Episode 66: Journey to All 50 States with Ryan Bernsten ’14
Listen to "Journey to All 50 States with Ryan Bernsten ’14" on Spreaker.
Transcript:
[MUSIC PLAYING] RYAN BERNSTEN: Someone in North Carolina would introduce me to someone in Hawaii. And what people did for me in not just giving me access to their homes but access to their stories was profoundly life-changing for me.
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HELEN KIM: You're listening to Northwestern Intersections, where we interview our alumni about their careers on what they did right, what they did wrong, and the stories behind both. I'm your host, Helen Kim. And joining us today is Ryan Bernsten.
Ryan is a writer and storyteller whose work has been published and performed off Broadway and internationally. After working during the 2016 presidential election, he embarked on his Oxford graduate capstone project, a journey to all 50 states to investigate the state of American democracy through conversations with mayors, governors, and voters in each state, which can be heard on his podcast 50 States of Mind.
In addition to a brief stint as a birthday party clown, Ryan has been published in USA Today, the Oxford Political Review, the [INAUDIBLE], and has worked with Conan, and The Onion.
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RYAN BERNSTEN: Northwestern was always a dream school for me and in a way that I didn't always understand. But it seemed like actually the only place where I could do all the things I was interested in. Because as a kid, I loved doing theater, but I didn't want to go to a conservatory. I was really interested in politics and community service but also improv and film.
And all these small liberal arts schools only kind of had one thing. You could be a film major, but you couldn't do musicals. Or you could go to a place that had a really rigorous political science department, but it didn't have a strong theater department. And Northwestern kind of combined all my passions, and it was also close to home in a beautiful place that I actually have a family connection.
My grandfather, Harold Bernsten, used to have a grocery store in Evanston called the Bernsten Brothers. So it all felt very faded. The story goes that he used to walk me along the lakefront when I was a kid and say, "Someday you're going to go to Northwestern, Ryan." And so it just had to be that way.
HELEN KIM: And you did.
RYAN BERNSTEN: I did.
HELEN KIM: [LAUGHS] You did. And you were at Northwestern, I'm sure you were part of a lot of student groups.
RYAN BERNSTEN: Yes, I was-- I wanted to go here to do all those things, so then I kind of had to do all of them. So some of my favorite things I was involved in, I was the co-chair of The Waa-Mu Show, and head writer my-- was it my junior year? My junior year and senior year, I was head writer and then co-chair.
I was on Titanic Improv. I was a part of the Freshman Urban Program, where you take freshman down to do community service in the different Chicago neighborhoods. It's now called CUP, I think. I don't know whether they've changed the name.
I was on the homecoming court. And I was briefly a part of acapella. I was in the Freshman 15 group. But I realized that was really bad at that, so I kind of had to quit. And I didn't do it in a great way. So sorry, guys, about that.
And I feel like being able to do all those different things really prepared me for my quote unquote career. Because you have to balance so many different types of things, and Northwestern is a place where you don't have to pigeonhole yourself.
And I think that's sort of part of Northwestern's brand is people are able to be passionate about a lot of things but also have experience doing them. And so Northwestern was just like this big playground laboratory for me. Academics came last.
[LAUGHTER]
Everything else between doing theater and stuff like that, it was like, oh, I do have a paper due tomorrow, but I also have an improv show tonight. And I also have to go to this meeting for my fraternity. I was also in a fraternity.
HELEN KIM: Oh, you were also an a fraternity.
RYAN BERNSTEN: But you also learn the overcommitment thing. You can give a small piece of yourself to a lot of things, or you can give the whole pie to one thing. And so it's kind of learning how to balance that. Try out as many things as you can, and don't be afraid to cut your losses when something's just not working, or you don't feel like you're giving the best version of yourself to something.
I mentioned quitting acapella when I was a sophomore. I loved the people. I was just really bad at it. I couldn't read music. If someone wasn't singing my part with me, I'd get off. I was just like, I'm not really helping anyone. Six hours a week that I'm also taking away from things that I'm really maybe a little better at. So I think not being afraid to try things but not being afraid to, in a really diplomatic way, say, "I'm so sorry. This isn't the best fit for me."
HELEN KIM: When you know, you just got to do it.
RYAN BERNSTEN: Yeah, exactly.
HELEN KIM: Well, why don't we now talk about when you graduated.
RYAN BERNSTEN: Well, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And if you're a theater major, which I was, there are only three options it seems-- or it seemed at the time, and that was go to New York, go to LA, or stay in Chicago. Very few people did anything different.
And I had done an internship at Conan the summer before. And so I went kind of on a whim to LA. And I had a job opportunity to be the assistant to the head of Universal Studios, Donna Langley. I didn't get the job. So I was out living in LA.
And so instead of working at Universal Studios, I went on Craigslist and saw this ad for a job looking for an actor that paid $50 an hour. I showed up at a woman's house and found out it was for a birthday party clown job. So I learned how to tie balloon animals, and I learned how to play with parachutes. And then I went off-brand Spider-Man to a birthday party for a French family.
I guess my advice to anyone out there is if I can start out as a birthday party clown and still be here today and not too humiliated-- actually this coincided with six months after graduation, "What are you doing now?" That email came from Northwestern to me on the eve of me being a clown. I was like, wow, it's not going to be good for me. But it gets better. [LAUGHS] It gets better.
HELEN KIM: So I was researching on you a little bit, and I saw on your website, and I was hoping you would mention that during this.
RYAN BERNSTEN: Yeah, I could show you the pictures later, but I literally look like It from Stephen King's It.
HELEN KIM: Oh, my gosh.
RYAN BERNSTEN: I thought I would have made it in LA, but I became It.
[LAUGHTER]
HELEN KIM: But I think this is really great because not everybody's career path, it's not cookie cutter.
RYAN BERNSTEN: My cookie cutter is a very weird shaped cookie cutter. I'm not sure if it'd even cut a cookie. But yeah, I like to think of my career not as a straight line but a bit of a pinball, building a lot of sort of horizontal experiences and then figuring out what works and what doesn't. And I was able to cross birthday party clown off the list pretty early. But time will tell.
HELEN KIM: Well, I also know that you got your masters in creative writing.
RYAN BERNSTEN: Yeah.
HELEN KIM: Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about that and like the decision to go back to school after graduating?
RYAN BERNSTEN: Yeah, so I always knew I wanted to go to grad school, and it didn't happen as soon as I would have liked. I did one round of applications and didn't get an anywhere, which was kind of a big knock for me.
And then I'm a big believer that when doors slam in your face, another door opens. And it's sort of like "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Borges, where you're sort of meant to do what you're meant to do. And you can look back in hindsight and be like, oh, if I'd gotten into grad school as a playwright in the US, I never would have gone into the program at Oxford that I went to.
So I was a part of the collaboration between Northwestern's American musical theater program and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to write a new musical for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the master's students at the Royal Conservatoire and the Northwestern musical theater students here.
And when I was over there, I was expecting their program to be a bunch of people from Scotland, but there were some Americans over there. And I was kind like, "What are you guys doing over in Scotland? Why aren't you in America?" They said, "First of all, pro tip, it's cheaper to go to school overseas. It's so much fun to engage with a new culture but also you don't have to know their language."
And I was like, I'm not sure I'd go overseas unless there was a writing program at like Oxford or something. And there was. And so I found out that the deadline was actually in March. They two rounds of applications. I applied. I had a phone interview that I was asleep when they called me. So I was in my pajamas. And I had the worst interview of my life I thought.
And this program is different because I had applied to playwriting programs, and this Oxford program is an interdisciplinary writing program. And so I thought, well, I'm a playwright. What am I going to do? What am I going to learn from other people in the program who are poets, and nonfiction writers, and fiction writers. I'll go there and really buckle down on being a playwright.
And of course, I got there, and I wrote some plays. And then I took these other classes in non-fiction. And the program really gave me the space to dabble in other things and then realize that what I was sort of lacking as a playwright. Because I write a lot about politics. I worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign, so there's a real political edge to my work.
And sometimes even when I'm writing a musical, people will be like, "Can you keep your political agenda out of this? We're just trying to tell a story." And being able to explore non-fiction was such a great way to be able to follow my bliss a little more than-- writing a play is about story structure, and the truth of the moment, and building realistic characters.
But non-fiction really allowed me to design a project-- to write a book that I was really able to take the culmination of all the things I had done and all the things I had learned over the five years that I was out of school and sort of weave it into something perfect.
And I think keeping this relevant to the people listening about their careers is sometimes answers come in looking backwards at the things that really gave you a lot of joy and the things that actually felt right. And I've had a lot of different jobs where I ended up being an associate producer in LA after being a clown. And I ended up working on the Hillary Clinton campaign in the early primary states, and being a teacher, and being a writer.
And having the space in grad school to look back and be like, what does that all add up to allowed me to find this project 50 States of Mind, where I traveled to all 50 states in the US and stayed with people in their homes-- which is, I think, sort of what makes it a little different-- and talk to them about politics and the state of democracy in America, and do it in a way that hopefully allowed me to-- because I was staying in people's homes and eating at their dinner tables-- approach them with as much humanity as possible to get pretty candid answers.
And the Northwestern network really came into that. Because you cannot travel to all 50 states and stay on people's couches, and in their garages, and in their basements without staying with quite a few cats.
HELEN KIM: It sounds like there's a pattern just in the decisions that you make. And it kind of goes back to you trying out different things when you were in college. It sounds like you did that after graduating in trying out different jobs and seeing what doesn't work. And I think that's a really great approach.
RYAN BERNSTEN: Well, the thing is you have to make a living. And I've taken on a lot of crazy jobs to pay the bills. It's not like every whim I've followed has been able to pay me the correct amount to live. I've worked as a waiter. I've worked as a teacher.
But I really think it's important-- I mentioned earlier looking at the first years out of college as the freshman year of life. You have an idea about what things are, what certain careers are while you're in college, but if you're not practicing that thing, you have no idea what the logistics are, the day to day and whether or not they fit your skill set or your passion. And that's why I think taking the pressure off of yourself to succeed vertically immediately gives you the space and time to really ask yourself, "What am I good at? What do I like to do?"
When I studied theater at Northwestern, I loved doing theater. But after doing my first professional show out of college, it was 13 weeks of eight shows a week doing the same show. And I love the rehearsal process. I love the community of theater. But as soon as you get into the runs, you can't really change things. You're kind of on a track.
And I realized that being on Broadway would be amazing, but I'm not sure if I have the temperament to do eight shows a week indefinitely. And there's so many people that do and so many really dedicated artists. And also I'm not a well-oiled machine like some other people. So I said, you know what? I will do repertory theater gigs. I'll do community theater gigs. But that's not for me.
And you can't understand that in the framework of being a theater major at Northwestern, where you're working with your friends, and you're doing a new show every quarter. That's not the reality of being a performer. The way to get paid as a performer generally is to make it in a big show that runs forever.
And maybe I'm just an optimist, but I really truly in my bones believe that every door that's closed in your face will help you go back to, OK, what do I actually want to do? What am I good at? And that's why I think so many Northwestern students are great artistic entrepreneurs. Listening to Heather on the podcast today, she talked about how you have to really figure out what your brand is.
HELEN KIM: Yes.
RYAN BERNSTEN: And when you're not being hired by a company to work for their brand, you really have to look back and say, "All right. So what's my brand? What can I do? How can I hustle?"
And that's why so many people out in LA are starting things. I think of my friend Ilana Peña, who started something called See What Sticks, which is a performance space once a month for people to come in and put out-- try out plays, try out stand-up routines, try out bits of screenplays and see if it works. And I think people starting things and having an entrepreneurial spirit is the best outcome that can come out of, oh, I didn't get my dream job right away.
HELEN KIM: Yeah.
RYAN BERNSTEN: And that's what your 20s are all about, figuring out how you respond to not getting the thing you wanted. And I think that's what makes you stronger, and better, and more scrappy, and dexterous in your 30s.
HELEN KIM: Yes. You learn so much through failure. Or they might not be failures, they're just a little step back in your career path. And when you get your feet back up and move forward-- like you are in a place where you can look back and be like, hey, I went through all of that. Now what can I do next? What can I learn from that and move on?
RYAN BERNSTEN: When you miss a turn in your car and the directions go, "Recalibrating," you kind of need to recalibrate.
HELEN KIM: Yes.
RYAN BERNSTEN: And sometimes you find a quicker, more interesting path.
HELEN KIM: And I would love to hear about your podcast 50 States of Mind.
RYAN BERNSTEN: So for our final year at Oxford, we had to come up with a thesis project. So we had to write 25,000 to 30,000 words of a book, or write a full play, or a screenplay or something like that. And so I came up with this idea of originally going to all the early primary states and talking to people about the 2020 election, but it didn't really time out right.
So I thought, OK, what do I like doing? I like traveling. I like writing. I like talking politics. And I have almost been to all 50 states. But wouldn't it be great to go to the last ones I haven't been to. And then I thought, maybe I should just do them all over again.
So I came up with this idea that I was just going to travel through all 50 states. I didn't know who I was going to talk to. I didn't know where I was going to stay. But I proposed it to my department hoping they'd help me sort of winnow it down a little bit.
And they were like, great. That sounds awesome. I was like, wait, what? They're like, yep. And I was just like, wait, aren't you going to help me? This is impossible. I can't do this without any help. And I basically went home, and I was like, I need to buy a car. Find money. Find a place to stay. Find things to do. Find people to talk to.
And that's where the word "faith" comes into my life. Like you just gotta have faith sometimes when you take a leap that things are going to work out for you. Because the next five months of traveling through all 50 states, I encountered such unbelievable generosity from people, generosity of time, generosity of a nice chicken dinner, generosity of a very, very nice restaurant dinner, generosity of a couch to sleep on, a bedroom to stay in, generosity of chocolates on my pillow at someone's house.
It's insane how kind people can be and how much access I got with people. I ended up meeting with mayors and governors, but also oil rig workers, also state assembly men and women. And that sort grassroots enthusiasm-- someone in Alaska would introduce me to someone in Kansas. Someone in North Carolina would introduce me to someone in Hawaii.
And what people did for me in not just giving me access to their homes but access to their stories was profoundly life-changing for me. Being an artist and writer, I already love hearing people's stories. But understanding how every individual story can fit into the context of the political decisions people make and being able to understand someone's-- not entire narrative but the narrative they choose to give to you over the course of an hour or two hours was really moving.
So I finished up the trip. I had a few close brushes with death with former-- or current Northwestern alum Michael DeMarco. We almost got killed in a town called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. But more on that another time.
And I got back to Oxford, and I had all this interview footage, hours and hours and hours of this audio recording. And so I started to write the book, and people would say, "This passage right here, this quote, you can't make stuff up like this in books. Nonfiction doesn't work this way." And I was like, "This is a verbatim quote. I will play you the audio."
And everyone found the audio so arresting and so captivating, I said OK, what's the best way for me to share it with people? So I started to put together this podcast, and I said why don't I sit down with these people and play these interviews like I had, and get their reactions and sort of sift through their opinions of the United States and specific states, and then see if these interviews change their perceptions.
Because basically my whole project-- the book, the podcast-- is about taking our preconceived notions and trying to see if we can turn those around or find a counterexample to that. Because my entire blue, worked for Hillary, lived in big cities life has been turned upside down by the people I've met from so many different political persuasions, so many different walks of life. And I was hoping to be able to share that with people and also kind of scramble people's preconceived notions about the United States as well.
I would say maybe the most controversial thing I did was I went to a Trump rally undercover right before the midterm elections because I'd been on the east coast. And I was like I'm just only talking to the same kind of types of people. I did meet some conservatives, some Trump supporters running for Congress, but it felt a little safe and little easy.
So I was really nervous, really apprehensive about going to the Trump rally. And so I went there, and actually it was amazing the different feedback I got from people. Because I think some people take listening to people as an endorsement of what they think.
But my whole thing is about democracy. And if we're just going to continue to fracture the country into two opposite sides and not have anything working together, it doesn't matter who's president, it doesn't matter who's in charge of the Senate, things are going to get really bad.
It's what happened with the-- I read this article by Andrew Sullivan today about the fall of Rome and sort of how people wouldn't work together, and people had to take executive actions to make any change. And I got some flak from even Northwestern people for doing it. But I'm glad I did because I was able to combat my own preconceived notions and biases. And even if it didn't cause me to agree with people, it gave me a more robust understanding of people's inner emotional life and how people's identities translate into political identities.
So that's sort of what the book and the podcast is trying to explore. And getting an international perspective just really, like I said earlier, helps take the camera high up in the sky and makes you realize that your town or your point of view is one so, so, so, so, many billions. And you need to take into account what other people think.
And I think taking that back to careers, if I can go through all 50 states and figure out a place to sleep that night, it really gives me faith that if you're scrappy enough, and you take leaps of faith, things work out. You find a way to make a landing pad for yourself. So don't be afraid to get away from that weekly paycheck.
I have not had a weekly paycheck since the campaign, and I've found a way to make things work always just through little freelance writing gigs. Sometimes you pick up a month at a bar or something. Or you help in-- in your 20s, that's all in service of doing the projects like 50 States of Mind that means so much to me and are hopefully giving me something to talk about that might make me interesting to a potential employer at some point.
Like find the things that you really care about. And they might not pay you. In fact, you might pay a lot of money to do it. But that's what education is. Education when you're done at Northwestern doesn't stop. You can continue to put yourself out of your comfort zone.
And I think remaining sessile, especially as a writer or an artist, and being in one community with the same type of people always, that's how creativity sort of wilts and dies. You've got to get out there and reconnect with the world. And that's why I think it's so important to not immediately put yourself on a fast track to being CEO of Nestle or whatever you're on your way to. You've got to get out there and realize what the world is all about.
I'm not sure if I could have stayed in people's homes in all 50 states if I wasn't like, I'm actually writing a book. I think people would be like, "So why are you doing this?" But I think having a project, or a reason, or something to go to someone with, it's amazing what people will help you do if you come to them with an ask or something that you're trying to get done.
HELEN KIM: Thank you so much for sharing the journeys that you went through for your podcast or for your huge project of 50 States of Mind. But Ryan, what are you most proud of, whether that's in your career or life?
RYAN BERNSTEN: I think I'm proud of the relationships that I've been able to keep, the people in my life that I still consider friends and mentors. I think that's so important to living a connected, fulfilled life. It's not about having a network. It's about having people that you care about that will feed you intellectually, will help you get to the next level because they care about you, not because it's a good investment in their careers.
And I would say the second thing is kind of trusting my gut. I definitely have an alternative career. And when I first found out that this was a career as podcasts, I was like, "What am I going to say?"
HELEN KIM: [LAUGHS]
RYAN BERNSTEN: There's so many amazing-- listening to Carter and Daniel Flores, who is a friend of mine from [INAUDIBLE]. I'm like what do I really have to offer? But I think being able to trust my gut even when it is so scary, even when I'm like, what am I doing? Why did I just pack up my entire apartment to go work in Iowa for Hillary? Or why did I just decide to drive all 50 states?
Listening to that voice that's telling you to do something, even when it seems like such a bad idea, and not being afraid to take a leap of faith I would say that's something I'm proud of. And not being afraid to look at what really gives me energy and interest and finding a way to combine all those things.
Because there is a way to do it. And that's what is so great about America is we have this history of people being entrepreneurial and starting, I don't know, like sprinkle businesses and then being billionaires.
Like the guy who invented sprinkles. Who came up with that? But now he has so much money just cause you follow a weird little whim. That voice that's insane, I think is sometimes the smartest little inner voice you have.
HELEN KIM: Yeah. Well, as we come to close to our interview, honestly you've already given us so many great advices so far. But is there any other advice that you'd like to share with our Northwestern network?
RYAN BERNSTEN: So this is sort of my call to arms that I'm trying to spread from what I've learned through my trip through the country. I've been looking up these statistics. And of the four-year universities in America, 96% send the majority of their graduates to the largest cities in America. So that means New York, LA, Chicago.
And when you think about our democracy and when you look at the electoral college, there have been two elections in the past presidential-- in the past five presidential elections where a candidate has won the electoral college but lost the popular vote.
So I say this specifically to Northwestern students, which sends a vast majority of its graduates to DC, Chicago, New York, and LA-- and I am very guilty of this. I've lived in all three of the largest cities in America-- to reconsider where you take up political space.
Because I know a lot of people that are very upset with the outcome of the 2016 election. And I was out of a job obviously and wasn't working the administration like I thought I would be. There is something you can do. You can actually go somewhere else, go to a new community not just to affect the electoral college but to live alongside people who may have different backgrounds from you, people who might be of a different socioeconomic background.
And this isn't just a thing that's good for democracy. This is actually in our best interests economically. So I've lived in New York. I paid $1,080 a month for a tiny room in a tiny apartment. My next move is I'm moving to Kansas City.
And I'm sharing this because I want graduates to think about this. I'm living in a three-bedroom loft in an old refrigerator factory, and I'm paying like $550 a month.
HELEN KIM: $550?
RYAN BERNSTEN: $550. Especially if you're a freelance artist, going to these smaller to mid-sized towns is not just, like I said, good for democracy or good for the electoral college if you're a Democrat or a Republican. I don't really care.
But it's worth thinking about reinvesting in these places where it's not just being a big fish in a small pond, but it's going to a place that's manageable and saying, all right, here's what I'm interested in. I can permeate this community and maybe rise to a leadership role, sit on a board, run for a city council seat. I think that's the movement that's going to help us save democracy.
Because I haven't started my tirade against social media, and I'll keep it to a minimum. But I think because so much of politics is conducted over social media, where it becomes this sort of attention game. You gang up on people. You post an article you maybe haven't even read, and then it starts a discussion.
After traveling all 50 states, I can say with some authority that when you have a face-to-face conversation with someone, you're able to get places that wouldn't have gotten before. If you have two different perspectives, you can create something new or create a new understanding. And so my advice to any Northwestern student or even graduate or graduate student is don't write off the middle of the country. There are so many amazing places I've been-- Cleveland, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Appleton, Wisconsin, Omaha, Nebraska, Fargo, North Dakota, Casper, Wyoming Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
I could go on and on and on. So don't rush to the biggest city to start your fast track career because you're going to spend a lot of time competing. Whereas you could go somewhere where you could cultivate your own brand or your own strengths, and you won't have to compete.
You'll be able to contribute and be a needed part of that society and bring your gifts to a place where not all the other people are Northwestern students, who are driven, and excited, and ambitious, and dexterous. So hopefully, you'll take that into account. And everyone is welcome in Kansas City. I have a spare bedroom. [LAUGHS]
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