The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Russillo Summer Book Club: 'The Wide Wide Sea' With Hampton Sides, and Life Advice

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Russillo kicks off his Summer Book Club by welcoming in 'The Wide Wide Sea' author Hampton Sides to learn more about Captain James Cook and his final voyage (0:39). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle and Ceruti (43:46)! Should I ditch my friends for a chance to win an intramural championship? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Hampton Sides Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Wide Wide Sea by Hamptonsides. I love this book. A very close look at the third and final expedition for Captain James Cook. He had a mission to find the Northwest Passage. He gets into that belief at the time that this passage existed as did many other explorers and scholars. They discover Hawaii sort of and the interaction among these society islands. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it.

Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. The Wide Wide Sea, Hamptonsides joins us now. This is, before I bring Hampton in

and ask him a million questions about this book, this is the kind of book that I didn't want to finish because I always wanted there to be pages remaining. It's the ultimate compliment. I was going too fast initially and ultimately, I don't want to say unfortunately I finished it, but ultimately the story was over and Hampton joins us now. This is incredible work. This is right up my alley and this turned out to be one of my all-time favorites. So thanks for your work on this. My pleasure. It's good to be with you. So we take a look at Captain James Cook, a historical figure, and I want to just kind of go to the point that he was at in his life that started, I believe what you say is kind of a third

major voyage of exploration that starts in 1776. So where was he at this point in his life? Well, he was a celebrity in London at that time. He had been around the world twice, had explored much of the South Pacific, had blasted a bunch of myths about a supercontinent that was supposed to exist down at the bottom of the world, much bigger than Antarctica. They thought he had conquered scurvy, that horrible malady of maritime life. He hadn't exactly conquered it. That's a complicated question. But he was meeting with the king at this point and sitting with, for the very best painters in London. Everyone wanted a piece of this guy. He was Everyone wanted a piece of this guy. He was a major celebrity, not just in England, but all over Europe. And he could retire and comfort and enjoy a cushy job at Greenwich, be with his family

for the first time, and get to know his wife a little bit. He would have done enough and he would already be in the sort of the pantheon of the great explorers if he had done that. But he got wind of yet another expedition that was heading out to try to find the Northwest Passage, that sort of mythic waterway over Canada that would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific. And it was too ambitious. It was too seductive. waterway over Canada that would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific. It was too ambitious.

It was too seductive. It was too tantalizing. He said, I want a part of that. He goes out of early retirement and goes right back into being an explorer, one third and final time. Of course, we now, with the benefit of hindsight, know it was probably not a good call on his part. Things do not go very well for the captain.

I think it's not a spoiler for most readers out there to say, you know, all roads lead to a very violent end for the captain on the west coast of the big island of Hawaii. So anyway, that's where he was in 1776 as he's about to embark on this third voyage, which is the subject of the book. I do love the theories. I read about the exploration of the North Pole and just how many scientists would kind of be sitting at home. Although it doesn't seem all that different from maybe theories that are shared from people that don't experience life all that much from today But just the idea that yeah, no, there's a supercontinent. No, there's a super easy passageway

There isn't ice because it's too cold for waterways to freeze Just at this point of the timeline of the history of man Just how willing people were to believe what we can just easily look at now as absurd theories. Yeah, man. I'd certainly try to have a little fun with some of the pseudoscience and the gentleman scientists who are a part of this thing called the Royal Society of London. They're really smart people. I mean, we're talking about the same organization that, you know, like Sir Isaac Newton was a former president. These are smart people. I mean, we're talking about the same organization that, you know, like Sir Isaac Newton was a former president. These are smart people. It is the best science of their day, presumably, but they believe all kinds of crazy stuff. One of them that you alluded to is that seawater cannot freeze. Just got to pause over that for a second.

They were arguing that when you encounter ice, it is always just river water flowing out into the sea that freezes. But if you could just get out into the open ocean, it never freezes, it cannot freeze. It's just not true. And many sailors, unfortunately, many explorers had to suffer and die trying to prove or disprove that theory. And then, you know, a lot of other ideas, I mean, that there's a warm water basin up at the top of the world or that there had to be this massive supercontinent populated

by millions of people somewhere at the bottom of the planet. And these are the kinds of things that, you know, okay, someone comes up with a theory and then an explorer has to go check it out and find out whether it's true or not. And that guy had been cook for the previous two voyages. And now he's now going to try to go either find this Northwest Passage or prove that it either doesn't exist or at least it's not practical because there's so much ice up there because guess what sea water does you know ocean water does freeze and rock solid it would have been super helpful to know that prior to this this last expedition okay so this is a dream team of crew members, which it's really interesting kind

of going through the names. I'll be like, Hey, I know who that guy is. And I've heard that name before, but there's also one guest on this ship that has a different background. Mai, who was brought from what later the society islands, which Cook named. Um, and he lives in London for a couple of years. It reminded me of the movie Legend of Greystoke a little bit. Maybe not that extreme for a motion picture. And then of course he's got all these animals that Cook's constantly complaining about feeling like he's got the Noah's Ark deal here as they're trying to find a way to bring different sort of animal species to different

islands and everything. But let's get into Mai because he's an incredible like side supporting actor in this entire story. Yes, I mean, in some ways when I found out about Mai, I worried that he was going to kind of upstage Cook and some of the other guys on the ship because he's so interesting and his story is so little known here in the United States anyway. So, you know, basically, Mai came to London as part of Cook's second voyage and England just rolled out the red carpet for this young man. He was from the Society Islands, Polynesian, young man, very good looking, rather exotic creature.

England had never seen a Polynesian before. And he ends up having the time of his life. I mean, the ladies fall in love with him. He meets the king. He hangs out with like Johnson and Boswell and all the intellectuals who think he is the paragon of the noble savage, you know, and they trot him out to all the salons and parties and he goes and learns to hunt at the estates of the aristocracy and he introduces barbecue to England because it turns out he's an amazing cook in the old, you know, Polynesian style. And what else? I mean, it's just an amazing

two-year odyssey that he has in England. They dress him up in finery, they think he's a prince, you know, he's the toast of the town. But after two years, he becomes pretty homesick. He wants to go back to Polynesia. And King George says, we'll get you home. And the guy that's going to take you home is Captain Cook. So that becomes the first errand of the expedition is to bring this guy Mai back to Tahiti and its sister islands with a bunch of animals, a bunch of weird belongings that Mai has accumulated. Things like a suit of armor and I don't know, a jack-in-the-box and this little electric

machine that it's a kind of a gag toy that, you know, people have given them all kinds of artifacts to impress the people of Tahiti with just how clever and cool England is. And so that's the first part of the voyage is really getting Mai home and Cook does it. Before we get to Mai's return, I do want to talk about Grass Cove and the massacre there, that it happened not with Cook's crew, but something that had made. And it's just amazing how information would move in these legends and these stories, but Cook decides to go back to New Zealand to investigate and actually anchor. And the timeline of events there is kind of fascinating because you think based on Cook's

history and the perception of him, but he'd seem to have a far more open mind about his countrymen being murdered and then actually potentially eaten by cannibals. Yeah, yeah. So yes, in the smack dab in the middle of the book, there's this saga of cannibalism that, you know, throughout the South Seas, there were all these rumors of cannibalism and, you know, exaggerated stories about cannibalism that were often not true. But this was one that was true. It had happened. On Cook's second voyage, his consort ship had gotten separated from Cook's own ship.

And that consort ship, which was called the Adventure, had come ashore at New Zealand on the South Island, Grass Cove, and a place called Ship Cove. And an altercation had erupted. Ten of the men on the ship were killed and were eaten. And there's no doubt about that. And so you got to flash forward like four years later, Captain Cook is returning to New Zealand in part to sort of play the role of detective. You know, he's like Colombo. He's like, yeah, he's wearing a different hat now. I am a homicide detective. I want to find out what happened. How did my men,

find out what happened, how did my men, what series of decisions did they make perhaps that led to their demise? Did they deserve it? And you know, the cannibalism part of it, interestingly, it really didn't bother him at all. He was like, once you're dead, you know, what's the big deal? Everyone knows this is part of Maori warrior culture to imbibe the flesh of your enemy who you've killed in combat. What's the big deal? You know, he, you know, back in England, people were appalled. And, you know, this was the ultimate taboo to eat human flesh. But Cook was just like, you know what, this is what they do. They do it

in their own wars. Why should we be so, you know, freaked out by it? And he also made the decision that probably his own men, after interviewing a lot of people, that his own men had provoked that his own men had provoked the fight that led to their all dying. They were greatly outnumbered by the Maori warriors. It was kind of inevitable. So anyway, yes, it's kind of a weird little side error that Cook has to play in this third voyage is to go find out what happened. And when he makes the decision, you know what, it was pretty much their own fault. Not only do his own men, are they like,

what? Here they are. These are the guys who killed our men on the previous voyage, and you're not going to punish them. You're not going to do anything to them. But not only that, but the Maori warriors themselves are really puzzled by it. Like, you're not going to punish them. Some of them wanted him to kill the leader because they actually didn't like the leader of that tribe, correct? Like they were almost as disappointed as his own crew. Right. It's like, in their culture, anytime there was there's something like this that happens, there's supposed to be an equal and opposite reaction, right?

And when this guy, Cook, is tolerant and seems to be cool with this and doesn't punish anyone, well, he just doesn't get it at all. It freaks him out. It freaks them out in a little bit. It's like against their culture. So Cook, in a way, can't win for losing because, you know, it's like, uh, he tries to be tolerant. He tries to understand this culture. And, uh, they're like, why aren't you punishing us? It's a very strange and interesting little story.

Yeah. I was really interested in how brazen then the Maury's became in the sense that it was like, well, this guy, we can't even take him seriously. He's not going to kill any of us. And so then the leader like just rows a boat up to the ship and hangs out, goes to his cabin, has a painter paint him and the the crew's like in disbelief. And yet with every act of understanding that Cook had, where he basically, to your point, looks at the events of eight years prior going like, okay, this is kind of justified, like my guys probably instigated this and obviously thievery was a big part of it, where he's like, I'm going to handle this

in a respectful way with every, every movement of respect. It was like, he got less respect from everyone around him. It's just a credible dynamic. So they make it over to Tahiti where I imagine in case anybody reads the book now, I don't think you can just have sex with anyone if you bring a bag of red feathers. But this was the sex life approach of the sailors and the islands. I mean, Tahiti, the way you describe it at this stage of the world's history had to be an absolute paradise for these people.

Yeah. A lot of these sailors who had signed on for this voyage did so solely because they had heard about Tahiti. They had heard that Tahiti was this place where not only was the landscape beautiful and the weather and the food, but the women were beautiful and willing. They get to Tahiti and it's just exactly the way as-built. They're like, wow, they came on board the ship. There's orgies on the beach. There's orgies in the jungle.

I basically had to take an X-rated story and turn it into, at my editor's insistence, a PG-13. These are young, horny men. Many of them are like 16, 17, 18. And they can't believe it. They just can't believe it. They're willing and they're proficient at lovemaking and they seem to really want to get it on. And, you know, and yes, sometimes it's at the cost of a red feather or a nail or some, you know, trivial thing, but in many cases, not. And what's equally interesting to me is that a lot of times these men develop real romances with these women that last for the duration of their anchorage there.

Curious to me, like, why do these young women find these stinky, smelly, greasy, hairy sailors attractive? I'm not really sure. But other than that, they're very different. They look different. They seem to have different kinds of tools and different sorts of powers. It's an interesting question that a lot of scholars have debated for a long time. Why was there so much sex?

Why did these women apparently find these men at least interesting or powerful, if not attractive? So, that's a little sub theme that runs through Cook's travels through Polynesia. Now Cook still has the my situation that he has to deal with. And there's a ton of depth on this. So I don't expect you to go through all of it, but they're basically trying to find a place to drop him off that makes sense for him. off that makes sense for him. And whether it's the locals lack of respect for him, my lack of respect for the power cook knowing, Hey, look, this was the plan.

Um, I can't keep you with me. It's a sad ending where I just imagine the way you describe it. Like, all right, here's your house and this is where you're going to live with all your trinkets and we'll see you later. Uh, it just, here's your house, and this is where you're gonna live with all your trinkets, and we'll see you later. It just feels like Mai's expectations are not met at all, and yet Cook is kind of in an impossible situation based on Mai's behavior. Yeah, I mean, by this time, I think Mai is kind of a man

without a country. He's not exactly English, of course, but he's no longer exactly Polynesian. He's been everywhere, but seems to belong nowhere. He's got all these toys and trinkets and various things that he accumulated in England, including a lot of guns and ammunition. But he's not, you know, he's turns out he's really not, he's not royalty. Okay. I mean, this is a very stratified society. He came from kind of poverty. And I guess he thought all this, all these riches from England would

elevate his status within the society, but he didn't exactly. Basically, the Tahitians and the different islands around there just didn't know what to do with this cat. Man, he was just a strange guy at this point. But what I haven't talked about yet is that this sort of long game that Mai was playing from the very beginning, which was that he had gone to England with a very singular purpose, which was to learn about guns. He was fascinated by English firearms.

He wanted to learn how to use them, and he wanted to collect as many of them as possible so that he could get back to Tahiti and prosecute a war against his hated, his nemesis, the Bora Bora warriors, who had killed his father, stolen his family's land. It was basically a Pat Fields and McCoys kind of situation here where he wanted to prosecute a war against Bora Bora. And as soon as Cook leaves him on this island called Huaenei. Very shortly thereafter, he prosecutes a war against Bora Bora and uses those guns. And in a way, you know, in a way, he did exactly what he set out to do when he went to England. But things do not end well for him, sadly. It's kind of one

of those bittersweet stories about cross-pollination of cultures that, you know, usually these things don't go real well for, for the world traveler in the end. And that's certainly the case with, with my, unfortunately. So the greater goal still is to find it to the Americas, work their way up. Um, at this point, I always am really interested in the role of Spain throughout all of this, because you have a revolutionary war taking place in the backdrop.

This is an expedition ship, so it's supposed to be left alone, but it's not like the Spanish are going to follow somebody else's rules. The Spanish seem to just, I mean, you want to talk about taking, and all of these countries are guilty of this, but like Spain sometimes I'll read something and go, wow, like they just took the Pacific Ocean. They called, I think this is the first time I had read this, that California originally had a title that actually meant New England based on the translation? Is that accurate? The English wanted to call it that. New Albion, which is a kind of quaint Latin term for England. There is this larger chess game going on throughout the whole book, throughout this whole story, which is the European powers are carving up the planet, naming things, claiming things, wanting

to exploit these resources ruthlessly. And, you know, they're all kind of competing. The French and the Dutch and the Portuguese, particularly the Spanish. I mean, yeah, the Spanish claimed the entire Pacific Ocean is their property. Like, we own that. Yeah, well, good luck trying to defend that. But they did control certain parts of the Pacific. And if Cook had encountered the Spanish, like a Spanish galleon, he probably would have been sunk because his little ship was really not suited for combat.

And so, yeah, it's this other world, this sort of colonial, imperial world that is going on all around this story, seeping into every corner of it. But Cook himself, I mean, you know, really, he's an explorer. He's a map maker and he's kind of a proto anthropologist He's interested in these people and documenting what he's seeing and his encounters with these indigenous tribes That's what animates him the most During this voyage and during all of his voyages the the larger

colonial thing is Something he has to report back to the Admiralty. It's a duty. He understands he's working for the crown and he's working for the Admiralty, but it's not what fires him up. You can tell that really what really gets him going is when he discovers something entirely new. And that's where it brings us to Hawaii, because he was not supposed to find Kauai. It wasn't supposed to be there. But then you, and I think you do a great job of this

bringing it up being like the Spanish may have hid this discovery so we can get debates on who discovered what and what time. And then you have the Polynesian history where clearly they were unbelievable navigators because there were so many similarities between the Polynesian people at this time and then when they're discovering Hawaii and these islands and the people where there was actually some communication based on how much time

they'd spent in Tahiti. But I mean, in that moment and going through his journals where he feels like, and Cook is impressive in the sense that he'll have an open mind where others, I feel like, don't want to have an open mind to give themselves the maximum credit. So it's more about science than it is legacy when it comes to discovering new worlds for him. But this was just this oasis in the middle of the ocean that no one really expected to see as they thought they were preparing to freeze their ass off in Alaska and beyond. It was just a nice little rest stop that was not scheduled.

Right. They can't believe it. He can't believe it. And he realizes immediately this is a huge find. You know, caveat, you can't say he discovered Hawaii because obviously the Polynesians had discovered it, you know, centuries earlier. The great navigators, as you mentioned, coming from Tahiti and Marquesas, different islands and farther south. But he was the first European discoverer, at least to,

if the Spanish saw it, they clearly hid their find. They apparently did not come ashore. They did not clearly hid their find. They apparently did not come ashore. They did not describe the people. They did not claim it for the crown of Spain. So Cook is rightly the European discoverer of the Hawaiian Islands. He quickly names them the Sandwich Islands after his boss, the Lord Sandwich, first Lord of the Admiralty, he comes ashore. He can't believe this huge volcanic island is only one of many in an island chain. And he realizes, you know, the old explorer wants to just stay and explore this place, but he's got a timeline. He's got to get to Alaska. He's got to look for that Northwest Passage. So, he only stays about a week. Has,

for the most part, a very positive experience there. They trade all kinds of things. The Hawaiians, the Kauaians are fascinated by the English. They may or may not have thought they were gods or supernatural beings, but they're very interested in their iron. Any kind of tool that is made of iron, it's just, they're obsessed with it. And they also steal a lot of awls and sextants and, you know, anything made of iron is liable to be stolen. So anyway, but they have a very interesting encounter at Kauai, but Cook basically says, I got to get on, but I'd like to return to this place. There's a lot more discovering to do here, a lot more exploring to do. But meanwhile,, meanwhile, uh, Aloha, we're going to Alaska. All right.

Perfect segue. It's almost like you're, uh, you're reading my notes here because you could just sense the dread from the journals and the way you describe it, like you've stopped in Tahiti, it's paradise. We found a second paradise, but to your point, that is not the mission. Let's freeze our asses off. And now you're dealing with just trying to find this entry point. And also I would say the natives that they interacted with, it was not even

close to being the same situation as these islands. Although look, eventually it seemed like they had made some headway in developing forms of communication and trade and equipping the ship the way they would need to. But as they head north, it just feels like a fool's errand. I mean, it's easy for us to say after the fact, like, what's wrong with you guys thinking, but it just becomes really apparent as Cook is just a man who spent his life at sea, looking at his surroundings going, none of this makes any sense that any of this could possibly exist. But I mean, to his credit, he still tries to do it because he has people to report to.

Right. You know, basically, okay, so they go across the Pacific, they make landfall in present day Oregon, and they start working their way up the coast. And every time there's an indentation or a large river system or a bay, he's supposed to kind of check it out. Cause maybe that is the Northwest passage. I mean, think how hard that is. I mean, sorry to interrupt you, but like every single inlet to go, maybe that's the one. Yeah, maybe this is it. And gosh, if I miss it, if I just skip over one or two or I pass it at night or I pass it in

fog and miss it, and then I'm, you know, I've blown the mission. But, um, you know, I, I think, you know, it wasn't crazy as it wasn't necessarily as crazy as it sounds in this sense. And that is that Cook was also supposed to just map what is up there, because no one knew what was up there. No one knew what the shape of Alaska was. Bering had two expeditions in the general neck of the woods, but his maps were pitiful. They were cartoonishly wrong. So, Cook is doing a service to the atlases of the world. He's mapping the shape and the limits

of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. He does it that summer. He goes all the way up through, in into the Bering Sea, you know, past the Aleutian Islands, into the Bering Sea, through the Bering Strait and up and over the top of Alaska. And we get, for the first time, the charts show us what Alaska really looks like. It's a massive accomplishment really. He didn't find the Northwest Passage, of course, which is what the mission was. What he found was ultimately an impenetrable wall of ice up there that nearly crushed him and we would never have heard from him again. He realizes there's no way we're getting through. We're not sailing home to England this way. So, and he checks out that wall of ice all the way across, you

know, all the way over to Asia, over to the Asian side, to Russia. And he says there's just no way. There's no way through. It's impossible. So he's actually not going to give up though, which becomes a fateful mistake. And yet, as you alluded to, it's like, okay, there's still far more of Hawaii to see. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It ends up being his last decision,

but take us through the timeline of events for him to decide. Because the crews both, it seems like, okay, cool. We're going back to, but like, we're not going home. We're going to try this Northwest passage again, to a different season. And if he had just gone home,

the ending is obviously far different. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it says something about Cook's stubbornness and his resolution, his tenacity or whatever, or his reckless, or his hubris maybe. he says, you know, maybe we'll just, we're not going to go home yet. We'll come back next summer and try it again, you know, maybe from a slightly different angle at a slightly earlier month of the summer. You know, maybe it still exists. We're going to give it one more chance.

But in the meantime, we got to go somewhere to spend the winter. We don't want to be up here with all these walrus and all this ice and maybe a few Russians on the Russian side, you know, on the Asian side. But you know, it's lonely and cold and inhospitable. So let's go somewhere where it's warm. And how about that amazing place that we stumbled upon earlier, Hawaii? That's a good place to warm up and spend the winter. So, it's not exactly close. Hawaii is like 4,000 miles away. That's one of the things

that blows my mind about these decisions they make. It's like, okay, we'll just go back to Hawaii, 4,000 miles south. Interestingly kind of doing exactly what the Humpback whales do. You know, they spend their summers up there in Alaska, then they go to Hawaii to spend the winter. Well, that's what Cook did. And yes, we know now that it was a bad decision, ill-fated decision, because things do not go well for the good captain uh when they get to the

big island of hawaii and this is the spoiler alert um but i would urge everybody to there's so much more depth in this book because i mean some authors are like hey don't give it all away so i mean depending on where you're at with it i mean i think we can do it because it's it's not like it's a murder mystery here uh yeah yeah it's sort of the suspense, not of the what, because we know what happens and anyone, I think if Cook is known for anything, he's known for dying in a very graphic and violent way on those lava flats of Hawaii. So it becomes the suspense of the how. You know, how did it happen? How did this most disciplined of explorers who loved Polynesian culture and seemed to understand

Polynesian people end up hacked to pieces on the beach? How did that happen? You know, it's the last 50, 60, 70 pages of the book is sort of answering that question. I love that you shared, you kind of, you, you stepped out of kind of the, the traditional, you know, history approach and, and the journal entries, and then putting your own research into it where you pivoted away from that to kind of get into the scholarly debate of what was it about Cook. And I think there's a very natural human instinct part of it where the ships would anchor, these guys would get off, they would trade, they would celebrate. It was a curiosity.

And like anything after a month, it's like, you guys can get out of here, like along and Cook and the crew sensing at different stops. Okay. We probably overstayed our welcome. And with his faithful stop at the big Island, there's, there's just all of these layers of debate of, did they think he was a God, uh, or were they just sick of them? And I just, I think he'd lay it out really well where, I mean, I think it's, it's more of just,

Hey, this guy's coming at us because a ship had been stolen. A smaller boat had been stolen because of the iron and Cook is outraged. And you, you have this moment where like, it might actually not be that complicated, but I think you present a lot of the stuff with the way they were bowing to him and calling him by this godlike name over and over and over again, then maybe it just adds more drama or suspense to it. And I don't know if you ever landed on an answer.

Yeah, well, I mean, I do think that there's ample evidence to suggest that at first, when he came ashore at Kealukakuke Bay, that they did think he was the god Lono, or at least many people did. They call him Lono. Lono is the god of fertility. He happened to arrive, amazing timing, he arrived at the height of this festival called the Makiheiki, which celebrates the god Lono, and he arrived in exactly the fashion that the god Lono was supposed to return in a clockwise circumnavigation of the island, which is what Cook had done.

He was supposed to return to this very spot, Kealukukube, where a temple exists, existed to honor the god Lono at the height of the festival for the god Lono. And so he comes ashore, they started calling him Lono, they bring him into the temple, he takes part in this very elaborate religious ritual, which he is the centerpiece. And yeah, I mean, I think most of Cook's men thought, they thought he was the god. And most of the anthropologists to this day seem to think that, although there's debate on that question. But what is undeniably clear, crystal clear is that at a certain point, several weeks later, they decide he's not the god Lono. They sure do. And they are, they're pissed off at these Brits because they have overstayed their

welcome. They have spread diseases, including venereal disease, to the local people. There are 180 sailors. They're hungry. There's only so many pigs on the island. There's only so much fish. There's only so much shellfish. Why won't they leave? They stay too long.

And then a series of miscues and miscommunications escalate very quickly one day after a small boat has been stolen. And I won't go into it any further, but that is, you know, what's amazing is that most of Cook's men cannot get to him to defend him. They're watching from the ships with this backdrop of these cliffs. It was almost like a natural amphitheater on shore. They're watching their captain get just destroyed in the most graphic way possible. And four of the Royal Marines are also killed. And so, I don't know, something like 20 Hawaiian warriors, at least, are killed in this conflict

on the beach. And it's shocking. And the shock, if you go down to the site of that massacre, I guess you could say that that fight. I mean, you can just it's got bad juju. It's a dark and interesting and weird place. It's got a lot of juju and thousands of people go down there. It's a long hike down, down to the shore where there's an obelisk that commemorates the death of Cook. But it's also an obelisk that is very controversial.

The Native Hawaiians want to take it down. It's splattered with red paint all the time and vandalized in various ways. But anyway, it is a very dramatic event. And when the ships come home to England, Cook becomes elevated in British culture. I mean, they basically call him a martyr of exploration. And he becomes kind of like a god in British society. But nowadays, Cook is controversial all over Polynesia. His monuments are being questioned, if not actually toppled all over the place. Well, that's where I want to finish then, because I think whenever you think about history and how

we maybe reevaluate what it means, what was behind it. I think going into this book, even though I'd read limited versions of him, I think there was a point in time where I was like, oh, this great explorer. And then there was another time where I was like, oh, this is pure evil at sale. And there are other moments in the book where you're just like, okay, he's become unhinged because of theft and what he feels like he's, uh, the punishment he's worthy of, of doling out to people that like, whether it's a lack of communication and oftentimes just a lack of respect and whether it was by cook or other crewmates. Um, but I also think there's times you can, when you're trying to apply the sensibilities

of today to centuries past, then that becomes problematic. So ultimately as you dove deep on, on this guy is psyche is history and the debates around it. Have you even come to any kind of conclusion you feel good about? Yeah. I mean, I think without question, you can say that Captain Cook was one of the greatest explorers of all time. Um, perhaps the greatest of all time. By what metric am I

measuring that? You know, the sheer number of nautical miles that he traveled, the number of places he stumbled upon, the quality of his observations, home. All three of his voyages, the ships came home, the men made it home. And not a single one of his men died of scurvy. That he had mastered this instrument called the chronometer that allowed him to fix the exact location of all these places all over the Pacific. I mean, he kind of gave us the look and the shape and the, you know, limits of the Pacific Ocean, from the almost to Antarctica to the deep into the Arctic. From the, as they say, from the realm of penguins to the realm of polar bears. This guy went everywhere and, you know, just these voyages were so professionally run and

they published everything. You know, the amount of anthropological knowledge, the artwork, the sketches, the charts, the maps, that was all of it was published in these huge folio sized, you know, three volume sets. So, you know, you look at all those things and you go, you know, what other explorer can you name that traversed the world as widely as he did and produced this much knowledge? I can't think of anyone. I mean, they're really, you know, maybe Marco Polo, you know, maybe a handful of Alexander von Humboldt. I mean, there's a handful of others. But, so there is that. But yes, he did live in a time, you know, this colonial game,

this imperial thing was, it was brutal. It was relentless and it was really just getting ramped up. And so, you know, I think the reason his statues are coming down is not so much for what he himself did, but for the way in which his voyages accelerated this colonial process. You know, he fixed these places on the maps, he described these people and their anchorages and their food and their cultures, and that just ushered in this whole age of, you know, then come the armies and the navies and the occupiers and the germs and the alcohol and the missionaries and the whalers and the, you know, just all the things that came almost immediately in his wake. That's what they hate. That's really

what they, I think, resent, understandably, they being indigenous people. But a statue of Cook is just a symbol. It's easy to rip that thing down and much easier to do that than to try to rip down everything that came down, you know, came after him. So anyway, yeah, I guess that's my feeling about him. I admire the guy in his accomplishments, his competence, and yet I understand that he's part and parcel of a much larger thing, a much more complicated thing, which is colonialism, and the taking of these lands and the systematic unraveling of these cultures. Mad Fientist Whether it's on desperate ground, Kingdom

of Ice, Hellhound on his trail, Blood and Thunder and Ghost Ghost Soldiers. It's just another one to the resume, man, and one of the all-timers, the Wide Wide Z, Hampton Sides. Thanks so much. Wow, it's been a pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. You want details? Buy. 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. Our email address is lifedevicerr at gmail.com. Please hit us up with some emails and we'll see if we can't fix your life. Okay, no pressure. So.

Let's do this one. All right. Intramurals the decision. Keep anonymous. We always try folks, but sometimes you tell on yourselves. Stats five eight one fifty five bench two twenty five squat three 365, deadlift 435, player comp, Patty Mills. Patty Mills can cook, man. I played a few sports in high school,

basketball being my best. Averaged 20 a game on 50 and 40 splits. Small high school, so take it with a grain of salt. I had a handful of D3 and NAIA offers, but I knew I wouldn't see the court given my size. I thought this is a man ended up at an in-state university. Hey dude, you actually play, you don't're like Clooney and the rest of us are all DiCaprio's so good for you.

Those are, I mean, you scored 20 a game in high school, dude. That's awesome. Ended up at an in-state university. I'm a rising senior and played, uh, intramurals the past three years with my friends, so rising senior, you guys heard that term before? I mean, I imagine we can probably do the math on this and figure out he is going to be a senior. Yeah. Does it mean he's a senior with a bullet. What is No, yeah, you graduate

But the day you finished your junior year, you're a senior like that's it, right? Oh is a rising senior me like I'm going to be or is it like I've gotten better every year I hope that's what shout out Cause that's exactly what I was constantly improving. Just see me about my 50 year. Really? I'm like, all right, I'm starting to figure this place out. All right. Uh, it's a lot of fun playing with my friends last few years, but

unfortunately they're terrible. Our combined records is about four and 12. The only positive I can put up about 25 shots a game with no complaints. I play at the rec two, three times a week. Still pretty good. So this guy's playing all the time, dude, you play in a league, you're playing pickup hoops two, three days a week while you're in college, like you're rising. Everything's good.

Yeah. A few guys I play with consistently. They're really good. Recently asked me to join their team this coming year. Intermurals are about seven months out, but I clearly have my priorities straight, dot, dot, dot. I love, I think you do. And be like, which offense would I, system just absolutely helps me.

All right, my question is, is it shitty to ditch my friends and join them, join that team to try to make a championship run? I know they'll be really pissed. Do I want to be 16-17 Russ or KD? Easy answer. I love where your head's at. I'm shocked they let you play in intramurals.

Don't they have usual rules? Like if you're in the school affiliated team, you can't come here and just run the fucking table, even though he's not with his current, his current Joe's that he's with, right right I don't understand what you're saying you're saying you can't be a free agent in your murals yeah I thought like if you were on a contract like intermurals is for us that like have a dream you know what I mean he's not on the basketball team at the school he's not always not he's not okay

all right no you're right about that he had some off-round on that yeah I was like yeah don't fuck my time up. Come on. Don't you have your own thing? Yeah. I don't think I could do it, but I've never been in this situation. I've never been good enough to be the guy. Although football at Emeralds,

your boy was pretty nice on the line. But yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think I, I don't, I can't give you the advice. I've never been asked to do that. It's easy for me to say, and you're what? You're gonna fucking play them too? Come on. I don't think I could I don't, I can't give you the advice. I've never been asked to do that. It's easy for me to say, and you're what you're going to fucking play them too. Come on. I don't think I could do that. It's cold.

I think I got my championship shirt. I still have it. Don't fit in it, but I got it. Same dude. It's going to be like Oh five, Oh six or no. What was it? Oh six, Oh seven. You're in real champions.

Shouts out. But to what? No, it was loser ball. No, it's my football. It was my football loser. What the hell are we doing right now? I'm a, I am a good it. So I, I am a good in the real athlete. Like I was the guy who like did not play well, like in tackle football in high school, but was like the seven on seven drills. You know, it wasn't very, you know, I know you're a good

physical. I only said it because it didn on seven drills. You know, it wasn't very, you know, it wasn't physical. I know you're a good at it. I only said it because it didn't add up. I mean, you're out there playing high school football at your size, heart of a lion. Heart of a lion, I tell ya. Real Rudy story. I love the shoulder pads he gets from every time we bring up high school football.

It's like, hey man, you got out there. Are you kidding? Have you seen this? He's just been in high school. It's bad, it's bad. You know how many guys twice his size had no, they could not go out there because they were afraid. I think it's unbelievable.

Big difference between my sophomore year photo and my senior year photo. I'd just like to point that out. Anyway, what are your priorities here? Do you want, like is winning the only thing that matters? Or like, because the whole point of kind of college and intramural is friendship, right? Like, so if you're gonna like lose friends

over trying to win a fucking intramural championship, maybe younger me would have respected that, but like 35 year old me is like, dude, just have fun with the guys that you'd like hanging out with. Like this isn't that complicated. Ditch those guys. Oh no.

Oh no. You've been in your ass kicked for three years. You don't want to play with them. This isn't like LeBron telling D-Wade, I'm out of here. Okay. You want to take a shot at it. You're a rising senior. The clock is ticking.

You've got one chance at this. You get your brains beat in for three years with all these guys. Like, what are they going to do? Like you're clearly pretty good player at this college. And then when other guys start asking, like, hey, do you wanna play for our team? Sounds like you're gonna provide some serious floor spacing.

You know, Reed Shepherd over here. If you're asking us, this means you want to do it. Now, maybe you'll regret it or whatever, but I don't think in the way, like, acceptable, non- acceptable friendships being tested by the strains of the world, this is a bad one. And I'd also wonder too, is there a chance there's two different leagues?

Because that was always the thing at UVM is that there's an A and B and all the guys, the Egos would wanna join the, yeah, the A and then half the A teams would stink. And then there'd be the guys who should have been in A that were like, let's just kick everybody's ass in B. So basically A and then half the A teams would stink and then there'd be the guys who should have been in A that were like, let's just kick everybody's ass and B. So basically A and B were like, there was no way you could really tell the difference between the two because everybody was kind of jockeying for their teams, either delusional or let's not be the third best team in A and try to beat everybody.

But then multiple teams do that. So, could you play with your friends in a different league? Like a different tier league? Or is this school so small that there's just one basketball league? What's that? He would have thought of that. Yeah, that would have been in the email. I think that's a good idea.

That's the only thing I could think of. And you're right, Sir, you probably would have thought about this, because it sounds like this is all he's been thinking about. But it's all you've been thinking about and you're wondering and you're questioning yourself, you're like, what would it feel like? What would it do?

Like, what's it going to be? And you're actually not like sleeping with your roommate's girlfriend here. You just want to play in the better system. You want to play for the better team, imagining if they're both in the same league, I would do it. So that's one yes and two nos.

Okay, if it's a yes. I'm a hard no. If it's a yes, I don't know what these guys are like. Yeah, he's a hard no, I'm leaning towards no, I'm on the fence, but if you were gonna do it, maybe you just do it in like a cool way Maybe it's like kicking the door and it's 230s. You're like and then maybe maybe halfway through you're like I got something I got some news for you, but there's also two pizzas coming Maybe there's a way to soften the blow and they know that you don't feel good about it if you're gonna do it I still don't know if I could do it, but I got to say love that shirt.

You couldn't do it. 2015. That's why we love you. No, but that's why we love you is that you just wouldn't do it. You'd be like, if I'm going to lose, I'm going to lose with you. But if you're going to do it, I think you, I think you weave a peace offering in there. I don't think it's just like at the signups and they're like, you're like, you know, doing the diff, you're signing up for the different thing.

I think there's a, I think if you're going to do it, just find out a way to soften it a little bit. I'd be like, bam, damn, that was pretty fucking cool though. You know what I mean? That, that might be your, so our, our fraternity had this thing where it was like almost always a fifth year senior who was the quarterback because there was just always a guy hanging around. And so it was like really hard to get the quarterback spot, but then the guy left

and then whatever we won our two championships. And then I was still a fifth year and the younger guys were like, we're still looking fuck off. Like you've already been the quarterback for two years, like it's over. And I was, I was like, yeah, that's not like older guys were calling up to like, did you, they kick you off the team? That's bullshit. It's always the fifth year guy.

Do we need to come down there? Fifth year guys, like you're going to be there. Yeah. You're going to be like guys are actually, they kick you off the team? That's bullshit. It's always the fifth year guy. Do we need to come down there? Fifth year guys like you're going to be there. Yeah. You're going to be like guys are actually, cause there's this window of post college where you're still thinking about a lot for some, for some, and my group was definitely, and then other guys are like, I'm closing the door on that. We've covered the two diverging paths of the person who's completely mentally now just going, I can now do none of those things.

And then there's those other guys that just miss it so much. Like what'd you guys do last Thursday? Um, and so they were like, you're off the team or they were like, you can be the backup or play tight end or something. And I was like, yeah, unless there's a, if there's a void, yeah, well, tight end in this flag is not great. But is it full contact line? Cause if that, you can get kind of the best of both.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we played this one team where it just was like the ref stopped and huddled. And they were like, these guys are killing each other in the line. Like, we're not supposed to allow this. And one other guy's like, they're not doing anything with it, though.

They're just all they're doing is beating on each other. But nobody's actually winning. No, it's rushing the quarterback. Yeah, no one's just. Dude's ripping and scissoring, but they're not doing it. It stopped the game like a few minutes in after like each team had had a couple of possessions and they just said, what? And again, none of us were tough. It was, it was incredible how many guys were at Vermont all kind of in the same

category of like, no one's afraid of anybody because there's no one to actually fear except for like a couple of that had some screw loses but yeah we the guys the younger guys were basically like look we're now juniors and seniors and we want you out of here and I was kind of like well the history of it has gone over the years that if the 50 years still around, he gets to and the thing is, now that I'm saying it out loud, I'm like embarrassed you. Like I should have fucking beat it. OK, because that's just what it should be like. You want to do this a third year, but I don't have a lot going on in my life. Seemed a little greedy when you say it that way. Yeah, it was a little greedy. But when the word got out that they told me like, you can be the backup, which wasn't going to happen. Um, older guys were like, don't they understand like the rules? Stiffen.

There was no rule. It was just what had happened for, I don't know, like got a can noon problem years. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we had, um, actually Christo Doyle who discoveries own gold rushes, Christo Doyle, he was a fifth, he won the title his year. And then he was a fifth year, which main meant I was like four years behind him anyway, but he's still stuck around.

Cause I think he went to play football at Colby and then he was unbelievable too. Like he was awesome. And then we beat everybody again then. And I think as a freshman, I just like freshmen in soccer ran around. Anyway. So the point is, is that the kid who then was the quarterback, I can't believe this. We should just title this podcast episode. Rosilla talks about this 50 year controversy.

How many championships? This is, yeah, he was, he was a hothead. He was a total hothead and he got thrown out of the league like five games in. And then the younger dudes were like, will you come back? And I said, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Like, I want to come back and save the season. Nope. And that's been in a fraternity brotherhood. Okay. Let's see here. Hi, we got a serious one. So it's kind of serious. Well, it's not I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do that. This past week my older brother sent me a message on our family text thread saying he was going back to detox rehab for the second time. He's going to a facility for the second time in the past three months and that he has a serious drinking problem. The most shocking part of all of this is the fact that nobody in my immediate family knew about his first trip to the facility. I knew he drank a fair amount and seen him be unhammered a couple of times years ago, but had no idea it was such a problem.

For context, he's four years older than me. He has a great job, family's great, ton of other things going from his well-grown up. He's my hero, the person I wanted to be like, and the guy I wanted to make proud more than anyone. I'm sure a lot of the younger brothers that are listening can relate. Now back to the recent developments. When I spoke to him two days after he checked himself in, he began to tell me about everything he had been doing just to continue his drinking habits.

He would hide liquor bottles around the house, in his car, and anywhere else that would be isolated from his family so he could take polls without us knowing. The day he got the facility, they administered a breathalyzer test and he registered at a .24. Wow. Throughout the conversation, he kept telling me things I couldn't believe to the point where I didn't even know if I was actually talking to my brother. I know a lot of people and families have to deal with this,

so by no means would I consider myself a saint. I've had a fair share of struggles as well, and with someone who I sought out for guidance and help, I'm honestly at a loss for what to do in this situation. I told them that of course I will always be there for them, and we do whatever needed to help kick this thing. We are similar in that we were fairly stubborn and respond to tough coaching

and people telling us we can't do things, but I don't know if that kind of tough love would just make things worse in this situation or not. One thing he said that really hurt me and the rest of my family was that in fact, his was the fact that his in-laws were made aware of everything months ago. And a few days before he went back for his second treatment, I believe is what he means here. They were over at his house and my family sucking down beers

more than I could count. Then the editor already told them and he'd already been the first time. So that's not great. I love my brother a lot despite all of this. He's still the person who I look up to the most and try to make proud. If any of y'all have ever been in the situation

and have some insight on things or things that have helped in the past, I'd really appreciate you sharing. All right, man. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry to hear that. I've never had it with the family dynamic, but look, there's a couple of buddies. Certainly you start thinking back to the bartending years and everything, especially when you're younger and then you think back and you're like, that wasn't great. But like, I remember one friend that was my age is a guy that we wasn't like core, core, but if we were in the same area, we would get together and he was just blowing me off. He was blowing me off all the time. I was like, this is really strange.

And then he came around to meet me at something. And at that point I'd heard he'd gotten sober and I just said to him, like, you know, I'm, how are you doing, you know, how are you doing? You know, the whole thing. And man, he like just took me through everything. Like what he was doing. And it was so heartbreaking.

It's scary. You know, and this wasn't like it was my brother. And again, that's somebody I was like constantly checking in on, but I was, I was a little confused at first. And he's like, I didn't know what to say to you because I knew that like, I just couldn't, I was, I was doing stuff where I could just be by myself and drink. And I couldn't just like socially,

I just couldn't be around anything of the guys getting back together. But at the same time, like I was just hiding everything I was doing because like the most important thing for me was finding a way to drink every single day. And I think it's really hard for people that don't understand what that's like for any of us to truly understand it. And it sounds like in your case, like you've been around the block, you've done some things, but now to hear that your brother's hiding stuff. And on the day you would check in below 0.24, it's like, but like, again,

heartbreaking because you realize like, imagine what that must be like every single day and you start thinking about it being your brother and and how much it would hurt. Right. I know that's how I feel like if a sister or a brother or whatever were saying this to me. But I think the most important thing and there are people obviously much better armed to deal with this than me because I don't have a direct family member, but it would be right now, all the things that you're upset about with the in-laws being over there with you worrying about, like you just have to be there for him in whatever way he needs right now. Like the tough love stuff later on, depending on how long this could take, because it can have these ups and downs, which are very common. The fact that he went in and then drank and then has to go back in. Like, I think there's actually a lot of positives in this because you haven't

given us this like absolute rock bottom, like significant, the one act that people will talk about where it's like this one act that his wife left or the kids are out of there and his life is just destroyed by his actions. It sounds like it hasn't gotten to that. So there's a positive there. But worrying about how he's going to respond, I think the simplest thing you can do when it's a sibling that's going through something is just put, because I know most of us have gone through something, but you just kind of put your questions to the side. It isn't about you for a good chunk of the next however long this takes.

Maybe that becomes a tougher conversation with some of the ups and downs later on, but you just got to listen to them. Right? You're probably not going to have the right advice. It sucks sometimes when you're somebody that's supposed to have the right thing to say, but we all know the cliche stuff you could say, but I wouldn't worry about like, okay, I'm going to see him today. I want to have all this stuff planned. I want to ask him questions, just let him lead all the time. And you getting out of the way and letting him open up about this to somebody he's this close with and

clearly you're probably this close with them. And the in-law thing like really sucks, just the optics of that whole deal. But, you know, I have this one friend that I think back about and it's like, we used to hang out and if it was a Friday, but we knew, we knew it was like, it wasn't a Friday, Saturday thing, it was an everyday thing. And we were younger and you kind of laugh about it a little bit and you're like, oh, that's crazy or whatever.

And then he would like, go back at us and we were like, yeah, okay. But like say whatever you want about the deal. And there's always a little guilt that I've had about it. It's like, should any of us have just stepped up and said, Hey, none of us are ever going to hang out with you anymore until you do it. Like, it just wasn't going to happen. And he wasn't going to respond to that either, by the way. So that's probably how we rationalize being like, well, we still really like the guys, so are we enabled or is, or is he just going to do it with strangers?

And so like, if we're getting together and watching a game, like, what are we supposed to do? Tell him he can't come over. It just, the whole thing really sucked. And I don't, none of us handled it right, but I don't know that I could look back and say it should have been handled absolutely this way. So I think the most important thing is just let them know that you're there. Let them know you to be his brother. Let them know that you're not going to be judgmental during this time, even though

you're probably making some judgments about him privately. And I think, I think your head's in the right place here, but this, this beginning time of whatever he's going through and trying to get it, it, it's you're really kind of catering to what he needs out of you in the days he needs you and the days he'll want probably nothing to do with you, whether it's shame or the struggle that he's about to face to really try to figure out a way to live a life that is different than the The stuff that he's been going through just to make through the day, you know, it's uh sucks man. I'm sorry about that

Yeah, we had a couple in the family and like in the friends in orbit and stuff like that, but he's not a dude who doesn't want to help. Cause a lot of those people, like you can't, you just, you can try, but he's, he's a, he's checked himself in twice in three months. He's like trying to kick it. Uh, and like the best thing you could do is like, once they let people come visit, like you go and I don't know if bring him his favorite deli sandwich or, you know, or whatever the fuck they let you do

But like just go and see him and hear him out But like if he's serious about this he's gonna be like if he's gonna do the steps like he's gonna have a sponsor That will be actually be able to commiserate with him and be like, yeah I drank the hand sanitizer or something like, you know, he'll be like he'll have a guy Or girl whoever that's like that will actually be able to commiserate with him and you saying like well What you just got to do is this like you're you're kind of there to listen and if he wants to talk cool and treat him normal And for the honestly for the family Like in-laws or whatever like the world isn't gonna stop around folks who have like have the illness or you know

I have that thing that's not gonna stop You can't just expect like family parties to not have, you know, beer or anything because of one guy. If it's a no booze house and it's like, hey, we're not bringing alcohol into this house, that's one thing, but like, don't be upset with these people that you're already like one step to remove from, you know what I mean? Like they're them, they're your sister in law's people.

If they're just like not thinking about it, even if they know, if they're like, it's still 4th of July, you know, John's here, we can't whatever, because of 4th of July, John's here, we can't, whatever, because it's just not gonna fly. But he's gonna have, if he does the steps and everything, and he's really giving it his best go, he's gonna have people he can really dive into that with,

and you're just kinda listening to him, and just try to treat him normal. He's gonna be inside, you're gonna be on the outside. I would just try to make him feel good,, make him feel good, not necessarily like, here's what you need to do, man. You just gotta do it. Like, I don't think, I think there's like other people that are, if he's really doing the steps,

like, he'll have people for that. You just gotta be his brother. Yeah, there's a great Noah Khan song called Orange Juice that talks about the, basically like, it's, I forget like the perspective of it, but it's about like an alcoholic who can't really feel like they can hang out in their friend group anymore or there with their family anymore because there's parties going on whatever just like the dynamic of how awkward that is now comfortable it is. And i don't have any direct people in my life who have gone through this maybe that should have not officially gone through it. in my life who have gone through this maybe that should have have not officially gone through it.

And that song's kind of always made me just like think about how incredibly difficult it is on everybody because you're kind of walking on eggshells like trying to make this person feel comfortable to come to you but also like have things feel normal because the last thing I feel like people want is for everyone to change their life and to cater to you because then it makes them feel like having an asshole because like oh cool now everybody can't have fun because I'm here. I think what Kyle said is like just try to keep everything as normal as possible. I think what I would do as well is probably I mean this is maybe a no-brainer but like you got to talk to his wife about kind of what's going on how bad is it like fill us in we don't we didn't know about the first part of

this like what happened you know did it work successfully how long did it happen for what would be better for the second time around? Like pick her brain, see how you can help her, because obviously they're going through it too. But yeah, I think just the normalcy of trying to keep the normalcy of it all. I don't know that you say anything to the in-laws either. I don't know if you guys feel anything differently about that, but that's a tough, that's kind of a tough thing to like start calling people out for, you know.

That's a good talk to the wife thing. Like you bring your people, you broach to them. But there's just the one thing I would say is like the like to be a dude with a wife He's starting a family. I don't know if he has kids probably has a job Like that's a huge thing also to be like I'm gonna turn all this shit off for however long I need to be in there And then do it twice like that was one of my buddies. He was just like I can't like I'm finishing school I work full-time what's gonna happen, who's gonna pay for my apartment if I just go away for 60 days? That's like on top of like, I'm not gonna be able

to do my favorite thing in the world or the thing I need, I'm also gonna turn off all my shit and hopefully it's there for me when I get back. So the fact that he's done that twice is pretty huge. So like you're, it takes pretty big balls to do that. Yeah, I think it's a great point and I think there's a really point about dialing in with the wife and being like, okay, I'm here for you too.

Also, yeah. What do you need for me? But let's also start thinking again, these are early days here. So, you know, I have to start mapping the whole thing out, but connecting with her and then the in-law part of it. But I know at times, you know, I don't care who you are. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be this. So I think collectively, we're not as educated on this as other people would be,

but being the oldest of five, there's times where I know like, okay, I have to talk to one of my siblings about something. Okay. And there's times where I'll, I'll start talking. I'll think about like, okay, I'm going to be prepared for it. And also probably leaks over from what I do for a living where I want to have all these perfect things and they're going to be clear and they're going to be prepared for it and also probably leaks over from what I do for a living where I want to have all these perfect things and they're gonna be clear and they're gonna be concise

and it's gonna have this lasting thing. And sometimes I'll just be like, hey, how about you just shut the fuck up and listen? Yeah, I just did that. I just did that, like drunk at the pool, not drunk, but had a few drinks and I was like, my youngest. And I was like, I knew what I was gonna say before the trip and I finally got him and I was like, God damn it, I fucking blew it. I blew it, I knew what I was gonna say before the trip and I finally got him and I was like,

God damn it, I fucking blew it. I blew it, I went on some tangent and now he's just shut it down, like, God damn it, I'll try again in a week. But like, I blew it and I had it in there. I was like, he's gonna love this, he's gonna get it and I blew it and I was like, fuck. So sometimes less is more. But you were there for him.

Okay, all right, Thanks to Wargon. Thanks to Saruti. Thanks to Kyle. Ryan Russo podcast, Ringer Spotify. in the next one. Must be 21 and older, 18 plus in D.C. and present in select states. Fandual is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER

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