Awkward Moments with David Sedaris

“Hello Andrew.”… “This is Aaron.”…. “Andrew?”…”Aaron.”…“Oh! Okay.”…“This is Mr. Sedaris correct?”…“What did you say?”…“This is Mr. Sedaris?”…“Yes. Yes.”…“I am from the High Plains Reader in Fargo, North Dakota,” (You know, the place from that movie, with that wood chipper).

There is an awkward moment at the beginning of just about every phone interview, and it is sometimes just a little bit painful. But David Sedaris may just be the one man well equipped to deal with situations like these on a regular basis.

 

After all, Sedaris has offered up his own awkward moments, in writing, for the rest of us to enjoy and laugh at. Of course, an awkward phone call pales in comparison to the stories Sedaris tells. Like the time a tow truck driver picked up a hitch-hiking Sedaris, and during a conversation about the vacation potential of North Carolina (Sedaris’ home state), the driver spat out, “All I know is that if anyone wanted to give me a blow job, or have me give him one, I’d do it.”

 

Through eight books, and dozens of appearances on National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” Sedaris has entertained readers and live audiences alike with his rather unique experiences. Hailed as one of the most hilarious writers of our time, Sedaris has come into the spotlight by turning the pages of his journals into comic fodder for the pages of his books.

 

Ranging in topics from drug use and addiction, odd jobs as a New York City mover, house cleaner and Christmas elf, to life growing up as a gay boy in a family of eight, Sedaris’ essays focus heavily on American life and culture. Fittingly enough, he received his first big break when Ira Glass, host of “This American Life,” heard him at a public reading.

 

Since that time, Sedaris has kept readers and audiences laughing out loud, often at the most awkward of moments. (For instance, while eating a pastrami sandwich, which subsequently ended up splattered all over the desk of one New York Times critic.)

 

High Plains Reader: What got you started writing?

 

David Sedaris: I just started one day. I was 20-years-old and I had been hitchhiking around the country with my friend Ronnie. He and I were in northern California, and I had been writing people letters but I didn’t have an address where they could write me. So I just started writing myself. I did it one day — jotted some stuff down on the back of a placemat — and then I did it the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Eventually I got like a hard cover book. It was just a diary. After I had kept a diary for seven years, I started writing little stories.

 

HPR: So 17 years after you first began writing, your first book is published. What kept you going during all that time?

 

DS: I think after a while it just sort of became a compulsion. It sort of became part of who I was. I think even if my first book hadn’t come out, I would still be writing every day. I would be a bitter and very angry person, but I would still be writing every day. After a while it was just sort of what I did. I felt like I got a late start, and I don’t have any natural talent as a writer. So I thought I was going to have to work harder than most people, and I am going to have to work longer than most people. I fully expected that.

 

HPR: Your writing is filled with very funny and interesting anecdotes. It is easy to get the impression these things are always happening to you. Is that true?

 

DS: No. I mean I keep a notebook in my pocket so I write down pretty much everything. In the morning I look at my notebook and I write things in my diary — sometimes there is something I can use later but most times there is not. When I get stuck I have a big file of stories that never quite worked out for one reason or another, and I turn back to that. There are stories in the book (When You Are Engulfed In Flames) that I have been working on for years.

 

There is a story in the book about a woman that lived down the hall from me in New York, named Helen. Every summer for the last 10-12 years I’ve worked on that story. I could never put my finger on it. I could never get it to work. So I’d think, well maybe next year.

 

HPR: And what about all those odd jobs, or the volunteering at the morgue?

 

DS: That was the first thing I ever wrote for Esquire Magazine. They had called and asked if I wanted to write for them. They said I could write anything I wanted, and I had always wanted to see a lot of dead people. I knew that there was no way I could do that on my own. So I needed something to get me in there. They arranged that. But then I had to go and turn right around a write about that. And so my article that was in Esquire was a failure I thought.

 

I wrote about it for the book, but that was 11 years after I had gone there. It actually took 11 years for me to process that. It was huge to get and see that many dead people and be confronted with your own mortality. It was huge.

 

HPR: Are you still doing things like that much anymore?

 

DS: No, because I didn’t have my working papers. Now I do have my working papers. I live in London now, and I just got my green card. But before I got my green card, I had some time on my hands and I wanted to feel like I fit in somehow, so I got a volunteer job with a group called Age Concern. But I didn’t do it so I could write about it.

 

Basically my world is pretty small, when you just sit at home and write all the time. That’s why when I go on tour I get over-stimulated so easily. All of a sudden I am out in the world and I am talking to people and I’m traveling. Generally I just wake up and I sit in my office. Maybe in the afternoon I go to a movie or a swimming pool. But that’s it for me.

 

HPR: Do you enjoy the touring and reading to audiences more than actually sitting down to write?

 

DS: I guess I just can’t have one without the other. When things are going badly or I feel like I am stuck, or I don’t have any ideas, I think, “Well I am going to be rewarded for this later.” Reading out loud is my reward for spending all that time alone. You can’t have one without the other. But if I couldn’t read out loud it would definitely quell my enthusiasm for the writing.

 

When I go on tour I will start with some new stories, and then I will read something out loud, then I will go back to the hotel and rewrite it. I appreciate the opportunity to edit in front of an audience.

 

HPR: Your writing and reading obviously gets a lot of laughter, were you considered that funny growing up?

 

DS: It is hard to say. The people in my family are very funny. I think I am kind of the dull one in my family. I could get some laughs at school, but I wasn’t a very popular person. I remember raising my hand in school and thinking, “Man this could either get a big laugh or I am going to be so completely, incredibly embarrassed.”

 

There was always something exciting about that to me—that moment before you either flop or go over well. I suppose that is the moment I revisit when I read out loud. I think this could either work really well, or I am going to have some apologizing to do.

 

HPR: One of your more recent pieces that had me laughing was “Undecided” ( A short essay in The New Yorker comparing undecided voters to airplane passengers who could not chose between the chicken platter or one made of shit and glass). Are you very political by nature?

 

DS: I have ideas that way. I mean I have opinions. I think they are fairly common. There are not necessarily informed opinions. There a lot like the opinions that my friends have. There is nothing special about them.

 

I got a letter from a woman who said that “I read that article. I was going to come to hear you read in Zurich, Switzerland. And then I saw that article in The New Yorker. And YOU, making fun of an American patriot. So I am sending you tickets that I bought because I am not coming to your reading. I was going to come and tell you in person what scum you are but then I decided you’re not worth it.”

 

It never occurred to me that anyone would disagree with me.

 

HPR: And your writing deals a lot with American life and culture, but you spend a lot of time living outside the country. Does that help your writing?

DS: I think it helps me to write better, because when you are out of the country you just sort of see it more clearly when you come back to the United States. Whereas if you live here things happen incrementally so you don’t notice it so much.

 

Also living in another country helped me realize how American I am. There are a lot of people who move to Europe and they say, “You know, at heart I’m a European.” But I think living in Europe made me realize how American I am. How I think like an American.

 

It always looks bad to be ashamed of yourself. Like if people in England should develop English accents, it’s just so embarrassing. You never want to do that. You never want to try to pretend that you are something you’re not. There is just something pathetic about people who are ashamed of what they are. Whether they are ashamed to be gay, or ashamed to be American. It doesn’t matter.

 

HPR: Well, I just wanted to ask you one last question. I read an interview in 2004 and you said you still hadn’t figured out your popularity. Have you gotten to the bottom of it yet?

DS: No. I don’t have a clue. I really don’t.