Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler - girl on guy 202: brad meltzer

Episode Date: November 4, 2015

join bestselling author, comic book and television writer and presidential confidante brad meltzer and aisha as they whip through enduring rejection, pursuing gratification, remembering your roots, fighting your nature, revisiting revisionism and going back to your old school. plus brad finally gets the girl. girl on guy is still waiting to get asked to the dance.

This episode of Girl on Guy is brought to you by Audible. Go to Audiblepodcast.com slash girl on guy for your free audiobook download. That's audiblepodcast.com slash girl on guy. This episode of Girl on Guy is also brought to you in part by Squarespace. Squarespace is the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24-7 customer support. Start building your website today at Squarespace.com. Enter offer code Aisha at checkout to get 10% off.

Squarespace. Build it beautiful. This is Girl on Guy. Hey, everybody. This is Girl on Guy 202. Girl on Guy 202, which is not a palindrome, but, well, it could be. It's two palindromes put together of a sort. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about, or maybe you don't,

and then avail yourself off the internet. I might be wrong. I might not even understand what a palindrome. is, but you go check it out. Let me know. Send me an email. This is Growing Guy 202. Welcome to the show. I want to get the business out of the way right now so that we can get to the fun stuff because the show is loaded. This episode is brought to you in part by Mac Weldon. And Mac Weldon is a very cool company that I think you are really going to love. They make, well, not intimate apparel, because that sounds racier, that it is practically. practical apparel that sits close to the skin. They make underwear, socks, and shirts. And these

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are attacking your junk and making you smell like an eighth grade locker room. McWeldon is there to save you from all of that. So visit macwellden.com and use the promo code Aisha A-I-S-H-A to get 20% off a kick-ass collection of new intimate things for your body. Dude, check that out. This episode is also brought to you in part by Audible, and you know if you go to Audible.com slash girl on guy, you can get your free audible download, free audio download for you to enjoy with the parts of your ear that are listening. There's so many lovely choices on Audible.

you can obviously always get my book, self-inflicted wounds, read in my own timorous and slightly wooden ringing tones, and infused and inflected with, I don't know, my own particular jackass sense of humor by going to Audiblepodcast.com or actually going to Girl and Guy and Guy on Me, the link. You can just get the book right there, and it's free. But there's all kinds of fun and funny things on there, some books that I've referred, that I've some books that I have recommended in the past and some new ones. There's a whole new set of Lisbeth Salander novels. If you liked the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books, the guy who wrote those books, Stieg Larsson, he died, he passed away. But there's a new writer named David

Lagercranz, who's writing, or Lagercranz, I don't know, if you want to be fancy, who is writing these books, and they've been incredibly successful. Aziz Ansari has a brand new book out there called Modern Romance. I think you could read that. It's read by the author. You could check that out. And there's so many awesome things on there. Amy Poehler's book is on there. I like Amy Poehler. I prefer you to get my book. Let's be honest. If you're going to pick a comedian's book, pick my book. But if you don't pick my book, then pick Amy Poller's book, because she's pretty kick-ass. But the great thing about this Audible offer is that you can avail yourself of any book. Any book that is available, it is available to you. But go toaudiblepodcast.com

slash girl on guy free audio book download of your choice and it is up to you my friend you are an American and you are free to do whatever it is you like felicia day's book is on there you're never weird on the internet and she has been a guest on this show you could listen to her episode by going to girl on guy slash podcast which will take you to the uh the archives so so many choices check out auto podcast dot com slash girl on guy for your free audio book download check that out all right this is with Brad Meltzer. And if you don't know who Brad Meltzer is, I'm going to tell you right now,

and then you're going to learn so much more about him. Brad Meltzer is an author, but he's so much more than that. He writes political thrillers. He also writes nonfiction. He's created television shows, and he's a comic book author. He has such an interesting background.

He is actually somebody who spent time brainstorming to figure out ways that America might defend itself against terrorist attack. That's how interesting his mind is. He is a very compelling and smart guy. And if you ever wanted to find out how someone becomes a successful, a wildly

successful novelist, you are about to find that out. This conversation was so fascinating. And what I love when I talk with a novelist, which is not that frequently, but obviously we had David Benioff on the show, another very successful writer, is how much tenacity it takes to launch yourself as a first-time novelist or writer. How much rejection you have to endure. And that's why I love these stories because obviously you have to go through the same kind of ongoing rejection as an actor, so I relate to it. But I think no matter what you're trying to do with your life, it's important to understand that you're probably going to hear no several times, many times, a multitude, a cavalcade. Literally a dump truck is going to pull up and cover you with a big

fat steaming ship pile of no before you hear yes. And those noes should not deter you from your goal. He has written all kinds of amazing books. He has interacted with American presidents, multiple American presidents, and he is really interesting, and you're going to hear all about his life. He's written 10 novels, and he's got a bunch of awesome children's books out, but tell young people about great historical figures, including Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Lucille Ball. He's really, really cool, and he's written comic books, including Justice League, Buffett the Vampire, and Green Arrow. So he's pretty much done all the shit that I wish that I had done when I was a kid. He's doing it and doing it well. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Girl on Guy 202 with the novelist, screenwriter, and comic book author, Mr. Brad Meltzer, coming at you.

Straight out of the Girl on Guy Bunker and ride into your face. Brad Meltzer, welcome to my show. Thank you for having me. This is thrilling. Two things. First thing, let's just talk about how we met, because we don't know each other. We just met today, but we have some mutual friends. And then I want you to tell me the comic book story, which I'm actually much more interested in.

Yeah, so Randy and Jason Sclar. and I all went to college together. Oh, how lovely. And I will say, the one thing I do have to, you know, blame for this is obviously also not them, but one of my dear friends is one of your biggest fans. And if I have to say Noah's name on your show, because he loves you. Yeah, say it. So Noah Cutler loves you.

I know a cutler. He's super happy. Thank you, Noah. He's just wet himself. Oh, Noah, wipe that up. That's not a good look, really. Unless you're in your home. I was going to say, then it might be a good look.

On your toilet. Or if someone has asked you to wet them, in which case you win. Everybody's winning right now. You and whoever you've wet. Now. And I love the Sclars with, it's an unnatural, having a natural amount of affection for them. And you also worked with one of the executive producers on my daytime show, right? I do.

We're just going to name check everybody. I mean, and the thing was is, you know, when I first put together, I was like, oh, wait, how do I, of course I know you through there? But then you realize I know you through 50 different ways, which is nice. The universe gets smaller. Right? If we were playing six degrees, we would be like a sub one degree. Well, the Sclars are unfair because there's two of them. There's two of them.

So they combine, they're like a square root degree. That's right. No, I'm not on that. Math is bad. I write, so I can't do math. So tell me about this, Superman versus Green Lantern. So, yeah, this is DC Comics. I believe I'm doing this by memory, but I bet it's 26 of a lot. It's early. It's early. The fact that you can do... Shit, you did it with your memory. I hate you. I'm looking at it and I can't do it. So that comic, I'm not joking, that comic is the most I've ever paid for a comic because I'm growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and the Teen Titans come out.

And the Teen Titans was my favorite book. But I found it, I think, with issue eight. Okay. And the one where the Doom Patrol go back in the jungle, and that was my first issue. And then I fell in love with it. It truly affected me as a writer. Like, the character, Tara in there,

and all these other characters in there were, it was the first femme fatale I had and the first girl I ever fell in love with. Like, I'll give you the whole story of that. I love it. But the point of it is, is the first appearance of the Teen Titans ever was a sneak preview in DC Comics Presents

Number 26, which was that comic. And the two comics, that I really wanted, Teen Titans number one was actually surprisingly not as much money, but Teen Titans number four, where they fight the Justice League, and that preview were at the time $5. And at the time, $5 was more money than my family had. Really? I mean, we grew up in Brooklyn, again, not starving or anything like that, but very working class.

Like, you know, I was the first of my family to go to college or four-year college, so $5 was unheard of. and I saved my money and I bought that comic that I walk into your office and it's the framed one there. So why do you have? So all of your stories are better,

richer and much more interestingly told than what I'm about to say but I collected Teen Titans and I don't think I came to the book until a little bit later than when you came in but I love Teen Titans and I especially loved it and I'll just be bald here

because of cyber work and also because of Starfire and people always ask me like what superhero I'd be and ever, you know, if you're a black girl, you always want to say Storm, but whatever, you know,

Storm's a little played out. I like Starfire because she could fly and she was stacked and she kind of black. She was orange with those big old, like green eyeballs.

She was like, she was a minority, right? That was it. Yeah, she covered like eight minorities. She was whatever kids were. She was like,

she was totally masturbation material for every 13-year-old boy. Straight, gay. I mean, right. I was attracted. I'm so heterosexual. People know how into dudes I am, and I was like,

totally in love with Starfire. Of you should be. So, um, I mentioned that to a friend, like, on a job. I don't even know how it came up. I remember it was like a fan-assan, this person was around. And then that was, and that was his gift to me,

thanking me for doing a project with him, because it was the first appearance of Starfire and the Teen Titans. So, and in fact, I'll tell you how it's... And it's in glass. I'll never get to read it. Yeah, no, and it's a very short story because it's in between the Superman Green Lantern story. It's just like an eight-page preview,

but it was the true first appearance. So I walk in and there's... You can greet me with anything that would, unless you had the Justice League one next to it, there's nothing of all comics, except for maybe Justice League of America 150, the first comic ever read, that was what I saved my money for. That's incredible. But here's the story.

So now I'm in, at that point I was in, I think, seventh grade. And I used to love Karen Aiken. And Karen Aiken, my other girl that I love was a girl named Amanda Bresloff. Now, Karen was the girl who had an older sister. I like that you were hedging your bets, though. You had some choices. I had two choices. Now I'm going to describe both to so you can see me a piece.

puberty and Karen Aiken was like tough and popular and cool and can make you laugh. She had an older sister. If you went to her house, they were playing truth or dare there. And I remember like they convinced another boy who was old in us to pull down his pants and whip it out. And I remember like if you wanted fun, you went to Karen's house. Like that was it. You're going to learn about blowjob. I remember Karen was the girl who came to me the first time and said, are you a virgin? And I was like, well, I know what I want to answer. But I also know how Karen thinks. And I know she's going to have something that I don't know because she's always got something I don't know. So that's Karen. Ananda was the sweet girl, the nice girl, adorable, beautiful, like, kind as could be. But I did not know

if Ananda liked me. So at the height of the Teen Titans, as the story about Terra, remember the famous story of Tara, who's the real, the femme fatal, and is going to betray the Titans and become the girl. She's the girl you love and is sweet, and then you find out she's the villain, and she's going to break your heart. And at the height of that story, as it's breaking, Randy Boxer in Brooklyn, New York, gives me a slam book, which is where you like, they ask you who you like. Right, yes.

And this is how unbrave and cowardly I was. She handed me the slam book, and you had to rank everyone. So it would say, like, Ayesha, good, fair, yuck. Oh. And I would say, like, you know, Ann, a good, fair, yuck. And I would say, Karen, good, fair, yuck. And I checked everyone off as fair or yuck, and I had no goods.

And then it was the last day of school. and this must have actually been like in fifth or sixth grade because it was a year after that. And I checked off Karen, good, and then I handed it back to Randy and I kept it until the last day of school before summer vacation and I gave her and ran away. Right.

So I knew the whole summer Karen knew I loved her. And I ran away and went to camp. So now, years later, I'm on a book tour and on Facebook, people have found me and they've tracked me, they've seen me on TV or doing whatever, on the TV show, except for that I've never found Ananda and I'd never found Karen. Now, Karen reaches out to me and she's like, where are you? I'm like, call me right now, right?

Your old love comes. And then Ananda comes to a sign. She says, I'm going to meet you in Chicago. So I get to Chicago and she's the last person in line. And I just never, I wanted to say I liked her, but I didn't know if she liked me, so I couldn't take the risk, right? You've got to put yourself out there emotionally to see if someone's going to like you back. And the last person in line is Ananda. and she comes to the sign, and she goes, you know, Brad, all those years ago, I remember in my house one time,

something, something happened and you broke this thing. And I'm like, I don't know what you were talking about, but did I break it on purpose or by accident? She goes, no, on purpose. I'm like, why would I,

why did I break something in your house on purpose? She goes, you were very upset because you didn't, I wouldn't know if I liked you or not, and I wouldn't tell you. And I go, well, of course, I always wanted to know if you liked me.

And she goes, you dummy, I always liked you. Oh, my God. And there's dead songs. I go, Ananda, I've waited 30 years for you to tell me that. Like, you've just made the 10-year-old me.

And I called my wife as soon as I got in the car. I'm like, Anand there Breslov like me. And it was just like, you know, that first girl who had your crush on, the first boy you have your crush on, like tells you like they liked you back. And it was just the greatest. What's nice about that is it's like incredibly validating. Was there any, was there any like regret or nostalgia in there

that you weren't more aggressive when you were younger? I didn't have a chance to convert. The advice that I always give my own kids and my nephew and everyone, So when I moved to Florida from Brooklyn, my dad lost his job at 39 years old, started over from scratch, had nothing, had no place to live. We had no, you know, no job. He had to, we live with my grandmother's one-bedroom apartment, my family of four grandmother-grandfather in a one-bedroom apartment for months because I had to save for the down payment for to get the little townhouse we lived in. And I remember when I started the school that I went to, my parents lied about my address so I could go to the better public school. And in the school, there were people going to college and they had had had.

houses and they had two cars and I was like, what world am I living in that this is happening? And I remember one day the prettiest girl in the school in a cheerleading uniform walks by me. And I turned to my friend Harry and I said, who's that girl? And he said, that's Cory Flam. And I said to him right there, I said, I'm going to date that girl. And in my head, I said, I'm going to marry that girl. And years later, I actually married her. Really?

I did. We dated through high school, saw other people in college because we're not insane people. and then basically got back together years later. But my advice is always no regrets. Like whoever the prettiest girl is, I tell my nephew, I tell my son, I'm like, find the prettiest girl in the school and ask her out because everyone's afraid of her. And you should never be afraid of the prettiest girl.

So I have no regrets. I still ask out. I do, there is a part of it's like I wish I would have tried, of course, but I made my pick and I lived with it and Ananda told me, and so now I feel better. I love it. I love it. I think that's great advice.

I mean, what can you lose other than just honkering? bring down in your own self-doubt. All they say is no. I remember that I asked at camp, I asked out who I thought was the prettiest girl and she said no. And I remember when she said no, I was like, did she say no to me? Like she said no? And then I was like, okay, I like another girl. And I was like, and once you survive that hit in the chest, you'll take another one. So I was like, to me, go out, find the prettiest person, ask them out. Right. Go for it. Live through it. I mean, that's a part of being alive too anyway, just like living through all that stuff. Of course, that's it. All right, let's talk about it. Let's talk about where you started. Do you

We're born in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, New York, yep. And tell me about your family. Tell me what your parents did. So my parents were truly in the best way and say, my father was struck by lightning. And his father was struck by lightning. Come on.

I'm sorry. Now, here's where you're going to tell me this is bullshit, right? These literary devices are not going to fly here. If I put that in a book, my editor would be like, you are so full of shit, right? She'd be like, that is crap. And I knew my grandfather was struck by lightning because it was in his army discharged papers.

and he got burned and so it was all documented. But my dad used to tell a story of when he was at camp and he was struck by him. And I always listened to the story, but the odds of it being true, even as I got older, I was like, this has to be bullshit. There's no way two men in the same generation are struck by lightning. And that would mean, to me, don't ever come near me in a rainstorm. Right, exactly. Cursed. And so when my dad dies, it was actually amazing.

I talked about in his eulogy that he was struck by lightning, but I said I didn't know if it was true, but I'm going to, for the moment of telling the story about him, I'm going to tell you that he was. And a couple weeks after he dies, I get an email through our website or through Facebook or something that says, I saw your eulogy, you wrote about your dad, Stu Meltzer, and you didn't know if he was struck by lightning. I'm going to tell you that he was, and I know because I was there that day. Oh, my God. And in this moment, this guy becomes the most important person on the planet to me, right? Because he's got information about my dead father, and when he provides that information,

to me in the details. I read the exact same as how my father told me. I have new information on my dad. My dad's living again because something new is out there in the universe. Absolutely. And so my father was, he had a really rough childhood, and my grandfather used to beat him up. And he was just not, my dad's dad was not a good dad. And my dad, and that usually is how everything goes, right?

That is like a lightning. It just strikes a family and it keeps striking. It stays. It just goes through. And to my father. And to my father's credit, my dad was a hothead. He was bad with money. He would, like, lose his temper.

He would flip over pool tables. He would, in fact, in our house, every door in the house in our Brooklyn apartment had a punched hole in it. Because when my dad would get mad, he would punch holes in the doors. And except for one door, which was my door and the door that I shared a room with my sister. Wow. He never touched that door. And bathroom doors were punched in. His own bedroom door was punched in.

They all had giant holes in them, except for. for ours. And my dad's mission in life was, I'm going to fuck everything else up. I'm going to be bad with money. I can, you know, I'll lose my temper. I'll get into fights. I'll lose my business. I'll lose everything. But I'm going to be a better father than my dad was to me, which is, that's how you break the chain. And that's an impossibility, but he did. Right. I mean, it's a constant, it's a constant, like, renewing choice. Like, every day, I'm going to do this better. I'm good. Because people are just so, they can be so powerless against their own impulses. and it sounds like in a lot of ways your dad had a hard time.

He did. My dad was pure id. He was like if he wanted something, he took it, there were no consequences. He just didn't think because he was never taught that. Right. But I will say my parents love me to like an unnatural level. Like my, you know, years ago I went to Borders headquarters when Borders was still around in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And the head of sales said to me, guess where your books sell more than anywhere else?

Straight sales, not even per capita. And I'm like, New York City, 8 million New Yorkers in one place. No. I said, I don't know, Washington, D.C., I write thriller, said about D.C. No. The number one place where my book sold was the Boca Raton, Florida borders, one mile from the furniture store where my mother used to work. That means my mother's single-handedly beat eight million New Yorkers. And I was like, that's the power of the mom. And my dad was like this guy who would go into the Barnes & Noble and be like, yes, I'm here for Brad Meltzer's new book. He's my favorite author.

And they're like, Mr. Meltzer, we know he's your son. Like, we got it. We know that's your thing. And so my parents love me. They were amazing. But when he was 39 years old, he lost his job and lost everything and said, and again, imagine right now, a little earlier in your life and my life, saying, I'm going to have the do-over of life and start over from scratch.

and my dad started life over from scratch. Easier to say if you're single. Right, not when he had two kids and a wife. Yeah, God. And I remember we moved to Florida and they didn't have money for babysitters so they used to take us on job interviews with them. And I remember one time we had a job interview

it was in a Wendy's for this insurance job he was going for. And we have to sit on the other side of the restaurant so that he wouldn't know, the interviewer wouldn't know that he had his kids with him because it would be embarrassing. And I remember sitting on the opposite side of a Wendy's picking up French fries thinking, My life is being decided on the opposite side of a fast food restaurant right now.

But my parents, as I said, gave me that fake address and I got to go to a school where I met my wife. And it was, you know, like I met a friend Cheryl Sandberg. Like this was a, you know, these were a good school. And there it just opened my entire world to, you know, I can go to college and I can do these things just because everyone told me. And to me, you know, I have my life changed by an English teacher. And when I got to this school, my life was changed by an English teacher. Because my English teacher said to me, there was a woman named Sheila Spicer, this African-American awesomely loved prints and loved cool stuff, and she said to me, you can write.

And I was like, well, everyone can write. She's like, no, you know what you're doing. And she tried to put me in the honors class, and I had a conflict. So she said, here's what I'm going to do. You're going to sit in the corner for the entire year, ignore everything I do with the blackboard, ignore every homework assignment I give. And what she was really said was, you were going to thank me later. And years later, when my first book was published, I went back to her classroom and I knocked on the door.

And I said, my name is Brad Meltzer. And I wrote this book and it's for you. And she's crying. And I said, why are you crying? She said, I was going to retire this year because I didn't think I was having an impact anymore. Oh, my God. And I said, are you kidding? You have 30 students.

We have one teacher. Yeah. And this woman changed my life. And sometimes, you know, all of us have our legacies that we're going to have. Sometimes you don't even know what you leave behind. This woman changed my life, had no impact, no idea of her impact on my life. And so she was one of those people who first gave me that instinct that, okay, you can write, you can do this. Your parents, you said your father went and interviewed out of Wendy's.

How did he restart? What was his reboot? His reboot was insurance. So my dad was an insurance salesman and my dad could sell. My dad could, I mean, my dad could meet and talk to anybody. My dad, when he died, the bagel woman who was the waitress at the bagel shop came to his funeral and came to the hospital to visit him. And the woman who was the receptionist at the dentist, that woman you walk past and you say hi and then you sign out and you go in. My dad got invited to her wedding.

Wow. Like, just because he go. And he was just like anyway. And when my mom died, they both actually recently died in the past many, a few years. And when all the valets might, you know, they would say like, you're. parents were the only ones who would speak to us. Everyone else would walk right by us. I'd go to restaurants and they still, the waitresses are like, you're the only ones who, they didn't leave a tip they wanted to know about my grandkids. Like, my parents just talked to everybody.

And so my dad was an insurance salesman, and he started over and just took a job as an insurance salesman at 39, and it really worked for him, and he could sell because he could sell. And my mother was an interior designer, and she was the one who had the creative bug. And she had her own business and always had taste. And, you know, my mom, I took her to the White House once. And I remember, you know, when we left, I was like, what did you think, Ma? And she's like, Ungapachka, which is like, you know, Yiddishva, like, it's overdone. Like, I'm like, Ma, at the White House. Like, come on.

Yes. But that's how my mom was. 200 years of being Ungapachka? Ungapachka. Yeah, you're officially Jewish. It was really exciting. No, but that, so my parents were, they were both independent. They both had in a strange way their own businesses.

And, but obviously, you know, writing was not a thing in our family. were real writers that didn't exist. Nobody for you to model yourself. No, I didn't find, I mean, I found it from Miss Spicer, was my English teacher. And, but I knew, that's how I knew how to communicate, was to do it through writing. So that's so interesting because that was something that really was sparked in you when you went to this school. Was this person telling you that you had an ability? But it wasn't something that you were thinking about as a profession before that kind of catalytic.

I didn't even think of it. I mean, that was ninth grade. I didn't think, because writing is not a real job. Right. It doesn't put dirt under your fingernails. It doesn't put calluses on your hands. Like, I thought you went to high school, and then you got a job, and that's what people did. And then everyone was like, Brad, you're taking the SAT?

And I was like, I don't even know what the SAT is or the PSAT or whatever was. I had no idea, but they were all taking it. So I was like, I'll take it. Right. And it's why, you know, to me, whenever you make, I call it the leap. Like, if you come from, you know, like, again, I don't know your background as well, but like, when you leap, some people, some people say, well, you know, I did it all myself. and I left and I achieved everything in life, but to me, the leap only happens usually

because there's someone on the other side of the trapeze going, come here and I'm going to catch you. Right, right, right, right. And I had English teachers and history teachers, and I think we all have many parents in our lives. And I had a lot that were in addition to my own parents who really saved my ass. That's incredible.

So even after that ninth grade, kind of that catalytic year where she was like, you know, you're great at this and you should stick with it, you were like, you kind of were maybe being buffeted along by all of these processes like, oh, I should take the SITs because everybody else is and oh. Follow the path. And then how did you pick a college? I mean, because you must have been getting decent grades.

You know, I got good grades. I figured out my girlfriend was like the valedictorian. So I was like, oh, follow her. That was, you know, she was adorable and she was the cheerleading and she was cute. And I was like, and that changed. Like, she was that thing I needed, that I didn't have that stability that she had. Like, she ate around the dinner table and her family just, it was very leave it to beaver. and like they didn't yell at each other

and no one talked back to anybody and I was like, what kind of family is this? Like that's not my family, my family is way more fun, you know? Right. But I needed that grounding. And then when I went to school at Michigan had a lot of debt to pay off and a guy named Eli Siegel

who said to me, he was a businessman in Boston. He said, why don't you come to Boston, move your stuff to Boston, and I'll give you a job. And if you love you, you'll stay. And if you hate it, you leave us some money in your pocket. And I was like, that seems like a good deal.

I moved everything to Boston, moved all my stuff to Boston. And Eli left the job. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've wrecked my life. I was like, that's it. I've wrecked my life. I can't go to law school. I can't go do anything because it's late in the year. And so I did what anyone would do in that situation.

I said, I'm going to write a novel. And I just had no idea what I was doing. But I said, I'm going to just do it. Everyone has one novel in them. I'm going to take a shot. Wait, this is post undergrad. Yeah, so this is the year I graduate. I graduate Michigan.

It's my, I'm 22 years old. What did you major in? History. I majored in history. And this, so this was like your, your brain works in a very interesting way. I have a very, my brain jumps around. I like lots of things. You're like, I'm going to set out a task for myself as, even though now you do it for a living, obviously, would have felt, I imagine at that time in some ways, unmanageable.

If you hadn't been studying to be a novelist and it wasn't an aspiration for you to sit down and write a novel. take a shot. And the thing was is, but that's my life, right? My dad's, when I remember coming home from school in seventh grade, and at three o'clock, my dad was sitting there. And when your dad is sitting there, when you come home from school, either something really good happened or something really bad happened. And I knew it was bad the moment. I could feel it when I walked in, but I lost everything. At 13 years old, at the height of period, I lost my entire life. I lost all my, my dad said to me, we're moving, we're leaving, I lost my job, we're out of here. And we were gone in two months time. And I lost my friends and my girlfriend and my social status or whatever I thought I had in seventh and eighth grade and what it was.

And it was all gone. And to me, it was a terrifying lesson. But it was also, you know, if you survive that, it's like the girlfriend, right? If you survive it, then you can go do that. So I took that punch in the face again and I was like, I'm going to come back because I don't know any better. And that's what my dad taught me to do. So, and my mom, listen, my mother was the bigger impact on me than my father. And so I moved to Boston.

My first novel got me 24 rejection letters. Wow. There were only 20 publishers at the time. I got 24 rejection letters, which means some people wrote me twice to make sure I got the points. Like, let's just drive this home. That's right. In case you missed that first letter, I just want to tell you that sucked, Brad. That was terrible.

Oh, my God. Tell me what your rejection letters were like. Were they the kind of form letter like, you're not right for us? No, no. They were actually, I mean, the ones I remember are the ones that were nicer. I had a couple form letters because in 24 you're going to get a couple form. But they were like, no, I see what this is, but I'd like to see his next book. So when I saw that, it's kind of like if someone says all this bad stuff about you and they say one good thing,

our brain actually remembers the bad things because we just always remember the bad things. It's like if you get a bad review, you can have 50 good reviews. But if one person on the friggin' internet says that one thing, that's what you go to bed with. And all I remember was those negative things. I couldn't tell you all the good things, but I do remember some same taking out, you know, I'd like to see his next work. And the week after I got my 23rd and 24th rejection letter, I remember, in fact, I'll tell you this. So, when I got, there were two, there were 22 editors that had it.

We were waiting for number 23 and 24 to come in and tell me if they were going to publish the book. And my agent said to me, these two are interested. I actually had meetings with them. I got to New York, but I went by train because I was living in Washington, and I met with them and she's like, I'm going to call you at such and such time and I'm going to tell you how much they bid on it. Now here I am and like, you know, all this debt and all this, you know, stuff to pay off. And I, and I, pre-cell phone. So I'm waiting at the phone to ring and it rings and I pick it up and I'm waiting for to tell me that we sold the book. And I picked up the phone and she said, sorry, kiddo. And every day to this day, I should, every day I sit down to write. I say the, I, I say the, I, I, I literally, we all have our rituals, right? And I have two rituals before I sit down. And one of them is I sit down and I picture the room I was in when I had that phone call.

I picture the kind of phone it was. It was like a see-through one where you could see the cords inside, like the old 90s nonsense. I picture the desk. I picture the IKEA desk and the footrest that it had. I picture the low bed that had nothing but a box screen and mattress. I picture the balcony and the parking lot I was looking at and the fire station across the street that I was looking at when she said those words. And then I say those words in my head, sorry, kiddo. And every day I sit down on the right, I say those because I need to forever remember what it's like to have nothing.

And that's the only way I get hungry every day is like strip me down to nothing because I never want to be spoiled by what I have in my life. And that's just one of my rituals every day. God, it's interesting those conversations that you have with your agent because they are so laden. And I think in a way that an agent doesn't realize, obviously, this affected you to this day. I mean, still. And she still calls me, kiddo. Really? She does.

I know her for 20 years. That's incredible. Every time she says it, I feel that, you know, that knife in the heart. Exactly. But it's amazing because I can remember vividly that I've had plenty of projections, but like a couple of the really big ones. And like the same thing, like where I was sitting, where I was, what day it was, what the weather was like, everything kind of before and after it's. And I think for an agent, and this is not dismissed, you know, agent's capacity for, you know, emotional nuance, but they have so many of those conversations.

You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. That they probably don't remember any. But to the person who they're talking to, it's the most important conversation of that person's life. Like that 23rd and 24th was the most important conversation in my life I had to that moment. And there she was. And so it's like when you, if you meet like whether it's a big star or I've met like, you know, presidents, when you meet a president, you all time slows. and you remember every detail

and you can see the dust moats in the room floating because everything is just still and you have that story to tell forever. Yeah, yeah. So your first novel, the one that you were in driven in Peltter Right because of this friend offering this kick that you then couldn't

convert because he went away. Where are you right after that 24th rejection? So I'm basically in law school at the time. I started law school because I wrote the book for a year. I wrote the book for a year, started law school, and then I went to work for Clinton's National Service Program where I got to write the oath. If you ever see the AmeriCorps program where the president says raise your right hand and they swear them in, I actually got to co-write the oath. The boss who hired me for the original job wound up running AmeriCorps and said, why don't you come be my speech writer?

So I moved to Washington, D.C., and he had introduced me to Bill Clinton, and he had introduced me to like this world of public service. And it was an amazing world, but I said, if they don't like that book, I'm going to write another. and if they don't like that book and write another and the week after I got my 23rd and 24th letter I started what became the 10th Justice which was my first published novel. What's interesting about you in looking at your CV and is that you're

writing, your output, your genres are very diverse when you talked about your love of comic books as a child and then you do what I'm not a literary agent. Is it like judicial fiction? No, thrillers. No, it's just

it's thrillers. Yeah, mysteries and thrillers. Yeah, like not. You know. And did that come because you were in law school? Did that come because you thought, okay, this is like a way? You know, it was just this, it was the world I knew at that time. Like, I went to law.

If I went to medical school, I'd probably write medical thrillers. But I went to law school. So I was writing about the Supreme Court. And then the Supreme Court took me to the White House. And then the White House took me to what I love. And it's really, you know, is history. Right. And that love of kind of that world just, that was the first.

one that opened to me. And then I was very lucky and got to do, you know, from the, and listen, I'm the first to say I got lucky, right? It takes one person to say yes when you sell a novel or, you know, for most things in this life. Whether you, you know, whether you go on a show or you're doing your movie, it's like that one person who says yes. Yeah. And I found the person. I found the guy who was, you know, it was like, it was an editor named Rob Weissbach. He had discovered a guy named Jerry Seinfeld before he was Seinfeld. Never heard of that person. And then, right. And then he discovered a guy named Paul Reiser before was Paul Reiser, and then he discovered this woman named Ellen DeGeneres before she was

Ellen DeGeneres before she was Ellen DeGeneres. Who is this human being? Right, Rob Weissbach, right? He was my first publisher, and then he bought me. And I was like, I'm going to screw your, like, trajectory so badly. Like, this is, like, I walked into his office and he said, these are my last three books, and now I want to buy yours. And I was like, we're screwed. Like, there's no way I can be any of these people, but he had faith. And he's like, I'd never seen anyone write a thriller that had comedy and had hard in this. And he bought it, and he changed my life. Wow. And is, you know, and thanks to that, I was lucky enough to basically start writing comic books and then being able to do and

television and then even do these kids books that we do. But here's the thing. Sometimes we do things and we don't realize what my, you know, my friend Simon Sinek has this amazing theory and he says that everyone's life is like a bull's eye and with three circles. And the outside circle is what you do. And you know what you do, right? You're on TV. You know you're doing film. You're doing the podcast. You're doing all these things. I know what I do. Most people, everyone knows what they do. The second circle is how you do what you do. And How is a little bit hard. Some people know exactly how they do it. If you're a plumber, you know exactly how to fix this. Well, you connect this to this. You connect to you. Mechanics know the how. But if you're a creative person or if you're an actress or if you're a

host, there's a lot that's kind of gut work, you know, where you just go like, I don't know how, like, I know how to do it like when I see it and I can figure it out, but you kind of know how and some people don't, and that's okay too. But the most important circle on the bull's eye is that inside circle, and that's why you do what you do. And for a long time, I never knew why I was doing what I was doing. And what I realized when I was doing, whether it's the thrillers, whether it's doing the comic books, whether it's doing the TV show, is I realize, and I know it's my core belief, I believe ordinary people change the world. And I don't care where you went to school, and I don't how much money you make, and that is all nonsense to me. And I believe in regular people

and their ability to affect change in this world. And I realized that in everything I do, that's the theme. That's what I do. Like, that's what my thrillers are about. That's what the TV shows about. That's what the kids' book are about. And even the comic books, because it's like Superman to me. The most important part of the story is not Superman. Right. The most important part of the story is Clark Kent. Why? Because we're all Clark Kent. We all know what it's like to be boring and ordinary in which we could do something beyond ourselves. So that Thematically once I figured that out. I was like oh I'm always telling that story. It's the only story I can tell it's my story

Right. That's all we can ever tell And that but and that's something so that's something that you're saying The the how you do what you do and the fact that a lot of it is is is gut But I do think that in like retrospectively you can look back at your life and Figure out you slowly figure like your own methodology kind of distills like kind of like starts to reveal it so Yep so I wonder Similarly if this philosophical core, this core concept

distilled for you over time. Because you said, all my books are about this. If one day you woke up and you realized that. You know, my friend Simon, who basically has that theory, he kind of helped me and we literally worked as we were talking. But the thing that I've realized over time and it also points out

is what matters to me, and that's a great question by you, is for me on my how is the struggle matters. I figured out about myself and people have told me over and over again, like if I've done it once and they say, oh, you can go do it again,

I'm not interested. But you tell me I can't do it? Yes. There is nothing on this planet. I want to do more. And it's not to prove you wrong, but just the struggle for me matters. So to me, when I started doing comic books,

no one was in comic books but a guy named Kevin Smith. And then they hired me to take over for Kevin. and no one at that time, comics weren't cool, this was a decade ago, and everyone at the time, all the fellow novelists were like, why are you slumming in comics? Why are you going to go do comics? And I was like, screw you, I like them. I've grown up with them. It's my story.

And I went to do it. And now it's easy to say, oh, everyone likes comics and comics cool. But I just was like, because no one had ever done it. No novelist had ever written comics. So I was like, I'm going to try. And then, you know, I have my own kids. And I was like, I was tired of my own kids looking at reality TV show stars and loudmouth athletes and thinking that's a hero.

Right. And I was like, wait, you know, if I tell my daughter right now that Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic Ocean, my daughter's like, big deal, everyone does. Right. Like everyone flies. But if I tell my daughter, this true story that Amelia Earhart, when she was seven years old, built a homemade roller coaster in her backyard, and she took a wooden crate and she put roller skating wheels on the bottom, and she shoved it to the roof of her tool shed,

and then she got on the tool shed and raced down, crashed it and flew through the air. My daughter's like, Dad, she's just like me. She's amazing. she's fun. So we did a book called I'm Amelia Earhart and I am Abraham Lincoln and everyone was like you write thrillers

and kind of like why are you writing for kids books and I'm like now I have to. Right. Now I got to give my kids those heroes and now we did I'm Rosa Parks.

We did I am Albert Einstein we did I'm Jackie Robinson and then in three weeks I just hand you we're doing I'm Lucille Ball and to me I want my daughter to have an entertainment hero who isn't just famous

for being thin and pretty. Right. And I was like And Lucille Ball is not about like, it's okay to be different. It's that it's fantastic to be different. And I realize like that's my journey. Like you've got to do the different thing. And I was like, these heroes help me.

They help my kids. And now I do that because everyone was like, you can't do that. So each time I just try and find what they say I shouldn't do. And then I get stubborn about it. That's also interesting again because we were talking about like whatever, your methodology kind of revealing itself or your philosophical. approach your, I don't want to say point of view, but you know what I mean? Like your personal vision coming through. And a lot of those things, they're revelatory, right? They're,

they are things that come. They're not, it's much easier, not much easier. It's much more natural and it tends to be more fundamental to see these things reveal themselves than to try to decide this is what you're going to be about. Because what usually we can't make that decision. That's the thing is you, you know, you can try to find your art, but I think your art eventually finds you. And I remember, you know, when you write your first book, you get your review, and then you write a second book, and you get a review. And then when you write your third book, people are read them all together, and they're trying to, like, figure out who you are. Right. And I remember websites had just started, and some guy wrote to me and said, Dear Brad, I've read three of your books

now. What are your issues with your father? And I, and I, and I, and none of the first three books had any father of the main character. Like, one had 20 pages here, and one had 10 pages here. And I was like, oh, crap, I am clearly putting stuff out about. myself that I don't even realize that I'm putting out there. And in the beginning, you know, listen, maybe there are people who are so smart that they thematically know who they are from birth. I'm not that person. Right. Right. Like I'm talking to you. I've been doing this for almost 20 years now, right? I've been doing this and I'm 27. And it took me so long to figure out what that battle was that I was doing. And I was like, oh, I'm putting this in there. And I don't even

know it. And then it takes, and you have a choice now. You either embrace it and say, I have to ask myself, why am I doing this? What are my issues with my father? Or you're just ignored and say, fuck it, I'm going to just keep creating and whatever comes from it comes from it. And to me, obviously, the former can give a bigger reward than just the latter. Right. God, a bigger reward if you're prepared. I'm saying, but you've got to take on the emotion. Right. You've got to look in the mirror. Like my wife, she hates the mirror. She hates the mirror. She's just like, I don't want to dive deep into that. It hurts. It's painful. I don't want to know what fuck me up when I was little and what you know. I'm going to get all Freudian. It's a

It doesn't make you feel good, you feel bad, but I love that crap. Right. And not the navel-gazing nonsense way, but I love trying to look at what I'm writing. And at the end of the book, in fact, the book that just came out, the thriller, I had no idea. Okay, so it was the first book I was writing since my parents had passed away. And we had a rough couple years in my house, but it's been a couple years. And I was like, this book, I'm declaring the theme at the start is going to be about how to get over the death of my parents. and I was like, that's what it needs to be.

It's going to be, because I'm starting to start to finish, and they're not there, and I'm going to get over the death of my parents. And as I'm working on the book, it took me 400 pages to figure out. I was like, wait, I don't ever want to get over the death of my parents. My parents love me, and they deserve to be remembered. And as I was working on the last sentence of the book, here I am, and I'm trying to figure it out and get it done. And I'm sitting there for a day and can't crack it. and I, you know, called my wife and I say, come into the office. You know, I just want to brainstorm a little.

And I throw some ideas to her. And she's like, no. And then she throws a couple back. I'm like, no. And then finally gets blurted the final sentence of the book. And I well up with tears. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And my wife knows it as soon as she sees her.

She's like, that's what you needed to know about your dead parents. And I was like, and I'm not one of those new agey people who feels like, you know, glitter cannons raiding goodness down on me. But sometimes art is magic. And it was one of those moments where I was like, thank you, Beecher, who's the main character. I'm like, thank you, my imaginary friend for giving me that one. Yeah. And it was like, I'm like, that's what this is, this is the journey I'm on and it's the journey my character was on.

Sometimes art is magic. I wonder how much of that you experience on an ongoing basis. I'll give you an example, which is that sometimes I'll be doing a joke. And I will remember the moment, the first moment I set it on stage, all the moments in between. but somehow in its current form, when it's really killing, it feels like a foreign object. Oh, I do that. I mean, of course you do that. Yeah. Because it becomes, I mean, and to me, you can be doing a bit.

Like, I've been on stage, you know, doing a bit that I've done or like a corporate talk or something that I'm doing. And I'm literally thinking about other things as the joke is even coming out because I'm like, I've done it so much that it is this foreign object in my brain. Which means you're doing your bit too much. Yeah, but foreign object can be a lot of things. things for an object can be, I'm dissociated from this piece of art, or foreign object can be, how did, I love this, how did it come to me? Yeah, that's good if you could do that. I think that's good.

Bigger and more substantial and more complex than sometimes any of us give ourselves credit for. Like, oh, God, I wrote that. I don't, I know it came through. I mean, it's what people used to attribute to the muse, right? Which, you know, whatever, there's no muse, guys. There's no Santa Claus either. But there is this, I'm a terrible human being.

Rooner. Spoiler alert. No Santa. But that you see this thing and I imagine, I very much imagine that was when you write and you see a character that you set out to write in one particular way. And they metamorphose into a totally different fucking person. And events happen in the book that you didn't plan, that you didn't outline, that you did. And then you're like, oh, this must happen now. They have to interact in this way.

And I thought it was going to resolve the book this way. And of course it's not going to resolve that way. There's something completely different, something completely other. And that other thing is something you need. Right. Again, you can push the art you want, but the art you need ideally comes forward. I think that's exactly right. If you're open to it, right, you've got to let the universe be open to it.

I mean, I remember doing a character, and the whole scene was she's going to go through this thriller, and then eventually she's going to get to this 8,000-foot gold mine. And then at the bottom of the gold mine was actually something secret that was going to be revealed. And I wrote this character. And she was this kind of, you know, young, varying control, strong female. I love strong women. Strong women are the most attractive women of all to me. My agent, my editor, my children's book agent, everyone I work with is my wife.

I love strong women. So I'm right the strong woman. The plot is getting to, you know, it's, and an 8,000 foot gold mine is like six empire state buildings straight down. Yeah, that's like the center of the planet. It's right. It's exactly. It's totally where the magma is. Warm down there.

Warm. Very warm. I'm out to China almost. And so now. I get to the chapter and my character's like I'm like okay time to go into the gold mine and she's like I am not that stupid

I'm not going in that gold mine and I'm like get in the gold mine and she's like I'm not that stupid I'm not going underground and I was like I know it sounds almost silly but it's one of those great moments where you're not writing the character anymore

and they're basically saying I'm not fucking dumb right you can you better figure and I'm literally now replotting and trying to figure out so I love when that happens and sometimes it's just because, listen, it's just good plot and you're listening to your character, but other times it's

because your character is taking on something that, you know, you need or want in your own life. And that when you can figure that out, again, that's the magic. The person who wrote you about your father issues, were you able to then reflectively figure out what in your novels was triggering that reaction? All I did was start. I mean, that 100% started me on that path of going like, what is my problem. And, and I think, you know, for me, I think what I always worried about is I know my dad loved me. I know that.

The guy was, he would have rather been buying baseball cards. Like, I'm a straight man. And when he saw that my dad was a rough, big guy who loves sports. And I think when he got me who loves three, he's like, oh, man, I got the gay one. You know, like, he was just like, what, he didn't know what to make of me. Yeah. We were just opposite in what we loved. And, you know, he was all id.

and I was just more thoughtful. And if he would make something that was a giant mess, I was the guy who came and cleaned it up. I was very much apparent to my dad. And for me, it took me a long time to figure that out. And finally, I couldn't. I couldn't make peace with it. And it would drive me crazy because I realized

I was like, I wanted him to be like the dad I wanted. I was like, why are you not doing the things I need? Right. Why are you not saving my mind? ass instead of me saving yours. Yeah. And I start and I started on this, you know, path of just all my characters like, it's funny, now that you say it, like my characters slowly get me there. And eventually my sister, I remember saying to me, I have never told it like, my sister said to me, he's doing the best he can. And it was just, you know, just an offhanded thing she said, like,

cut him some fucking slack. You know, dad's doing the best he can. And it was just a light bulb for me. And to this day, if we went to my computer right now, there are a couple things that are stuck to the computer. And one of them that's right there at the bottom is a note that I wrote to myself that day, he's doing the best he can. And I realize in that moment that if I'm going to sit around and want my dad to be the way I want it, you know, go hold your breath. Like you can't make people be how you want them. And I finally had to let go and say, that's the best he can do. That's what he's capable of. His father used to beat him up.

Why are you expecting this emotional thing that you're never going to get? Right, right, that he's not capable of. He can't do it. He's never been taught it. And one of the things I said in his eulogy is I was like, the best parts of my father are a thing, no one ever gave him those parts. He fought for them. Like, he wasn't, no one was nice to him when he was little. You know, he used to get punched.

Like, he went and scraped and fought for the best parts of who he are, but he freely gave me the best parts of who I am. And I own forever for that. So like, you know, the last line of the book actually is, is, you know, you can never make peace with your father, but you can make peace with yourself. Yes. Oh, that was the last line. That's the last line. That's the last line. It's extraordinary.

God. So this is so interesting because, oh, God, there's so many interesting things here. I talk a lot on this show, and in my own life, actually, is really interesting about, like, now I sound like a self-help book, so it's all. all just collectively tell me to go fuck myself. But there's just something very interesting about the power of forgiveness that I think most people don't understand, which is not really about letting the other person off the hook, but about freeing yourself from these things that you will never have, whether it's this person's apology or their transcendence or their conversion or them finding some magical way.

to write past wrongs that are impossible to write because they have already happened. I don't know, and people carry this around, right? This kind of lack of ability to forgive in a way that I can really calcify. Oh, calcify. It's a rock that would keep you at the bottom of the ocean if you hold it.

I mean, someone said to me that, that, you know, whether it's spider, vengeance, whatever it is, like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. I love that quote. And it's one of my favorites. Yeah, I was attributed to the Dalai Lama. I don't know who's

or no Mandela. It was the attribution. And I remember hearing that the first time, I'm like, that was like one of those ones that hit me. And I was like, you're changing my life. Like, because I need, because I have that thing. And I will care. Like, the one thing about me is I am, if you say, like, I think everyone has a defining characteristic. Yeah.

Okay. And some of us are, you know, whether it's good or we're vengeful or we're nice or where, you know, my, whatever you're defining characteristic is, you're good at reading people, you're bad at reading people. Whatever your thing you like to cook. my defining characteristic is I feel like I am loyal I am loyal like nobody you've met to be loyal and I will you know whatever it is I'm you can count on it I'm going to be there and so to me I took forever the negative of that because our greatest strength is always our greatest weakness always like really gets self-helpy and to me one of those things is is if you're not I can't forgive it because it's so part of my core that if you're not equally up to the commitment I'm going to Like, you will find, if you're a friend of mine, I will do anything you need. Your book is out. I will put you on Twitter. I will help any writer that's ever launched a book.

They come to me. I will broadcast your book and help you. But when you don't do that, like when I fall on the other side of that, I can't forgive. It becomes my greatest weakness. It holds me back. And I needed to finally say, you've got to stop taking the poison for yourself. And I realized I was doing it with my dad. Like, you can't expect more from people than what they can be capable of giving you.

And once you let that go, that's the journey of life, right? So much freedom, though. So much freedom. In every relationship, like, even in friendships, like, like, like, because I remember having like people in my life have friends, and I was like, this person isn't being the friend I need them to be, right? And then saying, I'm never going to get this person to do the things I want them to do, but I have all this affection for them, right?

I love them. So then I hate myself for love. loving them or I feel ambivalent about my own feelings. Do I trust my judgment? Or I keep craving attention from them and then they'll reciprocate, but then not for long. And then I'm angry. Yeah, because we say exactly how they're wired to act. Yeah, that's all they can do. It's all they can do. And then once you see yourself, this is who this person is. And then I decide whether I so want them in my life or not. I mean, you can just decide. Then once you decide to have my life, then their behavior is their own, you know, and if they bite you, it's, you know, it's the old adage about the

scorpion stinging the course it's our own thing I'm gonna I'll take that scorpion analogy and give you a Batman one I love Batman so now listen I write Batman right so I write all the stuff

I do write all the stuff you write all the stuff I'm so excited so far I've done well I did I did DC and I also with Josh Sweden did Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that was fun

where did that book come Dark Horse comic he basically wanted to do he wanted to do the season 7 of Buffy as a comic book thing so he kind of reached out to a bunch of us and said hey you want to do it with me So when Josh calls you say yes. Why?

I would think. Naturally. So, but here's my thing. So my wife and I were having this brawl. Like, we're just fighting and, like, fighting about this argument that we had. And we were talking. And it was about loyalty. And, you know, you have to do this the way that I said.

And I was like, and I said to her, like, it's like, like, she knows Batman's my favorite hero. Like, when I write Batman, I'm wearing my underwear on the outside of my pants that day. Right. Like, there's no question. So now I say to her, you know, it's like Batman. Like, he's just a. guy like it's just a matter of committing yourself to it and then you can do it like just commit yourself to it and then you won't you know let me go waiver yeah finally she said to me you know you love

bat and now we're having a brawl husband wife brawl and i bring up batman and she like and she can't out nerd me in any way except to this moment where she says you know the thing about batman is because i always say about batman the best part is he's always going to fail he's never going to see he wants every day to solve and and stop crime and every day he's going to going to fail, but every day he gets up and starts again. Every day he knows he's going to fail, but he never stops. And she said, the thing about Batman is when you live by that moral high ground, yes, he's like unstoppable and nothing can slow him down. But when you live like that, you live alone and you're miserable. And I was like, that is exactly how Batman is. And it was one of those

moments where I was like, fuck you for ruining my Batman man. A metaphor. Like right, you can't do that. She dialed it. And I was like, every iteration of Batman that I've ever experienced, every book, every film adaptation, every anime, he is, like, deathly alone. And, you know, people are... But that's what Batman is his core, right? Is a lonely boy, right? That's it.

And I was like, and to me, it was like, that's the hero you want to be. But I was like, wait, he is. That's what comes as the curse. Like, even Superman can make friends and this one... But the curse of being perfect and driven like that is you've got to be alone. So if you want that perfection from people... that you have in your life, good luck. Because you're going to be on an island by yourself.

All by yourself. So there's my scorpion. With some cool gadgets in your belt. But you have a bad-ass utility belt, an awesome cave. So maybe worth it. A car that's like, would get you laid. So you'll be alone. You won't always be alone.

You won't have any relationships. Right, but you're going to get laid. You're going to laid like a madman. Tell me again, because you said it earlier in the conversation, but I have the memory of a fucking gnat. How you went from being a novelist to being a comic book writer, which I think would give lots of years. young 10-year-old versions of adults now,

and a giant comic book boner. So explain it in more depth. I want to know, because it's kind of magical because now you're navigating all of these worlds, right? You're writing thrillers. You're writing comics. You've done a television show.

You've done these children's books that are kind of, I don't know what you could. Inspiring, yeah. Yeah, inspiring and uplifting. And also kind of a children's version of nonfiction, but with like, I don't have a fictionalized element, but like heightened elements because I just kind of like draw these

these teachable moments out of these people's lives and inspire people. So, so what's the deal with you? Excuse me, you're like, obviously a polymath. And so the,

I mean, you're polymatic within your, within your, you know, chosen field. And I think people tend to specialize. Like, Stephen King is not doing comic books.

And he's pretty proliferate. He actually did do one comic book. Yeah, he did do one comic book. But yeah, he doesn't, you know what? I don't know,

I don't know, I don't know if it's just like a generational thing. I can't tell yet. For me, I just feel like, you know what I love? I love a good story. Stories are not what did happen. They're what could happen. And I love what could happen. And you also done historical nonfiction.

Right. I know, I do lots of stuff. I mean, yeah, I do, I've done advice books and self-help books. Like, I've done so I, but to me, sometimes you have a story that's going to be for kids, and sometimes you have one that's going to be for thrillers, and sometimes you have one that's going to be in a comic book for it and it would be like if i said to you i should you can only go see big budget action movies the rest of your life but then you even like them you can only see super right only if they're well done but right if you're well done right or a superhero move right right you can only

go see superramers as much as you like them oh if i said that's all you can see you'd eventually hate them i would right if you love independent film and i said all you can see is independent film the rest of your life to me i i someone i someone described to me as a mistress but i always you know and i think that's really actually the perfect way that's really actually the perfect would describe it, but it's like keeping a mistress. Like if you, the grass is always greener. Well, the excitement of the mistress is that it's the other. I mean, that's what makes it so exciting. When I sit down creatively, when I leave, so I hear I am as a thriller writer, if you said, all you're going to do, Brad, is write thrillers the rest of your life. I mean, again, that's a good life.

Right, right, right. You can't complain. Right. But to me, I eventually want to put a gun in my mouth. I'd be like the same thing every day. Like, why would I do that? Right. And so to me, once I leave thrillers and I say, you know what, I'm going to go do a comic for a little bit. The first thing I want to do when I do that comic is I'm like, wait, wait, where's my thriller? I want to do that. And so I come back to the thriller recharge. So to me, jumping to a different genre is it makes me fall in love with the original genre that I'm in. And that's just how my life has worked out is I feel like, if you say, what's my biggest fear in my career, it's that I'm eventually, and here's the story. So one of the biggest writers in the country,

One said to me, oh, I'm on, I think it was like book five of this character that he was writing, one of the biggest characters in the country and said to me that he's so bored, he hates it. Oh, no. And I just was like, my biggest fear professionally is to become that, that this thing you love so much that you hate it. And so to me, the very best way to do that is like, go fall in love with someone else and you'll realize what you got. Right. And jump. And then when you leave and go to the other side of the fence, you come back.

So I do that as like a creative recharge so that every book I write, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to write this one. And that's the only way you're going to get good work. How do these things come to you, says I used to asking a very naive question about process for a writer? Like, is it magical to magical ideas? No, magical ideas do not fall from the sky. No, you have to hunt magical ideas like a killer. You know, usually I can trace an idea to a single moment, like I can be, you know, hearing. I am or, you know, whatever it might be. I'm in the National Archives and they take me to this

secret room and I'm like, I'm using the secret room. That's chapter one. With the new book, it was actually interesting. It was the first time I did have, it wasn't a magical idea of falling from the sky, but I did wake up and kind of like, not a full dream, but in that like hazy thing you do in the morning where you're just daydreaming. And, and listen is the first page. So I woke up and it's the first lady's in the White House and it's five o'clock in the morning. And she basically, first lady I've ever met, they just want normalcy. They just want their life to be normal again. And this is her moment. She's a gardener, so she goes down into the dirt, and she puts her hands into the dirt, and she smells the mulch. And out of the dirt, she finds a severed arm. And she has no idea how the arm got there, no idea how they got past security, no idea that in the arm's fist is a puzzle. And I wake up, and I don't have all that. That's obviously, that's the book. That's the opening chapter. But what I have is I woke up in this haze, of, wait, a buried arm.

That could be really cool. I could put a mystery around that. But then for process for me is I take that. And listen, that's fiction. I make it up. That's it. To me, the fun is I then take that and I go to the Secret Service and I say, okay, pretend you were really investigating an arm that's buried in the White House.

How would you investigate the crime? Secret Service agent said to me, the first thing I'd do is I'd redecorate a room in the White House. I'm like, what does that even mean? And he said, I would take some paint off one wall. I put some wallpaper on another wall. and if I can do that, now I can take the first family out of the White House for three days, put him at Blair Street across the street, and now I can do my investigation.

The press has no idea what I'm doing, and no one's the wiser. And I'm like, that sounds like something you've done before, right? And he said to me, think of it this way, Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Obama have all renovated rooms during their presidency. You wouldn't believe what's been done here in the name of home renovation. Wow. And then I'm like, thank you for my next chapter. There's chapter two and three and four. So to me, process is always about giving the,

the research to someone who really knows this world and ask them what would happen. And they would probably have a much better idea than you would ever have about, you know. And listen, and people always like, how do you meet a president? How do you ask us so-and-so? And I'm always like, if someone called you tomorrow and said, you know, I'm doing a thing about a TV host and I'm writing a character and I'm not going to ask you about who you hate or don't like on your show and I'm not going to ask on any of that crap, I just want to know what my character should be like and what a typical desk? Like, can I just like for 15 minutes, have 15 minutes your time? Just about every person on the planet would say okay. Yeah. And that is how I get my plots always, is I start, that's how I start it.

And then somewhere in the middle, I'm obviously making my own path. And I know the endings, but I always go to the expert in the field and say, help me out, tell me what you think. And that's where the plot comes from. Right. You have this book that's out right now. And you have another book that's coming out in a completely different genre, but I am Lucille Ball. You're young. You're very young, actually. And I wonder about polymathy and being prolific

because I wonder about it in my own life. And you also... Listen, you have that career too. I hate to break it to you. I will, thank you for... Yes, you do. I mean... That's important information to have. But I mean, I think about it a lot about

like the the importance of staying like engaged creatively and not running out of like fuel or road. Do you know what I mean? And you've done so much that I wonder, this is going to, but I panic still. Do you? Yeah, okay. I mean, you don't panic about like what's now. Oh, I'm in a constant state of panic. Of course. I mean, that's why I drink to stuff my feelings.

Right. I mean, you have to. I mean, I think if you, in fact, I'm convinced that if you feel like it's always going to come for you, that's like the moment that the roadrunner and in, in, and coyote, you know, he goes over the cliff and realizes when he looks down. Right. That he's going to plummet. Right. That to me, if I ever get to that point where I say, I've done it and it's always happening, like, one, someone should hit me with a book. And two, like, I'm creatively finished. Yeah. Because I'm no longer willing to look at myself, ask myself our questions, use my own life in the book, you know, I, you know, I think like you have to have that fear to kind of, you know, jump off the trapeze. That's what makes it so daring. And what makes it so daring. And what makes it.

it makes it so amazing. And if you don't have the fear and it's just another rote thing, it's just going to be another rote thing. And that's when you're going to hate it and be like the guy who says, I hate this now. This is a terrible question. Terrible. That I'm so excited for you to ask it. Oh, you'll die of boredom. Do you get, and I don't mean blocked like you're in the middle of a book and you can't continue, but like blocked like you don't know what to do next? You mean in terms of a brand new project? Yeah. No, I usually, because to me, the moment I start working on a project, all I want to do is work on something else. Right.

Right. The moment I start, I'm like, oh, I'm going to do this. I'm like, wait, but what about that? Because it's a great procrastination, right? You always want, I mean, it's like love. You want the one you can't have, right? You go into a bar. You want the guy who basically comes over and Mila says, hey, baby, or you want the one that's ignoring you.

Like human nature says, take the one you can't have. You know, it's Karen Aiken and Ananda Bresloff. Right. Although we know now you could have had an end of this. It actually kills me a little bit. but I I mean, I think I always struggle for it and I always want to struggle for it

and I, you know, that to me is okay, I can make peace with that. So, and then at this point in your life where you've kind of got, you know, like bodies of work in these different genres, bodies of work in these different styles, what haven't you done that you want to do? I would love to do young adult. I know what I would want to do for young adult.

That's fun to me. And listen, we've done TV, but listen, we all love to do the movie. The movie is just a fun thing. but I don't, I put zero time into that because to me that is like chasing the white whale. Right. Like it just is not a good use of, that's just pure ego. Right.

And I'd be a liar if I didn't say that like, you know, my wife is not picking out what she's wearing the Oscars next year. Right. But like, to me, you got to, you know, not focus on the ego side. So I just actually stay. Like, if that happens great, that's icing on a great cake. But I would love to do a young adult thing that would, you know, if I had the physical time, that's what I would do. I'd probably do more comics now, but the kids' books have really served that purpose. And right now we're getting letters from little girls that say,

dear Brad, last year, on Halloween, my daughter, instead of going as a princess this year, when is Amelia Earhart, thanks to your books. And I'm like, how do I not do more of those? Right, right, right. Like, that to me is like this driving, like I was like, I've never in my wildest narcissistic dreams would ever guess that one. And that to me is like, that's taken a lot of creativity. creativity bandwidth away from other projects I might do, but for the very best reason. I mean,

we're building a library of real heroes for little girls out there. Right. And how big will that library get? My favorite part is I honestly think it's endless. I think that there are just so many heroes out there. And listen, there are famous ones that you can do, but my goal is eventually I want to do regular people. You know, we get stories now of people who are like, my grandmother was the first person who ran the fire station in my hometown. And she was the one who, who gave up her life so I can go to college. Like, I'd love to eventually tell those stories because I think we all complain and bitch and moan about like, you know, there's no heroes.

And I think we're all starving for heroes. Like my belief is actually that's why superhero movies are big now is because we're starving for heroes in our culture. And I love the fact that it's endless. There are heroes everywhere if you just actually look. Yeah, that's transformative, transformative people doing extraordinary things. And I think that is interesting that we are kind of, I think maybe feeling powerless socially or culturally or politically

in a way that we've never felt before. Oh, I think if you look back, if you really want to get your nerd on here, so here's my theory. If you look back historically at who, what heroes were popular during the Great Depression, they were heroes,

like Flash Gordon was most popular along with Tarzan. And it was Great Depression. That's why they called it Great. It was like depressing and like people wanted to escape. They wanted to go the 25th century into the jungle and nothing was about here. Because here was too scary.

And then World War II starts encroaching on our shores, and America gets scared. And what happens at that time? A giant hero in a red, white, and blue outfit named Superman comes along to protect us and sells a million copies. And why? Because we're scared, and we need someone to protect us. Now, right after 9-11 happens, remember the first movie that broke through the public consciousness, when everyone said, oh, there's going to be no more happiness and no one of our irony again, was Spider-Man, was one of them.

And why? Because we were a country terrified again. Right. We were scared and we weren't a country that was like a bunch of Superman. We were Peter Parker's. We were like, we were, you know, beaten and we were insecure and we didn't feed. We weren't the strongest guy in the class anymore. And we saw that vulnerability. And suddenly now every superhero movie, even the crappy ones make $100 million.

Why? I think we're starving for heroes. I do. And if you look even at the election when Obama ran against McCain or even in the last one, we weren't, you know, one guy was the great hope to half of America, the other fought the bad guys as a P-O-W with his bare hands. Right. We weren't electing politicians.

Right. We were looking for saviors. Right. And we were terrified as a country because of what happened in 9-11. And so to me, I think although anything that you love and are passionate about, you can usually trace it back to an amazing fear. Mm-hmm. So that's at least my armchair psychologist for the day.

That was going to say that should work its way into the next advice book, which is that the fear is a powerful motivator. Listen, isn't that you're in my career right here? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm terrible. My career is driven by the fear of having nothing like my father. Like, having, like, truly being where my dad, I remember one time, like, I went to buy socks and he couldn't pay for them. And I remember watching my dad not be able to buy me that.

And it just broke my heart. And I'm, you know, I was just terrified to have that. Yeah. And I just, so to me, all of it, it may be like, yes, creativity, yes, to inspire kids, yes, to do those things. But at the base core, when you peel it all away, it's not because I'm some genius or amazing guy. I am driven by the fear of, like, I don't want my dad to, like, I don't want to be struggling like he struggled. Right. We started with your dad or relatively close to the beginning.

And you were talking so much about, like, the behavioral patterns of your grandfather and how they could have passed very directly and very powerful with your father to you. But your father was the person who chose to break that chain, even though he wasn't able to break it fully in a lot of ways. He had these behavioral impulses that he couldn't control, and they affected him both in small and large ways.

Do you see any of your father in yourself? You know, so you're good. So here's my craziness. Here's my craziness for all. Yay! So I'm working on my dad's eulogy and when I can't find in my dad is myself. and I'm writing this and I'm just like

but like what does it all mean? Like am I just reporting here's my dad and he lived and he died and he did this and it's over and I'm like it can't be that's not the story and my friend of mine wrote me an email because he's like I don't want to bother you

and he said he told me this story which I mean of course so I remember when I was little and I'll tell you one story about my dad my dad when I was little these guys and came and they were like the cool kids

And I was probably 10 years old and they were probably 13. And they were like, come on, Brad, let's go play. And I was like, okay, let's go play. The cool kids want to play with me. This is going to be awesome. And they took me, we went to, like, this garden behind the apartment where we lived. There was just, like, little, like, kind of garden that had, you know, shrubbery and things like that. And they threw me into the bushes.

And it was one of those bushes. We used to call them itchy balls, but, like, those things you can put in someone's hair. And basically, you can roll it in someone's hair and it won't come out. Oh, burrs. Good. And the itchy balls. They put the itchy balls in my hair and I can't get them out and I go crying up to my dad. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm screaming.

My dad comes racing down and he's like, where's that boy? And he grabs the boy by his neck and lifts him off the ground. And I remember standing behind my father in this rage. And part of it, of course, happy that he's taking revenge, but the other part terrified that he may kill this boy in this moment. So now fast forward, my dad dies. I'm writing his eulogy. I'm sitting at my desk and an email pops up and it's my friend who writes to me and says, Brad, here's one thing I remember about your father. And he tells me this story about me. And he says, a couple years ago, we were at a baseball game at a Florida Marlins game. And these

bullies that were 13 or something years old started picking on your son and his friends. And I was sitting with you and they were sitting like three rows in front of us and you lean down to these boys and threatened to cream them that if they didn't if they were you know if they didn't leave the boys again that there was going to be a major problem and he's like in that moment for all the culture you have in your life that was not you know the novelist brad melzer that wasn't the you know the guy who's really common sweet brad melzer that was pure brooklyn born stewie melzer Brad Meltzer. And I read that and I was like, oh my gosh, there's my father in me.

Like that is a moment. And I didn't even think of because I don't think of those moments. But when I explode like that, that's my dad's. You can call it a gift or a curse, right? But like, there's my father in me. And I know that I have that there to, you know, again, that there's nothing like righteousness to light you on fire. Right, right.

to propel and to maybe not inhibit, but there's some other word, there's some really elegant word that goes with propel. Because sometimes you know, righteous indignation can be very powerful, and then sometimes it can get you set on fire. Oh, you, self-immolation. It is self-immolation. I was just the words out of my mouth.

That is it. There's nothing, and listen, that's the world we live in, and again, greatest strength, greatest weakness. It is just how it is. We are the yin and yang in our own universe as always. Yes. Okay, it's time for self-inflicted. Okay, yes, self-inflicted wounds. So I've been debating actually as we've been sitting here, but I'm going to go with one that is, I've never told before.

Awesome. This is an awesome one. So this is the night, the first night. And again, because it's just as we were talking, it just fits thematically with my dad. So this is the first night I ever get drunk. And David Silverman's having a party in high school. Parents go away. The party goes crazy.

And the house is wrecked in a really inappropriate way. people. I would never ever wreck someone's house. But we, you know, this was the keg and they had the beer and this was the night I was going to get drunk for the first time. And we get drunk and at three o'clock in the morning for reasons that we will never understand, someone wakes me up and says, you want to go take Howie's car for a ride. Oh no. And I don't even know why they said Howie's car. I don't know where Howie was. It was one of our friends who was there. And I'm like, I wake up at three o'clock and I'm like, let's go. I'm ready. So we, so one of my friends said, go for the ride. And then I say, let's go to the mall and let's do 360s in the mall parking lot.

That's my contribution to this bad idea. And everyone's like, yeah, that's a great idea. We're going to go to the mall and do 360s. I used to work at the mall and scooping to Hagenas ice cream. And I'm like, and I know the mall, you know, we can go there. There's plenty of room for us to spin out. And now we're riding around the mall. Now, Howie's car was it was this old car that had a, but it had a digital spedometer, but it was broken, so it always said zero. And we're going around the mall, and we're racing around, which is a giant circle around the mall, and we're racing around, and it's raining. And the spenometer says zero, but I say to my friend Doug, who's driving. So it's me and my friend Doug in the front seat, my friend Adam

and a kid named Smitty in the back seat, because every bad story in high school needs a kid named Smitty. Absolutely. And so Adam's idea was to take the car. Doug's idea was, I'm going to drive. My idea was, let's take it to the mall and do 360s, and Smitty's sitting in the back. And we're going through, and we're going around a sharp turn. And as we're going around the sharp turn, I say to Doug, we're not going to make this turn. We're going too fast. We're not going to make this turn.

And he's like, we're going to make it. I say, we're not going to make this turn. At which point, Smitty leans forward in the front seat, I can still see it in slow motion, leans forward and says, take it. Oh, no. And Doug hits the gas. Now, the wheels, because of the rain, lock. And now we slide.

And we're sliding toward, there's basically a curb there. The car hits the curb, goes over the curb, and now there's actually a trench where there's a body of water. And we are racing toward the water. So now we, the car stops short of the water. We all get out. The car has two flat tires, the two front tires go flat, but we look around and there's no other damage but a little dent. in the car. And we survive and we're like, oh my gosh, we've made it. We've done okay. We're alive. We're alive. We got through it. We take the car back. We call AAA. It's now about five in the morning because

I remember the bakers at the public's bakery, the baking trucks were coming. And they were waking up and baking bread. And we could smell the good bread in this moment as this disaster. Triple A comes, gives us two new tires. We drive the car home. Howie, to his credit, God bless him, says, you know what, I'm just going to tell my parents that I went over a speed bump and the car got dented and someone backed into me is I think what he was going to say. And so now he takes the car to his parents, says, someone backed into me or whatever he told him. And his mom says, now tell me the truth a day later. He says, what are you talking about? She goes, I just took your car in. And what you schmucks didn't realize is that whatever you did, the entire axle of the car cracked. The car was six inches

lower than the entire car should be. We basically was so drunk. We got into a clown car. We didn't even notice because we were so insane at that moment. and I told my father, like this is the moment now, I got to, now, and it was $800 a person, had to come up with the money. Like how it was going to take to me so much money. My family, so much money. And I knew I had $100, but I did not have $800.

So now I got to go tell my dad. Yeah. And I go to my father and I say to him, this is what I did, and I shouldn't have done it. And we got drunk and we took this car and we smashed Howie's car. And I need $800. And my dad looks at me and he says,

whatever you did in your life, it's never going to be worse than I was when I was little. I'm giving you your $800, don't tell your mother. Now, for two weeks, Howie's car goes into the shop. It comes out of the shop. He picks it up that day at, like, lunchtime.

He drives it to school, and as he leaves school in our now, you know, $3,200 repaired car, a car runs a stop sign, hits his car, the car flips over, and is totaled, and the car is done that day. The crazier part and the part that haunts me more

is that Howie Robinson a decade later dies in a car accident. Oh, my gosh. And is the first friend that I lost, and I will forever associate my horrible, awful moment with that. Wow. That was my disaster. That's a pretty layered... It was layered, yeah.

And I don't want to say spectacular, because it ends with your friend dying. But if you take the word spectacular, it just mean of spectacle. Oh, no, no. It was, it was majestic in its awfulness. Like, it was really epic in its high school. It was high school movie worthy at the time. And your father was in there.

And my dad. And so when we were talking about dads the whole time, I felt like you needed to have my worst moment to be involved to show you my father. That was wonderful. You are on a big, fat book tour, and you have a million things to do. And I'm really grateful for all the time that I got with you because there was a really great conversation. I could never have listed all the things that you've written, but I will do that. And Nausee, I'm both in the open of the show and when I post online.

And this was so lovely. Loved it. Thank you so much, Brad. That was Brad Meltzer. That was such a great conversation. I think sometimes you think you, listener, Vanguard, Army, or me, maybe I'm just talking about myself about the voices in my head. Hey, I wonder if a conversation with a novelist is going to be riveting. Well, it was.

That wasn't it? And I also think that it's not just quote, quote, celebrity that is compelling. I think if anybody is not just at the peak of their career in terms of success, I don't think that's always instrumental, but at the peak of their career in terms of our own personal satisfaction in terms of pursuing their goals in an aggressive way, that is going to be an interesting and meaningful conversation. And I don't care if the peak of your shit is opening a coffee shop or going back to guitar lessons or learning how to ride a bicycle at 55, which it's time, buddy, it's time to do that now. Get out there and do it. And don't

take no for an answer. You know what to do. Come say hi. Come follow me, friend me online. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. Why do I always stop in the middle of this list? Like, I can't remember the 18 platforms that I'm on. I mean, there's just the 18. Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, there's some other thing. Google Plus, I'm not on LinkedIn anymore. I discontinue my LinkedIn account, guys. I don't need you to endorse me for, like, alpha numerical filing. I just realized that was not a tool that I needed to avail myself up. But come say hi. Come say hi. Come say hi. Go to Grow on Guy.com. net, click on the little envelope, send me a letter for the all-listener question show. Come at me, bro.

Come say hi. You guys are the greatest. You know you're my army, and you know you are a delight to me every day, every letter, every time you write me. I delight in your words and in your support and in you opening your ear holes to this show. So thank you for doing that. I adore you, and you make all of this deeply and wonderfully worth it. And as you know, I'm under a particular amount of penurious pressure.

Penurious. That's what I'm going with. sure this year with the addition of criminal minds, but you can watch all of the shows, including the talk during the day, criminal minds on Wednesday nights, Archer's comes back in January, and so does whose line is in any way. So thanks for your support, and you guys are awesome. Get out into the street and kick massive ass. Talk to on the next one.

Late. Girl on Guy is a production of Hot Machine, blowing shit up since 2009.