Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show on the Choose Yourself Network. Today on the James Altucher Show. I think that from about 6th grade to 10th grade, the experiences you have in that period calcify in some way, galvanizing your mind in a way, and they almost create the superstructure for how you think about all things going forward. My therapist would agree with you, by the way. I just assumed that everyone growing up felt this way. Everybody kind of felt very, singular and alone, and you had this world inside your mind, and it was the world outside of yourself, and the world outside of yourself was you just kind of goofed around and talked to people and made small talk, but, you know, in your mind, you had your own kind of world. Everything I've liked, I've liked in totality. If I liked something, I wanted to know everything about it, and I really wanted to almost be inside of it. What was not happening among your peers that allowed you to sort of move past them? Talking about the difference between chance, luck, and skill, how did you get these first opportunities that you were able to pursue? There was one huge element of chance that happened. We've got Chuck Klosterman in the house. Klosterman. Klosterman. I always say everybody's name wrong. Well, no. Everyone says my name wrong. There's no reason that you would think it's Klosterman. There is no umlauts over my name. It looks like Klosterman. There could be an umlaut though because you're from North Dakota, which I feel is like a foreign country. Well, the the last I don't think I've ever met anyone from North Dakota before. Well, it's possible. Where are you from? I'm from New York. I've met lots of people from New York. Right. But, yeah, there's 680,000 people, I think, in North Dakota. So it's sort of like saying I haven't met anybody from, you know, I don't know, Reno, Nevada or something. I mean, it's not that many people. I guess I don't know what Reno's population is. But Probably not 600,000. Maybe not. Maybe more like saying I don't know anybody from, you know, Portland, maybe. Yeah. Well, I wanna get to North Dakota in a second actually because it's very interesting to me. But, just by way of introduction, you have a new book out. I'm, holding it the wrong way. It's called But What If We're Wrong, and it's we're gonna talk all about it. You've written 9 books incredibly. First one, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. That was the second one. Second one. What was the first one? The first one is called Frog Rock City. It's about growing up in North Dakota and listening to Hair Metal, like, you know, Poison and Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses. I did not read that one, but Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, I did. That's the one that's the big one that people know about. And then, you did a a book, fairly recently about villains. Yeah. I forgot the it's I Wear the Black Hat. I Wear the Black Hat. Right? You did Chuck Klosterman 4. I like how that it was, like, basically the number. Yeah. You did, gosh. I'm trying to think now of all the titles. Let me just take a look here. Hold on. I'm I've see, unlike you mentioned in this book how all our memories have decreased, and my memory has totally fallen apart even though I've read, like, several of these books. So Killing Yourself to Live, 85 Percent of a True Story. And then you've written 2 novels. Also, The Visible Man, Downtown Owl. You're 44 years old. Have you done, like, 9 of these books? You live you kinda live, like, the dream life. You you basically here here's I'm gonna describe your life, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong. Okay. You basically listen to whatever you want in terms of music. You watch whatever you want in terms of, like, movies and television. You write about all this fun stuff you listen to and watch and observe in our culture, and you make a great living doing it. That's not inaccurate. That is sort of my life. That's kind of the dream job. Well, I Like, one person in the in the country has that job, and it's you. Yeah. I know. I know. You are the ethicist for New the New York Times, which is a great job too. I mean, I it's I'm incredibly fortunate. I mean, I I I've said this before, but it's completely true. It's sometimes people ask me, you know, these questions about my career or whatever, and they're hard to answer at times because my actual life has completely usurped my dreams or hopes. I mean, I I don't know about that like that. Well, no. Because I started as a newspaper writer. I worked for a newspaper in Fargo and then a newspaper in Ohio. This is before my first book came out. And at the time, I I have to say that my hope was that maybe if I do a good job as a reporter and I I put the time in and stuff, I'll be able to publish a book or maybe 2 books. And maybe this will happen in my fifties or something, but that I will basically be a working reporter who might be who might have the ability or the luck or the chance to so what has happened is is totally unexpected to me. So it all seems like this is a little more than what I had ever imagined, because I didn't know one writer growing up. I'd never met a writer until I moved to Ohio. Yeah. So so, I wanna talk about, the what the but what if we're wrong book, which kind of goes into this idea that many of the concepts we've held dear over the centuries have constantly changed century by century, whether it's physics or art or music or you know? You don't talk as much about medicine, but that's what I I wanna talk about as well. But, before I get into that, I still wanna kind of dive into, you know, the how to's of having this kind of great career. And Yeah. I I think, you know, on the one hand, a lot of people when I ask this question, when I'm when I'm kind of a fan of the arc of their career, a lot of people will say there's a a big luck factor. I don't think that's as true with you. I think like, in one of your books, I remember thinking to myself, did he just mention in one paragraph eloquently 9 different movies? Like, you basically have absorbed all of popular culture. Like, it feels like there hasn't been a book you haven't read, an album you haven't listened to and analyzed, a movie you haven't seen, and you're able to kind of interweave them all and write about them. Like, you're kind of a genius about how pop culture works. And with and it seems like this started from an early age. So some of my guests tell me, think about what you loved at an early age, and then you write in in one or more of your books that, basically, music became your passion starting from 5th grade on. Like, you became obsessed, and, obviously, you still are. Like, you're right. You're a huge music critic. So what's what's kind of the the arc or the evolution of of who you are? Okay. Well, a few things first. Okay. That's very nice of you to say. It's really good. It's common sense. I wouldn't say anything. No. Well I didn't give an opinion. I gave that choice. Genius. That is pretty amazing to be here. You know, I I don't really believe that, but I like you I love you saying that. Okay? Second of all, I would say, like many, maybe, of your other guests, the biggest factor is chance. I don't really believe in luck because luck almost implies like a leprechaun is so somebody's making this happen. What's the difference what's the difference between chance and luck? I think that everyone in life, has of, you know, chance is going to provide certain opportunities. Windows are gonna open. Doors are gonna open. And then the question is whether or not you pursue these things. Like, we I I I think in many ways, though it it sometimes seems like certain people are luckier than others, I think what that really means is that when they were given chances, they elected to pursue them as opposed to step away from them, and that kinda creates the illusion of luck. Then, of course, there is also just, you know, there is some luck, I suppose, if you wanna call it, you know, who you are when you're born and all these things that you have no control over. There's certain things that I just have no control over. You know, somebody recently I did a thing in Toronto yesterday, and and and someone asked me, like, you know, when you watch a television show or when you listen to a song, are you just immediately deconstructing it, immediately trying to analyze what it means? And I my honest answer is, like, well, I have no idea because the only perspective I have is my own. Like, I don't know how somebody else feels when they watch The Empire Strikes Back. I don't know what happens when they do. I barely know when I do what really goes on. You know? There's sort of the conscious experience, and then there's the unconscious experience. And somehow those merge when I'm writing. And, you know, by the way, our opinions differ completely on Star Wars. But it you bring up The Empire Strikes Back, and you've you've mentioned it in a couple of your books. Like, I think it was in Sex, Drugs, and and Cocoa Puffs. And, you talk, you know, you talk how The Empire Strikes Back was the the best of the series. Star Wars, not so good, particularly and and you made the interesting point, though, that it kind of, even though it opened up this whole new genre of filmmaking in in American filmmaking, it also destroyed the prior 5 years of incredible filmmaking that had just occurred. So but we we could talk about that later. But it did occur to me that you were deconstructing, you know, that although you saw Empire Strikes Back was the first movie you ever saw, now when you think about it or rewatch it, you are completely deconstructing what you're watching. Oh, sure. I mean, that that must be the case because this is what I do for a living, and now it's kind of it's it's the way I like doing it. I mean, you know, I, I don't I don't really I don't really enjoy the idea of escapism. Like, there's no there's no television show or or or book I watch or sports I watch to escape from reality. It's like I'm not like that. I I always wanna go kind of more into it, but it's not like it's work. Like, that's to me the the kind of the natural organic part of this. Now, when I was a kid, was I doing that? I suppose I was. But, I mean, I came from a, you know, a very kind of isolated place on a farm, and I I didn't have a lot of exposure to even, like, the concept of criticism outside of, say, maybe seeing, like, Siskel and Ebert on television or somebody writing in the newspaper about, you know, whatever concert had come through Fargo or whatever. But but but maybe because you were so isolated, it's not like Sisko and Ebert were your criticism of culture. It was the culture itself was your window into the rest of the world that perhaps you want you knew you would eventually move to. So so maybe you did this deeper analysis to kind of see into that window. As it turns out, I suspect the level of isolationism and, like, being isolated ended up being a huge advantage. Because in North Dakota, I only got the most mainstream culture. There was absolutely not I mean, if it if it gets you know, culture starts on the coast and move in and moves inward. And And if it gets to rural North Dakota, that's, like, the biggest stuff. So I was really into art. So I had to sort of use a band like Guns N' Roses, which is really a a very kind of commercial mainstream act, sort of is, like, the most transgressive, most, sort of unique sort of entity. That I I had to think about Guns N' Roses the way somebody in New York or LA might have thought about, you know, Gigi Allen or this or or Morrissey or these things that are are are sort of more complicated. So I think as a consequence, I may be better suited to think about popular culture in a way that resonates with a lot of people as opposed to just other critics. That's really interesting because, you know, even as you bring it up, it given that you're such an expert on all these things, popular culture, I I it it makes me wanna ask other questions about every topic you bring up. Super. Yeah. So so Guns N' Roses, just as a tangent, do you view them as kind of this bridge between, let's say, you know, punk slash and which which then turned into, new wave, which turned into pop? Do you think you view it as a bridge between that era and grunge? Well, I mean, it's difficult because they're like the only band in their category. It's difficult for me to to to accurately say that because now I have this all this other information that I've received over the time. Now it seems very clear that they were sort of emerging of but while while most of their peers who were doing glam metal were really basically coming out of the idea of, like, you know, bands like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, and then making it into a pop music that had sort of, the trappings of hard rock or metal. Whereas, Guns N' Roses does seem to have interest in punk music and also interest in classic rock at the time that wasn't as respected, like Thin Lizzy and ACDC and these bands that are meaningful now, but at the time in 19 8 in the mid eighties, had kind of been forgotten to a degree. So that seems obvious to me now. Seem to be, like, kind of verging on grunge too. It's almost like they're, like, right around the premise of it. Axl Rose did wear flannel. He was before crunch even happened. You know? They they quit wearing Hairspray pretty much immediately after their first record. They had a lot of the visual aspects of grunge. And in many ways, the difference between eighties hair metal and, like, nineties Seattle grunge is two things. I mean, it's fashion, and it's what you projected your perception and meaning, of fame was. In other words, if you were in Bon Jovi or Motley Crue or Poison, the idea was that we wanna be as big as possible. We wanna be larger than life. We sort of have the mentality of kiss or whatever. If you were in a grunge band, if you were in, you know, Nirvana or Tad or or Mudhoney, of any of these groups, the idea was that you saw fame and success and the idea of being a rock rock star is almost sort of a pathetic thing, a sad thing, a totally inauthentic, and that you're you were being pulled into fame almost against your will. Musically, outside of a little bit of the way you tune your guitars, they both are playing hard rock that has some relationship to Black Sabbath. I mean, it was really the aesthetics that changed, and Guns N' Roses is right in between those two aesthetics. So Yeah. I'm right a little bit. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. Totally. Yeah. So I wasn't yeah. But but no. But that's interesting, though. That's this is who you are. It's like, you could take a question like that, and you totally just broke down all these band you just mentioned, like, 10 different bands or 15 different bands and and broke it down piece by piece what was going on. And I didn't even think that similarly that that they were similar musically, but you you just broke it down. So so now, again, you you you started at 5th grade with this obsession in music. You started, you obviously were interested in writing. You became a journalist. How did this, you know, you you kept increasing your knowledge. What was not happening among your peers that allowed you to sort of move past them? Oh, that's Like, how did you get your first opportune like, again, we're talking about the difference between chance, luck, and skill. How did you get these first opportunities that you were able to pursue? Was it chance, or was there where where was the skill component? Where was the talent component? And where was the chance component? Well, it's complicated, but I'll try to answer it. Okay. So I come from a town of 500 people, and I lived 5 miles outside of that town. So it was, like, 23 kids in my graduating cla*s. And I remember sitting in class, and the teacher would ask questions, and nobody would say anything. Now I would know the answer, but I would not say anything either. I just assumed you didn't say anything. I I assumed everyone in the class knew the answer and just didn't talk because it was kind of blamed to talk in class or whatever. So I would just sit there like everyone else. Now I realized that maybe I was the only one who knew the answer to some of these questions or cared about it or even read the assignment. So I just assumed that everyone growing up felt this way, that they just everybody kinda felt very, singular and alone and that you had this world inside your mind and it was the world outside of yourself. And the world outside of yourself was you just kind of goofed around and talked to people and made small talk. But, you know, in your mind, you had your own kind of world. Well, I go to college then, and the stereotype usually of kids from, like, farms to go to college is they're, like, amazed by the diversity. I was actually more amazed to find a handful of people who were just like me, who listened to Motley Crue, but also wanted to talk about it and, like, want didn't just wanna say it rocked. They wanted to say, like, what are these songs about? Why do you think they did this? Or, like, what does this mean? Why why did you wanna know that stuff? I I was just everything I've liked, I've liked in totality. Like, there's nothing that I just, like, had a casual interest in. Like, if I liked something, I wanted to know everything about it, and I really wanted to almost be inside of it. So so part of it is, like, even, when you were young, you wouldn't just say, oh, that's a nice song I like listening to in my spare time. You'd really wanted to know where where do these guys come from? What do the lyrics mean? And this is true of actually many critics, not just me. But, you know, I would drive to school in the morning, and I'd listen to a song on on, you know, cassette. I'd be listening to Cinderella or whatever and park my vehicle and get into school and then think about it all day. Like, I like to think about music even when I wasn't listening to it all. Do like, take Cinderella, who I don't even know the lyrics to any of their songs. What would you think about, like, during a school day? Well, I would I would be kinda running through the song in my head, and I would be thinking about the lyrics. And I would be like, well, Kaye, they came from Philadelphia. So then they moved to Los Angeles, and this is somehow reflect something. Do you get a little information about them from a rock magazine or whatever? You would I would think about it compared to other you know, why do I like this more than, you know, Faster Pussycat or whatever? Like, I would think, why do I I I was always very interested in the question whenever I found that I liked something, trying to figure out why I actually liked it. So that would be part of it. So I go to college though, and I and I I've meet a few guys who are like me, and we kind of had similar experiences and came from similar places. And that was the first time I was like, oh, it's so this is something you can do. You can you can you can talk about these things that there is a there is there is a part of the discourse that wants to discuss the culture. And that introduced me. Like, I learned much more from my friends in college, I feel like, than my professors because they introduced me to things they were reading and things they were listening to. And then there was one huge element of chance that happened. I graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1994. Okay? And The Ivy League of North Dakota. Well, it's the best school in North Dakota, I guess, academically, at least. Not not football team's not, but the academics are. And I thought I was gonna go to graduate school because at the time, I guess maybe I was just conceited or something. I was like, there didn't seem to be any jobs that I wanted. I didn't wanna start at an entry level position, and I was also kind of interested in bigger ideas about mass communication. So I thought I'll probably go to graduate school. And I was all ready to do that. But it was 1994, and this is the aspect of luck. The paper in Fargo, the Forum newspaper, which is the biggest paper in the state, in 1994 was suddenly overcome with this fear of Gen X readers. Who are these Generation X readers? I guess because, the book Generation X by Douglas Coupland, who, by the way, I think he's a blurb on on this book. Right? The the But What If We're Wrong book? He'd he read it. Yeah. He was nice. Or he was a he was a blurb somewhere on one of your books. Yeah. But, anyway, I think it was 1993 or 1994 that the book Generation X came out. His book actually came out in 1991, but it became And then Reality Bites also Yes. Which was another That was that was the that was the spring of 94, and that it was sort of the mainstreaming of this idea. So the newspaper has this fear. Who are these people? You know, they they listen to music we don't relate to. They, you know, they're interested in skateboarding, and they seem to have a different view of work. We need to address this. Now if they would have been reasonable, they would have said, we need to kind of update the entire newspaper. We need to have stories that are interesting to people in their twenties as much as people in their forties, you know. But that's not what they did. Their idea was, we're gonna have a 16 page insert every Thursday called rage. And that is going to address all of the generation x issues, and we're gonna hire one person to write it. And I ended up getting hired. Now I had never really I had covered sports and news and, like, politics when I was in college. I'd never really been an entertainment writer. I'd done a couple stories, but I was just you know, I was somewhat into it that when I, you know, I sent them my clips of my news and my sports clips, and I interviewed, and I knew all I mean, I knew this culture because I'd been so engulfed in. So I got hired for this job, and then I was writing 16, 17, 18 stories a week about this. I was the only writer for a long time. I guess in music Was it hard? Okay. Writing 16 pages a week. Some people would find that to be unbelievably difficult. It was. Well, it was. It was it was I mean, as a consequence, some of those stories were horrible because I just had to do it. Like, you know, I had to fill the space. I had to fill this 16. Sometimes it was 20. Sometimes it was 24 pages. I had to fill this. So I just had to do it. And I think, like, in music, sometimes they call this, like, woodshedding. Like when someone takes a guitar and they go into their bedroom or the woodshed, and they decide I'm gonna learn how to play Eruption by Eddie Van Halen, and they just play it for a year. And by the end of that time, they can play this song, but they've learned all these other things through that experience. This was kinda like that. Now here's why I say luck played such a huge role. If I graduate in 1993, I probably do go to grad school because this job doesn't exist and no job I want is out there, so I probably do that. If I graduated 1995, somebody else gets that job, and I do something else entirely. But because I graduated in May and this job happened in June, it completely accelerated my career because suddenly I went from being a college student to a relatively high profile newspaper writer, granted, in Fargo, but that's was my world at the time. Like, I wasn't I had no aspirations of being in New York or LA or anything like that. This is kinda your equivalent of The Beatles going to Germany and being forced to play 10 hour shifts at these script clubs. Cavern Club. Yeah. I mean, that would be that's I would I wouldn't say I'm like The Beatles, but, yes, that would be that was exactly the same thing that that this opportunity happened that put me in a position then, I think, to probably, almost jump ahead. So that by the time I was 20 And and not not in jump ahead in terms of opportunity, but jump ahead in terms of of skill Yes. Too. Because no. That's what I'm totally talking about. The fact that you were forced to write 16 pages a week about basically every cultural item happening. And and to be a total full on generalist. I mean, I wrote a column that was just like a personal column. I did a big double truck feature on whatever the big news was, But I also did the record reviews, the film reviews, the TV reviews. For some reason, I had a column where I reviewed magazines. And then I would do a q and a with a local person. So I was, like, doing all these things plus, you know, anything else to kinda fill out. You know, I would at the time, I would review what was new on video cassette because that was sort of a burgeoning thing at the time. How how did you avoid ego? And sorry. I keep interrupting. I'm a serial billing director or whatever. I get curious. How did you avoid ego slipping in in the sense that if I'm 22 and this is just me, if somebody gave me the chance to do this kind of writing, I would definitely be egotistical about it, and the writing would probably suffer as a result. Well, I'd say 2 things. 1, that probably did happen to a degree. There I probably did, it probably did, to a you know, to a certain extent, it enhanced my self perception, but not as much as it probably because the the the response was so negative. I mean, the the 1st year I did this, it was seen as a complete failure both not by not just by the paper itself, but sort of by the audience. Like, it was just you know, and and make I can totally understand why. I mean, if you pick up a 16 or 20 page insert, you expect there's gonna be a multitude of writers. You don't think it's gonna be the same person the whole way through. And there were lots of mistakes in it because I was writing so fast, and and and and it was just not it was the editing was, you know, kind of thrown together. No one no one really knew about the things I was writing about for the most part. Like, the people editing me had no idea who these bands were or what what these what these films were or whatever for the most part. So there was a lot of mistakes. So I was really, really, really hammered, for about about a year and a half before it kinda changed. So how did you react to that? Like, a, were you afraid constantly you were gonna lose your job? Like, did did your bosses hate you? And b, did you cry? Don't remember crying, but I do remember thinking about losing my job. I guess I sort of created this idea in my mind that that they just didn't get it, that people just weren't getting it. That they did they weren't getting it, and I was doing it. I was I was right, and they were wrong. So there's some some ego is needed to kinda push forward, particularly at that age, to push forward in, you know, I can still keep doing this Absolutely. Despite what what people are saying. I mean, that's a big part of writing. Probably a big part of any art is that you you you cannot be emotionally fragile. I mean, I suppose some kind of artists are. But but in order to get good at art, though, or let's say music, you're you start off bad. Like, Eddie Van Halen started off as a bad guitar player and became a good one, but somehow he had to get through the fact that, oh, I'm bad, but I'm going to, in the future, become really good. The other advantage is is that though it seemed like a big deal at the time, I was writing in a place where I wasn't being seen in truth by that many people. I mean, the the I think the circulation of the paper I was at was 60,000 during the week and, like, a 100,000 on Sunday. Now, if this was happening today, this experience would be happening on the Internet. I would probably be being I would have been read maybe by 10, 20, maybe 50 times as many people. And I think that would have been detrimental. And that's why I think that I feel kind of bad for people going into media now. Because if they have any talent, they get pushed in this position too early to be, you know, really widely read and and sort of almost accepted as, like, a national voice. And I think that that has 2 big detriments. 1, when they are criticized, I think that it it, it feels just oppressive and and probably, just kinda soul crushing. But even worse is that they get rewarded sometimes for small things that they do. Like, small like, they they maybe just their sense of humor or their word choice or maybe one story they do. And they get overly rewarded, and they start seeing this as this is the person I am. This is how I need to succeed. And they end up kind of almost becoming a a caricature of themselves. Because they take this one thing they get rewarded for and make it their whole identity. I think I think that's very true, and I think I mean, I feel with my own stuff, I often suffer from that. And how do you how do you break free from that? Like, what do you do to break free from that? Well and you have, like, a bunch of different styles. Like, you have your essay style. You have your fiction style. You have the style in this book, which is just a straight, you know, book, the the the last one, but what if we're wrong? I think part of it has to do is that I started like, my first book I wrote when I was 27 or 28. So to some extent, I was a I wasn't fully formed, but I I was an adult. Like, it wasn't I knew what I was doing, and I kind of knew what I was getting into. So that maybe helped. I I wonder what would have happened if that book would have come out even 3 years earlier. Like, you can change a lot from 20 to 30. I mean, those are big years in some ways. But, I'm pretty I would I hate to say this, but, like, kinda hyper conscious, I guess, over how I would perceive myself if I wasn't the one writing these books. Like, when I write them and I'm and I go back and I'm and I'm reading them and editing them, I'm really editing them as if I'm a person who would be asked to review this book. And what would I say about it? And what would I think was wrong about it? And what would seem cliche to me? Or what seems like, you know, I I mean, I so that that might be part of it, but I think everyone would think that. Like, every writer would say that about themselves. But but, like, let's say, you know, your audience loves you for, you know, and and a large part of your audience does love you for this, your very first book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which is, I don't know, 13 years ago, 12 years ago, something like that. Mhmm. Your your first essay is with Britney Spears. Or wait. Was that in the That was in the 4th. The 4th. Okay. So so you you do all these essays where you're interviewing fascinating celebrities. How did you not get kind of closeted into that corner? Well, it because people love those. Yes. It doesn't work to do that. I mean, I this people don't know what they want until they get it. I mean, that's very true. And you there there are there are some things that that audiences are not very sophisticated about and some things that they're incredibly sophisticated about. There are 2 things that I find that they're very aware of. If if they sense that you're trying to be controversial on purpose, They will recoil from it. They'll stick and see right through that. What's an example? Well, you know, if you see it all the time, go on, you know, go on slate or anything, any site, on any given day, you will see certain pieces that they that seem idiotic. And the reason that they seem idiotic is because you know that they were consciously created to create some kind of of, like, just to get into the attention economy and create currency. I mean, I think I think most people are very adept at this, as being able to tell when this is not really a reflection of how this person feels. This is a reflection of what they thought would be controversial or would get attention. Have you suffered from this? Like, what's an example where you wrote something, Definitely in college, I did. When I was writing in college, you know, you would, you know, you would write I would write something that would just completely bash, like, the fraternity and sorority system, knowing that, of course, that they were all gonna freak out about it. I mean, I think I think many writers go through that phase. But the but the goal is to get out of that phase quick. When I say that people become caricatures of who they are, you see this sometimes if somebody realizes that they they almost like the rush of this negative attention in a way. And, you know, they'll retweet negative things. People have tweeted about them almost like they're happy about it. And they get it becomes almost drug like to them, like this narcotic that somehow that they think that they know they're doing well if other people are upset about it. But that's that's bad writing. You know? I mean, the other thing that people are pretty sophisticated about telling is, you know, is, like, is this person trying to figure out what I want? Like, is he pandering? Does he is he is he picturing me as a reader, as a person who wants to hear something, and now he's trying to tell to me? So I just think this. I mean, like, all I can do is write about what is interesting to me personally. I cannot try to project or guess what people want. I just write about what's interesting to me personally, and I hope that other people find it interesting. Like, you know, this last book has done better than the last couple, okay, commercially. Now was that because I figured something out about my readership? I don't think so. I just think this is one time when my specific interest is dovetailing with other people's interests. Like, this question about what are we wrong about or whatever, what might be wrong about, how will the present seem as history. I think maybe this is something other people have almost unconsciously worried about or wondered about. But you just can't figure out what an audience wants. I think I mean, maybe some people can, but I can't. Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. It seems like with all of the vast information we have access to on the Internet now, there's almost two versions of history at any given point. There's the history written by the winners, and there's the vast amount of information. There's the there's the any history I want because I could find any history I want on the Internet. You know, whether you're a conspiracy theorist or a historian or whatever, you'll get what you want. I mean, there used to be, this idea that there was sort of the conventional version of history, the conventional news. And then underneath it was sort of like the secret history. So we would say, like, well, okay. There is, you know, like, the mainstream telling of, the war in Iraq, and then there's this secondary secret, you know, kind of secret world, conspiracy world, all of these things. Well, now all those things are the same. Now, the the secondary story is has the same amount of weight and attention as the main story. That is something that has just been changed by the Internet, and that there are there there are some positive aspects to that. I think there are probably more negative aspects to that in terms of, how accurate the average person perceives reality and our sense of what's actually happening in the world. But there's nothing we can do. Like, we can't we can never move technology back. Like, technology has never moved back ever. Yeah. But but there's but there's this bigger question, which is that things that we hold dear as this must be correct, that itself changes every 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years, depending on the field. And so I feel like half your book explores that, and then half of your book explores, our lack of ability to predict, what will be later perceived as success. So for instance, a 100 years from now, who will be considered the best writer of the last 100 years might be someone we've never heard of as an example. And you gave Herman Melville in the in the 1800 as an example of someone who, after his death, suddenly Moby Dick, which sold less than 5,000 copies, became the great American novel. I mean, with the writing thing, it's, like, 2 possibilities. Like, well, actually, there's 3 possibilities. Like, who will be remembered as the greatest writer from this period? Okay. The one possibility is that it will be the people we think now. It'll be, you know, Franz and then DeLillo and these people, you know, that that the people we perceive as being great now will continue to be perceived great later. That's one possibility. Although that seems very unlikely to me that the history of ideas is kind of the history of people being wrong. In all likelihood, that will not be the case. And, also, if you look at the history of, like, classic musicians, artists, writers Yes. Almost all of the writers that every single household knew of in 18/60, nobody knows of right now. Well and so that that gives us 2 other candidates then. It's either someone who's completely unknown, the way Franz Kafka was, and that that this person who essentially who's working in obscurity now will be elevated long after his or her death by other people. Or a third option, which in some ways to me is the most interesting, is that it will be someone like Herman Melville, who was known during his life, had some commercial success, but was not perceived as important by almost anyone. Like like the idea that there is some writer now who a literate person is aware of but would never classify as one of the 100 greatest writers living right now might be the person who ends up, being seen as really important. And the reason that these candidates, these last two candidates, the unknown person or the sort of the marginalized unimportant person, why they're in a better position to be, seen as very meaningful in the future is because one thing every generation wants to do when they venerate artists is sort of come up with their own interpretation for why they are great. That they want to almost construct and create the explanation for why this writer or why this musician or why this filmmaker meant something, which means that the Persian has to almost be a neutral charge. They can't have a lot of meaning already embedded in them unless these people are gonna contradict that meaning. They they wanna even that, even contradicting their preexisting meaning is kind of giving up, your agency to the past. They really want something that feels new. And for something to feel new, it means that there can't be a lot of ideas about that person preexisting. But, you know, in some cases where let's take filmmaking where the skill set is is so enormous to be a great moviemaker. Who is gonna argue that someone like Steven Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola or or who Martin Scorsese, these guys were not at least among the best of their era. Well, I mean, an expert certainly will. An expert in filming a 100 years, if they're talking about the last half of 20th century, especially the, you know, the the last 25 years of 20th century, those names are gonna be in there. And they're going to say that these were perceived as the greatest filmmakers of the time. However, that same expert might be the person who really mattered though, and the person they will likely select will have one of 2 characteristics or both characteristics. They will be formally inventive, that they will have added something that no one else had used before that became sort of the mainstream idea of what film should look like. Or their work will be seen as retroactively transgressive, which is a huge part of art. The idea that the art that that really matters are things that were not just pleasing to people, but somehow attacked the status quo or were contradicting the way the world was perceived at the time. I mentioned this in one part in the book. You know, in the late seventies, there was this adversarial relationship between punk and disco. Okay? They were the they're you know, the the disco records were selling like crazy. Punk was sort of the the music that was in the news. And for about 40 years or at least 35 years, the idea was, well, artistically, punk was obviously more important mostly because it was more transgressive. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Slits, all these bands, that they seemed really dangerous, and they were wrecking sort of the pre existing idea of what music had been, the state idea of the seventies. And disco was seen as disposable. But over the last 5 years or so, that has changed. Now there is a belief and a kind of, and I think that this is justifiable, that disco sort of moved gay black culture, urban culture essentially, into suburban areas. That it was the only way for a lot of of sort of isolated white people to have any kind of relationship to this kind of culture, which is now seen as a much more meaningful kind of transgression transgression as opposed to the Sex Pistols just swearing on TV. Like, disco music was actually sort of changing the day to day lives of people who had no exposure to this culture otherwise. So now disco has been elevated. And it's possible now that disco will be seen as more important than punk because of this simply because the definition of transgressive has changed. It's interesting, though, like, a 100 years from now, will anybody care about transgressive, or will they just care about musical quality, however you define that? Well, this this is this brings up a secondary question. There is another phase to this, another another sort of level where everybody who experienced punk and disco will be dead. You, me, probably everyone listening to this podcast will be dead. So all that's left is the music. So then it comes down to, like, kind of a new kind of decision. Do we go simply by the quality of the music? Is it just based on merit then? What seems like better music? Or does it come from people who, like, wanna decide what mattered more culturally? And once we decide which was more culturally important, we'll then elevate the music along with it. So the idea of the music very often whenever you talk about merit, especially of things from the past, What we're often doing is finding things that seem like they were socially important and then saying that that's proof of the merit. Well, okay. So in that case, let me play devil's advocate. Fifty Shades of Grey was incredibly transgressive. It allowed, these kind of desires that women had to kind of come to the forefront so it became become mainstream reading as opposed to something they were hiding while they were reading, in part because the Kindle allowed them to read it on the subway without anybody seeing what they were reading. Suddenly, Fifty Shades of Grey becomes this huge culturally important book and, actually, also this huge commercial success. But, probably most people say the merits of that book don't equal a quality written book. Yes. I'm not gonna judge No. I know what you're saying. No. It's it's a great example. Okay? So the question becomes then when this is looked back historically, if this will be seen as sort of the end of a transgressive period or the beginning. In other words, with these ideas, you know, the idea of like a housewife being able to access sort of mainstream erotica, Is that a new idea that didn't really exist before 50 Shades of Grey? Or is 50 Shades of Grey just the first example that spilled into the culture at large? Like, it seems to be possible that in this future, somebody could say, like, well, you know, 50 Shades of Grey was, you know, like, like sort of, the the first sort of wide, wide scale mainstream appreciation of this kind of writing. But maybe they'll say, you know, Anne Rice, when she was writing those vampire novels, had elements of erotica in that writing in the, you know, in the in the in the 19 eighties. Was that the beginning of this? You know, was is that what we should what we should worry about or or or credit or, you know? From a historian's perspective, there always is, like, they they care about the beginning and they care about the end. They care about the inception of an idea, and then it's it's it's sort of its widest sort of, you know, circus tent sort of bring in the rest of the world, manifestation. But the idea of Fifty Shades of Grey in the future being perceived as being important, that seems possible to me. Now, in literary circles, they would always say, like, at the time, this writing was seen as fundamentally, you know, you know, pedestrian. You sometimes hear that about when people talk about, say, Charles Dickens. That they'll be like, well, it seems like simple writing, but actually, it's great because it's really describing what it was like to live in that time, what it was like to work in a factory, the ideas people worried about, the culture of this world. The writing then they say like, actually, it is good. You know, it it it's it's pristine. It's it's it's never been replicated. But these are all constructions. I mean, that's always the thing. I mean, you know, you say that we look at Fifty Shades of Grey and think the writing is bad. Like, so do I. Like, I don't it doesn't it seems terrible to me. But I was also socialized to believe a certain kind of writing is good, and that contradicts it. You know? Yeah. I guess it's hard. I mean, on these subjective things, it's hard to say what's good, what's bad. But it seems like the reason people like the book is not because of the writing style. You know? It's because of basically their, you know, the erotica aspect as opposed to the writing style aspect. Yeah. Oh, well and or or yeah. They they care about the literal content, not the way it's delivered. I mean, this is there's just tons of complicated I mean, I this is why I loved writing this book, you know, just talking about music in briefly. Okay. The idea of primitive music. Okay. A band like, you know, like KISS or a band like The Ramones. Somebody might say, well, that's real basic music that we can't give them too much credit because it just seems so simplistic. And a band like The Talking Heads, what they were great about is through incredibly nuanced sophisticated ways, making music that feels primitive. In fact, they're they're they're like like, they made simple music, but it was a hard thing to do. These other bands are like, well, they made simple music because they couldn't make hard music. You know? And yet the end product, in some ways, is similar. It's like, you know, it's like like primitive music. But we care about the motive behind it too. So, like, what's the motive of Fifty Shades of Grey? Did the woman who write, it was a woman who wrote Fifty Shades of Grey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, she she didn't I mean, her name's El James because she didn't wanna necessarily identify as a woman or a man. I mean, I I guess I I wanted to make sure I wasn't wrong about that. I I guess I assumed it was a woman. And, you know, what was her motive for doing this? Was it because, she loves writing? Because she loves these ideas? I mean, if we're gonna talk about a book like that, seriously, that comes into play too. You know? Well, interesting you brought up Anne Rice because, originally, the genesis of 50 Shades of Grey not to get too much into 50 Shades of Grey, but it was a fan fiction for Twilight, which, of course, comes from the long line of vampire novels. But, what about other areas? Like, you you you you talk a lot about physics. You talked with and what's great about the book is you just simply it seems like you just pick up the phone and call, you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson or Brian Greene, you know, these ultra famous physicists. Like, is it hard to get a hold of them? Like, I can't pick up the phone and call them. Well, what I would do is, you know, as a journalist, you get pretty good at finding people. Mhmm. So, I would just say, like, hey. Look. I wanna talk to you about a hypothetical idea that no one will know the answer to for 500 or a 1000 years. Would you be up for talking about an idea that's completely abstract? Very often, people say yes. You know, some people say no. But a lot of people will say yes, especially if you pro if you frame it in that way. If you're saying, I wanna talk to you about a question that no one knows the answer to, they'll be like, well, why not? You know? I suppose because I've had some success, this has helped. I mean, if I was right when I was writing Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, I'm sure I couldn't have just called people up and say, hey. Will you talk to me? But because, you know, I've written these other books and, you know, I worked for The Times and all these other places, I guess that helps. You know? So so you you call them up, and the the basic premise is that, or the question is, what we know now about the world, about the the the the physics of the world, essentially, will it be completely different what we think a 100 years from now or 500 years from now or whatever? And Brian Greene's view is that, you know, most likely, yes, that everything he says now about physics will will think differently about a 100 years from now. And Neil deGrasse Tyson says no. Since 1600, we've pretty much known Yeah. The the the basic laws of the universe. Yes. And the and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. They're each kind of defending their own mountain tops, but the truth is probably somewhere in the valley. Well, I think a lot of it has to do with with how they perceive these questions. I mean, I think Brian Greene's thought, like, this is fun. This is crazy. We'll never know. Let me be let me speculate because, you know, he also you know, a lot of his field of study, he's often on the fringes. He's probably used to people saying you're crazy. But he's also more of a a theoretician than an experimentalist. Whereas Neil deGrasse Tyson might say, if you can't you know, our experiments show this is true. Well, yeah. So there are some things that are truest. And, I mean, I could be wrong about this, but I part of my speculation is I think, you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson is very often sort of forced to be, like, the face of science. Like, when there's some climate denier out there, it's like he's the person who has to say, like, no. The climate is changing. The carbon dioxide is going up in the air. So I think maybe he thought I was one of these people. The the the reason I was doing this was to to to write a book about how, you know, don't believe science or whatever. And my thing was like, hey, what you believe is basically what I believe. You believe a more sophisticated version, but I believe what you're saying. I'm just wondering, is there any possibility that we're completely wrong about this? Because and here's the example I I would always use. It was like, okay, so Aristotle was one of the first people to have an idea about what gravity was. His idea was that rocks don't float because rocks want to be on the ground, that they have agency. They long to be on the ground because they want to be at the center of the universe. And at the time, it was believed that Earth was the center of the universe. So a rock's trying to get there, and the only thing that's stopping it is the dirt. This is was, you know, his idea, which he just did at a time when, like, science was more intertwined with philosophy and religion. And you tell it to someone now, and they're like, it's kinda goofy or whatever. But this was believed for 2000 years, roughly. Like, for for a for for 1000 of years, we believe that this is probably why things don't float. Now the idea of gravity now from Isaac Newton really starts in the 1600. And, of course, it is much more logical. It is much more reasonable. It is tied into math and all of these things. But that's not that far in the past. So what is the possibility that someday we understand gravity in a way that makes us look at Newton the way we look at Aristotle? Will that happen? And Brian Greene was like, maybe. And Neil deGrasse Tyson is like, no. And I don't know the answer. I'm just a I just find it to be a curious, interesting question. Yeah. Don't we already look at gravity in on a very purely theoretical level different from how Newton did? So even though the experiments might all show the same results, we don't know whether it's if there's such thing as gravitons or Sure. We don't know the role of dark matter and Yes. And gravity. And But, like, Neil deGrasse Tyson would say, like, we're really talking about the details now. I mean, like, you know, even Newton would be talking about, like, this the Earth and the moon, and he'd be like, I don't know how the Earth and the moon are communicating. It makes no sense. I can't believe it, but it seems like that must be the case. And, you know, things fall to certain rate and all these different now it is I mean, it is possible that, you know, like, that every time that we seem to use math now to understand a question about gravity, for the most part, the math works out. And that's very telling. So what Tyson would argue is that we're just honing in. We're just getting a more a sharper focus. That that this that this basic understanding we have of gravity is what gravity is. I see. So so so the details so in in every area, you can argue, we're gonna kind of get the basic big truths, but the details might continue to be refined refined. Just like, you know, we had Einstein maybe revise as Newton Yes. And quantum mechanics revised as Einstein, but who cares? Because we don't deal with quanta level particles in our daily life. I mean, the who cares question, though, I mean, that's that that that further complicates this. Because what if we are wrong about gravity? Does that mean that, you know, suddenly bricks are gonna float? No. I mean, there's a certain there's a certain you know, like, I I get asked a lot, like, what's the utility of this book? Like, you're saying that maybe in a 1000 years, like, we don't remember the Beatles, but we remember Veruca Salt or some random band. Or or, like, you know, or or that you're saying that we, you know, we think this about the dreaming now, and we'll think something different later. But we'll all be dead with dreamers to make. And it was like, well, I mean, if you're looking at this as like, like, a book to read and then tomorrow live differently, that's not what it is. I disagree with you. This is the book to to read and then think differently. Because to me, this book is like, well, it's it's both interesting to think about the possibility that we are wrong about life and reality, and it's also kind of humbling. You know? Well, I mean, in in the book, you talk about a lot about art, music. You also talk about science, physics. Mhmm. And then you have, you know, kind of these very interesting ideas about the nature of reality. But I think there's a fundamental thing here, which is skepticism is healthy. And this is almost like, I don't wanna say this is like a training book for skepticism. But one area you didn't address so much is is medicine, which changes, I don't wanna say every year, but let's say every 5 to 10 years, our views of what is good medicine and good good health care totally changes, good nutrition. Is this sugar and fruit good for us or not? Like, this view changes, like, every other year. And, you know, I I I did consider doing a section on medicine. But it's so huge. Yeah. Well, it's huge. If here is a couple of thing reasons why. 1 is because in the same way I didn't do a a a strict section on technology, it just changes too quickly. Like, like, it changes so radically that, you can do it in a magazine article or or something like that. But but to write a book that takes a year to write and then another year to come out or whatever, it's like those 2 years change too much. But but the big proof the big proofs, though, are still true. Like, handwashing before surgery, you know, at first, people disagreed with it in the 1800, but now it's considered Oh, yes. 200 years is a basic truth. It's very difficult to see, like, antiseptics as, like, this is something we're gonna be wrong about. You know? And yet and yet for many years, appendicitis, you know, taking out an appendix or or or no tonsillitis was considered, oh, everybody needs their tonsils out, but now it's hardly done. So some things change. Well and you know okay. 1, I almost I hesitate to bring this up because I, actually bring up something that annoyed me. But, okay, like, a guy interviewed me. He did a great interview. But at the end, he was like, give me a prediction about something that in 300 years will seem insane now. And I'm like, well, you know, this book isn't really a book of predictions. I do a couple times. But for the most part, it's saying that almost the future is unpredictable, and that's the takeaway. And he's like, make a prediction. Make a prediction. So I said, like, well, okay. I'm not the first person who who ever said this. But, you know, I could see a time when chemotherapy is retroactively perceived as like, it was crazy. They pumped poison into people's body when they had cancer. Because there'll be some way maybe to fight cancer through genetics or something. They'll be totally different. And this will seem almost like using leeches or something, you know, seem crazy. Well, then, of course, the story comes out and the headline is like Klosterman rejects chemotherapy. Like like, it was not my fault. I was just using it as an example. But that's an example of something that right now, it is our best option. I'm not saying that that that that, like, we should stop doing this immediately because in the future, we might think otherwise. It's just that for people who have yet to be born, when they look back on something, it may seem crazy. Well, you you mentioned one case, like, Malcolm Gladwell, predicted, several years ago, that one thing that will happen is we'll we'll we'll all be surprised how quickly football dies as a sport. And at the time, that seemed inconceivable. And now given the the studies on concussions and things like that, there that, you know, less and less kids might go into football, which removes the theater system into it, which could end the industry. Yeah. So this is possible now, whereas Yeah. It's possible. It's kinda it's kinda the normative idea. It's like sort of if you're talking about the future of football now, there seems to be 2, you know, possibilities. 1 is that football is doomed and that there's just no way that our society is gonna keep playing a game that seems to be hurting or possibly even killing its participants. Or the other being that, well, football is too important to society now. It's too ingrained with our culture. We'll change and tweak the game to make it safer. So those are the 2 kind of preexisting ideas about football's future. So then I kinda forward 2 other ideas, which I think are, I wouldn't say, just as likely, but absolutely possible. You know? Like, what how do you think Gladwell was able to make that prediction a few years before it became standard? I don't know. Because, you know, he's at the time, he predicted that in 25 years, no one would be playing football and no one would be eating red meat. And both of those things just seemed preposterous to me. Now how is he able to do that? I guess, you know, he's good at it. You know? Although, just because he made this prediction early and many people now agree with that prediction, that does not indicate it will actually happen. I mean, you know, it's, if somebody can predict the future and they're right, that's one thing. Just being the first to predict something that other people go, yeah. Maybe. That's not the same. Yeah. So when when you were writing this, obviously, there was a combination of, interviews and writing. What what's your general writing process like? How do you how do you get started? How do you start writing? Well, it's changed. You know, when I was a single person, like, when I wrote my first book when I was still living in Akron, I was working a full time job, and I would, you know, get home from work at, like, 6, kinda goof around for a couple hours, and then write from, you know, 9 until 1 in the morning. And, you know, I could never do that now. I could never work a full time job and then write at night. I guess I must have really wanted to write that book. It was yeah. Why can't you do that? Because you get tired? Or I just don't have that kind of energy. I I guess I don't have I was really driven to do it. Maybe there was you know? I mean, it's hard to jump back into, my 28 year old mind, but maybe there was something missing from my life. And I was like, this is this is the answer to that. You know? But that's when I was totally, you know, by myself. Well, then, when I I got into a serious relationship, you can't be writing at night when your girlfriend wants to hang out and watch TV and stuff. So I moved back to, like, the afternoon. And now that I have 2 kids, my time is very limited. So, you know, I take my kids to daycare at 8:30, and then I just come back, and I work from 9 until 3. And then I go to the gym and then I pick my kids up. So now, so now there's to a to a sense, I used to be the kind of person who is like, I write when I'm motivated to write. The spirit must move me to write. And now it's like, I make myself do it. So every day. Well, when I'm working on a book, yes. Yeah. And so do you ever look back, on and let's take Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs as an example. Like, this was that was sort of your breakout book. A, were you surprised at how much it was a breakout book? Like, how did your life change? And, b, you mentioned this book, the most recent book, is achieving some commercial success. But did you ever feel before this book came out that, oh, maybe my because I was so driven when I was younger, maybe I peaked earlier, or will I ever reach my old high status again? Okay. I'll I'll this is that's a great question. I and I've I'll I'll I have 2 I have a 2 part answer to it, basically. Okay. So the first book, the Firerock City comes out. And in hardcover, the book sells maybe 7,000 copies. You know? Which is good, by the way. Well, it was totally good. And, also, it sold 7,000 copies, but got a lot of attention. Like, a lot of it seemed like every music critic in the world read that book. So it seemed like within the, kind of in the silo of people who care about music writing, the book was very successful. So I knew I'd be able to write a second one. So the idea with the second book, I from a you know, is that I'll and I I didn't wanna just do another music book. First, I was gonna write a book about, the MTV's The Real World. And I thought, like, well, I don't think that's a I don't think there's a book worth of material here, but I can write an essay about it. So I write the essay. Then I was like, well, maybe I'll do a book about the Lakers Celtics rivalry from the eighties. There again, I thought, I could do a full book, but maybe it's just an essay. So I have these 2 essays I wrote. And I thought to myself, you know, there's something similar about these 2 essays. I'm interested in the art, but I'm more interested in the audience. So I could do a whole book like this. So I do a whole book of that where I'm writing about things that aren't conventionally seen as being important in the culture, but that I felt were important or could have importance and had all the elements sort of of classic art or whatever. Like, what do you mean that had all the Well, okay. Like like I did, an essay in there on the TV show Saved by the Bell. And part of the reason I did an essay on Saved by the Bell, I don't know if you're familiar with it at all, is that it was a it was like a a a teenage a a show for 11 12 year olds that was on Saturday mornings. And I thought to myself, this is something that no one sees as art, and yet it has the elements of art. It has character. It has conflict. It has all these things. So what if I write about this like it's traditional art? Because my bigger idea with that book was that it does not matter what you're into. What matters is how you think about the stuff you're into. You don't have to think about something complicated or high art or or distant from you. Anything can work. It it because the experience is in your own mind. Right? So, so I so I write this book of of essays, and and I think that, you know, the first one sold like 75100 or whatever copies. They were hoping maybe this one will sell sell 10,000 copies. So in hardcover, it sells quite it does okay. It sells like 20,000 copies. And and then they think, well, the third book could even be bigger. If the one if the first one went from 75100 to 20,000, maybe the next one will be huge. So Killing Yourself to Live from the publishing perspective, they thought was gonna be massive, I think. But it wasn't. I mean, it was kind of a disappointment. However, somehow during the promotion of Killing Yourself to Live, the soft cover of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs went crazy. And now I've sold like half a 1000000 copies of that book. It has sold more than all my other books combined. Okay. But then I'm in this interesting position now where, say, 500,000 people or whatever bought that book, it doesn't mean that there's always 500,000 people who are gonna buy every book I do. There's probably a 100,000 people who are really interested in the in my writing. So I thought from this point on, what it kind of is is maybe I'm realizing this retrospectively. But, like, what percentage of that 100,000 can I convince to buy each new book? You know, if if if most of them buy it, the book does well. If a 10th of them buy it, the book didn't do so great. And that's kinda how I thought my career would be from here on out, that I would just sort of be kind of like the cult writer. And what percentage of my preexisting fan base can I convince to keep buying these books? And then this book came out, and this one now is selling to people who have never purchased any of my other books. So now I'm kinda rethinking this. Like, maybe now I I I think my initial perception of what my career was like is different, that it will be more limited. I think I think, though, it it's this book kind of comes out at the right time in that we are questioning or or we're getting accustomed to questioning so many truths that we held dear. So for instance, we're, you know, 13 years after the Iraq war started, and it's pretty clear what many people believed. I mean, you know, Bush had this huge approval rating right then, and then he didn't. What people many many people believe was true, it turned out to be not true. So so, you know, people became accustomed to this idea that, look, things that we, think are rock solid truths might not be. College education's another one where Yes. People are starting to question, do you need it? Do you not need it? You know, with student loan debt, you know, crushing our young people, you know, is this something that we all thought was true that maybe not true? Although, I'll say this. I mean, when you say to someone, you know, things that we believe now, we may not believe later. And there might be some existing ideas in the culture right now that we don't even, that we just accept, you know, without even, you know, pushing back. In the future, you know, that may seem absurd. The smart a smart person will go like, well, of course. That's the history of the world. But then when you start giving them specifics, they freak out. Like when you say we will specifically maybe not believe this thing, they're like, you're crazy. And what the book is kind of doing is like taking this idea that everyone kind of thinks almost as common sense. We might be wrong about our view of reality, but saying, okay, but what if we're wrong about this specifically? What does that mean? Yeah. And what what you know, you kind of even though you stated, you're not trying to necessarily create controversy, you're trying to basically more ask this question you just said, there is some controversy in here. Like, you're kind of going into, you know, are we in a simulation as opposed to the real world? You know, like you said, you're you know, Neil deGrasse, Tyson thought you were calling him out on climate change. Like, people get this is, like, kind of a third rail. There's this this top all of these topics. Here is what I found has happened. Okay. There's I've read about many different things. Right? Literature, music, science, politics Are the Beatles better than Rolling Stones? Yeah. Potential third rail. Here's what here's what I find has happened. It's like, say someone is really, really into football. They love football. They'll read this book and they'll be like, hey. You know, football. They love football. They'll read this book and they'll be like, hey, you know, this book is great. I like all this stuff, but I got some questions about the football chapter. But if someone's really into music, they're like, oh, you know, the football chapter was brilliant. I love that. You're wrong about this thing about Chuck Berry. People in science are like, well, all those subjective things you're really good at. I don't know about your views on science. Whatever people feel that they have just just a modicum of expertise in, they become very inflexible about the possibility that their view is wrong. All the other views are fine. They can, you know, we can be totally wrong about politics. You know, that's what, like, a scientist will say or whatever. But it'll be like about science, you're off base. So what I have found is that generally, the things that seem controversial to people are whatever subject they self identify as understanding. Yeah. So so it's almost like a book writing technique in the modern age for nonfiction. Pick a couple of topics, and, you know you're gonna have some audience clue into some topic. You get you're basically giving people more reasons to buy this book as opposed to just like the history of the real world. You're giving, which would be, you know, only people interested in the real world would buy or or your writing would buy that book. Now you're giving people 6 or 7 reasons to buy this book. I mean, it's possible. That's it. I I guess I didn't think of it, but that's totally true. Freakonomics is almost like that as well. I mean, like, okay. Like, the sex drugs and coco puffs thing, I talked about this show, Saved by the Bell, that's one essay in that book. Although, I would guess if anyone loved Saved by the Bell, someone probably told them, you should read this book. Okay? In the same time, there's a section a chapter in that book on Billy Joel. I think maybe if someone knows that their sister loves Billy Joel, they'll be like, hey, you should really read this book. There's a big chunk of it on Billy Joel. So, I mean, that's maybe true. I mean, I guess, like, I don't know if, like, if I was trying to instruct someone on how to write a commercially successful book, if for some reason I'm teaching at a college and the class is write a book, make money, there, whatever, 301. I don't know if that's what I would say, like, make your book extra diverse. But maybe it does maybe it does help. I don't know. I mean, here again, it's a really hard thing. It's such a mystery. I mean, like I said that that that Coco Puff's book has sold about as much as the other 8 books combined. Well, I'll be honest. Of course, my editor, my agent, and I have talked about this. I'm not gonna lie and say we've never sat around a table at drinks and being like, why did this book sell half a 1000000 copies and everything else has sold half a 1000000 copies? We think, is it the title? Was it the cover? Was it that we tapped into something at was it all timing? No one knows. Like, we don't know. I'll admit if I knew what it was, I would do at least one more book like that. I would try you know, if I knew that there was some formula that if you write this book, a half a 1000000 people will buy it, I'd do it again because that gives you so much freedom. I mean, people often seem to think that, like, if you get, you know, if you get involved in any kind of capitalist system, that you're just you're giving up your agency and your freedom. But the fact of the matter is, if you do that and you are successful, your freedom increases. Like, no band is as free as you 2. They're much more free than a band playing in a garage to no one because the people in the garage still have to go to work and still have to find a way to live and, you know, all but, like, you 2 can do whatever they want. Like, they if they tour, they gotta play, you know, Sunday Bloody Sunday in the tour. No. They don't. They do not. If if you 2 was it said was gonna do a tour and they said that we're only going to do obscurities, it's not like, the amphitheater in Omaha would be like, no. You're not. You're not coming in here. In fact, if they did that, there would be people flying in to see these songs that they hadn't seen before. They really have complete autonomy. You know? You know, here's the stuff that they gotta do that that that that that sucks. Like, they have to take meetings and have lunch with people that they wouldn't normally do. I mean, that's part if you like, the you know? Like, somebody from the label wants to meet you, so come meet us at this martini bar and talk to us. And, like, the guys in YouTube gotta do that. I mean, that's one of the things. Sometimes, I'm in situations where because through an extension of publishing or whatever, oh, I have to meet some guy and Go on a podcast. Well, going pod podcasting is fun. I mean, but but, you know, I I I have to say I was intrigued by The New York Times story on you that made me more interested in doing this. I was going to ask you. So 15 items you own. Right? Okay. Sure. Now I and you're are are you counting your clothes? Well, I'll count this as an outfit. Okay. So I'll have, like, maybe 2 or 3 outfits, a computer, an iPad, and a phone, and the 2 bags that I carry everything in. Yeah. Okay. And and is 15 just the way it worked out, or is that is that some kind of ideal number of things to possess? No. I just I wanted to have 2 or 3 outfits. And if I buy a new shirt, I have to throw out an old shirt. Do you do you count your glasses? Is that the object? I I I count that as the general outfit. Okay. But So so, like, right now, I'm wearing, like, one outfit. Even though you could say I'm wearing 2 shoes, 2 socks. Own more than 15 things. Yeah. Because each is it a pair of socks, or is it 2 socks? You know? Socks are 1. Shoes are 1, You know? But pants are 1. 2 See, I'll count this. I always say it. It's it's 2 or 3 outfits, computer, iPad, phone, 2 bags. However you wanna count that Here's is fine with me. Here's another question I wanted to ask you. Okay? Since you seem kind of interested in this idea of the possibility of being wrong and throughout your life, you've made big shifts in how you live. Right? What is the likelihood that you will make another big shift? That at some point later in life, you'll be like, I went through this f**king crazy phase where I only owned 15 things, and, like, I can't believe or, like, are you you think do you think it's possible that the way your worldview could have a significant shift again? Yeah. A 100%. Okay. Now I might not mean that now I'm gonna go be a hoarder. Yeah. You know? But I'll, But it's not off the table. Right. It's not off the table. And I might I might stick to one this one thing, the 15 items forever, but some other aspect of my life might change considerably. That's you know, because it's because I always am it's changing. Extreme person. But I think I think everybody is to an extent. Like Well but to an extent really changes it. I mean, everything becomes true at the end of the sentence if you say to an extent. True. You know? So so, like, to an extent, everyone's extreme, you know, I guess. But if to a small extent, that makes you not extreme. But regardless, you seem like a pretty extreme person. Yeah. I think so. I mean, to myself, I don't think so. I think I'm just me. But other people were enough that they put it in the New York Times. Yeah. But like I said, I don't count the number. This is just exactly how I live. So now one final question I wanted to ask you. And by the way, I hope But What If We're Wrong sells a half a 1000000 copies to beat out. Yeah. So do I. Yeah. And and I do think there is utility in this in that it does show people how to it it's kind of, I don't wanna use the word textbook because that's a bad word, but, it is kind of a methodology of skepticism that I agree with. That you you don't be skeptic for the sake of being skeptic. You you be skeptical through rational, you know, analysis of what's happening in history and and and so on. So I I do think this is this is a great book. People should should buy it. Chuck Klosterman, author of But What If We're Wrong? Thanks for coming on the podcast. Hopefully me on. Yeah. You weren't wrong by coming on here. By the way, you're wearing an excellent t shirt, WKRP in Cincinnati, one of my favorite shows from the seventies. Me too. So Yeah. Excellent choice. And thanks again. You bet. For more from James, check out the James Altiger Show on the choose yourself network at jamesaltiger.com, and get yourself on the free insider's list today. Hey. Thanks for listening. Listen. I have a big favor to ask you, and it will only take 30 seconds or less, and it would mean a huge amount to me. If you like this podcast, please let me know. Please let the team I work with know. Please let my guests know, and you can do this easily by subscribing to the podcast. It's probably the biggest favor you could do for me right now, and it's really simple. Just go to iTunes, search for the James Altucher show, and click subscribe. Again, it will only take you 30 seconds or less. And if you subscribe now, it will really help me out a lot. Thanks again.
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