Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, my love.

Adrian: Well, thank you.

Adrian: That sounds right.

Stephanie: Do you remember when we met? Do you remember how we met?

Adrian: You've always said we met at Fenway Park.

Stephanie: Yeah, that's what I thought.

Adrian: Yeah, we were at Fenway Park.

Stephanie: I think I was with Jim Sullivan.

Adrian: Sounds right.

So, going out for drinks and going out for a ball game with one of the late twenties reporters was, just something, that happened. I think it's not quite as prevalent today.

Adrian: It's less common, I think.

Stephanie: So I was out for the baseball game with the rock and roll critic at the time, and saw you out on the concourse somewhere. And I, if I remember correctly, you stopped me and you said, Hey, I know you cause you'd see me around the building

Adrian: Yes,

Stephanie: thus began a long and illustrious story of friendship.

Adrian: Yes, that's how it all started.

Stephanie: That's how it all started. So, you know, normally I talk to people about the transition around age 40, and you and I both have some recollection of the party for you for your 40 40th birthday. Do you have any kind of inclination or inkling that there was a transition for you sometime in your 40s?

Adrian: Yeah, I think the milestone for me was more like late 30s. It was a little before I turned 40. I remember that I got my dream job, the column, when I was 36. And then I bought my sports car when I was 38 or 39. Two seater roadster. And I think that was sort of the middle aged transition for me. It didn't quite align with turning 40.

Although I remember turning 40 was kind of a thing. It felt a lot older than 39

Stephanie: Yeah.

Adr ian: I remember I'm a twin. I have a twin sister and I remember we decided we wanted to turn 40 together having spent most of our adult birthdays apart.

So we turned 40 together in New York and then the party you remember was the next weekend.

Stephanie: Yeah, your, no, your transition is perfectly in line with a lot of the other people that I've talked to and all the research that I've done. It's sort of that decade between 35 and 45.

And I forgot that you got your dream job at 36.

Adrian: Yeah.

Stephanie: I mean, that's perfectly on time for the transition. I started my business when I was 36.

So yeah. One thing I didn't know about you today, until earlier this afternoon was, you have a Wikipedia page.

Adrian: Yeah, and I don't know why I have it, because I didn't start it. I stumbled on it at some point and fact checked it, but I don't know who put it up.

Stephanie: shit, they don't give those out. You've got to be like legit. Our favorite phrase comes into play again, because today you are cooler than you were yesterday, as far as I'm concerned, because you have your own Wikipedia page.

Adrian: I don't know where it came from, and I don't even remember how I happened to find out it existed, but I did. And then when I read it, like half of it was wrong, and I

Stephanie: Oh, really?

Adrian: out how to go fix it.

Stephanie: Well, it's pretty impressive. So we've, talked a little bit about your transition. You said 40 felt really much older than 39. How so?

Adrian: I don't know, it just seemed like a big number. You know, I remember when I was, before I turned 30, when I was 29, one of my friends said to me, well, you know, 30 won't seem like a big deal when it gets there because you've had a whole year to think about it, which was true. But turning 40 was a little different. Turning 40, it felt more like a milestone than 30.

Stephanie: All the literature that I have read in the research I've done, it says that, 40 is the first age where people actually start to feel quote unquote old, right? They think that's the first age that you're quote unquote old.

Adrian: Yeah, I think that's true. I remember when I turned 40, my dad was 80 and I talked to him on my 40th birthday and I said, well, I finally reached middle age. And he said, you don't know that.

Stephanie: Oh, that's a riot.

you still don't know.

Adrian: not gonna know, which is fine.

Stephanie:

Adrian: Somebody will know. It won't be me.

Stephanie: Tell me how you remember me in my early twenties.

Adrian: How I remember you in your early twenties?

Very smart, very ambitious. You always had a lot going on. You often have like two jobs. Like, I remember when you worked for us in City Hall and you wanted to leave early because you had to get to your other job at the Gap.

and, you know, you had a lot of drive.

Stephanie: Oh, interesting. I also liked to let loose a lot.

Adrian: Yes.

Stephanie: It was like an equal and opposite reaction, I think. I was exceptionally driven and then partied to the exceptional end on the other end of the spectrum.

Adrian: Yeah.

Stephanie: You said something to me recently. We were out for dinner a couple of months ago, and I was telling you a story.

I had been talking to a friend and she and I had been talking about sort of looking back at our own younger years and me sort of realizing more recently that there were things that had affected me as a younger person that I had no idea about , childhood traumas and things like that.

And I said I never knew until, you know, recently that I had childhood trauma and, and said something really definitive, like, yeah, I know you didn't or something like that. Was it obvious to you?

Adrian: I don't know if it was obvious to me, but when I heard it, I wasn't surprised. But I think you've always kind of had this quality of not being affected by anything. You always just, like, kind of soldiered right through whatever you were doing. Until relatively recently. But I would say that's how you were for a long time.

Like, you know, you didn't believe in shit like depression or anything like that. It's get up and get moving, I think. And that's kind of how you've always been. So I wasn't surprised that it took you by surprise, if that makes sense.

Stephanie: No, that makes huge sense. And I love it. I love the reflection back because it's so hard to see ourselves from the outside, right? and I honestly have not been an introspective person until the last couple of years working through this podcast and this process and these interviews with people.

I mean, even for, a decade or more, you know, I've done personal growth kind of stuff, but I've, I've never really, been that naturally introspective. And so a lot have sort of taken me by surprise. Things that I relate to, things that I resonate with, has taken me by surprise during, the last couple of years as I've been doing this podcast.

Adrian: It's been interesting to watch you get more introspective.

because it really was something like you just did not do for a long time. You didn't do introspection.

Stephanie: Right. What's to be found there? What's to bother with? Just

Adrian: Why don't you stop gazing at your navel and go do something?

Stephanie: Right. Is there something to be accomplished or a party to be joined?

Adrian: That's right. I

Have to say I'm not the world's most introspective person either. Sit

Adrian: By far my longest standing close friendship.

Stephanie: Absolutely. Yeah. Do you have any idea why?

Adrian: I don't know. What do you think?

Stephanie: I don't know. I really, I don't know because I feel like I have been as involved with you as I've been with any of my other friends by depth of attachment and the stuff that we do together. We hang out for decades, you and I, partied a lot together and since neither of us party as much anymore, we've stayed in alignment there. So it's,interesting that,it's something that I've thought about, over the years, literally for decades, especially as people sort of pass through my life and friendships come and go. It's like, is it that, she just wandered off or he wandered off and yet, you and I are still

Adrian: Yeah, usually people are, and especially when people aren't like, physically in proximity with each other anymore. Like, when somebody moves away, like, you moving home, that's usually the beginning of the end. But with us, it just never happened that way.

Stephanie: It never

Adrian: You know, we just never like stopped picking up the phone and checking in and staying in touch and talking to each other, you know. It's like we never stopped making that effort.

Adrian: Yeah, right.

Stephanie: we had a whole routine. I mean, I drive down on a Friday night and we go out and crash out on the couch on, you know, Fridays or Saturdays or sometimes both.

It was really kind of crazy. Do you remember we used to go to hang out at Anchovies on, I think it was on Friday nights and one of you're good pals, worked at the bar. He didn't own it.

Adrian: was the

Stephanie: Michael Parker

Adrian: Yes.

Stephanie: And his sister owned it

Adrian: Your sister owned it, yes.

Stephanie: I remember for a period in time. He said I was like the local who lived furthest

Adrian: that's

Stephanie: How can you live 50 miles away from a bar and still be a

Adrian: You were the regular when we were 50 miles away.

Stephanie: Yeah, those were great times. So for a long time, we kept up our same routines and that was back when, I've talked about this, throughout the podcast and on different conversations about how much, I used to drink and how much I used to party and like you said earlier, a lot of that was done with you. We did that together, we were partners in crime for a very long time that way and those were fun times.

Adrian: They were fun times.

Stephanie: Yeah. I look back upon them fondly. Do you still?

Adrian: I do, yes. Now, for me, it's a little different. They were fun times, and then after a while, they weren't fun times. Not the times with you, but just the drinking times in general. Yes.

Stephanie: Yeah. Cause you quit drinking a couple of years ago, nine

Adrian: I got sober nine years ago.

Stephanie: Yeah. We were out over the winter, I think you and I, it wasn't too long ago. We had gone to a show or something and then we walked over to Anchovies again to see, if we couldn't recreate the magic for a minute or two and the place was mobbed like it never used to be back in the day. And we started chatting with this really sweet young gal who came over and chatted with us. And we're both having a sparkling water. And I forget she said something about it. And what did you say? I said, Oh, I said, I was

retired. And you said something else.

I said, we were retired. You said one of us is retired and one of us is recovering or something like that. It was just such a fabulous description. But yeah, I can't, you can't remake the magic of those days, of those times.

So the other wonderful thing about the 40 Drinks Podcast and having you here is that none of this would exist without you.

Adrian: How so?

Stephanie: Well, the 40 Drinks Project was something I decided to do when I turned 40. And I was in a part of my life where I had been dumped by another terrible boyfriend. I think I had been dumped over text. Just coming up to my 40th birthday, it was like, I didn't want to have a big party that who was going to come and who was going to throw it?

Where was it going to be? It was all so gross. So I had this crazy idea to have 40 drinks with 40 people. It was July, a month before my birthday, and you and I were going to a Red Sox game. So I came down to the city and we had dinner at Eastern Standard. And I was telling you all about my crazy idea. And you said, I love it. You're always so supportive of my crazy ideas. And then a few minutes later, you pointed at the menu and you slid the cocktail menu over to me. And you said, Hey, look at this. And I remember just thinking, I'm not really in the mood for a rum drink. And you were like, no, look at the name. And do you remember what it

Adrian: Yes, I did. It's a Periodista.

Stephanie: And why would that drink have had some thematic connection between you and I and our relationship?

Adrian: it was named after a newspaper or something. It has

Stephanie: It was a Spanish word for journalist that, had its roots in Miami during the Cuban missile crisis or something. And so it was like, here you are, you're a journalist. You're originally from Miami and we're trying to do this drink thing for thematic connections.

And it was like, all right, let's order the drink. I started almost by accident because of yoursupport of the crazy idea and your,camaraderie over the whole thing. So really. This whole crazy thing got started with you.

Adrian: Yeah, you decided you wanted to have 40 drinks with 40 friends.

Stephanie: Yeah. In 40 different places.

Adrian: remember we started making a list.

Stephanie: Yeah. So that's why I knew you had to be my guest for episode number 100. Cause, you know, number one, number 100, it just, there's all so much beautiful magic in those numbers.

So let's talk a little bit about you said something a couple of minutes ago. You got sober a few years ago. And since you've done that, you have worked on a couple of really cool projects at work.

Adrian: Yes.

Stephanie: Let's talk about those. What was the first one?

Stephanie: Huge success. Like, I found out on Wikipedia today that it was Pulitzer prize finalist success.

Adrian: it was. You knew that, you just forgot.

Stephanie: You're probably right. I'm sure you're right. Okay. I used to know that. That's a good way to say that.

Adrian: And it did one, just recently revisiting the Carol Stuart murder, the Charles murder case called Murder in Boston. It became a 9 part podcast and there's a documentary on HBO and an eight part series in the paper, so. It was a sprawling, ambitious thing.

Stephanie: Yeah. It was pretty fucking cool.

Adrian: Thank you.

Stephanie: I mean, really? I just can't describe to you what it's like to be watching HBO and then all of a sudden to have your best friend on the screen. My husband will attest that I scream when it happens.

Adrian: You know, the funny thing is that I've barely seen it.

Stephanie: Oh my God. It's so good.

Adrian: Yeah. I mean, you know, I saw it before it aired because we had to watch it.

Stephanie: But yeah, this whole project, this new project the Carol Stuart murder, the newspaper part of the project was something that you were familiar with because you had done the race in Boston project a couple of years ago. And the HBO piece was something you were familiar with because you've been a guest on a couple of the other documentaries,

Adrian: Yes.

Stephanie: But the podcast piece was brand new for you.

Adrian: I had never done a podcast and hardly listened to any with the exception, obviously, 40 Drinks but you know, I've listened to a podcast a little bit here and there, but not a ton. You know, we're sitting there one day and they say, hey, we want you to host the podcast and, you know, not knowing any better, I said, yeah, okay. I had no idea what this would entail. A year later, I'm in a recording studio recording episode one. Yeah.

Stephanie: And the podcast did pretty darn well, don't you think?

Adrian: has done well. I think it's the best of the three versions of the story. I think it's easily the best one, the most interesting one. Yeah, it's done really well. It dropped in early December.

Stephanie: . And so like four months, four or five months, you've got a million and a half downloads.

Adrian: Yes.

Stephanie: And for weeks you were in likethe top podcasts in the world.

Adrian: It was a hit. a

hit.

yes. Yeah,

Stephanie: That is so cool.

Is it something you think you'd do again?

Adrian: Yes, although not at, you know, the next one can't take two years. I'm too old for that, but yeah, I'm open to hosting another podcast. Sure.

Stephanie: For anybody who hasn't listened to Murder in Boston, please go check it out because you did just such a great job of hosting it. You sounded like, you'd been doing it forever.

Adrian: You know, what's funny is that I can listen to it for about 15 minutes at a time, and then it's like I got to turn it off and go do something else. I have a really hard time. It's just like listening to myself just feels weird. I can't quite explain it.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Adrian: I mean, obviously when we were in the process of doing it, I had to sit down and listen to the episodes as they were completed.

What's happened is that I've done a bunch of interviews about it, and I'm starting to forget little details, which bothers me. So I said the other day, I'm going to sit down and just listen to the whole thing, start to finish, which would take maybe six hours. And I couldn't do it.

Stephanie: Was it because of listening to your own

Adrian: I just have this weird, you know, mix of emotions about it. Partly I'm really proud of it because it's really good, but it also just makes me very self conscious.

Stephanie: Wow. Well, it is really good. And I was just so proud of you and just so proud to be your friend. Like when that whole thing was coming out, because it was a hit. There was like what, eight, six, eight people on the team.

And of course I've been around for the two years behind the scenes. So I know exactly how much work you put into it. So, you know, of course these things come out looking beautiful and polished and like it was easy, but

Adrian: Yeah, it was a heavy

Stephanie: There was a lot of gestation of that project.

Adrian: I always say I thought it would take a year. It took two and a half years.

Stephanie: Well, it's, I always say like the podcast too. It's like the old adage about having a baby, right? If I had known how much work it was before I did it, I might not have done it.

Adrian: Right.

Stephanie: Not that either you or I have babies, but I've heard people say that.

Adrian: I get the idea.

Stephanie: Right. Any projects up for you on the horizon? Do you have anything you're thinking of doing?

Adrian: I have something I'm thinking of doing. It's not going to be a podcast, but I have a, I have an idea for a little series of columns.

Stephanie: Okay. All right. I am trying to get you to do another podcast because I think you'd be amazing at it.

Adrian: And like, like I said, I'm definitely open to it.

So there was a big narrative journalism conference at BU a few weeks ago, you know, where Brian McGrory is now chair of the journalism department. And did a panel, three of us from our project did the opening night big event.

And then the next night, Brian had this dinner with Dean Baquet, the former editor of the New York Times. And you know, there were a bunch of BU professors and a few students there. So we're there in this private room at Eastern Standard and he's, Brian and I are talking and these three students come up to me and they go, Mr. Walker, it was so wonderful to meet you. Your voice was so beautiful and we love the podcast so much. And Brian is standing there just dying. Like, oh my God, do you have to tell him how great he is? I'm like, this is a great moment.

Stephanie: It just cracks me up and it's just one of the things like, as you get older, because the people that you knew and you came up with and you grew up with, you know, become people of some stature AKA Brian McGrory, who spent what was it a decade?

He

Adrian: or 11 years though, yeah.

Stephanie: 11 years as the editor in chief of the Boston Globe. I mean, that's pretty impressive. And when I was 20, I used to follow him around like a puppy dog. I had the biggest crush on him, as you know.

Adrian: I recall.

As long as we're telling stories. Remember the day we went to Locke Ober?

Stephanie: Yes.

So Locke Ober was a very traditional Brahmin restaurant in Boston. Like the Kennedys would go there and, you know, all the political bigwigs. It was not far from the State House. And you and I worked in. City Hall at the time, I think you were the bureau chief at the time, and I was your co op. And we would go out for lunches and we would go out for dinners and we would go out for drinks.

We would do all kinds of stuff. But at one point I said to you, I want to go to Locke Ober. I don't remember why, but we just decided that it would be fun to go to Locke Ober. And I remember I came in that day and I was wearing, you know, a cute little black dress, you know, with tights and I'm sure who knows how old I was, 21, 22.

And so you and I walked ourselves over to Locke Ober. Did we have a reservation? Did you make a reservation?

IWe just walked in and this is like the power lunch spot. This is in the early nineties. So major power lunch vibes.

Adrian: Yeah. I'm in my suit. I'm in a suit and tie. You're in your little black dress.

We're all dressed up.

Stephanie: Yup. And so we walk in and say, we're here for lunch. Two for lunch, please. And then what?

Adrian: So, there was this big dining room with a bar in it you know, it'scrowded, but it's not full. And I think they're going to seat us there. And instead, the host starts taking us upstairs and tries to put us in this empty private room. And I look around at this empty room and I'm like, we're not sitting up here. We're going to sit downstairs with everybody else. And made them take us back down.

Stephanie: Yeah. And you and I always suspected

Adrian: I would call it more than

Adrian: I think we weren't the vibe, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah. And I just have always been so, glad that you spoke up and said, no,

Adrian: Yeah, no. We're not doing this.

Stephanie: We're not doing this. No. Cause I mean, we were there for the power

Adrian: That's right. Absolutely.

Stephanie: There were plenty of other times where you and I had a room to ourselves and that was when we would go to, what was the place in Faneuil Hall we would go to lunch?

Adrian: I remember that. I can't think of the name of it. It was something nautical, but I'm blanking on the name of it.

Stephanie: And then you went upstairs and there was this tiny little, bar upstairs, like, maybe like a six year bar or something. And I remember you and I sitting in that room by ourselves. Do you remember the one like classic day that

Adrian: Yeah.

we went out for lunch and never went back.

Adrian: think you had like a lunch or something. I think you were going home for the weekend or something.

Stephanie: I can't have been, if we were drinking till 11 o'clock, I must have just gotten the train back to my apartment. Yeah. I like to tell people, you know, I, when I went to college I went pro drinking

Adrian: Yes, you did.

Stephanie: Stories like that. That kind of prove it. Yeah.

Adrian: then you did a semester in Ireland and you

Stephanie:

Adrian: came back a whiskey drinker.

Stephanie: cause I never drank beer. I mean, never once.

So it was like, if you're going to go to Ireland, what are you going to drink if you can't drink beer? Well, whiskey and cider. Cause they also back in the early nineties, they didn't really do much in the way of mixed drinks. Like I remember ordering a drink in my first week there or something.

I was like, you know, could I have a, this and a, that and, they poured the booze in a glass and then gave me this little, six ounce, pineapple juice on the side. Like they weren't even going to make the cocktail for you. Like it was that

Adrian: were on your own.

Stephanie: Yeah. I'm going to Ireland again this summer for the first time in 30 years. So I'll see whether or not cocktail culture has made it over there. I'm sure it has, but it wasn't at the time. So I drank cider. And I drank whiskey, lots and lots of whiskey.

Adrian: Yeah,

Stephanie: Yeah. I remember coming back and being able to tell the difference between different ages of Bushmills because

Adrian: you were very well informed when you got back.

Stephanie: Oh, dear,

barrels and different kinds of barrels. Exactly.

Adrian: We had so much fun in the nineties. Oh my God. What a time.

Stephanie: Oh my goodness.

So I'm thinking back to our first drink for the 40 Drinks Project. And I'm thinking back to the blog post that I wrote. So when I did the 40 Drinks Project, I, put up a little website, and I wrote all these blog posts about, you know, every person I had to drink with in the relationship and the drink and all of that stuff.

Do you remember that?

Adrian: Yes, I did.

Stephanie: Let's tell that story.

Adrian: So, the St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie had been cancelled or something like that. And this white nationalist from Mississippi decided he was going to go to South Boston and lead a parade. Lead a parade around South Boston High. And for some forgotten reason, I decided I wanted to cover this crazy white supremacist parade in South Boston and you decided you wanted to come along. So there we were, you know, there on a, beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I guess it was March of, I don't know, 94 and 95, something like that. And there was a bigger crowd than expected and things got a little hairy.

Yeah.

Stephanie: there, we were ushered into an area that had been cordoned off for the press. We were right across the street from South Boston high and there was a huge police presence. There was a huge community presence. And obviously this is being led by a white supremacist.

So there was, you know, nods to old South Boston and, racism and white supremacy and all of that stuff. So during the March, we were quite well protected in this area for the press. And then you got what you needed to get and so you said, let's go. And so we leave this area and start walking back towards your car and we're on a crowded sidewalk and within steps from the press area, the crowd had separated us.

And was jostling us. And we were becoming part of the melee, not of our own accord. I remember getting separated from you and it was, it was very scary. It was scary for both of us. I mean, I think maybe more so for you, but for me as well. It was a charged atmosphere.

Adrian: Yes, absolutely. I remember the crowd just sort of starting to collapse in on top of me.

Stephanie: Yeah. So we, grabbed each other again and went back into that press area and, we were luckily we were only a couple of steps away. I mean, we hadn't made it far. And you flagged down one of the police. What was he?

Adrian: He was a lieutenant. His name is Bobby O'Toole.

Stephanie: Here's what I remember about Bobby O'Toole. I remember his cufflinks

Adrian: that's right.

They had his initials.

Stephanie: E O T

Adrian: That's right. Yes.

Stephanie: for some reason. I was, whenever I think of his cufflinks, I think of Perot, but it's not quite right. But you told him what happened and he said, all right, don't worry about it.

And so he grabbed six guys in full riot gear.

Adrian: Shields and Billy clubs. And they escorted us.

Stephanie: They put us in the middle of the six of them and they escorted us shields and clubs up a block or two away to where we were parked we got in the car, we made it back to the Globe.

You were writing your story. We were both quite up. But that was the day that you came up with our forever line, which is, you said to me, well, pal today, we are cooler than we were yesterday.

Stephanie: For having survived I don't even know what would you have called it? It wasn't a riot, but it was pretty close.

Adrian: Yeah. It was melee it was a good word. Yeah. It was kind of crazy.

Stephanie: Yeah. I think those are some of our highlights for sure.

only other one I can think of that's a real highlight is going to Burger King after being out at the bars drinking for a million years. And now we, you and I both know we can both caveat this and say, we know we shouldn't have been doing this, but we'd go to Burger King and we'd go to the drive thru. And all I remember is driving back to your house, the couple of blocks and holding my French fries out the window. Cause they were too hot. If you held them out the window for a block or so,

Adrian: were

cool. Yes.

Stephanie: Oh, we had some good times, my love.

Adrian: Yes. We had tons of fun.

Stephanie: We still have fun. Are you kidding? about a year ago, I snookered you. For a couple of years. You've been a season ticket holder at the Boston ballet. And I said to you last year, why don't you buy a second ticket? You know, cause then you could take friends with you to the ballet. You could take people with you.

Adrian: Why go by yourself?

Stephanie: Why go by yourself? And it has quite turned out to be my ticket. So, in fact, we're going this weekend.

Adrian: We are going this weekend.

Stephanie: Yes. And that's been fun. So that's sort of one of our new things is I'll come down into town and we'll go out to a fancy dinner and then go to the ballet,

Adrian: Yes.

Stephanie: which is a blast.

Well, I want to thank you so much for joining me on my podcast, for being my 100th guest

Adrian: what an honor.

Stephanie: it is, it's an honor for me too. I think one of the fun things in today's conversation has been giving people a bit of a picture window into some of my hijinks as a younger person, some of the things that some of my formative experiences, which don't often come up because, you know, I'm not talking to people who know me well, and we're mostly talking about them.

So, this has been a lot of fun.

Adrian: You had your hijinks for sure.

Stephanie: I

Adrian: I can attest.

Stephanie: I was. Queen of hijinks for quite a while.

Adrian: Yes, exactly.

Stephanie: All right, my love. Thank you.

Adrian: All right.