Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 06, 2025


A Terrible No Good Visit to the ER

Is Gender Equity Dead？ How to Be a Good Person in the World

Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

190.03

Word count

9,429

Sentence count

217

Harmful content

Misogyny

18

sentences flagged

Toxicity

29

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, Jo here and you are listening to Under the Influence, live from the emergency
00:00:10.640 room.
00:00:11.620 Just kidding.
00:00:12.860 I am no longer in the emergency room.
00:00:15.300 If you follow me on Instagram, you might know that I was indeed in the ER last weekend with
00:00:22.000 pneumonia and I'm back.
00:00:24.680 I'm home and I'm feeling a lot better.
00:00:27.840 Antibiotics are a magical thing.
00:00:30.000 science is a magical thing. But I did want to update everyone on what happened and how I'm
00:00:36.000 feeling now. And the best way for me to do that is always just to call Glynnis and talk it through.
00:00:41.560 But don't worry, this episode is not all doom and gloom. We are also going to get into one of my
00:00:46.880 favorite topics, which is, are Americans having enough fun? Do we need more fun in our lives?
00:00:53.920 The answer, as you know, is, of course, yes, yes, and yes.
00:00:59.580 Here is the Glynis.
00:01:02.720 This morning, Jo sent me into, like, I don't want to think depression, but, like, sadness.
00:01:08.520 Just, like, almost grief, where I just woke up and I was like, this is awful.
00:01:12.560 We need a new word for this, actually.
00:01:16.060 Because I don't think it's not depression.
00:01:19.780 it's a combination i you know it's i'm just gonna babble here because i
00:01:26.740 it's a complete unknown is what it is yeah and it's still it's um i mean it's i was rereading
00:01:37.140 a book from the 80s by malone kundera uh the book of laughter and forgetting and which is about
00:01:42.140 Czechoslovakia um becoming authoritarian and I was like man most of the rest of the world has
00:01:50.240 been through this it's just America's go around with it and America's way too much power and
00:01:57.180 the implications of this are so enormous and they're not going to get better even if we get
00:02:03.280 rid of them do you know what I mean like it's like no no no the degree of trust that has been
00:02:07.020 eradicated in the last two weeks and really and I say this as a Canadian I don't think Americans
00:02:13.100 ever fully grasp how the impact like how impactful America is globally and this sense of like the
00:02:20.440 goodwill that's generated towards it throughout the world and how that goodwill keeps the country
00:02:28.080 safe and wealthy and all these other things and like tossing it overboard so cavalierly is going
00:02:35.640 to have just the most enormous repercussions that are so scary to contemplate I know I mean I think
00:02:43.180 it's dread dread is dread is the better word for it yeah I think honestly um the Elon Musk of it
00:02:51.520 all yeah and I find just it that's what stabs me in the brain we're in a bad superhero movie
00:02:59.180 except we have no superheroes to combat no one's coming for no one's coming to save us
00:03:04.560 no aoc can't do this on her own like she's not she's to me the only person that's articulating
00:03:12.680 a language for what's happening that feels true but i'm like just just you can't do this by
00:03:18.020 herself and reading the mainstream media is so we can talk about something else but i i like the
00:03:25.060 frustration of seeing the language after years of them over applying dramatic language to
00:03:31.700 situations that didn't merit it to see them fail so completely in articulating what's happening
00:03:38.400 right now is infuriating it's driving me in the times is driving me insane the times is driving
00:03:45.820 me i started reading the wall street journal this is the this is where we're at right now where i
00:03:50.400 was like at least the wall street journal like there's like a sort of a black and whiteness to
00:03:55.920 them or even if i don't like what they're saying it actually feels grounded in reality and then i
00:03:59.800 go on the times homepage and i'm like this is some alternate reality where six months ago
00:04:04.020 or the way they dealt with hillary or this whole thing i'm just like it makes me nuts
00:04:08.200 yeah there's no what else is going on how you feeling um i am alive i'm alive uh i'm doing an 0.91
00:04:18.740 interview right now with you i i feel a lot better antibiotics are a fucking miracle right
00:04:25.920 which is something to think about as rf key goes sailing into the like health department like our
00:04:32.180 antibiotics are actually really important and they're and they're useful and they save you
00:04:36.880 yes yes they save me i mean so i'll update the listeners i i had the flu last week which
00:04:43.440 i'm not going to say it's my fault because you know i'm just not going to shame myself but
00:04:47.640 i didn't get my flu shot uh i i went on a couple of occasions it was out at the cvs my doctor's
00:04:54.500 office didn't have it and then i just forgot about it okay i don't think that's your fault it's not
00:04:59.800 i just think that's like but i i should have gotten it i should have gotten it um i know i
00:05:05.460 know better than to have not gotten it but i didn't get it and i got the flu and it was awful
00:05:11.560 my god i mean this version of the flu it just my whole body was in intense pain and like i think
00:05:17.960 that should have told me something like that the inflammation was was going pretty crazy and then
00:05:24.000 I thought I was better like then it got better and I was I was okay I was doing good for for about
00:05:28.920 48 hours and then all of a sudden just got hit with insane shortness of breath massive chest
00:05:35.920 pains such that I thought I was having a heart attack so that's so scary I know I know um can I
00:05:44.520 also just say like outside perspective some objectivity it's not your fault that you got
00:05:50.860 the flu and yes flu shots and they should be easier to access but also you've been doing like
00:05:55.420 approximately 25 jobs simultaneously for about the last 12 months and that takes a toll truth
00:06:01.620 truth it does it does and yeah like you can go 100 miles an hour until you can't and then when
00:06:08.140 you can't I sometimes feel like your body is like here's the brick wall I'm done I'm done yeah and
00:06:15.060 so so yeah i mean i couldn't breathe and i was freaking out and uh i was like i i think i have
00:06:22.180 to go to to the er because it was saturday night right um and that's the only recourse at that
00:06:29.380 point there's no doctor to call there's no we don't have any urgent cares open in philly um
00:06:34.960 that are open that late and uh thankful you know i really i want i do want to give a shout out to
00:06:40.060 the village because I was really lucky Charlie's little best friend uh his mom who is also a doctor
00:06:45.940 came to our house um to stay uh while the kids because the kids were asleep it was like 10 o'clock
00:06:51.260 at night and she looked at me and she's like I want you to go to the ER um so we went and it was
00:06:58.640 six hours of waiting uh six hours where I couldn't I was in so much pain because my chest hurt so much
00:07:06.940 that I couldn't sit up and the chairs are awful and so I laid down on the ground and I got yelled
00:07:12.220 at um I guess but also you shouldn't yeah yeah yeah I got yelled at for laying on the ground
00:07:17.780 by one of the staffers and I said I can't get up if you can't get me somewhere to lay down I can't
00:07:22.900 stay here and then he he told me I was free to leave if I wanted to but like kind of ashamed me
00:07:29.060 for wanting to leave and I said okay I'm gonna go home and then they didn't give me any of my
00:07:34.960 test results up until that point which said I had pneumonia and elevated heart enzymes that showed
00:07:41.200 my heart had been through trauma but they didn't tell me that when I left because pneumonia is I
00:07:46.300 mean I feel like pneumonia is one of those things that word that gets thrown around like don't go
00:07:50.280 outside without your coat you're gonna get pneumonia you know like it belongs to like
00:07:53.620 yeah yes or like uh like an Emily Bronte novel pneumonia is serious it's a real and I know that
00:08:01.660 from having elderly parents like pneumonia is a serious thing for anyone at any age it's not a
00:08:07.500 joke it's not a casual thing that you take you know some vicks cough drops for totally totally
00:08:12.900 and they had that result at 11 o'clock and it was four in the morning at that point and they didn't
00:08:18.000 tell me and so I went home and I was like I'll go to urgent care in the morning I just I need to
00:08:21.560 sleep I need to lay down I have the staff the staff there was unkind I mean they won't tell 0.84
00:08:28.620 you anything and again i'm i don't want to shit all over this hospital it's a great hospital and 0.50
00:08:33.840 a bad er and all i think all er's go through this but like the level of empathy is non-existent 0.85
00:08:43.420 um in those waiting rooms and it's it's such a broken system and i'm talking about all of this
00:08:50.760 because i just kept thinking and so anyway long story short the er called back in the morning
00:08:55.560 I was like oh your heart could be in trauma and you have to come back in and I said I can't wait
00:09:00.380 another six hours and they're like you won't have to and I came and I waited another six hours
00:09:04.900 because they told me that they had no record of calling me to tell me to come back in
00:09:08.380 oh yeah um and then I was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia so for two days yeah for two days
00:09:16.360 for two days uh but you know the whole time I just kept thinking we have we so clearly have a broken
00:09:23.320 health care system. You and I talk about this all the time. RFK has no comprehension of how any of
00:09:29.280 this works. I'm sure he's had concierge medicine for the past, you know, 50 years.
00:09:34.300 His application for Harvard, he literally just put his name down. I don't know that really wealthy
00:09:40.200 people, generally speaking, have any understanding of how this works for most people.
00:09:45.620 I don't I don't think they do. And, you know, I will fully acknowledge, you know,
00:09:49.060 my privilege too like I understand I understand how hospitals work and how the systems work and
00:09:54.980 you know I was calling and texting all of my friends who were doctors I was like can you
00:09:58.840 call the ER and at least get my test results for me um and I can't imagine going into that
00:10:05.800 you know especially as someone who doesn't speak English that well um and not understanding the
00:10:11.260 system and thinking that this is a place where you get help um and and being being treated like
00:10:17.540 this it's just it was awful it was I and it terrifies me because I'm like everyone tells
00:10:22.920 you that a few of chest pains go to the ER right and I'm like I know I'm never going again I never 0.98
00:10:27.520 want to go there again yeah I think you know one being having grown up in Canada with the Canadian
00:10:35.140 health care system which there's many problems with and one of the things you're always told
00:10:40.880 in Canada is oh they're the wealthy Canadians would sometimes go down to the states because
00:10:45.180 they'd be like, oh, there's no waiting. There's no lineup, right? Because it's privatized medicine
00:10:50.160 in the States, you get served much quicker. And this was the main complaint of Canadian healthcare
00:10:54.440 and has always been, which is you have to wait for doctor's appointments. You have to wait for
00:10:58.400 specialist appointments, the whole shebang, but it's socialized medicine. And since COVID in this
00:11:03.400 country, the wait times are the equivalent of what you get under a socialized healthcare system,
00:11:09.140 but it's not socialized so you're we're suffering all of the same pitfalls of a socialized system
00:11:15.540 but we're paying like the amount of money we're paying to access it is bankrupting most people
00:11:22.400 oh yeah and i i think that you know the way the word socialized has been demonized in this country
00:11:29.360 is ridiculous but like to really consider that you shouldn't have to go to the er to have these
00:11:34.780 things taken care of the wait time in the er when you're paying like whatever premium you're paying 0.84
00:11:39.440 on your health insurance and your deductible should not be six hours of wait time for anyone
00:11:43.620 like it's it's no no i mean it might regis it should be a regal and i know we're not clearly
00:11:49.300 headed into a country that is gonna make it better but we're not headed into a country that's gonna
00:11:53.860 make it better uh where and also i mean one of the things is that it people don't have gps anymore
00:12:01.680 people don't understand how to go to the doctor or have access to a doctor there was a college kid
00:12:06.300 sitting next to me who had pink eye um and she came to the er for antibiotics for pink eye 1.00
00:12:11.860 although i will say like you know as as a mom as a mom who has gotten pink eye from my disgusting 0.99
00:12:17.460 kids yeah the girl didn't even have crust on her eyes yeah yet but she was like i don't know she's
00:12:23.720 like what like i don't even know where student health is and like his urgent care open so i just
00:12:27.780 came here and I'm like I mean that's making it all worse right like there's just no socialization
00:12:33.480 for how to go to adapter no and also when every pharmacy turns into a chain when I lived in
00:12:39.280 Williamsburg in Brooklyn um there was a local family-owned pharmacy on the corner and when
00:12:44.100 you had an issue like that you'd walk in and say like do you think I need you know what I mean
00:12:47.620 that would be your first step before you would go and then if you couldn't pay the full amount
00:12:51.940 because you didn't have health insurance which so many people didn't they would like set up their
00:12:56.360 own payment system with you and that kind of like real life interaction which I was gonna say not
00:13:03.580 to make this all about politics but I actually find in this moment it's impossible not to make
00:13:07.680 everything about politics I know I know the more language we connect everything we're experiencing
00:13:13.020 with what is happening in the government the more useful it is to understand that this is going to
00:13:18.060 impact literally every single part of our lives but like the I listened to I was texting you
00:13:23.940 yesterday with Tina Brown was doing that live chat with Anand whose last name I always mispronounce
00:13:29.140 yes yes yes yes which was delightful because clearly his audience this was their first time
00:13:34.940 brushing up against Tina Brown which was so amusing to watch because they were like what is
00:13:40.240 she saying here and what does she mean here and I was like wow this is fascinating like these people
00:13:44.700 clearly do not have a history of experience with Tina Brown who we both adore and who's
00:13:49.400 I love, but it's also like, you know what you're getting into. Uh, but she was just, um, she was 0.93
00:13:57.120 reflecting on the, the men who are like Jeff Bezos, Elon, um, Mark Zuckerberg are all people
00:14:05.480 who strive to remove all in-person contact from our daily interactions that they want everything
00:14:11.920 to be, you know, a mathematical equation or an algorithm. And there's no, and some of that,
00:14:17.680 i think she was saying like speaks to their inability to ever get a date if they didn't
00:14:23.040 have these things behind them but that totally implementing this on our entire system which is
00:14:28.940 depersonalizing literally everything literally and one of the results of that is you're stuck
00:14:35.460 in a queue in an er when this problem could be solved very simply or your problem could be dealt
00:14:42.400 with more quickly as a serious problem as a serious problem hold on all right we're gonna
00:14:45.880 take a quick break. And then I have a lot more to say on that. And then we're going to finally
00:14:48.240 talk about what we came here to talk about, which was, has America forgotten to have fun?
00:15:02.000 Okay, we're back. I have two, yes, I have two stunning examples of that. The whole time that
00:15:06.600 we were in the ER and Nick Astor came with me. He was very sweet and very helpful, but Nick is not
00:15:13.640 an assertive human. So, you know, I go in to a situation guns blazing. Oh my God. I haven't been
00:15:21.260 like long-term caretaker with my mom. I would go into every situation. There was no waiting. I mean,
00:15:25.720 if we had to, but I was like, talk to everyone. Talk to everyone. And Nick's like, it's not going
00:15:31.340 to do anything. And I'm like, I don't care. Talk to everyone. I can't stand up. I can't do this.
00:15:35.220 Do you know the story about Ben Whittacombe's appendicitis? No, but it is going to do something.
00:15:39.980 and talking to everyone doesn't mean being an asshole talking to everyone beings being 0.81
00:15:43.600 active and again to extend this to the world we're living in like you should be calling everyone 0.87
00:15:48.380 right now you should be it's not going to fix itself it's not going to fix itself and so no
00:15:51.960 back back in the day when um I worked at the daily news with our dear friend Ben Whittacombe who
00:15:56.640 who married me with you he was the emcee to your officiant last great wedding the last great wedding
00:16:02.360 and uh he he was a gossip columnist alongside what side me and he looked over at me one day
00:16:08.600 it was like my appendix has burst and i was like what we're in the newsroom in the middle of the
00:16:13.580 daily news newsroom and i was like oh my god and he's like you have to get me to the hospital
00:16:17.460 and so you know go out meanwhile i'm like dressed in my like hotty toddy floozy old gossip columnist
00:16:24.300 clothes you know like five inch jimmy shoe heels and uh i flag a cab get him in we get to saint
00:16:32.240 vincent's down in the village uh and the weight is terrible i remember saint vincent yeah and he's
00:16:38.180 moaning and crying and I went full Shirley MacLaine in terms of endearment with the get my daughter
00:16:43.800 the drugs and I just screamed and screamed and we got him in we ended up getting him in and um this
00:16:50.460 isn't an invasion of Ben's privacy because he wrote about it in his book so I'm allowed to talk
00:16:53.980 about this um in fact if you want to order the book if I want to order Ben Whitacombe's book I
00:16:59.080 shall look it up right now but so Nick but Nick's Nick was saying the whole time that Nick Nick is
00:17:04.200 never going to go full Shirley MacLaine. Like he just, he's not capable of it. And I didn't have
00:17:08.800 the strength, which says how weak I was because I usually can. No, that does that. Of all the
00:17:13.820 things you've told me in the last few days, that is the biggest measure, how little strength you
00:17:17.920 had. Yeah, exactly. Ben's book is called. As a person who got themselves into the delivery room
00:17:22.520 like that. Yes. Yes. I'm having this baby right now. Let's go. Right now. Ben's book is Gate
00:17:29.120 Crasher, by the way. Oh, and if you Google and there's such cute old pictures, I want to send
00:17:32.160 this cute old picture of him uh we did that book event for him on we threw that book event for him
00:17:37.220 so so but nick's response was he's like i he's like i don't want to talk to any of the people
00:17:44.060 working in here because it feels like i'm talking to ai because they're like so just first off
00:17:51.240 they're beaten down okay they're beaten down but like also he's like i'm just getting a robotic
00:17:54.860 response and i will tell you i never i don't think that anyone could pull a shirley mcclain again
00:18:01.660 because every time i rose my voice like i was not yelling okay i couldn't yell i could barely speak
00:18:07.000 but like anytime i spoke in a harsh tone i got glared at by the security guard
00:18:10.540 so i mean yeah i mean it doesn't nothing feels safe nothing feels nothing feels safe right now
00:18:17.940 that is the one that is i would say even the smallest interactions right now don't feel safe
00:18:23.420 which is a new experience like you're gonna get he's like you're gonna get arrested i'm like
00:18:26.680 they're going to arrest a mother of three with possible like heart issues right now and he's
00:18:33.600 like yes he's like stop it yeah and then you think what what happens to and we know the answer to
00:18:41.240 this because many black women in labor have written about having they're not and black women in general
00:18:46.180 have written about not having their pain taken seriously which is if you're a white woman with
00:18:50.340 your white husband tall blonde broad-shouldered and you're in that much pain and you are fearing
00:18:55.920 for being you know frog marched out of a hospital for making a fuss yeah what what does that say
00:19:03.500 about how everyone else is getting treated terribly also like empathy for the people that are working 0.98
00:19:08.300 there because no one wants to be an asshole in a situation with people in distress like no one's 0.72
00:19:13.820 looking to spend their days being mean to people in pain so it's like what is this system they're 0.96
00:19:19.700 operating in that the end result is puts them in this place where you have like coming home from
00:19:25.000 that you imagine how awful you would feel every day like awful and you don't want to come home
00:19:30.080 from working in a hospital feeling like a terrible person because why work there I mean people who
00:19:35.940 work in hospitals are when you finally deal with like kind nurses nurses have been the kindest of
00:19:42.020 all of my experiences in hospitals nurses are always the kindest and I I mean I have so many
00:19:47.060 friends who are nurses and who are doctors and who are hospital administrators and I believe the
00:19:52.920 systems are filled with good people trying to do good things. I also believe that the medical
00:19:58.780 system is crushed by fears of liability. Crushed. Crushed by, you know, very bad acting attorneys.
00:20:08.280 Also crushed by confusion, because if you don't know if your insurance is covering anything and
00:20:15.900 it's not covering anything, like the confusion of just going to the hospital. This is what I would
00:20:19.720 say again about um i just heard a little canadian about coming to my like mouth a boot uh when i
00:20:26.780 get tired it flips then um but like a socialized system you go in and give your health card
00:20:32.060 that's you might have to wait but that's the end of your interaction with like is this being covered
00:20:36.960 or not yeah um meanwhile yeah exactly meanwhile i know i know nothing about what is covered uh
00:20:43.800 yeah i don't know if i'm going to be charged a thousand dollars twice just for showing up at
00:20:48.160 the er twice even though the first time i showed up i was not seen uh we no one has any idea if
00:20:55.560 this will bankrupt them and the staff doesn't know again everyone is hamstrung within a system
00:21:02.560 that is truly being controlled mostly by very rich men again and now computers like and now
00:21:09.960 and now ai right like and now it's an ai run some of its ai run that is so apocalyptic and depressing
00:21:17.600 and the fact that there's no like the tunnel is so long and the light so far away feels
00:21:24.180 disheartening yeah no it's a system it's a system filled with good people and good actors who are
00:21:32.040 very hamstrung and i don't have answers i want to talk about it i mean i posted it on on social
00:21:37.480 media and i want to talk about now not to complain but because i think we have to talk about it
00:21:42.500 Because I also think that we often get scared or exhausted or bullied into silence.
00:21:50.220 And or we think it doesn't matter.
00:21:52.260 Or we think that someone will be like, oh, they're just complaining.
00:21:54.740 And that's not it.
00:21:55.980 We have to continue to call this out all the time because someone with terrible chest pains
00:22:00.160 in the middle of the night shouldn't be laying on the floor of an ER.
00:22:02.940 It's just it's it's just it shouldn't happen.
00:22:05.340 So and actually and so and then I was reading the reviews of the ER.
00:22:12.500 on the google that's also a problem too right yes that er's are being rated and ranked just
00:22:18.760 feels to me very but i also feel like people have no other recourse because yes what who else are
00:22:24.040 you going to talk to most of the time uh and the reviews were very similar to mine but then they
00:22:31.120 were for every hospital in the region because i thought about hospital shopping about leaving i
00:22:35.380 was like all right if i go out you know maybe it's overwhelmed because we're in the city right
00:22:39.700 so i'm like i could go out to lincoln now in the suburbs their reviews weren't any better
00:22:43.560 st mary's out where i grew up their reviews were slightly better not great um so i mean it's a
00:22:50.600 system going back to you saying you took ben to st vincent's which for listeners who are not from
00:22:55.120 new york was the main hospital um below 14th street that served lower manhattan yeah it was
00:23:01.840 that and like nyu lingo and that's in the news right now but st vincent's was like the mainstay
00:23:07.080 and when it closed controversially it's now condos and that to me speaks a lot to part of
00:23:14.500 the problem we're into this this uh system that like devalues um places of care places of care
00:23:22.700 places of care of extremely expensive real estate which i know i think this this is this is just all
00:23:31.700 the thing that stirs up the dread and yeah makes me terrified of of rfk i mean i'm scared of him 0.81
00:23:37.200 for a lot of reasons you know i just think he's such a dildo um but yeah less enjoyable than a 0.87
00:23:42.680 dildo that's less enjoyable than it yeah why would i insult a dildo okay why would i why would 0.96
00:23:47.580 listen at the rate men are going these days the only thing we're all just going to be having 0.52
00:23:51.480 dildos instead this is their great fear right i know it's like i know um oh i mean i get like
00:23:56.940 just like so what's what's a soggy boring thing like a like a wet bread wet bread i was gonna
00:24:02.760 say like a wet wet sandwich yeah like wet white bread wet well he's orange i don't know why do
00:24:10.120 all of these men think that orange is a good color for them they're like i don't know make 0.99
00:24:13.700 me as bronze as possible exactly you're so gross you all look like tall umpa lumpas 0.96
00:24:20.720 oh poor uncle lumpus uh yeah so i mean i'm just like the absolute worst person for a job to fix 0.98
00:24:32.500 america's broken medical system okay and speaking of not wanting to speak up it's like he's a gross
00:24:39.320 person but it's the people who are allowing him into this position who are scared to use their
00:24:45.740 voices to say no to the president and allowing this absolutely irresponsible figure into the
00:24:53.120 system it's like speak up speak up speak up just please speak up um and channel shirley mclean at
00:25:01.580 every point and start screaming i'm gonna watch that i'm gonna watch it i um the fact that scene
00:25:07.120 has like abided because that movie must be about 40 years old right now like that scene more than
00:25:13.260 anything else in that film is so iconic for such a reason because it's like in those moments it's
00:25:19.640 just scream as loudly as possible scream as loud as you can until somebody hears you I feel like
00:25:25.280 we should all be channeling Shirley MacLaine through the next four years oh totally I'll
00:25:29.620 make a meme when I get off yeah yeah or I'll ask Nick to do it I'm tired but you need a nap
00:25:35.240 I do need a nap I do I also we were talking on text that I want to watch war games
00:25:40.580 yeah yeah she looks like a time yes yeah yeah yes and how cute were matthew broderick and ali
00:25:47.280 sheedy oh so cute and so young and also it's so that movie is great i re-watched it with one of
00:25:53.880 the kids who got i said this to you like nuclear and i i was 10 i think when that movie came in
00:25:58.900 and of course as everyone who was that age in the early 80s it's like we all grew up with the fear
00:26:04.040 of nuclear annihilation thanks to that movie the day after but like it is an intense thing because
00:26:09.580 kids don't kids have plenty of fears now but they're much different but that like the planet
00:26:14.000 can be destroyed since like and in that movie that it was a kid that was going to save them
00:26:19.240 whereas right now there's 19 year olds in the treasury department hacking into the mainframe
00:26:23.100 there's a 19 to 24 year old um men mostly men yes always men always only men boys speaking of
00:26:31.040 boys the boys all a bunch of boys are probably a little off a little off yeah well i think they're
00:26:37.100 probably are not having a lot of real life contact with human beings, which I believe
00:26:41.860 is the antidote to almost everything, which is real life. It truly is. It truly is. When I left
00:26:47.460 you that voice memo yesterday, instead of typing, I was like, I think this is me for the next four
00:26:51.340 years. I think I'm only, I'm like real life voice memo. Yeah. Instead of, well, not for small things,
00:26:57.020 but for, I'm tired of typing. Every time I pick my phone up to type something, inevitably there's a
00:27:01.660 New York Times alert there. And then I end up on blue sky and I have a panic attack and I'm not a
00:27:06.100 person prone to panic no you're not no you're not no I mean I want all all in persons which is why
00:27:12.120 you know we were in New York for 24 hours and I was like meet me at Italy that was the best that
00:27:17.280 was the best that was the best oh that tiramisu the tiramisu the kids getting the kids to do 100
00:27:25.460 jumping jacks on the sidewalk on 14th street while I bought while I bought Sicilian wine
00:27:29.320 while you bought Sicilian wine it's just throughout that perfect day we were like
00:27:32.620 here's a game we can play and they're like i want to please you exactly they're like wait i can do
00:27:38.000 100 more and i'm like great 100 more jumping jack you do you my friend italy is the best place to
00:27:44.660 take kids in new york city because they're so kind to children so kind to children uh that was great
00:27:50.600 that was great and it was like just a quick impromptu meeting i'm like i just i want more
00:27:54.880 in persons and all right we'll take one more quick break and then that's what we're going to talk
00:27:59.280 about when we get back there's this joy joy i swear to god there's gonna be joy after the break
00:28:04.540 uh well there's this great story in the atlantic uh that says americans need to party more and the
00:28:11.080 statistics in it crushed my soul yeah it crushed my soul all right we'll be right back
00:28:15.620 okay have you have you read this atlantic story no i saw the headline and i saw
00:28:29.020 some, um, some up of it, but I, I agree. It's, it's almost like I agree because all like real
00:28:38.980 life to me, I think I wrote this in my newsletter. I don't know, in the last week or six weeks.
00:28:44.560 Your newsletter is so good. Why don't you tout it? Tell people to subscribe to it.
00:28:46.900 I have a newsletter called Good Decisions. Yeah, it's great. It's a good decision to subscribe to
00:28:50.940 it. It's a good decision. And it sort of does a fun dance between, it's sort of, it's like being
00:28:55.580 in conversation with us it's a fun dance between like serious well-sourced and like lipsticks and
00:29:02.520 how to properly take a bath and how to properly have like enjoy yourself alone at dinner yeah
00:29:07.500 and i'm doing um this one for sunday is like how how to enjoy how to valentine's gifts
00:29:17.080 for your to spend valentine's by yourself or alone and first of all i was like
00:29:21.400 how just take a glance at the news and be grateful you're not in partnership with anyone
00:29:26.680 currently in this government is like one way to enjoy valentine day but i'm sympathetic to people
00:29:31.440 like i anyways that's so that is the premise of the newsletter but i think it was either after
00:29:36.280 the election or after the inauguration i said the only way forward is community like it's real life
00:29:41.140 community it's it's people in your life and seeing them and i think you know speaking to
00:29:46.160 two weeks ago in Italy, it's, I really believe in like impromptu-ness that we live in a world
00:29:53.360 where making plans is just an invitation to cancel plans. And that if you just ask people
00:29:58.480 two hours before, maybe they won't be available, but like half the time I'm like, oh, this works
00:30:04.140 out better. I'm like, no, let's just go right now. And people can do it and they want to do it. And
00:30:08.240 you always feel so much better. I mean, I watched the inauguration. No, a lot of people didn't want
00:30:12.780 to watch it. I watched it. I wanted to have my own, like my own direct experience with it. But
00:30:18.420 I got a friend of mine to meet me at a bar at 72nd and Columbus. Cause I was like, we need to
00:30:24.200 be in a larger space to watch this. Like we can't just sit in front of computers. It's like, you
00:30:29.920 have to be in a community. And even that helped because the bartender was an older Irish woman
00:30:33.940 who just spent the entire hour sort of swearing at the television. And it really, I really like 0.97
00:30:39.920 that yeah when you told me that it reminded me of when you and i watched the republican convention
00:30:45.080 together yes with that great filet mignon great filet mignon and that really good chianti
00:30:50.700 uh and that was impromptu we just decided we were done and we walked to a restaurant well
00:30:55.940 the amazing thing about this is we weren't just watching the convention we were at the convention
00:30:59.840 yes exactly covering the convention we're like i don't want to go in no i was like we've seen
00:31:05.500 enough for this let's go that was that was a good decision that was yeah we make good decisions we
00:31:11.940 do yeah um well this article about how people don't party anymore is just that i mean it's
00:31:17.220 that people lack community i don't feel this way because i like i mean i just intensely try to
00:31:24.820 cultivate community all of the time like as much as possible uh but you know it starts out like
00:31:30.680 this and it made me so depressed it says america many americans are alone friendless isolated
00:31:34.800 undersexed sick of online dating glued to their couches transfixed by their phones
00:31:39.440 their mouths starting to close from lack of use oh geez yeah it's not rose we said we were gonna
00:31:47.540 bring joy we did we said they're happy happy joy joy and people who are listening yeah well it was 0.98
00:31:55.780 these statistics that knocked me on my ass only 4.1 percent of americans attended or hosted a 0.92
00:32:01.040 social event on an average weekend or holiday in 2023 can I just say like you're like you cultivate 0.95
00:32:11.980 real life I see people all the time we both live in walkable cities right you're in a very walkable
00:32:17.440 part of Philly and I'm in Manhattan and I think so much about the the way car culture has conspired
00:32:26.960 with online culture to give you the illusion of community, but none of the rewards of community.
00:32:33.280 And I understand that people find community online in certain places. And I'm not trying
00:32:38.380 to diminish that, but it's not, it's the way it has taken over everything. And even to the point
00:32:43.560 of you think by retweeting or commenting that you're actually being active in a moment of
00:32:48.380 protest. Like there's no, there's no substitute for real life. And the more we live in communities
00:32:54.140 that have allowed real life interactions
00:33:00.140 to be subsumed by online ones,
00:33:01.940 which was accelerated during COVID
00:33:03.260 is so unhealthy.
00:33:05.240 And I mean, this is Paris too, right?
00:33:06.840 We both know this.
00:33:07.660 In Paris, you're out constantly.
00:33:10.080 You're just out.
00:33:11.360 And even if I don't see a friend every day,
00:33:14.060 I'm literally out in the world.
00:33:15.760 I'm talking to like,
00:33:16.780 please get out of my way at, 0.99
00:33:18.360 you know, Zabars or whatever.
00:33:20.100 Thank you.
00:33:20.580 Or, you know, you're having
00:33:21.220 real life interactions with people.
00:33:22.960 and it it it's there's no substitute for that like that makes me so sad yeah that number made
00:33:30.260 me really really sad like even if you don't want to host a party like there's ways to be out in
00:33:38.720 the world I did a newsletter um I don't like a couple weeks ago and I said when it's probably
00:33:43.900 about community and I said um I wanted like I had been watching it happened one night the old
00:33:50.320 the 1930s film with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. And there was that wonderful scene,
00:33:53.640 like Alakalas, Alaska, which is what I made the title, but it was like watching people sing
00:33:57.420 together. And I thought there's nothing more comforting than singing with other people.
00:34:01.920 Like it's, it's so, and all these people emailed me and said they had also joined
00:34:06.420 singing groups or choirs. And there's this one that's traveling around New York. They're doing
00:34:10.140 like, like a prayer by Madonna. And I just think even joining something like making a concerted
00:34:16.140 effort to, and it sounds like concerted effort. It literally is RSVPing on the tab on the computer
00:34:21.940 and then leaving your house and going somewhere. Yeah. And just having that moment of togetherness
00:34:27.820 is so fundamental. And because we don't have the regular church going that we used to.
00:34:35.540 With the singing. Yes, yes, yes. Like that singing is, yeah. I know. And for people who don't have
00:34:40.680 kids who aren't doing school pickups or are not forced into children's activities as a form of
00:34:45.280 community i think that is you know takes on a love an extra level of um necessity well i mean
00:34:51.700 i think about how joyous philadelphia is right now go birds because and yes it's because the
00:34:59.860 eagles are in the super bowl but but the spread is so much more than that being an eagles fan
00:35:07.460 is a religion in this city you walk by someone on a sunday and you say go birds and someone replies
00:35:14.280 go birds to you too and it's very very communal people's houses are open everyone is talking to
00:35:21.780 each other about the games in the streets and singing because we have many a song for the eagles
00:35:27.100 and we and we teach it we teach those songs to the children i was right i am not immune to what's
00:35:33.660 happening in philadelphia the eagles although i was so sad when the bills lost because i grew up
00:35:38.240 in southern Ontario and like the bills is so this all of us talk about tariffs and
00:35:43.560 it's so ridiculous and I'm like I don't think you understand like the entirety of southern
00:35:47.440 Ontario which is three quarters of the population are Buffalo Bills fans because we grew up on 0.84
00:35:51.160 Buffalo television and I was so bummed when they didn't make it yeah I mean but the Eagles deserve
00:35:56.280 this our city no I listen you think I'm gonna come up against you as a like an Eagles fan no
00:36:01.520 please I'm not an idiot no no no no no um and it's it is a beautiful thing to watch our city 0.81
00:36:07.120 come together you know the public schools will close or they won't close they will open late
00:36:11.720 um on monday we have a dilemma we because i actually i suffer from too many parties in my
00:36:19.320 life i am flying to nashville for jackie's daughter's quinceanera um this weekend and
00:36:26.280 that's so fun oh it's gonna be so fun i'm like i'm that's why i'm resting i'm resting i'm resting
00:36:30.080 to try to recover um and nashville nashville um people i'm gonna be at novelette on saturday
00:36:36.720 um signing sicilian inheritances and so and i think i'm gonna try to make cannoli i'm not
00:36:42.900 contagious anymore so uh nashville saturday noon novelette uh so yeah so i will be there
00:36:48.940 and then you know have going to the quinceanera and we're flying home at the start of the game
00:36:54.340 it'll be okay it's gonna be all right i'm sure the pilot is gonna put on the intercom
00:37:02.000 they will they will yeah broadcast of the game well so i've i've flown during a playoff game
00:37:07.060 before and uh the pilot uh live streams the game for you yeah they find flying into philly at the
00:37:14.720 beginning is this the beginning of the super bowl when philly is playing feels to me like
00:37:18.600 if the pilot didn't put that on it would be it would no we'll we'll be kept updated uh but and
00:37:24.200 so we land we'll probably land at halftime and then we will take the girls will probably go to 0.99
00:37:30.100 and I'll take Charlie directly to a Super Bowl party
00:37:33.300 because he's really going to, he's going to remember this.
00:37:35.480 Oh, for sure.
00:37:36.080 So it matters.
00:37:36.820 And then, you know, when we win, we go to Broad Street.
00:37:39.840 The whole city goes there.
00:37:42.920 And hang stuff on light posts.
00:37:45.480 People climb the light posts.
00:37:47.220 They climb them.
00:37:47.960 They shimmy up the poles. 0.73
00:37:49.320 Okay.
00:37:49.820 It's what we do.
00:37:51.020 It's what we do to honor, to honor the city of Philadelphia.
00:37:55.340 But it's magical because it is people coming together
00:37:58.260 and and people coming together physically in person which is just just what I think everyone
00:38:05.820 needs right now and also people who do not have the same political opinions Philadelphia you know
00:38:11.260 is a city and especially I mean the suburbs especially it's a city with a lot of different
00:38:16.580 viewpoints we can all believe in the eagles but when you're physically in proximity to people who
00:38:22.140 do not agree with you I think you can see them as human beings again and being online all of the
00:38:27.340 time makes us see them as not human beings right and it just reinforces all of our identity
00:38:33.180 politics and I think it makes all of this worse completely because you only see and I think of
00:38:37.540 this when I um when I go on blue sky and I'm like it's like the hysteria and I there's a lot of
00:38:43.740 useful stuff in there but there's like a level of hysteria and it's not balanced out by just like
00:38:48.300 physical touch or talking to someone in person or air or sounds and I just think like in real life
00:38:54.660 you get smells and you get sensation and you get like body language and body language is important
00:38:59.700 and you see people you know in context in relation it's like when they take a photo you know when
00:39:06.940 they i'm like where i see it sometimes is like photos of jewelry and they'll put a coin beside
00:39:12.440 it to give it perspective you know to show you how big it is or even remember that scene in jaws
00:39:17.040 where like they see the shark and richard dreyfuss keeps trying to get um the police chief to walk
00:39:22.120 out and to give perspective to how big the shark is like that there's no there's an absence of that
00:39:26.680 online so you have no you it's not in relation to anything it's just in relation to your brain
00:39:32.300 which is we need all of these senses to function properly in the world and real life provides them
00:39:39.240 in a way and you know how important it is because you always feel good after right like you always
00:39:44.380 feel and I think one of the things that keeps New York that one of the reasons that some of these
00:39:51.920 insane people currently running the country were contained in New York for so long is because New
00:39:56.200 York is a real life city. And it's very, these outsized personalities could be contained in a
00:40:02.300 city that's constantly brushing up against humanity. And that once they were let loose
00:40:08.160 into the news cycle globally and onto social media, and you remove all of those barriers
00:40:13.380 of just real life is when it morphed out of control into this place that we're at now.
00:40:19.180 Well, see, I, I, well, yeah, when we're talking about Trump, right, of course, but I'm more afraid of the people coming from Silicon Valley in San Francisco, San Francisco, a city without a soul, which I, look, that's what I kept saying when I lived there. I was like, Nick, there's no soul here. There's not a soul here.
00:40:36.660 But does there often be of that Starship song that we built to say rock and roll, which I loved when I was 11 years old.
00:40:41.600 Oh my God, that's now, it's Charlie and B's favorite song.
00:40:43.660 Oh my God, I love that song. And they're like, the city that rocks, the city that never stops. And I was like, what is San Francisco?
00:40:48.620 It was LA. That was about LA.
00:40:51.360 No, it was about San Francisco. They talked about the bridge.
00:40:53.460 Are you sure?
00:40:54.840 Because they came up in the San Francisco hippie scene.
00:40:59.100 Well, no, because it used to have a soul, but it died. San Francisco, the city that died for your sins.
00:41:04.780 And especially Silicon Valley. These are people who live in machines.
00:41:11.260 Yes, completely.
00:41:12.920 And that's actually more terrifying to me in so many ways.
00:41:15.760 i find elon musk the world's more terrifying than trump uh i honestly do yes but the thing
00:41:22.480 about trump is he's allowing what they see in trump is an open door to to have access to
00:41:29.720 whatever they want whatever they want it's a super it's a superhero movie with the super
00:41:33.640 villains just and someone just opened the door and was like here you go take what you want we
00:41:40.200 don't want to uh think too hard no it's so yeah yeah yeah speaking of real life someone just sent
00:41:48.340 me there's a big write-up in the times right now about a great headline why why gen x women are
00:41:54.320 having the best sex in an era plagued by sex negativity only one generation seems immune
00:41:59.560 mine as a gen xer and then they they reference um in a write-up of all the books and films they
00:42:06.500 reference i'm mostly here to enjoy myself and this is glissick nickel 50 as 46 in the book
00:42:11.920 turning 47 but i am 50 now wrote i'm mostly here enjoying myself a popular memoir about
00:42:15.900 going to paris to get laid wait the time said get laid
00:42:19.220 it's in this magazine feature that's right it just cracks me up wow yeah thanks new york times
00:42:28.460 i mean it's not incorrect but it's also it's just such a funny like it's totally correct but also
00:42:34.280 So I just, like, did not, like, that, I can't believe the Times, I can't believe the writer
00:42:38.260 got away with that.
00:42:38.940 I'm like, I really, I feel good about that.
00:42:40.620 Me too. 0.97
00:42:41.760 I also, like, that's, like, when they reviewed my book and they were like, hot sex, hot chocolate 0.88
00:42:46.360 and freedom, but not in that order.
00:42:48.240 I was like, go for it at times.
00:42:49.980 You go for it.
00:42:50.500 It's just helping me sell, like.
00:42:51.280 Thank you.
00:42:51.840 Sell, sell, sell.
00:42:53.140 Sell book.
00:42:53.840 Mostly, mostly here to enjoy by myself.
00:42:55.240 I did a book event last week in Chestnut Hill at Booked, which is a great, great little
00:43:00.100 indie bookstore.
00:43:01.060 And three people bought your book while I was there.
00:43:03.340 oh thanks joe yeah yeah and i know you know i'm just i'm gonna hand sell it at novelette in
00:43:09.480 nashville uh where i'll be on on saturday and before all these books i you know i my book is
00:43:16.980 illegal in russia right now as i understand it because it's not you're not allowed to promote
00:43:21.700 lifestyle women enjoying their lives who are not outside of marriage and children i don't know how
00:43:26.180 long you're gonna be able to promote it i know get it while you can because the second it comes
00:43:29.860 across the radar of uh i don't know somebody who's back-ending into the system and the treasury
00:43:35.620 you might not be able to get it again i i i have so many so many one more break well i don't usually
00:43:41.240 do this many breaks we'll take one more break okay okay we're back we're back i you know this
00:43:53.500 is a whole other episode and but i just want to put it in people's minds the trad wife movement
00:43:58.940 movement is stronger than ever before that's another episode because we have to talk about
00:44:03.820 little house in the prairie but yes okay go on yes okay we'll end we'll just add we can just end
00:44:08.420 here but the thing that i want to want to dip in people's brains is this has become a cultural 0.97
00:44:15.440 phenomenon women are actively being pushed to become homemakers to stay in the home to live 1.00
00:44:23.420 on one salary i just want to call people's attention to the fact that the average average 0.70
00:44:27.500 man and this is an average white man actually uh makes seventy thousand dollars a year yeah
00:44:33.660 after take take after taxes their take home is about fifty two thousand and the average 1.00
00:44:39.100 american spends sixty four thousand um the average american family so like do all of these women 1.00
00:44:45.980 these you know trad wife wannabes think they're just gonna find the rich diamond in the rough 1.00
00:44:51.100 because men are only getting worse all right men are only gonna be making less and there's not 0.96
00:44:56.440 That's why they're rolling back all these rights.
00:44:58.380 They're like, we don't want to get any better,
00:44:59.760 so we're going to make things worse for you.
00:45:01.100 You don't have to take us. 1.00
00:45:02.580 It's not feasible for all of these women 1.00
00:45:05.660 to go back into the homes. 1.00
00:45:07.220 So women are going to be in the workforce, 1.00
00:45:09.880 so we might as well give them rights. 1.00
00:45:12.180 And also, then these women are like, 1.00
00:45:15.520 oh, I'll make money as an influencer. 1.00
00:45:16.640 No, you fucking won't. 0.99
00:45:17.620 Most of you are going to fail as an influencer, okay? 1.00
00:45:20.200 Like, they're all pyramid schemes
00:45:21.720 where they tell other influencers how to make money.
00:45:23.660 and no one like there are five people making actual real money so like all of this is just
00:45:30.360 setting i mean it's setting american families up for complete collapse to be honest completely
00:45:35.280 completely i mean yes and to add to end on one final dystopian note when we were talking about
00:45:43.980 hand selling books i think it's a useful thing to remind people and i own plenty of ebooks and
00:45:49.640 bookshop.org just started offering ebooks which is amazing so you don't have to go through amazon
00:45:53.420 now. At the same time, it's good to remind people that when you own an ebook, you actually own,
00:45:58.440 it's a license and that Amazon can remove that. Like you can lose access to those ebooks. If
00:46:04.860 Amazon just thinking about the way they're erasing information and websites and everything,
00:46:08.800 when you own a physical book, you own that language and that story in those words.
00:46:13.320 And when you own an ebook, and again, I own plenty because they're better for traveling
00:46:17.100 and they're more convenient. You actually, they're licensing it to you. And that's a very
00:46:22.300 different state of ownership that now that we're living in this world of things disappearing
00:46:27.260 it's in speaking of russia you know not allowing this book to be published like that is how you
00:46:34.800 lose words you know because they all everything exists on these platforms that can be switched
00:46:40.340 off and to some degree so i just you know again nothing doesn't tie into the current state of the
00:46:45.680 country. And even these small things, it's useful to be reminded. Totally. I still have Ben's book
00:46:52.900 webpage open on the computer. And, you know, it sucks that this book came out in COVID because
00:46:58.280 I think it got kind of buried. And let's find a way to resurface it now, because I'm just going
00:47:03.020 to read a little bit about what it's about. Ben Whitacombe is the only writer to have worked for
00:47:07.860 Page Six, TMZ, and The New York Times, an unusual triple crown that allowed him personal access to
00:47:13.100 the full gamut of Hollywood and high societies rich and famous from billionaires like Rupert
00:47:17.680 Murdoch, Donald Trump and the Koch brothers to pop pop culture icons, Kim Kardashian and Paris
00:47:23.700 Hilton. This book really is about, you know, how he, you know, how gossip columns and how society
00:47:32.220 columns often helped the rich become famous and ruin the world, which is the subtitle of the book.
00:47:38.320 So it's Gatecrasher. It's great. Ben is great. He lives in Mexico now. So we're going to have to go
00:47:42.700 find a way to visit him uh mostly finding it sooner than mostly so i can stock up on prescription
00:47:49.160 drugs so i don't have to go to the er again i get so tired of people and saying to me oh can i can
00:47:54.660 you take me to canada can you adopt me can i move to canada and i'm like people if it gets so bad
00:48:00.500 down here that you're making a run for canada believe me there's it's not like canada is going
00:48:04.760 to be stable either we maybe we'll be in mexico who knows we're probably just gonna be exactly
00:48:10.100 where we are exactly where we are yeah there's nowhere to go america's too big just worse off
00:48:14.960 um on that note throw yourself a party find someone to sing and with you and then you know
00:48:22.780 take off your clothes and take off your clothes get go to paris and get laid much like apparently
00:48:27.740 my memoir good and true go to paris get laid can we put that on the paperback have a wonderful rest
00:48:35.140 your day people root for the eagles look i love me some travis kelsey like a real lot but harrison 0.80
00:48:41.360 butker sucks uh and i also i'm not a big mahone fan so we should want to crush the chiefs okay
00:48:47.800 just like we're honestly saying i'm not cheering for the bird i don't have a death wish i know i 0.98
00:48:53.760 know all right bye guys do something nice for yourself take care of yourself you're all amazing
00:48:58.160 and we're gonna we're gonna get through this sing sing
00:49:05.140 Thank you.
00:49:35.140 You