Scorched – Don Silver (INTERVIEW) – Episode 95

The Buddies were lucky enough to sit down with Don Silver, author of the newly released coming-of-age thriller, Scorched. The book follows 15-year old Jonas Shore and the many ups-and-downs he experiences as a youth and the impacts it has later in his life. The Buddies chatted with Don about stepping into the shoes of a high schooler again, music influences, and how he possibly manages to write a book of this caliber without an outline. This book is hot off the presses (just released on May 7th), it’s so hot you may get… Scorched. So go pick it up now and join for an interview and discussion about the book!

Intro (0:00-2:19)
Interview with Author Don Silver (2:20-29:44)
Stock Up/Down (29:45-53:43)
Love/Hate (53:44-59:55)
Conclusion (59:56-1:01:37)

NEXT BOOK: City on Fire by Don Winslow

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

Alright
welcome to the book club.
I’m Dylan here with the number one guide.
Want to press the flash with their thunderstorm Keith.
What’s up, buddy?
I know you’re going to come off the top of that, but I’m here with my
quint mate or buddy mate, demon.
Did you ever see Voyager the Mimi back in the day?
We watched it in school.
Okay. You watch in school.
It’s kind of like a it’s like a science show, but it was Ben Affleck when he was 12.
So it’s a story about like these people on a boat traveling around,
but they’re going to like the Galapagos and stuff like that and you learn about stuff.
It’s kind of like wishbone, but not a dog.
A dog that would go into history events.
Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah.
It’s like that. It was like history.
It was more science-like, but either way at one point, Ben Affleck got hypothermia.
And he’s a boy.
So it’s like there’s all these grown men on the ship and he’s a boy and he’s like getting hypothermia
because he’s so wet and they don’t know what to do or no, they know what to do.
He doesn’t know what to do.
So the rest of the people are like, we have to all get naked,
get in his sleeping bag and warm him up, which is what you’re supposed to do.
It just played a little odd, him being a 12 year old boy and them being girl adults.
So I did wonder at the time in middle school when they were showing this,
like why they were showing this to us and also how Ben Affleck feels.
If I ever was to interview Ben Affleck, that would be my first question.
And I think he would enjoy the fact that I watch Forage of the Mimi.
But we are not here to talk about Forage of the Mimi.
You’re at the Buddy Book of a Rigidown Bessels and this week we’re discussing Scorched,
a new novel by Don Silver.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read, reach out to us.
In the past episodes, you can visit our website, buddybook.com.
Sign tour DMs on Twitter or Instagram.
You can listen to us on iTunes, Spotify, download, give us a five star review.
If nothing else, follow us on those social channels.
Please and thanks.
I think I covered everything there.
We had a really good chat with Don Silver.
Do you want to say anything before we do it or just drop the interview?
No, I think people came here ready for the interview.
Drop it on them.
Oh, I thought they came here for voice at the Mimi talk.
All right.
Here’s us talking to Don Silver just two minutes ago and we’ll get to the stuff later.
Enjoy.
We’re privileged today to be speaking with Don Silver,
whose newest book Scorched at the shelves May 7th.
Don is a man of many talents.
He’s been a musician, a talent scout, record producer.
The list goes on, honestly.
Don, thanks for sitting down for us today.
You bet.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
It’s our pleasure.
We had a blast reading your book.
I mean, sometimes we get some books in and they don’t necessarily hit us in the fields,
but I feel like this one did, at least for me,
took me back to like, you know, granted I wasn’t a high schooler in the 70s,
but it did take me back to my high school days and the times you had with those friends then.
And then sometimes I’m trickling into your future,
although it didn’t play out for me as a played out for Jonas.
In either the business acumen or the murder-ness.
Probably good on both counts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You get sent to all kinds of trouble.
Absolutely.
We talked a lot about how we don’t really know how writers come up with their ideas or
things that get possibly written.
This book, in particular, I felt like we read five different stories.
There’s so much going on, so many different kind of storylines within the book.
How is a writer do you come up with those?
And then also, how do you connect all the dots and put them all together and make it this coherent story?
The seed for this story came about in a very strange way,
which I’ve indulged you with. A friend of mine, since we must have been in grade school together,
has been feeding me story ideas and book ideas ever since I’ve known them.
And we have a great relationship and he’s a wonderful guy, very bright,
but his ideas are terrible.
Mostly, that’s what you get as a writer when people say,
oh, I have this great idea. Can I tell it to you?
It’s sort of like listening to somebody’s dream.
You kind of politely nod and, you know, the last thing you’re going to do is write somebody else’s
idea, but he came to me with this idea that I thought was really good.
This was around 2016. And he said, what if somebody in the fever of youth and the invincible
feelings that we have as adolescents decides that if they ever do make it to the age of 65,
say, they would just as soon be taken out by a hitman as stuff for the indignities of aging and
illness and so forth. And what if the book opened with this person at 65 saying,
holy shit, what did I do? And how do I undo this? Or is it even in effect, the hit that is?
So I started to noodle around with what kind of person would do that?
And it took me about a year, but I had a character. I had this main character, Jonas,
and his family and his whole life story figured out that he might do something like this,
but I kind of lost interest in that idea. It seemed a little, well, I mean, it was far
fetch to begin with, but as I tried to write it as a realistic novel, it wasn’t plausible enough.
So I ended up with this character whom I felt some affinity for and felt I understood,
his family, and a whole bunch of events that I’d made happen to him in his youth.
And I really wanted to take it in a completely different direction. So I’m a trial and error
kind of writer. I don’t work with a plot outline that is or interesting. I don’t have a vision of
where things will end. The book is written in two parts, so there was a present tense,
which starts in 1970 and then it flashes forward 20 years into the 90s. And I didn’t know that
was going to happen until I got to the what became the end of the first half. And I just kind of feel
my way forward. I have a lot of threads. So how do I keep track of those strands? I really lived
the book. So, you know, sometimes to my family’s peril, I’m thinking of my characters and the book
at odd moments and making notes. And it’s very inefficient, but somehow it worked. It worked in
the end. And I got something that was coherent, I think. Yeah, you definitely managed to pull it
all together, which is pretty amazing considering all the different moving pieces and then not
operating off of an outline. I don’t even know how you do that. I mean, I got an outline my day
or all time screen. So, to not have to have one in the story is pretty amazing. I do things like
timelines. So I had to have the years that the characters were born and where and you know,
I would outline retroactively, I guess, because I otherwise I couldn’t keep it keep it straight.
Jonas had a little bit, at least to me, and I don’t know if this is where you’re going with it,
because I doubt it, because this is just my own personal thing. But he had a little bit of
Holden Caulfield in him, you know, some some catcher in the rye vibes. And the quint crew
felt like a relationship out of Stephen King’s the body, just all these different kinds of
kids coming together for a common cause, whether that be surviving high school or
getting beat up out of the woods of Maine, like in the body. Did you have literary influences
for this book? Like, how did you draw on that? Yeah, sure. I’m a big fan of those two works.
Catcher in the Rye was really important to me when I was coming of age, as it was to many people.
And the body or stand by me, I guess, the movie became, I thought was sensational when I read
the story. And that kind of experience of adolescence is one that I ultimately had
and long for and didn’t have at times. I found we were in a very tight little neighborhood when
I was a little kid, and then we moved to a neighborhood where the houses were spread farther apart,
and I didn’t know people. So I kind of wished I had that a little bit more in high school. But
as far as literary influences, I read widely and deeply. So the two two books we’re talking about
and many, many other literary works, I would immerse myself in. And I think that’s where
most books that are most things that I’ve written have come from, rather than out of my life experience.
Yeah, sure, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I know, because I moved when I was in sixth grade,
you know, so kind of like your formative years when you’ve got your group of friends and you’re
ready to go to middle school, and then my mom up and took us and we switched towns. And it was
interesting because I had that same vibe as Jonas at the beginning where I felt like a total fish
out of water. And it did take someone to come in and just kind of put me under their wing and
introduced me to who my future friends would be and kind of show me the ropes for that new school.
Luckily, they didn’t try to sabotage my life afterwards.
Right. But you could see how that would happen. Oh, 100%. Yeah, if things went differently,
I mean, there is a parallel universe where that did happen.
Yeah. Right. Do you feel it makes us more an observer to be plucked out of our comfort zones
at that tender age and be put into an environment where you really don’t know anything?
Yeah, I think it does because especially for me, at that age, you know, I was kind of like
class clown, gregarious individual, and knew everyone and kind of liked to be the life of the
fifth grade party as it was. And then having to kind of come in and feel everyone out and instead
be more observant, like you’re saying, and really kind of try to not do anything wrong
as opposed to kind of living my own way. So now I’m trying just to not make any enemies as opposed
to just being friends. And I think that carries through through life.
Yeah, I also moved in fifth grade. That was the mark. And it was very much as you described.
I think I did end up being much more observant than I would have been if I stayed in the little
school in town that I was in. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any quailudes to sell any one’s
right to be friends. I had to make friends the old fashioned way. Yeah, that was all the rage in
in the 70s and very, very odd times. My dad was a late teen in the 70s and in the early 70s.
He would tell me about quailudes when I was like a teenager. So people doing quailudes,
I was like, what are you trying? What the hell is a quailude? I had no idea. I feel like it only
really hit pop culture in Wolfa Wall Street. I was going to say this in Wolfa Wall Street,
probably the only two times that ever even heard what quailudes are or come from.
They referred to them as stupid pills. They lived up to their name. You would just be,
I don’t know, really dumb, you dumb things. Keith, I guess you weren’t paying much attention to
the Bill Cosby trial then. No, I think that’s a date rate.
Jug is different. I thought there was a quail as involved as well, but I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t
follow that closely. See, maybe right. I’ve been taking some stupid pills these years.
I don’t know if they’re called anymore, but you’re referenced. The book does advance and jump ahead
in time. Is that something that as a writer makes things more difficult or is that a cheat code
where you can cut out some of the minutiae and get to the core of what you wanted to get to?
Or what was the thought process behind that? Yeah, it does a little bit of both.
When you get into storytelling mode, you have to be really careful not to tell too many details,
of course, boring reader to tears. But it was also really exciting to,
I’d said all these things in motion and adolescence and childhood for this character
and several others. It was really fascinating to me to try to spin them forward and figure out
how would these events and temperament look 20 years hence? What would get buried? What would be
accentuated? Somehow we seldom get much, much better than we are in adolescence. But in the case of
the main character, he got really good at one thing, business. He buried a lot of other stuff and
didn’t get very good at making connections socially. I think to your point, it was both
a little easier because I got to skip over some mundane things and not have to figure out how
did he get from there to here. I could just put him here and I wanted to get it right. What would
have a person with that background become eventually? I wanted to tell that in a convincing way or
try to. Yeah, and it’s interesting with that time jump because then it’s almost like seeing a friend
for the first time after all these years because the Gwent kind of splits up and they say they’re
not going to talk to each other. Granted, it’s only Jonas who actually follows that. But you
almost get that experience by having that time jump of we only knew them as teenagers. And then
all of a sudden they come back into his life as an adult. And we still like our memories of them
are really just their teenage years like same as Jonas. So I think that was an interesting way
of doing it as well because then you’re kind of in the mindset of Jonas where like your memories
of that person. And it also plays well with the whole doggy situation because you don’t know all
the things he’s been up to in the meantime, which would obviously spoil the whole thing.
Yeah. So reader, writer, and characters are all getting to see each other for the first time
after 20 years. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But that’s kind of a cool thing.
So music plays a big part in this book. It seemed like a great escape for a lot of the characters.
I also love the cassette selling business side hustle because I did try to set something similar
in middle school with burning CDs. So yeah, I appreciated that. But
Keith, did you stomp them as well? That was when you put the label on the front with a CD. Did you
have a stomper? Yeah, I had a printer that I print off like the list of what songs are on it
and whatnot. It’s pretty good business. Oh, fantastic. I did like album covers. Wow. Are you
enough? Oh, okay. I like that. How did you do that? How did you do album covers? Are you an artist?
You have to find… No, no, I just stole everything. Are you getting me? We’re talking to a music
exec here. So watch out. Unlike murder, I think the Statue of Limitations is probably up for it.
But no, it was just like the early days of Lime Wire and Kazan, whatever that was, and
whatever bands I was into at the time, I wanted to get my friends into them. So you’d have to find
some JPEG online of whatever the artist you were looking for was. And honestly, it was a lot of these
same bands. I mean, like Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, the Allman Brothers. We were big Allman Brothers fans
and I tried to get my friends into them because they were listening to whatever kind of the current
pop hits were. So I put the CD and then maybe leave it in their car when we were going to…
Oh, yours was altruistic. You weren’t selling them. You’re actually just giving them away. Wow, that was
really nice. I was just trying to get people to listen to the same stuff I wanted to. I didn’t
want to listen to the Spice Girls anymore. All right, fair enough. Well, that leads right into my question,
I guess. You do have obviously a lot of music industry background. I’m curious, is there
a certain genre or a band or artist you’re jamming out to while you’re writing this or editing or…
Is that music going into this process? Because it did seem like it was a big part of the book.
No, unfortunately, I can’t write with music playing. There’s too much competition between
not to sound pretentious, but the music of language and the rhythms of the sentence and
alliteration and all these other things. And I’m also way too serious a music listener, I guess.
Also not to sound pretentious, but I can’t dance because I’m listening to bands so heavily. I can’t
really multitask. So it’s pretty quiet when I’m writing. So most of the musical references
would come from memory and then I would take a pause and listen to the track and kind of
vibe into it and decide if that was right for the moment in the book. The music in the book,
it almost plays out like a soundtrack as you’re reading the book. Either the songs are referenced
or the artists are referenced and I could see if this was later on put into some sort of production
either TV or film. Those sounds, especially the sounds of the 70s and before, would kind of
lead the story through as a soundtrack. So that’s kind of how I was picturing it as I was reading
it. And honestly, you probably have like 10 pages in there of bands and songs that are going,
I was trying to keep track and I couldn’t. So good on you because there’s, you know, we got
Lou Reed, the Beatles, like Steely Dan, like I was talking about Otis Redding, The Who, Zeppelin,
Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd. There’s just, there’s so many list goes on and on. So I thought that
was, that was really fun. It actually made me go back into my Spotify account, which is now how
most people listen to music and start listening to some of these bands that I haven’t listened to
in a while. That’s great. So we’re all trying to get everybody to listen to the music we like.
That’s cool. That’s a cool thing. Yeah, you got, you got me like, I got those guys in the high stuff.
Yeah, good. Yeah. It brings me, I used to do a Steely Dan brunch every Sunday at my friend’s house.
It was wonderful. Yeah. Wow. He had, you know, he had the old albums, put the albums on and we’d
have brunch and just Deely Dan branches. Great. Great time. Yeah. The lyrics to Steely Dan
is a party. You could just have a great time just listening to lyrics of many of their tunes.
Got a couple of quailudes and then you’re having a good night.
We had one of my best friends dad at the time. You know, we were, this was the branches were
later, but back to like middle school and whatnot, we were becoming friends. His dad was an aging
hippie. Great guy. Introduced us to a lot of music and other stuff, not quailudes, unfortunately.
But he would listen to Steely Dan. We’d be like, oh, this is great. What is this? He’s like,
Steely Dan. He’s like, do you know what that is? He’s like, no, what, what do you mean? It’s a band.
He goes, look it up. You can find out. And I encourage other people to just Google Steely Dan. What does
that mean? And there’s something, there are quite a few of their songs who just hilariously,
terribly not PC today, but really funny and clever. Oh, yeah. And you endowed. Yeah. For sure.
So when it comes to the book, was it your familiarity with, from what I understand,
you grew up in the area, but was it your familiarity with the location and the culture of the time
that made you want to set the story in 1970s, Philly, or was it something else altogether?
It came to be very handy, but that’s for sure. But initially, it was that I needed a guy who had
been adolescent in the 70s, who was then going to take a hit out on himself in the year 2020.
That was my friend’s idea. The book would have been called 2020. And I just counted back years
so that that would work. But once I found myself in that setting, I think that’s why I got so distracted
and came to understand my character in a different way. When you get to be a certain age, when you
write of your own past, you’re writing historical fiction. It occurs to me while we’re talking about
some of these songs and everything. I didn’t have to research it, obviously, because I lived it.
And I think the observer part that we talked about a little earlier of having moved and
needing to keep an eye on things and not get myself in trouble made these details pretty vivid.
Absolutely. What was the beer they were drinking? Schmitz? Was that it in the book?
Oh, yeah. That Schletz, right? There’s actually Schmitz.
There is a Schmitz yet. I know how to look it up. It’s the oldest brewery in maybe the East Coast
or maybe the country. It was in production for 155 years and only stopped in the 80s, I think.
Oh, oh, damn.
Anybody in Philadelphia would know that beer. And when you go to the ballpark, you’d see their big
sign at center field. That’s funny. Yeah, it’s like old style in Chicago or something like that.
Yeah, back when there were regional things. Yeah, that used to be nice.
Beyond just reasonable accents. Yeah, it was nice. Regional music.
It does tie into my nice question a little bit. But for the weekend trip to Atlantic City,
the boys live out of a Toyota Corolla, a car out in high school. They live on warm Schmitz beer,
diner food, coffee, hogies, lemonade, chili dogs, fried clams, weed,
slash angel dust. It’s something that I’ve done right now. If I had that same weekend,
I’d probably be dead. I think there would be more than one person that died in that weekend.
I’d be dead. So what’s that being said? My question is, was it tough to get back into
the mindset of senior in high school? Because I definitely did this type of stuff at high school,
too. But like, was it tough to get back into that mindset of writing as a high school perspective
and eating this food and doing these different things that, as someone that’s a little bit older
now, can’t even imagine doing that anymore? Yeah, it’s probably very revealing to say,
now it wasn’t hard. I can remember stories and events that I was part of that were similarly
ridiculous. And it was kind of funny and in a weird way to recall it all and pull it together.
Because it seems like from where we sit now, it seems so insane to do something like that.
And yet when you go on a trip with your buds and you’re in high school, somebody has their license.
Like in my case, I think a bunch of us drove down to Florida from Philadelphia. We drove down
and back in five days and it like that. And I think somebody had black beauties,
you know, kind of amphetamine that got us there. But once we were there, none of us could sleep.
And it was, yeah, I can remember it’s revealing, but I can remember all those incidents pretty
clearly, even though I could never do any of that again. Yeah, we convinced our parents to let
us go to Cancun when we were 18. And that was ridiculous. I can’t believe they allowed us.
Yeah, just let us go, you know, like, hey, we’re all going to go to Cancun. Like, we’re going to stay
we’re like, we’ll figure it out. Like, you’re just going to go to Cancun. I’m curious, how
vivid are the events that transpired there for you? It’s more of like situations that are
extremely vivid. If you asked me, you know, how what happened the whole trip, I’d say I have no
idea. But like, we all remember like very specific things that happened. And who knows they could
be like apocryphal by now, you know, that just the retelling of them after 20 years might have
changed the stories altogether. But we all remember the same thing. But granted, we’ve been talking
about them for 20 years. You want to come clean on that guy you killed or what?
Well, I was going to ask you, if you you said that you’re familiar with these types of stories,
I wanted you to come clean on the angel dust. That’s what I wanted. You get that.
The thing I found amazing is when you’re writing about kids, you captured some of the ideas that
they have. They seem outlandish as an adult. But then when your kid, they seem like, Oh, that’s
totally plausible. I mean, even Jonas granted this as traumatic, but like Jonas trying to convince
himself that his mom didn’t pass away and thinking he can just go home and she’s going to be there.
Like, Oh, maybe the school just made that up. It’s like, no one would make up that your mom passed
away. Like this, you know, and he’s reading the letters saying, it’s not necessarily her handwriting
granted, you know, as a traumatic situation. And, you know, you want to believe that she’s still
around. You know, he wants to believe that. But at the same time, it’s totally something that as a
kid or, you know, young adult, you’d be able to convince yourself of before you’re, uh,
while your brain’s still a little bit more plastic. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me that like,
adolescence is the, the cusp of magical thinking into adulthood. So things can happen in your head
then that would never happen. It’s sort of a blend between what you think as a little kid
and what you should know as an adult. But it’s a very soupy area. It occurs to me that when you
train your mind back on an, on a situation, say you’re a trip to Cancun, you can find details that
wouldn’t otherwise be available simply by lingering on that and visualizing, say, the plane, right,
in your buddies and taking out some photos and looking at what your buddies look like. You somehow
can recover more from memory than one would expect by focusing. And as a writer, it’s much easier
because I’m just making this up. And I don’t have to be true to anything. I think when we tell
stories about the past, we’re making things up too. We may not realize it, but yeah, exactly. I
think so. Everything for me was, was fictional. So I could make them, I could make them, uh,
get kicked out of a hotel room, smoke some weed that was spiked with angel dust and, and then it
became fun to think, well, if they did that, then what might happen? That’s a lot of the
form of writing for me. With that being said, I’m gonna have to dwell on the, the memories of
the foam party at Senor Frogs. Maybe, maybe think about that for a minute and then tell us.
So here, usually whenever we read a book, we, you know, we like to act like we’re movie producers,
which maybe that’s another job that you’ve done of the many hats you’ve worn, but we like to cast
actors for books we’ve read. I’m curious if you had imagined any actors for these characters,
either as you were writing it, or, you know, if you had a dream cast, if the options were purchased
to turn this into something. Oh, wow, that’s a cool, cool direction to go. I have not been a
movie producer and had anything to do with foams, just to clarify. Shoot, I was gonna hand you a
script now. These people are so personal to me. I’d be curious what, if any, any actors
occurred to you for these, but like the character of Richie, who’s Jonas’s closest friend,
I felt such an admiration and kinship with him. And of course, he’s a redhead, so,
but who would, who would we cast this as him? It’s tough when you have the, the hair colors,
because then you have to start changing them, you know, like redhead, when they got Kirsten
Duns as the girl in Spiderman, you know, didn’t necessarily, necessarily check out. I saw Richie
as kind of like an Andrew Garfield kind of guy, good looking, strapping, but also mysterious to
him, you know, like a kind of something going on behind the eyes that you’re not really sure what,
and he’s obviously got his own demons from, from his own past. Yeah, Jonas’s mom, I can think,
I can picture as, as an actress, Sissy Spasic. I’m not sure she’s been making recently, but
yeah, you can probably get her on the cheap now. Probably. Yeah, she’s doing grandmother roles
now, but she’s terrific. And she had the Southern accent. Yeah, and I don’t know if you’re familiar
with John Bernthal, but he’d be a good dresser. Yeah. And then why not? Well, just bring the
fury cast together. Get Shaya and his Jonas, you know, Shaya, Shaya, little buff could, could
hang his Jonas. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. For Dougie, I was thinking of Ben Mendelssohn,
that’s, I don’t know if I’m ready player one, the bad guy, Bud Mine is what I was thinking of.
Yeah, you just, whatever he is, that he gives that creepy vibe all the time. Yeah, super creepy
and bloodline. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is Dougie the, the most hateable character you’ve, you’ve put to
page. I put some hateable characters down. But he’s, yeah, he’s up there. I mean, I tried to give
him a background enough to, to make one at least slightly empathetic toward him, but what a bad guy.
Yeah. I mean, you feel bad for, for periods, especially at the beginning, you’re like, oh,
I got it. You know, it’s, it kind of looks to be second fiddle. We’ve all, we’ve all felt that
before, but, but then we don’t go and do the terrible things that he goes on to do. And also,
just the, the general mindset of feeling like your own things that you definitely aren’t and then
deciding to, to take them yourself is probably just not the best way to go about things.
Right. Yeah. Cautionary tale there. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Don, it’s been a real pleasure talking to
you. I mean, I feel like I learned a lot more about the book than, you know, just even reading it. So,
so I hope others did as well. And for a reminder to everyone, the book is scorched. It just came out.
So wherever you get your books, probably Amazon online is available. Is there a place you’d
prefer people go and get the book? Really, wherever people are comfortable, where I am,
there’s a couple local bookstores. Malaprops is one that’s a favorite of mine.
Absolutely. Yeah. We always, you know, we always push people to the locals, but sometimes people
like, Hey, sorry, they’re not available in some places. So that’s the best place for, for us and
where we like to get our books. And Don, what do you, what do you have coming up? You have
anything else you like to plug or anything coming up on the horizon you want to know about?
Nothing to plug, but I’ve taken up 10 or saxophone since I finished this draft. And yeah, I mean,
I’m doing it in the privacy of my home. So it’s not to offend anybody else. Yeah, but it’s really,
really fun. And you know, to learn learning jazz is like learning another language. And
I recommend it to anybody looking for a hobby. I have very little musical ability. So I’m going
to stick to pickleball. But when you eventually put these things down to record, you know, you
let us know because we can, we can burn them onto CDs and stop them and stop them with your
phone up. Nice. That’s great. Well, Don, thanks again. Obviously, we really appreciate you coming on.
And hopefully we’ll see some more works from you in the future. Yeah, thanks. Great chatting with
you. Thank you. All right, that was fun with Don. Great guy. Just a great guy. I almost wanted
to know more. I want the autobiography. You know, that’s what I want that over the scorch. I want
to know what what life was like, you know, these lives. I feel like you can’t write those kinds of
books as you’ve lived. Exactly. It’s like talking about black beauties. I was like, wait, that
that Disney movie is like, no, I am fed a means we took on the way to Florida. I was like, well,
that was also just casually dropped. I was like, Oh, okay. I know. I was like, the only black beauty
I know is a horse movie of a Disney movie. I mean, I’m embarrassed. I’m such a loser. Yeah, I need
to. Yeah, when the angel does thing, I was I was like, I’m going to try to be cool. I slipped that
in there. I didn’t even talk weed in high school. So try to be the one like the guys. You’re trying
to be cool by not smoking weed? No, I was like, yeah, we I did all this stuff in high school. I’m
like, Oh, you’re trying to call me interview. Yeah. Yeah. And you kind of called me out on it.
I was like, damn it. To get mad. Well, it’s okay not to do angel. Yeah. Well, that’s true.
We’re not out here. I know you like, you know, what?
It’s like, Oh, let’s jump into stock up stock down. Keith stock up. What do you got?
Doc up holding a grudge. I’m I’m a big holder grudge guy. I’m more around corporations. Not
really around people. Yeah, big grudge guy. I probably need some pushback on this because I
know you did ask him. You’re like, is Dougie the worst person you’ve ever written? But I’m going
to go ahead and defend Dougie here. So bear with me. Bear with me holding a grudge on someone from
like something that happened in high school. Pretty lame. Like being like, you took my
scholarship or all this stuff like pretty lame, bro. Like just pick up your pieces of your life
and move on 20 years later. We’re still holding grudges. Come on. I mean, there’s a phrase. It’s
called close the yearbook. Literally. Close the yearbook. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great one. Sorry.
I should have bled with that. However, I will completely agree with Dougie when it comes to
one thing. And that is the first day he shows up, he divulges what I would say is basically
maybe the biggest secrets. Maybe the most important thing possible is when the best
time to go to the bathroom and when the best shower times are. I mean, you’ve lived in a communal
area. You’ve lived in dorms. This is goldmine. You don’t tell anyone. You’ve worked in corporate
offices. You find a secret bathroom. You don’t tell anyone. That stuff you keep to the close the
best. That’s like that in like my like passors to my bank accounts or the same level. So the fact
that he did tell him that that is like currency to me. So when he was like, I’m stealing money to
get back, it’s like, yeah, I was I understood that I understood the mindset of the bathroom.
Because demon, let me tell you what, if we when we were together and I told you about the secret
bathroom I go to on 12 and you are just like, great. And just like turn your back on me and just
started using it and telling other people, I might murder you. We would not be friends right now.
If that happened, trust me. Like that is I never told you obviously because even though we’re
close friends, we’re not that close. All right, that’s that is I’m not telling anyone that I killed
before that. I had my own secret bathroom was on four. Right, you didn’t tell me either.
Exactly. So the fact that he divulged that first day, I think we were kind of we
breezed over that a little bit too much. I do understand Dougie’s hatred and grudge because
he did kind of do that. Stealing money’s okay. Holding garage. Okay. Suck up. Yeah, I mean,
I agree with you on the on the bathroom aspect because especially like you said in a dorm type
situation, especially when it’s all guys, you know, that stuff. You eat the stains and
piddle all over the seats. You don’t want to. Yeah. So my issue is the the crybaby stuff about,
oh, you stuck me with the mixtape thing in high school when he says that like 40 years later.
One, it was Jonas’s idea to begin with selling mixtapes. He added you into this business idea
and you guys all profited and then you decided that you wanted to take it on yourself, Dougie.
So you know the risks like that at any time the school can come down on you. So blaming him,
Jonas for that and also Dougie laid out the deal. He was like, I’ll give you 50 upfront and then
royalties. That’s just a bad deal. Like you just making a bad deal. Give him up front. Don’t give
him any royalties or vice versa. I give him the royalties. Don’t give him anything up front.
Like doesn’t he watch Shark Tank? What the heck’s going on? One of the things I really hate about
Dougie is his Jonas quote unquote got lucky mindset and that now he owes Dougie for that.
It just it irks me because it’s so annoying. The idea that, oh, you got lucky with this car
dealership and like I could have got that. So you owe me because we both went to Lafayette.
It’s one is bullshit because yeah, everything takes a little luck in life. We all need a little
bit of luck, but it’s what you do with that luck. And Jonas, he got his internship. He could have
done with his internship. What I did with mine, which was read ESPN page two the whole time,
cash a check and get out of there. But no, he’s looking for efficiencies. He’s looking for the
way for the company to make more money. He creates a whole business idea that he then is like pretty
much gifted to him because he creates a mentor out of the person that hired him. Where was Doug
this whole time not doing that and saying, oh, you got my scholarship. It’s a it’s all a bunch of
bullshit. I mean, even later on in life, he’s like, you should make me CFO. And he’s like, what?
Why am I going to make you CFO? You told me to buy this company and I am and now we’re underwater.
And he’s like, I didn’t tell you I recommended you make the decisions. He’s like, but is a CFO
also recommends? So what you recommended this literally the same thing. What are we talking about?
I completely. When someone tells me you owe it to me, then that’s one like the second I
owe nothing to them. That’s where my whole mindset would change. There’s no person that’s ever
going to convince me that I should do something for them once they start with the line you owe me.
Yeah, now fuck you, buddy. How about that? So my stock up, it’s gonna be a quick one because we
kind of talked on it when we’re talking to Don. But the music I just love, I love the sound of the
70s coming through. Yeah, you got Lou Reed, the Beatles, Tilly Dan, Otis Reningholl and Otis,
the who all my brother Zeppelin Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, like so much more than that. I actually
like tried I started as I was reading it, like putting it underline under some of these bands.
And then eventually just stopped because I was like, he got them all. He did a great job. Got them all.
And I heard it as a soundtrack. It made me go back and listen to some of these bands. Unlike Don,
I am not creative in that aspect. So when I work, I can also listen to music. So, you know, I’ll pop
the headphones in, open up a spreadsheet and go to work while listening to some of this stuff. So,
yeah, it kind of took me back. It’s kind of a curse to be that. To be the whole, interesting.
Yeah, to be like that. Yeah, exactly that into music that you can’t do it while you do it.
Other stuff like it’s I’m sure when you’re just listening to music, you got the cans on,
put the 45 on you having a good time, you’re going to scotch whatever the case is. It’s probably
better than an experience that I could ever have listening to music. But at the same time,
the way I listen to music, I could listen to music and also, I don’t know, play trivia or
something. I could focus on 20 things. But that’s just because I’m an idiot.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember, yeah, in high school, the best part of writing a paper was finally getting
done and then reading through it and blasting music, blasting tunes. For me, that was like the
only thing I liked. Just listening to the tool, skism. And then I would hand it over to my mom,
like, look, I finished and she’d read it and be like, holy shit, you might be the dumbest person
I’ve ever been. She’d be calling your brothers over. Guys, come look at Keith. He’s an idiot.
Did this guy take some Quaylitz before doing this? What is this? What else do you ever stock up?
Sudden death stock up. No, I’m not talking about. The Jean Claude Van Dam movie? No, or over time.
I’m not in hockey. I’m not talking about any of those. This book had a lot of deaths that just
like came out of nowhere. Like his dad dying. I was like, oh, I can’t wait till he gets home to
find out what happens with his dad. And then he’s dead. And then his mom just writes a note and
like, I’m dead. I was like, holy shit. And then Atlantic City dude just shows up. He’s dead.
His quent mate’s just randomly just die. Which I think created that roller coaster feeling where
you never could be like, all right, things are gonna work out. Or, you know, you kind of just
didn’t know who’s next on the on the death list after a while. I really appreciate it. I said
it before. Like some of my favorite material. I’ve always been have had that same feeling. The
parted game of thrones, good fellows where it’s not this big lead up of like his mom’s sick and
all this big lead up or his dad is showing signs where he’s just like, you know what movies where
they’ll cough. And you’re like, the only reason they put that in there is that he’s sick and that
you know he’s mentally gonna die. Hate that. Well, granted, his mom must like dying the whole
first act. Well, you didn’t know if she was what that was though. That wasn’t all this. I almost
feel like she had. Yeah. I thought she had one point that she had like the grandpa Joe from
Charlie the Chocolate Factory Syndrome. Yeah. Yeah. Where the second her husband died is like,
oh, she came downstairs for the first time in years. So I thought I was like, all of a sudden,
she was gonna like put some lipstick on and be going out to jazz clubs and hang it out and having
a good time. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn that way for her. You said the departed and I recently
watched internal affairs, which is the Chinese movie. Oh, yeah. The department is based on. Have you
seen it? No, I haven’t. Yeah, it’s almost the exact same movie. Different totally different
message though, which is interesting. Like the whole point of the movie and like the ending is
different. But all the rest of the stuff, like, you know, his boss like falling off that building
or jumping or getting thrown off whatever the case is getting thrown off that building. All that
happens. It’s it’s all very much the same. It’s like same, same, but different. But if you’re a big
departed fan, it’s almost worth watching just for that, although the tone and everything you really
realize. So if someone says more, Martin Scorsese is a great director. I’m like, yeah, he is. And
if someone said, Oh, why? I’d be I have no idea. But if someone said, Hey, here’s this movie
internal affairs, here’s this movie that departed, you could be like, Oh, now I see why, because it’s
just so much better. They’re only four years apart. I feel like that’s kind of a, I don’t know if
that’s a move, right? Yeah, it’s definitely it’s definitely like just stealing from China. I thought
it was gonna be like a 1960s movie. No, it was speaking about like 1960. They should remake the
French connection. That’d be great. Gene Hackman. So good. My next stock up is manic depression. So
yeah, I just have to say, it’s kind of Joe is a superpower. He says it is. And everyone’s like,
no, no, it’s not. And you know, you’re sick. And I agree, like the the the down times are probably
not that great for those around him and himself. And the uptimes can be a bit frenetic. But
he creates all this businesses because he has this brain that’s just like constantly moving and
seeing situations out of nothing and able to create stuff. So I kind of wish we talked about
Don a little bit of that. I didn’t want to talk too much about about the mental illness aspect
because it’s not necessarily above our pay grade. Yeah, it’s definitely above my break grade. And
it’s also just not it’s part of the story, but it’s not the point of the story. Yeah. But I just had
to say that, you know, everyone’s kind of his wife, his wife or ex wife has kind of given him
shit about it sometimes. And a lot of the stuff they have they wouldn’t have if he didn’t also
have that it’s part of who he is. So yeah, just just had to throw it out there.
Well, that was kind of one of my hates was the sound. I just went over my head is there like
medical backing around that that that people have that is that a sign of schizophrenia or
bipolarism or mania like, you know, I just didn’t know. And I’m not smart enough to understand that.
So did you understand that? No, at first, I thought he just had tenitis. I was like, oh,
you know, they grew up by something really loud, like a factory or something like that. Or he
went to a concert when he was younger and got some tonight is, you know, I just thought he had
tenitis. I mean, it was kind of it could have been like the panic attack kind of kind of thing
going on. Yeah, that’s why I thought he was just like, Oh, anytime there’s like,
something’s not happening. He starts to worry, which I think it’s common, but he refers to it as
the sound. I didn’t know if that was what it was. So it was still a little bit over my head.
Like an anxiety manifestation or something. Yeah, that’s where I was looking for it. Yeah.
Okay, I stuck down. What do you got? Suck down loyalty. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I also kind of stocked up Dougie earlier, but this is gonna be a big stock down for Dougie.
Dougie, Dougie. Dougie.
Stock up Dougie and stuck down. Yeah, well, that’s right. I only took one part of Dougie that I agreed
with. Everything else. You know, if he was like, I told you about the bathroom, you ask a whole
lot, but like, that’s fair. That’s a good point. Yeah. Dougie shows up. He’s like, we’re quint mates.
Got to show him loyalty. This was 20 years ago, right? And all the respect and all that stuff.
He was in high school for two years with them. Is that right? It was junior and senior year. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. It’s junior senior year. So we talked about loyalty around that. But what about my
girl Doreen? Your sister-in-law, the person that’s been a day-water at the business, the person that
introduced you to your wife. She pretty much runs the business already, especially when you’re
gone and going through your manic periods. Why are you not making her part? Or why is she not up for
CFO? Why is she getting the short end of the stick? We don’t even get any reference to her other
than just being like the loyal person that sits there and just takes all the shit and then sees
this fuck boy fucking Dougie come in and get promoted above her. I mean, this will happen in real life
because this is the type of shit that happens, but it just makes me angry. Yeah. Where’s the loyalty?
100%. And I do think it is one. He’s also having these manic episodes. So there are days, weeks,
where he’ll be out of the office. So who’s managing his stuff that I assumed Doreen?
You know, I assume she was handling it. Yeah. So she should be looked at. But I also think it says
something to those relationships you form in those formative years of your life. And I think that
goes into your twenties. It could be later for some people it was for us in your twenties, I feel
like because, you know, all of my college buddies, I’m still really good friends with what did we
share together? You know, obviously we shared things since then. But now we see each other
far between. But at the time, it was four years, you know, it was four years that we were hanging
out pretty much like living together for that set of four years, whereas like my house
school friends who are also really good friends with, but I was with them for longer. So like that
has more justification to me, like why we should still be friends. But these college people
is together with four years. And I mean, look at us, you know, we, we worked together for a few
years with a couple other people. And we’re all still really good friends because it was kind of
that early twenties going out to bars, living like in squalor and crappy apartments or me at
my own home, my parents house, you know what I mean? It’s like, and since then I’ve known people,
like I work with people now who I’ve worked with for eight years, who if I left the company tomorrow,
we’d never talk again. So I don’t think Doreen is that like he should, I agree with you that like,
you know, but it is funny when you own a business, how you’d probably just be like,
oh, small French, I’ll give him a job. And people there are like, I’ve been waiting six years for
promotion. What the fudge? My first talk down is kind words for the dead. When people die,
you’re supposed to offer kind words. They say don’t speak ill of the dead. So even after people
die, I think besides like Hitler, most just kind of say like, yeah, all the good things about them.
Well, not Jonas’s dad Simon there. Jonas tells his mom like immediately after his dad dies, he’s
like, I’ll take care of you better than than better than dad did. And her response is that
won’t be difficult. The first thing she says. And also immediately after Jonas finds out his dad’s
dad, he’s like, whoa, I got like freedom now I can, you know, it’s almost like Kevin McAllister
and home alone coming downstairs when he realizes he can eat ice cream in bed and all that stuff
or Tom Cruise and risky business. It’s just like, Oh, I got I got freedom now. There’s legitimately
not one nice thing said about his father. Yeah, even at the eulogy, it’s like, no, no one really cares.
He was a good sales and they all move on. He’s kind of death of a salesman type almost, right?
I’m not familiar with that play, but I’m sure really. I didn’t read that in high school. I’m
surprised. I did, but it was it was in one ear out the other. But that does tie directly into my
next lockdown, which is dad’s and father figures stock down. Oh, was there one good
dad or father figure in this book? We have Jonas’s dad who’s obviously just pointed out terrible.
Nobody, nobody respected him. The business, the business he ran cut him out of that immediately.
They’re like, yeah, we don’t care about him. So he sucks. And then we got this was weird,
which maybe you can explain this to me. We got Mr. Barry, who is as far as I know is
molesting bones at night. And and he gets sick and then bones stays with him. And he’s like,
yeah, he’s like basically my dad. I was like, pardon me. Huh? What? He did leave him his boat. So I
guess sorry for all the buggery. Here’s my boat. Yeah. And then we got Dougie looking up to like
the drug dealer as his dad, which I was like, Oh, that’s not the other. I was hoping you were
gonna bring the pimp up. I thought the pimp. I was wondering if the pimp at the end was the
Reverend, but I was like, I’m probably too old. They said that was big gym, right? Isn’t that the same
same person, the Reverend and big gym? I don’t know. Isn’t big gym a, a ween song? I think it’s
Berlin big gym, big gym. And then there’s definitely other father references, but the worst body
was Jonas himself, terrible dad, like doesn’t really care about his kids. Horrible father. And
then he thinks he’s finally figured out and he’s like, bring Joey back and whatever his daughter’s
name is and then get them close and you like sit them down in the couch and then just drama dumps
all this shit on them. I’m like, that’s the exact opposite of what a dad’s supposed to do. He’s like,
so when I was young, I still quote gray ludes and then like my dad, it’s like, why are you telling
them this? They’re kids like, let them be kids. Keep your shit together. And the only reason he’s
doing is for himself. All he’s doing is throwing all this shit out there to be like, see, I’m not that
bad. Who’s this for? I think he was more of like him coming clean and like trying to. Yeah, but
all for him. What does that do for the kids? It’s definitely cathartic experience for him for sure.
Great. The kids are now like graduated college. So they’re adults, but just inside and just drink
it and leave a deep down. Yeah. You got the Irish guilt. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What are we doing here?
I do agree that like with Joey’s, oh, I haven’t seen Joey in two years. Now I’m going to drop my
trauma on him because your mom won’t listen to me anymore. It’s like, I don’t know. And also,
why aren’t you seeing Joey in two years? He goes to Penn. Like he lives in the same city. Why aren’t
you paying any attention to the kids? I think they just had like a bad relationship because he
basically would go out. I know. I know. I know. I know. And he does have a bad relationship with
both of his kids. It’s just even when D and her mom, the sheriff go to go to Zurich. It’s like he
doesn’t at any time be like, I have to go out there and see her. He shows up to his daughter’s
friggin softball game. And his wife tells him like after three games, I guess she doesn’t play
softball anymore. She hasn’t for years. Yeah. You’re just creeping on the software. No one’s
anything to him. They’re like, yeah, what are you doing here, bud? And yeah, to talk about the the
bones thing, because it was one of my hates at the end, they almost made it seem like bones was in a
consensual relationship with Mr. Barry. But for me, reading it at no point at the beginning,
did I feel like there was any sort of consent to that? It was like, oh, some kids do things and get
special privileges. And it shows it bones like limping to Mr. Barry’s house. He’s also a child,
and this is a grown man. So even if he does consent to my Jonas to right, which I had a reread
goes like, we tried to. Yeah, I was like, he was like, Oh, your dad or your mom died. When we took
on a walk. Yeah, I’m gonna try to make a move. And he was like, the guy sucks, obviously.
So the fact that he gets like a good ending is kind of disappointing. Wait, which one was doing
the sucking? I’m confused. Nothing counts if there’s water involved. As long as there’s water in
between things, it’s not gay. It’s not it’s consensual. Everything’s fine. It’s fine. Don’t worry about
it. Yeah, so with the with the boat thing, I just didn’t feel like it was consensual. And it
it honestly, I don’t think it can be when there’s a child in a person, a person of authority involved.
And then Richie says something that’s super weird, because also how did you take the murder? Because
to me, I thought bones was being sexually assaulted. Did you think it was consensual? No, yeah, I
thought I thought the same thing. But then they basically instead of being like, get the fuck out
of here. They were like, all right, let’s take started beating on him for 30 minutes. Well, I mean,
at the same time, if like my friend and I was in high school and was getting sexually assaulted,
like I feel like we would do the same thing. But then later when Richie’s talking to Sherry,
he says like, Oh, it was fueled by weed this and probably a little bit of homophobia. But it’s like,
no, no, that’s rape. That ain’t, oh, it doesn’t matter what was happening. You know what I mean?
It’s like that is that’s assault, brother. Now it seems like later on, it was like, Oh, he lived
with Mr. Barry and they had a nice life and then Mr. Barry gave him his boat. So it’s like they
made it seem like it’s consensual. I was just a little confused. The thing where you, uh,
Stockholm’s start to look. Yeah, there we go. Like it’s a city somewhere. Where is
so I didn’t say hate. I was confused at the idea of it. So, but let’s get back to my stock down,
which is the Geneva Convention. Because I don’t think it covers enough. The Geneva Convention is
like what you’re supposed to do against other humans and just in general war zones. But they
don’t talk about poison ivy. There’s got to be a clause in there for poison ivy. Is this
gas on there? But not yeah, there’s chemical warfare. What do you think’s in? What do you
think’s in poison ivy chemicals as someone who’s been doing a lot of yard work of late as we,
everyone knows who listens and probably doesn’t want to hear about it anymore. I cut all that
out door. No, you probably do. I got poison ivy all every year I get poison ivy. It just happens
around here. It’s Cape Cod. There’s tons of poison ivy. And now this year I’m getting it in like
little patches, but like all over. Like on my wrists, on my stomach, on my face. But the idea of having
like rubbing someone’s pillow blankets and underoos with poison ivy is the most diabolical
shit I’ve ever heard of in my life. Like I had it bad last year, like on my arm and I was like,
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep at all for a week. I couldn’t imagine if you had it on your
genitalia, your twig and berries, you know, your wedding tackle. I couldn’t imagine. So,
yeah, I think the Geneva Convention needs to be reopened and more things need to be added to it.
No, you’re completely right. I forgot about that. I don’t really get poison ivy or at least I’ve
never had it. So people are allergic to it. Yeah, I think I’m one of those or I’m like very light
allergy to it. And especially you have a dog that had a long hair dog. She walks through the woods,
comes back. There’s a thunderstorm. I’m cold. She holds me. You know, next thing I know,
I’m covering poison ivy. That’s how it goes sometimes. It’s just friction. It’s friction.
And then the best part is we just don’t talk about it. Ever. Right. We never address it.
I’ll tell you what it’s supposed to do. That’s what they should do with the murder. You know,
you just bury it deep down. It’s fine. It’s like somehow I’m wetter than when I came in here,
but whatever word that someone’s a came. I don’t know. What’d you love? Love for me. The book really
did fly by. But this one I decided in my bed and I was kind of I’d look at the clock and then,
you know, next thing I know, it’s an hour or two by and I was like, oh, so I do think the characters
are written really, really well. There was a lot of I guess this might not be a love, but there’s
a lot of words I had to look up. Did you have to do the same thing or was it just me? Because I did
not know a lot of the words in this book. Let’s just say I was impressed with Don Silver’s lexical
and I was like some of these words I think I know. I don’t know. Richie said Jonas did too.
But yeah, no, I was there’s some good good words in there. I liked them. I also thought
the high school I was wish we stayed more in the high school stuff because I really thought that
was the best aspects. Obviously later in life, the business and stuff, but like the high school
business was amazing. I was like, oh, this is sick. Like the entrepreneurial spirit stuff was
really cool to me too. Really, I really did like that part and I did like how like the five stories
did kind of combine at the end. Yeah, I feel like if this was a mini series and this is my first
love, who doesn’t love a coming of age story, I think this was like a TV series or you know,
the first whole first season would be them at school because additionally, not only a coming
of age story, but who doesn’t love a like boarding school type story? I mean, there’s so many good
ones out there. You got toy soldiers, school ties, dead poets. Well, I will push back in every
book we read that was coming of age in high school. I didn’t like you reverence catching the rye.
I didn’t actually like catching the rye. No, it’s time. I didn’t like there was like chocolate
wars. I didn’t like there was like a bunch of that. I think that’s what Richie and Jonas were doing.
So I said, yeah, but did you like any of the ones we read in high school? No, the one I could
think of is like ragged dick, which wasn’t hard. I don’t know what you keep on saying that. I don’t
think that’s a book. Yeah, it is. That’s what Richie and Jonas were after. All right.
Yeah, I didn’t I didn’t actually really like it. You’re the right, but I also think it was too
smart for me. Like, yeah, I guess that’s your advice. Everything’s phony. Things are fun. I’m like,
all right, but I’m relaxed. But yeah, I didn’t love the books, but in terms of media, like TV and
stuff, that’s very, yeah, even like sleepers, which is a total fucked up movie. Kevin Bacon’s
in it. And it’s Robert De Niro. I wear the worn out of the ground coming up and attacking them.
No, that’s tremors. Different Kevin Bacon movie. But if we’re playing seven ways to Kevin Bacon,
yeah, sleepers is a good one. But it’s also there’s some buggery in that too. But yeah, it’s a good
it’s a good one. So yeah, I didn’t like the books necessarily, but the movies I liked a lot and also
like boarding schools just in general, if you are super interested. I mean, even sent of a woman.
Come on, even though it’s not really doesn’t really take place in a boarding school. I feel
like with the coming of age stories, though, it’s always boys. I mean, the only thing I can think of
really is like now and then, which is a movie that’s like a coming of age story for women that is
like a great flick. So yeah, it just feels like there’s there’s not a lot of maybe I’m just not
the target. Yeah, maybe just not the target market. I don’t know. What else you love?
Well, you just said like the coming is that I actually thought it was probably outside my
comfort zone because I don’t really like them. And I thought it was it was a good book overall.
And definitely probably one I wouldn’t seek out. But I’m glad I ended up reading it. Although,
it was depressing a little bit. Yeah, it’s kind of something. Yeah. But it’s funny because we
just do a lot of audiobooks. And I used to read a lot like at night, when I was especially when
I was a kid. But now I kind of took that on like 930 at night. It’s like, all right, we watch an
episode of the wire and then I come up and read. And I plan on like reading for a half hour.
But I just look at my clock big. Holy shit, it’s 1045. Yeah. I just looked at it. So yeah,
it was definitely a page turner in that in that sense. What about hates? You kind of burned him,
but yeah, one of the other one I had was Jonas. He’s a 40 under 40 guy. And he was like,
I need to bring in this doggy dude to install computers. And then he’s like, Oh my God,
we’re like not profitable in some of these businesses. I’m like, bro, you’re like a CEO of a major
corporation or entity that manages multiple things. You don’t know which ones are profitable and not
without a computer. I understand that his strengths lie more in like sales and things like that and
being like kind of in the weeds. But at the same time, like to be a good entrepreneur,
I feel like that’s the biggest thing is like understanding profit, right? I don’t know.
Yeah, I think the help of the computers that you could see like instantaneously like any
Oh, okay. But at the same time, I do agree that like if you’re this, wouldn’t you also test the
computers by like, okay, hey, people keep taking manual track of things and we’ll also do the
computers and then we’ll compare them to make sure that they match, you know, and once they do,
then we’ll start going more to the computers. But it also then is like, don’t put all the power
into the hands of one guy who has access to computers can could just like, fudge numbers and stuff
like that granted. I’m sure that happens all over the place in corporations. That’s the thing.
I don’t know. I think I talked about my only real hate was that the bone situation wasn’t
really wasn’t really clear to me. And also just, and I know we’ve been like joking around about the
Jonas and Richie thing. And I have no problem with obviously, you know, some man to man into
intimacy. Everyone should do whatever makes them happy. It just was something where I felt like
they would have talked about that. And especially. Is it just being in the 70s that you like basically
couldn’t talk about it? You think they’re like best friends and they talk about anything like at
some point you’d be like, Hey, remember when I had to squeeze you my back last week? Like,
what was that about? You know, do you want to talk about it? I think you would have talked about it
but at the same time, maybe it’s like, Hey, if we don’t I don’t want to screw up this friendship
or like this relationship, which is so important to me. And I feel like if we do talk about it,
then it might screw it up. So let’s just not talk about it. So I get that too. It didn’t it wasn’t
necessarily like like a like a hate. It was just you wanted more you want more love story around
I wanted them to address it. I want like I wanted them at some point to come together and be like,
well, they came together. Hey, that was wild.
Too easy. So good. That’s a mess.
But yeah, Keith, great chat with you. Great chat with Don. Would you recommend
Scorch to our listeners out there? Yeah, I think it’s coming from a person that
doesn’t really read a lot of coming of age stuff. I really thought it was an interesting book,
a good book. It was a good way to go back to into high school. And I thought it was just it flew
by, like I mentioned. So I don’t understand why a book like catching the rise popular in this book
wouldn’t be. So take that with whatever you will. But like this this book to me was way better than
that. So yeah, I’m comparing it to the best coming of age story of all times. And I think
it’s better. So there you go. Yeah, yeah, the one else you have to say, yeah, it’s getting slid in
onto the bookshelf. And when people come by and they’re looking at the bookshelf, I’ll definitely be
like, Oh, hey, check, look at that one Scorch. It’s the red with the red cover check that one out.
So yeah, people out there are looking for something different, definitely different speed for us.
So looking for a little bit of a different speed, then definitely check this out. It’s a nice
kind of peek into time and also interesting characters and interesting story. So thanks
to Don again, Keith, what do we got coming up next? We have a demon special, another Don city on fire
by Don Winslow. Yeah. And so that one should be coming right up. It’s a quick read only eight
hour audio book. But yeah, you know, we’re talking gangsters. So what else? What else do you need to
know? And it’s, and I like this one because it’s going to be me versus you, you know, it’s the
Irish versus the Italians. So good guys in this, which they always depends on your perspective.
No, no, no, no. Yeah, we’ll get to the city on fire coming up next. So Keith, that was fun.
And I’ll catch you next time for City on Fire. Alrighty. Alright, bye now.