American Gods by Neil Gaiman – Episode 7

The Buddies discuss Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. They chat about P vs V consumption, go to orders at a diner, the sniff test, angel lust and ultimately if they’re actually smart enough to read/understand everything that went on in this epic book.

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All right. Welcome back to the Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with my cohost, Keith, the Irish God of loud chewing. What’s up, buddy? Thank you for that introduction. I mean, it’s a fabulous act, whether it be Cheerios or baby carrots. We’ve had this experience before. You need air in your mouth for certain foods to make them taste better. That’s just fact. That’s not even an opinion. All right. Well, we’re here with you to break down some best sellers this week. We’re digging into Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. If you’d like to reach out to us regarding this book or any of our past or future episodes, you can visit our website buddybookclub. Com or slide into our DMs on Twitter or Instagram Buddy Book Club podcast on Instagram. Keith puts up some highlights or lowlights, I guess, up on the Instagram page, so check those out and follow along. And as always, you can listen to us on itunes, so please download and subscribe for sure. Keith, have you read any Neil Gaiman books before this? Yes, I read Neverware. Oh, never wear. Okay. Yeah. So it has a similar vibe, a little bit different, but very similar in the vibe of like you’re in the real world. But you’re also not in the real world type of field. You know what I’m saying? Yeah. I think that’s kind of his thing throughout. I mean, I’ve read Anancy Boys, which has a character that goes between these two worlds, Stardust and Sandman Sandman, by the way, if you’re an Audible guy, Sandman is on Audible, and I think it’s an Audible exclusive. It’s great. I mean, starstudded cast led by Gaiman, who Narrates and James McAvoy. The entire cast is people that you’d recognize, but that was really good. Sandman comics are great. I mean, I haven’t read all of them, I don’t think. But they’re like graphic novels that he did that super well illustrated, and it’s a great story, but, yeah, he definitely operates in this wonderful fantasy world that touches on the real world. So that’s what we’re going to be getting into with American gods as well. So let’s just get into American Gods. I guess it’s Gaiman’s fourth novel, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, both given to the best science fiction and fantasy novels during a given year. Hugo is the most prestigious Sci-Fi fantasy award. So that’s quite a feat for him. You listen to the audiobook, correct? Yes. As did I. Usually Keith kind of listen to the audio book, and I read the book. I feel like sometimes you get different perspectives that way, but this one had an ensemble cast, and I just love ensemble casts. When you’re reading an audiobook, it’s like getting a super long movie, which I love. So I listened as well. We both listened to the 10th anniversary edition, right? Yeah. So it had the additional text. I think it was 12,000 additional words. It’s a director’s cut. Basically, if there’s a director’s cut in a movie. Like I’m clicking on that first, like, Hello, Alien. Although my buddy just watched The Town’s director’s cut and he said it was terrible. He said if there wasn’t an editor for it, it would have been like an awful movie. So luckily, the editor made the movie so much better. Yeah. Interesting. I always feel like the director’s cut is better. Granted, The Town did Ben Affleck direct that too? Yeah, I think so. I think the movie would have been like three plus hours. There’s probably more backstory, but it was a lot of unneeded backstory type stuff. I’d say nine times out of ten. I’m down with directors. All right. We’ll have to test that theory. I mean, it’s the people that are running it. It’s their job, but you to don’t want cut out anything except for the tip of the Dick. Pardon? So, yeah, this is gaming’s preferred text. And like you said, it includes extra 12,000 words. We’ll probably get into. What we think of the extra stuff was maybe it was clear in the audiobook. I don’t know. But American Gods is a super long novel, really. I mean, compared to some of the other stuff that we’ve read here, the story is basically after stint in The Clink and a dead wife and best friend, Shadow gets hired as bodyguard to Wednesday, aka Odin, who is on a quest to ensemble the old gods for an inevitable storm that’s approaching. And this storm is a battle between the old gods and the new all taking place on American soil. America, I guess, except for the last part, which takes place in Iceland. But that’s pretty much the story as is. So I guess before we get into the categories, which will obviously be diving deeper into the story itself, we like to go. We like to go through a little libation list of what’s listed in the book itself. It helps us gather our thoughts and also provide an opportunity for some listeners. If you got one in the cupboard, you got one in the fridge. Sit back. We’re going to be here for 45 minutes an hour. You might as well pour yourself a drink. So in this particular story, there was a lot which we appreciate. Jack Daniels made an appearance early and often Wednesday was drinking it on the plane. Mad Sweeney was drinking Soko and Coke. That feels like a College or high school vibe. So I’m off on that. We’ve already talked about Jack Daniels for some reason. Every book we read there’s Jack Daniels involved. I don’t know who the Jack Daniels PR person is, but good for them. Have you had Mead before? That rings a Bell? Isn’t that just like wine or what is Meed? It’s like a honey wine. They drank it in the bar when Shadow, Wednesday and Mad Sweeney were sitting there together. I think breweries have it nowadays, right? I feel like I’ve had it before, and it’s not my cup of meat, if you will. Or tea. Yeah, it’s definitely an ancient drink, but we used to do, like, big dinners on Sunday and for Game of Thrones and stuff like that. And we’d have themes for the dinners. Yes, but one of our buddies bought a bunch of different kinds of Mead for one of the dinners. Very expensive. And they were in pint bottles and stuff all disgusting. Like, undrinkable horrible. That sounds about right. It was like, this is the good stuff. Holy shit. This is disgusting. So I guess if anyone has any suggestions for good meat, send our way, because that’s getting a pass as well for me today as well as Jameson, which is Mad Sweeney’s drink Death. I’m done with the whiskey right now. I don’t really love the Brown, but here’s the winner, right? Shadow and whiskey. Jack drink cans of Budweiser by Glacial Waterfall in the afterlife. So today I’ll be cracking some red and whites and enjoying this podcast with you. My brother. Very American. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, it’s American gods. We’re drinking German American beer. Got you? Yeah. Good. So let’s start with pick your character here. This is a long book, so you got a lot of options to choose from. I mean, there’s tons of gods in this. There’s some mortals involved who kind of got it for you in this book. Would you enjoy? Yeah. I also think if you weren’t listening to the audiobook, I don’t know how I’d keep track of everyone because I had a tough time even hearing a distinct voice for that person keeping track of who was who. So that must have been tough for people. Yeah, I think if you’re like the Ibis and who’s the other one, she would see. I’m even forgetting that. But like, the two gods who managed the morgue, I wouldn’t be able to differentiate between Jackal and I wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the two. Yes, I know the two people, but I didn’t know those names either. I wouldn’t be able to spit it out. But my favorite was actually not a God. It was Samantha Black Crow. I thought she was. That was definitely by far my favorite character. And, you know, the type of characters I like, I like wildcards. I like people that are fucking go. That just vibe. She has the vibe. I don’t know what that means, but she just vibes. You know what I mean? She gets in a car hitchhikes, just based off nothing. The only thing she basically was like, Let me smell you first. And she’s like, all right, you smell good. I’m in that type of person that I can love. And then later on in the book, after she got a ride with potentially a murderer, she doesn’t know that. But the FBI agents are like, agents come to her house being like, yeah, we’re trying to track down. Yeah, it’s like, Wood in town. Yeah. We’re trying to track down this dude. Were you with him? And she basically was like, Fuck yourself. I’m not telling you anything. It’s like, wait, so you’re just going to let this killer go on Ohio and just like, go right off his own? She’s like, yeah, that’s right. Fuck him. So I was like, all right, I respect that. So it doesn’t give a shit about authority at all, which I love. And then she has at the end of the book, that really long rant of what she believes that was fucking awesome. That was cool. Yeah, I did like that rant, too. And I think that rant actually played a lot into the story itself because it was kind of like a true story, I’ll believe, a made up story. I’ll believe whatever. And it kind of played into this idea that Shadow the whole time is kind of like, you’re wondering why he’s playing along with this and not really asking questions. He wasn’t, like, Wednesday be like, oh, we got to go see this guy and he’d have some crazy sisters with God, like, shit and be like, okay, cool. Sounds good. Yeah. It was very weird. Yeah. So she was great. She also gave a Shadow, I think, his only real human kiss of the book. Yes. Which was my favorite quote of the book. I think, oh, don’t step on it. Don’t burn it. But I don’t laugh out loud. Ever really on books on tape. And this time I fucking started laughing. So, yeah, she produced that quote, too. So we’ll get to that later. But that’s definitely my favorite. What about you? I’m guessing you’re probably more likely on the God side of things. Yeah, I’m more on the God side of things. And I agree with you. I’m not usually lolling at books. You know, when a book or a movie, like, gets you to actually laugh out loud, it’s like, oh, this is really good. Even comedy. When you’re sitting there alone, you usually don’t have a lap. But for my favorite character, I mean, I got to start off with Bill Quiz, you know, the ancient Queen of Sheba. We’re going to get into that shortly, but she has, like, a meteoric rise and then a horrible fall in this story. But I’d say that I got to go with Churnnabog. He’s the Slavic God of darkness. He’s a good guy overall, but he just likes to drink vodka, smoke cigs and play board games and really wants to bash someone’s head in that, too. Yeah, he’s really into bashing people’s head, although he doesn’t at the end. And I think that plays into why I like him a lot, because at the end, when Shadow goes back, I was really wondering. I was like, oh, is this going to be like, Shadow’s Death nail? And it makes a lot of sense. You could wrap it up either way. It wasn’t like, oh, he’s not going to kill him. And he was just like, Get out of here. Get out of here. Get out of here. And I was like, Dude, Shadow, get out of there. What are you doing? He was like, no, I’m going to face my fate. It was like, gives a little tap on the head. It’s like when you’re playing like, the punching game or like, bloody knuckles with your buddy in cafeteria and you just give them the soft one, show them some love. So I like to be concerned about it. I feel like the people that are most likeable in this are like, the drunks, which is kind of a weird thing. It’s funny. You say that because Mad Sweeney was definitely on my list until he had his demise, which was like, blumbering. That wasn’t as good, really bad drunk. But yes, before that, you’re like, this guy is fucking hilarious. And the same thing with Mr. Wednesday, when you first meet him, he’s drinking and stuff. And you’re like, this guy. I kind of like this guy’s vibe too. Obviously, it kind of becomes the bad guy. But either way, it seems like the funny, like, best characters were all people that were getting a little tipsy. My girl Sam, too, was chugging wine, right? Yeah, she was. She got after it, which is also an appreciate that. At the dinner party, Shadow brings a bottle of wine and she’s like, yeah, I’m going to fucking get after this one where everyone else is kind of just lightly. She’s like, I’m at a party respect. But like, I was saying, Mad Sweeney, he kind of starts off, does a good Irish drunk thing where he’s like, a blast to hang out with. And then next thing you know, he gets way too wasted and is going to kill himself. Like, it was like, Bro, chill out. All right. So we got a lot of scenes, 20 hours worth. Yeah, 20 hours worth of scenes. I’d say there’s a few memorable ones. But what was most memorable to you? My favorite scene kind of ties in some of the issues I had with the book is that for me, there wasn’t a lot of scenes that I’m going to remember take away from this because there was too much going on. The story didn’t really have. And I’m just someone that likes, like, a narrative in a story that you don’t leave from. You’re just, like, immersed in it like this. There’s too much stuff that went on when I was kind of bored or kind of being taken out of the story, which is annoying me. But my favorite was when Shadow confronted Henzelman, and basically I was like, oh, I know you’re the fucking do that because it’s been killing people and basically burying them in the Lake or whatever or in the cars. If this book was basically centered around the small town and the small town vibe in general, I really liked that the characters in that how they built that up. Had they done that? And then the big reveal at the end was that Henselman was this dude, I kind of predicted it by that point because, oh, really? Yeah. I was like, oh, it must have been that old dude that’s doing this, and it must be the car. I honestly figured it out. But if you built the whole book around this town and just like, God’s coming in and out and all this shit and all it was was a town, you would definitely have been much more blindsided by that fact that that happened. So I thought that was a cool scene. And the confrontation they had was pretty cool. Honorable mentions for me, your girl Billyquisty consumption scene. You really went through that sentence fast. What was that? Would it bill quiz. Yeah. Pussy consumption. Oh, my God. That just doesn’t sound right. That’s what it was. Okay. And then the cab guy was kind of funny. Those are pretty funny. The Gen. Yes, they were kind of quite the juxtaposition between those stories. I think we talked about it and the hour long slavery story, which was the most depressing thing ever. So. Yeah, quite different. What about you? The gin was the Genie, the Afrit. And he was like, a taxi driver. And then he met that guy Saleem, and they had sex, and then they swapped lives. Like, Saleem became the Genie. Some stuff going on that 10 to 100. Very quick. I mean, really quick. Like standing with Bill Quest one, though, too. You’re like, Wait, what? Well, so that’s okay. That’s one of my favorite scenes, mostly because it happens so early on. It’s like, Smash cut to this Bill Quis character who were like, okay, she’s a prostitute or something like that. And then she did. Same note. I have. Except I didn’t use the P word. I said vagina like a grown man. Okay, but I was like, she consumes a guy with her fucking vagina. Like, what doesn’t roll off the tongue? Better. Come on, kids. It sounds more like a female punk band from the 80s or something. Yeah, that’s a compliment, right? Yeah, for sure. But it’s in chapter one. And then you just meet this character who consumes a guy with her vagina. And I’m just visualizing this snake extending its jaws and just eating that thing up. So unfortunately, she didn’t have much more after that because I was like, oh, this is going to be the bad guy. She’s going to attempt shadow at some time, and he’s going to fight it off. What’s the worm in Star Wars that Boba Feck gets thrown into Zarlock Pit or something? Yeah, I know what I’m talking about. Yeah, but that’s basically what it was in Human. So I really liked that scene just because it was definitely, like, the most vivid and woe scenes. But on a lighter note, I really liked Stargazing when Shadow goes to visit Churna Bag, and I think they were three sisters, but Zoria Polunacchaya Chaya spot on that sounds right. Yeah, but they talk about the monsters and the stars and the whole idea of, just, like, astronomy playing into this. And if you’ve ever sat there and just looked at stars, it’s enjoyable. But they had a really interesting conversation about it. And I always loved that idea of just, like, no ancient cultures, like, no tablets, no phones, just staring up at the stars and making stories of constellations. So I really enjoyed that scene. It was just two happy people having a happy time. I respect it. Okay. It was really all I had for scenes. I mean, there’s stuff that’s later, but I found a bunch of it to be kind of confusing. I mean, Gaiman’s pros, like, the way he writes this stuff is all these paragraph long sentences, which I like in that they’re usually very descriptive, so you can see what he’s writing in your mind. But it often goes against trying to comprehend the plot where it’s like, okay, I understand this scene. But how does this play into a greater story? And then the next thing you know, you’ve moved on from that and you’re somewhere else doing something totally different. Yeah. Also, kind of, you know, I have an issue with dreams, but there’d just be dreams that would be like, what are we doing here? What’s going on? And then they’d be like, that’s the end of that. It’s like, wait, what? It was like reading a 20 hours poetry book. That’s what it was kind of like. There’s just a lot of poetry. It seemed like, which I’m not a big poetry person. I can appreciate it, but 20 hours of it. I was like, very out of the book by the end of it. It’s just tough for me to get in for me. It’s a movie in my head that’s like how I like to think of books when they’re good Harry Potter. I don’t even know I’m reading or listening to it. I’m just in the world. You’re looking over there. Thank you for our first Harry Potter. Thank you. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? Like, you’re literally in the world and every side character, you can picture them. And they have some role in the story where they introduced, like, 50 people that have nothing to do with anything. You know, there’s, like, basically only people driving the actual narrative of the story or Mr. Wednesday in Shadow. But Shadow just, like, on the line for the ride. Every single person they meet doesn’t really do anything right. They’re not key parts of the story in any way. I don’t know. That was my biggest issue. Really? Yeah. I mean, I think that’s fair, but at the same time, I think that’s kind of like, the point is that there’s just, like, all these forgotten gods that are in America because America is such a melting pot of all these different cultures who brought here their gods and then now have moved on from them. So that in order to understand the scope of what’s going on in terms of this old God new God stuff, you have to put a lot of characters into it. Otherwise, the final fight, the final battle is just like, wait. So Wednesday’s got a bunch of people that don’t matter that we don’t know about now fighting. What about the side story? So a few times, which actually, I think, is what the added parts were that gaming brought back. And I’m mostly saying that because a they really have nothing to do with the story. And B in the audiobook. Gaiman is the one who narrates those sections. So I bet he was just like, all right. Yeah. Just keep the old stuff. And then I’ll do this part of the audiobook. So you said the African stuff, Alegba and the great Maw were those slaves worshiped by the gods, worshiped by the slaves. And then there was that other story. I can’t remember what it was, but I thought that was pretty good, too. The Irish woman or whatever coming across and her children basically kind of explaining how quickly she prayed to the gods and whatnot after she came across. And then now her kids just aren’t interested at all. So kind of showing how the gods faded. But did you like those stories? I think those stories were good. But again, if, though, you put those stories in a traditional narrative, that’s, like, very clear cut, and then you have a side store like that, it resonates much more with you. But it’s problem with this was like, you have 100 of those stories so you can’t keep track of everything. It’s just like you’re jumping around so much that at least my brain doesn’t work that way. I can’t remember. Or I can’t picture that stuff because there’s too much going on now. So you’d say those things and I remember them. But when I look back at the book, I can’t remember those stories being impactful to me in any way. You know what I mean? Yeah. It almost had, like, a Tolkien s vibe where there was just like, so many of these ancient and potentially interesting characters that didn’t get fleshed out that you assumed like, oh, Gaiman’s just setting this up. So that future books, he can just devote an entire book to this character, which I don’t know. I guess we’ll get into this later, but I think that plays to what he really knows a lot about the whole situation. I didn’t have that issue with never old. He did the same thing where he introduces, but I thought because they’re on a journey and it was very clear cut. It wasn’t nearly as bad. And then I’ve read books that are 50 hours books, so double the time, and they don’t seem nearly as long or confusing, and then they introduce more characters, obviously, than this. And you know who they are because they’re well established within the story, you know, their role in the story. They don’t establish these characters within the story, so it’s hard to follow what their purpose? Okay. Yeah, I have a few more questions, but I think we’re going to get to this later in one of these other sections because I have some notes on that. It’s really interesting. I just thought there were a lot of characters that didn’t really drive the narrative, but the narrative itself I found here’s a problem not smart enough for this type of book. And that’s what it felt like all the time reading being like, what the fuck’s going on here? Am I dumb? And I think the answer is yes. So that’s kind of the question I was going to ask. It’s like, Was it really just gaming, flexing his muscles, being like, hey, I’ve done a ton of research, and I know all these gods. I’m going to tell you about all the gods. I know. Are you smart enough to keep? Yeah, I just get frustrated when people are like, yeah, you’re an idiot. You can’t even understand this. I’m like, hey, fuck you, buddy. I take it personal. Whatever. Hey, fuck you about it. All right. So we got some scenes in there. What about stock up, stock down. Let’s start off with stock up. This is a section that is pretty undefined, but the idea being what was introduced in the book that you would now want to invest in a little bit potentially. And what are the stocks that you’re selling? So stock up? Yes. What do you got? So this one’s a really big stock up for me. And you have mentioned in the past that your biggest thing is wanting to go into a bar and the bar keep being like, oh, there’s demon and sliding the drink to you before you even get there. Yes, it’s my drink. Mine is similar, but it’s with diners. I’m a huge diner proponent. And diners were a big thing in this. And they always talked about stopping off the side, a road of diners and what they were getting and everything like that. And I fucking love diners. And I would love nothing more. And I used to have this place out here in San Diego. It got closed down due to Kobi. I actually messaged the guy tried to buy it from them because that’s so much. I loved it. But I wait. Yeah, that’s right. I love diners so much. I used to go to this place all the time, and these people were like, yes, these two sit over there. You’re good to go. Had the coffees ready for it, had our orders ready. They knew exactly how I liked everything. Best place in the world. And I need that. And this book brought it out to me. I love diners. So let me ask the important question. What’s your diner order? So I had two. There depends on what. And they knew. So how did they know they would be like, which one do you want? Pretty much. At this point, I have a subplace where they didn’t do the same thing, which is great, but it’s not the same sit down feel. Let’s stick with the diners. What’s your name? Yeah, I go eggs over easy because I can’t make them. But diners can. This place had hash bounds. You had to get them well done. Otherwise, they’re basically potatoes, but they’re fire as well done. Toast bacon, large iced coffee. Call it a day. It’s fucking. That sounds good. Yeah, it’s just a really fast ball right down the middle order. If I were getting fancy, they had really good omelets too. And then pancakes. If I’m feeling myself a little bit. You know what I mean? Breakfast. Dessert. Yeah. Little breakfast dessert. Exactly. Yeah. A short stack on the side. Yeah. What about you? I mean, that’s my favorite thing about diners is because if I’m making breakfast, I’m either going to make sweet or I’m going to make savory. But I’m not making both. So the actual option of a cheap option of doing both of them is great. Hence why my order at every diner I go to is whatever their Hungry Man special is. I’m getting the Hungry Man special every time. It’s usually like, twelve or 13 bottles. And I’ll upgrade to the waffle because I like waffles more than pancakes. So, yeah, I’ll pay the extra dollar for the waffle. No problem. But, yeah, give me those eggs. I want them running. I want them running. That’s it. So I appreciate that you like that as well. Yeah. Fucking diners. Diners have a great. That’s a good call with this. I mean, can diner stock get any higher? I don’t know. They came from me, but I’m still buying it. I don’t give a fuck. Yeah, exactly. It’s Tesla right now. Let’s just keep buying. What about you stock up for me? First one was cointricksmagic. If you think about magic, we’re like, oh, this shitty clown that’s coming and doing animal balloons. The coin tricks in here were, like, super well done. He explained them really well. And then shadow, like when he’s explaining to the one kid about where you want people to look and what your hands are actually doing. I found that to be just, like, really interesting. And obviously I can’t do any coin tricks. But if someone handed me a coin trick book right now, I’d try one. You know what I mean? I would at least try it. And I thought that they were, like, super well described. And magic is usually not something that people are really into these days, unless it’s David Blaine or something along those lines. But I found, like, the basic sleight of hand coin stuff to be interesting and then also the way they played with it into the storyline between Shadow and Mad Sweeney, and then Shadow and Laura with the coin actually bring her back to life. And then Additionally, at the end, when he’s sitting there with Odin, the Icelandic Odin, and he does his coin trick that Odin actually seems to enjoy. And then after that, he does like real magic and actually pulling the coin from the air, which I think kind of showed that he is part God. And that was cool. So coin tricks in general. Stock up, baby. I’ll give that to you. They definitely Billquist, if you will. The shit out of magic in this one, they Billquisted magic. You’re using Billquist as a verb? Yes, that’s right. I hope you work that into your daily life. What else did you have for Stockholm? I also had sniff test, which I already went over

Participant #1:

earlier. When you come across a hitchhiker or someone that’s picking up a hitchhike, you just sniff them, and I guess that’s it. Dogs do it right. Like dogs can kind of determine if you’re trustworthy by sniffing you. So I think they might be onto something here. I actually don’t hate the test at all. Yeah. And I think along the same lines we had previously stocked Down Hitchhiking in our other podcast. But stock up for Hitchhiking. All good things happen with hitchhiking. I mean, even Laura, granted, she ended up killing the guy. So maybe not for Mr. Wood or Mr. Town, whoever that was. But it helped the narrative. So Hitchhiking worked out for most people in this story, the afterlife was a big stock up for me. I’m not sitting here fretting my death. But now, after reading this book, I’m like, hey, in the afterlife, you get to chill by a glacial waterfall with a Native American God and tilt back some bud heavies and red and whites like, yeah, I’m in. Kill me now. Okay? Yeah, a little bit dark, but, hey, sometimes you got to go dark to get where you need to get. I got you. Yeah, it’s a shadow to do, but yeah, I mean, in all the afterlife, the way they played it out, there seemed to be options. It wasn’t like the normal narrative we get is like heaven or hell or nothing that’s kind of your thing. It’s like you either believe in that there’s some afterlife. There’s a good one and a bad one, or it’s just nothing. But in this situation, he goes down there, they’re like, hey, where do you want to go? You know, it’s like your own adventure. It’s a restaurant. Choose your own adventure novel. Yeah. So the afterlife to choose your own adventure novel. And one of the options is hang out by a glacier waterfall. I’m in. Sign me up. Did you have any other stock ups? I had one more, and then I had one that could be up or down. Bath was stock up for me. I don’t know what shadow why he liked bath so much, but he was like, first thing I do is I’m going to get bath, which is frankly weird to me. I don’t know what your thoughts were on baths, but I kind of am in line with Kramer from Seinfeld, which he basically said, it’s disgusting. I’m sitting there in a tepid pool of my own filth, all kinds of microscopic parasites and organisms having sex all around me. Yeah, that’s what it is. That’s a bath. So I don’t know why that’s up, but it was also like a Penny stock before this. Yeah. Baths have really gone out of favor in America. Hot tubs is a different story. Hot tubs I fucking love, which. See, I think hot tubs are disgusting. Yeah, I’m not getting in a public hot tub with a bunch of random people. But back to your point, baths I’m in for. I haven’t had a bath in a while. I have showered, but I think that the idea being if I was to take a bath now, I would probably confirm the bathtub was clean, and then I would probably shower first, and then I’d get in the bath. And I’d soak. And it would be great. I used to be a big bath guy, like in high school, middle school. I’d just read a book. It was awesome. But here’s the problem with that. I always would do that. And then the book would just be soaked by the end of it. You see what I’m saying? But now we have Kindles and stuff like, the world is changing. Yeah, I guess I haven’t done it since then. Right? Neither have I. So. Yeah. Bath stock up. What was your Flippy floppy stock up? Stock down. You don’t know being hanged and showing your endowment stock up or down. So this already really depends on your endowment, but I don’t know if you caught this, but in the book, I don’t remember when this is not going where I expected in the book. I don’t remember the scene. I just wrote it down, but someone gets hanged and he talks about how their erection was just fucking popping out when they’re hanged. And I was like, what the fuck is that? What are they talking about? But this is actually true. This actually really happens. It’s called death erection or angel lust or terminal erection. That’s the naming for it. What? This is real, but imagine being killed hanged. Right? And you’re, Keith? No, not me. You’re someone that has and you’re basically showing the fucking the two inch guy and you’re dead. Not only you’re getting tanged, but you’re getting embarrassed in front of everyone, you know and love, right? Or you come out and you’re fucking throwing a ten inch guy and you’re just fucking elephant hog out there. People are like, Holy shit. All right. I love it back. So either it’s up or down, depending on that too far. Not far too far. We like to take things really seriously around here, so I’m going to answer you seriously. I think it’s a stock up for me physically and emotionally. No, hold on. Let me explain myself, because some of us are growers and not showers. So originally we’d be hanging and it’d be like, oh, you’re not naked when you’re hanging. I’m saying you basically would be showing all of a sudden. Oh, you’re not naked. No, it’s just like, all of a sudden you’re seeing someone’s tent on their pants. Okay, I think you’re hanging naked. In which case, if you were there to vent, there would be some like, oh, yeah, this ain’t that great, unfortunately. And then as what did you call it? The Angel Angel lost happens. It’s like, oh, actually, it’s not half bad. That’s true. That’s an under promise over perform, exactly which I appreciate. So for me, that’s a stock up. Or maybe wood up. Fair enough. And let’s not take light of hanging. That’s horrible. And yes, well, with that, let’s get into stock down. What are you selling? What stocks he’s selling after reading this book. And this was the case in his other book, too, that I read Dropped Down, Bleeding in Magic. All these characters, they introduced him to magic, and right away they’re like, yeah, this is just like, something is happening. I don’t really believe in it. And just like, whatever for me, I see a magic trick, and I’m like, Holy shit, this dude is a magician, like, literally, from Harry Potter. I believe in 1 second something. I’ll see a fucking shooting star and be like, Holy shit, aliens are here. You know, I’m there. I’m ready to believe instantly. And everyone in this book are like, zero curiosity being like, yeah, he’s not even excited about anything. What’s going on here? I don’t know. Talking down was I was depressed. I was like, Holy shit, something magical happened in front of me. Would I just be like, whatever. I’m with you, though. When I first saw David Blaine Street Magic, I don’t know if you’ve seen that DVD. Yes. Have you seen the parody of it, too? It’s pretty. Yeah, the parity is awesome, but the original one when I saw it, I was like, this man is not human. I used to, like, at lacrosse team dinners. I would put that on, like, I’d bring the DVD to people’s houses and just put it on. But the idea being I was like, I just need to show this to everybody. Like, if it was on my phone, we did most of our team. There’s a Papa Genos. Oh, I love that. On Tuesdays, all you can eat pizza. But, yeah, I would just put it on people’s houses, like, hoping that someone else would be with me and identify that this was not a human we are seeing, but some sort of alien. Unfortunately, the Internet came out shortly after that. And I go on and I looked this stuff up and everyone’s like, oh, here’s how it works. And I hate that stuff. And I hate myself for looking at it. But I’m with you. Shadow really didn’t like he wasn’t amazed by Eddie’s bring some excitement. I don’t know if it was because he was kind of dead inside after the whole Laura and his best Laura blowing his best friend dying on the highway, that he was just like, whatever nothing matters anymore. Which kind of if there’s one thing I didn’t like about Shadow was just that he was just too even keeled about everything. I didn’t like that part of him. Maybe some people did, but, yeah, just the first scene when he meets Mr. Wednesday, and he’s just misunderstood, basically telling him everything about him. And he’s like, all right, I just gotta sleep, man. I’m like, what the what’s going on here? If I got on a plane and someone’s like, hey, Keith, I know everything about you. I’d be like, Holy shit. I’d have a couple of follow up questions. Maybe. But that’s just me, especially if you’ve been in jail, surrounded by walls and nothing interesting. And then all of a sudden, someone knows everything about you. It’d be like, oh, my God. Am I Jason Bourne? This is going to become a Jason Bourne movie. Seriously? Okay, stock down for me. I had Christopher Columbus. He kind of takes a beating in a brief part of this book. And rightfully so, as an Italian man, I’m out on Christopher Columbus. I’ve totally kicked him out of the Italian heritage, but I bet you’re a Sopranos fan. And don’t they, like, riot. I know that is a great Sopranos episode. It really is talk about dream sequences. You hate them. But Ibis really gives Christopher Columbus a beating. I mean, at this point of the book, I almost felt like Neil Gaiman had it out for Christopher Columbus and just needed an outlet and was, like, in the middle of this giant novel, I’m going to go for, like, three pages on how Christopher Columbus did not find America. Obviously, we know that there were people living here so DA he didn’t find it. I mean, what’s more basic than that? But he also breaks down all of the other cultures that at least saw or lived in America or in the Americas, including Canada. And I looked all those up, and they’re all true. It’s just fact. And also there’s a great book, not one for our podcast, because it would really bore people. But it’s called Cod by Mark Kurlanskiy. And it’s basically about the cod industry since its inception, which is like the 1300s and the Basque people of the Iberian Peninsula were fishing in North American waters way back then, so there’s no question they experienced North America and knew how to get there because they came back year after year after year. But they kept it secret because they knew this giant, delicious cod business. Like, we’re not going to tell anyone this will just take over. But. Yeah, so, Christopher Columbus, you didn’t find America. Sorry, bro. Pull the statues down. You’re a horrible person. Get the fuck out of here. I was stock down selling. I’m selling. I mean, honestly, his stock has been going down for a while, but it’s marketing 101. He marketed himself. Well, Apple didn’t make the first MP three player. There was any three players before that, but they fucking overtook them because they just marketed themselves better. So it is what it is. Yeah, I had one of those early MP three players. They were horrible. The views, I think it was called. They were not good, but that’s neither here nor there stockdown for me. Last one here was the police work in this. So in the small town, specifically, someone goes missing every year for the last 50 years, right? And not a peep, not one peep, not anything. And then Shadow shows up to town again. Someone goes missing, and Chad Mulligan walks up to his door, knocks on his door. Like, hey, did you kill and rape this chick? Based on what? Like, can you just go up to someone and start questioning them instantly because something bad happens in the town? Like, Holy shit, zero 100 again in this book. Oh, yeah. And then also, Chad just kind of shoots the dude because he didn’t like them at the end of the book, which I didn’t have really an issue with, but the same time, it’s not the best police work. I would say. So sat down on police work overall. Here. I’m going to give Chad Mulligan a break. I also think that this whole Lakeside thing was like an Odin job, like, Odin was all in on that. And so he routed Shadow out to get him into custody, basically. So that then Loki could find him because he hit him there. And then at the right time, he exposed him. And, yes, it doesn’t really work out with a greater narrative. But in classic police fashion, if you don’t have any leads, then some drifter comes into town and someone else dies. It’s like, oh, it’s this guy, even though you can’t really tie it to anything so that you’re at least showing the people that like, oh, this case isn’t going to go cold. We’re working on it. We’re doing something. The Chad Mulligan thing, I thought at the end was actually pretty interesting. And he shoots the guy and then Shadow kind of blanks his memory. That was fun. I liked that aspect of it. It was a good roundup. I like John Morgan. I’m not really upset with his character. I’m just like saying the police worker. Yeah, police work in terms of someone dying in your town every year. Yes, maybe a little investigation figures stuffing out. It’s a small thing. Yeah, right. What’s going on? We’re talking Lakeside, Wisconsin. What was it, 5000 people or 2000 or something? Come on. Come on now. Yeah. It wasn’t really discussed when he got there. Like, hey, just so you know, around this time every year someone goes missing, he’s like, oh, I had to find this book to figure that out. It’s like, wait, what? No, people don’t know this. What’s going on? All right. So what did you love about this book? It was a big book, like we said, so lots of love, lots of hate. Potentially. I know that it didn’t super tickle your fancy based on how we’ve discussed this so far. But let’s start off on the positive what you love about it. Yeah. So I think I already covered it. But the biggest thing I really liked was the small town. It was almost like a semiconductor novel, that small town where they’re introducing people. I was invested when that happened. I was like, oh, this is actually kind of like if the book settled in there and then had the flashbacks to other people doing things different outside and then had just more of, like, the book sent around the small town America, I would have actually really liked it, I think. But it didn’t really do that. But that was my favorite part of the field there. The characters seem very real. Yeah. I just like that part. I like that as well. Yeah. I thought that was really enjoyable. The Lakeside experience. I almost wish they had done more like you said, I wish they’d done more with that, as opposed to kind of like, digging into some of these, like, Elvis was in it and Johnny Apple Seed, and they really didn’t do anything for the story. It was just kind of like, oh, these are interesting, like, American icons, and they weren’t gods. I liked the deeper stuff in terms of, like, Ibis and the Native American stuff, even the side stories we talked about. I just wish they took some of the other filler out and dug more into the Lakeside thing because that was cool. And to kind of tie into that. One of the things I loved was just a good road trip. It’s a good road trip story at the end of the day. And the details that gaming goes into about these towns and cities, I thought was really fun. Lakeside obviously being a big one. But along the way, the diners were talking about the chocolate shops, stuff like that. It just seemed real. And I guess it did seem real, because when Gaiman wrote the book, he did go on a road trip across America. He was, like, recently living in, I think, Seattle. But he wasn’t, like, maybe it’s not Seattle. I don’t know. But he wasn’t, like, super familiar with America, but wanted to write this story about gods in America. And so he said, you know what? I’m going to go on the road and kind of write this story on the road, which I thought was super interesting. And all the places that he references in the book, like, all the diners, all the little shops are real places in America. You can go to these places today. So I thought that was cool how he kept those things alive in this story. It makes sense. The only problem I had was that it didn’t. So mostly I feel like road trip stories. I’m thinking specifically the movie Road Trip. Are you talking about a Tommy Boy or we were the Millers, right? Those are all like, they need to get to point A to point B, and things happen along the way where this one was just like, all right, we’re going here. We’re going here. It’s just like, why? You know what I mean? It was just kind of a force road trip instead of here’s the objective. And here are the things that are coming in our way during the objective to get there, which makes it interesting, because if you need to get certain place by a certain time and something’s holding you back, it makes it much more entertaining. Like, oh, can I get out of this? Whereas this was like, yeah, we’re going to go to this town for a reason. It was like Odin showing up at his Lakeside house and be like, we’re leaving. We’re going to Vegas. It’s like, wait, what? All right, we’re going to Vegas. I want to find it as a road trip book, because there’s usually, like, importance at the end of the trip type thing where this doesn’t really have any of it. Well, it’s definitely a road trip book. It’s just not a destination. It’s life on the road to some degree, but it’s not like, Get him to the Greek. Yeah. Exactly. Another one. Yeah. That’s, for example, one of the things I loved, and probably the thing I loved most about this book was the whole grift aspect, a Con, a two man Con. I do. Good point. Yeah. I mean, cons are phenomenal, like whether it be Ocean’s Eleven or even lost. Sawyer’s character was a Con man. I mean, every time there’s a Con involved, the Sting, the Sting is just one big Con. The movie. I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but really good. Robert Redford, I just love any good Con. And in this, not only do they talk about a few cons, the Spanish prisoner, the pigeon drop the Fanny ring. But they have an entire scene where Wednesday explains the violin Con to Shadow, which in itself was a fun part of the book, but it also almost felt like a conversation between Danny Ocean and Rusty as they’re talking about how to fuck over a casino. I really like that Con in general, and then not only specifically, but also how the book as a whole turns out to be just one big two man Con. So even though we’re thinking of all these moving pieces and all these different gods and all this stuff going on in this giant book. At the end of the day, it’s just Odin and Loki pulling a two man Con on the world. When you read a book that’s this lengthy. You really want a good payoff. And I’m not saying this payoff was like, oh, my God, that was an awesome payoff. It’s not like the end of memento or something, but I just like the idea of how they introduced the idea of the Con early, and Odin has lots of comments about the Con, but then they kind of brush it off, so you don’t really think about it. And then at the end, when Shadow realizes, Holy shit, this thing is just Odin and Loki pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, it was like, oh, this is cool. Like at the end of the day, it was just a good old blood sacrifice, like the woodland critters in South Park. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I like the Con aspect of it. I will say the actual cons they were pulling off. If you go on Wikipedia, you can look at lists of confidence tricks. They have, like, a huge list of actual real cons that people do. I found that out from Sneaky Pete, which is actually a pretty good show. He’s a Con man. That’s with the guy from Boiler Room. Yeah, and gone in 60 Seconds, which is a Nick Cage, 60 seconds. Which another thing just leading right into that match. Six Men with Nicholas Cage as a great Con man movie, which leads into Con Man with Nick Cage in it. Or Con error. Con error. So full circle, Nic Cage, that’s it. Put the Bunny in the box. Yeah, I love Nic Cage. I’m glad he was brought up during this podcast because I didn’t really have him cast in the movie. Grant he could play, like, any character, but, yeah, cons are great. You didn’t have anything else for long. All right. The last thing I had, I know we’ve kind of danced around this a lot and talked about specifically, but the gods I really liked, I know it didn’t really play into the story a ton, and I know we wanted to take some of them out, but Holy Smokes game it. He put at least 25 gods from cultures all over the world into this book. I usually like to look up stuff as well as I’m reading it or something interesting to me. I did look up those cons. I found it to be really interesting, so I did look it up on Wikipedia. I’m glad we’re on the same page there, but if I wanted to like all of these gods, I looked up some of them that were interesting, but his research is all there. It’s like, Holy smokes. This is pretty crazy. And I like the idea that they all have different names based on different cultures that know these gods. Not only was it a lot of studying for gaming, but I think it was just really interesting to see how all these cultures have different stuff. And I was actually interested because Jesus wasn’t in it. And then at the end, I put them in, they bring Jesus back in. But I have a question for you. When did you know Wednesday was Odin? Because they don’t reveal it until the carousel. But the carousel scene, which I didn’t really understand. But did you know before that? No, I knew Shadows dad was a God, and I assumed it was probably Wednesday. But other than that, I still didn’t really understand the ending. To be honest with you, I know that he was the same as Odin, and Odin is the same as Mr. World. I didn’t understand what that I didn’t get it at all. Okay, so just quickly to explain that from what I understand is that Odin died. He purposely died by sacrificing himself to these whatever people he had also previously set up, like, give birth to Shadow, bang that chick so that then he could have Shadow as a child and then Additionally put Loki into Shadow cell so that Loki would know Shadow there. And then the idea was that by having Shadow kill himself on the tree was like a blood sacrifice to Odin. So Shadow would be the spark that let the fight, and then the entire fight would be a blood sacrifice to Odin. So then Odin would get his power back from this giant God blood sacrifice. And then Additionally, Loki, who’s the God of chaos, would get his power because of all the chaos that ensued from the gods fighting. Granted, Shadow put an end to that because he kind of figured it out. And then also, Laura killed Loki, which they didn’t plan for. So Laura kills Loki. Shadow stops the battle so that Odin doesn’t get his power back. And then Wednesday, which is like the American version of Odin never comes back in theory. But granted, he probably did come back. Yeah, that’s all it takes. A little confusing as fuck. Yeah, it’s confusing as fuck for sure. Yeah, I think I like the Norse mythology. And one of the other things that Gaiman wrote was this Norse book, basically just stories from Norse mythology. I’d say that if someone had some extra credits on Audible like, it’s worth the audiobook, mostly just to go to sleep, too, because they’re like, super fun ancient stories, that game and kind of, like, rewrites in his own words. But when he was on the plane with Wednesday, and they said that there was a guy with, like, missing one eye, I was like, and then when they said his name was Wednesday, I was like, oh, Wednesday. It’s named after Wodan’s Day. Yeah, well, because in the next sentence, he says, they say Thursday or something like that, he was like, oh, no, that’s something for another man, and I knew Thursday was Thursday. Okay. Yeah. I mean, days of the week and months are interesting, too, because you’re bringing some other knowledge into the fray here. Yeah, but I do love that stuff. It’s interesting. Just like all the days of the week and the months are all tied into ancient gods and really numbers. So the year used to start in March. That’s why September and October tie back to actual numbers. And then January came from Janice and stuff. But, yeah, I just like that stuff. So I found it interesting. But let’s get into what I think you want to talk about. What do you hate about this? Yes. I think I covered a lot of my issues. One. It was just way too long. If you make this a ten hour book, I think I give it a it’s. All right. Not my cup of tea. But I can appreciate it when you make a book this long 20 hours and she goes back to me feeling like an idiot because I don’t understand what’s going on and then deviating from the normal story so much. And maybe not like, a lot. The dreams again, really annoying the tree scene for me. I thought that was I almost stopped the book there because it was like, how many different ways can you say I’m in pain and I’m struggling on the street. I’m like, Holy shit, we get it. Just die already. Jesus Christ. Yikes. Tell us how you’re really. I got upset with that. I was like, this book better be ending soon. And again, it’s all about taking me out of the story and being like, all right. I want to get done with this book and which happened a lot for this book, which is annoying to me. Yeah. And then overall, you know how much I like the circular, like where everything ties back together. I thought this was kind of anti circular. There’s so many loose ends at the end that didn’t really tie up that didn’t have anything to do with anything. That was my biggest thing. I think we already kind of covered a lot of them. Okay. Yeah. I mean, to tie a little bit back to what we talked about before, but the Lakeside disappearances were one of the things I hated most, and it just wasn’t given enough time for me to really care or think about. So I didn’t really think about the whole idea of, like, oh, there’s a bunch of people that are disappearing because it just was kind of in and out. Exactly. And then so when eventually you got the reveal that Henselman was making sacrifices every year. What an amazing reveal. Yeah. It was just less of a big deal because it wasn’t fleshed out enough. And it’s too bad because it was a great crime. I mean, a serial killer takes up a yearly tradition, like, he sets up for the town, but then uses it to cover up a murder, like, right under the nose of the townsfolk. And then using the trunk of the car was like, very star skiing hot, you know, pop the trunk with the new car smell. Do it. I just really like that. And it was like, oh, this is a great way to kill some people and still stay under the radar. It’s like, right in front of people’s eyes. So Unfortunately, I don’t think there is enough build up for that. And then my other hate was just pet names and relationships. Laura calls Shadow Puppy, and it’s super cringey. And especially in the audiobook when she says Puppy, it’s just like, she’s like, oh, puppy. I was just like, yeah, especially when they were having that with, like, worms and shit crawling out of her mouth. As she said it. I was like, maybe it was analogous for why those are cringy. And after she said, Puppy, a cockroach crawl out of her mouth, I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I went on a ski trip with some people and they did the Babe thing, and it was like, and it was every other word out of their mouth was like, Babe, Babe, with this Babe, give me a name there. Here’s the thing. If you’re calling guys, Babe, I actually kind of like it. That’s a Tom Brady thing. I call all people and guys Babe because of Tom. All right. Yeah. I’m a huge Babe guy in general, but just not to your significant other, like, every other sentence. And then if you switch Babe with Puppy, like, hard pass. Sorry, Laura, you’re hating this category. I had a couple of quotes that I liked from this. Nothing like, super stellar. That was like, oh, mind bending. But what about yourself? I have a few I can start off with one that we kind of held out was when Sam shows up to the bar and Audrey Burton, the wife of the dude that his wife cheated on, was there, and she’s like, yelling at Shadow and calling them out. And Sam’s by his side and just like, makes out with them and just says, I don’t know who you are, but you are such a cunt. And it was funny when I read it. It was perfectly delivered in the audio book. I love that. I like that one. And a good scene. And also Odin brought her there for that reason, too. He brought that woman from Shadows past to kind of solidify this idea that he was a murderer. But one of the things I liked was the important thing to understand about American history is that it is fictional, a charcoal sketched simplicity for the children or the easily bored. I just thought it was a really well put way of how American history is taught. And just this idea. That what we know. And it kind of ties into the Columbus idea, too, of just, like, everything history is written by the victors kind of vibe. And a lot of the stuff that children are taught or that we were taught is just either complete bullshit or just embellished and not really how things actually went down. But I thought that was like a really succinct way of putting it definitely makes sense. Yeah, my next one is you’re going to have to kind of know my background. So this is more of a personal one for me and my chicken wing theory. I’m not going to get into it right now because that would be its own podcast in itself. But the general idea is that chickens are bred with, like, eight to ten things, because where do all the other parts go when you? Well, especially the economics behind the Super Bowl, where the man for chicken wing spikes 100 X. So how do you cover that demand? Which in turn, you just make chickens with more wings and is easily able to cover the demand for that period. Anyways, the quote was they changed the name of Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC because they don’t serve real chicken anymore. Hint, hint. It’s become the genetically modified mutant thing, like a giant Centipede with no head, just segments after segment of legs, breast wings. It’s fed through nutrient tubes. This guy said the government wouldn’t let them use the word chicken. That makes perfect fucking sense to me. That is exactly right. Thank you. When I read that, I said, this is going to be Keith. I’m so glad it showed up here because I knew it. When I said the genetically modified thing, I was like, oh, my God. He’s so on this. Yes, my last one is simply rigged. Games are the easiest to beat. And I thought that once again was just like a super succinct way of explaining Odin Wednesday’s entire plan. And they said it early, and they said it somewhat often that I was like, they did a good job in what all kind of Con movies and books should do of putting the shit in the text. And it’s your job to read it and to understand it. But you don’t until the end and then you’re like, oh, cool. I get it. I like that. Yeah, I got two more. I’ll go through them quick. Here, quote, fuck off, you crazy bare boo, white ghost. You give me the creeps, said Harry Bluejay conversationally. How do you say that conversationally? I was like, Wait, what? Hey, fuck off, you crazy Baboo white ghost. You give me the creeps. Is that possible? That was good. That’s a good line reading. Holy strokes. You should be an actor. That was really good. That was funny to me. And then the last one was Lady Liberty, said Wednesday, like so many of the gods, America hold dear a foreigner, in this case a French woman. Although in deference to American sensibilities, the French covered up her magnificent bosom. Or bosom. Sorry, on the statue they presented to New York Liberty at the end of the quote, but I thought that was funny. Have you ever thought of such Liberty as Bosoms Bosom? I haven’t thought about her endowments, but I actually did read that quote as well, and I liked that as well, and I thought it was interesting. So I’m with you on that front, although I’m not sure what a boss one is. Angel Lost? Yeah, I was hoping there’s going to be another round of angel lost in there. Let’s cast this movie quickly. I didn’t have a lot here, and I didn’t really look up who’s in the show, although I did know that Liev Schreiber’s brother from The Wire. He plays Mad Sweeney, and the Odin character is the guy from Game of Thrones and lots of other things as well. He’s more of a stage actor, but I thought when I saw that, I just saw that quickly and I was like, oh, he’s perfectly cast. But what did you have? Yeah, for Shadow, I think this one is literally perfect. I had kyano Reeves intrigue. He plays the perfect go with the full actor, like The Matrix, Devil’s Advocate, the replacement. But he just plays that guy. That’s like, whatever, man, I’ll just go with it. His Devil’s Advocate character is probably your best argument. Like, if we were going to send this to the studio and be like, we’re thinking Keanu for this, like, here’s a copy of Devil’s Advocate, like, watch this. Yeah, The Matrix to where he gets thrown into a new world. And he’s like, all right, that makes sense. Yeah. What about you? Well, I mean, for Shadow, once again, it’s hard to not just say Idris Elba. I mean, he’s just such a presence. And Shadow is like a presence of an actor. That’s the problem, Shadow. I feel like he’s too mono. He’s like, too. What are you saying? He just doesn’t have range. He just has too much range. That’s the problem with that. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, I think he’ll do anything. I just think that he’s big, beautiful and mysterious. Okay, so he has those eyes that there’s something more in there. I don’t want him doing his wire accent. You know what I mean? I think he’s a good American accent. I didn’t know he had a British accent for all the Wire. Oh, no, neither did I. I didn’t know that Stringer was. I mean, when I first watched that, I didn’t know that Stringer was British, but I just meant I don’t need his West Baltimore accent, but I think he could play it down and be a really good chat. All right. What else, Mr. Wednesday, I think this one’s obvious. Anthony Hopkins. I feel like he’s the perfect. Well, he is. He plays Odin in the Thor movies. Wait, what? He plays Odin in all the Marvel movies. Odin’s in Marvel movies. Yes, he’s in the Thor movies. Oh, I haven’t watched any of those. All right, really? What, you haven’t seen those movies? I thought you were. I’m an anti superhero movie person because they all suck now. Wow. Okay, well, then great call. I don’t know if that hit you subconsciously or not, but he plays Odin. He plays the Con man, like, amazingly, I don’t know if you’ve seen, like, Fracture or trying to think, wait, is that the one with who’s the Brian Gosling is the actor? Yeah, Gosling. Great movie. That’s a great movie. That’s who I’m thinking of Wednesday. Him playing that same person who knows everything and knows more than everyone else. But it’s kind of not letting that on type thing. Yeah. I mean, it’s so on the nose that he actually, like, Studios actually cast him. So maybe you need a new job to work for Disney. Start casting. Well, for Odin, I had Michael Gambon Gambon. I don’t know, but he’s like, the second Dumbledore, so British older guy. I just think he’d make a good Wednesday Odin. He’s in one of the highest movies. I think one of the ones we talked about. Maybe it’s the Italian job, actually, but, yeah, I think he’d be really good. Makes sense. I only had two more because there are so many characters. I was like, I’m just going to narrow down. Yeah, she threw him. What do you got, Sam? I did. Margaret Kelly. She’s the hippie girl once upon a time in Hollywood. So, you know, I’m talking about who? Brad Pittsburgh. Yeah. So just like, the goofy of carefree, I thought that would just be perfect for Sam. That’s a great poll. I literally had to Google her, and I was like, oh, right. That’s the trick. And this looks like Sam to me. So great. Pull. And then Mr. World, Nick Cage, obviously. So that’s easy. I mean, Nic Cage could play Loki with he’s Mr. World. That’s it. But I don’t even know if he’s playing a character. He’s just missed the world. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, well, it is Loki, and it also turned out like Shadow with cellmates with Loki in jail. Can Nick Cake play like convicts send the clip to the studio? The only other one I had was Allen Ray Tuttik for Mad Sweeney. He’s the guy from The Night’s Tale. Who’s the redheaded guy who’s, like, a little bit out there? I don’t know if you remember him. He plays the pirate in Dodgeball. Yeah, in Dodgeball makes perfect sense. Pirates and Irish people are the exact same thing. I can say that as an Irish person, I’m allowed to. Well, there were Irish Pirates. There’s actually a very famous Irish female pirate. Interesting, that’s for another podcast. All right, let’s wrap it up. Would you recommend this book to our listeners? Keith, what do you got? You know where I stand? Oh, my God. No. This one’s going to be probably the end up on one of the bottom of the list. Again, if these are 10 hours, this ends up in the middle of the pack for rankings. A book 20 hours of this was too much for me. I’m not smart enough for it. Put at the bottom of the list. Common man chooses this as a non common book. Middle of the pack for me. I would say if you were trying to read a Neil Gaiman book, this would not be the one I suggest, just like you said for length. In general, I thought the book itself was super interesting, obviously. Well researched. I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I mean, it’s not a spin off, but if this was like a sitcom, the spin off Anancy Boys is really good. It basically takes the whole Anansi character and does a more linear story just involving Anansi and his son. I wouldn’t say that. This is a good intro. I’d say if you read that One Stardust was also great. And if you like graphic novels, check out Sandman. And if you like all those things, then definitely read this because I think you’ll yes or no, we didn’t get a binary. It’s a yes. It’s a yes. I would recommend this book. Yeah. At the end of the day, I would 100% recommend this book. It’s like movies for me. Most of them I’d recommend you do. I mean, there’s a little more time slack with books, but I would say start off small with other game and stuff and then feel it out from there. So this was American Gods, and I’m glad we had taken a little hiatus because it was such a long book and we hadn’t talked to each other. So I’m glad we were able to catch up and not get this book out of the way, but finally be able to share our feelings on this because usually we’re kind of back and forth on stuff chatting and this one we were kind of silent on. So I’m glad to know where you stand, but what do we have slated for next? City of Thieves? It is by David Benioff, the guy from Game of Thrones. I had read it once previously. I don’t remember at all. So yes, looking forward to chatting about that one next. I didn’t know that he wrote books. I just thought he wrote Game of Thrones, so he wrote that and 25th Hour and some other stuff. Yeah. I mean, I just started the book. I’m really enjoying it. So I’m excited to catch up with you soon and discuss that and for everyone else out there. Thanks for checking in. Hope you guys checked out American Gods. And if not, catch up with us on City of Thieves. Either way. See you later. Santa.