[upbeat music] Welcome back to Taste Land. I am your co-host, Francis Zehrer. And I'm Daisy Aliotto. And Daisy, who are we speaking with today? Today we're talking to Rox King.
She's the author of the 2021 book Tacky, and co-host of the podcast Lowcountry Boil, and her second essay collection, Sloppy, uh, just came out yesterday and is in stores right now. And it's really good. Um, I...
As we... I'm gonna be... I'm gonna give full disclosure, as we record this, I'm only halfway through because I'm a horrible podcast co-host. Um- No... but it's really good. I mean, I guess this... I did finish the book.
This is the rare case where maybe I am in some way better prepared than Francis- [laughs]... but I think this is just the universe balancing. Look, we're both great podcast co-hosts. Um, but the, the book is really good.
I think it's, like, very... I don't know. It, it's, it w- it's one of those ones that's, like, kind of hard to put down in that it's funny then it's sad. You're laughing, you're crying.
[laughs] I'm laughing at my lazy description. But it is. [laughs] It's, I mean, it's very, like... I would say it's very- It's okay, Gwyneth Paltrow... the, the color, the color saturation is very high...
he laughed, he cried- Like-... he did a shot. The heart is on the sleeve. The saturation- Mm... of the colors is, it's so high, so rich. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's like... We got... I mean,
it's got history channels alone. [laughs] It's got cocaine addiction. It's got Maryland culinary specialties. Truly everything that you could want in a book. And Rox has written for your... a couple times. Um- Mm-hmm...
she was part of our My Movie Theater series with, um, [clicks tongue] Mubi, and had some excellent thoughts on buttered popcorn. And she also wrote about- Rest in peace to the Lincoln Place- Yeah... movie theater, right?
Yes. Sorry. No, that's- I didn't know if that was- I think that's correct. Yeah. And, um, she wrote about going to an oxygen bar in- Mm... New Jersey. I always wondered about those. Yeah. Well, you gotta read the piece.
Um- They, they had one in my hometown. I think it's long gone. But, like, what's, what's... Is, is that like getting an IV, like, when you're, like, rich and hungover? Yeah, it might be the poor man's- [laughs]...
IV infusion. Um- Is it... Yeah, I mean, is it the poor man? How expensive is an oxygen bar? Well, you gotta go read the piece. But, um- Okay... we're really excited to have her.
She's already in the waiting room, so we're gonna go right to it. Yes. [upbeat music] How do you feel about the, the book releasing? This is your second book.
Very different. I haven't read, I haven't read the first one, but I ame- having listened to your pod, having, um, been reading this book, I feel like it's a very different book than your previous book, right? Yeah.
Uh, so at the time of this recording, my book is coming out in exactly one week, and I feel completely normal- [laughs]... in every way.
I'm just going about my day, having all the regular feelings and, uh, none of the weird ones. Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah. Partly, you know, obviously I feel like shit. I feel so bad- [laughs]... every second.
[laughs] Every second in a new way I feel bad. Well... And it's because this book is, um... Yeah, it is pretty different from the first one. And- Mm...
the reason that you said that kind of coyly, I think, is because you listened to the episode of my podcast where I outright admitted that the thing fueling that first book was a steady diet of cocaine and bourbon and- Yeah...
self-loathing and bad behavior [laughs] and just all kinds of stuff that I then stopped doing and wrote a new book, Sloppy, about that. And so the tone is, uh, not the same. The vibe is really not the same.
I think it's a little bit darker than the last one. And, uh- Mm... yeah. And I feel normal is, I guess, the upshot of all that.
Does it feel like there's less of a barrier between you and the material in this new book because your experience of writing it wasn't mediated by substance?
Uh, you know, for a time it was sort of the opposite because, uh, being high and drunk had been so key [laughs] to my process for so long. I mean- Mm... I just did not know how to think without
being high or drunk, much less how to write. And, uh, so I spent a little bit of time flailing around and trying to find some new way into, you know, writing the book I'd been contracted for.
And I, you know, I figured it out eventually, and then it was basically as you describe. I mean, I could trust in my writing more. There wasn't that thing of, like, Hemingway I think said, "Write drunk-" Write drunk.
"... edit sober." Mm-hmm. Yeah, that- Mm... that old chestnut, and, uh, it's really bad advice actually because- It should be eradicated.
Yeah, it should be eradicated, at least for people who, you know, are addicts because if I would write drunk, editing sober just meant cutting out all the stuff I said when I was drunk.
Like, it was such a shockingly inefficient process, and it's not like that anymore. Like, I can pretty much trust even if I end up changing something, that it's not terrible as written.
I'm no longer sending emails to people at strange hours like, "Check out this genius thing I wrote." Like, it's... That phase is over, I hope forever, so embarrassed still about all those emails.
And so, you know, in that way, it's much more organic and less mediated and just less embarrassing, frankly. Mm-hmm. You said that this one is darker. I haven't read the first one.
On this one I'm, I'm a little over halfway through. I'm on the Bad Friend essay. I, I don't... Like, uh, I don't know if I would've had described it as dark. It feels to me like,
I don't know, like really-Uh, generous is more the move. Like, you kinda wear your heart on your sleeve, which maybe, like, at times is you're talking about, like, dark parts of your life.
But I think it, it's written about in this way that is, like, really vulnerable i- in a way that's, like, so generously vulnerable as... I couldn't really describe it as dark at all because it's like...
You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. I guess I mean more that, uh, the subject matter itself is darker stuff than I mostly write about in the first book.
And, and the way you, uh, you say that, like I'm, I'm vulnerable, and that is certainly true. It's, uh, I think is... It's a very honest book. But, uh,
you know, I, I invited my mother to a reading that I did from Sloppy, from the new book. Mm. And I read from, uh, a chapter that's about the week that I spent in a mental institution. [laughs] And, um,
you know, after the reading was over my mom came up to me and she was like, "You know, that reading was really funny and this essay's really funny, but I remember that week, and it was, like, the worst one that either of us had ever had."
Yeah. "It was so horrible. We were so miserable the whole time." And I guess that's more what I mean when I say that, uh, this, this book is darker than the last one, is I'm
covering stuff that I would not have admitted with a gun to my head the first time around.
One thing that strikes me as the difference between the first book and the second book as well is with the first book there is a sort of like, um, the opportunity to get hung up on the semantics of what tacky means.
Mm-hmm.
Like, it feels like part of the marketing around that book for me, or just, like, the opportunity to comment about it online even in your own tweets is like, oh, this has given us an assessment of this sort of, like,
false dichotomy between highbrow and lowbrow. And, you know, you getting tagged in to, like, comment on whether something is tacky or not, what is the definition of that.
Whereas, like, with Sloppy, I don't think you ever even give a working definition of what sloppy means, and nobody's gonna come away from the book wanting to apply the word sloppy to things. It's like, um,
it's, it's much more about an emotional truth than a cultural definition, and the language is...
I think if people come away with a new vocabulary it would be one to describe the sort of highs and lows of their life, and I think that's just, like, a really beautiful evolution of your work. Yeah. I mean,
what you're, what you talk about there, you know, I... To this day, any time the word tacky is used I get a million tags from
people who, like, I'm so grateful that they read my book or at least know what the title of it was. [laughs] And I get asked to, like, arbitrate disputes about taste and whatnot. And, uh, I'm certainly not complaining.
I mean, I'm touched that people's takeaway from my first book was somehow that I have authority [laughs] and that I'm, like, a thinker or whatever.
And that's just not really what I was going for then, and it's certainly not what I'm going for now.
What I would like people to take away is that I'm just some dumbass farting around, and I, I was that dumbass the first time around, too, even if I somehow convinced you that I knew my ass from a hole in the ground.
Not the case. And, like, I, I think there's great value in reading work that, uh, is not really trying to answer questions or make proclamations about- Mm... uh, you know, in this case taste. I'm really...
I'm not writing Sloppy to issue proclamations or to tell people how to feel about things. I'm just kinda talking about myself, and I think that's something more books should be doing, frankly. I mean, there's always...
Any time a piece of personal writing gets popular there's this really tedious debate about, like, is there too much personal writing? Do we know too much about each other? Like, just really silly stuff.
And I'm like, I don't know too much about people. I'd, I would like to know more about more people.
I would like there to be more personal writing, even if that means wading through some of it that is bad, because I want to get at those emotional truths. And I think the way you do that is by reading
other people's lives, not so much by reading other people's opinions.
Well, I feel like in, in good personal writing too, like, part of what makes it good is that the person doesn't, like, really suppose to know too much about themselves even.
And, like, even by the end of it maybe there's, like, this suggestion of, like, a direction of truth, but there's no, like, definitive answer.
W- something I wrote down from, um, I, I think this might've been the first chapter.
Um, you say, "If anything, it feels much worse now on the rare occasion that I forget Sean's birthday or allow an old Arizona iced tea can to grow mold on my desk because I finally share my teachers' and employers' opinion that I'm better than this."
I r- And I think that's, that's kind of what we were just talking about, of, like, it's not... You're not saying, like, like, "I am always better than this, and that's the answer now, and this is where I've gone."
It's just, like, about, like, I don't know, knowing a little bit more of your... about yourself, but not some true definitive answer. Yeah. And I think, uh,
that temptation is really present, the temptation to have, like, every essay in this book end on a note of, "But I fixed it," you know?
[laughs] "Whatever dumb shit I did that I'm writing about here, I don't, I don't do that anymore." And there are a bunch of essays in this book about addiction, and I am sober, like, three years and change now.
So- Congratulations. Thank you. Definitely everyone should congratulate me all the time. [laughs] I'm very brave. We can... That's what we can call this episode, uh, Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah.
Congratulations indeedBut you know, there are a bunch of essays in this book about addiction, and because I'm not in active addiction anymore, there was this temptation to have that be the end note of- Hmm...
talking about alcohol or cocaine is like, well, I don't do it anymore, so you know, I win and I'm fixed. And that's really not how it's been. That's not the reality for me. The reality is that,
you know, certain of the bad habits that I write about in this book I've stopped doing.
Some of them I still do to this day, but in all cases I'm the same person and if I stop doing something that's bad for me, I still have all the character flaws that led me to do it in the first place.
So I, I really wanted to resist consistently the temptation to end things on a happy note. Like, I think by and large my tone here is, is pretty upbeat and, and funny I hope. But- Mm-hmm...
I, I didn't want the, uh, the takeaway to be some fairy tale, like happily ever after, I fixed all my problems thing. Incredibly untrue. I still have all the same problems as before.
I think for me the, the heart of the book and sort of like the turning point of the book is...
I mean, turning point in the sense of like the narrative changes a little bit, but also the book sort of pivots around it, was your essay, uh, Anger Management.
And to me, what I really related to about it is I think the way a lot of us handle fundamental truths in our lives where it's like somebody's like, "Tell me about your family."
Like, the initial story that we tell and the story that we tell ourselves normally is one thing, and it's not a lie, it's true. Mm-hmm.
And then there's like a little bit of a deeper truth, and you get through the book sort of telling the first version of the story, and then you get to the essay that's like, well, actually
it's not completely how it happened. And then you spend the sort of second half not backing away from it, but basically saying like, "And here's why that's okay," or, "Here's why that can coexist with, um, the generous
version of the story." And I really like that because it feels like the structure of the book really mimics how
we kind of come to addressing things that are painful or traumatic about our past, um, without just like constantly
retelling the worst version of that story to ourselves because that makes it actually very hard to live with.
Um, and I was wondering when you were putting the essays together, not just this one, but like all of them, how did you think about the structure of the book to not have it be, like you said, like a pilgrim's progress for getting sober, but also to like mirror that there are ways of thinking, um, in our lives that sort of like approach and retreat from the most painful truths?
Yeah, I mean, as I was chugging along, and as, as I chug along really in, in any project of writing about myself, I really have to combat the versions of these stories that I've been telling myself for a long time.
Mm-hmm. Like, a lot of what appears both in Tacky and in Sloppy is stuff that happened a long time ago, and that's true for a lot of memoir writers.
Like, for whatever reason, the stuff that happened in early childhood or adolescence is more vivid for us than the stuff that just happened last month or whatever. And so there's a lot of writing about
events and situations where in the intervening years I've cooked up some narrative, often one that exonerates me, but you know, just as often one where I'm the antagonist. [laughs] Mm-hmm.
Like, pretty much all the narratives that I have about things I lived through, I'm the key figure and I either screwed somebody or I ruined someone's life, or I was wronged by someone else, you know?
But I'm always at the center of it, and I'm always the important one. And in memoir and personal writing in general,
I don't think it comes out well if you can't recast all those tired old narratives and if you can't get past the version of the story that is easy to live with, you know? Mm-hmm.
For me, it's really easy to live with stories where I was wronged by everybody and I never made a mistake. Mm-hmm.
And then as I was getting sober, that story kind of over-corrected and it turned into I'm actually, okay, I was wrong before.
Turns out I'm the worst piece of shit in the universe and I wronged everybody, and anything that, you know, I feel wronged by, I'm just looking at it from the wrong perspective.
And neither of those is true, and neither of those is ever really true, and the reality is more interesting and more textured, and it's that I did some things wrong and I did some things I'm not proud of, and I was wronged by other people at different times.
And there's, there's always a dynamic there that I'd rather explore, you know, as much as I can, and if that means making myself look bad, which I think in this book I often do look pretty bad [laughs] and, uh, then that's fine.
I, I can live with that because it's the more interesting and realistic version of what happened. Mm-hmm.
Is it like, I mean, when I write an essay, I don't really write many personal essays, but the re- the writing and rewriting is like...
Like, I feel like my thoughts are never clear and are always pretty stupid, right, when I like first get them down, and then it's like I put it down and then I read it and then I can react to that. And like, I like...
When, when you were writing some of these stories and the way you're talking about like recasting these stories and like remembering them and like, you know, kind of recasting the antagonism, et cetera, um, like to what degree was a lot of that happening like after you wrote it down and then like in the edit of like, "Oh wait, I wrote this down this way, but that's actually not how it happened at all"?Yeah, there was a lot of that, and, uh, that- that, uh,
internal dynamic that you're talking about where you aren't quite sure whether something you've written is stupid until you've written it, [laughs] Yeah.
That's what makes it really hard for me to pitch essays and to freelance as an essayist because, like, I can bluster through a pitch email, I guess, but it always sounds really false because I don't know what my point is gonna be.
I didn't write the damn thing yet. [laughs] Yeah.
Like, how about you agree to pay me because I'm good at writing, and in return I will take this half of a thought that I had in some interesting direction that we can do something with?
And obviously, like, for so many reasons, that's not the way it works, but I do think, you know, there's some merit to that because a good essay, whether personal or otherwise,
shows that work to an extent and shows the writer figuring out what they want their point to be and how they get there. You know, it's, you know, the- the interesting part about an essay is not the answer- Mm-hmm...
whatever form that takes. Yeah. It's the thinking and the exploration. I always love to say yes to that and to you, and usually if I say no, it's for budgetary reasons- [laughs]...
and not because I wanna know the answer upfront.
[laughs] But there is something very different about pitching a personal essay, that sense of the unknown, and you're kinda trusting that writer to take the journey, um, which I think is why it's so hard for newer writers to break in, too, and I've really tried to learn how to assess somebody's voice not knowing, okay, where are they gonna go with this if this is their first byline or their second byline.
Um,
but I wanted, I wanted to tell you I really liked the part where you write about working in restaurants, and part of why I liked it is 'cause you referenced, uh, it's one of our signature pieces, Bad Waitress by Becca Chu.
Um, and I was thinking about while I was reading it that I actually think writing about restaurants by people who don't have the experience of working in restaurants has, like, not gotten better since Sweetbitter came out and, um, some of the other touchstones you referenced.
I think if anything it's almost gotten worse. Um, and I don't know if it's like, if it correlates with restaurants as status symbols in the culture, that, like, the more- Hmm... eating out has status at any given time,
the more skewed people's perspective is towards what hospitality labor actually entails. But, um, I'm curious, like, what you think. Like,
uh, were those things that you would have liked to say about that experience that you had to leave out of the essay? I mean, it would've been very easy for me to turn that essay into just, like, 7,000 words of griping.
Mm-hmm. I went into that project so ready to gripe, and there, you know, there's, there's a certain amount of griping [laughs] in there 'cause I think that, uh... Well, who is it that said this?
It, it has meant so much to me over the years. I wanna say it was Bill Buford writing- Hmm... writing Heat, maybe. Mm-hmm. Is, uh, he said that restaurant labor
is one of the forms of art where you can really see what patronage looks like still. Like, you don't really, uh...
In, in most other forms of art we've kind of cut out the, the money man figure, uh, often to the detriment of the arts. There's rarely, like, that one guy with the money demanding the art from you- [laughs]...
anymore, but in restaurants the guy with the money is, you know, he's coming in 100 times a night, and there's many guys with the money actually. We call them patrons, too. We literally call them patrons. Oh, geez.
Like, and they're very straightforwardly patrons of the arts on a small scale, and I think something about, like,
the, the interplay between a person going into a restaurant knowing they are a patron, knowing they are patronizing the arts, versus the relatively low price point of going to a restaurant. Hmm.
Like, you can't buy a million-dollar painting probably, but if you save for a few months you can go to a $600 dinner. Like, it's a lot of money.
It's magnitudes fewer of money than other forms of art, and so it creates this ugliness, [laughs] I think, in, uh, restaurant patrons. And when I was working in restaurants, I think I say this in the essay,
I kept thinking, like, who the fuck are these people coming in here bossing me around? They're like... They, they are talking to me real hot for people who are hungry and- [laughs]... who know that I have the food.
Mm-hmm. If they're mean enough to me, I might not bring them the food. Like, that, that was just the running monologue in my head was who are these jackasses who depend on me to feed them and are still so nasty to me?
And I think that if you have not worked in a restaurant, there is no way for you to know what that's like unless you are in some other form of work with that relationship as just
a big part of your daily life, like people who work in retail. Mm-hmm. If you work cleaning hotel rooms, you deal with the petty patron all the time, and I think that...
You know, I posted this today, and I'm getting very yelled at by, about it right now. I saw this. [laughs] Yeah. And I've posted it before, and I get yelled at every time.
Every once in a while I'm like, there ought to be a draft in America, and when you're 18 you get entered into the draft automatically, but it's not for military service. It's for food service or it's for retail.
You have to work one of those jobs at some point starting when you are 18 years old, and I get very yelled at about this every time I say it. I still think I'm right.
I think that you learn so much more about just-Both the shittiness of dynamics between people and how good those dynamics can be. Mm-hmm.
You learn more about that stuff working in retail or working in food service than you're gonna learn anywhere else.
It's not a class war thing, it's a learn how to be around people thing, and it's a skill that if you've never worked one of those jobs, you probably kind of don't have, I'm sorry to say.
I, I am so be- I was literally talking to somebody about this the other day. I, I agree with this so much. Like, I, I'm like a single issue voter for- [laughs]... for drafting and being into restaurants.
Um, I, I don't know, like, I, my first restaurant job I was a dishwasher, and like I, I've been a dishwasher, I've been a cook, I've been a barista.
And like the, you know, the engaging both with, with like coworkers and like people who like
from various walks of life with various levels of like absolutely insane ways of interacting with you, their coworker, to like the obviously the customers.
I think too about like when I, um, I, when I lived in New Orleans and I worked at this coffee shop in the central business district, um, and like we were in the base of this tall building.
All these lawyer guys would come in and, you know, this like seven-foot-tall guy who would call me buddy, and I, I hated him. I was like, "Someday, like, I'm gonna be an asshole ordering- [laughs]...
a $16 chicken salad on my lunch break." And the first time, my first like non-restaurant job, um, at, where, where I, where I did that, and I like went in and I bought like some stupid [laughs] $16 chicken salad.
[laughs] I like, I was like, "Holy shit," like, "I'm the asshole. I'm the asshole" Yeah. And I tipped like, you know, 25%.
I don't always tip that much on a $16 chicken salad, but I was like, "This is, this is for the me that, that [laughs] wanted to be the asshole." Anyway, uh, rambling a bit here.
But yeah, I, I lo- I love that idea, and like I loved this essay. I think so many of these essays there's like, um,
you know, bits that like are like, wow, I'm so glad you're saying that because like I've smoked too many cigarettes, or whatever it is, right? And it's like very...
Like, that's what I was saying earlier about like the, the, the generosity of the vulnerability. Um, but yeah, the restaurant one I thought was particularly funny.
There's like another part too where you're talking about, I, I wrote it down, I think his name was, was George, Gerard. "Gerard took me to a fork in the road, showing me what a career in hospitality could feel like.
I took the other fork long ago, and there's no going back to the bud of shy pride I left to wither." Um, which for me, I promise I'll stop talking about, stop talking about myself a second here.
[laughs] I remember specifically also in New Orleans, I was working at this restaurant, and it was like the moment the, the chef was like trying to get me to write recipes, and we worked [laughs] on this smoked granola together, which didn't really work, honestly.
But, um- [laughs] I'm gonna level with you- I don't know... that sounds gross as shit. It... Luckily the smoke didn't really get in.
[laughs] So really what we got was just like a homemade yogurt with like granola and lime, um, lime zest granola. But anyways, uh, yeah, this restaurant jo- this restaurant one I really, I really loved. It was so funny.
I mean, if I may air an, a crank take, even more crank than the service industry draft, I think it is a humiliating and corrosive thing to be a customer. Mm-hmm.
And I, I have obviously been a customer many more times than I've been a person- You among us [laughs]... like waiting on customers. Like, we, we live in a society, we live in a society. [laughs] But we do.
We live in a society where all of us kind of have to be customers- Yeah... all the time, because most of us don't know how to make the shit that we use. We don't have the materials to do it.
We don't have the time or the skills.
So multiple times a day often, I am put in a position where I have to take my stupid little maxed out credit card to the store and I have to say, "Pretty please, mister, can you unlock these razors for me?" Oh.
And then some person has to do it. And what you were saying about like,
you know, you went into the $16 salad place and all of a sudden you're on the other side of the desk, and you're the one calling the cashier buddy- [laughs]... and you can see the boredom and the misery in their eyes.
That's horrible. Mm-hmm. That's bad for the soul to be on the customer side of that interaction. Yeah. And I honestly think, you know,
put everyone in the service industry draft, everybody has experience now both on the customer side and the service side. I think it's gonna make it a much less shitty, miserable thing to be a customer. So vote for rats.
I think we should kill customers. [laughs] I agree. [laughs] I think it's either the draft or Hunger Games- Customers are a necessary evil... if you decide to stay- Up against the wall [laughs]... an undrafted customer.
They're, they're a necessary evil, you know? Yeah, I guess so. The, the dirty patron.
Um, I really like when you talk about being medically bad at being on the computer because I know that I'm medically bad at being on the computer.
In fact, even right now, and I'm sitting on a very uncomfortable chair, and I can feel it. Your chair looks a lot more comfortable. Really? 'Cause I don't know if y'all have noticed me scrambling around in this chair.
[laughs] I, which I do every time I record- Mm... 'cause it's very uncomfortable. I have this like fur thing on the back of it, like how taxi drivers will have the, the beads over the back of their- Oh, yeah, beads...
over, uh, the driver's seat. Does nothing. Does not help. And also this room is hot as shit and like- [laughs]... I am medically bad at being on the computer. I'm slouching right now.
I'm like sitting on my heels in a way that's bad for my knees. I could keep going. I will spare you, but I'm, I'm having- [laughs]... a medically bad time right now. Um, I think
I was gonna ask you, I'm, I'm, you're probably medically better at banjo than you are- [laughs]... at being on the computer. And you have been coming up on my for you page. I think I am following now.
But like initially I was like, "Oh, a girl playing banjo." [laughs] And then I was like, "Oh, that's facts."
[laughs] I think, um, you know, banjo kind of makes like a late appearance in Sloppy, but do you think, um, banjo will play a larger role in your next book? [laughs] It's gonna be Tacky, Sloppy, and Banjo.
Well, maybe the next book is an albumThat's, you know, many people are saying that that's the final form of the book. Um- [laughs]... maybe. I, I really do love the banjo.
In fact, the last thing that I'm doing tonight is going to a group class with my banjo friends, and, you know, we're all gonna play together, and we're all medium good, which is, which is pretty good for me taking something up in my 30s.
What are the essential qualities of a banjo friend? Mm. Uh, well, we met in banjo class. That seems to be the most essential. [laughs] Typically, when we get together, we play banjo together too- Mm...
which, you know, our group chat, very banjo heavy. We send each other tabs. Like, like in the park or apartments? Yes. Yeah. We play in the park. What's the group chat called? Uh, Banjos in the Sky. Beautiful. Yeah.
Nice. There's a reason for that. I'm not gonna explain it. Yeah. It's very boring, and I think it sounds cooler if I don't, so... I understand. Leave a little mystery. That's right. So important.
Um, another thing, one more last note on the, the restaurant one. Um- [laughs]...
you talk about, uh, drinking Kool-Aid, and like, I think this is interesting to me not just in the context of restaurants but jobs generally. Um, I'll, I'll read just a, a, a bit of it.
Um, "We've all met them, the servers who drink the Kool-Aid. Let's call them Orwellian servers, the ones who come closest to proving that author's point about the money hungry snobbery in the front of house.
Even off the clock, Orwellian servers' conversation is all tasting notes and ingredient provenances, um, et cetera, et cetera.
Once they settle into a position of some influence at whatever fine dining restaurant, created their work persona, they never leave it."
Um, yeah, I think a lot about, like, drinking the Kool-Aid at jobs, um, in restaurants, in other jobs I've had, and I've always thought of, like, like, you need some capacity or per...
I, maybe not everyone, but I've felt that I need some capacity to drink the Kool-Aid. But you have to, like, build up the poison tolerance, like in The Princess Bride, you know?
And like, that's part of, for me, what's been key to being good at a job is like, drink the Kool-Aid, but know your dosage. [laughs] I think, uh, that's probably why I've been so bad about...
at, uh, like, every job I've ever had, is that I'm really bad at drinking the Kool-Aid. [laughs] And, uh, this is, by the way, another thing that's getting me yelled at today about service industry draft- Mm...
is my mentions right now are full of exactly those lifers who understandably and rightfully take a lot of pride in their work because they've been doing it for a long time.
They've gotten really skilled at it, and they take issue with the idea that the service industry is, like, a punishment for dumbasses. Like you- Mm...
you put people through service industry boot camp, and they come out on the other side improved as people, and they think that, like, delegitimizes the seriousness of their careers.
And for me, what's so great about the service industry is that there is that low barrier to entry. You can have- Mm-hmm... a criminal record and get a job in food service. Like, that's really kind of rare.
There's not that many fields that, that that's the case, and it's true for, you know, if it's your first job, 10 to one it's gonna be in the service industry. And so I think that, uh,
to become a Kool-Aid drinker in the service industry is to deny its heritage. Like, what's so great about it is that any jerkoff can get one of those jobs. Mm.
They might not be good at it, but those jobs should be available because jerkoffs need employment too. And that exact line of thinking [laughs] is why I'm so bad at having a job.
Because I'll be sitting there, you know, it could be a desk job. I had one of those one time, and I would be sitting there at my desk
looking busy on my face and, like, clacking away importantly and thinking the whole time, like, "Why am I here? Why am I doing this?
The world would be a better place if I were not doing this, and in fact, if this job did not exist, and if this workplace did not exist." And I think some version of that at, like, every job I've ever had.
I'm just like, you know, yeah, hospitality can be a serious career. It can be an art. It can also be me delivering cold mozzarella sticks to some, like, imperious jackass, and that, in my experience, is what it is.
And so I, I end up with a chip on my shoulder about careerism [laughs] in general.
I think that we could all stand to take jobs and careers a lot less seriously and to recognize that some of them straight up don't need to be done. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like low barrier to entry, high barrier for success.
Yeah. And, like, if you have pride in clearing the higher barrier, then the way people enter the field shouldn't really matter. I wanted to ask you about, um...
You talk about your relationship with money, which is sort of like reverse abundance. So like- [laughs]... full, full shade to Ezra Pound hair. Profligacy. [laughs] Yeah. Um, like,
I mean, I feel like the abundance mindset and the anti-abundance mindset, it's almost like horseshoe theory for money, where it's like you spend it not because you feel like it's going to be free flowing but because you know that it's not.
And I, I can see the logic, for sure. Um, I think one of the sort of like treats, treat yourself moments that you lay out is, like, going to restaurants. And so I'm curious, like,
I'm sure you enjoy the fine dining experience even though you can see the machinations happening in front of your eyes that other people would miss. But how does having that experience change the way that you go out?
Do you have to, like, compartmentalize to enjoy it? Are you, like, watching and, like, reading the emotions of all the waitresses? [laughs] Uh, to some extent, yeah. I definitely have, like, customer codependency.
I am a pathologically considerate customer.To the point that I think it probably circles back on itself and becomes annoying again. Yeah.
Like, I'm the one at the group dinner arranging all the plates and the silverware once people are done eating so that they're easy to take away, and who knows if I'm actually doing it the way they want it done, you know?
I'm, I'm mostly doing it out of some private paranoia about being a customer, which as we all agree, is a dumb and humiliating state of affairs.
But, like, there are certainly people, workers, who can make me turn it off, and I've had meals where, you know, the kayfabe was so good on the part of the- [laughs]...
the front of house people that I walked away the same way, you know, men leave the strip club. Like, wow, I can't believe I just met my soulmate, and all I had to do- [laughs]...
was go to the ATM with a $10 fee and get out hundreds of dollars of cash and give all of it to her. And I, you know, I walk out of restaurants much the same way.
Like, yeah, me and my buddy, the waiter back there, y- you probably don't know him, he's my buddy from the restaurant. We were just kicking it and hanging out, and then I ended up tipping him, like, 50%.
Anyway, we're best friends now. We're gonna follow each other on Instagram. Obviously, it never happens because that's not [laughs] how it works, but you know, I'm not immune. Of course I'm not.
You are not immune from propaganda, Garfield meme. [laughs] No. No, I'm, I'm a total Garfield. Um, start to finish, like, what's your ideal restaurant experience? Ooh, that's a question.
I can tell about the, the best restaurant experience- Mm... I've ever had, which was at a place that is now closed. Um, it was in DC. It was called Komi, K-O-M-I.
And the, the chef in charge of the place w- just made the most incredible food, and his staff were all, like, really warm people. Like, they- Mm... they had that
unfeigned seeming warmth that gets you tipped like a fucking Rockefeller every single time- That's cool... that I don't have. I never had it. Mm-hmm. And, uh, anyway, Komi no longer exists.
It was a tasting menu, and the chef ended up closing it so he could open, like, a takeout sandwich shop instead and, and like an ice cream cart in the same space. Reverse the bear.
[laughs] Literally reverse the bear, and it's good as hell. I am so glad that that place is there. They, they change the name every once in a while.
I think it's not called Happy Gyro right now, but that's, that's the last time I was there was to get a gyro. Just to keep you on your toes. It keeps me on my toes.
I'm like, "What fresh hell will tomorrow bring, former Komi?" There's, there's an Indian restaurant in my neighborhood that every...
I've lived in the neighborhood for five years, and I think they've changed branding every single year. But I've, I don't go there too often, but I'm convinced...
Like, one time I went, it was, the, the menu they served had the same branding from two, like, or the menu they gave us had the same branding from two versions of the brand before.
And I haven't been for a little while, but I'm convinced that they just, like, are doing this once a year for, like, tax purposes or something. [laughs] Um- Mm... really bizarre. They, they paint the sign anew. Anyways.
It's gonna work. Whatever it is they're going for- Whatever it is. [laughs]... they're gonna get it. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. The, the, Daisy, what, what did you mean though when you say the best restaurant start to finish?
What is that for you? Well, I think, like, it could be specific or not specific. Like, atmosphere. Mm-hmm. You know, from when you, you walk in the door, like, what do you want to feel like? Like, for me,
I mean, this is just roughing. Like, you walk in, you're greeted warmly but not, like, suspiciously warmly. Right. Table's already ready. I would say maybe I w- Bread on the table...
I, I would like to be with my husband or two friends. I think those are the best. Either a three-girl dinner or a Daisy and Ben dinner. And, oh, bread. Yeah, nobody does bread anymore. What's up with that?
Nobody does bread anymore, yeah. Um- Or they sell you bread. Point to the badge. Point to the badge. [laughs] Um, they don't ask you for your drink order right away.
Like, they sort of, like, leave and come back in, like, the right amount of time. And, um, I always think, I actually think my experience with the dinner is sort of, like, colored by how it ends. Mm.
Like, if it feels like there's, like, a leisurely and we've left enough- Or the, the 90 minutes, get out of here. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. I don't like that.
No, I hate that, but that's, like, not, not happened to me, but- It's like an artifact of post-COVID New York- Mm... that has somewhat dissipated, but the more hyped the restaurant, the more strict the limitage. Yeah.
I used to have to, you know, in my last restaurant job a few years ago, I would have to say that to people, and it was awful. It's awful to have to say it to someone, and they would get...
You know, some of them took it gracefully, and others acted like they had never heard of such a requirement before and wanted to hold me personally responsible. And I j- you know, I don't like it either.
I don't wanna be hustled out the door. Not my rule, so, like- Mm-hmm... sit down and stop complaining and start eating, and you'll have plenty of time. [laughs] Like, but, like, chop chop. Let's go.
Stop flapping the lips. [laughs] Yeah, don't talk to me. Oh, so they, they complain when you let them know up front, not when you're like- Yeah... yeah.
Yeah, w- I was a hostess, and I would, you know, take folks to their table, and there's no good way to say it. I tried every- Yeah... possible combination of words. Mm-hmm.
And I would just be like, "Just so you know, you have plenty of time, but..." [laughs] And then, you know, the but comes in, and their hackles are up, and it's all over. And, uh- Yeah...
it was an uncomfortable conversation, and I'm glad not to be having it as part of my job right now. Mm-hmm. Is this the cozy bistro? Yeah, yeah.
It's the place that I, I had to get a job there, uh, because I spent my entire first book advance on thousands of dollars of cocaine. Many such cases. It happens. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.Um- The, the- Sorry... or, okay.
I was gonna ask Well, I didn't know if you were legally allowed to name the restaurants that you- Oh... worked at in the book, or if it was an intentional choice to just sort of let the reader self-insert.
I think I'm probably legally allowed to, but I don't want the smoke. I'm a coward. [laughs] I don't want anyone to be mad at me ever. I get it. Oh, I certainly wouldn't. Yeah.
Um, I was gonna ask, I think it's 17 essays in the book, right? Certainly possible. [laughs] Is it? Did you... Well, I think it is. I think it is.
My, my question, though, um, did you write any more that you like, you know, then you were arranging them and like, "Uh, this one here, this one..." Were there others that you cut? Yeah.
There's, uh, two that ended up on the cutting room floor, uh, one of which, hmm, this is a good reminder, I have to send an email about this today, is going to appear somewhere else supposedly, and uh, the other of which I, I put on my newsletter, 'cause nobody wanted it and I was really proud of it, and so I put it there.
Did you send it to me? Did I send it- No, I don't think so. Oof. It's long for Dirt, though, Daisy. We'll check. Well, yeah, it might be long for Dirt. Um- It's like 5,000 words. I don't know. It's long.
That's a long one. Fair to know. [laughs] That's a long one. And I wasn't gonna cut it. [laughs] I was married to the length, so... Where was it gonna go- What is-... in the book? Oh, yeah What position?
Like, last, middle, beginning? It was like towards the end. It was gonna be kinda my, my triumphant love letter to my hometown, and, uh- Hmm... it just didn't fit the, the theme of the rest. Hmm.
So it wasn't like my editor wrote to me to say, "This is, I'm sorry to say, the worst thing I've ever read, and if you don't cut it from this manuscript-" [laughs] "...
I'm gonna terminate your contract, and then I'm gonna beat your ass." Like, that didn't happen. [laughs] But it just didn't fit, so.
[laughs] When you sold the book, I mean, circling back on what we said, where this one is not really about making cultural proclamations, like, when you sold the book, was that the understanding?
Like, did the publisher, it, this was like the publisher bought it understanding that this was really a memoir and not something that you would read to understand culture broadly? Yeah.
I mean, the way I originally pitched it was as a more straightforward addiction story. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, it was still gonna be
a memoir-type essay collection, but everything in it was gonna be about addiction, and that ended up actually kinda boxing me into a corner. Hmm.
I mean, notwithstanding people's superstitions and prejudices about addiction memoirs, like, it, it was hard to write at such length about addiction. And so we ended up refocusing around bad habits in general- Mm-hmm...
bad behavior in general, which gave me a lot more, uh, lot more runway to, to taxi down, and it gave me more wiggle room, and, uh, it just, it really opened up the, the memoir side of it.
Because if I was gonna write just an addiction memoir, ironically it would've ended up drawing much more on culture and, you know, takes [laughs] 'cause, uh,
15 years of addiction, I'm not sure that by itself justifies like 250 [laughs] pages. You'd have to review scar tissue. Right. Yeah. I, I would have to like go back out and get into PCP or something.
What's your book tour gonna look like this time? I actually get to have one this time, which is, which is very exciting. Oh, 'cause Tacky was during COVID? Yeah.
Tacky came out during COVID, so I did a few isolated kind of random spots, but, uh, I didn't have a dedicated tour. And this time I am going to DC, then Boston and Providence,
then Seattle and LA, and then Indianapolis, and then I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna sleep for five days. [laughs] Yes. Wait, you're hitting Riff Raff, right? I am, yeah. In Providence? Amazing.
I'm gonna be there on August 8th with, um, Stefanie Buggo to talk about her book, but- Is this a book store?... it's such a cute store. It's a store and a bar. You would love it. Mm-hmm. Have you been to Providence?
I helped my friend move up there in the summer of 2020, uh, but that's the only time I've been. Providence has- I've never been... amazing food. Mm-hmm. I think you're gonna like it. I'm really look- Yeah...
I mean, I've had some friends give me a hot tip that Providence is full of, like, ex-hardcore guys who are like hot bald men, which is- Oh, no... the best kind. [laughs] So am I.
I'm just gonna go do, like, sex tourism in Providence. Mm. That's how this is gonna go. That sounds perfect. Yeah. Um, sex tourism and calamari, like two things that go together perfectly. Yeah.
Um- Two great tastes that taste great together. [laughs] Are you gonna pop up... You didn't mention Buffalo, but are you gonna pop up and see our friends Rochelle and Aiden? I really want to.
I think probably not, like, on the book tour proper, but- Yeah... I'm going back out to do some other stuff in the fall, and I'm gonna try and hit Buffalo, 'cause I've never been.
And Rochelle and Aiden are, are the best, and I would really love to do an event with Rochelle, 'cause she's really good at it, and she would do everything.
She's so good at, like, throwing parties and coming up with ideas, and then I can just kinda like fart along and show up somewhere and know that it's gonna be amazing. And eat some wings. Yeah.
Well, I can do that anywhere. [laughs] I'm gonna- I think-... probably do that, like, in two hours just here. Yeah. I did that last night. Two nights ago, actually. Nice. Buffalo Wild? Uh, no. [laughs] My local...
I'm not gonna name it. Not gonna... I've, I've docked myself, c- close to docked myself enough already. Oh, come on. [laughs] But I had some, I had some Buffalo Wild wi- no, they weren't Buffalo Wild Wings.
I had Buffalo wings. They weren't wild? [laughs] They weren't wild. [laughs] They were good. Weren't wild. [laughs] Was I wild about 'em? Yeah. Uh, we had that- [laughs]... and then some, uh, l- uh, honey garlic.
It was good. Guys, I have a confession. For the last two weeks I've been trying to find a way to combine hot summer nights mid-July when you and I were forever wild with Buffalo Wild Wings, and I haven't- Hmm...
figured out the right phrase- You've been trying to get a tweet off... to tweet it. Yeah. [laughs] But I- It's a tough one... it is a tough one. I think- It's weirdly tough... I can get there, though. I think you can.
Yeah. Rags, am I correct that you're more of a Blue Sky user than an, uh, so-called X user these days?Yeah, these days.
I mean, I, you know, I write a weekly newsletter, so I need to be able to post links and have them actually show up in feeds. Yeah, yeah. And the so-called X, I'm never gonna call it that- [laughs]...
Twitter is really bad for that anymore. You say that in the book too, I think. [laughs] Yeah, I'm, and I'm gonna say it every day for the rest of my life- Mm-hmm... first thing in the morning. I'm never gonna call it X.
It's the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard of in my life. Twitter is a bad place to post anymore. Either- Mm-hmm... I post on there, and I get idiots in my mentions at a rate heretofore unseen- [laughs]...
or, like, my stuff just doesn't get any attention, which is a problem. Links are nothing. Can't post those, so yeah, Bluesky is better for my purposes.
Well, regarding the, the restaurant draft tweet, y- y- are the idiots you're getting in your mentions there, like, what... Is the idiocy rate better?
Is the health, the mental health of the idiot, like, lower, higher on Bluesky? What is, w- w- is the Bluesky... I, 'cause I just don't really spend much time on there. Is the Bluesky idiot...
How does that compare to the Twitter- It's a different breed of idiot... Twitter idiot. Yeah. I find the Bluesky idiot more manageable, uh, meeker. [laughs] Meeker. You know? [laughs] Yeah.
Like, uh, they, they don't wanna get yelled at any more than I wanna get yelled at- Oh... so I kinda snap out of it. Rex, is it possible you might have a noble savage mentality towards Bluesky reply guys?
[laughs] [laughs] It is very possible. Oh. Look, I love my reply guys. I do. It's a symbiotic relationship. Oh.
But sometimes they, you know, they get a little big for their britches, and that's a problem, and it happens actually less on Bluesky than on Twitter. On Bluesky, what I get are, like, finger waggers.
I get fingers wagged at me a lot. Rex, I- I think the, the title of this episode, sorry, the title of this episode has to either be Sloppy or Noble Savage Reply- [laughs] Sloppy Savage. [laughs] We could...
What about Buffalo Sloppy Wings? [laughs] Wait, that's such a better name- They are... for them though 'cause they are sloppy. Do you have to... Is it like- They're messy...
you go eat 'em, but you have to go, like, bobbing for wings? No hands. I mean, do your hands not get dirty? Are you using knife and fork? Uh, knife and fork? No. No. Oh, that's sick.
Okay, so The Sloppy, it's a little self-explanatory, right? In a sloppy, but, you know- You would say... pinkies up. I usually eat 'em pinkies up. [laughs] Okay. Whatever. Um, all right.
Before we go, I'm so glad that reply guys came up 'cause I have to tell you, Rex, the way that you went out with Sean is the same exact way that I went out with Ben.
Ben responded to one of my tweets to ask why I never followed him back. Wow. And that led to our first date. Wow, the exact same way. Literally exact same. Two?
Like, is there a playbook we don't know about that they've been circulating? Oh, God. [laughs] I'm about to go into the other room and interrogate my husband about that. Yeah, you confront him.
Ben's at work- Well, you know, they say-... but I'm gonna give him a call... the way that they say every app is a dating app, right? Yeah. It is, Twitter more than most for me. Yeah. I've, I've... You know what?
I've done a lot of things via Twitter with a lot of people. That's all I'll say about that. Yeah, Twitter's a good many places- Including my husband... I wouldn't go with a gun. [laughs] Yeah. Um- Yep, that's right.
[laughs] Well, on that note, thank you so much for coming on. Uh, everyone, S- Sloppy in stores now... Sloppy will already be out, yeah, in stores. Yes.
Um- Today, if you're a loyal, good, loyal listener and you're listening to this the day it came out, it is July 30th. Sloppy's in store. Go to your latest, your closest McNally Jackson, Borders- Sloppy seaport...
Barnes & Nobles. Sloppy seaport. [laughs] It's all, it's there on the new, the new release table. Yeah. Thank you so much, Rex. Thank you for having me. This was super fun.
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