#52 - "Bad Pennies" - Jack Cameron - #NotAboutUpod

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
2 one and ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another fantastic
edition of not about you podcastwith myself, Jamaal Harrington
and my Co hosts with the most Romeo Nash and of course the
Marianne Riley Yay. Yay, yay yay.

(00:25):
Oh, OK, yeah, Yep, they're here and on the show.
We welcome, I would have to say is a very great guest.
Probably one of my favorite guests on the show.
Not even probably. He is one of my favorite guests
on the show because I love true crime and he's a true crime
author. He actually came out with the
book about a week ago called BadPennies.

(00:49):
The author extraordinaire, Mr. VJack Cameron, welcome to the
show again. Welcome.
Thank you. Thanks.
It's great to be on again. I always love hanging out with
you guys. We always have a good time, so
it's good to be here. I have so.
Many questions. OK, first question, let's

(01:12):
address real quick before we jump into all the questions and
stuff because I got a lot of questions just to let the
audience know that like I said, Jamal is feeling kind of under
the weather. So he may not be with us for the
whole duration, but Romeo and I are here till the end.
I have loads of questions for you.
And before we jump into my questions, I just wanna cause,

(01:35):
well, I still have Jamal. Yesterday was, well, the results
of the election from Tuesday. Yes, it was.
How are the I've heard a lot of,you know, 'cause Jamal, you're
in New York. That was a huge, huge
controversy. It was, it still is.

(01:58):
I, if I'm, if I could be very honest with you guys about this
election, I did not. I mean, as we all know, Zoran
had the the the Muslim candidatehad won the mayoral election in

(02:19):
New York City. And I was just having to correct
a lot of people on Facebook because they kept saying that he
was Jewish. He's not he I've he is
vehemently said that he was Muslim.
And I don't know why people think that he's Jewish.
But that's neither here nor there.

(02:40):
You know, again, like you say, Ilive here.
I got to see listen to some of his, some of his speeches and
whatnot. But if I'm, if I was to be
honest with you, I did not know a lot of his politics until the
day before the election because I did not.
I mean, I knew a little bit, butI actually have to do my own

(03:02):
research and see what a lot of his politics were.
And I was kind of like, OK, there's a lot of things that I
don't feel he will be able to get done only because there's
certain things that like, the one thing that's that kind of
struck my mind was he wanted to make the fares on the public

(03:24):
transportation free. And I don't think there's any
way that could happen only because the MTA has a contract
with NYC. And if they break that contract,
there's a huge payout that they would get.
And there's no way that our governor would allow that.

(03:45):
So the, the so I don't see that happening unless they are able
to work something out. Also, he's trying to get
healthcare, not well, childcare.He's trying to reduce the cost
of childcare, IE or make that free, which I'm like, you know,
I don't have a kid, but I, I've always liked that idea because

(04:07):
childcare is very expensive here.
You know, I, I, and, and he saidsome things that really, you
know, that I, that's like, oh, wow, he, he, he sees this.
My sister has a child here. She doesn't have to worry about
spending money on a daycare because she has a huge family
here. My dad practically takes care of

(04:30):
his granddaughter, you know, so that, you know, there's a lot of
families in New York that rely on their parents or another
family member to take care of their kids while they're at work
or what have you. So that and, and, and even on

(04:53):
top of that, you know, if you don't have that luxury of having
a family here, you're spending thousands upon thousands of
dollars on childcare. So, but nonetheless, a lot of
people feel that he is going to cripple the New York City's
economy. To be honest with you, I kind of

(05:16):
feel like this is a lot better than what we had in Mayor Adams.
I thought our last mayor just wanted to be mayor so he could
rub elbows with rich people and famous people.
And he during the even like during the pandemic, he was
doing stupid shit that I was kind of like, really you're

(05:36):
doing this because, you know, sohe, I did not feel like he was
the right guy for the job. And then all the corruption that
came along behind him was just it, it was a very, it was a, it
was a mess, you know, so I think.
I think that that's an interesting concept to say that

(05:57):
they want to have free daycare or childcare.
However, somebody has to pay forit because people that are
watching those kids ain't doing it for free.
So where is that money supposed to come from?
And you know, I just, I don't see something like that
happening. Jack, do you have any kids?

(06:17):
Yeah, they're all grown though, but like my, my youngest is 20,
just turned 28, so OK. Yeah, so your kids are about my
kids this age, son, 'cause my youngest just turned 30 and so,
and I remember how atrociously expensive.
I'm like, there was time. Yeah, daycare was ridiculous.

(06:37):
Yeah, you like if you've got 2 parents working, one of them's
working just to pay the daycare.Yeah, exactly.
And then it's like, who's raising the kid?
Yeah and and exactly like I make$100 a month after I pay for
daycare and I have strangers whodon't give 2 flying shits about
my kids. Crazy.

(07:00):
Yeah, I mean, and, and on top ofthat, you know, and I know we've
talked about this like there's other countries that have really
good maternity leave and paternity leave benefits, you
know, especially Ireland and youknow, Ireland and the, the

(07:22):
Scandinavian countries, like they, they, they do pretty well
where if you're going to have a kid, in some cases you could
take a year off while raising your kid while your better half
is working or vice versa. And sometimes you can do it
consecutively, sometimes you cando it at the same time.
They got better paternity leave benefits than not for not then

(07:47):
America. I mean, it, it, it's bad, you
know, in my opinion, it's bad compared to other countries.
You also. Take a look at those countries
too. They have a noticeably A
noticeable declining birth rate,right?
And, and they like I know for, for instance, you mentioned
Ireland, Ireland was one of the countries that opened their

(08:07):
borders to have immigrants come in because they didn't have
enough people that were living there.
Who actually? Do the jobs that they had.
And that is something that's starting to, you know, I mean,
it, it's, it's kind of crazy, but, and that's one of the
reasons why a lot of people don't have kids is because

(08:29):
they're like, I can't afford to have kids because I.
Can't afford? I can't afford daycare.
I can't afford to work. I can't afford, you know, like
and, and, and especially for like women, they're the ones who
suffer the most on it. Because let's say that the woman
does say, OK, I'm going to stay home and tell my kids are old

(08:49):
enough to go to school. Well, then, now whatever field
that she was in, he lost all those years of being able.
So that's why she'll never catchup to the, the rate that a a
male counterpart will make, because she hasn't been able to
stay on top of in her field and stay on abreast of all the new

(09:12):
like changes and everything. She's already coming in from
behind. So it's, it's really hard.
I mean, it's it's a really bad situation.
And also, if she's not making any income, that's income that's
being lost while you have one person being the breadwinner,

(09:32):
that's that's got to take care of everything because you have a
kid. So it's like it's really, it's
really difficult. And again, you know, I mean, you
know, it's not uncommon to walk through, you know, a city in
Ireland to see guys at a park pushing their strollers with

(09:54):
their kid in it while the mom isworking because it's her turn to
work. And then when she's done with
her paternity, with her maternity leave, the guys, they
get to take their paternity leave.
Wow. The mom.
Yeah. Vice vice versa, you know, So
yeah, it they they kind of switch it out and they get

(10:15):
along. They get, you know, a good
amount of time to at least raisetheir children in the most
important part of their, you know, of their lives, you know,
right when they're born trying to, you know, get them familiar
with their parents or what have you.
So I know that this mayor here was trying to get like trying to

(10:40):
get childcare taken care of until the the child I believe
was in the 5th grade or something like that.
You know, it's like, hey, it's going.
To be a lot of money, that's a great idea.
It, oh, it's a fantastic idea. And, and 5th grade, by fifth
grade, they're usually considered old enough to be more
own and, and to be a little bit more independent, you know, and

(11:01):
that's the one thing that I think that COVID was really
fantastic about was all of a sudden all these people were
able to work at home or work notjust from home, but work, work
from wherever they were at, likeget in a motorhome and drive and
go to a new city and go experience that, which was, you

(11:21):
know, how, how awesome is that, that you could go traveling and
work all day long and then stillbe able to, I mean, let's talk
about your, your homework life balance.
Like that's even better than most of us would expect because
then you could actually go and do things.

(11:42):
You can have your family with you.
You could go have like that. You go live your life while
still earning income. You can, you could enjoy the
money, you know, because that's always seems to be the way.
It's either you don't have enough time to do something
because you're working or you can't afford to do it because
you're not working. And, and it it's not until you

(12:06):
get to about mine and Jack's ageor older that you kind of go,
hey, we have both, you know, 'cause our kids are.
Growing, yeah, yeah, I, I luckedout a bit in that I worked at
Amazon during years three and four of working at Amazon.
So I worked there for two years and I had phenomenal stock

(12:30):
options. So, so when I left there, I
cashed in my stock options and made a few $1000.
But it would have been, if I would have kept it, it would
have been a hell of a lot more. But what I did with that money

(12:50):
was I spent the next 2 1/2 yearshanging out with my kids 'cause
I had the money to do it. And I'm like, and I, and when I
think about that, I'm like, you know, billionaires don't get to
do that. They're, they're too busy doing
their stuff, you know. So in that way, I'm like, you
know, it's one of the reasons that my kids are so close to me
now is because I took those two years.

(13:13):
Oh, that is so you know, I'm jealous about because any time
that you're able to spend that time, Bonnie, and that I am
really happy that our society has moved to paternity leave
because I'm that's so critical. You want, you know, you bitch
your and bash about how men aren't stepping up and taking
care of their kids, but men are like feeling like they're

(13:36):
nothing but a paycheck because they're the ones who's working
and, and you know, there's no way for, for mom and dad to
connect because they don't have an understanding of what what
the other is going through everyday.
And so when, you know, I, I was all about like a lot of times,
there was plenty of times I worked and the kids, dad stayed
home and took care of the kids. And I was like, it's a hell to

(14:00):
be at home taking care of kids. And that's all you're doing it.
It's rough. But you, you do get that trade
off where you get to bond with your kids and you get, you know,
you get to be such a yeah. And and so yeah, it's, I'm glad
that I got that time. And at the same time, like

(14:22):
somewhere around 2010, I did themath on how much I would have
had and I and I was like, OK, we're never doing the math
again, ever. That is never a good idea.
That is never. Then you find out how much
you've lost out on. And then you're then you're
like, how much do I love my? Kids, right?

(14:44):
Exactly, exactly. You can't look at the paycheck
aspect ever. But so I gotta ask you, OK, so
tell me about this book that youyour newest book.
OK, is. It bad Penny.
Yeah, yeah. It's called Bad Pennies.
And it started like the origin of the book is from over 25

(15:12):
years ago. It's like the late 90s.
I was, I was like in my 20s and a friend of mine approached me
and said, hey, my employer has screwed me out of thousands of
dollars and they're having a big, their big event of the year

(15:34):
is coming up. I have the safe combination, I
have the security stuff, I have everything, but I can't do it
'cause I'm working the event. I want you to go in and steal
the stuff. Let's steal, let's steal
everything from the safe and we'll split it 55th.
And I'm like, well, the most important question is how much

(16:00):
money do you think is in that safe?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
'Cause I'm telling. You said somewhere between 2:00
and $10,000, and he said two between two and $10,000.
And I laughed like I just laughed at him.
I'm like, why? Why?

(16:21):
Why would I do that? Yeah, not even worth your.
Time that, that, that that's just a, that's just a ridiculous
idea. But I kept thinking about it
because I do like, I like the plan, like it would be a good
plan if there was a lot of moneyin there and, and, and the more
I thought about it, I was like, well, I want to write about it.

(16:42):
Let's write a story about it. I'm like, still boring story.
No one cares about it. 10 grand heist.
And so the idea that I had was, well, what if these guys plan
for like a 10 grand heist? Like they're expecting to get a
few $1000. They open the safe and there's
$300,000. So now they have a problem

(17:05):
because they have a whole bunch more money than they expected.
And you know, if you steal a couple $1000, you can probably
disappear. No one's going to really care.
But you steal $300,000, people are going to look for you.
And so and so that was the basicidea behind it.
And then like, like all of my stories, I tend to take 3 or 4

(17:28):
ideas and just kind of mash themtogether.
So one of the things with this story was the stories, two of
the characters are a bail bondsman and a bounty hunter.
And so back in like around 2000,I wrote Bad Pennies as a

(17:50):
screenplay and tried to shop it around for a couple years but
didn't really, you know, got a couple of bites, but nothing
ever happened with it. And so then I decided to turn it
into a novel. Somewhere around 2007, 2008, I
decided to turn it into a novel.And then I met Pam Free and Mike

(18:14):
Beakley, who are a bail bondsmanand a bounty on.
And I said, Hey, will you read this and tell me what's not
realistic? You know what, what did I screw
up? And so they did and they kind of
ripped it apart. And they're like, you probably

(18:37):
hate this, you know, because we're sitting there drinking
beer at Flying Boots and they'rejust picking it apart saying you
couldn't do this that. And they liked my cop stuff.
The guy, the guy that was bountyhunter, he was a former cop and
he's like, your cop stuff's good.

(18:58):
But the bounty hunting stuff andthe bail bondsman stuff I needed
a little work on. And they then they gave me a lot
of help on that. And they were like, you probably
hate this. And I was like, I do not.
I haven't published it. Yeah.
And so I had these notes for like years and years.

(19:18):
I had these notes as to things Iwanted to fix in it, but I
hadn't done anything with it. And the biggest question they
had had nothing to do with like realism, but in the they wanted
to know where the $300,000 came from in in the store.
And I as the author, I know where the money came from, but

(19:43):
the characters in Bad Pennies don't.
So I was, so I was trying to figure out, So what ended up
happening was I put the origin of the money in my first novel,
A Better Lie. So a Better Lie has a lot going

(20:06):
on in it. But one of the things that's it
it that happens in it is that there's a heist and there's and
that's where the money comes from.
So there's a couple of characters in common between
these two books, but they're notreally, it's not really a sequel
because there's like a couple ofside characters, but that's it.
The main characters are totally different and but but with Bad

(20:31):
Pennies. The whole idea of it was just
this robbery that goes wrong a year after it happens.
Like initially they get away with it and then things start to
go wrong. And one of the things that I
changed in this version of the story is before it was 2 best

(20:54):
friends. And, and the thing about it was
there was some underlying thing of maybe they were more than
friends. And at the time it was, you
know, when I was writing it was 2000 and you couldn't really
have 2 the two main characters be gay, just be cuts.

(21:18):
And so but now it's 2025, you can't.
And so I thought that that wouldadd if they were if they were
high school, if they are high school lovers that are now exes.
But you know, they hook up when they see each other and they and
it's kind of like the worst slash best acts that you know,

(21:41):
that they show up and you know, you you don't know what's going
to happen, but it's going to be memorable.
And, you know, so, so in this case, we have, you know, we've
got these characters, Paul and Josh, and one of them's like,
hey, let's go rob a place. And the other and the other guys

(22:02):
like, OK, what you know, and kind of goes from there.
It's it it, Like I said, it is heavily influenced through stuff
that I almost did but didn't because it was dumb.
I think that's a great idea though.
I think that that's fantastic. What a great idea to be able to

(22:22):
write a story based on something, you know, a concept
that of something that you almost had happened with you.
Yeah, I think that's a great way.
When you write about these characters, when you develop
them, do they have like their like in your mind when you're,

(22:43):
you're creating them and and developing them, do you like go
back in their history and in in your mind and you see them as
they would be as a child, kind of like some of their stuff from
their childhood past and then what developed them and created
them into who they are today? Yeah, Like for instance, in in,

(23:03):
in Bad Pennies at the beginning,the very first chapter of Bad
Pennies has the two main characters as teenagers and one
of them just came out to his father and it went horrific.
And but I knew that I knew that story already when when I'm

(23:23):
started writing it because I outline and I do a lot of
character work to figure out whothese characters are and what
what they're about. What I often do, especially if
something's much, you know, mostly based on, on stuff that
you know, or loosely based on stuff that really happened.
I, I tend to use people I know and then add or subtract an

(23:47):
element from them. So like there's a guy named Dano
in Bad Pennies and he's based ona friend of mine named Dano
'cause I just can't imagine another name for this guy.
He, he, he's always been, every time I've ever hung out with
him, it's been an epic night. It it's just always insane

(24:09):
whatever's going to happen. And, and so and he's the also
like the nicest guy in the world.
Like he's just so nice. He's the kindest drunk you've
ever met. And so Dana is.
By chance, a bar owner in Tacoma.
Is he? No.

(24:30):
But. But he but he, but he, he's not
quite a good character because he's too nice.
And so instead of making it so Itook away his niceness and then
instead he thinks violence, likereal violence is Looney Tunes
funny. And so, so instead he's kind of

(24:52):
a psychopath, but you know, and,and, and but he's a fun
psychopath because he's still got that boisterous thing that
that he's got. And, and I added like he has a
Tesla and the Tesla was from my son had a friend who put like a

(25:15):
masonry block in the driver's seat of his Tesla and sent it to
pick up my son. He just put it on autopilot and
sent it to, to get get by his son, 'cause it's not supposed to
go without anybody in it. But if you put a cinder block in
there, it thinks there's a person there.

(25:36):
Now I hear that they fixed that,but it used to work and so.
Wait a minute so you can. 'Cause you can control the car
with your, you can control the car with the app.
What? Yeah, really.
Yeah, these things are crazy. It's insane and I don't like it.

(26:04):
But but but my son was saying how he got picked up from his
friend who is drunk off his ass in the back seat of the car.
Wow, 'cause he. 'Cause he can't, he's like, I
can't drive. Like I just put the block in
there and he'll go. And, and so I just love that
idea for my Dano character. So I have a scene where Dano

(26:26):
picks somebody up and he's drunkin the back, 'cause that's
funny. OK, that just, you know, I just,
I've just pictured a a whole newway of getting pulled over by
the cops. Right, there's there's so many
possibilities with that idea, like what do you do if you pull

(26:47):
over and there's a cinder? Do you?
Know why I pulled you over? I don't know.
He was driving and they look up there.
Ain't nobody's driving. Right.
There's a cinder block you sitting in the back seat with
your phone. I think you're going to have to
arrest that cinder block, he put.
A. Block and.
Then and then a cop, and then the cop asked you, Sir, are you

(27:08):
good to drive? He's like, why you think I'm
back here? I know, right?
And and. Yeah, I didn't think I'm back
here. I'm being responsible.
The Cinder. The guy in the back of drunk
driving ticket. Because he wasn't.
I don't know because he wasn't driving you.
Know that's that's. I did not know that you can run

(27:31):
those cars by your phone. It's scary stuff.
Yeah, that's, that's the wild part.
Yeah, that is very wild. That is wow.
Wow, that is insane. Yeah.
My dad just got this electric car.
It's a Volvo and apparently goeszero to 60 in three seconds.

(27:54):
Wow. I don't know why the 75 year old
man needs a car that goes zero to 60 in three seconds, but you
know, OK. I've just had a bunch of a bunch
of wild crazy ideas in my head. Like I'll put a baby car, a baby
seat in the front seat instead of cinder block, sit the car

(28:16):
seat in the block and sit in theback seat and let the baby
drive. Then get the baby drive.
Yeah. Then get pulled over and tell
the car ticket I dare you. I like it.
I think he's going to pay it, but.
Yeah. So, yeah, bad pennies.

(28:37):
It's weird that it's taken that it's 2025 and the first time I
wrote like the first screenplay I wrote in 2000.
So it's weird that it's been a 25 year thing, but it it hasn't
been me working on it 25 years. It's been me working on it every
now and then and then finally finally getting it out.

(28:58):
Yeah. But I think that there's, you
know, if the in those 25 years, there's been some things that
have happened that you were ableto incorporate and that made it
so much better. And the good thing is that you
stuck with it, you never gave upon it.
And now it's out there for us tofor us to actually read.
I want 'cause I'm going to read.I'm going to find your book and

(29:21):
I'm going to I want to check outBad Penny and I also want to
catch out the first the first book because it seems like Bad
Penny is pretty much a spin off.From some of the.
Characteristics. A better lie.
Yeah, it's funny. Oh, go ahead.
Sorry. Now with a Better lie, that book
is like I said, I always take like 3 or 4 ideas and throw them

(29:43):
all together. And so a A better lie was is
about this group of guys that work at a flower shop in
downtown Tacoma and they come upwith the idea of coming up with
alibis for people. So you know, you, you're having
an affair and you need a, a perfect excuse, they'll come up

(30:04):
with the excuse for you. And so Needless to say, things
go very wrong very quickly. And at one point there, you
know, doing alibis for somebody who may or may not be a killer.
And so, you know, things get a little weird from there.
And and also, while all of that's going on, there's an

(30:30):
affair happening between the boss and the one of the
employees. And there's also some Russian
mob stuff going on. But like I said, I like to throw
a lot at the wall. Yeah, but that's that's kind of
what makes a book interesting or, or even like a story.

(30:51):
And and I was just thinking, youknow, it's it's no different
when when you talk about you're hanging on to it for like 25
years. I know that Jamal's probably
guilty of this too, but I've hadpunch lines that I've written
down and I could not find the words to put around it.
Right. I yeah, so you have that punch

(31:13):
line and you're like, that is anawesome punch line.
One of these days, I'm going to be able to flesh out this as a
joke. It's going to actually be
really. And so you hang on to it and
then when something does happen,you're like, Oh my God, that
punch line. I finally have something to put
in the punch line that's. What this that's what this box
is. This this box is just full of

(31:38):
like 4 by 6 cards of ideas and things that I just didn't, I
haven't found a place for, you know, like every like I've got
this one interrogation idea, like an interrogation scene
idea. And I love the idea.
I just haven't had a scene for it yet.
I haven't had a scene for this kind of character yet.

(32:01):
But the idea of it is I was thinking about the date rape
drug and I was thinking, how hasit been used?
How is that I how is it never been used that I've seen before?
You know, what's what's something I could do that I've
never seen before. And I had the idea of some guy
who's, you know, torturing bad, you know, torturing somebody and

(32:22):
he just goes, I don't want to remember what I'm going to do
next. And so, so he's roofing himself
so we won't remember the next few hours.
God, that's funny. That's nice and terrifying and I
I like that scene, but I have nostory for that.

(32:44):
I just have that scene, you know?
And so I write it down on a cardand if I end up.
That is a brilliant. That is a what?
A. Wealthy idea.
Yeah. You know it's because that's.
Like terrifying. That's actually funny because,
you know, and that could actually be something that I
could see that actually being something comedic.

(33:07):
Right. Dark, comedic like.
Like very very dark, but very very.
I'm such a nice person. I could think of all these
horrible things to do, but I could never do it because I'm
too but something like that. I was like but if it was
necessary and if I could. That's.
That's. Called being a functioning

(33:27):
psychotic. There you.
Go. There you go.
Fucked up, but you have the wherewithal to be like, no, Mary
Ann, that is not right. And I meanwhile I have to fight
the urge to do the same thing, like just do it to see what the
outcome would be. Right.

(33:48):
It's like so over on Facebook, I've been doing these things
called Jack Tales where I just tell stories from my past
because I tend to do that. And one of the more recent ones
I've mentioned it, it was a one where I burned my chemistry
teacher's grade book. And the reason I did that was

(34:09):
that he had taken me aside and literally told me I was never
going to amount to anything and I was a loser.
And he just, he just, he and I did not get along.
He didn't like me because I had really long hair and a leather
jacket. And that bothered him somehow.
So we didn't get along. And then he got really sick.

(34:30):
Like he was sick for weeks. And every day I saw his, the
Gray book on his desk and I was like, you know what I got?
I'm going to take it. So I took it, but then I was
like, well, what am I gonna do with it?
I can't change my grade. You'll know, I changed my grade.
I was like, well, what if I changed a few grades?
Then then, then like then it's just a, you know, then it's a

(34:56):
list of suspects. I'm like, well, I can't just
give it back. That's pointless.
And so like, what if I couldn't give it back?
And in our backyard we had this 50 gallon barrel that we'd burn
trash in. And I was like, I'll burn it in
that, I'll destroy it. So I burned the grade book and

(35:17):
then this is the way my brain worked at the time.
I took those ashes, wrapped themin newspaper, burned it again,
took those ashes and put them ina random garbage can because I
wasn't going to get caught. And that it's that kind of level

(35:39):
of thinking that makes me not a criminal because I'm too lazy
for that shit. Yeah.
Yeah, like I am just like whenever I think of as much as I
might not like somebody, you youkill somebody and you just made
200 lbs of evidence. Right, that's a lot of work.
That's just work, work like. Like I remember how frightened

(36:03):
my parents were when I just offhanded.
They went well how? I don't understand serial
killings. I don't get it.
That seems like a lot of like bank robbery.
You get money rape, you get off.But but, but serial killing just
seems like a lot of work And, and and and I'm like, what's the

(36:29):
point, you silly people? And, and, and I think they were
bothered by the fact that I was like, well, I understand other
crimes. Well, you know, and.
That's when. You think about it when you
think about those other crimes, you know, I think a lot of it

(36:49):
have at some point in our lives fantasized about like robbing a
bank or robbing something and having.
You just. Followers that.
No, no. Nope, the black guy in the room
ain't never dreamed of robbing nobody.
Let's put black. Guys to the.
Room well, I'm letting you know that right I'm I'm putting that

(37:11):
out there America, the black guythis in this segment never.
Thought about. Dreamed of robbing nobody.
I want this shit coming back on me.
Damn that I'm innocent. I have never dreamed that.
You know I work hard and you know, I, I, I, I prevailed in
life because I married my sugar Mama.

(37:31):
Now she works hard and gives me money.
That's why I said it. That's how you got to come up.
In this world. OK, so me and Romeo's cars are
parked in a very different garage because I can tell you
exactly the last time I thought about robbing somebody and it
was last. Night.
It was last night before I went to this Broadway show.

(37:54):
I kid you not me and my friend was walking out.
Me and my friend, we walked out of this McDonald's and we saw
this guy bending over picking upmoney.
He had dropped money on the floor and it was a lot of money.
I'm surprised the wind did not pick up and and I, and I and I
and I and I tapped my friend on the shoulder like yo, because we

(38:18):
went to a bar and I was like, I only bought 1 drink and I'm
like, yo, we could get more drinks if we just knocked this
dude over and picked up some of this money and then just ran
back. I mean, I mean, I wouldn't.
And we're in Times Square, mind you, Times Square.
I mean you get robbed. We're disappearing and hiding in

(38:39):
plain sight. Like we're going to be like,
what are you talking about? This dude was bending over
paying the money and we walked. As we were walking past them, I
said to him, Make sure you get all of it you.
Know what's scary? Is it that there was probably
some pickpockets? It was Times Square, so there's
probably some pickpockets or some of the crooks who did roll

(38:59):
him after you guys walked away because maybe they weren't
thinking about it, but they saw that lot of cash.
This dude, first of all, it's like, how the fuck do you drop
that much dollars on the floor? I mean, I have a wallet, you
know what I'm saying? That would never happen.
But you know, he's bending over picking it up.
And when I told him what I told him, he, like, he looked at me
and he laughed because he knew where he was at.

(39:20):
He knew that. Mind you, he's grabbing.
He has a fistful of cash, you know, like a a, a fistful of
dollars like that Clint Eastwoodtitle.
And I'm like, dude, I could easily take that from you and
just. Bolt.
I literally like the wheels in my head were.
Turning I'm like. You could rob this dude and be

(39:42):
like and and and no, there was some 20s and hundreds on the
floor. I was like, it'd make like $340
in like 5 seconds, see. And that's why they say that's
where that that old adage comes from.
Never tempt an honest man because I'm telling you, you
were like you felt. And that's what I'm saying is,

(40:02):
is that, you know, you think about some of the different
crimes. Like I know I thought about
things like, shit, I had a dream.
I had a dream that me and a couple of my friends.
Robbed a bank. We hit the vault, had
pillowcases and pillowcases fullof money, and we went and

(40:23):
stashed it and we didn't get caught.
We all booked out of there and Iremember thinking we needed some
money. So we were pulling out a little
bit at a time, you know, like not a whole lot.
Making sure, you know, we were doing it.
Didn't go anything extravagant or anything.
We figured we'd have to be a fewyears before we could actually

(40:44):
spend it. But I've never thought about,
oh, that's not true. I've thought about killing
people, I thought. Oh, you know, I think we're all
capable of just about anything given the right circumstances,
right? Right.
And I think a lot of it was like, I just so squeamish.

(41:08):
I'm like, I, I got real squeamish about it.
And I'm like, yeah, no, I can't do it.
OK, let's back up a second. OK, We married.
You're not thinking about killing everybody still, are
you? Because I just need to know, you
know, if I need to sleep with one eye open.
No, like I said. She didn't.
She didn't kill you yet. As long as you act right, we're
fine, babe. Y'all heard that America?

(41:33):
If anything happens to me, y'allknow I ain't acting right.
Jack, I think you found the nexttitle of your next book, to be
honest with you. What?
Right. That is actually a funny time.
So it does make me ask. OK, so yesterday I discovered.

(41:54):
Was it yesterday? Yeah, it was yesterday or
Tuesday, I don't remember. The days are all kind of blood.
I finally gave in to the machine.
I finally gave in and tried AI. Oh, I did.

(42:16):
And and that fast. It converted me.
I am in love and no you're not. Oh my God, you know.
There's no way AI could make youfeel anything to be honest with
you. We I just had the discussion
yesterday with a friend of mine.AI takes the feeling out of

(42:40):
everything that's human and is like yeah I'm sorry I am so anti
AI. Well, you know what?
I was too. But I had to.
I had to submit a tailored resume and, and so I took my
resume and I dropped it in thereand I said what recommendations

(43:04):
and can you give me recommendations on how to you
know? Enhance.
Enhance my resume and it said yes give me your resume and I
gave and it like that fast. In that context, OK, I see that.
Yes, but there's more. There's more.

(43:25):
So then, so then it asked me, itasked me would you like me to
tailor this to a specific job? And I went, why yes, I would,
yes, please 'cause I made sure Isay please and thank you to AI,
'cause I know about the Terminator.
I'm not about to have this. It's not.
Gonna care that you said right? I'm saying it's gonna kill you

(43:48):
anyway, I've heard. Stories.
It won't go. You said please and thank you,
you shall be spared. Yes.
Guy Net does not recognize matters.
Then it asked me if I wanted it to tailor the resume and I said
yes, I would. And it did.

(44:08):
It took all and it made this beautiful resume within like a
second. And then it asked me, would you
like me one more further? Would you like me to create a
cover letter to go with this? And I'm like mind blown.
Yes, I would. And within a second it like
literally it went OK and it was done.
This is because cover letters and resumes are inhuman things,

(44:32):
and so it's good at it. They are and they take, but
here's what I was in love with. They're just bad things.
All of this in less than 15 minutes.
Do you realize you need to writethat cover letter for me to
write Taylor? That resume and all that would
have taken me hours. And when you print it out and

(44:53):
when you print it out the resumeand you hold it to the light,
the the watermark says Skynet onit right across the page.
So. Yes, but so, and, and The thing
is, is that the I used the, the AI that I used was recommended
to me by and, and surprisingly enough, it was an older woman

(45:19):
who's like probably, I think she's probably on one of our
cruises. She's probably in her late 60s,
early 70s and she's an author and she was and her and I were
having the conversation about how authors.
Now she goes, I I like it to correct errors.
I like it to suggest word changes she goes.

(45:43):
But there's actually authors outthere that will dump all their
stuff into AI and have a new book generated in and it takes
them a couple of. Hours fraction.
Yeah, a fraction of the. Time a couple of hours instead
of months. That's 'cause they're, and those
people aren't really authors. You know, that's the thing of it
is it can just regurgitate things and it, and it will do so

(46:07):
confidently. And so like I, I tried to do
something with AI that I thoughtwould be fun a few weeks ago.
My next project is really just very, very large in scope.
It, it takes place between 1945 and 1954.
And so it it's, you know, it's got a lot going on.

(46:31):
And so, and it's heavily fact based.
And so I took a few thousand newspaper articles and fed it to
the AI and so that it had all this information.
And then I asked it some basic questions like who was mayor of

(46:52):
Tacoma in 1941? And, and I asked like a dozen
basic information questions thatit should have understood from
the thousands of articles. I think it got all of them
wrong, but in every case it saidit absolutely confidently.

(47:14):
Right. And in some cases it made-up.
In some cases it entirely made-up people that didn't
exist. AI, the president.
And I'm like. I'm like what the hell you know,
So it, what it reminds me of is a Co worker that I didn't get

(47:35):
along with. Like he was wrong all the time.
He didn't know what he was talking about, but he was
absolutely confident about it. Well, it takes gotta say with
confidence. I'm telling you shit.
Yeah, and he just said, well, hecats the dogs.

(47:56):
That's. The thing I didn't, I didn't
realize that. I didn't realize that that was
that confidence was all it took until I went to a Planet
Hollywood party where I was toldI would be put on the guest

(48:17):
list. And the guy who was supposed to
put me on the guest list got drunk and didn't put me on the
list at all. And so he texted me and said
just say you do the website for these guys, he'll be fine, I'll
tell them that. Which he also did not do.
So I go up to the doorman and I and I say and said I do the

(48:41):
website for these guys and if I'm not in there in the next 5
minutes, they're gonna be pissed.
And they've just let me in and I'll.
And not only did they let me in,but my friend Josh who was with
me, he said, who's he? And I said he's with me and that
it's the only time I've ever said he's with me and it counted
for anything. But I got in.

(49:01):
And then later on, the guy who said, the guy who told me to
tell him it was the website was like, dude, I'm so sorry.
I didn't tell anybody anything. How did you get in?
I'm like, you didn't. I guess I just believed it.
This is so true. And you know what?
I you could totally pass for somebody who does the website.
I could see that you know so that that works.

(49:24):
No, it it, it worked and and it you know, it was a fun time.
That's that, That's that saying.Fake it till you make it.
You got it. Act like you belong.
Actually act like you. Supposed to be there.
I've gotten into some places just because I act like I belong
and walked in and nobody's even batted an eyelash at me, you

(49:47):
know, Nobody's ever stopped me. Nobody's ever said it's I've
I've done things like I rememberI was, I was at the liquor store
back when, you know, you could only buy alcohol in liquor
stores in Washington state. I was like 20.
I was right, like literally a couple of months before my 21st

(50:10):
birthday and I was at the liquorstore and I was buying alcohol
with my, my older sister who wasold enough and they carded her.
And then they looked at me and they said, I need your ID too.
And I'm like, OK. And so I opened my wallet and I
was like, I was looking through and I'm like, Oh my God, my ID
is not in my wallet. Oh, I said, I wrote that check

(50:34):
with that last place that we were at.
And I can't find my Idi think I left my, my driver's license and
I was looking through and the woman was just about to say, oh,
OK, I believe him. And then my fucking sister goes,
Oh no, it's right here. Damn.
It Laura, why the fuck did you dime me out like that?
I was gonna we were fine. And she's like, well, I didn't

(50:55):
know. And I'm like, you didn't stop
the thing, but that's what I wasdoing.
See we this past weekend we wentbar hopping.
We had three English girls with us, one of them.
Was. Pretty hammered and we walk into

(51:17):
this bar and they take all of our IDs and one of the guys
pointed to the girls and said she can't come in because she
looks drunk. And I was like OK so we go
outside. The vibe in that bar was kind of
horrible. Anyway, so we're outside and I'm
like, OK, there's another bar half a block down here.

(51:42):
She. Needs to look like she has her
shit together before we go to the next place and we're like I
need to see your I'm not so drunk based.
And after like 10 attempts, she,she finally got it down.

(52:02):
And we, we go into this next barand I say, hey, here's our IDs.
And we go in and the she's, she's trying her best to look

(52:26):
super sober and they, they let us in.
And are we, are we OK here? Why are we this?
We're recording. Are you OK?
Yes, we're recording. There we are.
Yeah. OK.
No, I was like, I was telling the story, OK.

(52:46):
I don't even know where I lost you guys on the story.
You didn't, no. And then they said that that she
she did her best to look sober. And y'all got to get.
To the bar. Yeah, so we had, but we had to
like, do like, almost like auditions and like, OK, I need
to see your, your, your sober face.
And it was just like, you know, like, Nope, that ain't it.

(53:08):
That ain't it. That ain't it.
We're all like, OK, we're just going to have to, you know, So
we, we the next one that we go to, you know, it's really
popping. Everything looks good.
And she she had to like fake herway into the bar, into the barn,
you know, and I'm like, I don't like really hanging out with
drunk people. That's just not my thing.

(53:30):
I'm not the, I don't want to be the mother hand or the father
rooster or whatever. So I was like, she does not
drink for the rest of the night.She needs to sober up.
So we started giving her like, ginger ale and like sodas and
what have you. And we went to another bar and
she was even more tore up than she was when she went to the

(53:51):
first bar or the second bar. And it was just like, yeah, it
was. But at the same time to, to fall
into what you guys were talking about.
Yeah. Look like you belong there.
You know what I'm saying? You got to look like, because I
had to talk the bouncers. I'm like, look, she's with us.
She's not from, she's from across the pond and she's not

(54:11):
drinking. We've been feeding her water and
what have you. And surely enough, after a few
hours, she kind of sobered back up, you know, to a point where
it's like, oh, it's 3:30. I got to work tomorrow.
I got to go. I got to go get this hour of
sleeping. But you know, now you know how

(54:34):
to handle yourself in a bar in New York or bars in New York.
Still sounds fun ish. All except for that getting up
after an hour's sleep. I'm getting too old for that
shit. Yeah.
I need my. Yeah, I was.
I We used to party all night ago.

(54:56):
We all did when we were in our 20s.
You ain't lying, right? That's all we could party.
I still remember one time I wentto a party.
I went to a party with a girlfriend of mine.
She dropped me off. I had to work in the next
morning. So she dropped me off at my job
like 3 hours before I was supposed to be to work.

(55:16):
And I went in and I looked at the break table and the in the
break room and I was like not even a break room was right
outside the owner's office. And I was like, oh, yeah.
And I curled up on the table andI took a nap.
And I woke up and there was thisdude that worked there.
And he's sitting there staring at me.
And he's like, what are you doing?

(55:39):
I go, I'm getting ready for work.
What does it look like? Like, Oh, and I'm telling you,
the owner knew that I was hungover and I was not of age.
And so she was kind enough to put me through in the drive
through with the headphones, bong, bong, every time somebody
roll up. And I'm like, welcome to Dairy

(56:02):
Queen. Can I take your order?
And I'm like. Oh my God.
Yeah, it's, it's, you know, and,and the whole time that night,
because this was a Wednesday night.
No, this was a Thursday night. And the girls were staying at a
hotel not too far from where I live.

(56:24):
And they were like, oh, if you want, you could stay at our
hotel. And all I thought about was,
tomorrow is Halloween. I need to go home and get my
costume so I could dress, so I could wear it to work.
That's all I cared about. It wasn't even like, oh, I could
get laid tonight. I'm like, no, I want, I want my

(56:46):
costume. You know what I'm saying?
Like. Get late any night.
Some things are important. Yeah, like Halloween, this this
is my Christmas, OK. Like this is my Christmas.
So I, we were in the, we were inthe Uber, we crossed the bridge
and I see like their bus line that gets me, that drops me off

(57:06):
like not too far from my house. And I'm like, you know what, I'm
going to get up here. It's like, Are you sure?
I'm like. Yeah.
Because I, I need to go home andI get to the bus stop and I pass
out for like 45 minutes. So I'm like, I at, at, at the
bus terminal, even this is like a, like a transit center in, in

(57:30):
Brooklyn. And I'm like, oh, the next bus
doesn't come in 47 minutes because it is 3 at this time.
It's already 3:30. So I nap out, you know, I'm like
looking around, making sure that, you know, no, you know,
and I'm just like laid back. I'm I'm, I'm not even drunk, but

(57:52):
I'm semi like buzzed and I get home.
I remember sticking the key in the door at 4:29 and I'm like, I
don't and I wake up at 5:40 in the morning.
So I'm like, OK, let me go get the sleep in.

(58:14):
I go to sleep. I remember the my alarm ringing
and then I hit the snooze buttonand then the next time I woke up
it was 2 hours after the snooze button.
I was like I must have needed that sleep.
So I just grabbed my costume throw it on.
I don't even have time to paint my face which I was going to do
like 30 minutes before I clockedout.

(58:35):
So I was like I don't care but Ididn't want it to look like I
spent all night trying to find my suit.
Which is why I showed up to work2 hours later.
Just I only have enough time to take a shower because I
definitely did not want to be smelling in my suit smelling all
like, you know. Alcohol.

(58:57):
Yeah, that alcohol and, you know, bad decisions, which I I
did make a couple, but yeah, so Halloween is very important to
me and it's it's like, do I get laid or do I get dressed?
So I suit it up. Oh, you know what?
Alcohol and bad decisions have been going hand in hand forever,

(59:19):
you know. But that's the different that
shows how ironically how mature you are that you chose your
costume over getting laid. Is that maturity or is that just
old? Age, Well, it's not even old
age. It's The thing is once you get
to a certain age, you realize you can pretty much get laid.

(59:42):
You know, he can get laid anytime pretty much.
If like, like, like I tell, I mean, a lot of, a lot of guys
have problems. But like I tell everybody, I
mean, you can get laid whenever,as long as you put in enough
effort, it's going to take a, it's going to take more effort
on your part in time because a lot, a lot of women just want

(01:00:03):
some type of. It's my old joke.
If you want to get laid, if you want, if you want to get a woman
in bed, just get to know them. Yeah.
I know it's I, I know it's a weird idea though.
I know it. Sounds sounds so archaic gets.

(01:00:26):
It I know, but. I know, right?
Tried and true. Tried and true.
Oh. Wait, wait, hold on.
You mean you mean talk to them actually?
See what they like. They're one of the life.
Listen to them. Right, like.
Like a lady. I've been doing this wrong the

(01:00:46):
whole time you. Have sorry.
Well, it depends on what you want.
If you're just trying to get laid, you treat them one way,
but if you're trying to actuallycreate a relationship to a
different way, that's. True, because if you just want
to get laid, you can. Try crap.
I like to tell them while I'm getting laid what my intentions

(01:01:08):
are. In my first, in my first book
ruin your life, I have a whole chapter called be a sexual
customer service Rep. And the, and you know, the whole
idea is, you know, the customer's always right.
You're, you're always trying to upsell, you know, just all the

(01:01:31):
typical things that you, you do for customer service And the
whole idea is you want to repeatcustomer.
Yes, exactly exactly that. Is very good.
I like that. That's hilarious.
What book is that one? That's called ruin your life and
it is out of print. Really the only way to get it is

(01:01:55):
to ask me to send you an e-book version, and I might.
Every now and then. I.
Let me ask you a question, Jack.What happens when a book becomes
out of print? Why does it go out of print?
What what happened with that onein particular is I wrote that
like in my early 20s and there'sthings in that book that coming

(01:02:20):
from a 22 year old are great andcoming from a 42 year old is not
great and coming from a 50 year old is just pervy, you know.
And so, so like the whole idea the that book ruined your life.
The idea of it was it's like a self help book, but exactly the
opposite. So it's like a self destruct

(01:02:43):
book. So the idea of it was if you're
going to do something wrong, do it right.
And so it was just all the bad ideas that I did in my 20s and
how to do them in a way that minimizes the harm around
everybody else so that you're only hurting yourself.

(01:03:05):
You know, that was basically theidea of, and it was, you know,
written as a humor book. But like I said, there was,
there was like a chapter in thatbook about dating teenagers,
which, you know, is one thing when you're 20 and there's a
whole other thing when you're 40.

(01:03:25):
And so, you know, and so I didn't, I just didn't really
feel like wanting to sign that book, you know, in water, you
know, but at the same time, it'san irreverent book and it's and
the idea of taking a chapter outof it is like the opposite of

(01:03:45):
the idea of the book. So, so these days I have an
e-book version that I emailed topeople when they really when
they're like, I gotta read it. I'm like, well, if you got it,
OK, but but I don't know. It's I first published it in
2007 and 2027's not that far off.

(01:04:09):
I might have to do a 20 year anniversary version.
I mean, I'm not. I've been lying if I said I
wasn't thinking about it. That'd be cool though.
I think that that would be really good to have them side by
side to see what have you done different?
What's your perspective now? Yeah, like, let me see here.

(01:04:33):
Yeah. Like this is the does that book
ruin your life? And it, and it's not a huge book
or anything, it's a thin thing, but it, it's fun.
Yeah. It, it started as a series of
columns and then that website went down and I decided to turn
it into a book. And yeah, it's it.

(01:04:56):
It's a weird book in that I've had four different people that I
did not know tell me it was the first book they ever finished
reading, which I'm like. Great, this.
Book for illiterates, I guess, like I, I don't know, I, I, I
was kind of, because what happened was I worked in a

(01:05:19):
warehouse when I, when I was, when I published it and I was
good. I was good friends with the guy
who ran the warehouse. And so he decided to buy a copy
of the book for everybody that worked there.
And so that was nice of them. I was very, I was very happy

(01:05:39):
about that. But it it did result in some
people that I didn't know that were there going, you know, I've
never finished a book before. I like this like, like it's as a
guy who reads dozens of books every year, the idea of I've
never finished a book before is just like for an adult to say

(01:06:00):
that is just weird. But but like I said, I had four
different people say that. And then I had my favorite thing
anyone ever said about Ruin YourLife though, was a guy in prison
said thanks to your book, I knowwhere I went wrong.
It was the guns and the motorcycles.

(01:06:21):
Wow. Yeah.
Yeah, that usually, yeah. Look at you, changing lives.
Do what I please. You know, I I used to say that I
was going to write a sequel called Ruin Their Life that
would be all about revenge, but that feels.
Yeah, when does that book come out?

(01:06:42):
See that book seems like it would.
I don't know. It's like handing dynamite to
children. You know, it's like, do you
really want that book out there in the world?
No. No, because.
Then they can. Say that Mike, I've.
I learned it from you, Dad. Right, right.
You know, but yeah, it's like I said, the next thing I'm working

(01:07:07):
on is it's called Grit City Stories.
As we've talked about in previous episodes, I have a a
true crime thing called Tacoma Stories that talks about
homicides that happen in Tacoma.Grit City Stories is going to be
a series of stories and books about Tacoma in the 1940s and

(01:07:32):
1950s. It's Yeah.
It's something I've been researching for the past few
years on a level that's that if I don't make books about it,
I've wasted a lot of time. I mean, I've spent so much time
in that era at this point that and right now it in on my sub

(01:07:59):
stack. There's a there's a short story
called the gift that is that takes place in that world and is
based on a true story. There's this homicide that
happened in 1948, Noreen Mcnichols, and she was, she was

(01:08:21):
killed in Spanaway Park. But in my story, I changed it to
Wapato just because Wapato's within the Tacoma city limits
and makes things easier. But, but it's it's a really
interesting story as to where itgoes.
And so like with the Gift, The Gift is the first of four
stories that are gonna tell thiswhole overarching plot of what

(01:08:46):
happened. But but that's just like, like
that's just me experimenting with that.
The the Big 1 is a thing that isa book that started with when I
went to Goder for my MFA, my thesis was a story that took

(01:09:07):
place in the late 1940s in Tacoma.
And that thing is almost ready. It's it's very close to being
ready. I've got, when I worked on it at
Goddard, one of the things was the method that they used, there
wasn't a lot of time for research.

(01:09:27):
So I did some cursory research and outlined and wrote the
thing. But in the years since I
graduated there like 5 years ago, I've spent time working on,
you know, researching, reading thousands of newspaper articles
and whatnot. Just getting to the point where

(01:09:50):
I understand the context of everything that happened and why
it happened the way it did. And the key thing for me is
while it's based on true stories, all the characters are
my characters. Because really, really hard to

(01:10:14):
dive into all these people's personal lives.
It would be. It's just easier for me to be
able to make that stuff up and use fictional characters to tell
real stories. I was going to ask about that
because that's, you know, like how even with the these
character, like the people that actually literally did get

(01:10:35):
murdered and stuff, how much does that really touch you
mentally when you're dealing with like if you've read
thousands of articles about the situations and stuff?
Well. In that way, I'm kind of helped
by 20 years of writing Tacoma Stories because Tacoma Stories

(01:10:56):
has been. Next year will be our 20th year
of writing about every homicide that takes place in the city of
Tacoma. And doing that's not easy.
It, there's been times that I'vetaken like one time I took a
year and a half off because because I just, it's, it is, you

(01:11:20):
know, especially when you're talking about present day stuff,
like old stuff is a little easier because it happened 80
years ago, you know, and it happened in a city that's in the
same place as this city is, but it's not really the same city.
I mean, there, it's different enough that that you don't
really feel it the way, you know, if I'm writing about a

(01:11:44):
homicide that took place six months ago, well, you know, I
can walk right over there. And yeah.
So, oh, in that way, I think that I was a little prepared for
that. You know, there isn't anything
that's going to really surprise me.
I'm also aware of, you know, when it is affecting me and when

(01:12:06):
I do need to take a break and, you know, watch some cartoons or
something. But But yeah, the IT is
important to know when that limit is there.
You know, when I when it like when I'm writing for Tacoma
stories, I don't write more thanone homicide a day.

(01:12:28):
Like even if I'm, you know, because I don't want to do more,
I, I don't want to do the research.
I don't want, because every timeit, it's the same story every
time somebody dies and that's that, you know, somebody is
killed and, and that's how it works every time.
And it's never, oh, then and then they got away.

(01:12:50):
If they got away, I'm not writing about it.
So. But like I said, you know,
luckily I don't live in Baltimore.
Oh dude, you'd be, you'd be writing like 3 homicides a day.
Right. No, no, I'd be a.
Lot. You know, my hair would be
white. Yeah, luckily I live in Tacoma

(01:13:14):
where we have 20 or 30 homicidesa year and it's still 20 or 30.
That's a lot. You know and.
That's a lot of homicides, right?
No, it's still a lot in Chicago.Let me tell you.
That. Well, I know that, but even, you
know, and I I understand Chicago, that's what, 23rd?

(01:13:35):
Yeah, you know, but. But that's the thing, is every
one of them, like, that's the thing that I learned from doing
it, is that every one of them, no matter who they are, there's
somebody somewhere who loves them.
There's somebody somewhere who'sgoing to be devastated by their
death. Yeah, and that's true every

(01:13:57):
time, no matter who they are andeven when there's somebody who
should be killed, you know somebody.
Why? Because even if they're a shitty
person, even if they're a shittyperson and.
Doesn't matter, there's somebodygoing.
Else loves them. I can't.
Believe he's dead and, and you know, and, and, and that's real
pain, you know, that's real sadness.

(01:14:18):
And, and I think it's kind of what makes us all human.
And, you know, with the, you know, with the grit City stories
thing, I, I really wanted to kind of like with Tacoma stories
because I'm writing about specific real people in present
day stuff. It's real names and everything I

(01:14:39):
can find out about. And, and that's usually not very
much. And so with great city stories,
I really wanted to be able to dive into characters lives and
do things and, and write, you know, write a, a nice compelling
story and also shine a spotlighton a little piece of local
history that I think is really, really cool.

(01:15:03):
There's some things that happened in the 40s and 50s here
that a lot of people don't know about the I think were they
remind me of the old Bryant Palma movie Untouchables.
It reminds me a lot of like a Pacific, yeah, Pacific Northwest

(01:15:24):
version of Untouchables. And so that that's what I've
been working on. But like I said, it's a bunch of
stories and at least two or three books, and only one of
those books is written right now.
So I I it's still just this hugeproject.

(01:15:46):
Wow. But that, I mean, I think that
that's actually something that'sreally unique that's I don't
know that there's a lot of otherauthors out there doing
something like that. Well, the the thing of it was
that one of the things they hammered on us, not that it was
rough at Goddard, Goddard was great, But one of the things

(01:16:07):
that they really wanted to get through to us was when you're
writing, you should write the story that only you can write,
the thing that you're uniquely qualified to write.
And I feel like this is a story I'm uniquely qualified to write,
both from my experiences from writing in true crime in Tacoma

(01:16:31):
and my own experiences in Tacoma, and by research.
And all of that makes me one of two or three guys I could think
of that could possibly write this story.
And luckily the other two guys aren't doing it as far as I
know, so. Oh, 'cause I was about to ask.
I was like, do you like meet up with other like true Crime Story

(01:16:54):
writers? I I just.
I've got some other local writerfriends who, you know, who
dabble in the same sort of thing.
And then there's a couple that aren't, that are acquaintances
or just people I'm aware of thatI, I, I haven't really talked to
or I've only talked to a couple of times, but yeah, there,

(01:17:17):
there's, and then there's all my.
And and we still arguably as thebest part about my MFA program
was the people I met there. Yeah, I don't think that

(01:17:39):
networking could ever be oversold on how important
networking is in whatever field you're in or whatever endeavour
you're taking, if there are other people there that you can.
Well, finding your people is important.
I mean, that was the thing with my first, the first semester at

(01:18:02):
Goddard and the way they did it there was, I forget what they
call that, but it's the first. Basically, you're, you're only,
you're only on campus for the first week and the rest of it's
off site. And so I spent 10 days there my
first semester and I came back and pulled my girlfriend.

(01:18:23):
I'm like, baby, I am so sorry, but I've fallen in love with 35
people because that's how I felt.
I mean and I I could get into a.Whole.
Long story as to what happened to me when I was at Evergreen
Tacoma and then how Goddard was the polar opposite of that.

(01:18:46):
But that's a whole other thing. But it it was.
But yeah, it's it's important tofind other people who do what
you do and, you know, you can support each other and talk to
each other and go, hey, is this crazy for you or is it just
crazy for me and, and all of that.
I mean, some of my best friends are, are people from Goddard

(01:19:06):
just because they get me, you know?
Yeah, yeah. And I I where is Goddard at?
In history at this point, unfortunately, that the school
closed down last year, it's not a surprise to close down even

(01:19:33):
though it'd been around since the 1850s.
What happened was they, they gota guy in there running the
school who did diploma mills andwhen he got in, I was like, OK,
well, they're going to liquidatethis place.
And they did. And so it's sadly gone 'cause it
was a great school. They had some great people that

(01:19:54):
taught there. I, I was so happy to be one of
the final graduates of the program because it was such a
special program and they taught me immensely.
Like I wouldn't be half the writer I am without their they.
You know, especially like guys like Richard Panic, he was one

(01:20:17):
of my mentors and he he taught me the like.
And before him, I didn't really think about the sounds of words
as well as the meaning of them, like how they actually sound out
loud and how important it is sometimes to get those words
exactly right. And, and he would ask, why did

(01:20:38):
you use this word? Because if that's not the right
word, use different and and I'm much more of a broad strokes
kind of guy. So it was really nice to learn
that kind of meticulousness. Yeah, finesse of it.
And that's true. I mean, that's very true even.
That's something that we as comedians have it in common as

(01:21:01):
well, because when we go to craft and create a joke, we have
to look at the words that we're using, not just the concept that
we're trying to get across, but there's certain words that have
a funnier punch than other words, and that's what doesn't
always. Look at.
Yeah. And it, it sounds, it's the
same, it means the same, but it sounds completely different.

(01:21:22):
And it's way funnier, you know? Right.
And it makes the joke if it's the right word.
Yeah. And you?
Can also like, even with something where you're, you're
writing something more serious, it can stroke an emotion trying
to do, you're trying to get intothe readers.
And so, yeah, I mean, and I comefrom a long line of voracious

(01:21:46):
readers. I mean, my, my mom and my
sister, I in my heyday, I was almost as much as them, but my
sister would read 15 to 20 booksa week.
And my mom was the same way. So I like to say that, you know,
reading is breathing in and writing is breathing out and you

(01:22:08):
got to do both. Like I, I, I can't possibly do 1
without the other. Right now I'm reading Thomas
Mullen's Lightning Man and that's 1940s in Atlanta.
It's the second book in his Darktown trilogy.
And it, it they're, they're all,I assume all three are great

(01:22:31):
right now. I'm on book 2.
I don't know, I haven't read book 3 yet, but but yeah, he and
those books are following 8 black police officers in Atlanta
because they had a black police officers that were, that they
had patrolling black areas of town in Atlanta.
And and so it's heavily fact based fiction as well.

(01:22:56):
And he's, like I said, one of the only people I know who's
also doing that kind of thing. But, and Thomas Mullen's great.
He's he's just really good writing.
Now, when you when you read, do you like to read things that are
kind of similar to what you write or do you like to read
something completely fluff or you know, like if you know?
It depends. It it wildly depends.

(01:23:18):
I've been reading a bunch of Star Wars novels lately, but
that's just the Star Wars geek in me.
I, I like to read, I, I like to do fiction, a fiction book, then
a non fiction book or sometimes both at the same time.
But I can't read 2 fiction booksat the same time because it will

(01:23:41):
drive my brain insane. I'll get them, I'll start
merging them in my brain and it,it's never any good.
And I'll be like, what's going on?
So, yeah, I, you know, and so, yeah, it's, it's tricky because
you don't want to read somethingthat's like, like with the

(01:24:03):
Darktown thing, I avoided it fora while just because it was so
much. It's also 1940s and it's also
about cops. It's also, you know, it has some
similarities to my stuff, exceptit's the East Coast Atlanta
thing and mine's a very much Pacific Northwest thing.
And so it's nice to see how somebody else approaches it,

(01:24:27):
approaches the topic. But but you know, it's always
good to read outside your genre as well.
You know, you you want to, especially if you can find
tricks or little techniques thatare being used in one genre that
you might be able to use in yourgenre.
That's always fun. You do that like when you're

(01:24:49):
reading a book, you go, oh, I, you know, like, do you construct
how the author was writing? Sometimes, sometimes it's so
good. You can't, it's just so good.
You know, like Lydia Yuknovich'sChronicle Chronology of Water.

(01:25:10):
They just turned it into a movie.
And I, I, I hear it's a good movie.
I'd imagine it being as good as the book, cause the book I read
that book, I read Chronology of Water and it was so good that
the first thing I did was buy one and send it to my best
friend because. And The thing is, I did that and

(01:25:31):
then she read it and sent it to her best friend because it's
just that kind of book. It's just so good.
But it but you know what Lidia Yapnavitch does with words I
can't possibly do we don't, you know, we, we both write in

(01:25:52):
English, but that's where our similarities end.
But that's one of the reasons I love meeting because it's so
it's so it's so good. And I remember when I was many,
many years ago, I saw I was reading one of the Harry Potter

(01:26:16):
books and I noticed that JK Rowling likes to do this thing
where this little trick that it's a good trick.
The trick is you, you, you say it happened fast and you don't
know what happened, but you knowsomething has just happened.
But there's this whole sentence here before she tells you what

(01:26:38):
happened and it gives you more attention because of it,
because, you know, because of that little added, it happened
fast rather than just saying, you know, Harry flew off on a
broom or whatever, you know it, or Harry got hit by something.
You know, it, it, it, it adds a little bit.

(01:27:00):
And, you know, little tricks like that are always fun to
notice if you if you can find them.
I know Hunter S Thompson liked to retype, especially The Great
Gatsby, but he'd retype whole books just to get, you know,
just to type those sentences andget an idea of what they're
like. I think that's insane.

(01:27:21):
But that is insane. I I would the idea of retyping
an entire book that isn't mine, I can't imagine doing but but
apparently Hunter S Thompson used to do it like all the time.
Like he, he, he would, yeah, like he would retype chapters

(01:27:42):
and chapters of the great cats. Why?
He, he wanted to feel what it's like to type those sentences.
I guess I don't know. I don't know what that's about.
I, I haven't done much like that.

(01:28:02):
I for a while when I was trying to get into comic book writing,
I would do reverse comic book scripts.
So where you take a comic book and then try to write the
scripts that you would write forthat, for that page, for that
art, try and describe the art and that and you know, that's a
solid way to try to get an idea of how to do a comic book

(01:28:26):
script. But yeah, it's the only it.
Pictures. Yeah, the.
Art. Art, where anything that gets
your imagination going is alwaysgood.
Oh, yeah, yeah. And, and it's really interesting
that you say like, you know, when you were saying, when you

(01:28:47):
read those little snippets, because again, there's it, it's
amazing how much there, there's a lot of parallels between, you
know, like writing a joke and writing, you know, and, and
that's why that's watching othercomics.
One of the reasons why it is brutal, the most brutal audience
a comedian will ever have is a room full of comedians because
they don't, they don't fucking laugh even if they find, unless

(01:29:10):
they find your joke so outrageously funny that they
they can't, they can't stop themselves from laughing.
But right. Most of the time it's they're
the. We're analyzing each other.
We're like, wow, that was reallybrilliant.
I like the way they tied that. Where are they going with that?
Oh, that was I saw that coming. Oh, that seemed, you know, like
when? A Yeah.
When a comedian thinks something's funny, they'll say

(01:29:31):
that's funny. Right.
And like, you laugh a lot. A lot of times we can even
laugh. Or if we do laugh, we'll say
that was funny. You know, like we got to
emphasize that was funny. You know that's.
Funny, yeah. And and it's just, it's natural.
I mean, we don't, we're not like, it's not like we don't
appreciate what the person on stage is doing and how they're

(01:29:53):
performing and the jokes that they're telling, no.
But you're thinking about it, and the thinking makes it so you
can't just honestly react with the laugh because you're too
busy thinking about it. It's yeah, it it.
I do the same thing with movies and other you know where I'll,
I'll, I'll be watching somethingand it's so well done that I'm
too impressed with it being welldone to be scared.

(01:30:16):
Right. You know, exactly, exactly.
I'm just going, wow, no, this ishow you do horror, you know, or.
Or you appreciate it, you're appreciating it.
Right, right, right. But in something like a live
performance of a comedian, they don't think that you're you're
think that they're funny. And it's like, whoa, that's not
it at all that you know, And it's because comedians were we,

(01:30:41):
we are able to react by the audience reaction.
We're able to incorporate that, we're able to work off of that.
And so a dead silence makes it really hard.
It makes it very uncomfortable. Right.
Even if you hear that was down, now that was funny.
I remember how weird it was to watch Stephen Colbert during the

(01:31:04):
pandemic when she when he's justin his house, you know, he's
just in his house and there's noaudience.
Nobody. Oh my God.
And so. You know, yeah.
And so it's just really awkward until you got used to it to hear
him tell jokes and nothing. Yes.
You know, you don't hear that audience because there is no

(01:31:26):
audience. And it's just like, whoa, oh,
no, it is funny. It's just there's nobody there.
Yeah, you got to remind yourself, like, hey, there are
people there. I just can't hear them or see
them for that matter, you know? Exactly.
Because sometimes I, I've done comedy on a green screen, but

(01:31:48):
then I would have a, a, like a chat computer in front of me and
I would have to like tell the joke and kind of like glance
down to see what the, like the hundreds of people who are
watching me do this, you know, live feed of me doing comedy,
like show me like clapping handsor laughter emojis or whatever.

(01:32:10):
And it's just like, I have to respond off.
But I have to kind of like, lookat that and be like, OK, people
like that joke or whatever. There's no real audience.
So it's like, it's almost like Iam talking to myself.
But I got to keep in mind that there is an audience.
They're just, you know, I, it, it's weird man.

(01:32:31):
And it's, it's hilarious to me sometimes.
So I what are your thoughts, Jack?
What are your thoughts on books in the written word?
Do you think that with technology that those are going
to go away? I don't, I, I think stories

(01:32:54):
aren't going to go away. I, I don't know what form
they're going to take. I like the idea of books as
pieces of art, you know, on these as almost these just these
physical manifestations of the story.
But I don't know, I, I mean, I like my Kindle.

(01:33:16):
I'll read books on my Kindle. I like physical books too,
though, and I don't know, it's apparently there's like there's
been a surge in reading from what I've heard, and that's a
good thing. You know, I, I think it's how we
upload software into our brains by reading, I mean, that's just

(01:33:38):
kind of how it works. And I, I, but the, I don't know
how the written words gonna or how the, the concept of the book
is gonna change. I know that lately shorter books
are more popular and that's kindof interesting.
I like shorter books, but I alsoend up reading longer ones.
Or you know, I I can't imagine writing a 900 page book.

(01:34:02):
I just can't. But at the same time I can
imagine writing 3300 page books.So you know.
But they get a lot of, they got a lot of technology right now
where you, what is it speechify,where you take a.
Picture where you can. Yeah, where you can.
And then you just book to you. Yeah.
So that is something that is, I think a growing market because

(01:34:30):
there's a lot of people not say people because I would say
children, but me as as an adult,I don't read books.
I don't, but I've read, I've read books before.
I just don't I just haven't. I haven't for 100 years now, you
know, and, and with the speech, if I and you know, I see these

(01:34:55):
ads where the book, you just take a picture of the cover of
the book and then or take a picture of the page and and it
reads it in any voice you want. I'm like, oh, that looks really
cool. That's something I can probably
get into, right? And and and audiobooks are great
too. Like, like with the, like the
audiobooks that like the Star Wars audiobooks.

(01:35:19):
That's what I've been doing withthe Star Wars novels is the
audiobooks. Oh, I didn't know they had Star
Wars audiobooks. Oh, that's.
Cool. Oh, my God.
OK, this could blow your mind. These, these Star Wars books,
almost all of their audiobooks these days have sound effects.
They've got, you know, they've got lightsaber sounds, they've
got laser sounds, they've got voices, They've got music.

(01:35:43):
It's basically an audio movie. And and there's dozens of them.
So it's just, yeah, they're, they're wonderful.
So can you download these or go to you go get?
Live yeah, you just, you can do it with like on Audible.
Audible, OK. Yeah, over on Amazon, Audible's
the way to go on that. Now I have heard and I've never

(01:36:07):
really dealt with Audible for upfrom the author's kind of point
of things, but I've heard bad things when it comes to being an
author on Audible. But I'll ignore that for a good
Star Wars story. Yeah, OK.
I'm sorry. I'm there for the Star Wars.

(01:36:28):
I can. See that?
You know, that was like we Romeogot me turned on to this.
Oh, pocket, pocket cast. It's FMFM pack is pocket FM.
Pocket FM. Pocket FM.
Talking to them go, oh, there itis.

(01:36:49):
And the problem is, is like I was, I've, I've listened to, I
started a story and I was like, OK, 'cause it actually was
similar to something that I had seen on Facebook.
But I started reading on Facebook.
It was a book. And then I ended up by finding
out who the author was and had to 'cause I it only gave me like

(01:37:13):
4 chapters for free and I was like fuck, I need to read the
rest of the story. So I got the book and it was
supposed to be a trilogy but there's only been one book so
far. Well then I saw in this Pocket
FM that it was very similar and I got to tell you, Pocket FM
makes me crazy because I've already learned to probably 150

(01:37:38):
chapters. Yeah.
And. They.
Just keep adding shit. He's.
The. Same freaking story for like 9
months almost a year. And.
Does this story ever fucking end?
And then he tells me like the characters and he tells me what
they've changed in it. And I'm like, like, OK, so it

(01:37:59):
went from being just a normal regular story to now all of a
sudden this dude has fucking superpowers, you know, like a
year later into the story, you're into the story and like,
you can only listen to three chapters a day.
OK. And I'm like that to me, I can I
So when you said audiences are looking for shorter books, I'm

(01:38:20):
like, I get it. I'm I, I got to the point where
I stopped listening to the story, not because it wasn't a
good story, but I'm like, you have to have a beginning, a
middle and an end. You can't be the never ending
fucking story for real. Because then like this, this
story is going to outlive me. Like this story won't end before
I do. Right.

(01:38:41):
And you have to have like a ending of some sort, you know?
And yeah. It just keeps going.
It keeps changing. Like, write another book, close
that, close that out and create a or create another story, but
don't take those. Give us an ending of some sort,
yes? Yeah, because it it it took a
whole different turn. It went from the kid, everybody

(01:39:03):
thinking he was poor and he was just worthless son-in-law.
And then come to find out he wasa multi billionaire because he
because he right. And then and then then it turned
into he was an apothecary. So he was making these.
He was, he was making, Yeah, he started making these pills and

(01:39:26):
these pills was giving him superpowers and giving him these
powers. And then he had to go to the
then he went to the school and the school, they had all these
people that was trying to kill him.
And then then, oh, it just, it just jumped from one thing to
the next. And I'm like, what the hell?
What happened to him being a bum?
What, what happened to him having money?

(01:39:49):
And now he can. Now he's like a damn superhero.
It's just, it's, it was, it went, it went crazy.
It went crazy on me. I'm like, wow.
And she's not lying. It's been like I've been
listening to this shit for literally over a year now.
And. Sounds like it jumped the shark.
Yeah, exactly. Like that's just it though.

(01:40:12):
It's just that you can only takea story for so long.
You know. You can only and and literally
if I'm, if I'm getting involved in a story, I need to make sure
that it expires before I do, youknow?
That's fair. I don't need to have my
unresolved issues when I die that I didn't finish the end of

(01:40:33):
this. You're making me think of James
Ellroy right now. James Ellroy?
He's like 84 years old and he's got, he's famous for the LA
Quartet, which included LA Confidential.
Well, he's decided to do a second LA Quartet and he's done
the first two books, and since then he has done three other

(01:40:57):
books that were not parts three and four.
And I'm like, dude, you're 84. Oh God, yeah.
What do you think? You.
Got laughter like those last twobooks and he writes 700 page
books like he writes these big damn books and I'm like get on
with it, dude. Looks later, right?

(01:41:20):
Three and four now. Circle back around.
Circle back around. Do you need like?
I, I, I want to ask him, do you have those books written and
they're just waiting? Please tell me that that's the
case because. You need care.
Reach out to him. Don't be afraid.
He's 84. 'Cause you know.
Yeah, times away. Yeah, don't call.
Call him so he can know where his phone is.

(01:41:45):
Right. So we oh, OK, so now we're going
to move on to a segment where weused to where we like to what
time is it OK, because I get like, I haven't changed my clock

(01:42:08):
yet. So it's, it's just throwing me
off a little bit. So we do we do a segment where
we talk about what is it, binge watching time, Jamal?
Yes, Sir, it is. OK.
So. We talk about movies that we
have been binge watching. OK.

(01:42:29):
Yeah, yeah. Movies, TV shows.
What? What?
What's what's keeping us sane? Shows.
What have you. We have the, we have the, we
have the pandemic to thank for this segment, by the way, 'cause
people keep asking me like, whatwas the origin of this segment?
And believe it or not, while during the pandemic, we would be
binge watching, like we started this podcast during the

(01:42:52):
pandemic. So we would talk about what we
would be watching while we were indoors during the dark times,
right? So that's where this segment
kind of stand. And even as we climbed out of
the pandemic, I mean, shit, there's still shows being made
and what have you. So we still, you know, we're we

(01:43:14):
still binge watch shows even up to this day.
So so to answer your question, Mr. Romeo, what have I been
binge watching? I'm going to start first.
As you can see, I have been binge watching actually before
we just started the show. I've been I just finished the

(01:43:34):
first season of Ray Donovan. I'm revisiting that show on
Showtime. I.
Show. Yeah, I I like it even I love it
even more now the second time around.
I didn't finish it all the way, but so yeah.
Ray Donovan, I am watching season 2 now of How I Met Your

(01:43:56):
Mother. I'll be honest with you, not a
huge fan of that show. I'm really not.
I am not at all. But you're in the early.
Seasons. So I, Yeah, later on they do
some fun continuity stuff in that show that I I just can't
get enough of. There's some things about that

(01:44:16):
show that I'm just like, Oh yeah.
Like slaps giving. I remember like when I started
watching it, like that's like myfavorite like.
Slaps Giving is wonderful. Yeah, I, I love it.
I laugh my ass off my time. So I I'm actually can't wait
till I get up to that, to that season in that episode.
But it's just like I'm I kind offeel like Josh Radnor is like a
downer in this show, a a hopeless romantic.

(01:44:40):
I don't know if it's because I'mlike, oh, this guy kind of
reminds me of me minus the art attack part, or it's just like,
OK, I need to be better than him.
But yeah, it is funny, you know,Neil Patrick Harris and the like
the surrounding cast like Jason Segel, these guys are hilarious,
you know. And so outside of The Who I like

(01:45:03):
to call the Ross of the show, everybody's hilarious.
And that's why I keep watching. I like watching Neil Patrick
Harris, you know, a certified, you know, homosexual, pretend to
be like this womanizer. That's the that's just the
irony, the ironic funny part about it.
What else am I watching? I am.
Oh, this show might be my top five favorite sitcoms of all

(01:45:27):
time. Taxi on Paramount.
I'm sorry, like I didn't get I II've watched the first two
seasons and then I kind of like didn't watch like the 3rd, 4th
and 5th, but I'm I'm going back to it.
Taxi is an awesome show and it gets even.
Yeah, it has to. If it's not on your top five,

(01:45:50):
you're a robot. Because I'm watching the show.
Keep it in mind it's in the 70s.Keep it in mind that the show
gets even over the top funny when Christopher Lloyd is added
to the cast. It just, I mean, I've never seen
a show go from it's already funny.
You had no reason to add Christopher Lloyd into the show.

(01:46:11):
But when they did it, it just I mean, great writing, great
everything. Taxi is by far my top five
favorite sitcoms. It it it definitely cracks the
top five list. It is funny.
It is great writing. I mean, if you produce shows for
The Simpsons and you're writing Taxi, there's something there.

(01:46:33):
Taxi definitely gets my it, it, it's so, so funny.
I'm, I, I watch this show like like I go to sleep watching it,
but before I do, I'm laughing myass off before I'm actually
knocked being knocked out. It's a well written show and I
cannot, I cannot stress this enough.

(01:46:53):
It is the almost damn near perfect sitcom that I've ever
seen and I'm and that that concludes my Oh, and I and if
you're in a Broadway shows, thenyou come to New York, watch
Beetlejuice. I saw it last night.
I I felt like a kid in the candystore.

(01:47:14):
Beetlejuice is so good. The guy who played Beetlejuice,
I don't want to say he did better than Michael Keaton, but
damn near close. Like damn near hit the nail on
the head with it. The entire cast, yeah, the
entire cast was fantastic. There was some lines in the move
in the show where like it it got.
He made political jabs on the show.

(01:47:36):
Beetlejuice was like, I cannot be, I'm invisible, the living
don't see me. I feel like a gay Republican.
It was, I mean, lines like that it it was so funny and the
production was so good. They even had the sand worm on
the stage. It was just nice.
Yeah, it was. The production was great.

(01:47:59):
The. Yeah, they really, that's
something that the production, the singing, the choreography.
Beetlejuice was fun. Beetlejuice was such a great
time. And they kept it.
They kept it very close to the movie.
There was some, you know, some of the things that they did, it
kind of went off the beaten path.
But you know, there was still hilarious.

(01:48:21):
So I had a great time. That's my 4th Broadway show that
I've seen since I've been back. And it just made me want to go.
I, I, I, I can't wait to go to another one now.
It's it's so good. So now I'm done with my nice.
Nice, let me see. So we have been binge watching.

(01:48:42):
We start out, we started watching Superstore.
Just started watching Superstore.
Funny so far we only we only like 4 episodes in.
Four or five episodes in I've been also binge watching.
I've been binge watching Spartacus again.

(01:49:06):
I don't know if you've ever seenthe Spartacus series, The HBO
Spartacus series. Explain what the explain what
that is. I don't think I've I've I've
seen or oh, I haven't seen it. But it's on Netflix.
It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix right now.
Spartacus now air. There are, I believe, Four

(01:49:27):
Seasons. There's four different seasons.
Do not watch it with children because it's basically softcore
porn. Oh yeah, it's lots of sex.
It's a lot of, it's a lot of Game of Thrones.
Kind of. Yes yes yes, very much so.
But it's a great, great. It's a great, great show.
I've seen the entire thing I've seen it in in its entirety 3

(01:49:49):
times and I'm watching it again so now, but the OK, I'm not
going to tell you nothing that I'll leave it at that.
It's a great show. It's a great watch.
Guys will love it and like she said, it's a lot of sex, it's a
lot of nudity. It's it's a lot of killing in

(01:50:13):
it. It's a it's a kick ass, it's a
kick ass thrill ride. I love Spartacus.
It was really good the first three times and it's still it's
just as good here the 4th time. It's on the list.
Also, what's going on is it came?
It comes out tomorrow. It actually started today.

(01:50:34):
I've got to go see it. Predator, Badlands, Predator,
the movie, the movie that just came out is coming out tomorrow.
Badlands. I want to go see it.
Haven't seen it yet. That is on my To Do List.
My number one To Do List, which will be in full swing tomorrow.

(01:50:56):
I'm going to see it and I'll give you guys an update on our
next segment. But everything that we are,
we've. Been watching what else?
We started watching our our goofy.
Oh, sleep. That night, we started watching.
Cougar Town. Yes, Cougar Town.
Can't forget that one. Yeah, just I just and a little

(01:51:16):
bit of Big Bang Theory, you know?
We Oh yeah. Big Bang.
Yes, yes. Those are.
The go. To is absolutely a staple, yeah,
when you need something that's kind of like, 'cause we watch
some really intense stuff lately, like Tulsa King, the
third season came out and they came out with like the first

(01:51:39):
five of them and then now they're just releasing 1A week
so. Yeah, so.
We're kind of watching. Yeah, we're all caught up on
Tulsa King, but Tulsa King is still a very good show to watch.
If you if you haven't seen TulsaKing take, give it a swing,
Yeah. I'm cool watching up.
Yeah, we swung it and knocked that out the park.

(01:52:00):
So that was good. So that's those are our our
recommendations. We got Tulsa King, we got, like
I said, Predator Badlands, that's for us to check out
tomorrow. We've got Superstore, which is
we're just getting into it. Superstorage Mall.

(01:52:22):
I know of it. I have not seen I have not seen
an episode of it. But like what, 7 episode?
This guy 7. Seasons.
This guy's, I think it's nine seasons.
Is America Ferrera in it? Like just it's just getting
started. Like I said, we only four we
only four episodes in and she's.In it, but nonetheless I know of

(01:52:44):
the show, I just haven't watchedit she used.
To play on her name sounds familiar.
She was in. She was Ugly Betty.
Oh, yes, it is her. Oh, OK.
Ugly Betty. Yes, it is her.
OK, yeah, she's in it. I.
Have a crush on her SO. Do you?
I. I.
She. Looks a lot.
She looks a lot better in in Superstore than she does in Ugly

(01:53:07):
Betty. I I just want her to wear the
the uniform, that's all. What?
Uniform. Exactly.
Well, she wears she wears a uniform in in Superstore.
That's for. Sure, I I just want to see her
take off the uniform. That would be my that would be

(01:53:28):
my bad. But no, she's a she's a, she's a
very beautiful woman. I, I do have, I do have like a
secret crush on her, but yeah, she's awesome.
OK, first of all, it's not. It's not a secret anymore.
And now we all know and and. Yeah, OK, Well, America, and I
don't mean the country, but you,my dear, call me.

(01:53:55):
And and with that note, Jack, Jack, what have you been binge
watching? Yeah.
Excuse me? Well, I one of the things I
recently watched was Eric on Netflix.
It's Benedict Cumberbatch basically as an alcoholic Jim

(01:54:17):
Henson, whose son goes missing. And it's like. 8.
It's like 8 episodes and it's like if you crossed True
Detective with death to smoochy.I mean, it's really kind of a
weird thing, but but it it but it works and I I enjoyed it.

(01:54:40):
It like I said, it's only 8 episodes and then it's done.
I I also just got into a below down with.
Ethan Hawke, Yeah, the. First episode I watched.
I've only watched the first episode.
I haven't watched the rest yet but I'm going to I.
I used to not be that big of an Ethan Hawke fan.

(01:55:03):
And then I saw him on on the YouTube channel Subway takes,
and he went off on this whole thing about The Beatles and the
way he talked. I was like, you know what, I'm
going to give this guy another chance and I'm glad I did.
But yeah. And the other, let's see, I also

(01:55:26):
just finished task with Mark Ruffalo and a couple others in
it. But the the task, he plays like
an FBI agent on a task force andthey're going after these guys.
And the guy who plays the main bad guy in that show, I don't

(01:55:48):
know the actor's name and I can't remember the character's
name, but but but he's the main guy and his but if you look at
him in that show, he looks like a young George Carlin.
Like. So much so that in the first
episode it distracted me where Ijust kept watching it going.
What's Carlin up to? You know?

(01:56:11):
But, but, but it was it was really good.
I enjoyed task quite a bit. It's written by the same guy
that did mayor of East Town. And and let's see.
The only other thing is over on Amazon there's a movie called
Play Dirty and Play Dirty, Play Dirty and it's got Mark Wahlberg

(01:56:39):
in it and it but. Yes.
Yes, yeah. The important part is it's
written and directed by Shane Black.
He's the guy that did the Nice Guys and Lethal Weapon bang and
Lethal Weapon Long kiss goodnight, The last Boy Scout.
Yeah, So it Yeah. So it's all sorts.

(01:57:01):
Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I think that's about it.
All right, well, good to know because playing dirty is now on
my list to watch. Yeah, it's worth watching.
It's funny as hell. That actually sounds like
something I would like to watch too.
Yes, indeed. All right.
And the important part about that is because he said, you
know, he's one of these remote control hogs that I'm pretty

(01:57:24):
much having to watch whatever the fuck he wants to watch
first. Of all that is not true.
Yeah, it. Is it?
Is it is not true. First of all, no, it's not.
It's his. Addiction.
It's his. You.
You. Can watch whatever you would
like provided. That you like it.
That's right. And let me just tell you
something, you don't believe that he's an addicted to the

(01:57:45):
remote control. I have never in my life seen a
man walk into another man's house, sit down on his couch,
pick up the remote control when the dude's watching something,
and change the channel. First of all.
Yeah, you've, I've seen you do that and you're like, and
they're like, hey dude, I was watching that and they're like,
yeah, that was stupid. Here, watch this instead.
You know, I've, I've only, you know, I've only done that.

(01:58:11):
I've never done that. Yes, you have.
I've seen, you see, And he doesn't even realize.
This is why. This is why.
It's an addiction. When you do something, you don't
even realize. He's done that to me.
He's came home and I'm sitting there clearly watching TV.
He sat down, picked up the remote, changed the channel, and
I was like, what the hell? And he goes, oh, what were you
watching that? Well, first of all, interesting.

(01:58:33):
My defense, there's no defense. There's no defense.
In my defense, you was looking at your phone so you weren't
watching the TV. Oh, wait, Hold on a second.
Hold on. We did this wrong.
I'm sorry. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
the Marriage Counselor hour, where our guest is Marianne

(01:58:55):
Rifle Station Identification. By the way, I'm going to.
Need a drink? Brought to you in part by Basil
Hayden. It's.
Been. Fun Romeo.
How does that make you feel? Well, who?

(01:59:17):
Cares what about me? That's the problem.
It's always about him and. Him, it is always about me.
You need to understand, lady, that remote control is I I don't
mind. I never.
I never. You know what, I'm pretty sure
if you go over to the remote control right now, there's a
ring on its finger. You know, let me tell you

(01:59:38):
something. He says that he never had the
problem giving me the remote. Bullshit.
We were. See, we have the remotes.
Our remotes sleep in the same bed with us.
OK, Do you understand? The remotes sleep in the bed
with us, between US and I go to take the remote.
He doesn't like the way I'm handling the remote, so he takes
it from me. He's like, these are my remote,
the only remote control that's mine that I get to control.

(02:00:02):
Is the remote control that movesthe head of the bed up and down
in the feet and and causes it tovibrate.
I thought, I thought it was going to, I thought it was the I
thought it was the remote control to the garage door.
I thought that he would let you play with that.
I. Gave him one of those.
Yeah, no, he still controls thattoo.
But yeah, I get the remote to the bed.
See, see. And that that just goes to show

(02:00:25):
you how much I love you because that way you can lay down and
you can turn the bed on and you can adjust to for comfort.
You don't need to be comfortablewith that TV on.
I got the TV. Don't worry about that.
So what I'm all I'm gathering from this is get married.
What was that? Whatever it is, get married you.

(02:00:48):
Guys, you guys are making fun ofmy single life and I'm just
like, wait, hold on a second. That would make it worse.
A lot of compromises, that's what we're.
Saying I'm blow jobs. Well, no, that's compromising.
Never mind compromises. Lots of them.

(02:01:08):
She want that remote. Come get it and see what?
We did, ladies and gentlemen, wegot them to kiss.
Which means that the problem hasbeen solved.
Absolutely. Tomorrow's episode and and next
week's episode of this podcast. Only one of them is going to
appear. The other one's on vacation.

(02:01:31):
Right now. Y'all heard that.
OK, now listen. And and and and Jack is going to
be writing another book that's going to be prefaced by Mary Ann
Riley. It's it's fiction.
And I know, right? It's gonna be called the Slaying
and Sumner. They're gonna, they're gonna,
they're gonna, they're gonna take OJ Simpson's face off his

(02:01:52):
book and be like, if I did kill Romeo, here's how I would have
done it. If Mary did it, yeah.
OK, now, OK, well, I. That went dark.
It did, it did, it did OK. So I got, I want to make sure
that everybody, I got all these witnesses.

(02:02:13):
If. All these witnesses are here.
I love my wife, honey. I love you so much.
I know. You do.
And I'm I'm not acting out. So we're, we're good.
We're good. He's.
Behaving. Himself.
And we've had a it's been a wonderful evening with our our
guest, Jack. Jack.
Yeah, man. Yeah, it's been fun.

(02:02:34):
Jack, we want to get a copy of that book.
Yes, well it's available on Amazon for like 20 bucks. 40
bucks oh good Lord. Yeah, I know I'm mean that way,
but you know, I got to keep myself in drugs.
You said 20 bucks right? Yeah.
Well, it's actually 1999, so that's totally different.

(02:02:56):
You heard the man how he paid him.
Yeah, I know. Well, we got to order it through
Amazon, not through him directly.
Yeah. That's why I'm, you know, well,
thank now, now I got to give me some.
I got to check out some Star Wars books on on.
Yeah, definitely check those outon Audible.
They're great. Oh I am.
I can't freaking wait now. We we can't, we can't thank you

(02:03:20):
enough for keeping America reading, Jack.
So it's not lost on me. It's not lost on me at all.
Because every time I see somebody on the train reading
the book, I'm like, oh, thank God, you know, And I don't care
what it is they're reading. I'm just like, you know what?
It's good that that is. A book is good, yeah.
Right, Yeah, exactly. You know, so I I live right next

(02:03:43):
to the library and I have and I just recently got me a library
card, so you know, it's. Yeah, we just got ours too.
You can get books on Autumn on audio books, yeah, and drench
them from the library for free. Check them out.
Right. You can do it for free.
You don't even have to read a book.
All right, so this went from writing books to reading books

(02:04:06):
to to listening to to listening to books to get in your library
cards. There you go.
You know, we always like to end the show in, you know, in, in
strange ways. So with that being said, man,
I'm, I'm so glad that I was ableto go through it.
I only threw up once. So yeah, so.

(02:04:29):
But yeah, I'm glad I stayed on for the show.
Ladies and gentlemen, that has been our show.
Thank you for listening. We will be back next week where
I do not even. We'll be back next week.
Enjoy. Oh, as Marianne always say, make
good choices. And if you were offended by
anything that we have said at all, honestly, I don't even give

(02:04:51):
a shit if you were offended. Just no, it's not about you and
we're out of here. See ya.

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#52 - "Bad Pennies" - Jack Cameron

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