*This piece appears in [Volume Five](https://shop.gossamer.co/products/volume-five-flower) of our magazine.*

Outside of their flowering season, a brief period during New Zealand’s spring and summer months, mānuka trees are unspectacular. The trees
are low to the ground, with dark, reddish bark and long branches populated with small, almost sharp, arrowhead-shaped leaves. With the ability to grow and thrive in a wide range of soils, weathers, and altitudes, mānuka are often the first to regenerate on cleared land (inside their seed capsules are countless red seeds that catch easily in the wind), providing a nursery for other native species. It’s a hardy plant, one that doesn’t need or seek attention.

Except, during that flowering season. For those six to 12 weeks, the trees’ branches are pinpricked by thousands of white, sometimes pink, five-petalled flowers, upon which—or so New Zealand’s beekeepers hope, pray, and invest in—millions of bees will feed and then turn back to their hives to make some of the world’s trendiest and most expensive honey.

It all began in 1988. Early that year, the findings of a study conducted by Dr. Peter Molan, a British biochemist at the University of Waikato in the North Island, were published in an American journal of apiculture. Molan and his team had found that mānuka honey not only exhibited higher antibacterial characteristics than other honeys, but could also tackle bacteria through extraordinary (and as yet unidentified) means.

>Molan and his team had found that mānuka honey ... could tackle bacteria through extraordinary (and as yet unidentified) means.

For centuries, humans have known of and utilized honey’s antibacterial faculty—its ability to zap microbes through its acidity, a hyper-concentration of sugar, and the production of hydrogen peroxide. But what Molan had documented was something new. It was “non-peroxide activity”: a term that remained vague until 2008, when a group of German scientists found that the activity was in fact the work of *methygloxal*, a chemical compound more commonly known as MGO, and that the MGO was determined by another compound found within the mānuka plant itself: *dihydroxyacetone*, or DHA.

Even before this part of the mānuka mystery was solved, however, the honey already held a seductive sway. As recounted in Cliff Van Eaton’s Manuka:
*The Biography of an Extraordinary Honey*, in the late ’90s, Dr. Molan, together with a handful of medical professionals worldwide, began reinvigorating the use of honey in medicine through mānuka wound dressings. Though the early dressings were a sticky affair, the results were positive. Individuals who had been suffering from lingering injuries for years reportedly gained relief within a few weeks. One young man, Aaron Phipps—who would later become a paralympian—went on British television to recount how the mānuka honey applied to his amputated limbs and fingers had eased his pain and discomfort as nothing else had. Dr. Molan’s own brand of mānuka dressing—which has long since been approved for medical use by the FDA—was even sent to a clinic for pediatric burn victims in Iraq. It was the best publicity mānuka honey producers could have asked for because, as mānuka was making headlines as a miracle cure, the wellness movement was emerging and seeking precisely this kind of natural healing product.

By the mid 2010s, mānuka could be found in pharmacies, health food stores, and on beauty websites worldwide. Gwyneth Paltrow was, of course, an early adopter. Then it was Scarlett Johansson, who talked about smearing it on her face before the red carpet; then it was Laura Dern, who told the *New York Times* that she used it to cure her kids’ colds; and, then, unsurprisingly, it was Moon Juice’s Amanda Chantal Bacon, who revealed that she kept it on hand for cuts and burns. *Cosmo* wrote about it, as did *Elle* and *Women’s Health*. The buy-in for the good stuff was upwards of $130 per jar, but who cared? Here was a wholesome, natural product from a wholesome, natural place produced by wholesome, natural people that promised soft skin, healthy digestion, and relief from sores, burns, and wounds. That all but the latter were, and remain, unproven, did not stop the generation of mānuka masks, mānuka elixirs, and myriad other mānuka medleys that made their way through the blogosphere, into social media, and onto our podcasts.

Meanwhile, the national honey business in New Zealand boomed. Between 2000 and 2019, the number of commercial hives in the country skyrocketed from just above 300,000 to more than 920,000. In short order, the field got crowded and cramped and, sometimes, contaminated. Bee health suffered from competition for resources, fraud was rampant, landowners—particularly, Māori landowners in the far north—were exploited for their mānuka resources, and New Zealand beekeepers were forced to navigate a consumer phenomenon that almost no one could have anticipated.

>As mānuka was making headlines as a miracle cure, the wellness movement was emerging and seeking precisely this kind of natural healing product.

When I visit Natural New Zealand Honey (NNZH), a beekeeping business 45 minutes outside of Christchurch, the honey season is at its peak. During this time of summer, the company’s 16 permanent employees and seven seasonal workers will pull, on average, 50- to 60-hour work weeks, each laboring in their own way to get the company successfully through another harvest and to supply their domestic honey brand, Foothills, with inventory for the next 12 months. It is a dawn-till-dark kind of operation during which NNZH’s founder and owner, James Malcolm, sleeps in a small shed behind the company’s warehouses for half the week. 

“This is a pretty high-risk industry,” Malcolm says, speaking over coffee, a couple of tubs of honey, and a handful of errant bees. All beekeepers get, he explains, is one season: one season to pay off an entire year’s worth of operational costs. “It’s risk and reward,” he says. “It’s like gambling. I hate gambling. But I somehow got into beekeeping.” 

Malcolm is exactly the beekeeper you’d like to imagine when buying a tub of mānuka halfway across the world: young, sunned, mustached, with just a sprinkling of white in his dark hair serving as evidence of the real stress of running a beekeeping enterprise. Though only 32, Malcolm has been a commercial beekeeper for 11 years and has been involved in beekeeping for 13. To produce the honey that his company sells, he manages 4,500 hives throughout 300 bee sites by means of relationships and partnerships with 220 landowners—20 of which provide Malcolm’s bees with the nectar of densely packed mānuka groves. 

That mānuka honey specifically has become the leading factor in making honey one of New Zealand’s fastest-growing exports—from $97.6 million NZD in 2010 to $348 million in 2018—is an incredible, and often fraught, example of capitalistic irony. 

Mānuka, also known as *Leptospermum scoparium*, or tea tree, is thought to have originated in Australia but is now the most widespread, indigenous shrub species in New Zealand. When European settlers arrived in New Zealand in the early 19th century, however, they saw mānuka as little more than a weed. The standard practice for ranchers and farmers was to clear the tree off their properties in order to make way for plants that their livestock could eat, or that they could sell. Māori culture had, however, long known of and used mānuka for its curative powers, with the tree holding a place in Rongoā Māori, or traditional Māori medicine. Mānuka, the Māori word for the tea tree, served as treatment for urinary tract infections, the common cold, flu-like symptoms, burns, and fevers. It was also used as everything from a sedative to mouthwash. 

>It was through the church—who liked bees as much for their honey as for the wax they produced for candles—that the practice of beekeeping spread.

And yet, before the European settlers arrived, mānuka had never been a source for honey. In fact, no New Zealand plant had. Though New Zealand is home to 28 different species of native bees, none live in colonies or tend honeycombs. European honeybees arrived with the Europeans, and it was through the church—who liked bees as much for their honey as for the wax they produced for candles—that the practice of beekeeping spread, both among settlers and Māori communities. By the mid-1800s, honeybees were buzzing all around New Zealand, and the country’s first commercial beekeepers were beginning to hawk their wares. 

Of the first honeys sold, mānuka was far from a fast favorite. Unlike other honeys, mānuka is difficult to extract from its comb and, once extracted, its flavoring is nothing like that of the honeys Europeans were used to. It is strong, a bit bitter, and unapologetic about its acidity. (In the New Zealand Honey Sensory Profiles sheet, it is described as having a fragrance of “catmint and heather, with a mineral, slightly bitter and barley sugar flavor.”) As a result, in the early days of honey production in New Zealand and until recently, mānuka was sold cheap, blended together with other honeys, like the native rawarewa, as a “bush blend,” or else used as feed for the bees in off-seasons. 

Today, an eight-ounce jar of mānuka can fetch anywhere between $25 and $1,200, depending on the purity of the product. There are several different grading systems for measuring the “mānukaness” of the honey—with the price increasing exponentially alongside the honey’s MGO content. Of the grading systems, MGO is the most commonly used and is displayed (typically) as a number between 83+ and 1000+; then there is Unique Mānuka Factor, a trademark of the Unique Mānuka Factor Honey Association, which is (typically) a number between 5 and 26; but there is also K-Factor and Molan Gold Standard (or MGS) and Bio Active. “That is the disadvantage of the product,” says Malcolm. “There’s so much segregation and so many brands out there and so many people trying to make all these claims about different health benefits and different scales of how they’re measuring the [MGO] in the honey. It’s so misleading for the consumer, and it’s just tarnishing the brand.” 

Beekeeping—like any farming industry—can be a brutal business, and when hives are infected with the notorious varroa parasite or affected by American Foulbrood disease, or simply too hot, the carnage can be sobering. But this year, for many honey producers across New Zealand, tensions and emotions are particularly high. There is talk that the mānuka market is on a downward trend. The past few seasons have been tough— with the summer of 2016–2017 clocking in as the worst in ten years—and the industry has been plagued by drama.

Following a peak in mānuka prices during the 2015–2016 season (and perhaps prompted by the abysmal following summer), honey-related offenses skyrocketed, particularly in the north. Hives were ransacked, bees were poisoned, and properties were vandalized. By one account, the number of honey crimes in a six-month period in 2017 numbered 400. Then, in late 2017, the country’s Ministry of Primary Industry (MPI)—a governmental body that oversees various agricultural sectors, including food production—announced that they had finalized an updated definition for mānuka honey and released a range of new export rules in order to prevent blending or adulterating. (Honey is one of the most adulterated foods in the world.) In response, a coalition of beekeepers took the MPI to court, claiming that the definition could cost the industry upwards of $63 million a year. 

The conflict extended internationally, as well. In 2014, in a story titled “The Great Manuka Honey Swindle,” the UK magazine *The Grocer* reported that the majority of exported mānuka-labeled honey lacked the special non-peroxide marker. A couple of years before, it was reported that, though 1,700 tons of mānuka honey were produced per year in ’New Zealand (comprising nearly all of the world’s supply), the global number sold was nearer 10,000 tons. 

>By one account, the number of honey crimes in a six-month period in 2017 numbered 400.

Meanwhile, across the Tasman Sea, Australian beekeepers had taken to marketing the honey produced from their own native *Leptospermum scoparium*—once called Jelly Bush—as mānuka. In response, in December of 2017, the Mānuka Honey Appellation Society sent an application to the UK Trade Mark Registry seeking a certification trademark and, in December of 2017, the registry approved the request. (In her decision, the hearing officer stated that, as the word “mānuka” was of Māori origin, mānuka honey could only refer to New Zealand’s *Leptospermum scoparium* honey exports.) The Australian Mānuka Honey Association challenged the ruling. In 2018, the Mānuka Honey Appellation Society submitted a second application and received a second positive response—this time from the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, who announced that mānuka honey was officially a proposed certification mark. 

The decisions were not only a commercial win for New Zealand beekeepers, but a cultural one as well. “It really is about the name of mānuka. The honey, we’ve known it as mānuka for forever and a day,” Eugene Hunia, co-owner of Whenua Honey, tells me over the phone, before adding: “The name itself is endemic to New Zealand, and that’s what they’re trying to protect.” Hunia and his wife, Laney, own Whenua (which means “of the land” in Māori), whose hives are spread across the picturesque East Cape of the North Island. 

Whenua Honey is part of a larger movement of Māori-owned honey producers that are working both to establish more transparent relationships with Māori landowners in the north, and to bring jobs and expertise into those same regions. “I think landowners are more aware now of what the honey’s worth,” says Laney, “but for many, many years—and my grandfather was one of these people—[landowners] had hives on their land and they were given a jar of honey or a couple jars of honey every time the beekeeper came and harvested.” 

Whenua operates as a collective, with established profit-sharing contracts and knowledge exchange, and one of their objectives is, Laney explains, “how can we give back to local farmers so that, if they wanted to, they could be beekeepers themselves.” She adds: "It’s just that old model of, how can we help one another here: to strengthen our relationship, and our relationship to the land, and our relationship to our whanau [family].” 

While the result of this year’s harvest is still undetermined, the tenuousness of the market is felt throughout the industry. Up north, boom-time beekeepers have gone bust, abandoning their hives; even the honey giant Comvita has recently, due to cost, been forced to close down one of their major operational centers. 

>Up north, boom-time beekeepers have gone bust, abandoning their hives.

Despite current uncertainties, Dr. Peter Dearden, who has spent 18 years researching honeybees and leads the Future Bees Programme and Genomics Aotearoa, both funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, thinks that mānuka can serve as an example of how to design the success of a high-value, high-quality product. “The story of mānuka really comes about through investment in science,” he explains, “and I think that is what I would like to see the industry and/or the government doing.” 

But Dearden, like many others I spoke to, sees the need to adapt: as recent years have shown, mānuka’s future is as unpredictable as mānuka’s past. “I guarantee there are other monofloral honeys from New Zealand flowers that will produce really interesting chemicals,” he says. “However, it takes a long time to turn that information into sellable product or something that’s actually useful. Still, I think it’s absolutely vital that we do that.” 

In a small room off of one of NNZH’s storage sheds, honey boxes sit between 89.8 and 96.8 degrees, warming and waiting for their turn to be extracted. Malcolm sticks his finger into the fresh, warm comb and tastes a kāmahi honey. I follow suit. In its warmth, the honey is semi-transparent and pale, the color of watered-down pancake batter or fresh cream, and silky sweet. Next, we take a dip out of a mānuka comb. The honey is dark, also semi-transparent at this heat but more complicated than the kāmahi. The satisfaction isn’t as immediate, and the sweetness, not as sweet. 

[[1]]

Mānuka honey's dramatic and turbulent rise to fame.

Manuka Web header-1

Manuka Web header-2

The Honey Chronicles

*This Conversation appears in the newest print volume of Gossamer which will be out in a few weeks. [Pre-order your copy here](https://shop.gossamer.co/products/volume-five-flower).*

I don’t love talking about myself. I’m okay doing it, but I always feel the tinge of missing humility. I understand that people would be interested because of my situation, because I’m a known quantity. Interviews don’t just happen, you know? Usually there’s a focus to it and a thing you’ve been out there selling or whatever. It would be a lie to say that you don’t feel some sort of sense of responsibility to perform. I always feel like I have the regret of having to sell myself to someone. I’m always like, “I’m so sorry you have to sit through this.” 

My parents were performers. My dad was really young when he had me, and I have memories of him in med school, but before that he and my mom were in a band that would tour the Catskills. It was vaudeville. They would play Kutshers and places like that. My dad would be on piano and my mom would be lying on top of it, singing. 

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 3981chair](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/4eMVJN26mxcS0gJqfWFMNl/051ca977a64a65ea394ee33f1dc8046a/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_3981chair.jpeg)
>My dad would be on piano and my mom would be lying on top of it, singing.

High school was ’90s suburban New Jersey, so a lot of Phish, a lot of Dead. I was in bands and just all into music. But my high school had this TV studio and as soon as I found that, it was like, “Okay, this is what I’m supposed to do.” 

There was this thing called the morning announcements—*AM Wired* was the actual name—and I felt like it was an outlet to do comedy. There was no one to cast, so I had to perform my own stuff. At the time, I was super into *Saturday Night Live* and *Kids in the Hall* and all that stuff that you would watch on Comedy Central when you stayed home from school. 

But the best thing about high school was that I met my wife there. We weren’t together for a while, but when we both moved back to New York, it just happened very quickly. We had such a history together. It’s really cool. It’s really romantic. 

[[1]]

I spent two years at the University of Arizona, where I was really good at getting fucked up. I cut it short because I was like, “I see what I am, and I’m not this.” So I came back to New York and started at the New School and the Actors Studio. I was happy because it gave me an outlet, but I also realized I needed to be where comedy was happening. I think I was ready to take a shot. 

I knew the Upright Citizens Brigade from their show, so I sought them out. I don’t even think I was 20. I was interning and taking classes at the old space. I don’t think I’ve been into anything as much as I was into that. I was pretty much there seven nights a week. I just wanted to be part of it. 

After going for eight months to just see it, my first official UCB class was in November 2002. I was so scared. There will be a book written about the early years of UCB. I was part of the scene, but probably part of the last waves of the original scene. I feel lucky to even have just been in it.

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 3963](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/7xTrhTrt01UKUFh9KPA7VB/9c89e1d524cfa5510dd25a64ac8eaaae/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_3963.jpg)

At the time, a lot of the casting agents for commercials and stuff would go to UCB on a Tuesday night and see you perform and ask you to audition. I started doing that and booked a few commercials. I played the physical embodiment of one of the seven deadly sins, Sloth, in a Verizon ad. I was in a Staples ad with a cat. Some other regional stuff here and there. Then I was the face of Twix for a year. 

That let me pay my rent. It let me eat. It meant that I didn’t need to get a job. I didn’t have to do anything other than that, which, thank god, because I can’t do anything. I literally have no skills. I could be at a comedy theater all night, and sleep for a little bit during the day, and go to an audition. 

I eventually made a short film with two of my friends who I had moved in with—Dan Gregor and Doug Mand—and Ellie Kemper, another friend of mine. It got picked up by a bunch of agencies, and then they flew us out to Los Angeles to try to sign us. We ended up selling it to ABC. Once that was sold, it was like I was in the pipeline.

>I’ve essentially created a business that revolves around me and that cannot be healthy all of the time. 

My wife and I were in L.A. for 10 years. We moved back two years ago. I was going to do a play, and my parents were getting older, and we have kids, and our siblings were having kids. I was spending less and less time in Los Angeles proper because of work. We felt like if we didn’t do it then, we would never do it. So we just kind of jumped at it.

I prefer living in New York. I love L.A. The weather, the ease. I think the people are great. I really love it. But I do better here as a person. I’m better when I’m one step removed from thinking about myself every day, or every second of the day. I’ve essentially created a business that revolves around me and that cannot be healthy all of the time. 

New York is super anonymous. I feel like I thrive on that. I thrive on being able to go downstairs and just be like one of the people. And New York even makes me feel bad for thinking that I need that! New York would be like, “Who? Who the fuck are you?” It’s not that people make a fuss out of me; it’s more other people making a fuss of themselves that I get caught up in. 

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 3874wine](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/4x2tBKH2Y2CGxpYu4fW9e7/a2081df7645b74d080dc074e7cc4131c/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_3874wine.jpeg)

I have so many bad tattoos, I’m practically a chef. I honestly don’t remember how many I have. I have a lot, and they’re not great. But I like them. I got my first one when I was 17 in the East Village. It was my Hebrew name, which I also share with my grandfather who I never met. I was in a Jewish pride phase at the time. It’s big and bold, so it looks like I was in a Tel Aviv prison and was the property of some guy named Asa. 

My wife has a couple. She has our kids all over her body. We like getting them together; getting scarred up for the rest of your life is a fun bonding experience. It’s the rush of it. Then we go out for a big dinner and get wasted. 

This time in your life, when you’re married with children, you don’t really have much for yourself. You’re not “building a family”; you have a family. Everything is there. We’re working hard to find some stuff for us. The rest of our life has been overrun with kids and friends and parents and siblings, obligations, a mortgage, bills. 

>I have so many bad tattoos, I’m practically a chef.

My cannabis habits have also changed immensely. They keep changing. The other day my son made me remove all the vape pens from the house. He was like, “I don’t like it.” He’s eight. He saw an ad, or someone said something. I’m sure they’re doing “Don’t Vape” ads in school, and he put two and two together that the thing plugged next to dad’s bed is not the extra computer charger I told him it was. So I was like, “Okay. I don’t care. Throw them out.” But obviously, I didn’t throw them out because I needed to live. 

I started smoking young. I think 11, maybe 12. Way pre-bar mitzvah. I know that by the time I got to the bar mitzvah, I was a vet. I had a cousin who taught me young, and I was kind of the gateway for a bunch of my friends. High school was the same. I feel like I found my vibe very young and liked it. This is better for me. It’s self-medication in the healthiest way. 

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 4163-1](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/1Xy93blzO1gfy7z02nQaBB/6915a19ef03b8a160b5a557661d234ae/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_4163-1.jpg)

I was arrested four years ago in New York. I had other drugs on me, but they stopped me for weed. When they stopped me, they were like, “Hand over that vape pen.” I was like, “No.” Handcuffs. 

I started crying instantly. I was like, “There goes everything.” I’ve been arrested for fighting, and I’ve been arrested for protesting, but I’d never been arrested for doing drugs. 

It hit the papers before I even got to jail. It’s not fun. But part of it, like anything, was a little freeing. 

Anything bad that happens in life, in your mind, you’ve already processed it, right? We’ve all lain awake at night and thought about a parent dying. We’ve all lain awake at night and thought about our spouse leaving us. We’ve all lain awake at night and thought about getting fired from a job. All those things have crossed our minds. So when something inevitably does happen, there’s a little bit of a freeing moment because you’re still alive. You’re still here. 

>When something inevitably does happen, there’s a little bit of a freeing moment because you’re still alive. You’re still here. 

The direct aftermath was miserable. Your name and picture are in the papers. It’s still one of the top things if you google me. I was being followed by TMZ, all that shit. In the distant aftermath, you get a little bit of perspective on it. You become stronger, because you start to go, “Well, I really didn’t do much wrong.” Not that I don’t take responsibility for drug use, but how many people among us can look at themselves and say they’ve never done drugs, or wanted to do drugs? 

On top of that, you go, “Well, so, I’ve been in the paper and online and everybody’s talked about me and formed their own opinions about who I am and what I am.” It hurt me because I was embarrassed, but I learned from it and I’m still here. It’s a little empowering. 

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 4131-1](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/2C9lNDQJuCqKqoaN2Q1R0l/6bc9a5293c35dd43ce42d8eb20e6cec0/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_4131-1.jpg)

And then there’s privilege. A large portion of my family is African-American, and while I can pretty much leave my house with cannabis every day, they can’t—or they’re nervous about it. I think about it all the time. It has to be part of the conversation. You can’t just legalize it without expunging, for example. In New York, you have to deal with Rikers before you legalize this stuff. 

My wife doesn’t want me to die from vaping, but she also knows that cannabis is part of my life and her life, so she’s basically like, “Figure it out.” So I’ve been going back to flower but, again, I live in New York, so I can’t just walk outside, and I can’t smoke in my apartment. It’s a little restricting. I go to the roof a lot. I have an indica jam I like for sleep, but I’m big on tinctures lately, too. 

I just went to [Sweet Flower](https://sweetflower.com/) for the first time because it opened right near my old house in L.A. I love new weed tech. I’ve been on these [Field Extracts](http://field.la/) disposable pens. They are amazing, but they’re so expensive. They’re like $75 a pop. 

I found the greatest vape of my life in Colorado: the [AiroPro](https://airovapor.com/). It’s solid steel, and I like the live resin cartridge system better than the STIIIZY, which is what I’m on now. It vibrates like Dosist, but it actually works as a warning for someone like me. When it buzzes, you’re like, Oh, shit, I went too far. The design is perfect, but it’s expensive and the cartridges are only available in Colorado so I obviously couldn’t keep it going. 

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 4042 1 VvPtest](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/5Xir6S3PMCOPPfpis43boc/31fa2ff92680350b0852357c2cc2b546/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_4042_1_VvPtest.jpeg)

I try to always be evened out. I don’t want to say that weed doesn’t affect me. It just feels non-humble to be like, “It doesn’t affect me like that.” 

I did an Off-Broadway play last year that had a huge amount of dialogue, and I was up there the whole time, like an hour and a half. I didn’t change my habits or anything, and people were like, “How are you doing that?” I feel more scrambled when I have a cold and I take an Advil Cold and Sinus than I do from smoking. 

I heard Seth Rogen talk about it one time in a way that I understood. If you couldn’t see, you’d put glasses on so that you can see things clearer. The world is so harsh, and for him, weed keeps it a little easier. I do identify with that quite a bit. 

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 4226](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/6Hr1Wp1dc5Z9Dc2JqHPDgt/9130b58fbd8a4af83c457629c17028b7/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_4226.jpg)

***

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. [Adam Pally](https://www.instagram.com/adam.pally/?hl=en) photographed by [Meredith Jenks](https://www.instagram.com/meredithjenks/?hl=en) at his home in Manhattan. If you like this Conversation, please feel free to share it with friends or enemies.*


Adam Pall on finding love young, the allure of weed tech, and surviving your greatest fears.

Pally Smoke

030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 4139-1 copy

![030220 GOSSAMER PALLY 3879](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/6AUGoKg4QUfmF5oJccC05U/39ba4de3ff1b011c0c6c9b6bcb7cd660/030220_GOSSAMER_PALLY_3879.jpg)
>The best thing about high school was that I met my wife there.

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The actor on finding love young, the allure of weed tech, and surviving your greatest fears.

Adam Pally

*This Conversation was wholly-produced during quarantine. Since we obviously couldn't send over a photographer, we asked Arpana to shoot some of her own.*

I’m a stoner, but I’m super high functioning. And I’m not the type that has to blaze before I go somewhere or do something. I don’t have that. I just enjoy it. The one thing I don’t do is wake and bake. Because then I have to bake all day to keep it up. So I just smoke in the evenings and have a good time.

I’m highly productive when high. I pretty much made [all my jewelry, all my work, on weed](http://www.arpanarayamajhi.com/). The one thing that I think I can’t do when I’m high is act. It shuts me down.

![ArpanaRayamajhiNecklace2](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/2KE2d7Azawsat05osrvBrv/9107902e3e51dc168706d5db88a4f350/ArpanaRayamajhiNecklace2.jpeg)

I was born and raised in Kathmandu, and Nepal is actually pretty famous for its weed and hashish. The last stop on the Hippie Trail in the 60s and 70s was Kathmandu. But I grew up in the post-War on Drugs era. I’m learning the history now and starting to put it all together. When I was growing up, marijuana and hash were considered drugs—they were not considered good. 

The first time I smoked weed, I was 16 years old, and I thought it was incredible. It was also the scariest thing ever. I thought I was going to die but then I didn’t, and that’s when I knew that it was amazing. Over the years, my relationship with it has changed from purely recreational to also understanding the medical benefits of it.

One of the most trying times for me was definitely when my mom was sick and going through chemotherapy—the side effects, the toll it took on her body, and the pain she would experience. At some point, I remember talking to her oncologist and I said, “I’m going to say something that might be controversial. Would you ever recommend that I give my mother medical marijuana?” He looked at me and he said, “I can never suggest that. I know people are doing it in the West and I think there are credible reasons, but I cannot suggest that to you. It’s illegal here and I cannot talk to you about it.” 

I remember feeling really desperate at that point to do anything and everything to make sure that my mom was not in a lot of pain. That’s when my relationship with the plant changed because I realized how powerful it was. 

> I was 20 the first time I left Nepal.

I was 20 the first time I left Nepal, but that was only for a visit. It was then that I learned about Cooper Union and its amazing history—and the fact that, if you get in, your tuition is free. The ethics and ideology behind it really resonated. But I couldn’t apply because I’d never had a formal education in art. 

I’d always made things and been creative on my own, but in Nepal, art is not a part of your high school curriculum. So I decided to go to Temple University in Philadelphia for a year. But as soon as I got there, I wanted to escape. I knew New York was where I had to be. I applied to Cooper a year later and fortunately, I got in.

But then my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It all happened within a single month. The entire world was taken from underneath my feet. I packed everything up, I told my boyfriend, “I have to go. I don’t know when I’m going to be back.” And I left.

[[1]]

My first few years in New York I was doing a lot of back and forth. I was doing one semester of school then going back home and taking care of my mom. The world is really small when you come from far away. She passed away eight years ago. 

Things were very, very different where I’m from. Life was very simple. It was nothing like the U.S.—or even Bangkok or Mumbai, for that matter. The only really big international corporation we had was Coca Cola. We still don’t have McDonald’s, which I think is incredible. In many aspects, Nepal has not been touched by capitalism. Things are changing a lot now, though. 

We didn’t have electricity for 18 hours most days. We had limited fuel, so cars would have to line up for days. Despite it all, Nepali people are probably some of the most resilient people in the world. We rarely complained. I mean, we complained, but we never broke out in violence. That’s one thing that I really appreciate and that I was unable to see when I was living there. The things that would frustrate me about my place in life were also the things that were saving us. 

![ArpanaRayamajhi Standing2.jpeg](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/7sVtMFMhBQ79OemRZaEa6o/4c7748dc750c32d5baeb5ca88d5c6bb2/ArpanaRayamajhi_Standing2.jpeg.jpeg)
> Nepali people are probably some of the most resilient people in the world.

Quarantine feels like nothing to me. I grew up in a time when my country was shut down regularly. Different parties would call for protests and demonstrations and nationwide lockdowns. My life and my upbringing have really prepared me for this time right now, which is funny.

My mother was an actor. She worked in TV and film. She even did a little bit of theater and radio. My father used to draw and paint, but that was not what he did professionally. We were a very average Nepali family, and yet very different. I say average in the sense that we definitely were not rich. Being an actor in Nepal, at least back in the day, meant that you did it for the love of art, because you had a community of artists trying to get together and make work.

Art was something that I was surrounded by, but when you’re a kid you don’t really understand it. I’d see my mom sitting right next to me, and then she would be on the television, and I never thought it was weird. I don’t think I even understood the value of growing up with the kind of family that I had until a few years ago. How different my life would have been had I just been born in a different family. It’s not about money. My mother was considered one of the best actors in Nepal at the time and yet she really was not making money. The men were getting paid a lot more though, as always. But that never stopped her. I do remember her struggles. I remember her talking about how hard she’d been working and how minimal the return was, but it never stopped her from doing it. 

I don’t really think I picked art. I think it was meant to happen. I feel like art—and other creative endeavors—are a calling. I don’t really think it’s something that we choose. I think we’re chosen. I don’t think art is about *you* at all. It’s your work, but you are the medium. That’s how I feel.

[[2]]
>Everything that I was making was deemed “decorative.” And I realized that “decorative” was considered a fairly pejorative term.

When you go to a school like Cooper Union in one of the biggest cities in the world, and you’re an international student from a place like Nepal with zero background in art, every reference goes over your head. I didn’t know any of the artists they talked about. What brought me there was that I wanted to be an artist, not that I knew the art world or the history of it—and I still feel like these two things can be very separate. Going to a school that was that heady and intellectual, being around people who were incredibly talented and who had the opportunity to go to art-specific high schools made me feel very insecure. It made me feel like I didn’t know anything. Everything that I was making was deemed “decorative.” And I realized that “decorative” was considered a fairly pejorative term, because the concept of, like, “high art” always looks like it came out of an industrial factory. I was struggling in so many ways. 

As a Nepali person with an F1 visa, who had moved all this way, my future as a painter was significantly more perilous than anything else I could choose. For international students, unless you get a full 9-to-5 job and a company to sponsor your work visa, you have a very, very difficult time. Once I was done with school, how would I get a visa?

I had to come up with something. I had to be clever, and I had to remind myself why I was even in art school in the first place, so I started making jewelry. I was making the most fucking “decorative” jewelry in the world, and I was showing it at Cooper. I was like, “Here it is. This is fucking decoration and decoration is art.”

[[3]]

I first [joined instagram](https://www.instagram.com/arpanarayamajhi/?hl=en) after I graduated because I realized that I didn’t have an audience anymore. When you’re in art school, you have a built-in community. So I decided to give social media a shot. I started putting my jewelry up purely because I wanted to share my work. I had no expectations whatsoever. I didn’t realize that you get addicted to likes, which I realized, like, five weeks later.

And then this incredible woman, Marjon Carlos, who used to work at *Vogue*, found my work on Instagram. She wrote to me and said, “I would love to feature your work in *Vogue*.” I was like, “What the...”

It was so weird. Of course, I said yes. But I didn’t actually think it was going to happen. People don’t understand. I’m from Nepal. *Vogue* is something that happens in an entirely different universe. It was a [small article](https://www.vogue.com/article/jewelry-nepal-cooper-union-global-style) and it meant so much to me, and to my friends back home. It gave me the encouragement I needed. I started making more work. And the more work I put out there, the more I was comfortable putting myself as a maker out there.

![ArpanaRayamajhi Hanging](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/LVQd816t3OB5ylKa1nKRN/ff4abd914ab54968d5fe6d23dd3b420f/ArpanaRayamajhi_Hanging.jpeg)
>I have always secretly had an audience in my mind.

I’ve always acted. I don’t mean that I act with people in real life—I don’t put on a different face. But my mom would talk about acting and how the complexity of being a person in real life and playing a role as an actor sometimes aren’t that different.

So I have always secretly had an audience in my mind. But I never considered acting professionally because it was so close to home. Then, a few years ago, I realized that if there’s one thing that I might know about without having ever fully immersed myself, it’s acting. My mom shared so much with me and while, at the time, I thought they were just conversations, her advice is ingrained in my memory. I sent my first audition tape two years ago, and I didn’t get the part. But it lit a fire under my ass, and I signed up for acting classes. An apple really doesn’t fall that far from the tree.

Ever since I was young, anytime someone met my sister or I, they would be like, “Are you going to be an actor like your mom when you grow up?” And I would always say no. But they made it seem like it was the normal thing to do. I was so young, I didn’t understand anything. I thought it was just a profession. But now that I’ve lived here, and I see that, like, Johnny Depp’s daughter is an actor, I’m like, *Oh, is acting a family business?* I think it’s kind of hilarious. For me, it’s really a way for me to honor my mother. I hope that through acting, I’ll get to know my mother as a person—as Sushila Rayamajhi and not just as my mom. 

![ArpanaRayamajhi Keyboard](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/h092K2xOoNIpRkutkKSX9/3eb521f138c79da392fd623c07c560fb/ArpanaRayamajhi_Keyboard.jpeg)

I would like to write and direct my own films as well. Have you seen *Jojo Rabbit*? It is incredible. The director—and writer and actor—Taika Waititi is a Māori New Zealander. And when I see a Māori New Zealander working in Hollywood, I feel incredibly inspired because there aren’t that many Nepali people in the West who are doing that kind of thing. When people say to me, “Well, what about Bollywood?” I’m like, “I’m not from India, and it doesn’t represent me.” You might look a certain way, but that’s not what representation is for me. 

When I see somebody like Taika Waititi, I’m like, *Oh my god, there’s a Māori guy, who’s like the minority of the minority, and I identify with people like him more.* Bjork, too. She’s from Iceland, this tiny little place, and doing something incredible. When I see them making films and writing stories, I feel like that’s what my future will be: writing and creating my own stories. Because the chances of someone from the West writing a story about a Nepali girl are very low.

![ArpanaRayamajhiSmiling](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/2pdNlwVNlzzoPlGOFdLWwc/345fa097122b23bf4fe00010be2e9e6c/ArpanaRayamajhiSmiling.jpeg)

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Follow Arpana on instagram [here](https://www.instagram.com/arpanarayamajhi/?hl=en). If you like this Conversation, please feel free to share it with friends or enemies.*


Arpana Rayamajhi, the Nepalese jewelry designer, on high art, the Hippie Trail, and people from small places doing big things.

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The Nepalese artist on high art, the Hippie Trail, and people from small places doing big things.


Arpana Rayamajhi

*This Conversation with Soko appears in the newest print volume of Gossamer which will be out in a few weeks. [Pre-order your copy here](https://shop.gossamer.co/products/volume-five-flower).*


I feel like if you grow up near the ocean, it’s impossible to live anywhere that you don’t see a body of water. I’m from a small town near Bordeaux, between the countryside and the seaside. It’s really, really beautiful. No matter how far I go in the world, I always feel like Bordeaux has the best beaches and the nicest water. 

I spent a little bit of time in Vancouver last year because I was shooting a movie there, and everywhere I looked, there were mountains and water and trees. I was working on a movie called *[Little Fish](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/04/little-fish-review-chad-hartigan-1202227523/)*, and it was my first time playing a musician in a movie, which is weird. I like doing roles that have nothing to do with my life, because I find it more rewarding and challenging. 

[[1]]

I use acting as an escape and to challenge myself in discovering—through a character, a story, and a director— parts of myself I wouldn’t otherwise get to explore. Each experience and each movie requires a bit of soul-searching and, in the end, makes me feel a little bit closer to myself, even if it’s something I didn’t necessarily like doing. If I have to play a soldier, or a character that’s more violent than I am in my life, I’m so relieved at the end of it. I really, really, really don’t like violence, and it makes me appreciate that I’m able to live my life the way I do. Living in someone else’s life for a moment gives me more context for the experience of my
own. 

I’m super obsessive. I have to wear red underwear or red socks or red shoes when I’m working—especially on music—because of that movie *[The Red Shoes](https://www.criterion.com/films/233-the-red-shoes)*. It’s a technicolor film from the ’40s about a ballerina. It’s about the struggle of artists, and how to balance being passionate, creative, and devoted to your work while also having a personal life. It’s tragic. It ends in tragic suicide. 

Wearing red shoes or red socks or red underwear reminds me that I have to focus fully on work and not to let any of my personal turmoil in. It’s a reminder to be the fullest version of myself. It also helps that red is my favorite color. 

[[2]]
>Now that I have a baby, everything is always a tornado. I’m constantly cleaning.

Ever since I was a kid, like 10 or so, I’ve always organized my closet by colors and patterns. Everything was always set up like a rainbow: from white, to yellow, to orange, all the way to black. Then all the stripes together, all the plaids, and all the florals. That’s been going on for a while. 

I’m a pretty neat person. I lived out of a suitcase for 12 years straight. I didn’t have a home. I had a storage unit in L.A., and I had friends that I would stay with there, or in New York or Paris. I was working so much that it was very hard for me to settle down in one place. And because I didn’t have a house for so long, the only thing I could control was my suitcase. It was very organized. I was always extremely helpful, constantly cleaning up after myself and them, making sure I didn’t leave any of my stuff in their way. I wanted to make myself as small as possible in their space—and as helpful as possible, so that they’d feel like it was a bonus to have me there, and not ... you know. 

I did that for 12 years! It was rough, but it definitely gave me a lot of freedom to not be attached to places and things. The minute I settled down and got myself a house, I was like, *Okay, I want this to be very organized and very neat and not messy*. Now that I have a baby, everything is always a tornado. I’m constantly cleaning. 

![Flower2](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/75FLKP974D4qY43pvhDIVo/a30f6a52e862b528e76b65e2ad366b2a/Flower2.jpg)

Acting came first for me; I started when I was 16. It was mostly doing extra work, with the occasional one-liner every now and then. It was a very slow build. There was no big reveal, or big lead in some super awesome movie. 

I started making music because I thought I needed more balance in my life and the ability to express myself more creatively. I wanted to be more independent and to have my own voice. I hadn’t yet been offered any parts that I felt were remotely close to what I felt I needed to say or explore, so I started to make my own things and share my own stories. Making music gave me a lot more strength and independence. It also had this snowball effect—it made my acting career more interesting. 

My baby is what gets me out of bed every day—at 5:30 a.m., if not earlier. Being a mother has been amazing. It’s also been nonstop craziness. I raise them with my partner. I use the pronoun “they.” When they were a baby, I felt weird saying he or she, because it doesn’t matter. 

![red](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/2AVaHpckZUEITqWl1xtUkh/0155b7600d6c9169078a3a95a682da36/red.jpg)

Before having them, I was a total workaholic. I love Mondays, and people are always like, “What, are you crazy?” But I love them! I get to make all the phone calls and be like, “Where are we with this? Where are we with that? When is this getting delivered? Has this been done? What can I do to move things forward?” I’m extremely proactive in that way. But when I’m not working, we go kayaking, we do baby dates, we go to the park. We go to the ocean. We eat delicious vegan food. We bake vegan cookies. 

Indigo has been vegan since they were born. I’ve been vegan since I was 19, and vegetarian since I was five. I don’t remember ever liking the taste or texture of meat. And then, when I was five, my father died. 

I think being aware of death and what our bodies become once they die just was a little more than I could handle as a kid. I wanted my dad’s body to be immaculate forever. I had these thoughts of digging up his grave and being able to kiss him, and say hi. And then someone told me, “He's going to be eaten by animals in his grave.” And I really didn’t want that to happen. They tried to make the point, “Well, you eat animals, so they eat us, too.” They thought it was a smart way to make me understand nature. But it had the opposite effect, because I was like, *Well, I’m not going to eat animals anymore so they don’t eat my dad*. And that was that. 

[[3]]

I started smoking weed when I was 28, which is terribly late for most people. I’d been sober forever. Now I’m sober again. I’ve never smoked cigarettes, and I don’t drink alcohol either. I did until I was 19. I started going out when I was 13, so I had a few years of partying a little too much. 

All my friends in L.A. knew that I was sober, and that I’d never tried weed. But it’s always been around me—it’s just so much a part of life in L.A., especially now that it’s legal. But it’s been extremely accepted for ages. One night, all my friends were vaping one of those old Volcano things, with the plastic bag. They kept passing it to me, joking that it was my turn. 

I had been having conversations about it with my best friend—I was staying with her at the time. She was like, “You should try weed for creativity. You have been stuck with your record, just try one puff, half a puff. Do it in a creative surrounding, somewhere you feel safe,  and have all your friends around you, and see if maybe that gives you a good experience.” 

And it did! It was really playful, and I felt extremely safe. When I did it, everyone was like, “What the fuck? You can’t do that. Soko! You’re sober!” I was like, “It’s fine.” I got extremely high. It was the best first time I could have ever hoped for, because 20 of my closest friends were there. 

[[4]]

I remember being drunk when I was younger, and not knowing how to get back home from the party and throwing up—all that shit. It was so dramatic and chaotic and I didn’t want my experience with weed to be anything like that. We laughed so much that I was like, *Okay, I get it, maybe I should try again, and this time I’ll write music.* So I smoked a tiny, tiny bit during my second album. I never smoked a whole joint to myself or anything, but one little puff every now and then. 

I had very few songs written when I started recording this album—purposely, because I always have such crazy demo-itis: I record my idea, then I beat myself up trying to nail it in the studio. This time around, I wanted to record that first rough idea of the song right away so that it would be more genuine and more vulnerable. I went in the studio wanting to be extremely present and completely dedicated to the record.

The album is called *[Feel Feelings](https://open.spotify.com/album/41KXF7xcvjRK4FC8OcFKoS?si=jwXOP8u_QWupXEwhMwIomg)*, and it really dives into all of them—the wanted, the unwanted, the shameful, the ones where you know you’re guilty. I wanted to write all the songs about all these feelings all at once. I was so focused, and I was surrounded by people that I loved so much. I didn’t have that imposter syndrome anymore. 

>Because I was smoking a bunch when I started recording it, I wanted the record itself to be high.

Because I was smoking a bunch when I started recording it, I wanted the record itself to be high. I wanted it to be super mellow and sexy and groovy, like floating-in space high. You can listen to it when you wake up in the morning, or when you go to bed, or when you’re driving in your car. It’s a mellow ride that has happy sounds, but very personal, vulnerable, and sad lyrics. 

I recorded most of the vocals while pretty high and I can definitely hear the difference. This is me being honest right here. I feel like it’s a deeper part of me. It feels very natural. It doesn’t feel like I’m trying too hard. I needed that disconnect to be able to have more freedom and not judge myself too much, or for it not to be too contrived. 

Putting myself 18 years forward, and how I’ll handle things like this with my child, if the feeling is, “I want to explore new stuff,” fair and good, but I would just want to make sure that they know not to abuse it and that they don’t do it as an escape from their reality. My wish for them would be that they are in tune with their reality and their emotions enough that they don’t feel like they have to escape. 

![Hands](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/4zJxtifmzKGV4evJHkH0y3/64a0c1f3e4d89875e99a571e0ff37cee/Hands.jpg)[[4]]

I started taking CBD long before I started smoking weed. I take CBD every time I fly because I get so much anxiety on the plane. It’s my go-to for sleeping and anxiety. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can hit a CBD pen to try to put myself back to sleep. I feel like it’s such a natural way to use the plant’s medicine that’s been given to us. We can still use it for all its benefits, but it doesn’t make us high. 

While recording *Feel Feelings*, I started drinking way too much coffee. I would start with two cold brews in the morning and then be super hyper, with tons of anxiety. I’d give myself the shakes and everything. I’d get to the studio, all hyped and pumped and ready to record, and then realize I needed to calm down in order to be on everyone else’s frequency. So I’d smoke one puff, then I’d be like, “I’m too sleepy and high, so I’m going to drink another coffee.” It just got a little bit too crazy, the ups and downs. 

My therapist was like, “You complain about your anxiety, but you take things every day that give you anxiety, like coffee and weed. You’ve got to get rid of those things first.” So I did. And I felt so much better.

![Street](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/26YU7Uz9frVslphNddUKNr/caacf8c87eb0db8c54d6d81112a58ecc/Street.jpg)

***

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. [Soko](https://www.instagram.com/sokothecat/?hl=en) photographed by [Cecy Young](https://www.instagram.com/cecyyoung/?hl=en) at the [Sinner Hotel](https://sinnerparis.com/en/) in Paris, with hair by [Julie Bennadji](https://www.instagram.com/juliebennadji/) and makeup by [Regine Bedot](https://www.instagram.com/reginebedot/?hl=en). If you like this Conversation, please feel free to share it with friends or enemies.*

Soko on coming to cannabis late in life, living out of a suitcase, and why a little red goes a long way.

Lying

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![HandsFace](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/3H0LSlNuLpuORLg4zZJzKO/494242831cbce42e4dfce43fc0e75874/HandsFace.jpg)

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Smoking

![LaughingBed](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/3UtaOkOCzWqGQqbVjFFs1U/476d543ed792454ea95e2cf8ac512eb8/LaughingBed.jpg)
>I started smoking weed when I was 28, which is terribly late for most people.

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The actress and musician on coming to cannabis late in life, living out of a suitcase, and why a little red goes a long way.

Soko

I’m quitting my job in approximately 30 minutes. 

Currently, I’m the VP of Content at Def Jam, but I’m putting in my two weeks notice to pursue my show, *[Throwing Fits](https://open.spotify.com/show/5clie0STNxfQBfonEd8Ubt?si=S5-4sO3VSYarx1D9QZlZNg)*, full time. I’m definitely going to take a pay cut, but my co-host, [Lawrence](https://www.instagram.com/sartoriallyinc/?hl=en), and I think that there’s real potential here—we just don’t know what that is. It’s taken us a while, but we are both finally dedicating ourselves to exploring what that unlocked potential looks like, and what the ceiling is. It’s gone from a fun side project to something with some real momentum. 

[[1]]

The podcast is ostensibly about men’s style. Basically Lawrence, myself, and a few other dudes who’ve gone from supporting roles to actual characters on the show sit down with a guest and shoot the shit for about three to four hours. The first part of the podcast is a segment that we call “Fuck With/Not Fuck With,” where we take general categories that people care about or that we care about and then parse out what they’re fucking with in that category, and what they’re not fucking with. So while the point of entry is typically men’s fashion, it really branches out because everyone has multiple interests. Very few people only care about one thing. We’ll talk about movies, music, politics, race, sneaker culture, etcetera. Lately it’s been a lot about quarantine activities, like how to stay sane, what people are eating, what they’re doing. Once you’re in, you realize the show isn’t about clothes, but more about what we call the “Millennial Male Zeitgeist.”

I shit out a bunch of random questions on a piece of paper without even thinking, just, given the opportunity, anything I would want to ask this person. Then it’s about creating a flow of conversation so that we don’t end up with any dead ends or dead time or anything. If we have them for four hours, we want them to let their guard down and have a fun time talking to us.

We joke that our listeners are like 14- or 15-year-old virgins that joined [our Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/throwingfits) with their parents’ credit cards, but in reality, we get the most random mix of listeners. It’s amazing. People from different countries, men, women, boys, girls. My girlfriend was just saying that she saw a coworker who she would have never thought would be a listener listening to the pod. So while we joke that it’s just teenage boys who only care about clothes, it’s more diverse than that.

[[2]]

Race relations has always been a topic that I’ve been interested in. It’s always been a topic that I’ve talked about with friends, but usually behind closed doors. Never really on social media, unless it was a moment, or a blatant callout or whatever. I think that separation, at least with the topic of racism and race relations in America, has come down. We always talk about race. Not usually extensively trying to dismantle or explore systemic racism, but we always knew it was a factor in everyday life, my life, Lawrence’s life, the guest’s life.

I like to use it as a way to make the guests uncomfortable. And I particularly find it funny when you make a white person uncomfortable, when they’re like, “Oh shit, what did I say?” Or, “No, that’s not what I meant!” To me that’s just my shits and giggles. But it’s also using humor as a way to keep it at the fore and not completely behind closed doors.

We’re interviewing Jonah Hill next week. Jonah is a god. I think I can probably count on one hand the male celebrities who care about and have clearly built and and developed, through trial and error, their own style in a way that isn’t forced, or all about conspicuous status symbols signaling wealth or following the prescribed trends. That’s also reflected in the recent career choices he’s made. He was famous from a really young age and he wanted to break away from that, and it just showed in his external appearance. He was very much just trying to be himself through experimentation. Lawrence and I took notice of that a few years ago, and we were always putting it on social media. We had a thing called “Jonah Hill Fit Watch.”

>We threw a party called ‘Jonah Hill Day.’ ... The tagline was, ‘A bad excuse for a good party.’

We kind of held him up as our hero because here was this guy who had the wherewithal and the means to do whatever he wanted, both stylistically and artistically. So we [threw a party](https://www.thecut.com/2018/07/jonah-hill-day-event-recap.html) called “Jonah Hill Day.” I don’t know why we came up with that name. The tagline was, “A bad excuse for a good party.” It was like, “Let’s just throw a ‘Jonah Hill Day’ party because if you fuck with Jonah Hill and his style, then you probably also love this music and this aesthetic and these movies and everything, and you’re probably not some over-the-top hypebeast fuck boy.”

It was a great day party. The turnout was amazing. We did it again the next year and Jonah showed up. Not only did he show up, but he got there, like, an hour early. He’s the nicest guy ever. It was so disarming. He refused to accept us gushing over him. He was like, “No, you guys, *this* is the cool thing. I’m not the cool thing. What you guys have done here, and the energy and just seeing all these happy faces, and people finding friends and enjoying themselves—this is what’s cool.”

For an hour or two, he spoke to literally every single person that came up to him, took every photo. Ever since then, he’s followed the pod’s trajectory on social media.  We’re always like, "Yo, Jonah come on the pod," and now, finally, during quarantine, it came together. 

![JamesGlasses](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/77rJPI2NeVIprR80GadnH2/bff87df8521130e62120658f4a2c90d8/JamesGlasses.jpg)

Lawrence and I met in 2010. I was an intern and he was an entry-level publicist at this company called BPMW, which stood for Brand Pimps Media Whores. It was very tough to explain that to my parents and grandmother at the time. But it was a company run by three women in Chelsea and they did PR, sales, and event production for a bunch of cool menswear brands that occupy the space between streetwear and formal ... not formal, but like “hashtag menswear.” Brands like Mark McNairy, Norse Projects, Penfield, Stussy. 

As the two youngest people at the small company, we became friends. We would go to lunch together, and because we were both super broke, we would have to cop Subway Footlongs for $5 and then save half for dinner. We started going to all these fashion events because it was cool to be invited, but also for the free food and drinks. We needed that to survive.

>We started going to all these fashion events because it was cool to be invited, but also for the free food and drinks. We needed that to survive.

It was during this time that this whole blogger group of menswear guys all became homies. It sounds dumb to say it, but it was this burgeoning, digital-meets-real-life collection of people. This was back when you’d be like, “Oh yeah, I know you from Tumblr.” 

That was our first foray into menswear. I went from there to *Complex*, where I joined the Style team. Lawrence bounced around a little bit and ended up at *Complex* right around the same time, where he launched Four Pins. He was Editor-in-Chief of *Four Pins* for four years. I started at the bottom and eventually became the Editor of *Complex Style*. We were covering the same thing.

This was when the whole rapper-fashion intersection was experiencing a new wave of enthusiasm. Kanye wearing Givenchy, ASAP Rocky sitting front row at fashion shows—stuff like that. So we were right there for that. Lawrence and I also had a friendship that was based on, let’s call it, roast culture. We’d spend part of the day making fun of each other’s outfits. Not seriously, just verbal sparring. Our bosses saw this, and at the time, Complex was trying to launch a bunch of video properties, so we started a show called *Fashion Bros*. 

![061620 JAMESHARRIS 0345](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/1lHZNKAoYaLBg4l5fYnoX0/86a01c3c7efe9ec9a3ce33f5d1485b92/061620_JAMESHARRIS_0345.jpg)

I’d like to think that we held up a mirror to the dysfunctionality and ridiculousness of the fashion world and men’s style, but that you could learn from it, too. We did absurdist sketches around all the latest controversies happening in the fashion world, or we’d dress up as the anthropomorphized Mr. Porter, or the Givenchy Shark with a heavy Italian-American accent. But because we weren’t getting any views with this weird but very fun sketch comedy show, we pivoted to just interviewing rappers.

We realized early on that nobody wants to hear the answer to, “What inspired your latest album?” Maybe the hardcore people do, but our thing became, “Let’s ask them how much weed they smoke in a day.” Because that’s the stuff we want to know. It was a lot of fun, but eventually we walked away from it because we weren’t getting paid to do it. We were like, “Yo, this is a lot of work. This is four hours of writing, four hours of filming. That’s eight hours a day. That’s a full work day and we’re not getting paid more for it.” It was crazy.

I stayed at *Complex*, but Lawrence went to *Grailed*. We started the podcast mainly as an excuse to hang out. We also both missed relating personal experiences to a wider audience. We called it *Failing Upwards*, because we started on the bottom rung and we bumbled and stumbled and fumbled our way slowly up the ladder to relative success. In January, we relaunched as *Throwing Fits*.

[[3]]

I’ve always liked making people laugh. I grew up in New York being the Asian kid amongst a lot of white kids, so it was probably more of a defense mechanism, or a way to fit in, than anything else. But whenever the mic turns on, or if I’m on a stage or something, I’ve just always enjoyed that. Working in entertainment was always an interest, but I just assumed I wasn’t funny enough or smart enough to actively pursue it.

I used to smoke a lot of weed in high school, like every day. I stopped in college because I was dating someone at the time who had a complicated relationship with drugs. And now, as an adult, I don’t actively seek it out. But I’m still very interested in the industry, the way the taxation and legalization of it has helped a lot of places and people. Even just the commuting of sentences. 

> Weak edibles are definitely my preferred vehicle right now.

I found myself getting more paranoid and anxious when I was high, but then my friend in L.A. gave me these edibles that were only two and a half or five milligrams. The culture out there is more advanced, and everything being standardized is great. To know exactly how much you’re consuming is super helpful. Weak edibles are definitely my preferred vehicle right now.

I wasn’t a believer in CBD until I tried [Dusk](https://www.gossamerdusk.com). [*Editor's note: No, we don’t pay people to say stuff like this, but we do love to hear it.*] I had trouble sleeping. I’d wake up in the middle of the night or super early and not be able to go back to bed or not be able to go to sleep early. Then I started taking Dusk, and would sleep seven solid hours every night, and wake up no problem. I was like, whoa, this is fire. CBD is definitely a very unregulated, wild, wild west market. But the real shit, at least, seems like it is helpful.

![061620 JAMESHARRIS 0319](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/4VD3AXEnft5irLbfPgaQic/99c586830407e3be006fa0e666b3173c/061620_JAMESHARRIS_0319.jpg)

I think L.A. is very nice to visit, but I would never want to live there. I think it would melt my brain. There’s just, like, Xanax in the air. The priorities there are all fucked. It’s a very superficial city. And the men’s style is pretty trash. But you do have some interesting things happening. 

A friend of mine in L.A. has this theory that the cultural pendulum swings between New York and L.A. every 10 years. I can’t deny that some of the best brands, best artists, and best creators have come out of L.A. for the last 10 years or so, mainly because of real estate. But I do think the juice is coming back to New York. Or was about to. You saw all these things bubbling in New York that were actually exciting, but now, with COVID, it’s just like, who knows? 

[[4]]
>Maybe it’s pie in the sky dreaming, but I hope when this is over people ask, ‘Well, what went wrong?’

It’s a tragedy. My friend [Foster](https://www.gossamer.co/articles/making-reservations) says 80% of restaurants in New York are done for. I tweeted something like, “Yo, if you chose to leave the city in its darkest hour, feel free not to come back.” I got some hate for it, but also a lot of love. There’s just been so much mediocrity in the city, especially in the upper echelons, and it was crowding out what’s always made New York—and any city—great: the artists, the creative people, the immigrants, the people coming here to hustle or make their dream happen in order to survive, not just live this life of Seamless and Ubers. 

It’s impossible to take risks here—it’s just too expensive. So now people come taking the relatively safe routes in life. That’s fine, you gotta come here with a plan, but the city is full of those people. It’s boring. It’s homogenous. The city has become this very privatized vehicle. The MTA’s fucking broke. For every skyscraper that goes up, that’s housing that isn’t affordable.  

Maybe it’s pie in the sky dreaming, but I hope when this is over people ask, “Well, what went wrong?” We’re not there yet, but you gotta hope.

![061620 JAMESHARRIS 0384](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/3mSXv5YYlctcYjxMckbE86/7fcbe59736616174ead06ea18b058d3f/061620_JAMESHARRIS_0384.jpg)

***

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. [James Harris](https://www.instagram.com/doctortaco/?hl=en) photographed by [Meredith Jenks](https://www.instagram.com/meredithjenks/?hl=en) in Brooklyn. If you like this Conversation, please feel free to share it with friends or enemies.*

Throwing Fits podcast host James Harris on quitting his day job, the power of weak edibles, and using humor to keep race top of mind.

061620 JAMESHARRIS 0119

Mobilemarq

JamesMarquee

JamesBandana

![061620 JAMESHARRIS 0441](//images.ctfassets.net/qal3w7tbm3rt/4cOn7FbDI3C0PynctXaQqO/b55a6d8f1f4a96f339e9a48df578b3e8/061620_JAMESHARRIS_0441.jpg)
>We realized early on that nobody wants to hear the answer to, ‘What inspired your latest album?’

061620 JAMESHARRIS 0406

061620 JAMESHARRIS 0292

The *Throwing Fits* co-creator on quitting his day job, the power of weak edibles, and using humor to keep race top of mind.

James Harris

Gossamer looks at the world—travel, design, art, culture, and food—through a green lens.

*This essay originally appeared in [Volume One](https://shop.gossamer.co/products/volume-i) of our print magazine. You can pick up the [latest volume here](https://shop.gossamer.co/products/volume-three-night) or at a [stockist](https://www.gossamer.co/stockists) near you. It also makes a great gift, so why not buy two? Hell, make it three.*


A few years ago, I began wearing the same color of clothing every day. It began as an
experiment (why not?) before quickly mellowing into a habit and calcifying into a routine. Once I built up a minimal stable of same-colored sweaters, pants, and shirts, I was able to deactivate the part of my brain that worried about what to buy and what to wear. I never enjoyed that part of my brain, anyway.

This is not a novel response to an overstimulating world. Discerning and consuming are exhausting. Throughout history, people have invented arbitrary constraints to shut out the din of too many choices. Soviet dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev upheld a blanket prohibition on reading magazines, watching television, or following politics. Artist Beatrice Wood wore the same thing every day for the last four decades of her life. Shutting out the din, in fact, can become its own kind of giddily obsessive game. Once I’d solved the problem of getting dressed, I looked around and wondered what else I could systematize. Should I eat the same thing for breakfast every day? Should I purge my cosmetics? If I erased every frivolous decision from my life, would I have more time to be a better human? 

Obviously the answer is no; I would be a fucking annoying human. At some point, self-regulation becomes its own demanding fetish. But somewhere between the same-colored clothing and the point of no return is a habit I’ve adopted that I can confidently recommend to the curious bystander. This practice is a gateway drug that requires no money and very little effort, yet it yields a noticeable aesthetic reward along with a mild existential one.

It is this: consider denuding your everyday products. Scrub off the labels and unpeel the stickers on your dish soap containers and shampoo bottles. Remove the Maybelline label from your mascara and the Mrs. Meyer’s from your cleaning spray. Make the vessels blank and generic. Lower the volume on commercial noise in your home. Treat labels like pop-up ads that have wandered into real life—bursts of distraction that you never asked for and don’t want. Get rid of them. Say goodbye.

In my case, the de-labeling crusade began not by compulsion but by accident. I bought a jar of coconut oil with a label that had started to come loose in one corner. Like any fidget-prone, rational person, I started picking at the edge. It came off. My coconut oil suddenly looked better, like it had come from Muji. With the label, it was a commodity. Without the label, it was just coconut oil. I de-labeled my hand soap next. And then the shampoo. Soaking them in hot water and soap did the trick; if there was any sticky glue left behind, a scrub of nail polish remover dissolved it.

I emptied my pills from their orange plastic bottles into an apple-shaped container that once housed hand lotion. (I ran it through the dishwasher.) I stocked up on 99-cent, generic spritz bottles and used them to store rubbing alcohol. I bought a gallon of Dr. Bronner’s and kept it under the sink, refilling a plain container in my shower with soap every month or two. (The Dr. Bronner’s label is a thing of beauty, but damn if it’s not noisy.) Inch by labeled inch, I erased each product’s origins.

The activity was relaxing in the way of all voluntary repetitive handwork. The bottles looked better naked. When my eyes settled on them, there was no information to process. I was no longer passively absorbing ad copy. I wasn’t renouncing the world of material goods, but at least I was minimizing their messages. What started as a lark became standard operating procedure. I felt a humble but palpable sliver of agency over my consumption habits, and I liked the way it felt.

Labels Green

How To Ad-Block Your Apartment

Open plan offices for new media companies, beautiful as they are, contain few physical pleasures.

There are no opaque phone rooms for naps or crying, just glass boxes with doors that don’t lock. No coffee pots, just a cumbersome robot that spits out diesel-scented “espresso,” and milk substitute. No room for a plant on your desk, which is more like designated space at a table.
 
The office I worked at in the summer of 2017, which was situated on two floors of the graveyard of Goldman Sachs, offered a few things worth having: narrow windows with views of the East River and the Stone Street meat restaurants, proximity to a neighbor’s helicopter pad, and an array of Fresh Direct-supplied snacks. La Croix in 10 flavors, single-serving discs of hummus and guacamole, pita chips of every stripe, slimey packages of hard-boiled eggs that came in pairs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, hundreds of dollars worth of cashews and almonds, apples and oranges and one or two rock-hard green pears, and, most importantly, Babybel cheese. I ate it every day.

I spent that summer thinking about a crush, and complaining about my job, which was to pay attention to Tumblr and *Game of Thrones*. I thank god that we are not all bloggers, and that we have not all spent time in Manhattan’s Financial District, but I imagine you still know what I am talking about: each day is the same. An iced coffee drips condensation next to your laptop, an idle conversation about going to the beach this weekend ends with no one making a plan, and a music video or two breaks up the hours by giving you something to tweet about. Mercifully, the day will end when the sun is still out, the way it doesn’t for three-fourths of the year. It’s not all bad.
 
Plus, Babybel cheese. After breakfast, but before lunch, the same little red wax guy. Originated in France, manufactured at a factory in South Dakota, one of an estimated 1.5 million wheels per day. Driven to a 30-story office building in lower Manhattan at five in the morning. You can pop them like pieces of gum while you stew in the the languid but fizzy energy of waiting for a day to end.

It’s the perfect snack. For staring into space and dreaming of never returning another email. For doing something, anything, with your hands, while you recite a fraught iMessage conversation from memory to whomever sits next to you. For swallowing a low-calorie placeholder in two bites and, synched with the crouch to the trash can, subtly dipping your chin to find out if you remembered to put on deodorant.

 
The red cellophane wrapper makes the whole package look like a Valentine. The Valentine weighs exactly 20 grams every time, which according to some reliable-enough internet resources, is the same as a mouse and twice as much as a human eye. The wax shell looks like something that’s been hatched out of and discarded in a weird place, as chilling as a cicada husk dropping into an open pitcher of sangria. You can warm it in your hand and make a tight, shiny ball. But it’ll leave a pink film on your skin, so why would you?

The experience is sensual, like the slow drag of a zipper that you’re opening mostly for effect. The wax resists. It’s basically alive. Then there’s a two-centimeter gasp of bright white, appearing like a not-yet-tan belly peeking out from the narrow, moving gap between jean shorts and crop top. It is pretty much as close as you will get to a strip tease in a work environment.

The experience is also a little bit gross. Like peeling anything is a little bit gross. Like the word “peeling,” which is gross. Depending on your mood: a little bit like in *Black Swan*, when Natalie Portman peels back a frayed strip of the skin around her cuticle until there’s a bright red bloody line all the way down her finger.

And then there’s the cheese itself, which, bitten into, looks like an orthodontist’s upper jaw mold, and tastes like nothing.

***

*Kaitlyn Tiffany is a writer living in Brooklyn. She co-authors a [weekly newsletter](https://famouspeople.substack.com/) about terrible parties.  *

GreenBabybel

Babybel

The first time I fell in love, we bonded in the early stages through phone Scrabble. “Scrabble back,” he’d text me, if a few hours passed without my next move. This was pre-Tinder, and our matches got heated. We eventually spent enough years together to re-download the app for a burst of nostalgia in our long-distance monogamy.

As our relationship wore on, Newtoy’s then-wildly popular Words with Friends became available on my Android, like the Snapchat app we’d use to sext. Then came Scramble with Friends (renamed Word Streak), which really spiced things up.

To me, word games will always be kind of romantic: a throwback to simpler times. They’re nerdy, but nobody really cares that much if you underperform. There’s space to slack, to try too hard, or to embarrass yourself only in front of a bot.

On Wikipedia, a website predicated on people volunteering to write and edit words, “word games” [are categorized by type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_game). There’s letter arrangement (Scrabble), puzzle (crossword), structured (Mad Libs), or linguistic recreations (spelling bees).

These games predate artificial intelligence by eons, well before Siri had all the answers and Merriam-Webster Dictionary started dragging people [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster).

Words, one of the most basic forms of communication, can be primal. Like puzzles—or a budding relationship—they can leave us vulnerable or confused. Choosing the right word could win you millions of dollars, grant you acceptance to a prestigious school, or earn you 10 whole seconds of glory on a dimly lit stage before a crowd of boozing spectators.

We may be post-truth, but a word well-played still brings people together. On a recent Galentine’s Day, I watched a group of grown adults in a Manhattan speakeasy compete in a spelling bee. “French from Latin,” the moderator read. I sipped my beer. “Can you please define the word?” Plot twist! In line for the restroom, I learned one very good contestant spoke only English and Portuguese, the latter not much help here. More were eliminated. No mercy was spared. Only one speller—who asked to hear a word in a sentence—behaved as a “douche,” at least according to the moderators.

For the same reason I go to estate sales, word games have retro appeal. They’re a haven from the noise, and from a president who does not open books. They’re a cerebral flex in a society that keeps telling me how to fix my face, company for a “lonely generation.”

If we match in a Scrabble game, thanks to some algorithm that connects people all around the globe, your choices tell me something about you. Maybe you learned a word from reading The Hobbit as a kid, which totally changed your life. Maybe you’re really into Shakespeare, or you’re a jackass who keeps making two-letter combinations until one finally sticks.

People separated by time or distance or language can play word games. True to form, most Americans are unwittingly more limited: notorious for only speaking English, and often afraid to look silly. It’s a humbling thing to admit that you can’t make a halfway decent play in a word game.  

Maybe you’re like my younger brother, who at age 10 won a round of Scattergories, the 30-year-old board game that includes pencils and paper in a box. For the category of “medicine” and the letter of “M,” he chose Midol, much to our mom’s and aunts’ delight. Obvious victor.

Maybe work is boring and unchallenging and you’ve been entertaining fantasies of quitting, but there’s some temporary spontaneity in the daily crossword—or whatever the frequency, depending your source.

In a culture that thrives on superficial connections, when your next lay can be only a few swipes away, word games can be intimate. An opponent’s assemblage of letters is suggestive, tells me something different than the 280-character tweet you spent an hour crafting and retooling.

On a recent early-morning bus ride to Manhattan from Philadelphia, I passed time by redownloading the word game apps I deleted forever ago. Delirious from little sleep, I felt slightly self-conscious and rusty playing against random players or bots. I remembered that I preferred Scrabble, because the virtual instructor would tell me if I chose the best possible word based on the tiles given. Uncertainty can be thrilling, until it’s not.

I drag the tiles: “F-I-R-E.”  Best word! “R-I-D-S.” Best word! An analog-looking, starry popup appears on my screen, a form of congratulations.

Is this as hard as it gets? Maybe I’m taking the easy way out. Or maybe, I still got it.

***

*[Natalie Daher](http://www.nataliedaher.com/) is a writer and journalist based in New York. She co-authors a newsletter, [Clipped](https://us16.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=469667a58e33374cf748297f7&id=4e1050af80), about women's media.*

Features

The Honey Chronicles

Adam Pally

Arpana Rayamajhi

Soko

James Harris

High Minded

How To Ad-Block Your Apartment

Babybel

Word Games

High Praise

Don't Judge A Book By Just Its Cover

Young, Dumb, And Fun

SeeBD

For people who also smoke weed.