'That's Different': A Decoder Ring for Midwest Phrases

Hi, y’all!

Welcome to this week's love letter from the hearts of the Midwest, a conversation with Taylor Kay Phillips, whose new book, A Guide to Midwestern Conversation, came out yesterday (April 11)!

I feel like I really need to give her a “Midwestern introduction,” which, according to the book, means a glowing, if embellished, bio that also probably includes some random tidbit you don’t remember telling the person. 

Example: “I live in Massachusetts, and I am a science teacher” will become “Oh, s/he is a super-smartie. A professor at MIT or something.”

So here’s my Midwestern intro for Taylor:

Meet Taylor, she's a friend of mine from Kansas City, but, you know, Missouri, not Kansas. So she's a real nice gal, even if she lives in New York now. She went to Harvard, met some fancy people, and now she's like BFFs with John Oliver. She basically writes his entire show. You know it? I'm sure you do. Last Week Tonight. It won an Emmy. She was part of that.

Anyway, she also has a book coming out on April 11th about how to have Midwestern conversations, and she never misses the Royals opening day, even if she has to watch it from a bar in New York. So, yeah, I think you two have a lot in common. There's some dip and some bars in the kitchen. Have a great time. It was great talking to you.

Me: So, Taylor, how did I do?

Taylor: That was great!

Me: I felt like I needed to do that good Midwest embellish.

Taylor: “Yeah, I obviously do not write the whole show.”

Okay. Let me translate for you

Taylor Kay Phillips is a writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which recently won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. Her book, A Guide to Midwestern Conversation, is based on her upbringing in the Midwest, specifically Kansas City, Missouri, and is based on a sketch she originally wrote for McSweeney’s.  I find her funny, and call  her a friend – in the Midwestern way that everyone is a friend even if you don’t yet really know them – and I think you will, too. 

Join my conversation with Taylor as we talk about the meaning of language in the Midwest, how being raised in Missouri shaped her as a political comedy writer, what it’s like living with another comedian, and why New York City Mayor Eric Adams is so damned angry at Kansas. He’s definitely not her favorite. 

And because I like to use this newsletter as a place to experiment, this week’s love letter is in video form! With captions and everything! (It’s a work in progress, but you only learn by doing. So if you like it, or the concept of it, please leave me a comment. Or, if you hate it.)

Y’all can watch the video or read the highlights of our conversation below (which are edited for clarity, mostly to clean up my rambling 😳).

At the end, subscribers can also access a full transcript of our chat and a special lighting round of “this or that” about everything from Pronto Pups to which Royal has the better mustache: Leonard or Quisenberry.

I’ll see you back here on Friday for Cocktail Hour — which will have Taylor’s fave Kanas City spots and her celebration drink. It’s a whole Taylor Week!

Ok, let’s get into it.

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Ok, Taylor. I have a couple of phrases that I'm gonna have you translate for listeners that come from the book.

Oh, this is so fun. This is like a quiz because I don't have the book with me right now.

Okay. First one: How do I say no?

Yeah, no.

Absolutely. Okay. That's different. What does That's different mean?

That's different is possibly the most scathing feedback that a Midwesterner can give in polite society. That's different is, basically, I don't know what to say. This is a scourge on the like justice of humanity. Forever I will remember this moment, this obscenity that you have presented to me. But then the Midwestern sort of follow up to that is, and the next person I see, I will rave about whatever I'm talking about, whether it's like a piece of art in your kitchen or your child's school play.

 The alternative is, Oh, fun or, Huh? That's another, Huh? Is like, um, is like a yellow light That's different.

I like It's not my favorite because I find myself using that frequently. And I know in your book it's, that's sort of the, That's different, but for food.

That can also be used to very kindly tell someone they should under no circumstances leave the house wearing that. What do you think about that red blazer that I wore to whatever?

It's not my favorite. Which means burn it.

Okay. How do I say I need to get out of this conversation? And there are two in your book. And one is like, I'm having fun, but 've gotta go. And other one is like, I gotta get the hell outta here.

Right. Yes. I'd love stay and chat but I gotta run. No, no, I wouldn't. I've been looking, I've been racking my brain for what my excuse is to leave.

You're gonna think I'm rude later. I'll apologize a million times.

Exactly. I'm so sorry I had to cut our interaction short, just an hour and a half. But, you know.

That is actually something that you captured in the book that I thought was interesting. How much time everything takes. If you are gonna go to a restaurant, you say make sure to bring snacks because the ordering process is gonna take a while. You gotta, ask about the kids and the sports teams and everything. The Midwestern Goodbye is at least 45 minutes. Tell us about that.

It's hard for me not to think about this in the context of what would it be in New York or like, what is the alternative that I have experienced that is not the Midwestern way?

And when it comes to ordering, something that you would never do in the Midwest friend that's like, Ooh, I don't know. Could you do it without the... Like, Oh, I just need one more minute, so sorry. Or like, What's good? You tell me. Mmm. I need to think a little bit more. Come to me last.

In the Midwest that could go on ad nauseum. No one is ever gonna say, you know, Maria order!

Whereas in New York -- and I use the name Maria because it's the name of both of my sisters-in-law and I love them very much and they don't do this -- no one is gonna say, You're taking forever. Like, Quit it. Because that would be so rude. So much ruder than making people wait to eat, would be to tell someone that they're making people wait to eat.

Whereas in New York you would just be like, We gotta, like, we're burning daylight. The, the brunch is 90 minutes and they're gonna kick us out at the table. You know?

I do appreciate though, in the book you also talk about, like in the, you have a section about kids and sports, like the parent getting up early and being like, We're burning daylight. Come on. I'm like, Oh, but in that case we're gonna move it on along.

Sports are a whole different situation. We got a 25 minute drive ahead of us to, in my case, a warehouse in the middle of nowhere where you can fit six basketball courts at one time. Um, you gotta be on time.

I don't think Midwesterners are late, as a matter of course is the other thing about like, we're burning daylight, we gotta be there, we gotta be on time.

But once there, they are not expedient in their decision to leave or do any activities once they're at the appointed place.

And then the goodbye is a thing where you just don't want anyone to be mad at you, and there's nothing ruder than leaving. You know?

I've been in conversations where clearly someone was ready for me to leave the conversation because they were talking with somebody else. But I'm like, but it's rude for me to just say, Okay, bye. I have to ask three questions about their family.

My dad will come up to me or my sister and say, Your mom has said it's time to go. So about 45 minute warning. You know? Which is like my mom has made the first move away from one conversation.

It's about planning. As you write in the book, the Midwest are hopeful, optimistic, but also pragmatic people. So it's like, okay, we just know we have a 45 minute warning. We know how this works. Cool. 

That, I think, is the biggest Midwestern thing. There is this culture of compromise; this go with the flow. That's your thing, and I'm here to see what that's about and kind of adapt in whatever way I can to like what the rules of this interaction are.

How was it taking your Midwest upbringing and translating it to New York? 

I think, well, I had the experience in college for the four years before. I was in Cambridge, and obviously college is like a bunch of people from a lot of different places. But that was the first time that anyone ever treated me like where I was from, made me different.

And not in a rude way, not in a like, you know, Oh, you're not gonna understand this you dumb Missouri hick, but in this kind of strange compassion that I didn't understand that I required.

So like we would be in a line lining up introducing ourselves freshman year college, and it would be, you know, Oh, where are we from? I'm from Boston. I'm from New York. I'm from North Carolina. I'm from Florida. I'm from California. I'm from Vietnam. I'm from Missouri.

That's so far.

It happened more than once where, truly, a person from another country would say, I am from this other country, and then I would say, I'm from Missouri. And people would go, Ah, so far, so different. How are you liking it? Is this culture shock?

And it was just like, I have a city and a sports team.

I think the biggest culture shock, actually, was I would go for runs, and in Missouri if somebody's at their front door, somebody's in a car, you wave and acknowledge every single person that you pass. That is not the way you do it in Cambridge.

And so at first I was like, I'm waving to everybody and none of them would return the wave. And in fact, some of them would avert their eyes, and I was like, Oh, I guess we don't, we don't do that here.

The hello thing was interesting. So growing up in rural Colorado, we’d put up two fingers and nod to the car coming past you. The hellos. And learning that in New York, it was rude to say hello because we're all trying to live in a confined space and have privacy even when we have to be amongst each other. It was the courteous thing, not to say hello. 

But in Detroit, and this is very much a hello city, the constant dialogue is like, Oh, the newcomers are so rude, they don't say hello. And I'm like, no, no, no. They're coming from New York where the norm is to not say hello because that is the kindness.

That's so astute. And I had never exactly thought of it that way before, but it is, you don't have moments of real privacy. I remember one of the biggest things that I said when I moved to New York was I cannot cry and drink a milkshake in my car. And that was so important, especially when I was living with a roommate.

I'm also a big singer – but also I'm a courteous person – so the idea of, wow, I can't fully belt "Defying Gravity" in my shower here because it will bother someone that's not just my mom.

What else do you sing in the shower?

Oh, everything. Yesterday I was on a Follies track.

So how do you define the Midwest?

For the purpose of the book, I outsourced my definition to various encyclopedias and geographic sources so that the fewest people possible can be mad at me. It is the 12 states, let’s see if I can do it: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota. Did I say Indiana?

Yes.

Okay.

You need your "M"s.

Oh, yes. Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Yep.

Okay. That was also quite maybe close to alphabetical? So that is how I have defined it. Although, the south of Missouri – is that more South than the Midwest? Some people ask about Western Pennsylvania? And my initial response to that was a Midwestern, I'm not so sure, which is a New York absolutely effen not.

Fuck no. No.

Okay. Fuck no. I didn't know I, this, this is such a podcast thing. I didn't know if we could, uh, swear on this.

There are some Western Pennsylvania things that are Midwestern in attitude, but I am comfortable saying that being from Pennsylvania is not being from the Midwest. When you say you are from Pennsylvania, the state, the response that you get from the rest of the world is not the same as if you say I'm from Nebraska or I'm from Missouri.

The way that you as an entity, I think, are regarded by the rest of the nation, is different. Even if culturally there's a, there's a huge blue collar culture; there's a lot of kindness. The internal thing I think is there, but the external reaction I think is very different.

That's a really interesting way to phrase it. I've been doing a lot of research – I have like 12 books all about the history of the Midwestern region – trying to sort of get a grasp on it.

And I'd ask people, How are you defining the Midwest? And I will tell you Ohioans are like, clearly it's Ohio and Michigan and you know, things over here. Since I'm here in Detroit, I was like, Yeah. I just don't really think the Dakotas are the Midwest because I think of them as the Plains. But people from Missouri and the Dakotas are like, I mean we're clearly the Midwest and I don't think we consider Ohio. 

I was like, oh, infighting amongst the family! Who knew?

So I've been thinking about the traits that define us as Midwesterns. 

I do think what unites us was a little bit of what I was saying before. This kind of gameness. We have what we have, and what we like, and there are certainly parts that are a little bit immovable and we're stubborn in our own way. But I can't imagine a Midwesterner having a guest at their home and saying, This is how we do things here.

I feel like they would say, What can I do to make my home suitable for you?

My dad drinks diet soda; he doesn't drink alcohol. And, you know, everywhere we go in the Midwest, either they know him and they have his diet soda for him, or he brings his diet soda with him. And that's not rude, you know, but sometimes people are mortified that they hadn't gotten it for him. You know what I mean? 

Also, the Midwest, in the past 15 years, has gotten into the merch now. I've got my KC thing on; I've got my Ope; my Missouri sticker that says "Home". We are beginning to feel like a team. That's what brings us together is the name kind of on the front of our shirt and we're playing for them. And I do think there's an element of the Midwest where, what brings us together or how would you define who we are? And it's because we're like, Well, I'm Midwestern.

Do you think that's become more intense? Historians would say, this is the unresearched area, that this area of scholarship has really gone by the wayside and are trying to rebuild a school of Midwestern study.  Are you feeling as a Midwesterner or that there's more like team spirit, like Midwest as an identity now?

I certainly am. I don't know that I would've been aware of a big shift because I'm 30 years old, and I moved away from home when I was 18. So to me it has felt like the past 12 years have been very different. 

I've certainly become more interested in the history of my place and acknowledging the history of it as I've grown up. And I think that people feel like it also feels new. It's like we're learning new stuff about these areas and what they mean and Nebraska and Kansas and the Dakotas and, and now that we can open up history to be more than just who, you know, what white people and what wagons didn't wanna go any further.

Right.

It becomes, it becomes really cool and, and complicated.

When I moved to New York, I was in my early twenties and always felt like I had to be this bridge between two cultures. The Western culture, the, you know, New York culture. How do you handle that bridge?

So I have a very interesting kind of trio bridge. My husband is Colombian, and being part of Latino and South American family, there is the bridge between them and the States, but then a lot of Latin culture is closer to Midwestern culture than New York culture. Or not, not Latin. Latin is quite a term. The Colombian culture that I've had is a specific thing. 

In terms of being in New York and being that bridge, a lot of it is me as a person, like what qualities do I want to ascribe to me as a person and then kind of acknowledging what is this environment maybe trying to wring out of me or trying to disabuse me of. That's both going back home or being in New York. And then kind of deciding for myself how I want to interact.

So for instance, like being bubbly and kind of irreverent and trying to have happy, good energy, that I'm keeping, you know? But being maybe a little bit more focused, maybe being able to kindly say, Actually, we gotta get moving on this and I appreciate everybody's contributions, but let's carry on.

That's something that I wanna keep in in New York. And the other thing is I can use my New York, the New York or comedian or whatever, acerbicness to also I think call out people when they're talking nonsense.

Mm-hmm.

For instance, Eric Adams has said bullshit about Kansas twice.

He's really on it with Kansas.

It's just, it's so easy. But Kansas also became one of the most actively interesting states in our country six months ago when we were talking about the abortion vote. And this guy is like, I thank every day I am not the mayor of Topeka. And it's like, I guarantee you people hate you way more than they hate the mayor of Topeka.

He's not their favorite.

Right? Exactly.

 That's, that's the way that I can be the bridge, where it's like the New Yorker in me come coming out and saying, You're a piece of shit. Shut up. 

But that comes from the Midwestern part of me knows Kansas did a really amazing thing for the country by having a level of, I think, ideological consistency, which is all of them, right or left, saying, I suppose my issue is government intervention, and if I believe in small government, this feels like an overstep.

But the amount of New York or coastal media saying Ruby red Kansas really is its own thing, isn't it? like they just discovered it, is bananas. 

It is interesting that, as you say in your book, there hasn't actually been enough investigation by people on the coast to actually understand the culture that they are dismissing.

Right. And, and no real interest.

It goes back to what you were saying about the kind of reinterest in the history of the region, and this idea that we don't have anything to offer. Which is why being specifically from Kansas City, it's so interesting. The Chiefs being a football powerhouse is a new thing for the city. The World Cup is gonna be played in Kansas City. That's a global stage that we haven't really inhabited before.

If you were building a syllabus about the Midwest for people on the coast, what are some of the key things you would put on it?

The history beyond some white people got tired and decided to stop here. Art and Americana that came from the Midwest: Mark Twain, Charlie Parker, Langston Hughes was in Missouri for a while. So much thought and thinking has happened about what America is in this place. So that's something that I would talk about.

I would talk about sports and space. Kansas City has the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which is fantastic. What does it mean to be in a place with so much space where you are, it's exactly what you said, where you are alone and you have to seek out community and be a part of community instead of being surrounded by people all the time.

Food, crops, farming, our relationship with water, because there's the Great Lakes and the rivers.  

Language, how we speak. Obviously that's what the book is about. But also, I don't know if you heard this when you were a kid, but I always heard that Kansas City is where they send people to learn how to speak on television.

The neutral non-accent accent.

The neutral non-accent accent. Yes.

When I lived in Mississippi, I volunteered at the zoo and my partner was like a 90-year-old man, and he called me that damn Western Yankee. He was like, I can't understand what you're saying, Western Yankee. And I was like, I, I have no accent, sir. I can’t understand you. 

I love that.

My dad has a pretty thick Southern accent, but I couldn't hear it. My friends would be like, yeah, Your dad has an accent. I'd be like, Really? Which was very interesting to me. 

I think I would also put the development of cities and cultures and how we throw parties on the syllabus. Like, how, how we entertain the community. What it's like to be in a small town with a lot of space. 

How do you think growing up in Kansas City and the Midwest has shaped your identity or your sense of what belonging is?

I always knew that, based on what I wanted to do, I would not live in Kansas City forever. I also never moved. I lived in the same house from the time I was born till I was 18. I never had to walk more than a mile to get to school. I play basketball in every gym in the state and in the state of Kansas.

And so the way that I think it shaped me was by giving me such a distinct home to have been born in and raised by. I have my teams, I'm a Royals fan and I'm a Chiefs fan, and that's the end of that story. My NBA allegiance, up for grabs. You know, my, if I decide to get into hockey, I'll be exploring.

But in terms of where am I from, I am from Kansas City. 

Having a job where I write jokes that are coming out of someone else's mouth, where I am seeing the world and politics — specifically in order to comment, to make jokes or to have reactions — grounding myself in the identity of a Midwesterner is important. Actually knowing the difference between false, both sides-ism and two people disagreeing on the way to get to the same admirable goal, which is a thing that I think happens more in the Midwest than other places.

And I'm not talking about the false both sides-ism of like, Should we storm the capitol? Are, you know, queer people, humans? I'm talking about like, should taxes be high or low? Is that good?

What do we think the role of government should be? What is society? 

Exactly. What is, what is the government having too much power? What should be a state's issue versus a federal issue? Like things that we can talk about.

And I do think that that has shaped me and the way that I approach political comedy, which is: Am I going for the easy thing that I know is gonna make this set of people go, like, Yay, rah, rah, rah. Or can I find something that is a truth that maybe we can talk about a little bit more, frankly, in a way that kind of bears fruit?

Did you think you would get into political comedy? Was that the goal?

That's such an interesting question. I think I would've said I wanna do character-based stuff. More like the book that I wrote, which is: I've seen an observation. I have a, like the way of speaking and getting into character and doing all these things.

But I realized that I care too much. I mean, not too much, just, like, a lot. And the strongest comedy writing comes from strong emotional reactions, and I have a lot of reactions. I like being able to tell stories and feel productive and feel like I'm giving people information while also giving them a way to look at something that maybe makes it easier to digest. That sounds overly simplistic, but that’s what  satire is or that's what comedy is: telling the truth very quickly in possibly a ridiculous way.

Now that I'm saying it out loud, it seems obvious that, me, the girl who got in trouble in high school for storming into the athletic director's office and saying, Why do the girls play first always in basketball. I got in so much trouble for being irreverent that like I'm a political comedian. 

Your husband also is a comedian, also writes for one of the late night shows. What's it like in your household? Is it like the funniest place you've ever been? Or by the end of the day you both like, shut up. I can't hear another joke. I don't wanna laugh. Be gone.

Well, we don't cross over because their show's very topical. They do it every day and ours is much longer topics. But we do talk about the semantics of jokes. We sometimes run jokes by each other. And there are times when joking feels like a job, a very fun one, but, you know, we get into it.

But if we're trying to not talk about work, what are we gonna talk about? TV has jokes on it, and the news is what we do for our job, so it is sometimes hard to find a place where we're definitely disengaging.

I will say that I think some people would say, Oh, does it make it hard to watch comedy? Do you feel like you're on all the time?

There is nothing more satisfying and nothing more joyful in our house than experiencing a surprising and wonderful joke that makes both of us laugh. When we're surprised, oh man, it's the best feeling. I can still be surprised by, you know, people being goofs.

What does your husband’s take on this Midwest-ness and the book?

He really does love Kansas City. He loves Bryant's; he loves the barbecue. He is so smart, and Felipe is so interested in where he is in the history of where he is. Sometimes he knows more about Kansas City than I do because he's gone down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.

Honestly, when I first brought him to Kansas City, I was very nervous because it's a really white city. But it’s really not. We still have issues with segregation, but we also have lots of of immigrants in our city. There is now an immigrant food culture. So I think he feels increasingly comfortable because he's getting to know it, and it is so knowable. I think that's what's so nice about Kansas City and Midwestern cities.

Columbia is also very Midwestern. Like, it feels very Midwestern to me when I go there because people always wanna help. That's the thing is like when I go to Columbia and to Bogota where he's from, people can't always bend over backwards to make things, uh, they can't always fix things, but they never make things worse.

There's never anyone who hates their job so much they can't help you find a bathroom. In New York sometimes it's like, Yeah, sorry, we don't have a bathroom. End of sentence. Whereas in the Midwest and in Bogota, they would know where the, where to set, where to send you.

It's just an open sort of family attitude of kindness and community that is actually more similar, I think, than New York, even though Bogota is a city that is, I will say the traffic in Bogota is way worse than New York. It's the most bananas thing I've ever seen. And there's no traffic in Kansas City ever, basically.

When I talk to people, I always like to ask: What did your childhood smell like? What are your scent memories of Kansas City?

That's so interesting. So a lot of, um, sweat and air because I went to a lot of gyms. So it's like a lot of sweat mixed with floor wax.

You've had some big celebrations recently. You got the job with John Oliver, and you sold the book and you got the Emmy and you turned 30 and now the book's coming out. How do you celebrate?

The process of doing a book is a lot of little things and you never know whether it is a success or not. My family decided when I was a kid, and now Felipe and I, that we just celebrate it all. There's no reason to say, Well, we don't know if it's gonna sell well. It's like, no, it's publication day. We celebrate each step. 

When I got my job … Well, actually, when I first started in New York, I had a marketing job. I left that job to focus seriously on writing, and my boss there on my last day gave me a bottle of champagne. I promised myself that I would not open it until I wrote for TV.

It was six or seven years later and the day of my first day on the show, my husband and I opened that, which was very, very big and cool.

That was like one of the bigger celebrations. And then the rest, it's like, you know, sometimes we do cookies, sometimes we do drinks. Sometimes I have to remind myself to do it and not jump into the next thing, which I think is, um, a good thing to remember.

Subscribe now read the lightning round of “this or that,” including whether Taylor is a pop or soda person, what she feels about A League of Their Own, and which Royal has the best mustache. Plus! A link to the full transcript.