Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: During a recent episode of The Big Podcast with Shack,
Speaker 1: the ex NBA star had on Jason Kelsey, who is
Speaker 1: retiring from NFL football after playing for the stinky Philadelphia Eagles. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm a Cowboys fan. I had to include that Jason
Speaker 1: Kelcey is married to Kylie Kelsey and the two have
Speaker 1: been in the public eye more often recently since Jason's
Speaker 1: brother Travis started dating Taylor Swift and a lot more
Speaker 1: interest into the Kelsey family and their podcast and everything,
Speaker 1: so we kind of know a little bit about the relationship.
Speaker 1: On Shaq's show, Shaq was talking about his own retirement
Speaker 1: and he told Jason, quote, I made a lot of
Speaker 1: dumbass mistakes to where I lost my family and didn't
Speaker 1: have anyone. I was an idiot. I lost my whole family.
Speaker 1: I'm in a one hundred thousand square foot house by
Speaker 1: my end quote. I of course clicked on the comments
Speaker 1: under the clips of these comments that he made on
Speaker 1: his show, and they were generally saying that Shaq cheated
Speaker 1: on his wife with like hundreds of women and destroyed
Speaker 1: their relationship. I assume that's true, and I assume that
Speaker 1: that's what Shack means by the mistakes he's made. I've
Speaker 1: seen such an uptick in podcasts and just general kind
Speaker 1: of clips and information aimed at men telling them that
Speaker 1: if they're on the path to making money, then they'd
Speaker 1: be suckers to settle down with just one woman. It's
Speaker 1: such bad advice, and everyone knows that. Like one loser
Speaker 1: bro who insists that men are only as faithful as
Speaker 1: their options, implying that men with money should get to cheat,
Speaker 1: and any man not cheating just doesn't have the opportunity.
Speaker 1: That guy is said, don't be like that guy. What
Speaker 1: Shaq is saying is that you can have all the money,
Speaker 1: but if you throw away your family along the way,
Speaker 1: then it will not have been worth it. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's like the most obvious advice ever. The image of
Speaker 1: him in his ten thousand square foot house alone is
Speaker 1: actually really depressing. There's this trope that if you're rich
Speaker 1: and you're sad, then you could just dry your tears
Speaker 1: with your money. Well, here's an incredibly wealthy man issuing
Speaker 1: a warning to another man to not end up in
Speaker 1: his same situation, and he seemed to be specifically telling
Speaker 1: Jason Kelsey this because when Jason retires and suddenly has
Speaker 1: a lot of time on his hands, not practicing, not playing,
Speaker 1: maybe Shack understands that times of change like that can
Speaker 1: make a wealthy man more susceptible to making mistakes or
Speaker 1: being put in situation where those mistakes are more likely.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to think about the times in
Speaker 1: your life where something could trigger you to feel unsettled
Speaker 1: or uncomfortable in your life. If you get used to
Speaker 1: doing something like having a career and then you don't
Speaker 1: have it, that can definitely leave you susceptible to maybe
Speaker 1: acting out. For the average person when you're going through
Speaker 1: a time of change, whether moving like we've talked about
Speaker 1: on the show, or your kids leaving the house, or
Speaker 1: making any big changes to your life, I think it's
Speaker 1: smart advice to be extra careful about what you're doing
Speaker 1: and who you're doing it with. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be like Shaq alone in his ten thousand square foot house.
Speaker 1: Coming up next and interview with Nancy Rammelman. Join us
Speaker 1: after the break. Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Nancy Rammelman. Nancy is
Speaker 1: a journalist who writes for such publications as Reason and
Speaker 1: The Free Press, as well as writing the substack Make
Speaker 1: More Pie, and co host of the podcast Smoke Them
Speaker 1: If You Got Them. Hi, Nancy, Good morning Carol. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to be here. I'm so happy to have you.
Speaker 1: I have to say that we talk on this show
Speaker 1: a lot about making friends, especially after moves, because so
Speaker 1: many people have moved in the last few years, you know,
Speaker 1: the Great Migration, And you moved from Portland to New York.
Speaker 1: What year was that, July twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen. I
Speaker 1: knew it was pre pandemic, which is rare because most
Speaker 1: of these big moves are happening, you know, during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: right and you you know, you already had a lot
Speaker 1: of friends in New York. But you have this amazing
Speaker 1: social gravitational pull. I just see you as this like warm,
Speaker 1: welcoming person who everyone wants to be around. Like, whenever
Speaker 1: I see you, I smile. How do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do you help other people do that?
Speaker 2: This is very funny because when we were talking about
Speaker 2: the questions you're going to ask that you like to
Speaker 2: ask your guests. I will I will say that one
Speaker 2: thing is that I love to cook, and it's not
Speaker 2: so fun to just cook for yourself, so you wind
Speaker 2: up opening your home. But also I just like it,
Speaker 2: and people like to not just be on their computers.
Speaker 1: You want to meet new people. You don't know what's
Speaker 1: happening all the time.
Speaker 2: And when I got this little place, I had moved Fromland.
Speaker 1: Moore, had like, you know, a four bedroom house with
Speaker 1: a garage, the.
Speaker 2: Whole kind of thing, to all of a sudden, this
Speaker 2: little place in Chinatown, and it was just super fun
Speaker 2: to build it out and build a sound studio and
Speaker 2: have people in.
Speaker 1: And then, as you know, because you were here a few.
Speaker 2: Times during the pandemic, you know, we all kind of
Speaker 2: went into our houses for about eight weeks and then
Speaker 2: I was like, no, we're having We're going to have
Speaker 2: people over for lunch.
Speaker 1: We're just going to do it.
Speaker 2: And I was back and forth between reporting on the
Speaker 2: riots in Portland, but when I was home, I was like,
Speaker 2: let's just let's just open the doors.
Speaker 1: And people really needed it, and we just never stopped. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was at a party at your house in June
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, so still you know, pretty pandemic. Ye,
Speaker 1: it was amazing, and we like we had my husband
Speaker 1: and I were there and it was just this amazing party.
Speaker 1: And then like some friends of ours who like aren't
Speaker 1: in our you know, writer political world, texted and they're like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're out in the city. You guys around And I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, we're at this party, you know, come
Speaker 1: by and they still talk about your party. They're still
Speaker 1: like that party, you know, June twenty twenty one, just
Speaker 1: this amazing, amazing time. It was something that people really
Speaker 1: weren't doing. And again, I just think you have this
Speaker 1: ability to bring people together, Like, do you have any
Speaker 1: advice for people on how to be I mean other
Speaker 1: than learn how to cook like you, how do you
Speaker 1: navigate having people like you know, how do you attract
Speaker 1: people to you the way you do? Tell us everything
Speaker 1: what you see.
Speaker 2: I think I just really like having people around and
Speaker 2: also being able to connect people. I mean, you know this,
Speaker 2: when we've been at parties here, it's not like everybody
Speaker 2: has the same opinions or they come from the same
Speaker 2: world at all, and you sort of put them in
Speaker 2: the super collider and then you're just all enjoying each other.
Speaker 2: And first of all, first of all, tell your friends
Speaker 2: they're welcome back anytime, never the address. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: I think especially we may have noticed this more Carol,
Speaker 2: because it was so stark during the pandemic. I remember
Speaker 2: when I first started to have the lunches here. I
Speaker 2: think it was August twenty twenty, which, you know, still
Speaker 2: really in the thicket things, right.
Speaker 1: It was so funny.
Speaker 2: People would creep in here like they had not left
Speaker 2: their house in three months, and.
Speaker 1: Then they remembered, Oh, we really really need this and
Speaker 1: really want this. I just like doing it.
Speaker 2: I had people here the other day. It was the
Speaker 2: super Bowl, where about have six or eight people. I
Speaker 2: invited a friend of mine who's in a play right here,
Speaker 2: and he's like, well, I can't come, but the whole
Speaker 2: cast wants to come.
Speaker 1: I'm like sure. I had eight people i'd never met
Speaker 1: here for the super Bowl and it was great. It
Speaker 1: was great. So yeah, I just took a lot. So
Speaker 1: how did you become a writer? What was your path
Speaker 1: to it? So?
Speaker 2: I moved to Los Angeles from New York City, where
Speaker 2: I'm from when I was twenty four, and I had
Speaker 2: a baby not that long after, and at the time.
Speaker 2: I'd gone to La to be a movie star, as
Speaker 2: I'm sure you can guess. And I started reading scripts
Speaker 2: for a living when I was pregnant, which is like
Speaker 2: you'd go Julia Roberts agent would give you a script
Speaker 2: and read it and do a summation and then recommended
Speaker 2: or not. And I got really fast at it, and
Speaker 2: I could do it at home, and I knew I
Speaker 2: wanted to be home with my kids. Plus we didn't
Speaker 2: have any money. It wasn't like I was going to
Speaker 2: hire someone to raise my kid, right, And then that
Speaker 2: segued into journalism, and by the time I was thirty,
Speaker 2: I never had another job. It was also, you know,
Speaker 2: it was the nineties. There was a lot of money
Speaker 2: in You could make money pretty easily. You could write
Speaker 2: for a ton of places, and I just it turned
Speaker 2: out I was good at it and I.
Speaker 1: Loved it, and I've never I knew the minute I
Speaker 1: did my.
Speaker 2: First article of Carol, which was a like five hundred
Speaker 2: word piece on genital piercing, which is so old.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was the next where was that published?
Speaker 2: Okay, so it was this lad magazine called Bikini, which
Speaker 2: was also part of Ray Gun.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is a billion years ago. But anyway, they
Speaker 1: sent me to do this article about genital this salon.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, I go to this place in Lost Bilis.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to these people. This couple walks in.
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, in their twenties, and they said
Speaker 2: they were getting their engagement rings or wedding rinks. And
Speaker 2: I was like, well, what are you going to do
Speaker 2: when people ask to see them? And she's like, well,
Speaker 2: we'll show them. And I was like, that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm never having another job. That's it. Like this is
Speaker 1: magic and I never have I've never had another job.
Speaker 1: So do you feel like you've made it? I think
Speaker 1: it depends on the week.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes you have really good weeks. I can't
Speaker 2: remember what the exact expression. Expression expression is. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, writing is no fun or or not writing
Speaker 2: is no fun, but having written.
Speaker 1: Is the best feeling.
Speaker 2: So when you see you know, you know, yeah, you've
Speaker 2: finished that piece and you just can you can dine
Speaker 2: out on it for a matter of hours or even days.
Speaker 2: But then it's like the gas runs out of tank
Speaker 2: and you just got to just have to keep working.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes you feel.
Speaker 2: Great, you have a book that's published, or you do
Speaker 2: a story that really moves people and then you communicate
Speaker 2: with them and then that leads to the.
Speaker 1: Next article and you can feel really good. But then
Speaker 1: when you're not haven't written for a little while, you
Speaker 1: just feel crappy and have I made it? I don't know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that feeling of publishing. I mean when I publish in
Speaker 1: the post, for example, I used to just do it
Speaker 1: would be Mondays, so Sunday night it would hit the
Speaker 1: internet and I had like Sunday night, I'd be refreshing,
Speaker 1: And you know, it was years in. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: my first, my tenth or my fiftieth article at that point.
Speaker 1: It was years and years and years and I still
Speaker 1: like loved it so much, and I totally get that feeling.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, I think I avoid places.
Speaker 1: I avoid writing for places where I don't know when
Speaker 1: it's going to run, because I'm like, no, I need
Speaker 1: I need to know. I need to know when I'm
Speaker 1: going to get that boost of like happiness and my
Speaker 1: piece is out there. And yeah, when.
Speaker 2: You're funny working on a piece for a while in
Speaker 2: your letter, like when is it going to run? Yeah? Hello,
Speaker 2: I wrote book reviews for a long time for the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and they have a fantastic Saturday section.
Speaker 2: And yeah, every time I'd be like, I have h yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, babe had went two weeks, it goes like
Speaker 2: last Saturday, right, Yeah, there's Saturday newspapers.
Speaker 1: It's a great it's a great section. It's a great session.
Speaker 1: So if you weren't doing this, if you needed a
Speaker 1: plan B, what would it be. Probably work as a baker.
Speaker 2: I had worked as a baker, like when I first
Speaker 2: went to LA and then when my husband had a
Speaker 2: series of coffee shops, I'd baked for his coffee shops
Speaker 2: for about a year.
Speaker 1: But I really just bak for pleasure. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want to do it as a job.
Speaker 3: You know, I always thought this is going to sound
Speaker 3: so ridiculous when I go with pharmacy and get my
Speaker 3: get a prescription filled, and I always watched the farm
Speaker 3: and it's so organized and clean, and I was like,
Speaker 3: that'dn't be a bad gig.
Speaker 1: Yeah, working, I don't think this sounds ridiculous at all.
Speaker 1: My plan B is I think i'd be a really
Speaker 1: good DJ. So so you know, it's dream big on
Speaker 1: this show is really you know what it's all about.
Speaker 1: You want to be a pharmacist back there with your clean,
Speaker 1: organized world, like organizing everything. I see it. I could,
Speaker 1: you know, I need things orderly? Yeah can Yeah. I
Speaker 1: feel like yours requires a lot more school than mine, though.
Speaker 1: My plan B and you could just do it tonight, girl, right,
Speaker 1: get everybody's dancing, And that's really I feel like I could.
Speaker 1: I think I could just organize music well, like I could, Like,
Speaker 1: I know what people want to hear next, if they're happy.
Speaker 1: You know, I have zero skills in that area. So
Speaker 1: I'm coming. I love it. We're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break and be right back on the Carol marco
Speaker 1: It Show. So you recently went to Israel, which seemed
Speaker 1: like an amazing trip. How was it, As you know,
Speaker 1: Israel is complicated, It's always a complicated place.
Speaker 2: And then to drop in when they have I was
Speaker 2: on the Bill Schultz Show yesterday and I compared it
Speaker 2: to be getting kicked in the heart.
Speaker 1: They not not just the emotional stuff, but.
Speaker 2: They really have to have a real reset in how
Speaker 2: they think about how their own survival, of their government,
Speaker 2: of the military, and I it was a difficult trip
Speaker 2: in terms of the people I hung out with, I
Speaker 2: hung out for four days, that the missing hostages and
Speaker 2: families for them, these are I'm talking to mothers whose
Speaker 2: children are still in Gaza and they're still there now.
Speaker 2: This is not easy. However, that piece ran in reason.
Speaker 2: To see how the country pulled together after October seventh,
Speaker 2: you know, especially in light of the fact that for
Speaker 2: the past you know, fourteen months they've been rebelling against
Speaker 2: their own government, is pretty amazing. And you realize what
Speaker 2: is baked into the Israeli psyche is that they need
Speaker 2: to save their own lives. They're never going back to
Speaker 2: what it used to be. Ever, that's not going to happen,
Speaker 2: and so to be around that is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: One thing I also love about.
Speaker 2: Being in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, is this constant
Speaker 2: everybody looks you in the eye, everyone wants to talk
Speaker 2: to you, and there's just this incredible energy going.
Speaker 1: I feel like that might just be you. But okay, no,
Speaker 1: I know, what do you think? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I love Israeli as I'm married to an Israeli.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a lot of Israeli friends. I
Speaker 1: would not say that they are extra friendly. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, friendly is the world. They're very very willing
Speaker 1: to be confrontational. How's that right, Like right, yes, for sure, yes,
Speaker 1: very willing to be confrontation. No, no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: you know I had I had an Israeli friend say
Speaker 1: to me something like, you know, the trans insanity that
Speaker 1: we're going through in America could never happen in Israel
Speaker 1: because they'd be like, no, what are you crazy? No, like,
Speaker 1: you know, no, no, biological boys can play in girls
Speaker 1: sports next, Like, they just they're not polite. They're not
Speaker 1: polite enough to be like, well, I don't know, let
Speaker 1: me think about your feelings, like no, you know.
Speaker 2: No, they're they're they're like New Yorkers that way, yeah
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: We're just like no, we're just getting onto the next
Speaker 1: topic here. We're not going to fool around this. Except
Speaker 1: I feel like New Yorkers have like slid off of
Speaker 1: that a little bit in the last I mean that
Speaker 1: the pandemic, you know, obviously crushed my feelings on badass
Speaker 1: New Yorkers standing up for it. But you know, and
Speaker 1: I have definitely concerns about the migrant situation and the
Speaker 1: fact that New Yorkers are not like kind of fighting
Speaker 1: back on it, Like, you know, people are suffering in
Speaker 1: the city, and yet like the people who are coming
Speaker 1: here legally get all this free stuff. And it's it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to watch New Yorkers just roll over.
Speaker 1: Especially the pandemic was really the that point for me
Speaker 1: where I don't think, you know, Israelis would necessarily I
Speaker 1: mean they kind of did also, so I shouldn't say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, New York was a was a strange place. I
Speaker 2: was traveling a lot during the pandemic because I was
Speaker 2: covering the situation in Portland.
Speaker 1: But I was surprised, as a you.
Speaker 2: Know, born and bred New Yorker at how sort of
Speaker 2: obedient people.
Speaker 1: Want complacent like the place and see. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: taking off my mask.
Speaker 2: I don't remember the exact date, but it was definitely
Speaker 2: before we were allowed to and I'm like, screwid, I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not doing it. So, yeah, get some dirty
Speaker 2: hooks on the subway.
Speaker 1: I don't care. Right, was it your first trip to Israel?
Speaker 1: My second?
Speaker 2: So you may recall back in November twenty twenty twenty three, No,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: The reasonally crue ones. Yeah, well not really reason so much.
Speaker 1: It was the Israeli consulate here took over a bunch
Speaker 1: of journalists. It was Matt Well to Michael moynihan and
Speaker 1: me the reason CR.
Speaker 2: And we all went over on their dime but zero obligation.
Speaker 2: And I went over early with and they've talked about
Speaker 2: it at this point, so it's no with Leifang and
Speaker 2: Jesse's single and we toured around with bits l M
Speaker 2: very left wing group, which was actually really.
Speaker 1: Smart to do because it was a complicated country. They
Speaker 1: don't all agree, so you can kind of get a sense.
Speaker 2: And I was in Hebron at that point, and I
Speaker 2: was back and he Brew on this trip, and that
Speaker 2: is a weird place, as you may or may not know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very very strange. So what was strange about it
Speaker 1: for people who may not well? So it's cut in.
Speaker 2: It's split into you've got H one and H two
Speaker 2: and H one and I'm hopefully I'm not swapping these.
Speaker 2: H one is where it's all Palestinian, right. You live there,
Speaker 2: there's economy, you.
Speaker 1: Walk in bebbe clothes.
Speaker 2: Turkish coffee. It's just like a busy busy you know,
Speaker 2: you pay in Mexico City or something though it's also
Speaker 2: sort of depressed because it's isolated and it's surrounded and
Speaker 2: you have to like get in and out of checkpoints
Speaker 2: that are run by the Israeli military, and certain things
Speaker 2: were closed down, but it's still very vibrant.
Speaker 1: You cross over to the other side and everything is
Speaker 1: boarded up and sealed up, all the buildings, there's nothing.
Speaker 2: It's truly ghosty. It's looked over by the Israeli military.
Speaker 2: If you are Palestinian, you can live there, but you
Speaker 2: can't have a car, so you can't really get any
Speaker 2: place unless you us into H one, which is easy.
Speaker 1: Oh, but then getting out.
Speaker 2: That's kind of up to the two Israeli guards that
Speaker 2: are at the gate. So maybe they wait you, you
Speaker 2: wait three minutes, maybe you wait three hours in the
Speaker 2: rain with your kids. Like it's weird, it's messed up,
Speaker 2: and there's reasons. I hung out with the Palestinian activist,
Speaker 2: I hung out with settlers, and they can both tell
Speaker 2: you they all want the same thing, but they see
Speaker 2: it from different ends of the tube. And frankly, they
Speaker 2: both have points. They both have points. So that's an
Speaker 2: interesting piece that I have to get to.
Speaker 1: I have to write this. Yeah, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: read it. Do you feel like you know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about? Like Israeli unity right now? You know the
Speaker 1: post October seventh moment. Do you feel like America can
Speaker 1: ever get to a similar place of unity? Like I
Speaker 1: don't feel like a terrorist attack like that would unite us.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I feel like I don't know if
Speaker 1: those days are even possible, the post nine to eleven unity,
Speaker 1: for example. I don't think we could ever do that again.
Speaker 2: I think that something happened around twenty fifteen twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: when Trump was stole the nominee.
Speaker 1: People kind of lost their minds. On both sides.
Speaker 2: You had the Trump derangement syndrome, and then you had
Speaker 2: the Trump epiphantic love affair. You know, I see the
Speaker 2: portraits of Trump as Jesus, and I'm like, hi, everyone,
Speaker 2: maybe stop drinking the kool aid and we It just
Speaker 2: split people so intensely, and everybody believes not only that
Speaker 2: they're right, but that the other side is driving this
Speaker 2: country into hell.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I don't belong to any of
Speaker 1: either of these tribes.
Speaker 2: And as a journalist who absolutely adores getting in my
Speaker 2: car and driving around this country, and talking to people
Speaker 2: in Texas, in Kansas, in Oklahoma, in New York State.
Speaker 2: Most people are pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't care.
Speaker 2: Who you voted for. They're like, really pretty great. And
Speaker 2: we really do. I truly believe.
Speaker 1: We agree on more than we disagree on. But it
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to pay.
Speaker 2: Whether it's our media institution screaming at us or it's
Speaker 2: us believing me. I will say one of the people
Speaker 2: I love most in the world, if he were not
Speaker 2: an emergency room physician.
Speaker 1: For children, he would be priest. Okay. He once said
Speaker 1: to me that he could never be friends with someone
Speaker 1: that voted for Trump. And I'm like, guess what you
Speaker 1: already are? Wow, not meaning me? But yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: know you don't I know meaning you.
Speaker 2: But it's like, you don't say that, do not say
Speaker 2: that about your fellow Americans. And that brings me out
Speaker 2: because I love America and I believe God like actually
Speaker 2: got chill saying that, and I believe almost everybody in
Speaker 2: this country does love America. And that means you should
Speaker 2: be talking to your neighbors, and you should be looking
Speaker 2: for the stuff that really meant, not stuff to fight about.
Speaker 1: What would you say is our largest cultural or societal problem.
Speaker 2: Besides not listening to each other, besides being we could.
Speaker 1: Not listening to each other not listening, but also being
Speaker 1: addicted to the sense that we're right. I mean, people,
Speaker 1: there was something on it.
Speaker 2: I've written a lot about Portland, Oregon, which really drove
Speaker 2: itself into the ground by making some really stupid decisions
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty and downstream. It should have been obvious
Speaker 2: to any grown up that there were going to be
Speaker 2: really bad repercussions. But I wrote today on Twitter, like
Speaker 2: the elixir of believing you are right is really super sweet.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: You get addicted to that taste and I you know,
Speaker 2: go try something else at the soda fountain.
Speaker 1: Right do you think Portland could come back? I know
Speaker 1: you love Portland? Right am I my right that you
Speaker 1: have like an affection for it? No, because it does
Speaker 1: seem like when you write about it, it's not like, Haha,
Speaker 1: you suck. You know, It's very like you care about
Speaker 1: them and you want them to do bad and you
Speaker 1: don't want it to fall apart. At least That's how
Speaker 1: I'm reading you. I don't Portland.
Speaker 2: I live there from twenty four to twenty and eighteen,
Speaker 2: and I watched Portland do some really really cool things,
Speaker 2: things that couldnot be done in a city where it
Speaker 2: was more expensive, where it was more like like even
Speaker 2: a little more urban or lesser. But like they really
Speaker 2: it was a really interesting experiment, and then they screwed
Speaker 2: it up. They've screwed it up in a lot of ways. However,
Speaker 2: it's still beautiful. It is such a beautiful city, and
Speaker 2: it's a bread basket, and the region is great.
Speaker 1: I would hope that they can come back, but they.
Speaker 2: Really ding themselves, and financially they just are They're really
Speaker 2: seeing some problems, and we've seen the problems with Measure
Speaker 2: one ten, which decriminalized drugs.
Speaker 1: They really have some work to do. I can be hopeful.
Speaker 1: I'm an optimist. So let's see. I was recently reading
Speaker 1: Blake Nelson, the writer who you went to college with.
Speaker 1: Was their connection. I love him, He's you know, so
Speaker 1: like his books. When I was in my late teens
Speaker 1: early twenties, I was just such a huge fan, and
Speaker 1: I happened to meet him in New York and but
Speaker 1: he recently wrote this whole thing about Portland, and it
Speaker 1: was I just love reading about old Portland. I guess
Speaker 1: that's the same feeling. I mean, it might it definitely
Speaker 1: has some connection to how I feel about New York
Speaker 1: and how it used to be. But he wrote this
Speaker 1: whole thing and it was just Portland sounds so exciting.
Speaker 1: In the piece he talks about sleeping with Courtney Love,
Speaker 1: which is like, oh, okay, that's it. Yea.
Speaker 2: She has a bit of a reputation there. And also
Speaker 2: in la Hey question for you, Yeah, do you miss
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 1: Like I do? But when I'm there, I'm not like,
Speaker 1: oh I miss this place. I miss the New York
Speaker 1: that I feel like it used to be. Like the
Speaker 1: pandemic really broke New York. I don't know if and
Speaker 1: when it will recover. It hasn't recovered, I mean by
Speaker 1: like a lot of the measures. But it really hurt
Speaker 1: me to see that complacent rule following New Yorker that
Speaker 1: I always thought would be like badass and thinking for themselves.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people left, like a lot of
Speaker 1: my native New Yorkers left because they couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's hard to watch. But in the
Speaker 1: same way that I think you root for Portland, I
Speaker 1: root for New York. I want to see it revived.
Speaker 1: I want to see that city that I loved so
Speaker 1: much back. But when I'm in town, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: a genius. I like, you know, I got my kids
Speaker 1: out of this, Like it's just guess you know, we
Speaker 1: record this in advance. But there was a snow day
Speaker 1: and New Yorkers were forced to do remote learning with
Speaker 1: their kids because you know, they discovered remote learning the
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, and now they want to implement it
Speaker 1: whenever possible. But like the New York I know would
Speaker 1: have just had a snow day and had a you know,
Speaker 1: the kids would play in the snow and it would
Speaker 1: be amazing and magical and they'd be hot, chocolate and involved.
Speaker 1: But now they have to like get on zoom because
Speaker 1: somebody's bad idea. And that's a small bad idea, but
Speaker 1: it's still a bad idea. It's a terrible idea. I
Speaker 1: said this. That was yesterday, this snow day. I was out.
Speaker 2: I had to go record midtown. This snow was just
Speaker 2: wet slush by ten thirty in the morning, so it
Speaker 2: didn't stick. No, that is true.
Speaker 1: I mean it just put your boots on, kids, It's
Speaker 1: not I don't want to be like in my day.
Speaker 1: But literally in my day, we would have, you know,
Speaker 1: two feet of snow and go to school and it
Speaker 1: would have to be a serious snow stream. Or if
Speaker 1: we were having off, nobody would be expected to still
Speaker 1: do busy work. And it just it's hard. I miss
Speaker 1: the restaurants a lot, obviously missed my family. I should
Speaker 1: reverse those. I missed my family first, and then I
Speaker 1: missed the restaurants because no matter what anybody says, there's
Speaker 1: no food scene like the New York food scene. Like
Speaker 1: you know, I could tell you specifically I missed Ti
Speaker 1: Diner very much. I miss my friend's restaurant Marry them
Speaker 1: very much. You know, we just don't have that in
Speaker 1: South Florida.
Speaker 2: I will say, you know, I live in Dine Square,
Speaker 2: that area of Chinatown which never it never closed. I
Speaker 2: remember during the pandemic, the New York Post was running
Speaker 2: a weekly like look at the Terrible Things that have
Speaker 2: happened to my neighborhood, and they asked me to write one.
Speaker 1: I was like, can I write that? It's kind cool
Speaker 1: down here?
Speaker 2: He's like, okay, it never really went under, mom, But Midtown, boy,
Speaker 2: it Midtown is still.
Speaker 1: Is still strong. Yeah, it's sad. Yeah, and the outer
Speaker 1: borrows I think are still like not back, like a
Speaker 1: lot of things closed and just never reopened. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, bums me out. But you know, New
Speaker 1: York has to keep moving forward. I hope it catches,
Speaker 1: you know, its breath and then it improves itself again.
Speaker 1: I have high hopes. I you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to hate it. I want to be able to visit
Speaker 1: and see my family and be like, oh, this place
Speaker 1: is amazing, look at it. Come back so good. I
Speaker 1: don't I definitely don't root against it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to come to Florida. Yeah, I think it definitely definitely
Speaker 1: deserves some Florida time. Yes. So I love talking to
Speaker 1: your you know, one of my favorite people end here
Speaker 1: with your best tip for my listeners on how they
Speaker 1: can improve their lives. I think my best tip we
Speaker 1: kind of started with it. I mean, if you're not
Speaker 1: going to cook for a bunch of people, which is
Speaker 1: sort of my secret sauce.
Speaker 2: I would say, both initiate and attend social events. I
Speaker 2: remember being I can't remember.
Speaker 1: What it was.
Speaker 2: I do a lot of traveling, and sometimes it's a
Speaker 2: tough places for work, and I came back from someplace
Speaker 2: recently I don't think it is real, and I was.
Speaker 2: I found it so necessary to go out and see people,
Speaker 2: whether it's a drink at a bar, down at someone's house,
Speaker 2: someone says, come to sh your bottom, like, yes, I'm coming.
Speaker 2: You need to cycle all of this stuff through and
Speaker 2: share it.
Speaker 1: And it just it just grows. I mean your world.
Speaker 2: He grows and then you wind up giving it away
Speaker 2: to the next group. So that would be my That's
Speaker 2: my best advice.
Speaker 1: I love that. Thank you so much. Nancy Rammelman loved
Speaker 1: having you on. Where can people read you?
Speaker 2: Oh, you can go to my substock, which is Make
Speaker 2: More Pie. You can go listen to my podcast but
Speaker 2: Sarah pup Love called smoke 'em if you got them.
Speaker 2: And my work runs in the Free press, it runs
Speaker 2: in Reason and Real Clearer Investigations and other places, and
Speaker 2: I would love to.
Speaker 1: See you there. Stay in touch. Thank you so much, Nancy,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 1: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.