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1:05

Hello and welcome back to Big Mood, Little Mood.

1:07

I'm your host, Danny M. Lavery, and

1:09

with me in the studio this

1:11

week is Max Reed, a journalist

1:13

and screenwriter based in New York.

1:15

His newsletter guide to the future,

1:17

Read Max, can be found at

1:19

http://maxreed.substack.com. It's

1:24

been a while since I tried to read

1:26

out in HTTP and I regret it. You

1:29

should have said hypertext transfer protocol. That would have

1:32

been a really futuristic way to say it. There's

1:34

so many things that I wish that I had

1:36

said, but I didn't and we're here now in

1:38

the present together instead of the future and what's

1:40

done is done. But I'm

1:43

so pleased that you're here. It's so

1:45

wonderful to be, you know, spiritually, if

1:47

not physically, together. And I'm really interested

1:50

to hear some of your thoughts because

1:52

as I read some of our letters today, I became

1:55

convinced somehow that there was like

1:57

an MLM underlying it, but I don't

1:59

really know. that I have a good reason for thinking that.

2:01

Yeah, yeah, I had the same thought that you did. It

2:04

also did feel like the first one feels a little

2:06

bit like the big ending of a sort of like

2:09

mid-budget script, like

2:12

a YA script that you would like, you can

2:14

imagine someone sort of making a Pixar face and

2:16

like saying these first lines in voiceover. I

2:18

mean, the actual, the literally the first line of the

2:20

letter is like the first line of a young adult

2:23

novel or something. Like it's a very like an AI

2:25

generated young adult novel,

2:27

basically. Which I feel bad saying

2:29

because this letter is about someone's serious

2:31

struggles with self-confidence. And we're already like

2:33

tearing the letter apart. Let's put it

2:36

this way that the reason this is

2:38

always the start of an AI novel

2:40

or Pixar novel, it's a really universal

2:42

set of feelings, especially in like, you

2:44

know, young adulthood, adolescents, like that age,

2:47

that age bracket. That's true. I'm

2:49

glad you said that because I really wanted to stress,

2:51

I was not saying like, and you can't even write

2:54

a compelling letter to an advice columnist. I was not

2:56

trying to be like too hard. Yes,

2:59

I think like you, I had a sense that, I

3:01

think this letter writer's maybe in college, but it

3:04

is difficult because when all you have is

3:06

a sense of like grandiose self-pity, it

3:09

can feel a little demoralizing for someone to say,

3:11

and you don't even have that. So

3:14

I do wanna walk the line, but maybe instead

3:16

of like preempting this letter with a lot of

3:18

hedge to bet, I should just read it and

3:20

then we can get into advising this person. Please.

3:23

So the subject line, which I did not choose, is

3:25

loser. Again, that is not me saying

3:27

that. I'm not good at anything.

3:30

I'm pathetic at sports, average in

3:32

studies, an awkward dancer and public speaker,

3:34

and there's just nothing that is good

3:36

about me, nothing special. I'm

3:39

doing an internship at an organization that hosts

3:41

events, and we were told to bring in people

3:43

who will participate in it. We've been

3:45

doing this for two months, and nobody has registered

3:47

from my side. I'm working very hard

3:50

and giving it my best, but everyone I ask is

3:52

either busy on those dates or not interested. Everyone

3:54

I call rejects me and I'm tired of it. I'm

3:57

one of the senior interns, but I just don't seem to be

3:59

able to... produce any results. All

4:01

the others are bringing in participants except me. In

4:04

every meeting I have the same update to give the

4:06

leaders about my work. No registrations yet.

4:09

I'm thinking of quitting the internship but I cannot

4:11

because the internship is just two weeks away and

4:13

it will look very bad on my part. What

4:16

should I do? What should

4:18

they do? Besides watch Glenn Gary

4:20

Glenn Ross. I mean

4:23

I think the first thing to do here

4:25

would be to Google the name of the

4:27

company and MLM and just see what kind

4:29

of results come up. It's not

4:31

entirely clear from the letter exactly what the

4:34

job entails but anything where you're

4:36

supposed to bring people in to

4:38

participate is very possibly a multi-level

4:41

marketing scheme. If it is and

4:44

like I guarantee you if this is a suspected

4:46

or actual MLM that there will be about you

4:48

know 50 threads on Reddit from people who are

4:50

asking hey I just I'm my friend is it

4:52

trying to get me to you know buy this

4:54

juice is this an MLM you do

4:56

a little bit of research and you find that this

4:59

is probably an MLM I suggest you just walk away

5:01

as quickly as possible. The letter writer doesn't mention whether

5:03

this is for school credit but it sounds

5:05

like the only reason they feel that they can't

5:07

quit is because the event is two weeks away

5:09

and it will look bad but I guess

5:12

my question is to whom will it look bad?

5:14

Yeah I mean I think that

5:16

one of the things about this letter and and this

5:18

relates to what we were talking about before about the

5:20

sort of the universal like a the sense of being

5:22

kind of worthless in your

5:24

early 20s let's guess as the as

5:27

the age of the letter writer is

5:29

not entirely universal but it's certainly it's

5:31

not an uncommon feeling and I think something

5:33

that accompanies that sense of worthlessness is often

5:35

a sense that like a kind

5:38

of paradoxical sense that you are also the total

5:40

protagonist of reality and

5:43

that everybody's eyes are on you

5:45

and that everybody is thinking about you and how

5:47

you're failing and how you're a fuckup and how

5:49

nothing is going right for you and

5:51

in fact and now that I'm in

5:53

my late 30s and have been in

5:55

management positions and and and worked with

5:57

people of all ages and all levels

5:59

of fucked upness, I can sort

6:02

of say with some experience that like, very

6:04

often, nobody has noticed that you have not signed anybody up.

6:07

And even if they haven't noticed that you haven't signed anybody

6:09

up, they don't really care. And, you

6:11

know, not to exacerbate any feelings of worthlessness, but

6:13

like, it's very possible you could walk away and

6:15

nobody, nobody would care, nobody would notice, nobody would

6:17

think worse of you, nobody would even think

6:20

to, you know, mark you poorly

6:22

on whatever evaluations are coming up.

6:25

And I hope I'm saying that in like a

6:27

freeing way instead of a more punishing way. Because

6:29

I recognize that that like, it just feeds into

6:31

that other sense. But I think that, you know,

6:33

the thing to take away here is it's sort

6:35

of like, don't allow yourself to

6:37

get trapped by the sense that there's some

6:39

kind of expectation or sense of pressure that

6:42

you also have to meet in addition to

6:44

the actual goal that you're supposed to be

6:46

getting for this organization. Yeah, I

6:48

think my main sense, I don't want to get

6:50

too stuck on the internship, because I realize there's

6:52

other issues at play here. But my

6:54

sense letter writer is like, either this organization

6:56

is more relaxed than you are about

6:59

this particular event, or they're

7:01

really bad at having interns. Because

7:03

like, if they've got an intern who just week

7:05

after week is like no luck, and they're not

7:08

trying to help you, that's not like, there's

7:10

not a good company that puts a ton

7:12

of pressure on interns, and just expects them

7:14

to be good right out of the gate.

7:16

Like the reason companies have interns aside from

7:18

being able to underpay people is so

7:21

that they can like learn on the job, like

7:23

it is expected that you won't know yet what

7:25

you're doing. So even being a senior intern, I

7:27

hope you don't feel like all

7:29

the pressure, all the spotlights on you, like they

7:32

should be helping you do the best job that

7:34

you possibly can. The only organization I

7:36

could think of that maybe isn't an MLM that

7:38

this is was like, you know, events and

7:40

adventures, they always have like a really chipper

7:42

lady announcing on the radio, like,

7:45

are you sick of swiping through

7:47

mystery profiles, events and adventures takes

7:49

cool, interesting singles on events like

7:51

Taco Tuesdays. You know what

7:53

I mean? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I

7:56

the other thing I thought of was

7:58

a tech ish conference called web. summit

8:00

that happens twice a year that is

8:02

huge. And they just seem to invite

8:05

anybody who writes about tech or the

8:07

web, anybody who is works

8:09

with or is involved in tech.

8:12

And I've been asked to sort of participate in

8:14

one way or another, you know, not as a registrant, it's

8:16

like a panelist or something. And I think there's a couple,

8:19

there's only a couple businesses where it's sort of like, the

8:21

whole idea is just to cast

8:23

the widest possible net for possible

8:25

panelists or speakers at a big

8:27

three day conference. And without

8:30

wanting to like get too specific about what

8:32

whatever is going on with with the letter

8:35

writer here, like, it's also possible that that

8:37

there that this organization is just using interns

8:39

specifically to send out 100 emails or whatever

8:41

with the knowledge that 99 of those emails

8:43

won't get returned. And that's the reason they're

8:45

having the interns do it. So I think

8:47

it's just another more specific

8:49

way of saying exactly what you're saying, Tanya, which

8:51

is this there's a kind of it's

8:53

not simply that they're bad at having interns

8:55

as possible, or it is a way of

8:57

being bad at having interns, which is to

8:59

say, kind of using the interns for total

9:02

grunt work, no feedback, just like pure kind

9:04

of throw it at the wall and see

9:06

what sticks labor that, unfortunately,

9:08

the interns who are all real live human

9:10

beings who have feelings are going, well, oh

9:12

my god, I'm failing, I'm doing whatever. And

9:14

the bosses have not communicated like the

9:16

failure rate of this task is enormously high, we

9:18

don't expect very much out of this, we just

9:20

want you to try. And especially

9:23

I would say if like, if you're going

9:25

to these meetings week after week, and saying

9:27

you've got nothing, and you're not getting any

9:29

particular kind of feedback or disciplinary action, or

9:31

however jobs tend to deal with this kind

9:33

of situation, then it suggests to me that

9:35

there's like, you can read between the lines

9:37

to understand that you're not necessarily doing any

9:39

worse than is expected of you. And you

9:42

shouldn't think of it as reflecting on your,

9:44

you know, on your quality to the human

9:46

being, let alone, you shouldn't think

9:48

of it as reflecting on your qualities as a worker, let alone

9:50

on your qualities as a human being. Yeah, yeah,

9:53

it sounds like if they're not making you do

9:55

cold calling, that they're having you

9:57

like canvas your own acquaintance to come

9:59

to some unspecified event that

10:01

requires participation, which I just got to

10:03

say, letter writer, I think almost anybody's going

10:05

to have a really low success rate. I

10:08

don't obviously like I'm not up to date

10:10

on all the statistics, but cold calling has

10:12

a very, very, very low success rate. And

10:14

so does asking your friends to come to

10:16

a work event that you have to get

10:18

people to show up for, which implies it's

10:20

not like a cool free party. Yeah.

10:23

So I just don't want you to internalize

10:25

the difficulty there. And if anything, Max, did you

10:27

watch the HBO telemarketers documentary? No,

10:29

but I've heard great things about it.

10:31

I love that letter

10:33

writer. I would encourage you to watch that if you

10:35

get a chance, just because it's like this really remarkable

10:39

experience of just a bunch of like guys

10:42

who got hired by an incredibly scammy organization,

10:44

fresh out of high school. And over the

10:46

course of like a decade, slowly realized that

10:48

they were participating in this huge scam. And

10:50

just because everyone at the company was pretty

10:53

open about it, they just started filming and

10:55

asking questions and were able to get like,

10:58

really far and figuring out like who

11:01

started it and how they were taking advantage

11:03

of people. And that's not to say that that's going

11:05

to happen to you, but just, it's like a lovely

11:07

example of like what people who are doing their

11:09

best to get out of a really difficult situation

11:11

can accomplish. And it does not require

11:13

like starting from a position of like, great

11:16

power. So I would recommend

11:18

that. But yeah, beyond that, yeah,

11:20

the sort of like thing here about like, I'm

11:22

not good at sports. I'm average at studies. I'm

11:24

an awkward dancer and public speaker. Those to me

11:26

feel like things that can feel really important when

11:28

you're in school. And that

11:31

are just not especially important later in life,

11:33

unless you become a professional dancer or like

11:35

have friends who love to go dancing every

11:37

weekend. Like, I just don't really go

11:39

dancing. There's lots of adults who just never really

11:41

go dancing. That's not it doesn't have to be a

11:43

big part of your life if you don't want it to be. And same

11:47

with sports, like, obviously, sports can be

11:49

interesting and exciting and fun for people who enjoy them. But

11:51

if you're just bad at it, and you don't like it,

11:53

just don't do it. I don't

11:56

want to like dismiss those things, but I just really want

11:59

to stress like most people's lives don't call for

12:01

a lot of public speaking. Outside

12:03

of like high school, you've got to take this

12:06

debate class to pass. You might

12:08

never be called upon to speak publicly ever again. Yeah,

12:11

I mean, I would say, I mean, speaking

12:13

personally, I am personally pathetic at

12:15

sports, average in studies, an awkward dancer

12:17

and an awkward public speaker. And it

12:19

has not prevented me from having several

12:21

jobs and also getting fired from several

12:23

jobs. And also just generally having had

12:25

a life that is filled with both

12:28

bliss and regret and all the things that

12:30

life is usually filled with. There's

12:34

a kind of a sense

12:37

early, I suppose when you're maybe a little

12:39

younger and when you're early and when you're

12:41

assessing yourself in terms of like

12:44

the institutions that you've been passing through, including

12:46

as an intern, as a student, as

12:48

all these things to think about the

12:51

sort of categories of achievement like sports,

12:53

studies, public speaking, dancing, all these things.

12:56

And something that happens as you leave

12:59

these big institutions that structure all of your

13:01

activities in all your life is you start

13:03

to see how sort of formless

13:05

and strange the rest of the world is

13:07

and how many different things you can be

13:10

good and bad at and how little those

13:12

categories can have to do with your sense

13:14

of self worth, with your ability to build

13:16

relationships, with your ability to have a career

13:18

or whatever. I had

13:20

in high school, I had some close friends who

13:22

did a telemarketing job. And I remember this really

13:25

clearly because it was two

13:27

guys who I always thought of as really similar. And

13:29

one of them was just like an absolute natural, like

13:31

could not, like, you know, he was like Alec Baldwin

13:33

and Glenn Garing-Ross. These are kind of burnout dudes that

13:35

I hung out with. And then you put a phone

13:38

on him, you told me he had to sell some

13:40

vinyl siding to some random people in New Jersey. And

13:42

he could, you know, he'd end the day with a

13:44

commission of a thousand dollars or whatever. I mean, that's

13:46

not a real figure, but he was doing great. The

13:48

other one couldn't do any of that. And

13:51

it had, not only did that very

13:54

clearly to me but it also did not reflect at

13:56

all on their characters as people in part because they

13:58

were so similar outside of the conversation. in the context

14:00

of this telemarketing scam that they were working for. But

14:02

it also has had literally no bearing on the rest

14:05

of their lives. One of them is a film director,

14:07

the one who's bad at telemarketing is a film director,

14:09

and the one who's good at telemarketing is a neuroscientist

14:11

now, which is like just complete, had

14:13

to complete skills that have nothing to do with

14:15

anything that they're doing. So like

14:17

it's very hard when you're in the middle

14:19

of this kind of feeling, and when you're

14:22

confronting like a weekly deadline that you're not

14:24

meeting, especially if you're the kind of person

14:26

who's really eager to like hit numbers and

14:28

meet those deadlines to step outside of it

14:30

and recognize that there is a whole, like

14:32

this is not the beginning or end of a life

14:34

or a career or any of these things, but

14:37

reminding yourself as much as you can

14:39

that this is like internalizing that this

14:42

is not that meeting or

14:44

failing this particular deadline week in,

14:46

week out for this event is

14:48

not the end of everything. I would say one other thing,

14:51

if Danny is right that this is about like

14:53

trying to get your friends to come to an

14:55

event and you're failing at that, I

14:57

think you could be very happy you have friends who

14:59

have are able to set clear boundaries and who are

15:01

able to say to you, this is not something I'm

15:04

interested in because that's like a real solid friendship and

15:06

you will be very happy to have friends like that

15:08

in your future, assuming that's the case, which maybe it's

15:10

not. Right. Yeah, so

15:12

I think in terms of the internship, my real advice

15:14

is just, I want you to take this less seriously

15:18

and then add it to the rest of it, some

15:20

sort of combination of reminding yourself that those particular

15:22

qualities are not the end all be all of

15:24

your worth as a person. And

15:27

then also, I want you to be able

15:29

to find places where you can talk

15:31

about that, but I also want you to be

15:34

careful of that way of thinking. It's tricky because

15:36

both like, if you're feeling incredibly down on yourself

15:38

and isolated, you want and deserve

15:40

support. And it's also true that

15:42

if you want to become close with other people,

15:44

if you want to be friendly and

15:47

be invited to things, it really helps

15:49

to at least act as if

15:51

you value yourself a little bit, because

15:53

if you lead with, when you're meeting people, I

15:55

don't think much of myself. I don't think I'm

15:57

very good at anything. Other people.

15:59

I think understandably feel

16:02

like, okay, you know, if you don't

16:04

think you have much to offer, I'm not

16:07

going to try to dissuade you. And so I

16:09

don't say that to say like put on a mask, always

16:11

pretend to be wonderful. But I would say

16:13

that find places that you

16:15

can talk about this that are appropriate, like

16:17

with long standing friends, relatives

16:20

that you might trust, potentially a therapist,

16:23

and be judicious. Do it some of the time,

16:25

but not all of the time. Don't lead with

16:27

that when you're meeting people, just

16:29

because I don't want you to potentially

16:31

like scare somebody off who might otherwise be interested in

16:33

getting to know you a little bit better. And I

16:35

don't want to sound too much like

16:38

I'm trying to advise you to like navigate like

16:40

a court full of intrigue and deception of like,

16:42

you must pretend never to fear the king, lest

16:45

like you look weak in front of your many

16:47

enemies will poison you. But I do

16:50

want to just point out that there

16:52

are ways in which that sort of like self talk

16:54

can just become a really self fulfilling prophecy. And if

16:56

other people think that you hate yourself that much, I

16:59

wish that meant that other people would think, Oh,

17:01

my gosh, this person really needs a lot of help. Let's

17:03

all gather around them. But it does often put people off

17:05

and I don't want to be too Pollyanna

17:07

ish here. Does that feel like the right

17:09

note? Max, I don't want to be like,

17:12

you'll be alone forever if you ever acknowledge

17:14

vulnerability versus like, yeah, I think it's good.

17:16

I mean, I can add, can I add

17:18

like a little bit of a projection, a

17:20

bit of projection advice? I mean, speaking as

17:23

somebody who was pathetic at sports, average studies,

17:25

etc, is self improvement is real

17:27

and possible and like not not in the sense

17:29

of like, you must like

17:31

go and do, you know, bed press

17:33

in the gym and squat in

17:35

the gym until you're incredibly strong or whatever.

17:37

But something I wish that I had thought

17:39

about more and known more when I was

17:41

younger is the extent to which like, it's

17:43

totally cool and fine to go take a

17:46

dancing class, or to go take a

17:48

public speaking class or an improv class that will help

17:50

you feel confident in these ways. And these

17:52

are not necessarily skills that come naturally in some

17:54

cases to some people, but everybody who is good

17:57

at them has worked on them at some point

17:59

in their life. their lives and you're allowed

18:01

to work on them and you're allowed to

18:03

go from being really bad

18:05

to just kind of bad. And

18:08

that's still an improvement that's worth sort of

18:10

thinking about and doing. And that, you know,

18:12

like if you have like me personally, like

18:14

a fear of embarrassing yourself by demonstrating how

18:16

bad you are at something like that, you

18:19

will regret later in life having held back

18:21

from doing things that you might've liked and

18:23

that you might've been able to improve yourself

18:25

at by, you know, just by putting the

18:27

work in. And this is like totally tangential

18:29

to the actual, you know, substance of the

18:32

question. But you know, this is, this is

18:34

like something I think about all the time. I have a kid and

18:36

I think about all the time, like something I don't want

18:38

to pass on to him is that

18:40

sense that if you're not immediately good

18:42

at something, you shouldn't try

18:44

and you shouldn't take risks and you shouldn't be willing

18:46

to like embarrass yourself to improve at things. And

18:49

when you mentioned specific things like sports

18:51

and public speaking and dancing, like these

18:54

are skills that really genuinely you can put time and effort

18:56

into and you can learn a lot about yourself and you

18:58

can make new friends and you can do all these things

19:00

that can provide you with, I

19:03

mean, if it's not like the skill you're seeking, at

19:05

least more self knowledge about why you want to do

19:07

it, what makes you bad at it, whatever else, you

19:10

know, if you have the time after the internship is over.

19:13

Yeah. And I think, you know, just

19:15

to that end, there's sometimes ways in which

19:18

this kind of thinking can

19:20

be sort of like paradoxically self serving.

19:23

Like I don't know that when

19:25

you meet other people, if they're not good at

19:27

sports and they're an average student and they're not

19:29

a great dancer that you think like, what a

19:31

piece of shit, they're nothing special. And

19:34

so I think again, letter writer, I really want to go

19:36

easy on you because it's clearly going through a lot, but

19:38

like just sometimes it can be

19:41

helpful to test these ideas. Like, do I really

19:43

believe that if someone is like not especially talented,

19:45

that they're like garbage and worthless

19:48

or is this like a sort of way

19:50

of having unreasonable standards for me? That's

19:52

like, Oh, I should be the king of everything.

19:54

And if I'm not immediately great at something,

19:56

it means I'm nothing. Like I can only

19:58

ever either be. Special worthy of

20:01

other people's times doing great or the piece of

20:03

shit at the center of the universe is the

20:05

saying goes And so I would

20:07

just encourage you like if you

20:09

find yourself going from I'm not very

20:11

good at softball To and I

20:14

am the worst at everything and mean nothing to

20:16

maybe just interrupt them Like if this is sound realistic

20:18

would I say this about somebody else? And

20:21

I may be laying it on a little bit too thick here

20:23

And it can sometimes be nice to be a little bit like

20:25

to gently laugh at the part of your brain that

20:27

is tempted to Catastrophize anything that you feel bad about

20:30

which is not the same thing as saying like wow

20:32

I suck for feeling bad about myself I

20:35

don't want to send you down that road But I think to just you

20:37

find yourself going from like I

20:39

can't really play cricket which is fine To

20:42

there's nothing worthwhile about me. I

20:44

think that's That's a flag

20:46

that's worth interrupting Yeah, I

20:49

agree and one one of the things I say is

20:51

just to the tell of the point about the telemarketers

20:53

documentary is Take notes because about what

20:55

you're doing where it is because I'm sure it's

20:57

an interesting job And I'm sure there will be

20:59

material for something later in your life Whether it's

21:01

just anecdotes for a wedding speech or something, but

21:03

you become a writer or a filmmaker or whatever

21:05

I'm sure there's some good just some good color

21:07

in there You

21:20

Hey, this is Mary Harris host of

21:22

slate's daily news podcast what next Slate's

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mission has always been to cut through the

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noise Boldly and provocatively

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sign up now at slate.com/podcast plus.

22:23

And before we get into our last question, I

22:25

do wanna ask no pressure, but

22:27

if you were to recommend three

22:30

or four submarine movies for

22:32

somebody who's maybe interested in getting into the

22:35

genre, what

22:37

would you want people to consider? Well,

22:40

the one, I mean, the one

22:42

that everybody should watch, the classic,

22:44

end of history, late 80s, early

22:47

90s, height of

22:49

Hollywood, popular entertainment filmmaking

22:51

is Hunt for Red October, which

22:54

has Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan

22:57

and Sean Connery as a Russian

22:59

sub commander who is attempting to

23:01

defect. And the movie is like

23:03

a really funny, it's sort

23:05

of the plot is funny because it's not

23:07

an action movie. There's very little action on it. A gun

23:09

gets fired once. And it's

23:11

mostly about Alec Baldwin trying to

23:14

like communicate to his superiors that

23:16

they shouldn't destroy this sub, that

23:18

it's actually a general

23:20

trying to defect, a commander trying to defect

23:23

rather than like an attack on the US

23:25

or whatever. And yet it's

23:27

like, it's incredibly compelling. Like the crisp filmmaking

23:29

just moves as like a piece of entertainment.

23:31

It just moves. If you've been, you know,

23:33

spent all your time watching Marvel movies for

23:36

the last 15 years, like a

23:38

lot of us have had to do, like

23:40

to watch something that like comes in at

23:42

two hours and you are engaged at every

23:44

single moment. It looks fantastic. Everybody's

23:46

acting their butt off in service

23:48

of this like ultimately quite silly

23:50

sort of action faux

23:53

political plot. It's

23:55

like, there's like a

23:58

joke on Twitter. They sort of trad Twitter. accounts

24:00

who are like, you know, my father-in-law is a builder

24:02

and we saw a cathedral and I asked

24:04

him how long it took to build. And my father-in-law

24:06

said, we don't know, we don't know

24:08

how they built it. And that's how I feel about

24:11

Hunt for Red October. I feel like it's got like

24:13

cultural knowledge that we've completely lost. Nobody knows how to

24:15

make a Hunt for Red October again, but that's the

24:17

one. It is, it is. I didn't see it until

24:19

like maybe six or seven years ago. And I was

24:22

just like, this is every bit

24:24

as good as everybody said it was going to be up

24:26

to it, including like who decides to try

24:29

to do the Russian accents and who doesn't.

24:31

Yes, it's beautiful. It's because it's, I mean, I don't

24:33

want to spoil it because it's bright in the beginning

24:36

of the movie, but Sean Connery does a Russian accent

24:38

for about 10 minutes and it, I

24:40

don't think they filmed it in sequence, but it almost

24:42

feels like they did and Sean Connery did a day

24:44

of Russian. He was like, you know what, guys, I'm

24:46

not, I'm not going to bother. We're sticking with Scottish

24:49

on this one. We're not going anywhere any further. It

24:51

feels like, I don't know, I think we had it in some ways

24:53

slightly different childhoods, but it

24:56

feels like if you're ever as a young

24:58

kid, you decide to like fake an ailment for attention and then

25:00

you get tired of it. It's like faking. You

25:02

lost your voice because someone recently actually lost their

25:04

voice and you thought that was kind of interesting

25:06

and realizing pretty early on that it sucks in

25:08

your board, but finding a

25:10

way to like slowly bring your voice back throughout

25:13

the day so that nobody says, you couldn't talk

25:15

five minutes ago as if that's going

25:17

to make a difference and bringing it back in around

25:19

10 30. No one's going to notice.

25:22

I recently watched a movie called Out of the

25:24

Furnace that came out about 10 years ago with

25:26

Christian Bale, where he plays like a steel worker

25:28

in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. And it's very similar.

25:31

Like the first 10 minutes, he has a very

25:33

good, I have relatives from Pittsburgh and so I

25:35

like, I can spot a Pittsburgh or like

25:37

a Western Pennsylvania accent. He has a very

25:40

good Western Pennsylvania accent. He hits those and

25:42

then it disappears and you're like, how long

25:44

did you spend Christian? Did you spend perfecting

25:46

that accent only to like give it up

25:48

like after two scenes or whatever? It was

25:50

very disappointed because a little like mayor

25:52

of Easttown. I don't know if you watched

25:55

that where like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, those

25:57

O's were remarkable. Kate Winslet doing a Philly,

25:59

a Philly-ish accent. to me is like,

26:01

I can't even describe the level of

26:04

nostalgia. I grew up in New Jersey, so that's

26:06

an accent that I like. People's

26:09

moms had that accent. I was like, wow, I

26:11

was moved to tears, not by anything that happened in

26:13

the movie, just literally by the accent. And I was

26:15

hoping for more from Christian Bale on this one,

26:18

but sadly he gives up the Yinsler accent after

26:20

about 20 minutes. Okay, that's an

26:22

excellent recommendation. I'll throw a few more

26:24

in. I have a real

26:26

fondness for submarine movies, although I can't quite,

26:30

I think it's true that there's never been a bad

26:32

movie set exclusively on a train. I

26:34

don't think the same can quite be said for

26:37

submarines, but I want it to be true and

26:39

it should be true. So I'll say this, even

26:41

bad submarine movies are great. Yeah, it's a strong

26:43

way to say it. And it's just like,

26:45

one of the things that's great about submarines

26:48

is it just, everything gets reduced to such

26:50

intensities and it's just like, outside's bad, inside's

26:52

good. That's it. And

26:54

then you always get the pain going,

26:56

which is just like this beautiful disembodied

26:58

heartbeat of like fear and terror. It's

27:00

just, it's hard to miss. And

27:02

I am including, by the way, like

27:05

Hell Below, which is a submarine

27:07

movie with Jimmy Durante in it.

27:10

Which is, if you're thinking, that can't be

27:12

good, you're right, it's not good. It's based

27:14

on a book called Pig Boats. But

27:17

you gotta watch it, it's got Walter Hewson in it.

27:19

It's fantastic, it's 1933, it's

27:21

a pre-code movie about

27:23

submarines in the Adriatic. I

27:26

do have to see this one. And then an

27:28

actually better one is one from 58 called

27:32

Run Silent, Run Deep. Yeah, Run Silent,

27:34

Run Deep is a, these are so

27:36

good, I love that movie. Good, okay.

27:38

That's such a great movie. I mean,

27:40

it's like a, it's a constant genre.

27:42

There's every decade has a set of

27:44

submarine movies. Because like you say, it's

27:46

like, has a dramatic container. Like, it's

27:48

so perfect. And who doesn't love a

27:50

bunch of equipment? Just like a bunch

27:52

of tech equipment in a set. Like,

27:54

everything's lit in reds and blues. And

27:57

like, it just, you know, it's so,

27:59

I'm sure. There's like screenwriters

28:01

having fun, actors are having fun, set designers

28:03

having fun, cinematographers having fun. You get to

28:05

save money. Yeah, exactly. You know

28:08

what I sort of, I think it's supposed to

28:10

be very bad, but I really want to see

28:12

is um, I don't know if you remember The

28:14

Meg, the movie about the Megalodon shark. I do.

28:17

I was disappointed because I actually, I read and loved the books. But

28:20

I thought that the movie adaptation like totally lost the

28:22

sense of fun. Well, so the new

28:25

Meg movie called Meg to the trench is

28:27

directed by this guy, Ben Wheatley, who is

28:29

like a kind of an art house English

28:31

director. And I don't quite know how he

28:33

ended up directing Meg to, but my understanding

28:35

is that the guy who did sight

28:37

seers, is he? Yes, the guy who

28:40

did sight seers and oh no, yeah,

28:42

sight seers, chill list, um, high rise,

28:44

a free fire field in England. A

28:46

lot of like very weird, murdery English.

28:48

That's terrific. Well, I understand the

28:51

earth. I liked it. And my

28:53

understanding is that it's not very good Meg to, but

28:55

that it as like a document of

28:57

like a talented director trying to make

28:59

a movie about a giant shark with

29:02

Jason Statham that's funded almost entirely by

29:04

Chinese film companies is like, just, you

29:06

kind of have to see it to

29:08

understand movie making in 2023. They're

29:11

like, the whole movie is about how,

29:13

uh, Western mining interests are like interrupting

29:16

the sovereignty of like the South China

29:18

sea basically. And I just love imagining

29:20

like Ben Wheatley, this big bearded English

29:22

guy who makes these like folk horror,

29:24

these like strange, terrible folk horror movies,

29:26

having to like direct Jason Statham and,

29:29

and like a bunch of like wu jing

29:31

and a bunch of like top Chinese actors

29:33

around a big, weird submarine set. Um,

29:36

this is going to fund some amazing movies

29:38

on Ben Wheatley's part. So I'm very excited

29:40

about that. And I absolutely have to see

29:42

this now. Uh, wow. Oh

29:45

yeah. And they brought back Paige Kennedy from the

29:47

Meg one. So they're really staying

29:49

true to this series. For fans of

29:51

the Meg one. Yeah, you will not

29:53

be disappointed. Okay,

30:00

well I really now just want to talk about

30:02

like Ben Wheatley and submarines for the rest of

30:04

the episode, but we can't So

30:07

I will read our last letter and then we

30:09

will call it a day But our

30:11

last letter is a sort of like classic so these are

30:13

from the dear Prudence mailbag We ran out of

30:16

questions last week And Janay very

30:18

kindly sent some over and this is like a

30:20

classic question that I used to get when I was doing

30:22

dear Prudence and I get a lot less for this

30:24

show the sort of like a Person

30:27

who's a landlord but kind of doesn't want

30:29

to be and I don't mean that like in a really

30:31

dismissive way Like somebody who has

30:33

like one kind of shitty house from

30:36

like a family member who died and it's

30:39

like I'm not making money off of it.

30:41

I'm kind of helping a relative I'm kind of annoying

30:44

a relative and she's kind of annoying me and I

30:46

don't like it and it just feels like If

30:49

nothing else these letters teach us that normal

30:52

nice people hate being landlords. It's not good

30:55

There's a reason you're not having a good time. And

30:58

so I want them to pay attention to that and get out

31:01

So that being said the subject is not a monster

31:04

always a great place to start Five

31:07

years ago. I inherited a very old house from

31:09

a relative at the same time My aunt

31:11

from the other side of my family was facing eviction

31:13

again. She was there for me when my mother

31:15

died I let her rent the place

31:17

just paying enough to cover the bills and taxes

31:20

in five years She's been late and or short

31:22

on her rent payments every single month And

31:25

it's because her kids and grandkids are money-grubbing

31:27

moochers She can't pay the

31:29

water bill because she's paying her son's water bill She

31:32

can't pay rent because she's paying her daughter's rent The

31:34

grandbabies need the big birthday bashes their

31:37

parents can't afford One of their

31:39

damn dogs got out again got hit by a car

31:41

and they can't afford the vet bill Her

31:43

eldest son is getting his expensive truck repossessed

31:45

again. It will lose his job I've

31:48

been in the red with her so long. I can't even calculate

31:50

how much money she owes me The house

31:52

needs major repairs that I don't want to deal with

31:55

at this point. The land is worth more than the

31:57

houses I also plan to move away. I'm tired of

31:59

the guilt the conflict and dealing with

32:01

everyone. I told my aunt that I

32:03

plan to sell the property and that she had six months to

32:05

figure out a new living situation. She started to

32:07

cry and said I couldn't take her home away from her. I

32:10

told her the house needed too much work and I was tired

32:12

of her taking my money and spending it on the cousins. Of

32:15

course, everyone in my family thinks of me as

32:17

a monster. I've already blocked my aunt's kids, but I

32:19

don't want to burn every single bridge I had. I've

32:22

already had it out with one uncle and told him to

32:24

take his sister in if he was

32:26

so concerned. And that's just where the letter ends. There's

32:28

not a question. I think maybe

32:31

in some ways the letter writer is

32:33

clearly already doing what they plan on

32:35

doing and just needed to tell someone,

32:37

I'm fucking sick of these people. Can I just

32:39

explain all the shit they've done that annoys me? Okay,

32:41

bye. Which

32:43

is fine. You're really annoyed with your

32:46

relatives. It sounds

32:48

frustrating and you're going to move

32:50

away. I think that's probably a good idea

32:52

to move away. Yeah, I think

32:54

you put it perfectly when you said before the letter,

32:57

this is a person who is

32:59

placed in a position that they feel is impossible

33:03

because they've inherited this property and

33:05

are trying to be a good person about it.

33:08

Not, but part of the

33:10

impossibility is the sense that they need

33:12

to take the money from

33:14

selling the home. And it's really

33:16

hard. I have just as much

33:18

of a sense of how transformative

33:22

property values can be as anybody else.

33:24

But part of the trap here is the

33:26

idea that getting as

33:28

much money out of the sale of this

33:30

house as possible, recouping your value from this

33:33

thing you've inherited is as important and imperative

33:35

as everything else. I don't

33:37

actually even know that I feel comfortable. Do I have

33:40

this courage or my convictions to tell this person the

33:42

thing you should be doing is just selling

33:44

this to your aunt for a nominal amount

33:46

of money? Because if this was a friend

33:48

telling me this at a bar, I would

33:51

take my friend's side, even if I think

33:53

that the morally

33:55

correct thing I suppose would be to

33:57

just divest yourself of the property. the

34:00

first letter you congratulated the letter writer on having

34:02

friends who had boundaries and would say no. I'm

34:04

a people leader, Danny. I'm sorry. This is why

34:06

I give advice. This is why the only format

34:08

in which I can give advice is on a

34:11

podcast where I don't ever have to actually see

34:13

the person who I'm giving advice to. You wouldn't

34:15

last five minutes in a submarine. No,

34:18

absolutely not. I'd be sucking up to everybody. To be

34:20

clear, I would not even get in when I would

34:22

be so afraid and also both sick. I'm looking for

34:24

clarity and guidance from you here, pal, because you're the

34:26

advice giver. I'm the

34:29

one who's just going to take the coward's way out and agree with

34:31

whatever my friend tells me over a drink. Yeah. I

34:33

think I have a sense with you that

34:35

that's the fundamental issue is how do we

34:37

think about this property? Because in some ways,

34:40

letter writer, you got this

34:42

because you happen to be related to

34:44

a person who died. You

34:46

didn't earn it. You didn't

34:48

purchase it yourself. You didn't go out

34:51

and make it happen. It fell into your lap.

34:53

In some ways, it fell into your lap and you were like, do

34:55

I understand this as a windfall and try to make money from it?

34:58

Or do I try to understand this as an opportunity and

35:00

help someone with it? Or do

35:02

I think of this as a chance to not lose

35:05

money? Do I think this is a burden or an albatross?

35:08

I think you've tried to split the difference. But

35:12

as is so often the case, when

35:14

you try to split the difference between

35:16

genuinely helping someone versus trying to recoup

35:18

an investment, you don't really make

35:20

enough money to recoup the investment and you

35:22

don't really make the other person feel very

35:24

helped. It's kind of a tough

35:26

situation to be in. So I don't

35:29

know to what extent you

35:32

say you're in the red with your relative. I

35:34

don't know if that means just she owes you

35:36

more money than you agreed to in the beginning

35:38

or if you have had to pay out of

35:40

pocket for the taxes on the land in a

35:43

way you wouldn't have if you had been able

35:45

to find a tenant who could reliably pay. But just

35:47

again, for all that

35:50

this genuinely does sound like a frustrating family

35:52

dynamic, I think it is

35:54

also true that making money off

35:56

of the fact that you happen to own a plot

35:58

of land and other people need place. to live

36:00

is just like, it's a tough

36:02

sell for me to be very sympathetic towards. And so

36:05

I guess I'll just say like, I don't think it's

36:07

a good way to make money. And I

36:09

think you've kind of experienced that. So all

36:12

of that is just to say, yeah, I

36:14

wonder if, if you just want to

36:16

get out of this, like with your hands clean and be done

36:18

with it. And it sounds like the house isn't even that valuable

36:20

anyways, if there's a way that you can just like, write

36:23

it over to your aunt for like a

36:25

dollar, I think

36:28

that would be nice. I think that would feel

36:30

nicer when you're like dying and looking back over

36:32

your life than like, Oh, I ended up leading

36:34

it up on the market for like six months.

36:36

And finally, like some, one of those

36:38

we buy ugly houses poster people like eventually

36:40

bought it. Like if it's genuinely that valueless,

36:45

I wonder if you actually would have gotten a lot

36:47

more money out of somebody else. To me, it feels

36:50

almost like possible that there's

36:52

this sort of fantasy of like, Oh, if I hadn't given

36:54

into my aunt, I could have made real money. But it

36:56

actually doesn't sound like you were a very

36:59

good landlord. You didn't really keep up the property.

37:01

You didn't do the repairs. You don't want to

37:03

do the repairs. And that's like the

37:05

one thing a landlord supposedly does, right?

37:08

Yeah, I mean, and I would say too, like, it

37:10

seems really obvious that your feelings about your

37:12

family are really at this point wrapped up in

37:15

the house for understandable reasons, because now you have

37:17

like the house is a is a mediating, you

37:19

know, sort of it's just right there in the

37:21

middle of your relationship with your aunt and increasingly

37:24

it sounds like between your relationship with the rest

37:26

of your family. And if I were

37:29

a honest

37:31

boundary keeping friend talking to you, I

37:33

might suggest that you think about how

37:35

much of that sense of alienation from

37:37

your family and the sort of callousness

37:40

with which you feel about them is

37:43

being motivated by a sense that you

37:45

need to cut them

37:48

off in order to make money from the

37:50

house. And, you know, again, like, everybody's

37:53

got fucked up family situations. And I don't like

37:55

I don't know anything about this one. And it's

37:57

very possible that that you you have a bunch

37:59

of toxic of family members who it will be healthier for you

38:01

in the end to cut them out. But I

38:03

could also see a situation where you see

38:05

that you could make a hundred grand or whatever

38:08

from selling this house. And

38:10

in order to reach an emotionally stable place

38:12

to do that, you need to justify

38:15

it to yourself by telling a

38:17

particular kind of story about your family and who

38:19

they are. I just something that I

38:21

think is worth contemplating and

38:24

thinking about how, like why you feel they

38:26

need to present it like this to us,

38:28

whether it's the most accurate picture of the

38:30

story, which it very well may be, or

38:32

whether, you know, what version of

38:34

the story your aunt would tell or your uncle

38:36

would tell or whomever else. Yeah, I mean, I

38:38

was struck by that second paragraph, even if

38:40

the letter writer is really frustrated

38:42

with their relatives, the

38:45

like most dismissive version

38:47

of these events, to

38:49

me, this is like, she can't pay the water bill because she's

38:52

paying her son's water bill. She can't pay the rent

38:54

because she's paying her daughter's rent. She paid for her

38:56

grandkids to have a birthday party. One of their dogs

38:58

got hit by a car. Like,

39:01

that doesn't sound fake, do

39:03

you know what I mean? Like, they

39:06

don't have the money. Like, it

39:08

is difficult when your whole family is

39:10

poor because that means everybody doesn't have

39:12

money. And so just giving one person

39:14

one thing doesn't fix the

39:17

like core issue, which is, okay, well

39:19

then there's seven people who are now trying

39:21

to like stay afloat on

39:23

the strength of this one thing. And I think,

39:26

to me, it's like, okay, I guess

39:28

maybe her eldest son has an expensive car

39:30

he can't afford. That could

39:32

be frustrating. But like, if

39:34

he's gonna lose his job, that's

39:37

not something to get mad at him about, unless

39:39

it's because he bought too expensive of a car, but it

39:41

just, it sounds like he's got like, you

39:44

know, unstable employment. It sounds like

39:46

one of their dogs got hit by a car. It sounds like

39:49

they're in trouble. And that doesn't mean

39:51

you have to endlessly fix everything for them or that you're

39:53

not allowed to find them and that's

39:55

just annoying sometimes. It's just like, usually in a case

39:57

like this, someone will list all the like conspicuous. like

40:00

U.S. personal spending, like, and they've got a cell phone,

40:02

or like, and her daughter had nice shoes on, but this

40:04

was just like, and no one else can afford to pay

40:06

the water bill, and it's just like, well,

40:08

yeah, that sounds like a fucking emergency. Yeah,

40:10

I mean, it is, it reads, in some

40:12

ways, it reads like a list of sort of

40:14

middle-class tropes about poor people, about what they can

40:16

afford, and when you are feeling

40:19

like you have a better sense of how other

40:21

people should be spending their money than

40:23

they are, you know, again, it's

40:25

worth asking yourself, well, is this, are they

40:27

actually profligate, are they actually spending their money

40:29

badly, or like

40:32

Danny says, like, I mean, how

40:34

expensive was the truck? The truck is necessary, seems to

40:36

be necessary for the eldest son's job, so what, you

40:38

know, like, why shouldn't she be trying

40:40

to step in to make sure he can keep his job,

40:42

so he can keep making money and potentially pay her back

40:44

to pay you back? I

40:47

think that these are all like, again, without wanting

40:49

to like question, you know, I'm

40:52

sure that everything is sort of accurate as you're

40:54

writing it, but it is, it's the kind of

40:56

thing you want to stop and think about why

40:59

you're picking this particular tack and like why this

41:01

particular argument is appealing to you

41:03

in terms of what you seem to

41:05

have already decided to do. Yeah, and

41:08

so again, like the fundamental

41:10

question of like, am I allowed to sell this house

41:13

and move? Yes, absolutely.

41:15

Giving your aunt six months notice was potentially the best

41:18

you could do by her. Beyond

41:20

that, I think the next best thing that you could do

41:22

for her is to not

41:24

harangue her or get into arguments

41:27

about this. And so I think to just

41:29

say, I understand that this is difficult, but

41:31

six months is the best that I can do. You'll have to

41:33

figure that out. Just like leave it

41:35

at that. Don't get into more arguments with

41:37

people, but also don't expect people to thank

41:39

you for this either. And

41:42

I think just really, I would encourage you letter writer to

41:45

reframe some of this stuff. Like I've been in the

41:47

red with her so long, I can't even calculate how many

41:49

thousands of dollars she owes me. Like,

41:53

okay, but on another, just

41:55

from another angle, what

41:58

I see here is like for five. years

42:01

I rented this house

42:03

to a relative who I knew had no money.

42:06

And I knew that what little money she had often

42:08

had to go to her kids who also have no

42:10

money. And that sometimes that includes having

42:12

a party for a grand baby. Because

42:14

if you don't have enough money and every once in

42:16

a while you want to celebrate that doesn't like that

42:19

doesn't mean the birthday party is the reason they're not

42:21

all rich, right? Like, oh, that if

42:23

they had just wisely set all their money aside

42:25

and never had a birthday party, they

42:28

would all be investment bankers. And

42:31

like, all of a sudden now five years

42:33

in, you're acting like I can't believe that never

42:35

changed. And you're I think, looking

42:38

for a reason to like justify your anger.

42:40

And again, I'm not saying you have to

42:42

own this house for the rest of your life. So your aunt can

42:44

live there. I do think it would be a

42:47

nice gesture to give it to her, but you don't have

42:49

to that doesn't mean you're like a shitty person. And if

42:52

the best you can give her a six months notice, give her six

42:54

months notice and then don't don't get into

42:56

an argument about it. But it feels a

42:58

little bit like, sorry,

43:00

like, bring internet culture into it. But it's a

43:03

little bit like a shocked Pikachu face of like,

43:05

Oh, I can't believe that this

43:07

entire family was not raised out of

43:09

poverty by like cheap rent for one

43:11

of them for five years. It's like,

43:14

did you really think that was gonna do it? Like,

43:16

why did you suddenly expect that they were going to

43:18

be able to magically produce money that they didn't have?

43:20

Why are you mad at them for needing this thing

43:22

that you know that they need? Again, none

43:24

of that means you have to like them or that you like the way

43:26

they handle their situations. But like, I

43:29

don't know why you're acting new to

43:31

this situation. You knew you were she was

43:33

getting evicted when you gave this living situation to

43:35

her I think gave but like, again, you didn't

43:38

give. And I just I

43:40

just don't want you to feel like, wow,

43:42

I did something really, really noble for five

43:45

years. And then I finally got tired of

43:47

my good nature being prevailed upon. You

43:49

got a house through no work of your own. You

43:52

offered it at reduced rent to someone with very

43:55

little money. That person with very little money

43:57

didn't always have enough money to cover it. you

44:00

didn't do anything about it, and then five years

44:02

later, you decided to get mad when you

44:04

said, you know, you have six months to clear out.

44:06

I don't know what you expected. If you

44:08

tell someone with no money that they're getting evicted, they're

44:10

gonna cry because they have no money and they're getting

44:12

evicted. So I guess I

44:14

ended a little madder than I started. I wanted to be a

44:16

little more peaceful, and now I'm a little like, what do you

44:18

think? To me, this is like, Max,

44:21

have you read Sense and Sensibility? Yeah. You

44:23

remember that scene early on where the

44:26

half-brother has just

44:28

come from the deathbed of his father where he's like, please

44:30

take care of your sisters because I couldn't provide for them

44:32

in my will. And he's like, I'm gonna do it. I'm

44:34

gonna honor my father. And then within like an hour and

44:36

a half, he's talked himself down to like, I'm gonna send

44:38

them a turkey at Christmas. And he really is

44:41

proud of himself. And he's like, I'm a

44:43

fucking do-gooder, baby. Yeah,

44:45

I mean, this is, you said already, this is

44:47

like part of what the dynamic is here is

44:49

that the letter writer has chosen, decided to be

44:51

both relative and landlord in one

44:54

and feel good about it, and has now

44:56

reached a point where they have a choice

44:58

not to put it to sort of emotionally

45:00

and bluntly, but you have a choice to

45:02

continue being a relative or to be a

45:04

landlord. And if you choose the

45:06

latter one, which it seems like letter writer has

45:09

already chosen, you can't expect

45:11

these people who are now treating

45:14

solely as your tenants to thank

45:16

you for it, to be happy with

45:18

it. If it was not your

45:21

aunt, if it was just a person you had

45:23

been renting the house to, I mean, would you be

45:25

writing this letter? Would you be feeling bad about it? I don't know. I

45:28

suppose the letter writer is not specifically asking for

45:31

sympathy, except in a kind of abstract, implicit way

45:33

here. But at some point, I think this is

45:35

like, if you want the

45:38

most sympathetic way I can put it is, if you want

45:40

to make the money from this property,

45:42

the price of that is,

45:44

is evicting your aunt and potentially

45:46

losing a bunch of family relationships.

45:48

And if that's worth it

45:51

to you, then go

45:53

ahead and do it. But like, that's the

45:55

transaction, it's not one that you should expect

45:57

to be applauded for any more than you

45:59

would be applauded. for any other real estate

46:01

transaction, essentially. Yeah, I

46:03

think that's about where I would

46:05

land. And so again, if anybody

46:07

else wants to argue with you about it, I think just the

46:09

line to say is, I can't afford to keep this house. And

46:12

I can't discuss it any further, that's it. But

46:16

man, if there's a way that you could just

46:18

like hand it over to her and like let

46:20

that be that, and if it wouldn't like

46:22

ruin you, like if it's a question of like, it would be

46:24

really nice to have a bunch of extra money, as

46:26

opposed to like I myself would be ruined, I would

46:29

encourage you to take that route. But again, you don't

46:31

have to. I think this was

46:33

a messy situation. It was difficult to like know

46:35

how to handle it at the beginning. I don't

46:37

wanna like fault you for how

46:39

you entered into it. I just really want you

46:41

to like have reasonable and realistic expectations instead of

46:43

like, why isn't everyone thanking me for like evicting

46:46

my aunt? Cause I'm finally standing up to her

46:48

and it's like, you've got to understand that they're

46:50

not gonna see it that way. But

46:52

none of this makes you like a really bad person

46:55

or like makes you responsible or the

46:57

face of landlordism. It's

47:00

just, it's, there's a reason that there's

47:02

not like, I don't know, like a

47:04

robust line of self

47:06

help books about how great it is

47:09

to like rent out properties to your

47:11

relatives. You know, like people don't advise

47:13

it generally because it's difficult at

47:16

best and it's almost never at best.

47:19

Yeah, I mean, if nothing else, let's hope

47:21

that this letter, if

47:23

somebody else finds themselves in a very similar situation,

47:26

they can remember this letter as a warning of what's

47:28

to come and make different or

47:30

better choices about how they handle that kind

47:33

of inheritance. Yeah, and maybe

47:35

look into, I don't know, finding like

47:37

a houseboat submarine situation. Yeah,

47:40

exactly. That would be, I would watch a

47:43

movie about like a charming little houseboat in

47:45

a submarine. How about this, Danny, sense and

47:47

sensibility on a submarine? You

47:49

mock me, Max. I would, I

47:51

mean, it would be a couple of submarines, I suppose,

47:54

but I think it works. You disrespect me.

47:57

I will consider, I will take it under advisement. Max,

47:59

thank you. Thank you so much and

48:02

have a fabulous rest of your day. Yeah, thank you

48:04

so much for having me. For sure. Thanks

48:13

for joining us on the Mood Little Mood

48:15

with me, Danny Laverie. Our producer

48:17

is Phil Serkis, who also composed our theme

48:19

music. Don't miss an episode of the show.

48:22

Head to slate.com/mood to sign up

48:24

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now. Also, please

48:30

leave us a review on Apple podcasts.

48:33

We'd love to know what you think. If

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48:37

should join Slate Plus, Slate's membership program. Members

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48:42

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48:57

If you'd like me to read your letter on the show,

48:59

maybe you need a little advice, maybe you need some big

49:01

advice, head to slate.com/mood to

49:03

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49:05

Mood listener question form or find a

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49:09

you're using right now. Thanks for listening.

49:17

And here's a preview of our Slate Plus episode

49:19

coming this Friday. Presumably there's also some sort of

49:21

tech fix to this letter writer. Like if you

49:23

genuinely hate this, like there's probably a way if

49:25

you just like Google the right search terms enough

49:28

times, you will find ways to like disable the

49:30

sending of images on your phone and that might

49:32

actually help. But I would say, I would

49:34

assign this to two categories. If one of this is

49:37

just like people I don't know very well, I don't

49:39

especially care to talk to and I

49:41

just don't really wanna respond if they send me a

49:43

picture of like Tom Cruise's face all weird, fine, you

49:45

don't have to. This is not like somebody's knocking at

49:47

your door and you're pretending not to be home. Like

49:49

you have my full permission to ignore that if it

49:51

just feels like a content free conversation that you don't

49:54

really wanna be in. It's also if these are

49:56

some people that you're closer with and you just wanna say like, hey,

49:58

that kind of stuff kind of drives me nuts. You

50:00

don't have to be on the same page as me, but would

50:02

you mind not sending those to me? You can ask

50:05

this lightheartedly. It does not have to be a big

50:07

thing, and if it would really make you feel

50:09

better, you should ask for it. To

50:12

listen to the rest of that conversation, join

50:14

SlatePlus now at slate.com/mood.

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