Konai Helu Thaman explains how teaching high school English deepened her appreciation for her native language. Then Max talks with David Crosby about why he feels incredibly lucky to still be alive at age 80 and how he’s starting to plan for a future where he’s no longer able to make music.
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transcription
[PRE-ROLL]
[OPENING MONTAGE]
Madeleine Albright: I know this program is 70 Over 70, but I really wish I were younger. I wish I was 70…but, I am ready!
[THEME MUSIC STARTS]
William: I’m 72 years old.
Paula: I’m 75, miraculously enough.
Sandy: I am 83 years old.
Betty: I am 88 years old.
James: You know, I’m here at 92.
Lucia: I’ll be 94 in May.
Donalda: I’m 101 years old.
Konai Thaman: My name is Konai Helu Thaman, I'm 75 years old, and I live in Suva, Fiji.
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
[FADE IN MUSIC]
Konai: Today, I think of myself as Tongan poet who happens to be an English teacher. I actually came to discover how important my own heritage was. I started writing poetry in the Tongan language, desperately trying to help my English students.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Konai: I was born and raised in Tonga. It was one of these typical Pacific household where everything was in Tongan. We spoke Tongan. We wrote in Tongan, but I happened to pass the exam to enter the only English-speaking high school in the whole country. At school everything was in English and you were punished for speaking in Tongan. And so, I was terrified to even open my mouth in case I made a mistake.
English literature I just found very boring. At school, we had to study the poem Daffodils by Wordsworth, but there were no daffodils in Tonga. I didn't know what daffodils looked like. It's just totally meaningless. But I studied hard and it paid off.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Konai: I got this scholarship to go to university in New Zealand. And many years after that, I was asked to teach English to my old high school. When we started to look at the poetry section, I realized my English students--they were just so bored. They couldn’t relate. They didn’t understand what it was all about. I knew exactly how they felt.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Konai: It dawned on me that the English had not invented poetry. And given our cultural history, my goodness, I couldn't even imagine the amount of poetry that was around us. I wanted to use Tongan images to teach basic notions of poetry to my class. So I started writing all these verses and it suddenly made sense to them. When they read my poems and they come across a flower called the heilala; it's a tiny little flower, but the fragrance is so powerful. You know, then they will understand how rich culturally they are.
Today I have five collections of poetry that have been published and my poetry is quite popular among Tongan students because what I write about is about them. It's about us.
[MUSIC ENDS]
Konai: We as a community have not valued our own languages. A lot of our history, a lot of our indigenous knowledge were just regarded as useless and therefore everything was done to delete all of that knowledge from us. But Tongan knowledge is so, so important. It's to do with your self-confidence.
[THEME MUSIC FADES IN]
Konai: If you don't have if you don’t know your own culture, how can you have confidence to learn who you are?
Max Linsky: That was Konai Helu Thaman, and from Pineapple Street Studios, this is 70 Over 70, a show about making the most of the time we have left. I'm Max Linsky.
[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]
Max: My guest this week is David Crosby.
You know David Crosby — he’s a rockstar. And for a long time, he lived hard. He reached incredible heights — he was inThe Byrds and Crosby Stills Nash and Young.
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: He’s been inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame — twice. He's seen things and done things that most of us can’t even imagine.
He’s also bottomed out….a bunch. He spent nine months in a Texas prison. He fell out publicly with nearly everyone he’s ever played with. In 1994, he almost died from liver failure. And for much of his life, by his own admission, he was an angry guy.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Max: But something has softened David. He got sober, except for smoking the pot he grows in his backyard. He rebuilt his family. He's making music he loves. And he’s at peace with the ways his body is starting to fail him, even if it’s threatening the thing that makes him happiest.
I wanted to know what it took to get there, and what he had to let go of before he could appreciate what he’s got.
David Crosby is 80 years old.
INTERVIEW
Max: David Crosby, thank you for doing this.
David Crosby: It's a pleasure, man.
Max: It's a pleasure to have you. And it's a particular pleasure to have you right now.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: You, uh, you just released your eighth album in eight years.
David: [laughs] Is that-is that true? Yeah, I guess it is. It's a bunch.
Max: It's a bunch!
David: It's worse than you think because I just finished another one.
Max: Before you were 72, you had three solo albums and now you've done--we'll just call it a bunch [yeah, a bunch]--since you were 72. Where did that come from?
David: I think it-it's a variety of reasons. I had songs. The latter part of Crosby, Stills and Nash wasn't a happy time and so I...I wasn't really willing to go in and record anymore, uh, with Graham or with Crosby, Stills and Nash. I didn't feel that it was a welcoming circumstance. Uh-
Max: Do you mind if I ask, how come?
David: Marriages like that, uh, I-I think you should Crosby Stills and Nash, uh, credit. We lasted much longer than most relationships do. 1969, you know, that's a long time to make music together. But, uh, those relationships, you know--look, lives don't go in parallel paths, man. They just don't. You're always either converging or diverging from your friends and for a long time, we grated on each other's nerves. You know, we were all strong people and we had, uh--I'm a very opinionated guy [Max laughs], and towards the end there we weren't friends, you know. And that-that is what I like to do to make music with his friends. A long time ago, man, I found out a wonderful thing. I wrote wooden ships with Paul Kantner and-and Stephen Stills. And it taught me a lesson, which is the other guy always thinks of something you didn't and-and writing with other people is fun. Now, most of my compatriots in this business, uh, don't feel that way. They want all the money and they want all the credit. And, uh, and it's very important to them. I want all the songs, I want great songs [laughs], and so I am perfectly willing to write with other people. [Yeah] And I have found it to be a joy. Now what's happened to me, man, is major blessings. One was my son, James Raymond. He is, uh, a spectacular musician. Primarily keyboard player, but a writer. And, uh, he's probably my best writing partner.
Max: For people who are listening who don't know the story. When did you meet James?
David: OK, a lady that I was with told me she was going, she was pregnant, she was going to have the child, and I said, ‘oh, please don't’. And she said, ‘I'm going to’ and I said, ‘OK’. So when he was married and about to have his first child, his parents who raised him said you should know who-what their genetics are, you should find out who your father and mother are. So he found his mother. And found out who I was and said, ‘Nah, couldn't be’ [Max laughs]. And I knew that it was a real one. Somehow I knew that that one-- I'd gotten others that were bullshit.
Max: You’ve gotten fake kid letters?
David: Yeah. ‘I know where your son is, I'll tell you if you get me a recording contract.’
Max: And you just knew that this one was real?
David: I knew this one was real. I knew. And, uh, I followed it up and he wound up doing a wonderful thing, man. Normally those meet-ups go very badly. He walked in and gave me a clean slate. And let me earn my way into his life. And that's...one of the kindest things anybody's ever done to me. We wound up being very tight. I mean, we're very close. It's a kind of an odd relationship because he's the grown up and I'm the kid. There was a rumor I was going to grow up, but it didn't pan out [Max laughs]. Uh, but anyway, he and I write together spectacularly well.
Max: What an incredible gift that is.
David: Yeah. I figured meant I must be one of the luckiest--can I say mother fucker?
Max: You certainly can.
David: OK, I fear I’m [laughs] one of the luckiest motherfuckers alive. That's honest to God, I really do.
Max: I mean, a son that you don't know exists, contacts you-- in what-he was in his 30s?
David: Yeah and he'd already been a musician for like 20 years, and he was a blazing keyboard player when I met him!
Max: Right? Turns out he's good. I mean, imagine if he-if he wanted to play with you all the time and he sucked.
David: [laughs] Yeah, that would be bad, but he's really good.
Max: But he's really good. And you guys have this musical connection that's like kind of a storybook or something.
David: It is, and it-it's ridiculously short into the odds. And the only thing you can figure is that I am exactly what I said, an incredibly lucky human being. I mean, I was supposed to be dead [laughs] 20 years ago. Anyway, here I am. You know, it’s like--
Max: You know, I was reading through your story and that is actually true.
David: Yeah, it is!
Max: It's kind of miraculous you're still here.
David: Yeah, that's how I feel about it and it's one of the reasons that I'm trying so hard to do as much work as I'm doing. The way to look at is this man; OK, I'm going to die. I've got 2 weeks or 10 years. I don't know. What I do know is that the thing that counts is what I do with that time, okay. Now I've got one way that I can contribute. Music is a lifting force. It makes things better and I can do it. And I feel strongly that whatever time I have left since I've been given incredible luck [both laugh], you know, I owe it to the world, man, to give back as much as I possibly can with this tool that they gave me.
Max: You know what, you just said, uh how you make the most of the time you have left. That's that's literally like the tagline of the show.
David: No shit! Really?
Max: Yeah, that's it.
David: Because that's what that's truly what I believe I should be doing. And I’m-- that's what I am trying to do.
Max: So you feel like you found the purpose, you found the thing you're doing exactly what you should be doing.
David: I do feel exactly that, and I think it's way against the odds. I don't think most people ever have a clear, you know, feeling like that. I think most people are kind of lost and don't really have a direction and don't really have anything they believe in as strongly as I believe in this. And-and it gives you purpose. And that's good.
Max: I mean, I think it's more than good. There's this aspect of it that I have to ask you about, which is that I've heard you talk in the last year or so that, you know, you've got issues with your hands.
David:Yeah, I do.
Max: It's tendinitis. Is that right?
David: Yeah.
Max: And you're losing your ability to play guitar?
David: Yes. Yes, I am.
Max: If making music is your purpose, if that is the thing that you want to do at the time you have left, what is it like to be losing your ability to do it? Like, I read somewhere that you said you're 20 percent of where you were, but it's declining rapidly.
David: I've lost probably 10-15 percent and I will lose it all. You know, I still think I'm lucky, man. I got to play for 50 years, and I know people who are...I got a really good friend who just got diagnosed with Parkinson's. I've had friends commit suicide because they were faced with dementia and loss of ability. I think, you know, I can still sing and I can still write, I just made what may turn out to be one of the best records of my life. And-and yes, my hands are going and yes, that's sad, you know, but I-I've seen really good friends of mine all around me have much worse to deal with. And I wish it weren't happening, you know? Sure. I wish my age weren't happening, man. I wish that I had another hundred years because I'm having a blast. I-I-I love my family. I love my job. I've got a wonderful home. You know, it's not big, but it's really a pretty place.
Max: Yeah. How do you know when it's over with your hands?
David: You know, uh, I play every night to try and stretch it out as long as it can. I keep guitars right next to the bed. There's some on the wall, another one on the stand.
Max: So you think playing more will allow you to play longer? It's not like you're like a pitcher in baseball and you've got to conserve your hours.
David: No, no. You-you keep trying to play and you stretch it out as long as you can because it's fun, man. [Max laughs] Well, at a certain point, man, I won't be able to play and, uh, successfully and I will probably give a lot of these guitars to young guitar players who will then get to play something really good. Some of them I’ll sell because they're worth a whole lot.
Max: But it's something you'll know. It's not like someone you play with will say like ‘David, I got to tell you, like, you're not there or something’, you-you'll know it yourself.
David: They wouldn't be unkind to me, man. But they--my friends don't butter my toast.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
David:They-they tell me what--because that's why they're my friends. You know, we don't-we don't bullshit each other about that. Music's too important to bullshit each other about it.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
MIDROLL
[MUSIC FADES IN]
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: The way you were talking earlier about feeling lucky. Does that feel new to you? Because my understanding is that for some significant portion of your life, that wasn't where you were at.
David: Yeah, I think that's fair. You know, I nearly died, man. Came real close. And, uh, what happens is you get real grateful for being here. When I have that transplant, uh, the doctor said I was about a week from dying. They just caught it.
Max: Can you tell that story for people who maybe don't know it?
David: Sure. Yeah. I got hepatitis C off a needle. I used to be a junkie and, uh, it destroys your liver. So after a few years, it destroyed mine, and then we realized that I was very sick and we went to UCLA and they said, ‘You got to have a transplant, your liver is gone.’ and, uh, they, uh, they got me a transplant. The first time they had a liver for me, it turned out to have a tumor in it [laughs], so they were really cutting it close when they got another one and were able to transplant me. It was--I was just about to die. And what happens to you, uh, when you almost die? It changes you. You look at things a little differently and I--I am grateful. I am in love with my wife. I'm in love with my son. I love my family. I'm having a blast making music. It’s still just a complete joy, man, we had so much fun.
Max: So that moment's 1994, first transplant doesn't work, you-you're waiting for a second and you're close. Did you have regrets then? Like, did you--
David: Well, I was in a strange place, you got to understand I had-I felt like I was on an upswing because I had been, you know, an addict and I beat it. I went to prison.
Max: In Texas, yeah.
David: Yeah, not fun. That's the rottenness most awful way to kick on Earth in a jail cell. But I did, and I'm proud of it. I did it. So I was feeling pretty good about myself and thinking, ‘OK, now I've got to lose some weight, get myself working here and, uh, and get back to doing my job.’ It all has a great deal to do with being, you know, able to make music. Uh, that’s a huge gift.
Max: Is there any tension between making music and-and the other thing you keep talking about, which is your family, like, does one pull you away from the other?
David: There used to be more tension, uh, you know, because I would leave to go on the road and I would leave my family behind. You can't take them on the bus and. And, you know, they would miss me when I was gone and I would miss them when I was gone it. Now, no conflict at all. Uh, if I do go and do any work, I'll just take my family with me.
Max: That's the rule now.
David: Yeah.
Max: Do you think you'll tour again?
David: Probably not.
Max: How come?
David: A lot of reasons. The people who are going out now are doing it too soon. They're having to go out in total isolation. They can't take their wives with him or their family. They can't see anybody, they can't have any guests and then they go to a hotel room where they are forbidden to go out. They stay in the room and have room service, and that's it.
Max: Right, do you feel like something got stolen from you, losing this time to tour?
David: Yes. Yeah. I-I-I love seeing in live, man. It's a-it's a really a joy to do, and I'm good at it. And I...I had to cancel three tours and, uh, I think that would have been my last year that I had the stamina and the strength to go out and work all summer. Uh, I don't think I can do it now.
Max: I'm sorry, David.
David: Yeah, me too.
Max: What about the financial hit?
David: It's pretty bad, I mean, we had two ways of making money, right? Records and touring. And, uh, so then along comes streaming, and we don't get paid for records anymore. They're making billions. I wanted to be grateful that I can still earn a living, playing live and pay the rent, take care of my family. Along comes covid and I can't.
Max: Yeah.
David: So now I lost my two sources of income, both of them. So I was facing, you know, selling my guitar, should not have to sell my house. I mean, it was pretty serious. And, uh, my-my friend Irving made me an offer on my publishing and I took it. Because that's the only resource I had.
Max:This is probably like, uh, gauche or impolite, but, like, I think I assumed you were pretty rich.
David: You were wrong.
Max: Do people make that assumption? Like, am I, uh, totally off base there?
David: Sure. Yeah. No, no. If you're going to net, it says, I'm worth $43 million [both laugh]. I freaking wish. I-I was down to the point where I literally was facing losing my home. What can I tell you, I only had two places to earn money, and they were both gone.
Max:Yeah and you were still basically like living off the income you were bringing in.
David: Yeah, I don't- I don't have a big wad of money sitting in a bank someplace, I wish I fucking did,but I don't.
Max: Should you?
David: No.,
Max: Okay.
David: Nobody stole it, I spent it. Mostly on drugs. Yeah.
Max: How much money do you think you've spent on drugs in your lifetime?
David: Millions. Millions of dollars. Cocaine and heroin.
Max: Jesus.
David: Sad, huh? It is sad.
Max: Yeah, I think there's two ways of looking at it, though, you know. I mean, it's sad. It also fits under luckiest mother-fucker on Earth, I think.
David: To to have survived it, yeah.
Max: Yeah. Do you have regrets about it?
David: Sure.
Max: Do you think about it or is or is it just it's like your story and that's what it is.
David: I think about it in the sense that it's time lost. The big loss there was time. You don't get it back. I wasted probably 10 years just trying to see how absolutely blasted out in my mind I could get, rather than trying to see how much work I could do.
Max: Do you know why that's the path you went down?
David: Tough question. I don't know. I really don't know. I-Imust have been unhappy about some stuff, but I don't know what it would have been. I had a good life.
Max: You seem good now,.
David: I am now. It's really fun now.
Max: You seem great.
David: I'm pretty happy, man. I really am!
Max: Do you feel like you've ever been happy like this before? Is this--
David: No, I was happy before, but I, you know, I was also kind of erratic and also, you know, doing stuff that was damaging. I'm not doing anything that's damaging now. I smoke pot, but that doesn't do any damage. It's really kind of nice.
Max: Is it weird at all? Is it surreal at all to have pot legalized?
David: It's a [laughs] relief because we can--we grow our own. You know, we have a garden out in back when we grow, you know, a few plants and they're nice. They're pretty ladies and we take care of them and then we harvest them. We just did a harvest. It was really good.
Max: What's it been like for you, not just getting older yourself, but seeing all these like contemporaries of yours, all these like legendary rock stars [David laughs], faces of counterculture? What's it been like to watch all these guys get old?
David: Well, everybody handles it differently. You know, we can’t all be Keith Richards. [Max laughs] Keith’s handling it pretty well.
Max:Yeah, he's doing all right.
David: Yeah, I think some people, uh, get, uh, more crotchety and more full of themselves and, you know, more pompous the older they get. And some people handle it gracefully and are really a lot of fun. Uh, Bonnie Raitt leaps to mind. Uh, Bette Midler leaps to mind.
Max: What about how that interacts with, like, politics? Because my sense is that politics are still critically important to you, like looking at your Twitter, it's a lot about what is going on in the world. You've got very strong views that my sense are, like, quite similar to where they were 40 years ago.
David: Yeah, I have pretty much the same value system that I had. Uh, it's getting a little more sophisticated, but you know, yeah.
Max: Is that true for the people that you were coming up with?
David: Yeah, politics is is what's going to happen to you tomorrow. Politics in this country, uh, is a desperate situation. The-the global warming thing is real. OK? It's absolutely fucking real. And we can't do anything about it because people who are indebted to the coal and oil, you know, of the world are hanging us up. If we don't solve the problem, if we don't get off fossil fuels, and if we don't figure out some way to do carbon capture, this isn't going to be a survivable place in just a couple of generations. So politics right now is-is life and death.
Max: Yeah. I mean, you know, I got-I got two little kids to think about it all the time.
David: You should.
Max: If politics is what's going to happen to us tomorrow--Not to be crass about it, but you're not going to be here tomorrow--at some point...
David: But I have kids too. Same as you.
Max: And do you think that you're leaving the world better than you found it?
David: I think I'm trying. But I think currently we're failing because we are allowing people who are too stupid to understand what the danger is to impede our progress, and that is--that can result in the death of the human race.
Max: It's a part of me when faced with that, the like just wants to curl up in the fetal position under the couch.
David: There is part of me that wants to do that too, but I'm a fighter, man. I'm not going to do that.
Max: Do you think about dying?
David: I do.
Max: Are you scared of it?
David: Yeah, sure.
Max: I've talked to all these people for the show, and, um, most of them answer that question very differently.
David: I think most people want to give you the impression that they're brave and they're not afraid of it. ‘I can handle it.’ And I think they're lying. I think everybody's afraid of it. Uh, being afraid shouldn't make you...unable to do anything. OK, so I'm afraid of it, so what? I still am here and I'm still able to sing, and I still have a family and-and and it's a sunny, beautiful day outside, so...you know.
Max: Can you articulate what you're scared of?
David: The end of being able to be here. I like it here. I've fought through a lot of stuff to get here, and I like it. I like my life. I like my family. I like being alive. And I…..I don't want to give it up.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Max: Especially because you're such a lucky motherfucker.
David: That's how I see it.
CREDITS
Max: 70 Over 70 is a production of Pineapple Street Studios, and it’s produced by Jess Hackel.
Our associate producer is Janelle Anderson. Our editors are Maddy Sprung-Keyser and Joel Lovell. Research and additional reporting by Charley Locke.
Our mixer is Elliott Adler, and Jenna Weiss-Berman and I are the executive producers.
Our theme song is Like a Dream by Francis and the Lights and the music you’re listening to now is by Arthur Russell, who would have been 70 this year. Original music by Terence Bernardo. Additional music by Noble Kids, and music licensing by Dan Knishkowy.
Our cover art is by Maira Kalman who is 72, and our episode art is by Lynn Staley. She's 74 now, and she’s also my mom.
Special thanks to Beandrea July and Gabrielle Lewis.
Thank you Konai Helu Thaman, and thank you, David Crosby.
I'm Max Linsky. Thanks for listening.