R. Eric Thomas, HERE FOR IT
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[1:55]Our Eric Thomas is the author of a collection of essays called Hear for it,
[1:59]or How to Save Your Soul in America.
[2:01]A senior staff writer at l.com where he has written the pop culture and politics humor column,
[2:05]Eric reads the news since 2016.
[2:08]Eric has also been published by The New York Times and many other publications.
[2:12]His writing for the theater has been seen around the country,
[2:14]and has garnered him many awards, including the Barrymore Award.
[2:17]He is the long-running host of The Moth Story Slams in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.
[2:22]He currently lives in Baltimore with his husband, the Reverend David Norse Thomas.
[2:26]But thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.
[2:29]Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
[2:31]Would you mind telling everybody what your book is about?
[2:33]Absolutely. Yeah, Hear for it is on memoir and essays.
[2:36]They're all humor-assessays.
[2:38]I really admire some of the Irby.
[2:40]I really admire David Rakoff and David Cideras.
[2:42]So the essays are in that style.
[2:46]They are all about different positions of feeling like an other,
[2:49]feeling like you don't belong.
[2:51]So it's, I talk about, you know, growing up, like,
[2:54]Lorientum, Black, Gay, you know, and we grew up in sort of a Christian,
[2:58]and I went to a school that was largely a Jewish.
[3:00]And so just places where I felt like I wasn't,
[3:03]I didn't belong and figuring out what belonging means.
[3:05]I originally wanted to call it belonging by Michelle Obama,
[3:08]but that title apparently was already taken.
[3:09]So that's a little weird.
[3:11]I mean, yeah, the essays go from moments throughout childhood,
[3:14]like, you know, big consequential moments in life,
[3:17]and then, like, small, weird little moments, you know,
[3:19]like, awkwardly trying to, like, stay out of, like,
[3:23]be a wallflower at a party and accidentally catching on fire.
[3:25]Like, so, like, it really runs the gamut,
[3:28]and it goes through adulthood.
[3:29]It goes through, uh, right after about 2016 election.
[3:32]Wow.
[3:32]And you had another title that you threw in here,
[3:34]but I don't want to repeat it,
[3:35]because I feel like it's like, you know,
[3:37]do you remember you said there was another title?
[3:38]I did, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[3:39]So, yeah, I originally wanted to call the book Why bother,
[3:42]which was not, it was right around the time that Hillary Clinton's book,
[3:46]what happened came out, and I was really fascinated by the idea that, like,
[3:50]you could pose a question that didn't, that maybe was a statement,
[3:52]maybe it was a question.
[3:53]And for me, like, Why bother kind of encapsulated the spirit of the book,
[3:58]which is sort of like, Why bother to get out of bed in the morning?
[4:01]Why bother to try to make the world a better place?
[4:04]Why bother to try to feel like you belong?
[4:07]And of course, you know, it would have been a harder sell,
[4:09]a book called Why bother.
[4:11]But I do feel like, particularly in this moment,
[4:13]I didn't write it for this weird strange moment that we're in,
[4:16]but I think that spirit still carries through.
[4:19]Like, why are we trying to reach each other still?
[4:23]Why are we trying to make our mark in the world?
[4:27]Why are we trying to speak truth to power?
[4:29]And I think it's because we feel like there,
[4:32]there must be something better on the other side.
[4:34]And that's what the book is about,
[4:35]figuring out what's on the other side or at the end of the book or beyond the next page.
[4:40]I hope there's something good.
[4:41]I hope there's no situation.
[4:43]I just started, I just made this custom candle and it's called Next Chapter, please.
[4:49]Because I'm ready to turn the page.
[4:52]That was actually my husband who came up with it.
[4:53]But I'm like, Next Chapter, I'm done with this.
[4:56]Anyway, I know your essays are fantastic.
[5:00]And you have so many of them on l.com and they're funny and just awesome.
[5:05]How did you decide, did you write these essays for this book?
[5:09]Or did you have some of these essays?
[5:11]How did you decide to make it a whole book?
[5:14]Like, what was the process? What was your thinking?
[5:16]Yeah, I mean, so for years I had been involved with live storytelling shows,
[5:20]like The Moth, which is another great podcast or an organization called First Person Arts
[5:24]in Philadelphia.
[5:25]And so I had started just sort of telling stories from my life and figuring out
[5:29]like what an area of art inside of these stories was.
[5:32]And then I'd done a couple of like evening length solo shows where it was like three or four
[5:36]stories stuck together.
[5:37]But I hadn't written any of the essays as if they were formal essays until my age
[5:43]and I started talking about like what a book might look like.
[5:45]And the reason that I chose this this avenue as opposed to writing fiction or writing a book
[5:51]of essays that are another kind of nonfiction book was that I felt like the things that were most
[5:58]consequential to me when I was coming up.
[6:00]And even now as an adult, like the books that were that really shook my worldview were people's
[6:06]stories told honestly and vulnerable and sometimes humorously and sometimes not.
[6:11]And so I really endeavor to figure out how to put my life into essays and figure out how to make
[6:18]it funny even though there are a lot of moments that are funny, which I fell into the fun challenge,
[6:22]you know, any brand new writer to say like I'm going to write my life story and I'm going to
[6:26]write it humorously and I'm going to figure out what the joke is.
[6:29]I mean, you know, like you're, you know, even you're telling me cosmic joke or the
[6:33]cosmos is how to joke with you. So I'm like, well, let me beat the cosmos to the punch.
[6:37]Well, I love the tone of it because it feels like you are just talking to me. As I read it,
[6:42]it just feels like I'm listening to you talk like your voice is so clear. It's really funny and
[6:46]awesome. Thank you. And I want to hear more about how, so you have a, you had a viral Facebook post
[6:51]that ended up getting you to your job and your whole career and everything. And you wrote,
[6:55]when you wrote about it, you said pivoting to writing full time seven months after a viral Facebook
[7:00]scored me a plum freelance gig. I found that I had reached a point at which the facts no longer
[7:05]made sense in the narrative of my life. I mean, it's true. It's like if I was writing my life and
[7:11]I'll tell you how, like I'll tell you how it happened in a second. Like, but I feel like if I was
[7:15]writing my life story as like fiction as a novel, it would say like, oh, this happened.
[7:20]That was a little too easy. This is a little too, yeah, that's not like how carry on sex in the city.
[7:25]She writes like one column a week and she kind of forced to live alone in New York City and go
[7:29]drinking every night. Just not realistic seems to be. But yeah, I was working at a community
[7:34]center as the program director for a little while. And I used Facebook just like we all do to
[7:39]update about my day and things I've read and seen. And I wrote this Facebook post one Saturday morning
[7:44]about this picture of Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto and Justin Trudeau and they were
[7:50]trying down this red carpet. And it just looks so good. Like it looked like a movie poster. I was
[7:56]I feel weird about like searching after world leaders. But like, whatever, this is where we are.
[8:01]And so I wrote about that. And it was just like, you know, a couple hundred words on Facebook.
[8:04]And it went super viral. Something like 65,000 likes and 17,000 shares. And so my former editor
[8:12]at L.com was the site director on L.A. Turner Club saw the post and she sent me a message and
[8:18]it was like, do you want to do something like this every day? Which is, it's like Cinderella.
[8:23]And it's like, oh, welcome to your new life. You know, I feel like any walking into
[8:27]Daddy Warbucks house. I was like, yeah, things that were happening in that moment and things
[8:31]kept going viral. And then people really started responding to the column. And then after the election,
[8:36]I wrote about all the things that were changing in the world. And I also read about Representative
[8:40]Maxine Waters a number of times. And that's where a lot of people know me from. The columns
[8:44]are right about her with my super viral. People really ground onto to them because she's a phenomenal
[8:50]person and then phenomenal leader. And she's a unique voice. And it really sort of dovetailed
[8:54]with the kind of writing that I like to do. So now I write the column every day. I also, you know,
[8:59]it's it's harder to write about write humor about the news at a time like this. So there's a lot
[9:05]of thought that goes into it. A lot of conversation. And I also am supplementing that by also writing
[9:10]I'm writing a new series for El where I look back at different genres of classic movies
[9:15]as through the lens of our current moment of isolation. So for instance, I read about romcoms a
[9:20]couple of weeks ago because a lot of romcoms are about being isolated and trying to reach out to
[9:25]people through unique means. And so you find that there's a lot of applicability in movies that
[9:30]came out 30 years ago to this current moment where we're all like zooming at our relatives.
[9:36]It is so crazy that we've ended up here in your latest or maybe it's not your latest. And the one
[9:41]I read most recently this morning, you wrote one about how handshakes are no longer the thing,
[9:46]right? Which Dr. Fauci, Fauci, anyways, has said and you were so funny too about like how that's
[9:52]now the authority and like how we could even listen and like so funny. Anyway, you said trend alert,
[9:58]handshakes are over baby.
[10:00]And then you suggest some other solutions
[10:02]to greeting people physically or whatever.
[10:05]I want to find it myself.
[10:06]And I think now it's wild.
[10:09]And it's so easy for me to spiral or get just really wound up.
[10:16]But I think a lot of times, I look really absurdity.
[10:19]And the places where absurdity is just truly absurd
[10:22]and not malicious.
[10:24]There's a lot of things that I personally
[10:26]feel like some of the people in charge
[10:28]are doing that are absolutely malicious.
[10:30]And I'm like, OK, I want to do about this.
[10:32]But some things are just ridiculous.
[10:34]And so when you break it down, I mean, I
[10:36]also feel like I look at every morning in this house.
[10:38]And I'm like, I'm not allowed to leave my house.
[10:40]That's ridiculous.
[10:42]And I don't know what to do with that.
[10:43]And I'm like, all right, well, let me just figure out
[10:45]what, like, how to make it funny.
[10:47]And for me, that's like, it's taking the granular,
[10:51]the little pieces of it and blowing them up to huge proportions.
[10:55]So it was handshaking.
[10:56]Yeah, it definitely makes sense that maybe we don't ever
[10:59]handshake again.
[10:59]That seems a little deranged.
[11:01]But whatever, this is the world we live in.
[11:03]But I asked myself, OK, well, we've been like,
[11:05]if I can ignore the big point, which is like, oh,
[11:08]it's not safe to handshake and look at the granular point,
[11:10]which is like, well, how will I know we're meeting?
[11:13]If we're not shaking hands, you know, I don't know.
[11:15]Well, I'll just move everybody right on the nose
[11:18]and then do the Harlem shake.
[11:19]And that's the way that we greet each other.
[11:21]Like today, for instance, I'm thinking
[11:22]about writing about the post office
[11:24]and how there's just the post office is in danger of becoming
[11:27]insolvent, which is strange.
[11:28]Because like, now we have to like do a good fun
[11:30]me for the concept of mail.
[11:32]That feels beyond my purview.
[11:34]I didn't sign up for this as a human adult in America.
[11:39]I'm like, no, no, no.
[11:40]I just want to put a little stamp on things
[11:42]and say, you never.
[11:43]But you know, that's a lovely living up so time.
[11:46]So whenever time is absurd, I guess.
[11:48]Have you seen the Jerry Seinfeld routine
[11:50]about the post office?
[11:52]You know, I don't know.
[11:53]Oh my gosh, go find it online after we get off
[11:55]and you will laugh so hard.
[11:57]Oh, yeah, exactly.
[11:58]So funny about how they, you know,
[12:02]they might have to raise it by one penny.
[12:04]And he's like, what's a penny?
[12:05]Who even has a penny?
[12:07]So anyway, I won't do it justice.
[12:08]I can't embarrass myself, but it's very funny.
[12:10]So use that as inspiration for your post office.
[12:13]Oh, awesome.
[12:15]I want to go back and you don't mind
[12:16]to your feeling, the sort of feeling left out part
[12:20]of the book because that was, I know you make light
[12:22]of all of it all the time.
[12:24]But the pointy and see to that sustained with me also.
[12:27]And you had a quote about how you said,
[12:29]I knew I was not the same as my classmates,
[12:31]but I was compelled to believe that my options
[12:33]were just as promising.
[12:35]Demographically, I, a black male growing up
[12:37]in West Baltimore didn't have great odds.
[12:39]But inside the bubble, even statistics
[12:41]seemed to work differently.
[12:43]And you talked about going all these farm
[12:44]about mitzvah's fancy places and riding horses.
[12:47]And also how your family was struggling financially
[12:50]in part because your parents sent you
[12:53]and your brothers to private school.
[12:55]So I just wanted to know like,
[12:57]did you feel guilty about that?
[12:58]Like how did you feel about this whole piece of your life?
[13:02]Well, you know, it's amazing, you know,
[13:04]my parents worked really hard to teach
[13:07]an apparent sense of worth to me and to my brothers
[13:10]and which the world was never going to teach us.
[13:13]And the world doesn't teach most people worth.
[13:15]You know, there's a million ways
[13:17]that we can feel unworthy.
[13:18]And so like the idea that we were worthy
[13:22]of these things, these educational experiences,
[13:25]even these sacrifices really came up,
[13:27]but it heads with the reality that when I started
[13:30]to realize that like when they were paying for me
[13:34]to go to school that meant they couldn't buy new clothes
[13:36]for a decade, which is true.
[13:38]My parents didn't buy clothes for a decade.
[13:40]They couldn't afford to go on vacation,
[13:42]they couldn't afford, sometimes food was like,
[13:45]you know, we were never hungry,
[13:46]but like sometimes figuring out the food budget
[13:49]became an issue.
[13:50]And so as I became more aware as a preteen at teenager,
[13:55]I did feel really guilty because, you know,
[13:57]as a child, you feel also powerless.
[13:59]You're like, I'm glad that you're like giving me these things,
[14:03]you know, and like I think I would deserve it
[14:05]on my human.
[14:06]And I went, I went things.
[14:08]I went a mail service and I went food
[14:10]and I went to go to all my friends,
[14:11]or I'm about business.
[14:12]But also like, you understand how it works,
[14:17]what the reality of being a human in society is,
[14:20]which means that you owe things to other people.
[14:23]And so one of the things that I continue to struggle with
[14:26]as an adult is like the idea of how do you ever
[14:28]repay your parents for what they've given you.
[14:31]And I don't have an answer for that.
[14:32]I wrote a whole book about how they're great,
[14:35]which people should buy so that I can take them
[14:37]on vacation when they, when I can see them again.
[14:39]But yeah, there's no way, you can ever say,
[14:42]you can never tell, I think a parent really
[14:43]what they did for you.
[14:44]And maybe that's the beauty,
[14:46]that's the paradoxical beauty of the whole thing
[14:48]that because it's so great, it's inexpressible.
[14:51]And so then you don't like so words fail
[14:53]and you don't need to say anything
[14:54]and we're just sitting here being good to each other
[14:57]and being appreciative of each other's presence.
[14:59]That's the best way I can think of it.
[15:01]Oh, I love that.
[15:02]That's a parent, that's awesome to hear.
[15:04]And how is your like, are you zooming with your family
[15:08]and everything are you staying in touch and everything?
[15:10]Yeah, yeah.
[15:11]We're doing like, you know, we were zooming
[15:13]like my parent's FaceTime me the other day
[15:15]without warning, which is like a real,
[15:17]that's a gangster move.
[15:18]Cause I was just like sitting watching TV
[15:20]and I never shared all of a sudden
[15:21]they're like, their faces are on the screen.
[15:23]I was like, excuse me, one second in my house.
[15:26]But yeah, we're zooming.
[15:27]We did like a big family FaceTime,
[15:29]which is kind of nice.
[15:30]I have a brother who lives in the South
[15:32]and the rest of the families here in Maryland.
[15:35]I mean, so we don't get to see them as much.
[15:36]And so we actually, we're seeing each other more now
[15:40]because we're zooming and FaceTime and all that.
[15:42]So there's the positive part of it.
[15:45]That's awesome.
[15:46]And so what do you have coming up next?
[15:47]You're gonna keep doing your alcohol, I'm in the ceiling.
[15:50]Yeah, I'm gonna keep doing my alcohol
[15:51]and until they turn the lights off on me
[15:52]and they can't do it cause I live in my house.
[15:54]And I work, I have another book coming out in September,
[15:59]but I co-wrote with Selena Andrew Steyer.
[16:01]She called reclaiming her time.
[16:03]It's about the work and wisdom
[16:05]of Representative Maxing Waters.
[16:07]So that'll be a really fun book, really gorgeous book.
[16:09]Really, it's a great gift.
[16:10]You know, you learn a lot about Maxing,
[16:12]her Representative Waters.
[16:13]I got a little casual there for a second.
[16:16]I won't tell you.
[16:17]Yeah, I have some other larger projects in the works.
[16:20]I don't sort of know what's gonna become of them
[16:23]or when they'll ever see the light of day.
[16:25]But yeah, I just, I write all the time.
[16:27]You know, I write plays, I write books
[16:29]and then I write my column.
[16:31]So it's, I sort of like, I sit down
[16:33]and I'm just like, what medium are we in today?
[16:35]But yeah, the next thing I look for
[16:37]is reclaiming her time, the book about Maxing Waters.
[16:39]Very cool.
[16:40]By the way, I just have to say that outside my window,
[16:42]the mail truck just pulled up as a perfect sort of coda
[16:46]to our conversation, but anyway.
[16:47]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[16:52]Absolutely.
[16:53]I mean, I love to Chris's advice about knowing
[16:54]that it's a business.
[16:55]And you know, I read Courtney Moms' book before
[16:58]and after the book deal, which is phenomenal.
[17:01]But I also, I think it's also equally important
[17:04]to sort of really dive into what is at the core
[17:07]of your voice as a writer.
[17:08]And for me, that means constantly reading writers
[17:11]whose voice is I admire and whose voices are like mine
[17:14]and different from mine.
[17:15]And then also really like reading your own work
[17:18]as if you were looking, like doing a literary study
[17:21]in college as somebody else's work
[17:22]and sort of examining how it's put together,
[17:25]how it's constructed, what things work,
[17:27]what things don't work.
[17:28]And in a treating, it's like a business,
[17:31]but also like you are refining like an artisanal craft.
[17:34]Like you are like, right?
[17:35]Like you are making artisanal good cheese.
[17:37]That's my advice.
[17:41]Okay, maybe from now on a new time,
[17:43]I try to write, I'll put some smelly cheeses around
[17:45]and I'll, you know, channel that.
[17:47]Absolutely.
[17:48]Smelly cheese is definitely helpful.
[17:50]No, I mean, you never know when you ask this question,
[17:52]what people will say, and this is perfect.
[17:54]Awesome.
[17:56]Well, Eric, thank you so much.
[17:57]I'm glad we finally got a chance to speak
[17:59]and your book was great and funny and awesome.
[18:02]And it's just when people need right now.
[18:04]So everybody go, go get here for it.
[18:08]Thank you so much.
[18:09]You're so amazing.
[18:10]You're so good.
[18:10]Thank you so much.
[18:12]Okay, thank you.
[18:14]Bye bye.
[18:15]You've been listening to moms and have time to read books
[18:17]with Zibi Owens.
[18:18]Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter
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[18:39]Only, and go check out the we found time.com essays.
[18:43]They're so good and they'll make you laugh
[18:45]and think and feel and all the good things.
[18:48]Have a great week.
[18:49]You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time
[18:52]to read books.
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