An Army of Normal Folks - Vanessa Elias: The Block Party Revolution (Pt 2)

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

When Vanessa Elias saw a rise of incivility in her Connecticut town, she rallied citizens to host 40 neighborhood block parties that had 1,200 attendees, so that people can get to know their neighbors, realize that they don’t hate them, and even enjoy them. It got so much attention that she started Block Party USA to spread this simple solution across the country! Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years.

That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him. From Revisionous history, this is the Alabama murders. Listen to Revisionous history, The Alabama Murders on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My best-selling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the

U.S. housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie. Now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by Yours Truly. The Big Short Story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Join me, Danny Trejo in Nocturno, Tales from the Shadow.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to not only. Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm I'm Ida Gomerga, and this week on our podcast, Hungry for History, we talk oysters, plus the Miambe chief stops by. If you're not an oyster lover, don't even talk to me. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells to vote politicians into exile. word ostracize is related to the word

oyster. No way. Bring back the Ostercon. Listen to Hungry for History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny.

and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Shear, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan, Klepper. Listen to Season 4 of Snafu with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with the Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Vanessa Elias right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why. this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous history, this is The Alabama Murders.

Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah. Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player.

Who still wore knee pads. Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcast we were doing. Nick Kroll, I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich.

So let's see how it goes. Listen to Season 4 of Snafoo with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, fellow seekers of the dark. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me in Nocturnal? Tales from the Shadows. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of the legends and lore of Latin America.

Take a trip from ghastly encounters with evil spirits to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures and experience the horrors to have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Listen to Nocturnal, tales from Shadows as part of my Cultura Podcast Network, available on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Michael Lewis here.

My book The Big Short tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened.

Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked? financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the

current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. I'm Ibel Ongoria, and I'm Maitego Mezrejoin. And on our podcast, Hungry for History, we mix two

of our favorite things. Food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells, and they called these Ostercon, to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster.

No way. Bring back the Ostercon. And because we've got a very mi-casa is-s-sou-casa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stop by. Pretty much every entry into this side of the planet was through the Gulf of Mexico.

No, the America. No, the America. It blows mexico. It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform, they had labor rights, they had education rights. Mustard seeds

were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Back to 2016, all of this that we just unpacked, and your answer is,

Let's have a party. Let's have a block party. There's incivility on Facebook, and people hate each other, so let's have a party. That's right. But it has to be. So the whole purpose was to get neighborhood free play. So we had brought in, so we had listened, this one, woman and I had heard Peter Gray speak, and he is a research psychologist out of Boston

College, and we'd heard him in a neighboring town maybe the year before. And we left depressed. Because basically, he left depressed. He left so depressed, because basically he was saying, if your neighborhood doesn't have kids playing, move. Like, that was our, that was like our option. Because he went through like the importance. Well, how about if your neighborhood doesn't have kids playing, start them playing? Right. Well, it was. Rather than moving, fix it. It was basically, that's what we saws the answer. But he laid out the decrease in play and the rise in anxiety and depression in kids. Yeah. And it's very clear. The data points are there. The data points are there. It's very clear. And so some of the parents in the grade was at a nursery school and some of the

parents were asking, you know, and at that age, it's easy. Don't sign them up for travel soccer when they're seven years old, right? Get them to have play dates. But even play dates, you're stuck with that same kid. So in terms of the normal neighborhood play, if someone's being a jerk, you're like, it. Right, you can't do that if you have a kid over or if you're at someone's house. You know, it's interesting that you just said, don't try to sign your kid up for travel soccer when they're seven, just let them have fun, you know? I don't guess you're a huge football fan because you evoked ballet before you said football. All right, but I bet you should have known better.

It's all right. You've lived all over Europe and everything. You're probably a bigger soccer fan than American football fan. But I bet you've heard the name Manning. Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Archie Manning. Archie Manning. So even people that don't know football know the word Manning, all right? Do you know that Archie Manning would not let his sons play tackle football or competitive football until lateh grade?

Brilliant. Probably the royal family of American football. Yeah. Three generations, Super Bowl winners, Heisman candidates with a grandson now that has a $4 million NIL at the University of Texas to play college football. That is this family, did not let their pids play competitive tackle football until eighth grade. Which is the age most kids burn out because they've been playing it. Incredible. So when you say, don't sign up your kid for competitive soccer is six.

That's what clicked in my mind. And the point is let kids be kids. Exactly. Let them be creative. Let them get hurt a little bit. let them bounce around in the neighborhoods. But before you do that, you have to have connectivity in the neighborhood for the kids to go into. Exactly.

So you left this guy oppressed. So we left him. He's lovely. Peter Gray is lovely. I've worked with him. No, I know. But he depressed you. You said it.

You said it. Everybody in the country heard it. He's a lovely guy. He's amazing. Oh, I see. But let's crawl fish now. But he depressed you. We love depressed because we felt powerless, right?

Like, how are we going to change this? How are we going to make this different? Right? Yeah. So that's when we developed this free play task force. We had them come speak to our town. We invited all the stakeholders in town, like from the YMCA, the superintendent, all the principals, all, you know, Rotary Club, City Council, Board of Selectmen, Board of Fine, everybody, some teachers. And he spoke. The most amazing, our superintendent stood up and at the end and said, I'm in. And that changed everything. I'm in. Yeah. He's got five kids of his own. And he set the tone. And with that, we developed the Free Play Task Force to educate our community on why it's so important that kids have free play. We worked to extend recess, worked with Lenore Skinysia vlet Grow to develop free play clubs and, you know, just launched this whole initiative. But we needed something for neighborhoods. And so I was like, yes, finally, I can do this.

And so, yeah, we launched Wilton's big block party weekends. The first weekend was in June of 2018. We did two weekends bookending the summer to get, you know, people could choose what, you know, what work best for them. So what just your block? You were encouraging neighbors across your entire community on their block. Yeah. So are you telling me in this town, there were block parties all over the place on this weekend? There was.

There were at least 40 block parties. Forty. Yeah. Are you kidding? That is so, what's the geographical idea of a question? quote, block party, in general. In general, it's 10 to 20 of your closest neighbors. So it is whether you share a wall with them, right, in an apartment building or a condo

complex, right, whatever, or they're two miles down the road. They're still your neighbors. And so 10 to 20 of your closest neighbors. And? And it was a huge success. And it was, has become a tradition for families. It has the feedback that I got from it, you know, from little kids saying it was the best day of their lives to... What?

Yeah. A block party is the best day of their lives. Right. Not Christmas. Right. That's literally what they said. They were so excited them for the next year and wanted to put the flyers out. And, yeah.

So it was, I guess he was 10 years old then, yeah. At what point did this idea that became these 40 block parties all over your town, at what point did you say, hmm, I might have a thing here? When other towns nearby asked how we did it, wanted to know more about the... How did the other towns here? I get, well, we were getting national attention. Were you really? At the time, yeah, we did.

We had PBS News Hour. We were being filmed. This is so simple. It's a block party. It's so simple. It's so simple. And it's so actionable. And every single person has a neighbor and every single person can do this.

It's so actionable, right? There's no ringing of the hands of what do we do? How do we saw? Like, this is something anybody can do. So the neighboring community started calling you saying, how'd you do this? Yeah. Had it had, you know, asking questions. I kept hearing more and more stories.

of the impact of the singular block party or what I call now the block party ripple effect, you know, all the things that end up coming, right? Not just the party is fun, but it's about what comes after. And there were stories that brought tears to my eyes. Yeah, don't get to that yet. You know, and so, okay, great. I read a couple and I was just like, holy smokes. Yeah.

So that and then just the state, you know, the state of the nation, basically. I realized this is something we need nationwide, and this is something that is actionable, again, by every single person. So? So I launched Block Party USA in 2023, finally. I talked about it for about two years. When I read that, I went back to my teen years, and I thought of MTV. It kind of felt like a Block Party USA thing. I love it.

There's some, like, guitar music in the background. or something, but I did. I thought, that feels like 1986 to me. And thank God, it does feel like 1986 to me to a simpler time, really, in terms of our humanity. And even when we disagreed with each other, how we interacted. And it just block party USA just got to brought a smile to my face. I think it's hilarious. I love it.

Thank you. So tell me, what is it now? What is it grown to from them? Yeah, so now it is a nationwide movement, and it is, as I say, is a free, simple, and actionable cure for our country's loneliness, social isolation, divisiveness, and the youth mental health crisis. Say that one more time, that is really important. Yeah, it is Block Party USA is a simple, free, and actionable cure for our country's loneliness

social isolation, divisiveness, and the youth mental health crisis. And insubility. Which is, yeah. Which is really where this started. Yeah. In instability. Exactly. Freaking awesome. So, it's only two years old. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Not the block party, but block party USA. Yeah. And people love the idea. People have forgotten about block parties, right? People, they were a thing of their childhood. I'm embarrassed to say. Yeah. I forgot about blood parties.

So go. Tell me what it's doing. So, yeah. So it's been really exciting because it resonates with people. It resonates with people because it's a fun memory of their childhood. And it's something that they know that they can do, that it's actionable. And so I have people signed up from 46 states in Washington, D.C., and a couple of other countries, Nairobi, or Kenya. What? Yeah, signed up that are interested. And so, you know, for a little what, Canada as well, and for a little while, I was like, oh, I shouldn't have put U.S.A.

But, you know, that's my focus. And people can adopt it. It's about neighborhood gatherings. Yeah, I don't think. So, yeah. So as part of Dr. Vivek H. Murthy's, quote, recipes for connections initiatives, the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General features two-year-old. block party USA as a resource that supports building social connection through gathering. Wow.

Yeah, that was pretty awesome. It was really exciting. How did that happen? I don't actually know. I asked. You're just hanging out having blog parties. I did ask Jennifer Wallace, the author I mentioned earlier, because I know she was working with him on something.

And I said, were you the fairy that told Dr. Murthy about it? But she said, no, he already knew about it. So I don't, I feel really grateful and it helped amplify it. Because I think the most important thing is just, and that's why I so appreciate talking to you, is just amplifying this message. It's so actionable for people to do. And it's just that we just have to bring it back into their consciousness. And my job is to sort of hold their hand as they go. Okay, I got lots more questions.

Okay. And we're also going to talk about these things, which I find vastly interesting. but I think now's good time for this. We had our first block party in September. It was so much fun, and we had an excellent turnout. I've lived on this street for many years and know most of the neighbors, but it was great to meet the others and to all hang out together. We intend to do this again this summer.

We even set up a Facebook page for our neighborhood. A second person said, we organized the block party with short notice and were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to plan and how many people came. people of all ages responded, and we met other families with kids that we would not have known otherwise. Everyone brought a snack to share in coolers with their drinks. We had tons of fun playing cornhole, and the kids had a massive water balloon fight.

Oh, no, someone might get their eye poked out. Sorry, I was just, that was my embellishment. They drenched the parents, and really everyone got involved. We look forward to doing it again this year. Third, after our block party, our street change. Kids are actually playing outside together. Everyone from young couples to families to seniors are in their yards more. I see more people out walking their dogs.

Neighbors go out of their way to say hello, stop and talk and help one another. Ali. These are the same people who I guarantee you on last election. Some had Trump and some had Harris signs in the yard. Yep. And they don't care so much about that anymore. But if you don't know the person with that Trump sign or that Harris sign on your front, or that hair sound in your front yard.

You may come up with some preconceived notions about those people that are completely false. And the way you find out if they're false or not is, you get to know them. In real life. Yeah. In real life. How do you feel when you hear people saying that?

It's what gives my life meaning and purpose. It makes me, I'm tearing up again. Again, because it's just so meaningful. And it's just, I mean, I think that's what we underestimate is the power of one person making a difference in other people's lives. So that person that organized that block party made a difference in everyone's lives there. You mean just a normal person doing what they can do. Just a normal person, exactly, doing what they can do. So I could call some neighbors right now and say, let's have a block party.

I don't really need block party to say for that. that was my initial thought until I started reading more and researching more and I got some handy-dandy stuff that Alex got off your website that you sent us I did well today why does block party USA as an organization matter to people who want block parties pitch it I think people are really busy okay and they're not they want to do something but they're not actually sure how to do it and so my I see my role is making it easy for them right we are all over tasked over stressed over everything right and it's out of bandwidth what one more thing you're asking me to do one more thing right and so how to make it as easy as possible for people

is is the first thing we'll be right back This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode.

32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads? Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good.

I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcasts we were doing. Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of Snap-Foo with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm I Belongoria. And I'm Maite Gomes Rejoin. And on our podcast, Hungry for History, we mix two of our favorite things, food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells, and they called these Ostercon, to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the Ostercon. And because we've got a very Mikaasa esucasa kind of vibe.

on our show, friends always stop by. Pretty much every entry into this side of the planet was through the Gulf of Mexico, no, America. No, the America. The Gulf of Mexico, continue to be so forever and ever. It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform, they had labor rights, they had education rights.

Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the after. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Fultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, fellow seekers of the dark. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me in Nocturno? Tales from the Shadows.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America. Take a trip from ghastly encounters with evil spirits to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures and experience the horrors to have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of Michael Duda Podcast Network, available on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become

and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie,

I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

And how to make it most success, right? Like you can have a block party, but without the name tags and the contact list, it's just, it doesn't have, you know, there's so much more potential, I guess, when you have those things. So just putting those in people's minds. The other piece is that we live in a very procured through social media, perfectionist environment, like what we think it needs to be, and to have someone in your ear constantly saying, keep it simple, keep it simple, keep it simple. And you don't need that. Right. This is just a gathering and to keep helping people

focus on just the fact of bringing people together. You're acting. It's a service. And this is not a party to impress. It's a party to connect. When I read that, I thought about the fact that when Lisa and I got married in 1991, we did it in a church. We had our reception at the church. She had a love dress. We had a nice cake. A bunch of people came. It was lovely and beautiful. There were a few flowers on the altar, and I'm certain maybe a couple of arrangements at our wedding at our reception at our reception church, and then we got in our car and drove off, and it probably lasted three or four hours and cost, I don't know, $2,000, $3,000, maybe if you count the finger food and the cake. And today, a wedding is a week-long event.

Yeah. So your long event, you've been to engagement parties and paid for them. Yeah, we've had engagement parties, but there's a cap on what we do because of what I'm saying. But the point is, I feel like we've lost sight of the fact that we're supposed to be celebrating the union of a young couple, and that's what it's there for. Now it's become almost an excuse to engage in excesses. It's a whole different roof I could go off on. but I've got a daughter getting married. I've already married off one. I've got a son that's married.

So I've been through all of it. And I certainly am not trying to disparage people who want their children to have a lovely day. But the point is, I think we can lose sight of what the point is behind a marriage. And when I was reading your block party thing, metaphorically, that kind of came up in my mind, which is what you're saying is it's not about the biggest balloons. It's not about making sure the venue is absolutely perfect. It's not about spending a whole bunch of money on a bunch of crap. It's simply about getting your neighbors together.

So keep it simple and just make it, let the people make it fun, not the crap that you bring in. That's kind of what I was getting from you on that. Is that not right? It's 100% right because those wedding, right, at what cost, right? And I don't mean financial costs. like the effort and the stress and all that stuff. It's sort of like kids' birthday parties now, right? They are so over the top.

Why can't we just go have a pizza and a cake and a park and call it? We did old-fashioned birthday. We had games for my youngest party. The kids loved it. Then her friends would be like, can I have a party? Right? Yeah, it was pin the tail on the donkey. It was a donut, you know, with your hands behind your back, grab it, trying to eat it.

God forbid we bob for apples. Someone may get water in their nose. Exactly. Exactly. Swapping DNA. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah.

What would the Swiss say about that? Oh, they wouldn't say anything. Exactly. Jump in, feet first. Exactly. So, yes, 100%. But with block parties, what I've, so one of, I have these monthly, sometimes weekly, depending on time of year, office hours and block party Zoom.

So people can come ask any questions. No kidding. That's cool. Just to have, like, you know, they ask get some support. And one of them, the one woman came, I think she was from Pennsylvania, and she said, I am a reluctant block party organizer. And I was like, okay. And she explained that the two women that had done it for years had stepped down because it was just too much. And so that is the cost, right?

If we overly manufacture this, engineer it, we've got a band and volunteer signups and we've got it, like, it's a production. That's not what this is about. That's what I mean about the weddings, when it's more about the production than the celebration of marriage, you're missing a point. And that's the point with the block party. Here's another reason why a block party, this little one-pager, I loved. Thanks. It's block party who say how to organize a block party. It's easier than you think.

And it's got some headings with little boxes around it, but it says, keep it simple, don't go out it alone, select a day, go big, go small, location. You need a permit, name tags and sign-in sheet. So you're building a database of your community. Invite mixed ages, which I think you have to speak on. Food. And here's the best one. Bubbles, chalk, and a kickball. This is why Block Party, I say, because you've vetted what works and doesn't work,

and you can help people understand. and all of that. Do you want to talk about any of these little boxes on here because I found this such a cool tool? Oh, thank you. I think that it just lays it out step by step. And, you know, the mixed ages. Come with this story.

I've read, I can't even remember, but some four-year-old and some 80-year-old playing cornhole together. Yeah, that was, it's Ray. He's 90. Actually, he's almost 91 now. But that's the thing. He's 91, like cornhole with a four-year-old. That's the beauty of Block.

parties. It's just, it's the intergenerational experience. You know, it's just who was ever on your road. So we had, at our last block party, we had, you know, a kid in a stroller, and we had Ray, you know, who is a 90. And it's, it's a unique experience and, you know, to have this mixed ages. So, and everything in between, everyone in between. And I think what's important is so often teens and young adults, if they're back living at home, they don't want. want to come. And so it's really important that they come as well. Because it's Gooby. Because they're just like, a 17 year old dude, I don't want to go a blog party. That's go goby. But I bet when they go, they end up having fun. They end up having fun. So I say like give

them a job, right? Like have them carry the cooler. Have them, right? Like that's a way to get them out. And maybe say, okay, just it's maybe the block party is three hours, stay for two. And then you can go if you want to or something like that. But the expectation needs to be there. They don't This is not an opt-out for the kids because it's such a unique opportunity. Again, helping our tweens and teens especially find agency and competency and capability is possible in your own neighborhood, right? The mixed-age play piece that you can be an awkward 13-year-old, but to the seven-year-old, you're a rock star, right?

Like, it's just, it's good, it's good for both. Never mind the whole neighborhood jobs, you know, that can come out of babysitting, lawn cutting, you know, all of that. And that is a critical piece. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Well, we've touched on that. And I think the second piece of paper that Alex gave to me that I assume is off your website

I don't know where it came from, but it's very cool. It's one block party, countless benefits. And it's not a Venn diagram, but it's basically a... It's the ripple effects. I was about to say... Well, hurry up. If you would... Vanessa was thinking of the same.

Turn his mic off. If, yeah, it's basically a diagram of the ripple effect. Yes. Which is cool and the little ripples are not. But I'm just going to name a few, inside where obviously the Pebble would first drop is the obvious stuff, which is make new friends, create a neighborhood list, all that. And then as the ripples go, the outside ripples, the extra effect. There's layers. Neighborhood play for children and all of that, but not lonely, grounded, supported, since a belonging and joy. A connected neighborhood is more desirable for new buyers. Very interesting. Part-time paid work helps teenagers build agency and confidence.

Play-based instead of tech-based childhood. Holy smokes. That one needs to have exclamation points by that. The point is, it seems so simple. I have a block party. to know your neighbors, but as you really beautifully illustrate through the ripple diagram is there's so much more to it than just having a party. It's all that happens as a result of it, and I would argue there needs to be another ripple out here that reminds us that it's really hard to be convinced by the people in Silicon Valley and deep. and on Fox and CNN to hate somebody that you've hung out with, had a hot dog with, and you know you don't vote the same, but they're your neighbor and they're human.

100%. It fixes so much. I'm thrilled that you see it as well because it is so powerful. And it has the potential to do so much. We have, you know, we had at our own block party, right? My husband and neighbor voted differently, and they bonded over the smoked ribs, my husband made, right? Your husband and your neighbor voted differently, but smoked ribs. Brought them together.

Don't really care about the White House because these boys are good. Exactly. See. It's just something so simple, and it just gives us an opportunity. We don't have those opportunities. And how fulfilling is that to your husband and his neighbor? Yep, exactly. It is.

How much depth do they have in life now? Exactly. From the rib. Yep. From Black Party. And I go back to, we just did a small shop talk where Alex, they just tie together, Alex. I think it's worth talking about the fire thing. It's a foundation for individual rights and expression.

Jonathan Heights's actually been involved in them, too, you know, as part of the library. Yeah. So he's, he's writing some books. with Greg Lukeneoff. They wrote the colleague in the American mind together. So Greg's the head of fire. But they're basically like the leading

free speech group in their country. Okay. Great. Well, and what you're doing, I encourage you to kind of look at some of the data that they've actually and, again, it's 68,000 people they've polled. So we're not talking about they went to one college and talked to 100 kids, right?

I think you could put China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and anybody else who wants to fundamentally fight the Western way of living, I think you could put them in one entire army and attack us and it not be nearest dangerous. Really, I genuinely believe that that is less danger than the fact that in some circles we have more than 50% of our populace that think that shooting Donald Trump assassinations, Fascinating Donald Trump would be okay because of what he says. It's terrifying.

That's real math. That's real data. That's what we found out. That's what we talked about on this shop talk about because it's just stark. And look, I'm not saying that to defend the things that come out of Donald Trump's mouth. Right, right. You don't have to agree with him to know that that's not okay. But it's not okay.

That's not okay. But you and I say that. Yeah. But the data is showing that a third of us say it is now. That's where we've evolved today. And I left reading that. I can't quit thinking about it. And I'm, you know, what's the solution?

And I mean, you can't, more censorship doesn't help that. It makes it worse. So there's, you know. And then I read about you and I'm like, there it is. Seriously, there it is. Thanks. Human connection, understanding one another, getting to know one another in a simple, easy,

non-politically or non-ulturally charged environment. And then once those barriers start breaking down, so due to those numbers, I think. 100%. And what lessons are we teaching our children with this mess versus what lesson does a block party teach a kid because you just told me that your spark for this

was when a neighbor brought over a pie when you were six-year-old on one of your moves. That was a lesson your neighbor taught you that probably led, in some part, led to this. So what lessons were teaching by not having block parties and talking around the dinner table about how bad we hate the guy

with the sign on their front yard that we don't even know? I don't even know if we're talking about the dinner table. That's another whole thing, right? It's like talking about it somewhere. Talking about it in the car on the way to eight-year-old competitive soccer. How about that? That works.

But still the same point. Yeah. So, I mean, I think this block party thing is awesome and it's cool and it's fun and it's something everybody needs to do. But I think we need to get our arms around. These are the kinds of things that really do change our society and it's bottom-up, normal folks, engagement. I love it. Thank you. So what's next?

So it's 100% that. It's getting the word out. It's real life. Like as AI is expanding, we have to get off social media. We have to get off the technology. It is literally killing us and our humanity. Right. We are losing our humanity.

And we don't know what's real anymore and what's not. Oh, that's the other scurry board. Right. And so more in real life experiences are. the most important thing that we can do and to connect with each other. Is there a block party goal for this year?

We just did, I just did a Block Party USA Back to School challenge trying to get states to compete with each other. I actually have to look at it. I'm still taking the date. It was ending on Sunday on National Good Neighbor Day, not to date it, which is September 28.

Isn't this a National Know Your Neighbor Month or something? I don't know, but a National Good Neighbor Day was, yeah. Oh, is that what it It was, yeah. So, and it ended then. And so I really, I'm thinking ahead to next year because it's our 250th as this country. And since the Declaration of Independence was signed, so what can we do? How can we, so I'm in the brainstorming process of what can we can ask.

How many black parties do you think you can foster next year? So, you know, fostering and not organizing. We could have tens of thousands, right? It's possible, right? It is all across this country, 20 to 30 neighbors, it's possible. And again, they need to be micro-local, right? When people, sometimes I say block party, they're like, oh, yeah, it's, you know, casts of hundreds, right? It's a town party.

Those are fun, but that's not what this is. This is that micro-local neighborhood gathering. We'll be right back. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did. why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you.

From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player.

Who still wore knee pads? Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole whole whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcast we were doing. Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to Season 4 of Snafoo with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm I Belongoria. And I'm Maite Gomesrich Juan. And on our podcast, Hungry for History, we mix two of our favorite things. Food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells, and they called these OsterCon, to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to. the word oyster. No way. Bring back the OsterCon. And because we've got a very My Casa is Su Casa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stop by. Pretty much every entry

into this side of the planet was through the Gulf of Mexico. No, the America. No, the America. The Gulf of Mexico, continue to be forever and ever. It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform. They had land reform. They They had labor rights, they had education rights. Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008.

It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate. state market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm.fm. slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

Welcome, fellow seekers of the dark. I'm Danny Dregor. Won't you join me in Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows? An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America. Take a trip from ghastly encounters with evil spirits to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures and experience the horrors to have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. So all across the country, right? If everyone, you know, in a set of 20 neighbors did something, we could change this country.

I've actually thought about it for our local chapters for this being one of the army activations that they can... I think this would be an excellent army activation for the chapters. I think it needs to almost be something we push. I am absolutely so. I live in Midtown Memphis, which is, you know, all the houses are between 70 and 130 years old. So it's that kind of part of town that has always been kind of the center of Memphis, right? It's called Central Gardens. Everything from some 6,000, 7,000 square foot, really big, big, big old houses to a lot of arts and crafts bungalows with all kinds of charm.

and everybody has a front yard. And anyway, my neighborhood has a July 4th parade. And it's an old fire truck and a bunch of people pulling their kids in wagons. And there'll be four or five hundred people walking through the streets. And it ends up at a place where there's a dunk tank and some clowns and stuff. It's old school. And you chuckle. But it's fun.

It's funny. My kids used to like doing it, right? Totally. Well, and two streets north of us, once a year, flows off the access to both ends of the road. And I would say, ironically, there's probably 25 houses on that road, maybe 12, 13 on either side, maybe 25, 26. And they have a block party. And I can, somebody hooks up a speaker and dead in the middle of the street, in the middle of that whole block, they have a bouncy thing. And maybe that's going overboard.

but that's pretty much all they have. And then it's a bunch of kids, and you can see a bunch of dads running around in T-shirts. There's huggies on their beers, but they're all drinking a beer. The kids have, you can tell they've been eating everything that's not good for them because their faces are covered in sugary-looking red crap. And I imagine there's a few moms out there with some wine and a solo cup,

and they're having a lot of fun. And they just make a mess. of it and it is everybody on that road just kind of standing street in the yards hanging out and i've never been a part of it because i'm not on that block but i've passed it you could feel how sad bill is right now can you feel it well no i just needs a big hug right now i've passed i've driven past it and i've thought that is so cool and that's all i've put thought to it and i never thought about its ability to do the things that you've pointed out it does. I've never thought about how simple it would be to pull off. And I'm absolutely convinced that this is just

one of the greatest ideas I've heard because it is so simple and anybody can do it. And it breaks down the very barriers that I think are tearing us apart. Thank you. Yeah. And the bouncy, with the bouncy house, I say no bouncy houses. But, you know, if somebody's got a bouncy house that they're willing to offer. So you go with it, right? I think the guy in the street owns the bouncing house company. No, I'm very serious. I think he has a sales company. So he sets one up. So it's not like we're not rigid, right, in terms of what is okay. We just don't want people to go out and spend $500, right? There's no point. There's just there's no need for that, right? Kids are going to have fun with.

And I have seen them. They have cornhole all over the street. There's like six of those things out there. And there's kids driving around on big wheels or whatever the heck they are not called now. But yeah, it's. So fun. Awesome. And it is fun. And it doesn't mean that you're going to, you get to know your neighbors. And they become your neighbors rather than your foes, your political foes, your cultural whatever's. It's awesome. One of the things we haven't talked about is how your neighbors are really your first responders as well. Oh, that's interesting.

That your neighbors are the people that can beat you first and you can call out. And there is nothing, like I share the story of Dick Van Dyke. He was carried out from the fires in California by his neighbors. That's how he was saved. And so that is to have someone that you can go to in your neighborhood right next near you is tremendously valuable. But it's a very practical aspect of this, but just as important. Actually, talk about it with your neighbor the morning you were super stressed out. Yep.

So specifically, specifically, specifically, I was giving a 9-11 speech at my high school. And because my husband worked in Tower 2 and the plane that crashed into his building was carrying a friend of mine, his wife, and his two-year-old. Of first of all, I'm so sorry. Thank you. So I honor him by telling my story and I was, my daughter was in kindergarten and I was stressed, emotionally stressed out, right? Running late, we get to the end of the driveway, trying to get myself ready in the morning, you know, not just in my pajamas at the bus stop, right? Get myself ready. Get her there. And we get to the end of driveway. And I realize we've missed the bus, the school bus. And for me to drive her to school and back, and I won't make it in time. So this neighbor who I had met but didn't really know was walking saw me and saw my distress and said, I'm happy to drive her.

And she got in her car and she took her back, took her dog back home, came, got her and little things like that, right? She made a huge difference in my life and in my day, right? Just as simple. And so little, little things like that. I have a bunch of those stories. Before she did that, did she say, but first, I'd like to know how you voted in the last presidential election? Exactly. I want to know what you think about gay marriage before I take your child to school and help you out.

Exactly. Or before I let my child in your car. Oh. Exactly. Of course that didn't happen. It doesn't matter. That's the point. Being humans.

It's an interesting type of poverty. I heard somebody mentioned in the last few years of, I guess, especially in affluent neighborhoods. I'm sure it happens all for it, like, if your kid gets sick at school, these people are literally calling like babysitters rather than family or friends. Like back in the day, you'd call your friend or your family or neighbor. But now you just do hired help because you're like both parents are grinding as these fancy executives and they don't have like friends. You can go pick up their kid.

That's crazy. Which leads to the whole, it's not just kids mental health, right, that I talk about. But, you know, Dr. former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek-Marthy also put out advisories about parental well-being and caregiver well-being. And parents are not okay. And we don't, and the biggest indicator of a child's well-being is the well-being of the parent and the primary caregiver. So a parent's well-being is key and critical.

And so block parties offer an opportunity to build that village that we need to be okay, right, and raise our kids and be healthy. And so there's just, there's so many, so many benefits. One thing, a stat behind that that I think must have been from you. You said it somewhere in the prep of citing this study from Harvard, that 36% of adults reported feeling lonely frequently or almost all the time. 36%. Yeah. Frequently or almost all the time.

And I've thought about this, too, with my situation, which listeners know, unfortunately, my ex-wanted a divorce and the four kids that I got. And what do you model to your kids? And it is really important to make these intentional efforts of having neighbors over and other people over, right? And it's easy not to with the busyness of life. But all these parents out there who are just feeling lonely and are not modeling it well to their kids. I mean, you're basically screwing the next generation. 100% unfortunately, right?

It's, it's really important. And I feel like that number is higher than that. I feel like half of all Americans is what I had read, right? Maybe, yeah. 36% of the ones that admit it. Right. Yeah, it's really, it's a struggle. And, you know, we look to social media for connection and community.

Which is the wrong place, especially now, because AI, you may be finding connection with a bot. Oh, yeah, that's a whole other really dangerous. Well, there's no bot at the block party. Exactly. And there's no anonymous. Unless somebody put together kind of a cool robot, like a kid. That's a little different. Eventually, they're going to make our block parties easier.

The bots can do all the work. We can just enjoy the block one day. Unbelievable. So, somebody's listening to me, oh, I hope a whole bunch of somebody's listened to me right now saying, okay, I'm convinced, let's do a block party. How do they find you? Where they do? So if they go to block party, USA.org is the website. Got it.

And do you do a Zoom with potential block party? I do. How's that work? So I once, well, right now I'm back to once a month. And if they go on, if they sign up to receive my updates, they'll get the time and date for it. And I just have a Zoom link and they join. Is there a cost to any of this? No.

No cost. No. You're doing all this just to be kind and fix our culture. She's a bloody do-gooder. You are a bloody do-gooder. She's willing to share her email address, too. How do people want to get in touch with you? How do they email you?

The best way is info at BlockPretty. USA.org. Got it. Or I have forms on the website, too. Like, if they have specific questions. You'll get to them. Yeah. Just go.

You'll help. And they can zoom with you at some point if they will need to. There's one thing, too. I'm working on a how-to guide for organizations, houses of worship, towns and cities, how to bring this idea to their communities. Certainly houses of worship only make sense. That would be easy. And you said towns and cities?

Yeah. They can. wide block party? No, to encourage their citizens, to bring this idea. So it's basically to get them to bring the idea. So like your local chapters, they would bring this idea, right? And so other organizations can bring this idea to their. Hey, Alex, seriously, the whole local chapter thing, this needs to be one of the focuses.

I was actually about to say earlier, too, even for your army members listening who aren't starting chapters in your community, you can still do the block parties too. There's actually kind of a cool way of testing it out. like, hey, let me see you about doing some more stuff in my community and hopefully do more after that. Here it is. I bet there'll be one of it. I bet there'll be a block party in Atlanta from a certain somebody after this episode.

I'll bet you it happens. Um, what you got? So I thought it was very cool. The email you sent me yesterday, just the connectivity of the army. Yeah. So Vanessa emailed me. Hi, Alex. Getting ready to board my flight and finally had to listen to send you these photos.

As I was listening to past episodes, I could not believe it when I saw it. Tim Brown. And then she sent me a bunch of photos of Tim and said, I'm honestly at a loss for words. And then we actually uncovered even something deeper in the car driving over here talking about it. Why don't you share it, Vanessa? Well, it was just that how did you get to know Tim, your experience of Tim, and then what we found out? I couldn't. It was a, it was a, yeah, it was a powerful episode. And I was just, anyway, so my friend Pete, who I mentioned, who was killed on 9-11, I became really close with his mom. Eunice Marguerite, and she had never been to the 9-11 museum, even though we live, you know, an hour away.

And so we made a plan three years ago in November to go. And we called, there were, there are two other women that were with me to call ourselves Team Marguerite. And this guy, Mack, who is with the victim assistant witness, I think you said. program. And so he connected us with Tim Brown. And I think Eunice had already met Tim before. And so we spent two days at the 9-11 Museum, the Greek Orthodox Church that had just opened or was about to open. And also Ahara's, we went and had lunch there at the pub that he mentioned. And right before Eunice Marguerite's 90th birthday, she fell. this May, and her funeral was May 8th, and Tim wasn't able to come because he was traveling,

and I look back through the text in the car ride, and he said he was in Denver and then going to be in Memphis. He was doing our show. May 8th was the live interview. On May 8th. What a crazy small world. Isn't that crazy? Unbelievable.

And if people haven't listened to the episode, we'll listen to them. If anybody had listened, have you listened to Tim's episode on those? Oh, two of, both of them, yeah. Yeah. They were really, my husband and I listened to both of them in the car ride up to Vermont on Friday. And it was really impactful on my husband, who is, I'm going to connect him with him. He's going to do some work on this because it's so important to not only never forget in our homes and in our schools, but also never forget the hate. right, the hate of the other that caused this.

Maybe we should have a block party. Definitely. Maybe we should have a block party. We need to open up some block party, uh, Middle East things and some block party overseas things. And I mean, metaphorically, a block party can fix all of it. That makes me so happy. If we just see each other.

I feel very seen by you. Well, if we'll just see each other's human beings is what it's about. It is. Thank you so much. Vanessa, you are awesome. Vanessa Elias, founder of Block Party USA from Wilk, Connecticut, but shedding her light and ideas around the world in our country. And I hope each of you listening today will consider looking up Block Party USA

and pulling one off in your own community for the good of yourselves, your family, your neighborhoods, your neighbors, and our culture. Because if we don't start doing more stuff like this, I fear of where it leads. There are always answers, and it starts with an army of normal folks that are willing to do the simple things. And this is simple and effective. And all you got to do is get in touch with Vanessa,

and she'll tell you how to pull it off. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me and for the work you do. It's been awesome. Thanks. And thank you for joining us this week. If Vanessa Elias has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by hosting a block party in your neighborhood, organizing a community-wide block party movement, or something else entirely, please let me know.

I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.us, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share our friends, share it on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Join the army at normalfolks.us, any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can.

Malcolm Gladwell here, this season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years, that's probably not long enough. And I didn't kill him. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, the Alabama murders on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join me, Danny Trejo, in Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows. on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Michael Lewis here. My best-selling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie,

and now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by Yours Truly. The big short story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. I'm I'm Ida Goliangorja, and this week on our podcast, Hungry for History, we talk oysters, plus the Mianbe chief stops by. If you're not an oyster lover, don't even talk to me. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way.

Bring back the OsterCon. Listen to Hungry for History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single ever. episode 32 lost nuclear weapons you're like wait stop what yeah it's going to be a whole lot of history a whole lot of funny and a whole lot of fabulous guests paul shear angela and jena nick kroll jordan clepper listen to season four of snafu with ed helms on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts this is an iHeart podcast