All language subtitles for Masterclass David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor - 02.Observing the World

SUBJECT: If you're tuned
in, life feels like a story.

I was in Australia.

And I was with
Hugh, my boyfriend,

and I was with this
Australian friend of mine.

And we were riding in
the car to a little town

called Daylesford.

And we got to Daylesford
and we were having

lunch in this restaurant.

And there was a
kookaburra, the bird,

out on the porch
of the restaurant.

And a server said, oh,
do you want to feed him?

And then took me outside and
gave me some raw duck meat

and I fed this kookaburra.

And it just felt
like a story to me.

Like, sometimes your
life feels like a story.

I went to--

I was in London buying
a taxidermied owl,

and all of a sudden my
life felt like a story.

I was at this beach house
that we have with my family.

And my dad was wearing, like, a
Cherokee headdress and my life

felt like a story.

And you have to kind of be
tuned in, but every now and then

your subject comes just right
to you and sits in your lap.

And if you're awake, you think,
wow, there it is, right there--

the thing to write about.

And there's nothing
better, nothing better,

than when it comes and
sits in your lap like that.

And you can pretty
much guarantee

that if you're sitting at home
and you're just online all day,

and then you leave your
house and you're walking down

the sidewalk and you're
texting to your friends,

and then you go to
the grocery store

and you continue to text while
you're in the grocery store,

that nothing's going to
come and sit in your lap.

You need to be in the
world and you need

to be engaged with the world.

And every now and then it
comes, it comes to you.

And it doesn't have
to be a big thing.

It doesn't have to be, we
were in a car accident.

It doesn't have to be,
you know, your father

is rushed to the hospital
with appendicitis.

It can just be as
small as feeding

a bird on the other
side of the world,

or buying a piece of taxidermy.

But again, you have
to be open and you

have to be, you have to
be able to recognize it

when it's given to you.

How's your morning going so far?

How was your trip in?

Got any big plans
for the weekend?

These are questions.

If it's a question you've
heard in a hotel or a store,

forget it.

There's no place to go
with those questions.

Those are small talk questions.

I like a question like,
do you know many people

in wheelchairs?

Good question, right?

And if people say
no, I always say,

well, do you have a ramp
in front of your house?

Do you know a lot of
doctors is a good question,

because sometimes that
can get people to say,

well, I had
appendicitis last year,

or yeah, I just had a c-section.

I met a man, he was--

I never learned to drive a
car, so he was driving me.

I was on a tour and
he was driving me

from one place to the next.

And I said, have you
ever run for office?

And he said, I can't
believe you asked me that.

He said, I ran for judge
20 years ago in my town.

Why do you ask?

Why did you ask
me that question?

And I don't know,
I'd never asked

anybody that question before.

I don't know, just
from talking to him

I just got this sense that
he had run for office.

I met this woman
one time and I said,

when was the last time
you touched a monkey?

And she said, oh, can
you smell it on me?

And it turned out she
worked at a center

that trains monkeys to act as
servants for paralyzed people.

And she invited
me to the center,

and I went, and I was in
a room with 13 monkeys.

And all of them,
they were reaching

into every pocket I had.

Monkeys are thieves.

But I never would
have known that if I

hadn't asked that particular
woman that question.

I'd never asked anybody
that question before.

Sometimes I'll hear
something that's

just surprising to me,
or delightful to me,

and I'll write it down.

But I don't feel like--

I mean, it sounds kind of
cold, but you know what?

As a writer, you're sort
of exploiting everybody

you come into contact with.

And that's not just me--

it's part of the job
description, really.

But you're not always
going to hit gold.

No.

But that's not any
reason to give up.

That's not any reason.

I just wouldn't,
I just wouldn't go

through the line at the grocery
store and not ask that person

a question.

I don't want to
live in that world.

You know, I have friends
who will be on their phone

or texting somebody while they
check out of the grocery store.

And this one friend of mine,
he said, this is my shield.

It protects me from small talk.

And you know what I say?

It doesn't have
to be small talk.

You can decide what it is.

As long as I'm still having
encounters with people,

I want them to be meaningful
to the extent that they can be.

The thing I find is, you know,
when you say no, everything

shuts down, so I say yes a lot.

In my last book, I had an essay.

I had a tumor on my side.

It was called a lipoma.

It's just a fatty tumor.

I went to a doctor in France
and he said, oh, it's nothing.

Dogs get them all the time.

And it was like a deviled
egg underneath my skin,

right on my right side.

And I went to a doctor
in North Carolina

and asked if he could remove it.

And he said, yes.

And I said, great,
because I want to feed it

to a snapping turtle.

Just because there's snapping
turtles near our beach house,

and I thought, wow, they
would really love to eat--

like, if I had my
tonsils taken out,

a turtle would be so
happy to eat my tonsils,

or eat a finger, right?

So I thought oh I'll
feed my tumor to a turtle

and it'll be fun.

And the doctor said, it's
against the law for me

to give you anything I
remove from your body.

So I just thought,
OK, then forget it.

It seemed so unfair to me.

So I went to El Paso and I was
onstage and I repeated that.

And a woman came up and said,
I'll cut it out of you tonight

and I'll let you keep it.

And she said, I'm not a
surgeon, but I'm a doctor.

And if it's above my pay grade,
I'll just sew you back up

and send you on your way.

And I said, that
sounds fantastic,

I said, but I have
a book signing.

And she said, that's
not a problem.

I'm a night owl.

So she came at 1
o'clock in the morning

and cut the tumor out of me,
and I fed it to a turtle.

And that wouldn't have happened
if I had said no, right?

Another thing I like to do
is go to another country

and get my hair cut.

Because my hair, it doesn't
really matter, right?

If you give me a
bad haircut, it's

really no different than
a good haircut on my head.

I remember I went to Japan and
I got my hair cut and the barber

had shit on his hands.

And every time he raised the
scissors, [GAGGING] I was,

I was, I thought--

I worried I might throw up.

And he was the loveliest
man, and he was so patient

with my Japanese, and we
had this conversation.

And I don't know, I guess
he'd been to the toilet

before he cut my hair.

And that was one of the most
interesting haircuts I've had.

So I would just encourage
you to just, I don't know,

take a chance to do something
that you wouldn't normally.

And I don't mean, like, do
something you'd normally never

do, like water ski.

Like, you don't say yes if
someone you don't know says,

you know--

if you're drunk and somebody
you don't know says,

come to my house.

I mean, you don't
say yes to that.

I just figured, you know what?

If I live, I can write about it.

That's how I've always thought.

I was in London and I
was in a taxidermy shop.

And the owner of the
shop showed me these owls

that he had for sale.

And then he showed
me a pygmy skeleton.

And then he showed
me an amputated arm.

And then he showed
me a girl's head.

So he had some human
things that were for sale.

And by that time, my life
really felt like a story,

like it was writing
itself in my head.

But you don't want
to end it, and I

knew that if I pulled out
my notebook everything

would have ended.

But part of it that
comes from experience

is not disrupting
the beauty of it,

not halting it, not
calling attention to it,

and just letting it play out.

I wrote an essay years ago.

I'd just moved to Paris and
I was on the subway in Paris.

And Americans go to
Paris all the time

and they act like nobody
speaks English, right?

Like, they'll talk about someone
right in front of that person.

And not only do a lot
of people speak English,

but chances are
that's an American

or a British person
you're in front of.

And this man and woman boarded.

And the man lived in
Paris and he was trying

to show this woman the ropes.

And this woman had a really
ugly purse, and I looked at it

and he said, that
guy's a pickpocket.

Be careful.

He's a pickpocket.

He's after your wallet.

And I wrote about it and so
many people have come forward

and said, why didn't you
say, I'm not a pickpocket

and I'm not French?

But I would never
have said that.

I didn't want to.

I wanted to see
what happened next.

And if I were to
say something, then

the thing that would happen
next would be he would say,

oh my god, I'm so embarrassed.

And I would say, that's OK.

But that's not my ending,
so I just let it play out.

You know, one beautiful thing
about living in another country

is that people don't think
you really count, in a way.

People don't think that
you really understand

what it is that they're saying.

They often don't count you
as a complete human being.

And personally I love
that, because people

are more apt to be--

there was something I was
reading the other day,

that your character is based on
how you treat the people you're

allowed to mistreat.

Right?

So like, when you
see somebody shouting

at a busboy who speaks
no English, you know,

or a hotel maid who
comes and knocks

on their door, somebody who is
kind of powerless to complain

about them.

That says a lot about that
person's character, to me.

But it's fascinating
to be that person,

to be that busboy, to
be that hotel maid,

and to have people
treat you that way.

For me, it's like
they're handing me money.

I mean, I absolutely
live for it.

But again, you kind of
want to get in there

and you want to set
the record straight

and say, actually,
no, this is who I am.

But then you would
ruin the moment.

I used to live in
Normandy in France.

And this woman told
a neighbor of ours

how there was a man
who walked by her house

all the time,
looking at pictures

and talking to himself.

And that was me
walking by her house.

But what I had, every day I
would write 10 new vocabulary

words on index cards.

And so I wasn't
looking at pictures,

I was looking at my index cards
and I was repeating the words

on the index cards.

And now I live in England, and
a woman introduced herself to me

at a little village
event not long ago.

And she said, you know, I heard
somebody talking about you.

And she said, oh, that
man, he just walks around

and he picks up garbage.

I just pray no one
takes advantage of him.

And often the people in
my village in England,

they just treat me
like either they think

that this is my
community service

and that's why I'm picking up.

And I would never
set them straight.

I find it--

I absolutely love that my
actual life is a complete--

I'm pretty much the
complete opposite

of who they think I am.

And I love for that
to be my secret.

So I don't mind it when
they treat me-- when

they pull their children close.

I'll pass somebody's
house and I'll say hello,

and they'll just turn
their back on me.

Or somebody will say,
there's some over there

that you missed.

You want to go clean that.

Or, look, I live on this road.

Come and clean up my road.

And I feel so
fortunate that it's

like having a disguise
that allows you,

or having special glasses that
allow you to see what people

are really like, because
they're not counting you

as an actual human
being like they are.

They're identifying you
as something beneath them

and treating you accordingly.

And so they're
exposing themselves

in a way that they
wouldn't if they thought

that you were their
equal. they would never

expose themselves that way.

So, to me, that's
a beautiful thing.

I don't know how
beautiful it is if you

don't have an outlet for it.

You know, if you're a busboy
who speaks five words of English

and someone's screaming
at you, you're

just going to go
home and probably

feel bad about yourself.

But, for me, there's
nothing better.