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Welcome to Kurt Vonnegut Radio #34.
Today I interview special guest author,
, who writes the beloved newsletter, . Around which a big community of fervent super-devoted readers has sprung up. Michael’s comic stories from his life are big-hearted and sometimes weird. When you talk to him about the community of readers that gather around his words, his deep affection for them shines through. The other cool thing about Michael's writing endeavor is his creative partnership with his wife.What else do I have to announce? Ah, I just interviewed Dave Eggers today. It was really good to sit down with Dave and have a heart to heart. We've been friends for 25 years, back from when his first book came out. And McSweeney's was brand new. I’ll post my interview with Eggers tomorrow – so keep an eye out.
Now let's get back to our feature presentation: special guest writer, Michael Estrin.
I loved this conversation and it did me a world of good.
And I sure hope it does you some good too.
*(click play on podcast device above to listen to our convo)
Michael Estrin, choice quotes
How his wife is the one who deals with the monkeys
Michael: Those monkeys are aware that each room has a mini bar. We had a situation where as we were leaving, we got trapped in the room because a monkey entered our room. And I just full on panic and Christina did not panic. She got rid of the monkey. I wrote that story, I pressed send, sent it out. And then we went to bed and the next morning we woke up and Christina was like, What did people think? And basically the consensus from the Situation Normal community is that I am a total coward and you are a hero and I am lucky to have you, which is all true.
On living that “newsletter life”
Gabe Hudson: if I'm getting this picture right, you go about your life and you've got your peepers open for just the whiff of something that could make for that week's story, or the next week's story. Is that right?
Michael: A hundred percent.
Gabe Hudson: That seems like it makes your life so much more interesting when you're having to pay very close attention.
Michael: I got to meet a writer who worked for a couple of seasons on Seinfeld. He was explaining how that writing team thought about slice of life humor. What he basically said was, If you're going to do slice of life humor, your beat is everything because your beat is life, right?
On his racist neighbor
Michael: And I have a racist neighbor. I don't like this man, but he's also my neighbor. So there's no getting out of it.
Gabe: He's not racist against you?
Michael: I don't think he likes Jewish people, and I think he can figure it out that I'm Jewish, but he hasn't identified me as a problem. He is a guy who will say terrible things about a neighbor on one side used to be a woman from El Salvador, and he would say terrible things about her, but lovely things about our Cuban neighbors on the other side. And I was like, I don't understand why your racism only goes in one direction and not the other. I've written about him.
How writing helps him transmute potential rage into gratitude
And so in that way, I just think I have to be open to all those things, but it also leaves me in a place where I have some gratitude about what's going on in my life. And just thinking those things through. Whereas if I wasn't writing
and my catalytic converter had been stolen twice, I think I would be signing a petition to recall the DA.
On the writer who gave him permission
Gabe: Are there things that you turn to for the well of inspiration, short stories, or is there a show that you watch on repeat because you just love the way it's structured?
Michael: That's a good question. For the stuff that's on
. I draw some inspiration from David Sedaris. I think also some of his essays are not designed to be funny. They're just personal essays. I'm mostly trying for the humor, but he is very funny. And I think reading his work, particularly Me Talk Pretty One Day, but also Dress Your Family in Corduroy and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, those stories really resonated with me. And they gave me permission to tell these kinds of stories.
Michael Estrin recommends 3 great Substacks
by .
I just think Denard is the best joke writer. He's just a phenomenal joke writer. And he does this thing where if you subscribe to his newsletter, which you should subscribe to his newsletter, I think he calls it a newsreel. It's just headlines. That he writes that should perfectly sum up a story that's in the news, but the headline is the joke. You know how I know something is like really good is when I look at it and I think like How come I can't do that?
2. by
Anne Kadet is reporting on the city of New York as if it's a small town. But what she's doing is she's covering topics that a news would never cover. But they're still meaningful topics because there's things that people see every day, right? I just love about her newsletter, she doesn't do it every week, a monthly thing I think, being a New Yorker, she covers Eric Adams, it's called Eric Adams Watch.
- by
I like to read Noted for a lot of reasons. Jillian Hess did a piece on Jim Morrison's notebooks, the singer of The Doors. What Jillian had to say about it, it both lifts him up and brings him down to your level. You get to see his private thoughts and you realize he's got messy handwriting. He's a little bit scattered. It's a little bit all over the place, but he was consistently putting down ideas into a space, working through them and coming up with his art.
I’ve got some questions for you. Any answer you give is correct.
In your relationship, are you the one who deals with the monkeys, or the one who panics? (Or are you the monkey?)
Are you one of those people, like Michael, who is a magnet for weird happenings? If so, what’s one weird thing you recently found yourself caught up in?
If you had to continuously write the story of your life, what genre would it be? (Mine would be horror)
Do you know what the little hand drawn asterisks I use in this newsletter are?
Who do you think stole Michael’s catalytic converter?
Hi, I’m Gabe Hudson, and this is Kurt Vonnegut Radio, my Substack. It’s free and for the people, but it’s also how I buy groceries. So please consider upgrading to a paid subscription: just $5/month or $50/year. You can also receive my eternal love by becoming a Lifetime Member at $150.
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34. How Michael Estrin's writing thrives in a creative partnership