Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Ryan sits w/ 29-time Emmy winning news anchor and author Michael Cogdill

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

In this episode of the Radical Company podcast, Ryan sits down with 29-time Emmy winning news anchor and author Michael Cogdill. Michael is an incredible storyteller and wonderful interview as he is transparent about his father's struggle with alcohol and what formed him as a journalist and storyteller. Ryan and Michael also discuss the ever-changing media landscape, politics in the news, and how technology is changing the news business. Don't miss this episode! Links from this Episode: Michael's Book She-Rain - https://www.amazon.com/She-Rain-Story-Hope-Michael-Cogdill/dp/1600377025 Michael's Website - https://michaelcogdill.wordpress.com/ If you enjoy this episode please check out the rest of our episodes on our channel. Please share, review, and subscribe! Radical Podcast is always looking forward to meeting both aspiring, and grounded professionals across the country! Slide Ryan or Radical a DM on Instagram and let's make it happen! @radical_results @ryanalford www.radical.company If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

Hey guys, super excited about today's episode of the Radical Company podcast. I sat down with 29-time Emmy-winning WFF anchor Michael Cogdell. Michael is a writer, speaker, great storyteller. We really got transparent with Michael's background, his love for storytelling, stories about his father, his past, and a little bit into politics and news and the news cycle and some of the technologies changing news today. It was a really great episode. Michael is a wonderful storyteller, which you'll hear in his voice, and we really get

into a lot of topics, especially around his new book coming out. You'll hear more about that on the podcast. Hope you enjoy it. Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford, host of the Radical Company podcast. It is holiday season. We are in the thick of it. I'm late on present buying, but excited about my guest today. Thrilled. Growing up in Greenville, I've lived in New York and done different things, but there's been mainstays in this market for me, and it's just a real pleasure to have. I'm going to give you a lot of titles here, Michael.

Currently, officially the lead anchor of WYFF, Michael Cogdill. Great to have you, Michael. I appreciate it, man. 29-time Emmy winner, journalist, anchor. And you know what? You know, reading, already knowing you, feeling like I know you, I think everyone in this town feels like they know you, but they don't really know you.

Got it. That's not the case, yeah. But, you know, doing research for this podcast and kind of getting to know you more here recently personally, which has been great through Bridget and others um storyteller I think when I read through everything that you do both literally and figuratively which we'll get to the books um in a minute but I think that's what kind of I landed on I think you're a storyteller. You do it on the news. You're writing books. And I think that's why you've resonated and you've had the longevity and the popularity and everything

because I think you're a great storyteller. But I do think that's where I landed and I want to get into that a little bit. But man, just excited to have you on and just want to get into it I want to monitor that well you know I know there's we have a lot of people that listen locally of course you know being a podcast that's produced out of Greenville of course we have local we've got national people that I know will love getting to know you a little bit better but I'd love to just start. You know, we could talk all day, I know.

But for those that may not, like me, watch all the news every night, let's just start from the beginning a little bit. Right. You know, I'll say the Cliff Notes version because being a storyteller and once they start hearing you talk, I know they're going to be just dialed in. But let's start from the beginning. I mean, you know, from Asheville, North Carolina, which is a soft place in my heart, having family that grew up there and in Fayetteville

and knowing that area well. But let's start there. Yeah, Weaverville, North Carolina is where I was born in Asheville, raised in Weaverville, tiny little bedroom community just northwest of Asheville. Very much an idyllic town, but not an idyllic upbringing. My dad was an alcoholic. He was the town drunk.

I talk about that all the time because I have to submit the darkness in order to gain the light. My dad became sober when I was 17 years old and evolved Ryan into the most beautiful man I will ever know in my life. I miss him to this day. My dad's transformation was nothing short of a miracle. And I'll never forget eulogizing him in that little town. I stood up there and looked at that audience and I said, look at this church. It was a full church, It was a full church, First Baptist Weaverville.

And I said, in that box was the town drunk who became such a leader in this town, such a leader in this church. He drove the church bus. He was an usher and a leader in my life. He came out of nowhere, right, out of Haywood County, North Carolina, one of seven children, went hungry as a child in the Depression. He had to go to the YMCA there to take the dignity of a bath, and that marked my father forever. He became the most grateful man I will ever know

and gifted that to my mom and gifted that to me. And to this day, to this day, I live in the, not the shadow, but in the light of my father's gratitude out of that little town. That's amazing. And so grew up there. So obviously rough beginnings to a bright future, I would say, for where we've landed. You know, talk a little bit about that journey and becoming a journalist and getting. What was the hunger?

There has to be you know I think there's this innate curiosity in everyone right but I have to believe it starts every great journalist I know there's some amount of either natural storyteller which I think you are right but some kind of innate curiosity but I'd love to hear what what led you into into this space there's a sort of a site that one catches as a child, I think, if you want to do this job for a living, of the world. And I remember my dad had a fourth-grade education, but he absorbed newspapers.

He was one of the most well-read people I'll ever know. And he taught me to appreciate the news. I remember sitting with my father, watching Vietnam stream into our home. And of course, when you're a kid, you think, I'm going to Vietnam. This is never going to end. And I was beyond curious about it. And would watch those correspondents talk about the Viet Cong, talk about the Ho Chi Minh Trail, things that were so foreign to so many in that little town, it would seem,

but it really wasn't because TV news brought it home, made it move, put it in motion, made the heart get into motion. And that's what set it off, watching the likes of Harry Reasoner, Howard K. Smith. And the first person I ever interviewed in TV news, and I was an intern, was Howard K. Smith. Scared the living hell out of me. He's a wonderful guy. He came into Asheville to give a speech. And he's the first, his is the first face into which I ever stuck a microphone. He was very gracious to me. Somehow that's,

I don't know, synchronicity. I don't know. Right. So UNC Asheville. Studied media journalism. I did. I started out at Wilkes College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, a little college up in the mountains. Went to Georgia. I was in Georgia with Herschel Walker. Loved it. Did very, very well there, but it was too big for me.

I just didn't find home in Athens. Still love the university. It's a great place. And came home to UNC Asheville. Where did my tail end? So where do your allegiances lie, you know, being here? You know, so Georgia, Clemson, USC, do we have an allegiance in football at all? My allegiance is education. My dad was determined.

Again, he had a fourth-grade education, and he said, you are going to have what I never had. My dad used to say, you will get above your raising. You will get above it, but you will always know the way back to it. He said, don't get above your raising. My dad said, to hell with that. No, you will. You will get above your raising.

You will know the way back. And he taught me that. It sounds like you're in line with it, with the way you speak of your father now. Wonderful man. Beautiful man. 29 years, 29 M.E., excuse me, 30 years at YFF. Right. So let's talk a little bit about the YFF years.

I mean, there's a lot of them, but, you know, but I just, but it's amazing. It's funny, and I told Michael this in the pre-talk before the episode. I felt, and Michael still looks very young for his age, I believe. Thank you. Because I thought we were pretty close in age, and we're not that far apart. But I felt like I grew up watching you and with you and, in a way, being from Greenville and seeing you on television and looking at you as a pillar in the community. But talk about what's it been like at YFF?

I mean, it's been just a great run. It really has. I am surrounded by greatness in there, Ryan. It is a wonderful family, not only of journalists, but of human hearts, human souls. They care about the audience. They care about one another. Carol's like a sister to me. Most of those Emmys were won with a single photographer, John Hendon,

my fellow good old boy from western North Carolina. I have 29 Emmys. He has almost 40. Wow. We've traveled a lot together. And most of those stories were one, not on the 20 seconds about a felon on the TV news. It was about someone doing something extraordinary.

They're long forms. We either deal in 20 seconds at a time, or occasionally we get three, four, five minutes. That first Emmy was one on a piece that was six minutes long. That's an eternity on TV news. And we had to fight for it. It was a piece on Grandfather Mountain, Hugh Morton, and his dedication to Mother Earth.

And the stories that move the heart, that's what I'm interested in. That's what I'm interested in. That's what's won those Emmys. What's it like being on the news, on the news, you know, locally in one town for 30 years? I mean, I've talked to other, you know, anchors and different things. It's like you become a persona on the air.

And, you know, you can't walk around town, you know, like without being recognized. I mean, what's it? Can't go anywhere in the world, really. Yeah, I know. It's got to be for you. I've been recognized in Mexico, London. I mean, people from here go all over the place. Most certainly.

But you have to walk and live here every day. That's right. What's that like? I mean, you know, I love to just know that perspective. I mean, does it get old? No. Okay. It really doesn't.

99.9% of people who come walking up to you and recognize you are wonderful. And you have an opportunity, here again, I come back to my dad, to minister to someone who may be in a darkness that no one can see except that person. And they expect those of us who are on TV to be, I don't know, some sort of imperious, high and mighty. And no, that's not, I mean, that may be out there, but it's not here. My dad would come climbing out of his grave if I ever did something like that. When you can bend down and lift someone up with a few words, with a kindness, taking a picture, something like that, then you're getting somewhere in this business. It's a ministry. It is a bona fide ministry.

What's the strangest thing that's ever happened? Oh, man. We've got to get radical a little bit. How much time do you got? Just like in meeting somebody? Or just, you know, maybe someone running into you or anything. I remember being in London. Okay.

And it was the day that Parliament was opening. Okay. And, of course, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, speaks at the opening of Parliament. Just happened to be down there near the Thames, and all these horse guards start coming by. There's like a half a million people down there to see the Queen go riding by in her horse-drawn carriage. I got to see Her Majesty the Queen, Prince Philip, and all that. And in this crowd, and there must have been half a million people down there toward Parliament.

Hey, Michael. I hear behind me, hey, Michael Cogdell. I am not lying. There was a woman from Salisbury, North Carolina back here. The back of my head. We got the queen of England rolling by. I don't even recognize the back of my head.

But she did. So it's one of those things you can't go't even recognize the back of my head, but she did. So it's one of those things you can't go anywhere without. It's like, you know, watch your mouth. Take care. It's funny you say that. You know, I talked to, you know, Nigel Robinson, and I was kidding him about that. Like, you know, you have to, you're always always on you when you're not on it says so in

the contract yeah yeah like and like i mean it's like and i think about that in my day life i think i'm a good person like i'm not like you know swearing all day or stealing things or doing anything above the law but like man having that microscope kind of on you, I'm sure, I know you're used to it now, and I know you're a stand-up guy, but that would be exhausting a bit. You've got to be yourself. And it is exhausting on a level, right? Because it's like everywhere you go,

you're going to make eye contact eventually with somebody who's going to know you from the news. And it's kind of like turning around a battleship. Once it stops, but it doesn't really stop, it's going to drift for a while. So once I'm finished with this career, the same guy is going to be out there doing something else, and he's going to be the same as he was the day he started it, ideally better day by day.

But, yeah, there is no escape. No escape. Not that we want there to be. Right. We really don't. But at the same time, we're all human, and sometimes you want to let your hair down a bit, right? Oh, it's happened.

It's happened. I remember giving a speech at a church one time, and I let a word slip, and, yeah, the phone rang before I got back to the TV station. Oh, my God. Yeah. But, yeah, I have not only a great respect for the people of this market and the people we cover, I have a great love for them. And I think those are, you know, Bob Dotson from NBC

lives in this market now. And guys like that will teach you the love of the person, especially that person who is in, is having the worst day of his life. And those are the people we deal with very often. We either deal, you you either having a really good time, you've won the presidency, or you're having the worst day of your life if I'm showing up at your door. It is peaks and valleys. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's never the in-between. The in-between's not interesting, right? That's true. And something about, I don't know, like teenage boys and some girls will say, hey, Michael Cogdell, say my name on TV. I'm like, look, most of the people I talk about are either going to the Who's Gal or the Boneyard. It's not pretty if it's coming out of my mouth most of the time.

It's like seek to avoid having your name come out of my mouth on live TV. This is true, unless you're winning the Nobel Peace Prize or something. That's exactly right. Exactly right. And a lot of those Emmys were won off the paradigm of gloom, going down the road of people doing so-called ordinary people doing extraordinary things. But the vast majority of people, as I've said, are terrific.

And they make me a better man. Things are changing so fast. Real know, with media, social media, television, radio, and now everything on the smartphone. Right. I mean, talk to me a little bit about your perspective with where, you know, media's gone. And it seems to me, you know, being in advertising and marketing and all that, we kind of have to be on the cusp of it, just like you do in media. Seems like the pace is even picking up quicker towards moving in these directions.

And it's less about one channel being less or more important and more just the number of channels. But I'd love to know your perspective on the last 10 years or so of where media's gone and how you feel about it. This thing right here is a TV station. It's not just a camera. It is a station. This is a broadcast device. And I mean broad. It doesn't just telecast. It broadcasts.

When I started, no one could see. Alvin Toffler didn't really see that coming. The futurists, they didn't see where we've come and how quickly we've gotten there. And now you've got Billy Joe Jim Bob. It's like, hey! That's just the way it is. And the best and the worst of people,

the people in the best of times and the worst of times can reach us through this thing the way we can reach them. And it can begin to skew editorial decisions. We don't let that happen. Others do. I don't think people saw partisan media coming, which is a great divide in this country. I have a lot of opinions about that. I work in the middle.

We have no agenda. David Brinkley said something, the great David Brinkley. Look him up, kids. I grew up with him. He said, there is no objectivity. And I completely agree with him. And somebody out there is going to say, I see I told you. But no, there is no objectivity. David Brinkley said, if we are honest and we are fair in our subjectivity and our humanity, then we're doing this well. People say, but you're not objective. No, I'm not. You do not want me objectifying your son or daughter if some great harm has come to him or her, that's not my job to objectify. My job is to be fair, to be honest, to be centrist, but mostly to be compassionate.

We are caring journalists. That's what we are. That's what we seek to be. Is, you peeled one back for me now. I wasn't even going to go here, but you opened it. You opened the door. I consider myself, I stay out of politics for the most part. It's just not good for business. So do I. I probably am more independent. I voted both sides depending on what I believed in at any given time. So there's that.

But, man, I watch three-fourths of the news, and no matter how I personally feel about the president or a certain side, being an educated person and just trying to watch it objectively from my end, it sure feels one-sided a lot of times lately. like we're we're telling we we've never quite gotten over who's president it that's the way it feels as someone who's very independent didn't actually vote for him you know but just trying to be objective I don't know and it just it feels like a lot of subjectivity now it feels very partisan some of that goes to this thing yeah you know we have you know governance by Twitter now we didn't we didn't have that Richard Nixon didn't have a Twitter account. George H.W. Bush didn't have a Twitter account. Bill Clinton.

And when you have that, the news cycle is so filled with the opinions of political leaders. We used to get them in sound bites in news conferences. Now it just flows. It flows in the middle of the night, the middle of the day. It never stops. And that's where a lot of that comes from. We also have more channels, there's more access to content than there ever has been. But what we seek to do is we present the facts as they are. This is WIFF, where I'm talking about. And we let people decide There is no slant

There is no agenda I would even say Watching the local news with YFF I've never felt there was a slant I appreciate that I never have, ever But the national media, I do It's on one side or the other

You have Fox, you have MSNBC And never the twain shall meet And are these guys Is it as I do. It's on one side or the other. You have Fox, you have MSNBC, and never the twain shall meet. Are these guys, is it behind closed doors like someone like me that's trying to be disobjected and watch it? Are they on the national side? I know you don't have privy to every conversation,

but is it as slanted as it seems? Are they talking behind closed doors? It just feels like everyone's wearing their party on their sleeve now, and it's supposed to be the news. No, it's not. At NBC, the big three, NBC, ABC, CBS, no, it's not. Yeah.

They don't have sort of these skullduggery sessions where everybody goes in a room and says, let's figure a way to pillory this candidate or pillory this leader. Right. No, there's absolutely none of that. But when it turns ugly, when somebody commits an act that calls us to expose it, we're going to do it. And there are people that—motivated reasoning causes people to follow some things over a cliff, some people over a cliff practically. And that's been the case for centuries in humankind. Somebody's always going to object to the truth about someone else.

That's just the way it is. And if I didn't do this for a living, Ryan, I still would not lead with identity politics. Life is about addition, not subtraction. It's about addition, not division. You will never see identity politics on any of my social media. And I urge people, stop doing it. Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. Don't talk about, it's such a divisive culture we're in right now,

and you've got your identity politics out on your sleeve all over the place. Take it down. Look for some way to unite and not divide. Look for some way to show some compassion especially to somebody you disagree with uh instead of you know pounding tables for one side or the other yeah i mean i've probably read 10 or 15 article you know the last couple days my favorite one was reading about michelle obama and george w bush and like the relationships that they've forged the type and that was like refreshing yeah like people want to see that W. Bush and the relationships that they forged. That was refreshing.

People want to see that. I'll give you another one. Who eulogized Strom Thurmond? Do you remember? Who flew in? What major political figure in America flew in? I want to say it's on the tip of my tongue because I remember who

but I don't. Short of having dead air here on our podcast, I'm going to let you in. You will have no dead air. That's really not a threat with me, sadly. It was Joe Biden. Okay. Joe Biden, one of the Democratic lions. Yeah.

And you have the former Dixiecrat, the Republican lion, Strom Thurmond. Carol and I were up live watching that funeral. There wasn't a dry eye in the church, Ryan. The two men loved each other. Biden stood before that church in tears over his friend, Strom Thurmond. That's the way it used to be up there. And it still is in many respects. And I believe that will return. That will come back. That sense of, I may disagree with you, but I will not be disagreeable with you. We may go on the floor, we may debate, we may hash it out.

But at the end of the day, we're going to seek some way to do some good for the lowest of the low, the smallest of the small of this country around the world. Yeah. America's not going to seek some way to do some good for the lowest of the low, the smallest of the small of this country around the world. Yeah. America's not going to stand for it much longer. No. No, it won't. It's at the tipping point. Let's turn the page.

Yes, sir. Literally, figuratively. Author, man. I mean, children's books. This was a side of you that I had heard about but didn't know. Is it really him? Yes. It's the same Michael.

Yeah. You know, stoic, you know, anchor of YFF. You know, and I really, where did Joe go? Very moving. I'm excited about that. So am I. You know, having children and feeling like we don't talk about some of the darker sides, but yet the love and stuff.

We'll get to Joe, but let's talk about she ranked I mean that was was that the first I mean I know you've written first yeah yeah but talk about that side of your career and my my dad my dad my grandfather on my mother's side was an opium addict in the 40s opium killed him people say and have that back that you sure they did paragoric was everywhere, and he was hopelessly addicted to it. It got him when he was about 36 years old. So I never knew my granddad. I heard sort of that bifurcated set of stories. He's a beautiful man, or he's the devil of hell. When he was sober, he was great. When he was on that stuff or

longing for it, jonesing for it, he was awful. And I wanted to dig him out of the ground and compel him to walk around with me. I was mad about it. I'm still mad about it. He cheated me out of himself with that stuff. And so I started writing a story. I don't even know if it was a story at the time. It was just a, I don't know, kind of a carrying on about the man and the darkness and what led to that. What was it? What was missing in him that he was trying to fill with opium? And you don't have a story until you have a girl. And my mother told me the story of crossing a schoolyard to give half a sandwich to a little girl who was made fun of.

crossing a schoolyard to give half a sandwich to a little girl who was made fun of. In fact, so much so, she was so shamed that she would eat with her face in a bag. And the bottom of that bag was a soda biscuit, the kind of thing that most kids today wouldn't feed to a dog. And she was so terribly afraid that somebody was going to see that that she would eat with her face in that bag, as far away as from the other kids that she could get very very poor when i heard my mother talk about that this is my mother's doing my mother was mother theresa in that moment as a little girl on a schoolyard in the middle of nowhere in western north carolina i had the girl i had mary elizabeth

and once i had mary elizabeth i had a novel novel. And it's like, how do you write a novel? One stroke at a time. One 4.30 in the morning session at a time. And suddenly there it is. Stephen King says, if you invent the characters, they'll show you the story. And that's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. It's a story about a love triangle.

People far ahead of their time in race in 1929. It begs the question, what would have happened had one of the great fortunes in American life come to a brilliantly educated, very talented African-American girl who's secreted away from the worst of the world. And then you set her loose on the world when she's 19 in 1929. And there's a little old lint head boy from Marshall, North Carolina, who ends up intersected with her life. I love it is where does I've always been curious about this. I mean, I think we all have stories in our minds and things like that, but where does that flow from you? Like, where does the ability to put words to page and thoughts to paper,

you know, I've always been amazed at that ability. We're all inspired by somebody. My inspiration as a novelist is the great Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain. I've met a lot of people. I've interviewed a lot of people. There's the president of the United States. And I was, you know, awestruck. I mean met a lot of people. I've interviewed a lot of people. There's the president of the United States. And I was, you know, awestruck. I mean, it's the presidency that picture was taken in the cabinet room that we're looking at right now of me interviewing Barack

Obama. Was that roughly 10 years ago? About 12. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when I met Dr. Frazier, who, of course, won the National Book Award with Coal Mountain right out of the gate, I couldn't speak. It's like, you know, you start beating each other. The book is so elegantly drawn. It's just such brilliant prose. And I would pick that thing up sometimes in the middle of the night and be working on She Rain and just try, try to climb, try to rise to meet that every day, every day. And sort of some of the other greats as well. That's where it comes from. Children's books though. Where did that, where does, where did the, that come from? I started writing Ryan Cracker the Crab on a

cardboard box in the garage, having seen a young man in a wheelchair on the beach on Hilton Head. having seen a young man in a wheelchair on the beach on Hilton Head. I mean, almost in the water. And it's very, very easy, you know, to get tired and get down. You get yourself in a certain darkness, even in a place of great light like that. And you look at that and you think, what in the world am I doing sitting here feeling sorry for myself when he's out there? This boy had never taken a step, a solitary step, never stood up on his own his entire life, you could tell.

And so I started writing a little story on a cardboard box, and one thing led to another, and my now ex-wife took it and ran with it, and that led to Where Did Joe Go? And Where Did Joe Go? is based on a true story of a lady who had adopted a horse, and her daughter fell in love with him. And they thought he was old at the time. She said, we thought he was ancient. And the next thing you know, he's lived to the –

she was a little girl, was a very small child at the time, had children of her own. This horse is still alive. And the vet finally said, Miss Thompson, it's time. We're going to have to put him down. And they were so heartbroken over it. And they begged the question, those we love, where do they go?

Where do they go? I'll tell you where they go. They go right within us. And they stay there. We harbor them. We remember them. When we love them after they're gone, after they're not physically here anymore, we still love them. Death is no match for love. That's the point of it.

I have to ask, for She Reign, did you do an audible version? Did you read it? I've not. I've not yet. I will. You need to. You have the perfect, I haven't read the whole thing, there are a few passages, and I hear you, you know, I hear you speak and you have

you know great auditory ability but you do but you're a great storyteller like where we started um but you need to read it i'd love to hear you read it i'm gonna do that with the children's books too you know my hero among children's writers and you know everybody says seuss and all that and he was great but my hero is is Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree, the guy who wrote for Playboy magazine, lived in the mansion for a time. This big, shaved head, beard, rough-looking dude who writes a story that in its own way

is about a great darkness, a great lonesomeness, the worst of human beings. It's about avarice, it's about greed, it's about wanting too much from someone. And someone gives and gives and gives and gives. It's a wonderful allegory of Christianity, of so many faiths. And there it is written for children. And I think the best children's books fall like gentle rain into the hearts of the child within every adult.

When you can do that, when you can make it do that, then you're getting somewhere. I love it. What's the plan for where did Joe go? I know we're moving down the path here. Anything we can talk about? Around Valentine's Day. It's illustrated by a very young man I met.

My God, how long has it been 13 years ago his name is George Pachepsov when I met him Ryan he was arguably the most famous modern artist

in the world selling paintings for a quarter of a million dollars and he was nine years old I watched that piece you sent me

and I could not believe that woman walks into the store you know who painted this he's a kid nine year old kid you know burping into a microphone I felt like he even had I know his parents I was believe that woman walks into the store and, you know, painted this. He's a kid, a nine-year-old kid, you know, burping into a microphone. I felt like he even had, I know his parents. I was like that.

Were from, I forget where they were from. Ukraine. Ukraine. Yeah. But I felt like he had like almost an accent. Like I couldn't pick up where it was. Oh, his mother. His mother really does.

Yeah. And. Georgie. Yeah. Unbelievable. And so he's now a 26-year-old Harvard grad. He has illustrated this book, and it is masterful. And I asked him.

He's got over 40 commissions in queue right now, you can imagine. Each one of them is probably $400,000 or so. So he's got all this sort of – this young man has done $9 million in charity work. Wow. And he's 26 years old. And I asked him, I said, are you willing? I sent it to him. He fell in love with the story, and he said, sure.

So he's done a masterful job with it. It's going to be beautiful. My business partner, Rachel Allgood, is putting it together right now. We're very excited about it. So launching in April. Launching in April. Hopefully around Valentine's Day. Oh, excuse me. Valentine's Day.

Where will people be able to find it? We're going to do as much direct-to-consumer as possible. I am enemy to almost no one in this life, but I am enemy to the book business as it's being done. I think it robs authors every day. Part of our company is designed to take great writers and compensate them for what they do and not steal and not steal from them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, the, the publishing industry, as we know it in New York city is a mess. The old, the old saying goes is dead. It just hasn't lain down yet. And, and we're trying to, to lift up something new. And then saying goes, it's dead, it just hasn't lain down yet. And we're trying to lift up

something new. And that's the whole point of this endeavor. Great publicist involved. George will tour it. I will tour it. And we hope to set off something with that children's book that will lead to the relaunch of She Reign and She Reign as a motion picture. And we think we'll be the first ever to own the book and the film under the same rubric, under the same brand. Yeah, that's rare, if ever. Has it ever happened? I don't think it's ever happened. Yeah, I was trying to think on top of my head.

I know it's always separate. Yeah, I got the rights back. You can't buy She Reign now. Stay tuned. Okay. We'll relaunch it. And there are reviews out there. You go to Goodreads.

You go to Amazon. I'm very gratified, very grateful for those reviews. I think every one of them was five stars on here. People are very sweet. I'm just seeking to. I'm after you, Dr. Frazier. I'm never going to catch up, but coming on. So a couple things as we wind down.

Favorite reporting story or interview ever? Oh, man. One of my favorites was a lady who lived not very far from where we're sitting right now, Mildred Glass. I was dispatched to interview her in apartment 911. God's got a real sense of humor. She lived in Scott Towers, you know, federally subsidized housing. It's not there anymore. On Augusta Road, right? Augusta Road, filled with the elderly, the poor, the infirm. And that lady was making, out of a kitchen about the size of this desk, literally,

150 meals a week. She's cooking for 150 people in upstairs, downstairs. And I asked her, I got there. We were giving her the Jefferson Award for Public Service. We should have given her 10 of them. I said, Mildred, why? And she said, you don't get it, do you, boy? There are people in this building, in these United States, who are doing without.

They're going hungry. Some of them are veterans. If I know that and I don't do something about it, I feel responsible for it, and I don't want to feel responsible for something like that. She had two shopping carts liberated from a Bilo store. I don't know. They forgive.

And she would push one and pull the other with that cane. She was 69 years old when I met her broken back knocking on doors. Did you get up? Time to eat. Time to eat. And, you know, Samaritan's Purse, they did the Operation Christmas Child, little boxes, and they would send them to Bosnia-Herzegovina

during that conflict all over West Africa and West Greenville to children who will do without at Christmastime. The last year Mildred was alive, Ryan, she did 300 of them. Wow. And each one of them had a homemade doll, a handmade doll. As she used to say, they're ugly as hell. Every one of them had a homemade doll, a handmade doll. As she used to say, they're ugly as hell. Every one of them looked like Lyndon Baines Johnson, but they were beautiful. They were beautiful. And she was beautiful. She is one of my absolute favorites. One of my all-time

favorites. I love that. It makes me feel inadequate, but I love it. Me too. The day I walked through the door of Mildred's apartment, I yeah um what's the future i mean what you know i mean storytelling man you know that's what you do and it is the deeply human story that resonates you think about think about films that that you walk around with schindler's list List, Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge, Smokey and the Bandit. On some level, this reaches human beings. It either reaches the depths that make them better or the depths that make them have a moment off the mat, a moment of humor, a moment of just forgetting about, you know, what they brought into that theater, what they brought to the book. And it's funny to put,

you know, those movies together. But I think they're relevant together because they give us escape. And sometimes it's not just escapism in the traditional sense. Sometimes they allow us to escape the worst of ourselves and escape into gratitude, escape into I can be a better human being because I've witnessed this human being. Be thus. That's what the future, ideally, holds for me. Yeah, I will always work. I'll always be, you know, busy at something like that. I mean, I love, there are a lot of things in life I love to do. love the caribbean i love to sail i love to work out but that's going to be my vocation forever as long as i'm around i love it is where can uh obviously whether it's yff the app streaming that if you're not in the market you can check you at yf wiff right online

they can find you find your telecast and other things. But where can people keep up with Michael Cogdell? How do they find you? My blog, which is just like what's it called? Throwing a Bash for the Written Word. If you just Google WordPress and my name, it's there.

So WordPress, Michael Cogdell. On Instagram, Facebook. Instagram, Facebook, the usual places. Usual places. And these are places, Ryan, where we talked about identity politics and that sort of thing. These are places where I want people to find my faith without religiosity. My faith in God, my faith in the divine within us all. I want it to be expressed there.

That's what I seek to do without the division of religiosity. I go to Westminster Presbyterian Church. I'm an active member there. But I don't let the divisions of religion get in the way of faith, ideally. And that's one of the things you'll find there. And you'll find it in the writing, too. I love it. Powerful, Michael.

I really, really appreciate you coming on the podcast, sharing your story. You know, I'm honored to say, you know, anchor, storyteller, friend. Bless you, brother. Back at you. Back at you. This is Ryan Alford.

It's been a real pleasure to have Michael Cogdill on the podcast today. You can find us online, radical.company. You can also find us on Apple iTunes, Google Play, any of the whereabouts that you normally find your podcast. Go check out Michael. Look for the relaunch of She Reign and Where Did Joe Go? Where did she go? Where did she go? Where did Joe go? Excuse me. Where did she go? Where did she go? Where did I go? Yes. But where did Joe go? Really moving and really excited about this episode. Thanks so much, and we'll see you soon.