Airborn – Kenneth Oppel – Episode 83

The Buddies are (Matt) Crusing through books so far this year checking off Airborn by Kenneth Oppel from their list. Airborn had a little bit of everything, an alternate world, airships, and pirates. Combine those things with the fact that it is written for younger adults and it adds up to the perfect mix for the Buddies. It got them discussing the love for inanimate objects, big Zepplin, and the advantages of being stranded on a desert island. So check your career ambitions at the door, pack yourself some hydrium, and maybe a weapon or two, and join us as we take-off into Airborn. 

Intro + Book Report (0:00-3:55)
Stock Up/Down (3:56-25:25)
Favorite Character (25:26-28:13)
About the Book (28:14-30:36)
Love/Hate (30:37-36:33)
Lingering Questions (36:34-40:20)
Conclusion (40:21-41:57)

NEXT BOOK: Shōgun by James Clavell

All right, welcome buddy Buckel.
I’m Dylan here with a captain of the airship
that is the Buddy Buckel of Mr. McGonagall.
How the fuck are ya?
Have my words ever made you felt buoyed up, demon?
Always, Always, I was good, man.
– Here’s the Buddy Buckel, we’re going down some best dollars
and this week we’ll be discussing Airborne by Kenneth Upple.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to reach out
to us about a past episodes,
you can visit our website, BuddyBuckel.com
or sign through our DMs, a Twitter, Instagram,
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on Instagram, Spotify, wherever you podcast,
so please download and subscribe.
Keep this was a listener recommendation.
I want to kind of preface before we get into the podcast
because I’m sure that listener will probably be listening
and thank you for your recommendation.
We love all recommendations
and as long as they keep coming in, we’ll keep reading ’em.
But I do want to preface it by saying,
when you read something as a child,
it holds like a special place in your heart.
There’s more gravitas towards it
and that includes books, that includes television,
it includes movies and when you share that
with other people as an adult,
it can be really difficult because you have so much love for it
and you want them to love it as much as you did,
but sometimes it just doesn’t translate
and I know this from my younger brother,
16 years younger than me, so when he was of age
to watch things like the Neverending Story,
I was like, okay, we have to watch this movie,
you’re gonna love it and he was just like,
you know what, it’s not for me and I was like blown away,
was so upset because for me it was huge,
you know, the movie story you get out.
So those memories are often tied to other things.
It’s not just that piece of media,
it’s like other things that were going on in your life
or just like the experience of how you got it,
whatever the case is.
So I just wanted to kind of preface that because, you know,
just because you love something and hold the deer,
like how my brother-in-law loves the movie Monster Squad
from when he was a kid and I watched it as an adult
and like, this is terrible monster movie.
– Well, we’ve seen that happen in this part,
or you hatch it from you to love that I didn’t really like it.
Yeah, I love hatchet.
– Like give her holes from me,
I don’t think you like those that much.
– Yeah, holes was huge for you and I was like,
a top 30 booker.
and I was Like, I can do it without.
Just wanted to preface that.
But Keith, I hear you prepared a book report for us.
Yeah, I have.
and this is a classic book report book
because I feel like we’ve been crushed,
we’ve been crushed like kids books.
We’re gonna get away from them.
We’ve been crushed normally,
so I’m excited for this fourth grade book report
that you have prepared.
Airborne is a book that takes place
in an alternate reality where airplanes don’t exist
and that’s about the only difference.
The book follows Matt Curse, a 15 year old boy
who is fallen in love with his father’s killer, Aurora.
Aurora also happens to be in airships,
so you can imagine there’s a lot of ups and downs
in their relationship.
See what I did there?
Ultimately, it’s a mix of treasure island
and Jurassic Park, but the underlying theme
and what can be taken away here
is that it doesn’t really matter what reality you’re in.
Nepotism will always exist in loyalty
to any corporation as a scam.
The only true way to move up and corporate ladder
is not through hard work and dedication,
but having pirates murder your superiors.
Yeah, you’re right.
that was so good.
It was so well, it was actually, that is the book.
I know you were kind of making a funny out of it,
but it’s everything in there.
You really got everything in there.
I’m not gonna be as nice as you and give you an A+
because I want to have room for improvement,
which I’m not sure there will be any,
but it’s a solid A.
Wow, thank you.
94 on the test.
– Oh, wow, I’m like, I’ve gotten tested, hurry.
and I think the only reason why is because
his name’s Cruz, Matt Cruz, and I don’t know what he said.
What was that? – Matt Cruz?
– He’s a lot of Matt Curse.
Let’s jump into stock up, stock down.
Airborne Keith, what do you have for stock up?
Stock up being a friendly liar.
And what I mean by that is,
if you read this book as a child,
you probably assume the pirate, spear glass is the bad guy, right?
That’s what you’d probably have to come away with,
but really, in reality, it’s the captain.
The pirate is out there just making a living.
He’s going out and there putting food in the table,
taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
He’s a little robbing home.
Yeah. – Well, hey, relax.
But the captain is the guy that will look you in the face
and smile and tell you something,
but just be a complete liar.
He promises Matt this position.
And then he works him to the bone,
makes him work there for three years,
and then just gives it to someone else.
He smiles in your face and lies to you.
The pirate, on the other hand, he says,
here’s the deal, we’re gonna come to the boat,
we’re gonna take your shit, don’t alert people.
There won’t be a problem.
I’ll stick my word, you stick to yours.
One person doesn’t listen to him, he shoots from the head.
Listen, I’d rather have the pirate as in my back corner
and someone I can trust than a person
that will just lie to my face outright, right?
– That’s a good point.
– It’s not the people, like, the pirates in the world
that are the problem.
It’s the people that will, the politicians,
the people that will look at you in the face, smile
and tell you something you want to hear,
but reality, aren’t ever gonna do what they’re saying.
They’re gonna be the people that,
that thing doesn’t happen, they’ll say,
Oh man, that’s someone else’s fault, that’s too bad.
But I was rooting for you, I was a one-poin’ for you
the whole time and just keep doing what you’re doing.
And to make matters worse, he does all this stuff
and then like the next shift, he shows up like five minutes late.
He’s like, “I’m been disappointed in you,
“you’re really just, you just basically passed over me

153
00:05:34,840 –> 00:05:36,640
for a job, I worked for for three years”
and now you’re a little bit late.
And Matt saves the shit like five different occasions.
And at one point he goes,
Was there ever more remarkable cabin boy?
Like what?
What the fuck?
Like talk about talking down to someone.
It really reminded me of Anakin Skywalker
when he didn’t get promoted to the position he wanted.
And now I understand why he killed all those younglings.
Honestly, this made me sympathize with Anakin Skywalker
and makes a lot of sense.
So fuck the captain, the pirates are okay,
being a friend of the liar, stock up I guess,
but it’s tough to watch.
Yeah, Matt didn’t have much of a sense of self worth
which I feel like in a children’s book,
they probably should have pushed a little harder
because he’s a cabin boy.
Like he’s making cabin boy rates,
but it feels like he’s doing a lot of different jobs.
He’s the guy that people trust,
the guy that people go to, whether it be helping out
with passengers, whether it be flying the ship
or obviously he’s in the crow’s nest.
It seems like a cabin boy in the crow’s nest
is like your eyes, like that’s a pretty important job.
This is a big industry, these airships,
and you got your lowest ranked guy up there,
so they must trust him.
And obviously he’s a little upsetting out past over.
He’s not doing what he should and saying,
nah, it’s not gonna work like this.
Like I’m not a cabin boy, like I much more than that,
I should be recognized for being much more than that.
If there’s not, and I know he loves the aurora
’cause his dad perished on it,
which is a weird reason to love something so much,
but you have to be comfortable saying,
I’m gonna move on, I’m gonna go somewhere else.
– Well they could take advantage of ’em.
It was what they realized,
and like they could keep ’em in that position,
and it’d be like if we went to work for the Patriots,
and they were like, you’re gonna make half of what you,
we’re really wanna pay you
because we know you love the organization,
and we can just take advantage of you.
Yeah.
– Unfortunately, it is the case, that’s what happened.
So maybe the captain murdered his dad
so that he knew he would always have Matt under his thumb.
Yeah, that is a good thing.
You’re not wrong, I think.
Yeah.
– I think you know, that’s making a lot of sense.
– What’s the thing about it?
you know, my first Stock up is Big Zeppelin.
So unfortunately, the airship industry didn’t succeed
as much as, I feel like it should have.
In our world here, we got the Hindenburg disaster,
and everything really went down from there,
and emphasis on down,
but we have them at all football games and stuff,
they’re flying around, we know they’re safe.
We’re talking about something that happened in,
when was that, like the 20s or 30s,
and it became like, all right, well now it’s all over.
It’s almost like the Chernobyl situation
or three mile island and all of a sudden nuclear energies,
just not gonna happen anymore.
Like, remember that one time it happened?
Nuclear energy is probably a little bit more complicated
than just putting an airship up in the air
’cause honestly, these airships seem super cool.
The thing’s massive, it’s got a full, full, full, full kitchen.
They’re saying they’re making all their breads
and stuff every day, like the thing seems absolutely sick.
I thought that was like kind of crazy
’cause it said it traveled at 80 miles an hour,
but they can travel even faster.
So, you know, you’re talking like a small airplane,
like I mean like a really small, you know,
single person crop duster airplane speed,
but you have all this great opulence around you.
It’s like a cruise ship in the air.
So, it did seem a little crazy
that they were going to Australia
because I was like, that must take forever.
right, right, right.
Yeah, forever.
But all of the appointments and whatnot looked great.
Like I would be totally down for this.
I know that here in the United States
have a terrible train system thanks to a big auto.
They didn’t want the trains to get built.
But it feels like an opportunity is here for Zeppelins
and I don’t know if you were aware,
but a lot of the masks on some of our skyscrapers
that were made in the early 1900s or whatnot
were planned to be mooring stations for Zeppelins.
Like the Empire State Building,
the mask there was supposed to be a mooring station
for Zeppelins, so you know, people would fly in
for business or whatever.
They’d more up to the Empire State
and get off at the hundredth floor.
So it’s unfortunate that that didn’t take place,
but I feel like this book could push big Zeppelins
in the right direction.
– Yeah, no, I don’t hate that.
I think that’s a good point.
Blood Zeppelin?
I don’t have that nail, sorry.
What else do you Have for Stockholm?
Next, Stock up is kind of town or two years.
Mine, stock up is airlines.
Okay.
– I think you made some good arguments,
especially the more of it in this reality,
but the fact of the matter is airlines
we complain about them all the time.
Everything that happens, it sucks.
It seems like they’re super inconvenient.
Are you going to the Louis CK bit right now?
What is it?
– Oh, he’s just talking about flying cross country
or whatnot, now all people do
when they get off an airplane is complained.
Oh, is that a bet?
He was Like, it took you six hours.
Like it didn’t take you six months.
No one died of typhus.
Like there wasn’t indigenous people attacking you.
Like, you know, move on.
All right, so go listen to that bit.
You don’t even heard him.
I’m not going to say think that he is,
but I guess I’ll tie it back to the book a little bit.
And the book, they get boarded by pirates, right?
And first of all, this is supposed to be,
this is a common place.
Everyone knows who this pirate is.
There’s no defense against it.
There’s no like military convoy for any of these.
Like I feel like if pirates are just everywhere,
you throw a couple guns on the thing
or have some more security on the plane or do something, right?
– You’re on the ship.
– There’s one.
– Yeah one gun, they don’t even take out.
There’s a notorious pirate.
It seems like you have some sort of defense.
They crash land, the people on the plane,
they got there a lot of shit.
And one of the guys is outside,
I’m sure he’s in shell shock.
He’s like, he has all this like expensive equipment
and things like that.
That he’s carrying over to Australia.
He’s smoking a cigar trying to calm his nerves.
He’s like, hey, you speak careful with that.
And everyone’s like, what a piece of shit this guy is, huh?
I’m like, what?
He just went through like a terrorist attack.
He’s shipping all of his expensive gear on this thing.
And you guys are like, how dare you?
I feel like he has the right to be upset a little bit.
So I know he gives shit to airlines,
but like this, there was also be mad at this guy.
Like come on.
I kind of took the other side because my Next Stock up
is being stranded on a desert island,
which you would think would be terrible.
No one wants to really be stranded on a desert island.
But for the passengers, life just goes on.
In my mind, the second that ship lands,
it’s Lord of the Flies.
Like it’s every man for himself.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
– I’m pilfering everything I can out of the pantry
and I’m going into the mountains and trying to kill pigs.
Like that’s what I’m doing.
But, and I’m talking if I worked on the airship.
It’s like, all right, I don’t, I’m no cabin boy anymore.
I’m the king of this island.
I’m going to just do whatever I want.
But for some reason, and maybe it’s because you know,
Captain keeps things under control,
but all the passengers are still getting first class treatment.
They’re getting everything that they would get on the airship,
but on the deserted island,
where I feel like it should be a little bit more rationing
going on.
It’s like, okay, we don’t know how long we’re going to be here.
Like, yes, the airship is still intact
and we might be able to salvage it.
But we also might not.
So, running out of all the food and people being like,
oh, I don’t like fish, so I’m not going to eat fish.
It’s like, you’re going to starve.
We’re on a deserted island.
This is not good.
Don’t worry about your antiques that are insured
or whatever situations.
Also, how are you going to get those back?
Your plan is to eventually come back to this island
and get them because they can’t go back on the ship.
Let’s all freak out for a second.
And then when we calm down,
realize that we got to band together and do this together.
It’s not like crew versus passengers.
It’s we’re all together in this
or it’s every man for himself.
Let’s stop asking for high balls of, you know,
manhattans while you’re on the beach
and asking for someone to hold an umbrella over your head.
Time to go into the jungle and get some food for yourself.
Yeah, Well, I mean, the same thing happens
Bruce Lennardi or whatever is rival there.
At one point, it’s Paul’s rank on him.
I’m like, bro, we’re on a deserted island with pirates.
There’s no rank here.
I’ll put a knife in your gut and then your dead.
Like that’s, everything changes once you land on the thing.
You’re not talking down to me here.
There’s no laws on here.
This is international waters, literally.
– I mean, I did read Endurance,
which is a wonderful, wonderful nonfiction book
about Ernest Shackleton and like the exploration
of the Antarctic and, you know, there’s a crew.
It’s all crew.
There’s no passengers, obviously.
It’s all crew.
When they go on land, it’s the same thing, you know,
like he’s the captain is the boss and you really need that.
You know, it’s almost like military type.
Like you need that to survive.
So I do understand like the captain trying to like keep that going.
you Have guns, so There you go.
You know, that’s how you keep the order.
I would be grabbing that gun and I would be the king.
– The main dude didn’t have weapon or nobody respected them
and you’re deserted.
That would change the structure pretty quickly.
Well, quickly right at the end, they had mentioned
once Kate defreased, once she shows the bones
to all the people and becomes a hero or whatever
for finding these animal bones.
They’re talking about all the people around them
and our buddy Matt was saying he didn’t like the smells
or whatnot that was going on because there was all these people
and they said that the people in this society,
they used toilet water on their bodies
and I guess, yeah, exactly.
So stock up for toilet water
’cause I guess in this parallel universe
when you want to like make yourself smell a little better,
you have a little number two in the toilet
and then you grab a little bit of the water
and just like sprinkle it on your neck.
So yeah, I mean, I assume they’re like,
it’s a reference to, I don’t know, perfume or something,
but I’ve never heard of it called
Yeah, the water before.
I know if someone said, hey, do you want some toilet water?
I know that I would say no.
That’s for sure, but in this parallel universe,
toilet water is cool.
a liquid that has a light pleasant smell
in that people put on their skin, whoa,
I cannot believe that is an actual saying.
Britannic dictionary.
I think they’re writers Canadian, so I think,
you never know what’s going on there.
A kind of perfume that consists mostly of water
does not have a strong scent.
Huh.
Definitely got weird words.
– You’re a weird way to say that.
– I can’t imagine people are going into Sephora
and being like, where’s your toilet water?
– I’m assuming that it’s reference to like,
you go to the restroom and you put colonon
or whatever perfume on, so maybe that’s where it derived from,
but then to say toilet, which is a specific part
of the bathroom is weird.
Yeah.
Yeah, All right.
good catch there.
it would be funny.
I could see that happening in like an in-sino man type stuff
or one of those like person out of place.
Yeah. – Situation with a British person
comes in from 1920 being like, oh,
do you have any toilet water?
Splashes them with the plunger.
Yeah.
Yeah, just plunges, gives a little spritz
like they’re in a church or whatever on the holidays.
– Yeah, that’s right.
All right, What do you Have for suck down?
being a chaperone and air pressure sickness
stocked down, both those, Kate chaperone,
I don’t even remember her name,
but it’s really just having a tough time of it.
Really all her job is trying to get Kate out of trouble.
She’s like, all I want is you for you not to sneak off
and get killed by a group of pirates.
That’s what I’m just trying to protect you from.
And she’s like, wow, you fucking bitch.
I’m tearing you.
What a terrible person you are.
– Yeah, I’m gonna drug you.
That’s what I’m gonna do.
– The worst thing I was like, Kate steals all of her clothing,
runs off with it, drugs her,
and then takes her clothing, her chaperone’s clothing,
wraps it in a dead carcass, comes back,
her chaperone’s rightfully upset.
And she’s like, what’s up?
What’s your deal?
What’s your problem?
What do you mean I stole your clothes
and put in wrapped up dead carcass around her?
What are you complaining about?
Oh yeah, I drugged you.
What are you being so unreasonable for?
It’s like, yeah, huh?
– Maybe if you were so uptight, I wouldn’t have drugged you.
It’s like that’s nothing to do with it.
You drugged me.
– Yeah, and also she’s getting these tropical headaches
what they’re just making fun of her for.
If you are in a plane and it loses altitude very quickly,
I get this, like, air pressure sickness or whatever,
where your head feels like it’s gonna explode.
She was getting that,
and they’re like making fun of her for it.
I was like, this is a common thing that people know of, right?
You get headaches if you’re changing altitude
and pressures very quickly.
She just crash landed on an island.
Give her a break here.
Like, what do we do?
I don’t know if that’s for her.
– I couldn’t agree with you more.
I think that chaperones they get it,
and then at the end, it’s like,
how do we, when she’s like, yeah,
she gives me a longer leash now
because I didn’t tell my parents about how
she lost track of me or whatever the case was.
That was you.
What do you want her to do?
Hand cuff you and then you would have told your parents
you had a handcuffed her?
– Doesn’t, doesn’t work.
Doesn’t work for me.
Yeah.
My first stocked out,
and we kinda talked about this before,
so I’ll get rid of it quickly,
but the idea that hard work pays off.
So, you know, Matt’s out here hustling,
but he gets passed over first,
his and sale maker to like Bruce Lennarty.
So, straight napotism, Bruce’s dad owns
the airlining company that, you know,
that owns the Aurora.
So, his dad just says, yeah,
that’s where you’re going and Matt gets passed over.
Although, Matt takes it pretty personally against Bruce,
which is fair for someone of his age,
but Bruce seems like a nice enough guy.
You know, mine is him like, being a, you know,
pansy ass and running away when times get tough.
He seems like a nice guy,
and I’m not here to talk ill of the dead
because Bruce Lennarty, for this children’s book,
he gets blown to bits.
His head gets popped off by some pirates.
I was not expecting that, honestly.
Matt was really broken up about that for about five minutes.
Oh, no, Bruce.
Oh, that’s too bad.
That’s a sh– what a shame.
Shucks, oh, shucks.
And that was it.
I think that actually what might not have been said
is Matt might have blacked out
because we get this–
It’s a lot of this is from Matt’s perspective.
So, I think Matt blacked out
and actually he shot Bruce Lennarty himself.
That’s a great take.
And he just washed it out of his head
and just acted like a pirate did.
And now he actually believes that a pirate did.
Because he was like, oh, yeah, shit, Bruce is done.
Well, all right, I guess they’re not
needing a system sail maker at some point.
So–
It was like momentum, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
It was just like that.
Don’t work too hard.
Just make sure you find yourself in a rich parent situation.
It’s really all you need.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
What else you ever stuck down?
Sexualization of inanimate objects and clothing talk
about the–
Oh, stuck up.
I didn’t think I’d have to sell this.
I thought it was pretty–
I thought it was a pretty less stock, but I guess I’m
here having to sell this, unfortunately.
I was at a very uncomfortable time in the books.
I mean, just Matt’s talk about Aurora
and his relationship with it.
You have a nice car.
You’re like, that’s my baby.
You name it.
You talk about it.
I think that’s a little strange as it is.
I broke into whatever they want.
Matt took that a little bit too far.
He’s a little bit too much.
So the point where he’s like, I can fly because I
were a conflame.
I was birthed by it.
I was like, all right.
Or be like, oh my god.
There she is.
Oh, she’s coming about.
Oh my god.
It’s like Kate’s right there, say next to him.
She’s like, hey, I haven’t seen you in six months.
What the deal is–
Yeah.
Zero her.
She’s here.
And they were filling it up there.
Look at the gas going in that.
Oh, everything’s those pipes.
Oh, they’re getting hard.
Yeah.
I was like, what the–
I didn’t get it.
I didn’t know this quote.
That’s the right quote.
There is actually a subculture of people who
are sexually aroused by inanimate objects.
Or usually it’s like cars and stuff like that.
Yeah.
So I don’t know what our boy Ken was doing.
He wrote this necessarily.
But Matt’s got to touch it at.
Yeah.
OK.
Now I want to touch it.
I don’t want to hate on the people.
I thought, though, I didn’t know that was a thing.
So that’s a thing.
Well, I hate on any of this.
No, we can hate on that.
That’s super weird.
OK.
That’s–
We don’t– you don’t have anyone’s young here.
But I’m about to yuck that.
The other thing with the connector to that
was this is a kid’s book.
I mean, it’s very clear.
It’s written for kids.
Lotta, skirt length, talk, underwear talk.
Yeah, a lot– what you see as me?
He’s not stupid.
Lotta–
I get uncomfortable when it’s very straightforward.
Sexual talk a lot of times, too, in books that are adult books.
This book was like cringey.
Cringey in that when I came that stuff came up.
He’s like, and then her skirt was riding up.
I was like, all right.
All right.
Yeah.
Jesus.
I was like, I was underneath her in the tree.
And I could see her mickers.
I didn’t know what to do.
I was like, bro, chill.
Oh, like–
Yeah.
And then at one point, they’re in that tree.
And he’s like, and then something hard popped up.
And it was like, one night, snake.
And I was like, what the–
there wasn’t even a double on Tonshu on that.
That didn’t make me as shook as the sexualization of the–
of the aurora.
And it was so clear.
Like, there’s no subtext.
It was like clear.
And be like, oh, god.
Aurora.
Oh, she’s just so beautiful.
It was like a love triangle between him, Kate, and an airship.
It was very confusing, sometimes.
But he’d be like, oh, I don’t know what to do.
Like, do I follow Kate?
Or do I follow my love?
The aurora.
It’s like, what?
Why didn’t I have it in here?
Are you confused?
Did he hit puberty on a ship?
And because of that, he wasn’t around any women,
but just a ship.
And it’s named out as a woman.
So he was like, well, this is what women are.
I don’t know.
Well, speaking of, young Mr. Cruz, my next and last stock down
is the base system.
So it seems like we’ve created the base system.
It’s pretty straightforward.
Baseball is America’s pastime.
So when you’re growing up, and you’re
starting seeing the opposite sex or the same sex or whoever
you’re into, whatever, your dad’s car as an object of your desire,
it starts at first base.
You start there.
You go in, you ask for consent, you have a kiss.
Perfect, you know?
From there, you can advance.
But you can’t advance to second or third base,
without already going to first base.
It’s in the rule book.
Matt, he only played T-ball where you just run straight to third
and forget about that first even exists,
because he goes straight to pull her pants off in that hole
once he gets thrown in.
He’s like, oh, that’s upon us.
Give me your pants, Kate.
And she doesn’t know what he’s doing.
So she’s very confused.
And she’s legitimately tearing her pants off.
Well, he’s like, we’re about to die.
I’m not dying without, you know, I think that’s what his mind
said was, right?
And then he realized they float.
So he was like, oh, we’re–
Oh, good excuse.
Yeah.
So he realized they float, they float out of there.
And then what does he do immediately afterwards?
Goes to first base, gives her a kiss.
One, doesn’t ask for consent.
Hey, it’s 2024.
We ask for consent, all right, Matt?
Also, he just forgot that you have to go to first
before you go to third.
So you know, just the base system, it seems simple.
Don’t screw it up.
So stock down, because obviously Matt didn’t learn it.
There’s no baseball in this parallel universe.
I feel like maybe he’s been with a lot of prostitutes.
And you know, kiss prostitutes.
What do you– in your experience?
Is that your experience?
No, I’ve just– so I’ve been told.
Did you have like a favorite scene in your favorite character?
I mean, my favorite character I’ll give away is Vlad.
I mean, best chef.
Vlad is not–
I did not.
It’s going to be free.
He’s not– is not a shook one, so he’s so jazzed there
on this island, because it’s got really good fish.
He’s pissing, he has no one respects the fish.
He likes a good drink.
But he doesn’t get shook up when there’s pirates involved.
He can still put together a fish stew.
No problem.
I will push back on the fish stew though.
It’s so fishy.
Yeah.
That’s– come on, bro.
You got to hide the sleeping powder a little better than that.
Yeah, I was very confusing that they were saying
the people reaked a fish stew, because fish stew is supposed
to be light and delicious.
It’s not–
No, the soft-smelled fish, fishy, like the sleeping powder
or whatever I think.
So that’s why it was so fishy.
You got to hide that, but you got to change that into maybe
a beef stew or some sort of thing
and hide that a bit better.
Yeah, well, I think they were all out of the meat,
because they were all out of meat.
It was only fish.
But if it smells like fish and there’s fish,
I personally, if I ate a fish stew,
that was super fishy.
I mean, this fish is bad.
I’m not going to be a stew.
And I think once Vlad was faced with the pirates
in the kitchen when he–
Matt was done having a divorce with a dumb waiter.
Why didn’t he bat night?
He knew exactly what Matt was doing there,
but was able to play along.
It was great.
It was great.
So Vlad’s up there for me.
He would have been fine with it.
Good chef.
This is like another dining office.
I feel like most good chefs.
They have seen some stuff in their life.
They’ve done some things.
They were glad it’s only negative.
I mean, he’s got a kitchen full of knives.
Why didn’t he just stab any of these pirates in the face?
So, robo– I mean, if you can take all the mat with your food,
I think that’s a good play too.
But yeah, sure.
Not really a favorite scene for me, though.
What about you, character scene?
Vikram Spearglass.
Oh, he’s a– – You’re boy, Vik.
my boy, Vik.
He does What He says.
He says what he does, you know?
I mean, I don’t know if that makes sense,
but I started to respect him right when he shot that person
in the face for disobeying the order.
I mean, that’s–
you got to respect that guy.
you got to respect that guy.
Yeah, the rules were there.
It was weird that they included a weird side story
about his child.
It wasn’t really a story.
Weird.
– Just the fact that he had a kid,
like, why does that matter?
Like, why does he need to have a kid?
And then– – That was my linger in questions.
I assume that’s the origin story for a bad guy.
Oh, oh.
– Because of what he could have been,
but you ruined it.
– Got you, because they do, like,
even at the end they go back to saying he’s in an orphanage.
Like, he’s taken care of, he’s in an orphanage.
Just like– – I’m really concerned about that.
– Yeah, I’ve seen movies all of her twists.
Like, orphanages aren’t cool.
They’re not like–
– Oh man, I hope that kid’s doing okay in that orphanage.
They’re like, well, we don’t know.
And he’s like, that’s about as much time
I’ll think about that for any–
Back to Aurora.
– He’s like, “I’m in your aura.”
– Kenneth Opel, he wrote this,
I think it’s like 2005 or 2006.
It is part of a trilogy if you were not aware.
So if you want to get deeper into it, there’s two more.
Yeah, he obviously created a little society here
and that’s his thinking.
A Canadian guy, like he said,
he’s wrote some other books too
and there’s like bats on the cover.
So I don’t know, maybe he’s just got a thing for bats
’cause like, Cloudcats bats kind of think.
We didn’t really talk much about Cloudcats.
Do you have anything that future honors
should we discuss them now?
– I didn’t really understand why they were in the book.
I don’t really think it–
Here’s what I would have done to change it.
They should have not been birds in the book.
Birds should not have existed.
That’s why there’s no airplanes.
People don’t realize the flight thing.
That’s how basically airplanes were invented.
oh.
– We’re trying to recreate birds, you know?
And so they see this thing, like,
What the hell is that?
What is this thing that’s flying like that?
We only thought things could float.
And that would make more sense
why it’s such a huge discovery.
Instead it’s just like a falcon who cares.
It’d be cool to discover a falcon
but at the same time,
is that really getting my jolies off?
No, it’s not the Aurora, you know?
So–
Yeah.
And that’s like, “Oh, I want to call it a CloudCat
but that sounds really stupid.”
And then he eventually tells the cake,
That’s exactly what I thought.
Like, “No.”
Yeah, Well Cloudcats Are a fire name, by the way.
So I will give them that.
That’s pretty good name.
– I don’t know.
It sounds like a,
What are the like jet skis you drive in this snowmobile?
So stupid.
It sounds like a snowmobile name.
Like, “Oh yeah, I got myself a new Cloudcat.”
But it’s just funny that they’re like,
Oh, we both care about the same name.
It’s like, “No, you didn’t.”
No, that’s not how it works.
Like, you just don’t go up with the same thing.
Cloudcat, you both individually connect with that?
No, no, you didn’t.
– She was like, “Aircat.”
And then she heard Cloudcats.
She’s like, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
– Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Yeah, it just, I don’t know.
So it just seemed–
– You guys didn’t put a thing at the same thing.
That’s what your most best of them is.
– Yeah, I didn’t like that.
I didn’t like that.
– Yeah, I didn’t do it.
– It was just like the author couldn’t think of another thing.
Like, he just came up with Cloudcat and was like,
Yeah, I don’t wanna have her come up with one.
And then they decide on Cloudcat.
Let’s just say that.
I thought that too.
You know, I was like, “Oh, whatever.”
Yeah, I didn’t, I just didn’t, I didn’t really get it.
It didn’t do anything for me.
I couldn’t also picture it.
I just picture it a cat with wings.
– Well, I was thinking it was a teradactyl,
but based off of the ending,
where they were like,
Alvis and it turned on this evil cat.
I was like, “Oh, okay.”
Yeah, Like a teradactyl with a cat head.
– That’s why I decided it was like,
kind of like Jurassic Park where they’re on this level.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, I could see that.
– So you get into some love, hey, what’d you love about it?
– I mean, I’ve said it before,
the Pirates Principled and their Code of Excuting People.
I liked that a lot.
I thought too, for sure, when they were fighting,
this doesn’t make sense, and I think about it,
but when they were fighting up in like the him
in a spear glass, I thought like,
he’d hold his hand off and then be like,
“Your mother didn’t ever told you

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00:30:57,880 –> 00:30:59,680
who your father was, you know?”
And he’d been like, “I’m your father.”
– I thought it was gonna be something like that too,
like his dad was spear glass or something like that.
– Yeah, that’s what I thought.
And I was like, “Oh, Star Wars.”
So I liked that it reminded me of Star Wars.
– Yeah, I’m like, yeah.
I enjoyed Pirates, just Pirates in general.
I’m down, I’m down for.
Agreed.
I enjoy desert, deserted islands.
I like stuff like that.
So treasure island, Robinson, Caruso, castaway, down.
You know, Swiss family, Robinson?
– Yes, I’m all in.
So those things check out for me.
I enjoy an alternate reality as well,
where it’s our world, but it’s not our world.
You said you read Golden Compass.
– Yeah. – So I don’t know how well you remember it,
but this seems like Golden Compass light.
Like it’s very, ’cause Golden Compass is pretty much our world,
but there’s bunch of other stuff going on,
there’s airships.
So it seemed like that, but light.
The only problem is it wasn’t good pirates,
it wasn’t a good parallel universe
and it wasn’t a good deserted island.
So it didn’t really hit for me in that aspect.
Yeah, that was a love, huh?
All right.
What do I do?
– It was very similar writing to Percy Jackson,
which I think I would have really liked Percy Jackson
if I read it when I was younger also.
I don’t know if that’s what Harry Potter is like,
’cause I’ve re-read Harry Potter a few times
and I never think that the writing here is just too simple.
– Yeah, it also could be because one,
I think the narrator for the audiobook
sounded a lot like the narrator from Percy Jackson.
Yeah, Yeah.
– Although I agree with you, but I’m just saying these are qualifiers.
The ensemble cast was not so good.
Now you sometimes think ensemble casts
can make it even more childish, you know?
Yeah.
– When they come on, so–
– I usually don’t like ensemble cast, honestly,
I’m not a fan.
Yeah, so that could Have done it as well.
For my hate, the world we created,
it honestly seemed lazy.
– I don’t know why they kept it in the same,
why is Hawaii in it?
Who cares?
You know, you could just say it’s a different world.
I don’t really understand why it’s in this world.
– Yeah, or it’s just if you’re gonna keep it in this world,
like be a little bit more creative about it,
like, oh, we’re flying over the Pacificus.
It’s like, okay, you just added US to Pacific and like,
said, oh, it’s a new world, you know?
It’s like, what are you doing here?
So I get that you wanna have similar things
so that it feels fantasy-like to some people where,
it’s like, oh, the awful towers here,
but there’s zeppelins attaching to it, like, that’s cool.
But it’s either, why don’t you just keep it in our world,
but it’s just a different world, you know?
Like, you are flying over the Pacific,
but like, planes don’t exist.
We got that.
– Man on the high towers, oh, it’s going to be in the high castle.
Yeah, they kinda do that there.
Yeah, I just needed, I agree.
I just needed some like, hey, airplanes don’t exist
because of XYZ.
And again, like, if they were like,
we’ve never seen a bird before,
it makes more sense why airplanes don’t exist.
Or we, you know, and they just added like a gas
that is, I don’t know, they don’t really understand it,
other than this, smells like mango, I was like, what?
– Yeah, yeah, well, I’m just gonna continue to my next day,
which is, there were a lot of very lucky happenstances
that I also thought were just kind of lazy writing
in my opinion.
– That’s common for kids’ books, so I–
– And I know, I know, but it’s like,
Crash UnderGraphus Island is a pretty long shop,
but I’m okay with it.
Finding refined hydrium on the desert island
that is maybe a bridge too far for me.
I couldn’t support that.
Finding the refined hydrium on the desert,
I don’t like, I think I’ve talked about this before,
but when I wrote like in sixth grade,
we had to write a sequel to Hatchet.
And my sequel was like, the kid from Hatchet is still on
in the wilderness and there’s some Russian guys coming
in the big Atlantic, Russian paratroopers come down.
It was like a mix of like red dawn
and some Sylvester Shalom movie.
And he just like stumbles upon this weapons cache
that was left from the Cold War.
And it just seemed like when I was reading it,
they’re like, oh, it’s refined hydrium on the island.
I was like, oh, this sounds like exactly what I wrote
on my Hatchet 2 creation, where he just stumbles upon
exactly what he needs at the exact time.
– Well, the problem is, in real life,
there’s no other than water.
Is there any resource at all that you can stumble upon
that you can use?
Right? Like everything?
– I don’t know. Yeah, the fact that they even mentioned
that it was like, oh, well, it might not be
of the refined quality.
It’s like, no, it’s perfectly refined hydrium.
Like, uh-huh.
Yeah, everything has to either be dug up
or refined in some way.
I’m think, like fire, I guess, if you count that as a,
you still have to make it, but I mean,
that’s a little bit easier.
– But it’s just leaking out of this cave for a minute.
– Gasoline isn’t just gonna, you don’t just walk
and be like, oh, here’s gasoline puddle.
Yeah, we can just pull into the car.
we Have pouring in your car.
We’re good to go.
Yeah. so, Yeah.
– Yeah, I don’t think that’s so, I don’t know.
That’s why it’s like, far-fetched, there’s no,
you know, no other resource that’s like that.
– And then, even the ending when it’s him versus
spear glass, okay, this is gonna be an epic showdown.
And instead, the cloud cats just come back in force
at the exact moment and one just knocks.
Well, you knew that was gonna happen
’cause there’s no reason for the cloud cats
to be in the book otherwise.
– Oh, that’s a point, yeah.
That really wasn’t.
I assumed He was gonna fly on one.
I thought he was gonna fall off and land on one of them
and catch it.
– Ooh, I’m gonna have to talk to you too cliche,
but whatever.
Yeah, and then He connect to it Like an avid car.
they Have only ever done this with the horror.
It’s all new feeling for me.
Yeah.
did you Have some lingering questions you wanted to discuss?
What Are the Pirates spending their money on?
They’re like, bunking up with each other
and they don’t have a nice soft bet.
We’re stealing all this money and gold
and research, like, things for people.
What’s the point?
What’s the whole reason to do this?
Yeah, it is a really good question.
So I’m actually listening to this great courses
about pre-colonial America
and one of the chapters is on pirates,
which is like, oh, this is super cool, like real pirates.
And they pretty much, they could get insane amounts of money.
Like, there was a treasure fleet that came back
and this is gonna tie into our next book,
but there is a treasure fleet that used to come back
from South America to Europe, to Spain every year.
That was just full of gold.
Like, just a whole treasure fleet full of gold.
And I think they said, and I’m not known the exact numbers,
but it was like a billion dollars worth of gold
would be on this, and a pirate, just like one pirate ship
or whatever could go over there,
still take over the ship and then they would be a billionaire.
There’s nothing like that now except for maybe the lottery.
But what they ended up doing was they just created
pirate paradise in like the Caribbean
where they actually owned the island.
So I don’t know which, you know,
might have been like Jamaica or something like that,
but it was just like that was the pirate’s island.
Like it had, it was a governor had everything
that you would ever need so you could trade goods
in and out of there.
So the pirates could live these lavish lifestyles,
but these guys, they’re just stuck on this island,
living in hammocks and drinking mango juice.
– Yeah, and if they wanted that chef,
like, oh, this ship’s really good.
It’s like, hey, what are you getting paid now?
It’s like, this amount is like, okay, we’ll give you 10 times
that you want to come work with this island.
Work with us for a year.
– That’s nothing to us.
That was most of the sudden to me.
I’m like, what’s the plan of being a pirate
unless they were stealing and giving it to the poor?
Maybe that’s why.
my later question involved Kate.
And I do agree, there was a part in the book
where the Matt’s crying those times,
like, I don’t have any opportunities
to set the other thing.
And Kate’s like, yeah, but you’re a man
and like, I’m a woman, do you know how much tougher that is?
And like, good for you, Kate.
Like, stand up for yourself, because, you know,
this guy’s crying and like, you’re actually trying to
hustle and do better for yourself, but at the same time,
just because Kate found these bones,
it doesn’t all of a sudden make her like a professor.
Like, they’re like, at the end of the book,
it’s like, oh, she’s going on tours
and she’s doing speaking engagements.
She can talk about the animal, but that’s about it.
It takes someone who’s like, learned in that area
to actually like, explain those things.
So she’s a few years out, but I appreciate how
they tried to make her seem like she was a professor or something.
– I also don’t really like the whole like, well,
I’m this and that’s so much harder.
It’s like, yeah, but this person can’t eat
if they don’t work for, you know what I mean?
Like, it’s a little different that like,
if you’re not, your main things aren’t covered,
your food shelter aren’t, you know,
just the ability to live aren’t covered.
That’s a, that kind of supersedes any other deterrent
that you might have in your life.
Oh, a billion percent.
That’s the whole thing with just poverty in general.
It’s like, yeah, you know,
people in certain countries have to walk to get water,
like five miles each way to get water.
It’s like, well, it’s hard to learn
when you’re walking to get water.
right, right.
– You can’t advance in society if that’s the case.
And then it also is funny how at the end,
like Matt, everything is fine for him
and like things are all golden, literally,
because he got some money.
So once you have money, things are a lot easier.
– Oh, that’s true.
– Yeah, that’s not wrong.
– No, it wasn’t wrong at all,
but it was funny because it was like,
oh, he got this treasure from turning in spear glass
and like, now he doesn’t have to worry about his mom
and his sisters, they’re taking care of it.
And he can afford to go to school.
So yeah, money might not make you happy, but it gets pretty close.
Keith, would you recommend Airborne to our listeners out there?
Not for me.
It wasn’t the biggest fan.
I wanna reiterate what you said at the beginning.
I don’t disparage anyone that liked it.
Obviously, any kid’s book, I think you’re gonna like
when you’re a kid more than you’re gonna like when you’re adult.
So it is what it is, but it wasn’t for me.
– Yeah, it wasn’t for me either.
If you couldn’t tell from this conversation,
but yeah, if you like it, good for you.
If Mike Keat came up to me that I don’t have
and said, hey, I’m reading Airborne, it’s saying, nice.
Do you like it?
He’d say, this guy’s fucking an airship.
He said, whoa, you’re only seven.
You shouldn’t know that word.
He said, oh, sorry, I said, fecking.
He’s fecking me.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, right, right.
That’s way different.
– We’re good.
– All right, well, kids, kids, books over,
it’s time to take off the kid gloves
that put on our samurai suits and grab our katanas
’cause Keith, where are we heading next?
– Showgun, we’re doing by James Cavill.
This is a demon book.
It is a long one.
So it has a 4.4 on good reads though, so.
Yeah, buddy.
That’s the highest I think we’ve ever,
I’m actually, I’m a little scared
that you’re not gonna like it.
– I mean, if this is Dune-esque,
then we’re in for a long ride.
– It’s not as smart as Dune,
but there’s a lot more Japanese in it.
But I think the audio book does it better.
For 1000-page book and maybe like 45 hours.
So if you’re interested in reading along with us,
I think we’re gonna do it in probably three or four parts
depending on how the conversation goes.
Pick it up now and start giving it a listen.
If you’re interested in feudal Japan, historical fiction,
even if you’re not, it’s for you.
I Like it.
Let’s jump into it.
All right, Adam, I know.
I know.