Keith Knight: This Is All Destiny
When Woke debuted two years ago, creator Keith Knight was ready to enter another chapter of change. In today’s deep cut episode, recorded in 2020 but never aired, Knight shares how he captured the magic of San Francisco in Woke, the appeal of leaving the States, and how he finds destiny in synchronicity. He also gives us a present-day update on his post-tarot reading decision. Michelle Tea explains the practice of astrocartography, a tool for examining how different places can affect your life. Later, she gives her take on what to do when the tarot seems to give bad advice.
Keith Knight: It's got to be something more than just coincidence." It's just all these really neat things that connect to you, you just have to be open to it. I think that's the biggest thing.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Hello and welcome to Your Magic. I’m Michelle Tea, and today we’re sharing a deep cut with you – an episode featuring Woke creator Keith Knight, recorded back in 2020 when the first season aired. It got lost in our shuffle, and we’re psyched to not only air it now, but also include a follow-up with Keith today, a bit after season two of the show inspired by his San Francisco life and hit Hulu. We talk about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the temptation to get the hell out of America, and taking a stuffed animal to a knife fight. After that, I’m going to talk a little about what happens when the tarot gives you bad advice. Stay with us.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: So, you’re all obviously quite aware that all us humans have astrological charts, but do you know that places have charts, too? The astrology of place is super fascinating and can boggle your mind with the accuracy and realness of astrology, even if, like me, you’re already a firm believer. Looking at the sun signs of some of the spots I’ve spent time in is a real revelation, and I urge you all to try it. For starters, I grew up right outside of Boston, a Virgo. Ugh. This deepens my understanding of my extreme love/hate of both the city and the sign. Boston bugs me, for being so buttoned-up and sort of clean-feeling, much like a Virgo, no? It’s conservative, yet open-minded. Though absolutely urban, when I think of it I think about all those old-ass trees, the green of the esplanade running alongside the sparkling Charles River - earthy Virgo vibes. It’s also a supremely critical culture, something I experienced firsthand as a teenager, getting spit at on the streets of the city by folks rankled by my avant garde ensembles.
This vibes so hard with my experience of Virgos. My first girlfriend and a significant spouse are both Virgos, and their revulsion towards the messier parts of life – which I adore – as well as the eventual turning of that critical eye onto me and all my imperfections meant both relationships ended in disasters that had a long-term affect on my person. Why would I seek out this energy, so different than my own zany Aquarius vibe? Was it because Boston, being the closest city to my home town, was an ideal I ran towards as soon as I was old enough to sneak onto a bus, searing its energy into my psyche as something I just had to be inside? Virgos strange hold on me persists even as I try to make more astrologically-appropriate choices in my love life; dating a wild Sag only to learn they were tamped way down by a sneaky Virgo rising; marrying my hedonistic, Taurus husband only to learn his lovey Taurus sun is in the hypercritical sixth house, which is ruled by Virgo. D’oh! Guess I’ve got something to learn from this mysterious, uptight earth sign.
When I fled Boston, at age 21, chasing that bad Virgo girlfriend, I landed in Tucson, Arizona. My life was inarguably in shambles – my partner was a narcissist, I was estranged from my family, dealing with the fallout of sexual abuse, newly queer, doing sex work, too aware of intersectional oppressions to feel good about eating basically anything, so I was also in the grips of a very strange, political eating disorder. In spite of this being a seriously traumatic time, my memories of Tucson glow with a hot, desert magic. I think of the big-hearted friends I made, of seeing a prehistoric-looking agave plant for the first time. Feeling one with nature in Saguaro National Monument; making offerings at the El Tiradito wishing shrine. Everywhere, blue sky and bright colors. Tucson is a Leo. It’s warm-hearted and full of playful creativity; it’s a star, and it wants to bathe you in its shine. I’m a Leo rising, with a lot of fifth house activity; in Tucson, I found myself strangely in the spotlight when a Queer Nation chapter I started began protesting the toplessness laws that criminalized breast-having people taking their shirts off. Swiftly, I was on the cover of the local newspaper, discussed on talk radio, even flown to New York City to guest on an episode of The Jane Pratt Show (remember that? Anyone? Anyone)? Leo also rules sex, and the sex work I did during my time there would eventually become the subject of a fully illustrated book. Even though, yes, super gnarly times, I also recall feeling extraordinarily ALIVE, electric with the drama of it all, feeling like I was having an experience of cinematic proportions. SO LEO.
San Francisco, always changing and pissing everyone off with its abrupt and seemingly heartless shifts, is a Gemini. The sign that rules writing and communication, it’s where I learned to write. An Aquarius with a Mercury also in that air sign, I did well in a city ruled by such a buzzy, radical, colorful. The most social of signs, I was out all night, every night, and developed a whopping drinking problem from so much time spent hobnobbing in bars. When I got sober, I seemed to lose part of the city, a city that also seemed to be ghosting the inhabitants it once loved so, turning its attentions away from artists and misfits and towards the techies. Gemini does love technology.
I left Gemini San Francisco for Los Angeles, a Libra. I mean, obviously, LA is a Libra! So much glamour and beauty, such a premium on perfection and symmetry, but also so much gossip and art and good times, good food. So much flattery!
When I moved from the Eagle Rock neighborhood of LA over to Glendale, I hadn't realized I was actually leaving Los Angeles. Glendale is its own, incorporated city. Would I feel weird living here, a bit away from my friends, where queers aren’t quite as visible and the vibe is more suburban and . . . normal? My life changed suddenly, again and again, after moving here – a divorce, Covid, moving my mom in with me, getting married again. Still, I’m living in the best house I’ve ever lived in, and I’ve come to love my neighborhood, and my neighbors – elderly women, tweenage girls, Armenian immigrants, gruff bodega employees, a relapsing alcoholic who keeps losing her dog, more gays than you’d imagine. Not quite as normal as it seems. I looked up my current hometown’s sign, and – shocker! – it’s an Aquarius! Just like me! No wonder my life has seen a tremendous amount of shake-ups since moving here – the move actually corresponded with a series of Uranus transits that made sure my life would never be the same again. And yet, I feel like I’ve grown into my best self here, shedding some versions of ‘adult’ I’d been playing dress-up in and getting back to my freak-flag-flying roots (like, my home literally has a flag pole to fly freak flags on!)
Taking stock of your life by a peek of the signs of the places you’ve been is a surprisingly deep and satisfying project. If you’ve only ever lived in one place, but long to live in other places, why not see what cities have signs that feature prominently in your birth chart? The research alone would be super interesting!
Here’s Keith Knight.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Hi Keith! I’m so curious, I want to talk about... What is magic to you? Like this idea, right, that the world holds magic, that we hold magic. Where does that energy appear in your life?
Keith Knight: I find, like, it appears in all these interesting ways. And I will say this: even though I left San Francisco, when I go back there, despite it being, you know, tech companies and tons more people sleeping on the street and all that stuff, it still has magic to it because I found myself still walking across town and just walking into a place and it's a party and it's a great time and stuff like that.
Michelle Tea: You know, you really capture the magic of it in "Woke," like all that B roll in the show, just, of San Francisco. You can really feel that sparkle and that magic in it.
Keith Knight: You know, it's great hearing that from you and hearing it from others who were in San Francisco during when I was there because I don't know any other San Francisco other than that. We couldn't afford to shoot in San Francisco, so we had to shoot in Vancouver and, oh — so this is a magic thing so, you know, we shot in Vancouver and that was a big concern for me and they wouldn't even let us put in like a week or two weeks in San Francisco to shoot exteriors. All that footage of San Francisco, you had to buy this footage, this stock footage. But we found…what? What were you gonna say?
Michelle Tea: I was going to say, so, like, the whole scene where Keith gets profiled and tackled by police, where it's at like Civic Center, that wasn't really Civic Center?
Keith Knight: No, no.
Michelle Tea: And those little chairs in the Castro aren't really little chairs in the Castro? Wow, way to go production department.
Keith Knight: That's so cool. And you know what? While we were shooting that scene, I told them, like, "We have to have Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence somewhere in there." And they found the local chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and when I was sitting there, I was drawing something on a table just sitting there, and they came over to say hi. And one of them said that their grandfather was one of the original Sisters and they just wanted to say "Thank you, we heard that you wanted us here." And I was like, yeah, you know, it was just such a great moment.
Michelle Tea: I'm getting chills, I'm getting chills.
Keith Knight: Yeah, that's part of the magic. And the first scene that we shot with the Clovis and Keef characters, where they find the wallet in the pilot — the character in the show is called Keef instead of Keith, so it's Keef, which is sort of like my nickname. We shot on a street called Keefer Street, K-e-e-f-e-r, and on that line, on that street, there was a bus that was the 22, which made me think of Fillmore, but the name of the bus was the Knight bus, k-n-i-g-h-t.
Michelle Tea: What?
Keith Knight: Yeah, so once I saw that, I was just like, "Man, this is all destiny. This is all, you know, bizarre," just amazing.
Michelle Tea: I mean I get a sense from you that you have a sense of your own destiny or that it has been revealed to you in this way.
Keith Knight: I feel that way. Like I've always felt that this would happen. I just never thought it would be as... I always knew that I would get something developed, but I just didn't know it would be this big, like on Hulu with like, you know, the guy from Workaholics and the guy from New Girl and Sasheer from SNL and Rose from I, Zombie and just all this amazing stuff. I just always felt something like this could happen and here's the other thing: when I drew caricatures back in the day, when we would do these events where we would go to a college campus and there would be not only caricature artists, there'd be tarot card readers and jugglers and this and that. And so for people to warm up, we would sit down and someone would read our tarot cards and I would draw them at the same time, that's how we warmed up. And this tarot card reader ... I didn't say anything and she was like, you know, she said something about my twin sister, which I don't know how they would even guess that. But also that you're going to ... She said you're going to do very well in two different, you're going to have two careers. Like you're going to be distinguished in one career and then you're gonna be distinguished in another career. And so I always thought that was like an interesting assessment because it was such a long time ago. I mean, it was 30 years ago and I always felt like it would be comics, and then it would be television and film.
Michelle Tea: And it was. Which is amazing.
Keith Knight: Yeah. I'm psyched about that. And then the last tarot card reading we got was in Culver City and this was hilarious because this young lady was in the back, and she was very unsure of herself, and she said, "These are new cards, so I'm not really that familiar with it, but it says, like, you're pregnant." That's what she said to my wife and that was the first time my wife realized she was pregnant with our second kid.
Michelle Tea: Wow.
Keith Knight: And I started to think, like, maybe it was a sham. Like she was like this really amazing tarot card reader who just pretends to be like this fumbling person.
Michelle Tea: Like a pool shark, but a tarot shark?
Keith Knight: Exactly. I was so impressed with that and we speak about it to this day like, you know, my wife was like drinking and partying and then like, she hears that and she's like, "Well, why don't I get checked out?" Yeah. Wild. It was crazy.
Michelle Tea: That’s wild! You seem like a person that like destiny reveals itself to you in signs a lot. Like I'm thinking about like Keefer Street and the Knight bus and like the snake. It's like you either have an eye for it or you get a lot of signs from the universe, it seems.
Keith Knight: It's so bizarre because one of the things that I just had realized. The titles of my comic strips is "Think," my single panel "Think," and just sort of recently ... It's been a while that I've had that, like 20 years, but about five years ago, I was staring at it and I realized that— and you could see it up here on the thing right here— the logo that "Think" is just my last name spelled backward without the G, which I had never realized that. Maybe I just sit around at a blank page too long, but I just think these weird, magical things sort of happen. They just reveal themselves in a lot of interesting ways. This is another really great thing, which is ... one of my mentors in L.A. is this cartoonist, Tom Gammel. And Tom Gamell is sort of like the Forrest Gump of comedy television, modern comedy television. He was on the Harvard Lampoon back in the 70s and then he wrote on the original Saturday Night Live. He wrote on Seinfeld. He writes for The Simpsons now, but he's also this cartoonist, a really funny cartoonist. And when I met him, he was like, "Keith Knight!" You know, he was just all excited and I couldn't believe that he even knew who I was. So he invited me to a Simpsons read.
Michelle Tea: What?
Keith Knight: It was just amazing. But that's when he told me he was on the Harvard Lampoon in the 70s. Now, you know, we're both from Boston. My great aunt who lived around the corner from me, worked in the Harvard lunchroom for decades. And when I used to go and visit her, she had a Harvard Lampoon magazine and I loved it because, on the cover, there was this drawing of a class and a dog is walking in the class and someone's like, "Hey, there's a dog in the class!" And then everyone's laughing and then the teacher's like "Class? Oh, forget it. Class dismissed," or something like that. And I told him that and he said, "I drew that cover."
Michelle Tea: What?
Keith Knight: And so my head exploded because I loved that drawing in the fact that it's all come around. And he's the one who said to me early on, like, he said, "Keith, when you're trying to sell this show. You should sell it as live-action. Don't sell it as animation." So this was the other thing that convinced me to do it live-action because this was, you know, six years ago or something. He said, "At this point, there were probably five different networks that are into animation." He says, "If you sell it as live-action, you'll have like thirty-five different places that you could sell it to. So do it as live-action." So that was a huge thing for me. But there's all these connections, you just sit there and go, "Man, it's got to be something more than just coincidence." It's just all these really neat things that connect to you, you just have to be open to it. I think that's the biggest thing. It's good to be open.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Well you know, Keith, as it happens, I have a deck of tarot cards here.
Keith Knight: Let the magic happen.
Michelle Tea: And uh I can read your cards.
Keith Knight: I mean, for me... Here's is what I'm interested in is, because we've been ... well, you know how the country is.
Michelle Tea: Oh yeah, I've noticed there's been some issues with our governments. Yeah, and some history.
Keith Knight: I've always felt, at some point in my existence, I would leave the country at some point. Like it just with, you know, some of the artists that ... The cartoonist, Ali Harington, who was a Black cartoonist from the Harlem Renaissance, like left the United States and ended up drawing cartoons in East Germany for years. You know, people like Josephine Baker, who, you know, obviously left and became huge in Paris and spied for the French. Like
Michelle Tea: James Baldwin
Keith Knight: Of course, James Baldwin, Jimi Hendrix.
Michelle Tea:Eartha Kitt.
Keith Knight: Yeah
Michelle Tea: Keith Knight.
Keith Knight: Yeah, like that's it. Like, you know, I'm sort of interested in sort of yeah ... Is that in the cards for me?
Michelle: Sure
Keith Knight: Will I be leaving sooner or later?
Michelle Tea: All right. Well, let's look. Yeah, this is great. OK. So, I love asking the tarot questions about different life paths because you know they're pictures, so they illustrate. So that's a really good thing to get an illustration on, right? So I'm going to shuffle right now asking: What does it look like for you and your family to pursue moving out of the country? What does it look like if you guys start really taking that seriously and kind of walking towards that and making a plan? Do you know what country you'd go to?
Keith Knight: Well, that's an interesting thing. My wife is from Germany, from the Black Forest in Germany, and, you know, Germany has been a consideration. The south of France has been. I don’t know.
Michelle Tea: Oooh, la la.
Keith Knight: I think the south of France may be a little too expensive, but the affordable part of France. But Canada, you know, like my sisters talked about Portugal. Yeah. So.
Michelle Tea: Alright. Well, I just picked three cards. I just shuffle and pick the cards and now, I like to do the alternate because I like to compare and contrast, so now I'm going to shuffle and say, you know: What does it look like if you stay here in the godforsaken USA and fight among us who are lingering behind?
Keith Knight: Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, too, which is, and James Baldwin talked about that, like you can't fight the good fight from overseas. I also don't want to run away either. But like, you know, also if I lose faith in the people of the U.S. We're at a point now where you can't stand on the side. And so let's fight the good fight. [32.8s]
Michelle Tea: So let's see. This is what it looks like for moving abroad. You have the Queen of Wands. She's pretty cool. Okay. Oh, my God, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith you're moving abroad. You're moving abroad, Mr. Destiny. You got the Big Destiny card. You got The Universe. Oh, my God. That last card doesn't even matter. It could be the crappiest card in the deck. It could be like The Tower reversed, it doesn't matter. When the universe card comes up, it's a destiny card. And it's saying like, "Yes, this is your destiny. This is meant to be. You are moving towards this. It is moving towards you." But what is that last card? Change. Two of Disks. Jupiter in Capricorn. Which is really wonderful, Jupiter, brings gifts and expansion and Capricorn is work. And then, you know, change is, you know, a physical change, a change of residence, a change of your home. Wow. And just to touch on the Queen of Wands, she's just got like a ton of energy. She is just on fire. She's super creative. She's been through a lot and she sure sort of wears her battle scars in a proud way and in a way to signal to others like her like "Look, you can come through it. You can survive it and keep going and like, be a beacon for other people." So she's a survivor with a ton of positive energy. Oh, the universe, I mean, you know, if you guys listening could see, it's like this beautiful, like eyeball shooting out of the cosmic sky into a snake that's dancing with a lady on an infinite grid. I don't know. There's like a lot going on in that card.
Keith Knight: No, that's quite excellent. It's funny because both those cards... One is we have cats now. We just got kittens like in the past two weeks.
Michelle Tea: COVID kittens.
Keith Knight: And my wife is like, totally bonded with the kittens now. And um
Michelle Tea: Oh, and the Queen of Wands is standing there with her pet cat
Keith Knight: Yeah, and she actually has this... When we were in San Francisco, she has this one scar, right in the middle here, where she had this benign cyst removed. It was like this huge thing right here. So she's got that battle scar and she is a shining light and a beacon.
Michelle Tea: Oh. Well, man, your life is charmed. You're in touch with your destiny. You're receiving omens from the universe. So you're really an inspiration, Keith, it's so cool to reconnect with you.
Keith Knight: Yeah, you too. I mean, listen, you were one of my Bay Area inspirations, so it's just nice to be able to reconnect. Yeah.
Michelle Tea: Cheers to you.
Keith Knight: Cheers.
[Music]
Keith Knight: Hey, this is Keith Knight gentleman cartoonist with an update of where I've been for the past few years. I think COVID put the kibosh on everything as far as getting out. But, you know– Was my sister out by then? She got out and now she's still, she's outside just watching America burn from the outside in. Yeah, I should have followed her there. But I'm sure the logistics of trying to, to, to do a season two would have been a nightmare, because part of my whole deal with it was like, I have to see my family every two weeks, every two weeks.
It's still you know, the Republican Party is just still under him. You know, everybody's like bending over backwards to do, “ Oh, you know, I'm Trump-ier bigger than this candidate. Considering what's going on with the Supreme Court, you know, it's just... Everything that was that everyone talked about is coming to fruition. Democrats have to be more than just, “We're not Republicans, you know, we're highbrow”. All right, do it. But go. You know, they show up to a knife fight with stuffed animals. It's easy to criticize the country from overseas and be like, “Ha ha ha”. It's like, you got to be here. But at the same time, it's just like you want to look out for your family, it's being torn. And so all I can say is the message will be there, the signals will be there to get out or stay in and keep up the good fight.
The majority of us want abortion rights. The majority of us want real history taught in school. You know, like there's no reason why a minority of people should have a say over everything. It just reminds me when you're on a flight it's always that the loudest, most obnoxious person gets their way. The flight attendants want to please them. So it's like, someone’s like: [tantrum noises]. It's that person that makes a lot of noise. They're in the minority and we should all just be like, you know, “Shut up”. And it's the same with the people at the front in first class. They get the majority of all the good stuff. And all it is, it's this curtain that keeps, you know, the rest of us back. Like, just. Rush the curtain and take all the peanuts. Take it and share all of the peanuts. That's what I say. It's funny that I say that because, like, you know, now they fly me in first class. I mean, but I'll happily smuggle all the peanuts back to the people.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: I wanted to share about one of the more uncomfortable aspects of being a tarot reader. Certainly any of you who have been doing readings for other people for any length of time have found yourself in this very strange situation. What do you do when the tarot seems to be giving . . . bad advice?
It happens. Maybe it happens to me so much because I happen to be a very opinionated person, particularly when it comes to other people’s problems. I have a particular philosophy I live my life by, too lengthy and intuitive for me to detail here, but it makes me want to encourage querents to quit their jobs, live in a van, move to Europe, etc. Do the unconventional, once-in-a-lifetime thing. Of course don’t stay in the boring job, with the cheating partner, under the roof of the energy vampire parents. Kick the shallow friends to the curb, chase down your dream, etc etc etc. Most of the time, when a client is detailing their quandary to me, I don’t need the damn deck. I am fully sure of what this person should do to get that much closer to their best life.
However. The person didn’t come to me for my opinion. They came to me for my connection and experience with the tarot, my ability to translate what the cards are saying, my skill in explaining it. And sometimes, as I’m flipping the cards and registering the tarot’s directive, I’m thinking, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Because the cards are definitely saying, Stay with the shady boyfriend. Keep caretaking your toxic, narcissistic mother. Stay in the job that makes it impossible to pursue your art. I get mad at the cards. Whose side are you on, tarot?!
But, spending time with the tarot, and getting the variety of messages that come from the cards, reminds me again and again that, although what we want are answers to our worldly problems, what the tarot wants is to remind us that we are having, all day every day, a spiritual experience. And that each and every situation we find ourselves in has something to do with the evolution and expansion of our soul.
Looked at from this perspective, a querent might need to stay in that shitty relationship a little longer so that they bottom out completely, have a revelation about the nature of their romantic patterns, and start making different choices. Maybe continuing to caretake the toxic parent will force a confrontation that is necessary, or will provide unexpected information that will change the querent’s direction. Maybe they’re going to meet someone at that soul-killing job who will later invest in their music project and change their life. The tarot reminds us that we don’t know anything. If we did, we wouldn’t be seeking the tarot! And, as a reader, I’m not some all-seeing, all-knowing guru (although I do have the same birthday and much of the same astrology chart of Gwen Shamblin); I’m knee-deep in the mystery with all of ya’ll, scrying and sleuthing and trying to peel back a layer of the unknown so that we can eek a bit of meaning and comfort out of this ball of chaos we’re living on.
So, yeah. When the tarot gives bad advice, I share it. I tell the querent, I think this is very bad advice and you should stop sleeping with your #MeToo office manager like yesterday, but what do I know? Maybe they’re soulmates. Maybe she's going to sue his ass in a year and get to buy a house. Maybe she’s going to be able to help other women who get seduced by manipulative creeps in the workplace, help them feel less alone. When the next thing happens – the other shoe drops, the situation gets better or worse, I’ll be here, with my deck of cards, ready to see what more is to be revealed. And I promise I’ll tell it like it is.
[Music]
That’s it for our episode. Wherever your travels take you, literally or metaphorically, across the globe or through the ups and downs of your life, we hope you always have an eye on the spiritual messages tucked into the mundane.
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This episode was produced and edited by Molly Elizalde, Tony Gannon, and Vera Blossom. We got production support from Kirsten Osei-Bonsu. Our executive producers are Ben Cooley, myself, and Molly Elizalde. Our original theme music is by John Kimbrough.
Thanks for listening!