The Chat
The Chat
#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.
And we're back, we are back, we are back. Hey, this this week we got to hang out twice in a week we did, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 2:It was nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that after last time you might want to, you were gonna say, well, so can we kind of skip Friday, because you've been, you've been had, you've had kind of a. You were gonna write this week or work this week and, and like you were telling me before we came on air, you're, you've been cleaning your stuff up, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had all these filing cabinet notes I kind of needed to get rid of and I mean you had told me this a while ago. Other people have told me this. I think SM Rain set it first where 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 the game, the more I kind of realize it's true. There were so many like fragmentary notes where it's like what if there was this guy and he did the? And it's like so basic of a premise.
Speaker 2:I'm like why did I keep this for eight years or however long I've had it? It's like shh into the garbage. And I mean some of that stuff is like if it catches in your brain and it becomes like the idea you can't let go of, then you know you've got a winner. Yeah, and those are the ones where it's like this one I slated into my schedule, I'm gonna make a book out of it. Yeah, but so many of them, it's just like this is half baked under, developed. You would need to take it and combine it with something else in order to create a novel out of it.
Speaker 1: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 I wanted to be quote-unquote professional writer guy and so I tried to, you know, outline everything and do everything the way that other authors were doing it, and one of them was taking copious notes and filing them away and everything Dude. I got to the point I was so stressed that I was missing something. Yeah, that I was like this is ridiculous. And then what was it? I read I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic that I think I've talked to you about before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really.
Speaker 1: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 thick book, but really, really good and the premise that I took away from it being ideas are all around us and they sometimes they hit us and it's like inspiration, yeah, but if we don't grab it in that moment, it will go away. Yeah, and a lot of times it will go away and it will go to somebody else actually, and she actually had a couple stories, one. So she's really good friends with, I think what's a lady who started Parnassus books and something Famous author, yeah, yeah, so anyway, so they're very good friends. I think it's the two of them.
Speaker 1:So she talked about she had started this book. There was a story and it was whatever, and she, she, whatever, she got lost in the middle or she, she got busy and she put the book away. She put the story away and in between that time, when she came back to it, she couldn't finish it. She was like I don't know, lost. And then she runs into this friend who she's like oh so what are you working on? And she tells the story of that she's writing or has finished, and it's not exactly what it was, but the premise was very, very similar and so it just got her going, got got her thinking.
Speaker 1:That actually makes me think I need to go back and read that book, because it was just very interesting to me that that that ideas are things that are flowing or floating around in the ether and that if we don't grab them and hold on to them, it's gonna go away. Yeah, so I took that and for me that was kind of permission to go okay, screw it, if it's not something that sticks in my brain, I'm just gonna forget it, like who cares who's. Yeah, and, and I will say that since I've done that one, I've had more fun writing, because that's what I need. Personally, you know you you may be completely different than me.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's too it's.
Speaker 1:It takes the pressure off. Yeah, for me, because I don't know. I don't like pressure, I don't like. I don't like people telling me what to do anymore.
Speaker 2:The exception to this, I would say, is that my notes kind of fall into two categories. One of them is plot notes or ideas for the story, which is like the guy who you know I've had this idea a few times where it's like in my Girl in the Box universe they've created an artificial way to give yourself superhero powers and a certain percentage of the population. And I thought about, like what if there was this guy and he's old, like World War II veteran and his son is like I'm not ready for you to go and he injects him with it and it artificially extends his life, but he's already like 98 years old and he's basically trapped in that state with enhanced durability and strength and whatnot and superpowers, but he's still not like, he's still creaky, he's still not gonna like move like a 23 year old or anything. He's gonna move faster than a 98 year old, but like maybe like a 60 year old, right, something like that. And so I just you know these little fragmentary ideas and it's like what am I gonna do with that? Yeah, I know it, it's in my head. I've written it down like well, what, what the hell is the point of keeping that in a file somewhere. Either it's going to be of use to me in a story in the future or it's not.
Speaker 2:So there's that, which is the story idea points, and sometimes I have them for specific books, and sometimes they can be very useful. And sometimes I'll go through and I'll do the plot outline for that book and I'll be like this did not make it in and I don't see a way to fit it in, and I don'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 ideas you know stupid little things where it's like a little joke, and those I can't necessarily craft. I can craft some of them on the fly, 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 them sprinkled over there, and I'm already thinking of places I can like fit them into my dialogue, where it'll be an instant dialogue lift, where it's like you know stupid stuff, stupid little you know that's different, right, it's.
Speaker 1:That's like a, that's like a little, a little, a little dash of sparkle that you can put in somewhere, rather than because one of the traps that I fell into was when I had your first bucket that you're talking about. I would try to force that into a story and it felt completely unnatural and I would walk away, gone. Okay, I did it, but that felt like crap. Yeah, I don't need to be doing that, but I like the job because I can't come up with jokes on the fly either. Yeah, that's something that I would, they're fattier.
Speaker 2: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've just got a living my life one paragraph at a time. I don't know if I'm ever gonna use that anywhere, like I have no idea that is like maybe I'll just throw it away, since I said it now that is literally our life right.
Speaker 2:I thought it was funny. It was very as a play on the whole living my life, a quarter mile at a time would have asked him yeah right, have you seen the newest one?
Speaker 1:no, I will not. Yeah, why not? Have you not seen all of them?
Speaker 2:I saw fate of the furious and I'm like, and I'm out. They're Marvel movies. Now they're Marvel movies with cars. I'm like, I, I loved. Like the first one's good, the second one's terrible, the third one's decent, the fourth one's good and the fifth one's awesome. Six this good seventh is great as well. After that, everything after that is like jumped the shark with a car with a jet engine strapped to its back and a glider thing flips out from underneath. I mean, it's just over the top stupid at this point, like the last one I watched, dwayne the Rock Johnson stops a torpedo by punching it through the ice. I'm like this is that's it, I'm done. I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm okay with it, just because I know what it is, rather than going into it with I. I'm always interested to see what other famous person they're gonna throw into the movie. I can't remember. Oh, mamoa was the one who they brought in the latest one, right?
Speaker 2: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 see the last one then?
Speaker 1:nine, ten no, I haven't seen the latest one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so he's the son of the villain from five. Okay, or son, or tied to him somehow, because they have actually flashbacks to part five. Oh, do that really? Yeah, where he's in it and he gets like knocked off a bridge or something, and then his family quote gets wiped out and so that's a revenge tale for him.
Speaker 1:I still love the original, just because it was so wrong and it's just, you know there was, it was a.
Speaker 1:You know what's his nuts, you know 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 sandwich and all that, like I don't know I and plus, I think it was filmed where I used to live. I think it was filmed in San Pedro, california. Yeah, so it's like part of me is like, do I? Know that street on a weird day. I like a tuna fish sandwich too.
Speaker 2:Oh hey, hell yeah yeah, no, I love the first few. They were great, even five. Five was amazing. It was just brassy fun action was that that's fast five. In Brazil, where they knock off the bank, they do the bank heist, yeah.
Speaker 1: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, it was sweet, okay fun it was over the top.
Speaker 2:It was awesome, though I mean just fantastic film. My daughter loves those movies yeah yeah, I mean, don't be wrong, over the top, great, but it just got to the point where the stories were so stupid that I'm like I can't do this anymore. Yeah, it's soap opera plus stupid. I saw a great meme the other day, though about had a picture of it like why is reverse cowgirl banned in Kentucky? And it has a divin diesel at the bottom. You never turn your back on family.
Speaker 2:You never turn your back on family sorry, kentucky, I know that joke wasn't good. I have better than the.
Speaker 1:Kentucky jelly, though oh god, I don't even want to hear that. I have something. I have something I want to talk to you about because I thought it was it was interesting. So I met this guy who is now retired. Very interesting guy, super nice, you know had had a couple different careers. So he he ends up retiring at like 59 or 60 and then they moved to South Dakota and he ends up Then working on a farm for seven years, like for this guy you know everything from.
Speaker 1:You know what do you say? Castrating cattle to doing fields and all kinds of stuff and I was like I Asked myself, did you, did you like it? He said, dude, I loved it. He's like you know. And this guy was like a corporate guy yeah, you know, like marketing and strategy and that kind of thing and he said he went done, he's like I got to go be a cowboy, you know, I got to go be a farmer. And I just got me thinking like I don't know, maybe in the last couple years I've enjoyed. I'm not saying I'm gonna retire and go be a farmer, but there's something about like manual labor type stuff.
Speaker 2:Cowboy hat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I just, I don't know. There's something about like like I felt this pool. I've done like a little bit of woodworking since I moved to the Newhouse. You know more stuff around the house that I would just outsource before now. There's certain things like electricity.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna touch I don't want to do that, but like I don't know that sometimes I feel this Zen, like even doing yard work and I'm not gonna cut my lawn anymore, because I used to do that for a living when I was younger to make money.
Speaker 1:But you know, like, whether, whether it's planting plants or digging a ditch or putting stone in, like I put stone in different different places Along the borders, I don't know, I've kind of enjoyed doing that because you and he said it he goes, he goes.
Speaker 1:You know, whereas if you're doing marketing or or whatever yeah, he actually said it really well, he explained it. He said you know, we would work on something for six months and then we wouldn't see the results of that for two or three years, yeah right, so by the time it actually happens, you're kind of like it's so far away from you, whereas if you're, if you're plowing a field or you're planting something, you see it right away. Or you build a house, like you see that every single day, or the stone path that I did, I see that every single day. There's something to that, you know, and it's funny because I feel like his authors were kind of in between Mm-hmm, I don't know how you're you are with this. But like when I get a book out the door now, I'm kind of done with it, like I don't want to look at it anymore because I put so much time into it.
Speaker 1:So it's like I don't know, it's something about that that.
Speaker 2:I'll read it again in two or three years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm enjoyable again.
Speaker 2:But yeah, for that time it's like I don't want to see you again, right, right, I know you not she child of iniquity, depart for me, yeah you know, and sometimes I have to go back and review things.
Speaker 1:I don't even like doing that. Yeah, I don't even want to go back and read something that just to find detail. I'd almost rather just ask my readers hey, what, what happened? This part again Like. I can't remember whether a certain villain that I wrote I realized yesterday. I can't remember whether I killed him or not or whether he's in federal custody right now. So I'm like, oh geez, like do I have to go back and read it? Because I really don't want to go back and read it.
Speaker 2:I have a couple of fans that I generally will ask that of David Miller. If you're listening, you are the 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 them when I wrote them, but and I have a pretty good grasp of what's happened but occasionally, like little things will slip my mind and I'll be like, oh, I don't remember and I have a database that I can look through to like see where the characters are and whatnot, but what kind of database do you have?
Speaker 2:Oh, I, the lady who does the last round of Edits for me, proofing I should say she does a character database where it just has the character name, the books they're in, the major events that they've been involved in in the story, the defining characteristics of them, that kind of stuff, and then I'll add notes too as well. They're significant other things like that. Back to your point before about the cowboy from South Dakota there is a real primal need, I think, especially in men, and I think women have their own version of those. But, like for men, there is a real primal need to like have that Daily sort of checklist and I artificially do it. I have. I don't know if I've ever shown you this, but like I have a Daily Checklist where I go through and I cross items off my list because, like you said, and then there's a weekly with the week, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I just cross it off and whatnot. And there's a to-do list on one of the margins and I mean it gives me that grounding where it's like, oh, I'm accomplishing things. Like even on the crappiest day when I get nothing accomplished, nothing accomplished. I've still knocked off one, two or three of the items on my list, like Just basic things, like you know the exercise or you know a project. I'll break it into multiple phases and it's like today this part of this project is six thousand words or I've got to do. You know, if it's like I have to deal with a multi-part thing, I might the first stage might be 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 action on the next step of it. But even further back to the cowboy here. So I knew a guy. He died here very recently actually. He was 94, 95 years old. He was like a top cardiac surgeon, brilliant mind, retired From the hospital, from working, and I think he was in Blacksburg, virginia I can't remember Rowan oak maybe and he retired to a farm and Started raising cattle. He created a successful cattle farm, really out of like nothing, like doing that, everything like outs would grow the hay, would grow corn in some cases and whatnot, and he had like a thousand head of cattle oh my gosh. Oh yeah, he was still expanding at age 92 or something like that.
Speaker 2:Really interesting cat. How did you know this guy? My uncle knew him. Okay, one of his neighbors, dr Miller. Very good, very good dude. I met him on multiple occasions and he was a brilliant, brilliant mind. Like he just got really interested in farming and like read all the books and stuff, and he actually really pissed off some of the Other farmers in the area because he came in and they're like oh great, another one of these, johnny, come lately. Farmers, yeah, comes in here and like things, they know everything. He actually did know a lot like he ran a profitable farming business like almost out of the gate, because he just Was smart enough to like figure out what he needed to know and or at least figured out the right people to listen to, and and so you had people that had been in the business forever and they didn't know how to run a business and blew out while he was like Continuing to grow.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, huh so you'll appreciate this because you know we have we share a love of weaponry. So this same guy tells me this story and and I don't think he's listening right now and I don't think he would mind me telling but so the first day he shows up, like you know, just move there, goes and meets the guy who owns the, the acreage, right, which is it's, it's a big operation, yeah. And and he says, okay, let me take you down to so-and-so farm, like it's like four miles down the road type thing, yeah. And and gets him in one of those ginormous tractor things, yeah, like huge, like the 12 foot ladder that you have to get up. Okay, so one of that combine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and they're gonna, I guess, prep the field right. So he explains everything and and this guy's like I don't know how to do that. So the guy you know gets in there and shows him it's like 16 gears, whatever, and he's like you know, basically you've got to do this and this, you know, gives him like a five, ten minute tutorial and then goes okay, you're good.
Speaker 1:So the guy leaves and and this guy is like I don't know what I'm doing, freaked out, right, like you don't want to mess it up and no, that farm equipment is expensive, oh, super expensive. So he starts going and then he, he like, looks left and right and he realized there's, there's like an AR-15 over here and a shotgun over here. And he's like what the hell? So he calls the guy, he goes what you know, there are two weapons in here.
Speaker 2:He's a coyote.
Speaker 1: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, go ahead, you know, just kick open the door and shoot them, the shotguns for the pheasants. Have fun. And he's like, yeah, you know, he's like. I used both of them Quite a few times and I was like that, you know, just sitting there Plowing along and then oh, there's coyote and kick it open. Kind of fun.
Speaker 2:That's the thing that these people who don't really have never lived in a farming community or known farmers like, like oh, these wolves are so beautiful. It's like wolves are hell on your business. Yeah, they literally take food out of your kids mouths and you know, reintroducing them Greatest thing in the world. I went. I went on a deep dive. Coyotes are also bad, but they're an invasive species, so they're not actually even native to most these places.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, I did a deep dive not too long ago on Because we've got some coyotes in our backyard.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, killed them yeah, well, I went on the deep dive on YouTube and I found this guy that he's a professional coyote trapper. Yeah, and they have a very specific way that they do it and they'll they'll be hired by farmers I'm not even hired, they're just allowed to be on the land and so they have like like a hundred traps out in different, different places and then they go out and you know, they shoot them and, like, this guy has this huge farm, this barn, and a lot of the pelts are just like all over the walls. Nice, and it's. It's a really interesting business because, you know, everybody, every one of these trappers has like their own Cocktail of, you know, whatever the 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 know you know, whatever it is, but there's.
Speaker 1:I mean, I didn't even know that world existed.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's cool. I mean so if you meet someone who's a really good one, they can call in a coyote. Yeah, I've ever heard them and I mean it's. If you you've heard coyotes, it's first our city-based Listeners. Coyote calls are Creepy as hell they are. If you're out in the woods at night and you hear it and you've not heard it before, it'll send a good chill down your spine. So they probably do it, even if you haven't you know, have heard it before. It can still Be a little bit uncomfortable at times, is it? Sometimes I sound like a crying baby. Yes, oh, I don't like that.
Speaker 2:They're, they're, they're. Yeah, they're eerie, real damn eerie. But I mean they're Good man, they'll eat a kid if they got a chance. Yeah, no, bueno, no bueno. No, that's uh. They're a bane of Farmers everywhere. They're not good.
Speaker 1:So you had your I won't say week off, because that's not what it was, you know week off of writing. So where do you go next week?
Speaker 2:Oh I, start in the first draft. So I made my decisions. I'm like I know how, how it opens. I know the three plot threads I'm doing. I Don't have a clear idea on one of them. Like I know what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a flashback love story and I'm kind of I'm just like how am I? I know some of the flashbacks I have to hit but I've never really done a. I mean, I've had love stories in my Books before but I've never felt like it was very much of a strength. But I kind of feel like it's almost a lost art in popular culture, like romance land. Obviously, romance writers still nail on that like crazy.
Speaker 2:But I feel like in most Popular culture, like most movies, there's no good love stories anymore, like it's it's rare. I should say like Tom Top Gunn had a really good one. Yeah, and and I should even say because 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 for guys and everybody are just not. They're almost non-existent nowadays.
Speaker 2:It's like we've gone more permissive in a lot of ways and free in our culture thanks to the sexual revolution and whatnot, and it's almost like there's a pushback of prudishness that's coming from the left at this point, like there's a pushback from the right for the longest time where it's like you can't possibly be showing this and there's still a sort of a reaction in some quarters. But, like the people that hold the levers of popular culture for the most part are on the left at this point. And it's just it's weird to see like post me too that like most of the love stories you see in movies nowadays are just weak to non-existent, like the male adventure story where the guy ends up with the girl at the end. I mean, you just don't see it as much anymore. I'm thinking like some of the more recent examples that were really good, like do you saw Jumanji, the Welcome to the Jungle? Like that was a really good adventure story that had a romance thread through it. John Carter, one of my favorite adventure stories.
Speaker 2:You know, I've never seen that movie. Dude, you need to see John Carter, you would dig it. It's so fantasy wild out there. It's such a great story. I could watch that thing like once a week, I love it so much, so why did that get?
Speaker 2:panned. I don't know that it got panned. It was one of those things where it was. If it came out today, it would probably do very well, because it's excellent storytelling, it's amazing spectacle, it's totally new and fresh. But almost in 2014, when it did come out, like Edge of Tomorrow came out around the same time Do you remember that? Yeah, with Tom Cruise, top top movie Really great.
Speaker 1:Wasn't it called something else at the time?
Speaker 2: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 little confusing. Yes, but I mean both of those movies came out within a few months of each other. They both bombed.
Speaker 2:They're both two of my favorite movies of the last decade and some of the very few that are actually good. They were both new, fresh IPs, as they say for intellectual properties. They were not franchise fair and I think if either one of them came out today they would have a lot better chance, because I felt like it was such a crowded field back then and the amount of sheer garbage that's being shoveled out the door nowadays, well, prior to the strike, there's just not that much fresh and most of the stuff that is like. I mean the new Mission Impossible movie, which I just listened to our talk about that this morning as I was doing chores it didn't do very well at the box office. Really. Yeah, it's, I don't keep track of that anymore.
Speaker 1:It's underperforming.
Speaker 2:It takes like two seconds a week, but yeah, I think it's only made like 130 million or something like that.
Speaker 1:Here Because I know he's ginormous in China, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if it's gotten a China release or how it's doing in China, but I don't think the Worldwide's doing particularly well on it either. Interesting, it's pacing behind the last one and you gotta keep in mind it's Mission Impossible 7, I believe. So I mean there's some argument that is franchise fatigue, because and by that I mean it's a fatigue of boy we've seen a lot of franchises these last few years. Marvel has burned itself to the ground, indiana Jones just self-immolated gloriously. Meanwhile Barbie and Oppenheimer opened huge.
Speaker 1:Oh, gosh, I mean Barbie made as of last week like a billion right.
Speaker 2:I think so. I haven't actually checked it in a while, just because I don't have any interest in seeing Barbie. My daughter lightly suggested while my wife was out of town that she might like to see it, but she didn't pursue and I successfully evaded, so I managed to avoid that one. You'll be going on Sunday? I will not, but my wife's coming back today, thank the Lord. 10 days away Like that's too long.
Speaker 1:This is the second, was that a family?
Speaker 2:thing yeah, she's helping her mom. Okay, got it. I mean, this is the second longest time since the time we got married that she's been away and I'm like no no bueno, that's a long time.
Speaker 1:No bueno, I like this. I'm good two or three days, not that I can't handle things, but I just don't like her being away.
Speaker 2:It's not even a. I mean no one starved. I'm able to do the laundry and everything, like I was staying at home, to add, for a full year and more. So I mean, functionally everything's fine. The pool turned green for a couple of days. That was actually a phosphate issue. That has now resolved, but like everything runs okay without her. It's just there's this I was writing to the my Mighty Networks community this morning. It's like there's kind of a palpable sadness in the air. It's just, it's the Bill Withers song there ain't no sunshine when she's gone. Yeah, I call.
Speaker 1:Katie's our glue. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. No, she just is. It's like, it's like those I don't know if you run to this when, when Alicia's gone, but like there'll be something that happens to me that I want to tell her, and she's not there for me to tell her. I'm like, oh well, my best friend's not here, like that's the way I feel.
Speaker 2:Well and worse than that. Like when she's been there with her mother. Like they're prepping her my mother-in-law's house for sale. They moved her into a new place like a senior living apartment or whatever, and she's my wife is a workhorse. Like she will work from sun up to sundown, like that Norwegian fricking work ethic of like you gotta make hay when the sun shines. The sun don't shine that often in Minnesota, so we're gonna work anyway in the gloom. So like if we call her, the only 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:No, I'm asleep.
Speaker 2:What were we talking about? We were talking about box office before that. No, I'm not going to Barbie. I'll make her do that If I, if my little girl Do you see? Offenheimer? No, we talked about this the other day. I just can't clear the time to go.
Speaker 1:It's like four hours or something to I didn't know if, in between then and now, you would figure out a time to go.
Speaker 2: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 been on standby all week, you know, in case something like middle child forgot the Chromebook on Tuesday morning, almost missed the bus Wednesday morning. It's like I've been expecting someone to be like I'm sick and so anyway, between all trying to do all the stuff, I've basically just sat around and read two or three books.
Speaker 1:There's nothing wrong with that, no, so you did inspire me after our last conversation, okay, and of course I went home and I looked up. You gave me permission to look at the books I'd listened to in the last year on Audible and I ordered like I don't know seven or eight of them. So they're all coming at different times and I. You know it's so funny because the first thing I do, I always go straight to Amazon and I'm like, oh, I don't really care if they're new. So, oh yeah, buy and use, you know, 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:I feel like I've bought stuff from Book Depot somehow, but I usually use A books, abe books, abe books. Okay, I gotta check that out. Like all that shelf over there. I have all these used books that are ones that I wanted to have, like all my Tom Clancy books, all my Harry Turtledove, all the CS Forester, horatio Hornblower and Jeffrey Archer. They're all used books. I got from ABE books and I've got like 40 books over there. I bought them all used. Like how much are they? Less than $5 each. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1:I gotta write this down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ABE books.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm gonna steal this. Go for it. Thank you, ABE books.
Speaker 2: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 back to our previous talks about monopolies, like I'm sorry, amazon should not control that much of the book market that they allow that to be bought by them or whatever. It's independent of their Amazoncom ecosystem. So, whatever, it's like independent collectible booksellers. You can find signed editions on there. You can go through.
Speaker 2:The search engine needs work, but I've like gone through and figured out I wanted in good condition. Now the downside is you'll be like I don't think you'll care about this, but like some of the books will show up with the dust jackets and they're in perfectly fine condition and some of them will show up with no 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 was talking to her about it. I'm like Carlos does this with his dust jackets. She's like well, that's what I would do too if I still read books. What is wrong with you people? Dust jackets are beautiful. You set them aside while you're reading it and then you put them back on delicately.
Speaker 1:No, I can't stand that part, I can't. I'll try to keep them on there and then they get in the way and I'm like no, that's why I just started throwing them away.
Speaker 2:Not when you're reading them, but when they're.
Speaker 1:They're a beautiful adornment when they're sitting on the shelf, like that or without them, it looks like an old-time Library, it does like I went into the Biltmore and I was like, okay, there is a certain amount of class to these leather bound volumes, I get both. I mean, honestly, I'm too far gone on the throne away so I can't go back. Yeah, yeah, you've lost them all.
Speaker 2:Well, it doesn't really matter. I mean, half of my Harry Turtles doves have no Dust jackets. I don't know why they just in half of them the sizes. This is a 13 book series and I don't know why. But like some of them are five by 11 and some of them are like four by, nine fluctuating price of paper over the years. Yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1:I think it was the crack addiction of the editors and print staff or something probably Probably something like that, see, and then you've got that line of Tom Clancy up there that everything's the same size.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish I could get all those new, but man, they charge a fortune for them. It's so much.
Speaker 2:Those were like five bucks or less each. Some of them were two dollars. And you kidding, I'm not kidding 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-size too, for some reason, I don't know why. Mine, smaller, mines paperback, the one that I have. Yeah, I had everything in paperback. I had so many physical books and I got rid of them all. When we moved from Minnesota I was like, aha, the future is electronic, then I won't have to worry about bookshelves anymore.
Speaker 1:And now you want them again.
Speaker 2:Well, when they started censoring stuff and taking stuff offline and making you know stealth edits to authors content, I'm like up yours, guys, stealth edits. We should go back and do our own stealth edits. I do, but it's usually just errors. Did you ever have the thing where Readers would report errors in your books? Oh yeah, and you would go through and you would look and like sometimes it would drive me nuts because it's like this may look wrong but it's actually not an error. And I had. I would get like at one point I was getting like 50 corrections a week. What, yeah, I mean Amazon, somewhat.
Speaker 2:Either someone was going through or someone at Amazon and I would be like this and there were errors in there and I would correct the actual errors and then I would send back. I'm like this is not an error and I'd get it. It would just pop back up like three days later like reported again, like the person who was going through it. I would go. I mean there are some of them where 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:I never got that many. I mean I would say maybe, maybe five a month maybe, and it was very few that it was. I would say maybe one or two out 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 things that I choose to have a certain way. Yeah, I don't know, that's weird oh a lot 50 a week.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it was nuts for a while there. I haven't gotten one in a long time, presumably because I got the legitimate errors out. But I mean, I think at one point I had logged in and found like a hundred Error corrections waiting for me. Were you calling up your editor, going what the no? Because I mean you know errors creep in.
Speaker 2:We don't have a process that's nearly as extensive as the old trad pub process, like it would go through ten sets of eyes before we make it to publication, and people that had been specifically trained and disciplined to do it in certain ways, like I knew a lady who she would read her Books backward, backward, yeah, like read each sentence kind of backward or something, and she would find incredible numbers of errors by doing it that way, because when you pull each sentence out of context, suddenly the errors kind of leap out at you more. Wow, that's crazy. Print it and read it backwards. I'm like, okay, well, I admire your. Does that take a long time? I would imagine. And that was just. I mean, that's just proofreading at that point, sure. And so I mean I go through three phases of proofreading plus my own round of editing If that's not good enough to get it. You know I that's unfortunate. I pay quite a lot for all of that editing and proofreading to be done, but you know it's not perfect.
Speaker 1:What do you say to people who are like I can't believe you do that. I can't believe you let something out the door that has errors in it or could have errors.
Speaker 2:They're not paying for their own editing. Yeah, that, yes, it's basically what I'm going to say to them. Like that's because I don't know any indies who wouldn't hit you with that, do you?
Speaker 1:No, I mean I I think I've kind of gotten that that vibe from From traditionally published authors who honestly don't make any money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's the problem. I mean I've said it before, but like 98% of traditionally published authors that you see their books and bookstores, they're they have another job or they're not making enough money to live on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean they get, they might get a little bit of an advance.
Speaker 2: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 vanity thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know like oh yeah, I'm a published author and saw it on my shelf in a bookstore, yeah yeah, I don't know, I don't want to be that guy yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2:I've never seen like I've had fans send me things of like I found your book in the wild because there's a lot of paperbacks out there. Yeah, I've never run into my own book anywhere.
Speaker 1:No, me neither. Yeah, I go to a lot of used bookstores.
Speaker 2:No, I Pardon me is like always when I go into use bookstore I'm like it'd be kind of cool if I did. I'd be like should I sign this? Should I buy it to take it out of circulation? I don't really know what to do here.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, like I feel like Jack Carr will post you know he's in whatever Denver Airport signing a book and part of me is like what if he gets arrested doing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like oh you have to ask the person. Yeah, I wouldn't just do that. What if he didn't? Though?
Speaker 1:or what if the one of you can get in trouble? Oh my gosh, that would be. That would be so funny.
Speaker 2:I imagine they would clear it up, though Not that.
Speaker 1:I want Jack Carr arrested.
Speaker 2:No not that, but I would like to see that interaction like the, the, you would think right as soon as you show your ID to the Person behind the counter if they don't know who you are. Like a lot of these people have their picture on the back of the book, so it's like at the same time, like why would a cashier be able to say yes to that?
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean, maybe they're the store manager, or maybe they just don't care enough about their job. I have no idea, I don't know because I mean he's.
Speaker 1:He's not the only one I've seen do that.
Speaker 2:No, brandon Sanderson does it yeah.
Speaker 1: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 for that you?
Speaker 2:know and all of a sudden they had.
Speaker 1:Technically it's vandalism. Yeah, they go like to all the news out the all the all the bookstores in all the airports and they check them all and they found that he signed, like you know, in ten different places and and something happens because of that prosecute him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, jack Carr actually probably should be a little careful about that, because he's politically outspoken enough that the jurisdictions that he's signing in answer pretty good. They would like to prosecute him if they could. Did you read his latest? No, I am on book four and I just bought it. It's sitting on my shelf waiting to be read devil's hand, but I think he's got two more after this.
Speaker 1:Is that right? I can't remember now.
Speaker 2:I've read the first three and they're they're fantastic thrillers. The first one especially you've talked about it before killer it is and I mean I think you and I talked about it on one of the podcasts it's like it's almost impossible to bottle that lightning again. Oh, just the stakes. But I mean he did a really good job with book two and book three. But, yeah, I've got a. I got a pickup book, for did you know he?
Speaker 1:they're doing a prequel show To terminalist yeah.
Speaker 2:I thought they were doing book two.
Speaker 1:I heard they were doing a prequel show, so they're doing. They're doing the main character and dude. Rafe the, no, the, but the, the buddy who was played by John Carter. What's his name?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, oh, Taylor, what is his name? I was about to say Taylor Lautner, that's, that's incorrect.
Speaker 1:Yes, kitch, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I heard and I thought I heard that from Jack Carr. Interesting that could be. Yeah, that could be really cool, like that could be pretty pretty cool.
Speaker 2:I got a finish watching that. You know, what I started watching again last night was the Jack Reacher TV show. Oh it's funny.
Speaker 1:I was in your in your driveway checking something on YouTube and a short from Jack Reacher popped up. It was the one when he's in the jail cell with the guys they took the glasses. Oh, like I gotta go watch that again.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I was the best TV show of the last couple of years.
Speaker 1:It was so good with the new season coming out December, december, and it's based on book 11.
Speaker 2:I guess bad luck and trouble which I haven't read that when I stopped it Partway through book 10. I kind of put that one down and I it wasn't bad, I just I think I just wasn't into it at that point. I have this tendency to like I'll read it a bunch of books and I'll like put it down Midbook and I'll come back three years later and I'll pick up midbook and I'll just finish the book.
Speaker 1:That's what I do.
Speaker 2:I did that with book three of his trip wire and I read through like Book nine or ten and then, yeah, put it down again and it's kind of the same thing. That's why I put down that I've gotten better at it, but like that I have a tendency to do that.
Speaker 1:I do that. I mean, I've told you before I read like 20 books at once. Yeah, you do, and my wife thinks that I'm a crazy person. Well, you are, but not for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm. I'm about a quarter of the way through. What's the one? I'm not a demon copperhead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were telling me about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's not that it's it's a bad book, it's just it's heavy and Sometimes with heavy books I gotta like put it aside. One of the ones that I took me a long time to read was actually Marcus Latrell's book oh, long survivor. Yeah, that's me a lot through that one. Oh well, it was phenomenal, but it was just it's hard. At the time it was really hard for me to read, not because I've been through that, but it was just Knowing that that was a true story. I'm like I don't know and I ain't. I kind of knew was coming. Mm-hmm, it's like that was. That was a really tough one for me to read.
Speaker 2:I was reading that at the hospital when my first son was born. Really, oh yeah, yeah, I brought it because I'm like, oh, this could be be a while. I guess his brother ran for.
Speaker 1:Congress. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Lutrell yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, I don't know if you made or not. Yeah, he was. Uh, the guys from Black Rifle Coffee did a movie called Range 15. Uh-huh, it was a Stupid, spooky zombie.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It had Keith David in it. Who's the? You know that really a gust Actor who he's been in like a bajillion things. He's awesome. As soon as you hear his voice you 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 Marcus Lutrell is in it for a second and he's like he runs off to face the zombies or whatever. And the guy, matt Best, who's the? The star of? Like the face of Black rifle. You see Marcus Lutrell run off and he's like, oh no, he's dead. Guess I'm the lone survivor now.
Speaker 2:It was the best line in the movie. It had some like it was just it was almost like a Dumb buddy gross out comedy combined with military humor. Like I love the sense of humor of infantrymen. Their sense of humor is the best. It aligns beautifully with my own, yeah, where it's like they're gonna say some shit that will send the faint of heart to the fainting couches speaking of which, last night, katie and I watched Dave Chappelle's 2019 Netflix special which one is it oh?
Speaker 1:my god, he's wearing the green jumpsuit.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, oh my gosh. Yes, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:You talk about an hour of just. I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2:Oh that it wanted to cancel him hard for that one.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, I mean he starts off with an Anthony Bourdain joke.
Speaker 2:I didn't remember that one, because that's like the least offensive thing.
Speaker 1:you said, oh, yeah, it was it was, and I mean he just goes on from there and I'm like I you have to laugh, and when it's funny you because Katie and I were sitting there. You know and I pause it a couple times I'm like you put this out in the public and people would crucify you.
Speaker 2:Oh, they tried. They tried to get him on that one because everybody has Netflix. So I mean, a lot of people saw it at the time. Yeah, it was, it was beautiful. I watched it the day it came out and it was one of those things where I had sit up here in the man cave off my office a lot of Times and I don't remember what was going on. But Alicia didn't watch it with me the first time, mm-hmm. And so she can hear me down the stairs Just laughing so hard and she thinks it's hilarious when I'm laughing for whatever reason. So we went to bed that night. She's like, yeah, I could just hear you up there laughing. I'm like, yeah, I was watching this Dave Chappelle special. She's like, ah, without me, okay, we can watch it tomorrow. It's great, it'll be great.
Speaker 1:We've, we've. I think I told you recently that we've been Watching more stand up because I've never, I never really watched stand up. Oh, I love watching stand. I really. You know, what I'm enjoying is I'm watching, I'm enjoying watching it. The last thing before I go to bed, that's good.
Speaker 2:I just I'm gonna go out on.
Speaker 1:I just feel better.
Speaker 2:I do that too sometimes, but the problem I have is a lot of the Modern stand up is just not. There's always that thing where it's like old guys talk about how well it was better in my day. In these cases, like most comedy was better in our days, because there's so many areas that are fenced off and comedy is in many cases about the edge Right, that, getting to the edge of truth, and uncomfortable truth in a lot of cases, slaughtering sacred cows, yeah, and so there are people that can still do it without being, I guess, on the edge. But, like Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle are like Edge lords, and it's beautiful the way they observationally reflect back. When we were in Asheville for that writer conference, though, I saw Jerry Seinfeld and we wasn't that edgy. We were there. He was awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh, you went to Jerry's. I know you, me and Lee and and our wives no oh, that's right, you were sitting somewhere else in the audience. That's right. Yeah, cuz Lee got the tickets and Katie and I just showed up. That was awesome. I mean that dude is is a pro who just keeps on going. He is.
Speaker 2:I got his book, the one about his how he writes and whatnot, and I haven't read it yet? Oh, you haven't. No, it's right over there. You can see it on the bookshelf. Is this anything by Jerry Seinfeld? 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:yeah, that's how he oh no, I did so. I think I saw a like a distillation of that book. I think he did like a video or a podcast or something and I remember having I actually I changed my routine based on that. Oh, because it was. That was back when I was I was trying to Refigure out rehab fun again you know, with writing and.
Speaker 1:I was like, all right, just write a little bit every day. Just write a little bit every day because I was I burned out. I think it was after the second time I burned out and it was just that consistency like he talks about. Maybe in there he talks about having that, that calendar and his, his plan is to have every day crossed out. But I think by the end of the year and actually for a long time, I did that and I still kind of do like during my writing sessions I actually I do check off every book or every every day that I do write. So I guess I kind of still do that. So I gotta check that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I have got to read it at some point too. I just it's in the pile, it'll get to. It's in the pile, it'll get gotten to eventually, I think. But I mean maybe not, since I think I started off our last episode Admitting I bought and bought 23 books in the last 30 days, or something. I bought two more yesterday, did you? Of course you did. Well, I was reading that tombstone book by Tom Tom Clavin about the tombstone Showdown at the okay corral, everything that led up to it and everything that came out of it. It's one of the best books I've read this year, and he has two more. This is kind of like the last in a trilogy. The first one is about Dodge City and the next one's about Wild Bill Hickok. Yeah, I'm like well, I'm buying those. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I read that sucker in like two days. It was amazing. It was like 400 pages too. So it's not a short book by any means, but it was really good.
Speaker 1:Something about a nonfiction book that breezes like that, you know well, it depends on the nonfiction books.
Speaker 2:So, like some of them are a A struggle. Like I read this really thin one over there that Michael Lorenz got before me the Bitcoin standard Mm-hmm, it blew my freaking brain out of my skull. It's just some of the stuff in there was Amazing, eye-opening, horrifying, and it took me like two weeks to get through it and it's like 250 pages. Really it was, but it's just so, so calorically dense in terms of the information that I just couldn't take it in. Like it was a narrative history, if that makes sense Yep, absolutely. Whereas Tombstone it was like two days, 400 pages done. Yeah, but yeah. But the Bitcoin book is really good. The Bitcoin standard by, say, fadine Amos Amos, I don't know how you pronounce his name, he's Middle Eastern gentlemen.
Speaker 1:So if one of your kids comes in here and and looks at your bookshelf and says can I read that book? Yeah, do you let him read that book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably. I mean, I don't know if we've talked about this or not, but, like when I was, my youngest is in fourth grade. Now I read the adventures of Tom Sawyer in fourth grade. Mm-hmm, that's a pretty inappropriate book by modern standards. That I had never read that book. It's um, it's so. Huckleberry Finn is the more literary of them, but Tom Sawyer, which will probably get censored in a lot of places at this point because frequent usages of the inward. It's more like two boys having fun kind of stuff. There's some truths about human nature in there that are really interesting, but it's a breezier, more fun sort of book and less weighty than Huckleberry Finn, even though I think it's longer by a little bit. I never could get into Huckleberry Finn because I was trying to measure it against the kind of fun and fancy free of Tom Sawyer and it's not that kind of story.
Speaker 2:It really had something to say. But the other thing that I read in like fifth or sixth grade is a book called Cain and Abel and I don't know if I've mentioned this to you or not, but I feel like this depth. At this point in the podcast I'm trying to make sure that I don't say the same things over and over again, because I feel like there are minds in a lot of ways are like a record and there are grooves and there's a tendency to get in the grooves and say the same stuff and I don't want to be that broken record. But Cain and Abel is about two men one who comes from a life of privilege and one who is basically just a success out of the gate because of family, money and his attachments. But the other guy comes from Eastern Europe, he's a Polish survivor of the Holocaust and the story for him is like he's 12 years old and his step sister, during the Russian invasion in World War II, is raped to death and it's a graphic scene.
Speaker 2:And I'm in fifth or sixth grade when I read it because my parents didn't put limitations on what I could read and I'm like reading it horrified, like what did I just read where the Russian soldiers just yeah, and I'm like what is this? So I don't really put restrictions on my kids. So if they came in and they were like, hey, can I read Cain and Abel, I'd be like, yeah, I guess maybe wait until you're in sixth or seventh grade for that one.
Speaker 1: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:Yeah, I don't agree. We were on the front on the. I think we did it after we got off the podcast. Is that what?
Speaker 1:it was. Yeah, I mean, I just, I don't know. I love having books on display and at the same time, I want people to come in and go. Dude, do you mind if I borrow that book? Yeah, absolutely like. And you might like this one too, you know, interesting. I mean because you've let me borrow a couple books and I always appreciate it when people loan you a book from their personal library, right, because to me it's like it's not like loaning a man, you're under wear, but it's, you know, because this is part of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean some of them, like I've marked in the margins and written thoughts down and whatnot, and so if it's one of those, I might not borrow that one out because I just be like I don't know if you want this copy of it. But Michael Lorenz had mentioned at one point and I was like, oh, this is actually a really good idea. Any book you want to borrow to somebody, be okay with not getting it back. Yeah, totally, and so as long as it's one of those ones where it's like I don't know if I'm willing to part with it and there's probably less than 10 of those in the in my entire library. But like I actually lent my dad probably the best book I've read in the last five years, which is another book that would get you censored nowadays, it's called Rebel Yell by SC Glenn. It's a biography of Stonewall Jackson. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it should not be. I'd be like if you had come to me before I read it and been like you're going to read a biography of Stonewall Jackson and this can be one of the best books you ever read, I'd be like, get the F out of here, like I can't be no craps about someone. Is that one censored now? I wouldn't be surprised if it is at some point, because I mean, stonewall Jackson is imminently cancelable. He's a confederate general for frigging crime, that's true. Anyway, I lent it to my dad and I bought a hardback immediately to replace the paperback I'd lent him because I'm like you know what? I love this thing so much, I just want it on my shelf at all times I need it. I got to check that out.
Speaker 2:I love, I love Civil War history. I do too. It's one of those things, though, where I mean they're changing the names of the military bases because these people are anathema and I mean I understand sort of the, I understand the argument, I guess I don't know, I don't know that's going to fix anything, I guess, and so the ultimate utility of it seems like kind of stupid to me at this point, like Fort Bragg's no longer going 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 Freedom or something stupid like that.
Speaker 1:I believe in freedom.
Speaker 2:Something anodyne, something silly like that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know and I mean I used to get worked up about that kind of crap but I also know that you know for centuries and centuries. You know old statues are torn down and new ones are put up, and just like buildings. And you know cities are built on top of cities and I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was actually, I mean, one of the points of something I read recently where they talked about how the enlightenment was the first preservative kind of agent for old history, like in the past. It was a more western sort of development where they're like, oh wait, we should actually preserve some of this stuff from antiquity because they used to just. I mean, I think we talked about it before maybe, but the stones from the forest, the lighthouse at Alexandria were used and repurposed in a what should we call it? Pieces of the Colosseum, I think were used other pieces of ancient Rome. They would take, you know, things from the Diocletian baths and go and put them in private houses and it's like that. Oh well, we can either go quarry fresh stuff or we can just take it and, yeah, you reuse it.
Speaker 1:It's recycling, man, just old school recycling.
Speaker 2:But and one of the better, more interesting things I had read about New York City because they have the strictest, you know, historical preservation laws. They're so how do you say about that? Unyielding, difficult pain in the ass to deal with. About this is like you have a hard time building or tearing down something old in order to build something new. But like Madison Square Garden where it is right now, like they wouldn't have been able to build it at the time, because I think it was built in the 50s or 60s, because, like the building on its site before was super historical, like most of New York City wouldn't be there now, including most of the historic buildings, because the buildings that had been there before had been there forever. So you know, if you want to preserve history, you might end up locking yourself in a cycle of no progress where it's like it's just going to be like this forever.
Speaker 1:And that's an interesting, just debate in and of itself, right like do you progress or do you just kind of stay the same way and, you know, preserve? I don't know, I don't know where I think there's. I think there's potentially a middle ground somewhere, but I think I lean towards progress more than preservation usually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I generally agree. I mean, it's one of those things where, if they tried to build a skyscraper in downtown Franklin, for instance, they'd be like, yeah, maybe this isn't the kind of progress we really want, but there's got to be some sort of reasonable middle ground on this one.
Speaker 1:Well in, you know a city doesn't just pop up out of nowhere. It goes in phases, right you have. You have one level buildings and it goes to two level and then it's three and that's a very gradual over time and we've seen it in downtown Nashville, you know. I mean how many high, you know multi level buildings were there when I moved here. Not a lot you know?
Speaker 2:No, I bet Broadway was total crap hole too. Not when I moved here so they had already tuned it up they had just cleaned it up probably a couple years before, is actually pretty nice.
Speaker 2:I saw a feature in the Tennessee and I mean they had a picture of Broadway from, and Broadway is cool. Now I mean it's nice, it's gleaming, it's beautiful. There's a few hole in the wall places. Most of them are off Broadway though, but you look at, I think it was in the late 90s to early 2000s and it was like porn stores and strip bars and I mean it was dirty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and unsafe Even. I mean think about the Gulch. Even when I moved here, which is the area kind of in Southwest downtown, there was a strip club there and now there's this gleaming like 12 to 15, 20 story condo building there and three more behind it. I mean, none of that was here when I moved here, even seven years ago.
Speaker 1:The only reason we would go down there. There were two things. One, there was a sushi place called Rusan's yes, this is before it became prime and across the street ish was a it might still be there the music venue, and it was next to a part of gravel parking lot, so that's where you parked for everything Wow, parking lot. There was nothing else there, so we would go for sushi. I would actually go there for lunch sometimes, but it was like techno sushi at night. So it was really fun and they know they had fun drinks and it was just always hopping and you know the sushi was fine, yeah, but it was just it was one of our favorite places to go when we first moved here, because it was just, it was a good time.
Speaker 1:You know it was a good place to be. I do miss that. I miss that place. Is it okay to?
Speaker 2:have closed. Yeah, there's a lot of good places to eat in the Gulch at this point, but like I barely get down there anymore, it feels like yeah, you know, when you have kids and activities and all that kind of crap it takes.
Speaker 1:I just what? Are you the one? No, somebody. I didn't realize that you can pay for parking ahead of time. You can reserve parking like two days in advance. What, yeah, where Downtown? It's a. Yeah, I'll get you the app. It's something. Stop like park stop or something like that, and so if you're going to a concert, instead of paying 50 bucks that night, for event parking.
Speaker 1:you pay 20 bucks, yeah, and you reserve it two or three. I had no idea that was a thing and we you know we go downtown for a fair number of shows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I just I think it must be A thing of my brain where it's like if you put me in a crowd, I don't. I actually like live music in smaller venues. Like if you take me over to Puckets, yeah, I love to see live music there, especially if you've got a drink in my hand. But like you put me into a big concert venue, I'm like See that's why I love the Ryman.
Speaker 1:The Ryman is a perfect size for me. I love it. Their seats are small.
Speaker 2:They are small, but they're small and America has become fat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's why I always like to be in. On the end, too, that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:I took my father-in-law to the Opry and there was, like this, a couple of large people next to us and, like he and I were basically smashed into each other and I'm not the smallest of guys, my shoulders are fairly broad at this point and so it was deeply uncomfortable experience because it was Opry at the Ryman, it was a winter time and I'm just sitting there and I'm like, sorry, eric, this is really bad.
Speaker 1:Love you, buddy. Let's put our arms around each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1: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 happen to happen in соответственно.
