Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: The Economist magazine had a review of three books recently,
Speaker 1: all on the subject of talking to strangers. The three
Speaker 1: books are Hello Stranger by Will Buckingham, The Power of
Speaker 1: Strangers by Joe Kean, and Fractured by John Gates. This
Speaker 1: is a topic I'm obviously interested in, how we meet people,
Speaker 1: how we make friends. The Economist's review. It's unsigned, so
Speaker 1: I don't know who wrote it. Notes quote. All three
Speaker 1: authors make sweeping generalizations about the evolution of human society,
Speaker 1: from hunter gatherers to the age of Homer and beyond.
Speaker 1: They are more interesting when they reflect using personal experience
Speaker 1: or scientific research on how people live and communicate now
Speaker 1: in different ways. They all make two separate but related points. First,
Speaker 1: interacting meaningfully with new person can bring huge rewords, but
Speaker 1: it is a skill that must be cultivated and can
Speaker 1: easily be lost. Second, the self segregation of modern Western
Speaker 1: societies means that for many people, conversing with some fellow
Speaker 1: citizens seems pointless, undesirable, or outlandish. The second problem exacerbates
Speaker 1: the first. If you consider others beyond the pale, why
Speaker 1: make the effort to get to know them, as mister
Speaker 1: Kohane and mister Yates emphasize. In Britain and America, political
Speaker 1: divisions have ossified into tribal ones. Supporters and opponents of
Speaker 1: Brexit live in discreete clusters. Republicans and Democrats see each
Speaker 1: other as bad people, not fellow Americans whose opinions happen
Speaker 1: to differ. These opposing sides have become strangers to one another.
Speaker 1: Mister Buckingham focuses on the pleasures and pitfalls of encounters
Speaker 1: in remote places, where the stakes are lower because the
Speaker 1: acquaintance ships are bound to be temporary in a holiday
Speaker 1: flat share in Helsinki or while traveling through the Balkans.
Speaker 1: But like the other two, he notes that the where
Speaker 1: fariness of unfamiliar people is neither new nor insuper bowl
Speaker 1: end quote. I have a lot of friends who I
Speaker 1: disagree with politically, and they are good, rich friendships. But
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything crazy at all about seeking
Speaker 1: out or living among people with whom you agree on
Speaker 1: kind of the big issues of life. I lived in
Speaker 1: a neighborhood in Brooklyn where I disagreed pretty much with
Speaker 1: all of my neighbors and pretty strongly too. They were
Speaker 1: very far left. I'm obviously a conservative now. My husband
Speaker 1: and I we made amazing friends there with varying degrees
Speaker 1: of political differences. Some people just aren't that into politics,
Speaker 1: and some people are very into politics, and we don't agree,
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely possible to still have close friendships. But
Speaker 1: I should note that most of the people who we
Speaker 1: became close with in that neighborhood, who maybe we politically
Speaker 1: disagreed with, were Jewish like us. So even if we
Speaker 1: didn't have politics in common, we had something else, something big.
Speaker 1: That's what gets lost in the conversations about people lining
Speaker 1: up with their political tribes. There's nothing weird about looking
Speaker 1: for commonality. There's an Irish bar in so many random
Speaker 1: places I visited, from Lisbon to Buenos Aires. Is it
Speaker 1: weird that Irish people would seek each other out when
Speaker 1: they're far from home. I don't think it is. Of course,
Speaker 1: take chances and talk to strangers and make friends with
Speaker 1: people who are different from you. It's possible. But also
Speaker 1: don't be surprised if the people you're most drawn to
Speaker 1: are actually quite similar to you. That's the way the
Speaker 1: world has always worked, and there's really nothing weird about that.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, an interview with Leelle Leibowitz. Hi, and
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Leelle Leovitz. Leelle is editor at Large
Speaker 1: at Tablet Magazine and co host of Unorthodox, the world's
Speaker 1: most popular Jewish podcast. Leelle is also you know, no
Speaker 1: pressure here, Leel, but my favorite writer, Hi, Leel. So
Speaker 1: nice to have you on, Carol.
Speaker 2: I cannot tell you what a pleasure this is.
Speaker 1: So I ask people how they would want to be introduced,
Speaker 1: and you included a word that not only I didn't
Speaker 1: know but also couldn't pronounce. And I kind of practiced,
Speaker 1: and I was like, forget it, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: But a tinerant drinker.
Speaker 2: Iterant tinerant drunk. Okay, yes, I got very committed to
Speaker 2: being drunk just on occasion.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, because I thought it was somebody who travels
Speaker 1: to get drunk based on definition. Also, yes, I couldn't
Speaker 1: even claim immigrant, you know here whenever I don't know
Speaker 1: a word, I'm like, well, I'm an immigrant, you know,
Speaker 1: even though I came when I was like one and
Speaker 1: a half. But because you're an immigrant too, and you
Speaker 1: know you knew what it meant.
Speaker 2: Very much an immigrant, and yes, also someone who travels
Speaker 2: from location to location based mainly in the availability of gin.
Speaker 1: Well, we have a lot of gin for you in
Speaker 1: South Florida, should you feel like making the track, you know,
Speaker 1: visiting or you know, moving whatever whatever works for you, Really.
Speaker 2: Carol, why would I when I could open my door
Speaker 2: here in New York City, smell the great smell of
Speaker 2: you know, illegal weed stores everywhere, enjoy interaction with my
Speaker 2: you know, fellow mentally unhinged citizens, be shoved on the
Speaker 2: subway as part of my daily routine workout. There's so
Speaker 2: much fun here. It really does functioning American City like fun.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why you would leave it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, whenever you're ready to leave that wonderland, you
Speaker 1: just let me know.
Speaker 2: You're touching a very sore spot. But yes, you are
Speaker 2: the best ambassador for the Sunshine State. Then eventually you'll convert.
Speaker 1: Us to you know, I used to be the best
Speaker 1: ambassador for New York City. I used to be such
Speaker 1: a fan and we tell people about how amazing it was,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I couldn't do that anymore. So
Speaker 1: it was time to go. But okay, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to keep poking at it. Tell us about yourself. How
Speaker 1: did you become a writer?
Speaker 2: How did I become a writer? Simply? I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to do anything else. I'm being sincere. I still
Speaker 2: don't know how to do anything else. If I did,
Speaker 2: there's so many professions I would much rather choose. But
Speaker 2: from a very young age, it was very apparent that
Speaker 2: my very limited skill set was basically reading things and
Speaker 2: writing things and talking about things. It occupied, you know,
Speaker 2: every three hour and every cell of my imagination. It
Speaker 2: was really never a question. I mean, I honestly remember
Speaker 2: myself at six or seven sort of sitting on the
Speaker 2: couch and me like, well, you know, when I published
Speaker 2: my first book, which is, of course what every adult
Speaker 2: wants to hear, which parents, of course are like, well
Speaker 2: when I'm unemployed. But it was completely obvious it's all
Speaker 2: I ever wanted to and it's still all I want
Speaker 2: to do. I mean, I don't, I'm just I mean,
Speaker 2: look at the grain in my beard right now, I've
Speaker 2: aged into it. It was more of a problem my twenties.
Speaker 2: Billion I was never one of these people like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, dude, let's go to a poor and get
Speaker 2: high and get drunk, and I go to parties or
Speaker 2: like people. Now it's like, let's binge like nine Seasons
Speaker 2: of the Pink Lotus or whatever people are watching, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna sit here, drink something and read.
Speaker 1: How many books have you written?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with eleven? Wow, dude, I don't know
Speaker 2: why I say this. Maybe nine?
Speaker 1: But are you guessing?
Speaker 2: I am guessing. I can't. Here's the thing, I think
Speaker 2: one great thing slash terrible things. My mind is it's
Speaker 2: very small. It's like a groundhog Day situation. As soon
Speaker 2: as I finish a problem, I'm so consumed by the
Speaker 2: project that I'm working on right now. Then as soon
Speaker 2: as I finish it, I have zero recollection of what
Speaker 2: I just did two days ago. So if you asked
Speaker 2: me about a book I literally finished writing, you know,
Speaker 2: four weeks ago, I'd be like, I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 2: I don't so I don't remember how many I can.
Speaker 2: I just I have to leave them as soon as
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's.
Speaker 1: Funny because people compare writing books to having children, but
Speaker 1: clearly I think you know how many kids you have?
Speaker 2: And I'm going to go with two you sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 2: Do I feel like I've made it?
Speaker 1: I mean, you have like a million books, it's like,
Speaker 1: and two children and you know, a beautiful wife, and
Speaker 1: you don't seem like you've got it going on. And
Speaker 1: you're my favorite writer, literally, my favorite writer, which has
Speaker 1: to count for something in your modification of if you've
Speaker 1: made it.
Speaker 2: It counts for so much because I admire you so
Speaker 2: much and you're doing such incredible, incredible work, and so
Speaker 2: this is like the greatest compliment you could pay. I'm
Speaker 2: going to go ahead and say yes. And here's why.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of us who enter this world arts, politics,
Speaker 2: these are these are high octane, high emotion pursuits.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We go into them because we have big feelings and
Speaker 2: because we want to achieve big things. And with this
Speaker 2: comes bucket loads of absolute sheer. Can we curse on
Speaker 2: the show? Yeah, curse away, absolute sheer fucking misery because
Speaker 2: you're like, oh my god, my book failed, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: this party that I don't like in power, this person
Speaker 2: that I hate just want to election. This very big
Speaker 2: feelings drive you looney, which is honestly why so much
Speaker 2: was all jokes about drinking aside, this is why so
Speaker 2: many of us drink, right, this is this is what
Speaker 2: we do. What I feel I've achieved in the last
Speaker 2: eight or so years is a notion of really really
Speaker 2: kind of embodying or at least really grocking to use
Speaker 2: a nerdy term, to really kind of internalizing this. This
Speaker 2: Talmudic teaching that I love. The Tama teaches us who's
Speaker 2: the rich person. It's the person who could be happy
Speaker 2: with what he has. That was not me ten years
Speaker 2: ago at all. I was one of these people who
Speaker 2: woke up every morning He's like, why don't I have
Speaker 2: this show? Why is my party not in power? Why
Speaker 2: can't I do? Like it was constantly like this great
Speaker 2: line in Hamilton, like You're never satisfied, You'll never be satisfied. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm satisfied. I don't. I don't need to be the
Speaker 2: most the biggest. I open my eyes every morning, I
Speaker 2: start the day with, you know, prayers to God, giving
Speaker 2: thanks for everything that He's given us. And it sounds corny,
Speaker 2: but it changes the entire out kind of day, Like
Speaker 2: there's no there's no inbox that could contain bad news.
Speaker 2: After you came by saying hey, look man, thanks for everything.
Speaker 2: And then you see your kids and you see you know,
Speaker 2: your ability to have a little bit of a voice
Speaker 2: in this world and to talk and spend your days,
Speaker 2: you know, talking to people you you you like a
Speaker 2: lot and admire and thinking about ideas. I'm I am satisfied.
Speaker 2: And to me, that's that's howthing made it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think that that's really what it's
Speaker 1: all about. I also had parents who did not want
Speaker 1: me to be a writer. And I remember my parents,
Speaker 1: I want to be a writer, and they were like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing, like nobody makes it as a writer.
Speaker 1: You will not be able to feed yourself. Doctor, you're
Speaker 1: going to be a doctor. So if you had to
Speaker 1: have a plan B, if you couldn't be a writer,
Speaker 1: what would it be, I'll tell you when you can't
Speaker 1: be a podcaster. You know nothing in.
Speaker 2: Thee of these things. So I actually I was a
Speaker 2: pretty good army person. I didn't go very far with it.
Speaker 2: I left it. You know, I served for three years
Speaker 2: in Israel Defense Forces. But it made perfect tense to me.
Speaker 2: There's kind of beautiful order to it and a big
Speaker 2: sense of mission. And a big sense of kind of like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you know you're one small part of a big team
Speaker 2: I'm going to go with. I would probably have been
Speaker 2: in the mill service. The only other thing that I
Speaker 2: ever really loved doing enough and was somewhat good at
Speaker 2: is boxing, which is again another very dumb skill that
Speaker 2: I have because I'm six foot five and two and
Speaker 2: fifty pounds and you know, at some point you gotta
Speaker 2: go and what God gave you. So I could probably
Speaker 2: have done this, but honestly, like something like a barman
Speaker 2: again to bring it back to being.
Speaker 1: A drunk tinnerant drinking, any.
Speaker 2: Profession that allows you to spend some time and you know,
Speaker 2: talk to people, help people out, not in a kind
Speaker 2: of prescriptive, hierarchical like power trip kind of way, but
Speaker 2: just like, hey man, yeah how can I help you? Gin?
Speaker 1: You can help like Jinn.
Speaker 2: And then finally in my kind of list that what
Speaker 2: I should have could have look the real family business.
Speaker 2: I come from a long line of rabbis. I think
Speaker 2: that would have served me.
Speaker 1: Justifying Yeah, I could see you being like a rabbi boxer.
Speaker 1: That would be your Twitter handle, right like.
Speaker 2: Slash astronaut slash billionaire.
Speaker 1: I believe in you actually, So what would you say
Speaker 1: is like the theme of your writing, like what do
Speaker 1: you enjoy? What you know, concepts you enjoy? Hitting the
Speaker 1: most easy.
Speaker 2: I only say I think there's only one. Uh, it's redemption,
Speaker 2: It's it's it's creating to court my my rebe Leonard Cohen,
Speaker 2: who I wrote a book about and had the pleasure
Speaker 2: and the privilege of getting to know later in life
Speaker 2: his life. Also later in my life writing a manual
Speaker 2: for living with defeat, you know, understanding again coding one
Speaker 2: of his most famous songs that there's a crack in everything,
Speaker 2: but that's how life gets in. Uh. You know that
Speaker 2: is such a hard kind of bit of wisdom for
Speaker 2: us to grasp as we kind of reach for redemption
Speaker 2: that looks like like perfection, that sounds like bell's ringing.
Speaker 2: That is this moment like oh my God, and all
Speaker 2: I have to do is X and then life will
Speaker 2: be great. I think so many of us are so
Speaker 2: unhappy because we've been sold this vision of what again,
Speaker 2: to go back to our last question of conversation topic
Speaker 2: of conversation, we've been sold this vision of like what
Speaker 2: making it is that is constant waiting right, there's a
Speaker 2: doctor Seuss line like the waiting place, like you wait
Speaker 2: and wait and wait and wait, Like, Okay, so I
Speaker 2: graduate from high school and then I'll go to college,
Speaker 2: and then I'll get the internship, and then I'll get
Speaker 2: the job, and then i'll get the go to graduate school,
Speaker 2: and then I'll get the better job, and then and
Speaker 2: then finally I'll be happy. There's a point in which
Speaker 2: the door's open, the angels sing, You're like, as Marco Witz,
Speaker 2: welcome to the time you are here. And then you're
Speaker 2: like that that was it. No, that's not how any
Speaker 2: of it works. It's it's it's the small heartbreaks, and
Speaker 2: it's learning to live with him. It's it's it's failing
Speaker 2: and then learning to fail better and failing upwards as
Speaker 2: as you go with it. That's honestly the theme of
Speaker 2: I think everything I'm writing about it, and I think
Speaker 2: that's the thing that we need right now, because we
Speaker 2: are so fucking broken, all of us, our society. I
Speaker 2: mean to quote Alana new House, my dear friend and
Speaker 2: boss of Capital Magazine, who wrote this glorious piece called
Speaker 2: Everything is Broken. Everything is Broken in America, slash the
Speaker 2: world slash the cosmos right now, knowing how to live
Speaker 2: with it and find meaning in it and repair it.
Speaker 2: Not in this kind of dumb, you know, revolutionary Hey,
Speaker 2: let me let me wave a Kama's flag and you know,
Speaker 2: block access to a cancer hospital because that's what I believe.
Speaker 2: But but in a real kind of generative, emotional, human, helpful,
Speaker 2: beautiful way. Boy, that's a tough skill to master.
Speaker 1: What would you say is our largest societal problem.
Speaker 2: It's it is eminently solvable, and it's it's a great
Speaker 2: public health crisis that we don't talk about enough. It's
Speaker 2: prestige addiction. It's this notion that so many of us
Speaker 2: have was like, oh my god, I would have made
Speaker 2: it once I have the degree from Columbia University or
Speaker 2: Harvard or Pane. Yeah, I would have made it once
Speaker 2: I'm published by the New York Times. Oh I would
Speaker 2: have made it once I'm a partner at this prestigious
Speaker 2: law firm. We set so much store by these you know, validations.
Speaker 2: But one of my favorite things about being in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: everyone drives everywhere and everything is valet and they ask
Speaker 2: every ye do need validation, which, of course they made
Speaker 2: for the parking but I take it cosmically like, yes,
Speaker 2: we all need validation, except we seek it in the
Speaker 2: absolute wrong places. We seek it in you know, these institutions,
Speaker 2: and not just these institutions, but institutions that have already
Speaker 2: collapsed and crumbled into kind of like you know, fetid
Speaker 2: swamps of mutually accrediting mediocrites pursuing their power for evil.
Speaker 2: I think we could stop. I think we should absolutely
Speaker 2: stop and kind of get back to first principles. And
Speaker 2: here here's the thing. This is the source of great optimism.
Speaker 2: It's happening everywhere. You could see it in a what
Speaker 2: twenty thirty percent drop of advanced application admissions application to Harvard.
Speaker 2: You could see it in like more and more people
Speaker 2: just opting out of these corrupted structures. And you write
Speaker 2: about this so well, and so beautifully and so frequently.
Speaker 2: It's happening everywhere. It's a great coalition of normal Americans.
Speaker 2: It defies left and right, religious and secular. We're curing
Speaker 2: ourselves of this prestige addiction, one person at one American
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 1: How do we move that process along? How do we
Speaker 1: help that you know, ending.
Speaker 2: Two words courage and joy, both lacking tremendously. The first
Speaker 2: is rather obvious, right, just to have the courage to say, like,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, this is here's something that I say to
Speaker 2: my children, who are twelve and ten three times a week.
Speaker 2: I'm not exaggerating, like maybe four times a week. Look,
Speaker 2: I have a PhD from Columbia University. I taught at
Speaker 2: Columbia for some years. I taught at NYU for almost
Speaker 2: a decade. I'm a recovered academic. So maybe easy for
Speaker 2: me to say, but I say to my twelve and
Speaker 2: ten year old three times a week, you are never
Speaker 2: going to college. You're never going to college because I'm
Speaker 2: not paying, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and spending four years of your life for someone to
Speaker 2: basically train you to be a Nazi. Like that's not
Speaker 2: happening in our household. That's the courage part, the bigger part,
Speaker 2: and some people have that, although not enough, but they're optimistic.
Speaker 2: The bigger part, and the more troublesome part, is the
Speaker 2: joy part. Right, it's not enough just to say, well,
Speaker 2: we hate universities, the campus woke ideology, like eighty five
Speaker 2: percent of what I hear, and like, you know, the
Speaker 2: media that I consume is all this. The joy part
Speaker 2: is say, like, guys, actually, we have amazing ideas and
Speaker 2: we have better you know, attitudes and views in life,
Speaker 2: and we love them and we're very proud of them.
Speaker 2: We're out of our faith traditions. We're proud of our communities.
Speaker 2: We're proud of our solutions to these problems that are
Speaker 2: much more ancient and sustainable than anything you know, college
Speaker 2: professors have designed two and a half minutes ago, historically speaking, right,
Speaker 2: I think this building and building with with grit and
Speaker 2: happiness is what makes this country great. I believe in
Speaker 2: it wholeheartedly. I think the next couple of years are
Speaker 2: going to be very tough, but in the long run, Look,
Speaker 2: this is a covenantal nation. We renew the covenant every
Speaker 2: couple of years, and it doesn't look the same for
Speaker 2: any generation that renews the covenant. It didn't look the
Speaker 2: same for the people in eighteen sixty one as it
Speaker 2: did for the people in seventeen seventy six, and it
Speaker 2: didn't look the same in nineteen sixty four as it
Speaker 2: did in eighteen sixty one. It's our turnout and it's
Speaker 2: going to be amazing.
Speaker 1: So what does that look like practically, because you know
Speaker 1: you have a twelve and a ten year old, you're
Speaker 1: saying they're never going to college. You're you're you're going
Speaker 1: to hit up again. So what happens when they graduate
Speaker 1: high school? They just they go to work? Is it?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in I'm into like send my kids
Speaker 1: to college. I'm just afraid that they're going to want
Speaker 1: to go to college.
Speaker 2: First of all, they could go to college. What I say,
Speaker 2: to be very precise is I'm never paying for your
Speaker 2: college once you're eighteen. If you wish to take and
Speaker 2: make mistakes, I mean, legally I can't stop you. But
Speaker 2: I do have a four I have a four pronged plan,
Speaker 2: and it sounds very Soviet apologies, but I have been
Speaker 2: thinking about this a lot. My four prong plan is simple.
Speaker 2: I want to take the four years they would have
Speaker 2: spent on college and to say, two hundred and thousand
Speaker 2: dollars or so, all all things you know, considered, and
Speaker 2: spend them the following way. I want about a quarter
Speaker 2: of that time and money spent on them actually reading
Speaker 2: books and learning, something which as we all know, necessarily
Speaker 2: happen in college. It is not too difficult to put
Speaker 2: together a very good kind of yees, set of readings
Speaker 2: and kind of essential core competencies that replaces and surpasses
Speaker 2: everything you would have learned at the Liberal It's four
Speaker 2: years called. I want a quarter of the time and
Speaker 2: money spent on traveling, because I think it is eminently
Speaker 2: important for these kids to actually see the world and
Speaker 2: know what it's like, which again does not happen in
Speaker 2: the mirthless, airless type quarters of college. I want a
Speaker 2: quarter of this time spent picking up a skill, like
Speaker 2: a real life skill, and it could be anything from
Speaker 2: very high end skills like oh my god, now you
Speaker 2: can program Python, and you could get a high beating
Speaker 2: job to learn how to be a plumber, which is
Speaker 2: something that humanity will always need as long as we
Speaker 2: have indoor plumbing, which hopefully is a long while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well see right.
Speaker 2: And then the fourth and then the fourth part of it,
Speaker 2: which I think is probably the most important, I want
Speaker 2: them to volunteer. I want them to give back to
Speaker 2: their community, which is something that you do not emphasize
Speaker 2: at all. We do it kind of to check a
Speaker 2: box in the college application, but not in a real
Speaker 2: way of like, look, this community has given you so much.
Speaker 2: Life has given you so much time, time for you
Speaker 2: to go and give back, and if possible in between,
Speaker 2: if I get out a fifth, I want them to
Speaker 2: fuck around. I want him to wander because I think
Speaker 2: so much of the way that you know, life is
Speaker 2: set up for a young person. You never get a
Speaker 2: moment to just say like, Okay, I am now going
Speaker 2: to just figure myself out, which is Lord knows, most
Speaker 2: of us do it when we're forties. And then we
Speaker 2: have terrible midlife crises and we have divorces, and we
Speaker 2: buy dumb sports cars, and we do things that we
Speaker 2: really would regret, you know. We have affairs, we like
Speaker 2: destroy our lives, we develop addictions. Let's do it when
Speaker 2: we're nineteen, shall we. Let's just take a bunch of
Speaker 2: time being like, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna you know, live for a little. Yeah, all that
Speaker 2: could be done on a much more pleasurable and much
Speaker 2: more affordable calendar and budget than sending your kid to Oberlin.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right
Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marco It Show. I feel like
Speaker 1: I know that this is not your point, and I
Speaker 1: know you're not going to do this, but this could
Speaker 1: actually be an extremely successful money maker. This program, this
Speaker 1: four four to five prong program. You can fuck around,
Speaker 1: you know, leave that in, kick it out, whichever way
Speaker 1: you want to go could be you know, because because
Speaker 1: parents don't, I think a lot of parents send their
Speaker 1: kids to college. I definitely have in my head that
Speaker 1: my kids are going to college, even though I know
Speaker 1: all the risks and all the problems with colleges and
Speaker 1: all the negatives, just because I don't have the plan B.
Speaker 1: I don't have the le alibivis you know, for prong
Speaker 1: plan in mind. And I feel like people would buy
Speaker 1: your program, which.
Speaker 2: Is why I'm announcing right here and right now in
Speaker 2: the Carrol Marco itself.
Speaker 1: I think you could charge way more than that, you know.
Speaker 2: I think that's why I didn't say businessman when you
Speaker 2: ask me what I should have been, because obviously, right.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna need a businessman partner for this,
Speaker 1: So which.
Speaker 2: Is why you're announcing right now in the camera. So no,
Speaker 2: no I am.
Speaker 1: I too, am bad at business like most writers are.
Speaker 1: So I think we're gonna we're gonna need some sort
Speaker 1: of other person who knows what they're doing to make
Speaker 1: this plan happen. But I you know, I again, I
Speaker 1: know that this isn't your intention, But I think you
Speaker 1: can provide parents in a plan B and a different
Speaker 1: path to college, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: would take that plan.
Speaker 2: I would love to do something even better, sorry, mom,
Speaker 2: if you're listening, than making a lot of money off
Speaker 2: of it, I'd like to give it away for free because,
Speaker 2: for example, look the sort of liberal arts curriculum you
Speaker 2: could design a very good especially with the vast amount
Speaker 2: of you know, genuinely terrific lectures that exist online right now.
Speaker 2: You can design a very good kind of liberal arts
Speaker 2: education that the kid can consume a year for I'm
Speaker 2: going to go in and say, maybe three hundred dollars
Speaker 2: all things, like, all all books included done because a
Speaker 2: lot of that stuff could be found for free online.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that would be And this is why
Speaker 1: writers don't make money. I just gave you a brilliant
Speaker 1: million dollar idea and you're life.
Speaker 2: I just told you. I'm giving it right back away
Speaker 2: for free. It's really a shame to be probably the
Speaker 2: two Jews in the world whore like the worst with
Speaker 2: like money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sucks. So I love talking to Yuliel, and
Speaker 1: here with your best tip for my listeners on how
Speaker 1: they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2: This is an incredible question because I've been thinking about
Speaker 2: it so much, and I realized that anything and everything
Speaker 2: anyone says sounds like those, you know, incredibly hokey and corny,
Speaker 2: you know, graduation speeches in which you say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: take time to like look around you and smell the
Speaker 2: flowers or whatever. So I'll give two pieces of advice,
Speaker 2: and one of them is a little bit more serious
Speaker 2: and the other is a little bit not.
Speaker 1: And I think I'll just interject for one second that
Speaker 1: I've heard from listeners who have told me that they've
Speaker 1: changed like different parts of their lives based on that question.
Speaker 1: I know it sounds hokey, but it works. It's like
Speaker 1: people need to hear the words, so tell us, tell
Speaker 1: us what they need to do.
Speaker 2: I will give three three and you and you decided.
Speaker 2: You decide which is which is serious and which is not.
Speaker 2: My first is to never ever order a vodka martini,
Speaker 2: which is an abomination and a crime against civilization. And
Speaker 2: also never to even use a shaker in your martini.
Speaker 2: Just basically pour some gin into into your class.
Speaker 1: I'm a Manhattan drinker.
Speaker 2: General direction of a vermutha. Now, on a serious note,
Speaker 2: I have I have two pieces of advice and they're
Speaker 2: kind of inter interlocking. The first is to be very
Speaker 2: rude and the second is to be very extreme. And
Speaker 2: here's what I mean by that. We live in a
Speaker 2: very hyper connected world. Just since the beginning of this interview,
Speaker 2: three devices, you know, cling, pinged and dingd trying to
Speaker 2: kind of get my attention to it. I still never
Speaker 2: figured out that do not disturb thing. Most of us,
Speaker 2: you know, get up every morning and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is what I have to do today, and seventeen email,
Speaker 2: three hundred text messages, twenty WhatsApp threads, you know, signal notifications,
Speaker 2: checking Twitter, going on Facebook, posting and Instagram. Later like
Speaker 2: whatever happened to that email? I was supposed to write
Speaker 2: the worst person in the world, as I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I think this, I think I've done this to you.
Speaker 2: I can sometimes not return calls or emails four months,
Speaker 2: by the way, including to my wife. I could tell
Speaker 2: you what sure she really enjoys that she is an
Speaker 2: absolute amazing moment because she understands about me when I
Speaker 2: have a project that really engrosses me, I'm one hundred
Speaker 2: percent present in this project. So the message I suppose is,
Speaker 2: you know, be here now, be complete present in what
Speaker 2: you do. Do not return that call, do not return
Speaker 2: that email. It's okay. Let people kind of seethe and
Speaker 2: then just say I'm sorry, but let me tell you
Speaker 2: about what i was doing. And I think they'll appreciate
Speaker 2: that much more because they know that you're not just
Speaker 2: being a dick, but you're actually completely present. And the
Speaker 2: same goes for you know, your children. I never ever
Speaker 2: have my phone on me ever, even in the vicinity
Speaker 2: of me when I'm in you know, a dinner with
Speaker 2: friends or with my kids. Never my kids know that
Speaker 2: I will tell them rudely again, I'm sorry, I don't
Speaker 2: have time for you today. I'm not gonna talk to
Speaker 2: you because I'm not gonna do this. Spolshy think like,
Speaker 2: oh honey, how is dinner? Click click click, phone front
Speaker 2: phone thing. They think, Yeah, I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 2: If I'm here with you, you know that I'm one
Speaker 2: hundred percent here with you, and if not, just be like,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can't do it today or this week.
Speaker 2: Or sometimes even this month, I will say to my kids, look,
Speaker 2: i'm a dad line, I'm finishing a book. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: you're not gonna see me in you know, until May
Speaker 2: or whatever. I think they appreciate it much more so.
Speaker 2: My first advice don't be afraid to be rude, if
Speaker 2: that is what it takes to really be present in
Speaker 2: what you do. And the second thing, which I think
Speaker 2: goes hand in hand with is which is wonderful, is
Speaker 2: be extreme. Look, we are all taught by this kind
Speaker 2: of devascinated, effeckless, spineless, bloodless educational system that the best
Speaker 2: view is always from the fifty yards line, that you
Speaker 2: always have to see all points of every available thing,
Speaker 2: that you always have to be very reasonable and you know,
Speaker 2: negotiate calmly and rationally, and you know what, eighty five
Speaker 2: percent of the time it's great advice except for the
Speaker 2: fifteen percent of the time that it's and that fifteen
Speaker 2: percent of the time counts for everything, because if you
Speaker 2: do not have at least four things in your life
Speaker 2: that you are willing to go completely all out, zero compromises,
Speaker 2: zero fucks given over, then I don't think you're doing
Speaker 2: this right. And it includes by the way, to so
Speaker 2: many of US Jews, the ability to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I don't need to see the other side of this question.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing my side. Do I care about what's going
Speaker 2: on in Gaza, Sure, it's terrible, you know what. I
Speaker 2: care much more about the one hundred and thirty something
Speaker 2: Israelies that are kidnapped. That's my top priority. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna worry about this. This is what a normal person does.
Speaker 2: Or to feel actual, real hatred of your enemies because
Speaker 2: they're evil people. To see the world in terms of
Speaker 2: good and evil that really do exist. If you do
Speaker 2: not believe in that, and if you do not have
Speaker 2: the passion to want to root out evil, and if
Speaker 2: you're not willing to be extreme about saying I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm not compromising with these people. I don't care about
Speaker 2: the root causes or the you know, the reasons, or
Speaker 2: the justifications or their narrative. Fuck the root causes. I
Speaker 2: want them gone. That to me is a quality that
Speaker 2: is much lacking. And if you could find a little bit,
Speaker 2: a little bit of that burning intensity in your heart,
Speaker 2: I think you'll do much better.
Speaker 1: I love that be extreme. Thank you so much. Leelle
Speaker 1: read them and table read one of his twenty eight books,
Speaker 1: Love to have you on. Thank you so much, What
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us on The
Speaker 1: Carol Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.