Good day my friends! Good day!
Though we’re far from settled in with our new non-fascist administration, it does feel like a good day. Very little has changed and yet so much has changed.
Lisa Birnbach
Right away I will warn you that I have no guest today. This will just be me using my own little platform. So if you want to skip it, go right ahead. You won’t hurt my feelings. But if you listen, and like it, please tell a friend. We need a bigger audience to survive.
We have a new president and vice president. I’m letting that sink in. We know that one of the signature features of this people-run democracy is its elections. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won their election decisively and fairly, though many Americans seem to not believe it. Their inauguration made me cry with relief. I was moved to see former presidents of both parties showing up for the peaceful transition of power. The peaceful transition of power – exactly that is a giant asset of our republic. I teared up seeing the Bushes greet the Obamas. Teared up! Instead of seeing George W. Bush as a dimwit president, I’m looking at a kind man who gets along with people on the other side. Listening to Democrat Amy Klobuchar share the emcee duties affably with Republican Sen. Roy Blunt made that point as well. Inauguration day was a long-awaited high point, and it didn’t disappoint. I cried, I laughed, I had all the feels.
Ironies abound. The many books that have been published about the 45th president are primarily read by the people who didn’t vote for him but still tried to understand him. The unproven accusations of voter fraud never materialized, no matter how many times he insisted they did. The riots they predicted, of course, were incited and enacted by Trump and his mob. They are the violence. They are the rage. They claim they love this country while vandalizing the Capitol. We had to abide by “alternative facts” for the last four years, and my head hurts from it. Yours might hurt too.
Five Things that Make Life Better was at first a personal exercise, a hedge against the bad news of each and every Trump Twitter-filled day. I needed it. I knew that this exercise worked, even though as a popular thing it gets watered down in the sometime soapy self-help universe. After a few weeks I regarded my five things practice as a personal writing assignment just for me. Then I posted it as a blog, and soon thanks to an available recording studio it grew into a podcast. In it I have dropped the curtain between my private and public selves, which is unfamiliar to me. You know about my #Exhibits ™, my mother, what I like to eat, and so on. It came together as things do, not planned, but kind of following an implicit course – a course that wasn’t sure what it would do once Trump and his posse were out of power.
For some of us, Trump was more than a rotten president. He was a constant threat; his practice was revenge, and it will take more than Inauguration Day to get over the worry that he caused us. But talking about him is something I will try to stop. Even if he doesn’t witness it, his dream – his oxygen is attention. I want to deprive him of that.
Conversations – of more than a few sanitized minutes – are the “art form” if you will of this podcast. We have so few meaningful conversations anymore. Even I use my phone more for texts than I do for talking. The technology has made me lazy. Twenty years ago I was a correspondent on CBS’ The Early Show, and I would push back every time I’d be told I had two and half or three minutes to devote to my week’s subject. “That’s double what you’d get on the Evening News,” was the consolation. The goal of this podcast has always been to learn something or several things from every guest about their work, and then learn something about them through their own list of 5 things. And those lists have been sometimes as illuminating as the discussions. I’ve discovered plays, books, foods, delivery services, and so much more from everyone. (I still haven’t bought a sous-vide, however.). You can look back on our website at lisabirnbach.com/welcome to check out everyone’s favorites.
So many writers, policy makers, and experts of all kinds. Everyone from Counter terrorist expert Malcolm Nance to novelist Meg Wolitzer. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and former Celebrity Apprentice staffer Noel Casler. Rabble rouser Molly Jong-Fast and comedian Jacqueline Novak. Actor Richard Kind and judicial editor Dahlia Lithwick. Fashion’s Tim Gunn and musician Peter Asher. Writer E. Jean Carroll and actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi and Chef Kwame Onwoache. It’s been a full buffet, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
Here at headquarters, the Five Things team is organizing future guests – wonderful guests, and also mulling a change of direction, but honestly is also considering shutting down operations if the world allows.
NOTE: If you are reading this, this is my written Blog. To LISTEN, please SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio – or wherever you get your Podcasts. To WATCH it on YOUTUBE where you’ll see the full unedited interview - Click HERE. And if you’d like to rate it as well, PLEASE DO! It helps get my podcast noticed.
For now, though, with hope and a little kumbaya, are my five things that make life better.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris
1. Inaugurating the 46th president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris. After four agonizing years, we are so fortunate that the hunger for decency prevailed. In Joe Biden, kindness is feature, not a bug. The celebrations, both in the day and the night were proof that culture and the arts will be valued once again. And yes, I’m dazzled by youth poet laureate @theamandagorman.
2. Sheila, TNP (The new puppy – she hasn’t yet been designated an exhibit letter) loves classical music. Romantic, Classical, Baroque – she’s not too fussy. Whatever is playing on @WQXR.org is comforting to her. If I can intuit her favorites, I’ll let you know.
3. Speaking of Sheila, which we were, her favorite chew toy seems to be the baby Lambchop that squeaks in at least 4 places. When I saw it at Petco, my ok-boomer self knew I had to pay homage to all those years of Shari Lewis that I watched as a child. (Shari Lewis reappeared, older but no less perky when my exhibits were little couch potatoes too.). My brother Jon brought us the very same squeaky Lambchop toy to welcome our new pet. Do you think people who buy this obviously popular and inexpensive toy remember or even know about Lambchop, the comic foil on a little puppet show from the 1960s? Don’t answer that.
Congressman Jamie Raskin
4. Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. As many of you know by now, Mr. Raskin lost his precious 25 year old son, Tommy to depression on the last day of 2020. Tommy was by all accounts a wonderful, passionate, activist, generous young man – a brilliant second year student at Harvard Law School. Tommy is survived by his parents, two sisters, and many beloved family members and friends. Not a week later, Congressman Raskin was co-leading the House of Representatives’ impeachment effort. Perhaps Speaker Pelosi thought the importance and immediacy of the effort would give Mr. Raskin a chance to do something for his son. He told Jake Tapper on CNN, I’m “not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021".
5 . Manners. We still have them! Now that the sore loser is out of the way, let’s remember that we had decent manners before he arrived, and we didn’t forget them. We thank people who do something kind for us, and we ask for what we want. We don’t just take it. This business of snubbing the Bidens is so childish, so embarrassing. Isn’t he ashamed of himself? And those obnoxious children…. Okay, I’m stopping now, I swear. Enough.
The 5 Things That Make Life Better podcast is recorded and produced at The Field in NYC. My team is Shpresa Oruci, Michael Porte, Sam Haft and Boco Haft.The Field in NYC