731. - Lili Anolik

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone is here? Jason Stewart, LA. Chris is in New York. Is it raining over there? Is that what I'm reading? It's awful. terrible terrible day and i had to be outside i was walking around as a nightmare i'm back indoors now thank god i'm not recording this outside you had to be outside for what i just had to like go do stuff and it required me getting on the train and walking and you know it's just it's too much it's too much so when it when it's raining like that why don't you just call a car because it will take three times as long this is this is calling a car on a rainy day is the worst thing you can do unfortunately got it You just got to get an umbrella and a raincoat and hoof it to the train. You got to hoof it to the train because they have a car. If you call a car, I was going to the West Village. If I call the car to go to the West Village, it costs me $50 and take twice as long. Literally. It's just not. It sucks, but it's not practical. And it did. I was wearing a suit, which made it all even more uncomfortable. But once again, I persevered. I was about to say it smells like broken here. And then you revealed that you're wearing a suit. And I had to really eat my words there, pal. See, that's the thing. If you've never lived in New York, you think that, but if you've lived in New York, you know that taking the train is almost always the best option. It's a sad reality. I don't want that to be true, but it's true. Thank God I've never lived in New York, so I don't have to deal with that kind of crap, right? I think I hate traffic enough that I'd rather walk to the subway in the rain is the truth. I really hate traffic. Whereas, you know, I'm indifferent to it, but traffic is a good place to listen to.

uh timothy chalamet on the theovan podcast now that's ain't that the truth ain't that the truth yeah i you i sent you that because i was stunned that he did it and then you said that he's a fan because the makeup artist on the bob dylan movie listened to it while like putting makeup on him and he became a convert yeah timmy was in the chair over in nashville and the makeup art you know you gotta spend hours and hours and hours in the chair, and they were just listening to Theo Vaughn pods, and he said he liked listening to the ones where he would just have a garbage man on, or just regular non-celebrity people. I didn't know Theo Vaughn did that. Neither did I. I guess I need to take a second look at Theo Vaughn. He seems to be coming into our orbit more and more often. I feel like I never heard about it, and now I hear about it all the time. We're on the second wave of him, where the first one was like, look at this fucking hillbilly. He says funny stuff. And now it's like, oh, he's interviewing presidents. And it's a little different now. He switched up on us. He switched up. He's kind of like the, he's become like the antithesis to like a Nardwar kind of. But is he, is it one of those? He has the same spirit and like energy and. like youthful playfulness as Nardwar, except all of his information is not rooted in research whatsoever. It's just, you know, full improv versus doing the work. It's a real kind of Didion Babbitt's allegory. Sorry, you were saying something? But is it like... is it do people think he's like an idiot savant or is he just an idiot and it's entertaining i think people think he's an idiot savant okay like he's actually low-key really smart he just looks like that i think it's a little uh to borrow a show term the a broken clock is is right twice sure if you talk for 40 hours a week you're gonna get it right a couple times but i i think he has he has the idiot savant thing where he does not sound intelligent and he does not

you know, have like a vast knowledge about a lot of common things that a lot of intellectuals do. But every four to 11 minutes, he will say a sentence that has never been uttered in the history of language. And sometimes it's just beautifully poetic in a way where they've talked about it with other comedians before of just like, I don't know if you got hit in the head with a frying pan when you're a kid or a car accident or something scrambled your brain to where, Sure, you're not going to pay your child support, but then also you're going to just say... He said today, a city has to have crime for it to have good food. Cities that are too safe don't have good food. Bro, that's so right. That really is. And you're like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's completely true in every way. It's so tight of a sentence. It explains everything you need to know in the most tidy way possible. That's good. That's good. I'm going to have to revisit. I got a long day of travel tomorrow. Maybe I'll queue up some Theo V for the road like the rest of these. Queue up some Theo V. And lastly, a lot of people are saying, like, if Kamala just did what Timothee Chalamet is doing on his media tour for his movie where he'd play a folk singer, you know, she could have maybe secured that presidential spot. Or, I mean, just... A shame that the president has to maybe take a page out of a 22-year-old dude who's into college basketball on how to operate in the world in general. Sometimes that's worth it. Sometimes that's the way to go. I'm like a full Timmy guy now. I love him. I'm good. I don't believe a word he says. I think he's an actor LaGuardia High School-ass thespian. But also, when he did the college game day shit and clearly memorized all the stats to look straight, that was... I mean...

If you're an actor who memorizes for a living and you're listing off stats of a sport you definitely don't watch, it doesn't feel super authentic to me. I don't think that you definitely know what Timmy's watching. I don't think you know about Timmy's sports game. I don't think Timmy knows. You can't confirm it. I don't think he knows the ins and outs of SEC football. I would be very, very surprised if a New York... actor was that well-versed in in college football maybe i'm wrong but it's easy to memorize that's what that's what the hosts on the show do anyway yeah but i mean maybe maybe more so the hosts were were memorized and instructed not to really pry onto or ask any like secondary follow-up questions on yeah there's no follow-up questions when he knows what middle school old missus third string wide receiver went to don't be like how do you know that timmy and then smoke starts coming on that was the wrong route that was the wrong route bring out the barbecue uh sorry i just saw a lindy man tweet that said can't imagine anything gayer than two men in a car drive alone or with a woman and that That is also – that feels from the school of Theo Vaughn. That feels like the same kind of thing. Yeah. Whereas I can't really argue with you. I can't really argue with that. Very, very similar to the school of Theo Vaughn. Very possible that he had some sort of blunt force trauma to the head where – I think the thing with him and why people like the Lindy on Twitter so much is like for every 100 tweets, 97 of them are going to be racist. sexist and deleted and then three of them are going to be like damn this mf spitting this mf spitting i mean i guess i guess if you spit occasionally and if you could do both then you've got you've got uh you've got something that's going to catch fire i love that i love catching fire i saw catch fire with a joke that's structurally sound as well as approachably racist i had lunch at

bar pity because i was over in the west village actually with annie hamilton friend of the show and i was we're sitting there the restaurant's kind of empty five guys walk in okay the entire black crows band the entire all of the black crows sat down at bar pity for lunch and they were talking to the employees they clearly knew them they were talking about soccer And I was just like, I can't believe this, that the Black Crows are right here. And I pussed out and didn't say anything to Chris Robinson. I once again pussed out. Okay, so Timmy knows about football and basketball. The Black Crows know about soccer. Did that upset you at all, that one of your favorite, stinkiest bands of all time are soccer enthusiasts? Was that surprising to you? Did you make you like them more? Unfortunately, I think that's how 99% of musicians actually are. in their free time especially if they're rich and older um they they care about baseball or football or soccer i i can't unless you're billy joe armstrong from green day and then you're into like quilting antiquing and other lesbian activities sourdough starter maintenance he's definitely got a sourdough starter named american idiot oh he's the worst he's the fucking worst no it didn't bother me that much like i said i get in your orders orders before midnight tonight if you want your american idiot sourdough star to arrive before christmas y'all okay so this one actually is the night is the gilman street strain actually i don't know if you guys have been did you see the photo of him and ryan reynolds where yeah It's just, I like to see Lindy get his eyes on that. They look like Ellen and Portia over there hiding out. I mean, they look like what Ellen and Portia wish they had. I don't understand the fascination. Nobody has a love that strong. Ryan Reynolds is drier than a piece of toast. I do not understand the fascination of him. I don't know. Has he ever been good in anything? I don't know. Is he good looking? Sure. Like, I guess. Like, in a general sense, yes, of course. But I just don't.

Like, Billy Joe, I don't like Green Day at all, actually, but they've given us more than Ryan Reynolds, I would say, if I had to choose one of these lesbians. Of course. I think I was, on the last episode, I was talking about if you were to polish a tit or something like that, where you polish something so much the nipple falls off. Ryan Reynolds, there's nothing wrong with him at all, not a zero thing wrong with him, which makes him so undesirable. He's just a glass of water. You know he's a good dad. Boring-ass motherfucker. Boring-ass motherfucker. He's a glass of milk. He's a glass of skim. That's what's even worth it. There's nothing to grab onto. Everything's just been sanded down. He's a Phillips screw that just is a bored-out hole. Stripped. But it's very shiny, and everyone likes looking at it. It serves no purpose, and there's nothing to sink your teeth into. I've got to check out Deadpool. Green Day. It's that same thing now, but, you know, in 1993, they're probably cool, right? To someone, yeah. I was talking to somebody about who's designing Trey Cool's home in Newport Beach, drummer of Green Day Trey Cool. And then we were making a joke about, like, how they talk about Jesus Christ and the Bible as, like, B.C. and A.D. And for Green Day, in terms of their, let's call it, house purchasing. ad stands for after dookie it does though things changed things changed financially all of a sudden a guy named trey cool has a house on the on the beach it's not two miles from the beach things have things have switched up has has a house on the beach for monday has a different house on the beach for tuesday do you think they split it three ways or you think billy joe's taking home the lion's share good question i'm gonna say billy is doing 60%, and then the other two are whacking up the 40%. I bet they split touring equally, but the other stuff, I'm with you on that. I think a 60-40 is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a guest today, a friend of the show, former guest, Lily Analik, is back. She's got a book called Didion and Babbitts that is out everywhere.

Now, wherever you get books. Yeah, we had her on a couple years ago when she did a podcast about Bennington College with Brett Ellis and a bunch of other people. She did another book called Hollywood's Eve. And now we're going to talk to Hollywood's Lil. Yeah, she's really been whoring this one out, too. I've been seeing a lot of like... celebrity readings at the Chateau Marmont. Like, we got to sell some books. That's what How Long Gone is here for. I was there, Chris. That's what How Long Gone is here for. It was a tight room. All right. We'll talk about all of that and more with Lily. What's up, Lily? This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you.

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That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Do you have headphones, Lily? I don't. I have no headphones. Okay, free. Cool. Just love a clean answer. Yeah. Most people say like, oh, let me go check. Let me go check. And you're just like. No. You know, my wife doesn't like the way they look, so she refuses to use them unless she has to. And I'm like, they don't look like anything. They're just part of our lives now. No, you're so right. They're like Ryan Reynolds for your ear. Yeah, exactly. It's just bland, white balls. God, now you're making it sound so appealing. I don't know why. I just don't fucking, I don't have any. I don't have any. You don't have any, but when you're on the subway or you're walking down the street, you're raw. I'm just raw. Yeah, I'm just thinking my thoughts. Damn. That's cool. Okay, when you're on a flight, do you take the disposable headphones from the flight attendant, or do you raw that as well? You take those? Every time. Every time. I actually have lots of those. Wow. Okay, so you're not into fidelity and stuff like that. I do not care. If you saved one of those pairs of Delta headphones, your podcast would be sounding better, just to let you know. I think that's pretty cool, though, because I assumed you were a wired it girl just based on your personality and what I know about you. But no headphone is a new style that we need to explore. I think Lily is too psycho for headphones in general. That is exactly right. I feel impeded. I don't know if I'd want to be in between those two ears for a long walk. I'll say that. You know, Lily, I feel the same way about sunglasses. I wear the sunglasses, I put them on, and I feel impeded is a good way to put it. I feel like someone's going to sneak up behind me. My peripheral vision is messed up. You have your headphones on, a loose raccoon or a fox could sneak up behind you. It's true. You would never know. It sure as shit could, but I like sunglasses. For whatever reason, I like that barrier. Oh, I love sunglasses, but I know what you're saying, Jason. I think it's because sometimes people think they're too heavy or they hurt their nose.

I'm like, bro, what is your nose made of? Fucking paper? I have a big nose. I got a big nose. That means you should be able to support the sunglass with this nice structure. That's my whole point. You do have a great nose. You're known for that. I think I need to go custom. I think I need to go custom is what I'm learning. Yeah, you probably could go custom. You might turn the tables if you do that. Yeah, that could ruin your life. It's like if you get a shirt made at Charvet and they have your measurements, you can just email. You know what I mean? And then it's just coming through. The post is lit up. I'm already there, unfortunately. Yeah, we were talking before. Chris said that you have been, quote, whoring yourself out on this book tour. I think that's awesome. But I just wanted to say, you know, we are a little late because the book came out like a month ago or so, right? Something like that. And we like to look at books like... restaurants we like to give them a couple months to breathe work the kinks out and more so if the book is going to do well or not and then we'll sort of decide to to talk to you about it no that's discriminating that's smart you know no i i i like to be a little late discrimination's not always bad we'd rather give you a a late bump than be part of the the glut of all the upfront stuff. We're not going to compete with airmail. You know what I mean? We're going to come on our own accord and really give you a bump because our listeners be reading. Why wouldn't we compete with airmail? We're much bigger than airmail. I'm saying that it's better to be before or after than during 40 things at once. Got it. Jason, were you there? Did you go to the Chateau? I was there, yeah. I had a double header. I went to your event, and then I went to an influencer dinner for Viore brand clothing in one of the bungalows. So what a Hollywood night. Yeah, quite the Hollywood night. I forgot you did that. You should never tell people again that you did that. I forgot. I blocked it out. Love my Viore girlies, and Nomi Fry was just randomly in town at the same time, so it just felt right. My Uber dropped me off at the Chateau.

Coming out of a different Uber, Nomi is walking right up at the same time. And just having her there was like having an emotional support dog to go into such a female forward literary powerhouse event. That was all girls. As a cis white male. Yeah, how dangerous. Nomi and I had had dinner with Brett the night before. I saw Nomi. Which steakhouse did you go to? Jar? Jar has the worst acoustics. We went to Sunset Tower. But Brett was pissed because we sat by the piano. We felt like a primo seat, which he did not like. He likes to be in Siberia. Because it's too loud? Too loud. It impedes conversation. I'm overusing the word impede, but it does. Jar doesn't have great acoustics, but it feels like it has blinds. So, you know, you can't. You mean so like if you're sitting in the wrong part of the dining room in Jar? For our listeners at home, Jar is a restaurant from the 90s that's still good on Beverly Boulevard in Hollywood. But I've noticed that it has like you sit in one corner and you can hear somebody 100 feet away from you, the perfect convo echoing and reverberating off of the awful acoustics. Jar, if you're listening, let's fix it. No, it is. It's a problem. But he loves it. But we did Sunset Tower because I was staying there. Beautiful. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. Who's the publisher on this again? Let me just check. I just am looking at my notes here. That's not bad. Not bad. Because, you know. I thought they might have you at the line, but you said, no, no, Simon & Schuster, I'll take the Sunset Tower for a week if you don't mind. The best. Okay, so you said, I want, instead of bad acoustics, good food, I want good acoustics, bad food. Yeah, no, and it's like, it's also just like, I feel like there's very few restaurants that are acceptable to Brett. Like, it's very, it has to be at 7.30. Have you ever, have either of you ever eaten dinner with him alone? I've never eaten with him alone. I've eaten with Jason. And I've eaten him with Ryland. There's always been a third. Never alone. There's always been a third. Man, man, there's no women. We don't we know what to deliver. You are so smart. He yelled at me. We'll bring boys. I will, too. But he he will only do like the group sex dinner. It will never be like one on one. Yeah, that is that is funny. Maybe he thinks the questioning will get too direct. Of course.

The only time I brought a girl that it really worked, it was Stephanie Dandler, you know, who wrote Sweet Bitter. That was really good. I'm a love. I'm a Stephanie Dandler head, actually. I love that book. I love the other one, too. Isn't there a second one? Yeah, she wrote a really good memoir called Stray. Oh, yeah, the memoir is really good. They're both really good. I really liked it. Did the TV show do well or no? I never know about that. I mean, who cares? It doesn't matter. She got paid, so. Got paid, yeah. And I think she was. I care. You care? That's nice. That's nice, Jason. Why don't we get her on the pod, Chris? Well, that was years ago. I think a good author and a good book never dies, but however you want to do it, man. She's got a new one coming out. I think she has a new one coming out next year. She worked at, I believe, Sweet Bitters. Did she work at Union Square Cafe? Yeah. But she can't say it, but that's like what it's based on. Clearly, right? It's a great New York. Union Square plays itself. Cocaine. Well, I mean, I sort of, I see Brett's side of the, it is a lot easier to do a three-person dinner than a one-on-one because the one-on-one, it's a breeding ground for like almost a therapy session, deep convo. And sometimes you're not always in the mood for that. And you need a third to just keep the thing. pouncing around yeah no but i mean i would respect that i would not you know i would i would keep it light with him but he always wants the group but it's like Very specific. There's very specific restaurants he likes and does not like. And it has to be at a very specific time. And you have to have a very specific cast of characters. So it's a thing. That's kind of what I aspire to. I like a one-on-one. I don't mind a one-on-one. But every time I try a new restaurant, I'm like, why did I do this? Yeah, of course. For the camaraderie. But that's actually something that I've recently talked to my therapist about. Shout out to BetterHelp. about like when i was younger i used to be very controlling of a dinner and it would have to be i would be in control of the location the time and most importantly who is coming and who is not coming yeah and it and i would always wonder like does that make me just like a cunty annoying person in general or

Or do I have a high standard for excellent dining and I'm always striving for that excellence? You know what I mean? I think the answer is both. Oh, okay. I mean, it's both. But I think that the person who does that, because I'm similar, the person who does that thinks they're right and that they're helping everyone. Yeah. But that's all a matter of opinion. I don't care about food, so I should never pick the restaurant. That's cool about you. Really? You could never eat again? I just don't care. about quality of the food. It all tastes good to me. I think we talked about this the last time about your disgusting habits. Was it soda drinking? She's drinking a Diet Pepsi in front of us in a bottle, which is a crazy, crazy drink. It's a regular Pepsi in a plastic bottle. We just talked about this because we were at a hotel in Miami and Jason asked for a Coke and they're like, oh, we only have Pepsi. It was literally like they... said something about his mom it was like what what the fuck a record scratch coke is the most american they should have it yeah i i agree with you i think as far as a restaurant goes but you are you buying pepsi is it costco are you getting it shipped no or you just hit the bodega always at the bodega and it's it's not diet pepsi and it's not regular pepsi it's pepsi zero i'm very specific about oh excuse i apologize Shout out to all our PepsiCo corporate listeners. I wouldn't want to offend you guys. I'm sure you have some chips you could send my way as well. I feel like it's a Frito-Lay. You know what I mean? I feel like it's all related. That sounds so good, too. Frito's great. Yeah, this is all coming back to me about how you eat like a fucking eight-year-old. It's so cool. Frito-Lay sounds good. It's really good. I pick all the stuff my way. Me want chips. Me want chips. I do think a Frito, the actual Frito, is one of the most underappreciated chips. Really smacks. The best. It's absolutely the best. It's no chili cheese Frito. Yeah, I know. I can't take spice, so I don't like those. I'm not surprised by that. I'm not surprised by that. The chili cheese is a mild offering on your Caucasian palate. Fret not. It's not a Flamin' Hot. But your eating habits, lack thereof, and your beverage habits,

Would you call those Didion-esque? Two almonds a day and a Coca-Cola? No, no, no. It's not like I won't. I like to eat. I just don't have classy taste. You're just not a nerd who's like, well, I don't like the chef. I didn't prepare it to my liking. You're saying you have no problem with slop going in your slop hole. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's exactly right. I don't. Okay. And I can't tell. I don't have a discriminating palate, but I know Brett cares. So anyway. No, I think it's nice to know that about yourself. It makes things easier going forward. What do you guys think? I think that new... I'm kind of annoyed that there's going to be a new American Psycho. I mean, this is what people do. I don't really think there's, like, I don't care either way. Well, is Brett annoyed by it? Is Brett going to get a second check? Do you know? Well, I'm sure Brett's delighted, but I think the guy who was doing it was the guy who was supposed to do the Shards, which I was excited, you know? Yeah, Luca. Yeah, Luca, and I wanted to see all those, like, 18-year-olds, 1981. private school Los Angeles kids. It sounded great to me. Everything he does is just so gay, though. It's like, I got it, bro. You have to call the movie queer. We got it. The Shards is pretty gay, though. I agree. Yeah, but there's a way to do... If Luca directing and Jacob Elordi... in the shards it's a home run it's a grand slam no one's gonna have a problem with it i actually i actually i actually think it might not be i think that sadly ryan murphy might be better for actual for actually like for sick for success i think i'm gonna be for success i didn't watch the menendez brothers people just pretend that luke like nobody's seen anything but call me by her name yeah no that's totally true i also but you know what though you know what I think it could be not that gay. I feel like if you pay attention to the Susan Reynolds storyline, you could straighten it up. Well, no matter if it's no matter if it's Luca or Ryan Murphy, it's going to be gay. There's no question there. It's true. I remember like Sofia Coppola wanted to deal with it. That would have been much less gay. That's what I was thinking. You know, there would have been a hot chick in it. Yes, there would have been. Not that there won't be a hot chick. I didn't watch the Menendez brothers because I'm not.

a woman um but people people really loved it i watched it and i'm a woman and i did not watch it but you did which jason it was okay it was fine you know it was enough it was there's not a lot of competition for excellence on on on streaming platforms right now so it was well it was a It was in the win category. Yeah, no, that's something, I guess. I'm never going to rewatch it again. Yeah. It's no Joker 2 Folly Adieu. Oh, did you get it? Did you guys love it? No, I didn't see that. Chris didn't see it. I smoked weed and watched it last night. And for the first half, I was like, this is the best movie I've ever seen in my life. And then it turned into a courtroom procedural starring Lady Gaga. And then it kind of. That is no. Got a little sleepy. That is no good. You know, did you listen to like Quentin Tarantino thinks it's like the best movie of the century? I think I thought a lot of I mean, because as soon as you realize that he's producing a Joker movie as if the Joker himself was the director, he's playing the production studio and tricking them. And as the Joker would do, then it's like a really interesting piece of subversive art. Yeah. And something even more political about our whole system. But then it's also. You have to be into cartoons and silliness, you know? Yeah, no, no. And also, that just seems like... Bad? Stupid? Boring? Yeah, and like a consolation prize. For nerds? For nerds, yeah. A consolation prize. You're appealing to the intellectuals, and that's always... The kind of guy who relates to the Joker. is the kind of guy I don't want to be around. You know what I'm saying? Not that the movie could be great, but it goes deeper than that with people, and that's the issue. Incel money spends just the same, brother. It's just like the music of Insane Clown Posse. There's an audience for it of wounded people out there in the world who need this art. Yeah, but I think Joker, because it's Batman-related, is ingrained in people's childhood. You know what I mean? It's like you kind of... You feel something bigger than Batman. You feel something. Yeah, you feel something different. Who plays the Joker? Joaquin? Yeah. I have a problem with him. What's your problem with him? One of our greatest actors. He's hot. He's hot and damaged. He was straight. He did? It's amazing. And that makes me almost like, I just find him like, he has like a limp masturbatory quality to me. And I just don't want to watch him. And everybody loves him. And everybody stars him.

And it's just so hard for me. I can't do it. Limp and masturbatory. I get it. But like with a lot of these actors, as a person who doesn't watch movies, I've like seen them once, literally, maybe twice. Like, I don't really know. I just like him because he seems like he takes it serious. Yeah. And he did that stupid thing where he like got. kind of like light canceled for going on letterman and being in character i didn't know he got light canceled yeah it wasn't great but also he didn't do anything it wasn't like it wasn't it was like it was like a you're he wasn't canceled but the world was like you're the most annoying dude of all time for like three months so we're gonna put you in like disney jail kind of yeah but but i want to go back to to american psycho before i forget We were talking about it when it first was announced it was going to happen, and we were trying to predict who would be the ideal Patrick Bateman for now. And I was saying Barry Keoghan kind of has a little bit of a loose screw that could play well. I mean, Saltbird, he was that in Saltbird. Don't you think? Yeah. He's too short, guys. He's five feet tall. You know, I accidentally took my nine-year-old. Keep talking. I'm Googling. You took your nine-year-old. He was eight. I took him to Saltbird, and that was... Really quick. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Did you want DFAX to get called? No, I thought it was, I was doing it for work. I was supposed to see it for work. I was doing it for work. Honey, come with me to the porno film. Sweetheart, I'll pick you up from school and we can go see the porno. The guy goes down on the girl and like, she has her period. That was quite a conversation we had after. Oh, God. This is a nightmare. I've never seen salt burn, but after what you just said, I'm definitely not seeing it now. Under duress, I don't think I would see it. Oh, you're too old for it. You're past eight. But yes, exactly. I would say eight-year-old is the ideal age for somebody who wants to explore themselves. in a way where you would be like, yeah, it's a good idea to dig a hole in the ground and fuck it. That's something that an eight-year-old would do, right? No, I feel like that is 12, but you got time to think about it. We'll be ready by the time he's 12.

Maybe that guy's not quite classically handsome enough. He looks squashed. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He looks like... I think Elordi is the guy you'd want for that. What actor doesn't look squashed? Elordi's too tall. Elordi's too tall. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, he might be too tall. Austin Butler, just right. Austin Butler, I do think, is a good choice. I think so, too. Yeah. Lily, if you could pick anyone for that role of a current actor that's feasible, who would it be? It would be Elordi. I know he's tall, but he's got like... There's something kind of like – I love Austin Butler's looks, but it's like he looks like a great Elvis. It's that kind of – it's like ambiguous. He kind of makes a hot girl too. Sure, sure. It's a look I love. But Elordi is more kind of straightforward, clean-cut, GQ masculine. What did you think of his beard though? Because it really caused an uproar. He looks good in anything, right? That was my – that's what I said. It's like when beautiful girls were wearing Uggs. They just looked – they were so good-looking that they were Uggs. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean – A woman can wear almost anything and it's fine if she looks a certain way. It doesn't matter. Yeah, but I'm thinking about what about the casting elements that are beyond good looks? I'm talking about this is a very specific role where somebody has to take over the mindset of a psychopath who wants to play with people's blood and organs and he wants to kill cats and things like that. Does Elordi have that killer edge inside of him? Yeah. That's what he seems like to me. He seems like a perfect Patrick Bateman to me. I get your point. Elordi is as dark as a bar of soap. He's got no murder behind his eyes. He's just happy to be here and read his cute book. I think Elordi would get his character journal going and really do the work. I think he could tap into something. Jason, don't forget he is Australian. Dark people. That's a good point. A dark breed. It was like Huey Lewis. He could give a dissertation on one of those albums, and I'd believe it. I think I've told this. A friend of mine literally talked to him about being in his movie, and he said that he was so brooding and intense that he was kind of like, what's up, bro? And he was just dead fucking serious, really serious, talking about how he would study. And it's like, all right, cool, man. Relax.

We don't have to go there yet. I kind of like that self-serious actor. Like who's that? Like what? Like a young Dustin Hoffman or something. I think there's a lot of them. I think they're either that or they're dum-dums. There's no in-between. There's no in-between with actors. Yeah. That sounds okay to me. All right. Well, let's talk about writers, Lily. Let's talk about female writers. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web. So do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could, you know, have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools so those future graduates can find me. And, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash how long for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code how long to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Hi Talk House Network listeners, it's your old friend Nels Klein from Wilco here. Wilco is touring this summer and we'd love to see you somewhere on the road. We're playing shows this June and July in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Chautauqua, New York, Lafayette, New York, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Vienna, Virginia, Forest Hills, New York, Portland, Maine, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Memphis, Tennessee, LaGrange, Georgia, Charleston,

South Carolina, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Wheeling, West Virginia, and Columbus, Ohio. Plus, there are even more dates, some with Willie Nelson that I didn't even mention here. So please go to wilkoworld.net to see the full list of dates. We'll see you on the road this summer. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. All right, I wrote down a few questions. Some things that I wanted to ask you. You kind of talk about how Joan Didion did a good job about creating herself as a character in the IRL world, and that really helped boost her career and people were interested in her work because they're interested in her as a character. Are there any good writers doing that now? It's definitely like Brett's appeal for me. Yeah. It's like a performance art, like the life of the characters and the books and the podcast. It all just seems like an extension of an ongoing project. I kind of love that. Yeah, but Brett's been doing that for 40 years. Anybody kind of in the current space, you think? And it's okay if you don't. Maybe Chris knows an answer. Yeah, who do you think? I don't care about that. Do you remember the question, Chris? Yeah, I'm saying I like books that are good. I don't care what the author does in their free time. Okay. Swing and a miss. Let's see what the next question is. Because the books are good. I don't give a shit about where he eats dinner. Yeah. Like, that doesn't have any effect on the work. Well, I'm working on something, like, I'm trying to get, like, this thing that Courtney Love going, you know? She's another example of that, like, where it all bleeds, you know? Yeah, no, that's true. Great example of that. For her, it's probably negative.

Maybe. Overall. But you know what? I would say that was how it worked for Hemingway and that's how it worked for Fitzgerald. I'd say all the writers that we still pay attention to were good at that whole thing. Yeah, but I don't think the time... I think the time has changed so much that it's much harder to do that because there's no way to have mystique. Tao Lin, maybe? Yeah, that's fair. But first of all, being a writer is just so minor. I guess Lena Dunham, right? She's kind of an example. Yeah, she lives out loud. Yeah. She lives out loud. It's also like the pieces, the books and the TV shows, it all feels pretty autobiographical. So you just feel like it's all bleeding. Yeah. No, no, I agree. But I also think that how long, I guess sometimes I'm like, how long can that last? Because you're mining, you know, obviously you're mining yourself. At a certain point, it's like how much is left? How much is left with cannibalism? It's cannibalism, so you're going to eat yourself up. like by wouldn't you say bob dylan that's his thing too i think a lot of musicians yeah i don't know what i don't know what to believe because bob dylan could be like oh it's just characters i write about you know and that like people are fine with that liam gallagher and morrissey all of chris's favorites embody that as well i would say yeah i mean i think i think musicians you have to i think writers don't have to but it may be as good if they do in a certain time yeah like i just i just read this book called in tongues It was really good. I can't remember the author's name. It's, it's a, it's basically like he moves to New York. He's super broke. And then he becomes a dog walker for these like very rich gay art dealers. And like the stuff that comes, it's good. It's really good. But I'm like, I didn't think about, it's clearly based on his life. You know what I mean? In some regard, but I never thought about that at all. Like, I'm like, is this guy really doing Coke and smoking a pack of cigarettes and fucking dudes in the woods? Like, I don't, it's good on paper. I don't know if he's doing it in real life, and it doesn't affect how I think about it. You know what I mean? No, I totally know. There's this element of, I guess it's like I think of it as pornography, even if it has nothing to do with sex, where it gets like you feel like you're seeing something you're not supposed to. Yeah. I mean, when I read Ryan O'Connell's book, because we're friends, we've been friends for so long, and it was all about him.

fucking it was kind of i was like damn this is gnarly i was like damn this is kind of like i feel like i shouldn't read this you know it was captivating but it was also like oh this is a real window into the man and i like bring him to dinner a jar with brett you know you know some of it but then like some of it you're like oh that crosses into a territory where like i didn't know that i would never have come across that except for the except for the book yeah no no i mean i'm into all that like i love knowing that stuff Well, did you feel that a lot when you were uncovering these letters? Yeah. Oh, my God. Originally at Eve's house, I'm sure you felt like, should I be reading this? I mean, I didn't have that kind of feeling because I was definitely going to. But, yeah, like, you know, it's like, you know, like that voyeur pleasure. Never considered it. Never even crossed my mind. It was more of Eureka. I found it. Yahtzee. Exactly. No, no, I like that creepy intimacy. I get that from you. Yeah, and there's actually funny things, too, because I know Brett well, and he's my subject, too. And he drinks, and I don't drink. And I know he knows. There's a weird little dance that goes on. We're at dinner, and it's a social occasion, and it's not on the record. And he's drinking and he's saying something to me. He knows I'm going to remember. Well, that's what that's what that's why on background exists. It's it doesn't it doesn't. I mean, that's the thing. You can't I don't care how much integrity you have. If you hear something good that informs what you're doing, you're going to find a way to work it in there. Yeah, I know. And you can't you can't hear it like really you can't hear it. And then you just usually can figure out another way to get that information. But like I like that feeling like like because like my subjects are living. And I know them. It's like a weird kind of violate. It's like a weird kind of like, are you going to let me violate you kind of feeling? But do you are you good at keep staving off that feeling of like wanting to be liked because you respect their work? Yeah, I think I am. I'm probably pretty cold about it. I mean, I was like in my 20s doing this or something like I'm in my 40s. It's like I've been around.

You're okay with losing friends, and that's good for a writer. Well, yeah, but it's also like I only would ever go into depth on something I loved. I would never, you know, like I feel that about Brett's work or about Eve's work. I mean, even Jones to an extent, like I don't have emotion for her as much. I more admire her. But if I didn't think she was great, I wouldn't do it. Sorry, is that too much information? No, no, no. That's like, I mean, I would like. If you didn't like it that much, then I would be worried. If you're here to spend two years of your life on something, I hope you like the work. God, and it's so much more than that because with Eva, it started in 2010. It takes forever. Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to move on? Yeah, no, no, no. I really wrote the book against my will. I did not want to get pulled back in. But once I was in, I was all in. What do you mean? Because you found the letters revealed themselves? So you're like, fuck it, I have to do this. I'm called by God? Yeah. Because you already wrote the first Hollywood's Eve. And then you're like, wipe my hands clean. I'm done with this shit. Now I can make podcasts and start making some real money. And then they're like, no, we're pulling you back. book two bitch and then you're like really yeah it was book two bitch and it was like i really just meant like i like i guess you have to lie to yourself at some level i just told myself i was going to revive the eve book um and then it just turned into another it just got so big and it was like a shadow book on joan what do you mean revive you mean like revive oh revise okay okay no no i was about to say what do you mean bring it from the dead you already made it What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, you were going to do a deluxe edition is what we call that in the music business. You're going to hit him with the deluxe edition of Hollywood's Eve. And then you decided, okay. Like the DVD extras. Yeah, exactly. You're like, you know what? There's too much here. There's too much here. Did you read that Griffin Dune book? Griffin? Of course. Yeah, yeah. He sent it to me. I think I had read it.

I think when it was a proposal, I read the first hundred pages and then I read an early copy. I haven't read it. People really like it. He did such a good job. Do you guys know him? No, I don't know him. I mean, I know him, but I don't know him personally. He's a really charming person and he could have just kind of skated by on charm and he's good at that, but it's like a deep book. It's like he really wrestles with stuff. The stuff on his dad was my favorite and then on his sister getting murdered. I just thought that was... But is it like too... I have a really tough time with stuff like that when it gets too caught up in family. Yeah, I get what you... Like young, young, you know, like, okay, well, I was born and then in elementary school this happened and then, you know, I don't care. Give me to the good stuff. Yeah, that's how... And I also am not interested in people until they're of sexual age. So I skipped childhood. I never even go... Don't worry, the cops are listening. So I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said it. I mean, in a biographical sense here, I just don't want to deal with anyone. I think you included that in the intro of this book somewhat, right? Yeah. Which is good. I mean, I think most people would agree with you. Get to the good shit. We love Joan Didion because of all the cool things that she did when she was an adult. what middle school she went to and how she had to leave and then go to a different one. It's crazy. I don't understand why, but every single person, if it's that kind of book, like there's multiple chapters that you could skip if you're not looking for that. I don't understand if people like it or if they feel like they have to do it. I think it's the latter. I feel like they just don't know. I mean, like have some nerve. Like if you don't want to read it, just assume everyone else doesn't. You know what I mean? If you skim it, cut it. Yeah, that's good advice. I got to get the 300-page count one way or another. We'll knock 80 pages out before we go to high school. I remember the street I grew up on. We can do 100 pages. I got time. Don't forget it. I think he got around it because his childhood, the stuff about his dad being kind of gay, it was all really interesting. Somehow he just completely didn't fall into that trap.

There's no boring crap. That's good. Okay. I will buy it then. That was one I was worried about. No, no, no. You won't be wasting your time. It's pleasurable. Great review. There you go. A few things that struck out to me when I was reading, I noticed that I just wanted to know if you were able to sort of illustrate what it was like living in Hollywood, you know, Franklin, Beachwood Canyon, 70s, where... People are able to write sporadic columns in magazines and make enough money to live a pretty good life. You're not very wealthy, but you're driving new cars. You're going to cool social events, and you have enough money to live and go out to eat and drink and do whatever you want just by having some little articles in magazines here and there. Well, I guess that's probably – I mean it was so much cheaper. Everything was – like the ecosystem, everything was so much better. That's just how it was. Like it was better. Like, you could support yourself as an artist or a writer. But Evie really did live off guys, too, you know? So that was always part of it for her. So she never really made a bunch of money? Well, I mean, she would have been doing okay. No, there were definitely periods where she was. But, like, most of it, like, it was the Holly Golightly thing, like money to go to. The powder room. Was that how Hollywood was? Like the real money was coming from somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Eve's plan was always to be a courtesan. And like that director, Brian Hutton, paid her rent for years and years, you know? Damn, it's just like an NBA player with his side chick. It's the same thing. Nah, baby, I got the rent. I got the rent. Don't worry about the rent. Yeah. But the rent was $200 a week, or $200 a month, not $8,000 for the penthouse, you know? So cute. Well, if, you know. Just for inflation, of course. Yeah, it's like the same. I'm sure it's the same. I mean, Beachwood has been a hot chick neighborhood since the 70s, clearly. No, totally. No, but everything was just cheaper. Everything was cheaper and more doable for whatever reason. I don't know. I have no sense of economics. But I guess that leads me to like, can an Eve Babbitt's exists nowadays with that? No. I don't think so. Also, I don't think Eve or Joan would be writing books. I always feel like if...

the closest thing we have to a Joan, I think is Alina Dunham, you know, where she's like the creative, it's like her, she's the auteur, but it's like something that's like the culture pays attention to. Do you know, like girls was something people paid attention to. Um, and I think it'd be like an avant-garde artist on YouTube. I'm serious. I love the idea of Joan Didion pointing down, like, subscribe to my channel. It's really fucking funny. That's a fun thing to imagine. So Joan Didion would be slouching towards Brooklyn, writing movies and TV shows, all that stuff. Eve Babis would be like... I would have an OnlyFans. I was about to say, she would have the Yabbos out for sure. That is brilliant. I never thought of the OnlyFans. So Caroline Calloway is probably the closest to what she would be. Yeah, but Caroline Calloway doesn't do anything. She does OnlyFans. And she sent me the pictures, and it was really funny. It's just basically like naked pictures, where she says she's being a kid. character in literature so if you like heard like a godly shirt where you can see her breasts like i'm daisy b cannon the whole thing was really funny like very niche market i can't i can't support this like if you're gonna do only fans do it for real don't don't try to make it smart it's a fun angle but the guys that want to fuck her don't know who any of these literary characters are so it's not really gonna like move the sales who's this scammer chick with nice lips like let me see something let me see something no i mean that's yeah totally that's what was so funny about it that is funny i mean it's funny i've got a Ferrante kink. I'm just hard as a rock thinking about it. It's like the way that Lily Allen can sell the feet and everybody's freaked out about it. It's like, dude, I'm more powerful. Sure. If somebody's going to pay for it, why not? I always feel like that's the secret economic system in LA anyway. OnlyFans seems just like the most honest version of all this to me. You're kind of right. When you say all this...

All this? What do you mean? Just like whoring yourself out? Yeah, or just like... That OnlyFans just cuts to the bone? Is what we are doing any better, basically? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess like the one thing that you hope with the movie, it's like that you might hit transcendence and you might make art. Like you might, that might happen. But like how many times? Like once in a... You should check out more OnlyFans because art is exactly what is happening there. And I don't know why you would disparage some of these creators. No, I'm sure I'm going right. I've seen some transcendent content. You transcend it. You should get it in a feature talk. That is true, though. I think that we're all whoring ourselves out in whatever way we can. It just depends on how obvious you want that to be. But I guess that leads me to, sorry for interrupting you, one of the first letters you found or maybe the first letter that you found was from Eve to Joan critiquing her article about the feminist movement. And I was sort of, you know, I know that Eve disagreed with Joan's stance on feminism. You know, what do you think the reasoning for that was? And do you sort of see a surge of like people rejecting the feminist movement nowadays, the way that Joan might have been writing about? I think like I think probably even Jones feelings on women's movement and feminism, I bet their feelings were actually pretty close. I think what Eve was saying was she didn't like the women's movement either in the sense that she thought it was humorless and kind of corny. That's how I feel about every movement. So that's cool to know. Totally, right? Every movement. Always earnest and embarrassing. But sometimes they have a point. And Eve was saying that the women's movement did have a point. And Joan, in her piece on the women's movement that she'd written for the New York Times, was basically saying sexism was all in women's minds. So I think he was irritated in two ways. Classic Republican. So Joan is saying feminism doesn't exist. And then Eve is saying, what the fuck? Feminism does exist. It's just fake and gay. Sexism. Sexism. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, no, that's exactly right. That's basically it. But I think that Joan is born in 1934. Joan wanted to be known as a great writer. Joan didn't want to get ghettoized.

patronized and like called a woman writer. She just didn't want that. She just wanted to be grateful. Stop. So she played a certain game. Right. So like, and it was kind of pandering toward guys at some level, like Hemingway is her idol. Hell yeah. Fellas rise up. Right. Exactly. Right. And so I think that's kind of what Eve was reacting to, but you know, Eve went another way. Her, her idol was Marilyn Monroe, which means you get treated like a bimbo and you just, that's how it is. Like you were an artist maybe, but you're treated. You know, you're treated really pretty shabbily. But I think she just felt that Joan sold out women to get in good with men. I think that was basically her argument. And like, I'm much less harsh because you're like, you're born into a certain context and Joan had certain ambitions. And I guess she just did what she felt she had to do. You are forgiving. Yeah. So she sort of put her feminism, her womanhood aside and sort of hid that away to blend in and be frictionless, become one of the guys. And Eve is just like. I got some nice-ass titties, and I like having sex. Yeah, exactly. And Joan, too, I think was what he's pointing at. Yeah, exactly. You got it. Precisely. Beautifully, beautifully, eloquently stated. But she also felt like she would say, like, going, like, in this, like, temper tantrum at Joan, really pissed, saying you always emphasize how small you are, you know, basically to make yourself unintimidating so you can kind of. But it was, like, funny. So I wrote a piece for, like, the September. 2022 Vanity Fair issue, and it was on this letter. And I posted it on Instagram, and Courtney Love starts DMing me and, like, posting all over my wall, whatever the fuck you call it. Sorry, I don't mean to swear. Whatever you call it, right? Yeah, be careful. Be careful. I'm so sorry. I know you guys are so delicate. I don't want to jeopardize your future as an OnlyFans creator with bad words. Just watch it next time, Lily. Jesus, fuck. Just watch it. We'll bleep it. We'll bleep it. Thank God. It made me look like the lady I am. But it was Courtney Love, and she was so, like, When I posted the Vanity Fair piece, there's a pull quote. And the pull quote was from Eve's letter to Joan. And it said, could you write what you write if you weren't so tiny, Joan? And so Courtney starts to go off in this kind of reform stream of consciousness rant about her relationship with Madonna. And she said that they exchanged poison pen letters and that they were.

You know, Eve's were nothing compared to the one she used to send to Madonna. And then she kind of ended it by saying, I have other short friends, but for some reason, Madonna's shortness enraged me. Something like that. Just wild. It's so good. I mean. Yeah. But you realize there's kind of two types and there's like the Eve type where it's like, you know, they're like something wild. Right. And kind of. emotional like like a little bit sloppy but kind of authentic right like there's that and then there's like the sort of trim controlled eye on the prize type which is like the joan and madonna type and these two are kind of endlessly like kind of attracted and repelled by each other they need each other although they do need each other fire and ice but as you were describing those two archetypes you got to be one or the other i feel like you are the exact embodiment of both of those together i like that maybe that's why i'm Nice schizophrenia. No, I'm much more uptight. I mean, I would love to be. Yeah, I could see you're low-key uptight. So you're saying you're a Joan Moon Eve rising. Self-hating Joan. Self-hating. Yeah. Perhaps. Yeah, that's probably exactly what I am because I'm really, you know, and, you know, all this stuff. But, like, I guess except about my food. I don't eat well. What is this Courtney Love? What is the book? What are you trying to do with her? A podcast. And so she wanted me to find out who her. grandfather is. And it's like a wild story. And I knew it because I'm older than you guys. I'm born in 78. And right when I was coming out of college, remember how that Jonathan Franzen book, The Corrections, was so big? Huge. Huge. And everywhere he went, and he was everywhere, he would say like the great post-war novelist, it's not Philip Roth, it's not Don DeLillo, it's not John Updike, it's Paul Fox, whom I'd never heard of. And all books got reissued and I read every one of them. Are they good? Yeah, she's great. But, like, they're not fun. I mean, they're like difficult, like dense, opaque, serious novels. But I knew she had given up a baby for adoption at 20, and that baby would become Courtney Love's mother. I've heard, like, now that you're saying this, I've heard something like this before. Yeah, and she was living, at the time, she was living in Stella Adler's house. And Stella Adler was a famous acting coach, and her star student was Marlon Brando. So it's just sort of about that.

So hold on. You're saying you're saying Courtney's grandmother was living in Stella Adler's house. Yeah. And then. So she was an actress or she was. No, she was never an actress, but she was just she was like like an abandoned person. Like, no, no. Like the way Courtney kind of gets kicked out of the house at nine. It's kind of the same story with Paula Fox. She had like no parents, like raised by wolves. Kicked out at nine. Yeah, she's kicked out really early. What the fuck are you going to do at nine? I mean, no disrespect. If I was raising Courtney Love, I would kick her out at nine, too. I couldn't handle that stress. Nine-year-old Courtney Love? How much can you take? I guess at nine, the mom felt no more. But anyway, it's about kind of Paula Fox and Courtney Love. Okay, so she wants to do a podcast. How hard is it going to be to wrangle her? Are you going to have to go to London and hold the microphone for her? Or do you think you're going to be able to send gear? She's like a great talker. I mean, she's like the best talker. I agree with you, Lily, but a great talker does not make a great podcaster necessarily. Well, I think this will be done sort of the way I did Bennington because it's like multi-generation. Okay. Yeah. But she's the best talker I've ever heard. I mean, she's so good. So it's like I'll kind of – Let her go and figure it out later. Yeah, because she's that good. I mean, it's just – Did you listen to Marc Maron? Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I mean, that's one of the greatest of all time. I mean, it's unbelievable. It was unbelievable. That's how I feel. Yeah, unbelievable. That's what she is. She's unbelievable. And also, she doesn't really need the money, which makes a good podcast as well. Yeah. Because so many celeb podcasters just money grabs, and I don't think she needs it. Yeah, just don't let Questlove get involved or anything. No, no, no. And also, it's not that. It's more like Bennington. I don't mean like we're co-doing a podcast together. I'm doing the podcast, and it's going to be cool. bastard hollywood and she's part of it but i just she's the best like i just think i know to class love but she she's like

I just love how she talks. Everything she says is insane and you believe it, which is a very powerful combination of like, I know you were there, I know you were there, and I believe every word you're saying. And then there's just something like her brain makes connections that nobody, and she puts words together in this very particular way. She's just so good. But yeah, it's not going to be easy. Theo Vaughn asked, we were talking about him in the intro. Yeah. There's this comedian named Theo Vaughn. He does a podcast that became really big recently. He just had Donald Trump on and he had Timothee Chalamet promoting the Dylan movie. But I was saying whether or not he was bumped on the head as a child or something like that, something traumatic happened to him where... for every hundred things he says 99 of them are really stupid and then one percent are just these amazing poetic sentences no human is ever uttered in the history of existence kind of thing so you get it it's that thrill right and it's not inconsiderable that's a real thrill yeah you you have no problem scrummaging through some old bullshit to find some magic at the bottom and well actually that reminds me when you were talking about it's almost exciting to me like the harder it is So I don't mind. That's a great approach to life. I agree. The difficult thing is more rewarding. Right, yeah. When you were talking about going to Babbitt's home and how it was sort of a hoarder's paradise, living in disarray, and then you found this box of letters in the back of a closet, untouched, and you alluded to how it was beyond imaginable about how nasty it was there. Could you do five minutes on really what was going on? I need a scene report. Oh, my God. It was just, like, the stench. I was going to ask you to start with smell, but you did it anyway. Like, it hit you in the face. Like, it was, like, physical. It was, like, getting punched. It was so awful. And there was definitely something dead in there. You know, and I know that, like, Jewish Family Service at some point went into clean, and they had to wear hazmat suits, if that gives you any idea. So it's, like, hoarding is, like...

Please, don't even... That's not the right word. That's not the right word. Yeah, it's not the right word. It was so extreme. It was like the FBI started a file on her. Okay. And what was her... She would eat... She would buy Trader Joe's products and live off of that, basically? I guess so. But it was also like, you know, she was in this really bad fire in the 90s. She set herself on fire accidentally. Very cool. Yeah, right. But it was like third-degree burns over 50% of her body, and they didn't think she was going to make it, and she did. But then when she got out of – it was like a huge amount of time in various hospitals. But once she came back, she didn't take care of herself. So there were these wounds that didn't heal, like open wounds. Oh, hell no. Human flesh is what you were smelling, Lily. Goddamn. That's what I'm trying to say. Like it was so much more extreme than a hoarding. Burned OnlyFans star skin is not – Don't bottle that. Okay, so what would you do to prepare for going into her home to interview her? Classic clothespin over the nose like in the cartoons? How were you operating? Oh, like Looney Tunes? No, I could never, I would not want to offend her or hurt her feelings. I mean, almost actually, so because that wound never healed, so she never complained, okay? She never ever complained. That's why the letters were so great because these were letters she never sent. They were really like diary entries where she actually let out her emotions. But she never told me, like we would go to a restaurant and she never lasted more than 15 or 20 minutes. Now, I didn't know why. That's a very short amount of time, right? These wounds didn't heal, so she couldn't sit comfortably. So all of our best conversations were over the phone when she could lie down, you know? Okay, so she couldn't sit for longer than 15 or 20 because the burns took their toll. Yeah, it's like these wounds just didn't heal. She couldn't sit. And then also she would go very crazy in the summer, really, truly crazy because... She had so many skin grafts, her body couldn't sweat. So if it was hot, like there'd be, she wouldn't sleep for days and days and days. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. But this is all kind of like on her. Well, yeah. But I mean, you know, it's like. No, I'm asking like the wounds didn't heal because she probably didn't.

do what they were told. It's one thing to accidentally burn yourself into fire. It's another thing to not, you know, correctly treat the wound. We've all fucked up and left the tinfoil burning. Like, I get it, but I'm saying that... And we've all, like, broken our pinky and not done the four months of PT that the doctor wrote. I think I'll be okay kind of energy, you know? Jason, Chris, you guys are so right, except here's what's coinciding. So she burns herself in the late 90s. Well, Huntington's kicks in in, like, 2000, 2001, so her brain's just... crumbling so she's just not compost mentis is that how you say it she's just not all there so go to go straight from a burn into the huntington's disease is a real one-two punch one-two punch and like you know it's like and it was like when i got her like i started interviewing her in 2013 no 2012 six weeks after i got pregnant i started interviewing her in 2012 and the difference in the quality between 2012 and say 2018 was extreme like the brain was just crumbling yeah i don't know anything about huntington's disease i went to i grew up in huntington beach uh is there any correlation that's obviously what it's named after does it have anything to do with surf and skate culture is it more based on the library in pasadena what do you think did you ever see did you ever read um tapping the source no no i know what you're talking about It's like my favorite book. I named my oldest son after the lead character in that, but it's set in Huntington Beach. It's written in 1984. It's surfer noir. You've got to read it. You'll love it. Surfer noir. Okay, I'll definitely read it. I'll see if I recognize any of those streets. I bet you're going to. You were talking about a lot of these letters. She never held a grudge. She never complained about things. She never complained it was part of her ethos or her whatever code of conduct that she lived by. But she'd used the letter writing as a way to complain and let that out, but she never sent them. So to me, this feels like the one example of that therapist advice where people tell you, write.

somebody that you hate a sternly worded letter and put a stamp on it and never send it. And that's, you know, the therapeutic act of writing. It will heal you. And this is the first example of somebody actually doing that successfully that I've ever heard of. And I thought that was kind of interesting. Yes. It's that thing that you described, except I feel like, I mean, I'm like, I really love Janet Malcolm. And she wrote a book called Silent Woman about the marriage of Sylvia. Plath and Ted Hughes. Anyway, she goes into this like little meditation on the unsent letter, like as a genre. And basically the argument, yeah, because the argument is that it's not a letter that you write and think is shitty and ball up and throw away. It's a letter you think is like almost too good, too valuable, too revealing, too naked to send to the like ostensible recipient. Right. So basically you're sending it. charity right that's the idea because like you're saving it you obviously want someone to see it you just you're you're proud of it but this it's not it's too powerful for this time generations in the future may be able to handle how fire my pen is that sounds like that sounds like a writer's ego that sounds like a writer's ego this is just too good i can't you know it's like oppenheimer as soon as he made the atom bomb he's like what have i done you know i'm i'm so cool at inventing stuff but this could have potential ramifications. I'm so cool at inventing stuff. I'm not cool at inventing stuff and not yelling at someone in an epistolary form. No, but it's like, but it was, but like, I just knew it's like, it was shocking though because I just knew her so well. I knew her so well, but then it was like this whole secret emotional life she had that she wouldn't cop to really is, you know, so it was, it's that pornography thing talking about. It's tough. It's tough to not cop to it when there's. Lots of evidence, but I mean, you know, teach their own. Yeah, I guess like that. Yeah, I'll take this to the grave. It's like, no, you won't. It's all here on this desk. It's all good. Exactly. I'm just waiting for you to die, Eve, even though I can't. Yeah, as soon as you die, I got my letter opener. I think Eve is thinking, it's okay if everyone is talking about this behind my back. As long as you don't talk to me about it, I'll be fine kind of thing.

Totally. Which I can respect. Well, this only cements her legend, too. I mean, it's like it's a good you know what I mean? It's like if you if you can do it, it's great for you. It keeps you in the in the limelight. Yeah. And it's like a funny thing, too, because I know that like Diddy and people are kind of upset about the book. Right. Oh, but that's a real fun bunch. Yeah, exactly. But like the thing is, I think for any kind of writer to remain like to have any kind of relevancy, like opinion has to be shifting on them always. It's really what you want. It's a funny thing, too. I always feel about reviews and stuff. I remember Chuck Palnyuk, if I'm saying that, I remember he said this in an interview. He talked about Fight Club was really polarizing when he wrote it. And he said that's really what you want because if something is completely accepted by the culture, it's like the culture digests it, chews it up, digests it, and shits it out, and you're gone. It's over. It's had its moment. But if it's like... I think this is true about celebrity, too. If we have a love-hate relationship with a celebrity, they're much more likely to stick around. Yeah, that's why Kim Kardashian's been famous for fucking what feels like 100 years. It's a rollercoaster that we can't get off. Yeah, but it's true of an Elvis or a Marilyn. It's like anybody who people, they shit on them and they worship them. It's like you want that. Yeah, that's true. That's what we're striving for every day on this podcast. That's the movie. I love getting shit on. Thank you for putting that into perspective. I think Eve had some quote about you have to be okay with not having a reputation or something. What was the quote about it? It wasn't Eve. It was Joan very approvingly quotes Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind saying, with enough courage, you can do without a reputation, which is actually absolutely true. Joan just did not abide by those words. That was not for her case. Good advice. Hard to follow. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it takes necessity for enjoying punishment. Well, last question, Lily. Eve is a known stick woman. Yeah. Do you know what that word means? No, I never heard it. Did a lot of shagging, shagged some of the greats of our time, of all the men that she laid down with. Which one are you most jealous of? Oh, God. Okay.

Probably Ed Ruscha. Okay. Wow, okay. Big Ed and the twins. Ed looked good in the day, in his day. I mean, he still looks good, but he looks great for his age. He looks great for his age, but she got him at like... the most beautiful prime yeah like ferris gallery era like prime time yeah yeah yeah i got a prime rusha over here guys mint condition absolutely no and i guess like harris 70s harrison ford he looked so good oh yeah yeah i mean harrison ford is kind of the archetype like that's i feel like harrison ford in his prime is one of the most agreed upon men in history see what what was funny i it's actually funny i got like a note from um calista flockhart about the book And she said something funny about Harrison as a dope dealer. She thought it was funny. And I'm like, yeah, but the great quote from Eve about Harrison was she said, Harrison could have sex with nine people in a day. Nine people. And she said, Warren, meaning Beatty, could only do six. So, I mean, that's a compliment, right? Damn, things are different. Those amphetamines were different back then. This was a different time in many, many ways. You know what? They didn't have OnlyFans. They weren't jerking off. They had to go knock them down. Pre-AIDS, mid-Coke. Golly, that's good. I mean, if you're Warren Beatty or him, you open your door. And just say, all right, next, next. Come on in. The carpenter and dope dealer then. I mean, that's why it's also particularly impressive. It's like the way women like art handlers that sell a little Coke. It's the same idea. It's a working class, but he's hot. You know, he's rough around the edges. He skates on the weekends, you know, good with his hands, great body, but never see him at the gym. He's the one guy downtown whose Carhartts he uses at work. It's like nothing hotter, really. Nothing hotter. It totally wins. All right. Thank you, Lily. It was a pleasure to see you again. All right. So long, you two. Thank you for chatting with us. Duty Union Babbit's available everywhere. Everywhere you get books. Go buy that shit. We'll buy that shit. All right. I'll talk to you guys later.