Speaker 1: Hi Catherine, Hi Chelsea.
Speaker 2: You're in New York. I am.
Speaker 1: I'm in New York City. I got here.
Speaker 3: I flew from San Francisco this morning. I had a
Speaker 3: great dinner last night. Oh what's that restaurant called in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, Nopa?
Speaker 1: Oh it was so good. If you're in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: you got to go there. Anyway.
Speaker 3: I had dinner with my nephew. Oh, he's not my nephew,
Speaker 3: he's my cousin. I don't know what any one's relation
Speaker 3: to me is my doctor cousin Ted, who I tried
Speaker 3: to get a prescription from, and then his partner, and
Speaker 3: then my niece, she's leaving for a semester abroad, and
Speaker 3: my sister and Doug. I had on the I had
Speaker 3: on the road. Doug and I went wine tasting. We
Speaker 3: went to Napa. I had a show in Saratoga. Then
Speaker 3: he and I went to San Francisco. We went to
Speaker 3: Point Reyis.
Speaker 1: Oh, he lovely.
Speaker 3: We went to the beach in San Francisco. There's a
Speaker 3: huge doggy beach and we went there on Saturday, and
Speaker 3: Doug humiliated me. No, he yeah, yeah, I couldn't even
Speaker 3: pretend I knew him. It was so humiliating. He had
Speaker 3: the zoomies for close to like forty five minutes. I
Speaker 3: thought he was going to have a heart attack. And
Speaker 3: me trying to call my dog when he doesn't come
Speaker 3: is so embarrassing and humiliating at a dog park, especially
Speaker 3: when everyone's off leash, because everyone's like, well, then you
Speaker 3: shouldn't be here, and it's like, well, then fine, that's
Speaker 3: not my dog. So I just walked in a different
Speaker 3: direction hoping he'd follow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's screaming, Doug Come, Doug Come, in front
Speaker 3: of all these other beach goers.
Speaker 1: It's just humiliating.
Speaker 3: It's like, especially with no response, and I have like treats,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to bribe him with treats. But other than that,
Speaker 3: I have to say he was fucking awesome because he
Speaker 3: has like he's a little bipolar. He goes into a
Speaker 3: restaurant immediately and lies down and goes to sleep. As
Speaker 3: soon as we're sitting at a restaurant, I was like,
Speaker 3: that's so awesome. He doesn't beg for food.
Speaker 1: It's perfect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then when you get him on the beach
Speaker 3: and he's got this big personality there, So I mean,
Speaker 3: I was pretty pleased with him.
Speaker 1: I brought him on stage at one of my shows
Speaker 1: at the Saratoga Mountain Winery.
Speaker 3: Oh, which reminds me of my Vegas residency starts this Saturday.
Speaker 3: Coming to Vegas nine September first, is my very first
Speaker 3: Vegas residence date. So I will be there with bells
Speaker 3: on everybody. I hope I see you there, excellent. Our
Speaker 3: guest today is the number one New York Times bestselling
Speaker 3: author of twenty nine novels, including Mad Honey, My Sister's Keeper,
Speaker 3: and her newest book, which you guys are gonna love
Speaker 3: By any Other Name, Please welcome Jody Pico.
Speaker 4: Hi, Jody, Hello, how.
Speaker 1: Are you great?
Speaker 3: Congratulations on your latest book, which is called by any
Speaker 3: other Name. So let's talk about the subject matter in
Speaker 3: this book, because it's fascinating and a lot of what
Speaker 3: are they called Bardologists?
Speaker 1: Is that what that they called? I think I saw a.
Speaker 3: Word of that once, Right, Shakespeare lovers, this has been
Speaker 3: a very heavy debate that's been going on for a
Speaker 3: very long time, and I fucking love it. I love
Speaker 3: it that Shakespeare wasn't necessarily we don't have enough proof
Speaker 3: to know that Shakespeare was responsible for writing all of
Speaker 3: what Shakespeare wrote. And I'm using quotation marks because a
Speaker 3: lot of the experiences which you cover in this book
Speaker 3: this is like, how would you describe it?
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's a novel.
Speaker 4: It's definitely a novel. Yeah. To me.
Speaker 5: It's a book about how women have been written out
Speaker 5: of history by the men who were writing history, About
Speaker 5: how women's voices have been silenced and are still being
Speaker 5: silenced today. Takes place half in Elizabethan, England and half
Speaker 5: in the modern world, and it's the story of two women.
Speaker 4: One is in fifteen eighty one.
Speaker 5: It's Amelia Bassano, who's a real life historical figure, and
Speaker 5: she is a female playwright who can't get her stuff
Speaker 5: in front of the public because she's a female playwright,
Speaker 5: and she winds up paying a man for the use
Speaker 5: of his name, and that man is William Shakespeare. And
Speaker 5: then in twenty twenty four, it's the story of her descendant,
Speaker 5: a woman named Melina Green, who's written a play about
Speaker 5: her ancestor, Emilia, and is trying to get it to Broadway,
Speaker 5: but in a very male dominated theater world that is
Speaker 5: not happening, and she too has to decide whether she'll
Speaker 5: write herself out of history in order to see her
Speaker 5: work up on the stage.
Speaker 4: And to me, it's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 5: It is a page turner, it is a historical it's
Speaker 5: the spiciest thing I've ever written. It is also the
Speaker 5: timeliest thing I've ever written, because you know, women are
Speaker 5: still fighting to be heard today and we're living in
Speaker 5: a time when there's a small group of people who
Speaker 5: are making decisions about what the rest of us should
Speaker 5: be reading and who gets to write those stories.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean it's not only timely, this would be
Speaker 3: timely at any point during history, because we're talking about
Speaker 3: a five century span of time where we're still up
Speaker 3: against the same barriers of entry as women.
Speaker 1: So I heard this quote yesterday. It was interesting. What
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 3: I was listening to a podcast and it says you
Speaker 3: can go decades without anything changing, and then in a
Speaker 3: week it can feel like decades have changed. Like when
Speaker 3: Kamala gets elected in November, that will be that kind
Speaker 3: of feeling like we've been trying so hard, so hard,
Speaker 3: so hard, and then it happens like this right in
Speaker 3: the book. So, Amelia Basano is a real life person,
Speaker 3: So how does that work when you're writing that, because
Speaker 3: how can you write about some characters that are real
Speaker 3: and some that are fictionalized.
Speaker 5: So we know certain things about the real Amelia Bassano's life.
Speaker 5: Most of them come from this diary of this hack
Speaker 5: doctor slash astrologer that she went.
Speaker 4: To when she had also.
Speaker 5: And so this guy, his name was Simon Foreman. He
Speaker 5: basically spent all his time trying to sleep with her,
Speaker 5: which she also documented, by the way, and she rejected him.
Speaker 5: But it tells us that she was Italian, that her
Speaker 5: family came over from Italy because they were super talented musicians,
Speaker 5: and Henry the eighth brought them over to be the
Speaker 5: recorder consort to the king, and then they began working
Speaker 5: for Queen Elizabeth. First, we know that she was Jewish,
Speaker 5: and like the rest of her family, she had to
Speaker 5: hide her religion. We know that when she was seven
Speaker 5: and her dad died, she was given as award to
Speaker 5: a countess who was really really atypical and gave her
Speaker 5: this incredible classical education and a legal education, which girls,
Speaker 5: especially not noble girls, were never given. And then when
Speaker 5: Amelia was twelve, this woman got remarried and so Amelia
Speaker 5: was kind of like lost for a little bit, and
Speaker 5: for a summer she lived with the woman's brother, who
Speaker 5: was a baron who happened to be the ambassador to
Speaker 5: Denmark when he did a diplomatic visit to the King
Speaker 5: and Queen. The next year, she was given as a
Speaker 5: courtesan to the Lord Chamberlain of England, and he was
Speaker 5: in charge of all theater. He was fifty six, she
Speaker 5: was thirteen.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful coupling.
Speaker 4: It's lovely, isn't it.
Speaker 5: She would have met all the players in the theater industry,
Speaker 5: because every play crossed his desk for censorship, so she
Speaker 5: would have met the playwrights, she would have met the actors,
Speaker 5: she would have met the producers, the theater owners, all
Speaker 5: those people for the ten years she was with him.
Speaker 5: Then she gets pregnant, so she's twenty three years old.
Speaker 5: She cannot be a pregnant mistress when he's already married,
Speaker 5: so he marries her off to her wastrel of a
Speaker 5: cousin who winds up blowing through all the money that
Speaker 5: he gives her to be comfortable.
Speaker 4: And she's now twenty three years old.
Speaker 5: She's got a husband she hates, she has a kid
Speaker 5: she has to support, and she has no idea how
Speaker 5: to do that, and then we don't know anything about
Speaker 5: Amelia for years, for decades, until sixteen eleven, when she's
Speaker 5: in her late forties, and suddenly she is the first
Speaker 5: woman to publish a book of poetry in England, which
Speaker 5: in and of itself is a reason you should know
Speaker 5: her name right. But you know, there's this time period
Speaker 5: between the two, like decades. People don't show up in
Speaker 5: their mid forties and publish a book of poetry like
Speaker 5: you know, especially when women weren't doing that, which tells
Speaker 5: me she was writing before that, she just may not
Speaker 5: have been using her name. And in terms of Shakespeare.
Speaker 4: You know same thing.
Speaker 5: We know a lot of facts about Shakespeare. We know
Speaker 5: that he was a businessman, a producer. We know he
Speaker 5: was an actor. We know that he evaded taxes twice.
Speaker 5: We know that he had multiple restraining orders from his
Speaker 5: colleagues that he worked with. We know that when there
Speaker 5: was a famine he hoarded grain and he jacked up
Speaker 5: the price for all his neighbors. He was a lovely individual.
Speaker 5: He also never left the country. He was not educated
Speaker 5: at a university. He was self educated. But when he
Speaker 5: died he didn't own a single book. He didn't bequeath
Speaker 5: a book to anybody when he died. He was not
Speaker 5: buried in Poet's Corner at Westminster like all the other writers,
Speaker 5: even many you've never heard of who were in this
Speaker 5: famous when he died, not a single other playwright said
Speaker 5: anything about the loss of such a great talent, although
Speaker 5: by far he was the best known quote playwright of
Speaker 5: the time, you know. So what we know about him
Speaker 5: legally and historically is that he was a businessman, not
Speaker 5: that he was a writer. There is no proof that
Speaker 5: he wrote anything with his name attached to it. And
Speaker 5: it's my belief that people used his name and paid
Speaker 5: him for the use of it so he could make
Speaker 5: a quick book, and they were the ones writing under
Speaker 5: his name. And I think Amelia is one of several
Speaker 5: people who was doing that.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Okay, but here's my question.
Speaker 3: If that's all true, right, and he wasn't credited as
Speaker 3: being a writer, even if other people were using his name,
Speaker 3: he would still have been recognized when he died as
Speaker 3: a writer because those plays were all produced under his
Speaker 3: name as written by Shakespeare in real time.
Speaker 5: Unless it was kind of like an inside joke in
Speaker 5: the theater world.
Speaker 4: Like an open secret, which I actually think it was.
Speaker 5: And there's there's actually a scene in the book where
Speaker 5: I write about the First Folio, which everyone knows Shakespeare's
Speaker 5: first folio, right. It's a collection of like thirty odd
Speaker 5: plays that he allegedly wrote by himself while he had
Speaker 5: two full time jobs. And he was also allegedly the
Speaker 5: only playwright of the time who didn't collaborate.
Speaker 4: But okay, whatever, So he has this folio.
Speaker 5: After he's dead, all these plays are brought together, and
Speaker 5: they're brought together by his nemesis, Ben Johnson. Okay, Ben
Speaker 5: Johnson and Shakespeare hated each other, and Ben Johnson was
Speaker 5: the first guy to take all of his plays and
Speaker 5: instead of looking at them as kind of pulp fiction, saying,
Speaker 5: oh no, this is the four of my work. So
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, Shakespeare's dead and someone's collecting his plays,
Speaker 5: and his nemesis, Ben Johnson is the one who writes
Speaker 5: all of the preparatory material, saying you know, all these
Speaker 5: lovely things about Shakespeare's as a playwright. But if you
Speaker 5: read between the lines of what Ben Johnson actually wrote,
Speaker 5: he said it has things like don't look on the
Speaker 5: face of this playwright, look at his words, and there's
Speaker 5: this whole conspiracy theory about the actual etching of Shakespeare
Speaker 5: that everybody knows. It's the picture you're thinking of when
Speaker 5: you think of Shakespeare that was on the first folio,
Speaker 5: and how in it it looks like he has two
Speaker 5: left arms in other words, no quote right arm right,
Speaker 5: and there's a line around his face that looks like
Speaker 5: he's wearing a mask. And there are all these people
Speaker 5: who've used that to say, oh, see, that's proof that
Speaker 5: that everyone was kind of in on this joke, and
Speaker 5: Ben Johnson was leaving us a bunch of puzzles and clues,
Speaker 5: thinking everyone in the future is going to figure this out.
Speaker 5: But apparently we missed the punchline.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 6: And I can't remember if this was in the book
Speaker 6: or in some an interview that I read with you,
Speaker 6: but you had mentioned at some point that Shakespeare as
Speaker 6: we know it, traditionally a lot of times it was hyphenated,
Speaker 6: and that back then was known to be like this
Speaker 6: is an imaginary character, or this is you know, sort
Speaker 6: of a pseudonym.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's also something that people bring up that's to
Speaker 5: me more hypothetical, like, oh, it's not a real name.
Speaker 5: I think what's more interesting is to look at the
Speaker 5: fact that, like Shakespeare didn't speak all these other languages, right,
Speaker 5: because he wasn't educated at university. He didn't go to
Speaker 5: Cambridge or Oxford or whatever. But some of the source
Speaker 5: material for the stories that he used for the plays
Speaker 5: was only available in ancient Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, French.
Speaker 5: He didn't speak those languages, and it wasn't like people
Speaker 5: were going around telling all these stories all the time,
Speaker 5: and they weren't translated yet.
Speaker 4: So how does he know this stuff? You know?
Speaker 5: How does he know about where the Queen of Denmark's
Speaker 5: closets are in her bedchamber when he's never been to Denmark?
Speaker 5: How does he know that a certain type of tree
Speaker 5: grows on the north bank of a river in Italy?
Speaker 5: You know, to me, this is all really interesting. And
Speaker 5: why especially this is a good one. Why does Shakespeare
Speaker 5: all of a sudden stop writing historical plays about kings
Speaker 5: and start writing Italian wedding comedies.
Speaker 4: That feels like an odd choice.
Speaker 1: It's all very valid.
Speaker 3: It's also fascinating, you know, because I've only really heard
Speaker 3: about all of that kind of conjecture about Shakespeare, but
Speaker 3: I've never I mean, I would say your book is
Speaker 3: the biggest dive I've taken into it because I'm not
Speaker 3: a barnologist someone who is obsessed with Shakespeare and all
Speaker 3: of that. And I don't even know the reference of
Speaker 3: the first folio that you're making. That's how uneducated I
Speaker 3: am on this topic. First, I need you to answer
Speaker 3: the editorial question, how does one from an editorial standpoint,
Speaker 3: combine historical real figures with fictional characters, like why are
Speaker 3: the rules around that?
Speaker 1: As a writer, well, I.
Speaker 5: Mean I write fiction, so there are no rules, which
Speaker 5: is holy. You have it much harder because you're writing nonfiction.
Speaker 5: But for me, I can do anything that I want, and.
Speaker 3: So even when you're using a real life person, you
Speaker 3: can say that they absolutely.
Speaker 6: Oh she's been that a while Amelia was home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've done.
Speaker 1: If there's a statute of limitations.
Speaker 5: You should also know, Chelsea, I've never written about you,
Speaker 5: so you can sleep tonight.
Speaker 1: But don't worry. I've done enough of that.
Speaker 5: I made sure that when I finished the book, I
Speaker 5: the actual references, the actual truth, and the places that
Speaker 5: I departed from the truth, because I did want people
Speaker 5: to know what was real and what was was not real.
Speaker 5: I think it's really important too to say that even
Speaker 5: if you haven't been a Shakespeare scholar, I'm going to
Speaker 5: give you enough knowledge to get through this book and
Speaker 5: know what you need to know. You don't need to
Speaker 5: come into this having read any of Shakespeare's plays.
Speaker 1: Really, no, you don't.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 1: I speak from experience. This is a very juicy book.
Speaker 3: I love it, and I love the toggling back and
Speaker 3: forth from the present day to a different time, you know.
Speaker 3: I love like having a period piece setting. And then
Speaker 3: these two characters, these two main protagonists that are mimicking
Speaker 3: each other in their lives in a way. And I
Speaker 3: do want to talk about this theme of the book
Speaker 3: because this really hit me hard, probably because I'm always
Speaker 3: paranoida just about ending up.
Speaker 1: Like you know, on the street or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, the contrast from her life of getting being
Speaker 3: this guy's mistress and treating her with respect and adjuration.
Speaker 3: This man truly adored her, and the way that this
Speaker 3: is written and she, you know, she gets carted off
Speaker 3: and she's sold to some guy. She doesn't know where
Speaker 3: she's going, and she ends up in one of probably
Speaker 3: the best circumstances short of actually falling in love with
Speaker 3: your captor. You know, this guy allowed her to read
Speaker 3: his plays, This guy who ran all the theaters in London,
Speaker 3: he allowed her to read her plays. He loved hearing
Speaker 3: her poetry. He wanted her to flourish, and he admired her,
Speaker 3: and she had a beautiful life with him until the
Speaker 3: I don't want to give anything away in this book,
Speaker 3: but until her circumstances change, and then there's a shift
Speaker 3: that is a really fucking hard pill to swallow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: as a reader, it was so painful to even read.
Speaker 3: You know, what her next situation entailed and where she
Speaker 3: went and then that dynamic, and it made me think
Speaker 3: about as a writer, when you're writing, especially as someone
Speaker 3: who's written as many books as you have, what is
Speaker 3: the methodology there? Like how do you think about those
Speaker 3: turns of events? Like do you want to make them
Speaker 3: as drastically different as like the contrast so stark?
Speaker 1: Is that your intention?
Speaker 5: I think that the pitfall I didn't want to hit
Speaker 5: in this book because Amelia does suffer so many tragic
Speaker 5: moments in her life. I didn't want you to be like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, not again, you know, Like I didn't
Speaker 5: want it to feel overwhelming, and part of being able
Speaker 5: to combat that comes again from that diary from that
Speaker 5: astrologer doctor. You know, when she talked about her life
Speaker 5: with the Lord Chamberlain, with this guy who is so
Speaker 5: wealthy and who was the theater head of all of England.
Speaker 4: Basically she was so.
Speaker 5: Proud of what she achieved. Then she talks about how
Speaker 5: all kinds of men would give her jewels and would
Speaker 5: look at her and noticed what she looked like. And
Speaker 5: you could tell that even though she wound up in
Speaker 5: a very poor, different circumstance than she was for those
Speaker 5: ten years, she was like, hey, I was someone. Don't
Speaker 5: forget if I was someone. And it was hearing that
Speaker 5: fire in her that made me want to create her
Speaker 5: as you know, really a spitfire, someone who keeps on
Speaker 5: getting up every time she's knocked down. Interestingly, you talk
Speaker 5: about how kind the Lord Chamberlain was to her. We
Speaker 5: don't know anything about that relationship. We know that she
Speaker 5: from what she says in these diaries that are written down,
Speaker 5: that he kept her well and that she seemed to
Speaker 5: be comfortable with him, but we don't know anything else
Speaker 5: about it. And in my opinion, you know, I was
Speaker 5: thinking Okay, here's someone who is thirteen years old winds
Speaker 5: up in this you know, artificial relationship with a fifty
Speaker 5: six year old man where she's literally being groomed to
Speaker 5: be his court is in. And I didn't want again
Speaker 5: there to be a terrible time for Amelia during those
Speaker 5: ten years, because it seemed like she enjoyed it, And
Speaker 5: I thought, I don't really see her falling head over
Speaker 5: heels with this guy, but I do see her finding
Speaker 5: a friendship there. And you know, that was why I
Speaker 5: chose to characterize and write Lord Hunston the Lord Chamberlain
Speaker 5: the way that I did. So sometimes it means taking
Speaker 5: a clue out of history and just sort of spinning
Speaker 5: it and extrapolating it to create the character around it.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a luxury are you? Just like, take
Speaker 1: what you like and discard what you don't. You know that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is the definition and essence of
Speaker 3: being a writer.
Speaker 5: Okay, but wait, can I tell you the freakiest thing
Speaker 5: that happened to me when I was writing this book
Speaker 5: one of them way is that I wanted to combat
Speaker 5: again all the tragedy in Amelia's life was I thought
Speaker 5: this woman deserved a little happiness, and so I wanted
Speaker 5: to give her a love affair with a man she
Speaker 5: truly loved. And there's this historical fact when Amelia's in
Speaker 5: her sixties, she goes to court. She represents herself in court,
Speaker 5: which is crazy, and she's fighting her brother in law
Speaker 5: after her husband's death. She was basically supposed to get
Speaker 5: money from a patent that hewned, and her brother in
Speaker 5: law stole it all. At the end of this trial,
Speaker 5: out of nowhere, the Earl of Southampton comes swaning into
Speaker 5: the court room and he goes, hey, this isn't my court,
Speaker 5: but if it was, I'd find in favor of her. Now,
Speaker 5: this would never happen. You would just not see a
Speaker 5: noble intervene in some commoner's life, right, And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 5: why did this guy come out of nowhere to talk
Speaker 5: to Amelia? And then I realized, you know, during those
Speaker 5: ten years that she was living with the Lord Chamberlain,
Speaker 5: court was a pretty small group of courtiers and ladies nobles.
Speaker 5: She would have known Southampton, and he was about three
Speaker 5: and a half years younger than she was. He was
Speaker 5: considered to be quite a hotty of the time. So
Speaker 5: I'm like, great, I'm going to have them get it on.
Speaker 5: So I'm writing all this great Elizabethan six, you know,
Speaker 5: and I was really enjoying the relationship I created for them,
Speaker 5: which was like this absolute doomed love affair, because there
Speaker 5: was no world in which the Earl of Southampton was
Speaker 5: ever going to wind up, you know, completely married to
Speaker 5: some commoner like Amelia. Anyway, I write the whole thing.
Speaker 5: I finished the book and I go to the Victorian
Speaker 5: Albert Museum in England because I've been invited to hold
Speaker 5: and see the miniature of Amelia that exists. So I
Speaker 5: go to the archives. The archives take it out. I'm
Speaker 5: holding her in my hands, which was just amazing, but
Speaker 5: my eye keeps getting drawn to the box that had
Speaker 5: all these miniatures in it, and the one that was
Speaker 5: right next to her, and it's a man with long,
Speaker 5: curly red hair looked a lot like mine. And I
Speaker 5: just kept staring at it, and I said to the archive,
Speaker 5: is who is that? And they said, oh, well, we
Speaker 5: don't know. That's an unknown man. And I said, can
Speaker 5: you tell me what was painted? So they look it
Speaker 5: up and it's about the exact same time as the
Speaker 5: Amelia miniature, and I pull up on my phone an
Speaker 5: accredited painting of the Earl of Southampton which looks exactly
Speaker 5: like that, and I said, I think maybe it's him,
Speaker 5: and they start looking at it and they realize we
Speaker 5: do a deep dive. The miniature that I've pulled up
Speaker 5: was painted four years later by the same artist. Even
Speaker 5: more interestingly, in that unknown man miniature, the man is
Speaker 5: on a black background instead of a traditional blue.
Speaker 4: His hand is.
Speaker 5: Covering his heart, and it's painted on the three of
Speaker 5: hearts a playing card, which in early you know Elizabethan
Speaker 5: tarot called cardamancy, kind of signified a soulmate, someone you
Speaker 5: love desperately but would never wind up with. All of
Speaker 5: those things would have been the decision of the person
Speaker 5: sitting for the portrait.
Speaker 4: And after doing deep.
Speaker 5: Research, the archivists have written me back and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we think this actually could be Southampton. So for the
Speaker 5: past couple hundred years, the two of them have been
Speaker 5: nestled next to each other in a.
Speaker 4: Box at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Speaker 5: So maybe sometimes you write stuff and it becomes history.
Speaker 3: I don't know, this is turning into an episode of murder.
Speaker 3: She wrote, what about her marrying her cousin. Is that
Speaker 3: true too?
Speaker 1: Did that happen historically, Yeah, that is historically true.
Speaker 4: His name was Alfonse O. Lanner. He was a jerk.
Speaker 5: He did go through all of her money. He wanted
Speaker 5: to be a night, so he kept on. He kept
Speaker 5: trying multiple things, but he basically just blew through her cash.
Speaker 5: And he did go off to try to be a knight.
Speaker 5: He did wind up, ironically on a mission that Southampton
Speaker 5: was leading, a naval mission on behalf of the queen.
Speaker 5: He never became a knight, and she could not stand him.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's all we know is that he did
Speaker 5: not treat her well and she was not happy with him,
Speaker 5: and she did not want the marriage.
Speaker 3: It's also fascinating, and you know what, it's so nice
Speaker 3: to put it in modern terms, in the way that
Speaker 3: you write and the way that this book is.
Speaker 1: Like our listeners are.
Speaker 3: They love books and they love reading, and they're going
Speaker 3: to love this book because it's I love that.
Speaker 1: You are learning through fiction.
Speaker 3: You know there is history involved here, and that you're
Speaker 3: learning a lot about Shakespeare. That is for someone I
Speaker 3: don't know a lot about Shakespeare, but I would like
Speaker 3: to know more and this is just fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's just so well done.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. I think it's also for me.
Speaker 5: It was really important to have the modern element in
Speaker 5: the book as well, to have the story of her
Speaker 5: descendant trying to get this play mounted, you know, about
Speaker 5: her ancestor, because as someone who for the past ten
Speaker 5: years has been fortunate enough to work in the world
Speaker 5: of theater, it's a very male dominated profession, and the
Speaker 5: gatekeepers are a bunch of old white men who like
Speaker 5: to see stories that reflect their own experience on a stage.
Speaker 4: And that's cyclical.
Speaker 5: You know, if you only see a certain kind of
Speaker 5: story on a stage, you start to think maybe that's
Speaker 5: the only one that should be worth telling.
Speaker 4: Everything that Melina is.
Speaker 5: Told about her fictional play by any other name, that
Speaker 5: it's too emotional, that it's too small, that nobody would
Speaker 5: want to see the story of a woman or of
Speaker 5: a young girl coming of age. Those are all verbatim
Speaker 5: things that I was told when I was working on
Speaker 5: my first show.
Speaker 6: Jeez, And now you're adapting the book Thief, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I am so exciting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the same team that was working with me on
Speaker 5: that show, the original show. Between the lines, we've adapted
Speaker 5: the book Thief and it's going to the West End
Speaker 5: in the fall of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Oh, how cool is that? That's so awesome?
Speaker 3: Does what's your experience been like as a female author?
Speaker 1: How's that been?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 5: It's really interesting because I think the reason that by
Speaker 5: any other name is so personal to me and really
Speaker 5: is the book of my heart, is that I have
Speaker 5: written so many controversial things, but I am rarely like
Speaker 5: the characters.
Speaker 4: That I write.
Speaker 5: However, this is a book about what it means to
Speaker 5: be a female storyteller, and that is exactly who I am.
Speaker 5: And let me tell you what it is to be
Speaker 5: a female storyteller. You sit down on a plane and
Speaker 5: someone says what do you do? And you say, I'm
Speaker 5: a writer. They look at you, see you're a woman
Speaker 5: and they say, oh, do you write romance? And I
Speaker 5: say no, do you write children's books?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: Oh, you must write women's fiction. Those are only the
Speaker 5: three categories that women ever write. Apparently, what is even
Speaker 5: women's fiction? Why is there no men's fiction? Why do
Speaker 5: they just get to be fiction?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: So there's still this sense that female writers are pigeonholed
Speaker 5: in a way that men never are. If you get
Speaker 5: a man who writes a really great book about family
Speaker 5: and relationships, they are hailed as the great American author,
Speaker 5: as if it is incongruous to have both a heart
Speaker 5: and a penis right, And I don't think that's mutually exclusive,
Speaker 5: you know, And I think that because of that, women
Speaker 5: still feel pigeonholed as writers, even though there are plenty
Speaker 5: of women on the bestseller list. The place where we
Speaker 5: start to see gender discrimination in publishing is in reviews.
Speaker 5: Fewer women are reviewed, and there are fewer female reviewers.
Speaker 5: And at the very very top echelons of publishing, although
Speaker 5: we see a lot of female editors, who runs these
Speaker 5: publishing companies, it's usually a man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3: On that, We're going to take a break and we
Speaker 3: will be right back with Jodi Pico this week.
Speaker 6: Write in if you have questions about fitness. It could
Speaker 6: be something specific you're dealing with in your fitness routine,
Speaker 6: how to maintain your motivation or get started with a
Speaker 6: new routine, or questions you have on a deeper level
Speaker 6: about your physical health and fitness. Right into Dear Chelsea
Speaker 6: Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're back with author Jody Pico. Okay, Jody, we're
Speaker 3: gonna give out some advice today. Okay, are you ready?
Speaker 4: I love it?
Speaker 6: Okay, Well, Jody, I know you write about a lot
Speaker 6: of controversial topics, so we have some controversial topics in
Speaker 6: our advice portion today.
Speaker 1: Great, but we're starting with a fun one.
Speaker 6: Sam is writing in and says, Dear Chelsea, I'm a
Speaker 6: forty nine year old divorced woman, and I'm looking ahead
Speaker 6: as my last kid is headed off to college in
Speaker 6: a few years. Since my divorce, I've discovered how much
Speaker 6: I need and crave alone time. I didn't get much
Speaker 6: of it as a single parent, but as I've gotten older,
Speaker 6: I love it. I consider myself an extroverted, introvert who
Speaker 6: really needs solitude to recharge. I've often dreamt that once
Speaker 6: my last kid leaves the nest, I would move out
Speaker 6: somewhere on the East Coast, work remotely for my job,
Speaker 6: and just enjoy peacefulness and calm in a small seaside town.
Speaker 6: I've started opening up about this to friends and family,
Speaker 6: who have mostly thought I was kidding, but deep down
Speaker 6: I really want this to be the trajectory for this
Speaker 6: next phase of life.
Speaker 1: I have a great network where I live.
Speaker 6: All my family is here.
Speaker 1: We're a tight group.
Speaker 6: I'm getting some pushback, in particular from my sister, who
Speaker 6: cannot fathom that I would move away, saying that I
Speaker 6: should be preparing myself to be the doting grandmother around
Speaker 6: the corner. I guess I'm just looking for either some
Speaker 6: validation that I'm not crazy or a two y four
Speaker 6: across the head to knock some reality into me that
Speaker 6: just because my kids leave the house doesn't mean I
Speaker 6: should move away on some weird eat prey love journey.
Speaker 1: But should I Sam Wow?
Speaker 5: So I mean, I am a new grandma, and let
Speaker 5: me tell you, it's the best thing ever. But I
Speaker 5: don't live around the corner for my grandkids, so everything
Speaker 5: is a journey for me if I see them, or
Speaker 5: it's a journey for them to see me. And it
Speaker 5: feels to me from the letter you just read that honestly,
Speaker 5: she's already kind of made up her mind.
Speaker 4: She wants to go.
Speaker 5: And I don't think there's anything wrong with a mom
Speaker 5: who has been in the wings watching her kids grow
Speaker 5: up suddenly stepping out to be the focus of the limelight.
Speaker 5: I think if she is at all worried about making
Speaker 5: such a radical move. Go rent an airbnb for a
Speaker 5: few months and rent out your own house and see
Speaker 5: how it feels, and then if it works, then look
Speaker 5: for something more permanent. But it sounds to me like
Speaker 5: she's kind of already made up her mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of our callers are right in or
Speaker 3: call in when they've made up their mind and they
Speaker 3: need another person to go Yep, you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: And I would say, as someone at the same exact
Speaker 3: age who did not have to raise children and did
Speaker 3: not have to put my time and energy into someone,
Speaker 3: if you have a calling to spend time alone and
Speaker 3: you have a desire to do that, that means you
Speaker 3: have been deprived of that, and that you need to
Speaker 3: go and run towards yourself with open arms. When we
Speaker 3: have these feelings and it's just someone's advice that is
Speaker 3: holding you back, that's not valid. Like if someone's telling
Speaker 3: you no, you shouldn't be doing that. You have every
Speaker 3: right to pursue your dreams and you haven't pursued them yet.
Speaker 3: And so like Jody what you're saying, you're a forty
Speaker 3: nine year old new grandmother, you've also pursued your dreams
Speaker 3: during all of this, right, you've been able.
Speaker 1: To pursue who you want to be.
Speaker 5: I'm assuming yeah, absolutely, or I wouldn't be here today.
Speaker 5: But I also had an amazing support network, and I
Speaker 5: love that. You might think I'm forty nine, but I'm
Speaker 5: fifty eight.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, but I'm saying yes, okay, yeah, well we're
Speaker 3: all forty nine for this purpose of this conversation. But yes,
Speaker 3: I think as women, I can't stress enough or try
Speaker 3: to help you enough to make the decision to do
Speaker 3: what you want to do how you want to do it.
Speaker 3: You are free now of responsibility. There's no one saying
Speaker 3: having a grandchild or grand baby any minute, and then
Speaker 3: that's a break when you get to it. And and
Speaker 3: Jody's advice about getting something temporarily, it's great advice. I mean,
Speaker 3: go try it out that way. If you find a
Speaker 3: place and you're like, oh, I don't love this section
Speaker 3: of town or this area, you can pick up and
Speaker 3: move to another place and try it out there until
Speaker 3: you find a place that does fit and that doesn't.
Speaker 3: But like, your happiness is the most important thing, Like
Speaker 3: you are in charge of it and no one else
Speaker 3: is bringing you the happiness.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like she's got a vision for her life. Follow
Speaker 6: that vision, and of course when you do have grandkids,
Speaker 6: they're gonna love coming and seeing Granny in the seaside down.
Speaker 1: M M right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I also think I think that the saddest thing in
Speaker 5: the world is when you get to the end of
Speaker 5: your life and you think, what if I had done that?
Speaker 5: You know, I mean, to me, that would be the
Speaker 5: greatest loss. And it's okay to fail because that means
Speaker 5: you were brave enough to try.
Speaker 3: But also, in your book, like this woman is not
Speaker 3: given any choices along the way, she is not given
Speaker 3: any choices. We live in a time where we have
Speaker 3: the ability to make a choice for ourselves. In the
Speaker 3: current time we are living in. You were allowed to
Speaker 3: go and do that, so go fucking do it.
Speaker 6: Sam, Keep us posted when you find your airbnb on
Speaker 6: the sea side, send us a picture, yes, Jony.
Speaker 1: Before we move on, I have to tell you this.
Speaker 6: I one of my favorite memories of my father, whose
Speaker 6: birthday it is today, not understanding what it's like to
Speaker 6: live with a teenage girl. I was reading My Sister's
Speaker 6: Keeper many years.
Speaker 1: Ago when I was one of my favorite books of
Speaker 1: all time.
Speaker 6: So good, gosh, thank you and one of the best
Speaker 6: endings of all time. And I got to the end,
Speaker 6: I turned the final page. I'm weeping, sobbing uncontrollably. My
Speaker 6: dad hears this from the other room, comes out from
Speaker 6: his office and is like, oh my god, what's going on?
Speaker 6: Who died? Like a total panic, and I was like,
Speaker 6: couldn't breathe. I'm just like pointing at the book like no,
Speaker 6: it's just it's this. He was so pissed at me.
Speaker 6: He's just like, I truly thought that someone in our
Speaker 6: life had died, but he gave me that one of
Speaker 6: those wonderful memories.
Speaker 3: Because of that, I know, It's like, man, have never
Speaker 3: cried reading a book? Ookay, I guess I know.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do.
Speaker 3: You notice, Jodie when you're on planes that you cry
Speaker 3: more when you're reading a book.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's funny because when I was adapting the book Thief,
Speaker 5: I was writing part of the ending and I was
Speaker 5: crying really really, really hard, and like the flight attendant
Speaker 5: came over and wanted to make sure I was okay.
Speaker 5: And my co librettist when he was doing his part
Speaker 5: of the ending, the flight attendant came over and gave
Speaker 5: him wine because we were just a wreck, you know.
Speaker 4: Writing this on the plane, so yeah, I cry all
Speaker 4: the time when I write.
Speaker 3: There's something about being in the altitude that makes you
Speaker 3: like I can watch something on a plane that I
Speaker 3: would not cry at in real life, and I'll be crying.
Speaker 1: But anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, our next question comes from Lynette. She is twenty seven.
Speaker 6: She says, you're Chelsea. I would love to get your
Speaker 6: opinion on how to ease my new amazing man into
Speaker 6: my life, which includes my drug addicted dad and my
Speaker 6: currently imprisoned fellon mother. I am my little sister's only
Speaker 6: parent practically, she lives with me, and my new boyfriend
Speaker 6: knows that I've been the only stable mother figure for her,
Speaker 6: but he hasn't met her yet and really has no
Speaker 6: idea how bad my parents' situation is. My fear is
Speaker 6: that it will all be too much for him, as
Speaker 6: it has been for other partners in the past. I'm
Speaker 6: stressed and scared and don't know how to ease someone
Speaker 6: into a life with someone like me with a broken family.
Speaker 6: Any advice would be in the world to me. Thank
Speaker 6: you so much, Lynette, and she's joining us here.
Speaker 1: Hi, Lynette, Hilanette. Hello, Hi, Hi, this is Jodi Pico,
Speaker 1: our special guest today.
Speaker 4: It's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: So what does your boyfriend know?
Speaker 2: So at this point, he knows about my mom being
Speaker 2: in prison, and I've kind of shared how my dad
Speaker 2: smokes weed and has always done that and you know,
Speaker 2: back in the day, was like a little bit of
Speaker 2: a drug dealer. But he doesn't know that he's homeless
Speaker 2: and like really you know, a drug addict when it
Speaker 2: comes to like meth. And we've had a lot of disputes,
Speaker 2: me and him, my dad, and he still struggles with it,
Speaker 2: and he's still really involved in like my little sister's life,
Speaker 2: and you know, he comes around here and there, and
Speaker 2: you know, holidays are coming up, so he's probably going
Speaker 2: to meet him at some point. And sorry, and I
Speaker 2: just don't know how to say it. I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm withholding the truth almost from him really because when
Speaker 2: he meets him, it's it's pretty obvious, like family has
Speaker 2: expressed how he doesn't look well and like where is
Speaker 2: he staying, And he'll swing by just to like, you know,
Speaker 2: see my sister and me. But I really don't want
Speaker 2: a relationship with my dad. I've you know. Like I said,
Speaker 2: I've had spats with him, and I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: just hard. My little sister says the same thing, like
Speaker 2: he's just so obviously crazy and doesn't want to change,
Speaker 2: doesn't want help, Like he hasn't had a job for
Speaker 2: like over a year, and he talks about getting a
Speaker 2: job and helping but doesn't really And the real thing
Speaker 2: we need him to do is he has he's working
Speaker 2: on my little sister's car. She's about to get license.
Speaker 2: She really needs to have a car. And that's really
Speaker 2: why we keep the contact, is to just get him
Speaker 2: to at least do that, fix the car, bring it
Speaker 2: for her like he promised he'd do. But at this point,
Speaker 2: it's like you've had over a year to do it,
Speaker 2: and here we are, you know, and this boyfriend's so great,
Speaker 2: like he helps us so much, you know, and I
Speaker 2: just feel so guilty that I haven't been totally honest.
Speaker 2: And I'm afraid that the longer I wait, you know,
Speaker 2: the more distrust he's going to build with me, you know.
Speaker 2: And I don't think he's not going to accept it.
Speaker 2: But it's just a hard conversation to have, you know,
Speaker 2: Like even now talking about it is making me super anxious,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you've had to bear so much responsibility
Speaker 3: for your family.
Speaker 1: You're such an amazing sister.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chelsea. You are you know, I think anybody
Speaker 2: would do what I'm doing. But it's just hard because
Speaker 2: he's such a gas lighter and he's just always got
Speaker 2: an excuse for everything, for why he is the way
Speaker 2: he is, And even like talking about the drugs, he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it's just crystal, and I'm like, it's not just crystals.
Speaker 2: It's a hard drug. Like why don't you see how
Speaker 2: it's broken our family, How you shouldn't how you should
Speaker 2: look for help, Like, you know, my mom is in
Speaker 2: prison from a lot of issues with alcohol. You know,
Speaker 2: her second DUI, like her first one was child endangerment
Speaker 2: for having a little sister in the car. And they're
Speaker 2: just both so crazy and they make each other more
Speaker 2: crazy and they enable each other. And it's like he's
Speaker 2: always told me like I'm there for you, I'll always
Speaker 2: be here for you, like whatever you need. But it's
Speaker 2: like he really doesn't know just how bad it is.
Speaker 2: You know, We've only been dating seriously for like a month,
Speaker 2: so it.
Speaker 3: Sounds like you really need to set some boundaries with
Speaker 3: your parents. I don't know what the benefit is of
Speaker 3: having your father remain in your life in the condition
Speaker 3: he's in. I don't think that's going to have a
Speaker 3: good impact on your little sister. And it's definitely just
Speaker 3: adding a level of stress to your life. You already
Speaker 3: have enough that you're dealing with, don't you agree, Jodie?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Absolutely.
Speaker 5: And I also want to know, Lynnette, what was his response,
Speaker 5: your boyfriend's response when you did tell him like that
Speaker 5: your mom was in prison and stuff.
Speaker 4: What did you say to you?
Speaker 2: He was really supportive, you know, he he kind of
Speaker 2: said the same thing, like I don't know how you're
Speaker 2: managing everything that you are, Like, I'm here for you.
Speaker 2: I can only imagine how hard it is. I've always
Speaker 2: been really involved, like my parents have always been troubled,
Speaker 2: and it's just pushed me away and wanted to push
Speaker 2: me to work harder and be better. And it makes
Speaker 2: me build that spite too, because it's like I've done
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 1: For myself, And what about your little sister.
Speaker 2: She at one point was kind of like an empathizer,
Speaker 2: and she like, my dad is the cool guy. And
Speaker 2: he's always the lax parent, and so she would kind
Speaker 2: of talk to me and be like, don't be so
Speaker 2: hard on him, and like, well, he's trying. And now
Speaker 2: that she's I think opened her eyes and a little
Speaker 2: bit older and realizes just how bad it is, she
Speaker 2: is getting kind of like a distaste for him, and
Speaker 2: it just sucks that this is our dad. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: I know, and you know, that's heartbreaking for her to
Speaker 2: be so young, because I had it a little later,
Speaker 2: like I was like in college when I really got
Speaker 2: to open my eyes to it all. And here she is,
Speaker 2: like sixteen barely and having to deal with that and
Speaker 2: then also manage the fact that we have to balance
Speaker 2: this relationship so he will just own up to what
Speaker 2: he said he'll do for us, and it's hard. She's
Speaker 2: so strong and so mature and she really does handle
Speaker 2: it well, but I know it's heartbreaking for her.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, what do you think about setting some boundaries?
Speaker 3: Can you set boundaries and tell him that he's not
Speaker 3: welcome to come by the house. I don't think this
Speaker 3: car fucking Matt Like, you can't depend on him for
Speaker 3: fixing the car. He's unreliable and he's smoking crystal math.
Speaker 3: It's a rap on him until he gets his shit
Speaker 3: together as far as responsibilities go.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. And the thing is like, she
Speaker 2: really does need it, and you know we could, I
Speaker 2: could try and do without it, but we do need
Speaker 2: the help. And he says it's a simple fix, so
Speaker 2: it should happen sooner than later. But I've already started,
Speaker 2: Like Chelsea, I was paying his phone bill for the
Speaker 2: last year, so recently I told him. I was like, Dad,
Speaker 2: I can't do this anymore, Like this added expense is
Speaker 2: kind of crazy for me. Like if you can get
Speaker 2: your own phone, that would really help, you know, Like,
Speaker 2: and so he's like, I know, I'll do it, but
Speaker 2: by the end of the month, like I'll just get
Speaker 2: a Walmart phone and do it that way so you
Speaker 2: don't have to pay for it. And I feel bad,
Speaker 2: you know, all my aunts everybody tells me too, like
Speaker 2: you need to stop paying his phone bill, like he's
Speaker 2: not together.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think the types of boundaries that Chelsea
Speaker 6: is talking about are things like I'll pay it to
Speaker 6: the end of the month, and then at the end
Speaker 6: of the month, you shut the phone off, you know,
Speaker 6: whether or not he's gotten one for himself. You need
Speaker 6: to be focusing on protecting yourself, your energy, and your sister.
Speaker 6: And right now your dad is not a safe person
Speaker 6: to be around either one of you. I think you're
Speaker 6: right also about the car situation.
Speaker 3: I mean, if it's such an easy fix, someone else
Speaker 3: can do it, you know what I mean. It's almost
Speaker 3: like a having anything that you need from him is
Speaker 3: not a good dynamic between somebody who is a drug addict.
Speaker 3: You don't want to have anything from him, and you
Speaker 3: don't want him to come by, like you have to
Speaker 3: set a boundary before you even, you know, broach this
Speaker 3: with your boyfriend. I would say, like, listen, the more honest,
Speaker 3: the better. In every situation, I prefer honesty. I mean, yes,
Speaker 3: it's a month long relationship, it's very new, it is
Speaker 3: a lot of information, but you're so sweet and loving
Speaker 3: like that. You don't have bad vibes. You're not trying
Speaker 3: to pull the wool over someone's eyes. And I'm sure
Speaker 3: he sees that in you, you know, And I think
Speaker 3: you should be honest and be honest about why you've
Speaker 3: kept it from him. And I wonder if maybe he'll
Speaker 3: surprise you with some sort of ideas and solutions about
Speaker 3: boundaries too, because you're raising your sister because your father
Speaker 3: and mother can't do it, there's no reason you should be.
Speaker 1: Helping them in any way. You already have enough to
Speaker 1: deal with.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and right now I want you to focus on
Speaker 6: building your support sys. So, whether that's like relying on
Speaker 6: your aunties, cultivating this relationship with your boyfriend and with
Speaker 6: your sister, reach out to people who are in your
Speaker 6: circle already, who you know you can rely on and trust.
Speaker 6: Work on cultivating your support network because your dad is
Speaker 6: not part of it. He just can't be part of
Speaker 6: it anymore.
Speaker 3: And setting a boundary with people like that is an
Speaker 3: act of love. That doesn't mean you don't love him,
Speaker 3: even if he says you don't love me, This is terrible.
Speaker 1: How you could you do this?
Speaker 3: You have to know coming from me, that that is
Speaker 3: an act of love. That's an act of love on
Speaker 3: behalf of your father and your sister and yourself. By
Speaker 3: saying no, we don't want you around here in the
Speaker 3: shape you're in. We don't want to see this anymore,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's about our respecting yourself and your sister.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, it's what I need to do to
Speaker 2: protect her and keep her, you know, on the right path,
Speaker 2: and you know, push him to realize, like there's no excuse,
Speaker 2: it is what it is, and you're right, I need
Speaker 2: to establish a boundary.
Speaker 7: Really.
Speaker 5: I think also you've been such a role model for
Speaker 5: your sister and if she's kind of at this waffling
Speaker 5: stage where she is seeing do I have responsibility to
Speaker 5: my dad or can I make that break? Seeing you
Speaker 5: being able to set those hard boundaries I think is
Speaker 5: going to be really helpful to her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, Thank you, that's so true.
Speaker 6: I want you to know too that you are not alone.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of people who have gone through
Speaker 6: similar situations. So I'm going to help you look for
Speaker 6: like maybe an alan on which is for families of
Speaker 6: people who have alcohol and drug addiction, or you know,
Speaker 6: some kind of therapy in your area that will be
Speaker 6: low cost or free and that you can go in
Speaker 6: and keep building that support system.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: And I also just before you go, like I really
Speaker 3: want you to recognize what an incredible thing you've done
Speaker 3: and like what are you are continuing to do? There
Speaker 3: is so much value in what you've provided for your sister,
Speaker 3: which is stability, love and comfort like there there is
Speaker 3: no number you can put on that and the impact
Speaker 3: you're having on her life and I'm sure the impact
Speaker 3: on you she's having on your life.
Speaker 1: And just because.
Speaker 3: Everybody would probably do that, does it mean that it's
Speaker 3: without the value that you have brought to the situation.
Speaker 3: And that alone is going to give you the ability
Speaker 3: to move forward with your new boyfriend, to move forward
Speaker 3: with new boundaries. For your father, you are her role model,
Speaker 3: just like Jodie said, and so with every act moving forward,
Speaker 3: and that includes being honest with your boyfriend, think of
Speaker 3: your yourself, setting an example for your younger sister.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Okay, good luck with everything. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: calling you. Love you guys, Thank you bye, honey.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, I know, I know, such a sweetheart.
Speaker 6: I do also think maybe Chelsea, we can do a
Speaker 6: GoFundMe with the dear Chelsea listeners and like get that
Speaker 6: sure fixed?
Speaker 1: Yeah I would love Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 6: Yeah great, So we'll put that in the so you
Speaker 6: guys can donate their sweetie puss, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: Well, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 6: I've got one more caller who's also got a bit
Speaker 6: of a sticky situation.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back with Jody Pico.
Speaker 6: We are back.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 6: Our last caller today is TJ and he is a
Speaker 6: flight attendant. He says, Dear Chelsea, I'm a gay male
Speaker 6: in my thirties and I've worked as a flight attendant
Speaker 6: for a major US carrier going on seven years. For
Speaker 6: the entire length of that career, I have been poked, prodded, touched, tapped, nudged,
Speaker 6: and flicked. Over the last couple of years, I've become
Speaker 6: more frustrated with people touching me to get my attention.
Speaker 6: When I was more junior in my career, I would
Speaker 6: just brush it off and keep it moving. These days,
Speaker 6: I make it a point to let people know they
Speaker 6: don't get to touch me.
Speaker 1: Here's where things get quote touchy for me.
Speaker 6: Very recently, a grown woman slapped my ass as I
Speaker 6: was bent over grabbing her something from the cart during
Speaker 6: our beverage service in the main cabin. It was completely
Speaker 6: embarrassing and triggering for me to have experienced this in
Speaker 6: my place of work, and even worse.
Speaker 1: When I laid down the.
Speaker 6: Law with her, she said nothing, had no remorse, and
Speaker 6: acted like I was in the wrong for telling her
Speaker 6: not to make unwarranted sexual advances. I requested police meet
Speaker 6: the flight, had her escorted off, filed a police report,
Speaker 6: and requested to press charges. I have a sneaking suspicion
Speaker 6: nothing will be done about this, as we don't have
Speaker 6: much follow through with instances like these. I'm wondering if
Speaker 6: I should take matters into my own hands and bring
Speaker 6: my own legal counsel. As the unofficial spokesperson for flight attendants, Chelsea,
Speaker 6: I'm wondering if you have any litigious insight for me.
Speaker 1: Best. TJ Hi, TJ Hi, Hi. This is Jody. This
Speaker 1: is our special guest day.
Speaker 2: Jody.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Speaker 3: It's like the women's movement is moving so quickly, it's
Speaker 3: flashing before our eyes.
Speaker 1: Now we're acting like men.
Speaker 7: I know the pendulum is swinging.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean this is really a personal question.
Speaker 3: I mean, how it feels like you really want your
Speaker 3: voice to be heard, And if you were a woman
Speaker 3: in this situation, I would say, you know, be indefatigable
Speaker 3: in your desire and pursuit to have your voice heard.
Speaker 3: So I guess I would say the same thing to you,
Speaker 3: because it takes someone, it takes like a whistleblower to
Speaker 3: get the party started. Like the fact that people still
Speaker 3: think that they can touch flight attendants is a little
Speaker 3: bit antiquated.
Speaker 7: Yeah, definitely. I mean it's interesting because I felt like
Speaker 7: it wasn't being taken very.
Speaker 1: Seriously in the moment.
Speaker 7: Right as I discussed with Catherine, I had looped the
Speaker 7: pilots into what was going on, and their response was, oh, well,
Speaker 7: we'll get a gate agent to meet the flight and
Speaker 7: talk to the passenger. And I said, no, I want
Speaker 7: police because if this was one of the female flight
Speaker 7: attendants getting groped by a man, we would be landing
Speaker 7: this fucking plane. So like it with the program.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, was there alcohol involved?
Speaker 4: Was she drunk?
Speaker 7: So I keep people keep asking that question. And she
Speaker 7: was kind of a weirdo, but she wasn't like, she
Speaker 7: wasn't showing signs of intoxication like red eyes, sirt speech,
Speaker 7: and you know, we're kind of look for those things.
Speaker 7: In fact, she was ordering a drink from me, and
Speaker 7: of course that didn't happen. It was odd, and just
Speaker 7: for more context, as I was handing the drink over
Speaker 7: is when she slapped me and I shot up and
Speaker 7: so before I could even say anything, she looked at
Speaker 7: me and said, sorry, I just couldn't help myself. And
Speaker 7: that's when I just like went in for the kill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 3: It feels like the flight like flying and airplanes and
Speaker 3: airplane announcements need a major fucking update, like between people
Speaker 3: wearing flip flops or taking their shoes off and rubbing
Speaker 3: their feet. There was somebody sent me a DM the
Speaker 3: other day of somebody drying their underwear in front of.
Speaker 1: Their seat in first class.
Speaker 3: They had their underwear out and it was hanging on
Speaker 3: some on their trade table like some hook above it
Speaker 3: and drying.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, oh my god.
Speaker 3: We need an update in the aviation system of when
Speaker 3: people board planes to understand that there are rules and
Speaker 3: regulations and you're not allowed to physically touch a flight attendant.
Speaker 3: So if you really have the energy to go after this,
Speaker 3: I would say, fucking go for it and try and
Speaker 3: change the system.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I mean this is because it's absolutely true women can
Speaker 3: get away with that kind of behavior now that men
Speaker 3: can't as easily. The behavior has to apply to all sexes.
Speaker 3: So I would say, if you have the like you know,
Speaker 3: if you have the resources and you want to go
Speaker 3: after it, go after it. Otherwise, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: you should go after it with the intention of actually
Speaker 3: making the airlines acknowledge that this is an ongoing problem
Speaker 3: and they need to address it when everybody is boarding
Speaker 3: the flight, like they address all the other things. And
Speaker 3: I've heard that, by the way, on planes, I've heard that,
Speaker 3: especially during COVID, I've heard pilots say, do not get
Speaker 3: upset with your flight attendant. She is not the one
Speaker 3: making you wear a mask, you know. Like they had
Speaker 3: all these preliminary announcements that were varying from airline to airline,
Speaker 3: but they were addressing it, and that does need to
Speaker 3: be a more permanent announcement.
Speaker 7: I mean, ever since this happened, I hop on the
Speaker 7: inner phone before we even go on the aisle and
Speaker 7: I say, as a reminder, take out your headphones when
Speaker 7: you're speaking to us, and do not touch the flight
Speaker 7: attendants like it's a petting zoo.
Speaker 1: It's insane, but perfect. Yeah, you're doing it already.
Speaker 4: Also, the other.
Speaker 5: Thing that I would recommend is if there's a way
Speaker 5: to escalate this through your company, that's really important because
Speaker 5: then it can become a company wide policy. But think
Speaker 5: about other places that you can speak out and tell
Speaker 5: your story, you know, So in terms of I don't
Speaker 5: know if there is this is a great place, for example,
Speaker 5: but there are other outlets like this media. There might
Speaker 5: be someone who would be willing to do a local
Speaker 5: story on it on the news or something like that.
Speaker 5: That might be a really interesting place to spread the word,
Speaker 5: which I think is is really important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like that aspect of things is more
Speaker 3: paramount than theligigious aspect. You want to have to spread
Speaker 3: awareness on every issue, you know, and sometimes when we
Speaker 3: go after something legally, it's like it becomes such negative
Speaker 3: energy that you're putting towards it. So I'm always looking
Speaker 3: for an avenue not to do that.
Speaker 7: And I think that's the biggest problem I'm having with
Speaker 7: this is I'm not like a litigious person by nature.
Speaker 7: I'm not vindictive, and going after somebody on a civil
Speaker 7: level for like a monetary value seems kind of icky.
Speaker 7: But I'm like, is this a way for me to
Speaker 7: turn that page. Is this something where I can see like, oh,
Speaker 7: something has been done about this, this person has been punished.
Speaker 3: But listen, I think the spreading awareness is more important
Speaker 3: than the punishing of this woman. Yeah, she learns her lesson,
Speaker 3: She learned it. She's not going to do that again
Speaker 3: most likely, you know what I mean, she got it.
Speaker 3: You didn't react well to that, so I mean hopefully
Speaker 3: she did. But I think what JODI's saying is right, Like,
Speaker 3: you're sit telling the story here. Millions of people will
Speaker 3: hear this and you're making the announcement yourself on your flights,
Speaker 3: which is great, and keep doing that, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, because that if I heard that on a plane,
Speaker 3: that's going.
Speaker 1: To make me go, oh my god, who touched too?
Speaker 1: You know what happened here that we're being told that.
Speaker 1: So and you should talk to other flight attendants about it.
Speaker 1: And anytime you can tell the story, do it.
Speaker 6: And if you're a journalist or podcaster listening who wants
Speaker 6: to dig more into the story, contact me and I
Speaker 6: can put.
Speaker 1: You in touch with TJ.
Speaker 7: Yeah, gorgeous.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks for calling in.
Speaker 7: And thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, TJ. Good luck with everything. I hope
Speaker 1: I see you on a flight.
Speaker 4: I hope so too. Well, I'll waterboard you.
Speaker 1: With some vodka, okay, and then i'll smack you on
Speaker 1: the ass. That'll be perfect. Okay. Bye, less and learned,
Speaker 1: lesson learned, Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Okay, bye bye. Okay, Jody, we're going to wrap up
Speaker 3: with you. First of all, what a great description of
Speaker 3: your book. I want to say thank you for describing
Speaker 3: your book in that way, because many authors have a
Speaker 3: lot of trouble talking about their own books. So it's
Speaker 3: very refreshing to see someone with such a great sense
Speaker 3: of humor and so relatable giving us all this information
Speaker 3: which may not be so relatable, but coming from the
Speaker 3: filter of you makes it more so.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you for reading the book. I really appreciate it,
Speaker 5: and I just hope that I hope people really take
Speaker 5: it to heart and see that a lot's changed to
Speaker 5: four hundred years, but a lot sure hasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they will. I think they will, all right,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Jodie, Take.
Speaker 4: Care, take care, bye bye.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So upcoming shows that I have you, guys, I will
Speaker 3: be all over Maine, Charlotte, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 3: I'm coming to Texas. I'm coming to Saint Louis and
Speaker 3: Kansas City, and then I will be in Las Vegas
Speaker 3: performing at the Chelsea Theater inside the Cosmopolitan Hotel. My
Speaker 3: first three dates in Vegas our September first, Labor Day weekend,
Speaker 3: and then November two and November thirtieth.
Speaker 1: I'm coming to.
Speaker 3: Brooklyn, New York, at the King's Theater on November eighth,
Speaker 3: and I have tickets on sale throughout the end of
Speaker 3: the year in December, so if you're in a city
Speaker 3: like Philadelphia or Bethlehem, or San Diego or New Orleans
Speaker 3: or Omaha, check Chelseahandler dot com for tickets.
Speaker 6: Okay, if you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an
Speaker 6: email at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and
Speaker 6: be sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is
Speaker 6: edited and engineered by Brad Dickert executive producer Catherine law
Speaker 6: and be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler
Speaker 6: dot com.