The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Killers of the Flower Moon' With Author David Grann, Plus Life Advice

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Russillo is joined by author David Grann to discuss his book 'Killers of the Flower Moon,' the upcoming Martin Scorsese film adaptation, and more (0:31). Then, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (31:25). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: David Grann Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Grant again back in the saddle uh he has a book Killers of the Flower Moon we had him on he wrote The Wager he wrote this one before I hadn't read it yet and guess what it's a movie now Scorsese DiCaprio De Niro ever heard of Well, he has. And they adapted his book into a movie. I want this guy in every week. He's awesome. We'll have him do life advice. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, Definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost anything delivered

with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. We don't do this often. We are excited. We have him back, David Grand, author. You remember him from The Wager. And he has a book that came out actually before that, Killers of the Flower Moon. And I read it because I love The Wager so much. And because there's a movie coming out in October. Martin Scorsese directing DiCaprio starring. Big stuff here.

And the author of Killers of the Flower Moon is David Grant. Good to see you again, man. What's up? It's so great to be back here. I feel very blessed to be here twice in the last couple months. So all good. Well, thank you for sharing some of your valuable time with us. So let's just get right to the story. I didn't know anything about it. We start in Osage County, Oklahoma. Give us the origin of this area of the country and what it was supposed to be, this oasis for Native Americans. Yeah. So the Osage Nation, they had once laid claim to much of the central part of America, as if you go all the way back to the

1700s, all the way from the edge of the Rockies to Missouri and Kansas. And then they were driven off their lands by settlers, and they were eventually confined to a reservation in Kansas. And then in the 1860s and 70s, they were once more under siege by settlers and being driven off their lands. So they eyed a new territory to move the reservation in what was then Indian territory. Today, it is part of Oklahoma. And it was an area about the size of Delaware. It was a large area, but it was rocky and infertile.

So most white settlers considered it worthless. And so the Osage chief at the time had stood up and said, our people should move to that area because they would be happy there. And so in early 1870s, they relocated into this area, which is now Oklahoma. And then what happened? And then in this area that was supposed to be rocky and fertile and worthless, And then in this area that was supposed to be rocky and fertile and worthless, oil was discovered, some of the largest reserves in the country. And what was so interesting is the Osage, in about 1906, they were forced to be allotted, which was to break up their communal ownership of the land, being forced by the U.S. government. But they very shrewdly slipped into their treaty with the US government, a provision that at the time seemed very curious. It said, we shall maintain all the subsurface mineral rights

to our land. That time they thought there was just a trickle of oil. And then of course, shortly later, all these reserves were discovered. And so while much of the surface territory that the Osage had once owned slipped into the hands of whites, they continued, because it was treated to maintain control, over this area below the surface of the land, about the size of Delaware.

They had become the world's first underground reservation. Put into perspective the wealth we were talking about once the oil booms of the 1910s, 1920s happened because of that clause, this was their oil. What kind of wealth are we talking about? So initially, as the money trickled in, it was a few thousand dollars, but gradually it accumulated until in 1923, there were about 2,000 or so members of the Osage Nation on the tribal rule, and those 2,000 received the equivalent today of what would be worth about $400 million. They were considered the wealthiest or among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. And so this kind of blight, longstanding stereotypes of Native Americans that could be traced all the way back to that original sin, which was the first contact between settlers, white settlers and Native Americans

in the continent. And, you know, they lived in these large terracotta houses. It was said at the time, whereas one American might own a car in the 1920s, each Osage owned 11 of them. They had white servants, which again, belied longstanding stereotypes. And so the way it worked was if you were a member of this tribe, there were head rights and the head rights, essentially each person that was in the tribe was assigned a certain head right, which meant that they owned whatever rights to different oil production. But then if somebody were lost in the family, the head right would then if somebody were lost in the family, the head right would then go to somebody else in the family. So can you help us understand

kind of the numbers here that we're talking about? Yeah. So again, because the Osage have been driven off their lands for so many centuries and suffered sickness and massacres, their numbers had dwindled to just a few thousand. And there were about 2,000 or so on the tribal roll, and each of them was given a headright, which was essentially a share in this middle trust, as you described it. Unlike surface land, which could be bought or sold, and thus easier to swindle by white settlers, a headright could not be bought or sold. It could only be inherited. And so it was passed down. So if somebody died, then their head right would pass down, which of course then becomes an invitation to a very sinister form of crime. Yeah. Reading this and then thinking,

and as we both know, there are so many things that are lost in history, right? There are so many things that you're going, wait a minute. And then you're looking at the pictures and you're seeing the clothing and the towns and the homes and the cars and you're going, this tribe was the wealthiest per capita in the world, in the world. white people, certain white people were not going to let this happen. Your story starts with Molly Burkhart. Give us her backstory and kind of when this first becomes something where the tribe is like, something's wrong. Yeah. Molly is a really remarkable woman and in many ways is the heart and soul of the book. She was somebody who was born in an Osage lodge in the 19th century, speaking Osage. At just the age of seven or eight, she was forcibly uprooted from her home and made to go to a Catholic missionary boarding school where she could no longer speak Osage or wear

an Osage blanket. And then within just a few decades, because of the Osage money, she was living in a large terracotta house. She had white servants, and she had married a white settler named Ernest Burkhardt, whom she had met because he had been her chauffeur. And Molly, in many ways, straddled not only two centuries, but two civilizations in the 1920s. And soon our family begins to be targeted. One day, her older sister, Anna, disappears from the house and Molly looks everywhere for her. And about a week later, her body is found in a ravine and she has been shot and killed. And then Molly's mother, Lily, begins to grow mysteriously sick and within two months dies. And evidence would indicate she'd been poisoned.

So within the span of about two months, Molly loses her older sister and her mother. Molly had a younger sister named Rita who was so terrified by these killings, she had moved closer to town to be near Molly. And one night, Molly, at about three in the morning, heard a loud explosion, and she went to the window, and she looked out. And in the distance, she could see this large orange ball rising into the sky, looked like the sun had burst violently into the night, and somebody had planted a bomb underneath her younger sister's house, killing her younger sister, her sister's husband, and an 18-year-old maid. So Molly, obviously, is realizing that her family is being targeted, but it's not just her family.

Other members of the Osage Nation are being poisoned, blown up, and killed one after the other in what became known as the Osage Reign of Terror. And what uh have happened throughout this too is that you had these guys coming in white men from out of town that were like i want to marry one of these women because if they're out of the picture so this became a very common thing um where as you're reading it you're like oh okay this woman's married to who? And this guy's from where? And as you're seeing it unfold, you can't believe at one point, one of the husbands, and I don't want to give away everything here, but one of the husbands is essentially talking about being part of a plot where his own children who would have been head rights holders has to be taken out of the picture. Like the level of,

of, of evil that takes place here, even though, you know, it's coming in the book, it's hard to fathom. It is unfathomable. And,

um, and these are inheriting schemes, um, again, because a head right could only be, uh, inherited. in schemes. Again, because a head right could only be inherited, it couldn't just be swindled in other means, the way land and territory often was. And so what you have is people marrying into families and systematically plotting to kill partners and even, in some cases, their children.

You know, when I first began researching the book, I would collect photographs, some of them which are in the book, of the victims. And initially, I had collected the victims of Molly's family, but it just kept on growing and growing and growing until I had a wall just lined with photographs of members of the Osage Nation who were being systematically killed. And so, it was an evil I could never fathom. And even after I spent five years researching and writing that book, I could never just fully fathom that level of evil. It really is evil. We're in the 1920s for a good chunk of it. these murders are happening, but nobody's solving anything.

The poisoning's happening all the time. So then every time they're like, that guy was young. It doesn't make any sense. And he was always around this. There's insurance people. It feels like law enforcement is in on it. And then you have J. Edgar Hoover who becomes involved. What was the motivation?

How did it get to that point? who becomes involved? What was the motivation? How did it get to that point? I mean, I know the simple answer is that the fact that nobody really wanted to solve any of this stuff, but the Hoover element of this is not as straightforward as just, hey, catch the bad guys, which I thought was really interesting in the book. Yeah. So, Osage and Molly, and it's a really important point to make, very courageously crusaded for justice. I mean, Molly is going around, you know, banging on doors, pleading with the authorities who were white to investigate these crimes while putting a bullseye on her back. And she becomes a target. And so were other Osage. And at one point, they actually send somebody, a representative, to go to Washington, D.C. to try to get help, to plead with they actually send somebody, a representative, to go to Washington,

D.C. to try to get help, to plead with officials who aren't local officials who they suspect are corrupt and in on these plots. And this guy gets to D.C. He checks into a boarding house. He's carrying a pistol and a Bible. He receives a telegram from someone in Oklahoma that says, be careful. And then he leaves the boarding house. This is in DC, all the way from Oklahoma. And he is abducted and beaten and stabbed to death and killed. And a Washington Post headline later declared conspiracy to kill rich American Indians, which is the Osage already knew. And finally, in 1923, the Osage Tribal Council issues a resolution pleading with federal authorities to step in. And it was then that the case was taken up by the Bureau of Investigation, which we now know today as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was renamed. And this was a little bit before Hoover had taken full control of the Bureau, and the FBI had completely bungled the case in its early operation.

And the FBI back then was just a bit of a ragtag operation, had a smattering of agencies. They didn't even have the authority to make arrests back then. And they get one outlaw out of jail, um, uh, hoping they could use him as an informant. And instead he slips away from the bureau agent, robs a bank and kills a police officer. So Hoover, who's now in charge is terrified of a scandal. He had actually wanted not to investigate this case.

He wanted to dump it back on state authorities, but now he's afraid of a scandal. And he's afraid it's hard to believe Hoover, who would go on to serve decades in power, but he was then insecure about his authority. So he needs to do something about this case. And that's when he really steps in to try to get some help. That is Tom White, who is boots on the ground, understands not necessarily the Osage Nation, but that part of the country. Can you please, because it was one of my favorite parts of the book, the Tom White backstory, his father, the prisons, the Texas Rangers, all that early stuff where Tom ultimately becomes, other than Molly, probably your favorite person in the book. Yeah. So, Tom White, in many ways, also straddles two centuries. He was born in a log cabin

on the frontier. He grew up in a family of lawmen. His father had been the sheriff. He and his brothers were Texas Rangers. Tom White were Texas Rangers. So his brothers, one of them was killed in the line of duty. Tom White kind of grew up practicing law enforcement at a time where justice was often meted out by the smoking barrel of a gun. And then in 1917, he joins the Bureau, and he has to suddenly adopt these new modern techniques like fingerprinting and handwriting analysis, and he has to wear a suit, which he can't stand. He has to file paperwork, which he hates even more. was purging these old frontier lawmen from the Bureau in favor of these college-educated boys. The frontier men like Tom White would refer to them as Boy Scouts. It's like baseball front offices.

Yeah, exactly. And in fact, many of them, and Hoover decided to keep just a few of these old frontier lawmen on the force because they knew their way around the crime scene. So Tom White and a few other of these frontier lawmen, they were sometimes referred to as the cowboys, were kept within the Bureau. White was the son of a warden, which is crazy stuff. He grows up basically in a jail. Yeah, but His father was a sheriff and then he becomes a warden. He witnesses a hanging when he's just a kid. He basically grows up just outside of jail. here. We could do the full scope of it, give the ending. I'm not going to do that. But what I love and what you do this book, the last 50 pages is you just pivot. It's just page the reporter. And then you combine the story and the conclusion, which we learn from the book part of it, that the conclusion is incomplete because as the reporter, you realize that going back and

looking at all this stuff for years, what kind of, I don't know if it's a number, but the scope, the magnitude of this reign of terror in comparison to what this just story is. Yeah. So, so Hoover, um, turns to, to Tom White, um, to try to solve the case. Um, and basically, you know, at first Tom White thinks he's being fired by Hoover when he gets summoned to DC. At first, Tom White thinks he's being fired by Hoover when he gets summoned to D.C. And instead, he realizes that Hoover has kind of taken him on to save Hoover's bacon. And White puts together an undercover team to go in, including, most interestingly enough, a Native American named John Wren, who's probably the only Native American Bureau agent given Hoover's prejudices in the Bureau. And they go undercover and they are able to ultimately capture some of the killers. And when I began researching the book, I kind of thought that this was a story or a case

about a kind of singular evil figure who, along with a few henchmen, had committed these crimes. And that was the theory of the FBI. And then the more time I spent in the Osage Nation interviewing Osage elders, they began to tell me about these other cases, suspicious deaths in their family that had never been investigated. And then one day I went out to an archive in Fort Worth, Texas, which is part of the National Archives. It's about the size of, it looks like an airport hangar, like something out of the Raiders Lost Ark where they stick the last covenant. And I was doing research on the guardianship system, which is this very racist system in

which the federal government had appointed white guardians to manage wealthy Osages fortunes. And just to hammer that point home, because I don't think I brought it up, that once it becomes the most wealthy place per capita and the natives are still spending money, they appoint white guardians who then start trading the head rights like cattle, where it was actually like, it was considered okay, this absurd structure of having white guardians, then giving allowances, and then there'd be different investments and different loans and different pricing. I mean, they just went in there and decided, hey, we're going to make money off of this. So sorry to interrupt, but I thought it was just important. No, no, I'm glad you made that point because it was a complete

criminal enterprise. And they swindled hundreds of millions of dollars from members of the Osage Nation, these guardians. And it was also, we sometimes, it was not abstractly racist, it was literally racist. It was based on a quantum of Osage blood. So if you were a full-blooded Osage, you were given this white guardian to manage your fortunes. You could be an Osage chief managing a nation, and you'd be told whether you get this toothpaste down at the corner store. And so in any case, I went to this archive, I was doing research on guardians, and I found this booklet that listed guardians and whose members of the Osage nation's fortunes they had managed. And the only other thing in this booklet written was that if one of the Osages had died,

some anonymous bureaucrat had it written dead next to their name. And I noticed that there is a guardian who has five Osages whose fortune they managed. And I see the word dead written next to the first name, dead next to the second name, dead next to the third name, fourth name. Fifth name. All dead. Five. God, that's crazy. Then I began looking through this book, but I see another Osage gardener who had about 12 Osages who fortunately had managed with about a 50% mortality rate. And on and on it went.

No doubt some of these deaths were of natural causes, but it defied any natural death rate. Remember, Osage were wealthy. They weren't starving. They had medicine. And I began- And you make that point too, for anybody that would listen and go, wait a minute, when are you writing dead at the end of the term of life? But it's the way you were comparing average lifespan in this area, the death rate was so absurd in comparison to national averages. And at the timing of the research too, it wasn't like a log that was being updated 20 years later. No, no. It was just covering a few years. It was just a couple of years span. Yeah. Thank you.

And yeah, it was just, and then I traced, I tried to look into some of those cases and I saw, at least in some of them, evidence of poisoning, of a head right being stolen, a guardian stealing money, complaints of a killing. And I realized that that initially seeming anodyne booklet really contained the hints of a systematic murder campaign. And this is a very long answer to your question, but what that booklet did and what those other interviews did was it demolished, completely demolished the original conception I had of the book I was writing. And I began to realize that this was less a story about a singular figure. It was less a story about who did it than who didn't do it. It was about a

culture of killing. It was about doctors who were administering poisons. It was about morticians who were covering up bullet wounds. It was about sheriffs and prosecutors and other lawmen who were on the take. And it was about many others who remain complicit in their silence. I can't wait for the movie again, October 6th. Can you take us through that timeline? You write this book, you share the story, and then all of a sudden, maybe the number one guy that could ever want to do your story is, I don't know, I imagine somebody else reaches out first, but give us the fun part of the timeline. Yeah. So shortly before the book was published, it was shared by my agent and various people expressed interest. And ultimately, it ended up in the hands of all people, Martin Scorsese with Leonardo DiCaprio, and then others would come on board. Lily Gladstone, who plays Molly, who's just remarkable in the movie, and Robert De Niro.

And I'll confess, I know you've written scripts and stuff. I've never tried to do that. And so there's always a nervousness. At first, there's that excitement, and then there's the nervousness. You're turning over something you spent five years working on and you realize that the sensitivity of a story like this because you know it's real history it's like and it's a monstrous crime and a racial injustice so you're like and so you're nervous and um

for me the most important thing along the way that happened was that the production team and Scorsese and all began to work with members of the Osage Nation. And I think when people see the film, they will see the fruits of that, that the Osage were so deeply involved in the production. They shot on location, which I don't know much about the movies, but I think is very rare these days. I think if you don't have tax rebates or something, nobody ever films where things happen. And so they filmed actually an Osage Sheriff's Dory right in the towns where these things happen. I talked about doctors administering poisons. They shoot in one of the rooms where these two of the notorious doctors in my book who were allegedly administering poisons to, you know, were doing this. And they had Osage language consultants. You'll hear the language spoken. And then,

you know, there are many Osage actors in the film. A lot of them were my friends and with talking roles. They weren't actors to the best of my knowledge beforehand, but they are actors. And in fact, I think one of the most powerful scenes is the scene with the Osage Tribal Council, all played by, or almost all played by members of the Osage Nation when they're confronting Tom White at the beginning of the investigation. I think it will just take people's breath away, that scene. It was great reading it because I kept thinking, I knew the movie was coming out. I'm like, I wonder how the screenwriter is going to attack this.

Right. And it's Eric Roth who has a bit of a resume here. Uh, Dune, Stars Born, Good Shepherd, um, Forrest Gump. I mean, it's just, he even did Ali. So I, I know Scorsese also has a co-writing credit on this, but I was like, okay, I think it's Tom White. I was like, I think it's Tom White. I was like, I think it's Tom White. Because in the beginning, I'm like, okay, you know, whoever you're introduced to first,

you're kind of just reflexive where you'll be like, okay, it's Molly. And you're like, wait, is it Hale? And then I was like, oh, the Tom White thing and all the different stuff that happens, then his backstory, if you wanted to get into that. And then I, you can send me straight here, but I had read that DiCaprio originally was going to be Tom White, and then he wants to be Molly Burkhart's husband, Ernest. Did you know about any of that? Because I imagine they had to kind of rewrite it a little bit. Yeah. I'm not that involved, but when DiCaprio called me to discuss, he wanted to discuss changing the role.

And I actually thought it was a really good idea because, you know, when you're telling a book, you could do a really sweeping history. And, you know, my book covers all the way back, you know, from when the Osage were driven off their lands to the time in the 20s in the boom town. And then you have that critical section, which we talked about in the present, where I get to kind of show what happened today and this kind of culture of complicity and all the other killings. But a movie kind of focuses in on a period of time. And so what they decide to do is to focus on what was really, I think, the center or the heart of the book, which is Molly Burkhart and this relationship with Ernest Burkhart, her husband, because it's a representative. And I think it gets at this level of complicity because they're not going to be

able to cover the third act and all the scenes. So I think when he called it, I actually thought it was actually a really good idea to do. It does mean that Tom White's role is less central, but it's still a third or part of the movie, which is, and Jesse Plemons plays him and he's terrific. So that was the kind of shift that took place. I don't know about all the thinking that went into that or exactly why it happened. But essentially what they try to do, when you're a historian, you could only tell a story from the outside in. And it's really, it's something I've really only become aware of now watching these films, because I've never really, you know, again, done script. So when you're a historian, you can't inhabit people's consciousness, you're trying to get as close to

their consciousness as possible. But you're not actually expressing it. You know, you're not in their kitchens or in their bedrooms. There are all these places you cannot go. And so my book is told from the outside in. And what they do is tell the story from the inside out and focusing in on that relationship. And they have the wager as well, right? So those rights are gone. I can't hit you up for those. Yeah was like well you could only say i was like okay and what's great too is because i don't know i was like when i got the watch you know i had a bird's eye seat to this thing which was kind of i have to say kind of fantastic like just because again i'm like a movie fan but i don't get involved in the movie business and i'm just like and i got to watch how they did this, created these sets, how they work with the members of the Loewy Stage team, how they develop the roles and the scripts. I just,

you know, I just got to watch a little observe. And, but they, there's a reason why I realized there's a reason why they're the best, like why they, which was actually comforting to me. You know, it's not just like a lark that they're great. Like the level of dedication and curiosity and focus and concentration. I mean, they're artists. And I got to witness that as I was like, it was actually comforting to me. And obviously, after watching them do that, when they expressed some interest in the wager, I was like, oh, OK, done. I don't blame you.

But it is something like handing your child over. You know, you're handing this over. It is something like handing your child over, you know, you're handing this over. And I almost admire that you can be hands off with the amount of hours that you have to put into the research for these books. Yeah, you have to just almost adjust yourself psychologically. And I kind of learned to get there because the truth is you don't have control. So if you try to have control, you will lose your mind. And so the key is to get into the hands of people who actually know what they're doing

and who you trust. And I think for me, the thing that I really care about and the thing that always motivates me because these are such, you know, getting to talk to you is the fruits of the book coming out. But, you know, you spend five or six years on these things, just kind of lost, suffering, digging up facts, lots of tedium, never know if you're going to finish, running out of money, all these things, just kind of lost, suffering, digging up facts, lots of tedium, never know if you're going to finish, running out of money, all these things. But the thing that keeps you going is that you care about these stories. I mean, the story of Pillars of the Flower Moon is such a powerful story, such an important piece of history.

The Wager is such a riveting story. And so for me, the idea that these stories will have another life that they keep radiating out into the world um that to me is what is so wonderful and i'll just tell you one key story um which is when this when i first decided to do killers of the flower moon i made a or when i first heard about the story of the osage murders in the arena terror i couldn't find much about it i made a trip out to the Osage Nation. And when I went there, the first thing I did was I went to the museum and there was this great photograph on the wall. And it was taken in 1924.

And it had showed members of the Osage Nation along with white settlers. But part of that photograph, as I described in the book, was missing. And the museum director, Catherine Reck, when I was just meeting for the first time, I asked her why that part of the photograph was missing. And she said, because it contained a figure so frightening, she had decided to remove it. And she pointed to that missing panel and she

said, the devil was standing right there. And then she went down into the basement and she pulled up an image of the missing panel. It showed one of the key killers of the Osage. And I was so haunted by that image because the Osage had removed the photograph, not to forget what had happened, but because they couldn't forget. And yet so many people, and I include myself, were completely ignorant of this history. We had in effect excised it from our consciousness. So the idea that a book and then a movie will allow people to begin to learn more about this history and that it will lead them to read other books, books by members of the Osage Nation. Maybe they'll visit the Osage Nation Museum the way I did. To me, that is ultimately the gift of these things,

the thing that makes me most happy. That's a great way to complete our visit. You have a gift for this, and thanks as always for sharing it with us. Oh, it's my pleasure, Ryan. Thank you and thanks as always for sharing with us. Oh, it's my pleasure, Ryan. Thank you so much for sharing the history with us. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. All right, let's get right to it. My friends boned me. B-O-N-E-D. 25 years old, 6'3", in thick-soled sneakers.

175, pickup comp is Denzel Valentine. Overall package seems good in theory. Tall guard, you can pass double shoot, but it straight up doesn't work in practice. That's a good one. I like that one. I hear that one a lot. My main friend group, me, three other guys, been together since middle school. We grew up in New York and then all moved back here after college. The four of us are going to get a place together last year, but I backed out before we started

seriously looking. I know. I love when guys are in their 20s to just 30 are like, we're still living together. I actually think it's, I couldn't do it, but with other friends that did it, I'm like, you guys are fucking awesome. But I backed out before we started seriously looking because my mom had a fairly serious health issue and wanted me to stay with her for another year. My friends got a pretty nice three bedroom place in a building with a crappy gym. This is important. And promised that the four of us would get a place together

this year in July when their lease was up. Come this year, they absolutely fucked me. From the moment we started looking for a place, they were super unrealistic. They would only live in two neighborhoods, Murray Hill and Fidei. Is it Fidei in New York? I forget. I don't know. Which both suck ass for what it's worth. Wow, that's a low ranking. And refused to move anywhere that didn't have a state-of-the-art gym,

so we couldn't find anything in our original price range. Why would you want to only have the apartment gym? Part of going to a gym is like, I mean, I don't talk to anybody, but for most people, I think it is. I proposed that we get two two bedroom apartments near each other because there were a bunch of two bedrooms that fit their insane criteria. But like codependent babies, the three of them said they needed to live together. In mid-June, they told me they were resigning their lease for the current apartment, leaving me out of my ass. By this point, I turned out a bunch of other potential roommates and didn't have another option outside of them.

I since found a new roommate, threw a broker, and signed a lease with them, but I'm still incredibly mad at my friends. Every time I try to come up with a solution, living in Brooklyn, splitting up into pairs, increasing our budget, living in a fucking building without a fucking gym. I agree with you on that part. They wouldn't compromise on anything. They said that having a gym was a non-negotiable thing for them and they wouldn't live in Brooklyn because it's not safe. We're all entitled trust fund babies if you couldn't tell by this point.

Do they like you? Well, the fact that I think there's because this kind of happened to me, but the fact that they all decided a year or so ago, like we're all doing this together.

And then unfortunately the email has the situation with the mother's health. Like if you had never lived together and there was never a plan and it was kind of like a, Hey, maybe we'll all get a place together. And then this happened. I would be more worried about your standing with this friend group, but I'm,

I'm feeling good about your standing with this friend group because I think sometimes, man, just moving is such a hassle. Three in their 20s that were like hey we just stay here like we've been searching for this four bedroom thing i don't even know why you'd want to like in reality an apartment depending you know how sick it would be you probably wouldn't want as you start getting closer to 30 want to be in a four bedroom anyway the gym thing i agree with the emailer doesn't make a ton of sense but but they probably were just like, hey, do you want to just fucking renew and not have to do any of the shit that comes with moving because this kind of checks a bunch of boxes? And we asked

him to live with us a year ago and it didn't work out. It wasn't his fault. It was a very good reason. But that's three guys thinking about how to eliminate hassles from their life. I am in a hassle zone right now at the worst time of the year for me. Every day is a hassle. And I don't know when the finish line is coming. And I don't know why I signed up for this hassle because now I'm looking back being like, this was really fucking stupid, but I did it to myself because of other reasons. And every day when I go, what's the hassle list? I'm thinking about these three dudes. They got to dip in. They're fucking watching Sunday night baseball.

No, they're not. And they're like, do you want to just order subs and renew the list? Yeah. We need to cancel the U-Haul. Sweet. Let's get these fucking boxes out of here.

Even better. And let's go work out tomorrow in our gym all right so there's right there's there's more to this all right so um there's no reason that we couldn't have found a better solution besides their selfishness all right but i think we addressed the reason for their selfishness and i gotta be honest if you're gonna be selfish about like, I don't feel like moving this summer. That's what I can kind of fuck with a little bit. All right. Uh, and I know you're probably not hearing what we want to hear here.

It also, uh, feels like they chose proximity to an elliptical machine over 12 years of friendship. Now I know it's a really clever way of framing it, but they chose everything I just talked about, not having to do all of those things. That's what they chose. They didn't necessarily choose it over friendship. They just chose it because they're dudes. I'm the only child, so long-term friendships are very

important to me, but I'm having a hard time getting over this. Maybe you're having a hard time getting over it because you are an only child. I could also invert it a little bit. Just throwing it out there. This guy's like, I'm not listening anymore. It's going to be like, I thought these guys are some of my best friends and it really hurts they treat me with such little regard. This all went down about six weeks ago and outside of a brief text thread about Jacob Toppin

for all Knicks sickos, we've barely talked since then. So you haven't talked in like six weeks since, except the Obi Toppin move. They've insisted that we're always going to be boys. You know that. Invited me on a Hamptons trip the other weekend, but I didn't go. I knew that I'd start a friendship ending fight if I went,

because I didn't have a ton of self-restraint. And as I said before, I'm incredibly mad at them to make matters worse. I broke up my girlfriend of four years, pretty much the day before the situation with my friends happened. Overall, I just feel so alone, which is one of the worst ways to feel.

I could handle breaking up with my girlfriend or breaking up with my friends, but it's rough that they had to happen at the exact same time. They don't. What should I do? They the worst ways to feel. I could handle breaking up with my girlfriend or breaking up with my friends, but it's rough that they had to happen at the exact same time. What should I do? They don't have to happen. All right. On the one hand, I don't want to throw away our friendship because we've known each other for such a long time. On the other, I want the streets to run

red with the blood of my frenemies. Not literally, although at this point, who can say, I know I should just get over it, but I resent that I had to be the much bigger person when I did nothing wrong. It's bullshit that it's my responsibility to repair the friendship when they're the ones who broke it. Why should I have to take the high road when taking the low road is so much easier

and so much more fun? I don't think we'll ever be as close as we were before, but I still think it's worth reconciling with them? Pro. We stay friends. Con. I look like a bitch by going crawling back to them. No, you don't. It's so fucking stupid. I'm sorry, man. I kind of like you you but i just really disagree with where your head's at with this or do i go ballistic on them and unload 12 years of grievances and dirt laundry pro would be cathartic con

everyone would hate me another fucking terrible idea dude you just get a bad idea if i can program you start using uh how can i get revenge in a way that makes me look cool and handsome and psychotic and petty do i just need new friends sorry for the long email i took an adderall and got this out of me all right hey man first of all fucking relax all right uh i hope you really paid attention to what we said about the hassle part of this because that's what they chose they chose the non-hassle now clearly i don't know the intimacy the the actual real dynamic of the friendship if this is part of phase one of like a three-phase plan of just ultimate phase out of this guy. My guess is that's not the case because they invited you to the Hamptons weekend.

But like a bitch, you decided to not go, which was a stupid fucking move. I'm going to tell you a story. Sophomore year in the dorms, roommate, capital lacrosse team, McGurk, NBD. So a lot of guys in the mix were lacrosse team, McGurk, NBD. So a lot of guys in the mix were lacrosse guys, fraternity guys. And we had some guys that were our best friends that quit during pledging. I know hazing is not an awesome topic right now, but there's like five or six guys who are like, fuck this, which I totally understood. Actually, at the time, I didn't understand retroactively.

I understand now. All right. So there was a housing situation where if you were in the fraternity, you had to live in the house. The understanding was you would live in the house for one year. But the coolest thing ever, at least for Burlington, is try to get like one of these marquee houses. They're probably like four or five of these houses with these addresses and they'd be handed down from older guys, whether it was through a team, whether it was through some other social fucking deal. There were these like premier houses and you were always trying to get one of those. I was lucky enough to be in one of them my senior year. These guys, their junior year, they jumped in this other one and stayed there another couple years.

Because I still lived in the dorms and was living with all these dudes, I was better friends with a lot of the guys, whether it was a lacrosse team or lacrosse fraternity hybrid or the guys that had decided not to join the fraternity because, again, somebody sucker punched somebody and it was pretty fucked up. So as I'm like, this is my roommate, roommate, dorm roommate. And then they come to me and they're like, hey, we signed a lease

and you're out. We're not living with you. But everybody figured you had to live in the fraternity at some point anyway. And I was like, yeah, but you kind of have to. But sometimes a little cross guys, which is, but it was understood if you joined a fraternity, at some point you had to live in the house, at least in the Northeast, because you kind of had to keep the thing going financially. And then it was like, then you'll be in one of the houses, whatever your senior year. So it's not a big deal. When I asked, I was like, well, how did that happen? How does it happen that you guys went and did all these things and no one ever said fucking anything about it to me. And they were like, there's one guy, which I knew at the time,

he doesn't like you. We talked about you. And he said, I don't want to live with him. I'm like, so did you take it to a vote? And it was like, no, pretty much. It wouldn't matter if it was five to one, the one vote in that way was more powerful because he was saying, I don't want to live with him where everybody else was like, yeah, it's fine. Like whatever he can live in the house. And then I got replaced by somebody else who was basically in love with another dude so badly that I don't know, it was almost fucking weird so the point is is it wasn't that they were like hey you're gonna live in the fraternity we're gonna live in this other house it's this awesome house and like this is our plan it was that no one ever said fucking anything to me right it was that I'm like you

guys made sure I never knew that you were looking at the house you made sure you never talked around it in front of me even though we were with each other nonstop. And then when it was too late to contain what had happened, then you had to send one guy who I was closest with, who was my dorm roommate, to be like, hey, this is what we did and this is how it all happened. I go, granted, I was going to live in the house, but I don't like the way this was handled. I had a right to be really pissed because the way they did it was fucked up. And the conversations that were had were kind of fucked up. And the one guy that didn't like me, I still don't like to this day.

But I really liked all the other guys. No, except for one of the other guys too. But these are guys I'm still in touch with now. This is what I'm trying to get through to you. Those friendships, the guys that I'm still close with, whether it's constant contact or contact like once every year plus, those moments still matter to me. They mean a lot to me. So I could have gone blowtorch. Hey, fuck you guys. I'm going to go do this and then not been friends with them. What? In college for a couple of years? After college? What's the point of that? I understood as I got older what their reasons

were, what the one guy's reasons were. I didn't think they were good reasons then. I don't think they're great now because they weren't, but it's hard to process this stuff when you're that much younger. So you could just say, fuck it to these lifelong friends. You said you met what, when you were in junior high, but then what? You're punishing yourself more than you're punishing them. This is really an overreaction. Now, unless there's some other thing where they're plotting, and this is the plan the whole way, but I don't think it was. I think it was three 25-year-old guys that didn't want to fucking deal.

Because when you have the option to deal or not deal, especially when you're that age, you're going to take the option to not deal. And you need to think of it that way. They didn't blowtorch your friendship. They blowtorch deal. And if you can get through that, you'll be much better off in the long run. This isn't some ego thing.

Nobody slept with your girl, okay? This is just a housing situation where you're trying to find a four-bedroom that checked every box and there just wasn't and they could just not move. And that's what they wanted to do. So don't cost yourself the remaining stretches of those friendship years. Don't be turning down invites to shit. Be the bigger man here.

You can have one night where you're like, hey, I was pissed about it. But I also wonder if you're used to having everything go your way because you're your only child. It's not true for every only child, but it's true for a lot of them where you can't even believe like, wait, why the fuck don't I get to play with the toy? I've never had to share the toy before. Like everything goes my fucking way. So I can't, what does this mean? So it's worth asking yourself those tough questions, but costing yourself these three friends because of this, because they didn't want to pack their ship is a mistake. Yeah, I mean, I think life's not fair.

That's the first thing, right? I mean, you guys had the whole thing. Like, let's just like zoom out. What if you were in like school, right? If you were in school, in college, right? And you had to take a year off and life went on without you for a year and you came back. And it's like, that would have been, it wouldn't even be a thing. You'd just be like, I got to find new guys to live with pretty much.

Like if, if guys secured a house in school, especially like you were talking about, pot stand was sort of similar when there's, you know, certain houses that if you can get, you fucking stay in there until you graduate. And even then maybe stick around another semester or something.

Like if, if this was, if this was that, like you would just, you would probably understand like, Hey, we found our, our thing, you know, you're a year behind, whatever. I know this is, this is a real life.

So it's a little different, but you know, life, life moved on for a year while you took care of your mom, which is what you should have done. And I think if you had a chance to do it again, that's what you would have done. But that's sort of, that's sort of a consequence. I know they said that, you know, a year from now we'll, we'll, we'll fix this, but that's kicking the can down the road a little bit. It's much easier said than done. Uh, that doesn't mean that, you know, nobody's word is good for anything, but I think you understand that things change in a year. And also, you know, you're, you know, when you're not there, you're, you're not part of the stories. You hear the stories. It's them, those three, they, they probably talked about this and, and, and like, they've, they have kind of sort of a high mind on this whole thing, but you were not even a part of,

so like they, they might've just, they might've just been like, Hey, this is really good. Maybe we'll make our standards pretty high. We know what a, we know what a four bedroom goes for in this city. So we'll just say like, you know, we'll just say we need one. That's going to be under seven grand a month or whatever the price is. We know what we won't find. And if we do great, we'll move it to an awesome building. But if not, like, we'll just, we'll just move on. I think what you should do is you should say to them, you guys really boned me. This sucks. Like, you know, but still like hang out with them and be like, Hey, listen, can we try to like, can we try to do this next year? Can we really like, what, what, what, you know, what could we do here can we really like what what you know what could we

do here not really like don't be like how much you hate it all the time you're like i'm with a guy that i don't know and i'm starting to like him less by the day or whatever it's just like man i really wish really wish this could have worked out is there any way we could do this next year or something try to try to figure out something but don't like don't be like rage and and bring it up all the time but i do think you should say your piece for real. He's way too mad about this. Unless there was a coordinated effort of like, hey, let's pretend, let's lead him on, and then let's do all this stuff behind his back.

But from the email, it feels like it was all pretty much out in the open. Do you really think they would go looking at all of these places? Now, they may have been unrealistic in what their expectations were for a new apartment, but would they do that? Would they go through all this all this stuff so yeah maybe there's a small part of it based on the email the information that we have in this email i think you're way more upset about it than you should be and you may end up costing yourself far more by losing friends that you're going to want it's going to be fucking awesome to still have friends living in the city you know in your 20s and your 30s you're just going to bail on these guys because of this stuff dumb shit and when you talk it out at some point you can talk

about how pissed you are i wouldn't do it after eight cores lights yeah but but i would say eight cores lights you probably could eight other beverages eight red stripes i would i would say it though i wouldn't i wouldn't not say it because i know when they when you guys leave when you leave from that meetup bar in unsafe brooklyn and you they go back to know when they when you guys leave when you leave from that meetup bar in unsafe Brooklyn and you they go back to their safe apartment and you go back to your apartment with you know this guy Jeb who you don't know and you're like yeah we don't really talk and you go back to your room and you know they're chilling in the living room it's gonna bother you so you have to at least be real about it once with them yeah I don't I don't really like the like Ryan I

know what you're saying but I don't I don't really like the... Ryan, I know what you're saying, but I don't really like the chalk it up to the game thing. It sucks. It sucks for you. You are free to be mad about this. I don't think you shouldn't be mad. You should be upset. They did bone you. I'd be pissed off. You guys all had this plan. They told you that, obviously, they were going to wait

for you in a year, and they didn't. Whatever the reason is, legitimate or not legitimate, you have the right to be pissed off about it. So I don't think you should just be like, hey, it is what it is. Just put it away. I don't have an issue with him not going on the trip. If he needed to blow off some steam and he thought he was going to say some dumb shit, again, I don't have any issue with him taking the time. But I do agree with you. I would not blow off the friendship for sure. I had a similar kind of situation in college. I was studying abroad my junior year. I wasn't abroad. I was actually going to of situation in college. I was studying abroad my junior year.

I wasn't abroad. I was actually going to DC. It was the spring semester of my junior year. Another guy was going away to Australia the fall semester. So I was like, oh, cool. We'll just do like a switcheroo thing. It'll be fine. Turns out one of the guys in the room didn't like me, didn't want me to live there for that half year. And I ended up having to live with two randos for basically the first semester before I went away. And it fucking sucked. I was pissed off. And I was kind of mad at those guys for a while. But you know what happened? Nobody talks to the guy that didn't like me anymore. We still kind of are in contact.

And one of them I'm really good friends with. So again, it's not worth what you said, Ryan. It's not worth losing the friends over this. But I do think you have the right to be pissed off. And I think you have every right to tell them how pissed off you are about it. But that doesn't mean you have to stop. That doesn't mean you should stop hanging out with them. Everything you said to you, obviously, you're going through some other shit with your girlfriend that sucks like all the stuff feels

like the mom stuff like this guy's gone through a lot and it sucks like i have a lot of sympathy for him on that one so i don't want to sound like i'm totally against the emailer but i just think he's going to get too mad about something that's going to be way more costly but go ahead i do feel like it is pretty shitty though i don't know man like i'm not saying i know like dudes especially in their early 20s like i know they're not super considerate even my friends now like we don't talk about our feelings like it's the classic case of like you know the wife being like did you ask him how this was and like no we didn't talk now what are you talking about you've known him for 10 years how do you not know this i'm like i don't know i just don't talk about

not even sure what his job title is right now yeah that's what that's what dudes do so i understand that but i do think it is kind of shitty that like all the shit that you went through that they would not at least like the two and two thing like that that doesn't make any sense so i totally understand why they wouldn't want to do a two and two thing but not conceding on a gym whether or not you want really want the gym in your building or not like we could debate that obviously you guys don't think it's debatable but even if you want to debate that i think it is kind of shitty of them to at least not make a concession or two to live with. And now, the other thing too is,

is this going to be a one-year situation? Are you guys going to try to live together for a couple years? Is anybody going to get a girlfriend? Yeah, the longer you kick this down the road, the less likely it's going to happen. This is probably your only time that it's going to happen. I don't know. I do think the friends are being shitty here, even though I do understand, yeah, sure,

it's easy not to move. It's not great, but I also get it. Okay. Look, I mean, now that I'm thinking about all the different times that it's happened with me being on one end or the other right after college, but I was still living in the college town, lived in a stupid condo outside of Burlington because it was the only thing we could find. And I think our credit was so low. They let us in there. It was a two bedroom deal. My buddy and I were like, let's move back to Burlington because we were in South Burlington. We're like, let's get a two bedroom. And we were looking at the end of August and we were terrible planners and we didn't really have that much money. And we put it off and we put it off. We couldn't fucking find anything.

And then all of a sudden we were out. And because he bartended at a different place than I did, people knew the owner and they were like, we have a one bedroom opening up next week. And he took it and he's like, yeah, I got a one bedroom. And he kind of looked at me like, I didn't tell you and I just bailed, but it was coming up. Nobody had anywhere to go. I moved in with another dude who moved his bedroom into his living room. And then I lived in his bedroom for six months. And then when that was up, I sublet it from a kid that was still in college while I was finishing up and working as a manager and working at a TV station. I had a junior semester where I took a semester off because I was so sick of being broke. I stayed back in the vineyard. I was going to bartend. It didn't work out. I worked the door.

I worked construction. But when I told the guy that I was going to live with in the fraternity, and basically, I don't even know why he was mad because he ended up with a single. He didn't have to pay for a single. He only had to pay the tenant price. But I was like, hey, I'm not going to move back up. And he like motherfucked me on the phone. I was like, dude, I thought we had a plan. I thought we were going to really let it fly this year in this whole thing. I was like, who gives a shit? Again, the price, it wasn't like I was moving into a two-bedroom apartment and letting him know a month before, hey, you're going to be paying all on your own. He only had to pay what one person had to pay for that room, and that's all that happened.

He wanted the camaraderie. Yeah, he wanted to be buds. And I'm thinking like, hey, I get where you're coming from, but you need to assume where I'm coming from, man. My fucking parents are divorced again. I've got no fucking money. I'm sick of being broke. I'm going to put away a couple grand. I'm already behind a few classes. I already know I'm going to be there five years. So this is what I'm going to do, and I'll see you guys in the spring. live with a couple guys guys i've known a long time a couple of those guys love drinking ghb as soon as they got home from work there were fights there was fucking brutal stuff going on and i'd be like dude i cannot fucking live here and they were like you signed a lease like i didn't sign up for this shit like i didn't sign up for any of this and it was bad i mean it was really bad because one of the guys was was a legit badass on every single

drug you could possibly imagine i was like am i gonna get my ass kicked over this and you know i had to show up to the house there was like a stare down and a couple fuck yous and i was like i have no idea i was like i think probably the real answer was i probably had a pretty good idea how it's going to go and i really want to be a part of it but um look you know it's just shit the convenience of what can can factor into the decision for the other person is often ignored yeah so i i think real just to put a bow on this like our we had a we had a house that's my podcast kyle so we yeah to put a bow on this for all i usually speak latin to put out a bow on this for all of us speak left no just go ahead to put out a bow on this for all of us uh in in in college we had a five we had a five bedroom house we had a lot more than five

friends a lot of people wanted to be in that house we kind of you know we kind of looked we took stock we ranked the dudes we're like this is the top five we know and but you know but six wasn't a bad dude six wasn't six great dudes if you If four got kicked out, which is always in play, six is right in there. That's fine. But what six did, six and seven and nine and whatever, they fucking got their own apartment. So I know you said that it bothers you that you turned down other roommates

because you wanted to be with one, two, and three. If you're four, maybe you should find five and six. And then you wouldn't feel, you won't be so fucking, you know, bitter about this every single day. If you're living situations also cool. Yeah, but you can't, that's the point. No, no, I know. But listen, hold on, hear me out guy. I think what you do is, is you spend this year getting over yourself a little bit, but also putting lines in the water. Yeah. Keep that line in the water for those guys. One, two, and three, and see if you could find a four place with a jam and whatever, or maybe they, you know, maybe they break down and they go to a gym close by. But also I think you spend this year trying to try to get, you know, find other people that

you could live with and maybe have more fun than those guys, huh? Those fellows over there, maybe you're having more fun with you, with your two bedroom, who knows? But I'm saying, I think you, you like, if you have a better situation and it's just not you and whoever this fucking guy is you're living with that you're probably uncomfortable with and you're probably letting their situation over there making you more uncomfortable with your roommate. I think you find you spend this year trying to find

pretty good alternatives as well as maybe seeing if this works out next year. We're just moving forward is what I mean. Or you can just start dating a 10. Good luck. Or that. Sounds like they have the cash for it. If we have any more of these funnel cakes,

we won't be able to fit on the bus. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. Rhyme to Slow Podcast from your Spotify. We'll be right back. with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com forward slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia.

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