The Ryen Russillo Podcast - ‘Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King’ With Author Dan Jones

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Russillo is joined by Dan Jones to learn more about his latest book: ‘Henry V.’ They cover the formation of the monarchy in England and Henry’s belief that he was destined to be king, then discuss how we look back at historical figures today (0:36). Plus, Life Advice with Ceruti and Kyle (43:53)! How do I tell my student teacher he smells like weed? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Dan Jones Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Henry the Fifth is the book. Dan Jones is the author. A new book out right now. I enjoyed this one immensely. We'll get into some of the story of who Henry the Fifth was and the time that he was alive and everything that goes into it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I hope you read the book too because we didn't even touch everything that went on and a little life advice treat for you as well with an author episode. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro,

you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. I've talked about it a few times on the pod. So I'm very excited to do this. Just finished up Henry the fifth, Dan Jones, the author joins us now. And, uh, I had some holes in my medieval game, Dan. So this was able to fill a bunch of these in the battle between England and France, which again, I knew it was, I knew it was a little dicey, didn't quite realize all

of the the moving pieces. So thanks for doing this. How are you? Yeah, my pleasure. Nice. It's great to talk about it. Can we start with something where I just wanted to understand kings and the origin and the ruling and the accepted form of government. And, you know, around the time period, we're talking late 1300s, early 1400s for the premise of where we're at with the book, but, um, your

background, your understanding of like how this became the way during these centuries that it was the accepted form of government leadership. Yeah. Well, I mean, the story of, of Henry V takes place across the late 14th, early 15th century. By that point, nobody has really known in England any other form of government than

a monarchy, a monarchy sort of limited and in some senses assisted, in some senses resisted by institutions, parliament, councils of nobles, the church and so on. But monarchy is like age old at this point. I mean, you think about the regnal numbers of English kings, we're talking about Henry V, Richard II, Henry IV. These date back to a very specific time, and that's the Norman conquest of 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, William the Bastard, as he became known, William the Conqueror, came and invaded England. And from that point, kings are numbered, one, two, three, according to the frequency of

that name in the succession. There had been kings long before that as well. The great challenge prior to the Norman Conquest had been to impose a single kingship on the whole of England. The great break of the Norman conquest is that from that point on, kingship really does apply to the whole of England. There'd been these phases where kings, Alfred the Great, had tried to hold the whole of England, but then the thing of splintered, You'd had invasions from Denmark and Scandinavia. It's an age old system by this point, but really the moment everyone's

numbering things from is 1066. So the story begins as a young Andrew the fifth is basically learning, um, about his family, their place in the world, through Richard II. Can you give us kind of the family tree of Richard II, Henry IV, which obviously Henry V's father, and kind of Richard's entire deal and his approach to being the ruling king? Right. I mean, so that the basic principles we're talking about a dynasty that today we call the Plantagenet dynasty. They had been in power in England since 1154, Henry II, and there had been a sort of England

being part of an empire for want of a better word, which included parts of France as well and claims over Ireland, Scotland and such. By the time we get to the late 14th century, there's been a pretty lineal descent of kings actually. In the 14th century, a great king, Edward III, great by the acknowledgement of the people of his day and thereafter rules England, wins lots of victories in the wars against France, has a lot of children. Edward III dies after a 50-year reign in 1377 and is succeeded by his grandson, Richard II.

Richard II is the eldest son of the eldest son of Edward III. The missing link, therefore, is Richard II's father, known to history as the Black Prince, great warrior, but died before Edward III. So in 1377, both Edward III, his son, the Black Prince, died, and they leave as king therefore a young boy for Richard II, who's 10 years old at the time that he inherits the throne. Ten years old is not a great time to become a king. In some ways, it's much worse than any other age to become a king because you're entering the cusp of adolescence. There will be times in the Middle Ages where, in many kingdoms, where inheritance falls on

a baby, completely incapable of even understanding the job, let alone conforming it. And oftentimes that's okay because you have ruling councils who rule in the name of that child. The child won't get involved. Having a boy of 10 upwards to 18 on the throne is a real problem because they have some understanding, some political will, but they're also constrained by the law not to be able to fully exercise their office. It's a very awkward period. Richard II also grows up knowing no example of kingship. Because he's only 10 when his grandfather dies, because he never sees his father rule,

10 when his grandfather dies because he never sees his father rule. He has no model for what kingship looks like. He's told in 1377 when he comes to the throne, he's the messiah, basically. He's going to come and save England. The last years of his grandfather, Edward III's reign, have been years of corruption, decay, losses in the war of Edwards the king, then sliding into age-related dementia senility. So, Richard's told that he's going to save the kingdom. Well, that's also a dangerous thing to tell a child. You don't really want to tell a child that they're the Messiah. That's parenting 101, as well as politics 101. But he grows up sort of imbued with this sense and is then doubly outraged at all moments in his reign thereafter when he's

thwarted or stymied because he's like, I thought I was the Messiah. I thought I was the God-given savior of this country and now you're telling me I can't do X. Okay, so Richard II, despite this, grows up, his reign consists of a number of crises. There's a populist rebellion in 1381, known as the Peasants' Revolt. There is a phase of political resistance of various lords in his realm, trying to corral, constrain him, force him to rule properly. That's in the late 1380s. And by the time we get to the late 1390s,

Richard has proven himself time and time again to be a complete failure as a king. He's got a cousin, his first cousin, he's called Henry Bolingbroke. Henry is also a grandson of the great King Edward III via his father called John of Gaunt. And they're approximately the same age. They grew up parallel lives, but their characters are very different, and their paths through life are very different.

But there comes a crisis in 1397-89, where Richard the King accuses his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, of treachery and treason,ason effectively, forces him to fight a duel against another lord, banishes him from the kingdom, and takes away all his lands. That provokes Henry Bolingbroke, the cousin, into a rebellion. He gathers some forces in France, comes back and deposes Richard II. By now, the hero of our story, the second Henry to be Henry V, has been born. His experience as a young child is also not seeing functional kingship. It's seeing his cousin, first cousin once removed, Richard II, making a complete balls up of being king.

It's seeing his father struggling to come to terms with that and then rebelling. Cut to 1400, Richard's been kicked off the throne and murdered. Henry Bolingbroke is King Henry IV and his eldest son to be King Henry V is now the next in line to the throne. It's much easier if I draw you a family tree on paper. I realize I'd like to speak about this out loud, but that's the nuts and bolts. Yeah, but I think it's important because you, when I'm reading the Richard II stuff, I mean, this really is if people are fans of Game of Thrones, if you're fans of Braveheart, like it's, you can see how all of these stories are

inspired with all these different characters. Cause when you think of Richard II, you think of Joffrey, you know, where you're like, okay, it's too much too soon. And to your point, being told you're the Messiah, and it's like, it had really very little to do with ruling other than it was, well, I'm king and I'm just going to start taking everybody out that is questioning me as you had this like, you know, this group of, of people that were either supposed to be confidants that quickly had turned on him. And then, you know, Henry sees his father banished and he is essentially like with Richard the second. And it's this odd dynamic that you do a really good job of painting the picture.

They're like, at least Richard the second is decent to Henry the fifth, as he's a young boy, despite the fact that he's banishing his father with one of his other brothers. So I think politically there's stuff that Henry grows up exposed to that really lays a foundation of like what kind of, what kind of ruling government that he wants. But before any of that stuff happens, before he's actually Henry the fifth, his father's king and it's unbelievable what he is tasked with from just a military standpoint at his age. So can we get into, you know, his, let's make sure

we get into his injury, but what his father is asking him to oversee as they're facing rebellion basically in all directions. Yeah. So Henry IV, Henry Bolingbroke becomes Henry IV in 1399-1400, this revolution, and is then a very difficult situation as any user of the king always is. You take the throne, you're automatically reliant on generally a small group of people who've helped you do it to expect undue rewards, kingmakers, and it's always a difficult situation. So Henry IV becomes king, he's got four sons, Henry, Thomas, John and Humphrey, and the eldest three of those, he starts deploying

quite quickly as his kind of lieutenant because the theory is you might not be able to trust many people in this country he's taken over, but he's going to be able to trust his family. These boys are also teenagers and they're given a lot of responsibility as a means of military and political training. Henry, to be Henry V, the eldest, is made Prince of Wales. That's still typically the title given to the male heir to the now British crown. He sent off to Wales at the age of about 13 to deal with the rebellion of a Welsh fire brand rabble rouser known as Owen Glyndwr. Glyndwr has claimed that he is the native rightful Prince of Wales

and he's raised the whole of that principality in rebellion against English rule. He's in contact with France, who are England's foreign enemies. He's in contact with would-be rebels within the Kingdom of England, Scotland, so on. So young Henry is sent to cut his teeth as a military commander with mentors, with people to help him who are experienced soldiers. But he's got to learn on the job. And fortunately, he takes to this task with a high degree of enthusiasm. There's a great letter which I quote in the book, which he writes about the age of 15 to his father. Young Henry is in Wales, Henry is the fourth, the king is in London,

and young Henry, 15 years old, writes back to report what's been going on with Ainglandeur. It's in French, and I'll paraphrase it into English. He says, Dear dad, how goes well? You sent me here to deal with this engleter. Well, the guy's been putting it around that he wants a fight. So I went out looking for him to have this fight, he says he wants. I couldn't find him anywhere, so I went around his house. He wasn't in, so I burned it down. And then I went around his other house and

he wasn't there either. But one of his friends was and begged me to spare his life and offered me all this money. So I cut his head off. Hope was well, praise be to God, lots of love, Henry. It's astonishing. And I mean, yeah, of course I'm paraphrasing, but I'm not really paraphrasing that much. I mean, his letter just like bursts with kind of youthful bravado, with brio, with just genuine love and enthusiasm, the business of warfare. So here, the Lancastrian family, as we call Henry IV and his kids, have like lucked out effectively because this

boy, to be Henry V, absolutely loves war. He really, really takes to it and he's got, um, he's just got an innate taste for it. And in the early 15th century, that's a good thing in your, in your rumor. It's not necessarily the total skill set we always want today, but then it's, uh, this is good. It's good news. Yeah. And the campaigns continue and it appears that he and his father have, um, a really great relationship and then right as his father starts to deal with more and more health issues.

And there's this period for Henry the fifth where it's like, well, I'm not the king, but I feel like I'm taking on the responsibilities and, you know, everybody's worried about Henry the fourth dying. Then he doesn't. Then they think he is again. There there's this really fragile window on the timeline that I think you do a good job of including this story because he has brothers, he has brothers that are capable,

although different skills, where it looks like it might even be tenuous that he could ever be king, although it's been accepted for years that ultimately he would be. Yeah. Look, he has this really, really intense on the job training

as Prince of Wales, and it serves him in very good stead. From age 13 through 18, 19, 20, he learns the ropes. And you mentioned his injury, we should say, in 1403, when he's 16, he fights this battle. He takes an arrow in the face. The arrowhead gets lodged in the back of his skull. He has to have major surgery to remove it. He's incredibly lucky to survive, but he's hardened, he's toughened in war.

He then, you rightly say, his father becomes very ill from 1406 onwards. Henry IV is suffering from a series of different interconnected maladies and his health is very poor, but he takes a long time, like seven years effectively to die. So you get to this point, 1410, 11, 12, where Henry, to be Henry V, Henry Prince of Wales, is really doing the job of king. He's held it down militarily. He's effectively president of his father's council, he's taking a lot of the major decisions with regard to domestic and foreign policy,

but he's not the king. And he makes a serious error by basically asking his father to abdicate. And he's got a lot of support in making this request, but it is a very stupid thing to do because the one lesson of his father's reign is it is so difficult to rule as king if you haven't inherited the throne fair and square, and there should be no ambiguity about that. And Henry kind of, Henry V kind of misses this, tries to take the throne before his time and he's slapped down very, very heavily and very, very hard by his father, who leads him to believe that he's made such a grievous error that he may have forfeited his right to become king. And Henry IV starts shifting his attention, his favor towards his

second son, Thomas, makes him Duke of Clarence, Thomas of Clarence.. I don't think he's totally serious, but he lets Henry believe he's totally serious. It's a valuable lesson. In 1413, Henry IV eventually dies in the Jerusalem chamber in the Palace of Westminster. At that point, it's clear that this was never a serious proposition that Thomas, the second son, was going to take over the throne. Henry, Prince of Wales, becomes Henry V. From that point on, things start to get a bit easier because, as his aging father had rightly perceived, it was absolutely vital that Prince Henry became King Henry with an orderly transition of power, with a legitimate death of one king, proclamation of his eldest son, coronation.

These political norms that had been broken by the revolution of 1399 and 1400 had to be restored, and normality in politics had to be resumed. It's a feeling that many people in the world hang for today, I'm sure. But they managed to pull it off. And so from 1413 onwards, English politics starts to sort of pick up a little bit and the fortunes of the country start to revive.

I say this every time I read anything where I go, well, that sounds familiar. I think one of my favorite underlying tones was that because Henry IV had been rejected, whether you had claims in Scotland, claims in Wales, we'll get to the French stuff here in a second, that there is this unbelievable belief in many corners of this world that Richard II is still alive and that people are expecting that he will come back,

whether he's going to take it from Henry IV or his son Henry V, that there is support out there in the wilds, that Richard II has never been dead and that he has gathered more support and that it's all gonna come. And people are just like, hey, we marched his dead body around town. Like it's been over and it's been over for a long time.

But again, when people wanna believe something, they will believe it. And the legend seemed to continue for years in the background. Yeah, I mean, and the lesson there is that politics has always been about, you know, what is the phrase we use today? Controlling the narrative.

Even when the narrative, if you start to unpick it, is completely preposterous. What you have in the 14th century is that Richard II has been murdered. They don't say he's been murdered, he's died. As you said, they parade his body around the place. Hey, look, he's dead. Hey, look, he's dead. He's the dead guy, he's dead. But within months, people don't want to hear that. So, rumors of Richard II's survival persist well into Henry V's reign. I mean, decades after he's been buried once, King's Langley, the start of Henry V's reign,

he has him reburied in the tomb Richard had designed for himself where he still lies today in Westminster Abbey. Even still, years after that, there are still these kind of whispers that actually the real Richard II was kind of spirited away, that his body was swapped with somebody else's, that he'll be back. It's not really about Richard himself. It's about the desire for an alternative. And if you proceed from that desire, people are willing to warp their, like suspend their disbelief, suspend their common sense, suspend their understanding of how the world physically and biologically works.

That's politics. We don't need to dig into specific examples, but you see it generation after generation, year after year. A narrative can take hold, which is a big lie. But if people are willing to believe the big lie and act as if it were true, then it may as well be true. When you sit on your aeroplan points, it's like you're sitting on your next trip, like a sunny getaway sitting on a terrace. But instead you're sitting on your aeroplan points. So the only place you're sitting is in your car coming back from work. Use your points and go from sipping on your leftover latte to

sipping on the local vintage. So stop sitting on your next trip and start enjoying your aeroplan points. Henry the fifth is in power. It's time to go to France. I love trying to sift through the timeline between England and France because I don't know how much further you go back, and I'm sure it goes on forever, but like trying to understand this. I mean, it can be just real simple. You can just look at a map and be like, Hey, we see this body of water. Like we get this and you get that.

But back then that's just not how it worked. Whether you're going back to the treaty of Paris, which was supposed to solve all these other problems. Again, as you mentioned, the Norman conquest, like this is just century after century, a century of these two countries, just thinking that the other one belongs to them. just century after century, a century of these two countries just thinking that the other one belongs to them. So what does Henry V believe once he sets sail to set things right, at least in his

mind of what England should have in France? Yeah, Henry V's great grandfather, Edward III, who we mentioned earlier in this conversation had staked a claim, a dynastic claim in the year 1337 through 1340, that he was not only the rightful king of England, but also the rightful king of France. For whatever territorial disputes had existed before that point between English kings and French kings, no one had ever said they were the rightful king of both realms. But Edward III does. And he does it because he's descended through his mother and father from both royal lines. That claim is rebuffed and rejected. Edward III begins the war we call the Hundred Years War. The notional claim of the English

during this war is they want the crown of France. Now there's a big question as to whether Edward III actually believes that this is a realistic prospect. He gets relatively close actually in 1360, but never takes the crown and then bargains it away for a big grant of land within what we now think is the Kingdom of France, which gives him profit, which gives him trading advantages, which gives him control of a big stretch of the French coast and so on and so forth. That claim, which although Edwards does bargain away in 1360, seems to persist in the minds of at least some of the English who believe that it should never have been bargained away,

who believe that actually, you know what, it is our blood right to be kings of both realms. And Henry V certainly buys into it. He comes to the throne as a 26-year-old guy with this burning sense of injustice. He is like, I should be the King of France as well as the King of England. That's not to say that he doesn't see there are other parts to this claim. It's not just that he thinks it's his right to have that crown and that in and of itself

is a political goal. He also sees that there are great economic advantages to having cause to make war on France, that there are great sort of territorial concessions he can make if he goes to war with France. But he does, I think he really does believe in a way that no one before him has wholeheartedly believed that he should be the King of France and he's going to do anything within his power to stake that claim. So in 1415, when he's been king for just over two years, he sets sail with a very, very big army, the biggest that had been taken out of England since his great-grandfather's day, to invade Normandy, so the Duchy in Northern France.

And he invades at the mouth of the River Seine a town called Harfleur. If anyone listening knows their Shakespeare, they'll be familiar with the siege of Harfleur, with cannon being deployed against the walls of this coastal town. Once more into the breach, dear friends, the great soliloquy comes from that part of the plate. Henry spends a long time besieging this city and then successfully takes it. That is a great victory. It's the greatest victory in 1415 that the English had won against the French since 1356,

let's say. But it was the greatest town they'd won since 1347 when they'd taken Calais. It wins them this really, really useful bridgehead on the French coast. But Henry's feel like that's not enough. You see his psychology at the moment that he wins the siege of Afla. It's late in the year 1415. It's too late to besiege any other cities. His men are very sick. There's a lot of dysentery and other diseases working around the camp. Lots of his friends have died of these diseases. They're running out of food. Everything says, one off the secure it, go home, regroup, come again. But Henry doesn't do that. He decides that he wants more. He wants to show that he is the coming man and he should be the

one to take the crown of France. So he sets off on this, what becomes an incredibly famous march, supposed to last a week, it ends up lasting several weeks. And it ends with him being hunted down by the French and forced to fight a battle. 25th of October, 1415, the Battle of Agincourt,

which he gambles effectively, absolutely everything on the outcome of one afternoon's fight. Yeah. And Agincourt is basically where the legend, I mean, I know he's already king. I know he's already got the wins, but it's very clear that that increases the legend and increases support back home.

And it's probably a massive motivating factor on what he expects upon his return. I also think it's important too, because there's a couple of things I still want to get to, understanding how France is not weak, but just susceptible to something like this, whether it's Charles VI, whether it's their factions, what is going on in France at this time, which makes them feel like they are prime to be targeted. Well, France is effectively teetering permanently at this point on the brink of civil war because you mentioned Charles VI and rightly so. Charles VI, King of France, in the year 1392, so a long time before Henry comes to power himself. Charles VI has a very severe mental breakdown.

And thereafter, he is in and out of lucidity for the rest of his reign. He's periodically completely insane, either catatonic or running around madly, thinking he's on fire, thinking he's made of glass, doesn't recognize anybody, sort of running around his palace, is naked naked smeared in his own feces. You know, he's like, he's the guy's gone. Not great. Yeah, not great. But the trouble is he'll come in and out of these madnesses.

And that's, you know, if the guy was just completely gone and never coming back, that's one thing you can sort of try and rule around it. But he comes in and out of madness. That's a big problem. It's a problem that England will much later suffer with Henry VI as well. I'm sure we can come to that. So Charles VI in France is teaching on the brink of insanity from 1392 onwards, and factions emerge in the court led by various of his relatives, the most important of whom is a guy called Jean SaintSant-Père, John the Fearless, Stephen

Burgundy, who is constantly a disruptive force in French politics, trying to pursue his own ends, trying to make himself the effective master of the French state, resisted heavily by another faction. They come to be known as the Armagnacs. So you have this French Civil War with the Burgundians, followers of John the Fearless on the one hand, and the Armagnacs on the other. And they're constantly at each other's throats. So this provides a perfect opportunity, if you like, for the English to try and insert

themselves as a third party in the Civil War for their own advantage. Throughout Henry IV's reign, there's always this question of, do you side with the Burgundians? Do you side with the Armagnacs? They go back and forth. Henry V always prefers the Burgundians. He teams up with John the Fearless periodically once he becomes king, but his overriding goal is always to leverage this French civil war, to get as much out of it for the English as possible.

So at all moments, he's trying to play the two sides off against one another for his own military, political, or territorial advantage. But John the fearless stuff is awesome because the Duke of Orleans and you know, there's just so many different characters throughout all of this and I can just keep going on and on about the timeline, which you know, I don't want to do the entire book because I want people to read this book and I want people to buy this book. So there's, there's more to it. But in your summary, and I always like whenever

I'm going through history, right. You probably do the same. I would hope you would. My guess is you do, but you're like, okay, this person wrote this book about this subject. So that means they probably really like this subject. When I got done with Andrew Roberts, Napoleon, where I've seen Andrew's debates with other people who are

like, I can't believe you wrote this book about Napoleon. I appreciated the full scope of Napoleon the person and all of the things that he was arguing that Napoleon wasn't just this military mastermind. Think about him from an infrastructure standpoint, all these different things. Now again, his argument, Andrew's was, I'm an Englishman, so why would I write this? But what I really liked about what you did, especially towards the end, and I think we're just too

aligned without ever meeting, but there's been so many suggestions about Henry V, like who he was. Obviously Shakespeare had a lot of influence on that. And I would say negatively so, ever meeting, but there's been so many suggestions about Henry V, like who he was. Obviously Shakespeare had a lot of influence on that and I would say negatively so. And it's something where I'm like, look, there wasn't much to do. So they invaded each other. It's kind of what they did. It's kind of what they did. And, you know, to be calling him a warmonger. Okay.

Fine. But like, that's all he had known. That's all these two countries had known. So whether it was France batting the England or vice versa, or England trying to shut down all these rebellions on the outskirts of the island, I just, I don't understand people in like the modern world trying to dissect the mindset of somebody from the late 1300s, early 1400s. You even mentioned someone that's a scholar today being critical of Henry V for being a misogynist.

And I went, no shit. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, as you go through the summary of all of this, clearly you like the guy. I guess I can't understand people that I know they're even smarter than me trying to go back and re-engineer what was right and what was wrong during the medieval ages. Yeah. It's not a disease of our time, although it is a disease that is particularly although it is a disease that is particularly severe in our time, of casting moral judgments

over past ages, which happened to work to a completely different standard of behavior. You mentioned Andrew Roberts. Andrew is a brilliant scholar. I like him a lot. He's a great man and a brilliant historian. In the book of his, I suppose that springs to mind as you're speaking, is not just his Napoleon, but his Churchill as well. Andrew is a great fan of Churchill and read a very favorable biography to Churchill, an excellent biography, which attracted a degree of criticism because it's fashionable now to say of Churchill, he was a warmonger, he was a racist, he was an imperialist, he was already saying, he's just a sort of mildly old fashioned guy in his own day. To call Henry V a warmonger is simply to say that he was a medieval king.

Those medieval kings who shied away from pursuing warfare, like Richard II, were very, very, very seldom successful. Warfare was, Per Klauswitz, politics pursued by other means. I mean, in fact, in the Middle Ages, that was one of the principal means of politics. Warfare was just part of the job. You know, you see the seal, the great seal

of the king's applied to authenticate documents in this age. Well, what does it have? It has the king as judge on one side and as warrior on the other. Those are just the basic elements of the job. That doesn't mean that the purpose of kingship was just looking around for somebody to fight, but it was inevitable in this age that you would have to be a military ruler. And that was like imbued through the entire class, the caste of aristocrats who by definition ruled the country, that chivalry was a knightly code of behavior. Chivalry informed the way you were supposed to behave. These are just basic political norms. It is naive ordering on crazy for historians to look back and say, well, I don't know why

they didn't seem to be more in tune with 21st century mores. The hardest thing for historians today to remember oftentimes is that we are the weird ones. Compared to most of human history, we are the weird ones. To have lived in a world that, you know, I was born in 1981, my parents were born in 1952, so we're all post-war, post-war generation, to have lived in this world that has been largely, not totally obviously, but largely free of major conflicts which have ravaged Western Europe. So I'm putting aside the Crane conflict and that. To have grown up in an age for four generations now where that hasn't happened is bizarre.

It's historically almost totally unprecedented. And it means that we can often be initially very baffled when we look at periods of European history where it's just war after war after war. Well, that was normal. That has been the history of certainly Western Europe forever. So it's not a great line to pursue Henry V on. Now, there are also, you know, you mentioned the misogyny. Oh, come on, this is just the Middle Ages. It's baked into everything. He's a man of his time. Henry V was not necessarily the typical man of his time. Like he skewed huge, very, he was unusually competent at warfare and unusually willing to pursue a fight if he saw one. He was unusually self-disciplined and uninterested in women, pretty much, with the exception of his wife Catherine de Balois, whom he married for political duty. He was unusually unapproachable

to many of the people around him in terms of the sort of severe public demeanor. He was not a good time party king like his grandfather, Edward III, who combined warrior and partygoer quite effectively. But he was by no means like a weird outlier in his own society. He was just sort of a particular kind of guy within norms of the world. He felt like somebody that was destined to be king that actually executed his calling in a way that so many others who inherited it had no business having the position. I mean, that's at least the way I, when I got through the book, that's kind of the thing I landed on where it's like he actually was meant to do this and succeeded. Well, I think that he would have said the same

thing himself, you know, the meant to do it thing. And a lot of it stems back to this moment when he is 16 years old and is almost killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury with that arrow in the face. I think he comes out of that with, and again, this very obvious parallel with modern politics, American politics, he comes out of that brush with death, really, really convinced that God wants him to succeed, God wants him to do this. And he says it explicitly at later times in his life, you know, after the Battle of Agincourt, the Duke of Orleans has been captured, very dejected about that fact, young man, Henry sort of puts his arm around his shoulder as he's being led off to a quarter of a century of captivity in England and says to him, look, it's nothing personal.

He says, and Henry says, you know, I'm just God's scourge. I'm just a vessel for God's work. God wants this to happen. You French are decadent. He sent me to punish you. You've got to understand this. And when there are public triumphs to celebrate Henry's victories, it's the same thing. He's like, it's not about me, don't celebrate me, only recognize that I am a vehicle, a vessel, the tool, the rod of God's will, and it's being executed through me. Now that is an unusually, if you come across

somebody with that psychology, they tend to be very hard to put off their track. God wants me to do it. It's fixity, it's a certainty which he operates. And it makes, I think for Henry, it makes a lot of his decision, political decision making really easy, because there's not much vacillation. There's like, I know what I'm here to do, and I'm gonna do it. So that's, that's, that, yeah, it's, but it is very unusual because human beings, which is what we're talking about, are very often conflicted and flawed and pulled in many directions by many different motivations.

And it's rare to find somebody who is possessed of such extraordinary discipline. Discipline is one of the things that humans struggle most with. It's the basis of the Jocko Willard podcast. I mean, you know, we all really struggle to do the thing. But Henry is a guy who does the thing. I can see in the second tour through France, some of the lieutenants coming to Henry V and saying, you know, sir, he's like Jaco, he would go good. Good. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's oftentimes I found like he does sound a lot like Jaco. There's two

occasions spring to mind. There are lots of different reports of what Henry says before the Battle of Agincourt. I had to rouse his troops. Probably he says a bunch of different things because you can't dress the whole army in one go. Then we have Shakespeare, the great St. Crispin's day speech. The one that sounds most like Henry, if you read the other things that he dictated in his own words, is an account from a London chronicle which says all he said before the The one that sounds most like Henry, if you read the other things that he dictated in

his own words, is an account from a London chronicle which says all he said before the Battle of Agincourt was, fellas, let's go. There's three words. That's the motivational speech. Then there's another occasion, quite similar actually. It's 1419 after the siege of Rouen, a horrible, horrible winter siege. It's gone on for six months. Henry has starved the inhabitants of Rouen into submission.

There've been occasions where the citizens of Rouen have chucked out useless mouths, quote unquote, women, children, the elderly, people who can't fight but are consuming food and resources, throwing them out of the city, but the English won't allow them through the siege lines. So they're starving in the ditch, the moat, let's say, the dry ditch that surrounds the city of Rouen. When the citizens of Rouen decide that they're going to capitulate, they're going to give up, they send messengers to Henry to negotiate peace.

On top of their list of sort of immediate things they want to this peace deal is soccer as help for the starving people in the ditch around ruin. They say, first, before we do anything else, please, like humanitarian aid, get some help to these poor people starving in the ditch. And Henry just looks at them, fellas, who put them there? This is on you. Don't come to me with your whiny bullshit. So he has this cast iron determination. And sometimes there's no sugar cutting. It's absolutely brutal.

But he's always coming back to discipline, focus, purpose, execute on what you say you're going to do. I love what you did with Agincourt because you took us through all the different stories, the legends, and I'm so glad you told that part of it because it was probably my favorite part of the book because I was sitting where I was reading at the time. And when I was just basically updated to Fellas Let's Go, completely outnumbered, surrounded, and I put the book down and I actually

started laughing and just having a moment where you're enjoying, because at that point, I completely outnumbered, surrounded. And I put the book down and I actually started kind of laughing and just having a moment where you're enjoying. Because at that point I developed the relationship with the character, you know, and it is always kind of funny too when the main character becomes, I'm like, wait, am I actually rooting for the English now? Because I feel like there's been other times I've been rooting for the French,

depending on who wrote the book, whatever. But like I said, there's so much more in this for the people that enjoyed your time. I know I did. Thanks for getting back to us so soon. And a massive congratulations on a terrific piece here. And I have to emphasize this too. It's a fun read.

It's not textbook-y in the way that other books can. In your approach, I'll even admit too, I'll leave it for people that read it, when you mentioned kind of the approach and how you were going to explain it. And I was like, Oh, what's he going to try to do here? And then within pages, it was just, you're just

flowing and it, and it totally works because instead of assumptions about what could have been happening, you have a more open-minded kind of like present tense, but to that day, uh, approach to it, which I, it, which work, which ended up working, despite it scared me a little bit on like the first couple of pages. So there you go.

I didn't tell my editors I was doing it until I just handed the book in and cause I knew that they'd say, don't approach the book in this particular way. It's going to fit. I just had this deep instinct that this was the way to tell the story and that there was a way to, I mean, Henry is an occult character. He can be hard to create empathy with, but I just had this sense I'd come up with a way

of telling this historical story that wouldn't throw the chronology out of shape, that would just keep, that would launch you into the story and just keep you there from start to finish. And listen, this is like the 15th book I've written. For me, a lot of the business of history, communication, whether it's podcasts like this or on television or whatever it might be on the page, is let's take this material from the past, which is so full of entertainment, but also of lessons that we can meditate on the world today. Let's make it feel as exciting as the best HBO series or Netflix show or whatever it is.

That's my calling and it gives me great satisfaction. No need to do it, but to hear, to readers like yourself appreciating. Thank you for that. Of course. Thank you for your time. And hopefully we do this again, because I'm going to dig back into the catalog. All right. So thanks, man. Enjoy your time here in the States. Thank you.

You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life Advice today, we've got Kyle and Saruti, the email address, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com.

We have a Friday feedback that you can go back and listen to on Friday if you want, and a little different schedule this week with the games being off and then shifting to the Tuesday, Thursday. So anyway, thanks for joining us today. Let's see, what do we want to do here? We did have a feedback one here for Saruti that I think is important. I just wanted to back up Saruti's answer the other week to the recent tanning life advice with high school kids in the millennial age range. This was a nationwide phenomenon.

I'm 32, grew up in Metro Detroit, not an exaggeration to say that every single, every single popular, quotes, kid at my high school regularly went tanning and had the monthly memberships. It was not just a jersey thing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it was ridiculous. I had somebody hit me up, actually Anthony DeBundo works at The Ringer, it was like when he went to Syracuse, Tommy DeVito was in the tanning salon all the time, which I don't think is terribly surprising. But although he's a jersey guy, so maybe that doesn't really help my story. But I haven't been in many tanning

salons, but my wife wanted to do one before the wedding because she wanted to really pop in that dress. And I went with her, didn't have much else to do while we were getting ready and stuff. And it was just like the guy was exactly to a T, the guy you would expect, like a real shade of orange, really passionate about it. I just wonder if like, either it's the owners

or like the front man of, of those places. Are they all like that? I really don't have a really, I don't have a real frame of reference, but I was just like, I can't believe this is the guy who's taking care of us. It's like, it's so over the top. Because I feel like it's either like Euro kind of looking guy or it's like board shorts and a puka shell necklace. No, dude. It was so New York. You could tell he was from downstate. I mean, a good shape, old, little leathery, but- Maybe some THT going on there.

Probably late 60s, maybe looks a little older than he is. He probably looked around 70. Real thick accent, but I mean, just like to a T, the look you'd expect. And I was just like, this can't just be an outlier. Is this really how they are? So I don't know. You didn't tan though yourself.

You just went there. I did not, no. Did she try to get you to tan? She didn't tan. She did the spray thing and it's like this whole weird shower. And he's like, it was really scary. Just because he was like, listen,

if you don't listen to me exactly, this is gonna be terrible. I tell these people all the time, don't do this. When you put the lotion on, go down like towards your finger. I'm like, what? This is so much to remember. And she got in this weird shower thing for like, you know, 90 seconds or something.

And just, I don't know. It was like, it was very stressful the way he was explaining it. It's like, if you, if you move an inch, this could all get fucked up. I tell you, I see it all the time. You can't work out afterwards. Like if you cry, just so I mean, who knows why that would happen. But if you cry afterwards, like there'll just be streaks. Like you really can't do

anything after you get the spray tan thing. He scared the shit out of me. I wasn't even the one in there. Because I'm sure he's seen some horror stories of people coming in and being like, wow, I'm like, I look like, you know, a zebra here because of something that I did have some, you know, I took a shower afterwards. It's not good. So many instructions. And between every two instructions, he was just like, I can't stress this enough. And I was like, should we just back out of this right now?

Wait, how many days before the wedding was this? Cause then he's probably just like, I can't, she can't. I think it was like four days maybe. Yeah, so he's like, you do not want to look terrible at your wedding. You know, shout out to him for looking awkward. I was like, is this necessary? I don't, that seems like a bit of a gamble.

I don't know. Everything worked out. It would suck if you were to go on a vacation with a pretty serious boyfriend, tan, and then get dumped before the trip, because then you would be tan and not going anywhere and then you'd be crying. Yeah. Streaks. Exactly what it warns about. How about a bad week?

That would be, that would be rough. I can't imagine Joe though, your dad, was your dad ever like, you're tanning again today? If I ever tan in high school, that conversation- No, I never went tanning for the record. Oh, you never did? No. No.

You just got so much more respect from Ryan. No, I just said there were dudes, it was a lot of the Guido guys, remember the spiky haircut thing, like, you know, it was like the short look. Those guys- Quicksand concrete in their hair. I was not one of the Guido guys, you know, remember the spiky haircut thing like, you know, it was like the Look those guys concrete in their hair. I was not one of those guys I was friendly with some of those guys, but I was not one of those guys Actually the guy below me in my yearbook picture is a good guy named Luigi He funny enough

He had the big like, you know blowout in our picture. He's right below me It looks like his like hairs like stabbing mebing me in my senior photo, which is pretty great. But yeah, no, we had a lot of Guido looking Italian dudes in the central Connecticut area and a lot of them went tanning and I didn't, wasn't for me. I have done the drop tanning thing where you add to your lotion and it just kind of gives you a little bit different of a shade and I screwed up.

It's not quite bronzer. It's just like there are these little drops you put in cause I, you know cause I moisturize anyway, so you just throw them in and put on your face, whatever, and it gives you a little bit of different shade, cause I was like super pale going to a wedding in Mexico, and I was like, I don't want to look like the whitest guy here, probably not.

So I did that, but I didn't know you were supposed to wash your hands afterwards, and so my hands were bright orange, essentially at this wedding, it was not great. Not great. Didn't know that until afterwards. Tommy DeVito, essentially at this wedding. It was not great. Not great. Didn't know that until afterwards. Tommy DeVito, Tanner. Got it.

That checks out, good for him. Yeah. Okay, student teacher smells like weed. Six three, 250 pounds, deadlift 455, squat 345, bench 260. Would love to be able to do more than five pull-ups. Basketball comp is a washed Carmelo. Still trying ISO, but shooting well under 30%. I work as a high school teacher in a big

city on the West coast. My issue is that my student teacher, let's call him Tommy, comes into work each day with a heavy smell of the ganja. He's a good guy, has good relationship with the students, big ideas for what the students can accomplish, but has some habits of not showing up to work on time and taking a little,

a little longer lunch than allotted. He has worked in the school at a different position for many years, but has been student teaching for me over a little over a month. I know him well as a work colleague, but I've never hung out with him outside of work. My question is, how do I bring up the smell he's carrying around with him? When we pass each other, I get a big whiff of it, uh, in his backpack, which is in my room, which has led to my room having a lingering stench. in his backpack, which is in my room, which has led to my room having a lingering stench.

Ironically, he'll often talk negatively about a student showing up high to school and smelling like weed. Throwing you off the scent. On kettle, all right. Yeah, or like Kyle's first instinct was, that's smart. That's smart. But it sounds like you can't get anyone off this guy's scent.

I feel a responsibility to bring it up since I can see it affecting his long-term teaching prospects. Is it my job to say something? Do I make a joke about his smell after he talks about the student? Thanks for the advice. Love the show. It's a happy hour move.

He's gonna be so happy that you, a veteran teacher that he probably likes invited him out. It's 4.30 or something. And you're just like, hey, just wanna say, you're doing a great job, I just do think if you wanna survive in this, this is something that maybe somebody's not gonna tell you, I'm just here doing you a favor.

You don't have to be like, it's affecting your teaching, and I feel like you could be so much, it's just like, hey, I think this could cause problems for you down the line, and this is the relationship where you're the student teacher, not the teacher, that I think you can really benefit from this That's it. Just do it do it outside at school Don't do that weird joke thing where he's gonna be freaking out. I think you could just level with them because he's high

Freaking out man I don't know. I kind of feel like I think you're right Kyle But I also think you can why if he makes the joke about dudes about hey this student stunk I like when this guy's coming in school high, I'd be like, hey dude, really? Just kind of give him the eyes. Like, I don't know, so you see how we react. Easy, Peter Tosh. Right? Then you might not even get that reference.

I don't get it. Just gotta laugh, but I was like, don't be a phony. I don't know this. Yeah, don't. I like that you didn't laugh. Peter Tosh is so underrated. Anyway, moving on. Here's the thing, I guess it's my turn.

You know what I think this is? This is one of those examples of like where you're giving advice, like, hey, I'm not upset, but potentially, you know, down the road, if you're thinking about long-term employment here and the impression that you want to make on other people, again, I'm cool, man. I get it. I take grass all the time. I do weed all the time. You take grass. Right. So. I'm a drug guy.

You, you know, a lot of times we get emails like this or like the other day we got the thing about the post office and like, can you tell a post office worker to turn her phone down? You're like, probably not. You're just swinging in once every few months, even though it is annoying and you're not enjoying, like that's her domain, she's running the show

and you can try to tell her to turn down and I can tell you how that's gonna go like 90% of the time. I know exactly what's gonna happen. So why even bother signing up for that interaction that's only gonna make you more upset after the fact. It's just gonna be a bad transaction. I don't like the transaction win probability on that chart. Okay, you're starting real low

and I don't know if there's any- You ever shot that shot? Yeah, right, right. Like what happened? They came back. In this case, like he's your student teacher. And I think it's kind of cool that you're not going into this

like with a militaristic attitude of the whole thing. Because like most people, I don't even think would even email about this, wouldn't even ask. They just go, hey, dude. And I know the stigma because of laws and things being passed, but I still, I don't feel like I that outdated. It'd be like, if you're a student teacher,

you probably shouldn't smell like fucking weed in high school all the time, right? I don't think that's- People shouldn't be wondering if you're sober when you're teaching kids. It shouldn't really be a shadow of a doubt. Yeah, you know what? There you go, Kyle.

You just nailed it in one sentence. I think that's, I thing most people could still agree on a little bit, you know, maybe somebody hit us up and be like, well, you have no idea what the anxiety, you're like, dude, can you not get high before you go teach it to school? So, to Kyle's point, and because of the dynamic that you have here, right, that you are the person

that has the authority to do this, this isn't another coworker where you're on the same level. You're not subordinate on all these different things. The power chart here is in your favor. I think that's why it's totally within your realm of whatever you think is your responsibility to say something to this person because you're not even doing it in a disciplinary way. You're not going up to this person being like, I want to get rid of him.

You're looking out for him. You're your big brother. Yeah. Who knows the personality dynamic of it all, how he's going to be, how he's going to be, You're not going up to this person being like, I want to get rid of him, right? You're looking out for him. And so- You're your big brother. Yeah. I mean, who knows the personality dynamic of it all, how he's going to respond. But if you go into this, even though you could,

if you want to, like you could let him have it a little bit for all the things that we just laid out here. And it seems like that's not even in your intent. That's not what you want to do. So having that approach, going in with that kind of mindset, I think gives you a massive advantage to at least get him to respond and respect and hopefully change it up Having that approach going with that kind of mindset I think gives you a massive advantage to at least get him to respond and respect and and hopefully change it up a little bit because I

Mean we all know what it was like when you're in high school and there was like that teacher like I remember there was this One teacher man and you think about it everybody used to make jokes about his drinking and everything And I don't even know what was true or not like it's not like we were fucking hanging out of bars we're in high school, but people just made fun of it all the time. And I remember like there was this moment where he went in the back to like grab something and somebody made a joke about the drinking and he heard it. And like he came back and was like, what was that?

And it's like, imagine being an adult and who knows? I don't even know if he drinking even was an issue. It's just shit head high school kids. And you know, but if he had a drinking issue or had recovered from it and come out on the other side, and you get some 16 year old fucking with you, you know. So this is none of those things. This is you being in your position to go,

Hey, look, I don't necessarily even have that big of an issue with whatever it is you do when you're away from here, but when you're coming in here and if you want to be taken seriously, right? Because right now in the eyes of some people, you're the stoner student teacher. That's who you are to some of the kids. That's who you are to some of the other people here that are going to be making a decision on your future. If you want people to be writing you good recommendations and all that kind of stuff, you're at a point right now where if this is something you actually want to do, you've got to start presenting yourself a little bit differently.

He may come back to you and be like, dude, I hate this job and I never want to do it. And all I want to do is smoke weed every day. Hoping somebody noticed so I can get fired. You think I like this? You think I want to do this? Like, that's why I am high. I don't get unemployment until you tell me to go. The only way I can get out of my car is when I light one up and walk into this hell hole. Think I want your life, buddy? I'm looking at a van, dude, online. Thinking about starting an Instagram account.

You see how they're doing those remodels? Day in the life of me fixing up this van to drive the Grand Canyon. All right. I think we have to do another one, don't we? Right? Yeah. All right. Can I Venmo people that didn't show up to the Super Bowl party? Oh, man.

We've done a version of this haven't we? We've done versions of this. No question. Like no question. He gives us his name. Reid510205 rocking a smooth dad bod. Player comp is Zaza Pachulia. I basically just set a lot of screens, get rebounds, and my team wins a lot. Thanks. Thanks to you, man. Thank you. My wife and I have an annual Super Bowl party at our place with the same group of friends. Everyone knows the drill. I wait for to confirm final numbers. I guess just wait to confirm

final numbers of who's coming over till Friday. Then I order pizza and wings for all. And every year I Venmo people after the game for food and we settle up on whatever else, mostly stupid side bets I make with my friends during the game. This and we settle up on whatever else, mostly stupid side bets I make with my friends during the game. This year, two people didn't show up for the game. First is my buddy who got sick and let me know the morning of the game he wasn't coming, which I appreciated him not coming because we have a lot of new parents and babies in the group now. So he did the right thing by not coming and spreading anything. The second no-show is my friend's wife, who also happens to be besties with my wife who quote was

too tired to come. We got no heads up that she wasn't coming found out when my buddy arrived without her. So my question is is it rude to Venmo these friends for their share of the food? My original thought was to cover my buddy that got sick because at least he had a legit reason and gave me a heads up but that I should charge my buddy for him and his wife since she decided not to come last minute. But my wife thinks if I'm going to make her pay, I should make my friend who got sick pay too, would love your thoughts.

Stop all of this, man. Yeah, this is- Stop all of this. How do you have any friends? That's worse. Like, yeah. This is, you know, this is why people don't just throw a party for no reason, because it takes a lot of shit

and there's money to be spent. That's why it's like, you don't just have parties. It could be, you know, it's a large undertaking and I don't think it should be everyone else. Like you invited me to a party, you know, even at a wedding, like it's up to you. You're kind of a fucking crazy person if you don't give a wedding gift.

Thank you. But it's up to you to decide how much. It's not like we're sending out an evenly split bill across 150 people or whatever. This happened to me two years ago. All the college guys used to come up from New York City up to my parents' house in the Crown Jewel, have a little pool party, play a little stump, maybe see if we want to go out to the bars or maybe those guys just go back home to the city.

And it was really going strong two years ago. My time is limited. I usually go back for two and a half, three weeks. And we all had this set up. And the morning of, I went out and spent probably 250, 300 bucks on food, booze, and stuff like that. And, you know, as guys do, coming up with reasons that they can't make the trip, a car, my car broke down, just like stuff happened, you know, to like four or five different people where it turned out only like three guys showed up.

And I was like, that sucks. But that's the risk you take when you throw a party and I just bottle it up. And every time they ask me about throwing another party, I bring out the fact that these guys boned me the day of the party and I'm not, I'm not, um, you know, sending them Venmo's I've just, I'm just upset about it. That's it. That's what happens when you, when you take the responsibility of throwing a party. So that's my point.

No, yeah, it's, it's kind of like, you know, throwing a party is like when you start a business, like you assume the liability of the loss, you know? Like, you're laughing, like, that's part of throwing a party, man. Like, if you have a guy who, I don't even know what a scenario would be where I would charge somebody who didn't come, you know? Unless, like, I don't even know,

unless you would like buy-in stuff. You got like a vegan turkey for Thanksgiving and then you decided not to show up and you bail. Yeah, yeah, that's maybe that's fair. It so I this to me is absolutely insane. It's also two people. Like if it was like a dozen people and you're like, man, I'm footing this bill like that. Yeah, that sucks more. It's two people.

Is that like what's the dent on that? Is it like 20 bucks? Is it 50 bucks? I mean, I'm not trying to like minimalize like everyone's money situations are different, Is that like, what's the dent on that? Is it like 20 bucks? Is it 50 bucks? I'm not trying to like minimalize, like everyone's money situations are different, but that's just, that's insanity. And it also sounds like,

so there's no way that you can ask your buddy who legitimately sounds like he was sick and it was, and you agree, it was the right thing for him not to go to bed. Hey dude, can you just Venmo me 15 bucks or so? That's insane. You're gonna get a new nickname out of this. You're gonna get some terrible nickname that you this. You're gonna get some terrible nickname

that you won't even know about. And- Terrible. But it kind of sounds like that only came up because you wanted to charge your wife's friend or the girl or whatever in this situation because her excuse is a little bit less- Hers is a little bit less awesome. I'm tired.

Like I don't love that, but you know, maybe she was also sick and just didn't wanna say that. The point is you can't, you just can't do this. You just, you got to EPL. I hate that you and your wife are encouraging each other. Yeah, no, that's, that's the headline to me. That's the headline to me. And I'm so glad that you got there too, Kyle, because Reed doesn't think he's doing anything wrong because his wife, like think about her process of this. The guy got sick, he told you, to Saruti's point, we're talking pizza and wings.

And I don't like to get in other people's pockets on this stuff because just the dismissive, hey, take the L, pay for everybody else, because I know that I can probably be a little too casual with it, right? On some of the money stuff that comes up, it's like, oh man, you know, just suck it up. It all comes around if you're all buddies.

Cause I do think it kind of works its way around. Although I feel like I'm getting fucking hoes left and right lately, but. Yeah, I haven't been collecting my greens fees lately. When I'm booking, I gotta really stand up on that. Oh wow, that's still a lot. That's a different story. Yeah, greens fees, you gotta work it out

in the parking lot, right? Totally. Or 19th hole beer. I'll send you a Venmo for that. I just gotta get better at it. What am I paying for again? Not you, not you. Oh, okay.

I'm saying just in the hypothetical, the Royal Lee or whatever. I could just see myself giving you the clubs and being like in your first 218 on me. So if I had said that. No, no, no. I don't remember saying it, but if I had said it, that's maybe something I would say,

but I know that I didn't so that when you process it. Anyway, that's important. This is not a lot of money for what we were talking about. Okay. So my guess is you were like this about this stuff all the time. And the fact that your wife was like, okay, but if you're not going to charge him, but now you're going to charge the best friend's wife, who I guess is the wife's best friend, as we said, then you have to now go back and charge the guy that was sick. You guys talk this all out and then thought, yeah, this is a good idea instead of just eating the 40 bucks. That's kind of fucking crazy, man. So I want this

email to be a wake up call to you because I think you and your wife both need the wake up a little because when you worked it all out, you're sitting there. It was, you had a complicit party who also thinks all of these ideas are good ideas. So you needed this outside perspective. You should not Venmo anyone in this case. Uh, I think most people would agree. I think we've had other times in the past where it's like a specific dinner party, right?

And somebody goes out and buys all these high end groceries. I think we've had people be mad that the person that hosted charged them because they never said that they were gonna be charged. I understand there's all of these times. Bastler parties are like if you bail last minute, you probably have to pay for the room or whatever place you're staying.

I did it. I know I'd said it once. There was a bachelor party as I just moved to Connecticut. I didn't have a ton of money, but my schedule was all over the place. They were like, are you in on this bachelor party? And I was like, I'm probably not going to be able to go. And he was like, can you do the deposit? And I was like, I'll do the deposit if you want the number.

But is there any way that I like, can we work it out? And he's like, if you tell me by this time that you can't go, I would give you the deposit back. And I was like, all right, awesome. No problem. Gave him the deposit, told him by the time it couldn't go. The guy motherfucked me. It was like, can't believe you're asking for your deposit back. And I was like, really?

And I sent him the email and he's like, or I'm the asshole. And that was it. And then he went to Venmo me or whatever that was at the time. And it wasn't set up. I think it might've been PayPal and I didn't have it sent up. He sent it to me and then it bounced back to him, and I still was so broke that I was like, hey dude, he's like, you can fuck off again.

I was like, man, we both told each other to fuck off like three different times, and I look back on it and I totally understand his point, except when you're in that situation financially, you're paying attention to that kind of stuff. This isn't even that big of a transaction. We've had bigger stuff. I think the surprise Venmo thing after you didn't know

that you were gonna have to Venmo on some of the dinner parties that we've talked about is kind of a bullshit thing. But again, I don't wanna be telling everybody to pay for everything all the time. In this case, pay for the fucking pizza and wings. You are going to lose way more in your friend group by asking for this to be paid for from a guy that was sick and a wife not showing up because you have some

weird rules that cancel each other out. You're going to lose more equity with your friend group being like, did you hear what Reed did to sick Dave? I wonder if like her, the wife saying, well, if you're going to charge my friend, you have to charge your sick friend thinking like, well, that's insane. He was sick and like, hopefully maybe he would just drop the whole idea. And he's just like, wait wife saying, well, if you're going to charge my friend, you have to charge your sick friend thinking like, that's insane. He was sick and like, hopefully maybe he would just drop the whole idea. And he's just like, wait a second. You're right. You know, don't do this.

Got to have a code. Don't do it. Like even if they pay it, the 40 bucks is not worth the damage you were going to do. But I'm, I'm actually a little scared based on the email and, and you and your wife both thinking this is the move this is already something your friends discuss just because I can't get enough this the other thing too is like this didn't imply that you bought like the exact amount of food for however many people are there like down to the

mat you actually you probably made out because you're getting the leftovers here unless like everyone's taking care of packages home, but there's a good chance you're getting extra pizza to have at lunch the next day and you got leftovers. They may not be leftover people though. But they might be. Maybe, that's insane because leftovers are the absolute best.

But I- Leftover wings? Yeah, you throw them in the air fryer, you kidding me? Oh my God. But the idea that everyone is completely, this is what your cost was for this particular day, down to the wing and slice of pizza, it's never gonna be equal.

It's never gonna make sense. Somebody probably ate more slices and ate more wings and ate less, it never evens out, dude. If you're hosting the party, again, this is a joke, but it's not. You are assuming the responsibility. You are assuming the loss here and the risk. And that's just part of, that's part of the deal. So we agree. I wonder how he's,

will he listen to this thinking we're crazy or do you think it'll get through to them a little bit? I think I, I'm hopeful that's pretty harsh. I'm hopeful that it got there had to be though. Sometimes there's some harsh realities that need to be had, you know, yeah No question No question Steve. Okay, we have a YouTube page and you can subscribe to the podcast Ryan Russell podcast takes the cow thinks Steve on ringer and Music. Must be 21 and older, present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star

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