August 11, 2020 • 32 mins
We cannot become what we don’t hear about or what we don’t see, and in response to this profound concept, today’s guest Jo Piazza reveals why she is “Committed" to putting the narratives of strong, powerful and innovative women front and center. She is the author of seven critically acclaimed books, both fiction and non-fiction which have been translated into more than ten languages. Today, Jo shares details Laura and Johnnie about exactly how far—literally all the way to The Galapagos Islands—that she had to go to find love. That experience is the inspiration for her podcast Committed and her book How to Be Married, which features interviews with couples all around the world. She also tells us about the new podcast she’s launching this Fall, and her latest best-seller Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, which is being developed into a TV show.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi there. It's me Laura Wasser, the divorce attorney and
the founder of It's over Easy, the online divorce service.
I've been practicing family law for over twenty years and
I've worked on thousands of divorces, shepherding people through what
may be one of the most terrifying times in their lives.
(00:20):
Along the way, I often have to remind people to
lower their expectations when dealing with matters of the heart.
Rules simply don't apply because all's fair in love and war.
So welcome to the All's Fair Podcasts. Fasten your seatbelts
and let's go. Hey everyone, I'm Laura Wasser, and this
(00:40):
is All's Fair. My name is Johnny Rains. Thank you
for listening to our podcast today. This is one of
the most surreal of summers. But amid all the shifts
and turns we've had to make, one of the most
positive I've seen is the coming together. I'm trying to
be positive. I know there's still much division in our country,
but the movement towards criminal justice reform and even in
the coronavirus coming together seems to have drawn many of
(01:03):
us to rally ideologically around the unifying themes of health
and equality and breaking news folks speaking of coming together.
The COVID divorce spike that's been headline news most of
this year did not happen. That's good news. And as
I was saying, the positivity rising from these surreal days
that we're living in since the coronavirus came to town
and I don't know February March, it's quite encouraging. Could
(01:26):
you elaborate here on what you make of the news
about the drop in divorces after so many said there
would be a spike. Look, I love this article. It's
by Anne Hendershot. It was in what was it in
Johnny Spectator dot org. Yes, sector and they lived happily. Ever,
predicted flood of coronavirus or COVID divorces never materialized. I
(01:47):
like it. And they quote all these divorce attorneys around
the country that kept talking about how there would be
a spike. Here's the problem. The reason that there hasn't
been a spike is because the courthouses have not been open.
So when she reports about the low numbers of divorce filings,
that's because people weren't able to file. I still think,
(02:08):
and again, this is just idealism. In any event, I
still think that people have opted to kind of come
together and work through it. Obviously, if there were issues beforehand,
certainly being quarantined together might have made it worse. As
you know, here in California, we are kind of experiencing
like a second spike, which is really disheartening. Yes, I
(02:30):
left the house in like a week and a half,
but I will say that I am finding my practice
that although people are frustrated, although old cases are kind
of coming back with people trying to modify support or
having questions about their custody arrangements, I am not seeing
as many new cases as we thought that there would be.
I think there will be a huge, huge, and already
(02:51):
is glut in our courthouses as they are opening back up.
I mean, the cases that I had scheduled to be
trying or having hearings and in March are now pushed
to September. And again that's for the things that we're
already scheduled from March. So if you're filing something now,
you're looking at a possible kind of a date. Again,
they're giving priority to custody issues, but the financial ones
(03:14):
and the long cause trials are taking a long time,
so I don't know how accurate this is again because
of that, but I do love the idea that people
are kind of digging deep, working through things. And the
other thing that she talks about here is that there
are lower numbers of marriages going on, and I know
that we've talked about that before on our show, and
(03:37):
I think that's kind of actually wise. You'd think a
divorce attorney would feel differently. But I think it's good
that people are getting married later. I think it's good
that people are thinking outside of the box in terms
of whether or not we need to have a marriage
license or certificate to cohabit, to have children, and I
think it really what it reflects is a serious examination
(03:58):
of the relationship, what you want, what you need, etcetera. Well,
you sum that up very nicely, Laura. Well, I want
to talk about one more thing in that article, which
is the fact that some of the divorce declients are
driven by younger women, she says. And I think that's
true to one of the things we've also spoken about
in the show and what I speak about around the country.
(04:19):
Just in December, we're speaking in Florida with some of
my friends from Barons, who is responsible for the next article,
which is called oh God, I can't read it. More.
Married women want a bigger role in household financial planning,
survey shows. So we've talked so often on our show
about how women kind of abdicate financial responsibility, and I'm
(04:40):
not seeing that happening as much anymore. That's what the
articles about women, even if they are stay home moms,
are saying, let me be the one that kind of
is in charge of our finances, our investments. We're seeing
a lot of women owned investment companies and really really
taking part in the economics of the family. Our friend
(05:00):
Eve Rodsky talks about the breakdown of household responsibilities. Seeing
women doing that more, I think really genders a feeling
of real partnership and so I think it's amazing, and
I think that is part of if wives are taking
charge of community finances, or according to a recent survey
um they are, I think that is going to keep
(05:21):
marriages together. Frankly, well, I agree, And what Nick Fortuna,
who wrote the article, also points out is that some
of this it's against the backdrop of the coronavirus and
of people being at home together longer. It's having an
interesting impact on relationships, and this is one of the examples.
Agree in a short period of time, we have come
(05:42):
a long way, like the uprisings this summer in protest
against police brutality and racism and the Me Too movement
before that. Attitudes in our country are starting to shift.
As I observe all this, and we've been discussing, women
are at the forefront of many of these changes, and
moms particularly. It's an exciting time, but there's a more
work ahead of us, so let's not take our foot
off the gas. One of the ways we keep applying
(06:04):
the pressure is by acknowledging the disparity that exists. We
know women and people of color of every gender are marginalized,
and one way for inclusivity to become the norm is
to tell and share stories. Our guest today is an
awesome storyteller. She's an award winning reporter and editor and
the best selling author of seven critically acclaimed books, including
(06:24):
her latest page turner, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, and
the book How to Be Married, which she traveled the
world to write with her new husband, interviewing women about
the hell it means to be married in cultures in
thirty two countries. She's written for The Wall Street Journal
and The New York Times. She's a sister podcaster who
holds two podcasts right here on I Heart Radio, Welcome
to All's Fair Joe Piazza. So Joe coming to us
(06:47):
from Maine from her friends kids room. I'm coming coming
to you from a bunker in Maine. Feels like, are
you eating lots of lobster up there? Oh my god,
I'm eating so much lobster there. I mean, there's like,
there's a ton of lobster up here. But because no
one came up here this year, right, So we have
lobster grilled cheese yesterday, which sounds kind of gross, but no,
(07:08):
it doesn't. It doesn't sounds at all. Lobster rolls. Oh
my god, I'm so jealous all of it. And we're
taking the kids out on a lobster fishing trip, which
should be great. Yeah, all right, So let's talk about
your kids. How old are they now, Charlie? And what's
your daughter's name? Harley and Beatrix? Oh? I like Beatrix.
(07:30):
I have a friend whose daughter's name is Beatrice, but
we call her baby. But yeah, we call we call
mine bebe too. So how old is Charlie now? Is?
He's still three? Just turned three? He turned three last
week and Beatrix turned eight months last week as well. Okay,
and your husband is Nick. How long have you guys
been married? We have been married almost five years. We
(07:52):
got married, I know, we got married on my birthday,
my thirty fifth birthday, right when I was about to expire. Um,
most five years ago. Fantastic. So you've got an m
A and journalism from Colombia and m A and religious
studies from n y U and it be an economics
from University of Pennsylvania. So let's talk a little bit
about you. Let's talk about your life. I mean, you
(08:14):
have this. Even your education is so varied and so interesting.
You're a dilettante, which I love. I was a rhetoric major,
which allowed me to do the same thing. Rhetoric of
avant garde poetry, rhetoric of romantic comedy films. So clearly
you have many interests and you love I think, um,
from what I'm reading, you love the spinning of a yarn.
(08:35):
So I I love telling a story. I do, and
I think that I'm the most frustrating writer slash podcaster
for agents ever, because they're like, what's your brand, what
do you write about? What do you talk about? And
I'm like, I talked about all of the ship, all
of it um and and it dries. It really drives
my my agent crazy. But the fact is I just
(08:55):
like stories and I like telling good stories, and I'm like,
when I hear something interesting, I want to find a
way to tell that story to as many people as
possible in the world. But the religious studies, when the
master's in religious studies trips people up. But it was
because I was a celebrity journalist back in two thousand seven,
which was a crazy, goddamn year. Yes, and you know,
(09:16):
I was a celebrity journalist for the New York Daily News.
I was out in l A. You know, Britney Spears
is having her breakdown. She's going after people with her
umbrella and shaving her head. And I was like, I
just want to study Jesus, and so I did, And
so I spent the next year getting a master's in
religious study and it just kind of cleansed my palette
of everything that had happened the year before, and it
(09:37):
was really nice. Well, let's talk about if nuns ruled
the world? Ten sisters on a mission. I mean, that's
a good feed in because that fascinates me. This is
this is your your nonfiction novel? Yes, yes, d So
actually if Nuns Ruled the World? Um, it came out
of my thesis UM for my master's at n y U.
I started interviewing a bunch of nuns about how they
(09:57):
used Twitter, how they were using social media. And at
the time time, nuns were doing all kinds of things
on Twitter. They would pray the rosary for you. There
were a couple of nuns that were tweeting baseball games,
like there was one nun who was a huge Pittsburgh
Pirates fan. It was called Nuns on the Bus. They
were traveling the country. Why wasn't it called Nuns on
the Run. It should have been called Nuns on the Run.
(10:18):
We're trying to be original, okay, alright, And it was
and it was all of these just like badass women.
And one nun led to another nun as that happened,
and I wanted to I originally wanted to call it.
I feel like every good book starts with a good title,
and I really wanted to call it bad habit um,
but the nuns and see, we all love a nun pun,
and the nuns didn't love that. But then I found
(10:38):
ten really interesting feminist sisters who who were changing their
little corner of the world, and no one had told
their stories, no one. No one pays attention to nuns
because it's like they're not women, they're not men, they're
a sexual. It's like they could they can go run
colleges and run hospitals, and it's like, what, who's it's
a woman doing that. Oh no, it's a nun. It
doesn't matter. So I had nuns that we're fighting for abortion.
(11:02):
I had nuns that we're fighting for anti nuclear proliferation um.
I had nuns fighting for the r A. And they
were incredible and we became really close, and four of
them were at my wedding, four of the ten, and
two of them gave a blessing at my wedding, and
we're still on a text chain. I remember when I
met my husband, I sent the nuns a picture of him.
They're like, he's hot, and I'm like, I got we
(11:23):
can go. We can move this thing forward. Man. The
nuns like you okay, and then another nonfiction novel, Celebrity inc.
How famous people make money. Yeah, and it was so
long ago. That was ten years ago when everything was
completely different. I mean, they're Kardashians were still organizing people's
closets at that point. And I think the first celebrity
(11:45):
on social media was Charlie Sheen. Back then, it was
the beginning of when celebrities were turning themselves into brands
and making money off, you know, selling baby pictures, off
shilling for Starbucks things like that. Um that no one
had any idea that what they were doing. So I
thought it was fun to take my economics background, marry
it with being a celebrity journalist and bring them together
(12:06):
in this book. Could you ever have imagined where we
are today? Or is that exactly? Kind of what the
book is about, is like this is a harbinger of
things to come. I could never have imagined where we
are today today is so much crazier than I ever
expected it to be. But I will say at the end,
so I had one chapter that kind of went from
the evolution of Paris Hilton into Kim Kardashian and the
(12:28):
reality television stars, and at the end of that chapter,
I was like, in order for Kim to continue her brand,
she's going to have to marry someone more famous than
she is and have a lot of babies with that
human being. And that that, how about that? How about that?
All right, now, let's talk about Charlotte Walsh likes to win,
(12:48):
because I'm fascinated about this. So you wrote this in
two thousand eighteen. It was the best selling novel, and
they're making it into a TV show. They are, indeed, Yeah,
and who's Charlotte Walsh? Tell our listener. So, Charlotte Walsh.
After the election, we knew that we wanted to write
I was working with Simon and Schuster. We wanted to
write a novel about what it took for a woman
to run for office. It's different than a man running
(13:10):
for office. But originally it was a satire and then
the election happened in the world became a satire and
so we're like, oh my gosh, now it has to
be a serious, character driven novel because none of this
is funny anymore. And so Charlotte Walsh was born Charlotte
Walsh is a tech executive running for Senate in Pennsylvania.
(13:31):
And it's everything that it takes for a woman to
run for office. I mean, how exposed you are, how
exposed your marriage is, your life as a mother, everything
that a woman has to go through emotionally, psychologically, physically
to run for office. And Pennsylvania was a great state
because they've never had a female senator. And we kept saying,
if you can't see it, if you can't read about
it and see it, then you can't elect a woman
(13:54):
for it. Right, So we wanted to make Charlotte really
relatable and interesting, but also in fiction, commercial women's fiction.
So it was it was a quote unquote beach read
because I'm a girl and I wrote a book, and
that's what you call it when a girl writes a book.
But the cool thing is, so after the novel came out,
we get hundreds and then thousands of emails and letters
(14:15):
from women saying, now I'm running for office. Now I'm
working on this campaign like I never thought about this before,
and this book inspired me to do this. And now
we're developing it as a TV show. We've got eight
episodes written. Of course, COVID happens, and now we're going
to see where we go from here, right, And in fact,
this last round was the most women that had ever
thrown their ad into the ring ever for president. Yeah,
(14:37):
exactly did you read? Did you read Rodham by Curtis?
Is interesting? It's kind of like it's like like sliding
doors of like Killer. I mean, I kept thinking, like, Wow,
this is so crazy and it's so crazy. But also
I think she did such a great job of imagining
that world from that sliding doors moment. Totally possible, totally possible.
(14:58):
And I wonder I would love to know what Hillary
thinks of it. So I thought that the whole time
I was reading it, right, and in my gut, I
kind of think she loves it. I think so too.
I think she was going if only, only, if only?
But also, you know, I have I have a lot
of friends that worked with Hillary and that are friends
with her, and I feel like she probably just got
(15:18):
a kick out of it, right, Like, I think she
probably took it with a grain of salt and was
like thank you. I hope so so On that note,
tell us, Joe, based on what you know from being
out in the world or even just in Maine, what
do you think about the possibilities of having a female
VP in I think that We're definitely going to have
(15:39):
a female VP in. I don't think that there's any
way that Biden can't choose a woman as his running mate.
And it's exciting but then also disappointing, right because we
had so many incredible women in the field out there,
and it just got winnowed down and winnowed down, and
we felt like our chance was lost yet again. And
it's it's funny because as we were writing Charlotte Walsh
(16:01):
has a television show, we felt a sense of urgency, right.
We're like, we've got to do it. We've got to
do it. We're electing a woman in and then this
isn't going to be relevant anymore. And now we're like, no,
still relevant, still still chugging along. Do you watch I'm
asking because it seems like you and I have similar taste.
You watch The Good Fight? Oh my gosh, yes, I
(16:21):
love The Good Fight? Favorite. So do you think that
our VP candidates, since you seem rather prophetic, I figure,
I'll ask you will be a woman of color. I
genuinely think that it will be a woman of color.
Um I did too as as well that I think
it should be. I just think we've reached this time
(16:41):
where we need to see more voices represented that we're
that we haven't seen in the past. And the interesting
thing about Charlotte Walsh likes to Win is that Charlotte
was written as a white woman. But we've considered We're like,
we can have her be any ethnicity and we can
rewrite the character for that. And so we're having those
conversations right now too. We're like, we want to see
(17:03):
more representation in both fiction and especially on television. So
how can we adapt this book that came out two
years ago to show more representation. I love it. I
love it. That's It's one of the reasons why I
love the Good Fights so much too, just just resonates
so much. This is All's Fair with Laura Wasser. That's me.
It's over Easy is our online divorce website and our
(17:24):
virtual community. We're All's Fair in love and war. Acclaimed
journalist and prolific storyteller Joe Piazza is our guest today
and we're discussing her work and the importance of telling
stories about people and characters who might not often find
themselves portrayed with the strength and pop culture. Joe, when
it comes to lifting people up. You said to Johnny
in the pre interview that we can't become what we
(17:45):
don't hear about or what we don't see, and we
can't vote for what we don't relate to. How do
these ideas inform and impact the stories you tell and
how do we empower the next generation of girls? Well,
so my goal has always been to find stories that
have not been told before and to try to not
just tell them, but then try to distribute them, right,
because we also live in a world of content, content,
(18:07):
content and spam content, and so I'm like, how can
I find stories and get them to as many ears
as possible? And so with Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win
my last novel talking about a woman running for office,
I could have written that nonfiction, right. I could have
talked about women running for office, and the people that
would have bought that would be women who are going
to vote for women running for office. But by making
it commercial fiction, we get it to a bigger audience.
(18:30):
And the same way with the recent podcasts that I
developed with Tribeca Film Festival called Fierce, you know, we
could have done like niche documentaries about badass women that
history had forgotten, but instead we chose to make it
as broad as possible, to distribute it with I Heart Media,
to give it really big distribution and make it feel
like an event and give it a platform so as
(18:52):
many people as possible would be listening to these podcasts
about women who were not written into history, probably because
men wrote most of history. Right. I love that called
her story. Unfortunately it's not called her story. But you know,
just like Rod m let's see what's the sliding doors
moment right where it all changes? Right? Okay, So you've
got fears on my heart and you've also got committed,
(19:14):
which is interesting, and they're both interesting to me and
to Johnny because of the show. It's kind of a
perfect juncture of everything tell us about Committed. So Committed
was born out of my book. I wrote this book
when I so, Like I said, I got married when
I was thirty five, and you know the age old
thing is like, oh my god, you gotta get married
before your thirty five. You're gonna be an old maid
like that old cover of Time magazine or whatever. So
(19:36):
I met my husband in the Galapa Goes. We were
both journalists on assignment. I dated every douche bag in
New York City, like there was no one left for
me to date. Um. Do you remember that line from
when Harry met s She's like, You're gonna have to
go start sleeping with people in New Jersey because you
have left with everybody in the city, had to go
to the Galoppa goos Island. Um. And my husband was
(19:57):
this long haired California hipp you like, like Druggy Neil
Young wearing hiking sandals. And I'm like, that's not what
What does not Druggy Neil Young look like? I want
to know? But okay, anyway, I digress, go ahead, fair
fair point. And so I was like, he's not my type,
but we're on this boat with no WiFi, and he,
I mean, he's very handsome and funny, and we huck
(20:19):
up and I tell my therapist, I'm like, he's not
my type, and she's like, your type is not working
for you. Try this out, and I did, and three
months later we were engaged and nine months later we
were married. But I was like, I have no idea
how the hell to do this. I don't know how
to what does a wife? What does a wife even mean?
And I was, um, the editor of Yahoo Travel at
(20:40):
the time, so I got to travel around the world
on Yahoo's time, which was super sweet, and interviewed couples
and mostly women in countries on every continent except for
Antarctica about how do you do this? How do you
do this marriage thing? And it became a book called
How to Be Married. I still don't know, but there
is some really good advice in there. It's very It's
(21:00):
fun to go back and read it now, yes, after
I've been married five years, because I'm like, who was
that couple, that fun, carefree couple running all over the globe?
It's not sure did you ever play with the committed?
Like you have to be committed, like committed to an
institution if you're in this situation where that was why
we wanted wanted to call the podcast committed, because we're
like on my dash in order to do this marriage thing,
(21:22):
like you're you're pretty much committed to an institution. You're
pretty much being really locked up for the rest of
your life. I want to talk a little bit more
about Fierce because in Fears, give me some of your
standout interviews. I'm fascinated by Fears. So Fierce is so
good Fierce. UM Fierce is eight episodes, but each one
of them is like a mini TV show. We hired
(21:43):
actresses to do the characters of all of these historical women,
and we had casting calls like it was. It was
very professional Tribeca Film Festival. They did a good job
with their stuff. They know what they're doing. Um. And
so we started out with the Chinese pirate. Changes saw
who was the greatest pirate who's ever lived? I mean, seriously,
the most successful pirate. She was the most successful in
(22:05):
terms of making money, in terms of protecting her people,
in terms of beating the Chinese government, in terms of
beating any government around the world, and no one has
ever heard her name. We hear black Beard all the time,
we hear Captain Jack, right, we never hear about Chinese
su who was legitimately the most successful pirate in the world.
So she is an entire episode of Fierce, and we
(22:26):
soundscaped it with like battle scenes and like guns, and
it's just it's cool and exciting and so much fun.
But how how does one know which is the most
successful pirate? Is there like a Forbes or Fortune? I mean,
how do you think I think that you measured it
by booty. She must have had some booty, okay, and
(22:47):
is there like a recording of booty somewhere? I mean,
as she also had the most ships, so she had
the most pirate ships under her control, like more Twoday's
navy at the time. And it's because here's the thing.
So she's a girl, right, a former prostitute, former prostitute
who marries a pirate, and it's like, I want control
(23:10):
the pirate fleet, right, um. But so her thing was cooperation.
So she got all of these pirate groups to cooperate
with each other and become a giant kill or union
of exactly. But the coolest thing about her again, I
think that's a very female trait. She retires. She does
it for about ten years and she's like, I made
(23:30):
a lot of booty, and I'm going to retire and
negotiate with the Chinese government to get them to give
money to all of my men. Essentially, like she made
them civil service employees for the rest of their lives,
got them retirement funds, and retired and lived out the
rest of her life as a rich lady. I love that.
I love that. I love that. There's the community, the union.
And then I love that there's the succession retirement plan
(23:53):
because I will say, in my field and family law,
there are so many really old ale family law attorneys,
like in their nineties, and you're like, and I'm like,
I don't want to do this for the rest of
my life. No, I say to some of the associates
in my firm, Dude, if I'm still here when I'm seventy,
remind me of this conversation. There's just no way. At
(24:13):
a certain point you have to kind of gracefully exit
while you can still remember the names of your clients.
In my opinion, and your children, right, it's like your
child want to get out and enjoying my life, or
your fellow pirates. Exactly when is when does Fierce launch?
So Fierce is out right now? It is okay, we
have all eight episodes of Fierce are available now on
(24:36):
Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, Spotify, wherever you
get your podcasts. And they're really fun because each of
them is a little is an hour long, and they're
totally binge doable, and there's only eight so it's it's
like it's like a good long road trip. Besides, now
I'm not going to be able to pronounce her name Chinese.
(24:57):
Give us a few of the other ones. I mean,
we probably won't have heard of them, but I wanted
to kind of be in our consciousness as we begin
to binge. Listen, So you've got Jeanette rankin Um. Jeanette
was the first woman elected to Congress in the United
States of America. And again also like someone, shouldn't we
know that name? Shouldn't we know the first woman? And
we don't? We just we just don't. Now we do,
(25:18):
and now we do. What year was that? What year
was Janette? I mean, don't get me exact, but range
was it in the forties orft? It was right before
World War One? Okay, here's and here's the other thing.
She was elected twice and she's a pacifist because she
was a woman. So she was like, as a woman,
I don't feel like we should be voting for war.
(25:38):
She votes against World War One. Then she gets elected again,
votes against World War two, and then when the Vietnam
War rolls around, she marches against it in Washington with
a bunch of like young hippies in go go boots
and jet and no bras, just no bras and marching
So also on Fierce, we have door At the Arsner,
(26:00):
who was one of the most prolific Hollywood directors of
all time who you've also probably never heard her name.
She was a female director in a man's world. We
have Grace Hopper, who created the first really the first
computing language, the first language that allowed human beings to
talk to computers right around World War Two. Again, we
(26:21):
talked about these tech geniuses all the time, but we've
never heard the name Grace Hopper. And Christine Jorgensen, who
was a transgender pioneer in America, one of the first
Americans to undergo surgery publicly and um really changed the
way that we talked about in the language that we
(26:42):
used when it came to transgendered people in the United States.
And then we also have Madam C. J. Walker, and
she's a woman who was born to freed slaves and
turned herself into one of the first female self made
millionaires in the country. Which she does hair care. She
did hair care, did hair and she she had amazing
hair products and she was just she created the Avon
(27:04):
Lady business model before the Avon Lady existed. Amazing. Okay,
So folks listen in Fierce. You can get it on
Apple Podcasts. You can it's on I Heart. Also committed
and now tell us about your new one, Joe, talk
about Prolific. What are you doing in this This is
actually an exclusive. I haven't talked about this in public yet.
(27:26):
So I wanted to do a podcast. Look. It's called
Under the Influence, and it's looking at the industry of
mom influencers on social media, the good, the bad, the ugly,
how it all works. It's the influencing industry is something
like a ten billion dollar industry now, and no one
talks about the economics of it. No one talks about
how it both empowers women and makes women feel like
(27:48):
complete shit. And so for eight episodes, we're doing a
deep dive, really digging into the economics, the anthropology, the sociology,
how the influencing industry works, and what it looks like
when we're in a world where we're being sold to
as mothers, as women constantly and a constant scroll. I
love it And when is that launching? So that will
(28:10):
launch in the fall. We wanted to be able to
get out to do a lot of the reporting, and
we've done a lot of the reporting during quarantine during COVID,
and I had this idea because I was up at
four in the morning breastfeeding my second baby, right scrolling
through Instagram, because you got one baby on the boob
and your phone in your hand, and all of a sudden,
I'm like, I'm buying all of this weird shit, and
(28:30):
I'm like, what who Oh, that's what's happening, And so
we want to talk about how that happens. I love it.
Journalists and lawyers have investigative interview skills in common, and
these are the all's fair interrogatories. Joe, do you swear
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth always? Which relationship in your life has had
(28:51):
the most profound impact? Oh, that's good. I should say
my husband, But that's not true. I mean he's great,
I love him very much, But I dated the worst
human being of after college. Um. I mean he was
just like the quintessential bad boy, and it taught me
what I wanted and what I didn't want in a relationship.
Like I kind of like a bad boy, right, I
like some things about a bad boy. But then I
(29:11):
also so, who's a little bit more more stable and
steady and I think that that relationship taught me how
I wanted to be treated for the rest of my life.
I like that. What's your favorite love song? Oh, Eternal Flame? Okay, Bagels,
I love that, so I know, right, if there's an
eighties girl band Johnny's like, I'm on it, I'm on it.
(29:35):
I love them too. What is the one piece of
advice that you'd share with your twenties something year old self.
You're going to be totally okay. I spent so much
time worrying and fretting and just kind of like hating myself.
I did. I did not like myself at all in
my twenties. I just want to tell that girl, like,
it's gonna be fine. It's all gonna be fine. And
(29:55):
also my my other have two that I'm cheating. But
other piece of advice is no one is paying attention
to you as much as you think that they are.
That one, I I mean, I like the other one too,
but I really I think that's really important. Okay, Joe,
which romantic comedy could you watch on repeat? Sliding Doors? Right?
I mean over and over for you? That's so perfect.
(30:18):
I love it. And I also people conference sliding doors
like If you pay attention, you will hear a sliding
doors reference at least once a week. Sometimes I hear
it twice a week from from dudes too. It's it
is now so in our culture was do you really?
Was it really the first one? I mean, it's in
our culture, but there had to have been some kind
of story, film, whatever where that same thing happens. It's
(30:39):
just the age or generation that the generation I think
anyone between the age of thirty and fifty right now,
you could just say sliding doors. Anyone between the age
of thirty and sixty right now, Well, yes, of course,
and and every and has a moment. Everyone has a
(31:01):
sliding doors moment where like that moment would have been
the moment to change my life yep, yep, or that
moment was the moment that changed my life too. It's interesting, Joe.
We love your brilliance today and your message about empowerment
is when we want to amplify. Thank you for zooming,
enjoy your lobster. Tell people where they can listen to
your shows and where to find you and your books online,
won't you? So? The best place to find me online
(31:23):
is probably Instagram. It's the only social media I use anymore.
It's Joe Piazza, author, and you can find my podcast Committed,
Fierce and Soon under the Influence on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Awesome.
Thank you so much. Enjoy your day, the rest of
your vacation. Be safe. You're wonderful. What a badass she is.
She's wonderful, so smart, so quick, so kind. I mean,
(31:48):
I liked her Chicken stay. I like her her sort
of position on female empowerment and about you know, we
can't vote for people that we don't understand, that we
don't see, So putting it out there telling people of
stories it's so important, and that podcast sounds amazing. I
mean it is kind of fears in particular. It's it's
(32:08):
crazy to me that we can have lived as long
as we have and studied as much as we did
and not have heard of any of those eight women
that she mentioned. I mean, that's they have lived a
long time and they're not obscure either. That's our show
for today. If you just found us to have subscribe
and follow us on social edits over easy. Click to
(32:29):
rate us at Apple podcast and thank you for listening. Hi, everybody,
Hi there. It's me Laura Wasser, the divorce attorney and
the founder of It's over Easy, the online divorce service.
I've been practicing family law for over twenty years and
I've worked on thousands of divorces, shepherding people through what
may be one of the most terrifying times in their lives.
(00:20):
Along the way, I often have to remind people to
lower their expectations when dealing with matters of the heart.
Rules simply don't apply because all's fair in love and war.
So welcome to the All's Fair Podcasts. Fasten your seatbelts
and let's go. Hey everyone, I'm Laura Wasser, and this
(00:40):
is All's Fair. My name is Johnny Rains. Thank you
for listening to our podcast today. This is one of
the most surreal of summers. But amid all the shifts
and turns we've had to make, one of the most
positive I've seen is the coming together. I'm trying to
be positive. I know there's still much division in our country,
but the movement towards criminal justice reform and even in
the coronavirus coming together seems to have drawn many of
(01:03):
us to rally ideologically around the unifying themes of health
and equality and breaking news folks speaking of coming together.
The COVID divorce spike that's been headline news most of
this year did not happen. That's good news. And as
I was saying, the positivity rising from these surreal days
that we're living in since the coronavirus came to town
and I don't know February March, it's quite encouraging. Could
(01:26):
you elaborate here on what you make of the news
about the drop in divorces after so many said there
would be a spike. Look, I love this article. It's
by Anne Hendershot. It was in what was it in
Johnny Spectator dot org. Yes, sector and they lived happily. Ever,
predicted flood of coronavirus or COVID divorces never materialized. I
(01:47):
like it. And they quote all these divorce attorneys around
the country that kept talking about how there would be
a spike. Here's the problem. The reason that there hasn't
been a spike is because the courthouses have not been open.
So when she reports about the low numbers of divorce filings,
that's because people weren't able to file. I still think,
(02:08):
and again, this is just idealism. In any event, I
still think that people have opted to kind of come
together and work through it. Obviously, if there were issues beforehand,
certainly being quarantined together might have made it worse. As
you know, here in California, we are kind of experiencing
like a second spike, which is really disheartening. Yes, I
(02:30):
left the house in like a week and a half,
but I will say that I am finding my practice
that although people are frustrated, although old cases are kind
of coming back with people trying to modify support or
having questions about their custody arrangements, I am not seeing
as many new cases as we thought that there would be.
I think there will be a huge, huge, and already
(02:51):
is glut in our courthouses as they are opening back up.
I mean, the cases that I had scheduled to be
trying or having hearings and in March are now pushed
to September. And again that's for the things that we're
already scheduled from March. So if you're filing something now,
you're looking at a possible kind of a date. Again,
they're giving priority to custody issues, but the financial ones
(03:14):
and the long cause trials are taking a long time,
so I don't know how accurate this is again because
of that, but I do love the idea that people
are kind of digging deep, working through things. And the
other thing that she talks about here is that there
are lower numbers of marriages going on, and I know
that we've talked about that before on our show, and
(03:37):
I think that's kind of actually wise. You'd think a
divorce attorney would feel differently. But I think it's good
that people are getting married later. I think it's good
that people are thinking outside of the box in terms
of whether or not we need to have a marriage
license or certificate to cohabit, to have children, and I
think it really what it reflects is a serious examination
(03:58):
of the relationship, what you want, what you need, etcetera. Well,
you sum that up very nicely, Laura. Well, I want
to talk about one more thing in that article, which
is the fact that some of the divorce declients are
driven by younger women, she says. And I think that's
true to one of the things we've also spoken about
in the show and what I speak about around the country.
(04:19):
Just in December, we're speaking in Florida with some of
my friends from Barons, who is responsible for the next article,
which is called oh God, I can't read it. More.
Married women want a bigger role in household financial planning,
survey shows. So we've talked so often on our show
about how women kind of abdicate financial responsibility, and I'm
(04:40):
not seeing that happening as much anymore. That's what the
articles about women, even if they are stay home moms,
are saying, let me be the one that kind of
is in charge of our finances, our investments. We're seeing
a lot of women owned investment companies and really really
taking part in the economics of the family. Our friend
(05:00):
Eve Rodsky talks about the breakdown of household responsibilities. Seeing
women doing that more, I think really genders a feeling
of real partnership and so I think it's amazing, and
I think that is part of if wives are taking
charge of community finances, or according to a recent survey
um they are, I think that is going to keep
(05:21):
marriages together. Frankly, well, I agree, And what Nick Fortuna,
who wrote the article, also points out is that some
of this it's against the backdrop of the coronavirus and
of people being at home together longer. It's having an
interesting impact on relationships, and this is one of the examples.
Agree in a short period of time, we have come
(05:42):
a long way, like the uprisings this summer in protest
against police brutality and racism and the Me Too movement
before that. Attitudes in our country are starting to shift.
As I observe all this, and we've been discussing, women
are at the forefront of many of these changes, and
moms particularly. It's an exciting time, but there's a more
work ahead of us, so let's not take our foot
off the gas. One of the ways we keep applying
(06:04):
the pressure is by acknowledging the disparity that exists. We
know women and people of color of every gender are marginalized,
and one way for inclusivity to become the norm is
to tell and share stories. Our guest today is an
awesome storyteller. She's an award winning reporter and editor and
the best selling author of seven critically acclaimed books, including
(06:24):
her latest page turner, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, and
the book How to Be Married, which she traveled the
world to write with her new husband, interviewing women about
the hell it means to be married in cultures in
thirty two countries. She's written for The Wall Street Journal
and The New York Times. She's a sister podcaster who
holds two podcasts right here on I Heart Radio, Welcome
to All's Fair Joe Piazza. So Joe coming to us
(06:47):
from Maine from her friends kids room. I'm coming coming
to you from a bunker in Maine. Feels like, are
you eating lots of lobster up there? Oh my god,
I'm eating so much lobster there. I mean, there's like,
there's a ton of lobster up here. But because no
one came up here this year, right, So we have
lobster grilled cheese yesterday, which sounds kind of gross, but no,
(07:08):
it doesn't. It doesn't sounds at all. Lobster rolls. Oh
my god, I'm so jealous all of it. And we're
taking the kids out on a lobster fishing trip, which
should be great. Yeah, all right, So let's talk about
your kids. How old are they now, Charlie? And what's
your daughter's name? Harley and Beatrix? Oh? I like Beatrix.
(07:30):
I have a friend whose daughter's name is Beatrice, but
we call her baby. But yeah, we call we call
mine bebe too. So how old is Charlie now? Is?
He's still three? Just turned three? He turned three last
week and Beatrix turned eight months last week as well. Okay,
and your husband is Nick. How long have you guys
been married? We have been married almost five years. We
(07:52):
got married, I know, we got married on my birthday,
my thirty fifth birthday, right when I was about to expire. Um,
most five years ago. Fantastic. So you've got an m
A and journalism from Colombia and m A and religious
studies from n y U and it be an economics
from University of Pennsylvania. So let's talk a little bit
about you. Let's talk about your life. I mean, you
(08:14):
have this. Even your education is so varied and so interesting.
You're a dilettante, which I love. I was a rhetoric major,
which allowed me to do the same thing. Rhetoric of
avant garde poetry, rhetoric of romantic comedy films. So clearly
you have many interests and you love I think, um,
from what I'm reading, you love the spinning of a yarn.
(08:35):
So I I love telling a story. I do, and
I think that I'm the most frustrating writer slash podcaster
for agents ever, because they're like, what's your brand, what
do you write about? What do you talk about? And
I'm like, I talked about all of the ship, all
of it um and and it dries. It really drives
my my agent crazy. But the fact is I just
(08:55):
like stories and I like telling good stories, and I'm like,
when I hear something interesting, I want to find a
way to tell that story to as many people as
possible in the world. But the religious studies, when the
master's in religious studies trips people up. But it was
because I was a celebrity journalist back in two thousand seven,
which was a crazy, goddamn year. Yes, and you know,
(09:16):
I was a celebrity journalist for the New York Daily News.
I was out in l A. You know, Britney Spears
is having her breakdown. She's going after people with her
umbrella and shaving her head. And I was like, I
just want to study Jesus, and so I did, And
so I spent the next year getting a master's in
religious study and it just kind of cleansed my palette
of everything that had happened the year before, and it
(09:37):
was really nice. Well, let's talk about if nuns ruled
the world? Ten sisters on a mission. I mean, that's
a good feed in because that fascinates me. This is
this is your your nonfiction novel? Yes, yes, d So
actually if Nuns Ruled the World? Um, it came out
of my thesis UM for my master's at n y U.
I started interviewing a bunch of nuns about how they
(09:57):
used Twitter, how they were using social media. And at
the time time, nuns were doing all kinds of things
on Twitter. They would pray the rosary for you. There
were a couple of nuns that were tweeting baseball games,
like there was one nun who was a huge Pittsburgh
Pirates fan. It was called Nuns on the Bus. They
were traveling the country. Why wasn't it called Nuns on
the Run. It should have been called Nuns on the Run.
(10:18):
We're trying to be original, okay, alright, And it was
and it was all of these just like badass women.
And one nun led to another nun as that happened,
and I wanted to I originally wanted to call it.
I feel like every good book starts with a good title,
and I really wanted to call it bad habit um,
but the nuns and see, we all love a nun pun,
and the nuns didn't love that. But then I found
(10:38):
ten really interesting feminist sisters who who were changing their
little corner of the world, and no one had told
their stories, no one. No one pays attention to nuns
because it's like they're not women, they're not men, they're
a sexual. It's like they could they can go run
colleges and run hospitals, and it's like, what, who's it's
a woman doing that. Oh no, it's a nun. It
doesn't matter. So I had nuns that we're fighting for abortion.
(11:02):
I had nuns that we're fighting for anti nuclear proliferation um.
I had nuns fighting for the r A. And they
were incredible and we became really close, and four of
them were at my wedding, four of the ten, and
two of them gave a blessing at my wedding, and
we're still on a text chain. I remember when I
met my husband, I sent the nuns a picture of him.
They're like, he's hot, and I'm like, I got we
(11:23):
can go. We can move this thing forward. Man. The
nuns like you okay, and then another nonfiction novel, Celebrity inc.
How famous people make money. Yeah, and it was so
long ago. That was ten years ago when everything was
completely different. I mean, they're Kardashians were still organizing people's
closets at that point. And I think the first celebrity
(11:45):
on social media was Charlie Sheen. Back then, it was
the beginning of when celebrities were turning themselves into brands
and making money off, you know, selling baby pictures, off
shilling for Starbucks things like that. Um that no one
had any idea that what they were doing. So I
thought it was fun to take my economics background, marry
it with being a celebrity journalist and bring them together
(12:06):
in this book. Could you ever have imagined where we
are today? Or is that exactly? Kind of what the
book is about, is like this is a harbinger of
things to come. I could never have imagined where we
are today today is so much crazier than I ever
expected it to be. But I will say at the end,
so I had one chapter that kind of went from
the evolution of Paris Hilton into Kim Kardashian and the
(12:28):
reality television stars, and at the end of that chapter,
I was like, in order for Kim to continue her brand,
she's going to have to marry someone more famous than
she is and have a lot of babies with that
human being. And that that, how about that? How about that?
All right, now, let's talk about Charlotte Walsh likes to win,
(12:48):
because I'm fascinated about this. So you wrote this in
two thousand eighteen. It was the best selling novel, and
they're making it into a TV show. They are, indeed, Yeah,
and who's Charlotte Walsh? Tell our listener. So, Charlotte Walsh.
After the election, we knew that we wanted to write
I was working with Simon and Schuster. We wanted to
write a novel about what it took for a woman
to run for office. It's different than a man running
(13:10):
for office. But originally it was a satire and then
the election happened in the world became a satire and
so we're like, oh my gosh, now it has to
be a serious, character driven novel because none of this
is funny anymore. And so Charlotte Walsh was born Charlotte
Walsh is a tech executive running for Senate in Pennsylvania.
(13:31):
And it's everything that it takes for a woman to
run for office. I mean, how exposed you are, how
exposed your marriage is, your life as a mother, everything
that a woman has to go through emotionally, psychologically, physically
to run for office. And Pennsylvania was a great state
because they've never had a female senator. And we kept saying,
if you can't see it, if you can't read about
it and see it, then you can't elect a woman
(13:54):
for it. Right, So we wanted to make Charlotte really
relatable and interesting, but also in fiction, commercial women's fiction.
So it was it was a quote unquote beach read
because I'm a girl and I wrote a book, and
that's what you call it when a girl writes a book.
But the cool thing is, so after the novel came out,
we get hundreds and then thousands of emails and letters
(14:15):
from women saying, now I'm running for office. Now I'm
working on this campaign like I never thought about this before,
and this book inspired me to do this. And now
we're developing it as a TV show. We've got eight
episodes written. Of course, COVID happens, and now we're going
to see where we go from here, right, And in fact,
this last round was the most women that had ever
thrown their ad into the ring ever for president. Yeah,
(14:37):
exactly did you read? Did you read Rodham by Curtis?
Is interesting? It's kind of like it's like like sliding
doors of like Killer. I mean, I kept thinking, like, Wow,
this is so crazy and it's so crazy. But also
I think she did such a great job of imagining
that world from that sliding doors moment. Totally possible, totally possible.
(14:58):
And I wonder I would love to know what Hillary
thinks of it. So I thought that the whole time
I was reading it, right, and in my gut, I
kind of think she loves it. I think so too.
I think she was going if only, only, if only?
But also, you know, I have I have a lot
of friends that worked with Hillary and that are friends
with her, and I feel like she probably just got
(15:18):
a kick out of it, right, Like, I think she
probably took it with a grain of salt and was
like thank you. I hope so so On that note,
tell us, Joe, based on what you know from being
out in the world or even just in Maine, what
do you think about the possibilities of having a female
VP in I think that We're definitely going to have
(15:39):
a female VP in. I don't think that there's any
way that Biden can't choose a woman as his running mate.
And it's exciting but then also disappointing, right because we
had so many incredible women in the field out there,
and it just got winnowed down and winnowed down, and
we felt like our chance was lost yet again. And
it's it's funny because as we were writing Charlotte Walsh
(16:01):
has a television show, we felt a sense of urgency, right.
We're like, we've got to do it. We've got to
do it. We're electing a woman in and then this
isn't going to be relevant anymore. And now we're like, no,
still relevant, still still chugging along. Do you watch I'm
asking because it seems like you and I have similar taste.
You watch The Good Fight? Oh my gosh, yes, I
(16:21):
love The Good Fight? Favorite. So do you think that
our VP candidates, since you seem rather prophetic, I figure,
I'll ask you will be a woman of color. I
genuinely think that it will be a woman of color.
Um I did too as as well that I think
it should be. I just think we've reached this time
(16:41):
where we need to see more voices represented that we're
that we haven't seen in the past. And the interesting
thing about Charlotte Walsh likes to Win is that Charlotte
was written as a white woman. But we've considered We're like,
we can have her be any ethnicity and we can
rewrite the character for that. And so we're having those
conversations right now too. We're like, we want to see
(17:03):
more representation in both fiction and especially on television. So
how can we adapt this book that came out two
years ago to show more representation. I love it. I
love it. That's It's one of the reasons why I
love the Good Fights so much too, just just resonates
so much. This is All's Fair with Laura Wasser. That's me.
It's over Easy is our online divorce website and our
(17:24):
virtual community. We're All's Fair in love and war. Acclaimed
journalist and prolific storyteller Joe Piazza is our guest today
and we're discussing her work and the importance of telling
stories about people and characters who might not often find
themselves portrayed with the strength and pop culture. Joe, when
it comes to lifting people up. You said to Johnny
in the pre interview that we can't become what we
(17:45):
don't hear about or what we don't see, and we
can't vote for what we don't relate to. How do
these ideas inform and impact the stories you tell and
how do we empower the next generation of girls? Well,
so my goal has always been to find stories that
have not been told before and to try to not
just tell them, but then try to distribute them, right,
because we also live in a world of content, content,
(18:07):
content and spam content, and so I'm like, how can
I find stories and get them to as many ears
as possible? And so with Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win
my last novel talking about a woman running for office,
I could have written that nonfiction, right. I could have
talked about women running for office, and the people that
would have bought that would be women who are going
to vote for women running for office. But by making
it commercial fiction, we get it to a bigger audience.
(18:30):
And the same way with the recent podcasts that I
developed with Tribeca Film Festival called Fierce, you know, we
could have done like niche documentaries about badass women that
history had forgotten, but instead we chose to make it
as broad as possible, to distribute it with I Heart Media,
to give it really big distribution and make it feel
like an event and give it a platform so as
(18:52):
many people as possible would be listening to these podcasts
about women who were not written into history, probably because
men wrote most of history. Right. I love that called
her story. Unfortunately it's not called her story. But you know,
just like Rod m let's see what's the sliding doors
moment right where it all changes? Right? Okay, So you've
got fears on my heart and you've also got committed,
(19:14):
which is interesting, and they're both interesting to me and
to Johnny because of the show. It's kind of a
perfect juncture of everything tell us about Committed. So Committed
was born out of my book. I wrote this book
when I so, Like I said, I got married when
I was thirty five, and you know the age old
thing is like, oh my god, you gotta get married
before your thirty five. You're gonna be an old maid
like that old cover of Time magazine or whatever. So
(19:36):
I met my husband in the Galapa Goes. We were
both journalists on assignment. I dated every douche bag in
New York City, like there was no one left for
me to date. Um. Do you remember that line from
when Harry met s She's like, You're gonna have to
go start sleeping with people in New Jersey because you
have left with everybody in the city, had to go
to the Galoppa goos Island. Um. And my husband was
(19:57):
this long haired California hipp you like, like Druggy Neil
Young wearing hiking sandals. And I'm like, that's not what
What does not Druggy Neil Young look like? I want
to know? But okay, anyway, I digress, go ahead, fair
fair point. And so I was like, he's not my type,
but we're on this boat with no WiFi, and he,
I mean, he's very handsome and funny, and we huck
(20:19):
up and I tell my therapist, I'm like, he's not
my type, and she's like, your type is not working
for you. Try this out, and I did, and three
months later we were engaged and nine months later we
were married. But I was like, I have no idea
how the hell to do this. I don't know how
to what does a wife? What does a wife even mean?
And I was, um, the editor of Yahoo Travel at
(20:40):
the time, so I got to travel around the world
on Yahoo's time, which was super sweet, and interviewed couples
and mostly women in countries on every continent except for
Antarctica about how do you do this? How do you
do this marriage thing? And it became a book called
How to Be Married. I still don't know, but there
is some really good advice in there. It's very It's
(21:00):
fun to go back and read it now, yes, after
I've been married five years, because I'm like, who was
that couple, that fun, carefree couple running all over the globe?
It's not sure did you ever play with the committed?
Like you have to be committed, like committed to an
institution if you're in this situation where that was why
we wanted wanted to call the podcast committed, because we're
like on my dash in order to do this marriage thing,
(21:22):
like you're you're pretty much committed to an institution. You're
pretty much being really locked up for the rest of
your life. I want to talk a little bit more
about Fierce because in Fears, give me some of your
standout interviews. I'm fascinated by Fears. So Fierce is so
good Fierce. UM Fierce is eight episodes, but each one
of them is like a mini TV show. We hired
(21:43):
actresses to do the characters of all of these historical women,
and we had casting calls like it was. It was
very professional Tribeca Film Festival. They did a good job
with their stuff. They know what they're doing. Um. And
so we started out with the Chinese pirate. Changes saw
who was the greatest pirate who's ever lived? I mean, seriously,
the most successful pirate. She was the most successful in
(22:05):
terms of making money, in terms of protecting her people,
in terms of beating the Chinese government, in terms of
beating any government around the world, and no one has
ever heard her name. We hear black Beard all the time,
we hear Captain Jack, right, we never hear about Chinese
su who was legitimately the most successful pirate in the world.
So she is an entire episode of Fierce, and we
(22:26):
soundscaped it with like battle scenes and like guns, and
it's just it's cool and exciting and so much fun.
But how how does one know which is the most
successful pirate? Is there like a Forbes or Fortune? I mean,
how do you think I think that you measured it
by booty. She must have had some booty, okay, and
(22:47):
is there like a recording of booty somewhere? I mean,
as she also had the most ships, so she had
the most pirate ships under her control, like more Twoday's
navy at the time. And it's because here's the thing.
So she's a girl, right, a former prostitute, former prostitute
who marries a pirate, and it's like, I want control
(23:10):
the pirate fleet, right, um. But so her thing was cooperation.
So she got all of these pirate groups to cooperate
with each other and become a giant kill or union
of exactly. But the coolest thing about her again, I
think that's a very female trait. She retires. She does
it for about ten years and she's like, I made
(23:30):
a lot of booty, and I'm going to retire and
negotiate with the Chinese government to get them to give
money to all of my men. Essentially, like she made
them civil service employees for the rest of their lives,
got them retirement funds, and retired and lived out the
rest of her life as a rich lady. I love that.
I love that. I love that. There's the community, the union.
And then I love that there's the succession retirement plan
(23:53):
because I will say, in my field and family law,
there are so many really old ale family law attorneys,
like in their nineties, and you're like, and I'm like,
I don't want to do this for the rest of
my life. No, I say to some of the associates
in my firm, Dude, if I'm still here when I'm seventy,
remind me of this conversation. There's just no way. At
(24:13):
a certain point you have to kind of gracefully exit
while you can still remember the names of your clients.
In my opinion, and your children, right, it's like your
child want to get out and enjoying my life, or
your fellow pirates. Exactly when is when does Fierce launch?
So Fierce is out right now? It is okay, we
have all eight episodes of Fierce are available now on
(24:36):
Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, Spotify, wherever you
get your podcasts. And they're really fun because each of
them is a little is an hour long, and they're
totally binge doable, and there's only eight so it's it's
like it's like a good long road trip. Besides, now
I'm not going to be able to pronounce her name Chinese.
(24:57):
Give us a few of the other ones. I mean,
we probably won't have heard of them, but I wanted
to kind of be in our consciousness as we begin
to binge. Listen, So you've got Jeanette rankin Um. Jeanette
was the first woman elected to Congress in the United
States of America. And again also like someone, shouldn't we
know that name? Shouldn't we know the first woman? And
we don't? We just we just don't. Now we do,
(25:18):
and now we do. What year was that? What year
was Janette? I mean, don't get me exact, but range
was it in the forties orft? It was right before
World War One? Okay, here's and here's the other thing.
She was elected twice and she's a pacifist because she
was a woman. So she was like, as a woman,
I don't feel like we should be voting for war.
(25:38):
She votes against World War One. Then she gets elected again,
votes against World War two, and then when the Vietnam
War rolls around, she marches against it in Washington with
a bunch of like young hippies in go go boots
and jet and no bras, just no bras and marching
So also on Fierce, we have door At the Arsner,
(26:00):
who was one of the most prolific Hollywood directors of
all time who you've also probably never heard her name.
She was a female director in a man's world. We
have Grace Hopper, who created the first really the first
computing language, the first language that allowed human beings to
talk to computers right around World War Two. Again, we
(26:21):
talked about these tech geniuses all the time, but we've
never heard the name Grace Hopper. And Christine Jorgensen, who
was a transgender pioneer in America, one of the first
Americans to undergo surgery publicly and um really changed the
way that we talked about in the language that we
(26:42):
used when it came to transgendered people in the United States.
And then we also have Madam C. J. Walker, and
she's a woman who was born to freed slaves and
turned herself into one of the first female self made
millionaires in the country. Which she does hair care. She
did hair care, did hair and she she had amazing
hair products and she was just she created the Avon
(27:04):
Lady business model before the Avon Lady existed. Amazing. Okay,
So folks listen in Fierce. You can get it on
Apple Podcasts. You can it's on I Heart. Also committed
and now tell us about your new one, Joe, talk
about Prolific. What are you doing in this This is
actually an exclusive. I haven't talked about this in public yet.
(27:26):
So I wanted to do a podcast. Look. It's called
Under the Influence, and it's looking at the industry of
mom influencers on social media, the good, the bad, the ugly,
how it all works. It's the influencing industry is something
like a ten billion dollar industry now, and no one
talks about the economics of it. No one talks about
how it both empowers women and makes women feel like
(27:48):
complete shit. And so for eight episodes, we're doing a
deep dive, really digging into the economics, the anthropology, the sociology,
how the influencing industry works, and what it looks like
when we're in a world where we're being sold to
as mothers, as women constantly and a constant scroll. I
love it And when is that launching? So that will
(28:10):
launch in the fall. We wanted to be able to
get out to do a lot of the reporting, and
we've done a lot of the reporting during quarantine during COVID,
and I had this idea because I was up at
four in the morning breastfeeding my second baby, right scrolling
through Instagram, because you got one baby on the boob
and your phone in your hand, and all of a sudden,
I'm like, I'm buying all of this weird shit, and
(28:30):
I'm like, what who Oh, that's what's happening, And so
we want to talk about how that happens. I love it.
Journalists and lawyers have investigative interview skills in common, and
these are the all's fair interrogatories. Joe, do you swear
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth always? Which relationship in your life has had
(28:51):
the most profound impact? Oh, that's good. I should say
my husband, But that's not true. I mean he's great,
I love him very much, But I dated the worst
human being of after college. Um. I mean he was
just like the quintessential bad boy, and it taught me
what I wanted and what I didn't want in a relationship.
Like I kind of like a bad boy, right, I
like some things about a bad boy. But then I
(29:11):
also so, who's a little bit more more stable and
steady and I think that that relationship taught me how
I wanted to be treated for the rest of my life.
I like that. What's your favorite love song? Oh, Eternal Flame? Okay, Bagels,
I love that, so I know, right, if there's an
eighties girl band Johnny's like, I'm on it, I'm on it.
(29:35):
I love them too. What is the one piece of
advice that you'd share with your twenties something year old self.
You're going to be totally okay. I spent so much
time worrying and fretting and just kind of like hating myself.
I did. I did not like myself at all in
my twenties. I just want to tell that girl, like,
it's gonna be fine. It's all gonna be fine. And
(29:55):
also my my other have two that I'm cheating. But
other piece of advice is no one is paying attention
to you as much as you think that they are.
That one, I I mean, I like the other one too,
but I really I think that's really important. Okay, Joe,
which romantic comedy could you watch on repeat? Sliding Doors? Right?
I mean over and over for you? That's so perfect.
(30:18):
I love it. And I also people conference sliding doors
like If you pay attention, you will hear a sliding
doors reference at least once a week. Sometimes I hear
it twice a week from from dudes too. It's it
is now so in our culture was do you really?
Was it really the first one? I mean, it's in
our culture, but there had to have been some kind
of story, film, whatever where that same thing happens. It's
(30:39):
just the age or generation that the generation I think
anyone between the age of thirty and fifty right now,
you could just say sliding doors. Anyone between the age
of thirty and sixty right now, Well, yes, of course,
and and every and has a moment. Everyone has a
(31:01):
sliding doors moment where like that moment would have been
the moment to change my life yep, yep, or that
moment was the moment that changed my life too. It's interesting, Joe.
We love your brilliance today and your message about empowerment
is when we want to amplify. Thank you for zooming,
enjoy your lobster. Tell people where they can listen to
your shows and where to find you and your books online,
won't you? So? The best place to find me online
(31:23):
is probably Instagram. It's the only social media I use anymore.
It's Joe Piazza, author, and you can find my podcast Committed,
Fierce and Soon under the Influence on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Awesome.
Thank you so much. Enjoy your day, the rest of
your vacation. Be safe. You're wonderful. What a badass she is.
She's wonderful, so smart, so quick, so kind. I mean,
(31:48):
I liked her Chicken stay. I like her her sort
of position on female empowerment and about you know, we
can't vote for people that we don't understand, that we
don't see, So putting it out there telling people of
stories it's so important, and that podcast sounds amazing. I
mean it is kind of fears in particular. It's it's
(32:08):
crazy to me that we can have lived as long
as we have and studied as much as we did
and not have heard of any of those eight women
that she mentioned. I mean, that's they have lived a
long time and they're not obscure either. That's our show
for today. If you just found us to have subscribe
and follow us on social edits over easy. Click to
(32:29):
rate us at Apple podcast and thank you for listening. Hi, everybody,
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