November 15, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode, Karol speaks with Drew Holden, a media critic and author known for his incisive commentary on social media. Drew shares his journey into media criticism, sparked by a moment of reflection on how the media treats public figures after their deaths. He discusses his personal health challenges, including a brain tumor diagnosis, and how he navigated treatment and recovery. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And welcome to the new time slot. The Carol Markowitz
Show is moving to Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can
get my non political podcast this show, The Carol Markowitz
Show on Wednesday and Friday, and then normally the political
podcast I co host with Mary Katherine Ham every Tuesday
and Thursday. You only don't get me on Mondays. Sorry
about that. So I got a DM from a listener
(00:31):
who writes, Hi, Carol, I love the show and that
you take questions. My daughter is sixteen, a junior in
high school, and while she has friends that she sees
in school, her calendar is completely open. She never has
plans on the weekends or after school. She's mostly in
her room and she seems lonely. What's interesting is that
when I talk to friends, they say their kids also
(00:53):
never see their friends outside of school. Is this normal?
What do you suggest mean to say? These kids are
having a completely different experience than I had as a teenager.
I'd get home, spend five seconds doing my homework, and
I'd be out the door to hang out with friends.
It really has changed. I see that in the teenagers
around me as well. I don't want to say the
(01:16):
obvious social media destroyed our real life relationships, because while
I think that plays a role, I don't think that's
the whole story. And as I've written before, and I
think I talked about on here, these teenagers are barely
using social media anymore. They're really just watching TV on
their phones, like they're not socializing. They're not commenting in
(01:38):
each other's walls, they're not posting pictures, they're watching little
videos and it's the equivalent of coming home from school
and just sitting in front of the TV. But I
also don't think that's the whole story. My mind also
went to college prep for juniors, SATs and all that,
but I very clearly remember hanging out with my friends
in high school, even when we were studying for the SAT.
(02:00):
So what has changed? I do think it's our phones again,
in part, not social media specifically, but just the fact
that our teens are in touch with their friends all
the time and don't actually have to see them to
have a connection. That's a huge change from our childhoods
Putting aside that we didn't have, you know, cell phones
(02:20):
with us all the time. I couldn't spend the afternoon
on the phone my best friend. It just I would
be tying up the house phone line. Even when I
got my own line, which was a big, big deal,
It's hard to imagine that our phone calls wouldn't be
planned to see each other. My advice, more than anything else,
(02:41):
and not just about this, but about a lot of
problems that kids have, is to help your kids find community.
That is really not easy to do, and I have
struggled with this at different points in my life. You
want to have kind of a built in people that
you and your kids spend time with. Yes, that's not
always the way it works out. Your kids could easily
(03:04):
also hit their teens and not be interested in the
community you fostered. I've seen that happen, but I still
think that step one, what are you doing on the weekends?
Are you seeing friends? You get together with friends who
have kids your kids age, and you do something together,
and that fosters a connection you probably have to host.
(03:25):
It will take effort. The other thing is to encourage
your kids into activities where they will see their friends.
I am a free range parent, I really am, and
I get the argument that not every minute of the
kid's day needs to be planned and scheduled, and they
should just hang out together and just do nothing and
kick rocks around. I agree, but that's not what the
(03:48):
other kids are doing. A few years ago, I wrote
that at a certain age, my kids at the playground
would be the only kids there that age, because everybody
else would be in after school activities or doing sports
or something. It's also less awkward than making plans to
have activities that they just go to. What do their
friends do after school or on weekends? Motivate your kids
(04:12):
towards that. I also think that every group of friends
needs a cruise director who organizes them. Some group of
friends don't have that, and I think that makes it
a lot tougher to hang out. You can encourage your
daughter to be the one to organize stuff a dinner, bowling,
really anything. I wrote about teenage loneliness and the jump
(04:33):
and depression a few years ago for The Post, I wrote,
the lives of our modern youth should be pretty good.
They have all the information in the world on devices
they carry in their pockets. They have plenty of opportunities
to make friends instantaneously, something the older generation finds increasingly difficult,
and notwithstanding with the insurgent Democratic socialists to keep telling
(04:55):
us this is a time of unparalleled prosperity. The unemployment
rate is four percent. Most American families enjoy conveniences that
would have been unthinkable to most human generations across across
most of history. Life should be grand, but perhaps those
very conveniences are the source of youth anguish. Well, the
prosperity has decreased a bit since I wrote that, But
(05:17):
the point stands, our kids have all these possibilities, but
they don't always know how to capture them. We help
our kids with so many things. I think teaching them
how to socialize, especially since they have a phone standing
in the way, is something parents should just definitely do.
We need to teach our kids how to make friends,
(05:39):
how to make plans, all of that before we send
them off into the world and have them do it
for themselves. And yes, you might think that sixteen is
a little old to be doing that, but if the
alternative is your kids sitting home alone, maybe step in
and help. I'd love your questions and comments at Carol
Maarkowitz Show at gmail dot com. That's ka rl mr
(06:00):
kow Icz Show at gmail dot com. Coming up after
the break my interview with Drew Holden, but first, with
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Speaker 1 (07:23):
Today, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Drew Holden. Drew is the author
of the Holden Court substack and well known for his
blistering Threads on X my favorite. Hi Drew, so nice
to have.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You on Carol the Pleasure's Mind. Thank you so much
and for the kind words about the threads. Blistering. I
think blistering sometimes fair in mild mannered guys. I hope
I don't disappoint, but.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Well, mild mannerd is what comes across, for sure. I
think you're very thorough and that also come across like
you do the work as they as the kids say
these days. So how did you get into the concept
of going to destroy the media with threads on X?
Where did that idea come from?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's a funny question, you know. I was actually I
remember it was probably four or five years ago. I
was working in public affairs. I was coming back from
a client meeting up in New York and I was
on the AM track and the news broke that Don
Imis had passed away, right, the famous radio commentator. And
(08:34):
I remember I saw because I saw there was probably
a Washington poster New York Times headline where they just
trashed who like again he made a really awful racist
comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team. He was a
firebrand in general. But I always kind of thought, like,
you know, when people died, they died, right, yeah, hould
them up in kind of a charitable light, or at
(08:57):
least not a not an overly critical light. And every
single headline I went through just trash Iynus and thrashed Iynus.
And I thought, man, who is who is someone who
we could both look at and say, this person is worse? Right,
setting aside politics, setting aside, you know, all the issues
of the day. Who could be worse? And so I
(09:18):
went through and found a couple of terrorists, right, so
how By Dottie was one of them, and then there
were a couple others. Sky put yeah exactly, And so
I put them side by side on Twitter. I was
using Twitter very rarely. I get into to kind of
keep tabs on the news, and I put them side
by side, same outlets, same headlines, and it for whatever
I had like maybe twelve hundred followers or something, and
(09:41):
it just it blew up I had. I had all
of this engagement, and all these people were really to me,
I think there's something here, And I think what what
kind of occurred to me is even in this kind
of silly sort of example, it's very obvious to people
when you put these things side by side that something
doesn't have that's something here is a miss right. And
(10:03):
I didn't think anyone was doing that, or at least wasn't.
They didn't have as many screenshots in their phones as
I did. Right even before that, I would see these things.
I'm just kind of I guess I'm I'm kind of
a hoarder or maybe a clutter shot. I yeah, I have.
I had to clear up some space before I joined
this podcast actually because I just have too many screenshots.
I could do not have too many screenshots on my phone,
(10:24):
and so I thought, I was like, I think there's
something here, right, And this was you know, this is
this was the you know, during Trump's time in office, right,
the media I think was having a moment.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
To put it mildly, I was yeah, and I was like,
you know, if nothing else kind of in like an
archaeological sort of sense, I would like to capture this,
like I think I think these things are going to
look really bad.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's not right now today, the certainly down the road,
and in general, I don't think it takes I think
you can just show people these things. They'll be able
to connect the dots that again, something here just isn't
quite right. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Do you get a lot of pushback?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I don't. One of the weirdest things I was talking
to push on.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
That's why I ask.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't want to toot
my own horn here too much. But I'm always kind
of flummoxed at the fact that I don't have more
people who are hating on me, right, because I.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Definitely maybe after this show, maybe well yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Maybe you've got some good haters on the internet, so
maybe they find their way to me. But I think
I think it's probably two things. One is, I think
that when you hold up the examples and the screen shots,
it's really really hard to dispute one. Two, And I
think I think it deserves pointing out. I'm also shooting
(11:46):
at a target that probably isn't inclined to shoot back. Right.
It's not just like a policy fight or something where
I have a disagreement with someone the press, as much
as I may malign them, you know, in terms of
the way that they cover certain things, I think is
a noble enough institution where the idea, in most cases,
of getting in a shooting war with this random guy
on Twitter probably doesn't appeal to the sensibilities of most people.
(12:10):
I did one time, the only time that sticks out
to me when I actually faced like real meaningful pushback,
was an editor at the Washington Post, and one of
my threads that I did probably four years ago now
commented and disputed the way I had categorized a piece
because I called it news and she said it was
(12:31):
actually analysis. And to me, all question does is highlight
the problem with news analysis as built by places like
the Arty to Post. Right, If you're saying it is
analysis as something distinct from news, why is analysis categorizing
your news pieces? Right?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Why isn't it in the opinion section? That would make
sense there?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, yeah, So I that was kind of the one
example where I really think about someone someone from the
you know, from within the cathedral kind of pushback, and
I think maybe did not avail herself of the best
tact to do so.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Right, Yeah, that's a that's really interesting that you decided
that there's a separate category called analysis that doesn't somehow
go into the opinion section. But if I think all
of its opinion, I think they should just be more
honest about it. And journalists don't love when I say that,
but I think it's true. I think we're all writing
our opinion, and some of us are honest about it
(13:33):
and some of us aren't.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
So Yeah, Unfortunately, I think there's there's quite a bit
to be extrapolated from the confluence of news and analysis,
And I would love to sit down with like the
editorial newsroom and be like, how do we think about
these things? Yeah? What what is? What should news be? Right?
What should the thing you are presenting to regular readers
(13:55):
is removed from opinion? At? Really? Look like I think
they have a really fascinating one.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah. So you've had a tumultuous few years. I think
that for anybody who doesn't know your story, can you
tell us a little about it?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah. So, you know, back in early twenty twenty, probably
I started getting these thakes, and you know, it was
twenty so there's a part of me that was like,
you know, it's it's probably this is just what approaching
thirty is like I'm getting older, my body is changing.
I just I've just got to kind of make peace
with that. And so I, you know, at first it
(14:33):
just started I.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Love that thirty was like You're like, well, this is
this is where it all goes.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Down here, you know, Hey, I mean I was I
should have been the wiser, but I wasn't. But yes,
an uncharitable perhaps a description of my age at the time.
So I was, you know, I started getting these headaches,
and then it was I'd get these headaches and I
would be dizzy and have balance issues and I couldn't
quite figure out for a couple of months what all
(14:58):
was going on. And you, my then girlfriend now fiance,
had pushed me a lot to say, you should go
see a neurologist, like it's it's not normal that you
can't wake up without taking etc. Before you go to
work to be able to get out of bed. Like this,
I get. You don't love doctors, you don't love hospitals,
which admittedly I didn't, and so I just kind of
(15:20):
bit the bullet and tried to be a man, be
tough and YadA, YadA, YadA, and so I pushed it
off I pushed it off, and then eventually, I, you know,
the headaches got worse, the symptoms got worse, and I
told her, you know, mostly to kind of like, you know,
address her concerns and address my mother's concerns and plenty
(15:43):
of other you know, people in my life I talked to.
I was like, okay, I'll go to the eye doctor.
Right the eye dot. Maybe it's an issue in my contacts.
We'll see, We'll see how it plays up. So I
go to an eye doctor as a new one. God
blessed me. He did a really excellent job, and I
told him I've been having these headaches. So he took
a look behind my eye and the are kind of lighthearted,
(16:03):
banter dropped. He gave me more specific instructions to look
this way, look that way, and then eventually he flipped
around the screen he was looking at, which is a picture,
and he said, you're hemorrhaging around your own nerves. Said
He's like, you need to go to see a doctor,
(16:24):
like you need to go to the hospital yesterday about this.
There's there's something very wrong. I didn't know anything about
the healthcare system. I was like, can you write me
a can you write me a script or referral so
I can go. He goes wait in the waiting room.
This might be over dramatic, but I'm going to call
you an ambulance and they're going to take you to Astor.
And he's like, doctor, but you know that doesn't make sense.
(16:47):
But it's like, here, I haven't paid enough attention to
the people who probably know better on this than I do.
Why didn't I just sit down and shut up for
like the first time probably in my medical history. And
so flash forward. I go to the doctor. They realized
that I was indeed emerging around my optic nerve. The
reason was that I wasn't reabsorbing cerebro spinal fluid back
(17:09):
into my brain, and so it was building up in
the back of my head and putting pressure on my
optic nerve. They recommended surgery, which went as well as
you could have hoped. I had basically a burhole drilled
in my brain to at least the pressure and thought
that would be everything. That was in maybe May of
twenty twenty two, and so I thought, Okay, we're set,
We're done. I had this brain surgery really weird, but
(17:32):
you know I was I was back in the gym.
I was getting ready to go back to work. I
was running and I went in for my thirty follow
out to that surgery and surgeon neurosurgeon who done surgery
originally called me and he said, hey, we do and
there's a ship. It turns out that shoto that was
(17:54):
a brain tumor.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It was the day for my Wow, So what is
what happened then?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
That resolved? Yeah, you know, obviously the tough news to hear.
Talked to doctor Johns Fonpkins, who I've been working with Baltimore.
They determined a course of chemo, so I you know,
they took a look at it. They realized it was inoperable.
It was like right smack in the center of my brain,
(18:26):
and so they sat down and kind of talked me
through what chemo would look like. I had a port
put into my chest so I could have an IV
line straight through there, and then I did probably four
months of chemotherapy, which you know, thank god, it worked
and my body was super responsive to the chemo. The
tour was super responsive to the chemo, and my body
(18:46):
actually handled it quite well relative to you know, the
horror stories you hear about chemo and then I started radiation.
I did that for about two months and that also
worked really well. By the end of it, I was
declared cancer free. So as of now a year in
a remission, uh those signs of tumor, no signs of cancer.
I still get to go back and get check ups.
(19:06):
You know, there's still a lot I'm working on. I
had to go through physical therapy to kind of figure
out how best to walk normally. Again, my extemporaneous ability
to kind of speak off the cuff isn't what it
once was. But I'm I think I'm back around a
year later to a point where most of my intellectual
and balanced shortcomings are my own, as opposed to be
(19:27):
induced by the cancer, which I'm fably fortunate to.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Meaner about it. Thank you jokes about brain cancer.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I mean, that's you know, that's that's fair. You know,
I did. I did find throughout the process. And again
I don't want to I don't want to say this
as in like, oh, I'm just a you know, I'm
uniquely tough about these circumstances, like I got a really
really positive prognosis relative to you have an inoperable brain
tumor right from the jump. They thought it would be
(19:56):
really responsive to chemo, and thankfully it was. But I
I did find considering those things that it helped me
a lot, and I think probably helped the people around
me to be able to talk about it in a
way that was a little more lighthearted. Right and particularly
now that it's a little bit further in the rear
view mirror. I'll never be out of the rear view mirror,
but now that's a little bit further downfield. I kind
(20:19):
of have an arsenal of new jokes that I use
because I want to. I don't want it to mean
anyone else who's in similar circumstances. But I got to say,
as someone who talks too much, the idea that I
had a brain tumor maybe informing some of my terrible
opinions is like really easy fodder, right like right, yeah,
(20:39):
And this is why I don't want to say I'm
disappointed that I don't have more haters. But one of
the things I always think about is one of these days,
I'm going to say something really dumb and someone's going
to use this as a cudgel, and I'd rather going
to get try and get ahead of that. The Internet's
a mean place. I might as well get ahead of that,
and the best way I can.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
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Speaker 1 (22:20):
So, what is your You mentioned before we started doing
the show that you you did a run. What's what's
your run all about?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yeah? So, one of the things that I didn't get
to do because as I was going through chemo, that
I've talked about doing since before I moved down to
DC eight years ago is the Army ten miler, which
is just like the name sounds like, it is a
ten mile run. I don't really like running, Carol, I'll
be honest.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
But anybody likes it. I think anybody says.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
That they like it or just saying I talked to
some runner. I talked to a runner last night, and
he was like, you know, if you get more in
the habit of it, you'll enjoy it. And I actually
don't believe that. I hope that's true. I hope you're right,
but I'm a very hard time believe in that. But
so I you know, I look at it a little bit.
I'm Catholic, and so I look at it almost as
like a physical penance that like you know, if I
(23:09):
haven't been eating well during the week, I haven't been
working out as often as I should, at least I
can kind of grab my running cat of nine tails
and go for it once a week and push myself
to do it. And so I saw after, you know,
after I finished treatment, I was like, okay, I want
to get back to running a five k, right, I
want to get back to running a little bit. I
want my one of my goals as I'm going through
physical therapy to be I want to run a five
(23:31):
k and do it out in public and be able
to have the little metal at the end of it
and say, look, I did this thing right. It's a
little it's like a gold star on my refrigerator kind
of thing. And so I did that and it went
better than I expected. And so I ran another five
k and then I ran a ten k, which is
about six miles, probably three months ago or so. And
(23:51):
after the ten k, I felt really good. You know,
I know I'm saying I want to breakfast and yeah,
and I said to myself, I was like, you know what,
you've been talking with this Army ten for eight years.
Every year and new excuse, I tweaked the cav the
first year, and obviously that the brain tumor.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Excuse.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, it's a little more thorough of an excuse, I
would say. But I was like, you know what, you're
up for it. You can do this, and the training
process will be good for you. It'll help get you
back in shape, and it will help you feel. You know,
I could feel a little bit like I'm back to normal,
doing had as second on physical aspirations. And if you
(24:31):
had told me that a year and a half whatever,
maybe I had a hard time believing that. Certainly would
be very grateful if you knew the future. And so
I signed up for the Army ten mile or I
got up to about nine miles before, so I had
some degree of confidence I could do it. The race
was a week and a half ago, and I did it.
I ran the whole race. I ran it slowly, but
(24:52):
I ran it faster than any ten mile run I've
ever done. I beat my pre cancer time by fifteen
seconds a mile. It's amazing, which felt almost like exercising
a demon A little bit right to be able to
say like, Okay, I may never fully be back from
this cancer experience, but I was able to do this
thing and that feels really good. Yeah, And I think
(25:14):
far more importantly what I did as part of the
run was I raised some money. And so I'm familiar
with a charity called Undue Medical Debts. Some of your
listeners may be familiar with it. They buy up medical
debt that people have that is a burden over their
heads that some studies put the amount of medical debt,
which is money that people owe publicly or privately because
of the care that they need. Something like forty percent
(25:37):
of Americans based on some survey, have medical debt. Wow.
I was really fortunate during my experience to have really
excellent insurance, and so I don't have medical debt. But
I remember looking at the price tag on the original
brain surgery, and I wouldn't have had six figures to
shell out if I didn't have insurance, or if I
didn't have really excellent insurance, right, And so it it
(26:00):
struck me that there are millions and millions of people
living under this burden, that it's them from making the
financial decisions they want to, from owning a home, from
putting their kids through college, right from buying groceries for
some people, and so undo medical debt what they do
is they buy up that debt so that they can
then privately forgive it rather than try and go through
(26:22):
the government or anything, which I think is a super
noble and super important effort.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, and so as as part of this run, I
encourage people to donate to a fundraiser I was doing,
which you can still donate to. I haven't I haven't
buttoned it up yet, but I've been able to raise
about twenty five hundred dollars for them that I think
is going to go to the website. Yeah, so I've
got a link at fundly. If you search on fundly,
it's I think it's Drew's Army ten miler run. But
(26:48):
if you just search Drew hold and fundly, you can
find it. Or you can donate directly to undo medical
Debt there at undomedical Debt dot com.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Excellent. So you've been through this, you know, obviously really
traumatic experience. You've come out on the other side, you know, thankfully,
and you're doing these amazing things and accomplishing things that
you've wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
What do you worry about now? Have your worries changed? Yeah,
that's a good question. I think I worry about my
health a lot more than I did right for obvious reasons.
But I think one of the things that the experience
has taught me, or it gets encouraged in me, is
to be more attenuated to my body and my surroundings
(27:30):
and also like the body and surroundings of my friends. Right.
I've had a lot of people since I shared my
story who have come who have called me or texted
me or come up to me and said, hey, like,
I'm having these dizzyness issues, like I have trouble with light,
Like what do you think? And so I think trying
to be more attenuated to those needs, both my own certainly,
but in my friends and family and loved ones as well.
(27:52):
And I think this is probably because you know, the
downstream implications of the metod the healthcare system in this
country are deeply problematic in many ways, but I think
the logistics stress me out in a way that they
didn't before. I think, like the you've got to be
like for radiation, So I did radiation every morning at
(28:14):
six thirty for like two months, and if I missed
a slot of radiation like their books solid right, and
it would be it would be a huge impediment to
my ability to recover, and so I think they're like,
I'm much more punctual on the backside of this thing.
But I think as a thing that leads to the
punctuality is that I worry a lot more about logistics
and time details. Some of that's healthy, maybe maybe some
(28:37):
of it not so much.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self,
having again survived something like this, Like, you know, what
would you want him to know?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yeah, I think I would tell him to listen to
the women in your life about everything good one but
particularly thank you, but particularly about help. Right, Like I
almost lost vision and water both eyes because I didn't
(29:12):
listen to my again, my fiance. If I would have
just listened to her when she was like, you should
go see a neurologist, it would have saved me months
of pain, maybe made my chemo course easier, and certainly
have you know, have avoided some of the really bad
symptoms that I had. I think there's obviously a lesson
(29:35):
there about like listen to your body and more set
particularly for men. I think there's also the reality for
men that our desires to ourselves or to the world
that were so tough that we don't need help, particularly
help from loving and caring women, is often misguided and
(29:59):
should be the sort of thing that we we don't
entangle with a manliness because I just don't think that's
right and it doesn't help anyone.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I'm sure that's true. But I would just say, as
somebody who hates going to the doctor and who puts
off everything as long as possible, who has a husband
who is like, dude, you've been coughing for two months,
like you have to go handle this, I would tell
you it's not all gendered. But yes, I feel like
(30:28):
women in general do go to the doctor like they'll
they'll they'll be much more likely to like, just do
it right, and I think men are less likely. But again,
it doesn't always work out that way because I am
the absolute worst at it.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
And yeah, you're right, I think I think there is
a wisdom element.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I lack the wisdom.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Maybe some more coming up in a moment. But first,
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Speaker 1 (32:12):
Well, I've enjoyed this conversation so much. I've been a
fan of yours for so long. I think you do
such fantastic work, and I'm so glad that you're on
the other side of this, and i hope you stay
healthy and keep growing and keep doing great things. And
us here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
This is time too, So first off, thank you for
your words. I'm a huge fan of yours and it
really fills my market. You say maybe two charitable things. No,
thank you, thank you for saying some. So my somewhat
counterintuitive tip would be to put the phone down, close
(32:53):
the computer, and spend more time. You know, I was.
I think I was forced into this when I was
going through treatment. But spend more time to the people
who matter to you in your life, your loved ones,
your family, your friends, your spouse, your significant other. You know.
I think it's It can feel a little bit trite,
but when when you are presented with a kind of
(33:14):
a moment of impending mortality, it's really easy to say, oh,
I should have spent my time better. I get a
little flash of that, I think from my experience, and
I think one of the things that I try and
do as someone who admittedly still spends way too much
time online, right, one of the reasons I can have
these screenshots exactly. One of the reasons I have all
these screenshots is I spend too much time reading things.
(33:37):
But I think I would encourage folks to find a
healthier balance, and particularly when you're spending time with that
significant other, with your spouse, make that meaningful quality time.
Don't make that Twitter time or Twitter time together. Yes,
and what that means and what that looks like can
be all sorts of different things, but prioritize that cherish that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I love it. Thank you so much, Drew Holden. Check
out his substack hold in Court. He's really great.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Thanks so much, Drew, Carol the Pleasures Mind, thanks so
much for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And welcome to the new time slot. The Carol Markowitz
Show is moving to Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can
get my non political podcast this show, The Carol Markowitz
Show on Wednesday and Friday, and then normally the political
podcast I co host with Mary Katherine Ham every Tuesday
and Thursday. You only don't get me on Mondays. Sorry
about that. So I got a DM from a listener
(00:31):
who writes, Hi, Carol, I love the show and that
you take questions. My daughter is sixteen, a junior in
high school, and while she has friends that she sees
in school, her calendar is completely open. She never has
plans on the weekends or after school. She's mostly in
her room and she seems lonely. What's interesting is that
when I talk to friends, they say their kids also
(00:53):
never see their friends outside of school. Is this normal?
What do you suggest mean to say? These kids are
having a completely different experience than I had as a teenager.
I'd get home, spend five seconds doing my homework, and
I'd be out the door to hang out with friends.
It really has changed. I see that in the teenagers
around me as well. I don't want to say the
(01:16):
obvious social media destroyed our real life relationships, because while
I think that plays a role, I don't think that's
the whole story. And as I've written before, and I
think I talked about on here, these teenagers are barely
using social media anymore. They're really just watching TV on
their phones, like they're not socializing. They're not commenting in
(01:38):
each other's walls, they're not posting pictures, they're watching little
videos and it's the equivalent of coming home from school
and just sitting in front of the TV. But I
also don't think that's the whole story. My mind also
went to college prep for juniors, SATs and all that,
but I very clearly remember hanging out with my friends
in high school, even when we were studying for the SAT.
(02:00):
So what has changed? I do think it's our phones again,
in part, not social media specifically, but just the fact
that our teens are in touch with their friends all
the time and don't actually have to see them to
have a connection. That's a huge change from our childhoods
Putting aside that we didn't have, you know, cell phones
(02:20):
with us all the time. I couldn't spend the afternoon
on the phone my best friend. It just I would
be tying up the house phone line. Even when I
got my own line, which was a big, big deal,
It's hard to imagine that our phone calls wouldn't be
planned to see each other. My advice, more than anything else,
(02:41):
and not just about this, but about a lot of
problems that kids have, is to help your kids find community.
That is really not easy to do, and I have
struggled with this at different points in my life. You
want to have kind of a built in people that
you and your kids spend time with. Yes, that's not
always the way it works out. Your kids could easily
(03:04):
also hit their teens and not be interested in the
community you fostered. I've seen that happen, but I still
think that step one, what are you doing on the weekends?
Are you seeing friends? You get together with friends who
have kids your kids age, and you do something together,
and that fosters a connection you probably have to host.
(03:25):
It will take effort. The other thing is to encourage
your kids into activities where they will see their friends.
I am a free range parent, I really am, and
I get the argument that not every minute of the
kid's day needs to be planned and scheduled, and they
should just hang out together and just do nothing and
kick rocks around. I agree, but that's not what the
(03:48):
other kids are doing. A few years ago, I wrote
that at a certain age, my kids at the playground
would be the only kids there that age, because everybody
else would be in after school activities or doing sports
or something. It's also less awkward than making plans to
have activities that they just go to. What do their
friends do after school or on weekends? Motivate your kids
(04:12):
towards that. I also think that every group of friends
needs a cruise director who organizes them. Some group of
friends don't have that, and I think that makes it
a lot tougher to hang out. You can encourage your
daughter to be the one to organize stuff a dinner, bowling,
really anything. I wrote about teenage loneliness and the jump
(04:33):
and depression a few years ago for The Post, I wrote,
the lives of our modern youth should be pretty good.
They have all the information in the world on devices
they carry in their pockets. They have plenty of opportunities
to make friends instantaneously, something the older generation finds increasingly difficult,
and notwithstanding with the insurgent Democratic socialists to keep telling
(04:55):
us this is a time of unparalleled prosperity. The unemployment
rate is four percent. Most American families enjoy conveniences that
would have been unthinkable to most human generations across across
most of history. Life should be grand, but perhaps those
very conveniences are the source of youth anguish. Well, the
prosperity has decreased a bit since I wrote that, But
(05:17):
the point stands, our kids have all these possibilities, but
they don't always know how to capture them. We help
our kids with so many things. I think teaching them
how to socialize, especially since they have a phone standing
in the way, is something parents should just definitely do.
We need to teach our kids how to make friends,
(05:39):
how to make plans, all of that before we send
them off into the world and have them do it
for themselves. And yes, you might think that sixteen is
a little old to be doing that, but if the
alternative is your kids sitting home alone, maybe step in
and help. I'd love your questions and comments at Carol
Maarkowitz Show at gmail dot com. That's ka rl mr
(06:00):
kow Icz Show at gmail dot com. Coming up after
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Speaker 1 (07:23):
Today, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Drew Holden. Drew is the author
of the Holden Court substack and well known for his
blistering Threads on X my favorite. Hi Drew, so nice
to have.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You on Carol the Pleasure's Mind. Thank you so much
and for the kind words about the threads. Blistering. I
think blistering sometimes fair in mild mannered guys. I hope
I don't disappoint, but.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Well, mild mannerd is what comes across, for sure. I
think you're very thorough and that also come across like
you do the work as they as the kids say
these days. So how did you get into the concept
of going to destroy the media with threads on X?
Where did that idea come from?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's a funny question, you know. I was actually I
remember it was probably four or five years ago. I
was working in public affairs. I was coming back from
a client meeting up in New York and I was
on the AM track and the news broke that Don
Imis had passed away, right, the famous radio commentator. And
(08:34):
I remember I saw because I saw there was probably
a Washington poster New York Times headline where they just
trashed who like again he made a really awful racist
comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team. He was a
firebrand in general. But I always kind of thought, like,
you know, when people died, they died, right, yeah, hould
them up in kind of a charitable light, or at
(08:57):
least not a not an overly critical light. And every
single headline I went through just trash Iynus and thrashed Iynus.
And I thought, man, who is who is someone who
we could both look at and say, this person is worse? Right,
setting aside politics, setting aside, you know, all the issues
of the day. Who could be worse? And so I
(09:18):
went through and found a couple of terrorists, right, so
how By Dottie was one of them, and then there
were a couple others. Sky put yeah exactly, And so
I put them side by side on Twitter. I was
using Twitter very rarely. I get into to kind of
keep tabs on the news, and I put them side
by side, same outlets, same headlines, and it for whatever
I had like maybe twelve hundred followers or something, and
(09:41):
it just it blew up I had. I had all
of this engagement, and all these people were really to me,
I think there's something here, And I think what what
kind of occurred to me is even in this kind
of silly sort of example, it's very obvious to people
when you put these things side by side that something
doesn't have that's something here is a miss right. And
(10:03):
I didn't think anyone was doing that, or at least wasn't.
They didn't have as many screenshots in their phones as
I did. Right even before that, I would see these things.
I'm just kind of I guess I'm I'm kind of
a hoarder or maybe a clutter shot. I yeah, I have.
I had to clear up some space before I joined
this podcast actually because I just have too many screenshots.
I could do not have too many screenshots on my phone,
(10:24):
and so I thought, I was like, I think there's
something here, right, And this was you know, this is
this was the you know, during Trump's time in office, right,
the media I think was having a moment.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
To put it mildly, I was yeah, and I was like,
you know, if nothing else kind of in like an
archaeological sort of sense, I would like to capture this,
like I think I think these things are going to
look really bad.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's not right now today, the certainly down the road,
and in general, I don't think it takes I think
you can just show people these things. They'll be able
to connect the dots that again, something here just isn't
quite right. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Do you get a lot of pushback?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I don't. One of the weirdest things I was talking
to push on.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
That's why I ask.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't want to toot
my own horn here too much. But I'm always kind
of flummoxed at the fact that I don't have more
people who are hating on me, right, because I.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Definitely maybe after this show, maybe well yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Maybe you've got some good haters on the internet, so
maybe they find their way to me. But I think
I think it's probably two things. One is, I think
that when you hold up the examples and the screen shots,
it's really really hard to dispute one. Two, And I
think I think it deserves pointing out. I'm also shooting
(11:46):
at a target that probably isn't inclined to shoot back. Right.
It's not just like a policy fight or something where
I have a disagreement with someone the press, as much
as I may malign them, you know, in terms of
the way that they cover certain things, I think is
a noble enough institution where the idea, in most cases,
of getting in a shooting war with this random guy
on Twitter probably doesn't appeal to the sensibilities of most people.
(12:10):
I did one time, the only time that sticks out
to me when I actually faced like real meaningful pushback,
was an editor at the Washington Post, and one of
my threads that I did probably four years ago now
commented and disputed the way I had categorized a piece
because I called it news and she said it was
(12:31):
actually analysis. And to me, all question does is highlight
the problem with news analysis as built by places like
the Arty to Post. Right, If you're saying it is
analysis as something distinct from news, why is analysis categorizing
your news pieces? Right?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Why isn't it in the opinion section? That would make
sense there?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, yeah, So I that was kind of the one
example where I really think about someone someone from the
you know, from within the cathedral kind of pushback, and
I think maybe did not avail herself of the best
tact to do so.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Right, Yeah, that's a that's really interesting that you decided
that there's a separate category called analysis that doesn't somehow
go into the opinion section. But if I think all
of its opinion, I think they should just be more
honest about it. And journalists don't love when I say that,
but I think it's true. I think we're all writing
our opinion, and some of us are honest about it
(13:33):
and some of us aren't.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
So Yeah, Unfortunately, I think there's there's quite a bit
to be extrapolated from the confluence of news and analysis,
And I would love to sit down with like the
editorial newsroom and be like, how do we think about
these things? Yeah? What what is? What should news be? Right?
What should the thing you are presenting to regular readers
(13:55):
is removed from opinion? At? Really? Look like I think
they have a really fascinating one.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah. So you've had a tumultuous few years. I think
that for anybody who doesn't know your story, can you
tell us a little about it?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah. So, you know, back in early twenty twenty, probably
I started getting these thakes, and you know, it was
twenty so there's a part of me that was like,
you know, it's it's probably this is just what approaching
thirty is like I'm getting older, my body is changing.
I just I've just got to kind of make peace
with that. And so I, you know, at first it
(14:33):
just started I.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Love that thirty was like You're like, well, this is
this is where it all goes.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Down here, you know, Hey, I mean I was I
should have been the wiser, but I wasn't. But yes,
an uncharitable perhaps a description of my age at the time.
So I was, you know, I started getting these headaches,
and then it was I'd get these headaches and I
would be dizzy and have balance issues and I couldn't
quite figure out for a couple of months what all
(14:58):
was going on. And you, my then girlfriend now fiance,
had pushed me a lot to say, you should go
see a neurologist, like it's it's not normal that you
can't wake up without taking etc. Before you go to
work to be able to get out of bed. Like this,
I get. You don't love doctors, you don't love hospitals,
which admittedly I didn't, and so I just kind of
(15:20):
bit the bullet and tried to be a man, be
tough and YadA, YadA, YadA, and so I pushed it
off I pushed it off, and then eventually, I, you know,
the headaches got worse, the symptoms got worse, and I
told her, you know, mostly to kind of like, you know,
address her concerns and address my mother's concerns and plenty
(15:43):
of other you know, people in my life I talked to.
I was like, okay, I'll go to the eye doctor.
Right the eye dot. Maybe it's an issue in my contacts.
We'll see, We'll see how it plays up. So I
go to an eye doctor as a new one. God
blessed me. He did a really excellent job, and I
told him I've been having these headaches. So he took
a look behind my eye and the are kind of lighthearted,
(16:03):
banter dropped. He gave me more specific instructions to look
this way, look that way, and then eventually he flipped
around the screen he was looking at, which is a picture,
and he said, you're hemorrhaging around your own nerves. Said
He's like, you need to go to see a doctor,
(16:24):
like you need to go to the hospital yesterday about this.
There's there's something very wrong. I didn't know anything about
the healthcare system. I was like, can you write me
a can you write me a script or referral so
I can go. He goes wait in the waiting room.
This might be over dramatic, but I'm going to call
you an ambulance and they're going to take you to Astor.
And he's like, doctor, but you know that doesn't make sense.
(16:47):
But it's like, here, I haven't paid enough attention to
the people who probably know better on this than I do.
Why didn't I just sit down and shut up for
like the first time probably in my medical history. And
so flash forward. I go to the doctor. They realized
that I was indeed emerging around my optic nerve. The
reason was that I wasn't reabsorbing cerebro spinal fluid back
(17:09):
into my brain, and so it was building up in
the back of my head and putting pressure on my
optic nerve. They recommended surgery, which went as well as
you could have hoped. I had basically a burhole drilled
in my brain to at least the pressure and thought
that would be everything. That was in maybe May of
twenty twenty two, and so I thought, Okay, we're set,
We're done. I had this brain surgery really weird, but
(17:32):
you know I was I was back in the gym.
I was getting ready to go back to work. I
was running and I went in for my thirty follow
out to that surgery and surgeon neurosurgeon who done surgery
originally called me and he said, hey, we do and
there's a ship. It turns out that shoto that was
(17:54):
a brain tumor.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It was the day for my Wow, So what is
what happened then?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
That resolved? Yeah, you know, obviously the tough news to hear.
Talked to doctor Johns Fonpkins, who I've been working with Baltimore.
They determined a course of chemo, so I you know,
they took a look at it. They realized it was inoperable.
It was like right smack in the center of my brain,
(18:26):
and so they sat down and kind of talked me
through what chemo would look like. I had a port
put into my chest so I could have an IV
line straight through there, and then I did probably four
months of chemotherapy, which you know, thank god, it worked
and my body was super responsive to the chemo. The
tour was super responsive to the chemo, and my body
(18:46):
actually handled it quite well relative to you know, the
horror stories you hear about chemo and then I started radiation.
I did that for about two months and that also
worked really well. By the end of it, I was
declared cancer free. So as of now a year in
a remission, uh those signs of tumor, no signs of cancer.
I still get to go back and get check ups.
(19:06):
You know, there's still a lot I'm working on. I
had to go through physical therapy to kind of figure
out how best to walk normally. Again, my extemporaneous ability
to kind of speak off the cuff isn't what it
once was. But I'm I think I'm back around a
year later to a point where most of my intellectual
and balanced shortcomings are my own, as opposed to be
(19:27):
induced by the cancer, which I'm fably fortunate to.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Meaner about it. Thank you jokes about brain cancer.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I mean, that's you know, that's that's fair. You know,
I did. I did find throughout the process. And again
I don't want to I don't want to say this
as in like, oh, I'm just a you know, I'm
uniquely tough about these circumstances, like I got a really
really positive prognosis relative to you have an inoperable brain
tumor right from the jump. They thought it would be
(19:56):
really responsive to chemo, and thankfully it was. But I
I did find considering those things that it helped me
a lot, and I think probably helped the people around
me to be able to talk about it in a
way that was a little more lighthearted. Right and particularly
now that it's a little bit further in the rear
view mirror. I'll never be out of the rear view mirror,
but now that's a little bit further downfield. I kind
(20:19):
of have an arsenal of new jokes that I use
because I want to. I don't want it to mean
anyone else who's in similar circumstances. But I got to say,
as someone who talks too much, the idea that I
had a brain tumor maybe informing some of my terrible
opinions is like really easy fodder, right like right, yeah,
(20:39):
And this is why I don't want to say I'm
disappointed that I don't have more haters. But one of
the things I always think about is one of these days,
I'm going to say something really dumb and someone's going
to use this as a cudgel, and I'd rather going
to get try and get ahead of that. The Internet's
a mean place. I might as well get ahead of that,
and the best way I can.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
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(22:06):
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Speaker 1 (22:20):
So, what is your You mentioned before we started doing
the show that you you did a run. What's what's
your run all about?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yeah? So, one of the things that I didn't get
to do because as I was going through chemo, that
I've talked about doing since before I moved down to
DC eight years ago is the Army ten miler, which
is just like the name sounds like, it is a
ten mile run. I don't really like running, Carol, I'll
be honest.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
But anybody likes it. I think anybody says.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
That they like it or just saying I talked to
some runner. I talked to a runner last night, and
he was like, you know, if you get more in
the habit of it, you'll enjoy it. And I actually
don't believe that. I hope that's true. I hope you're right,
but I'm a very hard time believe in that. But
so I you know, I look at it a little bit.
I'm Catholic, and so I look at it almost as
like a physical penance that like you know, if I
(23:09):
haven't been eating well during the week, I haven't been
working out as often as I should, at least I
can kind of grab my running cat of nine tails
and go for it once a week and push myself
to do it. And so I saw after, you know,
after I finished treatment, I was like, okay, I want
to get back to running a five k, right, I
want to get back to running a little bit. I
want my one of my goals as I'm going through
physical therapy to be I want to run a five
(23:31):
k and do it out in public and be able
to have the little metal at the end of it
and say, look, I did this thing right. It's a
little it's like a gold star on my refrigerator kind
of thing. And so I did that and it went
better than I expected. And so I ran another five
k and then I ran a ten k, which is
about six miles, probably three months ago or so. And
(23:51):
after the ten k, I felt really good. You know,
I know I'm saying I want to breakfast and yeah,
and I said to myself, I was like, you know what,
you've been talking with this Army ten for eight years.
Every year and new excuse, I tweaked the cav the
first year, and obviously that the brain tumor.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Excuse.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, it's a little more thorough of an excuse, I
would say. But I was like, you know what, you're
up for it. You can do this, and the training
process will be good for you. It'll help get you
back in shape, and it will help you feel. You know,
I could feel a little bit like I'm back to normal,
doing had as second on physical aspirations. And if you
(24:31):
had told me that a year and a half whatever,
maybe I had a hard time believing that. Certainly would
be very grateful if you knew the future. And so
I signed up for the Army ten mile or I
got up to about nine miles before, so I had
some degree of confidence I could do it. The race
was a week and a half ago, and I did it.
I ran the whole race. I ran it slowly, but
(24:52):
I ran it faster than any ten mile run I've
ever done. I beat my pre cancer time by fifteen
seconds a mile. It's amazing, which felt almost like exercising
a demon A little bit right to be able to
say like, Okay, I may never fully be back from
this cancer experience, but I was able to do this
thing and that feels really good. Yeah, And I think
(25:14):
far more importantly what I did as part of the
run was I raised some money. And so I'm familiar
with a charity called Undue Medical Debts. Some of your
listeners may be familiar with it. They buy up medical
debt that people have that is a burden over their
heads that some studies put the amount of medical debt,
which is money that people owe publicly or privately because
of the care that they need. Something like forty percent
(25:37):
of Americans based on some survey, have medical debt. Wow.
I was really fortunate during my experience to have really
excellent insurance, and so I don't have medical debt. But
I remember looking at the price tag on the original
brain surgery, and I wouldn't have had six figures to
shell out if I didn't have insurance, or if I
didn't have really excellent insurance, right, And so it it
(26:00):
struck me that there are millions and millions of people
living under this burden, that it's them from making the
financial decisions they want to, from owning a home, from
putting their kids through college, right from buying groceries for
some people, and so undo medical debt what they do
is they buy up that debt so that they can
then privately forgive it rather than try and go through
(26:22):
the government or anything, which I think is a super
noble and super important effort.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, and so as as part of this run, I
encourage people to donate to a fundraiser I was doing,
which you can still donate to. I haven't I haven't
buttoned it up yet, but I've been able to raise
about twenty five hundred dollars for them that I think
is going to go to the website. Yeah, so I've
got a link at fundly. If you search on fundly,
it's I think it's Drew's Army ten miler run. But
(26:48):
if you just search Drew hold and fundly, you can
find it. Or you can donate directly to undo medical
Debt there at undomedical Debt dot com.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Excellent. So you've been through this, you know, obviously really
traumatic experience. You've come out on the other side, you know, thankfully,
and you're doing these amazing things and accomplishing things that
you've wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
What do you worry about now? Have your worries changed? Yeah,
that's a good question. I think I worry about my
health a lot more than I did right for obvious reasons.
But I think one of the things that the experience
has taught me, or it gets encouraged in me, is
to be more attenuated to my body and my surroundings
(27:30):
and also like the body and surroundings of my friends. Right.
I've had a lot of people since I shared my
story who have come who have called me or texted
me or come up to me and said, hey, like,
I'm having these dizzyness issues, like I have trouble with light,
Like what do you think? And so I think trying
to be more attenuated to those needs, both my own certainly,
but in my friends and family and loved ones as well.
(27:52):
And I think this is probably because you know, the
downstream implications of the metod the healthcare system in this
country are deeply problematic in many ways, but I think
the logistics stress me out in a way that they
didn't before. I think, like the you've got to be
like for radiation, So I did radiation every morning at
(28:14):
six thirty for like two months, and if I missed
a slot of radiation like their books solid right, and
it would be it would be a huge impediment to
my ability to recover, and so I think they're like,
I'm much more punctual on the backside of this thing.
But I think as a thing that leads to the
punctuality is that I worry a lot more about logistics
and time details. Some of that's healthy, maybe maybe some
(28:37):
of it not so much.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self,
having again survived something like this, Like, you know, what
would you want him to know?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yeah, I think I would tell him to listen to
the women in your life about everything good one but
particularly thank you, but particularly about help. Right, Like I
almost lost vision and water both eyes because I didn't
(29:12):
listen to my again, my fiance. If I would have
just listened to her when she was like, you should
go see a neurologist, it would have saved me months
of pain, maybe made my chemo course easier, and certainly
have you know, have avoided some of the really bad
symptoms that I had. I think there's obviously a lesson
(29:35):
there about like listen to your body and more set
particularly for men. I think there's also the reality for
men that our desires to ourselves or to the world
that were so tough that we don't need help, particularly
help from loving and caring women, is often misguided and
(29:59):
should be the sort of thing that we we don't
entangle with a manliness because I just don't think that's
right and it doesn't help anyone.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I'm sure that's true. But I would just say, as
somebody who hates going to the doctor and who puts
off everything as long as possible, who has a husband
who is like, dude, you've been coughing for two months,
like you have to go handle this, I would tell
you it's not all gendered. But yes, I feel like
(30:28):
women in general do go to the doctor like they'll
they'll they'll be much more likely to like, just do
it right, and I think men are less likely. But again,
it doesn't always work out that way because I am
the absolute worst at it.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
And yeah, you're right, I think I think there is
a wisdom element.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I lack the wisdom.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Maybe some more coming up in a moment. But first,
last week, Americans voted in one of the most consequent
quential elections in our history. With all that is happening,
we know that the support of Americans like you means
so much to the people of Israel, especially now the
past year, not only have we seen the war rage
on in the Holyland, but we've seen an alarming rise
(31:16):
in anti Semitism. That's why I'm a proud partner of
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. They have been
building bridges between Christians and Jews for over forty years,
and since that time have been on the ground helping
the vulnerable and providing security for Jews in both Israel
and Ukraine. Thank you for your support during this critical time.
(31:40):
Your gift helps the Fellowship provide food, necessities and security
to those most in need. Standing with Israel and the
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IFCJ dot org to learn more and make a gift now,
that's support IFCJ dot org or call to give at
(32:01):
eight eight eight for eight eight if CJ that's eight
eight eight for eight eight four three two five.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Well, I've enjoyed this conversation so much. I've been a
fan of yours for so long. I think you do
such fantastic work, and I'm so glad that you're on
the other side of this, and i hope you stay
healthy and keep growing and keep doing great things. And
us here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
This is time too, So first off, thank you for
your words. I'm a huge fan of yours and it
really fills my market. You say maybe two charitable things. No,
thank you, thank you for saying some. So my somewhat
counterintuitive tip would be to put the phone down, close
(32:53):
the computer, and spend more time. You know, I was.
I think I was forced into this when I was
going through treatment. But spend more time to the people
who matter to you in your life, your loved ones,
your family, your friends, your spouse, your significant other. You know.
I think it's It can feel a little bit trite,
but when when you are presented with a kind of
(33:14):
a moment of impending mortality, it's really easy to say, oh,
I should have spent my time better. I get a
little flash of that, I think from my experience, and
I think one of the things that I try and
do as someone who admittedly still spends way too much
time online, right, one of the reasons I can have
these screenshots exactly. One of the reasons I have all
these screenshots is I spend too much time reading things.
(33:37):
But I think I would encourage folks to find a
healthier balance, and particularly when you're spending time with that
significant other, with your spouse, make that meaningful quality time.
Don't make that Twitter time or Twitter time together. Yes,
and what that means and what that looks like can
be all sorts of different things, but prioritize that cherish that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I love it. Thank you so much, Drew Holden. Check
out his substack hold in Court. He's really great.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Thanks so much, Drew, Carol the Pleasures Mind, thanks so
much for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
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