https://www.buzzsprout.com/1586869/episodes/19107010

The Buddies read the not-so-fiction feeling dystopian classic “1984” by George Orwell this week. The Buddies chat about the good life of being a Prole (drunk, happy, and blissfully ignorant), every day double-think, and how Gen Alpha speak to Newspeak are the same. So grab your victory gin, practice your doublethink, and join us for a pod that asks: would you rather be tortured with rats or buried alive with snakes?

Intro (0:00-1:36)

Stock Up/Down (1:37-32:16)

Favorite Scene/Character (32:17-34:15)

Love/Hate (34:16-44:27)

Listener Mail/Lingering Questions (44:28-49:43)

Conclusion (49:44-53:59) 

NEXT BOOK: Before They Are Hanged  by Joe Abercrombie

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂
All right, welcome Buddy Book Club.
I’m Dylan, here with my double plus good friend, Keith.
What’s up, buddy?
And I’m here with Dylan, my O’Brien.
Oh, what?
That’s, I don’t know, that’s good.
It depends on what part of the story, I guess.
Here’s the Buddy Bookle, we’re working on some best sides.
And this week we’ll be discussing
a literary classic 1984 by George Orwell.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read,
read our previous episodes, visit our website,
buddybookleab.com, or slide into our DMs on X, Instagram.
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Download, subscribe, five star review, please.
And thanks, Keith, 4242 on Goodreads.
I was kind of surprised by that.
I think when you look at a lot of the classics though,
the goodreads will have 4.0s or under, usually.
I feel like, this is actually probably a little bit higher.
It’s just interesting because if you were to do the same
with cinema on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB or something like that,
it just doesn’t work like that.
No matter what movie classic you’re looking at,
it’s going to be a 95, you know what I mean?
If you’re the person that’s going to review a movie,
then you’re probably going to be pretty artistic.
And so you kind of want to go along with what other people
are saying is what–
Yeah, if you’re going into review movies, especially to jack up
your Rotten Tomatoes, like the amount of reviews you have,
you can’t go back and watch the Godfather and be like,
five, didn’t care for it.
Wait, five out of five or five out of 100?
OK, OK, yeah.
So Keith, let’s give this some stock up,
stock down for ’94.
What do you got?
Stock up being ignorant and happy?
The pearls.
That’s exactly right.
I think the biggest takeaway from this book
isn’t about power dynamic and government abuse.
It’s really just being a pro is the way to be in life.
Sure, they’re uneducated and impoverished.
They don’t really know what’s going on,
but that’s great.
English is bliss.
Knowing that you’re getting screwed over
is a lot worse than not knowing you’re getting screwed over.
The pearls, their life, consist of, and he’s pitties them,
hang out at bars, watching sports, being entertained by–
Poor.
-generally entertainment fair.
They have a lot of friends.
They have a lot of big families.
That’s a pretty good life, no?
Like, they seem way happier in general.
Like, sure, they don’t know the political state of the country
and sure, they’re just rooting for their side and the war.
The enemy changes every other week.
But who cares?
They’re having a good life.
It’s kind of like in the matrix where the guys–
I want to go back into the matrix.
Yeah.
If I’m Winston, I want to become a pro.
I’m miserable.
Everything’s terrible.
I know I’m going to be killed someday for my views.
And it’s just a matter of time.
Why would you want that?
It doesn’t make any sense.
So give me being dumb fat and happy,
and not that I’m already not those things.
But let me double down and just say I want to be a more.
You definitely wouldn’t be fat.
That’s for sure.
I don’t think they’re any fat pearls.
And the new reality would be they’re eating fast food.
You know what I mean?
Like, he didn’t predict fast food was coming down the line,
but that’s essentially– they’d be just eating super unhealthy food
and said, like, cheap unhealthy food instead of real food,
essentially.
They were getting beer, though, when he met with that old pro guy,
the bar was negetting a beer, and he’s like, oh, yeah,
they’re ripping beers.
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s interesting that the government–
the pearls is also like short for the proletariat,
which is like the working class.
So I think the idea behind the book is
that– no, not like the whole idea, but an idea–
is that they don’t really care so much the government,
doesn’t care so much the inner party or whatever,
doesn’t care so much about the pearls,
because rebellions start from the middle class.
So that’s why all of this coming down on you
and conformity is focused on the outer party,
as opposed to the pearls, who they just keeps subdued with booze
and–
Bread and circus.
Booze and porn.
Yeah.
But yeah, you think of families?
You know, you get to pick who you want to be with.
You can have kids and just do your thing.
And everyone around you is in the same shittiness of a situation.
It feels less shitty, but I couldn’t agree with you
more that once you know you’re being screwed over,
it’s way worse than just being screwed over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because then you just screwed over and you have to live with it.
So my first stock up was just take it a minute
to realize how good we have it.
And–
Oh, good.
Nice.
Yeah, yeah.
When Julian Winston are hanging out,
at one point she brings Winston some sugar, coffee, bread,
and jam, and the coffee has to be triple bagged.
It’s like you’re a teenager trying
to bring weed into the house kind of thing.
It’s like you got to put four bags on it, a roll of bounce,
and then stuff it in a toilet paper roll
and put in the cryovacate just so that no one smells it.
Because the coffee, if someone smells coffee,
they’re going to jump you.
And the amount of joy that having sugar and milk
and coffee together with then a piece of bread
and some real jam has, you know, the effect that has on them
during their date, it’s insane.
It’s like–
I can’t even try to equate it to what it would be here.
And be like, you know, the perfect day you would have,
which we’ve talked about in previous parts.
But that’s just standard.
You know, I throw a little maple syrup in the coffee.
Why sugar?
Go nicer.
Throw a little maple syrup.
Oh, caramel sauce, yeah.
Back to it.
Back to it.
Yeah.
Bread, it costs literally nothing.
You can go to the store and get a piece of white bread
for literally nothing.
So we were lamenting about things right
before we got on our rather I was.
And it’s like, shit, how good do we have it?
Like all of this stuff, if you were to ask the average or median
person from any decade prior to this, which would you rather
have to be like, oh, whatever you got.
Whatever you got sounds better.
So and that’s obviously this is location based and what
out there is some people who are sure are struggling for real.
So I do understand that.
But at the same time, just in general, we got it pretty good.
Time to enjoy it.
Well, also, this isn’t like the fantasy part of the crazy part
of the book because when the book was written,
they had gone through 49, I think.
The Great Depression, World War One.
Yeah.
And World War Two, they had 30 years of just absolute
terribleness in that they weren’t sugar and bread
and all those things were valued much higher than we have today.
This isn’t some sort of like mystery.
And then obviously before that, then you get to the 1800s.
And it’s like, yeah, no, that stuff was like commodity back then,
either.
So we were just super spoiled.
Yeah.
And it’s hard because whenever you do,
then you feel like you’re a dick for enjoying that.
It’s like, oh, other people don’t have it.
Why am I enjoying this?
But just whatever you got, just take a minute.
Just take a minute and enjoy it.
What else do you get for stock up?
Double thing stock up.
Oh, OK.
I’ve been doing this for years, D-Man, for years.
I never really had a name for it, but this book really did spell it out.
And I can list out a few examples for you.
Now, these examples took me a long time
because the whole concept of double thing is very hard to wrap your mind around.
Can you explain the concept of double thing?
It’s basically like having carrying two ideas
at once of the exact opposite.
So I think the example they use is War is Peace.
So like those are two exact opposite things.
But the way they explain it is like, well, if you’re always at war,
then you’re that creates peace because you’re not–
I don’t know.
It’s a very hard to understand.
Sure.
It’s to know and not know.
Yeah.
Let me jump into the next couple of examples.
First one is it’s all mental.
I mean, I say this–
You say this, right?
Yeah, that is one of your biggest things.
The whole concept is that it’s all in your mind.
But by stating that’s all in your mind,
it’s literally saying it’s not physical.
It’s a mental issue.
So you’re saying in your mind is the issue,
but at the same time your mind isn’t the issue.
So you see I’m saying it’s like two divergent.
Yeah, like golf.
We’re talking about golf.
It’s like, oh, golf is a mental game.
But it’s a very physical game.
Like you have to actually do something with your hands.
It’d be hard if you had no arms and no legs to swing a golf club.
Exactly.
Yeah, so there’s two things.
So it is all mental, but it’s also not all mental.
So it’s both those things.
I read the audiobook.
Oh.
Yeah, which we do.
We listen to audiobooks, but we say we read them.
A lot of people argue with that, but I always have my whole blog
on why reading or listening to audiobook is reading.
So, buddy book of the content there.
Yep.
Another one I used to always say is I’m bad at test taking.
Unfortunately, this happened a lot because I was a B2C student
in high school in college.
But, and that was because I was a bad test taker, which
basically was if I studied really, really hard and did really
well, I was super proud of myself because I’m smart and knowledgeable.
But if I studied really hard and did really bad,
I think it was because the tests were bad.
It wasn’t me.
So, not only is it basically both.
You can either be, it’s, you’re really smart if you do well,
but also it’s rigged if you don’t do well.
So that’s the two things in my mind.
And then the last one again, this one was hard to get across,
but nice guys finished last.
So I kind of agree with this statement, but at the same time,
is I think that if you’re trying to be nice, then you will
finish last.
If you are nice, you finish first.
Does that make sense?
Like, I think that there’s this whole mentality that if you’re
trying to actively be nice and not, you’re just not being nice.
Yeah.
If you’re like keeping score, then you’re going to finish last.
But if you’re not keeping score and you’re kind of just,
hey, this is why I want to do this because I want to do it.
It’s for me.
It’s almost selfishly.
I’m being nice for selfish reason.
Yeah.
Then you actually finish first.
That makes sense.
So there’s like, it is, it’s both those things.
There’s kind of like a whole thing in the latest season
of shrinking about this.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Because one of the guys, he’s a nice guy, but he opened this food
truck, but now he’s getting a job at a nice restaurant.
And the guy who works for him is pretty much going
to be unemployed because he has to close this truck to go work
with his restaurant.
So he’s like, God, what do I do?
And someone’s like, be selfish because this is for you.
You’ve got to be selfish and take the job.
Yeah.
Can you just sell the food truck to the guy that’s–
There was definitely some holes in there.
Is the guy good enough?
It’s a food truck.
Just make sandwiches.
Continue making sandwiches.
Now you are leasing this food truck for me.
And I’m going to go do a different job.
Yeah, definitely some holes.
It’s a 30-minute TV shot.
There’s lots of holes.
But–
But yeah, double-thanks, talk about–
I was thinking about nice guys.
What about Bill Gates?
Where does he fit in there?
Is he a nice guy?
Well, that’s the question.
And he on–
I feel this.
Yeah, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
they’ve done a lot.
But then he’s having affairs and he’s on lists.
So–
Oh, I think charity is the biggest scam there is going.
I don’t believe it.
Quick stock up, war as a distraction.
There was a lot of conversation about these–
Can imagine that.
Yeah, there was a lot of conversation
with these lists going on before probably a couple months ago.
Now we’re just talking about gas prices.
So stock up to war as a distraction,
because it works 1984, predicted it,
and it will continue to work.
I did have an opener, I was going to say,
that we love fiction and fantasy books
because it takes us out of this world.
It’s so unrealistic.
And I was like, can you imagine, D-Man?
Can you imagine a world where endless wars occur?
And there’s no justification for them.
And there’s a cult of personality around politicians
and there’s a huge disparity between classes
and there’s facts being made up and interpretations
and everything.
And good guys are changing to bad guys.
And bad guys are changing to good guys constantly.
It’s all too unrealistic, D-Man.
It doesn’t make any sense.
So I glad you read the book.
Well, I’ll follow that up with the stock up
to the spread of misinformation/rewriting history.
It’s Winston’s job in the Ministry of Truth
is to basically go back into past news articles
and change people’s names, take them out
if they’re now outside the party or there, whatever,
they’ve been caught by the thought police
and they’re un, I can’t remember what the word is.
There’s a word for that they is unpersoned.
That’s what it is, unpersoned.
If they’re now an unperson or something like that.
And it’s fascinating.
Supposedly this was done in like Stalin’s Soviet Union,
which is where he got a lot of this stuff is based off of.
So yeah, I guess Stalin did it.
And it’s an interesting job.
And you think when your like George Royale is writing this,
that oh, you know, you could see how in the future newspapers,
you could just do that.
But now with the internet, obviously he had no idea
what the internet was that you can’t go back
and take things out.
You know, if there’s always a Wikipedia editor who’s going in there
if you try to mess with it and putting back in
whatever the truth is, the funny thing that is un-predicted,
but it gets us to the same place is the way
that now there’s so much information
that you can just say the opposite thing.
And now both things are out there.
It’s double talk right there and makes you do double think
because it’s like the same in opposite things are there.
So now there’s the truth and there’s the opposite of the truth.
And who even knows, especially when those we look to
and like our leaders and those in power say both things.
You know, based on how the winds blowing politically
or otherwise.
So it’s funny how now we have so much information
as opposed to like, oh, you just gotta go back
and change this news article
that you can still rewrite history
just by spreading misinformation.
It’s how these psychopath like Holocaust deniers,
people are still listening to that or flatter.
There’s a more flatter thing was a huge thing before.
It’s just, it’s fascinating to me how so much has changed
that he couldn’t have imagined,
but yet we still are getting to the same ideas
that were posed in this book.
What else you got for stock up?
Less one fourth grade crushes stock up.
Ashley Bunz, where are my phones for you at?
– That’s a great name right there, I like that.
Yeah, I wrote her a love letter in fourth grade.
– You’d have to present that to the class here.
I found it some time in it.
I actually put it in the memory hole.
I burned it.
That’s what they call that thing in 1984, the memory hole?
(laughs)
– There’s nothing called it.
Yeah, thanks so.
When he has to like, after he’s doing his job,
he’s gotta throw all this stuff and burn it, you know?
It’s like the memory hole.
I do remember the first line of it.
It was, she was moving away
and I had never confessed my feelings.
So it was, I like you with an unforgettable passion
that was the first line of the letter.
I’ll never forget it.
Yeah.
Wow, the kid has the poet skills.
And then did you put it in her memory hole?
Okay.
– Anyways, I’m out.
– She’s so cute.
(laughs)
Anyways, so.
Oh yeah, so Winston, Julia, they’re kind of love
or romance plays out kind of like a fourth grade crush.
He pretends he hates the girl and they’re making
like brief eye contact and it’s like,
did she look at me or did she not look at me?
They’re passing love letters.
Also too, like similar fourth grade, they didn’t talk at all.
And then you pass a letter to the person
you’re like, I love you.
It’s like, wow, that was their hard album real quick,
but okay, okay.
– Also, he’s like, I hate her and then she slips in the letter
that’s like, I love you and he’s like,
actually, I do kind of love this person.
Exactly, Yeah, exactly.
Like you pretend you hate the girl,
but really love her deep down.
I mean, I did the same thing until senior in high school
but that’s besides the point, man.
What happened to senior in high school?
– I mean, I was the same shy, you know,
did she make eye contact with me?
They never did, they never did.
But in my mind, they did.
Yeah, I thought it was just a good, interesting, innocent story
in the sense that like, the way that they were reacting
to each other or talking to each other
in this dark, like ominous book.
There’s this like, innocent love story that kind of grounds
the story a little bit.
for sure.
– That except for the one line of when they’re like,
making small talk and he’s like,
she’s like, did you like me?
Like when you before, I passed your love letter
and he’s like, funny story.
I actually wanted to rape and kill you.
Oh Yeah, That was like, wait, what?
I don’t think that would work these days,
but that was his cute story of.
– Similarly to a fourth graders,
like they just say whatever is on their mind, you know?
There’s no calculating of what you’re gonna say.
It’s just like–
– Yeah, I see you’re saying, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I saw you eating only red skittles
and I thought I hated you because you only ate red skittles,
but actually, you know, I love you because,
you know, taste the rainbow.
– And is that another,
– No, that’s not a euphemism.
It’s actually the slogan for skittles,
our next sponsor, hopefully.
my last stock up is the long con, stock up.
Yeah, so Mr. Charington is just wasting away
in the antique shop full of bedbugs,
waiting for an unsuspecting outer party member
to walk in and commit thought crime, is that the deal?
Yeah, I was gonna ask you that.
I didn’t know if he got caught and then everyone’s,
’cause it’s like since– – No, they said he was a thought person.
he might be hallucinating those things.
Like he was saying a briy in the whole time
and you were saying like all the people
you would just see and recognize.
I was like, is this really happening?
Or is it seems like it’s too–
No, Mr. Charington is real.
The whatever they call the camera that looks at you
from the wall is really in–
Why did they need like three months?
– They’re better, yeah, they’ve really stacked up the case,
but what a toughest sign is done.
– Yeah, they’re like, oh, let’s get a couple video,
some content out of these guys.
What are they doing in that bed?
– It’s just such a tough assignment
for a member of the thought police.
You know, you’re in the barracks, you’re getting ready,
oh, you just got out of a thought police academy
and they’re ready to give you your assignment.
Like I’m going to the front lines,
you know, what am I doing?
Am I gonna be interrogating people?
It’s like, all right, Charington,
you’re going into the parole’s neighborhood.
We’re gonna set you up in this antique shop.
You’re mostly gonna be selling antiques,
but if someone from the outer party comes in
and tries to rent a room for you, then it’s on.
And the guy’s like 70, so he’s just been waiting for years
for something like this to happen.
It’s like McNulty when he gets on the boat in the wire.
It’s like the last place he wants to be is the boat.
This is what, you know, this gig is.
So, really, Mr. Charington.
– I love the game, he’s retired, he’s been,
he’s been deep in that police for a long time.
They’re like, hey, – Well, this is the cushy gig.
Yeah, this is, hey, take it easy.
I’m gonna have to do anything, heavy lifting.
You’ll just, you know, chill at this antique store
and catch any of the other bad guys, you know,
serve your time.
Catchingly bad guys That happen upon your store
in the parole’s district in Wacke.
he Also has got to do a lot of, he was well educated.
He’s like, I’m gonna do my research.
He played the role.
– Yeah, he’s like the bells are saying clemons,
he had that thing down.
He knew exactly what was going on.
– Same thing with O’Brien.
They do a lot of reading and, like,
they’re really up on things for someone
that’s really anti-being up on things.
– Well, O’Brien wrote the book.
He wrote Goldstein’s book with some other party members.
So he’s intelligent for sure, you know?
He knows what’s going on, but he’d rather have wine and cheese
than go straight to the party.
Talk down, detouring from the plot.
I think in a previous episode, you mentioned,
how you don’t mind when the author kind of takes you
on a little side quest and so to speak
and talks about all the research they’ve done,
like, and Moby Dick you mentioned,
now they were just basically talking about everyone.
– Well, that was,
isn’t a good part of Moby Dick.
– Yeah, so you’re talking, this is the Moby Dick effect.
– They’re like, I did a shitload of research.
I’m going to make sure you know that I did a lot of research.
He did the same thing.
What’s that really popular book that Tom Hanks played a movie of?
No.
– Angel’s a demon, his guy.
Dan Brown.
he would do That every other chapter.
He’d be like, it’d be a chapter
and I was just talking down to you.
At least, ah, it’s the eye read it.
He was like, do you know that the Catholic church did this
and it would be like a full chapter of just, like,
stuff, I’m like, give me back to the story.
I don’t get it.
That’s not how I like the history of hiding it.
Well, this is more like the tone.
Yeah, you felt like he was like, hey Keith, idiot.
(laughs)
BCD student, listen up.
Test will be on this.
How’s your test taking?
– Yeah, so those are knowing to me,
but that’s a stock down because, yeah,
I’m not a big fan of it.
And I mean, what I assume happened in this
was that he wrote an essay about a society
that is made up with stop thought police,
all these different things
and he wrote this whole thing out,
which is the book that Winston acquires.
And then he was like, ah shit,
I can’t really release this as an actual book.
Let me write a book in a story around the book about the book.
the book about the book.
And then use that because it seems like
all that stuff was intertwined into the plot
and then we get to the book part
and it just repeats all that stuff we already know.
It’s like super redundant, it’s long,
it didn’t really add anything.
I mean, it was, again, if I didn’t read any part
other part of the book, fine, yeah, be interesting,
but I almost think it’d be better
if they just cut that 50 pages out of the book
because it just didn’t really add anything.
So it was, again, super redundant,
so I don’t really understand the point of it.
– So you’re saying–
That should out of here.
– You’re not down for a copy of the theory
and practice of Oracle collectific.
you want to throw That in the addent?
You want to throw it as like the,
you had read the book that Winston got,
this is what it would look like.
Fine, that makes sense to me.
Yeah.
– But it didn’t make any sense in the story.
Agree And not disagree, But it was in my hates
that chapter of the book
because it was boring for the most part.
It started out like, okay, world building, this is fun.
Now we get some history of the party to some degree,
but then I realized shortly therein
that the book was so well written up until that point
and we are coming from our own mindset
which is that, oh, this is a fucked up society.
All this stuff was assumed.
A lot of the stuff in here that they had
in the theory and practice of oligarchical collectivism,
we’ve been able to draw, we’ve already come to those conclusions
based on– – What they’ve directly said it.
– Or, yeah, they’ve, are they beat around it?
I don’t know if like some of it wasn’t necessarily directly said,
but the idea of, like we keep the pearls down with
booze and porn and we don’t really care about them,
but here’s, like that you can figure out just by breeding
the first half of the book, we got there.
– We’ve talked about how we’ve like world building
and we’ve a lot of books of where like,
hey, it would be great if they did a whole chapter on here.
Here’s what you need to notice at the table of everything.
But the problem is we just had the table set for us,
we got the silverware on the right side of the plate,
you know, everything’s good, napkins set up
and then they’re like coming through and redoing everything.
I’m like, we already know this, we already have the table set.
Good amount.
do you read from the outside in Or the inside out?
There’s eight spoons, where do you go?
And then there’s a spoon at the top with that spoon for it.
– I remember when I was–
Deserts spoon.
– 10 or 11, I would always, my parents,
this is how you set the table, how to be done every time
and I always said why is it done like this?
They’re like, that’s just the way it is.
And I really, really made me upset.
If someone just said pick up the fork with your left hand,
so you want it on your left hand all the time,
most people are left right even.
Right, is it Wow, who picks it up?
Yeah, okay.
so the force on the left, lights on the right.
– Yeah, so the reason that people do that is,
logistically, it’s just the easier thing to do.
I’d be like, oh, okay, that makes sense to me.
– There’s a whole, actually I went down an Instagram,
I think my brother-in-law made it sent to me, I don’t know.
There’s a whole guy who explains this stuff
on Instagram that’s actually fascinating for, you know,
if you’re getting down into a thought hole
or whatever the case is, whatever they call it,
the kids call it these days.
But explains why we cut, as Americans cut our food differently,
then they do in the UK,
’cause we will often put our knife down
in between eating and then in Europe, they don’t.
But yeah, the knife will be on the right or whatever.
I don’t know, my mom was the same way.
She, when we were kids, it was like,
you have to set the table correctly.
I wonder if it was a time thing,
I wonder if people do that now.
– I’m more of a logistics person, you know what I mean?
I don’t get it, why matters.
– You’re still leading with plastic silverware,
so what do you care?
Right?
I would be my hands, kid.
My first talk down was Jen Alpha speak.
– Who’s Jen Alpha?
– Jen Alpha’s like the new people, right?
All the kids, these kids these days.
– I don’t like labeling people, but go on.
(laughs)
– So I pretty much feel like new speak,
an anti-language whose purpose is to limit speech
and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it.
I feel like that’s pretty much what Jen Alpha speak is.
The thing I was looking for, the word I was looking for earlier
was brain rot, you know, if you’re gonna go down,
down the brain rot of looking up Instagram stuff.
But there’s tons of new slang that has come out
and maybe I’m just like old man yelling at the clouds
that just makes no sense.
Like, Riz, which is short for charisma.
It’s like, oh, that guy’s got Riz.
There’s a billion words that you could use in the English language.
– I don’t mind my language.
– To this year, you’re wrong.
You’re into the new speak, you know, that’s your thing.
What would you say?
Would you be like, man, that gentleman over there
is quite the charisma.
(laughs)
You say he has game, which is the same.
– I would say– – Yeah, he’s got
some charismatic energy.
Absolutely, that’s what I would say.
I wouldn’t say that gentleman over there has Riz.
– Would you say he’s got big dick energy?
Yeah.
I’d say he’s got that BDE.
Are you familiar with much of this?
– I’ve heard one recently, someone said,
oh yeah, I was looking real snatched in that picture
or something like that, which means like cut or something.
I don’t hate it.
Listen, I’ll tell him on board if it makes sense.
I don’t like when people say insults that in cup is everything
that they don’t have a word for.
When people say, oh, he’s a cuck, I really do not like,
because it’s just like, use your words, what does that mean?
You’re not using the word for the real way.
– Yes, that’s what we’re saying, that’s new speak.
I mean, you snatched this like a specific thing.
It means like you’re looking good in a,
it’s like looking like cut essentially.
Yeah, so is That like come from doing like a snatch
like an Olympic lift?
– I don’t know, a reason for it, but it’s a cool,
it’s an interesting lingo.
I don’t like it when you just use one word
because you don’t know how to use other words.
Does that make sense?
– Yeah, like they say to describe something weird,
cringe or bad, you just say it’s Ohio.
That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s,
that’s got a funny, all right.
– Or, skibbity, skibbity derived from skibbity toilet,
it can mean bad, cool, or just be an intensifier.
So it literally can mean everything.
It’s, it is new speak.
– That one’s over my head a little bit.
Yeah, so There you go.
skibbity doodah?
It’s all sus, it’s all sus, all right.
These people are delulu, I’m, I’m crashing out.
Delulu.
(laughing)
All right, I respect it.
Crashing out is good too, I’ll thank you.
I’ll listen out.
I’ll tell him I’m bored, this is like new technology kiddo.
You can be the person that’s like,
I’m not using it in new technology.
We have the DVD player, you know, it works.
We’re not using anything else.
No, I like to pick And choose.
I think some, some are fine.
I’m just, I’m just kidding.
– And also as a new dad,
you have to be using these to make your daughter feel super cringed
and wanna crash out.
So you gotta, you gotta start picking them up.
Come on kid.
She says bird And listens to raffee.
Like she’s, she’s, she’s not talking about,
musician who has these raffee.
– Raffee’s a children’s focusing, he’s amazing.
But yeah, she’s not talking about Skibbity Toilet
or talking about other reals and gats.
Gats are gun.
– But that’s a gat.
A gat is a big butt.
Oh, okay.
– It’s short for gat damn.
Wow, okay.
Oh No.
Good hit.
did you explain it That I like it?
Yeah.
What else do you have for stockdown?
those are.
Stockdown following the rules, stockdown?
So, you know, the other party members,
these people are always following the rules.
Like, they won’t even think thing.
They’re literally thought crimes.
So they won’t even do it.
It’s pretty crazy because then you go to the,
the Ministry of Truth, or excuse me,
you go to the Ministry of Love and you get hated on,
which is, you know, the double talk right there,
or a double speak, whatever it is.
Our guy, Tom Parsons, Winston’s neighbor,
is the ultimate rule faller.
The guy’s an absolute Nimrod.
But he’ll…
What is this, at Alpha Gen, That Nimrod talk?
What is that?
I think Nimrod was a captain of a ship.
okay.
– I don’t know, look it up.
I don’t know, yeah, I don’t know how he then became,
or maybe it’s from a book.
He was like the captain of a ship there,
and then it became a thing.
I don’t know how it became, whatever it became.
Son of a cush.
– And thus the great grandson of Noah,
Nimrod wrote, “Scrib is a king of the land.”
I don’t know, I’m guessing he’s not a good dude.
Biblical.
Yeah.
There We go, Biblical.
So Tom falls all the rules, but at the end of the day,
he ends up talking bad about big brother in his sleep,
and his kid turns him into the thought police,
and he has to go to room 101.
Even if you fall all the rules,
you close your eyes for two seconds,
and your kids turn you into this.
That was made up, right?
Like his kid who was wanting to turn him in for anything, right?
Probably didn’t like give him candy or something,
and he was like, “I’m gonna make up that he talked
in his sleep then.
Yeah, it was like some Nazi youth type stuff.
– Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Yeah, probably.
Either way, I feel bad for Tom,
’cause then Tom gets, you know, to the ministry of love,
and he’s like, “Oh, I hope they don’t kill me.”
Like if they gave me hard labor,
I’d be a great laborer for the cause.
I’d be doing great for the cause.
(laughs)
– I mean, but he’s having the best life of all time.
He’s like, “I’m proud of my kids.”
They really, they really,
Yeah, Yeah, exactly.
– You know, so like if you get out of a lot of time,
you get back to your earlier thing
about your experience being bliss.
He’s so ingrained into the party that he’s down.
So, yeah, but at the same time,
don’t fall for the rules, ’cause it didn’t work well for Tom.
– Which is, right in the line with the,
I actually just heard testify by Reggie
who’s seen right after I read this book, you know that song?
– I’m familiar with the song, not necessarily the message.
– Those who, or what’s it goes, all right,
the lyric is those who control the past,
control the future, those who control the future,
control the past.
Mm-hmm.
– Sounds like out of 1984.
they just fucking stole it, Right from the book.
Their whole thing is just they copied things now,
like, “Raging is a machine.”
What we doing here?
I didn’t know you guys were stealing.
Yeah, questionable.
So I’m now raging as a machine.
– You’re raging against raging with a machine?
– Yeah, they didn’t make it, they got to change the lyrics
a little bit, come up with your own,
their own call here.
my last one was us And everyone else
always saying the book is better.
And I think we talked about this,
or you talked about it for the Project Hell-Merry movie.
But I did go back and watch the 1984 movie with John Hurt,
which came out in “Germal Please” 1984.
And, – Oh wow.
it was great, movie was great.
It was exactly like the book.
They did a very good job, got everything,
like they missed a couple things, like,
classically, you know, you have to compress a book
into a movie form, it’s like an under two hour movie.
But for the most part, all of the beats were hit,
all of the big things were played
and the message was exactly the same.
High school kids, if you’re listening, don’t read the book.
Just go watch the movie.
You could probably get a Keith-level B or C on this test.
Don’t sweat it.
So, a skibbini, by the way.
Did you have a favorite scene in this one?
Let me think about That one.
You go first.
– It’s not really that kind of a book.
Probably when he’s talking to the old guy in the bar,
the old parole, and he’s just trying to get some simple answers.
And the guy’s like, I just want a drink of beer.
He’s basically saying, like, I don’t want a leader.
I want a pint.
I used to be able to get pints,
and they only sell pint, that leaders and half leaders.
But half leaders pretty much are pint.
So, he’s like, what do you really care?
But then at the end of the day, he’s like,
I don’t want the leader.
And then he’s like, I don’t buy you another beer.
And he’s like, absolutely.
– Wait, you like, I thought that guy had C2E.
I thought that was a boy.
Yeah, absolutely.
That’s what I’m saying.
It was almost a comedy moment within this story.
You know, we have already have our teenage love thing going on,
and then the oppressive nature of the entire government
and whatnot.
And then this was just an interlude where he’s trying to get
a straight answer from this guy, and he can’t.
And I laughed.
And it’s not in the movie, so that maybe
place for the book is better.
– One of the only scenes I remember,
I remember the ending, and I remember specifically,
I don’t know why, but him eating at lunch
with his friend, quote, unquote friend,
and his friend being like, we have one day,
we’re gonna have like one word,
like, how come this is every single thing?
– The guy that’s working on the new speak dictionary,
Yeah. – Or a tailor Or whatever?
– To me, Simee, so his name, that’s why I’m me.
something like that.
– I remember Winston just in his mind is like,
oh, this guy’s gonna die pretty soon.
He’s gonna be killed because he’s way too smart for,
like, he’s way too into things,
which I always thought was funny.
He’s like, you basically just need to be right
down the middle, otherwise you’re gonna be killed.
You can’t be too smart, you can’t be too rebellious.
You gotta be just do the party line.
And even then, you can still get reported by your children.
So, yeah, tough one.
Yeah, he was too smart for his own Good, for sure.
He was like, oh, yeah, this is how the new speak works.
Volume 11, now you’re in person, sorry.
– Yeah, you didn’t know that Riz, you know?
Yeah, indeed he was No Sigma.
Love, hey, would you love about 1984?
so this is the second time I mentioned it.
I think the first time I was a little disappointed
because I was so used to kind of,
I was really big into dystopian mindset at the time,
and then I was like, oh, this isn’t as…
like you read a bunch of dystopian books
and this is one of them?
But this is like What most of them are based off of.
And the second time reading, I appreciate it way, way more, I think.
I think it should be required reading for every high school,
I think, oh yeah, I think we need to start teaching our students
that the government is a necessary evil.
It’s not something you root for,
it’s not something you should be padding on the back.
It should be a general skepticism about people in power
is very healthy and should be obvious.
And that’s what these kind of books do.
Oh yeah, you shouldn’t just trust everything they say
and you shouldn’t be rooting for them.
If they do a good job, great, that’s good.
That’s what they should do.
There should be no pat in the backs.
It should be, that is your job.
You did your job, good.
I’m not rooting for you.
I’m not like going out and,
the whole idea of getting money to politicians
is so mind-boggling to me.
Can you imagine someone being like,
I have billions of dollars or 100 millions of dollars
and I need you to give me your money
so I can go change things, help you prove your life.
Like, no, you should be spending all your money
to get in there and then help me out,
not the other way around.
It’s like any fucking sense.
Billionaires That are taxing people to build stadiums
in their cities saying, oh, it’ll increase tourism
and you’ll get more money.
Like trickle down economics will help you.
It’s like, what?
You’re a billionaire.
It’s like the same idea.
I mean, we’re reading an,
we’re reading an, our next book that we’re gonna do,
there’s a character in it who has power and leadership
thrust upon him that he does not want
who is known as, clickley, the dog man.
And he is the best, that’s the leader we need.
Those are the types of leaders we need who are like,
I really don’t want to do this, but I know I have
the skill set for it, so fine, altruistic people,
not megalomaniacs who, and I’m not even talking about
a specific political person.
I think they’re all for the most part.
Oh Yeah.
in There, you know.
– You shouldn’t be rooting for a team.
You should be rooting for your country to do well
and your neighbors to do well and everyone to do well there,
but the people in the government of the last person
should never be rooting for.
And that’s what I got in book like this is what I think
is really what’s needed in today’s age.
You shouldn’t be fucking rooting for a someone.
Yeah, general skepticism, I think is good.
And I just, I like to a lot more in the second read.
Obviously, maybe because I’m just
become more cynical and hateful in my,
my elder age here, well, but yeah.
– Yeah, I mean, obviously we talked about it,
but the thing I loved about it is just how apropos
is to, you know, how it stuck around
and the things within, although Orwell was, you know,
pretty much taking ideas from the Soviet Union
and also thinking about how the, you know,
the UK was at the time and seeing like,
oh, you know, this could, it’s possible
that this could happen within a government.
And although this is probably more of, more similar
to some of the dictatorships around the world
that there are and not others,
the themes are clear and ever present.
And you know how when we talk about,
sometimes we’re reading books and we’re like,
I don’t know what the themes are.
You know, we’re just trying to enjoy the story.
Like this one, they’re very clear whether it’s, you know,
the nationalism, the censorship, stuff, surveillance,
putting people in poverty situation
so they can’t do anything and then having inequality
so they just look at each other
as opposed to looking at who put them there.
And like I said with the surveillance stuff,
it’s like now you talk about surveillance, it’s crazy.
Here, it’s just like, oh, the houses have tele screens
that, you know, they can be watched or listened at any time.
I remember it was like 10 or 15 years ago,
I don’t even know that it came up that the government
just had like everyone’s internet history
and was just holding on to it.
I was like, wait, what?
Like you can, you can do that.
And now we all have these devices in our hands
and I’m driving on the road the other day
and it, the ways is telling me that there,
there’s a camera that’s telling me if I’m speeding
or not up ahead.
It’s like, what the hell?
Just let me speed.
It used to have to be a person that told me
I was speeding or not.
So it’s just kind of interesting how it’s gone.
And although there’s not like thought monitoring
necessarily, you can really monitor
and change people’s feelings based on how they’re getting,
social media really.
Well, you asked someone like a general question
about society today, they’ll have an opinion.
Why, someone will be like, oh, what do you think of
the new like tax stuff?
And I’m like, I’m not smart enough to know.
Why would I should have opinion?
But I’ve heard a hundred people give opinions on it.
And I’m like, what the hell?
You know what I mean?
I’m using tax stuff as a, but you could,
any hot bun topic is more what I’m trying to say is like,
someone will have an opinion on it.
Yeah, and also just the Cambridge Analytica stuff.
Proletarian, say on your splice.
Don’t know what?
The Cambridge Analytica stuff that happened with Facebook
where, you know, basically you get put into these,
I mean, not only does it, you know,
you get bots or Russian people coming in
and trying to change people’s ideas,
but you just get put into these echo chambers
within social media that just whatever you started
looking into is now just pounded over and over again
into that you can’t look at anything from another side.
And we all just inner fight, you know,
as opposed to looking up at the top and say,
wait, who’s making us do this?
So yeah, it’s, it really resonated for sure.
I’m not sure I loved it as much as you did,
but definitely, definitely resonated.
I also like the narrators at time.
I don’t know if you caught this, but sounded like
the great British breakoff narrators.
They’re like very pleasant about the whole thing is,
you know, the great British breakoff, it’s like,
Oh, sure do.
Paul’s making his famous seven-legged chocolate cake.
And then the bread, the same narrator would be like–
Please stuff his grandmother’s cottage in Siri.
(laughing)
If you like big brothers, it knows all,
and it’s watching all of us, and I was like,
Oh, nice, nice.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, what the hell?
So I was kind of like lulled into it,
because it was the same narrator,
and boys, it was like, oh, very pleasant British accent, okay.
With her famous blackberry jam and a squash biscuit.
I remember also thinking that torture scene
was like five pages, but like, I’m like,
yo, we finally get into the torture at the end, you know,
see, it was like three hours, it was like,
oh, these shit, I don’t remember this being this long.
So a lot of torture.
Yeah, a lot of torture going on.
Yeah, I thought it was a nice quick read.
I don’t even remember how long it was,
but I kind of–
It was like 12 hours.
Yeah, I kind of felt like a blue through it.
And good pacing, you know, everything,
even towards the end, like you said,
the torture scene was long.
It culminated pretty well.
And then, yeah, I think, you know,
I definitely had questions that’s like,
oh, is he going to betray Julia or not?
You know, what’s going to happen at the end?
Because, you know, they’re doing the whole 2+2 thing.
And that dragged on, but in a good way,
where it was like, I guess, you ever going to say, like five,
and then he’s asking him, like, are you saying five?
Because you want me to believe it’s five, or do you actually
believe it’s five?
He’s like, oh, my god, it’s just–
they really mess with your head.
It’s wonderful.
And then, ultimately, he does betray Julia when he sees her again.
She says she betrayed him.
And because, you know, originally, it was like their love
is more than that, is more than the society.
But, you know, it’ll beat you down, man.
It’ll beat you down.
So, yeah, what about hates?
Would you hate about 1984?
All right, mention and get rid of the essay.
I think you make this book six hours, seven hours,
and you see, peasy.
I mean, I think it’s one of those books you should reread,
you know, every couple of years.
I also thought there might have been some–
tell me if I’m out there with this.
But I think there’s some– I don’t know if it’s allegory,
but there’s some romantic relationship
between him and O’Brien.
You could read into it, and this would
be like having a gay relationship in the 1930s or 40s,
because he’s like, secretly loves O’Brien, the whole book,
for some reason.
I have no idea why.
So I was like, is that some sort of allegory to that?
Or if you love someone, and then they turn you in,
and you get fucked over, and O’Brien’s really the bad guy?
Yeah, I’m saying no.
Crazy.
Yeah, I don’t know if I read it like that.
I could see you.
Well, O’Brien was like whispering him in the dark,
being like, meeting me in the plate.
I’m like, I don’t get why that would happen.
But that’s what he said.
He’s just waiting for some, but like, you know,
Winston is so into the deluge, but he’s
having these ideas.
He’s getting a journal to actively protest in his own way
against the society.
And he’s just waiting for a glimpse of someone else
who’s there with him.
So when O’Brien gives it to him, he clings on to that
with everything he has.
He probably knows– and I think O’Brien says
him, like, you knew from the jump what I was.
And that’s probably true, but he just
needed somebody else to make physical contact
with who was on board with him that–
So O’Brien–
This is that.
-rebellion, essentially.
So he’s just– you would have loved anyone
is just O’Brien showed a crack of it.
And he was like, OK, that’s– he’s the best person ever.
I love him, everything.
Yeah, exactly.
And also because O’Brien was so ingrained in the party
that, oh, it’s such an idea that, OK, wow,
is if he’s such a strong party member,
then there has to be lots of these other people like me.
And yeah, there are, but at the same time,
they’re going to absolutely tortured in Rheum 101,
whatever the case is.
So–
I worked up too.
I was like, am I crazy?
And I looked up at it the first note was,
because O’Brien tortures him, Winston
and perversely comes to love O’Brien.
I was like, oh, what the hell?
Maybe there’s something to it?
I don’t know.
Yeah, little stock homies in drip company.
Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
Sure.
Yeah, my only thing I hate was just him reading from Goldstein’s
book.
It was like, I didn’t need–
I didn’t need a whole same page there.
So–
Quick listener mail slash, goodreads review of the week.
Comes from a cast from Goodreads.
And she writes, my favorite part was when Winston was reading
the book to Julia.
And she fell asleep one star.
Thanks, cast.
Appreciate you.
OK.
It’s always good to have a laugh.
So–
I had a question, too, for you.
Oh, good.
No, I had lingering questions.
So that’s what I was going to get into.
So please, fire it up.
What do you got?
Oh, my only one that I’d left over was they described.
Someone is having a benevolent nose.
What would that–
what would that exactly mean?
What does that mean?
Well, to start off, we have to define the nose.
Oh, yeah, benevolent.
Yeah.
I know that’s right.
Does that mean it’s a well-meaning nose?
Yeah, well-meaning, good, kindly charitable nose.
OK.
What does that mean?
Yeah.
I don’t–
No.
So we put it off a red no reindeer?
Oh, that is definitely an benevolent nose.
So it was red and bulbous.
He’s got a gin blossom on his nose.
Ultra-wistic.
Magnanimous.
OK.
Whoa, stop putting all these other words out there.
You’re going to–
Is nose?
Yeah, exactly.
Now we’re talking.
His nose was–
It was sigma.
He’s got that sigma nose.
Wait, what is sigma?
You didn’t explain that one.
It’s like the lone wolf leader person.
I would think that would be alpha, but it is indeed–
like, the leader is the sigma.
A lone wolf leader, cool, successful, or popular.
So yeah, I don’t know where that came from.
OK.
Do you think Big Brother exists, Keith?
No.
No.
You think–
I think they didn’t say–
Yeah, they didn’t say.
I thought they asked him Brian and I’ll
Brian says he exists just as much as you and I
exist or ideas about this exists or something.
No, I thought he said he does exist.
And he was like, oh, he’s just as much as you.
And then he was like, do I?
Or he was like, but you don’t exist.
Or so, I don’t even know.
But it wasn’t clear.
It was not clear whether Big Brother existed or not.
I thought he existed at some point,
and then he would live on forever, type thing.
Yeah, could be that someone initially started.
But the society isn’t that old, right?
Or maybe it is.
It’s like a generational.
When we’re not like a lifetime old.
Yeah, I feel like there’s probably
a group of people who are running this whole thing
or whatnot, and they use Big Brother as a figurehead,
but isn’t actually a real person.
Similar to Goldstein.
Like maybe there was someone who–
there’s like the Brotherhood doesn’t even necessarily exist.
But maybe they have such the idea–
the fact that they had video of Winston and Julia
in the forest, bump in uglys.
How could some underground group–
how are they able to survive if they legitimately
have cameras everywhere?
They had it in the flat.
So yeah, I don’t–
I don’t know.
I think it’s all just made up for the people.
Winston gets rat torture.
That’s his biggest fear.
What would your torture be?
I think I told you the worst way to die thing.
They’ve just put me in an airplane, and it crashes.
And then I light on fire, and then I drown.
I’m in the bathroom while this happens, by the way.
I’ve told you that.
You’re in the airplane bathroom?
I’m in the airplane bathroom.
It starts going down, crashes into water.
The plane lights on fire.
I start burning alive.
And then I’m only saved by the water, which then
calls me off.
I’m still dying from the fire.
But then I drown in the water and die.
Everyone else is fine.
And they embarrassed pointing at me looking at me.
Look at this guy.
So that’s mine.
What about you?
Everyone else is fine.
Everyone else is like, remember how embarrassing that guy
wasn’t any dying, too?
I’ve been crying.
It was pretty pathetic.
So yeah, it’s fear–
There’s shit all over me, though, obviously.
Flammable.
Yeah, it’s fear.
It’s torture from the poo.
And then it’s pain from the fire, death from the drowning,
and shame from all the other passengers who survived.
Fine.
No problem.
I’m not a scratch.
Who were just staring at you.
They just– go on a time run, I’ll put that up here was.
Yeah.
You died bad.
Comedy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You could have easily escaped, too, as a person.
Oh my god, I’m crying.
That was– that’s amazing.
I don’t know, torture, Winston, the rat torture.
It’s my question.
I don’t– I could have thought of something on his spot.
You’re like, that put a add-in.
Your thing is killing me.
Oh my god.
Because there’s so many facets that would be terrible.
I think for me, I don’t necessarily
like claustrophobic, but the idea of being stuck somewhere
would be–
Like in a bathroom, a porta-bottie, what
you’re going on in airplane?
Yeah, exactly.
But I think a buried alive type thing would be pretty bad,
especially if you then add the rats to it.
Like they put you in a coffin with some more–
Oh, no, no, no.
Actually, that’s it.
It’s nicks.
It’s nicks.
Buried alive, it’s nicks.
You with Indiana Jones?
Yeah, exactly.
Me and Indie Jones, we share a lot of things.
We’re bullsick, and–
Yeah, but buried alive with snakes, that would be mine, for sure.
All right, we didn’t talk a lot about like INSOC.
We don’t really care about that.
We didn’t talk about thought police.crime rush.
Yeah.
Oh, the other thing that we didn’t talk about for love
is just–
talk about aging well.
It’s the whole thing.
Like people say or wellian, when they’re describing 1984,
and things like double speak or double think,
or they’ll say those kind of things in the vernacular.
But it’s hung on.
If freaking they made a show called Big Brother, which
is just about a bunch of people, it’s a reality TV show.
A bunch of people living in a fake house
with a camera’s watch in them all the time.
All right, Keith.
Messy A4, what do you give it and who’s the four?
All right, Gary said it.
There should be a required reading for high school students.
So for everyone in the world?
Yeah, I’m agree.
4.25.
First time I read it was probably like a three.
And this time I really appreciate it.
4.25.
I liked it a lot.
I think again, it’s–
it’s kind of like watching the Godfather,
if I like the Godfather.
It like sets you up for every other crime and mob, movie,
it’s going to take from it.
And so it sets the groundwork for every dystopian,
and I love dystopian stuff.
So I’m going to stick with that.
What about you?
Before I give mine, I do want to quickly touch back
on Brave New World verse 1984.
Because the ideas were the same,
but they came out of from opposite angles,
where 1984 is more of like, boot to the face, torture,
to get complicity, and to keep people in line,
where Brave New World was like drugs and basically distraction
from whatever is going on, that you can have power
by uncomplicity and subjugation through kind of just
making people dopsic.
What do you think is more realistic?
I think both of them exists in the world of air, I’d eat it up.
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good one.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think in today’s age, the Brave New World is the move
is just keep everyone distracted and angry at each other,
and it’s much easier than it is to–
I guess North Korea does the torture you in 1984 mindset,
but everyone’s aware of how bad North Korea is, I think.
But you can kind of get away with being bad
in the new Brave New World type methodology.
I think it’s better for the long haul.
Just feed people their social media algorithms
and all the things you can watch on TV and just fast food
that gets you fat, but makes you happy and all the sugars
and stuff and no one–
It’s the matrix.
The matrix I get talked about there.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I think for any sort of like totalitarian or dictatorship,
definitely the 1984 seems to be working,
but for all of the other democratic or whatever countries,
you go straight Brave New World and you keep people
just trying to buy their new truck and they’re happy.
Right in circus, like I said.
For me, I gave it a 375.
I thought it was good, for sure.
I agree with you.
I would encourage many young people to read it–
or just watch the movie.
But to read it just to get some ideas.
Also, if you haven’t gone down the whole dystopian thing
like we have, it’s not entertaining like Katniss Everdeen
kind of thing that book, but it’s what set the stage,
like you said.
So yeah, 375.
It’s for everyone.
I think everyone should read it.
All right, that was 1984 Keith.
What do we have coming up next?
Well, we are going to finish the Joe Abercombe series,
the first law series I believe it’s called.
Those are our books.
Yeah, first law trilogy, it’s before they were hanged.
And then last argument of kings.
What about before they were hanged coming up next?
And then we’ll finish it out with the last argument
of kings.
Yeah, we’re doing a trilogy.
It’s happening again.
So and we’re back to Sword and Sandals, or Sword and Sorcery,
whatever they call it, back in the wheelhouse.
Goody, yeah.
All right, we’ll catch you for that.
Bye now.
Bye now.

The Buddies blast off for an emergency pod to discuss the 2026 film adaptation of Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary,” starring Ryan Gosling as the loneliest, most attractive genius in space. The Buddies had read the book way back on episode 23, so this was a trip down memory lane. Much of their discussion centered around Gosling’s character wardrobe choices, his likeability, and if him being unable to get a date is the most unrealistic part of a movie about alien rock spiders and sentient microbes eating the sun. They also got to their normal cadence of bringing up references to Austin Powers’ unfreezing sequence, contemplating whether this is all a Total Recall scenario, and referencing a number other movie comparisons. So, ‘fist my bump,’ and join us for a podcast that promises to be as enjoyable as the movie (maybe).

Intro (0:00-1:50)

Stock Up/Down (1:51-28:49)

Favorite Scene (28:50-32:44)

Love/Hate (32:45-35:45)

Lingering Questions (35:46-39:10)

Conclusion (39:11-41:14) 

NEXT BOOK: 1984 by George Orwell 

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy book club.
I’m Dylan here with one of three men
I want to watch me sleep.
Keith, what’s up buddy?
Who the other two?
Can’t talk about that here.
Oh, okay, okay.
Well here’s the buddy book club
where we’re working on some best sellers
and this or box office bangers,
this week we’ll be discussing
2026’s Project Hail Mary the movie
starring Ryan Gosling two directors,
Phil Lord, Christopher Miller.
We, it’s an emergency pod.
Sound the alarm, it’s an emergency pod.
We had done Project Hail Mary.
If you had a guess what episode number it was.
I would say, how many have we done like 130?
I would say it was like 50.
All right, 23.
I thought we did it. – 23?
Yeah, I thought we did it at episode like 95.
I was like, oh shit, I didn’t realize
we read it that long ago.
Yeah, holy smokes, that’s an OG app.
So we’ve done Project Hail Mary from Andy Weir,
we did the Martian, we did Artemis,
terrible, do not read that book.
My God was that bad.
And we like Andy Weir.
I was never about the moon trips called Artemis,
after the book.
Oh, so as I am, someone said Artemis
and I was like, that stupid book, they were like,
nope, people are going to the moon, you idiot.
Space missions?
Yeah, that’s a disaster.
That’s bad.
Yeah, I was very confused, but whatever.
I didn’t even finish my spell.
If you’d like to recommend a book or movie for us to read
or watch, you can visit our website by thebook.com
or sign to our DMs on X or Instagram,
by the book of podcasts.
Let’s do this wherever you’re podcast.
Please download, subscribe, five star reviews.
We just figured we wanted to pull up and do a quick app
considering we had read the book and the movie came out.
We’ll stick with our standard format,
but I think we’ll probably just end up chatting about it.
Yeah, stuck up, what are you up?
Stock up, Ryan Gosling.
I mean, similar to the Martian, this movie was gunner
I heavily on one actor, along with one alien,
but I mean, Gosling delivered.
I gotta give him his props here.
I mean, the most unbelievable part of this movie
is that Ryan Gosling’s character is lonely
and doesn’t have a friends or doesn’t have girls
banging down his door to get to talk to him.
I mean, the dude’s smart, he’s funny, he’s well-spoken,
he’s incredibly attract.
I mean, he’s good looking guy.
I didn’t have dreams about him after.
He’s doing these cool experiments left and right.
Even when it’s revealed, he’s like a coward quote unquote,
which I thought in the book was white words.
The book was just like, this guy is a terrible person.
And the movie is like, I kinda understand it.
You know, it’s more of a self-confidence thing
and like, he’s like, I’m not the hero in the story,
I can’t do this.
And that’s why he’s like quote unquote the coward,
but you feel bad for him there.
You’re not like, what a pussy.
In the book, you’re like, this guy’s kind of the worst
when he like turns it down because he’s basal like
they’re only hoping you’re like, oh man,
this guy’s not really helping out the team.
And this and the movie, even then I’m like,
I kind of side with him.
So great job by him.
Not exactly the same character I would say is the book
and that’s probably a good thing.
Yeah, in the movie, and honestly,
I don’t remember so much of the book.
Some of it came back to me as I was watching the movie,
obviously, but I read my notes from the book.
Good for you, Good for you.
The movie portrays him as a very relatable hero.
He’s what, I mean, he’s obviously much different
than all of us, but in the mindset of if someone said,
hey, you have to go on this space mission
to save the world, you’re only hope instead
of the typical Star Wars saga or whatnot.
I’d be like, I gotta take a liraza pam
or something, if I’m gonna get on a flight
for more than an hour, there is no way
I’m getting on that spaceship.
I don’t care who’s gonna die.
That’s my mindset.
So I could relate to that.
Well, the combo thing I wouldn’t mind actually,
you’re just like, hey, we’re gonna put you in a coma
so you don’t have to lead onto a liftoff,
do any of that stuff and all of a sudden you’re only in space?
All right, that’s better than the alternative.
So yeah, I’ll take that.
Yeah, I guess so, but he was definitely relatable
as the hero and I liked him a lot in this movie.
I mean, my first stock up was, was dumb and dumber
because another great film, maybe the best comedy
of all time. – Yeah, it was a good stock up.
Because it’s a cardigan, thanks for noticing
if you remember that scene.
(laughing)
That was my stock up.
you could literally say any line in that movie
and then you, I would know it, you know?
I hope so.
But I said something from dumb and dumber
on a call the other day and it was crickets.
That’s rough.
What was the age range?
The age range was 50 to 22.
So it was really, I got everyone in there.
I could get if the 22 year old wasn’t on board,
but the 50 year old and it was crickets.
So I was like, dumb and dumb, and they were like,
oh, okay, cool.
Haven’t seen it.
I got some haven’t seen it, which was shocking.
And then– – This company is going down
and out fast.
You told me that then?
Been writing Harry Potter either?
Like, what do we do in here?
Yeah, yeah. What’s going on?
I also got some in Keith fashion.
I got some, oh, I didn’t care for it, which was shocking.
You say that I didn’t care for it when it makes sense.
You don’t say it for dumb and dumb or what are we doing here?
Yeah, but you say it for like the godfather, which is
yeah.
Shaveful.
but the cardigan thing, did you notice the cardigan
he was wearing throughout the film?
No, maybe I’ll take a look at the picture.
It’s like a sweater or whatever, it’s probably,
I don’t even think it’s a cardigan, maybe it is a cardigan.
I don’t know, but it was awesome.
I just loved it, it was great wardrobe piece.
I think it fit him quite nicely.
Overall, the Gosling’s look in this movie,
maybe his best, the hair, Gosling hair, top notch,
that is his best.
But I was just trying to–
maybe a Gosling, suck that, I was trying to think about
what his hottest movie was, like what movie
does he look the hottest?
And obviously, you know, too much their own pizzone.
So I can understand that someone would have different feelings,
but I was thinking drive is gotta be up there,
you know, it’s got the good vibe for drive.
Some people might like a little bit more rugged
place beyond the Pines type look for Gosling,
a little couple face tattoos, why not?
Cradle robbers potentially remember the Titans.
Epstein left people with like that one, Yeah, go ahead.
But yeah, that’s, I mean, that was really my top three,
but this was number one for me.
Oh, okay.
Well, I do like how they’re like, look how silly he is,
his glasses are slightly askew.
Yeah, this guy’s like a 10 out of 10,
you know, I don’t think you can really,
you can look like that.
Yeah, we do.
Yeah, it’s like, not another teen movie or whatever it was.
The artsy girl, she’s ugly,
is anyone here and she says glasses on?
Well, that’s exactly,
Comes from shoes all that, but yeah, I
Oh Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
It’s the same show, they make it fun of it.
They make it fun of shoes All that.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
And you can look it up, Project Hill Mary,
2020, Sig Ryan, Gosling Wolf Cartigan, $98 on Paragon Jackets.
Done, done, 98 bucks.
Yeah, that’s, that’s given it away.
Yeah, honestly, All of the clothes that he wears
in this movie were great.
He’s got tons of super fun t-shirts on,
and you know, the movie was going so fast,
and I wasn’t like, I was saying they’re taking notes
or anything like that,
’cause that’d be wild.
I was just trying to enjoy myself
for the first time seeing a movie in three years.
But he had like, science pun type shirts,
and he was basically kidnapped and put on this,
and put on this spaceship,
but he’s got all these clothes that fit him.
So, you know, I assume they’re his clothes.
That’s what I was wondering too,
were they just like packed up all this stuff
and stuff in that?
And so, yeah, but at the same time,
you always hear with these space missions
that weight is like super important,
people can bring one thing from home.
So, how many shirts is he allowed?
And then you’re the guy who is the guy who is his buddy,
throughout the movie, who is the past,
the past, yeah, Carl, who’s the pastry chef from–
Oh, the bear?
the bear.
Yeah, he’s the pastry chef from the bear.
Loved him in the bear,
I thought he was great in this movie, for sure.
Like, he killed that role, whatever,
it was obviously not a big role, but he killed it.
So, it’s like, Carl’s going in and packing his stuff
and just being like, yeah, that’s, you know,
I’m going to give you all of your punny shirts,
but they were great.
So– – He got ’em, man.
Yeah, I liked it.
Costing department, stock up there, I guess, as well,
’cause they did a good job.
What else you got for stock up?
Carrie, okay, Stock up.
In the book, we get Ava, who’s the character
that I remember thinking was my favorite character,
because she was so no nonsense.
It was to the point that it was funny, the computer.
She was like, that doesn’t compute.
I thought she would talk in the book and whatnot.
Yeah, she was kind of like a science version
of Irene Kennedy from our mid-wrap series, I felt like.
Yeah, although Irene, I feel like
I was sort of reading more of the books,
where like, oh, she’s kind of actually,
kind of gets a little weird at some of those books,
but yeah, I agree.
She’s down to business, you know,
where I wear a short hair, a trope there.
(laughing)
And if a new girl has like short hair,
or is like, hair in a ponytail, she’s trying to be business,
like, that’s like what Hollywood does, you know?
It’s kind of like putting glasses of skew on someone,
like, look at that fucking nerd.
Well, that’s what they did in the movie,
none of the two movies.
They just took her glasses off and took her ponytail out,
and they were like, there we go.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
Look at how high you are.
Exactly.
But at one point in the book, she tells her island,
I like you, I just don’t respect you,
which I thought it was hilarious.
Gonna use that line for some people?
(laughing)
I mean, that’s the meanest thing you could possibly say
about anyone.
That’s just like, you’re a cute person,
but you’re just like an awful, you know,
human being, you’re worth it.
Yeah, there’s a few people
like I think about saying that too.
Oh, wow.
But, you know, that’s her kind of character in the book,
but you gave her one song in this movie here,
the Harry Styles song, which I didn’t realize
was Harry Styles, pretty good song.
Great.
I didn’t know what Harry Styles is.
He crushed it.
Yeah, you really humanize her really quickly,
and she becomes all of a sudden likeable,
and oh, she just has to be this way
because she’s forcing this position,
but really, it’s kind of like the Tom Hanks
and Sam and probably Ryan, he’s like,
I’m a schoolteacher back at home.
And, but like, you think he’s a hard ass,
and he’s doing all these things,
none of the troops want,
but he’s like, no, I don’t wanna do this,
but I have to.
It’s almost like, Ryan also has a little bit
of a rough interest there too,
which is kind of interesting.
Are you, do you thought so?
the karaoke part was a little bit too long.
I was like my one point,
and I was like, there was like a three minute close-up
of her face singing, and then his face singing,
and I was like, I mean, there’s some b-roll here
about anything else other than this,
like you can keep singing and have other things going on.
Like, I don’t want to just see their faces for three minutes.
I also would have said,
it’s the end of the World Varianne would’ve been a good
appropriate song for her to sing also,
but she, she went for something a little bit less morose.
Yeah, it might have gone a little too long.
We watched Mad Men recently, we’d never seen it,
and there’s a, I guess, I don’t know,
I must be famous, scene,
out of that old series where his dawn draper’s wife
sings him karaoke or something at her birthday,
and it’s so uncomfortable.
It’s like this scene has to end.
It’s so uncomfortable.
But yeah, I didn’t feel like there was necessarily
a love interest.
I think she liked how human he was,
just in all of the things that she couldn’t express
that she was probably feeling he was allowed to,
and she was kind of forced into,
and maybe it’s part of her personality too,
but of an ends justify the means kind of mindset,
where I don’t care if I’m gonna kidnap you
and throw you on the ship,
someone’s gotta go save the world.
You’re the only person that can do it.
They did kind of cut some of the detail
from the book around that from what I remember,
where was, this whole coma thing that they put them into,
was way more dangerous than they let on in the movie,
and you had to have a certain gene,
moniker or something to be able to do it,
and he happened to have that gene.
So there really wasn’t anyone else.
It wasn’t necessarily like,
Oh, well, where about to launch tomorrow?
I knew the only person on this base,
and you know the whole flight plan,
which it makes sense.
I’m totally fine.
I thought in general,
book to movie from what I remember of the book
was well done.
Yes, tons of stuff made the cutting room floor.
If I had any sort of issue with it,
it would have, and like maybe it’s a hate,
that well, it was just burned,
but it would be, there was way more science stuff
in the book that they flattened into the movie,
which of course they’re gonna have to do,
but I think some of it got lost in translation
or just ended up getting one line
that was much more complicated,
and maybe it just, it didn’t translate well,
or it was like, “Wait, how does that work?
How did you do that?
The whole thing, what are we talking about here?
I mean, I saw it with the wife,
and she agreed that some of the reasoning behind
what they were doing, maybe wasn’t super clear
where in the book it was extremely clear
because they spent, you know, it’s anti-weir,
so he went deep into the actual science stuff.
So…
I thought they did a pretty good job of,
I mean, realistically all you need to know
is Astrophage is bad and it’s hurting the sun.
Like, you don’t need to give me 50 pages
on what Astrophage is, chemical break-up is,
and how it reacts to, I’m like, I don’t give a,
you know, like, that doesn’t matter to me,
I can see the argument being like,
well, then you miss kind of the core component of the book,
but at the same time, the point of the movie is like,
the action stuff and everything that’s going on,
I don’t even care about it,
it’s really the relationship between him and Rocky,
how communication is built between two people
that don’t know to communicate,
how you solve problems,
like, that’s the core of the movie in my mind.
Does that ever miss in a movie
when it’s two people that don’t know how to communicate,
that are trying to figure it out one way or another?
I feel like that is always something I’m,
I’m there for, you know, it’s always a scene
that I’m excited to see.
It could be something as simple as the 13th Warrior
within Tony O’Vendera’s extremely underrated movie,
in my opinion, where they’re just sitting around a fire
and he doesn’t speak Arabic or whatever.
He speaks Arabic, he doesn’t speak whatever Viking language
they’re talking and slowly through people talking,
the language transitions into English.
So it’s like him learning over time
is just kind of broken down to one quick second,
which I like, but this, and once again, in the book,
it’s a lot more, but I think they did a really good job
with them learning each other’s language.
The one part that I didn’t really get is
when Ryan Gosling was talking,
it never really turned into a Ritian,
I think that’s the name of the people,
it never turned into a Ritian language.
You know, it was never like, (imitates a Ritian)
like when Rocky talked, it would come in as English,
so we would hear it, but then when Ryan Gosling talked,
we never heard the sound go to Rocky
so that he could understand it.
Oh, I see, yeah, I thought maybe that Rocky
just was quicker or smarter
and learning languages.
Maybe in the book, like, be about the things,
but I think that’s gonna be redundant.
And it makes a lot of sense that we don’t need that.
I’m not necessarily hating on it.
I don’t need every time Ryan Gosling talks for it to be like,
Mahoo, what, my dude?
Also like the last scene you see,
he doesn’t have the program,
I just beeping and he understands what they’re saying
and then he’s speaking back to Rocky
and Rocky understands what he’s saying.
It’s probably because he couldn’t speak in beeps.
He probably needed certain vocal chords in order to do that.
genre fluidity, I think is a Stock up here.
Like, you said, what you were interested in the story
was the relationship between Grace,
that’s his name, yet, Riley and Grace, and Rocky.
That’s 100% accurate.
It’s sold as a sci-fi movie
and people are somehow kind of comparing it to interstellar
or arrival, which it’s not, it’s not those movies.
I can see how you’re drawing those lines,
but it’s really, this is a buddy comedy.
It just happens to be in space.
yeah.
The whole plot is kind of doesn’t matter,
’cause the only, well not the only part,
but the most interesting part was just the relationship
between the two of them and I think they nailed it.
Not only do you feel their affection for each other,
but you care about Rocky.
You know, when he dies, I don’t know,
like three times, you think he’s gonna die,
but when he’s in his thing and he’s like, you know,
I’ll watch your sleep just remember to wake up
or whatever, it was like, oh my god, it got me.
It got, you know, it’s like shit,
it’s someone blowing smoke in my eye
or what’s going on over here, ’cause I’m feeling something.
So yeah, I just thought in terms of like a genre,
it’s funny that this is, I mean,
it is obviously a sci-fi movie,
but it really, the core is a buddy comedy comedy.
Yeah, I agree.
a buddy comedy comedy.
Agreed.
I got actually one more too, actually.
I was gonna have a talk down.
18-T girl, stock up?
Milana, Alec, Assander, Rov, Ben-Tub, Ben-Tub.
Milana, Ben-Tub.
right accent.
Ben-Tub, like Are the movie, need more of her.
That’s it, that’s the whole stock.
Buy it, put her in every movie.
It’s funny because my stock up would have been
having a good agent because whoever her agent was,
props to them for getting her this role,
which was really a nothing part.
I think she had two lines in the whole movie.
Both in Russian accent, which we love, yeah.
is that what it was?
I was so unclear at what accent she was trying
that when she opened her mouth, I was gone from the movie,
completely transported out from the thrill ride I was on.
I was like, what?
there Are two lines, or like, I am the scientist
and then the second line was,
we’re gonna kill each other when we got there.
We’re gonna commit suicide when we’re up there.
That was like the two lines, yeah.
Yeah, I like how you were a first one.
I got it, like an Irish accent.
But.
I was off.
but Yeah, it was, it seemed like it was totally unnecessary
to have her do the accent.
Oh, there you are.
There was like Kevin Costner and Robin Hood,
which is one of my favorite movies,
but it was as bad as the accent that he was trying
for on an offender.
Terrible.
He’s probably Russian, her name is Russian,
so.
it was a terrible accent.
You use beckostanian, I don’t know where that is.
Yeah, I know her from love, the HBO,
or excuse me, the Netflix show.
She was, what’s his name?
Gus’ first girlfriend.
So she was good, she was good in that.
Now she made tons of money in those AT and T commercials,
bustin’ out of blouses, but yeah,
I thought it was just a, it was a nothing part
that she managed to not do very well, in my opinion.
Oh, that’s, I disagree, wholeheartedly.
You can have your thoughts, that’s the best part about it.
What about, what about stockdowns?
Stuck down the metric system?
So in this movie, huge explosion caused by someone
likely a European scientist, you can’t trust them,
measuring out one milligram of astrophage
instead of one nanogram.
And that caused like the big eruption,
killed all the scientists that were supposed to go.
I mean, the metric system everyone says is so great
because it uses units based out of 100
and it’s easy to understand and all that stuff.
And people then shit on your art system,
what’s our system called?
Uh, in parallel, in parallel?
Yeah, because it’s arbitrary numbers
made up of inches and Fahrenheit and pounds
and all these things that don’t make any sense.
But I’ll tell you what, demon,
no one would confuse one ounce with one pound
or one pound with one stone or a ton.
Makers dozen, remember the fuck we use our weights?
Because none of them make any sense.
So that’s why you stick with random weight measurements
because you’re not gonna move the decimal point one place
and fuck up the whole thing.
It’s an interesting point, ours is so confusing
that you have to go back and double check?
Yeah, Exactly.
It’s like, wait, do they say dozen or bakers dozen?
So you have to go double check
where the metric system is so simple
that it allows for more errors.
that is a hot take, that is a hot take, but I…
It’s like the keyboard, you know how they make the keyboard?
So it’s like…
like, the quarterly system?
like the quarterly system?
so They made the keyboard
so you had to slow down your typing
because the typewriter, when it was first created,
you couldn’t type fast
so they needed to slow people down.
So that’s why all the letters are all weird.
That’s why they’re, wait,
like a keyboard on a computer?
Yes, the letters Are Space in a way
that would slow you down typing.
So that’s why you’ll see people like change the letters
’cause they’re like a slower version
because typewriter is you, jam if you type too quickly.
Wait, I thought They were…
I could be a complete mechanism also.
Yeah, I thought the, I thought the Quarity system
or whatever was basically to put your fingers
in a place to use the most common,
like where the most common letters are,
are all around your fingers.
But I mean, now looking at it, it’s right in front of me,
like J is right there.
I’m, you know, I never, never write in J.
J is never on that list.
Oh, All right.
But I don’t know.
but that inner keyboard letter is following
the Quarity layout designed by, in the 1870s,
by Christopher Stolls to prevent mechanical type
writers’ arms from jamming
by scattering frequently used letter pairs.
So yeah, it would slow people down.
If someone told me, like in an interview,
that they were like, oh yeah,
I rearranged the letters on my computer so I could type faster,
I’d just hire them.
Didn’t even matter if they knew what the job was
or anything, I’d be like, yeah, you’re hired.
Well, wait, the only problem with that is,
if you have to like use someone else’s computer
for the day, you’re completely fine.
When is that ever happened?
It’s kind of like how I at home use a squatty potty,
and then when I don’t have it on the road,
I’m fucked, you’re consummated for days, kid.
Think about it, that’s exactly perfect analogy, my little.
You’re like at a Airbnb and you’re grabbing
every John Grisham book in the living room,
being like taking it into the bathroom,
they’re like, oh, you’re gonna do a lot of reading.
It’s like, no, no, I’m just building my own squatty potty
’cause I try not to get hemorrhoids here.
Those people are rearranging,
they’re taking the keyboard letters out and moving them around.
So yeah.
Good to know, I’m learning new things here.
That’s great.
My first stock down is ripping off Austin Powers,
stock down.
Did you notice the first, I think it was the first line
of the movie, did you notice what Rangosling said
when he was coming out of his coma?
Something to do with freezing.
Pretty much, he said, where am I?
Can’t control the volume of my voice.
No, he said, where am I?
And I wanted to like get up and stand up and go,
you’re the Ministry of Defense.
(laughs)
But yeah, I thought it was a, I mean, he was waking up
from a coma, which was really just like Austin Powers coming
out of his unfreezing process.
And I thought it was a direct steal
from our friend, Mike Myers,
and I didn’t appreciate it.
So yeah.
Oh, okay.
Well, maybe it was a homage as the French Canadians
like to say.
Well, I would have liked to think that,
but then we really needed a P sequence right out.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
After when it’s going around.
I didn’t care about seeing all the dead bodies
and figuring out that he’s in a space station
and dragging his like tubes and stuff around with him.
But they did really set the tone there, which I appreciated
with the robot, like the medical robot or whatever it is.
That’s chasing him around the whole time.
I thought that was, it was good, good fun
with them being like, you have to stay on the table
and he just like rolls off like,
oh, it was, it set the tone for what we were in for.
We’re in for a thrill ride that’s got to have
some good laughs to it.
So yeah, I appreciate it.
When you went to, did you go, you went with the wife there,
the S-G-F?
Were there laughs in the theater?
Yeah, I think there’s a few chuckles.
I don’t think there was a parlorious,
and I don’t think that the theater was also like not,
you know, it was half full,
most theaters are these days.
Yeah, was there clapping at the end of the movie?
I can’t remember.
I think there’s a few claps, how about you?
a lot of laughs actually.
I was kind of, I was kind of surprised.
There’s one woman, a bottle of left woman,
whoever you were, she thought it was hilarious.
Yeah, that’s when you notice a laughs,
is when one person is just overlapping and you’re like,
I guess this is funny,
or this person is just annoying, you’re shit.
I guess so, I typically, a cynic or that kind of person,
I was like, I want to be that person
who’s just sitting there having the time of their life
in this packed theater.
Like I’d be a little, even if I did chuckle at something,
I couldn’t laugh like that.
I’d be like, oh, everyone’s hearing me laugh.
I can’t be that person, but she was just having a good time.
So, but yeah, I was surprised at the amount of laughs.
Obviously I was waiting for the fist my bump,
you know, as I read it in the book.
I was waiting for it, and when it came,
oh, it came, people, people really liked that.
I was a little bit disappointed
when I think it was such an easy layup
when he finally recovers either one or two points
when he finally recovers or when he comes back for him,
Rocky, he comes back after to not say,
fist my bump back.
Well, I didn’t Ryan Gosling not say that to him,
you know, I mean, like that was such an easy layup.
I was waiting for it to the full circle,
but it didn’t come.
Mmhmm, yeah, I’ve set up a little bit.
I think the medic came, Yeah, got it.
Any other stock dance for you?
the last one is just, book was better than the movie folks.
Stock down, I mean, half the reason I read books is so I can say
that it had been looked down on the peasants
that don’t read the books that I had read.
Then I watched it, and I said,
oh, you watched the movie instead of reading first?
That was cute.
I know all the background of this book,
but I think similar to the Martian movie was better
than the book, and I thought this movie was better
than the book also, so I will say, unfortunately,
I can’t use it excuse me,
I’ll also say it to people,
but I don’t believe the book for a heart.
We’re gonna have to come here and fight Caroline
’cause as I was about to get on the pod,
she was like, I really wish I read the book
’cause I would’ve understood the movie more.
Yeah, you’d tell us down below.
You didn’t read the book for you, didn’t you?
Like, come on.
So you do still do that, but then once I read it,
you’re like, yeah, I wouldn’t have read it.
It is funny how, maybe it comes off as being a dick,
but I’m generally just interested.
Is any time someone’s like, oh, I saw that movie,
oh, did you read the book?
Because I really just wanna know,
oh, did you read the book too, but really,
I’m sure they’re thinking, fuck this guy.
(laughing)
Yeah, No, yeah.
Yeah, my last stock down, and it’s a low one.
It’s a low stock down is the runtime.
Two hours and 32 minutes, it just was a little bit long
for me, a little bit long.
And I say that because I also wasn’t sure
how they were gonna end it.
I remembered as the movie was going,
I kinda remembered how the book ended.
And I thought they might end it when he and Rocky split up.
‘Cause it didn’t seem like there was that much time left,
but then I realized it was a two hour and 32 minute movie.
So, ’cause I was like, oh, kind of everything’s good here.
They could just go back and it could be the Hollywood story,
but then they squeezed in him going back to save Rocky.
And then once again, I was like, oh,
it could just end here and leave the viewer
trying to come up in their own mind
as to whether Ryan Gosling ever made it back
or what happened next.
But they went the full way with him going to
Erid or whatever, Eridini, Erid and teaching the kids
and stuff, which I liked all that stuff
from the book.
I just thought it wasn’t even necessarily like it was paste,
like it was dragging, it was just a long movie.
And I like movies to be two hours, you know?
That’s just how I like it.
Not that, unless it’s like Lord of the Rings,
then it’s give me six.
you know?
you Can be extended version of it.
But, you know, we went to see a 730 movie
and then we got home at like 1030.
It was like, Jesus Christ.
Did you find the runtime to be okay for you?
Yeah, it was fine.
I think there’s definitely good been parts
that were cut up a little bit or slowed down.
I thought the, I actually thought the action sequence,
as I think I mentioned it already.
I’ve kind of already seen every possible space
in action, it’s like so like when he’s outside the ship
struggling, yeah, it’s cool,
but I’ve seen every version of this already.
It didn’t really entice me that much.
So like that stuff I thought was almost too long.
Oh, interesting.
I didn’t necessarily think that stuff was too long.
What I thought was too short, for sure,
were the wide shot space scenes.
(dramatic music)
So we’re getting to like, the favorite scene.
Do you ever favorite scene?
I mean, either one, him coming back for Rocky
or him, Rocky recovering both of those, I think that,
’cause yeah, the whole movie is like a relationship part.
And that was where like when, you know,
a little tear coming to the eye,
a little bit, type, stuff there.
It did remind me, and I had this in my love,
it really reminded me of ET a little bit.
Definitely.
I was in ET and forever, but like, it had that same vibe
where the problem with like,
a movie like Transformers is,
I don’t give a shit at all about the Transformers.
They’re not humanizing any way.
They’re just fucking robots at fight.
Like, it doesn’t matter to me, but this is like a real rock.
That’s come to life.
That’s a real part, you know, the same thing with ET.
It’s a real alien that has feelings.
It is a real person.
So you start to like that connection relationship
and that’s kind of where those like,
peaks and valleys occur.
And that’s where it solidifies that.
So that was my favorite scenes.
Yeah, Well, yeah.
Well, before I get into my favorite scene,
I wanna burn a love here,
’cause it ties to what you were saying.
The mix of what they did with CGI and practical effects here,
’cause obviously a lot of the space stuff,
I mean, it’s all CGI.
It’s not like they went to Petrovier or something like that.
But with Rocky, they went old school and made him a puppet,
which was awesome.
I thought it tied into his humanization,
the fact that he was tangible
and it could have been so easily done with CGI,
but to make him a puppet and like seem so real,
it made him more real.
So I like how so easy now to just like put everything in CGI
and I saw this terrible thing on Reddit where,
I don’t know, I actually have mixed feelings about it,
but someone made the first scene
of a Brandon Sanderson book.
I think like the Way of Kings or something like that.
They made it in some AI engine
with some friggin’ Envita chip or whatever.
I don’t even know, some crazy stuff.
so you see like the trailers and things
are coming out for stuff, it’s crazy.
Yeah, but they made the first scene of this movie in like a day,
just put it in this AI machine and it came out
and it looked awesome, which scared the shit out of me
because I was like, oh, is this the future in one sense?
It’s great because there’s so much IP out there
that might be somewhat niche, that someone would be like,
oh, you know, I don’t know who Brandon Sanderson is,
but there’s so many fanboys out there
who would love to see that.
So maybe we’ll just get anything we want.
We can now see on the big screen
or at least on our, you know, home screens,
but it also just made me feel really sad
for people that are actually like creators and artists
and stuff like that because puppets like Rocky
might just be the way that passed, unfortunately,
because it looked so good.
I thought it really played so well to the characters.
So my favorite scene was the Petrova light sequence
on Adrian scene when he’s there collecting.
Okay, so like the action sequences,
Yeah, but it not necessarily when They were fishing.
I liked the fishing thing too.
I thought that was cool, but just,
and I don’t even see this in IMAX or anything,
I’m sure would have been stunning in IMAX,
but just the visuals of that planet,
which was super cool looking,
and then when they open up the shades or whatever
and all the Petrova material or whatever it is,
starts flying in, I just thought it was super cool.
And I was not under any sort of an ebriation outside
of the one IPA I had and I still thought it was a bit trippy.
I really, really liked the,
I mean, it helps that the music I thought was pretty good
throughout too, especially in that scene,
but you know, you called the Harry style song out.
Two of us, you know, one of my favorite Beatles songs
is in this, yeah, I just thought between the,
the soundtrack of like real music
and also like whatever they created,
I thought was pretty funny.
It almost kind of reminded me like a little Trent Reznery,
but yeah, I dug it.
Love hates, I know we probably talked about a lot of them,
but we can kind of go put them into one,
is there anything that you missed on your love
or hate situation?
I mean, I think I was a little bit opposite to you.
I thought that they took really, really complex
and complicated ideas, and within that one scene
of him teaching, were they able to explain what was going on
in like three minutes?
I was like, that’s pretty impressive for,
you’re literally introducing a new biology,
astrophage, how it’s impacting the sun,
how you have to go to another planet in order to solve,
like all those things were just like introduced really quickly
and so somehow it’s like, oh, it’s pretty seamless,
makes sense, so I thought I was pretty impressed.
Maybe I’m not gonna explain myself right?
I thought that stuff was done really well.
More of the day-to-day science stuff that he’s doing,
that him and Rocky were doing together,
whether that be when his thing explodes
’cause they’re all the astrophages leaking out.
I feel like in the book, there was a ton more into that
and also when they’re breeding the astrophage on the ships
or they’re breeding the other things that eat the astrophage.
I feel like there’s just like a lot of that going on
that he and Rocky were doing together
that maybe wasn’t fully covered,
but I do think, and on the whole, just to kind of,
I mean, it was already two hours and 30 minutes
so I don’t need more explanation of it.
I think it was well done.
It just didn’t have those details, but that’s to be expected
because it’s a book going into a movie, so I was fine with it.
I also love just tying back into the rock thing
is they added Carl because they needed a Rocky on Earth
to, you needed a buddy.
Yeah, sure.
She founds things out of ’cause otherwise,
they’re just, you know, they’re like, yeah, we need this guy.
And that was a big difference of putting in the book
of the movie too is in the book,
it’s almost a surprise when Rocky comes
because you just think he’s off on his own
and you think it’s similar to the Martian
where you’re just like, well, just another book about guy
off on his own and then the in-aliant comes, you’re like,
what the hell?
I did not know this book was about that.
So it’s like halfway into the book that that occurs.
Whereas here, it’s like, yeah, it’s a buddy, buddy,
book with an alien, you know?
So our buddy, buddy movie with an alien, so yeah.
Yeah, ’cause in the book he was doing a bunch of stuff
himself before Rocky.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
And you could tell he was like lonely,
it was pretty, but it was almost like savior, you know,
coming, so.
Yeah, okay.
I don’t think I had any other hates.
Caroline enjoyed, she, I think her stock up here
was love languages.
There’s a lot in that physical contact.
There’s a lot of physical contacts between Ryan Gosling
and Rocky granted it was like through some glass
or whatever, but a lot of hugging, you know?
She liked the hugs.
She liked the alien and people hugs.
some dance moves showing off dance moves as well?
Yeah, some dance moves were had,
some, I liked that part, that was great.
And the goodbye was tough.
The first goodbye before they actually remet, you know?
It’s like, God, like losing your best friend.
And also like the person that saved you, you know?
They were on like, they were basically on a life vessel
together, like a life raft.
And.
(dramatic music)
I had two questions for you, but it wasn’t enough.
Yeah, sure, yeah, I’d love to.
the first question was, is there any chance
that this guy that, I mean, we’re seeing a guy that thinks
he’s not funny and not great, not smart?
Is there any chance that this is like a total recall thing
where he actually is all those things?
He’s just a middle school teacher and he like takes some pill
and now he’s like saving the world
and he’s the, he’s Ryan Gosling and he’s funny
and he’s best looking at all these things?
Mm.
you think of the end that you should just
had him wake up in his bed and just be like,
Oh, that was just, you know?
Well, it’s like, I was like fight club thick as like, you know,
if you were trying to think of the Brad Pitt version
of a middle school teacher would be, it’s this guy, right?
Like, it’s literally producing the funniest, smartest,
best person ever, that’s a middle school teacher.
Like, it doesn’t make any sense, right?
Yeah, he was just held on to All this pain
for being rejected from his one idea that, yeah.
It’s also, it doesn’t sound like, like,
who, his idea was that you don’t need carbon or oxygen,
whatever the case was, to make a life form.
And yeah, it’s a, it’s a far out idea,
but that’s the point, right?
It’s kind of ridiculous that who’d be ostracized
for that considering there’s people in this
science community that think we’re on a simulation,
isn’t that a little bit more unrealistic?
Yeah, we’re not even in, we’re not real, nothing’s real,
it’s all a program game.
It’s like, “Yo, that’s a good point.”
We’ve got quantum physics where matter just appears
and disappears.
It’s like, yeah, so this guy’s thinking,
isn’t that also what science fiction is all about?
And I know it’s fiction and not science,
but you have to have some of that to then get to the science
is like to have outside the box ideas,
it’s not like the laugh this guy out of his, out of his profession
and make him a middle school teacher
and then he’s just like hurt for the rest of his life
and can’t form relationships.
You know?
Yeah, yeah.
Seems a little bit strange.
That’s all right, that’s why I was like,
oh no, something’s going on here.
But and then the second one was, so in the movie,
they say that he could actually,
they fueled up his ship and he could actually go back.
Would you go back?
Like I don’t know, I think the flight back
would be like 10 years by yourself.
so I was confused.
They had his ship ready to go.
Did he go back or did he not go back?
He was just still deciding that,
but you could tell he’s happy with teaching the kids.
My assumption would be he wouldn’t,
but in the book he stuck there,
so it’s not like really an option.
Yeah, I don’t know.
I mean, if we just take the book out of it,
I think he found something on Ered or whatever the place is
that he didn’t have back home.
You know, he didn’t have, he clearly didn’t have anyone
that he was missing necessarily.
He’s got property too.
I mean, you can’t find out about these days.
That’s too expensive.
so Yeah, and the kids obviously love the ship out of them.
He, you know, so that itch that he had back home
was being scratched here.
So yeah, maybe not.
I mean, I don’t know what kind of relations he’s having
or whatnot, but, you know,
(laughing)
pretty hard to, you know, do a rock, but.
Between a rock and a hard place,
so they know what I mean, guys.
(laughing)
So yeah, with that, we can end the pot.
(laughing)
Actually, the one thing I did have in,
this is more of a Easter egg or something,
but when they were going through the rocky voices,
the guy who did the audio book, which is great.
He was really good.
He was one of the voices that they went through
that they were like, nah, I don’t think so.
(dramatic music)
All right, Keith, out of five, out of five,
what are you giving this one?
Yeah, I think this is a rare one
where the more I thought about the more I liked it,
so usually it’s the opposite.
I don’t think I’m gonna give it a 4.33 out of five,
so not the 4.5 range, I think that’s a elite company,
but definitely better than a 4.25, so in between.
Four and one third.
yeah.
Well, it’s always tough math,
because I usually do things out of four
on my own personal movie things,
but we have to go to five here.
So the wife gave it a three, five, to three, seven, five,
and I kind of started lower,
but I think I’m gonna go up to a similar range,
so I think I would go, as far as I have to talking about it,
I think I would go three, five, three, seven, five,
and the thing that defined that–
out of five?
out of five, yeah.
And I think I defined that for me,
which I liked it for sure, that means it’s good,
that means it’s good for me.
The thing that bumped it up a little bit
was kind of like the would you watch this again,
and the answer is yes, you know?
If it came out on streaming services,
I’d be like, hey, you wanna watch
that Project Hill Mary again?
‘Cause I missed these guys.
They were fun together, I missed them.
They had great, great relationship.
I also, I feel like I watch a lot of movies
that are just so average that this actually was different.
It didn’t insist upon itself.
It wasn’t a superhero movie,
even though it kind of times it was a little bit, so.
Yeah, I think you gotta almost boost it up because of that.
Okay, well, Project Hill Mary,
we’ve not done the movie in the book, Prop Stuss.
What do we have coming up next?
1984 book, you know, you said you have no notes on it,
but I got all the notes, don’t worry.
I got the notes.
I’m also gonna watch the movie.
There was a movie that came out in 1984,
about 1984.
They should make a new movie on that, I feel like.
Yeah, I agree.
But John Hurt plays the main character in the book,
so who plays the bad guy in V for Vendetta,
which is kind of funny.
Oh, okay, Yeah, All right.
Interesting.
So yeah, we’ll do that.
Big brother is coming for you,
and yeah, we’ll catch you for 1984.
Indeed.
All right, All right.
Yeah, I know.

The Buddies crack open David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” a collection of essays about his childhood, being an artist, and speaking French. Or as the Buddies characterized it, ‘Bohemian Bill Simmons without the basketball references.’ The Buddies navigate through stories about terrible dads, fancy French dinners, and the eternal struggle of learning adjectives in Paris while desperately missing going to the movies. They got to talking about judging people, the Walkman, and debate the merits of crystal meth addiction. Want a quick read, and fun book to open up while at your in-laws (or on the toilet), well look no further, join the Buddies as we also try and talk pretty one day.

Intro/Book Report (0:00-2:01)

Stock Up/Down (2:02-35:45)

Favorite Scene (35:46-38:37)

Love/Hate/Reviews (38:38-46:22)

Conclusion (46:23-49:06) 

NEXT BOOK: 1984 by George Orwell 

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to Book Up.
I’m Dylan, here with a man that also aspires to Talk Pretty One Day.
Keith, what’s up buddy?
I was gonna say this was gonna be the name of our podcast initially, and we realized
it was a book name, so we changed it.
Here at the Book Up, we’re working on some best-sudders, and this week we’re just
discussing Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Siddharis.
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, bookup.com, or sign to our DMs, our Instagram, that’s a
buddy book of podcasts, list of his iTunes, Spotify, we get your podcasts.
Please download, subscribe, buy some reviews, or great, please, and thanks, Keith 4.01
on Goodreads just over the 4.0 mark.
I don’t know if I necessarily trust Goodreads for a book like this.
What do you think?
How will comedy, I think, is different for everyone.
What was it like, old school got like a 10% when it came out?
Grandma’s boy has like the biggest despair on…
Oh yeah, Rontomato Variance.
Rontomato Variance.
Read the blog.
I guess we don’t read…
Well, I mean, it’ll be a part of my stock up stock, yeah, so I’m not gonna get too far
into it, but we don’t read a lot of comedies or whatnot, and I know that in terms of…
If someone’s to ask me like, what can be comedy books or whatnot, I would recommend
or have read, I don’t know what I would say.
Can you think about any funny books that you’ve read that you’re like, oh, this is in the
realm of comedy and I’m laughing.
I never really laughed at laugh at books.
No.
So this is Sederris’, I think it’s his second or third essays.
He had Naked for essay collections.
Naked in 1987, Holidays on ice, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that one, and then
me talk pretty one day, so probably one of his more famous ones, I know when you’re engulfed
in flames was pretty big too, but yeah, David Sederris.
Let’s get into some stock up stock down, Keith would he have for me talk pretty one day.
Judging people, stock up.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
My dad always said, let he without sin cast the first down.
He?
He’s not very religious, but I think that’s the one thing he took from the Bible.
But that just means like, closet isn’t clean.
He shouldn’t be like, shit, none other people, you know what I mean?
I don’t think you need to explain.
I don’t know.
I didn’t know people knew that saying was the first time.
He says it all the time, so I just assume everyone knew it and I would drop it once
a while and people would be like, what the fuck did you just say?
He’s like, yeah, and you know what that is.
Yeah.
Anyways, a lot of stones are being cast in this book.
A lot of stones.
I mean, he’s absolutely ripping his parents.
Just absolutely destroying them.
His siblings, his teachers, his friends, little people, I won’t say the word he’s saying,
none, none, in 2026.
Americans, French, artsy people, non-arty people, sports fans, himself.
Yeah, himself too.
So everyone’s getting judged in this book, which, and I think the big thing, and this is
probably like the first thing I want to make sure I get out there is like, the audio book,
I really don’t think does this book a lot of justice because his tone on the stories
that he’s reading to a crowd, this book is significantly significantly funny.
I don’t know if you thought the same thing.
But when he’s reading to the crowd, he’s so much more animated and the, the, the, the
tone changes dramatically.
On the audio book, he’s like, like the first two chapters, especially I was like, this is
depressing as fuck.
He’s really so-in and depressed.
He’s like talking about having a slur, but he’s not doing in a self-deprecating way.
He’s doing it in almost like, or at least the audio, oh did I, what did I say, slur, no, yeah,
less, yeah.
And the, like, the live reading, he’d be like, the thing about my father is he loved to
talk about music.
Like, that’s how he’d say the live.
And then, and the audio book, he’d be like, my father insisted be only listening to his
music.
He forces his it down, growing, but if you read that, like that, like that, oh, is dad beat
something?
Yeah.
It seemed like the ones that weren’t live, he was doing the audio book, like he was just reading
the audio book.
And the live ones, it seemed like he was telling the story.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Because yeah, I was going to say my first, oh, are you done with your stock up?
Oh, one thing actually, that pickpocket story judging people, that was made up, right?
That wasn’t real.
That was, that was two, it was too much.
Yeah.
It was funny, I was going to say that at some point, but that’s the one when he’s in France and
they think he’s a pickpocket.
And he comes on and they’re like, oh, that’s as accomplished right there.
Yeah.
It went this whole like, like, like, strap against story.
And then they’re like, and then I didn’t confront the guy and I was like, that’s it.
That’s the story.
Yeah.
Anyways.
Yeah.
Well, I’ll talk about that too.
But my first, my first stock up was the Walkman.
And he references the Walkman in one of his stories.
Okay.
I was, but basically saying he was learning French in France and started getting like French
audio, French learning tapes, whatever they’re called, learn on tape for his Walkman.
And he was anti-Walkman, but also then was able to put the Walkman in and found it to be
a super enjoyable way to move around a city because people aren’t really into, I mean, nowadays
it’s hilarious because this is everyone, right?
Everyone’s got your buds in.
But no one’s going to ask you for directions if you got headphones in necessarily in the
90s.
But one, I loved my OG Walkman, big fan.
I had the arm strap and everything.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Because I was like, you know, I’m going to go running.
I was like 12.
So I’m going to run before.
You’re before it’s like a big doll.
Basically.
Yeah.
That’s crazy.
Didn’t end up doing that really.
And jog for like a hundred feet.
I was like, what the hell am I doing?
But it also opens up a whole new world, which is what happens to him, right?
He’s able to learn French and walk at the same time, which is why we are always, you know,
talking about the virtues of audio books.
I was actually thinking about this as I was listening to 1984, which is the next book we’re
doing.
And it’s the part where he gets the book from the guy and it’s basically just an entire
really long chapter of the guy reading what society is.
It’s kind of boring, honestly.
It’s not the story.
It’s like the part of, I don’t know if you’ve read Moby Dick, but there’s a period in Moby
Dick where he just talks about whales.
It just becomes a whale respect like all maniac, you know, the right whale is this and it
has these characteristics.
The sperm whale is like, it goes on for an hour.
And so I was doing yard work at that time during Moby Dick and I thoroughly enjoyed it
because I was doing yard work.
Guys, I don’t care.
I’m going to learn about the right whale in the sperm whale right now.
And similarly with learning French or enjoying a part of 1984, that might not be the most,
you know, enjoyable part of that book.
So yeah, stuck up to the Walkman because it brought us, you know, the Walkman Walked so
the iPod could run and so that our iPhones could sprint and we would always just look
at them and consume social media and such things like that, make ourselves dumber.
But yeah.
I really think that really placed this book in the the 2000 and 90s.
I feel like it wasn’t, other than that, you could have, the story’s could have been taken
place today.
I feel like.
Well, I don’t know about that.
He’s talking about writing letters to people and he seems really at like when you go to
France, yeah, when you go to France, he’s talking like, he also talks about hating the internet
and not really knowing what the internet was, but then getting on the internet and it was
like cake farts or something.
I don’t remember what the website was.
But it was.
Yeah, that’s something.
Yeah, that’s the issue.
And basically everyone’s asking what should we do and the answer just like sign felled,
the answer is let’s go to the movies.
So yeah, it very much dates itself in the 90s.
That’s it.
I’ve also been watching sign felled religiously.
So I’m like, yeah, what’s wrong with it?
Good for you.
Yeah.
What else do you have for stock up?
Stock up, slaughterhouse five.
Oh, you mentioned books that were somewhat comedic.
I think slaughterhouse five, I Kurt Vonnegut, which we did in the pod.
It was literally about to say never read it.
Do you remember?
I don’t remember.
Shit, I guess.
I got to check that out.
It’s funny because we get done with the pod and you’ll be like, oh, you should probably edit
this or just say, I remember saying this and I was like, I don’t remember talking at
the park.
I don’t remember one thing I said.
I don’t remember what you said.
I was like, listen to the edit and I was like, I’m like, laugh.
And I’m like, I don’t remember this at all.
So yeah, then you have short term memory loss or short term memory loss.
Well, I’m like, oh, and I’m public speaking.
That’s the difference.
Yeah, I got a call with a client.
I just speak and then I’ll be like, I’m done.
And I’m like, so what do we talk about again?
I don’t remember.
But anyways, a slaughterhouse five is a stock up because if you describe this book, it’s a
cynical look at the world using dark humor and then random rants and ramblings, I guess,
in kind of in a book.
And that’s what slaughterhouse five kind of really was.
But the difference between this and slaughterhouse five is everything’s draped in anti-war.
So there’s a theme around it.
So you’re kind of laughing, kind of joking.
It’s kind of dark humor, but you’re also like, oh, I see what he’s trying to get across
a little bit.
And then you’re not forcing down your throat.
It’s just kind of like the realities of things.
I’m not sure what the message of this book was.
I mean, at certain times I felt bad for him.
Other times I hated him.
Other times I liked him.
I thought it’s other times it was funny.
Other times it was corny.
It was just a weird combination of what was going on.
I couldn’t really get a grasp on anything.
The way I described it, a few ways to describe it.
Going.
It was like a bohemian Bill Simmons writing.
OK.
I get it.
Yeah, but not enough like sopranos, references or definitely basketball references of the
wire.
Yeah, he’s pulling the like artsy references, which I’m like, alright.
And then which is probably why I didn’t understand it as much.
I also think this is like a show or there’s a book for like people that like the show
for Asia.
Where I’m more of like, this is like a high class comedy where I’m like a gritty sunny.
It’s always sunny for the off you low class person.
You know, I mean, like that’s the difference is like that’s why it didn’t resonate with
me as much.
But anyways, I’ll just say Sarah has five, I think, to did what he was trying to do better.
That’s all I say.
Yeah, it’s an interesting take because it makes me think about was he trying to do something
or was he just sharing his thoughts, putting his thoughts on paper, you know, someone journaling,
realizing their journals are funny and then or someone else reading their journals.
Is this funny?
Like there’s a funny story you should, you know, you should publish it when someone’s
like, that’s absurd.
I’m sure he is considering he grew up in a like situation where his, his sister’s famous,
you know, Amy Sideris is an actress and comedian.
I’m sure there is an interest in him to be in the spotlight.
So, you know, embellishing stories or he’s a good writer.
So he’s using that, but if he, you know, I’m just wondering if there’s a general purpose
for the whole thing or if it just happens to be a collection of different essays that
he wrote and there’s not necessarily like a central theme or whatnot that goes through
it because the first half is kind of like his childhood and his family and then the second
half is all France and stuff happening in France.
So I’m just wondering, I wonder, I’m sure he probably isn’t interviewing somewhere if
he’s like trying to say anything in these or not.
Obviously he’s trying to say like how odd and uncomfortable it was to, you know, be a
gay boy in Raleigh, North Carolina growing up.
Yeah, uncomfortable.
That was clearly.
And growing up with a list was uncomfortable and confusing for people around him, I guess.
Maybe I guess because he’s touching on such real-world things.
The chapters, I think I enjoyed the non-secretar about animals they had growing up.
I was like, oh, that’s kind of funny.
Like it was a funny chapter.
There’s no point Asia to it.
I also had a way, did not know, Euthanasia was how it was spelled.
I thought it was.
I honestly thought it was spelled.
I mean, not into my 30s, but into my team.
Yeah, oh, yeah, 100%.
That’s it.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Yeah, you’re the guy that thought Archive.
Wait, it’s Archive.
Archive, that’s Archive.
That’s just because of 007 Golden.
I just read the level, right?
Oh, yeah, that is.
That’s true.
I don’t think about that.
All right.
Nice.
Thanks for backing me.
You didn’t back me in the day when I said that.
No, of course.
I’m an asshole.
I had to make a big show of it and say, hey, everyone know that.
Hey, this guy, you guys are phoning.
Exactly.
My next talk up is those guava candies.
You get adhesion restaurants on the way out.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
Mints?
No, they’re like–
I don’t have a guava candy.
They’re getting a little green wrapper.
If you go to the right Asian restaurant, they’re phenomenal.
They’re really hard.
And why they’re so good is because they’re sweet.
They’re a little sour, but they’re just a total palette cleanser.
If you go in there and you just hit the buffet hard and you’re coming out, you’re feeling
that sesame oil just right on your lips, that chow mein slapped up in there, you have one
of those and it just cleans your palette.
This was what this book– that was– you know, that’s what this book felt like for me.
We’ve just been, you know, all over the place really, but for the most part, staying in our
zones with fantasy stuff and then some crappy thrillers.
And this is so out of the blue, this book, that I really enjoyed it in that sense.
That it was– it’s five hours long.
It’s a five hour long audiobook.
It’s a bunch of different short stories.
Yeah?
They’re funny, they’re cynical, they’re like laugh out loud, funny.
I didn’t– you know, I grew through there.
It wasn’t like I was, you know, yuckin’ it up.
But they were enjoyable.
I like the way he writes, I like the way he talks.
So for five hours slip in, it was great.
Was I also reading Lord of the Rings at the same time?
Maybe.
Maybe.
But that’s none of anyone’s business.
All right.
All right.
Does you have any other stockups?
No.
Couple quick ones.
Well, I already said going to the movies is a stockup because it’s all they talk about.
He’s like, we go to France and we’re just– he just wants to go to the movies.
And I miss it.
I honestly do.
We were chatting on the side about Project Hail Mary.
We didn’t episode on it.
We’re like, would you go see the movie and do it up on the movie?
And I just want to go to the movie.
Honestly, I want to take the wife.
I want to go to the movie.
I want to say it.
I want to have some popcorn.
I don’t do that enough.
The last movie I saw in theaters was The Dungeons and Dragons movie.
It was like four years ago.
Yeah.
Terrible.
Wow.
Yeah, that’s bad.
Yeah, you got to get it.
Yeah, it cleans your palate from that.
Absolutely.
I feel like every Nolan movie you got to go to the theaters for, I feel like–
I know.
I know.
I just–
So like the new one coming out, I feel like you got to go.
This– probably, the Hill Mary, it sounds like it’s a theater movie, also.
Oh, the Odyssey?
I’m definitely going to see that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Project Hail Mary, same way.
Definitely seems like a theater movie.
All right.
We got to see that.
I’m going to try maybe this way this weekend to nail it down.
I’m going to wait this weekend.
But probably next weekend.
Oh, next weekend.
I’m going to find a sitter.
That’s the problem.
Another stock up math.
Talking about having a sitter, math.
Oh.
I just stocked out.
Oh, why?
He’s so productive.
I mean, it’s not really that is, you know, it’s not channeled productivity, but it was funny,
just– I thought that was a funny story, just in general, of him and his art friends doing a bunch of math and trying to come up with
crazy art situations in New York City.
And then he’s like the next chapter.
And he’s like, and then I’m a teacher.
I was like, wait, what happened to the method addiction?
Yeah.
I wasn’t know how exactly–
I wanted to know how he got out of that hole.
Because, yeah, having that handy seems pretty dangerous.
His dad was funny in that one too.
I think his dad is probably the best character.
Granted, it’s not like a character thing.
He’s a real person.
They were supposedly going to adapt this to a film.
And it had a director to it.
It had a script, like a writer director.
It had who David’s there is approved of.
It had a script.
And then supposedly he talked with his sister and pulled the plug on the whole thing because he wasn’t sure how they were going to portray his family.
And I thought, but how have you–
Yeah, man.
He’s like, in the best light, I think it’s hilarious.
He’s a guy I want to hang out with.
Well, remember how he described his other sister, not the famous ones?
He’s like, yeah, my dad always hated all the other sisters.
They’re all ugly and fat.
And I was like, what the hell?
And then I was like, that really shouldn’t have your dad.
But then I’m also like, if you’re reading it and you’re the other sister, it’s like, that’s what dad thought of me.
Like, you know what I mean?
What the hell?
They knew.
They knew.
He seemed just like a typical dad.
He’s like, oh, listen to this music.
And he’s like pissed that he wants his son to get into the same music that he’s into.
Just trying to bond with his son.
Well, it was my last talk up was “Fat Suites” because that– because of that situation with the story and his sister.
I thought that’s the funniest.
That wasn’t laugh out loud, funny, but in terms of me picturing someone walk like coming back from Thanksgiving or something like that and just wearing a fat suit.
And it’s theater, you know, movie quality, fat suit and convincing their parents they gained a lot of weight is actually hilarious.
It should be an Eddie Murphy movie or something.
I also don’t think his dads are on being like, yeah, you gained a lot of weight.
Yeah, if you’re going to be back with a fat suit.
Obviously, where he’s coming from isn’t from the right place.
You know, it’s from vanity.
But that’s what’s here, say.
He’s like–
That’s true.
He’s like, I want you to live a long life. I want grandchilles.
I want you know, all these things and he’s maybe he’s, you know, portraying it incorrectly.
So I didn’t care for it.
You should come home with a fat suit.
I think you should.
You just mean I just go into New Orleans and he’s a couple of Ben Yees and I did that.
Oh, you go to Cafe de Morte?
No, I was going to go to the airport, but I waited in line, the TSA line for four hours.
No, I didn’t.
No, luckily I actually cut the line because two of my buddies who waited in line for over four hours were still looking for me.
Four hours were still in line when I showed up.
They were, and I literally just swooped in and so, and I was like, wow, I cut the whole line and then I waited in line for two hours.
And no one said, no one said anything when you hit the line, that’s, I would be–
Well, they were, they’re like, I keep coming here.
I mean, people were doing that because people were going to bath around people because you’re in line.
They’re really four hours.
So you’re just standing for four hours?
Oh, yeah. It was, it was rugged.
Stuck, damn.
That is wild.
I see it on the news and I’m like, okay, I–
That’s where I–
I’m like, maybe, maybe not because I flew.
I went to Detroit and there was, I mean, Greenhide was Boston to Detroit, but there was no one there.
I mean, a Sunday was really, really bad.
There was no one there.
And I couldn’t imagine you had kids, you got old people.
Oh, my God.
Holy, yeah.
Four hours, holy shit.
Yeah, that was minimum.
They missed their flight.
I think they showed up three hours earlier.
They missed their flight.
They had to rebook it till later.
So they stayed in, they, imagine waiting in line for four and a half hour or four, but it was over four hours for them.
And then finally getting in and they had to pay like a seven-hundred-dollar transfer fee.
Oh, these other things.
Mine.
And then still flying out of super late.
Yeah, so brutal.
Yes.
But, um,
Well, we’ll talk about that for 1984.
Holy shit.
That is–
So yeah, no more stock ups for you.
Stock downs when you get–
Well, I’ll just finish the crystal meth one, because I just stocked down on that.
That is mostly for this podcast, say, because the effects of crystal meth are that you ramble upon about nothingness for hours straight,
going to wild conspiracy theories with people around you just nodding and being like, “Oh, okay.”
And you just letting you talk.
That’s what this podcast is.
Imagine me, or maybe I’m on crystal meth, I just don’t know, because that’s all I do.
So I was like, “Wow, that was suckable, that was all I had.
Imagine me, a hundred X, what I’m doing currently.”
Out of all the drugs, I feel like that’s the least interesting one in my mind.
Yeah, is it just speed?
Is it really different?
Well, it’s– yeah, I mean, it’s got to be extra.
I have no idea, but it’s–
Yeah.
I’ve seen it portrayed on film, and it doesn’t sound that fun.
The other ones, I could probably get into in the right situation.
I mean, we’re talking like Morphean here, not heroin or something like that, but–
No one would be like that.
Yeah, that’s– that was one of the– the wife recently was like, “Oh, I’m gonna make it out
that recently.”
But she said, “I want to watch record for a dream.”
I was like, “You might have to do that alone.”
I know, I know.
I think that’s one of those movies that’s a one in done for me.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
The soundtrack’s money, though.
The 2008 Celtics used that song for their intro.
I was fucking off.
But it’s true.
They did.
Brought me right back to it.
That’s sad.
My first talk down, telling the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you, God.
Talk down.
Okay.
So the haters, and maybe your hater, will say that parts, if not entire stories, sedairs rights
are made up.
And what do I have to say to that?
Oh, who cares?
Honestly, who cares?
I think that he writes it in a way, except I will kind of agree with you, the pickpocket
one.
I was like, “Mmm, that seems to be right.”
But the rest of them, he writes in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re contrived.
So, if it’s a ruse, then I’m happy to believe it because it was an enjoyable ride.
It’s not an autobiography of someone that’s super important.
You know what I mean?
That is saying one thing happened, that didn’t happen, that’s changing history.
This is him talking about a couple of Texans who he saw on a train in France and thought
he was a pickpocket and talking out loud about how smelly everyone was.
So, you know, whatever.
If it gets a laugh, that’s part of a job.
Half of Nor Mcdonald’s bits are him telling just completely fabricated stories that are
blatantly obviously fabricated but hilarious.
So…
Well, we’ll say that if his stories were…
I mean, the whole Americans are dumb and French or mean cliches is like, “Alright, we’ve
heard this before.”
So, if it’s completely out of the left field, I think it would be funnier, but the pickpocket
one stands out because it’s such a cliche.
Things and it’s like, “Well, that sounds made up and now it’s cliche so it’s like not even…
Yeah, it’s double, double dosage, I would say.”
But yeah, other than that, I think…
Yeah, all the other ones were…
I’m 100% fine embellishing one.
Like, the little person one, 100% embellished, but I liked it.
He thinks so.
Which part?
Which part?
When he was just a horn dog?
And…
What’s the deris here?
The deris is like 12 or something and he’s being like…
That’s my point.
When I look back at my piano teacher, he wore like an ascoff, had multiple earrings.
Was he a pirate?
He just…
Yeah, exactly.
So that’s my whole point.
I’m…
Subscribe
Steve the pirate.
I would do my scales wrong and he’d be like, “This fucking kid is the worst piece I should
ever, but that’s me embellishing a story of me remembering it.”
Realistically, he was probably really, really nice, you know?
Yeah.
Just like, just like, “I’m so good at piano that I don’t understand why you suck at it.”
Nonetheless.
This is writing stories about his childhood when he’s between the ages of 10 and 14.
There’s dialogue in there that he’s writing.
There’s no way that that’s accurate.
But he’s trying to tell a story and also come to a point at the end of it, which, you know,
not a big political point, but almost like the end of a joke or something like that.
So yeah, obviously those are made up.
And, you know, something may have happened to him on a train with a couple from the US.
I’ve been in foreign countries and seen some Americans there and I would believe it that
they do act as if, but yeah, I just don’t care that much if it’s not necessarily like word
for word the truth.
It doesn’t matter to me.
And I don’t expect it, honestly, who is that kind of memory?
It’s like he’s writing home and journaling immediately.
Oh my god, I gotta get some paper.
What else do you have for stock down?
Well, the last one, it’s kind of a two-parter though, speaking of French and being relatable
stock down.
So speaking of French kind of sucks.
I thought it was like four chapters worth, but then I looked at, I was reviewing the chapters.
It’s the whole part two is like trying to learn French.
He does like the whole chapter on like the genders of French and I was like, I’m not going
to lie to you.
I barely understand English.
When you’re talking about how like adverbs are hard there, I’m like, I don’t know what
that is.
Like I don’t know any of that shit.
Like I don’t know any of those rules.
So in that kind of relates, goes right into my being relatable stuff.
It’s just hard to relate to this book because he’s one very, very smart obviously, very
very artsy, but he’s talking about how like going to fancy dinners and people not eating
the right food and spending half the year in France and like going to the movies all day
and stuff working.
I’m like, who is this for?
Like what the, he’s like complaining about these things.
I’m like, bro, you’re living literally the dream right now.
What is going on?
And he’s like, can you imagine a heartedist to speak French though?
And I’m like, that’s your struggle.
I mean, I mean.
There it is.
This stuff is not super relatable, which also makes it tough.
And I have this in my hate too is like, you know, I’m a big, big, big guy, a fan of self
deprecation.
The biggest.
But imagine like Conan, who I think is the epitome or the best person ever doing it, being
super mean to everyone all the time.
And then also turning on self deprecate.
It’s like, it doesn’t work, you know what I mean?
Like the only way you can be self deprecating is if you’re genuine and nice and then you make
funny yourself because people and then people are like, ah, it’s funny.
But if you’re just like a dickhead and then you’re like, oh, but I’m such, I’m such a, you
know, whatever, whatever, which he kind of does a lot.
He’s like, shitting on tons of people and then he’s like, but then I wasn’t smart
of stuff.
And you’re like, well, I’m not really going to feel bad for you now because you’ve just
been shitting on our own.
Yeah.
Well, self deprecators aren’t looking, you’re not looking for sympathy, right?
No, you’re looking for a laugh.
But at the same time, it’s not as funny because you don’t think it’s genuine.
I think Conan deep down is like saying things that he’s heard or believes and things like
that and he’s turning it so to make it funny for himself, like, or to other people.
So it’s like a shield, right?
You’re like using his armor for the benefit of everyone else instead of, but like, he’s
like kind of projecting hate towards everyone and then pretending like, oh, but also I’m
insecure.
And it’s like, all right.
Well, you’re not doing it the nice way.
I don’t think I don’t know.
Yeah, I know it.
It does.
It does.
I guess Ellen would be a good example.
Ellen does like the goofy stuff and everyone’s like, oh, she’s so nice and gentle.
And then you realize she’s a huge bitch to everyone and you’re like, oh, wow.
This is a bit, it’s like a whole stick.
Yeah, you’re like, you’re not even, this is all fake, you know?
Yeah.
And it wasn’t that funny to begin with and now it’s definitely not funny.
So for the front stuff, you didn’t like his story when he compared his childhood to
his childhood growing up in Africa.
That was good.
I was like, what the hell?
I mean, it was crazy and then he gets to the dead guy hanging and he’s just like, I, you
know, he’s staring.
I missed that while he was describing that child and I was like, is this a fever dream?
What is going on with this story?
Yeah, I didn’t realize he was telling the childhood of what was his partner’s name.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I was like, what?
What about the last one with his dad and what he eats?
I don’t remember that one.
It’s actually my next stock down.
So I’ll just go for it.
Stock down expiration dates on food.
Stock down because the last story tells Ali what he’s wearing is about the story.
About his dad who will just eat anything.
He’s like, he put a couple of jelly beans in his pocket and then like years later would
find them, but it was actually ended up being like, lint or something that he would just
eat it.
And there’s like no expiration dates ever, ever on anything and would just go for it.
So I love, I thought it was hilarious, but also secretly respected, but I don’t want to
be part of it, you know what I mean?
Like if this happened, I’m laughing at that guy, but if he was to make me dinner, I’d say
I’m sorry.
I can’t possibly eat that.
But yeah, it’s if you’re never sick from it, then good for you because obviously you’ve
created a gut of steel.
Well, I grew up out of you, but I grew up, I never once heard expiration date, sent it
in my household.
Like that was not it.
It was like, you put it in the freezer, wants to potentially go bad and then you bring
it back out when you want to use it and reuse it and don’t worry about it.
I don’t care how old it is.
There’s no expiration date in this household.
Yeah, I don’t I don’t remember it being a thing for sure.
I think I, I cook a lot now, so I, and I just get that’s a kind of content that I consume.
So I understand that X, I mean, expiration dates are also a bunch of bullshit like for eggs
or something like that.
I’ve been trying to tell Ellie, but she won’t listen to me.
Eggs, eggs totally never, like will probably never go bad if they’re in your fridge.
Really?
Yeah, like probably never.
And you can also like kind of do a test where you put them in a bowl and if they float
their butt, but even then they’re probably fine.
Honestly.
So eggs don’t expire.
Yogurt literally never expires.
If there’s mold, sure, and that’s only be, and that’s usually only because you’re using
a spoon that you licked or you’re using a spoon that used for something else.
But if you just only touch the yogurt, like that’s probably never going bad.
That’s a fermented product.
So you’re probably good there.
But yeah, it’s funny because my sister will go, you know, we go to my mom’s every summer
and my sister’s a little neurotic, we’ll say.
And my mom will have all this stuff, you know, all this stuff for the kids.
But there’s other grandkids that come in and out of the house like who knows when it was
bought.
There’s two fridges, you know, who knows, whatever the case is, but it’ll be an Apple
juice box.
And it’ll have expired last month or last week.
And she’ll be like, nope, my kids are not drinking that.
Is this the freaking app?
It’s a juicy juice.
I call it time.
That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, some of those by, you know, those micro, whatever, calls.
Yeah, you did that.
You did that stuff.
Yeah.
What’s, uh, what’s Ellie throwing out?
What’s her, what’s her deal?
She’ll throw out like honey mustard that’s expired six months.
I’m like, honey, it’s still matter.
Yeah, I’m like, I’ve been eating this for the last six months.
It tastes fine.
Honey, honey and mustard, those are both for, like, mustard fermented and honey is all
sugar.
It’s hard to go bad.
And then like meat in the refrigerator for more than like three days.
She’s like, yeah, we got to get rid of that.
Coak to meat or uncooked meat?
Yes.
Which, oh, I’ve both got it.
Well, I mean, when it comes to raw meat, it’s really about the smell test.
You know, you give it the oil smell.
I think it’s everything.
It’s like milk, like I’ve drank milk that’s three weeks expired and I’ve also drank
milk that’s one week unexpired and the milk that, the one that’s one week is uninspired.
I’m like, holy shit, this is terrible.
I poured out, you know.
Yeah.
Heavy cream, it’s ultra-pasterized.
That will literally never go bad.
Buttermilk, one that will go bad.
I like this.
Milk is actually very dependent.
That’s why you can’t trust an expiration date for milk because it’s very dependent on where
you put it in your fridge and how often you’re opening your fridge and how often you’re
leaving it out.
I like this science discussion.
We got it on air.
Yeah, milk’s more about temperature change.
Okay.
Never store your milk.
Never store your milk in the door of your fridge unless you’re going through it pretty
quickly.
Well, that’s all right.
That’s all right now.
It’s good to know.
But you probably, you seem like the kind of guy who has milk with dinner.
I used to drink milk.
I used to crush milk.
I used to absolutely demolish milk.
And now I use it mostly for like putting in tea or cereal and something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We go through a lot of milk here, but we had an 18 month old cycle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Last one, stocked down parents pushing you to play an instrument.
So we’ve talked about the little person and him, who’s the little person who’s a music
instructor and him being David Siddharfs.
His dad like jazz and so on is a Dernas kids into a jazz troupe.
So what did what a David pick the guitar?
You played the guitar.
He had to name it something and he wanted to name it like all of her.
It’s like name your name your guitar after something hot.
He’s like all of it.
Something you love all of it.
But it got me thinking of when I was a kid and my mom encouraged us to take music stuff.
And I like listening to music.
Hate playing.
I just don’t have it.
There’s no, don’t have that ability, not in me.
Very jealous of those that do wish I could, but we had to pick one.
I was a big Simpsons fan at the time.
So I mean, still, I guess.
But Lisa played this saxophone.
Had to be in fourth grade to play this saxophone.
So you just start with a clarinet.
I picked up that clarinet and I was like, this is terrible.
So I used to have to hide my music book so that she couldn’t find it and I couldn’t find
it and play dumb so that I couldn’t go to class and take my music classes.
Yeah.
Nice.
Bottom of the hamper.
That’s the number one spot, bottom of the laundry hamper.
But you said that you played piano, right?
Your mom?
Was that at your own volition or was that pushing?
No, no, I wanted to quit every every year, every time I went.
My parents were like, when you get grow older, you’ll appreciate us that we put up, which
I do.
You do?
I really like piano songs now, which I don’t know because I played piano a little bit.
What do you mean?
You go to Howlett the Moon and listen to dueling pianos and you’re like, yeah, I mean,
he’s on that piano base.
I like better than like Tar base, I would say.
Could you, can you play the piano?
No, I’m terrible.
But could you, can you play Chopsticks?
No, this is the story I always tell is I’ve been practicing for five years and then we
do recitals.
Every recital I fucked up, every single one.
I never had a perfect, you know, like, and you’re so obvious when you’re that bad.
Like, missed a note or just totally screwed up?
Well, like, it’s when you’re playing like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do,
do, you can, it’s hard to tell.
So, like, you know, basically, my songs are harder and easier to fuck up is what I’m saying.
But anyways, I’m playing probably the most basic thing ever.
This is five years in.
The next person comes up that’s like first grade, I’m in fifth grade and plays something
10 times harder to be and I just watched it and they perfected it.
I said, I don’t think pianos are me.
Like, that’s like, that’s like, I don’t know if I can do this.
Were you allowed to leave?
Was that the piano, like, were your parents like, okay, you don’t have to do it anymore?
Yeah, once I got the middle school, they’re like, all right, this guy, I think they also
saw that recital, and we’re like, like, I just picture your dad with the video recorder
and your mom reaching over and just like pushing it down, like, don’t do it.
They don’t want to record this.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, mine was like a year or season or whatever the case was.
So it wasn’t going to work for me.
You don’t have to work it out.
No.
I mean, if they had just playing tool, I’d be fucking playing piano.
That’s the fact that I’m there.
I mean, I’m not playing like Beethoven’s like six concerto or whatever.
I always wonder that with music class.
And they probably do it differently nowadays, but it was the same kind of thing in school.
Why didn’t they grab something that the kids liked at the time and do it?
It doesn’t matter what it is.
Just do it, you know, it’s something that’s actually like in her parents’ school now, which
I’m like, imagine if you read her, I’d be reading, I’d be fucking crushing books all of a sudden.
Yeah, which we hired someone to be our guest.
We hired someone recently and she said she’d never seen the Harry Potter movies or Harry
Potter books and I was like, how did you get past the interview process?
I don’t, fuck it.
Don’t.
Leave right now.
Did you have a favorite of the short stories, a favorite one?
Yeah, I think I referenced it.
Is it the animal one?
I don’t know.
I read that out loud and I just thought it was a lot of jokes in it.
I thought it was like dark, fun, and fun.
That’s the youth in Asia, right?
When you started talking about how they varied all of his animals or something like that?
Yeah, and there was like callbacks in it.
It was right up my alley, comedy-wise.
So I was like, all right, that was when I was like, this book I think is going to actually
start picking up now and then it went back to him being like, and then we went to France
and I didn’t know the adjective.
I was like, God damn it.
Yeah.
David recounts his childhood pets and their demise.
Yeah, it’s all about his dad’s dying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don’t like put one in the oven or something like that.
Yeah, very potent.
Crazy.
Yeah.
None of them were, this is amazing.
I did like the little person music teacher one.
I just thought that was kind of funny how much of a horn dog he was and then, and then
Sanderra says something that’s not even like a pass at him, which is also creepy because
he’s a child and this is a grown man and I’m, I know grown man, but it is.
He makes a pass at him, but the guy’s like, I don’t swing that way.
It’s like, this is a child.
What do you think he’s actually making a, like a passie?
What?
I’m so confusing.
I did enjoy, I don’t, this one also seems kind of fake, but I did enjoy when his friend
came to New York and brought her crazy girlfriend.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That one seemed real actually for some reason.
Oh, okay.
I was like, I know these people.
You do.
You do.
Yeah.
It made me laugh.
That one was really the, probably my most enjoyable, my most enjoyable moment was the idea
of the fancy.
I don’t know why.
Just, just gets me.
It’s just fancy.
I just thought about her as dad.
I was like, no, he’s really shit.
I was dad.
Yeah.
Which makes sense why they didn’t want to go for the movie.
Yeah.
It’s, well, I mean, the movie probably would have made, I mean, you’re not going to make
the dad unless he’s like a villain to look at like that much of an asshole.
Like, you just wouldn’t do that.
That’s why it’s weird to have it in a book like that.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, he cares about his kids.
He just does it in his own way.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
He wants kids to be skinny maybe because he’s got some vanity or whatever the case is fine.
He wants his kids to learn and instrument so that they can.
He’s also assuming these things, which is not like, you know what I mean?
Like, so that’s why I’m like, oh, it’s, he’s got a painting with a bad light here.
Yeah.
Well, he did say like, you’re going to need a boyfriend or something.
Oh, well, I mean, I think that’s his dad talk there.
I mean, especially like, we’re talking about 80s dads.
Like, come on.
Or some of these dads.
Yeah.
Like, is that really that bad?
But I don’t know.
I feel like he was painting them in the worst.
If he said, his kids like, fat, clean camp, then I’m like, all right.
Now he’s open.
Now it’s open for jokes.
But if you’re like, make one comment, it’s like, yeah, my dad was a piece of shit.
Oh, my sisters needed a lose away.
He didn’t give a shit about anything, but with their looks, I’m like, holy shit.
What about loves?
What’d you love about me talk pretty one day?
I know the stories.
I already mentioned live audience was great.
He’s really got into them.
And I liked the one ending in the computer one.
I don’t remember what that one was, but I like that ending.
I don’t remember what story that was.
I don’t either.
Wait, wasn’t that the one where he like goes to someone keeps sending him an email with
like a website that was like, cakefarts or something?
I don’t think he made that so.
Yeah.
Okay.
I like that he refused to, or you just changed all of the words so that he didn’t have
any asses in them.
Yeah.
To spite his teacher.
Yeah, I love that.
He said his vocabulary got a lot better.
He said to find other words for it.
Yeah, no, that’s that’s I appreciate that a lot.
And then I did like the first half of the first ever was his childhood stories.
Again, this is more like about being relatable and like, you know, I think there was a lot
more humor in that than like, oh, I in France, it’s funny that like something is masculine
for us.
Yeah, it’s like then I had to buy all the carrots, because I didn’t know that they were
like, all right, that’s made up also.
You can’t just point to something and say, I have one.
Come on.
So yeah, I like that.
I guess the last thing.
Oh, I do also think that I do see influence his influences on other writers.
I feel like he’s definitely this style has definitely been adapted or used, you know, from
a lot of other people.
So I thought maybe even the aforementioned like Project Hail Mary, like all of his books
with the first person, you know, monologue to the camera kind of thing.
It’s pretty yeah, their dire entries is basically what they are, right?
And in the Martian and Project Hail Mary and the other one we don’t speak about.
Yeah, I love the first half for sure.
I liked it more than the the French stuff.
When he’s talking about, you know, growing up as a gay boy and when asked what he wanted to
be growing up and steady, he would answer who he wanted to sleep with when he grew up and
he was like a policeman, a fireman or one of those guys who works on high-tension wires.
Like, that’s good, that’s good stuff.
The things I did like about the French stuff was probably just when he was in the class
with those other people and they had to talk about holidays and there was the Moroccan
woman who didn’t understand Easter.
She said, wait, there’s a bunny.
What’s going on?
And you’re explained to her, but you’re also explained to her in a foreign language and
it’s both of your second languages, but your first languages are different, so it just
must be confusing.
And then it got me thinking that if without knowing if any of this holiday stuff and people
started explaining, oh, there’s a giant bunny who comes in your house and leaves a basket
of chocolates.
It’d be very confusing.
The whole thing sounds very absurd and it’s like, oh, what is this to celebrate?
Oh, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But it made me want to look up what the hell, like, why that is a thing.
Yeah, probably some lost translation.
It’s like, yeah, so he’s risen and they’re like, and the word for risen was bunny or something.
They’re like, oh, bunny comes and you know, and then just adapted from there maybe.
I don’t know.
ox because he’s also Greek and they talked about Greek Easter which I have some friends who
are Greek and celebrate Greek Easter.
Rich, they roast a lamb which is phenomenal, by the way, when they roasted lamb.
But it always got me wondering because Jesus is the lamb of God, so you just cook a lamb
because of that or is there a different reason we’re cooking lambs?
We’re killing him again.
Yeah because he died we’re just going to kill other lambs.
I don’t know, don’t really get it but yeah.
That was a celebrate your first time you can eat meat or something, right?
Oh, could be the end of the lent.
Yeah, so you eat a lamb of God.
Got it.
Okay, sure, why not?
What about hates?
I think I kind of went over most.
I think it’s just probably not my type of comedy and it was just like, I didn’t relate
to it super well.
I think the kid stuff was good.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse here.
Yeah, I thought it was fine.
You know, I didn’t necessarily hate anything.
It’s a collector’s sort of story, so some are going to be good, some are going to be bad.
That’s just the way it is.
For listener mail/goodreads review of the week, I have to…
Goodreads is…
This is the best goodreads book thread I’ve ever seen.
So if you just want to be entertained, go through it.
It seems like there’s a lot of clouded minds out there, just people that maybe aren’t
so accepting of other people.
Every single review had to reference that he was gay.
And…
Yeah, I understand.
I’m not really…
Yeah, I understand.
I understand it’s reference once or twice in here, but it’s not like a thing.
It’s not like this is a book about being gay or something, but we got carried from good
reads.
She says, “If I were in someone else’s bathroom and there was no other reading materials
except for something by David Sedaris, I would pick it up and flip through it.
I probably would even find myself slightly amused.”
But my basic opinion about David Sedaris, which is that he is a boring, not very funny, mean
and bitchy and too lazy to write a novel would remain unchanged.
It’s like…
Wait, so you’d pick it up, you’d flip through it, you’d enjoy it, you’d find yourself amused,
but he’s boring, not funny, mean, bitchy.
And too lazy to write a novel.
I find it as the opposite of Toilet humor, so that’s why the analogy to me doesn’t make
any sense.
And too lazy to write a novel is a hilarious take to just throw on someone.
The guy is a prolific writer and orator.
What are you talking about?
What are you doing, person?
Talk about casting the first stone or whatever the case is.
This is…
Whatever.
But there’s a lot of these takes.
There’s a lot of these takes in there.
One that’s like a one star, maybe a two star.
And the guy is like, I loved the book, great book, love David Sidaris, next paragraph.
My mom went to a book signing and he was mean to her.
So two stars.
What?
Yeah, wild.
Actually, I respect that guy, that’s spite.
I’m fond of this story.
Honestly, yeah, I’m okay with that one.
Yeah, that’s my name.
I like the book, hate the man.
Yeah, I’m fond of that.
Yeah.
He’s also an artist.
I think most artists are kind of terrible people, so I think you just got a good
to take that with a great assault.
Yeah.
I think that’s proven, no, I think that’s so taking most artists are terrible people.
Most great artists, let me put it that way.
Okay, most great artists.
Name it like an artist that’s…
You know what, that person is like a really good person.
Michael Angelo seemed like quite the guy.
Wasn’t he a psychopath?
Or no, I think he was.
I think he was.
I think I was.
I think I was here.
Oh, that’s Van Gogh.
Yeah, he had like severe depression or something like that.
He had issues.
He was a terrible person.
Well, I should take a terrible person.
You know, what’s the artist suffering artists and things like that?
So they’re all tough going on with that.
Chapel Rounds getting dragged to the mud?
I’m like, who cares?
She’s a good at singing.
Who gives a shit if she’s not a nice person?
You know?
It doesn’t matter.
Yeah, I do always find that funny when we hold celebrities to be the best of people or
something along those sides.
They’re just people who are good at one thing.
We should just enjoy that thing they’re good at.
Why do they have…
Why are you asking them about the war in Iran?
Well, the best is a ship hell’s bit on…
Does anyone know what Jauru thinks of this?
Because they cut to Jauru after 9/11?
You’ve heard that bit before?
They’re on MTV and 9/11 just happened.
We’re going to bring Jauru and he’s a New York native and talk about it.
So he was talking about how any tragedy happens.
Because anyone know what Jauru is thinking right now.
Get him alone.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Keith was the book four and what are you rated?
I think it’s four, maybe the upper echelon comedy fans, people that like the stories.
I’d like the stories.
Yeah, a little bit of high brow.
People read this in school, you know?
Oh, really?
Yeah.
It was like…
Oh, okay.
Maybe not this one, but one of them was definitely for one of the English classes was required
reading.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I think there was definitely some fun stories or some that weren’t so fun.
I think I would probably pick up a…
I already mentioned like a slaughterhouse five or some other book that’s more…
Or up my speed, if I’m looking for the dark humor angle.
So, I gave it a three out of five.
I think it was still solid.
I didn’t hate you.
The whole time I liked…
I enjoyed being there and it was short.
No, no qualms, but, you know, we’re viewing it.
I started like kind of downgrade things as I started to think about it.
I think three out of five is a very good number considering what…
The words that came out of your mouth were.
But I also gave it three stars, three out of five.
I think it’s totally fine.
It’s for someone that goes into someone’s house and they’re sitting there on a leather
chair in a living room.
Maybe, you know, you’re at your girlfriend’s parents house or something like that.
You don’t want to just like sit on your phone and you see a book like this in the book case
next to you.
You pull it up because you can read one little story or you can catch a couple of lines
and you’re like, “Oh, that’s fine.”
You know?
I’m not going to pick up most books in a book case.
But honestly, ever, we have a book case here.
It’s got phenomenal books on it that I’ve all read.
I’ve never touched any of them.
Never.
That’s the way book cases are.
They’re more for show.
They’re the show other people than your smart.
But I would pick this book up and read a couple pages.
Or there’s someone’s bathroom.
It’s a great bathroom book.
Oh, I just said it wasn’t bathroom humor, but damn it.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
It’s a great bathroom book.
Yeah, no.
I also think that it would get a higher rating if it were for…
I think that he did disservice not reading it better as an audio book.
If they were all live performances.
Yeah, I think it would have been way better.
Yeah.
Good take.
All right.
What are we coming to next?
We have the famous 1984 by George Orwell.
So jump on it.
There’s a typical high school reading, although I didn’t read in high school.
No.
There’s a lot of high school.
A lot of schools read it.
So jump on in, water is warm.
Yeah.
And then what’s after that, we get “Jarver Crumpy”?
Yeah.
The second book, “Before They Are Hanged By Jarver Crumpy.”
That one’s a little bit longer if you want to pick that up and get into book two.
Yeah.
Which is…
I do not remember anything.
I did a full review of…
I listened to the…like a full like summary and I was like…
All right.
I think I kind of know what happened and then I jumped into this and I’m like…
I’m like, “What’s going on?
I have no idea.”
That’s what the nine fingers guy?
Yeah.
So we’ll see.
Cool.
Well, I’ll see you for 1984 then.
All right.
I know.

The Buddies dive into Tana French’s “The Searcher”, a book that proves the worst midlife crisis decision isn’t buying a Ferrari, it’s moving to a shack in rural Ireland to escape your problems. This one had all the elements of a Western noir transplanted to the Irish countryside. The Buddies got into discussing a few topics around cookie-stealing neighbors , what phrases start fights (add “Sunny Jim” to the list), living by a code (Omar from The Wire style), and if you should automatically assume a character a figment of the main characters imagination in any thriller. So pour yourself a nice Irish whisky, practice your Irish brogue, and join the other Buddies who cozy up by the fire to read The Searcher. 

Intro/Book Report (0:00-3:36)

Stock Up/Down (3:37-30:17)

Favorite Scene/Character (30:18-35:27)

Love/Hate/Casting the Movie (35:28-43:06)

Conclusion (43:07-45:10) 

NEXT BOOK: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy book look.
I’m Dylan here with the man that does all sorts of mad stuff on the Gargle Keith. What’s up buddy?
Pardon me?
It’s something that was said during… I think Mark said it when he was talking to me.
We read different books.
Gally’s talking to cows and mad stuff on the Gargle. I’m not going to do my Irish broke.
This is buddy book I’m going to break it down some bestsellers in this week.
We’ll be discussing The Searcher by Tara French.
It was a listener request or recommendation, whatever you want to say.
2020 book of the year by like NPR. I think it was NPR.
Oh really?
I don’t know that.
For someone, best book of 2020 New York Times NPR New York Post.
I don’t know if that means it was the best book, but hey, it says it on goodreads.
So that’s what I’m going with.
It was a nominee for readers favorite mystery and thriller also in 2020, but like I said, we’re the Bodebook Club.
I feel like to recommend a book for us to read and reach out to us in any past episodes or recommend books, like we said, like we just do in here.
Visit our website, Bodebook Club.com or sign up to our DMs on Instagram, Bodebook Club Podcast.
You can just just iTunes, Spotify, please download, subscribe, five star review, please, and thanks.
3.8 on goodreads.
Not honestly not a great goodread score. I don’t. I trust goodreads as much as I trust rotten tomatoes for the most part.
I feel like usually we’re in the fours. We’ve read four or fives that we thought were zeroes.
So we’ll talk about this one. I didn’t prepare a book report. I don’t know if you did.
Oh, I did.
Wonderful.
Yeah, I’ll give you the floor and step up to the front of class and please present.
Want to get away?
Not just a Southwest slogan, but the slogan of Cal Hooper, a retired police officer from Chicago, who packs up his stuff and flies to a small roll town in Ireland.
Cal Hooper not to be confused with Jim Hooper from Stranger Things.
What’s it quiet?
Oh, but when I appreciate it, but what’s a quiet life that is quickly interrupted when a strange 12 year old stumbles onto his property and he discovers he has the ability to control things with their mind.
Oh, wait, sorry, that’s a wrong story. A strange 12 year old stumbles onto his property to ask for help tracking down her last brother.
Cal leans into his investigative skills to start finding out answers.
And while doing so, he starts unearthing all the town secrets, but some secrets and bodies are better kept buried spoilers.
Also, just so it’s clear, Cal isn’t doing anything weird with this 12 year old in case you would immediately jump to that conclusion like everyone else in the town.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a well written Western or noir, but set in Ireland, we’ll jump on boards on each Jim.
Yeah, not bad.
I don’t know if everyone in the town thought he was. I think he was just mostly scared that everyone was weird that there was like everyone’s gonna think of being a 12 year old.
I was like, wait, what? What’s going on? I did nothing at all.
I guess he’s an out of towner or of the case and she’s like a latchkey kid or whatever the case is.
So it’s definitely has grooming potential.
A boy could do the same. So that’s when he was like, it’s a girl. Oh my god.
I was like, so.
Yeah, either way.
Either way, you hanging out with a 12 year old kid is not the least sketchy situation.
Well, I’ll give you a, I liked the stranger things. You get minus an entire grade for not knowing the actual name of that character.
So it’s a C plus.
Oh, okay. It was better than C plus honestly.
It would have been a B plus, but you went with Hooper and not Hopper or whatever. I can barely read sir.
You listen to the audiobook.
My first stock up, a good ol Irish broke, stock up.
Yeah.
So we obviously both listen to the audiobook here. I’m sure the novel reading it was enjoyable,
but it’s just so much better the audiobook version. I can only assume because it’s set in Ireland,
you need that person who has the Irish accent and he does all the different accents for different people, different dialects, which is impressive.
Like, Mart was almost un-un-understandable. He was so, so Irish.
Yeah, it just, it takes it to the next level. It’s, it’s like chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream.
Just don’t, vanilla ice cream on its own. No one wants that unless you’re 12 or under and getting groomed by cat.
But, if you put some chocolate syrup on it, everyone’s like, yeah, I mean, I’m in for that.
And that was this book with the Irish accent, I thought.
Yeah, I mean, I’d agree, but I would use my analogy to be more caramel syrup and sprinkles, okay?
Jamies and maybe some like Reese’s pieces on there if we’re getting a little dangerous, a little little whipped cream also.
And now you’re just making a Sunday, you know?
Yeah, well, I mean, who says we’re not making a Sunday?
What do we do with that?
Obviously, Sunday is better. But if you, so if you had the choice, caramel sauce or chocolate syrup or whatever,
whatever, whatever, you want to, you want to call it, you’re going caramel, no matter what.
Yeah, no matter what.
Well, I think with caramel is that it can be, it’s very variable.
Like, I don’t like like, like, the Scotch taste or like, you know, butter Scotch tasting caramel.
Yeah.
Like, some of them are that.
So, if it’s the perfect caramel, yes, every time. That’s what I would say.
I made, I made a couple of jars of it recently. It’s so dangerous just sitting in the caramel.
What’s caramel?
Yeah, caramel sauce.
You heard my, a very, a very diner should have it on the side and you’re like, you know what?
I’m gonna start putting it on the side and just have it ready to go anytime.
It is a great idea.
It is a great idea.
Yeah, thank you.
I mean, at the same time, it’s legitimately sugar and heavy cream.
Like, it’s like, it’s so perfect.
It’s, it’s a heart attack.
Yeah, of course.
I’ve been starting to look because we get a, we get ice cream or big ice cream people, but the wife’s, the wife has been eating ice cream and I eat ice cream
a little bit, a little bit every night.
And so now I’m looking at the calories and the serving size big mistake.
All serving sizes are two thirds of a cup.
And if it’s a real ice cream, not that fake briar stuff, a serving size is like 230 calories for any kind of good ice cream.
And it’s two thirds of a cup.
So you’re having double that for sure.
So every night, I’m consuming like 500 calories of ice cream.
Which is wild to me.
Yeah, I mean, I use cancel that out.
That’s like, hey, I, you know, I walked up the, the stuff today.
That’s 500 right there canceled.
You’re good.
Yeah, it’s, that’s completely fine.
Either way, we’re talking about the signature here.
What did you have for stock up?
Stock up saying in this economy.
Oh, I mean, it’s not great out there.
Inflation is going up.
Gases to the moon right now.
I was sort of listening to the buddy book club, which is an amazing free content.
And it’s tough out there.
And that’s why in this book, there are some questionable decisions.
First, we got, Mark, your boy coming over every day, stealing cookies, talking his ear off.
Like, hey, but if you’re going to come over here and take the cookies, you need to bring something.
Your conversation skills aren’t what’s keeping me happy here.
You know, bring them to that whiskey, bring them to some Guinness’s, give me something here.
You can’t just come over and eat my cookies.
Well, you let them take a drab from the local, whatever that guy was making, the local hooch.
Yeah, that’s completely fine.
That’s kind of what we need. You scratch my back. I scratch your back.
Funny thing about my back.
This is funny. I was just thinking of, I had this for college.
I got an essay to tutor because my parents obviously rightly thought I wasn’t going to go to college without having something to tutor.
And he would come over and my mom would be like, oh, thanks so much.
Here’s like some cookies and she’d lie out like, you know, 12 cookies.
And like, you know, Oreo is never things.
And he’d be like, actually, I’ll take some of the channel chips also.
And he’d eat what?
Like 15 of these cookies in the one sitting.
And I just would, I don’t think I learned anything the whole time. I was just staring. I’m being like, how is this guy just demolishing cookies?
And also if I went into a new place and didn’t know anyone, I would eat one cookie as beautiful light.
But I would be nervous to get any more.
You was just like talking with his mouth full, ripping cookies.
We’re all jealous of those people though, right?
Yeah, because I’m the same way.
I’d be like, one, I’m not eating a cookie.
And I’m, if I have to use the bathroom, I’m holding it in.
There’s zero percent chance I’m going to go in these people’s bathroom.
And other people would just like eat 12 cookies and take a massive shit and not care.
And, yeah, those people are just so jealous of them.
Yeah.
The other thing I was going to say about in this economy is we have Trey who is by all accounts, like very, very poor, not eating meals at all.
She gets upset with Callins starts egging his house.
And this economy, you know what, you know what, a single egg in Ireland cost?
Probably I actually looked at it. That’s not that expensive.
But I assume it’s like a dollar an egg.
And like, that’s food, you know what I mean?
Whatever happens to like spitballs or toilet paper or something a little bit cheap.
I should throw a bit of space, but I mean, but anyway, she’s probably just going into farmer maggots crops and stealing the eggs.
Yeah, that’s true.
I mean, it’s still sunk cost or…
It’s still calories that you’re tossing at someone’s house.
Yeah, she could be eating those eggs.
So, but yeah, and this economy, questionable stock up.
Yeah, it’s a good point.
I do think that as far as the mart cookie situation is, like, Cal has to get in people’s good graces somehow.
You know, it’s like, you got to do something.
It’s just weird to go in and just get police start to vow.
I understand it from the host perspective to offer that, but to go in and just go ham is kind of crazy.
Or more just to expect it.
Like, oh, Cal, you went to the market today, right?
Where my cookie’s bitch?
Yeah.
It’s like, alright, give me a break, guy.
I’m like, stock up.
Having a few too many with the pals and taking all your clothes off, stock up.
Not a lot to do in this town here.
So, they all just go down to the local watering hole, at least, you know, all the older gentlemen and ladies.
And they go there and they get pissed and they just have a good time.
And that becomes their stories.
Like, it’s like, oh, let’s talk about, you know, this guy, O’Keefe over here, who got all naked and showed his penis to the neighbor down the street.
And that’s the story for the next 20 years.
And you guys just talk about it.
So, whenever you go and get pissed, that just becomes the next story.
And that’s how they entertain themselves.
So, you know, I’m not necessarily down with that into my advanced age.
But, at the same time, we still talk about those times.
And, yeah, I guess there’s something to just get pissed with your friends and make it a fool out of yourself.
Because that’s what they’re all looking for.
They’re just looking for you to make a fool out of yourself and how are they going to then exploit that.
So, yeah, respect.
Yeah, that’s universal, right?
I mean, when you get back together with your high school buddies and things like that,
you’re not actually going to talk about real things.
You’re going to be talking about the time in high school, and, you know, Johnny did something stupid, right?
Like, it’s not…
So, I think that’s just a universal thing that’s happening, right?
Yeah, I mean, we still…
We used to, in college, some…
If we stayed up till three or four in the morning, we’d say, “Hey, let’s rage until Wilson’s,
which was a diner down the street.”
And we don’t, you know, keep drinking until seven in the morning.
Oh, jeez.
And seven in the morning, okay.
And, you know, one time someone…
It wasn’t me, but someone drew a Charlie Chaplin mustache on one of our friends who was fast asleep.
And…
Charlie Chaplin, that’s who you’re going with.
And we get to the diner, and the diner owner is this Greek guy.
He was like, “Oh, you look like that Hitler guy to a friend of mine.”
And he was like, “What?”
And he was shook for the rest of the day.
He’s like, “Guys, this guy thinks I’m Hitler, which is hilarious as you’re looking at him with this Hitler mustache on.”
Yeah.
So, yeah, it’s, you know, and we still talk about it 20 years later.
So, there we are.
I like that Hitler guy.
You know what that is?
Exactly.
You kept saying that Hitler guy.
So, you look like that Hitler guy.
That’s great.
Great stuff.
It’s all our MacGee, good for you, buddy.
Do you have any other stockups?
A couple more names that start fights, Saka.
Okay.
We all know these names, Sport, Pal, Chief, Saga, and Buddy in the wrong context.
But it’s a stockup because we’re adding to the list here, Sunny Jim added to the list.
At first, I liked it when Mark was like, “Hey, Sunny Jim, let me tell you, let me see you down here and tell you what’s good.”
But by the end of this book, our mart is just fucking…
One more sunny Jim.
I was like, “Yeah, if he says this one more fucking time, Cal has got a murder.”
I was getting so pissed any time he said Sunny Jim.
It’s so condescending and so talking down to you.
Like, I’ll tell you how it is, kid.
I was getting so upset.
So, add that to the name of the list because at first, I liked it.
But, uh, not anymore.
And then the other thing I wanted to add, it was just Cal saying kid to a tray.
He might say kid more than I say kid, which I say a lot, so I appreciate that.
Yeah, the kid I felt like once it became clear, the big reveal that tray was Teresa.
I think the kid was away for the author to generalize the thing.
So, she would also, tray would never have a reason to correct Cal.
And it would never have been like, “Hey, son.”
Then say, “Right, right, right.”
I know, I’m a girl.
Uh, so I agree with you there, though.
And, sunny Jim, mart definitely towards the end was doing a lot of…
Let me explain to you how it is here, kind of thing.
And, which ties it with my next stock up, which is man’s slaughter, stock up.
So, the guy’s murder, Brendan Reddy.
It was an accidental murder and Brendan, to my understanding,
Brendan threw the first punch and then someone else knocked him out.
And on his way to the ground, hit a propane tank back of his head, died immediately.
That’s still murder, right?
That still checks out.
And, mart’s just kind of like, “Alright, Cal, stay out of it. You don’t get it.”
Shit happens when you’re party and this is the way it is, sunny Jim.
It didn’t seem like there was any remorse even necessarily from mart.
Even if he’s taking him up to see the bodies, like, “Oh, you really want to do this? Okay.”
Like, “Duh, duh, duh, duh.”
You want to get a drink afterwards?
It’s like, “Where about to uncover a dead body in a bog that someone has murdered?”
And you’re just like, “Well, he shouldn’t have brought the meth here.”
It was odd. Let’s just say.
And wasn’t it like the whiskey they were drinking? That little meth in it, right?
That sounded like that was different than whiskey, so…
Yeah, I don’t know what they’re…
Why are they yucking other people’s young?
Two drabs of this whiskey that they have and you’re seeing leprechauns,
but yet Brendan Reddy is just trying to cook up a quick meth batch
and he’s trying to break bad and it’s the biggest problem you’ve ever seen.
So…
Well, it was also just annoying because, like, Mark would be like,
We can’t have meth in here because it’s gonna ruin the whole town, it’s gonna do all this shit.
And it’s like, “Well, what about this trade, girl?”
That really needs a lot of help. He’s like, “Fuck, trade. I don’t give a shit about her.”
It’s like, “Well, you just said you want to protect everyone,
and it’s like, you see, you’re just doing it very self-righteous,
but with, you know, no actual way to help anyone else.
So, I don’t care for it.
Agreed.
Last one, quick one, guns stock up?
I mean, obviously the American, the right one he got to Ireland,
was like, “I need a gun.”
Yep, that checks out.
And it was all positive.
So, there’s no negatives for the guns, you know?
Like, “Trade gets her confidence up by shooting Call’s gun.”
I mean, I wanted to get a gun after that.
Yeah, the way he’s explaining that gun, I was like, “Yeah, I want that.”
It’s like, “This is what the Cowboys use in, wow, Wes is like, I like Westerns.”
Yeah, I know the gun you’re talking about.
I kind of had a BB gun like it. I want that.
Yeah, she helped save Call from a beating.
So, you, Wes, say, “Gun’s up.”
Yeah, I agree.
My last one was having a strained relationship with your daughter, stock up?
Not something, I mean.
Not necessarily.
Well, hold on, I’ll tell you why the stock’s up.
Okay, yeah, the stock is low.
I get it, no one wants the strained relationship with their daughter.
But, Call definitely has one.
The whole family situation, not ideal.
I think his wife left him, but they’re not yet divorced,
but she’s with someone else. Is that the case?
Or did it where they divorced?
I assume they’re divorced?
I don’t know.
I thought so too, but I felt like during when I read it, that was not the case.
Either way, they’re not together.
It doesn’t seem like him and Don are getting back together.
No.
And his daughter doesn’t really seem that interested in her dad’s life.
He’s always trying to call her, and she gives him the, “Oh, works been so busy right now,”
which is, unless you’re someone that’s legitimately, like a doctor in a war zone or something like that,
you have five minutes to call your dad, check in, “Hey, how’s it going, dad?
You doing good out there?”
Yeah.
Okay, cool. Here’s how my day was.
See you have a good night.
Boom, that’s it. That’s all you got to do.
So, that thing was a problem, but because of his strained relationship,
he needs that in his life. He needs that feeling of taking care of someone, especially a kid.
Maybe a second chance, even, because there was that whole thing with his daughter,
where she was assaulted on the street, and he went into, like, cop mode, as opposed to just being in dad mode.
And his whole thing was, “Well, I’ll find the guy that did it, and I’ll get justice for you,”
whatever the case is.
And she just needed someone there to hold her hand until there was going to be all right.
So, he tries for round two with, with Trey, and luckily,
another stock-up, I guess, misgendering.
You know, luckily, he misgenders her, because otherwise, if he knew from the jump,
then he probably would have never let her, you know, get that close.
But, and thanks to Trey for her, Shanato Connor haircut,
was able to keep him unknown to the situation.
But, yeah, so he was able to kind of recreate that relationship with Trey.
Although, the thing I didn’t really understand is I was like, “Oh, okay, cool.
So, now he’s going to do more of the dad thing,” which he kind of did, I guess, at the end.
But, primarily, he went back into cop mode when it was with Trey.
She’s like, “Oh, I need help with Brendan.”
And, yes, he eventually, like, takes care of her, and I’m sure, after the novel,
if, you know, I assume he sticks around and continues that relationship with her to help support her.
But, first, he kind of just went back into cop mode, and Trey eventually just fell into dad mode of it.
Well, one of my loves was I thought she was really, really good writing male characters.
I have the book, through the book I looked up, was like, “Wait, is this a woman that wrote this?”
This is kind of crazy, because she did a really good job, kind of getting you in Cal’s head,
and being like, “Oh, this is the way I think,” and you’re like, “Oh, I understand his perspective.
It’s definitely wrong, but I understand his perspective, at least, which I think makes this kind of a good,
I’m actually like a new war, so I was Western, where like, each character kind of has their flaws, obviously.
Yeah, he’s definitely a flawed hero.
And I understand what he was thinking.
He’s like, “What I’m best at is going and tracking down this person, and that will allow her,
my daughter to sleep at night, knowing this person’s off the street, they’re not gonna hurt another person.”
And so I understood what he was thinking, and I feel like eventually you think she would become mature enough,
or old enough, though, as she understands his perspective a little bit, and not a whole grudge.
I think he’s wrong, but like, at the same time, I think that it’s at least you can get step into his shoes and understand why he did it, right?
But I just thought it was really well written, especially for male characters.
I saw some reviews online that said they didn’t like, and there was a theme, a few of them said,
that they didn’t like the way she wrote male characters, and I’m with you.
I couldn’t disagree more.
I thought Cal was nuanced, and I thought it was just well done overall.
Yeah, I mean, he probably thought more than most men, but yeah.
Yeah, I mean, every night he’d have his beer on the back porch and look at the stars, and I was like, “Yeah, that part is…”
Other stars up there?
That part might be generic, but otherwise he was a fool.
Yeah, fully fleshed, fledged character.
Yeah, I thought he was good, for sure.
What about stockdowns? What do you have for stockdowns?
Stockdowns soothing stories.
So we just mentioned Cal. I think he’s actually a really good salesperson.
He would meet up with people, “I’m using his investigation work,” and he’d kind of read them really quickly, and then say,
Alright, this is how they think. I’m going to now change the angle of how I approach them in order to get the information I need.
That was really, really interesting way. It would work on me, but at the same time I hate salespeople, but he was kind of meeting you where you stay or stand, right?
Not just being the typical salesperson.
That is until he started doing storytelling.
Tray gets beat up, and he comes to the house, she’s all bruised, broke at ribs, this and that.
And who’s the girl that he’s kind of like almost dating or a little bit there?
Not Noreen, it’s Lena. Lena, right?
Yeah, and she’s like, “You got to stay here.”
So she’s the only person that finally commits, he doesn’t learn from his own daughter.
Like you were mentioning, he kind of would’ve done this exact same thing, but she’s like, “You got to stay and comfort her.”
And he’s like, “Alright, so he goes in the room and he’s like, kind of soothered.”
And he’s like, “You know what? Your situation reminds me of this beaten dog we’ve found the street.”
I was like, “Wait, what?”
He’s like, “Yeah, he’s just a crepe, pathetic dog beaten up abuse on the street.”
Yeah, we picked it up. It died two years later, but not from those wounds.
Good night. I was like, “Wait, what? That’s a story? What the hell?”
The soothing story, stuck down.
It was one of my loves, the way Cal changes his approach to interviewing people
when it comes to the Brennan Ready Disappearance.
And you said it so well, so I don’t even need to restate it.
But yeah, just really liked how depending on which person in their current situation he met them there
and then took a different interview tactic for them.
So once again, in terms of the writing, I thought she captured what it would be like
to be a police officer, detective, and have that capability to be able to do that
because it was obviously super copy without necessarily giving out a ton of cop vibes.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
My stock down is wokeness, stock down.
Okay, okay.
I’m more for Cal’s take here because Cal has real feelings on the subject
which I kind of came out of nowhere in the book.
And it was a conversation between Cal and Tray where, you know,
Cal’s more like Omar from the wire where he’s pretty much like every man’s got to have a code.
And his take was that as opposed to listening to people who tell you what’s immoral
and moral in the current climate, you should just follow your own compass to decide what’s right and wrong.
He’s like, you know, most people got there and they just know what words you can and can’t say
and they feel like they’re defending those people
because they’re making sure that other people don’t say those words.
But it has nothing to do with actions.
So he’s like someone’s, he was telling a story reason.
Someone was defending disabled people or something. He said, oh no, you can’t call them that.
You call them something else.
And he’s like, but at no point has that person helped someone in a wheelchair or whatever the case is.
Yeah. It was a good point, although, you know, you could argue back and forth about what the case is.
And it also is like, okay, well, if you have to have a code, what if your code is just wrong?
You know, what if your code?
He was also saying, if someone’s an asshole to you, you can punch them in the face.
But if they’re in a burning car about to become rotisserie, you got to pull them out of the car.
Which, okay, that’s cows code.
But at least you know where he stands when it comes to his code.
I do think that kind of rippled through the rest of the story with like some other stuff we were talking about, especially when
kills or the mart’s buddy, whoever accidentally killed Brendan Reddy and they don’t care.
Cow’s code is like, no, something should happen to you.
You know what I mean? Like, you can’t just get away with this Scott free.
Like if they went and helped the Reddies or something like that, I’m sure Cal would have felt at least a little better.
But continuing to ostracize the family and look down on them after you’ve murdered one of them is not to cows liking it.
And the mart ever patched their thing up.
But he kind of says like it’s too far gone at this point and you know, that’s probably the case.
Mark sucks. Yeah, I would never want to patch it up with him. Like that’s the worst.
So I’m taking my cookies, bud. How about that? That’s for, that’s the first transaggression.
You know what I mean?
All right, all right. So say you. So say you.
I agree with a lot of what Cal said, but at the same time, there’s also got to be some sort of like, you know,
it’s not just that black and white for most of this up. And you can also change your code. Like, you know, I mean, it’s not just like,
Oh, maybe I have to rethink the rethink things, you know, I mean, so that was the only thing I would say is, yeah, it’s,
if you start doing that, like, no, I have a code and no matter what it’s this, it’s like, well, now you’re really going to put yourself in a box where you can’t get out of sometimes.
Do you have any other stockdowns?
Last one, a big twist stockdown. I feel we’ve had this as a stockdown before, but I’m selling again.
We’ve read too many of these books that rely on like really big twists at the end.
And I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop because I think when I was reading this book, I was like, oh, shit, there’s going to be some really big twists coming here.
But I think this book was a much different. There’s more like a Western, like we mentioned in the war where it’s more kind of just like a sad story for
than it is like a, I mean, almost kind of reminds me of a Chromic McCarthy. You didn’t read the road, but I did.
Which is I was waiting for something in that story to happen. And it was just very sad, don’t I?
Or what I did think was going to happen was that tray wasn’t real. She was a figment of his imagination.
You and Shutter. All the time is thing. Yeah, it’s the old time though. Like no one else sees her and he keeps hiding her from everyone.
And I’m like, why is he doing this? It doesn’t make any sense.
Couldn’t you just be like, oh, yeah, like the guy and he thinks of the guy. But I guess that’s the reason why they did it.
So he wouldn’t say the boy down the road.
Yeah. Anyways, the guy, the boy on the road keeps coming to my house to and I’m like showing on the road, so whatever.
When do you like tell someone that wouldn’t it be weirder to not tell someone that right?
Yeah. Wouldn’t that make you seem creepier that you’re like hiding something?
Absolutely.
So that’s, I also thought it was weird when he kicks her out of the house.
He’s like, you’re just going to steal something from me. He’s trying to like let her down easy so that she doesn’t show up anymore.
No, you try to let her down hard so that she doesn’t come back.
Yeah.
Couldn’t you just tell her, hey, you can’t come around here at night.
You know, we can’t be seen together like in private. It’s fine if you want to come out and work outside and we’ll do all these things.
So the reception is an issue. It’s a real thing. Just talk to her one on one.
Yeah, I don’t even know what she did.
Yes, yes, but you can’t say, you know, we’ll work outside. There’s no one around.
Yeah, I guess them hiding it is way worse than…
Yeah, hiding it is always worse, but no one’s going to believe the truth.
Like so you got this trailer park girl coming here to help refinish a desk for you.
So yeah, she helps me do all jobs around the house. Oh, is she skilled in that? No, no, I’m schoolin’ her.
You know, he’s doing a nice thing, but you know, people don’t believe that. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is.
Granted, if it was my daughter, I wouldn’t let her do that shit either. You couldn’t mean no way.
That’s true. No, I got it.
But yeah, he went full on burn every bridge.
You come from a trash family and like you’re gonna steal some stuff from me.
So he went to like super-herder feelings in hopes that that would work and not the best.
But my next knockdown is midlife crisis, knockdown.
So obviously, Kale’s dealing with some shit, right?
His wife left him and he seemingly recently quit his career because of this Jeremiah Peyton situation
where he was on the beat with another cop and see they ran down this guy and the other cop pulled his gun
and almost shot this man or almost killed this man because he thought he was going for a gun
and he had like a knife heard of the case was, which still to me, I was like, well, he’s still had a knife, but I get it.
How’s it like me saying that? I was like, wait, what’s up with that?
Yeah, it’s not like, oh, you know, it was a baby and a carriage with a rattle, you know?
But because of that, he says like, what are we all doing?
Are we actually helping? Are we hurting? And he had a crisis of confidence and it didn’t want to do his job anymore.
Didn’t have the same lustre he used to have his wife. So what does he do?
Midlife crisis, does he buy a Ferrari or something like that? No.
He moves to a tiny little shack in a tiny little town in Ireland and the shack is her, the house, whatever the case is.
He’s not a house, whatever the case is. He needs a ton of work and he’s just going to lose himself in the work.
Not the most ideal midlife crisis. I just think he cut it down a little better.
So just in the way of midlife crisis is it’s a stock down because yeah, if you’re going to go go hookers and blow.
Do it like everyone else. Yeah, I agree with that.
Well, also he’s got, I didn’t really get it because he has a nice pension coming.
Years, you just sit on that. You don’t need to go to a shack in the middle. Go to Dublin, get out of the part, nice apartment above a pub and just go to the pub every night, listen to music.
That seems like a way better. What are we doing going off to fucking middle of no?
You can do that. You can go to Wyoming if you want to do. Why did you do to Ireland? Do you know what I mean?
If you go to Ireland, you got to do the positive route. You can’t go the completely negative way.
I don’t know. He needed an entire ocean between him and his problems.
What about favorite part or favorite storyline within it? I think there’s a really story lines kind of one storyline.
I honestly thought when Tre shoots the guy that are that are getting him like that whole them in the cabin scene because at that point we don’t really know is it the Dublin guys who are coming after them.
What is happening? Your house cowl going to get out of this because he feels like he can just like talk his way or you thought he was going to be like hopper in stranger things and sacrifice his life or whatever the case is for Tre.
You know, you really didn’t know. And I also thought there was some good moments in there with him and Tre and he was doing his comfort thing.
Well, also then doing his cop thing. So I like that. And then I also liked when he went to interrogate at you torture that shitty guy.
I don’t remember what his name was, but when he goes into his house and is like slamming his fingers in this desk drawer and stuff like that.
This is after the house stuff, but that’s that’s a no that’s like I’m all business cowl.
Yeah, so I I enjoyed that thoroughly as well.
Yeah, no, I agree with those. I think the one I was thinking of was we already mentioned a little bit, but when was it Lydia’s other name?
Lena.
Yeah, checksum. I like that scene because I think that was the one time where cows like I go by this principle.
I do this. This is how I act and he was about to go back into his same cycle and someone finally called him out on it.
And it’s like, no, fuck that. I’m not I’m not cleaning up your dirty work. He’s like, but I’m a cop. He’s like, I don’t give a shit.
Like that’s not like that’s not my problem is your problem. You got to stay here and deal with it, which no one’s told him the problem too is his daughter and wife.
Unfortunately, just haven’t told that to him to his face, which so he’s still is never going to learn.
He someone needs to like spell it out for him and this woman finally does, which is.
Yeah, it seemed like his wife had because anytime she’s T talk sir. She’s like, you’re doing the same stupid shit all over again, Cal.
Like, what is your problem? He’s like, I thought his wife is kind of being unnecessarily mean.
I get we don’t get a ton of backstory, but he’s like, hey, how’s our daughter doing it? I just want to make sure she’s okay. She’s like, call her.
Why don’t you figure it out? You can’t talk to about us about your daughter.
Every time I call her, she says I don’t have time to talk.
Exactly. Yeah. So I felt kind of I was like, why is she being so mean to it?
Yeah.
If he called me, he’s like, hey, I really want to figure out how we can get back together. What did I do wrong?
I get that she’s like, I’ve answered this hundred times, but she’s actively asking about something in the present.
A daughter you guys share together. It seems like you should maybe answer that question. I don’t know. Just me.
Yeah. What about your favorite character? There’s not that many in this one. We got Cal, Tray Ready, obviously.
Noreen, Lena, Mart. I mean, there’s a bunch of other random characters, but I figured you’re probably in there.
Yeah, I’ll stick with Lena, but then also I’ll throw in Tray, but angry Tray. I don’t know.
I thought it was just funny. Tray throwing Tray?
The first time she comes around and said, you’ll bring the doorbell, shake the hand. It’s get into a fight, fist fight with the dude sneak up on him.
I don’t know. There’s a I like that portion where she was where I thought she was a figment of his imagination. So yeah, both of those people.
Okay. I know you’re going to hate it, but I like Mark. I don’t necessarily like Mark.
I said, your boy has a joke, and I was right. I thought the character was well done because one, he’s got all the sangs.
He says crazy stuff all the time. When Tray, when Cal tells him that he has Tray ready over, Mart’s dying laughing, being like, Tray, ready is a girl.
And having the time of his life at Cal’s expense, he’s definitely not a super nice guy. And he’s a ballbuster and a accessory to murder.
But I was out of that. I had a good time.
I’m just glad he was there. I don’t like him. I don’t like a nosy, nelly coming by and a guy that’s talking down to you the whole time. I didn’t care for that at all.
Even if he didn’t murder anyone, I didn’t care for either of those characteristics.
He did seem like a good guy when it came to his brother who I guess he didn’t know was gay and then left because of it.
And then he tried to find him and he couldn’t find him. He did all the work to try to find his brother. And I think he really misses him and that was kind of sad to me.
He did a couple online searches. He was like, yeah, 20 years later, I did an online search. Another thing. So that was that.
He did not have a profile picture. So probably was.
That’s a perfect, perfect microcosm of him as a person. He’s all this talk. Oh, I want to make the town better on the town. Oh, ready? Yeah, fuck that chick. I don’t care about her at all. I don’t care about any of the poor people in this town. I’ll create the kids in this town. Honestly.
I’m not doing anything for the community. Kyle moves in and he’s already helping out the youth here. Your boy’s been standing there the whole time. It’s done shit. He just all talk. So yeah, I hate that kind of character.
Okay, yeah, you’re not wrong. You’re not wrong. What about love? Hey, loves. I guess for loves the murder mystery. I feel like you’re feeling positively bad.
That has to be a big thing with this book with fans because they call it a thriller. This definitely isn’t a thriller.
At no point was I thrilled. I wasn’t necessarily looking for that. And I feel we’ve done that. We’ve been there. We’ve done that.
They’re rarely that interesting. There’s red herrings everywhere. This was more like you said, it was more just tragic.
The whole thing with Brendan was just like a terrible tragedy that didn’t need to happen. He was a smart kid who was just trying to make his own way and get out of this town.
And he made some dumb mistakes that teenage kids make and it cost him his life, which was just shitty. And the whole time when you’re reading it, you’re kind of waiting for, oh, there’s going to be this big twist.
Which isn’t necessarily what I was looking for, but I was almost the other way around. I was like, how is she going to fuck up this story by putting in this twist that I don’t need.
And I personally thought it was a great ending for the way this story was. And kind of just like the setting itself is a sleepy town.
We don’t need epic murders or something like that. It’s just a shitty thing that happened.
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think if they went the twist right on this, I think it would have really taken away from the, it’s kind of like a character study on most in a book that’s more about other themes.
If you now make it a twist book, it kind of maybe kind of lessons, those are the things that they were added into the book. So yeah, I agree.
Yeah, the questions were there too in terms of, oh, there’s all this stuff about the Dublin guys. It’s that one idiot who is in town.
Like was he involved or any of his buddies involved? Like there was enough there, but I didn’t need a big payoff.
So I was fine with it. What about the slow burn of the book? It was definitely never caught fire at all. You know, in terms of it was never a roaring fire even at the twist, so called.
Yeah, this was not a, it’s not a beatry. This is a cozy up by the fire with a blanket read.
Yes, that’s exactly what I had as well. I read some of this book or listen to it when we had a big storm here in Massachusetts.
And we didn’t have power for like four days. And so I’m like listening to this book. And my living room, in one of the cases, it was like, you know what?
Like this is the perfect setting for this is a winter, this is a winter book where you’re just, you know, you don’t need the epic twists and turns and you’re just there along for this cozy train ride kind of thing.
So you’re okay with it.
Yeah, I mean, I’m I hate I said I had ending obviously was a bit unsatisfying. So I do think that I mean just as someone that is kind of tends to like more of the revenge story or like closure story.
This didn’t necessarily have that. I don’t think you know, we kind of just have like trays like, alright, my brother’s dead. Now you can’t investigate or do anything after it because I figured it out. It’s like, alright, I guess.
I guess that’s the end of the story. It is kind of depressing, right? So I think it was original is different vibes. And I think that’s good. Once and while if I read ten of these books, I would hate it.
I wouldn’t you know, I mean, I would definitely start to grind my gears a bit.
Yeah, it’s a good point. I think it also helps because we haven’t read a book like this in a very long time. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. And we’ve had more terrible thrillers on here than we’ve had probably any other book besides fantasy books. So I’m glad that we got something that was such a change of pace. And because of that, I think I’d like to more because it was such a change of pace.
What else what else do you love?
American is apple pie. There’s a certain apple pie, the diner, which I thought I was not ready for that. I didn’t know that was a thing. So I like that. Yeah.
It’s crazy believe that in other countries they have apples and they make pies out of them. You know the fucking saying, sir. How dare you?
American is apple pie. I thought it was that was an American thing. I didn’t think that was like a delicacy or you were maybe even served as a pie in other places.
I could see like an apple turn over being somewhere else.
I think throwing a piece of cheddar on top of it is an American thing. You just saw that from that one. Thank you for smoking. Get out. I never see that movie. Oh, you have it. No. Yeah.
It’s good. Take it back. I liked it. It’s about argument, which obviously like argue. So yeah. Yeah. No, I have. I just know that in the Midwest, it’s like, you know, you have a piece of cheddar on your.
Oh, I never I didn’t know that was a thing. No, that was the first time I ever saw that. I never I never had an American pie with cheese on it.
I like you’re gonna call it apple pie more. Yeah, American pie. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, there we go. And I already mentioned I think it was core Mac for Carthie Vibes.
It turns out she is American, but she just she’s lived in Ireland for a long time. So wondering how she was writing such a well told American version as an Irish person, but it’s.
I get that she has the perspective of both because she’s. Yeah, I didn’t look look up besides that she had red hair. So I just assumed she was Irish pictures.
You know, profiling for sure. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I didn’t really have many hates. Maybe just this book maybe hit me at the right time.
Not that it’s a perfect book by any means, but maybe just hit me at the right time where I was in need of something like this to slow down.
We were kind of in a fantasy and thriller. And I used to roll with quotes.
And I needed to read something different and feel good about it. You know, we’ve done other books that I love that are not in there. You know, seven husbands of evil and you go, we really loved and trying to think about the other one.
Oh, the one with the kid on the drugs that we did fairly recently.
Colors the dark colors the dark that was called the thrill of that one was good. That’s like the other one. We ran right to that. The West Virginia one that one was all. Yeah, that one.
Extra derly depressing. Yeah, that one you’ve been like, but I like it either way. We were I was kind of in the need for it. So I didn’t necessarily have any hates. Yeah, it was a bit slow for sure.
You know, I think if you took this to the beach and you were reading it in the front of the sun, you’d probably put it down every few pages at the beginning just to get a dip in the water.
But yeah, eventually, you know, once you get really involved with the characters, I think it makes up for itself cast the movie. I don’t know. You could have hopper for Calhooper, right?
Yeah, I did a Jeremy runner always plays the same role as like dad that’s kind of not there in the picture, but kind of a cop. Yeah, for for Marta did Brendan Gleason got to get us an Irish guy. Yeah, yeah, just get Brendan Gleason and Colin Farrell back together.
And this will be the sequel to being cheese of your share and perfect. They have another one before that in Bruce. Yeah, it’s a good book. I make it. It’s a good movie. Not book.
I watched the movie. I think I was not. I did not know that was like, it’s a weird.
Super weird. Super. Yeah, I did not understand it the whole time. I was like, wait, is this supposed to be funny or is this supposed to be like, what’s going on?
Yeah, it’s definitely a weird movie, but it’s one of those that you remember because it’s weird and it wasn’t bad.
You know, it was like, oh, someone really swung for it, which I appreciate as well. And it wasn’t like swung for it and was terrible like battlefield earthers.
I don’t like that. All right, Keith. That was the searcher. Thanks for whoever recommended it. Appreciate you. I’m glad we read it.
What do you give it out of five and who’s the four? I give it three point seven five out of five. I thought it was very, very solid. I think that’s
I wouldn’t go on my way to recommend it, but I liked it. I liked a lot. Yeah, this is something like I tell my mom about and she’d be jazzed to read it.
It was really good. I gave it three points seven five as well. So we’re in lockstep. Yes. Yeah, it’s for anyone who just wants to change a pace. There says, you know what?
I’ve been reading all these terrible thrillers. And I just want something that feels a little bit more realistic. Yeah, yeah, down the earth.
Read this then. Yeah, but it is a cozy winter read for sure for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, that is the searcher Keith. What do we got going next?
We got me talk pretty one day by David Starris. I’ve seen this book and David Starris in particular referenced a bunch by comedian. So I was like, I want to see I want to read a funnier book. So we’re I think both of us are done with it already.
Yeah, it’s pretty quick one, but we’ll get into that next. And you had you weren’t familiar with David Starris before this like outside of the references. No, yeah. So it’s I think I’m sure I’ve seen him on like a late night talk show.
Or I’m sure it seemed something he’s written before, but yeah, I’ve never read one of his books. Yeah, maybe letterman or something back in the day. I’m sure you probably seen a sister to Amy Sederra. She was like in kids in the hall and stuff like that.
Yeah, I looked at up after and I was like, Oh, I didn’t realize that. Yeah, they’re the same family. I guess I’m sure I’ve brushed brushed on like I’ve the name was very familiar to me. So I wasn’t like it was like brand new.
Yeah, well, we’re keeping it keeping alive going through some other genres or whatnot that we haven’t done, which which I appreciate before we get back into our things. So yeah, we’ll like he said we both finish it. So we’ll have that coming up pretty soon.
Let’s go to another episode.
All right. Well, thanks for thank your chat. And I’ll catch you for me talk pretty one day. All right. Bye now.
Bye now.

The Buddies dive into James Islington’s ambitious sequel “The Strength of the Few” – a book that takes “go with the flow” to a whole new level when you lose an arm AND get transported to three different worlds simultaneously. This one had all the elements of a kick-ass sequel: distinct worlds, epic fantasy elements, and tea that makes broken legs feel like a light jog. The Buddies got to chatting about whether this was better than the first book, The Will of the Many, how chariot racing has never been relevant and still isn’t, and insults that keep you up at night. So steep your tea, practice your one-armed spear fighting, and join us we immerse ourselves back into the (three) world(s) of The Strength of the Few. 

Intro (0:00-2:21)

Stock Up/Down (2:22-36:28)

Favorite Scene/Character (36:29-42:40)

Love/Hate/Lingering Questions (42:41-54:39)

Conclusion (54:40-57:31)

NEXT BOOK: The Searcher by Tana French

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to the book club.
I’m Dylan with the man that makes us stronger
together, Keith, what’s up buddy?
– And I am here with the man,
or is other two worlds known as Dylan,
or Big Dilly style for 2069,
so the three alter-egos he’s got.
I wanna know the world where that one exists.
– You know, no, that’s your IM name, kid, come on.
So let’s start talking about it.
– It was Dill O-17,
and I was, ’cause 17 is the day, I was born,
and did not understand the connection between Dill Dose
and what those were, so, yeah.
I was like 12, and it stays that way forever,
so then you’re in high school, people like–
– People don’t forget.
– People like Dill Dull, they know it’s Dill O, Dill O.
Either way, here at the buddy book club,
we’re bringing down some best sellers,
and this week we’ll be discussing the recently released
second part of the hierarchy series,
The Strength of the Few by James Eilington.
I’ve heard it all so many ways,
but it’s his own fault for doing all these characters
like that too, so I’m gonna go with Eilington.
So yeah, this is part of the hierarchy series.
Our last book was Will of the Many.
We were gonna do a little,
a little detour, but said,
let’s just go with it.
But if you’d like to recommend some books for us to read
or reject us any past episodes,
you can visit our website, butibooklub.com.
Slime to our DMs on X, Instagram,
that’s Buddy Book Club podcast,
List of iTunes, Spotify, or your podcast, please download
five star reviews would be great, leave us a note,
all that stuff, please, and thanks.
So yeah, like I said, we’re going to do
listener-suggested book, which we’re still doing,
but Keith has already almost done with this book.
It’s a 30 hour book.
We had just read Will of the Many.
There were so many questions.
The whole thing was a question mark.
And I also had run out of my time on Spotify
to listen to other books, including our next book.
So I just started listening to this again,
and I was like, you know what?
Hi, I think we need to discuss it.
So 4.39 on Goodreads.
I don’t remember Will, actually, I think I have it here.
It was 5.39, or 4.39.
So this one’s a touch last, but it came out in November,
so I feel like people are still getting into it.
Seems like there was a lot of love for the series in general,
or people that are interested in the series on, like,
Reddit and Goodreads and whatnot.
I was surprised at how much,
how many sub-reddit banners there were going on,
not only about the story itself, but about potential theories,
which we may or may not get into.
Let’s get into some stock up, stock down,
Keith, stock up for the strength of the field.
What do you got?
Go with the flow, stock up.
Yeah, I’m someone that tries to go with the flow more.
And I know just this is one of my things,
is I’m kind of a stubborn, plain, spineless baby,
who knows what he likes.
So, you know, I kind of know I need to get out of my comfort zone,
and that’s kind of my thing, but this is just
not a completely different level.
I mean, they do lose it at arm,
and let me tell you something, if I lost an arm,
I’m Debbie Downer, or Keithy Cressfallen for five to 10 years.
I lose an arm, and then also get transported to a new world,
where I don’t speak the language.
I don’t know the rules of physics, or the society,
or anything, like everything’s completely different to me.
No one’s explaining it to me, especially in the second world,
I’ll call it, that’s like the world where you go to school.
Oh wait, no, lose, I see him.
– Yeah, I’m swan diving off that cliff.
That’s the opposite of me.
Like, what are we doing here?
This is kind of like, oh, I’m in a different area.
No one speaks my language, not one person is heard of where I come from.
That’s kind of whatever.
I’ll just kind of figure it out.
I’ll just learn the language.
Oh, there’s teradactyls up there trying to murder people from the sky.
Yeah, I guess that’s just part of the,
that’s that’s a new thing, I guess.
I’m like, wait, wait, what?
He kind of fulfills, like, get busy living,
or get busy dying kind of thing.
He’s just like, yeah, whatever, just fucking go with the flow.
So, that was pretty impressive, and then just sidebar.
You know what, he goes through like the acid thing,
because he even goggles when he’s doing this?
– Oh, his Dante’s peak situation?
I just think about his eyes the whole time.
I don’t know, anyways, but yeah, so,
Ksaka for going with the flow,
I’ve tried to do it more like this, I guess.
Yeah, that whole acid thing was quite interesting.
Yeah, go with the full for sure.
I’m not that person anymore.
When I was in my early 20s,
we did like a Euro trip, and we stayed in hostels and whatnot.
And some of these hostels,
there’s like eight people in a room.
I couldn’t even imagine.
I sleep with the wife next to me and the dog on its bed,
and I have ear plugs in.
You know, like, (laughs)
That’s the world I live in now,
and I was sleeping in a room with 10 other people
from all sorts of different countries.
No way, no way.
For 19 days, like, what are we talking about?
Yeah, the acid thing, I thought was kind of funny.
I feel like throughout our conversation,
we’re just gonna bring up random topics,
’cause this book is 30 hours long.
I don’t even know how many pages it is,
but so much happens.
But the acid thing, it reminded me of Dante’s peak.
I don’t know if you haven’t seen it, but the lake turns to acid
because of the volcano,
and then they’re stuck in the middle of the lake,
and the grandmother takes it upon herself
to jump out of the boat and push them to shore
as the acid’s burning her body to pieces.
That’s beautiful.
But yeah, it was pretty much what this was doing.
Unfortunately, the grandmother didn’t have a scarab
to cut under her, like, that’s what he does.
He basically, because the strap was wearing off,
he slices his skin and then shoves the scarab
underneath his skin, so he’ll be kept alive,
which then reminded me of the mummy
when the scarab’s going to the person’s skin,
so that freaked me out.
But yeah, it was a wild, wild move by this,
to just go into a poison lake, or a poison river,
whatever the case is, but good for him.
Well, my first stock up, kick ass sequels, stock up?
Terminator two, judgment day comes to mind,
empire, of course, the dark night, back to the future two.
I personally like it more.
A godfather two, of course.
Naturally, which we here watch Godfather one,
and then the wife fell asleep during Godfather two,
and we’ve never finished it, but whatever.
Yeah, I don’t know if you have any other sequels that you love,
but I wanna say this one, for me, loved it.
Big fan, big fan.
Not like, oh my god, gushing, you need to read this level,
but I thought this was much better
than the will of the many,
mostly for scope purposes.
Finally, we understand that there’s other worlds out there,
you know, Obedeem and Lyceum, and Rez, obviously,
but it gets us out of Rez.
It gets us out of the school thing,
which really didn’t work for me in the first one.
I just wanted to see what was going on,
and we learn more about will, its abilities,
although it does get a little muddied as to like,
what will, does what where.
But I just thought the story was more enjoyable.
I think it being three different stories
and having viz be different in each of them to some degree,
but also the same, and I liked the Lyceum stuff.
I feel like on the internet,
a lot of people wanted more Rez,
and didn’t love the Obedeem and Lyceum stuff,
but I like the Lyceum stuff a lot.
It just hit my fantasy interests there.
And Obedeem, I thought was an interesting story,
and like an interesting dystopian,
or even like post-apocalyptic world that he had created.
And then all this stuff that happened on Rez was cool too.
So I felt like we were actually going somewhere,
and maybe it’s ’cause we already had the backbone
of the knowledge of what we had learned
from the Will of the Many,
that allowed me to enjoy a strength of you more,
but yeah, I’m glad we went this route,
because I likely probably wouldn’t have gone back
to the series after Will of the Many,
but now I’m excited for the next one.
– Oh, wow, I think we’re complete opposite
into this culture, I like that.
We’re usually not like that, we’re usually kind of aligned.
I’ll just burn my stock down
because it’s specific to this.
I thought it was more like the Matrix sequels,
where, oh, I still like all these people that are in it,
and I know we compared it to like lost and tenet,
though for the first one,
but I just got, I know some people love the Matrix sequels,
I remember being like in the theaters watching,
but they’re like, wait, what’s that?
– Yeah. – What’s, what’s, what’s going on here?
the architect, who?
– I’m lucky I looked this up,
but I didn’t know the names of the worlds
where Rez, who see him in Opetit,
I didn’t even know that shit.
I was like, I’m so over my head on all this stuff.
Like Rez, I was just trying to get a grasp
of what’s going on Rez.
I’m like, why are they fighting?
And where is, he’s like Batman now in Rez?
I’m like, it’s just like so over my head,
and then we have two other planets to deal with.
I do love the originality and the idea of like,
I was splitting in three,
I think that was really, really creative, super good,
but for me, I was, I was swimming in acid,
I was trying to, with my, no goggles,
I was trying to, I can figure out,
I want to see in there, I couldn’t do it.
So, yeah, I think we’re just on the opposite side.
In book three, I was out, I’m like,
I can’t even find a grasp book too.
I don’t know what I’m gonna do in book three.
I will say, and I’ll learn one of my hates here too,
but in book three, that he goes into the chamber again,
and he splits into nine people,
and it’s nine stories.
I’m back in, I’m 100% back in.
Then, I’m in, if it becomes the actual,
if it’s the spider,
if it’s the spider, just breaking away,
no, it gives the actual hierarchy,
keep on splitting down, I mean, listen, I’m in for that.
Yeah, what if he just creates his own,
like, will pyramids in each,
and he’s like the head of each will pyramid,
and then he combines those into the ultimate will pyramid.
It was a good way, well, I guess I’ll get to my next stock up.
So, my next stock up is, play to your strengths, people.
Play to your strengths, very important.
Think about the Patriots and the Super Bulls,
like, hey, how are they gonna game plan this thing?
Play to their strengths, stop the run,
use Gonzales to try to lock down JSN,
and make Sam Darnal beatcha.
That’s what you gotta do, right?
And I think that that’s what Islington does here
with these characters.
We noted in Will of the Many
that there was a real lack of character building.
The supporting cast was pretty mad.
We had Caledis, I think it was his name,
and our buddy, what’s Aiden, our buddy, Aiden.
We’d like kind of those two and then Aekwa
and the other one that was supposedly the love interest,
whatever, but they didn’t really build them out.
We said that, so, what does he do here?
He says, okay, I had a good character in Viz,
and I was able to write him pretty well.
So let’s just make two more of them, you know?
Small to one. – Yeah, well, next one.
– We got Viz, he’s like, okay, well, let’s create another one.
We’ll call him like, see a moon,
and then we’ll go like, Deglon or Deglon,
whatever his name is,
and we’ll just put him in different universes,
and I’ll just write one character in those,
will be all the characters.
So yeah, I have supporting cast characters,
but it’s all the same character.
– Smart. – Yeah, so I, I like that,
and I thought it’s an interesting way to approach a second book,
and it’s a pretty, it’s some heavy lifting that he did here,
and we’ll need to do in the future,
which is to differentiate them, right?
So they all obviously come from the same place,
but now like, Viz and Res is now split off
from Viz and Obedeum and Viz and Lucium.
So they’re, you know, now they’re all in their own pads in life.
So they’re all gonna go through and evolve
into different characters even though they’re the same person.
So I’m excited to see how that goes,
and we can talk about some potential theories later,
but I feel like one of them’s gotta do like a heel turn,
you know, is one Viz at the end,
gonna have to kill another one,
so that he’s not synchronous anymore, you know?
Who, who knows?
It’s pretty wild, and I’m excited to see,
’cause he did do a good job,
in the beginning, this one off towards the end,
they were already grown,
and they were already different from when they started.
So unfortunately with that comes a lack of creating more side characters.
Now you have three different worlds that you have to run,
that have their own storylines.
So we don’t really get many supporting cast here,
and you know, we do get a new batch of spear wielding warriors in Lucium,
you know, unfortunately outside of Tara,
we really don’t get much from them,
and even her, like just a little,
you know, it’s just hard to do
when you’re juggling two other storylines in different worlds.
So, let me ask you this,
would you rather stay in your current world,
but lose an arm or go to another world,
but keep both arms?
Well, I don’t even know,
I’m in that other world,
but I mean, like I’m good.
What?
No, well, you’re conscious of this right now.
Lose an arm, you get your arm cut off,
and he goes, yeah, ’cause then res his arms off, and, uh,
Obedeem he has both arms.
No, no, no, he’s gotten, he’s got one arm in all of them.
Oh, I thought he was missing a right in it left,
and then Obedeem he has both…
No, I don’t think so.
He definitely doesn’t have it.
They don’t talk about his…
That’s for sure.
Yeah, ’cause he gets the arm,
he like picks up the arm,
but I think he sure has both arms and Obedeem.
I don’t know.
Let’s see, hold on a second.
Does Viz have both arms in Obedeem?
Yes, the version…
A-I says yes.
‘Cause he doesn’t really reference it at all in Obedeem.
He’s like, yeah, then I pick something up.
He does not like, you know,
anyway, I like I said, he goes to the flow,
so he might just be missing an arm,
but he don’t even know.
He’s like, yeah, whatever, no big deal.
‘Cause he’s like dancing, I feel like they’d be kind of a big thing,
but like, you have a one arm dancer?
What the fuck is this?
And also people would definitely recognize him.
I think the internet saying that C-Rour gave this
one of those like stones that prevents injuries.
So when…
Oh, it heals.
‘Cause if something happens to you in one,
I guess you like lose in the other or something like that.
So when this like pays the cost,
quote unquote, to enter Lucium, which is his arm,
it like trickles down to Resviz,
who loses hair was our red res,
but he doesn’t know Batilla.
I don’t know, there’s a good question.
I didn’t even honestly, I didn’t even know.
I didn’t even know he had bell times.
That’s, you know, that’s why this book is a little weird,
you know, in some ways.
I didn’t even know.
I knew he didn’t have it in Lucium,
but yeah, so the question was,
would I rather lose an arm in my current world that I live in
or have two arms in an unknown other world?
Yeah, that’s right.
I mean, unfortunately, I’m gonna lose an arm.
Do I keep my family and I’m in this other world?
But it’s like set in Victorian era
and there’s no adaptations to the modern dentistry?
What are we talking about?
Are you going to the next world?
You’re in the Civil War, you’re gonna show up in the dark?
I got damn it.
Yeah, it’s like one of those, the sliders or something like that,
that old shirt, so you all isn’t slide into the Jurassic era.
And, you know, the question for me would really be which arm?
Because I play–
Well, obviously it’s your–
No, it’s for sports.
I would have an after arm and then I do all the normal stuff.
What’s your dominant hand if you’re not a man?
That’s the most important.
It’s my foot, think about it.
Feet.
Yeah, you’re good.
But I take both of them.
Did you ever get a stock-ups?
Insults that keep you up on it, stock-up?
I’m calling Lucium World Two.
World One is the first world to lose a World Three is open to him.
Oh, okay, just a minute.
I would have pictured it differently, but I can’t go.
Oh, well, you’re picturing correctly then.
But he’s basically in the round-tool of schooling and all that stuff.
So he’s been forced into another school.
I understand why he’s like, bro, I have a normal life now.
I’m, you know, with a family, I stub one arm,
but, you know, at least I can just chill out.
It’s, I don’t have to worry about things.
He’s living the kind of, like, you know, just a farmer’s life.
But he gets to the school, they give him the name Leith Fear.
Or, I’m sure I’m pushing to that.
It’s an Irish, actually, phrase, but–
And he assumes it’s because he’s missing an arm,
and he’s like, kind of fucked up.
It’s a bit on the nose, but like, you know,
if you’re in like a top-gun training, they give you a name that’s–
Yeah.
Whatever, right?
So it’s not like that bad.
I wouldn’t, that wouldn’t hurt me.
That’d be something called me like, cast with a ghost.
I’m like, yeah, I’m pale.
Whatever, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m gonna give a shit.
But I would not be able to handle
when he finds out what the real meaning of it is just,
oh, you have no heart.
You just don’t like to give any effort.
I was like, holy shit.
Imagine just being cut down to the knees like that.
Oh, yeah, you’re talented, you’re good,
but you just fucking, you don’t have a takes.
Like Coach McGinty is rolling over in his grave right now,
thinking about this, you know, from a place that’s obviously–
That would be, that’s the number one meanest thing you–
Yeah, because it’s the same exact to somebody.
Being talented but not giving enough effort
is literally the worst thing a closet would be, right?
Like I was just, oh, so anyways, I’m, I’m,
I’m glad he was able to pick it back up and figure things out
and get a new name, but yikes, that hurts.
Yeah, I almost think what is different than like,
it’s not effort.
It’s in like an interest in getting back up when you’re knocked down.
Oh, I think those are kind of married.
They are, they are too to agree, but it’s more for him.
It’s like, she’s like, hey, you know, Tara’s like,
your heart’s like not into this, it’s not that you wouldn’t
come and save your, your buddies here, your soldier buddies.
Well, that’s when they started a respected when you did that.
Yeah, it’s just that, yeah, it’s just that you don’t have.
It’s not, it’s not your number one priority.
And so yeah, he had to show that.
My last one was Cadmos’ T. Oh, same as mine.
Oh, okay, no.
Yeah, I got around the same page here.
Yeah, that’s just like morphine plus adrenaline
and has like a two day half life or something.
It just lives in your body forever.
He’s breaking his legs and they’re like,
oh yeah, I’ll just add some tea, that was what we’re good.
I was like, wait, what?
Yeah, he gets straight up vekned by whatever the guy’s name is.
Desimist or whatnot.
Like legs snapped off at the ankle pretty much bent sideways.
And he uses his metal contraption thing,
his doc-oc situation to support his legs.
But you still have two presumably compound fractures
in your legs plus all the other injuries.
And he’s like running through the city,
doing whatever the hell he wants.
And just briefly every now and then being like,
oh, it doesn’t feel great.
Yeah.
Yeah, he’s like, we’ll likely add some tea this morning.
Yeah, huh?
Yeah.
It’s not like you know, like if you had a thermos on him
and they were like, hey, you better go slow on that
because you can have a heart attack and die
from overdoing Cadmos’ tea.
But no, he just had like a couple sips that morning
and he’s good.
Well, I will say to the, I mean, the reason again,
this book was like way over my head is,
the dude that breaks his legs, I have no idea who that was.
I have no idea what the backstory is, why he’s a villain,
what his motives are.
I’m like, who is he?
He’s one of the leaders.
I guess he’s not in militaries, like one
of the other leaders in governance or religion or whatnot.
He hasn’t been built up as a bad guy.
So, like, that’s unfortunate is that he’s pretty new.
He’s only in this book.
It was the chariot race situation was–
I didn’t know who that guy was.
That’s the same guy.
I think so.
All right, but I don’t know what his deal was.
He wanted his son to be whatever the thing was at the end
to win if he won the–
Dominar.
#NAME?
He wanted his son to be dominer.
And somehow, he’s blaming this for his daughter dying
or his daughter already died.
And then, because of all this civil war bullshit,
his son dies, too.
And so, now he’s like blaming this for the whole thing.
I agree.
Not a good foil.
Not like a great foil.
So, they just like all of a sudden be at the jail like,
aha, I have aqua here.
And he’s like, oh, OK.
And, you know, it’s like, who are you?
I’m like, you’re really making this dude torture this dude
for what reason again?
I didn’t get it.
So, the other thing I’ll add about T– and this is more just a thing–
I need to have my money on a video conference,
and I see someone drinking T. I get so excited, because I’m
a big T. Yeah, a huge T. Yeah.
I’m like, hey, hey, what kind of T are you drinking?
And I’ve never seen anyone give a fuck less than,
whenever I ask people about it.
They’re always like, I don’t know, like, black– green T.
I’m like, oh, yeah, totally.
Wait, T. No.
I’m not going to put myself.
No, I just want to– because I’ve been trying–
everything’s I’ve worked from home.
I like very much drink every morning, if not, too.
And I’ve been trying all these different types of tea,
because like, coffee you kind of figure out,
yeah, what’s the best coffee?
How do I like it?
You know, there’s like 100 variations,
and I’m like, all right, let me find the best tea.
And so I’m asking people and they’re like,
do not give a fuck at all.
Are you loosely for a bag T?
Bagged– my go-to right now is Yorkshire Gold, which
is like what a lot of the British people drink, which
is, I think, is fucking unreal.
And it’s super super cheap.
Yeah.
You can buy like a box of $180 for like $10.
Oh my god, this is the cheapest thing.
But like, that’s why I get excited about it,
because I think I found a good tea, and nobody gives a fuck.
So give me some time.
I love this guy’s other guys’ tea.
I’m like, I’m going to Yorkshire Gold.
It’s like, oh, long for me.
It’s like, ooh, wow.
They’re like, great.
I’m drinking fucking English, but I was just like,
let’s get out with the meeting.
I’m like, all right, sounds good.
That is.
Whenever I think the world’s going to shit,
things like that make me feel good.
The fact that tea can buy like 100 pounds of tea
for $10.
Yeah, yeah.
And throw it in the water, yeah.
We used to have taxes on this stuff.
Like it was a big deal, you know?
It was a big deal.
And now it’s just, yeah, whatever.
You know, I can buy so much of it that I pour half of it out.
Don’t even care.
There’s no other thing in the market where it’s like,
this is the premium item of this thing, and it’s cheap.
It’s super cheap.
Like, you think about it.
Even if coffee, you’re like, oh, I want Columbian
or Costa Rican coffee.
It’s like, all right, we’ll put Costa Rican on it.
And now we’re going to fucking–
Especially if you’re trying to get fair trade, organic stuff.
Right, exactly.
Yeah.
If you go to one of those actual coffee shops, too,
or like, we know, not the chains, it’s like, oh, yeah,
you want a cup of coffee?
It’s $12.
Yeah.
I think about it with sugar, too.
Like, you go to the store and I buy a giant bag of sugar
for like five bucks.
And there’s the processing for this to be made
and to be just available for me is so wild that I can just,
I can just have as much of this as I want.
You know, I think about–
I have a big World War II fan, as you know.
And I’m just thinking about people in World War II
who are like rationing stuff or–
Oh, eggs.
We have that book.
Yeah.
Just trying to get a couple eggs.
Yeah.
And people stuck in Russia just–
if you have a cake, it’s made out of shoe leather.
Just wild.
And I’d go to the store and I’d buy it for five bucks
and then blast me forever.
And I think about it– actually, I think
about when I go out to breakfast and stuff like that
when there’s sugar packets there.
And I’m like, I’m using a third of this sugar packet,
and I’m just throwing it away afterwards.
It’s just gone.
And no one cares.
And it’s crazy how awesome that is to live in a world
where we can do that.
Well, they should also have my invention
or my theory that they should have caramel,
as instead of ketchup, mustard, sugar packets, cream,
caramel, I was feeling like caramel sauce?
Yeah.
It’s genius.
Don’t question–
What are you putting it on your coffee?
Is it OK in your coffee, sure?
What are you not putting it on?
Yeah, pancakes.
Yeah, it’s pretty good, for sure.
Oh, god, eggs?
No, definitely not.
No, yeah, I mean, it does make a lot of sense.
I mean, but that’d be like, what, would you put sugar packets
on your eggs?
It’s like, no.
I obviously, but you could put it on a lot of stuff
that you put the sugar on.
Yeah, anything you put your ground sugar,
you could put– I like it.
I like it.
Thank you.
I’ll get into stockdown because you already fired one off.
My first stockdown is agency.
A lot of talk in the communities about agency,
like having agency.
And–
Yeah, I got you.
This has none of it in res.
It’s all– he’s a total puppet of a character.
And he’s just going about doing the bidding of others.
And I thought that was kind of going to change in this book,
because in the world of many, it was like either Al Quiscore
telling him what to do, or the headmaster, whatever,
trying to tell him what to do.
He’s like, oh, god, I didn’t listen to him.
It’s like, OK, cool, bro.
But it seems like he’s just doing other people’s bidding,
nonstop.
And then he come into this book.
And he’s doing the exact same thing.
He’s doing whatever governance or tells him to do.
He’s doing it.
Then Austius comes in.
And he’s–
Call it the flow.
Like I said–
Just following whatever Austius says,
even though Austius killed all of his friends at the Utiquium,
yeah, and I feel like Viz didn’t really grow a lot, although,
at the end, he makes a pretty presumably crazy decision
in taking over all of these UTI or UTI or whatever, who
are now going to be his army or something.
And it seemed like that was something that items, like,
dude, don’t do this.
This is messed up.
But is he working for Khan now?
I don’t really know.
Or is he now finally making a decision for himself?
Because he knew it all before.
And up seeing is dead mom and dead sister and whatnot.
So to assume this army of the dead is pretty interesting,
I thought.
The stakes for that for me weren’t–
I just didn’t understand the stakes as much.
So I think it was interesting.
But I’m just like, I don’t get what this whole thing is.
I don’t understand who–
why are all these dead people being collected?
I don’t know.
Well, they said the UTI or whatever, or whatever,
the guy who presented himself as Khan,
he said that they had been collected over the last few–
or like the last 100 years or so.
And it wasn’t for the purposes that the place or whatever
had intended, which was like to fight against the concurrence.
They had collected them as a way to kind of like fight
against the other factions or something.
Like it was basically like–
Does some Order 66 type shit we’re going to join in?
Yes, exactly.
And I got some of that later.
But yes, it’s exactly that.
So yeah, it’s like, now he’s going to presumably
be using them for their intended purpose, which
is to fight the concurrence.
But they also have the ability where somehow
through the will system, if they kill anyone,
they can then turn them and they come back on their side.
So it’s basically an endless–
Yeah, like an endless zombie kind of–
I mean, it’s really like he’s becoming the night king
from Game of Thrones.
Because it’s like, all right, cool.
He kills all army and then he just turned them all.
So yeah, and they don’t–
like Napoleon going into Russia, you know,
it’s because you can’t feed them, so you’re screwed.
But these guys are empty, so they don’t eat.
They don’t sleep.
I don’t think they sleep.
But they don’t need anything.
They don’t bleed.
This is great.
And you get to see his family again.
Yeah, and presumably, Caledist, right?
I guess that’s a lingering question.
But the last sentence is like, hey, old friend,
or something along those arms.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I see him that too.
Yeah, that’s a joke.
OK, that’s a joke.
I wonder how they all got–
like, how do they all get there, though?
So someone’s just like–
like, his family was killed in Sioux,
so someone took their bodies on a boat, brought them back over
to Katen and then found this place
and shoved them in this hole.
Yeah.
I didn’t really get it.
What about stockdown?
Yeah, last one, charit racing stockdown.
You’re very touched on it a little bit here.
I’m not sure this stock’s ever traded.
They’re very–
Well, what?
Then her?
It hasn’t been traded in millennia, potentially.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, I don’t really get charit racing.
It sounds like you want to just big crash
and just done the horses on it.
Gladiator?
Didn’t you like the char–
I mean, it’s great.
It’s not a race.
I mean, I don’t understand the whole principle concept.
Now, we’re talking pod racing.
OK, now this is pod racing, which
is a great neighbor podcast, by the way,
that’s a story.
Now, that would be a stockup, because I’d
always is.
But anyway, in this book–
and you might have to clear this up for me, but this wins
the competition, right, at school.
He then goes and proves that he’s as strong as anyone
with what one arm.
So he gets diameter.
And then this dude from an 80s bully shows up.
I don’t know who this guy is.
We already talked about it.
He’s like, oh, yeah?
You’re not the real diameter, because you
don’t– can’t win a chariot race.
And he’s like, no, I can’t.
All right, we’ll prove it.
Sucker, and I’m like, what’s going on?
And so the stakes are–
you lose, someone else gets diameter.
You win, you stay diameter, which is what you’ve already earned.
I was like, what the fuck is he formally recognized by
Desimiss or whatever?
No, just say no.
Didn’t make any sense.
And then he still wins.
And then they don’t give him the top position, right?
They give it to someone else.
And then I was like, what was the whole point of this old
series that we’ve seen here?
It was very much the Aspen episode of South Park,
Standarsh situation.
Aspen is going to sing.
Yeah, the sking.
Oh, you’re getting it, boy.
He’s like, what?
Yeah.
I didn’t– I didn’t want to just–
All right, fine.
Meet me at 5 o’clock.
Yeah, it was– the whole item with you.
It was on my hate, the chariot race thing.
It didn’t make any sense.
We haven’t even heard about chariot races or even,
like, horsemanship being a thing in here.
And then all of a sudden, they’re in an arena for their tests
that involve chariots.
That there are chariots there.
So they’re like, OK, cool.
Just like, get the horses out.
Let’s do chariot races, which are super dangerous.
And people could have died right there.
And the stakes didn’t make any sense.
Mostly, it just seemed like a way to introduce
this bad guy character that’s going to eventually–
Right.
#NAME?
It made no sense.
And there’s so much other stuff going on with this book.
And we talked about supporting characters.
And so much other of the stuff could have been–
I would have given that time to just give me
exposition to be like, hey, we’re
going to take a break from the book.
And we’re just going to give you exposition
about what we’ve learned about this world so far.
And I would have loved it.
The chariothing, yeah, made no sense.
I also don’t know their stuff in Roman.
I remember in the first book I talked about this too,
I’m like, they just randomly are like, dominos.
What?
And they don’t ever say to keep their stuff up.
Is this red-rise?
Why are they Roman?
Red-rise is the whole theme is, you know, Roman stuff.
This one just throws it in like, sprinkles, chariots racing.
So I didn’t really make it done a sense to them.
Apparently, I looked up, it’s supposed to be each planet,
or each thing is like, this is Rome, this one’s Egypt,
this one’s some other empire, I was like, oh, I guess,
I didn’t, is that supposed to be known?
So like, Obitim’s Egypt and–
Yeah, what’s the other one?
Lucasem is Celtic tricycuse cymbals, I assume it’s–
As a–
Ireland?
Or–
It’s Celtic as someone who is–
Sorry.
You should know this.
I guess that’s where the Dalai gone name comes from.
He’s definitely an Irishian.
Deglent.
And they’re speaking Galic.
Yeah, I was going to–
I worked on Viking or Galic, so yeah.
My last talk down is people online, talk down.
Everyone’s still like, well, them anymore,
like I talked about.
There’s just a lot of hate on the internet
because I was going through Reddit,
because now I was a little bit interested in the theories.
You know, I was like, OK, where do people
think this thing’s going?
Especially because we’re presumably not
going to get a book for a long time,
and I just finished reading it, so I mean,
I spent a little time digging down the rabbit hole.
And interestingly, there’s a lot of hate
on the Obitim and Lucyem storylines.
People, like I said, they just wanted
to get back to Rez, which Rez is kind of like a political drama
and not in a fun, dune way.
It’s more of a confusing, I don’t care way.
Well, they keep on jumping around time on Rez, too.
It gets not linear.
It’s just like, all right.
And now, I guess he’s like Batman in it,
all of a sudden.
You’re like, what?
You didn’t explain why he did start doing that.
I mean, I guess I’ll burn a hate, too,
but it’s one of my hates the whole time thing.
I have no idea how much time is passing in this book.
So he gets hurt when he kills all the leaders of military,
like all the Ducodons or whatever they’re called,
the head people.
And he’s injured.
He goes back to Casa Telemis or whatever the case is.
And then someone’s knocking at his door
because they’re hunting for the guy who killed him.
And they’re like, yeah, he killed all these people
like a week ago.
I was like, wait, one page ago, he just did this.
So it’s been a week or whatever the case is.
Time was very confusing.
I had no idea how long he was in Lucía.
I think that instance is he killed the thing that happened
that was a week ago.
And then now he’s out there being Batman,
doing different things, starting a briots
and whatever, doing all that stuff.
And he just got back from his most recent mission.
That’s what I read it as.
Just started doing that all the time now.
And then he just was on a very, very specific mission
recently.
Oh, OK.
I could be wrong.
Yeah, well, that would have made more sense
because he was so wounded.
Like he was wounded in one eye.
Yeah, yeah.
I don’t think he got wounded when he–
because the other just attacked all of them and killed them
and that was that.
I thought, right?
You don’t think he got injured from that?
Yeah, but then even with Lucía, he was with that family.
But it wasn’t clear how long he was that family.
Presumably, he was there for a while because he got healed up
and had a nice relationship with them.
But I have no idea.
And I don’t need it to be like, you know, the SpongeBob,
like two days later or whatever the thing is.
I don’t need that.
But give me something here because we’re
jumping in three different worlds and times
moving at the same, I guess.
But how is it moving?
I just– I didn’t know.
But back to my–
I stalked down on people online.
I don’t know why they think so much cool stuff is happening
in res because it’s not.
And over to him, it’s a desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland
with flying dead people that have blades for hands.
Like, that’s pretty cool, right?
That’s got to be interesting to some people.
Like the Gleaners themselves is like, holy shit.
Like, that’s cool.
Lucium is some sort of, you know, you said Celtic.
I said Viking or Galic, Fantasy Realm.
There’s Druid, child soldiers, the good kind
of child soldiers, not the bad kind.
And unknown magical elements.
It seems like Will there is much more magical than cut and dry.
I mean, it’s definitely not cut and dry
in the other two for sure, not.
But it’s more like has the theory all elements as opposed
to physical ones that you can clearly define.
I don’t know.
I found both of those storylines to be interesting.
And I didn’t just want to be in res.
So that was my take.
Yeah, I would rank Lucium one.
And then–
Res and Obateam, both to me, I just was very confused.
I thought Obateam’s picture they painted of that
was really, really cool.
I just imagine that is like this desolate temples and pyramids
and things I was like, oh, shit, that’s a really cool point.
Like, I’d be like, they really did separate the three of them
really well.
But yeah, I had no idea what’s going on.
Obateam other than that.
Yeah, Obateam also, it seems like a totally weird place
because there’s pretty much just two sets of people.
There’s the Yunk-D who are the dead people.
And then there’s like the carar or the Qatar or whatever
the case is who are supposedly the not dead people, which
is like the girl that he met that was farming and whatnot
over there.
So there’s two types of people.
There’s either the dead people or the not dead people.
And all the dead people are working for cop plus the cleaners.
And obviously we get like netacrat too.
But yeah, I didn’t–
I’m not saying I loved Obateam by any means.
I was definitely Lucium was my number one.
But I thought it was almost as good as Res.
And it just also happens to be the one place where
Seeror who does most of the exposition of what the will
elements are and how he’s there happens in Obateam.
So that’s why that was helpful.
Because whenever we went there, I was, OK, well, maybe I’m
going to learn something about the actual elements
of these worlds.
Favorite scene or storyline?
Yeah, I mean, I kind of just burned it,
but I was going to say World II, a.k.a.
Lucium was, I think, the best.
I also thought it was nice.
There was some cathartic moments with his dad.
The ending duel was really great.
I didn’t really get the whole journey
to prove himself thing with all the statues when he gets his arm.
Yeah, I started to come into life.
And then he’s taking control of them.
And then they gave him granted him an arm.
He comes out of that and he gets kidnapped.
I was like, what do I–
Yeah, I think it’s like some walkabout slash.
What’s that thing that Native Americans do
when they find their spirit animal?
They go out– They do that for the 300, right?
Or whatever?
Those people did it too.
They’ll be like, you got to go off and kill a bird or whatever.
No, kill an animal and come back and even can’t until you do that.
Yeah, so I think it was kind of like one of those things
where it was like a test.
OK, everyone’s journey is different.
And presumably, this is where a lot of these warriors
would get their magical weapons or something,
but everyone’s journey is totally different.
But whatever happened to this here that the Druid saw,
whatever his name was, was completely off crazy,
off the whole– off the reservation from what?
Off the reservation.
I shouldn’t say that, but I’m also talking about the Native.
But it’s totally different, way different than anything
else that I know to everyone.
And obviously, he gets his arm out of it, which is a whole
another story.
But most people are taking a staffer thing out of there
and he cuts off one of their arms.
But he’s obviously able to use the will much differently
than anyone else because he’s synchronous.
You like the dad’s that I was like, oh, cool, it’s his dad.
That’s weird, but also–
All right, and then–
That was nice.
Yeah, yeah, you get to see his dad.
They talk shop.
Yeah, dad’s like, his dad gave him that it’s not your fault,
which was awesome.
It’s not your fault.
It’s like, also, his argument was so terrible,
but it worked out vises of being like,
I made the mistake the first time of not going back.
It’s like, Viz, you were a child.
If you went back, they were going to slaughter you.
Like, what are you talking about?
You made the right decision.
He’s like, I’m not going to make that mistake again.
It’s like, OK, cool, don’t.
Like, what?
That’s not– what are you talking about?
For me, favorite scene, I don’t know.
Diago working the throw outside of the Heads and Military,
which kicks off a civil war.
That was pretty cool because it was unexpected.
You know, new Diago is there.
Obviously, Austius is an interesting character.
He– I need to know more about him.
I’m excited for that for future books,
because he travels through the wood for worlds, which is,
like, how does he do that?
We have no idea, but he’s able to do that.
Presumably, that means that Viz would be able to do it too.
Like, on his own, not just like, with Austius as a guide.
But yeah, I thought that scene was cool,
because it obviously kicked off the civil war on res.
And then he’s like, legitimately ripping
the throw outside of these people.
And Viz also deals with, however much will,
more will than anyone has ever done pretty much.
And you know, he can do anything at that point, physically,
with how the will works in res.
Viz– I really like Viz becoming Neo in Luceum, which
is when he’s fighting Tara, and she’s beating the shit out
of him, and all of a sudden he feels the will take over.
It is the end scene of–
It’s all loses, though.
Yes, it loses.
But it’s legitimately the end scene where now he’s
using his spear, but he’s like, I don’t even feel it as anything
besides an extension of my body.
And he sees Tara, I like, start to get freaked out.
It pretty much was that scene.
Or not to be confused with Viz becomes
the Winter Soldier in Luceum and beats Gulkavar at the end,
which is also in my top three, because all of a sudden
he’s got this silver arm and people
like, what the hell?
And he’s Neo and the Winter Soldier?
At the same time?
So yeah, I might go with that one.
I like that one.
Because also, fuck Gulkavar.
Now, that’s a bad guy.
That’s a foil.
Yeah, I agree.
That was– you seriously built up well at least.
Yeah.
Stabbing people in the stage.
Anytime someone gets stabbed in the stomach
with a spear in a violent manner, in a movie, or anything,
it’s like, that’s fucked up.
I don’t like that person.
So yeah.
What about the best character?
We got like, Amos, who we haven’t even talked about.
He’s in Obatium.
He’s the Jungti that is like, this is friend/right-hand.
And man, Desimist, the head popper, Tara, Gulkavar,
Nettacret, Osteus.
You could pick Lieners if you wanted to.
I don’t know.
Those are just a couple that I thought for new people.
Yeah.
I had a tough time with this one.
I think I’m going with the AGO though.
Just like–
Just repping the rest out.
Is protector?
Is dire wolves, I guess?
But I never bring David Thoreau.
The dire wolves just disappeared all of a sudden.
Nothing to do with anything of the story.
I don’t know if that happened.
No, actually in the book, Arya’s dire wolf
is like, almost has her own storyline.
Like, she’s out in the woods.
It’s like through Arya’s dreams, I think, Nymuria.
But she’s like, out in the woods basically creating a wolf
army that she’s at the head at.
So presumably, that whole thing that happened
when they fight the Night King in Winterfell
would also include a giant army of wolves
led by Nymuria.
But I don’t know.
That’s conjecture.
Yeah, I think Deago’s a good answer.
I got to go with Cadmos, my guy, the tea maker, Cadmos.
OK, yeah.
I couldn’t think of it remember his name.
I kept on calling him Alfred at my time.
Well, it’s funny because in my head, it’s same thing.
I said he was giving off Alfred vibes from Batman.
It’s like, oh, Master Viz, welcome home.
Yeah.
Here’s some tea for your Batman.
Yeah, it’d be hard.
Bandaging him up, helium, and then giving him
the tea and covering for him.
And he knows Viz’s secrets, but also doesn’t–
you know what I mean?
Doesn’t ask.
He’s just a good Alfred character.
Yeah, I think I go with Cadmos for me.
What about loves?
Would you love about the strength of the few?
I mean, I think it’s similar to the last one.
It was just super impressive.
I think I’d say it was ambitious the last pod.
That’s all the reviews.
I was like, oh, he really took a swing on this one.
And I commend that because he did really create three distinct
worlds.
He’s somehow combining all of them in some ways,
and there’s all these different–
no, it’s not enough that it created a system of will.
I’m going to do systems of will across three different–
Yeah, the will land it.
Acts differently in three different places.
It’s just high level fantasies.
There’s no other way to put it.
It’s just intense.
I don’t know how you ever think of this type of fantasy.
So super, super impressive for that.
And then I still love me some Viz.
I mean, to your point, hey, you know what?
We should do just split up three times, because it’s a great
character.
It’s like, yeah, yeah, it makes sense to me.
Yeah, I’m good with that.
Yeah, well, yeah.
Yeah, like the three worlds that they were so distinct,
I think you did a good job of transitioning nicely
between them.
I always knew where I was.
Great.
It’s obviously like different chapters.
But sometimes a chapter would continue
with the current world we’re in.
But other times I would jump, and he wouldn’t say, hey,
we’re in Lucium, you know, it was like through the interaction
or the people, obviously, you would know.
And they just had such distinct features
and the things that were going not only just like the will
was different, but the whole purpose was different.
Like in Lucium, he’s kind of doing the training thing again,
but he’s also, you know, with his family,
he’s just trying to like not necessarily
get involved with the politics or not.
He’s just trying to live, but he gets pulled into it
with the druids and whatnot.
Well, I guess the other thing is when he splits,
that was interesting to me.
It was just his knowledge of what the situation was.
In Lucium, he has no idea that he exists elsewhere.
He goes to Lucium, he’s like, oh, I guess I just got here.
I’m in this new world.
Like what the–
Yeah, he did.
He took a boat.
Yeah.
He doesn’t think he’s in a new world.
He’s like, oh, I just took a boat to another part
of the country that no one knows.
Yeah, exactly.
He does doesn’t even know what the situation was.
In Res, he doesn’t really even know that he’s synchronous
until about halfway through when he goes back to Solvargas
and learns it.
But he just thinks like some crazy stuff happened.
And only an Obedeum does he know that one, he’s synchronous,
and two, that he has to kill Ka.
That’s what he knows from that point.
So his goal in Obedeum is, oh, I got to go kill Ka,
how am I going to do that?
His goal in Res is to get in the political thing
and climb his way up so that he can do something or another.
And in Luceum, he’s just like, living.
So that’s why I liked it so much.
It was like, each one had different goals and objectives.
Makes sense.
I thought Ake was death was shall I say mind-blowing?
You know, when you’re at–
Can you blow your head off?
No.
When you’re at the hands of an enemy,
it’s not a good time to lose one’s head.
It’s not the way to get ahead in life.
It’s a shame she wasn’t more headstrong.
Wow, you really heard those.
That’s impressive.
She’ll never be the head of a pyramid now.
Oh, Austin Powers, you–
It’s honestly the first thing I thought
about when he popped her head.
It was like, oh, she’s never going to get in the head in life.
So yeah, I thought– but in actuality was not expecting it.
Granted, we didn’t really build her up too too much,
but it wasn’t fortunate.
I did feel the other thing I loved is I
felt like we got a lot more exposition in this book, which,
you know, what is actually going on.
We learned about synchronism.
We learned a little bit about how Will works,
or at least we learned a bit about it.
You know, they even say, oh, adoption.
Adoption is to see other people’s will and use it or take it,
you know, like, oh, now I know that that’s a thing.
The concurrence that it was a bad guy, I guess.
We still don’t really know what the concurrence is.
It’s very misborn-ass with that.
Exactly, but I was literally about to say that Kha
sounds a lot like whoever the leader was, the bad guy.
And the first one, yeah, they killed him, and he’s like,
I was holding off the real bad guy.
I think that’s the well of ascension.
But yeah, it’s like, he’s the bad guy.
He’s like, I was actually trying to keep everyone alive,
even though all the stuff I’m doing seems terrible,
I’m actually helping because there’s
worse thing behind me.
So like Kha’s not the Kha is doing the, what are the cataclysm?
So like, there’s cataclysm every 200 years
that are killing a bunch of people or whatever.
Like Kha’s doing that, but he’s doing it
to hold back the concurrence is what he’s saying.
So interesting.
We’ll find more about that.
You know, why they killed Vizis family?
You know, they found this weapon, and it’s the same one
that like Esteban used it the Namakia.
So like stuff like that, we actually learn like what’s going on.
So I like that.
And I also like the Yunki, the Yunkai, whatever.
We had seen a little bit about them on Salah Vargas
in the Pyramid and didn’t know what the hell was going on there.
They just didn’t have eyes or something like that.
But JEDF is the one we ended up meeting
in the early on in this one.
And they’re dead.
They don’t eat, sleep, breathe, or age.
And they operate off the will of the person that brought them
back.
Pretty simple.
And now Viz has an entire army of them.
So we’ll see how that works out if he becomes the Night King
or not.
What about Hates?
Strength of you.
Yeah, I think I’ve kind of covered all of them.
I mean, really, it’s just–
I think it’s just I’m not smart enough for this book,
unfortunately.
This is what– when I said it, it’s like Dune to you
on the first one, you were like, what?
And I was like, yeah, there’s too much going on.
And then you times it by three, you know?
It’s just–
Yeah.
This little brain of mine is not really
a cope for this.
I think you need to be locked in on fantasy
to get into this.
I think you just need to be fucking ready to go.
Yeah, I disagree totally.
This is way more complicated than Dune.
Because Dune is a–
I think Dune is much more hard–
Harder to be–
Because the writing is–
Because writing is a collegiate level writing
or something like that.
But once you understand the powers at play
and what they’re doing, which is pretty much spice,
then, OK, now I know there’s houses.
They either want spice or have spice,
and they’re trying to hold spice or trying to buy spice.
Once you start including magical elements, which happens here
and the Benadjezer at stuff in Dune doesn’t count,
because those are more mystical than magical.
Yeah, once you start including a whole will system,
it’s kind of the same with this board.
It was a lot confusing at the beginning
because there’s so many different types of metals
and some push, some pull, some strong, some weak.
There’s exponential ways that that can work.
So yeah, I think this is actually more complicated.
But I agree.
I mean, keeping track of the various will powers
and how they vary by world, I thought was not a great thing.
I did love the metal and viewing.
He does in res with that like suit he created.
That was pretty cool, but I agree with you that this was–
it’s definitely hard to follow for sure.
Chair race talks about–
and then I guess the different factions in Lucien
were kind of hard for me.
I didn’t know who was with who.
It’s like, oh, there’s King Rowan.
And this guy and I’m fighting with Fedorius.
And I’m like, who are these people?
What?
I know there’s a druid sect, but outside of that,
I don’t know who’s with who besides Galcovar’s bat.
So didn’t really get that part.
What about lingering questions, do you have any?
Where do I start?
I think I’ve asked a lot of them during the app here.
I think– but the biggest stuff was really Obatiniam.
I think Res was pretty straightforward.
I was– I wasn’t really super botaned to the–
oh, there’s a big– usually I love political revolutions
and civil wars and we’re fighting for that.
But I just wasn’t botan.
I was like, all right, I don’t know what this takes.
I don’t really know why I should–
Yeah, you’re about to play with side wins or–
Kia to convince you didn’t to come fight with him.
And I’m like, I don’t even know what they’re talking about,
what the context of this is.
He’s like, I got to fight for this faction.
I was like, yeah, but you haven’t really set up the factions,
so I don’t know why you should care.
It’s just the whole conversation is there.
I kind of just was like, all right.
Let me know when we get to the next thing.
Lucie and I think was like, could be its own book,
so I thought that was good.
But Obatiniam was just–
when he started cutting himself and fucking disintegrate people,
I was like, what–
Yeah.
He walked through some door.
He gets the flail and it’s such an Egyptian thing.
It’s a flail and crook, basically like what you see them.
When did he get those powers from?
He went there off to a door.
I didn’t get that.
He went into some hall and found there was a flail and crook,
but he had to bleed on it to get them and then he got them.
All right, that’s the–
I’m gonna put it–
I was like, all of a sudden it was just like the next–
the next time they should see him, he’s like, and explode
another hand.
He just became like a–
who’s the guy that’s an X-Men that could like shoot stuff
from his hands and shit like that.
I don’t know if maybe there was a robots that did that.
But he didn’t listen to that.
Yeah, that person.
And I was like, what’s going on?
Like that one just was much more complicated.
Whereas I just didn’t care as much about it.
And then Lucie–
you see him at least, so I was like, all right,
I can get down with this at least.
Yeah, I guess I’m going to say that through our conversation,
I feel like we find Obedeem to be the worst,
less most complicated, just because we didn’t talk about it
a ton.
Yeah, kind of the end.
What happened to the end of the–
He ended–
He thought it’d go all–
He finds Ka, or what we think is Ka,
like a sleeping Ka on a table or something,
and he’s going to kill him?
Or it wasn’t very clear.
Like something was going on there.
Maybe that’s not even Ka.
I was like, where’s Seeror?
The whole second half of the Obedeem thing,
but I guess he went off.
Seeror says in Obedeem that Ka has been there thousands
of years, he’s got all the empty under his control,
and he must be because of that, he’s the concurrence.
But in Res, Ka says he’s against the concurrence.
So we’re not exactly sure who’s the bad guy.
There’s a lot of theories out there that Seeror
is the bad guy, potentially in Obedeem and elsewhere.
He might also be synchronous, because they said in Res,
they found his body, but it was all mangled.
So maybe that wasn’t his body.
And Seeror still exists in Res.
And we know he exists in Luceum, or at least he says he is,
because he identifies himself at the end as a Rewark
or whatnot, the Druid.
So there’s theories out there that he is synchronous
and that even if not, that Seeror is controlling
the non-UNTY people, that like he is,
like they are, the non-UNTY people are also dead,
and he’s controlling them because they don’t,
like it’s hard to tell who’s dead and who’s not.
And there’s also a potential
that if Seeror is alive in Res, that who’s the blind girl?
Luceum, or Luceum, whatever.
Yeah, Lannestia. – Lannestia.
That Lannestia is his unty in Res.
Oh my goodness.
I read the whole thing.
– I read the books and I didn’t know if you had
read this book in some of the lessons this far,
they’d be like, what the fuck are they doing?
Yeah, Oh my god.
It’s so true.
– Or nerding out so hard and not in like, oh my god,
this is crazy, but yes, a little bit,
no, this is crazy, but yeah, if someone was just like,
hey, let me listen to this podcast.
– Everyone’s Star Wars was like mind blowing
or was like, they think all the force is like,
come on, bro, slow down.
You get to explain that to me a little bit more.
– Yeah, well, to be fair, I’m reading, at the same time,
I’m reading two towers and good god.
Like, it’s, it’s straight four pieces of story,
but if you want, that’s the thing about two towers
or the Lord of the Rings in general,
is like, you can just read it as a story
and you’re like, okay, I get everything.
But if you want to, like, anything someone says,
you can click on something and be like,
all right, now there’s this whole thing.
Yeah, You can deep dive into the next thing.
It’s like, oh, the ends are talking about the end lives.
You can just go into that whole thing,
but you don’t have to.
This one is like, they’re just throwing it all at you
and seeing what sticks.
So Keith, the strength of the few,
who is the force kind of, not fair,
but he’s for anyone that read the world of many
and wants to continue, so I’m not even gonna ask you that.
But what do you give it out of five?
What do you give it?
– So my last one was 4.25 and you were three.
I’m going three this time.
I think, again, it’s just, you were like,
I can’t wait for the third one.
If we get to a third one, I’m gonna have to.
I literally will have to take a college course on this
and what’s happening.
He doesn’t give you any sort of,
oh yeah, you remember in the first book
when I talked, there’s none of that.
There’s zero that.
I think if you like this book, 100% understand.
If you’re with me and you’re somewhat of an idiot,
then I also understand why you wouldn’t like it.
I would buy You a gig of It three.
– Yeah, I’m not clamoring for book three.
I think I will read it, which is more than,
I mean, we’ve done a lot of stuff for books.
So, granted, there’s a bunch of series we’ve done
that I would like to go back and actually read.
Like, primarily two.
I think the one with like, what’s his name?
Fought nine fingers.
Joe, Joe Abercambi, Yeah, I like that one.
I actually downloaded the second book at one point
when we were in like a,
or when we were like, I had finished the book earlier
and I never got to it, but yeah.
The nine fingers one and then the other one
with the warrior that could like go into the death zone
or whatever.
Yeah, in your time, with the African one?
that one was sick.
I’m not clamoring for it, but I will read it.
I give it a three seven five, which I think is,
is really good.
That’s for me.
I don’t know how these numbers work on good reads
’cause like four five, like that means it’s the best book.
The only thing I’m giving four five and up
is literally learn of the rings when it comes to fantasy.
– Should basically be like, you have five five stars,
you’re not allowed to get any more than that.
– Oh, that’s interesting.
– You know what, once you hit one,
that amount, then you’re done.
Everything else should be, you can get 104 stars,
you get 103 stars and then you’ll only
get one in two stars, but like that’s,
you gotta get, so like, you wanna,
I mean, good too ’cause like,
Dan, this book is so good, do I wanna put it?
Yeah, do I wanna get it?
And You can move It, You can shift it.
Five stars, yeah, but you can’t, yeah, you can shift thus,
but you gotta knock that thing out ’cause then it’ll be actually
a fair system because it’s like, all right, well,
I can’t just be throwing out five stars like, you know,
no tomorrow.
– Yeah, well, or like, there’s three worlds
and you just got unlimited five stars
and all the other worlds, come think.
Nine worlds of book three, Yeah.
I’m in, if it happens.
All right, well, that was fun.
That was a strength of a few,
and Keith, can you remind us what we have coming up next?
– The searcher by Tonne of French coming up next,
listen to our recommendations, so we’ll get to that here soon.
Yeah, And now I am actually excited to get out of Fantasy Room.
I need to be grounded, so.
I like it.
– Yeah, I’m here for it.
All right, Keith, well, good talking to you
and I’ll catch you for the searcher.
All right, bye now.
Bye now.

The Buddies tackle James Islington’s “The Will of the Many,” a fantasy novel that’s been described as “Red Rising meets Magic School” but turned out to be more like “Tenant in a pyramid scheme.” The Buddies dove into a world where people literally give up their will to power society, while the rich kids attend prestigious schools and play extreme capture-the-flag. In this episode the Buddies debated many topics including: whether naked fighting is the ultimate power move,  the merits of getting knocked unconscious to time travel, and if this book series is going to be more like Lost season 1 or the Mistborn series. So join us as we grease ourselves up, and fire at Will into The Will of the Many.

Intro/Book Report (0:00-4:55)

Stock Up/Down (4:56-38:57)

Favorite Scene/Character (38:58-43:21)

Love/Hate (43:22-53:41)

Conclusion (53:42-56:32)

NEXT BOOK: The Strength of the Few by James Islington

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to Book of Book of Book.
I’m Dylan, you’re with a man who’s open the gate,
been to Obatim and all he got was a shirt that said,
I’ve been to Obatim and all I got was this Lousy shirt Keith,
what’s up buddy, how you doing?
I don’t have anything for you after that great opener.
All right, here’s the buddy Book of Book of Book
where we’re gonna get out some best dollars
and this week we’ll be discussing
The Will of the Many by James Islington.
That is the easiest of all the names we’re gonna discuss.
It’s part of the hierarchy series.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read
or read you’re gonna pass episodes and visit our website
bytobokob.com/dmzx or Instagram bytobokaparkas.
So this is iTunes.com, wherever you get your pockets,
please download, subscribe, five star of you, please,
and thanks.
Keith, four, five, nine on good reads.
Four, five, nine, you brought this to my attention
and you said, we will do the will of many.
Where did you hear about it and why did we do this book?
Yeah, I think pretty much everywhere in social,
everywhere I was seeing people are like,
this is red rising, so.
You’re gonna throw that out there
then we’re gonna have to do the book, unfortunately,
or fortunately, so.
So you’re on hip social channels
that tell you that red rising is Will of the Many.
I also spoke to someone that’s very,
he really, really like Dune and I was like,
oh, I’m more of a red rising guy.
He’s like, oh, you’ll probably like Will of the Many then,
which is basically, I feel like way to talk down to someone
of like, oh, you can’t handle Dune,
you can probably handle this book around.
You don’t like Dune, but you like red rising?
Have you read Hop On Pop?
You’ve done motherfucker?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, Bluey?
It’s here.
Okay, cool.
Well, did you have a book report for us
before we get into the camera?
Yeah, quick one.
Okay, go for it.
The Will of Many is a Book that takes its title
a lot more literal than I was expecting.
In this epic fantasy novel, the society’s an actual
pyramid structure where people’s will,
aka energy or strength or mojo can be given to others.
With those at the top of the period having more will,
then the 1997 album, Big Willy Style,
and those at the bottom,
left slower and more impudent than me
after 12 Bud Bites.
Many have described this book as exactly the same
as red rising, which is basically like comparing
a quarterback to Tom Brady, a lot to live up to.
I found it more like Miss Born meets name of the wind.
Overall, if you’re looking for an enjoyable
immersive fantasy book, this is the one.
It went by fast.
It ended up being like same tenant in theaters.
That might be Yes, 100 years.
Exactly what happened, but I was happy I was there.
So, yeah.
It’s so funny.
Okay, good book report.
I’m gonna give it a name minus.
I liked it.
Oh, thank you.
It didn’t have as many quips,
and I was wondering is impudent when you can’t,
the
Yes, that’s right.
Yeah, don’t finish that.
Yes, that’s right.
So, full disclosure, we read this book maybe.
I finished it a couple of weeks ago,
Keith finished it like a month ago.
So, it’s not super duper fresh on his mind.
It’s a little fresher on my mind,
but I still needed a refresher.
And I also needed some more explanation
into the whole thing.
And then as I was looking into it,
I was thinking, this kind of reminds me
of when I’m watching a movie like tenant,
that’s what came into my head,
where I knew I liked it,
but I didn’t really get it,
or I didn’t get all of it.
So, I needed to look up on the internet,
what it all means.
And I have a mixed relationship with it,
sometimes I think, oh, that’s cool.
Like I didn’t really know that.
It’s gonna be more fun on a rewatch,
or whatever the case is.
And then other times,
I’m like, did I really like it
if I needed to look up all this stuff?
Or am I just an idiot?
One or the other.
But it’s easier with a movie to say,
oh, cool, like that’s gonna be more fun on a rewatch,
than a 24 hour audio book.
Yeah, it is funny,
’cause the red rising corollary too,
I guess because there’s a school
and he like vids.
It’s not scifi though,
which is what red rising is.
So that’s where, like it’s fantasy, not scifi.
So it’s like, to me, it’s completely different,
but I don’t know.
Yeah, and a lot of people are also saying,
’cause I went on good reason, was looking through it.
Or people were like, oh, if you like red rising,
and you like the Hunger Games,
I’m like, you to key ’em,
or whatever the Altium,
whatever the thing is that happens at the end.
It’s like a hundred pages.
It’s not the Hunger Games.
So yes, I could see the relation there, but no, not.
And even the school aspect, it’s pretty chopped up.
Like, yeah, they’re in school,
but there’s not a lot of classroom stuff going on so much,
and it’s broken up with the trip to Sus.
Or, soose, what do you call it, kids say Sus these days?
But, you know, it’s broken up with that,
it’s broken up with like different trips,
different places and whatnot.
So I didn’t necessarily feel like it was a school centric book,
necessarily.
Well, let’s get into some categories, stock up what you got.
Stock up getting a significant injury,
or another way to say this is stock up to time traveling
in teleportation because in this book,
this has like three to four major injuries,
where they’re all run the Angus attacks.
So I think the first one, he passes out
from the loss of blood, the second one was when he,
the guys doing like the big weapon in the space,
and he, the guy kind of commits suicide,
but he shoves a knife in him type thing.
He passes out from there.
All of these, the times he does this,
he’s like on these long journeys and travels
and then he just wakes up in his bed.
I’m like, that’s, that’s awesome.
We both just took long trips.
If you could just get in a boxing ring right before,
get knocked out, you know, I took two Uber rides,
a two hour train ride, a six hour flight,
and then finally, is in my bed,
he has skipped forward to the part where I’m just in my bed,
you know, a little bit of headache the next morning,
signed me up. Oh, my God.
So you’re talking like when like the transverse
or whatever that thing is, like that crashes,
he just wakes up in a bed, you know?
A 10 hour travel trip down the road,
and then the same thing happens when he kills the guy
in the square, he maybe took that whole long,
like horse and buggy ride there.
He just wakes back up in his place, you know,
nice and comfortable, and I’m like,
that’s awesome, you don’t have to travel back,
you missed the worst part of any sort of trip.
Yeah, like kill Melanore, Melior, 100,000 times.
Whatever. yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s it.
Get knocked out, getting a sick man injury,
good deal. Yeah, in reality, it’s probably more like,
ah, ah, ah, for like 10 minutes before you pass out.
yeah.
My first stock up was Stranger Things season five.
Oh, okay. you caught up?
I haven’t seen it. Okay.
No. Are you a Stranger Things,
or are you a Stranger Think?
I watched the first four seasons,
I started watching the fifth and I was like,
I mean, I think it’s one of the things
you just gotta commit because I was like,
these actors suck.
I couldn’t tell about it.
Any specifically that you think are not good?
I think also ’cause I’ve seen a lot of interviews,
but I do not think that wolf and dude, whatever,
that guy is not, I think it’s just his personality’s terrible.
yeah. yeah.
I think he’s a terrible interview personality
and then Will is obviously awful actor.
yeah. yeah.
So for us, our conclusion,
I actually think Mike’s a good actor, I haven’t seen any.
Oh, okay. But.
He’s gonna be a great bad.
Will is terrible, actor, terrible.
And he’s unfortunately, you know, kind of a main character.
I mean, he’s always a main character,
but he’s like really a main character in this one.
And you know, they cast these kids when they’re like eight.
You know, you can’t hit home runs like you do
with Harry Potter, like that’s just how it’s gonna work.
But yeah, he’s not very good
and we’re not a big fan of 11, you know, she’s just.
Oh really?
I thought she was always pretty good actress.
Well, they also, maybe it’s just like the direction,
to be like they’re doing weird stuff
where like she didn’t know English
and then she had this interesting speech
and then all of a sudden she’d be fine at speaking
and then she’d go back into like, you know,
me hungry one time.
And she’s like, wait, what?
She was just totally fine with it.
So they did get rid of that in this one.
But the reason why Strange Things Season Five
is a stock up is because in this season,
things get a little more complicated
and I’m not gonna spoil it for anyone of course.
But they get a little more complicated.
The science stuff is coming in, you know,
with the whole upside down
and the right side up all this stuff.
So what do they do?
They just have characters spouting exposition
every single scene.
Basil?
Yeah, it’s straight basil exposition.
It’s just, you know, someone will be like,
oh, this thing is crazy and they’re like, well, of course,
that’s how this works and explaining everything.
And I don’t really necessarily like that so much
in a show or in general.
But at the same time, I’m not the brightest guy.
I can use and I’m okay with a little hand holding,
especially through this one.
A related stock up is blades of glory.
No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative.
So the book, there’s obviously we’re talking about a story,
follows Viz.
Viz has something about him that we haven’t learned yet
that makes him unique.
I mean, we know he’s not gonna seed will,
but there’s more to it than that, clearly.
There was a cataclysm, which is some epic event happened.
And the hierarchy was created out of that.
Is that how it worked?
Yeah, there was like All these stuff left behind
that they then used in order to…
Yeah, so there was, there’s a precategorism relic.
That all the kids have to touch or see their will to
or something and then that allows them to seed will
throughout their life, which is a part of the thing.
That’s called like the Yudikeyam or something like that.
We’re gonna be terrible at the names.
And he had granted, I listened to it.
So I’m gonna go off with a narrator, says,
but he never… I looked at Wikipedia
and I was like, what are these words?
Yeah, do what these are.
As I’m gonna buck up on characters, it did not help
because I’m looking at the character names.
I’m like, oh, I don’t know that one.
That is not it.
If I read this Book though, It would be a massacre.
I mean, the names I have for Harry Potter,
’cause I read that book when I was young
are not even closed.
Her moan, maloy, I called Malfloy.
I, it was quick ditch, I told you always.
So I would, can you imagine what I would be saying
for these ones?
I just would be having names I made out completely.
Yeah, it’s funny you say that because my brotherinlaw
is reading, we spent the time together
with all of the days and he’s reading Harry Potter
to my nephew.
And so they’d be hanging out and he’d be reading it.
So obviously I’m like, yeah, let me, you know,
I’m gonna get Chris Cross.
Yeah, you know, I’m gonna get Chris Cross
applesauce and get involved in this.
right, of course.
So he’s talking about muggles and I’m like,
what the fuck are muggles?
And I was like, is that an A.D. in accent?
I was like those chips that are shaped like cones
that those corn chips, and he’s like, those are bugles.
Oh, bugles.
I was like, yeah, what’s the, what’s the difference here?
What are muggles?
So he’s saying muggles who’s saying her moan, something,
I have no idea.
It wasn’t that, but he’s got a lot, it went way beyond that.
And so I was just laughing as I’m trying to read these
characters in this book thinking,
what the hell would he do with these?
Because my god.
But okay, so the hierarchy is broken into
a senatorial pyramid, we got military, government,
religion.
There are some reason at odds with one another,
like they’re all vying for power or something.
I don’t really understand why.
It was kind of like World War II, we All came together
and the like production and everything was all set
towards beating the Nazis and everything like that.
So everyone’s together.
And then once you have all this money and power
and everything set up, it’s like, all right,
now we got to just start doing some infighting.
It’s like, all right, like that’s, I think what they’re saying
happens because like everything is conquered and everything.
yeah.
So now they’re like, all right, now we need
to start playing politics.
Got it.
And then there’s the anguish who are like the rebel alliance
to get the hierarchies empire granted,
they’re not necessarily like good, like the rebel alliance is,
you know.
Well, we Get to bait that also.
But we don’t really know.
Yeah, we don’t really know.
All we know about the anguish is that the guy at the end,
No, I’m talking about this with Star Wars.
He says The rebels are good.
Oh, Yeah, yeah.
That’s a good point, never thought about it like that.
But the anguish, the only thing we really know is that it might
be potentially led by this guy who had the scar at the end,
who also had some supernatural powers and presumably had been
through the gate.
So, or he’s from a different place.
I don’t know, but there’s the anguish.
And then there are people at different levels.
And if you’re at a higher level, you have access to the will
of those lower levels and at lower levels,
you have to seed will to the higher levels.
And it gets, it kind of gets a compounding effect
where if you’re…
Yeah, it wasn’t a top.
Was it like square rooting or was it Fibonacci sequence
or was it, you know, I always know that was good to tool some
or was it like something out?
What was going on there?
Yeah, It was definitely a multiplier of some sort.
Where?
I bet like in The Book they like a picture of It
with like the pyramid and like, here’s the square roots
of each of those.
Yeah, that’s a good time.
Probably.
Yeah, we talked about when you’re a kid,
you go to the Aurora Colomni,
which is the precotic is a mellic
that you have to seed will to or some shit.
And then there’s a school for rich important folks,
kids that pretty much like sets up the future of leaders
and your rankings are based on skill, knowledge
and your placement in the Udicea,
which is at the end of the year competition.
So that’s pretty much the gist of the story,
slash a little bit of how this thing is built,
but then there’s so much more,
which is equally awesome and confusing.
Do you agree with us, Arie?
The pros and everything that’s going around it
makes it so it’s simplified,
but it’s not super hard to understand.
I mentioned as an example,
doon, I was in the middle of chapters,
I just feel like I gotta go back and reread.
I don’t know which is, I read.
I just read a page of something that doesn’t mean anything.
It just washes over me.
Where this is like, I’d be eight hours in
and I was like, oh, I didn’t feel like I did that much.
I also knock this out in chunks
and I will say if you are someone that like this book
and you’re considering reading any books in between,
the second one, I would 100% not do that
because the second book literally does not
make one reference to the first.
It just goes right in like you just finished the first book.
I’m like, I don’t know.
You read the first one you really liked
and you’re waiting for the second to come out,
which it just came out.
I have no idea how you’d remember what happened
in the first one.
I mean, I’m a month out and I’m like,
I don’t remember what happened in the first one at all.
It goes right into it, no backstory, no like,
this is this, you remember this from,
which we on this podcast have debated
kind of whether we like or hate.
I think there’s a fine line in between
where you can shoot references back
to kind of trigger people’s memories
without just restating the entire book,
which some books have done.
Well Harry Potter, they remember like The second Book
they would be like, and Harry is,
and they would be like a couple pages of each character
every time they get it.
Yeah, like you could pick up The second Harry Potter Book.
Yeah, and be fine.
And be fine, but I think that’s stopped.
Yeah, after four, the shoes like, I’m a big deal.
So you’ve got to reread those now.
Yeah, figure It out.
I Will say that If you are one of those people
that left it, there were a couple good YouTube videos.
That weren’t, and we were still,
one was 40 minutes long, it was some woman doing it,
and she did a really good job.
But yeah, so Stranger Things season five,
stock up because I appreciate the exposition,
I can use a little more explaining.
I mean, there’s a lot more that we may or may not get into,
but,
Well I’m glad you came with the knowledge
because all my stocks and everything I talk about
is just lighthearted tidbits.
Look at it, don’t really dive deep into anything,
so I’m glad you’re, you actually have
provide some sort of content.
Yeah, what do you Got for next Stock up?
Having a meaningful job stock up,
I always kind of think about how just my job is more,
just a cog in a machine,
and I’m not really doing much in the way of meaningful work.
Yeah, of course.
Well, we were working together,
and I still, I’ll say about it, think about it,
is that I would tell people that we worked with,
I said, someone will come up and say,
what do you do for your work?
And I don’t have a great answer for that,
and everyone laughed at me, and I was like,
what’s the answer?
And everyone’s like, well,
and then you just spit out some fucking jargonass bullshit
and be like, so obviously, and I was like,
yeah, but that doesn’t make any sense to me,
and I’m in the job.
Like, I was the person that I’m telling this,
and they were like, sweet kid, you just don’t get it.
I was like, no, I get it.
I don’t think you get it.
I’m still pissed about it, thank you about that.
But anyways, yeah, I don’t really have a meaningful job.
I don’t know if this is just a coming to Jesus,
Yeah, I think you’re having a good one.
But the reason I say that, and its reason it’s a stock up,
is because, yeah, my job, it like, doesn’t make sense,
and I can’t really have a tidy sound bite for it,
but at least in this society,
you could be like, giving up your actual will,
your fucking blood, it’s wet in tears,
and that’s like, use a like,
turn a light switch on,
and I’m like, can you imagine?
Yeah, I like, can’t thank my IQ in my strength
or cut in half, but at least the, you know,
the light that this is
Oh, the street light? Yeah, I was like,
yeah, I was lit up, it’s like, oh,
Jesus Christ, so, yeah, so,
well, you know, having, we have meaningful jobs.
So, yeah.
It’s like Keith, why are you drooling right now?
It’s like, sorry, there’s a transvect
that’s going from New York to Boston,
and all of my power is there, so, yeah.
Yeah, there’s like a little ramp
that holds it up for briefly for five seconds.
I’m putting all my power into that one thing,
that’s to use for five seconds.
You’re just basically 12 years deep, right?
When you’re, when you’re, you’re like,
giving up wills, like it is?
Yeah, imagine you’re driving a car around
and all of a sudden someone saps on your will and you’re like,
Ahhh!
That’s what does it work remotely?
I don’t really understand it.
I guess I don’t really understand
how seating will works.
Like are you just chilling all of a sudden?
You’re like, I gotta take a nap.
Like, do you have Lyme’s disease?
24/7, is that what it is?
I get into the next one a little bit,
but it’s even more confusing.
Because there are people that are in The sappers.
All of a sudden? Right, so they’re in the sappers.
There’s sappers that I don’t know at all.
They’re clearly just, that will is getting sucked out of them
like straight, Vecna did to those little children,
spoiler alert, but outside of that,
if you’re just a person seating your will,
yeah, does it just, you’re just walking around
and all of a sudden you feel a little light
and you go down?
I don’t know.
I think it’s at all times.
I think it’s like, you’re good.
I don’t think it’s just your life.
Oh, that’s just your life.
Yeah, you’re just,
you’re moving at half speed all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Got it.
And then they’re harnessing it and can use it or not.
Yeah, it’s like a Simpson game,
even though it’s a special text and stuff like that,
I think they can just power up and use it when they need it.
Got it. So.
okay.
That’s why their eyes go black,
so when he’s fighting the guy, you know,
in the early, thing when he’s a fighter
and he’s like, the guy’s eyes are, yeah,
that’s when he’s like, all right,
I’m gonna go power up and fucking punch you through a wall right now.
Yeah, which leads me to my next stop, stock up, which is,
fight naked.
Viscos in there, strips down, gets naked,
and greases himself up like a pig.
yeah.
Asserted dominance.
Get naked, assert dominance.
It’s pretty much what happens, right?
He wouldn’t have won if he wasn’t naked
in thus asserting his dominance.
You know, you’re in a room full of people,
you decide to get naked and oil yourself up.
Imagine if you were in like a street brawl
and granted, this is hard to imagine,
either of us would be in that position.
You know, you get out of a bar, you’re in a street brawl
and some guy just gets naked before he’s about to fight you.
I know, I know I’m losing, bottom line.
That’s it, it’s over.
So. For sure.
And I wanna know where Visc learned this move,
like where did he learn that in a serious fight
you should take all your clothes off?
Yeah, I don’t know.
It’s in the history book somewhere, probably.
It’s also a big advantage if you’re way
above average or way below average in terms of your body.
You know what I mean?
Any specific parts.
Yeah, you can kick me a girl in my eye.
But I’m just saying, if you’re just an average looking person,
then who gives a shit?
You know what I mean?
Like whatever.
It’s not, you eventually just kinda like blanket out,
but if you’re well below average or well above average
and physique and all their things.
you talking like Ozamat in Borat movie?
In Borat movie?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, then it’s either disturbing
or like your kuri ass, you’re like, what the hell?
Or you’re intimidated, one of the two.
So I think if you’re as an average,
it doesn’t really fly out.
I’m wondering, I’m wondering if he lies in that spectrum.
So I assume he’s gotta be at the top, right?
Oh, Okay, love that.
Yeah, he had like two fists and a, two and a half fists,
if you will, just fucking thrown around there.
I’m actually a leg.
do you have Any other Stock up?
I don’t have any other stock up.
I Got two quick ones.
One, moving up and down in grades freely,
that’s a stock up there.
So in the school, they based on how you’re doing it the time
and whatever’s going on, you can move up and down grades.
So if you stink or something, they’ll kick you down a grade.
If you’re good, you go up a grade,
whatever the case is, you can go multiple grades.
I think that’s kind of interesting.
I kind of like this idea.
Imagine if you’re in elementary school
and you’re super advanced, it’s like,
oh, you’re going up to your third grade now,
you’re going to fourth grade.
So you go into the fourth grade class teacher’s,
like your car is the kind of minute
to get back to third grade for you.
Yeah, it’s just always moving.
The classroom’s always gonna have different people in it.
Things are gonna be changing.
It’s not like, oh, everyone graduates when they’re 18.
It’s like, I graduated when I was 15.
I graduated when I was 37.
You just never know how it’s gonna work.
I like that, yeah.
Yeah, I feel like the only thing I would add to that
is just because you need some camaraderie
around with your grade, I think is important.
So you have almost like your classes
and then you, everyone has like a lunch break
for certain hours or times or something with your class
or there’s a recess period with just your class.
So you’re still building that up
’cause the social aspect is most important then anyways.
Yeah, maybe gym classes just your birthday
or so that there’s no size issues going on in the locker.
Yeah, but I do think that you should,
what’s the chosen, I guess that’s the communist thing.
what is it?
The right profession for the right person
at the right time or someone else’s call?
No, you’ve been reading a lot of Lenin or something?
Yeah, yeah.
Communism manifesto.
It’s just on the nightstand, so no big deal.
Yeah.
my last Stock up was field day at school, Stock up.
This book just had me thinking about it
with the, you know, the last thing they do,
the you, the you, the kind of who to what?
What the freaking, why don’t I forget what it’s called?
The you to see or whatever, you to Kia, whatever It is.
It just around me like field day at school,
they’re all going out, there’s a competition,
you gotta get the stone, you know,
it’s like you’re playing capture of the flag
or something, get the stone and return it,
there’s teams and whatnot.
Did you ever do field day when you were at school
like at the end of the year?
Oh, I love that.
With The best.
Yeah, absolutely, love that.
The school is pretty much over
and the entire school goes out
and there’s, you know, water balloon fights
and all like dunk tanks, you just,
there’s three leg and races, all the fun stuff, you know?
And it’s just you and your boys, Urgiles,
hanging out, having a laugh.
It’s, it honestly, that’s the best time.
You know when they say, I wish we knew we were in the good times
when we were in number, whatever the case is,
that was field day.
Yeah, love It, love it.
So just got me thinking about field day.
That’s why not.
Oh, Okay, I like that.
Stock down, what do you got?
Also, it’s from each according to his ability
to each according to his needs.
There we go, anyways.
Who’s, who said it?
Who’s said it?
Carl Marx, Yeah, there you go.
yeah.
and I just mean to say So.
Stop down, calling someone’s bluff.
Oh.
Seems like there may have been an easier way for them
to check whether this was using will or not.
The whole, no we should do is corner them in a street alley
and beat the shit out of them to see if he uses will.
It Seems like that is a little bit of an extreme way
to determine if someone’s cheating.
And then he gets like a simple like,
Oh, our bad, what, that’s it?
Bro, I just fought for my life here.
I thought I was gonna die a second ago.
I’m gonna not be able to sleep at night now.
You just get to my bad.
I also just thought it could be used really well.
Let’s say the example that you can go up and down a class,
I’m at the back end of my class.
I see Johnny over here, I’m like, fuck this Johnny can’t like him.
I just go and tell someone, yeah, he’s using will.
And they’re like, oh, beat the shit out of them.
Doesn’t use will, they’re like,
well you’re kicked it down to the next class
and I’m like, all right, cool, I was going there anyways.
He gives a shit, like, yeah,
Oh, beat up Johnny.
You’re the bottom class, it’s smart.
Yeah, yeah.
I’m just gonna, just start pointing fingers.
It’s a witch hunt, I’ll just start pointing fingers everyone.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, I like it.
My first knockdown is lost season one,
Stalkdown.
Oh.
So, I think I’m mostly jaded from the early
lost seasons with stories like this,
because in those first seasons,
it’s like where a ton of crazy shit goes down
and you’re freaking out the whole time.
That was crazy, oh my God, that was wild.
Why is there a polar bear here?
Why is that bird saying hurly?
Don’t worry about any of those things.
See, there’s shit not worry about that.
and I think one of The problems With It was
is that they inundated you with it,
there was so much of it that you lost track
of all of the things.
You know, I used to be reading message boards
or whatever the case was where they would,
people would say, oh, what does this mean?
What does that mean?
What does this vault mean?
And so they were all in my head,
but then by the end of the series,
it feels like a bunch of it just wasn’t answered,
which is funny because I saw an interview on social media
or whatever with Vince Killig in about breaking bad
and how in the last season he wanted to put that M60
in Walter White’s trunk in the first episode.
And I don’t know if you remember,
it doesn’t really matter if you do,
but it was a little bit of hubris on his part
where he was like, it’s just super cool.
Let’s do it.
And then the rest of the season he was like,
holy smokes, how am I gonna explain this?
He was beating himself up nonstop over how he was gonna work
in the M60 that it was like realistic and made sense.
Whereas it seems like the lost creator,
people just kept throwing that stuff in there,
but it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter.
Give more, forget.
Yeah, but how does It this is?
I have no idea if that’s gonna happen
with the will of the many and likely it won’t.
I think this guy knows exactly what he’s doing
and he’s a good storyteller for sure.
But I still needed a little something more in terms of,
I don’t know if it’s closure or explanation
or whatever in this first book
because it seems like all he did for the most part
was just create a ton of loose ends.
He’s got three or four total books, who knows how many, really?
That he’s gonna have the opportunity
to tie all these together.
So I think he will,
but it’s just hard for me to then keep track
of all those things that I’m interested in
while also enjoying the story itself.
The Melior murder, for example, that we talked about
and when he goes to the festival or whatever it is.
So there’s a stylus, which is what Melior ends up
killing himself with.
That stylus has powers or something
and Viz’s blood was put on that.
Does that matter?
There’s been a lot of stuff with Viz’s blood.
Oh, he jumped over this fence.
They made it clear that he lost blood when he did it.
It was like, oh, like he left some blood on the fence.
It’s like, oh, okay, he just put his blood there.
And then it’s like, oh, some guy came in to test him
and they took his blood.
It’s like, oh, you know, you’ve mentioned his blood
like seven times.
So is that gonna matter?
Probably, but then like during the Melior thing,
also Viz gets visions for Melior,
including a big black pyramid.
What does it all mean, Basil?
You know, and this is just one specific section,
but for those that have read the book,
I’m sure you’re aware that this kind of happens throughout.
There’s all tons of stuff.
I mean, talking about when he goes into this,
the chamber, whatever, it’s like the door to odochium is lost,
you know, the gate is gone.
Synergy will not happen.
It’s like, what?
What is happening?
So it’s not necessarily, I like that stuff,
but one, I can’t even remember the words.
Like it wasn’t even Synergy with something else.
So when they do pay off,
am I even gonna remember what we’re talking about to begin with?
So I think that’s my concern.
And that’s kind of why at the opening,
I compared this to Miss Born and the name of the win,
because on the one hand, Miss Born, we read the first book.
I didn’t think the Miss Born actually had a pretty good wrap up
at the first book if I recall correctly.
It was his own story, but there was like so much stuff
that was thrown in there that you were like,
am I supposed to worry about that?
So I need to know about like,
and then by the end book three,
he literally closes every single loop.
It’s like, here’s all the reasons I put all this stuff in
and book one and here’s all the answers to all these things.
And it was like pretty extravagant amount of detail
and things that he Easter eggs,
I think is something we like stocked up back in the time
after reading book three,
because he really did play a lot of bread crumbs,
whereas, and I haven’t read any of the name of the win books after,
but…
I think they only done two.
And name of the win, it just opened ended and ended,
and then it was similar to this, where it was a school,
and then I heard like, you made a book 1.5,
and then the book too, wasn’t very good,
and so like nothing ever really came of any of that.
So I’m hoping, ’cause this guy apparently has other series
before this that are pretty good,
so I’m hoping that you’re like,
I don’t think he just, is it due that just writes an open ended
in first book and then says,
eh, we’ll figure it out after that.
I mean, don’t spoil obviously the second book,
but are you getting some of it, you know?
Ah, I would say second Book gets more complicated.
So that’s my concern, it’s like,
you’ve already built them all this up,
like, I kinda like when they build it up,
I feel like what Miss Born did was they built it up,
explained a little bit of it,
but then left a little something,
we’re like, okay, hold on, wait,
and then it moved on from there,
where then it kept going.
To be fair, my head was spinning just as much in Miss Born,
the first book, as it is in the first book of this one,
so that’s why I’m like, I liked Miss Born,
but the payoff was so good that it made it way better,
by the ends.
But also the backbone of Miss Born is a heist book,
you know, like there’s a heist book.
Yeah, you’re right, you’re right.
So it’s like, okay, cool,
well at least there’s this heist going on,
and there’s also all this crazy lore
that’s built in world building going on.
It seems like this book is all lore and world building,
and not really a ton,
like I don’t know any of the characters besides Viz
and his two buddies,
and one’s dead, like Aiden and his other buddy.
And that’s it.
We don’t know what’s going on with any other characters,
I guess who’s the leader of the place?
We kind of know him and Vertuvius,
or Vertuvius, or whatever his name is,
and we kind of know his adopted dad.
But there’s not a lot of characters that you know
what’s going on, whereas Miss Born, it’s a heist,
and they all are heist characters,
you know, so you know the characters based on that,
and they have relationships outside of just their relationship
with the main character.
This one we don’t really understand any of that.
I don’t know.
I’m not trying to hate on it, I’m just trying to like,
I’m hoping that it all pays off.
Yeah, I think it’s, yeah.
Because it’s some of it’s confusing.
Did you read any of the stock down?
Last one, I started even heard this stock down before,
downsizing the movie, stock down?
Your favorite, movie’s not that bad.
Oh, that is insane.
That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
Such an awful movie.
Not movie in particular, and there’s a lot of movies
like this now.
They just really try to jam a message down your throat,
and the story is so stupid after that.
They’re just like, yeah, this one, and correct me if I’m wrong,
but I felt like, and again, this could be my own cynical mind,
but it does a really good job of,
there is a lot of underlying themes
and a lot of parallels between this society,
and I think ours in terms of power and money,
and a lot of like how people move up the ladder,
where you kind of, if you’re on the bottom wrong,
you really have to sacrifice everything just to get by,
and like you’re basically giving up your freedom, your will,
all that just to help out the fucking billionaires
at the top and the sea.
Yeah, and Who goes to The school?
It’s only the powerful people’s kids.
Exactly, So.
Yeah, there’s no way to really move up,
and so people were like, oh yeah, well,
I’m giving whoop well, but that allows me to eat dinner.
You’re working a shitty eight hour,
ten hour job every day just in order to like,
and I was like, oh, this kind of, I mean, again,
that’s more of my depressing mind,
but I thought this society in the way everything was built,
we’re kind of just reflect that,
and it was a very clever way of doing it.
And I thought, and again, it’s not shoved down your throat
of like, this is what the real world is, it’s a mirror,
it’s just like, no, this is a fantasy book.
Oh yeah, there is also probably parallels to real world,
like you could take from this.
Yeah, I see what you’re saying.
I really liked that fact,
and I really did think it gives me my love,
but like, it is a super original idea,
where like, the will of many,
I didn’t think was gonna be an actual,
almost like, Miss Born formulaic science behind it,
right, like the will part?
I didn’t think that was gonna be something
that actually comes into play,
but it is, I thought, really, really interesting
now they did that.
Yeah, I did just look up downsizing,
I gave a .5 out of four, so.
That’s too hard.
I don’t know, I think I watched it
because you hated it so much,
so I don’t know if you
If they are, can you Give It an action.25
for comedic effect?
All right, this is pretty bad.
I liked The Asian character, she was great.
Oh my God.
you had your mind?
She’s good, and other stuff.
She’s good, and other stuff.
I see her in other things,
and I’m like, “Why do I hate her already?”
Oh yeah, downside,
somehow Matt Damon got a pass on that,
’cause he is, and dude, from,
in glorious bastards, is it it?
Crystal Fords.
Yeah, good.
I do have those two in that,
and they got absolutely terrible movie.
I mean, they’re both just cat,
Matt Damon’s cashed a bunch of checks,
which I don’t hate on him for.
Great wall, good for him.
Awesome, glad.
that was a test check.
No, isn’t that a real history?
That happened in real history, no?
I watched some of you,
I was like, “What the hell am I watching?”
Like, “What is this?”
You like last samurai, don’t you, right?
last samurai is phenomenal.
What do you mean?
Okay, yeah.
The movies.
Suckay!
Yeah, it’s apocryphal, but it’s awesome.
It’s not based on history, but it’s amazing.
Yeah, I think what’s interesting is,
the society they’ve created, this hierarchy society,
is clearly to the reader,
not a good society for the people.
It seems like a stopgap for whatever happened,
after the cataclysm or whatever,
like things just went to shit,
and then they’re trying to figure it out,
but it’s been going on for a few hundred years,
and this is the society they’ve decided to create,
and I think even at one time,
Vizz, like doesn’t align with the,
whatever the freaking people,
I’m like, oh, that’s the problem with having such terrible names,
is I’m never gonna remember what they are,
the arduous, the arduous, anguists, the anguists, the anguists.
Yeah, he says at one point to the anguists,
like, okay, what are you gonna do when you take over?
It’s like, well, you know,
we’re gonna, you know, get the right people, and all,
it’s like, okay, so you’re not changing anything,
you’re just putting your people into the,
you know, the problem, the problem in spots.
Yeah, it is, it’s,
unless you’re watching Ken Burns’ “The Revolution”
talking about America, like, goddamn that thing is great,
just the idea that they created something totally unique is wild.
But yeah, so it’s interesting, the society that is in the book
is interesting because as a reader,
you’re like, hey, this isn’t gonna work,
but why is it here?
What’s coming?
You know, there’s a lot, once again,
there’s just a lot more questions.
My last stock down,
all your eggs in one basket, stock down,
quick one, really.
So, belly stakes her entire reputation
around being good at foundation,
and then Viz Beezer and she’s toast,
literally, dies in the labrath.
But yeah, it’s just probably not good to, like,
you’re great at the point,
the reason why you’re in this grade is because you’re so good
at chess, which is pretty much foundation
is their strategic version of that.
But, yeah, it’s like, belly’s the best at foundation
that no one even will attempt to play here.
So, do you just go in and just,
once again, like, your thing before about calling everyone out,
you know, witch hunt, just do the opposite
and be like, I am unbeatable foundation.
If you even play me, you will go down a grade.
Like, that’s how good I am.
I will mop the floor with you.
And because that, like, put her in grade three
or put her in level three, she’s the best.
can you imagine though, If you lose that?
Yeah, that’s her whole reputation.
I don’t like playing chess is because every time I lose,
and I’m not very good at chess,
but anytime I lose, I just think about stupid I am.
And I really, it’s like, I take it so,
I’m not doing the same thing in monopoly too.
I’m like, I could never make it a real estate.
I fucking am an idiot.
Chess especially, I feel like is a measurement of smarts.
So, when you get beat, you’re just like, oh, I’m a dumb person.
The reason why I hate chess is because, unlike other board games,
I go to bed at night being, there’s an area of this game
that’s related to chance.
And I just, I, the Dyson Rural for me this time,
simple as that, and I fall asleep suddenly.
Chess, it’s all on me, and I’m terrible at it.
So, it’s just like, no thanks.
And I also, there’s so many people nowadays,
like my little brother, he’s obsessed with chess
or at least he was at one point.
And he was logging like, five hours a day on chess.com
or something like that.
That’s crazy.
I probably played 20 hours of chess in my life.
So, you know, he’s like, you don’t play chess.
And I’m like, absolutely not.
My ego is intact currently.
I’m gonna maintain that right now.
I mean, that’s why you gotta love Mario cards.
Everyone’s kinda got a chance,
’til you cross that final finish line.
That blue shell could be coming at any time, you know?
exactly.
It’s not all about skill.
It’s about being the right time or right place.
Or unless it’s flip card until that last couple of flips.
yeah.
yeah.
we do have a TM on that before we show The listeners
of that flip card, you know?
TM, TM, TM.
do you have a favorite part or a favorite storyline in this one?
So, I think going into It With The red rising understanding
is that you typically are like, all right,
well, let’s get to the school.
You know, that’s kind of the mindset
whereas if we really think about the book,
the first beginning, I was like,
“Oh, that’s interesting that it’s gonna be,

1104
00:39:12,840 > 00:39:14,120
like in a present or start.”
And then it’s fighting and then it’s at an orphanage
and then it’s like, we don’t really get to the school
until I would say part three of five, right?
There’s two parts before that.
And then you get kind of saved by the telemisc guy
and then becomes his dad
and then basically they’re doing the training at home
and then going off and doing,
going to that like festival thing or whatever.
So there’s all this like other stuff
that builds that foundation for like the school
as more meaning.
So I really liked that kind of foundation that set.
I know you mentioned that there wasn’t like a ton
of character development, but I thought that was good
to be with this all that period in our stand.
It gives you like a look at this society
from where he started, where he’s been, all that stuff.
So I thought it was good.
What about you?
Yeah, it’s interesting that you said that
because a lot of the comments I read online were talking
about how this book is slow until kind of the middle point
and then it gets a little faster than the last part
is like nonstop in your face.
I agree the last part is nonstop in your face.
It was a great kind of final finish to it.
But I really liked the beginning of this, you know,
this book.
I thought it was interesting.
Like I’m learning what’s going on.
This is working at a prison.
They got this guy hooked up and there’s sap and stuff out of him.
Like what?
Yeah, the middle, there’s like a bombing of the book.
Yeah, a tesseract thing, what was It called?
Oh, I just said It too and I lost it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the tesseract, yeah.
That thing goes up there in the woods.
There’s people shooting and stuff like that.
There’s, they’re at the gladiatorial place
and that gets blown up and Melior’s doing his thing.
You know, this gets adopted by some guy who’s like,
“Hey, I need you to try to find my brother

1149
00:40:57,520 > 00:40:59,480
and if you don’t, you’re going into a sapper.”””
But also I love you, son.
It’s like, what is happening?
Compared to the name of the win,
the name of the win is the spend placement.
Like the whole second part of him just like
playing a violin the whole time, whatever, remember?
I was like the whole port of the book
and I was like, when’s anything actually happening
in this book?
Anyways.
I remember loving that Book, So.
It was good, It was really good.
But then I think I reread it and I was like,
“Oh, this isn’t as good after reading,

1164
00:41:23,320 > 00:41:24,400
now reading more fantasy.”””
I was like, “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
‘Cause yeah, I remember reading that and being obsessed.
Like it’s a thousand pages and I was like,
I cannot wait to get back on the train to commute home
so I can read more of this book.
I really liked the beginning of it.
I think honestly the end just ’cause it’s so fast paced
and you’re like, wait, what the hell’s going on?
You just be just befriended a wild beast dog.
Like that’s cool.
And then I didn’t even necessarily understand
the lab or the lab or inch,
like what the remnants were.
They were like spirit people that were chasing him
or something.
I didn’t really understand it.
But I don’t know why they were allowed to leave that facility.
That didn’t make any sense to me.
But yeah.
Yeah, well those weren’t the remnants.
Those were something else.
Okay, I just assumed all of them are like zombies.
Yeah, those were like zombies.
The remnants were like spirits or something.
I don’t even know.
I don’t know.
But with the anguish kind of attacking
and killing all the people that were watching over it,
that was all cool.
All super fast paced and like all of our characters
that we kind of knew were involved.
So yeah, I kind of like the end.
What about characters?
Do you have favorite characters
and what are you gonna crack a can with?
Yeah, I mean, anytime there’s a guy
that’s just a straight Viking with no emotions.
Eden?
Yeah.
Yeah, obviously.
Yeah, he starts up as a Doyle Rolls
and then just all of a sudden becomes,
oh, he’s just a good dude.
So no emotions.
Every time I love to ask my favorite character every time.
You know that?
Yeah, exactly.
It’s a tough exterior, gentle, and teary type of guys.
Always gonna win for me.
He just ends up being a good hang.
You know, also if you need some murdering done,
he’s your guy.
He’s murdered a couple people.
He’s still a kid.
That’s pretty cool.
Sleep soundly at night.
That’s not easy.
He’s a busy dog.
Yeah, also this, I mean, his character like,
it’s gotta be interesting.
There’s different parts of this world.
Like he’s from the south or something.
Got a little bit ginger vitus.
He’s got tattoos all over his body.
He’s gotta be an interesting character.
What about Love Hate?
Would you love about The Will of the Many?
Yeah, I mean, I already mentioned the world building,
the kind of the foundation that was set.
I really like the Will aspect, the pyramid aspect.
I think those are all unique and interesting way
to kind of use fantasy.
And then I mentioned the maze portion
and some of that stuff.
I thought it was Ender Games.
There’s games within games within games,
which I thought was kind of cool.
What do you, he was saying games within games?
What do you mean?
I think there was, Ender’s Game, there was an arena.
And the arena was a different setting every time.
The whole thing was this is how you’re supposed to play the game.
This is how this is done.
And then he’s like, all right, I gotta find a way
to outsmart the whole, how it everyone else does.
‘Cause I’m not gonna play like everyone else.
I’m gonna play it my own way in order to win.
That’s what I took from undergame.
Maybe I miss remember it.
Does that know what happened?
Well, yeah, no, that definitely happens in the sense
that Ender figures out strategically
how to beat the current puzzle
that is in the formation that they’re doing.
This, I feel like this wasn’t necessarily showing off that ability.
I don’t know, that’s just me.
Alright.
Yeah, that’s fair.
yeah.
Ender’s Game, let me give on say it if, don’t worry about it.
my love, Magic school Trope, obviously.
We all love a Magic School Trope.
We’ve talked about it rather than just
Yeah, you know, red rising, Harry Potter,
you know, name of the wind, I mean,
it’s always gonna work for me.
This is definitely a unique idea,
this whole story, this whole world, and I respect that.
There’s so much derivative content and fantasy,
and this is something I hadn’t seen before.
I also haven’t read like a ton of like
Brandon Sanderson or something like that,
and we don’t do a ton of fantasy.
But we’ve talked before about how people just rework IP
and it’s terrible.
So this, I being completely unique
and having all of the nuances that we’ve tried
to talk about, I thought was pretty cool.
And I respect the effort, I respect the world he’s created,
whether he was able to communicate that to me.
Well, I’m not sure, but I’m also a dollar, like I said.
Yeah, I also like the alipay,
I reminded me of Happy Gilmore,
when he’s like, I’m glad I called that guy.
That was the alipay, you know?
Like he just comes back and saves him multiple times
at the end because he saved him early on.
and He also tells him like He tries to Get him not even go in there.
He like attacks him to tell him to have him not go in.
So The alipay is, gameed up.
And then lastly, just, we haven’t mentioned Lannistia yet,
but she’s just, Neo from the Matrix, right?
She’s like seeing Will around her, she’s blind.
As soon as she’s just seeing like the code
going up and down everywhere, like for Will, right?
Yeah, I mean, I don’t even, sometimes I don’t even wanna ask you
this question because you’ve read so much of the second book,
but are there answers for her in it?
Just say yes or no.
Blink twice.
Maybe?
So you’re not even sure.
She’s in it, but she’s not super in it.
‘Cause she has no eyes.
And the only other things that we know that have no eyes
are those monstery things that he finds in the place
where he’s going to the labyrinth.
And then they say something like, oh, you know one,
they say like if you go through here, you’re gonna lose something
which he loses his arms, like did she lose her eyes?
And also if you go there and come back,
you have to pay for something.
So did she go through and come back?
You know, there’s a lot of questions with Lannistia
and she says she doesn’t remember.
Yeah, I can’t add anything else.
You can’t add anything because you don’t know
or because you don’t wanna spoil it.
Yes, to both of those.
What?
So confused.
Let’s just put it this way.
I’m not any more clear on what’s going on.
There’s more added into the story, but yeah,
at least but where I’m at in the book currently,
I’m not any more clear on why.
But you’re almost done with it.
You make me not want to read this second book
because it’s like, there are just more questions.
The reviews I read before, right?
You’re reading it, it was like, he took on a big,
I don’t know if it was a big chance
or something with this second book,
or it was like a really hard thing to take on.
And I was like, what does that mean?
And I get it when I read it now because it’s,
that’s how I feel about reading this is how you just
try to articulate.
How you try to articulate a simple question.
I have a way With words.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.
That’s why we do this podcast.
I’m kind of wanna listen to our first episode
to see if I’ve gotten any better at speaking.
I don’t think I have, unfortunately, but here we are.
what about hates, what you hate about The World of many?
one big thing was The office space bosses.
This is at the school.
And how many people need to tell them
he is gonna move up quicker?
What are we doing here?
He takes that little break or whatever.
And his, and Lannistia comes up and is like,
you’re only in the grade six, a grade seven.
What do you do?
You gotta move up quicker.
And he’s like, yeah, I know, I’m trying.
And his dad comes up and he’s like,
you’re only in grade seven, you gotta move up quicker.
And then like, relicia or whatever any of this.
She comes up and says, I’m like,
how many fucking more, I’d be so pissed at that point.
like Billy, you passed The first grade.
Oh, what a day, yay, yay.
Billy Madison, Billy Madison.
He has the band come after he passes the first grade.
Come on, get together.
I didn’t know Billy, Billy,
I was The third grade.
Billy, passed The third grade.
Yeah, I kinda run him a lot of Billy Madison in that sense.
So like, come on, he gets the next grade,
gets the next grade.
He’s like, what’s going on?
And then at the same time,
his dad’s threatening him with a sapper.
He wants him to do all this stuff for him.
He’s out there risking his neck.
Is it just ’cause he’s not 18 yet,
that he’s technically under his,
or is it that forever?
I couldn’t understand that either.
Well, he took him on as his heir,
so I don’t know exactly how that works.
But yeah, to be,
it just seems like he could have done it
without threatening the sapper.
It’s like, hey, I’m, you know,
I took you out of an orphanage.
You’re now part of this prestigious household.
You’re my heir to my, to everything.
I have, you have my last name,
which unlocks all these doors for you.
I’m asking for in return is that we are gonna go on this quest
to find out what happened to my brother.
We’ll be interesting and it will be harrowing,
but you’re ready for it.
It’s like, okay, cool.
Don’t be like, oh, and by the way, if you don’t do it,
I’m gonna send you to the sapper.
It’s like, yeah, shit.
What I was more pissed about was that he’s like,
going there, I don’t care if you die,
you’re doing it no matter what, or you want to sapper.
Also, this girl is like, not for you.
Don’t date her.
I was like, shut the fuck up.
You know what I’m saying?
yeah.
You can’t, if you’re gonna send me to my death.
Yeah, you can’t then also be like,
no, I don’t know if I trust her.
It’s like, shut up.
Like, I’m gonna date her, I’m about to die.
I’m doing whatever I want before then.
Yeah, and I can see him threatening the sapper,
maybe at the beginning, before he knows how special
Viz really is, but, ’cause then you just go back
and get another kid and you just do it all over again.
But once you realize, oh, we actually have a shot
at doing it with this kid.
You know, let’s play nice, because you don’t want him
to die immediately because you can’t fill someone,
you can’t fill those shoes with someone
that has the same talent, you know?
He also explains the story to them,
and even they are like, holy shit, I can’t believe you pulled that off.
And then the next sentence, they’re like,
but you gotta do better.
It’s like, what?
Yeah, let’s go.
Yeah, exactly.
Hates for me, the names, we’ve talked about it,
but oh my God, the names.
Like, you created this cool world.
I totally get it.
Do you need to make the names so difficult?
I saw them already, I was wrong.
and then you throw her mind in you.
Yeah, like, couldn’t there be one?
Like, Viz, our main characters.
this is kind of normal.
fine, fine, totally fine.
Yes, it’s weird, but it’s, I know what it is,
but there’s so many, and then also all the things
have crazy names too.
Yeah, and then they just throw some Roman shit in there
up so it knows like, wait, what?
Is this red rising again?
What’s going on?
Yeah, So The names is really my big hate.
I’ve already talked about some of the,
the Luzanz, which I’m fine, so I don’t hate them.
I’m just saying that there’s a lot.
So I’m trying to figure that out.
And my only other real one is,
the will of the many, do we need that many thus?
Will of the many?
Can we just go with that?
Oh, is It that?
I think it’s the will of the many.
Oh, I kind of feel like I combine some of The words
when I think of it.
Will of the many, will of the many, the will, yeah.
Yeah, The Will of The many.
Just give me, just give me will of the many.
I’m good, I got it.
It’s like Facebook, take the out.
Drop the the.
Know what’s cool?
A billion.
All right, my only last one was just,
it doesn’t seem like he got enough praise
for stopping that mass murder.
Like I killed, like, but they said like,
that the thousands of people died
and he’s like, goes up and kills him by himself
and everyone’s like, patting the back
and then next week they’re like,
all right, this guy sucks again.
He should be paraded on the street for this.
Well, he gets a name, Catanicus or whatever,
for whatever that means.
If you murder the guy and be gets the name.
Tannosaurus Rex, what do you say?
That’s what it’s like.
Catanicus or Catanicus or whatever?
I was With this.
I was With this.
I didn’t know that.
they started calling him that and It was Because He
had killed the guy.
Oh, I didn’t, all right.
All right, well, names got
but whatever, Yeah, names, a name school, yeah.
you better Get knighted for that.
That’s what that was essentially get knighted.
Yeah, but I agree.
It was called me Sir.
It wasn’t whenever.
You wake up back in school and it’s like,
all right, cool, back to class, Catanicus.
It’s like, oh, now I got this name.
It’s like, hold on a second.
What?
And then whenever he’d go out again,
they would just let him go even though he’s presumably
the number one hit for the biggest terrorist organization
in the world.
You know?
It’d be like, you killed those some of it laden
and then you’re just hanging out in Islamabad.
Just this school’s like, hey, we’re gonna feel
it true to Islamabad.
I know that’s a real place,
but it sounds like I’m made up place.
Where is that?
Muslim land is What?
You just said it was like, wait, what?
It’s in Pakistan.
Okay, All right, yeah.
Is that what’s pronounced?
Islamabad.
Okay, All right, I never thought about that way.
Jesus land.
All right, what do you Give it?
Let’s do good reads rating, you know, son of five.
What do you give it and who’s it for?
I think when I’ve gotten done, I was much higher.
I think talking through probably is a little bit lower.
I’m still gonna go pretty high, probably higher than you.
I want 4.25.
Whoa.
Couple Things to think about though.
I finished this right after the Reese for this one book,
so (laughs)
I mean, this could have been,
but I did run through it very, very,
I think I did this in like two weeks,
which is a 20 plus hour book.
Yeah, you’re question it.
pretty quick.
So I was a big fan, I think,
I mean, I also just like ganged back
in a fantasy world that I care about,
so I liked it.
What about you?
Yeah, I gave it a 30.
Maybe I’m,
That’s lower than I thought.
Maybe I’m, yeah, maybe I’m being a dick.
I don’t know.
If I read this book, I’d be like fine,
but unfortunately it can’t be a standalone book.
It has so much,
we have rallied against that before us.
It makes it,
me a little bit of a hypocrite that I give it such a score
to be fair.
If I just read this book,
okay fine, that was fine,
but I don’t even know what’s going on.
Whereas directly after this,
I read,
’cause Andy Circus narrates “Lord of the Rings”
and I was taking a 14 hour drive,
so I’m like,
I’m gonna listen to the fellowship with Andy Circus, doing it’s gonna be incredible.
Mmhmm.
And yes, Andy Circus does a phenomenal job,
like next level, so good.
But that story, I’m like,
holy shit, this is fantasy.
And there’s so much that you don’t even understand.
They’re talking about things that happened
thousands of years ago,
they just reference in passing,
but you almost know that it doesn’t necessarily matter.
It just gives depth to the story.
Like the Lord is giving depth to the story
and not necessarily mattering to the story itself.
So maybe that’s affecting my rating too,
is I literally read the best fantasy book
that’s ever been created.
I was gonna say, you’re kinda comparing it to that.
Yeah, so it’s not, I mean, it’s not fair.
But I’m just thinking that this as a standalone book
in a series, it’s just hard for me to give it such a score.
I did like it though.
I did like it.
I would say, you know, if someone was like,
Hey, I need a new fantasy book.
I’d say, “Well, I read this, are you interested?”
I don’t think it’s for someone that doesn’t read fantasy
or wants to get into fantasy.
yeah.
what are we on The next?
next we Got a reader recommendation here.
The searcher by Tana French,
if anyone wants to hear a solo pod of me trying to explain
what happens in the second book.
I can do that.
It’ll be about three minutes long
and I will be like, “I’m not really sure what happens.”
But the second one is the strength of the few,
which has just came out of anyone’s interested.
It literally just came out.
came out I think in either late November
or early December, yeah.
All right, well, thanks for the well, the many,
too many does, but we’ll catch you for the searchers.
Indeed.
All right, bye, Many, bye now.
thank you.

The Buddies were lucky enough to have author TJ Derry on the pod to talk about his debut thriller, Carried Away. A book that starts as a dreamy Indonesian surf vacation and ends with them questioning every outdoor activity they’ve ever considered. The Buddies dove into the book and many other topics with TJ and finished things off with their patented podcast categories.  So pack your trusty flint, some iced cold beers, and strap in for an amazing debut novel and thrill ride. 

Intro/Book Report (0:00-1:08)

TJ Derry Interview (1:09-50:31)

Stock Up/Down (50:32-1:06:19)

Favorite Scene/Character (1:06:20-1:14:31)

Love/Hate (1:14:32-1:23:21)

Conclusion (1:23:33-1:25:53)

NEXT BOOK: The Will of the Many by James Islington

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to Book Club.
I’m Dylan here with my podcasting buddy
for something nice and light and apolitical Keith.
What’s up buddy?
How are we doing?
I had to run that line back twice
’cause he referenced it in the book and it was perfect.
And I was having a coffee, so.
We’re bringing out some best sellers
and this week we’ll be discussing carried away
a brand new Hot Off the Press’s debut novel
by TJ Derry.
On top of that, we’re honored by TJ himself
who’s not by to join us in a conversation
about the book and so much other stuff.
So if you’d like to welcome into book first read
which I did in the past episodes,
you can visit our website, buddybook.com.
or sign into our DMs or an extra Instagram,
buddybook.com podcast, you listeners,
iTunes, Spotify, please download
and subscribe and find a story review.
Please thank you.
Before we get into our main categories
and all the stuff you like from buddybook.com,
I think we should jump into the interview first.
So we’ll jump into the interview,
you guys can listen to that and stick around
for all the normal stuff you come for at the end.
But here’s us talking with TJ Derry
about carried away.
All right, so the Book is carried away.
We got TJ Derry on his debut novel.
I’d like to start us off,
neither of us really know much about surfing
and I did go surfing once in Wikeeky Beach
when I was like 13.
I don’t know if it’s really considered surfing
’cause you just had a, you know, on a slow roller.
No, that counts, that counts for sure.
Accounts, okay, cool, well I’m glad, I’m glad.
But the amount of knowledge I gained from that
was probably equally offset
by the amount of nipples that got shaved off
during that process.
Oh yeah, every time.
Oh, what do I mean about that?
It’s like a week later on the gym class
and someone said, “Why are your nipples have scabs on them?”
Yeah, it’s one of those things that,
at least when you go back surfing
after having been off for a while,
there’s so many things that stop you from surfing
the second day or the third day.
Like I might rib-surd and yeah, my nipples are chafed
and yeah, I’m sunburned.
And so yeah, it’s a whole thing.
It’s surfing is really romantic on paper
in practice, it’s kind of violent in a lot of ways.
So that’s something that you learn pretty quick.
yeah, and you can, you can vey that very well
in the book and the way you write the surfing scenes,
I thought was just wonderful.
It helped layman like us understand why someone would lug
surf board halfway around the world to catch a wave.
So I guess my question is,
what is your relationship with surfing
and did you want to write a novel?
I wouldn’t say this novel is about surfing by any means,
but it has surfing as kind of a thing running through it.
So what’s your relationship with surfing
and how did you decide to put that into the book?
so my relationship with surfing is sort of like
fantastical relationship because I don’t live right now
at least anywhere near an ocean.
And so growing up in Southern Ontario, Canada,
you kind of, again, it’s sort of like a romantic,
you romanticize it a little bit
because it’s like the core Lord’s sports.
The one that the rest of the board sports that we had access to
were kind of crafted to emulate, I guess.
So skateboarders on concrete are just people that,
that’s sort of what surfers would do in California
in Venice Beach or whatever when there was no waves.
And they would just kind of go and try to surf
like these embankments or whatever.
And then snowboarding, of course,
is just another derivative of that.
So the source of all of it is surfing
and so my relationship was always just
with watching it and being like,
that’s where you want to end up.
So snowboarding, my whole life and skateboarding
was just sort of like, I guess, you know,
you’d sort of look at that as like,
man, one day, I’m gonna go surf.
And so I lived out in Vancouver for a bit
and I was working on some films out there
and we would go to Tafino.
And that was where I figured out that I love surfing
but can’t surf.
‘Cause that’s what everybody does.
Like I know people think, I could probably pick it up.
It’s just not something you can pick up.
You have to really actually go and try to figure it out
and learn about so much.
And so anyways, that’s sort of what it was to me,
but to write about surfing,
that was never really the intent either.
It was more serves as a vehicle, I guess,
for the story to unfold because I don’t think a lot of people
are gonna pick up a book that’s about surfing
and it’s not that people aren’t interested in surfing
but it’s like when you get too bogged down
with that, those details and specs,
it just becomes about that.
And so that wasn’t what I wanted to write about.
I just wanted to find some way to get these characters
in this situation and sort of that’s what it was for me.
It was really like shy away.
I don’t wanna talk at Nazim about how surfing is great
and how fun it is.
It’s just not really, that wasn’t where I was coming from at all.
yeah, that would have been a very different
and probably less accessible book.
And it’s funny because I live in Cape Cod, Massachusetts,
Keith lives in San Diego.
So you know, we both have the ability to go
and surf somewhere if we wanted to, you know,
with a drive, but neither of us do.
Although Keith is going to Waikiki Beach this weekend.
So maybe you’ll…
yeah, yeah, to pick up the board.
Although after reading this book,
I’m a little nervous because these waves coming in.
So I don’t know.
I think you’ll be all right in Waikiki,
that’s like the bouncy castle of surfing.
But I think it’s just if you can get out there
and find a waiver to you’ll probably,
you’ll probably for better or worse get sucked
into the whole thing and then sort of find yourself handcuffed
by that’s sort of what happened to me once I kind of actually
got the feel for it.
That was it.
yeah, my mom lives on a lake in Michigan
and they do the like Waik surfing out there.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Really fun.
That is super fun.
The good way to learn to do the actual surfing part,
the problem is that it’s not actually what surfing is
because like when you’re taking someone out to learn surfing,
the hard part isn’t standing on the board and riding.
The hard part is figuring out how to get out to the wave
and where to sit and all that stuff is very deceiving
because you think, “I know how to surf, no problem.”
Like did it behind a boat and now I’m like a pro.
And then you get to the ocean and you paddle for two hours
and you don’t get a single wave and you’re like,
Oh man, okay.
Right.
Yeah, it’s definitely the training wheel aspect.
And yeah, shout out to Sutheron Terram.
My sister lives in Georgetown.
Oh nice, yeah, it’s not too far.
Yeah, and spanning on how this story came about,
I really loved the first half because I feel like a lot
of these books and movies about survival
against the elements type thing.
They kind of throw you in immediately
where the first half of this book,
you’ve really got to understand these characters,
they really grounded the whole book
and made you worry about them and had that anxiety.
So I guess the question is,
did you think of these characters beforehand
and then put them in the situation
or the situation come up and you’re like,
all right, now we build characters around
to fit in the situation?
I don’t know if it was either.
I think what I decided was that I wanted to tell the story
and kind of work backward from there.
The characters are all just,
they’re sort of like a patchwork or a mosaic of people
and real people.
So I just as a for instance, like the character
Captain Carlos is a real guy who I’m really close with
and he lives in No Sara Costa Rica.
He just like lifted right out of reality.
So I think it was that it was like,
what I kind of think maybe I treat life like a casting room.
Like I just feel like everyone I meet,
I’m like, man, that guy is so interesting or that girl’s
like so cool.
Like I had a lot of like a deep well to draw from
of just having experience traveling around
and just actual friends from home as well.
So I don’t know if it was really like well thought out.
It was just like it kind of developed on its own volition,
but the character, the idea of writing a book
that had a ton of things that happened that go wrong
and there’s so much at stake,
I thought that it would be a really important thing
to actually like you say,
that kind of care about what happens to them.
So I used what I could to make the characters
feel like real people.
And so that yeah, you do actually care.
And the whole idea of the spectacle film,
it’s like if I talked about this before,
but with Jurassic Park, the first one, you really cared
because the film was set up really well
and you really understood who these characters were.
And then the subsequent newer ones,
they didn’t really do that.
It was just about how many attacks and how many CG dinos
I could cram into it.
And the problem that I have with those films
is that I don’t really, I just don’t really feel invested
or I don’t care what happened.
So I think my thing was if you really feel these people
and you understand who they really are
and you have sort of an intimate understanding
of what their relationships are
and all that stuff, you’ll actually want to follow through
and read what happens because otherwise,
it just doesn’t really have the same impact, I guess.
Interesting, Corla, did Jurassic Park,
as I just recently rewatched all the Jurassic Park
since I was prepping for American Thanksgiving here.
First one hit so hard and then the other ones are just,
do you agree?
Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
well, you cared, the kids Really impact you in that First one
and so does the paleontologist characters,
you’re just in the old man, you’re just,
I don’t know, that’s how you do it in Spielberg,
so is a real master at that and has always been.
So that’s sort of, I think that’s the template
that you wanna at least be influenced by, but again,
the thing that I was saying earlier is like,
you got to write what you wanna write about
and I really felt like these characters were interesting people
and they’re really funny a lot of them too, I thought.
So like a lot of the stuff that some of the characters
that came to me as I was writing it,
which are sort of spontaneous, I was like,
yeah, that’s a really funny line
and or at least that appeals to my kind of sense of humor.
So I tried to work it in so that you were like,
okay, this is actually entertaining
because these people are funny and they’re like,
busting each other’s chops or whatever the case may have been.
Like Kendall specifically is really witty
with the way that she kind of communicates with Cole.
And so I just thought it’s a good groundwork to kind of lay out
so that everything else matters, right?
Yeah, and with Kendall and Cole,
’cause you were talking about ’em,
it’s obviously there are a couple of hot people
on vacation in Indonesia that both like to surf.
So yeah, they’re gonna hook up, I get it.
But it was more about their,
I think more than anything,
their humor, then diagram crossed so well
that they could both do like the,
like he could do the self-deprecating stuff
and she would kind of tease him in the way that your buddies do
even though they had just met.
And I think that really helped that relationship feel natural
as opposed to just a couple of hot people on a beach
meeting each other, it’s like,
Duh, yeah.
the key factor with her is that she sees right through Cole.
And I think when you meet someone who does that,
it’s not just, I don’t know if it’s disarming,
it makes you kind of anxious a little bit in a weird way
and then he feels it right away, like man,
something about this girl is just like,
she doesn’t, she’s sort of like right to my core
and gets what’s going on in my head.
Anyway, that was a thing that I thought was important
about her because she kind of like calls him
as he sees him in a weird way.
And with the first person stuff,
it worked, that works, yes, but only if you pick the right
character because you’re looking through their eyes
the whole time, so it has to be the right character.
And I think choosing, you know,
I mean, this maybe just relates to me as a 30 something
who has been grinding the corporate life for 15 years,
but he’s so relatable and I’m sure loads of people
who read the book will see themselves,
in his over-analysing, like inability to live in the moment,
those traits because at the end of the day,
it really is just part of the human condition, right?
Mmhmm, Mmhmm, yeah, modern humans, yeah.
I think the other thing too is just making sure
that you don’t have to necessarily like cold,
but you don’t want to dislike him.
I think he’s got some neuroticism, he doesn’t,
I didn’t play up the, I tried not to play up
this sort of stereotypical hero character
because I don’t know, that just didn’t feel right,
but he’s definitely loaded with insecurities
and all that stuff.
And so it’s like if you can actually like him,
you know, at least or at least tolerate him well,
that helps, but if you don’t like him,
it’s hard to read a book like you just sort of saying,
it’s like, man, you can’t really get through the book,
you got to actually believe that what this person’s POB is,
it’s at least relatable to you.
So that was sort of the thinking, but yeah,
’cause you’re stuck with them for that 400
and whatever pages, so you better,
you know, you better not really dislike his worldviews
and all that stuff.
yeah, I mean, the only part that I felt was not relatable
is I’m 38 years old.
If I have one too many Miller lights,
there is zero percent chance the next day.
I am going surfing, I am doing anything like I am couch locked
at this age, there’s no, there’s no boot and rallies
or I can’t remember what you said in the book,
but it’s something similar that they’re doing.
The idea of doing a physical activity
in my mid to late 30s is, you know,
the day after drinking is just, that’s just not gonna happen.
So I appreciate his ability to do so,
but I don’t know any one of the 30s I can do that.
That’s the most fictional part of the book.
I will bring up the actual most fictional part
of real quick care, ’cause I related a lot to Cole until,
he takes Kendall back and has a 30s, 30 minutes sex romp,
30 thinner.
Who is this?
You said he wasn’t a hero?
yeah.
No, he’s lying to himself.
He’s lying to himself.
Oh, yeah. I like that.
Yeah, yeah. Especially with her,
it was probably more like 80 seconds or something like that,
but in his mind, he was, yeah, well, yeah, he had a cup,
he had some wine, so he was like, he couldn’t relate
to time and space the way that you might know.
But yeah, no, I, and one of my,
when I sent to my best friend, he wrote back
and he’s like, dude, that’s bullshit.
He’s like, there’s no way, especially as he describes
or he’s like, that’s comedy.
And I’m like, yeah, but, whatever.
So anyway, yeah, that’s your fair enough.
She’s like, she’s like, hell in a troy,
and he’s having a marathon session.
yeah, exactly. yeah, cool.
good for you. yeah, go on, good, yeah.
You know, he’s had a tough couple of months, you know?
But yeah, I think, and I think when it comes to the,
like, I will say this about the hangover thing,
my relationship to hangovers changes dramatically
when I’m not in a cold house in Ontario, Canada,
and I’m in the tropics around idyllic conditions.
So I’m not saying I could do that,
but I will say that in my early 30s,
that’s definitely, that was pretty common for sure,
where you kind of redo it and go anyway.
But those, he, he, you know, it’s a little bit about, yeah,
all the times that he got drunk and Costa Rica
and couldn’t serve the cab he’s complaining about,
those are definitely things that happen.
Yeah. (laughs)
it seems like one of the bigger themes is obviously
getting away, putting your phone down,
kind of enjoying nature, things like that.
However, the second half of this book,
are we, I’m getting a little nervous
about some of these, the elements and things like that.
So I guess, what was, what are the,
a few themes or things you wanted, you know,
the reader to take away,
despite kind of some of the horrific stuff
they go through at the second half of the book?
I think one of the things that, I don’t know if I approached it
with as much forethought as all of that.
I wanted to tell this story,
but one of the things that it became pretty apparent to me
when I was writing it, kind of,
it smarted me a little bit, is that what sometimes,
sometimes what it takes to gain the clarity
that cold gains in those sort of, in that second half,
is a disaster or is something massive
and something that challenges you maybe mortally
or in other ways, but the kind of clarity that only comes
in that is something that I wanted people
to maybe meditate on just a little bit.
It’s really easy and we do it all the time
to just start to take for granted everything you have.
I mean, we live in these modern homes,
they have heating and cooling,
we got refrigerators with a month of,
worth of food and we have stores
and everything at our disposal and at our fingertips.
And I think that it’s worth remembering
that that’s not where we came from as humans.
We came from a really difficult time
where we had to fight for everything
and there was constant strife.
And so I guess that was one of the things
that I thought really started to shine through
is that man, ’cause he talks about that, right?
Like he complains a lot about staring at his ceiling fan
in his apartment every day and dreading the moment
he has to get out of bed and face the world.
But I think that boredom starts to feel
a lot like a luxury to him or like almost like a dream
’cause when he’s floating in the middle of the ocean
and it’s getting dark,
what he would give to be ordering food
from Uber Eats at home and being bored to death
during out as a wall.
And I think it’s super easy.
We’re designed to always be, I guess,
expanding as humans like the dopamine thing.
But I think sometimes it’s worth looking back
at what we have, or looking at what we have
and then looking back at where we came from
because all that stuff is just, we’re also fortunate
and we easily forget it, I think, sometimes.
Yeah, at least what I took away from it,
it’s not necessarily about escaping
the mundane aspects of life,
but appreciating those mundane aspects of life.
And it’s really the simple things like you’re talking about,
having food accessible and on the table,
we just do it every day.
But, and I’m not religious by any means.
But there is something to the idea of like giving thanks
at meal time to really take that and put into words
at what you’re doing at that moment.
I started this thing and I kinda, I have a one year old,
so I’m thinking of traditions or things we wanna do together
and I was thinking, at dinner time,
as opposed to doing some meaningless prayer
or something like that, say, thank someone
that was associated with this meal.
Could be the person who made it for you,
it could be the person that grew the lettuce,
it could be the people who created the petrol
to get the lettuce from Costa Rica to our front door.
Whatever the case is, just understanding the journey
of our food and appreciating it.
I think that something that Cole kinda takes away
as well from this whole, you know, harrowing event in his life.
Yeah, I think that that’s right on.
And we’re boredom is something new, I think, for us
as a species, we’re just trying to figure it out
because I don’t think we would have been bored
until after the industrial revolution maybe
or something because we would always be fighting
for everything or working for everything.
And so now that there’s this, I don’t know what you’d call it,
like an inflation of resources that we’re actually
sitting kind of despair at how we don’t have anything to do
and that’s where a lot of people’s anxieties manifest from
because it’s just, we don’t have anything to worry about
and we’re designed to worry, right?
We beings are too old to worry so that we don’t die.
And when you take away all the things
that we normally be worried about, like the tiger at the door
or whatever it is, it’s like, we have to come up
with things to worry about and be upset about
and that’s just like a big design fly, I feel with humans.
But it’s about learning to, I guess, remember that
we’re really fortunate and you’re sort of comment
about what you do at a meal or anytime that there’s anything,
any kind of like blessing that you have.
Yeah, it’s so important to try to remember that.
It’s really easy to forget because we see it every day, right?
People are pretty entitled and or some people
are pretty entitled these days and it’s just, man,
it can really start to, you can really start to forget
how bad it can get when we actually, we lose that, right?
I think we’ve all forgotten.
I don’t know who said it.
Who said it, but you know, it was like, we’re all 48 hours
of food away from, you know, anarchy or something like that,
which is–
Oh, for sure.
100%.
Right?
And the boredom aspect is interesting as well
because boredom is actually super important,
especially for kids and whatnot to rewire their brains
and unfortunately the whole social media aspect.
Well, this is a whole different story, but the whole social media
aspect of life, for everyone just, you know, we all do it.
We pick up our phone when we have a second of boredom
and to just live in that boredom is actually like what we’re
probably supposed to be doing as opposed
to consuming some terrible content that we have.
Oh, yeah.
Well, when I was a kid, it was like, I’m probably,
I’m around the same age as you.
So it was like, go find a stick that looks like a gun or something.
Like it was an–
Absolutely.
So now it’s, I don’t think it’s what’s on the screen.
That’s as big a problem as what the screen stops the kid
from doing like you’re referring to it.
Or you’re alluding to it’s like, it’s preventing them
from using their imagination.
And as a reader of a book or as a writer of a book,
I should say, you relied pretty heavily on the reader
having an imagination.
And that was part of the cool thing about writing
in a narrative space is like, or like a literary space
versus like a, because I come from a filmmaking background.
It’s so much more fun in a way because if the reader has
the imagination that you hope they have,
they can lift half the weight for you or more.
And you can feed them a lob ball and they can hit it
out of the park because it’s a co-collaborative thing, right?
You’re actually asking them questions and, and,
positing information for them to then take to a internal place
and then conjugate with whatever they’ve experienced
in their life.
And then that’s what a lot of people, I’ve
hoped and have sort of experienced a lot of people saying
that they were reminded them of something
or that it brought them to a place that they had been.
Because that’s, I think that’s one of the goals
is you want to, you want to make somebody feel something
that is relatable.
And with, with filmmaking, I don’t know how I got on this
tangent, but with filmmaking, you’re, everything is very
explicit on, on the screening, right?
The kind of music that’s playing, the sound effects,
the dialogue, how the characters look, what the setting is.
Trying to out folks, something.
Yeah, but it’s all there.
You can’t, you can’t see something else, really.
You can see it and interpret it the way that you want,
but in this case, you’re just putting words in someone’s head
and they’re gonna paint the picture.
And I’ve, I know with the QR codes,
there’s been a few people that have said they didn’t
want to look because of that exact thing.
They’re like, wow, I love that there’s this like journal
and that these characters are there
and you can see these things, but I loved just picturing them
instead and so I didn’t check the QR codes
until I was finished the book.
That kind of thing, so that’s, yeah,
I don’t know if you guys did look at that,
but it does give you–
of course it was my next question.
Okay, let’s go.
I just, I just, I say it was a cool idea
that I haven’t, haven’t seen before
and it almost took me back to,
there was this RL Stein goose bumps back in the day
where they had, like, they choose your own destiny ones,
like the second RL Stein thing that he did,
where you’re going back and forth
throughout the book based on like what you choose to do.
right, Right.
And this is obviously different than that,
but it kind of took me back to those memories
and just having a journal in it,
I assume you were talking about the cab ride
when you were journaling your last will and testament.
yeah.
but, so I assume you have a history of journaling
and you’re familiar with that.
So was it that aspect of your own life
that you decided you wanted to bring into this?
Or like, what was the goal with it
and how did you decide to integrate it
into the story using the QR code?
I don’t know, I actually don’t know.
I do journal when I’m on trips a little bit
and I like to find, I don’t know,
souvenirs is a little trinkets, that kind of stuff,
the things you’d see in his journal.
I don’t know if he should be doing it back,
I’m not sure if that goes through customs
and they find trace elements like this.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, that’s the fiction part again, yeah.
That was pretty funny, that’s pretty funny.
But I don’t know, I guess it maybe it’s something
about the filmmaker element in me.
I just, I found myself describing things
in the book that are hard to picture for some people.
Like I said, you can’t always infer that your reader’s gonna know
what the structure of their building is,
looks like or what the coast of Sumatra looks like
versus how the mental eye islands look
and all that stuff.
I just felt when I was reading it, or writing it,
I was like, I wonder if there’s maybe the chapter
heading page I could have some sketches
that would help elucidate a little bit of that stuff.
But then I was like, that’s just,
I felt like that was a little tacky
and it’s really complicated with trying to get a book
printed that has graphic elements as well.
So I just sort of thought, it just sort of evolved into,
well maybe it’s a separate sidecar element
and that took me on a four month journey
trying to figure out how to draw.
And then how to–
so did All the illustrations as well?
yeah, I did.
And not by choice, I just didn’t, I don’t think,
well I don’t think that hiring an artist makes sense
because you’d have to suspend disbelief too hard
to believe that coal is this like magnificent artist.
I just wanted it to look better than how I was drawing,
but not so good that you wouldn’t believe
that he can actually come up with these illustrations.
So I don’t know if I found that balance,
a lot of the stuff is pretty, pretty okay looking
but yeah, I just wanted there to be a touch point
for some of the descriptions and some of the stuff
that he’s talking about and seeing
and then when the idea of the Polaroids came through,
again it just sort of dawned on me and like, man,
it wouldn’t be cool if somebody had a Polaroid camera
and so admittedly that didn’t come in
till like the 11th hour, so it’s not spoken
about in the actual narrative of the book,
but I was like, ah, whatever, you don’t have to tell
everything about everything in the book.
So I just sort of like–
yeah, I figured that one out.
Yeah, so the idea of
and they say, I pulled up my coat of the egg
and I figured it out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I figured it out. – Exactly.
So that stuff, I just felt like it’s really textural
and of course the thing survives a bit of damage
so it looks really textural and interesting
and the way that that was built was
I had a real journal, a real journal
that I actually kind of weathered and distressed
and then I took a really high resolution
stills camera and I shot plates of it,
like 40 pages of plates
and then all of those went in and all of the elements
were laid on top of that.
So it was actually a really fun creative process
but that took me three months of pretty much every day,
eight hours a day and it wasn’t in the original plan
when I began this book.
So it felt like I was doing it in another book entirely
but I think it was worth it.
People, at least for the most part,
seemed to really have enjoyed it.
So glad that it happened, you know?
yeah, I thought it was a great addition.
It brings so many different things together,
it brings books and then also everyone,
you know, when they’re reading,
they have their phone next to them,
everyone has their phone attached to them anyways.
So to bring that into the story and say,
hey, you know, scan the QR code and see these,
I think you’re downselling your illustrative abilities
because the crocodile, are you kidding me?
That’s the best crocodile I’ve ever seen,
should hang that thing in the loop.
Oh, dude, but I had, you know, long that took me.
Like if you could see the eraser marks,
you wouldn’t be as impressed, I promise it took
so much to get that done and the car is too,
like drawing the cars.
Oh, God.
I just feel like if it’s worse than that though,
as a reader, you’re like, yeah, I don’t know.
And this guy’s not good, like he shouldn’t draw.
Yeah, but it’s a peek behind the curtain of Cole’s,
you know, experience.
So yeah, that was a great addition.
And the Polaroids, did you like take pictures of people?
Did you ask people, or did you like Gen AI people?
These are pictures from past trips
and so they made their way in
because they were on my hard drive.
I like to travel with like, you know, old expired film.
yeah.
Roles and so taking photos of friends or whoever.
And then the film always comes back really gnarled up,
looking in kind of like the colors are all flushed out
and then it’s, ’cause Polaroids generally don’t have
a lot of contrast, they’re kind of like the blacks
or a little gray and the whites are a little gray.
So I tried to like find that,
’cause the shots that I included on the Polaroids were
composited, ’cause they weren’t actually Polaroids.
So I just used film photos and kind of like,
purpose them as Polaroids, but you have to work
with them to try to make sure that you can compress
the dynamic range a little bit because Polaroids
are a lot of things, but they don’t give you a whole lot
of color or like a whole lot of contrast.
They’re kind of flattened.
So we’ll have to work on that and then it sort of turned out
how I was hoping it would.
But that was a pretty cool thing and I thought,
it is gonna be maybe split the room
because not everyone’s gonna wanna see Kendall
and not everyone’s gonna wanna see Cole and like,
and that’s fine, that’s totally up to the reader, right?
Yeah, I didn’t mind it, so just saying it, didn’t mind it.
But also I did find, I was like, okay,
so Cole is absolutely jacked, got it, check.
Okay, just making sure, 30 something in a corporate gig,
like this guy might be surfing days might be behind it,
but oh no, oh no, Cole’s hit me elliptical, that’s for sure.
Oh yeah, Cole, he’s out there at the F45,
he’s the, yeah, he’s that guy.
Yeah, that crossed my mind a little bit,
but I think because of that culture,
like the go on surf trip culture,
it’s funny how it turns people into working out
for 11 months of the year because they’re going surfing
for three weeks is a really funny kind of paradigm
because or paradox, I’m not sure which one,
but it’s funny because I know people who are like that,
they’re like, well I surf from January to February 15,
gotta be the most fit person on earth,
which is funny, it’s not like necessary at all,
but it does bring out, I guess some of the,
I mean, you’d have to call that a good thing
and so it does bring that out of people,
which is always nice, it’s like you want to surf.
Yeah, it’s a reason to get home, hit the gym,
is that you’re gonna take in six months from?
And surfing is well for a lot of people,
it takes them places, so it gets you into a place
where you wanna be fit and you wanna stay young
and then you actually go and you travel to places
that you normally wouldn’t, like no one’s going to Neas Island
for another reason, at least as far as I’m concerned,
so it’s like you’re gonna travel all the way across the world
and then get on a boat for four hours
to travel to this remote spot.
I don’t think that the casual traveler is doing that.
So it does serve out this sort of secondary motivation
for people to go and do something that’s, I guess,
amazing in its own way, it’s like,
I don’t know anyone who’s doing that, otherwise, right?
yeah, for sure. yeah, for sure.
It’d be weird if there was just that one,
you know, fat guy on the beach,
I think it’d be a good one.
‘Cause the question did come up, it’s like,
well, I should candle, but that’s who you meet,
if you’re in Bali, for instance, you’re not,
that’s just who’s there, it is what it is.
Like it’s sort of like part of that culture.
Yeah, you’re gonna get the hot 30 yoga surfing,
you know, that’s what you’re gonna see there.
You’re talking about the characters
and being cladis ghosts and whatnot,
and the genesis of Furns nickname, real name, Adam,
but reminds the guys is Zach Alphanakis,
they call ’em Furn, between two Furns.
Did you create this out of, you know,
whole cloth or is this based off of like a nickname
of a friend you have in real life?
That’s a funny one.
I actually did have a friend named Furny,
but that wasn’t what drew me to that.
It was actually this, he’s kind of a,
he’s a papistry of a bunch of different people,
but in my head he began looking like Zach Alphanakis.
So that actually kind of came sort of in its own ornate way,
but I wasn’t thinking of my old friend from high school
that was named Furny.
I just, it’s hard to name characters.
I feel like, yeah.
And Cole was a tough one for me,
and like you don’t wanna write like a surf book
about a guy named Chase and Logan,
and like all of these guys,
it’s like if you can get,
it’s so easy to become this cliche,
and be like, no one’s named that.
That’s ridiculous.
So I wanted to kind of break away
from the typical naming conventions and give them on
and them to one of them,
and that was sort of the best bet I had.
And he’s not dissimilar to the way that Zach Alphanakis
was in between two friends,
’cause he’s kind of cantankerous in a bit of a,
I mean, he’s a loudmouth, and so,
and he’s constantly busting balls,
which is I felt like what that show was.
It was like take a famous guy interviewing other famous people,
but he’s completely unhinged and I thought,
it all kind of felt right, I guess.
Yeah, and we all, I feel like we all have a fern in our life,
especially when you’re one of your travel buddies.
And I thought it was, it hit with me too,
because I have a friend, a dear friend named Chase.
And his name is, his name is Chase,
because he, in college, freshman year,
he tore his ACL, and it was right when Eight Mile came out.
So there, and his name’s Rob,
so there was Cheddar Bob in Eight Mile,
so his name became Cheddar Bob,
because Cheddar Bob getting shot
and having a limp as well,
and it just then boiled down to cheese or provolone or,
any pick your cheese, and that’s him.
So it was funny.
Yeah, so that’s what I’m talking about.
You just perfectly exemplified the idea of like,
I threw you something, you caught it,
and you mixed it with your own reality,
and it became true to you.
And I think that’s sort of what I learned
as I was writing this, it’s like,
man, if the right person reads it,
it’s just gonna be like,
clicking on all cylinders, ’cause it’s just like, man,
I got that same thing.
And so, yeah, but he has a character.
He does represent a large,
I guess a large portion of people’s friend groups
in some way or another,
and I think that’s why,
I definitely have had a few people be like, man,
that character is the best in the worst.
Yeah, and we did, I’d done trips with some buddies,
and we did a three week ski trip all around the East
and in Canada, and I have a friend
who’s very much like Furn, who was on a trip,
and so he was calling to me throughout the entire book.
is he gonna listen to this?
Absolutely not.
That’s too bad.
and if so, I would tell him to his face.
He knows, he knows he’s a contaker, his asshole.
In my circle, I don’t know that they fully
have the self-awareness that you’d expect or hope,
but I think, I mean, maybe they have like an inkling
that there may be that guy,
but I don’t know, I mean, just think of it.
They definitely don’t.
a psych evaluation would be Really entertaining
on someone like that for sure.
Yeah, but if you’re in, you know,
if you’re at Montreux Blanc,
and you’re looking for a good time,
he’s the guy who’s shaking hands with a random bartender
who’s getting some drugs for you that you didn’t expect.
Oh yeah, so that’s, he’s that guy too,
so there’s great aspects to that.
the drugsniffing dog, human.
Yeah, I definitely have friends like that.
Yeah, sticking with Furn and Logan,
I did wanna get your thoughts on,
for Logan was the whole thing somewhat worth it
so that he could hold it over Furn’s head from then on out.
The whole, I saved your life and, you know,
anytime the argument starts,
it’s just so you could always bring it up.
It’s almost like the automatic winner, right?
And some ways he was thinking about that
when he was saving his life, he was like,
Yeah, I gotta one up on him from now on out.
Yeah, because if he dies,
then I’m gonna have, well, it’d be terrible,
but then I’m never gonna be able to like,
throw this back at him in, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so in the journal,
and this is sort of an afterthought,
I wrote that, yeah, I guess,
well, Cole’s gonna go over to Furn’s
who’s staying with his parents,
and he says it’s gonna be like a sign felt,
like George Costanza kind of arrangement.
And so that’s like post-fact
where they’re recovering back in New York.
And I think, yeah, I think like,
because of their best friends in Logan and Furn are like,
undeniably going to die for one another,
there’s a funny dichotomy of also, yeah,
but I also saved your life, dude,
so I need you to like do this for me.
And I think that, yeah,
’cause Logan’s not exactly dissimilar to him, right?
He kinda is the first to get roped into
a stupid argument with this guy.
And so, yeah, it is like a game of chess with the pair of them.
And so I think that would definitely going forward.
And we’ll see if there’s anything that comes from this,
in terms of like a sequel or a second book,
but I like it.
I had been kinda thinking about it,
but I think there’s some things that are definitely lingering
there, obviously, calling Kendall’s relationship
and whether there’s anything that comes from that
and then the guys and then also Carlos,
who disappeared without a trace, that kind of thing.
So, yeah, I can imagine,
I could just sort of interpret what Logan’s,
you know, three years down the road,
conversation with Furn might be.
Yeah, and on the flip side had they saved him,
but luckily Cole was smart enough,
and basically a medic up there was able to save his leg,
but had it had to be apitated or injured,
would Furn, do you think, in your mind,
turn into like, lieutenant Dan type thing,
being like, you should let me like,
go out on my board,
or would it be one of those things where now he holds
that over Logan the whole time,
oh, yeah, well, my leg’s gone,
’cause he, like, that thing, like,
I don’t know. – Yeah, I don’t know.
That’s a change, that relationship is there.
I don’t imagine that Furn would be like,
I think behind that declaration by lieutenant Dan
is a lot of honor, a lot of like, cried.
I don’t know. – Yeah, that’s the fourth generation
of military mind.
Yeah, I don’t think Furn’s thinking that, man.
I think he’s thinking like,
get me the fuck outta here, man.
Like, yeah, I don’t know.
That’s pretty funny though,
the picture him like lieutenant Dan,
but I think, when I was writing it,
obviously the option of what happens to Furn
had come up a few times,
and half the time I was like, man, does he die?
And I couldn’t do it, like I couldn’t write it,
because it turned it so gruesome.
For me, at least, I just couldn’t–
Get smart.
I couldn’t bear to do it.
And I just watched this movie, it’s Christmas right now.
So I just watched this movie called,
The Man Who Invented Christmas,
which is quickly becoming my favorite Christmas movie ever.
Ooh, I love this. And it’s about,
it’s a biopic, but a screenplay about Charles Dickens writing
a Christmas Carol.
And the discussion about whether Tony Tim Dives
or Lives is a big center of contention for him
in that book, because his instinct is that Tony Tim Dives
to die, and all of the people surrounding him are like,
if Tony Tim Dives, and what the hell is the point of any of it?
And it just reminded me of that,
because I did grapple with that for about,
I almost a year actually to be honest,
’cause I was like writing that last part,
a lot of people that I spoke with friends,
confidence and stuff are like, man, he needs to die.
Like, not everyone’s gonna survive that.
And I was like, dude, if he dies,
I’m just gonna hate the book.
I’m just gonna hate it.
So, but I would recommend watching that film.
It’s incredible.
Yeah, it’s got like 78, 79 Ron Tomatoes, pretty good.
Man, I would say it’s a masterpiece.
It doesn’t look at all like a Christmas hallmark film,
like it’s cinematic, it’s shot on,
and it’s got some real big name actors,
like Christopher Plumber plays, Scrooge and, man,
it’s a masterpiece.
Like, I watch that every year at least twice.
So, I started watching it like three years ago,
this is when I first discovered it,
but yeah, I’m like borderline kind of like,
waiting for that to, for the season to come around
or I can watch it again, ’cause yeah, really,
and also because of my own struggles,
I’m gonna write a book, which I know it,
I didn’t have to talk about that, but is not easy.
And so, watching him kind of in his, in his office,
having like, shouting matches with himself
about trying to write this book,
I kind of felt that in a different way
that I think most people might, it just,
I was like, man, that was seriously relatable.
So, yeah, I would highly recommend.
If you see the great struggling, it’s like,
oh, okay, like, I’m not alone,
and also, if these guys are having such a hard time
writing something that’s so amazing,
then, you know, it makes sense that I would have,
but, you know, it’s not supposed to be easy
to put this 400 pages together.
Oh, God, and I assure you it isn’t.
I speak about movies.
A lot of movie references in the book,
from, you know, I was kind of jotting them down
as I was going through it,
but “Pire to the Caribbean,” “Anker Man,” “Scarface,”
Apocalypse Now, “Catch Me If You Can.”
Oh, that’s so funny.
Granted, I’m glad you went with Christopher Watkins
monologue in “Catch Me If You Can” as opposed to Pulp Fiction,
’cause that would have been a very different,
very, very different one.
This is Spinal Tap, Rambo, “Point Break Potentially,”
Viacundios, I just said that’s a point break reference
in the book. – Oh, yeah, it is.
Okay. Jurassic Park,
or maybe Logan was referencing the documentary, “Light
Magic,” I’m not sure, because he talks about–
what did he say again?
he talks about how they made the sound
for the dinosaurs. – Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, okay.
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, Right.
“Light Magic,” if you haven’t seen it,
phenomenal documentary. – I have, yeah, it’s incredible.
Yeah, either way, I think it’s safe to say
that you’re a fan of the big screen.
So now that the book is completed,
when the studios start calling for film rights,
do you picture specific actors in these roles?
Like do you have a dream cast?
Patrick Swazie from the age.
Yes. I know.
Actually, I have zero idea,
because I’m not a big contemporary film person,
I don’t love what Hollywood’s been up to
in the last decade and a half maybe,
and I don’t even know who’s of age right now
to play that role.
I don’t know a single actor.
At least not the one that springs to mind.
I come from like– – You can say anyone,
so to be fully transparent with you,
we do this for a lot of the books we read,
we kind of will think about a cast that we’d have for them,
and it’s never now, because that’s always impossible for us,
so it always ends up being, you know,
it would be Patrick Swazie,
but in dirty dancing, Patrick, right?
right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Or like, we’re gonna say Tom Cruise,
but it’s the outsiders, Tom Cruise,
it’s not, you know, Tom Cruise, right?
yeah, yeah.
through Red Square.
As a 60-year-old, that looks like he’s 40, you know?
Yeah, my answer to Cole is probably,
I’m not sure, but I feel like River Phoenix,
when he was kind of like– – Oh, let’s go, yeah.
But the thing with River Phoenix is he was not as neurotic,
he’d have to figure out how to,
he’d have to learn how to be more neurotic, I think.
I think that’s part of what makes Cole who he is,
is his sort of–
I feel like he could do it.
he could probably do it.
I mean, the guy is, his eternal self-doubt
and self-deputation has to be in the eyes.
And I think that would be amazing.
I mean, Jack Black could have probably played Byrne
when he was much younger.
That kind of–
Same physical sort of characteristics.
yeah, you see kinds of rewind, Jack Black?
yeah, something like that.
Yeah, when he’s, yeah, a little bit, little bit younger.
And then the rest of the guys, that, I don’t know.
But that’s a great question.
And let’s just hope that, yeah, there’s some kind of discussion
at some point about the film.
It’s, all those references that you talked about,
I mean, to my, to my girlfriends, Shigran,
I definitely wanna rewatch movies versus go on a hike.
At night time, like she loves to go do something physical.
And I’m like, let’s watch Point Break for the 30th time
this week or whatever.
So it’s one of those things.
But I think, I like that you picked up the,
the Anker Man thing, because I totally forgot that.
I was in there, you’re talking about the brick killed again, right?
yeah, brick killed again.
Yeah, yeah.
It was brick killed again.
I just feel like that vintage of adult, those early,
early, early, those movies were really amazing,
especially the comedy ones.
And so I feel like that.
Yeah, well, they don’t do comedies like that anymore.
It’s just, you know, that was peak comedy.
Grant, did I, I was upset there wasn’t an awesome power
reference personally, but, you know.
I know, thank you.
yeah, there was a bunch of good ones.
And I’m the same way.
Kate, did you have anything else?
No, I just wanted a recommendation,
maybe get into Margot Robbie’s hand for Kendall.
I mean, y’all Australian girl coming up surfing.
I mean, I don’t know if that’s the modern,
but I think she fits the bill, I think.
yeah, maybe.
Well, she was, maybe like the,
the Wolfel Wall Street era kind of that,
that Margot Robbie’s talk here?
That’s not Margot Robbie, I know.
Yeah, I don’t know.
Yeah, you’re right.
Yeah, that’s it.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I’ll take that recommendation
and we’ll run with it.
Yeah, if you need some casting stuff,
you know, we’re here for you.
yeah.
I don’t know what they’re doing in Hollywood.
I don’t know.
It’s, Tarantino just said it’s the worst era in Hollywood
since the 1950s and I think I agree.
I don’t quite, I don’t go to see new stuff really,
unless it’s something.
I don’t know, it’s just weird.
It’s like Hollywood.
It’s like that idea when you mix the commerce
and the board of directors and the stockholders with the art,
like Rick Rubin will tell you all about that.
It’s like, that’s the worst place
to be coming from, it’s like testing a movie.
It’s like, you know, the way to make good art
is to give some author like the reins
and let them make the thing that they want to make the most
and that they find makes them feel most alive
or most excited and let them do it.
Instead, they’re like, well, what do people want to see?
And it’s like your reverse engineering,
what it should just be natural art, right?
It’s like, no one’s got a tuning fork for the masses.
You’ve got to, it’s like, if you’re a songwriter, right?
What feels real to you?
What matters to you?
Don’t do that game where you’re like,
how can I make money by doing this art form?
I don’t think that serves it in the way
that it needs to be served for it to be any good
in the first place.
So it’s just like it’s a losing battle from the beginning.
And I think that’s where Hollywood’s caught up right now.
It’s like, they got Warner Brothers has
and Netflix has all these, they have all these shareholders.
It’s like, what makes the money not what is good?
So TJ, you’re dedicating a portion of sales
to some guy watch.
Can you tell us a bit about the organization
and why what they’re doing is important to you?
It’s more that it really fits the book
because the book set were there set there.
And they’re sort of in Bali and Indonesia as a whole,
but they’re a group of sort of cowboys
that it’s like three siblings
and they were out one day, they’re in Bali.
I’m not sure I think they’re from South Africa or something,
but they’re in Bali and they noticed all of this
waste on the beaches and they kind of have this journey
of discovering that all of this waste is coming in
from these river systems.
And so they just started to throw on hip-waiters
and the three of them would climb into the river
and start to pull the junk out.
And they sort of restoring the mangroves
and all these systems and low land wet zones
and they would make Christine what was once a garbage dump.
And so that started to get a little bit of attention
in Indonesia and they started to get a following
and now they have like 150 people who are volunteers
and they have these massive recycling plants
that they’ve built.
They’re just shacks, but they’re these huge footprint areas
where they take all of the waste and they sort through it
and they color coded and then they make recycled furniture
out of it and all this stuff and flip-flops.
And I just saw that and I was like this book relied
so heavily on the ecosystem in the ocean
and all the stuff that surrounds coal and the gang
that it would make a lot of sense to try to give those guys a hand.
I don’t know whether they’ll get a lot of money out of it
but I’m trying to offer what I can
because I think it’s a really important thing
where I guess in a place where the ocean pollution
is really tangible, you can see it, it’s more like to me,
it’s even more clear than anything like climate change.
It’s just in your face, it’s on the beaches,
you’re covering your boards covered with cellophane
when you’re surfing out there.
And so I just thought it was important to try to support them
and do what I can to give them a hand.
I think they deserve it man.
It’s like when that kind of cowboy,
I’m just gonna go out and do it with no support, no funding
and you’re just gonna go, and no cameras,
you’re just gonna go start cleaning.
I think that’s the most incredible spirit
and we got it, reward that, I think.
Yeah, that’s right.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
For sure, even just getting there and even out there.
So some guy watch people can go looking up too
because yeah, I checked it out and I was like,
Holy smokes, these guys are actually doing something.
Like you said, it’s not okay.
We’ll collect a bunch of money
and we’ll figure out what we wanna do with it.
It’s, no, let’s just go do it.
Yeah, those guys are active, that’s what I mean.
And they set up these barriers too.
So it’s like all those rivers.
So whenever it floods in Indonesia or rain,
so I should say, all of the junk that people throw
in inland goes and gets flushed out.
So it’s like every time there’s more.
So they set up these gates that are eco-friendly
and they don’t prevent wildlife from passing them
but they stop the garbage.
And so you basically try to cut it off at the source
and you get rid of what would be an influx of plastic waste
every time it rains.
And if they’ve been under attack lately,
there’s so much rain happening there.
It’s been like a crazy amount of storms this year.
So those, hopefully those barricades are still functioning
but yeah, like you said, it’s like you can donate
to any other cause but I can see that these people
are just out there doing it.
And that’s where I think, that’s where the rubber hits the road.
It’s like, they’re not in the planning stage.
They’re just out there collecting garbage.
It’s amazing, it really is amazing.
Great, well, the end of the book carried away,
it really got me, you know, honestly,
I was surprised at how emotional I was when Fern rejoined
the guys after being released from the hospital.
It’s like, you know, they’re, I don’t,
it’s not often that I’m like getting tiered up
reading a book like this or something like that
but it happened. – Yeah.
And it’s a testament to your character building
and storytelling.
So I appreciate you taking the time to write the book
and to chat with us today.
I wish you the great success with this book.
thank you so much.
I really appreciate that.
It’s writing this, you do it sort of alone in a vacuum
and you hope that people pick up the things that you’re,
that you’re writing down and feel them
and it’s just really nice to hear that people
reading it or feeling that cause that’s pretty much
the ultimate goal, right?
Just, yeah, yeah, for sure.
that was, that was a Really nice conversation, Keith.
I had a great time.
It was 9 a.m. over here in my part of town
on Monday mornings.
I apologize for the low energy, I brought,
but yeah, that was super fun to hear from him
and get a talk with him.
Yeah, it’s noon.
All I’ve been drinking all day is coffee.
It’s a two pot, two pot, two pot, day.
So I was– – I haven’t had a caffeine yet.
I’ve had to get some.
I was like, furred off that Colombian bang bang.
I was, I was geared up and ready to go.
I’m ready to chat about it.
Oh God, yeah.
I’d also just finished the book like two nights ago.
We went to Caroline’s parents for an early holiday
and I was like, I want to have to read this book too.
So kind of best of both worlds, sitting with the in-laws,
but I was like, I gotta read a book.
So– – Yeah, it was escape.
yeah, perfect.
just so you know, gotta read a book.
So without having a book report,
let’s jump into some stock up, stock down.
Keep what you have for a stock up, for care to wait.
Stock up making friends on vacation?
You know me, that sounds something I do.
I don’t think I’ll, I’m going solo in a trip.
I’ll probably talk to two people on total.
I’m just, unfortunately, not a,
someone that’s super outgoing, things like that.
But I’ve been doing it all wrong because let’s face it,
if they don’t meet those Australian girls,
first of all, the trip I’m sure is not as enjoyable.
Obviously the first half.
Oh my God.
You wouldn’t be as dehydrated.
They’re still on, you know, crocodile island right now,
fighting for their lives.
No way.
They’re stuck there.
Furns done so.
The fact that matter is,
go out and talk to people, I guess that’s a thing.
yeah. you gotta do.
I mean, the other thing I wanted to bring up
about the girls in particular though is that
they just got hit like two title waves.
Like, you know, they were basically dying
from thirst out in the ocean, sharks are attacking them.
And Cole kept them being like, man,
I really hope the girls are okay.
I’d be the exact, I’d be like,
those goddamn girls up there safe right now.
I’d be so pissed at them because they,
I’d be so jealous obviously.
But like, the fact that he was that caring
and thinking about them and at the worst time of his life,
that was like super selfless of him.
That’s something I would never do.
So that’s probably why I can’t meet friends on vacation.
Maybe that’s why.
yeah.
But it’s impressed by that.
Bernie now because I was gonna talk about it later,
but Cole himself,
and we kinda talked with TJ about this,
but he resonated with me a lot and I’m assuming you too.
We’re both in our mid to late 30s.
We’ve been working corporate gigs.
His humor is self-deprecating.
He has a lot of self-doubt in his, you know,
his actions and his normal day life
and things that happen to a lot of people.
But I totally saw a bit of him in myself
while I was reading this.
That is until the tragic events of the tsunami
because after that, he’s the guy that’s
saying, “Okay, you know, we just gotta hold on,
you know, stick with it.
There’s gonna be shark stack, it’s fine.
I’m gonna have a plan.”
Like, having a plan, he’s swimming out to stuff
to help people wear a fern on the other hand
is we’re all gonna die.
Let me die.
We’re all gonna die.
This is terrible.
Fuck this.
I immediately switched.
I was cold at the beginning and then I was a fern at the end
where I would have been, let me go.
I’m dying.
I don’t want to suffer.
Just let me drown.
I’m good.
So it’s funny how I see you.
I’m seeing the merits of,
Do we want to die by sharks or drowning?
I’d be like arguing, which one I want to die?
It wouldn’t be a question of if I’m dying.
It’s, which way do I want to go out?
That’d be very, very somber.
So I’m glad cold, there’s someone like cold,
that could lift the group up a little bit.
Yeah, you need that person, but that wouldn’t be me.
I’d be saying, night has fallen.
There are sharks in the water.
I’d even talk about, in the interview,
Jaws, he referenced Jaws as well.
But that would be my mindset.
I’m not getting eaten by a shark.
So let me drown.
Hold me underwater, please.
Yeah.
My first stock up is being a pyromaniac stock up.
So our boy, Cole, obsessed with beach bonfires.
Obsessed.
The point that he carries a flint around with him,
hoping he’ll have a chance to light it up.
They go spear fishing, catches a couple of lobsters.
You know what that means?
Beach barbecue people, meets back on the menu.
We’re having a fire.
It’s pretty much the only reason why he
wants to catch these lobsters is just
to do the beach barbecue.
Invited to a full moon party while he’s hungover.
But here’s there’s giant bonfire, say no more fam.
I’m there, giant bonfire.
But his pyromaniacism, which is a word I just made up,
ends up saving his ass when he and the boys are marooned
on a desert spit of land.
And he’s like, yeah, hold on, guys.
I got a flint in my pocket.
We’re having hot food tonight.
So I guess carrying around a flint,
this guy’s straight out of survivors, something like that.
Jeff Probe’s would be giving him props.
Yeah, so it’s a stock up because you usually
the pyromaniac are the crazy people.
See Stephen King’s the stand, but not cool.
Save his ass.
Well, I think that’s one of the best things you can be.
Because everyone kind of gets labeled something in the group.
You know, you have a big grilled guy, which I really
appreciate is that person in the group.
You’re on a group trip with bodies and things like that.
You got the fire guy, the guy that’s like, hey,
let’s get a barbecue going.
Let’s get somebody going, I’ll get the wood.
Let me go chop some stuff down.
We go gather some timber, things like that.
Well, then they have like the strip cup guy.
Not a big fan of that guy.
Yeah, you know, sometimes you need them,
but that’s a bachelor part is usually
and I’m not the biggest fan of those.
But like, everyone has their kind of role.
And I think the fire guy is a necessary role.
It’s a very necessary.
You knew that outdoorsy person?
I mean, obviously this group would be all outdoorsy,
but just any trip that’s huge to have, just in case
things do go haywire.
That person’s like, oh, oh yeah, we need to make fire.
I got you.
Let’s get a couple sticks together.
Look at my flint here, obviously.
So yeah, no, I think that’s big.
Cole also has a little bit of you in him.
He’s the game up guy.
You know, it’s like, all right guys, let’s game up.
We got this boat.
Let’s go surfing with you know, you might be more of,
let’s go play flip-cart or something like that,
or spike ball on the beach.
But he’s got that.
Was that who you would put yourself in this group?
The game up guy?
Well, I love the person that’s the positive party guy.
I need that person in my group, because otherwise,
I’m down to dumbstand, you know, like I,
I’m just giving you some kind of a little bit of a way.
So I think I’m more of the, I will buy into whatever people need,
and I’ll make that as better as I can,
but I can’t do it myself.
Unfortunately, I’m not a follower, not a leader.
Yeah.
So that’s what I, okay.
I respect that.
Yeah.
I mean, we need that too.
We need that too.
My next stock up was stock up to never stepping
out of your comfort zone.
Yeah.
This is all trying to get out.
I had a question that I was like,
Wait, should I not be doing anything out of vacation?
So you, yeah, you kind of talked about this with DJ,
and it’s fun to be, a lot of the book is about,
“Hey, you know, get out of the monotony of life,