Chubby Behemoth - Smoking Asparagus w/ Jordan Harper

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Pre-Order Sam's New Book - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593978897/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3I4LOBQ02YIGW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.k5eCApJdjwVfn7hSelWi5VdRMlVrzKa4zf68ficcjcg.tZZOiI0nB0n3kkWiGAbidMQy5yUS_MkvmEIaXp-LXjo&dib_tag=se&keywords=sam+tallent+brut&qid=1769522903&sprefix=sam+tallent+,aps,181&sr=8-1&dplnkId=90401c83-a6a0-4ad4-999e-ece570a5d320&nodl=1     Order Jordan Harper's Books - https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/?s=Jordan+Harper     SEE THE BOYS LIVE - https://www.samtallent.com/     Sponsors: Cash App - Download Cash App today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/g0yurtz9 #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Cash App Green features, Savings, Direct Deposit, Round Ups, Overdraft Coverage and Discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http:///cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.     DraftKings - Download the DraftKings Sports app now. New customers sign up with code CHUBBY & spend $5 to get $200 in rewards within 21 @ https://www.draftkings.com/mobileapps     PATREON EPISODES: https://www.Patreon.com/chubbybehemoth     This week Sam and Becker are joined by amazing author Jordan Harper! Jordan tells the fellas about an awesome sports sign, remembers the books that made him fall in love with reading, and tries to get to the bottom of what noir means. Sam tried some Hunter S Thompson affects out, wishes he could write in the morning time, and got fitted for wings for two hours.     00:00 Never Out Though 01:35 Hey, You Were Right 04:35 Bad To The Bone 07:04 They Name Sins 09:17 Two Weeks After The Tornado 10:49 Harriet The Spy 12:41 We All Did 15:56 Language And Rhythms 17:55 Doesn't That Make You Mad? 20:34 Disjointed 22:58 Show Anxiety 25:42 Pinking 27:28 Where The Title Came From 28:55 Elaborate Matrix 31:55 That Side First 32:46 Shield Episode 34:33 Goggins Connection 36:27 You Woulda Gotten It 38:52 Be A Dork About It 41:29 Go Down Swinging 43:23 Spooky Spot For Sure 47:06 It's Like Their Whole Thing 50:52 So Much LSD 52:07 Stone That Skipped 54:08 Tastes Like Home 57:16 That's Why I Make Them The Villain A Lot 01:00:17 Letting Us Stay In The Camper 01:03:59 Don't Do That 01:07:24 Published By Playboy 01:09:57 The Most Exciting 01:12:44 It's Over 01:14:51 You Get To Be A Little Cowboy 01:17:34 Harmonica Or Saxophone Rock     Nathan Lund and Sam Tallent are Chubby Behemoth

We are in. We were never out, though. No. You know? Just the thing we devoted our life to is out and no one cares anymore. In several categories is the great thing. Isn't that fun? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's just keep picking things that they move to the dustbin of history. Oh, it's like, what's next? Radio. I'm going to write radio plays. Getting to Morse code. Semaphores? Yeah, exactly. Let the people know.

We have the absolute pleasure of our guest today, the one and only, Jordan Harper, everyone. And you guys might know him best because I've been talking about his most recent novels, everybody knows, and a violent masterpiece on this podcast. And now we have him here. And I'm glad to be here.

Thanks for having me. Dude, how cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool for everyone. I'm enjoying it. Cool for me too. Okay, all right. I believe it. You can always tell the guy's not lying

when he says, exactly what you hoped he did. No, you're good. Why would I be hating it? I don't know. I did tell him, I was like, look, you need to be driving this ghost ship so we don't get lost in the weeds of like riding and or jerking each other off. Okay. Sounds fair.

So he's here to be a proxy for, you know, what might be boring, you know? So he shakes keys or like zaps me with the taser he has. That's why. We have to stop jerking each other off. Pretty much, yeah. Or make more eye contact while we do it. There you go. That is hotter.

The human element is really what sells it. Getting lost. So let me see if I can just real quick. American Death Songs. Yes. That's the first one. You can't find it anymore. That's because I self-published it.

You did. That's my self-published short story collection. Okay. Because I didn't think there was a market for short stories. And hey, you were right. I was right. Yeah. I was correct.

But then my agent, I have a legendary agent. His name is Nat Sobel. Okay. He was James Elroy's. agent. He was Eddie Bunker's agent. No way. Yeah, he was Joseph Wamba's agent at one point. He's like this lion of crime fiction

agentry was able to sell a crime fiction short story collection. I don't know how he did it. But yeah, but American Death Songs, I did all myself. I hired the book designer. I'm very proud of it because the cover is like a black and white photo of a biker. It's badass. I've tried to buy it so many times

on like Thrift books or Abe's books, dude. You got one? I've got one extra copy. Well, I don't want it. You need to hold that the archives. Well, I mean, I have one extra. Okay, cool. But it has, you can see the dude's armpit hair. I just remember thinking, I've never seen a book with armpit hair on it. Yeah. I felt like that sells, this is like a dangerous book. It's a man's armpit. That's right. But I will say it's identical almost to Love and Other Wounds, which is the published short story class. Okay, okay. So Love and Other Wounds is great. And then there's, um, she ride shotgun,

which was actually initially published as like violent lesson or something. That's the British title. Okay. They wouldn't publish it as she writes shotgun because they felt like British people didn't know what. Which I went along with at the time. I would have to argue now because I'd say like what's a reservoir dog. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Like titles don't have to make sense. Not in the least. No. No. Especially because no one reads books anymore. So that's the big issue is any logic that we apply to try to trick people into reading a book. Have you seen what's happening with Mr. Beast?

that him and Patterson wrote a book together. And it came out and guess what? Less than 10,000 sold. Four digits. Whoa. That's the only number that's gotten out is it's four digits and everyone's very disappointed.

And he's given away a million dollars. He's not going to save mail reading? What the hell? I thought that dream team of that wig-wearing mutant and, you know, the devil himself would save reading. Somebody said to me, you know, like his TV show was a success on Amazon. Somebody said to me, it was because they hired him to

be Mr. Beast. If they had made a TV show where Mr. Beast played a lawyer, nobody's going to watch that show. Or if he was like a wacky janitor who's like wife was always giving him guff. With blinding teeth. Oh, sure. A huge dude.

Yeah. That's what death looks like. Death definitely has veneers. And that and that stare. The stair. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's not quite lazy, but like one I is decidedly thinking about murder and the other one is just there. There's two wolves in him. Yeah.

Yeah. And they're both thinking of patricide. Okay. So Jordan, we just met. That's official, right? But yeah, I've been up your skirt for a while, man. Your shit rules. I really dig the Aryan Brotherhood gang that you created.

Say more. Right? What are they? That's something of steel. Aryan steel, dude. And I love lore, right? because I like love comic books. So when Arian Steel like appeared and then came back and was the crux of Last King of California,

sick. Like I was geeked as a fan of yours to be like, oh, we get to learn about these like badass dudes, you know. So that was cool. And that's the thing about reading guys is like there's all these really cool books about like Aryan biker gangs and them running meth through inland California. And guess what? It's bad to the bone.

Or how about Daniel Woodrow? That motherfucker. That motherfucker, you know, RIP. Okay, I didn't realize he passed. Oh, yeah, he died maybe six months ago. I don't even know he was sick. Yeah, but you're talking about like Winter's Bone. Yeah, yeah, Winter's Bone.

Death of Sweet Mr. Tomato Red. Woe to Live On. I'm actually reading that for the first time right now. Sick. It is sick. It takes place in the Civil War. It's all about, like, you know, I'm from Missouri.

And when everybody else had the Civil War, Kansas and Missouri just had it with each other. Yeah, yeah. Burning Kansas. Yeah, Burning Kansas. You know, they kill, they sacked Lawrence, Kansas. They killed, I'm going to make this number up, but it's around this. 153 people, like the James Gang, Quantwell's Raiders, they lined up like 153 men and killed them all. And the reason I'm pretty sure I'm right about that number is I went to the University of Missouri.

And when University of Missouri and Kansas State would play each other, people would hold up signs that would say Missouri 153, Kansas Zero. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome, bro. Yeah. It sucks we were on the wrong side. Hey, man, that's still a pretty cool thing to fly. I mean, owned.

Ponage, as the kid would say, yeah. As kids who aren't kids anymore would say. Right, yeah, as grown man with mortgages would say back then. Dude, that's so good. Yeah, because I remember I wrote a song in high school about I had a crush on this girl. And her, um, her, like, boyfriend lived in Lawrence. So my punk band The Mongrels had a song called Burning Kansas. And it was all about my want to raise and destroy.

and reduce the entire state to ashes again. Yeah, man. That's cool stuff because I'm from Eastern Colorado, so all of that was our history too. We were just broken up by Kansas right there. By Kansas, by that long drive. Ooh, God. I used to when I was living in Missouri,

or I was living in Colorado, I lived in Boulder, Colorado for a little while. I was dating a girl who lived in Missouri in Kansas City. That was a long drive. That's a drive you only make when you're in your 20s. And horny. Yes.

You've got to be so horny to get through Kansas. Levels of horny that I'm not capable. of achieving any longer. Like, they name sins about how horny you are. It's just not needing to fill the gas tank.

No, dude. Right. Yeah, it's like Red Bull and Hope. All that thing runs on. Exactly. God. Okay, so you grew up in Missouri. Where in Missouri?

Springfield, Missouri, which is like the big city of the Ozarks. The listeners know, because every time I've been back to that comedy club for the last five years we've been doing this pod,

six years now, I've said I'm never fucking going back there. And then 12 months later, guess who's back on the calendar. You got to do, well, you got to, my buddy, Zach, who's one of my best friends who I grew up with. He goes and sees you there. Yeah, yeah.

Shout out Zach. He gave you a nice care package. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's very nice. And so, yeah, you got to keep going for him. Or, you know, I love the kid, but fuck him if it's like, you know, Springfield. No, no. Now it's under new management.

Oh, well, there you go. And the boy king who ran it was this guy named Crisco. Do you, do you know Chrisco? No, I don't know. It's, of course, he's named Chris. Man, so old Criscoe, who got his name because he was the only rollerblading DJ in all of Western Missouri. Well, since I left.

Well, fair enough. Sorry, you know. I forgot that statue. They cut your head off. But yeah, so anyway, he like, like, I don't know, blank checked his way into running a comedy club. Because after like a bus, like a city bus hit him, and then he was like, you know, different.

It's like Adam Sandler movie. It, he, dude, you couldn't be like closer to the truth of this guy. He had like a whimsical boy king nature and the whole city was rooting for him. So they were like, can we do that he can't hurt anyone, give him the comedy club? So they ran it out of the outland. Is that the name of that? Yeah, yeah, the outland, yeah.

Yeah, with the worst staircase in the history of underage drinking. Yeah, that sounds, that sounds right. Those kids would get wasted Missouri states there, and then they'd come up that staircase that was like probably an 85 degree angle, and you would just hear them tumble down, like over and over all night, just, yeah. That's tremendous. So were you educated? Where?

Well, I went to the University of Missouri. in Columbia, right? Yeah, in Columbia, the middle estate. The deja vu. The deja vu.

Great comedy club. This is what happens when you're a comedian is the shittiest place in every city in America. Brother, I've had fun in St. Joanne Joplin. The only place I haven't had fun,

fucking Fort Smith. All right. I was in Joplin. My band played Joplin two weeks after the tornado. I would have rather been there again than ever go back to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Joplin is a punk rock town.

For sure, yeah. My older brother, in the punk rock club in my hometown called Harper's Bazaar. Oh, cool. And so there would be a lot of crossover, and we'd go see shows in Joplin. And then people from there would come over there.

Yeah, that's a punk rock town, so I'm not surprised you play there. Oh, I mean, where else are you going to play in that part of America? I mean, yeah. Springfield was, like, so transient, because there'd be punk houses in Springfield, but when the kids would graduate, then, like, the house dissolved. Yeah.

So you'd have, you'd be, like, a cool, like, that was the, that was the issue with most of, like, booking yourself on like book your own fucking life in my space back then is like you would finally get the email for the cool punk house but then like that guy went to jail and his wife didn't want to run it anymore because their dogs were sick so like you wouldn't get a play at like poison law Knoxville anymore anyway so you're there you're learning you're inspired yeah you're in Columbia yeah I don't know if I'd put learn I went college there you attended where the knowledge came from I mean, I was always a reader.

I was always... So let's start there. What did you first fall in love with? Like first books you were like, fuck yeah. I genuinely, Harriet the Spy. Awesome. Awesome. Was my first book that I remember just that, the great brain books.

Yeah, yeah. Which, that's why there's a male literacy crisis. They're not handing out the great brain books to kids anymore. That's it. Those books were incredible. They were. And they were all set at like turn of the century, Utah. And these kids, we talk about how now Gen X had it wild compared to what kids have

Now, these kids and the great brain books were like going out for four days without talking to their parents catching and killing their own food. Yeah, yeah. It was like hatchet kind of shit. Yeah, like one of the kids loses a leg in one of the books because he stepped on a nail. Yeah. There's another one where they meet a kid who has diabetes and then the kid dies. Well, duh. Because they didn't have insulin back then.

Yeah, those. Tom Sawyer. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then there was this like biography of crazy horse that I reread over and over and over again when I was in elementary school. That's another thing about, I'm a chronic rereader. I always, like, obsessively reread books.

Really? Yeah. I have rarely ever done that. I've reread Blood Meridian. I've reread Angels. I reread It from time to time because I love it. But yeah, I've never been one of those guys that, like, highlights or dog ears or, like, notates. It's not necessarily even that.

I just reread. And then, like, I just like to let it soak. Apparently it's ADHD. and anxiety are both things that aid to rereading. Wow. But I really think it's one of the reasons I have like a prose style. It's like starting with those books and then moving into Stephen King and Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson was a big one.

Yeah. Then James Elroy and Corrin-McCard. Did you wear a visor? I never wore a visor. I did try in college. I tried a cigarette holder. Sure, sure. We all did.

We all did. It reeks. It smells so bad. And it drips into your, like wet nicotine drips into your mouth. the worst. Like, this is an affectation, my man. Like, you cannot tell me Hunter as Thompson enjoyed that. It doesn't drip as much in a dry climate. That's fair. So at elevation, Hunter probably got away with it. But yeah, like, when you wouldn't change the filter inside that thing, and then you'd take it out and it was just

a black slug that would, like, stain your hand? Yeah. Did you ever do that? Yeah, they're gross. We all did it. Yeah. Of course we all did it. Yeah. It was like a classic male affectation. Yeah, like somewhere, like, after you did the hand-rolled cigarettes. That's right, yeah. Then you went through cloves. Cloves, American spirits. Sure. Now you're just a grown man who needs some Winston's.

Yeah. But you still want everyone to know that you're not following all the rules. That's right. Yeah. That fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. Like a camel wide. Oh, brother, or camel red? Yeah, I smoke filter 99s.

Yeah. But the wides are rough. There's something about it being that much bigger in the airflow. It's like smoking asparagus. And it's harsh. It hurts. Sucking on a fucking exhaust pipe. But you're like, I'm a man and this is bad.

Well, what's worse than bad? More bad. So I'll smoke a fat boy. Yeah. Okay, so you didn't have the visor, but Hunter, obviously, my dad crammed him down in my throat. Yeah. And it wasn't fear and loathing.

It was fear and loathing on the campaign trail. And it was the Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved. You know, because I really, I read all of them, you know. Yeah, yeah. To how invested I was in the 1970s election, election, which was before I was born, and I can talk to you about Ed Muskie and how he cried. Yeah.

Why do I need to know that? He was so good at writing it that somehow it was fascinating. Even as a 12-year-old boy, you're like, yeah, we got to do something. We got to do something about Muskie. Yeah. He's going to drag the party to the right. Stubbs Terkels, right. Okay. cool. I love that shit too. Obviously

what you might call it? The the hell's angel book is like the best. Incredible. Incredible. You know, he also, he didn't just reread. He would sit there and his book was the great Gans. Right. He just typed it out over and over, yeah. And I tried that with him. I tried to type him out.

Everybody's brain's different. Like that's like a big writing thing for me. It's like whatever works works. Yeah, yeah. And like, I wanted to get the Hunter S. Thompson Mojo, but I don't do it the way he did it. I just did by reading all of those books, like dozens of times, like literally dozens of times. I mean, I've for sure read the Hell's Angels book at least five times, but never dozens. That's, I mean, that's, again, there's no wrong way to do it.

You've got to feed your brain what it wants. Sure, yeah. And how it wants it. Yes. Like, learn your machine. How do you get the fuel into it? Like, yeah, that's all good shit. Did you, you read a lot of Hunter?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, in high school. Yeah. He was so cool. And then obviously, like, we had the, those movies, like, come out pretty close, and that was sick. Okay, so the rereading thing, maybe I'll...

Yeah. Because, like, with Hunter, he would type it, and it was, like, muscle memory. Yeah. And it's like, this is how you, the physicality of, like, how you write a great American novel. This is what it feels like. Right. Yeah. That's cool.

For me, it's, it's, like, getting the language and the rhythms to soak in, and you want to be careful because you don't want to do that and then just produce... Yeah, you don't want to rip them off directly. You don't want to rip them off. Yeah, yeah. So I read a lot of James Elroy, but I don't read James Elroy when I'm near the end of something. Sure. Because that's when I'll start to like...

Oh, dude. I read Robert Stone's dog soldiers as I was writing this. Yeah. The end of this book, boy, howdy, is it just dog soldiers? I didn't get as like masturbatory and do 30 pages of that shit. But like there's definitely like a fever dream aspect to the end of this book. And I'm like, oh yeah, I was reading dog soldiers. Damn, and that's okay.

You know what? I think the thing is, is like, I am for sure going to, that's why I can't watch stand-up. Yeah. I can't watch stand-up, because, like, you're watching stand-up,

and the next thing you know, like, there was a joke in my last special. It was like, this kid hit me up, and he's like, fuck, man, that line's mine. And I was like, oh, my God, you're the kid from Maine. I remember coming up to you after you fucking told that joke

and saying, great joke. It was one line. I only had used it as a tag, but still I sent him $1,000 on Venmo. And I was like, I am so sorry. I am ashamed. You can tell anyone you want about this, but just know that it was not intentional,

and I'm so sorry. And he was like, thank you so much for the $1,000. That joke wasn't really doing me much. And I was like, yeah, but still, this is like the worst thing someone could do. No, that's the right thing to do. And I know I have done that in my life. I'm sure there are lines that like...

For sure. I would say, so I do my first drafts handwritten. Really? Yeah. You psycho. Well, they're not, I just, I talk a lot about like, oh, I write really shitty first drafts. Yeah. And that's true.

Okay. I write really shitty first drafts. But I was looking at it the other day. And I'm reading a lot of poetry recently. Yeah. Banley poetry. Yeah, for sure. And.

Cheever. Frank Stanford. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. Wasn't he one of those Michigan guys? No, he was from, like, Arkansas. Oh, then I don't know who you're talking about. Oh, yeah.

He died when he was. like 27, but he'd written a 50,000 word, unpunctuated poem called the battlefield where the moon says, I love you. Fuck. And a bunch of other poetry. Can that make you mad when a guy dies at 26 and leaves behind, like, a burning star of literary light? Yeah.

It's like that guy, Breeze DJ pancake in West Virginia. It's like, what the fuck? You animal. Some people, it's easy. I know. And bless them. Hey, everyone. As Jordan's been saying, it's really hard to sell books in this current climate.

So why not pre-order mine? Brute available September 22nd. And why, Sam? Because you want all the money, right? You Craven Pig? Yeah. Wrong. They already gave me some money. I'm never going to earn all that money back unless I sell some books. So why do I want you to buy them if I'm not going to spend it? Because I want my ego. I want to be on the bestseller list. That's all. Just one week. I want to be able to put on my future books, New York Times best seller because it's good for business. So you guys think there's some grand scheme and I'm manipulating you. No, I am in this business, and I would like to continue to be in this business.

He just wants accolades. Yeah, that's all. I just want my soul stroked off. That's it. Duh. God, do you guys think I'm a monster? No, I'm a ghoul. So, yeah, just get brood.

It's awesome. Get Jordan's books. The guy's the man. He left just moments ago. Yeah, he ruled. I was like giddy. Yeah. I think I did a couple like, oh, giggles.

Because I was like, you're so funny. He rocked. He was great. And then come see us in Milwaukee. come see us in Winnipeg, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, governors in Long Island, Brooklyn, Manchester, Connecticut, Denver, Philadelphia, Royal Oak. That's where we're going to be for the rest of the year. And you can get your tickets from samtallet.com, punch up live, whatever you want.

Book events, people have been asking. We're the 22nd at the Barnes & Noble in Chicago on State Street. The Post on the 21st in Detroit. Go bananas, comedy corner, right down there in Cincinnati on the 23rd of September. and then we're going into Cleveland. And then the next week we're in Bloomington on the 30th, doing a book event there. At Becker, do you know?

I don't know. Why would you? I do. My phone's the camera. It's Morgan Stern Books. That's right. Evening with Sam Talent, Wednesday, 6 p.m. Go there, get on the Patreon.

A lot of great apps, says Lund would say, you know, and we love you guys. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. But I've come to understand my rough drafts. when I say they're like poetry, I don't mean, oh, it's so beautiful. It's like poetry. I mean like...

Disjoining. It's just about like what I want the mood to be. Images that come to me that I think would be good in the scene. And I'm not thinking like it's a poem. I think like, why can't I write a scene? It's because I have like ADHD and my brain doesn't do it. Yeah. But when I come back to it, I can make it into something.

But my rough drafts are just like, they're just poems. And I'm so glad I figured that out. because it made me feel better about myself. But I do it all handwritten. And I just think like whatever, whatever works. I don't, if somebody else tries it and doesn't work, it's like, yeah, man. Because I'm listening to you and I'm over here with my process, which is immaculate first drafts that if I were to die, they could publish them and I wouldn't be embarrassed about anyone finding them. That's my thing.

I'm not joking. Yeah. Every book I've ever written, there is a point in the process where I literally have the thought. Okay. Now, if I die, it's going to be okay. Okay, yeah. But I have to get there. I don't live there. No, I live in that because I don't want it to even be like 20 pages left off of it without, like, if I die in the middle of it, they need to know that this motherfucker was cooking and he was an unparalleled genius.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's like, I would love to be much more. I don't outline. I'd have no fucking idea where anything's going when I start. Yeah. And it's just like these organic choices, like the characters I discover him as I go, like what the fuck is their deal?

But I would love to have sketches, what you're describing of this is just 12 words that are this chapter, but it's the vibe. This is the setting. This is the scene. This is the crux. This is the lighting. That kind of sounds like the poetry. It's like a poem. I would fucking love to have some map that I'm able to sketch in the sand.

Like that sounds beautiful. It works. I mean, I do note card outlines. That's as close as I get to outlining. Like on the wall? No, no. I mean, I did a lot of TV writing. Yeah.

TV writing, you have to because the corporate people have to check your work. Sure, yeah. They don't trust you. But it's good because I think if I didn't outline and I wrote these chapters the way I'm describing, it would just be like a pile of mud. Sure, sure. So I have to have some kind of structure. Indecipherable.

To drape the very soft meat on, you know. Yeah. It's like whatever works. And I get up, I got up at 5.30 this morning. Yeah. And that's when I wrote. Really, you're a morning guy. Oh, yeah.

Dude, I write until like 3.8. am. I cook because I did stand up for so long. So my brain's active at 7 p.m. on. Like, that's for real. Like, I lock in at 7 at like last Friday I was off for my wife's birthday. It was seven, like, it was like 645 on Friday. And I was like driving us to dinner. And I was like, she's like, what's up? And I was like, I don't know, man. And then like, as I drove, I was like, oh, I'm waking up. I have show anxiety. Yeah. Every Friday of my entire life, I've supposed to be at the club right now. Yeah. And my body's like what's going on. So five is I would much rather wake up coffee, sun coming in, birds, my brain's fucking cranking. Like that's so much more romantic than what I do. Yeah, I guess it's

just what works. You know what I mean? It's just my dog is still asleep. My girlfriend's still asleep. Yeah. I have it's a quiet period of time. You don't have those bitches yapping at you. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And uh, black rifle coffee. put it in the note and I've retained my semen of course dude I can smell it so I'm ready to go yeah you're throbbing but it's just it's just what worked

and I didn't set an alarm this morning to get up at 530 like I just got up at 530 and it was still dark so I checked my clock to be like oh shit did I because I also wake up in a mild panic okay sure yeah come to screaming me too is that you a problem

yeah and so thank it was like because the worst is when that happens to you and it's 3.30. Right. And you're all the way awake. Yeah. You already had that moment of panic. Yeah. And you're like, cool.

Cool. I'm going to stare at the ceiling. Yeah. Great. Another day fucked. Yeah. And that is true. Yeah.

Because that thing is if you write at 530, anything fucks that up. Your day is done. It's over. It's over. Yeah. I'm going to do right after lunch. Yeah, I know.

And that's like me. It's like, what am I going to do? Right while the sun's up? Impossible. But it's like, it's whatever where I, I love, do you ever like check yourself into a hotel room and write? I did that once in Florida.

Yeah. I did that. I got a day rate hotel room and I locked in for like 36 hours. But the issue was is that whenever I opened up the blinds, there was just a jamming pool party going on like 24-7. So it was really hard to like lock in, you know, not accidentally go outside at all. But yeah, I have, I like the one when you go to like, like Lyman collar. I went to Lyman, Colorado for like five days and wrote in an awful hotel room, motel. There was no distractions.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I recently did it in 29 Palms, which is past Joshua Tree. Okay. Like the only thing past 29 Palms is literally a high white sign that says no service 100 miles. Yeah. I know you're like on the edge of it. And it was a hotel literally one night because this was a little boutique hotel where the workers went home at night.

I was the only person in the hotel. Yeah. Totally. And it's just like, well, I bet there are cameras here that are going to stop me from swimming naked in the pool. But, like, you could have just envisioned the erotic thriller of when the next room next year's gets filled with a couple and they're fighting. But she's beautiful. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But then she stops on your door. Yes, exactly. But then she knocks on your door. And there's passion or violence. Yeah, yeah. She knocks on your door and there's blood. I don't know. Yeah, exactly.

All there is is now. And we're in the pool anyway, so the blood's washing off. Right. Yeah. It's pinking the water. It's like a sunset. Well, let's talk about that. So you are a beautiful pro stylist, by the way.

I was not only, I read that the most recent one in like 36 hours. I crushed it, bro. And I read it with a lot of like, this motherfucker is having fun. Were you having fun? I was having fun. Right? Dude, you were fucking swinging your dick around, man. There's times when you know.

Yeah, yeah. You know, like there's times when you're in the groove. It seemed like you knew every sentence was. a heater, dude. I mean, I work, you know, that shit is not easy. Yeah, yeah. The whole trick, I'm sure it's like, stand-up's got to be the same thing.

It's to make it look easy. Yeah, yeah. You just thought of that, right? Like, but no, I mean, I... And it's not sweaty, dude. You're not sweaty. You're not trying too hard on the page. Like, you're really just like,

it's confidence and it's awesome. Thank you. Like when someone's locked in and you're like, all right, man, all right, I fucking believe that you have this swagger. And I got that from all of your shit. Well, and, you know, especially this, I mean, when I made the decision to name it a violent masterpiece.

Awesome. Which is like hubris. I earn it in the book. Like I used to use the phrase. That's not where the title came from. The title came from. I was at a like a little book stand at a crime fiction convention. And I found a copy of Dashel Hammett's Red Harvest.

Yeah. Which is another book that men should read. And it was like this great 70s paperback edition, like bright red with a man standing over a dead woman's body. You said in big letters, Dashel Hammett's violent masterpiece, Red Harvest. And I was looking at it's like, I want my cover to say a violent masterpiece. Hey, you can name a book anything you want, you know. And it works.

But it also, yeah, it's also like, oh, there's swag or. Yeah, but you earned it. Yeah, thank you. It's, you know, there's obviously you pick up a book like that and you're like, you're calling it a violent masterpiece, huh? All right. Well, let's figure out why he's wrong about this in every way. Exactly.

You know, so like, I cracked it with the kind of like a, all right, the last one was pretty cool. and I love the lore, like I said, so you're expanding in that book, they're built on each other. Did you know going in that you were going to do two? Yeah, I did. And theoretically a third. It's not what I'm writing right now,

but I know what the third one is that I planted from the beginning of the first book. Dude, the Dan Schneider shit, like allegedly. Allegedly, I don't know who that is, but I don't either. Well, he, no, never mind. But there's a lot of really cool stuff. If you're a person who was early on whatever elaborate matrix of sexual exploitation, pick your poison here in America. There's a lot of like just, I want to say Easter eggs.

But that makes it sound like, you know, you're a fan of the genre. But, you know, if all that exploitation, all the power that actually runs the world, this motherfucker really. makes a meal out of it. And I really recommend those books, yeah. And it's interesting you say there's just something specific about those of us who were into Epstein pre-New York arrest. Yeah, yeah. Like, I really think like those are like because... I was Franklin

scandal, motherfucker. Yeah, exactly. And like, oh, I've got one. Not to go too far afield here. Please. You were Jared from subway? Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. We have put that one in the drawer. But like, you know, he's, I don't know exactly when, but he's approaching release. I know. It's like been long enough now. Who's going

to get the rights, Jordan? Did you know that he filed an appeal at one point while he was in prison saying I'm a sovereign citizen? What? And therefore cannot be convicted in a court of law. He tried the sovereign citizen. No way. Yeah. I'm not a corporation.

That was his defense. I'm not a person. I'm a logo. Leave me alone. I have a right to travel. But that's, you know, what I always say about like Epstein, like the least conspiratorial version of it that we all agree is true, is this guy had to sexually abuse. abuse hundreds of girls twice before there were going to be anything approaching consequences, right?

Like, everybody knows that is true. And by the way, everybody assumes he would have gone down in New York. Oh. We don't know that. No, like what you mean where they might have the most bulwarks against anyone being held accountable? Exactly. Yeah.

New York always loves to make celebrities pay. Yeah, exactly. For sure. I am the, like, you know, like I don't, like my, even my next LA book is not going to be about, like, like, the perverts necessarily. It's still going to be

Hollywood and Sleas and all that stuff because I got tired of being the guy that people would text Pervert expert? Pervert expert. You understand that.

He calls me a girl targeter I call him girl Targeter because it's a fun nickname. But like people were like texting me during the P. Diddy trial and I'm like guys I'm not watching this like I'm not

this is not like a hobby of mine it's just I was obsessed with Epstein from the very early. Yeah. One caught me. One thing I saw made me want to do a bunch of research. It's not my passion.

Yeah, exactly. And I write about violence. Like, that's the one thing I always do. And American violence, specifically. That's a good title. American violence? American violence is a pretty good title. I already have a book with the word violence in it, but there's no laws.

I think it's a cursive album already. Oh, is it? Could be. It sounds like Midwest emo. Yeah, it does. But, yeah. You know, and like I worked in Hollywood for 15 years. Yeah.

So you were, you were on that side first before the success in literature. Yeah, I mean, I was writing short stories. Sure, sure. There's a website called Thuglet. Yeah, I know Thuglet. Okay. That's cool, yeah.

Back in the day, Todd, my friend Todd Robinson published me, he published S.A. Cosby. Yeah, Frank Bill. Yeah, yeah. Like a lot of people in that era, we all owe it to Todd. Oh, what's his name, Donald? I think the first fucking, you know,

devil all the time. Notting stuff. I think the first, I think I read a knockom stiff shory on Thugler. That could be. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, that was a cool one, yeah. But, you know, so I was doing that before I got into TV. In fact, I don't want to go to, this isn't a Hollywood general meeting,

but like I turned one of my short stories into a spec script, which is where you write an episode of TV that already exists. So I read a Shield episode. Oh, sick. Dude, Shield ruled. Me and my dad after my mom died, went in on the shield.

Best TV show of all time. All time? I genuinely feel it's my number one. I just did a rewatch. Okay. It's aged even better. I should rewatch it. I watched it two years ago all the way through.

You know, they tried to like, they tried to like kind of balance it of like, is Vic Mackey's sociopath or is he a good guy? But a lot of the things they chose to do that with now, it's like, oh, he had two kids with autism. They want you to feel bad. He had two kids with autism. They get involved in an anti-vax lawsuit at some point, which, which, you know, is actually incredibly accurate.

Of course the cop is anti-bac. Crescient, someone would say. I don't think they knew it. I think somebody on the staff actually was anti-bax. That's my assumption. That makes sense. Because that's how they play it. It was like, there are real questions about mercury in these, you know.

Right, yeah. But it just plays so well. I love that show. Anyway, that's how I broke in. I wrote a script to that. It's a nice combination of it's great TV, but it's also never boring. Never boring. It's never fucking boring.

And yes, it's a bit ham-fisted. and it's a bit cartoonish. Sure. But that was more of a symptom of that era of television. But I like that era. I like, it's pulp is what it is. It's pulp, but it's also kind of exists in, I think, the same universe as, like, the Charlie's Angels movies. You know what I mean?

Just like there was, it was, the colors were a bit brighter in there. It was just, it was, it was the time. So when you watch it, if you're 22 and you go back and watch it and we sound like old men, like, just understand that there's symptoms that are beyond its control. Oh, that's true. I mean, it's ugly. It's ugly, yeah. But the show is very ugly. The characters are disgusting. Yes, and it has such a great art. And Walton Goggins plays the number two in it.

And his character is my favorite TV character of all time. I think that's a great choice. I got to do it. I did a pilot with Hams based on LA Confidential. And unfortunately, we didn't go to series. But like, I'm so glad that guy's famous now because he is so fucking good. We have a Gagin's connection. Oh, yeah? Have I talked about that on the pod?

A little bit maybe, but it's been a while. I wrote Running the Light, my first book, and the guy who optioned it is this dude in London. Let's just say he's a murky character. Nice. Who might be stateless. And I think he might have also invoked the Jared Fogel defense in various cases. But it was maritime law.

Right. I bet, you know? Anyway, he's just a guy who offered me money when I didn't have any to option it. I said, of course. So I get a call from my agents. I was in Houston at that festival. And they're like, hey, Goggins loves the script of running the light.

He wants it so bad. It's on. He's going to produce it. He's going to star. Don't worry. You're a million-dollar dream, kid. Cancel that festival. You don't have to do the late show.

I get off stage. A bunch of miscalls. Hey, remember that thing we said about Gagans? Well, the man who has the option rights refused to sign the facts that would have cemented the deal because he wanted to, quote, fly to L.A. private with a bottle of shamed. campaign because this felt a lot like, quote, getting married before ever kissing.

So guess what? He weirded out everyone and everyone's out. God. Yeah. It was like I went on stage elated and I got off stage and was like, fuck everything. I don't need anyone. You know, I was like riffraff, dude. I blew up. I didn't need nobody. And then I immediately got derailed. It was nuts. That is a terrible order of events there. Because if you'd gone on stage, little sooner. Heartbroken.

Or just not knowing nothing. Somebody could have called you and said, man, we have a crazy story. Nothing good comes of it. Don't get your hopes on. Yeah, yeah. Like, I one time pitched on a show for HBO. And like a week later, my agent called me and said, look, the show isn't happening. Okay.

But you would have gotten it. Which sucks, but it's better to hear than you got the job. Oh, and it's not happening. Yeah. I didn't have to, I didn't rise up so there was no place to fall to. Uh-huh. Yeah, you never saw the angel's faces. Exactly. Exactly. And so I don't know what I'm missing now.

I got fitted for wings for two hours, man. I'm going to grab a zen. Do you need anything or water? I think I'm, I think I'm, now I'm still half here. Do you have any great literary questions? No. Yeah, of course not. Are you into cars at all?

Not really, but I'll try. So you have nothing to talk about that? Yeah. Well, Becker. This episode is brought to you by Cash App. Cash App does more than you think when it comes to having your back and making sure your money stays your money. Cash App just released a new status program for the way people actually spend. It's called Cash App Green.

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Visit cache.com. slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Okay, so I'm like, so I just kind of want to be a dork about it then. The way you write, you said you write violence. Yeah. So do you like see that as like the central crux of like your entire like canon? Like everything is violence, right? Yeah, I mean, I think that's like, you know, if you want to be like narrow,

some people talk about noir. I don't know what it is anymore. I don't either, man. Especially after reading like Manchette and the French guys. It's like, I don't know. the fuck noir is anymore. No, and it's just like, it's literally a thing. French movie critics came up to describe some movies that came out like, you know,

70 years ago at this point. Now we just stick it on anything. You know, sometimes I'll be like glib about it and be like, oh, well, that's just, it's the description of the American disease. And I'll be like, yeah, they can have French noir, but like the same way that other people get Lou Gehrig's disease. Yes. But like, but like that thing about like atomized,

alienated people in a world with no God, right? Like that's like what that fiction is about. And, you know, like post-exessentialism. Post-existentialism trapped in like, forgive me, the capitalist machine in a world where, yeah, existentialism has occurred, but it hasn't helped. And you just have these floating atomized people in a world where anything is permissible, but you're still going to lose, right? And there's nothing to fight for, which is all fascinating.

I'm kind of moving to a place where I have to. find something to fight for, which is why my stuff is not totally nihilistic. I don't give happy endings, but I think compared to Manchette, I give happy endings. And you know what, dude, I would say that, fuck, you kind of do have, like, happier endings than a lot of, like, the writers that I enjoy. Yeah. Like, she writes shock. I don't want to give anything away, because I want to read your shit. But having read your entire auvoir, whatever the word is, like, obviously it's not like no one involved in the end of these books

is better off typically but there is like a little bit of like a alright there's a little bit of alright I really like I bet that hurts your feelings I don't need to hurt your feelings no I mean it's it's not it didn't start as an intentional choice

but it has sort of become one at this point there's a little justice in your fucking work well just and it's not false justice no no no it's never the idea that if we just tell the right authorities, everything's going to be put to right. It's just simply saying, yeah, you got to fight. You know, they're probably going to win, but you have to fight, and in fighting, you will capture something that they have taken from you. Yeah, like the fight is where it is. The fight is where it is. The struggle is where it's at. I love like, uh, like Yakuza films.

Dude. I am all in on Japanese crime fiction. It's the best. Dude. Like I'm a huge Kenji Fukasahuan. Yes, dude. And you watch his movies and it's like, it's always two guys, standing up against the system and they grab their like little short samurai swords and they just charge into like a hundred enemy yakuza and they die they die invariably they die but they go down swinging go down swinging yeah and I really I really appreciate like that as my version of a happy ending and the fact that in this genre that counts as a happy ending I think says a lot

for sure because I was like they're kind of happy but no it's like you know only his leg is blown off you know It's like, yeah. The meth lab doesn't kill everybody. It's that kind of stuff. And usually some kind of human connection has been made. Yeah. That's the other thing that I try to do is like, I mean, not to be a hit.

I'm a child of the hippies, but like, that somehow human love has to matter even if, yes, the billionaires are still in their castles. And the police still are wearing helmets and clubs and they're coming. Dude, the police gang stuff in the new books. Oh, thank you. That stuff is just like, I mean, it's getting to be a little old hat and how people are trying to learn. about it, but when you first learned that there are gangs in the LA Sheriff's Department. Murder gangs. Murder gangs, dude, and like...

And they have badass tattoos. Bad ass tattoos. I know. I am like, like, even when the people are awful, I love lore. I love the tattoos to tell stories. I love nicknames. You want to... Fun tip.

Federal indictments of gangs. RICO Act indictments are terrific reading. Because at the beginning, you know, RICO is when they prosecute a whole gang, right? And so at the beginning His parents were bail bondsmen Oh is that right?

Yeah. Fascinating. That is fascinating stuff. At the beginning of every federal Indyman-onarico statute, they have to establish what the gang is. And so they'll break down its hierarchy. They'll list members. They'll list like what they have to do for initiation.

What is a juggalo? What is a juggalo? And why are they so angry? They're not angry. They're lovely people. They're the best. I mean, Springfield, Missouri. The square?

That was their stronghold. Oh, yeah. When I was a kid, it was Nazi skinheads and kids playing that vampire role-playing game. Oh, shit, dude. The masquerade? Yeah, that was a spooky spot for sure. Yeah. Okay.

But it's like, I used this on a TV show I worked on, but I found one, I read like an Arkansas white power prison gang where their leader was named Vanilla Gorilla. Awesome. And you just got it like thumbs up, guys. Hell yeah. You did good work that. Hell of branding, guys. Yeah, yeah.

You really nailed that one. But I love that stuff. And so, like, even though, like, yeah, you know, fuck the sheriff's department, like the fact that they have gangs where they will ink changes to the tattoos after you kill someone. Yeah, like there was like a tooth that gets blood in it, I think, is in the book. Yeah, dude. You know about these? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

He's like, he's, I know I'm steamrolling you and I'm sorry. I am doing. I'm just like really a fan. So this is cool. Thank you. Yeah. So how about this, though? Like with noir, I've made the.

argument in the past, and I'm not as educated, so I don't know. But, like, I think that we have noir here. It's just, it was Southern Gothic, and now it's just American Gothic fiction. Like, rural Gothic is great. Like, what differentiates noir from, like, Flannery O'Connor? That's, you know, I think a lot of times these are just, like, literally material changes in the world. Okay. You know that, like, there are, like, epochs of, like, technology that, that, that, that, like, I think noir starts once the, the automobile kind of gets the sexy shape of the 40s and 50s as opposed to like the girl with a gun and a dame yeah there's there's like a planner o'connor is like you know in a model t run and shine yeah i think a lot of times

you know these things are also just like reactions to like whatever the trauma of the era is i you know noir really started in around the war world war two yeah yeah the whole idea we have of neo noir which it was vietnam okay like literally you started to see it that phrase get to bandied around and there are like you know, if you ever watch, like, Cutter's Way. Yeah, yeah. George Higgins is like neo-noir. Yeah, right? Yeah.

Anything that starts around that era, which was a lot of people like rediscovering those films from the 40s. Yeah. Again, it's, I have like a idea that Americans are constantly trying to deal with a psychological toll of being the bad guys. Wow. And how much violence we live on top of.

And I think there's a lot of different art forms and ways that we do that. I mean, you could talk about the Western, right? And the amount of. Myiotics, black hat, white hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just that it's about this idea that, like, people carve their way through this country with, like, guns. Oh, and genocide. And, like, when it wasn't people, it was the Buffalo, and their hides and skulls were just the entire horizon.

Yes. Yeah. No, and we're always dealing with that, just like, if this goes too far afield, I apologize. People talk about the Kennedy assassination, why conspiracy theories resonate. And without commenting on true or false of that, it's undeniable that's, like, huge psychic issue for a America. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, again, not.

It's like one of the hooks we hang our history are as Americans is the Kennedy assassinated. And whether or not Kennedy was just Oswald or not, in November, 1963, the month he was killed, the United States in collusion with military, like, generals connected to the government and the CIA colluded to assassinate the president of South Vietnam. Like, that's just a fact. Yeah. America was doing all this, like, violent, evil, down and dirty shit.

and our collective brains, we had to process that. So you think it's the dissonance between the truth of the story and the reality of what we are? Yeah, I think it's, it's, you know, you're projecting your feelings about what we are onto this other thing. And so we can talk about, did you know, the CIA killed a president. Well, yeah, they did kill a president. It's like their whole thing. Yeah, yeah, duh. So many.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, again. But then you get to the point where, like, you're kind of, like, jaded and, like, dead-eyed. And, like, you've seen the truth and you've done all the research. and then people are like, did you know that CIA killed Kennedy? And you're like, you sweet summer child. It's like when Charlie Sheen was busted looking at porn by Denise Richards and he said,

fuck you. Like that's a lot of America. Yeah, fuck you. Of course they are. So I've tried to not be in, of course they are, you idiot guy. Because like my mom made me read Howard Zinn when I was like 14. So like I never had any chance of a hope in the lie. I mean, I don't know like what age you were introduced like Jello Biafra.

Oh, I mean, it's like punk rock was like the thing. And I mean, all of my politics are very much just SST records jackets that I read when I was 12. Again, you go back. And other than his real fondness for like funny names, like, you know, B.B. Rambozo or whatever. Jello Biafra was pretty much right about all of that stuff. It's served as a good backdrop for my life. I don't like the first person to tell you how Jello's been right his entire life is Jello Biafra. That's my issue, because we used to go see him talking Boulder when I was a young punk,

and he was so preachy and condescending that the guy who sang for Dead Kennedys was no longer, like, a cool guy to me because I saw him, like, tell people to put their cigarettes out at the anarchist punk rock conversation. Yeah. Anyway, I have a personal, long vetted beef with... And I have heard that from a lot of other people who had any kind of interaction with him as a person. And I'm sure if I, like, hung out with Mike Watt more, I would probably have issues with Mike Watt. But like the minute men are like the, that's where I get my politics. That's my whole ethos is just minute men shit.

Well, like I read something recently from Johnny Knoxville about how it actually kind of sucked to meet Hunter S. Thompson. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and it probably would suck to meet Johnny Knoxville. Well, it doesn't suck to meet you. All right. Yeah, yeah, man.

So how about this? Larry Brown? Larry Brown. You like Larry Brown, the author? Well, yeah, I'm not sure. Okay, he wrote father and son. He wrote Joe. I don't know.

Okay. Please. Blind spot. Please. No, I was just going to ask you because I was going to say that I hadn't been like as stoked on fiction about well you know because he's from Mississippi but in my great plains head everything between the Ozarks and the Delta occupies a similar space as far as like guys in pickup trucks you know hunting racks yeah

I'm not casting a big blanket I'm just saying I've been to these places there's a lot commonality I was going to say that man like you really realize some people the same way that like Larry rounded oh thank you all yeah please dude. That guy was like my foray into Southern Gothic fiction. Oh, wow. Yeah, he was like a Barry Hanna contemporary. Okay. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, he's a cool guy. I'm, I'm, my, the book I'm writing right now is set in the Ozarks in the 90s because I wanted to write about like, meth. Well, meth, but young people on the run. Yeah. And I, that's where I was a young person, it's where I did meth. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and so it's been fun leaving L.A.

Also, like those last two books, I have emptied my entire L.A. into those books. And I have to let the tank fill, you know. And so that, yeah, I'm trying to go back to that because I have like short fiction set in the Ozarks and stuff. I've never done a novel there. But like there's so, so much of it is the pickup trucks. And I'm trying to explain to people like I had a weird punk rock growing up in the Ozarks. And like that is possible too. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we had so much LSD when I was a kid. It was easier. I didn't drink. And it was easier for me to get acid than I. it was for my friends to get beer. Oh yeah. You know?

Dude, weed was like legal in Springfield way before it was legal in a lot of places. Oh, yeah. It was decriminalized in Springfield. Like, I remember being on the road and being like, if we can just like chill

and wait until we get, one of the first places I ever took a dab was Springfield, Missouri. And it was like 2011, dude. Yeah. So there's freaks there. Oh, yeah.

And like, you know, and there was meth everywhere. I'm very glad there wasn't heroin around because I think that. The pills got there a little right after you. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, But yeah, I mean, there was just like such a weirdness to it that.

Definitively American. Yes. So exciting to like, because like we don't have these like, we don't have French in Belgium and Danish. Right. You know, like we don't have these little micro, but we got the fucking Ozarks, man. And we've got, you know, we've got the Kansas Nebraska freaks. Like those just like high desert like Whistler's mother type painting people, you know? Like so it's just like the Ozarks are such a unique.

American, like, phenotype. It is, and it's like this weird, like, stone that skipped from, like, Appalachia to the Ozarks to, like, Bakersfield, California. But miss the whole kind of Bible Belt thing that's in between. That's great. The Appalachia thing, kind of like the redneck, like, the classical, like, coal miner-union sense. Like,

that kind of thing that's also over there in Appalachia is, like, what is that about? Well, I mean, it's... Skipping the stone. Fucking crushed it. That's awesome. Thank you. Professional writer. My man. that like it's it's literally the same population it is a population where they migrated of like black irish and scottish people who were hill people yeah like land in like apalachia and feel comfortable because that's hills and then get to the ozarks and that's hills and then i'm fudging this a little but the jodes are basically that same story of how those people wound up going to california it's just like you like the ozarks is like bad farming country like because it's hills it's not great farming country apalachia is the same they didn't find coal those people would be even poorer that's where they like eat fucking like dandelions and they're like oh yeah we eat dandelion fritters over here it's like

you had to well like my my grandfather was like a real old school ozarks guy and when i was like 10 he would make us plates of scrambled eggs and calves brains and like his butcher held them back for him you know but and i would eat them because i was 10 and i bet people were knocking down the doors trying to get those calf brains you know there was a run on the market for calf brains when you when people eat something like that's because at one point that was all there was It was sustenance, yeah. And now it reminds them the same way that, like, you want to eat 12 pop tarts. It reminds you of being a little boy in the safety of your home.

My grandpa was from St. Joe, straight up fucking hobo during the Dust Bowl. That motherfucker built three homes, owned property by the time he was older, couldn't get enough Vienna sausages. That guy ate those disgusting little pig dicks over and over and over again. And it's like, you don't have to do this anymore, but he wanted them. I actually, a guy who had been in prison told me this. There's this stuff that I have in the last King of California where a guy who's recently out of prison is making this stuff called Chi Chi.

Yeah, yeah, Chi Chi. It's like a bunch of Doritos, like, cooked in the bag with like ramen stuff. So you have like a burrito kind of. Yeah. And the guy... Mel will cook them every now on them. Yeah, because it's something you could cook

out of commensary in prison. This guy told me, I still make it sometimes. Yeah, it's kind of like home. Yeah, it's like a familiar thing. In Springfield, Missouri, I hope you've never been there. there's a chain of Mexican restaurants called Mexican Villa.

I'm invariably been there for sure, yeah. If they're open late and it was $8, I've eaten there. And like they have the story on the menu of this place was started by a guy from Springfield who in World War II got stationed in Texas. He was in the Air Force and he ate, he never cooked at a Mexican restaurant, but he ate Mexican food in Texas. And then flew back to Springfield, Springfield's number one authority on Mexican food. and opened up a chain of restaurants

that are still open to this day I love it I love it one time a friend of mine brought his girlfriend from out of town to eat there and when they put the food down I was like oh no

this relationship is over testing something here yeah because nobody from outside of Springfield ever wants to eat this stuff but whatever you grow up with you just develop it again

I like Lambert's baby I want to see a roll be tossed it's fun that's where we ate at prom we went to Lamberts before prom yeah you've been to Lamberts with us no

It's a big kind of Amish-style buffet. Okay. But there's like young kids in there and they just carry around rolls. And you'll be like, hit me. And then their whole thing is like whipping them, throwing them behind their back, like through the legs. It's pretty fun. Hungry farm. Yeah.

And they say we don't have culture. Yeah. And also the home of what, what fucking the chicken McNuggett, right? Or general sows. Cashew chicken. Yeah. Is Springfield Missouri. So we have like more Chinese restaurants than any of them.

city at size in America. I love that. Yeah. Gypsy Rose Blanchard? Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Springfield, Missouri. Yeah. She lost her virginity across the street from the comedy club in that movie theater. Yeah, with like Bob Barker painted on the side.

Yeah, that's after I left. Oh, I'm sorry, man, the heyday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that Brad Pitt, John Ashcroft. John Goodman and Brad Pitt are always like chilling in Springfield getting drunk. Yeah. Yeah.

And like people got like really in. involved, like, in, like, his life, you know, where, like, my parents still want, like, Jennifer Aniston and him to get back together. I know, yeah. I don't know if my parents really care about that, but that's the vibe. Sure, you hope they do. Something's got to stay pure in this world. Yeah.

Hopefully it's that and not Q and not. You know, I grew up as, like I said, the kids of parents who started out as hippies. Yeah, same, yeah. And so I would, we were the weirdos in our, which were like, you know, my parents are, like, you know, run of the middle, but, like, center. of the road Democrats. Yeah. And,

like party line, which is an extremist stance in Springfield, Missouri. It's just like crazy, crazy talk. Yeah. You know,

and like I said, like we had the Hammerskin Nation was, their national headquarters were in our hometown. Damn. Growing up, which is white supremacist organization.

Which is why I make them the villains a lot. Sure, yeah. They were an unpleasant. They, you know, got into it with my brother

who ran the punk rock club. Yeah. You know how that is. Like, you know, the old, I didn't come up with this. So you got to keep

the Nazis out of your punk rock club It's just a Nazi club. We literally just watched a movie last night. About that. What were you watching? Freaky Tales. Oh, Freaky Tales.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the first fourth of the film. Yeah, yeah. Gilman Street. Becker. Yep. The wait is over. All right, I'm done.

Football is here. Man, I'm actually, this might be the first year in my life that I'm not like, fuck. I know. It's going to be great. You're going to have a lot of barbecues? Yeah, all right.

I love talking about football now that I kind of know something. that are going on when you guys talk about it? A lot of ice cold lemonade's coming your way. Love the lemonade. A lot of cozy patios wearing a sweater, maybe a jacket as well. Yep. Football is everything that makes America good.

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Trade to get prediction dollars that expired in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days. One non-withdrawable reward, redeemable terms at DKNG.c.c. slash offer limited time offer nationwide based on sports book predictions and free to play sports contest availability varies by state I really think you guys know uh green room Jeremy Salmon yeah yeah yeah I really think like I mean the whole movie is awesome he did blue ruin right yeah he's my favorite guy oh he's awesome uh the pitching brute to directors I was like please can we talk to him yeah that's a good choice he's the man he's the man um but I really

think he captured like the when that guy they're like staying at a guy's house and he's interviewing them for his zine right yeah or radio station while telling them how to get to the club that was like most realistic depiction of punk rock I've ever seen and I had so many friends be like why didn't they

leave and it's like they don't have anywhere else to stay and they haven't been paid the $80 yet like you don't understand how high these low stakes were when you're in a band like that I wrote out so many bad situations not just in music but also in comedy because I was in fucking Tama, Iowa,

and yeah, the guy might be a white supremacist, and he showed us his Nazi memorabilia, but he's letting us stay in his camper. Like, I don't like it either, but I don't have any money. This is where we're staying. If you guys aren't cool with it, like, I get it. God power to you, but you're sleeping in the car. I'll be in the trailer.

There's no plan B. There's nothing else. Yeah. No, you're back against the wall. No, you're right, and that makes it realistic. 100%. Other ones, it's like, don't go in the house. It's like, guys, they're in the house.

They don't have gas to get home. Yeah, yeah. Where else are they going to go? Yeah. Like, they're going to sleep in the van down the road if they don't say here. Great point. I agree completely. That guy rules.

Well, okay. What, what? You're a writer of great violent fiction. Let's say there's a young man out there who's like, I hear all these guys are like, why, well, I aren't guys reading. What would you suggest to some dude who like, you know, it's not, I'm not talking to literature, but like, what's a book you think would get someone into reading? Sure. I mean, if any of this stuff has appealed to you that we're talking about American tabloid by James Elroy.

Awesome. It is, I mean, it's crazy. It's pulpy. It's talking about a bunch of celebrities. You might not know who they are. Ripped from the headlines type shit. But it was ripped from the headlines for its time. And it is just the balliest book I've ever read. I still think right there. What you did is also a triumph on that measure, dude. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, specifically that genre. I mean, like I said, I did a TV show based on him. I'm a huge. My dog was named Elroy. Nice.

I'm just a huge fan of what he, I just think, even though he is very pulpy, it's pulpy. I think we live in a pulpy country, and like people who exaggerate and turn up the volume are more accurately describing America than people who are realists. Yeah. Because this is not a real country. There's nothing real happening here. Like this stuff is turned up to 11. It's like, Quinn Tarantino is America. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. So I think, you know, that I would definitely recommend James Elroy, but that's a big book. But hey, worth it, dude. I mean, if you're going to dip your toes in, like, why not go with one of the masters of the form? Go, go with the masters. I think that, you know, S.A. Cosby, new guy, a good friend of mine. Yeah.

And I think, like, you know, he has a book called All the Sinners Bleed that is, like, a good fun. King of Ashes. Super Dark King of Ashes is a good one. Yeah. Again, I'm older now. All my books are older, but like Jim Thompson, you can read a Jim Thompson book in a day. Oh, my God. Population 1408.

Oh, that's a good one. I love that book. That's a good one. Easy book. The Grifters was a big one for me. Dude, how about the Grifters, right? Everyone always says, you know, killer inside me, but like, I think that's the one. No, I think Grifters is the one.

And After Dark, my Sweet, any of those. And again, you can read them in a day. I try to do like a completest run of reading all. his books. Don't do that. They're not great. There's the one about like the kid in the woodshed. It's a lot of bad ones. Yeah, there's a lot of, I mean, he wrote like 35 books. Right, and he got paid by the word or whatever. Yeah. But like five of them are like masterpieces. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of them are insane, dude. Yeah. There's a book where it's like a kid who has to chop wood.

I remember you being disappointed by it. Yeah. I found a first edition copy of it. I was like, finally, it was like when I found the gospel singer by Harry Cruz. And I was like, what is the hard one to find? And then I read it and I was like, oh, it's not my favorite book. I just read his memoir. Oh, childhood or boyhood? Yeah. That book is crazy. It's a memoir of his life up until the time he is five.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the shit that happens to him before he is five, he gets polio at one point. And you think, well, this must be the worst part of the book. No, no. No, it gets worse after that. Don't they try and solve his polio with like a snake? Well, they try all sorts of stuff. They bring in, like, faith healers.

and people just like bend his legs against his will. There's a scene. They like try and break him. They put him in like the sharpshooter kind of. Because it's just like a rural childhood in like the 1930s. Florida, yeah. Florida Georgia line, I think. Yeah.

And like I mean at one point his dad dies and they bleed his dad out behind the house. Yeah, like a hog. And then his dad's dog sits where the blood was buried and howls for three days. Oh, shit. Wow. You know, we complain about. about microplastics, you know? Yeah, but not about that.

The dog just screams until it like tires itself out and falls asleep. It's not even a spoiler, but I can't evoke it, and I want you if you read it to feel it. There's a thing that happens to him near the end of the book that is worse than polio. And when I read about it, I had to put the book down. I'm hard to shake, you know, but oh boy, thank God for modern medicine. Thank God. Whatever else is wrong in the world, we don't have. I know, we do have polio.

That's a thing. It's like, I guess we've got to make people read these books. You don't want polio, guys. This is not fun. You know. It's all coming back. Scarlet fever. My wife's always just like, oh, yeah.

Measles, great. Totally different category, but like if you haven't read it and you dug the movie, the first three Dune books are wicked. Interesting. Yeah, I don't have any love for fucking sci-fi or fantasy. I love Tolkien, you know, I read that stuff. To me, I'm kind of the same except for I would say Frank Herbert and Tolkien are the two that I really, I didn't get much past that. My dad was like, you got to read Dune, man, it's badass.

I read the first one when I was a kid and I never was compelled to read more. That's interesting. But Henry Zimbowski loves him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's very smart. He likes all of them, though. Every book, yeah. Oh, they get weird.

Oh, yeah, once his son gets involved. And it turns into a giant space one. I'm assuming they're not doing that in the movies, but like he lives for 3,000 years. And it's still horny. It's like plastic man. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

But, you know, I think the main thing is like, you know, sometimes you hear, well, guys don't read because they don't publish books for guys anymore. And it's like, yeah, well, first of all, there's a 2000-year book backlogs. Every book ever. Work for. I mean, like, my- And you have essay Crosby. Yeah. You like, that guy rules.

Yeah. He rules. I rule. You rule? You rule. For sure. Yeah, yeah. Like, there are things out there.

But if you don't want to read a new book, 2000-year. My grandfather. was a prison guard, who made knives in a spare time. And he had a bookshelf, and he read Louis L'Amour. Yeah, yeah. And then he read this series of books. Probably William Johnstone. Right?

Those pop up there? And then he had these books that were about Doc and Raider. Okay. These were Westerns published by Playboy. And Doc was like kind of a Doc holiday fancy type. Bon Vivant. Rader had a big mustache and a bowie knife. I know these ones.

I used a used bookstore. Yeah, yeah. So you know what I'm talking about me. And that's how we soundproofed the wall. was with Doc and Raider. And the podcast studio was Playboy Westerns. J.D. Hardin was the, I assume, pin name. Okay.

And it would, like, Doc and Raider would come to a new town. They would fuck everything that moves, and then they'd kill a guy. And you're like, this is, I read him when I was 12. It's a winning strategy. There was Doc and Raider, and then there was another one. There were two Cowboys series. They ran at the same time. That's how successful they were.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I joked about William Johnstone, but, like, that guy and his son, pumped out a million truck stop books. Oh yeah. And they were all about the same thing. It was like, you know, some like racially motivated apocalypse came to America. And now there was one man with a big rifle and everyone wanted to suck his dick. And then some other stuff happens.

But that was, it's just, and I read a bunch of those. Cam Omlin gave me a bunch when I moved. They're fun. They're fun, man. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think, like, I always say, like, read what your brain tells you. and then find where your boundary is and press on it. Go beyond it.

But go beyond it. But don't feel like you got to like shove your arm through it. Press on it. You don't have to watch snuff films. Right. Or Ingmar Bergman. You don't have to watch Ingmar Bergman movies. Try one. If you don't like it, don't watch it.

Don't finish it. And you might be in the mood for something like that once in a while. Yeah. But like find that thing that like, okay, you like American crime movies. Watch a Japanese crime film, you know. 100%. Read some of those, those Scandinavian. crime novels?

Like Joe Nesbitt and stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are Page Turner. Those are Page Turner. But there's a little, let me ask you this. So like, and we'll, I'm sorry, we won't go insane here. But my big hypothesis right now is that the MFA novels that all suck and are embarrassing, you know, that are written by people who go to MFA programs.

And then they're edited and approved and sold by people who went to the same MFA programs. Yeah. I think that the most exciting fiction, literature crime stuff is all the translated shit. Because the Japanese are still allowed to write about butter would never be an American novel. They would have said it's too long and boring. What the fuck are you talking about?

Paradise, like that great fucking book. Oh yeah, yeah. I haven't read that. The hurricane season person wrote it. All these books are like disgusting and vulgar and like we would never allow them be published here. But there's some of the absolute most compelling, most like new ideas. like,

like, tenders the flesh, that book about eating people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No way that that would have been published here as a literary book. It would have been like, oh,

this is a horror, like, you know, but no, it got elevated because it came from South America. And I think that the most exciting shit is like un-American right now

because they won't publish it here. And if they do, it's like almost impossible to find that kind of stuff. Well, it's tough to find it. And what I'm learning, and I'm doing great,

nobody cry for me, is that people don't know how to sell things that aren't already in a pipeline nowadays. 100%. People are so fucking lazy and stupid. And everything just gets fed into a pipeline. And if that pipeline doesn't exist for something, they don't,

they're like, what do we do with it? Yeah, people are selling shit that they're not actually into. So they don't know what the nuance of what makes it good. They just want to make sales. Yeah. And that's from like cars to TV shows to books to fucking everything in culture now is just money hungry motherfuckers.

What's going to work? Because they're all drowning. Apple TV is a network and they make shows starring stars and I've never watched any of them I know isn't it crazy? You go over there to watch the new Cape Fear and you're like John Ham has a show

and it's three seasons where have I been? It's such a strange feeling to like work on a TV show and then realize that nobody has ever heard of it. What the hell? There's too much stuff

and you know what? Like I love that everybody has a voice now and that's cool. Critics were cool too like we need to like bring back the idea of a critic. You don't have to listen to them all the time, but it's good to have somebody out there who goes, hey, guys, you know, this one's

special. You don't have to see every movie like this, but this one's special. And I know that because I've watched every movie. Like, we used to value expertise. Like, I used to love literary film criticism, that kind of shit. I think monoculture helped that, though, because I think back when everything, because there was eight movies. And they didn't have to justify being a critic by having an opinion on their niche shit

that they're covering. And also, not everyone had a platform on social. to say, I'm smarter than you. So it was also okay for them to come out and be like, that one was fine. Yeah. And they probably also, their newspaper they wrote for, probably wasn't also owned by the same studio.

The publisher of the, yeah. Well, and like at one point, so I was a music journalist for a few years, and I was at an alt-weekly in St. Louis. And like Thursdays were when people came in to pay for their classified ads, which were 90% sex workers, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so I was smoking back then.

I would stand outside. smoke and I watched like this just long line of women come in and then Craigslist got invented and I looked at Craigslist and I said we're done yeah it's over yeah because like weird thing is journalism has never been something people would pay for right yeah it was always they were buying it for the crossword for the cartoons for the sports section for the movie listings yeah yeah you just wanted to know what concerts were come to town you grab I mean I worked in an adult weekly and I mean the Westward only stayed afloat because they could pivot once the sex worker thing died out, they could pivot to weed sales. Sure, so it was all weed ads. But that was, because they were also owned by New Times.

That was all one day. Yeah, Village Voice type stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it was New Times and they bought Village Voice and they took the name Village Voice. And I was, yeah, I was a music critic for them, and then I pivoted over to being, I was a film critic for a little while.

You know, but that stuff was kept afloat, not by people going, I can't wait to read what Jordan says about a DVD. I mean, that would be something people would read, but they came there, like the money was earned elsewhere.

And now everything is so segmented that that doesn't happen anymore. You had Savage Love in that magazine. Yes. You had to read your Savage Love. And we were lucky. We had Jason Sheehan, the food writer, the great food writer from the Westward. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I remember, I'm fucking 39.

Jason Sheehan hasn't written for the Westward since I was maybe 19. I say 20 years. That guy's shit was fucking pivotal, man. Yeah. And it's like that stuff, that guy, the new Jason Sheehan will never exist because there's no, there's no outlet for that. There's no outlet and they're not, people aren't going to that. They're going to Yelp.

Right. I will say, this is my, good food critics are great. I don't want to read what a random person thinks about food, but I want to see their pictures of it. Me too. You can actually tell if food is good or not by looking at it. Yeah, you get a better sense. You're very good at that.

Yeah. Yeah. But like, yeah, you know, and again, it's like, there's a lot of great stuff. I'll also say, I'm a big reader, big advocate of reader. I'm a writer. Yeah. I've been playing Eldon Ring the last couple of days. Motherfucker.

I got city skylines on my phone. It's bad. I know. It's like so good. I know. Video games are better. I get it, dude. I always say it's like, why don't men read?

It's like, have you played Grand Theft Auto 5? Have you played Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2? You get to be a little cowboy. You get to be a little cowboy. And I do think like I work very hard to make my books feel immersive. The line I always have is I want to feel like people just fall face forward into the book. But like, man, that's what those games do. It's insane, dude.

They're also using casino logic. Sure. You know, they're literally casino scientists telling you how many points. You mean our best and brightest? Yeah. Yeah. Everything's a casino now and I don't know how to do that in a book. I don't want to do that.

Yeah. But again, like I do think... I think Patterson and Mr. Beast just learned you can't do that in a book. It's so embarrassing. Oh, I'm heartbroken. Oh my God. My heartbreak.

One million dollar fucking vague. They were giving away a million to somebody who bought the book. Yeah, yeah. And they've sold 10,000 copies? All I saw is that publishing is like, what the fuck have we done? We thought this was going to save the crisis and it's under... It's four digits. They forgot GTA's coming out.

Oh, dude. I mean, by way, that's why I'm playing Eldon Ring is because I bought a PS5. Yeah, yeah. To get ready for Granth Event. Right. I played Eldon Ring when it came out. What am I doing? What about this new game?

Work of the skills. Yeah, that's right. Fucking the one where you're just like a roving dude. I've been people off. Never mind. I can't remember. If you think of it, let me know because all I want to do in a video game is be a roving dude. That's all I want.

They made the best roving dude simulator ever. Yeah. And I've been, it's like all like crimson vats. or Crimson something? I don't know. Anyway, what about a band from, I think, St. Joe called The Revelators? Oh, I remember the Revelators. Did you ever see The Revelators live?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they are kind of one of my little, like, obsessions. Oh, yeah. Because the Revelators somehow at, like, not Mutiny, but one of the other record stores, Twist and Shout, I got a free Revelator CD. And I put it in, and I was like, and it said, like, they were farmers from, like, somewhere in Kansas, Missouri. And I was like, is this a gag? But you actually can confirm that they were a real band?

Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah, I definitely know that name, and I'm pretty sure I saw The Revelators play. That was my only must-ask question today. Was it, do you ever see The Revelators? You know, that's, again, like, everything we're talking about, like, there's just less, like, going to shows. Yeah, yeah.

Like, that was my life when I was 17 years old. Me too, bro. There was a band from St. Louis, Missouri, called The Urge. Yeah, I know The Urge. You know the urge? Yeah, yeah. To this day, one of the greatest bands I've ever seen live in my life. Yeah.

It was back when like punk bands had horns and they weren't a ska band, but they were like in that. Horns and a rock band are awesome. Never fails. I have a theory. You run this by all rock music is either harmonica rock or saxophone rock, whether or not there's a harmonica or saxophone in it. I like saxophone rock. I like saxophone rock. And then Stevie Ray Vaughn is harmonica rock.

I'm a saxophone rock guy. Punk rock is generally saxophone. It's 100% Yeah Yeah Even like like Like fear had a saxophone Yeah but fear is maybe the one harmonica punk rock band

Honestly if you would have made me guess Her name one punk rock Hardcore band that's harmonica It might have been fear Maybe the meat men No effects Yeah they kind of lack the bouncy fun Of saxophone thing

Yeah But I'll say this too That's gonna get us Destroyed online Yeah I I unironically like big cheesy saxophone. I wish it would come back.

All those things that people laugh at. Oh, isn't that, you know, careless whisper or whatever. You belong to the city. All those things that people think of... You belong to the night. I unironically love it. I don't care. It's bad.

I just want to be in a Corvette driving really fast. Smoking. Yes. Smoking. Yeah. Like, I tear up in the Miami Vice Pilot. Like, I love that stuff. I listen to new music that is in that vein.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yesterday. I was in the car. What is this? We drove the four podcasts yesterday. I heard all the new music.

I like weird noises. I was just, you drums, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For your whole life. I just started playing guitar a year ago. Sick, dude. It is sin. It's so cool.

I'm so glad that I did. I suck. Yeah. But then I found, you know, I've been like, take lessons and I bring songs in to learn. And finally I was like, I'm ready to down tune.

Yeah. I want to play electric wizard. Oh, my God. Is my favorite. Pro, if you put it on wax, I'll do drums to it. If you'll do Dobe Throne, we can pick a song, whatever you want, man. All right.

I haven't learned anything of Doep Throne yet. It's okay. I'm working on, you know. You're going to learn one Electric Wizard song, and it's going to take you two hours. That's right. That's what I like that. Because the song's a half hour long. Yeah, the song's a half hour long, but it's like, it like unlocks.

Oh, this is easy. Yeah. Dude, I mean, I would tell you, just learn the J. Reitard song book. Okay. You know Jay Reitart. Yeah, yeah. That guy did so much was so little initially. and then obviously became a virtuoso, but man,

I had a buddy who was like, I'm learning guitar, and I think I'm just going to learn all those reotard songs, and I was like, yes, that's exactly what a person learning guitar should learn. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Dude, you're the absolute man. Tell them where they can, I'd find you online, all that stuff. Sure, you know, I'm on Instagram.

I don't do a lot on Instagram. You sure doesn't. No, I don't. I was trying to get up this guy's skirt for a long time. I'm on Blue Sky, which is just my Twitter methadone. Yeah, yeah. I still have my Twitter, but I don't go there. I'm trying to get off.

But you can find me on blue sky. There's not a better place to say slurs online. There really is. Yeah, I know. And so when I need to go back. I get it. And then, you know, my books are wherever books are sold. And they're good, man.

They're everything that's right with books, dude. I'll tell you what. If you want to, his short stories are a great way to get in there. But, man, I think you just pick up, if you're new to reading, which one would you suggest first? I would say probably she write shotgun? Yeah, I was going to say that. one first but that's just like that book

I remember reading that book and being like fuck I read that book and I also read Pike by Benjamin Whitner oh I love that book dude I love that book he's a Denver guy yeah yeah and I was like I was the same thing when I got crimes in southern Indiana and then I got knock him stiff and then there was just 10 years of reading fucking crazy crime shit and then you and

Benjamin Whitmer Whitmer Whitmer or Whitner Whitmer Whitmer yeah Ben Whitmer both you guys I was like yes you know when you find shit and you're like I'm not nuts there is this shit is artistically valuable and also badass. And I love when someone makes me think I'm eating cotton candy and it's actually cauliflower. Yeah.

And that's you, man. That's what you achieve, bro. Yeah, get his books. Yeah, just you're the man. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is awesome. Thank you.

Oh, dude. Pleasure. Hell yeah.