Inside the Tent with David Greene

0:06Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to David Greene is Obsessed. There is so much more coming. We're going to be back with a new episode next week. Today, we thought we'd give you something different. This is a little peek behind the curtain at how this show came together. Hope you enjoyed this conversation. Also, hope you're having a great holiday season.

0:30Hey, Campside listeners, welcome back to Inside the Tent, our show where we go behind the microphone of our favorite podcasts and talk to the people who brought them to life. I'm Josh Dean, Campside co-founder and host of many shows, and today I'm talking to award-winning journalist David Green, who you probably know as the former co-host of NPR's Morning Edition, or if you're a Campside completist, as host of our limited series, Reign of Error, about the troubled times of Knicks owner Jim Dolan. But today I'm here to talk to him about his latest show, David Green is obsessed. Every week, David interviews someone, often but not always a famous person, about that person's obsession.

1:08The one thing they can't seem to shake. It's part interview, part therapy session, and every conversation is wildly entertaining. If you want more exclusive content or behind-the-scenes anecdotes from our shows, make sure to go to joincampside.com to become a free member of the Campside community. That's joincampside.com. Now here's my conversation with David.

1:32So I wanted to start with this is not your first campsite show. In fact, the reason we know each other is because you worked on a show that I'm still very fond of about our friend Jim Dolan. Can you tell the people who may not have heard about that show and why they should go listen to it? I mean, yeah, it's just, it's like a romp through this dude's life who happens to be the owner of the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden. And oh, by the way, the sphere in Las Vegas, he's one of the strangest people, I think, in the kind of weird world of sports ownership and entertainment ownership. And it's like at every turn, there's some sort of crazy development that he seems to inflict on himself.

2:20And I think if you like professional basketball, if you like great audio narrative storytelling, if you like to laugh, it's just kind of a fun, fun show to get involved in. My wife, who doesn't like sports at all, listened and she was, she was entertained, which told me a lot. It was called Rain of Air. It was under the umbrella of a show we made briefly with Smart List called Owned, but it's its own limited series and everything David said is correct. It's quite a romp. And I don't just say that because we worked on it. And because it probably got David and I both banned from MSG events forever, maybe.

2:57Well, Josh, I'm going to find out soon. I'm going to the sphere for the first time. I have Zac Brown tickets and I am going to go and see if James Dolan's facial recognition picks up on me because he hated the show and they don't let me in. Wow. Stay tuned. And we may need to update. It's possible. Can David Green get into the sphere or not? News at 11. This is a perfect transition to what we actually came here to talk about. Would you say that you and I are in danger of being obsessed with Jim Dolan? One might say that, yeah. Jim Dolan, for the record, had nothing to do with the backstory of the show we're actually here to talk about.

3:37But it was because of that project that we started talking about other potential collaborations and we – We fell in love basically and it was a romance that could not be stopped. Yeah. Exactly. And your wife was willing to continue to share you. Yeah, exactly. And your family with you. Potty away. Right. And so we started looking for other projects to collaborate on. And I think, you know, we knew we wanted to do something that wasn't a limited series, that was more of a talk show, which is, you know, obviously leaning into your extensive experience interviewing people. I don't know. How many years were you interviewing people at NPR?

4:23Wow. Well, I got to NPR in 2005 and left in 2021. so it's like 15 years but I was at I was at morning edition for like almost a decade um so that style of interviewing like being in a studio and talking to people and conversing and you know that intimacy that power of conversation that was like a decade and so we wanted to lean into I mean obviously you your narration on reign of error was was a delight and that was It's something that we were not at all surprised by but knew that you had both great comfort talking to people who were strangers and also legitimate curiosity and all kinds of people and subjects.

5:07And so we set out to find a, I guess, frame we would call it for like what a talk show would look like. And this one came up because you're working on a book, right? So we decided to focus on obsessions because you were already obsessing about obsessions. Yeah, I was, you know, working on a book and it was funny. It actually came from a conversation I had with my book agent. I had written one book about Russia traveling across the Trans-Siberian Railway. And again, the only skill I have in life talking to people and listening to them and like getting their views on life in Russia, in Moscow, outside of Moscow, what they think of Vladimir Putin, all that stuff.

5:50It was kind of a, you know, a travel log romp, but I hope more serious. And then my agent was like, what next book do you want to write? And he was like, I think you should write a book about Pittsburgh and sports because I'm a diehard Pittsburgh sports fan. I was like, oh, interesting. Like, why do you think I should write about that? He was like, well, you kind of like have this thing you do where you like, you know, went to some Ivy League school in Boston and you're educated and you're in the public radio world. But you like love watching football on Sundays and you're like obsessed about trying to seem like the the dude at a bar.

6:29And I like slammed my drink on the table and was really pissed at him because I was like, Howard, that's not like I'm obsessed with sports. That is not some performative thing I am doing to repair my identity crisis. That's a serious thing. And he was kind of blown away. He was like, oh, you're really obsessed with sports. And just the fact that I was talking about an obsession, but there was so much there to unpack about if it's performative, if it's not, what it says about your identity. We just kind of got excited about the idea of using an obsession as a window into my soul and then in a window into everyone else's souls.

7:04into all of our souls. Like, what do obsessions say about us? Why do we have them? What do they mean? Why can't we let go of them? And it just, you know, you guys seemed excited about maybe doing a show. And so here we are. Yeah, it is based on the idea that you yourself have an obsessive personality. You have a number of obsessions, which we can get into in a minute. But this show is to interview a different person every week who has some specific, fascinating obsession. And I think we set out to find famous people who could be interviewed about things they don't normally talk about, right? I mean, that's one part of it.

7:44And then there's also the unknown people who have fascinating obsessions that you know nothing about, which we can also talk about. But to talk about the more prominent guests, right? We are looking for people that you might have heard of to talk about something they wouldn't normally be asked about, right? Yeah, which I think I love because so often, you know, if you're a celebrity chef, you're talking about food. If you're a comedian, you're talking about comedy. If you're an actor, you're talking about your movies. It's kind of fun to have the chance to bring someone in who people out there think they know, but you know, what a better way to humanize a celebrity or some interesting person and to just not go after the thing that makes them famous, but to go after some weird human quirk that can help us understand them better.

8:35And I think that's been the fun of making this so far. Yeah, I have this sort of operating thesis that if you could take away the gatekeepers that most people who turn down interview requests and are asked all the time to do interviews and get bored by them, given the opportunity to talk about something they actually love and care about and are obsessed with would gladly do that. I guess you could run us through a few, but I was going to say Tig Notaro talking about being a vegan, for instance. Yeah, Tig Notaro talking about being a vegan and plant-based food and what we learned about her through that obsession.

9:12David Arquette, who you might know for acting or maybe wrestling, But actually the thing we talked to him about was his obsession with Bozo the Clown, which is like not just funny. It's like a business obsession. He has worked very hard to secure the creative rights to Bozo the Clown to carry on the legacy of that clown. And so he now owns the rights to Bozo the Clown. But again, with all of these conversations, it's like what does that weird kind of catchy obsession say about David? And, you know, it gets to serious stuff like about other more serious obsessions in his life and, you know, hard times he's gone through.

9:55We talked to the doggist. That's one where it was like, okay, we're actually talking about the thing that he's obsessed with. He's known as the doggist because he's obsessed with dogs. And we talked about dogs. But it was like, it was a kind of nostalgic, interesting journey through where that obsession came from. and in all of his videos that he's now made famous on social media, talking to other dog owners, you know, like the meaning behind it. Billy Corgan, like front man for Smashing Pumpkins. It's, you know, we didn't talk about music. We talked about his obsession with professional wrestling, which I never knew about.

10:35But then the conversation kind of turned to music. So it's just been, you know, I've been interviewing, like you said, Josh, for many years. these are just a different kind of conversation in a really positive way because it it's just such an unexpected frame and that changes the dynamic and you know it's it's cool to do and i hope cool to listen to yeah a lot of them go to fairly deep and emotional places because not all of these obsessions are positive but a lot of that sort of stems stems from you too i mean the idea goes back, you know, sports was kind of the gateway drug for all of us for this idea, including your agent.

11:15But like that was very much wrapped up in what your relationship with your mom and gambling and all these other things that are a little bit more touchy and interesting and deeply rooted, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, sports goes to my relationship with my mom, which kind of opens doors into some of the harder aspects of that relationship, but also some of the great aspects of it um you know i'm obsessed with karaoke and there's definitely something there in terms of when i'm comfortable in social settings and when i'm not and i think a lot of people who love karaoke would say the same thing like it that stage lets you unearth and surface parts of you that you just don't even realize exist and then there are weird ones for me like soul cycle like i have done well over 1500 soul cycle classes um and i mean i soul cycle is getting it's it's getting a little old like people are like wasn't that a thing like 10 years ago and you're still doing it and i am but like it it kind of i when i get into a rut of a routine where i'm in a community that is meaningful and comfortable to me there's a lot there that kind of is addressing my own social anxiety and, you know, being able to feel strong when I am not a natural athlete at all and to master something that feels athletic.

12:47So, you know, I've just learned a ton about myself and thinking about these things. And my hope in the show is that, you know, it's just like fun, interesting conversations, often with people who are famous or you might know, but then I hope you leave just beginning to hone this skill in your own life, like the being curious about a thing that you love and can't let go of and start to think about, you know, what it says about you and what you might learn. Yeah. And I should say we've like, you know, we're talking about fairly big name people. And I think a lot of the interviews will be people you've heard of.

13:22We're also introducing you to people you haven't heard of whose obsessions are, I was going to say arguably, but I would say definitively very niche. Definitively. Yeah. Like Barbie dolls. Yeah. For instance, well, tell me about our Barbie doll obsessive. He's not. First of all, I should say, if I told you we did an episode about someone who is the world's foremost collector of Barbies and was obsessed with Barbie dolls, you might picture a certain person. That is not the guy who actually ended up talking to us, right? Not at all. And that's one of the things I'm like, blow up every stereotype you have.

13:58Like, don't assume just because you hear it's an obsession that this is the person who's going to be obsessed. Yeah, his name's Jian Yang and he lives in Singapore. We talked and like his entire Barbie doll collection was behind him. No, actually, that's not true. A tiny portion of his Barbie doll collection was behind him as we were speaking. But yeah, I mean, the conversation got to, you know, it was kind of crazy how obsessed he's been with Barbie dolls. But like it gets serious, you know, some of the assumptions that people have made about him and Barbie dolls and sort of how it's changed, how he thinks about masculinity, how he thinks about marketing.

14:36I mean, he made the case that Barbie is probably one of the best marketers of herself in the entire world. And she's not even a human being. So, yeah, it's just stuff that. Yeah, I mean, I left that conversation, you know, 45 minutes with him. And I was like, wow, that is a lot of shit that I knew nothing about. And my life is now. Just a little bit richer for it. Yeah, and another favorite of mine is Teddy, the public toilet. I would classify this in a category of public service obsessions where this woman happened to become obsessed with the location of public toilets and has become, I think it's fair to say, an influencer.

15:15I think it is. And, I mean, she had her – her life was going well to begin with. She's a fairly well-known opera singer in New York City and travels the world, but she got obsessed with public restrooms. And it's really funny to hear how and why, but it's also deadly serious. And it is a public service because access to public restrooms is like really a human right that she believes in so fervently. And a lot of people around the world are denied it. And I think we hope every one of these is surprising in some way. Any conversation, no matter how obvious it might seem where it's starting, right, goes into surprising places.

15:57Because are these like really deeply personal subjects for these people? Yeah, they can get really personal and vulnerable. And I don't know. There's something about it too where – and not to get all like academic when it comes to how to conduct interviews. But talking about someone's obsession, I think, is immediately disarming. And it just opens the path for an interview to go in all sorts of unexpected directions. You know, like I interviewed Michael Simon, the celebrity chef. We were talking about sports. Had I been there to talk to him about his newest restaurant or cookbook, we might have kind of stayed in that lane.

16:47But when you start with something just totally different, like let's talk about sports, it's really easy to go anywhere else like pedicures, which is where that conversation kind of landed. Because Michael and I, Michael had got me into pedicures, which I'd never done before. And it just, you know, we're like laughing our asses off. and I don't know if the conversation would have gone there if this had been a more traditional interview that was booked by a publicist to talk about this new restaurant or cookbook and I think that's part of the fun and surprise of this thing. Yeah, or I think about the, now some of these episodes won't have aired by the time this comes out but still I think we've recorded them so we can talk about them.

17:31They will be out there to enjoy soon But our conversation with Scott, the New York City, arguably the country, if not the world's leading pizza expert. He might object to connoisseur. I feel like expert obsessive is closer to what he – like I don't think he considers himself like I'm the guy who tells you which slice is better than all the others. He's like I just know everything about pizza. he's the guy who can give you the information that you need to um credibly argue why you know the best slice in new york city and it wasn't like that conversation turned into like let's review the 25 pizza places you should go to before you die it was much more like why this one food has become so much bigger than all the other foods and why we all have favorites i mean we We could cover anything as outlandish as like, you know, the grease quotient for a specific slice of pizza and how to study it based on the size and shape of the grease stain on a paper plate.

18:37But also like this sort of beautiful Norman Rockwellian kind of thing that pizza, slice of pizza is the first thing you remember as an eight or nine year old. It's the first thing you buy for yourself with your own money in your pocket. And it's like the smell and taste of pizza is your first experience with independence as a young person. So if you can cover those two things, like your first experience with independence and also like how big a grease puddle is, it's a dynamic, unpredictable conversation. Yeah, and I love that. I never would have reached that conclusion with pizza had I not sat in on that conversation.

19:18but it really rings true because I think it's absolutely the thing when you had$5 and went to the pool or what, you know, got to make the first decision of your own using money that was in your control. Yeah, it was a slice. Yeah, I totally agree. No, I had the same reaction. Josh, I haven't heard your obsessions yet. I mean, I can't let you leave this conversation without you sharing at least one obsession. Sorry. I mean, sports, honestly, you kind of hit it with the first episode because I'm, I mean, New York Mets, USA, national soccer team, West Virginia University, football, basketball, like to a lesser degree, almost any sport that's on television.

19:57I think like sports is definitely it for me. It's not the only one, but it's like I spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about people that I don't know, as Jerry Seinfeld famously said, rooting for laundry. Yeah. Yeah. And yet, like, I'm not embarrassed nor disturbed by it because it brings me great joy. I mean, here's the irony of it, actually, because I have – teams select you more than you select them, right? It's a product of geography or where you happen to be at a specific moment the first time you saw some game that really moved you. I have had the misfortune like you, although – I mean sorry, not like you.

20:47Not like you. You grew up with a team that won the Super Bowl every year. So you're not – you can't relate to what I'm about to say at all. I'm more like Michael Simon, which is that all of the teams that I root for are chronically middling to bad. and so most of my life is obsessing over sports that disappoint me and i remember my son who's now just 15 the first year he really paid attention to sports was 2015 he was five that was the year the mets on a fluke made it to the world series they went on an incredible run in the second half of the series season went to the world series lost the world series but still like that was the first year he paid attention and i remember saying to him the next year like it's not going to be like that.

21:29I don't want you to feel spoiled. This formative memory of yours of like, oh my God, I like this team and they went to the World Series is like, you might not ever experience this again. And sure enough, we're having this conversation 10 years later. The Mets, in fact, have not been back to the World Series. They did make it to the NLCS last year on another magical run and then this year proceeded to shit the bed. But all of which is to say that the obsession that I probably have the most daily experience with is sports. And it doesn't bring me a lot of joy. However, I don't regret it at all. Well, what is the word you would use?

22:05Because it brings you positive experience, even if not joy. Like I'm struggling with this now. Like Pittsburgh, you're right. We had a lot of championships. But we haven't had one for almost a decade now. And that was the Penguins. We are now mired in something between atrocious, like the Pirates, and mediocrity, the Steelers, and no better. So I'm beginning to question, like, what is positive in this relationship? The reality is sports brings me more misery than joy. I don't even think it's on average. That's just almost definitively true. And yet I wake up the next day and I'm excited to watch the team again.

22:48And I don't know. It's almost like, you know, that movie Memento where I just forget every day. Yeah. I have to write the Mets are terrible on my arm. But like, yeah, or it's a willful disbelief that you're like, maybe today will be different. Like, I don't know. But it's just, you know, you guys got in that conversation. It's about belonging and community. And you're part of this. Like, you know, even in the worst, least popular teams, there's at least some reasonably sized group of fans who care as much as you do. And you're part of that community. And, you know, and also not to get like mushy about my kids, but it like gives me and my son something to like care about together.

23:30And that's hard when your kids are teenagers that they don't want to spend a lot of time with you and they don't want to don't tend to share your hobbies. but like when you have that and I think you talked about that with your mom and Michael talked about that with his grandfather and his dad that's a big part of it right and even if you don't have kids and your parents aren't around anymore you like you like you go to a bar and watch it with Steeler fans it doesn't matter if you've ever met those people before right like for those three hours you guys are all best friends yeah it's the camaraderie it's the connection it's the nostalgia it's the like memories of family it's the connection like you're talking about with you know with with your with kids and with me it's it's you know a parent um yeah i we have answered my question which is what are the positives but it's still a lot of misery it sure is and on that note i promise future listeners of david green is obsessed it is not a sad lament about obsessions it is a joyous celebration of them fun even the ones that are sometimes not great for us.

24:32The show is a fun listen. And I mean, David's a very gifted interviewer and his guests so far have been, they've all delivered, I have to say. Well, you are the best for making this show with me and I can't wait to keep at it. All right. We'll see you on a future episode. Thanks, man. Thank you, Josh.

24:55Thanks so much to American Treasure, David Green, and the rest of the David Green is Obsessed team. And thank you for listening to Inside the Tent. If you haven't already, don't forget to go to joincampside.com to become a free member of the Campside community. That's joincampside.com.