Deconstructing jokes with Andrew Ridker

[Music Playing]

Adam Sockel:

You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast where each week, I'll interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work.

I'm your host, Adam Sockel, and today's guest is Andrew Ridker. He has a new novel out called Hope. And you may recognize his name as he's the bestselling author of The Altruists, which was his first novel, and it took over the literary world.

I adored this conversation so, so much. We talk about jokes, but in a way that is a little different than ways that I've talked about comedy in the past.

We get into the construction of jokes and how he likes to write comedy into stories that aren't necessarily funny, and the way that that makes these stories just that much more human. How it brings a brevity and a realness to his stories.

Because no matter how serious something is or how challenging a family situation might be, humor is always going to be a part of a realistic family experience.

There's just never going to be a set of relationships intertwined in a family where there's only one emotion, and that one emotion is heaviness.

I really, really love this conversation. We talk about our shared Jewish backgrounds throughout our family and just a bunch of various comedic performances that we both really adore.

And in line with that, I want to give you a book recommendation, which is I highly recommend you not only read, but listen to the autobiography All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks. We talk a little bit about Mel Brooks here and how he is inspired both of us.

But if you haven't had a chance to check out Mel Brooks' autobiography that came out back in 2021, it's so great. And again, the audio book of the autobiography is of course read by Mel Brooks, and it is just as delightful as you could possibly hope it would be.

So, I highly recommend that, and I highly recommend you go get Andrew's new book, Hope. You're going to adore that novel.

And if you want to get ahold of me, of course you can always find me at [email protected], or you can find me on Instagram or TikTok @PassionsandPrologues.

Not going to keep you any longer. I'm just so excited to get to this conversation with Andrew. I think you're deeply going to love it, deeply going to love it. So, I hope you check out and enjoy this discussion with Andrew Ridker, author of Hope on Passions & Prologues.

[Music Playing]

Okay. Andrew, what is something that you are super passionate about that we're going to be discussing today?

Andrew Ridker:

I am super passionate about jokes, which is funny because I don't actually even have a great mental store of jokes of like knock, knock jokes, or one-liners, or what have you. But the idea of the joke … and here I'm going to get in trouble because there's nothing less funny than dissecting humor.

Adam Sockel:

No, but I love explaining a joke, so please get into it.

Andrew Ridker:

I remember I was a senior in high school, and we had this project, and it was something about — oh, it was sort of called like your senior paper or something you had to write.

Maybe even a 10-page paper, which to a high school kid, I mean, it was like this daunting … that's like a hundred-page thesis to a 17-year-old. But the topic was free. You could really kind of go anywhere.

And I was really into Arrested Development at the time, the TV show. But I also had to give it a sort of academic underpinning, obviously, to make it this school paper. And I wound up writing about Arrested Development in relation to Freud's theory of humor, Bergson's theory of humor. And it's been a while since I've read those, but they left a big impression on me.

I actually just read — Art Spiegelman has a new book out that's like kind of a new old book called Breakdowns. It's a collection of some of his early comics before he wrote Maus in book form.

And he has a great, great panel or two about, it's like this Art Spiegelman jester character explaining humor. I'm just so fascinated by it because A, it is impossible to make funny. And there's something really, I think profound about the fact that talking about comedy isn't funny, but comedy itself is.

And also, jokes to me, they're so much like poetry. It's about compression, it's about disarming the reader. Victor Shklovsky's theory of estrangement works perfectly well for a joke. It makes you see something familiar in a new way.

And the idea of working humor into art that is not explicitly just comedy is a big obsession with mine. Like short of being a standup comedian, how funny can I make my books without losing sight of like what literature is really for, which is beyond just making us laugh, obviously.

Adam Sockel:

No, I love this for a variety of reasons. One, something that we didn't talk about before we started recording, I have a similar passion for jokes and like the structure of comedy. And part of this, I have a small kind of shared background that you have as well.

My father's side of our family is Jewish, and like there is a deeply rooted aspect of comedy that comes with like Jewish, both like celebrating various like Passover and different things, but also just like the … Mel Brooks talked a lot about it in his various books and movies and everything.

But like I love this concept of you were saying, talking about comedy might not be funny, but I think it's extremely interesting. And Jerry Seinfeld's like Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is like this very concept.

It's yes, they tell jokes interspersed. But I think the reason that show is so interesting is because these conversations are with these extremely high-level comedians.

And it's not about making each other laugh, although they do, it's more about seeking the interesting aspects of comedy for them. Like why they structure a joke a certain way, or why they choose to approach a punchline in these …

And so, to me, I find myself watching standup specials, and even if I don't laugh once for 45 minutes, I'll find myself really enjoying it because I'd be like the way that they told that story was deeply, deeply interesting.

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah. There's something about comedy that it's funny to think about how kind of what a hot button topic it is right now, and how politicized it's become. Because on the one hand you could say, “Well, how many more articles do we need to read about Dave Chappelle's latest stand up, whether pro or con?”

But at the same time, it's so important to our culture that we really are like in some ways having an important debate over this battleground of like what is acceptable to laugh at? What's the direction of the punch going? How does that affect the comedy?

Like I think people get really riled up about these debates over, especially standup comedy, because it means so much to people and we need it, but our deciding what is permissible or acceptable in comedy is like it's a microcosm for discussing like what's permissible and acceptable in society in terms of behavior in general and what our attitudes should or shouldn't be.

And I'll just say, as an aside, I also, I mean, I'm obsessed with Mel Brooks, like deeply, deeply obsessed. But I also grew up listening to a lot of George Carlin stand up on CD, and especially in his very late grumpy old man phase.

And I was like this 13-year-old kid, like shaking my fist at the state of the world with George Carlin, who's probably like in his ‘70s at that point, and his one HBO special a year.

But what I find interesting is like (we could talk about this later too) the relationship between comedy and transgression. Because George Carlin's stuff to me was so exciting at that time because it felt like he was saying what you weren't supposed to say, and it was dangerous.

And he wasn't coming at it from a politically left perspective per se, but he was coming at it from a like, I'm calling out hypocrisy where I see it kind of way.

Now, though, you get into these insane debates, that I feel they're insane, where it's like people on the left are saying you're not allowed to joke about this or that and it's censorship a little bit. But then on the other hand, there's such an industry in like quote unquote “transgressing”.

It's like, “Oh, are you going to cancel me for saying blah blah blah?” And it's like, “No, you just got a bazillion dollar Netflix deal.”

So, what does it mean for a society when transgression, which is so integral to comedy, when you're transgressing against a basically center left social order. Transgression for its own sake isn't going to cut it.

And I think these times have sort of forced us to rethink the value of transgression in comedy and like who is the target? Because It's not the 1950s and we're all shaking our fists at like the conventional nuclear family. It's like things are more complicated now.

Adam Sockel:

And it's really interesting that I think a lot about the comedians that I'm drawn most to are the ones who will talk about topics that in theory, like you say …

I feel like there's like this one level, like you said, where the left-leaning people will say like, “Well, we really shouldn't talk about these things.” And right-leaning people will say like, “Well, I'm going to talk about this because look how hardcore I am.” But they make the same tired, stupid jokes.

And then there's these people who they are also, like very left leaning, but in my mind, the more established and like well off comedians who know …

Like Pat Oswalt, any Jeselnik, even like Tom Segura, who just did a comedy special just came out, who I like, to some of it, they'll talk about topics that in theory, other people say you can't talk about them.

And they'll say like, “Well, no, you can, it's just that you have to approach it — and there's always angles you can talk about things where they're not offensive, but they still discuss the topic.”

Marc Maron does this all the time where he'll say like, “You can talk about these various things. You just A, have to have an original thought and B, have to accept consequences that will come from whatever your thought is.”

And that to me is something that has gone away. Like you said, not even just from comedy, but like society at large where I get so frustrated talking about politics. I'm not shy about the fact that I'm very, very less leaning, my entire family is.

But to me, it's like, it's exhausting to even try to have a conversation about anything political because there's like no middle ground to even have a discussion. It's just like either I think you are the worst person in the world, or you think I'm the worst person in the world.

And so, it's like when you can at least … the rare times where I'll meet someone who I actively disagree with, but they'll at least have a conversation with me, it's almost shocking now.

And I feel like it's the same thing with comedy. It's like when a comedy special or a movie or something comes out that at least has something interesting to say, it then garners so much attention because so few people are willing to be interesting or at least have a thought because it can be easy just to say like, “Oh, X group of people, they're terrible and here's why.”

And then you're going to get a bunch of people that it's just like a dog whistle. They're just going to say like, “Oh yeah, thanks so much for saying that. We think that too.”

Andrew Ridker:

Right, right. I mean, there are moments that I find really interesting where you'll be at a comedy show, or at a movie, or even a book reading, and a certain kind of joke is told. And there's a certain reaction that I think I find very interesting, which is the sort of, are we supposed to laugh at that? Or are we supposed to find that funny?

And there's almost this like moment of looking around, like, “Is the comedian on our side or not our side? Like are we laughing at this or are we not?”

Which to me is so funny because I think of comedy and laughter as such a disarming force where if it's funny you laugh and if it's not funny you don't laugh. And obviously, it's subjective, but it doesn't feel like something that I have a lot of control over like what I find funny.

And you get these weird moments sometimes where you feel everyone's sort of like clench up a little, almost like they're looking to each other to go, “Is that funny?” Which to me, sort of also like defeats the purpose of it. Because I'm like, “Well, is it funny to you?”

Like you shouldn't look to the person to your left or right. Like it should get you or not get you.

But to your point earlier too, about you have to have something interesting to say about such and such controversial or transgressive material, I've always thought it would be so much more effective if the left, instead of saying you're not allowed to talk about that, would just say, “That's hack.” You know what I mean?

Because like it is, and I do think comedians that are trying to push boundaries and in a way that they think is edgy, but really just reifies existing social orders, they will get all riled up if you say, “I'm censoring you.”

And then they'll release a shitty standup album where the cover has a piece of caution tape over their … oh my God. And they're like, “I'm too dangerous for Netflix.”

But if you just say it's hack, to say that that racial stereotype is hack. It's been around for 50 years, like come up with something new. That I think presents a bigger challenge.

And I even have this in my own writing, I like the dangerous feeling of getting near a topic. There's certain topics in this book, like Israel-Palestine takes up like a little bit of chunk of this book, which for the Jewish community and that those are the people that in a lot of cases come out to my events or read my books, it feels a little like, I like the idea that it's dangerous and it's exciting for me.

On the other hand, I don't want to write for claps not laughs, but I also don't want to write just to piss people off.

So, in that Israel selection, you get one character who's like very pro-Palestine, but in a sort of like obnoxious way. And you get another character that's sort of pro-Israel, but in like a really sort of nefarious way.

And the main character is caught between because he's mainly just trying to hook up with this girl. And he's like, “How can I avoid siding with one country until I know which side this girl I'm attracted to takes.”

And to me, it's like this topic is a little bit dangerous, you could say, but it's being approached from all these different angles. And I'm not saying here's how you're supposed to feel about it, but I definitely can relate to that feeling of like, “Oh, it would be fun to like wade into these waters.”

I understand the appeal of that, but you're absolutely right. You have to say something new. Otherwise, it's like, okay, that joke was … like if it's just racist. Like what are we doing?

Adam Sockel:

Well, and exactly what you said about just say like it would be more productive to just say like, “We're not canceling you because what you're saying is dumb and not originally-

Andrew Ridker:

Is boring.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. “It's boring.” Exactly. And I think that that gets to something where one of the things that I love so much about Mel Brooks, as we were talking about before, is like he understood that comedy has power.

And one of the things that he did, I think it was starting with The Producers, but it might've been even earlier on, is he basically was just like, he just started making fun of the Nazis. He was like, “They're horrible and they're evil, but look, I'm just going to make fun of them. I'm just going to berate them. I'm going to show anyone that wants to try to hold up those horrific beliefs.”

“And I'm just going to basically insult you to death so that you're embarrassed of your bad take, of your bad belief system.”

And I do think that is something that like I don't think people do enough of in today where like people don't say, “You're not being canceled.”

Also, like you said, you're coming on a Fox News recording, however many millions people watching you just say that you're being canceled. It's like, “Alright, calm down.” You're going on this Joe Rogan podcast to say, “No one's letting me speak my truth.”

But if more people would just come up to them like in the interview and just be like, “No one's silencing you. You're just an idiot. Like you're just wrong.”

I don't know, to me, like I said, I think comedy has such power and it has an ability to remove the fear from a lot of things, but also, it enables you to inject honesty into conversations where maybe it would be challenging to do that otherwise.

And like to me, I'm curious for you obviously, having written a couple novels now and obviously been writing all your life, like when was writing humor into what you wanted to produce, had that always been something that you were interested in?

Or I guess like where did you start to get your own roots of injecting comedy into your stories?

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah, it's kind of a case where it feels to me almost like a first language and it would actually take more work in some ways to suppress than to like actively insert. Although the idea of like combing through proofs of a novel and being like insert joke here is kind of crazy and funny to me.

Though, I have been doing some screenwriting with my sister in recent years, and that is sometimes what we do. Like we go, “Okay, there hasn't been a joke beat in a [crosstalk 00:18:57].” But for me, it's really like just part of the language.

And I actually remember, I think some early writing I did, I started out thinking I would do poetry and I loved poets that were funny. I don't know if you know the poet James Tate, but like he writes funny, absurd, profound poems.

And I just was so thrilled that they were just so funny. But yeah, this is like also, serious poetry that people are taking seriously.

And I actually, when I think about my like artistic education, it was all those years when I was trying to be very self-serious that I wrote the most cringey, embarrassing, unproductive stuff.

Like I was one of these nerdy kids who went to like poetry camp, summer poetry programs or whatever. And I remember like my poems from those, they were not funny. They were really serious. They were weirdly waspy.

I remember my dad went to a reading and he was, “Why are there Jews in your poems?” It's just like, “Where are these names coming from?” And I was like, “Oh, I just thought those were like American names.”

And it was only when I started to really realize that a lot of my favorite authors and I pivoted to fiction and realized so many of my favorite authors from Philip Roth to Lorrie Moore were just like funny on the page and that didn't hang up with their reputations, that I stopped being that sort of archetypal self-serious young writer guy [inaudible 00:20:26].

And just started being like, “Well, if I like stuff that makes me laugh, I think I can make people laugh.” And like everything just like kind of opened up because it's like …

I think every writer has this where you're kind of fighting against your natural voice for one reason or another. Maybe it's because you have some influence you're sort of overly wedded to, or maybe you think writing is supposed to be a certain way.

But for me it was like accepting that I like writing things that are funny, accepting that I like writing about family, stuff that tends to be a little like domestic. Once I let go that that was okay, things like took off in a very different way for me.

Adam Sockel:

Well, and to me it makes sense again, like having at least like a tangential connection with like … again, half my family is Jewish, my mom's side of our family is Catholic.

But like I feel like inherently, if you are going to write about an even remotely modern family — and your book is set in 2013, your new book, to write about even like the incredibly stressful and horrific and challenging things that the family goes through in this book, if you don't put any humor in there, it's almost like it can be really challenging to approach.

Like I talk about a lot the saddest movie I've ever seen is Blue Valentine, and I jokingly told someone, I was like, “It started horrifically sad and that was the high point of the movie.”

I don't know, to me, I appreciate and enjoy novels the most that yes, they tell an incredible story, and they leave me when I'm done with it thinking about the story. But that doesn't mean you don't want to laugh along the way. Like you want to get some brevity in there.

And then you mentioned with it, from a screenwriting standpoint, like you said, it can be much more, not formulaic, but hey, there hasn't been a joke in a while here. We haven't had one of those beats.

So, does it just feel more natural when you're writing about a family, you're writing a novel kind of that lager form just to, like you said, just sort of naturally interject humor here and there? Or is it something that you're mindfully considering as you're going?

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah. I mean, one thing I tried to do in this book that was a little different from the last book, and this might be one of those things that like, only I noticed, but I think the last book in some ways was narrated from a perch, let's say.

Both books are close third person on multiple characters, but that first book was more the narrative voice was hanging above the action, looking down at the characters and sort of observing them.

And that's great. And there's a million great novels written that way, certainly. Then they both curve often, like that's the way those novels go. He's like sitting above the chessboard.

This book, I wanted more consciously to be writing from the character's eye level. And that changes the way that humor functions in the book.

So, when you're writing from like 10 feet above the characters, there is a sense of literally looking down, which sort of can lead to a little bit of an attitude of looking down. Not to say that I dislike or demean my characters, just that you're looking at the world from a little bit of that God's eye view and that's very different from …

And so, the narrator's like pointing things out about the situation and the characters. Like the narrators in this safe place, letting you know what's happening down here.

Whereas when you write from the eye level, the humor needs to be a lot more situational because there's not a narrator coming in poking fun at the character's foibles or exposing some hypocrisy. You have to be in the driver's seat with the character seeing the world through their eyes. And the comedy has to come from the situations they get themselves into.

And so, I think that changed the way the comedy worked, but it was also, sort of liberating in a way because I almost feel like there are maybe more jokes in the first book, but there's more situational humor in this book.

And it was much easier to write in a sense because instead of thinking, “I need a joke here, or what would be funny to write,” you just let the characters get into crazy situations and resolve those the way you would any scene. And if it's a funny situation, the humor will sort of result from that.

But I'll say too, it's always just like I agree completely that I have a hard time with like a Blue Valentine type piece of art where it's sort of like unrelenting. But even so, I just think of it so much like if humor comes naturally, like do it. And if it doesn't, don't.

And the idea of using … I do think it serves these purposes and serves these functions of like letting the reader take a breath, giving a laugh to break up the tension. Like it does those things, but at least when I'm sitting down, that's not why I'm consciously [crosstalk 00:25:29].

It really is like the just kind of the way it comes out. There's this I think it's a quote about country music someone had, where they say like, “If it isn't sad, it isn't true.” Something like that. And I sort of feel like that I agree with that. And I also feel like if it isn't funny, at least a little bit, it isn't true.

Adam Sockel:

And to write about family, families contain multitudes, like no matter if you're even remotely like close with your family as you become an adult.

I'm in my late 30s, I'm the youngest of four children. I talk to my siblings every single day, at least like via text message. Like every single day is wrought with, there's some sadness in our conversations and there's some humor. And it'd be insane if there wasn't because you have this such relationship with all these people.

So, we've been kind of talking around it for a while, but do you want to kind of give my listeners sort of an introduction to your new novel, Hope, and then we can kind of talk about that a little bit more?

I kind of realized we've been sort of talking about the humor aspects of it, but haven't really gotten to the plot. So, do you want to kind of lay out what the book itself is for everybody listening in?

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah, definitely. So, Hope is about a family that sort of from all outside perspectives looks to have everything sort of figured out.

They’re well educated, they have good jobs, they live in a nice suburb. They're sort of like good democrat voters. They're very much the sort of picture-perfect Obama era, suburban, liberal, Jewish upper middle class family. Their values are the country's values at this particular time.

But it's also, the year 2013, and as the optimism that propelled Obama into office is starting to wane, and the country is starting to creep under some of the pressures that we're going to see the results of a couple years down the road, so too is the family.

So, the father who's led this morally impeccable life, basically makes this one bad decision. He commits fraud at work and that sets off this chain reaction of scandals that affects every member of the family.

And as you read the book, you basically watch this family implode over the course of a year and then try to put themselves back together again. But those scandals really are just exposing fault lines that were always there.

And it's almost like what happens when the perfect family is revealed not to be so perfect after all. And what does that also say about their values? Which again, are this sort of broader center left American values?

It's a little bit, I love reading fiction. Fiction is all about specificity and characters, but there is a slight allegorical component to this book where this family could be said to represent a set of, say, Obama era liberal a pieties or something. And you're watching those fall apart and piece themselves back together as well.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, the reason I was so excited to talk to you is like this is the exact book that I find myself drawn to. I always say I like kind of small stories with big emotions.

What I mean by that is like small stories in the sense that it's not on a world scales, on a family scale, but the emotions are what kind of really like sink your teeth.

And it’s why one of my favorite authors is Wendell Berry, who very much different type of families, but you’re right, it's very about pastoral families all the time.

And to me, I love these stories that are … A Place for Us is another one by Fatima. Fire in the Mirrors that came out a few years ago at this point.

I'm always struck by (and you do this so well on your book too) like these relationships that are interwoven from character to character and then like both from an individual standpoint and then at a family standpoint.

And something I struggle with as a writer myself, is separating my own experiences when I'm writing a very emotional thing. I don't want to have it be my own personal experiences, but I almost can't prevent myself from doing that.

So, when you're writing about a family, how are you able to sort of like disassociate your own family experiences into writing something else? Or do you find yourself baking those into them?

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah, they're definitely baked in. I got a question the other night at a reading and the guy asked, he was basically, similarly to your question sort of like, “How do you weave in personal experience?”

And in his mind, he was setting it up as this dynamic of you start with raw experience and raw material, and then over the course of writing and editing, you fictionalize.

And what I sort of realized as I was answering this question was, I almost have this opposite approach where I'm setting up a fictional framework. I'm asking what if questions. What if a doctor committed fraud at his office? Not something anyone I know has done.

What if a middle-aged woman suddenly discovered a new aspect of her sexuality and wanted to open her marriage to explore that? Which is not my family, it didn't happen to my family. It's all fictional framework.

But as I get into the writing of it, you start reaching for things that are close at hand and then you can fill in. And those all become these very personal things. So, I find it to be almost like you dig a big hole for yourself and then you fill it in with the personal.

So, for me, I'm not really starting with truth and turning it into fiction as much as I'm starting with fiction and filling that emotional or experiential truth in as I go.

What's been interesting now, I'm working on something that's a little bit more like similar type of book, but more historically inclined, which I've never done before.

And what's fun is instead of reaching exclusively for like pursuit, like I had this experience, or this happened to my mom, or I felt this way and let me place that in this fictional framework, a lot of those things I'm reaching for are anecdotes from history or academic books.

And it's been interesting to sort of not be able to say, “I was around in 1911 and this happened to me.” But to say, “But I read about a guy, and this happened to him in 1911 and it's sort of similar to a thing that happened to me, at least emotionally.” And if I wed those two together that can inform this guy's character.

Adam Sockel:

So, along kind of along those lines, I want to ask about like planning versus pantsing. And I always think about this, back on the podcast I used to co-host, that this just happened to be this one week where we had two in-person events with Lee Child and then Harlan Coben, like back-to-back.

It was great, it was delightful. But their approach to writing books that are some might say somewhat similar are so different.

Harlan Coben says he does the exact same thing you were saying. He starts with a what if question and then asks another what if question and goes. And he quite literally writes in real time while he's doing that.

Whereas Lee Child told me he is like, “If it's a eight hour workday, I'll spend two hours writing, four hours reading, and two hours thinking about how to get to the next point.”

So, for you, when you're writing these things, how much do you know, like you said, when you're kind of starting with a what if question, but also overlaying some personal experience?

Knowing those things, how much are you planning out before you actually start writing? Are you just doing like kind of big tent poles, or are you fairly certain how you're going to get from A to B to C?

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah, it's a really interesting question. And I think the reason everyone answers a little different is because so much of writing is sort of like tricking your brain into writing. Like outwitting those things that sort of block you.

And for some people it's like, “I need a plan.” For some people it's like, “I can't have a plan.” But it's all, we're just kind of doing these little tricks to make us able to be in a headspace where we can write.

And so, for me, I have a little bit of this hybrid approach that's like frankly a bit absurd, but I found, I guess that it works, which is I will create a very detailed outline at the start and then very quickly it goes off the rails. And I will adjust the outline as I go, but like retroactively.

So, it almost feels like I'm basically going in with a couple key ideas for this book. It was like family, medical fraud, Brookline, Massachusetts, four narrators. Like I had some big stuff, but I also had a pretty detailed outline, which I'm sure if I looked at now, I'd say most of this is not in the book.

It's almost like I can't face the idea of bush whacking my way through a jungle and not knowing where I'm going. So, I have this like treasure map with me, but the map isn't correct. But I still need to have it on my person to prevent me from realizing that I don't have one. Do you know what I mean?

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Andrew Ridker:

So, it's kind of this weird mental crutch where I'm like, “I need to think I know where I'm going in order to go and I need to be flexible enough to release that when it happens.”

And that actually was a big challenge for me early on, was being like, “I have this figured out and it's not working, it's not going according to plan.” And that's when all the good stuff happens.

But at the same time, I can't go in blind because I'd freak out. So, it's a weird balancing act, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I even retroactively changed the … it's almost like I'm erasing the treasure map to like put the route that I actually got there for some future purpose that's never going to be.

But I need an outline open at all times and I also need to absolutely not follow it if that's not what feels good.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. You’ve been super grace gracious with your time. I know you're very, very busy. I have two last questions for you and they're both very, very lighthearted.

One, since we were talking about comedy before, what is like the best piece of comedy you have enjoyed lately? It could be a show, movie, it could be standup. What's something that you've enjoyed recently?

Andrew Ridker:

I've been a big fan of John Early for a long time. He's a standup comedian. He does a lot of stuff with Kate Berlant, but he's one of these people who I think in the comedy world, everyone like adores him and probably rips him off to too. But he hasn't had that giant like mainstream break that he deserves.

His HBO special came out. I'm blanking on the title, but his name's John Early and it is absolutely just gut busting funny. He does this whole incredible … if you like language, and I'm sure your listeners do, does an incredible bit on millennial language and millennial lingo.

He's in his late 30s and he has this great joke about like how all our sort of lingo is very like squishy and kind of half joking. And he's like, “We're all going to be buried in a cemetery where the headstones say like, ‘Here lies John, because cancer.’” And he just really gets into the way we talk and it's so funny.

So, just everyone should go out and watch John Early's HBO special and chase down everything else he's ever done too.

Adam Sockel:

That's amazing. I'll also throw in, I don't know if you've seen it, but the newest Hannah Gadsby special, which is called Something Special. Her newest one, I think it's on Netflix. It's called Something Special. Everything she does is amazing.

And then last question, just one recommendation from you. I know you just obviously gave one, but how about a book recommendation, something that you've loved recently that people should check out?

Andrew Ridker:

Yeah, great question. I would recommend, I got really into the writer Dan Chaon recently, and his book Ill Will. He got me going on this obsession and I started reading like everything he's ever written, but Ill Will is a genuinely terrifying and genuinely literary work of art.

I'm someone who loves horror movies and I'm constantly looking for books that I can read or listen to that will scare me. And it's really, really hard without the benefit of music in a dark theater and stuff to really scare a reader.

And Ill Will by Dan Chaon, whether you read it or listen to it is so chilling, but so smart and beautiful for other reasons. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind a couple of weeks of nightmares after checking out it.

Adam Sockel:

Oh, and I'll say, I know a lot of people know this one The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones did that to me too. Like creeping me while reading it.

Andrew, you've been so gracious with your time. Hope is amazing, people are absolutely going to adore it. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Andrew Ridker:

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[Music Playing]

Adam Sockel:

Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen podcast and was created by Adam Sockel. It was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman.

And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen podcast, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.