TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is writer, producer and podcaster Dan Taberski. He's the creator of several award-winning audio documentaries of the past decade, like "Missing Richard Simmons," which explored the sudden disappearance of the late fitness icon, and "Running From Cops," which was a look into the long-running reality show and its impact on law enforcement and public perception. Taberski's latest project, "Hysterical," was recently honored as Podcast of the Year at the Ambies. It's a seven-part series that unpacks a strange and fascinating medical mystery, a sudden outbreak in 2011 of tics and spasms among high school girls in Le Roy, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "HYSTERICAL")
DAN TABERSKI: In December of 2011, a young woman posted a video on YouTube.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hi, everyone. My name's [censored] and this is my first video.
TABERSKI: She's got shiny red hair with side bangs, and she's wearing a white graphic hoodie. A poster for the metal band Avenged Sevenfold is tacked to her bedroom wall behind her.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: So I'll start off by telling you a little bit about myself. I'm 16. I'm in 11th grade. And I play softball, like, all the time.
TABERSKI: When she made this video, there was no TikTok. There was barely an Instagram. She's not looking to monetize, not trying to influence. What this 16-year-old is looking for is a little help.
She's been having strange symptoms that so far, no one can seem to explain.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Recently (huffing), last August, I had passed out at a concert. I was headbanging, and I thought, you know, I was just dehydrated and all that.
TABERSKI: By now, you've noticed that her speech is a bit halting, and her nervous teenage energy is more than just fidgeting.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And about a month after, I pass out again - at the homecoming dance. That's awesome, right? (Huffing).
TABERSKI: It has pattern and repetition - eyes twitching, hands in the air, fingers flying.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And a few days ago, my twitching has (huffing) progressed into noises, like, through my nose or in my throat. (Huffing) And (huffing) it's something that (huffing) won't go away (huffing).
MOSLEY: The series draws a line from the cases in Le Roy to historical episodes like the Salem witch trials, when girls displaying odd speech and convulsive fits were accused of being witches and contemporary phenomena like Havana syndrome, when overseas diplomats and CIA agents suffered neurological symptoms that were suspected to be the result of foreign attacks. These were all moments when real physical symptoms spread through communities with no clear biological cause. Many of these are known as mass psychogenic illnesses.
Dan Taberski says he's drawn to puzzles that point to larger questions about who we are and how we live. Before becoming a podcaster, he was a field producer for "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" from 1999 to 2006. And before that, he worked on economic policy in the Clinton White House. Dan Taberski, welcome to FRESH AIR.
TABERSKI: Thanks for having me. Nice to be here.
MOSLEY: You know, what a career you've carved out for yourself. I can't wait to get into that. But first, let's talk a little bit about "Hysterical." Can you describe what you saw in Le Roy, how prevalent it was and, like, what was going on at its height?
TABERSKI: Yeah. I mean, it started with one girl who woke up from a nap with a stutter, and she couldn't speak. She just couldn't get her words out, which was not normal for her. Those symptoms evolved into twitches and spasms and vocal outbursts. Couple weeks later, a friend on the cheerleading squad came down with similar symptoms - tics, verbal outbursts, spasms - like, really scary-looking things when you don't know what's causing it. Two became three. Three became five, and they were off to the races. Almost all of the cases were centered in Le Roy Junior-Senior High School in a town called Le Roy, New York.
MOSLEY: Something that you delve into so well in this podcast is really our understanding of what even a psychogenic illness or conversion disorder is. Can you...
TABERSKI: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...Really break that down for us?
TABERSKI: Yeah. I mean, conversion disorder is basically psychological stress or trauma that exhibits itself as physical symptoms. Sometimes, it's very simple - like, could be, like, GI issues, or you're nauseous. Very often, it's neurological. And very often, they can become bizarre, and they can become long-lasting. They can be limps, tics, spasms, outbursts - symptoms very similar to Tourette syndrome. Syncope is one that happens a lot, which is passing out, or near syncope, which is the feeling of passing out. Seizures. So it can really run the gamut. But the only thing is - is that these symptoms don't seem to have an organic cause. So you might have a limp, but the X-rays are normal, or you're having seizures three times a day, but your MRIs don't show anything.
MOSLEY: You were initially drawn to this story, I read, of the students in Le Roy after reading reports about Havana syndrome, which is, to remind people, that mysterious illness that affected diplomats and CIA officers really around the world, not just in Cuba, in 2016. And some of the experts that you talked to made an argument that what was happening to these men possibly isn't so different from what the girls were experiencing.
So so much, especially with the girls in Le Roy, is tied up in whether or not they're believed. They're told it's all in their heads, that they're being dramatic or hysterical. But I'm curious - how does that equation shift when the same unexplained symptoms, or similar symptoms, start happening to powerful men who are valued for their toughness and their composure and their physicality and mental strength? Did that conversation around legitimacy and seriousness kind of evolve and change for you as you were delving into what was happening in Le Roy?
TABERSKI: I mean, that was part of what was interesting about it in the first place, was comparing Havana syndrome to what was happening in Le Roy and how people were reacting to what happens when - you're right. It's, like, CIA agents. It's, like, people who - you know, like, they do secret ops. They - like I say in the podcast, they know how to neutralize things. Like, these are serious, potentially scary people who are trained to deal with the stress of, if not combat, close to it. And so many people weren't willing to countenance the possibility that mass psychogenic illness could happen to people like that, or it could happen to men, period.
And to watch how quickly the conversation became about, quote-unquote, it's all in your head, for the girls, compared to the diplomats and the CIA agents, I just thought was really interesting and really telling about women and girls and belief in terms of their medical conditions and their medical experiences, right or wrong. And, you know, I'm not saying it wasn't - they both could be mass psychogenic illness. They both might not be. But it was just interesting how hesitant people were to question the men and how quick they were to write off the girls.
MOSLEY: In Le Roy, a lot of folks thought it might be environmental. What were some of the most compelling arguments in favor of that theory? And really, what did you ultimately conclude?
TABERSKI: Yeah. I mean, as this was sort of all unfolding and people were trying to figure out what this was, somebody slipped an anonymous note in somebody's mailbox for the parents of one of the victims who were suffering from this. And it reminded them of something that had happened in 1973 that might have something to do with what was going on now. And in 1973, it turns out there was a train derailment about 3 miles away from the school. And during the derailment, the train unloaded approximately 35,000 gallons of trichloroethylene, which is an industrial solvent. And it ended up in the ground, in the water table, and stayed there. And many people believed that this could potentially explain why people were having these symptoms, thinking that the plume that was underground had gone to the high school and was starting to cause these symptoms. And they investigated the area. There were six fracking wells on the school property, which is just really shocking. They were not able to show that it was causing the symptoms that were happening, but it does go to show that it really can be anything at a time like this, and that you can't just say, oh, it's mass psychogenic illness. It's all in your head. And walk away because there really are things - part of knowing that it's mass psychogenic illness is really knowing as sure as you can be that it's not something else, which requires an investigation, which requires all that footwork.
MOSLEY: And then after a few years, mysteriously, the symptoms for many of these girls went away. I mean, basically, for all of them.
TABERSKI: Yeah, by the end of the school year, the symptoms were all but gone. Yeah.
MOSLEY: Yeah. I mean, one of the other things that you delve into is just how much stress the environment and also our interactions with each other kind of play a role in how we react to the environment and each other. So in the case of the girls, it was an interesting point that you talked about how the media might actually perpetuate or even worsen their symptoms, so how deeply influenced we are by each other because the more the story was reported, the more cases seemed to emerge. So was it that increasing media attention, simply shining a light on it, was already happening, or did the power of suggestion actually play a role?
TABERSKI: Well, it's hard to know. Like, you can't know for sure, right? You have to report on it. You have to report on this thing. It's a medical mystery. You need to find out the answer. But the thing about mass psychogenic illness, especially one that was breaking out in Le Roy, where the symptoms were so bizarre, is that it's a line-of-sight illness. It's not passed randomly. It's usually passed in social groups, like kids at a high school or, like, a nunnery, or workers on a factory floor, even people in a town. But by putting the girls with the tics on the news, they were basically showing the tics to everybody else in the town, and then that would become a vector for spread, that the constant looking at the symptoms and seeing them and talking about them actually contributes to it continuing.
MOSLEY: Right. There was a student with Tourette's who went to the school. She talked to you about how when she would go to camp with other young people who had Tourette's that their tics and their behaviors would actually grow. It was from being around each other. And, you know, I was thinking about this, Dan, and listening to this podcast and many of your others. And one of the things that I just noticed was something that happens in a very subtle way to all of us is that even your voice changes based on who you're talking to. It's subtle, but when you were talking to an officer, for instance, from the CIA, your voice kind of mimicked him in a way. I do the same thing, and it just - it made me just wonder if you had been thinking about this as well, like how much we are influenced simply by being in front of or in interaction with each other.
TABERSKI: I mean, for me, it keeps coming back to the positive version of this is laughter. It's contagious laughter.
MOSLEY: Yes.
TABERSKI: That feeling of being around somebody and they're laughing and you feel your mouth start to open. You feel your smile coming, and then you feel your body start convulsing, right? Like...
MOSLEY: It's contagious.
TABERSKI: And it's - yeah, it's truly contagious, and you can't stop it. It's wonderful, right? It's usually amazing to have that and sort of ecstatic to have that sort of contagion. But it's a really similar principle, how much we impact each other, for sure.
MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is documentary filmmaker and podcaster Dan Taberski. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE AMERICAN ANALOG SET'S "IMMACULATE HEART II")
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Today we're talking to Dan Taberski, creator of the award-winning podcasts "Running From Cops" and "9/12." His latest podcast, "Hysterical," is a seven-part exploration of mass psychogenic illness in Le Roy, New York. One of Taberski's podcasts that got a lot of attention was "Missing Richard Simmons," which came out in 2017. For more than 30 years, Simmons made a career out of helping people exercise and lose weight, and he was also known for embracing fans on a personal level. So it was mystifying when he abruptly withdrew from public life in 2014. Dan, let's talk a little bit about the late Richard Simmons, who just passed away last year at 76. You produced a hugely popular podcast in 2017, which was both like a public appeal and a deeply emotional investigation. You wanted to understand why this person, who was larger than life, suddenly chose to disappear from public life. And I'd like to play a clip from Episode 4 of the series where you highlight his tremendous impact. And in this clip, we're going to hear Richard Simmons speak. He's at a congressional hearing talking about kids' health. Let's listen. You speak first.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MISSING RICHARD SIMMONS")
TABERSKI: Richard Simmons believes - because he's lived it. He was fat, and he lacked self-worth, but he was born again. He found the answer, and he's going to help you find it, too. Am I going too far with this religion thing? Because, honestly, I don't think you can.
RICHARD SIMMONS: And I'm hoping that the committee today will know there is no other way to do this, or our children will get more sick.
TABERSKI: This is Richard in 2008 testifying before Congress about obesity.
SIMMONS: And there's a statistic that says our children today will not live as long as their parents. What have we done? What have we done to the kids of the United States of America? This is wrong. I do not want any child in America to have my childhood because it was taken away from me because I just wasn't good enough. Well, I'm good enough now. I'm 60 years old now, and I devoted my life to this, and I will devote my life to this to the day I die.
MOSLEY: That was a clip from the podcast "Missing Richard Simmons," produced and hosted by my guest today, Dan Taberski. Dan, as we heard in that clip, Simmons is passionately talking about fighting for overweight children until the day he dies. And that was his promise to fans. I mean, he'd write to every person. He'd call to check on them. If you wrote to him, he was going to write you back if he received your letter. He really forged this relationship with the public that felt like we were owed his empathy. And so, like, the moral question that you ask in this podcast and that continues to come up when the podcast is talked about is, like, how much do celebrities owe the public, if anything, and do they have the right to step away from public life? You're some years away from making this podcast, so I'm just wondering where do you stand on that.
TABERSKI: (Laughter) Well, it's fun to listen to Richard.
MOSLEY: Isn't it?
TABERSKI: The thing about - I love about that clip is not just that he made a promise and that we need to hold him to it. It's that he made a promise that he so clearly meant. And that was the concern about it. It's not that he said something and that we need to make him - we need to hold him to account. It's just that his passion cannot be understated. This was not a flash in the pan for him. This wasn't a joke. It wasn't a lie. It was his entire life, and which is what made it, I felt, so important to, like, find out why he would stop doing that.
I don't think that celebrities owe anybody anything. I do think that if you're a celebrity, you should think twice about developing the kind of relationship that Richard Simmons had with his fans because he gave so much of himself. And the more you give, the harder it is to claw that back. I mean, like, he'd wake up 4 o'clock in the morning and call, like, you know, 20 people a day for free, just to, like, help them lose weight. Like, he helped people lose hundreds and hundreds of pounds over the phone. He saved lives constantly. He developed friendships or things that felt like friendships.
And it's hard to take that back. It's hard to take that away from people when it was a relationship that was real, and that when he does disappear, it did make them feel like they were crazy. It made them feel like everybody was saying, oh, relax. He's a celebrity. You're not really friends with a celebrity. But they were. Hundreds of people were. And so I don't think celebrities owe anybody anything, but I still can't believe what a complex situation Richard Simmons had ended up in at that stage in his life and that there was only one way to get out of doing it, I think, and that was probably to cut...
MOSLEY: Was to drop from public life.
TABERSKI: Just drop it. Yeah.
MOSLEY: You knew him personally in that you took his Slimmons workout classes, which...
TABERSKI: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...Were in-person classes. You and Richard Simmons talked about doing a documentary together. But then when he dropped from public life, that idea went away. But you then wanted to delve into why he just dropped from public life. And the podcast, when you listen to it in its entirety, it is complex. You do delve into some of the challenges of you pushing forward even when he is not participating. But one reviewer called the show an invasion of privacy masquerading as a love letter, and you defended your choice by trying to explain the reasons why. Looking back now, do you feel the same about making the show? Has your perspective changed, or do you really stand behind it?
TABERSKI: Oh, I stand behind it. I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of it, in part because it was such a fine line that we were walking. And if I had just parachuted in there, if I didn't know him or know the people around him, I think it would have felt different. But because I was so familiar with what was going on and so familiar with the severity of what he had done in terms of cutting people out of his life, friends that he had had for 10, 20, 30 years - there was one woman in her 90s - they were so close that Richard used to pick her up, drive her to his class. They would have the class, and then he'd drive her home. Like, these were real relationships, and there was a real concern for what was happening behind the door at the house where he still was that it didn't seem like people were taking it seriously. And so I'm so glad to have been able to get people - and in such an unusual way - like, to get people to care so much about Richard Simmons again that they got mad about the fact that the project existed in the first place.
MOSLEY: I'm thinking about some of the other feedback you got about, like, being able to drop out of public life, like, when people really depend on you. And the thing about Richard Simmons is, for all of the relationships that he had that were deep and profound with people, he also was a figure where people were looking to and receiving that empathy from him through the television screen or his appearances in ways that made them feel - still feel, I think, that they kind of were owed that because they really looked to him for that. And so this evangelical pastor in Texas, he reached out to you to say, I, like, see myself in him. What did he share with you?
TABERSKI: He was really an interesting guy. He's, you know, a preacher, pretty conservative, like, not - we were sort of pretty different politically, and we normally wouldn't have that much to talk about. But he just reached out and wanted to talk about it. And we sort of developed a relationship. And for him, he understood as a pastor, as somebody who gives that sort of empathy to the people in his congregation. And sometimes, you know, he doesn't have the empathy to give, and they're asking for it anyway, and he still has to give it. And he talked about the sort of exhaustion that he felt, the sort of real physical, emotional, mental fatigue of having empathy to the point where you can't limit how much you're giving out. He really got that exhaustion. And I just loved that this guy who's so different from Richard Simmons saw - right? - he's like, I know exactly what feeling you're talking about.
MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is documentary podcaster Dan Taberski. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley. And this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SIMMONS: Get ready to sweat.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Burn, baby, burn.
SIMMONS: Give it all you've got. Here we go.
(CHEERING)
SIMMONS: Point it out. Point it out. Now higher.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Can you feel, can you feel that burn?
SIMMONS: Now the wind.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Burn, baby, burn.
SIMMONS: Give me a nice turn. And releve. Walk it up. And disco point, and turn.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Burn, baby, burn.
SIMMONS: Releve. Back it up. Disco point, and sassy.
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest is writer, producer and podcaster Dan Taberski. He's the creator of the podcast "Hysterical," which is a seven-part exploration of mass psychogenic Illness in Le Roy, New York. His earlier podcasts include "Missing Richard Simmons," "Running From COPS," which was an expose of the long-running TV show "COPS," and "9/12," which explored the cultural fallout of the September 11 attacks. Taberski was also a field producer for "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" in the late '90s and early 2000s. And before his media career, he worked on economic policy for the Clinton White House. When we left off, we were talking about the podcast "Missing Richard Simmons," which explored what happened to the popular fitness instructor and television star after he withdrew suddenly from a very public life in 2014.
Through your investigation of his life - I mean, while you were trying to figure out why he went missing, why he disappeared from public life - you're also learning about the man himself and how that translated into the way that he lived. What were some of your takeaways in that? Like, did he ever triumph over that challenge of growing up as an overweight kid?
TABERSKI: I mean, he did. The irony is that he lost the weight in all the wrong ways. When he was young, he basically went on a crash diet and ate, like, water and lettuce and lost, like, an insane amount of weight in a very short period of time, to the point where he ended up in the hospital. And he tells the story about how a nurse asked him, do you want to live or you want to die? Because that's what this is going to be about. That's where you are.
And he - that was the moment where he decided. He says that he wanted to live, and he built a whole life around helping other people get to that feeling. But the feeling was always still there. I mean, I seen Richard Simmons cry more times than I can - that I feel like I've taken a breath, sincerely. And it - and those emotions and his sort of contact with those feelings from so long ago was still so visceral. I think that's what people loved about him, 'cause they - he had such access to those feelings that - and which really were what other people were feeling all the time. But he couldn't - he wasn't able to shake it. And I think that was part of the struggle.
MOSLEY: You went through all of these theories on why he disappeared. The podcast came back up into the public consciousness when he died last year. What did you walk away with? Because you didn't walk away with the answers, and the same way with "Hysterical." Like, we're left thinking about a lot of things and really reflecting on them, but we still don't really know. What does your heart tell you?
TABERSKI: I think he experienced a personal crisis. I don't necessarily know what that is, the details of that. He had, like, a club where people could log on. And there was, like, a chatroom where people who were trying to lose weight could all - and he would come on and talk to people, and it was really him. And we have transcripts of some of the later conversations he had where he was clearly struggling with emotional trauma, mental trauma. Like, he was in trouble. And he was expressing that to the people in the class, and they were trying to help him. And he couldn't do that. And he couldn't not...
MOSLEY: In what ways? Like, can you give an example?
TABERSKI: I think that he was in a place where the only way that he could deal with it was to stop it all at once. And I think a lot of the emotional trouble he was having was because of the constant emotional work that he was making himself do, in terms of helping other people and taking on other people's trauma. I mean, that's - it's just - it's a huge burden. And he wasn't trained. I mean, he wasn't trained as a psychiatrist or psychologist or some sort of counselor. This is all just, like, not winging it, but it just all comes from his heart. And while there's something beautiful about that, there was definitely signs that he was not protecting himself in a way that somebody who cares for people with serious emotional problems needs to care for themselves so that they can keep doing it.
MOSLEY: Dan, I want to talk with you about the podcast that came out of yours in 2021 to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11. It's a seven-part series called "9/12." And you're not only telling stories from people who are talking about where they were on 9/11, but you also really delve into how it changed us. The clip I want to play is from the first episode, where you actually found people who were part of a reality show called "The Ship," which was a recreation of explorer Captain Cook's 18th century voyage to Australia, New Zealand. And on 9/11, the crew was trapped on a ship in the middle of the ocean without access to TV or radio. And this clip begins with Alan Block (ph), who was part of that voyage. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "9/12")
ALAN BLOCK: Nine or 10 o'clock is the morning change of watch, OK? And that's the one where the captain, who is about 5 foot 2 with a tiny bald head and this gigantic loud voice - and usually, the meeting is, thank you for gathering. We've got some weather coming in today, but likely continued good sailing conditions. For lunch is salted beef. For dinner is salted pork.
That was the morning meeting. No big deal, right? Well, this day started differently.
MARIO: We thought that we were going to - we thought it was more of a public flogging.
TABERSKI: Mario (ph) and a shipmate had broken a bunch of safety rules on camera the day before while trying to catch a 30-pound barracuda. So when everyone was assembled on the quarter deck, Mario thought that the captain was about to chew them out.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "9/12")
MARIO: And we were - you know, sort of our heads were right down, waiting for the whip to come down on us in front of the - everybody. And then he just proceeded to tell us this strange story.
CHRIS BLAKE: Sorry to wake you up so alarmingly. What I'm going to tell you now is going to shock all of you.
This morning, American time 8:30, a 737 was flown into one of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York. It was full of passengers. It was hijacked. Ten minutes later, another airplane flew into the other Twin Tower. That one was hijacked as well.
MOSLEY: That was a clip from the 2021 podcast "9/12," produced and hosted by my guest today, Dan Taberski.
Like, anytime I hear anything like that, where it - not just people telling their stories about where they were in 9/11, but real sound, real video or audio of people hearing it in real time, it just, like, stops me in my tracks. It takes me right back there. I'm sure it's the same for you.
TABERSKI: Oh, yeah. It gives me chills. I mean, 20 years after 9/11's a long time. And so we were just trying to figure out how we could bring people back to that shock. The shock has been gone for so long. And we were trying to figure out how to get people back to that without just sort of, like, dousing them in audio from the actual, you know, planes hitting buildings and people screaming and all that terrible stuff, which is super exploitative. And it doesn't even do the trick anymore.
MOSLEY: That's such a unique story and was able to really take us into it in the ways that you just talked about. But you also went to several other really interesting places, like the staff of the publication of The Onion and lots of other places, to find out where they were when they heard it.
TABERSKI: We wanted to be able to tell a story about how we digested it all. And so going to those stories that are sort of on the side of 9/11 or people who had weird reactions or - like, The Onion is a perfect example of people who had to tell jokes about 9/11, like, three days afterwards. And how do you deal with that? And how humor ended up actually being this sort of incredible balm. And we just wanted to do justice to what had happened to everybody afterwards and to be able to sort of mine all those stories and see how it changed us, which it so clearly did. I just - it just seemed like the thing that - I really wanted to talk about it.
I mean, I was here in New York. I lost a very good friend, and it was part of my life. And I - you know, I still live in New York. And so it was something that I was wrestling with, as well, about seeing 9/11 memorials and sort of rolling your eyes sometimes because you feel like they're sort of playing on certain feelings that aren't really there anymore, and they're just sort of doing it to make money or, you know, just all these sorts of other icky side stories and other sort of weird things that happen after something - the conspiracy theories and trying to tell movies about it and actors that played Osama Bin Laden and how weird that is. Like, it means so more than just the day. And podcasting is just a great place to fish around like that and take your time getting to a larger point, as opposed to just sort of starting, you know, with, like, the, here's what happened on that day, and making people only feel that visceral thing. There's so much more to do in conversation.
MOSLEY: In conversation, the intimacy of the audio.
TABERSKI: Yeah, and just, like, memory. It can be really beautiful to talk to people who had an experience, but they are removed enough with it they have wisdom about it, too. You're not just asking them to sort of relive the visceral experience of, tell me about that horrible thing that happened to you that day, which sometimes it can feel like you're doing. They - people have processed it. People have thought about it. And if you ask them questions in that context, people really have wise, smart things to say about how to get past something like that, and how it affected you and how to maybe - how to do things differently next time.
MOSLEY: I'm sorry you lost a friend.
TABERSKI: Oh, thanks.
MOSLEY: What's your personal memory of 9/11? Where were you? Were you in the city?
TABERSKI: Yeah, I was in the city. I was on - I was at my boyfriend's apartment (laughter) on 10th Street, and it just all happened really quickly. I watched it all on TV. I didn't see it happen. I watched it all as it was happening on TV. And then we realized that a friend of mine worked in the South Tower of the Trade Center. And he lived in an apartment in Tribeca, where his wife was at that time and could see the buildings. As this was all happening, she saw the buildings collapse from her building, and knowing her husband was on the 101st floor. And so - and then we spent the next few days looking for him, sort of knowing that we weren't going to find him, but doing it anyway because to do anything else just felt wrong.
MOSLEY: Did you get those answers that you were looking for by making this podcast - that, like, by hearing other people's stories, kind of making sense and moving forward?
TABERSKI: I tend to not look for answers 'cause I tend to not believe (laughter). I think there's - you know what I mean? Like...
MOSLEY: What do you mean by not believe?
TABERSKI: Well, that you believe it, but the answer's always more complicated. Everybody wants an answer. And if there were an answer, then the podcast would be one word, and it would be the answer, and then you'd be done. But I think what it is, and what podcasting is so good at, is that because it's conversation mixed in with essay, mixed in with sort of audio, natural audio, like, I'm not really looking for answers. I'm more looking for wisdom. I'm more looking for people who were involved in it to help me put it somewhere in my head where it makes sense.
MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is documentary podcaster Dan Taberski. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, we're talking to Dan Taberski, creator of the award-winning podcasts "Missing Richard Simmons," "Running From COPS" and "9/12." His latest award-winning podcast, "Hysterical," is a seven-part exploration of mass psychogenic illness in Le Roy, New York.
I mean, your career trajectory is pretty fascinating. As I mentioned, you worked for the Clinton White House...
TABERSKI: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...And economic policy right out of college. I'm just curious - your time in government at the White House. Did it inform at all your approach to storytelling? Did you learn anything there? You learned what you didn't want to be and do, but...
TABERSKI: Yeah. I learned what I didn't want to be and do. My lesson from the White House is that the people there were sincere. My - despite the politics of it, my boss used to say, like, Dan, if you stay late tonight, like, you know, 22,000 more people in Ohio are going to get the Earned Income Tax Credit if we get this passed. And this is how it's going to change their lives. And, like, that - it was real. It wasn't political. It wasn't, I'm going to do this so I can make money. It was a real passion for policy and understanding how it changes people's lives, and doing sort of incremental work to move the ball forward. And I was really inspired by that.
MOSLEY: I mean, you transitioned into storytelling at a really interesting political time and moment. I mean, you worked as a field producer then for "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" from 1999 to 2006, and that's a really important window for the life of that show, in particular, because I actually think that was one of the show's most influential eras. It's, like, really when it was forming its identity.
TABERSKI: I started when Jon Stewart started. And so I was definitely part of - as it evolved with him. I mean, when I started the idea of doing this sort of journalism about politics that was also kind of a joke and involving actual politicians in that, like - was pretty out there, and it was really exciting. At the very beginning, like, they didn't even have Comedy Central in Washington. So you would call people up.
MOSLEY: Where was it?
TABERSKI: Yeah. You would call people up and you'd be like, "we're from The Daily Show," and they would sort of think you were saying "The Today Show." And so you...
MOSLEY: Right. Right.
TABERSKI: Yeah, and so you wouldn't disabuse them of it, 'cause it was sort of - you were...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
TABERSKI: And so it was wild to do that sort of reporting that, on the one hand, wasn't journalism, but on the other hand, had more truth in it than anything I'd ever done because the subject matter - like, truth through irony or truth through humor - it just opened up a whole other sort of world of how to sort of describe what you're seeing around you.
MOSLEY: OK. So an interesting detail about you is that you're a quilt maker, and I am so fascinated by this because, I mean, quilt making is storytelling. There are...
TABERSKI: (Laughter).
MOSLEY: ...Personal histories interwoven into the fabric, the choices for the fabric, the colors - like, all the things. How did you get into it?
TABERSKI: It feels a little on the nose, doesn't it?
MOSLEY: Very.
(LAUGHTER)
MOSLEY: But also, like, very fascinating. I...
TABERSKI: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...Want to know more. Yeah.
TABERSKI: I - you know, I always was kind of interested in that. My mother used to do stuff like crochet and knit. And I was always - you know, I was a boy, so I was a little shy about expressing too much interest. But I've learned how to crochet, and I kind of - you know, I used to sort of watch her doing those things. And then -but as an adult, I took a quilting class about 10, 12 years ago with a bunch of ladies. I just kind of liked the idea of the machine and connecting things, and then just exploring it. And then I started - rather than using store-bought fabric, I began going to Goodwill and buying clothes by the pound, and I would cut. So now I cut up those clothes, and I make quilts out of that. But, like, very often, I'll get, like - you know, hospital scrubs are really great to make quilts out of. But they're often...
MOSLEY: Really?
TABERSKI: Yeah, 'cause they're just, like, a nice - they come in. Like, there's, like, a nice...
MOSLEY: Nice fabric?
TABERSKI: ...Dusty rose color or, like, a nice - nice blues. And they sew together really well 'cause they're just thin. And so I get the sort of storytelling connection. I don't know that I'm trying to tell a story when I'm making something, but I definitely like being around it. I like being around the sort of stuff that people have left behind.
MOSLEY: How much time do you devote to it?
TABERSKI: I have a whole studio. I - you know, I go back and forth. Very often, it's something I'm doing - like, when I'm in the middle of writing, I'll end up doing a lot of quilting. It's very - it's a very good - it's very - it's a very good creative activity to focus on when you can't focus on the other thing you're doing anymore. But - and so - and very often, the good ideas in writing come when you're only paying half attention, right? When you're just sort of - like, when it's in the back in your self - in your subconscious, and you're just, like, watching a movie, and that's when you have all your ideas. And so it's very good to take the pressure off the writing and then just go start to stitch together a few pieces of fabric. And then all of a sudden, you have a good idea for what you're writing, and you go back to that.
MOSLEY: So fascinating. Dan Taberski, thank you so much for this conversation and for your work.
TABERSKI: Oh, thanks so much. Could not be more honored to be here.
MOSLEY: Dan Taberski is the creator and host of the podcast series "Hysterical." Coming up, our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, will share her roundup of some of the best mystery and suspense novels out this summer. This is FRESH AIR.
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