Episode 525
with Chuck Klosterman and Making Movies
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello get nostalgic for the 1990s; writer Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs) unpacks his newest book The Nineties and admits how the "slacker ethos" of the decade made him embarrassed to succeed as a writer; and international rock band Making Movies explains why it's difficult to separate activism from their music, before performing the title track off their new album XOPA.
Chuck Klosterman
Writer
Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of eight nonfiction books (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; I Wear the Black Hat; But What If We’re Wrong?; and Killing Yourself to Live), two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man), and the short story collection Raised in Captivity. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. His latest book, The Nineties, was an instant New York Times bestseller. Website • Twitter
Making Movies
Latinx Rock Band
Latinx rockers Making Movies are “breaking down walls in the U.S” (Rolling Stone). Formed by Panamanian brothers Enrique and Diego Chi, and joined by percussionist/keyboardist Juan-Carlos Chaurand and drummer Duncan Burnett, the band showcases its Latin American roots by incorporating traditional instruments like the Panamanian mejorana, and swapping drums and percussion for a dueling zapateado huasteco. The band has shared the stage with such artists as Arcade Fire, Los Lobos, Thievery Corporation, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Hurray for the Riff Raff. Their fourth LP, XOPA, due out in June 2022, features guest artists Marc Ribot, Rubén Blades, Dolores Huerta, Los Lobos, The Sensational Barnes Brothers, Jeremy Kittel, Martha Gonzales, Rev. Charles Hodges, Asdru Sierra and Alaina Moore. Website • Listen
-
Luke Burbank Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello Hey there, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank It's going great. Are you up for a little round of "station location identification examination"?
Elena Passarello I am.
Luke Burbank And this is where I'm going to tell Elena about a place in the country where Live Wire is on the radio. She's got to guess where I am talking about. This city has become notorious for their annual April Fools jokes that city leaders play on their citizens. In 2008, they released a press release announcing that the city was being sold to Canada to boost tourism.
Elena Passarello [Laughter]
Luke Burbank Sounds like a really fun place.
Elena Passarello I guess it's somewhere up on the border.
Luke Burbank Uh huh.
Elena Passarello Bellingham, Washington.
Luke Burbank I've got another hint. It's. It's on the border with Canada. Well, east of Washington, but not all the way out there. More think middle of the country. The following year, after they announced they were going to sell off to Canada, they began a mock campaign to secure the rights to the 2016 Olympic Games. And apparently somebody had already employed a bucket to drain out miners lake that south of the town. They were going to build stadium seating there for the 2016 Olympics, which in fact did not come to this relatively small town in the upper Midwest.
Elena Passarello I don't know where this is, but I want to move there.
Luke Burbank It has a great name. It's Ely, Minnesota.
Elena Passarello Ely, Minnesota.
Luke Burbank Where we are on W I R C radio. So shoutout to everyone in Ely. Keep working. Maybe you'll get the 2030 Olympics. All right, so we get to the show.
Elena Passarello Let's do it.
Luke Burbank I take it away.
Elena Passarello From PRX. It's Live Wire. This week, podcaster and writer Chuck Klosterman.
Chuck Klosterman What would I say in the book basically is that of the kind of canonical generations that that generation next is the least annoying. The next line of that is that this is mostly due to size because it's the smallest generation. So there's less people to be annoying.
Elena Passarello And music from Making Movies.
Making Movies We're using the same ingredients that made the jambalaya a rock and roll or going back to those ingredients. But we have a new recipe.
Elena Passarello I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Live Wire Luke Burbank!
Luke Burbank Hey, thanks so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone for tuning in from all over the country, including in Ely, Minnesota, future home of some kind of Olympics and still part of the United States. We would like to clarify.
Elena Passarello Hopefully.
Luke Burbank We've got a great show in store this week. We are talking about the nineties because of Chuck Klosterman really incredible book, The Nineties. We asked Live Wire listeners to tell us something that they are most nostalgic for from the nineties. We're going to hear those responses coming up in just a bit. First, though, of course, we've got to kick things off with the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder at the top to show that there is, in fact, some good news happening in some places in this country. And we like to tell you about that. L.A. What's the best news that you heard all week?
Elena Passarello I don't think we've ever had roller skating news on the best news. I think I'm correct in that.
Luke Burbank I think I would remember because I was a big roller skating fan as a kid, same Lynwood Roll Away, which was connected to a bowling alley called Linwood Ball Away. Very clever naming conventions. And I lived for going there and roller skating on the fast skate to Pour Some Sugar on me by Def Leppard.
Elena Passarello Oh, heck fire, yeah. I was a big skater back in the day, but also in my twenties, and I had this great pair of, like, sneaker skates that I used to tootle around. But we had to get rid of them when we were moving because we were kind of selling everything so that we could go David could go to grad school. And that's why this story appeals to me, because it is another story of a person selling their roller skates at a yard sale. The person is Halifax, Nova Scotia's Rene Forrestal. For her 60th birthday. She was reflecting on times in her life where she felt free and powerful, and she realized that when she was a roller skating fool 45 years ago, that was a time in her life in which she felt that way. So for her 60th birthday, she bought a pair of brand new kind of black leather roller skates with these amazing LED light up wheels. She started practicing with them for about a week, and she was disappointed because like a lot of things, they just didn't feel like they were made as well as the skates that she had back in the seventies. So she goes on Facebook Marketplace to look for a vintage pair that resembles the pair that she had, white with kind of a red wheels. She finds a pair that are pretty dirty but look pretty similar to the kind that she had when she was a teenager. And they had just been posted 2 hours before. She goes and checks them out. She puts them on her feet. They're unsized to the person who was selling them, do not even know what size they were. But she went out on a limb and went there, puts her feet in them and they feel really good. Like Cinderella. Good. Hmm. And then she turns the tongue of the roller skates out so she can see inside. And her name is written. On the wall. In her handwriting!
Luke Burbank Oh, my gosh. They were her skates from, like, years and years ago.
Elena Passarello These were skates that she had sold at a yard sale 45 years ago. And apparently they had just been gathering dust in this basement ever since, like the Carter administration. And then somebody decided to sell them. She went to a skate shop and she got those bad boys tricked out. New wheels, super cleaning. She left, however, the hooks where they were because they're kind of hard to lace up. And she just has a sense memory of it taking forever when she was little. So she left kind of the wonky hooks and now she is a skatin fool in the exact same skates that she wore back when skating was her life. Is there a better story than that?
Luke Burbank That is incredible.
Elena Passarello I just hope my skates that I sold at a yard sale in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2011 will come back to me.
Luke Burbank If anyone has Elena skates in Grand Rapids, hit us up. We need to get those back. The best news that I saw this week comes from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where a guy named Johnny Bell was celebrating a big milestone. He was celebrating 70 years on the job as a mail carrier in Oklahoma City, which officially makes him the longest serving USPS employee in America. Whoa. 70 years he's been delivering mail in Oklahoma City. Started when he was 23 years old. It paid $1.81 an hour. He started and he just absolutely loves the job. And he says, you know, it's keeping him young. There's a picture of this guy, Johnny Bell in the article. He's 93, right? Because he started when he was 23. He's been doing it for 70 years.
Elena Passarello Oh my gosh.
Luke Burbank He looks great. Everyone needs to throw out whatever fad fitness plan they're into and just become mail carriers. It is like the fountain of youth for this guy Johnny. He's doing great.
Elena Passarello Was he like a walking mail carrier?
Luke Burbank I think so. It's what it sounds like, according to the article. And he, you know, obviously would get all the mail back at the Home Office and bundle up his particular route and then take it out there and do his route. The other thing was, when I read this article, I assumed this was his retirement party. No, this was just celebrating that he has been doing this for 70 years. They write in the article that he enjoyed a little bit of cake. Everyone said, Congratulations, Johnny. And then he just got his bundle together, went back out to deliver the mail. Like this was just another day for this dude.
Elena Passarello [Laughter] I thought, Oh.
Luke Burbank This is how they describe Johnny Bell, a humble man of few words. But when he does speak, everyone listens. I have never been described that way. In any capacity anywhere. So Johnny Bell, celebrating 70 years on the job in Oklahoma City. That's the best news that I heard this week.
Luke Burbank All right. Let's invite our first guest on over to the show. GQ calls him Generation X's definitive chronicler of culture. Chuck Klosterman is the best selling author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including Raised in Captivity and Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. He's written for the New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire and lots of other places. His latest book, The Nineties, was an instant New York Times best seller. And it is fascinating. Chuck joined us on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, back in June. Let's take a listen to that. Chuck, welcome back to the show.
Chuck Klosterman It's great to be here.
Luke Burbank You start off kind of making the case for why the nineties were actually a more interesting and kind of important decade than people might think, because a lot of us think of the nineties as being kind of relatively calm, pretty prosperous. What is it about the nineties that made you want to write about? Why is the nineties actually more impactful than we think?
Chuck Klosterman Well, you know, that's a that's an interesting question. Is there a decade that's unimportant, really? I mean, it's a ten year window of time. Yeah. It's always surprising to me that people are like, oh, I guess. I guess things in the nineties actually mattered. It was like, well, I mean, the world was happening. Yeah. Because what's the least important decade of the 20th century? If we had to make an argument? I suppose we would say the first ten years. Just because they're discussed the least, because the twenties have sort of an immutable quality. The thirties had the depression, the forties, obviously things happened then and then. The other fifties were kind of the building of America. The sixties were transformative. The seventies were the seventies. So. So what? Why did they do this? Well, you know, there's always like a short answer and a long answer, and the short answer is true. And it's like, I don't know what I'm compelled to do. I just do what I do. You know, I never really think about the long answer would be all these other things where I'd be like, Well, you know, I had this fear that the way sort of history is understood now tends to be through this highly specific kind of personal view, and it makes it much more subjective. I almost feel as though it will be increasingly difficult to get an understanding of the recent past because people will take the ideas of the present and just want to inject it back into that period. I also do think in a lot of ways, the nineties were the last decade that we're going to have, at least in the way that we've always understood what that meant. You know, the idea that there is this period of time where there are sort of shared ideas, shared experiences, things that people who weren't even involved with are almost forced to understand because the monoculture was still sort of central to everything. And that to me was important. But I mean, really, it's it's impossible thing to know why I did something. I just did it. Yeah.
Luke Burbank I think you also mentioned in the book that like when you're talking about the nineties, you're not really strictly talking about like January 1st, 1992. December 31st, 1999. You're kind of saying it's the it's the fall of the Berlin Wall and then 911, which is kind of shifts it over by a few years.
Chuck Klosterman Well, yes and no. I mean, yes. I am not using the calendar as a way to describe the time itself, because that's just not how things work. I mean, it's not like people pull off, you know, the December of their calendar and it's like I'm a new person in the world is different. Like it it tends to be events or sort of just sort of shifts. Now most historians now it seems to be use the fall of the Berlin Wall and 911 is sort of the framing device. I actually don't use the fall of the Berlin Wall. I mention that many people view that, but I really use the release of Nirvana's Nevermind.
Luke Burbank Right. In fact, I believe you have I'm paraphrasing here, but you have a line in the book that something like while the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit is not more culturally impactful than the reunification of Germany, it was an inflection point. Well, yes, that's that's exactly it.
Chuck Klosterman I mean, because when you look at, say, the year 1990, it still very much felt like the 1980s. I mean, like trickster and poison and firehouse restoring, you know, and, you know, it's like you can still like buy like a Garfield phone from the Sears catalog at Christmas, you know? Joe Montana was the best player in the NFL. Cheers with the most popular show. Twin Peaks had come out. But that seemed like, you know, really kind of a kind of fringe arcane thing. The nineties still have a lot of eighties qualities, but this is very common. I mean, if you look at a picture of a, say a Chicago High School from 1961, people are going to think it's the fifties. I mean, if you play the first Nine Inch Nails record, which came out in 1989, people aren't going to be like, oh, eighties music. It's like it's going. So like these there are certain things that sort of shift the culture. And after Nevermind came out and sort of had, you know, had a musical impact that was massive, but its nonmusical impact was even greater because there seemed to be this sudden realization that if you want to understand any young person or if you want to understand where the culture and society as a whole was moving, you first had to understand, like, why this specific person looked and acted and dress the way he did. And the nineties, as we understand it, like the caricature of the cliche of the nineties, really begins in 91.
Luke Burbank We have to take a quick break here and Live Wire. We're talking to Chuck Klosterman. His latest book is The Nineties. We're going to hear more about that coming up in a moment. Stay with us. Back with more Live Wire after this.
Luke Burbank Welcome back to Live Wire Company this week from Revolution Hall right here in Portland, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elaina Passarello. We are talking to Chuck Close, Jermaine, the writer. His latest book is The Nineties. A lot of this book talks about Generation X, which you have documented in various forms over the years. You're a member of Gen X. You write that of the generations that have not gone extinct yet, you think Generation X is the least annoying. Hmm. What? What causes you to write that?
Chuck Klosterman Okay. I'm very glad you brought this up. Because in every review of this book, particularly the negative ones, they always note that line. Right. And what would I say in the book, basically, is that of the kind of canonical generations, you know, baby boomers, millennials, all these that that Generation X is the least annoying. The next line of that is that this is mostly due to size because it's the smallest generation. So there's less people to be annoying.
Luke Burbank It's the smallest pig going through the python, basically.
Chuck Klosterman And yet beyond that, there is I think this in my view and and I think something has happened that maybe validates this, that for whatever reason, it's like they seemed to complain less pedantic early than baby boomers and less aggressively than millennials. Okay. And here is my proof of that. Okay. So when I make.
Luke Burbank Two thirds of our audience, just walked out of Revolution Hall.
Elena Passarello Byeee.
Chuck Klosterman No. And here's here's why I feel like. Well, you know, when I wrote that, I was like, well, we'll see what the reaction to this is. Now, I'm pretty certain I'm right. Here's why. So this one line where I say, you know, Generation X was the least annoying. Many, many people have complained about that. If they're older or younger than that window of time, did they find, you know, okay, within that same page, I talk about how like, well, you know, Gen Xers were kind of apathetic. They'll probably never be a Gen X president. They didn't really have much consequence on the culture. They sort of had a kind of an insular view. They were very self-absorbed. They were kind of solipsistic. All these things. You know, how many Gen Xers have complained about that? None. Like there has not been everybody older, younger than me. Who who reads the assumption or the assertion that Generation X are not are, are you know, the least annoying. Not even I'm not even saying they're unknowing. I mean, I'm pretty annoying. Right. It's like, you know, which maybe hurts the argument. It's very easy for people to go like, what does this dude is telling me me okay. But okay. nonetheless okay. That they seem to think my claim that the one quality that's good about generation X is that they weren't very annoying and that they didn't try to kind of inflict their values onto other people. And it was kind of uncouth to moralize like they can't believe that I would somehow make this claim. And yet every negative thing I say about Gen X, the people who are part of that demographic, are like, well, yeah, I mean, I think I guess, sure, what I mean, I don't know. Maybe, you know, it's like so. So now I know, I know. I'm right. Right. Like, like like initially I was like, oh, I just play this gambit, see what happens. Like, no, I was I'm correct on that. Yeah.
Luke Burbank You also write in the book that the movie Reality Bites, you say that it presents a sort of a set of values that could only make sense based on it being 1994.
Chuck Klosterman Well, yes. And I probably have now written and talked about reality bites more than any person should.
Luke Burbank But I can tell you that just as far as the Live Wire staff is concerned, they're ready for more. It touched off a long conversation before we even started recording this show.
Chuck Klosterman I mean, like not to run through the whole plot of the movie, but essentially this is a movie that was designed for Generation X people. Like it wasn't a situation like say, Oh, like Saturday Night Fever or whatever, which becomes a period piece, even though at the time they just thought they were making a movie. Now we look at Saturday Night Fever as a way to understand, you know, disco culture in Jersey, in New York during this specific time. But Generation X that was there was like, we're going out to this demo with this movie, okay? And we have a love triangle in this movie. And we have sort of, you know, Winona Ryder, she's trying to choose between these two guys. Ben Stiller, who is sort of the corporate sellout, although he's trying to help her, gives her money, buys her stuff, really supports her, is a pretty good guy. And then there's also Ethan Hawke, who's sort of like like the slacker from central casting. Like he's this Byronic like person who's like goes around describing irony and realizing it's ironic, but he knows that, you know? Eats a Snickers bar without unwrapping it because it's like too much work or whatever, you know? So then at the end of the movie, Winona Ryder ends up going with Ethan Hawke, even though it's like not a very good boyfriend and pretty mean to her. Now I watch this movie as a senior in college and mean all my friends watch it. And then I think we go on a Friday and we watch a syndicated episode of Siskel and Ebert at the movies that weekend. And Siskel and Ebert both don't really like the movie, and they're like, Winona Ryder chose the wrong guy. Why did you choose this jerk? This other person is, you know, it's good for her life. And at the time we all thought the same thing. We were like, well, that just proves that we're younger and they're older, that we see this relationship as, you know, kind of dynamic and real and authentic and all.
Luke Burbank So you were rooting for her to be with Ethan Hawke.
Chuck Klosterman It seemed obvious to us. It seems obvious that that would be the only way you would, the only person you would choose in that. And I assume this would be this would transcend time that if you showed this movie to a 16 year old right now, they'd be like, of course, you know, it turns out that's not true, that it was only people who were young in the mid-nineties who look at that movie and it's like, that's the guy. Everybody else is like, Is she crazy, you know? Like, they only made sense in 1994 because that was the that was the one period of time really we're looking at 91, maybe to 96, where being an authentic jerk was a more admirable quality than being a compromised anything. Right. Like, you know that anyone who in any way did did anything to, like, make themselves more beloved or more popular to people who weren't their peers. That was what we called sellouts at the time, you know, and that's sort of what Ben and the reason that movie is so effective is in some ways it's kind of the sellout version of the problem because it's a mainstream movie. There's all this like a product placement, and that the script was rewritten 80 times. The woman who wrote the script initially wrote it about her friends, and it got changed just like it did to Winona Ryder writer in this movie, but that's going be why it understands the problem so profoundly like it actually is the situation it's describing.
Luke Burbank Yeah, we had one staffer say that they think it has affected their dating life negatively, permanently, because of what happens in the movie Reality Bites. So the the ripples continue.
Chuck Klosterman I was I know I was damaged by this idea of selling out. I know I was because it was such a complicated idea and it was so central to everything that you you didn't that you couldn't change what you do. You couldn't in any way try to appeal, but you had to look at everything you did as having integrity in and of itself. And as a consequence, like even promoting a book like this, I feel terrible. I mean, because I really I got back kind of into a nineties mindset when I did this because, you know, as like I wrote this book during the pandemic. But what happened is, you know, I have two kids and it was real complicated as it was for, I'm sure everybody here. But like I get up at five in the morning and I'd write till 9 a.m. basically before my kid did is like online school. So I'd have like four or 5 hours where I was like living in the nineties and I started to sort of get back into some of this thinking. And it makes it really hard to promote a book when you believe promoting a book means you're awful, right? And like, that is just like it's embarrassing to try to convince someone to buy it, you know? And I would tell my publisher that and they they didn't love to hear that, you know, and I was like, probably not. Like, I was like, I'm kind of embarrassed to go on tour. Like, gosh, it's like.
Luke Burbank I don't want to be the Ben Stiller of this situation.
Chuck Klosterman Exactly.
Luke Burbank I want to be the Ethan Hawke. We're talking to. Chuck Klosterman. Who's the Chuck Klosterman of writing, his new book is The Nineties. And obviously like that maybe hugest thing that happened in the nineties that changed our life was the the Internet coming along. And you write about it in the book and you say it's kind of like the invention of the wheel. But you point out something that I hadn't thought of, which was it was the axle that really was what they needed to invent, like the wheel had been around for a while. How does that sort of relate to the Internet for you?
Chuck Klosterman Well, I was always sort of fascinated when you find out how long the wheel has existed, because it's so much less than the length of time mankind has existed. And it's like somebody had to see a log roll down a hill. Right. You know, it's like how did it never occur to them that this is better than dragging things on the ground? But the thing was, until you really get to the Bronze Age or whatever, did they have the ability to create an axle so you could have, you know, a cart that stationary and then the wheel that moves independently. And in a way that's sort of how the Internet was, because we're always trying to figure out when it actually started. But what we're really thinking about in many ways is people's relationships to personal computing that like there are people who would argue that the the origin of the Internet was the sixties or whatever, you know, for military purposes or whatever, you know. But it wasn't until people sort of became comfortable with the idea of a home computer and then the idea of how these, this network of network could operate did, then we kind of start building off that, you know, I mean, there are many interesting things about this. Like, I didn't really write about this in the book, but other people have noted how, you know, 1980s was the beginning of like Atari and Nintendo and all those things. And what was happening during the eighties then is you had parents upstairs in the living room watching television, and they had kids downstairs playing Atari and Nintendo and those kids, the idea of manipulating what you saw on the screen was not weird. It was normal. It's like I've played centipede or whatever. So when they get into the kind of the internet culture, they almost feel native to it already, like it makes sense to them. Whereas for the people who predate that, it was almost like, well, wait a second, so this is not just a monitor. These are people like it.
Luke Burbank It is interactive.
Chuck Klosterman Exactly.
Elena Passarello TV made of people, like you say in the book.
Luke Burbank I'm wondering how you actually set about even writing a book like this. Like, do you just lay out a bunch of big moments that you think were culturally significant and then you write about them wherever it was they landed during the decade like this just seems like a very ambitious project.
Chuck Klosterman You know, I had never done so much of my other work, even if it was about the nineties or about some of these same ideas. I mean, I'd written about Nirvana before. I'd written about David Koresh before. I'd written about, you know, the Unabomber and all these things. But that was always done kind of in a essayistic way where it was just sort of my personal relationship to the thing. And I knew that this book couldn't be like that. So as far as picking the things, it's like, I don't know, I just I tried to distance my own experience from it, but I did have a benefit that, you know, I came from North Dakota and then lived kind of in suburban Ohio, where during the nineties the experience I had was really the the most mainstream view of that period. I mean, particularly in North Dakota, like the news that in the culture that gets to North Dakota are the things that start on the coasts and they still exist. Oh, when they finally get to the middle of the continent, you know. So I thought to myself, well, in some ways in a book like this, this is an advantage, right? I was trying to write something that is big picture, you know, like there was at one point, like I read about Nirvana. At one point I was thinking like, well, I want to write about Jane's Addiction because Jane's Addiction is something that really starts in the eighties and it's part of like really part of hair metal to a degree. And then it becomes this sort of alternative idea. And then, you know, Perry Farrell ends up starting Little Palouse and all that stuff. And I was thinking maybe that should be the musical artist I use to describe this, but I'm like, that'd be a little bit like if I wrote a book on the Sixties and I was like, I want to write about The Kinks. I'm not writing about the Beatles, right? Because, you know, I was like, But if you write about the Sixties, you write about the Beatles, and if you write about the nineties, you write about Nirvana, you write about Bill Clinton, you write about the Internet. You know, you write about Quentin Tarantino. So I. So while I think that there's a, you know, a certain kind of person who might be like, well, he just kind of did the obvious stuff. And I was like, well, yes. Because in 50 years, it won't be obvious because nothing will be obvious. Yeah.
Luke Burbank We're talking to Chuck Klosterman about his latest book, The Nineties. So as is obvious, you have spent a lot of time considering the nineties from a kind of an intellectual perspective, but we wanted to get your gut level reaction to some nineties scenarios. First, though, I mean, are you up for this?
Chuck Klosterman Absolutely.
Luke Burbank Okay. Because we're calling this exercise. Chuck Klosterman, what's your opinion?
Live Wire House Band Hey-ay-ay, hey hey, hey-ay-ay. I said hey! What's your opinion?
Luke Burbank Yes. That's right. Live Wire House Band.
Luke Burbank So here's how this is going to work. Chuck Elena Passarello is going to read you a couple of scenarios. These are inspired from your book and we are going to ask you which scenario you would prefer. It's a sort of would you rather nineties edition.
Elena Passarello Okay. Would you rather have Ross Perot as your president or Pauly Shore as your roommate?
Chuck Klosterman Okay. So Ross Perot probably was not qualified to be president. Pauly Shore would have been qualified to be my roommate. And in fact, you know, I lived with people who weren't that far from the Pauly Shore's persona. Well, I mean, also, you know, Pauly Shore was much older that he played like Encino Man, for example. He's played a high school kid. Like he looks 27 in that movie, you know, but he just kind of, you know, he made up his own language. You make up your own language. You become younger. You know, I. I really I guess I think that. The entire world we live in now could be so completely different if Ross Perot had won that election that, you know, it seems hard to imagine it being worse, but who knows? So I would go with Pauly Shore in this one. Yeah. I mean, I think that. Well, I don't think I deserve applause for this, but I think I mean, we have we have some common interest, you know? Yeah.
Luke Burbank Yeah. Wheezing the juice?
Chuck Klosterman Exactly. Absolutely. You know, grind edge and things like that. Right. All right. Yeah.
Luke Burbank You reasoned through that one admirably, Chuck. All right.
Elena Passarello It's good to hear the system of logic. Okay, how about this one? Which would you rather drink for the rest of your life?
Chuck Klosterman I know one's going to be Zima.
Elena Passarello Correct. Okay. Can you guess what the other one is?
Chuck Klosterman The other one's going to be like what? Like Crystal Pepsi.
Elena Passarello Exactly. You don't even have to answer the question.
Luke Burbank What did you, write this book? Yeah, right.
Chuck Klosterman Okay. So I remember the night that I saw Zima for the first time, and this idiot. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I remember me and some other guys talking. It's like, this is going to get a lot of people drunk who don't usually get drunk because it looks like water, right? It's like this is really going to enhance the energy at parties, right? Yeah. But what you realize with Zima is that every single Zima you have for the rest of your life gets worse than the previous one. Like it is the opposite of an acquired taste. We're like, you know, the first time you have coffee, it doesn't taste great, and then eventually you're addicted to it. Zima is the opposite. Every Zima you have is worse. It's kind of like going to Las Vegas. Like every time you go there, it's less fun than you remember it. So if I drink nothing but Zima for the rest of my life, that would mean until I die, every time I'm thirsty, I would know what I'm going to consume is worse than the last thing I had when I was previously thirsty. Crystal Pepsi was actually just Pepsi without coloring. So I've been drinking Pepsi my whole life. I mean, I guess I'll do that. I will accept that.
Luke Burbank What a life you and Pauly Shore drinking your crystal Pepsi. Okay, one more before we wrap this up.
Elena Passarello Okay. Sorry to do this one to you. Would you rather have to listen to the slap bass from Seinfeld every time you enter a room? Or would you rather have to listen to the opening flute riff of My Heart will go on every time you're about to get busy. Yeah, I say get busy because it's very nineties.
Chuck Klosterman Well, okay. I mean, I'm married, I have two kids, but I am entering rooms way more often than I'm having sex. I don't think that I. I don't think this is an outrageous thing. Like if you're somebody who's like, I don't know, it's like they do many times. I yeah.
Luke Burbank I love how seriously I take this stuff. I mean, this is what's. So wonderful about your brain. I mean, and your logic is actually pretty unassailable. You're like, okay, of these two things, what's going to be occurring more often?
Chuck Klosterman Well, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a dull volume, you know, and and if, like, if I had just walked out here for this interview in the slap bass that happened, that wouldn't be so bad, you know? Yeah, I suppose if it's the heart go on thing, it's like. I almost feel like I got to ask my wife about this, you know? Yeah.
Luke Burbank That's something that needs consent.
Chuck Klosterman Yeah, well, it's like my kids are eight and six, right? So at some point they're going to be like 16 and 14 and they're going to start putting this together. Yeah, they're like, oh, like, weird that this happens and it's like, yeah.
Luke Burbank So you're choosing Sienfeld slap bass
Chuck Klosterman Sure, you know.
Luke Burbank All right. One last question. This isn't from the quiz, but I'm just curious. The cover of this book, I think, is so genius. You have selected maybe one of the more iconic visuals from the nineties, which is the corded telephone that was clear. So you could see inside all of the electronics. Why did you pick this?
Chuck Klosterman So I had that phone right now. I bought that phone. And this is maybe a strange reason because in the patient's video, Axl Rose smashes it with his foot. Oh, do you remember that? But I saw that video, and I bought that phone the next day. That's how interesting I was at the time. So I told my editor I was like, What if we just have one of those clear phones? Because it's like, that was what the future was assumed to be like in the past. Kind of like if you go to Disneyland and they have that land of tomorrow, whatever, tomorrow. Yeah, but it's the world of tomorrow from the fifties. So it's like we're all going to be eating at restaurants where we all have our own table, like these idea that nobody never happened. But there was like, maybe so I was like, so that's what to me, that phone is sort of like that. That's what we thought about the future when we did not believe the future would actually be different. Like we thought it would still be people using phones in the same way we use them now. But we're going to make this one clear.
Elena Passarello Like Pepsi.
Luke Burbank It's a great book, The Nineties, a book by Chuck Close Chairman. Thank you, Chuck, so much. That was Chuck Klosterman right here on Live Wire, recorded at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, back in June. Chuck's book, The Nineties, is available now. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco. And as a member of the OneWorld Alliance, Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska AirCon. This is live wire. Of course. Each week we like to ask our listeners a question. We were inspired by Chuck Close, Truman's book, The Nineties this week. So we asked a lot of our listeners, what are you most nostalgic for from the nineties? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello Oh my gosh, these are so good Burbank. Maybe because I am a child and early adulthood in the nineties.
Luke Burbank Yeah, this is really in our like demographic wheelhouse for you and I.
Elena Passarello Here's the thing from the nineties that Heidi is nostalgic for, TV theme songs.
Luke Burbank They have gotten rid of the TV theme song. Now they probably figure we can squeeze another minute of advertising in. You don't spend so much time singing about what's what's going to happen.
Elena Passarello Best TV show, theme song. Do you have an opinion?
Luke Burbank Well, this is not a particularly interesting answer, but I do think that Cheers has a pretty I mean, it just puts you in a mood to watch that show.
Elena Passarello Same.
Luke Burbank But you know, I like the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song as well.
Elena Passarello Very, very good about. Yeah, I think for the same reason Golden Girls Like it's also a great karaoke song. If anybody's looking for a you're in, you're out. You make everybody sing along.
Luke Burbank Yes. All right. Something else that one of our listeners is nostalgic for from the nineties.
Elena Passarello Is it okay if I do some things else? I just want to give you a few more of.
Luke Burbank Yeah, let's do it. Just just rip through them.
Elena Passarello All right, here we go. We are nostalgic for dumb phones. Thanks, Tim. The short sleeve flannels worn over long sleeve thermals.
Luke Burbank Oh, my gosh. That was my look.
Elena Passarello The Eddie Vedder, blissful ignorance. Thanks, Anna. The scholastic book order form ahhh, TV channels that played music videos, life without social media, hyper color, Dr. Pepper flavored lip smackers and L.A. gear aerobics tennis shoes.
Luke Burbank We could do 10 minutes on each one of those topics that you just raised, because they're all a big part of the pop culture of my teenage years. One more before we get out of here.
Elena Passarello Well, I mean, this one from Lynn. I think we're all very nostalgic for not being so online. Our brains were like pink jolly ranchers, you know?
Luke Burbank Yes.
Luke Burbank Just I had I had like an attention span. Is that what they call it?
Elena Passarello Yeah.
Luke Burbank My brain was actually able to create its own serotonin. Gosh, what a time.
Elena Passarello I would call people on the phone and we would just have uninterrupted conversations. But I couldn't pace while I was doing it because the phone was plugged into the wall.
Luke Burbank Right, or you had that really long cord and you'd go like because the phone was always in the kitchen or some public space, but you would, you know, want to talk to your crush or whatever, so you'd get that long cord and you'd go hide in a closet or something. It was a fun time. All right. Thanks to everyone who sent in their things they were nostalgic for from the nineties. Those were all really, really good suggestions.
Luke Burbank This is Live Wire. NPR calls our musical guest this week one of the most unique groups around today and they certainly are making movies incorporates traditional Latin American instruments and sounds into their truly one of a kind style creating American music, as they say, with an asterisk, because it represents all of the Americas. They've shared the stage with such artists as Arcade Fire, Los Lobos, Thievery Corporation and Rodrigo E Gabriela and their fourth album, SOPA, Drop this summer Making Movies joined us on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, back in June. Take a listen. Good evening. Hello there. Welcome to the show.
Making Movies Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having us.
Luke Burbank So, Enrique, I was curious. You and your brother Diego were born in Panama, but you moved when you were six, and. And Diego, you were about two. So what do you remember from your kind of musical time in Panama? From, like, 0 to 6? Is that long enough to have that musical culture really kind of seep into you?
Making Movies Yes, I think, you know, I remember definitely remember afternoons at my grandmother's house. And music is just threaded into the culture. The taxicabs play music at like that volume that makes speakers sound like they're exploding. And and I don't even know how they the clubs do the same thing, you know, it's like it's just part of the flavor. Everything's a little crunchy sounding down there. But I also remember loving a song by The Dire Straits. My dad is a our dad is a rock and roll fan. And the song, The Walk of Life and you go, I'm John. But I didn't speak English, so I would sing it, but I don't know what I was singing. [gibberish]. But it kind of we actually got a name of the name of the band from The Dire Straits, because my my dad had all these records at home, and one of their albums is called Making Movies, and it's on the same font on the on the vinyl cover. And since I was kind of listening to it out of time and place, it's like, Hey, Dad, is this band called Making Movies with an album called Dire Straits? And that's how we got the name of the band. But yeah, I remember loving that. And that reminds me that music doesn't have to be in the language you speak to communicate to you. Yeah.
Luke Burbank Now, this new album, though, is entirely in Spanish. Right. And I think I had read that you said when you write lyrics in Spanish or when you write lyrics in English, it feels like you're sort of two different people. And so to just focus on one thing, you went all Spanish on this one.
Making Movies I did. And and the lyrics for this album, the most personal lyrics that that we've made, perhaps because part of the album process was done during the pandemic. It was an introspective time, I think, for all of us. But regardless, it just felt like to tell those stories and kind of show that part of ourselves. And myself as the lyricist and the band, it felt right to do it all in Spanish this time for the first time.
Luke Burbank So much of the talk around your band is the music, but also the activism, what your band really stands for. How do you balance those two things? I mean, do you think of what you're doing as as something music first with activism or vice versa? Or do you feel like you shouldn't have to choose?
Making Movies Yeah, I feel like you shouldn't leave anything at the door. Right. So when you walk into a room, you should be your full self, all these parts of, of, of your identity. And so I don't think we need to choose, but it's definitely music first. And it's sometimes people pegged us with political activism because there are things that we believe in that that they end up, you know, moving into the political space, you know, supporting families and believing in nurturing kids. If kids are from immigrant families or from black families, it's a it's a different conversation. And or and and so that is a political conversation. But that's not what where we came from. It's just that we come from immigrant families and black families. So that's just natural for us. So people peg it as political, but what we have done is we started a foundation in Kansas City, a not for profit that does like music education as a vehicle to talk about mental health and to kind of look at the whole young person and try to empower them and, thank you. And I love that because it it doesn't have to be political that you're just investing in kids and using music to do so. Yeah.
Luke Burbank Another thing that that people tend to sort of say about your band is that you may have invented a new genre of music. Do you think that's like is that? Would you agree with that?
Making Movies I think we're moving music forward. We're using the same ingredients that made the jambalaya of rock and roll and soul and blues and jazz happen. We're going back to those ingredients, but we have a new recipe, and I think that's what music is all about, is just being a part of the conversation.
Luke Burbank You're listening to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We are listening back to a performance from the rock group making movies, which we recorded live at Revolution Hall in Portland back in June. We've got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we'll hear a song from them. So stick around for that.
Luke Burbank Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We are listening to a performance from the rock group making movies. They joined us live on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, back in June. Let's check back in with that. Oh, well, what song are we going to hear?
Making Movies A song is called XOPA in Panama. They flip que paso, so they make it backwards. Que SOPA as in like, Yo, what's up? Que SOPA. And so it's kind of our greeting to the world saying, Hey, this is who we are.
Luke Burbank All right? This is making movies on Live Wire.
Making Movies ¡Campana! / soy el que soy / se mejante brebaje / Caña y calle / Sangre y lágrimas / Y voy donde voy / Tras puente o pansaje / Te traigo un mensaje / Escrito en mi magia / Como ave de mal agüero / (Nunca moriré) / Vaijero sin ruta o puerto / (Nunca moriré) / Soy el que soy / Y canto el lenguaje / En traje y maquillaje / Eleke roja y negra / Espejo dime porque me desespero, dime / Como ave de mal agüero / (Nunca moriré) / Viajero sin ruta o puerto / (Nunca moriré) / Desde antes del dinero / (Nunca moriré) / Fui testigo de la verdad / Me da risa porque nadia sabe / Los Secretos en nuestro pasado / Somos luceros en la noche / Somos guardianes del legado / Como de mal Agüero / (Nunca moriré) / Viajero Sin ruta o puerto / (Nunca moriré) / Desda antes del dinero / (Nunca moriré) / Fui testigo de la verdad / ¡XOPA! / ¡Nunca Moriré!
Luke Burbank That was making movies live on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, back in June. They brought the house down. Their latest album, SOPA, is available now. All right. Before we get out of here, a little preview of next week's episode. We are going to be talking to filmmakers and actors Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass about their latest film language lessons. They recorded it almost entirely via webcam during the pandemic, and yet somehow they managed to make something that was really emotionally impactful. It's a really cool piece of filmmaking. We're also going to talk with James Whiteside. He's a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater. He's also a pop star and a drag queen. He's one of the best drag queen names ever. You'll have to listen to next week's episode to find out what it is. He's got a memoir out called Center Center, which he's going to tell us about. And then we're going to hear some new music from legendary singer songwriter Dar Williams. Yes, check that off my personal bucket list for people. We get on Live Wire Dar Williams next week. Her latest album is I'll Meet You Here. You're definitely going to want to hear that talk and performance next week as far as this week's show goes. Well, we're pretty much done. Thank you so much for listening. Also, thanks to our guests, Chuck Klosterman. And Making Movies. Live wire ias brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michelle is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Her assistant editor is Trey Hester and our marketing manager is Paige Thomas. Our house band was Mike Gamble, Zach Douma, Eyal Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer. Our house sound is by Emile Blake and Kentaro Chavez is our intern.
Luke Burbank Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members Jane Johnson of Everett, Washington, and James Dash of Portland, Oregon, and a special shout out to board member Summit The Ready. For more information about our show, how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire Radio Dawg. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.
