems that I had written because I've been listening to Nebraska a lot, which I do like probably every, like, 18 months, like Nebraska comes on for, like, a month. And so I'd written some poems and then use, just like, Hey, I like those Springsteen poems like You should write a book about them and then, like, I have a press that occasionally puts out books and we'll make it a book. And I was like, That sounds great. And so yeah, like I Blood on Blood comes from the song Highway Patrolman. Which is a top 10. That's a top 10 Springsteen song.
>> Brian: We can get into it. Maybe we should do that.
>> Devin: Yeah. I think we can talk about that later. But yeah, he has is a line where he says, "me and Frankie laughing and drinking. Nothing feels better than blood on blood." And so, like, used it. I used the song and the album as a way to talk about like that song in particular, which I think, is probably when I'm 60 and failing in everything I tried to do, I will write like the novel version of that song about Frankie. And but I used the singer's relationship in that song with Frankie as a way to talk about my own relationship with my brother and my family. And I think I'm Frankie in that relationship. Yeah, and so like, then when you spend a lot of time with Bruce, as one does and should, you realize like that, like Bruce spends a lot of time with with that shit, like because, like there are Nebraska is arguably his best, definitely one of his best albums and one of the best albums ever because it's so richly layered with all these stories and like what I think most about Bruce, and I'll change this as I talk about him, I think he gives people a lot of permission to talk about things, especially things that feel like outside the self. Which is why I like he's beyond criticism because I think he spent so much time with this. Every once in awhile, people will say Bruce Springsteen is not like a factory guy, like he's not the characters in its song. But he talked about that, too, Like in his Springsteen on Broadway. He talks about that and like he's a testament to just like there are themes, They're universal themes in every specific thing. And if you trust that like you are coming from a place of goodness, then like you can explore those things even if they feel outside the self and I think like that a thing that he does.
>> Brian: That's actually like also super relevant to what's going on on writing today. Have you guys read the Zadie Smith essay?
>> Devin: Yeah, that came out recently like a month ago?
>> Rax: I haven't.
>> Brian: It's basically about how you know it's it's being called into question whether you can write from another perspective, you know, other than kind of like your own, you know. And so Bruce, I don't know. It may be, is ahead of its head of his time in that way. But music is a really different medium, because if you write a whole novel, like if I'm a white Jewish person and I write a novel from like a black woman's point of view, you know, I think that's a little more intimate. I don't know if that's the right word.
>> Devin: Yeah, I think what Bruce is is he's never, like, exploited it, like you never get the sense when you listen to him that he is doing it as a gimmick, which I think, you know, like it's hard to touch on why this feels so true with him, like how you know it. But you can tell he cares so much and so deeply. And in the end, everything does relate back to him. He talks at length in like interviews and things about like his father and his boyhood and like his father, is very much like his father's a character in a Bruce Springsteen song. His father is very much like when you listen to him talk about his father like his father is, you know, "Darkness on the Edge of Town" or "Factory" or "Promised Land". And so, like it both is outside the self and both, like very tied to himself.
>> Rax: Yeah, I think he's really gotta got some kind of strong empathy muscles because anytime he writes into a perspective that's not him like that song that was on the Philadelphia soundtrack. Yeah, fuck me. I forget what it's called.
>> Devin: Streets of Philadelphia
>> Rax: Yes, thank you. Like that's about as far from his own perspective as I think he's written music. That's the perspective of a gay man, like on his way to his deathbed during the height of the AIDS crisis. That's fully not Bruce Springsteen. It's experience, but he's such an empathetic songwriter, and he never seeks to like right in another voice. I don't think or two to write, even in another perspective, so much as he seeks to find the place where he can relate to a person who's not like him and mine that for the human experience that has shared there, and I think that's a really common thing with a lot of his songs that are from points of view that he obviously doesn't share from a lot of songs from the perspective of working people or any number of other types of people. From women, even, like that's where his songwriting strength lies, I think.
>> Devin: Yeah, like he got a lot of people talk about this anymore. But when Amadou Diallo got shot, he was a black boy from Brooklyn. Got shot, I think, by the cops in the early 2000s. And this is unlike his live in Madison Square Garden album. He wrote a song called 41 Shots and It's Like 11 Minutes long and performed it.
>> Brian: That's like Jimi Hendrix, Uh, what's that Vietnam song? Machine Gun?
>> Devin: Yeah, and he performed it live, and he released it like as a single or something, and announced that he was gonna perform live in Madison Square Garden and Rudy Giuliani and called on everyone to to boycott the concert and, like cops, spoke out against him. And then he still played it. And like and like he has, I think, as Rax said like and it's a really good song because it's simply about like being a witness to something rather than like, trying to do... It's like he the song is good because Bruce obviously thought about, like, what the most organic and true to him access point to this kind of tragedy that was outside himself. And it's also good because he was also at that point, a man with a lot of power who represented... the thing that's complicated about Bruce Springsteen is that like Red State / Blue State, whatever the fuck, there are like a shit ton of people who love him and probably a shit ton of people who love him, who voted for Donald Trump.
>> Brian: He has a very bipartisan fan base.
>> Devin: Yeah, and you get people like Reagan using "Born in the USA", which is a protest song as like his leg as his one of his staple campaign songs and so like, but Bruce is still deeply political. He will do things play that song at Madison Square Garden. And I think that, like also Rax's point, what's funny is like I think Bruce is worse songs like the entire album Lucky Town, which is just bad. It's like Not it's not good... they're bad because it's like Bruce is actually singing about himself without any leg. A lot of those songs were just like, really self serving and like I think he was going through relationship troubles or like a divorce. I forget what's prompted that album, but like their self serving and their selfish and they're not really about anything, even though they are about him.
>> Rax: And so even his other big like break up album, so to speak, Tunnel of Love, I think it's so good because...
>> Devin: Tunnel of Love is amazing.
>> Rax: Yeah and all those songs aren't just, you know my relationship is ending. Woe is me. It's very like we mutually are having a failing relationship and like, let's explore what can go wrong between two people. Any time he's at his best, he's in this very mutual headspace of like you and me and what the problems are.
>> Devin: Yeah, I think I realized I was an adult when I realized that Tunnel of love is a really good album. When I was, like, 16 or 17 and getting really into Bruce, I'd always like would play a bit of Tunnel of Love and be like you has a shit, sucks. And then, like, I turned like 25 I was like, Oh, my God, this shit is so good.
>> Brian: I want to ask a question and let's see if we can reconcile from something else we were talking about earlier. I, much to Katie's, oh sorry to our producers' chagrin, have recently become a really big fan of shit country music like shit you hear on the radio.
>> Devin: Like red solo cup.
>> Brian: All that shit. I love it. Okay, So, like, let's make let's make an organizing principle between Bruce Springsteen and Guy Fieri here. Bruce Springsteen sounds like a quality like farm to table, like American restaurant, right? Like you get, like a really good burger. Really good ribs or some shit like that. You know what I mean?
>> Rax: Okay, sure.
>> Brian: But like shit, country music is kind of like Guy Fieri, like restaurants.
>> Rax: Like junk food.
>> Brian: And I fucking love it.
>> Rax: Yeah.
>> Devin: Yeah.
>> Brian: And that shit's not sincere. It's not like a lot of these people are, like, Not They don't own their Chevy trucks. They don't, like drink Bud Light. Yeah, they're rich as fuck. They got a home study in their basement.
>> Rax: You can say that about Bruce, too. I mean, he isn't working in the factory.
>> Brian: That's my question is like, Where's the line? Where's the authenticity line? When is it okay to say, like, I'm gonna make this song and use these words like, you know. Like you just said fucking you name a few things in a country song. Bo Burnham did it best in is like his latest special when he did this song called Pandering. You guys have ever seen this?
>> Devin: No.
>> Brian: Bo Burnham is this comedian. And, like he wrote, he writes songs like for his sets. Yeah, and there's He has a song called Pandering That's this fucking unbelievable pop country song that's like, so well written.
>> Devin: And it hits all the cliches and tropes?
>> Brian: Yeah and I love it.
>> Devin: But maybe that's all that matters is you love it.
>> Brian: Yeah, exactly. I guess my question is, where does it come in that the empathy that Bruce has? Like, where does it come in that it matters? You know, like, what makes him so good to everyone? And so why should people like guy Fieri you know? Why shouldn't they? Or why should they? I don't know what I'm trying to ask here. You know what I mean? I hated him until I read your essay, and then I was like, Oh, well, this really helped someone. I kind of like him now.
>> Rax: Yeah, and I hear you. And you can also point to Bruce Springsteen's career trajectory and too, you know, his politics to an extent and his effects on American pop culture over the past what, 30-40 years? And see some good that he's really brought into people's lives. He has so so many devoted, loving fans who turned to him for wisdom on every little thing. And I'm not familiar enough with pop Country, probably to say this with much security. But there's not that longevity of a tradition there. It kind of sprung up, as you know, let's pander to what we envisioned as red state yokels with this, like tractor red solo cup stuff and just try and make a dollar. And you can't look at that tradition and say, this has been bringing good into people's lives for 40 years. You can just say like this is glossy and easy to listen to, and you know, it's one of those things. You can have it on in the background and ignore it if you want, or you can sing along if you want. It's very passable, and you can really ask yourself convincingly, What is the point of this existing in a way that even if you really don't like Bruce Springsteen, you can't ask that question and not have an answer I don't think.
>> Devin: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm torn because to me, the question is simply about like, what is what good is... There's something implicit in your question, which is essentially like, what good is criticism if something serves a purpose for a singular person, like what good is criticism then? Because a person was sort of changed for the better by this thing, whether or not like critically it is of any sort of higher merit. And I think it's a hard question to I don't know if there's an answer to that question. I do know that when I was on a like a tiny book toward Bud and our friend Michael Bible, who's a great writer, we were listening as we were driving from West Virginia to Asheville... We're listening to like this pop country station and was the first time we heard this Blake Shelton song called "I Lived It", which is such a good song.
>> Brian: Is that the song we played over and over?
>> Devin: Yeah, it's the one that has the line "just taking my mind for a visit back in time cause I miss it" and it's like, Yeah, (laughter). That's a good ass line and like Like, it's like every once in a while, you just like you encounter and it's like You can listen Toby Keith's and Garth Brooks And, like Garth Brooks is probably better example... I don't know his repertoire really intensely, but like Toby Keith and Garth Brooks have been at it for a long time. And Blake Shelton as well, and there's definitely some pandering in their songs. There's still like a reason for mass adoration and like, I'll stick to that. There's definitely like people only become like, unique like, adored by a large group of people if they're doing... well, I don't want to say if they're doing some good, but if they are appealing to that large group of people in some way and that like that opens a door for a lot of, you know, more serious conversations about things like politics.
>> Brian: Exactly. That's what I was thinking because like when we start that when we start talking about this, it's basically like if we're talking about what's good for people, obviously no one can agree on that. We all don't agree at this table that Donald Trump is not good for America. But he's pandered to a lot of you know that that's a pejorative for my, you know, that's my perspective, he pandered. But he won over a lot of people, right? So, like it's really an important question because, like, but yeah, I don't have the answer to it.
>> Rax: I think it's inherently good or bad to be able to win over people. I just think that you know, if something wins me over, obviously then I am amenable to it Which certainly is something that happened with Bruce Springsteen and is also the case for a lot of country western type stuff. Pop country included.
>> Brian: And especially someone like Guy Fieri. We can agree he's not a demagogue, you know. He's not out there hurting people.
>> Rax: Right that there are people who think that, you know anything popular is inherently poisonous. Like anybody who achieves that tear of celebrity is inherently poisoning the culture. Just by being so visible. But it makes sense to me, and I, on some level, agree with. But at the end of the day, you know, we see the things that are shown to us. We see whatever is the most visible on. We kind of have to make decisions on that basis of all these things that are presented to us, what are we okay with? What are we against?
>> Devin: Yeah, I think the best comparison to Springsteen in the Food World is slash was Bourdain. And Bourdain died uniquely adored as well. I think Bourdain's relationship to food is very similar to like Springsteen's relationship to the characters, fictional or otherwise, and its songs, which is just like when you watch Parts Unknown like you saw someone who cared so much about food but then so much about like the place he was in and doing right by it. I can't watch Bourdain anymore since he died. It's really hard.
>> Brian: That was actually one of the very few celebrity deaths that... especially suicides, that I actually was, like, just rattled by.
>> Rax: Same. He died like, a month after my dad did. And it fucked me right up. Is it ever gonna stop? Jesus.
>> Devin: That was the first time you read the Bourdain poem about your father.
>> Rax: Yeah, I think that's right.
>> Devin: I think the first time I met Rex, it was a Flapper House reading.
>> Rax: Yeah.
>> Devin: I mean, losing Bourdain, it's hard to live in a world where that person doesn't exist, like showing us a better way to live in this world.
>> Brian: I don't know if you guys have seen it, but Chapelle has a new special out and right at the beginning, he talks about... It's almost like this parable told and obviously like, extremely funny way. He's the fucking man. But like he talks about his friend who had all these aspirations, I think, to be like a high powered lawyer or something. Basically long story short, he ends up working at Burger King, but he's, like, happy now. But he's talking about how bored Dane got to this place where he had this life that everyone would want. And he ends up how he ends up. But I don't know if there's an element of... The reason I bring that up is like, I don't know if there's an element of suffering you need to go through. I don't know Springsteen story that well. Did he come from...?
>> Devin: He comes from like What I would imagine is like a typical sort of lower middle class New Jersey. Like son of a factory worker, like grew up near church like Catholic and, like parents away.
>> Rax: Mama's boy.
>> Devin: His dad was hard on him.
>> Brian: Because that's kind of how his music sounds to me. It's a place of empathy that doesn't necessarily come from suffering.
>> Devin: No, and I think it comes from a place of Les other than human, just like truly whether through it, education or through simply being alive or through the people he knew, I think, suffering like hot wires like to some extent going through some sort of suffering that you can overcome, like, sort of hot wires this into your brain. But I think if you're given enough time and space to just observe the world, then like you will begin to think about what the purpose of the world is and like, what purpose the people in the world serve, Um, or if you have, like, I also hear in Bruce's songs and like he's admitted this sort of sort of cliche. But like I'm doing all this shit to make my dad proud because he didn't give me as much of the attention I wanted. One of my favorite moments in any Springsteen song is from, like the live 75 85 album and he's playing... It might be "Growing Up". He always tells the story with growing up about, like taking his guitar and But there's a song on that album where his mom and dad are in the audience and he says, "my mom and my pa are here tonight". (laughter)
>> Rax: Is that your Springsteen?
>> Devin: Yeah. He says, "you didn't think I'd be a rock star. And hey, Ma, Hey, pa. I'm a rock star now." (laughter) And at that point he's just barely 27 28 and killing it. But like and riding that high of truly being a rock star, because that was I get the Roxy Theater in LA. But, um, yeah, it's like it's a simple I think it's like trying to make the people who you love proud of you and and like and observing the world and trying to find meaning in it. I've gone through moments of trauma, and the first things that make you think of is what is the purpose of any of this? And so then you start writing or you start doing something or you start escaping like you do a lot of things to cope and a lot of those things to me are either to escape the world because you have determined it has no value or meaning or to dive even further into the world. Just insistent to find some meaning.
>> Brian: Yeah, I feel like I feel a happy balance of that is the healthiest. If you keep going deeper, you end up. Oh, it's about that, like, you know, lucid and tie. Or, you know, like journalists who is like, up to in the morning burying into their story deeper, like drinking or, you know, you cannot escape a little bit. But, uh, something I want to go back to you because you just said that that anecdote about Springsteen made me think of something that Rax said a little bit earlier. You kind of really quickly mentioned about being a celebrity sucking. Were you just referring to kind of like professional celebrities, like chef celebrities? Or did, or were you kind of like referring to like being a celebrity in general?
>> Rax: I don't necessarily think that this is the fault of people who become famous. But we do have this tendency to really lionize people solely because they're visible and they haven't done anything wrong.
>> Brian: Or we don't know that they've done something wrong.
>> Rax: Sure, Yeah, everybody's the fuck up. But, you know, we see people succeeding on this really high level, and we take the bits and pieces that we really like and incorporate them into our impression of them. And don't really let ourselves think this is just some person. And moreover, this is a person who's probably had to elbow some other people out of the way in order to achieve this position. And we don't want to think that about the people that we admire. And I think it becomes complicated for us underlings because, you know, we want to be able to admire people who create something that's important to us. But I also think that our instinct is to let them off pretty easy and to not interrogate this notion of, you know, This is somebody who has become really, really visibly successful under capitalism. And that's not something you can do without dicking over a lot of other people. And, you know, it's like even if we do think about that, we get into this really truculent headspace of like, Well, I don't care, You know, everybody's done something wrong and I don't think that's so helpful. And I think that to the extent that celebrity culture is a huge part of our lives and is not going away, we need to be a little more mature about that and say to ourselves, Just because someone has made something important to us, just because someone is a figure that we genuinely admire doesn't mean that they are a figure of perfect valor. I think we need to ditch that.
>> Brian: Yeah, I agree. And on the flip side, I think what happens on the other side is that, like when something happens and someone someone does something, like someone divorces someone or something comes out about someone and everyone, then goes, Oh, this is a very bad person, you know it is, it seems so binary to me when someone is visible like that.
>> Devin: That in particular introduces more so than what we were talking about earlier about Pop Country introduces to me the importance of criticism and that I don't think there are many popular models of criticism that are nuanced and thoughtful enough that, I mean, this is me as like a high school teacher speaking to my students. But like if you model something well for people, then it can become an important part of the way they view art or the way they view life. And there are not any really, as far as I know, not like many good popular models of what criticism look like looks like and celebrity culture would be a much more interesting thing in the way we approach it if criticism was like, very nuanced and like, not just, like, pointed out the good with the bad. But if people were given models of criticism where it's from the get go there being introduced to conversations about like popular celebrities or popular artists or popular authors that were actually forms of criticism, which is an acknowledgment of value, plus a critique of that value or critique of the work. And like now, criticism is either just like glowing pandering or negative pandering. Like the person going into Guy Fieri's restaurant saying like I'm gonna pan the shit out of this or like a blurb for a book that says like This is lyrical, heartfelt and achingly stunning. And it's just great, like so is literally everything and that does nothing for me and and it would just be a much more interesting world to live in if we knew.
And I think we do know this. But like, if the model for the way we talk about these things was not about good or bad. But were just simply about like, continuous critiques and like criticism is a dirty word now, and it's like it's I'm not saying I want more negative reviews of things. I just want more like reviews that are just... Yeah, I like I would love to read a 10,000 word essay about the complex like underpinnings of Bruce Springsteen's psyche and like and there is definitely someone who can write a really thoughtful argument for like, the harm Bruce Springsteen has caused. And I will be like one of the first people to read that because, like that will deepen my understanding of him and will probably make me both... my appreciation of him will be like Greater because I have now introduced a critique of him and like you can tell that to kids all the time when I teach, like, when I teach a book. It's just like you don't have to like this like you don't but like, in fact, I'm more invested in your conversation if you could just tell me why you don't like it. And I guarantee you that by like talking in depth about why you don't like this thing, you will become more engaged with it rather than simply saying, this is trash. I'm not gonna read it. Approach it from like, I respect your opinion more than I respect the book. And so I just want to hear your opinion about why you're saying this is trash and then like comb through the book and, like you know, anyone. We just don't value that that much. And that's another interesting... the lionization of celebrities and the disposability of celebrities too is really interesting.
>> Brian: Yeah, I think what gets lost in the word criticism is it's more critical thinking than criticizing something, you know? And being open minded at the same time. You know what I mean? So, like the whole as much as I love The Source growing up like the hip hop magazine Basically like if if you got a five, if you got five mics, it was a classic album like, I think the whole rating system is just kind of like stupid, you know? Okay, you're telling me that everyone should think this is a five mic album, you know? And then everyone agrees on it. They're like, Oh, yeah, Illmatic by nods like That's a five mic album and, like sure like, but let's be real like it's not gonna work out like that in everyone's head. Anyways, I was wondering if you guys wanted to read at all.
>> Rax: Oh.
>> Brian: Whether poetry or you know, something like that?
>> Devin: We have Rax's book right here. And we can rock paper scissors for it?
>> Rax: Sure.
>> Devin: Okay, the winner goes second.
>> Rax: Obviously. (plays rock paper scissors)
>> Devin: Ok I'll go first. (laughter) This is the first poem I wrote about Bruce Springsteen. So it is five years old. It's not explicitly about Nebraska. This just made it in because it's called "While Waiting to See Bruce".
=================
Be sure to checkout "Blood On Blood" by Devin Kelly
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Devin-Kelly/dp/0998309001
=================
>> Brian: Mmm.
>> Rax: I love that, Devin.
>> Devin: Thanks.
>> Brian: That makes me remember the book launch when Devin's brother cried.
>> Devin: Yeah, he didn't know that the book was dedicated to him.
>> Brian: And then he started bawling.
>> Rax: My God, of course.
>> Brian: It was beautiful.
>> Devin: He has his own apartment now, so he's doing great.
>> Brian: Yeah. You guys are living on your own. Meeting up for beers.
>> Devin: Yeah, we've had a few beers before, and that's the good thing about poems. Is you actually don't have to tell people what you think to their face. (laughter) You can just be, like, here, like read this thing. If you don't read it then you don't care about me. I'm just gonna assume that you know what I'm trying to say to you (laughter)
>> Brian: Yeah. Being fucked up people.
>> Devin: That's like actually terrible relationship work. Don't say things to people's faces. Write them down on private, and let's keep the veil of vulnerability.
>> Brian: Keep it all bottled up.
>> Rax: Sometimes I'll tell people I wrote a poem about you. And they'll either say show it to me, or they'll be like, Why? Because I have always feelings. Shut the fuck up.
>> Devin: Alright, you have to read yours, Rax.
>> Rax: This is about my dad and also Anthony Bourdain. Oh, I talked about this like, five minutes ago. Anthony Bourdain died just after my father.
==============
Read "Anthony Bourdain died just after my father and now nobody is left who can teach me steak" by Rax King
https://www.barrelhousemag.com/onlinelit/2018/8/20/anthony-bourdain-died-just-after-my-father-and-now-nobody-is-left-who-can-teach-me-steak
==============
>> Brian: The brain is a devastating accident. I like that.
>> Rax: Yeah. I was in all of my feelings when I wrote that poem.
>> Brian: It is actually really true, though. I was reading this brain book and they called the mind to cluj, which is basically a word for...
>> Devin: That's a word?
>> Brian: Yes, it's like something. It's a word for something that, like works really well but has put together really like shoddily evolution made our brains, like, stacked it like ice cream.
>> Devin: It was like throw another scoop on there.
>> Brian: Yeah, we didn't renovate what was going on earlier, but anyway, I still like the line on its own terms.
>> Rax: Thank you. I knew all of that.
>> Brian: Yeah, that was great. Thank you, guys. All right. I think we're good, right? Anything you got some burning to talk about.
>> Rax: You should buy my book.
>> Brian: Yeah, do that. Do that thing.
>> Rax: It's called "The People's Elbow", and you should pay legal tender and then receive it in the mail.
>> Brian: Where can they buy it?
>> Rax: Oh, right. You can get it from my publisher, Orsus Americanus. It's also in McNally Jackson, for sure. I think maybe The Strand? A couple bookstores in Chicago, because that's where my publishers are based. And I'm gonna be getting more copies soon so you can DM me on Twitter and buy one for me if you promise not to make it weird. That's happened.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah. We've got to talk about that. We'll talk about that next time. Weirdness of Twitter. We had both of you guys here. We didn't talk about the weirdness of Twitter.
>> Devin: Yeah, different pools of twitter here.
>> Rax: Devin has a much better Twitter than I do.
>> Brian: We're talking about that before you showed up. We were like, Devin has the like, most peaceable twitter experience and Rax has the most chaotic thing.
>> Rax: Chaos day in and day out.
>> Devin: @RaxKingIsDead?
>> Rax: Oh, yeah. That's my user name. Everywhere. You can also follow me on Twitter if you promise not to make that weird either.
>> Devin: Because then you'll screenshot it and you'll make it weird for everyone?
>> Rax: I'm gonna ruin Devin's day, specifically, if you make it weird.
>> Devin: Please don't make my day weird (laughter)
>> Brian: Yeah Devin's worst experience was when everyone thought he was the mass shooter.
>> Devin: Yeah. It's been two years ago today.
>> Brian: Was that actually the worst day of your life?
>> Devin: No, it was not. That was when I realized the internet. It's a market privilege that, like it took it a white male church shooter for me to, like, realize that the internet was a terrible place. Who had my name.
>> Rax: People don't DM you every day asking for pictures of your feet?
>> Devin: No.
>> Rax: How often?
>> Brian: Now you're just rubbing it in.
>> Devin: Just that one day where people DM me asking me...
>> Brian: My Twitter experiences just thirst liking shit so that people will follow me. Okay. I'm gonna sign off.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe in review on whichever platform you're listening. You can get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @animalriotpress or through our website animalriotpress.com. This has been the 41st episode of the Animal Riot Podcast and 41 years was how old my dad was when I was one years old. So it's been brought to you by Animal Riot Press with me, your host, Brian Birnbaum, and featuring Rax King and Devin Kelly. Transcripts for our Deaf and hard of hearing animals are provided by Jonathan Kay and... by the way, Jon Kay. I hope you're doing all right. Just got back from a bachelor party in Vegas. That sounds rough, man. Okay.
>> Devin: And George.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah, George. We hope you're alive. Roll tide. And we're produced by Katie Rainey, without whom we'd be merely three of Shakespeare's 1000 monkeys banging on a typewriter.