Glenn
👤 PersonPodcast Appearances
Hi, Glenn, and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan. Hi. How are you?
That is not true, Glenn.
Mm-hmm.
Monorail. Apartment. Apartment.
Apartment. Yes.
Apartment.
I hope not.
Who knows?
Do it.
Maybe if you go visit, first thing you have to do is an orientation where you do a presentation on who you are to them. Yes. Then you can get them in an apartment.
Yes, it is.
Right south of Oklahoma City by about 18, 20 miles.
So we're literally a part of Oklahoma City.
Oh, wow. That's pretty close.
I teach two sessions of your class right now, and then I teach three other classes. But right now I have 25 a class, so I've got 50 kids in total with doing the foundations class.
I've been teaching, uh, financial literacy for 13 years and with yours, uh, the last three years.
And I won't, and I won't teach it any other way besides your way.
Uh, they ask me all the time and I always tell them, I said, well, I was just like Dave. I was, I was once, you know, Made my way, then I had to file bankruptcy, and I learned the hard way, and then come back out, and then I can be that person that can give the real truth and the honest answers to the kids, and that's the only way I believe in teaching.
A hundred percent, and that's kind of what I tell them. I say it's the most relevant class they'll ever take in high school because every day they'll deal with money.
I don't have any challenges like that, but I do challenge my students with that. And, you know, because I ask for insight from the kids. And when we talk and stuff like that, then there's not – there's only when we do an inter-teacher conference that parents come in.
And then when we sit down, we start talking that they find out exactly what we're talking about because I open up everything to them. I show them everything that we do in the class. And they're like, oh, my gosh, I wish we would have this when we were in high school. And I said, exactly.
Food and shelter. I mean, that's the biggest things. I mean, I try to talk to them about cars, but, you know, with a school of 2,600 kids, we are, you know, Pretty large school, and a lot of kids just worry about having a job to help their families out get by. They bring to me their employers.
They'll try to bring me a W-4 and tax information to help them fill it out, to try to get them a resume built, anything like that.
Yes, sir. We are very honored to have that done for us.
Yes, and a lot of them come back, and the first thing I always talk about
um this course is is income but i talk about the investing aspect that they have a savings account open up a mutual fund you know like you talk about and then kids take their take their money out of a savings account because it's drawing nothing and you're just wasting it and kids will come back and be like hey mr fred i'm so happy that i had your class that i invested this money and uh and i'm
Thank you. Thank you.
$57,000.
I want to know, should I sell my paid-off truck? It's kind of expensive, and buy an older truck to save money.
Well, it's just like a depreciating asset, and I just feel like it's too much truck.
You have debt? It is. No debt.
Wow. What do you make? Last year, $260,000. You like the truck? Yeah, it's okay. It's kind of faded, but it's a good truck. I like it.
Yeah, yeah, it's actually worth a few more bucks than it was when I bought it a year ago.
Just an older truck, like something, you know, 20 years old that's in good shape.
How much? Oh, like 20.
Well, there is money for that, but just have more of a buffer, I guess.
The boy who shot and killed my son was his younger brother's best friend.
The official ruling, which was that Chad picked up a gun, pointed at this fellow, said bang. The other fellow picked up a gun, pointed it back at Chad, pulled the trigger, and that was all.
I was charged for involuntary manslaughter because it was my handgun that ultimately killed Chad and that I was not aware that he had two of my handguns out of my cabinet in his bedroom at the time. And frankly, that was something I should have been aware of.
This is Chad's corner of the restaurant. Notice the menu board. It tells you to welcome to Chad's Trading Post Family Restaurant. It says, Nobody Leaves Hungry. And it lists all the specials of the day. It also has a claimer in the bottom that's named in memory of Chad D. McDonald and the date of his birth, which is 3-12-74.
To the left of that shows you the last and most recent picture of my son, which was taken about six weeks before he died.
And what they did was took the picture and replaced by computer Chad's picture over mine. It's actually my arms holding him, but the rest of it's all Chad.
I mean, is it... I think everybody grieves in a different way. For me it is, because I'm doing something constructive. I was semi-retired and disabled before. I'm still disabled, but I was just vegging. I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself and doing nothing. When the restaurant idea came up from his brother Scott and we started looking into it rather seriously, we found the place.
It was almost like a breath of fresh air. It was something we could all do. in memory of his brother and have some fun with him. We have for seven years. Healthy? I don't know. Psychiatrists say many different things. People who blithely say things will get better over time have never been here. Things never get better. They get a little less immediate. So he worked us in memory of him.
as a way of keeping him immediate to us. Nobody forgets. We get along this way. We get by this way. A whole bunch of us get by this way.
I mean, Catherine Hepburn did it.
Yeah, it's to me. It's will and should. I mean, for all the reasons we've talked about. Plus, it's the only shot this very weird movie has at a major award, one of the big five. So, yeah, let's give it.
Sure. We've got Coleman Domingo for Sing Sing. Domingo plays an incarcerated man who finds purpose by acting in a theater troupe. We've got Ralph Fiennes for Conclave. Fiennes plays the cardinal who is managing the process of finding a new pope. We've got Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice.
Stan plays a young Donald Trump establishing his career in real estate and his relationship with the attorney Roy Cohn. And then we have the two presumed frontrunners, Adrian Brody, as we've talked about for The Brutalist. Brody plays a visionary Hungarian architect who moves to America to rebuild his life after World War II. And Timothy Chalamet for A Complete Unknown. He plays Bob Dylan.
But for him to win, he would have to escape the gravity well of Adrian Brody in The Brutalist, which is the uber traditional choice. You watch that movie and his performance is a series of Oscar clips. You keep waiting for them to cut away to him sitting in the audience and people clapping around. It's impressive, but it's the default choice.
Thank you. I have been trying to make these things connect for ever since I found out how much he likes this very boring movie.
Well, Stephen, you're happy because I pick Coleman Domingo for should win. I think he makes that film a hell of a lot more compelling than it could have been. On paper, after all, it is, let's face it, a feel-good movie about the carceral state. I just get itchy whenever there's any kind of narrative, any kind of marginalized group and the narrative is, well, at least they have Shakespeare.
You know, I just, that rubs me the wrong way.
He is the reason that a film that could have been about, you know, this very tidy kind of neoliberal uplift has any real grit in the gears at all. He's the thing that makes it work.
If you think it's daunting, try the books.
Yeah, we've got one of those biopics, A Complete Unknown. Timothy Chalamet playing a young Bob Dylan. The movie follows his rise in the music world. How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? Six. Six is the answer. We've got The Brutalist. Adrian Brody plays a fictional Jewish-Hungarian architect who relocates to the United States after World War II.
You'd like to win the commission.
Waves? We're calling them waves now.
But see, I think the ranked choice voting is going to help Onora. I think a lot of people feel very favorably disposed toward that film. If they don't rank it first, they're going to rank it second or third. I think the buzz around Onora has been growing. I think this is a real chance for a scrappy little movie like Onora to take it home.
As did I. I thought I was going to be out here all alone, but I join you, Linda. I'd like to see the Academy rewarding any innovation, any tweaking of the format. And it's not just that it's told through the character's eyes. The use of that could have easily been just a distracting gimmick, right? But it's used so smartly to serve the story and to serve the emotions of the story.
And not for nothing, this film has a closing montage that's like five, ten minutes long. That also could have been confusing, disorienting, but the director, Rommel Ross, is going back to his experimental film roots. That montage took you by the hand. It guided you along in such a confident and assured way.
You knew exactly what was happening, which is yet another reason, the fact that we didn't get a nomination for directing or cinematography or editing.
You know, what are we awarding here? Outstanding Achievement of these 10 films. This is the Outstanding Achievement.
Okay. So is there anything that's been helpful? Have you experienced anything in that room that has been helpful for your lava?
All right. Samantha Irby writes the Bitches Gotta Eat blog and is the author of Wow, No Thank You, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, and Meaty. She has been a writer and or co-producer for TV shows including And Just Like That, Work in Progress, Shrill, and Tuca and Bertie. Sam Irby. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.
Or go. Take what you need and then be like, I think you've taken me as far. I don't want to be fixed all the way. I'm out of here.
Okay, so let's get the cool out of the way right away because what I want to start with, Sam, is our friendship origin story, which is my favorite story in the world. Okay, so Sam and I did an event together once. At the end of the event, I loved her so much. I sent her my phone number and email. Months and months later, lo so many months later, I am sitting in France at the World Cup. Okay.
As you do. As you do. Right. I'm at the soccer as per usual. But it's a big soccer. Okay. Like the biggest soccer. It's the biggest soccer. Like the Super Bowl of soccer. The Oscars of soccer, if you will. Yes. Yes. The Grammys.
Oh my God, just go with the story. And I get a text, okay? And it says something like the following. Hello, Glennon. I'm sorry to escalate our friendship on text in this way, but I'm an emergency. I'm sitting in a room full of people. And I may have told the people that I'm very good friends with you and Abby. And now they're calling me on it and asking me to call you.
Actually, you wear them to work out and you wear them out to dinner. That is true.
And you wear them under suits and you wear them to bed.
Speaking of dudes in carabiners, I find this part of you very interesting, okay? You approach friendship in a very different place than a lot of people I know. You can be friends. Well, you're friends with a dude who wears a Budweiser belt buckle, unironically. What? Right? Yes. Like... So this is hard for me to do because I don't know. I weed people out.
I guess I believe that people's belief systems, as might be manifested in their belt buckles, are parts of their character. Right. So I want to learn from you in this. Tell me how this works for you, because you can be friends with anybody.
So can you please answer your phone and act like we're good friends? I mean. I mean, do you remember Abby sitting there being like, well, now she's our favorite person in the entire world.
Yeah, it's... Don't you wish, don't you wish I was more like that? No, that is exactly how I feel.
Yes. I think that's what I'm usually, if someone's in my house watching wrestling, Sam, which wouldn't happen, but okay. I am thinking, I'm side-eyeing that person thinking, is this person one of my soulmates or not? Right, right. And then when they roll their eyes at the wrong commercial, it's over. You know?
Yes, everyone I'm friends with is on this podcast right now.
We need different words for friends. Yes. We need different words for friends because I don't want to say Bob's my friend because I don't want that to reflect. Right. The next thing Bob says this and then you're like, wait, why are you friends with that dude? Right. Different words. Right.
I get that. I get that. Do you sometimes feel responsibility to just always be funny and always be doing the thing with other people?
Speaking of capital F, friends, can we talk about your lady a little bit?
Your lady. Is it Kirsten or Kirsten? It's Kirsten.
Okay. So you two, didn't you meet, did she reach out to you? She slid into your DMs, didn't she?
Of course. Of course we were sending pictures. Like we can't believe you couldn't come with us. Here's your extra seat. This game sucks without you. Yeah. Yeah. I've loved you ever since that moment. Okay, so Sam, we want to start this interview with one of our favorite questions, which is this. It was a question that Rachel Elizabeth asked, and it was this.
Like that day, did you, or was it a slow burn or was it like?
Did you have a happy childhood, or are you funny?
I know it's real. Just to Symbiotica, thank you for making my wife so happy.
So what is your life like now? You're in Michigan. You've got the two kids. You do not consider yourself a step-parent.
That's great. Okay. One of my favorite things that you write about is your belief in not FOMO. But JOMO, not the fear of missing out, but the joy of missing out. Okay. And I feel like especially, you know, activities, you said you have finally learned that no one else is ever having a better time than you are. Like everything sucks and everywhere everyone is sucks, right? Never. I would disagree.
I love that you can do it, but never. Never. No, the mix is the thing that should be avoided. Yes. The mix. Yes. Okay. But it's not that it's just the joy of missing out on the event. You have taught us about the joy of missing out on having a take on fucking everything. Okay. This is one of my favorite.
So Sam's talking about or writing about the idea that she's supposed to have an opinion or a take on every single thing that happens in the world. And this is one of my favorite that ever was said. One of the reasons I give a lot of disclaimers is because we give so much weight to what people say who maybe we should not be listening to. I do want to remind people, don't ask me about the news.
I don't watch the news. I haven't read a history book since 1997. I am keenly aware of what I know and what I don't know. One of the things I don't know is anything smart or important that needs to be told to other people.
Well, Sam, your aunt of an experience on this giant world has helped so many of us just find the absurd to make the next five minutes a little bit more tolerable. That's what you do for all of us.
And with that. We can do hard things, love bugs. Like, shut the fuck up. We will see you next time on We Can Do Hard Things. Sam Irby, thank you for this hour and thank you for who you are in the world.
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts,
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We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LaGrasso, Alison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.
What went down that you had to get funny for?
It's so interesting because some people have a lot of us have the like, it'll get better. So the optimism we get through because we tell ourself it's going to get better. But your theory has always been. No, I can just make the next five minutes more bearable. Yes.
Hello, sweet world. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. I think today we'll call this We Can Do Funny Things because we have one of the funniest people in the universe here. The three of us love to high heavens. Yeah. So first of all, I'll just tell you, we have Sam Irby here.