Lyle lovett, welcome. Evan, thanks for having me. Nice to be back with you. Congratulations on 16 years of the show well, thanks very much. Cant believe it, time goes fast. It was first season that we first spoke. Yeah, thats right, you came back again one more time, and now here you are again, so see you in eight years. Thats how that goes, i think, right . Or Something Like that. Yeah. So were sitting here today against the backdrop of this awful weather in houston, flooding. A community that you know well, care enormously about. You were born in memorial hospital, right, in houston . In methodist hospital. Methodist hospital, pardon me, in houston, and you grew up in houston and around houston, and you still live in the still live here, still live right where i grew up. Yeah, i know its, ive been keeping an eye on the, and been on the phone all day back home. Lots of folks are underwater, where we are in north Harris County, were on high enough ground that were okay, but things are
John hodgman, welcome. Thank you so much, its wonderful to be here. Good to see you and welcome back, and congratulations on this. Thank you, this is my book, vacationland. Its a lovely book. You know that, were gonna talk almost exclusively about this we can talk about whatever you like. The cover is one of the great book covers of the year. Its a great design. I think the design is fantastic. And may i credit the genius of Aaron Draplin of portland, oregon, an amazing designer who works in this kind of 70s, what he calls thick line style. He designs logos and corporate identities. He also created field notes, those little notebooks you can get at bookstores. So hes an amazing guy. Hes got a book called pretty much everything, which is a beautiful collection of his designs. Are you doing his cover . Oh sure, ill do his cover. Itll just be called good job draplin. But i love him and im so thrilled that he was able to do it. I love this book but i just wanna say, i loved your previous b
Thank you, evan. Thank you very much for being here, congratulations on the book. Thank you, thank you. I have to say i was little surprised to learn about the book and to read it. Its a funny book, thats not the surprise but the surprise is that i remember when you got to the senate, there was talk of you, i guess the expression was the Hillary Clinton model, following the Hillary Clinton model, you know, do your homework, go to committee hearings, dont do national press, basically show that you mean to be a serious senator. Youve been in there for nine years. Right, right. This is not the kind of book you wouldve written, almost nine years, this is not the kind of book you wouldve written maybe at the first, would you . Oh, not at all. Basically, i had to not be funny publicly [evan] right. For my entire first term laughs . audience laughing and i took hard to do. I mean i get, the book is a response to a lot of questions i get asked. The first i get asked the most is is being a Unit
Helen thorpe, welcome. Thank you so much. Im gonna pretend that we dont know each other. Stipulate, weve been friends for a long time, decades. 25 years, longer than that. And you know, the thing about this book, which made me cry, and i think is wonderful and is the best of your three books is, im overwhelmed with admiration for what youve accomplished here. Thank you so much. Its a great book and its a great book right now because of the world were in and the issues that are before us. And im trying to understand, even having read the book and having thought about what you must have been thinking about, how did you know that we would be having this conversation . I love that youre asking that question, because the world has changed so much in the course of just in that time. Yeah, while i was hanging out with these students. You started writing this book and researching this book, its the 201516 school year that is the guts of the reporting. Right, so to sort of bring us back to that
I thought, a comedy about chappaquiddick . audience laughing oh, right its not a comedy. No, its not a comedy. Its the actual chappaquiddick. Its a look at the story that really kind of affected ted kennedys life completely arguably changed history, right . If you believe the idea absolutely that ted kennedy was going to be president at some point, and this might have been the thing that disabled it, right . Oh yeah, beyond a doubt. And its also interesting given our current political climate, like what ted kennedy got away with, the entitlement and stuff like that. Its a really fascinating look. You and i are the same age, were both 51. 51, but i look 50. audience laughing is that right . You dont look a day over 50 and a half. I barely look 50 and six months. So we were three years old when this happened. So i have no memory of it, i just know what ive read over the years. And i suspect that when you were contemplating taking this role, and you contemplated joining the cast, again, n