Episode 592
with Paul F. Tompkins, José Olivarez, and Esmé Patterson
On the special holiday edition of Live Wire, comedian and podcaster Paul F. Tompkins talks about passive-aggressive Christmas carolers and the most tense rendition of “O Holy Night" he's ever heard; poet José Olivarez discusses his latest collection of poems, Promises of Gold, which explores the various types of love in our lives, from self-love to platonic love and over to romance; and singer-songwriter Esmé Patterson performs her original Christmas song “If I.” Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share our listeners favorite holiday traditions.
Paul F. Tompkins
Comedian, Actor, and Writer
Paul F. Tompkins is nothing short of a comedic gem and podcast royalty. Alongside being an absolute Live Wire fan-favorite, PFT has appeared on over two hundred episodes of Comedy Bang! Bang! and hosts the wildly popular shows The Neighborhood Listen and Spontaneanation, among others. He and his wife, the great actress Janie Haddad Tompkins, co-created the podcast Stay F. Homekins. Full of good ideas and gut-busting jokes, Tompkins’ is also a bit of a TV star! His TV credits include more than two dozen appearances on HBO’s Mr. Show, and he is the voice of Mr. Peanutbutter on the hit Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman. Website • Instagram • Twitter
José Olivarez
Author and Poet
José Olivarez is a literary star on the rise and the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by the Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, and his latest collection of poetry, Promises of Gold, translated into Spanish by poet David Ruano, has already been described as "visceral and moving." When he's not writing, he cohosts the poetry podcast The Poetry Gods. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Esmé Patterson
Musician
Esmé Patterson is a gold-selling record artist from the great state of Colorado. Esmé emerged from the wreckage of Colorado folk experiment (Paper Bird) and struck out on her own path in a 2012 solo debut, All Princes, I. Esmé’s second solo album, a concept album called Woman to Woman, received national acclaim for her lyrical storytelling. In it, Esmé writes from the perspective of the women “immortalized” in popular songs, such as as Elvis Costello's "Alison," Dolly Parton's "Jolene," Townes Van Zandt's "Loretta," the Beach Boys' "Caroline, No," and retells their stories. Her music has landed her appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, and more. Her latest album, Notes from Nowhere, is a genre-avoidant musical realm that blooms with honest and magic. Website •Instagram • Twitter
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: Good. The holidays are here, and it is time for I consider this a somewhat holiday related Station Location Identification Examination.
Elena Passarello: Oh.
Luke Burbank: Yes. Right. Okay, this is where I'm going to tell you about a place in the country where we're on the radio you got to try to guess where I am talking about. This city is home to the historic annual grandma's marathon, which is not actually a marathon for grandmas, but it's named after Grandma's restaurant. It's one of the largest and best known marathons in America. It's got over 20,000 participants.
Elena Passarello: Aha. I don't know. I mean, there's grandmas all over this country. It's one of the things that makes it great. I mean, marathoning is it a certain time of year?
Luke Burbank: It doesn't say on my list here. I'm guessing not in the winter, because I'll give you another hint. This is a place where it is very, very snowy around the holidays. In fact, thousands of people flock to this city during Christmas time to see Bentleyville, the largest walk through display of lights in America. There's also a Christmas village and the historic Glen Sheen mansion, which has over 25 Christmas trees in it.
Elena Passarello: I still don't know, but a snowy place that I love is, let's say, in the upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Luke Burbank: Man, you're so close. I'm just winging it with this hint. But did you know Telly Savalas recorded a series of ads for this city to promote it? This is a real thing.
Elena Passarello: Is it Duluth, Minnesota?
Luke Burbank: It's Duluth, Minnesota, where—why was that the hint that worked for you? They're amazing by the way, Telly Savalas, doing ads for Duluth is something you just can't unhear. Once you've heard of where we're on the radio on WSCN out there in Duluth. So thank you so much to all of those folks for tuning in. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire! This week, comedian Paul F. Tompkins.
Paul F. Tompkins: I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep. Love actually style. I mean, I would show up and turn the cards over for sure. I would do that.
Elena Passarello: Poet José Olivarez.
José Olivarez: I want to write poems for the people that don't usually get them, because we tend to think of poetry as something that is reserved for the romantic interest in our lives.
Elena Passarello: With music from Esmé Patterson and our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the ho-ho-host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena. Thanks to everyone for tuning in from all over the country. This is a special holiday edition of Live Wire. And as such, we've asked the listeners a special holiday question. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We're going to hear those responses coming up in just a few minutes. In the meantime, Elena, I'm curious, what is your favorite holiday tradition?
Elena Passarello: Well, so back when I was a youngin', we would always get into the car and drive just a couple hours to my grandma's place in North Carolina and have like a noon Christmas meal. But we would she lives in a pretty small house, so we would drive home. She made this gigantic southern, you know, like butter beans and like two kinds of meat and biscuits galore. It was like a week's worth of calories. And we ate it. And we always were like, we're never going to eat again. And so then we'd drive home and we would invariably get strangely hungry at like 7:30 p.m. and there would be nothing in the fridge, right? So, I don't know how to cook, I still don't know how to cook. But the only thing that I was confident because I was like a college student, a high school student, was making nachos. So for years, our Christmas dinner, like what we were watching It's a Wonderful Life or whatever was Christmas nachos. And it was kind of special because it was literally the only time that I ever made food for my mother and stepfather.
Luke Burbank: And was it just sort of I mean, regular nachos like you were—you didn't bring home a bunch of leftovers and, like, integrate them into the nachos or anything?
Elena Passarello: No, no, no. Now that I live with a kind of a good gourmand, we do take those kinds of nacho liberties.
Luke Burbank: Adventures.
Elena Passarello: But it was just like, Oh, there's a can of green chilies in the pantry and some tortilla chips and some shredded cheese. And, you know, I never go anywhere without having chips and salsa close by. But, you know, we've continued the tradition. Like I said, now I live with David, who can make a heck of a holiday meal, but we still always make space at one point during the Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, whatever, to eat a plate of Christmas nachos. Like, it's just not Christmas without them.
Luke Burbank: The colors also work. You get the red salsa, you get the green of some chilies. I mean, it's honestly, I can't believe more people aren't making Christmas nachos, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Well, maybe it'll—this they'll start the tradition now.
Luke Burbank: All right. If you try some Christmas nachos this year and you enjoy them, email us. Let us know how it went for you. I would say that my one of my favorite holiday traditions is kind of related to the fact that I grew up in a sort of odd Christmas environment. My parents, we didn't really celebrate Christmas when I was a young kid because of the church my parents went to and stuff, but over time we started to we had stockings and then we would put some presents in there. And then there was a sort of growing sense of of Christmas in my house. And so I remember one year when I don't even know if we had a tree yet, but I know that it was like we were allowed to give each other presents and go buy presents and stuff like that. And this I think was like my first year. I'm probably like, I don't know, ten, 11 years old. My first year, I'm going to Craig Ann's Pharmacy in Seattle and spending all my allowance to get amazing gifts. Like I got my dad a laminated sign that said: To error is human. To really screw things up, you need a computer. And it just had like a total like 1980s computer that was spewing paper out of the printer. It was—
Elena Passarello: Sounds like a Garfield joke.
Luke Burbank: Totally. It was like these were the worst presents. But I remember sitting in my bedroom and listening to the radio while I was wrapping these presents, and this is Christmas Eve, and I was just so excited to get to like be part of having presents and giving presents and all that stuff. And they happened to be playing this old time version of A Christmas Carol, like an old radio production of A Christmas Carol. And like, you know, when you're a kid, sometimes you'll do something weird where you just, like, sit kind of crisscross applesauce in an uncomfortable fashion for no discernible reason and then make a goal for yourself. My goal was I had to wrap all the presents before I was allowed to sit in a more comfortable position. I just I don't know why. I just remember sitting on the floor in my bedroom listening to a Christmas Carol and sitting and wrapping presents. And to this day, when it is time for me to wrap presents, it is Christmas Eve. I have found that same recording it has Lionel Barrymore in it playing Mr. Scrooge. I play it now. It's from the Internet, of course, but I play that. I sit on the floor. I don't sit on a chair like a normal person. I sit on the floor and I wrap presents. To this day, I'm 46 years old.
Elena Passarello: Well, you know, if you ever want to switch it up, you can also go on the Internet and look up the Yinzer Christmas Carol, which is—
Luke Burbank: Like as in from Pittsburgh?
Elena Passarello: Yes. These two comedians that are called Greg and Donny. And they do like instead of saying bah humbug, Scrooge says: Ah bullcrap. And he's he's like, it's like. And the boy boy, it's like, boy, what day is it? Get out of ChiEagle. Or give me the biggest turkey you can find.
Luke Burbank: I love like head down to Primantis.
Luke Burbank: Get me the biggest sandwich you can find. [Elena: That's very good.] Say there, boy, are the Steelers still in the playoffs?
Elena Passarello: Are you being nebby with me, Mr. Ghost? I don't think so.
Luke Burbank: I would absolutely listen, in fact, you know what? Maybe that can be—I can add that I'll wrap some of the presents the night before Christmas Eve and I'll listen to the Yinzer Christmas Carol.
Elena Passarello: Or just get into a cross-legged position and eat Christmas nachos.
Luke Burbank: I'm not kidding you. Maybe I'm just too hungry when we tend to record the show. But Christmas nachos just sound incredible to me right now. I would crawl across broken Christmas ornaments to get my hands on some Christmas nachos. That's how hungry I am. I could be like Bruce Willis in Die Hard getting to the Christmas nachos. Anyway, we're going to read the listener responses to their favorite holiday traditions coming up. In the meantime, though, we've got to welcome our first guest on over to the show. Now, if you are looking for comedy and podcast royalty, this person definitely qualifies. He's been on over 200 episodes of Comedy Bang, Bang! the great podcast. Also, he's Mr. Peanut Butter on BoJack Horseman, and he hosts about like nine different podcasts, including the Neighborhood Listen and Varietopia. This is Paul F. Tompkins, recorded at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. Hello. Welcome to the show, Paul.
Paul F. Tompkins: Thanks for having me back, guys. It's a pleasure to see you again.
Luke Burbank: It's been a long time coming. We've been trying to get you back up here for like a year and a half, and you wouldn't come.
Paul F. Tompkins: Yeah, I took a year off last year, and I said, I'm going to really take some time to sit and think.
Luke Burbank: At the beginning of the pandemic. I know you and your wife, the actor Janie Haddad Tompkins, started doing this podcast, Stay F. Homekins
Paul F. Tompkins: Yes, that's correct.
Luke Burbank: There's a lot of Haddad Tompkins Heads here. That's what that cheer was.
Paul F. Tompkins: Haddad heads. Yes.
Luke Burbank: And this show's actually become really popular. It made a lot of kind of best of the year list.
Paul F. Tompkins: It's a first of all, I wouldn't say it's become really popular. I would say we were surprised anyone listened to it by that. By that measure, yes, it's astoundingly popular.
Luke Burbank: I feel like this podcast should be, the Stay F. Homkins podcast, should be in the Podcasting Hall of Fame for just one thing, which is popularizing a term that you and Janie engage in as you're recording the show. So the sort of conceit of the show is this after dinner chat, you're just kind of talking about the world and your lives and everything and you're enjoying a little weekend water.
Paul F. Tompkins: That's right.
Luke Burbank: What's the story on weekend water?
Paul F. Tompkins: This was a phrase that was coined by Janie's mother, who lives in South Carolina. And one of her grandchildren was making a move to pick up one of her drinks. I think there was a 4th of July. And she said, oh, no, honey, don't touch that. That's Grandma's weekend water. And we I never forgot it.
Luke Burbank: I feel like that could really revolutionize someone's relationship with drinking. Maybe not even for the best. Because if like—
Paul F. Tompkins: Definitely not.
Luke Burbank: It's Tuesday. And so are you having a drink? It's like four on Tuesday. Like, I'm just having a little weekend water really kind of takes the judgment off of it. Yeah.
Paul F. Tompkins: Then it just becomes a matter of semantics.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering if hosting this podcast with your wife has been a good for the relationship. Bad for the relationship? Have things remained unchanged?
Paul F. Tompkins: It's been good for the relationship. I think it was very it was a very weird thing. We'd never done anything like that before and together we never done a podcast together before. So it was like, Well, this is my personal relationship with my wife. I don't know if I want to share it. And then it was fun. Like the first time we did it, it was fun and I was like, I guess we're doing this for as long as we are stuck here inside. And then then after things lifted, it just seemed like, Let's keep doing it. But we couldn't do it with regular the same regularity because things started to like we started to work again. And, you know, but I think we're going to keep doing it once a month. It's just it's become its own thing at this point. And we have merch, so we got to sell it. Once merch enters, listen, once merch enters a marriage, there's no turning back.
Luke Burbank: I think it was the most recent episode where you were expressing a certain amount of concern for Adele. You feel like she is singing in some kind of new accent. [PFT: You know] what is your evidence?
Paul F. Tompkins: Okay. We were—right before we started recording, we're listening to Adele's new album, and there's this style of singing that I think—I don't know if it's pushed on young women like they have to do this if they want to have a hit or if, like, young women are just like, Oh, that's how people sing now, so I'll just do that. But I call it the the Cajun baby singing voice because it's very like it's sort of like a I'm sort of a child, but now I say talking instead of turn like, that's not a that's not like a singing accent. You can just have like, to sound like a little baby Dr. John.
Luke Burbank: It's all basically David Sedaris singing the Oscar Mayer song as Billie Holiday.
Luke Burbank: I wish I was an Oscar Meyer weiner.
Paul F. Tompkins: You've nailed it. That's exactly what it is.
Luke Burbank: Well, but I mean, that's a thing that David Sedaris really does. I wish I could take credit for it. I'm just reporting the facts of the world. Yeah.
Paul F. Tompkins: Oh, and he sings it in the style of Billie Holiday. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
Luke Burbank: Speaking of singing, I know that you are a fan of the Tam O' Shanter in Los Angeles. The Scottish steakhouse.
Elena Passarello: Not the hat. Well, I wouldn't past you. [PFT: Well, I'm also a fan of the hat].
Paul F. Tompkins: I wouldn't put it past you. I wouldn't put it past you. Who wear one of those hats?
Elena Passarello: Do you own one?
Paul F. Tompkins: Of course I do. Of course I do.
Luke Burbank: Hold on, Paul. You know what? We need take a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask you about the live caroling at the Tam O'Shanter.
Paul F. Tompkins: Sure. What a cliff hanger you guys.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire. We're talking to Paul F. Tompkins. Back with more in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX, coming to you from Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Paul F. Tompkins from Freedom and BoJack Horseman and Mr. Show and so many other amazing, fun places. And the Tam O'Shanter, Los Angeles' leading Scottish steakhouse where they feature live Christmas carolers. [PFT: Yes.] What's your relationship with with that form of entertainment?
Paul F. Tompkins: Well, with that form of entertainment, I think it was a thing. Caroling, I think, was always the thing I was scared would show up at my door. It was the thing I was afraid I would be invited to do. Neither of those things ever happened. [Luke: But you're such a good singer.] Well, don't. Don't say that. I'm okay. I do all right.
Paul F. Tompkins: But there's something. There is. There is a weird thing. There's, like, a certain shyness that you get when you can do a thing, but you're asked to do it in a weird situation. And it's like, I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep. Like love actually style. And I mean, I would show up and turn the cards over for sure. I would do that if you if you want to print.
Paul F. Tompkins: Out the words.
Paul F. Tompkins: To Good King Wenceslas on a series of cards, I will show up at someone's door and turn them on. This is actually not a bad idea. The more I'm thinking about it, I think it's a bit of whimsy that I think people would enjoy. But so I started going to the Tam O'Shanter, which is one of the oldest restaurants in Hollywood. Walt Disney's animators used to, and I think I still do, I think at Disney animators, there's still out of tradition, go there to get drunk. And I think that I did not know the first time I went there with a friend of mine during the Christmas season. We were just going to meet up for a dinner and catch up that they have strolling Victorian carolers that walk throughout the restaurant and they come up to you and they ask you what song you want to hear and you have to tell them the name of a song that you want to hear, and then they sing it at you.
Luke Burbank: Hello from the other side.
Paul F. Tompkins: It has to be a Christmas song, although I've never tested that out.
Elena Passarello: You can change it to like Hello from the Yule tide?
Paul F. Tompkins: Absoluety. So the first year that happened, we were like, That was weird. So the next year we were like, How do we prevent that from happening again? And so we said, All right, well, we'll devise a plan. I don't think we can make them stop. So we'll figure out where to look and so it won't be as uncomfortable. So what I did was afterwards we compare notes and I said, Where did you look? And he said, I just looked at the in the eyes of the ladies. I just did that.
Paul F. Tompkins: And I said, I looked I looked sort of in the middle distance and nodded my head as if I was really into it. Like it was really powerful to me. So then we the thing is, we kept forgetting that this was going to happen and we had a yearly engagement. After Thanksgiving, we would go to the Tam O' Shanter and have dinner. So the next year we're prepared for it and we say, All right, here's what we'll do. We'll tell them, Oh, you already sang the one that we wanted to hear. We just heard you sing it at this other table. Well, guess what? You could tell from the reaction. They had heard this before. It got so passive aggressive. They were all. All of the four of them in this Victorian garb were like, oh, okay.
Paul F. Tompkins: All right, great. Yeah, no problem.
Paul F. Tompkins: No problem. And they're walking away. We're like, wait it was so beautiful. They were like, Yeah, yeah, sure. Uh-huh. And that felt so bad. So the next year we're like, okay, we're just going to let it happen. And, you know, it's like, why are we bothered so much by this? So then that's the year that we're cheerful about it. We're like, Yes, we can't wait. Let's hear Oh, Holy Night or whatever. Then we witness them getting into a weird fight about the key because the guy in the end says, What key is in it again? The guy in the on the other end says it's in C. And so they start looking through the book and like, trying to figure out what what keys this in and the guy in the end it's like it's in C like I said and then they finally find it in the book and they say, okay and the guy on one end says, okay and it's in C and the guy in the end says, like I said, and then they sang the tensest O holy night that I'd ever heard.
Luke Burbank: You should invite them on your variety show that you've been doing in Los Angeles.
Paul F. Tompkins: You know what I should I absolutely should. I should invite them out of season.
Paul F. Tompkins: To get to.
Luke Burbank: Talk about that because you've gone back to live performing. I'm wondering, like for the audience, ah, is the audience subdued or are they just like excited to be somewhere? Are the performers as ever? I mean, what's the general feel?
Paul F. Tompkins: The audience is very subdued. It's not going well. And it's been it's been fantastic. My first show back was in September, and the feeling in the room for for everybody on stage, everybody offstage was just cathartic. Everyone was excited to be somewhere doing something that felt kind of normal. It's a big show. It's got a big band and, you know, a lot of guests and everything and a lot of songs to be learned and things like that. And I'm hoping to ride that feeling for as long as I possibly can.
Luke Burbank: People can watch this on Vimeo if they're not in Los Angeles, right? [PFT: That's right Luke] I was wondering, you're a very skilled improviser. You have all these characters. [PFT: Thank you!] The irony is we planned that. That was not improvised.
Paul F. Tompkins: That was scripted months ago.
Luke Burbank: And he kind of stepped on my lines.
Paul F. Tompkins: I did. I couldn't wait. I got excited.
Luke Burbank: One job, Tompkins. Did you go to one of these improv programs like Second City or Groundlings or IRA or something? How did you get started with this and when did you know? Oh, there's something I'm actually kind of have a knack for.
Paul F. Tompkins: Yeah, it was really it was osmosis from doing podcasts, because when I started doing characters, I never had to do that before to sustain a character and to sort of conceit and like a story over the course of that long. And so from doing podcasts and doing them with other people who did that kind of character work regularly, I got to a point where I was like, I think I want to throw myself into the deep end. I think I've learned the precepts of this from being around it and seeing it done so much. And so I started I started doing like live improv shows. Like, you know, a couple of people asked me to do it, and then I started doing a podcast where I had improvise every week, and there was a podcast called Spontaneanation. [Luke: Yes.] Thank you! And that was like, I was like, I'm just going to I'm going to make it so that I am the weakest link of every show. And if I can, if I can be good as the weakest link of the show, then that's what I'm going to be. I'm going I'm going to get people I'm going to get guests on the show who are so good and so skilled at doing this that that's how I'm going to learn how to do this.
Luke Burbank: That's amazing to me because as a Spontaneanation listener, I assumed that we were sort of catching up with you in like year 15 of your hardcore improv career.
Paul F. Tompkins: You sure weren't.
Luke Burbank: Really?
Paul F. Tompkins: Yeah.
Paul F. Tompkins: Wow, that was impressive. You also uttered maybe one of the greatest lines I believe was on Spontaneanation. I don't know if this was improvised or actually part of you said, I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, You've reached the end of your Benjamin Franklin quote of the month.
Paul F. Tompkins: Luke, can I tell you— [Like: I say in my head all the time] that was a scripted line from BoJack Horseman. Mr. Peanutbutter said that. [Luke: Oh, no.] So not only did I not come up with it myself, a cartoon dog said it.
Luke Burbank: Paul F. Tompkins, everybody. That was Paul Tompkins right here on Live Wire, the newest season of Paul's comedy improv podcast, The Neighborhood Listen, where they basically reenact actual postings on those weird neighborhood apps where everyone's always freaking out about stuff. That's the Neighborhood Listen, and the new season of that show, the neighborhood listen is out now. Sometimes checking your email, let's be honest, can be a little stressful, but we want to change that over here at Live, where we want to make checking your email more joyful with our weekly newsletter, which is only good news. That's all we do over here at the Live Wire newsletter, We got sneak peeks and deep dives on upcoming events. Details on where you can join us live. New episode drops. And even more than that, getting this drop of joy. It's super easy to head over to Live Wire Radio dot com and you click Keep in touch. It takes like 30 seconds, 25 if you're speedy. So help us help you have a little more fun in your inbox with the latest from the Live Wire newsletter. This is Live Wire, of course. Each week we ask our listeners a question. This is a special holiday edition of the program this week. So we asked our listeners, what is your favorite holiday tradition? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: Okay. I love this one from Rob. Rob says: On New Year's Eve, my father would make a fire in the fireplace and cook hamburgers and hot dogs over it. It was the only day of the year that he would do this. Just like, well, well, you know, in with the new year, have a fireplace hot dog, Jr. I love it.
Luke Burbank: I don't think it even occurred to me that you could do that. But that sounds really fun. Also, it seems like the house would smell amazing after that.
Elena Passarello: I wonder what receptacle one needs to cook a hamburger in a fireplace, but I'm sure they figured if you can make popcorn, they have that cage for fireplace Popcorn.
Luke Burbank: Sure. It's like the old Mel Tormé song Hot Dogs roasting on an open fire, grease spots dripping down the hearth.
Elena Passarello: Mel Torme puns are your holiday tradition.
Luke Burbank: Oh, my gosh, I am. Ever since I was a kid and I saw Mel Torme on the TV show, night court, night court. I remain obsessed with him with Mel Tormé.
Elena Passarello: The smooth dulcet tones of Mel Torme.
Paul F. Tompkins: And he wrote that Christmas song. All right. What's another tradition that one of our listeners likes to enjoy this time of year?
Luke Burbank: Oh, I love this one. From Carly. Carly's family always plays Loteria, which is like Mexican bingo after Christmas dinner at the table with the whole family for money. Since there's so many of us playing a pot of money is so big and everyone's so focused, it's always loud. It gets rowdy. With 20 plus people playing, it's always so much fun. A lot of my favorite memories from Christmas come from the dining room table.
Luke Burbank: Did I ever tell you, Elena, about the time that I bought an actual blackjack table that was like legit dimensions and everything, and I was the house, so I was like, you know, the casino and this are my former in-laws were there playing for real money, and I cleaned them out and it was so bad I was like, I've never wanted to bust more in a round of blackjack and I could not lose. I remember my former father-in-law just with a kind of a stern look on his face as he took another $5 out of his wallet.
Elena Passarello: I'm surprised how many holiday traditions among families involve gambling.
Luke Burbank: It gets boring after a while. Let's be honest. You got to throw a little skin in the game. A little money.
Elena Passarello: Well, how about this for a game? This is great. Matt says: Every year my family does an ugly Christmas sweater competition. The rules are you have to buy a sweater from a second hand shop and then decorate it. Everything on the sweater has to be DIY'ed and then everybody makes the sweaters together and that is awesome. I love that idea.
Luke Burbank: And also financially probably less damaging than losing to me at blackjack.
Elena Passarello: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe if you lost a blackjack instead of paying money, you'd have to wear one of these sweaters.
Luke Burbank: That would be a very festive punishment. All right. We have more audience cards to read a little later in the show, so definitely stick around for that. In the meantime, our next guests, book of poetry, Citizen Illegal, was named a top book by NPR in The New York Times. His latest collection of poetry, Promises of Gold, is a bilingual exploration of love in all of the forms that it takes. And it has been longlisted for the National Book Award. So take a listen to this. It's José Olivarez, recorded at the Patricia Reeser Center for the Arts. José, welcome to the show.
José Olivarez: Thank you for having me.
Luke Burbank: Thank you for traveling all the way from Jersey today to be here in Beaverton.
José Olivarez: You know, all in a day's work.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, man. You write in the forward of your new book that you wanted this to be a book of love poems for your homies. You know, kind of your non-romantic friends. But then it didn't exactly turn out that way. What happened?
José Olivarez: So I had the idea for the book before the pandemic started. And so in my mind, I'm like, This is a pretty straightforward book of poems. I want to write poems for the people that don't usually get them, because we tend to think of poetry as something that is reserved for the romantic interest in our lives, right? My friend Nate says that we usually go to poetry in times where someone's either getting married or buried, right? And so in my mind, I'm like, I want to kind of fill in the gaps. And then when the pandemic happened, all of my language became a lot darker. And I realized how much fear I was living with and how much uncertainty I mean, and anxiety was just kind of filling my poetry. And so the poems themselves are kind of aiming at this type of love, while a lot of times landing in uncertainty and anxiety and all of those other emotions.
Luke Burbank: I'm curious about your growing up years and words and poetry and things like that. Were those in your life growing up in, was it Illinois?
José Olivarez: Yeah, yeah. So I grew up in Calumet City, Illinois, in the south suburbs of Chicago. And also my parents are immigrants. They came from Jalisco, Mexico. So English is my second language. And so that means for a large part of my life, I was often very quiet because I didn't want to mess up the language and have people laugh at me. Right? I didn't want to mispronounce anything. And so I was used to kind of living in that quietness. And but I was always listening, like I loved language. Even when I couldn't fully understand English. I loved the way my peers would kind of like flip words and make up phrases on the fly. And so what poetry allowed for me was it gave me a chance to think about, like, do I really want to be quiet or is this quiet something that has kind of been put upon me? Right? And so when I was kind of asked to write my own poems, I was like, It turns out I have all of this language that I've just been kind of storing and thinking about for all of these years.
Luke Burbank: Can we actually hear something from the book? I was hoping that we could hear Ode to Tortillas.
José Olivarez: Yeah, absolutely. So this poem is called Ode to Tortillas. It was inspired by eating tortillas. It's deep, you know. I mean, poetry. How does it happen? Who knows? Ode to Tortillas.
There's two ways to be a Mexican writer that we've discovered so far. You can be the Mexican writer who writes about tortillas, or you can be the Mexican writer who writes about crossiants instead of the tortillas on their plate. Can you be a Mexican writer if you're allergic to corn? There's two ways to be a Mexican writer that are true and tested. You can write about migration or you can write about migration. Can you be a Mexican writer if you never migrated? If your family never migrated? There's two ways to be a Mexican writer. You can translate from Spanish or you can translate to Spanish, or you can refuse to translate all together. There's only one wound in the Mexican writer's imagination, and it's the wound of the chancla. It's the wound of birria of being sold out at the taco truck. It's the wound of too many dolores and not enough dollars. It can be argued that these are all chanclazos. Even death is a chanclazo. There's only one miracle gifted to Mexicans. And it is the miracle of never running out of cheap beer. It's the miracle of never running out of bad jokes. There's infinite ways to eat a tortilla made in the ancient ways by hand and warmed on a comal made with corn or with Taco Bell plastic. They count. What about flour tortillas? Flour tortillas count if you ask San Antonio. My people, I am partly with the tortillas. You can eat tortillas with your hands or roll them up and dip them in caldo like my mom does. You can eat them with the fork and knife like my boujee cousins do. What boujee cousins? I made them up for the purpose of this poem. You can eat tortillas in tacos or warmed up by microwave and drizzled with butter. Tortillas con arroz, tortillas con frjoles holes, tortillas flip by hand or tortillas flipped with the spatula. Tortillas with eggs for breakfast, tortillas fried and sprinkled with sugar for dessert. Hard shell tortillas. Gluten free tortillas for our mixed family. We are still discovering new ways to fold a tortilla, to cut a tortilla up, to transform a tortilla into new worlds, to feed each other with tortillas. My people, if I have children, I will teach them about tortillas, but I'm sure they'll want McDonald's.
Luke Burbank: José Olivarez reading from Promises of Gold here on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: You talk about translation in that poem and the layout out of this book is really interesting. So it's half of it is in English, well it's the same poems, but in English. And then the other side is in Spanish. So you flip it over to read whichever side you're reading. Did you always have that in mind for this book?
José Olivarez: That idea came from doing community workshops with bilingual students and bilingual families. And what I would find is, you know, I would give readings to students who were fluent in both English and Spanish, and that would be great. But then I would give workshops that included their parents, and the parents only spoke Spanish. And so I would do those workshops in Spanish, and those were also great. But the parents would come up to me afterwards and they'd be like, You know, we wish we could also read your poems alongside our kids, but we only read in Spanish. And so that for me made me remember that, like, for example, in my education, when I was reading James and the Giant Peach, I could never like, bring that story home to my parents and ask them to read along with me or tell them about what I was reading. Right? And so my hope was to offer something that might be useful to those families.
Luke Burbank: That's such a great idea. I read the English side and then I actually enjoyed reading some of the Spanish side with my very limited high school Spanish, to just see the way the words work. And it's just such a beautiful thing to see. But there's a note from the translator in the book. I'm curious, you speak Spanish, but did you have the poems translated into Spanish?
José Olivarez: Yeah. So I worked with a translator named David David Ruano González, who's a poet from Mexico City. And the reason I worked with the translator is because, like I mentioned, I studied in English. And so that's really the language that I feel most comfortable with, being creative and kind of thinking academically and at this point. So when it came time to translate my poems, like I could, I could get a rough estimation, but to do it with the kind of precision in art that poetry requires and the musicality, I really needed to kind of lean on David.
Elena Passarello: Do you have conversations with your translator when he's like, working through the book about the things that aren't necessarily there in a word to word translation, like you said, the art?
José Olivarez: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the way I mean, you could kind of tell from that poem, right? But I like to write in vernacular and kind of really draw out the music of the everyday. That's something that's really beautiful to me. And so David would have questions because he'd be like, you know, I Googled this word like [Luke: Boujee?] Yeah, yeah, Boujee, and it's just it's not making sense to me. And so then I'd have to like, explain it to him and he'd be like—
Luke Burbank: Do remember where it landed on the Spanish side, what we did with Boogie.
José Olivarez: Yeah, yeah. Los Primos los muy muy. I think is what we—
Elena Passarello: Los muy muy
José Olivarez: Muy uuy, yeah.
Luke Burbank: The poem that we had to read, You talked about there being sort of two ways to be a Mexican poet. Do you feel constrained at times by an expectation about how you might be as a poet who is Mexican-American? Like if you just don't necessarily want to write about something related to that experience on a given day?
José Olivarez: Yeah, kind of. I remember so in my first book, there's a you know, there's also basketball poems. And I remember sometimes being asked by audience members, like in a book that is about Immigrations and its discontents. Why is there a poem about Scottie Pippen? And I'd be like, Because I like Scottie Pippen. You know what I meant like? [Luke: Right.] It's just so yeah, I think there's this expectation that those of us who have marginalized identities that we kind of write about it in this one particular way. And for me, I want to think about, like, how I present those pains. And then also, you know, what I want to share and what I don't. And in that, what I might gain by by surprising people and reminding them that even through those moments of struggle and pain, that there's always a lot of joy in song and dance.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. You have a quote in the book from Eduardo Galeano saying Utopia is is on the horizon. And basically you take ten steps towards it and it takes ten steps down the horizon. I'm curious, what keeps you walking?
José Olivarez: What keeps me walking is, you know, like a belief that just because things are one way right now, that it doesn't mean that they've always been this way and it doesn't mean that they have to continue to be this way. So I really believe that through imagination we can start to think and really build a world where things are different for us. And you can see those little victories from time to time where even underneath all of this oppressive weight, there's something that we're constructing that we're slowly making bigger and bigger.
Luke Burbank: Could we sneak one more poem? Yeah. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I would love for folks, maybe maybe something on the on the shorter side, just for time. But anything that you might want to pick.
José Olivarez: Yeah. Thank you. I'll read a love poem. This is a poem I wrote for my wife, Erica. It's called Love Poem, Beginning with the Yellow Cab.
I ask you, what's the first thing you think about when you see the color yellow and, like a real New Yorker, you say yellow cabs, not sunlight or a yellow ribbon tied around a vase of fresh begonias. Yellow cabs honking down Broadway. I still remember the night we first shared a cab. You whispered, honey, whispered lace, whispered chrysanthemum, all of that practice. And it turns out I had never ridden in the cab the right way. Around us, the street lights blurred into yellow ribbons. And when you put your hand on my thigh, it was like I knew for the first time why God gave us thighs. Which is why God gave us hands. Maybe God invented yellow for the cabs. So the first time we touched like this, it could be accented in gold.
Luke Burbank: My goodness.
Elena Passarello: That's a love poem. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: José Olivarez, thank you so much for coming on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: The book is Promises of God.
José Olivarez: Thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was José Olivarez right here on Live Wire. His latest book, Promises of Gold is out and available now. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. You are listening to a special holiday edition of Live Wire. We got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We will be right back with an original Christmas song performed by the lovely and talented Esmé Patterson. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. This is a special holiday episode of Live Wire. And so we have expanded our audience question portion of the show because we've asked live our audience, what is your favorite holiday tradition? Elena has been tracking those responses. What else are you seeing?
Luke Burbank: Okay, we got this one from Jesse. Jesse says: one word, Latkas. Have you ever seen like a like evening and usually a Jewish household in December? Like it is an intense ordeal. The squeezing of the water from the shredded potatoes, the slapping of the hands of all of the people that can't wait to get their mitts on a delicious Lachey.
Luke Burbank: So good, though. I try to show up right when all the work is done and it's eating time.
Elena Passarello: Are you an applesauce guy or a sour cream guy?
Luke Burbank: I am sour cream. I don't really like the savory and the sweet together.
Elena Passarello: Same. Same.
Luke Burbank: Not for me. I like. I'm. I'm all about that sour cream. What is another holiday tradition? One of our live wire listeners want to tell us about.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I love this one from Joe. Joe says: My family is obsessed with the Bonne Maman Advent Jam calendar. We open it each day without reading the label and then have a taste test to try to guess what flavor it is. Have you seen Bonne Maman? Is that jam that has like almost like a handwritten label looking and like a kind of checkerboard top, really yummy jam.
Luke Burbank: I don't think I've ever seen that.
Elena Passarello: Oh, they're great. They're just affordable, fancy jam, let's say that. And they they haven't. Advent calendar where you open the door and the teensy weensy is like airplane sized canister of jam. And my my lovely sister in law bought my dad Tony Passarello, Live Wire's biggest fan the advent calendar last December and he was delighted because he is a major proponent of jelly and all kinds. But it's great. Like I love the advent calendars that are like Whiskey Advent calendar or like make up Advent calendar.
Luke Burbank: I have problems, you know, that's that. Whatever that kind of experiment they would do with children, where they would sit them in a room and they would sort of offer them like a, a cookie.
Elena Passarello: The marshmallow test.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, the marshmallow. I feel that every year with whatever kind of chocolate based Advent stuff comes into my life, it's like right away. It's like December 1st and I'm already digging into like this. I'm all the way to December 22nd.
Elena Passarello: I got a perfume Advent calendar once, and on the first day I took the little vial of perfume out and I put it on my wrists and I held it up for David to smell. And he went, You smell like a floor. And then I didn't open any more. [Luke: Honesty.] Merry Christmas.
Luke Burbank: It's how you've been together for so many years. It's just a level of honesty between the two of you. Okay. One more holiday tradition from one of our Livewire listeners.
Elena Passarello: Sammy says: After we eat Christmas dinner, my family always goes to the movies we do in the past, the family as well. We try to see something Christmas themed, but if not, we'll watch whatever. One year, we all watched a really scary movie while wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. It was hilarious. I saw Titanic on Christmas Day. I remember that I watched that boat sink on Christmas Day.
Luke Burbank: I have never seen that movie. That's my number one, like, never have I ever thing that I can trot out now. The problem is my whole personality is based around the fact that I haven't seen Titanic, so I can never see Titanic.
Elena Passarello: Me and Star Wars.
Luke Burbank: You haven't seen Star Wars?
Elena Passarello: Correct? I've tried, but I used to. When I couldn't sleep, David would just recite the plot of Star Wars to me. And then I fall asleep.
Luke Burbank: I will say the later ones. I used to just call them galactic C-SPAN. Very governmental, very process oriented, just lawmakers from other galaxies debating like trade embargoes and stuff.
Elena Passarello: I have seen, however, the Star Wars Christmas special, which is spectacular. I mean, really, you don't need to see anything else other than that.
Luke Burbank: Absolutely. Maybe that can become my new favorite holiday tradition. Thank you to everyone who sent in your responses on this special episode of Live Wire, where our musical guest this week is Esmé Patterson, who comes from the mountains of Colorado. She's known for her indie folk music. She's performed on NPR's Tiny Desk. She's been on Conan, The Late Show with David Letterman, and she joined us at Revolution Hall way back in 2015 to perform her song If I. This is Esmé Patterson on Livewire.
Esmé Patterson: Hi, everybody. Well, I'm going to play a Christmas song that I wrote. I'm kind of conflicted about Christmas, and I'm from Colorado. And somebody kind of challenged me to write a Christmas song, even though that's kind of something I'm not really into. And so I wrote the songs for my family who I miss a bunch. His. I was the forest. Give you a tree. If I was brave. I. Give you a guarantee. For Christmas. I want something that I can find are some of your time. For Christmas. I want something that I can buy. I want your hand near my. If I was the sky.
Luke Burbank: Oh.
Esmé Patterson: I'd give you a star. If you're wondering what I got you, The best I can give you is my one patient heart. But Christmas. I want something that I can find. I want some time for Christmas. I want something that I can buy. I want a heart near my. Near my. Christmas. I want her near my. The Christmas.
Luke Burbank: Your heart, your mind.
Esmé Patterson: But you heard. What you heard. But you have new moon.
Luke Burbank: New moon. Near my.
Luke Burbank: That was Esmé Patterson right here on the Live Wire. Her newest full length album is Notes from Nowhere, and it is available now. All right. That's going to do it for this special holiday edition of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests, Paul F. Tompkins, José Olivarez, and Esmé Patterson.
Luke Burbank: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Molly Pettit is our technical director. And our House Sound is by Daniel Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor. Our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow and Ant Diaz is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox. Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves, and A Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. This week, we'd like to thank member Linh Pham of Beaverton, Oregon. What up, Lynn? For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Livewire Radio dot org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening. Have a very, very happy holidays and we'll see you next week.
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