Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowin Show on iHeartRadio. After a few weeks of friendship content, I got a note and I want to respond to it because I think it's an interesting question. Here's the note. My boyfriend, age thirty six, and I, age thirty two, have been dating for six years. We are both Republicans, but in the last few years, I've moved further right and he's
moved further left. We love each other and plan to get married someday, but I'm afraid we're drifting politically from each other and that it will hurt our relationship in the long term. We went from agreeing on politics ninety percent of the time to disagreeing about fifty percent, even though we both voted for Trump after four bad years of Biden. What do you think? Well, it's funny because
I want to answer your question. I really do. I want to talk about how political differences in a relationship can cause strain and how it's always better to be more politically aligned with your spouse rather than less, as it all goes back to values, right, and the fact that you're even writing in means that you know you guys are drifting apart in more than just politics. But I'm completely caught up in the fact that you're thirty two and he's thirty six and dating for six years
and planning to get married someday. It's just such a huge red flag for me that you've had this long relationship, not in your teen years or something, and you aren't engaged and still see this as something you'll do someday. This was an anonymous note or I would have reached back out to this person to say, are you sure politics is the problem here? It really sounds like something else is going on. He's thirty six, what's the delay here?
So yes, I do think that your valueues have criss crossed somewhere along the way, and that it may be a challenge for you guys to go the distance. I'd love to know which part of politics you're arguing about, what's at the core of the problem. Is it economic, is it social? Foreign policy? I'd say that if your arguments are about something values based, to you, something that you can't get over, you need to think twice about
this relationship. I remember my now husband and I argued about privatizing social security back when we were dating, and it was a passionate disagreement, but it ultimately didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. If we disagreed on something that I consider a deal breaker, I don't know.
Maybe if he believed in open borders and I very much don't, or if we disagreed on Israel, something that's a very touchy subject for me, or something that really mattered to me, maybe we wouldn't have been able to proceed. But we were also engaged within a year of dating because I was thirty and he was thirty two, and that's the path that thirty somethings take when they're on a committed relationship that they want to last. So more than anything else, figure out where you guys stand apart
from politics. What has been the delay in taking this next step? Don't wait another six years or imagine that it's only politics holding you guys back. Thanks for listening. Coming up next and interview with Bobby Barak. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Bobby Barak. Bobby is a columnist at the amazing website OutKick. Hi Bobby, so nice to have you.
On Carol happy to be here.
This is exciting. I feel like I've been reading you for a long time and here we are talking sort of face to face for the very very first time. How did you get into being a columnist at outre?
Yeah?
Pretty interesting.
So when I was in college, it's study Like you're still in college.
I'm not.
I was studying economics and uh it was fine.
I didn't love it, but whatever.
And I started a podcast just interviewing different media people. Really it's on my own time. It was very poorly produced, but that's okay. And a guy by the name of Jason McIntyre, who was running a website for USA Today called The Big Lead, said Hey, I like your grind, like your your your drive. I would like to bring
you on to write some stories for us. So I did that for probably three years, and one of the people who started to read me was Clay, who at the time owned out Kick one hundred independently.
He didn't have any partners.
Clay Travis for anybody who doesn't know who, this is the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast network on iHeart.
So just to bring it all full cert right, So there's some crossover there and this was twenty twenty, and it's a pretty interesting time in media because Dave Portnoy had just sold Barstool Sports I think for four hundred and fifty million dollars and he had started Barstool around the same time Clay had started out Kick, and he called me and said, you know, there's a really big opportunity to build something here with sports and politics. There's an election coming up. He goes, I think you would
be a really good addition. So he originally just reached out to me and two other people and he made this deal. He said, hey, if we sell this company in three years, I will give you X amount of money from the sale. And this was a three year plan and the company actually sold nine months later to Fox, so went it very well. And yeah, I mean since then the company has changed a lot. We're under a
big corporation now. But it really started with just writing online and Clay happening to like some of my work.
I love that. What's your beat at OutKick? Do you have one?
Not? Really pretty much is anything. I mean this fall I really focused on the election. I did a lot of electoral map projections and reaction and columns, but I tend to just focus on whatever I have a strong opinion on at the time. You can go from politics to culture, to sports, to race or really anything, which is what I like about OutKick. I think that a lot of times what happens with online writing is journalists are forced to cover the same beat over and over again, and.
There's not a lot of fodder always to fill it.
Like I read the USA today and I see somebody as a race and ethics columnist. Well, there's not a race and ethics story every single day, so you end up making up content just to fulfill that role.
I try to never that's a good point.
Yeah, what do you feel like you're most interested in right now to cover?
Well, definitely what's happening with the Trump administration, and there's so much that has gone wrong. I believe in the past a couple of decades within politics like this whole idea that the people still control this country as such a lie. You see people get in office all the time. They only act at the behest of their donors, but they get in power because of their voters.
So I like this.
Idea of not just Trump, but bringing in outsiders like someone like Pete Hegseth who was not groomed through the traditional permanent Washington standards.
That's fascinating.
Yeah, and the files have always really been fascinated by what happened to JFK RFK. We'll see they say they're going to release the files. I'm really interested in that. And I mean right now this week, of course, it is super Bowl week, so I have some attention on that as well.
Right, that's a big big deal. Did you always want to be in media?
Yeah, I think so. I probably going to think about it a lot till I was maybe sixteen. Then it hit me like, hey, you know, I got to figure out what I should do. Even though I regret focusing so much on that early. But when I was seventeen, there was this program program I guess there was an assignment we all had to do where we had to job shadow someone.
And I job.
Shadowed someone at a local radio station, really small radio station, country music radio station that played Rush Limbaugh. It was pretty cool, pretty influential in a small area. And after I showed up there and did my interviews and stuff, they offered me a job. I did my junior and senior year. I really liked that, and that's really how it started. What would have been the plan B That's a good question. I've always been fascinated by documentaries. I
guess that's still in the same lane of writing. But I still want to one day dig in do some stories that are told historically, maybe inaccurately, and finding out the truth of it. So I think I probably would have always done something in journalism, politics, current events.
But I didn't study economics.
So there was a time where I thought, well, maybe I'll be a stockbroker, a financial advisor, although I don't think I would be very good at given financial advice.
Maybe maybe you know, it could still happen. You don't know. So what is the documentary that you've got planned about? Come on, definitely have one in your head.
No, I mean I want to, Okay, So I whenever there's a big story, I start to read and find just some questions about it. Right, like a couple of years ago with the Russia Ukraine thing, I started to dig in deep to World War Two and I started to wonder, Okay, I work with David Hookstead, who's this history military buff, and he started telling me some things. I thought, maybe this doesn't add up. But there are even some smaller stories that I think would be interesting,
like the original rise of the Internet. What was the intent behind that?
Who?
What was the grand plan? I read a lot about artificial intelligence. Did the original people who invested in AI know what it could become? Which is artificial genetic intelligence where you're gonna have robots. So I just think there's so many stories there that I want to dig deeper. In the Old West, for example, Carol, I'm not sure if the way the Old West is presented is totally accurate.
We also saw that movie The Reverend.
Where Leonardo DiCaprio is molded by a bear. I don't think that story's true. No, cold it is. Now there's so many Old West shootouts and tails. Sure that's right either. That's all my.
Old West information from Young Guns too. The first Young Guns was not that great, but young Guns too. They can't be historically inaccurate.
Cannon, Yeah, I think they all are. The Mob.
I'm fascinated by the Mob. I don't think that's accurate either, especially during the age of the Five Families. So I just listed off like fifteen different topics right opinone's interested in any of them, but they all intrigue me right.
If anyone's interested in funding any of these projects, you've get in such a bobby, I agree. And also, yeah, well I was going to say, we have this thing in Brooklyn, you know, where we say there's no such thing as the mafia. You watch too many movies, So.
Okay, all right.
Also, and I've been open about this, maybe someone should take it up Fox somebody.
I think we.
Need a alternative to SNL, a conservative version, one that's funny, one that's willing to make fun of everyone. I want to work on that project too.
That's a really good idea. Actually, I mean, any conservative content really, because everything is so saturated with liberal opinion that anything conservative I feel like we do at least sort of. Well. I think it was Charles who said Fox picked up, you know, a niche market when they started half the country, So that was always a line that I really enjoyed. So documentaries, you know, maybe stockbrokering in your future. Is there anything you feel like you missed out on doing?
No, I mean, one of the cool things that I do is I pretty much have the editorial freedom to write about any topics, So I pretty much can do or explore any topic.
I watched. There's not much I miss out on.
I mean, would it have been cool to have a law degree to maybe break down some of these stories from that perspective. Yeah, But I'm so I'm so anti the whole college structure now that I really don't think I could have lasted longer. I just didn't like all of it. The more I've learned, I actually regret going entirely. I think that it was a waste of time. I think it's a waste time for a lot of people. So I don't think I would have wanted wanted to
go to law school. But I think the value of a law degree is pretty significant, right.
I mean, Clay Travis has a lot of degree. I was very interested to learn that. I think he uses it in his you know, definitely in his opinion making. I've heard him refer to different legal things in it. Sure it's useful, But I consider graduate school the most expensive mistake I've ever made. So and I only went for one year. I mean, it was a one year program, but it cost a whole lot. And nobody has ever asked to see my diploma or my grades or anything.
It was like, yeah, same here, Yeah, and just it's hard to, I think, quantify what you lose out when you go to college, because it is very hard, I think, to think independently there because you're surrounded by these wacky, very opinionated professors who pretty much demand that you think exactly like they do, and there's peer pressure all over the place. I understand if you're going for STEM you need that degree, but when it comes to liberal arts and stuff, I just I don't see it. I don't
think I learned much at all in college. I think you learn much more experiencing life, talking to people who do what you want to do.
In traveling.
I think traveling is very illuminating that a lot of times you can't do when you're in college because you have exams and you're spending so much money.
Right, you spend all your money on the textbooks and the classes that you can't go travel. It's an interesting question because I have my oldest is fourteen. I mean, this is a question we're going to be butting up against in the next few years. It's like, on one hand, you want to say college is pointless. I found it pointless. I agree with you. You know totally nothing that I learned in college has helped me even one iota along
the way, but it's the right of passage. I'm not sure that I'm brave enough to tell my kids to pick another path. If they have an idea, you know, what they want to do, and they college, great. But if they're like, I don't know what I want to do, I'm not sure I would just be like, well, go start working and figure it out. I don't know. It's really it's it's tougher than it seems to say to your kids, like, don't do the thing that everybody's doing.
Yeah, I think there's a lot to it. I interviewed Ben Shapiro on our site a couple of years ago, and he runs a business somewhat. I think he still has ownership and the company.
He said.
The problem is is that businesses are not legally allowed to make someone take an IQ test. SOW degree is pretty much just one way to realize, Okay, this person is capable of thinking. It pretty much is just key too, Okay, this person is competent. And but I don't think a college degree ever necessarily can guarantee that someone is capable of doing the job. Yes, they might be able to pass some test.
But I mean, I grew.
Up in a very, very small town and a lot of my friends are truck drivers. They build barns, roofs, farmers, and I find them much more independently minded than some of my friends who went to grad school and our accountants or teachers or professors. So I just don't buy into any of that at all. So I would not I will never tell someone not to go to college, because I think there are certain jobs that demand it. But if you want to be a journalist and independent journalist, don't, right, I.
Would say, just start doing it and see how that goes for you. Yeah, what do you worry about?
Oh that's a good question.
So if you'd asked me this ten years ago, I would have said everything I was. I worried about everything.
Can you look super young? Like I would be, like ten years ago you were like ten, right.
So seventeen ten years ago, So yeah, I worried about everything, But now I don't worry.
About a lot.
I would say, I think you worry that time is limited with people you really care about that you're older, right, Like, you can't guarantee that, and life takes you away from them geographically, just time wise, So you wonder, Okay, you know, are you spending your time wisely? Are you focusing too much on work? And maybe you should be visiting relatives.
I've had a lot of just sudden deaths in the family, and every time it's eye opening of oh, you know, maybe on that weekend I should have went to that family or a union. I think you worry about things that are out of your control. I mean, I never worry about myself, honestly, I feel like, whatever happens, I'll
figure it out. But the things that you can't control, like somebody you know getting cancer or getting sick, or dying in a car accident, I think those are things that are always in the back of your mind.
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
Live in the moment.
Right when somebody's upset, it's usually for one or two reasons. They're worried about the future, or they regret something in the past, they're worried that it's going to come up. Usually, when you just live in the moment and don't think about either the past or the present, I think you're usually pretty happy. Right, There's very few times where I've just been miserable in the moment.
The times that I've been like.
Full of anxiety or worried or depressed, it's something that happened before, or trying to make some hard decisions. So, especially when you're sixteen, don't worry so much about the future, because honestly, you're probably going to go on a path that you didn't predict. I know I certainly didn't. Right.
It's interesting because you said you were worrying ten years ago, and that was seventeen. You know, when I think about my sixteen year old self, that was a person free of worried. I had nothing to worry about, you know, I had parents who took care of me, and I didn't have you know, I didn't have to do very much other than go to school. But you were already kind of pre worrying all your all your stuff from adulthood.
Yeah, you do.
I think a lot of it is societal pressure too, Right. You have these teachers who are like, hell, you got to get a good SAT score to get into this college, or you start to You have a lot of decisions because when you're sixteen, you haven't really made real decisions. Yeah. I think when you're sixteen seventeen, you start to make some real decisions. Am I going to go to college? Should I get a job? Should I know, save money for a car? Is it worth going to this party
at night? Like I think you just you start to have to for the first time in your life calculate is something worth it or not? It could be very distressing, and it was for me.
Yeah. Absolutely. Where did you grow up?
A small small town called Peck, Michigan. I graduated Carol with I think twenty five people.
Wow, that's your entire grade?
Am I tire grade? Yeah?
Wow, that's crazy to go back a lot?
Not a lot.
There's not much there to go back to. There's a big I guess, but no, there's just really not much there. I grew up in a really small town. Never really was interested in like the big city life. Well, I've gotten to like it more over the past couple of years, I will admit.
What do you like about it?
The city life?
Yeah, I'm always curious about the transition, because, yeah, I grew up in a city. I never knew anything else, you know, I'm just curious how you go from small town to the city and enjoy it.
Well things A couple of things.
One is like, so I'm not too far from Chicago, and I know the reputation Chicago's awful. Like waking up in a hotel and walking down and seeing the architecture, the high rises, the skyscraper. I just think Chicago is beautiful. You have the river, and there's so much to do, especially in a city like that, and you can go to a sports bar one night, a comedy club the next. I didn't have that growing up at all. I mean, even to go to a Walmart was twenty five throwing drive.
So being able to walk somewhere and not have to drive there is pretty unique to me.
Right Yeah, And I mean Chicago has some really good cast roles that they call pizzas well.
So I have a hot take for you.
I want to hear it.
I think Chicago pizza is better than New York pizza.
Here's what you stop that right now.
New York pizza is not all that much different than everyone else pizza, right, Chicago is different.
It's like if you're.
Going different, it's very very different.
Yeah, if you're going to plame superiority you might as well go out your own way, right. It's like, yeah, I in New York, I'm not like you in New York pizza. I can get pizza anywhere, but if I go to Chicago, I can't really get that anywhere else.
I mean, sure, okay, Chicago's style of pizza, and then what everybody else is selling is New York style pizza. So they just stole New York style. It doesn't mean that it's great everywhere else, just as well better.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like I'm thinking a good example. It's like if you're going to go the red carpet, like if you don't want to look like everyone else, you want to be able to be remembered. We saw that during the Grammar. So no, I uh, I'm pro Chicago pizza, and I'm pro Chicago. Over in New York by the way, I Chicago.
These are some controversial opinions, and I'm you know, I'm kind of sour on New York in the last few years, but I mean, not not over chicgo. No, not worse in Chicago.
Look, I I.
Tell me everything, go ahead. I want to hear what Chicago's great.
So I think people are great So, first of all, the view of New York is great. The view of Chicago pretty similar. A lot fewer people in Chicago, so you get to walk without all the people. They're not peking on you, sneezing.
Eyes of freezing outside.
I like the cold. I like to call.
I know you're in Florida, in Florida. Yeah, I'm freezing over here.
Yeah.
People in Florida, they I mean, they think like fifty degrees is freezing. I'm good as long as it's not like ten. So go with the Chicago weather. The river, beautiful river ride, Lincoln Park, awesome area.
And also this is a real thing.
Despite you thinking, well, Chicago, there's all these taxi and uber drivers. They're very bad at driving, the Chicago drivers. Because there's a plus.
This is there you need to go.
Oh, how you're saying New York's drivers. I thought you were saying Chicago's Uber drivers are not that great.
Oh no, Chicago's Uber drivers are pretty good. The New York ones not at all. I mean, just bad drivers. Take a while. I've always missed something.
I feel like I'm like ten to fifteen minutes late, and they don't believe me. But it actually is the driver's fall. So yeah, I mean, check, check, check. I don't know what.
Well, yeah, you know, I don't even know. Maybe I'll give you Midwest drivers or better. But like we walk in everywhere.
They're nicer people in the Midwest.
Right, yeah, I mean, so, you know, I can't believe I'm gonna have to be defending New York here, but New York is the thing about New Yorkers are when I was a New Yorker.
We're good.
We're not nice. We're good people, we do good things, but we're not nice about it. Like, well, it's the it's the whole. The image that people share is you know, if a mom is standing with a stroller at the bottom of a subway stairs, somebody will just come by, grab her stroller, bring it up and not say one word, like not even look at her as they do it. So they're not polite, but they're good.
Well I've always said I think people the Northeast are the most aggressive, most interesting. People in the Midwest are the nicest. People in the South are the sweetest.
Does that all add up?
You believe that?
Yeah? In the West, I don't really care that much about Well.
Here's what they're doing out there like Left Coast whatever. I'm sorry everybody, you know, listeners. I didn't expect to go through such a controversial take, but you know, this is this is what happens sometimes guests, you know, go their own way.
Well, I mean, look, some people say that a lot of my opinion as they think are the minority. But I think the Chicago pizza one might be my most polarizing.
I could see that absolutely well, Bobby, I've loved this conversation except the part where you talk about Chicago being better than New York. Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Okay, okay, besides get out of New York, right besides yeah, best tip, I would say, do what makes you happy. Right, Like, at the end of the day, no one ever regrets a time that made them happy. You regret things you missed out, things that went wrong. But if going to an event or moving or hanging out with a friend, or I don't know, breaking up with somebody and finding someone new or just whatever it is, I think, chase happiness. Don't chase money, don't chase approval, don't chase status.
Chase happiness.
Love it. Thank you so much. Here is Bobby Barak check him out at out Kid. Thank you so much, Bobby for coming on.
I appreciate it.
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowit Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.