Hatchet – Gary Paulsen – Episode 20

The buddies get lost in the pages of the young-adult wilderness survival novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. The buddies are talking Heinz Ketchup (possible sponsor?), God’s Wrath (also possible sponsor?) and everything in-between. Join us for the 20th episode and the last episode of 2021, hope to see you all in 2022!

Next Book: ROCK PAPER SCISSORS by ALICE FEENEY

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome to episode 20 of the Buddy Book Club Podcast. I’m Dylan here with the hatchet to my Brian Keith. What’s up, buddy? Hey, how are you doing? I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. We’re breaking down. Some best sellers in this week’s will be discussing my favorite book from 6th grade Hatchet by Gary Paulson. If you didn’t get that from the intro, if you like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about our previous 19 episodes, you can visit our website buddybookclub. Com slide into our DMs on Twitter or Instagram Buddy Book Club Podcast. You can listen to us on itunes and Spotify, so please. It’s the holidays. Download and subscribe. That’s a gift for us. We appreciate it. So thank you. If you do. Hatchet is a story of survival. We’re talking about Brian Robinson, a 13 year old boy on the way to visit his dad in the oil fields of Canada. I think like Northern Canada, and he crash lands in the Canadian wilderness and has to overcome insurmountable odds to survive. Hatchet by Gary Paulson normally we would have a libation from the book, but as we’ve had with other child books we’ve read, although Splash, I’m thinking holes. Our first episode there was Splash, which is like fermented peach juice that those kids got drunk on and then the body, which those kids were like sneaking nips and stuff all the time. Those are some wild Childs. But normally in the kids books, there’s not something to drink, alcoholically speaking, and it’s similarly in Hatchet, there’s actually nothing to drink. Except the pilot might have been getting dressed up, might have led to a heart attack. I’m pretty sure the pilot had a long life of alcoholism, pour one out for him, so no influences from the book, which is probably good considering Sharp Objects had a thousand influences over on the other side of the spectrum. But I’m in Michigan, so I’m going to enjoy a nice two hearted ale from Bells Brewery out of Calvin Zoo, Michigan. Keith, what do you have? I got a raspberry. Truly beautiful, which is actually when Brian finds his survival kit. I think he finds like a fruit punch packet or something like that. Yeah, same thing. So pretty much fruit punch packet with a couple of those fermented berries that he found. You mix those two things together. Wham Bam, you got a raspberry, truly. And he was truly appreciative of finding those things. And I’ll see my way out before we get into our categories. I have a quick question for you. Are you smarter than Brian Robeson? Not even close. I also wanted to get this off my chest just to give you a little background, but I’m pretty sure everyone read this growing up and I thought it was like a fourth or third grade book. I thought it was before 16. You know what? Maybe it was in between fourth and 6th grade. Let’s say I didn’t read this book because I was a special young man, and I was set aside. Your needs were extremely special. I was being taught what a noun was still in an adjective. I still don’t know what those things are, so I might have some hate in my heart around this book and just everyone that read it when I didn’t. Just to let you know, there’s some lingering animosity from the days. Oh, no. When Keith wasn’t reading too well, I still can’t read. I listen audiobooks, but nonetheless still pissed. Still pissed off about that. So just a heads up as we get back to Hatchet. Were you surprised at how intelligent Brian was? Because I wasn’t just pointing at you when I said, Are you smarter? Like, I’m definitely not smarter than Brian. Yeah, he had a pretty strong memory and recall of things. And one of my stock ups I’ll get to I’ll save for later, but surrounds us is that he just was able to recall everything from, oh, I watched that TV show once. It’s like, Wait, what? The thing that blew me away was right when he’s flying after the pilot just shit his pants and then dies was his knowledge of basic flight. He was like, okay, that’s the elevators and so lift plus drag divided by square root of Pi. Wait, what? I didn’t know this stuff. I wasn’t even close to it. I was like, planes have wings. That was what I got. I don’t know anything about flying. I know nothing. The altimeter and then the velocity controls are here. I’m like, Wait, what? You know what altimeter means? That’s above probably 99% of the population. So what are you talking about? Yeah, he’s walking through the Woods once he crash lands and he’s pretty much. Oh, okay. This is a red Oak. That’s a white Oak. This is a spruce. I’m like what I would go on walks with the dog, and I’m walking around being like, tree, tree, tree, tree. Let’s jump into a favorite scene. What do you have for favorite scene from Hatchet? First off, I hate flying. The first 15 or 20 minutes of the book here were a little bit frightening. However, it did remind me of. Have you seen Parks and Recreations? I’ve seen some. There’s a scene where one of the characters has a fart attack, which is a heart attack, but he touched the exact same thing, but they somehow make it hilarious. So worth a watch. There’s a quick YouTube video of it. It’s pretty funny. Aziz comes in and starts making all these jokes about the farting before he realizes he’s having a heart attack. I think the favorite just in general, was him figuring out how to start the fire. I was in the same shoes with him. Like, what would I do here? And then once he saw the spark from the hatchet, I was kind of like struggling with him. Because terrible at nature. I’m terrible at this type of shit, and I probably dead way before him. Well, before him. Oh, yeah. It was interesting how they wound in, like, dream sequences in this book, because I totally forgot about that that night after the hatchet thing. His dad’s, like, fire, like, it was fire here. What does a dream mean? And I was like, Dude, I have crazy dreams. I don’t know what any of them means. You know, I hate dreams and books and shows. We’ve been over this many times, so I was trying to get pissed when they started doing that, but at least paid off a little bit. There was some reason for it. Yeah, well, it’s his subconscious coming out like he knew something that was obvious, but it didn’t seem obvious to the waking mind. Once you kind of tune out all the panic and everything else and you’re able to sleep, that comes to the forefront. I’m not a huge believer that if you’re losing a tooth, that means you have money problems or whatever the silly things are that people say in dreams. But I do believe that when you’re dreaming, you kind of have a clear mind sometimes. But a question for you. You talked about how much you hate flying. Have you ever flown in a small plane, like the one he was flying in? No. So my roommate is a pilot and has a private plane. You can fly. Yeah. So he can just be like, yeah, you want to go to Vegas and you just get in and fly there. But it’s a small plane, and he takes people up all the time to joyride. I’m like, no, absolutely not. What’s fun about that? So my stepfather’s brother has a plane like this, and they kind of surprised me and were like, hey, we’re going flying when I was in Winnipesaukee, and it was one of those things where I didn’t know we were going and we showed up in airfield, and I was like, oh, awesome. This is my nightmare. Wait, you said we’re going flying? Would you assume? No, I didn’t know beforehand. It was like, oh, we’re going to go on an adventure with Uncle Bryan. I was like, okay, cool. And I wasn’t a child. I was an adult, and I was shitting my pants. I was probably 24, and it turned out to be amazing, but it was crazy just how small the cockpit is and how loud it is. The prop planes are so loud, you need headsets just to communicate. But he kind of did the same thing that this pilot did where he just let go of the controls at one point and was just like, yeah, feel the rudder out with your feet. And I was blown away. But as long as you’re high enough, those things are pretty safe. So I think you should go bring a Puke bag with you, but I think you should go with your roommate. My favorite scene, I think, was waking up after the crash landing. And naturally, as any human would do, Brian starts to panic and just be like, I’m going to die out here. That’s what’s going to happen. I can’t survive a day. But then he takes stock. And I thought that was really interesting how he calmed his mind down and then took stock of the things he had. Which is, I’m going to transition this into our stock up. Stock down because my first stock up is having a great teacher. I think that especially when I read this book as a kid. And now looking back at it, I have fond memories of a few teachers I had at that age. And his Mr. Purpic, his being Brian’s. He seemed like a great influence on him. And you forget about all those underpaid elementary school teachers. Pretty much saved Brian’s life. Told him you’re your most valuable asset. Don’t forget that and stay positive, stay motivated. And so when Brian started refocusing his mind on that and not on the panic stuff, he started focusing on survival. And he emptied his pockets and he found his hatchet, which is obviously what the book is named after. I just love any of those survival situations. Or it’s almost like the James Bond queue situation where they’re taking inventory. What do I have on me? And he goes through everything. But then once he had everything laid out on the ground, it was like, oh, I forgot one thing. I have me and I’m my best asset. So I was like, yeah, let’s go. Brian, you got this. You got this. It’s when you started really rooting for them. I feel like before that, it was like, my parents are getting divorced. Would you have for stock up, stock up, reading books. Go on. So obviously with the Buddy Book Club, we’re a big proponent of this. We love reading books. Yes, Brian’s, like, yeah, I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything. And then to your point earlier, he just starts name dropping like, oh, yeah. So there’s the temperature here’s. A certain tree, this Berry. I know this place from this one time I watched this TV show, you just, like, pulling out things left and right. I’m like, Holy shit. I don’t know any of this stuff when I was younger. Also, just knowing the best practices in a crash landing of like, oh, yeah. Then I obviously want to tip up the angle. I want to make sure I find a clearing. I’m like, what? Like, what is going on. But the one thing I will say, though, is that he knows all the best practices of flying, but doesn’t know where the gas gauge is, which is in every car, but also in planes that seems like that would be important to be looking for or the Compass. Like, how about turning the plane back south so you can get communication where civilization is those two things would be more important than fucking knowing crash landings and altimeters. What are you doing, Brian? Well, I think he did say at one point like, this is the Compass. I completely ignore this, and he just pointed it to out of fucking nowhere and just aimed right there. It just kept going like you said, with stock up being books, you also then referenced something else, which is my next stock up television, the Glorious Tube. And this book was written in 86. I think so pre Internet age or pre Internet as we know it, obviously. So TV was where we learned so much and stock up the TV, because everything at this point is, oh, Brian didn’t know where he had heard that. Oh, wait. It was on TV. He learned not to drink late water via movie. He watched a show on Air Force Pilot Survival Training, which I don’t know what channel that’s on, but yes, sign me up. I want to watch that. That sounds awesome. But talk about a great asset. You crash land in the middle of nowhere. And it’s like I did watch that hour long PBS documentary on how Air Force pilots survive in the wild. So this is a good call back. But without TV, he had no ability to survive. I mean, he does talk about books and whatnot and obviously, Mr. Purpose, but TV. I know the stock is potentially going down with all the subscription services, but I’m buying basic cable. Pbs donate people donate to your local PBS. Yeah, I was going to say they didn’t have Discovery Channel or History Channel back in the day, so I don’t know what he was watching PBS for sure. Pbs was fire back in the day. It was so good. I mean, I’m sure it still is now, but there’s so many channels and YouTube and stuff like that, you can fill it in. But PBS would be like basically an episode of Planet Earth switched within an episode of The Universe and then Popular Mechanics type stuff, which is great. Ps is great. We kind of just basically got a better education by sitting home and watching TV is what you’re saying. I tried to tell that to my mom when I was a kid. I don’t need to go to school. You could just put me in front of the TV. I’ll do PBS shows all day. It’s perfect. Have you seen those memes that are like, it’s just so dude, like, taking a selfie being, like, still another day, not using Tan sign and coast those maths blessed or something like that. Have you seen that before? No, but checks out. You learn for like a month and you never, ever remember it. Ever. Guess why am I taking precalculus? Although my brother, he’s in College and that’s what he’s doing now in College. And I asked him over and over again. Are you sure you want to do this? Because this is the stuff that we joked about that people don’t like to do. And then there’s also a tinge of jealousy that I actually enjoy it. I’m like, shuffle, fuck up. Nobody enjoys this. I always brag that I’m literally the best pre algebra person of all time. But after that, it doesn’t count. That was the pipe, and I fucking dominated pre algebra linear equations. Those are my jam. Yeah. I’m still waiting to go on a date, and a girl just like, slips me a note of paper and she’s like, Solve for X. And I’m like, Baby, you want me to solve for X? I’ll solve this for you real quickly. Oh, only two sets of parentheses. Come on. I’m in on this. What else do you have for stock up? Food? Stock up. Oh, food appreciation. I understand why you probably really like this book is because it does give you a much better sense for how lucky we are and how fortunate we are that every day isn’t consumed with surviving and trying to find food, which is all animals. And then the vast majority of humans up until last 100 years. Probably right, is just every single day you wake up and it’s like, all right, I got to survive that’s all your day was consumed by now. That isn’t even a consideration ever. Really. So it does give you a really good appreciation of that. And just overall, some of the stuff he was eating. I was like, Man, this burger is going to taste way better. Yeah. Food stock up. Yeah. Okay. Well, I want to carry on to this because love the stock up. Obviously, a big food guy. At one point, he talks about go to a grocery store just like, walk the aisles and be like, odd at all the things you can buy. And I think so many people hate going to the grocery store. And I understand that it’s sometimes cluster fuck. And you’re kind of just trying to get stuff on your list and just call it a day. But I love walking the aisles and being like, wow, this is wild that we can get this. How the fuck do you get Xantham gum? You know what I mean? But I use it in baking or whatever the case is, or I use it to thicken sauces. And it’s just crazy that you can get all of this stuff. And so I totally understand where he’s coming from there. And also in terms of people behind the curtain, as I was listening to the last part of this book because I did listen to the audio book, which I’m very thankful for, and we’ll get to that later. But I was preparing some pork chops for dinner tonight, and I was like, Holy smokes, how lucky am I? It did give me a moment where I was just thinking, how lucky am I that I got these beautiful bone in pork chops from a local Butcher for cheap in the grid scheme of things. They were 599 pounds and they’re already prepared for you. Everything’s ready to go? You just got to add a little salt from who knows where and some pepper from fucking Sri Lanka, and it’s going to be delicious. We’re just so fortunate to have that. And it being the holidays. And this book, I just feel like was just so well timed for us in terms of it being the end of the year, us running through 20 podcasts this year. And on top of that, just being with family and being thankful, it made me thankful for all that stuff. And I really did appreciate it. But no more sappy shit. Here, listen to this. You mentioned the burger. Brian talks about his first hunger pains. He wanted a cheeseburger, which I appreciate there’s no such thing as a hamburger. There’s only a cheeseburger. You want a cheeseburger with tomatoes, double fries with ketchup. And I very much appreciate that. Gary Paulson put ketchup in there because if you don’t enjoy ketchup, you can get the fuck out. And specifically Hinds, because if you’re a Hunts person, no, there’s just zero a the label shit B. It’s too vinegary. It’s just tomato paste with vinegar. It makes absolutely no sense. There’s a reason why Hinds has their own field. There’s a reason why this family is so wealthy. They have their own field because they make the best ketchup. So please people, if you’re not a Hinds person, convert yourself, because that is the ketchup, then there’s the highfalutin Sir Kensington’s, which, oh, this has organic tomatoes. And it has this organic garlic. Compost. No, don’t overcomplicate something. It’s fucking ketchup. There’s no reason to get fancy with it. Keep it simple, stupid. Simple as that. Hines, catch up all the way. This podcast is sponsored by Hunts. No Hines Hines. God damn it. No, Hans calls us like, hey, we were going to sponsor, but you guys just went full on. I would be okay with that. I would be okay with that. Brian added the shake along with the fries and the cats up. I was wondering what would be your got out of the wilderness after surviving for 58 days. Like, the same question is like the last meal on death row kind of. But in this situation, you’re still going to be able to eat. And you didn’t murder four children. Is that what you’re on death row for? I don’t know. But that’s what people are. I would be like, revolting, like starting a revolution. Oh, really? You’re just killing children. Yeah. First meal after. That’s a great question. What would yours? I really think mine would be similar, although I’d want, I think, like a five guys, almost fully loaded burger situation. And I’d want some extra crispy fries, like, super. Well done. I’d want an entire glass bottle of Heinz ketchup, the entire bottle. And that’s going on. The burger on the fries. It’s going everywhere. I’m just going to drink it for sure. And then I’d want a Brighams extra thick, black and white milkshake. That’s what I would go for. You’re a milkshake person. I love a good milkshake. I’d probably go a strong pepperoni pizza. I feel like one. Your stomach wouldn’t really be able to handle that much meat or food right away. But you get that pizza, that first bite is going to be phenomenal. You just can’t go wrong with pizza. Yeah. What are you watching? It down with fountain. Coca Cola. There’s something that hits differently with that. And you just sit on the couch, watch football, red, dozens on, obviously. So we’re good, you know. Well, I’m glad we went there, because now I know what to get you when you’re on death row for starting a revolution.

Participant #1:

Next reading. We’re going to do the St. James Bible by Keith and see if you can start a revolution. Well, with that in mind, I have a stock up. Okay, go on. That’s very APRO to that. God’s wrath. Stock up. What? Listen, I’m not a big camper, but if just one of the many things happened to me or to anyone that’s ever been camping, that happened to Brian, you’re not camping anymore. You’re just not. You’d just be like, that was the worst experience I ever had. So a Parker pine goes in first, all crashes a plane. Yeah, that part was kind of slack right? Then he builds a place, a porcupine just walks in and shoots spines. It’s like spine things or Pines or whatever the fuck they’re called Adam quills for no reason. Yeah, quills. Whatever. Quills. Adam for no reason. A scum comes up and just fucking shits right in his eye. Just fucking sprays directly into his eye. It’s not pooping. Okay, a fucking Moose. Terry takes the shit out of him. Terry stayed off his line back to him. That’s great. Just fucking charges on them for no reason. And then a fucking tornado casually comes through where he’s at, like, what are the chances of that? And the only rational explanation, kid. The only rational explanation. This is God’s wrath. The whole animal Kingdom where it was upset with him. And God was upset with him for his mother committing adultery. Old Testament. Good retribution on her son. That’s it. Sock up. That is some biblical shit. I’m surprised there was like frogs didn’t start raining down the sky or some shit swarms of locusts. Well, he did have famine. There was famine. So he technically. Well, actually, he did pretty well, but that’s another one. And then killing the firstborn. But that’s what they tried to do. It just wasn’t successful. Yeah, exactly. Brian beat God. That’s what the name is. Maybe Brian’s the devil. I should have rewrote my 6th grade story on Hatching. It’s been like Brian fucked God in the arse. That’s a hot take. And I like it. Well, I’m glad you brought up the King James Bible right before. Good transition. But I’m going to defend the animals here. The porcupine was just looking for some warmth, and it found a creature in a dent. Who knows? That might have been the Porcupine’s home that Brian had stolen from him. And the porcupine was pissed. And also it just, like, swatted him with his tail. It only got eight quills or, like, six quills in him. It could have been way worse. It could have been way worse. Only six quills. And the skunk was just trying to find some food that Brian had hid very poorly. And the skunk was just trying to eat. And then Brian goes over there and goes, oh, let me sniff this Skunk’s butt. Even though he knew it was a skunk and the skunk sprayed him, it didn’t shit on him. But, yeah, I know what you’re saying. It does come from a similar place. And then the Moose was just being a Moose. No, actually, you know what? I take that back. The Moose is a total. The Moose is a total Dick. The Moose is like, I’m going to fuck you up no matter what. It didn’t have, like, the bear. The bear was chill. The bear was like, don’t get between me and my babies. And it was like, no big deal. Yeah, and the Wolves are chill. The Wolves were super chill. The two animals that are carnivores that you think would be the most threatening were the nicest, the ones that are like, oh, yeah, that’s just a cute little woodland critter. It’s just a woodland critter just trying to fuck him completely. Yeah. And the skunk did steal his eggs. He made sure to mention that it licked every last bit of those eggs empty. So, yeah, that was kind of a shit. But my last stock up is the best. Presents are obviously awesome. And it is the holidays. So whatever your traditions are this time of year, usually they involve some sort of presence. And I feel like Brian got the best present in the world. Although he worked for it was getting that survival kit. I mean, he’s pulling through that stuff. It’s like, Holy smokes. He’s got like, seasoning. I couldn’t imagine living without seasoning, just bland eggs and bland grouse. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, I got salt and pepper. So he got his best present. And considering it is the holidays, I have a question for you, which is what’s the best present you ever got? When I was probably like, six or seven, I got this red fire truck that had a controller. Oh, it was a fucking massive red truck at the time. It was sick. I mean, it’s probably tiny, but it’s huge to me, and it just played sirens and you could drive the thing around everywhere. It was awesome. But, yeah, what about you? Mine was without question, fourth grade and 64 just came out and no one could get it. You just couldn’t get it. And my family was very much anti TV, anti entertainment. So you had to read a book or, I don’t know, sit on a pine cone. There’s nothing to do. So I begged my mom for an N 64, and it was also one of those ones where I knew I wasn’t going to get it because one she wasn’t into that kind of stuff. B, she couldn’t actually obtain an N 64 no matter what. But she somehow managed to work with our friends, grandparents and get one out of Utah and have them ship it in Christmas Eve night because we used to go to Midnight Mask. Good Christian boy, she let me open up a present and it was the N 64, and I almost pooped my pants. I was blown away like, N 64 with Mario 64. I was like, Holy smokes. I can’t believe I have to go to Church right now because I just want to sit in front of the TV and spend hours doing this. And it just created not only endless friendships through friends like shitting on each other, playing Golden Eye when you’re in fourth grade. But, God, I still have it. Belittled still have that N 64. We still play. Even when we get together, we still have to play N 64. That is 100% the right answer. You had the right answer. My parents didn’t let me play video games or watch TV, which I should have brought up when you’re talking about the TV stuff. I’d probably be a genius now if my parents let me watch TV when I was growing up. Yeah. Imagine if they just put closed captioning on and made you read. You could have actually learned how to read. Actually, that’s a really good point. But honestly, getting N 64, which it wasn’t like Dreamcast or one of these other systems that just fizzled out. That’s like getting the 100 stocks of Microsoft before it IPOed. Let’s jump into stockdown. What did you have for stock down stockdown. Tsa. Okay, we’re not talking about Brian or naming this book hatchet. If TSA were in the picture. I know this is written in the 80s. We’re talking about Brian Dyes. That’s the name of the book, because ultimately, for some reason, he gets a hatchet as a gift, and he just wears it on his belt, which is a complete psychopath move. By the way, I don’t know how that was just kind of brushed over. Wouldn’t you just put it in your luggage or something? No. Yeah. So I just attached it to my belt. Oh, this dude just has a Tomahawk going through security. It’s like Mel Gibson in The Patriot. Fucking amazing. Is it Tomahawk and hatchet the same thing? No, a hatchet is more of a utility tool. So a hatchet is used for chopping wood or doing those kinds of things. Tom Hawk is made for killing engines. Okay, because Tom Hawk is a way better name for a book. Oh, yeah, I agree, Tomah, that’s a way better hatch. It’s kind of soft. But anyway, he’s not getting through security checkpoint. Stock down for TSA. Okay, I got you. My follow up to our present. Stock up is consumerismaterialism for stock down, because even when he gets the survival kit is like, mine is kind of blown because he managed to handle the last 50 days without any of this stuff. I went to Walmart the other day to print out some pictures for my mom because I’m a good person. Thank you. And there’s just so many people that are buying absolute junk, and I get it. I’m one of those people, too. I’m not necessarily talking down on them. I’m just saying, wow, like, the society we’ve created is just you just buy fucking junk and you give it to other people and they say, oh, thank you. And then they throw it away. So really, at the end of the day, you only need a few things. You need yourself. You need the people you love, and you need a hatchet. That’s about it.

Participant #1:

Okay. My dad, my dad with the complete catalogue of games and four controllers and high cats catch up. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. All right. I think we covered it. What else you ever stopped down? The last one. This kind of ties into God’s wrath. And maybe just God hates Canada. But stop down Canada. I’m in for this. Apparently, in Canada, animals are just all assholes. Apparently, the mosquito bug problem is worse than any rainforest that I’ve ever even heard of. What’s going on with the bugs there I was like, Wait, what? I thought I was like, oh, maybe they’re not in Canada. Maybe I’m just like, an idiot. And then this is in the summer. This is the best time in Canada. This is the only time Canada is nice. At the end of the book, he mentions, too. He’s like, yeah, I don’t know if you’d be able to survive the fall or winter like, oh, you think in the winter, it’s like, below, like, zero, like, half the winter, isn’t it? And then he has no jackets. He doesn’t have any long sleeves. Yes, I don’t think he’s surviving unless he’s killing a bear and wearing the fur or something. Like, what are we talking about here? So Canada stockdown big time. It’s funny to say that because my next stock down was mosquitoes in general. And yeah, I know mosquitoes are Penny stock. Big mosquito has no pole in Washington. I understand that. So the mosquito lobby is not strong, and I totally understand it. I know I’m buying low on the stock, but it’s going to zero. The stock is going to zero, so I’m shorting mosquitoes. I don’t want to reiterate how much mosquitoes suck. Everyone knows this. They single handedly ruin the outdoors. I like to watch we’ve talked about this in past episodes. I like to watch those Alaska shows where it shows people kind of homesteading in Alaska and doing their thing. And I love all that stuff. But in Alaska, you really have three months when it’s nice the rest of the year, it’s total shit. It’s negative degrees. And in these three months, people like, all right, we got to strike while the iron is hot or whatever the phrase is. And so they go out and harvest wood and go hunting. And you see these videos. These people out in Alaska, and there are legitimately swarms of mosquitoes around these people’s faces. And I think they’re just used to it for being out there for so many years. But I’d be like, I’m out. I am totally out. If I fall asleep in a bedroom with one mosquito in it, I’m getting 20 bug bites. It’s just happening. It ruins your night. You’re not going to sleep either. It’s the worst all over your head. They just ruin everything that’s good about the outdoors. You’re sitting there. Oh, this is wonderful. And now it’s like, I can’t survive unless I start a fire. Put it out, roll in the soot. There’s an entire industry around bug spray, which is really just mosquito spray, which I’m pissed that they don’t just call it that because it really is just mosquito spray. Yes, mosquitoes are the worst. Simple as that. And we don’t need them. That’s the most crazy part, because everyone’s like, oh, they’re God’s creatures. They’re part of the lifecycle. No, that’s bullshit. That is absolute bullshit. There’s a company in Brazil trying to infertilize or whatever. They’re aborting mosquitoes left and right. It’s a planned mosquito hood. Just aborting mosquitoes left and right. And it’s been successful because also, mosquitoes spread malaria, kill more people than anything else. Horrible. Get them out of here. We don’t need it. Mosquitoes out. I’m out. I’m selling the stock stock down for me. Pilots, do we really need them? Question, yes. 13 year old lands a plane fairly easily, no runway, no copilot, no advanced technologies, literally just dials and readings. And he doesn’t even know half of them and manages to land a plane very easily. My stepfather, he’s retired now, but he was a 747 pilot, and I was like, wow, this guy is pretty badass. He’s in charge of 550 souls, and he manages to pull this giant thing up and down. It’s like, now I’m like, what a pussy makes it seem like such a big deal. It’s like just fucking land the plane. The 13 year old can do it. Like you said, you got the altimeter. You point the nose down. When you go to land, you point the nose up, you put the wheels down, you win. Yeah. Watch a PBS. Yeah. I don’t think we need pilots. I’m selling my stock on pilots. You’re out. And, oh, you didn’t have any other stock down. So my last one porcupine attacks. So I actually believe this is a pure stock up stock down, because when I was a kid, I thought porcupines just like, attacks just happened. I thought there was some quicksand or something like that because they were always in the cartoons. I just always assumed that at some point in my life, I’m going to come in contact with a porcupine, and I just need to not get stung by it. Between this book and like, homeward bound stuff like that, it just seemed like I was going to see a porcupine, and it was going to try to strike me. But I’ve never seen a porcupine. I’ve never been close to a porcupine. And then you see, like, you read it videos of people that have porcupines as pets. They’re like, oh, yeah, just pet their head. It’s fine. So porcupine attacks. I’m selling the stock because I don’t even know anyone that’s got stung by porcupine. So there you go. I’m out. See you. Do we even have a pick your character here? Because it’s really just Brian. Not really. Yeah. Okay. Well, we can be sure that it’s not the Moose. I mean, that thing hit a 13 year old twice and couldn’t even crack a ribose. The Moose was not only aggressive, but it was soft. It was like territating people, but it didn’t actually hurt anyone. So it’s definitely not the boost. And if I had to pick, maybe like, we talked about the Timberwolf. It just seemed like a majestic creature, and they mentioned that they don’t even hurt people. So Timberwolf’s. Kevin Garnett. Thank you. I was thinking the dude in the minivan or the what was it? The car. He’s like, gorgeous blonde dude that’s making it with my mom. I want to know about him. Yeah, I guess if we’re talking about people, I definitely couldn’t be the pilot, considering he literally shot himself and died. What did you love about hatchet? I did like this kid’s perseverance and survival skills. Baby, we’re on the same page. I feel like a lot of ya books. I don’t know if this is a ya or this is just a young person book. I’ve talked about my gripes with a lot of Yi books, but the main character is forced to some situation that is tough situation. They’re forced into it. They don’t want to be in it. And then all they do throughout the book is wallow and self pity and wine and like, hugger Gates. Yeah. I can’t believe I had to kill people. Or I can’t believe I had to survive this way. I can’t believe or this kind of just like, I got a game up. Let’s fucking get after this. Let’s figure this out. I do really appreciate that. It definitely. At first I thought it was going to be a lot of whining, and then that turned around quickly, so I did really appreciate that. Yes, I agree. It’s one of my loves as well, the perseverance exactly the same word. Wonderful. There’s lots of life lessons in this book. It’s almost to me, similar to a kids version of Ted Lasso. You see, Ted Lasso? Yeah, it was entertaining. It was a great story. There’s character development, but at the end of the day, it’s just life lessons. I mean, the second time he gets knocked down, literally by that shitty Moose we previously talked about, and then a tornado. I don’t even know the tornadoes in Canada, but a tornado hit. He’s like, fuck it. I’m going to rebuild. I’m not letting this beat me down. Where that’s the complete opposite of the first time when he landed, or even earlier when he said that he tried to cut himself, which was like, yeah, that was pretty dark. But he’s basically, hey, tornadoes and Mooses. Moose, they don’t have shit on me. It’s Musai, actually, I’m pretty sure. And we’ll have to fact check me on this. But I’m pretty sure Moose is the native word. And they don’t really, in this specific sense, they don’t have, like, plurals or there’s no way to pluralize it. So the plural of Moose is just Moose. So they see, like, a Moose running down the road and they’re like, look, it’s Moose, and people are like, shit ton of them, and they’re like, Moose. How do they do that? Well, you’d say, like, there is a Moose over there or you’d be like, there’s Moose over there. What’s the difference? Well, there’s a Moose being like, one Moose, but you said they won’t have a way to do singular. A is a singular. Well, I think there’s, like, a singular Moose. Then we also do the octopus and octopi, because we were like, oh, multiple octopuses. Octopi. But it’s actually octopuses. Is that right? Yeah, that’s right. It’s octopuses. Never say octopi. It’s actually octopuses. What else do you have for love the music and the audiobook. Let’s go. Did you listen to the audiobook? I sure did. Yeah, I thought it really set the tone. There’s a nice touch. They don’t do that anymore. In new audiobooks. I thought it was good. I thought it would have been hilarious, though, if during the fart attack, when the pilot’s dialing, they just started playing like, the Curb music, they would have brought some levity to the situation. Yeah. Okay. Well, it’s interesting that you say that because when I listened. So I read the book, I was in 6th grade, and I loved it. And listening to this audiobook, it was almost like when they’ve rereleased DVDs and you’d have a movie that you loved. And they released the DVD, and there’d be, like, special features or deleted scenes. I almost felt that way with this audiobook because one it’s read by Peter Coyote, who, if people are familiar, he does a lot of the voiceovers for Ken Burns documentaries. He’s got a great voice and he’s like, a natural narrator. So that was great. And then on top of that, the music I thought was just like a thing I hadn’t experienced when I read it. And it’s not something I’m playing music in my head. But even Brian talks about measuring time in first days, which was a love for me as well. Just instead of measuring time in years or whatever, you think about the first meet or the first whatever. And I think we can take that into our own lives, whether it be the first job, you have the first kiss, your first wife in this book situation. But your first house, all that stuff is super important. And then when he does the first days, there’s this, like, pan flute music that plays in the background. And I was like, oh, God, this is such a great audio book. So I really enjoyed that as well. Did you have anything else for love? No, that’s pretty much. It okay. Would you ever hate? We got to hate something. We can’t just be. We’re Gushing. I feel like we’re gushing this podcast, are we Gushing? I think I’m going to disappoint you when we come to. Would you recommend? No. All right. Well, let’s not get there yet because I don’t want to sign up. What do you hate? The secret I don’t get really what the secret is. Your mom started another relationship and left your dad. That is a secret that’s already revealed. What secret is he now keeping? Well, it’s only his secret. He saw it, which is fucking weird. If they were still together, then, yes, that would be a secret. But however, they’re separated. And then at the end of the book, the last sentence is he’s like, and I never revealed the secret. I never told anyone the sentence before that is his mom continued to see the dude from the band, and she saw making out. So they’re in a relationship already. It’s just a secret. I didn’t get it. That doesn’t make any sense. Also, I think they said making out or something like that. And it was like, how does this kid know the difference between just, like, kissing? And he was like, oh, this guy’s finger banging my mom in the back seat of a taxi. What do you chill out, Brian? You’re watching way too much PBS. You’ve seen some shit. You’ve seen the animals out there in the PBS. But it’s funny that you say that because my hate was the divorce stuff. It just didn’t seem necessary to me. It had no effect on the book whatsoever. It just seemed like a way to introduce the idea of divorce to a young audience. They really had no purpose. I think the purpose was that was his biggest concern. And that was what made him really upset before crashing. And then after crashing, he didn’t even think about it. He initially thought about it, and then he’s like, who gives a fuck? I need to survive your biggest concern now become not that important when you actually just need to worry about food. Yeah. No, I get it. I get that. But at the same time, he was like, I never released afterwards. I just never told my dad or never. This where you feel like you’d have some kind of perspective that does not really matter in the long run. And also your mom’s kind of a doink. She’s married to the guy, and she’s like, I never told my dad that you hooked up with this guy. Oh, really? Wow. I’m shocked. Yeah, but it’s like, would you be like, hey, dad, by the way, like, Mom’s banging Fabio just so you know, nicely done. I just thought it was super repetitive. I know this is a kid’s book, and so probably there’s something. The way he writes is for reading comprehension. So you repeat over and over, so the person gets it. But he would just be like, I’m underwater and then I was underwater and I’m still underwater and I’m underwater. I’m like, okay, are you underwater, though? He would just repeat over and over the same thing. You just say it three different ways. When I first started reading, I was like, Holy shit. This book is only 4 hours. You’re going to have to get a lot of story out here. But this book could have been like, 2 hours. They just got to the point and didn’t repeat things over and over. Yeah, but so could Pulp Fiction be like, a guy went got a case lost through a fight and picked up his wife and shot shot. Are you comparing the dialogue and pulled fiction to this? Yeah, 100%. They should have cut out the Quarter Pounder with cheese part. That’s a Royale with cheese in Amsterdam. I’m saying the content was unnecessary because it was repetitive. They talked about for an hour about the Royal cheese. I think it would have been a little bit repetitive. Also, I’m pretty pissed that neither John Travolta or my big boy. We’re talking about Ketchup. Who cares about the Royal cheese? Are you dipping that shit in some Hinds, Ketchup? Because in Amsterdam, they don’t have Hinds. Okay, so potent quotable. Like I said, we got rid of this. But when the float plane, the guy finally lands and he sees a signal, he’s like, oh, he just thinks it’s like someone lost the wilderness. Like, it’s probably like a fur trapper whose plane went down or something? Send a satellite up. Our guys have been out here a couple of days. Holy shit. You’re that 13 year old kid. That one. He says we stopped looking for a month or two ago, and he’s only been out there for 54 days. So did the search just never happen? We stopped looking for two months ago. He was like, I’ve been here for 50 days. How did you stop looking two months ago, but obviously, no one’s expecting a 13 year old to survive in the wilderness and he lays. Oh, my God. You’re that kid. And Brian looks at him dead ass goes. Would you like something to eat? Whoa. I’m sorry. Were you on a 1 hour flight and now you’re a little hungry because I’m thriving out here. I’m not surviving. I am thriving. You want something? I got anything you want. I got some grass. I got some eggs. You want a little? I could make you a crock, Monsieur, if you want. Except for the cheese. I don’t know. He wasn’t turning any cheese, but boom, he’s got it all. So, Brian, you’re a badass. I appreciate you. Quote unquote. Let’s jump into listening to Rail. What do we have? You’ve got mail. This is Hans from Frankfurt. Hans from Frankfurt. We actually have a lot of downloads from Frankfurt. That’s my best German accent, and they’re not trying to belittle anyone. That’s all I got. I just watched Diehard. Oh, How’s Gruber. It’s a good Christmas movie. Well, that’ll take another half hour. If we argue about that, I’m just getting back into reading. What is your go to book recommendation for someone that is trying to get back into things? Love the pods. Thanks a lot, Hans from Frankfurt, Germany. Well, Hans, thank you. Well, it’s obviously not hatchet for Keith because he spoiled that. He hates this book, which is really frustrating, considering I thought we had a really nice conversation about it. But, bro, just be like everyone else in the world and read Harry Potter. Sorry, I’m not trying. Once again belittle you. I would say don’t jump into something like Dune. You have to read every page over and over again, which sometimes you like, sometimes you don’t like. I’d read something that’s quick that, you know, you’re going to get through. Read something that’s a few hundred pages. It’s really for a young adult audience, and it’s fun, but it also encourages your imagination because that’s what reading is all about. So I would suggest whatever you like if you like Thrillers, read Transfer of Power. That was a really fun book that we read. We loved any Flint. Check him out. And if you like Dystopian stuff, futuristic Sci-Fi, read Enders game and then go from there otherwise, literally shoot us a message on Instagram and we’d be happy to chat because I love sharing this stuff with people. I mean, that’s why we do it. What about you? Sure. I think page turning is the name of the game. You don’t want to have some book that you’re stuck in the weeds with. I think it’s very similar to working out. I’m a lazy piece of shit, and I haven’t worked out in forever. But if you start out doing the hardest workout, you’re sore for the next three days, you’re not going to fucking go back. Right? So it’s the same thing with reading. If you start out with one of these books, that’s 30 hours book, it’s going to be a slug to get through. So I always recommend something like Harry Potter or other Ya books to start as page Turners, just because I think that’s the easiest thing to get into. And then from there, once you get your reading brain warmed up, you go into that more challenging one, considering it’s the end of the year. We’ve done 20 episodes of The Buddy Book Club. I’m proud of us. I did not think we would get this far top five. We’ve read 20 books this year. What were your top five in there? And you can actually check this out at our website Buddybookclub dot com in the About US section. But for me, the top five were and this is just books we read this year. But number five, Dark Matter, great Sci-fi Mine Bender, very original. Number four, Green Lights nonfiction, but it was a really good beach read. I thought it was a great audio book. Number Three Holes Holes is probably my hatchet because Holes is one of the first book outside of Harry Potter that I read. That was a kid’s book that brought back memories and made me enjoy reading to Transfer Power of any Flynn. Obviously one of my favorite authors and just overall, a book that stands on itself was my number one was City of Thieves, just because it’s a book that stands alone. It’s not a series, but I just thought it was amazing. Venture story, good overall book, and I like history. I like War, so that was great. What about you? So I had to go back to our website Buddy Book Club dot com to kind of remember these things. I’ve read 20 to 30 books this year and they’ve all been great, but just like anything else, TV shows, you forget them until you think about them again. And then when you think about them, you have good memories. And I’m happy to pair those memories with us chatting about them because this has really been one of the highlights of my year. Thank you for this because I’m actually getting a little emotional. Let me just praise that I wouldn’t be able to do this and I can’t transition and I can’t talk and I can’t say sentences without writing them down. If you weren’t doing this, then I would stop doing it. That’s the fact. Keep going. Keep going. I’m going to cut all this nobody wants to hear. I was actually mostly surprised that City of Thieves. I looked at the website because I hadn’t been to the website. I had to review it. You have City at these ahead of Transfer Power, which blew my gourd for you because trust is like your number one book. That’s how we started hanging out and reading together and not like reading together like toes under the comforter, touching each other. But just reading at the same time. Why is Transfer Power behind City of Thieves for you? I don’t understand that if you had to say Vince Flynn Books or City of Thieves, I’d take Vince Flynn books every day of the week. It’s just that as a one off, I think City of Thieves because it’s not a series. It’s just a singular book. If I had to compare it singularly, I just thought it was just a really good read. And there’s not many books like City of Thieves. That’s true. Yeah. Or I can read ten different, like vinyl and books. They’re all amazing. Okay, I got you. Well, your ranks off here because you’re going to do some website work because my number five would be Green Lights, not The Body, which I did love. But we only read one or maybe two nonfiction books. And the math book was just a fun read. And especially if you’re listening to it, it was a whole other experience. Green Lights, five Song of Achilles. Nice mythology, epic kind of thing. City of Thieves. You’ve already discussed Transfer of Power. You’ve already discussed. These are all great books. And then my number one is Enders Game, because that kind of reminded me of my love for reading. And it’s in terms of fun. Kids Sci-Fi just so good. So that’s under the game for me. And I would suggest that if anyone is listening for the first time or our boy Hans out in Frankfurt or Hamburg. Sorry, I forgot there. Yeah, check those ones out. They’re super fun. And then come and listen to us because hopefully you enjoy what you’re hearing here into casting the movie. Really willing to cast Brian and maybe The Moose, maybe the Moose. We’re not getting Bullwinkle in here. I don’t know any child actors. And I feel like there were a ton when we were kids. We’re talking JTT Macaulay Culkin, Haley Joel Osman, Sean Aston, Trevor Morgan from the TV movie Genius and also played Nathaniel in The Patriot, which we’ve already discussed. But I’m not sure if we just got old or we’re just not in touch with child actors because it seemed like there was a lot. But now there’s not. I think there’s still a ton of Disney shows and Disney child actors that if we were watching those shows, then we would obviously. Yeah, but there’s no, like, obviously home alone. There’s no 6th sense where like Haley Joel Osmond is like, Holy smokes. Who is this guy? There’s no Goonies with Sean Aston. There’s no man of the house with JTT. I would say honestly, for adults, there’s probably more what’s it called the show there on Netflix. It’s like the five or six kid actors, stranger things. Well, nowadays it’s literally just the kids from Stranger Things. So for this movie for Brian, I’m going to cast Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas in Stranger Things. Fair enough. I just think he’s of the type in terms of decent age range. He could probably play someone 13, but just the right amount nerdy to believe that this guy could survive, but at the same time could show enough. Go get it or whatever. I don’t know what that word is, but you know what I mean? Like, could show enough gumption to survive in this situation. So, Caleb McLaughlin, you’re my boy. Let’s go. I think it would be basically be perfect for a young version of Shiloh LeBuff. Noah Jupe plays him in Honey Boy, which is basically, yeah, I heard that was good. And he’s in also a quiet place. He’s one of the actors in that. So I think I’ve casted him before again. There’s only so many child actors that we know of, but I just figure if he can play a similar character, he could probably do a great job here. And I think it should be someone like that. All right. Keith, would you recommend this book? Not for me. It’s not that it’s bad. I’m not really big into nature. I’m not really big. I’m not a camper. I’m not someone that is in the age group that I wanted one of my child to read. This child. You mean children? Yeah. Whatever. Children to read this children. I don’t use plural where I’m from. All right. I thought it was repetitive and dragged. It wasn’t in my alley. I mean, I understand why people like it. It wasn’t my cup of tea, if you will. Well, how dare you? This book was great. If there’s any 6th graders out there listening. God, I’m sorry for all the words you heard. And Uncle Keith is a horrible person. He doesn’t believe anything. He says he’ll steal your presence from under the tree. And I love this book. Like I said, it’s Ted Lasso for kids. It’s just a great message, and it’s an interesting story. So if you don’t like it, you can join Keith in the Boohoo Club. I know sentimentality for it. That’s the thing that’s the problem is. Now you’ve got me thinking, Am I fogged by Sentimentality? Because this book won, like, the Newbury Award. It’s the number 25 or something like that. Best children’s book ever written. And the children’s book. We’re not talking like everybody poops. And where do I come from? We’re talking actual books. You read a book called Where Do I Come From? Jesus Christ. Yeah, that was a shocker. And unfortunately, the shocker was not disclosed in the book itself. But, hey, buddy, it’s been a phenomenal year reading these books together to all you guys out there that are listen, the five of you. We really appreciate you when we started out doing this thing, it was always like, it’d be fun to do it. And it’d be fun to have people involved. And we know we’ve had some responses from people that listen, and it’s really warmed my heart and made this a really fun journey. So I’m glad to do it with all the octopi out there. Oh, no. Sorry, octopuses. Yeah, but, Keith, it’s been real enjoy your holiday. You too. We’ll see you in 2022. We’ll see you in 22. We got a lot more to come. Hopefully either Red Rising or Rock Paper Scissors is going to be coming out in January. Probably both of them will start off hot. You’ll have to tune in to find out. How about that? There it is. All the octopus is out there. Happy holiday.