Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
A lot of people give a lot of bad advice on the internet, but I've noticed a particular trend recently that I think is just really prevalent and it's spreading, so.
I'm going to address it. It's what gets told to women who yearn to get married and have a family, and it's just some of the worst advice around. In the British newspaper The Independent, a woman wrote in saying the following quote. I'm thirty one and have been with my boyfriend for twelve years. He is my favorite person in the world, but I have spent the past year devastated by the realization that he is never going to ask me.
To marry him.
He doesn't agree with marriage and hates the idea of a day full of attention. All my girlfriends are married, and although I'm so happy in my relationship, I can't help but compare and despair every time I go to a wedding. I lost my dad when I was very young, and also feel sad and unreasonably bitter at the fact that most of my friends get it all. A dad and a husband, a father of the bride speech a perfect white wedding. I know I want to grow old and gray with my boyfriend, and we both.
Want children soon.
But I still feel sad about the wedding that we're not having and the memories that we're not making with friends and family.
Please help me. End quote.
The column is called Dear Dolly, and Dolly responds with just about the worst answer I can imagine. She starts out talking about how romantic weddings are and how even she Dolly, has gotten caught up in that, despite the fact that she herself does not want to get married. Dolly writes quote, I'm sorry it's causing you such distress. I know of other women who have been put in your position, and they too were surprised at how much it bothered them. I admire how clear eyed you are
about what it is. You want a big, traditional wedding where you and your partner's relationship is celebrated. And it seems obvious to me that because of his personality type, this is not something he would find enjoyable. This doesn't seem to be about his commit meant to you. End quote. Uh, yeah, sure. The Brits have this thing where you can bet on just about anything, what color the princess will be wearing,
what celebrity will die this year, and so on. Well, I'd placed the bet that if this couple broke up tomorrow, he'd likely marry the next person he dates. It's a well worn path that many people have taken before him. Dolly goes on, quote in your longer letter, you mentioned that he says he doesn't want to get married because it is a patriarchal institution. End quote. I mean, lol, Honestly, he won't marry her because of the patriarchy.
What a good guy. There was a time where.
Men said they wouldn't marry their girlfriends until their gay friends could marry. Lena had Dune him, the actress's longtime boyfriend, famously said this, and then gay marriage became legal and they still didn't get married. Fight the patriarchy, right, Do whatever your boyfriend wants to do, and don't make him have to consider your feelings. Girl power. Dolly gives her some tips on talking to her boyfriend about maybe having a non traditional wedding, and then says, quote, another thing
you may want to consider is a big birthday. A wedding is not something I dream of, But a big birthday has become a shining day in my calendar year. For my thirty fifth I wore a Vivian Westwood dress black not white, and took some friends for dinner on a canal boat. My best friend made a beautiful speech. Everyone got up to no good. It was wonderful. Why not redirect your wedding longing into a big birthday party? Be utterly shameless about it. Ask your boyfriend to make
a toast by yourself a ridiculous outfit. Tell your best friend your favorite flavor of cake. Let yourself enjoy the celebration and attention you long for. Let yourself be showered in the love and silliness and fuss that you deserve. Do it completely on your own terms. You may wake up the next day to find an itch.
Has been scratched.
End quote. And that's just completely misreading what this woman wants. She wants the traditional picture of the wedding and the marriage, a big birthday party, be serious. She says specifically that she's jealous her friends get to have it all, dad and a husband. She wants what women have wanted for hundreds and maybe thousands of years. The questioner is not the.
Weird one here.
The people gaslighting her into believing she shouldn't want this because of the patriarchy or whatever. Are the ones rewriting something basic and obvious. People want to tie themselves to each other in front of their friends and family. They want the wedding, yes, but they want the marriage. They want what has worked and not the latest thing that probably won't. Coming up next, an interview with New York City Councilman Joe Borelli. Join us after the break. Welcome
back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Republican leader of the New York City City Council and generally decent human Joe Borelli.
Hi, Joe, how are you? Great to see you?
So nice to have you on counselman anytime.
I just I wish I was where you are right Noway.
I wish you were where I was also, But somebody has to hold it down in New York City, and you know that's.
Been you for many years. Now. How's it going?
I mean, we're still floating. Things are okay. Things are not as bad as I think they were maybe a year ago, and you know, six months ago even so, there's some positive news. Crime is ticking down just slightly. The migrant crisis is abetting itself ever so slightly. Unfortunately, now we're seeing the convergence of the crime and migrant crisis in the form of some high profile incident instead
of occurred. But other than that, the city financially is doing okay, and we'll still be here I think in a decade or so.
So how is the migrant crisis a betting itself?
I mean, just from the news, it seems to not be a betting itself.
Well, the number of people in our care not only stayed at about hundred seventy thousand people, but it trickled down ever so slightly. So we've been molemented a sixty day eviction process, which has seen some results. We've also stopped leasing new hotels. More people have gone into tents. It turns out people don't like to stay intense for too long, so eventually it works out where they work out.
Interesting, Okay, I get that.
So one thing that I asked everybody on this show, and I feel like asking a New York City council and you might have extensive answer, But what would you say, is our largest societal problem and is it solvable?
You know. So I saw your question when you emailed me this, and I wanted to say something entirely predictable, but I'm going to not do that. I'm going to say something that I think is the case. And it's kind of a deep, dark secret that maybe I think this way. I actually think it's our sense of entitlement, because that is, it's a broad disease that infects every race, color,
and creed, and especially younger people. But I think it's this sense of entitlement as to what people are owed when they wake up in the morning that is going to make the US long term less competitive than anywhere else. And I just never understood it, and I've seen it in my you know, twenty years as a professional person with a job where you know, when I started in politics. In fact, when I started in politics, my first job was an intern, and then after college, my first job
in politics was to hang posters around town. I mean just you know, literally taking a stack of heavy posters rolled up and walking from business to business and introducing myself and giving a pitch for this candidate I was working for at the time, and like that was that was how you started. Now, I mean people won't even volunteer for a campaign, and I put air quotes in volunteer unless they're paid, and they're paid well and they're
getting a minimum wage. We just had a unionizing effort by the staff of the City Council where now legislative staff is unionized. And again I'm not opposed to you unions, but these are fundamentally at will employees. These are people who are you know, I get elected glect where we gets elected. Yeah, we're in charge of hiring people that are part of their team, and they're at will employees. But now they're unionized and there's an entitlement that they
get at regular raises. Not to mention just what people's expectations are coming out of college, what people's expectations are in terms of government support. Look at the migrant crisis. We've always had migrants, right, New York City has always had immigrants, migrants, legal, illegal. Ever you kind of wear in between over the past, you know, four hundred years of our city sixteen twenty five, almost five hunred years. So we're not used to we're not not used to
having people come here. We're just not used to having people come here with everything paid for, with every aspect of life being accounted for. So I think, if you had to ask me what you did, what is the biggest problem in our culture going forward? I think it's entitlement.
So what do we do? How do we solve this?
Well, I can tell you how I'm I'm doing with my own kids. You know, I'm trying to make my kids work for things, you know, every you know, everything from privileges to their own little freedoms and ability to go out with their friends. I mean, so, I mean,
that's that's what we're doing in the Barelli household. How society implements that, I'm not really sure, but it can't just be you know, because you're breathing, you are entitled to X, Y and z. Because you think you've got a degree from a fancy institution, you should be entitled
to some other series of benefits. I think letting people, you know, you look at a country like Israel, for example, where there's you know, compulsive military service, right, And I'm not saying the military is for everyone, but but but when you have a compulsive military service, you know you have to do without for a period of your life. And look at the products downstream of that, where you have one of the most innovative societies on Earth, one
of the most entrepreneurial societies on Earth. And that's that's one credited to the fact that they make every kid when you're a kid, when you're eighteen, go out and earn some respect, earn some self worth, earn learn about what you're able to do and how you can.
Produce interesting How do we translate that here without compulsory you know, military service. How do we teach this new generation, next generation that they can't just expect things that they don't get out of college and make six figures. And who's lying to them, I guess is the better question. Who is telling them to have these expectations.
I mean that answer comes from this expectation that college is for everyone, that there's a government loan for you to go to college and you're not going to actually pay for it. I mean, I have college loans, but I chose to go to a college that gave me the biggest scholarship. You know, I wanted to go to a good school. Right, No one wants to go to bed school. And when you can make good schools, you want to go there when I went to the best school that I could in order to have the least
amount of debt possible. Yeah, look, I saw my own parents. My dad was an MTA worker, my my mother, did you know, various jobs over the years, no sort of career. But like I, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't. We didn't go sit court side at the next I've never even been to a next game.
Now, think about it, you've never been to a next game.
No, I don't think I've ever been to you a fan. No, I hate basketball.
I hate basketball too, but I still have to go to games sometimes.
No, never, never. I mean, we just didn't do those things. We just we were always comfortable. We were middle class. We never had luxuries.
But but I just wanted the headline after this interview to be like New York City councilman hates basketball hates.
The end which could if that's the headline, I wish that was the headline. I don't mean, I'm sure fat and white. So like, basketball was never never really an option for me. In fact, I could remember in like the third grade just playing into mural rec league at the parish gym, and I would get the ball, and I'd get so scared I'd crunch up into a ball and then I throw it over my head and hope. This guy named Joan man Ferana, he's a he's a big guy man. He used to play pretty well.
Did you generally catch it?
Generally caught it and made a basket, and like we went on to great things.
Nice.
So you're only the second politician I've had on this show, because I generally don't find politicians that interesting. But you and Ted Cruz are you know, the two exceptions to that.
He's interesting.
Who do you like?
Like?
Who are the politicians you find interesting?
Who else should I have on the Carol Mark Wood Show.
Politicians I find interesting are people who write, So everyone from Benjamin Disraeli to Boris Johnson to Steve israel I think I think when you're a writer, anybody in America or a long time ago. So I like people who can frame thoughts in like written written works. So that's who I find interesting. Other just general politicians I find interesting. Some of my colleagues I actually find that they are
interesting people. Some of the diverse backgrounds, you know, genuinely have me interested in their life experience, There's one guy, you know, Kevin Riley. He he is a black man South Bronx has a fatherhood based nonprofit where he is just always talking about fatherhood and being a role model as a as a as a man, as a dad in the community. I find his whole thing just so really interesting. He'd be an interesting person to have on
a show like this. National politics is so boring. I mean I liked they threw him out of Congress, you know what I mean, Like, like that was bizarre. He was like he's nuts. I know him, he's a nut job, but he was interesting. Right, It's not a it's not a it really is not a profession that rewards a centrism and originalism. Although you know, we've had Donald Trump, we have Javier Malay, we have these these exceptions to
my rule. But as a general rule of thumb, Man politicians are so boring, Like even the ones that know how to tweet a little bit or like I think they're they're wild, but like they wouldn't they wouldn't be getting you know, any followers as content creators had they not been the US Senator from Oklahoma or something.
Right, I'm gonna have to look up who you're talking about after this show.
Cotton Center. I mean, like he's just he's got a good interesting guy. But like if he was just a host on CNBC, I wouldn't be watching him.
I understand that we're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Do you feel like you've made it? I mean being on the New York City City Council and you were one of the few Republicans for so long, Like, do you feel good about it?
Do you feel like you've made it?
So? I feel good about it because I accomplished one minor goal. So there was a school for handicapped kids that I ran for office too built. I wanted to knock down this. It was like an old temporary building, like one of those QUANTT huts, like Vietnam era QUANTCET hut to make people think about what the building was. And this is where we were sending handicapped kids or physically and developmentally disabled, and it was just it was
an appalling thing. And I set out to do it and we got, you know, sixty million dollars or so we built them a brand new, massive school and it's wonderful. So like I'm one of those people where like everything after that is cake. Right, That's that's a little thing that I could rest my head and say, you know what, I did something good for people. By the way, now we have the school. Now the PTA chirps in my ear every day for this and that there's problems all
over the place. It's still better than having the floor rotting out from this quantt hunt. But like bigger picture, have I made it? And what am I going to do next? Or kind of like interestwine, right, I think everyone has to figure out whether they're a person who's
motivated by money or they're motivated by ego. And like so like I've met my ego threshold where like I have become a certain degree of famous, like not you know, big fish in a small pond, right, I you know, I get to be on TV on a regular base. I mean, people watch Fox, Fox Business News, Maxine. They watch this stuff religiously, and I'm just so blessed to
be able to go on these shows. People read the New York It's like the biggest circulating paper in the country, and you get to write a lot the best.
Best newspaper in the country. Left the humans words here in New York.
Post Barn and I get to publish with them, you know, every couple of weeks I submit something and they're They've been great to me. So, like being a Republican on the city council, the best you can hope for is to influence political thought in New York City. And again, New York City bigger in terms of population and budget than Switzerland. It's not it's not just a regular municipality. Yeah, so I guess I've made it. Other people will say like, well,
what's it all worth? Like, like, what am I going to do next?
It?
Do I do I continue this path where I want to keep running for off or keep doing things that that sort of meet my my own personal vision of accomplishment, like really like my ego and stuff. Or do I say like, Okay, now I'm going to work in the private sector and can I earn more money?
Yeah?
And those things aren't mutually exclusive, but finding the one that that checks both boxes is tough. Even if you're a house painter, for example, you know you want to make the most money painting houses, but you also don't want to be the worst house painter in the town you live in. Right, So, like there's like a professional accomplishment that you want to be, whether you're painting houses or or you know, the next remote And even if you're not motivated by money, you still want to have
enough to be comfortable. So I don't know. I guess for me, it's finding that right balance. And and so the answer is no, I don't think I have that right balance yet.
Well that's just no, yeah, all right. I mean, you know, it's funny.
You know, it's funny because when I think of you. So I saw you in December on the West coast of Florida. It was my first time on the West coast. We had, you know, a super great time. Wait, what's that place called again?
Seed to Table? Shake, See to Table.
I'm sorry, yeah, see to Table.
I live down the block. I need you to be my best friend.
Yeah, Seed to Table. It was unreal, incredible. We had the best time, and you seem so comfortable and natural and happy in Florida. And I'm obviously a Florida evangelist.
I want you here.
But then I have this thing where I just think you're like the only shot New York has, Like I think, without you, I don't know what happens to New York without Joe Borelli.
So I kind of want you.
Here so we could go have beers at Seed to Table. But I also want you to fix the city.
That I love, and you know, maybe I.
Don't know, run for mayor or you know, something like that and really really turn that place around.
You know, if something I don't I don't root against people at all. I don't don't move against Bill a Blasio person. I don't root against you know, Kathy Hochel. I rooted against Andrew Cuomo because he's a bad human being, like human being, genuinely bad person. I just think Bill de Blasio is dopey and had bad ideas. Kathy Hochel's kind of ineffectual, you know, but like a nice I had lunchurder in the past, and she's a nice person, right.
I'm not a fan, but okay, bad bad person. Yeah, I agree with you about Bill de Blasio. I think he was just, you know, has terrible ideas.
I texted him Bill, the die job looks great because he died. Like I'm kind of nice, but it's like it sounds sarcastic and kind of I don't know, being nice or not anyway. I'm Staten Island for I'm not New York first. I am a Staten Island through and through. If Staten Island succeeded, I would run for mayor and
about Eric Adams. If Eric Adams against jams up and resigns and there's like a two or three month race to replace him, non partisan race, maybe I throw my hat in the mix, just just to give people alternative. So I don't think I have a chance of winning, and might not act we do it. But I am so Staten Island that every day of my life I wake up and I think, how I love like Staten Islands so unique, right, it's so unique, and it's so introverted, and we all know each other and we all work
together and everyone knows everyone. It's like the it's the pinnacle of small town big city neighborhoods. When you watch a movie about Boston and like you look at Southey, like that's not real. It's real on Staten Island. That's how Staten Island is so like every day in my life it's like I don't know whether I'm gonna be living here and touting Staten Island till till the day I die. Or the most Staten Island thing ever is that I spend half my day on Zillo saying I
gotta get out of this place. This is the worst thing. That is even more likely to buy a burial plot in Resurrection cemetery a quarter mile from where I'm standing than another house in Staten Island. But like it's like that is the most New York City thing ever is spend how much time on z right.
And you know, you used to talk about Staten Islands the seating, and that was like the scariest thing for some you know, a conservative living in Brooklyn.
Staton Islands the seating means.
You know, we're going to get far left leadership for the other four boroughs. Is Daton Island's the only holding the only thing holding that place together.
So but now that I'm gone, I'm like, maybe Saton Islands is the seat.
Maybe Joe Burrelli's mayor of Staten Island.
You know what the city needs to do is really implement non partisan, open, open elections basically, you know, because I mean Chicago has this in Chicago's the only really bad example because they're corrupt and crazy. But again, the Chicago, the mayoralty came down to a razor thin race between
a guy who was rational and reasonable, a Democrat. I think it was against Paul Fallis and the that crazy guy who is now the mayor who wants to get rid of the shot podder technology literally the audio radar thing that the texts gun fire and sends the police he wants to get rid of anyway, Wait, why.
Does he want to get rid of it? He probably raised.
He is so woke, he's like asleep like that. He thinks that that because you know, it's a similar scenario where it's hyper low turnout and the craziest person wins. New York could be like most other major cities in America where it's nonpartisan open elections, where yes, the person who's running is endorsed by the Democratic Party. They tout themselves as Democrats. Yes, the person who wins in most
urban cities and many big cities are our Democrats. More often than not, they're of the same race, color, and creed of the people who live in that city. We're not trying to change that, but having that open primary opens the voter turnout to more moderate, rational people, and the net effect on the city councils and the mayorships and whatever elected official they have is a positive thing. That's why New York City Council is always in the news. It's not just because we are the biggest city in
the country. It's because we do some dumb things in sas the guy wanted to ban the ice cream truck last year, that was his big proposal.
My kids heard about that in Florida. They were like the ice cream shop ban in New York City, like made national news.
Now we're gonna ban tide pods and stuff. But they're delicious.
Why would you ban them?
Did for that? Not even for that actual good reason, like they're killing the environment or something. I don't even know why. But like, we can't have we can't have nice things.
In me, can't have nice things.
Yeah, which is why again, you know, I feel like the future Joe BURRELLI lives in Florida because we get to have nice things here and it's you know, it would be nice to share those nice things with you.
So I got an email from my county commissioner a few weeks a few months ago. Maybe his name is Chris Hall. If you live in Callier County, and I'm
in Chris Chris Hall's district. I don't know the guy from Adam, but I sent him an email because I got his like, you know, quarterly update, and it said, hey, you know, just please to announce we were able to lower I think at the rate, we were able to lower the tax rate like the tiniest little hair and most people that means nothing, but to someone in government, I'm like, you were able to lower the taxes. I
wrote him the most effusively praiseworthy email. You are you are a champion, sir, you are a champion.
That's amazing.
He did respond. He seemed like a very nice guy, but like I was just so impressed with and Byron Donalds. Byron Donalds is my congressman down to Florida. I mean, this is a guy who who is genuinely in office for the right reasons. I mean his wife, what she's doing with with charter schools and stuff like that. I mean, these are people who we can all get behind and cheer for. And again one of he's one of those people that that fled Brooklyn, uh and settled in the
west coast of Florida. So you know, he might have the playbook for me. I don't know. I mean, I'm never gonna run for Congress. I'm gonna run for the border. If not, if I don't run North Naples.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know your New York's last great hope, So so if I see you in Florida, I'll know New York is done.
It's a good barometer.
Yeah. So I love talking to you, Joe.
I think we should do it again over beers, but end here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Go back to what I said earlier. Figure out whether you figure out what makes you happy, whether it's satisfying your ego and your sense of accomplishment, meeting goals and challenges,
or you're motivated by money. And I don't think those two things are equally are mutually exclusive, But I think you'll find happiness if you just acknowledge who you are as a person and what motivates you and what makes you happy, because then you'll be able to take a step back and figure out the best path for you that achieves some goals and makes you at least financially stable enough to live a comfortable.
Thank you so much, New York City Councilman Joe BURRELLI loved having you on, See you soon. Thank you so much, Thanks so much for joining us on The Carol Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.