People at the Core
The Life of a Teacher: Rich Piepho on Stripper Names, Storytelling and Finding Passion in Education
Have you ever wondered what life would be like as a therapist with an enticing voice or imagined the hilarious possibilities of stripper names based on your first pet and street name? Rita and Marisa kick off this lively conversation at Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, sharing uproarious stories about phone sex operations and navigating the dark web. Joined by our special guest, Rich Piepho, we take you through a decade of his teaching adventures in New York's diverse boroughs, filled with humor and heartfelt tales. Rich’s passion for writing jokes and his involvement in the Palace Reading Series adds a unique twist, making this discussion both entertaining and insightful.
We take a nostalgic journey through early encounters with adult content, iconic movie scenes that stirred our first feelings of attraction, and the whimsical realization of the biblical reference behind the term "Adam's apple." Rich's adventurous move from LA, where he wrote for an animation studio, to New York for a teaching career, embodies the balance between following one's passion and seeking stability. Listen as we explore the ups and downs of freelancing in the entertainment industry and the irresistible draw of returning to the East Coast, all while reflecting on identity, history, and connection.
From the rewards and challenges of teaching to existential musings on midlife, our conversation covers a broad spectrum of life experiences. Rich shares how creating a safe and hospitable classroom environment can transform students' lives, engaging them with texts like "The Outsiders" and addressing their emotional and mental health needs. We delve into the significance of diverse storytelling in cinema and the lasting impact of literature, all while balancing deep reflections with a handful of jokes. Join us for an episode filled with laughter, heartfelt stories, and the transformative power of education and literature.
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The Outsiders
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
Have you ever wondered what life would be like as a therapist with an enticing voice or imagined the hilarious possibilities of stripper names based on your first pet and street name? Rita and Marisa kick off this lively conversation at Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, sharing uproarious stories about phone sex operations and navigating the dark web. Joined by our special guest, Rich Piepho, we take you through a decade of his teaching adventures in New York's diverse boroughs, filled with humor and heartfelt tales. Rich’s passion for writing jokes and his involvement in the Palace Reading Series adds a unique twist, making this discussion both entertaining and insightful.
We take a nostalgic journey through early encounters with adult content, iconic movie scenes that stirred our first feelings of attraction, and the whimsical realization of the biblical reference behind the term "Adam's apple." Rich's adventurous move from LA, where he wrote for an animation studio, to New York for a teaching career, embodies the balance between following one's passion and seeking stability. Listen as we explore the ups and downs of freelancing in the entertainment industry and the irresistible draw of returning to the East Coast, all while reflecting on identity, history, and connection.
From the rewards and challenges of teaching to existential musings on midlife, our conversation covers a broad spectrum of life experiences. Rich shares how creating a safe and hospitable classroom environment can transform students' lives, engaging them with texts like "The Outsiders" and addressing their emotional and mental health needs. We delve into the significance of diverse storytelling in cinema and the lasting impact of literature, all while balancing deep reflections with a handful of jokes. Join us for an episode filled with laughter, heartfelt stories, and the transformative power of education and literature.
Mentions
The Outsiders
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core.
Speaker 2:Okay, are we rolling? Rolling, mama, we're rolling. I know we just started talking about, uh, our stripper names the street we grew up on and, uh, our first pet and uh, I would like to revisit that yours was quirky quirky battlefield.
Speaker 5:I think I lived on battlefield. I know my first dog's name was quirky, but uh, the street might be a little it sounds good though yeah, it does she's a little rough.
Speaker 2:She's a little rough and tumble.
Speaker 5:I feel like we lived on battlefield lane in missouri I grew up in missouri, so but there's definitely the battlefield mall, so I might be going. I might be reflecting and going straight for the mall.
Speaker 2:I think you just picked a good one, though, yeah.
Speaker 4:And what's Sparky McGraw?
Speaker 5:Sparkle.
Speaker 2:McGraw, sparkle McGraw. Yes, yeah, I've always had that in the back of my head. I don't remember the first time someone came up with that question the street you were up on.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I don't't either, but I like it. I feel like I would have been a great sex worker I really like.
Speaker 2:If there's like one thing I regret I would have been a great phone sex operator. That's what I'm saying more of a therapist. Yeah, we're bartenders. Yeah, we. We have the bar between us. We don't have to be naked yeah, it's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 5:It's like but people tell me of my voice all the time that I could have got away with that, oh yeah you know, what was it?
Speaker 2:was it like a foo fighters video where it was the guy? Oh, it just made me think of the guy like rubbing panties in his armpit and then packing them away because it was like used oh yeah sorry yeah side gig.
Speaker 5:Um, I've looked into that. It's actually really hard to break into really. Yeah, during covid I was like oh, I could do that, even before covid I think, when we were building palace and I, you know, mary and I didn't have any jobs and we're just you're like this place was supposed to open, yeah, and I was like I'll just send out mary in my panties people and um, it's like you have to get like an agent and find a website.
Speaker 5:You can't just do it on your own because, how do you find the people safely to do it In the dark?
Speaker 2:web yeah.
Speaker 5:Oh, I've Googled the dark web so many times. You have no idea. I'm on so many FBI lists.
Speaker 2:Well, now it's Web 3 plus dark web.
Speaker 5:Oh, it's not dark web anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's also another layer of like Web 3. It's like the smart tech people. It's not just like the black market stuff. We're market stuff. We're going yeah, okay, let's get rich in here to talk about this with us actually, um, okay. So today we have rich pie foe, who has been teaching for 10 years in new york, across grades 7 through 12, at different points, both in queens and south bronx. He grew up in connecticut and has lived in brooklyn for about 12 years with his wife. He's's also a writer of jokes, which I hope he will share and read some for us and a Palace Reading Series.
Speaker 2:Devoted attendee who has been recently promoted as our sound assistant.
Speaker 5:Yes, yay. Hi Rich, oh, that's true, Hi, Rich hey guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:So what's your stripper name?
Speaker 3:Mine is our first dog, or porn name.
Speaker 2:Porn name Mine is our first dog or porn name, porn name.
Speaker 3:Our first dog was Triscuit, and then we lived on Tepe Drive, so Triscuit, tepe, love it. Got some alliteration in there.
Speaker 5:I can actually see Triscuit.
Speaker 4:Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Triscuit. You're thinking strippers?
Speaker 5:again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean no, okay, we're porn stars and our strippers is too. I think as a kid I wasn't in porn, I was in stripping. Yeah, I got it. That was more of yeah.
Speaker 5:Oh, because you learned at a young age what your porn name was what my stripper name was Stripper name.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I guess I didn't see that much porn before I knew what a porn name was yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean my first experience with with porn was like when it was like really grainy and just it took like five minutes to load, like one picture of pamela anderson like who still wasn't even naked.
Speaker 5:The fuzzy channel on the dial where, like late night, you might get something like like a uf. Yeah, yeah, mine was the scrambled yeah mine was felma and louise are. There was like a scene with. Brad. Pitt and Geena Davis and we had it on VHS and I used to like rewind play rewind play rewind play and it wasn't very graphic.
Speaker 5:We're in the hotel, but it's just sexy and she's excited and he's yummy and it's great yeah but I used to just watch that and be like, oh my god, you know not really sure what to do about it.
Speaker 3:Right, right right.
Speaker 5:But that was like my first porn experience, I think.
Speaker 2:My, okay, this is not porn, but it was watching man in the Moon with Reese Witherspoon. Oh yeah, and like her first kiss and it was like so sweet and just like oh.
Speaker 5:That's not porn.
Speaker 4:No but I think it was like what I watched that I like like connected to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my first like not porn early on was like what am I feeling right now? Was Ariel and the Little Mermaid when she has legs. That was Ariel with legs. That changed something in me fundamentally after, that.
Speaker 2:Mega babe right? Oh yeah, total mega babe. I'm not gonna look it up, but what's the term for like obsession with fish?
Speaker 3:I mean, oh, what's his, that's not what I. Yeah, yeah, Meet me at the Springfield Aquarium.
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly, I'm so good Should we just do this whole episode about sex. Yeah, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex Sex.
Speaker 2:Sex. Okay, not sex, but now I'm taking it to catholicism, maybe um, I can speak to that I was on the train last night and there was a young boy, a young man, sitting across from me with very pronounced adam's apple and I looked at it and I was like I never connected. Why they call it Adam's apple? The?
Speaker 1:whole garden.
Speaker 2:I'm like do other people know? Okay, well, I didn't know and it was a tired long day at work epiphany at midnight of Adam's apple, I'm like oh, oh man, Really. You knew that. Well, yeah, of course I mean your dad's a preacher.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm a preacher's daughter. My dad's got a PhD in theology.
Speaker 5:I mean his actual job is to write books for college students like textbooks Explaining. Explaining the letters of Paul and the New Testament and things like that.
Speaker 3:There's a whole chapter on the Adam's apple and what it's called.
Speaker 5:I always just think of Adam's apple at Pet Sematary when the little kid bites it out of the old man. I love horror so much, so that's what. I always picture Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like, okay, I was like I feel like people know this, but this is a first for me. Yeah, okay, anyway.
Speaker 5:And it's crazy. I believe it's not a bone, though, right.
Speaker 4:You're a teacher Rich.
Speaker 1:It's cartilage, isn't it? I'm not a human bio teacher.
Speaker 4:I could be wrong?
Speaker 5:I believe the only floating bone in the body is the hyoid bone. But the Adam's apple is. We'd like to think it's bone, but it's actually cartilage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of soft cartilage.
Speaker 5:Mostly in men. But why All the men like?
Speaker 1:women's don't Like just hardily.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's kind of soft-hearted, Mostly in men. But why All the men like women's, don't?
Speaker 4:I'm not sure I used to know when I would do a lot of research on dumb shit.
Speaker 5:But I smoke a lot of pot, and so therefore, I don't remember. Something to look. I'll look into it today, Okay.
Speaker 2:High on the couch.
Speaker 3:So, rich, speaking of teaching, is that why you came to New York? Yes, I was already in my mid-20s and I was kind of shifting careers already From what I had been in LA for a couple years writing. I worked for an animation studio out there. I was on staff for a couple writing gigs Cool, neither of which went very far, but it was an amazing experience that I got to do right out of college. Wow.
Speaker 2:Did you go to school for writing?
Speaker 3:I was an English major at.
Speaker 3:UConn University of Connecticut, and then I got a chance to. I was writing some jokes for an online publication back. This is the late 2000s, so it was a different internet. It was pre-twitter even. Um, everybody just dumps their jokes onto twitter now, but I was doing that, and then the guys who had been running this kind of online humor magazine turned out to have been real tv writers in la, which I did not know, and they kind of offered me a chance to come out there when I was 21 I actually didn't even finish college.
Speaker 4:Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Having never been to LA before, and moved there at 21.
Speaker 5:Wow Rich that's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's like the movie.
Speaker 3:It was honestly a little too on the nose.
Speaker 2:Who would play you in this movie?
Speaker 3:Any famous funny Jewish guy.
Speaker 2:I was thinking. Adam Sandler, right off the bat, I get. Compared to A young Adam Sandler, I get. Sandler, I get Andy Samberg, I've gotten Jerry Seinfeld, I've gotten Jon Stewart. I was like Andy Samberg, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The coming of age.
Speaker 3:And neither here nor there. No problem, I'm not Jewish, which is the funny thing. Oh, you're not.
Speaker 2:You. I could see that because I'm Jewish guys who, or Jason Siegel Right, is that his name? Schwarzman, you're probably no no, I'm not thinking Jewish, I'm thinking from the Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yes, he's a statuesque.
Speaker 4:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:But as far as, like, I think he could get your vibe yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, another Jew Great.
Speaker 5:Not mad, could get your vibe. Yeah, okay, another dude.
Speaker 3:Great, not mad at it. What are you catholic? Yeah, I grew up, I was raised catholic. Uh, my last name is german it's a very weird. Oh, I was gonna ask about yeah, the o at the end throws everybody off yeah um, it's probably pifo. I'm actually going to germany this summer and I found the region where the pifo family comes from, outside of hanover, and I found an auto dealership that has my last name, so I'm going to go and take a picture. Oh cool.
Speaker 2:Any good American would Awesome.
Speaker 5:You're going to wear a flag too right. I did that trip with my parents for my 30th birthday. We went to Prague and found our old family and the family name and stuff. Yeah, it's always fun. I mean it's very very interesting, so sick.
Speaker 3:While we're on the subject, puskas is your last name. What's the origin of that, do you know? So that's Hungarian, hungarian.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and so when I went to Budapest, there were banners everywhere If you go into the gift shops. Instead of whatever name, it was just Puskas. I have pictures. I'll show you guys, that's so cool Puskis banners, Puskis t-shirts, Puskis wine and my dad had told me he'd gone before me. And he told me, when you get to the hotel, show your passport and tell them you're a Puskis. And we totally got upgraded.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 5:We got a free, my friend Andy, and we totally got upgraded yeah, it was awesome just for the last name.
Speaker 3:The reason I asked because my paternal grandmother's family's from Lithuania and her maiden name is Patras so I thought maybe we had the Lithuanian connection we could.
Speaker 2:You never know. You never know wars and moving around yeah, it's Eastern Europe it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I think I'm like Macedonian, russian, jew, hungarian, czechoslovak. You know what I mean If I go out there, I look just like everyone else out there.
Speaker 4:I hear you Interesting.
Speaker 5:Which is kind of you know. Yeah, it is interesting when you go back to like your origin you're like oh, I definitely look like these people. Right, you know what I mean? It's a heady thing, yeah, it is. Well, that's what's good. So when are you going to Germany?
Speaker 3:End of the month. It's actually my last day of school. It's the 26th. I'm going right from school to JFK.
Speaker 5:Oh my gosh, how long are you going to go for?
Speaker 3:Nine nights.
Speaker 5:Eight, nine time, yeah, oh, you're gonna have a blast yeah, I love germany.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and copenhagen is amazing too. Like it's all great. I had a friend who did a study abroad and then ended up staying there for a few years oh wow, really loved it. Um, he is ethnically persian, so he was exotic there and he, like really enjoyed that experience yeah, yeah, oh yeah I mean you know, when you have kind of a mono phenotype culture um yeah, oh, definitely.
Speaker 5:I mean it must be the booze talking or the weed today, because I'm very chatty. I apologize but I remember when, um, I went with atmosphere to sweden and I had like black hair, piercings, tattoos and everyone was like six to one gorgeous supermodel and all the dudes were really into me and I couldn't figure out why? Because I was just like yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a new addition to the gene pool. Yeah, and they were just like and Sean was like yes, you're awesome.
Speaker 5:And I was like, and Sean was like no, let's stay away. But I remember that very fondly, just thinking this is crazy. And we had a couple of guys on the that were in the rap world, that had gone to Sweden and just never came back, absolutely.
Speaker 4:You just married a girl and never came back, not getting better than this?
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly, so let's go back to LA for a minute Okay. So you're doing all of this. You're doing the writing thing, the joke thing, you're living this crazy dream. What brought you back here? To teach?
Speaker 3:Well, I was in LA for about 18 months here to teach. Well, I was in la for about 18 months. I'd work on a couple shows um, one aired only in canada, which was cool, and then one was on it freaks and geeks, it was not. Oh my god, I wish I could say I worked for freaks and geeks. Oh god, it's my favorite show?
Speaker 2:well, because that's how you met jason who didn't face you in your movie.
Speaker 3:It's like very meta here okay so yeah, so it airs in canada, yeah and then the studio that I was at got another show picked up by MTV which did air on MTV in the fall of 2009 for like one month, and it was called Popzilla and it was basically like a topical animated sketch show, so we had flash animators that could have a really quick turnaround. So the idea was that we take and it was not the news, it wasn't political, it was like gossipy pop culture kind of stuff which was challenging, because I don't really get into that stuff very much.
Speaker 3:But we would take whatever was happening in the news, flip it into a few sketches and then it was animated really quickly and it was out and it was pretty cool and we did that for one season.
Speaker 2:That was the last time it cool and we did that for one season. That was the last time. It would be a fun writer's room.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was awesome. It was the same group of people that I worked with for the previous show, Bob and Doug, which was on in Canada. Do you remember Bob and Doug McKenzie? Yeah, posers, you know Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.
Speaker 2:Messy.
Speaker 5:TV. Yeah, that's what it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was about those two characters and Dave Thomas, the showrunner, so I had to work with him and meet him and stuff. Yeah and then you're like I'm going to leave this and teach 7th grade in the box well, what I found after those two shows had ended and I had a great time with it was that it's really challenging to kind of keep that work going, you know.
Speaker 3:I learned really quickly how much it kind of sucks to be a freelancer, whether it's writing or otherwise. And you know that I was 20, I was only still, by then, 22, 23, and I was like, well, I don't know that I want to just continue to struggle like this where I'm not sure my rent's coming from. I, I, um, I. To a certain point, I applied for a job at the Vons, which is the grocery store in LA and I didn't get it because she said she didn't have any openings.
Speaker 3:I'm like what exactly where is going? Where's this going right now? You know? So you know, my wife and I she was my girlfriend at the time, she was with me, so we, she was together all the way back then too. Yeah, you know, we were both homesick for the East Coast. We're both, we're both from Connecticut, yeah, and really I'd always wanted to be in New York. The idea was I'm going to move to New York after college, I'm going to pursue writing here, LA just kind of landed in my literally almost landed in my lap, wow, yeah. So I kind of just had to take it. My parents were super supportive of that.
Speaker 5:But you know, after, and your partner was too. Yeah, she was with you.
Speaker 3:That she doing out there. She was nannying at the time, okay, and she wanted to go back to school. She's now a school psychologist we both work in schools so she was ready to be like. She was kind of looking at me like oh, how long are we gonna do this, bro?
Speaker 4:like yeah, you know and I I was.
Speaker 3:I was with her on it too. It didn't take a lot of coaxing on my part. I was really homesick for the east coast and I wanted to be in new york, so we ended up driving back. We did a cross-country drive all the way back here. I was stuck in Connecticut for a couple years while she got a degree at Sacred Heart. Up there I was working for a lawn care company, fertilizing lawns, driving my truck around Fairfield and Westchester counties and all these mansions and stuff like that. And then finally she got a job at a charter school here in Brooklyn, in Brownsville, and then I said, okay, I, I'm gonna go to grad school at Brooklyn College, I'm gonna get my master's for education and that's kind of how that all started about 12 years ago.
Speaker 5:Yeah and yeah so, so you come back. Yeah, oh, my God, you're both so supportive. I'm like tearing up what. It's a great story.
Speaker 4:It's a great story. It's all right.
Speaker 5:No, it's pretty great, you'll work on the screenplay. Yeah, I know Well if you don't mind, murder, yeah, someone will die.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry Rita will want to jump in. It doesn't have to be anyone, you know yeah.
Speaker 5:But so now you're teaching Mm-hmm, and like what are you teaching?
Speaker 3:So I'm an English teacher. Okay, so you're in New York State, you're registered for certain grade levels. You can do K through 6 or 7 through 12. So I knew I wanted to do older students, so I got my degree for 7 through twelve. Um, my first job was at a school in the Bronx, south Bronx, for 10th grade. Um, yeah, and it was really hard. I mean it was especially because you know you'd already gone through a career change in your mid to late 20s, which is kind of a mind fucking of itself really.
Speaker 3:Um, the dream growing up was always to write, and for tv, like I was obsessed with, like the simpsons writers room yeah, me too you know, and like all those legends, and I really wanted to do that and that's kind of what got me writing the jokes in the first place blah, blah, blah. So to have, like I guess, failed but also succeeded, yeah, like to have had like some quote-unquote success really early in my early 20s, to like be in one of those writers rooms that I always dreamed of, like really quickly, yeah was like maybe that's all I needed. I don't know, I don't, I don't know that I would want to go back to LA and do it again, you know. But it was also like I went through that whole thing and now I'm 26, 27, and I'm starting this new thing, teaching in in New York. It was a transition, for sure, and the nature of the job is so much different too, but 10 years on, I'm finishing up my 10th year doing it now.
Speaker 4:Congrats man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that it's not always easy, but I'm proud of having done 10 years and hopefully 20 more or so, and I'll be done.
Speaker 5:Are you 10 years at the same school or do you do different schools?
Speaker 3:So yeah, so you're a point.
Speaker 3:you're an employee of the city, of the department of education first and then you can transfer around to different schools and you're kind of still on the same salary scale, you're still a member of the same. You know union unite federation of teachers and all of that Um. But you could. There's it's called um open market. You can transfer from one school to another every spring. So I'm actually on my third school okay, in 10 years, which is not abnormal. Especially early on I found a lot of teachers tend to bounce around.
Speaker 2:It's about finding the right fit yeah, as far as, like your co-workers, the student profile yeah the functioning of the school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say the the biggest factor for me. I can't speak for any teacher, but it's just kind of how the school is run. The administration, I think, really matters, and you guys know this. No matter what the industry is, who you work for matters a lot yeah, and just kind of finding the right fit culturally within the school.
Speaker 3:I mean, just like the school culture, like how is discipline handled, how you know, how do they want the? How do they want you to run your classroom? Can it be loose or do they want to be really strict and rigid and focused? Are you test?
Speaker 2:focused.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 5:Yeah, all of that Numbers and all of that Mm-hmm yeah. I have a couple of friends that are teachers out here, in elementary mostly, but I mean they say the exact same thing. It's just about who's running the school and how they're running it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know I've just. I'm finishing finishing up my fourth year of my current school in Queens and I'm happy there, and it takes some time, I think, to really kind of land in the right spot and make sure that you're like you need to be able to see yourself there for 10 years or more.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying I'm going to stay there for the rest of my career who knows, I can't speak to that but it takes a while to find the right fit. For sure I think kids too, you have a reputation. They're like oh, mr Bible.
Speaker 4:Oh, captain, mike, Captain.
Speaker 5:I think, there's multiple layers, I'm assuming the grade changes every year, so you're not that I mean you're attached, right, but if you're, not that I mean you're attached. Right yeah, but if you're teaching the same grade, you're not following the students. So I just bring that up in a sense of it's got to have so much to do with who's running the place.
Speaker 3:Right Like there's more continuity there than there is with the students, obviously, but I've also bounced around between different grade levels was when I started I was doing 10th grade. I was at that first school for three years. The uh, the principal of that school, who everybody loved, was removed for some compliance things, nothing crazy, but I think it was literally like 80 percent of the staff left when she was removed.
Speaker 4:Like that's how much administration matters you know what I?
Speaker 3:mean so. Then I moved to another school in the Bronx which was really super strict Uniforms, like all these disciplinary rules and I taught seventh grade for three years. Yeah, that's the hardest thing I hope I ever have to do.
Speaker 2:I would just think too like a rigid space. I was an awful seventh grader.
Speaker 5:I can't imagine.
Speaker 3:They're all just trying to see. They're trying different personalities. They're seeing what it feels like to be an asshole for the first time. They're sociopaths. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We had I think it was 6th or 7th grade. I was always like in the accelerated stuff and like I didn't doubt my intelligence and I didn't doubt my intelligence and I didn't like busy work. So there was one class we had a project. It was a massive project and I did the calculations. I was like, if I ace this, if I do this, I just don't have to do this project. That, I think, is stupid.
Speaker 1:And I didn't.
Speaker 2:I was probably the most setter, and there was a consultation with my parents and I was like can you convince me why I should do this? It's not teaching me anything I don't feel inspired by this. I did the math, I'm going to be fine, like I'm okay with the C. Honestly, like this doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 2:I was such a I mean, but can you you like?
Speaker 5:you're a grown woman and you've got this little 12 year old shit just be like nah, I think your shit is it 12, 13 something like that.
Speaker 3:7th grade is about 12 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was terrible yeah, it was terrible, but to this day I'm still that same fucking person. I know and I still stand by who that child was and her like holding out for that.
Speaker 3:I know, and I had to remind myself every time I was dealing with a combative seventh grader that I was in some ways like that as well. Like you, marissa, were. Like you know, I was not a great student and I really didn't like school, which was part of one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher, ironically, because I was like I can kind of think I could do this better. I didn't really like my experience that much.
Speaker 2:How reach me? How could you reach yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 3:so you really I think that's super important as a teacher is to kind of keep your former self, your student self in mind. Like, what kind of teacher would I have wanted to have?
Speaker 3:you know exactly right um, and that that's something that I really try to keep in mind every day that I step into the classroom is, you know, not only content, how it's being delivered, but also just like how the teacher makes the kid feel.
Speaker 3:You know, you, you remember having teachers where you were scared to walk into the classroom because these people were kind of just on edge or you didn't know what you're gonna get, or you felt like they're gonna bite your head off if you did there said the wrong thing.
Speaker 3:So I really and I don't I don't think there are a lot of teachers like that anymore I feel like like that's kind of an old school approach. But, you know, I really try to be conscious of it every day. Like a word I think about when I think about teaching that no one else I've heard say is hospitality, like creating a space where kids feel comfortable and safe to kind of just learn and explore and not have to feel threatened by what the teacher is going to do or say or what the other students in the classroom are going to say. You kind of want to create a culture and a vibe in the room where you can explore ideas, you can express yourself and you can push yourself in a way that's not going to be like a challenge or it's going to feel like it's going to come and bite you in the butt somehow.
Speaker 5:You know what I mean. Yeah, right, like a safe place, but yet still organic. Yeah, and moving and constantly moving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that makes sense and it is always moving because you mentioned earlier, like from year to year, even day to day, the composition of the kids in the classroom changes right.
Speaker 2:So you might have a kid who's always participating, always in a great mood, and then they walk in one day and you're like they're looking at the floor and some you know something else is going on yeah and you're constantly having to read, literally read the room and like I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave that kid alone and then, as an adult too, other layers of concern about mental health, about well-being at home and like all these other things, and dealing with that age group where they're going through things, where they are developing hormonally like oh yeah not to be like a big dead weight, but I mean, you both know my story.
Speaker 5:I mean at 12, 13, that's when something really awful happened and I was president of the student council yeah, captain of the volleyball team, basketball team, track, like all that. And then one day, all it took to change everything. I became a completely different person and child. There's nothing wrong with that, but I can't imagine being a teacher and seeing the kid look down at the ground and be like I'm going to leave them alone today but, also what the fuck happened to them, and that's a lot. It's a lot to handle.
Speaker 3:And teachers are what are called mandated reporters. So if you see or hear of anything about abuse or neglect, it needs to be reported legally or I'm responsible for it.
Speaker 5:Oh, are you legally responsible for it?
Speaker 1:Yeah in some capacity. Is that in New York?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in some capacity there's real accountability for if you are not on it with that. Yeah accountability for if you are not on it with that. But you know there's. Every school, including mine, has a great guidance team, mental health team, school psychologists, social workers yeah, I mean so I don't have. All I'll do is go to them and say, hey, I think so, and so is having a rough day today, or I've just noticed in the last couple of weeks there's a change with this kid.
Speaker 5:That's not what I grew up with.
Speaker 2:No, I love that, because that's not what it should. It should be like that. Yes, yeah, it's beautiful and I think the deal we does.
Speaker 3:Uh, I'm not going to go on a rant about the things they don't do well, but I think that that's that's been a really at every school I've been in.
Speaker 5:I think that's been really strong, that's great well, and that's probably a very much a new york thing, right, you know what I mean. I'm assuming they're probably not getting that in Mississippi or Arkansas, and I'm not calling these out because they're southern states. I'm calling them out because you know seeing or Bay City. Yeah, michigan Right. Or fucking who knows upstate New York somewhere?
Speaker 4:Right, you know we're very lucky because we live in a very progressive area and I mean the most, like I think I've you know, we're very lucky because we live in a very progressive area, and I mean the most progressive in the world, right?
Speaker 3:ish, ish, ish, like the bay area has us a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's the pacific northwest in general yeah, yeah they're crazy over there the bay is pretty yeah they are they really, but almost like almost like yeah, it's almost like that pendulum swings right
Speaker 5:when I think about. I cannot remember for the life of me what this documentary is called, but it was um adam carolla, right? Is that his name?
Speaker 1:yeah, and he was doing it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and he was doing it, but he was doing it with this politician and they were talking about how, like political, political correctness has, like that pendulum is swung so far left and right, like you know where the what was it?
Speaker 5:the dean of harvard gets fired because the kids wanted him to put a restriction on what you could and couldn't be for halloween. And he said as college students like I can't you have to make this decision on your own and we hope that you're given the tools to know what's okay and what's not okay. And he got fucking fired.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you know?
Speaker 1:what I mean, that's extreme.
Speaker 4:That's extreme.
Speaker 5:There are these extremes. The left is almost more extreme than the right. I mean now we're getting into political stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Absolutely, it's wild, it is. You know, I wish I could remember the name of this documentary, but it was fucking awesome. But just it is.
Speaker 1:I mean it's crazy.
Speaker 5:Oh, you don't need to look at that, okay.
Speaker 2:We're going to have to go down a hole A different rabbit hole there, I think.
Speaker 5:I watched it with a very Joe Rogan bro kind of person.
Speaker 3:In my head right now. I'm like don't talk about politics, don't say anything about politics, do not go down that road.
Speaker 5:I know, I know, I know right, Because we all want to so badly.
Speaker 2:Do you have? I'm going to ask, like a little cliche, your favorite, or like one of the highlights, teaching like is there a moment or a thing and then the other side, like a nightmare or the most difficult or challenging situation.
Speaker 3:I don't know what it says, but it's much more easy maybe this is human nature to think about the tougher times and some of the more challenging times and I think it's really hard as a teacher to really identify your successes.
Speaker 3:It's like, oh well, they all did well in this standardized test. But what does that necessarily mean? I mean, a success for me? Me is anytime I'm able to, because as an English teacher I want to generate discussion and reflection and conversation, and anytime I'm able to do that. Or to the point where I notice a change in a student who maybe for the first half of the year was the kid that had their head down or they maybe weren't so confident, and then over time you kind of see them kind of wake up and, you know, wake up to themselves.
Speaker 3:I mean you know, and just kind of what they're capable of yeah yeah, exactly so I've had that a few times when I was actually doing the seventh grade, which was really really challenging. This one kid um was she was tough in the fact that she just she really had like kind of a sour puss on her face every time she walked into the room and then we started reading the outsiders and she got so into it really yeah, and it was, and then every time we had, and sometimes it is just finding the right.
Speaker 3:The text is such an important thing. I could rant about that for a long time oh yeah, and then we watched the movie. Do you remember the movie?
Speaker 5:of Of course.
Speaker 3:Tom.
Speaker 4:Cruise Tom.
Speaker 3:Cruise, patrick Swayze, all those guys. So that was amazing. A week or two later, after we watched the movie, there's this girl in the Bronx and this would have been like 2018 or something with, like Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise on her binder.
Speaker 4:Stop it, Are you serious?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, like Ralph Macchio, yeah, yeah, yeah, like Ralph Macchio, yeah I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ralph Macchio, ralph Macchio, he was in the fire.
Speaker 5:Yeah, wait, emilio Estevez. Right, emilio too. Yeah, I think he was in it. Yeah, matt Dillon too.
Speaker 3:So many hot boys in that. It was a rat pack yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the boy band before the the movie.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's awful. They should not do that.
Speaker 3:They're doing a Broadway production of it Broadway musical.
Speaker 5:Okay, well, that would be okay.
Speaker 3:I've been writing.
Speaker 2:The Subway more lately and I'm like in a fog.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I see all that and I see like some posters.
Speaker 5:So I guess my greatest success as a teacher was book that changes your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just the fact that she didn't want to read, she didn't want to engage at all, and then, she tore through the book in a couple days, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's really rewarding. That's your dangerous mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 5:You're Michelle Flick. Oh, I see I always go to Dead Poets Society A little darker.
Speaker 3:I prefer Dead poets. I think every aspiring teacher sees themselves with the kids standing on a desk and ripping the pages out. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5:I mean, I see myself as a bar owner. I want one of you guys to get up and just throw a Miller Lake bottle down and be like okay. Because I got you a beer through Saturday. I'll remember that next time I got served in front of the busload of Murray Hill kids as writers, all of us, all three of us writers very influenced by literature, like that first book. You know what?
Speaker 3:I mean you did that. You introduced that first book yeah, and I hope she kept reading yeah, and even if she doesn reading after.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you know, and even if she doesn't you still go back to? I think you do.
Speaker 3:I think once you get the bug I think, so too, I believe pretty strongly, you know you go through, I wonder like what else is there?
Speaker 2:yeah, what can I?
Speaker 5:devour you know like a true, a true literary addict yeah, and for me that wasn't even.
Speaker 3:You know, I obviously had took English in school growing up and it was just kind of another class to me at the time. But I I definitely remember finding some books that I was like could not put down and I really was like, well, it might be something here Like I think I really like, like words. You know what I mean Exactly, and finding that author right At the time that you need that.
Speaker 5:Author. Like you know, we all go through not all of us, but you know when you go through your Bukowski stage and then you outgrow your Bukowski stage and you go through your Salander stage and then you outgrow your Salander.
Speaker 1:Oh, of course, Sylvia Platt, Milan Kundera, like all these people.
Speaker 5:And then, you know, I get into my graphic novel phase. You know Alan Moore.
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 5:And you know you, just that's what literature that's why literature is so beautiful.
Speaker 2:One spark Exactly that fire.
Speaker 3:Click into the fire. It's absolutely true. It takes one spark.
Speaker 5:And it sounds like you gave that to her, because I mean for her to go to that level of putting pictures of them on her binder To get Ralph Macchio back on a binder. Exactly, and a young girl a seventh grader in the Bronx.
Speaker 1:How cool is that.
Speaker 2:If he ever hears this, that is awesome, right? I feel like Ralph would really appreciate that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think, so too I would.
Speaker 2:Be touched.
Speaker 3:So then the contrast yeah, you know, um. So then the contrast yeah, I mean the contrast is, um, yeah, teaching is super rewarding for, like, the reason I, I shared um and there's a lot of other small wins like that. Um, teaching is also super isolating, in a way that I don't think people fully understand, because you have colleagues you know I'm in a great English department right now a lot of great friends but we're all doing it on our own and you don't necessarily know what's happening in someone else's classroom all the time. I don't always. I'll have a lot of lessons where I'm like that didn't feel good.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it was me, I don't know if it was just the nature of the kids. This day, day, what is it? The text you're reading and you, there's so much second guessing and doubt and there's really no way to mitigate it, like there's really no way to prove yourself wrong. Yeah, you know what I mean. Um, so I think I think something about teaching that I found over 10 years is it's really you feel like you're alone a lot of the time.
Speaker 2:I hadn't thought of that. I mean that totally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because you're in a school full of thousands of people at any given time, but you know when the lesson's over. You know, at my worst, you know, I've had classes that, just from a behavior standpoint, I really felt overwhelmed by, especially earlier in my career, and there was once or twice where the door closed, I just stood there for like 30 seconds staring at the wall or out the window and I just picked up a chair and just chucked it across the room because I was so upset by it, because you just feel helpless and it's that feeling of like. And I think we've all had jobs where you're going to bed at night and you're like I don't want to get up because I know I'm going to have to go back to that place again and it just kind of is. It kind of gets in your head that way when it's not going well and it's only November.
Speaker 2:That's really really really hard and you're trapped with 30 12 year olds. Yeah, that's really really hard.
Speaker 3:That's really really hard, that's really really hard.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, I never think about that aspect.
Speaker 3:No, I actually haven't, yeah, that's intense and you know. But the plus side is, whenever I've had a chance and I don't know why it's so few and far between but to talk just organically with my colleagues about our experiences, like we do a happy hour or something like that, and that's when you realize everybody has the same stories yeah everybody's kind of going through it and that's such an important thing.
Speaker 3:I think kind of the collegial aspect of teaching that probably needs to be encouraged a little bit more, because there's been a whole years where I just felt like I went through that entire thing and I did my best, but I was kind of alone the entire time yeah yeah, and that that's not easy and then you go home and you're laying in bed talking to your school psychologist wife and she tries to give you some feedback.
Speaker 2:At least you have that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And she taught for five years before she became a school psychologist at a charter school in Brownsville. So that's actually a different conversation, but it's. One of the nice things about it is that we kind of speak the same language.
Speaker 5:Right Education and schools and stuff and it is great to have a partner that can.
Speaker 2:You can decompress with and who comes from a vantage point of knowledge and empathy.
Speaker 3:Yeah absolutely, yeah right, absolutely, of course.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh my god Rich that was heavy, that was heavy.
Speaker 2:Do you want to read us one of your jokes?
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, or do we go do questions first? Do we do questions? I mean no, no, no, it's up to you. Do you want to do a joke or questions?
Speaker 3:I would love if one of you read a joke.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Are there any that you like out of the?
Speaker 2:50? There are, but I want to just pick at random. Yeah, just open and point a finger. That's my favorite way to go it about it. This is a rich original by so 50 jokes by rich number 36 is where my finger landed. I always used to think I needed to live in a place with all four seasons, but the more I think about it I could settle for three seasons, so long as it had a pool.
Speaker 5:I agree with that completely. I want one. I want one. Okay, okay, hold on.
Speaker 2:This is kind of like question roulette, it's joke roulette.
Speaker 3:It's joke roulette. It's even more mortifying.
Speaker 5:No, it's not, it's great. Okay, someone told me feeding ducks in the park was a nice way to spend an afternoon, but when I tried passing out plates of duck the orange next to the pond all I got was a bunch of dirty looks.
Speaker 2:I read that one this morning. Actually, I'm glad you picked it Okay one more.
Speaker 5:I'll do another one. This is fine, right? This is going better than I thought it would. Okay, one more, I'll do another one. This is fine, right.
Speaker 3:This is going better than I thought it would Okay good.
Speaker 2:I wonder what compelled man to first settle in Arctic climates. I bet it was the promise of their women eventually evolving into blondes.
Speaker 4:Okay, I'm doing one more. I'm glad you two are having fun, we are Okay, I can't go for it.
Speaker 5:I think I'm at 13, so I'm going to go. Imagine being the first meatball sub someone eats after 25 years in a prison. Talk about pressure.
Speaker 3:That one's so stupid.
Speaker 4:She loved it, she loved it.
Speaker 3:That was one of the dumber ones, for sure. All right, last one.
Speaker 4:We're going to send out an odd number Okay, that's good luck Okay.
Speaker 2:Let me go. If the collective unconscious is real, then why doesn't everyone else run and scream when they see a cantaloupe?
Speaker 3:see a cantaloupe I love that.
Speaker 4:That is so good.
Speaker 5:I had fun writing them. Yeah, I love it. I thought you did. I think they're great're great, I love it.
Speaker 2:It's like gonna be my new daily. Uh, what's that called? You know like what?
Speaker 5:what's the?
Speaker 4:um daily calendar. That's what.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about what's it called what is it?
Speaker 5:called daily resolutions daily.
Speaker 3:You know the yeah, the calendar ripoff that has a comic, but it's the far side far side yeah far side.
Speaker 2:It's your daily far side.
Speaker 5:There you go right now we're going into artwork, I guess. Thank you for reading this.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for for writing them.
Speaker 3:I have 50 more of these zines on my shelf at home. If anybody wants one, just come knock we'll keep bringing them on yeah I'll bring them to the readings.
Speaker 1:Like they're amazing I love them, we should start reading them on tuesday, that's so good Just an icebreaker.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Oh.
Speaker 2:God. He says Okay. So now it's time for question roulette Again. Randomized questions. We have no idea what they are. We all answer Alright here we go.
Speaker 5:Drumroll that's from Tiki.
Speaker 2:I'm glad we went light so that we can go a little dark. Oh no, what's the worst thing?
Speaker 5:that could happen to you. Well, death right. Is it the worst thing? I don't know. I think about death all the time. Lately.
Speaker 3:Like you're dead. It's done. Let's just talk about death, because I'm thinking about mortality a lot.
Speaker 5:Me. I have been too lately, like I've been waking up in the morning and just thinking about like okay, so when it's over, my belief is it's just over right and I'm like I'm kind of in this weird spot in my life where I'm like am I a loser, am I not a loser? Have I, like, done the things?
Speaker 1:I want to do?
Speaker 5:have I not done the things I want to do, like I'm in this, like perpetual purgatory? Of regret right now yeah, man a little bit, and so I think for me personally it would be like and I watched so much murder that I think for me to answer your question it would and I usually don't jump in right away, but I think it would be for now, right now, death solely on the purpose that I haven't done the things that I wanted to do yet.
Speaker 2:Okay, so how can I help you? I mean, I think I'd try to. Well, I wanted to have kids.
Speaker 5:so we've got to reverse that physical thing. Okay, there are many ways to have children. I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 4:There are many ways to have children. I will not be a surrogate for you.
Speaker 5:I do have a geriatric uterus and I can't say them, but you know what I mean. I think that's what's been haunting me daily. I was telling Marissa my morning routine is I wake up, I walk the dog, I make a cup of green tea, I smoke a little pot and get my brain sorted. But lately it's been going really dark Really, in this really dark place of regrets Well. I think also it's seasons.
Speaker 2:It's kind of the opposite of winter depression, it's that things are open, bright and warm, and so you're like, oh, oh, feeling a pressure to, to accomplish or that that contemplative, like nesting of winter is no, you're no longer allowed to have that. Now you've got to do things. What?
Speaker 1:are you who?
Speaker 3:are you?
Speaker 3:the sun is shining it's, it's light out for fucking 14 hours, so do stuff I feel like I kind of crossed that threshold just in my life, like I'm 37, going on 38 and at some point around 35 something shifted for me, where that youthful optimism of like anything can happen, I can still do anything. And then at you know, lately it's like nope, you're a teacher in New York, you're living in Brooklyn, this is your life. I hope you like it because you're not going to get a redo on this. Yeah, you know me too.
Speaker 4:Me too Same right.
Speaker 5:And I don't know where that comes from. I haven't always thought that way, but it's sort of just been like popping in.
Speaker 3:And that's why I started writing again in the last couple of years, because I kind of felt like not to go back to the teaching thing too much. But I'm still trying to get to a point where I feel like I'm consistently good at teaching. After 10 years I don't feel like I'm there yet. I don't know if I will. Maybe that's just not the nature of the profession, maybe it's always going to be second guessing and you're just always working with whatever you can. But I thought if I start writing again, I can at least have some control over my creative life and I can sort of make sure I'm nurturing parts of myself that I've been ignoring for a while creatively. And that's kind of how I'm trying to. That's how I'm trying to manage the existential dread of, you know, thinking at best I have 50 years left here yeah, you know, and yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry doing.
Speaker 3:I'm starting to do that.
Speaker 5:I don't know how we got to this, but I've this is how it's dark, but I've been doing the math all the time yeah, I'm like how much time I've been alive and like how long is it?
Speaker 3:how fast are the next 50 or so years going to go by?
Speaker 5:yeah, me too no, I've been like it makes me feel really happy to hear you say that, because I'm having the exact same conversation yeah, you know this existential sort of what the fuck?
Speaker 2:well, I'm like kind of on the opposite, but same. The last few years have been existential dread, as in I haven't. After I sold my restaurant, I've been playing with a bunch of things and figuring out more, refining what I don't want, and all the things I do want are going to be subjective to other people's acceptance of them, like writing movies, writing books and like doing this podcast and doing all of these things. What I am 43 and I am at a hopeful point where I'd been technically unemployed freelance things, but technically unemployed and so I just started a job where I'd been technically unemployed freelance things, but technically unemployed and so I just started a job where I am the oldest person confirmed now, older than yeah, yeah first I was like yeah, there's a couple.
Speaker 2:There's a couple that are close, um, but yeah, so I was like okay, I'm starting a new job bartending that, I love what I'm doing, it's great and it's serving its purpose. But this is not a person with three degrees and where I thought like this was going to be at this age, and we've talked about this before like comparison of our parents. My mom at this age was like 20, some years into her job that she's about to retire from 40 years later, like she had kids, she was divorced, like all of these things.
Speaker 2:I don't want that life, not even an option. Um, but it's yeah, I won't have a 401k. I don't want to be the director, the boss, the ceo of all of these things, I just want to have a creative life where I serve community and myself yeah, my creative desires.
Speaker 2:So I've started all these projects like this podcast like the reading series, wrote my book and like, doing all these things, none of these things are going to support me yet. Right, and that's the, that's the hope I have to have. Right, it fulfills me emotionally, intellectually and creatively. I'm waiting for that financial component to follow yeah and so being this age and having the education that I have thanks to scholarship, thanks to fellowships, like all of these things that I worked really hard for that are just like sitting in my well, they're probably.
Speaker 3:They're probably manifesting themselves in the work you're doing creatively for sure not financially and that's the part it's like where I I have this like I'm excited.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about creative things. I have so many ideas and I've actually, with Rita, created a couple of them. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And manifested.
Speaker 2:But I'm at the hopeful stage because it's all nascent.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:So we'll talk in a little next year.
Speaker 4:So what was the fear? The fear, so we'll talk in a little next year. So what?
Speaker 2:was the fear, the fear. The fear is that I don't know that.
Speaker 2:I can't continue doing this or that my energy and enthusiasm wanes and I fall into shit for money, yeah, yeah, choices where currently I'm able to because of my husband and we balance each other out make choices about those things together right where we find like we're not making compromises to our ethics. Uh, but yeah, so, so that's my fear, and then the worst thing that could happen to me death yes, not my own, it's my husband and I've talked about this before I'm so lucky and happy.
Speaker 2:I have a beautiful partner and I ask him all the time I was like, please, let me die first, because I don't know what I can do.
Speaker 3:That's the worst thing that could happen to me, not my own death, just want to put on the record. I do not want my wife to die. Just putting it out there.
Speaker 5:Yeah I mean, and I don't have a partner. I mean I wish I did. You know, that's just a thing that never happened for me. But, like, I totally get that If, like you know, if I had a child, or you know I have a dog. I know my dog's going to die before me, but will he?
Speaker 4:But will he? I mean, I also don't know that either.
Speaker 5:Like I'm also very prone to suicide and I know that, like for me death isn't that scary. It's this weird juxtaposition of like death is very scary to me but at the same time, like I've always known that that's how I'm going to die is suicide. So it's just a very weird thing of like. I just want to like kind of control how much I can get done before I decide to make that decision.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know what I mean. Which is maybe, and it's Indonesian. She goes to Switzerland. Well, you know, whatever, you don't have to be super macabre.
Speaker 5:No, and I don't, I don't want to be macabre.
Speaker 3:I didn't mention. I'm a mandated reporter. I am a mandated reporter and I like.
Speaker 5:I like when other people are open about it too, you know. But um, okay, all right, I've, I came up with my list today. Our fuck kill b our fuck kill b don't forget, can't forget. This is I know in your minds you're gonna think it's juvenile, but in my mind it's very serious. So I'm gonna judge my judging this but you know that I'm a Marvel and DC fanatic guys okay so the way that I'm gonna think this through is gonna be a lot different than I feel like.
Speaker 5:maybe the way that I'm going to think this through is going to be a lot different than I feel like, maybe the way you two are going to think it through, but maybe not. Maybe you're like super comic book nerds too.
Speaker 4:No comment.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the fuck kill be, yeah. Opposed to fuck kill marry. Fuck kill be. We have three choices.
Speaker 5:Are you explaining?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then now you're gonna say oh, my three. I thought you were explaining what we have to do.
Speaker 5:It's a first time listener, you know iron man, batman, spider-man, it's trick, it's kind of a trick question, you think so?
Speaker 2:are we the actors or the characters?
Speaker 5:no, it's gotta be the characters so many like well, but the actors are the characters. I mean, we're talking about just like okay. So batman is like, okay, let's look at this. Like batman is like this rich guy whose parents got murdered and he's seeking revenge and he doesn't have any superpowers, but he's got all the money in the world, okay. Okay, then we've got iron man, who is also a very rich man, right, but he's got he's. He's richer than batman, is he?
Speaker 2:I think is yeah, he's burdened by, by his wealth because he is a creator of industries. But he's an industry creator, do you know? Like like he's a industry creator.
Speaker 3:Do you know? What I mean he's a job creator.
Speaker 5:Batman has someone that builds all this shit. Iron man builds all this shit, spider-man is a kid from Queens.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he is.
Speaker 5:He's just a kid from Queens man, but he's got these crazy fucking powers he went on a school trip.
Speaker 2:It got weird he goes on lots of school trips and they get weird, and then his family dies, and then they're married.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I know. So it's like there's a lot of depth here, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So Marissa seems to have her answer. I say immediately I'm going to kill Spider-Man, I'm going to fuck Batman and I'm going to be Iron man.
Speaker 4:Hmm.
Speaker 2:Wait, go back again. I'm going to kill Spider-Man Spider-Man, cute, but and then fuck Batman. He's dark, he's brooding. We got stuff, we're gonna work it out together, yeah. And then Iron man I wanna be creative. I wanna be a boss bait. I wanna like engage him. I wanna have like that power, not in like just superpower, but power of creation.
Speaker 5:Yeah, right, see, you did really think hard about that.
Speaker 4:I did think hard. I'm really impressed with that answer.
Speaker 5:All right Ray, what do you want to do?
Speaker 3:I'm going to be Batman. This is always my favorite and I like that.
Speaker 1:I'm Batman.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that. He does not have superpowers and he's kind of more resourceful. Yeah, okay, he's super rich, but he's also just a regular person at the end of the day and he made it work for himself. I would probably kill iron man because he, knowing that he's even richer than batman, that turns me off.
Speaker 4:He's yeah, yeah and then uh, and then I'm gonna fuck him I guess, and then I guess I'm fucking spider-Man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why not? Yeah, he's very nimble, he's very flexible. You could use his web to like. You could get in all kinds of cool positions and like, make like a sex swing with the web or something like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, fun stuff yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah you could do something cool like that, so I think that could work. Okay, yeah, that might be. That'd be an experience.
Speaker 5:All right, I'm feeling weird today.
Speaker 2:Give it to me.
Speaker 5:I'm going to fuck Batman obviously Like what a babe.
Speaker 2:He's got the cave and stuff.
Speaker 5:And he's like so broody.
Speaker 2:The lair.
Speaker 3:Probably the most goth of the majors, yeah totally and DC, you know. I like DC better than Marvel.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well.
Speaker 4:But no, I go back and forth. I go back and forth a lot.
Speaker 5:But yeah, I mean, batman is just like this iconic sort of I hate to say this because I love Iron man so much, but I'm going to kill him, okay, because I have Batman's money. I mean, it's going to be the best lay we've ever had. He's going to want to marry me we've ever had. He's going to want to marry me Because. I'm going to be Spider-Man? Oh yay, that's the one thing that I don't have.
Speaker 3:So you're fucking Batman as Spider-Man.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and Iron man would be really mad about that, because Iron man loves Spider-Man, it's like his son.
Speaker 3:They have a close relationship.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they have a really close relationship.
Speaker 2:Well, because he's like the, the care person, he's like I've got money yeah, yeah, because he's like the marvel, so iron man's like the patriarch
Speaker 5:of the marvel mcu.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, yeah, I just re-watched all these movies you know it's funny, I I haven't seen a ton of marvel films. Sorry, rita that's okay, I just started I saw um black panther, which was excellent yeah, this is excellent, but actually to bring it full circle, when I was teaching seventh grade in the Bronx, I took a group of kids to see Endgame Avengers, endgame yeah At a theater in Manhattan and they were super excited and I went and I had not seen any of the other Avengers movies, so you had no idea, I had no fucking idea what was happening.
Speaker 3:There was a glove, that was very important. They all really wanted that glove. That was super. They all needed the glove. No one really explained why that glove was so important, but it ended up in the right hands at the end of the day, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 5:It did. Did the kids love it?
Speaker 3:Oh, they loved it. You know what was great? Because in that movie every Marvel character shows up at one point. Yeah, when Black Panther showed up on the screen, they all stood up and started clapping and cheering.
Speaker 4:Wow, really, I just got goosebumps. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was awesome. Oh, I love that yeah.
Speaker 2:I like I remember when I saw that we had we. It was an afternoon, we had the day off it was an afternoon we had the day off and then we went to lucky dog to like debrief I needed to ken did it.
Speaker 5:I was like ken let's talk about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like how important and like just not just representation, but world building and acknowledging, like all of yeah, I know it's beautiful yeah, I just I was, yeah, very deep I haven't seen I haven't seen the new Black Panther.
Speaker 3:There was a second one yeah, it's great.
Speaker 5:They're all great for different reasons.
Speaker 2:And then Chadwick he was such he was gorgeous as a human, but also physically he's a very talented actor.
Speaker 5:I know it's heartbreaking, alright well we're going to end on a.
Speaker 3:We're gonna end on a joke let's end on a joke another joke, we're gonna go thankfully none of these get too dark. We're gonna go.
Speaker 2:I have no self control when it comes to food. If it's in front of me, I'm gonna fuck it.
Speaker 5:Alright, ray, thank you comes to food. If it's in front of me, I'm gonna fuck it All right, ray, thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys so much. This was really really nice time. We're gonna keep hanging out, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Okay, great.