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Academics do not generally have the face for television or the voice for radio. If we are asked to do either, it is usually because no one else could be found. Yet, there I was one cold night in New York, about to do The Daily Show for what would become my first time.
I was there because a few weeks earlier, Trevor Noah had slid into my Twitter DMs and asked me to consider doing the show. “I am very keen to have you,” he said. In preparation for the show, I did my homework. I mean, I knew Trevor. I had watched his comedy specials and passed along viral clips from his Daily Show monologues. But if he was keen, then I had to be ready.
Trevor’s autobiography, Born A Crime, was sitting atop all of the bestseller lists at the time. I read the book in the interest of due diligence. I finished it because the book was fucking good. It was funny, yes, but also wry, insightful, thoughtful, honest, and complex. This was not a vanity celebrity project, but a serious volume written by a man who thinks deeply about our world. In today’s parlance, Trevor has done the work.
When I asked Trevor why he had invited me to do The Daily Show, he looked at me askance. “Because I wanted to talk to you.” And, talk we did. We talked before the show, during the show and as I was walking off the stage at the show. We talked the next year, again, when I had a new book out. With this episode of Death, Sex & Money, our third long conversation, I hope we are done with the pretense of having a reason to talk. I talk to Trevor because he is fascinating. He is funny because he is smart. More importantly, he knows that any distinction between the two is false.
Talking with Trevor, about the silly and the serious, is one of my great professional pleasures. He dives right in and trusts that I will keep up. When I do, he is delighted, which in turn delights me. I hope it is contagious.
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This Week on Death, Sex & Money
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When Trevor Noah started hosting The Daily Show in 2016, he says he told his head writer early on that he might sometimes be late to work. "I'm suffering from depression and sometimes I do not see the purpose of getting out of my bed or living life," he says he told him. "And he was like, 'Wait, what?'" This week, Trevor and guest host Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom talk about why radical honesty around mental health can be liberating. Plus, they talk about Trevor's feelings of being an outsider growing up in apartheid South Africa, why he believes another black man will be elected president of the United States before a woman, and how he got so good at doing hair. Listen now!
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Your Responses: Drinking Dilemmas
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We know that our decisions around alcohol are way more complicated than whether to imbibe or abstain. And in the stories you've sent us so far about drinking, we've heard about everything from being empowered by your first drink, to worrying that you're turning to alcohol to cope with the parts of your life that aren't going so well. And as a listener named Sara told us, a big part of our attitudes towards alcohol come from the families we're raised in:
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"I don't think I am scared of alcohol, but it makes me very uncomfortable. Growing up in a relatively conservative household meant I didn't experience inebriated adults until I started dating a guy in high school whose parents would drink frequently. I would hate being in the house while they were drinking because I just didn't know how to handle it or interact with them. I was intensely uncomfortable. As an adult now, I am more comfortable with it, but I still consistently fret about if alcohol is playing too big a role in my life, even though I don't drink very often.
Then add to this perception that, as a girl, it was 100% my responsibility to make sure I didn't end up somewhere where I was compromised, where someone could take advantage of me. It painted a picture of alcohol as a snake waiting to bite. Sure, you can play with it, but it's not a good idea."
—Sara, 23, MT
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Are you thinking about the way you drink? Feeling conflicted about it? Record a voice memo and send it to us, at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org.
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Listen to This: Audio We Love
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One of our most popular episodes is a live show we did in L.A. about what it's like to be in your 20s—so we're super excited that The Takeaway is looking a few decades ahead, to what life is like in your 40s. The series, running this whole week, is called "The Juggle," because as host Tanzina Vega says, this is the decade where a lot of big pressures around money, family, health, and caretaking converge. Tune in to their first segment about money, and share your own stories about what's hard about your forties on social media under the hashtag #thejuggleisreal.
And we *love* this piece from a group of eighth graders in the Bronx, all about...their periods. In their school, there's a codeword that they use when they need to ask for a pad or a tampon—it's "marshmallow." And the girls said, they decided to make the podcast because they were sick of having to pretend like they weren't menstruating. "We wanted to shine a light on this subject because it's something that's kind of hidden away," says one of the girls. "You kind of are ashamed for having it, which sucks because it's something so natural and so normal." They entered the podcast into NPR's Student Podcast Challenge, and beat out almost 6,000 entries to claim one of the top spots—well deserved!
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Heading out of town this weekend? Go you!
If you need some ideas of podcast episodes to listen to while you're gone, check out the audio recs from our past newsletters.
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