#34 Robert Considers A Career In Sexy Stand-Up Comedy

Join us as we unravel the mysteries of creativity, drawing inspiration from Elizabeth Gilbert's book, 'Big Magic'. We dive into the importance of seizing ideas when they occur and the liberating feeling of discarding ones that don't resonate. We also share how we've adapted our writing approach, creating a sticky note system that fosters a vibrant idea pool.

Think back to the last time you accomplished a manual task. Maybe it was mending a broken fence or even baking a loaf of bread. Remember the satisfaction of immediate and tangible results? We bring you the extraordinary tale of a retired corporate executive who traded boardroom meetings for farming in South Dakota. The immediacy and satisfaction of manual labor contrasted with his former corporate life, bringing about a profound perspective change. We further discuss our method of character tracking in writing and the simple joy of crossing items off a checklist. 

Our conversation takes us through a variety of subjects, from a retired cardiac surgeon's unexpected journey into cattle farming to the influences of the sexual revolution on stand-up comedy. We share our thoughts on the evolution of Nashville's skyline, our book reading habits, and engage in a spirited debate on the preservation of history versus progress. And of course, we have some light-hearted banter about the mild discomfort of attending the Opry with your father-in-law. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we're back, we are back, we are back.
Hey, this this week we got tohang out twice in a week we did,
which is kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
It was nice.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yeah, I thought that after last time you might want
to, you were gonna say, well, socan we kind of skip Friday,
because you've been, you've beenhad, you've had kind of a.
You were gonna write this weekor work this week and, and like
you were telling me before wecame on air, you're, you've been
cleaning your stuff up, man.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, I had all these filing cabinet notes I kind of
needed to get rid of and I meanyou had told me this a while ago
.
Other people have told me this.
I think SM Rain set it firstwhere it was like if the idea
doesn't stick in your brain,it's not good enough to survive
to make it into your books.
Yeah, and the longer I'm in thegame, the more I kind of
realize it's true.

(00:45):
There were so many likefragmentary notes where it's
like what if there was this guyand he did the?
And it's like so basic of apremise.
I'm like why did I keep this foreight years or however long
I've had it?
It's like shh into the garbage.
And I mean some of that stuffis like if it catches in your
brain and it becomes like theidea you can't let go of, then

(01:10):
you know you've got a winner.
Yeah, and those are the oneswhere it's like this one I
slated into my schedule, I'mgonna make a book out of it.
Yeah, but so many of them, it'sjust like this is half baked
under, developed.
You would need to take it andcombine it with something else
in order to create a novel outof it.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Well, I told you how, why I came to that realization,
right?
No, I don't think you do so,whatever, however many years.
I was into the process and Iwanted to be quote-unquote
professional writer guy and so Itried to, you know, outline
everything and do everything theway that other authors were
doing it, and one of them wastaking copious notes and filing

(01:48):
them away and everything Dude.
I got to the point I was sostressed that I was missing
something.
Yeah, that I was like this isridiculous.
And then what was it?
I read I think it was ElizabethGilbert's Big Magic that I
think I've talked to you aboutbefore.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, really.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
The whole premise of the book is is where
creativities and ideas come from.
It's a really easy read.
It's actually kind of a thickbook, but really, really good
and the premise that I took awayfrom it being ideas are all
around us and they sometimesthey hit us and it's like
inspiration, yeah, but if wedon't grab it in that moment, it
will go away.

(02:25):
Yeah, and a lot of times itwill go away and it will go to
somebody else actually, and sheactually had a couple stories,
one.
So she's really good friendswith, I think what's a lady who
started Parnassus books andsomething Famous author, yeah,
yeah, so anyway, so they're verygood friends.
I think it's the two of them.
So she talked about she hadstarted this book.
There was a story and it waswhatever, and she, she, whatever

(02:49):
, she got lost in the middle orshe, she got busy and she put
the book away.
She put the story away and inbetween that time, when she came
back to it, she couldn't finishit.
She was like I don't know, lost.
And then she runs into thisfriend who she's like oh so what
are you working on?
And she tells the story of thatshe's writing or has finished,
and it's not exactly what it was, but the premise was very, very

(03:12):
similar and so it just got hergoing, got got her thinking.
That actually makes me think Ineed to go back and read that
book, because it was just veryinteresting to me that that that
ideas are things that areflowing or floating around in
the ether and that if we don'tgrab them and hold on to them,
it's gonna go away.
Yeah, so I took that and for methat was kind of permission to
go okay, screw it, if it's notsomething that sticks in my

(03:35):
brain, I'm just gonna forget it,like who cares who's.
Yeah, and, and I will say thatsince I've done that one, I've
had more fun writing, becausethat's what I need.
Personally, you know you youmay be completely different than
me.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
No, I think that's too it's.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
It takes the pressure off.
Yeah, for me, because I don'tknow.
I don't like pressure, I don'tlike.
I don't like people telling mewhat to do anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
The exception to this , I would say, is that my notes
kind of fall into two categories.
One of them is plot notes orideas for the story, which is
like the guy who you know I'vehad this idea a few times where
it's like in my Girl in the Boxuniverse they've created an
artificial way to give yourselfsuperhero powers and a certain
percentage of the population.
And I thought about, like whatif there was this guy and he's

(04:18):
old, like World War II veteranand his son is like I'm not
ready for you to go and heinjects him with it and it
artificially extends his life,but he's already like 98 years
old and he's basically trappedin that state with enhanced
durability and strength andwhatnot and superpowers, but
he's still not like, he's stillcreaky, he's still not gonna
like move like a 23 year old oranything.

(04:38):
He's gonna move faster than a98 year old, but like maybe like
a 60 year old, right, somethinglike that.
And so I just you know theselittle fragmentary ideas and
it's like what am I gonna dowith that?
Yeah, I know it, it's in myhead.
I've written it down like well,what, what the hell is the
point of keeping that in a filesomewhere.
Either it's going to be of useto me in a story in the future

(04:59):
or it's not.
So there's that, which is thestory idea points, and sometimes
I have them for specific books,and sometimes they can be very
useful.
And sometimes I'll go throughand I'll do the plot outline for
that book and I'll be like thisdid not make it in and I don't
see a way to fit it in, and Idon't care if it makes it out
like why have I saved this?
No point now.
The other side of it, though,is I'll have dialogue exchange

(05:20):
ideas you know stupid littlethings where it's like a little
joke, and those I can'tnecessarily craft.
I can craft some of them on thefly, but a lot of times I like
to save those.
They're much more fleeting,they're not as frequent as the
story ideas.
I save those.
I've got about 30 of themsprinkled over there, and I'm
already thinking of places I canlike fit them into my dialogue,
where it'll be an instantdialogue lift, where it's like

(05:43):
you know stupid stuff, stupidlittle you know that's different
, right, it's.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
That's like a, that's like a little, a little, a
little dash of sparkle that youcan put in somewhere, rather
than because one of the trapsthat I fell into was when I had
your first bucket that you'retalking about.
I would try to force that intoa story and it felt completely
unnatural and I would walk away,gone.
Okay, I did it, but that feltlike crap.

(06:07):
Yeah, I don't need to be doingthat, but I like the job because
I can't come up with jokes onthe fly either.
Yeah, that's something that Iwould, they're fattier.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
When I do it, I mean sometimes they'll be gold and
sometimes they'll be, you know,brass, right like I got this one
that I wrote down here and I'vejust got a living my life one
paragraph at a time.
I don't know if I'm ever gonnause that anywhere, like I have
no idea that is like maybe I'lljust throw it away, since I said
it now that is literally ourlife right.
I thought it was funny.
It was very as a play on thewhole living my life, a quarter

(06:39):
mile at a time would have askedhim yeah right, have you seen
the newest one?

Speaker 1 (06:43):
no, I will not.
Yeah, why not?
Have you not seen all of them?

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I saw fate of the furious and I'm like, and I'm
out.
They're Marvel movies.
Now they're Marvel movies withcars.
I'm like, I, I loved.
Like the first one's good, thesecond one's terrible, the third
one's decent, the fourth one'sgood and the fifth one's awesome
.
Six this good seventh is greatas well.
After that, everything afterthat is like jumped the shark

(07:07):
with a car with a jet enginestrapped to its back and a
glider thing flips out fromunderneath.
I mean, it's just over the topstupid at this point, like the
last one I watched, dwayne theRock Johnson stops a torpedo by
punching it through the ice.
I'm like this is that's it, I'mdone.
I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I'm okay with it, just because I know what it is,
rather than going into it with I.
I'm always interested to seewhat other famous person they're
gonna throw into the movie.
I can't remember.
Oh, mamoa was the one who theybrought in the latest one, right
?

Speaker 2 (07:42):
yeah, he actually.
It ties back to the fifth one,I guess was he in it was he in
the fifth one no, so did you seethe last one then?

Speaker 1 (07:50):
nine, ten no, I haven't seen the latest one.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, yeah, so he's the son of the villain from five
.
Okay, or son, or tied to himsomehow, because they have
actually flashbacks to part five.
Oh, do that really?
Yeah, where he's in it and hegets like knocked off a bridge
or something, and then hisfamily quote gets wiped out and
so that's a revenge tale for him.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
I still love the original, just because it was so
wrong and it's just, you knowthere was, it was a.
You know what's his nuts, youknow you could tell he wasn't a
great actor at the time.
Diesel, no well, paul Walker,yeah, paul Walker, but there was
an innocence to the whole thing.
That I really honestness.
Yeah, the tuna salad sandwichand all that, like I don't know
I and plus, I think it wasfilmed where I used to live.

(08:34):
I think it was filmed in SanPedro, california.
Yeah, so it's like part of meis like, do I?
Know that street on a weird day.
I like a tuna fish sandwich too.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Oh hey, hell yeah yeah, no, I love the first few.
They were great, even five.
Five was amazing.
It was just brassy fun actionwas that that's fast five.
In Brazil, where they knock offthe bank, they do the bank
heist, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Where they're racing through the streets with two
chargers and they got the oh,chargers, and they have the bank
all behind them, right I do, itwas sweet, okay fun it was over
the top.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
It was awesome, though I mean just fantastic
film.
My daughter loves those moviesyeah yeah, I mean, don't be
wrong, over the top, great, butit just got to the point where
the stories were so stupid thatI'm like I can't do this anymore
.
Yeah, it's soap opera plusstupid.
I saw a great meme the otherday, though about had a picture
of it like why is reversecowgirl banned in Kentucky?

(09:30):
And it has a divin diesel atthe bottom.
You never turn your back onfamily.
You never turn your back onfamily sorry, kentucky, I know

(09:54):
that joke wasn't good.
I have better than the.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Kentucky jelly, though oh god, I don't even want
to hear that.
I have something.
I have something I want to talkto you about because I thought
it was it was interesting.
So I met this guy who is nowretired.
Very interesting guy, supernice, you know had had a couple
different careers.
So he he ends up retiring atlike 59 or 60 and then they

(10:18):
moved to South Dakota and heends up Then working on a farm
for seven years, like for thisguy you know everything from.
You know what do you say?
Castrating cattle to doingfields and all kinds of stuff
and I was like I Asked myself,did you, did you like it?
He said, dude, I loved it.

(10:38):
He's like you know.
And this guy was like acorporate guy yeah, you know,
like marketing and strategy andthat kind of thing and he said
he went done, he's like I got togo be a cowboy, you know, I got
to go be a farmer.
And I just got me thinking likeI don't know, maybe in the last
couple years I've enjoyed.
I'm not saying I'm gonna retireand go be a farmer, but there's
something about like manuallabor type stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Cowboy hat.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, I just, I don't know.
There's something about likelike I felt this pool.
I've done like a little bit ofwoodworking since I moved to the
Newhouse.
You know more stuff around thehouse that I would just
outsource before now.
There's certain things likeelectricity.
I'm not gonna touch I don't wantto do that, but like I don't
know that sometimes I feel thisZen, like even doing yard work

(11:21):
and I'm not gonna cut my lawnanymore, because I used to do
that for a living when I wasyounger to make money.
But you know, like, whether,whether it's planting plants or
digging a ditch or putting stonein, like I put stone in
different different places Alongthe borders, I don't know, I've
kind of enjoyed doing thatbecause you and he said it he
goes, he goes.

(11:41):
You know, whereas if you'redoing marketing or or whatever
yeah, he actually said it reallywell, he explained it.
He said you know, we would workon something for six months and
then we wouldn't see theresults of that for two or three
years, yeah right, so by thetime it actually happens, you're
kind of like it's so far awayfrom you, whereas if you're, if
you're plowing a field or you'replanting something, you see it

(12:02):
right away.
Or you build a house, like yousee that every single day, or
the stone path that I did, I seethat every single day.
There's something to that, youknow, and it's funny because I
feel like his authors were kindof in between Mm-hmm, I don't
know how you're you are withthis.
But like when I get a book outthe door now, I'm kind of done
with it, like I don't want tolook at it anymore because I put

(12:22):
so much time into it.
So it's like I don't know, it'ssomething about that that.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'll read it again in two or three years.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, yeah, I'm enjoyable again.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
But yeah, for that time it's like I don't want to
see you again, right, right, Iknow you not she child of
iniquity, depart for me, yeahyou know, and sometimes I have
to go back and review things.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
I don't even like doing that.
Yeah, I don't even want to goback and read something that
just to find detail.
I'd almost rather just ask myreaders hey, what, what happened
?
This part again Like.
I can't remember whether acertain villain that I wrote I
realized yesterday.
I can't remember whether Ikilled him or not or whether
he's in federal custody rightnow.
So I'm like, oh geez, like do Ihave to go back and read it?

(13:01):
Because I really don't want togo back and read it.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I have a couple of fans that I generally will ask
that of David Miller.
If you're listening, you arethe man because I mean,
especially with girl in the box,it's 55 books long, starting
book 56.
I mean, I've read all of themwhen I wrote them, but and I
have a pretty good grasp ofwhat's happened but occasionally
, like little things will slipmy mind and I'll be like, oh, I

(13:26):
don't remember and I have adatabase that I can look through
to like see where thecharacters are and whatnot, but
what kind of database do youhave?
Oh, I, the lady who does thelast round of Edits for me,
proofing I should say she does acharacter database where it
just has the character name, thebooks they're in, the major
events that they've beeninvolved in in the story, the
defining characteristics of them, that kind of stuff, and then

(13:47):
I'll add notes too as well.
They're significant otherthings like that.
Back to your point before aboutthe cowboy from South Dakota
there is a real primal need, Ithink, especially in men, and I
think women have their ownversion of those.
But, like for men, there is areal primal need to like have
that Daily sort of checklist andI artificially do it.

(14:09):
I have.
I don't know if I've ever shownyou this, but like I have a
Daily Checklist where I gothrough and I cross items off my
list because, like you said,and then there's a weekly with
the week, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
And.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
I just cross it off and whatnot.
And there's a to-do list on oneof the margins and I mean it
gives me that grounding whereit's like, oh, I'm accomplishing
things.
Like even on the crappiest daywhen I get nothing accomplished,
nothing accomplished.
I've still knocked off one, twoor three of the items on my
list, like Just basic things,like you know the exercise or
you know a project.

(14:42):
I'll break it into multiplephases and it's like today this
part of this project is sixthousand words or I've got to do
.
You know, if it's like I haveto deal with a multi-part thing,
I might the first stage mightbe I have to make a phone call
it's like, all right, well,today I'll do the phone call and
then tomorrow I'll take actionon the next step of it.
But even further back to thecowboy here.
So I knew a guy.

(15:03):
He died here very recentlyactually.
He was 94, 95 years old.
He was like a top cardiacsurgeon, brilliant mind, retired
From the hospital, from working, and I think he was in
Blacksburg, virginia I can'tremember Rowan oak maybe and he

(15:23):
retired to a farm and Startedraising cattle.
He created a successful cattlefarm, really out of like nothing
, like doing that, everythinglike outs would grow the hay,
would grow corn in some casesand whatnot, and he had like a
thousand head of cattle oh mygosh.
Oh yeah, he was still expandingat age 92 or something like

(15:43):
that.
Really interesting cat.
How did you know this guy?
My uncle knew him.
Okay, one of his neighbors, drMiller.
Very good, very good dude.
I met him on multiple occasionsand he was a brilliant,
brilliant mind.
Like he just got reallyinterested in farming and like
read all the books and stuff,and he actually really pissed
off some of the Other farmers inthe area because he came in and

(16:06):
they're like oh great, anotherone of these, johnny, come
lately.
Farmers, yeah, comes in hereand like things, they know
everything.
He actually did know a lot likehe ran a profitable farming
business like almost out of thegate, because he just Was smart
enough to like figure out whathe needed to know and or at
least figured out the rightpeople to listen to, and and so

(16:26):
you had people that had been inthe business forever and they
didn't know how to run abusiness and blew out while he
was like Continuing to grow.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
It's crazy, huh so you'll appreciate this because
you know we have we share a loveof weaponry.
So this same guy tells me thisstory and and I don't think he's
listening right now and I don'tthink he would mind me telling
but so the first day he shows up, like you know, just move there
, goes and meets the guy whoowns the, the acreage, right,

(16:54):
which is it's, it's a bigoperation, yeah.
And and he says, okay, let metake you down to so-and-so farm,
like it's like four miles downthe road type thing, yeah.
And and gets him in one ofthose ginormous tractor things,
yeah, like huge, like the 12foot ladder that you have to get
up.
Okay, so one of that combine.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, okay, and they're gonna, I guess, prep the
field right.
So he explains everything andand this guy's like I don't know
how to do that.
So the guy you know gets inthere and shows him it's like 16
gears, whatever, and he's likeyou know, basically you've got
to do this and this, you know,gives him like a five, ten
minute tutorial and then goesokay, you're good.
So the guy leaves and and thisguy is like I don't know what

(17:32):
I'm doing, freaked out, right,like you don't want to mess it
up and no, that farm equipmentis expensive, oh, super
expensive.
So he starts going and then he,he like, looks left and right
and he realized there's, there'slike an AR-15 over here and a
shotgun over here.
And he's like what the hell?
So he calls the guy, he goeswhat you know, there are two
weapons in here.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
He's a coyote.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Oh yeah, if you know, know that neither they're fully
loaded, nothing's on safe.
Yeah, so the area AR-15s.
If you see any coyotes, goahead, you know, just kick open
the door and shoot them, theshotguns for the pheasants.
Have fun.
And he's like, yeah, you know,he's like.
I used both of them Quite a fewtimes and I was like that, you

(18:16):
know, just sitting there Plowingalong and then oh, there's
coyote and kick it open.
Kind of fun.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
That's the thing that these people who don't really
have never lived in a farmingcommunity or known farmers like,
like oh, these wolves are sobeautiful.
It's like wolves are hell onyour business.
Yeah, they literally take foodout of your kids mouths and you
know, reintroducing themGreatest thing in the world.

(18:45):
I went.
I went on a deep dive.
Coyotes are also bad, butthey're an invasive species, so
they're not actually even nativeto most these places.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Exactly yeah, I did a deep dive not too long ago on
Because we've got some coyotesin our backyard.
Oh, yeah, killed them yeah, well, I went on the deep dive on
YouTube and I found this guythat he's a professional coyote
trapper.
Yeah, and they have a veryspecific way that they do it and
they'll they'll be hired byfarmers I'm not even hired,

(19:12):
they're just allowed to be onthe land and so they have like
like a hundred traps out indifferent, different places and
then they go out and you know,they shoot them and, like, this
guy has this huge farm, thisbarn, and a lot of the pelts are
just like all over the walls.
Nice, and it's.
It's a really interestingbusiness because, you know,
everybody, every one of thesetrappers has like their own

(19:34):
Cocktail of, you know, whateverthe stuff is that the coyote
smell to put their nose in, or,yeah, it's really you know
whether it's Fox pee or you knowyou know, whatever it is, but
there's.
I mean, I didn't even know thatworld existed.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh, it's cool.
I mean so if you meet someonewho's a really good one, they
can call in a coyote.
Yeah, I've ever heard them andI mean it's.
If you you've heard coyotes,it's first our city-based
Listeners.
Coyote calls are Creepy as hellthey are.
If you're out in the woods atnight and you hear it and you've
not heard it before, it'll senda good chill down your spine.

(20:08):
So they probably do it, even ifyou haven't you know, have
heard it before.
It can still Be a little bituncomfortable at times, is it?
Sometimes I sound like a cryingbaby.
Yes, oh, I don't like that.
They're, they're, they're.
Yeah, they're eerie, real damneerie.
But I mean they're Good man,they'll eat a kid if they got a
chance.
Yeah, no, bueno, no bueno.

(20:28):
No, that's uh.
They're a bane of Farmerseverywhere.
They're not good.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
So you had your I won't say week off, because
that's not what it was, you knowweek off of writing.
So where do you go next week?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Oh I, start in the first draft.
So I made my decisions.
I'm like I know how, how itopens.
I know the three plot threadsI'm doing.
I Don't have a clear idea onone of them.
Like I know what it's supposedto be.
It's kind of a flashback lovestory and I'm kind of I'm just
like how am I?
I know some of the flashbacks Ihave to hit but I've never

(21:04):
really done a.
I mean, I've had love storiesin my Books before but I've
never felt like it was very muchof a strength.
But I kind of feel like it'salmost a lost art in popular
culture, like romance land.
Obviously, romance writersstill nail on that like crazy.
But I feel like in most Popularculture, like most movies,

(21:26):
there's no good love storiesanymore, like it's it's rare.
I should say like Tom Top Gunnhad a really good one.
Yeah, and and I should even saybecause like I mean hallmark
movies, they're still.
What stories there and whatnot,the, the geared toward women
love stories still exists.
The ones that are kind of forguys and everybody are just not.

(21:50):
They're almost non-existentnowadays.
It's like we've gone morepermissive in a lot of ways and
free in our culture thanks tothe sexual revolution and
whatnot, and it's almost likethere's a pushback of
prudishness that's coming fromthe left at this point, like

(22:11):
there's a pushback from theright for the longest time where
it's like you can't possibly beshowing this and there's still
a sort of a reaction in somequarters.
But, like the people that holdthe levers of popular culture
for the most part are on theleft at this point.
And it's just it's weird to seelike post me too that like most
of the love stories you see inmovies nowadays are just weak to

(22:31):
non-existent, like the maleadventure story where the guy
ends up with the girl at the end.
I mean, you just don't see itas much anymore.
I'm thinking like some of themore recent examples that were
really good, like do you sawJumanji, the Welcome to the
Jungle?
Like that was a really goodadventure story that had a
romance thread through it.

(22:52):
John Carter, one of my favoriteadventure stories.
You know, I've never seen thatmovie.
Dude, you need to see JohnCarter, you would dig it.
It's so fantasy wild out there.
It's such a great story.
I could watch that thing likeonce a week, I love it so much,
so why did that get?
panned.
I don't know that it got panned.
It was one of those thingswhere it was.

(23:13):
If it came out today, it wouldprobably do very well, because
it's excellent storytelling,it's amazing spectacle, it's
totally new and fresh.
But almost in 2014, when it didcome out, like Edge of Tomorrow
came out around the same timeDo you remember that?
Yeah, with Tom Cruise, top topmovie Really great.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Wasn't it called something else at the time?

Speaker 2 (23:33):
No, they tried to rebrand it when it came out on
video as Live Die, repeat, right, but it was Edge of Tomorrow
when it came out.
They're like oh, live Die,repeat actually better
encapsulates it.
Shut up, it's Edge of Tomorrow.
That was more than a littleconfusing.
Yes, but I mean both of thosemovies came out within a few
months of each other.
They both bombed.
They're both two of my favoritemovies of the last decade and

(23:53):
some of the very few that areactually good.
They were both new, fresh IPs,as they say for intellectual
properties.
They were not franchise fairand I think if either one of
them came out today they wouldhave a lot better chance,
because I felt like it was sucha crowded field back then and
the amount of sheer garbagethat's being shoveled out the
door nowadays, well, prior tothe strike, there's just not

(24:16):
that much fresh and most of thestuff that is like.
I mean the new MissionImpossible movie, which I just
listened to our talk about thatthis morning as I was doing
chores it didn't do very well atthe box office.
Really.
Yeah, it's, I don't keep trackof that anymore.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
It's underperforming.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
It takes like two seconds a week, but yeah, I
think it's only made like 130million or something like that.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Here Because I know he's ginormous in China, right.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Well, I don't know if it's gotten a China release or
how it's doing in China, but Idon't think the Worldwide's
doing particularly well on iteither.
Interesting, it's pacing behindthe last one and you gotta keep
in mind it's Mission Impossible7, I believe.
So I mean there's some argumentthat is franchise fatigue,
because and by that I mean it'sa fatigue of boy we've seen a

(25:05):
lot of franchises these last fewyears.
Marvel has burned itself to theground, indiana Jones just
self-immolated gloriously.
Meanwhile Barbie andOppenheimer opened huge.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Oh, gosh, I mean Barbie made as of last week like
a billion right.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I think so.
I haven't actually checked itin a while, just because I don't
have any interest in seeingBarbie.
My daughter lightly suggestedwhile my wife was out of town
that she might like to see it,but she didn't pursue and I
successfully evaded, so Imanaged to avoid that one.
You'll be going on Sunday?
I will not, but my wife'scoming back today, thank the

(25:43):
Lord.
10 days away Like that's toolong.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
This is the second, was that a family?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
thing yeah, she's helping her mom.
Okay, got it.
I mean, this is the secondlongest time since the time we
got married that she's been awayand I'm like no no bueno,
that's a long time.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
No bueno, I like this .
I'm good two or three days, notthat I can't handle things, but
I just don't like her beingaway.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
It's not even a.
I mean no one starved.
I'm able to do the laundry andeverything, like I was staying
at home, to add, for a full yearand more.
So I mean, functionallyeverything's fine.
The pool turned green for acouple of days.
That was actually a phosphateissue.
That has now resolved, but likeeverything runs okay without

(26:27):
her.
It's just there's this I waswriting to the my Mighty
Networks community this morning.
It's like there's kind of apalpable sadness in the air.
It's just, it's the BillWithers song there ain't no
sunshine when she's gone.
Yeah, I call.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Katie's our glue.
Yeah, that's a good way to putit.
No, she just is.
It's like, it's like those Idon't know if you run to this
when, when Alicia's gone, butlike there'll be something that
happens to me that I want totell her, and she's not there
for me to tell her.
I'm like, oh well, my bestfriend's not here, like that's
the way I feel.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Well and worse than that.
Like when she's been there withher mother.
Like they're prepping her mymother-in-law's house for sale.
They moved her into a new placelike a senior living apartment
or whatever, and she's my wifeis a workhorse.
Like she will work from sun upto sundown, like that Norwegian
fricking work ethic of like yougotta make hay when the sun

(27:17):
shines.
The sun don't shine that oftenin Minnesota, so we're gonna
work anyway in the gloom.
So like if we call her, theonly time she's not busy is like
right before bed at night.
So she'll be texting me at 1030, which is past my bedtime.
Hey, are you still up?

Speaker 1 (27:34):
No, I'm asleep.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
What were we talking about?
We were talking about boxoffice before that.
No, I'm not going to Barbie.
I'll make her do that If I, ifmy little girl Do you see?
Offenheimer?
No, we talked about this theother day.
I just can't clear the time togo.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
It's like four hours or something to I didn't know if
, in between then and now, youwould figure out a time to go.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
It's crazy, but I just felt like I couldn't do it
with my kids being here.
I mean, I felt like I've beenon standby all week, you know,
in case something like middlechild forgot the Chromebook on
Tuesday morning, almost missedthe bus Wednesday morning.
It's like I've been expectingsomeone to be like I'm sick and

(28:18):
so anyway, between all trying todo all the stuff, I've
basically just sat around andread two or three books.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
There's nothing wrong with that, no, so you did
inspire me after our lastconversation, okay, and of
course I went home and I lookedup.
You gave me permission to lookat the books I'd listened to in
the last year on Audible and Iordered like I don't know seven
or eight of them.
So they're all coming atdifferent times and I.
You know it's so funny becausethe first thing I do, I always

(28:45):
go straight to Amazon and I'mlike, oh, I don't really care if
they're new.
So, oh yeah, buy and use, youknow, for whatever five bucks or
six bucks or seven bucks.
So I just racked them all up.
Have you ever used Book Depot?

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I feel like I've bought stuff from Book Depot
somehow, but I usually use Abooks, abe books, abe books.
Okay, I gotta check that out.
Like all that shelf over there.
I have all these used booksthat are ones that I wanted to
have, like all my Tom Clancybooks, all my Harry Turtledove,
all the CS Forester, horatioHornblower and Jeffrey Archer.
They're all used books.
I got from ABE books and I'vegot like 40 books over there.

(29:22):
I bought them all used.
Like how much are they?
Less than $5 each.
Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 (29:27):
I gotta write this down.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, ABE books.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
All right, I'm gonna steal this.
Go for it.
Thank you, ABE books.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
All right, there's your plug ABE books, yeah, which
is owned by Amazon, by the way.
Oh, of course it is.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it goes backto our previous talks about
monopolies, like I'm sorry,amazon should not control that
much of the book market thatthey allow that to be bought by
them or whatever.
It's independent of theirAmazoncom ecosystem.

(29:54):
So, whatever, it's likeindependent collectible
booksellers.
You can find signed editions onthere.
You can go through.
The search engine needs work,but I've like gone through and
figured out I wanted in goodcondition.
Now the downside is you'll belike I don't think you'll care
about this, but like some of thebooks will show up with the
dust jackets and they're inperfectly fine condition and

(30:15):
some of them will show up withno dust.
I actually take mine off.
Yeah, I know you do.
Yeah, I think you're crazy.
I'm a weirdo.
Yeah, my wife, as soon as I wastalking to her about it.
I'm like Carlos does this withhis dust jackets.
She's like well, that's what Iwould do too if I still read
books.
What is wrong with you people?
Dust jackets are beautiful.
You set them aside while you'rereading it and then you put

(30:36):
them back on delicately.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
No, I can't stand that part, I can't.
I'll try to keep them on thereand then they get in the way and
I'm like no, that's why I juststarted throwing them away.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Not when you're reading them, but when they're.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
They're a beautiful adornment when they're sitting
on the shelf, like that orwithout them, it looks like an
old-time Library, it does like Iwent into the Biltmore and I
was like, okay, there is acertain amount of class to these
leather bound volumes, I getboth.
I mean, honestly, I'm too fargone on the throne away so I
can't go back.
Yeah, yeah, you've lost themall.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Well, it doesn't really matter.
I mean, half of my HarryTurtles doves have no Dust
jackets.
I don't know why they just inhalf of them the sizes.
This is a 13 book series and Idon't know why.
But like some of them are fiveby 11 and some of them are like
four by, nine fluctuating priceof paper over the years.

(31:27):
Yeah, I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think it was the crack addiction of the editors
and print staff or somethingprobably Probably something like
that, see, and then you've gotthat line of Tom Clancy up there
that everything's the same size.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, I wish I could get all those new, but man, they
charge a fortune for them.
It's so much.
Those were like five bucks orless each.
Some of them were two dollars.
And you kidding, I'm notkidding you.
Okay, I'm in eight books, dog,yeah, yeah, I just bought all of
the ones that I actually like,everything except Red Storm
Rising.
Red Storm Rising is off-sizetoo, for some reason, I don't

(32:00):
know why.
Mine, smaller, mines paperback,the one that I have.
Yeah, I had everything inpaperback.
I had so many physical booksand I got rid of them all.
When we moved from Minnesota Iwas like, aha, the future is
electronic, then I won't have toworry about bookshelves anymore
.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
And now you want them again.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well, when they started censoring stuff and
taking stuff offline and makingyou know stealth edits to
authors content, I'm like upyours, guys, stealth edits.
We should go back and do ourown stealth edits.
I do, but it's usually justerrors.
Did you ever have the thingwhere Readers would report
errors in your books?
Oh yeah, and you would gothrough and you would look and
like sometimes it would drive menuts because it's like this may

(32:40):
look wrong but it's actuallynot an error.
And I had.
I would get like at one point Iwas getting like 50 corrections
a week.
What, yeah, I mean Amazon,somewhat.
Either someone was going throughor someone at Amazon and I
would be like this and therewere errors in there and I would
correct the actual errors andthen I would send back.
I'm like this is not an errorand I'd get it.

(33:00):
It would just pop back up likethree days later like reported
again, like the person who wasgoing through it.
I would go.
I mean there are some of themwhere it's like this is the hill
I will die on.
I'm not fixing this.
It's not an error.
Up yours, yeah, no.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
I never got that many .
I mean I would say maybe, maybefive a month maybe, and it was
very few that it was.
I would say maybe one or twoout of ten was something that I
was like no, that's on purpose,like it's supposed to be that
way.
Maybe it's just.
My readers know that.
You know there's certain thingsthat I choose to have a certain

(33:32):
way.
Yeah, I don't know, that'sweird oh a lot 50 a week.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Oh man, it was nuts for a while there.
I haven't gotten one in a longtime, presumably because I got
the legitimate errors out.
But I mean, I think at onepoint I had logged in and found
like a hundred Error correctionswaiting for me.
Were you calling up your editor, going what the no?
Because I mean you know errorscreep in.
We don't have a process that'snearly as extensive as the old

(33:57):
trad pub process, like it wouldgo through ten sets of eyes
before we make it to publication, and people that had been
specifically trained anddisciplined to do it in certain
ways, like I knew a lady who shewould read her Books backward,
backward, yeah, like read eachsentence kind of backward or
something, and she would findincredible numbers of errors by

(34:19):
doing it that way, because whenyou pull each sentence out of
context, suddenly the errorskind of leap out at you more.
Wow, that's crazy.
Print it and read it backwards.
I'm like, okay, well, I admireyour.
Does that take a long time?
I would imagine.
And that was just.
I mean, that's justproofreading at that point, sure
.
And so I mean I go throughthree phases of proofreading
plus my own round of editing Ifthat's not good enough to get it

(34:42):
.
You know I that's unfortunate.
I pay quite a lot for all ofthat editing and proofreading to
be done, but you know it's notperfect.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
What do you say to people who are like I can't
believe you do that.
I can't believe you letsomething out the door that has
errors in it or could haveerrors.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
They're not paying for their own editing.
Yeah, that, yes, it's basicallywhat I'm going to say to them.
Like that's because I don'tknow any indies who wouldn't hit
you with that, do you?

Speaker 1 (35:08):
No, I mean I I think I've kind of gotten that that
vibe from From traditionallypublished authors who honestly
don't make any money.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, I mean that's the problem.
I mean I've said it before, butlike 98% of traditionally
published authors that you seetheir books and bookstores,
they're they have another job orthey're not making enough money
to live on.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, no, I mean they get, they might get a little
bit of an advance.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
A lot of them I found it's the average, the advance
nowadays like $3,000 for a book.
Yeah, it's more of a vanitything.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah you know like oh yeah, I'm a published author
and saw it on my shelf in abookstore, yeah yeah, I don't
know, I don't want to be thatguy yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
I've never seen like I've had fans send me things of
like I found your book in thewild because there's a lot of
paperbacks out there.
Yeah, I've never run into myown book anywhere.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
No, me neither.
Yeah, I go to a lot of usedbookstores.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
No, I Pardon me is like always when I go into use
bookstore I'm like it'd be kindof cool if I did.
I'd be like should I sign this?
Should I buy it to take it outof circulation?
I don't really know what to dohere.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Sometimes, like I feel like Jack Carr will post
you know he's in whatever DenverAirport signing a book and part
of me is like what if he getsarrested doing that?

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, like oh you have to ask the person.
Yeah, I wouldn't just do that.
What if he didn't?
Though?

Speaker 1 (36:28):
or what if the one of you can get in trouble?
Oh my gosh, that would be.
That would be so funny.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
I imagine they would clear it up, though Not that.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
I want Jack Carr arrested.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
No not that, but I would like to see that
interaction like the, the, youwould think right as soon as you
show your ID to the Personbehind the counter if they don't
know who you are.
Like a lot of these people havetheir picture on the back of
the book, so it's like at thesame time, like why would a
cashier be able to say yes tothat?

Speaker 1 (36:55):
You know what I mean.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I don't know.
I mean, maybe they're the storemanager, or maybe they just
don't care enough about theirjob.
I have no idea, I don't knowbecause I mean he's.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
He's not the only one I've seen do that.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
No, brandon Sanderson does it yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
I think it's cool, but I'm just the oh, it's
awesome.
I saw him post that.
I'm like man.
What if?
Like what if he got busted forthat you?

Speaker 2 (37:14):
know and all of a sudden they had.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Technically it's vandalism.
Yeah, they go like to all thenews out the all the all the
bookstores in all the airportsand they check them all and they
found that he signed, like youknow, in ten different places
and and something happensbecause of that prosecute him.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yeah, you know, jack Carr actually probably should be
a little careful about that,because he's politically
outspoken enough that thejurisdictions that he's signing
in answer pretty good.
They would like to prosecutehim if they could.
Did you read his latest?
No, I am on book four and Ijust bought it.
It's sitting on my shelfwaiting to be read devil's hand,
but I think he's got two moreafter this.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Is that right?
I can't remember now.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
I've read the first three and they're they're
fantastic thrillers.
The first one especially you'vetalked about it before killer
it is and I mean I think you andI talked about it on one of the
podcasts it's like it's almostimpossible to bottle that
lightning again.
Oh, just the stakes.
But I mean he did a really goodjob with book two and book
three.
But, yeah, I've got a.
I got a pickup book, for didyou know he?

Speaker 1 (38:12):
they're doing a prequel show To terminalist yeah
.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
I thought they were doing book two.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
I heard they were doing a prequel show, so they're
doing.
They're doing the maincharacter and dude.
Rafe the, no, the, but the, thebuddy who was played by John
Carter.
What's his name?

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Oh, oh, oh, Taylor, what is his name?
I was about to say TaylorLautner, that's, that's
incorrect.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yes, kitch, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I heard
and I thought I heard that fromJack Carr.
Interesting that could be.
Yeah, that could be really cool, like that could be pretty
pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
I got a finish watching that.
You know, what I startedwatching again last night was
the Jack Reacher TV show.
Oh it's funny.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
I was in your in your driveway checking something on
YouTube and a short from JackReacher popped up.
It was the one when he's in thejail cell with the guys they
took the glasses.
Oh, like I gotta go watch thatagain.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yes, so I was the best TV show of the last couple
of years.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
It was so good with the new season coming out
December, december, and it'sbased on book 11.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I guess bad luck and trouble which I haven't read
that when I stopped it Partwaythrough book 10.
I kind of put that one down andI it wasn't bad, I just I think
I just wasn't into it at thatpoint.
I have this tendency to likeI'll read it a bunch of books
and I'll like put it downMidbook and I'll come back three
years later and I'll pick upmidbook and I'll just finish the
book.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
That's what I do.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
I did that with book three of his trip wire and I
read through like Book nine orten and then, yeah, put it down
again and it's kind of the samething.
That's why I put down that I'vegotten better at it, but like
that I have a tendency to dothat.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
I do that.
I mean, I've told you before Iread like 20 books at once.
Yeah, you do, and my wifethinks that I'm a crazy person.
Well, you are, but not for that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
I'm.
I'm about a quarter of the waythrough.
What's the one?
I'm not a demon copperhead.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, you were telling me about this.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, it's.
It's not that it's it's a badbook, it's just it's heavy and
Sometimes with heavy books Igotta like put it aside.
One of the ones that I took mea long time to read was actually
Marcus Latrell's book oh, longsurvivor.
Yeah, that's me a lot throughthat one.
Oh well, it was phenomenal, butit was just it's hard.
At the time it was really hardfor me to read, not because I've

(40:30):
been through that, but it wasjust Knowing that that was a
true story.
I'm like I don't know and Iain't.
I kind of knew was coming.
Mm-hmm, it's like that was.
That was a really tough one forme to read.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
I was reading that at the hospital when my first son
was born.
Really, oh yeah, yeah, Ibrought it because I'm like, oh,
this could be be a while.
I guess his brother ran for.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Congress.
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Lutrell yeah, I didn't know that.
Yeah, I don't know if you madeor not.
Yeah, he was.
Uh, the guys from Black RifleCoffee did a movie called Range
15.
Uh-huh, it was a Stupid, spookyzombie.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
It had Keith David in it.
Who's the?
You know that really a gustActor who he's been in like a
bajillion things.
He's awesome.
As soon as you hear his voiceyou know he's got this really
distinguished voice.
He was in it.
William Shatner is in it.
Really I kid you not.
William Shatner said MarcusLutrell is in it for a second

(41:27):
and he's like he runs off toface the zombies or whatever.
And the guy, matt Best, who'sthe?
The star of?
Like the face of Black rifle.
You see Marcus Lutrell run offand he's like, oh no, he's dead.
Guess I'm the lone survivor now.

(41:47):
It was the best line in themovie.
It had some like it was just itwas almost like a Dumb buddy
gross out comedy combined withmilitary humor.
Like I love the sense of humorof infantrymen.
Their sense of humor is thebest.
It aligns beautifully with myown, yeah, where it's like
they're gonna say some shit thatwill send the faint of heart to

(42:11):
the fainting couches speakingof which, last night, katie and
I watched Dave Chappelle's 2019Netflix special which one is it
oh?

Speaker 1 (42:22):
my god, he's wearing the green jumpsuit.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Oh, yeah, oh my gosh.
Yes, I know what you're talkingabout.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
You talk about an hour of just.
I don't give a fuck.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Oh that it wanted to cancel him hard for that one.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Holy cow, I mean he starts off with an Anthony
Bourdain joke.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
I didn't remember that one, because that's like
the least offensive thing.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
you said, oh, yeah, it was it was, and I mean he
just goes on from there and I'mlike I you have to laugh, and
when it's funny you becauseKatie and I were sitting there.
You know and I pause it acouple times I'm like you put
this out in the public andpeople would crucify you.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Oh, they tried.
They tried to get him on thatone because everybody has
Netflix.
So I mean, a lot of people sawit at the time.
Yeah, it was, it was beautiful.
I watched it the day it cameout and it was one of those
things where I had sit up herein the man cave off my office a
lot of Times and I don'tremember what was going on.
But Alicia didn't watch it withme the first time, mm-hmm.
And so she can hear me down thestairs Just laughing so hard

(43:23):
and she thinks it's hilariouswhen I'm laughing for whatever
reason.
So we went to bed that night.
She's like, yeah, I could justhear you up there laughing.
I'm like, yeah, I was watchingthis Dave Chappelle special.
She's like, ah, without me,okay, we can watch it tomorrow.
It's great, it'll be great.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
We've, we've.
I think I told you recentlythat we've been Watching more
stand up because I've never, Inever really watched stand up.
Oh, I love watching stand.
I really.
You know, what I'm enjoying isI'm watching, I'm enjoying
watching it.
The last thing before I go tobed, that's good.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
I just I'm gonna go out on.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
I just feel better.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
I do that too sometimes, but the problem I
have is a lot of the Modernstand up is just not.
There's always that thing whereit's like old guys talk about
how well it was better in my day.
In these cases, like mostcomedy was better in our days,
because there's so many areasthat are fenced off and comedy

(44:21):
is in many cases about the edgeRight, that, getting to the edge
of truth, and uncomfortabletruth in a lot of cases,
slaughtering sacred cows, yeah,and so there are people that can
still do it without being, Iguess, on the edge.
But, like Bill Burr and DaveChappelle are like Edge lords,
and it's beautiful the way theyobservationally reflect back.

(44:41):
When we were in Asheville forthat writer conference, though,
I saw Jerry Seinfeld and wewasn't that edgy.
We were there.
He was awesome.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Oh, you went to Jerry's.
I know you, me and Lee and andour wives no oh, that's right,
you were sitting somewhere elsein the audience.
That's right.
Yeah, cuz Lee got the ticketsand Katie and I just showed up.
That was awesome.
I mean that dude is is a prowho just keeps on going.
He is.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
I got his book, the one about his how he writes and
whatnot, and I haven't read ityet?
Oh, you haven't.
No, it's right over there.
You can see it on the bookshelf.
Is this anything by JerrySeinfeld?
I guess you probably can't,because the ghost is pack is
sitting in the way, but yeah,that's one of those ones where
I'm like oh, he writes every day, Does he really?

Speaker 1 (45:24):
yeah, that's how he oh no, I did so.
I think I saw a like adistillation of that book.
I think he did like a video ora podcast or something and I
remember having I actually Ichanged my routine based on that
.
Oh, because it was.
That was back when I was I wastrying to Refigure out rehab fun

(45:44):
again you know, with writingand.
I was like, all right, justwrite a little bit every day.
Just write a little bit everyday because I was I burned out.
I think it was after the secondtime I burned out and it was
just that consistency like hetalks about.
Maybe in there he talks abouthaving that, that calendar and
his, his plan is to have everyday crossed out.
But I think by the end of theyear and actually for a long

(46:06):
time, I did that and I stillkind of do like during my
writing sessions I actually I docheck off every book or every
every day that I do write.
So I guess I kind of still dothat.
So I gotta check that out.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, yeah, I have got to read it at some point too
.
I just it's in the pile, it'llget to.
It's in the pile, it'll getgotten to eventually, I think.
But I mean maybe not, since Ithink I started off our last
episode Admitting I bought andbought 23 books in the last 30
days, or something.
I bought two more yesterday,did you?
Of course you did.
Well, I was reading thattombstone book by Tom Tom Clavin

(46:40):
about the tombstone Showdown atthe okay corral, everything
that led up to it and everythingthat came out of it.
It's one of the best books I'veread this year, and he has two
more.
This is kind of like the lastin a trilogy.
The first one is about DodgeCity and the next one's about
Wild Bill Hickok.
Yeah, I'm like well, I'm buyingthose.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah, I read that sucker inlike two days.

(47:01):
It was amazing.
It was like 400 pages too.
So it's not a short book by anymeans, but it was really good.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Something about a nonfiction book that breezes
like that, you know well, itdepends on the nonfiction books.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
So, like some of them are a A struggle.
Like I read this really thinone over there that Michael
Lorenz got before me the Bitcoinstandard Mm-hmm, it blew my
freaking brain out of my skull.
It's just some of the stuff inthere was Amazing, eye-opening,
horrifying, and it took me liketwo weeks to get through it and

(47:34):
it's like 250 pages.
Really it was, but it's just so, so calorically dense in terms
of the information that I justcouldn't take it in.
Like it was a narrative history, if that makes sense Yep,
absolutely.
Whereas Tombstone it was liketwo days, 400 pages done.
Yeah, but yeah.
But the Bitcoin book is reallygood.
The Bitcoin standard by, say,fadine Amos Amos, I don't know

(47:57):
how you pronounce his name, he'sMiddle Eastern gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
So if one of your kids comes in here and and looks
at your bookshelf and says canI read that book?
Yeah, do you let him read thatbook.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yeah, probably.
I mean, I don't know if we'vetalked about this or not, but,
like when I was, my youngest isin fourth grade.
Now I read the adventures ofTom Sawyer in fourth grade.
Mm-hmm, that's a prettyinappropriate book by modern
standards.
That I had never read that book.
It's um, it's so.
Huckleberry Finn is the moreliterary of them, but Tom Sawyer

(48:30):
, which will probably getcensored in a lot of places at
this point because frequentusages of the inward.
It's more like two boys havingfun kind of stuff.
There's some truths about humannature in there that are really
interesting, but it's abreezier, more fun sort of book

(48:51):
and less weighty thanHuckleberry Finn, even though I
think it's longer by a littlebit.
I never could get intoHuckleberry Finn because I was
trying to measure it against thekind of fun and fancy free of
Tom Sawyer and it's not thatkind of story.
It really had something to say.
But the other thing that I readin like fifth or sixth grade is

(49:13):
a book called Cain and Abel andI don't know if I've mentioned
this to you or not, but I feellike this depth.
At this point in the podcastI'm trying to make sure that I
don't say the same things overand over again, because I feel
like there are minds in a lot ofways are like a record and
there are grooves and there's atendency to get in the grooves
and say the same stuff and Idon't want to be that broken

(49:34):
record.
But Cain and Abel is about twomen one who comes from a life of
privilege and one who isbasically just a success out of
the gate because of family,money and his attachments.
But the other guy comes fromEastern Europe, he's a Polish
survivor of the Holocaust andthe story for him is like he's

(49:55):
12 years old and his step sister, during the Russian invasion in
World War II, is raped to deathand it's a graphic scene.
And I'm in fifth or sixth gradewhen I read it because my
parents didn't put limitationson what I could read and I'm
like reading it horrified, likewhat did I just read where the
Russian soldiers just yeah, andI'm like what is this?

(50:17):
So I don't really putrestrictions on my kids.
So if they came in and theywere like, hey, can I read Cain
and Abel, I'd be like, yeah, Iguess maybe wait until you're in
sixth or seventh grade for thatone.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, you know, now that I come in here and I see
all your books on the shelves,it just it makes me want to have
the same thing.
We talked about this last time.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yeah, I don't agree.
We were on the front on the.
I think we did it after we gotoff the podcast.
Is that what?

Speaker 1 (50:52):
it was.
Yeah, I mean, I just, I don'tknow.
I love having books on displayand at the same time, I want
people to come in and go.
Dude, do you mind if I borrowthat book?
Yeah, absolutely like.
And you might like this one too, you know, interesting.
I mean because you've let meborrow a couple books and I
always appreciate it when peopleloan you a book from their
personal library, right, becauseto me it's like it's not like

(51:16):
loaning a man, you're under wear, but it's, you know, because
this is part of you.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Yeah, and I mean some of them, like I've marked in
the margins and written thoughtsdown and whatnot, and so if
it's one of those, I might notborrow that one out because I
just be like I don't know if youwant this copy of it.
But Michael Lorenz hadmentioned at one point and I was
like, oh, this is actually areally good idea.
Any book you want to borrow tosomebody, be okay with not
getting it back.

(51:42):
Yeah, totally, and so as longas it's one of those ones where
it's like I don't know if I'mwilling to part with it and
there's probably less than 10 ofthose in the in my entire
library.
But like I actually lent my dadprobably the best book I've
read in the last five years,which is another book that would
get you censored nowadays, it'scalled Rebel Yell by SC Glenn.

(52:03):
It's a biography of StonewallJackson.
Oh, yeah.
And it should not be.
I'd be like if you had come tome before I read it and been
like you're going to read abiography of Stonewall Jackson
and this can be one of the bestbooks you ever read, I'd be like
, get the F out of here, like Ican't be no craps about someone.
Is that one censored now?
I wouldn't be surprised if itis at some point, because I mean
, stonewall Jackson isimminently cancelable.

(52:23):
He's a confederate general forfrigging crime, that's true.
Anyway, I lent it to my dad andI bought a hardback immediately
to replace the paperback I'dlent him because I'm like you
know what?
I love this thing so much, Ijust want it on my shelf at all
times I need it.
I got to check that out.
I love, I love Civil War history.
I do too.

(52:43):
It's one of those things,though, where I mean they're
changing the names of themilitary bases because these
people are anathema and I mean Iunderstand sort of the, I
understand the argument, I guessI don't know, I don't know
that's going to fix anything, Iguess, and so the ultimate

(53:05):
utility of it seems like kind ofstupid to me at this point,
like Fort Bragg's no longergoing to be Fort Bragg.
What's it going to be?
I took God only knows.
I don't don't hold me to this,but I want to say it was
something lame like Fort Freedomor something stupid like that.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
I believe in freedom.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Something anodyne, something silly like that.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Well, you know and I mean I used to get worked up
about that kind of crap but Ialso know that you know for
centuries and centuries.
You know old statues are torndown and new ones are put up,
and just like buildings.
And you know cities are builton top of cities and I don't
know.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, that was actually, I mean, one of the
points of something I readrecently where they talked about
how the enlightenment was thefirst preservative kind of agent
for old history, like in thepast.
It was a more western sort ofdevelopment where they're like,
oh wait, we should actuallypreserve some of this stuff from
antiquity because they used tojust.

(54:05):
I mean, I think we talked aboutit before maybe, but the stones
from the forest, the lighthouseat Alexandria were used and
repurposed in a what should wecall it?
Pieces of the Colosseum, Ithink were used other pieces of
ancient Rome.
They would take, you know,things from the Diocletian baths
and go and put them in privatehouses and it's like that.

(54:26):
Oh well, we can either goquarry fresh stuff or we can
just take it and, yeah, youreuse it.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
It's recycling, man, just old school recycling.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
But and one of the better, more interesting things
I had read about New York Citybecause they have the strictest,
you know, historicalpreservation laws.
They're so how do you say aboutthat?
Unyielding, difficult pain inthe ass to deal with.
About this is like you have ahard time building or tearing

(54:56):
down something old in order tobuild something new.
But like Madison Square Gardenwhere it is right now, like they
wouldn't have been able tobuild it at the time, because I
think it was built in the 50s or60s, because, like the building
on its site before was superhistorical, like most of New
York City wouldn't be there now,including most of the historic

(55:16):
buildings, because the buildingsthat had been there before had
been there forever.
So you know, if you want topreserve history, you might end
up locking yourself in a cycleof no progress where it's like
it's just going to be like thisforever.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
And that's an interesting, just debate in and
of itself, right like do youprogress or do you just kind of
stay the same way and, you know,preserve?
I don't know, I don't knowwhere I think there's.
I think there's potentially amiddle ground somewhere, but I
think I lean towards progressmore than preservation usually.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Yeah, I generally agree.
I mean, it's one of thosethings where, if they tried to
build a skyscraper in downtownFranklin, for instance, they'd
be like, yeah, maybe this isn'tthe kind of progress we really
want, but there's got to be somesort of reasonable middle
ground on this one.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Well in, you know a city doesn't just pop up out of
nowhere.
It goes in phases, right youhave.
You have one level buildingsand it goes to two level and
then it's three and that's avery gradual over time and we've
seen it in downtown Nashville,you know.
I mean how many high, you knowmulti level buildings were there
when I moved here.
Not a lot you know?

Speaker 2 (56:20):
No, I bet Broadway was total crap hole too.
Not when I moved here so theyhad already tuned it up they had
just cleaned it up probably acouple years before, is actually
pretty nice.
I saw a feature in the Tennesseeand I mean they had a picture
of Broadway from, and Broadwayis cool.
Now I mean it's nice, it'sgleaming, it's beautiful.
There's a few hole in the wallplaces.
Most of them are off Broadwaythough, but you look at, I think

(56:44):
it was in the late 90s to early2000s and it was like porn
stores and strip bars and I meanit was dirty.
Yeah, and unsafe Even.
I mean think about the Gulch.
Even when I moved here, whichis the area kind of in Southwest
downtown, there was a stripclub there and now there's this
gleaming like 12 to 15, 20 storycondo building there and three

(57:08):
more behind it.
I mean, none of that was herewhen I moved here, even seven
years ago.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
The only reason we would go down there.
There were two things.
One, there was a sushi placecalled Rusan's yes, this is
before it became prime andacross the street ish was a it
might still be there the musicvenue, and it was next to a part
of gravel parking lot, sothat's where you parked for
everything Wow, parking lot.
There was nothing else there,so we would go for sushi.

(57:32):
I would actually go there forlunch sometimes, but it was like
techno sushi at night.
So it was really fun and theyknow they had fun drinks and it
was just always hopping and youknow the sushi was fine, yeah,
but it was just it was one ofour favorite places to go when
we first moved here, because itwas just, it was a good time.
You know it was a good place tobe.
I do miss that.
I miss that place.
Is it okay to?

Speaker 2 (57:53):
have closed.
Yeah, there's a lot of goodplaces to eat in the Gulch at
this point, but like I barelyget down there anymore, it feels
like yeah, you know, when youhave kids and activities and all
that kind of crap it takes.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
I just what?
Are you the one?
No, somebody.
I didn't realize that you canpay for parking ahead of time.
You can reserve parking liketwo days in advance.
What, yeah, where Downtown?
It's a.
Yeah, I'll get you the app.
It's something.
Stop like park stop orsomething like that, and so if
you're going to a concert,instead of paying 50 bucks that
night, for event parking.
you pay 20 bucks, yeah, and youreserve it two or three.

(58:27):
I had no idea that was a thingand we you know we go downtown
for a fair number of shows.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Yeah, I don't.
I just I think it must be Athing of my brain where it's
like if you put me in a crowd, Idon't.
I actually like live music insmaller venues.
Like if you take me over toPuckets, yeah, I love to see
live music there, especially ifyou've got a drink in my hand.
But like you put me into a bigconcert venue, I'm like See
that's why I love the Ryman.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
The Ryman is a perfect size for me.
I love it.
Their seats are small.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
They are small, but they're small and America has
become fat.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Yeah, well, that's why I always like to be in.
On the end, too, that's a goodidea.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I took my father-in-law to the Opry and
there was, like this, a coupleof large people next to us and,
like he and I were basicallysmashed into each other and I'm
not the smallest of guys, myshoulders are fairly broad at
this point and so it was deeplyuncomfortable experience because
it was Opry at the Ryman, itwas a winter time and I'm just
sitting there and I'm like,sorry, eric, this is really bad.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Love you, buddy.
Let's put our arms around eachother.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Well, it looks like that's about time.
Until next time, my friend,stay cool, let's go buy some
books.
Em.
I got a wedding that I happento happen in соответственно.