Conversation live in the town hall. If you are close cap version of tonights version please watch more youtube paid in close captioning will be available there after words as well part Upcoming Events include tomorrows appearance on the future of u. S. Nuclear policy, bearing witness to the end of eisenach arctica, the next civic saturday which is a secular ceremony of community and another installment of her earshot jazz live in the form series this weekend with kate olson ensemble or adding new programs everyday and new events being released on podcast. Many are available on video or podcast form on a media library. Short spent some time on our long page will continue to provide not only ways to stay plugged in plenty more rabbit hull for you to climb down. The next conversation erics presentation will last about 40 minutes after words will take your questions. He will select questions from the questions you type in the center of the pain at the bottom it says ask a question and eric will be able to see them there. Also you can vote on which question you can answer first by clicking the arrow next to it and it will upload it and sort of resequencing for him to see. We cannot guarantee he will address every question begets as many as possible. With that in mind please keep your comments in the form of a question. We thank you for your support its supported by the arts fund, seattles arts and culture in the winco Foundation Northwest but in any you know town hall truly supported by its members and want to thank all of you and the membership you may be watching tonight. 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Thomas is up playwright, and genial house and limits anymore the playwright his work has been seen on stages around the country from his face in philadelphia hes collaborated with best companies and hes one and an award in the Lanford Wilson courts as a finalist for the steinberg american theatre critics play award. As for the columnist and author part, he is a senior staff writer at l online which since 2016 hes written a daily humor column on pop culture and politics. Eric reads the dudes. Hes appeared in the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer with other publication is currently work on a biography of represent of Maxine Waters simply called reclaiming her time. Finally, after the congeniality he is the long running onstage story plan about the sea in philadelphia. His book, cure for it or how to save your soul in america, is the subject of tonights talk. Please join me in welcoming eric. Hello. Im really, really delighted to be here, welcome to virtual town hall i welcome also to my living room. This is a study, marty lying about where i am and whats happening. This is experimenting because im really glad were able to do the senate, was hoping to be there in person china really, really was. I love seattle. The last time doing a mini stage there. Sometimes i get terrible jetlagged. Im special. I was really, really jetlagged for in the morning to do my east coast job online and by the time i got to seattle, my brain had left the building. The show is like at seven or whatever 730 perhaps. It was like 10 30 and my brain i also hadnt slept. I dont know what i said, that they are going to drag me off the stage. Theyre going to take me to it a seattle jail where i will never escape. But the normal sit on the data is that unknown . What 11 bedroom these Online Events engine events im literally just talking to hutch in my room its like theres not unknown here. But i think you noting talking about. Anyway, im really excited to get a Second Chance to redeem myself at town hall to remember where i am and what day it is and what organizations present to me. Im excited to talk about my book you can see just over my shoulder there. I will be reading a couple selections from the book tonight, and you can feel free to ask questions if youve read it or not read it you can ask questions, about anything. Anything and everything. You can ask for personal invites, i dont care. That sounds fine to me. I do want to offer not belabor, but acknowledge the strangeness of the medium. Every time i have a work call with now put into zoom, i worked from home for number of years. But now all of a sudden everybody wants to see my face. I find that very strange im like what . I have to put on clothes which is distracting, and two, every meeting is like lets zoom the business meeting today for like the sink going to come over to your house to sit on your couch. Like every time was like for having a meeting and i think i have to vacuum. I put out a little throw rug there as you can see in the pineapple plants year, that is a natural appointment to check that out. We put that on the blog on how to struggle with gnats. Im going to read a little bit of my book one of the things want to start going on tours february 18 of 2020 freaked out what does my editor wont make tuna book reading . And they said the clue is in the name. You should read the book. I said i dont know . I dont think they want that. If someone reads book of experiment with that. If you havent read or dont know most books dont have postit notes in it if you want with postit notes i can send you one. As the humorous essays mostly of an american mostly where those identities come into contact and conflicted the child or and sometimes come together to create something new. I have been various times in my life impositions were someone said to me or asserted that i was not the norm. Demographics decide whether i am in the statistical minority, i realize it a certain point that i could not go through life thinking of myself always as a marginalized. I exist in the center of my own story. Want to move myself from the margin to the center of my story. These are essays about that. There essays about the places we are all tethered in our own minds for this also stories about becoming which of the original title was becoming by Michele Obama. I have written it to my editor and she said you cannot use that title is it the nine notes similar to another one but this is becoming by Michele Obama so its different. She said no. Youre going to seattle and will put the gnome on top of you. So i called it here for it. The original title is why bother. Think about that a lot in this moment, because what i wanted to invoke was the question that we should always, think we are always under the surface thinking about why should i bother to continue to be around . Why should i try to speak . Why should i try to change the political structure . Why should i even the scales and situations that are unjust . Why bother . And i think that is a fair question, its a fair question why do we get up everyday and try to make the world a better place . Or try to make a place for ourselves in the world . I do realize though the title of why bother would be perhaps misconstrued this is the thing that happens, i thought i turned it is off again when keep talking. I realize the title of why bother, could be misconstrued as me being a little more pessimistic that i wanted. So i decided to put it into a question but present a possible answer. That is this phrase i am here for. I am prepared to accept and to navigate whatever life brings to me. I wear this book before, having to lock myself in my own home with for the foreseeable future, so that is a question. Im here for that too. One of the essays talks about a situation like this. I didnt realize that it wasnt just me so i apologize for bringing that into the world, bringing that in the room. So from an essay the first selection i want to read for you this from an called unsuccessful black hair. I am currently bold. I say currently because i am holding out for medical science. Yes, ive heard of rogaine, no i havent bought it i would take a pill and get john legend here, you know your thinking have i been sleeping on john legends hair . Is it extraordinary . No it is fine. Looks good all the time without being showy about it. Im not asking for crown of glory, i want a nice unremarkable old head of hair that does its job competently and attractively like the third leap is that too much for modern science to give me . Other people seem to notice my baldness more than i do. Which makes sense because i am incredibly humble and never look in a mirror. But im always looking at others in krakow so here we are. Anyway, this was before that. Anyway i dont like in the mirror and i kinda just dont care. It still is a surprise to me little kids drumming is around face bald man, our little kids drawing the lot . Yes i am a kindergarten art model. Its a living. I look at these drawings and i see gordon from sesame street, never myself. I suppose i dont know what i look like or maybe im just waiting to memorize my luck after i get my john legend treatment. My hair, when i had here was no great shape. I really didnt have a plan for my hair, i was too shy to try it most fun hairstyles and a when it was cut normally did not have any of the sheen and glow of other people styles. I now realize its because i was not putting any product into it. Prox with nays like sheen, glow, and it says it right there on how it was gel but how was i supposed to know. Most of the time i dont think about my hair which in and of itself seems like a dereliction of my duty as a black person. The original line here is it seemed like a hair election of my duty as a black person, put that into my editor said absolutely not. [laughter] here is integral integral integral gush back to this reading it is all part of the experience. I find it hard to internalize. Im glad to be black but ive never been able to harness pride about my hair. I did not connect with it or the lack thereof. A legitimate black hair choice. I could just keep it moving. But that has never stood a my way before. I am just as kanye west i wear sunglasses and a sports coat. Just my bald asked look like kanye west . Know. Somebody asked me if i was lex little or and was costume colorblind. Lets not be ridiculous if you see my bald asked walking down the street on halloween you dont think lex luther or you also dont think that is kanye west. More likely think he looks like Kareem Abdul Jabbar or why is that bald man going to a Job Interview 8 00 oclock p. M. Halloween night . The suit has shorts because im dressed up known as lex luther of vandross. And one of the things i wanted to do is write all the jokes that i have. I would like to tell more jokes please. What i wanted to do was talk about serious subjects in a way that felt and if im able to make jokes like this particular essay like my struggles but also not feeling black enough that my relationship with my hair contributed to me never feeling black enough. So i can just go in and and then you say everybodys very macho and has a connection to blackness that is unreachable or talk about lex luther vandross. So thats what i do. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down the matter strange or awkward that connect with the theory. I have heard of the sociology. There is theory and half of this bookshelf is safety and fiction and journeys to other places so you can talk about large ideas with this nonfiction and i active way and that creates another world around it. And sometimes hyper realism or literally the story of your lif life. At the beginning of my tour here in baltimore i went to a black barbershop i usually do it myself but i said you should do it. Because i shave my own head into my own beard i never reconciled with thes ideas am i not black enough for a barbershop or black enough. They were very nice. Only one other person. He cuts my beard and i pay him that he takes the bib off and i say this is a great experience. I escaped. [laughter] and the two bartenders are in the background are joshing with each other and one says i have a question for you. And i say i know a black guy. We are debating what is your favorite hot sauce . That is the blackest question you can ask somebody. I dont typically use hot sauce. So i am thinking just think of any hot sauce. Maybe i should call my husband. He is white. Problematic. And sadie answer he says ha ha i told you. So now we have a common enemy crystal what a ridiculous kind and i ran out. I tell you that story to reveal that i am a moron. But to lead into the story with different kinds of blackness. There are many ways to be black and i know that its not always on the surface or the narrative that we are told is just a way to be the queer person or a christian all the different ways identify there are many ways. Sometimes that predominant narrative is pretty strict and there is a lot of gatekeepers. And i dont like gates. This is from an essay called disorientation and those in the Student Affairs office of columbia went there a couple of years there is a man named ron and a woman named kenya really had a handful of black teachers in my life i remember them all in detail to encounter someone of intellectual authority i have a full by the scan like a three d printer or tsa agent ive memorized these people. Moving with the level of authority and command should stride into the office give you a pleasant reading and then move on and get lightheaded on lightheaded the first person i ever encountered that had hot sauce in the purse for kenya was fulltime black. Once was at columbia with yoyo ma and my angelou she stopped to make sure frank was in her bag and said that is the blackest thing i have ever seen in my life. Can you would never that hate were racial she was airtight and kind and was black as hell and i was shook. Another equally stunning force he had a more casual relationship with us. Kenya was Mount Rushmore and he was a died ranger with tours the beguiling version of masculinity was completely foreign to me as a static and excellent ability to roll his eyes and then to clinton like light the importance in the rarity in a time i felt constantly at risk for my racial understanding of myself and my sexual orientation. I was obsessed with the two of them. What i endeavored to do with this book is to complicate things that can seem simple or binary. As many places as possible to enter a section of identity and i feel like i write in my understanding of blackness is inextricable from my understanding of my face on my faith going to a small black church so i started dating a white presbyterian minister i said we are both christian but i dont know what is happening inside of your church. White church was so different for me he went from the kind of church that went 11 00 a. M. And tell. And god in the procedures and the smells and bells and all of our lives. Its the only one that i know it was important to me to keep circling back to that idea and the capabilities of the places where the bubbles come together if you think like a soap opera and then we see the surface of the other bubble and then to expand an understanding of ourselves. That is a long way to say i dont know what to do with it but it goes in my jacket pocket. I want to read a little from an essay called theres never any trouble here. I mention this in the interview the town crier and then to talk with them and from the beginning and then it is so weird. To say i really put my foot in this one. What are we going to do . They will love it. When i was a kid Maryland Public Television took last the rebroadcast one we broadcast off the air. Other brother wasnt born yet but im sure he was. And then the room was set for us. My mom asked what we were doing and then to decide i would write a letter and then they would turn test on lessie back on. We were shaking with anger. Do these people think they were . I was determined to let them have that we were unaware it had gone off the air 30 years before and even if we had it would not have mattered. Are we serious about getting timmy out of the well . Even though life wasnt just the five of us in a big house in west baltimore and those agencies from brooklyn to that Police Presence with the open air drug markets were constant. Sometimes they got a response and sometimes they didnt because they were trying to create the world they wanted their children to live on so that less urgent injustice nonetheless. And then the highly communicative calling and that sense of urgency. And to write a strongly worded letter and my mother mailed it and we waited. And then to turn to be thunderstruck. And then i threw out Plastic Plate of plastic food against the wall of the playhouse. What is is coming to . And then i poured myself a jet on a juice with indignation that life isnt fair but sometimes you get free things. This is about justice and the possibility that we can see justice in the world that everyone would experience if you go back to your life its debatable if true justice is possible. But also moments of deep injustice so i wanted to talk about something random of the other ring that exposed me to this other side of life of my parents try to create the idea that we can be taught inside our own home that we could belong to be fully capable to be citizens in the world to anything anybody else had was not something you were learning in a neighborhood where i grew up. You have seen my parents neighborhood if you have seen liar. So if you know that things werent going well. So in soon so in doing that you have to make your voice known and make your concern and then to your representative you have the right to speak up sometimes that results in justice being served or they dont turn lastly back on. So i can do this reading from my home because i wouldnt take this on the book tour because it would get broken i still have this mug that Maryland Public Television sent me. It is 32 years old sent to me because i wrote a letter i can play this has followed me through eight moves college in different places throughout my life when i drink out of it come it taste like justice. Its just water but mostly justice. When everything. Please feel free to throw questions and there. And by conversation but for the uploading. So i will read something it is the threeyear anniversary of this event. My husband is a presbyterian pastor he was a pastor at a big church and in charge of the Easter Egg Hunt. He had this whole system but anyway every child did have an equal number of eggs and they were assigned a color. And then left the eggs the night before then somebody threw them all over the yard thinking they were helping. That was a tragedy. And thats where it begins the word is equity with egg. It started him speaking. Youre right he conceded some will get more than others but it will be okay. I was not ready to we escalate the crisis. Not on my watch i declared. You take care of the kids. He began to play in the distance i had 45 minutes to bring justice into the world for easter sunday. I surveyed the ruin of the parlor and the pilot chocolate candies and then i try to figure out and what a crackle is and why were there no other versions this is an entire candy brand that is miniature. We have a holiday to save. We never had easter in church we are baptist. And those that were nestled in fake grass and then from the square inch perspective you get more chocolate from across than a bunny. So much for the crucifixion and then hiding easter eggs around the house so the complex system of organization that there was a change involved but moving on. From what had already been hidden just sitting everywhere in plain sight apparently you dont want to hide the egg just put them were kids will find them and pick it up so the process is not impeded. My mind is blown. My first step was to take an inventory. I went to the parlor until i found an actual clipboard it probably was a clipboard at the tomb when jesus emerged to be honest because it was a sunday so jesus having the idea to fully resurrect and then say excuse me your copay i left my wallet and calgary. And so those that are out there to how to adjust the inventory just the man in the suit telling of a color with the middle management process and then to ensure that every child got one and then they need to reach each color and far too long that honestly if you will not be thorough to go against the lord. The moral is i saved easter. But then with my little clipboard with the colors listed and the tally marks and i said its nice to be reminded and for what we walked through as a person and then i read every once in a while that book readings. So i know i cant imagine any child would have gone to that Easter Egg Hunt but i feel like i got less of the pie. It was also deeply important to me but today victory nonetheless to create a Playing Field where there is enough for everybody. Thats a promise of church. And then to pull out some bread. With the politics and religion. And to feel this idea that when communities and marginalize people or whoever that gathered together to create our own spaces that were this happened we create abundance to ourselves and to urge other. Which is important to remember and actual food scarcity and there is not enough. I dont know. And then spouting off and then jump out the window. Thats not what im saying. Im saying we can create that for each other. I will take a couple questions. They are so many. And one of my favorite seattleite im sorry i cannot see you victoria. So thats a note for everyone else it is a great way to meet me. I appreciate that. I have been thinking and with the church i started to work from home and then to spend two years and i wonder in my hometown so i think a lot about community in the first half is the first couple of years and then that ironic moment and then i have to go inside. I know. And then to see how my life goes. And there is a lot of writing if you are interested in doing allied of revisiting old movies with all kinds of different relief. More in that present moment or anxiety. And with that isolation. And then i heard of the movie death becomes her how there is the urgent moment that robs us of the best parts of life that it is nice from the coworkers or hello dolly thats about one woman that i can deeply relate to that. That we dont want to get out in front of something i didnt know what it was at all. Next one. And then to be canceled and underrated. So what is underrated . And then it with that preeminent. I think that is underrated and those performances in theory the most popular show on television they are giving classic comedy performances pod fill style that takes real skill. They didnt particularly like it that much but those actors overrated . I know. But if its overrated i dont think it is here. But i cant think of anything. Everything is great. So what is this category of movie for the re watched series . Since i first thought 20 years ago. And then i did a rewatch from the new yorker and that this is great i know my role which is gay nonsense. So this week and then to have a comedic take that mortality . And how do we process this. But then tomorrow and that its underrated as well. And then next week maybe we are still decided and then groundhog day, truman show, or next week is the anniversary. This is from amy. So with those pieces of writing and in the place anything is possible. So briefly thank you so much for that beautiful common. One of the only essays and its a love story. And a platonic rom com. And then on tragedy it was part of the pitch for the book so people know me from writing jokes online. And that love is not a respecter of gender. And with that process my editor was like so what happened . I was nervous people wouldnt accept the essay. And then to start writing the essay and then i can figure out how to do it as a oneman shoe but for years ive had the line in my hand anything is possible for anyone forever. Its a possibility in his promise with a million different versus. This is from jennifer. So absolutely in september there is a book called that i cowrote for the Washington Post and to know the book the notorious are bj. It is then that style and beautifully illustrated gift of a book. And what was fascinating and terrifying so this isnt like the official biography. And we all agreed this wasnt the right moment in her career. And of course right now now is not the time. And then in the hyperbolic way the challenge is to figure out what was closer to earth so to write a book that was fun and felt you to her spirit with those incredible accomplishments with a 30 plus year career. And with that uprising and probably would not be cracking jokes. So we had a quick turnaround. So i put myself into the boot camp and learned as much as i could and then to be so inspired. Look at her life the way that she has manifested justice in the world and when i first encountered her, who was this person . That is powerful. And then to walk into the l. A. Assembly and then one of the first measures that she put through of those interviews and then said what . Why. And then i love that she has so successfully created. But i do have a few questions to get through. So books are magic and brooklyn with the book and i highly recommend it and with those bookstores so i have a christian friend that calls them a sinner but accepts them that does not make sense to me. It is absolutely real. And then i cant founding paradox. And then particularly and so many people tell me and then to say yeah. Obviously. And then dont need your opinion but they say they dont agree that what you are doing and then you except that it gives them the power to say about the person you are not to say im a wonderful person every single one of us that is true for every single one of us as well. People are telling us what they expect us for parts of our identity. So i say overruled. Maybe they dont. And then to be advised and then to be in power thats one of the things of religion in general. And with that revolutionary. I dont accept that. And that process. And then to say you are a delight. Thank you. And just feeling with this one last time. And then i was deeply depressed but im also addicted to hope and the time of uncertainty. And then grateful to buckle down and not as powerful but to do Something Like this and it feels so weird. This is all pretend so i have to believe its a metaphor. I know youre out there my neighbor across the way he is talking to somebody. That is what gets me through. And this invisible thing but im not just talking to myself are yelling at the wall im sorry i didnt get a chance to tell everybody else for thank you for supporting me tonight and townhall and everybody and so with that i will hand it back over. Thank you for your generous art and sharing your addiction to help and then that holy threshold of justice. And then thank you first and foremost at the time together. And with that warm generous humor and then where this came from. And to thank josh and jimmy for making tonight possible
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