Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Speaker 1: Friends Media.
Speaker 2: You are far less.
Speaker 3: I'm Katie and I'm Eve's. Do you remember the last
Speaker 3: time you asked me for advice?
Speaker 2: No? Not really. If I've ever asked you for advice.
Speaker 3: You don't think I got words of wisdom or something.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not about that. I usually don't seek advice
Speaker 1: from friends like I will if it's something that's really
Speaker 1: super specific to them that I think they could help.
Speaker 3: Me with, Like if you wanted to know how to
Speaker 3: be the baddest bitch the side of the Mason Dixon.
Speaker 2: Line, Uh, something like that.
Speaker 3: It's common for folks to seek advice from people that
Speaker 3: they don't know personally.
Speaker 2: You mean like a therapist, Yeah, or.
Speaker 3: A vocation with less schooling and more direct answers and
Speaker 3: advice columns. Day's episode of on Theme is Advice for
Speaker 3: the Wise and Otherwise.
Speaker 2: So are you super into advice columns?
Speaker 3: I mean I have been in my day and which
Speaker 3: day was that? The days when my life was in shambles.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you something about me. I hate learning
Speaker 3: life lessons. Well, okay, let me say it right. I
Speaker 3: hate learning life lessons first hand I'd much rather read
Speaker 3: it in a book or simply watch someone else fuck
Speaker 3: up so badly that it's forever imprinted on my brain
Speaker 3: to never, and I mean it, never put myself in
Speaker 3: that situation.
Speaker 1: That is so honestly a kav that is so shaby.
Speaker 1: But learning heart life lessons firsthand does kind of suck
Speaker 1: in a moment real bad.
Speaker 3: So when I was in my down bad days, I
Speaker 3: would read advice columns and watch Lifetime with you girl
Speaker 3: to see what other pitfalls to avoid. But now that
Speaker 3: I'm out of that space, thank you Jesus, I can
Speaker 3: look at it advice columns in a new way.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that? Okay?
Speaker 3: So you know, I've been doing research for my book
Speaker 3: about Black Bookstore. So one of the sources of my
Speaker 3: research are the archives of black newspapers like the Atlanta
Speaker 3: Daily World, New York, Amsterdam News, and the Chicago Defender.
Speaker 3: So I was just, you know, looking at the archives
Speaker 3: and came across an advice column in the Chicago Defender
Speaker 3: called Advice to the Wise and otherwise that's a great title, right.
Speaker 3: It definitely caught my attention. So I started reading it
Speaker 3: and found out that the advice columnist is a woman
Speaker 3: who goes by Princess Mysteria.
Speaker 2: That's another fun name.
Speaker 3: A marketing genius of the day.
Speaker 2: When was this advice column around.
Speaker 3: From nineteen twenty one until Mysteria's death in nineteen thirty Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: So I go down this rabbit hole about this advice
Speaker 3: column and about Princess Mysteria, whose birth name was val
Speaker 3: Lda hill Strotter, and I started to look at advice
Speaker 3: columns in a new way, like more as storytelling devices.
Speaker 1: And what led you to that, given that you've been
Speaker 1: reading advice columns and never really saw them that way before.
Speaker 3: I think at first it was Princess Mysteria herself. She's
Speaker 3: using a pen name. She describes herself as a mentalist
Speaker 3: or mind reader, So there's already that element of performance
Speaker 3: and personal branding. But beyond that, Princess Mysteria was a
Speaker 3: Black American woman claiming to be Indian.
Speaker 2: Okay, so she was just making that up.
Speaker 3: Yes, girls, she was born in the southern United States,
Speaker 3: but it was common at the time for black women
Speaker 3: claiming to have psychic powers to say they were Indian.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I guess it gave them that credibility to
Speaker 1: be considered foreign, I think so.
Speaker 3: So that also got me to thinking what makes a
Speaker 3: thing a black thing, or like, what makes a piece
Speaker 3: of media black? Like is it the creator, the audience,
Speaker 3: the talent, the content. Because with Princess Mysteria, we have
Speaker 3: a black woman who is pretending to be Indian responding
Speaker 3: to black advice seekers in a black newspaper.
Speaker 1: And I imagine that with black advice columns. Some of
Speaker 1: what people want advice on has to do with race,
Speaker 1: of course, Yeah, but not only that. Oftentimes advice columns
Speaker 1: in white newspapers wouldn't even respond to black advice seekers.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking early nineteen twenties. A white advice
Speaker 1: column editor was more likely to just want to help
Speaker 1: a white person, and if they did respond to a
Speaker 1: question about race, they were more often than not like
Speaker 1: pro white supremacy, pro racial hierarchy types of And so
Speaker 1: we saw examples of this happening with people. So they
Speaker 1: just wouldn't answer people if they were black, or those
Speaker 1: people wrote in they weren't the ones who were being
Speaker 1: responded to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was rare to see a question being asked
Speaker 3: by that it had to do with race. So you're
Speaker 3: assuming it's a black person, because I mean it's pretty
Speaker 3: anonymous writing into these advice columns. So if you're saying, like, hey,
Speaker 3: my name is disappointed in the racist system, they're probably
Speaker 3: not going to apply to you, or they're going to,
Speaker 3: like say, some pro white supremacy stuff like stay in
Speaker 3: your place.
Speaker 1: Who cares those advice column names, they'd be real specific
Speaker 1: to the issue that's going on.
Speaker 2: For some reason.
Speaker 1: That is a mainstay and advice columns to where the
Speaker 1: name of the person just has to be the situation,
Speaker 1: not just like it's cute not being on.
Speaker 2: A smith, you know, not right, not even Jane Doe,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: But they gotta get they got to give funky with it.
Speaker 2: I got too.
Speaker 1: So it was very much like staying your place situation,
Speaker 1: very much stay in your place, Negro. So were there
Speaker 1: other reasons that you started to look at at vice
Speaker 1: columns in terms of the storytelling in them or was
Speaker 1: it just mostly princess mysterious performance?
Speaker 3: No, there are other reasons. So we know that advice
Speaker 3: seeking and giving has been around for a long time
Speaker 3: in some form or another. I mean, advice columns themselves
Speaker 3: made back to the late sixteen nineties. But around the
Speaker 3: end of the nineteenth century, newspapers became an ideal form
Speaker 3: for folks to seek advice.
Speaker 2: So what was going on with newspapers at the time.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, they're becoming cheaper because paper was
Speaker 3: becoming cheaper, so they're more accessible, and so they start
Speaker 3: becoming mass produce, and women were starting to be seen
Speaker 3: as newspaper readers, which wasn't the case before. A lot
Speaker 3: of the times, the women even though they might not
Speaker 3: be the breadwinners for white women, like they weren't really
Speaker 3: working outside the home, and for black women, they were
Speaker 3: working outside the home, but they were also kind of
Speaker 3: in charge. With the famili's finances and the United States
Speaker 3: being one big commercial there were ads in the papers.
Speaker 3: So newspapers were like, we're going to have these ads.
Speaker 3: These women are going to be like reading the newspaper,
Speaker 3: finding out what's going on in the economy, finding out
Speaker 3: what's going on in their neighborhoods. So women were really
Speaker 3: targeted in that way with newspapers in a way that
Speaker 3: we hadn't seen before. They became more accessible and in
Speaker 3: terms of storytelling, the fact that a lot of these
Speaker 3: advice columns were in newspaper is very fitting to me
Speaker 3: because the news is often like called the first draft
Speaker 3: of history. Have you ever heard that?
Speaker 2: No, can you explain what you mean by the first
Speaker 2: draft of history?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like, say something happens today, like breaking news,
Speaker 3: you'll see that in the newspaper tomorrow, and you know
Speaker 3: it's not going to have that analysis of like fifty
Speaker 3: years down the road, like all that was going on,
Speaker 3: all the implications of that, but it's telling you, like
Speaker 3: what's happening right now. Basically, so when people like me
Speaker 3: are going through the archives of these newspapers trying to
Speaker 3: figure out, like what were people thinking about this particular subject,
Speaker 3: you're looking at the first draft of that history in
Speaker 3: the newspapers. So for advice columns, I don't see those
Speaker 3: as the first draft of history, but they are like
Speaker 3: people's interior thoughts in our personal worlds, and they often
Speaker 3: are colliding with these big societal changes that you are
Speaker 3: seeing being reported in newspapers. And I think the questions
Speaker 3: and answers revealed that relationship between the two.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of like you got to get
Speaker 1: this professional buttoned up like in a suit version of
Speaker 1: what was happening in the day. And then you also
Speaker 1: got to get this like version of the news that
Speaker 1: was a lot more casual. So if the news is
Speaker 1: the first draft of history, would you say that at
Speaker 1: vice columns are like an edited second draft of a journal.
Speaker 3: That's a good way of describing it, like, send me polished,
Speaker 3: edit it for print. Innermost thoughts. If I compare it
Speaker 3: to modern times, I feel like advice columns were kind
Speaker 3: of like Twitter. It's like a medium to build community
Speaker 3: amongst folks who usually would be strangers, but it also
Speaker 3: has that element of anonymity, and you know, people be flexing.
Speaker 1: So you're telling me there were people who were keyboard warriors.
Speaker 1: I guess what would you call them back then? Pencil
Speaker 1: pen warriors, pen perpetrators, pin perpetrators.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, there's nothing stopping folks from embellishing a bit
Speaker 3: or obscuring some of the facts about themselves to make
Speaker 3: it sound a little better in their favor. Or you'll
Speaker 3: have to see people writing in and not even asking
Speaker 3: a question like.
Speaker 1: The I don't have a question. It's more of a
Speaker 1: comment person after a panel, Yes, just be talking like
Speaker 1: what is your question? You know you have beef with
Speaker 1: those people. Katie and it's so funny to me. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm curious what types of advice did Princess Mysteria
Speaker 1: dish out.
Speaker 3: Oh, I forgot to mention, and I think you'll like this.
Speaker 3: Princess Mysteria was a performer on the Vaudeville circuit, which
Speaker 3: was like a variety show that included stuff like singing
Speaker 3: and mental shows and acting, and she was often referred
Speaker 3: to as a magician as well as a mentalist or
Speaker 3: mind reader.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I like that. Black magicians do have
Speaker 1: a special place in my heart.
Speaker 3: I know. But you'll have to wait till after the
Speaker 3: break to find out what she was talking about. So
Speaker 3: part of her act was answering questions from the audience,
Speaker 3: and these audience members got personal. They asked about love, illness,
Speaker 3: lost money, all out in the open for everyone to hear.
Speaker 3: No shame, but it sounds like they liked the answers
Speaker 3: they were getting, because that was Princess Mysterious segue into
Speaker 3: her column Advice for the Wise and Otherwise, And that
Speaker 3: column became the most red black advice column at the
Speaker 3: time because even though it was in the Chicago Defender,
Speaker 3: because of the great migration the Chicago Defender was circulated
Speaker 3: around the country.
Speaker 1: So all of Black America was locked into her column,
Speaker 1: a good chunk for sure. So based on her larger
Speaker 1: than life persona, I imagine that her advice was larger
Speaker 1: than life too.
Speaker 3: That would be a good guess. But surprisingly, her advice
Speaker 3: was pretty concise and to the point. She did focus
Speaker 3: on racial uplift, even though she was pretending to be
Speaker 3: Indian a little paradoxical there, and her advice was more
Speaker 3: feminist than many others at the time. So if you
Speaker 3: look at a lot of the well known white advice columnists,
Speaker 3: they kind of shied away from anything like too controversial,
Speaker 3: Like it would be very rare to see Dorothy Dix
Speaker 3: who had an advice column called Dear Dorothy, Like she
Speaker 3: wouldn't tell people to leave their husband or anything. Like
Speaker 3: they kind of focused on like happiness.
Speaker 2: They had to maintain an image.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so Princess Mysterias, she responded to topics that
Speaker 3: were kind of considered off limits for advice columns, like divorce, abortion,
Speaker 3: sexual assault. But that being said, she was real respectable.
Speaker 1: Because I was just gonna say it sounds like she
Speaker 1: was flouting respectability a lot.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 3: She was like very big into temperance for men and women,
Speaker 3: which I guess might be making her a little bit
Speaker 3: more progressive for the time. Okay, so this is Pansy
Speaker 3: g and Spokane, Washington. Pansy says, please tell.
Speaker 5: Me why I always lose all of the fellows I've
Speaker 5: ever had. I treat them nicely and I do not
Speaker 5: mind kissing them.
Speaker 3: If they ask me to. Okay, Pansy and Princess Mysterious says.
Speaker 5: Familiarity breeds contempt. Pansy is an old saying, but truth,
Speaker 5: if you wish to attain the respect of your friends,
Speaker 5: be ladylike, reserved, dignified, and above reproach at all times
Speaker 5: and in all places.
Speaker 1: All times, in all places. I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: lot to keep up with.
Speaker 2: Yes, like what Pansy kiss?
Speaker 3: But I do think looking at advice columns that answers
Speaker 3: these colonists, we're giving give us a peek into the
Speaker 3: morals at the time, or at least what people want
Speaker 3: to state the morals are in public, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it was kind of like this Instagram filter
Speaker 1: over how we should be acting.
Speaker 3: M and like, for me, it makes me think about
Speaker 3: who the hell is Princess Mysteria to be giving this, Like,
Speaker 3: what are the credentials I think a good advice columns?
Speaker 3: And I think we're seeing this more and newer advice
Speaker 3: columns they have as like some level of expertise on
Speaker 3: a specific genre of advice they're giving. So you mean
Speaker 3: like a couple's therapist giving relationship advice and an advice column. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't have to be a formal degree. Lived
Speaker 3: experience is great too. I know Jamila Lemieux has an
Speaker 3: advice column on parenting and she's been a parent for
Speaker 3: over a decade. And Elene welter Roth has an advice
Speaker 3: column talking about pivoting, something she's done many times in
Speaker 3: her personal and professional life. So what I'm saying is
Speaker 3: I see Princess Mysteria doing a bunch of moralizing to
Speaker 3: Miss Pansy, But is this really your expertise? And I
Speaker 3: find like, do you? I remember when I first learned
Speaker 3: about the concept of an unreliable narrator and my mind
Speaker 3: was blown that you know, a book's narrator could lie, right,
Speaker 3: So the people writing in are definitely unreliable narrators, right,
Speaker 3: because like you have no idea if what they're saying
Speaker 3: is the truth, or like how much they're embellishing, how
Speaker 3: much they're like trying to say to make themselves feel
Speaker 3: good or sound good or whatever. But also the people
Speaker 3: giving advice, I like the advice columns that are like
Speaker 3: really considered and like specific to that person's situation. Princess
Speaker 3: Mysteria she kind of positioned herself as like the relationship girlie,
Speaker 3: so like of course she would respond to this in
Speaker 3: some way. And you know she was over here promoting
Speaker 3: like racial uplift and temperance, so like, this is definitely
Speaker 3: something that I feel like she was comfortable replying to.
Speaker 1: Why did Princess Mysteria think that she had expertise around relationships?
Speaker 3: Well, I know there was also a Prince Mysteria girl,
Speaker 3: so they kind of did their show together, and so
Speaker 3: when they were on the circuit, I think those were
Speaker 3: just the questions people tended to ask, and they kind
Speaker 3: of wentn't with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, she had already built up credibility for herself basically
Speaker 1: just by having him on the road with her as
Speaker 1: a person could speak on relationships.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know she's a mind reader. Somebody she's like,
Speaker 3: you're gonna fall in love with someone with Kay.
Speaker 1: She might have had some repeat customers and her advice
Speaker 1: callin that came to some of her shows. So give
Speaker 1: me another example of her advice. Is there any that
Speaker 1: you actually liked?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I found one, very funny and probably something I'd
Speaker 3: say if they were to ask me. This one is
Speaker 3: from Sam in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 4: Sam writes, Madame Princess, will you tell me the best
Speaker 4: thing for me to do? I left my wife and
Speaker 4: came west with another girl. The girl deserted me after
Speaker 4: two months, and my wife refuses to take me back.
Speaker 4: What must I do?
Speaker 3: He's trifling as hell, and Princess Massia lets him know
Speaker 3: and replies with.
Speaker 5: Retribution is slow in some cases, but swift enough in yours.
Speaker 5: Three cheers for your wife. She is strictly first class.
Speaker 5: And for you. If there's worse luck for you, which
Speaker 5: more than likely there is, I hope that it makes
Speaker 5: haste and comes to you.
Speaker 2: Okay. She was not playing with Sam.
Speaker 3: At all, Like, no advice given, just dragged him And
Speaker 3: I could definitely see other advice columns encouraging Sam to
Speaker 3: like do a romantic gesture that's actually just stalking. But
Speaker 3: Princess Mysteria basically told him to take the fast lane
Speaker 3: to Hell, and I respect that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also think there is a situation of missing information
Speaker 1: here too, though, because this is still just Sam's sid
Speaker 1: and so she was making a lot of assumptions as well.
Speaker 2: She is strictly first class. You don't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was definitely making assumptions. But I like that
Speaker 3: she dragged him because honestly, if you write that, I
Speaker 3: feel like you left out some other trifless stuff you
Speaker 3: did because what you said was already trifless.
Speaker 2: That is true. You shouldn't have sent this Sam Sam.
Speaker 3: But you know what, I hope Sam got his life together,
Speaker 3: not with his wife, but just in general.
Speaker 1: So you want a happy ending, Yeah, that's very you like.
Speaker 1: That is very Katie.
Speaker 3: I want Sam to be be better, Sam, be better,
Speaker 3: Be better Sam. And you know, I feel like we've
Speaker 3: gotten to know Princess Mysteria. But I did want to
Speaker 3: check in with a more current advice columnist and get
Speaker 3: their take on advice columns as storytelling devices and on
Speaker 3: the craft in general. We'll be hearing from Damon Young,
Speaker 3: a current advice giver After the Break.
Speaker 6: Damon Young, author of what does a killy makes you blacker?
Speaker 6: Host stuff? Stuck with Damon Young.
Speaker 3: Do you have an idea why people come to you
Speaker 3: for advice? Like we know you're a very smart brother,
Speaker 3: is like that the criteria that people are like that's
Speaker 3: who I need to talk to.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think I think there's a few things
Speaker 6: at play. I mean, one, you know, I'm assist. I'm
Speaker 6: assist ad man. And people like to go to men
Speaker 6: for advice, right, particularly about dating and relationship related things.
Speaker 6: So first answer is patriarchy, right. And the second thing
Speaker 6: I think that I've been very intentional with just like
Speaker 6: you know, I'm a I'm just a regular nigga from Pittsburgh,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. I Am not like some guru.
Speaker 6: I try to be thoughtful, to try to be conscientious, progressive,
Speaker 6: all that, but at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 6: I think when people come to me, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 6: they're going to come to Damon. Damon is going to
Speaker 6: try to be as honest as he can possibly be.
Speaker 6: And Damon also, you know, might be vulnerable, might be absurd,
Speaker 6: might be silly, but you're not going to get like
Speaker 6: some concrete like men need to do this and women
Speaker 6: need to do that, you know. I mean, we're real
Speaker 6: people out here, just all trying to figure out what
Speaker 6: to do, how to live, how to make a life.
Speaker 6: And it's a little bit of time we have on
Speaker 6: this earth. And so I feel like my vice reflects that.
Speaker 1: Has there ever been a moment when you gave advice
Speaker 1: that you thought was thoughtful and conscientious and then you
Speaker 1: thought about it a little bit more after you gave
Speaker 1: the advice and you were like, I think I would
Speaker 1: like to change something that I said all the.
Speaker 6: Time now, I don't think I've given someone like advice
Speaker 6: that was like dangerously wrong. Okay, So, for instance, one
Speaker 6: of my columns at the Posts, a person that written
Speaker 6: in and with concerned about her daughters. You know who
Speaker 6: I think is a college student her daughter's sudden weight
Speaker 6: gain and hair loss. And I wrote back in a
Speaker 6: way that I thought was thoughtful. She seemed to be
Speaker 6: experiencing a high level of stress right now, and she
Speaker 6: doesn't need you to be reminding her like, oh you're
Speaker 6: getting fat or oh.
Speaker 2: You're getting bald.
Speaker 6: No, you need to be supportive of your daughter who
Speaker 6: apparently is going through such a stressful time that is
Speaker 6: actually having a physiological effect on her. And so I
Speaker 6: wrote that out, you know, and I thought and again
Speaker 6: I thought that it was thoughtful. I thought it was conscientious.
Speaker 6: But then I read the comments and there were people
Speaker 6: who were saying, I, actually, yes, distressing might be true.
Speaker 6: All that might be true, but it sounds like this,
Speaker 6: this this young person might have a thyroid issue, might
Speaker 6: have an actual medical issue that she might need to
Speaker 6: see a doctor about. And again that's something that didn't
Speaker 6: come to me at all while it was while I
Speaker 6: was actually writing it. But then I'll read the comments like, oh,
Speaker 6: I probably I definitely should have at least, you know,
Speaker 6: obviously you can't know for sure if this is true,
Speaker 6: but you are you know, I should have written that
Speaker 6: in as like a possibility. The advice wasn't, as I guess,
Speaker 6: as complete as I thought it was.
Speaker 3: Is there ever a gas between the advice you give
Speaker 3: and what you would actually do if you were that
Speaker 3: person in the situation, Because I know when my homegirls
Speaker 3: come to me for advice, I'd be like, what, I
Speaker 3: don't his take, don't play with me? Like knowing I
Speaker 3: would not do that, like are you ever in like
Speaker 3: I wouldn't really do that? But I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 3: to do that type situation honestly.
Speaker 6: Not as much, not as much like I try. I
Speaker 6: do try to, you know, you know, give people the
Speaker 6: sort of advice that I would that I would do myself. Okay.
Speaker 6: For instance, another instance with the Washington Post or a
Speaker 6: person wrote in about a family member who had really
Speaker 6: like shitty, terrible politics, and you know, they were like
Speaker 6: they didn't know whether or not to keep this person
Speaker 6: in there alives to cut them off. And my vice
Speaker 6: was like, yeah, I mean I think that you would
Speaker 6: not be in the wrong if you were to cut
Speaker 6: this person off or at the very least limit your
Speaker 6: interactions with them drastically. Like I'm not a believer in
Speaker 6: the idiom that you know. Family, you know, family knows best.
Speaker 6: Like if someone has opinions, or someone has politics or
Speaker 6: beliefs that are actively right, antagonistic, actively harmful, actively in
Speaker 6: contrast to to what you believe, and and and we're
Speaker 6: not talking about something like you know, I feel like
Speaker 6: people need to I feel like rich people need to
Speaker 6: pay more taxes. No, I mean we're talking about shit
Speaker 6: like abortion rights or or trans rights or or or
Speaker 6: race stuff or whatever. Then yeah, if you maybe need
Speaker 6: to in that relationship, and I don't have a problem
Speaker 6: doing that.
Speaker 3: You're more matured than me. That's in your advice.
Speaker 1: You also talk about your personal situations, like there was
Speaker 1: one in the Washington Post that you did where you
Speaker 1: talked about your car was repossessed, I think, and I
Speaker 1: was just thinking about, like how much vulnerability is seems
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's required, but that it seems
Speaker 1: like you've made a choice to put into your advice,
Speaker 1: and I wonder how that plays for you, Like how
Speaker 1: you make those decisions to be vulnerable in certain moments
Speaker 1: and maybe pulled back in other moments, and why you
Speaker 1: choose to do so in those moments.
Speaker 6: What a vulnerability is something that I think is characteristic
Speaker 6: of my writing, of my work, and so to not
Speaker 6: have it with my advice, I would just basically turn
Speaker 6: into a different person, right if I were to remove
Speaker 6: that from it. Now, I don't pull back now, there
Speaker 6: are times when I maybe hold back. And what I
Speaker 6: mean in terms of distinguishing two is like, Okay, I
Speaker 6: don't have to tell people everything about me, but I
Speaker 6: think one of the things that people want, the like
Speaker 6: when people come to me for advice, you know you're
Speaker 6: going to get vulnerability. You know, you're going to get like,
Speaker 6: you know, maybe an unflattering instance of me doing a
Speaker 6: thing or a thing that happened to me that kind
Speaker 6: of relates to what we're talking about, right, And so
Speaker 6: I think to remove that would be you know, I
Speaker 6: think including that it's one of the things that maybe
Speaker 6: the thing was just made.
Speaker 1: Parasocial relationships are such a thing in this day and age.
Speaker 1: So do you worry about that when you're being vulnerable?
Speaker 1: And is there any element of hesitancy around that? And
Speaker 1: how parasocial relationships could be formed with these people you're
Speaker 1: engaging with.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't have the sort of status where
Speaker 6: motherfucker's going to be coming to my door, you know,
Speaker 6: like fall in love, you know, or falling in whatever
Speaker 6: or hate or whatever because of some advice. Like it's
Speaker 6: not like that serious. But I actually like it when
Speaker 6: people feel like a personal connection with me throughout writing,
Speaker 6: because again, that makes them more interested in what I
Speaker 6: have to say.
Speaker 3: One of the things about newspaper advice columns, it is
Speaker 3: like a storytelling entertainment space. Do you try to balance
Speaker 3: being informative and anti during the question for that particular
Speaker 3: person with entertaining and providing some escapism for the other
Speaker 3: people who are reading it that didn't write in.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I mean it's it's a column. You're not
Speaker 6: just give them advice, right, You're you're actually writing a column.
Speaker 6: And so the writing of the column actually is for me,
Speaker 6: it would be like the most fun part, Like okay,
Speaker 6: because sometimes people write in and the answer is like
Speaker 6: a simple yes or no. But you have five hundred words.
Speaker 6: You know that you got the feel for this column,
Speaker 6: so you can't just say yep, that's the end of it.
Speaker 6: You gotta, you know, you got to add some some
Speaker 6: stuff to it, maybe tell a story, maybe make an analogy,
Speaker 6: you know, maybe making maybe take them down the journey
Speaker 6: before you get to the yes, maybe explore why you
Speaker 6: Maybe take them like down a hypothetical where if you
Speaker 6: choose no, then this it would be what happen, which
Speaker 6: makes the yes.
Speaker 2: More more apparent.
Speaker 6: But yeah, that was the part that was really interesting
Speaker 6: and fun to me. It's like, oh, okay, well, let
Speaker 6: me figure out how to turn this answer into a column.
Speaker 2: I think it's time for real credits.
Speaker 3: Katie Ease, who what would you like to give credit to.
Speaker 2: This week, I would like to give credit to rest.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something I always want to give
Speaker 1: credit to. But I realized the important stuff slowing down,
Speaker 1: of taking my time to do things and when I
Speaker 1: really need rest and to honor listening to my body
Speaker 1: in my mind when it tells me that I need rest.
Speaker 2: Shout out, shout out to sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how about you, damon? Who are what would you
Speaker 3: like to give credit to?
Speaker 6: All?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 6: So I have an iPhone and if you have any
Speaker 6: Apple products, particularly an iPhone, you know that after you've
Speaker 6: had it for two years, they just start self destructing.
Speaker 6: And so my phone started doing that where it would
Speaker 6: only charge one charger and it was an iPad charger,
Speaker 6: and I also had to like make sure it was
Speaker 6: leaning like up against like a wall and like had
Speaker 6: a weight on it and all this shit so it
Speaker 6: would charge. And so I go to the T Mobile store.
Speaker 6: There's a black woman working there, so I tell her
Speaker 6: to issue with my phone, and she's like, okay, let
Speaker 6: me try something.
Speaker 2: So she takes a paper clip.
Speaker 6: Sends it out and then this starts going inside, like
Speaker 6: the part where the charger goes in right, and it's
Speaker 6: just like doing stuff in there just moving like this
Speaker 6: paper clip around and she pulls out so much dust
Speaker 6: and lent. I felt like she pulled out a whole
Speaker 6: entire cheeto at some point. Right then she put the
Speaker 6: phone on a charger. Boom, and so my phone has
Speaker 6: been working perfectly since then.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Shout out to her.
Speaker 6: Shout out to her.
Speaker 2: What about your credit, Katie?
Speaker 3: I would like to give credit to Aaron Ross Coleman.
Speaker 3: He gives the best advice. I'm always going to him
Speaker 3: for advice, and yeah, I feel like he's a very
Speaker 3: calm person and I'm not so I need a calm
Speaker 3: person to like, you know, like let's think about this
Speaker 3: like a different perspective, and he's always gives me like
Speaker 3: a different perspective that's mostly always.
Speaker 2: Better than mine. Love it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming on on theme.
Speaker 2: Damon, Oh, thank you, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 6: This has been a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: How can the folks keep up with you? They can't?
Speaker 6: Man, can nobody catch me? I'm like, motherfucking leo and
Speaker 6: catch me if you can catch me, if you motherfuckers
Speaker 6: can now, I mean catch me if you got the
Speaker 6: art one. I g damon, young BSB. I'm also a
Speaker 6: writer in a residence at the University of Pittsburgh this year,
Speaker 6: so I'm on campus a couple of days a week.
Speaker 3: Catch him if you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 6: All right, all right, y'all, Thanks thanks for having me, Thanks.
Speaker 3: Again to Damon Young for joining us.
Speaker 2: And we'll see y'all again next week.
Speaker 1: Bye on Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather
Speaker 1: Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and
Speaker 1: Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
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