Vinson Cunningham

I mean, yes, suppression, first of all, never works. And also, too much of her competitive energy is making its way into the lives of her children. She has to take up tennis.

Okay. Okay. Obtain. By what means?

It's all cheating, obviously. It should be... This war of... nepotistic escalation must end this is ridiculous own means means like you know you have to forage it you need to go to central park and forage it yourself yeah make some grains from fucking dandelions found on the in the one of those dividers between the sides of broadway yes What are you talking about? Anyway.

Oh, God.

Okay.

I know you hate X, and yet they are great at their job. You should just lay down and call for the Lord to take you. That is, it's over for you. Does she suspect yet that the daughter is talking about the eighth grade fundraiser? Does she suspect?

She has two options and two options only.

So it's either 100%... Ignore. Forget you heard it. And from then on, tell the daughter, for fundraiser-related reasons, I can't know about anything that you tell me. Like, totally forget. Renounce. Or establish a new Gmail address and send an anonymous tip to the authorities. There is no other way. If she tries a third path, she's going to get burned.

Ellen, shout out to you.

She put that ranch on auction.

Yeah, of course it's cheating.

That's right.

Oh, no. Let me find out Hazel's IT department is bad. She's supposed to be a girl boss.

Oh, my God.

Hazel. Obsec. Obsec. Obsec. Let me find out she's doing unsecure bullshit.

Do I think this will calm them down? Yeah.

No. They're going to say, first of all, that New York City social fundraising life is nothing but auctions. You can't raise money without an auction, I think that they would say. Somebody has a parent annoying enough to say that this is discrimination against kids with wealthy parents.

And then somebody's going to know immediately because this is how things happen. that this all happened because one person was upset about one thing. They might not know about Ellen and Hazel and their demented little tango, but they will know that it is about some personal grievance and that will come up and it will cause a tea party at this school. This is not at all the end of this story.

Of being cool. Yep, that's right.

Yes, the Halloween skeleton is more and more visible, more and more a part of the life of America as I see it. It's a huge thing.

Skelly.

Hey.

I mean, the things you can see on Christopher Street, I feel like the 12 foot tall skeleton is the safe zone. That's like the most wholesome thing that's ever happened on Christopher Street. But I would also shriek in delight.

This is my total pleasure. This is the best. To be on a podcast with somebody I already like to talk to.

Patricia!

As anyone would have to be.

I would approach the Madam Mayflower of Christopher Street and say, hey, like, yeah, I've always seen you on this block. What's up? Like, just one of those things. Like, I always see you around. You like the skeleton? Yeah. And if there was an answer to the affirmative, I would say I would have to take credit is what I would do.

Wow. I can't even pretend on this podcast that I don't do that.

That's right. And then we would like start to have a conversation about Halloween. We would just like we'd be like, yeah, Halloween's kind of my thing. And then like Patricia sounds like the kind of person who might be into it.

And then off we off we go.

perfect because i have to ask you what's your relationship with gossip and we love honesty and transparency on this podcast well as you just exposed for me sometimes i do in fact gossip i do still feel though that and maybe the reason that i do it when i feel empowered and equipped to do so is that generally i am not a good receiver of gossip i feel like i don't know what it is

What kind of true crime shit is happening?

Oh, hijinks. I like that. This is great. These guys are funny.

Okay, okay. Good. Innocent fun.

Good. That's two good things in a row that Ellen has done for Patricia.

Yes, 100%. I hope so. I hope that I would have the integrity to do that. But yeah, you have to. This is how they get to know you, especially when they're in college. This is now your time to... to introduce yourself to them as a person. So if they did that when they were 11, you'd have to get pretty pissed about it and only let slip your actual feelings much later.

But these are, sounds like rambunctious American boys of 19 or 20, and they deserve to know the red-blooded truth about their mom, Patricia.

Everything's coming up, Ellen.

I haven't sabotaged anyone.

It was never safe. I just hope this doesn't ruin things with Patricia.

maybe I have cop energy, maybe I have church boy energy, whatever it is, people tend not to tell me just weird, lurid secrets, which is, of course, the fuel of all good gossip.

I would never bring her into this sordid world of intrigue and lies. Patricia's from the good side.

This is a twisted tale.

Yeah, unfortunately, it's the worst. When that happens, you have to call a meeting. You have to just banish the secret immediately. You got to do like a, and like clear the air.

Or it's taken me a while for that to be the condition of my life. I often analogize it to this. You know there's just a big party, and then you learn that there's cocaine in the bathroom? No one has ever told me about the cocaine. I never know that there's drugs. I'm always the one from whom it is hit in plain sight.

Yeah. This tale is thick with villains. And they're villainy. Hazel, just cheater, liar, daughter appropriator. Need I go on?

Ellen, a hater and a snitch.

Although I feel for her, because you and your telling imbued her with such rich humanity, and her protagonism really shone through for me. Petty villainy, really, at the end of the day, but the sons of Patricia are obviously, I mean, literal criminals. True. Trespassers, at the very least. The daughter, the older daughter. What kind of two-timing... Hussie is- No loyalty.

This heifer, what is she doing? Why is she playing both sides? What's up with her?

I'm sorry, that gets me on the wrong side of the straight man thing. I don't know what we should call her.

City, yeah. Younger daughter, rude. Mom, you promise. Mom, don't freak out. A lot of little shots, little jabs happening from the little smart mouth young lady.

The story is redeemed by the presence of Patricia. I don't know why she went to the office.

Oh, my God.

Wow. Patricia's still batting a thousand for me.

That's right. Yeah. She supports local business, local education. She's like... Keeping her money in the neighborhood.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Buy back the block, et cetera.

Oh my God. It's just so stressed out. It stressed me out a lot because, you know, children are involved. People's reputations are involved. Obviously, Ellen has done some pretty

sorted things in the past and like any protagonist is trying to make themselves better and change is so hard and impossible the older we get it's true and um that's rough that's rough maybe Ellen graduating from CBD to THC will send her on the right path yes absolutely she needs to get high

I do. A guy that I sort of knew, like a friend of a friend, which is the perfect person to like hear gossip about. In high school, went to another, a different private school in New York City. And these are schools where you always kind of know other people in your grade, even though they don't go to your school. You go to a party, they're there.

They're like people from other schools in this network of private schools are always kind of drifting in and out of your consciousness. This kid was also a party promoter in high school. And a kid who, even when we were 16, 17, was throwing parties, securing venues.

Listen, because of his rich parents. So he got, in our senior year, expelled from a school not far from my school. And I have a friend who was in the cafeteria at this school on the day in question. This kid, we'll call him Daniel.

Daniel busts into the cafeteria with a cigarette between his forefinger and middle finger, yelling, fuck blank school, fuck all the various administrators of blank school, fuck dean of students who was hot on his heels as this occurred. Daniel, before he can be stopped- Jumps up onto a chair and then onto a table. Gives his sort of final will and testament about the school.

He's going out in a blaze of glory. The dean of students accosts him and drags him out of the cafeteria.

Now, this is a true story because I knew someone who was on the scene. But as these things occur, the legend grows. Again, as I mentioned, this kid was a very rich guy.

So over the next months and years, this legend lived on in New York City private schools that he paid off a cab driver early that morning, drove it onto the grounds of the school, drove it through the gates onto the middle of the green, crashed into a gate and started his stampede of glory, which ended in this cafeteria.

Because he'd gotten away with everything that it was possible to get away with.

Okay, I understand.

Ellen is, I mean, a legend in my own mind already. I know her. I see her.

Well, she wears loose clothing. She wears black leather flats. This year, she's moved on to the two great trends of 2025. comfortable ballet flat or the simple mary jane she wears statement jewelry rings on top of rings ellen owns so she has a ring drawer

You're right.

What does Hazel do? Oh no.

See, it depends on what frenemy means. But no, like everybody that I actually spend time with and talk to and would call me a friend, I actually wish only the best. I would say I have frenemies from afar, people who are nemeses, you know, like I look at them and like I'm sort of annoyed by their presence in their career or whatever.

And then I get to know them and they're okay, but I'm still like, hmm, that's the closest I get. But I don't have like in my life frenemies who call me and neg me and shit.

That is 100% true.

They...

Fair enough. So we're talking Eileen Fisher instead of whatever else I described. Or like even above, like we might be talking about like two seasons ago, Dior, etc.

Yes. I understand.

The obvious answer here, I think, is that you have to allow it.

Two fronts. Personal and structural.

If you disagree with the politics or the sort of activity that Hazel represents, expressing that to your potentially Republican child will drive them into the arms of this Mitt Romney-sounding lady. It will turn her into the worst libertarian, right?

And similarly, if the problem is purely personal... Mm-hmm. Here is a iron clad rule. The moment you first notice your parent simply hating is impossible to forget. And it always makes you wonder what it is that the parent sees in the other person that has occasioned. this jealousy, antagonism, frenemyship, et cetera.

You have to make sure that your kid never sees you sweat in that kind of interpersonal way. You can express outright hatred, but if it's just hating, you cannot let that show. And it will similarly drive your child into the arms of Hazel, who it seems like she already sort of admires. You got to let that rock.

I'm very competitive and yet I feel that it is, and maybe this goes to my point about like not showing yourself sweat to your kids. I feel that it's usually gauche to express it, especially like in your own career. So I save my competitiveness for spades. Like if anybody wants to play me in spades, come see me and I'll talk so much shit to you. It will, it will seem out of character.

But in real life with like my own career, I like put up a veneer mostly of like, I'm just minding my own business.

It's fine until you're my partner. I can teach you and I can be over your shoulder while you play with somebody else.

Yeah. The other amazing thing about this person, our friend, is that the moment she sees somebody do something impressive, she says out loud, I could do that. I think I could do that. She says it with a tenacity and a violence that's like sort of unsettling.

Ellen needs to take up a sport immediately.