today’s audio is a version of my song MANIFESTRA, recorded live at the ark in ann arbor michigan on january 10, 2013. it features my dear friends and killer musicians marc dalio on drums and matt douglas on baritone sax. my new album, also titled MANIFESTRA, had come out a few days before, and we were starting our journey across the country, playing wonderful rooms like the ark.
towards the end of the episode you’ll hear why i chose this song for today’s audio, but it has always been one of my favorites.
if you were paying attention to my social media, you’d have seen that a few weeks ago i was a guest on a wonderful podcast called The Midnight Disease, created and hosted by sam dingman. i loved my conversation with sam - we covered our own early creative experiences, the role that drugs and alcohol play in the creative process, and the mystery of the whole project of trying to make stuff, as well as make a life based on making stuff.
the meta of the meta, so to speak, or a hat on a hat.
one of the surprises about being on someone’s pod is that you don’t know how it will turn out once it’s all assembled. you have your conversation, then leave it in someone else’s hands. i knew sam would do a wonderful job. he really cares about sound and editing and creating a world for the listener - something i really value as well. so when i went to listen to myself on his podcast, i was delighted but not totally surprised that he introduced our conversation with an insightful, personal, and heartfelt reflection. it was a rare opportunity for me to hear how my music had impacted someone directly.
so on today’s Fax of Life, i’m going to excerpt some of that intro and our conversation from sam’s podcast, but first, i asked sam if he’d come on Fax of Life so i could return the favor. stay tuned for the fax he sends at the end of our conversation. it’s quite profound.
thus in gratitude and reciprocal validation, i now offer my introduction and conversation with writer and host sam dingman…
sam dingman came to me out of the blue, which is my favorite way. earlier this year, he had written a very sincere, professional, and complimentary email asking me to be a guest on a podcast he was starting about artists and their relationship with their muses, the midnight disease. i love podcasts, but its a big world, i had never heard of him before. compliments are fine and dandy, but a quick google search told me sam was a serious creator in his own right.
i said yes to his pod, we had a wonderful conversation, and then… just kept talking. we had so much to talk about! and then we made a date to talk again, this time sam kindly offered me his thoughts on Fax of Life and how to grow it in the future. it was a generous session rich with good ideas that i am still thinking about months later.
but the real delight of sam is his work. he has made lots of pods for all the big names, but beyond The Midnight Disease, which i highly recommend, and his newest one, Sports Explains The World, i have to point you to The Rumor which shows you everything unique and great about the kind of storyteller sam is.
like me, sam comes from the maryland-virginia orbit and loved the orioles growing up. but unlike me, he grew up hearing the rumor. i don’t want to spoil the podcast - but this rumor involves the orioles, baltimore city, power grids, kevin costner, extra-marital affairs, and the consecutive games streak of orioles legend (and my childhood hero) cal ripken. over the course of the rumor’s episodes, sam weaves urban myth, childhood nostalgia, arcane city policy, and just plain wierdness into a beautiful audio experience that encourages the listener to dig into their own past. it’s the kind of eloquent collection of sources and experiences that i hope to achieve on the Fax of Life.
so here’s what i have discovered: as host and writer, sam is invariably kind, curious, and game for anything. he is a seeker, and he uses his work to look for answers in the most accessible ways. he has an actor’s gift for truly listening and then sending the ball back with something on it. in short, he is an excellent scene partner - whether you’re being interviewed by him or binging one of his podcasts.
i hope you enjoy him as much as i do.
Sam Dingman: You can, can you hear me? Are you, do you think you're hearing me through this microphone? Does it sound if I get closer to it? Yeah. Did the sound change?
Erin: I am hearing that okay.
SD: Great, great, great.
EM: It’s funny because I was gonna an intro, intro or whatever, and be like, Sam, Welcome to Facts of Life. And then I thought, Well, if I do that, then I have to think of a good first question, <laugh>, which I think is, I think is the hardest thing about , interviewing people.
SD: Yes.
EM: Where, where do you start? I was imagining getting into this by starting with gratitude, right? By saying , thank you for having me on your podcast. We had a great conversation, but it was a while ago and I forgot about the details of it. So the thing that I didn't hear, of course, was your intro, right? Because you thought about it and wrote it later. So I'm on a walk with Carl and I'm listening to the pod, and you spend 10 minutes, a pretty good amount of time telling your listeners why you like my music. It was really exciting to listen to. And, I just wanna say thank you for that.
SD: Oh my God. I can I just say I'm, I mean, it was my pleasure to sit in the experience of getting… one of my favorite things about the show is that it is a chance to, when I have the privilege of talking to folks you, whose art has , measurably changed the trajectory of my life, is the chance to sit in the memory of, when did this person's artistry enter my life? What was the moment that I was in? And in a lot of cases for the first time, really try to think in a sense memory way. Why did this connect the way that it did? How did that happen? Because in the moment something connects, you know, you don't really know why. You just kind of feel something really big and you're like: I'm different now. <Laugh>. but with the benefit of hindsight, particularly when it's, it's work yours that has really stayed with me past that moment, it's, it's such a, a great opportunity for me just in terms of thinking about, you know, what I would like to believe is the continuum, the ever expanding continuum of my experience of, of holding up people's art as articles of faith in my life. It's, it's a lovely opportunity to try to re revisit that route and, and understand what was happening in that moment.
EM: Right, and , and braid it into your present.
SD: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
EM: And carry it forward. That phrase you use “an article of faith”, something you carry with you. But it's making me think. Something happens to us when we try to say stuff out loud. Or try to write it down. Which, which maybe for me is, is one of the motivations of my writing world. Something happens when we try to write it down. But it reminds me of a thing in tennis where it's like you're consolidating the impact of it.
SD: Tell me what that means.
EM:As you know, tennis, you go back and forth. You serve a game, you receive a game. When you serve you're generally thought to have an advantage. So if somebody wins when they're receiving it, they say they “break you”. You've been “broken”
SD: Wow.
EM: I know.
SD: I think of tennis as so genteel and that's so violent.
EM: But the break doesn't matter if you don't win the next game. Because then otherwise you're back to square one and everything is what's called “on serve”. And so you do something called, you “consolidate the break”. So you have to break somebody, but then you have to win your next game. And in that way you have made those two acts together make the thing a real thing. And there's something about what you're talking about that that is reminding me of that. You have this initial experience and for you, I think if I'm remembering, forgive me for not listening to your intro about me more than once, I couldn't handle, I couldn't handle the praise of it. <Laugh>. But I think you said you were driving a taxi cab. Yes,
SD: Yes. I was.
EM: So you have that action, which is this, this experience you have listening to the radio while you're driving the taxi cab and I'll play this later for my listeners so they can hear what eloquently said, but then you have this second act, which is maybe when you told a friend about it, or maybe when you shared that music with someone else, or maybe now you write about it for your podcast and you do exactly as you put it, which is go back to that moment, try to figure it out, try to consolidate it.
SD: Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. The moment that your cover of Paper Moon was played on W F U V was while I was driving my taxi, was the, the break. I was broken and the consolidation of the break took 15 years, but we got there <laugh>.
I just have to say, it's extremely meaningful to me to hear you say that about the intro to your episode because something that I would never want to a burden I would never wanna put on the guest, but a burden that I feel is <laugh> actually , I could not sleep the night after I released your episode because I was kicking myself so much. I talked about in your cover of Paper Moon that I was overcome by the combination of the Strange and the Familiar in it, because the song was familiar, but the way you were performing the song was, was new to me. And I was wondering , does Erin think that I'm calling them weird? <laugh>, You know what I mean? Or strange or something
EM: But, but I am <laugh>. I am. And I, that was my favorite sentence of what you wrote.
SD: Oh, thank God, <laugh>.
EM: I'm sorry you lost sleep over it <laugh>.
SD: Well, that happens every week, you know what I mean? There always something that I say that comes from the heart and, you know, is true to my experience of this person's artistry, but that I could also imagine, you know, when you're an artist and you're trying to create a very specific thing, or maybe you're trying to reflect a very specific experience and manifest it in, in your work in some way to have somebody say, this is what this person is doing with their work. And to have that then not at all match what the actual attempt on the part of the artist is. I could imagine an artist other than yourself having that experience and reacting negatively or, or recoiling somehow.
EM: Do you asking or answering questions better?
SD: Oh, I <laugh>, I'm just gonna be totally honest with you. 'cause I feel your show celebrates this. I much prefer asking questions and I find myself in life also perpetually frustration- not here, obviously- but in life, perpetually frustrated that nobody ever asks me a question <laugh>. I love to ask questions of people. It is, I mean, this is one of the reasons I wanted to be a cab driver, right? I wanted to plug into this ongoing conversation with the city and its denizens and, and be a part of that tennis match of experience. But one thing I have found, honestly, one of the reasons I really like interviewing people for podcasts is when you interview someone for a podcast, it's understood. I will ask the questions, you will answer the questions. This is a known thing. But that is also born of the fact that in life I'm often so disappointed that I feel I am offering the gift of curiosity and interest to someone about their experience. And they take that as a chance to expound about themselves. And they also take it as an invitation to exclude my experience from this interaction.
hey yall - we’ll keep the announcements brief.
i’m looking forward to seeing friends in the american south this november as i feature as the weather with Welcome to Night Vale. i still need merch help in charleston, tampa, and ft. lauderdale. drop me an email erin@erinmckeown.com to find out more
productions of Miss You Like Hell are opening soon in Merced CA and Seattle WA, with more to follow in 2024. tickets and info is on the shows page of my website.
finally, the usual spiel - please consider subscribing if you haven’t already. you can do that on substack, apple, or spotify. and keep those comments coming, i love to hear what yall are thinking as you listen.
EM: I gave you an assignment before you came on my podcast. So let's do the assignment. Sam, are you ready to send a fax?
SD: I am, I am indeed.
EM: All right. Let me get my cover sheet ready for you. We're gonna fill out the cover sheet first and then we're gonna send the fax. Have you ever sent a fax before?
SD: No, but I listened to your episode with Jose and I have another fax fact for you.
EM: Oh my gosh. Tell us.
SD: Jose was sharing that fax are still somewhat common in medical circumstances. This may be out of date now, but I, for a long time I was a producer at the radio show “on the media” at W N Y C. We did a story once about, this is circa 2015, so this may have changed, but faxes back then were still in common usage on Capitol Hill. When senators or congresspeople wanted to send information to each other without the possibility of it being intercepted or hacked. If they wanted to do some back room dealing between offices, but they didn't even want to take the chance of giving an aid, a folded up piece of paper, who could then leak it to the press, they would fax each other. Because you can't hack a fax, or at least that's what was suggested at the time.
EM: I don't think you can actually. It’s that funny medium between electronic and, and tactile.
SD: Exactly. Exactly. And then it wasn't stored anywhere. So, you know, I could fax you, I'll vote against the climate change bill you’re proposing, your proposal for these amendments, or your quid pro pro quo pro or …
EM: What do they call it? What do they call it in civics class? Didn't we learn the term “pork barrel”? Here's my proposal for pork barrel.
SD: And then, you know, I could read it and rip it up and put it in the garbage and then send you a fax back, you know, with some code phrase on it. And unless somebody was going through your trash and taping pieces of paper back together.
EM: Or there's always a million things getting shredded. They have industrial shredding on Capitol Hill, so you just put that in the shredder. Mm-Hmm. That's fascinating. Okay. So we're gonna fill it out. First part to fill out who is the fax to
SD: The fax is to a long, a former friend of mine who I, I would to be a friend again.
EM: And do you have their number? You don't have to say it, but you do have their number?
SD: I do, yes.
EM: What day are you sending this fax? It could be today, it could be another day. What day are you sending it?
SD: I'd to send it today. Let's, let's get this thing going.
EM: Another question on the cover sheet, which is always important. How many pages?
SD: Just, just one, one with the one plus the cover sheet.
EM: See, this is the existential question. So do we say two pages or one? We're gonna say one. Subject line?
SD: Don't let this happen.
EM: Now you have a, a number of options on this cover sheet. You can mark any of these things. I'll tell you each one. You can say whether you wanna mark it or not. Is it urgent?
SD: It is urgent.
EM: Please reply.
SD: Yes
EM: For review.
SD: Yes. Careful review.
EM: Please comment.
SD: No, I just want the reply.
EM: And is it confidential?
SD: Yes. Even though I'm telling you on your podcast.
EM: Okay, so we filled out our cover sheet and we've put it with our fax. We're putting it into the machine. What is the fax?
SD: The fax is insert person's name here. In the event that they hear this, they will know who they are. And the fax says, “I've been thinking a lot about how we always used work as a friendship and we never worked on our friendship. And if it's not too late, I'm ready to work.”
EM: Sam, that is a poem. That's not a fax, that's a poem. That's a deep lyric poem. Okay. We are sending that fax.
SD: There it goes.
EM: Do you expect a reply?
SD: Sadly, I don't. The reason that I thought that sending this fax on your podcast would be the way to do this, is this is a person who we had a falling out and they informed me that they, they didn't ever want that, that they had blocked me on all forms of communication phone, email but
EM: Not fax.
SD: But I remember that at their parents' house, they had a fax machine. And I remember being at their house once and them telling me, “you know what's crazy? You can get spam on your fax machine”. If somebody has your fax number, they can just send stuff to your fax machine. So that's what I'm doing.
EM: Wow. I'm so blown away by the poetry of that, but also the meaning of it. I think the fax encourages us for these things, right. Because it's a slightly romantic, archaic middle ground, as we were saying, and brevity is important in a fax.
SD: But also, this person may receive this and may hold it in their hand, and maybe that makes a difference. And I feel it's also a way of, you know, and it's obviously dicey to engage with people who have asked you to not engage with them. And, but it's not , you know, I know where this person lives. I'm not gonna show up at their house, you know, at their residence, even though I could do that. So this feels a, a benignly, unsolicited way of making contact in the literal sense of the word as you're describing. , they will have to make contact with this physical page and decide whether they want to keep this, keep this distance, or perhaps see if we can bridge the gap.
EM: And how do you feel right now, having sent the fax on the podcast?
SD: Honestly, I was deciding right up until we got to this part. I had a silly answer for who I was gonna send the fax to.
EM: Okay. We'll do that in a second. You can send as many faxes as you want on this podcast.
SD: Oh my goodness. Wow. I, I was not prepared for this. I thought I only got one. I had a silly answer, but the space you create Erin, I felt it was appropriate to say what I, if I really could send a fax, to say where I really would send it to.
EM: Oh, I love that. Thank you for that Fax of Life appropriate vulnerability. Not that many people listen to this podcast, so I don't think you have to worry too much
SD: But in the event that this person does, listen, we just became a this American Life story.
EM: We totally did. We totally did. Oh my God. It's a podcast of a podcast of a podcast. Yes.
SD: This is hats on hats.
EM: So many hats.
you can listen to our entire episode of The Midnight Disease here. it’s well worth your time!
ps - your requisite carl content. he was recently hit by a car, but he escaped relatively, and miraculously, unscathed. just some cuts and soreness. as you can see below, he is back on his bullshit and ready to play at all times.
here, carl is presenting me with a hat on a toy, which is definitely like a hat on a hat.
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
in our conversation, we mention a few times that sam was an NYC cab driver.
i am still mourning the USWNT’s early exit from the world cup, as well as the end of a beautiful tournament. soccer journalist meg linehan has an excellent and inspiring conversation with one Angel City FC founders. you don’t have to care about soccer or women’s sports to get fired up listening to this. BTW the Max doc about Angel City FC is quite good.
these photos by bruce davidson are truly extraordinary. i want to live in them.
i already knew i was becoming obsolete, but the new york times had to rub it in.
UPCOMING SHOWS
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Miss You Like Hell at Arizona State University
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Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
a hat on a hat (with sam dingman)