City on Fire – Don Winslow – Episode 96

The Buddies take their first foray into criminal enterprises, in City on Fire by Don Winslow. The book follows the Irish and Italian mobs as they fight for control of Providence, Rhode Island in the 1980s. Unfortunately, City on Fire did create some tension between the Buddies who have Irish and Italian ancestry, respectively. They got into arguing/chatting about, the negatives of loyal friends, nepotism, and having the name Pam. So pick up this crime/mob-thriller and join us for this weeks episode. And remember, ‘don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family/Buddies’.

Intro (0:00-2:41)
Stock Up/Down (2:42-21:26)
Favorite Scene/Character (21:27-26:00)
Love/Hate (26:01-33:35)
Listener Email (33:36-35:02)
Casting the Movie (35:03-36:47)
Conclusion (36:48-39:44)

NEXT BOOK: Golden Son (Red Rising Book 2) by Pierce Brown

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

Alright, welcome buddy, book them.
I’m Dylan at a sit down with my Irish rival Keith.
What’s up, frenemy?
You say brethren, but now, you know, the rival is begun.
About to light this city on fire.
Okay, here we go.
In classic fashion, before I get down to anything, I do have to say something.
My dad, he did the 23andMe thing, which I told him not to.
I was like, don’t put us in the system.
My dad is a first generation Italian.
Both his parents came over, whatever the case is.
So he identifies a lot with his Italian roots.
So does the rest of his family.
It’s a big family.
He’s the youngest in nine, whatever.
He took the 23andMe.
Turns out he’s like 40% Albanian.
He’s so mad.
He’s so buttered about it.
I know, that’s why I’m not taking it because I’m 100% Irish and I won’t have any tests
on the other wise.
I was talking about 23andMe here at the buddy book hub where I’m breaking down some best
sellers.
In this week, we’ll be discussing City on Fire, a novel by Don Winslow.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about any past episodes,
you can visit our website, buddybookhub.com, slash our DMs on Twitter or Instagram, buddy
book podcast.
Let’s do a science student spotify, wherever you podcast.
So please download, give us a review.
I looked today because I was interested and I never did this.
We had 17 reviews and I assumed 16 of those are friends and family.
So I just want to get to 20.
Can we get to 20?
That would be super sweet.
So if you’re out there and you listened and you haven’t given a review, just take a quick
break.
Go on there.
Five stars.
Let us know what the deal is.
We love that.
So just three more.
That’s all I’m asking.
Keith, City on Fire, first book in the Danny Ryan trilogy.
It’s a 4-1 on Goodreads.
You’ve read Don Winslow before, right?
Oh, Power of the Dog because I suggested that.
You recommend it to me.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I never even finished it.
It was a good book.
What do you think about it?
I’ve never even read that.
I was like, how’d you recommend it to me?
I was like, yeah, that’s right.
Don’t worry about it.
Yeah.
It was a recommendation from my buddy Bernie who loves to read and I love that about him.
And if I recommend a book, he’ll read it, including Shogun, which like if someone actually reads
Shogun.
That’s a big ask.
Yeah.
I’m just proud of you just for the fact that you even tried.
He’s a huge Don Winslow fan.
He recommended that and he recommended this.
I didn’t even realize I had read it on Winslow book, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, which
is a standalone story.
The other ones are part of trilogy’s.
But I liked it.
I liked it.
I mean, the guy’s written like 25 books.
So you probably have run into him at some point if you’re reading.
Here we’re talking City on Fire.
Keith, stock up, stock down.
Stock up.
What do you got?
Yeah, stock up.
Seinfeld Soul made episode.
Oh, I’m not familiar with that.
I don’t know if there is some creative.
Oh, I’m excited.
Inspiration.
Yeah.
And I’m, yeah, this book is just the Seinfeld episode.
I don’t know if you’ve seen that one.
I have it.
It’s a very interesting Seinfeld episode.
It’s called The Seinfeld episode.
It’s where Jerry is dating a girl named Pam and Kramer is in love with her and it creates
this big feud between them.
The episode ends.
Nothing really happens.
Most of the episodes.
But the infatuation with Pam is what really created this whole drama that someone said
that she was supposed to be hell in a Troy, which makes sense, I guess, now that I think
about it.
But at the time, when I first heard that, there’s no like homage to that.
I’m like, oh, I guess it’s exactly that.
But yeah, so was the Seinfeld episode.
And so there is all that big connection between those things.
Well, yes, stock up Seinfeld Soul.
That was a far-fetched one.
I apologize already for that.
That’s all right.
I always find it interesting because I like Seinfeld as much as the next guy, not as much
as you and not as much as the wife here who loves Seinfeld.
But people ask like, oh, what’s your favorite episode?
And I, do people know episode names or I just assume they’re asking to sit there and explain
to them what happened in the episode until they are on the same page?
Because it seems like people, like Seinfeld fans know episode names and stuff.
The only one I know is the Junior Mint.
The name of the episode is just what the main point of the episode was usually.
So like the soup Nazi episode is this, it’s called soup Nazi.
So you just have to like mention who’s in the episode.
Essentially, and that’s the name of the episode or people will figure it out.
Oh, okay.
Got it.
Got it.
I did get the hell in a Troy thing because he opens it with a quote from the Iliad.
Oh, all that stuff when I hear that, is that the Bible or what is that?
You know, so it’s all the same to me.
It’s all exactly.
I’m like Shakespeare?
Like, no.
Close, close, close.
My first stock up is, and this is a simple one for really for the people out there, but
clam bakes stock up.
It’s the power of good food.
Pascofari, he hosts one every year and it’s so good.
It brings the Italians and the Irish together.
You know, what’s more beautiful than that?
Here in beautiful Cape Cod, you can just go out into the water and pick clams off the
sand like Pascofari does.
You know, it’s, it’s, I have my license.
It’s super easy to do.
Anytime people visit, I like to take them clamming.
Some people love it.
Some people hate it.
But either way, you get a bunch of clams and you get to have a little clam bake.
So I just got to stock up clam bakes anytime I can.
And this gave me the opportunity.
Yeah.
No, I like it.
Good barbecue in the summer.
You really can’t beat it.
Unless the host is molesting kids, then it’s a little bit tough.
But other than that, it’s usually pretty solid.
Yeah, that’s definitely a hard part.
I have a, I have a no molesting policy at my clam bakes.
So you got to make sure that’s spelled out early enough.
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s signs on the door.
People, but you’re the host.
So well, everyone’s got to abide by the rules.
You have to remind yourself.
Okay, I got it.
What else you ever stuck up?
Oh, and the same kind of tune.
Having a tight grocery list, not that your clam bake one stock up.
I mean, nothing feels better to me than going to the grocery store and having that list
ready to go where you know exactly where you’re getting.
You only have a small basket because you’re just so locked in on where you’re getting.
It’s the greatest.
Like you don’t have that?
No, a basket’s not going to never going to work for me.
Well, I think if you have a tight 10, I like to call it.
I hate going to the grocery store and being there for longer than 10 minutes.
It just infuriates me.
Like I’m all about logistics.
Like, okay, I’m going to hit this, I’m at the milk and I’m going to hit the, you know,
you see, you’re all like planning out your stops.
I’m a creature habit.
Oh, sorry.
It’s your point, right?
Yeah, there’s something through the book.
I swear Danny’s dad’s tight 10.
Oh, yeah.
It’s amazing.
It’s a 10 of a 10 list bacon, eggs, coffee, milk, bread, his luckies, bushmills, Sami
a, Sammy Adams, little corn beef hash and his lot of stick.
Yeah, scratches.
You replace the corn beef hash for me with burger meat, which I think is just more,
more likely what I would eat.
That’s what I’m buying when I’m 75 every day.
Oh, that’s fact of the matter.
That’s just, that’s my list right there.
So that thing is perfect on its.
Not one vegetable.
I’m not actually right now.
I’m not doing the cigarettes yet, but once I get to that point, and I’m not doing the
hard bushmills all the time, but once I get to 75, it’s fine.
We’re doing all those things.
I love a good grocery list.
Don’t get me wrong.
That’s my number one.
We usually go on Sunday’s grand and now it’s nice out.
So I’ll like usually be trying to do something sporty.
The wife and I sit there and we have our coffee.
We pull the flyer up.
Maybe a coupon guy.
A big coupon guy.
I don’t hate that.
And how do you say coupon just to make sure we’re on the same page?
Coupon.
Okay, like you’re right.
No, we’re huge coupon family.
I love getting a deal.
Love getting a deal at the grocery store.
I’m pretty much just a 75 year old man in a 36 year old’s body, but I do the grocery
list by department.
So we know what we’re getting.
So here’s the produce.
Here’s the dairy.
Here’s the middle isles.
And it’s all spread across the thing.
So sometimes I’ll go one way.
She goes the other way.
We’re a tactical team.
Oh, okay.
I like that.
I’m in the middle.
Yeah.
The best checkout person in the world.
She’s down here.
She’s my, she’s my girl.
My next stock up is transactional relationships.
So hey, hey, hey, I’m all for love.
All this profession in the world, right?
Well, I’m not talking necessarily like, look at that.
But you know, I’m for love and relationships based on that.
But, but if you want to marry for something else, say money, like you’re talking about
or power or comfort, good for you.
Like I’m not going to yuck your yum if that’s what you’re into.
People get married for all sorts of reasons.
But we got to talk about a girl Madeline here.
She loved Marty Ryan.
That’s for sure.
But it was like a meteor or a comet, whatever they are shooting star real fast and hot.
But what she loved more than Marty Ryan was money, power and comfort.
I’m not going to fault her for abandoning her child because look at her now.
She’s got suction, no pun intended with judges, senators, businessmen.
And then she’s able to use that when Danny needs her most.
Well, I guess probably he needed her most in his childhood years because every kid needs
a mom, but she’s here now and that’s what matters.
I just prop up to stuck up to Madeline for that because she, she did what was right at
the end of the day and she’s like loaded.
Yeah, I think if she weren’t loaded and she didn’t have a successful career that you’d
be kind of disappointed, right?
You’re allowed to abandon your child.
You’re not to ban your child as long as you’re successful.
Is that what you’re saying?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
If you’ve been in your child for like drugs or to like live in a Winnebago in New Mexico,
then not your best.
If you have like 800 K in the bag, not enough.
If you’re a million, multi millionaire successful, that’s okay.
Yeah.
And can like threaten mobsters to their face with death.
Yeah.
All right.
Then then it’s okay.
Yeah.
Good rules.
Okay.
What do you get for stock?
Stock down having your friends to come up for you.
Now typically I would say I really appreciate this.
I think this is one of the most important things.
I have a friend that has your back.
Some of that will stand by you, whatnot.
But based on this book, I may change my tune.
Everyone is making jokes at Polly’s expense once Liam starts dating Pam and they’re like,
yeah, like they’re talking basically about how Liam’s better in bed than he is.
It is a real man and better in doubt and all these things, which must be nicer.
Liam, no Irish curse.
Good for him.
But then Polly’s quote unquote friends come back and tell them all these things.
Yeah.
What are you doing?
Listen, that is not the friend’s job to go and tell them if someone’s like stealing
your business or doing something that’s going to affect you.
Yes.
You want someone to come and tell you about that.
Someone’s talking shit behind your back about how fucking terrible you are in bed.
I don’t need to hear that.
I already assumed that in my head.
I don’t want someone coming and telling me that.
Oh, yeah, your ex-girlfriend is talking about how small your peepee is and how terrible
you are.
Stock down, Evan Beale’s back.
I don’t want to hear that shit.
It’s all about me, by the way, not about that book.
It’s funny because I was telling you before we started recording that the wife read a
book that we had done in an early episode and listened to that early episode and talked
about how much things have changed just in the podcast between then and now, which has
been like three years since wild.
But she said the one thing that didn’t change was keep talking about how bad he is in bed.
Cut that.
Cut that.
Cut that.
Do not cut.
I’m a much quicker with the cut tool.
So I’ve gotten more of that than usual, but I’ll keep that up.
Well, it’s funny you say that because you also talked about how quick you were with the
other tool.
So, yeah, it was funny.
I had a good laugh.
We were sitting out in the sun yesterday and just telling me that.
So I’m glad it’s just- And you’re telling me that.
So you just did what all Pauli’s friends did.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
It all comes full circle.
If the listeners have a drinking game, there’s probably like, you know, take a sip every
time Keith says something like that.
My first stock down is nepotism.
Okay.
I feel like nepotism has been on the pod before.
But yeah, I don’t think that’s ever a stock up.
But all right, gone.
Really?
I feel like sometimes it’s a stock up.
If we were reading the George W. Bush biography, it’d be a stock up, right?
Good point.
Yeah.
I was name corrected.
So Danny Mary’s boss Murphy’s daughter, Terry, but he doesn’t get a bump in the business.
He’s still just the enforcer, which I never even really got his enforcer vibes.
He was a collector slash enforcer.
But at no point did they really show him going on collections or really using his muscle.
Like once it comes down to an actual gang war, then yeah, he has to like pull his gun out
and use it.
But he’s never really like beaten people up.
I’d be interested to know.
I feel like Danny is also like a Mark Wahlberg type character, but at the same time, I don’t
even know who you’d cast him for because like, is he going to be this like jacked up guy
enforcer vibes?
No, I think he was like the logistics smart dude.
I don’t think he was an enforcer.
Either way, you got to give the guy a little bit something like throw him some extra business,
give him a cut of the tape.
He has his own small crew.
And so his crews like can can operate freely.
But at the same time, he’s not getting any leadership opportunities, which is also interesting
because out of the leaders, who’s his best friend’s name that that runs it?
Paul, you know, that’s not Pauli.
That’s the Italian guy.
It’s gonna be.
But yeah, I feel like it is.
Either way, his like best friend is going to be the next boss.
So why don’t you kind of bring them up a little bit together, have him sort of be his like
consigly airy, whatever that is in the Irish situation because Danny’s obviously got his
head on his shoulders.
Maybe there’s concern because Danny’s dad used to run it and now the Murphy’s took it
from him that he’ll turn around and like make it a Ryan family situation again.
He’s smart enough to do that.
So I can understand that.
But at the same time, he’s married to your daughter.
This thing’s going to continue.
So give the guy some experience while the boss is still there so that he can kind of see
how things go before handing it off to anyone.
Epitism’s stock down.
Yeah, that makes sense too because obviously Liam is the worst person ever.
And he gets the longest rope of all time because he’s in the family.
Who gives a shit?
He’s terrible.
I feel like once you get to that age, they’re in, the only thing that should matter, it’s
like if you had like a business, it’s your baby and your son sucked.
I’d rather give it to the person that is actually going to continue this business and continue
to make it be profitable and I’ll get kickback ups from that rather than give it to a person
that sucks and the business just falls apart after I leave.
Yeah, look at Fredo.
You know, Fredo couldn’t do shit.
So they let him kind of have fun in Vegas and do whatever he could and you know, eventually
comes back to him.
No spoilers there, but you have to watch the Godfather part two to find out.
What else is here for stock down?
The name Liam stuck down.
It’s a beautiful Irish name.
Liam, Liam Neeson really did a lot of the name.
He’s kind of been carrying that on his back.
But Liam in this book kind of ruined it.
By far the worst character.
I mean, I don’t even have any really problem with the Italians, honestly.
It was really Liam.
The worst.
Yeah.
Just continues to be a dick.
And we’ve had a lot of these characters as a play.
It seems like characters that are like, I’m being overshadowed by people that are more
talented and that are in my family that are maybe getting more of a priority than I am
or whatnot.
That’s good.
Don’t you want your family members to be do well and that’s exciting.
Especially when you’re in business with them.
So you’re going to be profiting off of it anyways.
If I was in business with my sister and she was a kickass CEO and just crushing it and
she was giving me little jobs because I’m an idiot.
But was still paying me a good salary?
I’d be jazzed.
Yeah.
I don’t need any accolades.
I’m all right.
Yeah.
I can see if your buddy is better than you at sports and there’s definitely that sucks.
I wish I could be that good.
But at the same time you’re like, at least it’s not some other fuck boy.
This is my buddy.
This is like, you know, at the end of the day eventually that jealousy kind of goes
away because you’re like, whatever.
I know I’m not good at certain things.
That’s okay.
That person’s better and I’m glad it’s a good person.
So I just don’t get it, Liam.
He’s just constantly doing shit for no reason.
It’s very anti-Irish and very anti-northeast.
When someone’s a dickhead and they’re shitty, you call them out.
That’s like very north-ease that you grow up and do it.
If someone’s doing something that bad, you can go to their face and tell them or you
can go to their dad and be like, this guy sucks.
That’s the fact of the matter.
You know it, I know it.
That’s it.
No one does that.
Why not?
I don’t get it.
Liam should not get the part of this in Aisha because he’s terrible or do what the Italians
do.
As far as I know, the sons of families aren’t made, right?
They have to like prove themselves.
They have to earn money if they do certain things otherwise they’re not.
Yeah.
You don’t just get, yeah.
How the made guy go and be like, your son’s costing me money and if he continues to do
this, we’re going to have to have a meeting about it and something’s going to have to
have to have to sit down.
Yeah.
And that’s going to fix that problem, right?
Right away.
But no one does anything.
So the Irish kind of let me down here.
The Liam let me down.
Fuck Liam.
I also saw when we were reading this, I saw some tweet, do you know Oasis?
The band?
Yeah.
It’s like Noah and Liam Gallagher.
Okay.
And they hate each other.
And that’s why the band broke up.
It was a tweet being like, okay, Noah is joining us for Ask Us Anything.
Like ask any questions you want.
And Liam Gallagher responds to it being like, ask him why he’s such a cunt.
I just.
And I was like, that’s very Liam thing to do.
That’s so good.
Yeah.
It’s knocked out Liam.
Probably the Twitter notification for his brother so that any time it comes up, he just
could shit on him.
Interesting enough, my next knockdown is Irish gangsters.
So I have to apologize to the Picky Blinders and Jack Nicholson’s character and the departed.
He’s Irish, right?
Yeah.
Right.
I don’t think Picky Blinders are Irish, but okay.
Picky Blinders are Irish.
Yeah, they are.
No, no, they’re not.
They’re from I think they’re from Wales.
What’s the difference?
Oh, I don’t know.
They all sound the same, right?
Either way, the Murphy’s got to.
That’s one of the worst they do is ever said the Murphy’s kind of seemed like, I don’t
know, like the Savannah bananas playing against the MLB team.
Yes, they have some characters and can swing a bat, but they’re outmatched against the
Italians, you know, probably like the Yankees in this analogy.
So even when Danny has his like quote unquote smart plan to pretend he’s Liam, when to do
the hit or whatever to turn the hit around, like they fuck that up and Danny almost ends
up dying.
And for that hit, they went overseas and pulled an IRA guy who at this point, this is like
the late 80s or something like that.
So at this point, Belfast is a war zone.
So the IRA guys, bullets flying, no problem.
That’s just a day in the life.
Like they are firing their weapons at other people enough that the heart is not going
crazy a pitter patter like it would be for Danny who’s never even used to get his gun.
But the IRA guy pulls out immediately in the drive by like pulls out his gun, his head
explodes.
Guys fucking useless.
So there might be more than one Irish curse because they kind of stink and it’s the IRA
guy that that screws up.
So every time they have a plan, it just seemed like it would fall through.
Obviously at the end, Danny concocts a very smart plan that he’s able to be successful
with and is able to piece the different things together as to like who’s doing what and why.
But at every time Danny tries to do something positive in the book to move the family forward,
someone comes in and screws it up and moves them backwards more often than not.
It’s the aforementioned Liam.
Yeah, then he never gets like a pat in the back.
I also wanted to correct to make sure it’s Birmingham.
Birmingham that’s where they’re from, Birmingham, England.
So they’re in England.
But isn’t it the same though?
Are they all connected?
No, there’s two islands.
What is an island?
What does that even mean?
So it’s an island, but the Brits have the best navy.
So they’re basically turning water into land because they’re navy so good.
So they’re pretty much the same thing.
That’s my kind of logic.
So I can’t refute it.
I’ll give you that.
I’ll give it to you.
Do you have any other stock down?
I don’t know.
Yeah, just a quick one.
Helen and Troy stock down.
Like Pam’s beautiful.
That’s for sure.
But her name’s Pam.
Is Pam really someone that we’re going to decide to start a war over, especially with
the Italians?
Helen’s though by itself is not a great name.
Yeah, no, for sure not.
But maybe it was 4,000 years ago or whatever.
I also thought it was Helena forever.
Oh, it’s not Helen.
It ain’t.
That’d be a cool name.
Helena sounds like an exotic name.
It sounds like a Viking name.
Like I feel like a Helena has long braids and wears a Viking helmet.
Also the Pam’s storyline when it went back to her youth and whatnot was a little interesting
interlude into the story.
All of a sudden it goes back and explains Pam’s waspy background.
I guess it does give a little bit of info as to why she would be with Liam because she
is a little bit not so.
She sucked too.
Yeah, it just didn’t really make a ton of sense.
Did you have a scene, a scene you wanted to call a favorite scene perhaps?
I did think when Liam came into the bar and he said he married Pam.
Was it even a bar or was it a funeral?
Well, I assume it was an Irish bar.
Oh, gotcha.
I mean, you’ve seen the wire kid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s kind of like when the rags to riches stories changes or whatever.
You know, where you’re like, things are all going good.
And then all of a sudden something flips and that’s where everything goes downhill.
That’s where you knew that was like the defining like, okay, now things are never going to
go back to where they could possibly have been.
So again, Liam in the center of that being complete selfish piece of shit.
If you’re going to marry someone, fine.
Just leave.
I don’t think it would have been an issue if he just upped up and moved to California,
which they talk about doing all the time, at least Danny does.
You know, no one really would care, but instead he has to stay around and kind of continue
to flaunt it.
Yeah.
Talking about a dumb the Irish are too.
His dad immediately is like, well, my new son, my new daughter in law.
It’s like, no, you’re saying, all right, you guys are cut off.
You should probably move to like Florida or somewhere else away from the Italians because
they’re going to kill you.
And because his dad basically says we’re going to war for you, which I guess is what happens
in the Elliot, like, all right, cool Paris.
You want to marry Helen.
So now we have to say since you are talking to the Irish so much here, I’m allowed to
talk me or not to the Italians are so thin skinned.
It’s money.
Who cares?
Can’t take a couple insults.
Can’t take a couple of jabs money.
He stole either messing the money.
So so you know, it’s money that all they care about is money of the Italians.
That’s what he said.
So what are we, what are we talking about here?
We have clam bakes.
Did you not pay attention to the first couple of chapters?
What?
Yeah, clams money.
That’s what I assume.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How many fish are there in the sea?
Keep it the water analogy here.
You can’t find one other girl.
There’s a lot of fish in the sea, but if you fuck the fish that I fucked, then, you
know, we have to stay for like two weeks.
Doesn’t matter.
Coydas has been coided.
You guys are so thin skinned.
Can’t I can’t have someone out dating that girl?
I was dating.
Get out.
Get out of yourself, Dean man.
You talking shit?
You want me to come out there?
You want me to call up to New York and my muscle?
Yeah, I know you would because you’re so sensitive over there.
You’re in the Italian.
My like favorite ish scene, I guess is really just the end.
I thought how Danny constructed that plan was pretty well done and I didn’t necessarily
see the moving parts.
So it was fun to watch those unfold with, you know, the FBI agent trying to backstab the
Italians a little bit and the Italians backstabbing the Irish and then Danny coming in and getting
the heroine and then also being able to get out of there.
Well, pretty lucky they just decided not to arrest him.
They’re like, let’s wait till his wife dies.
That seems like a pretty good loophole.
I also love then we’ll just jump into pick a character.
I loved his dad’s right hand man.
Oh, yeah.
I forget what his name was.
He’s straight out of the town.
You’re a guy with a fucked up face.
His right hand man.
That’s why I was thinking of the whole time.
They got the shotgun that just sat next to him all day.
He didn’t say anything.
I respected it.
It was like a good story, but I was dad kind of like pulled him up and like put him under
his wing.
And now he just won’t do anything that involves not taking care of the dad.
It’s great.
What’s his right hand man eating?
That’s my question.
It’s like it was like Bobby Bock a lot to junior.
I don’t know that is.
This is a pranos.
Bobby, it’s the one that you have Tony’s brother.
Oh, okay.
He had the Mary James.
I like that.
Did you have a character that you wanted to call out or did you want to talk to hate
about Liam?
I liked his wife, Terry.
I appreciated her kind of being a little fiery.
And she also stood up for Daniel.
She’s like, you should go ask for this stuff.
Go for this stuff.
She never really did anything.
It’s going to be her dad.
But that’s the worst part though.
Be like, hey, dad, you got to start kicking Danny some more business.
We’re trying to start a family over here.
Like things are.
Yeah, I guess that’s true.
Plus they wasn’t working.
I’m trying to have a baby.
So it’s like, hey, we don’t know what kind of costs are going to be associated with this
IVF treatment.
Like, you know, that’s something that we’re going to be looking into.
You got to help out it.
Terry almost had what Janis was doing to Bobby in the sopranos where it’s like, you got to
ask to be a cop.
I would be getting more points on this.
That or the other thing.
You got to get more jobs.
Bobby’s like, just chill out.
Let me run my own business, take care of things.
She’s like, Tony’s calling you an idiot.
Look at this.
Look at that.
It’s like, chill, chill.
I’m not saying Terry got what she deserved or anything.
But it sounds like you’re saying that.
It is.
All right, let’s get into some love’s hate.
Keith, what do you love about City of Fire?
Another book flew by.
It felt like a non-fiction book.
It just felt very, very real.
I’ve referenced Good Fellows a lot on this pod.
And this book was probably the closest we’ve actually come to some sort of Good Fellows
type.
And Good Fellows to me is the peak mobster movie.
Sorry to Godfather and sopranos there, D-Man.
I think that’s something that I understand where you’re saying.
But I felt like this was listening to Henry Hill kind of narrating.
All I wanted to be was a gangster, you know, type of thing.
So I loved it.
Anytime I turned back on, I just imagined I was back in that world.
It was really good.
I think there’s a reason why so many of Don Winslow’s, so many of his books end up getting
optioned out.
And even one of the books he made has your boy Taylor Kitchenett.
And he wrote the script for it too.
Savage is, I don’t know what that’s about.
And I just said Savage is twice.
I gave it a Pocahontas.
Savage is, Savage is, wah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, Disney movie reference any of it there
for you guys.
I think the reason why is because he writes these sort of cinematically that people who
read them immediately can see it happen as a movie.
Because I, you know, I could see it, I could see it in my head and normally I’m not very
good at that.
Actually funny story, I think I read it on Wikipedia or something like that.
But one of his books that got optioned was actually supposed to be a De Niro Scorsese movie.
And so it was like, oh, this is awesome.
You start writing the screenplay for it or whatever the thing was.
And then during the like pre-production like way before the movie is actually going to get
made someone handed De Niro a book and De Niro liked it so much he told Scorsese they should
do that instead.
And that’s what became of the Irishman.
So they didn’t do Don Winslow’s and said did the Irishman.
Well, they should have done that instead because that movie sucked.
But anyway, it was just a little long.
Yeah, it was a bit too much.
It was good fellows junior, but them all 20 years too old and the same movie, the same
block.
And the fact that it was like cinematic, like you said, it was a super quick read.
Overall, it never loses its pace.
All of the side story, I think into like Danny’s mom kind of took me for a loop when it first
started because Danny got shot.
There’s like, oh crap, what happened to it?
And then all of a sudden it’s this long story about his mom and what she’s been doing for
the last 30 years.
Well, not that I didn’t like it.
It was just, I don’t know if I was ready for it at that time.
What else you got?
Kind of very Shakespearean in terms of like inner family drama.
I think the characters were really, really well delved into even though like the side
characters you got, like you mentioned their background, you had almost chapters on side
characters that you kind of just, but yeah, I found it all enthralling.
I also did remind me, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this show, The Black Donnelies,
have you ever heard of that?
Back in 2000, I used to watch this show and it’s pretty much the exact same plot for
like Irish brothers that are part of the Irish mob in New York City going against the Italian
mob in New York City.
It’s good.
They’re like Black Irish.
I think it was like one season.
I liked it, it was back in 2007, but it starred Olivia Wilde or she was like the, basically
the Pam of it.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
And in general, talking about things I loved about it and being into that kind of thing.
Mob stuff.
I love, I love mob stuff.
We haven’t, I don’t think we’ve read any mob books.
Call me a knuckle-dragger, whatever you want.
But if you base a movie or a book around a bunch of gangsters, I’m going to be in.
Whether it’s going to be awesome or not.
We’ll see.
Talk about whitey bulge or like black mass.
I didn’t think that movie was very good, but I enjoyed it.
So anytime there’s, there’s mobs, gangsters, the Irishmen and the Picky blinders, I’m in
for it.
What’d you hate about City on Fire?
Similar to the other Don Lunsaupe book I read, it is so well written and the characters
are really well fleshed out, but I kind of just immediately forgot what happened once
I got done.
It’d be good.
You had to be like, hey, summarize what happened in a paragraph.
I’d be like, um, a lot of stuff happened, but like there’s no major plot points or like
huge action sequences, which is good.
It’s fine.
It’s just different than what I would say is the standard, you know, red rising to or
about to read.
There is clear this happens and then this happens and then, you know, there’s like these really
good tent pole portions of the book.
Imagine in your head as a movie.
The book I’d be, I’d like already forgetting what I would, you would like write a script
for.
So that’s just, it’s different, but that’s like the one thing I would say that’s, it’s
not the typical way we would, we would see.
No, I get that.
And I’m okay with that when it comes to books like the same with like the life and death
of Bobby Z, the other Don Winslow book I read.
I saw that as like, Oh, a Donzen Winslow book.
He wrote that.
I was like, Oh, that’s crazy.
And then I thought my head, what was that book about?
I’m like, I have no idea.
It involves the Mexican drug cart dollars or something like that.
But this is why it is such a good beet read because it’s a casual read, you know, your
own vacation, you pick it up.
It’s entered.
Whatever you’re reading is entertaining.
It’s like any good TV show or movie that you’ve seen where if you walk into room in
someone’s in the middle of it, you’re not going to walk in the other room.
You’re going to sit down and watch a couple of scenes because it’s just entertaining.
It hit for me there.
My hate was our boy Liam.
Did you remind you of anybody from TV?
Nope, not from TV.
Oh, TV.
Specifically the wire.
Uh huh.
He’s Ziggy.
He’s Ziggy to me.
Oh, okay.
Like he’s totally Ziggy in the wire.
I mean, he’s not being an idiot and flashing money in places he shouldn’t, but it’s just
like he cannot get out of his own way.
He feels like he deserves something that he didn’t earn and instead rebels in how he
knows Ziggy ends up shooting somebody.
Uh, Liam, on the other hand, just has sex with somebody he shouldn’t.
Well, I think he has Ziggy’s like mentality for some reason, but realistically, he’s
kind of cock of the walk, right?
He’s getting the hottest girls.
He’s kind of like a charmer where Ziggy was the opposite.
His self pity and all that stuff was kind of justified because he was, people made fun
of him.
Everything was like, he was kind of like, oh, the loser, right?
That’s not what Liam is.
That’s makes him like even worse character.
They both shared a massive endowment.
If you know what I’m talking about though.
But speaking of the wire, remember last time I said I wanted to ask you about something
and I couldn’t remember what it was.
I remember and it was involving the wire.
So you’ve gone on record saying that one of the things you hate most about the sopranos
is Tony eating all the time and like his slobish style when he’s eating.
Well, as someone that just finished the wire, what say you about Jay’s eating habits?
The sergeant?
Oh yeah, I don’t like that.
No, that reminds me of is he looks like John Cena and it’s, it’s, man-erisms are all
John Cena’s but if he didn’t get into wrestling and it wasn’t in super good.
And he just decided to only eat cold cuts all the time.
Yeah.
We’re onto season three now.
In season one, he’s eating a sub and he’s legitimately just like shoving the whole thing
into his face that he can’t even chew fast stuff.
It’s falling all over him.
It’s worse than any Tony soprano eating moment except for the breathing.
Well, the reason they don’t eat usually on in TV shows is because they have to do like
20 takes.
So you can’t be eating a sub for 20 takes but apparently I don’t know.
I was watching a wire documentary.
Jay started out as 145 pounds and it was only through eating all the subs that he’d become
the 300 pound man.
I’m just kidding.
No, I’m kidding.
It’s like what?
Imagine there’d be like a lot of.
If you said 250, I would have been like, oh and then you went up to three video.
Yeah, that’s pretty reasonable.
You started 140.
I was like, okay.
Yeah.
So gross that show between like casually reading titty magazines as he’s eating lunch.
It’s just whatever but he’s got to get heart.
So we actually had Dr. Marshall Rongi who we’ve interviewed before his book Coded to Kill.
He’s so nice.
He sent us an email.
You’ve got mail.
But his book, obviously not about this book.
That would be awesome.
He’s like, have you guys read Sydney on fire?
Do you know how big Liam’s hog is?
No, he sent us an email from a Washington Post article, cyber attack hack hospital ascension.
Basically that’s what his story is about, about cyber attacks on health systems.
That’s what Coded to Kill is.
Yeah, and I saw this before he sent it to us.
Oh, he did.
I was hearing about this.
Yeah.
You just read in Wapo.
That will help for our listeners that I think you hate Wapo.
No, I think our healthcare provider sent us an email about the hack.
So I was like, oh yeah.
And I was like, wait, this is just what we read about.
Well, according to Dr. Marshall Ruggie, the new story that burst onto the scene about
ascension health.
So someone hacked into it and pretty much disabled ascension’s EMR system, which is
talked about in length in the book.
So the guy knows what he’s talking about.
He’s out of Michigan, University of Michigan.
The only one that makes more than him at the school was John Harba or Jim Harba.
Which one?
Jim.
Jim.
Why?
Who names are two kids Jim and John?
Like figure that out.
Terrible.
Terrible.
So yeah, that was our listener mail.
Thanks to Dr. Marshall Ruggie.
I hope he’s enjoying the barbecue because we had a nice conversation about barbecue.
Lingering questions for sitting on fire?
I guess he’s probably going to cover it because he has books two and three, but he just killed
a federal agent, right?
Isn’t he just like done now?
What happened to that?
Oh, I guess he’s crooked, but I don’t know that.
I think I knew he was crooked then he wouldn’t be at the job.
Yeah.
I got City of Dreams the next book sitting on my wait list on Libby.
It’s another eight hour book.
The weather’s nice.
I got a lot of stuff to do.
I’m going to crush this.
So I’ll come back and I’ll let you know.
I didn’t cast anyone for the movie, but the rights are bought and it looks like Austin
Butler is going to be playing Danny.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Looks like Austin Butler is going to be playing Danny.
It’s going to be a TV series, probably like a mini series or something like that.
Like an HBO thing or something.
That’s a potential.
Yeah.
So it should be pretty cool.
It’s an Austin Butler was cast.
So who else would Austin Butler be besides Danny, right?
Yeah, I was thinking Margarabi for Pam.
So keep making it easy.
Yeah, she’d have to.
Yeah.
It ain’t broke.
Don’t fix it.
God is this your issue.
Yeah.
You have anyone else?
I just threw some names in there that I think would obviously make sense.
I think Colin Farrell for maybe his dad, if he had a bigger role, obviously good Irish
in there.
Yeah.
Colin Farrell could also play the right hand man or whoever, like as he’s like a big muscle
guy too, not in terms of like jacked, but in terms of he’s the guy that they go to.
I like Ben Foster a lot.
He’s from Massachusetts.
I feel like he’s not in a lot of stuff or he should be in a lot more things.
So Yuma to three to you.
Oh, three to you.
Yeah.
I know the guy you’re talking about.
Yeah.
Throw them in there.
I think the Italian side, John Furton all Adam Driver.
Throw them in there.
Make it interesting.
Get an all-star cast.
What about you?
Grab every single Italian guy that’s in all the other ones.
Like it’ll work.
City on Fire Keith, would you recommend it to listeners?
Yeah.
I think you nailed it with the it’s a good beach read.
You’re going to enjoy it for sure.
I think the characters are great.
Yeah, I would definitely recommend it.
And I think we always say, what do you read the second one?
You’re the kind of answer to that question.
And I think I would too.
I don’t think I would go out of my way and put it at the top of list, but I would definitely
similar to what the power of the dog one I was like, I got done.
I was like, I didn’t do this additional ones.
And I was like, eh, not right now, but I definitely could see myself reading them again in the
future.
Similar mindset.
Yeah.
Power of the dog’s a little bit longer.
I feel like twice as long.
This is a bit more manageable.
Yeah, I agree with you.
It’s it’s an ours quick read.
Good beach read.
If you sign on someone shelf, grab it.
I agree with you on the on the part two in that I only just looked to see if it was on
Libby because we’re going to, you know, maybe it’ll be available, but I’m not like super
jazz to get into it.
I’m not interested, but I’m not super excited.
Whereas I’m currently reading red rising because we’re going to do golden sun in our
next one.
And, you know, just like when I read Harry Potter books, I have to now go back and reread
the first one, even though I’ve already read it twice.
And like my God, this book is so fucking good.
It’s a it’s a gory damn good time.
It’s prime.
And I’m almost done with red rising and I need to read golden sun.
You know, like I need it in my bones.
So that’s the difference.
Yeah.
So that’s what we got next golden sun book two.
We’ve already read book one on the pod.
So we’re getting back to it.
I think I’m not throw this out there and you can throw it right back.
You know, like I think we just go to the third one and then close it out.
That’s what I’m kind of feeling.
Oh, yeah.
I have very good memories of what happens in red rising.
I have okay memories of golden sun.
Did I have?
Yeah, I don’t remember anything for the third one.
No memories of morning star.
So yeah, I’m I’m all in.
I love it.
We have if you guys haven’t read red rising, you should do that for yourself and your
future self because the book is so freaking good.
Caroline Ashkenau asked me today.
She’s like, is it better than Shogun?
I had like a dizzying moment.
Like I almost fainted because it’s a different book.
But maybe, you know what I mean?
Like it’s it’s a me.
It’s close to it’s close to H.P. levels.
It’s not obviously H.P.
Yeah, I agree.
But it just it hits so well.
It’s exactly what you need.
It’s such a fun ride.
So if you haven’t read red rising, check it out.
And if you don’t want to check it out, but want to check out golden sun, you can listen
to the podcast where we have our our good buddy, Miko on it.
And we talk about it.
I think it was like the first book he had read in like four years and I’m pretty sure
he loved it.
So I don’t know how much of the book we actually covered because we’re probably just gushing
about all sorts of different random stuff.
Golden sun coming up next and we’ll probably have that out next week.
I like it.
Bye now.
Bye bye.