For the past twenty-four years, Seth Meyers built a comedy career inside the walls of 30 Rock. We join him there today for our Father’s Day special, reflecting on the past decade of Late Night.

At the top, we talk about making the show four nights a week (3:00), his approach to parenting as seen in his HBO special Dad Man Walking (12:00), and the formative lessons that shaped his comedic voice (17:00). Then, we unpack the characters he brought to his SNL audition (22:00), what it takes to get a sketch from read-through to air (35:00), and an infamous 2004 scene Seth performed opposite Donald Trump (40:00).

On the back-half, Meyers revisits his legendary White House Correspondents Dinner monologue (42:00), how that night unexpectedly set him on the path to Late Night (47:00), and how his singular approach to the talk show was born (50:00). To close, we take A Closer Look at his Strike Force Five co-hosts (53:00), the future of SNL (57:00), and an early memory of Seth’s father that shaped his creativity (1:02:00).

Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.

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Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) has long turned to music to make sense of the past. Today, she joins us to unpack all of the emotional terrain covered in her latest album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women).

We discuss the literary (6:08) and musical (7:32) influences that shaped the new record, her transformative year spent living and writing in Korea (13:12), and the daily diary she kept while abroad (15:44). We then celebrate her late mother (18:56), her exploration of identity in Crying in H Mart (23:19), and the song “Heft” born out of that ongoing grief (29:49).

On the back half, Zauner recounts her breakout performance at SXSW (35:30) and unpacks her evolving relationship with her father in the wake of her mother’s passing (43:17), her plans for a second book (56:40), and how she’s coming into her own on this latest world-wide tour (58:02).

Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.

This episode was recorded at Spotify Studios.

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Since his bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous debuted in 2019, Ocean Vuong has become one of the most beloved writers of his generation. He first sat with Sam in 2021 amid the pandemic.

Today, Vuong returns to discuss the personal history within his latest novel, The Emperor of Gladness—a piece of fiction that draws from the contours of his own coming-of-age in East Hartford, Connecticut (5:43). We begin with the class dynamics at the heart of the book (9:27), the surrogate family he found working at Boston Market (21:22), and his formative college years in New York City (28:18).

On the back half, we walk through how Ocean’s work continues to honor the memory of his late mother (36:48), the devastating impact of the opioid crisis (41:40), and his own journey to sobriety (45:03). To close, Vuong reflects on the childlike wonder behind his poem “Dear Sara” from Time Is a Mother (1:04:52), why he still loves teaching creative writing (1:18:30), and how all of these experiences deliver him back to the page, each and every day (1:26:00).

Watch our conversation on YouTube. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.