Episodes 1 and 2: Patton Oswalt and Kelsey Darragh
Notes, thoughts, and things.
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The most worthwhile thing I could think of to do with my professional time in this world is to try to help other people carry the weight that we all must carry. So I dedicated my career to that. Depresh Mode is the latest iteration of that.
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Episode 1 - Patton Oswalt
As I explained in the show, having Patton on first was the goal of the previous podcast I hosted. He has been talking about depression, loudly, clearly, and humanely for many years. But between the time we did that interview and the show premiered, Patton’s wife, Michelle McNamara, died. I knew that the interview I had done wouldn’t reflect who Patton was in the present. Listeners would feel like we were avoiding a big topic. So we never used the tape.
Since then, I had been looking for occasion to re-interview Patton and he was kind enough to make that happen.
There’s a bit more to the story. I sort of knew Michelle. A little. Years ago, I was hosting a comedy-variety show called Wits where different comedians and musicians would come to St Paul for a big performance/taping at the Fitzgerald Theater. Heading into the second season of that show, we wanted to get a big name, a comedy superstar. “Like a Patton Oswalt-level name,” I told Jill, my wife.
“Oh, I can get Patton,” she told me. I knew she didn’t know Patton. “I’ll connect with Michelle.”
Jill and Michelle were in the same high school class in Oak Park, Illinois. Whereas I couldn’t wait to get away from all memories of high school, this class at this school remained close and everyone seemed to know what everyone else was doing. They had lost touch but Jill was in touch with another classmate, Sarah, who was still tight with Michelle. A day or so later, I get an email from Patton Oswalt saying he’d love to do the show. “I told him he had to,” Michelle explained to me in another email. (Also in that same graduating class? Thomas Lennon. Go figure.)
I’m told that Patton and Michelle met after a standup set where he had talked about his attraction to Irish girls. She strode up, identified herself as such, and it was on.
A while after that Wits show, I had dinner in Los Angeles with my producer, Larissa Anderson, and a lineup I couldn’t believe I got to be among: Patton and Michelle, Paul F. Tompkins and Janie Haddad Tompkins (married couple), and Andy Richter and Sarah Thyre (married couple). I knew Michelle the least but she was so funny and smart and candid about all sorts of things. I came away from the dinner so happy to have made a new friend.
Now, none of this belonged in the new episode that is available today. That episode is about Patton and how he kept walking and talking after Michelle’s sudden death. Maybe you can hear notes of this history in the way I talked with Patton or the questions I asked. Maybe not.
What struck me most about Patton Oswalt’s approach to the topic of loss and continuing on is the sense of duty he has. Maybe it’s his family’s career in the military (of note: he is named Patton) but it seems like talking about the event, sharing the insight he has gained, finding some wisdom if not conclusions, that’s all part of who he is.
And I think that’s makes him stand out among comedians. He says in the interview that he’s not exclusively going for laughs in his work, he’s not playing to the bachelorette party in the front row, he’s going for the most helpful and honest words he can find.
Pretty great way to kick off our show, I think.
Episode 2 - Kelsey Darragh
My history with Kelsey is much shorter. She had a book coming out, was looking for people to blurb it, and took to Twitter.
A Twitterer, who has since deleted the tweet, suggested me. So I saw that and read up on Kelsey and found that she was loud, funny, and honest in writing about mental health. I think I often get along with the loud because they fascinate me. So…
And so I did. We got along because we’re from different planets but share common goals, among them to shove mental health into everyday conversation, whether it wants to be there or not. And also, we both found a career by sort of stumbling into the mental health conversation and finding that people were absolutely ravenous to drag the issue out of hiding.
You can often hear me bring up the idea - and I certainly do in this episode - of WHY people like Kelsey and me are doing what we do, baring our soul and exposing deep vulnerabilities to talk in public about this. And if you’ve heard this episode or know Kelsey’s work, you know she gets way more personal and graphic than I do. I mean, I know we’re doing it because it’s Good To Do and, professionally, because it seems to find an audience. But I guess I can’t believe how weird it still feels.
I’ve talked with three different former Buzzfeed video people for this season so far, just kind of worked out that way. All younger than me by a solid chunk. All more California/New York than me, by two chunks. And they’re great. But I just imagine what I would have been like if I had tried to make those fun, energetic, candid Buzzfeed videos. I think it would just be me in a chair in a corner saying, “Oh never mind.” Short videos. Probably not a lot of views. Though perhaps relatable.
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Okay! More fun links and tangential stuff on Thursday!