Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Ride, Last Day, The Dot, Sacret Night, and the Pin.
If you were to stand in Cape Canaveral or Cocoa
Beach and watch a rocket blast off into the sky
(00:33):
and leave this world, you might say, what a wonderful world.
And while you did it, you'd likely be standing under
Florida Palms. That's the name of the first novel of
Joe Pan the author who grew up on Florida's Space Coast,
and his writing has been read in The New York Times,
the Wall Street Journal, and lots of other publications. And
(00:55):
he's on our AT and T line right this moment.
Thank you for being.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
What is it like to grow up on the Space coast?
Is that sort of element of the rocket shots part
of your childhood? Did you run outside? Did you get
to leave school? What was that like?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, well we didn't actually have to leave school. I
was in Palm Bay and Melbourne growing up, and you
could just walk outside. They would take us onto the
soccer fields. Actually, I remember when I was really young,
like the Challenger would come. The Challenger exploded directly overhead.
When I was a kid, I mean, we saw all
(01:36):
the rocket launches, We saw all the satellites go up,
so growing up there was you know, it was it
was interesting. I based the book on some of those experiences.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Book is called Florida Palms. Did you see the shuttle explosion?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I did, I did very much.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Did you know it was an explosion?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, as a kid, it was. It was really odd
because I didn't nobody expected that necessarily. We were we
were kids. We were ushered out onto the onto the
soccer field. Everyone was playing around and I remember looking
up and it this thread, you know, the white thread
comes up over the pines, and you know, seventy two
seconds or so in like that explosion. We were you know,
(02:19):
I knew what a what what the solid rocket boosters
coming off looked like normally, and knew that that wasn't normal,
even as a child because we had seen so many
of them.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
How did you feel, Well.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's horrible. It was a horrible experience. And then we
went back inside and I remember them they wheeled in.
They used to have these giant televisions as they wheel in,
and they wheeled in and we had to kind of
rewatch it over over again on the news. There was
a it was a horrible day.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've written a number of nonfiction books. But what's it, right,
what's it like to write a novel? This is your
first novel, Florida Palms. It's called.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, well right, novel takes a lot of time. This
one took a little bit over two decades. Actually, I've
written some of the novels but happened. Yeah, yeah, this
is a long one. I was a poet. I was
a publishing poet for a long time. So I have
I have seven books out, but this is my first novel.
And I had been working on this one because you know,
I grew up in the shadow of the space industry.
(03:22):
All of my grandparents worked for NASA or the defense,
the defense industry, while my father was a jail guard,
and so I seen both sides of that economic coin.
And I wanted to write about some some of the
uh some of the people that I knew grewing up,
which tended to be you know, low income, uh blue collar.
(03:46):
I wrote about a good amount of bikers in this book,
for example. So yeah, I just wanted to get into
I wanted to show the other side of the space coast.
And you know, writing a book, it takes a long time.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You know, this book is called Florida Palms, and Daytona
is a big area for motorcycles, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Daytona is absolutely and we'd get up that way every
once in a while. But we had a you know, uh,
they're they're a great deal of motorcycle enthusiasts and and
and people and biker clubs all around Florida. I had
just happened to this one time when I was like
in my late teens, go to a biker party. One
(04:31):
of my friends there, their parents with little bikers, and
we went to this biker party. We had a really
great time, and I had happened to meet like this
really philosophical biker. I met this guy who uh who
had he was known to be a possible hitman and
used a blow dart to do the deeds. Now, whether
(04:52):
who or not, have no idea, but I met him
and that stuck with me, and so that became the inspiration.
Thus two people became inspirations for the characters of Gumby
and del Rey in my book. And that if you
read the first session, the first chapter actually has to
deal with a biker party that was very similar to
(05:13):
what I had experienced.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Did you say your father worked in a prison.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, my father worked where He worked at Sharpe's Jail
for sixteen years.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Jail. And did he ever take you to work on
the you know, take your child to work day.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Actually, I've been down there to see him several times.
My brother another. I have three brothers, and one of
them actually worked in there as well. My father was
also a pre trial release officer in size of jail.
So when you first came in, he would see people
and he'd always come back and and let me know,
like who who from my group of friends he had
seen that day. Oh so yeah, it was a funny.
(05:52):
It was a funny experience, but it was it was
interesting to have a father that worked in jail. He
was it was a very very good hearted man and
like to see the best in people, but had met
some some people who had done some truly terrible things,
and so we'd get some of those stories.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
He was pretty open about those things, just to let
us know what the world was like.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
And I imagine it's a bit the scariest straight right, say, look,
this is where you could get off the path and
don't go hanging around with bikers. For gods, not that all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, well at the time, my parents were divorced, so
he was living up of course Saint John, and my
mother was living down in Palm Bay with us with
with two of my brothers, so we see him on
the weekends. But before before that, when he when they
were together, yeah, yeah, he had so many interesting stories
(06:49):
from the jail, and occasionally he'd bring home stuff that
that he found the prisoners working on, which sometimes were
like bars of soap that had these little really East
cart carved into them, or like because some of the
old jails were so we're so old, they'd have lead walls,
(07:09):
lead paint walls, and so what the prisoners would do
is they'd peel off the lead paint and turn them
in these balls, so you'd get this giant solid ball
and they put them into the neck of a sock
and just hit each other with them. I mean, they
were like lead balls. So they would have to confiscate
those at times. So it was always interesting whenever Dad
(07:30):
brought home something from the.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Office, your book maybe going to HBO.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, so it was often by HBO about thanks so much.
And we've been working on the pilot for almost eight
months now, and yeah, very excited about that. Who knows
it it'll actually make it to the actual show, but
has been a heck of a learning experience. And I
(07:58):
think they're doing the book real justice too. I mean
it's it's a pretty gritty coming of age story, you know,
about a group before kids running moves to a drug
running operation. So it's people call it the written at Godfather,
So it's a lot to take on, but they're doing
a good job with it.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You live in California, now.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, I lived straight in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
There's a guy called Greg Sutter. I don't know if
you ever met him. He was Dutch Leonard's researcher, and
it lives in West Hollywood, and I take a walk
with him every once in a while, and I see
some elements of Elmore Leonard and what you're growing up
was like and what you're doing here. So if you
ever want to meet Greg Sutter, let me know and
we'll get together and take a walk and talk literature.
(08:46):
Joe Pan of course Elmore Leonard had a lot of
his books made into movies and series too, like Justified.
Joe Pan is the author of Florida Palms, available wherever
books are sold. Have you ever wondered why health insurance
costs seem to keep going up. I was doing some
research online and I stumbled upon some surprising information on
(09:07):
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan's websitemibluedaily dot com slash affordability.
I was surprised to learn that the cost Blue Cross
pays for prescription drugs rose by a staggering fifteen percent
last year. Fifteen percent. That's five times higher than inflation.
It's no wonder healthcare costs or a concern for so
many of us. That's why Blue Cross Blue Shield of
(09:30):
Michigan is working hard to help all of us better
understand the factors driving up healthcare costs and sharing what
they are doing. Is a business to address it because
Blue Cross knows that healthcare is personal and needs to
work for everyone, and affordability matters. So I encourage you
to take a minute and check OUTMI blue Daily dot
com slash affordability and get informed. You'll be glad you did.
(09:51):
It's eye opening information that can help everyone better understand
the complexities of the healthcare system and its impact on
your health insurance costs. Michael Patrick shields here looking around,
Dusty Cellar and I want to talk to Matt Rhodes
because I want to have a private party event here
at Dusty's. What are my options?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Thanks Michael. Luckily you have many options depending on the
number of guests you plan on hosting.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I'm not sure yet. How many where can we go?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, we have four rooms to choose from, range from
eight guests up to forty two depending occasion. We can
do both stand up cocktail parties, buffets, and multi course dinners.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So the NAPA and Tuscan rooms I see here are
for smaller parties, and then you have this Lelanois patio
and the Bordeaux room. Those are for the bigger ones.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
That's right, Napa Tuscan for parties of eight to fourteen
and leilan On Bordeaux for parties up to forty plus guests.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I'm glad I'm here because I can get my six
for sixty six dollars wine club selections. And then I'm
stopping the wine bar, of course in the tap room
for a bite and a drink.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That's like to offer the seller for retail wine bar
for casual find dining in the tap room our local
neighborhood pub.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Cheers Matt. It's dusties on Grand River and Okamuths, and
you can go online too at Dustysellar dot com.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Cheers, Michael,
Ride, Last Day, The Dot, Sacret Night, and the Pin.
If you were to stand in Cape Canaveral or Cocoa
Beach and watch a rocket blast off into the sky
(00:33):
and leave this world, you might say, what a wonderful world.
And while you did it, you'd likely be standing under
Florida Palms. That's the name of the first novel of
Joe Pan the author who grew up on Florida's Space Coast,
and his writing has been read in The New York Times,
the Wall Street Journal, and lots of other publications. And
(00:55):
he's on our AT and T line right this moment.
Thank you for being.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
What is it like to grow up on the Space coast?
Is that sort of element of the rocket shots part
of your childhood? Did you run outside? Did you get
to leave school? What was that like?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, well we didn't actually have to leave school. I
was in Palm Bay and Melbourne growing up, and you
could just walk outside. They would take us onto the
soccer fields. Actually, I remember when I was really young,
like the Challenger would come. The Challenger exploded directly overhead.
When I was a kid, I mean, we saw all
(01:36):
the rocket launches, We saw all the satellites go up,
so growing up there was you know, it was it
was interesting. I based the book on some of those experiences.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Book is called Florida Palms. Did you see the shuttle explosion?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I did, I did very much.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Did you know it was an explosion?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, as a kid, it was. It was really odd
because I didn't nobody expected that necessarily. We were we
were kids. We were ushered out onto the onto the
soccer field. Everyone was playing around and I remember looking
up and it this thread, you know, the white thread
comes up over the pines, and you know, seventy two
seconds or so in like that explosion. We were you know,
(02:19):
I knew what a what what the solid rocket boosters
coming off looked like normally, and knew that that wasn't normal,
even as a child because we had seen so many
of them.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
How did you feel, Well.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's horrible. It was a horrible experience. And then we
went back inside and I remember them they wheeled in.
They used to have these giant televisions as they wheel in,
and they wheeled in and we had to kind of
rewatch it over over again on the news. There was
a it was a horrible day.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've written a number of nonfiction books. But what's it, right,
what's it like to write a novel? This is your
first novel, Florida Palms. It's called.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, well right, novel takes a lot of time. This
one took a little bit over two decades. Actually, I've
written some of the novels but happened. Yeah, yeah, this
is a long one. I was a poet. I was
a publishing poet for a long time. So I have
I have seven books out, but this is my first novel.
And I had been working on this one because you know,
I grew up in the shadow of the space industry.
(03:22):
All of my grandparents worked for NASA or the defense,
the defense industry, while my father was a jail guard,
and so I seen both sides of that economic coin.
And I wanted to write about some some of the
uh some of the people that I knew grewing up,
which tended to be you know, low income, uh blue collar.
(03:46):
I wrote about a good amount of bikers in this book,
for example. So yeah, I just wanted to get into
I wanted to show the other side of the space coast.
And you know, writing a book, it takes a long time.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You know, this book is called Florida Palms, and Daytona
is a big area for motorcycles, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Daytona is absolutely and we'd get up that way every
once in a while. But we had a you know, uh,
they're they're a great deal of motorcycle enthusiasts and and
and people and biker clubs all around Florida. I had
just happened to this one time when I was like
in my late teens, go to a biker party. One
(04:31):
of my friends there, their parents with little bikers, and
we went to this biker party. We had a really
great time, and I had happened to meet like this
really philosophical biker. I met this guy who uh who
had he was known to be a possible hitman and
used a blow dart to do the deeds. Now, whether
(04:52):
who or not, have no idea, but I met him
and that stuck with me, and so that became the inspiration.
Thus two people became inspirations for the characters of Gumby
and del Rey in my book. And that if you
read the first session, the first chapter actually has to
deal with a biker party that was very similar to
(05:13):
what I had experienced.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Did you say your father worked in a prison.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, my father worked where He worked at Sharpe's Jail
for sixteen years.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Jail. And did he ever take you to work on
the you know, take your child to work day.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Actually, I've been down there to see him several times.
My brother another. I have three brothers, and one of
them actually worked in there as well. My father was
also a pre trial release officer in size of jail.
So when you first came in, he would see people
and he'd always come back and and let me know,
like who who from my group of friends he had
seen that day. Oh so yeah, it was a funny.
(05:52):
It was a funny experience, but it was it was
interesting to have a father that worked in jail. He
was it was a very very good hearted man and
like to see the best in people, but had met
some some people who had done some truly terrible things,
and so we'd get some of those stories.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
He was pretty open about those things, just to let
us know what the world was like.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
And I imagine it's a bit the scariest straight right, say, look,
this is where you could get off the path and
don't go hanging around with bikers. For gods, not that all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, well at the time, my parents were divorced, so
he was living up of course Saint John, and my
mother was living down in Palm Bay with us with
with two of my brothers, so we see him on
the weekends. But before before that, when he when they
were together, yeah, yeah, he had so many interesting stories
(06:49):
from the jail, and occasionally he'd bring home stuff that
that he found the prisoners working on, which sometimes were
like bars of soap that had these little really East
cart carved into them, or like because some of the
old jails were so we're so old, they'd have lead walls,
(07:09):
lead paint walls, and so what the prisoners would do
is they'd peel off the lead paint and turn them
in these balls, so you'd get this giant solid ball
and they put them into the neck of a sock
and just hit each other with them. I mean, they
were like lead balls. So they would have to confiscate
those at times. So it was always interesting whenever Dad
(07:30):
brought home something from the.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Office, your book maybe going to HBO.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, so it was often by HBO about thanks so much.
And we've been working on the pilot for almost eight
months now, and yeah, very excited about that. Who knows
it it'll actually make it to the actual show, but
has been a heck of a learning experience. And I
(07:58):
think they're doing the book real justice too. I mean
it's it's a pretty gritty coming of age story, you know,
about a group before kids running moves to a drug
running operation. So it's people call it the written at Godfather,
So it's a lot to take on, but they're doing
a good job with it.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You live in California, now.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, I lived straight in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
There's a guy called Greg Sutter. I don't know if
you ever met him. He was Dutch Leonard's researcher, and
it lives in West Hollywood, and I take a walk
with him every once in a while, and I see
some elements of Elmore Leonard and what you're growing up
was like and what you're doing here. So if you
ever want to meet Greg Sutter, let me know and
we'll get together and take a walk and talk literature.
(08:46):
Joe Pan of course Elmore Leonard had a lot of
his books made into movies and series too, like Justified.
Joe Pan is the author of Florida Palms, available wherever
books are sold. Have you ever wondered why health insurance
costs seem to keep going up. I was doing some
research online and I stumbled upon some surprising information on
(09:07):
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan's websitemibluedaily dot com slash affordability.
I was surprised to learn that the cost Blue Cross
pays for prescription drugs rose by a staggering fifteen percent
last year. Fifteen percent. That's five times higher than inflation.
It's no wonder healthcare costs or a concern for so
many of us. That's why Blue Cross Blue Shield of
(09:30):
Michigan is working hard to help all of us better
understand the factors driving up healthcare costs and sharing what
they are doing. Is a business to address it because
Blue Cross knows that healthcare is personal and needs to
work for everyone, and affordability matters. So I encourage you
to take a minute and check OUTMI blue Daily dot
com slash affordability and get informed. You'll be glad you did.
(09:51):
It's eye opening information that can help everyone better understand
the complexities of the healthcare system and its impact on
your health insurance costs. Michael Patrick shields here looking around,
Dusty Cellar and I want to talk to Matt Rhodes
because I want to have a private party event here
at Dusty's. What are my options?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Thanks Michael. Luckily you have many options depending on the
number of guests you plan on hosting.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I'm not sure yet. How many where can we go?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, we have four rooms to choose from, range from
eight guests up to forty two depending occasion. We can
do both stand up cocktail parties, buffets, and multi course dinners.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So the NAPA and Tuscan rooms I see here are
for smaller parties, and then you have this Lelanois patio
and the Bordeaux room. Those are for the bigger ones.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
That's right, Napa Tuscan for parties of eight to fourteen
and leilan On Bordeaux for parties up to forty plus guests.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I'm glad I'm here because I can get my six
for sixty six dollars wine club selections. And then I'm
stopping the wine bar, of course in the tap room
for a bite and a drink.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That's like to offer the seller for retail wine bar
for casual find dining in the tap room our local
neighborhood pub.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Cheers Matt. It's dusties on Grand River and Okamuths, and
you can go online too at Dustysellar dot com.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Cheers, Michael,
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