The Joe Rogan Experience - #2165 - Jack Carr

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Jack Carr is a bestselling author, retired Navy SEAL, and host of the “Danger Close” podcast. His newest book, "Red Sky Mourning,” is available now. www.officialjackcarr.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Jack Crawley's a gentleman. Good to see you brother. What's happening? So good to be here. This is awesome. Man, comedy, mothership, amazing. You had a good time? It was so much fun. So cool. We had a blast up there and

Everybody was amazing. Ron wait came up to say hi afterward and was in that booth somebody Her last name Lardner. So Kyle Lardner is her name and she does Piano music sells vinyl and she's up there, but she I think her I think she said her Grandfather somebody wrote mash The theme song the day. Oh wow, the theme song? Yeah, the screenplay. Oh wow. Yeah, so somebody, there's somebody related to her anyway. I don't know, I thought her music, just.

Yeah, all right, right. So it was fun watching the show with her. She knows Ron White, so he came up, that's why he came up and said hi to us. But it was so, everybody killed it. It was so much fun. I love how you put your phone in the bag, turn it off, and lock it.

We need more of that in life. Yeah, it's hard for people to not be distracted these days. Everyone's distracted. Yeah, but it was so noticeable. So you're in that VIP balcony, amazing. And then you're looking down, but it is so noticeable now that no one has their phones out. If you didn't have that, you'd look down from that balcony and you certainly see somebody just got a

Kid you go to the movies you just see lit up phones everywhere now. It's crazy. That's what I was saying I was saying I wish they did this in movies Mean phones are cool. They do a lot of cool things, but man, it's a massive distraction I'm working towards being able to hand this thing off yeah yeah hand it off yeah somebody else that's not me hand it off and go to the flip oh really I'm working I don't think I'm not gonna be there for a few years but what about texting though well you can still remember the Blackberry like yeah David Tell was in here and he was texting he has a flip phone he texts with his flip

phone like what are you doing I got pretty good he makes the beeps too so it's like did you do did you do did you do I'm like what the what are you doing? I got pretty good. He makes the beeps too, so it's like What the fuck are you doing? Uh-huh? Yeah? I've never been doing that and we did it everybody that you just kind of figured it out But it was like what is it three letters or symbols on each thing you can yeah, but you got pretty good with it Yeah, you can get pretty good But it's slow. It's slow and stupid. That's what can't happen when people start using the letter U instead of U and the letter R instead of A-R-E. I can't do it. Do you do it? No.

Okay, yeah, I don't think so. I'm trying to think of your text. Especially you. You're an author. Nope. I gotta have commas in there. I can't have a U. None of that stuff. Right. So it's noticeable when people send it to me. I'm like, hmm. Yeah, little guy's the worst. That 13 years old. That's all they old yeah all they do oh yeah they do they abbreviate things too I always have to ask my kid what the fuck does that mean IDK oh I don't care oh I don't know IDC is I don't care okay okay is I don't know I figured I don't know they have a

whole bunch of them that they use all the time that I have to like think yeah what are you saying I know I look it up sometimes I Google it I'm like I type it in what does this mean and it pops up or then I just get the bruh bruh bruhs a lot Yeah, I don't know what are you eight. That's it. Yeah, I just get that bruh bruh. What is that? What does that even mean? Yeah, I saw some meme It was like it was like a mom texting her kid and it says texting your 13 13 year old boy is like texting someone who's about to break up with you. Because it's like, hey, how was your day? And it's like, okay.

You know, something like that. You know, and it's totally true. It is totally true. But I'd like to go back, I'd like to hand it off at some point. You know, I'm not there yet, because it's still my office. You know, I just think it's still my mobile office

and all the socials and everything else, the interaction with people, like everything goes, that's it. I think it just, you just have to have discipline I think my middle ground is have a real phone real smartphone, but discipline Hmm, you know just no one to put it away. No one to leave it alone Are you good with it? Yeah? I'm good with it. Yeah, I'm pretty good with it It depends on if I have the day off. Yeah, I have the day off. I'm on that fucking stupid thing six hours

Watching YouTube Yeah, if I have the day off because if I have a day off I purposely decide to do nothing Yeah, if I have a day off. I do well. I never have a day of nothing right. I have a day of archery nice working out then nothing But those days are fucking awesome man the nothing to do day. Oh my god. I appreciate those so much Where's you build one in yeah, I build one in yeah, I never work every day, okay? I won't we I've done it

I mean I've done a few times like if I have to go away on vacation or something like that We have to bank up a bunch of episodes, I wind up doing five in a week and then at the end of the week, I don't wanna lose enthusiasm. Because I feel like there's like a balance between discipline and enthusiasm and you gotta find out where that is. If I lose enthusiasm, then I don't have as much excitement.

And then whatever I'm doing is not as good. Right, no, I understand that. Do you ever feel that you you have that like I can't tell looking at from the outside and knowing you And then watching an episode or listening to an episode I can never tell if you're off if you do ever feel off I feel it could be coming and then I don't allow it to come because I remind myself how fortunate I am and about how Happy I would be to be able to do what I did if I couldn't do it right and then I just Put myself in that state of mind right but that also means like day off is necessary right? But I really days off with family like

To family days yeah, nah fun like yesterday We did a father's day thing we went and killed zombies. Nice. You ever do sandbox VR? No. Do you know what that is? Oh my god, it's my favorite thing to do. I fucking love it. What? Yeah, this is a game called Deadwood Mansion. And you put on the VR helmets and you're trapped in a mansion that gets invaded by zombies.

And you have a shotgun just blasting zombies. Okay. Nice. I fucking love it. Do you go someplace for it? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? It's like it's a place called sandbox VR and right here in Austin and there was one in Woodland Hills, too This is the game. That's crazy. Yeah, it's fucking dope dude, and so Oh, yeah, yeah, it's like a movie and these zombies come running at you And when they grab you you have a haptic feedback vest

So you feel it when they're grabbing you what yeah, what's a haptic feedback like a Titans? Or you know it's like zaps you it's like a buzz On your chest. It's really fun. That's awesome. I love it. They have a ton of games there, too It's not just that they have a squid games one. They have a Star Trek one They have one where you you have duels with people like space weapons That's wild. Yeah, it's not just for kids obviously no no it's for everybody. Yeah, well obviously I'm a big kid, but but I fucking love it Okay, I had the number three score ever in that one point

Somebody proud of right there What ham with the shotgun You train up for it. You know we're hit with Taryn. Just a lot of coffee You know every gun has a laser on it So you know exactly where you're shooting and you know just take headshots on zombies We have one of those in Salt Lake see if we can go down there and they probably do yeah They have a ton of them. I know there's one like I said There's one in Woodland Hills that we have right down the studio. Yeah in LA. Yeah So maybe they are. Yeah, is there one?

Nice all right. Yeah, you think my little guy down there gotta do. Yeah, so fun. Oh, that's good to know Yeah, it's spooky too. It's really scary. It looks like yeah, they drop out of the ceiling Yeah, the ceiling breaks open a ton of zombies fall down in front of you and they just run at you You got a blast him my little guy like that. He's 13. He loves that stuff and he loves like roller coasters There's a insult like they have I forget the name of the place, but it's a it's called a cannibal He made me go with him a couple years. I'm not a big roller coaster person I'm nice. I watched too many Instagram video and those things going sideways yeah people go flying off of them yeah not fun no don't need that but he loves it so yeah and I don't he so he'll dig this I get that people like

those thrills they don't they don't appeal to me no they're not used to do them a lot with my kids when they were younger especially Disneyland Disneyland you know they're pretty good they really don't very rarely have a fuck-up. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, trust. Yeah. Yeah, their safety records pretty awesome Yeah, we did it right before we left and left California to go to Utah and we thought okay We're gonna do this one last kind of kid centric thing with all these amusement parks because my wife and I are not really amusement park people just surrounded by a real sweating and just Everything long lines, whining.

So yeah, we did that and then I think that's it for us. If you wanna find the hazards of the American diet in full effect, go to Disneyland. It's bad. There's so many people on scooters cause they can't walk cause they've got too big. It's so terrible. Yeah, no.

Yeah, sorry kids. That was your last time that we're gonna be at one of those places. Now it's so terrible. Yeah. No. Yeah. Sorry kids. We're uh, you know, that was your last time that we're gonna be in one of those places Now it's fun. It's fun for a day just to eat churros and be a pig Just fucking just have a good time just but you know, you have to like Allow yourself to just fuck off eat ice cream and fuck off right today. Yeah, just say today we're gonna fuck off That's your day off. That energizes you and you get back into it so you can also I feel guilty for fucking off eating all that garbage so you hit it hard yeah next day yeah well I got that sauna after we talked last time I think it was getting put in last time we

talked and I still haven't really been in it because I plugged it in or whatever electrician came plug that thing in it's one of the barrel ones mm-hmm so it looks out at the mountains has like this glass thing on it. Yeah, but it just gets warm. Oh really? Yeah. So we need to have- Who made your sauna? I don't even know, my wife.

You gotta get a solution, says the guys that did ours, and they have serious heaters. Mine gets to 200 degrees. Hey Canada, did you remember to lock your house this morning? What about your car? What about your bike? Your phone?

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Rogan tap the banner to learn more. Oh, yeah, this was not this just gets kind of not even uncomfortable uncomfortably warm is it a Infrared or is it a regular? So it has the rock has a little thing in it has the rocks Well, it just gets warm. I think it's the altitude I think it needs some sort of an adjustment for altitude because we're about Just shy of 8,000 feet right, but it's that doesn't make any sense yeah I know yeah you just call context knows what they're doing yeah we'll get those guys from Sulu Sonos to hook you up they'll just swap out your heater okay you just need a like we have a hum it's I think it's H U U M is the name of the heater that fucking thing

Frank same thing we have in here in the studio. Yeah, you've got to get a real heater. Yeah, I need to do something. So that sits there unused. But moving forward, so I was hearing you talk about archery. So I have the guys from Total Archery Challenge. They came out and they put up 22 3D targets all around. Oh, nice. It's a pretty good course.

But days off are, they don't really exist yet. But I need to just make time to get out there in the mornings drop the kids at school and just Walk that course and shoot well, you're cranking out basically a book a year Yeah, plus you're also working on the terminalist TV series. Yeah, that is a lot of work my friend It is my first nonfiction comes out in the fall on the 1983 and Bay route barracks bombing. So that's a whole So you're getting into historical stuff. Yeah. We've a lot of history in here.

I just love history. I always have since I was a little kid anyway. But I really wanted to start down that path and explore a different terrorist event and capture the lessons learned behind that event so that hopefully moving forward, we don't have to relearn those lessons in blood. And we're not very good at that as a country.

We just tend to relearn things over and over again. We don't know lessons into wisdom So I wanted to try to just do my part and see what I could do in this I remember the 1983 bombing it stands out in my mind when I was a little kid Newsweek Time magazine I remember those on our kitchen table Remember the newspaper in the mornings member of the news watching the news with my family at five o'clock and six o'clock And that's an event that I mean it changed the course of US foreign policy for sure and the shadow still still in its shadow today but yeah I killed 241 US service members

and 58 French paratroopers and it was the biggest loss of life for the Marine Corps since Iwo Jima and World War II so it's it's a seminal event in Marine Corps history and in our history as a nation, but there isn't really the seminal work on it yet. So I wanted to do that and did that with Pulitzer Prize finalist, military historian James Scott, amazing guy. So we've been working on that for the last two years and that comes out in September. But man, it's go, go, go.

How do you collaborate something like that with a historian? How does that work? Do you send him stuff, what you're working on, and he gives you feedback? How does that work? Do you send him stuff, what you're working on, and he gives you feedback? How does that work? So I had the idea, and I wanted one person. I wanted this guy, James Scott, amazing guy. He has five other books out there, four on World War II, one on the USS Liberty. And I just, I didn't know him personally, and he doesn't really have a social media presence, so I couldn't really get to know him that way, but I just knew his work. And I thought,

oh man, it'd be amazing to collaborate with this guy on this project. And so I reached out and luckily he wanted to do it. He was fired up and he's been amazing. Such a great guy. So thorough, because when you do something that's, like here, if you make a mistake, you just say, it's fiction.

But in something like that, you can't make a mistake. And every single quote, obviously, you have to attribute that to the right person in the right way. All the photographs have to attribute that to the right person in the right way all the photographs Attribute all those to the right people in the right way buy them put them in there or license them whatever you need to do So there's a lot more to it on that side that I didn't have any experience with so but he's he's got that part down That's awesome. Yeah, so it was an amazing experience and we're gonna hopefully kick off another one here So every the idea was to do one nonfiction every year.

As soon as I started down that path of research, I realized it was gonna be a two year, every two year type of a thing. Because it just so much more goes into it. You just don't create it out of your head, obviously. You have to interview all these people. You have to go and then follow up with everyone and then you have to confirm things that people said or all these things. So there's a lot more to it than I thought at the outset.

How many hours a day do you work? Like, do you, because I would imagine that particularly with fiction, you have to avoid burnout, right? You have to be enthusiastic about your subject matter to get the best out of your mind. Yeah, I mean, I'm so fired up. And so I, like you, I feel so fortunate to be doing what I love.

And so it doesn't seem like work, although you're putting in hours. You're certainly putting in hours for this one It took a lot longer than I thought because usually these books are about or in this genre They're about a hundred and fifteen thousand words hundred between a hundred and a hundred and fifteen this one came in at a hundred and fifty So I kept thinking oh, it's gonna be done December 1st on January 1st February 1st And it just kept pushing which is why we're here in July instead of our sorry in June So that's this one that's this guy guy more Yeah, that's this one right here

So it took a little longer than I than I anticipated but that's just because the story dictates How long because people are trusting me with their time they're never gonna get that time back So that's something I take extremely seriously So all my heart and soul goes into every word but but I love it when James Reese continues to get older You're gonna let him get older. You're gonna go James Bond. I think I go James Bond I think I'm gonna do it slowly, maybe age him slowly. So we'll see, we'll see. It's one of those things you have to think about.

Some authors like Stephen Hunter, Daniel Silva have aged their character in real time. But that's a 20 plus years series. Especially if they're out there kicking ass. Yeah, so if you start that, they're 40 when they start, they're getting up there now. Yeah. So it's a thing, especially if you want them out there kicking ass. Yeah, so if you start that they're 40 when they start, you know, they're getting up there now Yeah, so it's it's a it's a thing especially if you want to keep kicking ass. Yeah Yeah, I talked to Mark grainy about that. Yeah, the gray man right right same thing. He's gonna go James Bond I think so. I think that's yeah, it's a way to go. Yeah, it's already a precedent set people accept it Do it exactly James Bond should be a thousand years old

How the fuck is James Bond still kicking ass and they got a new James Bond coming out? We'll see we'll see so what they need to do for that one what they need to do if they if they asked me After what they did at the end and I don't know if we can say spoiler alert because if you haven't seen the last movie But it ends it's very final how it ends, but I mean allegedly interesting way to Legend one of the most successful series of all time But I think you go back and you do those as period pieces. So you go back and you start with the first book and you start it in the 50s when it was written.

And so you have post World War II era Great Britain. And you're doing it. You have all the cars. So in the books, he's driving an old Bentley and it's from the 30s. So it's not the Aston Martin. So you do that and you do it true to the books in that time period. That would be very expensive though. But not really today with CGI, with AI, what they're

able to do now. You know, Tyler Perry was building an $800 million studio and he stopped production on it when he saw Sora, which is the new AI program that almost, I mean, really quickly can render spectacular scenes. Okay. Have you seen it? Have you heard about it? Is that that one, like 3D camera? That one in Australia?

No, Sora's just AI-generated video. Show him the one with Japan. It's Tokyo in the snow. It's crazy. You can't believe it's not real. Because it's like, it's got people checking their bag, looking at their watch, tying their shoe, like normal stuff, pausing to talk to people.

And you're looking at you like, what? This is not real? And apparently they generate them very quickly. Think about it in five years from now. Oh, it's gonna be impossible. So this is all AI. Beautiful, snowy Tokyo. Snowy Tokyo City is bustling.

Camera moves through the bustling city street. This is the prompt that made AI create this, following several people. Like, look at this. Oh, wow. This is crazy. This is fake. You would never, you would think, oh, someone got a camera and they're filming all these people.

Story of a Robot's life in cyberpunk settings. I mean, these videos that they can make now are incredible. And again, this is OpenAI's text to video model, Sora. Is that the one that Ashton Kutcher was talking about? I don't know. I don't know if Ashton Kutcher was talking about it. He was in the news yesterday, something about AI and something about Hollywood with doing this stuff. But they're fucked. Everyone's fucked. Actors are fucked. Everyone's fucked.

I need to read the after the strike last year because there was an actor strike also as you know, and then the writer strike as well. So I don't know, and AI was a big part of that, but I don't know. It was. Yeah. Where did it end up? Do you know where it ended up? I don't know, but they don't have much to negotiate with unfortunately there's there's an inevitability with this kind of technology it's like would you write books with a feather no would you write all the books with a feather no it's like if I wanted to buy a book from you I'd have to commission you and you would have to write out this new book Red Sky

Morning you'd have to write this out in a feather for every customer yeah fuck that you would never do that right now well that's the thing with AI like instead of having people act out movies and and having like real scenes and everybody's on set at 6 a.m. and that's that's the thing of the past oh man I really think it's a thing of the past what they can do now This one got announced today. What is this one Twitter? It's called 10 3 alpha. I think I don't know See, there's a bunch of these different competing AI programs as well. It's not just the open AI Sora There's a bunch of them Microsoft has one. I mean and then these graphic engines the unreal

Mean and then these graphic engines the unreal engine 5 is fucking insane That's crazy. They so they have these graphic Models now for video games and unreal. It's that's what it's called right unreal engine 5 Unreal engine 5 is fucking bananas, so this is for video games Yeah, so video games now look almost Indistinguishable from a movie. This is a tiny hint of what they call the uncanny valley Well, you can kind of tell that's not real especially when you're looking at like human faces Yeah, but Jimmy will show you like this. Ah, that's crazy. Are you playing? Did you play video games? No, I can't Yeah, I go crazy I can't do it. You get sucked in. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be playing it all day long I'm I have a real problem. It wouldn't have a podcast. No, I'd probably our podcast. It probably would suck though

I have a very addictive personality with things that are difficult to do Yeah, I'd like you know when I find like as long as something physical like jiu-jitsu You can only do jiu-jitsu two hours a day, you know at the most maybe a little bit more after that Your body just breaks down and you can only play pool so many hours a day, but know at the most maybe a little bit more after that your body just breaks down And you can only play pool so many hours a day, but you can play video games all Fucking day you could just and they jazz you up so much. There's such an adrenaline rush You're so locked into it, and then when I shut them off. I always feel like shit So this is unreal engine 5.4. I guess this is the newest version of it what?

Unreal Engine 5.4. I guess this is the newest version of it. What? That's wild. Look how crazy this looks. That's cool. I mean, this is a video game. So imagine playing a video game. Right. And this is the type of graphics that they can do. And again, this is just today. This stuff is moving at an exponential pace,

to the point where, you know, five, six years from now, you're going to be experiencing this, but in VR. You know, you'll have like the meta headset on and you'll be experiencing this probably on an omnidirectional floor. They have these omnidirectional, Google that Jamie, the new omnidirectional floor. Disney's got the best one. Do they?

Yeah. So the omnidirectional floor, the way you walk is the way the floor moves. So you stay in like an area like the size of this room, right? So you stand in the center and everywhere you walk, the floor walks with you. So you are actually walking but you're not moving anymore. I don't know. Are you gonna get one? Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, man man. Like look at this. What? Yeah, this is bonkers.

No, I can't, no. So everywhere you go, so you can, that's actually a lot smaller than this room. I was incorrect. That's really small. That's like the size of this table almost. And so you get on this thing and the game will take you down corridors and alleys

and you know, you go cross fields and you'll be able to do that. I'm sure eventually what they'll be able to do is have different terrain. Like you'll have like a textured terrain or maybe even elevation. You'll be able to go up like a treadmill. You can get a workout in? Oh yeah, you definitely can.

I mean, I remember when the Dance Dance Revolution came, or evolution, evolution or revolution? Revolution. I think I remember when the dance dance revolution came or evolution evolution or revolution Revolution I can dance dance revolution is this game these kids start playing an arcade and everybody started losing weight Because yeah, because it's a dance game where the floor lights up like blue You're supposed to step on blue and then you know there's like different things that you're supposed to do There's a pattern on the screen that you're supposed to follow. And you get a score based on how well you keep up with the steps. So all these people were like playing a video game, but they're burning insane amount of calories.

People lose like 50, 60 pounds playing this game, which I support. Like if there's a game that can make you healthy, fuck yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Then you get tired, maybe sit down on the couch and go to the other one where you just sit there and then who's creating this, I don't know who's moving the country forward who's making Well also They just announced that the former chief of NSA is going to the board of open AI which is freaked a bunch of people out Including Edward Snowden. Oh, yeah freak you out Jamie

Yeah, it's big smile on Jamie's face. Well, I would imagine they would want to get involved in something like that I mean, I don't know why they wouldn't I mean I Could see I could put on my conspiracy tinfoil hat thing and say oh my god What are they trying to do this? But Edward Snowden eviscerates open AI's decision to put former NSA director on its board This is a willful calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on Earth." Hmm. Obviously, AI has a beef with the NSA. Yeah, but still.

But if you were the, like, let's imagine the National Security Agency is an important thing for this country to have, if you're having these fucking eggheads that are developing the next super being, which is essentially what they're doing. They're gonna develop, whether it exists in a physical form, it only exists on a computer, it's going to be far smarter than us within a matter of a few years. And so just for national security concerns,

you probably would have to have someone go and be there and go, hey, what the fuck are you guys doing? And report back from the inside when you've got it. Wouldn't you kind of have to have it from the I mean just to know what they're doing You can't give them the power these unelected people you're gonna give them the power to give birth to a god I mean, that's I want to get rid of this phone That's the whole thing we're down this path just like you said I mean we're the the thing. That's the whole thing. We're down this path. Just like you said, I mean we're the

Technology has increasing at an exponential rate And so what we think is about 20 years off is probably gonna be here essentially tomorrow It's gonna be very very quick apparently What we're at now is chat GPT 4.0 or 4o and the next chat GPT 5 is gonna be Exponentially more powerful and that's in the pipeline Well, it's the manipulation part that I'm already just with social media. Let's get you can take it back 10 years I mean Twitter X is you know similar to when it started essentially and And that's a you're getting manipulated constantly and it's not just to buy a new detergent like back in the 80s watching a commercial Like that, I mean your thoughts and behaviors are being manipulated by these algorithms and whoever is writing these algorithms

That's a lot of and so imagine with this with AI that just went in the latest update Didn't our phones just get some sort of crazy AI thing in there? I phones do yeah. Yeah, and I have an Android I have this Samsung galaxy that I'm switching over to really this one does a lot of AI things like it translates conversations in real time It'll summarize websites for you So if there's a website, you know, like James Webb telescope found some new galaxy I'm like, I'm gonna have time for this fucking gigantic article. So give me the summary and it gives you the summary It'll summarize it. It's been accurate. Oh, yeah, it's really good

And it also it does a lot of wild shit like you could circle a picture Like if you see Jamie sneakers like that was pretty fresh you circle it It'll send it right to Google and it shows you where you could buy them and really tells you what it is Objects show like French press. Oh, what's that? What is that thing? How many are they called French press it'll like just from circling I could take a photo of that make a circle around it I'll show you right now. It's pretty crazy. It's like- That is wild. I mean, I should feel,

instead of trying to stay away from it, maybe I should embrace it and have, put the book in it, people can circle it and do whatever they do. I think you're always gonna want fiction. I think people are always gonna want fiction and they're also always gonna wanna have things that someone has created.

I think that's a part of what people enjoy., so look like this like the artwork on the walls here There's done by a real person so like I just took a photo of the French press and there it is What and it's giving me links how to buy a French press man. It's crazy dude. This is complete next level So is that freeing up time rather than having to go French press? Freeing up time rather than having to go French press. I don't know, it's just cool. Okay, Serge. It's not freeing up any time. I mean, maybe it is freeing up a little bit of time.

I just think it's cool. That's why I like it. You love all that stuff though. Yes. Oh, you embrace new technologies. I do, but again, you gotta know what it is. It's like, I like whiskey, but I don't drink it every day. You know, I drink a little bit of whiskey

every now and again. All right. And I take big days off I like to stay healthy So the so your way your personality you get can get addicted to video games and that feeling and that but not to other Things like a whiskey or whatever. No, I've no no I don't think so. It's not ever and they're like to health conscious Yeah, you know I could never get addicted to a drug. Yeah, although I am addicted to caffeine for sure Yeah, a couple days. I took a whole day off caffeine

and documented on the internet. At the end of the day, I had a fucking pounding headache. That headache, right? Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. I haven't had one of those in a long time, which is because I haven't stopped drinking caffeine in a long time. But when I used to write back in the day, I used to buy these sodas. There were these bizarre sodas that this liquor store had that were filled with caffeine, like insane amounts of caffeine. But they also had like hot sauce in them

and these cool colors and flavors. Like some of them were, they made me turn my tongue dark blue. They had skull and crossbones on the labels. They were just cool. I remember, this is like in the 90s. I bought them just for fun. I was at a liquor store and I I saw you over what is this stuff? I was crazy soda company. I don't even think they're around anymore. Yeah, I bought cases of this shit. It's probably illegal

You know probably I mean, I don't know what the caffeine amount was but it was extraordinary Is that when you're writing like comedy late at night like I quiet back then I was writing a script I was trying to write a script. Okay, and I Also write comedy late at night too. Yeah, and I like to I just like to be caffeinated when I'm writing Yeah, when I'm writing I like to be jazzed up right, you know, yeah You know what? Yeah, I do the same thing I think I mean the only time I'm not being interrupted is like 10 a.m. Still to like 3 4 in the morning I pulled so many all-nighters for this one

I'm not being interrupted is like 10 a.m. Still to like 3 4 in the morning I pulled so many all-nighters for this one 10 a.m. To 3 in the morning straight in the morning sometimes 6 7 if I'm just on a roll. I'm just gonna keep going Because yeah deadlines looming, but I don't want to rush anything to hit that deadline if that makes sense I got one I get three. I want to be the best story I possibly can I don't want to get to a certain number of words or here are the deadlines coming Let me wrap this up. Yeah, never never I'd respect my audience too much for that No, I know you would and so it's got to be the best story can possibly be but that means a lot of late nights So yeah

So that goes back to the phone handing that off to somebody having other people do some things that I can focus on the writing Maybe in some hours that are a little more normal Do you think you'll ever get to a point where you say you know what in order to do a book the right way? I have to do one every two and a half years Maybe maybe that was like the norm in the 80s that Tom Clancy books weren't every year. Oh really? Yeah so there was a couple years and you didn't know if one was gonna come next year or the year after. So is there pressure that comes from does it come from the publisher does it come from you do you

like make hay while the sun's shining? I think maybe there's a little bit of that but I think it became what was expected for recurring characters so it became Cliveussler, maybe was one of the first to start doing it with the Dark Pit series that he started. I think the first one was back in the 70s, early 70s. He passed away a couple years ago, but he started doing them more frequently. And then Tom Clancy was there, right, two, two and a half years. And then we get up into the late 90s and you have Daniel Silva book a year. You have Vince Flynn book a year and she'll became something that was normal and now people expect it So I think it's more that than anything else. Yeah, if people get hooked on a character, they want a new book every year

Yeah, like granny does a new gray man every year. Yeah Exactly. So that's kind of what the audience expects and it's fun And again, it is you know, it's, it's a timeline that you can hit. Two a year would be difficult to do. That would be extremely difficult to do. That's insane. Does anybody do two a year? I think there's a couple guys who have done it.

Well, I think when you get a little, maybe, when you get a little older, like John Grisham, so kids out of the house, that sort of a thing. And you don't do all of the other things. Trying to avoid the wife. Like podcasts. Lock yourself in your office. Your words. But I think you can get to that stage where you're not doing, if you're not doing a podcast

and you're not doing social media and you're not writing a blog and you're not updating your website, zero of those things, but you love to write and all the kids are out of the house and you already have established a readership from the 80s, the 90s, early 2000s when there were less distractions, where we didn't have all these video games, didn't have social platforms, didn't have YouTube, didn't have on-demand any movie ever made that you can have any time. So that's essentially what you're competing with,

with books, so people read less now. So if you have that base established back from the old days, like a John Grisham, then he can do two a year. So you get two John Grisham books every year, every now and again. I think Michael Connolly does the same thing, but they're not doing the other things.

They're not doing that podcast. They're not doing scripts. They're not doing that sort of thing. Yeah, especially like the script. I mean, the amount of time, how much time does it take or how much time do you have to spend working on The Terminalist? It's a lot.

So the first one I was learning. So I was new to Hollywood. So I was learning, but Chris Pratt wanted me involved and Juan Fuqua wanted me involved showrunner David de Giulio wanted me involved so but essentially I'm learning I'm seeing how this adaptation to film works And now after that it was a few year process now I can add more value this time around So this time I'm involved in all the casting which I wasn't before other than Chris So this time involved in all the casting all the creating the show with David Agilio writing the outlines going to the

yeah getting those things going they nailed it man that show is as close to the actual book as you're probably ever gonna get without it being like a hundred hours long yeah that's the thing you know some people get upset that there wasn't a scene or that scene or these characters get more together or that sort of a thing. There's a clipper on the back of it. Oh, wow, look at this.

Oh, wow. It's built in. No way. Pretty snazzy, clean. How do you do this? You flip the clipper like this. Boom, boom, boom. Oh, it flips out.

Yeah. That's nice. Yeah, that's pretty dope. Wow. Oh, yeah. Built in. So you never have to wonder if you have a clipper. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, and shout out to Foundations Cigars. Broken us up. Oh, nice. Oh, look built in. So you never have to wonder if you have a clipper. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Yeah, and shout out to Foundation Cigars for hooking us up. Oh nice. Oh, look at that! Get your own cigars right there. I love it. And they're good. Nice. Let's check this out. Let's do that right there. I was very skeptical when he first made them for me. I'm like, oh yeah. You're like, oh jeez.

Those guys suck. Yeah, that's uh, I did a whole cigar lighting scene in this one, in this book. I have one of my favorite chapters in previous books was James Reese talking to Caroline Hastings who's the matriarch of this Hastings family. It's just a conversation, so it's not, nothing's blowing up, no one's getting their head chopped off with a tomahawk and everything like that. It's just a conversation and passing on of wisdom. And I did that again this time with the patriarch. And so it's Jonathan Hastings talking to James Reese and they go through, he's just a conversation and passing on of wisdom. And I did that again this time with the Patriarch.

And so it's Jonathan Hastings talking to James Reese and they go through, he's rolling a cigarette like old school, the way he would have done it back in Africa in Rhodesia back in the day. And then James is doing a cigar, but he's lighting it in the way that he learned from Jonathan Hastings' brother in what was then Mozambique. Yeah, people get real dorked out on how to light a cigar.

I have had cigar. I have Conversations I've done it the right way. I've done it the other way. I can't tell the difference I'm too stupid. So it's like the same way. I feel about wine. I am not never gonna be a wine connoisseur I like a nice glass of wine. Someone tells me what the good stuff is. Yeah. Yeah, I'll drink that Yeah, you can tell the difference though. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have a my friend Matt. It's like a real wine connoisseur though He's he has like a cellar in his house And he looks so he puts on his reading glasses when we go out to eat and he goes over all the different Vintage is he knows exactly what the fuck he's ordering. I don't know what I'm ordering I asked the

Lady at the yeah, that's what they do there. You're supposed to know all that stuff body cabernet Yeah, yeah, I don't know what the fuck anything else put some wine in these I like to do I like to weave in food Ian Fleming did it kind of like my nod is my double of seventh book So there's a lot of the references to bond in here and some that like the most casual Watcher of a film will get and some that probably even the most ardent fan won't get so I there's something for everybody That I put that I put in here, but so that's your seventh book seventh book double-o seven. Yeah, that's a accomplishment Thank you seven books seven books. That's incredible. Thank you. Thank you I just think about how many hours that is just sitting in front of the computer. Oh my eyes are gone

I mean do you still use a laptop mm-hmm? I would encourage you to not I need to not yeah You know why for the keyboard keyboard yeah, we keyboards on the MacBook suck yeah I do most of my writing even when I write I either write at home on an apple with the it's a really nice keyboard There's a lot of trigger travel, and it's ergonomic separated or I have a thinkpad I don't know if you ever use one of those Lenovo thing past the keyboards are superior Superior to the Apple ones first of all all the keys have like a little dip in them Yeah, so your fingers fingers settles into that little valley. Yep, and then there's a lot of travel

It's like one point eight millimeters one of them one of the things I have is 2.2 millimeters of travel. So as you're typing, you're feeling it. Some guys go so crazy that they want a mechanical keyboard. Yeah, I'm not there yet. I do have a really, I have one that Hemingway actually wrote a movable feast on. Somebody, a fan sent it to me. A typewriter? Yeah, he wrote a movable feast on it. It came up for auction right before COVID. So January of 2020, the guy that started Newman's Own with Paul Newman, he was also kind of a manager at AE Hotchter, I don't think I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, but he was like a mover and shaker in those types of circles back in the day. And so he had all this Hemingway stuff, and it went up for auction after he passed away.

And so I have, yeah, Hemingway's typewriter. So I typed a Hemingway quote on it when it arrived and then I let it sit of course the kids have walked by and like you know so it's not exactly yeah it's pretty cool so I have that right there but I need I need to get it there and after we talked about this once and so I went out and I bought another computer like we talked about the one you recommended so I got it but it wasn't an Apple one and like Apple got me like everything is it cloud and friggin phone and computer like

they've just got me it's been get around that though I'm not good at that sort of thing it's not that hard it's not that hard just relearn it and then once you relearn it you already have it in your head you know I have a lot of cross-platform things that I like that I use which helps a lot Okay, but Apple's notes is one of the best things ever because when I have an idea I like to just talk it into a note and then if it's on my Apple notes, then it's on my computer notes So if I have an idea for a bit or something like that I can say it in my notes and then when I go on my computer and I just press the notes it's there

I need to get better at that sort of thing. I have notepads everywhere, yellow stickies everywhere, it's chaos. You don't have it on your phone? No, for some reason I just don't, I don't know if there's something about it. The best thing about the phones today is that you can talk to it, you know, like you can on both like the Apple one and this one too. You just you you just open up a note and then when you open up a note when you're writing a new note you press you go down there and you press the the microphone thing and when you press the microphone thing it just lets you talk like here we go I need to do that I need to get better all that stuff it's not yeah I'm not good at I send myself emails I'm an email account that I just

send notes to or emails to like I could do this yeah Jack Carr is a bad motherfucker and this is his seventh book Bam look how quick that is look at that. I do it was close fucking close close Well they look at they they they blocked out bad motherfucker liquid mother see it's already controlling you why is it doing that? That's probably the thing about androids though is I should stop this it's still recording The thing about androids though is that, I should stop this, it's still recording, sorry. The thing about Androids though is like, they have so many options of things you could do. You can customize things so much more

than you can on an iPhone. Now if you're a person that's already busy like yourself, that's probably not attractive to you. It's just too much. But, like I've watched like 10 videos on this phone, just trying to figure out all the different stuff that you could do. You could use it in split-screen mode We can watch two different things at the same time two different website

You give an email in the bottom while you're watching a video at the top, dude I don't know and it also has a style be too much for me. Oh you can pull it And not only does it have a styles, but the style is it doubles as a remote control So like if you want to take a picture with the family You set up the phone, and then you hold on to this you like that Press the button it takes the picture and that does take that has a better camera than iPhone I wouldn't say it's better. I would say it's just as awesome. Okay. I mean there are people that debate things The Apple camera is amazing. I still have this iPhone 15. It's fucking great

Don't get me wrong and one thing that I really love about Apple is it works with The Apple camera is amazing. I still have this iPhone 15. It's fucking great. Don't get me wrong. And one thing that I really love about Apple is it works with Apple TV. So the best remote for Apple TV is your iPhone. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm learning so much today.

It syncs up. So if you have Apple TV, you scroll down like this, and you press this button right here, and it shows you the remote. So it says choose a TV You choose a TV and then you control the screen with you with your remote So if you want to look something up on YouTube or yeah, you know Netflix you type it instead of like Looking for the fuck. It's like old-school old-school texting all right worse

It's horrible. This is horrible way easier. Yeah. Type it on your phone and then also you can slide back and forth to wherever you want in the movie. Exactly. Yeah. It's the best remote. All right. The remote off your iPhone is the best. I will try that. That's the best. The other stuff I don't know about but I will try that because it's yeah that I'm not good at all that stuff. I'm always like yelling at my wife like what the what the password and what's the thing.'s attached to your email, it says. Like, didn't we buy this movie already on another thing? Like, I'm not good at all that. Yeah, that's always an issue.

There's a lot going on today. That's why I like to take a breath, go upstairs, but I do need that other computer, because I'm feeling it for the first time, I'm feeling it in my hand for typing. The thing is, if you you use a cross-platform word processor, like say if you use Microsoft, if you use Microsoft Word, you can access Microsoft Word through your phone,

you can access Microsoft Word through a laptop, a Windows laptop, a Mac laptop, it does not matter. You can access it. And so you have a Microsoft Word account. And so then if you store things in the cloud, like if you store your script in the crowd or your book in the cloud, you could access it from anything you want.

I know, it's so bad. It's not difficult. That's not difficult. We're essentially the same age, but you're so good at all this stuff. I'm not that good. You are. You know what you're doing.

Jamie's better than me, and Red Band's better than Jamie. Yeah. That's a lot me, and Red Band's better than Jamie. Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. Can I come in? Hold on. I said that just to drink ease. Yeah, set up a competition.

Oh, man. Red Band is a super nerd, though. They're both super nerds. It's a lot. But I need to do something. I need to get definitely another computer for typing. But I have one that's just for writing. So I hold another computer just for writing.

That's smart. Get a new one every time. This might not be so smart. I get a new one for every book. Really? Yeah. Just so it's clean and it's like a clean piece of paper and it's a blank slate and I start again. And I know that's not necessary. Today you could probably make a new screen or minimize everything or do it a better way, but I just like it in my own head. Like I'm starting a new. Yeah, no, that's a good thing to do. Like rituals are good, especially for creative people. You know, that's a big part of Steven Pressler's book.

Steven Pressfield? Excuse me, Pressfield, yeah, the War of Art. Amazing, yeah. His book, you know, is kind of all about summoning, it's about discipline, focus, dedication, but also summoning the muse. And then part of that is like this ritual of like showing up. Showing up at a very specific time every day.

And if you do that enough, the ideas will come to you. And it is true. Oh, exactly. It's doing the work. Sitting down and doing the work. You got to do the work. Or it's not going to... Obviously, if you don't do the work, you're never going to get where you want to go.

When I first read it, I felt like Pressfield was using the term the muse as like just sort of, that maybe it's not a real thing, but you treat it as if it's a real thing and it works that way. It worked because of the time and focus that you put, like it will accumulate over time, you will get creative ideas.

But now as I'm getting older, I'm not convinced that I was right, that it's not a real thing. I have a feeling that, this is gonna sound so weird, but I'm just gonna say it, I think ideas are an unrecognized life form. This is what I think.

I think creativity is a very strange thing. Like what is it, where is it coming from, where do ideas come from, where's a great song come from, where's a great concept for a book come from. It comes from your mind, right? Your mind pulls it out of a lot of things, like your life experiences, your current state of, you know, depression or happiness, and all the things you've read your whole life. There's like so many things that you're pulling creativity out of. Right. But there's a thing that enters into your mind sometimes when you come up with an idea

where you're like, that is not from me. That's not from me. I know this is just popping up and maybe it's just my ignorance of the way synapses fire, but I'm not sure. Because my thought is, everything that exists that human beings have created came from an idea. Like all cameras, all houses, everything was an idea that we got and then we worked at it and manifested it into form. And if the universe has a driving force, when it comes to intelligent life, that driving force seems to be creating things.

And I have a feeling that ideas themselves are almost like a life form that injects itself into human consciousness and then encourages and guides people to do things, to make things, and then they appear and those things encourage more people to make more things. And I think it works that way with music, I think that works that way with comedy, it works that way with literature, with pretty much everything. Everything that's really good encourages more people to do those things, and then more things happen, and better things get made. And I think that's how these things will themselves into existence. They do it through our minds.

Like almost spiritual? I don't know if I like that word because it's been co-opted by hippie chicks and dudes pretending to be spiritual to try to get laid. I think a lot of spiritual hippies are being, girls are being honest. The guys are probably 80% of them are not being honest. But yeah, whatever that word means. It's something. That there's something more to it than this sort of reductionist view of what an idea is. And if someone says, what's your proof? You know, we have evidence of... I have no proof. Yeah. It's not... I don't...

I think the world is way stranger than we think. And I think our existence here is way stranger than we think. I think our existence here is way stranger than we think. I think people have been wrestling with that forever. And for me to just think, oh, the muse is just this airy-fairy concept that you give to the results of hard work and dedication. No, I think hard work and dedication are important because you summon the muse. I think the muse is a real thing. And you've come to this over time. Yeah with age experience I just don't know you know I mean if the muse wasn't a real thing boy

It sure behaves like a fucking real. That's true. It really does behave like a real thing and when you're living your life, right? It seems like it rewards you it seems like it rewards you like both mentally, emotionally, physically. Like there's some, there's a guiding force. It's just, we don't know how to tune into it. And I think that guiding force also exists creatively. I think there's a guiding force in terms of like the things you do. Like if you're living your life right, and you're doing the things you're supposed to do, and you're good to your friends, you're living your life right and you're doing the things you're supposed to do and you're good to your friends You're disciplined and you get to a certain point in your life. You're like wow, it's almost like fate's real

Yeah, you know like there's some guiding forces that are not exact yeah, they're almost like a like a Radio signal that you're tuning in but you can't quite get a a radio signal that you're tuning in, but you can't quite get a shh. It's like it's kind of there, but you kind of have a sense. It's not saying everyone head to the exit.

It's not that clear. It's just like this very vague thing. It's like, I think I'm supposed to do this. Well, fate's an interesting thing, obviously. I thought about it, you know, I thought about it my whole life. My dad had gave me a book a long time ago when I was a kid called The Bridge in St. Louis, Ray, and it's about these people that are on this bridge.

It collapses, and it's in Central South America somewhere, and they all die. And the story is about why are all these people, let's say there's seven, there might be more or less, but regardless, about that number, a group of people, why were they on that bridge at that time when it collapsed? It's just an interesting thing to think about. And I thought about it again in Iraq back in, probably 2005, 2006 timeframe, because anything could have been an IED. And you're going down the road, you're heading to a target,

you're doing a convoy, whatever you're doing, and anything, a dead donkey on the side of the road, trash, whatever, just a disrupted piece of dirt, whatever, anything could be an IED back then. So we got there and I thought, you know what, I can either be worried about that sort of dirt, whatever, anything could be an IED back then. So we got there and I thought, you know what, I can either be worried about that sort of thing or I can just accept the fate part of it and do my job as, at that time as an officer and do my job as the best leader and operator I can possibly

be and focus on the mission and focus on the guys and crush this thing and that's where my focus needs to be, not on whether that thing's an IED. I got somebody up in the turret as we're going. They're looking, they're doing that thing. We have some technology that's helping counter some of these things. Of course, the enemy, though, is adapting to that technology. That's warfare. You're always adapting to the enemy.

The enemy's always adapting to you. You're looking for gaps in the enemy's defenses. You're trying to capitalize on momentum, but they're clever. And they know exactly how we counter things, and they adapt. And in turn, we have to adapt to that So I decided to resign myself to fate as far as that stuff goes So I could just focus on the mission to be the best leader I could be so fate's an interesting thing It is and it's interesting hearing that from you because you're talking about it in the most extreme environment that exists

Which is war and that in order for you to be completely focused, you kind of had to give into that. That's the only way you'll be able to do your job. And then also, if you're not completely focused, it could wind up costing you or your teammates' lives. Exactly. That's the same reason while I was in, all I focused on, and I had to talk to my wife about this,

but she understood it The pendulum is on the side of the team when you're in it for bringing guys down range Maybe you're in a staff job somewhere Maybe not But if you're taking guys down range You do not want to be ten years on from whatever's gonna happen down range in Iraq or Afghanistan or somewhere else around the world Sitting on that couch after something goes sideways Wondering if you did everything you possibly could have done in preparation for that event to be the best, to make the best decisions under fire

you possibly could. So that's why on the weekends I was training. There are people going around the country and the civilian side of the house, so I'd be out there training pistols, training rifles on the weekend, always working out, always reading military history, always reading about Iraq, Afghanistan, so that I was not gonna leave anything on the field because, Afghanistan, so that I was not going to leave anything on the field. Because it was just something that I was very aware of, just reading histories of Vietnam and thinking about the guys when they came home from that and just how the enemy gets a vote.

You can also do all those things I just talked about and things can still go sideways. But I wanted to know that I was as prepared as I could possibly be. And in the margins and the far ends, those hard days that you put in in training could be the difference between your life or life mates life or your teammates. Exactly. It's like now it's easy for me to say, I don't think I need to work out today. I need to write a book. Back then, no, I'm going to work out.

I'm going to do this run. I'm going to hit that obstacle course again. I'm going to get to the range with the guys. I'm gonna do whatever it is. I'm gonna read this other book about Afghanistan or read this thing about insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, terrorism. I'm gonna know the enemy as well as I possibly can

because that's what I owe the guys and not just them but their families and by default the mission in the country. I think that difference is what makes your book so special that you have that real-life experience This isn't just something you're dreaming up and you've done research on like your real-life Experience serving as a Navy SEAL is a big part of why your books are so compelling Yeah, I appreciate that and it's it's one of those thing. I also saw as I was getting out

So I went to the training command buds as my last couple years in which is when I started writing the first first book and That's when I wasn't taking guys downrange anymore I knew I was getting out So I didn't have to be solely focused on that and I can start doing these these other these other things And focus focus on that, but I didn't know through my executive summary through my outline Until I started to write those first words, how personal it was going to be. And it became a very personal writing experience. Initially, I thought, oh, I'll get the sniper stuff right. If I don't know something about an aircraft or a submarine, I can call somebody and

I'll at least, at least I know people to reach out to who can connect me with someone who spent time in the submarine force or in an aircraft I need to write about or something like that. But I didn't know how personal it was going to be from a feeling and emotion standpoint. So if when my character gets ambushed somewhere, I can remember what it was like in Baghdad 2006 to actually get ambushed. And then I can take those and apply them right here to this fictional narrative. So it's a fictional story. James Reese in the first book gets ambushed on the streets of LA by this assassin guy,

but I can remember what it felt like to be on the receiving end. And then those feelings and emotions go directly on the page So I don't have to find a sniper from let's say Ramadi at the height of the war and interview him And then have those answers get filtered through movies. I've seen other interviews I've done documentaries other books whatever it might be and then fictionalize it and put it on the page It goes off heart and soul right in here So it was very personal much more person it's that way. Even though this is the seventh book, it's still just as powerful when I'm writing it and I'm feeling it as it was for that first one.

Did you write any short stories first? No, no, as a reader. So I read my whole life. So I got to read all these guys, David Morrell, Nelson DeMille, AJ Quinnell, J.C. Pollock, Mark Golden, Tom Clancy, Ian Fleming, Jean Le Carre. All these guys were the masters, were my professors in the art of storytelling from a very early age. So certainly by sixth grade. Fifth grade was when Hunt for Red October came out, which is why I have a submarine section

in the beginning of this as a nod to the 40th anniversary of the Hunt for Red October for Tom Clancy and everything he did for the genre. But it's, I just, yeah, I just absolutely love it, but I had that foundation, and I had that foundation, and I had that foundation from an early age, so I wasn't at age 40 when I like thought,

oh, maybe I should be, if I'm gonna be a writer, what should I have been reading, or what can I read that has been written? You read knowing you were going to be a writer. But because I loved the magic in those pages, not because I was like, oh, I'm gonna learn this in sixth grade so that then 30 years later, I can use it. No, it was just I loved the magic in the pages of all those novels and it just became

a part of me, a part of my being, a part of this foundation that I can now build on. And so I don't think I could have prepared myself any better to be a seal or to do what I'm doing now as an author because reading is really the foundation of all of it. That's such a great lesson for people listening that you can apply to almost anything in life They just focus on something be super dedicated to it cover all the bases and then go for it And you nailed it if the terminal is your first book. That's crazy Yeah, that's what it was many rewrites were there or edits I thought there was gonna be a lot because you're sending this to Simon and Schuster I'm a publisher of all these books that I've read growing up and I thought, oh, they know what they're

doing back there, so they're gonna make all these changes. Very few, the questions that I got back are still the ones that I get content edits today, which are like, hey, explain this for somebody who wasn't in the military, or now, hey, explain this for someone who hasn't read the previous six books, put another sentence in there too, just to explain who this person is and why they're here. So those are the kind of edits that I get but no real big

content edits at all and I didn't know it I'm stepping into this for the first time back then and I didn't know if it was gonna be like hey you know what you should lay off on the violence or do you have to have so many guns in there or do you have to describe them nothing there's zero see the thing is about books you can kind of go ham in a book like and people don't really Cancel books, you know, they don't you know I'm saying like you can with with written fiction You can get pretty fucking crazy. Oh, yeah to the point where if that was in a movie people like what kind of asshole made this Cuz we totally different. I think we think about movies

as movies shaping our narrative of reality in a good way. Like the good guy always wins, you know, bad guy always dies, like it's kind of predictable. That's why we like superhero movies, right? But in a work of fiction, like a novel, you can get pretty dark. Yeah, there's, I have 100% complete creative control. No one, and I love that my agent or my publisher never suggests anything and I love that

I know that was how it was gonna be going in because I saw you know, you're watching like Californication, you know, you're seeing David Duchovny and his relationship with his agent or you're watching. What was that other one? The one about the agent in LA with Ari Oh Yeah that one fucking entourage. So that's what kind of thought agents were. That's Hollywood agents though. I think literature agents they understand creativity a little bit better. Yeah. Also Hollywood agents can you know they just it's a different animal. Yeah. I haven't experienced those ones that are kind of the caricature of an agent. I haven't. Yeah I haven't experienced those ones that are kind of the caricature of an agent.

Oh, I've had a bunch of them. Yeah, I haven't experienced that yet. The difference is those guys don't read. They're not reading anything. They're wheeling and dealing, and they're doing their thing. They're doing Coke and driving Ferraris. They don't have time for reading.

No, yeah. They're not reading. So I'm sure that they exist. I just have not experienced that yet. Because now I have like five agents now. There's one for every. There's the literary agent. There's the book adaptation agent. There's uns five agents now. There's one for every, there's the literary agent, there's the book adaptation agent,

there's unscripted agent, there's podcast agent, and there's more that I'm forgetting. So there's a lot now, but none of them give me advice on what to do. So I love having complete creative control. I absolutely love that. And then there's no one to blame. If people hate this, all on me.

It's not like, oh, my agent, I knew I shouldn't have done that because she said I needed to put this other character in or something, fuck. There's none of that. Zero. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I think it has to come from you. I think that's what makes work of fiction and really good books

makes it so unique is that you know it's coming from one person's mind. That this thought, these ideas that they had, they wrote it out and they sat there and they summoned the muse and they put it all together and then I know it's coming out of you. So it's like part of the buzz of it. Is that this person, that's one thing that I think

is always gonna exist even when AI starts writing insane books. You're always gonna want a book that came from a person's mind. It's like you want a pair of handmade boots. Yeah, good point. Yeah. Yeah, no, very good point. Hollywood is different though. Screenwriting. So I just sent off episode 107 right before I came over from the hotel. I hit the button on send for episode 107 for this new, it's not really a spin-off, it's its own series, but a prequel origin story, Taylor Kitsch playing Ben Edwards, his origin story that gets him to a place,

shows his journey to get him to a place where he can do the things that he did in the terminal list, in the book and in the show, because he was so good. And that's, writing those things is a team effort for sure. As you know from writing scripts, there are constraints, budgetary constraints, the location constraints, there's a story arc within that episode and then overarching story arc for the whole, whether it's seven, eight or whatever, how many episodes there

are. So there's all those things to consider and then there's notes from senior level executives all the way back down, very collaborative. So it's interesting. Well that's good though that you're collaborating because the other option is you just sell it and they do it and that's never fun Like everyone that I've ever talked to that ever sold a script or sold a book idea And they turn it into a movie and they didn't have anything to do with it. They fucking hate it

Yeah, I mean you have buy-in and it's good and bad because it's not gonna be a strict adaptation There's gonna be changes like the grandma like the movie the gray man Yeah, if you read the book the gray man, and then you watch the movie the gray man You're like what is this? Yeah, this is not the same thing. It's a totally different movie Yeah, there's like all these people that don't exist all these things don't exist Yeah, like the character is not as complex. Yeah, I mean it it's a thing It's a thing and there's gonna be changes obviously the book first blood very different than the movie first blood It's great so different. I mean you get you get sure I never read that book. It's so different.

I mean, you get Sheriff Tisle's perspective. There's no knife in it yet. No knife? Sylvester Stallone brought that to the importance of props. I think I need a knife. Yeah, he brought it to the, because he knew the importance of props, which is why I gave James Reese the tomahawks, because I knew the importance of props

as well from that. And actually, Stallone was, this was so cool. I got to talk to Stallone. He was fantastic. He was awesome. He wanted to jump on a Zoom with me. And I was like, oh my God, as a child of the 80s, I was so fired up.

So I was just like trying to play it cool, right? Like trying to play it cool. I have my phone down in the corner. I'm taking some pictures, you know, just to commemorate this moment. But he was funny. He was wise. And he passed along some lessons and yeah

We just got to hang out and talk and see if there was something that we could do together So I wrote up a little treatment for him specifically. Oh, you know, probably nothing will ever come of it because you know how Hollywood works and you never you never know But but it's cool to cool to do that. It was a that was a big moment. That's very cool. That was fun Yeah, you never that guy was fucking doing stunts into his deep into his 60s. Oh, yeah broke his neck Yeah, an expending expendable. Yeah, like literally broke his neck. Yeah, he talked about it Yeah, his neck fused like when he moves he's kind of stiff and then that's why his neck is fused Oh, yeah, what an animal though in his sixties amazing doing stunts

Yeah, and now late 70s still crush fucking Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yeah. Like what? Uh huh. Yeah, but that's how dedicated that guy is. And such a great writer. People don't understand just what a great writer he is, what a great mind that is. All those films coming from that mind.

Yeah, what a great guy. It's funny that people assume that at a certain point in time someone doing something awesome is going to want to stop. You know? Yeah. Like, why is he still working? Doesn't he have all the money in the world? What the fuck are you doing? I think he just loves it.

He must! I mean, that's what you get off on. Now it's not a thing, it's like most people think about work as like a thing you do for money, and then you eventually get enough money, you don't work. But if you actually do something that you love, like, why would you stop? Why do you wanna stop?

I think that's the difference between thinking of something in terms of a career and thinking of it in terms of a profession. And there's a difference. There's precision in language reflects precision in thought, someone told me a long time ago. And that's a different thing. A career is something, let's say you walk in

and you're working your way up that ladder and you have a plan and profession is something that's a calling it seems. So the profession of arms, there's a reason we call it a profession of arms not the career of arms although there are a lot of careers in the military that are working their way up that ladder and you cover that and I get to take them out in all sorts of creative ways so it's very therapeutic for me to write these things yeah there's a lot of grossness that's what's really sad is that you would think

that the military would be like the most pure of all Institutions because it has to be because you're literally Taking the strongest amongst us and having them go and fight for our country Yeah, and fight for our interests and you would think that there's no room for bullshit Yeah, but apparently there's a lot of room for bullshit. Well, there's a lot of room for advancement, I guess if you Simply don't pop positive on a piss test, don't get too many DUIs and don't get arrested for let's say domestic violence or something like that.

You can stay in the military for a long time. So you don't need to excel when you hit certain rank. And I think that when you that's what we see it play out in Afghanistan, August of 2021, that's 20 years of being able to plan for that withdrawal. And that's the best that our military leaders could do. 20 years to prepare for that. So somebody can look at that who never had any touch point with the military and apply common sense and logic to that problem set and have a much better plan to extract forces from Afghanistan.

That whole thing seemed insane ridiculous It seemed insane and it's for whatever reason. It's not being discussed People are talking about this presidential race Yeah That was one of the more insane things of our time and then when you talk to people that were there like Tim Kennedy He's told me some horror stories Oh, yeah about what was going on there those babies thrown over the fence and the barbed wire Saw worse things during that time than all of his tours

She's they were Taliban just killed a woman in front of them just openly like put her head on On a truck and shot her in the head in front of everybody and it was unnecessary. That's the whole thing. It was unnecessary I just don't understand How you can do that. I don't know. I don't understand. Like, I mean, if you're going to execute something that's as complex as removing all the troops from a place that we've occupied for 20 years, like, it seems like that would involve a very thoroughly reviewed plan. one would think many experts and come up with what's gonna cause the least likelihood of casualties and Yeah, no, I thought about it in the early days

So in 2003 in Afghanistan, and I thought it was catching the tail end of it then Because the flash points before that we had Mogadishu we had Panama Grenada Desert one so after Vietnam you had these flashpoints And this was now we're moving into extended combat operations But from the end of Vietnam up to then our our model is a flashpoint essentially So we all thought if we weren't there essentially right after 9-eleven that we were gonna miss it and then we have essentially 20 years, but I remember being the back of a Hilux pickup truck with with a Afghan guy and I'd always ask him if they were back then I could ask him if they were moose if they fought the Soviets because I was always interested in that history and

Their backstories and what that life was like in the late 70s through the 80s into the 90s And so I was always essentially collecting information just because I was curious But as I'm talking to this guy distinctly remember thinking man one day We're gonna leave this place and this guy is helping us right now what's gonna happen to his family when we leave this place and Yeah, we saw that all play out. It was 20 years later, but as we didn't play there was no reporting on it It's like no just disappeared. Yeah, we hear about it from soldiers we hear about it from people that are you know, like deeply embedded journalists that were there but most people that

Know about that story don't know about all the people that worked with the United States over there. They're fucked Yeah, we don't even know what happened to them. Yeah. No, it's it's awful. We have a history doing that I mean we did it in Vietnam did with the Kurds after the first Gulf War So we don't have a very good track record as far as taking care of those and their families who help us. No. And they get left behind typically, and then family slaughtered.

It's just hard to imagine that that's how we approach things. Yeah. You don't want to think that the people that are in charge are that incompetent. Or that are that callous. Or that are that they just look at numbers thing instead of looking at bodies in human lives

Yeah, well all that stuff I get to yeah I guess it's to write about these guys meeting their ends in a Horrible ways in the pages of the novel So it's I guess that that's my way to do my part to kind of keep that history alive because you can go back to Fiction let's say you can go back in Fleming. We talked about him earlier You can go back and read those books from the 50s and that really is a portal back to post-World War II Great Britain and their changing place in the world. I mean Empire Decline and that's Ian Fleming's way to keep that old empire alive is through

James Bond and his creation. So it's their time capsules back to the time in which they were written. You go books in the 70s, books in the 80s, go back to the Tom Clancy, read the other time for October, Patriot Games, whatever it is. It's a snapshot of what's going on there geopolitically. And then also things like searching for a phone booth and looking for a quarter, that sort of a thing. So all of those things. So I like to weave a pop culture and history into the pages of the novels as well, because they are their time capsules for the time in which they're written. But it's also a constraint because now you have to think

about Teslas and GPS's in cars and GPS's in phones and video cameras everywhere. So you have to think about that, especially when you're writing a like espionage type of a thriller, you have to think about all that stuff and weave it into every chapter, same thing with film and screenplays, you have to be like, in the script, why wouldn't he just pick up his phone and call this guy and tell him to like wave off

or something like that? Whereas in the 80s or 70s, like that guy's gone, how are you going to contact this guy? So it's just a different dynamic. And you have to think about that as you're writing these things. So it's just another, another interesting thing that you need to think through and creatively solve for I was Thinking about this the other day when I knew that we were going to talk how complicated is it to try to? make a Reasonable storyline where someone evades capture today Yeah, it's a thing because if someone is using a phone they know where you are

Yeah, if you are running around in a city they're going to have access to security cameras, they're going to have street cameras in some countries, and you know, you could be tracked so easily. You could be tracked from fucking space. Yep, it's a whole thing. You ever seen those photos that they take, satellite photos from space?

I've seen a lot, but I don't know if I've seen the ones you're thinking of. License plates. License plates. Read a license plate from space. Oh yeah seen a lot, but I don't know if I've seen the ones you're thinking of license Oh, yeah, I'm licensed place read a license plate from space. Oh, yeah, you gotta think about all this stuff And this is like from years ago. Oh, yeah, you could see your license plates a while back It's probably full scale video now or facial recognition technology Oh, yeah back in the 60s or something like that you're forging passports and all that sort of thing That's a no-go right now I saw the fucking craziest story about this guy

Who got a bunch of plastic surgery and changed his appearance and changed his name? So that he could try to date his girlfriend who had a restraining order on him what yeah What this fucking psycho changed his face bleach blonde? Died his hair lost a ton of weight look like a totally different guy So he could date his girlfriend that put a restraining order. That's a little creepy It sounds like it should be a movie or some sort or a law and order Yeah, that should be a hole in the desert. That's the guy what yeah, that is crazy I'm crazy. Here is this is? 2020. Some tweets bring it up. This wasn't recently but...

2020 four years ago. Gets plastic surgery and name change to date his ex-girlfriend after she obtains a restraining order. Did it work? How far did he get? That's a good question. Did she find out? That's a good question. It seems like there'd be a tell or it seems like he'd just be too creepy to even re-engage really or with anyone actually., I mean maybe he knew like what creeped her out. So he like started slowly Yeah, I'm just do the opposite of what my real personality would do Man did not look up there. It says no this man did not Was not successful or he didn't do that said he didn't get it. It's bullshit. Ah ha these sons bitches. What's the actual truth? That's the thing. How do you even figure this out?

Just be one of those urban legends and someone just took it too far. We found a disclaimer world news daily Oh, that's a silly. Yes. It's your own nature. Oh, that's a silly newspaper Okay, they got us sons of bitches Still it's a good idea for a script or it was a script you're working on back then. It was a werewolf movie nice Yeah What happened? I just have it sitting around on my computer. I should do something with it eventually yeah, yeah We should do something speaking of which Patrick bed David was Played there was some video where he was showing

Obama and He thinks Obama has a mask on I'm not I keep seeing those yeah, Biden He thinks Biden is not really Biden that someone pretending to be Biden that has a mask on yeah Because he was like talking very clearly They were just reviewing it does that technology is just yet Does that does that technology exists Does that technology exist yet? I'm already on the clip. Does that technology exist? Is that possible? I think it's makeup.

I think it's makeup. They can use prosthetic masks, and they can do an insane job of changing your appearance. But these guys are accusing Biden of having this on, which I think, boy, that's a loose end. If that's true, there's too many people out there that would know I know I feel like that So look, I can look weird. I mean it looks like people now claiming that Joe Biden has different skin color on his face than his neck

Yeah, well, they do the makeup. Let me see what it looks like Well, there's the collar okay, there's a shadow on the collar yeah, no see that's just the shadow I think that but yeah, I see what I. I can when that clip at the end right, but that's just but that's a bunch of different Lights that's all that is lighting. It looks bad, but that's also low-resolution Video if they were gonna do that do you think they would keep the fucking neck color different? I would think that they would be smarter than this and it can you even do that? But if you can get that good where you can make the face look that good and they keep comparing his old face to his new face First of all the guy got plastic surgery clearly he got a facelift

He's got his face pulled back to try to look younger which never works just makes you look weird That's like weird it makes you look like a lizard But the shadows to me look like studio lighting you have multiple camera multiple lights coming from a bunch of different angles That's what it looks like. Yeah, like he's moving around but it's because he has a collar and the collar is catching the light So there's light down here. There's light above. That's why it looks weird Yeah, that's why it looks like two-tone because it's essentially getting a shadow But then the shadow is also getting light from the upper light from the upper camera Yeah, see looks fake right there, but that's just shadows. It's because he's being lit from below right yeah

It looks it does look odd. Yeah, you think he's probably being lit from a couple different spots Yeah, I don't think you can I mean I definitely think you can get a face Like mask and make you look like him, but how are you gonna talk like him? Yeah, it probably just gave him a solid dose of Adderall I've ever seen this clip. I saw the very end of it where they have an expert of some kind this guy He says that like they've been using body doubles since yes They have again, and he's like it's plausible that they could maybe have well Yeah, I doubt You would have to so you would what you would have to do is you'd have to grab the person in the mask and they'd have to talk in their voice and then what you could do with AI is change the voice to be exactly like Biden's voice.

Yeah. You could do that. But that requires so many people to be in on it, including the person being interviewed or the person interviewing Biden, all the people that are watching. Right. There's a lot of loose ends there. Yeah, that's where a lot of these things I think fall apart yeah in that case That's a lot of loose ends especially like camera guys and a lot of hard-working folks a lot of fucking Probably Republicans involved in normal people doing that sort of thing you know you'd have to sign NDAs, but people talk Yeah, it's like especially something like that like oh my god They had a fake president give a conversation conversation and that's what you're seeing You're seeing a fake president. This is crazy. Yeah, it's a lot Benjamin Franklin said three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead There's something to that there's certainly something to that

And yeah, like you're at all this other people that actually do the work the tactical level work Yeah, I guess I think about in for Hollywood now when you see, let's say, a star of a show say something on social media that makes everybody crazy, I'm never gonna watch that person show again or see that movie, I'm never gonna watch another movie by that person, that's one person. Like that's the one person who goes up and accepts the award, but there's 300 other people,

400 other people, even more than that, doing all that tactical base level work, the hair and makeup people, the stunt people, all of those people are part of this thing Part of this project and that's their jobs, too So I think about that now when you see someone say something kind of off the wall Okay, that's that's that person is the essentially the spokesperson for that show if they're a star But there's so many other people that help bring that then put in so much work

And then that person can go spout out some political opinion and then I Mean like look what's going on right now with Robert De Niro Oh, yeah, Robert De Niro because look there's something about being a star or you think your opinions more important than anybody else's and You can go give a press conference and he obviously has been very vocal from 2016 that he hates Trump for whatever reason maybe they Maybe they have some personal thing, whatever it is. But now he's like holding press conferences. So now everyone's heckling him everywhere he goes.

Like you've opened up this, instead of just being this cranky old liberal, which I know a lot of them, you know, instead of that, now you're this guy that is yelling at other people that are Trump supporters And they're yelling at you like you've opened yourself up to this nonsense, right? Like why do that even why yeah now every movie you go to 50% of the population is gonna Not want to go see that movie. Yeah instead of just you know I

Think there's a certain thing Involved in being an actor at a very high level. And I think that's one of the reasons why you never see like Daniel Day-Lewis give conversations. You know, like- Well, he disappeared. Yeah. Where did he go?

He's very rarely talking about things that are in the news and he's not doing one of those fucking, imagine there's no heaven videos and everybody's get COVID, remember those? You know those? And there's no heaven videos and everybody's get COVID, remember those? You know those? And there's a bunch of celebrities were telling you how important it is to not vote for Trump. There was all these videos from 2016.

You're not gonna see Daniel Day-Lewis in those. Because for Daniel Day-Lewis, for the master of masters to be able to embody these completely different human beings, you kinda don't wanna know much about him as a person. Yeah, we don't. And I think he pretty much, did he retire? He became a cobbler for a while. I think he stopped doing that. I don't think he acts anymore though. Yeah, a cobbler in Ireland, right?

I don't know. He became a boxer for a full year. Whoa. Yeah, he did that movie, I think it's called the boxer. It's about the IRA It's about a guy who goes to prison and comes out and he looks like a legitimate boxer Like better than anybody else who has ever been in a movie about a boxer really well He's he goes all in yeah the other the guys in other movies they Box like no one's punched him in the face Yeah, you know or no one's going to punch maybe somebody has but no one's going to punched him in the face. You know, or no one's going to punch him. Maybe somebody has, but no one's going to punch him in the face.

So they're throwing punches and it's not, it doesn't look real to me. Yeah, that's why you have a hard time with Rocky, right? I have a hard time with Rocky. I know you do. I mean, it's a great movie. I loved it when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I drank raw eggs

and I ran around the block from the moment I saw it. Oh, it was fantastic. It was awesome. And so that's what I miss. I mean, I miss those days. I miss the feeling of watching those movies and getting just fired up and then going out and doing pull-ups and sprinting hills It's just hard when you know something Yeah, when you know something like if you were watching a movie about the military and they were doing shit

That's just absolutely never going to happen and not real. Yeah takes you out of it. You're like, ah Yeah, I know and that's what we that's what was important to Antoine Fuqua, so Chris Pratt, David DiGillio, me, was doing something that when somebody who served in the military or law enforcement, firefighter, intelligence officer, somebody that did these things for real can pop that beer and sit on their couch and watch the show.

We wanted them to know we at least tried. We at least tried to get it right. There's gonna be some Hollywood hot sauce, of course. Chris talks about it in terms of like 80% authenticity and 20% Hollywood hot sauce. You gotta move that story forward. You gotta move it forward. That's a great term, Hollywood hot sauce.

But the problem is sometimes it's too much hot sauce and overwhelms the meal. Or they don't know. And it does take another breath and you have to take a moment to try to get these things right. It's easy, not easy, it's still hard to make any show. And that's why I appreciate all shows out there now,

because I know how much work goes into making even the bad ones and how easy it is for things to go off the rails. So it's a shocker that anything gets made or anything good gets made, certainly. But it's so, you do have to take that extra moment to think about, hey, how is this gonna look to somebody who does this for real? Yeah

You have to respect that as soon as you make a film about something and the people in the film Like you have a movie about dancing and they dance like shit This movie sucks, yeah, if you're a professional dancer you'd be mad you'd be like this is horrible and like they do that in some karate movies But there's a suspension of disbelief aspect of those movies where you jump up and kick two people at the same time. Yeah, it's kind of fun. Yeah, I know. There's the fun aspect,

but if you're trying to make a serious film and try to do this, that's why Daniel Day-Lewis is so great because he becomes that character. I think you have to talk to him on set like he's that character. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

He was Abraham Lincoln for like a year. Right, right. It's so interesting because I don't see that I've not seen that yet Let's fucked up because nobody even watched that movie When you waste your time being Abraham Lincoln for a year and nobody even talks about the movie. I know that's tough That's why I write this one page executive summary when I start these things and I ask myself Is this worth the next year year and a half of my life? And if it's if yes Then I go all in but I read it again and I say is this worth someone's walking by Hudson News and grabs this off the shelf and

reads the back of this paperback or whatever and is it interesting enough for them to devote time they're never gonna get back to this story I have a hard time with those movies about real people where you don't know what they said to their wife behind closed doors like Abraham Lincoln like how the fuck do you know what he said what are you doing here you just put a bunch of words in his mouth. A little historical fiction. You take a little literary license and it's,

you don't like that. I don't like it. It's either all fake or all real. Documentary or we're going here for something. Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, don't, we're making it up. I can't get behind these movies about like real people. Yeah.

You have them talking to their kid, you don't have to fuck with yourself. You don't know what they're saying. Unfortunately, no recordings of Lincoln's voice exist since he died 12 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. The first device to record and playback sound, if anyone had an educated guess as to how it sounded though,

it would be Holzer, who has written 40 books on Lincoln. 40. 40 books on Lincoln in the Civil War. What a psycho that guy must be. Wow. You know that guy's out there reenacting the Civil War? He's one of those dudes. That's wild. That is wild. 40 books on Lincoln in the Civil War what a psycho that guy must be wow you know that guys out there reenacting the Civil War 40 books on Lincoln in the Civil War and that seems a little crazy, but just being Daniel Day Lewis So I like that like I love IRA movies. Oh, yeah, he's IRA 70s like IRA movies. I think those are good

Yes, even the bad ones are good. I just started watching Peaky Blinders I've not watched it yet. I need to watch it. Fuck. It's lovely. Yeah. Yeah, it's fucking great I burned through the gentleman, which is guy Richie's new show on Netflix, which is amazing. It's fucking great Nice prime guy Richie. It's great. And then a Lot of friends have been telling me like you gotta watch Peaky Blind and Jamie keeps telling me I watch the wire and that's next Yeah, the virus next but I gotta get through Peaky Blinders. Yeah Blinders fucking great. What do they say there there there are two people times types of people in this world those who have watched Peaky blinders and those Who have not really I think I've seen that meme somewhere. Tell that to someone in Africa

Yeah, bro. You haven't watched Peaky blinders. I know what's going on now. You know what? There's there's so many things I want to watch but I having the time, because it's just go, go, go. Well, today is the craziest time ever. So much. For television and films, and so many of these incredible series, these things where they take, like Ozark, where you follow the entire storyline for years. And the Sopranos started that,

which is still one of the greats. Tony Hinchcliffe just started watching the Sopranos. I know, I missed that too, because that came out right around, when did it come out? When the Sopranos? Yeah, right around. 2000-ish?

So right around September 11th. So as soon as that, I remember it was starting up. 2000? It had been peak, yeah, it was like the first season, I think it was 2000, at the end of 99 or something like that. And then it lasted to 2009. Yeah, kind of lost a lot of that during that timeframe, because. Sure.

Right, 9-11, going down range, focused on that, starting a family, all that stuff. So we kind of missed a little bit in there. So now I need to go back and watch these things. Go back and watch the Sopranos. It's fucking incredible. I see scenes all the time. You know, you see scenes all the time.

They pop up on your feed and all that stuff. It's fantastic. It's hard to believe that you root for a guy who's a criminal and a murderer. Yeah, yeah. Like he's your hero. Yeah. Like. Well, I kind of write about that in here. My guy goes off a criminal and a murderer. Yeah, yeah. Like he's your hero. Yeah. Like.

Well, I kind of write about that in here. My guy goes off the, you know, kind of little. But his is understandable. Yeah. Tony Soprano's a criminal. Yeah. He's a lifelong mafia guy who's robbing people and stealing things.

Yeah, Reservoir Dogs. And you're watching Reservoir Dogs and you're loving all those guys' conversations and all the rest of it. And they're all bad guys. Yeah, I mean, a lot of those, a lot of Tarantino stuff. Oh yeah, well, I like that. Like a complicated movie.

Where people are complicated. Yeah, exactly. Like real people. Interesting, yeah, interesting people. And I like, I wanna like somebody too, so you can even like, that's what you're saying, you're saying that you like these guys who happen to be criminals or doing bad things

or whatever because of the way they're written, the way they come up. You get to know them through these things. It was crazy. Everybody wanted to be in the mob. The mob probably recruited quite a few people during those days. Well, there's the whole story behind Godfather and all that stuff too. Oh, I bet. I bet.

I mean, that was an amazing movie. I bet that made a lot of people want to become mobsters. Probably. Or have you heard Danny Trejo talk about doing, there's a couple movies that came out about gangs and his affiliation there with those, but he's acting in these same things and having to go and actually get permission

from the different gangs to do them. He has it in his biography. It's pretty interesting stuff. But similar type of a deal. Wasn't that a deal also with Edward James Almost? When, what was it, American Me? There was American Me and then there was Blood in Blood Out. It came out about the same time. Is that the same thing? I don't think that's Edward James Almost though. No, there were two different ones. Right, right. American Me, I think, got in trouble with some of the Mexican gangs

for the way things are depicted. You have to have permission for stuff. Yeah. Well, I was gonna go to Macau for this one, so for China. And I don't think I can go there now. I think I needed to do it before I wrote this book. Uh-oh.

Yeah, so I think I, luckily I went to Russia before for my third novel for Savage Son I went over to Kamchatka Peninsula did a hunt over there and Had a crazy experience with a bear over there, but I got I don't think I don't know if I should go back I don't think I should go back Look what they did to Brittany Griner. I know exactly. Yeah, of you, American Patriot actor Danny Trejo said in the interview He was aware of 10 people having been murdered

for their involvement in the film. Holy shit, man. American me. Holy shit, the first killing occurred 12 days after the film's premiere. Well, one of the film's consultants, Charles Charlie Brown Manriquez, a member of La Eme was killed in Ramona Gardens,

LA's oldest public housing project. Another consultant in the film, 49 year old grandmother Ana Lazarga, Lazarga commonly known as the gang lady, was murdered when she was gunned down in East Los Angeles driveway while loading luggage into her car the day of her mother's funeral. Wow. Wow. Yeah. They were pissed. Be Careful. Yeah, it's like dangerous people you're making movies about Yeah, yeah Do you ever worry about that with stuff you talk about on here?

Yeah, you could always worry about that Yeah I mean, if you're gonna talk about things that are consequential Right You know, I mean we live in a weird fucking world right now We live in a weird world of all kinds of insane things happening simultaneously. You know? Yeah.

It's pretty wild. I got off the plane yesterday and I hear this, Jack! And it was a guy walks up and he ended up being an Austin detective. So first I thought I was in trouble. And he liked the books and everything and we apparently have some mutual friends. But yeah, it's crazy out there and people can find you so much easier now Yeah, like that. It's a it's definitely not a safer time to be alive, but it's also It's interesting that we're moving towards some I mean people can find you we're moving towards some very weird thing where there's not gonna Be any secrets anymore. Yeah, I don't think it's that far from now

No, and I think it might be the only way human beings ever truly understand each other. I think it's gonna happen through technology, and I think it's going to happen in our lifetimes, that our relationship to each other is gonna be incredibly different than what it is now. Man, Neuralink, we got that coming up. I think that's a part of it.

I have Alice's character I introduced two books ago ago for in the in the blood and an AI quantum computer and people really liked this character But I didn't want I did a sideline her for the next one for the last book because I didn't want to rely on her Like Michael Knight in the 80s calling Kitkar and his watch and having it jump in does trans am and zip off So I sidelined her last book, but I knew I couldn't introduce a character like that and not and just ignore her forever. So she comes back in this and even since I did the research for the last book and that's only two years, things have increased such an exponential rate as far as AI quantum computing and then the military side of that autonomous control of platforms. So all these new things that are coming out, whether it's submarines or it's aircraft or surface ships,

whatever it might be, they're all being built so that they can be autonomously controlled. They may not be yet, but they have that ability. Have you seen that insane new ship that's autonomous? That's all controlled, it looks like a manta ray. Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that one. That one's no passengers, no crew. There's nobody on it at all.

No one on it at all. It's just a machine. It looks like a damn spaceship. Yeah. See if you can find it. Yeah, I know what you're at all. It's just a machine. And it looks like a damn spaceship. See if you can find it. It's crazy looking. You look at it, you're like, if this was not ours, if you were living in like 1970 and someone saw something like this.

Yeah, dang. Look at that. That's crazy. That's wild. No windows? You'd be like, oh my God, it's a spaceship. It's from another planet. All new stealth stuff stealth bombers

The speed that this things go at the altitudes that they travel. Yeah, it's wild Why I also think there's new ones that operate on geothermal energy Wow, and they can make hydrogen out of water like they can do wild shit with some of these new devices that they're creating And this is the future is the future right here. So that's what I'm exploring in this, in this thing is like, what happens if you turn over autonomous control or have one of these things, just take control. Right. That is a real problem. That's,

that's a real problem that people are terrified of when it comes to weapon systems. And if you're doing it, what is China doing? So we're doing it. China's doing it and you have to get inside your enemy's decision-making process, and they're making decisions so fast using AI to make them. I mean, you can have missiles raining down on the West Coast before our generals and elected leaders are like, I hate calling them leaders, elected representatives, because they're not really, they don't seem like leaders to me, elected representatives, they're supposed to represent us before they're even out of bed.

Yeah. And not only that, but these supersonic ones can change directions. So you can't even picture where they're even out of bed. Yeah and not only that but these supersonic ones can change directions so you can't even picture where they're going. Hypersonic ones, hypersonic missiles, passive targeting, so you have all of these things so I got to explore all that in the past. Probably why this book took so long is because I was doing that research and it's just new things coming to light every single day and then people you're talking to in that space giving you little hints about what's really out there and then you talk to somebody else who gives you another little hint and you get to put this mosaic together like a reporter might and I think what I describe in the book I think we're way past it

We're already way past it as far as quantum computing AI and what the ability of those platforms What what they have what they can do? Yeah, I think so, too I think what we know is probably really the tip of the iceberg and I think they're probably far more advanced than we think they are right now I think that's what a lot of the UAP stuff is yeah I've been thinking that for a long time I think it's very possible that we are visited it's very like Tucker Carlson seems to think they're spiritual beings that they've always been here like they're devils and angels right that might be true, too

I don't know I mean But also probably we do get visited, but also probably some of those are ours Probably there's something about the government telling you that these are off-world crafts. Let me go. Oh you made it Instantly right my brain goes you're not square about anything All the stealth technology, you know, and they finally unveiled it I think in the maybe late 80s part of that was to let the Soviets know that we do have this capability Because I didn't have theirs yet and so we can get there before they'd even know my fears that they're not ours Yeah

The big fear is that not only do they exist but maybe some of them are not ours And so some other countries have the ability to have these things that move in these insane ways that we can't quite do. Yeah. That might be possible too but if they're telling you that they're from another planet they're not from another planet. That's my feeling. Okay. They're not, they spent three years lying about the Russia collusion story. Yeah. And they got mainstream media to repeat it all. They spent all these years lying about like fill in the blank Everything pretty much everything why the fuck we believe they're telling us the truth about UFOs exactly

I just think the whole thing seems It seems as you suspect. Yeah, it just seems too obvious Mm-hmm. You know I just I don't believe that they would just start telling you that there's off-world crafts. I just like I don't think so. Right. All these years. Yeah. Now you guys are just gonna start, oh it's these brave whistleblowers. Are you sure? Are you sure? Because I smell bullshit. I smell at least some of this is bullshit. I don't know how much of it's bullshit though. I think I think there's too many stories from the past

when this technology was impossible. The Kenneth Arnold sightings, when they first started calling them flying saucers. I think he saw them, was it Washington State? Is that a long time ago? Yeah, it was in the 1950s. Most of them started happening after we dropped the bombs. That's why my comedy club,

the rooms are named after the nuclear bombs. Yeah, it's Fat Man and Little Boy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because in UFO folklore, it's obviously the comedy mothership, we have a UFO, you walk in the front doors of a UFO. It's fantastic.

In UFO lore, they all started appearing shortly after the UFO, the bombs were dropped. See, 1947. And that's when we'd reorganize the military and intelligence agencies. Right there, we changed the Department of War to the Department of Defense, and the Secretary of War to the Secretary of Defense,

and everything gets reorganized, right? 1947 is a very pivotal year. So look at what it says here. Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting occurred on June 24th, 1947, when private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a string of nine shiny, unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum

of 1,200 miles an hour. Dang. So he saw these things flying at a rate, you know, in 47, they were propeller planes, and there's no way anything we had can move like that. And he's watching these things go at an insane rate of speed and so he said they skipped across the sky like flying saucers on a lake and so it became flying saucers. Flying saucers.

Yeah and so but people back then that saw those things there's no way that was the Soviets, there's no way that was the Germans, there was no, no, no, no, that's not ours so whatever the fuck that is if that was real real if the guy really did see those things And then there was a string of them that were over the White House in 1950 something really yeah, there was a there was photographed ones that were over the White House There's actually like a news story about it that these things flew over the White House Okay, and I think they moved at a bizarre rate of speed, too. So those ones give me pause.

Because look, the universe is, that's obviously a drawing. That's a drawing. But I think there is a photograph of it. Yeah. Is that the photograph? There might not be? OK. Saucers over Washington, DC.

So what does the story say? It looks like a comic book. Senior air route traffic controller for the Civil Aeronautics Administration was in charge of the National Airport Washington DC ART control center on the night of July 19th, 1952. Briefly he states in a newspaper article, Our job is to constantly monitor skies around the nation's capital with electronic eye of radar. Shortly after midnight of that day Seven pips appeared suddenly on the control center scope at Nuget Jim Copeland and Jim Richie all experienced radar controllers

Check the ups the observations the airport control tower radar operator verified the same sightings They were over the restricted areas of Washington including the White House and the Capitol dude So those kind of things yeah, the White House and the Capitol. So those kind of things. You gotta go, well, what is that? Look, the universe is big beyond our wildest imagination. There's no way we could even fathom how big it is. It's not possible.

Look at that. Yeah. So they moved at such sudden bursts of intense speed that radar could not track them simultaneously Those objects seemed to head for the White House the Capitol building and the White House triangular form and the White House in triangular Formations the lighting made the front page The sighting rather made the front page headlines in all newspapers dang. Yeah, so those kind of things I mean you go. Okay. Well. What is that right the universe is?

It's impossible for us to even get our heads around how big it is now, so if there is some Planet out there that's in the Goldilocks zone now That's gone through what we're going through currently But is ten thousand years ahead of us right and finds the signature of nuclear bombs on this planet And they realize okay these crazy fuckers have come into this new age where they could split the atom. And so we should probably take a visit. Yeah, it was interesting hearing Tucker talk

about that part on here, like where that technology came from. Yeah. And I hadn't really thought about that before. Well, that's Diana Pasolka's work. Diana Pasolka and Gary Nolan, who is a legitimate professor, I believe at Stanford. And Diana Pasolka was also a professor, she's a professor of religion.

And they have investigated a lot of these crash sites. And the way they describe them, the people that are investigating the crash sites, the actual scientists, they call them donations. What? Donations. That's how they, they don't even think they're crashing like as an accident. They think some of them, they're just sending down here. Like, hey, figure that out, stupid.

You know, send them to some remote place, slam it down there, and then the government has to rope off the area. And you can still find parts in this one area of New Mexico where this one crash site was. They didn't tell them where it was. They blindfolded them, took them out to this crash site, let them investigate it.

And you can still find these pieces of this, some kind of metal that you can take and you can crumple it in your hand like tin foil and then it goes right back to the original shape. Really? This is the same thing that was described in Roswell, New Mexico the people that the Roswell thing is very hard because there's so many people involved and

There's so many similar stories, but the problem is When a story has been told for so long people repeat a story They're told in towns when there's no recording devices, there's no, you know, no one has phones. This is a long time ago. They have, you know, regular phones, but no cell phones, obviously. And what they're doing with all this stuff is they're all talking about it and then a narrative gets established and then people tend to repeat narratives that are established. It's hard because you're talking about something that happened in 1947, but There's a lot of things that come almost right after Roswell. One of them is a transistor and the other one is

Microchips maybe goal. What is that stuff called fiber optics fiber optics fiber optics seem to emerge after that It's one of the things that's described in the crash Yeah, the people that have described it but the thing is like again, you're hearing these things decades later. You're hearing it's It's very difficult to figure out what the fuck actually happened But something seems to have happened because the Roswell Daily Record I have a framed cover of the front page of the Roswell Daily Record from 1947 where it says We there's a crashed UFO that the government flew to the base and that you know, it's like in the news Yeah, which doesn't seem like something back then that you would just make up. Yeah, I don't know

Unless there's a reason behind it distraction. I mean who knows it's yeah, who knows It could be something that the United States was working on but it seems like they were trying to cover it up so much so that they flew the wreckage in two separate planes to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Truman met him there things yeah 47 is a big year 63 obviously a big year with the Kennedy assassination 59 is a huge year a lot of things happen in 59 There's a book was it true in her Eisenhower met him there I forget but the all that that time is so filled with deception and weirdness right is it's also

When operation paperclip was going on and so they took all these Nazi scientists from Germany And they brought him over and integrated them in NASA is now wild all those people Why had those backgrounds did the things that they did back there? Yeah, bring them over and they all a lot of them had those dueling scars on their face. So they look sinister Oh, you know about the do no so Nazis I guess when they were going through this rite of passage when they were in whatever university they were going to, they would have duels with real rapiers, like real swords, and they would slice their faces up. Wow.

They would wear goggles. What? Yeah, and they would have sword fights. I feel like I should know this. These guys got their faces all cut to shit, and that was like part of the pride of being a Nazi was you had these dueling scars on your face that you had done this. And a lot of the guys we brought over from Operation Paperclip had these dueling scars on your face that you had done this and a lot of the guys we brought over Had that from operation paperclip had these dueling scars on their face. That's one of the ways that future historians Identified them as clearly being Nazis. Okay, I think these weren't just like freak accidents guys all had them

They're all like crazy like slices in their cheek. Yeah, show them some pictures cuz it's fucking crazy to see I can't believe you don't know about like I put this in a book. I'm teaching. I know it's awesome. I love it. I forget who told me about it's gonna make it make it into a book It's a weird thing that they all did and there's photos of them all sliced up Yeah, like see they all had these cuts on their faces Like look at that. That's what it looked like after the fact that they'll wear these goggles on and nose protectors And they slice each other's fucking faces apart. It looks like a bad idea It's not nuts. It's a terrible idea But it was a sign of being a badass just like a lot of jiu-jitsu guys today

They like to have cauliflower ear right yeah back then you have your face sliced up. You're a psycho. Oh wow that's crazy Yeah, it seems like you know they could wear like fencing helmets or something no they didn't want to didn't want you They wanted to get cut up. It was part of the thing. That's the thing. Yeah. Yeah Weird that's why they I feels like that needs to make it into a one of my novels Yeah, I mean you'd probably want to dive into it deeper than I have but But it is there was the point is there was a lot of deception Yeah, that was happening in the world back there. So who knows what the real story was about Roswell I'm I I like to think that there's something going on that's real. Yeah, but I also like to think that

If the donation thing is true and that's been going on since who knows how long well, you know Bob Lazar claimed in the 19 late 1980s that he had been working back engineering one of these things and in the late 1980s that he had been working back engineering one of these things. And the way he described it is exactly how they see them move today, exactly how there's a video of these things moving in bizarre ways, no heat signature, they seem to be shooting across the sky, they can hold still at 120-knot winds. It's like the Terminator 2 hand, you know, going back in T2 and reverse engineering that technology from T2. It's interesting how movies and books eventually become reality.

Well, it'd be a good, if you could travel back and forth through time and you realize that human beings are gonna take X amount of steps to get somewhere, but if you can inject some technology into the equation, you could speed up the process considerably. Let them do it on their own let them figure this out like oh transistor and also electronics get far smaller yeah fiber optics oh okay oh why didn't I think of that BAM everything gets way quicker and the other thing that Lazar said about this crafts that was baffling to him in the 1980s he said

there was no seams he said there was no seams. He said there was no welds, there's no rivets, there's no seams. But now we know about 3D printing. Now they can 3D print anything. And if you conceivably have a machine that's large enough, you could 3D print a spacecraft. Well, it wouldn't have any seams.

I mean, going back to 1963, did you hear Trump saying he's actually gonna release all the JFK documents? But he said that the first time. Yeah, he said that the first time. He also said that if you knew what they told me, you wouldn't tell people either. What could that be?

The CIA killed Kennedy. But that seems like we already have. Yeah, but it's not clear. There's a lot of books that are saying that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone that are still pretty good books. Yeah. You know, you people read them and they believe it. I don't believe it I think Lee Harvey Oswald was involved and I think that's the the thing is people think it's either one or the other either Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or You know someone else was involved and Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy

No, Lee Harvey Oswald went to Russia Like during the height of the Cold War odd. Yeah real odd. They let him come back over here Yeah, Lee Harvey Oswald was clearly involved in some sort of shady Espionage type shit. Mm-hmm, and you know married a Russian woman like the whole deal. The whole thing is crazy It's insane the odds that here here he was completely innocent very low It seems like he was over here doing some shady shit. He had always been involved in some shady Intelligence type shit, but I think there was a lot of people and I think they wanted to really make sure that Kennedy got killed And I think there was probably a lot of people involved and I think Lee Harvey Oswald probably was a patsy And I think that's probably why Jack Ruby shot him

Yeah, and all you have to think about as far as mob involvement goes in that is, look at Jack Ruby, his background. Yeah, fully mobbed up. Yeah, fully mobbed up. There's also E. Howard Hunt, who confessed to the killing on his deathbed, said that they were in the grassy knoll.

There's other people, like Woody Harrelson's father, apparently, was supposedly involved. Interesting. Yeah, Woody Harrelson's father was a bad person. Really? A bad guy. Like an assassin. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, known murderer. And so I think there was a lot of people that wanted JFK dead. You know, after the Bay of Pigs, there was a lot of people that wanted JFK dead. You know, he wanted to get rid of the NSA. He wanted to get rid of the CIA. He wanted to get rid of the CIA. He wanted to get rid of the federal bank. He wanted to get rid of everything. The Federal Reserve, he wanted to get rid

of the Federal Reserve. It's like the whole thing's crazy. Yeah, the War and Commission report should have been called the Dulles Commission report. Yeah, right? I mean, Alan Dulles, the guy you essentially fire, he's now in charge of this investigation? Insane.

You fire the guy, now he's in charge of investigating who assassinated you. And you know, the best book that I ever read about it was David Lifton's book, Best Evidence. And David Lifton was an accountant, and they hired him to go over the Warren Report. And so he goes over the Warren Commission Report, and he finds all, he read the entire thing, which is like insanely long. And he read, it finds all these inconsistenciescies and all these things don't make any sense the difference between the way they viewed the body at Dallas versus the way they saw it at Bethesda, Maryland when they brought the body there And then there's the magic bullet which anybody who's ever shot anything with a gun knows that's horseshit

I know it's there so much 1963 was a very pivotal year I know you know it's been the same since. Not that things are gonna always stay the same, things are always gonna evolve, but that was a turning point. No doubt about it when it comes to the power of federal government. No doubt about it.

And I didn't know until Tucker explained it on the show about Nixon, about how they forced, Nixon who's the most popular president in history, that was a government orchestrated coup to get him out. That was super interesting. I had not heard that until I listened to Tucker on your show and having him talk about Bob Woodward and where he came from.

Crazy. Wasn't that wild? That was why I hadn't heard about that before. Crazy, naval intelligence. Yeah, and I listened to that right before I went back to... All of a sudden he has the number one story. Yeah, a brand new guy. Brand new guy, number one story.

It's a great story. It's a great story, Hollywood story. Right. But it is now when you hear it in those terms, the way Tucker talked about it, number one story. It's a great story. It's a great Hollywood story. But it is now when you hear it in those terms, the way Tucker talked about it, it is suspect. The whole thing's crazy. Yeah. When Tucker explains it, the whole thing makes you go, what?

Yeah, it was interesting. I listened to that show right before I went back to New York for the Simon & Schuster 100th anniversary celebration event, and I was speaking there, and so was Bob Woodward. I was sitting next to him in the green room Yeah, I know I didn't I didn't feel as appropriate to uh to bring that up But I think about it thing not really not more like a nice to meet you type

Yeah, nice to meet you suspect person exactly. Yeah, I was looking I was you know, I was looking it was wild But how's Bernstein? What's his deal? I don't know. It's a good question Yeah, yeah get dragged along and see a part of it. We've got a minute. What is he? But everybody looks at that as like the seminal work of you know investigative journalism right seminal like What they developed with the story they put out there? Oh my god the president of the United States is a crook I'm not a crook. I know you know and it's why I have to resign and then Gerald Ford the only Unelected president ever who also was on the war commission report exactly what exactly I mean it's all you know, okay? It's all crazy. It's like we a great script be a great movie

If it was fiction right I might even believe it if that if it wasn't out there And you wrote it in a book back Let's say you wrote it in 1960 before all that stuff starts happening. You're like, nah. Get the fuck out of here. Exactly. That's not how the world works. The world is beautiful and perfect.

Exactly. And the United States is good. That's why it's so hard to do these things because fact is stranger than fiction. And all these things that were conspiracy theories are being proved to have been true. And so it's harder to. And people that are in power

have always manipulated the truth if they can, if they can get away with it. I think it's part of the fun of being in power, being able to get away with shit. It's awful, it's awful. I can't imagine running for something. I mean, yeah. It's very anti-American, which is shocking because they're the people

that run America. That's what's weird. That's what's so weird about it. Yeah, I get it. Nothing sounds worse to me than being a politician. It sounds horrible That's why when I see a good person doing it. I'm like wow well Good luck. Yeah, good luck to you, sir. Yeah, you've decided. I mean there's very few left There's very few compelling leaders that step up to the political arena and you go wow

That's someone who I really like generally in almost every regard the you know Lesser of two evils. Yeah, that's why amazing when you see I mean you see Tulsi get sidelined Yeah, she's I mean not what's great about her is that she has changed positions on things Yeah, and and she's but she gets because of that she gets it from both sides now So you get the people that say oh look look, she once had this view of, what, of second amendment or whatever, and now it's changed so I don't trust her type thing. Well, how are you gonna ever convince someone

or talk to someone or open somebody's aperture about how to think if you don't want them to change sides and don't bring them into the fold? Yeah, it seems silly to make people stick to their original idea on something. If they don't, they're flip-flopping. But that seems silly. Yeah, you seems silly to make people stick to their original idea on something if they don't they're flip-flopping But that seems silly like if you're a human being and you see things like there's a lot of people that were Pretty hardcore leftist liberal progressives that lived in California and they were like, okay

These policies are insane Like I'm getting the fuck out of here like Jillianian Michaels was just, she just did a podcast recently, she discussed it. You know, and she was saying like, I, if I am saying you're out of your fucking mind, maybe you're out of your fucking mind. So like people change their perspective based on new information. The people that bury their head in the sand and pretend everything's amazing and we're eventually gonna pull out of this and our philosophy is correct correct like you're not course-correcting Yeah, if you're not course-correcting you're not learning and if you're not changing your opinion in light of Insane information like if you live in California you get insane amounts of information showing these policies are not working

That this approach to law enforcement this approach to dealing with criminals, and it's not working. It's not good You can't do this No, it's crazy and that same trip back in New York. I went to this place for dinner called the Times Square Cafe Yeah, so not being from New York and not really knowing the area that well I assumed it was fairly close to Times Square. Apparently it was once near Times Square. Not anymore So went to dinner there and with my agent then then I walked her to her apartment and thought, oh, I'll just walk.

My hotel is close to Times Square. I'll just walk. Yeah, Times Square Cafe is not anywhere near Times Square. So put in the phone, I'm like, all the buildings are kind of sending you in circles. You know, I'm like, oh yeah. So I walk at night across New York, like a long, like 30 minutes, maybe even 40.

And I'm like on E&E, you know, I'm like, I'm on edge and I'm making my move here across and it was sketchy. So move forward another month, a couple weeks ago I was in Budapest, so we're filming the show over in Budapest. Budapest is amazing, it's gonna make its way into one of my future novels. There's so much, it seems like Russian money there,

Ukrainian money there, which is probably our money, Chinese money there, I mean there's two Bentleys in front of the hotel every day, two Ferraris, two Lamborghinis, Porsches everywhere. But I had to walk across the city. We watched the first episode, the director's cut of the first episode of this new series. So watched it at a buddy's apartment, because everyone's been over there for the last few months

filming the show. So some are living in hotels, some are living on the economy in town and apartments. So we watched it, and it was awesome. And I decided to walk across Budapest Totally different late at night past midnight walking across totally safe I felt so safe walking across that city. It was clean. There was nobody I knew was the population there I don't know. It seems pretty packed. It's pretty it's but but like any city, but it's not like the size of New York, right?

No, no, no, you're in New York's its own animal as far as that stuff goes. Yeah, what is the population of Budapest? Yeah. Let's guess. Oh, geez, I'm the worst at that. I'll say two million. Look at that. Oh, 1.756. Come on, look at that. Nice. I did a guess. That was good. Yeah.

So that's kind of like Austin. You know, Austin's about a million, and then the surrounding outside area of Austin is like a million. Yeah, nice. And there's not, you know, it's a lot safer here than L.A. I think there's just something happens when you have a million. Yeah, nice. And there's not, you know, it's a lot safer here than LA. I think there's just something happens when you have large populations.

And then also, you know, New York is, you know, they're doing this no cash bail thing where they're just letting people out of jail, including people that assault police officers, including illegal immigrants that assault police officers on video. And they're just letting them out. How do we come back from this? You come back, unfortunately, by going too far in the other direction until you want to bounce back and be liberal again. Unfortunately, this is what happens when people get unreasonable.

When they go that far, then you usher in some totalitarian, hard-nosed, sort of right-wing person who also comes with a stripping of certain civil liberties, you know, like thing, and also has a more cruel approach to certain social issues. And then people go, we need more kindness, we need more this, then we, you know, it's, but generally it's like, it used to be at least, that you would get the right-wing that we're pushing for war. The most bizarre thing about our time is that the left is calling for aid to Ukraine and that, you know, I think they just signed a commitment to help Ukraine for the next 10 years. Oh, wow.

10? Wasn't that true? I don't know. I think there's just something that Biden just signed, and I think they're promising like $800 billion, or or they're gonna need 800 billion dollars. 800 billion dollars. Chicken feed. Don't worry about it bro. We have plenty of money. We have a lot of money. We've spent on Cheetos. Just send a little of that to our friends in Ukraine. Like the whole thing is nuts. Look at this. Oh look at that. They passed it on a Friday.

Nice little loan. They'll pay that back sigh What do they call it a loan? Yeah, it's funny a series of pledges of military and financial aid made by Western allies this week including a 10-year security agreement with the United States and a 50 billion dollar loan issued by Washington and the European Union So interesting I was in the Normandy for the D-Day commemoration events a couple weeks ago Well a few days last last week I guess. But it's not just one day, it's not just June 6th, it's like two weeks of events. Went back there with the Best Defense Foundation, I went right from Budapest over to there, 48 World War II veterans.

So they're all creeping up on 100, at 100, or over 100 years old. And a week's worth of events, so I'm volunteering, helping them get in other wheelchairs, making sure they're taking their medicines, eating, getting them to the events, all that sort of thing. But totally inappropriate during the speech is, and even during the benediction or the prayer at the beginning, mentioned not Ukraine by name, but like the storm clouds are coming. So you have these, all these veterans of World War II D-Day on this stage at the American Cemetery, they're overlooking Omaha Beach,

and these politicians get up there to give speeches, can't help themselves. They have to mention storm clouds coming, mention it, they have to mention it. They didn't mention it by name. I think the French president did, but he's speaking in French, so I'm not 100% sure. But I think he mentioned it by name, Biden, Austin. So they use it as a political tool.

They did. They couldn't help themselves. It was disgusting to be there and hear that. And you have these guys on stage and they did so much for our nation, giving us all these freedoms that we have today, freedoms and opportunities. First out of their landing crafts coming over the beach at Normandy, across that beach, machine gun positions up high and now you're using them essentially as a political prop on this. That part was hard to stomach. But interestingly enough, we went from there to the international ceremony down on Omaha

Beach. So from the cemetery down to the beach. And the international cemetery has all these different world leaders there. And Zelensky's there. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's a visual type of a thing and trying to wait what happened in World War Two on D-Day to what's going on with Ukraine. Yeah.

Yeah. Not appropriate for the 80th anniversary of D-Day for these guys that jumped out of planes landed gliders back then imagining landing a glider at night on June 6th in these fields where the Germans have put these poles up so that if you land you can just get crushed in your glider. A guy was talking to you, his glider came in, he went right between two of these poles that ripped off the wings. Holy shit. And then you have to figure out where your guys are because obviously there's no GPS's. You just landed somewhere in northern France, you're alive now and now you got to link up with people and figure out how to get to the town or the bridge that you're supposed to to defend or take so those guys did that and then

you have the audacity to bring up current politics they can't help themselves every opportunity they have to do it yep Biden did it the person doing the prayer was a great my prayer to start everything off I was like, wow, this is amazing and then she had to bring up these storm clouds on the horizon type of a thing and Certainly Austin went up there and did it Biden did it and just then they have the Zelensky sitting there. It's just very disturbing It's very disturbing that we don't learn You know, it really is, you know all the way back to spend Lee but there's wars. Oh, yeah We don't learn learn you know and

Money always motivates everything and there's always some way to make some sort of a moral argument Why we need to do certain things why we need to act and why we need to fund this and fund that But ultimately there's a lot of money being moved around and we know that once it gets over there We really don't know where the fuck it's going. Yeah, we really don't a lot of nice cars and a lot. Yeah and other places in Europe to have talked to people in the intelligence services Yeah, there's a lot of money rolling around over there And it's not easy to track and it's not really something that anybody's like trying really hard to document now It seems also very dangerous to point out if you were an official person and you started pointing out the fact that this money

Is moving around in a certain way? Yeah, I talk across and said they try to kill him So that there was an assassination attempt on him really when he was there. Yeah, there's something something was set up What was it was like a bomb someone set up in the basement or something talked about on the show? Yeah Yeah, and he kind of had a feeling something something was going to happen and he had this intuition to stay in his room. No way. Yeah.

I'm going to ask him about that. I was just texting him the other day. I'm going to ask him about that. That's crazy. Yeah, it's, I mean, this is a wild, wild time that the left is the one that the left side, the Democrats, the progressives, are the ones that are calling for this crazy war. I know, because when we grew up back in the day,

it was the exact opposite. They were trying to get us out of everything. They didn't want to have anything to do with anything. They wanted no wars. And everybody's like, great, because this is after Vietnam. And if you wanted to be a Democrat and you wanted to win back then, you had to be anti-war. You had to be anti anything remotely close You know, you had to be anti anything

remotely close to what's going on right now. Especially when you know the history of like NATO and moving arms closer to the Russia's border and saying that Kamala Harris saying that Russia's gonna or that Ukraine's gonna join NATO. Like what? That's pretty wild. That's a crazy thing to say openly in the world. You gotta put yourselves in the other person's shoes. There's something looking at things from their perspective and that's what we that's what we do in the military trying to put ourselves in the enemy's shoes figuring out how they're gonna adapt to

what we're doing right now and you have to do that at the strategic levels too but unfortunately you get people at these levels who just stuck with it and they've never created anything in their life and they don't understand the history but guess what they can do? They know how to manipulate a population through their words and through all these things, all these different verticals and institutions that support them to get them into these positions in office.

And it's tough. I mean, it's a machine. And that machine is hungry. What do you think about what's going on right now in Cuba, off the coast of Cuba? I saw that the other day. So we have Russian submarines. Yeah, jeez Russian submarines that are like, you know, how many miles I think they're right there some point time

They're like 30 miles away from Miami isn't that right there? It's wild. What's the closest they got to Miami? I Think that well Russia or excuse me Cuba is what 90 miles I think so 90 miles from the point the furthest south point of floor. That's close. That's nuts Mm-hmm, that's like here to Santa so let's send a message And of course we have I think I saw one of our spokespeople came out and said something about don't worry They're not nuclear. Oh, what the fuck does that? All right, exactly. Okay warships. Yeah. Yeah right there Russian I'm sending a message. Yeah. Yeah right there Russian sending a message Yeah, obviously I mean especially with this new thing where we're sending more money and

Committing to it for ten years like holy shit Yeah, I mean, what are we getting into the bad part of all this is that if you're the enemy you almost just want to Let us like not do anything because we're doing such a good job at destroying ourselves We are but they're helping us, too Oh, they can help they can give a nudge here there. They're helping us a lot on social media Yeah, exactly. They can just there's a lot of that on social media You know one of the FBI analysts said that he thinks that former FBI analysts said that he thinks it's 80% of Twitter's trolls really US submarine pulls into Guantanamo Bay a day after Russian warships arrive in Cuba oh great oh wonderful oh Jesus Christ

look at that oh US Navy submarines arrived in Guantanamo Bay Cuba in a show of force as a fleet of Russian warships gather for planned military exercises in the Caribbean US Southern Command said that USS Helena, a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine pulled into the waters near the US base in Cuba on Thursday. Just a day after a Russian frigate, a nuclear-powered submarine, an oil tanker, and a rescue tug crossed into Havana Bay after drills in the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Is it an also or something else? Russian submarine spotted near West coast of Scotland. Oh, great. Yeah. What are they doing? Well, you have, I mean. None of this is good guys.

And this is to say nothing about what China is doing. Oh, it was spotted there before it arrived in Havana. Yeah. Yeah, all of us terrifying. Terrifying and we're, you you know in the middle of this We're also in a war with them to develop AI like who's gonna get to it fast enough. Oh, yeah Yeah, and that's that's yeah, that's this this book right here was all about that But from the China US perspective those geopolitics who's doing what Taiwan took the Taiwan issue in there as well

So it's, you know, it's fascinating to have done that research now and see where China is compared to where they were a few years ago, and then think about where we're going in the future. But it's tough to do all that research and remain hopeful. So I try to, you know what I mean? It's, that's what I love about you. You remain hopeful. You talk to all these different people and you're interested in so many things, but yet you remain so hopeful in all these conversations that you have with people. Yeah, I'm hopeful, but I'm not sure if I'm right You know, I started getting nervous about China when they banned the Huawei devices Yeah, and I was like wait what what's going on?

Yeah, because as a phone nerd Huawei had some insane phones their phones were like more advanced than US phones okay, and phones. Their phones were like more advanced than US phones. Okay. And they banned their devices when one of their newer phones was coming out and apparently it's not just phones. It was a bunch of different routers and different technology that they had they believed China would be able to access information through. Oh yeah. It's embedded in almost everything that we have that we rely upon not just on the civilian side But on the military side the intelligence side not and they think long term. I know Admiral Rachel Levine is on the case

Don't you worry we have competent members of our military? It's so bad and that's I mean, that's why we have these recruiting issues I mean if you're you know, encourage one of your kids to to join the military right now I mean, I don't I don't know how that that I don't know how you can but that's why they bring it back It's a registration for the draft. That's all that. Yeah, which is nuts But what are you saying and the age of AI you're gonna force people and to go into war and what is going on? What are you doing? Yeah, why are you doing this? It's because a lack of recruitment You're gonna force them to go in now and then when when you're there, will you indoctrinate them with all this bullshit? So instead of getting people that want to serve, which is the people that you want, the people that are dedicated to it, that are

driven towards this life, instead of that, you're forcing people to do it, and then once you get them in there, you can kind of force your ideology on them. The type of people that sign up for the military, they would be way less likely to buy into that horseshoe. House Passes Defense Bill Services already mandatory for mail aid is 18 to 24. Yeah.

And so it's already a thing. Just it's automatic now. You still have to do it. So you don't have to go down there and into the post office and do it. That was kind of a cool rite of passage, though. Do you remember doing that? They gave me a free razor in the mail, I think. Did they? Wow. Fantastic. You and do it. That was kind of a cool rata passage though Do you remember doing that I gave me a free razor in the mail? I think did they wow fantastic

You still have it. I don't remember doing that you don't remember doing that three raises So you had to go down to it at 18 right? Yeah, and what year was this? You had to do that. I did it when I was yeah, and uh, what year is that 90 something like that Yeah, you had to go down and do it. So stop me though. It's something 85 Yeah, yeah, is that something you had to do back then yeah I must have did it. I probably don't remember doing it. Yeah, I remember when the Gulf one desert storm broke out I was Living with a buddy of mine and we were watching on TV and I was like what right a war I was alive during Vietnam in San Francisco I lived

I was a kid and when Vietnam ended I remember thinking as a kid I guess I was like 10 or something I'm everything in shoot glad we got over that no more wars like we figured that out yeah but we haven't figured out shit, and now it's even more complicated with all this artificial intelligence stuff And you know Mike Baker was in here And he was showing us these videos of these fighter jets that are using AI now that are winning dogfights 100% 100% of the time Wow over Actual human pilots yeah, so human pilots can't beat the AI system. They just can't. They lose 100% of the time. That's nuts.

So take that 10 years from now. Right. Then put a jet out there that can do maneuvers at insane G-forces because it doesn't have any humans in it. Right. So it doesn't have to think about that. And so now you add that. I know you got that. China's doing the same. Yeah. But they're also smart because they're that. China's doing the same. Yeah. But they're also smart because they're buying up property

next to military bases. They tried to buy the hotel, Del. Hilton Del Coronado right by the SEAL base down there. So that got blocked. But there's also these. That's so crazy. They're called the Shores, and they're these apartments that I think

they're building like the 70s. They're so ugly, but they are super high, like sky rises. And what they look down on, they look down right on the SEAL training and war calm which is our Admiral and everybody else I know owns it and I would know they don't own that they try to buy the hotel Dell next door But I would be shocked if they don't own a few floors of that building Looking right down. They bought a dead. Did some research for this book on it Then a book called the dragons and the snakes by Davidulkulin, and he talks about them buying up hotels in Scotland

that watch submarines head out there, a few other play one in Italy, so they're buying up properties next to these bases where they can essentially observe and put listening devices out and do all those sorts of things that you need a base of operations. And you don't even need a base of operations

for a lot of this stuff anymore, because it's all virtual, and where are all these things made? Well, China and Taiwan. It's just crazy that in Taiwan you can't even need a base operation for a lot of this stuff anymore because it's all virtual and where are all these? Things made well China and Taiwan It's just crazy that in Taiwan you can't buy anything like Americans wanted to go over and buy land next to military bases They'd be like yeah fuck yourself, but us being an open country. It's almost to our You know it's almost detrimental as our openness our strength is almost a weakness and they can exploit it So they're very aware aware of that So you're looking at your enemy, and you're looking at those things that you can do to exploit those weaknesses

And that's what they're that's what they're doing. That's what we would do Yeah, Tim Dillon was explaining the real estate hustle that so many foreign countries use our real estate as money laundering So like there's so many Different apartment buildings in New York City that are just empty empty There's no one in them. Yeah, but they're all bought out right because like Russia buys them Yeah, Russian oligarchs buy them. It's a nice way to funnel funnel your money around. Yep You got real estate holdings here and there you own a billion here and all around the world. Yeah, they do that all around Yeah around the world. They do that stuff. So stuff. Well then that was weird during the Ukraine invasion

where they started stealing their yachts. I know. It's confiscated their yachts. I was like, what? What happened to that? That kind of went away too. I don't know and also like- What are those things?

You gotta fucking maintain those things. Yeah, are they just cities? Like if you have like a Mark Zuckerberg type yacht, like he just had some fucking 300 million dollar yacht built nice I think actually more than that. I think it's five hundred million dollars for this fucking yacht. Yeah, and How much does that cost a year to maintain? Yeah? Yeah? I hear this US government said it's spending more than seven million a year to maintain a super yacht

It sees from a sanctioned Russian oligarch an urge to judge to let it auction the vessel before a dispute over its ownership is resolved authorities in Fiji sees the 348 foot 300 million dollar a madea in May of 2022 pursuant to a US warrant alleging its owned by Suleiman Kurmov a multi billionaire sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2014 in 2018 in response to Russia's activities in Syria in Ukraine. Jesus. Dang. Look at that. Wow. Wow. That's crazy. So that's just one. We're paying for that. Here are the super yachts seized from Russian oligarchs. And we're paying to maintain those. Yeah. oh that's so brutal

How many are there but boy there's a lot of fucking clicks you gotta go through these things. I am NOT yeah How many of them are there how many do they get so that's the one that we just talked about This is the tango the lady M It's fucking massive things and so these Russian oligarchs a lot of them They rush to get their yachts to different countries that are more sympathetic Yeah, that let them get away with it But I don't even know how that works like if they go out into the sea can they get hijacked international waters? Yeah, how does that work? I don't know. I just was concentrating on the seven million bucks a year to maintain

Yeah, our money. Yeah our tax policy our tax dollars well Well spent with it, but I don't understand like what is So are they saying that these Russian oligarchs were a part of the invasion of Ukraine? So they're allowed to steal their yachts. I think they're talking if they're they're saying it's Putin's Intercircle something like that. Yeah, so they're connected to Putin. So they're gonna snatch their yachts Yeah, whoever I mean, we all know that he's one of the richest guys in in the world He might be the richest guy they say yeah, he might be worth like Some insane amount isn't that wild going to the richest guy in the world well Have you seen that house that they're allegedly building for him is it the one on the?

It's on the coast yeah, the cliffs. I put it in the last book I think if it's the same one I think so underground bunkers I don't know any other stuff. They haven't even proven that it's his and he's like that's not my house right yeah yeah no I put in the last book yeah it's it's wild you can zoom in on it you can zoom in on it and check it out and see it's a multi-billion dollar house yeah whatever this thing is whether it's his or not yeah but the 500 million dollar yacht from Zuckerberg he's not missing that though isn't that crazy that's not missing that though.

Isn't that crazy? That's nuts. You don't even miss $500 million. Yeah, that's when you should get a yacht. Yeah. You got that kind of money. You got so much money that you don't even notice if you're missing 500 million.

No. There's levels. Yeah. There's levels to this world. Facebook billionaire Zuckerberg takes out his $300 million super yacht and $30 million support boat, complete with helipad. Yeah. and Majorca's he celebrates father's day with his what his dad ed I think he's calling like shadow yachts or something like that and they'd carry all the toys

Look at so you have the main yacht and then you have a shadow yacht that has all the toys on it Look at that thing imagine your kid Buys one of those like man. I'm raised a fucking killer. Look at that. Yeah, that is ridiculous. That's a sport yacht. What's that? I'm raised a fucking killer look at that. Yeah, that is ridiculous. That's a sport yacht. What's that? That's like a helipad. That's a different one, right? That's a support boat that fucking thing Boat helicopter that's insane that support boat is fucking huge It probably has underneath it probably has a submarine some of these things have two submarines I was on one that had two submarines once one that just goes straight down and the one that goes in the water and then you

Can move around in it and you like explore reefs and stuff like so two submarines a plane that comes out and the wings fold down I've seen that I've seen that with helicopter. Yeah, yeah helicopters that land Wings fold. Yeah, you drop it down. Uh-huh. What the fuck? Yeah, that's pretty sick. So there's levels. Yeah, it's all relative You know, it is all relative I guess it's just like at a certain point in time like Like if you're a Russian oligarch and you have a 300 million dollar yacht and someone steals it. Hmm. Can you even get another one?

Are you allowed to get a new one probably buy just get another one if you have all that money right You know the one where the fuck are you getting all that money like what are you doing? Yeah? Oh, yeah I mean it's what an interesting time into the Cold War that whole period the 90s for those guys were really those criminal enterprises Really become like government. Yeah, and not to say it's that much different here. We have our own oligarchy here Yeah, there's the thing too, is like how are they governing, like what's the experience for the people they're governing? And that's the thing that Tucker said

when he went over to Moscow. It's like, it's beautiful. It's like real clean, safe. Yeah. Which is weird. Yeah, I wanna go and do some research there, but once again, I'm probably not. But I was lucky enough to have gone there.

I don't think you should go. I would advise you to not. Yeah, no. I know. But luckily I was there. So I was in Moscow before I joined the military, just traveling. So I was there so I could write about it. I remember the architecture.

I remember the feeling there. So that was early 90s. And then I also went to Odessa, Ukraine back then. Oh, wow. So I went to the catacombs under the city, which allowed me to then put it in the second book, True Believers. So I think back to some of those places that I've been and get to weave those in and places that I probably shouldn't go anymore.

Yeah, you're too on the nose with a lot of your work and now it's influential. Yeah. And you should do the same thing that you're thinking about doing with your cell phone, just farm that out. Yeah. Have somebody go that you really trust and tell them exactly what you saw

and tell me what it was like. Yeah. Have them film things, have them explain it. Just tell them, I want you to get an hour of footage every day of you just filming things so I can absorb it. Yeah, that's a good idea. But it's still different, you don't get the smell. It is different, but it'll keep you alive.

Keep you from getting a cell. My publicist might like it, any good publicity, any publicity's good publicity type thing. If they get you out. Yeah, that's a good point. The thing is, if they leave you in there though. They're messing out a lot of loot Yeah, well, I really write good books Putin's palace pole dancing room. Hey, that's it. That's the one do a church

Yeah They said once they published the photos of the inside as at the bottom here They got to change it because they don't want people knowing what it looks like. Yeah, I put that in the blast They have to redo it again. They think yeah, I put that in the blast now. They put these out. They have to redo it again They think yeah, I put in the whole day stepping in the pole dancing things right here What in that wild Putin does not use other people's dishes doesn't go without any army of without an army of guards rather does Not go to the toilet in public places She said on Monday by publishing footage from inside his palace and floor plans who make it impossible to use the palace Wow Perhaps he will say demolish everything again and the palace will be rebuilt for

the third time. But this iteration is definitely over. There was a palace, there is no palace. We have once again shown not only that he is a luxury obsessed psychopath, their words, but also his security system is complete crap. Oh wow Pevchik how do you say that guy's name pev? That's good shit chick the names are tough added now Yeah, wow so now he's got to demolish it and start from scratch because people saw the inside of it That's why I certainly did that's what allowed me to describe it for that last book Yeah, how did anybody fucking take pictures of that? How did that security breach get through? Seriously. Oh, photo was published by Alexei Navalny. The late.

Yeah, the late. Anti-corruption foundation. That was the guy that died in jail, right? And that's the good reason why I shouldn't go to Moscow. Yeah. Someone actually warned me not to go to China. They didn't warn me, they just said, hey, they- They stole one of our basketball players.

Seriously. And not even a male. And actually, someone had a bit about that last even a male and actually someone about that last night They did a bit on that last night and talked about how from the Russian perspective Us trading who we traded for her what the arms dealer or terrorist or whoever we whoever we exchanged this for and he did A bit about them being like wait what they're actually over there call him What did they call they had some crazy name for the guy I traded right? National arms dealer was responsible for thousands of deaths. I

Forget what his name is. Yeah, we traded people we traded Taliban. We traded Yeah Boy solid that's a solid name. Yeah, that seems like you're being your book. Yeah That's a solid name. Yeah, that seems like a be in your book. Yeah Central casting right there and so we let that guy go. I think he wore a Breitling all the sketchy people were Breitling Really? Yeah, Breitlings are sketchy. Yeah, it's a thing really interesting. I didn't know that now. I know yeah Watches of espionage has a little thing kept that sharp mustache inside the joint respect Yeah, so they traded him and there's also US citizens including there's a marine It's over there that was accused of espionage

They offered the chance to trade him and they went with Brittany Griner instead. Oh, we can take one one for one Yeah, I don't watch basketball, but I heard that league needs a lot of help it can get I don't know if that's the help that it needs. Yeah, you know I mean it's just Basketball and not the best basketball the best basketball is the NBA you know Look at that watch the best be nice right there. Yep sketchy people were Breitling. What is that about? It's a Just became a thing. I like Breitlings. Yeah, I thought we make me sketchy I put it put one in a sketchy person in this damn They make a nice watch uh-huh to make some cool watches yeah now also now be thinking about them like fuck Yeah, I think in that in the blood diamond. I think Leonardo DiCaprio wears one is his character

Mercenary Catchy why Breitling? I don't know I read that it where that it originated I think it just started as a thing and then it became what it is. And it's just kind of a- Do you think sketchy people know and they're doing it on purpose? I think they do. It's kind of a thing.

When I typed it in, it's a quote that pops up. Sketchy dudes wear bright- There it is right there. Wow. And look on the side there, it's a Winkler blade. No kidding. There it is. There are a lot of misconceptions about this saying.

Phrase is not a dig on Brightling at all. I'm a big fan of the brand, own a few of them and wear it is. There are a lot of misconceptions about this saying. Phrase is not a dig on Breitling at all. I'm a big fan of the brand, own a few of them, and wear it regularly. Sketchy is not necessarily a bad thing. Oh, that wasn't my world, bro. There it is. It's really in the 90s and 2000s, Breitling was worn by a lot of gray area operators,

both good and bad, subjective terms. With strong roots in aviation, Breitling is a signal that the wearer is adventurous, but also appreciates fine craftsmanship and utilitarian tools. Blackwater Breitling Emergency, signal that the wearer is adventurous, but also appreciates fine craftsmanship and utilitarian tools. Blackwater Breitling Emergency, former Soviet arms dealer, there he is, Victor Bouts Breitling B1 British SAS officer

turned mercenary, Simon Mann's Breitling Emergency, and director of CIA, George Tennant's Breitling Aerospace. Oh, oh, George Tennant wearing one too. Which one's the Aerospace? They got that dope one that's part digital right there So that's the that's the black water symbol see that black water symbol on the side right there That is yeah, so I put this exact watch in the book and I put the bad guys Company symbol on the watch just like that one. So that's a compass watch which I've never been able to figure out

I watched a video on one of them because I think I have a Seiko That's a compass watch and I was like What does that mean? How does it work as a compass? You have to align the the fucking our hand with the Sun or some shit I don't know. I don't know but that one has the emergency beacon on it Yeah, pull that sucker out right you have to sign something that says right says something you like pay for the rescue if you Yeah, and then they find you. Yeah, if you're in the Alps. Yeah, I think an antenna comes out of it I yeah the bottom thing the bottom thing lower right hand corner. Yeah, that's a serious fucking watch

Yeah, that's pretty serious. So those are all sketchy people. Yeah Interest yeah, how the fuck does the compass thing work? I don't know. I don't know what some of them have GPS appear That's not what you're talking about. No, no, I mean my watch is a Garmin and it has a compass feature. But that's like, it's digital, it's electronics. That thing is a mechanical compass feature. Okay. Somehow or another, like when the sun rises,

you know the sun rises in the east, you point the thing at the sun, musta eat what? I don't know, I don't know. I had a little compass on mine over in Iraq. But a real compass. A real compass, yeah. On the band right there, it was like a backup

to the backup. So I had the GPS on my rifle stock right here so I could check my point man just to make, so I didn't have to ask and I always knew where we were. So I had that there and then I had another one on my belt and then another one right here and then one here for calling air so I could look right here and talk to aircraft and call air off that one so I had a few

backups but nowadays I got one of the first ones we got them issued in the SEAL teams I was the Garmin or the Suunto whatever it was but with early ones they just ran out of battery so fast oh yeah and it was one other thing that I had to plug in back then so this one's incredible this one is at 74% and I think I charged it three weeks ago really yeah it's nuts I can't do it though one more thing to plug in like we talked about it's all these things like a month and a half and this is solar this is the Phoenix 7 sapphire solar so this thing stays charged in the Sun really yeah so if you're wearing it outdoors it like keeps

a certain percentage of its charge just by solar power. Oh man, well I was locked up for the last four months writing so that wasn't gonna help me too much. I was gonna need to plug it in. The sun wasn't really gonna help me. Even if you don't plug it in, if it's fully charged, it'll last at least a month.

Do you like the Apple watches and stuff? I haven't fucked with those because I don't want email. I don't have this set up text. You could do it. I could get text messages on this. What I like with this is like, I like the timer. I like the heartbeat monitor, which doesn't work that good because I have tattoos.

Oh really? Interesting. Yeah, doesn't work that good. Yeah, the only thing that really works, the things that work the most accurate are chest traps. Those are the most accurate. So I have one of those Morpheus chest traps. I like a lot. I have a garment in the way too. Those are great. They give you an accurate reading of what is actually going on.

Your sleep? Do you do the sleep stuff? Nah. I know how I feel. You know. I used to do that. I think a whoop is very, it's a very good tool. It's a very good tool to assess your recovery. And I might go back to wearing one of those But like the aura rings all that jazz like leave me alone Those are the ones people were that look like a band and have like a rectangular the oral that's the whoop Yeah, the whoop is like there's a bunch of different colors, but I have a black one

It's like just like a wristband. I can't do it. I already know I need more sleep. I already know I need to eat better I already know I need to do a little more exercise. When you look at your recovery and it says 60% it's depressing, like, damn it. Yeah, I don't need another thing telling me that I need more sleep. But you definitely notice the difference between drinking and not drinking. So if I, even a couple of drinks,

like if I go out to dinner with some friends and I have a couple glasses of wine, I would notice my recovery score would suck in the morning from just like two glasses of wine. Really? Thing where you're not even drunk. You know, in the next day you feel fine. You don't feel hungover.

Did that make you stop doing that at dinners? No, no, I wanna live. But it made me aware of it. And I'm certainly good at not doing it all the time, unlike some of my friends. Yeah, I don't want these things to keep controlling, they already manipulate enough. You have to be aware that these things to keep controlling. They already manipulate enough. You have to be aware that these things are manipulating you.

Yeah. So I'm aware of that, but I don't want another thing that I am hooked up to that's dictating how I live my life, if that makes sense. There's also like an addictive factor too. Like you start getting addicted to checking it and then you start getting addicted to, which I think would be probably a good thing

to be addicted to, a self-improvement aspect of it, like trying to achieve a good score. Right, if you're like heroin on this side, good score on this side, and you're finding- Yeah, good score's probably better. It's a better addiction. But yeah, trying to get that elusive 97% recovery rate when you go to sleep.

Yeah, I know, I'm not gonna need more of it and all that with all these projects. We all do, well, especially if you're working 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. It's not good, I need to change that. That is, that's crazy. I need to change that. That's crazy. I need to change that up. I thought this last winter that I would be able

to take my wife to dinners, do a little traveling. As our little guy went overseas, he actually went to Switzerland to do a ski program over there. So he's gone for three months. No phones, no iPads, no computers. Total old school, milking cows, doing chores. Total old school.

That's a great experience Amazing for sure amazing for him But during that time I thought we would go out to dinners and travel and do all this stuff and instead I was just Locked down writing so I need to make up for that that next year. They got a live too, right? I mean, but the thing is you got to make hey why the Sun Shines and you know I remember you when you just released your book Yeah, and you know, we really didn't know how good it was gonna do. That's when I met you. It was all just happening and people introduced me to you.

I was like, oh, that's cool. I hadn't read it, I hadn't met anybody ready yet. And then over the years, it just got this snowball effect. And now it's insane. I get so many people tell me all the time that they love your books. Oh man, appreciate that. You're a guy that gets brought up a lot, you know, especially amongst military guys

and amongst law enforcement guys, they love your books. Well, I certainly appreciate that. And that's why I put so much so much into them. But I love it. That's like you. I love doing what I'm doing. So you do like work. I love writing.

I love this chapter in life. I love creating things. I love not working for anyone. Oh, yeah, I love all that. Because in the military you feel like, people above you in the chain of command, you're like, oh, this guy's fine. You know?

You're like, ah! You express that very well in the book. Thank you. Thank you. What's interesting though, for the nonfiction, the nonfiction coming out, so very different communities as far as the fiction side of the house. I asked for my first book, No One Knew Me,

and you have to ask people for blurbs. And it's tough, because you know you're going to get people, some people are going to say no, you put yourself out there to ask. Right. And almost everyone said yes, that even though I was totally like Lee Child, all these people I look up to, they were all about it.

And so it's so interesting. And so I always do it. So I always, because it's a subjective art form. So I try to give as many blurbs as I can for people, help as many people as I can for people, help as many people as I can. So interesting in the non-fiction space. My first time, I have to go back now,

because I haven't asked for blurbs in a long time. You don't do it after a while, you just take some things from reviews and stuff like that, so you don't do it after a while. But I had to do it for this non-fiction. And interest in the non-fiction space, very reluctant to give any blurbs. Interesting.

Yeah, even people that write about military history and they are not about it. Why do you think that is? I think they feel a little bit elitist up there. Interesting, like you being a fiction author that's now venturing into non-fiction, they want to be a gatekeeper? I don't know. Because I'm busy too, but I make time for it for sure. Maybe they don't want you delving into theirkeeper. I don't know. I'm busy too, but I make time for it for sure. Maybe they don't want you delving into their world.

I don't know. And some of these guys have made a lot of money writing about military stuff, which is interesting. So I note it. I note it. It might work its way into some fiction at some point. And even some senior level military officers, which is very interesting as well, all said no to the blurbs

for the nonfiction as well. But that kind of feeds into my, well well maybe they are listen to me on the podcast I talked about their grip my critique hear me critique their handling of our withdrawal from Afghanistan so that's possible as well but also interesting with the show the military didn't help out with the show which is all great because sometimes they put constraints on what you can do or say if they help out with like a ship or a plane or a base or something like that,

so they did not help out with the first show. I think they're- They didn't want to be a part of it? Yeah, which I like, because now there's no constraints. So I'm like, yeah, typical, I'm glad. Especially since you know what you're talking about. It's not like someone has to guess on their own without any military help.

Yeah, but I find that all very interesting. So, you know, it's all noted. Yeah, duly noted. Exactly. So the, was there a negative response by the historians or was it just no response? Yeah, just busy. And something got back and said no,

it was very nice of them to get back and at least say no. But I thought it was interesting. Could it also be that they just don't wanna put themselves out there? That they don't wanna be a personality, they just wanna be the person relaying the information? Possible. Yeah, that if you,

cause if you do like sign off on someone's nonfiction who also writes fiction you aren't somehow or another connecting yourself Yeah, that's very possible very possible. I would imagine right, but it's still noted But yeah, so we'll see you know, but a ton of people what was what made me very I mean super excited about this book is the nonfiction Is that the people who were there the people are digging their dead friends out of the rubble? That's who I really wanted to honor by writing this nonfiction To keep those lessons learned and also tell their story Because it really hasn't been told yet and you have people that are still alive people who are alive who lost sons in that attack So you wanted you right by them and I think every single person who has read it who is there?

Has said thank you for writing. Thank you for telling this story. What's also great that it's coming from you because your fiction books are so popular There's probably gonna be a lot of people that read that that wouldn't ordinarily read a book on real history Yeah, there's people today some people I've mentioned it to and they say, what was that? I kind of remember that, but what was that? Yeah, I barely remembered it. Yeah. Barely remembered it. You started talking about it, I was like, oh yeah, that's right.

I remember that. I mean, I was in high school at the time. Yeah. So, 83, and we had the embassy bombing in April of 83, and then you move into the spring, further into the spring, all through the summer, attack happens in October. But all through that timeframe, these guys are in combat and the administration is saying peacekeeper over and over again Calling them peacekeepers peacekeepers, but you talk to these guys who were there who were on patrol they were in combat and

and so I got to capture that and really put and put that into the book because that part of the story people don't really Understand how many guys have died between the embassy bombing and the Marine barracks bombing, how many people were wounded during that time frame, how many people were just in engaged in combat during that time period. So it's because there wasn't social media back then and you're just relying on an administration and then they're talking points, that story never really got told. So it's gonna get told now. That's one of the things that does keep me hopeful that there is so much information available today whenever anything happens. You don't have

to just rely on mainstream media's depictions of things that's everything that's been sanctioned down through the government, whatever narrative they're trying to push. Now you get just so many independent reporters and so many real journalists that are giving you the actual details of it in a very disturbing way and you get angry and you go why am I not hearing about this in the news? Like why is this perspective not being shared everywhere? And then it, you know, unfortunately for the mainstream media, it just makes people distrust them more and more.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The trust with mainstream media and with our senior level elected officials is, I don't know if it's an all time low, but it feels like it is. It's about as low as I've ever experienced it. Obviously, I wasn't around during the, I wasn't aware at least during the Vietnam War, but I would imagine back then,

especially after like Kent State, it was probably a lot like that back then too. A lot of distrust. But I think even more so now, but there's also, now there's the influence of foreign governments where they create bullshit stories and they create bullshit rabbit holes for people to go down and they suck people into these things and then

Reinforce it online with troll farms and you just like there's so much nonsense. It's so hard to know what's real and what's not real Yeah, that's having the value of you doing this that's why I appreciate what you do here with this podcast because It's one of the few places people can go and get these honest conversations. They're long, they're not a 30-second sound bite, a two-minute sound bite, even if you have someone that knows what they're talking about on mainstream media but you only get two and a half minutes, two minutes, a minute, half of that is the host talking or asking the question. You don't really get a deep understanding of what's going

on. You don't really get to conceptualize what's really happening and make it a part of you so you can make informed decisions, whether it's in the voting, when you go to vote, or it's in a conversation with friends or your family. So, but you get to do that here, which is awesome. Not only that, they usually have someone arguing. At all.

They don't like it unless there's a, oh, like some sort of an argument that would get people captivated. So you got someone on the left yelling at someone on the right, they're talking over each other and you're like, good lord, this is crazy. I know, everyone's yelling and arguing all the time. So it's tough. I mean, I think about the kids growing up now. That's what I really think of because we have kids and

our kids are pretty much the same ages. And it's when I think about them and what they're stepping into and how you remain hopeful on it. But man, I worry about it. I think every generation feels that way. Yeah. I mean, I certainly remembered when I was a kid in high school We were terrified of being in a nuclear war with Russia that was hovering over our heads Yeah, when the fall of the Soviet Union happened, I remember this huge feeling of relief that swept through the entire country Yeah Because when we were kids we really thought that we were going to go to war with Russia and there was gonna be a nuclear war and everyone was gonna die. And that was something that like hung in the air

all throughout the 1980s. We thought of that. The day after, remember that show? Oh yeah. That was big, day after was big. Then you also had Wolverines, you know, it was kind of like inspirational. You knew your enemy.

Exactly, Red Dawn out there. So you had that stuff too. I know we've talked about this before and I thought about it throughout the last year but I haven't changed my position on it about going back in time and I fact I double down on it when I think about it about 1979 to 1991 yeah I think that's what I would do if I could go back in that time machine yeah it's just so much fun would you live then yeah I just keep doing it over and over again 79 91 so really yeah or maybe 80

80 91 I'd live right now I know you love it over and over again. $79.91, $79.91. Really? Yeah. Or maybe $80.91. Fuck that. I'd live right now. I know. You love it. That's why I love that. I love getting that perspective.

I love that about you. This is a wild time, man. It's a wild time of unprecedented change, and we're on the precipice of far more unprecedented change. And you like that. It's interesting. It's exciting. I would like it, I think, if it wasn't attached to all these things that I have to plug in

and they're trying to manipulate me. I know I keep going back to that, but it makes me a little bit crazy. It's also a thing. It gives you this ability to recognize bullshit because it's coming at you from all these different angles. I think people are a little bit more reluctant to buy into official stories now than they ever have been before, especially after the whole COVID fiasco happened. I think people are a lot more interested

in what the fuck is actually going on than ever before. Because it actually can affect their life. You know? I mean, it's actually something that's consequential. Oh yeah. And we all had touch points with it. And now, but that, just like Afghanistan, I think I'm gonna really talk about that stuff anymore.

We don't really talk about all these businesses that got shuttered, which is why I try to support independent bookstores as much as I possibly can do things that are only for independent bookstores to send people there. Started that during Covid. That's great. Send started signing book plates. You could only get through independent bookstores because it's harder to do that

than just hit the easy button on Amazon. So I started doing that. Continue to do that today with Shot Through Pages. So I try to do that to help them out because I remember going to see you in LA and I packed up and I drove out there and there was no one on the road. And then I got to LA on the 405 freeway

driving up to where I was staying and it was a ghost town. It was crazy. That was May or whatever, April, May of 2020. And I came out to see you. It was horrible, but I'm glad we got to experience it because it's gonna be something that we always remember I think people are gonna be probably I mean if humans survive we're gonna be talking about these days

And especially the days of kovat. It's gonna be a bizarre Footnote in American history so bizarre and but I don't know people have short memories They get distracted by the squirrel or by the manipulation on the social channels or whatever Else a lot of people do but I think the overall Perception if you looked at it has shifted in a way that people are a little bit more aware of horseshit now than ever before I think yeah, hopefully I remember I Want you to physical for the first time in a long time because I hadn't done it for like six years I left the military and so I should probably go down and do something. And it ended up being just kind of old school,

hit your knee with the thing. And I thought it was going to be like an executive physical and they were going to do blood and do all that stuff. But it wasn't, it was just like, watch the finger and hit the thing. You're good to go, get out of here. Yeah, but then he asked me if I wanted to get my flu shot. And I was just like, I couldn't help myself.

I just was like, I laughed out loud like that, which I don't usually do, usually I keep things inside and just kind of couldn't help myself. I just was like, I laughed out loud like that, which I don't usually do. Usually I keep things inside and just kind of make, you know, my little notes, but I couldn't help. But like, come on. How'd they react? Understood. He was like, I don't think I'm the first one.

Doesn't fucking work. Yeah, I'm not the first one. Yeah, people tell you, you should get your flu shot every year. You won't get the flu. Yeah, also you don't get the flu if you're fucking healthy. Or if you are, you get over it quick. Or if you get the flu, take IV vitamins. Yeah.

You know, take Tamiflu. The two times I got my flu shot in the past, like 20 years, I got the flu those years. That's the only time I've gotten the flu is when, that two years and I'm like done. Never doing it. Because in the military they make you that stuff. Yeah. So I just had them annotate that it was done. It's called, what do they call it gun decking?

I think so they just say that you did it, but you didn't really do it. Well. That's nice Yeah, very nice my corman to do that. That's very I'm gonna rest in that he's out now for anybody listening I hope he is hope he is well. Hey brother. Thank you very much. Thank you doing everything you do your books are fucking awesome red sky morning the latest and You have seven of these now. And the non-fiction comes out when? September.

September. September 24th. I'll be on that one too. Thank you sir, appreciate you very much man. Thank you for being here. Take care. Tell everybody, website, anything, social media. The official Jack Carr dot com, can find there,

but usually type it in the search bar. It'll pop right up. Hopefully. At Jack Carr USA. Exactly, at Jack Carr USA on the socials socials and man thank you so much for everything. My pleasure brother, always good to see you. Bye everybody.