The Watch - BBQ Music and Don Winslow on 'The Force' (Ep. 164)

Episode Date: July 3, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald celebrate Independence Day by discussing summer music and their custom-curated BBQ playlist on Spotify (2:35). Then Chris sits down for a one-on-one conversation with Don Winslow about his new book, 'The Force' (15:48). Playlist Link: https://play.spotify.com/user/andygreenwald/playlist/5DhFd20nzDr4q10UCU1TNo?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at Derrida.com and joining me in the studio, wrapped in the red, white, and blue on America's birthday. It's Andy Greenwald. Happy holiday weekend.

What a weird weekend. We're recording this on a Thursday, but it's for you. Oh, being honest about that. Sweet July 3rd listeners. Me and Andy are just dropping a little episode for you, guys this long weekend, so we will not be in the studio on Monday. But we're going to do a little pod here about a playlist we put together for you guys, summer jams for your summer barbecue, and then at the end of this podcast, a second half of it, rather, we'll have an interview that I

did with one of our favorite authors, Don Winslow, who has a new novel called The Force. Talk about it. Set up this interview a little bit. A sweeping New York PD, New York police novel about corruption, police brutality, more. Moral gray area. Decay. Yeah. It's just like if you like the French connection or Serpico or any of those classic 70s novels, this is like an updated version of that in novel form.

How was the conversation? Lovely. Don's a great guy. Very interesting cat. Had a lot of jobs before he kind of blew up as a novelist. Safari leader, like a Safari expedition leader. He used to work in like theaters and Times Square back in the 70s. So we talked a little bit about the writing process.

We talked a little bit about the crazy ride. he's been on through the cartel and now the force, both of which are being made into films. Talked a little bit about savages which was the Oliver Stone movie that was made out of his book. Talked a little bit about the difference between living on the West Coast versus the East Coast, which I know it's a topic near and dear to your

heart. I'm always interested in that. But that's for later, man. For now, let's talk about these jams, man. So we did this last year where we did the Bransky barbecue. Yep. We put some songs on there, songs we're digging. You guys know that we like Christine Bransky. There's nothing else to it. That's it. That's it. That's it.

That's the end of it? No, I'm just saying like she's also on the good wife. She wears amazing necklaces. Guys, I believe I'm getting some intel that she's in bad moms too. Oh, shit. I think she's one of the bad grandmoms. Damn, really? It's like bad mom Christmas, right?

Yeah, I think that's the conceit. That's good. That's the conceit? Yeah. Do you think that they needed to say a fourth word other than bad mom Christmas? What I want you guys to understand is that if you're entrusted with building the bad mom expanded universe, You have to take very careful steps to ensure the long-term viability of the franchise. Hiring the gold standard.

BMCU is big business. Christine Bransky is the way to do it. So Andy and I put together this place. I should say Andy put it together because Andy just did a great job sequencing. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You know how it's Spotify when you put it up and you have to choose very carefully what goes to the first four tracks because that's going to be.

That'll give you a hint of what's to come. The art, you know. I think about that. 16 songs, one hour. Exactly one hour. That's great. Not a minute over. How do you want to do this?

You want to just talk through? You want to talk about what you like to listen to when you're out there grilling the finest Italian sausages? I want to say a couple things. One, it is a personal favor to you that I did not put a Carly Ray Jepsen song on this playlist. Did I do my Carly Ray Jepson take yet? No. I want people to know that if you want the director's cut version of this podcast, I mean of this playlist that we are doing for no reason a director's cut commentary on, Understand that cut to the feeling by Carly Ray Jepson would be on it, but out of respect for my colleague and friend, it's not here.

Thanks, man. Was there anything that I could have put on that you would have been like, I can't abide by this? I think you almost felt that way about chick, chick, chick. Not at all. No. I mean... I mean, upon first viewing their little exclamation point in the name. I was very surprised and thrilled.

First of all, we just had... Then you can do your Carly Ray Jepson bit. I don't know if I'm ready for it. Chris sent me a new song by... The band, it's the three exclamation points, chick, chick, chick. We just did this podcast with Lizzie Goodman about her book, Meet Me in the Bathroom, about New York City Rock from a decade ago. I honestly hadn't thought about them since then.

I did not even know they were just still grinding. Yeah. And apparently not just grinding, but finally giving in and becoming the deep house bangers that they should have been. This track, it's called The One Two on here. Yeah. This is thrilling. This is why we do this because it's a discovery for us too. To show each other what we're listening to.

It's great. And then we show you guys. You can just let it ride at your barbecue. Just give me a teaser about why you didn't want Carly. I don't like Carly Ray Jepson's music very much. Shocking. And I feel like she has become the avatar of pop-domism, but it's like pop-domism is now old.

So optimism is this belief that, like, you know, music in the pop charts has the same artistic validity as like... Yeah, which is an important corrective. Supposedly, like, more labored over and sincere, tour-driven rock music rock. Yeah. And I just feel like all the trappings that we used to say about, say, pavement, you know, 20 years ago, people talk about Carly Ray Jepson in the same way. And just on a just base level, like, I just feel like Sky Ferreira doesn't get enough Dap.

Look, you're not going to get that argument for me. And Carly Ray Jepson's just in my way. When it comes to my, it's like I'm running the Sky Ferreira campaign and Carly is just who I have in the primary. What I'm impressed by. I'm the Robbie Mug of the Sky Ferrer. That worked out super well. What I'm saying about Carly Ray, who's not even on this playlist, is that she's proof that you can, she's not DIYing it,

but she doesn't have access to the songwriting brigades that other, she's not working with Max Martin or anymore. She's not working with Jack Antonoff. She's not working with these dudes. What I'm saying is- Carlyneed Jepson's got plenty of good songwriters working for it. She's got great songs and songwriters, and she makes clever word choices. Don't cry poor though.

I'm not, I'm just saying. Scooter keeps her song. songbook heavy. I'm saying she chose and said she worked with Rostem. She worked with Dev from Blood Orange. I'm just saying cut to the feeling, body language, like these are jams. Warm blood, like these are good pop songs. But they're not here.

You guys have to understand that Chris's first go-round on the anti-Carly Brigade, he brought up the name Ron Sexsmith. We don't even need to get into this. No, we don't even have to run it back. I just feel like I have strong feelings about it. There are a, this has been a great year for new music, I think. There are bands on here that I've completely fallen in love with, and I'm very excited to share with people.

I talked about them once before, but this Australian band called Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, a Rolling Blackout CF. Their EP, The French Press, might be my favorite record of the year that's not by Lord or Kendrick, tracked by them on here. Hazel English, I talked a lot about last year. She's a singer-songwriter from the Bay Area,

just these wonderful, dreamy, shimmery, shoegays, pop songs. another one by her on here. This would be a very chill barbecue until we got to Caled. I got Caled second. Yeah, hoops, by the way. Have you checked out this record? Yeah.

I know nothing about these guys and I intentionally am never going to Google them because what this band sounds like to me. Their album just came out. I think it's like 36 minutes. It sounds like listening to something for the first time in the 80s on a cassette. The experience, it's a lot of my favorite music jam together.

It sounds sort of tinny and low-fi, but they're very, very good at playing their guitars, and it's dreamy and summary. And I had this very intense, like, Proustian memory when I listened to this record. In 1986, you ready for this? I came to California for the first time, little knowing that I would one day live here and podcast with you. I didn't know you, and podcasting was not a thing. But we came out, visited my mom's friend, went to Disneyland, all the stuff you're supposed to do. Nine.

Okay. And I remember we were somewhere. I literally had no idea physically where we were, maybe in the valley. and we went into a store. My mom wanted to look into a store and she was looking at clothes and I was bored and there was a boom box

because the 80s in the front playing a tape and there was this music playing and I was like oh this is very good. I loved it. I never heard this song before and there was a tape cassette case

next to it and I picked it up and the cassette case was Debbie Gibson's out of the blue and I was like, huh, huh, okay so I bought Debbie Gibson's out of the blue turns out of Flewood Mac's Little Lies is not available on Debbie Gibson's out of the blue

But that kind of confusion and a sound coming from the tape player, that's what Hoops does for me. It's summary and it's great. I can't talk about them enough. I have a couple on here. The one I wanted to talk about was The Dirty Nill. Yeah, what is this? I've never heard this. I put this song fucking up young from their new album, new-ish album, minimum R&B.

I think that these guys are a power trio in the very, very classical sense. And I would recommend them for anybody who loves the Japan Dron. but thinks that Japan droids could take it down a notch in the, like, sincerity department. That's me. I'm your guy. And then take it up a notch in the make your drums sound more like Dave Grohl department. Nice. Where are these guys from?

I never heard of them. I think they're Canadian. That makes sense. But they kind of remind me of when a bunch of, there was like a wave of bands in the mid or early 2000s, meaning in the late 90s. Even like, remember when get up kids like turn into Wilco for a second? A lot of the hardcore kids started like getting into various more like socially acceptable kinds of music or at least like traditionally popular types of rock music. So like Rye Coalition went from sounding like of Jesus Lizard to ACDC.

And these guys kind of sound like a weird mishmash of people who think they weren't like, never mind was not the weird sonic jump that it was for us where we were like, damn, what if like you. just really supercharged these songs. It's like, no, that's the way music's supposed to sound. Right. And even though we're like not Nirvana, we're going to sound like that. It sounds a lot like Nirvana. If Nirvana were much snottyer and immature. It's funny that we're going from 80s nostalgia to 90s nostalgia

because this band White Reaper from Louisville had put their song on their Judy French. And this song is terrific. But it's also like, what if someone Joe Pesci did my cousin Vinny urge overkill? What if someone listened to Urge Overkill Saturation was like, oh, you were serious about that? That's what this song does for me. I also want to draw your attention. I don't know if you had a moment to listen to it. This is my last edition because I almost forgot about it.

But this artist Half Waf in the song Frostburn, which is a very cool song. It reminds me in the 90s when I used to buy all these imports that were like put into the trip hop bin and like lamb. You are the king of being like, check this out. And then it'll be like, hey. But do you remember that band you? like Pine Grove? Sure. She's in Pine Grove.

Isn't that? This is a good record. I like this record. Isn't that good record? Is it interesting? The other stuff on here that I really like, Siza, who has one of my favorite songs of the year, Drew Barrenmore. You talked about that. Earlier, Chris, by the way, if you're listening to this, Chris did not do justice to the

tacos, narcos couplet. She says, let's go get the, you get the tacos, we'll start the narcos at episode one. That is the best couplet of year. You miss the blunt part, too. You want to talk a little about Vince? We should talk about Vince Staples. Vince Staples, friend of all the pods. Yeah.

Right? He's an extended friend. Friend of listening to burial. Apparently, speaking of 90s nostalgia, Vince Staples, one of the cleverest, funniest, most interesting rappers alive right now, basically. And interesting also because in his media, and when he talks about stuff, he did seem like, I'm rapping, but I'm not even sure how interested in music or this music I am. What he seems to be interested in is Rony Sisen and represent.

and drum and bass records and Moax records because this big fish record that he put out, big fish theory, yeah. Sounds, it is a complete shock

and culture clash between sounds I would have associated with the 90s and a personality and a style of rapping that is only today. I have yeah, write on here

because it's got my favorite Kendrick Lamar guest verse since nostalgia. He definitely says K.D. Twilight the zeitgeist. He's really, really good on this song. How does he feel about

pivoting to video. Is he anti? What else? You want to talk about anything else here? Just to say, this is so annoying of us, the new Waxahatchie record out of the storm. Don't say us. I keep doing this, but because the podcast is credited to both of us, I want the world to hear this record. It comes out in July.

It's one of the best of the year. It's so good. It's so good. And two tracks are available right now. This is one of them, Silver. Look, you know, this is, we should have a good time. Do you like the T. Grizzly song? Yeah.

I like all the songs you put on here, man. I love your music taste. Wow, that's nice. You know, I think we have a generally good history of sharing mixtapes with each other. Yeah. You always had better handwriting, so it was much more. I got that blocky style. Yeah, so I knew what was coming.

But the one problem I would find, and this is no longer a problem, that we have streaming music, is that, like, you would give me a mixtape, and there would be a Sloan song on there. And I'd be like, this song is truth, justice, and the Canadian way. I love this song. And yet somehow never be motivated to listen to a second Sloan song. Or never have the access to more Sloan music. You would always do that with, like, Brit Pop singles that you paid $9.99 for two songs. And then you'd be like, check it out.

And I'd be like, yes, you just saved me $10. This is the Kincki Z side that is worth it. Japanese only. Okay, we're going to take a quick break from our sponsor. We'll be back with my interview with Don, my interview with Don Winslow. Greenwald, you got anything to say to the people on July 4th? Happy holidays. We love you guys.

Let's keep America going. You're about to see a lot of us get ready for Talk the Thrones live on Twitter after every episode of Game of Thrones with Mallory and Jason after the East Coast showing. We'll be back on Thursday, probably with a special guest. We'll be talking about Baby Driver before Down Winslow, a quick word from our sponsors. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Spotify. Did you know that you can listen to The Watch and others from the Ringer family on Spotify? Yes.

the streaming service that you know and love for music that is essentially the backbone of today's episode because we were talking about a Spotify playlist. I didn't know this, by the way. This is news to me. So it's fire. We're part of the fan. I'm so glad about that.

Spotify's fully loaded with podcasts. I didn't even know if you, do you know that? I'm just beginning to appreciate it. Because you have the Chris Lady Pod. Find us in the podcast section within the browse tab when you're using Spotify on mobile or just search for the watch. And who knows what will come up. Possibly our podcast.

Possibly not us, but while you're there, click to follow us and have our new episode. delivered right into your Spotify library and head to Spotify.com slash podcasts for more. That's Spotify.com slash podcasts. Today's episode of The Watch is also brought to you by Hotel Tonight. If you're like me and you're not so great at planning ahead, I've got great news for you. There is this awesome app called Hotel Tonight and it helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute. It sounds counterintuitive, but unlike flights, hotel rates usually get cheaper at the last minute.

And Hotel Tonight helps hotels sell their unsold rooms. allowing them to pass those deals along to you. These are not last resort places. They're actually cool, top-rated hotels that you want to stay in. And with so many awesome partner hotels in tons of different countries, Hotel Tonight can help you find a great hotel almost anywhere. It's perfect for the spontaneous getaway or finally going on that trip you've been winning to take for a while. I know that I like using it when I try to do an L.A. statecation.

My wife and I are also using it to try and spot like a cool spot for our vacation in September. Even though the app's name is Hotel Tonight, you can book up to a week in advance, and all it takes is 10 seconds. Just three taps and a swipe, get in on these last minute killer deals and download the Hotel Tonight app now. Well, I'm so excited to be joined by one of my favorite authors, Don Winslow. It's the second time we had you on back in the day at Grantland we had you on for the cartel, I believe, and now we're back with the force. Right. I guess, you know, when I picked up this book, the first thing that reminded me of wasn't a book, but the first thing that was a book, but the first time I picked up the Prince of the City

double VHS package for some reason, you know, the weight, but also the feel. Like I immediately felt like I was being drawn into this world of of grime, but also just like this deep understanding of police culture. And I was wondering if, you know,

you start writing this police novel. It's your first true New York police novel. Absolutely. Yeah. I usually write about criminals. Yeah. And when you embark on something like this, what was the ambition when you started? Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned Prince of the City.

Yeah. You know, because when I was a kid, those films and the books were very influential to me, very exciting to me, you know, going in to see the French connection in a big theater and Broadway. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking, oh, man, I wish I could tell stories like that. Serpico and Prince of the City. Yeah. 50s you pick up.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And those to me were iconic works, both the books and the films. So when I thought about doing this, I wanted to do something in that vein. But contemporary, you know, sort of relevant. You know, Bob Lucy, the Prince of the City, the real guy, the real Prince of the City was a friend of mine. Oh, really? How did you know him? You know, after all of that happened, he moved to my little town in Rhode Island.

Oh, hey. Yeah, this little fishing town in Rhode Island. I was doing the signing of my first ever book at our little local bookstore, you know. And this guy comes in and asked me to sign the book, and it's Bob Lucy. How did you say, like, by the way, I'm Bob Lucy? Did you guys, did you guys have a friendship after that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We corresponded a lot and all of that.

And, yeah, and of course I knew the name right away, you know. Yeah. And so when I started thinking about what comes after cartel, you know, I thought maybe it's time to write this New York cop book that I've been wanting to write since I was 13 for a long time, years and years. You know, I was born on Staten Island, like Denny Malone, the protagonist of the book. I lived and worked in New York on and off my whole life. So people think of as a departure because I'm kind of known as a California guy, you know, but it's kind of more of a homecoming.

So I was going to ask you about that. I too have spent time on both coasts, 10 years in New York, grew up in Philadelphia, and then I moved out here. And I'm always learning something about the different sensibilities of being on the West Coast or being on the East Coast, just that they are almost completely different human experiences, even if socio and politically, they have a lot of similarities, especially now. How hard is it as a writer to put yourself into that New York voice? It's hard.

The Savage's is such a distinctively West Coast novel to me. Those guys can't exist in Brooklyn. No, they can only exist in Lagoon, a beach, those two guys. I don't even know they could exist in San Diego. Do you know what I mean? It was a little tough but fun, you know, and it meant spending, of course, a lot more time back in New York and sort of reacquiring those rhythms and those beats and then adapting them to what is a further subculture,

which is cops, you know, and so hard to do but also fun to do. I think for our listeners, for me, it would be interesting because you hear authors always talk about this rigorous research process, but can you tell me a little bit in detail about what the research process is for the force because you get off a plate of JFK or LaGuardia or whatever

when you go to your hotel room or wherever you're staying, what's the first thing you do? Do you have friends on the force that you contact and ask, can I talk to you, can I ride along with you? Yeah, look, I'm not going to say a lot about that because I need, you know, to protect people. I've had friends for years and years. Some of these conversations have been going on for decades,

you know, before I really thought about doing this book. Others are fairly fresh and fairly new. Yeah, I did ride-alongs. I did all of that. But really what I did, Chris, was have conversations with people. Yeah. More than interviews, you know. because I wasn't that interested in what cops do.

Right. Because that's out there. You kind of know that. You know, and I did a lot of documentary research before I started talking to people, but I was much more interested in how cops feel what they think, you know, what their inner lives are like. You, in all of your books, but especially in the force,

seem to have this keen understanding of how policy decisions, political decisions, economic decisions that happen, way outside of these guys, this frame of reference, wind up affecting what happens to them on a day-to-day basis. Are those guys aware of it? You know, because you're the author, you have this sort of God's-eye view of it all. But on a day-to-day basis, are those guys thinking about Jeff Sessions on the changing laws, stuff like that?

Yeah, well, of course, you're talking just with NYPD about 38,000 guys. Yeah, right. So it's hard to generalize, you know, but generally speaking, yeah, they're very aware of that. These are smart people. You know what I mean? These are people who are very aware of the world around them, have to be aware of the world around them. And one thing that kind of surprised me in doing the research is how political the job is at every single level. Right. For promotion? For promotion, for getting along in the job, for getting a good assignment, you know, any of those things. These guys are political players. They have to be. They have to keep their boss happy with the knowledge sometimes that keeping their immediate boss happy might be making a boss somewhere else. unhappy, which might be making a politician unhappy.

Right. You know, and so they're always kind of aware of these political pressures. And, you know, they know, man, that you know what trickles down always. And they're so aware of the bureaucracy, because it's one of the things that this book does is set up just how many layers of control, but also oversight that a run-of-the-mill police officer has to deal with and is also engaged with, sometimes for the good of society, obviously, but the oversight that these guys are dealing with. Yeah, the bureaucracy is immense and the bureaucracy is powerful, and these guys know from the second they go into the academy that really what they need to do is please the bureaucracy. What are the things that comes up a lot in your work, especially

in Power of the Dog and especially in Cartel and in this novel, are these ideas that the guys involved in a lot of these jobs on the law enforcement side are. ultimately they want to do the right thing, that they want to be forces for good in the world, but they're confronted with either temptation or a corruption that's inherent in like the work that they're doing. Do you think that that's true or do you think that it's, why do we, why do we see stories like this take place over and over again throughout real life and in fiction and in movies? It's the nature of the work in a couple of ways. When we talk about police corruption, We're really talking about two separate things.

You sort of alluded to it in your question. One is straight up financial corruption. You know, take the money, take the sandwich, take the coffee like they do in this book. The added benefits of being a police officer. Sure, some of the perks, but then also some of the rips. Yeah. You know, go in, take the dope, take the money, because there's so much money there with these units that deal with this kind of thing. And the temptation is there all the time.

So that's one kind of corruption. The other sort of corruption you also alluded to, and that's more insidious in front of, frankly more seductive, which is I want to do good. I can't do it in the particular system. And so to mix metaphors, I start throwing pitches to the edge of the plate. Or I start throwing some beanballs, you know. I can sympathize with it. You know, cop might look at a building, yeah? And no, no, there's a guy in there who's going to hurt somebody. Right. For a fact, right, within a few weeks. Right. But he has no least. legal reason to go into that building and get that guy. So he invents one, right? Right. So then he makes

the bus, but now he has to go to court. Now he has to sit there and lie, right? Under oath, what they call test the lying, you know, in the business. And so it's a slippery slope, you know? I want to ask you specifically about the narrator, because it's obviously this, it reminded me a lot of white jazz, the James Lorner novel, that staccato kind of just, furious pace to it, kind of this adrenalineized, almost amphetamized, you know, of feeling. And how do you, as an author, where did you calibrate where the narrator's voice was going to be in terms of talking about Denny's worldview, but also tipping a hand a little bit to what that worldview meant and what that worldview might be perceived as by other people. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, it does. Look, when I go to write a campaign, character I'm not trying to be objective. I'm trying to be subjective because I perceive my job is trying to bring the reader into that guy's world and see it through his eyes. So to really answer your question, it depends on the scene. It depends on Denny's mood. Yeah. And so I always want to write it, you know, close to the bone, close to the brain. There were times when I would, for instance, pump up, you know, hip-hop music in the office to the point where it was almost painful. If I really wanted that highly adrenalineized scene

where Denny's kind of flipping out. Then I'm pumping Kendrick Lamar like crazy and NAS and NWA and all those people. Other times I think I can take

a little bit of a step back and be a little more thoughtful about it but always trying to stay within Denny's point of view. One of the things I love about the book is how Denny will wake up, he'll take the shower.

He's in his apartment and the way in which he just explodes out onto the city and the sort of geography of the character and how he'll just sort of be pinging around and I always envied people you know you'd see them out of the corner of your eye when I lived in New York and they would just sort of feel like they had the city in the palm of their hand and that they could just you know they didn't wait for subways right they didn't wait for they didn't have a problem hailing a cab right you know there was no such thing as traffic or it wasn't even a police thing if there's guys in New York who seemed to have New York

They have an edge. Mastered. Yeah. How do you put yourself in the mindset of somebody like that? Were you like that when you live there? Were you more of like... God, no. God no. I was one of the faceless masses. Yeah, right. But let me, I mean, these rock star cops are just that. And they have a magnetism and a charisma

and that ability that you were just talking about, you know. And I think to do that kind of a job in that kind of a unit, particularly in one of these elite units, You have to have that psychology. It's like a relief pitcher. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's a golfer.

It's one of those guys. They know they're going to throw strikes. And they know they have to in order to survive. In the highest pressure situation. The highest pressure situation. So they have big egos. Yeah. You know?

I always said, you know, in terms of a relief pitcher or a surgeon or a criminal defense lawyer, I don't want a guy with a small ego. Right. Do you know what I mean? Right. I want that guy. who absolutely believes. You know, when they get rolled up,

they always go, especially guys on the side, you know, like even I don't want to give stuff away, but even characters in the book that need defense attorneys go for the sharks. You know, they don't go for the guy that they like that they bought a cup of coffee for once. No, no, no. You know, listen, you should always hire the people

who beat you. Yeah. You know, and that's worked for Doc Rivers. Yeah. No, it works for everybody, you know. And hire the people who beat you. So, so they do, and these guys, particularly in this unit, you know, Malone and Rousseau and Monaco, they are lords in their domains. Yeah, the sort of shadow fiefdom that you paint is interesting. The idea that these social orders can exist outside of the bureaucracy that we think about. I want to go back to my first question a little bit, because it's obviously

an incredible undertaking. Did you always envision this having this sort of epic sweep that it did? Was there any other anything like, I'm going to throw a jab here and maybe there's a knockout coming down the line for me? You know, it's funny. I'm always surprised when people, and a lot of people, have described this book as epic. Really? Yeah. I never saw it that way. I don't see it that way now.

I think it's probably it's not necessarily the, I think we associate epic with a time period, right? Like it goes from the 60s to the current day or something. But this feels epic in how much of the world it takes in, despite it being this land. It's a tight time frame. I know, but it talks about pretty much everything that's happening in American cities right now. Right, right, right. Yeah, listen, no, I'm flattered by the description. I'm not resisting it, but I'm just kind of surprised about it because, you know, to me it was a very focused, you know, kind of just romp through this period of time with this guy.

You know, it starts with him in deep trouble. And, you know, I didn't want to write a what book. I wanted to write a how book, you know, how did we get here kind of book. So, yeah, you know, for me it was just, again, a matter of just being with this guy, staying with this guy and going through the moves. A lot of writers, a lot of my favorite writers, have been defined by whatever the major conflict of their lifetime was. So John LaCarray, it's the Cold War. Sure. Tim O'Brien, Vietnam War.

Is the drug war the conflict sort of defined your lifetime? Seems to be, huh? Yeah. Seems to be. You know, there's an old surfing expression, right? I think it's also a rodeo expression. Yeah. You know, sometimes you ride the wave and sometimes the wave rides you.

Yeah. I think that the wave has sort of ridden me a little bit in terms of writing about drugs. This book also has a huge drug component, you know, about heroin and the heroin epidemic. And talks about the pill epidemic and how that's led to the spike in heroin. Right. All of that, you know. So, yeah, I mean, I think that my work for the past, you know, 10, 15 years has definitely been dominated by drugs. Do you need a break from it?

I thought this was going to be, you know, but you can't write about, you know, big inner city crime without writing about dope. Yeah. And now I'm back to, you know, writing what will be the third. And I promise you final installment into the drug trilogy. Really? Yeah, yeah. Using some of the same characters? Yeah, yeah.

Art Keller and those guys are back. Oh, man. When's that coming out? You know, I don't know, a couple of years. Okay. Yeah. Because you're a pretty fast clip right now. You're pumping it out.

But is the movie stuff slow it down? No. No. It's just, it kind of happens parallel to that. Yeah, happens parallel to it. I, you know, yeah, I don't slow down for that. I guess I don't slow down for much of anything. No, I guess.

Yeah. I think our listeners, especially because we are, we talk so much about movies and television on the show, would be really interested to hear about Story Factory. Yeah. Because I don't, it seems like it's a pretty unique setup right now. I think it is. But it gives you guys, not only obviously, this sort of, industry infrastructure to use, but also a community of writers. I mean, you're on Twitter,

you're really supporting Unsub and Steve Hamilton and you're out there really like championing your comrades. So can you tell us a little, for somebody who doesn't know anything about it? Can you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, sure. I mean, Story Factory is a, is an agency, I guess you'd call it, that Shane Salerno started and runs. And Shane is, of course, an A-list screenwriter in his own right. Yeah. You know, having done tiny little films like Armageddon and now Avatar and a whole bunch of others. I'm hoping things work out for him. Extremely. Yeah, yeah. We'll get him a sandwich or something this afternoon. But he, extremely talented, energetic guy who loves writing and writers. There's a library of thousands

and thousands of books. So he had this idea, you know, of trying to make this business work better for writers and to use the synergy between novels and film and television worlds to create, frankly, better lives for writers. He's attracted, you know, with the experience. You know, with the exception of me, a lot of talent. You know, I was his first guy. I was the first one in. Shane and I knew each other, you know, for 20 years. You're the number one draft pick. What are you talking about? I am. I'm the crash test dummy. Okay. But he's, you know, listen, he's turned everyone's lives around. And yet, it's become kind of a team, kind of a community, you know. I know that, you know, for his new films, Logan Lucky, Stephen Soderberg has talked a lot about

the disruption of the, you know, film distribution model that he's experimenting with selling, rights to pay for the production and then basically having complete creative control. What is, for lack of a better term, disruptive about what you guys are doing? Well, you need to talk to Shane really about that. But I think, again, I mean, I think it's making this business work more to the benefit of the writer financially, creatively, and all of that, you know. And so turning lives around where guys can be full-time writers and not be worrying so much about money and putting all of their energies.

into the creativity and then also really supporting writers you know getting the kind of publicity the kind of marketing the kind of distribution and all of that you know he's he's he's very aggressive and very protective and so uh it works and then you know the other the other deal is that uh just like cops say only other cops can understand me right and we talk to other cops that's true of writers isn't it you know so it's there's a subtle but important difference when your agent is also a writer He gets the process. He gets what you go through. Do you have now, after going through a couple of film experiences,

I think I've read in other interviews to talk about not wanting to sit in the back seat when it comes to adapt in your material? So do you feel like you've had in the development of cartel and the force that obviously Mangal and Mamet are attached to the force and really Scott and Leonard DiCaprio have been associated with the cartel? Is that, do you, are you excited to have like a more hands-on role in that stuff? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I want to have a definite voice and I don't want it just to be lip service. Right. You know, so, and I think that's important. And I think it's useful for them too. You know, sometimes I want to say to film guys, you know, look, 2,000 years before you were editing, we were editing.

Yeah. You know, we get it. Yeah. Don't tell that to Michael Bay. He wouldn't believe you. I wanted to sort of wrap up a little bit more of an existential question. Yeah. on your Twitter feed in essays that you've written for various online publications you've obviously been a voice of very moral outrage about what's happening in the country right now politically and socially and I have a complicate question I know how you feel about our president but I wonder as somebody who writes about dark conflicted Shakespearean villains do you ever recognize something of literary value in Trump? Is there, like,

as somebody who has to confront evil on probably a daily basis when you're writing about it. Right.

Or is that, is it too real? You know what I mean? Is it too real to like see him and see the things that are happening in this country

and be able to overlook it? You know, I do write about dark and conflicted characters but they're dark and conflicted characters that I like.

Right. Right. That's a pretty succinct answer. Yeah. I mean, do you think, you know, you're somebody with an acute knowledge of American history, of the way that things that happened in the 1970s, affected things that happened in the 1980s and the 90s and now? I mean, where do you think we're going? I mean, that's an open-ended question.

But you're a crime writer, but you're also a social historian. What's the crime novel about this time period going to be about? Yeah, ask me again in two years. Yeah. You know, let's see where this thing goes. Listen, I think that there are Shakespearean elements to all of this. Shakespeare is my major background. And so there are any number of Shakespearean characters you could look at right now

and see them on Pennsylvania Avenue. It's not as fun when we're living through it, though. It's not as fun when we're living through it. On the other hand, you know, I've said this before. I mean, pessimism is not a choice. It's a suicide pact. What do you do when you get up in the morning? Right.

You know, and so I think that we need to think our way through this. I think we need to talk our way through this, you know, and we'll get through it. Okay. All right. Well, Don Winslow, joining us again. The novel is the force.

I can't recommend it highly enough. Thanks, Chris. And I want the hat, man. Okay. All right. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Spotify. I love Spotify.

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