49: Adam Rubin
Source: Reddit
“So, as we walk into the night, abuzz with the possibility of New York, all of a sudden I hear ‘Adam!’”
About Adam
Adam Rubin is a best-selling author, magician, improv comedian, lover of funk music, winner of laughing competitions, a fluent speaker of Japanese (after three glasses of sake), and above all, a storyteller on a mission to ensure that the art form stays alive and well for generations to come.
Once upon a time, in a magical land called Hudson Valley, there was a little boy named Adam Rubin, who loved creativity as much as his dad hated the squirrels that feasted on his backyard bird feeders (more on that later). Adam has always embraced the silly and playful in life. He managed to hang on to that irreverence as he grew up, channeling his creativity into a Visual Communications degree from Washington University in St Louis, where he studied advertising.
While at Wash U, Adam fell in love with improv, starting the group Suspicious of Whistlers, which continues to perform to this day. After graduating, Adam moved to Chicago, where he worked at Leo Burnett writing McDonald’s Happy Meal commercials by day and immersed himself in its rich improv comedy scene by night. Audiences were treated to Adam’s storytelling talents and comedic sensibilities at the Annoyance Theater and iO and the creative director may well have ridden off into the proverbial sunset on his proverbial stallion…
But one day, a mutual friend introduced Adam to the man who would become his closest collaborator and with whom Adam would dive headfirst into a career that even his vivid imagination had not contemplated: children’s book author. Their first collaboration, Those Darn Squirrels (inspired by those darn squirrels that his dad was so fond of), would go on to win a Borders Original Voices award and inspire a TDS anthology appreciated by kids and adults alike.
Adam stayed in the ad world until he had multiple books on the bestseller list, at which point he thought to himself… self, I think it’s time we go do this book thing for real for real.
And so he did, writing such classics as Robo-Sauce, Gladys the Magic Chicken, El Chupacabras, and Dragons Love Tacos, a book that I read to a rousing reception from my daughter’s 1st grade class.
This could easily have been the final act in Adam’s journey, but no. Because, magic.
You see, while Adam believes that WRITING is where the magic is, MAGIC was the writing on Adam’s wall long before actual writing was in his life. As a 12-year-old at summer camp, Adam was astonished by his friend’s magic trick involving buttons jumping from hand to hand. Adam being Adam, he could not let it go, leading to sleepless nights spent studying the entirety of Mark Wilson’s Encyclopedia of Magic. This obsession would ignite the flame that, although perhaps dormant during college, came out in force when Adam quit his agency job and found himself with time on his hands. The fan of impossible objects, mechanical puzzles and optical illusions joined the Art of Play, a company started by his two friends that he helped expand into a full-fledged Wonder Emporium that embraces the power of curiosity and gives Adam the opportunity to create objects and puzzles that allow him to share his favorite emotion, astonishment, with curious minds the world over.
And in his capacity as a magician, Adam has worked with legends such as David Blaine, David Copperfield, and others.
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Max Chopovsky: 0:02
This is Moral of the Story Interesting people telling their favorite short stories and then breaking them down to understand what makes them so good. On your host, max Jepofsky. Today's guest is Adam Rubin, bestselling author, magician, improv comedian, lover of funk music, winner of laughing competitions, a fluent speaker of Japanese after three glasses of sake and, above all, a storyteller, on a mission to ensure that the art form stays alive and well for generations to come. Join me as we dissect and reconstruct Adam's prolific journey, like a surgeon cutting for the very first time. Once upon a time in a magical land called Hudson Valley, there was a little boy named Adam Rubin who loved creativity as much as his dad hated the squirrels that feasted on his backyard bird feeders. More on that later. Adam has always embraced the silly and playful in life. He managed to hang on to that irreverence as he grew up, channeling his creativity into a visual communications degree from Washington University in St Louis, where he studied advertising. As an aside, since we graduated only a year apart, we might have even met in college and become the best the friends had watched you not waitlisted yours truly, but I digress While at the school that waitlisted me. I'm over it, I promise. Adam fell in love with improv, starting the group Suspicious of Whistlers, which continues to perform to this day, after graduating, at a move to Chicago, where he worked at Leo Burnett, writing McDonald's Happy Meal commercials by day and immersing himself in its rich improv comedy scene by night. Audiences were treated to Adam's storytelling talents and comedic sensibilities at the Annoyance Theater and IO, and the creative director may well have ridden off into the proverbial sunset on his proverbial stallion, but one day a mutual friend introduced Adam to the man who would become his closest collaborator and with whom Adam would dive headfirst into a career that not even his vivid imagination had contemplated children's book author. Their first collaboration, those Darn Squirrels, inspired by those darn squirrels that his dad was so fond of, would go on to win a Borders Original Voices Award and inspire a TDS anthology appreciated by kids and adults alike. Adam stayed in the ad world until he had multiple books on the bestseller list, at which point he thought to himself self I think it's time we go and do this book thing for real, for real. And so he did, writing such classics as RoboSauce, gladys, the Magic Chicken, el Chupacabras and Dragons Love Tacos, a book that I read to a rousing reception from my daughter's first grade class. This could have easily been the final act in Adam's journey, but no, because magic, you see, adam believes that writing is where the magic is. Yes, but magic was the writing on Adam's wall before actual writing was in his life. It's a 12 year old. At summer camp, adam was astonished by his friend's magic trick involving buttons jumping from hand to hand. Adam being Adam, he could not let it go, leading to sleepless nights spent studying the entirety of Mark Wilson's Encyclopedia of Magic. This obsession would ignite the flame that, although perhaps dormant during college, came out in force when Adam quit his agency job and found himself with time on his hands. The fan of impossible objects, mechanical puzzles and optical illusions joined the art of play, a company started by his two friends that he helped expand into a full fledged wonder emporium that embraces power of curiosity and gives Adam the opportunity to create objects and puzzles that allow him to share his favorite emotion astonishment with curious minds the world over, and, in his capacity as a magician, adam has worked with legends such as David Blaine, david Copperfield and others. As this is now approaching one of the longest bios, I've read on the show and I'm starting to feel like that award winner whose thank yous are getting excessive when the producers are about to cut the mic. Here are a few more random facts about Adam that you should probably know. I'm officially going to bullet points. He released the salsa to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of Dragon's Love Tacos no, it was not spicy. During the pandemic, he co-created Bizarre Brooklyn, an immersive theater experience in the history of the borough. He currently has a Jack in the Box puzzle on Kickstarter, so you should pre-order that now, as it will probably win an award. So Adam Rubin, doing his part to make sure that we are raising a generation of untamed creatives and ferociously curious intellectuals. Welcome to the show.
Adam Rubin: 4:24
Thank you. Four minutes and 30 seconds Full life, probably more detailed than I remember. Well, I am glad that you timed it, because I do feel like it was probably one of the longer bios I've done and completely worth it. Yeah, well, thank you for having me.
Max Chopovsky: 4:39
It's a pleasure to be here, of course, I do have a very important question before we get started, which is should we actually be suspicious of Whistlers and, if so, why?
Adam Rubin: 4:50
Well, I think the generation is following mine, which is now 15 years or something like that. Is it coming up on 20 years? Might be, I don't know, that you'd like the name very much. They find it to be a bit of a tongue twister, suspicious of Whistlers, and so there's definitely been some controversy over the name in the more recent years and, from what I know, younger people refer to the group as Spish, which makes me want to puke. But hey, you've got to defer to youth. So there's now. So the original idea, I guess, was just some little cartoon of a guy whistling with an ax behind his back. It's funny. You bring up whistling, though, because it's something I wish I was better at. It's something I've always wanted to be great at, and I've never been able to figure out how to make that really loud sound like Mom in the Park and a Lot of Disneyland or that sonorous melody like Andrew Bird can do. So I'm interested in whistling lessons. If anybody that listens to this has an expertise there, please contact me.
Max Chopovsky: 5:56
If any listener is a whistler. That is a skill that I have tried multiple times to acquire and failed miserably. Each time there is the whistling just with your mouth, which I guess all whistling is with your mouth. But this one is without your fingers and I can do like one note if I'm lucky. But I can kind of sometimes whistle when I put my middle and index fingers into my mouth, but then I don't usually do that because then I feel like I have to wash my hands before I do that, which kind of defeats the purpose of using it in the moment when you immediately need to whistle very urgently. So yeah, I'll definitely take whoever offers up on the lessons as well.
Adam Rubin: 6:38
Whistling lessons wanted Whistling lessons wanted?
Max Chopovsky: 6:41
Yes, consider the ad posted. So you are here to tell us a story Before we begin. Do you want to set the stage? Is there anything we should know?
Adam Rubin: 6:51
As you had mentioned, I was in Chicago for a solid seven years, really enjoyed that city, love that place, but at some point I moved back east, where I grew up and was living in New York, so I had to stop wearing fleeces to bars and I had to get on Instagram and all this sort of stuff that you had to do in New York in 2011, if you were of the dating age and a single person out there. Tinder was brand new, I think, so it was an exciting time in New York. I was probably around 33 years old when this story takes place. I had recently quit my job as a creative drinker at Firstborn, so I'm living it up at this point. I had just become a full-time author, I'm single in New York and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do next. That's the state I'm in at the beginning of this story.
Max Chopovsky: 7:43
I love it.
Adam Rubin: 7:44
All right, let's get into it. Tell me a story. So my good friend, corey Mints, who you mentioned in your introduction, the friend who introduced me to Daniel Selmari, a guy who changed the course of my life entirely and a great friend, is the kind of New York personality that just can't walk into a room or get on a subway car without recognizing someone that he knows. He knows all the people in the city, what's going on, where to go, all the fun events, and that evening he had invited me to go to an exhibition of pizza box artwork that was put on by a guy named Scott who does Scott's Pizza Tours here in New York. He's a pizza expert, world-class pizza aficionado. He collects the pizza boxes that pizzas come in, and he had decorated a gallery with all these pizzas. It was great. It was cool to see they're from all over the world, different languages, different art styles. It was very quirky and fun and, needless to say, there was a lot of free pizza at this event. So we stuffed our faces, admired the pizza boxes and then, when we left the gallery, it was like 8 o'clock at night and we didn't know what to do. We're just full. So the only thing we could think of. At that time we were in Williamsburg walking around. Neither one of us lived around there, but we thought what's good to drink when you're full of pizza? Sake, it's the lightest crispiest. Let's go find some sake, drink some sake to add it to the pizza in our bellies. Little Google search and we wind up at a place I've never been before and have never been since called Bozu Japanese place in Williamsburg. And when we get to the door they say sorry, we're fully booked, it's totally crowded, there's no way we can get seats. We say OK, that's all right, we'll hang out for five minutes and see if something opens up. Just at that moment, two guys get up from the bar and we get our seats at the bar, order a bottle of sake and we're sitting there happily, feeling like, hey, the night couldn't get any better. Well, in walks this group of six women tall, beautiful, loud, laughing, and they get seated at this table in the middle of the restaurant and everybody's looking at them because they're making a lot of noise and they're all dressed to the nines and they're just. They're attracting a lot of attention. But I notice that every time I glance over there, there's one woman in particular, this dark-haired woman with these piercing eyes, and every time I look over there she catches me looking, and the first time I'm a little embarrassed, and the second time I'm intrigued, and the third time I figure. Well, that means she's looking at me too. So we finish this bottle of sake and I'm feeling brave and I tell my friend hey, you leave first, ok, and I'm going to hang back just for a minute so I can go talk to this woman. And he says don't do that, don't interrupt these ladies. They're right of their own business. They're trying to have a nice meal. This is not the kind of thing I would normally do, but I just felt like there was some sort of connection and I would have kicked myself if I left without doing something about it. So he goes and I, as casually as possible, walk over to the table and say excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but I couldn't help but notice you from across the restaurant and I wanted to come over and introduce myself. And the table just goes quiet. You know her five friends just like stop talking. And I was just talking to her, I wasn't talking to anybody else. And she's like taken a back for a minute and she says oh well, I'm Tamice. And at that moment, like a lot of the listeners now, I had no idea what she said. I didn't catch that name at all, I wasn't. I now know what it was, but at that point I just was, I was like keep moving forward, don't let it, don't let that trip you up. I said I don't usually do anything like this, but would you, I'd love to take you out for a cup of coffee sometime or a drink if you're interested. And she turns a little red and says I'm flattered, but I live in California. I live in LA, so you know I can. I said oh, all right, well, it was so nice to meet you. Sorry again for interrupting your dinner. I hope you, you all, have a lovely time. And I leave and I was feeling pretty good because she says she was flattered. So I go outside and Corey's waiting there just dying to hear what I have. What happened, how'd it go? I said it went pretty well. She didn't throw a drink in my face and that's it. That's it. He says hey, it's like Wayne Gretzky says you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And I agree. So we kind of walk off into the night, kind of a buzz with the possibility of New York. And all of a sudden I hear Adam, adam and I turn around and there's this gorgeous woman standing in the doorway waving at me, and it's to me, and she says hey, you know I might move back. Why don't you take my number? And I do, and I took her number. She goes back inside and I turn around and Corey says what did you say to that woman? I was like I don't know, I just introduced myself. I just I asked her out for coffee and all of a sudden we hear Corey, corey. I turn around and there's this other beautiful woman standing in the doorway beckoning to Corey and Corey looks at me and I look at Corey and he walks up. He's dumbfounded. He says yes, she says you forgot your credit card and she hands him his credit card back. And the best part of this story is that I'm now married to Tamice and we've been married for five years now.
Max Chopovsky: 13:38
Oh my God, is Corey married to the woman that came out with the credit card?
Adam Rubin: 13:42
No, she was just a waitress at the restaurant. He is married. He's got two beautiful children. He now lives in LA.
Max Chopovsky: 13:50
Oh, that's funny. Yeah, okay, that's the story from your perspective. Now how would Tamice tell the story from her perspective, because I know you've talked about this?
Adam Rubin: 14:00
Yeah, yeah. So she has a couple of details that she likes to add, and I didn't mention this because I think it's impossible for me to have known this and I think it spoils the ending of the story if you know that. I know the whole, you know both sides, but she says that she got up at some point during the dinner because we were like, we were making eye contact and at some point during the dinner she got up and walked by me because I had to. She had to walk by us to get to the bathroom and she walked by me. She says, to check the vibe and the energy you know, to see if they're like, do a chemistry test somehow, just in walking by me. I guess you could. I don't know if, I don't know what it was about, but that was an important, that was an important test for her and I passed. I guess we were definitely checking each other out, and so I felt I wouldn't normally approach a strange woman in the middle of dinner with her friends, but it felt like there was a little bit of an invitation. The part that I didn't hear is when I left the restaurant after I had said her, her, the table stayed silent for a while and they're all looking at her and she says, should I go after him? And they all go yes, go after him. So it was. She got a little peer pressure to follow up, to make that bold move of the beckoning to me on the threshold of the restaurant. And the other point that she likes to make, which I don't know is, I guess is relevant, is when she said take my number. I took out a pen from my pocket and went to write it on my hand and she said don't you have an iPhone? And luckily I did. I think if I had a Samsung she wouldn't have gone out with me. This is definitely an Apple aficionado, I guess. So I guess that's. That's such a weird preference people have. But I have heard from other single people that if they get a green bubble back on iMessage, that it's a no go, which is a strange, very strange deal breaker, which is a little sad, because what if the other person just didn't have reception and it had to be sent as a text message? Or if maybe they accidentally sent out of their iCloud? Like, how many marriages never happened because somebody just didn't have reception and got back a green bubble? This is just one more reason we should all be using WhatsApp. Yeah, I agree. It just takes the guesswork out of it's technology agnostic.
Max Chopovsky: 16:16
Yeah, so when you were sitting at the bar, did you have your backs to them, or was it one of those bars where you could just kind of look off to the sides.
Adam Rubin: 16:24
It was a corner bar. I guess I didn't paint the picture entirely, but it was a corner bar so I could see their table without turning around. I could look across the restaurant and see the restaurant, whereas my friend, we were at the corner of the bar, so we kind of had a good vantage point for the whole place.
Max Chopovsky: 16:42
Ah, isn't it so interesting how, if we are just open to certain opportunities that present themselves in life, our lives can take entirely different directions.
Adam Rubin: 17:00
Yeah, well, so that's the evil perspective on the story in my own head is like well, what if I had gone up to more women in bars and just, or at restaurants and just introduced myself? What would my life might have been like, but I think I got the right one. When we first got together, it was a long distance thing at first. It was very romantic and there was a lot of pining and letters and all these things and I couldn't help but thinking about it like a meteor hitting the earth, these two things colliding out of the galaxy of possibility, of these just the infinitesimally small chances of this happening. If I hadn't gone to the bar, if we hadn't gotten sake, if all these things that there was really no way we would have met. Otherwise and she was in New York but she was in Williamsburg in the fashion scene and going to warehouse raves we never would have met. That was not the world that I was inhabiting. Or if those two guys didn't happen to get up from their chairs Right, if we hadn't gotten that particular seat at the bar yeah, I mean where?
Max Chopovsky: 18:02
I was going with. The comment was what if you had not walked up to her? Not, what if you walked up to all the other women?
Adam Rubin: 18:10
Yeah, it was as cliche as it sounded, it was absolutely love at first sight. I wasn't being that vulnerable, even with myself, to admit it, but at that moment I was like I'm going to marry that woman. Wow, you were that sure. It was like lightning strikes. You can't help but use these cliches when you talk about this sort of stuff, because so many people are so. It's such a passionate subject that people have talked about so many times. But the only semi-original thing I can even think of is that when we met each other, when we started spending time together, it felt like coming home and it felt like this was the place I was supposed to be and it still does, which is nice.
Max Chopovsky: 18:49
That's a great analogy, and so did you actually go to California and take her out to coffee, or was it more of a phone call thing at first?
Adam Rubin: 18:59
She was coming back and forth. She was working in the fashion industry as a menswear designer at the time and she was going back and forth to China from LA. So she would often have little stopovers in New York and she would make it so that she could spend a day or two to see her friends. And this one particular time she was going to spend time with me, our first date, the first time we had seen each other after that first encounter and I got crazy trying to find the right restaurant, where to book and what to do and just driving myself insane and trying to get these tables and calling in favors and this whole plan of what was going to happen after it. She came to my apartment and we never left, we never went to dinner, we just hung out and walked around the neighborhood and just I don't even know if we ate anything. It was intense.
Max Chopovsky: 19:48
You know what that makes me think of is. The first experience was unplanned, sort of sudden, and very, very organic, and it turned out wonderfully. It was super unexpected and had the best possible ending the second experience, the date, you tried to recreate the spontaneity of the first experience by controlling everything, finding the best restaurant, the best table, calling in all your favors, because now there were things at stake.
Adam Rubin: 20:24
There was an expectation, or I don't know what. There was at least time to think.
Max Chopovsky: 20:28
Well, you also were probably a little bit anxious about can I live up to these expectations that maybe she has of me now that I'm this sort of spontaneous, mysterious guy that gets up from the bar and says I never do this, but can I take you out to coffee? She was smitten after you passed her chemistry test right, the walking chemistry test, which the walk by is probably a thing and life again dictated that no, you can't control these things, and so you ended up not doing any of that stuff and again had a super spontaneous, organic evening where you just walked around and enjoyed each other's company.
Adam Rubin: 21:10
Yeah, it's rare to make a romantic connection that deep with someone, obviously, but it's also rare to make just any sort of connection where but it happens, it's less rare where you meet a new person and you just fall into a conversation where you're like this person's going to be my friend forever. I love that feeling and I have friends like that, where we could sit and do anything, road trips, it doesn't matter. It's the kind of person where you're like you don't have to make a plan because you just know whatever you do, you're going to be bullshitting and enjoying each other's company. It's so immensely no matter what that it doesn't really matter the venue.
Max Chopovsky: 21:48
Totally. I used to think when I was in high school I was not popular at all. I mean, I was crazy and always very loud, but I was kind of this outcast that was and I'm an immigrant, so English by that point I had learned it, but I definitely didn't understand the cultural norms or I didn't play sports. I wasn't in with the cool kids. I really desperately wanted to be in with the cool kids Because I thought that every time they get together, something profound happens, some profound adventure or some incident that turns into this crazy story that then they have these inside jokes about when they're in school, like the movies, like the movies. What I came to learn later in life is that actually the majority of those hangouts are completely uneventful and very unplanned. You just go over to somebody's house and you hang out with them. Only after you can accept the fact that the majority of times you hang out with somebody will be completely just uneventful scenarios, only then can you become open to some of those things actually turning into those crazy stories. Like when you were in Japan, for example, and you guys were walking around and all of a sudden you learned about this laughing competition. You're like, let's go check that out and you're like, let's actually participate in it, and then you ended up winning it. That would have never happened if you were like no, we have to plan this whole thing out. We have to do A, b and C before lunch, then we have lunch at this place, then we do D, e and F Like that should never happen.
Adam Rubin: 23:34
I think that's the most fun part of traveling. That's why it's always a good idea to leave a little bit of uncertainty in your plan when you travel. I don't like to make too many plans. I'll plan a few things. You need to buy tickets for certain places or museums, or take a reservation at a restaurant at some point, but I won't plan out the whole day, because then you rob yourself of all those possibilities. That's the best part about exploring the world is not knowing what you're going to find.
Max Chopovsky: 24:04
That's exactly right. I think that's where I got some of my travels wrong. When I was backpacking through Europe by myself, I felt like I needed to plan everything out. And there's so many things to see Like if you go to any of the European capitals, you could spend a full week on attractions that all need tickets and you could plan your entire day out and leave nothing to chance. And I think I was so uncomfortable with the uncertainty that if I don't plan everything out, then there's a chance that I'm not gonna have any fun. There's a chance that I'm gonna have an incredible experience that can only happen unexpectedly that I planned everything and it wasn't until I was older, when I was like, oh no, actually you can't plan everything because you can only walk into a random restaurant and either meet the love of your life or have an incredible conversation with the chef, or learn something new, or run into somebody that tells you about some underground thing that's happening that night and they're not telling anybody. That's the only way to do that. But for a lot of people that have to have control and they're worried that if you don't plan an amazing evening it will be a waste of time, they just miss out on that.
Adam Rubin: 25:20
Yeah, I think that's sad, but true is, if you require control, then you relinquish some of that magic of the unplanned surprise.
Max Chopovsky: 25:34
Has that changed in you at all?
Adam Rubin: 25:37
No, no, if anything, I'm encouraged to indulge that attitude even more. That was part of the thing about Bazaar Brooklyn was that it happened during the pandemic. The Bazaar Brooklyn was an interactive walking tour, sort of part historical, part magical. We used to say that everything you hear is true, but not everything you see is. And the real reaction we had to sitting inside and being stuck and everything feeling digital and cold and planned, like you said, like everything had a starting point in it. There was almost no spontaneity at that point because of the situation of the world, and so we wanted to do this thing. That felt like there was a surprise around every corner, that there were infinite possibilities within walking distance, and the thesis for the show was basically certainty is the enemy of discovery. So we tried to bring that to life for people and it was really nice, I'm sure yeah, I mean, people had to love that being able to get out and have this sort of Well, that was the hardest part, as we were workshopping the show with friends and family. The first couple of times we had this feedback, we would ask for feedback, and everybody's note was the same, which was oh, it's just so great to get out of the house. We're like, okay, yeah, we understand the bar is low, but help us improve.
Max Chopovsky: 27:04
I don't actually care what we do, I just want to like step outside my front door.
Adam Rubin: 27:08
Yeah, they were just like I got to put on a coat and like go outside. I saw other people. I saw them in real life. Yeah, irl.
Max Chopovsky: 27:17
I think as a creative you have developed that muscle really well.
Adam Rubin: 27:24
I mean, you can't really come up with something you could take a statue or whatever it was and turn it into the story that then becomes Dragon Love Tacos. I've got the statue right here. This thing was sitting on my dad's desk for years throughout my childhood, and I just always remembered it. It always struck me and where did the taco thing come from? Well, I thought it kind of looks like a taco, I think that's a taco, and it just kind of made sense to me that all dragons would love tacos and, by extension, there would be this beautiful tension that they couldn't eat anything spicy because of the whole fire breathing dilemma that they have.
Max Chopovsky: 28:05
Yeah, I mean, if he's representative of dragon kind, you can extrapolate that all dragons must love tacos. You could take an idea like that. You could take a little statue like that. Or you can take a small idea with the squirrels and turn it into a book. Or you can take an idea and turn it into a magic trick. So you've worked that muscle extensively, and so it's, I think, hard for all creatives to look at a blank slate or a timeline for a video editor and just be like. This can become anything. This can also become nothing, right?
Adam Rubin: 28:40
Well, there's a big difference between work for hire and work for pleasure, for sure. So I was a mercenary for many years and I used my skills to the highest bidder. I rented my skills to the highest bidder. But I was doing a lot of comedy back then and my friends who were like working at adult video stores and stuff would say, oh man, I wish I could work in advertising. It's so great they were watching Mad Men or something. And I would say it's not like it seems on TV. Basically, you walk into a room, give somebody your best idea and then they pay you to watch them fuck it up. So it can be heartbreaking if you put too much of yourself in it, and the people I've seen go crazy in the ad world are the ones who convince themselves that their personal vision is what the client is paying for, or who convince themselves that their talent is worthy of this million dollar budget that is in place in order to sell soft drinks. So you kind of got to keep an emotional distance to it. Like any work for hire, there are sometimes our moments when you make something you're really proud of or where it is important to exercise artistic integrity for the benefit of all parties involved. But you can only fight with people so much. They're the ones trying to sell chicken nuggets or life insurance or whatever it is, and you can only give them your best within that context, like they want a specific thing and they will dictate the parameters.
Max Chopovsky: 30:19
I mean, that's exactly how I felt when I had my video production company. I started it with these grandiose ideas of being this sought after creative house that would get to dictate the creative vision, and once we started signing clients like Google and Capital One, I was like, wow, look at this. And then over time I realized that a corporate video is a corporate video is a corporate video even if you're doing it for Capital One. And after a while it sort of dawned on me that I was beginning to lose my passion for the thing that I loved so much, which was video, because I basically was forced to count out to the lowest common denominator and the word that I used to describe that is tragic, because if you are forced to do work for hire in the field that you're passionate about and you end up becoming just another sort of drone in that field, for me, for a long time, video became filmmaking, became a casualty of that, which really is tragic. It's wonderful that you did not lose your creative spark, that it wasn't beat out of you by all the ad agencies where, ironically, you were supposed to leverage it.
Adam Rubin: 31:41
Well, it's dangerous to do what you love for a living. It's when it works out, it's the best possible scenario, and I have friends like that, lots of friends that do what they love, and people pay them to do it and they just they're living the dream. But I know many other people who, just like you, started with a great passion for something and then it, the light went out in their eyes. Now they just their industry hacks in whatever field, whatever their chosen field, and they found a new hobby and I think the lesson in there is that you have to make weird shit on the side, whatever it is you do. If you do video editing or you do Copywriting, you have to keep one foot outside of the office to Make things that make you happy, because that's the only way to really keep that Spark alive. You can do something else you could do. You could paint or sing, or, if you consider your Profession creative, I do think it is important to have creative pursuits outside of the office. Was that the role that comedy played for you when you were working it, you know the yeah, comedy and puzzles and magic and and Making video sketches and doing like freelance journalism, like I just I think it probably was evident to all my employers throughout my entire career but like it was never the most important thing in my life. I was there to do a job, they were paying me to be there and I was gonna do as as good of a job as I possibly could do, but I was not taking that work Home with me. I was not staying up late at night worrying about the pitch and in some ways I think that made me better at the job, because there was a very I would. I think clients could feel it and they like to work with me because they knew that I was there to help them and but it was, there was a greater entity. It was not like I was some cog in the wheel.
Max Chopovsky: 33:31
It was like I'm here to provide what I can for you in this context and, if you let me, we'll make something great you know that was kind of the attitude I had, which is Potentially off-putting, but most clients seem to to appreciate it and I think crucially, your identity was not tied up in the thing you were creating at work, which allowed you to, you know, kind of not be crushed if a client said well, we don't like that.
Adam Rubin: 33:58
Yeah, and it that's a tricky thing, becoming wrapped up in the your job description. It's such a common Question to be asked the very first time you meet somebody what do you do? And to give them that one word answer that puts you in a little box so they can better understand who you are as a person from then on. And I don't like that, that so much, especially because I'm not sure how to answer the question. Am I a writer? Am I a performer? Am I an inventor? I don't really know. Maybe I don't want to answer them because I don't want to have to answer it for myself, but just in general, wouldn't it be nicer to ask somebody what do you like to do for fun, the very first time you meet them, when you know nothing about them, and say what do you like to do for fun? Because if they say I like to watch TV and go to the Gym, they're probably not that fun. No offense to anybody who would give those two answers, but Maybe just for me personally, when somebody says what do you, I say what do you do for fun? This? I go to the gym. I'm like man, I must be doing it wrong because I am not having fun if I'm at the gym. So what's your answer to that when they say, well, what do you like to do for fun? There's a million answers for me. The thing I I'm thinking about most right now, because I'm sitting by the window and it's autumn in New York is I love to walk around and look at the trees. I Love to walk around and look at the trees, especially in Brooklyn in New York. There's so many beautiful trees. There's a lot of London Plain trees and ginkos and and Thornless honey locusts and stuff, but there's also, like Eastern red buds and and Quanzan cherry trees and plum trees and you can find these just beautiful trees that Explode with color around these time this time of year and see there the way they they drop the leaves on the ground and the way that they'll just create these beautiful colorful canopies over the streets. So that's Currently, at this time of year, one of the things I like to do for fun, which, again, if you know that about me, it tells you a little more than what the IRS you know. When I'm reporting to the IRS, I think totally and Not to hate on people that maybe they are really into some you know shows on TV and maybe they just like to live at the gym. So no hating on those people. No, hey, no hating. I have good friends who would say, give one of those answers probably. But I think you can tell when it's when somebody really has to think about it, like when was the last time they had fun? You know that's good for them to think about too. It's good to it's good to have fun. I think even as an adult, I think it's important to have fun.
Max Chopovsky: 36:26
Well, I think that's one of the premises to everything you've done, which is Don't lose the sense of wonder that you naturally have as a kid, and don't forget to have a little fun as an adult, it is hilarious.
Adam Rubin: 36:39
Look, it's. It's schools fault. I Don't get to say this when I'm at at the school which I, when I visit schools, I Bite my tongue a little bit. But it's the school's fault. The kids don't have fun anymore. I see this illustrated really vividly when I give a presentation at any any school public school, private school, montessori school, like Kips or whatever they. I mean, like any school. I say who here likes to draw? And for whatever reason, every school in the world. When they have an assembly, they put all the kids in the gym, they put the youngest kids in the front, then the second grade, third grade, fourth grade and then all the way to the back. I say who likes to draw? And every kid in the front row raises their hand and, like most of the kids in the second row and then third row, a few hands there and by the by the time he gets to the back, there's like one kid with their hand raised. So that means that love and that Fearlessness is present in all kids and we've seen it. If you have kids, or even if you've been around kids like Six, seven, five, six, seven years, these kids are fearless. Eight years old they. They're like I can do that. I can be a basketball, I can do, they can do anything. And so that means it's us, the grown-ups, the school system, the parents, tv. You know it's death by comparison. It's even when we don't mean to do it. You say to somebody oh, you're so good at drawing, and the kid that's next to them goes Well, shit, I guess I'm not good at drawing. And I'm not saying there shouldn't be gifted in talent programs, like I'm not saying like what was the Ray Bradbury story? Like Harrison Bergeron, what was that story? You know what I was? Like they put the shackles on that gleaming you know Superman to make him equal to everybody else. But I just think it is. There have to be ways where you can encourage people to do stuff that makes them happy, even if they're not good at it, even if they're not great at singing. If they love to sing like, yeah, go for it. You know, go to karaoke night and rip it up. Like enthusiasm is half the battle. And I'm not a teacher, I don't have to be there every single day. I'm there for a couple hours at a time. I get to rile them up and then leave and not really face any of the consequences, but anything I can do to encourage them to express themselves and do the things that make them happy, to do the things that they like, without worrying about getting a million views or getting a good grade or getting praise from someone else all things that I am guilty of seeking myself. But if I can try to encourage them to just make stuff For no other reason than for their own satisfaction, then I will consider it a victory For sure it is.
Max Chopovsky: 39:17
For sure. Yeah, I mean, what happens when kids get older is there's a need for conformity and conformity and creativity are sort of at odds with each other.
Adam Rubin: 39:26
Yeah, you think it's conformity. You think they just want to be like everybody else.
Max Chopovsky: 39:30
I think that's a part of it. I mean, if everybody else is paying attention to the teacher and one kid is doodling, the kid who's doodling is the one who is not, who's out of place, right? I mean, that's one specific example, but I do feel like the arts are underrepresented because, at least historically, schools have not seen as obvious of a benefit to including, like an art rich curriculum, and that's a massive loss.
Adam Rubin: 40:01
I've been to like small schools, classrooms, 10 kids. They have the same teacher from kindergarten to sixth grade, which would be a nightmare for me. I don't think I could deal with that. But and you know, they sing. Everybody sings at the beginning of every class. I went to one place and they were like we will sing for you now, and it's a small group, it's like 12 people and me and they're just singing at me with harmonies and I don't know what I'm like. What do I do with my hands? What am I supposed to do in this situation? And there's some kid in the back of that class is like can't we just do a multiple choice test? Like I just want to do some math, so you can swing in the other direction too. It's an impossible task to educate the masses. I know that's too pessimistic, it's just we got to go back to the apprentice, master or mentor program. You know Khan Academy recently has been doing some interesting things with with AI and in a way that's using like the Socratic method. And there's this God, if I could remember it, it would. I would sound so smart right now. But there's this paradox essentially in education that says if you have one to one instruction, everybody does better. Obviously right, not a very surprising finding. But the thought between this I think they call it con me goes they can close that gap by providing both the teachers and the students with kind of one on one resources that help them to have that experience of having a tutor, but without just giving them the answer.
Max Chopovsky: 41:27
That is a big part of it is kids expect to have the answers handed to them and they don't like ambiguity, and so I think that actually is part of the reason that this is my theory that more kids don't go into the creative arts, because the creative arts requires sitting with the ambiguity and understanding that ambiguity is actually opportunity, not just a complete and terrifying lack of answers.
Adam Rubin: 41:52
Well, it's also just capitalism is our religion and we can't. If somebody says they want to be a painter, you're like no, no, no, no, you got to how you're going to pay for the things you're going to want to buy. There's an enormous amount of pressure in that regard, especially as you get towards the end of high school. You're 100% right.
Max Chopovsky: 42:11
I wrote a screenplay for a short film that I'm actually casting for right now, and it has to do with exactly that, and it's the struggle between parents and children around what the children want to pursue if it's at odds with what the parents believe the kids should be pursuing.
Adam Rubin: 42:26
Oh man, and that's such a. I'm not a parent, but I can imagine that struggle is never ending.
Max Chopovsky: 42:33
Never ending. It's not, because where do you mean? You, as the guy that comes into the class and reads to them and gets them riled up, can you know? Even at the pep rally can sort of leave when everybody's clapping and they're all excited hey, we can do anything. This is amazing. Let's get more hands up, even in the back row, and then you leave and they get back to class and they're like okay, hope you guys had fun. Now let's talk about math homework.
Adam Rubin: 42:56
Yeah, because state testing is coming up and we need funding for this district, correct? Yeah, it's no joke. I don't realize what a privileged position I have to come in and be uncle fun and then leave. I don't have to get them to take their medicine, but I think that's important too, for sure it's God's work.
Max Chopovsky: 43:18
Man, you got to keep doing it.
Adam Rubin: 43:20
I see it now because I've been doing these books the last few years where I asked kids to write me stories, to write stories and send them to me. And I've gotten to meet a couple of those authors around the country and I can see, and the parents have told me and the teachers have told me, that it does make a big difference when they feel like there is an opportunity or an invitation to create something or make something, because and it's an open-ended opportunity, which is always a challenge and one of the big challenges for adults too when you say, all right, I want to have a hobby outside, I want to have a creative project outside of work, and then you stare at this blank page, like well, what the hell am I going to do? Like well, but what you know? What should I do? That can be equally paralyzing as the client's demands or the constructs of your job, but it's worth figuring out, it's worth putting something down and just going with that for a while until something else comes along, because the happiest people I know are the ones that make stuff they love, even if they're not good at it, even if nobody else likes it. They got a closet full of paintings They'll never show anybody and they're thrilled about it.
Max Chopovsky: 44:34
Yeah, well as the Rick Rubin would tell you you got to put out a show, you got to show those paintings to the world.
Adam Rubin: 44:41
Yeah, I'm of two minds about that. Whether you got a show ever made, I mean yeah, I don't know. That is the necessity. I think if you want to be great, you have to show, you have to show people and you have to get feedback and you have to grow that way. But look at Emily Dickinson she never showed anybody and she was great. So I don't know if she'd be mortified, maybe that we know about her or read any of the things that she wrote. But there's probably some mental health issues going on in there too.
Max Chopovsky: 45:07
Yeah, so let's go back to the story with Tamice for a few minutes.
Adam Rubin: 45:13
Yeah, so I think we're going to go back to the way, a Puerto Rican sort of truncation of Artemis the God of War, the goddess of hunt Sorry, not the God of War. Athena, I think, was the guy, but Artemis the goddess of the hunt and wilderness. Her father took Artemis and changed it to Tamice. Well, she certainly lived up to that name when she stood in the door. I don't think so. She's loosing some arrows straight into my heart.
Max Chopovsky: 45:40
That's exactly right, didn't even take some, which is one. So if you think back to that story, what would you say is the moral of that story?
Adam Rubin: 45:48
I think the moral of the story is it never hurts to ask. It never hurts to ask and I've given this advice to people professionally, personally If you ask nicely, with humility, very rarely does anybody get mad. If you need help with something, if you want to go to something, you're trying to get access to something or even just to connect with someone, it never hurts to ask, as long as you ask with kindness and humility. Yeah, worst they can say is now, that's it.
Max Chopovsky: 46:24
Now you write stories for a living. You also tell stories for a living through physical objects. What do great stories have in common?
Adam Rubin: 46:36
I think that all great stories have some element of surprise From the very beginning. I guess you could tell a great story and it's a cliche story like boy meets girl, which is what my story is right Boy meets girl, girl meets boy. They both live happily ever after. Maybe there's no surprise there, but it's in the details. Then the surprise is in details, even like every great rom-com you got to have, even though you know exactly where it's going. Maybe there has to be some surprise, but perhaps those aren't great stories. So I think I'm going to stick with my every great story. It has some element of surprise.
Max Chopovsky: 47:12
Do you feel like every story has to have a moral and if it, doesn't have a moral, is it still a good story?
Adam Rubin: 47:19
I think a moral is very subjective. I think, if most stories that are written with a specific moral in mind are didactic and hollow, that you could tell the same story to 100 people and every one of them will tell you it means something else. Look at Lolita, right, I mean you can look at the Bible. Hell, you can make a million interpretations from a single chunk of text. So my experience personally as a reader and a writer is that when you start trying to, when you want your audience to, you're trying to impart some sort of specific message or moral, or it's a fable, it's a window dressing for a sermon, yep yep, that's a good point.
Max Chopovsky: 48:06
So I know that you were influenced and inspired by books like Stray Gagnonia and the Giving Tree and I am wondering if you think of a couple of books that get storytelling really right, that just nail the art of storytelling.
Adam Rubin: 48:23
What would those books be? I would say one of my favorite books is the Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. I love that book. It is a Venn diagram of all the things that I really like too. So comic books and New York City and Magic Tricks, and it's just. I'm not going to throw homosexuality and the Holocaust in there just because I don't want to. I mean that is in the book but that's not necessarily. Those aren't necessarily my core areas of interest, but I do love that book. The characters are just so vivid and this tragic historical situation is so. It's told with such compassion but also with real consequence. So, and then the struggle of being gay at this time, and I mean the whole thing is just really beautiful and wonderful, great. I mean I don't have to tell you one of the Pulitzer Prize, so don't take my word for it All right, well, so last question, adam, if you could say one thing to your 20 year old self what would it be? I tend not to focus on my regrets, but I know there's like at least three moments in my life where I shouldn't have said or done something that I specifically did or said not with any sort of grave consequence, but just would have avoided a lot of awkwardness or disappointment for me or someone else, and none of them are springing to mind at this moment. That's good to hear. I saw this thread on Reddit recently and it's a sort of flippant answer, but I guess I would have said like by Apple stock.
Max Chopovsky: 50:01
I was waiting for something a little deeper than that, considering how thoughtful you are.
Adam Rubin: 50:05
To be honest, I don't have any great regrets. You know, I don't know what I would have told myself at 20 that would have changed my path. I think you'd run into that time travel conundrum and maybe I'm overthinking this where now all of a sudden you become obsessed with this thing. You know, I would probably just be like don't worry about it, dude, just keep. You know, have fun. That would be. You know, keep at it. But I wouldn't have needed to tell myself that at 20 because I was firmly believing in that idea at that time. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like the people that have a really quick answer to that probably have some real, specific moment of regret they would like to avoid.
Max Chopovsky: 50:53
That's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, you'd be surprised how many people's quick answer is just keep going.
Adam Rubin: 51:01
Just keep going, like you need encouragement, like they were. They were struggling at 20.
Max Chopovsky: 51:05
There's so much uncertainty when you're younger and there's so many things you don't have the answers for. And a lot of people are not okay with uncertainty because they don't know. They're not sure how it's all going to turn out. And that's why I think a lot of people say, yes, we have to set aside the grandfather paradox, but they say to themselves their past selves are. What they would say is hey, it's going to turn out okay.
Adam Rubin: 51:28
You know what I would tell myself now? I just thought of it. There was a recreation of Dr Hooker's impossibilities. That happened at the LA Magic History Conference and I didn't go and I really I wish I had gone to that. That was the inspiration for Bizarre Brooklyn. Actually, that trick, that performance that happened just around the corner here in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn Heights, by Dr Samuel Hooker and the apparatus and the whole thing was recreated. It's one of the best, most impenetrable secrets in magic and two guys figured out, got all the stuff and made it happen again and it lived up to all of the historical documentation and fool teller and David Blaine and David Copperfield all walked out of the room just flabbergasted. I didn't go for some stupid ass reason, who knows.
Max Chopovsky: 52:17
But you did ask to me to have coffee with you.
Adam Rubin: 52:20
I did ask to me to have coffee with me.
Max Chopovsky: 52:23
So I think, all in all, you won. Well, adam Rubin, that does it. My friend, bestselling author, magician, comedian and overall highly curious and playful individual.
Adam Rubin: 52:35
Thank you for being on the show man, Thanks for having me. Max, Thanks for the great questions. I hope all your listeners found a clear and resonant moral to this story Absolutely.
Max Chopovsky: 52:46
I'm sure they did. I think, by the time this airs, the Jack in the Box puzzle now a Kickstarter campaign that, by the way, has blown past the scope of $10,000 by something like 2400% will be live. So definitely check out the art play for that, and that will be it for this episode. For Showmelton More, head over to maspodorg. Find us on Apple Podcasts, spotify, wherever you get your podcast on. This was Moral of the Story. I'm Max Drupowski. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.