Title: The lovely people who let Manhattan fail, with Scott Johnston
(0:00) I was halfway through a novel, you know,
(0:03) lampooning the art industry,
(0:07) which is self-satirical really, um, when
(0:10) something else hit me in the face that I
(0:11) said, I just have to write this. And it
(0:13) was, this was peak uh, woke peak George
(0:18) Floyd uh, around 2019, 2021.
(0:23) And I had been writing a lot about the
(0:27) moral and philosophical decline of the
(0:30) great private schools in New York City
(0:32) where I grew up. This was very
(0:34) specifically in the fall of 2020.
(0:37) Floyd was the spring of 2020 and over
(0:42) that summer a lot of the private schools
(0:45) which have been really taken over by
(0:47) radicals um quietly rewrote their
(0:50) curricula and the search for truth was
(0:53) no longer the the north star. It was now
(0:55) social justice. So I started writing
(0:57) about it and it my blog which is called
(1:00) the naked dollar um went went bananas.
(1:04) It it got a million hits over the course
(1:06) of a couple weeks, which I I was
(1:09) actually on vacation with my wife. I
(1:11) said, "Watch this." Every time I hit the
(1:13) enter button, it would update the number
(1:14) of hits. And I I would hit, you know,
(1:17) maybe every five or 10 seconds, I'd hit
(1:19) it, and there'd be another 20 hits.
(1:29) [music]
(1:38) >> [music]
(1:43) [music]
(1:48) >> Hi, I'm honored to have back with us
(1:50) Scott Johnston who is the author of the
(1:52) Sanderson's Fail Manhattan, if I get
(1:54) that right, and uh yes,
(1:56) >> and previously Campus Land. And these
(1:58) are both u great romps. There are Tom
(2:01) Wolfian uh in the more recent Tom Wolf,
(2:04) not that guy who can't go home again,
(2:06) but um Tom Wolf with an E. Um the author
(2:09) of um Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in
(2:12) Full, um so forth. Um and they are great
(2:16) social critiques, satires, and uh sprung
(2:19) from this guy's imagination. So tell us,
(2:21) Scott, how did you how do you how did
(2:23) you do it? How do you do it? What what
(2:25) do they mean? in particular. Let's talk
(2:28) about the Sanderson's Fail Manhattan.
(2:32) >> Sure. Um I, you know, I wrote I never
(2:35) set out to be a novelist. It never
(2:37) occurred to me that um I could be or
(2:40) would be. Uh, and Campus Land, you know,
(2:43) originally came about because I had a
(2:46) couple sort of insane encounters on uh,
(2:49) my old campus at Yale and I just finally
(2:53) had enough and like someone why is no
(2:56) one using this as fodder for a satire?
(2:59) So, if no one else is going to do it,
(3:00) I'm going to do it. So, that that canvas
(3:04) land came about and um, it did quite
(3:06) well and they're still they're trying to
(3:08) turn it into a TV series.
(3:11) uh you know that if you know anything
(3:13) about Hollywood, you don't hold your
(3:14) breath. If it happens, it happens. Um
(3:17) and uh so I then I was in the good
(3:20) graces of a major publisher, St.
(3:22) Martin's Press, which is part of
(3:23) McMillan. Uh which that's a whole
(3:27) another story how I actually got it
(3:28) published.
(3:30) Uh, and
(3:32) I was halfway through a novel, um, you
(3:37) know, lampooning the art industry, which
(3:41) is self-satirical really. Um, when
(3:44) something else hit me in the face that I
(3:45) said, I just have to write this. And it
(3:47) was, this was peak uh, woke peak George
(3:52) Floyd
(3:53) uh, around 2019, 20,21.
(3:57) And I had been writing a lot about the
(4:01) moral and philosophical decline of the
(4:04) great private schools in New York City
(4:06) where I grew up. And u I started writing
(4:09) about one in particular, Dalton School,
(4:12) uh which is very very famous elite
(4:16) private school but also crazy
(4:17) progressive.
(4:19) And there was this um or someone reached
(4:21) out to me and gave me all this inside
(4:23) information on what was going on there.
(4:26) in particular an eight-page
(4:28) um list of demands that the faculty was
(4:31) making and some administrators
(4:34) um that were all race-based and
(4:37) absolutely insane. Um and this happened,
(4:40) this was very specifically in the fall
(4:42) of 2020.
(4:44) Floyd was the spring of 2020 and over
(4:48) that summer a lot of the private schools
(4:52) which have been really taken over by
(4:53) radicals um quietly rewrote their
(4:57) curricula and the search for truth was
(4:59) no longer the the north star. It was now
(5:01) social justice.
(5:03) And that fall there was uh everything
(5:07) was Zoom classes and parents would
(5:09) occasionally wander by their child's
(5:11) Zoom class and some of them were were
(5:14) horrified what they were hearing. Uh and
(5:17) you know there was this whole division
(5:19) of of students into oppressor and
(5:21) oppressed classes and and
(5:24) privilege walks and um uh race-based
(5:28) struggle sessions and and it goes on and
(5:31) on. land acknowledgements
(5:34) and Dalton in particular had lost their
(5:38) their freaking minds. Um so I started
(5:40) writing about it and it my blog which is
(5:44) called the naked dollar um went went
(5:47) bananas. It it got a million hits over
(5:50) the course of a couple weeks which I I
(5:53) was actually on vacation with my wife. I
(5:54) said watch this. Every time I hit the
(5:57) enter button, it would update the number
(5:58) of hits and I I would hit, you know,
(6:01) maybe every five or 10 seconds I'd hit
(6:03) it and there'd be another 20 hits. It
(6:05) was a remarkable thing to watch. I'd
(6:07) never experienced verality uh sort of up
(6:11) close and personal like that. And um
(6:14) long story short, the Wall Street
(6:16) Journal then asked me to do an op-ed
(6:18) about what was going on at Dalton, which
(6:19) I did. And it led to the headmaster
(6:22) there being fired.
(6:24) And
(6:26) this led to something else which was
(6:28) lots of parents then from other schools
(6:30) sending me their stuff like please write
(6:33) about our school. We don't want to say
(6:35) anything but it'd be great if you said
(6:37) something. Our our school's going crazy.
(6:40) You know, no one wanted to raise their
(6:41) hand though and get shot.
(6:43) So um I started writing about other
(6:46) schools and I wrote, "Oh, you know
(6:47) there's a novel in this."
(6:50) So that produced Sanderson's and the
(6:53) principal target uh in Sanderson's isn't
(6:56) so much
(6:58) uh all the woke teachers and
(7:00) administrators, it's the people who are
(7:03) allowing it to happen. The very very uh
(7:07) sort of wealthy and intelligent people
(7:11) who sit on the boards of of in
(7:14) particular uh New York educational
(7:16) institutions, but it's much broader than
(7:18) that. um and sitting there on their
(7:22) hands while a completely radicalized
(7:25) ideology is taking over their schools.
(7:28) Um and why are they doing it? Because if
(7:30) they raise their hand and say anything,
(7:31) they're afraid little Britney might not
(7:33) might not get into Harvard that the the
(7:36) administrators will sabotage their
(7:38) recommendations or
(7:40) uh it it's literally that small a thing
(7:44) that's keeping them from saying
(7:45) anything. So they they are the sort of
(7:48) cowards who are the they're the people
(7:51) who fail at will. Um and I know a lot of
(7:55) these people actually I'm I'm friends
(7:58) with many and it was sort of a wakeup
(8:00) call to them. Uh and if none of that
(8:03) sounds funny uh I I I think the funny
(8:09) but um that that's the genesis I really
(8:11) wanted to take a jab at. the the
(8:14) original title of the book, by the way,
(8:15) was All the Lovely People, which was
(8:17) meant very cynically. And um my
(8:21) publisher didn't like that title. Um I I
(8:25) still think it's a better title. But the
(8:28) they said, "If you walk into a bookstore
(8:30) and see that title, you know, you're not
(8:32) going to know what that means, and
(8:33) you're not going to want to buy the
(8:34) book." They said, "There's this other
(8:35) book called um Flechman is in trouble,
(8:38) which became a Netflix series." And they
(8:41) said, "Well, you know, you go into the
(8:42) bookstore, you see the title. You want
(8:43) to Who's this Fuhman guy? Why is he in
(8:45) trouble?" So, you need a title like
(8:46) that. So, I came up with The Sanderson's
(8:49) Fail Manhattan. And they I I thought
(8:52) they would not like it. They loved it.
(8:53) So, that became the title. I I didn't
(8:56) make me change it, but you know, all
(8:58) they pushed pretty hard. And ultimately,
(8:59) I deferred to their um their wisdom
(9:02) because they knew more about selling
(9:04) books than than I do.
(9:06) >> So, was that Elanor Riby, all the lovely
(9:09) people?
(9:11) That was all the lonely people.
(9:13) >> Oh, sorry.
(9:16) >> Just the lovely people. So, lovely
(9:18) people are the cowards in my novel
(9:21) and and they the so they if they were
(9:24) sitting next to you at a dinner party,
(9:25) you would say, "Oh, she's perfectly
(9:28) lovely. She's successful and smart and
(9:30) she's on the board of uh you know Breley
(9:33) or or Chapen or Dalton and uh she's a
(9:37) marvelous inner companion and she's
(9:40) doing jack all while western
(9:43) civilization's being overthrown on her
(9:44) watch.
(9:46) >> No, it's an amazing thing. Um, you know,
(9:48) there's this joke, uh, two guys on safar
(9:51) safari, you know, doctor and a lawyer,
(9:53) and, uh, you know, they come come across
(9:55) a cougar or jaguar, whatever. And the
(9:59) lawyer's taking off all his backpacks
(10:00) and whatnot, and the doctor's like,
(10:02) "Cool." He calculates, "You'll never be
(10:03) able to outrun this tiger, jaguar,
(10:06) whatever." He says, "I don't have to
(10:07) outrun
(10:09) the tiger. I just have to outrun you."
(10:11) So, there's always this kind of concept
(10:13) that you're going to be the one
(10:14) surviving this threat. But but these
(10:17) schools the they you know the taos the
(10:20) reason for there being there is either
(10:22) as a finishing school one way or
(10:24) another. So you you know the girl
(10:25) schools I guess when they were made you
(10:27) know to get you properly acculturated
(10:29) not necessarily get into Harvard or Yale
(10:31) at the time um but to do something along
(10:34) those lines to maintain the society so
(10:37) that you would fit in with your spouse
(10:40) and whatnot and start families and you
(10:42) know lather rinse repeat.
(10:45) Well, the the the idea of finishing
(10:47) school is is um probably 70 or 80 years
(10:50) out of date, honestly. It's uh they want
(10:53) to get the the girl schools want to get
(10:55) their their girls into Harvard just like
(10:57) uh the the boy schools do.
(10:59) >> Yeah.
(10:59) >> And I will tell you, um you know, in in
(11:03) my novels, I draw a lot from actual
(11:06) things that happened. And uh there was
(11:09) there's a school called Spence in in New
(11:12) York City which is a very very prominent
(11:13) all girls school
(11:16) uh you know really good reputation but
(11:20) they were a font of of material for this
(11:24) book. uh from little things like they
(11:27) got rid of the the their rectangular
(11:31) dining room tables because at a
(11:34) rectangular table someone ends up
(11:36) sitting at the head of the table and
(11:38) that's a power imbalance and they say
(11:39) they replace them with round tables.
(11:41) That really happened and that's a great
(11:43) as a novelist you you make a a mental
(11:46) note of wonderful details like that but
(11:48) also bigger things. Um so this actually
(11:52) happened at Spence. Um they weren't this
(11:56) is this goes back you know say a dozen a
(11:58) dozen years. Um their girls had stopped
(12:01) getting into Yale and Spence had been
(12:04) somewhat of a Yale feeder. Um and I
(12:07) think they went four years in a row
(12:09) where not one girl got into Yale. And
(12:12) this was a crisis of sorts. So, the head
(12:16) of school was dispatched to go up to New
(12:18) Haven and meet with the head of
(12:20) admissions at Yale. Like, what's going
(12:22) on? And they were basically uh or she
(12:26) was basically spanked by Yale saying,
(12:28) you know, we view you as a neighborhood
(12:30) school for rich white girls, and that's
(12:32) just not what we're doing. And by the
(12:34) way, your curriculum is u you know, way
(12:39) too dead white Europeans. uh you know,
(12:42) you need more MyAngelou in there and um
(12:47) so
(12:49) Spence completely changed their
(12:52) curriculum. They did a lot of um
(12:55) outreach to other neighborhoods that
(12:57) were less uh prosperous to try and
(13:00) diversify. And I I don't think there's
(13:02) anything wrong with that. But the irony
(13:05) is that yes, they started getting kids
(13:07) into Yale. But it wasn't the uh legacy
(13:12) rich white girls from upper east side.
(13:14) It was the ones they were drawing from
(13:16) Harlem in the Bronx who um were getting
(13:20) trained up for Yale. And Yale was quite
(13:21) happy to have that happen, right? They
(13:23) were getting the people they wanted a
(13:25) little better trained than had they gone
(13:27) to PS whatever. Um, so that really
(13:30) happened at Spence 2 and um, it's it it
(13:34) was too good not to use.
(13:37) >> No, it's
(13:39) it it didn't really get any place at
(13:41) all. I mean, as far as getting their own
(13:43) wishes and own desires.
(13:46) >> No. Uh, and parents eventually realized
(13:50) there's only a couple ways for um, like
(13:54) rich white people to get into the the
(13:56) top Ivy League schools now. And that is
(14:00) um an extremely large check at Yale.
(14:04) That check, and this is several years
(14:06) out of date, that check is $20 million.
(14:09) >> Um that will basically guarantee you a
(14:12) spot, assuming your kid's not a
(14:15) $5 million gets your um your kids
(14:19) application
(14:21) carefully looked at, read a second time.
(14:23) Um and so that's one way in. another way
(14:27) in. Really the only other way in is um
(14:31) you're filling out a spot on a team
(14:34) because they do still care about
(14:35) athletics. So um the squash coaches and
(14:40) lacrosse coaches and fencing coaches in
(14:42) Greenwich, Connecticut are are very well
(14:44) employed.
(14:46) >> Yeah, it's funny. Um I I don't want to
(14:48) divert too much from the book, but two
(14:50) things couple things came to mind. One
(14:52) is that I belong to a squash and tennis
(14:54) club. squash player for a few decades
(14:56) and probably more tennis now. Um, but
(14:59) our club has a certain we're captained
(15:01) membership because we're in a
(15:02) neighborhood, quiet neighborhood. So, we
(15:04) only get a certain number of members. We
(15:05) have certain number of families who are
(15:06) allowed to have and a lot of them are
(15:10) don't even play. They're only there
(15:11) because our earthwash teacher,
(15:15) her son was a top at one point the top
(15:18) US player. So, she's got cache. She's a
(15:21) good teacher. All that kind of stuff. So
(15:22) people would join our club so that their
(15:25) kids could get the squash training, boys
(15:28) and girls, girls in particular. Um and
(15:32) and we would never see anything of their
(15:33) membership. They would just be there for
(15:35) lessons during the week. And you know,
(15:37) so it was really kind of nice for us
(15:38) because the place is full. We get paid.
(15:41) Um but you know, you can get a squash
(15:43) court when you want. You can get a
(15:44) tennis court when you want. On the other
(15:45) hand, there not enough players because a
(15:47) fair amount of the ballast of the
(15:49) membership is people who just want their
(15:51) kids to get into those schools. And it's
(15:53) the squash track that does it.
(15:57) >> And you, no question, squash is uh you
(16:00) know, I played squash at Yale and when I
(16:02) was there, the team was um there' be
(16:05) nine kids on the team. Uh, eight would
(16:07) be from New England boarding schools,
(16:09) one from the Philadelphia mainline
(16:11) somewhere, and now it's eight. Uh, now
(16:14) it's eight from uh New Zealand,
(16:17) Pakistan, Egypt, etc. And one kid from
(16:22) Brunswick and Greenwich. That's that's
(16:25) the breakdown now. And that kid plays
(16:26) number eight. Um, and so there's
(16:29) something else I wanted to poke fun of
(16:31) uh in the book, which is the um more
(16:36) exotic parts of the LGBT movement. Um,
(16:40) you know, that there are now about 50
(16:42) letters that go beyond that, LGBTIQ
(16:47) plus+.
(16:49) Um, and it's very, and I did this in
(16:51) campus land, too. I mean, it's it's
(16:54) self satirical some of these categories
(16:56) they have, but I do have a trans
(16:59) character that's a sort of central
(17:03) character in the novel.
(17:06) It is a boy transitioning to a girl who
(17:11) then uh gets into the all girls private
(17:14) school causing, you know, a bit of a bit
(17:17) of a fur. Not actually not a fear,
(17:19) mostly welcome with open arms. they they
(17:21) out and out recruit him slash her. Um,
(17:25) and the couple board members are like,
(17:28) well, you know what? Like this what are
(17:30) we going to do about locker rooms and
(17:31) and other things? But importantly, that
(17:35) character uh has was very emotionally
(17:39) confused and really almost pressured
(17:42) into the transition, which I think is I
(17:46) don't think I know is something that
(17:48) happens a lot. And there were all sorts
(17:50) of people around that character who were
(17:54) encouraging and proddding and the the
(17:56) parents in particular make social media
(17:58) hey out of their kids transition. And
(18:01) this all adds to that charact that that
(18:03) character is actually sort of a
(18:04) sympathetic character. It's the people
(18:06) around him/ her that are horrible
(18:09) people. And I think that's an accurate
(18:12) assessment of what goes on a lot.
(18:15) >> Yeah. No, it's there. I I I can't
(18:18) remember the name of the uh one who sort
(18:19) of a tree um tree hugging uh whatever
(18:24) that is. Um
(18:26) what's your character there who's kind
(18:28) of a tween not one of the girls but
(18:30) >> oh um uh oh my god um that's my favorite
(18:35) character. Um
(18:37) it's um oh my god I can't I'm not
(18:40) remember my own character but yeah she's
(18:42) the best character in the book. Uh, oh
(18:45) my god, I'm having a
(18:46) >> What's the name of the category? I
(18:48) forget.
(18:49) >> Senior moment. Uh, she is um Goblin Cor.
(18:53) >> Yeah, there you go. Yeah.
(18:55) >> Um, and she is That's a real thing, by
(18:59) the way. I didn't make that up. That's
(19:01) people who um aspire to and have a love
(19:06) of goblin culture. And so that is a
(19:08) rejection of beauty and an embrace of of
(19:14) dirt and moss and
(19:17) brown and you know just uh twigs in your
(19:21) hair and
(19:23) uh that was by far the most fun
(19:25) character to write.
(19:28) >> Yeah. Uh she's
(19:30) >> and she's doing it cynically.
(19:31) >> Yeah. No, there's a fair amount of the
(19:33) cynicism there on her part. um
(19:36) [clears throat] and on the parents of
(19:37) the uh transing thing and I think you're
(19:41) absolutely right as a part you know how
(19:43) how it becomes kind of a a social medal
(19:45) a social you know award that you
(19:48) bequeath upon yourself and you see
(19:49) pieces like you know Chariss Theron and
(19:51) Naomi Watts and all these actresses you
(19:53) know who have totally disproportionate
(19:56) share of kids you know switching one way
(19:58) or the other you know Angelina whatnot
(20:00) it seems like they they accumulate the
(20:02) kids on one level and then it's like
(20:04) then it becomes all part of their own um
(20:08) you know ego extension you know we see
(20:10) in Hollywood
(20:13) >> statistically it can't be right you
(20:16) cannot possibly have three kids who are
(20:19) all non-binary queer whatever um that
(20:23) can only happen if you're actively
(20:25) encouraging the situation and and
(20:28) contributing to your the the ill mental
(20:31) health of your own children [snorts]
(20:34) Yeah, it's a it's a funny thing and a
(20:37) sadness, you know. It's it's
(20:39) >> Clover. Clover.
(20:40) >> Oh, there we go.
(20:42) >> I I I don't know why I took it took me a
(20:45) moment, but Clover, my favorite
(20:46) character by far.
(20:47) >> Yeah. Um,
(20:50) is is this one uh on its way to being a
(20:53) series, a movie, a
(20:56) >> I think it it Well, if Campus Land gets
(20:59) made, I would say definitely yes. and
(21:01) the people who are trying to make Campus
(21:03) Land love this book, too. Uh, it's kind
(21:05) of a one thing at a time. Uh, and I
(21:09) think it would make a fun a fun series.
(21:13) Uh, but we'll see. It's Hollywood. They
(21:16) are trying right now with Campus Land.
(21:18) They're going through the major players,
(21:21) the big streamers and so forth. They
(21:24) want it to be a four year a four season
(21:27) show. each season representing one year
(21:29) of college as you follow these
(21:31) characters through through college.
(21:33) >> And so that they're going to the big
(21:36) players now. If the big players don't
(21:38) work out, they're going to go to there
(21:40) are a few sort of more ideologically
(21:42) based so conservative
(21:45) producers out there that'll make stuff.
(21:46) I mean, for instance, Sean Handy has a
(21:49) some kind of production company and
(21:51) they'll make some content. So that
(21:53) that's less that's a narrower market
(21:58) that you'd be appealing to and you'd be
(22:00) you'd kind of be get pegged and so they
(22:03) they don't want to go that route. They
(22:05) don't have to but they really want to
(22:07) get it made. So
(22:09) >> that's a wonderful thing. So, you know,
(22:11) Tom Wolf's son, uh, I actually the only
(22:13) time I ever kind of met him, I didn't
(22:16) really meet him, but I was in the same
(22:18) vicinity as him. Uh, not different
(22:20) stands watching the US Open squash in
(22:22) Boston. His son play, I believe, played
(22:25) at Yale. Um, you know, I I don't know if
(22:28) you ever got a chance to meet him or did
(22:30) you pattern yourself on his work at all?
(22:33) Well, I actually play tennis with the
(22:35) son now and then and um who was a squash
(22:39) player at Trinity. Um the father, yes, I
(22:42) knew Tom Wolf. I'm not going to claim we
(22:45) were good friends or anything. Uh you
(22:47) know, he was a fair bit older, but when
(22:50) he was researching Bonfire, he spent uh
(22:53) two days on my trading desk at Solomon
(22:55) Brothers
(22:56) >> for real.
(22:57) >> Yeah. Uh which was a great treat. Uh
(23:00) asking all sorts of questions. what does
(23:02) that mean? What's that guy doing? Um,
(23:04) and he internalized a lot of it very
(23:06) well. Um,
(23:08) and years later, u he, um, I got to I
(23:13) saw him, um, here on Long Island and,
(23:17) uh, I had just reread Bonfire the Vandy
(23:19) sort of as a way to prep for writing
(23:22) Campus Land. and I saw him and I went up
(23:26) and we chatted for a while about it and
(23:29) about how we'd met years earlier so
(23:31) forth. Uh obviously he's great. Uh he's
(23:34) a hero of mine and he did write a campus
(23:37) book by the way. It's called I am
(23:38) Charlotte.
(23:38) >> Hang on. I I I was thinking of yours of
(23:41) that when I read yours because I I'm
(23:44) he's he's in my pantheon and um I am
(23:47) Charlotte Simmons is a great book.
(23:50) >> I'm not I'm not going to agree with you
(23:51) there. I don't think I don't think it
(23:53) was one of his better efforts. It was a
(23:54) bit weird. I mean, there was a 20page
(23:56) date rape scene. Um, and I just don't
(23:59) think he found his groove. And maybe
(24:01) things weren't quite woke enough when he
(24:03) wrote it. Like, it wasn't about wokeness
(24:06) or anything. Um, so maybe he just hadn't
(24:10) maybe the culture hadn't gotten quite
(24:11) crazy enough. So, I I mean, I'm a huge
(24:15) fan, but I just don't think that was his
(24:17) best work.
(24:18) >> Which which do you like?
(24:20) Well, there's Bonfire, uh, The Right
(24:23) Stuff, F incredible. Um, the book he
(24:27) wrote, uh, Radical Chic. Then that's
(24:31) very, very similar to the theme of
(24:33) Sanderson's, you know, was about a upper
(24:37) east side, uh, cocktail party for, you
(24:40) know, rich people who were supporting
(24:42) the Black Panthers in the 60s. um with
(24:46) you know and all tripping over each
(24:47) other to be seen with a black panther
(24:49) who who wants to burn them all down but
(24:52) he'll use them you know first
(24:55) um so that um thematically carries over
(24:58) into my work in a big way
(25:01) >> and I and I like the man in full quite a
(25:03) bit too
(25:03) >> yeah I really like man in full bonfire
(25:05) the van bonfire the vanities um our top
(25:09) top um my wife is reading the she just
(25:13) finished the one that takes place in
(25:14) Miami. Um,
(25:16) >> I read that too. That was that was not
(25:18) quite as good. You know, there's this
(25:20) phenomenon that happens to successful
(25:22) writers. Um,
(25:24) as they become really big, their editors
(25:28) lose control of them. And you saw that
(25:32) with Tom Clancy, you see it with um
(25:35) Stephen King, and you certainly saw it
(25:38) with Tom Wolf. the books getting longer
(25:40) and longer and they're poorly edited and
(25:42) u I thought that book and see you and I
(25:46) aren't even remembering the name of that
(25:47) book [laughter] but um it was okay but
(25:51) >> yeah know I started it I had the reason
(25:53) she read it because I had it around and
(25:55) I got I you know I like Tom Wolf book
(25:58) you know and I I plowed into it and it
(26:00) plowed back so I just kind of uh gave up
(26:03) after a little bit um didn't captivate
(26:06) quite as much Um but you know I I the
(26:11) similarity I notic is that you are able
(26:14) to pick up you know you have your ear to
(26:16) the tracks enough that you can pick up
(26:18) the things that are happening. You form
(26:20) the paste and you are able to embody a
(26:22) lot of the theories in in you know often
(26:25) lovable people you know that are kind of
(26:28) bumbling along um trying to make sense
(26:31) of the world or deal with it. They're
(26:33) not necessarily you know understanding
(26:34) the social criticism of their own lives.
(26:36) they want to just kind of get through
(26:37) and get by. Um,
(26:41) >> you know, if you're if you're a writer,
(26:42) you especially if you write social
(26:44) satire, which is pretty narrow c
(26:46) category. My my editor once told me, no
(26:49) one walks into Barnes & Noble and asks
(26:50) where the satire section is, but you
(26:54) have your ear to the ground and you you
(26:56) store things away. You don't invent
(26:59) things so much as you observe them. And
(27:03) I mean just the other day I heard
(27:05) someone use a great phrase. They
(27:07) describe someone else as emotionally
(27:09) incontinent. I thought, "Wow, that's
(27:12) good." I mean, I could base an entire
(27:14) character on being emotionally
(27:17) incontinent. And I think we've all known
(27:19) that person at some point in our lives.
(27:21) Um, I'll tell you a Tom Wolf story. Um,
(27:24) you know, it was a story that he
(27:26) scrolled away for
(27:29) my math suggests it was probably 13, 14
(27:33) years. If at the very beginning of
(27:35) Bonfire, there's a pivotal scene that
(27:38) sets the plot in motion where Shervin
(27:40) McCoy, the protagonist, the rich Park
(27:44) Avenue guy,
(27:46) decides to walk his dog in the pouring
(27:48) rain. And his wife points out, A, he
(27:50) never walks the dog, and B, it's pouring
(27:52) rain. Why are you walking the dog,
(27:53) Sherman? He just insists he has to walk
(27:56) the dog. What he's really doing is
(27:58) giving away to a pay phone. This is the
(28:00) 1980s.
(28:02) And uh to call his mistress and by have
(28:05) it though, he dials his home phone
(28:08) number and his wife answers the when his
(28:10) wife answers the phone, he asks for his
(28:11) mistress by name. And the gig is up and
(28:14) that sets the book into motion. Well, I
(28:18) discovered somewhat recently that that
(28:21) really happened and it was three people
(28:24) who I I knew all three of them. They
(28:26) were all friends of my parents. Um I I
(28:29) knew the mistress and I knew the couple.
(28:32) And um you know I it I think it probably
(28:35) happened in about 1972 or three and
(28:40) Bonfire came out in maybe 87. So you
(28:43) know he sat on, you know, I can use that
(28:45) someday. that that's a funny thing. And
(28:48) so, you know, sometimes we aren't clever
(28:51) enough to invent these things. I'll give
(28:52) you one more great example. It's
(28:53) something I sat on for decades um that I
(28:56) used in Campus Land. One of my
(28:58) fraternity brothers who's a year or two
(29:00) behind me. He was a wrestler and he was
(29:04) he took an art history class because he
(29:05) heard it was easy. And the assignment
(29:07) was go to the El Art Gallery and choose
(29:10) a well-represented artist and write a
(29:13) three to five page paper on that
(29:16) artist's stylistic u arc. And so he goes
(29:21) to the art gallery where you know he'd
(29:24) never been and he starts walking around
(29:26) looking at all the little white cards
(29:28) next to the paintings and he notices one
(29:31) artist who's really well represented. So
(29:35) he writes a paper that he's very proud
(29:36) of of the incredibly long career and
(29:39) stylistic progression of the artist
(29:41) Circa.
(29:43) [laughter]
(29:45) This really happened. Okay, this this
(29:50) he took he gets the paper back and the
(29:53) TA doesn't even write F. He the TA just
(29:56) writes, "Are you a moron?" in big red
(29:59) letters. And he doesn't understand
(30:01) what's happened. So he shows it to his
(30:03) roommate
(30:05) uh who I also knew and the roommate
(30:07) starts cracking up and he runs into the
(30:09) dining hall where I happen to be sitting
(30:12) waving this thing around. It it really
(30:14) happened, right? I'm not clever enough
(30:17) to make that up. So I reuse that for
(30:18) Campus Lane. And and by the way, that
(30:21) guy postcript, that guy went on to be
(30:23) number one in his Navy Seal um class and
(30:27) then he went on to found a very
(30:29) prominent private school. So, you never
(30:32) know, but but it really happened. Uh,
(30:35) and it sounds like something that's an
(30:37) urban legend, but no,
(30:39) >> that's really great. You know, I I had
(30:42) this it's not anything on on that part,
(30:45) but um when I was at Yale,
(30:48) [clears throat] the dining halls, I was
(30:50) probably a senior, junior senior. And
(30:53) and because in France, April Fool's Day
(30:55) is called a pas April fish. And the I
(30:59) don't know why fish are funny. I don't
(31:01) know. And so um in the in the water
(31:05) pictures on the tables, somebody had put
(31:07) goldfish all throughout the whole dining
(31:09) hall. So that was going to be like a
(31:10) cute thing as April Fool's Day. And you
(31:13) know this whole thing about in the in
(31:14) the 50s there was a kind of a prank
(31:16) where people ate goldfish whole. Um so I
(31:20) remember that.
(31:20) >> Yeah. So long. So there the goldfish
(31:23) were there and they actually had carrots
(31:26) at the, you know, dining hall, whatever.
(31:28) So I got some carrots which look like
(31:30) goldfish. I, you know, I don't if they
(31:31) came already sliced or whatever. So I
(31:34) palmed a couple of these carrot pieces.
(31:36) I reached my hand into the water bowl
(31:38) and I pulled out the carrot and I, you
(31:40) know, it's wiggling and I just swallowed
(31:43) the carrot. and uh these guys at the
(31:46) other table who were, you know, a year
(31:48) or younger and I don't know, aggressive
(31:51) and whatever, they just wanted to oneup
(31:52) us. This guy came over and he's like,
(31:55) "That's nothing." And he just like
(31:57) reached in and grabbed all the actual
(31:59) goldfish and popped them all in his
(32:00) mouth and swallowed them. [laughter]
(32:03) So So I I took another carrot and I This
(32:06) time I'm showing him it's a carrot. And
(32:08) I took the carrot, I put it in, I
(32:10) reached out, I chewed on the carrot. I'm
(32:13) like, I wonder how yours tasted. And he
(32:16) had this look of, you know, kind of a
(32:17) false victory like he had won the
(32:19) battle, lost the war. Um, but it's just
(32:22) I mean, I I I don't know where to put
(32:24) that. But the interesting thing about
(32:25) that was that um I I mentioned that to
(32:29) some of my friends just on you know his
(32:31) email and um
(32:34) everybody said I was the one who did
(32:36) that. that he himself, whoever I wrote
(32:39) to, it's like, "No, no, I was the one
(32:40) who did the thing with the with the
(32:42) carrot." And it's like, "Wow, am I
(32:44) having like a false memory?" Because I I
(32:46) have remember having the carrot in my
(32:48) hand. I remember the look and this guy
(32:50) didn't like me to begin with. I I I know
(32:52) I remember his name and everything like
(32:53) that. So, but three other people at the
(32:56) table
(32:58) claimed that was their action. It's kind
(33:01) of like Rashimon in reverse or
(33:03) something. I don't know.
(33:05) Well, there were a lot of people at
(33:06) Woodstock who weren't there, right?
(33:08) [laughter]
(33:09) >> Yeah. There was a there was a a this is
(33:11) like 20 30 years ago in Boston. Uh you
(33:13) know, one of those little trolley lines
(33:15) in right downtown, very small cars and
(33:18) uh middle of the day. It was quiet and
(33:20) it it hit something or whatever. So, uh
(33:23) they were going to like, you know, some
(33:25) people are in pain or something like
(33:26) that. They all brought them upstairs on
(33:29) the on the commons and they were going
(33:31) to get there. you know, somebody from
(33:32) the city was going to come and take the
(33:34) complaints. Now, by the time they took
(33:35) the complaints, there were like 400
(33:37) complaints from a car that had held
(33:40) like, you know, 12 people at the time.
(33:41) Everybody, you know, everybody in the
(33:44) area once they heard of an accident,
(33:45) they all came around for their neck
(33:46) pain. Um, so they the city never figured
(33:50) it out. No video cameras. They couldn't
(33:52) uh parse that out. But, you know, humans
(33:55) are funny. There's this uh you know,
(33:57) kind of to get yours. Um but just to
(34:01) kind of circle back to the your your
(34:03) stories of you know uh Campus Land and
(34:06) the Sand Sanderson's um and Bonfire the
(34:10) Vanities the Bonfire of the Vanities you
(34:13) know really is is kind of the George
(34:15) Floyd era is it not
(34:19) >> well Bonfire was in the 80s. I know. I
(34:22) know. But did did that that whole kind
(34:24) of Al Sharpton narrative, you know, is
(34:28) >> Oh, it was a pre precursor for sure.
(34:31) >> But it just I mean all all during the
(34:32) George Floyd era, I just felt like it's
(34:35) bonfire the vanities. It's just like the
(34:38) everything's kind of taking over.
(34:40) Well, the very beginning of political
(34:42) correctness was a the the term political
(34:46) correctness in terms of its adaptation
(34:49) white usage dates to sort of the early
(34:52) middle8s
(34:54) and that's when race stuff really
(34:57) started to take off and guys like Jesse
(34:59) Jackson and Al Sharpton started their
(35:02) their big griffs. Um, so but over the
(35:05) years polit you don't hear political
(35:07) correctness anymore because it evolved
(35:08) into woke, which is an even more sort of
(35:11) pernicious version of it, but it's just
(35:14) been steadily growing and I've been
(35:15) chronicling it for years. And people
(35:18) keep telling me, "Oh, you were early at
(35:20) Campus Land." I'm like, "No, I was just
(35:21) paying attention." I mean, I wrote
(35:23) Campus Land at maybe 17, 18, and it came
(35:27) out in 19. And uh you know peak woke was
(35:32) 2020 2021 and we're still pretty woke
(35:36) right and we've gotten rid of some of
(35:37) the worst excesses but we're still quite
(35:41) woke anyway. It had been getting worse
(35:43) and worse and worse in academia in
(35:45) particular for decades dating all the
(35:48) way back to the early 80s.
(35:50) Well really dating back to the 50s. I
(35:52) mean
(35:54) Buckley wrote God and man at Yale in 52
(35:57) I think.
(35:57) >> Yeah. Yeah, a lot of this stuff's not
(35:58) new. My wife's a classicist and
(36:03) you know, arguably this this, you know,
(36:06) it's I don't know, it's human trait or a
(36:08) civilizational trait. You know, you you
(36:10) know, kind of that ancycosis the thing
(36:12) where, you know, hard hard times make uh
(36:17) hard men, hard men make good times, good
(36:20) times make soft men, soft men's bring
(36:22) hard times. you know that
(36:26) uh whatever that's called ancycllosis or
(36:28) something like that. Um and and it just
(36:30) seems like when we have good stuff,
(36:34) people don't they can't mesh, you know,
(36:37) with their deservingness and and you
(36:41) know, they they feel guilty about having
(36:43) something. Um you know, it just I don't
(36:47) know that that wasn't quite as prevalent
(36:48) when I was a kid. I don't know about
(36:50) you. I mean, you you were in New York
(36:52) City. I I grew up in in Riverdale and I
(36:55) went to Horus, man. What was your New
(36:56) York City
(36:58) experience?
(37:00) >> As a kid?
(37:01) >> Yeah.
(37:03) >> Well, um,
(37:05) you know, as a kid, you you do kid
(37:08) things no matter where you are. And in
(37:11) retrospect, growing up in Manhattan is a
(37:13) strange place to grow up, but we would
(37:16) play uh whiffle ball in the large alley
(37:19) behind our apartment building for hours.
(37:21) And you know, we we'd play um various
(37:25) ball, you know, catch and catch games
(37:27) out on the street, you know, the
(37:28) sidewalks. And um you know, you sort of
(37:31) make do. Uh the Upper East Side was a
(37:34) bit of an island then. you didn't really
(37:37) go
(37:39) outside of it. Brooklyn would might as
(37:41) well have been a foreign country to me
(37:44) when I was growing up. Um, and so it's
(37:47) much [clears throat] much less like that
(37:49) now. I mean, it's funny that my my our
(37:53) children's generation, they don't want
(37:54) to set foot on the Upper East Side. They
(37:56) think it's a boring neighborhood in New
(37:58) York. And it's actually one of the least
(37:59) expensive neighborhoods in New York now,
(38:01) excluding Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue.
(38:03) Uh, which is really kind of funny. um
(38:06) they all want to live on the lower east
(38:07) side and um lower west side, you know,
(38:12) the village, you know, they no one lives
(38:15) on the upper east side and a lot of them
(38:17) wouldn't be cut down on the upper west
(38:18) side either. Uh that's for uh you know,
(38:22) older Jewish people basically.
(38:25) So, it Manhattan changed a lot, but the
(38:29) ways of the Upper East Side in terms of
(38:31) the Park Avenue over to Fifth Avenue
(38:34) crowd um have not changed that much.
(38:37) There's still the same clubs, the same
(38:39) schools,
(38:40) um some of the same mores. Um but
(38:46) woke happened and it took over, you
(38:50) know, philosoph philosophically took
(38:52) over a lot of the institutions. It
(38:53) wasn't just schools. It was, you know,
(38:55) the Ford Foundation and and other very
(38:57) prominent institutions all became quite
(39:00) radicalized.
(39:02) I actually know three board members of
(39:04) the Ford Foundation and I ride them
(39:05) pretty hard because they're all um
(39:08) they're all center right, I would say.
(39:11) But the Ford Foundation is in terms of
(39:13) how they distribute money is radical. Um
(39:17) so I'm like, come on, do something about
(39:19) it. Don't just add this to your resume.
(39:23) So that's changed. The a lot of the
(39:25) social stuff though remains the same.
(39:27) The charity balls and things like that.
(39:30) So this weird juxosition of those two
(39:34) cultures, the woke culture and the
(39:36) society culture are, you know, it it was
(39:38) worth writing about.
(39:40) >> Yeah. It's at the Metropolitan Club. You
(39:42) know, I I
(39:45) I'm I'm you know, Jewish heritage and
(39:48) grew up in Riverdale in the Bronx. And
(39:50) um my parents were okay, you know, kind
(39:52) of middle classish, but probably on the
(39:55) lower end cuz they put us in private
(39:58) school without having the cash to do it.
(40:00) So I was in like a we were in a
(40:02) one-bedroom, 1.5 bedroomedroom
(40:05) rent control apartment for five of us.
(40:07) Those tight. Um so I didn't get all
(40:11) that. Um but you know I I I saw the kind
(40:15) of the class system more probably coming
(40:17) you know hitting Yale. I saw some of the
(40:20) stratifications and so forth. Um and you
(40:23) know people aspired to that. I mean
(40:25) there was kind of a preppy envy. Um and
(40:28) you know there was a time kind of the
(40:30) era of spy magazine whatnot with a
(40:32) preppy look um was was you know vaunted
(40:35) and valued and you know Ann Taylor for
(40:38) girls and um it was you know something
(40:41) that people understood that had been a
(40:43) pathway to success that there was you
(40:46) know this kind of I mean it's an epithet
(40:49) in a way but the wasp you know work
(40:51) culture had brought a lot of wealth to
(40:54) the US and people aspired to that they
(40:56) wanted to be that, you know, what what
(40:58) what's what's the next thing that
(41:00) happens? I mean, it seems like right now
(41:02) as part of the kind of eating yourself,
(41:04) you know, you you take your kids, you
(41:06) don't you're going to sacrifice not just
(41:07) your kids, but your grandkids. You know,
(41:09) you can't have grandkids from a trans
(41:12) and and a lot of the other aspects of
(41:15) continuity of society. You take these
(41:17) institutions and that you you kind of
(41:19) allow them to be, you know, inverted for
(41:22) purpose and whatnot. It just, you know,
(41:25) I don't know. I mean it doesn't you know
(41:27) I think there there's always going to be
(41:28) some ruling party there always going to
(41:29) be some aristocracy the question is
(41:32) which one is it going to be Zoron
(41:33) Mandani you know which is like openly
(41:35) antagonistic and I think less you know
(41:38) endeavoring towards uh the goals of you
(41:42) know getting people up and out I I don't
(41:44) know I mean what what what's your
(41:46) perspective
(41:49) >> someone's always going to be on top and
(41:50) hopefully it's a meritocracy and it's
(41:52) people who've worked hard and and uh
(41:55) and and succeeded through their own grit
(41:57) and um and clever ideas. And I I think
(42:03) America has never been perfectly that,
(42:06) but it's certainly been more that than
(42:08) any place else in the world. And I think
(42:12) the Mandami left wants to completely
(42:14) destroy that. to them meritocracy is
(42:18) racist
(42:20) literally
(42:21) because the winners don't fall perfectly
(42:24) on the demographic lines they want to
(42:27) fall. So we will you know if they get
(42:30) what they want you'll see the inevitable
(42:32) results of socialism which will be there
(42:35) there will be oh I'm sorry let me just
(42:39) get rid of that. Okay.
(42:42) Um
(42:44) hopefully that doesn't ring again. Um
(42:48) there'll be though there will be a
(42:49) ruling class, but we'll it will be
(42:51) people who navigate the political
(42:52) landscape and claw their way to the top
(42:54) of the political class. And you know the
(42:57) AOCC's and the Lizard Darren of the
(43:00) world all want here's a great example.
(43:03) They want the big AI companies to
(43:05) literally give a chunk of their
(43:08) companies to the government and then
(43:10) they'll control that equity and decide
(43:12) who gets it and you know who benefits
(43:14) and who doesn't which is exactly what
(43:16) they want. Um and whereas Trump has
(43:20) created Trump accounts which bypasses
(43:22) the political class and NOS's entirely
(43:25) the money goes straight to kids which is
(43:27) which is fabulous. But I you know I
(43:30) spent a lot of time um trying to
(43:32) understand the progressive mind and
(43:35) their motivations. Um, and
(43:38) what's very clear is there is a
(43:41) intellectual class that is always drawn
(43:43) to leftism.
(43:45) And I these are the people I who I I
(43:48) really really uh despise to be blunt.
(43:52) And the reason they're drawn to leftism
(43:54) is because they they resent the fact
(43:56) that our free society and capitalist
(44:00) system rewards people who actually make
(44:02) things and do things.
(44:05) uh who who create companies uh and a lot
(44:08) of times these people don't have the Ivy
(44:11) League credentials that they have and
(44:12) and really and what they're producing is
(44:15) a bunch of words mostly they produce
(44:17) ideas almost all of them are bad ideas
(44:20) they don't actually make anything but
(44:22) they're very smart people who have very
(44:24) fancy degrees and they resent uh all
(44:28) these people out there who don't have
(44:29) their fancy degrees who are making lots
(44:31) more money than they are. they think
(44:33) they should be running things and they
(44:34) have a bunch of ideas of how to run
(44:36) things. So the best way to get that is
(44:40) uh to centralize things in centralize
(44:44) power where they can get it which is in
(44:46) NOS's and the government primarily and
(44:50) so this is why uh they're attracted to
(44:53) leftist ideas and always have been
(44:54) because then they get to run things
(44:57) they're rewarded for their their
(44:59) cleverness and the they can just take
(45:02) from the makers.
(45:03) >> Yeah. [clears throat] No, it's a
(45:04) politics. I it's not my coinage, but you
(45:06) know, socialism, communism is the
(45:09) politics of envy. You know, you you you
(45:12) see something and and moreover, it's
(45:13) it's the capture of those things that
(45:15) you envy. Um, [snorts] I've got some uh
(45:19) close relatives and and uh one guys on
(45:22) the left, very, [clears throat]
(45:24) you know, very accomplished Ivy League
(45:29) other, you know, graduate degree and all
(45:31) that kind of stuff. And yet, you know,
(45:33) life has not been good to him. Uh or
(45:35) maybe he hasn't been good to life. And
(45:37) you know, that gives him an outlook
(45:39) that, you know, the system is rigged.
(45:42) And um anybody who gets it, you know,
(45:44) there's a concept that you know, people
(45:45) who have wealth have stolen something,
(45:48) you know, and and
(45:50) you know, there's basically two
(45:52) different ways of looking at it. You
(45:53) know, all the things the incredible
(45:55) wealth around. I mean, I would rather be
(45:58) impoverished in 2026 than probably, you
(46:01) know, viceroy in, you know, 1854,
(46:04) you know, as far as creature comforts go
(46:06) and running water and toilets and
(46:08) central heating and in my case a CPAT
(46:11) machine and what, you know, various
(46:14) things that that make life, you know,
(46:16) better and more comfortable and so
(46:17) forth. Um, and those things didn't
(46:19) happen because humans are so wonderfully
(46:22) generous. they happen because you know
(46:24) you're get rewarded for coming up with
(46:27) something that benefits other people. Um
(46:30) >> well AOC and you know Bernie and and
(46:33) that whole crowd they they don't think a
(46:35) a trillionaire should be allowed to
(46:37) exist and you know Elon Musk is a
(46:40) trillionaire because he came up with a
(46:42) lot of he works really really hard and
(46:44) he came up with a lot of great ideas and
(46:45) he started with nothing. He's a classic
(46:47) American success story and and frankly
(46:50) he's probably the most impactful and
(46:52) influential person in a thousand years.
(46:54) >> Um I mean he's an American hero as far
(46:57) as I'm concerned. Uh in fact when
(46:59) everybody was firebombing the Tesla
(47:01) dealers I went out and bought one just
(47:02) to spite
(47:03) >> absolutely I had no
(47:05) >> I've got two
(47:06) >> I had no interest in electric car
(47:08) honestly. But the thing is great and now
(47:10) I'm totally hooked. It is the best car.
(47:12) >> Yeah. So, so do you uh let it uh drive
(47:15) itself?
(47:17) >> I haven't done that because I I just
(47:18) kind of like driving. Um
(47:20) >> I got to tell you, I mean,
(47:21) >> the car drives so well.
(47:23) >> I I do both. I mean, I like driving. On
(47:25) the way home, I don't just do a little
(47:27) zipping, but uh the FASD is just an
(47:30) incredible thing for clarification of
(47:33) thought while you're driving. And you
(47:34) still have to be pilot co-pilot. I don't
(47:37) want to It's not This is not an episode
(47:38) about that, but um I've got two Teslas.
(47:41) Um, one one guy I played tennis with uh
(47:44) texted me, well, he actually he called
(47:47) it my swastika carar.
(47:50) >> Very,
(47:50) >> oh my god,
(47:51) >> very clever.
(47:53) >> Um,
(47:54) >> you know, they actually I I debate with
(47:57) myself, do they actually think he was
(47:59) giving a Nazi salute? I think some
(48:01) people think he was. I mean, it's just
(48:02) preposterous. Um, and then of course,
(48:05) you know, you come up with all these
(48:06) examples of Elizabeth Warren and AOC
(48:08) doing, you know, doing the same thing.
(48:10) Um,
(48:11) >> oh, it's
(48:11) >> because they're called in the moment
(48:13) where they're waving, right?
(48:14) >> Yeah.
(48:14) >> Um, these people are insane.
(48:17) >> Yeah. And it's what if you do this like
(48:18) you make an okay sign, you know, it's
(48:21) all these things retroactively that they
(48:22) decided that that mean certain things
(48:25) when they want to mean it. If you on the
(48:26) other hand, if you, you know, actually
(48:28) have a a totem tattoo, you can run for
(48:30) Senate. I mean it's like
(48:33) you know the So um what are do you have
(48:37) another novel in you or what what do you
(48:40) I have two half-written novels. I still
(48:42) have the art book. Um and I also have a
(48:45) book a road novel. Um
(48:48) that I'm that's the one I'm actively
(48:50) working on. Um
(48:53) [snorts] by the road I mean you know the
(48:55) American road which I love. I love road
(48:57) trips and and the vast spaces we have
(49:00) and that all our Europeans, your our
(49:03) European friends have been discovering
(49:04) during the World Cup and so the wonders
(49:07) of uh the the vastness of middle middle
(49:10) America and the world's largest ball of
(49:12) twine and things like that. You know,
(49:14) these these things fascinate me. So,
(49:16) I've wo together into
(49:19) I think an interesting
(49:20) >> Speaking of speaking of the ball of
(49:21) twine, I I was quoting uh from an
(49:24) article I wrote recently. Um
(49:28) we'll get to that later. But u one of my
(49:30) favorite books as a kid was The Big Ball
(49:32) of String. Have you ever read that? Did
(49:34) you read that as a kid?
(49:35) >> I don't know.
(49:35) >> So, it's a little bit like Elon Musk. Uh
(49:39) this kid is confined to bed. It's not
(49:41) COVID, but he's got the cold or
(49:42) something like that. and he's sick and
(49:44) his mom's like, "You have to stay in
(49:45) bed." So, he's got a big ball of string.
(49:48) He's got little to do. Um, no TV in the
(49:50) room, no, you know, 1950s book or
(49:52) whatever. So, he's got a big ball of
(49:54) string. He engineers everything so he
(49:56) can operate everything while he's
(49:58) technically still in bed. So, he can get
(50:01) I don't know how, you know, it's a book.
(50:02) It's kids book. And so, the idea is like
(50:04) ingenuity conquers. Um, and the big ball
(50:07) of string, you know, I I had George
(50:10) Gilder on my show uh probably three
(50:12) times now. And you know, the difference
(50:15) between us and I don't know thousand
(50:18) years ago or 10,000 100 thousand years
(50:20) ago. I mean, there's still sand except
(50:22) we turn the sand into silicon chips.
(50:25) There's lightning, but we have turned
(50:26) electricity and together we can make a
(50:28) computer and so forth. And we can do all
(50:30) these incredible big ball of string
(50:32) things. you know, we we take the common
(50:34) items and we can turn them into, you
(50:36) know, objects of ingenuity. Um, but
(50:39) actually I want you can touch on that if
(50:41) you like, but I actually wanted to segue
(50:42) to something that's on my mind because I
(50:44) saw Anthony Hopkins. It's 88 and he's um
(50:48) producing a a symphony. He's he's
(50:51) apparently was a musician before he was
(50:53) an actor. He played piano at age five
(50:55) and he loves music and he has the
(50:57) opportunity wherewithal and he's still
(50:59) got enough you know kind of verve in him
(51:01) at 88 um to you know have a symph
(51:04) symphony and he's going to have it
(51:06) produced and so the concept is you know
(51:08) about creativity you know in his case he
(51:11) has the opportunity he had the wealth
(51:13) and the you know to do this I'm not sure
(51:15) every 88-year-old is able to get his
(51:17) pieces composed in front of an orchestra
(51:19) you know unless you're named Anthony
(51:20) Hopkins or maybe MC Jagger or something
(51:23) like that um but Scott Johnston you know
(51:26) is was the creativity there is this
(51:28) something you found you nurtured you
(51:30) kind of stumbled upon and then you know
(51:32) how would you if you had your you know
(51:34) time machine would you rejigger this so
(51:37) you're writing novels or doing what you
(51:39) had been doing what you had been doing
(51:41) kind of help lubricate the the creative
(51:43) process I'm curious about the creative
(51:45) process as we age
(51:49) >> so I'm glad you asked that I I have made
(51:52) a bit of the study of creativity because
(51:54) it fascinates me and I I get asked a lot
(51:57) about how do you write a novel? What's
(51:59) your process? Where does it come from?
(52:01) And there's a scene in um Get Back, the
(52:05) Beatles documentary. So, I'm a bit of a
(52:07) Beatles file. And it's about a nine-hour
(52:11) documentary. You have to really be into
(52:12) the Beatles to like it, but if you're
(52:14) into the Beatles, it's great. And
(52:16) there's a scene where Paul they're just
(52:17) sort of sitting around in the studio
(52:19) noodling on their instruments and Paul
(52:20) McCartney is um uh he's playing around
(52:25) with this Hoffner bass and he's
(52:27) strumming it a bit like a rhythm guitar,
(52:29) you know, sort of making chords and um
(52:32) doesn't sound like anything and he's
(52:34) mumbling the nonsense words. But as you
(52:37) listen to it, all of a sudden it takes
(52:39) form and you hear what would become the
(52:42) song Get Back. like, "Oh my god, that's
(52:44) the moment Get Back was born." But it
(52:46) was just at that point just a little bit
(52:49) of a chord progression.
(52:51) And so, same thing with novels. They
(52:53) don't arrive fully hatched. Um, they
(52:56) they arrive with the current, you know,
(52:59) creative endeavors. And I, by the way,
(53:01) the whole novel thing was a mystery to
(53:03) me. I I you read a great novel and you
(53:05) you wonder how on earth did they do
(53:07) that? like because there's a plot,
(53:09) there's subplots, they have to weave
(53:11) together and resolve in an emotionally
(53:13) satisfying way. You have all these
(53:15) different characters, they need
(53:16) backstories. I mean, it just seem
(53:18) hopelessly complex. And the answer is
(53:21) none of these things arrive uh fully
(53:23) hatched. It starts with the colonel,
(53:25) those couple chords. Um or in my case uh
(53:29) with campus land when I was holding the
(53:32) door open for an undergraduate at at my
(53:35) Yale reunion, she wouldn't go through
(53:36) the door and accuse me of patriarchy.
(53:38) Like okay, [laughter] that's the start.
(53:41) I use that in the book. Um so
(53:46) the creative process is a process. It
(53:48) starts with some kernel of a good idea
(53:51) of a song. It might be just three chords
(53:53) that sound good together. Um, and with a
(53:57) book, it might be just a simple little
(53:58) thing. You know, maybe emotionally
(54:01) incontinence becomes an entire novel
(54:03) eventually. So, when I first set out to
(54:06) write Campus Land, I I actually didn't
(54:09) didn't know any of this. I I thought the
(54:11) way to write a novel was to get a bunch
(54:13) of file cards and, you know, plot out
(54:14) the chapters and pin the file cards up
(54:16) on a board and, you know, eventually the
(54:19) whole novel would take shape and then I
(54:20) would just write it. Well, I got to
(54:22) about the third file card and I was
(54:23) completely lost. So the way at least for
(54:27) me and I suspect most novelists uh and
(54:29) most creative uh people in general you
(54:33) you get going and you just sort of plaid
(54:36) forward and things occur to you as you
(54:39) go and you start to learn your
(54:43) character's voices uh the further you
(54:45) get into it and then you realize uh oh
(54:48) Clover
(54:50) never would have said something the way
(54:52) I wrote it a couple months ago in
(54:53) chapter four. So you go back and and uh
(54:56) tweak something she said to fit the
(54:58) character she's become in your novel. So
(55:01) I call a process lurching and iterating.
(55:04) >> And if you're fortunate a a good plot
(55:07) twist or two falls from the sky and then
(55:10) you have to fix that, right? You have to
(55:11) go back and tweak things to seed the
(55:14) plot twist to to give just enough of a
(55:16) hint to make the plot twist work, but
(55:18) not so much as to give it away. So
(55:22) that's my process. Uh I'm never usually
(55:26) thinking more than a chapter or two
(55:28) ahead
(55:29) and eventually it it hopefully falls
(55:32) together.
(55:33) >> Yeah. So were you an English major?
(55:37) >> No. Uh political science. I I've never I
(55:40) never wrote fiction before Campus Land.
(55:44) Wrote a lot of good blogs. Wrote wrote
(55:47) great investment letters when I ran a
(55:49) hedge fund. So, I always knew I could
(55:52) write a good sentence.
(55:53) >> Yeah.
(55:53) >> Uh letter. I I facility with language.
(55:59) >> Yeah. I don't think I'm on your level as
(56:00) an author, but I have an, you know, I
(56:02) have a book overturning Zika, which
(56:04) everyone should buy, as well as your
(56:06) books, Campus Land and The Sanderson's
(56:08) Field, Manhattan. Um, but you know, and
(56:12) I was I was never much of a writer. I
(56:14) was a chemistry and physics kind of guy,
(56:16) mathematics and so forth. Um but in my
(56:19) high school paper um actually I came up
(56:22) with one good headline in eighth grade.
(56:24) It was second form then but eighth
(56:26) grade. Um Richard Nixon had gotten
(56:28) phabitis and so we had our lower school
(56:31) newspaper and uh he was you know having
(56:34) trouble walking from the phabitis in his
(56:36) calf. I didn't know what phobitis was.
(56:38) There's no internet. So I had to look it
(56:39) up. I I was going to make a story about
(56:41) it for the paper and I said phabitis
(56:43) makes dick limp. Um, and I wanted that
(56:47) headline to get in. Uh, I was trying to
(56:49) see if I could get it by the advisor.
(56:51) Uh, but he caught it. Anyway, aside from
(56:53) that, there was really not much in, you
(56:55) know, way of writing a few features and
(56:57) so forth, but, you know, I I had a story
(56:59) I wanted to get out for the Zika thing,
(57:01) which I think is an incredible um, kind
(57:03) of Sherlock Holmesian look at a
(57:05) pandemic. Um, but I couldn't really
(57:07) write it. So, I I wound up hiring
(57:09) somebody from Brazil who's a law
(57:10) student, and I had him query me, you
(57:13) know. So we made like 10, you know, Zoom
(57:16) calls and back and forth he would ask me
(57:18) stuff and I would have to answer them
(57:20) and so forth and the book became, you
(57:21) know, the the the formulation having the
(57:24) chapters was the thing he was actually
(57:25) curious about. You know, he wanted to
(57:27) know if if this is what you're
(57:28) interested in this, well, what about
(57:29) that? And he brought some Brazilian
(57:31) stuff and that I didn't know. So, it was
(57:33) kind of like a a kind of a a cap
(57:35) crystallization of a conversation, you
(57:37) know. So, it's not quite the same thing
(57:39) as as the novel, but it it it wasn't
(57:41) what I expected when I started. It's
(57:43) like things kind of have to kind of take
(57:45) their form and it's like water filling,
(57:47) you know, if you crinkle up aluminum
(57:48) foil, you pour the water in, it has to
(57:50) fill those gaps and spaces.
(57:53) >> Well, now you could use AI instead of
(57:54) the Brazilian law student. Um, yeah,
(57:56) that's true. you're talking about AI a
(57:59) little bit because that's going to be a
(58:01) major deal or it's very quickly becoming
(58:03) a major deal in the publishing world. Uh
(58:06) and the there's a very uneasy uh truce
(58:10) with it at the moment which uh
(58:14) they I don't think a great AI AI novel
(58:18) has been written and I don't think AI
(58:19) can write a great novel but if you ask
(58:22) me the question again in a week or two I
(58:24) might give you a different answer
(58:25) because things are moving along that
(58:26) fast.
(58:27) And I, as an experiment in the road
(58:30) novel, I have these two brothers
(58:31) traveling across the country in a camper
(58:34) looking for the the place they're
(58:36) supposed to spread their father's ashes
(58:38) and they're following clues and um and
(58:41) they pull over in a Nebraska wheat
(58:44) field, like a vast, you know, field,
(58:47) endless
(58:48) at night. And so giant sky and wheat
(58:52) fields and they they get out a couple
(58:54) lawn chairs and ingest a couple gummies.
(58:57) So I went on chat GBT and I said in a
(58:59) literary fashion describe you know I
(59:01) give told chat GBT what I just told you.
(59:04) In a literary fashion describe the scene
(59:07) in two or three paragraphs and what I
(59:09) got back was so poetic and beautiful. I
(59:14) was stunned. I was absolutely
(59:17) >> um and the publishing industry now they
(59:20) don't have a problem with you using AI
(59:22) as a tool maybe to research things or to
(59:27) give you ideas how to move forward. Uh
(59:30) but they don't like they don't want AI
(59:32) doing the writing for you. They'll
(59:33) reject something.
(59:34) >> You know, I I kind of draw the line, but
(59:36) it's like uh interesting stuff. Anyway,
(59:38) I'm going to have to call it a day here.
(59:40) Um, we got things to do, places to be,
(59:43) and I really appreciate you having been
(59:44) on the show. Thank you so much, Scott.
(59:47) >> Thanks, Randy.
(0:00) I was halfway through a novel, you know,
(0:03) lampooning the art industry,
(0:07) which is self-satirical really, um, when
(0:10) something else hit me in the face that I
(0:11) said, I just have to write this. And it
(0:13) was, this was peak uh, woke peak George
(0:18) Floyd uh, around 2019, 2021.
(0:23) And I had been writing a lot about the
(0:27) moral and philosophical decline of the
(0:30) great private schools in New York City
(0:32) where I grew up. This was very
(0:34) specifically in the fall of 2020.
(0:37) Floyd was the spring of 2020 and over
(0:42) that summer a lot of the private schools
(0:45) which have been really taken over by
(0:47) radicals um quietly rewrote their
(0:50) curricula and the search for truth was
(0:53) no longer the the north star. It was now
(0:55) social justice. So I started writing
(0:57) about it and it my blog which is called
(1:00) the naked dollar um went went bananas.
(1:04) It it got a million hits over the course
(1:06) of a couple weeks, which I I was
(1:09) actually on vacation with my wife. I
(1:11) said, "Watch this." Every time I hit the
(1:13) enter button, it would update the number
(1:14) of hits. And I I would hit, you know,
(1:17) maybe every five or 10 seconds, I'd hit
(1:19) it, and there'd be another 20 hits.
(1:29) [music]
(1:38) >> [music]
(1:43) [music]
(1:48) >> Hi, I'm honored to have back with us
(1:50) Scott Johnston who is the author of the
(1:52) Sanderson's Fail Manhattan, if I get
(1:54) that right, and uh yes,
(1:56) >> and previously Campus Land. And these
(1:58) are both u great romps. There are Tom
(2:01) Wolfian uh in the more recent Tom Wolf,
(2:04) not that guy who can't go home again,
(2:06) but um Tom Wolf with an E. Um the author
(2:09) of um Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in
(2:12) Full, um so forth. Um and they are great
(2:16) social critiques, satires, and uh sprung
(2:19) from this guy's imagination. So tell us,
(2:21) Scott, how did you how do you how did
(2:23) you do it? How do you do it? What what
(2:25) do they mean? in particular. Let's talk
(2:28) about the Sanderson's Fail Manhattan.
(2:32) >> Sure. Um I, you know, I wrote I never
(2:35) set out to be a novelist. It never
(2:37) occurred to me that um I could be or
(2:40) would be. Uh, and Campus Land, you know,
(2:43) originally came about because I had a
(2:46) couple sort of insane encounters on uh,
(2:49) my old campus at Yale and I just finally
(2:53) had enough and like someone why is no
(2:56) one using this as fodder for a satire?
(2:59) So, if no one else is going to do it,
(3:00) I'm going to do it. So, that that canvas
(3:04) land came about and um, it did quite
(3:06) well and they're still they're trying to
(3:08) turn it into a TV series.
(3:11) uh you know that if you know anything
(3:13) about Hollywood, you don't hold your
(3:14) breath. If it happens, it happens. Um
(3:17) and uh so I then I was in the good
(3:20) graces of a major publisher, St.
(3:22) Martin's Press, which is part of
(3:23) McMillan. Uh which that's a whole
(3:27) another story how I actually got it
(3:28) published.
(3:30) Uh, and
(3:32) I was halfway through a novel, um, you
(3:37) know, lampooning the art industry, which
(3:41) is self-satirical really. Um, when
(3:44) something else hit me in the face that I
(3:45) said, I just have to write this. And it
(3:47) was, this was peak uh, woke peak George
(3:52) Floyd
(3:53) uh, around 2019, 20,21.
(3:57) And I had been writing a lot about the
(4:01) moral and philosophical decline of the
(4:04) great private schools in New York City
(4:06) where I grew up. And u I started writing
(4:09) about one in particular, Dalton School,
(4:12) uh which is very very famous elite
(4:16) private school but also crazy
(4:17) progressive.
(4:19) And there was this um or someone reached
(4:21) out to me and gave me all this inside
(4:23) information on what was going on there.
(4:26) in particular an eight-page
(4:28) um list of demands that the faculty was
(4:31) making and some administrators
(4:34) um that were all race-based and
(4:37) absolutely insane. Um and this happened,
(4:40) this was very specifically in the fall
(4:42) of 2020.
(4:44) Floyd was the spring of 2020 and over
(4:48) that summer a lot of the private schools
(4:52) which have been really taken over by
(4:53) radicals um quietly rewrote their
(4:57) curricula and the search for truth was
(4:59) no longer the the north star. It was now
(5:01) social justice.
(5:03) And that fall there was uh everything
(5:07) was Zoom classes and parents would
(5:09) occasionally wander by their child's
(5:11) Zoom class and some of them were were
(5:14) horrified what they were hearing. Uh and
(5:17) you know there was this whole division
(5:19) of of students into oppressor and
(5:21) oppressed classes and and
(5:24) privilege walks and um uh race-based
(5:28) struggle sessions and and it goes on and
(5:31) on. land acknowledgements
(5:34) and Dalton in particular had lost their
(5:38) their freaking minds. Um so I started
(5:40) writing about it and it my blog which is
(5:44) called the naked dollar um went went
(5:47) bananas. It it got a million hits over
(5:50) the course of a couple weeks which I I
(5:53) was actually on vacation with my wife. I
(5:54) said watch this. Every time I hit the
(5:57) enter button, it would update the number
(5:58) of hits and I I would hit, you know,
(6:01) maybe every five or 10 seconds I'd hit
(6:03) it and there'd be another 20 hits. It
(6:05) was a remarkable thing to watch. I'd
(6:07) never experienced verality uh sort of up
(6:11) close and personal like that. And um
(6:14) long story short, the Wall Street
(6:16) Journal then asked me to do an op-ed
(6:18) about what was going on at Dalton, which
(6:19) I did. And it led to the headmaster
(6:22) there being fired.
(6:24) And
(6:26) this led to something else which was
(6:28) lots of parents then from other schools
(6:30) sending me their stuff like please write
(6:33) about our school. We don't want to say
(6:35) anything but it'd be great if you said
(6:37) something. Our our school's going crazy.
(6:40) You know, no one wanted to raise their
(6:41) hand though and get shot.
(6:43) So um I started writing about other
(6:46) schools and I wrote, "Oh, you know
(6:47) there's a novel in this."
(6:50) So that produced Sanderson's and the
(6:53) principal target uh in Sanderson's isn't
(6:56) so much
(6:58) uh all the woke teachers and
(7:00) administrators, it's the people who are
(7:03) allowing it to happen. The very very uh
(7:07) sort of wealthy and intelligent people
(7:11) who sit on the boards of of in
(7:14) particular uh New York educational
(7:16) institutions, but it's much broader than
(7:18) that. um and sitting there on their
(7:22) hands while a completely radicalized
(7:25) ideology is taking over their schools.
(7:28) Um and why are they doing it? Because if
(7:30) they raise their hand and say anything,
(7:31) they're afraid little Britney might not
(7:33) might not get into Harvard that the the
(7:36) administrators will sabotage their
(7:38) recommendations or
(7:40) uh it it's literally that small a thing
(7:44) that's keeping them from saying
(7:45) anything. So they they are the sort of
(7:48) cowards who are the they're the people
(7:51) who fail at will. Um and I know a lot of
(7:55) these people actually I'm I'm friends
(7:58) with many and it was sort of a wakeup
(8:00) call to them. Uh and if none of that
(8:03) sounds funny uh I I I think the funny
(8:09) but um that that's the genesis I really
(8:11) wanted to take a jab at. the the
(8:14) original title of the book, by the way,
(8:15) was All the Lovely People, which was
(8:17) meant very cynically. And um my
(8:21) publisher didn't like that title. Um I I
(8:25) still think it's a better title. But the
(8:28) they said, "If you walk into a bookstore
(8:30) and see that title, you know, you're not
(8:32) going to know what that means, and
(8:33) you're not going to want to buy the
(8:34) book." They said, "There's this other
(8:35) book called um Flechman is in trouble,
(8:38) which became a Netflix series." And they
(8:41) said, "Well, you know, you go into the
(8:42) bookstore, you see the title. You want
(8:43) to Who's this Fuhman guy? Why is he in
(8:45) trouble?" So, you need a title like
(8:46) that. So, I came up with The Sanderson's
(8:49) Fail Manhattan. And they I I thought
(8:52) they would not like it. They loved it.
(8:53) So, that became the title. I I didn't
(8:56) make me change it, but you know, all
(8:58) they pushed pretty hard. And ultimately,
(8:59) I deferred to their um their wisdom
(9:02) because they knew more about selling
(9:04) books than than I do.
(9:06) >> So, was that Elanor Riby, all the lovely
(9:09) people?
(9:11) That was all the lonely people.
(9:13) >> Oh, sorry.
(9:16) >> Just the lovely people. So, lovely
(9:18) people are the cowards in my novel
(9:21) and and they the so they if they were
(9:24) sitting next to you at a dinner party,
(9:25) you would say, "Oh, she's perfectly
(9:28) lovely. She's successful and smart and
(9:30) she's on the board of uh you know Breley
(9:33) or or Chapen or Dalton and uh she's a
(9:37) marvelous inner companion and she's
(9:40) doing jack all while western
(9:43) civilization's being overthrown on her
(9:44) watch.
(9:46) >> No, it's an amazing thing. Um, you know,
(9:48) there's this joke, uh, two guys on safar
(9:51) safari, you know, doctor and a lawyer,
(9:53) and, uh, you know, they come come across
(9:55) a cougar or jaguar, whatever. And the
(9:59) lawyer's taking off all his backpacks
(10:00) and whatnot, and the doctor's like,
(10:02) "Cool." He calculates, "You'll never be
(10:03) able to outrun this tiger, jaguar,
(10:06) whatever." He says, "I don't have to
(10:07) outrun
(10:09) the tiger. I just have to outrun you."
(10:11) So, there's always this kind of concept
(10:13) that you're going to be the one
(10:14) surviving this threat. But but these
(10:17) schools the they you know the taos the
(10:20) reason for there being there is either
(10:22) as a finishing school one way or
(10:24) another. So you you know the girl
(10:25) schools I guess when they were made you
(10:27) know to get you properly acculturated
(10:29) not necessarily get into Harvard or Yale
(10:31) at the time um but to do something along
(10:34) those lines to maintain the society so
(10:37) that you would fit in with your spouse
(10:40) and whatnot and start families and you
(10:42) know lather rinse repeat.
(10:45) Well, the the the idea of finishing
(10:47) school is is um probably 70 or 80 years
(10:50) out of date, honestly. It's uh they want
(10:53) to get the the girl schools want to get
(10:55) their their girls into Harvard just like
(10:57) uh the the boy schools do.
(10:59) >> Yeah.
(10:59) >> And I will tell you, um you know, in in
(11:03) my novels, I draw a lot from actual
(11:06) things that happened. And uh there was
(11:09) there's a school called Spence in in New
(11:12) York City which is a very very prominent
(11:13) all girls school
(11:16) uh you know really good reputation but
(11:20) they were a font of of material for this
(11:24) book. uh from little things like they
(11:27) got rid of the the their rectangular
(11:31) dining room tables because at a
(11:34) rectangular table someone ends up
(11:36) sitting at the head of the table and
(11:38) that's a power imbalance and they say
(11:39) they replace them with round tables.
(11:41) That really happened and that's a great
(11:43) as a novelist you you make a a mental
(11:46) note of wonderful details like that but
(11:48) also bigger things. Um so this actually
(11:52) happened at Spence. Um they weren't this
(11:56) is this goes back you know say a dozen a
(11:58) dozen years. Um their girls had stopped
(12:01) getting into Yale and Spence had been
(12:04) somewhat of a Yale feeder. Um and I
(12:07) think they went four years in a row
(12:09) where not one girl got into Yale. And
(12:12) this was a crisis of sorts. So, the head
(12:16) of school was dispatched to go up to New
(12:18) Haven and meet with the head of
(12:20) admissions at Yale. Like, what's going
(12:22) on? And they were basically uh or she
(12:26) was basically spanked by Yale saying,
(12:28) you know, we view you as a neighborhood
(12:30) school for rich white girls, and that's
(12:32) just not what we're doing. And by the
(12:34) way, your curriculum is u you know, way
(12:39) too dead white Europeans. uh you know,
(12:42) you need more MyAngelou in there and um
(12:47) so
(12:49) Spence completely changed their
(12:52) curriculum. They did a lot of um
(12:55) outreach to other neighborhoods that
(12:57) were less uh prosperous to try and
(13:00) diversify. And I I don't think there's
(13:02) anything wrong with that. But the irony
(13:05) is that yes, they started getting kids
(13:07) into Yale. But it wasn't the uh legacy
(13:12) rich white girls from upper east side.
(13:14) It was the ones they were drawing from
(13:16) Harlem in the Bronx who um were getting
(13:20) trained up for Yale. And Yale was quite
(13:21) happy to have that happen, right? They
(13:23) were getting the people they wanted a
(13:25) little better trained than had they gone
(13:27) to PS whatever. Um, so that really
(13:30) happened at Spence 2 and um, it's it it
(13:34) was too good not to use.
(13:37) >> No, it's
(13:39) it it didn't really get any place at
(13:41) all. I mean, as far as getting their own
(13:43) wishes and own desires.
(13:46) >> No. Uh, and parents eventually realized
(13:50) there's only a couple ways for um, like
(13:54) rich white people to get into the the
(13:56) top Ivy League schools now. And that is
(14:00) um an extremely large check at Yale.
(14:04) That check, and this is several years
(14:06) out of date, that check is $20 million.
(14:09) >> Um that will basically guarantee you a
(14:12) spot, assuming your kid's not a
(14:15) $5 million gets your um your kids
(14:19) application
(14:21) carefully looked at, read a second time.
(14:23) Um and so that's one way in. another way
(14:27) in. Really the only other way in is um
(14:31) you're filling out a spot on a team
(14:34) because they do still care about
(14:35) athletics. So um the squash coaches and
(14:40) lacrosse coaches and fencing coaches in
(14:42) Greenwich, Connecticut are are very well
(14:44) employed.
(14:46) >> Yeah, it's funny. Um I I don't want to
(14:48) divert too much from the book, but two
(14:50) things couple things came to mind. One
(14:52) is that I belong to a squash and tennis
(14:54) club. squash player for a few decades
(14:56) and probably more tennis now. Um, but
(14:59) our club has a certain we're captained
(15:01) membership because we're in a
(15:02) neighborhood, quiet neighborhood. So, we
(15:04) only get a certain number of members. We
(15:05) have certain number of families who are
(15:06) allowed to have and a lot of them are
(15:10) don't even play. They're only there
(15:11) because our earthwash teacher,
(15:15) her son was a top at one point the top
(15:18) US player. So, she's got cache. She's a
(15:21) good teacher. All that kind of stuff. So
(15:22) people would join our club so that their
(15:25) kids could get the squash training, boys
(15:28) and girls, girls in particular. Um and
(15:32) and we would never see anything of their
(15:33) membership. They would just be there for
(15:35) lessons during the week. And you know,
(15:37) so it was really kind of nice for us
(15:38) because the place is full. We get paid.
(15:41) Um but you know, you can get a squash
(15:43) court when you want. You can get a
(15:44) tennis court when you want. On the other
(15:45) hand, there not enough players because a
(15:47) fair amount of the ballast of the
(15:49) membership is people who just want their
(15:51) kids to get into those schools. And it's
(15:53) the squash track that does it.
(15:57) >> And you, no question, squash is uh you
(16:00) know, I played squash at Yale and when I
(16:02) was there, the team was um there' be
(16:05) nine kids on the team. Uh, eight would
(16:07) be from New England boarding schools,
(16:09) one from the Philadelphia mainline
(16:11) somewhere, and now it's eight. Uh, now
(16:14) it's eight from uh New Zealand,
(16:17) Pakistan, Egypt, etc. And one kid from
(16:22) Brunswick and Greenwich. That's that's
(16:25) the breakdown now. And that kid plays
(16:26) number eight. Um, and so there's
(16:29) something else I wanted to poke fun of
(16:31) uh in the book, which is the um more
(16:36) exotic parts of the LGBT movement. Um,
(16:40) you know, that there are now about 50
(16:42) letters that go beyond that, LGBTIQ
(16:47) plus+.
(16:49) Um, and it's very, and I did this in
(16:51) campus land, too. I mean, it's it's
(16:54) self satirical some of these categories
(16:56) they have, but I do have a trans
(16:59) character that's a sort of central
(17:03) character in the novel.
(17:06) It is a boy transitioning to a girl who
(17:11) then uh gets into the all girls private
(17:14) school causing, you know, a bit of a bit
(17:17) of a fur. Not actually not a fear,
(17:19) mostly welcome with open arms. they they
(17:21) out and out recruit him slash her. Um,
(17:25) and the couple board members are like,
(17:28) well, you know what? Like this what are
(17:30) we going to do about locker rooms and
(17:31) and other things? But importantly, that
(17:35) character uh has was very emotionally
(17:39) confused and really almost pressured
(17:42) into the transition, which I think is I
(17:46) don't think I know is something that
(17:48) happens a lot. And there were all sorts
(17:50) of people around that character who were
(17:54) encouraging and proddding and the the
(17:56) parents in particular make social media
(17:58) hey out of their kids transition. And
(18:01) this all adds to that charact that that
(18:03) character is actually sort of a
(18:04) sympathetic character. It's the people
(18:06) around him/ her that are horrible
(18:09) people. And I think that's an accurate
(18:12) assessment of what goes on a lot.
(18:15) >> Yeah. No, it's there. I I I can't
(18:18) remember the name of the uh one who sort
(18:19) of a tree um tree hugging uh whatever
(18:24) that is. Um
(18:26) what's your character there who's kind
(18:28) of a tween not one of the girls but
(18:30) >> oh um uh oh my god um that's my favorite
(18:35) character. Um
(18:37) it's um oh my god I can't I'm not
(18:40) remember my own character but yeah she's
(18:42) the best character in the book. Uh, oh
(18:45) my god, I'm having a
(18:46) >> What's the name of the category? I
(18:48) forget.
(18:49) >> Senior moment. Uh, she is um Goblin Cor.
(18:53) >> Yeah, there you go. Yeah.
(18:55) >> Um, and she is That's a real thing, by
(18:59) the way. I didn't make that up. That's
(19:01) people who um aspire to and have a love
(19:06) of goblin culture. And so that is a
(19:08) rejection of beauty and an embrace of of
(19:14) dirt and moss and
(19:17) brown and you know just uh twigs in your
(19:21) hair and
(19:23) uh that was by far the most fun
(19:25) character to write.
(19:28) >> Yeah. Uh she's
(19:30) >> and she's doing it cynically.
(19:31) >> Yeah. No, there's a fair amount of the
(19:33) cynicism there on her part. um
(19:36) [clears throat] and on the parents of
(19:37) the uh transing thing and I think you're
(19:41) absolutely right as a part you know how
(19:43) how it becomes kind of a a social medal
(19:45) a social you know award that you
(19:48) bequeath upon yourself and you see
(19:49) pieces like you know Chariss Theron and
(19:51) Naomi Watts and all these actresses you
(19:53) know who have totally disproportionate
(19:56) share of kids you know switching one way
(19:58) or the other you know Angelina whatnot
(20:00) it seems like they they accumulate the
(20:02) kids on one level and then it's like
(20:04) then it becomes all part of their own um
(20:08) you know ego extension you know we see
(20:10) in Hollywood
(20:13) >> statistically it can't be right you
(20:16) cannot possibly have three kids who are
(20:19) all non-binary queer whatever um that
(20:23) can only happen if you're actively
(20:25) encouraging the situation and and
(20:28) contributing to your the the ill mental
(20:31) health of your own children [snorts]
(20:34) Yeah, it's a it's a funny thing and a
(20:37) sadness, you know. It's it's
(20:39) >> Clover. Clover.
(20:40) >> Oh, there we go.
(20:42) >> I I I don't know why I took it took me a
(20:45) moment, but Clover, my favorite
(20:46) character by far.
(20:47) >> Yeah. Um,
(20:50) is is this one uh on its way to being a
(20:53) series, a movie, a
(20:56) >> I think it it Well, if Campus Land gets
(20:59) made, I would say definitely yes. and
(21:01) the people who are trying to make Campus
(21:03) Land love this book, too. Uh, it's kind
(21:05) of a one thing at a time. Uh, and I
(21:09) think it would make a fun a fun series.
(21:13) Uh, but we'll see. It's Hollywood. They
(21:16) are trying right now with Campus Land.
(21:18) They're going through the major players,
(21:21) the big streamers and so forth. They
(21:24) want it to be a four year a four season
(21:27) show. each season representing one year
(21:29) of college as you follow these
(21:31) characters through through college.
(21:33) >> And so that they're going to the big
(21:36) players now. If the big players don't
(21:38) work out, they're going to go to there
(21:40) are a few sort of more ideologically
(21:42) based so conservative
(21:45) producers out there that'll make stuff.
(21:46) I mean, for instance, Sean Handy has a
(21:49) some kind of production company and
(21:51) they'll make some content. So that
(21:53) that's less that's a narrower market
(21:58) that you'd be appealing to and you'd be
(22:00) you'd kind of be get pegged and so they
(22:03) they don't want to go that route. They
(22:05) don't have to but they really want to
(22:07) get it made. So
(22:09) >> that's a wonderful thing. So, you know,
(22:11) Tom Wolf's son, uh, I actually the only
(22:13) time I ever kind of met him, I didn't
(22:16) really meet him, but I was in the same
(22:18) vicinity as him. Uh, not different
(22:20) stands watching the US Open squash in
(22:22) Boston. His son play, I believe, played
(22:25) at Yale. Um, you know, I I don't know if
(22:28) you ever got a chance to meet him or did
(22:30) you pattern yourself on his work at all?
(22:33) Well, I actually play tennis with the
(22:35) son now and then and um who was a squash
(22:39) player at Trinity. Um the father, yes, I
(22:42) knew Tom Wolf. I'm not going to claim we
(22:45) were good friends or anything. Uh you
(22:47) know, he was a fair bit older, but when
(22:50) he was researching Bonfire, he spent uh
(22:53) two days on my trading desk at Solomon
(22:55) Brothers
(22:56) >> for real.
(22:57) >> Yeah. Uh which was a great treat. Uh
(23:00) asking all sorts of questions. what does
(23:02) that mean? What's that guy doing? Um,
(23:04) and he internalized a lot of it very
(23:06) well. Um,
(23:08) and years later, u he, um, I got to I
(23:13) saw him, um, here on Long Island and,
(23:17) uh, I had just reread Bonfire the Vandy
(23:19) sort of as a way to prep for writing
(23:22) Campus Land. and I saw him and I went up
(23:26) and we chatted for a while about it and
(23:29) about how we'd met years earlier so
(23:31) forth. Uh obviously he's great. Uh he's
(23:34) a hero of mine and he did write a campus
(23:37) book by the way. It's called I am
(23:38) Charlotte.
(23:38) >> Hang on. I I I was thinking of yours of
(23:41) that when I read yours because I I'm
(23:44) he's he's in my pantheon and um I am
(23:47) Charlotte Simmons is a great book.
(23:50) >> I'm not I'm not going to agree with you
(23:51) there. I don't think I don't think it
(23:53) was one of his better efforts. It was a
(23:54) bit weird. I mean, there was a 20page
(23:56) date rape scene. Um, and I just don't
(23:59) think he found his groove. And maybe
(24:01) things weren't quite woke enough when he
(24:03) wrote it. Like, it wasn't about wokeness
(24:06) or anything. Um, so maybe he just hadn't
(24:10) maybe the culture hadn't gotten quite
(24:11) crazy enough. So, I I mean, I'm a huge
(24:15) fan, but I just don't think that was his
(24:17) best work.
(24:18) >> Which which do you like?
(24:20) Well, there's Bonfire, uh, The Right
(24:23) Stuff, F incredible. Um, the book he
(24:27) wrote, uh, Radical Chic. Then that's
(24:31) very, very similar to the theme of
(24:33) Sanderson's, you know, was about a upper
(24:37) east side, uh, cocktail party for, you
(24:40) know, rich people who were supporting
(24:42) the Black Panthers in the 60s. um with
(24:46) you know and all tripping over each
(24:47) other to be seen with a black panther
(24:49) who who wants to burn them all down but
(24:52) he'll use them you know first
(24:55) um so that um thematically carries over
(24:58) into my work in a big way
(25:01) >> and I and I like the man in full quite a
(25:03) bit too
(25:03) >> yeah I really like man in full bonfire
(25:05) the van bonfire the vanities um our top
(25:09) top um my wife is reading the she just
(25:13) finished the one that takes place in
(25:14) Miami. Um,
(25:16) >> I read that too. That was that was not
(25:18) quite as good. You know, there's this
(25:20) phenomenon that happens to successful
(25:22) writers. Um,
(25:24) as they become really big, their editors
(25:28) lose control of them. And you saw that
(25:32) with Tom Clancy, you see it with um
(25:35) Stephen King, and you certainly saw it
(25:38) with Tom Wolf. the books getting longer
(25:40) and longer and they're poorly edited and
(25:42) u I thought that book and see you and I
(25:46) aren't even remembering the name of that
(25:47) book [laughter] but um it was okay but
(25:51) >> yeah know I started it I had the reason
(25:53) she read it because I had it around and
(25:55) I got I you know I like Tom Wolf book
(25:58) you know and I I plowed into it and it
(26:00) plowed back so I just kind of uh gave up
(26:03) after a little bit um didn't captivate
(26:06) quite as much Um but you know I I the
(26:11) similarity I notic is that you are able
(26:14) to pick up you know you have your ear to
(26:16) the tracks enough that you can pick up
(26:18) the things that are happening. You form
(26:20) the paste and you are able to embody a
(26:22) lot of the theories in in you know often
(26:25) lovable people you know that are kind of
(26:28) bumbling along um trying to make sense
(26:31) of the world or deal with it. They're
(26:33) not necessarily you know understanding
(26:34) the social criticism of their own lives.
(26:36) they want to just kind of get through
(26:37) and get by. Um,
(26:41) >> you know, if you're if you're a writer,
(26:42) you especially if you write social
(26:44) satire, which is pretty narrow c
(26:46) category. My my editor once told me, no
(26:49) one walks into Barnes & Noble and asks
(26:50) where the satire section is, but you
(26:54) have your ear to the ground and you you
(26:56) store things away. You don't invent
(26:59) things so much as you observe them. And
(27:03) I mean just the other day I heard
(27:05) someone use a great phrase. They
(27:07) describe someone else as emotionally
(27:09) incontinent. I thought, "Wow, that's
(27:12) good." I mean, I could base an entire
(27:14) character on being emotionally
(27:17) incontinent. And I think we've all known
(27:19) that person at some point in our lives.
(27:21) Um, I'll tell you a Tom Wolf story. Um,
(27:24) you know, it was a story that he
(27:26) scrolled away for
(27:29) my math suggests it was probably 13, 14
(27:33) years. If at the very beginning of
(27:35) Bonfire, there's a pivotal scene that
(27:38) sets the plot in motion where Shervin
(27:40) McCoy, the protagonist, the rich Park
(27:44) Avenue guy,
(27:46) decides to walk his dog in the pouring
(27:48) rain. And his wife points out, A, he
(27:50) never walks the dog, and B, it's pouring
(27:52) rain. Why are you walking the dog,
(27:53) Sherman? He just insists he has to walk
(27:56) the dog. What he's really doing is
(27:58) giving away to a pay phone. This is the
(28:00) 1980s.
(28:02) And uh to call his mistress and by have
(28:05) it though, he dials his home phone
(28:08) number and his wife answers the when his
(28:10) wife answers the phone, he asks for his
(28:11) mistress by name. And the gig is up and
(28:14) that sets the book into motion. Well, I
(28:18) discovered somewhat recently that that
(28:21) really happened and it was three people
(28:24) who I I knew all three of them. They
(28:26) were all friends of my parents. Um I I
(28:29) knew the mistress and I knew the couple.
(28:32) And um you know I it I think it probably
(28:35) happened in about 1972 or three and
(28:40) Bonfire came out in maybe 87. So you
(28:43) know he sat on, you know, I can use that
(28:45) someday. that that's a funny thing. And
(28:48) so, you know, sometimes we aren't clever
(28:51) enough to invent these things. I'll give
(28:52) you one more great example. It's
(28:53) something I sat on for decades um that I
(28:56) used in Campus Land. One of my
(28:58) fraternity brothers who's a year or two
(29:00) behind me. He was a wrestler and he was
(29:04) he took an art history class because he
(29:05) heard it was easy. And the assignment
(29:07) was go to the El Art Gallery and choose
(29:10) a well-represented artist and write a
(29:13) three to five page paper on that
(29:16) artist's stylistic u arc. And so he goes
(29:21) to the art gallery where you know he'd
(29:24) never been and he starts walking around
(29:26) looking at all the little white cards
(29:28) next to the paintings and he notices one
(29:31) artist who's really well represented. So
(29:35) he writes a paper that he's very proud
(29:36) of of the incredibly long career and
(29:39) stylistic progression of the artist
(29:41) Circa.
(29:43) [laughter]
(29:45) This really happened. Okay, this this
(29:50) he took he gets the paper back and the
(29:53) TA doesn't even write F. He the TA just
(29:56) writes, "Are you a moron?" in big red
(29:59) letters. And he doesn't understand
(30:01) what's happened. So he shows it to his
(30:03) roommate
(30:05) uh who I also knew and the roommate
(30:07) starts cracking up and he runs into the
(30:09) dining hall where I happen to be sitting
(30:12) waving this thing around. It it really
(30:14) happened, right? I'm not clever enough
(30:17) to make that up. So I reuse that for
(30:18) Campus Lane. And and by the way, that
(30:21) guy postcript, that guy went on to be
(30:23) number one in his Navy Seal um class and
(30:27) then he went on to found a very
(30:29) prominent private school. So, you never
(30:32) know, but but it really happened. Uh,
(30:35) and it sounds like something that's an
(30:37) urban legend, but no,
(30:39) >> that's really great. You know, I I had
(30:42) this it's not anything on on that part,
(30:45) but um when I was at Yale,
(30:48) [clears throat] the dining halls, I was
(30:50) probably a senior, junior senior. And
(30:53) and because in France, April Fool's Day
(30:55) is called a pas April fish. And the I
(30:59) don't know why fish are funny. I don't
(31:01) know. And so um in the in the water
(31:05) pictures on the tables, somebody had put
(31:07) goldfish all throughout the whole dining
(31:09) hall. So that was going to be like a
(31:10) cute thing as April Fool's Day. And you
(31:13) know this whole thing about in the in
(31:14) the 50s there was a kind of a prank
(31:16) where people ate goldfish whole. Um so I
(31:20) remember that.
(31:20) >> Yeah. So long. So there the goldfish
(31:23) were there and they actually had carrots
(31:26) at the, you know, dining hall, whatever.
(31:28) So I got some carrots which look like
(31:30) goldfish. I, you know, I don't if they
(31:31) came already sliced or whatever. So I
(31:34) palmed a couple of these carrot pieces.
(31:36) I reached my hand into the water bowl
(31:38) and I pulled out the carrot and I, you
(31:40) know, it's wiggling and I just swallowed
(31:43) the carrot. and uh these guys at the
(31:46) other table who were, you know, a year
(31:48) or younger and I don't know, aggressive
(31:51) and whatever, they just wanted to oneup
(31:52) us. This guy came over and he's like,
(31:55) "That's nothing." And he just like
(31:57) reached in and grabbed all the actual
(31:59) goldfish and popped them all in his
(32:00) mouth and swallowed them. [laughter]
(32:03) So So I I took another carrot and I This
(32:06) time I'm showing him it's a carrot. And
(32:08) I took the carrot, I put it in, I
(32:10) reached out, I chewed on the carrot. I'm
(32:13) like, I wonder how yours tasted. And he
(32:16) had this look of, you know, kind of a
(32:17) false victory like he had won the
(32:19) battle, lost the war. Um, but it's just
(32:22) I mean, I I I don't know where to put
(32:24) that. But the interesting thing about
(32:25) that was that um I I mentioned that to
(32:29) some of my friends just on you know his
(32:31) email and um
(32:34) everybody said I was the one who did
(32:36) that. that he himself, whoever I wrote
(32:39) to, it's like, "No, no, I was the one
(32:40) who did the thing with the with the
(32:42) carrot." And it's like, "Wow, am I
(32:44) having like a false memory?" Because I I
(32:46) have remember having the carrot in my
(32:48) hand. I remember the look and this guy
(32:50) didn't like me to begin with. I I I know
(32:52) I remember his name and everything like
(32:53) that. So, but three other people at the
(32:56) table
(32:58) claimed that was their action. It's kind
(33:01) of like Rashimon in reverse or
(33:03) something. I don't know.
(33:05) Well, there were a lot of people at
(33:06) Woodstock who weren't there, right?
(33:08) [laughter]
(33:09) >> Yeah. There was a there was a a this is
(33:11) like 20 30 years ago in Boston. Uh you
(33:13) know, one of those little trolley lines
(33:15) in right downtown, very small cars and
(33:18) uh middle of the day. It was quiet and
(33:20) it it hit something or whatever. So, uh
(33:23) they were going to like, you know, some
(33:25) people are in pain or something like
(33:26) that. They all brought them upstairs on
(33:29) the on the commons and they were going
(33:31) to get there. you know, somebody from
(33:32) the city was going to come and take the
(33:34) complaints. Now, by the time they took
(33:35) the complaints, there were like 400
(33:37) complaints from a car that had held
(33:40) like, you know, 12 people at the time.
(33:41) Everybody, you know, everybody in the
(33:44) area once they heard of an accident,
(33:45) they all came around for their neck
(33:46) pain. Um, so they the city never figured
(33:50) it out. No video cameras. They couldn't
(33:52) uh parse that out. But, you know, humans
(33:55) are funny. There's this uh you know,
(33:57) kind of to get yours. Um but just to
(34:01) kind of circle back to the your your
(34:03) stories of you know uh Campus Land and
(34:06) the Sand Sanderson's um and Bonfire the
(34:10) Vanities the Bonfire of the Vanities you
(34:13) know really is is kind of the George
(34:15) Floyd era is it not
(34:19) >> well Bonfire was in the 80s. I know. I
(34:22) know. But did did that that whole kind
(34:24) of Al Sharpton narrative, you know, is
(34:28) >> Oh, it was a pre precursor for sure.
(34:31) >> But it just I mean all all during the
(34:32) George Floyd era, I just felt like it's
(34:35) bonfire the vanities. It's just like the
(34:38) everything's kind of taking over.
(34:40) Well, the very beginning of political
(34:42) correctness was a the the term political
(34:46) correctness in terms of its adaptation
(34:49) white usage dates to sort of the early
(34:52) middle8s
(34:54) and that's when race stuff really
(34:57) started to take off and guys like Jesse
(34:59) Jackson and Al Sharpton started their
(35:02) their big griffs. Um, so but over the
(35:05) years polit you don't hear political
(35:07) correctness anymore because it evolved
(35:08) into woke, which is an even more sort of
(35:11) pernicious version of it, but it's just
(35:14) been steadily growing and I've been
(35:15) chronicling it for years. And people
(35:18) keep telling me, "Oh, you were early at
(35:20) Campus Land." I'm like, "No, I was just
(35:21) paying attention." I mean, I wrote
(35:23) Campus Land at maybe 17, 18, and it came
(35:27) out in 19. And uh you know peak woke was
(35:32) 2020 2021 and we're still pretty woke
(35:36) right and we've gotten rid of some of
(35:37) the worst excesses but we're still quite
(35:41) woke anyway. It had been getting worse
(35:43) and worse and worse in academia in
(35:45) particular for decades dating all the
(35:48) way back to the early 80s.
(35:50) Well really dating back to the 50s. I
(35:52) mean
(35:54) Buckley wrote God and man at Yale in 52
(35:57) I think.
(35:57) >> Yeah. Yeah, a lot of this stuff's not
(35:58) new. My wife's a classicist and
(36:03) you know, arguably this this, you know,
(36:06) it's I don't know, it's human trait or a
(36:08) civilizational trait. You know, you you
(36:10) know, kind of that ancycosis the thing
(36:12) where, you know, hard hard times make uh
(36:17) hard men, hard men make good times, good
(36:20) times make soft men, soft men's bring
(36:22) hard times. you know that
(36:26) uh whatever that's called ancycllosis or
(36:28) something like that. Um and and it just
(36:30) seems like when we have good stuff,
(36:34) people don't they can't mesh, you know,
(36:37) with their deservingness and and you
(36:41) know, they they feel guilty about having
(36:43) something. Um you know, it just I don't
(36:47) know that that wasn't quite as prevalent
(36:48) when I was a kid. I don't know about
(36:50) you. I mean, you you were in New York
(36:52) City. I I grew up in in Riverdale and I
(36:55) went to Horus, man. What was your New
(36:56) York City
(36:58) experience?
(37:00) >> As a kid?
(37:01) >> Yeah.
(37:03) >> Well, um,
(37:05) you know, as a kid, you you do kid
(37:08) things no matter where you are. And in
(37:11) retrospect, growing up in Manhattan is a
(37:13) strange place to grow up, but we would
(37:16) play uh whiffle ball in the large alley
(37:19) behind our apartment building for hours.
(37:21) And you know, we we'd play um various
(37:25) ball, you know, catch and catch games
(37:27) out on the street, you know, the
(37:28) sidewalks. And um you know, you sort of
(37:31) make do. Uh the Upper East Side was a
(37:34) bit of an island then. you didn't really
(37:37) go
(37:39) outside of it. Brooklyn would might as
(37:41) well have been a foreign country to me
(37:44) when I was growing up. Um, and so it's
(37:47) much [clears throat] much less like that
(37:49) now. I mean, it's funny that my my our
(37:53) children's generation, they don't want
(37:54) to set foot on the Upper East Side. They
(37:56) think it's a boring neighborhood in New
(37:58) York. And it's actually one of the least
(37:59) expensive neighborhoods in New York now,
(38:01) excluding Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue.
(38:03) Uh, which is really kind of funny. um
(38:06) they all want to live on the lower east
(38:07) side and um lower west side, you know,
(38:12) the village, you know, they no one lives
(38:15) on the upper east side and a lot of them
(38:17) wouldn't be cut down on the upper west
(38:18) side either. Uh that's for uh you know,
(38:22) older Jewish people basically.
(38:25) So, it Manhattan changed a lot, but the
(38:29) ways of the Upper East Side in terms of
(38:31) the Park Avenue over to Fifth Avenue
(38:34) crowd um have not changed that much.
(38:37) There's still the same clubs, the same
(38:39) schools,
(38:40) um some of the same mores. Um but
(38:46) woke happened and it took over, you
(38:50) know, philosoph philosophically took
(38:52) over a lot of the institutions. It
(38:53) wasn't just schools. It was, you know,
(38:55) the Ford Foundation and and other very
(38:57) prominent institutions all became quite
(39:00) radicalized.
(39:02) I actually know three board members of
(39:04) the Ford Foundation and I ride them
(39:05) pretty hard because they're all um
(39:08) they're all center right, I would say.
(39:11) But the Ford Foundation is in terms of
(39:13) how they distribute money is radical. Um
(39:17) so I'm like, come on, do something about
(39:19) it. Don't just add this to your resume.
(39:23) So that's changed. The a lot of the
(39:25) social stuff though remains the same.
(39:27) The charity balls and things like that.
(39:30) So this weird juxosition of those two
(39:34) cultures, the woke culture and the
(39:36) society culture are, you know, it it was
(39:38) worth writing about.
(39:40) >> Yeah. It's at the Metropolitan Club. You
(39:42) know, I I
(39:45) I'm I'm you know, Jewish heritage and
(39:48) grew up in Riverdale in the Bronx. And
(39:50) um my parents were okay, you know, kind
(39:52) of middle classish, but probably on the
(39:55) lower end cuz they put us in private
(39:58) school without having the cash to do it.
(40:00) So I was in like a we were in a
(40:02) one-bedroom, 1.5 bedroomedroom
(40:05) rent control apartment for five of us.
(40:07) Those tight. Um so I didn't get all
(40:11) that. Um but you know I I I saw the kind
(40:15) of the class system more probably coming
(40:17) you know hitting Yale. I saw some of the
(40:20) stratifications and so forth. Um and you
(40:23) know people aspired to that. I mean
(40:25) there was kind of a preppy envy. Um and
(40:28) you know there was a time kind of the
(40:30) era of spy magazine whatnot with a
(40:32) preppy look um was was you know vaunted
(40:35) and valued and you know Ann Taylor for
(40:38) girls and um it was you know something
(40:41) that people understood that had been a
(40:43) pathway to success that there was you
(40:46) know this kind of I mean it's an epithet
(40:49) in a way but the wasp you know work
(40:51) culture had brought a lot of wealth to
(40:54) the US and people aspired to that they
(40:56) wanted to be that, you know, what what
(40:58) what's what's the next thing that
(41:00) happens? I mean, it seems like right now
(41:02) as part of the kind of eating yourself,
(41:04) you know, you you take your kids, you
(41:06) don't you're going to sacrifice not just
(41:07) your kids, but your grandkids. You know,
(41:09) you can't have grandkids from a trans
(41:12) and and a lot of the other aspects of
(41:15) continuity of society. You take these
(41:17) institutions and that you you kind of
(41:19) allow them to be, you know, inverted for
(41:22) purpose and whatnot. It just, you know,
(41:25) I don't know. I mean it doesn't you know
(41:27) I think there there's always going to be
(41:28) some ruling party there always going to
(41:29) be some aristocracy the question is
(41:32) which one is it going to be Zoron
(41:33) Mandani you know which is like openly
(41:35) antagonistic and I think less you know
(41:38) endeavoring towards uh the goals of you
(41:42) know getting people up and out I I don't
(41:44) know I mean what what what's your
(41:46) perspective
(41:49) >> someone's always going to be on top and
(41:50) hopefully it's a meritocracy and it's
(41:52) people who've worked hard and and uh
(41:55) and and succeeded through their own grit
(41:57) and um and clever ideas. And I I think
(42:03) America has never been perfectly that,
(42:06) but it's certainly been more that than
(42:08) any place else in the world. And I think
(42:12) the Mandami left wants to completely
(42:14) destroy that. to them meritocracy is
(42:18) racist
(42:20) literally
(42:21) because the winners don't fall perfectly
(42:24) on the demographic lines they want to
(42:27) fall. So we will you know if they get
(42:30) what they want you'll see the inevitable
(42:32) results of socialism which will be there
(42:35) there will be oh I'm sorry let me just
(42:39) get rid of that. Okay.
(42:42) Um
(42:44) hopefully that doesn't ring again. Um
(42:48) there'll be though there will be a
(42:49) ruling class, but we'll it will be
(42:51) people who navigate the political
(42:52) landscape and claw their way to the top
(42:54) of the political class. And you know the
(42:57) AOCC's and the Lizard Darren of the
(43:00) world all want here's a great example.
(43:03) They want the big AI companies to
(43:05) literally give a chunk of their
(43:08) companies to the government and then
(43:10) they'll control that equity and decide
(43:12) who gets it and you know who benefits
(43:14) and who doesn't which is exactly what
(43:16) they want. Um and whereas Trump has
(43:20) created Trump accounts which bypasses
(43:22) the political class and NOS's entirely
(43:25) the money goes straight to kids which is
(43:27) which is fabulous. But I you know I
(43:30) spent a lot of time um trying to
(43:32) understand the progressive mind and
(43:35) their motivations. Um, and
(43:38) what's very clear is there is a
(43:41) intellectual class that is always drawn
(43:43) to leftism.
(43:45) And I these are the people I who I I
(43:48) really really uh despise to be blunt.
(43:52) And the reason they're drawn to leftism
(43:54) is because they they resent the fact
(43:56) that our free society and capitalist
(44:00) system rewards people who actually make
(44:02) things and do things.
(44:05) uh who who create companies uh and a lot
(44:08) of times these people don't have the Ivy
(44:11) League credentials that they have and
(44:12) and really and what they're producing is
(44:15) a bunch of words mostly they produce
(44:17) ideas almost all of them are bad ideas
(44:20) they don't actually make anything but
(44:22) they're very smart people who have very
(44:24) fancy degrees and they resent uh all
(44:28) these people out there who don't have
(44:29) their fancy degrees who are making lots
(44:31) more money than they are. they think
(44:33) they should be running things and they
(44:34) have a bunch of ideas of how to run
(44:36) things. So the best way to get that is
(44:40) uh to centralize things in centralize
(44:44) power where they can get it which is in
(44:46) NOS's and the government primarily and
(44:50) so this is why uh they're attracted to
(44:53) leftist ideas and always have been
(44:54) because then they get to run things
(44:57) they're rewarded for their their
(44:59) cleverness and the they can just take
(45:02) from the makers.
(45:03) >> Yeah. [clears throat] No, it's a
(45:04) politics. I it's not my coinage, but you
(45:06) know, socialism, communism is the
(45:09) politics of envy. You know, you you you
(45:12) see something and and moreover, it's
(45:13) it's the capture of those things that
(45:15) you envy. Um, [snorts] I've got some uh
(45:19) close relatives and and uh one guys on
(45:22) the left, very, [clears throat]
(45:24) you know, very accomplished Ivy League
(45:29) other, you know, graduate degree and all
(45:31) that kind of stuff. And yet, you know,
(45:33) life has not been good to him. Uh or
(45:35) maybe he hasn't been good to life. And
(45:37) you know, that gives him an outlook
(45:39) that, you know, the system is rigged.
(45:42) And um anybody who gets it, you know,
(45:44) there's a concept that you know, people
(45:45) who have wealth have stolen something,
(45:48) you know, and and
(45:50) you know, there's basically two
(45:52) different ways of looking at it. You
(45:53) know, all the things the incredible
(45:55) wealth around. I mean, I would rather be
(45:58) impoverished in 2026 than probably, you
(46:01) know, viceroy in, you know, 1854,
(46:04) you know, as far as creature comforts go
(46:06) and running water and toilets and
(46:08) central heating and in my case a CPAT
(46:11) machine and what, you know, various
(46:14) things that that make life, you know,
(46:16) better and more comfortable and so
(46:17) forth. Um, and those things didn't
(46:19) happen because humans are so wonderfully
(46:22) generous. they happen because you know
(46:24) you're get rewarded for coming up with
(46:27) something that benefits other people. Um
(46:30) >> well AOC and you know Bernie and and
(46:33) that whole crowd they they don't think a
(46:35) a trillionaire should be allowed to
(46:37) exist and you know Elon Musk is a
(46:40) trillionaire because he came up with a
(46:42) lot of he works really really hard and
(46:44) he came up with a lot of great ideas and
(46:45) he started with nothing. He's a classic
(46:47) American success story and and frankly
(46:50) he's probably the most impactful and
(46:52) influential person in a thousand years.
(46:54) >> Um I mean he's an American hero as far
(46:57) as I'm concerned. Uh in fact when
(46:59) everybody was firebombing the Tesla
(47:01) dealers I went out and bought one just
(47:02) to spite
(47:03) >> absolutely I had no
(47:05) >> I've got two
(47:06) >> I had no interest in electric car
(47:08) honestly. But the thing is great and now
(47:10) I'm totally hooked. It is the best car.
(47:12) >> Yeah. So, so do you uh let it uh drive
(47:15) itself?
(47:17) >> I haven't done that because I I just
(47:18) kind of like driving. Um
(47:20) >> I got to tell you, I mean,
(47:21) >> the car drives so well.
(47:23) >> I I do both. I mean, I like driving. On
(47:25) the way home, I don't just do a little
(47:27) zipping, but uh the FASD is just an
(47:30) incredible thing for clarification of
(47:33) thought while you're driving. And you
(47:34) still have to be pilot co-pilot. I don't
(47:37) want to It's not This is not an episode
(47:38) about that, but um I've got two Teslas.
(47:41) Um, one one guy I played tennis with uh
(47:44) texted me, well, he actually he called
(47:47) it my swastika carar.
(47:50) >> Very,
(47:50) >> oh my god,
(47:51) >> very clever.
(47:53) >> Um,
(47:54) >> you know, they actually I I debate with
(47:57) myself, do they actually think he was
(47:59) giving a Nazi salute? I think some
(48:01) people think he was. I mean, it's just
(48:02) preposterous. Um, and then of course,
(48:05) you know, you come up with all these
(48:06) examples of Elizabeth Warren and AOC
(48:08) doing, you know, doing the same thing.
(48:10) Um,
(48:11) >> oh, it's
(48:11) >> because they're called in the moment
(48:13) where they're waving, right?
(48:14) >> Yeah.
(48:14) >> Um, these people are insane.
(48:17) >> Yeah. And it's what if you do this like
(48:18) you make an okay sign, you know, it's
(48:21) all these things retroactively that they
(48:22) decided that that mean certain things
(48:25) when they want to mean it. If you on the
(48:26) other hand, if you, you know, actually
(48:28) have a a totem tattoo, you can run for
(48:30) Senate. I mean it's like
(48:33) you know the So um what are do you have
(48:37) another novel in you or what what do you
(48:40) I have two half-written novels. I still
(48:42) have the art book. Um and I also have a
(48:45) book a road novel. Um
(48:48) that I'm that's the one I'm actively
(48:50) working on. Um
(48:53) [snorts] by the road I mean you know the
(48:55) American road which I love. I love road
(48:57) trips and and the vast spaces we have
(49:00) and that all our Europeans, your our
(49:03) European friends have been discovering
(49:04) during the World Cup and so the wonders
(49:07) of uh the the vastness of middle middle
(49:10) America and the world's largest ball of
(49:12) twine and things like that. You know,
(49:14) these these things fascinate me. So,
(49:16) I've wo together into
(49:19) I think an interesting
(49:20) >> Speaking of speaking of the ball of
(49:21) twine, I I was quoting uh from an
(49:24) article I wrote recently. Um
(49:28) we'll get to that later. But u one of my
(49:30) favorite books as a kid was The Big Ball
(49:32) of String. Have you ever read that? Did
(49:34) you read that as a kid?
(49:35) >> I don't know.
(49:35) >> So, it's a little bit like Elon Musk. Uh
(49:39) this kid is confined to bed. It's not
(49:41) COVID, but he's got the cold or
(49:42) something like that. and he's sick and
(49:44) his mom's like, "You have to stay in
(49:45) bed." So, he's got a big ball of string.
(49:48) He's got little to do. Um, no TV in the
(49:50) room, no, you know, 1950s book or
(49:52) whatever. So, he's got a big ball of
(49:54) string. He engineers everything so he
(49:56) can operate everything while he's
(49:58) technically still in bed. So, he can get
(50:01) I don't know how, you know, it's a book.
(50:02) It's kids book. And so, the idea is like
(50:04) ingenuity conquers. Um, and the big ball
(50:07) of string, you know, I I had George
(50:10) Gilder on my show uh probably three
(50:12) times now. And you know, the difference
(50:15) between us and I don't know thousand
(50:18) years ago or 10,000 100 thousand years
(50:20) ago. I mean, there's still sand except
(50:22) we turn the sand into silicon chips.
(50:25) There's lightning, but we have turned
(50:26) electricity and together we can make a
(50:28) computer and so forth. And we can do all
(50:30) these incredible big ball of string
(50:32) things. you know, we we take the common
(50:34) items and we can turn them into, you
(50:36) know, objects of ingenuity. Um, but
(50:39) actually I want you can touch on that if
(50:41) you like, but I actually wanted to segue
(50:42) to something that's on my mind because I
(50:44) saw Anthony Hopkins. It's 88 and he's um
(50:48) producing a a symphony. He's he's
(50:51) apparently was a musician before he was
(50:53) an actor. He played piano at age five
(50:55) and he loves music and he has the
(50:57) opportunity wherewithal and he's still
(50:59) got enough you know kind of verve in him
(51:01) at 88 um to you know have a symph
(51:04) symphony and he's going to have it
(51:06) produced and so the concept is you know
(51:08) about creativity you know in his case he
(51:11) has the opportunity he had the wealth
(51:13) and the you know to do this I'm not sure
(51:15) every 88-year-old is able to get his
(51:17) pieces composed in front of an orchestra
(51:19) you know unless you're named Anthony
(51:20) Hopkins or maybe MC Jagger or something
(51:23) like that um but Scott Johnston you know
(51:26) is was the creativity there is this
(51:28) something you found you nurtured you
(51:30) kind of stumbled upon and then you know
(51:32) how would you if you had your you know
(51:34) time machine would you rejigger this so
(51:37) you're writing novels or doing what you
(51:39) had been doing what you had been doing
(51:41) kind of help lubricate the the creative
(51:43) process I'm curious about the creative
(51:45) process as we age
(51:49) >> so I'm glad you asked that I I have made
(51:52) a bit of the study of creativity because
(51:54) it fascinates me and I I get asked a lot
(51:57) about how do you write a novel? What's
(51:59) your process? Where does it come from?
(52:01) And there's a scene in um Get Back, the
(52:05) Beatles documentary. So, I'm a bit of a
(52:07) Beatles file. And it's about a nine-hour
(52:11) documentary. You have to really be into
(52:12) the Beatles to like it, but if you're
(52:14) into the Beatles, it's great. And
(52:16) there's a scene where Paul they're just
(52:17) sort of sitting around in the studio
(52:19) noodling on their instruments and Paul
(52:20) McCartney is um uh he's playing around
(52:25) with this Hoffner bass and he's
(52:27) strumming it a bit like a rhythm guitar,
(52:29) you know, sort of making chords and um
(52:32) doesn't sound like anything and he's
(52:34) mumbling the nonsense words. But as you
(52:37) listen to it, all of a sudden it takes
(52:39) form and you hear what would become the
(52:42) song Get Back. like, "Oh my god, that's
(52:44) the moment Get Back was born." But it
(52:46) was just at that point just a little bit
(52:49) of a chord progression.
(52:51) And so, same thing with novels. They
(52:53) don't arrive fully hatched. Um, they
(52:56) they arrive with the current, you know,
(52:59) creative endeavors. And I, by the way,
(53:01) the whole novel thing was a mystery to
(53:03) me. I I you read a great novel and you
(53:05) you wonder how on earth did they do
(53:07) that? like because there's a plot,
(53:09) there's subplots, they have to weave
(53:11) together and resolve in an emotionally
(53:13) satisfying way. You have all these
(53:15) different characters, they need
(53:16) backstories. I mean, it just seem
(53:18) hopelessly complex. And the answer is
(53:21) none of these things arrive uh fully
(53:23) hatched. It starts with the colonel,
(53:25) those couple chords. Um or in my case uh
(53:29) with campus land when I was holding the
(53:32) door open for an undergraduate at at my
(53:35) Yale reunion, she wouldn't go through
(53:36) the door and accuse me of patriarchy.
(53:38) Like okay, [laughter] that's the start.
(53:41) I use that in the book. Um so
(53:46) the creative process is a process. It
(53:48) starts with some kernel of a good idea
(53:51) of a song. It might be just three chords
(53:53) that sound good together. Um, and with a
(53:57) book, it might be just a simple little
(53:58) thing. You know, maybe emotionally
(54:01) incontinence becomes an entire novel
(54:03) eventually. So, when I first set out to
(54:06) write Campus Land, I I actually didn't
(54:09) didn't know any of this. I I thought the
(54:11) way to write a novel was to get a bunch
(54:13) of file cards and, you know, plot out
(54:14) the chapters and pin the file cards up
(54:16) on a board and, you know, eventually the
(54:19) whole novel would take shape and then I
(54:20) would just write it. Well, I got to
(54:22) about the third file card and I was
(54:23) completely lost. So the way at least for
(54:27) me and I suspect most novelists uh and
(54:29) most creative uh people in general you
(54:33) you get going and you just sort of plaid
(54:36) forward and things occur to you as you
(54:39) go and you start to learn your
(54:43) character's voices uh the further you
(54:45) get into it and then you realize uh oh
(54:48) Clover
(54:50) never would have said something the way
(54:52) I wrote it a couple months ago in
(54:53) chapter four. So you go back and and uh
(54:56) tweak something she said to fit the
(54:58) character she's become in your novel. So
(55:01) I call a process lurching and iterating.
(55:04) >> And if you're fortunate a a good plot
(55:07) twist or two falls from the sky and then
(55:10) you have to fix that, right? You have to
(55:11) go back and tweak things to seed the
(55:14) plot twist to to give just enough of a
(55:16) hint to make the plot twist work, but
(55:18) not so much as to give it away. So
(55:22) that's my process. Uh I'm never usually
(55:26) thinking more than a chapter or two
(55:28) ahead
(55:29) and eventually it it hopefully falls
(55:32) together.
(55:33) >> Yeah. So were you an English major?
(55:37) >> No. Uh political science. I I've never I
(55:40) never wrote fiction before Campus Land.
(55:44) Wrote a lot of good blogs. Wrote wrote
(55:47) great investment letters when I ran a
(55:49) hedge fund. So, I always knew I could
(55:52) write a good sentence.
(55:53) >> Yeah.
(55:53) >> Uh letter. I I facility with language.
(55:59) >> Yeah. I don't think I'm on your level as
(56:00) an author, but I have an, you know, I
(56:02) have a book overturning Zika, which
(56:04) everyone should buy, as well as your
(56:06) books, Campus Land and The Sanderson's
(56:08) Field, Manhattan. Um, but you know, and
(56:12) I was I was never much of a writer. I
(56:14) was a chemistry and physics kind of guy,
(56:16) mathematics and so forth. Um but in my
(56:19) high school paper um actually I came up
(56:22) with one good headline in eighth grade.
(56:24) It was second form then but eighth
(56:26) grade. Um Richard Nixon had gotten
(56:28) phabitis and so we had our lower school
(56:31) newspaper and uh he was you know having
(56:34) trouble walking from the phabitis in his
(56:36) calf. I didn't know what phobitis was.
(56:38) There's no internet. So I had to look it
(56:39) up. I I was going to make a story about
(56:41) it for the paper and I said phabitis
(56:43) makes dick limp. Um, and I wanted that
(56:47) headline to get in. Uh, I was trying to
(56:49) see if I could get it by the advisor.
(56:51) Uh, but he caught it. Anyway, aside from
(56:53) that, there was really not much in, you
(56:55) know, way of writing a few features and
(56:57) so forth, but, you know, I I had a story
(56:59) I wanted to get out for the Zika thing,
(57:01) which I think is an incredible um, kind
(57:03) of Sherlock Holmesian look at a
(57:05) pandemic. Um, but I couldn't really
(57:07) write it. So, I I wound up hiring
(57:09) somebody from Brazil who's a law
(57:10) student, and I had him query me, you
(57:13) know. So we made like 10, you know, Zoom
(57:16) calls and back and forth he would ask me
(57:18) stuff and I would have to answer them
(57:20) and so forth and the book became, you
(57:21) know, the the the formulation having the
(57:24) chapters was the thing he was actually
(57:25) curious about. You know, he wanted to
(57:27) know if if this is what you're
(57:28) interested in this, well, what about
(57:29) that? And he brought some Brazilian
(57:31) stuff and that I didn't know. So, it was
(57:33) kind of like a a kind of a a cap
(57:35) crystallization of a conversation, you
(57:37) know. So, it's not quite the same thing
(57:39) as as the novel, but it it it wasn't
(57:41) what I expected when I started. It's
(57:43) like things kind of have to kind of take
(57:45) their form and it's like water filling,
(57:47) you know, if you crinkle up aluminum
(57:48) foil, you pour the water in, it has to
(57:50) fill those gaps and spaces.
(57:53) >> Well, now you could use AI instead of
(57:54) the Brazilian law student. Um, yeah,
(57:56) that's true. you're talking about AI a
(57:59) little bit because that's going to be a
(58:01) major deal or it's very quickly becoming
(58:03) a major deal in the publishing world. Uh
(58:06) and the there's a very uneasy uh truce
(58:10) with it at the moment which uh
(58:14) they I don't think a great AI AI novel
(58:18) has been written and I don't think AI
(58:19) can write a great novel but if you ask
(58:22) me the question again in a week or two I
(58:24) might give you a different answer
(58:25) because things are moving along that
(58:26) fast.
(58:27) And I, as an experiment in the road
(58:30) novel, I have these two brothers
(58:31) traveling across the country in a camper
(58:34) looking for the the place they're
(58:36) supposed to spread their father's ashes
(58:38) and they're following clues and um and
(58:41) they pull over in a Nebraska wheat
(58:44) field, like a vast, you know, field,
(58:47) endless
(58:48) at night. And so giant sky and wheat
(58:52) fields and they they get out a couple
(58:54) lawn chairs and ingest a couple gummies.
(58:57) So I went on chat GBT and I said in a
(58:59) literary fashion describe you know I
(59:01) give told chat GBT what I just told you.
(59:04) In a literary fashion describe the scene
(59:07) in two or three paragraphs and what I
(59:09) got back was so poetic and beautiful. I
(59:14) was stunned. I was absolutely
(59:17) >> um and the publishing industry now they
(59:20) don't have a problem with you using AI
(59:22) as a tool maybe to research things or to
(59:27) give you ideas how to move forward. Uh
(59:30) but they don't like they don't want AI
(59:32) doing the writing for you. They'll
(59:33) reject something.
(59:34) >> You know, I I kind of draw the line, but
(59:36) it's like uh interesting stuff. Anyway,
(59:38) I'm going to have to call it a day here.
(59:40) Um, we got things to do, places to be,
(59:43) and I really appreciate you having been
(59:44) on the show. Thank you so much, Scott.
(59:47) >> Thanks, Randy.
