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Slate Culture

Death, Sex & Money | The Real-Life Willy Wonka Who Built Tony Hawk a Secret Desert Train

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.42K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

N.D. Austin is not an event planner. He designs experiences, which he says are supposed to leave you feeling transformed. He’s designed hundreds over the years, from secret sewer speakeasies to coming-of-age rituals on deserted islands, to funeral board games that guide people through decades of memories. In this episode, Anna talks to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk about an experience N.D. designed for Tony’s office that mended friendships on a homemade train. And N.D. tells Anna how growing up in a doomsday cult in Alaska sparked his obsession with performance, ritual and generosity.   Podcast production by Zoe Azulay. Thank you also to Jeremy S. Bloom and Stefan Zeniuk. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

skateboarding legend Tony Hawk hosted a podcast with radio personality Jason Ellis

0:05.5

Hey everybody, it's Jason Ellis and Tony Hawk, Hawke versus Wolf, greatest podcasts of all time

0:09.8

in the history of the universe.

0:11.1

What he said about our podcast.

0:13.8

On an episode last year, Jason asked about a recent trip Tony had been on.

0:18.3

You were in the desert.

0:20.9

Okay, I'll explain it. Let me, let me take you from the beginning.

0:24.3

There's a guy I know that I've become friends with in New York, and he creates experiences.

0:29.5

And when I say creates experiences, I cannot do it justice of what he is capable of

0:35.2

and what he has put together for people.

0:38.3

The guy who helped Tony is named Indie Austin.

0:42.0

But if you're thinking high-end party host or wedding planner for rich people and celebrities,

0:47.6

you've got the wrong idea.

0:49.5

I went to his place in New York.

0:51.7

The last time I visited, we were just talking about other stuff. And I said, would you, would you consider doing something from my office? Because we have a, we have a holiday thing every year, but kind of running out of ideas. Yeah. He's just like, what can we work with? And I said, well, I'd like to do something that is relatively close, but if we have to drive a little bit, that's fine. Mm-hmm. And those are the only parameters I gave him. I don't know what he has, what he's planning,

1:14.9

right? And so we have our weekly meeting and everyone's there. And then there were all these

1:22.2

gifts on the desk, which was not, not the usual, like, holiday gift exchange.

1:27.9

Yeah.

1:31.8

And so I get instructions, like open the gifts.

1:32.8

So we open the gifts.

1:37.5

There's, there's like a shovel, a pickaxe, a first aid kit.

1:41.9

There's a locked briefcase and a set of keys.

...

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