#1986 - Jack Carr

22:50So it's, so this one, James Reese is on a journey. And like that's one of the one things that we have in common. Just with everyone else on this planet, we're all on a journey. There's no, no matter your race, your religion, your socioeconomic background, you're on a journey. And you don't know how much time you have on this planet, you get one ride. And so, got to make it count. So, people are trusting me with that time, which is something I take extremely seriously. So, as much thought goes into any Instagram post or blog or question for a guest on my podcast or whatever it is, as goes into any sentence in the novel.

23:19And I want to always improve on that craft every single time. So James Reese is on this journey. He's not the same guy. He was in the first book. Not the same guy. He was in the third. And he's not the same guy. He is in the sixth one. He's evolving. He's learning. Taking those past successes and failures and taking those lessons and applying them forward. Hopefully his wisdom. Hopefully we're all doing that. Except for Bud Light and Miller Light, apparently. But I'll learn to. They need to read these novels, perhaps. And they're only down to 21%. No big deal. And that's more than a rounding error.

23:49That's more than a rounding error. That's a real number. That's tough to come back from. Well, it's interesting now is gay bars are now boycotting them because they didn't back up Dylan Mulvaney. I saw a gig. They can't win. They just waited into this thing. It's like an L ambush you walk in and you're getting hit from all sides and you're kind of cover up. And then they did that one post. They put like their first one after that. It was a they put the Bud Light can and they said. TGIF. Question mark. But what they should have done. This is the me on hindsight. They should have laid low. Well, they could lay low and hope that somebody else messes up like Miller Light here a few weeks later.

24:22Even though it was before we just the Miller Light one is very mild. It's pretty mild, but it's kind of a it's just silly. It's just like you're you're you're also attacking women. You're attacking these girls that are fitness models. There's nothing wrong with being a fitness fitness model. Just like there's nothing wrong with being a male fitness influencer. One of those guys it does like a lot of posts on lifting weights and technique in their shirtless look jack. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being a beautiful woman who makes a living taking care of women. You're taking photographs with beer.

24:53No, guys that drink Miller Light like that. But it's like this like narrow view of what a woman is supposed to be that a woman is only supposed to be a lady who's succeeding and killing it in the corporate world and like why? This is why I saw another one who's similar to that. So they said why are we vilifying women that stay home and raise kids and handle the household and that's over the thing. But celebrating the men pretending to be women who stay home and do the same thing. That's kind of like that juxtaposition those dichotomies are interesting. Well particularly in the way they dress right because one of the things about trans people is that like you'll celebrate the most stereotypical image of what a woman is.

25:37Like short skirts and a lot of makeup and fake eyelashes and like elbow high gloves and the whole deal. It's like it's a caricature of what it's drag like what is drag right? It's like the most ridiculous version of what a woman is and it's celebrated. But an actual woman like that is disperged. We live in interesting times and I think if Bud Light after remember that scene from the hangover where Bradley Cooper they pull over to the side and he's on the road they're all beat up and he's covered in dust and everything and he takes that phone call and he's like man we fucked up. Like if they just played that clip like that like a 10 second clip and just people would have been like that.

26:16Yeah just put that up just put it up and people would have been like okay alright everybody screws up everybody messes up you know we're all trying to navigate this kind of new world and we're all trying to do the best we can and I went on a Bud Light tour back in 2007. Me and Charlie Murphy and John Heffron we went on a real men of comedy Bud Light tour. Nice. Like real men of genius or whatever that was. The guy from Survivor was with us. Jeff Prope's the guy that's uh. No no no no the band. Like he's the guy of the Tiger. Nice. Because those were the guys that would sing the song real men of genius.

26:48Oh no remember those. I do remember those. Those were funny. Those were funny ads and those guys did those ads in front of the audience. So it was like yeah it was a fun tour and that gentleman has passed away the survivor guy I believe so. Wasn't the lead singer survivor any past way? Super fucking cool guy though. What a hell of a voice too. Yeah so we get to hang out with those guys and travel the country with him for a month. That's awesome. Yeah we did like 22 dates and I got to become friends with Charlie and Heffron and we traveled around and that was when Bud Light embraced this humorous like sort of dopey man version of you know beer which is like.

27:27Yeah. What everybody likes. Yeah. Like it's a you know Shane Gillis one of the best comics in the country. Well he's fucking top shot. If I saw him I'd know. If I saw him I'd know it but he's a new guy coming up but anyway. He drinks Bud Light and he's in a dilemma. Oh boy. Because he'll drink Bud Light on the podcast and we've had podcasts where he drank 16 Bud Light. 16 in three hours. He's a big boy. Wow. Big fellow. It's all relative. He could put him down. Yeah. That's amazing though. That's even how big you are. That's pretty serious. I don't even know how you do. How many did you do? Were you joining him?

27:59I just can't keep up with that. I'm 6 -7 in. I'm done. I can't stop. That's when you go though three hours. Yeah. I'm just saying that I'm not going to be in the mood. Bud Light is a light beer. It's only like, what is the percentage of alcohol? Five percent? Yeah. It's light. It's a lot of alcohol. Yeah. It's like it's for people who like to drink all day long. You can hydrate with it. Yeah. It's actually hydrate with it. Yeah. You get a little buzz. Yeah. Hydrate. It's not offensive tasting. Yeah. Now it's just offensive. Yeah. Well it's just just one ad campaign. It's just so dumb and the lady behind it was the hur - Oh.

28:32It's just like talking about the fratty sense of humor. What are you going to do? You're going to replace it with this fucking mentally ill person. I know. It's tough. They had a winning. It just needs attention constantly. I mean they had a winning campaign going for decades. It worked. Yeah. They should have gone back to another real men of genius. Yeah. Listen, you can make fun of men, hard core in those ads and we'll laugh along with you. Absolutely. You know, it's like it would have been fine. Yeah. But we got people to buy Bud Light, which you got the opposite. You got the opposite. Now the gay folks don't want it, the trans folks don't want it.

29:06Nobody wants it. It's tough. They're saying I've read this story, this bar owner was saying that he had to stop carrying it because people were attacking people that were drinking it. Oh my gosh. So people that were like, ah fuck it, I don't care. I'm not involved in this. What are you fucking, guys? Come here. People just beating people's asses for having Bud Light. They were having fights at the bars. It's so sad. And who are they owned by now? Don't they own by some international corporation at this point? I believe so. Yeah. Are they owned by a Chinese corporation? Who owns Bud Light? I think somebody in Europe.

29:38Hey, who owns and how's their bush? Let's find out who owns and how's their bush. Maybe. But whatever something's bad, I believe it on China. It's like those lights that you got. Oh, the ones for my land cruiser. Those actually were from China. Yeah. They look cool. They just died. They got water in them. So I don't know. How are you fucking, so fucking land cruiser? I mean, come on. How are they not sealed? Yes, they're company called Inbev. I'm never heard. And what's Inbev? I don't know. Tied to the Communist China. I want to short -term it right now. I want to call my broker. I got to feel him.

30:13This is going to keep going. Belgium. Yeah, let's manipulate some markets right now. Yeah. I think you could. Let's take a break, though. Yeah, we're making a couple calls. So we have this podcast that we do call ProtectR. We have a lot of other parks that I do with Shane Gillis and Maryshafear and Mark Norman and we get hammered, like most of the times. Yeah. And we're trying to figure out what's the lease woke beer to drink. And Mark Norman said, Colt 45. And I think he's right. Is he? Who owns it? We got to look it up. You don't know. But Colt 45, like, you don't know. That is the lease woke advertising campaign.

30:45It was. I remember growing up. Those commercials were fantastic. Malt liquor. Yeah. I mean, that's stuff for us. What is the alcohol percentage of that? That's more than Bud Light. Yeah. A lot more. That stuff's rough. That's not even real beer. No. It's a 5 .6. Malt liquor is? We'll call 45 as a corneum. It's just a real Wikipedia. What about Old English? It's an old, ultimately, it's a siop. Psychological operation. You just think it is. Something else in there, man. But they're stable, maybe. That's 100 is just slightly. Well, it is. There's a range is from 5 .9 to 8. Maybe we need, well, I would say Canada is the woke is fucking place on Earth right now.

31:21I would have said go with Canadian beer because Canadian beer is like 9%. Yeah, they have like black stuff. Yeah, they get hammered up. Oh, nice. They go hard. Yeah, it's cool. It's really cold. You got to do something up there. They locked themselves in. They give fucking plaster. You got to do something up there. Who's talking about Canada and food the other day? You don't hear about somebody saying they would go out and have a night. This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Actually, have some Buffalo Trace cigars here. They just sent me. One of the world's most award -winning distilleries that's been making whiskey the same way for more than 200 years.

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32:40Tap the banner to learn more or visit buffalotracedustillery .com. That's buffalotracedustillery .com. Distilled, aged, and bottled by Buffalo Trace Distillery, 90 proof, Franklin County, Kentucky, Buffalo Trace, American, family -owned, independent, and perfectly untamed. It's Canadian. Andrew Schultz. Was that it? Oh my God. Let's play that bit. Now Andrew Schultz is bit on the food. Where did that come from? I thought that's how it was played in the year. Oh, did you? Fucking genius. If he does a bit about countries that suppress their women. That's it. For a horrible it is to suppress women.

33:20That's it. Yeah. Is it fucking great, but it's here you can fuck me. Okay, so I drew that guy out of here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I saw. Yeah, yeah. This is such a good bit. It's pretty clever. There's a lot of countries in the world that treat women like shit. That's fucked up. But they got the best food.

33:37That's undeniable, right? The more countries like stay in the kitchen, the better the food comes out in the kitchen, right? It comes out more delicious that way. Have you ever eaten food from a country where the women are equal? Get the fuck out. Get it away. Get away. What is that? Equality cuisine, move it. Move it. Move it. Nobody in this room has ever said, you know what we should do for dinner tonight? Canadian. Never been said. That's it. That's it. Can't even treat their women equally. Their food is fucking dog shit. It's disgusting. Canadian bacon. Kill yourself if you like Canadian bacon.

34:25What is this coaster of ham? What am I looking at? I actually like Canadian bacon. Yeah, Canadian bacon. I thought it was been the best analogy. I know it was doing it. But it's a funny joke. It is. It's a great joke. But no one has said, let's go eat Canadian. No. I mean, I don't even know what that means. I don't know what it means to eat. I think it's all either. Poutine is good. I think that's French though. Yeah, that's more East. Yeah, that's more Cheryl. Yeah, and there's some good restaurants. Poutine is pretty bomb -diggity. They got smoked meat. Actually, Canada has some good food. Who's the hunter that has his place up here?

34:56Is it a Montreal hunter? Yeah, yeah. No, it's Toronto. Toronto, yeah. It's Cookbook. Yeah. That's the guy that when the vegans were angry, he butchered a deer in front of the window. And was he on the podcast? Yes. And so I've met him before as well. Super nice guy. Very nice guy. So you don't think that he would do, like, just having talked to him. Like, he wouldn't think that his mind would just go there to do that. But that was, yeah, it was pretty legit. Well, it was a smart move. Got him on the podcast. Got him. Got him famous. I mean, like, take advantage of me. These people are, like, making it uncomfortable for people to go to his business.

35:28Yeah. Just because they have an idea of what you shouldn't shouldn't eat. And if someone confronted them, like, unless you are growing your own vegetables and you know exactly what happens, you are responsible for animal death, 100%. Every, I mean, there's a crazy video of this, this, this combine going through a field and it goes this patch of, of, of, of, of, like, I guess it's probably quarter or something like that. And 13 deer run out of the, like, you know, I mean, those, the, the fawns get chewed up. You know, many rabbits and, you know, like, if, is a life, a life, because I'll tell you what, you lose a lot of life for a pound of grain.

36:10No matter what, poisoning, pesticides, herbicides, like, this idea that you're going to have some zero karma, no worry at all, vegetable dinner, like, fuck off. You're not. Or, again, just getting the things to getting your, like, the organic paper towels or whatever they have, you know, they have those things, just getting those to the store, you know, could grab them to cost the country, the amount of insects that hit the windshield. And who, and Steve Rinalda has that thing, right? Doesn't have the pyramid of things like fish, nobody cares, that whole deal. I had a post that I did on Instagram way back in the day called the hierarchy of dead animals with social media.

36:46That's it. So I said, like, if you catch a fish, no one's upset at you. And then I showed a picture of me with a dead turkey, like, we crossing into a weird neighborhood. And then I had a package of bear meat, right? Just a package, just meat, just a bear meat. It's like, you can get away with a lot. You do it in a sneaky way. Yeah, there's bear meat. And that's okay. That was okay, right? Not too many people hate nothing. Yeah, I had a hierarchy of dead animals on social media. Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah. What did you put, Maya, first, 2015? Yeah. Eight years ago. Eight years ago. Amazing. Yeah. That was probably last time I hunted bears.

37:22Was it? Yeah. I haven't been up there in a while. There was the pandemic. Yeah. And then, you know, you couldn't get up there for a while. Yeah. Now I'm just angry at Canada. Yeah, they invite, yeah, it's a rivetsome. They've been in touch and wanted to try to get me up there. And it's a crazy spot. Yeah. There's so many bears up there. And anyone that thinks that somehow another bear is like, they're protected. And I did speak to listen, go to Canada, go to Alberta and go wander around the woods. There are so many goddamn bears. Yeah. They have to kill bears. Yeah. Their, their deer population, their moose population all depends on it.

37:54They are overrun with bears. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. When we were up there, there's bear cannibalism. Yeah. John, one of the, one of the guys that was this Jonathan, one of the sons of the rivets, is he saw a bear, a male bear, the boar attacked a female and was trying to get to her cubs, killed one of her cubs, the female chased the bear off and then the female ate her own cub. Wow. Yeah. You know, this is not a, this is not teddy bears. Yeah. They're edible monsters. Yeah. Did you post a picture of your, did you post a picture of your bear at one point? And that's where the hatred, there are a lot of hate.

38:31Oh, I got a lot of hate. Yeah. Yeah. They posted it. That's the last. The last few monsters bears go at it. For the longest, most intense grizzly bear fight he's seen. Oh, you said, no, I've got some of my reaction. You did not see this. This is male. That's a few days ago. This is a few days ago here. This is an intense fight. Is this new? Yeah. I haven't seen this one. Male 11. I mean, we could go into, I don't look at that thing. Oh my gosh. That is a crow. That's nature's cleanup crew, ladies and gentlemen. Anything that fucks up gets eaten by this 2000 pound monster. And here comes this guy.

39:03This guy is just going to happen dangerously close to us. Oh boy. Here we go. Look how beautiful they are. Look at the code. It's these things. Gosh. Look at that backdrop. Yeah. People will say it's CGI.

39:22That's incredible. Weird life day of. Look at that. I mean, that looks pretty evenly matched at this point. Yeah, they're both the same size. I mean, they just biting each other's faces. He's been training hard. Fuck, man. Oh, they do a lot of jujitsu though. Look, look right there. Those little grainy roll. Oh, go for the back. He's got in the back. He's been watching UFC. Oh, look at that thing. He's just biting. Oh my gosh. That guy's trying to get away now. He's trying to. But they're thick. They're skin is so thick and they're covered in fat. He was like, that's just annoying. Like broke it off me.

39:54Wow. I will say it goes on and on and on. How long do you want to watch? Wow. This is a good fight. Oh, look at this. Oh. Really good attention. Oh my gosh. I like how the other bear just keeps moving though. That's good. Oh, he's like his technique. Oh, there he is. I still got his back, but he's nervous. Kind of nervous. Oh, he's pulled guard. I'm trying to get him off of him. Oh my gosh. That is true. That one better run. That one better just get on those getaway sticks. I don't know. I feel like he's going to reverse it. Yeah, we're good. We're good. I'm watching. Because they get the guys wasting all his time biting them in the back.

40:29Yeah, maybe he's going for a thickest spine. Yeah. No. It's not really going to happen. No. No one. I don't think anyone dies. Oh, really? It's just an intense fight. It's a crazy fight. Well, you know who got the best bear fight footage before this was grizzling that. Oh. Which is one of my favorite all -time comedies. I haven't. It's the best. You haven't watched it. No, I keep meaning to it. I haven't watched it, but I know that. Oh my god. Have a cocktail and watch grizzly, man. It is the best unintentional comedy that's ever been made. And I wonder if it's unintentional. Because Warner Herzog's a genius.

41:02Yeah, yeah. You know, and he's made so many amazing films. And that, to me, is his favorite. My favorite of his films. Yeah. And there's so many moments that just are laugh out loud, funny. Like there's one where there's a sheriff and he's talking about like finding the body. And the fact that this guy was camping with him. And the sheriff looks at the camera. And he was like, I thought he was retarded. And he's like, the way he says it. You know that. And then he cut. There's a smash cut. And the bear guy always gets eaten by the bear. The shark guy ends up getting eaten by the shark. The rattlesnake guy gets it and up getting bitten by the rattlesnake.

41:35What's happened to him with these? That's just the trailer for him. Oh, for grizzly, man. Yeah, that poor guy. Well, that guy was very, very sad. No. He was a sad guy. And he had this idea that he was protecting them. Oh. But he just doesn't even understand. He doesn't understand wildlife conservation. That's so brutal. If a lion guy gets eaten by the lion, it's always the way. But this one's, this is an amazing, brilliant tale of eventual and potential madness. And hilarious. Well, I think I feel like genuinely this story was suicide by bear. Yeah. Because he stayed long after he was supposed to be there.

42:13He stayed after the animals were in hibernation. He was very depressed. And I think he kind of wanted to die. Yeah. I really do. I just think this guy just was very sad. That's tough. And he very much seemed like an in the closet gay guy. Because like he said a lot of crazy shit. Like he was walking around with the camera and he was like, I wish he was gay. If I was gay, it'd be so easy. I just found a guy and hooked up. But I'm not gay. I'm like, are you sure? Like, there's so many layers to that film. Oh, really? I'm not going to watch it. It's a point. It's great. It's a great documentary. And it also highlights how majestic these animals are.

42:47They're so amazing. And delicious too if you get the right ones eating the right stuff. I've never eaten a brown bear. No, I have not eaten a brown bear. But black bears are very good. If they're eating the blueberries, there's a bunch of them on those blueberries. I haven't had that. But but Rinalis says it's some of the best meat he's ever eaten. It is. What's interesting is that settlers in America in the pioneer days, they preferred bear meat and they shot deer for their skins. Oh, interesting. That's why like a buck, do you know what a buck? A buck. A buck. It's a dollar because that was what it was worth.

43:18One of those deer skins was worth a dollar. So they called it a buck. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy. Back then, that's a lot of money. Oh my God. Back then, a dollar is a lot of money. It's one of those. There are those 50, those 100 of those. You're fucking ballin'. Yeah. You know, the richest guy in the world at one point in time was a beaver pelt salesman. I believe it. In America. I believe it. Yeah, there's a time. And it was just like the stock market. The ups and downs in the markets for those things. Did you see that recent, I think it was in Kenya. I think it just saw it maybe yesterday the day before.

43:46But the villagers out there killed a lion. An old lion. And it made the news. But not so much in the way that some of the others have. Because this lion was eating some of their livestock. And they're like, oh, guess what? This is killing our livestock. That's how we survive. So we're going to kill it. So they did. And of course, you know, you know, and ask more questions about, well, why? And why is, uh, why is there not hunting here? And if there was hunting with that animal have had value. And then would there be incentive to keep those populations at a certain level and apply the science to it and make sure.

44:20But there's none of that. They just kill it. And that's how it goes. Because these things are killing your livestock that you feed your family with. So it wasn't long for this earth. What that happens with elephants with crops. Yeah. Oh, they destroy the crop bunch of crops over there. So what they do, they kill them. No idea what a farm is. They're not worried. They're not worried. They just go through those videos, those pictures. And but it's that's that's the problem about not putting the requisite time energy and effort into studying an issue. No matter what that issue is. And just making a snap decision based on something that someone with a lot of followers puts out there.

44:50All of a sudden that is your, uh, that's your position as well. Rather than let me just do some study here. Let me think about this a little more. Yeah. Now I'll make my. What sort of like a woman attacking women for wearing bikinis? It's like quite actually. Let's talk about this. Okay. You're ruining it for everyone. Something wrong with that. And also the, there's the thing about wildlife conservation that's very uncomfortable. And what's uncomfortable is that it really bothers us that the only way animals really have value in terms of these, uh, wild populations of antelope and gazelles and all these different things they hunt in Africa.

45:28The way they've made them thrive is by putting value on them to hunt them. And that bothers people a lot. It does. And I get it. Yeah. I get why it would. I mean, it would be nice if all these people that were animal conservationists spent as much money as hunters. Yeah. But it doesn't happen that way. They don't. They just, especially in America with the Pittman Robertson Act, where a percentage of all ammunition sales, of all gear, all hunting gear. And it turns into all that goes towards wildlife conservation. And it's the two and a billions of dollars. Yeah. And sportsmen voted that in. Yeah.

46:06Voted that in. That was a tax self -imposed tax. Yes. And a beautiful one. Really? It's one of the wildlife conservation in this country and the preservation of public land for recreational use and hunting and fishing and camping is one of the greatest things this country has ever pioneered. Oh, yeah. Because it really doesn't exist or hadn't exist until we did it in this country. That necessity because all those bucks added up to a lot of dead deer. And a lot of population declined. But now we have thriving populations of these animals. And Turkey is also the same thing. And now they're all over the place.

46:40We have about 200, essentially, that go between a ridge by our house. They come through every day up to this other ridge and then work their way back. And I was heading up to Steve Rinal in Montana a lot of two weeks ago. And I took a video. He'd been out turkey hunting. Didn't see anything. And I took about 200 turkeys just standing there. I can't the road as I'm leaving the house. And yeah, right there. Yeah. But you're in part -unciddy. He's always blastin' shotguns of Park City. No, no, no. They're town turkeys. They're very safe. They're very comfortable hanging out in the backyard. But I thought they were going to die this winter because there was last winter.

47:08They were here the whole time because we had a very mild winter last year. This year it was not mild. It was like the largest recorded snowfall in Utah history or Park City history anyway. And so they disappeared. And I thought all they're gone. Because it's the first time they've seen this kind of snow as well. But they came back about three weeks ago. They came back in force, 200 of them, right back like they never left. But - Do they migrate? I think they found a barn somewhere with some heat and some feed. I'm thinking. I don't know. I don't know. But it has to be because they - I don't know if they can just hunker down for all those months that we got all that snow.

47:38They don't fly very far. No, but they fly. Yeah. It's pretty cool to see them fly for the first time when you're not - when you think that maybe they don't and then you see them go up to roost and - or come down. And that's pretty cool. And that's pretty cool. Yeah. I have - how far can they fly? I don't know. 100 yards or something. Maybe. I don't know. That's all I've seen them fly as they don't have these trees so not very far. But - but who knows maybe they maybe they do. What a weird bird could kind of fly. But not much. They got glides you know and they get up there fly. Let's find out. Find out regards.

48:09It says wild turkeys can fly at speeds up to 40 miles an hour. 50 miles an hour. But only for short distances usually with their flight distance to about 100 yards or less. Nice. I nailed it. You did. That right on. It wasn't 101 or 99. Like you were on it. That's amazing. Well, I've seen them. Let's see them fly. I took a guess. How many - how much have - how many spent turkey hunting? Only once. Yeah. Yeah, only once with Rinella. Yeah. It's good but my time is very valuable. And if I'm just hunting for one meal that bothers me. Yeah. I want to hunt where if I shoot like - I went where Rinella went down the South Texas.

48:46I got two white ale and a kneel guy. So I'm - you're good. Yeah, yeah. It's like that's - that to me I like to eat those animals for months. Yeah, yeah. Like I've got kneel guy liver and my - in my - Frigrated for breakfast. Nice. It's like I like that. That's what I like. I like it. It was good. If you had moose heart, did you guys eat the moose heart when you went? I did. Good. Good. And B .C. yeah. Really good. Like thin, just slice it real thin and fry it. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Delicious. Yeah. Well, I'm a big fan of liver for its performance. Like just - as a food - as a super food. It's so good for you.

49:22Well, then the liver guy - what was the liver guy? It's a liver king. Yeah, yeah. steroids. That was the deal. Because I was doing it. It didn't work. Just kidding. It wasn't. If I haven't even worked - I haven't even worked out anymore. It's like the - the workouts, the nutrition and the sleep have fallen to the bottom of the priority list with everything going on in the shift. Because of work. Yeah. There's books to write and scripts to write. Well, not right now, but you reprioritize and focus on book seven and then I have this nonfiction coming out, which has taken a lot more research than anticipated, which the first one is on the 1983 Bay Area Barric's bombing.

49:53So it's - it's my first foray into the nonfiction side of the house. So working on that right now with an amazing guy. A historian, Pulitzer Prize finalist, James Scott. And there's really not the seminal work on that event yet. But as a kid, I remember just how impactful that was to me seeing the news week and time and - come across our dining room table and seeing those photos and knowing that I was going to go in the military even at that young age. So I was always interested in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies and terrorism and special operations. Like I was focused on that from a very - I'm not aware of that story.

50:24Yeah, so October of 1983, there was a - two actual car -car bombs, one of the French paratroopers and one with the Marine Barrics in Beirut, Lebanon. And there were some lead -up events. First one in - or the first large one that really people noticed, the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut in April 1983. And then there's some newly declassified documents from the Reagan administration that talk about what was going on behind the scenes and who was advocating to put Marines ashore, who wanted to keep them on amphib ships. So I'm a small -looking aircraft carrier, but take Marines around who wanted to keep them on those ships in a little safer area out on the water in the med.

51:03And then who made - the president made the final decision. And I talked to Michael Reagan about it and he said that decision haunted his father until the day he died. And so they put Marines ashore in Beirut, Lebanon. And then there was a bomb that took out those barracks. And it was the largest Marine loss of life since Iwo Jima in World War II. And so I'm doing this research right now. How many people did? There were 300 - we can look it up exactly so I don't mess it up by one or two. But it's so impactful and looms over US foreign policy to this day. And there's an ending to it too. 347. Yeah, there it is.

51:43241 US military personnel. 58 French, 6 civilians, two suicide bombers. What is your take on what's going on Ukraine? Are you up on it? I'm not on it. I know you're writing about it. I'm writing about it. I wrote about it in the second novel in True Believer. And I got that from someone who's also been on this podcast. Peter Zihon wrote a book back in 2014. And so I used that. I read that on my flight to Mozambique where I was doing research for the second novel. I don't believe in the way I didn't have a deal for the first novel yet. I didn't even turn that in but I always knew I was going to write to because John Grisham he wrote his first book a time to kill and couldn't give that book away.

52:22And then he writes the firm. And that one takes off. Tom Cruise is in the movie. Then they republish a time to kill and Matthew McConaughey stars in that one. And we've had a John Grisham novel every year. So I thought back to that and thought, I'll at least write to. And if both of them don't take off then I'll maybe reevaluate my choices. So I knew I was always going to write to, but on the flight over there I read his book Accidental Superpower. And that one very clearly predicts a Russian invasion of Ukraine by the year 2022. And that was back in 2014 he wrote that. So there were signs. Peter Zion was that on the ball?

52:55To the year. Wow. He's a weirdly smart guy. He's amazing. He's been on my podcast and I've been on your podcast and I've read all his books. He's so sure of what he's saying too. That's what's uncomfortable. He's very. You're not even hedging your bets. No. No. And he's not. He doesn't hedge the bets at all. And but he, but he also that's his thing. That is 100 % his area of expertise and study. He lives it. He breathes it. It's not something that he just dabbles in. So read that book. Amazing. Amazing book. So I incorporated that into my into my second novel. But now Russia actually did invade Ukraine.

53:29So now when we work on these scripts for the second season of the terminal list, well, we have to figure that out. It's going to change obviously because they actually invaded instead of like in the book. The hero, of course, the wins the day. But but when he talks about that and talks about population decline, very steep population decline in Russia and gives the reasons behind it. And talks about the ethnic Russian population in Ukraine being the largest outside of Russia. And he looked at how long you can field an army before you can't field that arm anymore. And 2022 was that year. So in order to field the army at current levels, they had to invade by that time.

54:05And we really, I mean, this is going back to. To learning lessons from the past and applying them going forward as wisdom, because we really made that invasion inevitable by some of our decisions at the end of the cold war in the early 90s all the way through the 90s and really set things up to make that invasion a inevitability. NATO expansion. NATO expansion promises. It's just so I like to look at things through the enemy's eyes, which I did in the devil's hand, my fourth book. But I think it's important to look at things through the enemy's eyes, because it allows you to then make decisions taking that into account.

54:40And so with Russia certainly knowing what our response would be to an invasion of Ukraine, that's what I incorporated into this one. So if you knew what we would do if they invaded Ukraine, what should you do now as Russia to set yourself up? Success is the wrong word, but financially. So with gas and oil sales and contracts and futures with India and with China. So I work all that into this book. It was quite the education. What did you think about the blowing up of the pipeline? Oh my goodness. There's the Sea More Hersh that has a few articles out there on the sub -stack. Amazing. People should read those before they just retweet something.

55:19But he is, I mean, he is detailed in those accounts of where people are, what military exercises are going on that would cover for action, we call it, to allow the U .S. to go in and blow up those pipelines. So it's very, and now it's, I think, fairly established that what he writes in there is actually true. So it's incredible. So people have a video of Biden saying that they were going to put a stop to the Nord Stream pipeline. There was an assistant secretary of state, I think he was, saying similar things out there. And it's, yeah. So when we go back and look at these things and don't apply any political bias to it and just apply common sense, that's the other thing we don't do.

55:57And it's the Karla in Klauschwitz who wrote on war, said the most important attribute of a battlefield leader is common sense. George Marshall, World War II, said the same thing. And we neglect to apply common sense to a lot of these things, whether it's as a populist or our elected officials or military leaders. So there's a lack of common sense and a stark lack of accountability as well. So it's very therapeutic for me to write some of these novels because I get to hold people accountable in a fictional sense that you can do in real life. Is it a lack of common sense or is it a willingness to ignore consequences because of the financial interest or the political interest in what you're trying to accomplish?

56:40Well, that's a huge part of it. And we can see a change in 1947. So in the defense establishment and the intelligence agencies were all reorganized in 1947 when we changed the Department of War to the Department of Defense. It became an industry and it stopped being a profession of arms and started becoming a career of arms for senior level officers in particular. And at the same time, we start seeing a lack of accountability because up to that point, we go back to the Civil War and see Lincoln go through general after general until he got to grant. And same thing in World War II, George Marshall went through general after general after general after admiral after admiral after admiral and tell he got to those names that we all know today who led us to victory in World War II.

57:19And then for some reason, and that means that there were people in those positions before who didn't measure up. So George Marshall would give them a chance and maybe a second one, but not a third. And then they'd put somebody in place regardless of rank essentially. He'd promote people into the rank they needed to be for those positions if they showed promise. And that's how we got to these leaders that we all know the last names of. And we lost that after World War II, particularly in Vietnam. Now, we start seeing people not held accountable for mistakes. We certainly see it with Afghanistan 20 years they had to prepare for this event.

57:51About 20 years. And then the best they can do is what we saw in August of 2021. And someone who has no touch points with the military, he never read a book on military, history, strategy, tactics, doesn't know anyone in the military, maybe you've never seen a military film can apply common sense to that situation and say, look, wait, it looks like Bogrum here would be the tactically advantageous position, which it was. Why are we putting our junior level enlisted people at this gate, at this essentially a public airport in Kabul, putting them in a tactically disadvantageous position to get out of there after we had 20 years to prepare to leave.

58:26And once again, no one held accountable. And there's a great book. It's called the Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock. And after two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by the Washington Post, they got access to these classified histories of the war. And so they took these generals and admirals coming back and they interviewed them and they thought these interviews were going to stay classified. And so what Craig Whitlock does once he got access to this is he juxtaposes what they said in private that they thought was going to stay classified to what they said in front of Congress. And they're 180 out from each other.

58:55And once again, no one held accountable. All those guys make rank. They fail up and then sit on boards of defense industry companies going forward. And yeah, we saw that change in 1947. 700. You cover some of these problems in your books. And but how frustrating is it for you and how infuriating it, infuriating is it as a man who's a veteran who served, who's been deployed overseas, who's been in these conflicts to see this happening and to see no accountability and to see these poor choices being made over and over again, that put veterans lives at risk, put our lives at risk and put the entire world in this state right now where we're genuinely concerned about nuclear war, which we haven't been since the 80s.

59:45The fall of the Soviet Union was this great moment in history where we're like, oh, Jesus, we're done. Oh my God. The Soviet Union is now Russia. It's like they have elected leaders. Everything's going to be great. Yeah. Yeah, I know it's tough because you lose friends over there. People lose arms, legs, wheelchairs. They sacrifice so much and they're trusting those senior level leaders to make good decisions, politicians and military leaders. And then they see what happens over there. And so it's a very natural to ask that question, was it all worth it? What were we doing over there for all these years, for 20 years?

1:00:18So it's very natural to ask that question. And for my own sanity, I just go back to taking those lessons learned and applying them going forward in a way that honors the sacrifice of those who did lose their lives, who didn't come home or who came home changed forever because of post -traumatic stress, or traumatic brain injury, missing arms and legs. My hope, and I hate to say hope, is that we can take those lessons and apply them to the next generation so they don't have to learn those same lessons in blood. But I guess I'm not hopeful because we have shown time and time again that we have a very difficult time doing that for some reason.

1:00:50And I don't know why that is, but it's extremely disheartening. It also sets up that next generation for failure because we have these people coming up the ranks and they see these generals sitting in front of Congress say certain things, you can go back to every single testimony from these guys. And they all say pretty much the same thing or make in progress. We just need more money. We need more time. And privately, what were they saying? They were saying that this is a disaster. Yeah. And you can go back and look at these, then Greg Willuck spells it all out. He has the transcripts in there.

1:01:20And there's one, I forget who it is right now in exact time, but it's around the 2009, 2010 timeframe where there's one senior level official who's in charge of Afghanistan. He doesn't even say anything bad. He's just kind of like, you know, it's not going as great as we may have led you to believe. And then a few months later, he has quietly moved aside and somebody else is put in. So that tells everybody else coming up behind them. Should have known. If they want to get this next star and they want to sit on the board of Company X, Y, Z, they better tow this line and it's an industry. Is that an issue where the amount of money that's involved in it now because of the military industrial complex is almost, it's like, you can't turn that back now because you've turned on that spigot.

1:02:00The amount of money is continuing to flow. These coffers are failing. These people are making so much money to stop it now and to hold people accountable and to try not like put it into this chain of failure. I mean, it's a huge bureaucracy. It's an ecosystem that includes politicians. It includes military leaders both in uniform and just out sitting on these boards. Lobbyist, permanent Washington. It's all a part of this huge infrastructure that is moving forward and just like any company you've got to show profits. It's just crazy that, you know, less than a hundred years ago, Eisenhower warned us about this.

1:02:37At the end of World War II, when he's leaving office, he warned us about it in the 50s and said there is a military industrial complex. And the crazy thing is that speech at that time aired on television and people, you know, remember it. They had a sense of it, but it wasn't until the internet where you could pull up that speech at any moment you wanted to on YouTube and just play his words, which is such an incredible resource. I mean, we have access to history instantaneously in a way that's never existed before and we seem to be learning less. I know. It's one of those dichotomies that is very odd and we all thought when that, when you could carry the internet around in your pocket with that first iPhone, I mean, you thought, oh, when we have a discussion and someone says, no, it's this.

1:03:21Yo, it's this. Guess what? We don't have to argue about it. We can look it up right here. It's going to be great because we can solve all these arguments immediately. And what did it do? Well, it just snowballed into this thing where it divides us even further rather than someone saying, oh, look, oh, I was wrong. Oh, yeah, it says it right here. Yeah. No, it just divides us even further. And of course, advent of social media. It's a web. It's a tool. And any tool can be used for productive purposes or as a weapon. And we have weaponized social media for sure to divide and who benefits. Well, politicians that need to galvanize bases, of course, and the social media companies themselves who have lobbyists in Washington who pay a lot of money to these politicians.

1:03:56And it's a whole ecosystem. And so being aware of it, I think, is the first step. So for our kids, I talk about it with them and I always ask the question, how am I being manipulated here? Which is kind of a cynical way to look at things, but you kind of have to today. And then with the advent of AI, it's a whole another side of it, like figuring out what is truth and what is not and what's been made up and what podcast is real. And what's not, it's a crazy situation. But I want the kids to know that even if they're following somebody on social media, like a person, that's an advertisement for that person and their life.

1:04:24And you can see time and time again, beautiful families out there and they're showing here where we are in the rubah or whatever. And here we are with our Easter photo together. And then the next week, there's their divorce and there's abuse and there's all that you know. And it's like, this whole thing was all a force. Yeah, so that's an advertisement, just like a company. When I see someone doing something like that, I always assume that you're trying to like, you're trying to sell me something. Yeah, exactly. Why are you trying to sell me your relationship so good? Exactly, exactly. Why might be manipulated right here?

1:04:52It's one thing it's Mother's Day, you know, she's such a great mom. Okay, okay. But how many days a week are you doing that? You're the perfect family of the perfect life, you're the perfect this. You're trying to sell it to people instead of just living it. And it's a very weird thing that we're doing that never existed before, so there's no real roadmap of how to navigate it correctly. Exactly. Kind of like when you have a psychologist or a psychiatrist on and you know, they're they're really getting into your life maybe or they're out there giving advice, giving all this advice and then you find out that in the background there, there are total disaster.

1:05:25Right. And they're a crazy person. That happens more often than I, not sorry to psychologists and psychologists out there, but you know it's true. Oh, it's very true. I mean, there's a lot of doctors out there that are extremely unhealthy. So there's a lot of weird stuff going on in this world where there's people that are experts and giving advice and they know it's tough. I think about that a lot when I talk. I'm like, maybe better, better, better not be full of shit. I know. You're supposed to check all this. You're a full time job checking on this stuff. It's wild. But for the kids it's the toughest.

1:05:52Our daughter Jess missed it. She's 17, so she got a little bit of it. But I think she was. She grew up at the internet. She grew up at the internet, but she didn't grow up with the amount of input that these kids are getting now at age 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 13. She just missed that. Yeah. So our little guy who is 12 is hitting that side. And you know, they're pretty sly. Our little guy out there, he's a smart one. So he can figure out ways around the blocks and all these other sorts of things. So it's interesting time for parents. Tough time, I think for parents and tough time for kids. I think it's tough for kids.

1:06:22I think it's always been a tough time for parents and always been a tough time for kids. And these are just unique challenges that exist, but every era has unique challenges. What I'm worried about is this stuff that we're talking about in terms of accountability with the military industrial complex. And I don't know how that turns around. Other than some catastrophic disaster, and the catastrophic disasters that we're talking about are nuclear. And if there's a nuclear disaster, you know, it's that Einstein quote, I don't know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with rocks and sticks.

1:07:00Oh, interesting. Yeah. They're not having heard that quote before. I'm out of paraphrase, but I'm sure it's good. Yeah, it's good. It's basically what he said. Yeah. And that's what scares a shit out of me is that, you know, you got a guy like Putin who may or may not have cancer, you know, who's backed into a corner. And what does he do if he thinks he's going to lose and he thinks he's going to die? Right. So the only thing I think about at that point is what, who benefits if you use even tactical nuclear weapons in a place like Ukraine, that's the area that they want. So it doesn't, when you look at it logically, maybe they can move things around on a board and move nuclear weapons closer or farther away or that sort of a thing is kind of pieces on the chess board.

1:07:39But if you want to invade a country because you want its population and because you want its food sources, then to nuke it doesn't really play in. So as they think they're going to lose Russia. And that's what the population decline. There are essentially a few, according to Peter Zian, there are a few generations away from, they're thinking of China with the one -trial policy. Is there a similar situation there? Japan has a giant population issue too. Perhaps it's a huge issue as well. Yeah, so it's tough. It's nuts. There's so many, I mean, the fuck would want to be president? I seriously, that's the whole thing.

1:08:13There's a politician in general. Yeah. Who's drawn to that? I mean, I'm sure there are people that are drawn to it for sure reasons. I want to serve and they may start businesses and made money and want to give back and are concerned about the future of the country. I'm sure they exist. But man, people get into those positions and they sure do pick stocks a lot better than they did before. It's across the board. That's not just Nancy Pelosi. No. It's a whole thing. It's part of that established, part of that permanent Washington, part of the ecosystem. And it's out of this. That's the motivation.

1:08:43Is that access to information that allows you to pick stocks so good? It's incredible. And in my first book, I talk about, he showed me a politician in Washington and I'm going to show you a family member who has some sort of a lobbying firm or this or that. And then what are we seeing with the Biden administration? You're seeing some of that right now in the front pages. They are just holding on to that as long as they can. Because it seems like that is a crazy mountain of corruption. Yeah. I don't think it is only them. I want you to imagine if that was Trump. Imagine if Donald Trump, Jr. was Hunter Biden.

1:09:18Smoking street crack with Vietnamese hookers and all of it documented. It's not like rumors like the steel dossier where the Trump likes to get peed on. No, this guy's getting foot jobs and putting it on his laptop and then dropping it off in Maryland. But I'm skeptical about everything. I mean, just skeptical about the laptop story. Like all, I mean, it's sort of burned into our brains. That's what happened. But I think like 10 years from now, I probably feel like I find out that that's where shit too. I mean, who fucking knows? I don't know. I've been able to stole all that stuff. It just puts that on.

1:09:53So I know a couple of people that saw it right off the bat and what it has been kept to in the news from my understanding is the professional side. So the people who saw it are people who didn't have a vested interest in showing any of that to personal stuff. There's some of those out there, but and this is second hand information. But there's stuff out there that is personally a lot more, I guess, damaging, you would say, that's horrible, but what they tried to stay to for the most part is the ties to the corruption. The corruption is undeniable. I mean, just the fact that he's just completely unqualified to be in those positions that he's at, making the kind of money that he was making and doing it for Russia and China.

1:10:36It's just, it's so, and Ukraine. Yeah. You know, I mean, what's crazy is that Ukraine was thought to be one of the most corrupt countries up until Russia invaded them and now they're the darling. You had Sean Penn's given his Oscar, his Lensky, and it's like, we are so fucking lost. Well, that's what goes back to doing the research. And really, before you take that step, going back and, you know, making sure you're taking the right one. But for the American people, it's almost like there's too much research to do. You don't have the time. For the average person that wants to, if you have a conservative position or a liberal position, it's like, boy, you have to trust in these fucking jackasses that are running the country to be steering you correctly and they never are.

1:11:21They never are. That's so tough. They lie about anything that's going to damage their party. They lie about anything that's going to damage their positions or anything that's going to contradict what they've said in the past. It's crazy. It's crazy. And I talk about it in most of the books, I weave it in there. That it is, so it's not, I don't think it is just reserved for one party, but we're divided along these lines. And who does it benefit? Certainly not the citizenly. Certainly not us. It doesn't benefit us to say, just side with your side because it's your side without even thinking. And that's the position we're in right now, unfortunately.

1:11:58What benefits are people who make the most money, which is so terrifying. And then you see these politicians that just, they benefit from benefiting those people that make the most money. It's an ecosystem. It is. It's so huge right now. Then then you lose, you undercut confidence in voting systems. So that's in there now. And then you have, let's say, going back to 100 by the laptop, you have 51 -52 intelligence officials who signed some letter that's now shown that they were coerced into, not coerced into signing this thing, but they signed it for a reason to give their candidate, the establishment candidate, a talking point in a debate.

1:12:37And that undercuts everyone's confidence in those institutions anyway. And there was always a little shaky, your confidence in intelligence service, just in general. Yes. Well, particularly something in secret. Trump administration attacked them for four years. The Trump administration attacked the intelligence community. And then what does the intelligence community do? They come out and lie about the 100 by the laptop. It's okay. Guys. And that just undermines all of our confidence in these institutions. Yeah. And FBI, same thing. There's just huge issues there. And then it goes down to the local level.

1:13:07And local level politics as well. Police departments and mayors and all the rest of it. So it's, you know, it's endemic throughout the whole system, unfortunately. How does that ever get corrected? I mean, I don't want, I mean, when I have conversations with my kids about politics and life and stuff, it's like, you know, my young kids, I'm talking, not my, my oldest is 26. I know my, my, when I'm talking to my 12, well, now 13 and 14 year olds and 15 year olds, when I'm talking to them, like they're at this point where they're going to be graduated from high school in a few years, they're going to be going to college, they're going to be entering to the workforce and doing stuff.

1:13:44What, what do you tell them about this insanely corrupt system that's supposed to be the controlling operating system of this greatest country the world has ever known, this experiment and self -government. It's just deeply corrupt. It is. And so what we do is we go back and talk about all those sacrifices that were made so we can have these options and opportunities in the hopes that, that our kids take a pause and actually become part of the solution and respect what has happened in the past so that we can be this country we are today, even though it seems to be, we seem to be pretty good at destroying ourselves from the inside out right now.

1:14:21We did have a civil war and at the end of that civil war we did manage to come back together so that gives me hope right there. Took a long ass time. It took some time there, people that didn't want it to happen. It took a lot of murder and the Appalachians and we didn't have social media. We didn't have this tool that you could use to continue to divide. So I won't have to wonder after the civil war if we had iPhones in our pockets and two sides or even some other factions that wanted to continue to divide and either prolong or whatever it was, would we still have come back together? I think social media is a problem but at least social media has this, at least with Elon on board.

1:14:59Elon being in control of Twitter has this self -correcting option that's built in with community notes where say if you are a politician and you tweet something and a bunch of people say that's not correct at all, Twitter will put a community note on and show all the real facts and the Biden administration has deleted tweets because they've been checked. I haven't seen it yet. So you've seen it out there. I haven't seen it yet. I tried to find a poll administration. They have deleted at least one that I'm aware of. I think it's more than one that. Yeah, it's like that's the good thing about social media as it exists.

1:15:35But that's why all these people that are mad that Elon took over, oh you're just letting in these jackasses that were banned in the past. The only answer to bad speech is better speech. The only answer to bad information is correct information. And if you ban that information then they just find some echo chamber and spit it out amongst each other and that's how you get queuing on. That's how you get flatter authors. That's how you get all these fucking loons out there. So if you want to maintain hope for the nation don't go into the comment section of Instagram, Twitter or YouTube because very quickly you will come to the conclusion that all is lost.

1:16:15I don't know about Twitter anymore. I don't read anything about myself and it's given me great sanity over the last few years. It's a giant factor and I try to drill it into all these comedians heads. Like please don't read the comments. Just don't do it. Because first of all, especially if they do a podcast. If you're doing this, like I had my friends Sarah, Wine Shink and Kim Kongdenon and after the podcast was over I was like, please don't read the comments. Just please. We had a great time. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. I think it was really funny. Don't read the comments. But these girls are, of course they don't.

1:16:55They're used to small podcasts that might get a thousand downloads or a couple thousand downloads. Now you got 11 million people that are commenting on every fucking thing you've said. Right. And the only thing you're going to think of is the negatives in these girls sock and they're fucking losers and not funny. They're this to that. Like those are just unhappy, bitter people. You know, who is it? Was it Michael Jordan who said, I don't remember who said it. I've never met a hate or doing better than me. Right. I don't remember who said it. Right. But it's the perfect, the perfect quote. Yeah.

1:17:24You've got people that are allowed to have their opinions. They're allowed to be angry. They're allowed to be bitter. They're allowed to say you suck. They're allowed to say you're a liar. They're allowed to say you're stupid. Let them talk. Yeah. It's okay. Let them talk. But just don't read it. Even if you have thickin, it still gets in there. It gets in there. You know, that's why I don't read it. I don't not read it because it's not like I'm a mune. I read it because it's natural human nature to look for threats. And if you read 100 quotes that are great and then one that sucks and that one person says this person should kill themselves and they're, you know, they're a this and a that and a that and a this and like, oh my god, am I that person?

1:18:07And you can't engage. You can't go back. And it just, you know, I see people that do and I'm like, Jesus Christ, you're just, you just throwing gasoline on it. Exactly. But fuck out of there. How long did you look at comments before when did you stop? For years. For years I looked at comments. Yeah. And it would make me feel bad. I didn't like it. I didn't like getting mad. I didn't like it. Like, that's not true. Fuck them. I'm going to fucking come back. I'm going to come back. I'm going to look at you. Look at you. You're fucking fat. But that's, that's just the way I try to explain to people is look at your mind and your attention like it is bandwidth.

1:18:42And let's, let's assume that you have units. You have 100 units of bandwidth. If you spend 13 units of bandwidth paying attention to social media critics and comments, that's 13 less. Now you only have 87 units. Right. So to, to, I, I, Sam Harris told me once that he was on a, a trip in Hawaii with his family. And he read something negative about him and it tanked his whole trip because he spent his entire time crafting a response. Oh my God. Damn. No. And he's brilliant. Yeah. He's a very smart man. So for him to fall into that trap. Yeah. And he can, or all human. Yeah. And in the matter of your special operator, people think you have this thick skin.

1:19:25And in the top, you went to a rack in Afghanistan. Me through buds, or all that stuff. You know, for me, anyway, it, you know, it, it definitely hurts. But I try to get on there still and say thank you to people because I'm not quite, I can still do it at the end of the night. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. But I want to say thank you, but it also means I see the craziness. Yeah. And so I see that. I never respond to it. But I want to say thank you to all those people who grass roots like before I, you know, for you. Yeah. You might have to bite me on here before I, before Chris Pratt texted about the show or posted about the show before I was on Tucker.

1:19:51It was all grass roots. It was all somebody taking a risk on me as a new author, telling a friend and telling people get on and say, I love your book. I gave it to my dad. Now he's a fan. I want to say thank you to that person. So I'm up late doing that. But it also means that I see that. Yeah. That's, there's, there comes a point in time where you just have to post things and then say thank you in the post, but you can't respond to people individually just because it's just bad for your brain. Yeah. It's not healthy. No, and you know, I mean, you're saying with special operators, but I see it with fighters.

1:20:18I try to tell fighters all the time. Don't read that shit. Yeah. It's just, and some guys love it. Really? David Goggins fucking loves it. Does he get in there after people? He reads all the comments out to him. He reads haters to himself and he plays it when he runs. Oh, wow. Yeah, he's a, he's a different kind of psycho. Wow, that's interesting. Is that cheating? Is that cheating then if he's a word of can't listen to music, then that's cheating. He just needs to listen. Oh, yeah. That's right. That guy has no knees and he runs a thousand miles a day. I mean, whatever the fuck he has to do with the duty does.

1:20:49That's interesting. I do, I haven't done it in a while, but I used to read going to the negative reviews on Amazon and then read those and kind of have a little fun with them. And when I went on Tucker, I read the negative reviews from the show when that was fun, because the daily beast was, oh, they were just mean. There were some mean ones out there. Like the audience on Rotten Tomatoes was crazy high for a show. I mean, it was in the high 90s. Yeah. But then the audience, the critics didn't work big fans. But every single day we realized and we're making that show, they were not making it for critics.

1:21:14We're making it for that person who went down range. So, Rack and Afghanistan over the last 20 years. So, when they sit down and crack a beer and sit on the couch and turn this thing on, they at least know we put in the effort to make a show for them that pay tribute to them that was rooted in the realities of modern combat. And we put in the work. You fucking nailed it. No doubt. And you nailed it on the show. They made that show so fucking gritty. And whenever someone makes an adaptation of a very brutal novel or multiple novels like yours, you always wonder like, oh, God, they're going to be able to really do, and they did, man.

1:21:47They fucking did. Yeah, that's a tribute to Chris Pratt and Antoine Fuqua who were from the get -go, they wanted this thing, they wanted to make it for the people who went down range. And every single day we talked about that, knowing that there's going to be, there's going to be Hollywood hot sauce and anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to do that. But anywhere we could, anywhere we could root this in the realities of modern combat, we were going to do that. And if we had to reshoot something or change something in the script on the fly, we were going to do that. And that's Chris and Antoine and the showrunner, David Adjilio and Max Adams, former Army Ranger who's in that writers room every day and Jared Shaw, my buddy who was there every day who gave the book to Chris Pratt and Raymond Doe's and other seal buddy out there doing the technical advising.

1:22:23I mean, they were all in and you had Chris and Antoine and David Adjilio trusting those guys on set every day. So if one of them said this is not going to play to that person who went to rack in Afghanistan, we'd change it right there. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That is very cool. And, you know, at the end of the day, those people that were critics, they were never going to like it. They don't like that subject matter. It's not, you really, you really, there's room for criticism and the criticism should be reserved for people that actually understand what they're talking about. And it looks something like the daily beast that exists.

1:22:53It's okay. That's cool too. That's why it's cool to shit on. Yeah, and it was fun to read it and have a good time with it on Tucker. I got so many people reaching out to me saying they love that and we just had a little fun on a Friday reading those things and, you know, just reading their own words back to them and having a little fun with it. So, that's kind of a healthy way to deal with it rather than, then, you know, you know, looking at it and just kind of craft that response or like getting mad about it, like, they're going to hate it anyway. And that's okay. That's not their thing. There's plenty of other things out there that they can love and that's, that's okay.

1:23:20We're going to make something, something for us here. And then, that's what we're doing. We're taking that guiding principle because I don't think Amazon will ever, none of those streaming companies will ever share their, their data. But they know exactly how many people watched every single show when they changed the channel, when they got to an end of episode and didn't go to the next one, they have all that data. And that's the reason that we're doing a spin -off and a second season is because they know. What's a spin -off? So, spin -off is there's a character Ben Edwards. And so, spoiler alert for those who have not seen it will just give you two seconds to to put the earmuffs on.

1:23:52So, he's killed at the end. And so, it's a prequel that goes back to show how he went from the seal teams to the CIA, essentially how he turns bad. It's played by Taylor Kitch, who was just awesome. And that's one of the characters I thought was more fully developed than the character in my novel. And on the page, and then what Taylor Kitch brought to it was just next level. So, when we did the premiere in LA in June and it debuted on July 1st, but we did the premiere in June, I came home and for some reason I had a day without interruption. I don't know where my wife and kids were, but I was sitting in a chair that would never sit in if I didn't want to be interrupted.

1:24:25And I wrote from the second I woke up all the way through the night until they got back. And I wrote a spin -off. And I sent it to the showrunner, David DeGilio, and he loved it. And then a couple days later, Chris Pratt called. And he's like, hey, have this idea for a spin -off. And he pitched me on it. And it wasn't mine. It was not my spin -off mine was totally different. And his was this Taylor Kitch, a spin -off of prequel going back in time a little bit. And I said, Chris, that's amazing. Let's do that. That's a great idea. And so, he pitched it to Taylor. Taylor was all on board. And then we put a package together and pitched it to Amazon.

1:24:56And they loved it. And so, off we go to the races with this spin -off, which is more of an international espionage type of a show. Rather than revenge thriller action thriller, conspiracy thriller, like the first one. And it is awesome. And also, nobody can compare it to a book. So, even fans of the book that look at it and say, this is different, this is different. This is different. I hate it because there's no prequel. And then that leads right into the second season, true believer, starring Chris Pratt. And so, we'll roll right into that. And things in Hollywood, as you know, can go off the rails at any time.

1:25:21So, I always have, you know, that's how it goes. But right now, we're working on those scripts. Or, well, we put the pencils down about five days ago now, six days ago, seven days ago, for the writer's strike. But we were about it, episode five. And it's good. Oh, man, it's awesome. Yeah. And so, when was that supposed to go into production? We're supposed to do it sometime in the fall. And our early fall and start filming that and then post -production. And, you know, who knows when they get it out after that. But, have they made progress with this strike? I don't know. I think they're picketing right now.

1:25:52So, I think it's the early stages still. And there's so much to negotiate. I mean, I don't know, but I would think it might take a little bit with this one. I don't know. When someone crosses the writer's strike, that's some dirty shit. Yeah. Across the picket line. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen anybody doing that. Yeah. I think that one did. Oh, really? Yeah. I had a buddy of mine who was writing on Ellen back in the day. Oh, well. Yeah. That's tough, because then I'll be going forward every now. Every day's like, hey, you're the one that didn't stand up. Well, also. Oh, man. It kind of knows now.

1:26:22Yeah, yeah. What she's really all about. And that's another one of those. It's like, I'm so nice. And I'm so sweet. Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. So that's the, yeah, going behind the scenes. That's tough. That's weird when that happens. Like, it sounds a lot. Because people ask me about you. People ask me, and people give me things to, as you know, people probably send you things all the time. People send me stuff. Can you get this to Chris? Can you get this to Joe? Can you get this to Tucker -type things? And you're like, hey. But so that part is kind of strange, but people always ask, you know, what those people are like.

1:26:51You know? And you are you. How could you fake this five days a week upon stay? There's no way. You can fake a talk show though. I get to zero an hour. Because you have an hour, right? Not only that, you don't know the people. You're not having these uncensored conversations. It's very, yeah, it's very edited. And it's also like there's an audience there. So you're playing to the audience. You're well aware. And there's stuff that's filmed, stuff that's not filmed. Chris is the same thing, man. Chris is so, you know, me and my wife are having a conversation about like actors. You know, and she was talking about someone that was very annoying.

1:27:25And I said, yeah, I go, it's rare, but it makes you cherish the ones that are cool. Like Scottie's would. Mm. Scottie's would. If you didn't know that he was Clint Eastwood's son. If you didn't know, he's a big movie star. He's like the fucking nicest, most normal, no ego having guy. Just friendly, normal. You talk to him. He's not needy. He's just like right there. He's a great guy. But unless you put two pictures of him and his dad in like from the 70s. Right now, then that's amazing resemblance. But he seems like an awesome guy. That is. That's, yeah, it's good ones right there. Those outlawed Joseph Will James.

1:28:04He's right in. That's the picture. Great fucking jeans though. Not bad. You know, if you had to choose. Good looking guy. Not bad. But yeah, Chris. Chris, they're so nice. They're the nicest guy. I ran into Chris once, accidental, just randomly in Hawaii. With my family, he was on. I believe he was on his honeymoon. Yeah. That's that for the four seasons out there. Yeah. So we were nice. Yeah, we were setting that setting some stuff up for him. We're just gonna get him a little house there. They decided to go with the, and the actual hotel. But, and we spent some time together in Utah. Me, you and Chris out there.

1:28:33Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was the first time that I got to sit in. So we'd optioned it in before the book came out. So January of 2018. And we all met up in Utah. And what was it August of 2018? What's the book out when I met you? Book was out for a few months. Yep. Book was out for a few months. But, but yeah, Chris saw it early because Jared Shaw, my buddy, gave him a coffee because of a favor I did for Jared in the SEAL Teams, which I just did because once again, you want to help good guys. And he was getting out of the SEAL Teams. So I introduced him to some people in the private sector and followed up.

1:29:00And I forgot all about it. And he never did. So he called me when the book was, when he heard that I had a book coming out. So a few months before it came out in November of 2017. Called me and said, hey, man, I always wanted to thank you for what you did for me. And I couldn't remember what it was. And he told me what it was. And I said, oh man, great, how's it going? And he said, it's going great. But I heard you have a book coming out. And I said, yeah, I can send you an early copy if you'd like. And he said, well, I'd like to give it to a friend of mine if that's okay. And I said, no problem.

1:29:24Who's that? Chris Pratt. So, and that's what I thought about playing the role when I was writing it. Before he'd been in Guardians, before he'd been in Jurassic Park. Really? So he'd been in the park. Park to track. And you thought about him in Chubby Chris Pratt. Chubby Chris Pratt in Parks and Rec. And then, but I saw him make the transformation to SEAL operator in zero dark 30. We had a very small role. So I thought, okay, I see this guy right here. Look at that transformation. And he seems like an inherently likable person on an off screen. So, and then I thought back then, I'm going to give Chris a chance here.

1:29:54I'm going to help his career along because it looks like he needs, this is me, writing my first sentence of the book in Coronado, California, still in the SEAL teams, in a little office off our bedroom. But I thought of Chris Pratt. And that's because back in the day, everybody loved Magnum PI in the 80s. Because he was funny, but he could flip that switch. And he could get it done. In one episode, we talked about this once before. There's an episode where it's the first time on network television where a protagonist kills a bad guy who's unarmed. And it's an amazing episode. They had to fight for it and they got it.

1:30:23And now it's a classic episode of the 80s television. And so I thought about that. Flipping that switch. I thought about my background in the SEAL teams and coming home to wife and kids and all that stuff and having to flip that switch. And I thought Chris is the guy who can pull this off. He hasn't done something like this. Has a mid -enaction films yet. And so I thought of Chris. And I thought of Antoine being the director. And I love what he did with training day and tears of the sun. And a movie called Shooter based on point of impact by Stephen Hunter. And I just loved Antoine's work. So I thought this is the guy.

1:30:51And now we're all through executive producers on it. And that's great. And so. Do you ever wonder if you made that happen with your brain? How much do you think you manifest things with your mind? Well, it certainly didn't take up any of that bandwidth. Worried about it not happening. And I think a lot of that comes from just knowing what I wanted to do from a very early age. I served my country specifically as a seal and then write thrillers back from my earliest days. So I set this. I started building this foundation at age 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, reading all these guys like Tom Clancy and Nelson DeMille and AJ Quinnell and JC Pollock and Mark Olden and Louis Lemore and Stephen Hunter.

1:31:23All these guys back in the 80s who had protagonists with backgrounds that wanted in real life one day. So I read all those and I just loved the magic in those pages. I knew that one day I'd write those. But that wasn't the Machiavellian. I wasn't like, I'm going to read these today at age 12 so that one day I can write them at age 45. No, I wanted to, I just loved those books and I was studying Warfare and Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies and Terrorism and Special Operations. So I had this academic study of Warfare that's never stopped and then I had the practical application on the field of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

1:31:51It all came together at the right time and place. So I never worried about not making it. I only saw number one New York Times bestseller on all those books I read growing up. I only saw those books like First Blood made into a film. And so that was what was always in my mind. So if I write this book it's going to be a number one New York Times bestseller and it's going to be option by whoever I want to make it a number one film and that stuff happened. But I didn't worry about it not happening if that makes sense. Maybe it's a little naivete which seems to sometimes helps. Yeah, exactly. I didn't worry about the odds.

1:32:23I didn't think. People love to tell you the odds. They're going to tell you how hard it is. What's your backup plan? You want to be an author? What are you really going to do when that fails? Or you want to be a seal? What are you going to do when you don't make it through buds? Anybody says that you stop talking about it? Exactly. There's no benefit in thinking that way. Negative. Yeah, I got a different of those people. And if you do have a safety net you might fall. Yeah. You might make it but you might fall. And there's something to that. I don't know why. I don't understand it. I don't understand the way reality works.

1:32:53Yeah, that's that bandwidth because you're thinking about those other things. Where for me all my heart and soul went into the book, continued to go into the books every single sentence. And for me writing these kind of books. I don't have to go out there and find a sniper from Ramadi in 2006. I don't have to go find somebody who is in an ambush. I can remember what it was like to be a sniper in Ramadi or what it was like to be ambushed and bagged that in 2006. And then my protagonist gets in an ambush in Los Angeles, California. So I go back and think of the feelings and emotions associated with that event that I was in.

1:33:21And then I apply those completely to a fictional narrative without any filters. So I don't have to interview somebody and then have those answers get filtered through other interviews that I've done or other movies I've seen or research that I've done and then go into the page of the book. It goes right from my heart and soul right into that page. That's pretty amazing. So I think that helped as well. I made a standout to Simon and Schuster and makes it resonate with readers and resonate to Chris and Antoine because they both loved it and wanted to be a part of it. And now they're leading the charge on it and they wanted me involved from the get -go all the way through from from writing it to the being a part of the writers room as an advisor and then learning that how that went down to the casting, seeing everybody that that came through wanting to be in it and then through production and post production and then marketing and advertising and then the premiere and then negotiations for a second season and a spin off and being a part of all that from the inside was I learned so much over the last couple of years.

1:34:08It was really cool. Have you thought about writing new characters? Have you thought about making a new James Reese or something similar or some complete different ecosystem, some complete different universe? Yes, yes. So I love doing this. I absolutely love every part of the process writing this. So I'm going to write James Reese for as long as I possibly can. I'll do that and have the nonfiction that I'm so passionate about with history so that will be coming out here in a year and a half and then there's another thing in the works that got put on a little bit of hold because of the writer's strike but I'll text you about it when it comes through but there's some other things in the works that I thought would be done by now but now writer's strike, everything goes on hold for that but there's some other things that will allow me to write some other characters and work on some other productions I guess is the best way to put it.

1:34:53So it would be productions or the novels or the other. There's some other exactly both. Both. Yeah. So we'll see. There's a thing about getting trapped in the success. Like you have to, and also you have to have Chris Pratt on board. You can't recast. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. He's the guy. Yeah. I mean, how many Jack Ryan's have we had? We've had one, two, three, four, like five Jack Ryan's up to this point. So that one survived and people accepted that. Yeah. I think so close. You know, so close to the time that book came out, maybe not. But yeah, I like balled one in Harrison Ford.

1:35:30We're pretty close to those movies in the 80s when yeah, really in early 90s. So there's, so there is that but you never, yeah, you never know how things are going to go. So I think James Bond's of there. Yeah, exactly that continues and so, so there is, so, so there is that there is precedent there but the casting was really interesting because you see these people who you have, you've grown up watching who joined the time was it's kind of COVID, well, it is COVID time. So they're doing screen tests and you're seeing these people that everyone knows the name of like doing a screen test wanting to be in the show and I'm like part of that is crazy.

1:36:00It was crazy. And then Taylor, of course, just knocked out of the park and we saw the screen test with him and Chris, like there was no question like Taylor is Ben Edwards and Taylor is just an awesome dude and he's so fired up to get to where we're just texting on the way over here and he was, he's so excited to get to work on this next one and I'm, yeah, he just elevated that character to a new level. And such a good dude. Yeah, it's a suck playing a bad guy though. Yeah, but now we can go back and kind of like play around with it a little bit and it gets great action sequences that are just next level and Taylor is just such a good, he's one of those guys also totally normal, totally cool.

1:36:29You want to sit down and have a beer with them, have a coffee with them. Yeah, they exist. It's an awesome dude. It's just in that world it all, it almost celebrates people that aren't genuine. It's strange. It's strange. It's a pretend business. It's a business of pretending. Yeah, everybody in that, everybody in the show that I can think of, Jean Triple Horn, amazing. She paid the Secretary of Defense Lorraine Hartley. And she's been around. Well, she's done some great moves. Amazing move and so nice and so kind and so normal. But everybody, Lamanica Garrett, amazing, who's in 1883. Right after our show, he left and went to do 1883 and, huh, such a good dude.

1:37:06Just a normal dude. You just want to hang out with him. Do you have to see together? We saw you at USC in January, July 2nd when we went up there for the, the terminalist thing and Chris now has the blood splattered terminalist thing from the octagon. Oh, wow. Oh, that's awesome. I got a piece of it. I got a piece of the blood from that night. Oh, that's right. The terminalist sponsored the actual event and it was on the canvas. Yeah. He's got the whole thing and it's all covered in blood and I have a square from it. It's covered in blood. But yeah, he's got the whole banner, the whole middle part of the cage.

1:37:34It's pretty cool. Yeah, we shared Elk Camp together and hung out. He's as fucking as normal as can be. If you didn't know that guy was a movie star, you would never guess it. Yeah, he's a big dude too. So he's hard for him to blend in, I think. Yes. Yeah, he's tall. He's a wrestler. Yeah. Good solid guy. But he had everybody on that set. It was so cool. But it comes down to Chris and Ants wanted to leadership and it comes down to them setting the tone at that, like Ants wanted that strategic level. So up there as the, as the director, executive producer right there at the top setting that tone strategically and then Chris right there also as the tactical level inspiration for everybody on set.

1:38:09So everybody wanted to be there and they're the top of their games and so many people came up to me on set and they didn't have to and they said they'd been on hundreds of sets in Hollywood and they've never felt like this on a set before and it was just something about it. It was inspiring. They wanted to be there. Do their best work and crush it because it was fun. It was fun to go to work. Well, there's also there's not a lot of guys like you that wind up being successful authors. It's a very small, tiny group of people that have had the kind of real world experience that you've had and then conveyed that into fiction.

1:38:40Yeah. For me, it's a very, very natural and very therapeutic, but also I knew what I wanted to. I didn't wake up at age 45 and say, Hey, can you make money at writing? What should I have been reading for the last 30 years in preparation for this? That's what's crazy. It's like your life was like sort of ordained, like it's almost like destiny. Well, I think it's my parents made, made reading a natural part of my life. It wasn't something that was forced upon me. It was just as natural as anything else and it's reading is what we did. My mom's a librarian. So grew up with a love of books and reading.

1:39:09So it's been as normal as having a phone, I guess, for a lot of kids today. It was normal for me to have books. I've never been without a book. I've never been not in the middle of a book. And when I finished one, I'd start the next one. I've never had like a week wondering what I should read next. I've never had that my entire life. Do you read, do you listen rather to audiobooks? Nope. No. Always read. Yeah. Always read, just that's how I grew up that I love turning the pages. But audiobooks are the fastest growing segment of publishing and I'm so fortunate to have a reporter who's also an awesome guy by the Shakespearean trained actor.

1:39:38He's been in tons of shows. If you look up a reporter, you can see just a list of shows that he's been in. He's great. He's great as a voiceover guy too. He does so many different accents. That's tough. That's tough. I think about him now. As I'm writing, I think about, well, maybe I should say that this person has some crazy accent in the first sentence so that Ray doesn't read and get halfway down the page and have to go back and then start with it again. So I do think about Ray as I'm writing and trying to make it the right things that make sense for him. So it's just interesting. To be kind so I don't get to the end and all of a sudden say this person had some, you know, roadies and accent.

1:40:13Has anybody ever come up to you and said, hey, are you writing about me? Nope. Nope, not yet. Not yet. But the people that I write about that could be bad guys. I don't have contact with anything. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So not let them hear about it. Not yet. Yeah, there's some, you know, it's, you know, we're all products of our experience and, you know, what we decide to study. And so there are maybe some characters in these books that might seem similar to some people at higher levels of government or military. And I've kind of morphed some things together and maybe make them worse or sometimes better than they actually are.

1:40:50So yeah, we're a product of our environments and the education we choose to give ourselves these days and what we pay attention to in our life experience. So all that ends up in these pages. So, yeah, no, let's come up yet though and then upset about it. But about, you know, one of the things that you deal with is like some very, very corrupt and evil people that are involved in military that are in management positions and executive positions that fuck over soldiers. Yeah. I mean, that's, have you encountered that in real life or is that just your knowledge of that? Well, we all saw it with Afghanistan.

1:41:24So there is that. You see the process of people sitting on these boards after their time in uniform and then approving gigantic contracts for these companies. It's in positions that they were just in prior where they had that chance to approve and now they're on this board. So that's just a part of it. And then I saw people get, get scapegoated for certain things in the military to protect others higher up the chain. And, you know, that's just how it goes. I think it's any big bureaucracy really. But I think it's been a part of just the human experience from the beginning of time, just like violence.

1:41:55What I do here from people is the violence part. Some people like that and like is probably the wrong word, but they recognize that violence has been a part of the human condition from the beginning of time and they like that I don't pull any punches in the pages of these things. Some people hate it. They like sanitized version of violence and there's plenty of that out there and that's not me. So for me, it's all about the story and I never look at, say, reviews, talking about negative comments before I never think about, who what's selling right now? I've never had even my publisher and I didn't know going in.

1:42:25Like, what was going to happen with agents and publishers and if they were going to say, okay, we have this next time can you lay off on this or can you can you do this a little more because this is selling right now. Never, never, never even a hint. They have had complete creative control on that side, which is different than screenwriting because in screenwriting, you have a team and all those scripts and outlines, they go all the way up to the top of Amazon and back down with notes and then you incorporate those or you argue and come to some sort of an agreement or whatever it might be. But team oriented on this side, only me on this side.

1:42:54And I love that my publisher and agent have never hinted at doing anything differently because if it fails, it's all on me. I can't say, man, I knew I shouldn't have listened to my agent or I should. My only vision of agents is it was California Cation and Entourage. Like, I had no idea, I didn't know any agents. So that's what I thought agents for and that's not my agent and she doesn't give any input into what I do. That's very fortunate. Is it different than that from most people's experience? Like, how many agents have you had over the years? I've had a few agents but I've had the same manager since I was open -micro.

1:43:23Do you have to have an agent now or is it just a manager? Yeah, I mean, I don't have to, I guess. I probably could do everything with a manager but I've had the same agent since 2007 and I've had the same manager since 1991. Oh, wow. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, my manager found me when I was a beginner. No, when did you get to LA? 94. 94. Oh geez, so before. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. No way. Are they an LA based person or they? New York based. Okay. Yeah. Well, one of them is an LA based, one of them is New York based. But yeah, I've had the same people forever. Unfortunately, they get me.

1:43:58But that's the thing that, you know, you can run into the wrong, in Hollywood, they're notorious for taking things that are very successful and fucking them up because they have their input on it. And that's what they did with the Chappelle show. When Dave Chappelle was on top of the world, the executives at Comedy Central fucked that whole thing up. Yeah. They were telling him to do this and do that and you can do this and stop saying this and stop doing that. And he was like, fuck this. And he went to Africa and quit the show. I remember. He was famous and didn't do stand up for years for money.

1:44:30Like literally would show up in Seattle. He would bring a microphone and like a little portable speaker, which is to stand up in the park. No way. You didn't know that part. I remember when he quit the show and went to Africa and came back and he seemed like he was gone for a decade almost. He was gone for a long time and he just was thinking about things and trying to figure out what he was doing. And just didn't, I mean, the kind of integrity that he had to walk away from. I think it was like $50 million. Crazy. Yeah. With the time was it like a record set, any type of a de -record set, a giant.

1:45:05It was the biggest show on cable. It was huge and it only did two seasons. It's to this day, I think, the best sketch comedy show that's ever been made. And he walked away from it because they fucked it up. If they just left him alone, they were smart. They're like, have fun. Right. Like what they do at South Park. Just believe you alone. Yeah. Go have a good time. You know what you're doing. There'd be some controversy every now and again, but of course. Just how it goes. But controversy with who? People that weren't fans anyway. Right. I mean, it was so funny. The bottom line was it was really, really, really funny and they came in and they made it no fun.

1:45:38Yeah. Our little guy just got into it. He's watching them all right now. So good. Clayton Bigsby, the blind white supremacist that doesn't know he's black. The whole thing is genius. I mean, the whole thing. Yeah. And it's so different. Also, it's also so different. It's not so good. No, no, no, no, no. It's so good. Which is fantastic. But they wanted to save in it up a little bit and they started fucking with them and talking to him about it and he just felt awful. And you know, he's a man of integrity and he just said, fuck this. But they ruined it. The executives ruined the greatest sketch comedy show of all time and they got one of the greatest comedians that's ever walked the face of the earth to walk away from his own show.

1:46:16Wow. Yeah, amazing. Do they can fuck it up? Yeah. They can get in there, you know. And what a genius. I mean, his stuff. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's so great. No, he's awesome. He was out here week one. The second week that we were open at the mothership came by and he christened the little room. Oh, it's so awesome. That mother. It looks so amazing. I mean, I'm pretty listening to this is obviously watched the video and seen that drone going those doors and take the tour of that whole place. Like, what the day you opened, I think it was. What that ramp, the Bill Burr ramp, which is like the perfect ramp to have over it.

1:46:49It's so great. Perfect. That guy. I love listening to that guy. It's so funny. Yeah. And that ramp was just so perfect for that video and what we're trying to do. Yeah, you guys are crushing. It's turned Austin into like the comedy capital of country. It's amazing. And remember, you tell me about it beforehand, you know, and I was like, oh, yeah, you came to the right place. When you looked at it, I remember you're looking at a couple of different places and I think you chose, well, I know you chose the right spot to come and then to build this what you've built here is so inspiring and so cool.

1:47:16But that one when I saw that video, I was like, oh, oh, because you told me about like a year in advance, a year and a half whatever it was. And I was so excited when I saw that video and I texted you about it and that was just awesome. I'm just so fired up that that is here. I mean, it's a destination. You made this a destination for comedy. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. It's almost surreal. Yeah. One more there, Tony and I, Tony and I, we're there sometimes, we just go, how the fuck do we do this? Can't believe we do this. Yeah. It really worked. And it was such a weird gamble because you had a, I left LA in the middle of this spot of ideal, this enormous deal and they were like, what the fuck are you doing?

1:47:50You're going to go to Texas. How are you going to get guests? How are you going to do that? You know, it was like, there's so much to it. Like, how do you do this? But I was like, I just like, I have a compass. It's like that way. Go that way. And you always had that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a risk taker. Like, when I feel like something is the thing to do, you should take a risk. Yeah, you have to. Yeah, I think that that's a giant component for success. You cannot play safe. And there's sometimes where it seems counterintuitive and other people are going to think it's a terrible idea and you've got to not listen to them.

1:48:28Yeah. You've got to be able to just jump on it. Yeah, we call it in sniper school a bold adjustment. So give a certain amount of time on that line. And you have, especially if you're doing something with like an old M14 type of a thing, where you're starting out and doing these clicks on your scope and on your elevation. And like, bold adjustments, gentlemen. I remember them walking down the line saying that. So you're not like, taking a tiny click because they've got to get people through this course or get them out of the course or whatever it is. So bold adjustment. Okay. Went there. Boom. Halfway back.

1:48:57Bang. You're on. It's a little tiny, very safe, tiny little adjustments that keep you on that line for another hour. Yeah. A bold adjustment is what they told us. So that's what it sounds like here. And yeah, it's awesome. I can't wait to go and check it out. I think it sounds crazy, but I think the universe rewards that. Yeah, me I have to. Otherwise, you just have a safe, you get one shot, one shot at life. Yeah. And one shot to, well, you can learn from successes and failures. So why not learn from them and take some risks and do it because you're not coming back. Well, maybe we don't know Maybe yeah, who knows?

1:49:29Yeah, who knows? Maybe you're just doing it over and over and over and over again And then that's one of the reasons why I'm willing to take some of these chances Maybe it's because I fucked it up before and I know nope. It's now's the time to get moving This is your 500's time. Yeah, going through this remember when you stayed in LA I'm like that's get the fuck out of there time to go time to get up be depressed Yeah, the first time I came out was LA and that was a crazy time to come out because that was COVID So the book hit the New York Times list and then you texted and I jumped in the car and drove on out There was nobody on the roads that was crazy.

1:49:58It was April of early late April we made 2020 yeah, nobody on the roads nobody on the 405 like that was super weird Yeah, and then we got to talk about COVID on the on the the thing and I remember it was still a time when when the Wuhan lab was Conspiracy theory stuff. Oh, yeah, and I remember just that we talked about I didn't put it as eloquently as as John Stewart did when he talked about the Wuhan lab coronavirus thing and and the Hershey the bit where he does on hey if there's a outbreak of chocolate He goodness and Hershey Pennsylvania Yeah, you might want to look at the chocolate factory that cow is genius, but we did talk about it at the time You know that was conspiracy theory craziness and I was like well there is a lab there So if I was a detective in any big city in the United States I'd probably call that a clue whether you want to look into it You should look into it and also how did that become a conspiracy theory?

1:50:44I mean how what what fantastic level of manipulation and propaganda Did they in part on the United States that that was a conspiracy theory that a respiratory Coronavirus lab in Wuhan China definitely couldn't be this the place. It's like a block away. Yeah It's certainly not that place. It could be anything else. We're not sure But it's certainly not the coronavirus lab a block away from the outbreak like looking back on it What at the time I had been very fortunate to be friends with people that are actually understood viruses and actually understood You know the fear and cleavage sites and the the way that viruses normally jump from an animal host to a human the natural spill over Yeah, there's so many different factors that pointed to the the idea that this is a gain of function research project that went wrong And that's what it was and there's still people out there that deny that That one little guy Dense that little fucker, but that's the that's the manipulation part We're as a populist we have to realize that we are being manipulated in many instances And that's not about one guy's been manipulating people that way his entire career Did you ever read the Robert Kennedy book?

1:52:02No, it's on my list, but I have not holy shit pretty good I need to read that so these days I read For people coming on the podcast I read every book for people that have come on thus far I don't know if I'll always be able to But I think some of those books would have fallen to lower on the priority list if they weren't coming on the podcast But some of those conversations that I've had in the books I've read have made it into the pages of the novel So there's all this this overlap to include this one Brian Moore has a book called the Abel Archers and it talks about a nuclear exchange that almost happened between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1983 and there was one guy in the Soviet Union an officer on watch that night It was not supposed to be there because I was supposed to be there got sick So this one guy steps up goes in for the person who's sick and he's the one guy who studied the United States and he's I'm an intellectual and he's put in this time an effort into understanding the strategic kind of aspects of this conflict in the Cold War and There's a launch from the United States ICBMs head and towards the Soviet Union That's what it shows up on their screen and What he's supposed to do is launch back and he has pressure from above to launch It's the protocol and he doesn't because he's like this isn't right and it was a glitch In their system that showed yeah, there's all these other things that play to Korean Airlines flight 0 -0 7 that was shot down early There's all these things happening that would lend themselves exactly exactly so we in those those documents were just I think it was I might be you might be off by a year or two, but I think it was 1999 when these documents were finally declassified so well after the end of the Cold War and but Stuff things like that so I read that book and had that conversation with this guy and he's a really nice guy Great guy be an intelligence world his whole career and that made it into the pages of this novel So there's overlap but but Robert Kennedy has not been on the podcast yet So I have not read that book, but I've been meaning to read it sounds fascinating He was just on Russell Brands podcast and he talked about His uncle and his father's assassination Holy shit He his recall is amazing his ability to just remember all these different pieces that were in play Particularly with the JFK assassination and Lear Vios and the fact that Lear Vios was a CIA asset And then he had defected to Russia, but it was a fake defection and all the the different pieces that were in place that You could point to there's there's so much evidence He's like if we went into this just he said to To Russell that if we just Wanted to cover the evidence that the CIA killed JFK he goes this would be a 10 -hour podcast Yeah, no, it's it's fascinating and it makes it you haven't gotten to the stage in the book yet But I want to give you much away.

1:54:43Don't get it out But you'll like when you get to the certain part you'll be like no way because I think nobody is going to expect this part of the book to go the way it does but Point being it takes us back to that assassination and so crazy early 90s member And you had all of an orthon on here which is all of our books fascinating But you have Congress mandating mandating law that the United States has to declassify these documents by a certain date Yep, and two administrations after a visit from the CIA neglect to do that or they let some things out But not everything like is mandated by law right all these years after so if they're not involved Then they might not be but they're certainly going well out of their way to make it themselves look guilty Yeah, really trying hard to make themselves like you but I feel like them making themselves look guilty is safer than removing all doubt Maybe yeah, I mean because it is because we're not talking about I mean It's Tucker talked about it on his television show and he boldly claimed the CIA You know killed him, but it was a weird way he did it like he said someone told me and he doesn't release that person's name It's like the way Robert Kennedy Jr.

1:55:50talks about it on Russell Brands podcasts It's like in listen to that depth. Yeah, but it's just this holy shit. Yeah, it's incredible I mean in most of my books I make mention and this one in particular go back to the church hearings and the Pike hearings of the 70s that Exposed some overreach by agencies in the federal government particularly the CIA But as it pertains to the Kennedy assassination, it is so strange all these years later They still walk into the Oval Office and have a private conversation and walk out and all of a sudden these these documents that are mandated to be released by law are not So odd, but this one also so I a friend of mine married into the Kennedy family So I went back to Hines Poor got to meet Robert Kennedy and spent some time with Ethel Kennedy and it was it was amazing and that experience Also in forms if you got into I think you've got to that chapter already where he goes to meet the the old woman and So that part inspired this book right here and that was really cool to be back there and see look at this chair And in this chair There's a little little table next to it and you see a picture of JFK watching the election results come in and you look at the picture And you look at the chair and it's him in that chair right there.

1:56:55It's amazing It was it was really interesting to be in that that part of the world in that place with that family So but he had inspired this Yeah, yeah, big time, but in yet inspired this and I mean who knows if we'll ever get to the bottom of that assassination and it wasn't that long ago like when we were born we thought it was a long time ago like let's say 1983 or something 63 is a long time ago when you're a kid, but now looking back It's everything relative. It's that time space continuum thing whatever that is that's a real deal time speeding up as you get older and sure It's I saw me in the other day and it said if Marty McFly went back in time today he'd be going back to 1993 Or something like that.

1:57:31Yeah Well, how about World War one was a hundred years ago crazy? Well, yeah, little over but yeah, yeah I mean that's actually nothing now. That's nothing World War two less. Yeah Vietnam much less. Yeah, Korea less Yeah, and Donnie Edwards who has the best defense foundation. He has a picture of himself with a World War one veteran Which is pretty cool and so my daughter who's 17 we've been we went to Pearl Harbor and took 62 veterans back to Pearl Harbor for the 80th anniversary Commemorative Nation event about a year and a half ago last June we went to Normandy So she's on Normandy with somebody who is the first out of his landing craft storming the beach and she's there on this beach with him And he's a hundred years old right now hearing that story from him and I'm getting pictures of them talking together and so one day She'll say I have a picture with a World War two veteran How many what percentage of guys died on that beach?

1:58:24I don't know exactly the exact numbers But it was a lot and then a lot when you I mean you think about the Pacific campaign and they did that over and over again Island after island after island Then those guys came home and what do they do they got back to work? They didn't complain they built the country into what it is today and that's a little different. That was a different time Different kind of human being yeah, and a lot of those guys didn't even talk about it till just a little while ago It's just fascinating the the different kinds of human beings that exist depend upon the amount of adversity they've overcome Yeah, exactly exactly.

1:58:56I think that's why they started out with bounty did this this This study and they found I think it was World War one I might get us a little off but the general agist is on track And they found that people dying in the North Atlantic that were there like treading water trying to survive It's trying to signal another boat were the older guys were surviving and the younger guys that should be in better shape Their whole life ahead of them were the ones that weren't and they thought well This is because those people haven't faced as much adversity as the older people So they started this hour -bound thing get kids in the outdoors have them do a solo out there by themselves for a Couple nights and put them in these positions that are uncomfortable and so I think that's why that started But there's something to do that there's not the case with like ultra marathon runners a lot of those like camhains age Like 55 maybe is probably yeah, probably but yeah the younger generation there think we're on ultra marathon I want to make another TikTok video.

1:59:46It's up to hard sell. That's a hard sell. I don't know It's a that's an interesting thing in the world of fighting because as the as fighters get older They they have more experience more understanding more toughness, but the body doesn't work right anymore. That's tough And that's it right there. So it's a privilege to be getting old That's for sure especially if you spent some time in a Nature -bouncing Yeah, you know, yeah, we had cowboy come in the show he did the cameo he had a cameo Chris Brack got to put a Tomahawk in his head and that was awesome Yeah, you flew in for the day. Did that was awesome?

2:00:20We did great time doing that I spent some time with him also on the range out at sick free not sick freedom days But they have this sniper course they do in Utah last couple years and we got to spend some time together out there and What a good dude he was he was awesome. He's the best and he and cowboy insisted on falling A very specific way right yeah, he would know stunt meant no makeup either cowboy didn't put on makeup good Yeah, exactly none of this you know going in and putting the stuff No, and they're like well, we have to have a double fall for you. Nope. Nope. He's doing it all and you're like who can argue with him?

2:00:51Yeah, I'm gonna put the make up person gonna like no, I have to do this. Nope. They just back right off So he was fun to spend some time with both in Utah was sick and then at the on the set That was really cool to have a couple of touch points with him over the last year again That's a guy who's overcome a lot of fucking adversity. Yeah, you know, and that's why he's got that character There it is. Don't There it is. Bam Yeah, see there's no that floor isn't padded that floor is not padded right there This is the bang his head. Yeah, that's where's not concerned. No, is zero concerns about bang his head That dude he's one of the wildest guys I've ever met because the shit that he does outside of fighting which is wild Like they're always trying to get him to calm down because he's always doing things like Jumping jet skis and snowmobiles Just just doing so much wild shit outside of fighting Which is the wildest fucking thing you could do as a sport.

2:01:47Yeah, yeah I mean remember back in the day when point break came out in Patrick's ways He was jumping every weekend like actually jumping out of planes and they were trying to the insurance like trying to get him to not do that Oh, where they yeah, so I remember that story from back back in the day And then what do we just see mission impossible whatever number it's coming up on now the conference doing that jump broke his ankle Did he yeah, well he jumped off that on that bike off that cliff like a number of times that was it one take That was an I mean those videos out there the show him training for it and then doing it and I was he 60 crazy Yeah, he jumped from one building to the next and shattered his ankle Yeah, when he made in impact there's a video of his ankle crumbling as it hits the wall Yeah, and then he's up well for the next one We got to up it and I'm gonna take this motorcycle and jump off this cliff and like was it Norway or something like that But insane.

2:02:35I mean amazing. He's out of his fucking mind Yeah, you're not jumping out of planes right no, yeah, you know, yeah, no surfing. No, yeah, I'm fuck sharks Yeah, it's honest in sharks. Yeah, I'm just reading this story about that woman Bethany I forget the last Hamilton. Yeah, she got a arm bit not by shark and then got right back in there. I'm like, okay Yeah, yeah, so I'm a little guy I sound a little guy, but he's awesome and he's 12 and he hadn't been to Pearl Harbor yet My daughter has so we took him for his spring break We took him out to to a Wahoo and went to Pearl Harbor and so we got to go to the Arizona Memorial and then USS Missouri and then up to Punch Bowl National Cemetery up there, but but we got there and he's surfing out there We went with a family that really knows what they're doing surfing and so we did that and then we went on a shark dive at Age 12 whoa So we're going out there with these three and now that you know, I'm the age that I am These people are very young that are taking us out there that are the shark experts and we go out there and And in a boat and off you go and they have a photographer there who's a studying sharks at the University of Hawaii and then you get the shark expert also studying sharks at the University of Hawaii, but they're like 21 maybe and And we zip down there and they're looking to make sure there's no tiger sharks and We go in and we do this dive and our little guys It's just snorkeling but you dive down and they get the picture and you're seeing these sharks and you learn a little bit about them And then we get back and The same day we find out that on Wahoo somebody got chomped So it was just about a month and a half ago and some girl diving somewhere not in a wide but like in the maldives or somewhere like that Also got chomped doing the exact same kind of snorkeling thing that a little guy was doing But I like how you say you know if you're not going into the water like that then you're not going to get eaten by a shark And I like if you don't jump out of the plane like then you're not going to burn in And I like to jump and like in the military.

2:04:23I liked jumping out like flying I shouldn't say like jumping I did not like going to the exit because that's when you're like, okay Here we go you jump out whether it's dark and you got all your stuff on or whatever it might be But I like to fly around so the flying around was very cool and freefall I saw a video recently of a guy who jumped out of a plane for god his hell his his parachute. Oh that's the experience jumper too See that filming it. No, yeah, yeah, it's filming it. Yeah, it's a way people and forgot to put his shoot on No, yeah, like in the 90s, I think Yeah, yeah Wow, well, we have a couple of things in place in the military that at least would you know, prevent that I think so you know the jump masters then they're checking all your stuff and making sure you're good But the flying around is pretty cool the pulling not so much because then you come from me anyway look guys love it But for me when I came time to pull I was like, okay, here it is This is either going to open or it's not and if it doesn't then I have procedures I need to go through I got to remember those and all that stuff and in my freefall class two people died Really?

2:05:17Yeah, the student instructor ran into each other like oh boy And they just just yeah, we had one more jump to go so we spent hours combing the desert looking for the bodies And we still had to get back and Jump again after that. So that was interesting and then a buddy mine burned in amazing guy such a great guy Mike Bearden Just a such a solitude Went through buds with him and then he he burned in right before they sent me to freefall so when you see burned in mouth -pattery malfunction and then died. Yeah, he's the ground That's amazing guys such a cool person just a solid human being and then so like the next week they sent me and like another guy who was best friends to jump school So that was interesting But and then have two people die in your class have to do the investigation So then you're sitting there on base waiting for this investigation to be done for like a week week and a half and then you do your final Final jump so Yeah, it's not without its risks It's definitely I think that's part of the excitement about it Maybe it's why I was candy about it, you know, he's not doing it too much anymore.

2:06:17He's down out of his fucking mind. Yeah, I don't think he's done for a while though I don't think it's been a little bit since I've seen him do a base job. I'll do it. He's just doing them Was he jumping out of planes? Just jumping out of planes, yeah Maybe not the base jumping maybe it's been the base jumping that's been on pause for a little bit. Yeah, maybe I know. I don't know maybe concentrate on the coffee shop and maybe not so much on the Kind of mind he's out of his fucking mind. Yeah, he's cool, but it's man. Yeah Man, I mean like it's roughly to go. That's tough. Well, he's doing the flying squirrels who shit.

2:06:48Yeah Yeah, it's like Trevor Thompson those guys who's been on here like is this what is this one is this Andy? Look at him go. Yeah, they just jumped over. Yeah, look at that look at this is amazing That is wild. Yeah, look at it and the photos they got on this seven jumps seven days seven continents to raise money for Folk of honor and These look at that that look how bizarre the pyramids look in the juxtaposition to to Cairo. Yeah Yeah, I was there years ago and I see that one right there in the right far right I climbed to the top of that one and a long long time ago when it was all dark outside I bribed some guards It took got some horses and rode out to that thing in the middle of the night climbed up to the top and then watch the Sunrise of Orkairo.

2:07:28I gotta get out there. I still have never been It's a really cool place and there's something Taj Mahal also I went to the Taj Mahal years ago And you think it's kind of be gotty and you get there it is beautiful is just Yeah, incredible to see some of these places. I'm just so fascinated by the pyramids though How they made them yeah, and also this just These insanely complex cultures that vanish. Yeah, they just do they go away. Yeah like what happened right? What is that and then this is the thing that I think about when I think about America today that Every empire collapses and one of things that Douglas Murray has talked about.

2:08:05It's really fascinating to me He said every Society when it's at the verge of collapse becomes obsessed with gender. I've seen that Which is real weird and not good for us because if any fucking society seems like we're overly focused on some of these things right now Yeah, so if you're let's say you're a rand your Russia your China your North Korea Look at these fuckers they're going down Yeah, yeah, super empowered individual. You're a terrorist organization You might just want to lay back a little bit and watch because we're doing a pretty good job It's throwing ourselves from the inside and I'm sure they're helping.

2:08:37I'm sure they're helping give it a nice social media I'm sure there's like you mean one of the things they found out on Facebook was that 19 of the top Christian sites were run by Russian troll farms really yeah. Oh my gosh Yeah, well 19 of the top 20. Hi, and they're just saying wild shit and trying to start a holy wall Oh my gosh, and then we get like okay, so we have aliens. We have some spaceships in here I mean in the news Imagine that coming out in 1985. Yeah, I don't know what to think about that. I go back and forth and back and forth You know, I part of me think some of it is real yeah, and part of me thinks a good percentage of is probably like some Black project.

2:09:16Yeah, that they're not telling us about that there's some insanely complex drone and unmanned drone that is Capabilities beyond what we think of right in terms of you know conventional propulsion systems right No, certainly possibility a lot of those sightings were in fact the black helicopters They're black helicopters, but they're training for overseas and they just have to go to these cities every now and again to Stealth bombers stealth out in the day. Yeah back in the day. Remember they there was a model of it I remember a mar I forget the model anyway I built some old world world two planes back in the day and I always see this stealth bomber that was like a interpretation from the toy company that made these models of a stealth bomber and it was pretty dang close when they actually Revealed it years later.

2:09:57So I I distinctly remember that but did you have the guy that like is it a navy pilot? Commander fraver. Okay, do you have any more? Yeah, but two guys Ryan graves and commander fraver Baltimore fastening Commander fraver was the one that off the coast of San Diego in 2004 He encountered that that object that went from more than 50 ,000 feet above sea level to 50 in less than a second Yeah, they have no idea what it did they they it was blocking the tracking systems. They got visual I did they they saw it visually they have footage of it they have video footage of it multiple jets Encounter this thing and when it zipped off at insane rates of speed it returned to their catpoint So the place where they were supposed to go meet up later it went there like that way going bitch wild Yeah, I don't know what it is.

2:10:48They don't know where they think there was something else that was under the water that it was Interacting with something that was under the water because it was ripples like there was like almost like a submarine So whatever that thing was that that they encountered that sort of That man commander fraver who is so rock solid. Yeah, when you you talk to him. He's not a loon in any shape or he's just a fucking dedicated lifelong pilot military man who's just He's as credentials are impeccable And when he talks about it, it's it's pretty stunning and also the attitude that a lot of the higher -ups had like they were aware of it And that they talked to people on the nimmits and they were saying yeah, we see these things every couple weeks That's and they classed it those guys say they they're some of the things they saw were classified.

2:11:36They really Yeah, and then there was Ryan graves who said that I believe it was in 2014 the upgraded all their equipment And then they start seeing these things because the equipment have new capabilities and they're seeing these things that are 120 not wins completely motionless to stay and just totally still Which is like how no no heat signature no visual means of propulsion They don't know what the fuck these things were doing moving and insane rate to speed occasionally Shadowing them they try to find them. They try to catch up and they take off They couldn't keep up with them. They don't know what they are There's a crazy something that was a cube inside a sphere.

2:12:16Did those guys write books or did they forget? They write one of them write a book about it. Oh, no, oh no, I forgot But commander framer a first song on lex freedman's podcast and then I had him on mine. Okay to talk to him about it But it's it is a fascinating encounter where did you get into the UFOs and all that sort of thing? Oh, I don't know I think since I was a kid. It's just fun. Yeah, just because I think it's interesting Yeah, I got obsessed with the Roswell crash and then you know Reading all these different books about it But it wasn't until talking to people that have had experience that it really burns in your head Because you're talking is you can kind of get a sense of people are bullshit artists You know you kind of get a sense the Bob Lazar ones the most bizarre Bob Lazar is the gentleman that worked on area s4 Site 4 area 51.

2:13:04He worked back engineering With this thing that they said that they had recovered and They were trying to figure out how the propulsion system worked and they brought him on and they don't tell him what these things are What it is like hey tell us how this works and he's in this thing that's designed for something that's three feet tall These these completely smooth surfaces this metal that they don't understand they this visual really the metal the actual thing Yeah, they're like in the movies. We don't have any evidence of this ever existing wall the fuck it is they they there was different He said the problem with it is That these science doesn't exist in a vacuum you need a bunch of scientists comparing notes and trying to discuss it But everything was top secret and classified so they couldn't do that So they brought in people who the metallurgy people and they brought and they were not allowed to come to communicate with the people that were the propulsion's experts They were not allowed to to communicate with people who Supposedly had some sort of contact with the biological entities And then this is amazing Documentary that was just released recently called moment of contact about varginia, Brazil in 1996 There was a crash and not only was the crash, but there's a crash in these bodies Yeah, one of them was alive And injured this soldier picked this thing up.

2:14:26They carried this thing to multiple different hospitals They did autopsies on this thing And then the soldier who encountered it died of a horrific bacterial infection that they could not They didn't know what it was they didn't know how he got it and he got it from being in contact with this entity What oh my god the what's it called moment of contact It's incredible. That's insane. What's incredible too is this one of these guys one of the soldiers that was in this Documentary they bring him to the crash site and this guy starts weeping and he's talking about Unless this guy's like the greatest fucking actor the world's around the way he reacts when he sees this site when he describes his Experience when they found this thing that it crash landed and there's also documentation that the Air Force had flown a jet To varginia and returned with whatever the fuck they caught whatever they got there and brought it back to the United States That is wild you know Jackie Gleason supposedly had an encounter with Nixon the Nixon and Gleason were buddies and they were drinking and Yeah, yeah, it's a famous story that's disputed, but apparently let's go with it though.

2:15:35Yeah, let's go with it Gleason apparently it said um that Jackie Gleason and him were drinking and And Nixon was like wrong saying fucking you have oh No way yeah, and and he flew him to See wreckage and they had frozen biological entities and they they got a chance to see these things that they had That they had frozen what yeah What yeah, that must have been like early 70s. Yeah, something like that and Jackie Gleason wound up having a house built in the shape of a UFO afterwards No, yeah, that was for sale It's recently is I think like a decade ago. See if you can find that house in LA or something No, it's in upstate New York But the house looks like a fucking UFO.

2:16:20No, he had a UFO house built Yeah, Jackie Gleason apparently was obsessed with UFOs after the fact No, what yeah, Jackie Gleason's UFO and star at upstate yeah upstate New York spaceship house. No Yeah, that was like oh And that picture makes it look bigger. Okay, that's that's serious. Yeah, it's a fucking that's beautiful That's two different buildings. Oh, they have his more like the guest house. Oh, I see Yeah, look at that for guest house the other one wild that's amazing Yeah, so Jackie Gleason became a UFO freak man. I'm gonna do that after this. That's a pretty cool looking house. Yeah, it's pretty dope Oh my god, I wish I wonder if it's still for sale that's an entrance to the mother ship.

2:17:00Whoo Talk to my wife about this and I get it. Yeah, I'm serious, right? Yeah Well, now you have this six spear so they so there's a lot of UFO stuff on this six spear So maybe this should be reserved for taking out the aliens And they come I don't want to take them out. Well, well they attack you They don't think they're gonna attack if they attack if they do attack I think they could render you useless almost instantaneous May but then too they're kind of like why wouldn't they just sit back and watch? I think they're if they're not passed right by if I had a guess if I had a guess I mean just a wildest of speculations I would guess that every civilization reaches a point of technological proficiency when they're also dealing with these territorial uh, warring tribes where they have the ability to literally destroy the earth and that If this is a natural course of progression for intelligent beings they get to this point There's a transition where it gets very dangerous And if I was from another planet and I was monitoring this I would be there to make sure that they don't launch Okay, and that's see that's the theme of the mother ship comedy club is that the rooms are called fat man and little boy And the reason why the rooms are called fat man and little boy is because that is a specific moment in UFO folklore When the aliens start arriving after the detonation of those bombs That's when you start seeing this massive uptick inciting's really yes and interactions with fighter pilots and and and these different Military bases that have nuclear programs where the bases get shut down and all the power goes off Yeah, there's like that's wild Yeah, it's it's heavy stuff because if you think that There are there are watching that would make the most sense that they see that we have nuclear power We have the the ability to blow ourselves up and we detonate two bombs and then they're like okay Let's fucking let's let's go monitor these assholes.

2:18:57Let's go make sure they take that It's gonna affect the universe one country right now has them. Let's fucking specifically concentrate on them And then they have sightings in the Soviet Union the Soviet Union has the capabilities and Yeah, there's a there's a ton of documented sightings and these encounters that happen and then beforehand there's not really anything very little very little very well I'm sure they probably been visiting us if if they do visit us. Yeah, I would imagine they've been visiting us forever like look They've got engines look they've got guns look they've got this you know It'd be fascinating to watch like look at these territorial apes with nuclear weapons like that's the time to watch Right now they're probably just sitting back Clavin at popcorn and being like oh my Well, it's getting interesting now.

2:19:39We've getting closer and closer to our our fucking inevitable demise like that's when the sightings are ramped up To the point where the Pentagon has to start talking about and they are yes in front of Congress. Yeah, I mean Yeah, but no one pays attention. No, no, no, it's like let's go back to you know take talk and Instagram Well, I mean they kind of pay attention, but it's not there's nothing that you could fucking put your fork into right It's like what is it like what and and are why are they telling us about this? That's also there's a lot of cynicism when it comes like why is the government telling us about UFOs like a distraction You mean, but what is it like what are they telling us because they really have this information and they they want to Slowly leak it out because this is inevitable contact moment and they want to prepare Civilization or is it just horseshit is it just they're distracting us and this is how they you know institute this drone Program where they have this you know anti -gravity device and they they can move it in same rates of speed I don't know.

2:20:36It's just guesswork. That's crazy. Yeah That's crazy you get here from directly from these guys who've actually seen it experienced it. Yeah I'm talking to them for a little bit. I've talked to quite a few now quite a few that have that have seen these things And have these experiences, but the Bob is R1 is uniquely compelling all right uniquely compelling because Bob is without a doubt a brilliant guy And and he was a legitimate propulsions expert who it's been proven he worked at Los Alamos labs And they tried to hide that they tried to lie about that and say that he wasn't but he he's on the employee roster He has an intimate knowledge of the facilities They took him George nap took him on a tour of Los Alamos.

2:21:15He knew where everything was He knew the people there. They knew him It's wild shit man because if he's telling the truth He says is not one that they've recovered but multiple and that one of them they think is really old And they got it from an archeological dig They think that they recovered this thing in the ground that's movie stuff And you see that yeah, we all watch it movies and think it's science fiction But there's a lot of science fiction that has has come to fruition Some Marines to go into the moon to also with base travel in general flight just flying sure all of it Where just like a buck Rogers nobody deal But I remember you like I remember we got back to Coronado which is one of the like seal hubs Virginia beaches the other were in Virginia Beach went back there And I think you did a didn't you do a bit on Flight when you're like about when internet first became available on on a flight and I and you're like people first time a Southwest flight whatever it was hey We have internet for the first time on this flight and Here's the password for your internet thing and a guy opens it up and whatever and opens it up And it's it doesn't work for a second.

2:22:23He's slam the down. Oh, that's Lucy K. Oh, yeah, yeah Flying through the air yeah, literally look around to be thankful from space Exactly like but instead you're like Garbage work. Yeah, that's going on here That's people that haven't had to develop those things that don't appreciate them I mean how many people get mad their Wi -Fi cuts out and they're fine. I mean, it's just And it lies at level of anxiety your life and you just got to be you know I mean, it's tough. You got to forget how to manage that You're just like these negative comments we're talking about like I won't go into the comments on this one I mean imagine what people are gonna say about UFOs and everything else in the comments I think people to listen to this podcast love UFOs It's such a fun thing to be excited about I mean and it might be the thing that could save us from demise If we really are on this path of mutually assured destruction with Russia and with China with China invading Taiwan Which seems also inevitable?

2:23:24terrifying terrifying stuff and also something in the pages of this novel I don't think you've got yeah, you could do get there yet. There's a sentence about it in the early In their early chapters so I try to just things are on my mind work their way into the pages of these things as well So China Taiwan is in there you crane is in there of course, and there's some other things It'll be a surprise to people in these pages, but for me it's great outlet because I get to think all these things I'm thinking about or worried about or whatever else I get to weave into these pages and think about them alone with no Interruption well most of the time there's some interruptions in our house with three kids dog and everything else going on But it's fantastic.

2:23:56I mean, I actually enjoy the interruptions because I know when they're gone. I'll miss them Yeah, yeah, well, that's great Your ability to see that Because it's sometimes it's hard for people when you're in the middle of things Yeah, you're building yeah, you're building and you can be solely focused on that task at hand like in the military that pendulum It has to be on the side of the team because you're taking these guys down range your life is in their hands So you have to be as prepared as you can possibly be to make the best decisions under fire You possibly can but guess what that means that pendulum is not on the side of the family right over here Right, so they're doing all those other things So you have to have a very supportive family that understands that you're going to rack You're going to Afghanistan your best friends are in that trench with you to the right and the left and so that pendulum has to be over here You owe that to them their families the country the mission the team But when but once you get out and you know can start building But it's it's about any business you're building and you're solely focused on it and your families over here And sometimes that does take a take a backseat when you're building but for me I know that yeah, I'm gonna miss those times.

2:24:57I'm gonna miss all those interruptions in a few years Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean I missed the kid me and my kids are teenagers now But I miss them when there were little kids. It was just the videos you could watch. I know now you can go back on your phone And Apple puts it right there. They put those little memories or whatever the pop up And things you've almost that I've forgotten about in a lot of cases pop up on there and I go oh and I stop I stop what I'm doing I watch it and then I send it to my wife You know, I said you do see this apple that's what's so mean to because Because of you know a lot of people have iPhones and they've had them since 2007 or eight whenever they came out like That's a long history of your eye photo that you can pull from and get these wild memories.

2:25:40I mean I was born in 2005. I got my iPhone in I don't know 2007 Yeah, and so same thing and they get you early once your apple they like they get you You know they get everything's in this cloud eventually and then they've got you for life The old guard. Yeah, so I've got the couple phones now since you recommended that that you may have been committed to the other one Yet which I need to do yeah because that things going off. I feel unfortunate very very fortunate But I need to commit to that that other number. Yeah, you got to have a phone that only a few people have Yeah, it's I think a certain point time you want to be able to have a phone You check every now and again, but they have a phone where your wife has your best friends have And then don't let anybody give that fucker away.

2:26:21Yes. Yeah, I tell it like if I get a group text exactly There's a group text with someone who had a he bands. It's just a no talk to you about a project And it's just a number not a name. Yeah, I blocked that person. I say all right Well, you're off the fucking list now because you just connected me to some asshole from a tech company I have to yeah, how are you supposed to live maybe not even as maybe nice guy, but yeah, it's not his fault It's not self -aware enough to realize that that's not appropriate Some people don't understand what it's like to like I'll leave a podcast. I'll have a 150 text messages 140 text messages.

2:26:52It's nuts Yeah, I've had days where I've had hundreds of text messages. Wow, you can't keep up. It's not possible And some people abuse the shit out of that and that hey man you fucking you're ignoring me like Dude, if you could see the volume of emails and direct messages It's like do you want to be a normal human because if you want to be a normal human you cannot keep up with all that's possible Especially if you want to be a person that does what I do perform Yeah, you want to be funny and do do podcasts and I can't be checking that thing all the time You got to create a podcast for hours.

2:27:29I'm locked in in a conversation. We're having one right now Phone's not going on. Yeah, phone's on airplane mode and then I leave I got to have dinner with my family I got shows. I got this two that you shows tonight sometimes. Yeah, I'm asking incredible So now I mean, it's not nearly at your level But I certainly see it and I'm going to do that thing where I missed the 80s I'm now I'm back to go back in time. I go back to 85 and I would stay in 85 I think you know if we have back to the future comes out Rambo first blood part two comes out I think fletches out that anyway. It's a great year.

2:27:58I mean 85 right in the middle. I just stay right there I like it right now and you like it do you? I like it right now. That's awesome. I love it I'm gonna try to get to that. I'm gonna try to get to that sort of an attitude Well, because I think this is the last generation before we can read minds Oh, this is the last generation before we become fully integrated with technology that's actually ingrained it's embedded into your body I think we're a decade or so away from cyborgs. I don't I don't I mean that none of that was there in 1985 either or so Yeah, but I like I'm going back. I'm going back.

2:28:29I'm going back. I enjoy having a phone I enjoy being able to film things and I enjoy being able to ask Google like how far can a turkey fly I am damn you know that was important. I love doing my kids 100 yards for people joining us all the time while we're driving to you conversations about stuff like you're like check it says chill it's Google it and then it's really fun It's fun to have that kind of access to information There's negative consequences to every generation that's ever existed. There's there's always going to be negatives But I like it today man. I love you. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna think about this while I'm on book tour right now So I'm gonna go to my hotel and think about this as I continue on book tour, but I'm building a time machine And this time machine is about it's about it's almost the size of this room right here And you walk in and it's VHS tapes.

2:29:14It's video discs and so video discs are not no no late 70s So it's like a record and so it skips all over the place and you have to put RCA video disc player You put them in with this it's a square you pull the square out and it leaves the disc in there that's plastic You get to about 35 minutes. You got to put it in again. Pull it out turn it around Put it back in again. So it's a precursor to laser discs Wow, I'm kind of aware of that existed. Oh, yeah, it's that's in the 70s late like 79 or something like that people can fact check it I won't look at the comments, but it is there it is man and look at that.

2:29:47Yep. That's the one RCA spectra vision. That's the one we had growing up look at that Look at that thing. I love how they use fake wood with those fantastic. Yeah, exactly So why is like wood pan like I saw it too or just like like a wagon here or like in the Vick vacation, you know, they had the wood panelling down the side of the other car, but yes So it's out of green now So I'm going back so my time machine is one of these it's VHS or VCR VHS tapes and you want an Atari 2600 and I'm gonna track down the first Nintendo And I'm just gonna have those in there and I walk in and now I'm back in That's my time machine.

2:30:27I better leave your phone outside. Exactly. You know, yeah, no phones no phones in that in that thing right there So yeah, the phone thing and what I'm gonna do with my phone with the one that I have now is plug it in and treat it like it's a cord So treat it like it is attached to the wall like it would have been back in And so I have to go up there to that to a room not the time machine But another room where I have to like pick it up right there And it's just attached with the cable to the charger But I'm a pretend that that is a cord to the wall And so if I want to check those messages, then I have to go up there.

2:30:56That's my plan. That's my plan And then the other phone that that will be the one that's on me that Just a few people have Because it's gotten a little crazy, but I feel so fortunate. It's the same time you feel so fortunate Of course, yeah, it's your way better off being busy than wishing you're busy. Yeah. Yeah, you're way better off I think The the you not being able to work out things scares me because for me I need it for mental health I have to I have to do some sort of physical exercise Just sort of ring out the tension and anxiety in my body and if I don't do that I go crazy. I should I should be doing that And I know I should be doing that But right now it's shot out of that cannon every morning and then it's when it's quiet It's whenever brazen beds.

2:31:36That's maybe just like an enforce a certain number of calisthenics you have to do every day I started just getting out of that and doing some push -ups and sit -ups and stuff like that And I can have like two weeks and uh Then it just went by the wayside for whatever reason, but again You're so fortunate that you're in this position that you have all this stuff going on that's like the dream the dream was I mean you're living the fucking American dream me you really did it You really did it and it's actually happening now and as are you and you know like you're inspiration for a ton of people You'll never even know how many people you it's impossible to quantify without many people listening to this and see you and see We've created and what you've done and we've built and I mean that's on a scale that's not not close to what I'm doing But it's uh, I've been busy every single second of my life just like just like you and I didn't even look at it as building Just like you you're just doing yeah And just doing yeah, and if you recognize that that you just have this one shot at it like why not go all in Why not go all in yeah, it's just You don't get a lot of opportunities and the people that don't go all in I think they're always gonna have some sort of a regret yeah I think I mean but everybody's different I mean there's a lot of people out there that like had that opportunity like you know Rather live a simple life yeah, and there's that's great too.

2:32:46That's great. That's your thing Yeah, it means everybody has it. That's what's great about America as you get to choose Yeah, most everywhere else in the world you don't So I think a lot of people forget that here that no matter where you come from and where you start It's up to you you have opportunity here You're not forced into doing what your father did right ever else You're not forced into that because of tradition and socioeconomic status and and the country that doesn't give you these opportunities Yeah But we have that here We do recognize that and then realize that you've got this one shot like you got you won the lottery The one here like I feel like I won the lottery being born here not Having my buddy give the book to Chris Pratt or having somebody give the book to Simon and Shuster or whatever it was Being born here is winning that lottery.

2:33:28Yeah, that's I've always felt that way. That's true. That's 100 % true because People like to compare themselves to other people like oh, they have more opportunities They they were set up better. They this they that but you if you're listening to this You live in a rare time. This is a rare time and you're in an amazing place If you're in America in particular, but even if you're in other parts of the world I mean this is this is a great place to be alive Yeah, a lot of people want to come here for that just for that because they don't have it where they are So they do everything they possibly can sacrifice everything to come here So they have that opportunity that we're lucky enough to be born with I think about that when I see the border crisis When I see the border crisis, I'm like listen the fowson guatama I would do me the same shit sneaking across that border just like everybody I guess it's not even sneaking anymore.

2:34:13Just walk seems like just walking and they give you a free phone Yeah, I heard a buddy mine from the border patrol texted me the other day and he was like I sent him one of the book I sent one of these actually in this case right here and he's a border patrol agent down there And I sent it to him when he got home from war. I can he took a picture of it and he said man He texted me He's like man. This was a rough day and this made my day getting this that you still remember remember me from these You know whatever but he said today was horrible and it was right the title 42 thing just a few days ago And he talked about people coming across and getting 1500 bucks I think it was and and off they go and how they're forced to release and do all these things and their job is to protect Yet they have to let through and they don't know who they're letting through and yeah So perfect screening so you're this person that's supposed to protect you're supposed to be on that border protecting that border You're on that wall.

2:35:02That's what you just wore your oath to and now you're just opening these gates It's crazy. He was just so demoralized and I what the fuck do you think that is like why is that happening? Well, I mean I think there's a voter base that a certain segment of society Things is going to be more apt to vote for one side than the other but um, but we have I mean When you talk about then people like to make fun of Trump in the wall I mean there are great memes out there about the wall And then people like to point to two places and history wall walls were meant to keep people in Yeah, well now the walls also work to keep people out um and uh, so it's just tough But you also at the same time as a compassionate person you want to let that person in yeah from the bottom all that work Their way all the way up here and put in that work for a new opportunity for them and their family here And that's going to be probably a productive citizen But along with that person comes other people within the various types of ambitions that can also work their way of course So it's I mean, it's it's extremely tough, but a country needs borders and unless it's not a country Yeah, I don't understand how it's this porous.

2:36:04I don't understand how it's this crazy because when you're watching the influx of people from And again, I understand why they want to do it totally, but what a fucking terrible mismanagement Yeah, no, it's it's it's the compassion of the American people. We're very compassionate I think overall and just like when you see somebody who posts a picture of a dead animal and they're so excited They put in all this work and they got there and they took this picture and they posted it and then they get destroyed Online because of these comments or whatever whatever it might be people are eating a cheeseburger.

2:36:34Yeah, yeah That happens that happens as well, but they're doing it It's it's it's not it can be exploited it can be twisted and it can be turned and then they're putting it up there Because they're feeding their family or whatever else and now we had it's all these things are very connected because you can exploit and you can twist and you can turn All of them you can weaponize all of it and internet and social media in particular makes that a lot easier And now these companies that own these things are not American companies. They're global multinational corporations And they benefit but America gave them in most cases that opportunity to be so successful to be so wildly wealthy More wealthy than most anyone in the history of the world.

2:37:13So it's a tough time It's a weird time. It's a weird time man. It is so crazy But yeah, but border I mean those guys down there had they get and law enforcement in general Teachers in general like I haven't a guy yesterday kind of a book signing and he was a law enforcement 20 years I became a teacher so like the two things that are just vilified right now. Yeah, shot up You know just figuratively. Yeah, it's just that's well my goodness He's asking for trouble, but what a great guy. He was awesome and brought on with civil war musket Civil war percussion rifle and Brought it showed it to me at this book signing and what a great guy, but she's people still want to serve They want to stand up there as law enforcement.

2:37:54Austin. I know as an as an issue with that right now Border Patrol agents teachers. I mean what a tough time to be in those positions. I know and they're just not Appreciate it and our culture for whatever reason doesn't celebrate them like they should I yeah, I appreciate those guys every day and I think about them every day So thankful that they're out there every day willing to do that job willing to be teachers willing to put themselves on the line on the border willing to to to suit up and get in that squad car and roll into the city or whatever else knowing that There's a whole segment of society.

2:38:24It doesn't have to vilify them no matter what they do and it's a tough position It's very tough hard hard on the morale Especially police officers well and and teachers both of them you're right That's those that the two people that are most maligned two groups of people I think you're drawn to those things for good reasons I mean right at the back you want to yeah Teach kids or whatever else and all of a sudden you find yourself in broiled in some crazy controversy And you're like I just want to teach kids some history or want to teach them that yeah whatever it might be and same thing with with cops I mean they're getting that squad car to protect and they go out and people make a mistake And there's good people and bad people in every single institution and every single organization doesn't just matter what it is But then the mistakes are vilified and then used to divide a country Not just politically.

2:39:05Yeah, that's pretty fucked. It's tough. It is tough. Yeah Man in Austin here you guys have that going on right now right police. There's like all sorts of stuff going on in the Yeah, defunding the police yeah right here. You notice it since you've been here. Yeah, yeah There's a definitely a decrease in police presence and my friends that have had issues You know they said the wait times and saying it's not good That's wild and I'll talk about outside what the comedy club is is that uh Well, we hire a lot of Austin cops for the comedy club I wanted to hire them to show them that we we care and we respect them and they want to give them Employment and so guys that are off duty they work there nice.

2:39:44So it's nice. That's cool That helps a lot and it also keeps the club safe. It's good for everybody. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's why we're about the like book tour I there are a lot of cops that come thank goodness. They're in the audience because when I'm doing a signing It's like I'm looking at that person. I'm so thankful. I'm shaking in hand. We're getting that picture and But also that means I'm not paying attention to the So I'm lucky that there are a lot of cops in the audience that are looking out for me Which is very very cool. I mean someone rusty remember someone rusty in the 80s with the satanate versus Just gets attacked recently.

2:40:16Yeah, summer last time stabbed in the neck and face and lost an eye and I'm not sure how he's doing Right now. That's all those years later. I know he doesn't forget Not forget so not at all. Well listen brother. Thank you very much for all you do and thank you for your awesome books Thank you to dad. It's out right now you can get it like I said I'm in the middle of it and I love it awesome love Our stuff you are awesome. Thank you brother. Appreciate you very much. Thank you for everything. All right. Take care. Bye everybody