The Dana Show with Dana Loesch - Absurd Truth: Texas Divorce Drama

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Dana breaks down the story of Texas AG Ken Paxton and his wife filing for divorce after rumors of adultery amid his Senate Campaign. Will this be another John Edwards scenario? Danny Boy O’Connor from House Of Pain joins us to discuss his new book on the efforts to maintain the oral history of The Outsiders, his purchase of the legendary house, his House Of Pain days and more. Thank you for supporting our sponsors that make The Dana Show possible…Angel Studioshttps://Angel.com/danaStream films that reflect your American values and claim your premium member perks.Allio CapitalDownload Allio from the App Store or Google Play, or text “DANA” to 511511 to get started today.One Skin https://Oneskin.coHealthy skin at the cellular level. Enter promo code DANASHOW to get started today with 15% off.All Family Pharmacyhttps://Allfamilypharmacy.com/DanaDon’t miss out on the BOGO Sale! Hurry—this limited-time offer runs from July 4th to July 13th only.Relief Factorhttps://relieffactor.com OR CALL 1-800-4-RELIEFTurn the clock back on pain with Relief Factor. Get their 3-week Relief Factor Quick Start for only $19.95 today! Byrnahttps://byrna.com/danaGet your hands on the new compact Byrna CL. Visit Byrna.com/Dana receive 10% off Patriot Mobilehttps://patriotmobile.com/DanaDana’s personal cell phone provider is Patriot Mobile. Get a FREE MONTH of service code DANAHumanNhttps://humann.comFind both the new SuperBerine and the #1 bestselling SuperBeets Heart Chews at Sam’s Club!Keltechttps://KelTecWeapons.comSee the third generation of the iconic SUB2000 and the NEW PS57 - Keltec Innovation & Performance at its best

Dana Lashes Absurd Truth Podcast, sponsored by Keltec. Like Sands Through the Hourglass, so are the days of the United States. They're always hedging, you know, because in the back of our minds, we weren't raised with the certainty of mailness that, you know, kind of the confidence that young men in their 30s have, which they haven't earned, they just have it. We don't start feeling that and owning that until our 50s and 60s. at a time when we start to be treated as invisible in society. What is she talking about? Who the hell sits down and is like, I'm going to devote an hour of my life to the Michelle Obama podcast.

Everybody's got a podcast these days. Jiminy Christmas. Welcome back to the show. That's what, what is this phrase? What did she say? Sorry, certainty of maleness. What does that even mean? What does it even mean?

we weren't raised with the certainty of maleness. Like what is uncertain about it? I think they mean fatherless homes, maybe? No, that sounds smart. Certainty of maleness would be a father in the home, right? I mean, that's what you would think, but that's probably not what they're talking about because that sounds intelligent.

Oh. Who pays her to do this? Who's like, I want to have somebody who's actually like, not even mid-opra, sit here and just run about the certainty of maleness. Like, what is the audience for this? Who sits and listens to that? It's, she just, it's her delivery. Her words aren't any different from Kamala Harris's. It's just her delivery. Her delivery's better. And so it makes you think for a minute, wait a minute,

maybe it's not word salad. Nope, it is. It is. It's word salad. It's like the Southern Baptist preacher speaking technique, you know. By the way, you can't get mad at me. I was very Southern about this, where you, you know, you are dramatic. And you can say, you know, you deliver things like that. It sounds authoritative and like you really know what you're talking about and very important. And you could just be reading, you know, Kraft Mac and Cheesebox. And it's, you know, sounds like really impressive. I just, yeah, we, I'm pretty sure we were raised. I mean, if you weren't raised with the certainty of maleness, then you were brainwashed. Abusively so. If you had no concept of the certainty of maleness, what is that?

I don't even understand what these words mean when she strings them together like this. Like you didn't know that men existed or you did but you still questioned it? That sounds like a you problem. That's not a societal problem. That sounds like a you being confused problem. You being raised wrong problem.

That's what it sounds like. I don't know. Is this her own podcast or is she a guest on someone else's? It's hers. Yeah. It's the IMO. IMO, which means in my opinion, I think. Right.

but also I'm Michelle Obama. Oh my gosh. That's so bad. That's so bad. Oh, that's right. Yeah. You know that they thought that they probably focused group to then. Oh, but.

We weren't raised at the certainty of maleness. Yeah, we pretty much were. Why is there all of this questioning over it? I mean, it's science. Why are there all these questions? Also, how are they so certain they're against toxic masculinity or masculinity in general if they can't also admit there is and be certain of masculinity and maleness? I don't believe in toxic masculinity and maleness.

but I absolutely believe in toxic femininity. It's the major, the third and fourth wave major patriarchal society. I mean, I'm going to tell you, Jens, nobody dislikes them more than, you know, the chicks who are not bad, okay? Like, nobody dislikes them more. Our friends over at Keltek, Keltek makes some, some very good stuff. And you guys are very familiar with Keltek. The PR 57, as you guys know, this, it's a very interesting pistol. This is the rotary barrel pistol chambered in 57. It's 40% lighter than any other 57 that's on the market. And it's inspired by real world data and defensive need. So super affordable, 399 MSRP, but you also have a unique top loading design. It replaces traditional magazines with stripper clips for a slimmer carry profile,

20 plus one capacity, low recoil for ease of use. It's really great everyday carry, quickest and easiest field strip available as well. It's the new Keltec PR-57 rotary barrel pistol chambered N-57 lighter than any other on the market and you can find it at Keltecweapons.com. Innovation Performance, K-E-L-T-E-C-Weapons.com. Tell them Dana sent you. Everybody heard the Texas story, right? Oh, boy. So in Texas, you got John Cornyn, who's a senator, not a lot of people like John Cornyn because he's been there for a long time. And to typically when you tend to be in a place for a long time, when you tend to be there for as long as he's been there, you kind of don't, he's, his record is kind of haunting him a little bit, a little bit, a lot of bit. He's, you know, he's a lot of people think he's a rhino. Some people think he's ineffective. Some people think he's an effective rhino. I mean, he's got baggage, right? So it doesn't help. And he's, but he's been running, I mean, I don't even know how long. He's been in, he's been in office for forever. He's been. He's been. running unopposed essentially in the Senate for for some time well until now so you have the attorney general

of the state of texas ken paxton who has filed to run in the primary to challenge corin and he's been so far he's he's put up a good challenge the white house hasn't waited in yet in it and and corin was meeting with potus apparently earlier this week according to punch bowl news paxton's already tight with with POTUS because remember, Ken Paxton was up there in New York when Trump was going to that New York witch hunt, which was a really stupid trial, by the way. That was the dumbest case ever. I can't even believe it was prosecuted, but here we are. It's New York. And he was up there. Remember, he was in the background, like he was a part of like the hype squad that went out there. And all of this, you know, yes, I'm sure he believed in the rule of law and that it was being

subverted in that case. But I also think that he was looking out for, well, I'm going to be running against John Cornyn at some point. So I want to make sure that I get that coveted Trump endorsement. So he's challenged John Cornyn, and it's already been, I mean, it's barely started, and it's already so nasty. Well, then yesterday it got nastier. Dun, don't, done, in days of our Texas Republican politics. This could, I mean, you're talking about a senator who could be working with all of you. So his wife, Ken Paxton's wife, Angela Paxton, by the way, did they ever respond to you? No, not yet. I mean, it's been a day. they're not going to

I'm not going to grill him I mean I like what Pakistan's done but I'm not an idiot you know I like what he's done but I know that there's a lot of people talking about a lot of issues with him anyway his wife came out and said basically according to all the documents

that had been reviewed and publicly reported on that he committed adultery I don't know if he committed adultery again past the 2018 affair that he had and he came out and talked about it in the press and I guess they got over it and their marriage continued but she filed for divorce yesterday and that was one of the that was cited in the documents that were made public was she was

basic she's accusing him of infidelity so i don't know if it's if it's based on that 2018 affair or if it's like something new that's one thing that wasn't made clear but it's already you can imagine how that's fitting into a nasty republican primary so here's the question and i don't mean i'm not trying to diminish anything I just want to get right to the point of the issue. Does it matter? Nobody wants to talk about this on the Republican side of things. Doesn't matter.

Does marital infidelity matter in elections? Is it meaning do you think it's an effective weapon? Is it effective when it's weaponized against someone? The answer to that question is yes. It is effective when weaponized. It is effective when weaponized. But I don't think it matters very much. Now, there is an argument.

to be made that, hey, if he's going to do this to his wife, he might do this to the state of Texas or the country or whatever. I don't buy into that necessarily so much. So I don't look at this as something that may automatically kills his chances to become senator, but I think it is an effective weaponization. I don't know if it is an effective weaponization. I've seen it happen. I don't know if it's mattered since Bill Clinton. Well, I take that back.

It kind of, no, no, I don't take it back. It hasn't mattered since Bill Clinton. And you can bring up John Edwards. But John Edwards, if you remember, didn't get in trouble because he had an affair. John Edwards got in trouble because of how badly he tried to cover it up. When John Edwards screwed around on his wife with that Ryle Hunter, he paid his campaign surrogate to pretend that he was the one having the affair. and then when she had the love child he basically

had he paid this guy off just to claim that baby as his own and I mean that guy was married and had to deal with that in his own marriage and he was using campaign contributions to cover it and then there was that rich heiress bunny melon whose money he was taking to pay for all of it so he got in trouble

for campaign for like all kinds of fraudulent spending and all of this that's why he got in trouble and the cover up is usually always worse than the crime for the most part in instances like this. And so they weren't mad at him because he had an affair. They got mad at him because he was using Bunny Mellon's money to pay off people in his campaign to pretend that they were the ones having the affair

and that his love child was actually theirs. If you remember, they got caught on that CCTV footage at a hotel that somebody sold to the National Enquirer. National Enquirer actually got to report some journalism. And nobody else would touch the story and they reported on it. And that's how it went gangbusters. And then he hit it and they were trying to say, well, National Enquirer reported on it.

so it's trash. Yeah, that's guilt by association. That doesn't really work. So it came out. And then he went to court and then his wife was sick. She had cancer. His wife had cancer, terminal. Oh, my gosh. It was just a giant. All of that, all of that contributed. But that being said, if it had just been an affair, I think he would still have been Democrats golden boy. He was, they were, he was going to be the one that they had before Barack Obama. Barack Obama was not the next one after Clinton. It was John Edwards. They wanted John Edwards. He was. He was. He was. was the VP pick for Carrie. They wanted him. He was the golden boy. And they thought that they could, you know, they thought they really had it made, but turned out, you know, they didn't. So I don't know,

because it didn't really, a lot of people talked about it with Trump, the first term, but I think the thing that made it difficult in talking, because I agree with you. And I've said before, I'm like, well, if you can't, you know, I, you know, it's a judge of, it's a judge of character and that if They can't stay true to their wives. Can they stay true to the voter? However, again, I think that's not the way to look at it. You've got to look at the currency of this. Everybody has a currency.

Some people want public adoration. Some people want power. And if that currency is being served, they will be faithful to that currency. They will be faithful to whatever gets that currency. More so maybe than they would ever be within the bonds of marriage. And that's one thing that you can always count on and predict with certain politicians. So I think that's in some cases makes it. different. With POTUS, for his first term, it seemed like everything was already resolved. And I think

that's what made it harder to stick. Like he was on good terms with his first wife, on good terms with his second wife. They all seemed to be reconciled to how everything went down and they were fine and everybody was getting along. None of his kids were Hunter Biden. Nobody was on drugs and running out and party. And you didn't see any bleary-eyed photos of any Trump's kids pouring out of the club at two in the morning, hopping into a car all drunk as skunks. You didn't see any of that. And I think that, kind of, I think that tempered any criticism. This is what's different, though. This is what's different.

So I am with, I, I just think that, I don't know, I just think, it's just weird. It's just the whole thing. I, with Paxton, there's a lot of rumors. And there are, there are a lot of rumors. There's a lot of different stuff I, that I've heard over the years. I don't know. I've never like put stock in any of. I don't pay attention to any of it. I just know that there's a lot of whispering and, you know, all of that. Whether or not that hurts him, I think depends upon the negatives that John Cornyn has. And also how are people, how badly do they want to get rid of John Cornyn? And how does this play out? I think some of this is going to be predicated upon the nastiness of their dissolvement of their marriage. So if it gets nasty, between them is that that could potentially overshadow his Senate bid. And then that, yeah. Yeah, I agree with that 100%.

So, I don't know. That's just kind of like the big thing with it. I'm not going to like report on it breathlessly. Like it's TMZ. However, I also think that for people who bring up questions as about fidelity and they say that that may be a mark against a candidate. for them, I don't think that you can get mad at those people for saying that either. I mean, you're going to be like, you're going to pretend to be family first or you're going to be family first. You're going to pretend to be principals first or not. I think it's just, I think it exposes people as grifters when they get mad at other individuals that they claim are on their side for espousing observations that everybody held 10 years ago that everyone kind of agreed on. And they think, yeah, that might be a, that's a character. That's a market against somebody's character. Believe me, I get, you know, being Machiavelli, probably better than most of these people do.

However, what I don't like are people getting attacked because they say, well, yes, you shouldn't be cheating on your wife, or yes, you should, you know, keep it within the bonds of marriage, whatever. And I see that happening all over social media. If that's not something that you use as a standard of value, then that's fine for you. But don't look down or attack somebody else that's done probably more than you have for the conservative cause because they disagree. If you've notice dry skin or changing texture that comes with time, you're not alone, and that's exactly what one skin is here to help with. Healthy skin starts at the cellular level. Taking care of your skin isn't just about looks. One skin's topical supplements make it easy for you to do something practical

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And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It's time for Dana's Quick Five. All right. So, there was, see, two people facing, oh, no, I'm not doing that one. Oh, we're not doing any of those. I don't like those. Now, there's a billboard in Cleveland that are drawing a lot of criticism because they say, I buy, it says I buy crack houses and your house is trash.

people are literally that's what it says is your house trash and then it's like a guy in glasses and so it's drawing some criticism one of them one of the billboards reads yes I buy crack houses people are upset over it

there's a lot of backlash from community members and city officials one particular sign has been taken down but all the others have remained in place local real estate investors say the signs go too far somebody goes what was your point I didn't understand well the point was that they want

to buy your crack house. That's the point. The guy wants to purchase your house of crack. Or if your house is trash, he would like to buy your trash house. I mean, I think that's kind of the point, right? It seems pretty direct. Isn't there the whole point of why they're upset? It's a crack house and a trashy house. A trashy crack house. Rarely are the crack house is bougie. You know, I'm just saying. Like, I don't even understand what, what is, this is the sign. And then these investors are like, I don't, what is the point I don't understand? Well, he wants to buy your trashy house in cash. That's what I get out of it? Yeah. Do you know that your suitcase is 58 times dirtier than a public toilet seat? I believe it. Who else wipes their suitcase down every time before and after you go after you go through security?

And then when you get home? Just me? Yeah, it's 58 times dirtier according to a new study. And the wheels obviously are the dirtiest. So you, you know, like they found like staff, a bunch of stuff I can't say and grody stuff on these things. Don't lick your wheels Don't lick your suitcase wheels Nobody does that But I think about it now I bet some people do I've wheeled my car

Or my suitcase into the bathroom before So imagine Rolling around on the bathroom floor That whole I don't take my suitcase back into my room When I get back from traveling Until I wipe the wheels down Really?

I always have Like the little like wipes on me Always And I don't take it into my house I can't say that for everybody else In my family But I don't take it I am that person.

I, the handle. I, mm, no, no, this makes me so sick. This is a travel and leisure story, so, ooh. Let's see, they're going to bed, they're going to ban lead ammunition for hunting and shooting in England, Scotland, and Wales. Yeah, they are. It's restrictions on shots and toxic metals. What do you think the lead comes from? It comes from space.

Where does the lead come from? Comes from the planet that you're on. How is it all of us? If it's in the planet, how is it all of a sudden toxic? You know what? Lead's toxic if you get shot with it. So just don't do that. We got a lot more on the way.

Do you like the outsiders? I mean, there's some like really cool stuff that's happening on a friend Danny Boy O'Connor. He's doing some really big things in Tulsa. He joins us about his new book next. Stick with us. Welcome back to the program. Dana Lash with you. We're at the bottom of this third hour.

And I got to tell you, so you guys know Simple Mind is one of my favorite groups ever. And New Gold Dream is one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. And I played this like bumper music at some point. And I got a message on Instagram. And my jaw hit the floor because it's Danny Boy O'Connor who messaged me on Instagram. And it was like one of those things where, I mean, this guy's like a legend. And he was a part of like a legendary like musical moment like or era in the United States. I'm like, oh my gosh.

And then he all. And then not only does he. also love that song, but then you realize that he loves a particular author that made a major impact on you when you were growing up and a story that, like, resonated through the generations, and I'm talking about S. E. Hinton and the outsiders, which that literally created an entire genre in publishing. There was no Y.A. anything before Hinton came out with her, with her books. She had fought, I mean, boom, boom. She was a teenager when she wrote this book. And she had a bestseller. She was, like, famous out of the gate, very few authors

get to enjoy that, not just the notoriety, but knowing that there is such widespread appreciation for their work as she did. Well, then, I was reading more about it, and I saw that Danny Boy O'Connor really was so invested in the story. Like, most people get memorabilia.

You know, they'll get, like, a signed copy of the book. You know, maybe if they're lucky, they might get, you know, copy of the actual screenplay. He got the house. He literally went. He was in Tulsa. bought the outsider's house, the actual craftsman home where they filmed it. So I think I can safely say without any debate that nobody is a bigger fan of the outsiders

than Danny Boy O'Connor. And I doubt that there's a bigger film fan anywhere than Danny Boy O'Connor, who joins us now via video. My good friend, Danny, God love you. I'm so good to see you. So good to see you to get to talk to you. It's been a long time coming. And I definitely remember reaching out to you.

You have fantastic choice in bumper music. I said, I think the only one who comes close was the late great Art Bell. We had a very eclectic tasted music. Some of it I didn't think I would like, but you hear it long enough and you'd learn to love it. But you and me, I feel like if somebody found my iPod, they would probably return it to you because we like a lot of the same stuff. And for a dude who grew up doing hip hop all his life, people have survived that I'm like into New Wave or, you know, the cult or Sisters of Mercy. or all of the stuff that I like. That's really what I listened to full time and have done since day one.

But yeah, that's so good to meet you. And I love your show. And yeah, it's an honor. I'm a big fan of yours as well. And the fact that I just had my musical taste affirmed. I'm like going to forever keep that. It's going to be my epitaph. I wanted to talk to you about your efforts in Tulsa because I also love the outsiders.

And I think I read this thing about it where it was talking about how libraries and teachers really helped maintain the popularity. of that book through, you know, multiple generations. And that's how I first read it in school. And it was a non-condescending way of talking about the differences between people and a search for inclusion. And it was, and I think it was so non-condescending because it was written by a teenager. And I think this book has impacted everybody in some way, but you most significantly, because when you were in Tulsa, I read that you had somebody that was taking you around

to look at where they were filming the outsiders. And you saw this house and you ended up buying this house. Yeah, so some of that is correct. I went on tour and we played Tulsa in 2009. We played the famous Canes ballroom. We had never played as House of Pain, my original group, but we played it as another group called the Coconosa, which was an amalgamation of House of Pain and a couple other groups.

And it was that tour that I ended up stumbling upon Tulsa. And then I realized, oh, my God, this is where they filmed the outsider. So I went looking for locations. Never in a million years that I think I'd buy the house. But for the next five years, God had a funny plan, and I kept making my way to Tulsa somehow. And at year five, after the fifth year of coming here, I realized that if somebody doesn't step up and do something, this house might get torn down. And it was going to. Went and found the owner.

It was really hard to find her. She was living in Florida. She inherited the house, and she had tenants that were eight months behind in rent. And so we told her we would be interested in hearing her. offer. And when I first found it in 2009, they were asking $42,000 for the house. I ended up, I'll cut to the chase. I ended up paying $15,000 for the house. Wow. Jaw drop. Couldn't believe I was the new owner of the outsider's house. But when I got here to Tulsa and saw what I actually bought, I realized it was a fair deal. But that's where my life story changes because when you're

six foot six in an alpha male, for me, it was hard to ask for help. But when I got here, I had to really admit that I didn't know what I was doing and I'm not the guy who's like I'm not the contractor guy or not to build you things. I'm a creative director but I'm not like in that area and I ask for help and I tell you what Dana the people of Tulsa put me on high

surrounded me they cut the lawn they fixed the roof they painted whatever they were so invested in it yeah and and I decided you know what I'm never going home and home was Los Angeles California for the last 48 years. And after six months of working on this project, I said, I'm moving to Tulsa and I've been

here for eight years. I love everything about it. The people here are great. And there's so much opportunity here. There's a rich music and film history here, but there's a budding film industry growing on here right now. And Leon Russell is also from here. So there's a church studios right down the street from our museum that has also been restored into an incredible museum. And it's a handful of things that are going on right now. When I first got here in 2009, you couldn't say all of the things that I can name out that are popping right now in Tulsa. But right now, Tulsa's on fire in the best possible way. And I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. And you're helping to put it on the map. I want to tell everybody about Danny's new book,

The Oral History of the Outsider, Stain Gold, how S. E. Hinton's novel and Francis Ford Kobler's movie became cult classics and launched today's Hollywood icons to superstardom because there were, I mean, it was an amazing, I know it was done like on a shoestring budget because I know when Coppola was making this movie, he was, you know, he was coming out, he already had the Godfather's success. This was coming out in 83.

But he was able to put together this amazing, like a dream cast of who you would want to play in this. The Brad Pack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amelia West of Es, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macho, Diane, Leigh Garrett.

I mean, everybody guys went on, you know, and took the 80s over by Storm. So, yeah, it's an incredible cast, but nothing beats the author. An incredible director, too, Coppola, I'm a huge. He's one of my favorites. I mean, goodness. But I told Susie Hinton when I first met her, I said, there's nobody has had me more in fear to meet the person. And I've met everybody growing up in Hollywood that you could meet. I said, Susie, I almost canceled on our date because I was, I just didn't think I had it in me to do it.

And she said, but we hit it off straight away. She's a fantastic woman. She wrote the book when she was 15 and a half. And she donated to this museum, too, not to interrupt you, but she didn't she donate to that? She's the number one supporter financially and just of giving us the blessing. But her story is really what hit home for me because, you know, she wrote that book at 15.5. She failed English, D plus and creative writing that year. The book has never been out of print in over 42 years.

it sells every year there's a new crop of outsiders fans the reason it becomes a movie is because a librarian noticed a tipping point with her students she said Danny the boys would read any the girls would read anything I give them but the boys n'uh and she said I gave him this book and they devoured it so she said I'm going to have a hundred

of them write to Francis Ford Coppola of all people and ask him to look at this book and perhaps turn it into a movie I love that story I said why would you do that I said he was the godfather one and two in apocalypse now at that time she goes was, yeah, but he did such a masterful job staying true to the black stallion that I thought he'd be a shoe in. And so there's so many courses of miracles that had to happen for this book to turn into a movie, the movie to turn into a museum, and now the museum to turn into a Broadway musical,

which just took four Tony Awards and is, you know, sweep in the nation. It's going to kick off here in October at the Tulsa P. I love that. That's amazing. and growing and growing. I love this story with Coppola. He said that when he got, I read an interview where he said that he got this big,

thick packet and all these kids had their signatures. And he said, I looked at every signature, and you could tell they were all individual, like these little signatures. And he was like, I had to read it after that. I had to. He got on a flight. They sent it to the wrong address in New York.

And then his assistant brought it back to L.A. And he was getting on another flight to go to New York. And he said, there was nothing to read on the plane. So I dug in that packet. And I started finding all these letters. By the time I got off that flight, I knew we had to make this movie. And he did.

he fought to make it happen in Tulsa. And I know, I don't want to give all the mysteries away of the museum. But I know that there was a mystery involving the director's chair. Because you have Coppola's director's chair. It's at, I know you have tons of stuff at the house. But you have that chair. It went missing for a while. Well, yeah, it was stolen on the set of Rumblefish, which is also an SEC hidden book.

Yep. And, you know, Coppola also did that movie. Came out the same year. Two, yeah, two weeks later, after wrapping the outsiders, he went right into Rumblefish, also filmed in Tulsa. and I guess somebody experiencing homelessness at that time decided they needed a chair and Coppola everybody broke character to go save his chair

and he said guys get to we're here to make a movie if he wants the chair let him have it so a wonderful man named Gary Johnson a Tulsa retired Tulsa PD guy had found the chair two weeks later behind a liquor store a guy was living there and he was playing games on the train tracks they thought he was trying to kill himself so he was there to a victim he said you grab your chair wait where'd you get that charity? He's like, that's not my chair. You want that chair? So he said, Danny, I had that in my man cave for 34 years until you got to town. He said, that was going to Fahala with me. But since you, you're doing this incredible work, we want to donate it to you. And so that began my journey. And then I started to build an incredible collection. And there's nothing that comes close to our collection of not only her books, movie memorabilia from wardrobe to cars in the movie. And now I collect all of her work. And the dream is to do. an S.E. Hinton Museum.

That's amazing. And I think that definitely deserving. I don't know anybody that has so many hits at that young, like right out of the gate, was writing bestsellers. You did. We're talking to our awesome friend, Daniel Boy O'Connor and the oral history of the outsiders, his new book, the early orders you can do right now, Barnes & Noble, 25% off today's last day. You were so faithful to the restoration of this house.

I was reading about how detailed you were getting. Like, you were even, you were like looking at the, the, like, for the lack of a word, like screen grabs, trying to get the tint of the wallpaper correctly, like marks on appliances. Like, you were so faithful to this. What inspired that? Probably my OCD.

You know what? I knew that I was such a fan, and I knew that there were a lot of fans like me, and I knew that if it didn't pass a test, you know, it was not going to, I didn't think I wanted kids to come out and go, that's not how it looked. that's a so I was obsessed with it. It took three and a half years.

I remember the first interview I did. They said, how long you think it would be to this is up and running? I said, give me three, three and a half months, you know, three and a half years later. And, you know, $250,000 worth of stuff not to count the gifts and kind, we cut the ribbon. But if you were to give me another three years, that's how much of a perfectionist. Because I wanted this thing to be as equally, like, it has to represent S.C. Hinton. It's not about, you know, as much as it's about her legacy and how this book has reached children. And you said it, you nailed it.

It's about the right side of the tracks and the wrong side of the tracks, proverbially, and finding what she says is we saw the same sunset, although our worlds were two completely different places, we saw the same sunset. For me, that's finding a mutual thing that we both can like, whether you're left, right, black, white, doesn't matter. We both look up, see a beautiful creation, the sunset that God made. Even by default, if we both like it, it brings us one step closer.

And so that's what we do at that place. And I will end by telling you that we did have. close to 6,000 school students tour the museum the last semester that just passed before they went into summer. And that was an unexpected consequence of building this museum. I built this museum for me and your

husband to look at switchblades and Matt Dillon's leather jackets and stuff like that. But it's really a museum driven by the kids and the educational component that we're trying to build out is why we're doing a gala coming up in October on the 12th on the heels of this

musical that's going to come to town. That's amazing. I want to share with everybody, before I let you go, talking with Danny Boy O'Connor, this quote that I read from you, which I thought was so incredibly profound. And it kind of hit me the same way as like the message of the outsiders and the way that you approached restoring this house into this museum. You said, I think as a nation or as a people in the past, we've looked at pop culture as being disposable. And now the things that were once disposable to us become more important than, say, you know, like a Monet. And you said, I've been to Amsterdam. I've seen Rembrandt. You know, it's a brilliant painting, but I don't relate to that in any way. there's no part of my DNA in that and the outsiders is like a right of passage. I love this because I think... You're good. You dug that one out. That's good. That is such a great quote.

I mean, Fonzie raised me and Jachi and Joni and Joni and you know, Sean Nanao was the guys I wanted to look like because they looked like the guys in Brooklyn where I grew up originally before I came to California. Everybody I knew was like a Sean Nana type character. So when I saw the outsiders, I thought, well, listen, I don't have much.

but if I had a band of brothers that would surround me and me surround them and just look out for each other, that this life would be doable. And so it sure has been. But I don't believe that I would have had that success that I've had here in Tulsa if this house wasn't Los Angeles or New York. It's just people here are cut from a different cloth. And I'm never leaving. So I'm into that. Danny Boy, O'Connor, the book, you got to get it now, the oral history of the outsider, stain gold. And you can do that pre-order right now, Barnes & Noble. And it comes out this fall. And of course, the musical. We'll make sure we remind everybody about the gala. I'm going to get down there and visit it because I love the book.

I've been to Tulsa. We've got affiliates in Tulsa. I got to get down there and I got to go visit. I got to go look at the switchblades and I got to go look at this director's chair and the jacket and the car and everything else. Danny Boy O'Connor, God bless you, my friend, and Icon in so many different ways and you're just keeping on going. Appreciate you. Thank you, my friend. Stay gold.

That's right. Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Dana Lash's absurd truth podcast. If you haven't already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever. you get your podcast.