Listening to David Sedaris

Last year, I listened to five of David Sedaris's books. I haven't read (with my eyes) the first one, but I have listened to Calypso, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Happy Go Lucky, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

A few days ago, I started listening to Theft by Finding. This is a compilation of diary entries from 1977 to 2002, published in 2018.

An unknown writer such as I could never have something like this published. This is something only someone with a known following could get away with.

It also covered material I'd heard in other places. Some of it, I could tell, appeared to have been fleshed out from diary entries.

I found certain things interesting: price increases in items from 1977 forward, for example, along with his income and the ways he chose to make money. For a good while, his work of choice was some kind of construction or moving furniture type of work, although he was also writing and producing plays.

He also was a heavy drug and alcohol user until the late 1990s, when he stopped drinking and using drugs.

Another thing I noted was that prior to 1982 or so, Sedaris didn't have many reports of being accosted on the streets for money, cigarettes, or other items, but after the Reagan administration set all of the mentally ill people loose upon the general public* (my observation, not his), then this became more common in Sedaris's recitations of things that he had made note of. Some of this may have been age; he was a man by then and not a teenager. However, I was astonished at how often he was asked for money and cigarettes in the United States. He noted one or two instances of begging in a foreign country, but here it is common, and he didn't hesitate to point it out.

Being in a rural community, I do not see this often, although when I worked downtown in the nearest city, I did and still do when I am unlucky enough to be down there.

Other things Sedaris has made note of in this book include a long discussion of bow ties (apparently, he wears one) and book signings. His book signings apparently bring in 400+ people, which to me is astonishing as I have seldom seen that many people at a book signing. I think most authors are fortunate if one or two people show up. 

For a while I have been unsure if all of this traveling and presenting Sedaris said he was doing was actually book readings or a comedy routine he put together. I'm still not certain. His biography on Wikipedia indicates all of the above.

Maybe as I go backwards and listen to his earlier work, I'll sort it out in my head.

His sister, by the way, is Amy Sedaris, who has appeared in The Mandalorian, among other things.

*The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 (MHSA) was United States legislation signed by President Jimmy Carter which provided grants to community mental health centers. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan, who had made major efforts during his Governorship to reduce funding and enlistment for California mental institutions, pushed a political effort through the U.S. Congress to repeal most of MHSA. The MHSA was considered landmark legislation in mental health care policy. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, signed by President Ronald Reagan on August 13, 1981, repealed most of the Mental Health Systems Act. And that's why the mentally ill live on the streets.