Hi, Katie, Hi Brian. Well, today's episode everyone has a very fun origin story. It all started with Afternoon Chief but of course, which we do daily. Sure remember our series of London episodes back in June. Well, while we were there, we had to sneak away from work to have some finger sandwiches and a pot of tea, and we thought what better place to do with than at this amazing hotel called Clarridges, which has a very rich and storied history and an elegant tea by the way, and that's where we ran into today's guests, Simon Junan and Jonathan Adler. They were sitting, remember Ryan, right near us at another table, and I was so excited to see these fellow, our fellow Americans in the middle of Clarridges. I had met them both before, but we got reacquainted over scones and clotted cream and we decided, hey, why don't you come beyond our podcast? We just book everywhere we go anyway, Not to mention Katie, they're quite a style power couple. Simon has been called the world's most famous window dresser for years. He made the whimsical and witty window displays for Barneys, where he currently works as their creative Ambassador at large. I would love that job on that title. I just don't want the large part creative ambassador trim it's spelled anyway. Uh. Jonathan, meanwhile, is a potter turned house swears guru. He he's known for his namesake brand and the line of boutiques that he runs, which sell bold and modern home goods around the world. And Brian, we've been talking for some time about wanting to have some couples on the pod. What can I say, I'm romantic at heart, but they are a very cute couple and a very successful one. They seem to have a really happy dynamic and they've been together for many years. So today is our first time having a couple of guests together on the show. Before we get to our conversation with Simon and Jonathan, we have a quick announcement. Katie. You know what they say about best laid plans. Yes, they of mice and men. They often go awry that they do. Some of our listeners may recall that at the end of last week's episode, we mentioned our plans for a two part audio documentary series marking the tenure anniversary of Katie's interviews with Sarah Palin. Those docks are still in the works, ladies and gentlemen, but the series is going to start next week instead of this week because we're still fine tuning the episodes. We want them to really shine. What can I say, we're perfectionist people. We hope you like them. Well, we can eventually listen to them now. In the meantime, we're very excited to bring you this week's episode, the dynamic duo of Simon and Jonathan. So we thought we'd start by asking you about how you met. It was in it was on a blind date. So set the scene, Simon, you start, well, a friend of mine said to me, very en passant as a say you should mind, said you should go on a date with Jonathan Adler, And I thought, oh, yeah, that'd be fun. I vaguely knew who he was. We were already selling his ceramics at Barney's at the time, where I was working, and so a lot of people think Johnny kind of shagged his way into Barney's, but I'm here to tell you he didn't. We didn't. He didn't sleep his way to the top floor. That's pretty a way of saying it. And then so we made a date and and yeah, we made a blind date. And it's funny. The friend who set us up said to me, oh, you should date Simon Dounan. And at the time I was like a kind of bohemian clay spattered potter and Simon was miss Thing, fashion superstar juggernaut, and I thought, you know, this is not this is going to be an oil and water situation, Like I'm too gritty and crunchy and real and he's too miss things. Put to um. Now, twenty four years later, I can tell you the truth, which is that we did a complete bait and switch. I am totally like a little fancy pants miss Thing and Simon's actually quite crunchy and bohemian. So I think, like in many relationships, like the old bait and switch happened big time and you were, by the way, Simon a bit of a cougar. I can relate to that because you were forty two and Jonathan was twenty eight when you all met. Yeah, and the weird thing is we've never thought about it that much. The bigger difference was he was on rollerblades and covered in clay and carrying a backpack, and I was an executive vice president of creative services at Barney's. I had a corporate job, so that was a bigger difference in the age difference. And I remember us going out running and I could run faster than him. Stuff like that. That is ancient history that you hold on to, that, little buddy, You hold onto that. So Jonathan bothered you with a lot of direct questions. I read, yes, you sort of looked into your eyes and just started quizzing you. Um, definitely, like Johnny was asked me almost like an hr interview like so blah blah blah, and ask me questions and which you answered monosyllabic ly and just sat there. So of course I had no choice but to continue the interview. I'd be like, I'd be like, so, do you have any siblings, Like, yeah, I have a sister, yes, crickets, okay, Well, and then what's your who's your favorite cultural thing? Like, um, you know Johnny's background, Jewish, creative, you know his family. They don't stop talking my family. I don't remember them starting talking, you know, like it was that was very much a cultural thing. And I don't mean that in a critical way. In fact, you all both come from fairly unconventional families, and that's one of the things I think that brought you together. Very different unconventional families. But Jonathan described your family, You grew up in New Jersey. I grew up in New Jersey, but not New Jersey, New Jersey. I grew up in like a little tiny farmtown three hours outside of New York called Bridgeton. That's very um, kind of in the middle of nowhere, quite remote, rural but not picturesque. Um. And as I'm keeping it, I'm just keeping it one. I'm sorry Bridgeton, if you're listening. And yeah, my family was sort of Jewish intellectual. My mother like was living in New York and working for Vogue when she met my dad and they got married and he said, all right, darling, we're gonna go to my hometown. And so they were kind of fish out of water. Um, my whole family was. And yeah, my dad spent all of his life making art in the basement of our groovy modern house, and my mom is sort of a creative person. So it was a very strange and remote childhood. And I am you know, I was gay living in rural America, and one day I discovered pottery and that was that, and that kind of really was my refuge from rural America. What about your siblings, We're all the same. Actually, I have two older siblings, were both they got the brains in the family. They went to like Colombia and Yale, and they're both hyper intellectual. And my sister is a law professor at m i U. My brother's like an economist and an artist. So we're all freaks, yes. But speaking of freaks, we moved now to Simon's family and you called them the Adams family. You had this insane description of your childhood in the Rooming House. Can you give our audience some of that color. Well, I've written, I've sort of written a few books that have a lot of autobiographical material in them. And I guess I had a choice. I could have written it like a misery memoir, or I wrote it through the lens of humor, which I think psychologically is easier for me than you know, the painful bits. But basically, my parents were that generation that Tom Rocock called the great generation, right, they were the greatest, greatest, Like they left my mom left school at thirteen, my dad left school at fifteen, they joined the Royal Air Force subsequently, and at the end of the war they met in a soup kitchen because they both run away from homes. They both couldn't go home, so they met in a soup kitchen. They had me and my sister pretty quickly and we lived in a two room flat, no kitchen and bathroom. After the war, people didn't have anything. There was no reparation money coming to England, so it was like squalid. But my mother always says that was the most happiest time. And then um, but just to set the scene a little bit, your grandmother who had had a lobotomy, lived on the bottom floor. Well, no, you're jumping ahead, right, that's the right juncture because we lived in this very small attic. And then my grandmother who had had a lobotomy, came out of the institution and she had some cash how enough to buy this rambling old house and we all moved in there and it became a sort of rooming house for our various relatives and lodges, and that's where I spent most of my childhood. Schizophrenic uncle Ken lived on the second floor. There was a lot of mental illness. My grandfather had committed suicide. My uncle commits suicide like a lot of alcoholism, mental illness. I mean, it actually does sound a bit like the Island of Misfit Toys. On the other hand, it's a very serious thing that you were surrounded by people who had these issues, and I'm curious how you were able, Simon to just kind of stay focused and and emerged for work. Yeah. Well, I I give my parents a lot of credit for that. They had very strong personalities. They're extremely resilient, you know. They my sister and I both gay, you know, and back then you didn't come out to your parents, You didn't talk about it. You just fled as soon as you could. And but the best way to do it was to go to college because if your parents didn't have any money, the government would pay for you to go to college. And I felt great. So I was like an insanely diligent student for my A levels and I got into Manchester University. And that was how you got out. Then you start to reinvent yourself, find out who you are and blah blah blah. It's in the nineteen sixties self discovery, you know, gay liberation, blah blah, blah. So that was sort of my liberation blah blah blah. And how did how did your folks when you were when you realize that you were gatting your sister as well, Simon, that was a time when it wasn't embraced, much less accepted. So what was that like for you that experience. Well, I vividly remember like realizing I was gay, and very quickly I realized, oh, it's also illegal. And I think my dad was sort of seeing which way the wind was blowing and he said to me, oh, yeah, there was homicide actuals. You know, they all get put in prison or they get blackmailed or blah blah blah. I mean he sensed it, yeah, and he was trying to put me off going in that direction. But I was always reading magazines, you know, and I was always looking to the horizon to see, oh, the beautiful people on the horizon living groovy lives in London. And I would read about these swinging sixties people like Robert Fraser and Christopher Gibbs and the Stones and Maryanne Faithful, and I was like, oh, I want some of that. I could see on the horizon where no one cared what you were, you know that the emerging counterculture, the emerging culture of the swinging sixties. I could see it within screaming distance. And we lived not far from London, so I was like getting on the train and going hitching up to Carnaby Street and thinking, yeah, these are my people, fashion people, gay people, flamboyant people. So I saw an escape route. And what about you, Jonathan, I mean, by the way, you know you went to Brown It's not like you're the black sheep of the family incidentally, in terms of your intellect. But was it challenging for you as a young gay man in Bridge to New Jersey? Of course it was. I'll tell you all about it first. I just want to mention like it's once I was talking about his childhood. The Dickensian nature of his childhood is so startling. And I was just laughing because I was thinking about when I was talking about our first meeting and how I thought, oh, he's a little miss fancy pants, you know, fashionist, a little realizing the Dickensian backstory and what that little fella had accomplished. Yes, of course, growing up gay, of course it was very challenging. And you know, I knew as most gay men do. Quite early that I was gay. It was like I knew immediately, and I think, you know, there's I think it was one of that different weirdly, you know, even though there's a big age difference. You didn't walk into some utopia God, but he was all gay positive. It was weirdly, you know, similar. Yeah, No, there was no way I could have been out as a gay like that was not well and Brown some people were, but you'd be shocked how many of my friends from Brown came out after college. Um, I graduated in eight eight, and of course people were out, but it was still strangely difficult. And um, when I think about why gay people are as creative as gay people are, which I think is one of the great mysteries of gayness, like why are people so creative? And I'm not the most spiritual person, but part of me just thinks like maybe that's what we're put on earth for. But another part of me thinks that the gay experience is growing up and kind of operating on two levels simultaneously, and I think it really sharpens your senses. So you know, one has to sort of go through life as if you're going through life and go through all the motions, which you are, but you're also aware of the whole time that you're sort of hiding something and you're there's something inauthentic, and of course that's challenging. But I think the flip side of it is that it it makes you a little bit sharper and perhaps you know, one has to live slightly more vivid fantasy life as a gay and maybe that's the source of gay creativity. I don't know. It's something I think about a lot. It is interesting. It's weird when you think about some of the most brilliant people in the history of the world and their contributions, so many of them were gay. Yeah, we're like a creative libera. Yes, exactly who she was. I mean, I was thinking of Michelangelo, right, and Leonardo da Vinci, one of them. I was thinking Abold, I don't know what it was, or Michelangelo or both. We'll take both. So can we ask you a question about your relationship that I think would apply both to gay couples and straight couples. I read and you can correct if this is wrong, that you basically haven't had any commitment issues, that you bought a house together, or you rent an apartment together eighteen months in. How did you two just clap eyes on each other and know this is it and make it work. All these years we just had really low expectations. I was like, Oh, he'll do. Actually it's beautiful. Yeah, this is very New York. So Sliman had just bought this fabulous apartment when I first met him, and it was an apartment that was kind of legendary and I had always noticed it, and when I found out he bought it, I was like, Oh, you'll do, and that it was really about the nice about the apartment story for your vows when you got married, because it's just so heartwarming. Like many New Yorkers, it was real estate play. You know. I love the fact that you both have created this life based on your creativity. And I'm fascinated by how people choose a career or are lucky enough to turn their passion into their profession. Every morning I get up and I thank the Lord that I was able to have a job where I was able to do stuff that I found creatively stimulating. And that and even my corporate years of Barney's, it was always stimulating. It was always creative I was involved in so much stuff, and I never took that for granted because the town I grew up in it was like the local factories, that's where you worked. And I did do that in the summers, and so I saw what that was like. So to have a job where you're consumed with passion, even if it's just making paper mache props or a window, but you're having fun, You're like you care about it, like that is such a gift. You have a vision for what you're doing. How did you how did you tap into that? How did you discover what would give you joy? It was quite specific. Actually, I moved to London after college and I worked in in stores. You know, that's what everybody did back then. If they weren't shut what to do? They got a job in a store, so selling fashion when they had stores, right remember that number store. And I used to watch the window display people and I thought, well, they're busy all day. Their work day isn't contingent on customers coming in. So I thought I could do that. Doesn't seem that complicated. So then I got a job at Aquascutum, great British outerwear and Umbrella Frumpy but very is what the queen traditional, what the queen was when she's out with the corgis, had the aquascutum. So it was great because the windows were very elaborate, and I was a shlap you know. I was carrying ladders, paint, carrying the mannequins, stuff like that. And I said in London in the nine exactly. And then for extra cash I used to go into smaller boutiques and say, oh, who does your window. I'm a window dresser. I'll give me five quid and I'll do your window once a month. So I had a lot of these freelance jobs, and one of them was quite noteworthy. It was a store on Savile Row and it was the first trendy tailor on Savile Row called Tommy Nutter and Tommy Nutter and you t t e R. He was this legendary guy who's the first one to take those old Savile Row idea and make it trendy. So he made Mick Jagger's wedding suit when Mick married Bianca and he's wearing the white. He made clothes for Elton John and the people from that era. So they wanted fun, crazy windows. So that is when I started to do things where I put like a coffin in the window with a mannequin in it, or like, you know, I found all these little stuffed rats and made little tuxedos for them. They wanted things that were edgy and sort of a little more punk rock. And that's when I tapped into like, oh, like, if you do something unconventional, you'll get attention. People are like it, you get more work. And and one day this guy is incredible guy called Tommy Purse. He came in and he said, oh, you should come work for me in l A. So I was twenty five, and I just got on a plane and went to live in l A. When I was five. And what did you do for Tommy Persum? I did dressed his windows at his store, which was then it was called Maxfield. Still that which is an iconic l as from l A. Yeah, well you may not remember what it used to be next to the Troubador. I do remember that. And I did those windows with these vintage mannequins that Tommy collected. That was where I had my swinging, degenerate, crazy twenties, was mostly in l A. Do you believe that you were in some ways responsible for changing or transforming what was considered sort of window dressing into a real art form. Well, there was a group of people who were doing that. Um, some of them are still around, like Linda Fargo from Bogdors, Candy Pratt's Price from Vogue used to do these crazy punk rock windows at Bloomingdals. There was. It was a movement of because windows are great, because the democratic everyone sees them. You can really communicate to a lot of people. So I was one of several people, and unfortunately many of the great ones died of AIDS. I mean I could sit here listing them all and it's Colin Birch, Bob Benzio. There was a ton of great people who in the early eighties they died of AIDS. So Linda and I often say God, for all those people I'd stuck around, Maybe would we have gotten our moment? Would we have? Because there was so many talented people. It's so interesting too to me because here's this art form that's so ephemeral, but also, as you said, so democratic, a way to gather community. I love looking at people looking at windows. The sad thing is windows have kind of become less relevant than they used to be like when I first moved to New York and Simon's windows were so legendary. There will be like people on throned on the streets waiting for the reveal. That was, of course, before cell phones. Now that kind of democracy and shared experience of windows seems to be disappearing. Really, Yeah, people phones taking the picture of the window so they can share it on social media. Not actually, although I still do see people around the holidays, holiday around you know, blooming Dale's and Sacks and of course Barney's. And then from the window dressing and then Jonathan, We're going to get to your sort of career in a second, But from the window dressing you went. It allowed you to branch out in incredible ways. Well, I when I did my book, Pizza Kaplan, who was the editor of The New York Observer, he said to me, oh, you should Your book is funny. You should come right a column for us. So during the day I was working at Barney's, then I go home and bang out this weekly column for the New York Observer. And Pizza Kaplan was just one of those very special people in the newspaper. Yes, fire him, Yeah, I'm not quite sure how that played out, but Jared Kushner ended up buying The Observer. Yes, and did you work at all under Jared Kushner? Um? Yeah, under isn't the preposition because you know, you know the paper. So I was one of many people just banging out their column and sending it in and um, yeah, we overlapped there. But you know I would see him at the Christmas party. You I know, Jonathan encouraged Simon to write that column because you said you've got to do this. I hate to give Simon compliments and clear r L. I typically do not. However, I will keep it real. In this thing, Simon is a bizarre Polly math who is visually extraordinarily gifted but can write like no one else. And it's like I think it might be an English thing where English there are other english people who are like prominent in one field, who suddenly can pick up a pen and really turn a rays, like believe it or not, Joan Collins, like, I've read some of her writing and it's just very sharp and quick. And Simon's like one of those English people who just manages to capture his cheeky voice in writing, and it can I make a sweeping generalization about the English. I think that you all value writing and talking and language and diction a lot more than Americans do. I think really over enunciating when you're saying this, Brian, sorry. I think you're sort of informally trained in it based on the way you are educated and talked to your peers, and therefore most British people I know are really good talkers and writers. My theory is that America is an incredibly playful culture. Like the first thing you see when I saw when I moved to l A was like people stretching at a bus stop or bouncing a bowl, like like in pink tights. You know, like very playful culture. But when people get into print, they get very formal, like I'm writing an essay now on blah blah blah. Whereas England is an incredibly formal culture historically structurally, and when they get into print they just don't care. Like that's when you're your only obligation is to be entertaining, so like going to the pub, your only obligation is to make people laugh and tell funny stories. So there's like a lot of cultural stuff that I think makes English people that have that sort of witty, loose panash with words that you know, someone with the education to back it up though generally right, Yeah, like a Tina Brown or not even like it's I think often you know the cab drivers who are Cockney East London people have the best gift of gab. But on the English tip, back to our relationship for one, I think one of the reasons we ended up together is that English people really like to take the piss out of each other. Like they tease each other ruthlessly and relentlessly as a sign of affection. And that's how I've always rolled. But Americans don't typically do that. I think Americans don't. You think people in amermor delicate. Yeah, like we don't make fun of each other ruthlessly and immediately, oh I do. Good. Time for us to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to help Simon and Jonathan remember when their wedding anniversary is. That's right after this and now back to our conversation with Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler. Jonathan, you've built an extraordinary career out of your passion as well. You decided to become a potter at twenty seven, you left your job? What were you doing and why did you decide to leave it? Well, um so, I had always wanted to be a Potter from the second I touched Clay as a kid, I like had a instant love affair with Clay. By the way, do you guys ever reenact that scene from Ghost Oh Nightly? I'm sure in the beginning we used to be like, let's do it happens less and less frequently. I'm sorry to say, we should music right now? We always have that in the Yeah O is getting a bit scratchy and it's on repeat. Um so, yeah. I always wanted to be a Potter and I always wanted to be a jap like I needed to be Yes, but that seemed absolutely impossible. So I tried to uh work in the movie business after college, and I studied semiotics and art history, so I had not I didn't have a practical bone in my body. I was completely hairy, fairy and impractical, and that really showed itself in the workplace, where I got fired from about five jobs in a row real news. For like, I slept with everybody in the office, and I took personal halls and finally I was sleeping with my boss and then you know, I broke up with him and he fired me, and I was unemployed for like a year, and I couldn't find a job, and I started teaching night classes at a pottery studio in Hell's Kitchen, just while I was kind of trying to get a job and no jobs were coming my way. And my parents finally were like, your twenty seven, you like went to an ivy league college, and you're not making a dime like sell a pot, And so I am, I would seemed quite I just had a bunch of pots, too many pots and unsold, and so I um ended up getting in touch with the buyer, Barneys, and I got an order, and uh, I thought, wow, but this was after or before you guys got together, before we got together, this say I'm sorry. Um yeah, So I got this order and I started to like make pots, and I still just thought of myself as unemployed. But I got more orders, and then I kind of gradually, very gradually figured it out and realized that I had gone from kind of being really unemployable to being highly self employed. And the end of this pretty extraordinary entrepreneur you saw that your pots were popular in Barney's and then you opened up your first retail store five years later. Now there are how many stores in al Jathan about stores across the country, and too in London. You know a lot of artists. I think it's probably an unfair generalization, but they don't necessarily have a brain for business, as they would say in Working Girl. But you actually did. Um, how did you translate your artistic skills into business skills? I had maybe the worst mind for business of anyone in the history of our planet, and Simon can attest to that. I was like very ill equipped. I didn't know what an invoice was. I was like completely incompay. I just love to make stuff, and like we didn't go into this with any sort of business plan or any ideas at all. And I think that that's not really how people today typically approach their careers, like they all, you know, kind of want to be a brand from day one. I think both Slime and I kind of just figured it out. And I think that's something that's one of the more um safe for work kind of appellations. Um. Yeah, so I just figured it out, as did Simon. I think we both also, like Simon and I both work in very reviled professions like Simon's a window dresser and I'm a potter. They're not exactly the most season careers. I have to say, I have I beg to differ. I mean, I would see you both as being a very tony professions. I mean, I think that's probably how they work now. But at the time, I mean, before you both hit it big, the notion that you would have these great, successful careers in those two professions, I mean, boy doubtful, because I thought, Um, one of Johnny's best friends is Liz Lang maternity. I used to wear her maternity clothes on the Today Show. I would love it, and we, the three of us in the nineties, we used to talk about how hilarious it was that she was in maternity where he was a partner. I was a window dresser, because these were not you know, that was like being a fluffer in a strip club or something like that. It was like the world's best fluffer. Yeah, it was. It was sort of almost like I'll give you an example, like say, helicopter parents on the Upper East Side, the spending a fortune on the kellicoptering their kid and da da da da and the kid comes home and says, I want to be a window dresser. The parents probably going to crisis meetings with the counselors. Like, because it is one of those sort of joke professions. I think it predates this whole preoccupation with quote unquote lifestyle brands, right, I mean, this whole burgeoning industry, whether it's through Instagram or Pinterest. This whole thing exploded kind of exactly the right time for both of you in a way. I mean, I feel like Simon more fashion and that was a constant, but for you, Jonathan, it's become this whole new fielding. We both saw sort of white space. So here's some an arena which isn't oversubscribed to which people tend to steer a bit clear of because it has all these sort of um day class A associations. So and Liz has talked that way. She was the first person to go into maternity, you know, like Carl lager Felt wasn't doing a maternity line like maternity scene as being I don't, well, it's not like it was like p on the pod that's where shopped. And then Liz Lang came along and I was like allelujah. Right Liz. It was like she revolutionized this kind of dusty thing and made it like sexy and great and chic. She she she can. She just had this incredible vision. I think she's still a white space, like, no one's doing that if you're if you're like young and trying to figure out. I think that's always a good way to think about it, Like what is nobody doing? That's always what I what I recommend to bis Stone when I wrote this put together this book of advice. He said, find a need and fill it. I mean it's almost that simple, like where is the white space? And how does that intersect with something that I love? Which is also incredibly important, right Jonathan, john Yea or Johnny. I think the funny thing is that neither of us, like we were both so bumbling and unstrategic that we don't think any of us knew the word white space until like a week ago. You know, we kind of just wet for a long time. There was no iteration or planning. I think we just both happened to be very very passionate about a particular thing, and somehow it all worked. And I think people now with this idea of personal branding, and everyone wanted to be a brand, and I'm a brand, he's a brand. They all think it's attainable, and people are all told to like, follow your dream and it will work out, And the truth is it really won't. It just won't. Like everybody who thinks they can follow their dream and it will work out is incorrect. Like inasmuch as mine has remind me not to hire you as a commencement speed don't ever hire me. Actually think it's good advice because most of the people who try to be brands just based on nothing, I think fail. I think many of the brands, with the notable exception of the Kardashians, are actually you know, they're because they're doing something, accomplishing something, filling a need. Yeah, but there's also for everyone who breaks through and is accomplishing something, there's a million more who are more talented who haven't broken through. So there's just such a huge element of luck and timing, timing, and so really, you know, Andy Warhol said success is a job in New York City, and I think that's a more realistic approach to how people should think about their lives. Like, not everyone, it's so rarely works out that. Um, you know that you get the combination of talent, luck, timing, etcetera, etcetera. Well, why do you think it worked for you? I have no idea. I truly really have no idea. I think I would say luck is probably the most important. But you're not saying other people shouldn't try. No. I think I think what I think Nathan saying is be realistic. You know, follow your dreams and it all work out. Sometimes you have to reassess your dreams. And I think so many people today are driven by this desire to be famous. If you look at what people want, it's less that they want fulfilling work that makes them feel gratified. It's more they want to be a quote unquote brand that makes them famous. Yes, thank you, that's totally true. And I think I think, you know, if you can get a job in a fee old that you're interested and that you enjoy, yeah, then that's success. Like that's hitting it out of the park. And I think that people's expectations have gotten really twisted and unrealistic. On a related note, Jonathan, you also said that high self esteem is the enemy of creativity. Um, can you talk more about that? I thought it was really interesting. I think creativity is a very strange and challenging beast to to explain. And Um Simon calls me Ariannakfka because he says that half of me is like kind of a glib, fun like kicky pop songstress, like Ariana Grande, and that's the sort of dreamy um side of me in which ideas first occur, Like I might wake up one day and say, I know, I want to make a gigantic loose sight foot in pink looe sight um, And that's sort of an Ariana Grande dreamy kind of world. But in order to take that idea and turn it into a real thing, one has to be intensely like self critical and analytical and have very low self esteem. And so you see the first and perfectionistic. Yeah, you have to be very perfectionistist. You need to perfectionistic, and you need to look at the first sample and say that sucks, like me, I'm the worst, I'm the worst, this is the worst why, And then you need to sort of torture it into its best self. So I think I think to be creatively successful you need to have a a strange combination of dreamy, high self esteem to come up with an idea and extremely analytical, intense low self esteem to torture the idea. Yeah, to execute it and make it as good as it can be. Does your polo shirts say jap on it? By the way, it does? That's my monogram. I wi should this reverse to Jewish American princess generally not the racist description of Japanese people? To be clear, yes, no, but I happen to have a monogram that is jap Well wait, Jonathan Paul and you're Jonathan Paul Adler, I get it. Um, I'm curious. Do you make everything that you saw in the store? Do you design everything you sell in the store? Yeah? Pretty? I mean there are a couple exceptions, like we saw a couple of different artists work and stuff, but yeah, I work in every medium and kind of furniture, everything, like su everything. I really like the vase with the breasts all over it. Yeah, that's um that is from really really like it. Yeah I don't. I don't. I know for Christmas. A lot of my friends have it, and they're different, but I like the one that has sort of the breasts all over it. It's too bad you are missing Katie's gesture right now, she's mimicking breasts. You don't, actually, well, she's mimicking grabbing breasts. Yeah, would be. That's what I kind of like. By the way, before we wrap, we should talk about the new challenge you've taken on Simon. You're a judge on a reality show because of course why not? And it's called Making It And it's hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman, who are two hilarious people, and I hope they're hilarious with each other too. Although they're not a couple. No, they're not a couple. Yeah are they know? Because Nick? But I bet they're a hilarious couple. Anyway, can you explain how the show works? Um? Yeah, it's a crafting competition show or crafting competition show. I am one of two judges. I'm an expert judge. The other judges Dana Issam Johnson from Etsy and Nick and Amy are the hosts. And you know, crafts is something that Amy polar is passionate about, as is Nick, even though she doesn't do them herself. She feels that there are the solution to all our problems. We all need to put down our devices and start decopaging and macromyng and it is a national movement, the crafting movement. I think that's why the show is such a big hit. It's also positive. I mean the first day on the set she said, I don't want any fake conflict, any bitchiness, any blah blah blah, and I said, we'll see you later. But no, they from the get go it was all going to be about positivity and as you say, I think people need that right now, and that's one of the reasons it's a big hit. So it was so fun to do though, because for me it's like being back in the display studio, chicken wire props, decoupage mod page making stuff. Yeah, it was a great experience, something unexpected. So tell me about decorating the White House, Simon was that the thrill of a lifetime. Decorating the White House was the thrill of a lifetime. I had just become a citizen and voted for Barack Obama, and I thought, we a'm here, I'm American. And then Desiree Rogers, who was the social secretary, she called me and said, we want help with the holiday decors. And that was at the beginning of the year, and I spent that year going back and forward, and I worked with this wonderful florist called Kimberly Merlin. So it was very much you know, I was very involved in it, and um, but there was a group of us working on it and a ton of volunteers. It actually really looked great. I mean, I don't think it's ever looked better, of course, and we incorporated recycling elements and Mrs Obama, which I had two meetings with her, and it was she was just so lovely and so kind to everybody, and and she threw a little party for all the volunteers after the installation was complete, and I just remember her extemporaneous speech was just so perfect, and uh yeah, it was a great experience. That's so fun. I mean, how are you all dealing with the current political climate. I can't help but listen to that story and wonder what it would be like to decorate the current White House. Um, what would you do if you were decorating the current White House? Simon? Um, Oh my god, the mind reels. Fortunately, I haven't would you take that job if you were called? Um? I don't think so, you know, I think he should just do what he does at Trump Tower, that gaudy kind of um Roman casino Caesar's Palace look that they have going on. Do that like, um no, I am now I turned to sort of I'm so busy with these book projects. I don't obsess about the political world. I voted for Hillary Clinton and I was disappointed. But you know, time when you're in retail, time goes by really quickly. You know, our holiday campaigns we used to plan two years out, you know, so I'm very used to thinking ahead, ahead ahead, and thinking of when there'll be a different a new person in there, you know, you know, with the coverage is so relentless, and if you're in our business, it's it's hard not to feel like you're absolutely drowning in this constant slew of drama, negativity and tumult. So it's inescapable, I think for people like us. But what about you, Jonathan? I travel a lot for work, like I am in Asia quite often. I've traveled all around the world, the Middle East, South, America, and whenever I come back to America, I am always like, Wow, America is pretty great. Um this sounds you know, Grant, But I'm lucky to have sort of a global perspective, and you know, I appreciate that word democracy. I think that whenever I come back to America, I feel really happy to be here. I'm a huge America lover, and I think, you know, it's it's a fascinating time to be alive. But I'm a busy guy. I don't think the political situation has made me mad one way or another. I find it interesting, but I'm always happy to be here. I can hear people listening to this though, and wondering, as two gay men, are you outraged by sort of what you see is perhaps a lack of tolerance for diversity and a lack of openness for you know, the decision tender people right, well right, or you know sort of other rising In general, I think that, um, you know, one should always kind of keep one's eye on that situation and strive for greater rights and parity. But again, I always think about the journey from my childhood, when I lived in rural America being gay was an impossibility, and think about how luck I am to be alive today, and and again when I travel the world in places where I've been to places where it's illegal to be gay. It's always a good reminder to me how lucky, you know, think are things perfect here? Of course, oh my god, things are not perfect, But I'm awfully glad to be here versus some other places. I do think that's a healthy reminder than in the grand sweep of history, we are so much better off than we were even twenty or thirty years. Oh my god. And people kind of take that for granted, and it's easy to lose sight of that in the day to day, I think. Yeah, But in fairness, I think people are worried about turning back the clock and some of the rights and and oh my god, you know, the progress that's been made is going to be reversed, and they want to stay ever vigilant on that. And so I appreciate that point of We went through that. You know, we got married in that window when it was legal in two thousand four. Yeah, and then all of a sudden Prop eight was upheld by a referendum and we were unmarried, weren't married again. So you know, to go through that, you have to like, Okay, tomorrow is another day, Scarlett O'Hara, You know, pull the car out of the dirt. You keep going because and then in typical American way, it did eventually get so want it out and d wins that came along, and then it was when we should provide maybe a little bit more context for people weren't in that. In two thousand four, in San Francisco, gay marriage was legalized. This became a huge national issue. It was an issue in the presidential campaign that year the George W. Bush used successfully to get reelected. The voters of California. Progressive liberal California voted to band game marriage in two thousand eight, invalidating your relationship, and then seven years after that, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationally. So that's quite a thank you for that. Her story, that was so good, But that's quite a quite a journey and maybe hopefully a metaphor for progress at large. Weirdly, for us, it wasn't an emotional journey because I think we've both been through I remember the legalization of homosexuality, the Wolfenden Report, blah blah blah. So we've been through all these vice institutes and you know, as a creative post and you stay focused, you you know, you hope for the best, and you know they are incredible people in the gay movement, like the people at the HRC who doggedly start with it and Needy Winsor as I mentioned before, and they made it happen. They brought it back to the Supreme Court, which you could probably say a lot better than I interviewed James Berghafell, who was the man really behind that Supreme Court decision. And it's so interesting to me how changing the perspective and really referring to it as marriage equality really actually had a lot to do with greater acceptance of gay marriage. Yeah, seeing the journey of the way other people perceived gay marriage has been so fascinating because it took people within the gay world a while to even come around to the idea of it. And I think actually AIDS had a huge impact on the gay in the gay marriage movement because during the AIDS epidemic, during its height, a lot of people would die and their long time companions would would lose everything they had because they weren't legally entitled to it. And I think a lot of people don't realize involved, right that happened to her, Well, it happened to her, yes, a similar thing. It wasn't aids, but yes, and I think and her partner, her partner for whom she was like a longtime caregiver of the partner I think had MS and eventually ended up in a wheelchair, and it was like a very sad and inspiring love story. And I think a lot of straight people didn't really understand the financial implications of the lack of game marriage. They didn't really understand that if somebody's longtime partner died, they would owe taxes in a way that straight couples wouldn't. And I think that when you put it into real nitty gritty dollar and sense terms, and people are much more sympathetic to it because they kind of understand the real implications beyond just sort of a concept. A sure, did being married feel different to you guys than being in the relationship before that? Nope, No, We're like two flokes, were very We're sort of not the most sentimental people. I'm glad you told me when the dates of gay marriage legalization were, because neither of us has any idea when we got married, So now I know it was between two thousand and four and two thousand and eight. Do you remember the date? Nope? But you know, my parents got married um in a registered office and they went to the pub next door and they got paralytically drunk and lost the marriage certificate. So they never knew when they were married, and they never had a wedding anniversary. So you never celebrate your anniversary. Well, I think you know what. Every we're very celebratory about our lives. Like this weekend, we're a paddle boarding. How lucky are we? Look at the weather, look at the dog. Hello you you're cute. Like we don't take anything for granted, But it's those celebrate every day, but easyctly, we're lucky to have such eight lives, and neither of us is terribly sentimental. But I will see you like you know, I went to Brown in the late eighties and somehow all of my friends were these like super fancy heiresses. And so after college, Simons when I first well there's a reason I'm saying this. So when Simon first met me, we went to about ten weddings in a row that each one was more extravagant and glamorous than the last of these, like ras after ars getting married, and they were billion dollar sermons. But they're all divorced. Every single one of them is divorced, So you know, I think there's a little bit of a lesson there. Like Sliman and I had a very low key wedding and we're blissfully happily together loathies. However many years it's been later ten years, if you feel it, because I love for a lot of people, you know that we have a lot of events in our lives as to you, events events you live in New York because there was some bloody thing going on. For a lot of people, the wedding is that it's the big thing that they're always going to remember, and the just and the flowers and the why not if that's you know? So I know, I don't have an opinion about it. It's entirely a personal thing, whether you do that or not. So after watching so many people around you break up, what do you think is the secret to your success? I think we have a common sense of humor, and our parents are weirdly similar. Like our sensibility. We tend to laugh at the same thing, you know, make fun of each other, tease. I think humor is so important, and even if even if just one person in the couple is funny, and I think you both are funny, and I would like to say in my marriage, we're both I think pretty funny. But it's also the ability to appreciate the other person's sense of humor, which is really really important as very funny. And I think sometimes you're funny. He thinks sound funny. I think he's funny. And that's when I think most duos really work when there's a joint appreciate ation of each other. And it's not a common thing. You know. The other night, I was in a restaurant and I was looking. There was a group of guys together and they're all roaring with laughter and drinking. A group of girls after work, screaming with laughter, like throwing things at each other, having such a great time. And then a couple, a man and a woman together and they look like they're very anxious with each other, you know, was the first date and yeah, And I thought, oh, well, hopefully that loosens up a bit, because when you do go out and you see a man and a woman together and they're laughing and joking, it's the nicest thing to see. You think, oh, yeah, look that's a rap pole right there. I used to always look at couples in restaurants, and if they weren't talking to each other, I'd say it to my husband. My my first husband passed away, and so I would say, hey, if we ever turn out like those people, I'm going to be so depressed because they're not even speaking to one other. But I've actually come around because I think there's something really nice occasionally, not all the time, about being able to be quiet with someone too, that not feeling like you have to entertain each other all the time, and just sort of being comfortable on the first bloody day. Bring it on the first date. I mean to get to that point, all right, but yeah, but I just need to kick it back to us on that first date. My god was he mute? You should thank me every day Sliman that I was the chatty Cathy that I am in now twenty we discussed the word from the control room. We just figured out that your ten year wedding anniversary is actually tomorrow. Did you know this? Tomorrow? Thank you get me sept ten years? All right, we'll be shut to um not celebrate that. I think Jonathan has this beautiful vase that's covered with rests your name on it. What are you getting me? But yeah, it is interesting why low these many years later, why we still are such a happy couple and to be I would never say this, I r l just but I never tire of seeing my Simon's face. I'm always happy to see that little face too. Simon and Jonathan has been so fun to talk to you and actually for me to get to know you both a little bit better. And happy anniversary. I'm sure you'll celebrate it in style if you remember. But just again, it's tomorrow. That's incredible, And thank you so much for coming by and being on the podcast. We really appreciate it and really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Thank you. We had a great time. That does it for our first ever couple's episode. Thank you to our team at Stitcher, our producer Gianna Palmer, associate producer Noura Richie, Andy Kristen who engineered this episode, Gratzy Andy, she's very cute. That's Andy with an eye and she's a female. And Jared O'Connell who mixed this episode, and of course my assistant Beth Demas and my new digital guru Julia Lewis. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music. Katie Kirk and I are the show's executive producers. If you'd like to keep the conversation going, find us on social media. I tweet from at Goldsmith B and Katie is all over the place on Instagram under Katie kerk. Check out my stories people if you want to be amused me while. We'll be back next week for real, this time because we have no choice. With the first installment in our documentary series, looking back at our interviews from ten years ago with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Talk to you then,