They together reflect what I think has become a very widespread feeling in this country: we are abandoned. The cavalry isn't coming. The system isn't coming to save us. No one hears us. And sometimes people have to step up and do whatever they got to do. That feeling then fractures into a left version, a right version, or this version of that version, and we kind of lose the thread. But it's interesting information that actually so many Americans feel that feeling. And one of the tragedies of this time we've lived in is that that common feeling keeps getting broken into pieces and failing to produce a common politics.
We are joined with the inimitable Anand Giridharadas, journalist, bestselling author, and publisher of the newsletter The Inc. Anand's latest book, "Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City," comes out September 29th. Anand, thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad you're on Substack.
Yeah, what a thrill. You're kind of the original or an original gangster here. And just to wax poetic a bit, Anand and I are fellow alumni of the hit...
Alumni is an interesting word for...
Alumni, yeah, as in it's over. We both had shows on CNN Plus. So, before we get into your book...
Oh, were we both on Vice? I've had so many failed TV shows. You're right. It was Vice.
Oh, it was Vice. I don't know that alumni is the right word for trauma bonding.
Okay. But your show, to be honest, your show was boring but fine. My show was awful. Awful. I looked like an old man having an epileptic seizure. I don't know about you, but I had to film it from my garage. It was COVID.
And they put all these MTV-like graphics on it to make it feel younger. I watched it with my partner. This is a true story, and then I want to hear your experience. I watched the first episode with my partner. At the end of the show, she started crying and looked at me and said, "What does this mean for our family?" And I'm like, "Oh my god, I've made my partner..." My show was so bad.
Your show, it was also not great. I had AOC as my first guest, so that gave it a lift. I had you as a guest, which gave it a lift. But here...
You had Governor Newsom, right?
I did not have Governor Newsom, I don't think.
Oh, I thought you had Governor Newsom.
Here's what happened with my show. Probably the same with yours. It was kind of developed and set up like winter of 2019, turn of 2020, all set, contracts, ready to go. Let's start filming in March, February, March, whatever. And COVID strikes, and I've never had a TV show before. Spoiler alert: I've never had one since. And COVID hits, and I was like, well, I guess we're not doing a TV show. They're like, no, no, no. We can just make it in this new reality, whatever it may be. And so my daughter had a very severe lung condition. She was like two years old. So I had to go to this remote location because of her. And so then I didn't have proper internet, which was kind of important for making a TV show. So I was filming things on iPads and cameras, you know, and then I had to hire someone to pick up USB drives with the filmed video. Like it was like drug deals of data. And then they would come to my house and pick up the USB drive like from the driveway because we didn't want to have contact with each other, and then drive it up to their house and upload it on some faster Wi-Fi that they had. I mean, it was so surreal. So much energy to make something that wasn't good.
Oh god. Yeah. I was literally a TV show, me in my garage alone, and they had a producer in my ear saying, "Oh, do this or next episode this." My tech producer drew in the cloud because, you know, we couldn't have, we had social distance. So, it was me trying to make 30 minutes of TV in my garage with like lights and a camera, and it was so bad. And the guy, forget his name, the production executive, nice guy, called me after the six episodes. I'm like, I just got to get through this. Called me after the six episodes and like, I got great news. They want to renew it. And I'm like, no [__] way. I am so out of here. And I remember him, my agent called me, the production called me, he called me back three times. The guy running Vice at the time reached out to me, who I like, Shane Smith. And they were just so flummoxed that anyone would pass up an opportunity to be on TV. And the lesson for me was people must cling to TV like a dictator clings to power. That they were just, they could not believe I was going to pass up the opportunity to be on TV. So, you haven't done any TV since then?
No, not my own thing. I go talk about things I've written on MSNBC now.
