Podcast: Why Hard Work Without Fanfare Saves Us

Sam Quinones on meth, drug cartels—and why the Tuba (among other things) is a solution to collective malaise.

More than 100,000 Americans die of drug overdose every year. The solution—or at least part of it—might be dorky as hell.

Sam Quinones spent 12 years reporting on America’s drug crisis and how heroin, fentanyl, and meth have reshaped the country.

Then he burned out. It was way too many depressing interviews, reporting trips, and dark stories. He thought the American Dream was dead.

Then, for strange reasons, a bunch of tubas started getting stolen from Los Angeles high schools. The thefts sent him on an obsessive side quest: tracking down the stolen instruments and speaking to tuba players across the country.

In those conversations, he found something unexpected. The tuba—and marching band broadly—turned out to be a metaphor for how we escape modern addiction. Not just to drugs, but to money, stuff, and fame.

The tuba stands for hard, intentional practice. Doing something challenging you actually care about, even when it pays nothing and nobody’s watching. Being part of a weird, committed community. It gave him hope.

Even if you have zero interest in playing the tuba—and honestly, who does?—the lessons from marching band apply to anyone.

This episode is about the value of hard work without fanfare, the power of community, and finding hope in a broken world.

Sam is the author of Dreamland, The Least of Us, and his new book, The Perfect Tuba: Forging Fulfillment from the Bass Horn, Band, and Hard Work.

Video version

Audio version

• This link opens the episode in your podcast player of choice.

Show notes

• Sam Quinones’ Substack (read it here).

• A note on Sam: I love this guy. He’s an old-school reporter who gets out and talks to hundreds of people for his work. His enthusiasm for his topics shows through in his writing and speaking.

• Sam’s tuba book. I didn’t expect to like a book about tubas—but I LOVED this book. The Perfect Tuba: Forging fulfillment from the Bass Horn, Band, and Hard Work.

• Sam’s book on the opioid epidemic, which is arguably the best book on the topic: Dreamland: True tales of America’s opiate epidemic.

• Sam’s book on fentanyl and meth and the scaling up of drugs from fields to labs: The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.

• Sam’s 2011 LA Times story on a rash of stolen tubas.

• For your listening pleasure … The greatest narcocorrido band of all time, Los Tigres Del Norte.

Have fun, don’t die, more tuba, less meth,

-Michael