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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's Unlimited Wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch $45 upfront.
- [00:21]
Marc Maron
Payment required equivalent to $15 per month.
- [00:23]
Jonathan Fields
New customers on first 3 month plan.
- [00:25]
Kandi Burruss
Only Taxes and fees extra speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited cementmobile.com for details.
- [00:30]
Isaac Saul
Hey, it's Marc Maron from WTF here to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. And I'm sure the reason you're listening to this podcast right now is because you chose it well. Choose Progressives Name your price tool and you could find insurance options that fit your budget so you can pick the best one for your situation. Who doesn't like choice? Try it@progressive.com and now some legal info. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states Nothing delivers comfort and joy quite like the unrivaled quality and taste of Omaha Steaks. It's guaranteed perfection in every single bite. And right now you can save on unforgettable gifts with 50% off site wide at omahasteaks.com plus score an extra $30 off with promo code holiday. With five generations of experience, they consistently deliver the world's best steak experience. And the gifting experts at Omaha Steaks have made it easy to deliver the perfect gift with thoughtfully curated gift packages featuring gourmet favorites from legendary steaks to mouthwatering desserts and more. Save 50% off site wide for a limited time at OmahaSteaks.com plus our listeners get an extra $30 off with promo code HOLIDAY. That's 50% off at OmahaSteaks.com and an extra $30 off with promo code Holiday. Minimum purchase may apply.
- [02:12]
Marc Maron
Over the last few weeks, I've been told you're out of touch, more than I have at any period in my life. It's always hard for me to know how to weigh critiques like this, especially when I'm being criticized for rejecting vigilante justice. Most of these criticisms accuse me of not understanding the struggle normal Americans are experiencing, what it's like to live with tenuous finances or insufficient healthcare, and why so many people are angry enough not to care about the cold blooded murder of a major health insurance CEO. And to be honest, they've been eating at me. Our brains are hardwired to focus on negative criticisms more than positive feedback. I could read a thousand emails praising a piece I wrote as profound or steadying or engaging or meaningful, but I'll spend all night thinking about two emails telling me I was out of touch for a few days. These criticisms were infuriating. I'm not out of touch. My inner monologue kept chanting as the emails and comments kept coming in. I felt more misunderstood than I have in a long time. I sensed the despondency and impatience of so many Americans relative to the current state of healthcare in our country. But I also felt like they didn't really know how I viewed the issues I was writing about. At times I even found I agreed with my critics central points and felt perplexed that we seemed so far apart and adversarial. And then something occurred to me. I've never actually written explicitly about class or class politics or even my upbringing in Tangle. Sure, I've analyzed class politics a lot, and I've included a few lines about household economics, poverty, and the working class's role in the electorate. Similarly, I've made some mention of my upbringing or my experiences, going from struggling journalist to entrepreneur. But I' once written a piece explicitly about how I view my own class, or how I view class in America, or what I think productive class politics actually looks like. The realization froze me. I was standing in my kitchen and basically came to a complete halt, then ran downstairs to my computer and started outlining this piece. My hope going forward is that I can point back to this piece, as I might refer back to my solutions to the immigration crisis or my views on gun control, and use it as a jumping off point for future writing that touches on this sub. So first, I think it's important to start with how I grew up. Class is something you can understand and empathize with regardless of your background, but it's also clear to me that personal experience intimately informs this understanding. I've experienced some class related struggles and not experienced a host of others, and as the lead editorial voice in this podcast, I want to be as transparent about those experiences as possible. I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not. So here's a little bit about me. I was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the third of three boys. My mom wasn't working when I was born and my dad was a salesman at a burgeoning computer sales company. Our neighborhood was decidedly working class and predominantly black My parents owned the house we lived in and when I was five years old they sold that house and moved across the river to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Yardley to be specific. One of the more affluent towns in Bucks and a much whiter area than Trenton, Bucks county is at the heart of Tangle. It has a great deal of class and political diversity, which shaped a lot of my worldview. My family lived on the quote unquote wealthier side of the tracks. We had a great big beautiful house that my parents were proud of and worked very hard for with a driveway, backyard and a front yard walking distance from my elementary school. It was the suburbs. Our neighborhood was a glorious smorgasbord of free running kids, roller hockey, mischief, manhunt and low level crime. We had a gang of kids who all spent a lot of time getting in trouble together and making memories that childhood should be full of. We moved into that house across the street from a family of three girls and one boy that effectively merged into our family over time to become one. Thirty years later, we still have Thanksgiving together, consider each other's parents as our own, and think of one another as uncles and aunts to our children. Their dad was a former Green Beret who was a major father figure in my childhood before he died. When we were in middle school, money was always tight. I remember that part when I became an adult. My mom would describe our family during my childhood as housebroke. Well off enough to have bought the house but struggling to afford to keep up with it. As kids we did all the stuff a lot of middle class kids did in the suburbs. We got jobs when we were old enough to work, we got hand me downs, we drove crappy old cars that our siblings owned before us, and we did our best to stay out of trouble and get decent grades in school. My dad worked a number of sales related jobs throughout my childhood and like a lot of people in sales, he cycled through promotions, layoffs and change. I remember him variously selling computers, cars at a local dealership, credit card processing and a polymer construction material. For a brief period of time he also managed Catch a Rising Star, a comedy club in Princeton, New Jersey. When all the kids were old enough to be in school, my mom started working in the Judaic studies department at Princeton as an assistant to a professor. Princeton, through a generous and supremely middle class friendly employee benefits program, helped pay my way through college. When I went to Pitt years later, simply because my mom had worked there. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [07:44]
Ryan Reynolds
We all have dreams. Dream home renovations, dream vacations, or sending our kids to their dream colleges. But finding straightforward ways to turn those dreams into realistic goals? That's where things get tricky. Merrill understands that. That's why with a dedicated Mayrel advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. And having the bull at your back helps your whole financial life move with you. So when your plans change, Merrill is with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company what would you like the power to do? Investing Involves Risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIPC oh my God.
- [08:29]
Kandi Burruss
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- [09:06]
Marc Maron
In middle school and high school, a lot of my close friends families were in visibly worse shape than my own parents living on disability, unstable single parent homes, abuse, addiction, moving constantly, siblings in and out of jail. This was part of the class diversity that I grew up in and just like many of those families, mine was deeply impacted by the 2008 financial crisis. My parents were living on the margins of what was doable in the middle class and the economic downturn was devastating. We had to sell our house in Yardley and my parents got divorced. Both moved into their own apartments that they rented. My dad started driving limousines and eventually Uber to make ends meet while my mom continued to work at Princeton until she retired. When I started to angle before I had a single employee, my dad volunteered to help me start editing the newsletter. One morning after I called him to run through it because I was running behind and then he hung around like a well fed stray cat. He's still one of the now paid part time editors on our team. My later high school years were a very formative time for me. Two of my older brothers, one who is now a general contractor and the other in operations and event planner, had gone off to college. The third brother, whom I consider a brother, though my parents never formally adopted him, was still in the house with me. He was my oldest brother's best friend and my parents had taken him in when I was in middle school. He now owns his own screen printing business and works as an independent artist in Philadelphia. Two of my parents friends fell on hard times and also moved into our home. So it was me, my parents, my adopted brother, and my two family friends we had taken in during my final years of high school, all during a financial crisis and as I was getting ready to leave for college. Throughout my adolescence I always worked. I was a janitor at a veterinarian's office, a lifeguard, a busboy, and I worked seasonally shoveling driveways, mowing lawns or babysitting in the summers. From the age of 13 on, I would go to live with my cousin in West Texas, on the border of Mexico, in a tiny little town of outfitters where most people are self sufficient and skilled in some trade, living off the bare minimum and getting by happily. I loved it there and still do now, as an adult. It is my happy place I escape to once or twice a year, for weeks or months at a time. It's where I learned to shoot guns, drive motorcycles and ride horses. It's where I fell in love with the country and the desert and Texas and open air and where I learned the value of a full day or week or month or season of manual labor. My cousin ran a cactus nursery and his wife ran horse stables and I spent a lot of full days digging holes or driving forklifts or slopping through horse pens or moving bales of hay. I tried and failed to learn how to fix cars and I picked up some broken but effective Spanish. After high school I went to college at the University of Pittsburgh in the heart of one of America's quintessential working class cities. I worked at the student newspaper and held down a landscaping job to pay my way through school. With my parents help, I also picked up some internships at local newspapers like the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. And like an idiot, I sold drugs to make extra cash, which I've written and spoken about in tangle before. When I graduated from college, with my childhood home gone, I moved into my mom's condo and lived with her as I entered the workforce. For about a year I commuted to New York City every day from Bucks county two hours and change door to door while being paid $38,000 a year at my first reporting gig. That job was with the very liberal Huffington Post. It was a rather obscene setup, getting paid $38,000, an impossible wage to live on in most cities, let alone New York City, to Churn out three or four articles a day. But I love the work. I learned a lot from smart, aggressive reporters there. I also learned a lot about how news organizations with an overt political slant. And then I caught a break. A few articles I wrote about politics went viral and I ended up going on CNN As a 23 year old pundit to defend my positions. So as far as those things go, I got noticed. I left the Huffington Post when Ashton Kutcher, the actor and angel investor, quite randomly came across my work and offered me $60,000 to help him start a news organization focused on quote unquote solutions journalism. I took the position of running the politics vertical and I moved into a five bedroom, one bathroom apartment in Harle, six roommates for $600 a month. It was the only way I could afford the city while also paying off my student loans, which I would do over time. I lived there for the next five years. When I started Tangle in 2019, I was making $72,000 a year. I was still at Ashen's media company and I was living with my girlfriend, now wife, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She was working as a server while pursuing a career in theater. We both had artistic pursuits. I wanted to be a writer, she wanted to be a director. And we pledged to love each other through our forthcoming dec. Decades of being happily broke together. And then the pandemic and tangle and life and luck and hard work collided. Phoebe decided to try law school, Tangle got traction and it went from a side gig to a real business. And now I'm here back in Pennsylvania, running my own news organization as my wife nears graduation and readies herself for a second career. On all counts, I consider my upbringing incredibly, unbelievably, unfathomably fortunate, as anyone who has had a similar upbringing should consider theirs. I'm not exaggerating when I say I thank God for it every day. A lot of people in this country had it better than I did, but plenty more here and across the globe have it much, much worse. I had a roof over my head my whole life. Loving parents, a big family, tough, loving brothers who looked out for me, a good community, good schools, and lots of opportunity. I say all of this to share what I have and have not experienced. Personally, I've been broke and lived paycheck to paycheck, but I've never gone hu. I've lived with my mom as an adult in the workforce like many millions of young American adults, but I've never been homeless. I've worked back breaking manual labor jobs for days on end, but I've never pursued a true blue collar career and I've never been part of a trade union. I've had crappy landlords with too much power, but I've never been evicted. I've had surprise medical bills that were financially debilitating, but I've never had a disability. I've also always felt a deep and abiding affection for the so called working class or non college educated or whatever insufficient language we have for people who aren't wealthy, ultra educated, out of touch snobs. I love a posh event or a fancy dinner as much as anyone, but I feel much more comfortable drinking shitty beer in a grungy bar, talking politics with some Philly locals than I ever have navigating an event like the Democratic National Convention. I recognize that might sound like I'm trying to virtue signal myself as down to earth here, but I'm just trying to paint an honest picture of who I am and where I came from. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [16:02]
Ryan Reynolds
Creating really great retail experiences is tough, especially with multiple stores, teams of staff, fulfillment centers, separate workflows. It's a lot, but with Shopify Point of Sale you can do it all without complexity. Shopify POS is your unified command center for your retail business, combining in store and online operations across 1000 locations. With Shopify POS, you can keep shoppers coming back with personalized experiences and first party data that give marketing teams a competitive edge. Want more? Check out@shopify.com work all lowercase, and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity. Shopify.com work.
- [16:45]
John Law
Hi, this is Jonathan Fields, host of the Good Life Project, where each week I talk to listeners about investing in their future by increasing their own vitality. But when it comes to those financial goals, whether it be saving for a home renovation, growing your child's college fund or travel, life can make it difficult to stay the course. By working with a dedicated merit advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Having the bullet your back helps your whole financial life move with you. So when your plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company what would you like the power to do Investing involves Risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIPC Holiday shopping is.
- [17:28]
Kandi Burruss
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- [18:34]
Marc Maron
So since I've never really written about class or politics explicitly, I figured the easiest thing to do here, after talking about my background, would be to list a few of my beliefs about class and class politics. I want to be clear. These are my personal beliefs, not those of Tangle or my staff or the many writers whose work we share every day who disagree with me. So here are some of those views. Number one, I don't think we have a great working definition in the media for working class. I see working class used interchangeably with non college educated all the time. I understand that polls often list respondents education, which is a useful proxy for working class. But the two things are not the same. Many of my friends who are cops, firefighters, construction workers, plumbers and electricians have college degrees. Simple economic definitions of working class are probably better. Working a job that is low pay, often defined as $15 an hour or less, requires limited training and or also requires physical labor. It also includes people who have held those jobs or are looking for work, which means a lot of people who are unemployed or temporarily supported by a social welfare program. Number two, it may sound crude, but I don't have a hard time getting on board with the eat the rich attitude. My early political outlook was formed by watching the 2008 financial crisis take my childhood home, watching the opioid epidemic devastate, destroy and kill my friends. My high school was one of the worst hit in the entire United States. Watching Barack Obama ascend the presidency with a coalition that includes many future Trump voters, and then watching his administration let the people responsible for the banking crisis walk free while largely abandoning many of the populist promises like ending wars abroad that got him elected. There is a very reasonable feeling among voters of all political stripes that it doesn't matter whether it's Obama, Trump, Biden or Bush, you're going to get sold out by politicians preaching populist thought. Number three, I believe both political parties express an interest in aiding the working class when it's election season. And while Democrats have traditionally been the party of working class, they seem out to sea with what they stand for now. Republicans, long supportive of deregulatory agendas and business interests, have historically spurned workers rights and issues, but in the Trump era, the party seems to be taking tangible steps toward working class voters and their interests. Though the jury is still out on what the next four years will bring, both parties are still defined by their legacies, for better or for worse, but the ground is genuinely shifting under our feet, at least as I see it. Number four, on a global scale, the vast majority of Americans are either upper middle income or high income, and even those defined by our government as poor would be middle income globally. Put simply, we are all very lucky to live here, which should be obvious when you consider how many people from around the world are willing to crawl through the mud for a shot at a new life in the United States at the same time.
- [21:43]
Jonathan Fields
Hey everybody, this is John, Executive Producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest Friday edition. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com to sign up for a newsletter subscription. Or you can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up for our Premium Podcast membership which will unlock this complete episode as well as ad free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews and so much more. More. We are working on trying to get together a bundled membership package where you're able to sign up for both the newsletter and the podcast. In the meantime, if you sign up for a newsletter subscription and you'd like to receive the podcast subscription as well, or vice versa, we will offer you a 33% discount to sign up for the other. This is the best we can do in the short term while we work on a long term bundling solution. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings, so stay tuned. Isaac and Ari will be here for the Sunday podcast and I will join you for the daily podcast on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a fantastic weekend y'all. Peace.
- [23:02]
Marc Maron
Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by John Lal. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75 and if you're looking for more from Tangle, Please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.