April 14, 2024 • 18 mins
Michael Kosta sits down with award-winning director and writer, Alex Garland, to discuss his new film, "Civil War," his intentions for inspiring conversation amongst viewers, and journalism's importance to America's checks and balances system. Also, best-selling author, Hanif Abdurraqib, joins Michael to discuss his latest book "There's Always This Year," the parallels between his life and basketball, and his views on re-framing how we look at aging.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Is an award winning writer and director whose new film
is called Civil War.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Please welcome, Alex Garland. I know it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thank you for coming. I loved your film. The whole
thing is intense. There was a lot of assumptions about
the film just based on the trailer. You wrote it,
you directed it. What do you want to tell us
about Civil War?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You mean, how do I want to say that?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
People heard Civil War and they saw the trailer and
they immediately went, you know it, it's this, and it's this.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And all right.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
What I wanted to do just make something compelling and
exciting and engaging and all that stuff, but also lead
to some kind of conversation, have a thought process. Not
all films do that, Not all films have to do that.
That's that's fine, But that's what this one is aiming for.
And it's you know, it's set in a world where
(01:19):
division and polarized politics have led to some really strange
authoritarian state and the country's disintegrated.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And I believe you're purposely vague about how we got here,
who's fighting?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Who was that? Was that? On purpose? Am I right
to assume that.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Sort of?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yes? And no, I think I got for sort of.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
It is very vague about some stuff, and it is
very very specific about other stuff. And I think because
it's vague about some things, it creates an assumption that
there's an overall vagueness.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
But actually it's quite on point in some areas. You
know that that itself is a vague statement.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, yeah, you answered it. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
One of the things that I felt so much in
this film was was so many of these American places
that I love born and raised in America. Is the
golf course, is the football stadium. And that scene we
just saw, I mean, here's a sniper trying to take
someone out on a golf course while Christmas music is
playing in the background.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I mean, it's like, holy shit. As an American, I said,
I don't want this to happen. I don't want us to.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Be You shouldn't want it to happen, right, I don't, right, right,
I don't want it to happen either.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I have to say.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Also, seeing as we talk about it, seeing as I
appear to be on a television show right now, I
want to say, you are exactly It's not it really
isn't just America it's set in America, but this situation
exists in my country and in many European countries, the
Middle East and Asia and South America. And I chose
America because everybody looks to America, right, But of things
(03:00):
it's talking about are quite global.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
As a brit was it a little bit fun watching
America crush itself?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
No, honestly I hate it. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I by the way, to be serious, nobody on the planet,
apart from psychopaths, needs disintegration in this country.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
They don't.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Nobody on the planet wants division in this country. They
want stability and decency. And yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Sometimes when you're sitting on your couch at home on
Twitter and we've got our political identities and there's kind
of this cute idea of all, we're going to a
civil war.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
But when you.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Watch your film, it's terrifying, dude, and it's.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, we should be
having these conversations. One scene comes to mind, in particular,
the Lincoln Memorial, right, I mean, it's in the trailer,
so I don't want to it gets exploded.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, and don't blow it up.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's a good thing, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And honestly it went there as a seventh grader with
my middle school and I just was like, holy shit,
how would I feel if this happened. Of all the
places you could have blown up in this film, and
a lot of places to do blow but the Lincoln Memorial,
I mean, tell me why that was important to you?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Well, actually, because, particularly towards the end of the film,
I wanted the audience, having gone through hopefully a compelling,
engaging story, to suddenly feel a really strong sense of aversion, yes,
like a really deep instinctive sense of sort of being appalled.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
And although it was written before January the sixth, there
was something about January the sixth that it was a disgrace. Right,
It was various things, but one of the things was
it was a disgrace, and it provoked to feeling of
whatever is happening, This shouldn't be happening. This just has
a has like a deep wrongness, and this is this
(05:10):
is a kind this is that writ large, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And I guess it says a lot about you that
you take great pleasure in giving us these things that
should not be happening.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
There's no pleasure in it.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
No, no, no, it's it's just humility in my job
that leads me to do these things.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We haven't spoken about the role of the press in
this film, and it's in the clip as well, but.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I mean, that's the center character, is its.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Present because on a personal level, I'm completely over, completely
over this demonization and villainization of the press.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's been happening a lot.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's it comes from politicians, and it comes
from within social media, which is this weird public discourse
space that doesn't really relate to how people talk to
each other at all. We all know that, right, and
in some places it happens within the press.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
But whatever it is, we need.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Journalists, we need trusted journalists in it, pretty much exactly
the same way we need doctors. So I'm done with
this thing. And I thought, I when I was setting
out to make it, someone said, don't make it about journalists.
Everybody hates journalists, and I thought, this is just nuts,
just nuts.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I mean, is that a leap for me to say,
if we gut journalism, we lead to civil war?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You know what?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
All right, I will be very serious. I know it's
a comedy show. I'm not very good, are you kidding me?
I mean, I haven't. I haven't told the joke in
the first two accents. So here's the thing. There's a
system of checks and balances. Government has checks and balances, executive, judiciary, legislature.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And then there's the fourth estate.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
There's journalists watching that. That's a system of checks and balances,
which is not arbitrary.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's for a reason.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
It's guarding against something. It's guarding against something real. If
you erode it, if you erode government, if you erode
the people watching the government, the thing you're guarding against me,
just turn up and what is that thing?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Actually?
Speaker 4 (07:18):
In Europe we know exactly what it looks like because
fascism there came out of democracy, and a lot of
fascists don't know their fascists. They kind of know it's
a bad word. They don't identify as fascists. It's not
a thing they know. Some do, but most don't, right,
And it's actually really a state of mind that people
(07:41):
drift into, as opposed to, you know, following some kind
of swastika flag. It's not really that, and it is
actually a danger.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's easy for to watch this film and the Girl
America watch out America.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
This civil war can.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Be your But really, I think you briefly stated this
isn't just the United States.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
We had a we had a prime minister, a guy
called Boris Johnson.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Sure, it was interesting thing. He was manifestly a liar.
It was.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
It was completely obvious he was a liar. And journalists
would point this out, but they didn't have any traction.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It didn't do anything.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
It just sort of bounced off him that that was
that was weird. So your country, my country, many other countries.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I I wish I had a joke up my sleeve.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
No, you don't need a joke, I think, but you.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You you swore right this is this is actually up.
But it is dangerous, dude.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I watched your film and then I got in a
cab in Manhattan and I was like, I want to
get the I want to go to the country right now,
and just like, I mean, it is very powerful. It's
an anti war film for sure. And is there a
lesson I should be taking. Should I be having more
conversations with people that ideologically I'm different than his?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
My feeding Most people are not extremists. Most people just
are not.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
They don't really have a voice.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Extremists have occupied noise, and I think the key thing
to be.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Thank you, thank you for coming to chat with us,
Thank you for your film. It's it's tremendous. I hope
everybody sees it. Civil War is in theaters in Imax
nationwide April twelfth.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Alan start and you take a quick break. I'll be
right back after this.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You don't read a job, We're gonna rap.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
My guest Tonight is a cultural critic, poet, and best
selling author whose new book is called There's Always This
Year on Basketball and ascension.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Please welcome, Amnith abdu RAKEI.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
What are that?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Unbelievable?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
This There's Always This Year? This is a beautiful book.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It's been said ball is life, but you have written
a book about basketball, poetry, meditation, music, lebron.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Was your intention to do ball as life?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Right here? Everything? Yes?
Speaker 5 (10:16):
And in some ways I think I failed, But in
other ways I think I succeeded. My hope was to
write a book where anyone could see their own interest
in it. You know, it's like walking to a body
of water, looking in and seeing what you most want
reflect it back to you. So if you are in
this book saying I want to find a basketball book.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You will.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
If you're in this book saying I want to meditate
on grief or place or home, you will. If you
are someone who wants to see a complicated relationship with
lineage and parentage reflected back to you, you will. So in
that way, I.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
You tell the story of seeing your dad shoot.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
A basketball once one time.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And this book reminded me of how much I love basketball,
and also how much I watched with my dad, and
I wonder it's not often described this way.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Is basketball a family sport?
Speaker 5 (11:05):
It feels like at least a family sport from the
standpoint of witness. I grew up in a house of
Knicks fans largely, and I remember my mother loving Charles Smith,
and you know, the dislike for the Bulls, so, you know,
was strange for me. I can't love Michael Jordan because
you know so in some ways basketball is in a
family that loves basketball, it gets passed down. Like so
(11:26):
many other things, you learn to love the game through
the people you witness loving the game, and that, I
think is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
My dad loved the floater, oh yeah, the best shot,
and you describe it in here, you know, and I
just have Do you mind if I read some your
words to you?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Really?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Isn't that strange?
Speaker 5 (11:43):
An honor but strange?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, so it's gotta be a weird The floater the
most romantic shot in the game. When done right, it's
almost obsessed with drama, almost pausing in the air to
make sure.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
You get its good side before it begins to twirl downward.
I thought of my dad when I read that.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Really you did that? You read that beautiful. I'll tell you,
I'm in the second half of my book tour. You
should take over for that.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
I can take over.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
But it's just one example of the things you described
so well. You said you're a Knicks fan, so you're
familiar with there's always next year. But the significance, the
significance of there's always this.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Year, it presents a real urgency. I mean, so much
of this book is also about the passage of time,
in making peace with the passage of time, which I
think a lot of people. I turned forty last year.
I think a lot of people as they age think
first about what is being taken from them, instead of
thinking about the many versions of themselves there are to come,
and to present a kind of urgency and an affection
(12:43):
around the time you have and put it in the
immediate moment. For me to structure a book around that
was a real generosity to myself.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Well, yeah, in the book, you know it's yeah, And
you know he's not just saying that. It's actually divided
into orders and timeouts, and there's clocks, there's a countdown,
you know, And is that to give me the reader
a sense of like time is limited?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Enjoy this page?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
I mean, in some ways, to put a literal stop clock,
little countdown clock in a book is to say you
the reader and me the writer, because so much of
the process of the book was to make us feel
like we are in this together and understanding what time is,
how much we have left, how much we don't have left.
But some of the language I was attempting was to
slow you down and say, for example, we are all
(13:33):
certainly going to die, but we are not dead yet.
And so since we are not dead yet, have you
ever considered the sunset? And you haven't really considered the sunset?
Because there are infinite sunsets on infinite days as long
as you're alive, and so that urges people to slow
down a bit.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
You know, I was in Cleveland this past weekend reading
both the book and the audio. You know, so I'm
walking around Cleveland and you're writing about Cleveland. Yes, a
lot a lot here, And I had forgotten how good Lebron.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
James is a basketball Can you believe it?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Can you believe that?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I know, I know why.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I'm too busy watching the tennis channel. But you know,
there's a lot of Lebron James. But why why is
he an important backdrop for you to tell a story
of your life?
Speaker 5 (14:17):
For two reasons. One, I got very interested in this
idea of Lebron James as an immortal figure, someone who
we believe will play forever, because it does seem right
now as though he might play forever. But of course
we also know immortality is a lie. You know, time
is undefeated. As I say, time will get the best
of us eventually. However, in a moment where it feels
like I could focus in on the idea of immortality,
(14:39):
the idea of living forever, yep, it was interesting to me.
But also because for much of my life, Lebron James
did seem like a far away star in the background
of my living. You know, I write about being homeless
and walking through the streets of downtown Columbus and hearing
a Cavs game on the background in bars that I
could not get into, And so, in a very real
literal way, Lebron James is in the background of my
life in ways I could not access, and in any
(15:03):
book that analyzed my living and my survival, it felt
as though I should render it, effectively, render what was
in the background that helped me get to the forefront.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well, and that leads to my next question, which is home.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yes, I believe you moved back to Columbus six or
seven years ago. You talked about everyone getting something from
this here I am. I feel like we might have
had different childhoods. And man, your description of going back
home to Ohio reminds me of when I go home
to Michigan. Of did I have to leave Michigan to
(15:33):
be successful in comedy? Do we have to leave? What
is ascension? All of this was hitting me in the face.
What is home to you? And did you need to
leave it?
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I don't think I need. I mean, one, it's good
to talk to another MIDWESTERND Yeah, for sure, I will
say for me, I never felt the need to leave home.
I think this book is also trying to realign a
consideration of what making it is. Ascension not necessarily is
something that sends you upward, but anything that moves you
from the place you were to the place you're going.
And sometimes that place geographically is the same, but it
(16:04):
is emotionally different. It's mentally different all of these things.
And for me, if you have a place you love
in a place where you can do your work, and
a place where your name will be cemented for years
after you're gone, for anything you have done, you've made it.
Even if what you know, my mother passed away when
I was thirteen. When my mother passed away, there were
(16:24):
grocery workers and postal workers who mourned her passing because
of how kind and generous she was to the people
in her orbit. And therefore her kindness is a part
of that legacy. And so my mother made it right.
I love, So you know your legacy is right.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I need help. I need your help.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
You wrote that nostalgia is a relentless hustler.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Truly, please educate me.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I know you did it in here, but I needed
help with.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
You need help with Okay, So there is a useful
way to say, if we sit back and talk about
the good old days of our Midwestern youth, that's a
lot of fun, and we could do that, but it
actually doesn't do anything to inform the way we can
live thoughtfully and generously. Now. Nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, it's great,
but there's a difference between, say, a porch conversation and
a page conversation. A page conversation has to use nostalgia
(17:13):
as a way to move your actual present life forward,
I think, which I'm not. You know, porch conversation is
fine and fun, but also you know, I'm not that interested.
We're all getting older in the way that, for example,
I play basketball now is different, you know. Yeah, you know,
I can't play the way I did when I was
twenty or even thirty. And it doesn't really serve me
(17:34):
to sit back and say, man, in the good days,
I could run up down the court and to do
all this other stuff. But it serves me more to
say I cannot do that anymore, but I can still
do this other series of things that align with what
I know about the game and what I love about
the game, and what my body is still capable of,
and when I do those things, I'm unstoppable for a
little while.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I love that, honey. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Tenth Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime
on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Is an award winning writer and director whose new film
is called Civil War.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Please welcome, Alex Garland. I know it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thank you for coming. I loved your film. The whole
thing is intense. There was a lot of assumptions about
the film just based on the trailer. You wrote it,
you directed it. What do you want to tell us
about Civil War?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You mean, how do I want to say that?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
People heard Civil War and they saw the trailer and
they immediately went, you know it, it's this, and it's this.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And all right.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
What I wanted to do just make something compelling and
exciting and engaging and all that stuff, but also lead
to some kind of conversation, have a thought process. Not
all films do that, Not all films have to do that.
That's that's fine, But that's what this one is aiming for.
And it's you know, it's set in a world where
(01:19):
division and polarized politics have led to some really strange
authoritarian state and the country's disintegrated.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And I believe you're purposely vague about how we got here,
who's fighting?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Who was that? Was that? On purpose? Am I right
to assume that.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Sort of?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yes? And no, I think I got for sort of.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
It is very vague about some stuff, and it is
very very specific about other stuff. And I think because
it's vague about some things, it creates an assumption that
there's an overall vagueness.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
But actually it's quite on point in some areas. You
know that that itself is a vague statement.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, yeah, you answered it. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
One of the things that I felt so much in
this film was was so many of these American places
that I love born and raised in America. Is the
golf course, is the football stadium. And that scene we
just saw, I mean, here's a sniper trying to take
someone out on a golf course while Christmas music is
playing in the background.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I mean, it's like, holy shit. As an American, I said,
I don't want this to happen. I don't want us to.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Be You shouldn't want it to happen, right, I don't, right, right,
I don't want it to happen either.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I have to say.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Also, seeing as we talk about it, seeing as I
appear to be on a television show right now, I
want to say, you are exactly It's not it really
isn't just America it's set in America, but this situation
exists in my country and in many European countries, the
Middle East and Asia and South America. And I chose
America because everybody looks to America, right, But of things
(03:00):
it's talking about are quite global.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
As a brit was it a little bit fun watching
America crush itself?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
No, honestly I hate it. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I by the way, to be serious, nobody on the planet,
apart from psychopaths, needs disintegration in this country.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
They don't.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Nobody on the planet wants division in this country. They
want stability and decency. And yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Sometimes when you're sitting on your couch at home on
Twitter and we've got our political identities and there's kind
of this cute idea of all, we're going to a
civil war.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
But when you.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Watch your film, it's terrifying, dude, and it's.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, we should be
having these conversations. One scene comes to mind, in particular,
the Lincoln Memorial, right, I mean, it's in the trailer,
so I don't want to it gets exploded.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, and don't blow it up.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's a good thing, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And honestly it went there as a seventh grader with
my middle school and I just was like, holy shit,
how would I feel if this happened. Of all the
places you could have blown up in this film, and
a lot of places to do blow but the Lincoln Memorial,
I mean, tell me why that was important to you?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Well, actually, because, particularly towards the end of the film,
I wanted the audience, having gone through hopefully a compelling,
engaging story, to suddenly feel a really strong sense of aversion, yes,
like a really deep instinctive sense of sort of being appalled.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
And although it was written before January the sixth, there
was something about January the sixth that it was a disgrace. Right,
It was various things, but one of the things was
it was a disgrace, and it provoked to feeling of
whatever is happening, This shouldn't be happening. This just has
a has like a deep wrongness, and this is this
(05:10):
is a kind this is that writ large, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And I guess it says a lot about you that
you take great pleasure in giving us these things that
should not be happening.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
There's no pleasure in it.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
No, no, no, it's it's just humility in my job
that leads me to do these things.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We haven't spoken about the role of the press in
this film, and it's in the clip as well, but.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I mean, that's the center character, is its.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Present because on a personal level, I'm completely over, completely
over this demonization and villainization of the press.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's been happening a lot.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's it comes from politicians, and it comes
from within social media, which is this weird public discourse
space that doesn't really relate to how people talk to
each other at all. We all know that, right, and
in some places it happens within the press.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
But whatever it is, we need.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Journalists, we need trusted journalists in it, pretty much exactly
the same way we need doctors. So I'm done with
this thing. And I thought, I when I was setting
out to make it, someone said, don't make it about journalists.
Everybody hates journalists, and I thought, this is just nuts,
just nuts.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I mean, is that a leap for me to say,
if we gut journalism, we lead to civil war?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You know what?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
All right, I will be very serious. I know it's
a comedy show. I'm not very good, are you kidding me?
I mean, I haven't. I haven't told the joke in
the first two accents. So here's the thing. There's a
system of checks and balances. Government has checks and balances, executive, judiciary, legislature.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And then there's the fourth estate.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
There's journalists watching that. That's a system of checks and balances,
which is not arbitrary.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's for a reason.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
It's guarding against something. It's guarding against something real. If
you erode it, if you erode government, if you erode
the people watching the government, the thing you're guarding against me,
just turn up and what is that thing?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Actually?
Speaker 4 (07:18):
In Europe we know exactly what it looks like because
fascism there came out of democracy, and a lot of
fascists don't know their fascists. They kind of know it's
a bad word. They don't identify as fascists. It's not
a thing they know. Some do, but most don't, right,
And it's actually really a state of mind that people
(07:41):
drift into, as opposed to, you know, following some kind
of swastika flag. It's not really that, and it is
actually a danger.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's easy for to watch this film and the Girl
America watch out America.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
This civil war can.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Be your But really, I think you briefly stated this
isn't just the United States.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
We had a we had a prime minister, a guy
called Boris Johnson.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Sure, it was interesting thing. He was manifestly a liar.
It was.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
It was completely obvious he was a liar. And journalists
would point this out, but they didn't have any traction.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It didn't do anything.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
It just sort of bounced off him that that was
that was weird. So your country, my country, many other countries.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I I wish I had a joke up my sleeve.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
No, you don't need a joke, I think, but you.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You you swore right this is this is actually up.
But it is dangerous, dude.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I watched your film and then I got in a
cab in Manhattan and I was like, I want to
get the I want to go to the country right now,
and just like, I mean, it is very powerful. It's
an anti war film for sure. And is there a
lesson I should be taking. Should I be having more
conversations with people that ideologically I'm different than his?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
My feeding Most people are not extremists. Most people just
are not.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
They don't really have a voice.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Extremists have occupied noise, and I think the key thing
to be.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Thank you, thank you for coming to chat with us,
Thank you for your film. It's it's tremendous. I hope
everybody sees it. Civil War is in theaters in Imax
nationwide April twelfth.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Alan start and you take a quick break. I'll be
right back after this.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You don't read a job, We're gonna rap.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
My guest Tonight is a cultural critic, poet, and best
selling author whose new book is called There's Always This
Year on Basketball and ascension.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Please welcome, Amnith abdu RAKEI.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
What are that?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Unbelievable?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
This There's Always This Year? This is a beautiful book.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It's been said ball is life, but you have written
a book about basketball, poetry, meditation, music, lebron.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Was your intention to do ball as life?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Right here? Everything? Yes?
Speaker 5 (10:16):
And in some ways I think I failed, But in
other ways I think I succeeded. My hope was to
write a book where anyone could see their own interest
in it. You know, it's like walking to a body
of water, looking in and seeing what you most want
reflect it back to you. So if you are in
this book saying I want to find a basketball book.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You will.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
If you're in this book saying I want to meditate
on grief or place or home, you will. If you
are someone who wants to see a complicated relationship with
lineage and parentage reflected back to you, you will. So in
that way, I.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
You tell the story of seeing your dad shoot.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
A basketball once one time.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And this book reminded me of how much I love basketball,
and also how much I watched with my dad, and
I wonder it's not often described this way.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Is basketball a family sport?
Speaker 5 (11:05):
It feels like at least a family sport from the
standpoint of witness. I grew up in a house of
Knicks fans largely, and I remember my mother loving Charles Smith,
and you know, the dislike for the Bulls, so, you know,
was strange for me. I can't love Michael Jordan because
you know so in some ways basketball is in a
family that loves basketball, it gets passed down. Like so
(11:26):
many other things, you learn to love the game through
the people you witness loving the game, and that, I
think is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
My dad loved the floater, oh yeah, the best shot,
and you describe it in here, you know, and I
just have Do you mind if I read some your
words to you?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Really?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Isn't that strange?
Speaker 5 (11:43):
An honor but strange?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, so it's gotta be a weird The floater the
most romantic shot in the game. When done right, it's
almost obsessed with drama, almost pausing in the air to
make sure.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
You get its good side before it begins to twirl downward.
I thought of my dad when I read that.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Really you did that? You read that beautiful. I'll tell you,
I'm in the second half of my book tour. You
should take over for that.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
I can take over.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
But it's just one example of the things you described
so well. You said you're a Knicks fan, so you're
familiar with there's always next year. But the significance, the
significance of there's always this.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Year, it presents a real urgency. I mean, so much
of this book is also about the passage of time,
in making peace with the passage of time, which I
think a lot of people. I turned forty last year.
I think a lot of people as they age think
first about what is being taken from them, instead of
thinking about the many versions of themselves there are to come,
and to present a kind of urgency and an affection
(12:43):
around the time you have and put it in the
immediate moment. For me to structure a book around that
was a real generosity to myself.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Well, yeah, in the book, you know it's yeah, And
you know he's not just saying that. It's actually divided
into orders and timeouts, and there's clocks, there's a countdown,
you know, And is that to give me the reader
a sense of like time is limited?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Enjoy this page?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
I mean, in some ways, to put a literal stop clock,
little countdown clock in a book is to say you
the reader and me the writer, because so much of
the process of the book was to make us feel
like we are in this together and understanding what time is,
how much we have left, how much we don't have left.
But some of the language I was attempting was to
slow you down and say, for example, we are all
(13:33):
certainly going to die, but we are not dead yet.
And so since we are not dead yet, have you
ever considered the sunset? And you haven't really considered the sunset?
Because there are infinite sunsets on infinite days as long
as you're alive, and so that urges people to slow
down a bit.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
You know, I was in Cleveland this past weekend reading
both the book and the audio. You know, so I'm
walking around Cleveland and you're writing about Cleveland. Yes, a
lot a lot here, And I had forgotten how good Lebron.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
James is a basketball Can you believe it?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Can you believe that?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I know, I know why.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I'm too busy watching the tennis channel. But you know,
there's a lot of Lebron James. But why why is
he an important backdrop for you to tell a story
of your life?
Speaker 5 (14:17):
For two reasons. One, I got very interested in this
idea of Lebron James as an immortal figure, someone who
we believe will play forever, because it does seem right
now as though he might play forever. But of course
we also know immortality is a lie. You know, time
is undefeated. As I say, time will get the best
of us eventually. However, in a moment where it feels
like I could focus in on the idea of immortality,
(14:39):
the idea of living forever, yep, it was interesting to me.
But also because for much of my life, Lebron James
did seem like a far away star in the background
of my living. You know, I write about being homeless
and walking through the streets of downtown Columbus and hearing
a Cavs game on the background in bars that I
could not get into, And so, in a very real
literal way, Lebron James is in the background of my
life in ways I could not access, and in any
(15:03):
book that analyzed my living and my survival, it felt
as though I should render it, effectively, render what was
in the background that helped me get to the forefront.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well, and that leads to my next question, which is home.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yes, I believe you moved back to Columbus six or
seven years ago. You talked about everyone getting something from
this here I am. I feel like we might have
had different childhoods. And man, your description of going back
home to Ohio reminds me of when I go home
to Michigan. Of did I have to leave Michigan to
(15:33):
be successful in comedy? Do we have to leave? What
is ascension? All of this was hitting me in the face.
What is home to you? And did you need to
leave it?
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I don't think I need. I mean, one, it's good
to talk to another MIDWESTERND Yeah, for sure, I will
say for me, I never felt the need to leave home.
I think this book is also trying to realign a
consideration of what making it is. Ascension not necessarily is
something that sends you upward, but anything that moves you
from the place you were to the place you're going.
And sometimes that place geographically is the same, but it
(16:04):
is emotionally different. It's mentally different all of these things.
And for me, if you have a place you love
in a place where you can do your work, and
a place where your name will be cemented for years
after you're gone, for anything you have done, you've made it.
Even if what you know, my mother passed away when
I was thirteen. When my mother passed away, there were
(16:24):
grocery workers and postal workers who mourned her passing because
of how kind and generous she was to the people
in her orbit. And therefore her kindness is a part
of that legacy. And so my mother made it right.
I love, So you know your legacy is right.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I need help. I need your help.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
You wrote that nostalgia is a relentless hustler.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Truly, please educate me.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I know you did it in here, but I needed
help with.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
You need help with Okay, So there is a useful
way to say, if we sit back and talk about
the good old days of our Midwestern youth, that's a
lot of fun, and we could do that, but it
actually doesn't do anything to inform the way we can
live thoughtfully and generously. Now. Nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, it's great,
but there's a difference between, say, a porch conversation and
a page conversation. A page conversation has to use nostalgia
(17:13):
as a way to move your actual present life forward,
I think, which I'm not. You know, porch conversation is
fine and fun, but also you know, I'm not that interested.
We're all getting older in the way that, for example,
I play basketball now is different, you know. Yeah, you know,
I can't play the way I did when I was
twenty or even thirty. And it doesn't really serve me
(17:34):
to sit back and say, man, in the good days,
I could run up down the court and to do
all this other stuff. But it serves me more to
say I cannot do that anymore, but I can still
do this other series of things that align with what
I know about the game and what I love about
the game, and what my body is still capable of,
and when I do those things, I'm unstoppable for a
little while.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I love that, honey. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Tenth Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime
on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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